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All it takes is one bad landing.
Scratch that. Two bad landings. And a lot of bad luck.
***
All Keith wanted was to take Shiro somewhere special for his seventh (real) birthday. When Rolo mentioned a planet in the Xyron galaxy with gorgeous views from skyscraper cliff, hiking had seemed like the perfect idea. Maybe they could have a picnic. Finally talk about that confession and its very unbrotherly nature.
Rolo never said anything about the wildlife, or the giant freaking alien pterodactyls that might descend on their tiny space cruiser like vultures on carrion. There is no getting away. No dodging, no weaving, no blasting through. They barely have time to brace before hitting a solid mass of wings and beaks and claws.
Somehow, impossibly, they manage to make it through to the other side, but the damage is already done. All Keith can do is to steer into the crash while Shiro blasts as many of the pterodactyls as he can to get them off their tail.
“Brace yourself!” Keith shouts as he aims for a canyon with a river flowing through it. It won't make for a much softer landing, but something is better than nothing. Water sprays around them as they skid and spin to a halt just meters from the cliff wall.
“You okay?” Shiro pants, knuckles white around the blaster controls. He's peering at the sky, but the narrow walls of the canyon seem to have scared the pterodactyls away. Their screeches are growing quieter, leaving them with an empty, stunned sort of silence. “Keith?”
Keith shakes his head free of the ringing in his ears and ignores how the movement just makes things worse. “I’m fine. You?” Shiro looks okay. A little shaken, scraped and bruised, but no major visible damage. He nods slowly, eyes flicking back to the sky and the wheeling flight of the flock, so much smaller and innocent looking from a distance.
“Do you remember those old Jurassic Park movies?” He turns to fix a stare on Keith. “Let’s not become extras, okay?”
Keith's giggles are fueled by adrenaline and the absurdity of the situation and maybe just a touch of head wound. “Yeah,” he breathes. He runs through diagnostics on the ship, but what he finds is not reassuring. Neither is the water slowly trickling in around their feet. There’s no way they’re getting back into the air, much less breaking atmosphere.
Shiro seems to realize the situation at the same time. He slumps in the copilot seat. “What are the chances we’ll be able to get anything through the comms system?”
Keith shrugs. “Worth a try.” He flips the comms switch and clears the roughness from his throat. “Mayday, mayday, does anyone copy?” Staticky silence meets his S.O.S. He tries a couple more times, stomach dropping with each unanswered call. He can’t even be sure the signal is getting anywhere; the canyon they’re in is deep and narrow. Perfect for blocking signals. He groans and whispers out a curse as he rubs at one aching temple, wishing his head wasn’t so fuzzy. He can’t think .
A warm hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes reassuringly. “Hey, it’s okay,” Shiro says. “We’ll put out a distress beacon. It’s not like this is an abandoned quadrant. There’s bound to be a ship passing by soon enough. And in the meantime, we have water and plenty of vegetation around.” He quirks a wry smile. “On the We Are So Doomed scale, this barely rates a two.”
Until the other dinosaurs come for us, Keith thinks morbidly. The less pessimistic side knows that Shiro is right. After all they’ve been through, this is objectively nothing. If he can survive on a space whale for two years with nothing but his mother and his knife, they can manage here too.
He makes himself smile back at Shiro. “Yeah. Some birthday though, huh?”
Shiro laughs. “A memorable one, for sure. Can’t say anyone has ever gotten me dinosaurs before. Unless you count the plastic kind.” Keith snorts and knocks an elbow into his ribs playfully. Shiro grunts and shoves him with the hand on his shoulder. It’s gentle, but it still sends a wave of lightheadedness through him.
There’s a possibility he has a minor concussion.
He’s had worse.
“We should take inventory of our supplies and get out of here,” he says, eyeing the water swirling around their ankles.
Shiro nods. “I’ll do that, you set up the mayday. Then we can go get the lay of the land, find a place to bunk down for a bit.” He winks at Keith. “Who knows, maybe we'll find some brontosauruses.”
Keith flips him off.
***
“I think we should set a relay for the distress signal somewhere outside of the canyon,” Shiro says over their dinner of foraged greens and cheese slices from their picnic basket.
