[ mister shiro – okay, excuse mister shiro as he closes his eyes, breathes deep and resists the urge to rub his temples. they’ve been living together long enough now that this isn’t a new development but every time it comes up, shiro is caught between wanting to try – again – to assure abel that shiro, just shiro is fine or to accept his title as mister shiro. today it looks like shiro will be going with the latter. they’re on a time crunch, so best not to get sidetracked with meaningless back an’ forth.

speaking of which – !

abel. abel, seriously; what are you talking about now? shiro will just secure the ladder ( hopefully ) and gather up the icicle lights, along with the staple gun, before returning to the ladder. by the way, all of this is done in the span of abel talking about… shiro possibly dying?

thanks for the show of confidence, friend. at least he thinks shiro will be dying of frostbite, rather than breaking his neck. so there’s that. draping the icicle lights over his shoulder, he’ll look to abel with a flat look. ]

Yeah, no, you don’t need to do any of that. [ but thanks??? ] If something happens to me, tell Keith. He’ll handle everything. [ and then likely punish abel for “letting” shiro get hurt. so. basically. if shiro goes down, abel is going down with him. good luck with that. he gets one foot on the bottom rung now, only to pause. actually… ]

… Do you want me to do something like that for you? [ a beat. ] Not the dramatic sobbing. [ pause. ] Or the handkerchief. But uh… you wanna be buried?

[ … why are they talking about this??? ]