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Keith watches the gaggle of first year students surround the gravity simulator, as close as they can get to it without crossing the safety railing. They're very clearly awestruck, to Keith's amusement, eyes wide in wonder, and mouths gaping. Keith counts two people drooling, but he can't tell if that's because they're that taken by the excitement of zero gravity, or if it was because the demonstrator currently inside was all tall, handsome and straight nosed perfection. Keith wouldn't blame them if it was the latter; the only reason he's here is to ogle Shiro from his discreet corner, after all.
The class ends after a few select cadets are allowed to go inside the simulator for themselves. They come out windswept and talkative, gesticulating wildly to their classmates about the experience and it takes Keith back to the first time he'd been inside one. He’d kept his excitement in check, but he was a kid who was just as into space, if not more, as the next cadet; who wouldn't be thrilled?
When the last pair of cadets leave the operation room, doors shutting automatically behind them, Keith pushes himself off the wall he'd been leaning against and walks up the ramp towards Shiro who was still inside the simulator making sure all the functions were back to calibration.
“They love you,” Keith muses from the doorway, tucking both hands into the pockets of his uniform pants. His shirt hangs open, completely against protocol, revealing the white tank top he wears underneath.
Shiro looks up from the controls and gives Keith a small smile. He'd seen Keith watching the whole time. It was kind of a common occurrence; Keith sitting in on the few classes that Shiro was asked to teach. Sometimes Keith even helped demonstrate, while Shiro narrated. Rumours about Keith's piloting skills and all the Garrison records he's broken have filtered through the entire academy. It wasn't just his own year level giving him looks now. These days there was a pretty even split between the inspired and the resentful. Keith doesn't care either way.
“They love zero gravity,” Shiro corrects, hanging back nearby the controls. He crosses his arms over his chest, over a neatly pressed shirt that's managed to maintain its creases in all the right places, despite it being mid-afternoon, almost the end of classes for the day.
Keith shakes his head. “Not true. I remember when I had this introductory class. Jefferson made it so boring I had half a mind to lock him in the simulator and leave.”
Despite himself, Shiro snorts. With Keith, there was no knowing whether that was an amusing exaggeration or just the plain truth. Sometimes Shiro prefers to just wonder instead of ask for clarification.
“C’mere,” he says.
Keith’s suspicions immediately rise, eyes narrowing slightly as he follows through. He takes a few steps into the simulator, only for the doors to close behind him with a quiet swoosh.
“What are you doing?” He knows what Shiro’s doing, because he can see that glint in his boyfriend’s eyes. It was the same glint Shiro got when he rocked up at Keith’s dorm door an hour after lights out, the keys to the hover-bike dangling from his fingers. It was the same glint he got when he got one over on Keith during a spar, right before he carefully rolled his hips down against Keith’s where he had him pinned to the mat. It was a dangerous look that Keith loved and was privileged enough to be one of the few who even got to see it.
Shiro smiles and reaches out for Keith’s hand when he comes close enough, and with his other hand, reaches behind him to flick on a few switches. The sim can be controlled from both the inside and the outside, and it’s usually procedure to always have someone on the outside to monitor what was going on, just in case. But it’s just the two of them in there now, and Shiro knows what he’s doing. Immediately, there’s a suction of air from the cabin, and the feeling of weightlessness takes over Keith’s body. The only thing anchoring him to anywhere is the hold Shiro has on his hand.
“The Garrison’s golden boy, breaking the rules,” Keith teases, letting his body lift up, legs spread wide, and his other hand reaching for Shiro too.
“What can I say, my boyfriend’s a bad influence.”
Keith jabs him in the chest for that, making him laugh. “I don’t break rules. I tweak them when necessary.”
Shiro makes a noise that was both affirmative and placating, the one he makes when he’s humouring Keith’s antics. The one he’d made the first time Keith had kissed him and then firmly declared that they should just be friends while not looking Shiro in the eye. They’ve come a long way since then.
Shiro pushes his body towards Keith, taking them across to the other end of the cabin. Keith holds on and tangles up their limbs so they wouldn’t have to part. Consequently, Shiro gets a pointy elbow to his cheek and Keith gets a knee in his stomach. That, of course, then leads to a wrestle in retaliation, Keith trying to put Shiro in a headlock, only for Shiro to fight back with dancing fingers on Keith’s tummy. Keith shrieks with giggles, realising he was going to lose this if he didn’t get away, and tries to swim through the air away from Shiro.
Shiro’s too quick, however, swooping an arm around Keith’s middle to lure him back, and then they go tumbling through the simulator, only narrowly missing banging into the far wall with Shiro putting his hand out at the last second. They’re both breathless with laughter, Keith more so than Shiro, thanks to the air being tickled out of his lungs, and he gives a belated prod in Shiro’s side as payback.
