Parachute (Catch Me When I Fall)

by Kitty_LaKill

Summary:

Shiro loses the last 5 years of his memory, the last thing he recalls is going around to schools to drum up some new cadets for the Garrison.
How is Keith supposed to find his way back into his life if he's now a capable adult and not some wayward bratty kid who just needed a helping hand and someone to believe in him? (Shiro POV mostly!)

Notes:

• For Green_Destiny.

This is my Sheithlentines fic for GreenDestiny!

As you can see it um... It got big. (that's what she said) it's turned into a 2 chapter because I got super ill after a con and couldn't crunch my way through finishing/editing...

Sorry for it being so damn late! I hope the sheer size of it makes up for that and uh... you actually like it 😅
I didn't mean to make it such a slow burn, hot dang.

(Also Lotor is actually a good guy, just pretend it was Haggar doing all the dirty work and Lotor thought he was actually saving people, idk. )

Chapter 1

Notes:

Did I forget to mention WHY this fic is called Parachute? Yes. yes I did.

The lyrics to Parachute by KyndalInskeep is such a great song.

I kept finding songs that fit Keith though.
Lay Me Down by Sam Smith is just... Keith missing Shiro. (yes, I hurt myself.)
Also Thinking Bout You by Ariana Grande ahaha...

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Parachute

»» ──────ஓ๑❤️๑ஓ ────── ««

 

Shiro sighed as he looked down at his Padd, Matt was going to be missing their lunch time gym session, again, for the second time that week and it was only Wednesday.

Shiro strode out of the gym’s changing room and started on his workout, eyeing up the weight rack after each set and the few people around, wondering if he could ask any of them to spot for him.

A flash of red caught his eye and he turned to see a slender looking guy doing stretches on the training mats, the red tank top had deep side cuts so he couldn’t help but notice the toned chest and tiny waist when they bent forwards to stretch out their back and legs, and stars what a pair of legs.

Shiro caught his own reflection in the mirror he was stretching in front of and, with a blush he hopes he could pass off as physical exertion, prays they didn’t notice him gawking as he hurries over to the weight rack, spotter be damned, missing the stumble as shocked violet eyes tracked him in the mirrors.

He’d set the weights up and laid back on the bench, getting his hands in position and trying to ignore his peripheral as that red beacon moved around the space of the mats.

He’d just gotten roughly halfway through his second set when his Padd vibrated next to him, making him jump as he’d been lost in thought trying to figure out what Red was doing, not quite yoga or Tai Chi, but something just as mesmerising.

The bar wobbled and his left arm gave way for a split second, but a hand appeared out of nowhere and grabbed it, lifting and placing it on the rests.

“Focus, big guy, it’s dangerous to do this alone.” Came a husky but strained voice, and just as suddenly they were gone, not sparing Shiro a single glance back as they swiftly left the area.

Shiro had sat up slightly dazed ready to say thank you, only to realise it was the guy he’d been staring at before. His mind started firing off in too many directions, the main one being he’d lifted that bar with one hand. Sure, Shiro had hold of the bar, but not really when it was on its way to getting well acquainted with his face. They hadn’t seemed built enough to lift 3/4 of what Shiro was currently benching, but clearly bulky muscle wasn’t everything, and there’s very real hidden strength in that lean build.

His Padd vibrated again - reminding him of what caused this - as he picked it up along with his towel to wipe the sweat away, scowling at the reminder for his monthly check up in an hours’ time.

He tried not to be too obvious with his looks around the gym as he made his way to the changing rooms and showers, but he couldn’t find them anywhere. He made a mental note to try find them next time to say thanks.

 

 

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It’s another week movement before he spots them again, this time in a dark grey tank styled just like the red one, a faded design on the front. Matt, once again, had to cancel but it was the first time since last week, so he’d forgive him this time as he really was swamped with work.

Shiro watched Red (although should he now call him Grey?) go through the same thing as before, watch him move across the mats like he was almost dancing with how fluid his movements were, each one melting into the next. It stuck him with how Reds hands moved that it wouldn’t look out of place to be holding something, like a fan or… a sword. Once he realised that, it suddenly made more sense.

He’d heard of some of the alien races having traditional dances and was mentally flipping through which one it could belong to, Red didn’t look like any of the alien races he’d been reading up about though, he looked very much human, so maybe he was one of the peacekeepers they sent out and he was learning the customs? It could be a conversation starter at least.

Shiro vaguely realises he’d been staring too long when Red has stopped and is turned in his direction, and he’s at a loss for words seeing their handsome face turned slightly towards him, all sharp angles, but his eyes are what really captivate him; the deepest shade of indigo with flecks of violet, looking… concerned? Though how he could see that when- oh, they’re standing right in front of him now, a slight blush on their high cheekbones.

They clear their throat, nervous probably from having someone of his size, and an alpha to boot, staring at him with probably an openly awed expression.

They both go to speak at once, an awkward laugh before Red gestures at Shiro to go first.

“I uh, just wanted to say thank you for… before…” He’s suddenly very interested in the floor as he scratches at the edge of the scar across his nose, a piece of hair had escaped the bun at the nape of Red’s neck and it was taking everything in Shiro not to reach out and tuck it behind a dainty ear.

“Oh… that’s okay, any ti-…” they cut off, as if not meaning to offer their assistance again, Shiro catches the slight flinch at his own words, looking off to the right; even their profile is handsome, the slope of their nose making him want to run a finger down it.

Shiro could cut the awkwardness surrounding them with a knife. Oh right, swords!

“That was very um… graceful?... what you were doing… uh, would you normally do that with a sword by any chance?” Shiro asked, hoping to break the tension just a bit.

He watched those breath-taking eyes widen, flicking back to his face as they nod. “Yeah, but they wouldn’t let me in here with one.” He huffs out a small laugh, the short sound going right through Shiro, and he finds he needs to hear it again, or maybe get the full version.

“I bet it looks amazing.” He states, somehow knowing deep in his bones he’d be privileged to witness it, wondering what kind of clothing one would wear when performing.

He’s about to ask which race uses such a thing, when something catches Red’s attention behind Shiro and he’s backing away, gathering his things and rushing out a “it was uh… nice to meet you, Shiro” before he’s practically running away from him once again.

A hand clamping down on his shoulder in too familiar of a fashion tells him right away it’s Matt, no one else dares even look at Shiro too long outside of work hours, let alone touch him if they can help it.

“I thought you weren’t making it.” Shiro asks, trying to look over his head at the now long-gone Red.

“Yeah well, we finished up early and I don’t want you adding on any more damn burpees, I barely feel recovered from last time…” he grumbles as he recalls, but there’s something slightly shifty in the way he’s pulling him over to the weights.

Matt does a good job of distracting Shiro from his thoughts with the non-stop chatter, even though half of it’s being tuned out, unaware of the assessing gaze Matt keeps levelling him with when he isn’t looking.

It’s only once he’s back in his quarters in blissful silence does he realise… “I never told him my name…”

 

 

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“…shouldn’t be here right now, you know this, you’re pushing it…”

“And just how much longer? I can’t… It’s been months… shit-” The whispered voices trail off the closer Shiro gets.

Shiro rounds the corner to find Matt alone, rubbing at his forehead and hand on his hip. When he spots Shiro his smile is tense.

“Everything okay? I heard you talking to someone.” Shiro watches Matt freeze for a second before his shoulders slump.

“Yeah, just… work stuff… C’mon, those weights won’t lift themselves!...” He trails off, waltzing into the gym. He’s always been a bad liar, at least in Shiro's opinion. Shiro heaves a sigh and goes to follow behind but the fading whisp of a scent makes him pause.

It was a fleeting thing, gone just as quick, but the sensation of familiarity struck him so fast his head is spinning, and he can’t figure out why. He finds himself looking towards the end of the corridor wondering just who Matt had been talking to when a sharp pain at the front of his head has him staggering against the wall, Matt suddenly back with him, hand on his shoulder asking if he was okay in-between shouting to the gym’s receptionist to call the on-site medic. “No no no, you were doing so well…” Matt mutters under his breath, unaware Shiro was still with it enough to catch his mutterings.

He’d had enough of doctors to last him a lifetime, he begrudged going anywhere near those sterile rooms if it wasn’t absolutely necessary, and the pain was gone just as fast as it arrived so, no, he doesn’t need to see anyone but the weight rack so he can try beat his personal best on dead lifts, thank you very much.

“You’re just trying to get out of your new training regiment, I see your game, Holt. You’re starting with burpees.” He hisses out, trying to lighten the mood, gathering himself enough to push past Matt who’s now groaning and whining as he follows behind, waving off the frantic worker on the phone. He can’t wait to take some of his mounting frustration out on a punching bag.

The place is mostly empty this time of night, for which Shiro is thankful, because all around the gym he catches that same scent for the briefest of seconds before it’s gone, followed by that split second of pain every time that fades into a dull throb at the base of his skull. It’s confusing, the neutraliser they pump into the gym is the strongest, for obvious reasons, so he doesn’t know why there’s lingering odours, unless… no, no one would be that irresponsible though, surely?

Throughout their entire session, Matt kept prodding him, checking he actually was okay, that he didn’t feel faint or nauseous etc. Shiro's response was to up Matts reps, put the weights slightly higher, 10 more burpees between machine change.

Any rational person would try avoiding it if something brings you pain, your natural response should be to shy away from it when you come across it again, but something keeps pulling at Shiro to try seek it out, push through the pain.

They round the session off with some light sparring, which so far has always ended up with Matt pinned down, tapping out, he is of course only a Beta who’s going up against a full-grown Alpha after all.

So, it’s quite the surprise to both of them when Shiro goes to start with an easily avoidable grab and Matt ducks down, sweeping his leg out expecting Shiro to jump over it, instead sending Shiro flat on his back. He has a stunned moment before he’s once again hit with that scent, strongest he’s smelt of it so far, as if whoever it belonged to spent most of their time here on the mats.

He gets a few seconds to process it before the pain slams into him; it’s got predominantly an earthy base smell, there’s a hint of burnt embers undertone, it reminds Shiro of the camping trips he always wanted to go on but couldn’t due to his illness as a child.

‘But you have been camping…’ flits through his mind, which causes even more pain to sear through his head. He doesn’t even hear Matt shouting his name or feel the hands holding him down, pulling his own hands away from his face as he convulses on the floor, back arching off the ground with a shout before he’s twisting into the foetal position, face wet with tears he can’t remember crying before darkness creeps in and claims him.

 

“…Knew you weren’t ready… Looks like we’re going to have to start over… again…”

 

 

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It’s been a long day of meetings and appointments, made longer still due to time differences. Shiro’s got a scheduled meeting he has to sit in on at 21:00 and he has a couple hours to kill. He goes to the mess hall hoping he can convince someone to whip him up something edible since he’d completely forgotten about this late meeting and hadn’t pre-packed dinner, not that he’s had much of an appetite anyway the past few months… he shakes his head, he’s learnt it doesn’t do him any good dwelling on that, otherwise he’ll get sucked into the void and lose time again.

He pushes open the swinging door, glancing around at a surprising few people still there, scattered about eating. There’s no line and the food looks fresh and hot.

As Shiro walks up to the counter, the kitchen door opens and a big fella walks out, comically freezing when he spots Shiro, eyes wide as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have.

A wave of familiarity hits Shiro as he looks at him, his head tilting as his eyes catch on the name tag- Hunk- and it feels as if something is trying to slot into place in his head but he’s missing other pieces of the puzzle.

“I know you…” Shiro winces as a jolt of pain radiates down his spine, causing him to shiver.

Hunk notices, and he’s quick to assure him “we do, but don’t focus too much on it, dude… it’ll come back to you in time.” His smile looks pained, but he hopes it’s reassuring.

Shiro frowns; he’d been told that so often, but it’s been months- fuck, varga? No, quintants- and he just wanted his damn memories to come back to him already.

Hunk loads him up with an overly generous serving of mac n cheese, and Shiro grabs a few extra dry snacks before opting to eat it in his office, away from prying eyes; he’s likely to be spotted by someone when he’s out and he really just needs to relax, he’s fed up with people asking how he’s doing with the looks of sympathy he can’t begin to understand.

He isn’t looking forward to this meeting but it’s important so he’s just gotta grin and bear it, learning new time lingo since he’s going to be sitting in on more meetings if this one goes well.

As he’s turning away from paying, a loud group of people pass by him making Shiro glance in their direction but his focus lands past them. Someone sitting with their back to him grabs his attention and he finds himself going to automatically walk over to them before he realises.

Shaking his head as if coming back to himself, he stops; he doesn’t recognise the purple outfit and their hood is up, absolutely nothing to tell him he knows who they are, so he can’t possibly have business with them… He quickly beelines to his office, locking the door for extra measure, unaware of the eyes behind a mask watching him practically run out of the hall.

He absently eats his food while contemplating why he went to walk over to someone he doesn’t know, analysing the parts of their clothes he could see and trying to match them to the different Alliance uniforms he knew of. He’s jolted out of his thoughts by his alarm going off; reminding him he needs to get to the coms room.

Shiro isn’t sure how long ago he’d finished his food, lost in thought and going through the motions, but he realises he’s grabbed more food than needed as if he was bringing lunch for two. It happens so rarely now than it had a few months ago, or rather ‘phoebs ago’ as he was learning… relearning… Shiro rubs his face to clear the fog; he doesn’t want to go back to his therapist with news of him slipping back. He’d been doing good, great even. He puts the extra food in his desk draw.

He’s early to the meeting room, but he isn’t the first one there. Katie is there, fiddling with the computer, she barely spares him a glance as he enters, a frown upon her face.

He forgoes the greetings, they’ve been friends for years since she’s Matts precious baby sister, though far from baby faced now, what a difference five years makes. “Need any help?” He offers, she’ll likely say no, but if you don’t offer, she won’t ask. Stubborn as ever.

“Hmm… No, I just don’t understand why we can’t dedicate one of the many rooms just for this type of communication instead of changing settings every time. Long distance meetings are a royal pain in the-”

“I do hope we’re not inconveniencing you.” The taunting tone comes through the speakers before the screen flickers, showing the Galra leader in all his snooty glory before small boxes appear around his picture of others joining.

“Of course not, your highness. We weren’t made aware you’d be joining this meeting.” She clips, sarcasm dripping off her when she addresses him, and shooting Shiro a cautious look. Already the atmosphere is tense, this is Shiro’s first time being in on such a meeting with the Galra, he hadn’t been given much information on them and he was still on restricted data access, but it was just a routine supply meeting so why their leader was joining it he doesn’t know, though he already feels it’s going to drain him beyond anything he’s dealt with today.

The doors open behind Shiro and others of the Alliance Earth-side council trail in, most already with a hot cup of something in hand.

Iverson is the last to walk in, “you better have read over the briefing, Emperor Lotor.” He asks, tension palpable as everyone takes a seat except for Iverson. “I’d also appreciate a bit more of a heads up that you’ll be joining in on these matters, I’d have thought you had more important things to be getting on with.”

Lotor waves his hand dismissively, “Yes, yes, I’m quite aware of our Champions predicament… Oops.” He smirks. “And why wouldn’t I attend them? Building trust between Earth and New Daibazaal is of the utmost importance given our… History.” He looks at Shiro once again with that smirk.

