Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His roommate doesn’t really talk much.

Nobody gave him any details beyond the basics--promising candidate for the program; advanced in flight; Keith Kogane, twelve years old--but Adrian’s smart enough to use his eyes and ears and figure out the shape of the gaps left.

The kid doesn’t have much to unpack, just a grimy yellow backpack with about two outfits inside and a folder of papers that Keith shoves away out of sight before Adrian’s really even registered what it is. There’s nothing personal, no toys or stuffed animals, no electronics, no books. He shows Keith the storage space on his side of the room anyway, the empty drawers, the fake-wood wardrobe, but it seems sort of--cruel, almost, when he has next to nothing to put inside.

“You want a tour?” Adrian asks, gesturing at the door uncertainly.

“They showed me already,” Keith says. It’s more words than he’s put together at once in the last half-hour since Iverson dropped him off here. He’s inspecting his bed, fingering at the blanket and sheets, peeling both back to look at the mattress underneath. Adrian vaguely resents it: what does he think he’s going to find, bugs? But Keith seems satisfied with whatever he finds, or doesn’t find, because he climbs up onto it and curls up on his side, his back to the room.

“...Cool,” says Adrian. “So like… you know how to get to the mess, and about the rec room and the bathrooms and stuff?”

Keith ignores him.

“Okay,” Adrian says under his breath. “I’m gonna… They, um-- I sent you a message? On the tablet they gave you? So if you need anything…”

“Fine,” says Keith.

It’s a clear dismissal, and Adrian lets himself out into the hallway, trying to reframe the retreat in his head as anything but running away from the pissy twelve-year-old who now owns his dorm room.

---

And that’s about how the first month of their cohabitation goes.

---

Keith's an ideal roommate in a lot of ways. He's quiet, he's clean. He comes and goes at reasonable hours. He doesn't bother Adrian when he's trying to cram two hours of homework into forty-five minutes. He doesn't bother Adrian at all.

And it's fine.

It's a little like sharing space with somebody else's cat: indifference more than antipathy, hostility only when invisible boundaries are breached. It's fine; it's a little bit lonely but it's fine. Adrian learns quickly to mind his business, to not ask too many questions, to leave well enough alone, and gradually the wary silence his roommate exudes loses its weight. The quiet between them becomes peaceful--almost companionable, Adrian likes to think.

It's the coldest part of winter when it begins--not that it ever gets really cold, not like in North Dakota like Adrian's used to, but what passes for frigid in the New Mexico desert. There's a different energy to the students as a body right before a holiday break, more reckless, more inclined to test the rules, and it's one of the final days of the semester that Keith comes back to their room, quieter than usual and carrying himself gingerly.

“Hey,” Adrian offers when the door shuts behind Keith. Lately he's been getting--not exactly conversations, but exchanges out of Keith.

Keith doesn't respond, or even seem to have heard Adrian. This isn't terribly uncommon, so Adrian leaves it be, but he watches from the corner of his eye as Keith shucks his uniform jacket and drops it on the floor, then crawls into bed with his back to the room.

This is unusual.

Adrian hesitates, debating silently with himself, then finally gets quietly to his feet and picks up the jacket where it fell. “You okay?” he ventures, hanging it off the corner of Keith's headboard.

Keith's shoulders sort of jerk under the blanket, like he's been caught off guard. “‘M fine,” he mumbles without looking around.

“You sick?”

“I'm fine,” says Keith, louder.

Adrian shifts uncertainly from foot to foot. Something is wrong, he knows Keith well enough at this point to be certain, but he can't quite put his finger on the shape of it. Keith is shivering under his blanket, though, and that's something he knows how to fix.

“Want me to go get you another blanket?” he asks, reaching out to tug lightly at the thin fleece.

Keith surges to life, whirling on him with such furious suddenness that Adrian takes a step back automatically. “Fuck off,” Keith snarls.

“Okay,” Adrian says, showing his hands. “Fine, okay. Sorry.”

He retreats to his own side of the room, reeling with uncertainty: Keith's eyes had been red and puffy with tears, and he'd seen a discoloration like a new bruise on the underside of his jaw.

He has half a dozen teachers and supervising officers in his contacts. He scrolls through them all, considering, drafting a couple messages. In the end he closes the messaging app without sending anything. It might have been a shadow. It might have been an accident. It might have been any number of things, and he doesn't want to make an enemy of his roommate.

In the morning the mark on Keith’s face is darker, his movements more stiff. He holds himself like he hurts, and halfway through getting ready Adrian finally gestures at his own chin and asks, “What happened?”

“Fell,” Keith answers with such brusque readiness that Adrian knows it’s rehearsed. “I hit my chin on a desk.”

“Oh,” says Adrian. He doesn't really know what to do with such an unflinching lie. “When?”

“Class,” says Keith, and Adrian doesn't know if it's an answer or an excuse for how quickly Keith leaves.

Adrian stares at the door. He blows out a long breath and turns away, gathering up his tablet and notepad for class.

---

He doesn't say anything, in the end. He goes home for break, and Keith stays, and if Adrian thinks of him at all it's with a sort of vague pity and guilt. But they go out a few days after Christmas to make exchanges and pick up groceries, and Adrian finds himself looking at a rack of discount candy and gift packs, wondering if anybody got Keith anything. He doesn't know what Keith likes--but cookies, cookies are pretty safe.

“Oh, geez,” his mom says when he explains. “Put those back, we'll make him a plate at home. Homemade’s better.”

And so Adrian finds himself returning four days later with an absolutely enormous plate of cookies, because his family takes Christmas baking a little too seriously. He sneaks them in past the door sergeant without a pang of guilt and leaves them on Keith's desk, clearly labeled so Keith will know they're for him.

He's accidentally in the room when Keith discovers them, even though he would have preferred not to be. It's awkward, a little bit; he squirms into the corner of his bed and pretends to be very, very engrossed in his tablet. Keith pauses at the door as he always does, assessing the room like he’s entering enemy territory. His eyes go immediately to Adrian, to his still-packed duffle on the floor next to his bed, the new poster on the wall--and then, a beat later, to the plate of cookies.

Adrian holds his breath, watching from the corner of his eye as Keith approaches his desk. He stands there for a moment, very still, the label with his name in Adrian's sister's loopy handwriting held carefully between his fingers.

“Is--” he finally says, and turns to face Adrian. “Did… you…?”

“Oh,” says Adrian, lowering his tablet like he's only just remembered about the cookies. “Yeah, those are, they're from my family. My sister and I baked, my dad decorated. He's a-- he's in charge of pastries and things at a boulangerie back at home, that's why they look so nice. Um, I decorated the green ones. They still taste good though.”

He's talking too much. He shuts his mouth and tries not to wince.

Keith shifts his weight. His eyes dart away from Adrian and back, watchful, a strange, strange blend of hostility and vulnerability.

“I didn't get you anything,” he says abruptly.

“No, that's-- god,” Adrian says, flushing. “I wasn't expecting-- They're just cookies.”

Keith shifts again. He licks his lips nervously and glances at the plate.

“And there's nothing weird in them or anything,” Adrian adds. Keith's got a look like he expects there to be, and it's making Adrian bristle a little bit. “You don't have to eat them if you don't want them, I'll just--”

“No,” Keith interrupts. He doesn't seem to know where to look, and he finally settles on a neutral point at the end of Adrian's bed. “Um,” he says, and hesitates. “...Thanks.”

It comes out quiet, unexpectedly soft, and Adrian closes his mouth in surprise. “You're welcome,” he answers after a pause, mollified. “Try the-- the ones that look like little pies, they're my favorite.”

The tiny, wondering smile Keith wears for the rest of the evening transforms his entire face.

---

There's a shift after that. They still don't really talk, but Keith will glance up and greet him now when he comes back to the room, where before he'd only ever been silent and sullen. It’s still not really friendship, but it’s something a step closer.

And then Keith starts coming back with bruises again.

It’s never the same story twice, to his credit. He slipped and fell down the stairs. He whacked his head climbing into the pod for his off-site classes. A ball hit him during team sports. Adrian takes the lies for the barriers they are, doesn’t push past what Keith chooses to say--but there’s an uneasy doubt building in the back of his mind, a growing knowledge that something is wrong, something has to change.

Tomorrow, he thinks, and then the next day he thinks, if it happens again.

It happens again.

They keep Keith in the medical wing overnight. Adrian gets a glimpse through an open door of bruised pale skin, of Keith sitting small and hunched with his shirt off and his head down--and then the door is firmly shut and Adrian is firmly invited to leave, and nobody will tell him anything.

He stands in the hallway for a moment, staring at the door and choking on guilt. Then he turns around, and he walks until he finds a sergeant on duty, and he tells her everything.

She's kind about it. She listens long enough to get the gist, and then she radios her partner that she's going on break and ushers Adrian to the empty mess hall. She uses her card to get him a tiny cup of hot chocolate from the hot drinks dispenser, and she sits down with him to hear the rest.

“I should have said sooner,” Adrian says once he's given her everything he has, watching her swipe notes across her tablet's keyboard. “I thought it-- I didn't think it would get this bad? I don't know what I thought, I just-- I should've…”

“Yeah,” she agrees matter-of-factly. Adrian looks up at her, startled, and she gives him a sympathetic half-smile that doesn't quite make it to her eyes. “Probably should have.”

“I--” says Adrian, and stammers to a halt. It's an unexpected response, a break in the expected pattern: this is where adults normally comfort and console and say things like you couldn't have known, sweetie. He doesn't really know what to do with this, it sparks a defensive knee-jerk reaction in him, but he doesn't… have a defense.

He closes his mouth and stares down at his hot chocolate.

“You did good, though,” she says, “telling me now. I can get what you've told me added to his file. I think…” She pauses, tapping aimlessly with her fingernail on the tabletop. “Well. More information is better in any case.”

“Is he okay?” Adrian asks unhappily. “They wouldn't…”

She glances down at her tablet again, switching apps. “Got a concussion,” she says. “Looks like they're gonna check for broken ribs too. They'll probably keep him overnight. But he'll be okay.”

Adrian nods. He turns the paper cup in his hand in a careful, precise half-circle and confesses, “I don't know what to do.”

“I'm going to recommend that they find him some kind of mentorship situation,” she says. “For now, we'll keep an eye out, okay?”

“Okay.”

The sergeant considers him for a moment. She taps her tablet screen, and a moment later Adrian feels his own tablet buzz in his pocket. He pulls it out and sees that she's dropped her contact information to him: Sgt. Natasha Burns, her military ID picture small and unsmiling next to the name.

“If you got something to report,” she says. “Or if you need to talk. I had…” She pauses. “I know how hard it can be, reporting something your friend doesn't want known.”

Friend, thinks Adrian.

He doesn't correct her.

Chapter Text

“Ask you a question?” Shiro asks without looking up from his tablet.

