YELLOW [[klance]] [[COMPLETED]]

Lance.

I'm awaken in the middle of the night by my room being filled up with people.

I'm torn from a comfortable and dreamless sleep by somebody flicking the greasy white lights on, a mash of loud, agitated voices and beeping machines, of pushing and shoving bodies, all flooding into my head as I laboriously peel my eyes open. 

I turn my head, sleepily pushing myself to a sitting position, just as somebody in blue scrubs yanks the long laminated curtain between me and Keith's bed closed with a screech of metal on metal.

What the holy hell?

Groaning, I throw my sheets to the side and tear off the Velcro of my respirator mask. Grasping for my portable oxygen, looping it around my ears and into my nose as somebody's stern voice shouts over the din, a level-headed command. Machines are whirring.

Keith.

I push myself up and make for the curtain. My feet are cold against the floor but my heart thunders in the chest, goosebumps erupting on my skin. Something flutters, un-CF-related, in my throat, at the thought of something being wrong with him. It makes the blood in my veins go icy.

I grasp the plastic and begin to pull it back -

A strong fist grabs my wrists and gently tugs it back. I look up. Shiro.

He frosted hair is fluffy, bangs unbrushed, and his stony gray eyes twinkle wetly, tired, in the light. His face is creased and he wears a jacket, unzipped and hanging off his broad shoulders. One of the sleeves is cut off and knotted.

"Shiro," I croak, throat clogged up with sleep, but my vision vivid. Restless panic wrangles my muscles at the thought of Keith. "What's wrong? What's going on?"

"Get back in bed, son," Shiro replies, his voice laced with fatigue. 

"What's wrong?" I insist, shaking away from Shiro's grip. "What's happened to Keith? Is he alright?"

Shiro delicately rests a hand on my shoulder. "He's going to be fine. Go to bed."

"No," I snap, shrinking away from him. Irritation bubbles in my stomach. "Just tell me what the hell is going on!" My voice cracks slightly at the end. I imagine Keith's dark and hooded maroon eyes, his bottom lip curled in a pout, dark eyebrows pulled low. Long, shaggy black hair and the light through the Venetian blinds cutting across his paled cheek in stripes. While he draws and ignores me.

I've only known him for a few days at most, but maybe he's right.

This is no place to make friends.

Shiro sighs heavily. He puts his hand on my shoulder once more, but this time I allow him to bring me over to the window seat, pulling me away from the scene until my oxygen tank tube tugs and I stop. Cross my arms, rub my bare skin in the chemically hospital cold. I glare at him and he rubs the back of his neck warily, casting his hazy eyes away. His shoulders slump like Atlas with the world on his shoulder's. Keith's world.

"The reason Keith is still here is because he's not 'better' yet." He speaks low and rough. "He won't talk about it, he barely ever does with me or Adam, but...He's had seizures, ever since the accident. Doctors still can't identify why and none of the meds we've cycled through have really worked. He's not coming home until we get meds that work."

"Oh," I say, but it's so quiet I don't think he even hears me.

Shiro's eyes drag to the window, where he stares at strips of asphalt parking lot and dingy buildings through the blinds. The dim city light that falls through is warm in his hair. "We think it stems from trauma. Anytime he has a panic attack, or flashbacks from the accident, it overrides his brain, and...And anything could happen during a seizure - his heart has - his heart has stopped before. It could cause brain damage, nerve damage...We just don't know. So until we get meds that stop the seizures, he has to stay here."