Work Text:
-
“Shiro,” Allura's voice comes from behind the black paladin, her tone gentle but desperate. It's not the first time she's tried to have this conversation with him, and it wont be the last. “Shiro you've been here all morning. You should go take a break and-”
“I'm fine.” Shiro's tired of it. He can see where her concern is coming from, he really can, but she just doesn't understand. How could she?
“Shiro.” The princess repeats his name, a little more authority in her voice. Shiro turns to face her. He sees her brow wrinkled with worry, her hand clenched over her heart as if she's not sure what to do with it. She looks almost as tired as he feels. She's not wrong about being there all morning; he's been there since dawn.
“I'm fine.” He insists again. He turns back towards the healing pod, hand touching the glass that separates him from Keith Kogane. Keith sleeps on, eyes closed, body unmoving, as he has for the past few weeks. He looks peaceful, not screaming or crying or crying or struggling to breath, and that at least gives Shiro some comfort
A hand on his shoulder. Allura is still there, looking up at him, keeping herself together far better than Shiro could. She's been doing an amazing job piloting the red lion this past few weeks. She's not of a naturally impulsive temperament like Keith had been, but by channelling her raw emotions she's been able to master Red quickly.
“He's not going to wake up any faster by watching him,” The princess states carefully. She turns her gaze towards the pod, and despite her calm composure, she cannot fully suppress a shudder. Keith is completely a mess from the neck down; Haggar's monster nearly killed him, should have killed him, it ripped his flesh from his bones and his bones from his joints, it severed his spinal cord and tore his intestines open like a plastic shopping bag, but still, he he lives, he keeps breathing.
It would have perhaps been kinder to let him die. He was moments from bleeding out anyway. But Shiro had kept him safe, brought him back, and now they were trying to resurrect and rebuild his body like some kind of nightmarish sci-fi flick.
“He knows when he has company,” Shiro says, “At least, I think he does. I... I talk to him. And sometimes he twitches or smiles a little. I don't want him to be lonely, Allura.”
“I know, Shiro. He wont be. He's dreaming.” She looks up at him, giving him a sad smile, “When he wakes up, it will just be like waking up in the morning after a long sleep.”
“Until he sees what I've done to him.”
Shiro lets his fingers slide down the class and fall limply to his side. Waking up to discover his arm had been removed had been awful, finding it replaced with alien technology had been even worse. Keith was little more than a partial human torso now, supported by an Altean robotic skeleton. Altean technology was amazing, but it wasn't magic. Even if the nanobots in the healing pod healed him, rebuilt him, constructed him new limbs and insides out of metal and cloned genetic material, even if his body actually worked and he could live outside the pod, he would never look the same.
“What have I done to him, Allura?” Tears are falling unbidden from his face. He's crouching on the ground suddenly, shaking from the strain of keeping another panic attack at bay. Allura follows him, falling to her knees and hugging him as tight as she can, desperate to give the comfort that Shiro so badly needs but is incapable of accepting.
“You did what you thought was best,” she hushes him, stroking his back comfortingly, “You didn't want to lose him, none of us do.”
“It's my fault, if I had gotten to him sooner then Haggar wouldn't have-,”
“It's the Galra's fault, and no one else’s.”
“-I should have just let him go. The blood, he was in so much pain... The others can't even look at him, they're... I did this to him. He's going to hate me!”
He collapses into her arms, clinging to the princess like a saviour, wishing anything she did or said would bring him a modicum of comfort. He's really crying now, loud choked sobs filling the room with echoes, wet tears soaking the cloth on Allura's shoulder, body shaking uncontrollably. Allura says some things, touches his head, but he's not listening, he can't listen, he just wants Keith back, smiling and safe.
-