Archive of Our Own

They catch him in the locker room. It’s past curfew. There are three of them, and only one of Keith, and the Garrison is dark and quiet.

“Kogane,” one of them says. He’s the tallest, the broadest, and Keith doesn’t know his name but he recognizes him from classes. “Knew we’d find you in here.”

Keith crosses his arms. He’s suddenly painfully aware that he’s in his gym clothes, that no hall monitors ever come by the training gym because it’s so far from the cadet dormitories, that all three of his fellow cadets are looking at him with something in their eyes that makes his gut twist.

“It’s past curfew,” he says. “Whatever you guys want, can’t we do this tomorrow?”

One of them—with a long blond ponytail and wearing the stupidest hat Keith’s ever seen—snorts. The tallest one steps forward, slow and fluid, like something feral. Like something on the hunt.

“This can’t wait,” he says. “You don’t deserve to be here. You’re just some little nobody who sucked Shirogane’s cock enough to convince him to get you in here.”

He’s still moving forward. Keith takes a step backward for every step forward, and gunky, burning dread sinks into his chest as his back hits the cold metal of the lockers.

“I get it,” Keith snaps, clenching his fists. “You don’t like me. I don’t think you needed to track me down to tell me that.”

He blinks, and then all three of the cadets are around him, lockers against his back, one cadet on each side of him, one in front.

“We didn’t come here to talk,” the one to his right says, messy brown curls flopping over his face. “And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t talk either.”

Keith’s lip curls. “Is that a threat?”

The cadet shrugs. “So what if it is? What are you gonna do, pretty boy?”

Ice sprawls through Keith’s stomach at the same time that blood rushes to his face, his hands. He barely thinks about it before he swings, catching the cadet to his right in the eye socket. With his back turned, the other cadet grabs him to drag him back, and Keith flails, kicking off the ground with all his might.

When that doesn’t work, he snaps his head back as hard as he can, the back of his skull colliding painfully with the cadet’s nose. Surprised, the cadet lets go, and Keith moves to bolt, but the tallest cadet—the leader of this little crew, it seems—trips him and sends him crashing hard onto the tile floor. Before Keith can move, the cadet is on top of him, straddling him and pressing him down with all his weight.

Keith spits in his face. The leader recoils, but doesn’t budge, and then there’s something smooth and cold pressed against Keith’s neck.

“Like we said,” he snaps. “We didn’t come to talk, Kogane. This is going to be a lot easier for you if you just let it happen.”

Keith bares his teeth. “Why are you doing this? The Garrison-“

“The Garrison,” the cadet snarls, pressing the knife harder against Keith’s throat. He can feel his own heartbeat rabbiting away against the blade. “Will never find out about this. Are we clear?”

“I don’t have to listen to you,” Keith retorts, because he’s never been able to back down.

The cadet smiles at him. It’s an ugly expression. “If you tell, then we tell the Garrison how Shirogane raped us, and we ruin his career. Since you’re his favorite little cockwarmer, I’d think real hard before I opened my mouth. Are we clear?”

Keith swallows. His throat has gone raw; Shiro may be seven years older than him, but Keith would do anything for him, anything to protect him. Even letting these three numbskulls get away with whatever it is they want from him without ever saying a word about it.

He nods. The cadet stares at him for a moment, and then, seemingly satisfied by the defeat in Keith’s eyes, he withdraws the knife.

And then, in a moment that Keith has been half-expecting since the three walked into the locker room with that predatory gleam in their eyes, all three cadets start undoing their pants. 

Keith opens his mouth, but the cadet lifts a finger to his lips. “Shhh. We don’t want to hear a sound out of you unless you’re begging for more.”

Keith snaps his mouth shut, grinds his teeth together. For Shiro, he thinks. I’ll keep my mouth shut for Shiro.

Every minute—hour, second?—that goes by after that gets progressively more and more surreal and more and more painful.

The cadets take turns. Keith has never had sex before, but from what he knows from watching porn, there’s supposed to be foreplay—they’re supposed to stretch him out. 

None of them do. They flip him over, and two of them hold him down while the other one takes his fill of entering him raw, and rough, and then thrusting like his life depends on it.

It hurts. With every turn that each cadet takes, it hurts more, and whenever he flinches or squirms too much from the pain, the cadets shove him harder against the tile. If he shoves back against them, they hit him.