It's mid-afternoon, the sun slanting across the dining room table, motes floating lazily in the broad golden beam. There's a bowl of macaroni and cheese in front of Keith--except it's also got broccoli and cauliflower and tiny red tomatoes the size of marbles mixed in, because Shiro says he needs more than pasta and fake cheese to make a meal. The broccoli and cauliflower are surprisingly okay drowned in cheese sauce, but the tomatoes pop and Keith finds this both horrifying and offensive.

“Besides that one?” he asks.

Shiro looks up from his tablet, momentarily thrown. He's been typing and tapping and scrolling for more than an hour now: it's paperwork, something to do with where Keith is staying for the summer (here, in the Kerberos crew's off-base apartment) and who's looking after him (Shiro) and who's the most in charge of him (Commander Sam); Keith had peeked over Shiro's shoulder earlier to look, but it all looked incredibly boring, so he'd gone away again. In any case, the process has been making Shiro's forehead furrow up with a stress-frown--which melts away immediately in favor of an exasperated grin.

“Matt,” Shiro remarks, “is a bad influence on you.”

Keith grins, swinging his legs under the table with a little delighted burst of energy, and takes another bite of his macaroni and cheese. “What question?” he asks after a moment, after he's had time to chew and swallow and reload his spoon with a careful balance of noodles and vegetables and no unexpected tomato-bombs.

Shiro doesn't answer for a moment. He's studying his tablet again, and the frown is back, but he's not typing. He might be reading, but Keith doesn't think so.

“I've been wondering,” he says finally, and something in his tone makes Keith tense, because it's his serious voice. “When-- a couple days ago, when we had the talk about you going in the simulator by yourself?”

Oh, thinks Keith, and a terrible sick sense of apprehension and resignation takes up residence in the pit of his stomach, because of course it couldn't be over so easily, of course--

He sets down his spoon.

“No,” Shiro says instantly. “No, no no no, you're not in trouble. You're-- the opposite of in trouble. It's okay, I just…” He rubs a hand over his mouth and takes a deep breath, angling his chair so he faces Keith more directly. “After… we had that talk and Commander Sam told you your consequences, do you remember? I think you were expecting… You asked me if you were going to be punished, do you remember that?”

Keith lifts his shoulders, staring down into the half-finished bowl in front of him.

“Do you think we could talk about that?” Shiro asks softly. He waits a moment while Keith shifts and squirms. “I'm sorry, I just-- you seemed like you'd maybe… be open to talking about it. And I think it's important.”

He'd said that, hadn't he. Keith tucks his bare feet behind the front legs of the chair, then swings them free again, fidgety. He finally shrugs.

“Did you…” Shiro begins, and trails off for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is tentative. “Keith, did somebody used to hurt you to punish you?”

Keith picks up his spoon again and pushes the tomatoes carefully into their own quarter of the bowl. “I don't know,” he mumbles. “Not really.”

Shiro hesitates. “What's that mean?” he asks. “Like… they didn't really hurt you, or they didn't hurt you when you were in trouble, or…”

“I don't--” Keith says, and stops. His shoulders are hunching up, his body is slouching down in the chair. He feels twitchy, full of an uncomfortable anxious energy that he doesn't entirely understand. He doesn't know if he wants to argue, or curl in on himself, or find somewhere to hide until Shiro's forgotten about it all.

“Do we have to,” he says finally, staring at his hands so he doesn't have to look at Shiro.

There's a pause.

“No, bud,” Shiro says. “We don't have to talk about it now.”

Keith breathes again. The qualifier catches up to him, though, at the same time Shiro speaks again.

“Do you think we could talk about it?” Shiro asks. “Sometime?”

There's no demand in the question, no force. It's just Shiro, waiting patiently.

Keith swallows, and he nods, and he hopes the answer is enough.

It's almost a week before Shiro broaches the subject again, and Keith almost thinks he might have forgotten.

They go for a walk, a long, easy wander down the trail that runs west to the town, meant to help work out the last of the lingering aches and stiffness still clinging to Keith from the week before. It’s a quiet, still afternoon, one in which the heat is a tangible weight on Keith's skin, a presence like a friend walking along behind them. Sounds carry for miles.

They don't talk much. Keith follows along behind Shiro, lost in the soft crunch of gravel beneath their feet and the low buzzing of insects along the path. It's so quiet that he can hear the town, the ebb and flow of traffic: another peaceful flavor to the silence.

“Did I tell you I lived with my grandpa growing up?” Shiro asks.

It's a little bit unexpected, this question, and Keith looks up with some interest. He doesn't know much about Shiro’s life, he realizes abruptly, beyond where it intersects with his own. Shiro almost never volunteers information, and Keith learned a long time ago to not ask for what isn’t freely given.

“Yeah,” he says. “You said--because…”

Something to do with Shiro’s dad. Something to do with how his mom and brother live so far away. It’s dangerous territory, and Keith is hesitant to touch it. He glances sidelong at Shiro, checking, unsure.

“Because,” says Shiro, and pauses. He’s watching the path in front of them with distant eyes, frowning a little, and Keith feels suddenly like he’s looking at something private. He averts his eyes.

“Did I tell you my parents split up?” Shiro asks, and Keith nods. “Okay,” Shiro says, and takes a deep breath. “Well. My dad got custody of me after the divorce because-- um, my mom and Ryou were moving to Rhode Island to be closer to my grandparents on that side and my dad was staying in Albuquerque and they didn’t want to-- they decided it would be best to not uproot me.”

It’s a very grown-up phrasing, a benign sort of obfuscation, but Keith knows it instantly for what it is: nobody asked Shiro what he would have preferred to do. He looks up at Shiro, and a complicated little twist of bitter compassion twinges in his chest.

“Anyway,” says Shiro. “My dad…” He stops there, and licks his lips; when the silence has stretched long enough that Keith is beginning to worry, he shakes his head and lets out a little gusty breath like laughter. “Sorry, I’ve only ever talked about this to about five people, I’m kind of… out of practice. Therapy was a while ago. Um, my dad started drinking.”

Something cold and sharp jolts up Keith’s spine, like a missed step. He glances quickly up at Shiro.

“It wasn’t,” Shiro says quickly, “it wasn’t like you’re probably thinking, he wasn’t an angry drunk, he never hit me, nothing like that. He was… he was a sad drunk. Looking back, like… he was dealing with a lot, he was grieving, he’d just lost his marriage and one of his kids, he was--” He stops again, rubs the side of his face. “I’m not… None of that excuses what he did, I’m not trying to… cover for him or anything, just, you know, that’s what was going on, um… What happened was-- he sort of checked out for a while.”

“What do you mean?” Keith asks.

“I mean,” Shiro says, “he was drunk most of the time when he wasn’t at work, he’d just pass out wherever. He stopped doing things like… you know, basic house upkeep stuff first, and then he stopped... making food... and taking me to school, and then he stopped buying food at all, and then he stopped-- there were a few nights he just didn’t come home.”

Keith stares at the trail, reeling, trying to reconcile this picture with the young man walking next to him. “What did you do?” he asks finally.

Shiro breathes in. “Figured it out,” he says. “Figured out bus routes for school and things. There was a little grocery store about six blocks away, so I’d walk over every few days and get peanut butter and bread and stuff. Bananas,” he adds thoughtfully. “I ate a lot of bananas. Then when I ran out of my own money I waited until Dad was passed out and I added my fingerprint to his tablet so I could move more money from his account to mine.”

“Was he mad?”

“You know,” says Shiro, and pauses. “I’m still not sure he ever figured it out. He might have known and been too ashamed to mention it, I’m not sure. Either way he never said anything.”

Keith mulls this over, frowning, absently adding Shiro’s tactics to his own mental bank of plans for just in case. The beginning of the story connects with the end, and he ventures, “So you called your grandpa?”

Shiro snorts softly. “No.” He meets Keith’s startled look with a rueful half-smile. “I was a kid,” he says. “I was a couple years younger than you. I knew if I told anybody things would change again and that’s-- That scared me more than anything else. I knew my dad would get in trouble, and… Yeah, no, I didn’t tell anybody. My grandpa just showed up one day--this only went on for about four months, but my grandpa realized something was off and he came over, and he walked through the house and looked at everything, and he went to the kitchen and looked in all the cupboards and he opened up the fridge and--god, you remember the weirdest most specific details about stuff like this, I swear--he opened that fridge and there was a bottle of Smirnoff and a bottle of Louisiana hot sauce and half a can of peaches and that was it, that was our fridge. And I knew it was over.”

Keith can picture it. He can feel it, too, in keen sympathy with the younger Shiro: the sick frozen weight that comes when your fears come true and your mind can’t make it real.

“Did he take you home with him?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

Keith pauses. “Did your dad get in trouble?”

“Yes,” says Shiro, and there's a different tone in his voice that Keith can't define: firm and even, deliberately so. “He got thirty days in jail for child neglect. My grandpa took custody of me and I moved in with him.”

“So everything changed,” Keith says. “Like you were scared of.”

“Yeah,” Shiro says again, simply. “Everything changed. And it was… pretty terrible, parts of that year, I had to-- there was a hearing, I had to…” He rubs his eyes and pauses. “I felt so guilty, I thought it was my fault it went so wrong and my dad went to jail, I thought…”

“It wasn’t,” Keith says, suddenly fiercely angry. “Shiro, it wasn’t your fault, it was-- He should have taken care of you, it wasn’t--”

Shiro gives him a quick surprised look, and something changes in his face, softens. He stops walking and reaches out to pull Keith in against himself. Keith is startled, but he lurches into the hug and wraps his arms around Shiro’s ribs as tightly as he can. “It wasn’t your fault,” he says again, the words muffled by Shiro’s t-shirt.

“I know,” Shiro says softly. “I know, bud, I know that now. It took me a long time to figure it out. You’re already so far ahead of me.”

Keith doesn’t understand this, but he doesn’t let go. There’s a tight ball of hurt in his chest for Shiro, a hot, thrumming fury that anybody would mistreat him. He holds on while Shiro rubs his back and murmurs quiet consoling words--and distantly, gradually, he realizes that he’s the one shaking while Shiro’s standing steady, that Shiro’s comforting him more than he’s comforting Shiro.

“Listen,” Shiro says finally. “Sometimes it's like that, sometimes… the people who are supposed to take care of us hurt us instead. And we make all kinds of excuses for them, we'll say like… oh, they've had a bad day, they're not always like this. Or, they're only acting like this because I'm not good enough, and as soon as I am it'll be good again. Or we think, I deserve this, I deserve this thing that's happening to me.”

Keith goes still.

“And it's hard to think about it or talk about it,” Shiro says, “because we feel so guilty about it, because it doesn't make sense that this person who is supposed to love us and take care of us isn't, so it must be our fault, right?”

Keith pulls away, backs up a couple steps. He doesn't know where to look but he can't look at Shiro, he can't, because he understands where this is all coming from now.

