Adrenaline

Shiro's Confession

Allura and Coran came like two trains through the door. Coran let himself fall to Keith's side and hurriedly but carefully put some kind of neckbrace on him before he pulled him onto stretcher that with a push of a button grew legs with wheels. Shiro looked after Coran as he rushed out of the door.

The relief made him feel lighter than he had in a long time but also paralyzed his legs. Shiro looked over at Allura. She was unusually quiet, but he got his answer to why as he looked at her.

Her eyes switched between the puddle of blood on the floor and the wall, where a bit of Keith's blood was smeared. Wait, blood on the wall? Shiro looked at the wall and there was indeed blood. Granted, it was far less than on the floor but he was perplexed as to how it got there. His mind reminded him of the events in hurried and unclear pictures until it focused on Keith's head hitting the wall and cracking.

No, he didn't do that. Did he? He looked over at Allura in the naïve hope that she would know what he was thinking and could reassure him. Her eyes left the wall and moved over to him. There wasn't any comfort or understanding. Instead, there was bewilderment and fear.

Allura was afraid of him. He couldn't blame her, he was afraid of himself too, but it still weighted him down. She took rushed steps away from him without breaking eye contact after a few seconds of staring.

Allura made sure she kept an eye on him as they both moved down the hall. Shiro suspected she would have felt more comfortable if he was walking in front of her, but she didn't make a move to change the order they were walking in so he ignored it and made sure he ran just fast enough to keep the 5 meter distance Allura had made sure stayed between them when they started running.

The medic bay was frantic even though there had only been Lance and Coran in the room before Shiro and Allura arrived. Lance was still in a cryo pod so he didn't make any trouble but Coran was frantically trying to find out why Keith was bleeding so much out of his mouth.

He felt around in Keith's mouth and Shiro had a trivial thought of the possibility that Coran's fingers wasn't the cleanest or nicest thing to get stuffed into one's mouth. Shiro moved towards them. Fear or not, he would help if he could. Allura looked skittishly at Shiro as he moved past her but made no move to move farther away from him.

"Shiro, good, hold his mouth open. I need to stop the bleeding."

Shiro did as he was told, not even thinking about what could bleed so much in Keith's mouth. He watched Coran find a spray and swallowed. He got oddly away of his tongue moving as he did so and realized where Keith was bleeding from.

The realization was for naught as Coran took Keith's tongue out of his mouth to remove the blood and spray it. It was a horrible sight. The tongue was almost entirely sliced in two and Shiro admired Coran just a little bit more for being able to move the fragile muscle so fast but also delicately enough to not pull it in two. It looked like a mild breeze could have separated it.

It only took a few seconds for the liquid to stop the bleeding but it was too long for Shiro. Keith already looked entirely drained of blood and left Shiro feeling as if he was holding a corpse.

"Good, Shiro, can I ask you to help me with putting him into a cryo suit?"

Shiro nodded and looked back at Allura. Keith wasn't the most insecure guy Shiro knew but he was still a teenager and probably wanted the amount of people seeing him naked without his consent to be as limited as possible. Who was Shiro kidding? He too had wanted that before having that taken away from him by the Galra Empire.

Allura looked at Shiro for a moment. She was suspicious and calculating but seemed to like what she found, or at least she was able to tolerate it enough to leave Shiro alone with Coran and Keith.