AN: EDIT: RE-UPLOADED AFTER I PUT IT UP WITH THE WRONG FUCKING FILE. APOLOGIES TO THE THREE PEOPLE THAT SAW THE STAR WARS. THAT WAS SOMETHING ELSE. FUCKIN IDIOT ME NAMED THE FILES A BIT TOO SIMILAR. GOD DAMN IT. SHIT. THANK GOD I CHECKED BEFORE I WENT TO BED THAT ALMOST WENT REALLY BAD.

Oookay kids, warning times. This has descriptions of forced unnecessary amputation, references to torture and murder, suicidal thoughts, some minor self harm, and a host of other fuckery that is Not Good.

Also Matt and Shiro are lowkey pining for each other but that's not really relevant here, just thought I should confirm that in advance.

Also for clarification, the headcanon I'm running off of here is my own, where Matt and Shiro are separated after the whole "I want blood!" incident, but Matt is still imprisoned on the same ship, while Shiro is kept in solitary because the Galra are about 50% sure he's a fucking lunatic and they don't want him shivving other prisoners outside of the arena. Once Shiro starts being dragged off for happy fun time surgeries with Haggar and the Druids (future rock band name?) they quickly realise they don't know dick about humans, or how they function, and they definitely don't know what normal healthy human signs are. Which makes it a little difficult to recover from grueling surgeries. But wait, he was brought in with another human that's still on the ship, and he's a scientist, he's bound to know how human biology is supposed to go. So they toss Matt in the cell they're keeping Shiro in, throw some supplies at him, and tell him to make the other human better. Matt is not a trained medical professional, BUT he's taken first aid courses, got some pretty good biology marks, and watched a lot of House MD. That last one just means he knows Shiro doesn't have lupus.

So Matt basically ends up nursing Shiro back to health after the druids/the arena fuck him up, and the Galra quickly realise that wait a minute, the Champion isn't fucking destroying this guy again, he's actually happy to see him. Oh my god. They got played.

This eventually leads to Matt being transferred to a labour camp once the druids start really getting into the brainwashing, because it's much easier to break a guy if you take away the only person he can have any positive interactions with. This however leads to Shiro having a lot of time alone in his cell with nothing to focus on, and he ends up memorizing the guards routes, and we all know how that ends. Congratulations Hagger, you played yourself.

Anyways so this is somewhere around month five or six of Shiro's imprisonment. Matt has been helping him for two months now, and has gotten surprisingly good at the whole taking care of people thing.

Okay, I'll shut up now. Enjoy!

The Longest Night

The cell door opened with a bang, and a man was shoved inside, with not much in the way of care being shown.

"Watch it…" Matt grumbled at the already closed door, more on principle than out of any real retribution. His discomfort was quickly abandoned, as he realized that a familiar figure was already curled up on the thin pad that passed for a mattress, the only blanket wrapped tightly around him. His back was turned to Matt, and his breaths seemed to be laboured and uneven.

"Hey Shiro, what're we looking at this time?" He tried, receiving no reply from the other man in the cell. Frowning slightly, he walked over and kneeled beside him, hesitating before he went to check vitals.

"You sedated right now?"

A vaguely assertive groan came drifting out from inside the blanket.

"I am on so many right now, it's not even funny. I can taste colour. I bit off two fingers today before they muzzled me, and then I flailed so much I got sedated. It was great." He deadpanned, although the slur to his voice sort of ruined the effect.

"I'm proud of you buddy." Matt said, more than a little blatantly condescending. It's not like Shiro ever picked up on it when he was under sedatives.

His amusement at the situation died very quickly as he rolled the man onto his back.

"Oh… oh my god. What the fuck. I- no. I don't know how to deal with this, definitely outside my pay grade, what the fuck." Matt stammered out in shock, staring at the spot of the latest surgery, before getting up, and walking mechanically to the cell door, and banging on it.

"Hey, um, I can't fix this. Nobody can fix this. What do you want from me."

There was a moment, before a guard replied.

"The druids already have a solution for that. Just get him stronger so he'll survive the procedure." The soldier ordered through the door. Matt's mouth opened slightly in a combination of confusion, frustration and protest, although he didn't vocalise any of it, giving only a vague, helpless gesture with his hands.

He stayed like that for a moment, before another groan from Shiro drew him back to his friend's bedside.

"Hey, how's it going?" He asked softly, taking in the other man's glazed eyes and feverish complexion, mentally trying to assess how much of the loopiness was sedative, and how much was from the new wound.

"Not… not so great." Shiro said quietly, his eyes briefly focusing on Matt before drifting down and to the right. Matt didn't blame him, as it was the direction his eyes were being pulled as well.

"Yeah, that sounds accurate for right now. …Look, I'm going to have to go at it with disinfectant. Think you're up for that?"

The expression on Shiro's face made it very clear that no. No he was not.

