[ .... great. so keith is doing such a piss poor job of looking "normal" that shiro's had to ask him twice if he's okay? if nothing else, that's the last bit of motivation keith needed to really try and pull himself together. so he does -- a little literally at first, by standing up straighter and finally tucking his bayard away. ]

Yeah, I'm fine. Just some guts and blood. No worse than that time I had to kill a mountain lion.

[ if mountain lions could talk and scream and glare angrily until their eyes go blank. keith is going to gloss right over this and continue: ]

But you're... [ a beat. ] You're pretty calm about it.

[ it's not an accusation -- far from, actually. just the tiniest of prods to see if shiro wants to talk about this iron stomach he's apparently developed for gore. if their fight with myzax -- or what used to be myzax -- had been any clue, it had to be fairly brutal. shiro hasn't said anytiing about it though, and keith suspects that it'll be much the same now. all the same, he tries for a bit of levity. ]

So... I guess it's just a matter of time?