Archive of Our Own ^beta

Fuck.

Shiro’s been between a rock and a hard place before. Plenty of times. Right now he’d be content to be in any kind of place.

Well, Shirogane. You’ve really done it this time.

Shiro’s been adrift before, up a creek without a paddle. Not that a paddle would help in this situation.

He’s drifting in interstellar space, conserving power for life support and the feeble distress signal he’s pretty sure that no one will be answering.

You are finally, well-and-truly fucked.

Since escaping the arena, Shiro has been trying to get back to Earth. Saying it hasn’t gone exactly to plan implies there ever was a plan, like he’s had the luxury of a plan since that ominous shadow first appeared over Kerberos.

But anything resembling a plan has only managed to dissolve on first contact with the reality of exactly how far he is from the Sol system.

Fleeing the empire would’ve been hard enough without Shiro’s face making the rounds on holo boards across the universe. No wanted ads— no, that would require that the emperor be willing to admit that a prize pet has defied him and gone missing.

No, it was the prize pet part that had citizens doing a double-take as Shiro tried to negotiate passage back to at least the right quadrant, maybe the right galaxy. Merchants recognized the Champion and either wouldn’t be caught dead aiding the human or found it more lucrative to try turning him in.

After some attempted disguises and a little misadventure as a stow-away (don’t ask), Shiro managed to meet a few sympathetic humanoids in charge of a salvage operation. They didn’t have much to offer, but they did have plenty of space garbage and some of it would still fly.

In possession of a derelict craft with some lightyears left on her, a new space suit and some supplies, for a few quintants things were really looking up for him. He even had coordinates for somewhere a human fugitive might find welcome, though no one would tell him much more than that about what he would find there.

All Shiro had to do was make it back to Earth, track down this “Voltron,” whatever that was, and warn humanity of the terrible Galra Empire.

That ship wouldn’t have gotten him to Earth, he knows, but it would have gotten him somewhere if not for the raiders that disabled his craft easily and started carving up the hull while he was still inside.

From there, there was good news and bad news.

The good news was that Shiro managed not to be ripped through a keyhole when the cabin depressurized. It was also pretty great that his space suit auto-activated, some amazing Olkari technology that Shiro would love to nerd out about sometime when he hasn’t been left for dead.

The bad news was that whole left-for-dead part. There’s nothing and no one around to pick up his distress signal.

And what if an imperial scout did come nosing around for who in the hell has found himself so sorely in need of a proverbial paddle? Because that would be just Shiro’s luck right about now.

Shiro is not about to submit to capture again. He won’t go back to the arena. He’ll fight them off, or die trying.

Fight who? Shiro wants to laugh so he won’t cry. There’s no enemy to fight, nothing to lash out at in a fury so he won’t have to die today. Nothing but his steadily-dropping power supply and the endless void.

You always wanted to see the stars, Shiro thinks darkly as he drifts. The bit of space he’s floating through is bordered by a nebula, swirling dust and ionized gases set off against the starscape of neighboring galaxies.

It’s a reassuring sight, in a way. He may have come unglued by now if he hadn’t had something like that to anchor him as he very slowly twists and drifts in space. The nebula is faintly purple-blue, and maybe that means his eyes are beginning to play tricks on him as his blood-oxygen levels dip dangerously low. Seems a little too convenient that it’s exactly his favorite color.

There’s movement in his peripheral vision. It’s there and then… gone.

Shiro’s eyes are definitely starting to toy with him.

It appears again, a small mass that blends in too well with the pre-stellar vapors beyond it, visible only when it catches the light. Is it a ship? No, no, the thing is closer than he thought, moving so strangely, fluidly. It’s almost organic.

A body. A tail.

Not a ship. A… creature.

Shiro’s heart races. Fear is an old friend, especially with white sands stained with drying gore fresh in his memory. But this is a special kind of terror. Shiro doesn’t want to die today, given a choice, but he’s even less keen to be devoured by a space monster emerging from a nebula like some creature from the deep.

Then again, suffocating alone in the dark was looking pretty grim, so. It’s a toss-up, probably.

There’s nowhere he can go. He has probably twenty doboshes of life support power but he knows the oxygen recycler is already failing, efficiency dropping like a stone. Maybe ten doboshes, then.

Shiro couldn’t fire up his jet packs for more than a tick even if he wanted to, and what would that accomplish? Other than having him wriggle like interesting prey. Definitely seems better to be as uninteresting as possible.

And if whatever it is takes much longer to get here, Shiro won’t even have to play dead.

Shiro’s lungs burn as he watches the other approach, slowly coming into focus. The creature is a streak of silver against the void. There’s a bright, minnow-like shimmer from the flick of its tail.

He can’t deny there’s something lovely about the sight. Who knew there were alien creatures that swim through deep space? Shiro would love to know more. He’d love to write home about this. It’s too bad no one back on Earth will ever get to know about what he encountered.

Maybe this is a better way to go, Shiro thinks.

Something extraordinary.

Distances make no sense to his void-sick eyes. The swimmer is not so large as he feared, maybe only a little larger than a man— a slender one, but with another meter of tail tacked on. It does look ferocious in its way. Shiro has a perfectly healthy respect for the power of nature in its element, thank you very much. Anything that can propel itself through the thin interstellar medium must be exquisitely strong. The adaptive marvel of—

Then it looks up.

It’s a shock to see a humanoid face. Too strange to be entirely human, the way the light moves through translucent skin, but the features are so achingly familiar. The face is framed by undulating tendrils that move almost like hair. More like plumage, echoing the gauzy fins trailing down his waist and tail.

Him. It’s almost an intrusive thought. It’s got to be a hallucination, a mirage— a mermaid? Shiro looks and looks, trying to see past the trick of the light that’s made him see a lovely boy with a fluttering tail. Impossible.

But he’s still there, a young man looking back at Shiro. Ethereal. Beautiful, if hauntingly so. If he’s hallucinating, then fine. It’s a welcome reprieve amidst all the mortal terror.

They’re close enough to touch, but Shiro doesn’t. Neither does the siren reach for Shiro. They float there, studying each other.

The boy looks… surprised. They are both strange to one another, that’s true, but surely they’re both more shocked by the startling features they share. Shiro gets a little lost in dark gemstone eyes, and the strange way they blink only makes the other similarities more stark.

Shiro tries very hard not to shrink back when two large hands cradle his helmet, like they might cup his jaw, stroke his cheek. The touch is curious, a bit rough. Maybe it’s the fog of adrenaline clouding his senses, but Shiro thinks it’s tender, too.

Shiro’s lungs feel so tight. He’s running out of air. He tries to take a breath, nice and slow. It comes out as a cough.

The merman startles back, baring at least one row of fierce teeth. Definitely not human.

An alert tone goes off in Shiro’s helmet. He tears his eyes away to see LIFE SUPPORT FAILURE IN 10 DOBOSHES. If he has even that long, which he probably doesn’t.

Shiro’s vision swims and he wheezes. He’s trying to slow his breathing, to hold out as long as he can. His heart pounds and he can’t read the expression on the stranger’s face, his furrowed brow.

Then he’s in the creature’s arms, pressed tightly against a body that’s pleasantly yielding. He isn’t being crushed— more like cradled. They’re moving, or Shiro can only assume that’s so by the way the creature’s core and tail flick and flex. His visor is pillowed against the creature’s chest. He wasn’t sure before, but the creature’s skin gives off its own faint glow.

Shiro doesn’t have time to worry about where they’re going. He won’t be around to find out.

At least he won’t die alone.

Shiro wakes floating in darkness. Something cool and damp moves against his leg and he scrambles, pushing off of lord-knows-what to get away from the—

Plants, he tells himself, panting hard as air fills his lungs. It’s a little thin but it’s breathable, humid and warm. And he’s floating in some kind of a zero-gravity jungle, dark but for certain flora.

He was napping in a bed of… bioluminescent kelp?

Shiro thought the dream of a merman that he only half-remembers would be the strangest dream of his life, but maybe he needs to wake up again.

The arena sharpened his instincts enough that he’s already noted the space, the circular hatch that stands open and looks to be the only way in or out. The kelp seems like the best hiding place, but also the most predictable if that’s where he was left to rest. Perhaps he’ll feel safer, more ready to face a threat, were he tucked just inside the entrance and out-of-sight.

Before he can go anywhere, there’s movement in the doorway. Shiro finds himself dead in the water, figuratively speaking. He flounders with no momentum in the center of the room as the merman from before approaches, looking exactly as wild as the snatches of a dream.

The creature is returning to his den, probably. Shiro feels far too much like prey.

The mer moves rapidly through the air toward him, eyes darkly gleaming. Shiro may not be proud of it later, but he reels back frantically with a yelp.

The sound startles the stranger to a halt, baring ferocious teeth and making a whip-like movement with his tail that definitely looks dangerous.

Shiro holds very still. He doesn’t try his voice again— the creature didn’t like that at all. The only sounds now are those of rustling foliage, the soft slap of fins maneuvering the mer through the air, and Shiro’s own racing heart.

The other’s glowing skin dimmed slightly when he reared back, his movement harder to track. Maybe that’s a defense. Maybe… he’s afraid of Shiro, too.

Slowly, the mer relaxes his jaw, teeth vanishing behind his lips, forming a small frown. He approaches again, holding something out to Shiro that might be food. Or maybe medicine, he wonders, as his vision swims. It seems he’s in no shape for this kind of exertion.

The pouch he accepts is neither food nor medicine but a hydration capsule of some kind. The mer demonstrates, tearing into one with his teeth and drinking it down.

Shiro has no idea what in this place is and isn’t compatible with his body, but he’ll need water to pull through so he has to risk it. It tastes something like water, but sweeter, like sugar snap peas.

When he’s finished, the merman reaches for his face. It’s the same touch as before, when Shiro was lost in space and looking out at the siren through his helmet. The creature studies Shiro’s face, tracing his nose and around his eyes with angular digits, stroking his cheeks with something like thumbs. He touches Shiro’s ears and snorts, a funny sound that makes his shoulders tremble like laughter.

It sounds so… human. Shiro smiles.

“You think my ears are funny?”

The mer flinches back, tight ruff of plumage pressed flat around his face. He looks miserable, if Shiro had to guess. He’s not ready for the kicked puppy eyes.

Oh.

He doesn’t like noise.

Shiro mouths the word sorry, if only for his own benefit.

The mer approaches once more when it seems the coast is clear. He brushes three sharp fingertips over the bow of his lips and traces the edges of Shiro’s scar. The flesh there is still angry red, but he’ll live.