Shiro feels eyes on him as he frowns. His stomach clenched at the mention of this ‘champion’ but he isn’t sure why. After another beat, Iverson lets out a deep sigh, “That is your only warning, Lotor. Now…” and the rest of the meeting is a blur, Shiro somehow taking notes despite the white noise creeping in as that word rattles around his head. Others join it, ‘paladins’ and ‘the Blades’ followed with a long-suffering sigh from Iverson, all pull at his brain, but he can’t piece them together. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle but he’s missing most of the pieces and he doesn’t have the box so he can’t even see what it’s supposed to be.

Thankfully the meeting doesn’t drag on too long, and Shiro finds himself back in front of his quarters before he even fully registers his surroundings. He opens his door, mouth opening automatically to greet… He’s frozen mid-shoe removal as he wonders just who he was going to tell he’s home.

A noise from his kitchen startles him, and again a name is on the tip of his tongue, but no words come out. Instead, a fluffy black cat walks out of his kitchen and sits down, meowing and cocking her head. Of course, he has a cat. But… her name wasn’t the one he was going to say, he’s sure of it.

Shiro finishes taking his shoe off, hangs up his jacket and scoops up the ball of fluff, who lovingly head butts him with a purr.

“Hey, Black, miss me?” He fusses her, he can’t help remembering the day he found her down an alley when he was on a spontaneous trip into the city to escape the monotonous repeating routine he was suffering under during his first few months of ‘recovery’ and the look on Matts face when he’d come back with a cat plus the bare essentials of a litter box and food (he’d been limited on his hoverbike), Black having hidden down his jacket the moment he picked her up and half the size she is now.

He’d thought the double take at the name was just for his lack of creativity but saying her name just then made that weird pull come back to the forefront of his brain.

He suddenly felt too pent up and enclosed in his room, despite it being bigger than most; he’d tried to downscale it, but they’d told him it was befitting of a Commander of his rank, and he’d subsequently dropped it. Black jumped out of his arms and skittered into his bedroom.

The feeling like someone was once again missing hit him, and he briefly thought it was from his time living with Adam, but that line of thinking felt wrong, this was nothing like the shared apartment they’d had, and he wouldn’t have that kind of connection to him here. Did he have a roommate? But there was only one bed…

The walls felt like they were closing in on him, he needed to get out.

He cursed the weather report for the sandstorm battering the building, he needed fresh air and open spaces, but he’ll have to settle for the open floorplan of the gym.

He grabbed his gym bag still by the door and barely threw on his sneakers before practically running out of his ‘home’.

 

 

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The gym was blissfully empty this time of night, Shiro forever thankful the place was 24-hour varga.

He’s just done with his warmups when he hears the doors to the combat simulator room hiss open and someone briefly coughing as they get sprayed down with neutraliser. Shiro can’t see them, there’s a head hight wall blocking the doors, but he hears them muttering curses and the sound of that familiar gruff voice sends a shiver down his spine.

Before he realises it, he’s halfway to the end of the wall to see just who else is in the gym this late at night.

In his haste, he doesn’t take in the possibility this person could also be coming around the wall to use the other machines and he collides with a warm, sturdy body, sending them both sprawling to the ground.

There’s a moment of shocked stillness, Shiro subconsciously holding them tight to him, hand spanning the small of their back and a subconsciously pleased rumble leaving him at finding they fit perfectly under him, his face buries into a slender neck, nose brushing against a scent blocker doing a piss poor job.

A breathless “Oh fuck” leaves the person below him before a whimper and frantic scrambling. A hard shove to the shoulder has Shiro rolling off onto his side, ready to say sorry but that cloying scent freezes his motor functions; he can do nothing but watch their back as the person bolts out of the area, pain hitting him hard but not from the tumble.

It starts right in the frontal lobe, behind his eyes, and he feels almost paralysed by it as it zips across his brain. The neutraliser spray having done next to nothing since their close proximity had left their scent on his clothes, on his skin, so deep into his nose from being pushed up against the poorly hidden gland that he could pick out every single layer that makes up this person’s whole essence… or at least that’s what it felt like.

Like before, there was at first an overall earthy scent, like pine forests after a thunderstorm, where you can still taste the static in the air, mixed in were the smoky notes of a burning campfire. As he rolled the scent over in his mind, it changes from a lush forest into a dessert rainstorm, as if it was one he’d been caught in suddenly, surrounded by sweet flowering buds opening up to soak in the rain. Buried under everything, though, was the undeniable taste of heat.

He’s briefly reminded of his collapse in the gym a couple days ago that he’d somehow, impossibly, forgotten all about; he’s positive it’s the same scent as then but the pain radiating down his spine is making it hard to think any more, let alone breathe.

He gasps through an onslaught of images; cold desert nights, wind whipping his hair every which way as he flies around canyons and over steep cliffs on his hoverbike, timing it just right so he doesn’t crash and burn at the bottom. He’s got a destination and he can see it creeping on the horizon, lit up as the campfire burns bright against the starry sky backdrop. Blankets are placed down next to each other, surrounded by sweet smelling Desert Star flowers, snacks and drinks spill out of a backpack next to another hoverbike he doesn’t recognise but he feels like he should, someone shouts his name, and he whips his head around too fast. He stumbles and falls into inky darkness, like a hole opened up under him and swallowed him whole.

 

 

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When Shiro comes to, he’s in his own bed. His head throbs like someone was poking around in it, and he’s quickly trying to take stock of his own memories, checking his Padd for the date and seeing it’s the very early hours of the morning after.

Next, he’s pulling out the ‘old fashioned’ pen and paper journal he’d hidden away to record things in case he lost time again, but he hadn’t gotten around to filling it in under yesterday’s date so he can’t be sure what he’s lost.

He remembers the boring workday but the meeting that evening was spotty at best and then… nothing.

He finds his gym bag, checking it over and finding it empty of any clothes; he’d always have spare workout gear ready to go for when he was in a rush. What the hell happened last night?

For the briefest of moments, a scent tickles his brain, and he can’t help but look into the laundry basket next to him, finding his gym tank scrunched up on top. He grabs his shirt n buries his face in it, throwing it back in frustration when it’s clear it’s just his own non-scent on it. Like there should be something there but there wasn’t. 

That was another sore subject for Shiro. Ever since he’d woken up after ‘the incident’, his own scent had essentially vanished, as if his glands had been damaged but there was nothing outwardly wrong, thus he was seeing a therapist, as they believed it was some kind of mental block.

It caused issues he didn’t expect. People didn’t know he was there sometimes - as big as he was, he was very light on his feet - and he’d overhear snippets of things he probably shouldn’t have when senior officers relied more on their sense of smell than their hearing. It also made it harder for people to read him, and in turn trust him. Not that he wasn’t trustworthy, anyone who knew him would know he has a heart of gold, but it was natural to distrust what you couldn’t smell.

He’d tried using these things to his advantage in the beginning, trying to figure out his missing time, but an order came down that certain topics weren’t to be discussed until he was ‘better’. It had been explained as trying to remember too much at once would hinder, not help, in his recovery. But knowing what would trigger memories was another grey area.

They’d settled on slowly easing him in instead by reading up on each planet in the alliance, their customs and such, and today was the first time he’d sat in on a meeting. A meeting he took notes on.

He scrambles out his bedroom, falling to his knees to find the note pad amongst the stack of files on his coffee table and as he looks over the first page, he sees he’s made little notes in the margins; Champion? Paladins? Blades??

Who was this ‘champion’ and why does he remember everyone nervously trying not to look at him when it was mentioned? Had he fought them? …and Paladins too, he remembers them being mentioned before but he had no idea what they were, so he’d assumed it was a new fighter type jet, like the MFE Fighters, not a title.

He rubs at the joint of his arm where it meets the prosthetic, remembering when he asked what happened to his arm during his first check up and they told him simply that he’d been in an accident, but he knew that wasn’t quite right. His medical bracelet was missing, and he’d never felt so physically fit in his life, absolutely nothing like the slowly fading strength he’d lived with before.

The exhaustion from trying to force remember finally short circuits his too-active mind, and he collapses against the sofa, quickly drifting back to sleep, but it’s far from a fitful slumber.

 

 

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There’s the distant sound of cheers, metal clashing against metal, the people- no, aliens- surrounding him are quiet, the only movement being the occasional flinch when the crowd roars.

Next to him, he recognises Matt, he doesn’t have the scar on his face, and he’s got his head down, hands grasping at his hair.

There’s a final thunder of noise from above which can only mean one thing: the winner.

A guard approaches the holding cell they’re in, makes everyone line up and points a sword towards Matt who looks on in horror, panic gripping him as he mutters about “I’m not gonna make it, I’ll never see my family again!”. Shiro lunges forward, ripping the weapon out of the guards’ hands and is swinging it at Matt, knocking him down and jumps on him. He’s shouting how “this is my fight!” but he’s leaning down muttering to Matt to take care of his father, who’d been sent off to a camp for the weaker prisoners.

He’s dragged off of him and told he’ll take his place.

Shiro is forced through a short corridor with the sword he stole, the crowd grows louder the closer he gets.

The bright lights of the arena blind him for a split second before the space comes back into focus just in time to dodge the onslaught of his opponent.

It’s a one-sided fight, all Shiro can do is dodge and hide. Until he realises there’s a pattern to the weapon being used against him. Taking the opportunity, he strikes.

He becomes the new Champion.

 

 

Shiro shouts as he wakes, knee hitting the table and knocking the stack of files over, startling Black from her spot next to him on the floor. His head feels like it’s on fire, like the memory is re-burning itself into his brain. He doesn’t know how he ended up there, only that Matt and his dad were there too, somewhere. But they survived, they escaped. He doesn’t fully remember, but he knows that’s the reason for his arm and the litany of scars across his body.

He gasps, jumping up and running to the bathroom mirror, peeling off his sweat damp t-shirt and begins to look over his torso anew. Every marred bit of flesh has a flash of memory attached to it, and one by one he almost fully remembers how he got each and every one of them. When he touches the one across his nose, he’s reminded of the muzzle they’d forced him to wear as if he were a wild animal - they’d always put it on too tight.

He’s holding on to the sink, gasping through phantom pains long healed, and by the time he’s done, a select few just bring pain when he focused too much on it and maybe it’s for the best he doesn’t remember those right now, he hasn’t even gotten to the ones on his legs.

He staggers into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and with shaking hands downs one, then another, before stumbling back to bed and collapsing into it.

Matt has some explaining to do, that’s for damn sure. He paws around for the journal, noting everything down best he can before tucking it away.

He’s bone tired, but he’s almost too afraid to fall asleep. Terrified he’ll be transported back there. But at the same time, he’s weirdly thrilled to finally get some of the missing time back. It’s nearly six months since he woke in the recovery pod and was told at the time it’s been five years since his last recalled memory – doing school visits to drum up new cadets.

He hadn’t believed them, of course, who would? He somehow lived through the discovery of not only new alien races but a whole war and were now in the midst of rebuilding as a united front with many off-planet nations. They’d held back information when his vitals on the monitors were going haywire, and since then he’d been drip-fed information to see what he could handle and what would cause a reaction.

As soon as he was able to slip away, he’d practically fallen over himself to get back to his old barracks, to Adam, to some semblance of normalcy, stability.

Instead, he’d found his handprint on the door lock didn’t work and Adams name up on the memorial wall.

That’s where Matt found him, took him to his actual living quarters and informed him of his rank as Commander. Not being able to divulge much further when Shiro was clutching his head in pain at just that small bit of information.

He does somehow fall back to sleep, but this time he’s peacefully flying through the desert at night on his hoverbike, stretches of dunes and cliffs ahead of him and an endless sea of stars above and warm arms around his waist.

 

 

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Shiro spent the day going over the new memories, trying to dig further using the meditation techniques he looked up, but nothing; as soon as he strays too far outside of the arena and cells, pain flares up.

By Saturday evening, he relents and messages Matt; “I know about the Champion.” And not ten minutes later, there’s banging on his door and an out of breath Matt bent over wheezing. Shiro raises an eyebrow, mentally adding some more cardio to his routine.

Matt throws himself onto the sofa while Shiro brings him a drink.

“So… what do you mean you ‘know about the champion’…” Matt asks carefully, after downing the entire thing in one go.

“I know we were somehow kidnaped and taken to like a… fight pit…” Shiro trails off, it hadn’t been pleasant remembering the many lives he took, he rubs at the prosthetic joint again. “And I know that’s why I have this,” he adds on, “although this one is different to what I had in the arena…” It was almost the same, except it was a mix of white and black with blue strips of light, whereas the one from the arena was grey and when used as a weapon had a purple light. He wasn’t even sure if his current arm could be used like his old one.

Matt seemed slightly relieved, “And do you know where we were kidnapped from?” he hedges, he’d been wanting to drop hints here n there, just to see if he could speed things up, a certain someone had been hounding him to do so, but he was concerned about the ramifications, Matt had seen it too many times when they’d gone too fast too soon.

“No, I just remember injuring you so they’d hopefully send you to your father if they thought you were too weak to fight in the arena…” Shiro had sat down on the single chair, leaning on his knees as he rubbed at his forehead, a tingle had started up which was always a good sign they were going in the right direction.

Matt caught the action and weighs his options; Shiro hadn’t had a ‘bad episode’ in a solid couple months, the small hiccups as of late aside, but it also didn’t seem like he was close to regaining any memories without intervention if this is all happening because of Lotor dropping hints…

“Okay, I’ll tell you, but you let me know when that pain gets too much.” He looked at Shiro sternly, an odd look for Matt who was forever a jokester, but he didn’t like seeing his best friend in pain. Kerberos was a pretty self-contained part of their history; he trained for it, he went to space, got kidnapped - mostly straight forward, they don’t involve anyone but Shiro, Matt and his dad, right?

So he tells Shiro about Kerberos, how he’d had to fight being chosen for it because of his medical issues, Sam backed him up. How they’d barely been there a whole day before they were abducted.

Matt had told Shiro how he’d been rescued by rebels, but Sam had been taken to a work camp and eventually rescued and returned to earth (missing out how he’d been used as bait to lure Lotor and the Lions to Zarkon).

Shiro could tell he was glossing over something, but he had no idea what.

“You’re also not sick anymore… though I have a feeling you’ve realised that by now.” Matt was watching Shiro, he’d only winced here and there and he was so very hopeful this time he could tell him more.

Shiro felt like the breath had been knocked out of him. He had figured as much, but to hear it confirmed was something else. “How?” He barely breathes the word out.

“I can’t…” Matt sighs, he really hates holding back the truth from Shiro, it hasn’t gotten any easier, especially when it looks like he’s making progress only to suddenly say the wrong thing and he’s right back at square one. At least he stopped trying to go back to his old barracks after the third time. It was slow, but he thought it was steady progress.

“You can’t tell me, right?” Shiro finishes it for him, huffing out a breath as he leans back with his arms crossed in the comfy chair to stare at the ceiling.

How do you tell someone that they’re not quite the same person they were when they left earth? That the idea of clones isn’t as farfetched as once thought? That ‘Oh by the way, you actually died already, like literally your body was evaporated into space dust and your subconscious locked away in a sentient spaceship in the shape of a lion.’ You can’t quite slip that into casual conversation.

“I know about the paladins, too.” Shiro gambles, tilting his head enough to see Matt from the corner of his eye.