"…I can start with the cuts from the restraints and stuff?"

"Please."

So, Matt grabbed one of the bottles of disinfectant, poured some on a clean cloth, and got to work cleaning the injuries Shiro had inflicted on himself by fighting the restraints, the same bloody gashes as always cut into the same places, opening up the fresh scars or healing scabs.

As usual, he saved the cut on Shiro's face for last. It wasn't brought up between them much, but when strapped down for surgery, Shiro apparently had the tendency to freak out, and bite at any fingers that got too close. After the first couple of fingers were bitten off, the druids started muzzling him during procedures. Usually by that point Shiro would hit a blind panic from pain, fear and adrenaline, leading to him still fighting it, causing it to cut into the bride of his nose. That particular wound was always deeper than the others, due to either a druid or a guard usually hitting him across the face to make him shut up.

It really said something that all of that was borderline routine.

Finally, all of Shiro's superficial wounds were cleaned, and the ones that needed it were bandaged. There was no way to ignore the main problem anymore.

"Okay… Shiro, this might- oh who am I kidding, this is definitely going to hurt like a bitch, but it needs to get done. Brace yourself."

The dark haired man sucked in a deep breath, and turned his head away, squeezing his eyes shut, before reluctantly nodding once.

Matt took a shaky breath to brace himself, and lifted the stump of Shiro's right arm onto his lap.

The other man hissed in pain at the movement, and Matt muttered a weak apology, before carefully unwinding the bandages that had already been applied.

There was very little in the way of blood, as the stump appeared to have been cauterized soon after the limb was amputated. And while it was very good that there wasn't blood loss to worry about, the burns still looked incredibly painful. Although really, there probably wasn't any way for it not to be painful.

But it would be more painful if it got infected, so Matt grabbed a clean cloth, poured on the disinfectant, and got to work.

Shiro's sleep was troubled, with him tossing and turning, and occasionally mumbling to himself in slurred Japanese. Despite being asleep, his expression was strained, and he was clearly in pain.

Matt hated this part of the recovery, where the wounds were all cleaned and bandaged, and Shiro just had to sleep off whatever had been done to him this time. He hated being so helpless, seeing his friend in that sort of pain and not being able to do anything for him.

He hated the fact that Shiro might have never drawn the druids attention if he hadn't fought Myzax for Matt's sake.

But what happened had happened, and for now, all Matt could do was try and comfort him while he slept, with varying levels of success.

He had gotten up to get some more water, to see if he could get Shiro to drink some, considering he had probably lost a decent amount of blood despite the cauterization. When he sat back down, to his surprise Shiro's eyes were open, although they were glazed over, and couldn't seem to manage to focus.

"Matt?" He rasped out, clearly struggling to see properly.

"Yeah, it's me. Can you sit up a bit? You need water, you've lost a lot of fluids."

"No." Shiro groaned, pulling a face and turning away.

That in of itself was enough to make Matt pause in surprise. Shiro wasn't a difficult patient by any means, and all the times before this he had never tried to resist treatment. …Although there was probably a difference between recovering from a stitched up wound and recovering from an amputation.

"I get that you probably feel like shit right now, but dehydration isn't going to help you recover-"

"What's the point!?" Shiro hissed out, enough vehemence in his voice to make it very clear that the sedatives he had been given in surgery were out of his system again.

"…What? Shiro, what do you mean?"

"Look at me. Fucking look at me. They- my- my arm. They took my arm, my fucking arm is gone! Even if we somehow got back to Earth right this second, and everyone was okay and all of this went away, I'm not okay! I'm never going to be okay! My life is fucking over!"

"That's ridiculous. There's plenty of amputee's on Earth. Maybe not from these exact circumstances, but-"

"PEOPLE WITH ONE ARM DON'T GET TO BE SPACE PILOTS!"

A stunned silence hung in the cell after Shiro's outburst, with his ragged breaths being the only sound, before Matt spoke up.

"Shiro…" He said softly, not sure of what to say, but only knowing that he had to say something.

"E-even if we do get home, there's no point. I-I'm never gonna fly again, I've got nothing left, and I don't want to do this anymore. I- I'm done. I'm just done. I can't do this anymore Matt, I don't want to, please don't make me keep doing this." The dark haired man rambled out, sounding slightly hysterical, and on the verge of tears.

"Shiro, what are you saying?" Matt demanded, already having an alarming idea of what the answer to that would be.

"Just let me die. Please Matt, I'm begging you, don't make me do this anymore. I don't want to. It- it's too much. I can't do this, please don't make me."

There was another pause as Shiro covered his face with his remaining hand, and took a few harsh, shuddering breaths, clearly fighting down a panic attack. Crouched beside him, Matt was frozen, staring at his friend, eyes welling with tears.

