#takashi shirogane imagines

[weaponizedducks]

poor shiro cannot catch a fucking break can he. first he gets a crippling disease he's got two years to live. then an angsty wattpad breakup with his boyfriend then he gets kidnapped by aliens and pumped full of alien weed then he crashes on earth with so much walking midlife crisis energy that he gains the skinning puppies to make a fur coat hair, and then he immediately gets shot right back into space by his shittass little brother and weirdo friends with the literal matt clone. then this poor man is made the leader of an alien war, becomes a father to four fuckass teenagers through accidental child acquisition, is forced into the kim kardashian lifestyle by a ginger on drugs, gets kidnapped again, gets cloned, fucking dies, somehow comes back (yeah I'm not really clear about this) then this pathetic wet cat of a man, this stressed jean valjean father of four, experiencing his fourth midlife crisis and millionth mental breakdown, gains that senior citizen swag at twenty five. you could colour match his hair with a polar bear. then he witnesses a walking loreal ad (derogatory) get melted alive, watches a castle get blown up, loses three years in a space time jump and then finds out his ex- fiance who broke up with him right before he left has fucking died in a purple thumb invasion before he got to marry him. but oh no no no that's not the end for this poor sad man. poor guy doesn't get a second to grieve before he is visually assaulted by a less cunty sue sylvester ripoff and her gang of bitchy cheerios (this is admiral s*nda), and yet again made a leader against his will, and shot right back off into space again. then he watches the only other responsible adult in this entire franchise (hot badass space princess who like shiro did not catch a break) sacrifice herself and is left a struggling father. ends up marrying some random fucko. all while suffering through his shitass hot topic brother and blueberry disaster's doomed yaoi romance. oh yeah and he's only got one arm. give the guy a BREAK. FREE my man he doesn't deserve this 🔥🔥

[robylovi]

LMAO THIS WAS SO OUT OF POCKET???

[holysheithyall]

high school au sheith where shiros the loser

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

You all have no idea how obsessed i am with "Quintessence can turn humans into eldritch horrors" yall have no idea

[sockdooe]

Shiro redesign kinda sorta :)

[sofonn]

silly little shunk comics for me as a treat

[mothmanavenue]

“I am the observer, I'm a witness of life // I live in the space between the stars and the sky”

Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land - MARINA

[moraxist]

do you guys think shiro sleeps with a body pillow

[thebetterbrogane]

here’s a poem i wrote about ptsd

As the moon starts sinking, slowly thinking during her dark descent,

I am beckoned closer, purely out of love, to my love’s pure embrace.

He whispers sweet sayings, sings affection, tells me it’s not fiction,

Because he knows of my affliction, affliction that runs deep—

Deeper than the snow that lays atop a mountain’s frozen face—

I keep warm in his embrace.

The moon’s pallid position in the sky, now noon high, shines on us,

Reflects off our scarred skin and enters our watery, glassy sad eyes,

And we can see stars against our retinas, right against our minds,

Exposing all the lies, lies I tell him to help us find sleep,

For, some nights, I do not have my own trust, lying is a must,

I lie to myself for love.

I wish to look away, to pull the curtain of night down to fold

Like a partition against judgment of who I’ve now become.

I reach for stars to cover my head with, cometh Heaven, succumb;

Succumb unto the skin of my palm, weathered with stories untold;

Ones that tell of dark horrors more terrifying by tenfold,

And one created of pure gold.

Nestled around the base of a finger, my eyes linger, on gold.

It shines in the moonlight, and if I look just right, it’s like sun.

Warm beams break through the night’s curtain to bathe me in gold; I can’t run.

To run from the embrace of Heaven’s gold would cast me in cold;

Such an inescapable cold, I remember it all now—

I remember his warm hold.

“Keep the stars up in the sky,” he reminds me; I tend to space out.

I blink them away from my retinas, let them fall from my lashes and onto the bed sheets;

Let moonlight return to night in peace, piece by piece in peace of mind;

With a piece of mine, my heart, my broken folly of a soul,

I caress the ring of pure gold and promise to stay devout;

A laugh blooms from his mouth.

As the sun starts rising, slowly thinking during her bright ascent,

I’m closer than ever, from more than love, tucked into my love’s embrace.