He watches Matt; he sucks in a breath as his eyes go wide and he bites at his lip as if contemplating something.

“What do you know, Shiro.” Matt looks over to him and squints, going on the defensive. Shiro might not remember, but Matt sure does, every time Shiro tried to be sly when he learnt ‘forbidden’ words and was trying to get information out of him since he kept getting red taped on his Padds database.

Shiro holds his gaze before scrubbing a hand over his face, “not a damn thing…” he sighs, defeated.

“Can you at least tell me who the Blades are?” He pleads, giving Matt his best puppy dog eyes he knows he’s weak against.

He can see his will crumble bit by bit the longer he’s trapped.

“Ugh not the look, dude, I can’t! If you don’t remember them first…” Matt is sick of sighing, of holding back when he has all the answers.

Fuck it.

“They’retheoneswhorescuedyou.” He rushes out before clamping his hands over his mouth. Shit fuck, Shiro is sitting up now, back ramrod straight looking at him wide eyed.

“They… rescued me? You mean… they’re how I escaped the arena?” Shiro thinks back to the memories he has of his time there, of a guard talking to him, before he’s thrown deeper into a new memory.

He gasps in pain as he falls back, hands grasping at his head, vaguely aware of Matt cursing and coming to his side.

As the images flash behind his scrunched shut eyes, he’s able to relay them to Matt.

“I was… tied down to a table… they were going to do more experiments… but one of the technicians stopped them… Ulaz?... he put coordinates in my arm and said… something about Earth… the blade of Marmora is with you…” the pain was making his eyes water, but he knew there was something else. The memory was fading in and out like bad signal, if he could just focus more on it...

“Shiro stop, damnit, you’re going to hurt yourself!” Matt was shouting, shaking him by the shoulder.

“No! I can do this…” Shiro grit his teeth, breathing through the pain. “Z-Zarkon? Who… he found something on Earth… a… Lion? I don’t… ah!” another set of memories flash in his mind, of an imposing figure he’d sometimes see sat in the Emperors chair at the Arena. He was confused, it didn’t make sense, what would the previous Emperor want with one of Earths lions of all creatures. Did he think they were some ancestor? Shiro huffed out a laugh, some of the Galra did look very cat like in that meeting now that he could remember it better.

Matt was looking at Shiro with clear concern, his brows furrowed when Shiro laughed, despite the obvious pain etched into every line of his body.

He watched Shiro slowly start to relax, “Matt…” Shiro asked, eyes still shut.

“I’m here, Shiro.” Matt squeezed his shoulder.

“Why was Zarkon after lions? Did he think they’d put them in the fighting ring like the Romans?” His eye lids fluttered open, locking onto Matts face.

“If you don’t already know, I’m sure as shit not going to tell you, I shouldn’t have told you about the Blades to begin with. And you remembered Zarkon? Are you okay?” He helped Shiro sit back up, the mention of the old Galra tyrant ruler having apparently made zero impact on Shiro, for now.

Aside from being a tad shaken up, he was actually quite fine. That same odd sensation of a memory unlocking, like it was branding itself into his brain, daring him to forget about it ever again.

“Never better.” He gave him a weak thumbs up, Matt just shaking his head.

“It’s late, you should try sleep. Hell, have you even eaten anything today?” He scolds, going mother hen on him.

“I might have, I don’t know…” Shiro at least has the sense to look guilty about it.

Matt squeezes the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

“I’m going to whip something up for you and then I’m going. Stop trying to poke the bear, things will come back to you in time.” And with that, Matt gets up and goes to his kitchen, Shiro can hear him opening and closing cupboards, another exasperated sigh when he’s only finding instant noodles and frozen mac n cheese ready meals.

Shiro ignores his mutterings floating out the doorway, Matt was lying and he knows it. Him doing nothing wasn’t getting him anywhere. He’d been doing nothing for weeks, months. Fuck. Movements and phoebs.

He was getting that closed in feeling again, but before he could act upon his visceral need for fresh air, Matt was coming back out with some freshly heated up cheesy goodness. Not that he was really able to taste it.

Matt watched him eat before trying to put him to bed, he only stopped when Shiro had stood up to his full height and low key growled at him. Matt had to fight the urge to smack him upside the head like a bad dog, forever grateful of being a Beta so he didn’t have to put up with any of the Alpha bullshit. Instead he just rolls his eyes and tells him to sleep, he’ll meet him in the morning for their new gym schedule, routines were important.

Shiro sees him off, and in his defence, he does try get ready for bed. He showers away the itch crawling over his skin to leave, get out, escape, and he climbs into bed with every intention of sleeping. He does!

But it’s like one moment he’s in bed writing down the important things he’d learnt, underlining things like ‘paladin?’ and circling and double underlining ‘Zarkon’, the next he’s pulling on jeans and his leather jacket with the sherpa lining, grabbing the keys off the hook as he slips his feet into his boots and he’s out the door. He doesn’t even have to think about the direction, he knows the way to the hangers blindfolded.

He’s done this enough times he knows who’s likely to be on in the guards shed at the gates, although despite never having spoken to them before his first escapade out of the confines of the Garrison, they saluted him and let him through, no questions asked. He didn’t stop to wonder about it, just gave them a curt nod and a thanks, keeping a mental note of their ID tags on their chest and starting to throw in a “Evenin’ Gregg” here and a “how’s it going, Frank” there.

He finds his baby tucked away, out of sight behind some dusty crates and under a tarp, smoothing a hand along the polished red bodywork before getting on, putting his goggles in place and debating on the scarf before tucking it back into the storage compartment.

He’s out into the fresh desert night and waving to Frank as he flies through the holo-barrier, Frank just giving him a wave and fond shake of his head, approving his departure as he goes back to reading whatever book he had his nose in before his rude interruption.

Shiro cranks up the speed and breaths deep of the fresh air, nothing could quite compare to the feeling of flying.

A small pang reminding him he’s actually flown spaceships but just can’t remember it; being told is one thing but he has absolutely zero memories of doing so outside of the simulations, something they’d forbidden him from doing when he’d had a bad reaction to it one time.

He shakes the thought away and just breathes in the crisp air, lets his mind go blank until he’s hitting familiar canyons and he’s soon zooming around ledges and jumping over fissures, his favourite vista point coming up quickly.

Instead of stopping, he flies straight, going right over the edge. He releases an exhilarated whoop as his speed increases, timing down to perfection as he pulls on the handle to twist his thrusters down, causing an almost literal cushion of air to land on before shooting forward with no momentum loss.

He can’t help the shouts of joy leaving him, the sound carrying across the flat ground, bouncing back from the protruding canyon rocks and making a few lizards scatter in the distance.

He’s about to turn around and make his way back, but he feels a small tug in his head that gets stronger the further he goes, and he can’t help but feel the need to follow it. He’s already here, why not?

The further he goes, the less control he has over his actions. He’s like a man possessed after half a varga later, having gone further than he can ever recall, but it’s deep ingrained muscle memory as he dips and dives between rock formations and around another cliff before something on the horizon grabs his attention.

As he slows down, he begins to recognise it before the scent hits him. Desert stars.

A field of them - if a stretch of desert can even be called that.

Shiro slowly pulls to a stop before them, he dismounts and gingerly walks through the knee high flowers to the middle where there’s an empty patch of ground perfect for two blankets and a circle of stones already there for a fire to keep them warm as they look up into the infinite stars above.

‘I guess that wasn’t just a dream either then…’ Shiro thinks, stopping and taking his goggles off to really get a look around him.

In the dark, the pink flowers seem to glow, reflecting the moons light above.

As Shiro moves closer, he realises the fire pit has very recently been used, if the lingering scent and faint glowing embers are anything to go by, and he can’t help but look around, trying to hold in the disappointment he knew he was going to feel knowing they were long gone. Whoever they were.

Except the feeling of being watched crawls up his back and he’s once again looking around, slightly nervous now and he’s not sure why. He’s probably the biggest thing out here for miles.

A small cloud of dust off in the distance, back the way he came, catches his attention and he’s back on his hoverbike in the blink of an eye. No one else would be out here except the other person from his memory, surely.

The race is on.

They have a head start, but Shiro manages to keep the dust kickback in his sights, it isn’t long before he’s recognising the cliffs around him and he feels a grin form on his face, the thought fleeting that they seem to be heading back to the Garrison too. If that’s the case, he’s definitely got some tricks up his sleeve.

He takes the gamble when he passes by a familiar bunch of cacti, a sharp turn to the left and he’s heading into a tunnel that has a steep slope upwards before levelling out and putting him above the crevasse.

From his new vantage point looking down, he’s able to see it is indeed a hoverbike, and whoever the rider is under their face coverings, they’re quite skilled in modding their bike cause he knows for damn sure the models they release don’t go as fast as theirs.

He wasn’t expecting them to glance back and up at him though, this far back he should be near enough unnoticeable with the wind roaring past them to hide the sounds of his own bike, they seem to redouble their effort to stay ahead.

The chase is exhilarating, he hasn’t felt this kind of excitement in a long while, he can’t help but let out another excited yell as he uses some naturally formed slopes to his advantage to go fully airborne over onto the other side.

They’re speeding ever closer to the crossroads, Shiro realising that if they veered off to the right, they must be from the town nearby and not the Garrison, but the route Shiro takes around a ledge makes him lose visuals and by the time he’s back on the more beaten tracks, the hoverbike is nowhere in sight.

He chides himself for a moment before figuring he can just ask Frank at the security booth if anyone else had been by, answering the question that if yes, then he also might know who, if not - they’re from town.

Unfortunately for Shiro, when he gets back to the Garrison, there’s some big fuss with a night delivery truck, and Frank looks stressed, he waves him through though, and Shiro decides he’ll find him tomorrow to ask if there were any other late night hoverbikes going out, it should be pretty memorable, right?

He puts his baby away, tucked gently back under the tarp before making his way stealthily through the halls and corridors. He’d be setting some bad examples on the younger cadets, he thinks, silently chuckling to himself before it tapers off into déjà vu.

His feet take him as he’s lost in thought, the idea of breaking the stuffy rules set by the Garrison isn’t a new thought, he often skirted the rules here and there… but he gets the feeling he’d broken some completely except he can’t fathom which and why. Or rather, who for.

That little thought add on has him stopping in his tracks. He hadn’t made many friends in the Garrison before Kerberos, sure he was the Garrisons ‘Golden Boy’ but that didn’t usually bring with it friends, not real ones anyway, none he’d want to break rules for. Maybe for Adam, once upon a time, but not by the time they were living together.

He starts to walk again but pauses when he realises he hasn’t gone where he’d intended. He’d ended up in the Cadets’ quarters and was stood outside D-blocks room 13.

He stares at the door for a long minute, wondering why he’d come here when his room when he was a young Cadet had been the next building over, but it was so damn long ago, even before the missing time, that he wouldn’t have subconsciously walked there and not the old, shared accommodation block instead.

A noise down the way brought him back to his senses and he quickly high tails it back to his actual residence, the doors swooshing closed behind him with a slight hiss. He shakes the dust out his hair, debating a fresh shower or just changing his bedding in the morning.

The decision made for him when he collapses face first into the soft bedding, a slightly disgruntled ‘mrow’ coming from the left side where Black usually slept.

She’s stretching and coming up to bump her head against his before curling up next to him with a paw pressing against his cheek as if telling him to stay put.

He does, and he’s barely managed to kick off his trousers before sleep pulls him under.

 

 

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Shiro is woken up by banging on his door, when he cracks open a hazy eye, he sees Black staring at him, head cocked to one side. A single ‘mrow’ leaving her before she stands and jumps off the bed and slinks out the door.

He sighs, realising who it’ll be and he’s pulling the covers off and stumbling to the door.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” Matt laughs, seeing the rumbled look Shiro was sporting, forelock sticking up at all angles.

He frowns when he notices the dust still clinging to his hair.

“Went out, did you?” he clicks his tongue like a displeased parent.

“Yes, mother, I just… needed some fresh air.” Shiro rolls his eyes, definitely too early for Matts sass before his first cup of coffee.

“Well you’re back in one piece this time so I guess I’ll let you off…” Matt huffs, leaning against the counter as he watches Shiro move around his kitchen.

It takes a second for his words to sink in. “This time?” he’s asking, brows scrunched up in confusion. He can’t recall getting into any accidents on his hoverbike.

Matts groan of ‘fucking hell’ as he buries his face in his hands before dropping them and levelling Shiro with a hard glare, definitely too early for any of this.

“Yes, because you tried going out before and there was an incident. And that’s all I’ll say on it.” He folds his arms across his chest, end of discussion.

Shiro rubs at his forehead, he knows he’d had a few setbacks but it was unsettling to know they’d been able to pull memories from him once he was back earth side to, in Matts words, ‘stop his mind scrambling like an egg’. He just wants to remember already so everyone can stop walking on damn eggshells around him.

He drinks the coffee probably a bit too quickly, putting a dash of cold water in to make it more drinkable sooner but not enough, the burn on the way down was definitely one helluva wakeup if the coffee wasn’t doing it for him.

He has a quick shower to get the remaining dust off and gets ready for the gym, quickly jotting down last night and ‘the incident??’ before meeting Matt by the door.

Matt had insisted on doing morning work outs now, something about how it’ll ‘set him up for the day’ and ‘all the top athletes do it’, not that Shiro minds, his time in the gym is always welcomed as he has a modicum of control there.

He’s spotting for Matt when he glances up and is instantly distracted by someone doing pull ups, it seems effortless for them and Shiro can’t help watching the parts of their back that’s exposed through the side slits of their workout gear; muscles bunch and flex as they add twists, their arms defined as they keep their steady pace up and down.

Matt lets out a wheeze, bringing Shiro’s attention back to him, grabbing the shaking bar as he lifts it above him and placing it back on the rests.

“Shit sorry, you alright?” he hands Matt the towel as he sits up, wiping away the sweat from his red face.

“Yeah, no thanks to my supposed spotter. What had you so distracted?” He guzzles down some water as he catches his breath.

Shiro can’t help but look over to the guy who’s now dropped down and is also towelling his face and neck, Shiro getting lost in the movement as the bit of fabric is dragged across the skin, being careful around the scent patches.

“Oh, him.” Matt says, cautiously, eyeing Shiro for any signs of a negative reaction.

“You know them?” Shiro’s head whips back to Matt.

“Yeah…” Matt’s trying to be evasive, he’s not ready for Shiro to crash and burn again, he can’t go through another round of this.

“Who are they?” Shiro's getting pushy, he knows, but he just wants a name.

“Trouble.” Matt tells him, standing up and beginning to walk back to the changing rooms, he’s not stupid enough to think that’ll placate Shiro though, it never is.

Shiro frowns at Matt’s retreating form before following after him, looking back to the guy as they lock eyes in the mirror. Shiro almost stumbles but manages to play it off, giving him a small wave before hurrying away out of embarrassment, he does catch the small dumbstruck wave they sent back to him though.

The rest of his morning manages to go by in a blur. He’s happy to find he’s less restricted on his padd for certain topics, like Kerberos, so he spends his lunch pouring over every article he can find, anger rising up to see it had been blamed on ‘pilot error’ when they had nothing to base it on, flashes of the mission lead up and prep came back to him in drips and drabs and he realises this is why he and Adam split.

