inbox;

[stressors]

● "Hey, it's Shiro." ●

"Sorry you missed me. Leave me one and I'll call you right back. Thanks."

☏ call. ✉ text. ⌨ video. ☄ action.

code over at pagans

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[stressors]

[ . . . he likes this look better, anyway. ]

Need more sugar for your coffee, junior?

[impulsors]

. . . does the sugar make it -- better?

[stressors]

. . . no. I don't think there's really saving bad coffee.

[ it's a skewed smile of concession as he takes the mug out of keith's grip. ]

I'll warm up a cup of milk for hot chocolate instead.

[impulsors]

[ but he's clambering up with shiro's motion, hand a fleeting curve through the air where it's not quite clear whether he's reaching after the cup or a wrist.

it drops in the end, anyway. ]

You don't have to take care of me.

[ and then, scrubbing at his damp hair again - ]

. . . I need a shower anyway -- right?

[stressors]

[ he looks exactly like he did in his dream -- although maybe less damp, even if the sweat had his hair clinging to his skin in small curls. but the fact of the matter is this: keith has bright eyes and an unusually pretty face beneath the dark, messy hair.






and so it takes a second too long for him to respond, or to realize he's staring -- and he clears his throat. ]

Help yourself to the amenities.

[impulsors]

[ . . .

in a rare spark of forethought - ]

Wait -- I didn't bring extra clothes.

[stressors]

You can use some of mine while I throw yours into the wash.

[ . . . ]

I should have a pair of shorts with an adjustable waistband.

[impulsors]

[ looks at shiro's dorito-chip waist.






looks down at his own. ]

I'll just take whatever you've got.

[ as he stalks off with an uncomfortable familiarity to the shoddy bathroom. ]

[stressors]

[ . . .

well, this is.

kind of unreal. not quite uncomfortable, just -- different. it's the same sort of familiar feeling from the dream, but he's definitely awake. and there's some strange boy in his shower, who definitely broke his boarded up window not too long ago.

it really makes a man reconsider the choices he made in his life.

but there's a folded up set of clothes on the bed for keith by the time he's​ done, and shiro's nowhere to be seen. ]

[impulsors]

[ at least one of them's past the point of questioning the bewildering sequence that got them to each other. he slides into the shirt (overlarge, but at least it's something worn comfortable), tugs the drawstring of shiro's obligatory stupid dad-shorts around his hips, and goes hunting.

it isn't as if the apartment's that big anyway. ]

Shiro -- ?

[stressors]

Sorry, I just put another coin in the washer.

[ -- he says, as he wanders back through the doorway.

and sure. keith gets a Look from head to toe. ]

You fill them in better than I thought you would.

[impulsors]

Maybe you're not as big as you think you are.

[ and then, belatedly - ]

. . . thanks.

[stressors]

Don't mention it.

[ as another mug gets passed into keith's hands. ]

It's cocoa. The powdered kind, so there's less of a chance I burned it.

[impulsors]

[ he's shifting on his heels a little before he knows it -- less a matter of nerves than restlessness. when's the last time he even hung out with someone? what do you do when you're hanging out? are they even hanging out?? ]

Do you -- uh. Wanna sit?

[stressors]

[ it isn't as though he can't tell the signs.

he feels it, too -- restless and curious and maybe a little nervous because he might just be projecting his dream onto a stranger who is probably coincidentally experiencing the same side effects, the same new sickness that might be brewing out of some resistance scheme or secret company ploy.

but he's smiling to create some ease, at least, and gesturing to his

bed. Look, he doesn't have a couch. leave him alone. ]

[impulsors]

[ funny how that doesn't even occur to him -- though that must be blamed, at least in part, on the way he keeps looking back to shiro, magnetic and inexorable.

in the end, he plants himself on the mattress, ignoring the squeak, with the mug cupped warm between his hands, and shifts backwards a little. only - ]

. . . I definitely get what you meant about the draft now.

[ at least he's settled himself against the wall. sipping grimly!! ]

[stressors]

. . . cold?

[impulsors]

[ he's still bath-damp and wrapped in too-big shorts. what other answer would there be besides - ]

I'm fine.

. . . sit down already.

[stressors]

[ he is.

or rather, he's sitting on the edge of the mattress, offering keith a folded square of blankets to cover his legs. ]

Can you tell me something?

[impulsors]

[ . . . draping them over himself, with a perplexed little furrow. ): ]

Yeah -- what?

[stressors]

[ it's a similar background: they're together on a bed, and for a second, he's back in that blue-tinted room again, inhaling the scent of iron-rich earth lingering on keith's curled form.

but there's still a foot or so between them. he doesn't bridge the gap. ]

You told me that you remember me studying to go to space.

What else do you remember?

[impulsors]

[ sand in his teeth, down his sleeves, and pulse all thunder. the surge and bristling of night winds whipping around them. open air and a chrome-sleek frame, body lean against his, wool crumpling gold-grey-gold between his fingers as he'd tugged closer, closer - ]

You raced me. We were out in a desert somewhere. It wasn't the area around Eulogy -- or it definitely didn't feel like it. We borrowed machines from the Garrison. They felt pretty old, but we really got them to run. And I was just --

[ it clumps on his tongue, static and stone in the same heavy twist as his eyes flick up, startled - ]

Happy.

[stressors]

[ it's always the same look.

keith looked at him the same way in the alleyway where they first met, and then again when he broke in, and then another time in a dream, and then here they are now. it's not a happy sort of look for all that keith is saying, because to him, it looks a little bit scared.

happy is a different expression on him;
happy had been the first time in a long time that he was able to throw him; happy had been the moment he climbed up shiro's fire escape, with grease streaked over his face, leading him down the rusty pipes to show him a - ]

No -- you built a bike.

[ it's a fixed sort of stare, unwavering even as his brow scrunches, as his fist opens and closes on his lap. ]

. . . didn't you?

[impulsors]

[ didn't you?

the question tumbles, and keeps falling -- it doesn't stir a chord or strike some end in the darkness that seems to stretch behind all his shallow memories. abruptly he claps a hand to his hair, rumples it back in a furious scrub of a sweep. ]

I don't know. It --

[ shiro, wry and bright-eyed with caffeine, gaze drifting a little lower than his eyes. the clank of boots on railing. plucking at grease seeped into the corner of a sleeve. a sun-wide grin: thought we could go for a ride. ]

Maybe. I can't -- remember where mine came from. All I know's that you were there.

[ it isn't quite memory that's got him this time -- there's no excuse for the way he's leaned over to catch shiro's arm, as if proximity could answer what time and shiro haven't. ]

It sounds right. I know I wanted to show you something.

[stressors]

[ keith gives himself up to all of these vague inklings with such little pause, that it baffles shiro to even think about.

but then again, they keep getting chances to forget each other. the alleyway could've been a one time thing. and so could've been the break-in, and that same awkward night where the mobs took to the streets, and keith had huddled into his bed to wait it out. they keep coming back to each other in the end, and he keeps finding himself watching keith with his wild hair and lost eyes, thinking that eventually the mystery will unravel itself.

but it's stranger that there are moments like this, too. keith closes his fingers around his arm, and the weight is familiar; and nothing else matters, because at least they're together again.

i'm glad to be back. ]

. . . it's so strange.

[ he doesn't remember the race, but he remembers some suspended moment, the smoke burning acrid in his nostrils, and an engine's rickety breakdown.

the bike tipping over.

it isn't completely conscious, when he lifts a hand to press his palm to keith's knuckles. ]

The dreams that I had of you and me were so clear.

But these . . . images are all so foggy. And yet, how is it that we're having similar hallucinations?

. . . do you remember a crash, too?