#ignore that hand...i didnt render that part yet

[mollyrolls]

hey cupid! ☆ iwaizumi h. x reader

14. reverie

warnings: finale. language, miscommunication, one religious joke (kinda).

an: its finally here! thank you all for the love on hey cupid, truly means more than you could ever know. i hope this lives up to the hype, sorry it took so long lmao.

cont. the italicized part is from the nsfw chapter i have yet to upload, so sorry if thats confusing. basically, she thinks iwa just wanted to fuck and then dip, so she hurts her own feelings over it. he didnt, they talk abt it, you'll read the rest. ok. thanks again <3

prev. / mlist.

They’re not saying anything. When she knocked on the door five minutes ago, she looked as happy as ever to see him. Now that they’re sitting a million miles apart in Iwaizumi’s living room, she seems less than pleased.

He knew that this wouldn’t go exactly like he planned, but he didn’t think it would be like this. Instead of their predictable back and forth, she won’t even look at him. 

It makes him feel sick.

Iwaizumi anxiously adjusts in his chair, drawing her attention to him. They hold eye contact for only a moment, before she looks away again, embarrassed.

He had worked himself up to say something, but meeting her eyes rendered him fully useless.

The same tense silence fills the room once more, suffocating them. Finally, she sighs dejectedly. 

“Look, I’m sorry for the other night. I wish you would’ve told me you were so uncomfortable with sleeping with me, but it’s my fault for not checking. You don’t have to talk to me anymore if you don’t want to.”

He doesn’t know how to respond. Her assumption being so off track makes him start to lag behind, as he racks his brain for what he’s done to make her think that.

When he doesn't say anything, still stuck in his own thoughts, she cradles her head in her hands. Seemingly willing the floor to swallow her whole. 

“Are you going to say anything? Or just sit there and let me humiliate myself until I die?” Her question comes out muffled from behind her hands.

He gains enough consciousness to shut that down quickly. “You’re not humiliating yourself. Like I said, I don’t regret what we did.”

Hajime’s first words of the night do little to lighten her spirits. She seems perpetually weighed down, and has since her date with Osamu.

If Iwaizumi could reasonably kill him, he would. 

She sounds unconvinced. “Yeah, ok.” 

“You don’t believe me?” 

Her hands fall from her face, choosing instead to stare at the wall distantly. “I don’t know. You aren’t really acting like you’re proud of what we did.”

The accusation doesn’t sit well with him. Sure, he hadn’t shouted from the mountaintops, but it’s like she’s forgetting what had happened after.

He lies down in just his boxers, her in just his shirt. The labored breathing coming from both of them isn’t enough to quiet the roaring in his ears. She rolls over to face him, eyes still puffy from the rollercoaster she put herself through. “Iwaizumi?”  He just hums, unsure of how steady his voice would be. “Do you regret it?” He knows this is the last bit of her insecurities, the ones he feels responsible to tamper. So as anxious as it makes him to admit it, he does it for her. “…. No.” She doesn’t say anything. He takes it as acceptance enough. “Do you?” The pause is longer from her. But she sounds more sure.  “No.” He lets himself be selfish, and wraps his arms around her, bringing her closer in. If his words aren’t enough, he’ll let his actions do the work. He tries to ignore the shakiness of her shoulders as they fall into a fitful sleep.

 “Well, you aren’t either. I’ve at least come out and said it.”

She sours at that, remnants of the fight probably swimming back up to the surface. She bounces back faster than before, but he knows that’s still holding her back.

“I don’t think I regret it…” She starts, and Hajime starts to dread the ‘but’ that will follow. It’s terrifying how much power she holds over him with just a sentence. 

“...I’m just scared of what’ll happen if I admit it.”

Hajime can see how scared she is. It’s something he’s never witnessed from her before; it doesn’t feel right. She’s supposed to be persistent and nagging him about something stupid, not second guessing herself. Especially not over someone like him.

As much as he hates seeing it, he knows how significant this is to her. He’s been there too, felt the anguish of silence on the other side. 

So he matches her effort, voice hoarse from how quiet it comes out. 

“I’m scared too.” 

It’s so silent in Iwaizumi’s living room that he can hear her breathing, even and controlled. Like she’s willing the oxygen to go down. 

“So what do we do?”

“I’m not really sure.” He feels like a teenage boy again, hyper aware of every movement he makes. “Do you want to do something?”

She grumbles. “I mean, yeah.” 

Hajime’s heart squeezes tight in his chest when he hears it again. He thinks he could never get tired of her admitting it.

“It would be stupid for us to… feel like this and not ‘do something’,” She makes sure to exaggerate the air quotes, much to his annoyance. At least she’s not so anxious that she can’t be a pain in his ass some of the time. 

“But, it would also be stupid to try and avoid the glaring problem between us.”

He agrees with a nod. 

That seems to be the end of it, as neither of them make any move to continue the conversation. 

They’ve never been good in silence. Even when they were out on their dates, it felt like they had the mutual understanding to fight, if only to pass the time. Hajime wonders briefly when all that changed.

He truly cannot place the time when he started thinking about her like this. Like how her happiness and her fire are the only thing he cares about when he’s around her, and even more so when he’s not. 

Honestly, Hajime can’t even remember if he really hated her after their first date. Since he can’t place a time, if he feels this way now he must’ve felt like this then. The butting heads, the petty fights, that’s just who they are. 

But sitting in the silence of this living room, he solemnly wonders if that’s all they’ll ever be. If they can’t get through one conversation to process their feelings, what hope do they have for a future together?

As if she can hear his thoughts, she lets out a shaky breath. 

“If I ask you something, do you promise to answer me honestly?”

Her voice sounds wrong again, like it had that night. Too unsure of itself to belong to her.

“I’ll try.”

She readies herself before dropping the second most catastrophic bomb Iwaizumi could have ever imagined. 

“Why do you fight with me so much?”

There are a million ways he could answer her question, none of which he wants to admit. That he thought that was just their relationship, so he never put much thought into it. That he truly doesn’t know, sometimes he just can’t help himself. That the way it makes his heart race is dangerous, and how he has no intention of stopping because of how excited it makes him.

He could try and answer her, give them a reason to pinpoint and work through so that they could do this, but that would be lying. Hajime could never lie to her.

So instead, he decides to take a leap of faith.

“Is it really a problem though?”

She looks at him puzzled, like he hadn’t listened to a word she said.

He tries again. He's finally getting his momentum, and he can’t afford to lose it now. “What I mean is, yeah we do fight a lot. But it’s never over really important stuff. It’s just bickering.”

She nods as he speaks, wheels turning in her mind. “I don’t know why we fight. It’s probably some deep rooted psychological shit that I don’t care about.” Hajime sends up a silent prayer that his next words won’t humiliate him to the ends of the Earth.

“But I care about you.”