It can’t take more than an hour and a half, really. They cum in him, on him, force their dicks into his mouth and hold a knife to his eye until he sucks and licks.

And then they leave him there, bleeding and naked and in pain on the cold tile floor, fucked out and shaking, and they pull their pants back up like nothing happened, and they snicker and sneer at him.

“Not a word about this, Kogane,” one of them repeats. He had thrust so hard the pain made Keith gag. “You know what happens if you snitch.”

Keith doesn’t say a word. It seems to be the right response, because the cadets leave, and the locker door closes with a resounding thud that makes Keith jump.

He doesn’t know how long he just lays there. Despite the amount of pain he’s in, he feels oddly numb, almost detached—like this happened to somebody else, not to him.

This wasn’t supposed to happen to him. To anybody. He doesn’t even know those cadets. And he, for the life of him, cannot understand why they think he and Shiro have anything sexual. Even if…even if Keith has had those kinds of thoughts about Shiro before, it’s clear that Shiro has never even thought about him that way for a second.

Shiro…Keith has no one else at the Garrison. He…really, he has no one else outside of the Garrison either. All he wants now is to call Shiro, to ask him to fix this and make it all better.

He even gets so far as pulling his phone out of his discarded pants and finding Shiro’s contact through the blur of too many tears in his eyes before he hesitates.

If he tells Shiro, Shiro will want to bring this to the Garrison’s attention. If that happens, those cadets will make false accusations against Shiro, most likely ending his Garrison career and potentially ruining the rest of his life.

“Fuck,” Keith mutters. His voice is thready, weak. He hates the sound of it in his own mouth.

He doesn’t know what to do. He’s felt lost before—mainly after his father died—but this is a bone-deep helplessness. Keith has listened to the lectures in the required Garrison health classes. He’s heard the lectures about…rape. And he’d be stupid to think this is going to have no effect on him.

But…what can he do about it? He can’t go to Shiro. He can’t go to the Garrison. He can’t go to Matt, or Adam, because they would want to report it just as Shiro would.

He is starting to shiver on the cold tile, though, and the amount of tears and snot coursing down his face is making it hard for him to breathe in through his nose.

Keith pulls himself off the floor, stifling a groan at the renewed throbbing the motion sets off. He pulls on his clothes. He pulls on his shoes. He goes over to the sinks, and he rinses his face, and he tries to pretend that this is just any other night leaving the training gym.

That night, his body is so emotionally and physically exhausted that he doesn’t dream, or if he does, he doesn’t remember it. He can’t recall the last time he was so grateful to wake up and only remember the blackness of sleep.

The next night, though, the dreams come. He’s relieved to get to his room and go to bed—his roommate is usually in his girlfriend’s room anyway—especially after such a long day. He’s taken painkillers pretty much every four hours on the dot because his body aches so badly, and when he sits in class—he’s not even sure why he goes to class, just that he doesn’t know where else to go—and the three cadets sit around him in a semicircle, Keith starts shaking so hard he can’t take notes.

He avoids Shiro the entire day. He hides in his room and skips breakfast, lunch, and dinner just to avoid running into him—he’s not hungry, anyway—and he even takes the long way around the hallways to steer clear of Shiro’s office, even if the extra walking irritates his body.

Shiro texts him seven times throughout the day—once after breakfast, twice after lunch, three times after dinner, and one last time right before cadet curfew. All the texts carry the same tone of Shiro-branded concern—the sweet messages checking in to see if Keith is okay make him ache so badly that he reads them all again when he gets in bed and weeps into his pillowcase.

He must cry himself to sleep. 

The dream is disjointed. It doesn’t really make sense. One moment, Iverson is yelling at him, and the next a faceless cadet has a sword against his throat, then Shiro is laughing at him in the front of a classroom, and then there are three cadets fucking—no, raping—him, and all of their faces are crystal clear, but he can’t move this time, can’t even try to move, and then the door opens and when Shiro comes in, the cadet presses the sword to Shiro’s throat, and then the cadets are still raping him and Keith still can’t move but Shiro’s neck is spilling red—

Keith wakes heaving for breath, bolting upright. His heart is pounding so hard it’s all he can hear. His shirt is soaked through with sweat, and when he chokes on an inhale, he thinks for a moment that he’s going to be sick.

It takes him longer than he’d like to admit to calm down. His head throbs with a stress headache by the time his heart rate returns to normal, and he gets up to get some painkillers.