“Jerk.”
Shiro seems all too proud of himself. “Isn’t this fun?”
Keith can’t help but grin then, because, yeah, this was fun. It’s rare that he’s ever allowed to mess around how he wants with the simulators. The flight sim is almost always booked out, either by officers for training, or eager cadets who want to get extra practice in. And even when Keith does get a turn in, there’s usually onlookers waiting for him outside, gushing about how he did that turn, or this manoeuvre, and if he could teach them. The answer is always no.
It’s even rarer that he and Shiro get to hang around together. It’s common knowledge around the Garrison by now that they’re friends, if not best friends. They were an unlikely pair, but they’d come together so slowly and seamlessly no one really raised an eyebrow anymore when the two of them were seen sitting together at the mess hall, or sparring together in the training room. But moments like this, where they were touching and laughing, too close to each other not to raise suspicion, especially when relationships were banned at the Garrison, had to be kept to their private quarters. Even then there was a risk that one of their roommates would walk in, hence why Keith looked so forward to the nights Shiro rocked up at his door with the keys to the hover-bike.
“It’s not the worst idea you’ve had,” Keith allows, carefully wrapping his arms around Shiro’s waist. He would’ve wrapped them around his shoulders, but that would leave his sides all too exposed and Keith doesn’t trust Shiro’s sneaky fingers right now.
Shiro smiles, leaning forward so they’re both tilted slightly more horizontal. It’s a little like swimming, but without the resistance of water. Their movements are slowed down and Keith feels both heavy and light at the same time. He doesn’t feel Shiro’s usual weight on him, which feels wrong so he clings on a little tighter.
Shiro nudges his nose against Keith’s, getting a huff out of the younger boy. “What’s the worst idea I’ve ever had then?” His voice pitches low, teasing, and something tells Keith that Shiro doesn’t really care to hear about the worse idea he’s ever had. (It would have to be the time they made out in the sand dunes, and found sand in parts of their body they didn’t know sand could even get into days later. That was even worse than Keith’s idea to remain friends.) Keith’s suspicions are proven right when, instead of waiting for an answer, Shiro kisses him. At first it’s a little difficult to line themselves up properly, when their feet aren’t touching the ground and Keith’s floating a couple of inches below Shiro and Shiro’s trying not to let them bump into the controls. Then they get the hang of it, Shiro’s hands cupping the sides of Keith’s face to tilt his head to the right angle, Keith using his arms around Shiro to secure himself into place, so he would go wherever Shiro went.
The weightless feeling becomes second to that of Shiro’s tongue in his mouth, despite the fact that he’s kissed Shiro a couple hundred more times than he’s been in the simulator. He wonders if this is what kissing in space feels like. He wonders if they were in space he’d even bother to look at the stars outside the windows, or whether he’d just be too enthralled with Shiro’s breath slipping into his lungs to care, like he is now.
Keith’s legs hook around Shiro’s hips, turning them almost completely horizontal, bobbing across the cabin as if they were lost out at sea. Keith’s pretty sure he drowns a little bit every time he kisses Shiro. Somehow the need to breathe just doesn’t seem as important when Shiro has his fingers in his hair, and is sucking softly on his bottom lip. A soft moan escapes from low in Keith’s throat, and he’s kissing Shiro harder, making up for the lack of time alone they’ve had in the past few weeks.
It wasn’t like anyone was going to find them in the simulator. They had all the time in the world to enjoy this moment.
A loud blaring alarm sounds in the cabin, accompanied by a flashing orange light. There’s a split second where Keith suddenly feels his weight return to him, and then he and Shiro both fall like bricks, three feet out of the air onto the floor of the simulator. Keith lands on his back, groaning, and Shiro lands on top of him which is worse because Shiro is heavy. He rolls off as soon as he can, trying to get back to his feet, but even though they’d only spent ten minutes in the simulator, his legs are jelly and he has to stumble to the doorway to find something to hold onto to keep himself standing.
Keith pulls himself together a couple of seconds after, licking his pink, kissed lips as if to remove any evidence, but the state of his hair and the flush in his cheeks, not to mention the way his shirt was half hanging off his shoulders, (jeez, Shiro was handsy), was irrefutably obvious as to what had been going on inside the simulator.
Standing outside by the external controls, is Officer Jefferson and he doesn’t look impressed at all. Keith gets into his fair amount of trouble, but Shiro has a clean record. Keith feels a little bad that his first black mark was going to be for indecent displays of intimacy in the gravity simulator, but it had been Shiro’s idea and it had totally been worth it. “Still not the worst idea you’ve ever had,” Keith mutters under his breath, just as the doors slide open and Jefferson beckons them sternly to walk out. Shiro cracks a grin which is only going to get them into more trouble.