#prompts: chosen. astral plane. blacklion

[void-tiger]

Shirotember (Belatedly) Days 5-7:

The Chosen, the Astral Plane, and the Black Lion

He knew better.

Shiro honestly did. But outside of running drills with his Team, and forming Voltron in combat he just...never made it down to the Black Lion’s hangar. Shiro told himself that’d it was because there was just so much to do—nearly two decaphoebs of backlogged data to consume. Crash courses in diplomacy and getting formerly integrated into the cogs of the coolition (and a lot of damage control dealing with there being “two of him”.

(Slav in particular had been gleeful about the “second robot arm” and kept bombarding both him and Jiro with new arm designs, each more outrageous than the last, complete with blue fingers and probabilities about how the designs would increase their success and survival (but never higher than 48%, apparently, with pages of things “statistically uncovered”. The reports all read like some beta-tested drug commercial, and Shiro’d had enough of those to last him a lifetime. Well, two. The temptation to simply delete each new schematic sent in was often overwhelming...but he and his twin technically needed new prosthetics and possibly multiple ones, so he forwarded Slav’s latest designs to the Holt Siblings, Hunk, or the Alteans, instead. Well until the day Matt begged him to stop and that most just got shoved into a file Voltron’s Tech Team hadn’t even scratched the surface of yet, which was more than okay for a relieved Shiro. Matt quickly helped him set up a program specific to Slav’s messages that’d automatically delete anything “robot arm related” as chaff...which just left the rest of Slav’s equally dense and frequent reports. Fantastic.)

...and any spare time Shiro found himself with desperately trying to make up for lost time with his friends, and actually being more open with his affection for them and his own insecurities. (It helped that aside from Pidge none of them were really teens anymore, but being indirectly responsible for bringing them into a war that caused them to grow up too soon, too fast still weighed heavily on him. Even if technically it was their Lions?) But all of that—while lessening the strain, especially since he could share the burden of leadership with both Allura and Jiro now—still felt more like getting flayed alive all over again, less like emerging from a chrysalis or shedding a snake’s old and too-tight skin. Especially since the Arena and Haggar didn’t create these habits, just welded them down tight, while Adam and the Garrison had actively forged them.

(Sam’s mentorship had helped, as had the Black Lion and his Team giving him purpose again. But getting locked inside a damaged Black for two years without anyone able to hear him except a desperate clone who mistook Shiro as yet one more of their shared demons for half of it... Shiro didn’t know if that guilt would ever ease.)

So, really. Shiro did know better, but he was too busy being a Paladin to...actually be a Paladin.

Coward, snarked his subconscious, which sounded suspiciously like Jiro calling him out on his learned bullshit yet again. “But not like he’s any better about this,” Shiro muttered. “Hypocrite.”

Yeah, but he learned that from you, Shirogane.

Shiro pinched his eyes shut as he let his forehead thump against the Black Lion’s hangar door. Since he’d been extracted from the Lion’s quintessence and places back inside his own body of reassembled atoms, their Bond felt muted, but not exactly weak. More like...restrained. Like the Black Lion was trying to give Shiro the space he kept subconsciously taking by accident. Occasionally gentle affection or harrowing grief and shame would filter through their Bond before quickly fading away into wisps of mist scattered in the wind. Shiro tried his best to send the Lion his reassurance and forgiveness...but he just couldn’t make himself visit. It all still felt too raw, more so than when Black spat him out so long ago in what he now knew was her attempt to keep him from getting recaptured by their shared tormentors, too.

He knew he needed to see the Lion, without being prompted by training or missions or an active attack. But...

He continued to stare at the door. Willed himself to move. “Coward,” he hissed again, this time aloud.

Footsteps echoed at the opposite end of the corridor. Shiro fought the urge to turn around. The steps grew closer, and he recognized that gait as his brother’s. Same long strides, same intentionality as his, but slightly heavier in the footfalls, like someone not quite accustomed to their growing frame yet, or hadn’t quite mastered the art of Presentation and still had small tells giving them away if you knew where to look. (Or perhaps someone who cared a bit less than Shiro learned to habitually even before his time at the Garrison.)