His warm laughter echoes in the conch-curved shell of my pierced ears,

Tells me that the sea could be filled with my tears, I cry so much—

Malice becomes magic when he speaks, laughter becomes crow’s feet on my face—

He keeps warm in my embrace.

[edenaffinity]

Lance's Playlist (as told by me)

Like my Keith "playlist", I've see a lot of same-y character playlists for VLD characters on Spotify, so I took it matters into my own hands.

Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about music, this is based off purely vibes and that one edible I took

Firstly, I wanna say that Lance differently listens to a wide range of music. His family definitely has influenced what he listens to, as well as his friends. But he also finds a lot of more current, popular music himself, as he tries to form his own, unique taste in music.

Secondly, this songs seem really random when you put them all together, but I swear it works.

So with that said:

1. I Wanna Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston

This is Lance's go-to karaoke song. He knows every word since birth and when he sings it, he sings it with his entire body.

2. Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy by Queen

He's "Lover-Boy Lance" and he knows it. And idk I just feel like he likes Queen. Probably has Queen t-shirts and posters and shit too.

3. STAR WALKIN' by Lil Nas X

This song fucks and I feel like Lance gets really hyped to it. Like, it's on his running playlist/work out mix.

4. Carry On by fun.

This is from his childhood, straight from his older siblings. They used to scream the lyrics every time it came on the radio in the car. Lance also knows how to play it on the guitar.

5. Grenade by Bruno Mars

Another from childhood, and he still relates to it. Because, yes, he would literally take a grenade for somebody. He also sings it as dramatically as possible to the nearness person whenever it comes on.

6. Break Your Heart by Taio Cruz

This song fucking bops and Lance rushes to the dance floor when it comes on the bar. He's the type of person to have tons of playlists for any given mood and this is on his early 2010s nostalgia playlist.

7. Loverboy by A-Wall

Once again, he's Lover-Boy Lance and he knows it. Hunk definitely sent him this song and now, whenever they're hanging out, they listen to it. It's their song <3

8. Out of My League by Fitz and The Tantrums

Pidge played this once while they were hanging out and Lance hasn't been able to forget about it since.

9. People Watching by Conan Gray

Lance has fallen asleep while sobbing to this song on multiple occasions. He's a hopeless romantic at heart, for sure.

10. Liability by Lorde

Lance has ALSO fallen asleep while sobbing to this song on multiple occasions. He didn't think he's relate to it as much as he thought he would, but here we are

Honorably mentions:

Just A Stranger by Kali Uchis

Bet On It from High School Musical 2

breathin by Ariana Grande

Better Than Me by Doja Cat

My Boo by Usher

Keith and Lance as Taylor Swift Songs 👸🏼

Klance as Taylor Swift Songs 👸🏼

Keith's playlist ❤️

[bisexualmultifandommess]

Imagine that scene in Paper Girls where KJ talks about knowing if and when you like girls with her future self’s girlfriend but disguising it to be about movies but with Lance asking Shiro about his sexuality but trying to disguise it with something but Shiro just knows and is really soft when explaining it.

[californiannostalgia]

wtf I loved lemonade mouth holy shit

shiro married the drummer from lemonade mouth holy fuck

Just thought y’all might wanna know that THIS dude

Is the dude who voices Curtis (Shiro’s hubby). AND he has abs for days

(His name is Blake Michael and he’s an actor; he was Charlie in Lemonade Mouth and teenage Alcide Herveaux in True Blood)

[sockdooe]

1, 3, 7, 12, 13, 23, and 24 for Takashi Shirogane!

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

I love that even though he’s been through hell and back he’s one of the most gentle characters in the entirety of the show.

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

The entirety of him being the captain of the atlas. I hate that he’s pushed off to the side with a massive ship that’s essentially useless if it wasn’t for the weird plot shit for season 8. Not only does he not know the majority of the people on the ship the atlas feels cold at times. Makes me sad :(

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

Treats him like the nerd he is. And for once actually include him and not put him as a side for keith!!!! love shiro being shiro.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

He was raised by his grandparents which isn’t a rare headcanon but I imagine that his grandmother is Hawaiian and his grandfather Japanese! His father who he doesn’t know who he is but only that he’s German!

I took this from Josh Keaton but shiro definitely got his interest of space from his grandfather!!

13. What's an emoji, an emoticon and/or any symbol that reminds you of this character or you think the character would use a lot?

