Even if it's a life in shackles...

If you had somebody who accepts you for who you really are...

How reassuring would that be?

Tokyo Ghoul, Volume Four

The moment he stepped into the Black Lion, he suddenly understood Lance's joy of flying the Blue Lion for the first time, even if he did so dangerously (for the passengers at the very least). The feeling of the Black Lion making a connection through his mind and how the vague feelings of the others also trickled through, something that got stronger and stronger as the battle wore on, until they all finally formed Voltron, making him feel a peace in his heart that he didn't know he was missing, and, for the first time in a long while, he felt as if he could properly breath, even if it was the strange atmosphere of Ares, or the recycled air of the Castle of the Lions.

Looking at the rest of the team, sitting with their respective lions, he could see that they too were mesmerised by the mystical bond of the Lions.

Coran led them all inside of the castle, and, after being there for the better part of a day, or what Shiro felt was an Earth day, his internal clock had been skewed since going to space, gave them a tour of the major parts of the castle, showing them where the control room, observational deck, the kitchen, the training deck, the communal bathrooms, and the rooms that they would be staying, all of them being in all of them being in a single corridor, all next to one another, all apparently containing all the things that they would ever need, all colour coded too, much to Coran's pride.

Shiro didn't think that Lance could go into a room fast enough, slamming the door behind him muttering about his skin schedule being thrown off due to the 'Voltron Business' as he so eloquently put it, and how his beauty sleep was an essential part to it. Hunk had smiled to this, though it didn't seem to reach his eyes, and entered the room right his best friend's. Pidge had frowned, and muttered about seeing the prisoners in the pods, putting her bag from Earth into her room and quickly leaving it with a laptop, following Coran back to the pod room. Sighing, Shiro turned to Keith, who was looking off to the distance, as if he had x-ray vision and was trying to see the Galra's next move.

He had grown in the last year, though not by much, as much as it annoyed him, Shiro thought. His hair had also grown, and looked choppier, as if he had been the last to cut it rather than someone else, and knowing Keith he probably did. The jacket seemed new, but he also hadn't seen the kid outside of his Garrison uniform either, so he didn't have a good baseline to properly guess. Something he did know, however, is that he was much more guarded, his eyes much harder, his arms almost always crossed to stop people from getting too close.

Shiro hated the fact that he left him behind.

(He had left Matt behind too.)

"How are you holding up?" Shiro asked, smiling at the younger kid. Keith looked back at him, frowning slightly before shrugging and looking away, not meeting his eyes, causing Shiro's heart to fall deeper than the pits of hell.

He had caused this.

"Well," Shiro said, placing his hand onto the shorter's shoulder, feeling the slight flinch that he had as a kid and never grown out of, "you can always talk to me, okay?"

"Only if you talk to me too." Keith muttered in reply, before walking towards the door to the left of Lance's, leaving Shiro with the one left to Keith, and smiled at Keith's words.

He knew him too well, even after being away for a year.

A year he still couldn't remember that well, for better, or for worse.

Sighing, he entered the room, and wasn't surprised to see a bed, a chest of drawers and a hanger near the door, just as Coran had described. It looked pristine, as if it was frozen for 10,000 years and only recently been unfrozen. Not even a speck of dust existed, making him wonder about the effectiveness of the filtering system, if it was able to stop the dust from building after such a long period of time. Sitting on the bed, he looked at the wall opposite, his human hand resting on the unknown fabric feeling the way that the fibres intertwined, and he wondered how he was going to be going about taking off the armour, as it formed to his shape so well that it almost looked impossible to take off again, especially the back under suit.

He quickly took of the chest plate, lifting it over his head, but by the time he had placed the strong material onto the bed, he felt a huge sense of paranoia being placed onto his shoulders, causing his arms to freeze up, leaving them still clutching onto it like a lifeline.

He couldn't take off the armour, not yet, it wasn't safe yet.

(Safe from what, he wouldn't be able to answer, as he knew he was safe, but he wasn't, he wasn't safe and he needed to be prepared for that, whatever that was.)

So he placed the armour back on, feeling comforted by the heavy weight on his chest, and quickly left the room, walking down the winding corridors of the castle that Coran had shown them down not even 15 minutes ago, and he couldn't but help be comforted by the sounds of his feet hitting the floor in a repetitive beat.