She freezes, probably not expecting him to come right out and say it. He hadn’t expected it to fully admit it tonight, but now that it's out in the universe he has no desire to take it back. It feels too right. 

“I don’t…” She tries to find the words, but Hajime stops her. She pulls a face at the intrusion, but lets him continue. 

“If it bothers you, I’ll try to cut it out. But I like that we fight.” 

She seems even more confused, but he feels excited. He’s finally saying the things that have haunted him since he met her, but only recently gave weight to. He realizes how long he’s been waiting to admit it.

“Sure, it’s always about you being right and being a genuine pain in my ass,” he starts, not fighting his grin anymore. She groans at the accusation, but doesn’t deny it. Hajime can see her lips starting to curl up, which sparks something deep in his chest.

“But you’re not a pushover. You’ll call me out on my bullshit, and not pull any punches. That’s what I want.”

His adrenaline is starting to wear off, but he'll be damned if he doesn't get it all out on the table now, so he pushes down the nerves. It’s not everything he wants to say, but he knows she’ll know.

“You’re who I want.”

The atmosphere in the room softens as the confession falls from his lips. Her face betrays nothing, and Hajime can see all the thoughts floating around in her head. 

She smiled at his words. There’s no denying that. The sight made the whole conversation worth it, regardless of how badly he wanted to shit himself. 

But the sight is short lived, before the conflict falls back over her face. 

“I like it too…” she starts, releasing the lip pulled between her teeth to give him a small shit-eating grin. “It’s gratifying being able to rub it in your face how wrong you are all the time.”

He laughs at that, low and warm.

She looks like she wants to overthink again, but pushes it away. He’s thankful for that; any more overthinking and he’d start to panic again too.

Instead, she deflects. “I was thinking about it the other night.”

Her gaze starts to flick slowly across the room, looking at anything but him.

“You were thinking about me?” 

He doesn’t mean it as a joke, but she takes it as one. 

“Please shut up.” She looks over her shoulder at him with that easy grin before startling herself and turning back.

“What I mean is, I think I know why we fight. But I think if I tell you, you’d take it the wrong way.”

He tries not to be hurt at the accusation, but it’s unsuccessful. Which might be proving her point, but he wants to know anyway.

“You don’t know that unless you say it.” 

His proposal is unsuccessful.

“Even still, I know it’d ruin the mood. I finally stopped feeling like I wanted to die in your presence, why would you want to waste it?.” 

Her persistence makes his curiosity grow stronger, but it’s also with a twinge of unease. He’s not sure what she could be thinking about, but he doesn’t know when they’re gonna have another talk like this. He has to see it through.

When she finally agrees, it's barely above a whisper. So low he can barely make it out. 

“I think I see the worst parts of myself in you.”

Suddenly, he wishes he didn’t hear her.

His ears start ringing again, thoughts running rampant. He leans back against the couch, crossing his arms in an attempt to get some distance. 

He doesn’t mean to seem petulant, but he’s sure he does.

At his movement, she turns around and pins him in his place with her gaze.

“See what I mean?” She softly points a finger at him. “Took it the wrong way.”

Despite this, she moves closer into his space. He tries to walk away, feeling too scorned and hurt to have this conversation anymore. She follows after him quickly, calling out for him to stop.

“I know that because I felt that way too.”

It falls from her lips in a rush, stopping him in his tracks. He still can’t bring himself to face her.

"Wait. It was probably dumb for me to say this now, I’m sorry. I panicked.” She begs, voice wavering slightly. Hajime feels the lightest touch on his arm, beckoning him to turn back. “Please don’t be mad. I promise it makes sense, and I’m not some horrible person for saying this.”

He’s not strong enough to resist her. 

He continues to keep his distance, but the two settle back on the couch. She begins to explain, looking as nervous as Hajime felt earlier. 

“I was trying to think everything through, especially after my freak out when we slept together. I didn’t understand why it impacted me so much, so I started writing about it, until it hit me like a fucking freight train.”

She readies herself with another deep breath, not too different from his own. He wonders if this is the equivalent to her confession.

“I know our bickering is different now, at least it is for me, but at the beginning it was definitely real. Which is why I’ve been so scared to do something, because I don’t want it to go back to that.”

He only nods, letting her continue on. 

“But I think what it was, was that it was easy to hate you because you were too much like me.”

She anxiously adjusts in her spot, drawing his attention to her. He stops after a moment, starting to realize what she means.

“I saw the things I don’t like about myself in someone else, and my insecurities lit up like crazy. I took things out on you because I couldn’t face them in myself.”

As she says it, memories and moments start flooding into his brain. The way he felt on their first date, overly protective of Bokuto and assuming he knew what’s best for him. When she went against his ideas, it felt like a personal attack, so he went in just as hard.

When he found out about her date and immediately felt sorry for himself. So the only thing he could think to do was make her feel bad too. Even if it was with good intentions.

“Which is why I knew you’d take it badly. Because I did too.” She finishes, watching his every move as he processes. 

The wound from the delivery is still a little raw, but he understands what she means. In a weird way, probably lending evidence to her theory, it’s comforting knowing she had the same experience with this revelation as him. 

It’s a little awkward, having everything laid out like that. He feels cut open, put on display for her to see. But in turn, she shared that same feeling with him. He sees that for what it is, and decides to leave it at that. There’s no need hashing out mutual insecurities, at least not now. 

Instead, he simply turns to her with a private kind of smile. “I’ve totally earned the right to read what you wrote about me now.”

Her gaze softens when she processes what he says, relief visible in her body language.

So much so that she starts to laugh. It’s a crazed kind of laugh, like the one you might get after a near death experience.

It makes him laugh too. 

“Why did I say that?” She says through broken gasps.  “You’re never going to let me live that down.”

He can’t fight the stupid grin that covers his face. “No, I’m really not. It’s nice to know you thought about me that much though.”

Not only did they have a serious conversation, they made it through on good terms.

Hajime feels fucking invincible. 

Her laughter subsides, and she settles back against the couch, facing him. “I’m just going to let you forget about it.” 

He faces her too, taking in her features in this softened, less anxious light. “Never gonna happen. I’m going to remind you that you thought about me so much that you just had to write about me. Multiple times, it sounds like.” 

“Ugh. I hate you.” She tries to shoot him a glare, but it doesn’t have nearly as much bite. He might even go as far to say that she’s smiling at him.

“I wonder how often my name appears in your diary. Oh, or your texts. Can I read your texts too? I have to know what you’re saying about me.” 

“Please stop.”

He sees his opportunity, and she realizes her mistake.

“No, don’t do it-” “Last time I checked, you were the one begging me to not stop.”

She groans in despair. “Please let this torment end." 

Riding his high, he braces himself against the back of the couch, putting his arm around her blatantly. 

Despite her complaints, she leans into him willingly. “You really are the worst Iwaizumi.”