🦾

23. Favorite picture of this character?

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

My other fandom is team fortress 2 and uh….. the closest characters are medic and the heavy ??

Medic because he’s also got a fascination that’s never left him but in the more haggar sense 💀 and also he’s got big boobs so 🤷

And the heavy because he’s passionate and is pretty smart but is also very silly

I will say though Kuron/ryou would make an EXCELLENT spy!!

[atiianeishaunted]

just remembered i can rant on here yippee >///< have a rant abt takashi shirogane bc im that man's number 1 hater, this will be horribly written and disjointed bc i jus need 2 get this out of my very soul, im tweaking SO BAD, a conversation w red is not enuff.. im homophobic to this man and this man alone. tomato tomato tomato shiro

also im a certified keith apologist that boy does no wrong free him ...

can you imagine taking in a little orphan boy thats clearly craving stability and proceeding to utilize him as a tool/replacement for you to live vicariously through because you cant accept retiring fully despite health concerns EVERYONE is telling you to not ignore ....... ??? not to mention him abandoning keith the first chance he gets even though he knows full well keith has literally nothing besides him (i find it hard to believe he wasnt aware of the unfair treatment keith was going through) (also side note, abandoning adam was also crazy..... adam shouldve lived jus so shiro would have to face the consquences but yk) (free adam he did nothing WRONG) (someone write a fic where adam lives n confronts shiro im begging)

also does anyone else find it suspicious that keith never mentions adam and vice versa, same w matt/pidge, shiro is shown to be very close to the holts (side note, if you ship shiro x matt DNI, that boy is a CHILD), so shiro was just hiding the fact he adopted a whole kid... insane behavior? methinks? also on that mentioning the holts, he treats them way better than he does the child he ADOPTED, constantly prioritizes them and treats them liek actual family. red worded it best when he said that shiro views the holt as family n keith is just a recruit to him ,,, punching the AIRR

shiro not once ever shows unconditional care towards keith, i know people will argue with that but like just think about it, everytime he shows some sort of care or concern towards the kid its usually followed up by it benefiting him, the constant "you cant run off / you cant die / etc etc. because you need to carry on my legacy" ???!??/.1/1/ hate that!

keith sees shiro as his savior essentially liek a god who can do no wrong, we constantly see this by the way he talks about the man and how far hes willing to go for him while shiro holds him at arm's length and constantly neglects him?!?!? idk why everyone jus treated that as cute ????? shiro is a horrible guardian to keith man ,, he encourages destructive behaviors and keith's insecurities purely bc it benefits him !!!!! straigfht up grooming the kid into being the perfect soldier/student/you get the point for the garrison

i coudl rant for hours and hours abt this but liek im genuinely so mad my brain is blank,, extreme hater hours, might add onto this hashtag later everytime i get mad about him, again this is a mess, you will prolly hear this rant a million times over from me, slightly more well constructed next time hopefully,,,,,,

[justsomevoltronstuff]

Hello! :D I know it’s a silly question..but i was playing sims(as one does) and I wondered if you had any hcs of the paladins interior style? Like what colors (not only their signature I guess)and type of furniture? What type of home/apartment?I’d appreciate the help! Have a nice day!

okay absolutely have not had mental capability for like anything creative but I’ve also started a job in real estate so interior design make me go brrrrrrrr lately-

Shiro I feel like is either really plain and like necessities only or really homely. Like he either has the most basic cheap couches and tables and chairs and like, the plain white plates you can by at Walmart for like 10 bucks (you know the ones) and all the walls are just whatever color the previous owners/renters had them as so he has a random light pink room, a green room, etc. OR OR OR you walk in and get smacked in the face by comfort, like he has knick knacks and pictures and random antiques littering every surface, he has a china cabinet with the fancy dishes, he has a cabinet dedicated to coffee mugs and like only two of them match cause the rest of that set broke ages ago, all the other Paladins have their own designated mug, like it’s never specified but like, you KNOW the teal one with the cow that god knows where came from is Kieths, and that’s just how it works. I don’t think he has a specific color pallet bc it’d depend on like what the house looks like, and it’s either minimalistic or the vibe of the house.