“I don't,” he says, and wraps his arms around his middle. “I don't want to talk about it, I don't--”

“Bud…”

“No,” says Keith, “Stop it, stop trying to make me-- I don't want to talk about it, stop trying to make me talk about it!”

Shiro is looking back at him, his mouth open. He looks stricken. He shuts his mouth after a moment, closes his eyes for a beat. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

The walk back is silent.

Keith keeps his distance after that--as much as he can, anyway, from somebody who sleeps down the hall and takes his meals at the same table and brushes his teeth at the same sink. Shiro doesn’t ask again, doesn’t bring up anything meant to remind Keith of the conversation they’re not having, but Keith knows. It’s a weight bearing down on him, the crushing awareness that this is something he owes to Shiro and will have to surrender sooner or later, and it sends him slinking away to another room every time he finds himself alone with his friend.

Shiro lets him go every time.

Just fucking tell him, Keith thinks to himself savagely the next night, burying his face in his pillow. It’s late; Shiro went to bed hours ago and the moon is bright outside Keith’s window.

Just get it over with. It’s not even a big deal.

And it’s not, is the thing. It’s really, really not. Keith’s been around, he’s heard stories, and his own story is immensely forgettable in comparison. His foster parents were all fine; even the ones who didn’t like him very much still took care of him. Shiro’s story is much worse than his.

It’s not worth talking about, Keith decides, and rolls over with finality.

It’s the next Wednesday night that it all comes to a head.

Commander Sam’s back to spend the night, as he will be every Wednesday this summer: something to do with a class he’ll be teaching when the school year starts up again, something to do with lab prep. Keith doesn’t know; it doesn’t have anything to do with him. But Wednesday evenings are fun, a midweek break in routine: Wednesday evenings are movie nights and music nights and cooking-together nights, the three of them ducking and darting around each other in the small kitchen, laughing and talking and dodging elbows. It's only been two weeks since the end of the school year, but already Keith knows to look forward to this.

“Careful,” Commander Sam says, eyeing the way Keith is attempting to pick up three glasses at once. “Maybe take two trips, squirt.”

“I got it,” says Keith, clustering the three glasses together between his two hands like he's seen Shiro do. He lifts, carefully, and turns toward the table.

Something shifts.

There’s a terrific crash, a tinkling shatter: Keith freezes on instinct. There’s a puddle of water spreading rapidly along the seams of the laminate and around his curling toes, there’s glittering shards of ice and glass scattered across the wet kitchen floor. Keith stares down at it all, and he feels his heart flip.

“Keith??” That’s Shiro, coming back down the hallway at a run.

“He’s fine,” Commander Sam calls back, a sort of grim calm in his voice. “Just a couple of glasses, we’re fine.”

“I’m sorry,” Keith says, dry-mouthed. He can’t find the right rhythm for breathing.

Shiro rounds the corner, a little wild-eyed. He takes it in in a second, his eyes darting from Keith to the mess on the floor around his bare feet.

Everything’s a little too loud, too bright. “I’m sorry,” Keith says again. Nobody’s listening.

“Can you,” says Commander Sam, and nudges a large piece of glass that used to be the base of a cup with the toe of his shoe. “There’s-- in the hamper, there’s towels, can you--”

“Right,” says Shiro, nodding immediate comprehension, and disappears down the hallway again on a mission.

“Okay, squirt,” Commander Sam sighs as Shiro’s footsteps down the hallway recede, turning toward Keith. “Let’s get you and your bare feet out of here.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Keith says, “I didn’t--”

And then suddenly the commander is reaching for him with both hands, and Keith’s mind sort of whites out, full of buzzing static. He feels his shoulders hunch up and his knees bend slightly, ready to fight or run--and then the commander slots his hands under Keith's arms to pick him up off his feet, and--

It's the sick unwelcome punch of glass entering his heel that brings him back to himself.

There's no pain, not yet, but Keith goes still with the shock of it, holding his foot off the ground. He's skittered two steps back from where he was a moment ago; there’s a feeling of recent impact in his forearms: he thinks he must have struck away Commander Sam’s hands.

He looks down at the puddled floor. There’s blood spreading in delicate threads from the droplets already falling from his heel, and all at once it hurts.

“Ow,” he says, and his voice wavers. “Ow, owww…”

“Okay,” says Commander Sam. He looks scared. Keith’s never seen him look scared before. “Okay, stay there, don’t move, just hold on for a second--”

Keith stands unsteadily on one foot as Sam darts out into the hallway, biting his lip hard and trying not to cry. Sam’s coming around the island, he realizes a second later, circling from the hallway into the dining room and grabbing a chair on his way.

“Okay,” Commander Sam says, and sets the chair down behind Keith, close enough that the seat nudges the backs of his legs. “Okay, kiddo, okay…”

It’s oddly hard to sit down while standing on one leg, but also there’s really no way to mess it up. Keith sits, trying to breathe steadily, trying to not let the hitching shudder of his lungs take over. He grips the seat and hunches over his knees while Commander Sam tugs the chair backward out of the kitchen.

“What happened?” asks Shiro, returning with the towels. “Whoa, hey--”

“Keith stepped on some glass,” Commander Sam says. “Hand me one of those and get the first aid kit, would you?”

“Aw, bud,” says Shiro unhappily, and hurries back down the hall.

Commander Sam puts the towel on the ground under Keith’s foot to catch the drips, kneeling a bit stiffly in front of him. “Can I look?” he asks softly.

Keith swallows. It’s a horribly vulnerable feeling, sitting with his feet dangling, knowing he can’t get away, can’t run. “Are you mad?” he asks, and hates the tremble in his voice.

“Did you do it on purpose?” Sam asks lightly.

“I-- no?”

“Then that’s an accident,” says Sam, “and accidents usually aren’t worth getting mad over. Let’s get you fixed up, and then we’ll clean up, and then we’ll have supper, okay?” He reaches for Keith’s foot--then stills and draws back his hand when Keith flinches.

“I broke--” Keith says, and hiccups. “I broke your glasses, I broke--”

“They're things,” Sam says urgently, showing Keith his palms. “They're just things, they’re replaceable, they don't matter. You're a person.”

Keith stares at him.

“You’re so much more important than a couple glasses,” Sam tells him. “Understand?”

And Keith doesn't, exactly--because sure if you put it that way but still-- but Commander Sam's eyes on him are worried and intent, like it's important that Keith agrees. There's no danger here, in any case; that's obvious in the even tone and gentle words, so Keith nods hesitantly.

“I'm sorry,” says Sam. “I should have asked. I wouldn't like it if somebody picked me up without asking either.”

Keith squints at him uncertainly, then finds himself wrinkling up his nose to stifle a grin at the idea of somebody picking up Commander Sam and carrying him off.

Sam grins back at him, but it's a little tired and doesn't quite make it to his eyes. “Can I take a look?” he asks again, gesturing at Keith's foot. “Or do you want Shiro to take care of it?”

Having a choice makes all the difference. Keith considers, then wordlessly extends his small slightly grimy foot to Commander Sam.

It hurts--it hurts a lot--but it doesn't take long. Shiro comes back with the first aid kit and sits backwards in a chair next to Keith, watching intently as Commander Sam uses a pair of tweezers to gently tug the shard of glass out of Keith's heel. It's hard to not pull his foot away, but Keith squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth, and he only whimpers once. And then it's over, and his heel is numb and throbbing mildly from the disinfectant cream smeared under the bandage, and Keith's moved on from being terrified of retribution and terrified of pain to being cranky that he'll have to walk funny for the next week.

Sam comes to sit with him that night, after Shiro's put away the book and buried him under a deliciously heavy heap of blankets. He perches on the edge of the bed--Shiro's, tonight: while Commander Sam is home Keith sleeps in Shiro's bed and Shiro sleeps in the living room, because Matt's room is a biohazard. Keith doesn't know how literal this assessment is and he's afraid to ask--and Keith looks at him over the top of his blankets. There's a sense memory here, a powerful one, of lying in bed safe and secure and comfortable with a grown-up sitting close, but the window’s on the wrong side of the room and Commander Sam doesn't look anything like his dad.

“I want to talk about earlier in the kitchen, with the glass,” says Commander Sam, and Keith tenses.

“I'm sorry,” he says, without thinking.

Sam gives him a thoughtful look. “What are you sorry for?”

Keith hesitates, scrambling a bit. Neither Shiro nor Commander Sam like apologies without anything behind them, he's learning. They want to know why, which is good, sometimes, because sometimes it turns out Keith didn't have to be sorry at all. But it means he has to work harder, and sometimes finding the right answer when he just wants to make it so nobody's mad is beyond him.

“For not listening,” he finally says. “When you said.”

Commander Sam makes an understanding humming noise. “I accept your apology,” he says. “What happens next time?”

“I'll take two trips.”

“Good,” says Commander Sam, smiling. He reaches over and messes up Keith's hair, which makes Keith duck beneath the blankets momentarily. “Good. But that's not what I came in here for.”

Keith emerges from the blankets, curious.

“It's happened a couple times now,” Commander Sam says, looking down at his hands, and pauses. “Mmm. There have been a couple different times where you-- where it's seemed like you expected me to… to hurt you because of something you did. Is that-- Am I reading that wrong?”

Keith shrinks. He gives thought for a moment to pulling the covers back up over his head, but he can't move.

“It's okay,” Commander Sam says quietly. “It's okay. You don't have to feel bad about it. Just-- can you tell me? Is that something…”

It's hard to breathe through the hard ache in his lungs. Keith can't look at Sam. He coils his knees up to his chest and buries his face in the soft deep darkness of his blankets, and he tries to ignore the dangerous pressure building behind his eyes. He feels Sam's hand settle on his shoulder through the blanket, rubbing up and down his upper arm in a comfortingly regular rhythm.

“I won’t hurt you,” Sam says. “I won’t ever hurt you, no matter what you do. I’m so sorry for scaring you today.”

“I wasn't scared,” whispers Keith, but it's a lie and it sticks in his throat.

“Startled, then?” Sam offers. “I startled you pretty good, huh.”

“I guess.”

Commander Sam’s hand squeezes his shoulder gently and falls away. “Listen,” he says. “We’re gonna talk about this some more before I go home tomorrow, okay? I want us to have a plan for if it happens again, I want you to be able to tell me I crossed a line before you step on glass. Cool?”

This is confusing enough that Keith peels the blankets back from his face and peers out at the commander.

“Like a code word or something,” says Sam. “Or a signal. I mentored a little girl a few years ago with some sensory issues, she’d… sometimes she’d get kind of overwhelmed. We had a deal where if she said the word ‘hopscotch’ I’d know what was going on and to get her to a quiet place, and then she didn’t have to think too hard about how to ask for help. I think something like that might be useful here, too. What do you think?”