“You win yet?” Jiro drawled casually.

“Hmm?”

“Your staring contest with that door,” Jiro elaborated. “Think my score’s 3:9, Door’s Favor.”

Shiro winced internally. Jiro rarely spoke about the time he spent grounded, and then when he did, it always came out as a subconscious slip in the form of a joke. He never knew whether to call his brother on it or not. Not like Shiro had much room to talk, especially about stuff Champion-related...

“I’m just being an idiot,” Shiro finally said, single hand clench-fisted, head still leaning heavily against the door with his eyes mostly shut.

“‘Course you are,” Jiro quipped, laying his hand on Shiro’s shoulder. “You’re my brother.” Then shoved Shiro through the now-opening door.

“H-HEY!” Shiro squawked. Jiro simply laughed. The bastard.

The door hissed closed behind them. The Black Lion loomed above them. Shiro felt his mouth go dry, felt the ground tilt as the edges of his vision blurred and the light glinted off Black’s hull felt too bright! and—

A hand rested on his shoulder and a dark shape obscures his vision, blocking the Black Lion from view. He flinched, and a strangled gasp clawed its way out of his chest and throat.

“Takashi. Breathe,” Jiro murmured.

Much like he had the first time Shiro entered Black’s hangar when the witch bombarded the Castle after he first got pulled out of the Void. And how before that Jiro had practically shoved the black bayard into his hand and Shiro into the Black Paladin’s elevator, and said-bayard transforming into an Arm at the sight of the imposing zip line in response to his immediate need.

Shiro willed himself not to cry as Jiro’s arm snaked around his shoulders and pulled him close. He focused his breathing to time with Jiro’s steadier heartbeat, then worked on getting it to slow once he could get his lungs to simply work again. In. Hold. Release. Rinse and repeat. Blink away the itch. Relax. Don’t lose it in front of Black. Be the Black Paladin, dammit.

“I’m sorry,” Jiro murmured. Shiro felt his twin’s deep voice rumble more than he actually heard it as, despite himself, he still continued to lean into his clone’s chest. Weak. Pathetic.

“I shouldn’t have forced you in here. Just...I want you two to work it out,” Jiro admitted. “And thought that you only needed a helping hand, and—“

Shiro hummed weakly as he tried to chuckle at the unintended pun. But his body refused and even his brain didn’t quite cooperate. Right. Since when did his brain work with him, anyway? He snorted darkly despite himself at that.

“...what?” Jiro demanded in bemusement.

“Hand,” Shiro lied.

Jiro groaned in exasperation as he playfully shoved his brother away. “You’re terrible.”

Shiro grinned wider as he laughed a bit fuller at his twin’s expense. Let him think it was because of a bad pun. Technically it was...sorta.

He felt Black growl lightly and whap his head with a tail through their bond. Shiro gently shoved it away. Black sent the equivalent of meekly ducking under away from his hand, all wisping mist. A flash of guilt and panic as he tried to reopen their Bond. Black purred dejectedly but then fell eerily silent.

Shiro felt his face drain of color. ‘Black? ...I’m sorry. I know I’m not being fair. Please...I’ll do better. Get over it, press on. Please...’

His forehead tingled with a Lion’s Kiss but the Bond fell silent.

“...’Kashi? Hey, You still with me? C’mon...”

“Mmm?” Shiro blinked blearily.

“...goddammit, Shiro. Don’t do that,” Jiro huffed in relief.

“I think...I just broke my bond,” Shiro choked out.

“What? No. No I don’t believe that,” Jiro denied vehemently. “Not for one second!”

“I can’t even bare to be down here!” Shiro shot back heatedly. “Or form Voltron—“

“Quiznack, Shiro! You’d died! You’re allowed to process that!” Jiro snapped in exasperation. “But...dammit the Lion somehow saved you from that, too!”