"I- I've kept myself going through all of this thinking that- that it's going to be okay, that we're gonna go home and everything's going to be normal again, but- but now it's not, and I'm not, and I just can't take it. I don't want to live for them to cut me open and change me and do fuck knows what else, not if there's nothing left waiting for me. Matt, please get me away from all this. Just- just let me die. Please-"

Shiro's growing rant was cut off by Matt grabbing him, fortunately avoiding the new stump. The smaller man pulled him into a hug, crushing his face against Shiro's good shoulder. Through the thin prison outfits, Shiro could feel his shoulder immediately turn wet from tears.

"I- Matt- Shit, don't cry-"

"You fucking idiot. You don't- you don't even realise- I can't make it in here without you Shiro, I can't do this alone. You're going to live. We're going to live, and we're going to find my dad, and the three of us are going to get home, and I'm going to see my mom and sister, and you're going to see your family, and we're all going to live god damn it. Yeah, it's not going to be the same life we had before, but honestly, we were never going to get out of this the same. Just like we probably weren't going to return from Kerberos the same originally. People change. And yeah, you're not piloting any more space expeditions, but Shiro, we've seen more space than anyone else is ever going to in our lifetime. Can't that be enough? There's things worth living for just on Earth y'know, it's a big fucking planet. Let's just- let's just live to get out of here, and then we can make big decisions like suicide, okay? For now, let's just survive. Also, you just got your fucking arm cut off, you are not in your right mind here. I wouldn't trust you to make decisions about what to eat for dinner, let alone the rest of your life. Fuck, I forgot where I was going with this. I'm rambling, oh my god. I have been talking. For way too long. Feel free to cut in anytime here."

Shiro let out a huff of air that might have been a chuckle on a better day. Shifting awkwardly, he managed to wrap his remaining arm around Matt as well, returning the hug.

The two stayed like that for a long time, just holding each other in silence, breathing together.

"You're right. Sorry for worrying you." Shiro finally mumbled, his face half buried in Matt's hair. The arms around him squeezed in response.

"Don't worry about it. Sorry for yelling at you. And calling you a fucking idiot. And guilt tripping you. And being so blunt about the whole arm thing. And grabbing you without permission when I know you don't really like that now. And for rambling. Oh my god, I'm doing it again. My verbal filters have officially ate shit, because they are gone. This is my life now. Oh my god. Holy shit. Fuck."

"Hey Matt?"

"If it's shut up, I'm not totally sure if I can do that. Other than that, yeah?"

"Can we stop hugging now? Because this is basically me holding a sit up, and while I may be ripped, I'm not at my best right now, and I'm really feeling the burn."

"Oh, sorry."

"Don't worry about. I'll take some of that water now, if you're still offering."

After Shiro had drank, the two sat in a comfortable silence for a while, until Shiro dropped back into sleep, this time relatively peaceful.

Judging it as probably safe for now, Matt shifted to lay down on the floor, a hand casually draped over Shiro's chest, so he could feel if there was a change in his breathing.

And then, Matt followed Shiro's example and slipped into sleep.

AN: Whoo! I need some sleep too, it's like midnight and I am running on about four hours. Thank god my classes don't start until 10.

Anyways so yeah. That sure happened. For the record, after this, Matt would have kept a very close eye on Shiro and kept close tabs on his mental health, due to having very good reason to suspect him of being suicidal. After Matt was sent away, Shiro's mental health obviously tanked, but he didn't have the freedom or willpower to actually follow through with it. But during his escape, he absolutely had decided to kill himself if caught, rather than face what Haggar would do to him for trying. Not that I can blame a guy in that situation. Nightmare fuel.

After finishing, I basically realised that this is like, the anti-Me Before You. Man becomes disabled and suicidal, makes a friend, the friend realises that the man is obviously not in a healthy place, and pulls out all the stops to make sure he stay okay. And the moral is not 'suicide is okay if you're disabled' the moral is 'your life is always changing, and even if it's a jarring change like becoming disabled, you still have a future, even if it's suddenly different from what you expected.'

And if I can get serious for a minute here, if anyone reading this is or has been suicidal, or is just struggling with their mental health and needs someone to talk to, please, feel more than free to shoot me a PM. I've got anxiety and depression, so I follow you. And while physically I'm mostly okay, I've got severe ADD, and have been blocked from getting treatment for it all my life. Like, so severe it took a lot of testing to figure out if it was ADD or autism. And actually did you know psychologists are starting to classify ADHD and ADD as being part of the autism spectrum because of all the overlapping symptoms? True story!

Anyways the point I was making before that got derailed is that if anyone reading this is neurodivergent and needs to get something off their chest, I'm willing to listen, and I won't judge you for anything. I've been there. Fuck have I been there.

This got a little deeper than I meant it too, but yeah. Take care of yourself kids! Or, at the very least, take care of yourself as much as you're able to.

And if you're up for it, reviews are deeply appreciated. Thanks for reading!