Kieth has an apartment, his bed is on the floor, the only reason he has a couch is because Lance and Hunk just showed up with it one day and left it there. His cabinets are boxed Mac and cheese and canned beans, he uses paper plates/bowls and plastic cups/silverware, and there’s only like two pictures in the whole place, one of him and the other Paladins (and Allura and Coran) and one of him, his mom, and Kosmo. He’s not much of a stay in one place type so he doesn’t have a lot BUT if he were to decide to settle and make a home it’d have a garage, a huge backyard, and enough space for any and all of the Paladins to visit, and let’s face it, Lance probs did most of the decorating, as long as Keith has a place to sleep he doesn’t really care much what it looks like.

Lance is Aesthetic™️ and you can’t change my mind. He’s full on redecorating his house for every single holiday, his attic is a maze of shit only he knows how to navigate. His kitchen is probs black and white with a pretty accent color and his dishes all match the kitchen color scheme, like the fancy ones with the swooshy designs, ya know? So. Many. Throw pillows. Lol. Has pictures of his family and the paladins everywhere, along with various pieces of art. Walking in is like stepping in a magazine but at the same time feels so comforting.

Hunk plants everywhere. I don’t know how to explain it, but he’s a total plant dad. His kitchen is immaculate, the kind of place you love to hang out in, also has mismatched mugs bc he likes to collect them from places he’s gone and it’s a go to gift for him. I think he has a bunch of books on everything from How To guides to the entire Riordanverse. Tools scattered everywhere and various projects littering almost every surface. Has a blanket his grandmother knitted him draped over his couch. Random Voltron merch everywhere bc he can’t help himself when he sees it.

Pidge is either a clean freak with a perfectly put together house (as long as you don’t open those drawers) or it’s a fuckin mess and a half with a walking trail from one room to the next but otherwise there’s no way in hell. Also has projects literally everywhere, collections of random space tech, we’re not gonna question it. Probs a fairly monotonous place, lots of whites and greys, has an entire bookshelf for family pictures and sentimental things but aside from that, it’s the house of a scientist. Has a plush green lion on her couch. Has two perfectly cleared out mostly untouched guest bedrooms in case her family or any of the paladins visit.

~Admin Rori💜

[autisticlancemcclain]

When Shiro hears news of his mother’s death, his first thought is good riddance.

His second thought is fuck. Loudly, and repeated many times in his head. And out loud. In the middle of the night, sitting straight up in bed, startling his fiancé awake.

“T’kashi?” he mutters, eye squinted as he blindly pays the bedside table for his glasses. “What’s going on?”

Shiro’s mouth works on autopilot. “It’s my mother.”

As it always does when she is brought up, which is frequently due to her many life decisions, Adam’s face wrinkles as if he just bit into something very sour.

“Oh. What the fuck is she up to now?”

“Uh, the afterlife.”

Adam’s face freezes. Shiro chokes down hysterical laughter. It doesn’t work, and comes out kind of reedy and strangled.

“Mr. Shirogane,” comes the tinny voice from his phone, and Shiro startles.

“Oh, shit, yes. Sorry. Um. I wanted to ask about my brother. Where is he? When can I pick him up?”

There’s a hesitance from the other end that Shiro doesn’t like. He sits up straighter, if at all possible, and Adam’s face hardens — it has been a four year long fight, with his mother, to try to get Keith over as often as possible for even an ounce of stability, and not a fight they have won very frequently, but it is not one they’re willing to give up. Shiro has no doubt that the state will fight just as hard as his mother did.

Adam and Shiro will simply fight harder.

“The safety of the child is the state’s first concern,” the lawyer says neutrally.

“Great. Give me an address and twenty minutes, then, and I’ll bring him right home.”

The lawyer’s voice is steely. “He is home, with a lovely young couple who are happy to have him.”

“There is a lovely young couple who he is related to and whom he has familiarity with right here,” Shiro grits out. “Tell me where my brother is.”

The lawyer waits a moment. “It might be a difficult transition, you know. It would be nice for Keith to have a mother and a father, for once.”

Before Shiro can even blink, a hand reaches over and snatches the phone right from his face, and Adam throws it open onto the bedspread, presses speaker, and sets off.

“You listen here, you gristly assed motherfucker. Takashi has the right of next of kin. Failing proof of neglect or abuse, which you have tried and failed to invent on our end so many times the court as all but banned you from trying again, Keith is legally required to be placed in our home should Shirogane Saori be found incapable of care. And, as you can imagine, lying on a table in a morgue renders one quite incapable. If you don’t provide an address clearly and concisely in the next fifteen seconds, I will sue not only you and your firm, but you mother, your father, your children, and you dusty tailor, you ugly brown suit wearing hetero. Are we understood?”

