Takashi "Shiro" Shirogane (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lionhandler) wrote2017-04-16 12:32 am
lionhandler) wrote2017-04-16 12:32 am
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At first, Shiro doesn't think much of it when he leaves his room and doesn't find Pidge anywhere. That happens sometimes. He figures it to mean she'd actually gone to bed on her own before he woke up, and so he continues going through his morning routine without sparing it a second thought.
He comes home from his morning run to find a commotion in the hallway outside one of the bathrooms. Lance had finished his shower but never came out of the bathroom after, Hunk explains, and he wasn't answering the door. That's worrying, Shiro agrees. Worrying enough to break the door open instead of waiting around for a locksmith.
He almost regrets that when he opens the door to a full-frontal view of a crystallized Lance.
After that he has to reassure Hunk that Lance is fine, this is temporary and it just happens sometimes, let's get a towel on him and move him somewhere less obstructive. Which is a little easier said than done, it turns out, and by the time the deed is done, most of the household had gotten themselves involved.
With one very conspicuous absence.
Keith doesn't know where Pidge is. She wasn't there when he woke up, he says. Shiro suppresses the urge to panic. It's not as though this is the first time someone in the household has gone missing for a while. He just needs to find her amulet and keep it safe until she comes back.
Again, easier said than done.
Pidge is a hoarder, and it takes him most of the day to clean out her and Keith's shared room, only to come up empty. The living room's next, and then the shed that serves as her and Hunk's shared workshop. By the time he's finished, so is the day itself.
The next day, as early as he can, he gets a ride to Caliende Temple to check the wall of names there. And just as he feared, there it is. Pidge Gunderson. Not Katie Holt. That... bothers him a little, in a way he can't quite articulate. A lot of it is bothering him and he can't find the right words for any of it.
So the message he ends up sending back to the rest of the household is a little terse: Pidge's name really is up on the wall, and it's looking like he won't be making it home in time for dinner.
He spends the rest of the day reading the wall. Name after name after name. A few of them he recognizes, either from personal familiarity or because he's heard their names from Kevin. Most of them are strangers. He reads them all anyway. It feels... important, somehow, that they be remembered, even if just like this.
(He reads the name "Takashi" and his heart skips a beat until he sees that a different surname follows it. Later, there's a solitary "Shiro" and it gives him pause. He's seen a few nicknames nestled into full names by then, and he'd expect his own name to follow that pattern, but... it's not as though the wall got Pidge's name right. He decides not to think about it too hard.)
Eventually, he runs out of names, only to be left with the same dissatisfied feeling he had when he started. He still doesn't understand it. It's not as though he'll never see Pidge again. When he eventually returns home himself, she'll be right there in Voltron alongside him. It's not as though he isn't used to being away from his family for a while. That was a simple fact of life back with the Galaxy Garrison and it's not like he was particularly distressed about it in the months between his arrival in Verens and when Pidge and Keith arrived. And it's not as though he's worried about the danger she'll be in at home. Or, rather, he's worried, but no more than he usually is. No amount of time spent here was going to change that they'll all be headed back to a dangerous situation sooner or later, that was something he'd already accepted.
Or, he thought he had? But then, what was it about this that kept digging under his skin? He hadn't felt like this when Keith or Lance had gone home temporarily, even though that didn't make home any less dangerous a place. (Keith's return had been proof enough of that.) Then, it was the permanence of it that made it different? Except, it isn't permanent, he knows that. He'll see her again as soon as he leaves this place himself, and he'll never know it was any different. When he disappears from here and goes home again, he'll--
He doesn't want to go home, he realizes with a start. That's what the problem is. That's what's bothering him. That he'll see her again when he goes home is irrelevant to how he's feeling, because he doesn't want to go home.
He has to, he tells himself. The entire universe is counting on him to defeat Zarkon or die trying. He doesn't have a choice in the matter. Voltron's always felt like an opportunity to him--a chance to fight back, something exciting and wonderful--but now, all of a sudden, it feels like an obligation instead. Is this why the Black Lion rejected him in favor of Zarkon? Because his resolve is so weak that as soon as he's given a chance to turn his back on his problems, he takes it without even realizing it?
...He has to go home. Not to the fight against Zarkon, but to the home he's built here, with the rest of his team. It's getting late, and it takes a while to get back to Verens from the Temple. He pushes the matter of whether or not he wants to go home in the other sense from his mind. It doesn't matter. Eventually, he'll go back to that fight, whether he wants to or not. And he'll forget everything that ever made him feel conflicted about it in the first place.