It feels odd to think not ten minutes ago he wanted to leave his own apartment to get away from her. Now, he would do anything to freeze this moment forever.

“Eh. You love me.”

His body goes taut, not realizing what he said. He’s joked about it before, but now it has some kind of gravity to it. His heart starts to beat so fast, Hajime worries it might punch a hole through his chest.

She pauses, gaze looking a little wistful as she looks away at a spot on the floor. The words that fall from her mouth are quiet, barely above a whisper. 

“Yeah. I think I might.”

It’s odd how the world exploded at that same moment. 

Hajime doesn’t let himself believe what he just heard. It seems too unbelievable, too perfect to be happening to him. 

They sit in the silence of it, the words repeating over and over in his head. A choir of angels wouldn’t sound half as beautiful as that.

She doesn’t let his reverie last long.

“You’re just... not gonna say anything back? Real dick move there.” 

The soft smile painting her features are enough to negate the shove she lands on his shoulder. 

“Sorry. Sorry. I like you too.” He smiles down at her loopily.

She gasps in fabricated disbelief. “Only like? Are you serious right now?”

He responds with a shrug. “Yeah. You’re alright, I guess. Love is for suckers.”

He can’t resist the jab. It’s in their nature, after all.

“Oh, you wish, Iwaizumi. You wish I sucked.”

He gazes down at her, making sex jokes without a care in the world, and suddenly feels an overwhelming urge to kiss her. 

“You’re gross.”

He loves her. Without a doubt in his mind.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Iwaizumi.” She replies with a grin. And in a moment, a long, perfect moment, the tiny space that was left between them is gone.

prev. / mlist.

taglist!

@chemiru, @whosmarjj, @seroh, @skrunkly-soaked-rat, @yessimo,

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@walllflowerrrsss, @bectoshi, @bakingcuriosity, @sun-nny-side-up

[lovedbee]

unfinished doodle while watching yesterday's stream :)

[littleshebear]

Little Bird chapter 4

pt 1 | pt 2| pt 3

Ao3 Link

-/

Eva Levante meets a remorseful Amanda while Zavala gets a letter.

-/

Eva Levante has come to visit and thus, the orphanage’s common room is in a state of organised chaos. The Festival of the Lost will be upon them soon so Miss Eva has come to help them get started on decorations. Extra tables have been brought in and they’re already a riot of colour, covered in paper, glitter and foil. A few glue sticks roll off desks and begin to dry out on the floor, casualties of short attention spans and the excitement of an interruption to the usual monotony of their days.

Amanda sits in a corner away from the worst of the ruckus and looks down at the blank papers in front of her with an increasing sense of despondence. She’s not familiar with this celebration at all. Miss Eva had said it was to remember those who had been lost, “with joy and sorrow.” Amanda doesn’t feel like she needs reminding what she’s lost and while she understands the sorrow part, the joy aspect of it seems unattainable to her.

She glances around the room to try to glean some ideas from what the other children are doing. She sees mock candles rendered in cardboard, burning with ‘flames’ of orange tissue paper. Many of them create paper mock ups of some sort of round, orange vegetable she doesn’t recognise, only to then draw leering, grinning faces on them. It’s creepy. Why would anyone want that on their wall?

One of the other children spots her lack of activity and calls out, “Hey New Girl? Why aren’t you making anything?”

New Girl . It’s been months but she’s still “New Girl.” Amanda suspects that barring some major disaster in the City, she’ll always be the New Girl in the orphanage; refugees just aren’t arriving in the City anymore. She hears the stories, how she was the last to pass through the gates, how there’s no one left outside. She hears the jibes and cutting questions. Did you get lost? How could you miss the Traveler, it’s not like it’s tiny . They don’t say that to her face anymore, not since she channeled her frustration at their ignorance into her fists. She’d been put in detention for a week after that but it had been worth it. When her teachers sagely advised that fighting was wrong and asked if she’d learned her lesson, she’d nodded dutifully and said yes but that was a lie. There was nothing to learn, she was right. Those bullies had no idea what it was like out there. They had no right to pass judgement, no right to make fun of Ma and Pa or the rest of the caravan. They’d done their best.

That familiar, yet altogether unpleasant ball of heat starts to build inside her and spread up, through her chest, to her face and behind her eyes. She takes a deep breath and pushes her anger back down. She decides she wants nothing to do with this Festival of the Lost nonsense and opts on engaging in a totally different project. She sifts through her materials and picks out a piece of light yellow paper; not too garish, not too offensive, then picks out a dark blue crayon from a pot on the table. She wanted black but this is closest to that colour she has available to her. She leans over the table, nose nearly to the paper and begins to write, her little brows furrowing in concentration. After a while, she sits up to stretch and think about how to continue. It’s then that she notices Miss Eva standing over her, smiling and inquisitive.

“Do you not want to make decorations, dear?”

Amanda shrugs and covers the paper with her arms.

“Are you drawing a picture?”

She shakes her head. “Writing a letter.”

“Oh,” Eva says, with that exaggerated interest that grown ups always do when they don’t understand something a child is doing. “Who are you writing to, dear?”

She feels her cheeks warm with a blush as she suddenly feels very silly. “Commander Zavala.”

“You know the Commander?” Eva’s interest seems far more genuine now as she pulls up a chair beside her.

“Not really,” Amanda explains in an embarrassed mumble. “I made him mad.”

“Oh, what could you possibly have done to make the Commander angry? I can’t imagine that.”

She lists the all the things she could have possibly done to irritate Zavala and counts them off on her fingers. “Uhhm, I tried to steal from Executor Hideo, I keep running away from the orphanage and I snuck into the hangar and hid under a table.”

“Ah,” Eva tips her head to the side in agreement. “Yes, well. That would probably do it. He didn’t frighten you, did he?”

“A li’l bit, he’s pretty scary. But it’s okay, the monsters are scared of him too.”

Eva threads her fingers together and leans towards Amanda, her expression of quiet amusement switching to one of concern. “What monsters?”

“The ones outside,” she states matter of factly. “Y’know. The bad stuff beyond the walls.”

Eva nods seriously. “I do, dear. I do know.”

Amanda looks up from her writing with saucer-wide eyes. When she speaks it’s a low, conspiratorial whisper. “Have you seen ‘em too?”

“I was a refugee.” She hazards laying a hand over one of Amanda’s and looks gratified when the child doesn’t flinch. “I know exactly what you’re talking about.”

“The others ain’t seen ‘em. They don’t get it.”

“Is that why you run away?”

Amanda pulls back and makes a big production of neatly folding the finished letter in half. “This place gives me a stomach ache,” she finally answers with a shrug.

“Well. Maybe we can do something about your stomach ache,” Eva begins in an indulgent tone. “But you mustn’t run away. It’s not safe, that’s why Zavala gets mad. It’s his job to keep people safe.”

