Keith was kneeling in front of him, stripped bare and shivering in the cold air. Hand shaped burns dotted his skin in suggestive horror. Hips, neck, wrists, thighs, imprints of holds he could tell the purpose of even without the sticky evidence smeared on his lips and chin. His eyes were vacant, mind withdrawn from this hell. He was limp as Shiro cradled him, pleaded with him to be okay, head lolling like some sort of broken doll. Tears were clouding his vision when fingers touched his face. He looked down and those eyes were no longer blank, instead lit an inhumanly bright yellow. Keith's mouth was the one to move, but Haggar's voice was the one he heard, "What's wrong Champion? Don't you like your gift?"
Shiro gagged, the nightmare left him wide awake staring at the ceiling of his room. That was, that was..He barely made it to the toilet before he threw up. The remains of his dinner swirled down the drain, as he dragged himself to the sink. He tried to calm the frantic beating of his heart. The dreams were getting worse. They'd started relatively tame, by his standards, with small flashes of memory and lots of taunting by his brainwashed visage in the mirror, but they'd been steadily getting more a more creative as time passed. If this kept up, he might have to ask Coran for some sort of sleep aid. Voltron couldn't afford for their leader to be sleep deprived by his own screwed up mind.
That would be a last resort, he doubted whatever Coran could come up with would be any less addictive than their earth equivalents. Voltron didn't need a pill popper for a leader either. After brushing his teeth, he stumbled back to bed. He briefly considered going down to the training room to chase the last remnants of the nightmare away with the sparring bot, but too many residents of the Castle kept odd hours for him not to risk getting caught. There was nothing anyone could do about this, and he didn't want to worry them unnecessarily.
He sat back against his headboard and focused on his lion. Tried to envision each curve and sharp edge perfectly. Crowd out any room for fear in his thoughts through disciplined recreation in his mind. Black was a beautiful machine. He subsumed himself in her. Chasing peace and calm, so he might sleep. Until there was a knock at his door.
"Shiro?" Keith's muffled voice called through the door, "Are you awake?" Shiro glanced at the time, the Altean clock displayed the middle of their night cycle. Keith should be sleeping peacefully in his own room, not knocking at Shiro's. He climbed out of his bed and hit the panel to unlock the door. Keith was on the other side of it looking sheepish in his pajamas. "Hey," Keith greeted him quietly, "Can I come in?"
He should say no. As if he could ever turn Keith away, "Sure," Shiro said, stepping back and waving him in.
"Thanks," Keith said, walking into the room, "Did I wake you?"
Shiro closed the door behind him, "No, I was already up."
"Bad dream?" Keith asked, taking his silence as ascent he continued, "Yeah, me too." Keith sat down on his bed and preceded to look at anything that wasn't Shiro. It took him a moment, but he realized he was embarrassed, "Kind of why I'm here, actually. Had a dream about, well you know," Keith waved his hand vaguely in the air, "and I thought I could sit in bed staring at the wall for a couple hours, or I could come over here and prove to myself it wasn't real."
He'd known intellectually that Keith must have been dreaming about what happened, it was a normal reaction to trauma, but this was the first time he'd admitted it. Shiro sat down beside him and hesitantly placed his arm on his shoulders, offering not demanding. Keith didn't show the same regard, taking the action as invitation to throw his arms around Shiro's middle and rest his head on his chest. "Are you okay?" Shiro asked carefully, patting his back.
"Better now," Keith murmured. Relaxing further when Shiro nuzzled his hair. He hadn't realized how much he missed this. They'd been working towards getting more comfortable with one another. Keith had been particularly aggressive about moving back towards what they used to have. Forcing Shiro to be the one to make sure they didn't act too quickly. Throwing on the brakes when it looked like one of them might get hurt. He wasn't the most effective at it. He had trouble denying Keith anything, and he ended up caving more often than not. Still, Keith had been pushing for hugs in the hall or pats on the back after a good training session. This was different. There was something intensely intimate in Keith seeking comfort in his arms in the privacy of what used to be their room. It was a good feeling.
"Can I stay?" Keith said quietly.
Shiro wanted to say yes. Wanted to enjoy something small and pure after so much darkness, but he couldn't stop the nagging doubt in his mind that something would go wrong if he did. He needed to be the responsible one. "I'm not sure that's the best idea," He said instead.
He felt Keith's fingers dig in, holding him tighter. "I won't sleep well if I go back. I don't like sleeping alone," Keith had confessed to him months back that it reminded him too much of that time when he thought Shiro was dead, "And if I have another dream, I'd rather be here where I can just roll over and see your eyes." Keith argued. He loosened his grip on Shiro, then raised up and bumped their foreheads together, "Just one night," Keith said, "I've missed you." He added, playing incredibly dirty in his opinion.
Didn't make it any less effective, "Alright," He sighed, "You can stay." He didn't bother adding the one night part. Once he got his foot in the door, Shiro didn't have the will to throw him back out.
Keith grinned at him in victory. Shiro just dragged them both back onto the mattress, before he could say anything else. Curling around the smaller man, he pressed a kiss to his hair. He'd lost this one, he might as well get to enjoy it. Keith quickly made himself comfortable, tangling one of his legs up with Shiro's and planting a kiss of his own to his chest. They drifted off like that, lulled by each other's warmth.
The nightmares still came, but for once, he had someone to whisper him back to sleep.