Keith grunts, mouth full of tough, stringy weeds that taste vaguely like leeks and zinc. He swallows, coughing as it scratches his throat. “We probably shouldn’t go too high. I’m willing to bet those things nest in the cliffs.”
Shiro nods, biting at his thumbnail and staring at the cruiser half drowned in the river. “They didn’t seem interested in coming down into the canyon though. Maybe if we set it three quarters of the way up?”
Keith’s gaze travels up the sheer cliff walls; he gets dizzy just looking at them, but he nods anyway. He wishes they'd brought Kosmo along, but a space wolf the size of a Clydesdale had seemed like a bad idea at the time. He regrets the decision now.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Shiro asks when Keith presses his fingers to his temples again.
Keith makes himself smile. “I’m fine. Just a bit of a headache.”
Shiro scoots closer on the river bank and replaces Keith’s hands with his own cool metal and flesh fingers. “Did you hit your head?” he asks, brushing hands through his hair as he feels for bumps. Keith slumps and closes his eyes, scalp tingling and pain subsiding slightly, until Shiro reaches the back of his head and hits a large knot. He can’t hide the wince. Shiro pulls away sharply. “Keith.” He sounds worried with just a hint of reproach mixed in.
“It’s just a little bump,” Keith says guiltily. He gestures at Shiro’s hands. “It’s not even bleeding.” Shiro gives him a Look. “Seriously, it’s fine.”
Shiro doesn’t seem very convinced. “Maybe you should stay here while I go place the relay.”
Annoyance flares, but disappears as quickly as it came. Keith would suggest the same thing in Shiro's position. “Shiro. I appreciate your concern, really. But neither of us should be climbing alone.”
Shiro chews on his lip, but has to concede eventually. “You’re right. But we should both get a good night’s rest first.” Keith wants to argue but it’s getting dark in the canyon, even though it’s nowhere near sunset.
Keith holds out a zinc-leek as a peace offering. “Tomorrow, then.”
***
They stop on a ledge part way up the cliff side to rest and eat the small lunch they’d packed. “You have to admit, the views are pretty great,” Shiro says, gesturing out towards the canyon that spreads before them, all lavender shale crags glowing warmly in the sunlight that filters in, veins of forest green crystal marbling throughout. Scrubby bushes with red and orange leaves cling tenaciously to the cracks and among the scree. The river winds snake-like at the bottom, sparkling in the sun like diamonds and feeding a wealth of flora and fauna.
Keith would rather look at the man next to him, drink in the serene look on his face, sweat dampened hair and cheeks pinked with exertion. The words well up in his throat, rolling honey sweet and sticky on his tongue. He wants to share the taste with Shiro, press it against his lips and between them until the aftertaste clings to both their tongues. He opens his mouth.
Shiro claps his hands on his knees. “Well, we should probably get going again. We only have so many hours of daylight.”
Keith swallows everything back down, lets it settle warm and thick in his stomach for later. They clean up their debris and Shiro slings their small backpack over his shoulders. “Ready?” he asks. Keith nods and lets himself be pulled to his feet. Shiro turns to search out the best path up, and Keith takes the opportunity to look out over the landscape one more time.
It’s a mistake. As he looks down towards the river he’s struck with a sudden wave of vertigo that nearly takes his knees out from under him. He staggers and tries to regain his balance; for one brief moment, he steadies. Then his foot slips on loose gravel and the ground falls away.
The first impact thuds and reverberates through his body like a shock to the heart, but he doesn’t have time to register it as he hits another outcrop and sharp, lancing pain shoots through his shoulder and chest. It tears a cry from his throat as he hits again and skids through the scree towards another long drop. He scrabbles one handed, desperate for purchase, but then he’s airborne again and that’s it. He’s staring down at a sheer drop to the bottom and this time, no amount of water will soften the blow.
Metal fingers clamp around his wrist, jerking him out of his free fall. Agony rips through him, and everything goes black.
***
Someone’s calling his name. He thinks they have been for a while.
“-eith? Keith, baby, come on, please wake up. Wake up! ”
Cold hands on his forehead, his jaw. Sharp gravel under his back. Wildfire consuming his neck, his chest, his arm.