Keith fingers at the band of his bracelet, frowning. “I don’t know,” he says finally. “Maybe.”

“We’ll talk about it,” says Sam. “I also…” He hesitates, and his voice when he continues is gentler. “I want you to think about talking to somebody about where this is coming from. Do you think you could do that for me?”

Keith’s mouth goes dry. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Commander Sam gives him a long look. “I mean,” he says finally, and looks down at his hands. “I think somebody hurt you. I think they hurt you in a way that is still hurting you now. I think they hurt you in a way that makes you expect to be hurt again, even by the people who care about you.” He pauses. “How am I doing so far?”

It feels like he's back in the dining room chair, dripping blood while Commander Sam holds his ankle steady with one big warm hand and digs in an open wound with the other. Trust and Shiro's presence had gotten him through there, but trust won't carry him this far, and Shiro is out in the living room. Keith doesn’t move.

“I think you need to talk about it,” Sam says quietly. “You don't have to talk about it now, you don’t have to talk about it to me, or even to Shiro, but I think… as long as you keep it all locked up, it's going to keep hurting you. And I think-- I think we need to make sure the people who hurt you aren't hurting any other kids.”

Keith goes cold.  

“It’s not something we need to unpack tonight,” says Sam. “Just... think about it this week, okay?”

“Yes, sir,” whispers Keith.

Sam reaches over to touch the side of his head, gentle and brief. “We love you very, very much,” he tells Keith, and Keith gets a funny warm jolt behind his ribs at the words. Then Commander Sam is on his feet, reaching over to turn off the lamp, and then he’s just a silhouette against the warm light from the door, shutting it softly behind him with a murmured, “Sleep good, squirt.”

They choose a word the next morning: spiders, something innocuous enough that bystanders won’t understand, but tangentially related. “It’s kind of an icky feeling, finding spiders somewhere you don’t expect them to be,” Sam says thoughtfully. “Makes you jump.”

And so it’s decided. Keith doesn’t know if it’ll work. The idea of actually using the word makes him prickle up with anxiety--but Commander Sam is trying to help him feel safe, and that by itself puts a pleasant glow in his lungs.

“Think about what we talked about last night, okay?” Sam tells him softly two hours later, when he’s on his way out, heading back home to the city, to Matt and Katie and Colleen and their dog. “I’ll give you a call on Sunday and check in.”

Keith nods. It’s difficult to look at the commander from this close. Sam’s got his hands on Keith’s shoulders, and Keith’s tense and vaguely twitchy with the proximity, wondering if he’s about to be hugged, wondering whether or not he wants to be hugged, wondering what he will do if a hug is offered. Sam shifts his weight, and Keith braces himself--but Sam only squeezes his shoulders lightly and turns away.

It’s a relief. It’s a disappointment.

He stands by and watches while Commander Sam hauls Shiro into a rough hug. Shiro’s got his eyes closed, Keith can see over Sam’s shoulder; the little painful stress-furrow is back between his eyebrows. “You’re doing great,” Keith hears Sam say to him quietly. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

Keith rubs his elbow uncertainly, watching, and looks quickly down at the carpet when Shiro steps back, but not before he's caught a glimpse of such overwhelmed despair on Shiro's face that it makes his stomach turn. And then Commander Sam is gone, and it’s just the two of them in the apartment, silence except for the sound of retreating footsteps in the hall outside.

Shiro breathes deeply and sighs, and he turns away toward the kitchen to clean up their lunch. Keith stays where he is--and then abruptly something’s hit its breaking point, and he’s at the door, throwing it open and blurting, “I’ll be right back,” over his shoulder.

Commander Sam’s car is in motion, but it’s only just leaving the garage. It slows and stops as Keith limps to intercept it, waving his arms, and Sam opens his door. His face is all written over with confusion and concern. “What’s up, kiddo?” he asks, leaning out, twisting his body to look back at Keith.

“I--” says Keith, and gulps. He closes the distance between himself and the car and leans on the frame, trying to catch his breath. “Other kids,” he says. “Last night, you said…”

Sam stares at him, uncomprehending, and Keith stares back, willing him to understand. But Sam just shakes his head slightly and says, “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you’re…”

Keith shuts his eyes for a moment. “You said,” he says, and shudders. “You said-- if there was somebody who hurt--”

“Ahh,” says Sam, and sits back a little, his face falling. “I said… we need to make sure the people who hurt you can’t hurt other kids.”

Keith swallows, and nods, and for a moment he can’t do anything but stand and tremble because once the words are let out nothing he can do will take them back. But Commander Sam waits patiently, and at last Keith breathes in sharply and says, “How?” before he can change his mind--and it’s out, just like that.

“Well,” says Commander Sam levelly, and reaches to turn off the car. He swivels in his seat so he’s facing Keith and he puts his elbows on his knees. “It… starts with your statement, with you talking to somebody about what happened to you when you were with them. Then I make a couple calls, and General Beck and I file a report with CPS, and they’ll look into it. They’ll talk to other kids who have stayed in the same place, and… they’ll go from there, depending on what they find.”

“They said,” says Keith, and it’s so warm but he’s shaking, he wants to lay down on his belly on the searing pavement until the heat has soaked into his body and he’s forgotten the feeling of cold. “They said--”

That nobody would believe him if he opened his mouth. That it would be another black mark on his record. That he’d be taken away and given to somebody else, somebody with less patience for his behavioral issues. That it was his own fault, that he didn’t leave them any other options. That it could get worse. That they did it because they loved him.

“Keith,” Sam says softly. “Hey. Can I hug you? What’s the spider population?”

“No spiders,” Keith manages, and stumbles forward.

And Sam’s not Shiro, but his hugs are almost as good.

The plan for the week doesn’t change much. Keith’s assignment is still to think about who he’d like to talk to: Shiro or Sam or Colleen or somebody else from the Garrison--or, Sam offers, they can find a therapist in town. He has time, Sam stresses this over and over again. He has time to decide, he has time to work up to it.

The dread begins to melt. The shame eases. In their place, resolve blooms, and peace.

“You’d better get inside,” Sam says finally, gentle. “Shiro’s probably worrying.”

Keith turns to glance up at the windows of their apartment. “What’s wrong with him?” he asks, remembering. “Why’s he sad?”

When he looks back around, Sam’s got a funny look on his face. He closes his mouth, and he wets his lower lip, and he says frankly, “I think he’s missed you this week, Keith.”

“But I’ve been-- I didn’t…”

“I think,” says Commander Sam carefully, “I think he thinks he messed up with you, and now you don’t want to be around him.”

“That’s,” says Keith, and falters. He looks back up at the windows. “That’s not…”

“Go on,” says Sam, and gives him a gentle little push toward the stairs. “Go give him a hug. It’ll be okay.”

Keith takes a couple steps. He hesitates and looks back at Sam--but there’s really nothing to say, so he sort of nods and turns to go up the stairs.

When he gets back inside, Shiro is sitting at the kitchen island. He looks up when Keith comes in, alert and a little searching--but almost immediately his eyes shift away, and Keith realizes with a little twist that he’s being given space. He takes a moment, scuffing his feet on the doormat to dislodge bits of sand and gravel from his bare soles, then makes his way hesitantly toward the island.

“Can we talk?” he ventures.

Shiro raises his head and looks at him, his eyes wide with surprise and hope. “Sure,” he says after a beat. “Yeah, absolutely. Do you… want to sit?”

Keith nods. He follows Shiro to the couch and hovers there, uncertain--but then Shiro raises his arm to offer Keith the space against his side, and Keith draws a breath that shudders and scrambles up to claim it.

When they’re both settled, when Keith has snuggled in against Shiro, weak with how much he’s missed this, when Shiro’s tugged over a blanket to cover Keith and turned on a fan for himself, there’s a long, quiet moment where nothing matters except that the silence between them is brilliantly golden again, that the sharp and jagged edges have melted away.

“What do you want to talk about?” Shiro asks at last, softly.

Keith takes a deep breath.

Chapter Text

“Did you never suspect?”

They're in Keith’s room, the three of them; Kolivan’s followed the medical staff off, either to provide perspective on Galra physiology (ostensibly) or just to loom at them (more likely), so it’s only Shiro and Krolia left. And Keith, who is quietly fuming at the extra day of bedrest recommended by the ranking doctor.

Shiro glances across at Krolia, who asked the question. “Ahh,” he says, and gestures between her and Keith vaguely. “You mean… about…?”

“Were there never signs when he was young?” she asks, shaking her head slightly. Her tone is light, like this is a question that comes from idle curiosity, just something to fill up the time and distract Keith, but there’s a keen, intent look in her eyes.

Was he safe, she wants to know. Was he hidden.

Shiro takes a deep breath and considers how to answer, looking at Keith. “Mm,” he says, and pauses. “There were… In retrospect there were a lot of signs, yeah. But they were all sort of… I don’t know, it was never anything big and they didn’t show up all at once. It's easy to get used to a little weirdness over time.”

“Wow,” says Keith, drawing out the word. “Thanks. Thanks for that.”

“A little weirdness,” Shiro repeats, deadpan. “A little smartass weirdness who eats through all of your study snacks in one sitting on three separate occasions and then has the audacity to bust eighty percent of your sim records by the time he’s sixteen.”

He’s expecting the smack that lands light and brisk on his upper arm, and he sways with it, doubling over with snickers onto Keith’s bed. “Ninety percent,” Keith mutters. “Ninety, like, eight. I left the Ganymede one, I was saving it for when you got back.”

“Feeling confident, huh?” Shiro asks, amused. “You know…”

“...the simulators are probably still programmed with all the old courses, huh,” Keith finishes. He’s sizing Shiro up with a glint in his eye, looking more alive than he has since before the crash, and something in Shiro thrills at the sight. “We should--”

“After you’re cleared,” Shiro says, because one of them has to be responsible here and it’s clearly not going to be Keith. “Yes.”

They grin at each other, sharp with anticipation and challenge, bright with this new soft thing between them that Shiro still can’t quite believe.

“So you never realized?” Krolia presses, and Shiro quickly looks away. “You never…”

Shiro sits back in his chair and shrugs, shaking his head. “I never did,” he says frankly. “Neither did anybody else that I know of. You have to understand--we’ve been isolated as a planet for… ever, as far as we know. The existence of life outside Earth wasn’t even confirmed yet when I was getting to know Keith. It wouldn't have been a natural assumption.”

“That’s so weird to think about now,” mumbles Keith, scratching around the bandage still plastered to his forehead. He looks tired again, still paler than he should be, and Shiro is quietly grateful for the extra day for him to recover under somebody else’s orders.

There’s silence in the room for a moment as they all consider this, sunshine slanting through the uncovered window, catching in the rubbery leaves of the little barely-established succulent cutting Shiro had begged off an officer’s larger plant. He doesn’t know what it is; he doesn’t know plants, but it’s small and cute, hardy enough that its parent survived the occupation and siege, and plants are good for recovering people.