The stranger’s eyes are lively with interest, his pupils growing, his blinking more rapid. Then he leans in and gives Shiro’s face a lick.

Shiro goes rigid, his gasp quiet and strained. He really doesn’t want to startle his skittish rescuer while the other’s teeth are this close to his face.

He breathes slowly in and out while the creature lathes a slick tongue over the old injury. It tickles, even tingles slightly.

Just please don’t take a bite.

But he doesn’t. The licking is gentle, as are the hands on Shiro’s hips, steering him back into the leafy nest. His mouth is gentle, and his hold is, too. He feels cradled again, like before when he was running out of air.

Shiro’s eyes droop, exhaustion overtaking him. The mer’s arms pull him close, and he doesn’t feel like he should be afraid.

Waking is somewhat less jarring the next time. Shiro recognizes the planty smells, the arms encircling him and the low glow of the creature that seems intent on looking after him, whatever the reason.

Their last encounter is a blur, but Shiro remembers the licking. He must have nodded off under the creature’s ministrations. The thought is almost unimaginable, no matter how exhausted he feels. He’s alive but he’s definitely not well, not yet.

Shiro doesn’t sleep well. He never did back on Earth, and the trauma of enslavement only made him more restless, waking at the slightest sound or movement. Surely he’d wake at touch, but then he can’t remember the last time a touch wasn’t a vicious strike or some other brutality.

Not like this. He feels his spine pressed along the length of another’s body, the movement of the mer’s breath at his neck, the gentle warmth seeping through Shiro’s thin undersuit. The arms circle him softly, just enough to keep him from floating out of the nest. It’s practical, even considerate. He could free himself from the embrace, if he felt the need.

Shiro doesn’t want out, and he can’t account for why. All he knows is that he aches for kindness, for touch that doesn’t bruise, and can’t bear to refuse it.

The creature stirs and stretches. The flesh against his back pulls taut before melting against Shiro’s body again. It almost pulls a whine from Shiro’s lips, but he manages to keep it in.

The mer’s arms loosen, hands gently turning him by the waist. The stillness is nearly overwhelming, too intimate for someone he doesn’t know if he can trust. Shiro watches those eyes, dark indigo-black with pearlescent lids, and wonders if the merman can hear or feel how his heart races.

He wonders a lot of things. Like where they are, and why the mer saved him. He wonders why his rescuer keeps licking his face, and why it feels better each time he does.

The mer brings him more hydration pods, which Shiro gratefully sinks his teeth into, and something resembling food. There are live creatures, strange air-swimmers he might call insects. Shiro’s host shows him out to eat them but his stomach isn’t up to it. He reaches for the crunchy stems and sticky fruits instead.

More food is offered, specifically more of the things Shiro liked, but when he doesn’t take them and shakes his head no, the other seems to grasp the meaning of that. It’s as good a place to start as any: his yes and no.

It gets trickier from there. The merman reaches to pick Shiro up and it would be easiest to go along with it, but something in Shiro resists. Maybe he’s just sick of not having the option to refuse. He pulls away, shaking his head no. And when the mer looks perplexed and tries once more, Shiro almost folds, knowing he’s making things difficult… but it’s important somehow.

Not that Shiro has any other good ideas for moving around in zero gravity, being that he’s weak as hell and his Olkari space suit is totally drained of power. Those jet packs would really come in handy.

If only he could just fucking walk. He’d be able to manage that, tired as he is. He always manages somehow.

The merman swims to the doorway, looking back to see if Shiro will follow. And damn, he wants to. Knowledge is power. He should really find out all he can, in case he’s really not so safe here as he’s starting to feel. The sooner he has a look around this strange place, the better.

Pulling on a leaf within his reach, he reels himself in to crouch down into the nest until he can push off on something. It doesn’t help that all the surfaces are plush, but he wrenches enough momentum out of the action to make it to the exit.

He’s already panting.

He should probably swallow his pride and renegotiate that bridal carry option.

His host’s face seems… carefully neutral, if Shiro had to guess. He isn’t laughing at him, though he probably deserves it. Instead, he offers his hand.

Warmth blooms in Shiro’s chest. It’s the smallest of choices, but it’s his to make. It feels good to say yes.

As they venture out of the den, Shiro likens what he sees to a reef, teeming with strange niche life forms that swim in humid air and thrive in near-darkness. It’s spooky, the way the scant light there is moves with the creatures around them— swaying stems, sailing invertebrates, and the merman himself who glows a bit more brightly than all the rest.

It’s natural, and it isn’t at all. The curve of the corridor and its consistent dimension suggests a built environment. The passage extends ahead and behind, past circular openings into other rooms.

It’s hard to spot, but there are occasional glimpses of a smooth material beneath crowded flora, places where leaf, root and rocky calcification gives way to a brushed metal alloy.

Could they be on a ship? Possibly a shipwreck. The habitat is well-established, but whether that indicates the slow march of time or some technological marvel, Shiro is wise enough to admit he just doesn’t know.

There’s one thing Shiro is pretty sure about: the atmosphere is pressurized. You don’t find M-class atmosphere naturally at zero-G. Portholes glimpsing the nebula beyond only confirm that thought.

And that means, whether it flies or no, someone is keeping the proverbial lights on.

That someone appears to be the mer who rescued him. Leading Shiro by the hand, his host takes him to the cockpit of his ship, ecosystem giving way to technology. There’s a registration plate near the entrance in a strange script. Shiro can’t even guess the orientation he should view it from.

Straight ahead, the viewport is darker than the other portholes, like a tinted window. He’s not sure he’d have given much thought to the view outside, in any case, seeing as he’s so taken with the strange configuration of the bridge.

Like everything else here, it feels like it has no set orientation. The seats are cushioned rings, the controls rotate wildly with the user. Definitely not for human bodies and gravity-bound brains. Shiro’s no green cadet, but he feels a little dizzy just looking at it.

The merman slides right in, perfectly at home.

His.

The console lights come on, dim blue-greens like everything in this place. The interface is tactile, too, meant to be used by touch.

Shiro’s eyes catch on something silver floating on a tether near K’s hand, heart stuttering as he registers what he’s seeing.

Dog tags. Surely that can’t be right, but they’re unmistakable: the familiar shape, the digits stamped in the metal, the classic ball chain looped over something on the dash to keep them anchored.

The mer doesn’t quite flinch away this time when Shiro gasps, but he does follow Shiro’s eyes quickly with some degree of alarm. Seeing the cause, he gives Shiro a hand, pulling him close enough to pluck the dangling metal out of the air for a closer look.

Shiro leans into pilot’s space, tilting the tag to make out the lettering. He half-expects a foreign script, and half knows exactly what he’ll find.

It’s Terran English.

Kogane, H—

The two tags are worn thin like they’ve been touched often, held and stroked. The letters of the given name have long since vanished into the polished metal. One of the tags has seemingly been handled more of the two. That one is even more worn down, leaving little more than a capital K and a smooth indent for a thumb.

K—

Shiro likes the sound of that. Maybe he’ll call the merman K, if only in his head. He wishes he knew his name. Does he even have one? He seems to be all alone out here.

Has he always been alone?

K is watching him. Shiro turns the tag to show his rescuer, knowing there’s nothing novel there for the other to see. K looks and nods, then searches Shiro’s face for any clue.

Shiro has so many questions he can’t ask. Whose are these? Not his own, surely. Just… someone he found? Someone he knew, someone he loved? Friend, family.

Maybe it doesn’t matter, knowing only that these are precious to K. Being shown, allowed to touch, feels like something precious, too.

Shiro smiles at him.

Thank you for sharing, he thinks. Thank you for trusting me, K.

K pulls up a holo map of this sector of space. It’s a question, certainly, but there are so many to choose from.

Where are you from?

Where were you going when I found you?

Where do you want to go?

Keith dials the brightness up for him. Shiro can’t read the script; it doesn’t look Galran, not that he can read more than a few glyphs of that, either. But Shiro recognizes the stars he charted his course through. If he can just pan out, maybe he can figure out where they are?

Shiro holds his hands up and moves them further apart.

The mer watches and guesses, zooming in on their coordinates.

Shiro shakes his head, makes the wider gesture again, hopeful. Trial and error.

K nods, a signal he’s already picked up from Shiro. He is a quick study. Shiro can only hope to be half as quick to grasp the mer’s meaning in return.

Slowly panning out, Shiro smiles. He’s proud of it: proud of himself, proud of them both. They will manage this somehow.

Shiro recognizes this lonely quadrant, the mercantile belt he departed from, and the vicinity of the mysterious coordinates where he was told a human could find aid. He makes the wider gesture again. And again.

Out. Out. Out out out. The mer’s eyes keep widening further as Shiro keeps going.

There, on the fringes of known space, a familiar archipelago of galaxies. Andromeda, Canis Major.

The Milky Way.

Shiro points excitedly. K narrows his eyes at the speck and begins to zero in on the spot, following Shiro’s lead, backtracking when necessary. Shiro keeps them on track with a game of hot and cold.

In. In in in.

It’s only a map but it feels like coming home. First, a familiar part of town. Nostalgia for a certain street corner. The sight of your own front door.

Right there, the Sol system. Home.

It’s a sight he doubted he’d ever see again.

He turns to find K sitting very still. Shiro doesn’t know his body language, not really, but he can’t resist guessing at every tiny clue. He wants to know this person, more than he thought it possible to want something like that.

The merman stares and stares, his cheeks brightening with a lavender glow. A trill escapes his throat, very soft but almost loud in their silence. It sounds mournful.

Shiro moves. He doesn’t think, he just reaches for him. K looks unsettled and Shiro desperately wants to comfort him, before he even knows why.

K looks at him warily, watches every millimeter of Shiro’s approach until Shiro’s fingers brush his cheek, wiping at tears that aren’t there.

Hey. It’s okay. Don’t be upset.

It is impossibly far. Maybe that’s what upset the mer, now daunted by his task. He seems to want to help, but they definitely won’t be swimming that far. Without the right kind of ship and resources that are surely scarce, that kind of distance could take a lifetime.

The mer twists the grip on his console, several quick movements that shift the holo map interface around. Maybe he’s logging the spot. Shiro makes that guess because an icon appears over the third planet.

It takes a tick, but Shiro realizes he never pointed to the planet. Just the star system.

Shiro points, eyes wide.

You know Earth?

K nods to some part of the question. Yes, that one.

