Work Text:
Shiro comes home from the pharmacy to find Matt standing in the middle of the living room with an open packet of Easy Mac cheese in his hand and a confused look on his face. He looks like he’s about to cry.
“Matt?” asks Shiro, setting his meds on the coffee table, “You okay?”
“I…” Matt squeaks out, his eyes wide, “I don’t know?”
“Okay,” Shiro responds gently, “It’s okay. Did something happen?”
“I don’t know,” Matt repeats forlornly. He’s starting to hyperventilate, eyes darting around the room like he’s searching for something.
Shiro frowns. It’s hard to help if neither of them knows what’s wrong. But thankfully, he’s known Matt long enough to have some pretty good guesses. His eyes lock onto the cheese packet in his friend’s hand, “Matt. Buddy. Did you forget what you were doing?”
Matt nods emphatically, a hiccupping sob escaping his throat.
“Okay. You want me to help?”
Matt nods again.
“Can I touch you?”
Another nod.
Shiro steps up behind his friend and wraps his arms around his shoulders, pulling him flush against his chest, “Can you breathe with me for a minute?” He evens out his own breathing and waits for Matt to follow suit.
Once his heartrate slows to something more reasonable, Matt speaks up in a shaky voice, “I… opened it?”
Shiro blinks, trying to figure out what Matt is talking about. When he realizes his friend is referring to the cheese packet in his hand, a giggle rises in his chest and escapes before he can contain it.
Matt starts to giggle as well, “I opened it, but?”
“You opened the cheese?”
“I opened the cheese!” Matt howls. Shiro isn’t sure whether the tears streaming down his face are from laughter or distress.
“Where… where did you put the noodles that go with that cheese?” Shiro asks.
Matt’s laughter instantly turns sobbing.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Shiro whispers, rocking side to side with Matt still wrapped in his arms, “It’s okay. Um… Let’s check the kitchen.”
Matt nods and swallows his sobs, but lingers in Shiro’s grasp for a moment longer.
Shiro unwraps his arms and gives his friend’s shoulders a few reassuring rubs, “You good?”
“Yeah,” Matt squeaks, “Let’s find that mystery mac.”
It doesn’t take them long to find the escaped noodles. They’re sitting uncooked in a bowl by the sink, which Shiro pops in the microwave before leading Matt back to the living room, sitting him down on the couch with a blanket around his shoulders.
“You better not set the microwave on fire this time,” Matt cracks a weak smile.
“That was one time!” Shiro protests, “I put water in this time.”
“Um, no,” Matt corrects, “I put water in before you even got home.”
“Okay, okay,” concedes Shiro, “It was a team effort. Between the two of us, we can make mac and cheese in the microwave.”
“Woo, go team,” drawls Matt, sarcastically pumping his first in the air.
The microwave beeps, and Shiro hurries over to the kitchen to retrieve the noodles and add the cheese to them. He returns with a bowl of questionably-stirred but more-or-less edible Easy Mac, which Matt gladly accepts and stirs the rest of the way. With the immediate crisis out of the way, Shiro allows himself to take a seat beside his friend.
“Is it just me,” Matt says between bites of mac and cheese, “or has my ADHD been getting worse since the stupid avalanche?” He says it playfully, but there’s an edge of bitterness in his voice.
Shiro mulls over this question for a moment. He knows the answer, but he’s not sure it’s what Matt wants to hear. Finally, carefully, he says, “I… don’t think it’s just you, no.”
Matt frowns into his now-empty bowl.
Shiro reaches out a hand to place on his friend’s shoulder, “Have you, uh… mentioned any of this to your doctor?”
Matt looks indignant, “No, why?”
Shiro snorts, “I dunno, maybe because she’s your doctor?”
Matt shrugs and sets his empty bowl on the coffee table before pulling his feet up onto the couch and huddling under his blanket.
“You’re scared,” Shiro observes softly, “You don’t want her to tell you it’s brain damage, do you?”
“What if it changed us forever?” Matt whispers, as if saying it out loud will somehow confirm his fears, “I hate it.”
Shiro sucks in a shaky breath, tightening his grip on his friend’s shoulder, “I hate it too. I hate that Dr. Haggar got exactly what she wanted when she sent us up that mountain alone. I hate… I hate that I listened to her and put you in danger.”
“Not your fault,” Matt says without missing a beat, “She was our boss. We jumped through so many hoops to go on that expedition, and she had the power to get us sent home like… Boom! Just like that!” Matt snaps his fingers, “Getting in trouble seemed like a more immediate threat than some hypothetical chance of getting buried in a freaking avalanche.”
“Well,” Shiro laughs bitterly, “She succeeded in getting us sent home, anyways.”
Matt sniffles, staring down at his lap, “Yep. Sure did.”
“She had me wrapped around her finger the whole time,” Shiro swallows, “I… agh, I hate that I let her have that kind of power over me! I hate it! Fuck…” He scrunches his face in a vain attempt to stop the tears from trickling down his cheeks.
Matt leans into him silently, because what else is there to say? Shiro curls around him and buries his nose in his hair. They stay that way for a few long minutes before Matt suddenly sits up straight, accidentally smacking his skull into his friend’s face in the process.
“Y’know what?” Matt declares as Shiro rubs at his nose, “So what if we’re not the same as before? We’re still here, and we’re still us, and I don’t wanna give Dr. Haggar the fucking satisfaction of ruining our lives.”
Shiro cracks a weak smile at the determination on his friend’s face, “She doesn’t deserve it.”
“But…” Matt gently plucks Shiro’s hand away from his face and plants a fluttery kiss on his injured nose, “Right now I kinda just wanna… cry…”
Shiro blinks in momentary surprise before gathering Matt in his arms and planting a kiss on top of his head, “Well then, maybe tonight can just… be a crying night. There’ll be plenty of time for thriving out pure spite tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Matt hiccups, a few tears already soaking into the front of Shiro’s shirt as he runs the fingers of his prosthetic up and down Matt’s back.
---------
Later that evening, Keith returns home to find both his roommates sound asleep on the couch and desperately in need of tissues. Unsure what else to do, he scampers to the kitchen to grab a water bottle and a fistful of assorted restaurant napkins to leave on the coffee table for them. As an afterthought, he grabs a nearby pen and scrawls a note on a Taco Bell napkin:
I’m in my room if you need me. –K
It’s not much, but it’s the least he can do after everything Shiro’s done for him.