Warm, wet drops on his cheeks. He doesn’t think they belong to him.
Blackness again.
***
Keith wakes with a groan and blinks, disoriented, as he stares at the rocky ceiling of the overhang they'd set up camp under. His head feels like someone had taken an ice pick to it and then stuffed cotton and bees through the hole.
It's nothing compared to his shoulder.
“Keith?” He winces as the voice stirs up the bees, but a cool hand on his forehead appeases them somewhat. He looks over at the source, trying to move as little as possible. Shiro is smiling down at him, though it more resembles a grimace than anything else. Keith appreciates the effort. “Hey buddy, you back with me?”
“What happened?” Keith rasps. His memory is muddled; he remembers climbing, an unspoken confession, flying when he shouldn't be. Everything else is blurred and faded like someone took an old eraser to it.
Shiro's face twists, turned ugly with a mixture of guilt, fear, and worry. “You fell,” he says in a tight voice. “I tried to catch you, but you were too far away to pull back up. All I could do was slow your fall.”
“Oh.” That makes sense. The Altean magnetic-mojo-whatever that keeps Shiro's arm afloat weakens with distance and pulling him back up would have been a lot harder than guiding him down.
Shiro laughs, bitter and unhappy. “Yeah. Oh.”
Keith closes his eyes and assesses his body, cataloguing the bruises and cuts and deeper aches. He thinks a rib or two might be broken, and there's something very wrong with his shoulder. Something higher up too, his collarbone maybe. He shifts one arm to feel, but Shiro gently pins it back down.
“Don't try and get up,” he says firmly.
Keith snorts and regrets it immediately as it sets off a fresh wave of pain. “Wasn't planning to. What's wrong with my arm?”
“From what I can tell, you broke your clavicle and dislocated your shoulder. I’m pretty sure I caused the latter.”
Keith smiles weakly. “Better than being a smear on the ground.”
His attempt to lighten the mood falls flat as Shiro looks away. “Don't joke,” he says sharply. “Do you have any clue how close that is to being true? Even with slowing you down, I couldn't be sure that wasn't exactly what happened. I had to climb all the way back down thinking you might be dead, or would be if I wasn't fast enough.” His voice breaks, the threat of tears too heavy a load for it to bear.
Keith swallows and lowers his eyes contritely. “I'm sorry,” he whispers.
Shiro turns his gaze up to the ceiling, sniffs and takes a deep breath, then lets it out with a huff and looks back to Keith. His eyes are still too shiny and rimmed with red, but he has his game face back on. “We can talk about this later. How's your head?”
Concussed. Not as bad as it could be, considering the fact that he passed out. Definitely not the worst he's had. He says as much to Shiro, who shakes his head. “I'm pretty sure you passed out from the pain, not the head wound,” he says. Keith grimaces. He doesn't pass out from pain. It's just not a thing he does. “I. I heard you cry out when I first grabbed you, and that's when you went limp.”
Okay, so maybe it’s a thing he does.
“I want to sit up,” he says rather than address that. Shiro raises an eyebrow at him.
“That’s nice. We all have dreams and aspirations.”
Keith glares at him. Shiro's weird sense of humor always comes out at the worst times. “Let me rephrase that. I'm going to sit up now.”
In their long history of staring contests, Shiro always blinks first. Today is no different. “Fine,” he says, exasperated. “But at least let me help you up.”
Keith’s pride isn’t too stubborn to refuse that. Shiro steadies him, keeping his arm as immobile as possible. Keith still feels a wave of nausea so strong he has to fight not to throw up. Shiro rubs his back lightly until it passes, leaving behind a full body throbbing. He leans back into Shiro’s embrace, letting himself rest against his chest. He closes his eyes and lets the warmth seep into him. “Do not say I told you so,” he mutters.
Shiro stiffens, then sighs. He sounds so weary. “I would never,” he says quietly, running one hand comfortingly up and down his good arm. “I don’t want to be right, I want you to not be in pain.”
Keith wilts. He’s used to being the knight, not the damsel. The caretaker, not the patient. It’s a bitter pill to swallow. “I’m sorry.” For more than just this moment.
