Dear Katie,

I witnessed a tragedy today.

They're the only two in the Garrison gym when the kid walks in.

Matt is reading on one of the suspiciously sticky benches by the door, supposedly spotting for Shiro who's busy dead lifting some ridiculous amount of weight for god knows what reason. It's not like sitting in a cockpit requires you to be shredded, but if he's dumb enough to actively seek out pain, Matt's not going to let him go it alone. At least if he accidentally traps himself under a weight, Matt will be there to laugh.

They're an hour into it when the doors slide open. It's after curfew and Shiro has special permission to use the gym, so visitors aren't exactly common. The kid looks normal at first, if unfamiliar. He's out of uniform and dressed down in clothes that are almost aggressively plain, but he's—pretty, even at a passing glance.

The kid gets two steps into the room before he realizes it's not empty.

Matt is watching, so Matt can pinpoint the exact moment the kid's life falls apart—the exact moment all of their lives fall apart.

And Katie, I'm not joking, he took one look at Shiro and his heart stopped. Right there in front of me. I thought I was going to have to do CPR.

The kid's eyes settle on Shiro, where he's busy being sweaty and gross, and go shock-wide.

It's like his primary motor function ceases for a second. He stumbles, almost, almost catches his feet, but his momentum carries him forward, right over the glorified Bowflex that no one's seen anyone but Iverson use, and down he goes.

It's... tragic.

He doesn't fall so much as crash face first right into the floor and the small heap of single-hand dumbbells piled there. He gives a little, pained cry, the sound drawing Shiro's attention. The kid has solid reflexes; he's up almost as soon as he's down, but the damage is done.

And he doesn't notice his foot is hooked under one of the dumbbells.

He tries to take a step and stumbles again—Shiro and Matt both put out a hand like they can stop his second fall by sheer force of will, but by some fluke, by some stroke of luck, by the grace of some angel, he doesn't fall.

It's a pure accident. Matt can tell by the surprise on his face. The kid's hands land just right, and his momentum is just enough that he turns it into the most haphazard somersault Matt's ever seen in his entire life. It's not smooth by any definition, but it's maybe a little impressive.

He stands and dusts himself off, looks in the general direction of the wall over Shiro's shoulder, face already as red as is possible for a human, and says, "I'm fine. It was—parkour."

He's dead serious.

Matt feels his mouth fall open. For a second he thinks he's misheard, because it's the most flagrant lie he's ever heard in his life, and the most bizarre. He glances at Shiro, hoping they can share a raised eyebrow and a get a load of this kid look, but Shiro isn't looking at him.

Shiro is staring at the kid, open-mouthed, and there's not a trace of humor in it.

"Parkour?" Shiro asks, managing to sound fascinated.

"Yeah." The kid brushes the bangs out of his eyes, suave-like. "Parkour."

Katie. This kid has never done parkour in his life. He wouldn't know parkour if it did a back flip off a building and suplexed him in an alley.

They chew on that revelation for a half second. Shiro and the kid are making the kind of intense eye contact that's physically agonizing to bare witness to as a third party.

It makes sense, in some kind of world, Matt decides, distantly. Shiro is almost two hundred pounds of glistening muscle in a muscle tank. The undercut, the jawline—he's hot. There's nothing weird about the kid's reaction, and the kid is, at second glance, more than passingly pretty. He's almost pulling off the shag cut, and his eyes are the kind of big and blue that's made the career of teen heart-throbs innumerable.

Somewhere in the distance, Peter Gabriel starts playing.

That's the last moment anything in Matt's life makes sense, the last moment he has any grasp on the reality he's become accustomed to, because at that exact moment the kid's nose starts bleeding, profusely, dripping right down his chin, and that's the moment Shiro ceases to be a functioning human.

"Oh my god—" Shiro glances around in a panic. There are kleenexes on the table by the door, but before Matt can point that out, Shiro settles on the very obvious and logical solution of pulling off his tank and shoving it under the kid's nose.

Of course.

The kid's eyes go big, big, because Shiro is half naked and pressing sweaty tank top into his nose, and then flutter shut. Shiro misinterprets, thinks the kid is about to faint, and wraps an arm around his back.

"Breathe through your mouth. We—we should get you to the infirmary," he says gently, cupping the back of the kid's head in his hand, digging his fingers into the kid's black hair with more enthusiasm than is strictly required.

None of this is required.