The next thing he knows, he’s out in the hallway, feet carrying him on autopilot. He’s no stranger to sneaking around the Garrison after curfew, but this is the first time that he’s snuck to Shiro’s room.

Then he just…hovers there, chewing at a hangnail. He wants Shiro. He wants Shiro to tell him that everything is going to be okay and to somehow take over, because Keith feels like he’s been plunged into a deep end and for once, he’s not sure how he’s going to climb out of it.

He stops himself from knocking at the last second, and even though it feels like he has to force each and every step, he turns around and goes back to his room and paces around his room until the sun comes up instead of going back to sleep.

This is how it goes for the next week: Keith goes to bed. Keith has a nightmare. Keith walks to Shiro’s room and stands outside his door until the fact sinks back in that he’ll ruin Shiro’s life if he bothers him with this. Keith goes back to his room and does anything other than go back to sleep.

Shiro texts him more and more, and Keith barely answers him. Keith finally starts eating the snacks he’s been hoarding in his room, only once or twice a day because he really doesn’t have an appetite, and because that way he doesn’t have to go to the commissary and run into Shiro or be around those cadets.

Keith stops going to class. He can’t focus anyway, not with the way he feels like he’s hyperaware of every move the other cadets make. And he’s tired. And there are still bruises that hurt, and muscles in the backs of his thighs that feel like they’re strained.

On Thursday, a week and two days after Keith was raped, there’s a knock on his door. Keith freezes, glancing at the time. A little after three in the afternoon. Keith is supposed to be doing simulator drills.

He doesn’t get up to answer the door.

“Keith?” Shiro’s voice calls. Keith presses his face into his pillow so hard that it hurts. 

“Keith? Are you in there?”

Keith bites his lip. He grabs his phone. It’s been on silent for the past day or so, just so that he could ignore any texts Shiro sent. When he checks his notifications, he finds that Shiro’s texted him several times and called him as well.

And now Shiro is here, at his door, and with every fiber of Keith’s being, he just wants to let Shiro in. He even gets out of bed and stands in front of his door, aching to fall into Shiro’s embrace.

“C’mon, Keith,” Shiro says from the other side of the door. “What’s going on with you?”

Keith rests his forehead against the metal. I’m in pain, Shiro. I’m scared. I need help.

He says nothing, biting into his lip so hard that blood blooms over his tongue. 

There’s a long moment of quiet. Shiro sighs, says something that Keith can’t hear through the door, and then there are footsteps moving away down the hallway.

Keith crumples bonelessly to the floor, like his puppet strings have been cut. The floor just inside the door is gritty with dirt, and it’s cold under Keith’s cheek, but he barely notices.

“Shiro…help me,” he mumbles, voice muffled by the floor, and then the dam behind his eyes breaks and he’s sobbing brokenly, curling into a ball and shuddering through heaving breaths.

But as much as Keith aches for him, Shiro’s already gone—and with any luck, he’ll give up on Keith soon enough, and then there won’t be a risk of Keith slipping and telling him the truth.

So Keith adjusts to the idea of being alone, even if it makes him cry harder, breath hitching so bad it nearly makes him gag. 

He’s been alone before. He’s been in pain before. Maybe Shiro will be relieved not to have to bail him out of trouble all the time.

Maybe Keith will be okay with it someday. For now, he mumbles Shiro’s name into the floor again and again, trying to memorize the feeling of it in his mouth.

It’s three days after that when things come to a head. Shiro keeps texting and calling Keith, keeps knocking on his door, even tells Keith he’s talked to his roommate and he knows he’s there. Keith doesn’t answer any of it. His job now is to protect Shiro from this at all costs, regardless of the fact it makes an earthquake rip through his ribcage every time he hears his phone buzz or Shiro’s worried voice carries through the door.

Keith has finally run out of food. His roommate had brought him things over the past week, assuming Keith was sick (Keith hadn’t corrected him), but that’s all gone now. It either went bad and had to be thrown out, or Keith picked at it until he felt sick.

He’s still not hungry. In fact, he feels queasy more often than not, but he drags himself out of bed and throws on his crumpled uniform jacket to go see if he can grab some crackers from the commissary. He doesn’t bother with brushing his hair, washing his face—he doesn’t have the energy. This one trip will tire him out for the rest of the day.

