“ you don’t have to talk, we can just sit together. ” / my BOY
@madefate / for shiro !
it’s not often that angus is at a loss for word. just as quick as his mind moves, so to do words pour out of him, asking questions to feed his curiosity or sharing a tidbit of useful information he’s gleamed from his studies of the castle ship’s extensive library. he’s hardly ever quiet at all. even as he reads or works, it’s impossible not to hear the furious scrawling of his pen in his notebook ( he’s the only one on the ship who seems to prefer paper and pen, a boy raised with a love for the old fashioned by his grandpa ) or the way he mumbles to himself when thinking aloud. no, angus is anything but quiet, which is why shiro must feel the need to comment on it, to let him know that, considering what’s happened, its okay for him to be acting so abnormally.
and what had happened? it feels far away now, though he wonders if that’s perhaps exhaustion and the altean pain meds in his system. but the creeping numbness that has settled in, rather than his usual tears, coupled with the fragments of the moment that his mind seems insistent on not allowing him to replay, tells him something different. and it comes in waves; sometimes he’s so close to seeing it all again, standing there in the moments right before. his emergency weapon taken from his holster, and cold, terrible adrenaline, and blood pumping in his ears, and aiming with shaking hands, and looking that galra commander in the eyes and, and, and-
eyes squeeze shut, now. angus shakes his head, but then remembers shiro spoke to him. desperately, desperately, he holds onto the words, lets them keep him here in his room, where he’s on strict orders to rest until his broken arm heals. shiro sitting on the edge of his bed, speaking to him, and what had he said? oh, right. “i- i- uh-” words are caught in his throat and it feels like if he forces them out he’ll be sick. shiro must know, see it written across his face or else he would have never offered silence as the alternative, knowing how angus loves to chatter.
there’s another wave of thoughts he’s trying not to think, and suddenly- angus isn’t suppose to be here, and he’s fumbling, and he’s going to drop the blaster, and if he doesn’t shoot he’s going to. oh god, is there where he. he can’t, he. he has to. to.
his mind refuses to fill in the blanks at first, stuttering, until he forces the memory forward. him standing there. him thinking he’s going to die. him not being able to pull the trigger. him being thrown against the ground by a galra commander. him screaming as he hears what he knows now to be his arm breaking. him hearing panicked, worried, horrified voices over the comms, tripping over one another. him not being able to respond, only whimper and groan and, eventually, be pulled under by the pain. him being carried. him sitting in med bay, him lying in bed, here, now, alive.
the hand that isn’t broken seeks the closest source of comfort, and finds shiro’s forearm. the look in his eyes answers the question, says yes. yes, please, just sit with me where his words fail. he shifts himself closer, closer, closer to the warmth and safety of the paladin, until he’s leaning against him, practically begging to be enveloped into his hold. and the boy doesn’t speak, not yet, but he does nod, finally an action to affirm he’s heard shiro after quite some time of being stuck in his own head.