It’s not long before he’s itching to be out on his hoverbike again, last night still so fresh in his mind, so he rushes to swap his clothes. Mechanics and engineers didn’t work weekends unless it was emergency situations so he could even take some time to clean and service his bike.

Excitement thrummed through him at the idea of getting under the hood, he’s practically skipping around buildings to try not be seen, despite most going off Garrison grounds on the weekends if they’re able to so the place is mostly deserted until late evening.

He gets into the hanger via their open shutters, wondering if they ever bothered to close them, though he wasn’t complaining.

He’s pulling the tarp off when he hears the clang of metal, something being dropped on the floor, and he’s suddenly squatting down and peering around his hiding spot.

Quiet curses float over before the sound of the blowtorch lighting up takes over the quiet space, and Shiro feels he can better sneak a look at who else had the same idea as him.

Their back is to him, dark blue overalls tied at the waist, a black t-shirt already clinging to their back from the early afternoon humidity, dark hair tied back in a low ponytail.

They stop, looking over to the table where Shiro realises a notebook is propped up but he’s not at the right angle to see what’s on it. They pick up other tools and the clang of metal makes his ears ring. He can’t begin to fathom what they’re making, but he finds it rather calming watching them work.

They move whatever it is over to the desk with the notebook, taking off the protective visor. Shiro gets a good look at their profile and has to hold his breath to keep in his gasp. It’s the guy he waved to in the gym.

So he must be an engineer?

He watches him work, admiring the cute, concentrated look on his face as he scribbles things down, still unable to tell what he’s working on, but figures it’ll be part of a plane parked behind them except when he’s done working, he picks up his notebook and the object and just walks out. He must take his work home with him… Shiro muses with a small chuckle, recalling the state of Matts room.

When he’s sure he’s alone, he sets about giving his own bike a once over, tightening a few bolts here and there, giving the internal bits a good clean out of dust and sand. Shiro decides he’ll stay on base for now, his desire for space and air soothed somehow.

On his stroll back home, Shiro was going over in his head his usual work schedule and trying to figure out reasons he could end up in the hanger.

By the time he was in bed writing out the day’s events, he’d thought up several plans with convincing reasons if anyone questioned him, he’d never been more excited for a Monday.

 

 

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

 

Monday sucked.

He’d meet Matt at the gym Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and throw in something on the weekend if he felt up for it, but Shiro was antsy after another failed attempt to see if gym guy was working in the hangers.

He was almost sad no one bothered him, no one batted an eye at him walking into the hanger 10am Monday morning with a clip board full of inventory he was ‘checking because of some inconsistencies.’

It let him be around there for a good couple hours, quietly observing as he feigned not being able to find this or that.

But he never showed. ‘Must just be his day off…’ Shiro sighs in defeat, finding the last item with ease, the whole system was actually very well organised, so he was glad no one was paying him too close attention.

The rest of his day had dragged after that failure, he decided to drown his sorrows in frozen mac n cheese while he watched something on TV that Matt had suggested; some alien space drama but the subtitles were funnier than what was being said, apparently inspired from some of Earths most popular dramas.

That night, he dreamt of drifting in space and purring (which he’d put down to Black sleeping right near his head).

 

 

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

Tuesday also sucked. Until it didn’t.

Shiro figured maybe the engineers worked either mornings or afternoons, so his visit fell after lunch when everyone would be back to work.

His excuse? Left his clipboard here from yesterday.

Not that anyone asked or looked like they cared.

Too busy with their heads buried in engines or arm deep in wires.

None of those half viewable bodies looked like gym guys, though he did note the crews working today had either green or orange overalls on, the green looked to be working on trucks while orange were planes, no blue hidden amongst them.

While Shiro was ‘looking for his clipboard’ he opened a door into what he figured was the hangers crew lounge, and while he didn’t find something so helpful like a colour coordinated schedule on who was using the hanger on what days, he did find scheduled flight tests for the next several weeks as at the end of next month, something important was happening if a red circle with some dots as if whoever made it was making a point was any indication.

Every Tuesday and Friday afternoons would have some sort of trial run out on the airfield.

Just as he read that, a rumble overhead shook the walls, and Shiro was rushing out to see what the cause was.

He found everyone gathered by the open shutters, some were whooping and air punching, others – the Junior Officer - looked annoyed. “Damn brat, such a show off” he was muttering as he about-faced and strode back into his office, non-too gently slamming his door. Shiro just raised an eyebrow, having been mostly hidden behind a cargo truck.

“What’s going on?” Shiro asked the closest person, they had oil smeared on their face and wore green overalls equally as filthy.

“Test runs of the newest MFE models; someone likes to get a bit too close to the hanger when Junior “I’m-too-good-for-this-shit’ Officer is on.” He laughed, tossing his head in the direction of the office, seeing the blinds parting before snapping back into place.

As Shiro looks out the open shutter, he watches the aircraft looping and twisting, and he feels a longing to be out there doing that too.

As folks around him slowly turn back to work, he overhears a pair bemoaning working today, “we could be down there, sitting second seat!” one in green overalls says.

“Not with him flying, you wouldn’t last five minutes before you’re reaching for the bag.” His colleague says, laughing and shaking her head.

Shiro's ears perk up at this, “Excuse me, can anyone go and watch?” he asks them, watching them both stop and turn to look at him.

They glance at each other, confusion crossing both their faces before the lass speaks up “Of course you can, you’re Captain Shirogane, I doubt anyone would stop you if you wanted to fly second seat to yo-”

“WHAT SHE MEANS IS… Uh… Sure, Sir, you can go down and watch and if they have time and space, they’ll let you.” The guy says, stepping in front of her with a panicked expression, grimace of a smile slapped into place as he none too subtly walks Shiro out of the hanger.

Shiro thanks him, pausing a moment to take in the sweat on his brow and wondering if it’s from the desert heat or the nervousness he seems to be radiating, didn’t need to be able to smell him to know, not that he could anyway as scent blockers were a requirement when working.

Shiro has a slight spring in his step as he hurries back to his office, bringing up the Garrison grounds 3D map and having it show him how to get to the testing grounds, since some parts had completely changed since his pre-Kerberos days.

One look and he knows exactly how to get there, he doesn’t have anything important to be doing with his afternoon so he sets off, commandeering one of the little golf carts dotted around base.

When he pulls up to the flat expanse of land with one long, wide runway, he notices stadium seating next to the tall building that monitors the area, quite a few seats were taken up like it was an actual event. Maybe it kind of was.

There’s three other MFE’s on the ground, their pilots chatting together while their planes get checked over and recharged, a small crowd of excited cadets hovering near by waiting to be picked so they can finally experience their first flight.

Shiro's presence doesn’t seem to come as a surprise to the Commander overseeing them when he goes into the observation deck, but Shiro is surprised to see its Sam Holt, offering him a seat and pointing out the snack table across the room.

“I was wondering when you’d be paying us a visit.” He smiles, eyes crinkling as Shiro grabs a coffee and a couple biscuits.

“So this is what you and Matt have been working on?” Shiro questions sitting down next to Sam, getting a hum in response.

“They last twice as long now, more responsive too, if you can believe it.” Sam takes notes as they watch the aircraft coming in to land, the cockpit opening and someone rushing to get out, helmet off before they’re doubled over.

Sam tries to hold in the chuckle, “poor kid didn’t know what he signed up for…” he mutters, watching the cadets’ friends rush over to him.

Shiro barely spares the young green cadet a glance, too busy entranced watching the pilot gracefully exit the plane, jumping down and taking their helmet off but going out of view before Shiro can see their face, he catches the other pilots shouting at him, although they looked like they were holding back laughter themselves, he was unable to hear through the thick windows.

“Don’t feel too sorry for the kid, everyone warned him…” Sam absently tells Shiro before he cuts off.

“Warned him he’s here to stress test them to the limits, not take them on a little joyride.” Another voice comes from the door, Matt strolling in and falling into the seat on his dad’s other side.

“You can’t tell them, but now he knows.” Sam chuckles, looking at his Padd and writing things down, the pilot must be sending him information on his flight.

Shiro feels so out of the loop. Matt seems to take pity on him, though.

“Let me guess, you wanted a go?” He smirks, looking around Sam to catch the tips of Shiro's ears turn pink as he stares directly ahead.

“Well… not exactly since I’m still not cleared to fly-” He shoots Matt a side eye squint “- I was at least hoping to sit in as co-pilot though.” He finishes.

Sam hums, “That can be arranged. I’ll send word down when they’re done with the Cadets n carted them all back, you can sit in with Griffin or Kinkade.” And he’s pulling his Padd out again to do just that.

“Is one of those the one who just flew?” He questions, watching Sam and Matt both tense.

“No, but they’re the… safer option.” Sam explains. Shiro can’t help the disappointment he feels, more so when they observe one by one the slower, safer, flights of the other MFE pilots. No loops, no twists, no speed.

Between each safe run, the stress tester pilot takes a different aircraft – cadet-less each time, no one daring to sit in after that first one.

Once the last hour of sun is on the horizon, they see the cadets and observers on the stands climb into the cargo trucks lined up nearby and drive them back to base.

“Now’s the time, Shiro. If you still feel up for it.” Sam says, standing and gathering his notes.

Shiro had seen all but one MFE Aircraft fly back to base, which meant one and its pilot were left for him. He’d feel bad making them wait around only for him to back out now.

They all leave together, Matt and Sam taking his golf cart since the pilot will drop Shiro back at the hanger on base.

He finds the pilot leaning against the nose of the plane, waiting for him, visors sun shield in place so Shiro can’t see their face.

“Uh, Griffin, right?” He guesses, watching them tilt their head before throwing him the spare helmet, turning and pulling themselves into the cockpit before leaning down to offer Shiro a hand.

Shiro doesn’t expect them to easily lift him up, he almost lands upside down in the seat he was pulled up so fast, a distorted “sorry” coming through the helmet’s intercom.

“D-don’t worry about it.” He stutters out, slightly dazed as he rights himself in the seat, buckling in.

It takes Shiro approximately twenty seconds to realise this is not Griffin, or Kinkade, once they’re airborne.

The g-force he experiences on the incline leaves him lightheaded before the aircraft twists and heads right back down. A warning flashes on the screen, ‘altitude, altitude, pull up, pull up!’ And at the last second they do, heading back up into corkscrew before flying straight.

Shiro's breathless gasp of delight the only sound he can hear; the pilot is completely silent except for a quiet chuckle at his reaction - he notices their shoulders shaking with the quiet laughter.

“Is that all you’ve got?” He taunts, smile clear in his voice, watching those shaking shoulders freeze, straighten up and he watches their head twist slightly to regard him before the crackle of “You asked for it.” Filters through to him.

He briefly takes in the view around them, the wide unending expanse of canyon and desert before they’re climbing up once again, along with his pulse, before the low hum of the engine seems to cut off and they’re freefalling in a slow turn, Shiro feels his butt lift out the seat the briefest of moments before the pilot suddenly pulls them up and shoots forwards, coming to a seemingly dead stop mid-air and doing a pin stop 180 turn and shooting back the way they came.

Shiro has his past self to thank for his iron stomach. A weaker man would have hurled five loops back. And definitely long before the tight corkscrew twist that didn’t feel like it had an end in sight.

The pilot is kind enough to do a few twists the other way to help equilibrate his brain back into its correct place.

He’s sad to realise they’re flying back to base now, “No night flights yet” comes through to Shiro, he hears the slight dejected tone to it, and he can see why as he looks above them at the sunset streaking the skies, the first peaks of stars already appearing between the pink, purple and burnt orange clouds.

A night flight with the view way out here with no light pollution? He could pretend he was really in space. He feels the ache already and he knows he’ll be the first in line when they’re able to run those tests, he’ll make sure of it.

“Count me in for when they start.” Shiro tells the pilot, eyes still to the skies above as his racing heartbeat slows down.

“Aye aye, Sir.” Comes the chuckled response, the sound going straight through Shiro, settling low in his gut with an urge he’d not felt in months. He has the strongest need to hear their voice in person, without the awful, distorted mess the helmet intercoms were – they needed working on, he makes a mental note to let Sam know.

They slow the plane, taking their time to get back, the silence companionable and not at all awkward or stifled, just enjoying the view above them together.

Landing is a little bumpy, but he’s definitely done worse landings himself. He’s surprised to find Matt waiting for him, frown on his face, a bashful pilot standing next to him half out of his flight suit.

When the aircraft comes to a stop and the overhead hatch hisses open, the pilot turns around and offers Shiro a hand down, and who is he to say no to such chivalry?

They help him down with as much ease as they helped him in with, Shiro's heart weirdly skipping a beat over it, before they jump down after him, landing impossibly silent, before striding past Matt who now outright glares at him. “We’ll talk later, hey, did you hear me?” he’s shouting after them, who just lifts up a hand in response before vanishing out the doors. Shiro had to fight the urge to run after them, eyes transfixed on the skin-tight flight suit they were wearing, his hand feeling tingly from the contact despite the pilot wearing gloves.

The pilot shifting nervously next to Matt looks like he’s about to piss himself when Matt now fixes him with the rare angry glare Shiro has only ever found himself on the receiving end of twice. It wasn’t great.

“…And you. Next time, check with me before listening to him. You can leave.” He dismisses him with a wave of his hand, sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Um… everything okay?” Shiro tentatively asks, hearing the shutters begin to close now that the last MFE was back.

Matt looks him over, sighs again and rolls his eyes. “I guess so, you didn’t crash and burn out there so I’ll give Griffin a break this one time.”

Ah, so THAT was Griffin.

No wonder no one had noticed, they did have a similar build, although Shiro couldn’t help but notice Griffin was more on the lanky than lean side, those noodle arms probably couldn’t lift themselves on the pullup bars let alone Shiro's bulky frame.

“So… who was I riding with?” Shiro asks, knowing the answer Matt is going to give, or not give, rather.

“No one you need to concern yourself with right now.” He huffs. Bingo.

“Fine, keep your secrets, Holt. Dinner is on you.” Shiro tells him, throwing an arm around his shoulders and dragging him to the mess hall, spirits still high off the adrenaline fuelled flight. Matt keeps a close eye on Shiro when he thinks he isn’t paying attention.

 

The exhilaration and adrenaline comedown from flying sets him up for an early night once he’s back, feeding Black and fussing her when she finds him filling out his journal. He really doesn’t want to forget today, and if he does, he needs to find his way back there. Or maybe he would like to forget so he can experience it all again for the first time, his heart hasn’t beat so hard from pure excitement since his first time solo flying when he became a Senior cadet.

When he finally settles down to sleep, he dreams of star gazing on the old Garrison roof, pointing out his favourite constellations and listening as someone points out and tells him theirs. But as it is in dreams, he can’t quite hear them and he can’t figure out what they look like, he just knows who it is, except… their name is on the fringes of his brain, just out of reach. He knows they’re important to him though if he took them to his favourite spot when he wants to shirk his Golden Boy responsibilities.

They lay down, side by side, backs of hands grazing in comfortable silence as they watch the worlds beyond their reach pass them by, not knowing quite how much is actually out there for them to explore.

 

 

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

 

Every day since then has dragged, he hasn’t found any more info on that pilot and Shiro itches to be in the air.