“What sort of… weirdness?” Krolia ventures.

Shiro barks out a laugh. “Oh boy--”

“Do not,” warns Keith.

“No, do,” says Krolia, leaning forward to put her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fist. Her eyes are glinting in a way that belies the interestedly innocent expression on her face. “I want to hear this.”

Keith’s already squirming, more color in his face than there’s been all week.

“I don’t even know where to start,” says Shiro, and gives Keith a considering sidelong look. The pause is only half to gloat, though: he thinks this is okay, protests and blushing aside, but he lifts his eyebrows in a silent question.

Keith rolls his eyes and looks away, still red but smiling small, and Shiro has his answer.

“Hmm,” he says, and gives it a moment’s real thought, studying the young man next to him, thinking back. “Well, his eyes, obviously.”

“What?” asks Krolia, glancing between them in surprise. “What’s wrong with his eyes?”

“Nothing,” says Shiro mildly, trying to keep back the wicked smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth at the steadily deepening color of Keith’s face. “Just they’re not usually that color in humans. Like-- ever, actually.” In the sunlit brightness of the room, the deep violet depths of Keith's irises are on full display. “And they can’t generally see too far into the ultraviolet spectrum.”

Keith gives him a startled look at this. “You knew about that?” he asks. “I only figured it out the summer after the launch!”

“Remember that time I came and got you in the middle of the night so we could go see the lunar eclipse?” Shiro asks.

“...Yeah?”

“And remember how you didn’t like the spot I picked?”

“The power lines were too bright! It was a terrible--” He stops, suddenly unsure. “Wait, is that...”

“Mm-hmm,” says Shiro, grinning. “That’s not normal. Krolia?”

“By power lines I suppose you mean those suspended cables they were fussing over last week,” she says. “They’re very bright, yes. It's irritating, honestly, all the flashing. I thought they must be malfunctioning. The whole system seems very inefficient.”

Keith looks offended. “They’re not irritating,” he says. “They’re nice. It’s like…” But he trails off there and doesn’t complete the thought.

“They don’t emit light on a wavelength visible to humans,” Shiro says. “I didn’t know they produced light at all until I went home and looked it up after Keith pitched a fit.”

“I did not pitch a fit--”

“He always had a suspiciously easy time at laser tag too, the field there was lit by UV bulbs--”

“I kicked your ass fair and square,” says Keith loudly, “and I’ll do it again as soon as they let me out of here.”

“Challenge accepted,” says Shiro, laughing. There won’t be time, even if the facility where they played when Keith was a child hasn’t been obliterated like so much of what was familiar. They’ve been granted a reprieve from the war, but he knows it’s far from over.

Still, they can pretend, for now, in the sunshine and calm.

“What else,” he says, before the bittersweetness of memories and loss can catch up to him. “What else… oh, I’ve always gotten the feeling Keith sees better in the dark than I do--”

“I do,” says Keith. “You’re all blind.”

“--but too much light for too long and he gets a headache. He gets green-eye in flash pictures instead of red-eye. Also there’s some noises that really bother him for some reason?”

In response to this, Keith only points at his mother in a just wait sort of way, then reaches over and turns on his bedside lamp. It hums, a high electric buzzing that is barely audible to Shiro, but Krolia recoils, and her ears twitch. “That’s awful,” she remarks.

“Thank you,” says Keith, and turns a vindicated look on Shiro as he shuts off the lamp.

“I didn’t--” protests Shiro. He’s laughing again, his mouth open wide with indignation. “I believed you, did you forget about the time we spent three afternoons at six different hardware stores in two different counties to find you a desk lamp that didn’t make the noise?”

“You did,” Keith relents. “He did,” he says to Krolia.

“On behalf of my ungracious son, I thank you,” says Krolia gravely, and Shiro’s lost it all over again.

There’s more, some of which are definitely traits Keith inherited from his mother (Galra seem to be mildly crepuscular, though their internal clocks are removed from Daibazaal’s rhythms by several thousand decapheebs, and their ears are a sensitive point. Krolia looks rather prim as she confirms this, and Shiro, red-faced, changes the subject hastily), some of which are not (“No,” Krolia says thoughtfully, “Keith’s reaction time in flight is extraordinary by Galra standards as well.”), and some of which are inconclusive.

(“What was that one food dye we figured out you can’t stand? Red… 3?”

“Fucking Red 3--”)

It’s more laughter than they’ve shared in months, and it feels like a release. There’s something healing too about reaching back for these memories, about slipping back, however briefly, into the person he was then.

(There are things he chooses not to bring up: the way Keith never meshed well with other children his age, the way they had always seemed to sense his otherness and chose him as the butt of their cruelty. The way, once, in fear and anger, Shiro had seen his sclerae flicker yellow.)

“Oh, oh oh,” Shiro says, swatting at Keith’s leg from where he’s folded over onto Keith’s bed with another fit of helpless laughter. “Oh, god, I forgot-- Remember how you used to get high off sunshine, remember that?”

“What?” Keith asks blankly. “Oh. Ohh my god.” He drags his blanket all the way up to his forehead where he’s slouched against the headboard. “Why would you even bring that up, why would you do this to me.”

Krolia glances between them. “...High?”

“He would-- oh man,” says Shiro, straightening and wiping at his eyes. “Oh man. He grew out of it pretty fast after I met him but for the first… I don’t know, six months, maybe? Five or six pheebs? That whole first summer, every time we went outside, if it was hot and sunny he’d sort of… drift for a minute. He’d get really sleepy, he’d get this blissed-out look on his face. It was adorable.”

“I hate you,” mumbles Keith from beneath the blanket and punches weakly in Shiro’s general direction.

“I know, buddy, I know,” Shiro says comfortably, and pats Keith’s shoulder. He turns toward Krolia to ask--and stops, his smile slipping.

Krolia looks stricken.

She’s sitting back in her chair, straight and very still, her hands curled into loose fists on her knees. She takes a deep breath as Shiro watches, and blinks, her eyes coming back into focus. “Excuse me,” she says levelly. “There’s something I need to speak to Kolivan about.”

“Of course,” says Shiro automatically, straightening as she stands. Keith emerges, alert to the room’s shifted mood--but Krolia is already out the door, closing it softly behind her, and Keith gives Shiro a questioning look.

“I don’t know,” Shiro says, and he gives it half an hour before he goes to find out.

He finds Krolia, after some searching, in what used to be the cadet library.

It's eerily silent, the remaining study stations covered by a thin layer of dust, like many of the remaining academic structures of the Garrison. There have not been students here for years now: only soldiers and refugees and soldiers-in-training. The shelves have been moved, crowded against the walls, and the space left shows signs of having been used in other ways. Overflow from the medical wing down the hall, maybe, or temporary housing.

He stands in the doorway for a moment, letting the door close behind him with a soft, weighty snick. Krolia is sitting in one of the upholstered crimson chairs under the skylight--still there, incongruously, still grouped around the low table where Shiro remembers spreading out notes and arguing with his classmates during study group. Even the decorative fern is still in place, its silk leaves gauzy with dust and cobwebs.

Krolia doesn't look up as Shiro approaches, his footsteps soft on the worn low-pile carpet. There's a tablet in her hands, he can see now, and he recognizes it as the one Pidge loaded up for her as soon as her concussion cleared. He sits down quietly at one of the chairs perpendicular to hers, sitting forward to match her, elbows on knees.

It's Keith on the screen in Krolia’s hands, sunlit and unaware. Maybe thirteen, Shiro guesses; he can remember the day but not where it fell in their time together. He can remember Keith grumbling about Shiro's shameless habit of sneaking candid photos of happy moments, pushing away the camera, annoyed but smiling.

“He was a handful,” he murmurs.

“Yes,” Krolia agrees. She inhales and sits up, looking at Shiro. “Has he told you very much about our time together?”

“A little,” says Shiro. “He said… time was strange. That you saw flashes of each other's lives.” He hesitates. “Krolia, if I said something to offend…”

Krolia lets out a short gusty breath and looks away, rubbing the side of her face. “No,” she says. “No, I apologize. I… owe you an explanation. And thanks.”

Shiro watches her uncertainly, unwilling to push. He waits.

“There is…” Krolia says finally, “an essence that Galra secrete as children. As adults, too, to a lesser extent. Solir is its name, it… aids in growth and recovery, it shields from illness, it solidifies bonds of trust. When a child is held, this essence is produced and released. When a child is given comfort, safety, warmth, love… do you understand?”

“Galra children need to be loved to be physically healthy?”

“Yes.”

“We’re similar,” Shiro offers. “Humans… there’s-- hormones that act kind of like what you’re describing, I’d guess it’s... similar, maybe.”

Krolia looks down at the tablet in her hands. The screen has gone dark, but her eyes are not focused on it. “When a Galra child is left alone, not shown affection, there is a… a starvation, a deficit. It can have lasting effects if it's not countered.”

“What…” begins Shiro when she doesn't continue, and has to pause to clear his throat. He has an idea of where this is going, and he doesn’t like it. “What does that look like, when they’re...?”

“Growth slows,” says Krolia, even and matter-of-fact. “Fat stores are depleted, illness is more common, injuries more lasting. A child in this state will seek out touch and physical affection, and then sleep soon after finding it to synthesize the essence more efficiently. I believe...” She pauses. "I believe he found healing in time. There doesn't seem to have been... lasting damage."

“He always used to fall asleep on me,” Shiro says slowly. “We’d-- we used to read together, and he’d snuggle up to see the page better, and he’d almost always be asleep before we finished the chapter, no matter how into it he was.”

Krolia is silent, cradling the tablet in her hands. Shiro watches her: she’s drawn a breath, like she’s about to speak, but after a moment she releases it again without saying anything.

“The way he used to get in sunshine?” he ventures finally, tentative. “Is that related too?”

“It is,” Krolia says quietly.

“Galra children can-- they can use ordinary warmth to make that essence?”

Krolia shifts. “Yes,” she says. “But not well. It’s a source of last resort. A child who… drifts, as you put it, when given nothing more than basic comfort-- that child is starving.”

Shiro’s mouth is dry. “I didn’t know,” he manages. “I thought it was cute, I teased him about it, I didn’t-- I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry--”

“No,” says Krolia, and Shiro is taken aback by the firm conviction in her voice. “You do not apologize, Shiro. I…” She pauses. “As I said, I owe you thanks.”

“No,” Shiro says. “No, that's, you don't, I didn't--”

“Listen to me,” Krolia says, and Shiro closes his mouth. “You took my son and you cared for him at a time when he had nobody. You gave him-- Children die from lack of love, Shiro.”

Shiro stares at her, trying to wrap his head around this. He thinks of Keith as he’d first known him, small for his age, distrustful and prone to flinching, brilliantly talented but stifled by his own fears. He thinks of the first time he’d reached out in comfort, how Keith had melted into it, how he’d melted too, instantly and completely. He’d never stood a chance.

