takashi shirogane (spacedad) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2017-11-07 21:54:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !log/thread, matt holt, takashi shirogane / shiro |
WHO: Shiro and Matt
WHAT: Shiro and Matt reunite while Matt is in quarantine
WHEN: Nov. 7
WHERE: quarantine rooms at the government facility
WARNINGS: Spoilers for season four of Voltron
It was really somewhat anticlimactic, to end up in this pleasant - albeit locked and sealed - room. Matt had so much adrenaline going, because even though his ship had taken cover, there were still cannons being fired at them, and he couldn’t really tell how well the attack on Naxzela was going, overall. Sort of well, sort of not so well, could probably go either way.
And then suddenly there was some kind of portal opening up in front of him, and it pulled him in, and he was… on Earth.
Which was actually kind of exciting. Earth! He hadn’t been to Earth in years, and he’d missed it. But also, shit, he was really far away from the fighting and completely unable to help. Except he quickly determined through the network that his sister and Shiro were here, and so were Lance and Keith, and they were apparently in an alternate reality - which meant they were even farther away from home.
But they were all okay, and he was back on Earth! He probably really needed to go back, but Shiro had been here for a while and he had also just been there commanding the whole attack, so - alternate realities really were something else. Something wild.
Matt decided to take the military and Shiro at their word that he probably didn’t need to be too worried to be getting back, and ordered a whole bunch of Earth food, and flipped through some Earth movies. He also started catching up on how far this Earth had come in technology by this year in the interest of figuring out what they might be able to use to break that alternate reality barrier (it was more than a little bit behind). Also, no Galaxy Garrison existed. Apparently it was fictional in this universe, and they had denoted his universe the Voltron universe, which was - not inaccurate, exactly, but since Voltron had been to multiple realities, not quite right. More accurate to say that there was a Voltron cluster of closely related universes or realities, perhaps. There were obviously many others, too - the network was full of people from other places. Matt already wanted to make a map of all of them, but that was not his highest priority at the moment. Although… it probably couldn’t hurt, and he wasn’t finding much of anything else useful. He might as well get started on that until he thought of something more useful to do.
Before he had gotten very far, however, he was interrupted by a knock at his door. He lept to his feet, and was glad to see Shiro on the other side. He had felt awkward the first time they’d seen each other, since he really didn’t know how to properly greet the man that had saved his life, and in return, Matt had been forced to leave him behind in captivity. But clearly Shiro had gotten free and things had gone pretty well for him, paladin of Voltron and all, so an apology didn’t seem appropriate. Shiro had solved that for him by hugging him, so things seemed to be good between them. And that had… mostly been that, because there had been a lot to do.
Now, though, there seemed to be time to actually talk. Catch up. Figure out how to relate to each other now that they weren’t teammates at the Garrison, working together on their ship or on Kerberos, or working together indirectly in Voltron or separate ships.
Matt figured he’d start them off on the right foot. He greeted Shiro with a grin, a jaunty salute, and a cheerful, “Reporting for duty, Shir!”
--
Shiro swore that his heart stopped for a minute when he saw Matt appear on the network. He had been so excited when Keith and Lance had arrived, because they were his compatriots, and Shiro had missed them something fierce when he had suddenly found himself alone here.
But Shiro hadn’t even been sure Matt was alive.
It had not been easy for him to be separated from the Holts. He had known that he and Matt both couldn’t survive if they went into the arena, and so Shiro had made peace with his choice to have Matt sent to one of the labor camps. But it had been harder than he could admit being alone in a Galra cell just waiting to be taken out and made to fight again. Some part of him had wondered if he would have been able to fight the same way he did if he had known another human being had been watching. Had he sacrificed too much of his humanity?
He didn’t know.
But as time had ground by and they had no word on the Holts, it seemed more and more unlikely that Matt had survived. And Shiro had so missed him, especially when he had seen the pain on Pidge’s face every time she failed to locate him in the grand expanse of the universe.
Shiro and Matt had come up through the ranks in the garrison together, they had trained through Kerberos. Matt, for a long time, had been one of his closest friends.
So it had been a shock to his system to just see Matt there, as if he had never disappeared at all.
When Matt saluted him and tied in one of their jokes from the beginning of the mission, Shiro was almost tempted to tears -- almost. He wished he could hug Matt.