He still goes back to the hanger, eventually just dropping all pretences and chatting to the engineers and flight crew that rotate in and out with the varying vehicles and aircrafts the Garrison has at its disposal, even helping them out sometimes, but mostly just learning about the ins and outs of the machines and trying to get the info on more MFE test flights, but even they don’t know, the MFEs were serviced in a different hanger.

The pair he’d spoken to before greet Shiro when they see him, awe struck when he told them about the ride along he’d had with that pilot. They claimed to not know his name, but his callsign when in the air was Akira.

Shiro felt that funny brain tingle at the name mention but it went as quickly as it came, so he dropped it when they couldn’t offer any other information. No one knew what the big event at the end of the month was for either, the details being kept to a select few for now.

He probably knew a certain gremlin sibling he could pester though.

The problem was finding her.

The other problem was also getting hold of Matt, he didn’t have clearance to visit their labs and since the test flights, work had picked up tenfold for the Holts, so Matt was skipping out on their gym sessions but he had sent Shiro an amusing video of Pidge making him do some exercise while in the lab and mock crying.

Matt told him to keep going at the same time, but without Matt there as the reason… he would go when he felt like it. Which usually meant after work, to help loosen up from his mostly static office existence; so far whenever he’d gone to the hangers with things being worked on, Gym Guy wasn’t there.

In the gym, Shiro decides to try out the combat simulator, it’s early Friday evening so most folks have already hightailed it off base into town, and he debates going out as well after – surely Matt can let loose a bit on weekends?

He’s just done with level five when the doors open and Gym Guy is standing there in a skin-tight body suit non-too dissimilar to the flight under suits, looking surprised and immediately like he’s about to bolt, except level six starts and catches Shiro off guard, knocking him on his ass.

They’re in front of him in an instant, blocking the next blow and round house kicking the ‘head’ off the training AI.

The figure glitches before vanishing, LEVEL 6 COMPLETE flashing overhead. “STOP!” echoes around the space, the AI that materialised for Level 7 freezing in place before disintegrating into pixels.

Gym guy’s shoulders hunch up as he turns to Shiro who’s still laying stunned on the ground, looking up to him in awe.

“Wow” he breathes, watching a light blush dance across their nose as they duck their head, bangs falling forwards to hide their face for a second, Shiro’s gaze drawn to their mouth when they bite down on a plush bottom lip as they glance back up.

They seem to give Shiro a long once over, “are you okay?” they finally ask, but they seem afraid, hesitating to get close as if trying to hold themselves back before gingerly offering their hand out for Shiro who stares at it before reaching for it.

The moment their hands touch, a spark goes up Shiro's arm and it almost distracts him from how easy they pull him up. Almost.

“It’s… you?” He’s asking, watching their mesmerizingly deep violet eyes widen in shock before spluttering out a “what?” and taking a step back.

“You’re the pilot, aren’t you? You’re… uh… really strong…” Shiro’s turn to blush and scratch at the back of his head, absently noting it feels past time for a fresh buzz and his stomach flipped that he wasn’t looking his best in front of the hot guy.

He observes them seem to work though some internal struggle, face slightly reflecting anguish as if in pain, chewing on their bottom lip before nodding with a deflated sigh.

“Y-yeah, sorry if I went too far.” He’s looking off to the side but his eyes keeps flicking back to Shiro with worry written all over his handsome face. ‘Matt must have really flipped out on the guy, huh…’ Shiro ponders.

“Don’t be sorry, I loved every second of it.” Shiro brazenly rushes to reassure before realising what he said and the blush spreads up to his ears now as he nervously laughs. God he’s being such a gay disaster in front of one incredibly gorgeous, and strong, guy.

“Oh, I’m um… Shiro, by the way.” He holds his hand out, and they stare at it before Shiro realises he’s offered his prosthetic out of habit again and not everyone seems so keen on touching it. He’s slowly retracting it when they rush to shake, both hands encompassing it best they can and Shiro can’t help but see how nimble and elegant those fingers look surrounding his hand in a vice grip.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Shiro…” they respond sounding strained, before slowly letting go.

An awkward chuckle leaves Shiro when Gym Guy/Pilot doesn’t tell him his name. “You know, it’s customary to offer ones own name in return in these kind of situations…” he trails off, hoping they get the hint.

They really seem to be contemplating this, looking right into Shiro's eyes as if searching for the answer themselves before accepting defeat, their shoulder slumping.

“You can call me… K.” And if he seems to be paying extra attention to Shiro, it’s clearly not just wishful thinking, Shiro’d been seeking him out for so long he doesn’t quite know what to do with this sudden unwavering attention he’s now getting from K.

“Alright then, ‘K’, did you want to use this room? I was just blowing off some steam but it’s not really much of a challenge… unless you’re caught off-guard anyway…” Shiro absently rubs at his chest where the AI had struck him.

K regards him before seeming to loosen up a smidge as if some weight had been taken off his shoulders, “Honestly? I sometimes like to just… come in here to break them… it’s better than breaking real objects and zero clean up.” K shrugs, unapologetically, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

Shiro has to shake himself from staring again, “O-oh, well… I’ll leave you to it then. I don’t feel like these bots will give me much of a real hand-to-hand combat type of simulation anyway…” he trails off, going to collect his towel and water bottle.

Again, K seems to contemplate his words with a frown on his distractingly beautiful face before replying and Shiro is almost physically able to see when the decision is made.

“I can be your sparring partner… I-if you want.” He offers.

Shiro’s brain takes a second to process it, he’s half bent over picking up his things. “Are you sure?”

“I won’t go easy on you if that’s what you mean…” K states, folding his arms across his chest.

“I wouldn’t want you to.” Shiro retorts, a smirk of his own pulling up the corners of his mouth.

They’re in the training room for a solid couple hours, K clearly going easy on him to start with as he mostly dodged out the way, doing more defensive and less attack, less physical contact. Or he was until Shiro had him pinned for the third time and taunted him about it. Big mistake.

They kept track over who won in the beginning, if only so K could lord it over Shiro how quickly he caught up, but before long they were past caring. When they were both too exhausted to get back up after K had pinned him once again, Shiro breathlessly called an end to it, “I yield, kuso, I yield…” earning him a snort laugh from K.

Chest heaving, they were both flat on their backs looking up to the harsh florescent lighting.

“It’s been a while since I’ve felt remotely challenged, Matt is so far off from being anywhere near this level…” Shiro laughs, his limbs feel heavy with overuse.

“Mmm, same here, big guy. There’s just not enough fighters here, you know? They’re all pilots, too happy to sit on their butts…” K trails off.

Shiro is humming his agreement, distracted slightly by the sudden pull at his brain making him look over to K. An odd double vision appears, a figure wearing different clothes overlapping K before it’s gone and the weird tingle he gets when he feels like he’s going to recover a new memory starts up.

K is suddenly standing over him blocking the light, offering a hand up that he’s eager to take, to feel that contact again. He didn’t quite realise how touch starved he’s been when he hesitates letting go once standing. He’s too in his head about what he saw to realise he wasn’t the only one lingering to let go.

Nerves come back to them both, and K coughs into his fist, before collecting his water bottle and towel, scrubbing it over his face, Shiro doing the same as they silently walk out of the training sim, getting blasted with neutraliser spray and coughing all over again.

“Um, hey so…” Shiro starts, not sure how you go about casually asking someone for their number or some form of contact without coming across like a gym creep…

“…you wanna spar again?” K says, seeming more confident now, probably because of how many times he’d pinned Shiro on the mats. Shiro has to focus to not be affected by the memories, at least not until he’s back home and alone.

“S-sure?” He ventures, “tomorrow?” he’s a bit too eager, he cringes at himself.

“Oh, I would but I’ve got prior engagement, maybe next week?” K laughs, and Shiro feels like a sailor caught in a siren’s song, he’s taking a step towards K before he catches himself and makes it look like he’s just starting to walk towards the locker rooms. K walks beside him as he asks “How about Monday? Same time?” and Shiro nods a tad too enthusiastically.

“Do you um… have a number in case I’m late? My memory hasn’t quite been what it used to be.” He laughs at his own self depreciating joke; enough people knew of his situation by now. “The famous Captain Shirogane can’t even remember his own achievements in space” had been heard on more than one occasion amongst jealous Officers within earshot.

K just frowns, a sad look creeping into his eyes and it’s somehow completely different to the ones he’s seen other people give him, it’s more… tortured. It’s the only word for it.

K stops at his locker, opening it and pulling out his own Padd device, “let me link them, just in case I’m also held up for whatever reason.”

Shiro’s locker is a few rows over and he fumbles with the lock before grabbing his own Padd, unlocking it and handing it over.

Contact info exchanged, K grabs his things and is quick to bid him a goodbye, hastily telling Shiro he just hates public showers before leaving Shiro alone. He tries not to be disappointed but he’s swift to feel ashamed about wanting to try catch a glimpse of his tentative new friend naked… but he’s getting another fizzle through his brain when he wonders why K doesn’t just shower here…

He hangs back long enough to not make it seem like he’s chasing after K before deciding he’ll also shower back at his own place too, his thoughts a jumbled mess trying to figure out if he also knew K but was one of many he’d forgotten.

Under the heat of his shower, soothing his blissfully achy muscles, he’s trying to go over what might have caused his funny brain tingles earlier, but nothing is really coming to him when all he can focus on is the grunts and breathless chuckles right against his ear when K would rasp out “Yield” when he had Shiro pinned face down, ass up, K’s hips flush against Shiro's arse and spreading his legs that should have had his Alpha hindbrain reeling and thrashing at such a position, but it too yielded.

The more he thinks about being pinned down time after time, and god there were so many times, and the feel of K beneath him when he gained the upper hand - crowding over him and encompassing his entire frame - has his cock taking full interest now he was alone. It had been so damn long since he’d felt even close to being aroused that the rush of blood going south was making him dizzy.

He had no idea if K was Alpha or Omega, his smaller frame would make one lean to the latter, but his strength rivalled most Alphas he knew. It didn’t bother him though, it never had in the past. But to make his Alpha yield like that when sparring? A shiver of excitement ran through Shiro.

He placed his prosthetic forearm against the shower wall and leaned his head against it, the soothing heat of the water running over his back and if he focused enough, he could pretend it was K draped over him, his own breathless pants echoing around him as he slides a hand down his chest and stomach, teasing at the base of his cock where his knott would form before sliding up and down the length, slowly at first, the shower water wasn’t ideal for lube so he blindly reaches out for the neutraliser shower gel he still used despite his lack of scent, squirting a generous amount out before resuming his previous position.

The slick glide pulls a moan out of him and he can’t help remembering the flight, how K pushed him beyond his limits like he knew he could take it, to them sparring and not holding back by the end, how they seemed to move in perfect sync and Shiro couldn’t stop the thoughts of them in bed moving just the same, anticipating the others needs and meeting them.

He feels the same tingle kick back up in his head and mixed with him feeling the build up towards release, he tips over remembering K calling him big guy of all things, the orgasm so sudden it sends him sliding to his knees as the water starts to turn cold.

The cold is more refreshing than jarring against his heated skin, washing away his shame that he came thinking of K when he doesn’t even know his name; he’s not stupid, he knows it isn’t just ‘K’ and he was too distracted by the man himself to really question anything since he got to interact with him and found out he’s the pilot. The fact he also seems to lose all thought processes when around him doesn’t help things. He has questions he wants answers to, damnit.

He’s wrapped a towel around his waist and is towel drying his hair as he sits on his bed, giving Black a quick pet as she sprawls out like a little starfish, pulling out the journal and flipping to today’s date to write everything down.

His hands aren’t fully dry, they slip on the leather cover and as it falls out of his hands he goes to grab it but he doesn’t quite catch it, the tips of his fingers send it rolling like a cartwheel before landing on the spine and flopping open. Shiro laugh-sighs at his clumsy self as he stands to retrieve it, but bending down to pick it up, he clocks the page it’s open on and it makes him freeze.

It’s dated a couple weeks ago.

It’s similar to many other entries, brief mention of his workday trying to retain the information of an ever increasing Alliance and every member’s race and customs, noting how Matt cancelled meeting him at the gym.

But what really got his attention is at the bottom of the entry;

‘Find Red – very hot, very strong, ask about sword dance.’

He stares at it for a long moment before he’s quickly flipping through every entry after, notes at the bottom of days he’d have gone to the gym; ‘no Red today’ ‘No sign of Red, changed time?’

Until he finds one a week later;

‘Met Red in the gym again tonight, was a tongue tied idiot.
He was practicing sword dancing, made a cute remark about
them not letting him in with a real sword to practice with.
Think Matt scared him off…
                                                 …How did Red know my name?’

 

Shiro doesn’t remember writing these, he doesn’t remember who this Red person is and he’s cursing himself for not describing them in more detail or even trying to crudely draw him… he looks at his prosthetic, wondering if he’d be better or worse with it.

He does have the niggling suspicion that Red and K are one in the same though with that ‘very strong’ observation, and something twists in his stomach to realise he’d not only met him before and spoken to him, but he’d also forgotten him if so. It would explain the hesitancy he’d noticed; it must be strange meeting someone, talking to them, only for them to forget your entire existence the next time you meet.

He flips to the back of the journal, and finds a blank page, he roughly sketches out K’s face; he’d never really been an artist, but he’d sketched enough ship components to not be completely awful at it, he just wasn’t great with living things… like people… and faces… but what he’s done should be enough to re-jog his memory should he forget again…

He flips to today’s date and fills it out, including getting lost describing every single detail about K he can remember and blushing like a pre-teen with his first crush on a boy.

Entry filled in, he flips back to look at his crude drawing, feeling like he’s forgotten to add something but can’t pinpoint what before he sighs and puts it away to get ready for bed, wish he had colouring pencils to capture just how mesmerising K’s eyes were, a mix of deep blues and violet.

He’s quick to fall asleep thinking of how he could get one over on K next time with their sparring, again feeling the ache in his muscles from the physical pummelling they’d taken - it’s a good feeling. He lets out a content sigh as he slips into a deep slumber.

 

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

 

Shiro’s day feels like it’s moving at a snails’ pace; he woke up from a dream he doesn’t quite remember, but from the tent in his boxers, he can only imagine it was a fun one. Or it was just… morning wood… nothing more, nothing less.

He feels no shame taking care of it, at least until he’s remembering the sparring and how it switches between them being clothed on the training mats to being sweaty and naked on a bed. The ease in how he imagines it shocks him.

He lets himself get lost in it, he’s in the privacy of his own place – no one needs to know.

He imagines kneeling behind K, running his hands up and down his back as his cock is engulphed in tight wet heat, gripping onto his tiny waist once fully in. K would wiggle his hips and whine when he stays still too long, and Shiro leans down to lick against the back of his neck, teeth nipping and earning him a breathless moan.

Shiro is reaching the peak, he feels it building up and in his fantasy he’s kissing down uninterrupted skin, nosing at a scent gland behind Ks ear as he tilts his head so Shiro has better access.

Something tells Shiro to look, look at his neck, and he does just as he tips over the edge, his mouth opens to bite down, to claim, but something catches his eye on Ks neck; a bite mark already there, over his gland. A mate mark.

Shiro’s eyes snap open as he experiences a weird twisting pain in his chest. Never before has an orgasm been so thoroughly ruined - and by his own imagination at that.