The kid shakes his head faintly. "I'll be fine," he says, though it comes out muffled and mostly unintelligible.

There's a horrible moment where they're both staring into each other's eyes, not talking, not moving. Matt closes his book absently, something foreboding looming in the back of his mind, something ominous stalking through the room—

No. No fucking way. Shiro is blushing.

Shiro is blushing.

Anyway, the secondhand embarrassment almost killed me right then and there.

I wish it had.

"Really, I'll be fine," the kid says for the fourth time from his seat on the bench, while Shiro hovers above him.

He still has Shiro's shirt clutched against his face though it's been minutes and Matt knows for a fact he's not bleeding anymore. His eyes are glued to Shiro's chest, but Shiro is oblivious somehow. Probably because he's equally fascinated with whatever is going on with the kid's hair. What a pair.

The kid buries his nose deeper in the shirt, eyes still laser focused on Shiro's pecs. God.

"I'm sorry, again—" Shiro starts.

"No, I should have watched where I was going. I didn't expect to see anyone," the kid says to Shiro's chest. He's still staring, and it's bald, blatant—Matt feels debased by proximity.

"So..." Matt says, when they've been silent too long and he can feel his sanity slipping. "Are you new? I don't think I've seen you around before."

The kid nods. "I just transferred." Good. Good, that's easy. They can work with that. Matt smiles at the kid and then shoots Shiro a Look, because this is his opening to ask the kid's name or have anything approaching a normal interaction.

Shiro returns his glance with a deer in the headlights look of his own. There's a bare pause where he's visibly trying to come up with something, anything to say to the kid.

Ask his name, Matt mouths, but Shiro is back to staring at the top of the kid's head.

"So... You do parkour?" Shiro offers, like a man adrift at sea clinging to his only lifeline.

The kid's eyes dart around, glancing off Shiro's chest and face, resettling on the wall behind him. "Oh, y-yeah," he stutters. He actually stutters. "Parkour. It's—great."

Matt closes his eyes and embraces the abyss.

And then Shiro is like, oh, yeah, parkour, I love parkour.

Neither of them know anything about parkour!

"Wow," Shiro mutters to himself for the third time.

They're walking back from the gym, and Matt is slowly dying.

At least Shiro has his shirt back, but it's a double edged sword because it's disgusting and covered in blood and he's caught Shiro staring down at it fondly twice already.

Un-fucking-believable.

"I mean, wow." Four times. He shakes his head, smiling to himself. "Parkour," Shiro says, rolling the R, and Matt's no expert but neither is Shiro and neither is that kid and that's definitely not how you pronounce it.

"Yep," Matt says. "Parkour," he enunciates it, like maybe that will help Shiro get it right or realize that it's not actually parkour he's suddenly obsessed with.

"Do you know anyone that does parkour?"

Jesus Christ—

"Nope. I've never met anyone who did parkour in my entire life." The double-stuff layer of sarcasm flies right over Shiro's head, which should be impossible given he's currently floating somewhere on cloud nine. But Shiro just sighs and brushes his bangs to one side, smiling to himself.

"I mean—"

"Yeah, parkour, wow. Too bad you didn't get his name, huh." It's mean, but they share a bunk and there's no way he's going to sleep to the sound of Shiro whispering sweet parkour nothings to himself. That's not a life he can live.

Shiro comes to a dead stop right there in the hallway, like this has only just now occurred to him. Matt snaps out a hand and grabs his arm before he can run off and beg the kid for his name and number and star sign.

"Dude, you look like a murder scene. At least get a clean shirt." That'll work, and then he can wait until Shiro is in the bathroom and lock him in. Friends don't let friends run down hallways after hours trying to stalk down strange shirt-sniffing parkour boys.

There's a brief moment where Shiro is staring longingly down the hallway, as if he might go back anyway. It's—tragic. By any metric, this is a tragedy, unfolding right before his eyes.

So we got back to our room, and I seriously think there was a moment where he was considering not washing the shirt. I've never been so ashamed of anyone in my life. It's like I trusted him and then I found out he's one of those people that gets on a table and starts strip teasing after one beer. Except instead of beer his weakness is clumsy boys with blue eyes and bad hair. Man, you think you know someone.

I don't know how I can look him in the eye after this. I'll keep you updated, with regrets.

- Matt

PS. Montgomery let me rework the flight simulator programs today using Shiro's scores. I'm attaching the code if you want to check it out. Don't tell Dad.