There’s another stretch of silence, wherein despite the gravity of the situation Shiro considers proposing to his fiancé again, before the lawyer finally speaks.

“…Group home on 4th and King.”

“Thank you,” Adam says tersely, and slams the phone closed. He scoffs at it. “Fucking jackass. Someone should kill him.”

Shiro snorts. Then he giggles. Then he starts laughing, and then he can’t stop, and he laughs so hard tears come to his eyes, and then they don’t stop, either, and his breath hitches and a lump forms in his throat and his whole face starts to get itchy. Adam pulls him into him immediately, cradling him into his lap like he’s a child, and he goes without resistance because it’s Adam doing to holding, and because he doesn’t know where this sadness is coming from. He has hated his mother for more years than he has loved her. The only time he’s thanked her for anything in the last eight years was one he held Keith in the hospital, skipping his first day of high school to do it. She has been crueler than kind to him for most of his life.

But she was his mother, in many ways. In all ways except the ones that mattered. And apparently that counts for something.

“We need to go,” Shiro whispers, trying to lift his head. Adam gently presses it back into his neck, holding his arms around him.

“It’s four in the morning, starshine. Maybe we wait a few hours?”

“No.” The hoarseness of his own voice makes him wince. “He can’t…Adam, I don’t even like my mother, and look at me. Keith is going to be inconsolable. She carted him around like a baby doll. He loved her.”

Adam winces. He knows it’s true as much as Shiro does. Their mother’s erratic lifestyle has gifted Keith an assortment of attachment issues, as evidenced by the tantrums whenever she dropped him off at their apartment when she was bored.

Not that Keith understands the issue. Because he is four, and because he has gone through more things in his four years of life than many children will before they are even ten, but not enough to stop thinking his mother is the most important person on Earth.

Quickly they dress, shoving in whatever clothes are near without worrying about looking presentable. They don’t bother with much more than brushing their teeth, skipping shaving and breakfast and coffee in favour of speeding to the parking garage.

It only takes them fifteen minutes to get to the group home the lawyer has mentioned, and they waste no time in rushing up the steps, uncaring of social norms or etiquette as they ring the doorbell and stand fidgeting at the front door.

It takes a long time for the door to open. Shiro can’t help feeling like that is intentional.

“What,” barks the man at the door, as if their intent isn’t expressly obvious given the circumstance.

“I’m here to pick up my brother,” Shiro says as politely as he can manage. “Keith?”

“He’s sleeping,” says the man, who Shiro presumes is one of the foster parents running the home. “Come back tomorrow.” He tries to slam the door shut, but before he can register his own movement Shiro is slamming his hand against the door. The wood cracks under his palm.

He doesn’t bother saying anything. He doesn’t have it in him. He simply shoves the door open, sending the man stumbling, and strides in, remembering at the last second to try and keep quiet so as to not wake any other sleeping children. It takes him three tries to find the right room, but when he finally swings open the right door he knows, from the very second he sees the lump of blankets on the bottom bunk in the far right corner. He stands frozen for a moment at the door, watching his baby brother breathe, seeing the dried tear tracks on his face, the stutter of his breaths and shake of his chest. His thumb is firmly in his mouth, a habit he’s had broken for two years.

Shiro’s eyes begin to leak again. He feels Adam squeeze his bicep once in comfort, then wordlessly he walks off, gathering the messy scattering of Keith’s things into a large backpack. Trusting him to know or guess what belongs to his brother — all largely things they’ve bought him — Shiro approaches the bed, kneeling carefully at the edge of it. He reaches out and brushes Keith’s hair out of his face, gliding his thumb across his forehead. It wrinkles as Keith wakes, squinting his eyes up at Shiro in grogginess and confusion. It takes him a moment to register what’s going on, but Shiro knows the exact second it does, because his indigo eyes go blank the way they do when Keith is so far overwhelmed he can’t even come close to starting to process how he feels. Shiro braces himself for whatever vitriol, likely directly quoted from their mother, is about to come out of his mouth.

