The Watcher // Sheith

Chapter Three

 It's been a long time since someone new came into my life and actually stayed. And really, I suspect it will be a long time still, given that Shiro is not a willing participant, but for now he's leaning into his situation as best he can. I'm the person who scooped him up out of a bad situation and nothing makes you feel close to someone quite like being rescued by them. It doesn't matter if you know nothing about them aside from what's so far been presented to you. It's an instinct. Bond with the one who can protect you, stay at their side and you won't get hurt.

I wish that were true for Shiro.

I had allowed him to get too close too soon and I had allowed myself to indulge in it.

Shiro holding my hand on the drive back from Arus had cut through my rising panic after I had faced a bad omen that had been another strike through my life expectancy. Him holding my hand had been like a parent picking up their child after a bad fall; physical contact soothing the mind. I hadn't even questioned it. I had just allowed him to be an anchor.

The term 'touch starved' comes to mind from the mouth of someone I can't remember the name of.

When Shiro wakes up sometime around mid-morning, I'm sitting on the couch with my back against the arm, smoking the last cigarette in my pack slowly, enjoying each pull. He sits up in the bed with wicked bedhead and eyes not entirely open yet. He stretches and rubs at his face and at his hair before he notices me on the couch, quietly watching him.

"Did you get any sleep?" He asks as he reaches for a hoodie he left on the foot of the bed, pulling it on as an extra layer against the cold. The heating in my apartment sucks. I take one last drag on my cigarette before grinding the butt out in the crowded ashtray.

"I got a little." I sniff, pulling my blanket tighter around me as Shiro gets up and sits on the other end of the couch, looking me over with a touch of concern that I try not to squirm under. Given that I've been chasing thoughts around my head about how Shiro's company affects me all night, I can't help but come off a little cold. He confuses me, and I don't like to be confused. My life has a certain level of consistency that I like, and whenever something new comes along all I usually have to learn is how to kill it. Shiro is a new and complex problem that distracts me from solving it whenever he speaks.

Shiro isn't looking at me anymore. He gets up and makes us both coffee, setting mine down in front of me and easing himself back down the couch.

"I think I need to be a little more honest with you." He says cautiously without meeting my eye and he has my attention. I sit up and reach for my mug, my eyebrows twitching upwards.

"I don't know enough about you for you to have lied." I say carefully over the rim of my mug, narrowing my eyes on him. He looks downright guilty as he tucks one leg under himself and sips his coffee.

"I lied about how long this has been going on- the ghouls, the... hauntings, I guess you could call them." He looks at me from the corner of his eye, breathing in slowly. "I've been seeing things for a long time."

"How long?" I ask, with a sneaking suspicious that I already know the answer. Allura's voice speaks from the far side of my mind:

he appears to have only existed for about five years

"Since I moved to Garrison five years ago." My stomach churns over slowly but I don't say anything. I let him explain instead as he turns his mug in his hands, his head bowed. "I don't know why I didn't tell you, maybe I was still trying to pretend that it wasn't true. The first few times I saw something, I just ignored it. Trick of the mind- I was stressed from school." He licks his lips, "when I graduated and got a good job and I kept seeing them..."