Why? How? Shiro thinks, eyes flicking to the tags K showed him. His passenger, friend, family— whoever they were, they called Earth home. There’s no way to ask, but it maybe that clears up a few things. Shiro swallows.

Maybe K’s not upset because it’s hopeless.

Maybe he’s moved because that’s where he wants to go, too. Because he found someone who understands. Someone else with a long, long way to go.

Shiro isn’t sure where to go from here. Something happened back there… but he doesn’t really know what it means.

They have a connection now, maybe. A common goal? It’s possible.

It really doesn’t seem like this ship is going anywhere fast. But maybe that’s Shiro’s bias, that a place full of so much life has got to be rooted to a place. It is a ship, so that’s a better shot than Shiro had on his own.

K is mostly focused on food for the moment. He pulls Shiro along by the hand as he swims along the corridor, harvesting weird vegetables, sweetwater pods and insects. Watching K munch on the small creatures hasn’t increased Shiro’s desire to try those, but K doesn’t push it. He gathers more fruits and vegetables for Shiro and they graze on whatever interests them as they go by.

After all the excitement in the cockpit, just maneuvering his limbs as he’s pulled along is wearing Shiro out more than he’s ready to admit. Even chewing feels exhausting.

Shiro makes himself eat and drink a little more than what his appetite demands, which is probably stupid and stubborn but he wants his stamina back, dammit. He wants to keep up with K who is strong, capable, gracious— everything Shiro doesn’t feel he can be right now. Of course, the mer is also entirely in his element and has Shiro at a disadvantage in every way, but that isn’t how he sees it.

And even if he was willing, Shiro couldn’t just go slack and float behind K, letting his limbs swing and crash through the delicate reef. He’s using muscles he didn’t know he had just to not bash through anything and he’s completely spent.

The mer gives his wrist a little tug the next time he’s ready to move along. Shiro’s not at all proud of it, but he can’t take any more. He whimpers.

K whips around to look at him, eyes wide. He seems to see the problem immediately, so Shiro must really look like shit. K’s plumage falls back against his skull like the saddest puppy dog ears that Shiro’s ever seen.

Shiro doesn’t have enough gestures in his arsenal for the nuances of It’s okay, I’m fine, really and I just need a little rest. At least not all at once. Feeling wretched with frustration, he accepts that he really does need the help.

K moves closer and Shiro expects he’ll find himself scooped up and hugged to his chest again. The mer needs his arms for his hunting and gathering and it’s just another way that Shiro is a burden, but he’s resigned to it for right now.

Instead, K sinks below him with a midair twist, presenting his back.

Shiro’s heart gives a funny pang. He isn’t sure why; it’s not all that different from being carried, maybe, except that it’s an offer. He’s letting Shiro do something, even if it’s only to hang on himself. K is trying, really trying, and it matters.

Shiro grabs onto K’s shoulders and drops his thighs to hang on to the mer’s waist. K rumbles a little, a vibration low in his chest. It’s a strange comfort.

K’s tail lashes in a swirling motion that propels him through space. They move a bit quicker than their previous pace, now that K is free to move how he likes. Shiro doesn’t seem to weigh him down at all.

K stops handing Shiro little vegetables when he declines for the third time, continuing to eat his fill. He catches different creatures, too, stealthier ones that move quicker than the flashy invertebrates from before.

It’s a thrill, feeling all that whipcord power of K’s body, his core flexing between Shiro’s legs. The mer’s sensitive ears twitch at the tiniest vibrations, lunging for his prey and ripping into them with gnashing teeth.

Shiro has no idea where they are now. The ship is larger than Shiro would have guessed, easy to get lost in. It’s a whole ecosystem, carefully curated, somewhere between foraging and farming. The further they go, the less K eats and the faster he swims. It feels deliberate, joyful, playful.

Shiro’s stomach swoops as he presses close through tight turns. He wants to whoop with glee, swallowing most of that back for K’s comfort. But Shiro’s grip grows tighter and tighter, his heart racing against the mer’s spine. K rumbles in answer.

When they do return to the nest, Shiro is utterly spent. He lets K move him, settling Shiro against the velvety foliage and covering him with his body to anchor the human for sleep. Shiro hates cages for a hundred very good reasons, but he doesn’t feel caged in. He feels safe, protected. It’s been a long time since he’s felt that way.

It’s a fitful night’s sleep. Shiro is vaguely aware of K soothing him, almost petting him as his muscles flinch and tense through unpleasant dreams.

It works for a while, until it doesn’t. And by the time Shiro is wide awake, he knows better than to hope sleep might just return to claim him.

He finds himself watching the gently undulating light of foliage and small creatures that flash as they dart by. Shiro thinks of snorkeling— he can’t shake the comparison to a marine paradise— and in the same breath he’s reminded of catching lightning bugs, with a curious feeling that’s not quite like either one but a bit of both. He feels nostalgic for small adventures like that, the simplicity of exploring the unknown. You know, without the mortal danger part.

Shiro wonders how deeply his capture has changed him. The life he always wanted, his drive to explore the stars while he still had the chance…

He still wants those things, he does. But he’d be lying if he said it doesn’t scare him at the exact same time.

K’s fins sway softly like the ribbons of kelp around them. Shiro shifts beneath the mer. Or above him? Directions make little sense here. But he wriggles gently until he can see K’s face.

Every time Shiro looks again, he expects to have imagined it before. He expects to see a creature’s face, not a boy with a soft fan of eyelashes against high cheekbones, a sweet bow of lips. He’s too beautiful to be real.

And kind, so kind. He has to marvel at that, too. Kindness is the last thing Shiro was ready for after the cruelty of the arena, but it’s undeniable now. K has been nothing but gentle with him, and generous in a way Shiro isn’t sure how to accept.

The way they swam together. The way it felt to ride along as the mer hunted and played. Shiro breathes a laugh at the memory before he can reign it in.

K’s eyes flash open at the soft sound, but he doesn’t so much as twitch another muscle. It’s heady, the silence between them and being watched by those dark eyes.

He thinks about K’s map, too. About the marker he had pinned on the planet Earth before Shiro pointed the way, an association that Shiro still can’t account for. The dog tags that were someone’s, a human’s. Someone important to K.

Shiro’s own tags rest over his heart beneath the tight fabric of his undersuit, biting into his skin just enough to remind him that they’re there. He’s used to secreting them away, certain that they’d be taken from him same as everything else if his captors ever found them. He’d kept them hidden, tucked between the bed slab and the wall, when they’d haul the captives in his wing to be hosed off in an icy jet of sanitation fluid. It’s a bitter memory— the sting of his wounds, the shivering, the humiliation.

Shiro relished the small rebellion of keeping a secret from his jailers. Just two small pieces of metal with the power to remind him, even on his worst days, that he has a name.

But he could show them to K, couldn’t he?

It makes Shiro’s insides squirm uncomfortably. He doesn’t feel ready, somehow, never wanted to show anyone out here. There’s been no one he would trust with that knowledge, with the last scrap of proof of Shiro’s humanity.

It’s almost easier sometimes to be the Champion, or the battered shell of one. The nameless traveler, the shipwrecked sailor, saved by someone who’s only likeness lives in sea shanties and myth.

K blinks his dark eyes, the movement slow and alien, almost reptilian in that so-familiar face. Shiro wants to trust this person, and to thank him. What better way than with his trust?

He reaches for his collar, unfastening the skintight fabric just enough to fish the ball chain from around his neck. K looks on with curiosity but doesn’t react until Shiro flashes the mer a glimpse of what he holds in his hand.

K lurches forward, diving for the shiny thing. Shiro’s heart thunders at the reminder of the creature’s strength. He could meet his end here anytime, if he misunderstood the stranger’s intentions in any way. What if the mer thinks the human is brandishing a weapon? Or if K thinks the human took something precious of his, how would he treat him then?

But he’s only grabbing at the tags to see them, however roughly he does it. Shiro thinks he should have taken them off first, handed them over for inspection that way. But he didn’t and when K yanks his chain, his whole body drifts forward until he has to catch himself on K’s sculpted chest.

K points excitedly at the stamped letters, eyes wider than Shiro has ever seen. The mer is practically vibrating, begging with his eyes to know more.

Shiro slowly reaches for the tags. He covers Keith’s fingers as he goes, enclosing the strange cool flesh. It’s intimate, quiet. Their eyes are so close. He turns his name face-up between them, catching K’s light. Shiro gestures to the letters before pointing to his own chest.

Me.

My name.

He hasn’t heard his name for so long. The empire had plenty of words for what he was, none of them nice. He didn’t feel like a person anymore, after a while. He didn’t feel human.

Shiro wonders what it would be like to hear K speak his name. He thinks he might break if he heard it, shatter with the force of it.

He thinks that might be okay. The feeling in his chest expands until it hurts to hold it in. He wants to feel it, to feel real enough that he just might break.

“Shiro,” he says, his voice shaking and rough with disuse.

K startles, wary of the sound no matter how softly he tries to speak. Shiro thought the mer might react that way. But K stays close, their fingers twined together around the dog tags. K’s fingers have started to warm under Shiro’s touch.

He still wants to try, to find another way. Shiro covers most of the metal with his thumb, leaving five letters for K’s eyes.

Shiro—

He points to those letters, then to himself.

“Shiro,” he whispers, hardly making a sound. “Shiro?”

K shifts his gaze between the tag and Shiro’s face. He must know Shiro wants something, something he doesn’t understand. K’s chest rumbles softly, the vibration soft and pleasant under his palms. After a moment, K’s face falls tragically.

“No, please,” Shiro whispers the words, his heart lurching. He tries smiling for encouragement but the mer withdraws his hands and twists his body as if to leave.

It’s instinct to reach for K’s shoulder. He feels lucky, after he does it, that it doesn’t cost him a hand. But he has to reach out now before he loses whatever this is.

Please, wait.

Shiro lifts the tags off his neck, offering them to K. He doesn’t mean to give them away, not really. They are important to him. But in that moment Shiro would give them up just to see the bright curiosity return to K’s eyes.

K goes still for a moment before he slowly takes the chain that trails through the air. Shiro lets go, watching closely as K pulls them close to inspect. The mer turns back toward him and mimics the way Shiro covered the letters with his thumb. K shows him what he’s done, like he’s anxious for the human’s approval.

Shiroga—

Shiro smiles. There’s something lovely about it, childlike. K doesn’t understand, not really, but he wants to. Shiro touches the mer’s shoulder again, gently squeezing. K did seem to appreciate that before and Shiro sees the same now in how the mer flushes bright with the touch that he hopes feels like praise.

