Like clockwork, Shiro found Keith in the training room early in the morning. He waited by the entrance for Keith to look his way before coming in. "Is… everything okay?"

Keith hesitated mid pull-up and threw Shiro a withering look.

Shiro hesitated, then quickly amended himself. "I meant with the voices."

The withering look promptly turned into a glare.

Shiro sighed. This wasn't working, was it? "Keith, I know you're… scared with what's happened recently—"

Keith dropped down from the pull-up bar, straightening up and standing right in front of him with a fierce look. "I'm not scared."

Shiro molded his face into what he hoped was a calm, nonjudgmental look. "Okay, then. Talk to me about it."

Keith scowled, turning around and going back to the bar.

Shiro watched him launch right into a practiced set of pull-ups, body moving to a beat Shiro knew was a bit faster than what Keith would normally do. Tension was everywhere in Keith's body, and Shiro just barely kept himself from telling Keith to slow it down or else he'd hurt himself. But that would only set him off, so Shiro sighed, hand at the back of his neck, and sat down on the floor.

Perhaps 'scared' wasn't the right word. Shiro saw frustration in the boy's tight overgrip on the bar, saw anxiety in the speed of his pull-ups, saw anger in the way the muscles in his arms rippled beneath the skin, and saw loneliness clear on his back.

So he sat and watched Keith go through a variety of pull-ups: ten reps of L-sits, ten reps of wide grips, ten reps of short grips, ten reps of something Shiro had never seen done before, then back to the L-sits.

The air in the training room started heating up, the scent of sweat and testosterone thickening with every passing minute. Still, Shiro stayed, waiting for Keith to work off whatever was building up inside.

Shiro didn't really know exactly what was going through Keith's mind right now, but, based on what had happened in the last few days, he'd managed to narrow it down to three.

He really hoped it was just the voices. According to Pidge, hysteria and hallucination was a rare but entirely possible side effect of prolonged gas exposure at Resha'ari. Xernii medication was supposed to help decrease the symptoms, though the dosage had to be precise. Altean medical documents also backed this up, and also confirmed the dosage instructions the Xernii had provided.

If whatever got Keith all worked up was just this, then the team had nothing to worry about. It had an easy and quick fix. But if it was something else, something more… personal, then…

They'd learned recently that a small group of Galrans had, at one point, sought refuge on Earth, from Zarkon's oppressive reign. Earth's encounter with the Galrans was brief, but prominent— through an less than conventional union, Keith had been born.

The discovery had, for some time, shook the team. Unsurprisingly, Keith had suffered the most; he became reclusive, adopting a bitterness that turned destructive and losing whatever self-regulatory skills he had on his emotions. But slowly, the team had been able to patch themselves up, and while Keith wasn't ever the same again, he certainly was getting better.

Shiro knew that it still bothered him, and he often found himself time to time lending a shoulder for support. There wasn't much else he could do, though he strongly wished he could.

And then… There was the incident from two days ago.

Shiro was pretty sure this was the main thing that was eating Keith up. He was pretty sure the voices, feeding off his still-recovering sense of self, had only made it worse. And Lance wasn't making anything better by avoiding Keith like the plague and living in the depths of denial.

Shiro breathed deeply, sighing through his nose and feeling his brow crease with his own dose of frustration. He was about to stand and leave when suddenly, the telltale thud of Keith's feet landing on the floor caught his attention.

Shiro looked Keith, who stood with his back still facing him, sweating profusely and panting from the intensive workout he'd forced himself to go through. To Shiro's dismay, Keith began walking out of the training ground, without sparing even a glance behind.

Before Shiro could call him back, Keith stopped in front of the entrance, head bowed and hand hovering slightly over the door panel.

"I'll talk to him today. I promise."

Shiro smiled as the door swished open and Keith left the room with less tension in his shoulders, his head just a little bit higher. Alright, he told himself. That went better than he expected.

He stood up, groaning as he felt his back crack from sitting cross-legged and hunched on the floor for so long. He rubbed at his lower back, and then, after a moment's pause, reached down and gently patted the soft flesh of his ass.

"Hm. Maybe I should work out my glutes."