Shiro doesn’t say anything, just squeezes his bicep. “Do you think you can sit on your own for a minute? You could probably use some water and food, huh?”
“Yeah.” Shiro squeezes one more time and moves away. It takes everything he has to stay upright and he can’t stop the tiny sigh of relief as Shiro slides behind him once more and lets him settle against him again. Shiro nudges him with a water pouch and sets a sleeve of crackers in his lap as Keith carefully sips the water. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until the filtered water cools and soothes his throat. “Thanks.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
There’s that guilt again. Keith sighs, wishing they could be face to face for this. “You know none of this is your fault, right?”
“We can talk about this later,” Shiro says again. Keith starts to shake his head but stops and grits his teeth when it sets off another round of pain and dizziness.
“Not if it’s just going to give you more time for self flagellation,” he argues. “This is all on me. I was the one dumb enough to ignore the first concussion.”
“I knew things were worse than you were saying. I should have insisted you stay here.”
And that’s enough of that. Keith pushes away from Shiro, willfully ignoring his body for more important things. “Come here,” he demands, pointing in front of him. After a moment of silence, Shiro shifts sheepishly to sit before him. “You seem to have forgotten that I’m an adult and capable of making my own decisions. Even bad ones.”
“I know that but-” Keith holds up a hand to stop him.
“No. I’m not a child and you aren’t my father.”
“Believe me, I am very aware. But-”
“Then stop acting like it. This is my fault. I put us both in danger. Your martyr act isn’t welcome here.” He softens at Shiro’s stricken look. “I’m sorry. For everything, okay?” He takes Shiro’s hand. “This isn’t your fault.”
Shiro looks down at their clasped hands. He intertwines their fingers and covers them with his prosthetic hand. “Okay,” he says quietly. They sit in comfortable silence for a bit until Keith starts to sag with pain and exhaustion. “You should lay down again,” Shiro says, this time as a suggestion rather than a command. Keith nods and lets himself be settled back on the ground, Shiro’s folded up jacket under his head as a pillow.
As Shiro tucks the emergency blanket over him, Keith gives in to curiosity and gently feels at his injured arm. Shiro had bound it to his side with wraps from their med kit to keep it from moving, for which Keith is eternally grateful. It’s swollen and painful, and there’s a disconcerting lump where his collarbone must be broken, but his shoulder doesn’t feel out of place. “Did you put my shoulder back in?”
Shiro glances up from where he’s shuffling through the med kit. He smiles wryly. “I did. I figured it was probably better to do it while you were unconscious.”
“God, yes. Thank you.” He can’t even imagine the pain of resetting a dislocated shoulder with a broken collarbone.
Shiro quirks a smile at him, and holds up a tube of lidocaine cream. “I can put this on for you. I wanted to wait until you were awake since we’ve only got about half a tube left.” He pauses a moment. “There are some pain meds in here too, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea with the concussion.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” He’s already hazy and out of it anyway, he doesn’t want to make it worse. His eyelids grow heavy as Shiro gently rubs the cream into his skin. “You should have used the metal hand,” he murmurs. “Now you’re going to be numb.”
Shiro shrugs. “I can gauge my pressure better with this hand,” he says. He’s always so selfless. Sometimes it drives Keith mad, but right now he just feels grateful.
“You should jerk off with it, feels better with a dead arm,” he murmurs as his eyes slide closed. They snap back open when Shiro chokes, a blush spreading across his cheeks like wildfire. From the heat in Keith’s own face, he probably looks the same. “Oh my God,” he squeaks. “I didn’t mean to say that.” Out loud. “I’m really out of it.”
To his surprise, Shiro throws his head back and laughs. “I’ll keep the tip in mind.” Keith resists the urge to hide his head under the blanket. The last thing he needs right now is to be imagining what Shiro looks like when jerking off. He closes his eyes and pretends to sleep again. “Hey now, none of that. You shouldn’t sleep with the concussion.” Keith fakes a snore. “Keith.”
“That’s a myth,” he mutters.
“Humor me, will you?”
Keith sighs. “Fine. But you better keep me entertained.”
Shiro’s fond smile could melt the coldest heart. “I can do that.”
