Shiro's sweaty palms itched under the leather of his gloves as he steered his car around a sharp turn on the way to the Holt household.

At a red light, Shiro glanced at the manila folder on the passenger seat. He'd been fine when he collected Matt's work the previous day, and nerves had yet to seize him when he woke in the morning. It wasn't until Shiro got in his car that his heart dropped and his stomach clenched with fear. The unease simmering within strengthened the closer he got to the Holt household.

When Shiro pulled into the driveway and parked his car, his heart hammered in his chest. He clenched the steering wheel and sucked in a slow, deep breath that failed to soothe his anxiety. His heart continued to pound. However, he couldn't sit and wait much longer. The Holts likely heard his car when he arrived, and if he remained outside, surely someone would start asking questions.

Each step toward the door felt as if Shiro was moving through molasses. His legs were stiff. His feet were leaden. The folder in his hands weighed a thousand pounds. The last time Shiro had been so nervous was the day he left the hospital following his discharge from the military. Nothing but stepping into a world full of judgement with half-healed scars and haunted eyes compared to what he felt as he approached the door to the Holt household.

Three knocks. Stiff. They echoed in Shiro's ears until the sound of approaching footsteps drowned them out. The door opened, and Colleen met Shiro with a smile. He stepped inside.

"Good morning, ma'am," Shiro greeted. He passed the folder back and forth between his hands before clutching it in both to keep them occupied, then raised it for Colleen to see. "I, uh, brought Matt's homework."

"Thank you, Shiro." Colleen glanced at the folder, then her gaze slid down the hallway in the direction of Matt's room. "Matt still isn't feeling well, but he's doing better than he was. He should be awake right now, if you want to talk to him."

Shiro nodded. He followed Colleen's gaze, and even after she looked back at him, Shiro's focus never shifted. He hoped Colleen couldn't see him sweat as his skin burned with the heat of a thousand suns. "I… I will, if that's okay." He lifted the folder again without tearing his gaze away from the hallway. "And I'll give him his homework."

Colleen spoke, but the words didn't all reach Shiro's brain. Something about going to work soon. Then, she was gone, and Shiro was walking toward Matt's room alone.

Only a door stood between them now. One door. One single piece of wood. Shiro clutched the folder between his fingers so tightly that his hands tremored. It all came down to this. The survival of what Shiro and Matt had built depended on what happened beyond that door.

Shiro raised a hesitant fist, but before his knuckles met wood, the door opened. Dark lines and brown gave way to a dimly lit room, sandy-colored hair, hunched shoulders, pale skin, and deep purple under-eye circles.

Matt blinked at Shiro where he stood in the doorway with an empty glass in hand. The two stared, face to face, in silence. Then, Shiro spoke.

"Can we talk?"

-000-

Shiro fought the urge to fidget as he sat cross-legged against Matt's dresser with his gaze on his gloved hands.

Across the small gap and just a little too far to Shiro's side, Matt slumped against his bed with his legs outstretched. He stared down at the folder full of homework Shiro had brought him.

"So—"

"I—"

Shiro and Matt both paused abruptly when they began to speak at the same time. The pair raised their heads and their gazes met for a short moment before they tore them apart.

"You first," they said in unison.

Shiro picked at his gloves.

Matt rubbed the thick paper of the folder between his fingers.

"You didn't—"

"I should've—"

The two stopped mid-sentence again. Silence fell.

Shiro sighed quietly. He ran a hand through his bangs and shoved them out of his face. "I'm sorry…"

Matt frowned, but didn't look up from his papers. "For what?"

"I shouldn't have kicked you out the other day. I went overboard."

A short, choked laugh dragged itself out of Matt's throat. "Yeah, because it's no big deal when your friend and your brother spend weeks lying to your face."

"You weren't lying, you just…didn't say everything."

"As if that's any better."

Shiro chewed the inside of his cheek as he glanced up at Matt, who stared at the folder in his hands with a furrowed brow and clenched jaw. A faint crease bisected the folder down the middle as it bent in Matt's grip.

"I talked to Keith," Shiro said.

Matt didn't reply.

"I needed some time to cool off, but I get it now."

"Get what? That you shouldn't have trusted me?"

Shiro frowned. "No… The opposite, actually."

