[ shiro’s plan of keeping his gaze squarely on the task at hand only lasts until there’s a shifting of couch cushions. hand movements come to a pause and then he’s staring, foregoing any subtly as he openly tracks keith’s path to him. shiro wants to say he’s above hovering, because he knows how grating that can be, even if it is entirely warranted. thus far, he hasn’t done a spectacular job of giving keith much of any breathing room to decompress from the horror that happened in the basin. he is just beginning to try in taking a step back… but now keith is right beside him, grabbing at logs to help build this fire and…
god, shiro forgets about the fire and is stuck watching keith’s hands, brain hardwired to zero in on any sort of stiffness there. how functional are his hands? does he find it difficult to move his fingers? they’re still likely chilled to the bone, right?
… i’m sorry.
the apology disrupts his scrutiny. lifting his gaze to keith’s face, he finds that – thankfully – keith isn’t looking at him; still, he schools his expression anyway. drawing a silent breath, he exhales with a little more force, and then eases into a smile that doesn’t quite excel past the threshold of bittersweet. ]
Water under the bridge.
[ once upon a time, he would’ve ruffled this boy’s hair to release the palpable tension between them. as it is, keith’s hair has flecks of frost in it, the choppy ends of it made sharper into frozen points. he has half a mind to ruffle his hair solely to break the eerie reminder of how close keith came to a watery grave… but he gets no higher than his shoulder. hand there for no more than the two seconds required to squeeze, shiro assures: ]
It’s already forgiven.
[ – before letting go and climbing to his feet. the matches are on the wood burning stove and so, he sets off to retrieve them. perhaps he should leave the conversation as such: it’s finished and dealt with. the tension remains however and something in shiro curdles under the suffocating weight of it, his mouth running on what is meant to be a tease that misses the mark entirely. ]
We’ll be even soon, anyway. There’s a lot wrong with my body. [ it’s too self-demeaning. too revealing. it’s his coping mechanism. he doesn’t want to strip down, but he’s committed himself to the duty of it, anyway. if he points out the ballooning elephant in the room beforehand though, the whole experience won’t be as terrible, right? ] I’ll try not to be too snippy if you look.
[ speaking of looking, shiro is back to not looking at keith as he retrieves the matches and returns back to the fireplace. ]
shhh i don't know what you're speaking of
god, shiro forgets about the fire and is stuck watching keith’s hands, brain hardwired to zero in on any sort of stiffness there. how functional are his hands? does he find it difficult to move his fingers? they’re still likely chilled to the bone, right?
… i’m sorry.
the apology disrupts his scrutiny. lifting his gaze to keith’s face, he finds that – thankfully – keith isn’t looking at him; still, he schools his expression anyway. drawing a silent breath, he exhales with a little more force, and then eases into a smile that doesn’t quite excel past the threshold of bittersweet. ]
Water under the bridge.
[ once upon a time, he would’ve ruffled this boy’s hair to release the palpable tension between them. as it is, keith’s hair has flecks of frost in it, the choppy ends of it made sharper into frozen points. he has half a mind to ruffle his hair solely to break the eerie reminder of how close keith came to a watery grave… but he gets no higher than his shoulder. hand there for no more than the two seconds required to squeeze, shiro assures: ]
It’s already forgiven.
[ – before letting go and climbing to his feet. the matches are on the wood burning stove and so, he sets off to retrieve them. perhaps he should leave the conversation as such: it’s finished and dealt with. the tension remains however and something in shiro curdles under the suffocating weight of it, his mouth running on what is meant to be a tease that misses the mark entirely. ]
We’ll be even soon, anyway. There’s a lot wrong with my body. [ it’s too self-demeaning. too revealing. it’s his coping mechanism. he doesn’t want to strip down, but he’s committed himself to the duty of it, anyway. if he points out the ballooning elephant in the room beforehand though, the whole experience won’t be as terrible, right? ] I’ll try not to be too snippy if you look.
[ speaking of looking, shiro is back to not looking at keith as he retrieves the matches and returns back to the fireplace. ]