“I don’t want you,” Keith cries. He makes a sound in the back of his throat, cracked and strained; a long, keening cry. His face twists up and he glares at Shiro in what can only be described as betrayal, as if it’s Shiro’s fault their mother is gone, as if it was Shiro’s evil plan to take her away forever so he can never go back.

He wouldn’t even be surprised if that’s what their mother has told him. It hurts anyway.

“I know,” he chokes out, hushed. He brushes his thumb over Keith’s forehead again, slow, from temple to temple, and to his surprise his brother leans into it slightly as his breaths hitch with sobs. “I know, baby.”

He exchanges a look with Adam, who, God Shiro loves him so much, understands immediately: they have ten minutes.

Two years ago, when their mother dropped Keith off at his doorstep one day and fucked off to Atlanta for a week, Shiro decided enough was enough. Keith was convinced she was coming back to get him every morning and was devastated when she didn’t. It was an endless, sisyphian cycle. Shiro took the day off school, took his limited funds, and brought Keith to a paediatric specialist. It was of course not the most thorough evaluation, as that was something that could only be done with time, but there was almost definitely some valuable input. Shiro learned, in harried, layman’s terms, that their mother’s flakiness meant Keith always believed he was about to be left behind. Her babying of him lead him to believe that he was at fault when that happened. When he was actually happened, he was prone to tears and affection, trying to win back his mother, trying to prove that he was a good enough baby doll for her, basically.

And if that doesn’t work…well. Then the hurt and the anger start, and God knows how long it will last.

“Ten minutes,” Adam mutters, stuffing one last thing into the backpack and shoving it over his shoulders. “Let’s go.”

Taking the blanket with him, because fuck these guys, Shiro lifts his baby brother up, holding him tightly to himself, pressing his face into his neck. He starts to powerwalk down the hallway back to the front door, Adam close behind him. He vaguely hears the same man who opened the door start to argue with them, start to try to stop them, and he trusts Adam to handle it, because all he can hear in his head is a countdown. If they don’t make it to the car in time and Keith starts really wailing, they are going to take him away, and Shiro knows he will never get fucking visiting rights because the family court system is the most broken thing in America, and Keith will be shoved into some random group home that doesn’t care about him and won’t care about him and he’ll be treated like shit or worse not treated like anything at all, and he will grow up thinking that there is no one who loves him and no one to turn to and Shiro will never forgive himself or his mother or the world.

He needs to get his brother to the car.

He rushes down the beaten down concrete steps as fast as he can while still being careful in the dark. The car is half a block away, the only place they could find parking, and he starts to jog, ignoring the ache in his arms. He’s held Keith for longer. At the seven minute mark, he registers yelling voices and a door slam and Adam’s rapid footsteps behind him, and by the ninth they make it to their beat up piece of shit fourth-hand car, throwing open the back door, setting Keith down gently, bucking the kid in as quickly as they can manage.

Shiro has lost count of how much time they have, if they have any at all. His heart pounds so rapidly he can feel it everywhere in his body. He’s bitten the inside of his cheek so harshly he can taste blood. He feels like he’s gonna throw up.

He’s barely thrown a seatbelt on by the time Adam shifts into gear and tears out onto the busy street, cars honking at him. Shiro meets his eyes in the rearview mirror, trying to find strength in his look, in his support. He tries to tell himself that the worst part is over, now; Keith is with him, beside him in the back seat, Keith is going to stay with him forever, now, he is going to make his baby brother’s life stable from now on. They are starting to swim their way out of the deep end.

And then the wailing starts.

It’s loud. Keith takes a huge, deep breath, then lets out a noise that Shiro can only describe as agonised, so big and heavy that it pulls on his little body, straining against the seatbelt. His face is bright red from the force of it, and Shiro can count his teeth with how wide open his mouth is. Bizarrely, Shiro wonders if he’s loud enough for the windows to break, or their eardrums. He’s not sure if his own pain comes from his ears or his heart.

“I want my mama!” Keith sobs, shouts, screams, cries. “I want my mama! I want my mama!”

“I know,” Shiro whispers again, for what feels like the millionth time that night. Between Keith’s stuttering breaths Shiro hears Adam’s soft cries, looks up to see tears streaming down his face. He’s surprised to find his own face dry as a bone, the lump in his throat he’d felt earlier completely disintegrated. He feels hollowed out. “I know, Akira. I know. I know.”

Shiro wonders if this is what it feels like to drown.