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"Keith," Shiro says softly before Keith can leave, and Keith stops in the doorway with his hand resting on the threshold. With his shoulders hunched like that, like there's a great burden resting on them, Shiro looks small, tiny even. He looks like he's lost weight, and it doesn't help that it looks like he hasn't slept in days, and Keith wants to sweep a thumb under the dark smudges under his eyes. Powerlessness is an old friend, and Keith's learned to live with it, but he's never resented it as much as he does now.
"Will you," Shiro starts, then stops like the words are having trouble coming out, like they're glass shards embedded in the soft fleshy part of his throat. "Will you help me cut my hair?" he finally manages, quietly, and Keith's heart breaks.
"Of course I will," Keith says.
Keith snags a pair of scissors from Coran's room. Of course, he calls it something else, and they're giant things, really shears more than anything — Coran had said something about gardening? — but they'll get the job done. Besides, Keith's had some experience repurposing old things. He's resourceful; that's how he lived on his own for a year in the desert, how he's survived for so long.
Shiro's showered and dressed by the time Keith gets back, perched on the edge of the tub in Keith's bathroom. His long, straight hair hangs over his shoulder, still wet and soaking through the white tank top he's wearing. It probably doesn't help there's still heat lingering in the bathroom from the shower; it smells like Keith's shampoo, and Keith doesn't let himself think about the fact that means Shiro smells like Keith's shampoo too.
Keith does let himself watch the muscle underneath the cloth shift — just for a second — because he's only human. Shiro asks, "Keith?" and Keith snaps back to the task at hand, his eyes meeting Shiro's almost guiltily.
"Yeah. Sorry," he says. "Here, turn around so I can get behind you. I'm just going to brush through your hair first." He waves around the comb he pilfered from Lance's room, ignoring the way his heart feels like it's in his throat at the thought of touching Shiro, after months of desperate searching.
Shiro obliges him, shifting so his back is to Keith, his feet inside the tub, and Keith swallows — god, he hopes it's not as audible to Shiro as it is to him — before he takes a giant swath of Shiro's hair and starts combing through it, painfully aware of the elegant line of Shiro's neck, the broadness of his shoulders and the slight taper of his waist. Even at rest like this, there's a slight tension in the way Shiro carries himself, a tiny hunch of his shoulders, and Keith wishes suddenly he could stop time, make everything go away until Shiro is as careless and free as he was back at the Garrison, when Keith first met him.
But that past is behind them now. There's no way they can go back; there's only what's in front of them, the awning emptiness of space, waiting for them to blaze a path through it.
Keith has no experience brushing someone else's hair. He's a little careless with his, just running a brush through it from scalp to tip until the tangles are gone, but he's painfully careful with Shiro's, starting from the ends so as not to pull out any strands. When Shiro makes a noise, Keith freezes like he's been caught in the beam of a Galra battlecruiser.
"Sorry, did I hurt you?" Keith asks.
"No, it's okay," Shiro responds. "Keep going."
When Shiro's hair is fully untangled and lies flat and heavy, Keith pulls out the shears. Shiro's eyes snap open at the soft shing of metal on metal, and Keith is close enough to feel Shiro's body tense instinctively, his Galra arm clenching into a fist. It's only a split second reaction — Shiro must force himself to relax a moment later — but it's enough to drive a spear through Keith's heart.
"Hey," Keith says, placing the shears down at the edge of the tub, and sitting next to Shiro. Shiro doesn't look at him. His shoulders creep up closer to his ears. The tension sings through his body like a pulled arrow. "We don't have to do this now."
"I want to," Shiro says, with a forcefulness that startles Keith. In the breath that follows, Shiro covers his eyes with his hand and exhales noisily. "Sorry," he says, tone terse. "I just think — I just have to do this right now. Otherwise, things won't — they're not making sense right now."
"You don't have to apologize," Keith says. "We can take it as slow as you need." He's not sure it's the right thing to say. Keith is awful at this comforting thing. He always hated it when he was a kid, how people would look at him — a scrawny orphan nobody with no one else in the world — and think that he needed someone to coddle him, to tell him everything was going to be okay when it clearly wasn't.
Shiro never did that. Shiro didn't coddle him; he believed in him. He extended a hand and let Keith decide whether or not he wanted it, in his own time. And now it's Keith's turn to return the favor.
"Okay," Shiro says quietly, both a response and an urging to continue, and Keith nods, standing back up and taking the shears.
Shiro's hair is beautiful, fine and slippery, and it hangs like a curtain down to Shiro's mid-back. Keith is almost sad to see it go, but after the first snip of the shears punches a soft shuddering breath from Shiro's chest, Keith moves quickly, cutting off the long part in the back, his knuckles brushing the soft skin at the nape of Shiro's neck.
For a long time, there's only the sound of the shears clicking as more hair falls to the floor, the smaller pieces dusting Shiro's shoulders. Keith finishes up the back and leans back to scrutinize his work.
"Where did you learn to cut hair?" Shiro asks, breaking the silence that's stretched between them.
"Did it on myself," Keith says. "No hair salons in the desert." He nudges Shiro's head forward gently with his palm. Shiro obliges him and bows his head, so Keith can fix up some of the choppy bits near his hairline. It's strange to see Shiro from this perspective. Shiro has always seemed larger than life to Keith, but here, right now, in the small bathroom in the Castle of Lions, floating in space that they both never would have dreamed of seeing, he seems achingly vulnerable. Painfully human. There are weights on Shiro's shoulders that he'd never let Keith see, walls that Keith never imagined existed between them, but here they are, broken down, letting Keith see the shivering creature inside.
"Right," Shiro says, after a second. "I forgot. Fighter pilot extraordinaire and personal hair stylist," Shiro chuckles a lot. "Is there anything you can't do?"