Why would he think that? Why would he do that with someone else’s mate? Was… was K mated? He had to hold back his pathetic whine as he cleans up the mess he made on his stomach.

This thought swirls around Shiro’s head as he tries to go about his day. K had been wearing a long sleeve, high neck, base suit when they sparred, the material like a second skin to him, temperature regulating for when wearing things like a flight suit or even a spacesuit.

It didn’t matter to Shiro if K was mated, he’d feel incredibly guilty having used him twice as relief material no doubt, but he still wanted his friendship. There was just something about him that drew Shiro in, and he wanted to figure out what.

Shiro took his hoverbike off base to do some grocery shopping, waving to Frank as he went through the barrier, it’s only when he’s halfway to the bustling town he remembers about his little night trip and the need to speak to him about it.

Shiro is absently walking up and down the aisles, picking things up to put in his basket without really paying attention until he’s in the pet section and he picked up dog treats instead of cat ones, something he doesn’t realise until he’s checking out and instead of swapping them out, he rushes back to grab cat ones as well like a damn idiot.

He takes a slow ride back, and as he reaches the barrier, he slows further until he stops outside the security booth.

“Afternoon, Frank! How’s the wife n kids?” Shiro cheerfully starts up.

“Same old, same old, Shiro, what can I do for you?” Frank drawls with a Texan accent, eyes crinkle in a kind smile.

“Oh uh, nothing much… but um… do you remember when I went out the other night?” Shiro asks, looking a bit bashful that Frank clearly saw right through him when he gets a disgruntled hum, he clearly remembers the issue with the delivery truck Shiro had seen.

“Was there anyone else who went out on a hoverbike too, like mine?” He looked hopeful as Frank seemed to consider it.

“No, can’t say I recall. Not many like that here, most traded ‘em in for those newer, sleeker models like those old Italian mopeds from back in the day.” Frank chuckled, he’d long past retirement age and was just doing this part time as something easy to get a little extra on top of his retirement money.

“Oh, now that you mention it, there was some weird glitch just as that truck turned up, it was put down as a system error in the end.” He shrugs.  

“Huh, that is weird. Well, thanks Frank, enjoy the rest of your day!” And Frank is waving him off as he kicks back to continue reading his novel.

 

Shiro is unpacking when he finds the dog treats, shaking his head as he puts them on the counter; he’ll give them to Matt for his family dog, Bae Bae.

His little venture out hadn’t killed much time at all, it was barely mid-afternoon, and he wouldn’t see K until Monday at the earliest.

He figures he’ll do some cleaning; his laundry basket was looking pretty full.

Just as he’s in the laundry room putting in the detergent, he hears something fall in the kitchen and is ready to tell Black off for jumping on the counters but he passes his bedroom and she’s curled up on the end of the bed in full view of a sun beam, no chance of her moving any time soon though he watches her ears flick as if hearing something too.

Shiro still isn’t too concerned, maybe he just didn’t put something away properly? He hadn’t heard his door open and the only people who could open it are the Holts and they’d make themselves known… so unless someone had teleported into his apartment, it just had to be gravity doing its thing.

Except… he can hear snuffling sounds the closer he gets to his kitchen, along with some muffled pawing sounds. He stops outside the door and listens. He pushes it open when he hears an unmistakeable whine but when he steps inside, there isn’t anything in there. The box of dog treats are on the ground, slightly dented, as if something was trying to get into it.

Shiro waves away some dust motes out of his face and smells the weird metallic-y tang of ozone, like he’s just had a thunderstorm in his own kitchen, but the window isn’t open, and it isn’t even close to raining outside.

He gingerly nudges the box, not sure if he expected something to attack him or what, but he shakes his head and picks it up, trying to unbend the box best he can and places it back on the countertop, wondering if he should ask Katie for some hidden cameras.

He’d never bought into ghosts and other such things, but then he’d also never fully believed in aliens; hoped humans weren’t the only ones out there, sure, but what other specific catastrophic series of events would bring other life forms into the universe? Turns out it wasn’t so rare an occurrence as once thought.

He really has no explanation for what he just experienced, but whatever happened, has stopped. Shiro can only continue on his day like that weird little incident didn’t happen.

 

From the moment he got K’s number, he’d been trying to figure out a smooth way to start messaging him, but he was coming up blank.

He’s finished unloading the final wash load when his Padd pings, and he just about drops it when he sees ‘K’ flash up.

 

K :
Just checking I put your number in right - K

 

Shiro is almost kicking himself for not thinking of that first.

 

                                                                          Shiro :
                                                Hey, K, you did indeed
                                                how’s your day going?

 

Shiro holds his breath, hoping K was someone who’d be happy to chat over Padd.

 

K :
Going well, running errands so might
not reply too quickly. You?

 

Shiro can’t help the smile pulling at his cheeks.

Shiro tells K he’s been doing the same, leaving out the weird thing with the dog treats, instead offering his assistance to K but feels like he’s said the wrong thing when K doesn’t get back to him right way, though he literally just said he might not respond too quickly and tried not to feel the anxious pull in his stomach.

It’s half an hour later when he gets a response;

K :
Shit sorry, really had my hands full.
All good now though, thanks for the offer.

 

Shiro deflates a bit but is happy he hadn’t somehow scared him off. His Padd pings again with another message that makes his heart stupidly skip a beat.

 

K :
Maybe next time, big guy.

                                                                           Shiro :
                                                      I’ll hold you to that.

 

He’s back to smiling like a goofball, then he realises he can ask about the flight stuff, and maybe figure out where K works on base!

 

                                                                          Shiro :
                                    So when’s the next test flights?

K :
Haha eager to get back out, huh?

                                                                         Shiro :
                                                     Can you blame me?
                                 I can’t even go in the Flight Sim.

K :
Seriously? They still have you side lined?

 

Oh yeah, K definitely knew who he was. Shiro was about to type something back when another message pops up;

 

K:
…Have any plans tonight?

                                                                       Shiro :
                                                                          No…
                                   But I’m open to suggestions…

 

He bites his lip, was that too forward?

He doesn’t have long to wait before K is telling Shiro to meet him outside the Flight Sim room at 21:00.

Shiro looks at the time, it’s barely 5 o’clock.

What the hell could he do to kill time for four hours when his stomach suddenly explodes into butterflies? Tamping down the mantra trying to start up of ‘date, date, date!’ – he can’t stop the thoughts flying through his head, and if he’s reading it right, K is gonna sneak him into the flight sim on a Saturday night when no one is around. ‘Pretty date-y if you ask me’ his thoughts betray him.

He decides to do some home workouts, nothing too heavy since anything with any real weight to it is in the gym, but enough to shake off the nerves.

He showers, using some of the nice, scented stuff he never usually bothers with but hopes it’ll smell good to K and not be too noticeable with his lack of scent himself, and goes to make himself something light to eat when he finds the box of dog treats on the floor again. This time with one of the corners soggy like it had been chewed on.

“What the hell…” Shiro bends down and picks the box up, turning the wet corner to get a better look. This was getting too weird. He puts it on the two-seater dining table off to the side and keeps glancing at it while he makes himself a basic sandwich.

He stands in the kitchen, slowly eating it as he stares, daring the box to move again.

Just when he thinks he can move things with his mind, he catches sight of the clock on the wall and his stomach flips, could you blame him if he’s a bit early?

He just about runs to the sim room, trying not to be too disappointed he doesn’t spot K right away, giving a very manly squeak when tapped on the shoulder, ready to give some excuse as to why he, who is still red taped from flight sims, is outside said flight sim room.

Instead he finds K, hand over his mouth to stifle the laughter bubbling out of him as he also holds his stomach. Shiro's mouth goes dry taking in the ripped black wash jeans, a faded red band t-shirt and a black leather jacket that looks well-worn, if slightly too big for him, but it just works.

“Har har, very funny…” Shiro pouts after he probably stared too long, trying to hold in his own laugh in response to hearing K let loose, the sound really was music to his ears, he could listen to it all day.

K manages to pull his shit back together and places his hand on the reader, throwing Shiro a devastating grin over his shoulder as the door swooshes open to reveal a dark void of nothing.

The hairs along Shiro's arms stand on end, a strange electrical charge suddenly in the air. He looks to K who stands in the doorway with his arms folded, leaning back, and nods his head to go in with the smile never leaving his handsome face.

Shiro hesitates before stepping forward, jumping slightly when the lights start to come on, one by one, illuminating the oversized room for the flight sim pods on raised platforms.

It was different to how he last remembers it, and after another tiny hesitation, he looks back to K - who’s right behind him- before he makes his way over and climbs the stairs of one to get in.

Inside has two seats and looks similar to the MFE aircraft they’d flown in. K scoots past, unable to avoid brushing up against Shiro, and takes the seat behind, tapping the one in front for Shiro to park his butt in. He takes a deep breath before pulling closed the outside door, plunging them briefly into darkness again before the screens and consoles light up. Shiro gasps at how similar it is to the real thing, screens domed overhead to mimic the overhead hatch, and K is leaning around to tap things into a control panel.

“Any requests, Commander?” K says it too soft, a gentle quirk to his lips like they’ve done this routine countless times as he regards Shiro, that funny chest clench hitting him again and the tingle in the back of his head makes itself known, but Shiro can’t focus on those right now, not when K is looking at him expectantly.

‘So many requests…’ Shiro thinks, shaking the thought away with a slight blush before he thinks back to his past training in one of these Sim Pods, and figures K’s asking what level to start him on.

“What would you recommend, uh… K…” Shiro trails off. He was about to call him cadet. That tingle pulses. Shit, what does that mean?

K slowly taps something in, carefully watching Shiro before sliding back into his seat behind him.

Shiro looks at the controls before him, they seem simple enough really, stick in front to control it, a gear box of sorts on the left.

The screens showing ‘outside’ flicker and change in a rolling wave to show the barren canyons beyond the airfield.

“You’re not going to start us in space?” Shiro calls behind him, very clearly remembering dodging meteorites in the previous sim.

“Baby steps...” He gets chuckled back in return.

Shiro lets out an amused huff, hiding the smile as he starts.

He’s just dipping and diving in the deep canyon, twisting and turning and just going at his own pace, getting a feel for it.

K pulls a screen towards him and a few taps later, he tells Shiro to pull up. Finally.

They’re passing through the atmosphere with unnatural ease until a familiar meteorite minefield lays before them.

“Now lets see if you can beat my score, old timer.” He hears the taunt for what it is; a challenge.

“And what’ll I get if I do, huh?” Shiro asks, the prize has to be worth the effort, after all.

K seems to debate it, tapping away on a screen when “LEVEL 1” flashes in front of them.

“You can ask for anything, whatever you want.” He finally answers.

Shiro has never been so motivated.

Which is why it was almost physically painful when several hours later, he still hadn’t beaten the top score. He felt answers and opportunities slipping from between his fingers when a surprise meteorite appears, the levels having some random scattering to avoid people just practicing the same movements, but he’d actually gotten further than this on his last run. Still, no top spot, no prize. He’ll have to settle for second place.

K seems to take pity on him, sensing the utter dejection filling the enclosed space, it almost pulls a whine from him, and Shiro misses how he grips the seats arm rests to stop himself from comforting Shiro.

“Second would still get you a silver medal, so it’s still worthy of something…” K trails off, pushing the button to open the door and non-too subtly rushing out to breathe in the less constricting air.

Shiro slowly climbs out after him, sad puppy dog eyes threatening to undo K.

“Oh don’t you dare level me with those, mister.” K scoffs, trying to hide a laugh.

“You can… uh… ask me one question.” K nods to himself, that should be a safe enough route.

Shiro seems to light up at this, questions tumble over each other in his mind but they all seem a bit too personal and very forward for someone he’s just getting to know, “Um… I guess… what is it you do here?”

K almost lets his sigh of relief out, instead he tells Shiro something that makes him splutter.

“Hmm I do a bit of everything I guess, but I work in the hanger right now.” K smirks.

“What!? When? I’ve been going ever since…” Shiro cuts off, blushing, he was about to blurt out ever since he saw him working on something but he was kinda spying on him from the shadows.

“You never looked UP.” And K leaves it at that, walking out the training room with a stuttering Shiro hot on his heels.

“Good night, Shiro. Maybe see you in there during the week, hmm?” and he’s waving Shiro off as he quick walks down the corridor, opposite way to Shiro's own place of residence, making Shiro wonder where K stayed if it wasn’t in the Officers side of the residents' compound; everyone who worked here was given a room.

Shiro is just stood staring long after he’s gone while his brain replays what he’s seen in the hanger...

Monday, I can do that Monday…

 

He’s still slightly amped up from his time together with K, he can’t help it when he gets into bed after writing down everything before trying to sleep, for his mind to drift back to their sparing match for the soundtrack of pants and grunts from K as his hands drift south.

His fantasy has him pulling K with him to his room, he’s wearing what he wore tonight, and Shiro is stripping him of every layer piece by piece as he walks him backwards through his apartment. They’re locked in a kiss and as they break for air, Shiro starts littering little kisses and nibbles along K’s jaw and attempts to go down his neck, reminding him of last time.

K had been wearing scent patches tonight, too, despite it being outside working hours, and with his leather jacket over the top, he couldn’t get a good look at his neck, so he was still unsure if he had a Mate or not.

He refocuses back into his make-believe world and trails kisses back up to recapture those taunting lips as K’s legs open for him to nestle between, the vivid way he can almost feel the slick heat as he pushes his way in is just as shocking as before. He can’t stop the guttural growl leaving him as he cums, despite the potential guilt he’ll feel after.

Next time we spar, I’ll get a good look…

 

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

 

Shiro dreams of his days in the Garrison, he hears news of his records being not just broken but obliterated by some new fresh-faced cadet. Instead of being mad, angry or even annoyed by this… he feels proud.

He’s on his way to meet them, they have their usual meeting spot after all, but the closer he gets, the louder a rattling noise is. It takes Shiro far too long to recognise it as purring.

He’s about to go through the doors to the roof when instead of opening into the midday sunny rooftop of the Garrison’s main building, he’s walking into a never-ending void of space.

He tries to take a step back, to leave, run back through the door… but it’s vanished.

He starts to panic, looking around frantically for any way out but he runs for what feels like hours in every direction and finds nothing.

He can hear his heart pounding in his ears, and something else… the purring.

It helps centre him, if he can focus on it, Black will guide him home.

He starts to walk, changing course when the purr begins to fade – not that way.

Eventually it starts to get louder, he’s unable to hear anything else but the purring.

The more he walks, the more he thinks he’s hearing things amongst the soothing vibration, distorted words that sound like they’re flying past him, too quick to catch, whispers on the wind.

“…here…” the word is in sharp contrast to everything else, Shiro's steps falter.

“…I’m here…” He looks around, he can’t pinpoint what direction it’s coming from.

“…I will never give up on you.” Shiro feels tears sting his eyes, the purring kicks back up tenfold, he almost doesn’t hear the final words as a sharp pain in his chest pulls him from the depths…

“…As many times as it takes...”

 

Shiro wakes with a startled gasp, a heavy weight on his chest, and he thinks he can’t actually breathe for a second until his eyes focus on the dark fuzzball clawing at him. The sudden jolt making Black scramble off him.

Shiro thunks his head back onto the pillows, eyes closed, catching his breath as he rubs at the fresh claw marks stinging his chest.