But he doesn't want to.
He comes home from his morning run to find a commotion in the hallway outside one of the bathrooms. Lance had finished his shower but never came out of the bathroom after, Hunk explains, and he wasn't answering the door. That's worrying, Shiro agrees. Worrying enough to break the door open instead of waiting around for a locksmith.
He almost regrets that when he opens the door to a full-frontal view of a crystallized Lance.
After that he has to reassure Hunk that Lance is fine, this is temporary and it just happens sometimes, let's get a towel on him and move him somewhere less obstructive. Which is a little easier said than done, it turns out, and by the time the deed is done, most of the household had gotten themselves involved.
With one very conspicuous absence.
Keith doesn't know where Pidge is. She wasn't there when he woke up, he says. Shiro suppresses the urge to panic. It's not as though this is the first time someone in the household has gone missing for a while. He just needs to find her amulet and keep it safe until she comes back.
Again, easier said than done.
Pidge is a hoarder, and it takes him most of the day to clean out her and Keith's shared room, only to come up empty. The living room's next, and then the shed that serves as her and Hunk's shared workshop. By the time he's finished, so is the day itself.
The next day, as early as he can, he gets a ride to Caliende Temple to check the wall of names there. And just as he feared, there it is. Pidge Gunderson. Not Katie Holt. That... bothers him a little, in a way he can't quite articulate. A lot of it is bothering him and he can't find the right words for any of it.
So the message he ends up sending back to the rest of the household is a little terse: Pidge's name really is up on the wall, and it's looking like he won't be making it home in time for dinner.
He spends the rest of the day reading the wall. Name after name after name. A few of them he recognizes, either from personal familiarity or because he's heard their names from Kevin. Most of them are strangers. He reads them all anyway. It feels... important, somehow, that they be remembered, even if just like this.
(He reads the name "Takashi" and his heart skips a beat until he sees that a different surname follows it. Later, there's a solitary "Shiro" and it gives him pause. He's seen a few nicknames nestled into full names by then, and he'd expect his own name to follow that pattern, but... it's not as though the wall got Pidge's name right. He decides not to think about it too hard.)
Eventually, he runs out of names, only to be left with the same dissatisfied feeling he had when he started. He still doesn't understand it. It's not as though he'll never see Pidge again. When he eventually returns home himself, she'll be right there in Voltron alongside him. It's not as though he isn't used to being away from his family for a while. That was a simple fact of life back with the Galaxy Garrison and it's not like he was particularly distressed about it in the months between his arrival in Verens and when Pidge and Keith arrived. And it's not as though he's worried about the danger she'll be in at home. Or, rather, he's worried, but no more than he usually is. No amount of time spent here was going to change that they'll all be headed back to a dangerous situation sooner or later, that was something he'd already accepted.
Or, he thought he had? But then, what was it about this that kept digging under his skin? He hadn't felt like this when Keith or Lance had gone home temporarily, even though that didn't make home any less dangerous a place. (Keith's return had been proof enough of that.) Then, it was the permanence of it that made it different? Except, it isn't permanent, he knows that. He'll see her again as soon as he leaves this place himself, and he'll never know it was any different. When he disappears from here and goes home again, he'll--
He doesn't want to go home, he realizes with a start. That's what the problem is. That's what's bothering him. That he'll see her again when he goes home is irrelevant to how he's feeling, because he doesn't want to go home.
He has to, he tells himself. The entire universe is counting on him to defeat Zarkon or die trying. He doesn't have a choice in the matter. Voltron's always felt like an opportunity to him--a chance to fight back, something exciting and wonderful--but now, all of a sudden, it feels like an obligation instead. Is this why the Black Lion rejected him in favor of Zarkon? Because his resolve is so weak that as soon as he's given a chance to turn his back on his problems, he takes it without even realizing it?
...He has to go home. Not to the fight against Zarkon, but to the home he's built here, with the rest of his team. It's getting late, and it takes a while to get back to Verens from the Temple. He pushes the matter of whether or not he wants to go home in the other sense from his mind. It doesn't matter. Eventually, he'll go back to that fight, whether he wants to or not. And he'll forget everything that ever made him feel conflicted about it in the first place.
But he doesn't want to.