Disclaimer: I do not own VLD.
warnings: brief and vague mention of PTSD
Sometimes he thinks humans did reach far past the point where they were supposed to stop after all - stumbling into a mess of zero gravity and monsters enacting their terror on countless galaxies; wars lighting up planets like the number of stars in the sky.
Maybe that's why Kerberos happened.
Why he's sporting alien tech that makes earth equipment comparable to preschool toys.
Why a kid had to go undercover, relinquishing the name of her family in an effort to find what corner of the universe her father and brother were flung to.
Entire races completely wiped out…The Alteans diminished to their Princess and a soldier only woken 10,000 years after, no hope of finding survivors or final resting places to anoint their mourning or ceremonies.
The rest of his team, anguished and distraught with a homesickness that may never be eased amidst constellations none of them know. No way to track in which direction their old lives wait in the vastness of the galaxy.
Logic demands he should wake at any moment, with nothing but the unsettling foot falls of sentries and cold, gray walls surrounding him; his head and body aching with the phantom need for food and water, fresh bandages and antibiotics.
Dark corridors stretch before him, the taunting, vile echo of Sendak's voice leaching into his mind and soul…
Instead, he's here - sitting in the middle of a childish brawl between his fellow pilots lining a dinner table with Hunk's latest kitchen experiment. Lance and Keith turning head to head while Hunk tries to play the peacekeeper. Pidge is smart enough to stay out of it, mumbling creative insults she knows he can hear under her breath, daring him to either end it or chide her for language.
Coran lecturing them with a constant loop of promises with a healthy ration of cleaning the castle of lions top to bottom and extra training if they don't give it a rest for the night, though all of it goes either unheard or ignored.
He huffs and shakes his head, there's only so much his rank can accomplish to reign in his team of rowdy teenagers that radiate such a strong sense of competition between them that it could easily choke and clear a room on the best days.
Shiro clears his throat, arching his brow once he has the table's attention. "So, are we just aiming to clear out what color I have left in my hair now?"
The second the words leave his mouth, he realizes his mistake. In an unspoken understanding, the younger paladins glance to each other, eerily well coordinated (even Pidge raises her eyes inquisitively from her dinner bowl), and grin.
Of course it's Lance to open his mouth, though he shouldn't really be complaining. Whatever the deal is - the horrendous joke or pun or prank he was about to be on the receiving end of - it cools the air between him and Keith long enough for a few moments of blessed reprieve.
"Well yeah, otherwise you'd have to go around for another 20 years or something looking goofy. No space super villains are going to take us seriously with a leader that kind of looks like a skunk that doesn't know if it's coming or going."
"Gee, thanks," he monotones. (It's pointless to remind the younger paladin that aliens don't know what a skunk is.)
A movement pulls his gaze to the head of the table where the ever kind, graceful, and diplomatic heir of the Altean kingdom covertly tries to hide her wide smile behind a demure hand. Unfortunately for the Princess, it's a smile that reaches to her eyes and she's doing a terrible job of convincing everyone in attendance that she's not laughing and they shouldn't bait their superior so.
He meets her eye as she finishes a poor attempt at an admonishing look she sweeps over each of the other paladins. Allura smiles at him in turn, winking as the focus on him passes and teenage chatter starts back up, falling back into childish bickering in the time of ten ticks.
This was not the path any of them would have chosen (definitely not one they could imagine) and in those darkest moments for all of them, they found each other - a hurdling destiny that's helping to ease the sharp pain of loss and confusion.
I found love where it wasn't supposed to be….right in front of me.
a/n: This started out as shallura, but wound up being more voltron family appreciation/proud space dad as a whole and ending with a slip of shallura. Since this occurs in Shiro's POV after he tells Pidge he knows, she pronouns are used. This does change purposely a in future project. Originally posted to my tumblr: alluran.
(based on r-edesignme's tumblr post/8tracks playlist)