Keith has never felt like he fit in the Garrison, not really, but it’s still surreal to him that now he can’t walk down the hallways without jumping at his own echoing footsteps.

He hasn’t been back to the training gym since that night, but it doesn’t seem to matter—like a tumor, the fear and the shame and the panic of that night have taken over every hallway, every classroom. Keith knows he can run into the other cadets at any moment, and it sours the entire building. All he wants is to hole up in his room and barricade the door until he remembers how to feel safe.

Outside of a few cadets walking by in the hall—by the containers in their hands, it looks like it’s lunch time—the hallway is blissfully empty, and Keith makes it to the commissary and the mess hall just fine, even if he hides his trembling hands in his pockets.

There’s soup and crackers for lunch. Keith gets himself a bowl and finds the most secluded seat in the room, cautiously sweeping the entire room for familiar faces. He sees cadets he vaguely recalls from classes, but most importantly, not those cadets. And not Shiro.

The soup is warm. The crackers are crunchy. He doesn’t remember how they taste as soon as he swallows. He would never make it back to his room without spilling soup all over himself, but sitting in this room, surrounded by people and chatter and under too-bright lights, Keith feels like nothing other than a target. Like prey, just waiting for the hunter’s snare.

Keith has half of his soup left when he looks around the room again, scanning for new arrivals, and the spoon falls from his hand and clatters onto the tabletop.

Three cadets. One tall, and broad, and glaring at everyone. One with a long, blond ponytail and a hat. And a third, with a mess of tangled brown curls, trailing after the other two.

Keith’s heart stops. His blood coagulates in his veins. He sits frozen, heart galloping into the back of his throat, hoping and praying to a God that has betrayed him that they won’t notice him.

They disappear into the commissary, and Keith abandons his lunch. He doesn’t bother with his bowl or his wrapper or the splatter of soup on the table—he doesn’t have time. Trash and dishes are insignificant. He needs to get away, far away, he needs to get back to his room where he’s safe, his knees are shaking but he’s walking as fast as he can across the mess hall—

The cadet with the ponytail spots him. He nudges the other two, and Keith abandons any pretense of dignity—he practically breaks into a run out of the room, only moving faster as soon as he notices the three sets of footfalls behind him.

Keith is fast, but the cadet with the curly brown hair catches up to him with ease, knocking into his shoulder and sending him sprawling onto the floor, head smacking against the tile. The cadets close in on him where he lays in the mouth of a secluded hallway.

Keith’s mouth goes dry. All he can see are lockers, the flickering lights of the locker room, he can already smell sweat and sex, already hear the cadets laughing and degrading him, he’s already in pain-

“We were wondering when we were going to see you,” the tallest one says, smiling at Keith like they’re old friends.

Keith’s mind screams at him to get up, but his body won’t move no matter how hard he tries. The plea burning under his tongue won’t come out of his mouth.

The blond one laughs, his ponytail swinging as he nudges the other two with an elbow. “Look at him. He looks like he’s about to piss himself.”

The one with the brown curls snorts. “We could make you cum so hard it looks like piss. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Keith?”

No! Keith screams inside his head. You can’t do this to me again!

But Keith can’t move. He can’t speak. And just as he’d realized almost two weeks ago, he has no power here.

“You know you’d like that,” the tallest cadet agrees. “Which is why you’re going to get up and let us take you into the bathroom.”

Keith’s breath catches. He feels sick.

“You know the drill,” the cadet continues. “We do this, or Shirogane’s life is ruined.”

“Why…” Keith’s voice is whisper-quiet, hoarse already from fear. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because you’re some desert hick who doesn’t deserve to be here,” blond ponytail says. “And because if Shirogane wants to favor anybody, he should think about favoring us.”

Keith’s head swims. His chest is tight. He pants for breath the entire time he struggles to his feet, his body shaking with adrenaline.

He can’t live through this again. Not now. Not so soon. Not when they’ve already ruined him once.

But he can’t let Shiro’s entire life be ruined by these cadets, either. Keith would do anything for him. Even…even this.

So he lets the cadets guide him into the nearest bathroom, flinching when they lock the door, the monochrome tile and echoing walls making his head spike with pain as his mind runs through what happened in the locker room.

“Please,” Keith whispers. “Shiro wouldn’t want you to do this. If you’re…if you…”

“If you’re not around, not as good, Shirogane has to pick new favorites,” the tallest one says. “So we gotta do this.”