“Holt,” Shiro said, because he didn’t know what to say at first, but he was also beaming with a smile. There was so much to say.
But first, he figured: “Are you okay?”
…
Matt’s grin faltered and grew a little lopsided, only to allow more emotion into his expression, and his eyes warmed. He lowered the hand he’d used to salute and pressed it against the glass between them. It felt a little like a stupid gesture, but there wasn’t much else he could do when they weren’t able to get the door open.
“Hey,” he said, more normally, when Shiro said his name. And boy, was that a loaded question, but: “Yeah, I am. Thanks to you - and some rebels, and Katie. But - really, thanks to you. I didn’t get to thank you for that, before.”
Shiro looked a lot like he had in the castle, although he seemed a little more emotional now, and Matt wasn’t quite sure why. He knew that Shiro was from a different point in the timeline, but he had also been in an alternate reality, and really, all sorts of things could have happened to him. So, Matt returned the question: “Are you okay?”
--
Shiro mirrored Matt, because how could he not? He pressed his hand to the window as well, his expression softening a little.
He was so grateful to know - for sure - that Matt survived, that he was okay, and that in the very near future at home, they would all be reunited again.
“I just did what I could,” Shiro said. He didn’t want to say it was nothing -- helping Matt survive would never be nothing, but it had been one small step in what he was sure had been a long fight for survival for Matt.
“I’m more than okay,” Shiro reassured him. “I’m so happy that you’re here.”
…
“I thought for sure that monster was going to kill you,” Matt said, because they were saying these things now, and knowing their lives, there might not be another time for it. He hadn’t said anything to Shiro when Shiro had saved him, he hadn’t said anything when they were reunited, and now that they were actually talking, he was realizing just how much there was to say. He tried to lighten it, though, adding, “I mean, you’re super buff, but that thing was huge.”
He realized only after speaking that the actual fight probably wasn’t something Shiro would want to think too much about, much less feel comfortable joking about, because it must have been terrifying and horrible and awful. And then Matt remembered the shock of how angry and brutal Shiro had looked when he’d come after Matt, just momentarily, before he’d let his expression soften to let Matt know it was an act, and thought that maybe he did understand. But that made him feel all the worse for joking about it.
“I’m really glad you’re okay, though,” he added, to draw them back away from it. “And a paladin of Voltron! That’s so awesome!”
--
It was still weird sometimes to think back on his time with the Galra, because his memory was patchy. He could remember more than when he’d first crash landed on Earth, but he didn’t know how much was missing or if it would ever all come back.
But he did remember that first fight. And he remembered going in and accepting that he was going to die. At best, he had hoped to injure it so that the other prisoners behind him might stand a chance at killing the thing.
“I thought it was going to kill me too,” Shiro said, although he tried to infuse some lightness into the response. It hadn’t. It hadn’t killed either of them, and here they were now.
He paused, though, when Matt continued. The timelines here could be confusing, especially the more of them that arrived. But if Pidge had rescued Matt, it had to be in Shiro’s future -- and all Shiro knew of his future right now was that he had gone missing from Voltron and that Keith took over his Lion.
So all Shiro said was, “I was, yes. It felt good to make a difference. And I’m glad that Pidge was able to use it to find you.”
…
“I had heard you guys went into an alternate reality,” Matt said, still trying to get them further away from unpleasant subjects. This was something Pidge had bragged about, and then Hunk had brushed off, so he hoped it was a safe topic. It also allowed him to segue easily into: “I wasn’t expecting to be pulled into another one with you, but I guess that’s what happens when you hang out with Voltron.”
He couldn’t really say that he minded. So far, he liked this alternate reality. He was in quarantine, which meant being trapped in a room, but his sister and their friends were here, and they all seemed to be safe - at least, safe from the reach of the Galra empire.
“I guess the craziest part of all this is that we’re back on Earth, right? Funny how that’s the wildest thing that could possibly happen to us now: going back to Earth.”
--
“I didn’t,” Shiro answered. “That must have been something the others did.” That sounded like a very involved story though, and he figured that Pidge -- and now Matt -- had probably been going wild with all sorts of new scientific theories.
“It definitely is not uneventful,” Shiro confirmed. “I’ve been here for awhile now, though. A little over six months. But it’s been really good to be back on Earth. Some awful things can happen, but I’m still glad to be back, because I didn’t think I was ever going to see it again.”
