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“Sh-Shiro, p-please-”
Keith’s breaths were coming out in rasps. His ribs ached, every step sending an aching flare through his whole body. He squeezed his eyes shut.
“Just g- go.”
Shiro didn’t answer, but his grip did tighten on Keith ever so slightly. Every shared step between them upended leaves and dirt in the thick forest. Keith tripped on another root and it sent a shock of agony up his spine.
“Shiro…” he tried again. “ Go.”
Shiro’s only answer was to adjust his grip around Keith’s waist, tighten his grip on the wrist he’d slung around his shoulders, and keep walking. Keith sucked in a sharp gasp through his teeth as he lifted a leg to step around a lump of tree branches.
His ribs were broken. That was a definite. He inhaled and his abdomen rattled. He sounded wheezy and every breath sent a jarring pain through his whole body. Every step sent a shockwave of agony up his foot from the burn that had molded his Paladin armor to his flesh. Blood dripped from a cut sliced from his eyebrow to chin.
His knees buckled, but Shiro’s grip held fast. He stared ahead at the thick forest, unwavering. Their pace was far too slow. The creatures pursuing them were excellent trackers. They’d be caught before long. Keith knew he was a lost cause, but Shiro could get out. If he just let go of Keith and let him accept his fate, then he could get back to the Castle unscathed.
Unfortunately, he forgot how stubborn Shiro could be.
“Shiro-” Keith rasped. Something coppery burned at the back of his throat. “I’m only...slowing us...slowing us down.” He wheezed out another breath. His ribs burned. “Just go. I’ll-I’ll be okay-”
“Stop talking,” Shiro ordered. His voice was harsh, but Keith knew he was only that way out of concern. Out of fear. His Adam's apple bobbed with a swallow. “Save your energy.”
Keith knew that was probably for the best, but he also knew he couldn’t let Shiro do this. He couldn’t let him throw both their lives away.
Keith risked a glance over his shoulder (something in his neck popped horribly) and he tried again. “They’re gonna fi-find us. Just-” He gasped loudly in pain as he landed wrong on his burnt leg. Something in his foot ripped and he lifted it, risking a glance down. Blood poured from in between the melted cracks of his armor. He put together what had happened in an instant.
“I’m not leaving you,” Shiro said firmly. He glanced down at Keith’s foot, his forehead creasing. “I will never leave you.”
Keith gritted his teeth. Between the agony and knowledge that he was putting Shiro’s life in jeopardy, he was starting to get pissed off. He began wriggling, trying to pull away, but Shiro’s grip did not relent.
“You’re going to die if you don’t let me go,” he hissed. “I can’t-” a pitiful whine that under any other circumstances would make him flush in embarrassment pulled itself from Keith’s lips. “I can’t let that happen.”
“And I can’t let you die,” Shiro fired back. He kept his gaze ever-forward, refusing to look behind them. Keith was less valiant. He kept craning his neck to see if he could spot a four-legged monster among the brush.
Keith growled, half in annoyance, half in pain as they trudged onward. He wanted to keep struggling, to get Shiro to let him go and continue on without him, but at this point, it was a fruitless endeavor.
Fate said otherwise.
Keith’s burned foot caught itself on a twisted root. It hooked on his ankle, yanking him down and out of Shiro’s grip. He let out a loud cry, his forehead smashing on a sharp rock. Dirt meshed with the blood all over his face. Something in his ribcage shifted. Fire spread up his entire body.
“Keith!” Shiro turned to retrieve him, but Keith twisted around awkwardly so he was laying on his back and weakly slapped Shiro’s hands away.
“See?” He hissed. He shut his eyes, using every ounce of self-control he had to keep from screaming. His ribs had been shattered by this point, every single one of them felt disconnected and painful. One of them was sharply jutting up into his abdomen. The world was spinning violently. He felt like throwing up. “This is just gonna keep...keep happening,” every word was agony and got harder and harder to say. Every breath he drew in sent a new kind of agony through his whole body.
“I’m not leaving you,” Shiro said. His voice was still as firm as ever. Keith opened his tired eyes to fix a weak glare on him.
“You should,” he said.
Shiro’s eyes narrowed. He leaned over to grab Keith’s wrist.
“No,” he said. “I shouldn’t.”
Keith, stunned into silence, did not fight back with Shiro carefully began to lift him to his feet. It hurt too much to move, anyway.
Shiro had barely managed to get Keith to a very painful sitting position when a howl echoed through the forest. Four-winged birds scattered into flight from the treetops. Shiro and Keith froze.
A snarling, gaping wolf-like monster came prowling out from behind a tree. Drool seeped from sharp teeth, all six of its eyes fixed on the pair. It opened its maw and lunged.
In an instant, Shiro’s Galra arm whirred to life and intercepted the monster. Keith didn’t see what happened, but one moment Shiro was bringing his arm down in a wide arc and the next, the monster was in a heap at his feet. Its side was smoking and oozing what looked like ink. Keith clapped his hands to his nose when a acrid scent burnt his nose.
Burnt flesh, he thought, grimacing. No matter how many times he smelled it, he’d never get used to it. Shiro looked much the same way as he knelt in front of Keith and tucked his arms underneath him.
“That thing called others,” he said. “We have to move.” He said nothing about what he had just done and instead lifted Keith into his arms. Keith hissed and clawed at Shiro’s shoulders as the change in height jostled his ribs. Shiro murmured an apology.
“You could have been safe by now,” he said, shifting to get himself in a better position. “Could have been at the Castle with the others…” His voice felt weak. The pain was making it hard to think.
“I told you,” Shiro said. He pressed his nose into Keith’s blood and sweat-soaked hair and exhaled softly. “I’m not leaving you. You’re not slowing me down.”
Keith tried to argue, tried to make Shiro see that he’d only doom them both by persisting like this, but the words died on his throat. He could no longer find a rebuttal. Shiro was dead-set on his intentions and he was going to get Keith home to the others.
He let out a shaky sigh. “Still on that, huh?”
“Still on what?” Shiro had broken into a light jog and was now glancing periodically over his shoulder.
“The whole ‘I will never give up on you’ thing.”
Shiro’s lips lifted into a smile. The promise was years ago, but neither of them had forgotten. It was what had brought them together, after all. What had broken down the last of Keith’s walls and allowed him to fully embrace Shiro as his brother.
“Of course,” Shiro’s voice was tender. “Even though I’ve got a robot arm and we’re in space, I’m still never giving up on you. Ever.”
Keith snorted. His eyes felt heavy. The pain had turned to a dull ache, but that was likely because of his fading consciousness.
“I won’t give up on you, either,” he murmured.
Shiro glanced down at him. “I know.”
Keith shut his eyes.