Matt continued to stare at his folder, refusing to meet Shiro's eyes. "Maybe you need to spend more time thinking, then."

"Matt—"

"I should've said something earlier, and I never should've kept talking to Keith. None of this would've happened if I'd just minded my own fucking business," Matt interrupted. His fingers dug into the folder, further creasing it and the papers inside.

"You were just trying to help."

"And I did a great fucking job, didn't I?"

Shiro closed his eyes and exhaled, long, slow, and quiet. "You did, actually."

Matt opened his mouth to speak, but his words died on his tongue when Shiro interrupted him.

"I felt like shit during the winter break, Matt. I… I fell back into some old habits I thought I'd gotten over. I stressed Keith out so much that his dark circles were worse than mine, and sometimes I'd hear him crying when he thought I was asleep. But I didn't do or say anything. I didn't have it in me to help him. I could hardly stand up, let alone process the fact that someone else had learned about who I used to be," Shiro admitted. "If you or Keith had told me what happened that same night, I probably would've dropped out of school and changed my number; if I had the energy to open my laptop."

"That doesn't make it right. I could've said something after you started getting better."

"Maybe, but I know why you didn't."

"Because you were doing better, and I didn't want to fuck it up."

Shiro nodded even though Matt still wouldn't meet his gaze. "It was the same way with Keith. He knew how bad I had gotten during the break, and he didn't want to risk sending me back there once I was finally back on my feet."

"I could've at least stopped talking to Keith after I sent him Ms. Kek's information."

"Keith always gets worried when I'm at school and he can't keep an eye on me. I don't blame you for keeping him updated."

"Still, I should've told you."

"And I should've talked to you the moment I had my head on straight and could see why you did what you did."

A small smirk tugged at the corner of Matt's lips. "As if either of us could keep anything straight," he mumbled just loud enough for Shiro to hear.

Shiro let a smile overtake his expression. "True."

When the amusement faded from the air, Matt's shoulders slumped. "Are you, uh… Are you still mad?" he asked. His voice trembled slightly and his body tensed as he prepared for the impact of Shiro's answer.

"I'm not mad, Matt. I never was."

Matt froze, then the tension left him as he slowly lifted his eyes to meet Shiro's gaze. "You weren't?"

"No, I wasn't." Shiro shook his head. "If anything, I was more afraid than anything else. I've never really told anyone that I'm ex-military, or that I…had a rough time." He rubbed at his palm with a gloved thumb. "The way I look tends to intimidate people enough, but once they find out that I was in the Air Force, and why I was discharged, they keep their distance. They get scared and leave, or walk on eggshells like they think saying the wrong word will make me lose my head. Some things get to me, yeah, but there's no need to be so careful. A lot of people don't get that, and I was afraid you might not get it either. I thought I was about to lose my best friend."

Matt frowned. "Why would I think that? I mean, I saw you handle Quinn and his guys when they were around. You could've snapped their necks if you wanted to, but you didn't go beyond defending yourself. You got hurt fighting them, too, but the first thing you did was turn around and make sure I was okay. For a minute I thought you didn't even realize you'd been injured. You're one of the strongest people I know, and I can't find anything within you that anyone should be afraid of." Matt paused, then hurriedly added, "Mentally, I mean. You're physically strong too, I know, you're literally a bulldozer in human form, but like, when shit happens, you can handle it."

Shiro resisted the urge to chuckle at Matt's comment. "Usually, I can, yeah. If I can't, I go to Najenda."

"Has she been helpful? I know you seemed to be doing better after you started seeing her, but I didn't really know everything, so I wasn't sure if it was because of her or something else."

"She's great. We talk about specific things that are bothering me, then go back to things I've been pushing aside. If I start getting anxious or worked up, she changes the topic and gets me talking about something random so quickly that I forget I was upset."

Matt nodded. "I'm glad. She was a huge help to my dad after he was discharged, and she still keeps him on his feet when he starts to feel off and goes in for a visit. She even helped me a bit, too."

Shiro's eyebrows raised. "Really?"

"Yeah. After what happened with Quinn, my parents took me to see her a few times. I was terrified of going back to school even after I transferred, but she helped me get past that. She didn't just tell me to stop being afraid because it was a totally new school where no one knew me. She actually got me to think about what was worrying me, then helped me understand it. She told me, 'The first step toward conquering fear is understanding what you're afraid of.'"