***
Shiro finally lets him sleep when the odd twilight of the canyon turns to full dark. When he wakes, he still hurts but his head is much clearer than it had been. Not for the first time, he thanks his Galra genes for faster healing time. Shiro blinks sleepy eyes at him from his seat next to their small fire. “Hey.”
Keith smiles a little. “How long was I asleep?”
Shiro crawls over to kneel next to him and help him sit up again. It’s a lot easier this time. “At least twelve hours. Maybe more.”
Keith grimaces. That’s a long time. By his count, they’ve been here for almost two days now. “Anything from the distress signal?”
Shiro presses his lips together and offers him some more water and crackers. Keith reluctantly nibbles on one as Shiro says, “Not yet.”
“I don’t suppose you stopped to set up the relay before saving me.”
Shiro snorts. “It wasn’t exactly top on my list of priorities, no.”
Keith offers him a cracker, knowing he’s not going to like what he has to say next. “You need to go back up.”
Shiro’s jaw clenches. He breaks the cracker into little pieces between his fingers. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“If you don’t, we’re going to be stuck here,” he tries to reason.
“We don’t know that the signal is being blocked.” Keith just looks at him. “I don’t want to leave you alone.” His voice is small and hesitant. It cracks something in Keith’s chest, and it has nothing to do with his battered ribs. He pulls what’s left of the cracker out of his hand and brushes away the crumbs.
“I know. But you need to do it anyway.”
Shiro sighs and entwines their fingers again. The heat of his hand sends a shiver through him. “One more day. If we haven’t heard anything by then, I’ll go.”
Keith wants to argue. A ship could pass by at any moment and miss them. One look at Shiro’s pleading expression quells his arguments. “You should sleep,” he says. “You’ve got to be exhausted.”
Shiro smiles gratefully. “I could sleep,” he admits. “And you should try to eat.” He passes over a packet of Hunk’s special beef jerky. Keith takes it reluctantly. He’s still queasy but he’ll try if it will appease Shiro.
Shiro lays down next to him, curling around him like a comma. Keith awkwardly drapes the blanket over him. He manages to get a few pieces of jerky and some crackers in, washing it all down with more water before sitting up becomes too much for him. He hates how weak he feels, how helpless. He’s become too reliant on healing pods; he’s not used to dealing with injuries for so long anymore.
Shiro stirs when Keith lays down next to him. “Here,” he slurs, sliding the folded up jacket over for Keith to lay on.
“What about you?” Keith argues.
Shiro shushes him sleepily and presses him down. Then he burrows under the blanket and lays his head on Keith's thigh. Keith's eyes widen as he chokes back a sound; somehow he'd managed to forget that Shiro the Weirdo prefers to sleep entirely under the covers. Why? he mouths pitifully at the stone ceiling. “Good pillow,” Shiro murmurs sleepily, patting Keith's thigh and utterly unaware of the situation he's put Keith in. Keith chuckles weakly in spite of himself. Sleep deprived Shiro is adorable. He pats him gently on the head, burying his fingers in Shiro's thick hair and scratching lightly. Shiro makes a happy sound that quickly deepens into quiet snores.
“Sleep well, Shiro.”
***
“Did you call me baby?”
All traces of sleep disappear from Shiro’s eyes as he chokes and turns so red a tomato farmer would be envious. “N...no?”
“Uh huh, okay.”
“Oh look, I think I see fish in the river, I’m, uh, going to go try and catch some.”
Keith watches Shiro flee with a smirk.
***
The distress beacon stays silent. Shiro’s shoulders grow tenser by the moment, but finally he can’t put it off any longer. “I’ll be back as soon as possible,” he says firmly. He sounds more like he’s reassuring himself than Keith.
“It’ll be fine,” Keith tells him. “I’m a big boy, I can take care of myself. Besides,” he injects a bit of humor into his voice, “what could possibly happen? A velociraptor comes after me? Big deal, the real ones were basically dino chickens.”
Shiro levels an exasperated look at him. “Keith, don't tempt fate like that. Have you never watched a single movie in your entire life?”
“I've watched Jurassic Park.”
Shiro mutters something. It's probably better Keith doesn't hear. He grins at him and flaps a hand. “Go. Be a mountain goat. I'll be here when you get back.”
