#not pictured in the frame are my toe-less socks gripping the blanket I am standing on

[babehog]

may the audience get a peek at you in ur black tank top guns out glasses on and maybe a little bit sweaty? 👉🏾👈🏾

Anything for you gorgeous 💞✨

I don't have any laser tag vests in my closet so please use your imagination, okay? 😘

[amillionsmiles]

“You started sitting by me at lunch because I’m alone at my table but we never talk to each other” AU (Sheith or plance whatever inspires you!)

combined this with another college AU I saw floating around somewhere that said: “You’re the RA and you’re trying to bust me for having hermit crabs.” I’m sorry but I’m also not. here ya go, Justine ;)

[Ao3 link] in case you want to read there bc it got a little long

“Hey, mind if I sit?”

Keith looks up from his Econ 1 reading to find Shiro hovering by the seat in front of him, a plate in either hand.  A well-balanced meal, Keith notes—one plate has been dedicated specifically to fruits and vegetables, the other piled with careful portions of today’s chicken stir-fry, eggplant, and brown rice.

Shrugging, he says, “It’s a free country,” mostly because he knows that Shiro will sit down anyways.  It must be an RA thing: the ability to, at any time, locate one of your residents and administer whatever aid is needed.  In this case, Shiro has noticed Keith’s empty table, swooping in to save his freshman from being That One Kid Sitting By Himself in the Corner.

What Shiro has overlooked, however, is that Keith is eating alone by choice.  He has twenty minutes to scarf down his food and assemble an understanding of the income elasticity of demand before he heads to section.  More like twelve minutes, once you factor in how long it takes to put up his dishes and dash across campus.  So yeah, not much time for small talk.

Unfazed, Shiro sits down, swiping some napkins from the table dispenser.

“I’ll leave you to your work,” he says knowingly, eyes twinkling with good humor as he raises a fork and knife and busies himself with cutting up his lunch.  Keith blinks, a little, at that, before shoveling the rest of his cornbread in his mouth and relocating his paragraph on the page.

He reminds himself that Shiro gets paid for this.  It makes him feel less guilty.

*

The thing is, Keith has a secret.

While other people choose to stock their dorm rooms with succulents, coffee machines, or decked out desktops, Keith came to college certain of one thing: he was taking his hermit crabs with him.  Rescued from a booth on the boardwalk during the senior year field trip, Pearl and Raf have remained safely in his care for a year now.  There wasn’t anyone back home he trusted leaving their tank with, so they had to come here.

Rolo has been an accommodating roommate, for the most part.  Largely, Keith suspects, because Rolo just doesn’t give a shit.  Their relationship revolves around the age-old motto of “you do your thing and I do mine.”  Each boy’s junk stays on his respective side of the room.  The trash gets taken out on time. The system works.

And if Rolo ever does decide to throw Keith under the bus of the “no pets” policy, well.  Keith knows where Rolo hides his weed.

Still, these reassurances don’t protect Keith from the miniature heart attack he suffers when someone knocks on their door.  Hurriedly, Keith scoops Pearl and Raf off his desk and back into their tank, throwing a tarp over it.

When he eases the door open, Shiro is standing in the hall, one hand braced against the doorframe.  The pose pulls his shirt tightly across his chest, accentuating his pecs, and Keith is reminded that his RA is a junior on the swimming team.  Those arms could probably heave Keith over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and it would be no problem for Shiro to muscle his way into the room.

Shit. The realization smacks Keith in the face.  Shiro knows about the crabs.  He’s here to confiscate them.

Keith is not going down without a fight.

“Keith!” Shiro smiles, which is already suspicious.  “How are you?”

“Fine,” Keith answers.  Wary.

Shiro nods.  “Good.  Because we’d love to have you join us for the hall meeting…” He trails off, raising an eyebrow.

Keith glances behind him to the clock on his table.  10 PM. Wednesday. Hall meeting.  That was…definitely an email that was sent, which he might have deleted without reading.

“Right,” Keith says, squeezing through the small opening he left between the door and the frame.  Shiro steps back to give him space; Keith tries to hide his relief when the door clicks shut behind him.  Pearl and Raf will remain safe for another day.

“Well?” he asks, starting ahead.  Behind him, Shiro is watching him strangely, the hint of a smile on his lips.  “Let’s go.”

*

It is 3 AM in the goddamn morning.  Keith shifts from foot to foot for warmth, blowing air into his hands.  The fire alarm continues to screech, whistling through the wintry air as the rest of the dorm residents stagger outside.  Lance, who lives down the hall from him, walks over, some sort of white paste caked to his face.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“No,” grunts Keith.

“Don’t know why I thought you would,” Lance mutters, leaving to find someone more helpful.

“Smart, grabbing your jacket,” someone else says; Keith turns to find Shiro grinning at him, clad in nothing but fraying red pajama pants and a black muscle tee.  The cold doesn’t seem to faze him.  Makes sense, since Keith is pretty sure Shiro was meant to be a bronze statue somewhere and just got lost in transit.