“Anybody would have--” he starts.

“Anybody did not,” Krolia says bluntly.

There’s nothing Shiro can say to this.

“You didn’t know what he was lacking,” she says, quieter. “You couldn't have known, but you still found a way to give him what he needed. Thank you.”

For a moment, Shiro can't speak. “I wish-- I wish I’d known,” he says at last, and his voice hurts and husks. “I wish I'd…”

Krolia is quiet. She shifts after a pause, thumbs on the tablet, scrolls in silence through the album of pictures they'd cobbled together. “I saw you, you know,” she says. “The flashbacks, they seemed to focus on... turning points, moments of strong emotion. You were there for many of Keith's.” She stops scrolling, looks down at the screen without speaking. Then she turns the tablet toward Shiro and places it gently in his hands. “Would you have done any differently if you'd known?”

Shiro looks. Then his eyes are prickling and the image is blurring, because it’s that picture , the one memory from that year that he would save if everything else disappeared. He can feel it, the deep plush couch cushions, the small body curled against him, heavy in sleep, bony and warm and a little uncomfortable.

He’d meant to get up, he'd meant to put Keith back to bed. But the stillness and softness of Keith's trust had been too new and tender a thing to disturb, so there they'd stayed, and he'd drifted off too. Sam must have taken the picture.

Krolia is standing. She claps a hand down onto Shiro's shoulder, heavy and firm, and turns to go.

“Wait--” Shiro says, remembering his purpose. He wipes his eyes hastily and gets to his feet. “Are you-- are you alright?”

She smiles back at him, a subdued thing that doesn't reach her eyes. “Yes,” she says. “It's not surprising. I knew how it had been for him, I just…”

“It's still…” Shiro agrees when she says nothing more, and trails off. Krolia looks at him, and for a moment they understand each other very well.

Then Krolia slips out, noiseless as ever. Through the narrow windows Shiro can see her turning down the hallway toward the medical wing, returning to Keith. He sits down again, stares down at the photo on the tablet for another long unseeing moment, thinking. Then, tenderly, he turns off the tablet and tucks it into his pocket to return later.

The day is full.

The coalition has started to arrive, rebuilding has begun--but the people of Earth are still collectively wounded by the occupation. There’s still a survival mindset that Shiro understands all too well, a suspicion of the newcomers, fear. There are reports of worryingly clannish enclaves forming in the ruined cities, self-isolated, and the week has been spent tracking their progress and forming strategies to avoid conflict.

Patience is key, they’ve decided. Patience, and consistency: all will be provided with food and medical supplies and clean water--and, as Iverson says gruffly, if they choose to shit on it instead of use it, that’s their affair. Shiro watches plans form to get supplies and aid to frightened, hurting, hostile pockets of people, and he thinks of a frightened, hurting, hostile little boy nearly a decade in the past, and he has hope.

It’s dark and long past supper when he’s finally free to put aside his uniform and slip into comfortable clothes and return to the medical wing. He’s half afraid Keith will be asleep when he arrives, but there’s a light on, and Keith is still sitting up in his bed when Shiro knocks softly and pokes his head in.

“Hey,” Keith says, grinning tired welcome and setting aside his tablet. “They kept you late today.”

“Sorry,” says Shiro, and closes the door behind him. “Were you waiting up for me?”

Keith shrugs noncommittally and stretches his arms above his head, yawning. “How much trouble‘m I in if I say yes?”

“So much,” Shiro says. He crosses to Keith’s bed and draws him in as Keith sags against him, bending to kiss the top of his head.

“Guess I’ll risk it,” Keith murmurs. He’s got his eyes shut, his head resting on Shiro’s chest, and Shiro lets him stay there. He combs through Keith’s hair with his fingers--it’s slightly damp, a little wispy where it’s dried. It smells pleasantly of shampoo, and it’s such a familiar, ordinary, Earth smell that Shiro has to close his eyes for a moment, dizzy all over again with the blinding truth that this is real, this is home, and beyond all hope or expectation they’re here and safe together.

“Scoot over,” he says softly, and Keith obliges. The bed is too small for two, but neither of them mind the closeness. Keith settles against him, bodies pressed together hip to shoulder, legs tangled under the blankets. Shiro leans back against the headboard and sighs.

“Tired?” Keith asks.

Shiro hums in answer. “Long day,” he says after a pause. Keith is tracing the plates and joined surfaces of his prosthetic hand with his fingertips, and Shiro closes his eyes to pay closer attention to the sensation. It’s nice, arrestingly so; it goes beyond merely detectable to pleasant.

He didn’t know a prosthetic could do that. He didn’t know false nerves could report anything but different flavors of pain.

He’s drifting a little when Keith speaks. “Mom says you guys talked.”

Shiro pulls in a deep slow breath and blinks himself alert again. “Yeah,” he answers. He doesn’t say anything else. He leaves a question in the silence.

Keith doesn’t look at him. He’s lacing his slim, strong fingers with Shiro’s, his hand small against the prosthetic. Shiro sees his tongue dart out to wet his lips, his forehead pull down into a frown.

“I hope,” Keith says finally, haltingly. “I hope you don’t think I was just… using you.”

“What?” Shiro asks, startled into a laugh. “Keith.”

Keith’s face is red. He lets out a short sharp breath, self-conscious, and looks away. “You know what I mean.”

“Mm,” says Shiro, still grinning. “You ran an elaborate long-game con and got me wrapped around your finger all for the sake of snuggles. Fooled me into thinking you were just a little kid who needed love when in fact you were a little kid who needed love.  I’m just not sure I can come to terms with that, Keith.”

“Shiro,” whispers Keith. He’s stiffening up, his shoulders lifting, and Shiro realizes too late that he’s touched an exposed nerve.

“Hey, whoa,” he says immediately, gentling his tone, reaching out. “Keith-- Keith, of course I don’t think that. Hey, look at me--”

Keith turns toward him, but it takes a beat longer before he can meet Shiro’s eyes, and even then he can’t look for long. The shame in his face makes Shiro’s heart lurch.

“Hey,” he says again, and detangles his hand from Keith’s so he can cup his face instead. “Listen...” Keith’s breath is soft on his artificial palm, the slightest brush of air, warmth, humidity. Shiro stares at him, aching, and realizes he has no idea what to say.

“Everything I gave to you I gave with all my heart,” he says at last, laying the bare truth out like an offering. “You can’t-- you can’t steal a gift, Keith.”

Keith shudders, turning his head to press his face into Shiro’s hand. “No, I know, I just--” He squeezes his eyes shut, his face twisting up painfully. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say, just-- I didn’t-- I didn’t only love you because of… some… fucked-up chemical imbalance, is what I’m trying to say, that’s…”

“We’re all walking chemical imbalances,” Shiro says lightly. “Talk to Pidge about that sometime.” He pauses, brushes his thumb along the ridge of Keith's cheekbone. “I know, though. I remember.”

Keith's eyes open at this. He gives Shiro a long, searching look that Shiro does his best to meet steadily--and then his eyes are closing again, and he's relaxing, and his expression eases. “Okay,” he breathes, and settles back against Shiro's side.

They stay like that for several minutes, no sound but breathing and the soft rustle of Shiro's fingers through Keith's hair. Then, realizing Keith is in danger of falling asleep sitting up, Shiro shifts them carefully to lie down. Keith lets himself be moved, sleepy-limp and trusting, but when Shiro rolls him gently onto his side he grumbles, “What're you doing?”

“Boosting your constitution stats,” Shiro says, sliding up behind Keith, chest-to-back. “Go back to sleep.”

Keith lets out a confused snort and cranes his neck to look at Shiro over his shoulder. “What, with the-- Shiro that's just kids.”

“Nope,” says Shiro, nesting his knees behind Keith's and draping an arm over his chest. “Grown-ups too. Your mom said.”

“She didn't say anything about that to me,” Keith argues, but he's already gone slack-limbed and content, wrapping both arms around the broad solid bulk of Shiro's prosthetic--which doesn't seem like it would be very comfortable to Shiro, but he's hardly going to complain.

“We could call her in and ask,” Shiro suggests brightly.

Keith mutters, “Oh my god,” and then they're both shaking with fits of half-suppressed giggles that take a solid ten minutes to get under control.

But they’re both exhausted, because recovery is work, and gradually their mirth fades to stillness. Beneath his palm, Shiro feels Keith's chest rise and fall with a heavy breath. And then, just as Shiro's starting to settle into the calm quiet place this side of sleep, comforted by the steady pulse of Keith's heart, Keith's moving, squirming onto his back in the limited space.

Shiro groans, but lets him go. “I don't think you understand the concept of spooning.”

“Shut up,” says Keith, rolling with difficulty to face Shiro. He reaches over and pushes at Shiro's shoulder, and Shiro, with a dim understanding of what he wants, rolls onto his back and lifts his arm so that Keith can press up against his side, sprawled half over him. Then, with a soft contented noise, Keith settles in.

They look at each other. Shiro can see in Keith's eyes the same wonder he feels, that this is real, that they can have this. “Hey,” he whispers.

Keith’s face breaks into a soft, affectionate grin, the shy one he saves for Shiro. “Hey,” he answers.

He’s so beautiful, Shiro thinks distantly. He’s the most beautiful person Shiro’s ever seen. He knows every expression of the beloved face in front of him and yet he could look forever. He reaches up to touch, the Altean tech whirring softly in the silence; he brushes his fingertips over the planes and ridges of Keith’s face, exploring both the structures and textures and his own newly enhanced ability to feel and know and learn. Keith closes his eyes, smiling absent and open-mouthed as Shiro gently, gently touches the petal-thin skin of his eyelids, feels the delicate brush of his lashes.

“I needed you too, you know,” Shiro finally says. Keith opens his eyes to look at him, and he clarifies, “When we met. When you were little.”

Keith makes a small doubtful noise. “Calling bullshit,” he mumbles sleepily, and pushes his face back into contact with Shiro’s hand in an unsubtle hint, closing his eyes again. “You didn’ need anything. You were…”

“...Pretty alone,” Shiro finishes quietly, when Keith trails off. He draws his fingertips along Keith’s scalp, combing back through his hair. “Not like you. Nothing like you, I had, you know, mentors, friends. But there was still…”

It’s not something he really has words for, it’s not something he’s ever tried to express. He thinks back to the early days, to the persistent sense of something slotting into place that he’d been missing, the way his whole world had reoriented to make space for Keith and been infinitely brighter for it.

Keith has opened his eyes and is watching him without speaking. Shiro looks back at him, tucks his hair very gently behind his ear, careful not to touch the shell itself. “You made my life so much richer,” he finally says, honest, straightforward as it’s best to be with Keith. “From the very first day. I’m glad I met you.”