Protect you, Keith thinks. "Cook," he says, instead. He doesn't say why, and finishes up clipping the back and then taps Shiro's neck. "Come on, turn around so I can get your front."
Keith steps back so Shiro can turn, and when he does, Keith takes a second to just look at him, his eyes roving over his face. There wasn't a single part of Keith that gave up during the months-long search for Shiro, but Keith never realized until Shiro went missing that he never really got to look at him, got to memorize the lines of his face, the warm glint to his eyes. Keith is never going to make that mistake again.
"Do I have something on my face?" Shiro asks, reaching up to touch his cheek self-consciously.
"No," Keith says, tone deceptively calm, even as he feels heat prickling at the collar of his shirt. Subtle, Keith. "I was just thinking you need a shave."
"Sorry," Shiro says, a little sardonically. His mouth is twitching at the corner though, like he's fighting back a smile. "Next time, before I escape a high-security alien prison, I'll spare a few seconds to grab a razor."
"That's all I ask," Keith says, before reaching out to push the long locks of hair falling into Shiro's face. He might be imagining it, but he thinks Shiro leans into the touch. "Stay still, okay? I don't want to knick you, these things are huge."
It's a little torturous, being this close to Shiro. Keith almost thinks Shiro can hear his heart thudding in his chest, but nothing in Shiro's face gives him away. He's just looking at Keith in his calm, measured way, the way that had always sent shivers racing down Keith's spine at the Garrison and had featured in quite a few dreams of his.
"You good?" Keith asks when he can't bear the almost-tangible weight of Shiro's gaze.
"Yeah," Shiro says, his voice barely above a whisper. They're so close that it doesn't need to be louder than that for Keith to hear him. Shiro's eyes flick all over Keith's face. "You look older."
"You were missing for a few months," Keith says, focusing on cutting along Shiro's hairline to ignore the sudden half-beat stutter of his heart. "It happens."
There's a beat of silence, then Shiro says, "I'm sorry I can't remember anything." Keith slides his gaze from Shiro's hair to Shiro's face. There's a suspicious glaze over Shiro's eyes, and Keith's heart squeezes. He puts down the scissors, not caring that they're sitting precariously on the edge.
"Hey, it's okay," Keith says, trying to make his voice as soft as possible. "It doesn't matter what you can or can't remember. You're back. That's what's important."
Keith has never seen Shiro cry; Shiro's never let him. But right now, there are tears slipping out of the corner of Shiro's eyes; there's the wet, shuddery exhale of breath as Shiro tries to pull himself back together, and fails, and Keith's heart finally just breaks. As if in a dream, Keith opens his arms, and Shiro falls into it helplessly, like he's caught in Keith's orbit and done trying to escape from it.
Keith doesn't know how long they sit like that, with Shiro wrapped up on his arms and himself wrapped up in Shiro's, but it feels like forever. When Shiro finally shifts to pull away, Keith lets him, and his arms feel strangely empty when he does.
"Sorry," Shiro says, thickly. His face is blotchy, and his eyes are red, and Keith wants nothing more than to hold him again.
"Stop apologizing," Keith admonishes. "You don't need to."
Shiro blows out a breath and scrubs at his face with his hand. "Right," he says. "Right."
"Shiro." Keith puts a hand on Shiro's knee, leans up into his space so Shiro has to look at him. "The only thing that matters to me is that you're here. I don't care about the mission, or the information. I — I care about you."
It's simultaneously too close to the truth and not close enough. Shiro is looking at Keith almost beseechingly, his glossy eyes welling up with tears again, and Keith, in a moment of daring, reaches up to cradle Shiro's cheek. The beginnings of Shiro's beard feel grizzled and bristly under Keith's palm, and this time, there's no mistaking the way Shiro lists to the side, into his touch. The instinctive move steals Keith's breath away.
"I —" love you. The words are there, on the tip of his tongue, but Keith bites them back, shoves them down his throat again. This isn't how he wants to tell Shiro, when he's at his most vulnerable. There's too much at stake, there's too much to lose. Keith switches tack. "You're like my brother," he says instead, choking on the words.
It's the right thing to say. Shiro's smile is watery and wobbly, but it's genuine. "Thank you, Keith," he says, and when he reaches up to hold Keith's hand to his cheek, it feels like both the wound and the salve.
"Anytime," Keith manages. "You're, um, almost done. I just need to finish up really quick, then I'll let you go."
"Oh," Shiro says, looking startled. "Right." He drops his hand from Keith's, and Keith moves away, already missing Shiro's warmth. "Go ahead."
Keith makes quick work of the last of Shiro's long hair, and ignores the way Shiro moves so easily at Keith's urging, the way he shivers when Keith — like a masochistic idiot — blows away the stray hairs clinging to his skin. The bathroom suddenly feels too small, too stifling.
"Alright, you're all done," Keith announces when he's finished, setting down the shears for good. He needs to leave, he needs to put some space between the two of them before he reaches out and topples the precarious balance they've established. Keith's skin feels so sensitive, like he might split apart if Shiro so much as glances him. "I'll let you go get changed."
He makes to leave, but Shiro catches his wrist. His pulse jumps, and he stops. Shiro lets his hand go, but Keith still feels the warmth like a brand. "Keith, thank you," Shiro says again. He looks like his old self again, with the haircut, and maybe it's because of that, but he's starting to sound like himself too. "For everything. For not giving up on me." He smiles then, and breaks Keith's heart.
It's okay though. It's a privilege to have his heart broken by Shiro.
"I will never give up on you," Keith says softly.
Shiro's smile is so bright. "Yeah," Shiro says, just as softly. "I've heard something like that before."