Shiro woke to the sharp inhale of a gasp. At first, the sleep still dripping from his eyelids and muddling his brain disoriented him, but after years of always needing to be alert, he quickly became aware of his surroundings. He was in the Red Lion, in his own bed. Shiro periodically rotated where he slept, seeing as he was no longer a Paladin of any of the Lions. It also allowed him to spend time with each of the Paladins personally, keeping up morale as best he could. Shiro remained, unmoving, under his blankets, as he tried discern whether the sound that woke him was merely Lance breathing in his sleep, or something more serious. Adjusting his head on his pillow, Shiro glanced at where Lance lay across the room from him and frowned. Though darkness clung to the room, lurking in crevices and seeping into Shiro's eyes, small panels on the top of the walls cast a haunting tint of blue on everything, sending a chill of foreboding through Shiro's spine. This light allowed Shiro to see the Cuban boy's frame, which appeared to be shaking, but uncertainty of what he saw gnawed at Shiro. Pushing his blankets aside, Shiro tread lightly across the metallic floor, caution controlling his steps. When he reached Lance's side, however, he knew that his eyes had, in fact, deceived him. Lance wasn't shaking. He was convulsing. The Red Paladin's body shuddered as if thousands of volts of lightning crackled through his bloodstream, and, despite the rather cool temperature of the room, sweat seeped into the sheets around Lance like rain. "Lance!" Shiro yelled, recognizing the situation. "Lance!"
Shiro grabbed Lance's shoulder, trying to jar Lance from the nightmare that imprisoned his brain. Suddenly, Lance's lips opened to unleash a paralyzing sound, a sound that embodied terror colder than any glacier and despair more crushing than an anvil. Debilitating isolation bled through the shriek, and trauma shuddered through Shiro's bones. Before Shiro had a moment to react, Lance lashed out, striking the scarred face of the former Black Paladin. Shiro stumbled backwards, surprised by the force of the blow, and even the strike itself. Raising his only hand to his face, Shiro wiped the blood from his busted lip and tried to breathe deeply. Lance's scream had ripped open the scabbing wound left by his own time in captivity, and Shiro knew that if he didn't get a grip on himself, he could never help Lance. Breathing, although never feeling as though he could fill his lungs, Shiro brought his gaze back to Lance, whose blue eyes glowed in the darkness like scattered embers.
"Shiro…?" Lance's voice emphasized the lost look in his eyes, as if he were drifting through the air when the wind suddenly changed its course.
"What…?"
A moment of frozen realization struck Lance, and he closed his eyes slowly, before instantly opening them.
"Lance," Shiro stepped forward as if he were approaching a rabid animal, and stretched out his hand.
"I'm fine," Lance blurted, though the words contrasted the constellation of tears strewn across his cheeks. The light that glowed eerily against Lance's skin depicted him as the ghost of a sickly sea, that now held more foam than water.
"You can talk about it," Shiro told him, though he stopped his hand before he placed it on Lance's shoulder.
"There's nothing to, to talk about," Lance's stutter conveyed more emotion than he had desired to display, and informed of much more than he had intended to say.
"Alright," Shiro let it go, but sat down on the side of Lance's bed anyway.
Lance gulped audibly, and maneuvered his body in order to sit just beyond an arms reach of Shiro. After a lapse of hesitant quiet, Shiro collected his thoughts, and parted the silence that had draped over the two of them.
"I have them too."
"You do?" Lance asked, his worries and questions beating his reservations.
"Of course."
"Do they...go away? Or get better?" Lance gulped, his desperation leaking through the mask he always tried to wear.
"They become...less frequent, but I don't know if they'll ever leave me," Shiro admitted, absently rubbing the place where his right arm should have connected to his shoulder.
"What...what do you see?"
"Different things, I see them operating on me. I see myself, killing helpless people in order to stay alive. I see my mind losing to itself," Shiro had never told anyone this, not Allura, not even Keith.
"Do you ever think that they'll...find you again? That they'll take you back to the operation table? Or that...you're dreaming now, and that your nightmares are the true reality?" Lance stammered, and Shiro turned his eyes to meet Lance's.
"At first, that was all I could think," Shiro replied.
"But you don't anymore?"
"No."
"Why not? What changed your thinking?" Lance asked.
"I focused on a cause. That distracted me, but that also helped me to deal with my own thoughts. I had a purpose, and I couldn't let my mind destroy me before I completed it," Shiro explained, wiping more blood from his lip.
"What if," Lance flicked his eyes to the ceiling, then to his hands, "What if you don't have a cause?"
"Lance, you do have a cause."
"Well, what if you can't focus on the cause? What if you can't focus on anything?" Lance demanded, exasperation flushing his cheeks and heat crawling up his neck.
"Then you let your friends help you. That's what I did," Shiro responded gently.
"But, what if you can't explain?"
"You don't have to explain, you just have to be honest," Shiro continued patiently.
"But-"
"Lance. We're here for you. We're not idiots, either. We can all tell you're trying to hide what you're feeling, but we don't know what to do about it, or even the extent of what you feel," Shiro knew that if no one else on the team was going to breach the gap and reach Lance, then he would have to be the one to do it. He didn't want to even consider what might happen if he didn't.
"I don't think I can tell anyone anything," Lance confessed, avoiding Shiro's soft gaze.
"Speaking it out loud would be-"
"-too much," Shiro finished for Lance, knowing exactly how it felt to bottle the emotions that sizzled inside, understanding that admitting them to someone seems so impossible, and remembering that whenever the temptation hits you, to explain everything, a knot forms in your chest, and renders you incapable to saying anything.
"Yeah," Lance nodded.
"Then don't say anything. Not until you're ready," Shiro advised, hoping that Lance would heed his advice.
"Is it okay? To act the way I feel?" Disbelief controlled Lance's voice, and Shiro wondered what lies Lance could have possibly concocted and believed in order for him to think this way. Shiro's heart broke at the posture of the boy next to him, his back curved and shoulders hunched, as if he could fold into himself. It seemed as if he were trying to both protect and belittle himself at the same time. Recalling Lance's impeccable posture before his time in captivity, Shiro speculated, not for the first time, just what exactly they did to the mess of a man sitting just feet from him.
"Of course, Lance. No one will blame you."
As Shiro reached to lay a supportive hand on Lance's shoulder, he saw the quick flash of doubt that swept across Lance's face, and heard the barely spoken-practically a sigh- sentence that brushed past the Cuban's lips.
"I hope so."