“I know,” Amanda smooths down the paper one last time before scrawling Zavala’s name across it. “That’s why I’m writing him.”

-/

Eva pops her head around Zavala’s office door after knocking. “Are you busy?”

Zavala raises an eyebrow in response. His expression is stony but the amusement is there for those who know where to look. Eva covers her mouth with her hand to stifle the embarrassed giggle that emerges.

“I’m sorry my friend, silly question.”

His expression softens and he beckons her in, “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing for now, all is well in the Bazaar,” she fishes a piece of folded, bright yellow construction paper out of her bag before she takes a seat. “I’m here as a messenger today.”

Zavala accepts the ‘letter’ with a confused frown. “What is - Ah. I see.” He smiles softly to himself as he reads, despite the childish scrawl and the myriad spelling and grammatical errors.

Dear comandur Zavala,

Sorry for trying to steal from exek execkyu Hidayoh. Stealing aint right I know that.

Im sorry I keep running away from the orfanage. I dont mean to worry no one, I just get I just dont like being cooped up. Sorry for creeping into the hangar. I didnt mean no harm. I wanted to see the ships. I like ships. When I grow up I wanna be an enj engani someone who fixes stuff. I hope I didnt get no one into troubble, can you tell the hangar folks that Im real sorry if I did?

Thank you for walking me back,

Amanda Nora Holliday.

Zavala finishes reading and fixes Eva with an incredulous look.

“I haven’t read it,” Eva holds up her hands and shakes her head. “I don’t know what it says, it wasn’t addressed to me.”

“How did you get it?”

“Sometimes I like to pop over the orphanage, for the children. Give them something to do, break up the monotony. Their little lives can be so regimented. Amanda asked me to give this to you. I couldn’t say no, she seemed so earnest and,” she summons her most matronly smile for Zavala, “Very concerned that she had made you mad.”

“Am I really that intimidating?”

“You can come off as rather brusque, I won’t lie.”

“I had no intention of frightening her, I just-”

“You worry,” Eva points out in a gentle interruption. “I know.”

Zavala takes a moment to glance over the letter before speaking again. “How did she seem to you?”

Eva’s smile fades. “A little isolated perhaps? I don’t think the other children understand her. Refugees are a rare thing nowadays. And she said the orphanage gives her a stomach ache.”

Zavala frowns, while Eva gives a sad smile at his puzzlement.

“‘I have a stomach ache’ is little girl-speak for ‘I’m afraid,’” she explains. “And she was less than enthused about the upcoming festival.”

“I don’t think it has been that long since she lost her parents. It’s likely still very raw for her.” He stares off into space, tapping the letter on the edge of his desk, lost in thought.

“I can keep an eye on her if you’d like?” Eva offers, breaking through his distraction.

“I didn’t ask-”

“I know you didn’t,” Eva chuckles, “You’re obviously worried about her but you’re a busy man. I often call into the orphanage, it would be no trouble for me.”

“You’re very kind, Eva, thank you.”

“Like I said, it’s no trouble,” she assures him, rising from her seat. “Have you considered my suggestion? About bringing the Festival of the Lost to the Tower?”

“You think it advisable to expose Cayde to dress-up games and sugar highs?”

“A small price. It would be good for you. You Guardians were lost once, too.” Eva opens the office door and cocks her head. “Think on it. For old Eva.”

“I will,” he nods indulgently.

Eva makes to leave before turning around to face him again. “Have you been crocheting lately?”

Zavala meets her gaze. There’s warmth and compassion there but Zavala knows it’s so keen and perceptive she could almost be an Awoken. “When I have time.”

“You look stressed.” She wags her finger at him as though he were a truculent child rather than a centuries-old immortal. “Make time!” She insists before showing herself out

[kacchanislife]

If requests are still open could you maybe write something for Hizashi/Present Mic? A new hero(with a quirk of your choice), whose helping to teach at UA. They’re partially deaf and they will sometimes sign back and forth with him. Maybe something fluffy where the reader is across the hall and asks him out on a date? And he starts getting flustered and his class is so confused bcus they don’t see his crush signing at him? Thank you! If not, i understand. Have a good day!

AHHHHHH, I HAD LIKE HALF OF THIS WRITTEN AND THEN I ACCIDENTALLY DIDNT SAVE AND EXITED THE APP. AHHHH

BUT I LOVE YOU ANON FOR REQUESTING PRESENT MIC!!!! I HOPE YOU ENJOY

(I totally meant to post this when I first got it, buuuttt I had a bunch of essays to do, I hope you like it!)

A Friendly Hand

Warnings: not really? Idk ASL or JSL very much tho

Pairing(s): Hizashi Yamada/Present Mic x Reader/Pulse

You had always looked up to Present Mic, the voice hero who defied what it meant to be a voice hero. He was partially deaf, just like you, and earned a career as a teacher, Pro-Hero, radio show host, and he’s a singer. You look up to him because he can do it all and doesn’t let his disability slow him down or stop him. You admire that about him, you admire him in general.

As a hero from America, there’s a lot of stigma about people with disabilities- even quirk related ones. You struggled from day one to get recognized as a hero, you already had hearing problems as a child and when you’re quirk was developing it only got worse. You can’t have sonic propulsion as a quirk and not expect a side effect that didn’t affect your hearing. Sonic booms from space shuttles could render a human permanately deaf and your quirk rivaled those sounds, so it was no wonder your hearing got progressively worse as you got older. Which just made it harder to be a hero, if you can’t communicate with your team, how are you suppose to work effectively?

But you didn’t care, you were going to be a hero no matter what. You took extra precaution to wear noise cancelling headphones, you worked with another hero who could link your team together so no verbal communication was required, you had a speech pathologist who helped with your speaking, and a pair of hearing aides for when you weren’t working. It’s a lot of work, but you were determined to be like Present Mic and follow your dreams.

Which is why you were so happy when all the struggle you’ve been through to be an amazing hero has finally paid off. Even with all the setbacks and the struggles to establish yourself a hero, you’ve done it. You’ve been invited to become a teacher at U.A. High School in Japan. THE hero school of hero schools! Many great heroes have graduated from U.A. and you’re incredibly honored to even be considered as a teacher there. Of course, you readily accepted and started to make preparations for moving. This included learning JSL, or Japanese Sign Language, so that you could communicate while you learned Japanese. Which, you knew, was going to be difficult. You can speak English, but pronunciation and volume control is still hard for you, which means pronouncing words in a language you don’t know will be even harder.

You can do it, though, you’ve pulled off greater feats in your life so far. Plus, you were going to meet your personal hero! You couldn’t just give up on learning a new language because it was hard, you were going to be an exceptional hero- just like Present Mic! 