***
It turns out, Keith should have paid more attention to Jurassic Park. He would have learned several interesting and useful nuggets such as:
A) Even little dinosaurs are cutely terrifying
B) They never travel alone
C) Trying to fight them off when not at full capacity never ends well for the protagonist
And D) Don’t. Tempt. Fate.
That last one, as Shiro had said, is more of a general rule in movie land, but apparently it applies to real life too.
Keith really hopes to be around for Shiro to gloat about being right.
He kicks another feathery, fanged creature away. It goes flying into the cliff face with a yip but he doesn’t watch because he’s already swinging his BOM blade at the next one. Another clamps down on his injured arm and he lets loose a strangled cry. He spins and slams it against the wall at his back even though it sends fire arcing through his body. His head spins and he staggers. He’s used to fighting injured, even used to fighting with a concussion but he’s never done it against multiple opponents smart enough to attack in tandem. The muzziness is his downfall. Another jumps on his back and he’s just barely able to spin and ram the raptor against the wall before it bites down on his bare neck. Another attacks his thigh. He pitches forward and uses his momentum to turn it into a one handed handspring. It flings the raptor away but it takes a good chunk of his thigh with it. It doesn’t get up.
The good news: he’s down to two raptors. The bad news: he’s also down a leg, an arm, and an alarming amount of blood. It’s not looking good.
He says a silent apology to Shiro, and regrets the fact that he never got a chance to confess his feelings as he eyes the creatures in a wary standoff. The raptors attack together; he raises his knife and braces for the final strike.
It never hits. A streak of white barrels into one as the sound of blaster fire splits the air, leaving the stink of burning flesh in its wake. He watches, numb, as Shiro grapples with the last raptor. The fight doesn’t last long. The raptor drops from his hand, head hanging at an unnatural angle.
It’s over. He’s alive. He’s… bleeding out.
Shiro catches him as his legs give out from under him. “Keith!” He looks over his shoulder. “Hey! We need a tourniquet over here,” he shouts frantically. He turns back and leans over Keith, panic written over every inch of his face as he pulls Keith’s leg up and over one arm, clamping down hard on his upper thigh with the other. Keeping his wound above his heart. Smart, he thinks woozily.
He reaches a hand up and pats his face. It leaves a smear of blood. “Clever girl,” he murmurs.
Shiro’s face twists up and sparkle diamonds fall from his eyes. “What? Keith, shut up and save your strength, please.”
Keith shakes his head. He doesn’t think talking is going to make much of a difference to the blood pumping out of his leg with every heartbeat. Besides, those can’t be his final words. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, but that’s not right either. “I love you. Not like a brother. Full homo.” He grimaces; blood loss is doing weird things to his head. He tries one more time. “I love you, Takashi.”
Shiro presses their foreheads together. “Shut. Up. You don’t get to tell me that like this. That’s not fair!”
It’s not. But things rarely are. His heart aches, even as it stutters. His eyes blur, from tears or impending death, he doesn’t know. “Please say it back,” he begs. “Lie if you have to, just, please…” He’s cold. Shaking. No, Shiro is. “Please.”
“No.” Keith’s lips twist and a sob rips from his chest. Shiro is many things but he never thought cruel was one of them.
“Please,” he whimpers.
He feels Shiro shake his head, but he can’t make his eyes open enough to see it. “Not yet. When you wake up. Just hold on, baby. I need you to hold on for me.”
And Keith, well, Keith will do anything for Shiro.
***
He floats. Weightless, sightless, soundless. Senseless. He doesn’t know how long.
It feels like forever. It feels like nothing. Maybe he is nothing too.
But something that is nothing also has nothing to wait for. He does.
He floats.
He waits.
***
He floats. He waits. He hears words; they don’t make sense.
Baby
O2 levels low
Please
Nothing to be done
Time and Patience and
I love you
Wait
He floats and waits and doesn’t know why, just that it’s the most important thing he’s ever done.
***
He floats. It takes him a while to realize that he’s actually floating, body held suspended in a viscous liquid that fills his nose, his ears, his lungs. He doesn’t have a chance to panic before he feels suction at his feet and mouth and the goo disappears down the drain, leaving his aching, boneless body to the whims of gravity. He hears the quiet shhhk of an opening pod and he collapses forward, coughing.