K’s thumbs stroke the metal the way he must’ve done with the other tags, a touch that over time had worn the others smooth. He rubs Shiro’s name like a talisman.

You don’t know my name, but you don’t need to, Shiro thinks. You can still know me.

K touches them some more, then furrows his brow. He raises the chain over Shiro’s head settling them at his collar. The gesture makes Shiro’s eyes mist, patting the metal against his breastbone before tucking them again.

“Thank you,” he mouths the words.

You don’t know my name, but I have one. And that’s enough.

If he’s honest, the kindness is starting to get to Shiro.

He had this all locked down: all his tenderness, his joy, his pain and his brokenness. He had a grip. But a few day cycles with K prove to be very effective at cracking him open.

He tries not to shudder when K nudges into his shoulder like they’re already old friends, or mewl at the way he pulls Shiro over by the waist. The contact is wanted, never overbearing. It would be so easy to let K see into his raw places.

But with the good comes the bad. Shiro can’t weigh on him like that. Can he?

It’s hardest when K looks him over after settling them into the nest for the evening. Dark eyes graze across his face and the slash that’s finally healing. He always starts by looking first, before pulling Shiro close to tend to what remains of the wound in the mer’s unusual way. K moves with deliberate care, the slick tongue and cool brush of breath on Shiro’s skin growing more familiar every time.

One sharp-fingered hand gently covers Shiro’s ribs, dragging over an old injury. He’s got plenty of those left from the arena. It’s fine, he’ll be fine, though Shiro knows damn well that particular gash never healed right on its own. That isn’t why his eyes start brimming with tears.

That’s the thing about kindness. He’s starting to feel all the things he choked back before, everything he shoved down for later. His body decides, expressly without his permission, that this is later. Shiro’s ribs sting from the touch as though the damage is fresh and he can’t help how he winces beneath the gentle pressure.

Shit.

K lifts his hand away and blinks at him, watching, assessing this new information. Shiro is hurting and he’s been trying not to show it. There’s no reason for K to feel obligated to help with that, too. If Shiro feels a little bit judged for evading the mer’s obvious attempts to help, it’s probably just his imagination.

The mer knows where the suit opens down the center of Shiro’s chest. K could push, insist on seeing these injuries for the human’s own good— and worse, Shiro knows he’d let him. And maybe it’s weird, but the licking has been helping him heal. The scar across his face doesn’t smart like it did when he arrived.

They hover so close, slowly drifting through the air together, unmoving. Surely K hears his every heartbeat like a drum. Then the merman holds up a hand between their chests, palm turned up. It’s an echo of the first time he offered his hand for Shiro to take, their first success.

Your choice.

I’m here, if you need me.

It stuns Shiro for long enough that he almost lets the moment pass. But he wants to accept. He wants to need someone. K will take care of him, if he’s ready to let him.

He swallows the butterflies back and takes K’s hand.

K flashes a smile. It’s gone as quickly as it appeared, but Shiro doesn’t miss a single twitch of K’s mouth. Shiro brings his hand, their hands, to his collar and starts opening the suit, his heart thundering in his chest. He rolls the fabric down from his shoulders, baring his arms and his chest until the material rides low on his hips. K ghosts his hand over the back of Shiro’s the whole time, a reassuring weight.

Silent as ever, the mer is almost totally still, watching as Shiro’s skin comes into view. The only reaction K gives is a slight furrow of his brow as he exposes the nasty scarring over his ribs. There are other injuries, other note-worthy scars from other blows that cost him dearly in the ring, but this one hurts the most.

K’s attention to his wounds is more painful than such gentleness has any right to be. Shiro blames his thinning skin, the way the soft parts of himself are riding closer to the surface in K’s care. Shiro grits his teeth and bears it, reminding himself that this will help. He wants his strength back. He’ll need it again, he knows, even as blood on white sands fade into memory. There’s still a war out there.

And in the places where Shiro isn’t on fire with pain, he’s burning up in other ways. He’s not prepared for how his spine arches as K lathes over scars crossing his chest, swiping lightly past his nipples. How his toes curl as K’s tongue carves along his abs. Even when the wounds sting bitterly, he doesn’t want it to stop.

Shiro hasn’t thought of sex in a long, long time. It never seemed to cross his mind— not in his cell, dank with suffering and the stench of death. Not in the desperate rush to flee, evading capture and generally trying not to die in a far-flung galaxy in any number of hapless ways. He can’t remember if he got hard once since before their fateful Kerberos approach.

Now he’s hardening fast in the gathered space spandex stretched around his hips. He’s grateful for the thin fabric barrier, at least; lord knows what K would think of Shiro’s eager anatomy poking him in the chest while the mer so selflessly tends his old wounds.

He shouldn’t feel this way. He should tuck the urge back away where it belongs, but he can’t do it. With K, Shiro feels seen. No, it’s more shocking than that… he feels worshipped. The thought washes over him as K’s tongue rides down along the dip of Shiro’s hipbones, the mer’s hands gently holding his back.

Shiro imagines it must not be like that for the merman, but the caress overwhelms him all the same. His hips stutter forward as he moans, far too loud in their silence.

K’s grip tightens sharply when he startles. Shiro hisses in pain as the mer’s claws bite into his back, nicking Shiro’s flesh. It’s not so bad— he’s had so much worse— and his mind remains clouded with the haze of arousal. He realizes he wouldn’t mind if K really marked him up, if he meant to do it.

That’s not how K reads the situation.

The mer hears him hiss and drops him immediately. It’s hard to watch the sad look that washes over his features, eyes wide and plumage tucked back close to his head. K’s eyes move from Shiro’s face down to the bulge in his clothes.

Shame punches through him. Shiro draws his knees up to his chest, too mortified to let K look at him like this.

He doesn’t deserve this. The mer offered him kindness and a healing touch, and he’s— what? Getting off on that? It feels selfish, like he’s taking advantage. His chest aches with the weight of what he’s done.

K doesn’t protest this time when Shiro pulls away, rather he gently rears back leaving ample space between them. He looks confused and that’s Shiro’s fault, too.

There’s no excuse. Shiro needs to get it together.

He’ll find a way to thank K for taking care of him. Thank him for all that he’s done. Shiro can work harder, manage his own needs better. He can burden K less. He pulls his suit back on, tucking his aches back away.

Shiro wakes to find K already up, busying himself in the foliage around the nest. He doesn’t want to overthink why K keeps his distance, but whatever it means it is probably for the best.

It’s a new day cycle, a fresh start. And maybe Shiro didn’t ruin everything, because when K spots that Shiro is awake he darts right over, the curve of his mouth gently smiling. After a beat, he offers Shiro his hand.

They have a routine now. There’s a brief bit of excitement as Shiro struggles to communicate that he wants to see the map again, eventually managing to point K the way to the cockpit and gesture until K makes out his desire.

Shiro points the way to the base where he was originally headed to find allies, his only promising lead. If he can get K to help him that far, he won’t have to burden him anymore. K marks the place. It’s a start, and for now that’ll have to do.

In the meantime, they take another ride through the reef, gather another meal. Is this his life now?

Shiro struggles to get far without K’s constant assistance, and that rankles. He’s recovering, getting stronger… though he may be growing weaker at the same time. He can’t even do his workouts here. The empire had him in a cage, but at least he could do pushups.

Worse, he needs to bathe and has no idea how. He’s ripe enough by now that he can smell himself, which stirs up all kinds of grim memories of captivity.

He just wants his dignity back.

As they forage, Shiro snags an extra sweetwater pouch, then another, squirreling them away for later. Maybe he can make something work with these.

K is trying to play, pulling stunts that usually make Shiro smile. He’s sulking and he knows it, but he’s just not in the mood. His only thought is about getting clean— some way other than K’s tongue, for reasons that have a lot to do with his self-control that apparently can’t be trusted.

When cheering Shiro up falls flat, K’s brow pinches as he looks the morose human over more thoroughly than before. He lays his hand over the beat of Shiro’s heart at one point, seeming to guess that the human might not be well. At least that’s how Shiro decides to interpret things when it’s hardly midday and K takes him back to the nest, leaving Shiro to rest.

There’s something miraculous about being left alone for once. Shiro breathes deeply, trying to work through a bog of unwelcome feelings. He should be grateful, but all he feels right now is bitter. Frustrated. And deeply angry with himself.

And gross. He’s sweaty and gross, which always puts Shiro in a foul mood.

He decides to try and bathe himself now. He really doesn’t know when he’ll have another chance, imagining that K will let him ‘rest’ for a while before checking in on him.

Shiro strips away his undersuit and stashes his tags, wrinkling his nose at the ripe smell. He hates it. Back on Earth, Shiro was a two showers a day kind of person. What he wouldn’t give for that freedom now.

All he has at his disposal is a pair of sweetwater pouches and a couple of torn-off leaves, but it feels like now or never. He rips a small hole in one pouch with his teeth and slathers the stuff on his chest, working it into his armpits. Some of the liquid drifts away and there’s nothing he can do about that, but most of it glides across his skin, pleasantly slick and cool. He applies the other pouch to his lower half.

The leaves don’t work at all. They don’t wick any liquid away, but just smear it around instead, plant fibers adding to the mess instead of subtracting from it. And as his skin soaks up the moisture, he starts to realize his mistake.

It’s getting sticky.

No, worse than sticky. With the leaves disintegrating, he’s managed to whip it all into a kind of glue. If he was having a bad day before, it’s truly awful now.

That’s when K finds him.

If the universe saw fit to swallow Shiro whole, without delay, he’d only be grateful. He’s not so lucky. Mortified as he is already, that’s nothing to the shocked look on K’s face. The mer swims over with startling speed, plucking a torn leaf from Shiro’s hand with the most accusatory look Shiro can remember seeing in his damn life.

Oh my God, Shiro thinks as his stomach bottoms out. He forgets that he’s naked, forgets the plant superglue he’s regretfully concocted. All he can think is that he’s made a terrible mistake.

These aren’t just leaves. This is K’s home, his nest, and Shiro didn’t think about it at all. He hangs his head while K quietly examines the damage.

Eventually, he looks Shiro over, too. The look on his face is cringing, almost pitying. It’s a new low after Shiro thought surely he’d hit bottom.

K reaches for him, his face still pinched. He slowly raises Shiro’s flesh hand by the wrist, bringing the human’s sticky fingers to his lips. He licks once across his knuckles, his expression almost gagging. Shiro rips his hand back in shame.

The mer gives him one more scrutinizing look before he swims quickly away.