His grin widened.
“I’m helping throw an American Thanksgiving in a few weeks,” he tacked on, because he figured that would greatly amuse Matt.
…
“... You didn’t?” Matt’s expression revealed his puzzlement, and he was momentarily thrown from the flow of the conversation. Katie had said we went to an alternate reality, and Matt had assumed that had been a royal sort of “we”, implying all of Voltron had gone. But he supposed that all the lions of Voltron didn’t travel everywhere together - for instance, Katie had gone off on her own to look for him. So maybe it wasn’t so weird that Shiro hadn’t gone with the others.
… It was slightly weird that Shiro had said the others “must” have done that, but there was a discrepancy in timelines, but also Shiro hadn’t said “that must be in my future”, so… no, there was definitely something weird there. Or something that Matt was missing, at least.
But Shiro had continued talking while Matt was trying to puzzle that out, and Matt refocused on what he was saying, not wanting to miss anything else important.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see Earth again either,” he agreed. “I was trying not to think about how much I missed it. Oh, man, I would love to have a big feast. We’ve earned one.”
He’d always loved food, and he was a big believer in using food to cope with stress - he’d always brought Katie cake or sweets when she was upset. He’d felt totally justified in ordering pizza and spaghetti and hamburgers and fries as soon as he’d realized he was going to be in quarantine for a while.
--
“No,” Shiro said, shaking his head. It was always seemed awkward to explain that, somehow, he was from an earlier point in time than everyone else who had shown up, but he figured all they could really do was talk right now, so he might as well.
“I’m from an earlier point in time than you,” Shiro clarified, scratching the back of his head. “And Keith and Lance too. From the sounds of it, you’re further on than any of us. I came from a really big battle with Zarkon, but Keith and Lance said that I went missing during that battle, so anything that happened after it -- well, you could say I took early retirement from Voltron.”
He wasn’t thrilled not to know what happened, but it helped immensely to know that Keith had taken over in the Black Lion and that Allura had gotten a chance to be a pilot too. She deserved it. And in truth, Shiro had known, in his bones, in their very first fight in Voltron, that he just didn’t have the stamina to go all the way anymore. He wanted to fight because it meant saving lives, supporting his friends, and bringing down an empire that had brought a lot of pain, especially to him. But a lot of the time, he had felt tapped out, worn down by prepping for Kerberos, getting captured, and then the struggle of survival and fighting.
Keith had better drive than he did and a stronger dedication to fighting. Honed with the rest of the time and Allura’s knowledge, he had no doubt that they would be unstoppable.
“You’re obviously invited to our Thanksgiving,” Shiro said with a grin. “But let me know what I can get you in the meantime. I don’t think I’ve stopped eating since I got here. I forgot how good real food tastes.”
…
“Oh,” Matt said, as he took in this new piece of information. Not the timelines - they had already vaguely gone over that part, but he had not known that Shiro had been missing. And he had not expected the words “early retirement from Voltron”. That was the most confusing part, since the Shiro he’d last seen had been re-introduced to him as another of the Voltron paladins, and he had coordinated the attack on Naxzela. “You didn’t seem like you were retired to me.”
He had so many other questions, about how Shiro had gone missing, how he had gotten back, and why he would take some kind of a retirement from Voltron - and how he had gotten pulled back from retirement and into the fighting. Matt could have made an educated guess about the answer to the last two questions, at least. The other two were more difficult, but he also suspected Shiro didn’t know the exact details since he hadn’t lived through it yet.
As if things hadn’t gotten weird enough for them to all catch up on each other’s adventures through space - time had to start playing a trick on them, too! It was a lot to take in, and it seemed like both of them were just guessing at details of a timeline they hadn’t been present for. Matt’s questions were probably better saved to be asked of Pidge, Keith, or Lance - not that he wanted to cut Shiro out of the conversation, since it was about Shiro’s own timeline.
When Shiro mentioned food, Matt turned slightly to gesture to the food that had just arrived. “What do you think the first thing I did when I got here was? I ordered food. Well, first I asked the military a billion questions. Then I ordered food. Not to say anything bad about the space castle’s delicious food goo, but - I really missed noodles. And pizza. I missed pizza something awful.”