Strong, warm arms wrap around him and hold him steady. He buries his head happily into the chest he’s crushed up against, subtly wiping the goo on his face off on the shirt.
“Easy there, buddy,” Shiro laughs, relief bubbling in his voice. “You were in stasis for a long time.” Keith sighs and leans into the rumble under his cheek, even if the shaking laughter hurts his head. He aches all over and he revels in it, in having a body to ache. To be held.
“How long?” he rasps, even though that’s not the question he wants to ask.
“About a week, give or take. Here, let’s sit down.” Shiro leads him over to a cot set up next to the pod. The blankets are rumpled and the pillow askew, as if the person laying there had jumped out of it in a hurry. Shiro is in sweats and a loose tank top, all disheveled hair and pillow creases. He's sleep warm; it offsets the chill from the goo evaporating on Keith's skin. Keith slumps against him, not entirely out of weakness.
“That’s a long time,” he says.
Shiro laughs again and twists his torso so he can hug Keith tighter. “Too long. Keith…”
Whatever he was going to say, Keith never gets to hear because a doctor bustles in and stops short with wide eyes. “Oh!” she squeaks. “You’re awake.” She hurries over to him and thus begins a long round of tests and poking and prodding. Shiro’s constant grip on his hand is the only thing keeping him from crankily growling at her to leave him alone.
Finally, she deems him healthy enough and backs off. “You’re going to need to take it easy for the next week or so. The healing pods can do a lot, but there was an awful lot of damage too.”
“I’ll make sure he rests,” Shiro says firmly. Keith both looks forward to and dreads the days of mother henning in his future.
“See that you do.” She looks at Keith with a stern face. “You’re very lucky to be alive. It was touch and go for a while.”
“I had something to hold on for,” he murmurs. Shiro goes still next him. Keith keeps his eyes resolutely on the doctor. She looks back and forth between the two. He can see the moment when she decides she's not touching that one with a ten foot pole.
“Right. Well, your vitals are all in order, but we’d like to keep you for -”
“I want to go home,” he interrupts, injecting as much firmness into his voice as possible. It still comes out disturbingly weak.
“Keith,” Shiro says, a hint of authority in his voice. Keith glares mulishly at him and he softens with resignation. “At least stay the night. Please.”
Please. That word triggers a flood of memories, fuzzy and indistinct. He’s not even sure that they are memories. They float in his head, ephemeral and amorphous as cobwebs and dreams. He’s too tired to gather them into something solid. He’s too tired to argue either. “Fine. Just for the night.”
Shiro helps him to one of the hospital beds and settles him in, sitting by his side as the doctor attaches electrode monitors to his temples and wrists. When she leaves, he stands up, but Keith tangles his fingers in his shirt and refuses to let go. “Stay here,” he says softly.
Shiro bites his lip, looking conflicted. “I don’t think the bed’s big enough,” he hedges. It probably isn’t. It certainly isn’t big enough for the mountain of unspoken words between them. Keith is willing to try anyway.
“Stay.”
Shiro gives in and crawls under the covers, maneuvering Keith around like a rag doll until they’re tangled up together, Keith’s head on Shiro’s chest and Shiro’s arm curled protectively around him. Keith has a thousand things he wants to say, wants to ask, but his eyelids won’t obey him and neither will his voice. He falls asleep to the quiet lullaby of Shiro’s heartbeat strong and steady under his head.
***
They don’t get to speak in the morning either, interrupted by the gaggle of Paladins tumbling through the door and onto the bed. They wrap him in a group hug and it hurts so good. He shakes his head when Shiro goes to moves them away. They’re followed by his mother and Kolivan, and a stream of other well wishers. Shiro slips away somewhere in the commotion. Keith lets him. He needs time to gather his thoughts and Keith does too. The doctor finally lets him go under strict orders to rest and check back in after a few days. His mom helps him hobble back to his room and sets him down on the bed.