Keith’s knees buckle. The cadet with a blond ponytail catches him against his chest, taking the opportunity to shove his hand down the front of Keith’s pants. Keith shudders.

They’re much slower about it this time. They draw it out, and Keith feels like he’s in someone else’s body as they shove their dicks down his throat and ram into him so hard it makes him gag.

He’s crying by the time the tallest one yanks down his pants and enters him, and he doesn’t stop weeping when the other cadets take their turns.

His body quakes with fear, and pain, and shame. The shame is so deep and raw, splitting a chasm down Keith’s spine. He’s letting this happen again. He’s letting them win, again. They didn’t even need to pull a knife this time. Keith just…laid down and took it.

In a wretched echo of the locker room, they leave Keith there, on the floor, fucked out and bleeding, smiling at him like nothing happened.

“Don’t think I need to remind you what happens if you snitch, Kogane,” the tallest one says, and then they’re gone.

Keith tries to take a deep breath. Another. They get stuck in his chest, leaving him gasping for air. His vision narrows, the room spinning like he’s on a tilt-a-whirl.

Everything after that is hazy. He doesn’t remember getting up or leaving the bathroom, and he can’t feel anything past the choking, burning lack of air in his lungs as he moves weakly down the hall on autopilot.

He has no idea where he is, or where he’s going, or what is happening around him. He’s distantly aware that he’s having a panic attack, but he doesn’t have the wherewithal to even attempt to pull himself out of it.

The door knob under his palm is cold to the touch, but Keith barely feels it, gasping desperately for air as he bursts into the room.

He’s not alone. Someone is calling his name, someone is moving toward him, and Keith instinctively shies away, curling his arms over his face. He can’t breathe. They can’t hurt him again while he can’t breathe, it’ll-it’ll kill him. They can’t do this again, he can’t do this over and over, he’s terrified he’ll break and tell Shiro.

Shiro. Keith has never wanted him so badly in all the time they’ve known each other. Shiro would help. He would know what to do. Keith shuts his eyes, choking on another stuttering inhale as he pretends that Shiro is in front of him, that everything is going to be okay.

The room is quiet. That’s the first thing Keith notices as awareness filters back to him. He’s sitting on the floor somewhere. It feels carpeted, so maybe his room.

He takes in a slow breath, confused when it burns in his throat. He winces, drawing in another breath, and then he realizes that his head hurts, his thighs ache, and his butt throbs.

Keith’s eyes fly open with a strangled gasp. He looks wildly around the room—the last thing he remembers with any real clarity is the cadets leaving him on the floor, and then spiraling into a panic attack.

He’s in an office. As he looks around, chest heaving, he notices more and more familiar details—a Lego spaceship. Photos of a black and white cat. Sarcastic sticky notes speckling the wall behind the desk.

Icy dread swoops through Keith’s stomach. He thinks maybe he got lucky—maybe he can just sneak out before he’s noticed, and nothing will be worse for wear—when there are footsteps and someone enters the room, shutting and locking the door behind them. The lock clicking makes Keith’s stomach drop.

Keith shuts his eyes, his heart starting to pound again in his chest. Maybe this isn’t the office he thinks it is. Maybe he’s lost it and he’s still on the bathroom floor, panic making him hallucinate.

Someone crouches in front of him. Keith’s throat is already going raw with tears.

“Keith?” Shiro’s voice says, low and smooth and worried. “I brought some water. Are you back with me?”

Keith squeezes his eyes shut even tighter. This can’t be real. He can’t be in Shiro’s office. He’s going to ruin Shiro’s life.

Without saying a word—he can’t, not around the lump in his throat—Keith moves to scramble to his feet, determinedly looking anywhere but at Shiro. Before he can get further than onto his knees, though, Shiro leans forward and gently rests his hands on Keith’s shoulders.

“Hey, hey,” he says. “Where are you going? What’s going on?”

Keith trembles under his touch, staring helplessly at him. He can’t tell Shiro. He’s going to ruin Shiro’s life. 

But Keith is sixteen years old. Shiro is all he has. The thought of having to suffer through all of this, alone, for God knows how long…it makes Keith’s ribs shrivel. He can’t ruin Shiro’s life. He has to be selfless, but he’s never wanted to be more selfish.