“I know that!”

Jiro shook his head wearily. “...do you, though? Look, Tak, I’m leaving. I’ve been interfering with this Bond for long enough. Black chose you. Just...you’ll figure it out, alright? Be glad that you’re actually a Paladin.”

Jiro turned to stalk away—

—only to bounce off the inside of a particle barrier while the Black Lion roared with pent-up rage.

“What—“ Jiro exclaimed. “—the HELL! Let me out, Cat! You have him back. Leave me alone!”

Shiro tried desperately to ignore the sick, twisted head that reared inside him like a dark parasite when the Lion growled stubbornly at his twin. He grit his teeth and shoved it back down. He didn’t exactly have any place to feel jealous when he was pretty sure he’d just fucked things up for good this time. Again.

Then his head ached with what felt like the full weight of a small bull elephant as Black roared again, tail lashing against the barrier in a spray of sparks. “But I can’t even stand—not—“ Shiro stammered in frustration.

Black reared onto her haunches then brought down full-force onto the floor with a deafening boom that knocked both him and his brother, roaring point-blank at both of them again, maw opening into a glow of white, and—

—he fell face-first into glass.

Shiro groaned as he pushed himself back onto his feet, catching Ryou doing the same in the corner of his eye, then froze.

No.

He never wanted to be back here. Not again. Ice chilled his veins as he felt that all-too-familiar Just Not Warm and surrounded by nothing but the dark of the Void and stars and—

...And the stars were different. This wasn’t the Black Lion’s quintessence, but it wasn’t the strange static rush he’d experienced briefly within Voltron’s combined quintessence, either.

So...what was it.

Shiro exhaled through his nose as he calmed—barely—and tried to take stock of his surroundings. Beside him he could feel his twin do the same as he blinked in curious confusion, Jiro’s mind briefly brushing against his much like the other Paladins and Lions did when they formed Voltron.

The sky swirled in shades of deep violet, indigo and blue as stars of white and gold streaked with glittering grey comet tails traveled the great expanse overhead, and bands of green and red flares drifted in retrograde of eachother. Jiro’s mouth made a silent “o” as the site reflected in his slate-grey eyes.

And Shiro understood. Really.

He might’ve felt the same about the Black Lion’s own space, once. Maybe he actually could someday once it felt free from the taint Zarkon’s intrusion and his forced exile there that poisoned it. He felt Jiro’s concern brush against his apprehension before he could shutter it away, and Shiro couldn’t help but hate himself for spoiling this for his twin, only to be met with said-twin’s exasperated anger.

Couldn’t he exist somewhere where everyone wasn’t an empath?! Just once?

“Taks. Just breathe,” Jiro called.

Shiro snorted. “There’s no atmosphere, Ryou. You don’t need to breathe.”

“Fair,” Jiro conceded tersely. “So where do you think ‘here’ is.”

“No idea. But it isn’t the Black Lion.”

“Gathered that much myself, thanks,” Jiro drawled. “Been there a few times to fetch your ass, remember?”

Shiro nodded absently. Jiro cast him a strange look that verged on...Shiro couldn’t quite place it. Too clouded and dense, but nothing good, and he was pretty sure he was about to have it from his clone. “It feels like Voltron,” Jiro said instead. “Only more...”

“Intense?” Shiro finished instead.

“Yeah. That.”

“Only Paladins form Voltron,” Shiro said mildly.

“Oh shut up,” Jiro snapped. “And how long were you going to wait to tell me that you remembered what happened in the Astral Plane? ALL of it?”

Shiro fell silent.

“You ass,” Jiro seethed. “You knew. You knew all along!”

“No,” Shiro interjected quickly. “...not until after I flew again with Black.”

Jiro laughed derisively. “So only for most of it. And to think I didn’t want to judge you for something you couldn’t even remember to the point it might as well have been just another fucked up nightmare or vision!”