It hurts. He isn’t sure what he expected, and being left like this is probably exactly what he deserves. But K wouldn’t just… abandon him like this, would he? Dejected, naked and deeply ashamed, it’s the closest to helpless Shiro’s ever felt without being strapped to a table. The paste he made is drying on his skin, and he’s miserable enough to think of that last of all.

He won’t crawl back into K’s nest. He won’t defile anything else, and he doesn’t deserve the comfort of it, besides. He just wants to hide.

By the time he maneuvers his way out of the den and into the corridor, he’s not sure how much further he can make it without kicking off the reef, damaging the beautiful place Keith calls home. He makes it another meter or two and gives up, cursing in frustration.

It’s darker out here than the den. He knows that, but this is his first time trying to move about the ship without K’s soft light. It’s fine; Shiro wants the dark. He wants to disappear.

He sees K coming from a long way off, his purple-blue glow the brightest thing in this world. He seems surprised to find the human in the corridor, curled in on himself in the dark.

K approaches cautiously, extending his hand with something soft and lumpy in his grasp. When Shiro takes it, it’s wet. It’s a sponge.

The relief is so intense his eyes fill with tears. He hopes he’s right, feels almost sure, but he won’t assume anything. He doesn’t want to mess this up, too. Instead, he meets K’s eyes and holds the sponge between them, hoping the question is clear.

The mer swims a little closer, pressing Shiro’s sponge-filled hand to his sticky shoulder, pressing and wiping until the spot comes away partially clean. Breath hitches in his chest.

He quickly wipes up his hands before dragging the sponge across his chest, biting back a grateful sob. He feels himself caring less and less about his nakedness and his audience, if only for the chance to make this right and try his best to never earn K’s disappointment again.

But before he gets too far into his washing, K halts him, extending his hand for Shiro to take. Desperate for reassurance, Shiro accepts it right away, not caring what it means this time. He owes K so much more than he can repay.

K pulls him through the halls by the hand, bringing him somewhere Shiro hasn’t seen before. Steam billows through the air into the passageway. Crossing the threshold, the compartment is half-filled with a large formation he could only describe as space coral. It appears to be cycling fresh water through the air, with steam pouring in from below his feet and whisked into a vent above his head.

K pries the dirty sponge from Shiro’s grasp and hands him another, wringing out the first while Shiro attacks the glue. It’s still a full-blown mess, but it is coming away. Keith attends to him patiently, a light rumble kicking up in his chest.

Shiro sighs quietly, feeling the knot in his stomach start to untwist. It’s hardly even strange being watched, after everything that’s happened. Maybe he’s tapped out from the roller coaster of emotions. Maybe it’s the way he’s half-shrouded in steam. But it feels more like he wants K here, just to know things can be okay again between them.

K helps him scrub his back clean of sweat, the pressure firm and very welcome, but otherwise hangs back a polite distance.

When Shiro is mostly free of the sweetwater paste, K offers him one more steamy sponge, just for good measure. It does something funny to Shiro’s heart. K swims away while he finishes up and Shiro doesn’t have to worry about what that means. He’s breathing a whole lot easier. He washes his face after K leaves, leaving no trace of salty tears.

K returns with something glinting in his hand, handing Shiro the Kogane dog tags, so like his own still hanging around his neck. Why bring these now, exactly? It probably doesn’t matter.

Shiro thinks it means forgiveness.

He rubs his thumb over the tag the way K did it, appreciating the gesture and K’s steadiness. Following a whim, Shiro pulls himself into K’s arms and gently loops the tags over K’s neck as the mer did to him the other morning, anointing him. K’s cheeks brighten like a blush blooming, spreading slowly down his chest.

Shiro still doesn’t feel like he deserves the mer’s tenderness, but he is grateful for it all the same.

K brings Shiro to the cockpit where he proceeds to spend vargas tinkering with various things. Shiro doesn’t understand the technology on this ship or any of the strange tethered tools K pulls from compartments under the dash, but he’s content just to watch and soak up the mer’s quiet company.

He’s still naked, but it doesn’t feel important in the way it did before. The mer glances over at his face from time to time, same as always, and returns to his task when he’s satisfied that the human doesn’t look distressed in any discernible way.

K also brings him odds and ends every once in a while: a snack, a tool he’s not using at the moment, or the helmet from Shiro’s space suit. He’s attentive, making sure Shiro would want for nothing.

Sometimes he’s not sure if his place in K’s life is more new friend or stray cat, or something else he can’t quite place, but it isn’t a bad feeling. It’s… nice.

Shiro watches him, too. The frill of plumage around K’s face moves expressively, rippling when he tenses his brow in concentration, perking up when he smiles at some little success or other. After a while, K grows very excited about what he’s working on, darting over to show Shiro with clear enthusiasm. The device he holds out to him is a foreign technology, warm in his hands and making a very low whirring sound.

Shiro can’t make heads or tails of it, not until K takes it back and Shiro spots what else he has floating through his work area: the Olkari space suit he wore when K first found him.

K clicks the whirring device back into the power pack. He doesn’t know how K managed it, but the mer recharged the power cells. In shock, Shiro, fumbles for the helmet to check the readout.

POWER AT 42 PERCENT

Shiro whoops, delighted, and immediately slaps his hand over his mouth. But K is getting used to the human’s occasional vocal outbursts, smiling fondly at him from across the cockpit as he balls the material up around the jet pack and serves the bundle through the air in Shiro’s direction.

Catching it, Shiro runs his fingers over the suit with a sheen of tears threatening to spill all over again. With the jetpack, he’ll be able to move around the ship on his own.

He did this for me, Shiro thinks in a daze, his smile dopey as hell.

K did this for me.

Autonomy feels amazing. Shiro suits up in the cockpit before they set out for an evening meal, unable to wipe the smile from his face the whole time he pulls it on.

His first move is to zip over to K and give the mer’s hand an appreciative squeeze. He might be reading too much into the bright flush that washes over K when he does things like that, but it looks like pleasure and he’s happy if it is.

K can move so much much faster than Shiro even with a jetpack, but it’s so refreshing. He can swim closer if he wants to the things that catch his eye, reach out for the little ray-bugs that glimmer past and watch them dart between his fingers.

He can dart off and let K chase him. They can play.

It turns into a game pretty quickly, where K will pick some morsel he knows Shiro likes and waves it through the air. Instead of handing it over, the mer smiles wryly and makes him work for it like a game of keep-away. K quickly learns how competitive his human guest can be, letting Shiro wrestle with him for the prize. Shiro laughs, not too loudly but a bit helplessly, sounds punched out of him as K bends in inhuman ways to keep his advantage.

His heart races with the unexpected exertion, but that isn’t the only reason. Grappling feels good in a number of ways, in part for how K feels moving beneath his hands, and the pressure of K’s clawed grip as he fends Shiro off from his target.

When Shiro is finally flagging, harshly panting over the third round of chasing a treat, K holds the fruit out to him. For some reason he couldn’t possibly explain even to himself, Shiro darts forward and captures the fruit with his teeth.

His mouth doesn’t even graze K’s fingers, but the mer’s flush is immediate and brighter than ever, the smile lopsided as his midnight eyes flick into slits. K swims on in a flash of bright tail. Shiro thinks he knows the feeling, the telltale heat of a blush flooding his cheeks, too.

What’s this? Shiro thinks as K shows him to a new space, one of the small compartments opening off of the corridor near K’s den.

This space is new but the design is familiar, the deep velvet foliage waving in the recirculated air. It’s a nest.

“For me?” Shiro mutters the question he doesn’t know how to ask any other way.

The compartment looks newly planted, stocked with the foliage K seems to like best where he rests, with plenty of the bioluminescent flora Shiro always gravitates towards, as if to make up for K’s light when he’s away.

Shiro knows his eyes are a little too wide. He looks at K and touches his own chest. For me?

K nudges their shoulders together with a crooked smile, swimming past him into the center of the nest as if to demonstrate its use. But that isn’t the source of the confusion— not at all.

“But why?” Shiro whispers, turning his head to take it all in.

Does K want his own space, too? Maybe after what Shiro did… He searches K’s face for any clues that they’re still patching things over, but K only looks proud.  His smile is radiant as he beckons Shiro into the nest he made just for him.

Shiro does his best to smile, too.

“Thank you,” he breathes with a squeeze of K’s cool shoulder. It’s a gift, and dammit, Shiro will be grateful for it.

K gets the engines started early in the next day-cycle. It’s a shaky ride and for a few doboshes Shiro is ready to turn back to safety before the reef-ship shakes apart at the seams, but it gets better.

K is a very able pilot. It’s a bit like watching a skilled driver careen down a mountain pass in a double-decker bus, terrifying and masterful and nothing in between. The hull groans through tight turns and Shiro tries not to let the terror show on his face.

The route K charts keeps them inside the nebula for as long as possible, definitely taking the long way around. Only the very last leg of the journey to Shiro’s destination will require them to venture out of the mass of pre-stellar dust.

Shiro poses the question the best he can with the star chart holo, dragging his finger in a straight line as the crow flies from their starting point to the base they’re headed for, then finger-drawing the wide arc they’ve followed around the brim.

Why this way? he wonders.

K frowns when Shiro draws a straight line, looking away. Shiro lets it drop.

A few vargas later, the mer pulls them into a darker part of the nebula and flicks on the automatic attitude control. K knows his ship best, and if he thinks this is far enough, who’s Shiro to argue the point?

Picking through the ship for their meal is routine at this point, but it feels like a lot has changed. Shiro feels like himself again, stronger and mostly healed. K enjoys his company, but gives him space, too.

He sleeps in his own nest now, meeting K for breakfast. Early that morning when he felt restless, he ambled along the corridors a little ways on his own. K tracked him down soon enough wearing a wobbly little smile, nudging Shiro’s shoulder in greeting.

He did hold Shiro by the shoulders for a moment, pulling him closer to examine his healing scar, but the mer didn’t seem to feel the need to tend to it anymore.

Shiro wanted his autonomy back, and now he has it. He got his wish.

Or did he?

The second night he spends in his own nest, Shiro can’t get a wink of sleep. He tucks himself into the foliage to keep himself from spinning. As sleep eludes him, Shiro stretches side to side. The moist air is the perfect temperature wafting against his freshly-bathed skin. His body is relaxed, but it does nothing to help the anxious way his thoughts churn.

He just keeps thinking of their journey, the short distance on the holo map between where they are and where they’re headed. Two quintants and they’ll reach Shiro’s destination. And then what?