“…As many times as it takes...”

He rubs at his face, startled to find he’d been crying. No wonder Black woke him up.

His eyes feel too heavy, he doesn’t fight it when sleep pulls him back under.

 

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

 

Sunday has Shiro in kind of a daze, and he fears he’s losing his mind.

He woke up still feeling giddy from the night before, K snuck him into the flight sim! He broke so many rules for Shiro, and he really hopes nothing bad comes of it for K.

As Shiro is making his morning cup of coffee, he notices the dog treats box is completely gone from his kitchen. Cool. Nice. Okay. That’s fine, totally fine.

That’s future Shiro problem? Yeah. That guy can figure …all of that… out.

He turns to look out the window above his sink, it doesn’t overlook much what with them being smack dab in the middle of the desert, but it’s not the worst view! He could be living in one of the old cities that mostly survived the wars and be looking right into someone else’s apartment.

It’s while he’s quietly sipping the hot drink that he begins to hear it. A faint purr. He just assumes Black is snoozing on the sofa close by but again with the damn brain tingles. It was starting to be annoying when they don’t explain themselves like they had been doing in his dreams, leaving him with more questions than answers.

He’s starting to get that urge to get out and do something, so he puts his cup in the sink and decides to spend the day in the town nearby, see what new shops had opened up or if that construction site he’d spotted has finally got a sign up to say what it’s going to be; it wouldn’t be long before the town turns into a tiny city at the rate it was growing.

He shoots Matt a message if he wants to come with, he hasn’t seen him in a few days and misses his stupid face, but he goes unread, by the time Shiro is dressed and pulling on his jacket, Matt finally replies that he’s already got plans but ‘next time for sure!’

He’s in the hanger, taking the tarp off his hoverbike when he remembers K telling him to look up next time he’s in here but all he sees is the usual structure beams crisscrossing for stability, no second floor, not even a platform.

Shiro, puzzled by the cryptic words from K, shrugged it off for later and took a leisurely ride into town, going further than the small grocery store on the edge to find an underground parking lot for him to secure his hoverbike in.

He’s walking down the streets at the sparkly new buildings, clothes stores and home wares taking little interest, passing by a pet shop and coo-ing at the animals in the window who perk up excitedly when he stops to look.

The building under construction turns out to be a cinema, and despite its outside structure seemingly finished, the fencing is still up but it now sports an opening date for the following week and a list of movies available to buy tickets for now, none of them seem to catch Shiro's eye except the announcement that on Friday’s they’ll be doing an all-night retro film marathon where you turn up at 6pm and stay all night right through to 6am, Pj’s encouraged like it’s one big sleepover.

For some reason that makes Shiro's chest clench and he’s agitated at not knowing the reason why. Did he used to do these in his missing years? He doesn’t remember having sleep overs as a kid because of his illness, but he would have loved to have invited friends over for movie nights and pizza. Maybe he’d finally found people to do that with. Or someone.

He’d started walking again, absently rubbing at his chest as he tries to picture him and Matt watching films on the Holts sofa, and while it doesn’t feel totally out the realms of possibility, he can’t help feeling the setting was wrong.

The smell of coffee and baked goods floats to him and he’s looking up to a café across the street on the corner, as if the sun itself is lighting the way.

He steps through the door; a small bell chiming and he feels an odd sense of calm as he steps in line and looks over the menu boards.

Shiro places an order for some over the top sweet concoction and a cinnamon swirl to eat in and he quickly looks around for a seat, his eyes landing on a familiar face.

“Hey, um… Hunk, right?” Shiro says, seeming to catch the guy by surprise.

“S-Shiro! Yeah!? I-is everything… okay?” Hunk stammers out, glad he’d already swallowed his mouthful of food or Shiro is sure he’d be performing the Heimlich manoeuvre on him.

Shiro nods, “Yeah, it’s all good, do you mind if I sit?” He asks, standing slightly awkwardly.

Hunk seems hesitant, looking around nervously with a chuckled “s-sure?” leaving him.

Shiro slides into the booth seating across from Hunk just as one of the barista’s comes over with his drink, placing it down with the sweet treat, Shiro thanks her.

“Sooo… what’s up?” Hunk asks, visibly sweating, his scent overpowering the small space and telling Shiro he’s nervous.

Shiro doesn’t know what to say, hadn’t really thought that far ahead; he’d just seen a familiar face – sort of – and walked over without fully thinking it through.

He ends up saying as much to Hunk who perks up when he says about a familiar face, his scent fading into something akin to happy and… hopeful?

“Oh, I still haven’t uh… remembered you… sorry…” Shiro trails off, “I just kinda remember that night in the mess hall… Oh but I did remember something, it tends to come to me in dreams though…” He takes a sip of the sweet coffee in front of him, humming appreciatively at the taste.

“What did you remember?” Hunk has got his serious face on as he takes the words in.

The bell above the door rings again, jolting Hunk as he whispers out an “oh no” and Shiro turns to look, seeing Katie frozen in place along with a couple he doesn’t recognise behind her, the guy walks into her going “Pidge, what the hell?” and suddenly Shiro is clenching at his head.

“Shiro!” gets shouted, and Katie- no, Pidge- is stood before him, the couple rushing along with her.

“Allura, do something!” She’s begging, Shiro guesses this Allura person is a doctor or something in the medic field.

“I-I’m fine, j-just… brain freeze, it’s nothing…” Shiro tries to wave them off, but a beautiful woman steps forward with her hand reaching out, she brushes his hand away and places it against his forehead, it’s refreshingly cool against his heated skin and the pain suddenly ebbs away.

Along with the world around him.

 

 

 

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

 

 

Shiro's work alarm wakes him Monday morning, but for the first time, he hits snooze. He’s usually already awake when it goes off, and he’d often wondered why he sets it, but now he guesses this must be the reason.

His head feels fuzzy and waking up feels like he’s trying to swim through syrup. He’s trying to remember if he went out drinking on a Sunday night of all nights.

There’s a glass of water and some tablets next to him on the dresser – yup, guess he went drinking and over did it. He’d have to thank Matt for bringing his stupid ass home unless he’s also in the same state. He hopes so.

It goes off again five minutes later and he pulls himself up, downs the tablets with the entire glass and takes it into the kitchen. He’s weirdly getting used to the ozone smell he keeps picking up around his apartment, the fact Black hasn’t been making a fuss this entire time makes him feel like whatever it is isn’t a malevolent thing, so far it’s only taken dog treats. He’ll have to pick some more up, maybe leave them in a bowl. Shiro shakes his head at the idea, ghost dog? Sure, why not.

Shiro gets to his office and slumps down into his chair, a notification on his work Padd waiting for him.

Katie :
Matt said he told you about the Blades, so here…

 

A folder’s attached with shockingly very little information but what he does read make sense as to why there isn’t much information shared. But the files have huge chunks of redacted crossed out sections and some pages were nearly all blacked out.

The Blades of Marmora helped bring down Emperor Zarkon, the members are known as ‘Blades’ and their mantra was “Knowledge or Death” - a variation to the old Galra Empire’s saying, Victory or death.

They’re Earths closest allies, though it doesn’t say why.

It’s clear this isn’t an ‘official’ file on them, instead it must be what the Holt gremlin siblings deemed safe for him to know.

There’s a picture attached of their leader, Kolivan, standing next to another blade member in full getup, mask n all, and Shiro has to do a double take.

Sure, it’s only from the front, but if he was seeing the style of their uniform right, then he saw a Blade in the mess hall not too long ago.

Maybe that was why he’d attempted to go over to them, if he worked with them at all then he’d know the uniform.

The blade at their hip catches his attention next, and although the picture wasn’t close up, he felt like he knew the symbol glowing on the hilt but had no idea where he’d seen it.

He’s learnt all he can from this scrap of information, so he puts it to one side and brings up the list of alliance members he still needs to brush up on. He’s got the information up about the Olkari, and any other day he’d be fascinated to learn about their technology advances but he’s just not feeling in the mood, the headache he’d woken up with hasn’t fully gone, so he decides to take a walk to the hanger and see what it is K meant now that there’d be people there.

He arrived a little before lunch time, greeting people who noticed him with a wave and trying not to make it too obvious he was looking up.

He really couldn’t see anything, not until he’d walked towards the hanger doors and looked back; a leg was dangling down and swinging. As he walked to see around the beam, there was K, one knee up with a drawing pad resting against it, headphones on and K was in the blue overalls he’d seen him in before. Huh.

As if sensing eyes on him, K looks over and smirks, giving Shiro a mock salute before getting up and walking along the beams as if he wasn’t in imminent danger of falling with one wrong step.

Shiro looks around, no one else had seen or were even paying him attention, and when the clock hit on the hour and a sound alerted everyone, they started packing up and heading out. Shiro losing sight of K.

“Whatcha doin’, old timer?” comes from behind Shiro, making him jump and spin around, K biting his bottom lip to hold in the laugh as he has his hands in his pockets looking entirely too casual.

“You scared the ever-loving crap out of me, you know that? That’s twice now…” Shiro grumbles. “And I uh… figured you’d maybe want to uh… grab lunch?”

K shrugs a shoulder, “I could eat.” But instead of leading them to the mess hall, he’s… leading Shiro around the crates he hides his hoverbike behind. Of course he knows it’s there… Shiro thinks.

He doesn’t say anything as he watches K lift off the tarp, running a hand over the body with an overly fond look on his face before he masks his expression and looks back to Shiro.

“Found this, figured we could hotwire it n take her for a spin, I know a place.” And Shiro knows he’s joking, but he can’t help the look of pure indignation crossing his features at the idea of K pulling wires out of his baby.

“You will do no such thing!” he gasps, pulling the key out of his pocket, one of few things he always makes sure he has on him, you know, in case of emergencies.

K is holding back another laugh, he can tell. Shiro gets on, gesturing for K to hop on behind him and he’s pulling up the goggles Shiro hadn’t noticed from around his neck.

Shiro pulls his own on before they’re gently manoeuvring around the crates and slowly sneaking it behind the trucks lined up for their servicing, making sure the blinds don’t move from the Junior Officers room once they’re past the last truck and there’s a short stretch of uncovered space.

Gregg doesn’t even look up from his little TV screen as they fly past him, just hitting the button to say it’s an allowed exit before going back to the football game playing on screen.

K tells Shiro to head towards town, and it’s all Shiro can do to listen as he feels the warmth of K pressed up against his back, arms holding tight around his waist and hands flat on his stomach over his Garrison uniform and prays to whatever deity is listening that K can’t feel how fast his heart is racing at the touch - especially when the wind is too much for them to speak over so K instead rests his cheek against Shiro's back, he might even feel a satisfied hum but that could just be the bikes vibrations in response to having two people upon it. He hopes it’s the former.

It takes Shiro some time before he realises his headache and the lethargic drag to his limbs have all but gone.

When they get closer to civilisation, K perks back up, leaning to rest his chin over a shoulder so he can speak into Shiro's ear, making him shiver the first time and his ears tinge red, pretending his reaction to lean in closer is a need to just hear him better. K’s nose and lips brush over his ear when he makes a turn and fuck, he has to bite his lip not to moan and is thankful K can’t see his face, more embarrassed with how sensitive his ears apparently are.

He directs him off the main road and takes them down some side streets, eventually telling him to pull over and park outside of a diner. It’s a retro looking thing, and it’s like they’ve stepped back in time when they enter with music playing from a refurbished jukebox all lit up with neon lights.

A waitress appears at the end of their booth and it takes Shiro a moment to realise she’s wearing honest to Kami roller-skates. She takes their drinks order and skates off.

Shiro is enchanted by the place, and K hides his smile behind the menu cards they were given, telling Shiro there’s all sorts of places like this if you knew where to look.

Which of course, K does. He promises to show Shiro something special to make up for the slight sting of K cancelling that night’s spar session, but it’s for good reason and he hints the night flights might be happening soon but can’t say for sure.

Shiro tries to make it less obvious he’s seeking K out by going to the mess hall for lunch the next few days, but he’d still somehow bump into him in the corridors, noticing him either in his blue overalls or his skin-tight base suit for flights and Shiro has to hold himself back from looking behind him to watch K walk away.

Shiro goes to the gym on his planned days but when he realises K isn’t there, and Matt is still a no-show, he goes into auto pilot, not finding as much fun as he used to when there isn’t a promise of sparing at the end with someone more capable than a limp noodle.

The last working day of the week, Shiro times it just right to arrive in the hanger as everyone is filtering out for lunch, but he doesn’t see that foot dangle, instead he’s surprised to find K waiting on the hoverbike ready to go.

Today he makes Shiro park outside of a botanical garden, and as they walk through, the atmosphere begins to feel familiar in a way Shiro hadn’t felt in… quite some years.

They step through a slightly propped open circular red wooden door and onto a busy strip of street. Dotted between shops were varying food bars, each one either selling ramen bowls or some kind of food on a stick, another just for drinking.

They walk down, admiring the architecture of the buildings, the hanging décor of paper lanterns and the fabric curtains to help give the few patrons sat at the bars a small bit of privacy from the bustling street behind them, before settling into one for ramen bowls.

“Thought you might like a real taste of home” K says after ordering a bowl for each of them in fluent Japanese, throwing Shiro for a loop.

“You’re full of surprises” is the only response he can think of, and K shoots him a smirk and a look as if to say, ‘you don’t know the half of it’ and Shiro ducks his head as a blush stains across his face, their shoulders brushing because of the small space – If he feels K lean into him, he doesn’t mention it, the warmth through the contact helps relax him in ways he can’t fully reason why, the weeks little stresses melting away.

As always, the conversation flows easily between them, they talk about everything – Shiro learns things about K without him outright telling him – and they both have another bowl of noodles each before taking a leisurely ride back, Shiro would say the slow pace was because he’d eaten too much if questioned, but K seemed just as content with the speed.

They’re going back to base the main road way when they’re stopped at a red light right outside the grand opening signs for the cinema complex, and Shiro has a weird sense of déjà vu when he looks at the announcement for Friday slumber party screenings.

K sees him looking, “Did you want to go?” he offers, watching Shiro startle out of his thoughts and bashfully say no, none of the movies offered looked too interesting. They’re picking up speed so it seems to end the conversation there until they’re sneaking in the hoverbike around the hustle and bustle of people working – it wasn’t like it was an illegal vehicle, Shiro just didn’t want people bugging him to ride it because that would be a sure fire way to figure out it was heavily modified, which was illegal without the proper license.

“I’ve got a few movies you might find interesting; they’re space adventure themed if you wanted to borrow them.” K tells Shiro as they’re pulling the tarp over, picking the conversation back up from earlier.

“O-oh? Sure…” Shiro trails off, getting tongue tied at the thought of them watching a move together in a dark room, sharing popcorn, maybe even a blanket… shit, he doesn’t have a blanket…

“Okay, I’ll bring them over tomorrow evening, I’ve actually got some work to do this weekend…” K trails off, slightly annoyed look on his face which Shiro wrongly assumes is due to working on a weekend.

“Cool, it’s a date!” The words leave Shiro's mouth before he fully registers them, suddenly blushing and stammering out “I- I mean, um… y-you, m- I’ll see you tomorrow!” And Shiro hightails it out of there to the blissful sound of K laughing at his expense.