He checks in on Pidge first, sat by one of the pods containing one of the aliens they saved earlier that, typing away as fast as she could, oblivious to her surroundings. He wasn't sure what she was doing, as she was almost as bad as her brother when it came to hyper focus, as almost nothing could get them out of it unless they were physically stopped. Sam, their father, had explained it to him once on their way to Kerberos, telling him that, from a revolutionary standpoint, it had been an important skill that ghouls needed to properly hunt humans, however, nowadays, the skill was much less useful, if Matt's focus on the video game on the computer, trying to beat his sister's high score, had anything to say about it.

Because of that, he isn't that surprised when she didn't reply to him, nor give any response to show that she even knew that he had entered the room. Sighing affectionately, he noticed a spare blanket on one of the tables, probably left out by Coran, and placed it on her shoulders, shaking his head in disbelief when she still didn't react to the fabric being placed on her, and left the room, wondering down the corridor towards the observational deck, thinking that maybe the sight of the stars maybe able to lull his paranoia, like they used to with his anxiety.

He didn't quite get there, though, as, while on his way there, he heard a crash that made him freeze in his place, then make him run towards it, arm at the ready, prepared to take out anyone and anything that stood in the way between him and his goal of keeping his team safe, keeping the teens from coming to harm, because they were only kids and they don't deserve-

"Oh, err, hey Shiro." Shiro blinked, frowning as he looked around the Altean equivalent of the kitchen, looking from where Hunk was standing bashfully, embarrassed about being caught, surrounded by what seemed to be pots and pans and covered in green goo, but not enough to his his black and red eyes. That's what caused the crashed. It wasn't some intruder wanted to kill them all, just some pots and pans that had been dropped onto the floor.

Everything was alright.

Everyone was safe.

He was safe here.

(Safe from what, and he'll tell you the Galra Empire, or those who would want Voltron dead, but he knew he was safe here in the castle, but he wasn't, he wasn't safe, and he needed to be prepared for that, whatever that was.)

"So, Shiro, what brings you to the kitchen, are you hungry too, or was it the pots, I'm really sorry about that by the way…" Hunk's voice continued on, his ghoul eyes flickering back to normal due to the situation, but Shiro couldn't hear him anymore, couldn't notice the fact that another member of his team turned out to be a ghoul, because he was thinking about he got them, but he couldn't remember, because all he could remember was trying to protect them, he has to protect them, he's their leader, it's his job-

"Shiro, I need you to breathe. C'mon buddy, you can do this, breathe in 1, 2, 3…" The numbers were easy to follow, easy to breathe to, the same way that the sounds of his walking helped to calm him through the repetitiveness of it all. After what seemed to be five minutes of concentrated breathing (though, again, his internal clock had been thrown off long ago by space, so it could have been any length of time really) he was much more aware, aware enough to noticed that the both of them were sitting on the floor instead of standing, both of them surrounded by pots and pans and small puddles of green space goo.

"There we go. How you feeling there?" Hunk smiled at him, filled with innocence, and Shiro couldn't help but blush in embarrassment because he just had a panic attack in front of one of the very people he's supposed to protect and that's not very leader like and-

"Shiro, you have to stop thinking before you start panicking again." Hunk's voice sounded loud as he rambled on about everything and anything, clearing away any thought he might have had, leaving his mind blissfully empty, something that he had wanted for several months now (or whatever counted as months here in the middle of deep space). Shiro took another deep breath, apricating the ability to do so for once, and tuned back into Hunk's one sided monologue.

"-and I was worried, because, we're in the middle of space with nothing that me or Pidge could eat here except you or Lance or Keith, because, hey, ghouls are like that but I don't really-"

"Keith's a ghoul too." Shiro muttered, but then felt his breathing hitch at the sudden silence he had caused.

"Really? 'Cause, while that does explain so much about him now, it means that he can only eat food goo too unless we fond something else we can munch on." Hunk sighed, leaning back on his arms while he muttered about the advantages of the green goo that they had tried before going on their tour.

"Wait, ghouls can eat that stuff?!" Shiro exclaimed, sitting up straight than before, crossing his legs underneath him and watched Hunk smile at his attempt to interact with the with the conversation.

"I know right! I mean, it isn't the best thing that could exist, but I've also eaten worse things, like that time I've eaten human food…" Hunk rambles on about the different things that ghouls can and cannot eat, and Shiro listens because he's good at listening.

After a while, they both go to their own rooms, Hunk with a plate of food goo, just in case, and Shiro with a little more peace in mind, knowing that there was a way to feed all three (four) ghouls in his care.

He went to bed (see: start a fitness course) knowing everything was going to be alright.

A.N. Hey guys, here's another chapter, because for some reason my brain wants to write out chapters for all the stories I haven't given myself deadlines on. Welp, here you go :/.