Settling into your new life at Japan didn’t take that much time surprisingly, you were mostly using the time you had before you would start helping to teach to get accustomed to the language and customs. You didn’t want to offend anyone and you needed to learn the language to communicate with others. Though, you figure if you really need the help you can hire a translator while you’re still learning, but first you wanted to try on your own. Which proved to be really difficult and by the time the start date of your new job at U.A. rolled around you felt wholly unprepared to communicate with others. 

You could’ve cried you were so frustrated with how unsuccessful learning JSL had been, you stare at the books in front of you, willing them to make more sense or to magically transfer all the knowledge to you. A part of you wishes that was your quirk instead of the one you have. No, you thought, I can’t think negatively about this. It just means you need to work harder, you can do this. 

Today, well, today was just going to suck as you struggled to communicate with others. You hope that at least one of them knows English enough for you to verbally communicate if that is what it takes. As you arrived at U.A. you were astonished by the size of it all, it was beautiful and definitely lived up to the name of being the number one hero school. You feel yourself getting giddy again and ignoring the complications of communication for now. 

The badge that had been mailed to you was fished from your purse and you held it up to the gate where it scanned you in. You exhale softly as you prepare yourself to meet your new coworkers and mentors. You take the plunge and never look back. 

And you’re glad you didn't let your struggle to communicate hinder you from accepting one of the most rewarding jobs right after being a Pro Hero. Looking back six months ago you would not have guessed you could integrate seamlessly with Japanese Pro Heroes, but that doesn’t matter now. You were now the assistant English teacher at U.A. and held an elective Japanese Sign Language course. You’re so proud of all the progress you’ve made and if you were being honest, you owed half that success to your personal hero. 

Present Mic, or Hizashi as you call him now, instantly understood the struggle you had with communicating with them all and stepped in to help you. As someone who knew JSL, ASL, English, and Japanese he was more than capable of helping you out. Principal Nezu decided that it was best you accompany Hizashi as his assistant teacher- which worked perfectly for you because you’re native tongue is English. If there was ever a man you respected, admired, and loved more than Hizashi it had withered away when he offered his help. From then the two of you had become the best of friends and constantly going out with each other as well as sharing inside jokes. 

Which is what leads you to today. You’ve been thinking about it a lot and you have come to the decision that you want to ask Hizashi on a date, as more than friends, and you’re going to make that happen today. You had to plan it perfectly, you didn’t want your intentions misread and you certainly didn’t want to risk NOT asking him and chickening out for the rest of your life. As you got ready that morning before school would start a plan formed in your mind and took action. 

First step: stop by the store and get a little statue to Ebisu, the Japanese Shinto god that was said to be deaf

Second step: ask Shouta for a pair of Hizashi’s headphones (you know that man has a few somewhere)

Third step: wait for your free period and set up the headphones and statue on his desk in the teacher’s lounge with a picture of the two of you

Fourth step: AVOID Hizashi until your next period with him

Fifth and Final step: ask him out in ASL when he inevitably looks at you questioningly after step three and four

As the day progressed your plan was in perfect motion and by the time your last class of the day with Hizashi rolled around. You know from Nemuri and Shouta that Hizashi has been trying to find you since fourth period, but you skillfully avoided him. Nothing could ruin your plan and if you were honest if something were to ruin it, you would be greatly discouraged to follow through with it all. 

So! You avoided Hizashi until it was finally sixth period. You were in the classroom first with all the students and setting yourself up in the back of the class to watch over the students as they took a quiz. It took a moment for Hizashi to get settled and pull the quizzes out before he noticed you in the back. As he looked at you with questioning (and slightly hurt) eyes you signed to him slowly, ‘Someone once told me that asking for help is better than struggling to overcome an adversity on their own. Thank you for all your help Hizashi.’

You paused before you started to sign again, mustering all the courage that you could, ‘You’ve been my hero for as long as I can remember and getting to work with you these past six months have shown me that I more than admire you. I really like you and I was wondering if you’d like to go on a date this weekend to the pier?’

An instant blush formed on Hizashi’s cheeks and you could see some tears swell in his eyes. The students had been expecting their quizzes to be handed out only for their teacher to stop functioning it seemed. The students didn’t know sign language and they sure as hell weren’t paying attention to you in the back when their quiz was so close to them in the front. You smile at Hizashi as you cross the classroom to him and gently take the quizzes from his hands to pass out. 

The kids still aren’t sure what just happened, but Hizashi has a seemingly permanent blush on his cheeks and is unable to get any words out. Several times when you glance at him you see his hands moving to try and sign back to you, only for them to fall as his blush continues to deepen. Once all the quizzes were passed out and you were back to your post in the back of the class Hizashi seemed to reanimate. Students paused taking their test to glance up as he moved very quickly to the back of the class where you stood in your nerves. He hasn’t given an answer yet, after all. 

When you glance back up, Hizashi is right in front of you and seconds later his lips are on yours. The blush that springs up on your face is fierce but you kiss him back briefly before he pulls back. Hizashi’s hands fly up and he’s signing back to you, ‘You have no idea how much I like you too. I’d love to go on a date with you this weekend.’

All the students are silent as you beam at Hizashi and kiss him softly again, even if it was on the inappropriate side for being in class, before they all cheer. Everyone’s been wanting the two of you to get together and it seems it’s finally happening. Both you and Hizashi blush like idiots before he shoos them to pay attention to their quizzes. 

The rest of the class is spent signing back and forth to each other like usual. The only difference is the never ending blushes on your cheeks. 

[theolddarkmachine]

baby, it’s cold inside

“Voltron Heating & AC, what can we do for you?” A smoke filled voice answers. There’s a pleasant rasp to it that reminds Shiro of a crackling fire.

“I need help,” he says, mentally kicking himself before he’s even finished speaking when he realizes how stupid he must sound. There’s a pause, filled only with a quiet huffing sound that he’s certain is the technician swallowing a laugh.

“What’s your name?” The man asks, key clicks providing a quiet backdrop for his question.

“Shiro,” he answers quickly, biting his tongue when he thinks that the man is probably looking for a full name.

“Takashi Shirogane,” he rectifies, noting the pause in the typing as he speaks. “My friends call me Shiro.”

Because that’s helpful, he thinks to himself, sharpening his glare at his heater. This is all your fault.

“Alright, Shiro,” the man says, and Shiro wonders if he’s imagining the way his name sounds like silk the way it’s wrapped in his voice. “How can I help you?”

Tags: Christmas Meet Cute, Fluff, Duel Flustered Disasters

AO3

A/N: It’s the holidays, and ya know what, we deserve some fluff. Shoutout to @smartcookie727 who saved me from just naming this Pilot Light XD also let’s pretend that this sounds like i know anything about heaters

************************

It’s Christmas day, and Keith is cold.

Really fucking cold.