“Yeah,” Keith says, not wanting to betray the fact that currently, there’s a hermit crab shoved in each pocket of said jacket.  He hadn’t been sure if the fire was real or not—better safe than sorry.  It’s not going to be good for Pearl and Raf, though, if they stay out in this temperature any longer.

Shiro places a hand on his shoulder.  Keith nearly jumps under the touch.  “I’m going to go make sure everyone else is okay.  Stay warm, all right?”

“All right,” Keith says, finding his voice, but Shiro has already disappeared into the crowd.      

*

Saturday night, the common room smells like blueberry pancakes.  People poke their heads in, shuffling away when Shiro gives an apologetic look and says, “Sorry, guys, I’m out.”  It’s almost 2 AM and his on call is winding down; on the couch, Keith settles in, closing his eyes and readying himself for some blessed peace.

“Keith?”

Slowly—and not without a hint of annoyance—Keith opens his eyes.  Shiro frowns at him over the top of the sofa, a streak of flour dashed across the bridge of his nose, somehow.

“Wouldn’t you rather sleep in your own bed?”

“Can’t,” Keith grumbles.  “There’s a sock on my door.”  He’d known it was only a matter of time—Rolo and Nyma had been orbiting each other all of this past month—but the sexiling is a bit of an annoyance.

Shiro bites his lip, but his amusement at Keith’s predicament shows in the upward tick of his eyebrows, the slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes.

“You can crash in my room, if you want.”

“It’s okay,” Keith says quickly.

“Seriously, Keith.  I’ve got an extra mattress and you’ll be undisturbed.  Plus that way you’ll be safe from anyone drawing on your face or taking a picture for the dorm slideshow.”  This last part, said teasingly.

Keith thinks about it a little longer.

“All right, fine,” he decides, sitting up.  He just barely manages to catch the keys Shiro tosses at him.

“I need to finish cleaning up here.  Leave the door unlocked—you know where my room is, right?”

“How could I not,” Keith says, shuffling out of the lounge.

He pushes open Shiro’s door carefully.  He’s caught glimpses inside it once or twice while passing by, but he’s never set foot in it before, despite numerous invitations.  It’s small but well-kept: a spare mattress underneath the lofted bed, a couch pushed up against the other wall, a nice monitor and various posters—Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and one that probably makes sense to history majors but which Keith is too tired to try and figure out right now.

He toes off his shoes and sets them aside so Shiro won’t trip over them, then goes to the mattress, curling up on his side.  There’s even a blanket, which he draws to his chin; that sends its smell wafting toward his nose, and suddenly he’s no longer tired.

The door handle turns.  Keith snaps his eyes closed, feigning sleep.  Shiro’s feet tread quietly across the carpet as he putters about the room; a few minutes later, the bedsprings above Keith’s head squeak, the sound of a body rolling into place.

Turning over onto his back, Keith stares up above him, eyes straining in the dark.  Shiro’s breaths come in soft, quiet puffs—a sound that should be soothing, but one that, instead, sets Keith’s heart beating faster.  Weird.  It’s never done that before.

It takes him a long time to fall asleep.

*

The rest of the year passes by uneventfully.  Keith decides that he most definitely is not going to be an Econ major and, at the same time, discovers a hidden passion for pottery.  Summer comes and goes, and soon enough he’s back on campus, trying to decide if he really has the stomach to eat today’s green bean special.

“Keith?”

It’s been a long time since he’s heard that voice. Even more shocking: the realization that he missed it.

He turns and Shiro is there, two plates like always, white-dyed tuft of hair swooping over his forehead.

“Hey,” says Keith, strangely self-conscious.

Shiro smiles.  “Are you sitting with anyone?”

“No.”

“Great. Let’s catch up, then,” he says, tilting his head, and there’s something new in the air between them now, their old lines and roles fallen away.

Keith follows.  He’s ready to talk.

*

Somewhere after the fifth time Keith makes Shiro laugh and the second time Shiro asks him on a date, they end up back at Keith’s place.

Thank god I drew into a single this year, Keith thinks as the door clicks shut behind him, Shiro a long line of muscle against his front, shifting under his hands.  Shiro’s shirt comes off and Keith kicks out of his shoes, stumbling forward in the dark—fingers grip his waist tightly, yanking him closer, and there’s a heady power to this, the knowledge that he can just keep guiding Shiro backwards with nothing but a press to his chest, backwards and backwards until they both fall onto his bed—

A teasing bite against his collarbone; his heart stutters for a beat, hands fumbling at Shiro’s belt, and then he trips over something and hits the corner of his desk.  

“Fuck,” Keith swears, partly because of the throbbing pain in his hip and partly because Shiro has just licked a stripe up the column of his neck.  Squinting through the blend of pain and desire, he turns on his desk lamp, just to make sure they haven’t knocked anything over.

To his relief, his haphazardly stacked column of books remains intact.  And the tank is fine, too—

Shiro, who up until this point has been doing an admirable job of working Keith free of his pants, stops.  His hair is mussed, his lips bitten red, a throaty disbelief in his voice as he turns toward the light and says:

“Are those…hermit crabs?”