“...I’m sorry. I just...I wanted to forget,” Shiro whispered tightly.

“Right,” Jiro snarled “Because you always get to and then carry on, while I have to deal with memories that aren’t even mine.”

“And that’s my fault?” Shiro demanded.

“You said I couldn’t be a Paladin!”

“And you seemed happy enough to have my life!”

A feral scream tore out of Jiro’s throat. The empty space at the clone’s side flashed grey-lavender until it was vaguely arm-shaped, and he swung it at Shiro as he advanced forward.

Shiro caught his advance with his own flesh arm and one apparently formed from glowing indigo quintessence, and used Jiro’s momentum to bodily hurl him. Jiro twisted in midair and dug his heels into the glass-like ground to break his momentum, then rushed forward again, grey coma streaming from his eyes and nose.

Tears. Those are tears, Shirogane. Congratulations.

The fight drained from Shiro, and he sidestepped Jiro’s next blind swing.

“Fight back, damn you!” Jiro snarled. “What’s the matter, Champion? Forget how to do that, too?”

Shiro’s vision flashed white and red.

He batted away and pinned Jiro’s quintessence-arm against the clone’s side with one hand, then grabbed a fistful of his brother’s shirt with the other, and kicked Jiro’s feet out from underneath him before the clone could even react. They crashed to the ground. Jiro gasped reflexively as the impact forced the wind out of his lungs and Shiro continued to pin him against the ground.

“Gerroff!!”

“ENOUGH!”

Jiro went slack, although Shiro could still feel his mind smoldering next to his. Still, he was weary of this, so he released his hold on Jiro’s arm, as both their quintessence “arms” fizzled out, apparently. Jiro roughly shoved him off the rest of the way.

“Asshole,” Jiro sniffed thickly.

“Fair.”

“...shut up.”

The stars continued to swirl peacefully above them despite the tense silence below. Shiro thought about resting his hand on Jiro’s shoulder, to do something to somehow Fix This and ease the churning guilt inside him...but his brother’s mind remained sharp ice and bubbling cryovolcanoes. But Jiro didn’t move away, either.

Shiro oofed in shock when Jiro thumped his head against his right shoulder roughly. Which, technically a quintessence apparition right now or not, that still hurt. But, he kinda deserved it and it at least proved that whatever Laws this place followed were closer to his fight with Zarkon than...the two years bodiless he spent trapped in the Void. Hesitantly he shifted until he could embrace Jiro with his left arm instead.

“...Why?” Shiro whispered.

“Because yes I’m mad at you but somebody’s gotta stick around to get through your thick skull that that doesn’t mean we’re leaving.

“...and I wanted to be a Paladin. So badly that it still hurts. But I wasn’t ever chosen. At best all I could do was make a poor substitute while I kept your seat warm. And I didn’t know, alright? I tried everything to get Keith to stay. And the second I did, I...”

Shiro pulled him closer. “I know. I could hear you the whole time. I know you tried.”

“Then...why do you hate me?”

“...I don’t.”

Jiro scoffed.

“No, listen. Please.”

Jiro went rigid, but his ear faced Shiro. Shiro exhaled a silent sigh. That’d have to do. “I...don’t think I ever did. I definitely don’t now. But...all I could do was wait in the dark, desperate for someone to hear me. No one ever did. Black’s inner quintessence was kinda a wreck, and it looked and felt more like getting shut in a basement closet than...

“But then I think the Team must have healed Black somewhat when they tried finding a new Paladin...not that I knew that at the time. Just that I could hear them and finally see something. But I couldn’t—“

Jiro reached around and grabbed Shiro’s hand, squeezing it gently. Shiro squeezed his eyes shut, his guilt and shame becoming more than just a constant ache or shroud, threatening to choke him under its weight.

“My bonds weren’t strong enough. None of them could hear me. And then Black found you.”