Shiro resists the thought, unwilling to think of stepping off of K’s ship never knowing if what he felt here was real.

This can’t be over, can it?

Shiro’s eyes trail to the corridor, seeking K’s light. The mer seems to be living out here all alone. The thought aches more than Shiro could possibly explain. Was he lonely here in the nebula, before finding Shiro on the brink of death?

This can’t be how Shiro repays him, by just leaving.

And it’s more than hospitality, he knows in his secret heart. There’s something unresolved in this, too much left unsaid. Sure, it has all been unsaid… but one thing in particular.

Shiro kicks away from the plush surface and maneuvers his body to the door. It’s not far from here to K’s nest— he’s strong enough to make it there without his suit. He doesn’t let himself think about exactly what he’s doing. If he did, maybe he wouldn’t be brave enough to go. He’d feel too needy.

But maybe K needs him, too.

Shiro pokes his head into K’s private space, unsure what he’ll find as he hovers in the entrance.

K’s eyes are open, gemstone-dark and glinting as he stares up at the proverbial ceiling. His eyes flash to Shiro before he swims across the threshold, staying with him as he closes the distance with what remains of his inertia.

Drifting within arm’s reach, Shiro slowly raises his hand, reaching out for K. The mer blinks once, twice, before twining their fingers. When he pulls, Shiro goes easily.

Shiro knows what he hoped, but he still doesn’t expect the way K nuzzles his face with the line of his jaw, tucking Shiro close to his neck and holding on. The touch wrings a tiny whimper from Shiro’s throat. He pulls their bodies together, knowing he’s right where he wants to be.

Shiro wakes to K’s eyes on him and can’t bear to look away. The mer’s gaze is so steady and sure, unabashed. The moment stretches so long that eventually Shiro cracks. He pulls himself closer and slowly presses their lips together.

K blinks at him curiously. Shiro kisses him again, softly and then with more heat. K doesn’t seem to know what this is, but tries, as ever, to follow Shiro’s lead.

The mer’s tongue is overeager and that makes Shiro laugh, his shoulders shaking. K’s smile is victorious, pleased with Shiro’s reaction, and that only makes his fondness grow. The mer licks a broad, wet strip across Shiro’s lips and he snorts, trying and failing to wrangle his laughter. K shudders at the sharp, bright sound.

It’s different when K’s tongue trails down his neck, brushing his tags aside and exploring his chest. He’s not laughing now. It feels so good, like the first time K lathed his tongue over his body, but far better like this when he lets himself enjoy it. He thinks the heat in K’s eyes now matches his own.

Shiro reciprocates, kissing and sucking at the mer’s delicate throat, feeling K’s back arch, their bodies meeting. K squirms back, though, when Shiro swipes at the slick skin of his chest with his tongue. The huffing sound he makes sounds… ticklish?

Well, that’s something new.

Compared to K’s slick tongue, Shiro’s is almost too dry, probably rough like a cat’s. Shiro strokes his chest with light fingertips instead, watching K shiver at the drag of human flesh on his silky skin.

Something tickles him again. K huffs another near-laugh and suddenly pulls Shiro out of the nest by the wrist.

He hardly has time to wonder where they’re headed before they arrive at the bathing compartment. Shiro really tries not to have a little crisis about that. K thinks I want to bathe him?

Do we want the same things?

Shiro reaches for a steaming sponge, dragging it over K’s chest where he was touching him before. It feels like more than a bath, from the flutter of the mer’s eyes, quivering and glowing more brightly than before.

It must feel good. Maybe the water helps the glide on his skin? Shiro keeps going, paying particular attention to the places that make the mer quake. Whatever this is, it feels right and Shiro is ready to not overthink things for once.

K rumbles low in his throat, resting their foreheads together and delicately licking across Shiro’s mouth. It doesn’t make Shiro laugh this time, shivering and parting his lips.

Shiro pets down his spine with the damp sponge while he teaches the merman to kiss. It’s all strange but it’s good, so good. Shiro croons at the deep reach of his tongue.

K’s eyes glitter darkly as he wanders down Shiro’s chest. The mer turns him however he wants, washing him and worshipping him with deft licks, claws prickling and tracing his muscles. What Shiro wouldn’t give to know for certain what this means to K, to know they’re on the same page and put all doubt to rest.

Then K finds his hardening dick.

Shiro can’t see his face, floating inverted from where K’s eyes are, but he hears the low sound the mer makes, almost like a growl. His pulse quickens at the noise, unsure what to expect, but what he feels next is an experimental lick down his shaft.

“Ahh,” Shiro moans.

K rumbles again and, fuck, he has to know what this is doing to Shiro. There’s no way he could miss it. Shiro writhes in delicious agony as K holds him and laps at his cock and his balls, his long tongue almost wrapping his length, moving with purpose to wring him out.

Shiro buries his face where the mer’s torso fades into his tail, pulse thundering behind his eyes. He’s already overwhelmed, every touch impossibly ratcheting up from the last. He means to keep his voice down, but it’s hopeless to try. K burns brighter after every lewd sound.

Floating upside down to K, Shiro gets an up-close look at the merman’s widening slit. He didn’t notice at first, the crease disguised as it is, but as arousal builds the skin grows engorged, glowing brighter and parting to reveal wet folds. Shiro can’t look anywhere else.

K’s tongue works him over hard and there’s no way he’ll last, but Shiro would possibly have creamed himself regardless from the sight of the mer’s cockhead starting to poke out of his hole. The shape is tapered, long and lean, and it bends more like a tongue than any dick he’s ever seen.

The wild sight takes Shiro by surprise, pitching him into his orgasm unbelievably fast.

“Nnah,” Shiro sighs as K catches most of his spend in his mouth. “Oh wow,” he breathes, eyes still locked on the shape of K’s cock, firm and flexing with arousal. He’s leaking glowing pre, beading along the long, deep slit at the tip. Shiro groans with blatant thirst.

Hands at K’s waist, Shiro turns himself until he finds the mer’s eyes looking down on him. Shiro watches for signals of any kind as he brings fingertips to the slick edge of K’s slit, gently stroking the surface there. The mer’s mouth hangs open, panting as Shiro’s fingers come away slick with bioluminescent fluid. He brings his fingers to his lips.

Sweetwater, Shiro thinks. He tastes dewy and sweet, and a little musky. He sucks on his fingers and watches K’s reactions, eyes endlessly dark. He brings his spit-slick fingers back down to explore what the mer likes best.

K’s eyes flutter. Okay, Shiro thinks. Slick is good.

Circling slowly, Shiro’s fingers slide inward to brush the emerging shaft. He barely bites back a squeal when that cock bends around Shiro’s fingers, prehensile and gripping. Cupping Shiro’s hand as he strokes, they make filthy sounds moving together.

Shiro lowers himself to kiss his glowing skin. He wants to taste more, but K squirms as soon as he makes to give him a kittenish lick. Instead, K wraps his bright cock loosely around Shiro’s wrist, reeling him in until his flesh fingers slip inside his slit.

Oh God.

He holds still, searching K’s eyes as the mer takes the lead, cock caressing his wrist and gently shifting him inside as far as he can reach. The feeling is incredible, warm and wet, and he can definitely see the dark shadow of his digits moving behind Keith’s translucent skin. He shudders at the sight, letting K drag his hand in a thrusting motion.

Like this? he thinks as he presses back in, dizzy with all of it. K’s eyes roll back, hips jerking forward to take Shiro’s digits deeper.

When K is ready for the next course, he shows it by slamming Shiro against a plush wall of steaming moss, covering the length of the human’s body with his own. Shiro’s cock is half-hard again, twitching with interest when K’s cock grabs onto his and lines him up.

Shiro knows what must be coming but it’s still a shock, sliding into K’s glowing warm heat. He cries out, hanging onto the mer’s shoulders like the edge of his sanity.

K rides down on him hard, cock wrapping the base of Shiro’s shaft with delicious extra pressure and tugging as they move. Shiro gasps at every thrust, mewling as K’s hands tighten sharply enough to bruise and mark. K pants with the effort, fins whipping, short breathy gasps pitching higher until his hole flutters around Shiro’s cock, pulsing and soaking Shiro with bright slick.

It’s the rush of wet heat that tips Shiro over the edge, wringing him out with a cry. He gasps, engrossed in the sight of the mer bearing down on him. Their skin glitters, the steam beading and mingling with Shiro’s sweat and both of their come.

K’s lips tug lightly like the thought of a smile. His mouth is searing hot as he kisses Shiro just right, exactly how he likes, before licking deep into his mouth.

They take the ship to the edge of the nebula. From here, only open space stands between them and the coordinates they set out for.

K looks nervous. He makes every kind of sensor sweep, checking and re-checking. Hesitating.

It shouldn’t have taken this long for Shiro to consider if he could be putting K at risk. Shiro wonders if it’s the empire that K fears— which Shiro can only find sensible— or some other danger that might be specific to merfolk.

Shiro covers K’s hand on the controls. Once he has the mer’s attention, he gestures into a denser part of the nebula behind them. Surely they’ve come far enough for one quintant.

K looks surprised and then relieved, tucking the ship into the darkest niche he can find and cutting the engines.

So K doesn’t want to cross that threshold yet, and honestly neither does Shiro. He doesn’t want to think about what happens next, if he finds the allies he needs on that base. If he doesn’t need K’s help anymore, but still wants it. Is that too selfish?

Shiro pulls K’s hands, ready to put choices off for another time. C’mon, he tugs toward the corridor, smiling as he lets go and punches his thrusters. Catch me.

He misses whatever happens on K’s face, but when the mer takes off after him it’s with a deep rumble that sends chills up Shiro’s spine. He will catch him for sure, but Shiro wants to be caught.

Shiro darts into a new room, more open and spacious than the others. If Shiro had awoken here that first time he’d have never doubted they were on a ship. It’s some kind of observation lounge with a large domed viewport, the cooler air comparably empty of the plants and animals found everywhere else. From this vantage, the ship is steeped in the violet-blue gases and winking with distant stars. It’s enough to catch Shiro’s breath.

K tackles him in the air with a triumphant little trill. It’s the most vocal Shiro’s ever heard him and it makes his pulse race. They exchange soft kisses as they tumble through the air, bouncing lightly off the glass. He thinks K is showing off a little, his grip just right at Shiro’s hip bones, his kisses soft and attentive, then deep.

Wow.

Pulling back, Shiro’s vision swims with the nebula’s jewel tones and his own besotted smile reflecting in K’s eyes.