Which is just cosmically hilarious given he’s a heating repairman working in a shop without heating. Keith is certain he’d laugh about it if his teeth weren’t chattering violently enough to chip them.

“You should go home, Pidge. Go hang out with your family,” he says through the click, praying he doesn’t catch his tongue between them.

“And leave my favorite Grinch alone on this sacred day?” Pidge says, popping her gum for dramatic effect as she flashes her bright stare up over the top of her computer. “Never.”

“I’m not a Grinch,” Keith replies, almost defiantly as he pulls a foot up into his seat and tucks his knee against his chest.

He really isn’t. It’s a common misconception that he doesn’t like Christmas. He likes it well enough.

In fact, he finds a sort of solace in it. The holidays slowed the town down, and allowed him to breathe.

They were just quiet, and always had been.

For him, at least.

I can take this Christmas off, honey, his mother had offered the week prior, as she always did.

No, the station can’t function without you, Keith had laughed, waving her off, as he always did.

Fires didn’t take holidays, and as the captain of the Garrison Fire Department, Krolia knew that better than anyone. They were used to it by now, and always celebrated their Christmas the night before. It was tradition by now, just like Pidge and her show of holiday solidarity.

And if that wasn’t enough, it also meant he got to make a monopoly on any heating disasters that might come up while everyone else was off.

Of course, it’s a decision he’s deeply regretting this Christmas with it’s record lows. He really needed to speak with whoever decided the cheaper warehouse price was worth the lack of heating.

“You have no one to blame but yourself, you know,” Pidge hums, breaking through his train of thought as she continues to click away at her keyboard. He isn’t sure if she means his reputation or the frostbite he’s certain is turning his toes black, but he elects to ignore her since he doesn’t really have an argument either way.

Solidarity be damned, he thinks as he breathes a hot puff of air between his palms. Pidge is Jewish anyways.

Quiet settles over the room, only disrupted by Pidge’s quick keystrokes and the ivory click of his teeth for what seems like an eternity before the phone rings.

Sharp and shrill, it makes him jump, the sudden motion of it shoving his shin into his desk hard enough to make him yipe.

This had been their fifth Christmas with the business, and the first time anyone had actually called during it.

“Are you going to answer that?” Pidge asks, tone curious as she flicks her look between him and the phone that’s still ringing at the edge of his desk as if he needs help finding where the sound is coming from.

Which, is valid given the way he’s gaping over to her, but she didn’t need to know that.

Nodding curtly, Keith reaches for it, pressing the answer button before he has it halfway to his ear as he rubs at his throbbing shin.

“Voltron Heating & AC,” he says, trying his best to not chop up his words through his chatter, “what can we do for you?”

***

It’s Christmas day, and Shiro is cold.

Really fucking cold.

He’d known he had bad luck, what with the career ending accident and the semi-newness of singledom that had left a little dark rain cloud over his holidays, but he hadn’t thought he’d be so unlucky for his heat to crap out on him on Christmas.

Ho ho freaking ho, he thinks bitterly as he stares at his lifeless heating system. The large metal rectangle didn’t even have enough in it to give one last death rattle as it just sat silently before him.

It looks more like a gravestone than a heater.

To make matters worse, Shiro doesn’t even know where to start with the damn thing to try and fix it himself.

He knew all the intricacies of various space crafts, and yet in the face of a heating system, he was rendered useless. Which, honestly just felt like the cherry on top of the shit sundae that had been his year.

Typical.

Heaving a sigh, Shiro kicks halfheartedly at the heating system before pulling his phone from his front pocket.

Pulling up Google, he searches ‘heating repair open christmas day,’ accepting Google’s oh so helpful suggestion of tacking on ‘near me’ at the end before pressing enter. There seems to be a momentary pause that’s just long enough for Shiro to imagine the search engine returning his inquiry with a big middle finger before it brings up a list of all the HVAC technicians in the area.

All in which have CLOSED plastered right beside their names in bold.

All, except one.

Boasting five stars from enough reviewers to make the rating seem legit, Shiro clicks the number beneath the name, not bothering to check their website for pricing.

Desperate times called for desperate measures and he was willing to pay what he needed to to regain feeling in his toes.

“Voltron Heating & AC, what can we do for you?” A smoke filled voice answers. There’s a pleasant rasp to it that reminds Shiro of a crackling fire.

“I need help,” he says, mentally kicking himself before he’s even finished speaking when he realizes how stupid he must sound. There’s a pause, filled only with a quiet huffing sound that he’s certain is the technician swallowing a laugh.

“What’s your name?” The man asks, key clicks providing a quiet backdrop for his question.

“Shiro,” he answers quickly, biting his tongue when he thinks that the man is probably looking for a full name.

“Takashi Shirogane,” he rectifies, noting the pause in the typing as he speaks. “My friends call me Shiro.”

Because that’s helpful, he thinks to himself, sharpening his glare at his heater. This is all your fault.

“Alright, Shiro,” the man says, and Shiro wonders if he’s imagining the way his name sounds like silk the way it’s wrapped in his voice. “How can I help you?”

***

Standing in front of the crimson door, Keith thinks he knows what to expect.

While their town isn’t necessarily small, it is small enough for him to know about the the newcomer that had moved there in the past month.

He’s a veteran, so they say, fresh out of rehab from an accident and taking up a position at Allura’s family practice. Kind, even though life has given him enough reason not to be, Takashi Shirogane— My friends call me Shiro— unwittingly became the talk of the town.

Well, the talk of the housewives who had happened by the clinic since he’d started there.

It gave him a certain allure, one that’s left Keith’s heart racing as he raps his knuckles against the door.

He’s also supposed to be very handsome, he thinks as he hears the shuffle of footsteps on the other side.

So they say.

With that in mind, he thinks he knows what to expect up until the exact moment that the door swings open.

Shiro’s eyes catch the sunlight, sparking like a sterling flare, as his lips part around a welcoming smile. He’s younger than he’d been led to believe from the whispers of his achievements and white hair.

“Hey, Keith?” He asks, or at least, Keith thinks he asks. Caught tracking the strong straight of his jaw, it’s honestly lost on him.

Handsome, as it turned out, was an understatement.

“Hi,” Keith manages, shifting his gaze over the soft grey hoodie that is pulled taut across Shiro’s chest. Moving further still, he notes the way it’s tied just above where the elbow of his right arm should be.

“Hi,” he says again, snapping his attention back up to his face. “I’m Keith. From Voltron.”

It earns him a laugh, boastful and saccharine as Shiro leans against the doorframe and pushes his hand into the pocket of his sweats.

A stronger man might have been able to stop his gaze from watching the movement or letting his eyes linger on the comfortable black fabric.

Apparently, Keith is not a stronger man.

“I worked that out,” Shiro says around a smile.

Ever the eloquent type, Keith nods and offers a small, “right.”