“The Lion still preferred Keith,” Jiro pointed out. “I thought I’d been left. And...at any point I’d almost died, and wasn’t ever found until I thought I was drawing my last breath. I chased Voltron for a week! And then...she...didn’t want me.”

“No. That was me,” Shiro admitted in a tight whisper.

An incredulous look crossed Jiro’s face, closely followed by relief and betrayal. “...what.”

Shiro exhaled a shaky sigh. Quiznack his timing sucked. But if they were stuck in here... “The Black Lion...she...she wanted to connect with you. But I... and then you left. And didn’t come back. But then...”

“The Team was about to die,” Jiro murmured.

Shiro nodded jerkily. “It didn’t matter how I felt. I could hear you pleading to save them, and feel Black’s distress, but it was like you two couldn’t quite reach. Your quintessence was...” Shiro paused, searching for words as he gestures vaguely. “...pale. Half there. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“I always thought Black was the one pulling my slack. But...that was you?”

“The universe needed Voltron. And our Team needed a Black Paladin.”

“Then I never actually formed Voltron with them. I never was a Paladin, afterall,” Jiro laughed humorlessly. “No wonder I couldn’t get to that place Lance was talking about.”

“NO,” Shiro repeated firmly. “Black let you inside to try. I was the one throwing a fit which...I guess you noticed that.”

Jiro snorted. “Seemed more like my demons in Sendak’s voice. And they had Keith. Black didn’t need me.”

“Well, you weren’t wrong,” Shiro said wryly. “Might as well been one of them for being all but a clanging poltergeist doing nobody any good.”

“...but I still never formed Voltron,” Jiro repeated softly. “I couldn’t even be Black’s battery.”

“Hey, stop that,” Shiro admonished gently. “You kinda had a parasitic space witch leeching you dry.”

“So did you,”Jiro replied morosely. “But you managed it.”

Shiro shook his head. “Ulaz got me out before she could turn them into anything more than a recording webcam. And your quintessence is strong, now.”

“...Really?”

“Yeah,” Shiro grinned. “And it’s different than mine. So I think...you could actually form Voltron now. No assists needed.”

Jiro shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, now. You’re Black’s Paladin, and now you’re back. I meant it when I said I was done messing with your bond. I wouldn’t have, if...”

Shiro squeezed Jiro’s hand gently. “I know. But, are they even my Team?”

Jiro stared at him blankly in bemusement. “Of course they are. You’re the Black Paladin.”

“Except I only flew with them for maybe two months. You knew them for two years. If Haggar hadn’t been leeching your quintessence, you could’ve formed Voltron,” Shiro pointed out. “And I almost couldn’t. I don’t know them anymore. I barely did before.”

“Quiznack, Shiro. You’ve been working on that. And good god nobody is about to hold being functionally dead against you, either,” Jiro exclaimed in exasperation.

“But...they need a Black Paladin now,” he said weakly.

“Which you are when it counts. And a damn good one,” Jiro said pointedly.

Shiro opened his mouth to argue the point but closed it again. Jiro would only stubbornly argue his point further, Shiro’s guilt wouldn’t ease, and they’ve be back to arguing circles and he was just so tired. And wherever they were, he couldn’t feel his Lion, only Jiro...which he supposed made sense ‘cause he was pretty sure he felt their Bond snap back in the hangar, and it was all his fault.

“Shiro,” Jiro interjected into his thoughts. “Let me ask you something, and answer honestly.”

“Okay...” Shiro drawled apprehensively.

“Do you even want to be a Paladin?”

“I—“

“Don’t go into shoulds or shouldn’ts or what’s better or not!” Jiro interrupted.

Shiro bowed his head until it rested on his knees, and his left arm wrapped around his abdomen on reflex. His shoulders shook as the guilt became so overpowering that it squeezed out everything else. “...yes,” he choked out. “I still want to be a Paladin. I want to fly with Black, but—“

“Say it again,” Jiro urged gently.