K pokes at the collar of the space suit with a single claw, groping for the spot where the mechanism releases. It makes Shiro feel hot, K’s searching hands and slanted smile. The puff of air as the latch depresses sends his stomach in a little flip.

Shiro undresses for K slowly and deliberately, enjoying the rapt way the mer watches him bare his skin, tags floating around his neck. When he’s naked, K just looks. He blinks like he’s stunned and gazes at all of Shiro but still doesn’t touch.

Shiro reaches for him until their hands brush, fingers twining. C’mon then, beautiful, Shiro thinks as he moves K’s hand to grip his hip. What are you waiting for?

K reels him in, narrow waist slotting between Shiro’s thighs. His kisses are harder, more demanding, and his grip at his hip and back feels like it’ll leave marks he’ll feel for days. They move together, feeling the excitement build and spark between them. Shiro feels when K’s tip peeks out of his slit, a teasing brush along Shiro’s length that has the man arching forward to meet him. K’s cock reaches and bends, searching him out, looping around Shiro’s shaft in a soft, easy glide.

Shiro likes the way K’s claws tighten sharply when he groans, sensitive to every sound. He thrills at deep, searching kisses, and melts when K nuzzles his cheek against Shiro’s jaw and places his cool lips deliberately over the human’s pulse.

And the surreal movement of K’s cock, fondling tongue-like between his legs, stroking his taint.

Oh—

“Fuck,” Shiro gasps as K flicks over his hole. He shudders and his hips buck forward as K does it again, taking the encouragement to prod at the sensitive spot. Every moan encourages him further.

He feels a wet tip dip inside, a slender, tapered crown. Shiro whines, shimmying his hips back for more. K trembles as Shiro’s pucker spasms around him, coaxing him in. The mer presses inside the same way that he kisses, softly at first, then direct and so deep.

Shiro lets out a silent scream. This is unlike anything he’s felt in his life and he’s dizzy with it, like being eaten out and prepped and fucked to the hilt all at once. K moves Shiro’s hips against him, curling inside to explore all of his sensitive places. He’s painfully hard, shuddering and bucking his hips, sliding against K’s wet lips and—

Shiro rocks forward and the tip of his cock slips into K’s slit with a breathy curse. It feels insane, it shouldn’t be possible, but he’s fucking inside as K’s agile cock twists and grinds against his prostate.

K moves Shiro by the hips, sliding him out and back in, working his own cock in and out of Shiro with a soft trill. They’re a perfect fit. K is perfectly wet, tight and… getting tighter? Shiro gasps as the pressure builds, the friction hitting him just right.

Shiro babbles and pants nonsense words into the mer’s chest, floating in K’s sure grip as pleasure rips through him. His cock is wedged so tight in K’s slit he can’t even move, he’s just held there, writhing and moaning under his breath.

K has him and he can keep him, Shiro realizes with a cry. He’s in free fall, and letting go has never felt so good.

Shiro howls into his orgasm, struck dumb with it as K’s hands smooth up his sides. His mind wanders, losing focus as the mer’s cock twists and pumps inside for several long moments more. When K spills inside with a growl, Shiro feels the vibration in his chest.

K’s hands stick to his sweat-damp skin, dragging up from Shiro’s waist to cup his face. They don’t drift apart, locked in place with Shiro wedged deep inside him. K nuzzles their faces together, breath still ragged but starting to slow.

Looking down is a journey all its own: the dark shadow of Shiro’s dick curving along K’s inner wall, the glow particularly bright just inside the lips where a ring of muscle clamps down to hold Shiro. It feels possessive, claiming. Shiro’s breath feels stuck in his throat.

He reaches down to feel K’s belly, feeling the shape of his cock through the mer’s soft body. He wants to feel it while he’s hard, while they’re fucking, feeling K’s body shudder from the force of it.

He wants more. He wants it all. Shiro knows a thing or two about running out of time, but he refuses to accept that between them.

What would he have to give up to just… stay?

K lifts Shiro’s chin between his hands, studying his eyes with his characteristic silence and peppering his lips with a bevy of soft kisses.

It feels like I’ve got you. It feels like I won’t let you go, I promise.

The crash rings through him as violent magenta beams cut through the hull. It smells of burning bodies, like a half-remembered laboratory and his own inhuman screams.

Through the chaos, Shiro hears K’s low wail of mourning, helpless as his reef, his home, is ripped apart and torn into the vacuum of space.

But he can’t see the mer anywhere, the violent light too bright and blinding. Shiro has to reach him, can’t find him—

Jerking awake, Shiro’s muscles ache with the effort. It was only a nightmare. He’s still in K’s nest, but he’s alone there.

Where did he go?

Shiro can feel the ship moving. It’s not as subtle as it should be, with the recognizable groan of the hull as K maneuvers the massive vessel, but Shiro’s seen enough space flight that he’d be able to pick up on it regardless.

What the hell is going on?

Shiro is moving before he can give it a thought, scrambling into his Olkari suit to power him to the cockpit quickly. His heart still races from unpleasant dreams and the feeling that he has to be ready, that something is wrong.

The suit hangs half-open over his bare chest as he thrusts his way onto the bridge. Through the viewport, Shiro sees the base dead ahead. He must’ve been flying for vargas while Shiro slept, because they’re already there.

Shiro’s heart sinks.

K glances over his shoulder at Shiro as he approaches, his expression soft but sober, too. K hails the base, seeming to know the standard protocols for approach and docking. That seems odd, but maybe it isn’t? It strikes him once again that he’s only known K for a short time, even if it feels like a lifetime. Just because he’s never seen the mer with others, doesn’t mean he lives in that nebula alone all the time.

Maybe Shiro doesn’t really know him at all.

Shiro’s thoughts flop around in his mind, groping uselessly for a foothold. He thought he’d prepared himself for this, but it was denial at best. He’s not prepared at all.

Is this really over? he wonders.

Is this goodbye?

“Greetings, traveller,” a deep voice booms over the open hail. The volume is normal but Shiro isn’t used to it, accustomed to the constant silence of the reef ship. K flinches back like it hurts. “Do you come to trade? The exchange opens tomorrow, but the station can offer temporary accommodations.”

K taps away at his console to get the volume under control, but doesn’t respond otherwise. It takes a long moment for Shiro to realize that of course K wouldn’t answer. Shiro’s all shaken up and not using his head.

“Marmoran craft, please respond,” the controller tries again.

“Hello?” Shiro clears his throat, his voice rough with disuse. “Hello, we aren’t here to trade. I was sent here. I was told it would be… safe?” He wishes he knew what to say, how much to trust. These are complete strangers to him. Who knows what their intentions might be, towards him… or the merman that he’s dragged into a situation that is certainly not without risks.

“You are not Marmoran,” the controller puzzles aloud. “Are you the owner of this craft?”

“No, I’m here with a friend.” Shiro swallows. “He’s right here with me.”

Silence on the line. “You seek refuge here?”

“Yes, I’m… human?”

There’s a sound of surprise. “Please hold.”

The silence is long enough to send Shiro into a panic, though it’s awfully comforting when K reaches for his hand and gives his fingers a squeeze. After several doboshes, the silence fractures with a familiar voice on the line.

“Shiro?”

It’s Matt. Holy fuck, it’s Matt! He’s here, he survived their capture and he’s here?! Somehow in the vastness of the universe, he’s tracked down his friend without even considering he could be close. Shiro’s eyes sting with emotion as he answers, too overwhelmed to make half sense of what Matt is saying in his own excitement and relief.

“Hey, hey, slow down,” Shiro laughs, rubbing his eyes. It’s so good to hear Matt’s voice. He squeezes K’s hand with feeling, soothed by the flap of his fins as he floats close by Shiro’s side. “You gotta back up for me, buddy. How… how are you here?”

“Oh, geez. Well, I was at a labor camp for a while,” Matt tells him, tone tinged with regret. Shiro can only imagine what that was like. “But then freedom fighters broke all of us out! I’ve been with the rebels ever since. I’m so glad you found us, Shiro! You’ll be safe here. And we’re fighting back against the empire however we can.”

“Wow,” Shiro says. “That’s… incredible!”

“I can’t wait to show you around! There’s so many people for you to meet. Ollie’s got you cleared for docking, transmitting auth now. This is so exciting, I can’t believe it! I’ll get you settled in in no time.”

Shiro swallows, his eyes locked on K’s face. It’s still too sudden, too much and not nearly weighted enough for how it feels in his chest.

K surely hasn’t understood a word of their conversation but he acknowledges the docking code on the dash and puts on a brave face, his smile tight.

This can’t be how this ends.

“Matt, I…” Shiro fumbles for the words he needs, not used to wielding them. “What about my guide? Can we… I don’t know, can we give him anything? Offer him anything in thanks?” Shiro reaches K’s cheek, heart stuttering as the mer leans into the contact. “He saved my life.”

“Of course, Shiro,” Matt says. “I mean, doesn’t he want to come aboard, too? I mean, he’s welcome. I guess I assumed?”

Shiro clings to the thought, agreeing for both of them without a single thought to how.

“Okay, great! Let’s get you docked and you’ll both be guests here, okay? We’ll figure it out.”

Shiro points at the space dock Matt indicated. K nods, jaw tense with focus as he goes in for a landing. He handles the behemoth like a dream, but it’s still a little nerve-racking to watch. Shiro thinks of a beetle slamming pell-mell through the air and settling on the head of a pin, hulking and graceful at once.

Shiro takes a deep breath, feeling nervous and hopeful. This isn’t goodbye, not yet… but still too soon.

“Hey Matt, do you happen to have a hover chair handy over there?”

“Sure, why?”

Shiro’s hand rests low on K’s back at the start of his tail. “My friend doesn’t have legs.”

There’s light at the end of the tunnel, though that’s more literally than figuratively.

Light pours into the reef from the docking juncture. It’s just a small porthole in a distant hatch, but it’s blinding as it cuts through spaces Shiro thinks have only ever known darkness.

K’s discomfort is clear. He squints and turns his head away from the source of light, clawed fingers fidgeting in Shiro’s grip, while Shiro swims with his helmet in the other hand. All he has to bring with him are the few things he wears on his person. It’s strange to leave so little mark on a place that he already thinks of as home.

The mer grits his teeth and swims on, eyelids mostly shut against the light.

Shiro slows to look at K, pulling him close until they drift in place. He looks different in the light, washing out his glow; his skin is lavender-gray, translucent with a subtle, pearlescent gleam. It looks glassy, though Shiro knows that isn’t how K feels under his hands. The thought is enough to bring heat to his face.