Shiro looked down at his hands. Understanding. It had been a concept he'd struggled with during his imprisonment, as well as in the time after his discharge. He didn't understand why it had been his team. He didn't understand why only some of his friends had left the hospital on their feet. It had taken years for him to come to terms with the answer: it could happen to anyone, and at that time, he and his team were the unlucky 'anyone'. He still struggled to accept the truth, but he did understand, and now the events of the past intimidated him far less than his future did.

"When was the last time you saw Ms. Kek?" Matt asked.

"My appointments are on Tuesdays, but I missed the last one because, you know… She called after I didn't show up, and I finally called back this morning before I came here. We only talked for a minute, but it was enough to convince me to come in the house and talk to you instead of dropping your homework on the doorstep and leaving before your family realized I was here."

"Those must've been some wise words."

"They always are, but these were the same ones she's been telling me for weeks. 'Open up'." Shiro pulled his gaze away from his hands to look at Matt again. "I won't make it anywhere if I keeping hiding things. All that will do is make me have the same breakdown every time a friend learns something new about me, and I don't want that."

"Me neither," Matt agreed quietly.

Shiro nodded. "On the way here, I was thinking about just…talking. Just say everything and go, but I, uh…" His gaze fell again and he scratched nervously at the back of his neck. "I trust you, Matt, but I just don't think I'm ready to say everything. Not yet."

"It's okay." Matt's response was short and quick, and it drew Shiro's attention back to his friend's face. "When we were dealing with Quinn, I didn't tell you everything at once. Part of it was because I didn't want to dump everything on you or get you involved more than you already were, but I also just didn't want to explain it all yet. I felt bad leaving you in the dark, but I would've felt worse if I forced myself to say everything at once. I needed time then, you need time now, and that's okay. You can tell me when you're ready, whether that's tomorrow, next week, ten years from now, or never."

In that moment, Shiro felt the tension in his body seep away. His shoulder slumped, and he fought off the urge to sigh in relief. He and Matt sat across from each other in the narrow strip of open floor in Matt's room without an ounce of awkwardness in the air. The fissure that had opened between them following their encounter with Tarker was closed. They could breathe again.

Relief seemed to hit Matt harder than Shiro, because his eyelids began to sag and he sank against the side of his bed as if he couldn't sit upright any longer. When Shiro noticed, he nearly slapped himself. He'd been so caught up in discussing what had happened that he forgot Matt was sick. Recovering, yes, but still sick. Shiro hurriedly began to rise.

"I'm glad you understand, and I'm glad we got to talk, but I should probably go," Shiro said. "I fell behind with my schoolwork recently, you have a pretty thick folder of work to get through, and you look like you could use a break. I got so caught up in talking that I forgot you're sick. Sorry…"

Matt waved a hand in dismissal and dragged himself to his feet, though he slumped heavily against his bed when he stood and continued to blink away sleepiness in a losing battle against his exhaustion.

Shiro stepped toward the door.

"Thanks, by the way," Matt said, causing Shiro to pause and look back as he lifted the folder.

"Of course." Shiro remained in place, still looking back at Matt. His eyes were fixated as they took in details he hadn't noticed earlier. Matt squinted slightly as if he couldn't see clearly. Maybe he hadn't bothered to wear his glasses or contacts recently. He looked paler than usual, too, probably because he was sick. His hair was in a ponytail, but it was messy and flyaway strands stuck out from his head from hours of lying in bed.

Something Shiro couldn't identify made him turn. He faced Matt, paused, then closed the small gap between them. His arms wrapped around Matt's frame, though only lightly. If he wanted, Matt could easily push Shiro away. He didn't, though. Instead, arms encircled Shiro and held him tight as Matt let his face fall against Shiro's shoulder. Maybe he could feel the odd hardness of the metal in Shiro's right arm, but at the moment, Shido couldn't bring himself to care. Even if Matt did notice, he wouldn't ask questions. He'd wait until Shiro gave him answers on his own.

The pair pulled apart slowly, and Shiro left even slower. He lingered in the doorway of Matt's room, then at the front door and in his car. Part of his wanted to go back, and if Matt weren't sick, maybe he would've.

When evening came, Matt was already asleep. Shiro drifted off while watching videos on his phone soon after. For the first night in days, both slept well.