Quiet, thick with warm anticipation drags a shiver down his spine that’s altogether different from the one brought on by the angry winter wind that’s been nipping at his skin. It’s weighted with the heavy metal of Shiro’s stare as he keeps it trained on him, as if expecting something more from him.

Which, right.

“So, where’s this heating unit?” Keith asks quickly, unhelpfully holding up his tool box as if there was anymore doubt as to why he was there.

Shifting slightly against the doorframe, Shiro cocks his head back towards his entryway.

“This way,” he says as he stands at his full height and turns toward the innards of his home.

Ignoring the heated twist in his gut that greedily curls around the knowledge that Shiro is a full head taller than him, Keith follows, letting the door shut quietly behind him.

It leads to an open living space, sparse and almost utilitarian with its couch, coffee table and TV set over the fireplace. The only excess comes in the form of three photos standing proud on the mantle. One, in a rich wood frame that features Shiro and a white haired woman that looks a lot like Allura from this distance, in black graduation caps.

Another boasts a group of men, dressed in uniform and posing in front of a jet.

The last, is older, and faded. Set in a golden frame, it stands out from the rest of the room if only because it has the presence of something sacred. In it, is a smiling child, held in the arms of what Keith can only assume is his grandfather.

“It’s just in here,” Shiro calls from ahead in the kitchen, the sound of his voice joined by the creak of another door opening.

Making his way through the kitchen, Keith follows Shiro out into the garage, his eyes zeroing in on the heating system that’s tucked in the corner.

It’s old.

Very, very old.

And covered in enough dust that he’s surprised Shiro hasn’t already started to display signs of black lung.

But most importantly, it’s really fucking old.

The silent assessment must play across his face, because as he’s searching his mental catalogue of heaters for the last time this style had even been made, he hears Shiro make a small, pained sound.

“That’s not a good look,” he says lowly, voice sounding dismayed. Keith shakes his head as he keeps his gaze on the silent metallic box.

“No, it’s okay.”

It’s a lie. From the looks of it, the unit is at least ten years past its replacement date. He honestly can’t even fathom how it’s made it this far, or at the very least, not set the place on fire.

“I should have known the price of this place was too good for there to not be some major fixes needed,” Shiro soliloquizes with a sigh as Keith kneels down, pulling his favorite screwdriver from his back pocket. Making quick work of the siding, it falls away with a sharp clang and a huff of dust to reveal—

Even more dust.

A small wheeze escapes him as he inhales some.

“It’s bad,” Shiro surmises from the sound, voice straining further as Keith pushes back on his haunches and shakes his head. Both at Shiro’s words, but also to clear it of dust.

“It’s not too bad,” he croaks, looking up over his shoulder and offering as much of a smile as he can with his lungs heaving and eyes watering.

“I can fix this.”

It’s another lie. He isn’t actually sure it’s fixable, but he can’t bring himself to say it. Not when Shiro is looking at him with that desperate shine in his eyes, and that jaw set by the gods themselves.

Sighing with relief, he watches as Shiro visibly deflates, his worried look softening into a mix of sheepish and thankful.

Given the circumstance, Keith is certain the first comparison his mind draws for the man shouldn’t be warmth, and yet it does as he watches him nod slowly.  

“Okay,” Shiro says finally. “I’ll leave it to you, then.”

Then, he smiles. A true smile that reaches his eyes and hits Keith with all the force of an 18-wheeler. It smashes his sternum and stops his heart for long enough that he has the time to worry it won’t start again before it kicks back to life in triple time.

“Yeah, leave it to me,” Keith sputters, mouth moving without the help of his still rebooting brain.

Which, is when tragedy strikes.

“I’ll get you warm.”

It’s not what he means to say. Is never what he would mean to say. Yet, he says it anyway.

Silence falls like heavy lead around them as red floods Shiro’s cheeks. Eyes widening, Keith opens his mouth then closes it again with a click, deciding instead to turn back to the heating unit.

Staring into the thick blanket of dust, he wonders for just a moment if he could possibly suffocate himself in it before he starts to get to work.

***

He isn’t checking Keith out.

That feels like a breach in some kind of unsigned contract between him and the white knight of a heating technician that had showed up at his doorstep hours ago.

So no, Shiro isn’t checking him out as he’s on his hands and knees, half shoved into the depths of his apparently unending heating unit.

What he’s doing, is appreciating him.

Appreciating him and his lean form, with his very capable hands and sense of dry humor that played perfectly against his own.

Even after he’d worn out small talk a little over an hour in, Shiro still found himself comfortable as he sat there filling the role of silent moral support.

Shiro would even argue that he was making himself useful, after the second hour when he’d picked up on the small grunt that Keith would make before extricating himself from the bowels of the unit to switch out tools. So now, he’s also filling the role of pseudo assistant.

One who is definitely not checking him out.

He repeats it like a mantra as Keith wiggles his hips, apparently having a tough time with whatever it is in there that he’s been wrestling with.

Soft sounds escape the heating unit as he continues to struggle with the innards of it, moving this way and that, unaware of the pink flush that is sweeping over Shiro’s skin. It makes him run hot in a way that makes him wonder if the heater was already back up and running.

When he’d opened the door, he hadn’t expected to find himself pinned beneath the weight of a stare painted the most intriguing mix of jeweled purple and steely blue. At most, he’d expected the usual, stock variety of heating technicians.

A little bit older, a little bit bigger, and with a little more facial hair.

Instead, Keith turned out to be the human incarnate of a firestorm. With a voice like smoke, and presence that had him filled with an aching burn, Keith seemed to be something other that couldn’t be contained.

Lost deep in the trenches of his thoughts, Shiro misses the Keith slowly pulls back out of the unit and begins reattaching the panel he’d removed. It isn’t until he hears the sharp sound of a palm against metal that he focuses back on the technician, who is looking up at him with a smile as the soft purr of life rolls through the heater.

For one, longstanding moment, Shiro wonders if it’d be too cheesy to consider this a Christmas miracle.

“I told you I could fix it,” Keith says, relief making his smile soft as he uses a hand to push himself up onto his feet before brushing off his knees.

With his hair disheveled, and a dark streak of dust that bridges his nose, he looks like he just returned from battle.

Beautiful, a stray thought says, sending his heart ricocheting through his chest and up into his throat.

“You did,” he replies, far softer than he’d intended and he feels the ever present flush deepen beneath his scar. The comfortable silence falls once more as Keith

“So,” he continues, scratching at the back of his neck as he laughs sheepishly, “what’s the damage?”

It’s a simple enough question. A joke, even, as Keith regards him closely. His look is thoughtful, like he’s searching for something as he cocks his head.

And then he smiles.

The arch of it is a curved blade that sinks deep into his chest as Keith finally looks away and starts to rummage through his toolbox, pulling out a receipt book just moments later.