Shiro presses his lips to the mer’s forehead, then kisses both of his closed eyelids, stroking his fingertips over K’s plumage and the exaggerated lobes of his ears until the muscles in his face start to relax.

Shiro offers the helmet to him, bringing K’s hands around to hold it. He figures the visor can filter the light, and the fit alone may be enough to attenuate the sharp sounds K will have to deal with in Shiro’s world.

The crease of K’s brow looks nervous, but he accepts with a nod. Shiro adjusts the parameters for him before pulling it over K’s head. The mer immediately puffs a sigh of relief.

“There you go,” Shiro says softly.

Approaching the dock once more, it’s not long before they start to feel the effects of artificial gravity, dragging Shiro up to the ceiling… well, it must be the floor. Shiro corkscrews to reorient, getting a feel for his weight and thrusting upward at an angle for a bit of lift.

K’s body language turns fearful again. They’re almost there but he slows and drifts downward, half-sitting on his coiled tail in the flora. His expression is obscured by the visor, but the mer looks in Shiro’s direction and he swallows hard as his shoulders hunch down.

Shiro drops down in front of him, slowly offering his hand. “Hey,” he says quietly. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

K sits unmoving, fingers fidgeting with the carpet of leaves.

Please, Shiro thinks, pressing his hand closer, palm-up and expectant.

Let me do this for you, like you did for me.

K rumbles in his chest, and takes the outstretched hand. Shiro sighs, realizing only then how he’d held his breath, terrified that this, after everything, would finally stand in their way.

Shiro pulls him close, getting his feet under him and starting to walk with K pressed to his chest. By the time they reach the threshold, Shiro fully carries the mer’s weight. He’s all but limp in Shiro’s grasp, tail dangling precariously underfoot. It feels vulnerable, so trusting. Shiro feels weaker on the ground than he’s felt in a long, long while, but he’s far too stubborn to let K down.

As the hatch opens, the light and noise overwhelms them both. Shiro will adjust, he knows, but K would have been suffering without the visor.

Matt is there in the welcoming party, of course, one hand hovering on the mobility chair he promised to bring. Shiro will greet his friend soon, but first he’s absorbed in seeing to the mer’s needs. He settles him in the chair without a word, bending a knee to adjust K’s long tail over the chair’s base, making sure he’ll be comfortable.

Shiro wants to keep holding K’s hand, but he seems to need both sets of claws to work the chair. K seems satisfied by that, though, handling the controls like a pro. Which isn’t surprising, knowing the way he flies his ship, but yet it is just the same? He seems old hat at this.

Shiro does eventually let go of K long enough to give Matt a smothering hug.

“I can’t believe I found you out here,” Shiro sighs.

“Freaky, right? Did your Marmoran friend help track us down? I mean, that wouldn’t be a surprise, I guess. Their people were known for espionage in their heyday.” It clicks for Shiro that he’s heard that word several times: Marmoran. The flight controller said it. Matt’s been saying it, babbling excitedly since before Shiro even got K seated, thrilled he gets to meet a real Marmoran.

“A what?”

“A Marmoran! I mean, I didn’t recognize the ship, but Ollie did. I’m still learning to recognize all the Coalition member species. But these guys are legendary. Marmorans are a reclusive people, like, they seriously don’t come out much. You must be pretty special,” Matt elbows Shiro’s ribs.

“Try pretty close to death,” Shiro deadpans.

“Not on this guy’s watch, I bet,” Matt answers with a smirk. Then he holds a headset out to K, an unfamiliar setup with some kind of visor and earphones perfectly shaped for his pinnae. K takes it swiftly, already wrestling the bulky helmet off with his eyes shut tightly to trade one for the other.

“Oh, well,” Shiro shrugs, “we kinda improvised.”

“I mean, good job, dude,” Matt pats his arm. “Great thinking. But this works better with his heat-vision—”

“—His what?” Shiro gulps. He feels the heat, alright. His cheeks are on fire.

“—And it has the jawbone amplifier Marmorans use.” Matt watches closely as K fits the device close along his jaw, turning a dial.

Shiro blinks at his friend. “Wait, come again?”

“You sweet summer child,” Matt nudges Shiro’s shoulder with a laugh. He’s already more than a little off-balance trying to keep up with the conversation and the jostle doesn’t help one bit. “The headset amplifies his sub-vocalizations, so the universal translator can actually work.”

Shiro has a hundred more questions but they’re all piled up, crowding to the front all at once. Shiro’s jaw hangs open uselessly instead.

It’s K who reaches out to close it, smoothing lavender fingers along Shiro’s jaw. He turns into the mer’s touch automatically, wondering what his face is doing.

“Shiro,” the mer says. The voice is strange, digitally-enhanced, but the words are all his. “May I call you this?”

“Oh my God, I can hear you,” Shiro gasps, eyes suddenly bright with tears. “You… I can’t believe it! And- and you know my name,” he wonders aloud, awestruck.

“You taught it to me,” K smirks, vindicated. “You remember?”

“Of course I remember,” Shiro says, cupping his face. He wishes he could see the dark of K’s eyes right now, the way they crinkle at the corners in amusement. He just wants to kiss him, right here and right now. The impulse almost overwhelms Shiro, has him drifting closer before he even realizes. “Tell me your name?”

The smile he gets in return is sharp around the edges. “Keith,” he says.

“Keith,” Shiro echoes wonderingly. The name is so human, so strangely familiar, like everything else about the mer. “Wait, who is Kogane?”

“My father,” he answers. “And also me.”

Matt knows everyone, it seems. He’s quick to introduce Shiro and Keith to the rebel leaders, who are equally eager to meet the two of them. Every ally helps in the fight against the empire. Shiro is struck by how little he’s really seen out here in the wide universe; he’s unfamiliar with most of the races seated at the conference table. He has so much to learn.

Shiro gets up to speed as quickly as he can: who the rebels are, how they can help him on his way to Earth. How they could use his help, too.

They’re looking for Sam, both because he’s Matt’s kin, and because his expertise and intel would be invaluable to the cause. Shiro wishes he could offer anything about where Sam was taken, but he knows nothing that the rebels haven’t already gleaned— a special assignment, R&D, secreted away somewhere under guard.

Matt sets his jaw when he talks about his dad. “We’re going to get him back. I know it.”

Shiro wants everything at once. He wants to join the cause, wants to save Sam and countless other innocents. He wants to warn Earth, needs to. They might not have much time. And… he wants to stay.

He turns to Keith.

“What should we do?” Shiro asks.

“We?” Keith’s amplified voice is still soft as a whisper. Something private, just for them.

“Yeah,” Shiro says with a nervous flutter in his stomach, “we… should decide together. I mean, if you want that?”

“I do,” Keith says, reaching for his hand on the tabletop. It’s almost automatic, an easy choice to make. Shiro breathes a shaky sigh of relief.

“Okay, lovebirds,” Matt snorts, “let’s stay on track here, yeah?”

Shiro feels his cheeks flush, but he’s not the least bit sorry. He’s sick of saying goodbye. He wants to hang on to what he loves.

Keith looks around the table at the rebel leaders, then back at Shiro. “We should help rescue your friend, yes?”

“Okay,” Shiro nods. “Yes, I want to do that.”

“And then… to Earth?”

Shiro feels his jaw hang slack. “Keith… Earth is a long, long way from here. I can’t ask you to—”

“You don’t ask,” Keith says, tail swishing the air near Shiro’s feet. “I offer.”

Shiro swallows. “We’ll need to get there… soon. I’m not even sure how it’s possible.”

“I think dad will have some ideas,” Matt offers. That is what the intel says, that the empire has Sam and other scientists working on reviving an Altean technology for wormholes. The mere thought of it boggles the mind, but it’s honestly the only way they’ll make it to Earth in Shiro’s lifetime.

Keith seems to study Shiro’s face. It’s hard to tell through the visor. Maybe he wouldn’t feel so uncertain about all of this if he could see Keith’s eyes? After all the time they spent alone, just the two of them, it’s how they know each other best.

“My father was from your Earth,” Keith says at last, pursing his lips. “He died long ago, but when I was small, he said he would take me there someday. I would like to see it.”

Shiro squeezes his hand.

“And I would like to remain with you, Shiro,” Keith continues, fidgeting with his tail. Shiro thinks he’d see the mer’s bright flush if they were back in the nest, alone in the dark. “That is what I want.”

“Wow,” Shiro says. “Okay. Then we’ll go together.”

“You are sure?”

“Of course.” Shiro’s stupid heart trips over itself at the mer’s uneven smile. He’s so happy it hurts. “I’ll take you home.”

They’re offered lodging on the base, of course, but Shiro declines for both of them. He takes some supplies and a pouch of nutrient supplements Matt says aren’t too bitter, and returns to the ship with K. With… Keith.

The mer drives the hover chair inside the hatch, staying with it until the influence of the base’s gravity falls away. He keeps the jawbone amplifier on but raises the visor as they swim side-by-side, meeting Shiro’s eyes in the dark.

“You could hear me the whole time?” Shiro asks.

“Yes.” Keith flushes bright, and Shiro thrills to see it. How he missed seeing Keith like this, in the few vargas there were away. “But only sounds. Not words, not meaning.”

“But you… understood me?”

Keith nods. “Your touch is words. Your touch is meaning.”

As they turn toward Keith’s nest, he chews his lip like he’s choosing his words. Shiro doesn’t want to press him, but he’s aching to know what he’s thinking.

Keith looks his way with a crease between his brows. “Was it very hard for you?”

“It was worth it,” Shiro says, cupping Keith’s face and bringing their foreheads together. “To know you. That’s worth everything.”

It doesn’t matter that it was hard. He’d do it again, every bit of it, to get to where they are.

They kiss slowly, rolling through the air. The headset gets in the way and Keith pulls it off, letting it drift away as he crowds Shiro into the nest and starts to undress him.

Shiro watches in awe of the way he moves, the flex of muscle that shifts all of his fins and controls the sharp flick his tail. Keith is powerful, beautiful, otherworldly— all the things he was from the first moment they met. But he’s so much more now. He’s become a friend. Someone Shiro loves. Someone he’ll follow to the ends of the universe.

Keith’s touch is worshipful and slow. Shiro’s is the same, stroking the long, smooth lines of his body, ruffling his fingers through the webbed tendrils of Keith’s plumage, petting the sensitive lobes that frame his face. He sighs against Keith’s lips and tastes his tongue, always slightly sweet.

I love you, Shiro thinks. He thinks he should tell Keith that. But then, he probably already is.