“Keith?” Shiro prompts, searching his face. “Talk to me. Are you with me? Can you still breathe?”

Keith swallows. He swallows again. It doesn’t make the rawness go away, and his eyes are filling with tears and overflowing before he can even attempt to stop it.

Shiro’s face falls. His fingers spasm on Keith’s shoulders like he wants to pull him into a hug. “What’s going on with you, Keith? What’s been happening the past two weeks that has you like this?”

Keith shakes his head. He can’t tell Shiro. He can’t. That’s not fair to Shiro.

“It’s okay,” Shiro says, and the note of soothing encouragement in his voice makes Keith sob. “I’m…I’m worried about you. You know you can tell me anything, right? Anything, Keith.”

That’s the last straw for Keith. He jolts forward, practically diving into Shiro’s arms as his sobs take on a hysterical intensity. Shiro’s arms gently close around Keith’s lower back, pulling him in until Keith is gathered on Shiro’s lap, face pressed to Shiro’s neck and clinging on to him for dear life.

Shiro’s heart is pounding; Keith can feel it rabbiting against his forehead. He wants to take it all back; to have gone back to his room, or to have stayed on the dingy tile—anything that would save him from worrying Shiro like this.

“You’re okay,” Shiro murmurs, and Keith presses in even tighter. “My door’s locked. We can be here as long as you need.”

Keith chokes on an inhale. Shiro’s right hand lands in his hair, cradling the back of his head as Keith coughs, every breath splintering into ragged sobs.

It takes a long time for Keith to regain some semblance of composure, but if Shiro minds, he doesn’t say. He just cards his fingers through Keith’s tangled, greasy hair, rocking them gently back and forth where they sit on the floor and murmuring reassurances.

“Shiro,” he croaks hoarsely, still hiding his face against Shiro’s neck. “I’m sorry.”

Shiro pulls back, then, just enough to tilt Keith’s chin up with his hand and frown worriedly into his face. “What are you apologizing for?”

Keith bites his lip. His eyes burn, completely spent of tears but still trying to make more. “I shouldn’t have come in here. I should’ve just…gone back. To my room.”

Shiro looks more confused and alarmed by the second. “Keith,” he says, tone rigid with caution. “You came in here having the worst panic attack I’ve ever seen you have. You’re hurt. I am glad you came in here.”

Keith swallows. “I’m…I’m not hurt that badly, I should have just left you alone.”

There’s a stretch of silence as Shiro tilts his head, eyes narrowing. “Does this have anything to do with why I haven’t heard from you at all?”

Keith gapes at him. He feels sick. The last thing he wants is to tell Shiro, but Shiro’s connecting dots on his own, and Keith doesn’t know what to do with that.

“Talk to me,” Shiro whispers, something vulnerable and begging slipping into his voice. “I…I hate seeing you like this and knowing you won’t let me in to help. Whatever happened, I just want to help you.”

Keith opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. The words have tangled up into a ball under his tongue and won’t come out.

Shiro reaches forward, cups Keith’s jaw with his palm. It’s so warm and intimate and safe, so Shiro, that it makes Keith ache.

“I…Shiro…” Keith’s voice is a whisper. Somehow, there are more tears brimming in his eyes.

Shiro doesn’t say anything. His thumb strokes gently over the hinge of Keith’s jaw, and Keith leans into the touch.

The cadets’ voices echo in Keith’s head. He swallows as his stomach flips, the way that the cadets spit Shiro’s name ringing in his ears like alarm bells.

“I…I can’t,” Keith breathes. “Shiro, I can’t do this to you.”

“Keith,” Shiro says, and Keith marvels at how calm his voice sounds. “Nothing you tell me is going to make me think any differently of you, and I promise…whatever you have to tell me, it won’t hurt me.”

Keith shakes his head. The cadets are yelling in the back of his mind, and before he can stop himself, he says, “They said they’d accuse you. They—they told me they’d ruin your life. I can’t do that to you.”

Shiro definitely looks alarmed now. “Who’s they, Keith? Did they threaten you? Do something to hurt you?”

Keith grits his teeth. Tears start sliding down his cheeks again, and he pulls away from Shiro’s touch, scooting backward out of his lap so that he can curl in on himself, burying his face in his knees. Maybe this will be easier to say past the guilt and the shame and the churning of his stomach if he isn’t looking at Shiro’s face.