--
“What?” Shiro asked, caught more off guard by Matt’s follow-up explanation than anything he had said before. He knew that just because Keith and Lance said he was missing that didn’t mean he couldn’t be found or rescued. But he just didn’t expect the chances to be very good. He had expected the Galra once. He hadn’t thought to have that sort of luck a second time, especially after mysteriously disappearing from within his Lion.
But more than that, if he had been found, he didn’t know where he would fit. It was one thing to stay in the Castle, it was another to rejoin Voltron. Panic flooded his bloodstream. What if something happened to Keith or one of the others?
…
“I mean, you were at the castle when Pidge took me there,” Matt said. He was doing his damnedest to give only the facts and not his interpretations of them, so that he didn’t accidentally give Shiro a wrong impression about his future. “You flew the Black Lion. You were coordinating the attack on Naxzela right before I got here.”
It did not occur to him, in any respect, that some of this might be information he shouldn’t share. Time might be a little off, sure, but all the more reason why they needed to get back on the same page. Shiro, in particular, needed to have all the facts, because he was the leader, he saw the big picture better than Matt did, and if they were going to fix any of this, he needed to have all the intel Matt could give him.
He could only try to offer a bit of humor to lighten the mood, although he didn’t know how well it would work. “I really hope that’s not your idea of retirement, buddy, because if anyone deserves to just stop and relax, it’s definitely you.”
--
Shiro took a minute to process all of that information. He did wind back up at the Castle, but he was also piloting the Black Lion. His heart nearly stopped.
“Is Keith okay?” Shiro asked, that question at the forefront of his mind. He hadn’t thought about that -- and he should have. He hadn’t thought that he would be putting Keith in any extra dangerous as the pilot of the Black Lion instead of Red, but of course he had, and he knew he would never forgive himself if Zarkon or Haggar had targeted Keith as a result of becoming the leader of their team.
He completely missed the rest of what Matt said.
…
“Yeah,” Matt said, immediately. “I mean, I think so. He was definitely okay up until the fighting started. And the last I’d heard over the comms, he and the Blades were doing okay.”
He was not at all sure how this tied into Shiro being part of Voltron, but he was already aware that there had been a whole lot going on with the Voltron paladins while he’d been off working with the rebels, and he’d only just begun to be caught up on it. He and Katie had talked, but even then, they had barely scraped the surface - and their focus had been to catch Matt up on what had been going on with her. Apparently something else entirely had been going on with Shiro and Keith.
--
Shiro’s heart slowed incrementally. Something had happened, but Keith was at least okay. Everything else he could deal with as long as his team members were safe.
In the end, he also knew this was a lot of pressure to put on Matt after just showing up, especially because Matt couldn’t possibly know everything that Shiro wanted to know. Pidge might. He wasn’t sure when exactly she was from, but he would have to check with her.
“Right,” Shiro said, running a hand through his hair. “Thank you, Matt.” He tried to ease some of the tension out of his body.
“How’s your pizza then?” Shiro asked, turning their conversation back to the levity of food.
…
“Of course,” Matt answered. He was still very confused about why his information had prompted the question, but he was glad to have been able to ease Shiro’s mind about it.
He was trying to think if there was anything else he needed to tell Shiro. Nothing came to mind that was important right in this moment. He opened his mouth to say something, still not sure what, but Shiro asked about the food.
“Pretty good,” he said, glancing back at the half-empty pizza box. “Not the best I’ve ever had, but… it’s a piz of home.” He gave Shiro an exaggerated wink as he said it.
--
Shiro couldn’t help but laugh. His chest echoed with pain for a minute, because he had almost forgotten just how well he and Matt got along. So much of what they were now had been defined by what had happened on Kerberos and after. But after that, when they had still just been at the garrison, hoping to get selected for a mission, they’d both had the same stupid sense of humor, even though Matt was better at the puns than he was.
“I missed you,” Shiro said.
...
Matt’s grin softened to a warm smile, and a slightly sad one. “I missed you too.”
It had been really hard to think about Shiro all these years, because it was hard to imagine him surviving the combat ring with Zarkon’s monsters, and his rational mind kept telling him that Shiro was probably dead. But his heart had hoped anyway, because Shiro was tough and strong and smart, and he couldn’t even say how glad he was that Shiro was alive after all.