Day 3 - Family
Shiro always had a family.

For Shiro, holidays had always been a time to spend with family. Memories had grown faded and frayed around the edges with every passing year. The exact colors had grown muted, faces just a little fuzzy, but he could still recall those days of walking through Christmas markets, clutching his mother's skirt, or eagerly helping her write out the dozens of New Years cards they'd be sending out to friends and families. Every New Years he'd travel with parents and grandparents to the local shrine to pray for good fortune in the new year.

But good fortune was not always found. There had been no fortune when a truck slammed into his parents car, sending them careening off the road. There had been no fortune when his father was declared dead on sight, while his mother was rushed to the hospital. She had faded before she ever made it to surgery.

It was his grandparents that a 6-year old Shiro continued writing those New Years cards with. He'd sit at a small table, legs dangling from a chair that was too big for him, his grandmother's warm smile filling his heart just as her famous strawberry cake filled his belly.

When he was recruited to the Garrison, he still sent out those cards, video called his grandparents every day throughout the holiday season. Every trip back home, the weeks off between Christmas the New Year, were always a treat. Shiro would step off that plane, and practically right into his grandmother's arms, protesting the way she immediately began fussing over him. He secretly loved every moment of it though. And his his grandfather led them both out to the car, a quiet smile on the old man's face.

Then for one lonely year, he was terribly adrift, his grandparents finally passing. Three months after he returned from his first trip to space, Shiro spent the holidays alone.

But family was never far. Family was friends and co-workers and Shiro smiling easily as he took over the tradition of sending out those New Years cards, addresses having long shifted from Japan to Arizona addresses. Most never even left the Garrison base, and Shiro was thrilled for the opportunity to hand deliver them.

Then there was Adam, and for a few blissful years, Shiro had found another family that welcomed him with open arms.

Until Adam had drawn a line that Shiro had no choice but to cross. He could never have asked Adam to follow. Something had splintered, and

Years later, another New Years card was left quietly on the man's grave - all the things Shiro wished he'd had the chance to say before the end. Their relationship might have ended badly, an ending that he now knew to have been inevitable with or without Kerberos. But Adam had been an important part of his life, and would have remained important even after their love had faded. Shiro watched the card flutter in the wind, only a small stone saving it from being carried off into the ether. He bowed his head, eyes closed a moment, giving remembrance to a man who had given him so much.

Keith hovered a few paces behind, hands clasped quietly in front of him, giving Shiro this moment.

When Shiro turned back towards him, it was with a shadow in his eyes, an old weariness pressing down over his shoulders. Keith didn't say a word. He merely reached out, the ring on his finger glinting as wrapped his fingers lightly around Shiro's hand. The tension eased from the older man's broad shoulders, a small smile finding its way to his lips.

"Come on, don't want to keep your mom waiting."

Keith's laugh was soft, understated, the young man leaning in to bump Shiro's shoulder with his own, fingers twined together. "She's not going to eat those cookies."

Shiro pouted, mind flickering back to the seran-wrapped plate of christmas-tree shaped cookies, absolutely drenched in green icing to drown out the burnt taste. It hadn't really worked. But nothing had put him off of his baking attempts yet. "More for us then." Keith couldn't bite back his grimace. But he would eat each and every cookie Shiro placed in front of him, because it was Shiro.

Fingers tangled together, they went home.