Shiro swallowed thickly. Balled his fist. “I want to stay a Paladin.” He exhaled a breath. “But it’s going to take some time. But I will be ready.” He rose to his feet and raised his chin, his eyes feeling clearer than they had in movements.

The sky shifted as something moved through it, displacing the stars in its wake. Shiro’s eyes widened in wonder as a Lion took form, her pelt glittering with stars as her fur glowed ultraviolet in the absence of light. The Lion purred gently and unfurled her wings pulsating with a sun’s heart as she padded toward them. Shiro felt his feet carrying him towards the Lion of their own accord. The Lion bunted under his hand in response, brushing her cheek against him. “Hi, Black,” he murmured.

The Lion draped her tail over his arm, trailing it behind her as she paced over to Jiro. “What? What are you doing. I’m not—“

The Lion whapped the clone with her tail with enough force to cause him to stumble, then gently licked the side of his head. “Okay, okay. But you better not get any gamma rays on me.”

The Lion growled at that.

“But seriously. I’m not your Paladin,” he repeated firmly.

The Lion stared at him unamused, huffed, then shoved him from behind until he was forced to walk to keep from falling.

“You...want me to go on.”

Black flicked her tail as she sat back on her haunches. “...Okay. Guess I’m going?” Jiro called uncertainly.

“I dunno what she wants you to see, Ry, but she’s being very insistent about it,” Shiro smirked. “Better go see.”

“Fat lot of help you are,” Jiro grumbled. But he walked on, back towards the point of sky where the Black Lion emerged. Shiro watched his brother’s retreating form, how he tried to keep his shoulders back and spine straight even as they hunched slightly towards his ears as Jiro walked on alone...then vanished in a flash of watery grey.

“Ry!”

The Lion purred gently, draping a wing over him as she planted a kiss to his forehead, licking reflexively as she got a mouth full of his bangs. “You’re...saying he’s fine. Okay. I trust you.”

The Lion stared into his eyes, blinked slowly, then rubbed against him again, her back arching and tail flopped over until it coiled slightly. The Lion padded a few spaces ahead of him, glanced above and over her shoulder, then chirped expectantly.

Shiro followed.

The word behind him faded in a flash of violet.

.

Shiro’s eyes protested at the sudden light when he opened them within the Black Lion while sitting in the pilot’s seat. Gently he rubbed the levers. “Thank you. I’m sorry I doubted myself...and you.”

The Lion hummed telepathically through their bond sending a wave of fondness and relief. Shiro wasn’t sure whose it was. Perhaps them both.

A wet nose pressed at him through the link.

“Okay!” Shiro laughed. “And I’ll stop hiding things from you, too. Especially you. But...it’s still going to be some time before I’m ready to go back there. If ever. I’m sorry. I...I just can’t.”

Grief and shame, but also acceptance trickled through. No mist. “Guess that means you, too.”

“We’ll fly again. I won’t ever lock your wings,” Shiro promised. “But...I look forward us doing so at our own pace, though.”

The Lion rumbled her understanding, them fell silent. “Yeah, me too,” he admitted.

Jiro stared blankly while leaning against the interior of the Black Lion’s hull when Shiro finally left the cockpit. “Ry?”

“I’m...I’m a Paladin. I actually have a Lion,” Jiro breathed. “I met him, after Black shooed me away.”

A grin spread across Shiro’s face. “Ryou, that’s fantastic. Which one was he? What’s he look like?”

Jiro shook his head, smiling softly. “I don’t know. Not one of ours. I’m not even sure he’s been made yet—he might be from yet another comet we haven’t found yet. But...I have a Lion, Shiro!”

Shiro slung his arm around Jiro’s shoulders. “Looks like you’re still a Paladin,” he said smugly.

Jiro swatted him off playfully. “Joke all you want. But I was right about you still being Black’s favorite.”

“Yeah, you were,” he admitted.

And this time Shiro knew for certain that he chose her, too.