“Three cadets,” he murmurs. “They…they…”

“Take your time,” Shiro whispers. 

Keith pulls in a shuddering inhale, suddenly aware of how bad he’s trembling. He swallows past the urge to gag and shuts his eyes. “They told me that they would…that they would accuse you of raping them if I told anyone. They would ruin your life. And then they…”

Shiro is silent. Keith lifts his head up from his knees just enough to peek at his face.

He looks…scared. Sad. The worry coming off of him is so strong it’s like it has physical presence.

Keith takes another gulping breath and shuts his eyes, breaking out in a cold sweat as the nausea in his gut amps up. “They raped me. Almost two weeks ago. And then….again, right before...right before I came here.”

Keith can’t look to see Shiro’s reaction, because the words coming out of his mouth make it all….real. Too real. So real that he pulls himself off of the floor and rushes to Shiro’s desk with shaking legs, doubling over to retch into Shiro’s trashcan.

Over the sounds of his heaving, Keith can just barely pick out footsteps, and a moment later Shiro’s hand lands on his back, rubbing circles in between his shoulder blades. 

Shiro is uncharacteristically quiet as Keith gets himself under control again, burping and spitting a few times into the trashcan before he stands up straighter.

Keith doesn’t turn around for a long moment, panting from exertion and swallowing at the acrid burning in his throat. He tries to prepare himself for what he might see on Shiro’s face—disgust. Contempt. Disbelief. Anger. 

Shiro’s hand is still steady on his back. Keith lets himself enjoy it for one last moment, just in case this is the last straw and Shiro decides he never wants to speak to Keith again.

And then he turns around, terrified of what Shiro’s going to think of him.

Shiro doesn’t look disgusted. Or hateful. Or angry. He doesn’t look like he’s about to throw Keith out and pretend they were always strangers.

No. Shiro is crying. There’s something stricken and utterly heartbroken in his expression, his shoulders heaving as he tries to muffle sobs.

Keith’s knees go weak. With relief, maybe, or heartbreak of his own. Shiro reaches for him, and Keith goes, folding into Shiro’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” Shiro whispers, voice thick. “God…Keith, I am so sorry.”

Keith doesn’t know what to do other than fist his hands into Shiro’s jacket. He doesn’t know what to do with the feeling in his chest, aching from causing Shiro such pain and aching from the relief of not having to do this on his own anymore.

So, like he always does when he doesn’t know what to do, he takes solace in Shiro.

“That never should have happened,” Shiro says. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” Keith echoes, his own voice raw. “I shouldn’t have…I…I’m sorry I hid from you.”

Shiro’s chest jerks with a particularly strong sob. “No, no, Keith, no, please don’t apologize. You didn’t-you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Those words sink straight into Keith’s marrow. He doesn’t believe them—he can’t believe them, not yet—but just hearing Shiro say them makes something loosen behind his ribs.

“Listen,” Shiro says, pulling in a deep breath. “I’m going to help you get through this, okay? We’ll make sure those cadets can’t touch you again. We’ll see if the Garrison will maybe let me and you go off-base for a while—get away, so that you can heal a bit. I have some strings I can pull. You’re…Keith, you’re not alone. Not anymore. Whatever you need, I’m gonna help, okay?”

Keith nods, tucking his face deeper against Shiro’s neck. “I…Shiro…”

“You don’t need to thank me,” Shiro cuts in. “I’m doing this because I want to help you.”

“Okay.”

They’re both quiet for a moment, and then Shiro gently pulls away.

“I’m gonna go take that out,” he says, gesturing toward the smelly trashcan. “And then I’m going to see if I can get the rest of the day off and we can go to medbay when I get back. You should drink some water and just relax. We’ll figure everything out.”

Keith nods. He takes the bottle of water that Shiro brings over and takes small sips, curling up in Shiro’s desk chair.

“Shiro?” He says, just before Shiro leaves the room with the tied trash bag. 

“Keith?”

“Thank you,” Keith says, letting the barest ghost of a smile onto his face.

“Always,” Shiro responds, and then he’s out of the door.

Keith tilts his head back and shuts his eyes. Shiro’s desk chair smells like his cologne, and Keith lets the scent wash over him as he melts into the leather back.

The last thing he thinks of before he falls asleep, exhausted from the events of the day, is Shiro’s conviction that everything will be alright. It chases him into sleep like a warm blanket.