She presses a lingering kiss to his forehead. “Of all the ways I feared you dying, this was not one of them,” she whispers into the crown of his head. “Please don’t put us through that again. Especially Shiro.” He winces at the pain in her voice and nods wordlessly, hugging her tight around the middle. She hugs him back for a long moment, then reluctantly pulls away. “At least try to get a few hours of sleep before running after him,” she says, but the weary smile and twinkle in her eye says that she knows the futility of that. He nods anyway.
He at least tries to listen to her, obediently laying on his bed staring at the ceiling. His body thrums with a bone deep exhaustion, but his brain is a hamster on a wheel, running in endless useless circles. He makes it about an hour before he sighs and grabs his data pad.
Where are you? he texts Shiro. He taps his fingers impatiently as he waits for a reply, opening and closing his fist and shrugging his shoulder, enjoying the fact that he can move again with relatively little pain.
I’m coming, he gets in reply a few minutes later. It’s not an answer to his question, but it's the one he'd hoped for. Keith tosses the data pad carelessly on his bedside table and maneuvers himself into a sitting position. It only takes a few minutes before there’s a soft knock at his door.
“Come in.” The door slides open and Shiro peeks his head in. When he catches sight of Keith, he smiles, nervous and sweet.
“You should be laying down,” he says as he crosses the room and stands in front of Keith, hands twitching at his sides like he’s not sure what to do with them.
“You broke your promise.” Okay, that was a little more blunt than he intended, but exhaustion does that to him. Shiro’s eyes widen before he looks away guiltily.
“I could say the same for you,” Shiro says in a voice too tight for humor. “I told you not to tempt fate. You’re lucky a rescue crew found me when they did.” His smile wobbles. “Guess all that climbing was for nothing. The signal transmitted just fine.”
Keith won’t be distracted. “You said you wouldn’t say it until I woke up.”
Shiro sucks in a sharp breath. “Uh,” he says weakly. Keith swallows hard as he waits for him to continue. Maybe he had been dreaming after all. It wouldn’t be the first time he'd heard those words whispered in dreams. Shiro finally lets the breath out on a harsh sigh and slumps. “Yeah. Sorry, I guess.” He sits down next to Keith, staring down at his hands where they lay loose in his lap. “To be fair, I’m not really sure that counts.” He slides Keith a sideways look. “Kind of like saying it when you think you’re going to die,” he says pointedly.
Keith privately thinks that he’s wrong, that both of them count very much, but he’s okay with a do-over. He reaches over and twines a hand with Shiro’s, squeezing as tight as his tired muscles allow. “I’m waiting.”
Shiro looks at him, eyes wide and mouth slack. He licks his lips, Adam’s apple bobbing. Keith wants to press his lips there, feel it move as he moans. Maybe later, he will. Shiro squeezes his eyes shut and looks down. “There’s a lot we need to talk about,” he starts. Keith sighs, resigned. He recognizes the Takashi I Don’t Know How To Talk About My Feelings Shirogane look when he sees it. Keith tugs at his hand and cups the other around the back of his neck, guiding him to look back up at him. He presses their foreheads together so Shiro can’t look away.
“Takashi. I will wait as long as you need. I’ll wait forever, if I have to. But please, don’t make me.”
Shiro’s eyes splinter, and when they reform, they shine resolutely. “I love you,” he says, the words whispered so quietly even the room isn’t privy to them. Keith hears them though, feels the shape of them brush against his lips. He also feels the smirk that grows in their wake. “Full homo.”
Keith groans and laughs at the same time, embarrassed joy overtaking him. “Oh my God, I really did say that, didn’t I?”
“You did. You also called me a clever girl, and I’m starting to wonder just how often you’ve watched Jurassic Park.”
The answer is a lot. It was one of the few movies available in the children’s home. “Doesn’t matter. I’m never watching it again.”
“Agreed.” They stay quiet for a moment, basking in the moment. “Are you going to say it back?” Shiro asks hesitantly.
Keith tightens his grip on Shiro’s neck and presses his lips firmly against his, pushing every ounce of years worth of devotion and love into it. When he pulls back, Shiro lets out a slow breath, eyes wide and dilated. “Takashi Shirogane, I love you to the stars and beyond. I always have and always will.”
Shiro’s shy smile meets his in another kiss. “To the stars and beyond.”