so while you're here in my arms

[bde]

[ Shiro is not sneaking off base to get laid.

That's a fact that might not be immediately apparent from the way he's dressed – best jeans, leather jacket, shirt that's really testing the boundaries between snug and too small – but it's true. Aside from the fact that he's completely horrible at one night stands (he's never even kissed anyone he didn't think he was at least a little in love with, if only in the moment of that kiss) it's not what he's looking for right now. He's come out the other side of a flare-up that left him all but bedridden, and he's fine now – back to regular duties, in fine enough form to be on the team heading out to scout new applicants in a week or so – but he desperately needs to have some fun. To feel as young as he is, instead of like a feeble old man. And there's not much that encapsulates reckless youth more than sneaking out to party.

He knows the Garrison grounds well enough to get off them undetected. He's got his own hoverbike, which means he doesn't have to borrow Garrison property to get out to the city, hits up a different club to the one anybody who actually has a pass is likely to be in. And then it's – it's easy. One drink, because there's a difference between being cheeky and being stupid and he's still got to ride back to base, and it's easy to talk to people. A girl asks him to dance after he uses his greater height to get attention at the bar where she's being ignored, and when she holds up one finger and sternly says “just a dance, I'm not going to sleep with you”, that's easy too. There's a point at which she tugs him down to peck his cheek and announce that she's going back to her friends now, but by that point he's feeling it enough to wish her well and just keep dancing on his own.

Gotta do it while he can, right? ]

Comments

[feralistic]

[ considering that this latest mishap was a team effort between allura and pidge? keith considers himself lucky that the worst thing that happened to him was this impromptu trip to the past.

it's an added bonus that he knows exactly where he is -- he spent enough of his life here to recognize the little town just outside of the garrison, the perfect spot for cadets to sneak off base for a little fun. in his future, sendak's occupation had ended up leveling most of it, and so there's something sweetly nostalgic to see the old places he remembers. the greasy dive where shiro used to take him for burgers after they'd race hoverbikes. the corner store where he used to stock up on food and necessities when he was living in the desert shack.

... and a club that keith has only heard about in stories, laughing recollections of shiro's wilder days. he's never been one for this kind of scene -- too many people, too much noise, and all of it packed tightly into a space where there's no room to breathe -- but it's the slim chance of who he might bump into that prompts his curiosity, has him slipping into the darkness and the music inside.

he's always been drawn to shiro, a smaller planet caught in the orbit of a much brighter sun, and maybe that's why it takes keith no time at all to find him here. it almost makes his chest ache to see shiro like this -- dark hair, no scar, and so young that keith has to stifle the desperate urge to shield him from everything that's coming. and he knows just enough about time travel (mostly thanks to shiro's love of cheesy sci-fi) to know that any kind of contact is dangerous, but... when it comes to shiro, keith has never been able to help himself. so he slides through the crowd, working his way towards shiro so casually that he hopes it'll go unnoticed. he doesn't need to talk to him, he just... wants to be closer. to watch, to see, because this is a shiro that it feels like keith wasn't given nearly enough time to get to know.

he's aware enough of the room to know that he's attracting interest here and there, but there's only one person here that keith has eyes for. so he sidesteps the occasional attempt to dance, putting space between himself and the wayward hands that try to find him amidst the press of bodies. and that's actually his undoing -- he's trying to put a few people in between himself and someone particularly persistent, briefly losing his bearings on shiro in his effort to dissolve back into the faceless crowd. and with his attention elsewhere, he ends up shouldering hard against someone else, forced to catch himself with a hand against the other man's chest to keep from stumbling.

this is why he hates places like this. ]

Sorry, I --

[ turning, mouth still shaped around the apology, when he realizes it was shiro he'd just stumbled into. it isn't even a surprise, not after the course of the rest of keith's life; he's always been helpless against the pull of shiro's gravity, past or present. ]