Shiro hides in his office the rest of the afternoon till it was time to head home, and if he pokes his head out to check both ways around corners to avoid further embarrassment for the day, no one is around to see it.

 

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Saturday drags, there’s only so many times you can fluff up the sofa cushions – once before to check for comfort, another after wondering when they were last washed and hurrying to throw everything into the washer/dryer, then after making sure they were fully dried, refluffed n placed back on the sofa.

He then realises he doesn’t have a bowl for popcorn… or popcorn for that matter.

So off he shoots to the grocery store on the edge of town, wondering if he should try his hand at cooking something after grabbing every type of popcorn; sweet, salty, sweet and salty, cinnamon dusted etc when he’s found himself back down the pet isle and he pauses at the dog food section. He hadn’t had any more strange things happen since the whole box up and vanished beyond smelling that ozone scent sometimes and it’s making him wonder if it’s to do with the air filters instead… well, he has to test his theory, so he’s grabbing another box of dog treats and heading to the checkout before he talks himself out of it.

Remembering he doesn’t even have a bowl to put the popcorn in, Shiro walks down the street to the home wares store and walks through the textiles to get to kitchen supplies. He notices some goofy throw pillows; ones about space, one being his favourite constellation so of course he has to buy them, along with a couple of super fluffy blankets he’s sure Black will end up getting more use out of than him but it’s better than not having any blankets at all – he’d have had to drag his bed cover out to use and he realises that might not be too proper given he is still an Alpha and if K turns out to be an Alpha too then it might be seen as some territorial marking bullshit and that’s the last thing he wants to do.

He finally makes his way to grab some big dome bowls that should fit more than enough popcorn in for two and heads home, having to awkwardly hug the bag of squishy new items since they wouldn’t fit in the storage compartment. Gregg just raises an eyebrow, pushing the approved entry button without taking his eyes off him as he flies past.

Shiro is trying to stealthily sneak through the halls with his new stash when he hears footsteps and is thankfully just outside his own office door, so he hides inside and waits for whoever it is to pass by, ear to the door.

When he thinks they’re gone, he pokes his head out and is momentarily stunned to see a Blade member walking alongside Matt, he’s slightly shorter than his best friend but their aura is so much more imposing.

He must gasp or make some sort of noise, as the Blade stops and turns, Shiro getting a quick glimpse of their two glowing eyes on their mask before hoping he’d ducked out of view just in time.

“What’s wrong?” Matt’s asking, having kept walking and stopped a pace ahead.

A distorted “nothing, you were saying?” comes through, and Matt is going off on how annoying the whole thing is going to be, but they’re out of earshot before Shiro learns just what is going to be annoying.

The rest of his journey back is event free, and as soon as he’s through the doors, he puts the new furnishings into the wash ready for later, the new blankets should be done just in… wait, K hadn’t specified a time… Shiro thinks back, cringing at his past self for his poor choice of words but definitely not recalling K saying anything but ‘tomorrow evening’. Shit. Well that could be any time from… 5pm onwards, right?

He decides to order food in for about half 6, that way it’s not too late and unless K shows up well into the dark hours of the evening, it should still be warm if he wanted any. He’s slightly distracted with the popcorn instructions so he knows what to do later on while putting his order in, opting to just “reorder last order” when it suggests it and he doesn’t bother checking.

He hasn’t heard a peep from K, no matter how many times he checks his Padd, and when his door chimes at a little past 6:45pm, he opens it expecting to greet the delivery guy with his takeaway order, but instead K is standing there looking a little flushed and confused, his food order in one hand and a small case in the other.

“Wh- um… special delivery?” K laughs, “I turned up at the same time and the guy just… handed it to me, so here you go I guess!” and K is just standing there, handing them over and making no move to come inside.

“There’s enough movies to keep you entertained for a while on there, I put a few non-space adventure ones on just in case you needed a break from all the space vibes but let me know if you want anything else, should be easy enough to hook up to your TV,” And when Shiro continues to look between his now full hands and K, utterly distracted by how dishevelled and hot he looks (and not just literally like he ran here right after whatever it was that he had to do today) so he’s saying nothing as Shiro.exe reboots, K raises his eyebrows in an ‘okaaaay’ gesture and says “well, looks like you’ve got a good night ahead of you so I’ll be…” and nods his head, with his thumb pointing back the way he must have come, turns and starts to leave.

“W-wait! I thought… aren’t you going to come in?” Shiro almost falls over taking a step out to stop K.

K freezes and turns back, his hands had gone into his jacket pockets and Shiro watches them pull the jacket together in front of him before K looks up, “are you sure?” he asks, seeming hesitant, like he really did just expect to drop off some movies for Shiro to sit and watch on his own with a takeout bag that weighs about the same as his cat. That he’s guilty of giving a little extra food to every now and then.

Shiro sends him a half smile of relief, breathing out “of course!” and steps back inside so K can walk in.

“I definitely ordered too much food for just me so… you’ll have to help me out with it really, it’s only fair.” Shiro says as he walks to put the bag of food down on his coffee table before subtly fluffing the pillows again as K takes off his shoes and jacket by the door.

He’s wearing some relaxed ripped jeans and plain red t-shirt with a teasing V neck as he takes it upon himself to plug the drive in with the movies.

Shiro pops back into his kitchen to grab some chopsticks and bowls for the food, making sure Black has also been fed. He sees the dog treats in the cupboard when he’s putting her food back and bites his lip debating getting one out to try his experiment… no, he shouldn’t, if K came in here and saw some random dog treat on the floor, he’d have to explain things. And he didn’t really have an explanation, not a sane one, at least.

He walks back with the bowls and utensils to find K sat on the sofa at one end, scrolling through the films on the drive while absently removing the food containers out the bag to spread them over the coffee table.

“What would you recommend we start with?” Shiro asks, taking the other end, it was a three-person sofa so there was a whole couch cushion between them which might as well have felt like five. But he respected the distance, he’d invited K into his home, he’d let him set the pace.

K thanks Shiro for the bowl and set of chopsticks he hands him, Shiro tries not to be a blushing idiot when their hands touch, quickly digging into the bag for the rest of the food before putting it to one side to use as a makeshift bin.

“Well, it depends how many you want to watch in one sitting, because there’s a trilogy of films that has the first two ending on cliff-hangers, so you’re gonna want to watch them all in one go, but it’ll take you into the early hours.”

“Well it’s a good thing we don’t have work tomorrow, right?” Shiro responds, now taking off the container lids to see exactly what it is he’s ordered, nose scrunching up adorably when he realises he’s ordered things he wouldn’t have thought to, not fully realising he’s implying K stay very late.

“O-oh I mean um… if you wanted to, don’t feel like you need to stay longer than you’re comfortable… I know I don’t put out any sort of scent so I guess it can be a bit weird coming into an almost scent-void environment…” Shiro is very focused on picking out portions of food and putting them into his bowl, ignoring the memories he wished he could forget of when he overheard people saying how disorientating it was being around someone with no scent, like they were almost less-than a person and nothing more just an object.

K shifts next to him, Shiro thinking he just made things really awkward, but he hears K mumble “but you do have a scent…” and he’s looking over to K who’s leaning forward, mid food grab, into confused eyes, an adorable furrow to his brows that makes Shiro want to rub his thumb between to smooth it out.

“I do?” He whispers, shocked. Not even his sweatiest workouts left him smelling of anything, a fact even Matt had grumbled about, so he never saw the point in wearing scent patches which got itchy during workouts.

“Y-yeah, it’s subtle, but it’s there…” K’s looking nervous, like he’s shouldn’t have said anything, and goes back to picking up more food into his bowl before leaning back and bringing his knees up like he’s protecting his food, hitting play on the TV remote, sound blasting out the speakers at the studio intro music.

“Shit sorry… when did I have it so loud?” Shiro bashfully scratches the back of his head when K startles and turns the volume down to a reasonable level.

“Don’t worry about it…” K muffles, shovelling food into his mouth.

“Oh um, did you want a drink? I’m sure I have a couple beers or something Matt left here…” Shiro is quickly up and in the kitchen, relieved to see most of a six-pack left on a shelf, grabbing them both one. If he’d known he’d be this nervous and awkward, he’d have gotten something better, stronger, when he was out. Damn it. Wait should he put scent patches on if he’s actually releasing scents? Fuck.

He hands K the opened beer, who offers it up to clink with a more relaxed smile towards Shiro.

The intro is quiet, Shiro settled back on the sofa having taken a big gulp of his own beer.

“You didn’t answer my question, what movie did you go for?” Shiro stage whispers, just as writing appears on screen.

“It’s that trilogy set I mentioned - group of friends go into space to return a sword to its origin as it’s made from meteorite; it corrupts whoever wields it but nothing from Earth is strong enough to destroy it so they have to search in space.” K trails off as the music picks up.

Shiro immediately points out a plot hole. “Why can’t they just… send it into the sun…”

K looks at him with a smirk, “That’d be too easy, you’ll see why they can’t though.”

As they pick their way through the food, Shiro notices the food he’d ordered that he wouldn’t have on his own, K was very happily devouring, only grabbing the odd thing from the ones Shiro touched.

The first film flew by; the sword was discovered in a newly revealed cave after an earthquake by a group of friends and it formed a bond with the person who touched it first, the bond only broken upon their death, but once their friend group realised it was corrupting him, they tried to pry it away from him only for him to scream in pain, blood leaking from his ears – so no throwing it into the sun unless they wanted to also kill their friend.

They found out it wasn’t just some passing meteorite but was brought here from a distant planet, so they had to somehow either highjack a cargo ship or hide in the back and hitch a free ride to the space port and figure it out from there.

The film ended when they discovered there was a cursed princess trapped inside the sword.

Shiro was enthralled when the credits rolled, K looked smug as Shiro made a huff at the credits, “don’t worry, big guy, next one is ready to go, why don’t we clean up.” Shiro couldn’t argue with that.

They put empty containers in the bag and resealed the few with food remaining, putting them in his fridge, Shiro grabbing another couple beers and asking which popcorn K preferred, making him laugh at the selection he’d bought that afternoon spread out on his kitchen counter like his very own sweet shop.

“Um, cinnamon dusted? I’ve never tried it but that sounds pretty good.” Shiro would agree to anything to hear that laugh again.

He sets it going in the microwave under K’s supervision as he goes to check on the blankets.

He drapes them both over the back of the sofa just as K comes out with the bowl full of some sweet-smelling popcorn. He places it down in the middle of the sofa, curling up as if to face Shiro's side but he just rests his head on his arm propped up on his knee, easy reaching for the popcorn.

Shiro tries to slyly imitate, folding a leg flat on the cushion and turning to K, arm bent across the back of the sofa as he shovels tiny amounts into his mouth at a time.

It’s about twenty minutes into the movie when Black jumps up, almost knocking the bowl of already half-eaten popcorn if it weren’t for Shiro's quick reflex.

“Ah shit, sorry about her, did I mention I’ve got a cat? Um, meet Black - I know, I know, super original…” he misses the slight wide eyed look K gives him, too distracted keeping her away from the bowl. “Black, down girl, this is K…” he scoops her up under her fluffy belly and turns her to look at K, little feet dangling in the air.

He gets a head tilt and a “purrrow?” in response.

K chuckles, mimicking the action before bringing a finger up to scratch under her chin. “Who’s a pretty kitty, huh?” he coos at her, she’s quick to melt into his touch. Shiro is not jealous of his cat, damnit.

“Oh wow… she isn’t usually so… affectionate… with strangers. It took her weeks to warm up to Matt, and even then she still bolts under my bed to begin with when he’s around...” Shiro's heart clenches fondly as he sets Black down and she practically climbs into K’s lap as he now sits mimicking how Shiro sat with one leg bent on the sofa, using both hands to fuss her with.

The movie – that’s still playing – makes a loud noise, and K is quick to rewind it and pause.

“Uh… we can’t leave the bowl unattended, I’m gonna have to keep it on my lap… so you might need to scoot over if you um… want any…” Shiro says, blushing up to his ears but thankfully they’d turned the lights down to a nice moody ambiance now they’re not eating the takeaway food, so he hopes it isn’t too visible.

K looks to the cat settled down in his lap. “Don’t think I can, I’ve been claimed.” He chuckles.

Shiro's mind instantly latches on to that last word, and he can’t help but look over K’s neck, scent patches in place and the t-shirt neckline not giving him any peaks at the edges – a scent patch wouldn’t fully cover a bite mark.

“So you’ll just have to scootch on over then, hmm?” K looks up at him, catching Shiro staring and his blush deepens as he does as requested, Black looking over to him and stretches a leg out so it’s touching his thigh. He can’t help smiling at his silly cat.

“Ready?” K says, holding the remote. Shiro nods and they go back to the film, K absently petting Black the entire time, occasionally a hand drifts over to pick up popcorn and their hands touch, and Shiro honestly loses all sense of what’s going on in the film when he’s trying to look at K out the corner of his eye.

There’s something about finding the space witch that put the curse on the princess in the blade, Shiro thinks there’s something about how she’s the last of her people? But he really doesn’t know. There’s a big escape fight scene with lasers pew-pewing and the movie ends with them crash landing on a planet.

As the credits roll, K looks at the time, “I really should get going…” but he doesn’t make a move to remove Black from his lap, utterly deep asleep with an ear flicking and whiskers twitching.

“Mmm don’t think you can, like you said, Black has uh… c-claimed you as sleeping spot. She’d never forgive you for waking her up, you know.” Shiro knows it’s a lame ass excuse to make someone stay, but K seems to genuinely consider his options.

“You are absolutely right. I’d also never forgive myself.” He jokes, “but I will seriously have to go after the next one, I can’t put you out like that…” and he’s looking at Shiro from under his bangs with a shy blush dusting his cheeks that Shiro most definitely can’t see in the low lighting, no sir.

“I understand your valiant sacrifice, though you are more than welcome to sleep here, I really don’t mind. Truly.” He’s whispering, if only because he doesn’t want to disturb Black.

K nods, a small smile staying in place while he gets the final instalment ready to play, Shiro takes the empty bowl and beer bottles and bring them back just some glasses of water.

Shiro isn’t sure how far into the final film they get before he hears some light snoring to his left. K had leant against the back of the sofa and had fallen asleep. The movie volume was down low since it was nearly 2am, so it became nothing but background noise as he now had free reign to look at K as much as he wanted.

K shivered slightly, a frown appearing when he made a disgruntled sound but just seemed to snuggle deeper into the blanket against his cheek. Shiro carefully pulls one of the blankets from under him, the one below just as fluffy and snuggly and carefully drapes it around him, trying not to jostle them both too much. K lets out a content huff before his quiet snoring resumes.

Shiro doesn’t know how long he’s turned fully looking at K, he doesn’t remember closing his eyes.

But between one long blink and the next, he’s laid out on the sofa with K using him as a pillow. They’re both side by side, K is mostly on top of Shiro and he realises he has an arm around K’s slender waist and the other threaded through his hair, the blanket covering them both, and Black is nowhere in sight.

Shiro’s still too sleep dazed to fully comprehend this is real and not a dream, so he does the only thing he can do; snuggle back down and pull K even closer, nuzzling into the top of his head as K buries his face into his neck, letting out a content little sigh as his nose brushes up against Shiro's scent gland.

 

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Notes:

Eheh...

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