Keith considers this in silence. He’s not meeting Shiro’s eyes, but it’s an absent look, rather than avoidant or ashamed. “Sorry I was so clingy that first year,” he finally says. “You didn’t sign up for that.”

Shiro snorts out loud. “You were the opposite of clingy,” he says. “I can count on one hand the number of times you actually asked to be hugged. I wish you’d asked more, I wish I’d known what you needed, I’d’ve…”

“What,” Keith says, dry and amused. “Hugged me more? I think there’s a saturation point--”

“Yep,” Shiro says recklessly, and rolls onto his side to gather Keith, laughing now, into an encompassing embrace. Keith’s grown and filled out, but he’s still wiry in comparison to Shiro, and Shiro takes full advantage of this fact. “Every--hour--of every--day.”

The next thirty seconds are filled with half-hearted struggling and laughter, and one muffled yelp from Keith, who at twenty-two is as ticklish as he was at twelve. It ends much as it began, with Keith in the circle of Shiro’s arms--but still now and quiet, body slack and peaceful, his eyes on Shiro's face.

“Stay?” he whispers.

Shiro presses his cheek to the top of Keith's head and breathes deep, holding him as close as he dares. “I can't, you know I can't…”

“The nurse already came through, she won’t be back until morning--”

“You’ll get in trouble. I’ll get in trouble.”

“They’re discharging me tomorrow anyway,” Keith says. “I’ll tell them the-- the thing, what Mom said.”

“Think they’ll buy that?” Shiro asks.

Keith pushes his forehead into the junction between Shiro’s neck and shoulder, his arms tight and possessive around his ribs. “They might,” he says, and his muffled voice is pleading but Shiro can feel him preparing to let go.

And that’s what does it, really: they’ve gotten used to this, to letting go, to stepping back and hoping there’ll be a next time, a tomorrow. Shiro’s reasonably sure this time that there will be a tomorrow--but there have been so many necessary partings and sacrifices that this one, suddenly, feels almost offensive.

Besides, he’s really comfortable.

“Okay,” he says softly.

Keith’s head pops up. He gives Shiro’s face a quick wide-eyed sincerity check--and then he’s smiling, soft and bright and a little sleepy, like this is the best thing anybody’s ever done for him. “Okay,” he agrees. And then he’s burying his face in Shiro’s collarbone again, limp and still and half-asleep already. “Okay.”

Shiro watches him in the dim light, absently strokes the hair back from the graceful slope of Keith’s neck, trails his fingertips over the soft skin there and quietly marvels. Then, when he can’t keep his eyes open any longer, he reaches ten feet across the room with his Altean arm to switch the lamp off and close the blinds.

He dips his head down to press his lips to the crown of Keith’s head, and on an exhaled breath, he slips into sleep.

Chapter Text

There’s a hand on his shoulder.

Shiro startles awake, blinking and struggling to focus. There’s a small slight figure next to his bed, indistinct in the darkness of his room, and for a moment Shiro can’t connect the dots at all.

“Shiro?” asks the figure--and a funny noise follows, a loud gulp and a whimper. “Shiro, are you-- I’m sorry, please…”

The dots connect. “Keith?” Shiro rubs his eyes and rolls onto his back. The clock on his nightstand says 3:12 in glowing red. He has three hours left to sleep. “Wha’s up, buddy?”

“I’m,” says Keith, his voice small. There’s another abrupt, breathless gulp. “I got the hiccups, I can’t--”

Shiro exhales and shuts his eyes. “Bud…” he says wearily, and sifts through his sleepy brain for something useful. “Go drink a glass of water, okay? Then go back to bed, it’ll pass.”

“I did,” Keith says. “I’m--” He hiccups again, and his voice now is strained, desperate. “It’s been a really long time, I tried, I drank water and I held my breath but it’s not--” Another hiccup, followed by a short sharp hurt noise that doesn’t sound like Keith at all.

Shiro blinks his eyes open and pushes himself up on one elbow, squinting at Keith in the dim light and processing--

Keith’s got one hand pressed high on his side, just where Shiro knows the fresh bruise from a cadet’s boot is blooming deep black above his cracked ribs. “Shit,” Shiro realizes, just as Keith gulps and gasps and doubles over, and all at once he’s fully awake. “Oh god, shit, okay…”

“I’m sorry,” Keith cries, skittering back as Shiro surges up out of bed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-- I didn’t know what to do and you said I could come get--” He hiccups again, gripping his side, and whimpers breathlessly.

“It’s okay,” Shiro says hastily. “No, bud, it’s okay, you did good, you did good…” He wraps an arm around Keith’s back: there’s an answering cringe, a reflexive hunching of skinny shoulders, and he draws back immediately. “It’s okay,” he repeats, crouching down, his hands at Keith's elbows. “I got you, we’re gonna figure this out, okay?”

Keith nods, quick and frantic, clutching at Shiro's arms. His face twists up, he's holding his breath, trying to stifle the next hiccup--and it comes anyway, wrenching its way up from his core. Keith lets out the breath in an shuddery gust and gasps it back in again, and Shiro catches him when his knees start to buckle.

Five minutes later they're in the living room, Keith on the couch propped up with pillows to take the pressure off his ribs as much as possible, Shiro perched by his feet with a list of remedies on his tablet screen. They try everything, working their way through the lists the net gives them: Keith drinks glasses full of water, first the usual way and then bent over and upside-down, carefully steadied by Shiro. He swallows a spoonful of white sugar and chases it with undiluted lemon juice. He breathes into a paper bag, lets Shiro splash his face with cold water, then drinks more water in tiny sips.

(Shiro pauses over the directive to give the victim a good scare. He glances at Keith, whose white face is twisted up with pain, who is gripping the couch cushions beneath him with blanched knuckles, and he scrolls on hastily.)

The last thing they try is hot sauce. It's not terribly hot, it's just a packet left over from takeout; Shiro tastes a little to be sure. Keith takes it, puts the spoon in his mouth. He swallows--and his eyes widen and seek out Shiro's. There's a moment where nothing happens, nothing except grimacing and short shallow gasps for air. Then Keith's sitting up, leaning forward, coughing desperately while tears stream down his face.

It's a horrible sound. There are helpless, wheezing moans preceding each cough, Keith struggling to gain control and failing. It's distress in its purest form, and Shiro's heart breaks in a single horrified jolt to see it.

There's a throw pillow at the end of the couch. Shiro grabs it hastily and lifts Keith's hand out of the way to press it against his injured ribs. “Hold that there,” he orders. “I'm gonna get you a drink.”

Keith nods and complies, and Shiro carries his empty glass back to the kitchen. He rifles through the fridge hastily--there's half a quart of chocolate milk left from Wednesday when Sam was back. He pours a generous cup, shuts the fridge with his foot, and rushes with the milk back to Keith's side. “Here we go,” he says, trying to soothe through his own panic. “Here we go, bud…”

Keith drinks deeply, the terrible wheezing put on hold for the moment. Shiro watches, rubbing Keith's back, keeping the pillow in place against his ribs in case. “So that wasn't a great idea, it turns out,” he says, and his voice shakes through the forced levity. “Let's not do that again.”

Keith lowers the empty glass and shakes his head in agreement, wiping his mouth. He's still gasping a little, out of breath, his nose running, but he's not coughing anymore.

Neither, they both realize an instant later, is he hiccuping.

They stare at each other. Shiro holds his breath, counts the seconds, lets the pillow fall to the side. Keith draws a slow, deep breath and sags back against the back of the couch, grinning wan and bloodshot but triumphant--

--and chokes on a spasm, his body jerking and folding with startled pain. He doesn’t make a sound this time, and it’s worse for that, somehow. His face crumples. Shiro gets just a glimpse of tears spilling over, and then Keith’s hiding his face, his arms up around his head, his knees drawing up, an exhausted kid who just wants the pain to stop.

“Bud,” whispers Shiro, and pulls him in close. “I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry…”

Keith curls in against him without a fight. Shiro unfolds the blanket from the back of the couch and drapes it over both of them. He retrieves the pillow and holds it with a steady pressure over Keith's side, trying to support. He can feel every whimper and jolt, every little movement betraying that his buddy is hurting, and he feels wretchedly powerless. His tablet screen has gone dark, but they've exhausted the list of home remedies anyway. He's out of ideas, he can't help, he can't do anything at all except sit here with Keith and hold him and wait.

“I'm gonna call Sam,” he murmurs finally, and it's a testament to how miserable Keith is that he makes no protest.

It's half past four, and Shiro hesitates a little guiltily before he touches the call button. But he doesn't know what else to do, so he listens to it ring and he rubs Keith’s back with the flat of his palm until Sam answers groggily.

“Sir,” Shiro says, and only Keith's warm weight keeps him from straightening to nervous attention. “Hi, um, I'm sorry for calling so late-- early…”

“What's up?”

“I-- we're…”

Keith hiccups again, convulsing against him, the tears on his face shining in the light from the kitchen.

“We've got a situation,” Shiro says, watching him. “Keith's got the hiccups and can't stop. He's really hurting.”

There’s a pause while Sam processes this information. Shiro hears him sigh. “Oh, geez. Oh kid. Okay, ahh… what have you tried?”

“Everything,” says Shiro unhappily. “He’s had a ton of water, he’s held his breath, we tried the sugar thing, we tried breathing really fast, lemon juice--”

“My dad swears by a spoonful of hot sauce,” Sam offers, and Keith lifts his head in alarm to say in unison with Shiro, “No.”

“...Tried that already, huh?” Sam guesses.

“It just made him cough,” Shiro says, resting his head on the back of the couch wearily. “That sucked pretty bad too. I don’t know what to do, we went down the list--”

“Drank water out of a straw upside-down?”

“We don’t have a straw but he drank water upside-down…”

“...Hang on, I’m gonna put Colleen on.”

“No, don’t wake her up--” blurts Shiro.

“She’s already awake,” Sam says reassuringly. “Her idea. Here--”

Shiro bites his lip.

“Shiro?”

“Hi, Colleen,” he says guiltily. “I’m so sorry to wake you guys up…”

“No, it’s okay, don’t be sorry! I’m gonna be up in an hour anyway. Hiccups, huh?”

Keith exhales shakily and nestles his head back down on Shiro’s chest. Shiro combs his fingers through his silky hair absently and smoothes it down again. “Yeah.”

“How long?”

“How long, bud?” Shiro asks, craning his neck back to look down at Keith. “What time did it start?”

Keith sniffs and shrugs. “Like two?” he guesses, and hiccups again.

“About two and a half hours now,” Shiro reports to Colleen.

“Okay,” she says. Her voice is calm and measured; it’s the tone of somebody who has a plan and knows how to execute it, and Shiro’s already relaxing. “I have something for you to try, but if it doesn’t work you might have to take him in.”

Keith stiffens, his face tilting up to look searchingly at Shiro.

