Adrenaline

Keith's Problems

"Are you okay, Shiro?" Keith asked. Shiro's breath hitched when he heard Keith calling him by his preferred name but quickly collected himself.

This time it had been Keith finding Shiro in the hallway right in front of the elevator. Keith had been on his way to the training room to do some of the exercises Coran had showed him in the hopes that he would either get some of the feeling back from his knees to his feet or find a way to work around it. It was all guesswork and Keith knew even before he had been shown the exercises that it was more directed towards working around the handicap than trying to fix it.

"I thought you were still mad at me," Shiro simply stated. Keith guessed that it was both because Shiro wanted to change the subject as far away from his mental state as possible and because he was wondering if Keith had forgiven him.

"I am, but are you okay?" Keith asked and looked genuinely curious and possibly concerned.

"Yes," Shiro answered and lifted his eyebrows as if he wondered why Keith was even having this conversation with him.

"Are you sure?" Keith pressed on. Shiro's answer was such an obvious lie that even a stranger would have seen though.

"Yes, I'm sure," Shiro sighed.

"Are you sure, Shiro?" Keith repeated slower and somehow that was all it took for Shiro to break. Keith was surprised with the amount of agony that overtook Shiro's features but he did his best to disguise it and hoped that he did a well enough job to fool at least Shiro who seemed too preoccupied with his own pain to notice much else.

"You're not," Keith answered himself and Shiro nodded again as he finally admitted it to Keith.

Shiro took a step towards Keith and reached his arms out towards him out of old habits. Keith didn't notice that he had tensed up until Shiro stopped abruptly. There was a tense silence between them that was only broken when Keith deliberately relaxed his shoulders. Shiro moved once again but only closed the distance between them completely when Keith looked away from him resigned but doing his best to show nonverbally that he was allowing Shiro to close his arms around him.

Keith didn't hug, or the original pre brain damage Keith didn't, but he had liked every hug they had had since the second one Shiro ever gave him back on Earth and besides the ones where Keith had been too distraught by various things, he had always hugged back immediately or close to it. This time however he didn't hug back but he didn't pull away either. He just stood and let Shiro hold him as tightly as he wanted to and didn't comment on the wet feeling when Shiro buried his face in Keith's hair.

"I'm sorry," Shiro choked out. It was far from eloquent but Keith accepted it. This pure and simple feeling was much easier to accept than when Shiro had given him a whole speech.

Keith didn't understand himself anymore. He didn't remember Shiro attacking him. The closest he has to that is what the others have told him and his fear for Shiro's metal arm. Keith didn't even notice the fear for the arm that often. Sometimes he tensed or flinched when he caught a glimpse but that was it.

The anger he felt was confusing enough in itself without his brotherly love getting in the way. Because he hated Shiro, or at least there had been something close to that, when he had understood the others' retellings of that day, but he also loved him. More than Keith had thought he would love anyone back when he had been just another kid in the system moving from home to home with interchangeable guardians and various amounts of "siblings" who Keith never saw after he or they moved away again.

It hurt seeing someone he loved be so devastated. It hurt not being able to trust them and it hurt even more knowing that his distrust was causing Shiro even more pain. If he could talk to his feelings, he would tell them to get a grip and choose one side or another and leave him alone without any conflicting feelings.