“How about a hundred bucks?” He asks, flipping through the pages in search of an unused one. Making a small sound of triumph, he pulls a pen from his pocket and pulls the cap off with his teeth.

Shiro tries not to focus too hard on the way the blue cap presses against the full of his bottom lip.

He must fail, because then Keith looks up with a questioning brow pulled high at the strangled sound that apparently comes from deep in his own throat.

“Are you sure that’s all you want?” Shiro can’t help but ask. It’s an obscenely low price, he doesn’t need to know anything about heaters to know that, and he can’t quite wrap his mind around it. Mouth caught open, he watches as Keith just nods and starts writing on the pad, shifting the pen cap to the side.

This, Shiro thinks, is also obscene but for a whole other reason.

“Really?” It comes out choked as he reaches for the wallet in his pocket, pulling it open and eyeing the credit cards he no longer needs to ensure he can pay.

The weight of expectation sits on his shoulders as he pulls his debit card free from its pocket, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It never does, as Keith just shrugs and holds out a hand, eyes still trained downward on the receipt book. Gently, Shiro presses the card to his waiting palm. Lightning buzzes in his fingertips where they brush against Keith’s skin. The feeling pulls a small, shuddering sound from his lips that pulls Keith’s strange grey amethyst gaze up to look at him as he pulls his hand quickly back.

The buzzing feeling remains as he flexes his hand, opening and closing it to see if it would fade.

It doesn’t.

Turning his attention back down, Keith places the card beneath the carbon paper and rubs the side of his pen against it, pressing the numbers into the yellow page. The sudden tear of the paper makes Shiro jump, its sound hanging in the air as Keith folds his copy around the card and hands it back to him.

His smile, seems to grow wider, and cuts deeper.

Shiro wonders if Keith knows just how close to his heart it’s cutting.

“Merry Christmas, Shiro,” he says smoothly as Shiro takes it.

“Yeah, you too.” Shiro wants to kick himself immediately for the stuttering breathlessness of his own voice.

Get it together, Shirogane, he chides silently as Keith dips his head and grabs his toolbox. Heat is already starting to spread through him as he tries to find anything else to say, though he isn’t even sure what he could say.

Want to stay for dinner, maybe?

Want to stay forever, a very unhelpful voice supplies.

It isn’t until he’s decided on maybe thanks, that he realizes Keith has already seen himself out. The sound of his front door clicking shut rocks down his spine, landing at the base of his stomach in the form of heavy disappointment.

Beside him, his heater continues to purr, and it almost sounds like a hissing laugh.

“Shut up,” he whispers as he unfolds the receipt, grabbing his card and immediately dropping it as if its shocked him.

It hasn’t, but the handwriting beneath it had.

Swallowing down the thrumming heart in his throat, Shiro rereads it.

It’s ten digits, and a whole name.

Keith Kogane, his Christmas miracle, had left his number.

***

“A hundred dollars, Keith,” Pidge mutters under her breath for the thousandth time as she presses her forehead down into her palms. “A hundred dollars.”

Admittedly, Keith knows that it’s a low price.

Even triple that would have been an obscenely low price for the miracle he had managed. There was no reason for the fix to work, and even now, near two hours after the fact, he still isn’t quite sure how he’d done it. Nor, was he planning on questioning it.

It’s a Christmas miracle, a small voice cooed at the back of his mind as he just shrugs at Pidge yet again.

On any other day, he’d try to explain himself.

Of course, on any other day, he wouldn’t charge a customer a tenth of the price for a fix. More importantly, he wouldn’t leave his phone number either.

God, he’d left his number.

Dropping his head down on his desk with a soft thunk!, he tries to pinpoint the exact moment his life had devolved into a Hallmark Christmas movie.

As if he could actually pass as some protagonist. Or love interest.

Groaning into the fake wood grain, Keith rubbed his forehead against its cool surface.

Was he the love interest?

“A hundred dollars, Keith,” Pidge moans again in reply.

A hundred dollars, and a phone number, he silently bites back.

Falling into a shared silence, the room goes almost painfully quiet as Keith considers the many ways he could possibly explain away the temporary lapse in his own judgement.

Maybe he could blame the amount of dust he’d inhaled, claiming momentary insanity. Maybe he could claim it was nothing more than a friendly offer for Shiro to reach out to him when his heater inevitably bit it again. Or maybe, he could blame it on a deranged twin.

Yorak, Keith thinks with a mental nod when he feels the sudden buzz of a text alert skitter across his desktop and against his forehead. It freezes him, stalling his breath as his eyes fly open to be filled with the light brown of the fake wood.

Rolling his head to the side, he presses his cheek flush to the desk as he eyes his phone. At this angle, all he can see is the light of his screen as it stays lit with its message.

It’s a coincidence, he’s sure, as he continues to hold his breath and lifts a hesitant hand toward the offending piece of technology that has lodges his heart in his throat. Just a coincidence.

With a gentle press of his fingers, Keith flips the phone onto his side, his eyes widening at the bold, unsaved number, and the single line of text that accompanies it.

How about coffee sometime?

And then, it buzzes against his palm as another joins it.

It’s Shiro btw.

The obviousness of it startles a snorting sound from him as he sits up.

yeah i kinda figured

Keith breathes, the air expanding his chest and grounding him as he continues to type, letting his fingers press the words into the screen before his mind can catch up.

coffee would be great

Cutting his gaze up from the screen, he finds Pidge still at her desk with her head in her hands. By the way her shoulders move, he wonders quietly if she’s fallen asleep as he waits for a reply.

Several minutes pass before it comes in the form of a tickling vibration in his palm.

How about today?

He must make a sound, because out of the corner of his eye, he sees the bounce of her tawny hair as she flicks her head upward. Worst of all, he can feel her stare cutting into him as he taps out his response.

something tells me it might be tough finding a place open today

Shiro’s next text comes in, almost instantaneous.

You could always come back to mine. I make a mean latte :)

Forty-seven seconds pass before Keith gets the next text. He knows, because he counts them in some vague attempt to slow the rapid fire stutter of his heart as he tries to come up with what to say.

Too forward. Ignore that.

Keith has only known Shiro for the three and a half hours that it took to fix his heater, but he can already imagine the pink that is probably spilling across his cheeks as he rubs a palm against the back of his neck. It makes him laugh. A real laugh that makes Pidge’s stare burn hotter against his skin.

no i think id like that

He sends the message, all too aware of the way his lips are stuck in an upward curl when Pidge clears her throat pointedly. Looking up, he catches the way her gaze shifts between the phone and his face, and the way her mouth opens around a comment.

Keith beats her to it.

“Pidge?” He says, smile growing wider as the phone buzzes in his hand again.

“Yes?” She replies, curiosity and confusion filling the word as she looks down at the phone again.

Excitement flutters through him as the buzz tickles his palm once more.

“Let’s close up for Christmas.”

*************************