“Hiccups aren’t a big deal, but we don’t want to mess around with those ribs and obviously we want him to be able to rest and not be in pain. There’s muscle relaxants they can give him to stop the spasms, because that’s what’s going on here, it’s just muscle spasms, okay?”

“Okay,” agrees Shiro, and the bitter helplessness is lifting because of course, he can just take Keith into the emergency clinic in town, they’ll help, they’ll know what to do, why did he not think of that on his own.

“Shiro,” Keith’s whispering urgently. “I don’t want-- I don’t want to go in. Shiro? Wait, Shiro--”

There’s a pause. “He’s listening in, huh?”

“Yeah, he’s right here.”

“Put me on speaker?”

Shiro lowers the tablet from his ear and hunts for a moment to find the right button. “Okay, we’re both here.”

“Keith?” asks Colleen. “How you doing, sweetie?”

Keith’s reply is a little delayed and strained and entirely untrue. “‘M good.”

“Yeah?” she asks. “Having a fun night?”

Keith blows out an exasperated breath and does not deign to answer. “He's smiling,” Shiro informs Colleen, and Keith shoves him.

“Alright, what are you guys doing for pain management right now?”

“He had his normal NSAID dose right before bed,” Shiro says. “Due for another in about three hours.”

“Good, okay. Anything else?”

“Um,” says Shiro, “we've got-- a pillow, he's holding that on his ribs for support with the hiccups.”

“Awesome. How about an ice pack or some tiger balm, anything along those lines?”

“We've got both,” says Shiro, already sitting forward, ready to hunt and retrieve. “Which would be better?”

“Tiger balm, I think,” Colleen says. “Got the red stuff?”

It's a process, finding the tiny jar, getting the balm applied. Keith doesn't even want to touch the ugly multicolored bruise, and he won't let Shiro touch it either, but in the end they get a dollop of the greasy rust-colored ointment rubbed into Keith's side, staining the skin there like iodine. There's a powerful smell of clove and menthol that follows them out from the bathroom to the living room after Keith's washed his hands and put his shirt back on, medicinal and not unpleasant.

Colleen talks them through the rest, a step at a time. They get Keith reclining, stretched out on the couch and breathing as easily as he can between spasms. He doesn't like this, and Shiro understands: the instinct when something hurts is to curl in and protect it, and Keith is already fractious and anxious with the attention and the pain and the long sleepless night. But Shiro covers him with the blanket, and that's better, and then Keith scoots back with irritable determination to use him as a pillow again instead of the actual pillows they've dragged out for the purpose. It's a display of trust, albeit a cranky one, and something in Shiro goes soft and still at the sight.

“Okay,” he says, and settles his arms around Keith in a loose hug. “We're ready, Colleen.”

“Okay,” she says. “Keith. Remember the night I cut your hair for you?”

“Yeah?” Keith says warily.

“Remember the way I had you breathe, big breaths down into your tummy?”

“...Yeah?”

“Okay. I want you to do that again, exactly the same. Big deep breaths and push the air down into your tummy as much as you can, okay? You don't have to hold the breaths, but make them big and deep and slow.”

Shiro's arm is draped across Keith's middle, and he can feel when Keith follows Colleen's directions. He can feel it too when Keith's breath hitches and stutters and rushes out with a whoosh.

“It's, hu- urts,” manages Keith. A hiccup catches him mid-word and he seizes up for a moment in Shiro's arms.

“I know, sweetie, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry--”

“This sucks,” Keith wheezes. He's grabbed onto Shiro's arm with both hands, his knuckles white. “This really fu- uuhk--”

“Shiro, do you have that pillow?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, scrambling to grab it from where it fell on the floor. “Here, bud, here…” He presses it against Keith's hurt side, keeping the weight of his hand steady. Keith breathes carefully, hiccups again, but the support seems to help.

“How you feeling, Keith?”

“Do I-- nng! --have to answer that?”

“Do you want to try again,” Colleen asks patiently, “or do you want Shiro to take you to the doctor?”

Keith takes a shuddery breath and lets his head fall back to rest on Shiro’s collarbone. “I want to try again,” he says finally with a sort of grim resolve.

“It’s not giving up if you decide you want the doctor, okay?” says Colleen, her tone almost warning over the slight tinniness of the speaker. “Our goal right now is for you to not be hurting anymore. This isn’t a competition, you don’t have to try to prove anything.”

“I don’t want the doctor,” says Keith, and he’s got the bullish note in his voice that Shiro already knows means a fight.

Colleen pauses. “Okay, baby,” she says. “Let's do this.”

And it is a fight. Keith breathes deep, though it hurts him. He's quiet with his tears, but Shiro can feel the frustrated tension without looking at his face. He's stubborn, and it serves him well here, but minutes pass and every other breath is punctuated by a hiccup and a whimper, and at last the frustration erupts.

“This isn't working,” Keith bursts out. “It's supposed to be stopping the hiccups but I can't even do it because the hiccups won't stop, this is bullshit--”

“Hey,” Shiro says, lowering his voice, tightening his arms just a little. “Easy, easy--”

And Keith stops, but he's stiff and still in Shiro's hold like he's thinking of pushing it but hasn't decided yet--and then he hiccups again, and the breath he gulps in comes out again as a low wail.

Shiro takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes for a moment as Keith sags against him. “Okay,” he murmurs, and lets the breath out on a sigh, smoothing Keith's hair back from his sweaty, clammy forehead. “Colleen…”

He's on the verge of just doing it, just bundling Keith up and carrying him out the door to the bike and from there to the doctor, Keith's protests aside. Every flinch and noise of pain represents a jar to a healing bone and there's only so much he can let by.

“Keith,” says Colleen gently. “Sweetie, I think Shiro should take you in.”

There's no response for a moment. Then Keith sits up, sits forward, takes the pillow away from Shiro to hold himself. Shiro holds his breath and waits, unfolds his legs to sit normally on the couch. “Keith?” he ventures.

Keith's shoulders jerk with another spasm. "No,” he says, subdued, and curls into the opposite corner of the couch. “I don't-- I want to keep trying, I want to keep trying.”

Shiro shuts his eyes briefly and looks at his tablet.

“Okay,” says Colleen steadily. “You can keep trying for the next ten minutes, alright? If we're still fighting this in ten minutes, Shiro's gonna take you in. Deal?”

Keith scrubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. Sitting there in his pajamas, with his knees up and his eyes red, he looks so small and overwhelmed that Shiro wants to scoot down the couch after him and comfort him. But he stays where he is, leaves Keith his space, waits.

“Deal, Keith?”

“Yeah,” Keith mumbles. “Deal.”

“Okay. Ready to try again?”

Keith drops his hands from his eyes and raises his head to look back at Shiro, searching and almost pleading. Whatever he sees in Shiro's face makes him look away, and there's an exhausted, motionless minute where he only sits, shoulders sloped with heavy weariness. Then he gets up and crosses back to Shiro's side of the couch.

And they try again. Shiro counts for him quietly, keeps silent track of the hiccups as they come. He thinks they might be slowing, but it’s hard to say. Keith loses the measured pace several times, but Shiro rubs his arms and lets him grip onto his hands, and they find it again.

“Shiro, is he breathing into his ribs at all, or just his tummy? Okay, no, Keith, try breathing so your ribs don't move at all. We don't need them to be moving right now.”

Keith nods, even though Colleen can't see him through their audio-only connection, and Shiro feels some of the hurting stiffness ease almost immediately from his body. “Doing good, buddy,” he murmurs.

“Do you know where your diaphragm is?” asks Colleen. “Shiro, can you show him?”

“Here,” says Shiro, and takes one of Keith's hands to flatten against the dip under his sternum. “There--that jump, when you hiccuped, did you feel that? That's it.”

“That's the muscle the hiccups come from,” Colleen says. “To make the hiccups go away we want to work and stretch that muscle, that's why you're breathing into your tummy, it's a good exercise for that--”

“Oh,” says Keith, startled, “so it's just-- oh.” And then he’s shifting to a better position, pulling in air with new purpose and determination, and Shiro could almost laugh with the relief because Keith gets it, all at once, and Keith on a mission is a sight to behold.

There's six minutes left of the time Colleen gave them. It takes four.

“I don't hear anything,” she says hopefully when Keith's had a full thirty seconds of peace.

“Shh!” says Shiro, nearly giddy with exhaustion and so glad. Keith's face is slack with worn-out relief. “Don't jinx it, don't jinx it!”

“Did we do it??”

Keith rubs the heel of his hand under his ribs. “I-- I think so,” he says cautiously.

Colleen whoops, the sound distorting slightly over the speakers. “Keith! I'm so proud of you! Shiro, hug him for me.”

“I mean, if I gotta,” says Shiro with cheerful resignation, and, careful of ribs and bruises, gathers Keith up to squish.

“You gotta,” says Colleen while Keith protests and squirms. “I'm gonna let you go, I have to shower and get ready for work, but listen-- I am so proud of both of you.”

“Thank you so much for your help,” Shiro says. Keith's gone quiet and still to listen. “Thank you for-- it's early.”

“I'm a mom,” she answers. “You call me whenever. Keith, get some sleep for me, okay?”

“Okay,” Keith agrees in a murmur. “Thanks, Colleen.”

“You're very, very welcome,” she says, and the warm promise of the words comes through even to Shiro. “Anytime you need me. Love you, sweetie.”

Keith’s body gives a little startled jolt at the words, one Shiro wouldn't have noticed if Keith were not literally in his arms. Keith doesn't say anything in answer, but Colleen doesn't let the empty pause stretch before disconnecting the call.

It’s morning. There’s pink-hued dawn seeping through the curtains over the east window. Shiro stares at it, squints down at the time glowing green on the screen of his locked tablet, and wonders if it’s even worth trying to sleep for the remaining forty-five minutes before his alarm goes off. “I’m gonna call in,” he decides, and tips his head back against the back of his couch, closing his eyes. “At least for the morning stuff.”

“Sorry,” Keith mumbles. He hasn’t pulled away from Shiro’s mom-mandated hug.

“Nah,” Shiro sighs, running a flat palm absently up and down Keith’s back to reassure him. “How you feeling, bud?”

Keith considers for a long moment. “Tired,” he says finally. “‘M really…”

“Yeah...”

They sit there for a while, both half-asleep while the rising sun glows in a gold rectangle against the curtains and its light diffuses over the living room. Shiro thinks hazily that he should get Keith back to bed--but that would mean moving, and he’s more than half melted into the couch. He should get up and get breakfast, probably, if he’s not going to go back to his own bed, get the day started--but again, moving.

“Keith,” he says at last without opening his eyes.

“Mm.”

“Don’t wait an hour next time. Come get me.”

Keith doesn’t answer. But Shiro feels him snuggling in more securely after a moment, and that, he decides sleepily, is as good as a reply.