Chapter Text
His flight comes in an hour late from his connecting in New York, where the snow was falling heavy and fast, in touch-and-go flurries that let planes fly in bursts.
Shiro pauses, just before the receiving area, to shift his backpack around. It doesn’t sit right on his shoulders. But nothing sits right on him anymore. One of the nurses had helped him roll his sleeve and keep it pinned before he left for the airport, but it leaves him unbalanced.
And, God, what is Allura going to say?
It’s one thing to get an update that he’s lost an arm, but it’ll be a whole other thing to see it gone.
It was for Shiro.
He grips the strap on his backpack and the people stream around him, off to their loved ones and homes and he -
He gets Allura and Coran. And probably a homemade sign. And a room made up for him in Allura’s apartment and a job. And a future.
It’s not the time to be scared.
A nice man in a suit holds the door open for him. He salutes, too, and Shiro offers him a shy smile and the duck of his head when he comes through.
“Over there, he’s over there! Shiro! Shiro, over here! We’re here, look, we’ve got a sign!” The shy smile is a full-blown grin before he can stop himself. The sign is big and wobbling in Coran’s hands, too fast for Shiro to even read, covered in glitter that’s falling into Allura’s hair and her Starbucks cup and their winter jackets.
He doesn’t run over to them, but it’s a close thing, when he lets himself be wrapped in Allura’s arms and buries his face in her hair and takes a deep breath in. No. He isn’t going to be afraid of the future they had for him.
(He thinks someone has their cellphone out, taking a video or a picture or even a Snapchat of this moment. That’s fine. They’ll track it down later and laugh, while they’re in their pajamas, eating shitty ramen and drinking good tea.)
“It’s so good to have you home again,” Allura says against his shoulder. Shiro wants to wrap his arms tight around her and lift her up and never let her go.
Coran does it for him. Just lifts the both of them clean off the ground, with his arms wrapped around both of them like it’s nothing.
“D’you like the sign? Made it myself, you know!”
The laughter that bubbles out feels light. In Coran’s arms and Allura’s arms, he feels buoyant for the first time in months.
“I love it, Coran,” Shiro says, as Coran sets them back on the ground. His arm is still looped around Allura’s shoulder, “all of it. Thank you, both of you, for being here.”
He makes an aborted move to also pat Coran on the shoulder, but -
Coran slides under his shoulder anyways and slots himself on Shiro’s other side, flashing a smug grin.
“Don’t you go getting sappy on us, Mr. Takashi!” Allura’s voice is sharp, but she’s grinning and the elbow she drives into his gut only hurts a little bit. “Of course we’d come for you. We’re always going to be here for you.”
“It’s not the same around here without you, you know. Look at how much stronger Allura is now that she’s doing all the pastries now!” Coran reaches across Shiro to motion and gesture and generally show off Allura’s admittedly incredible arms.
“I might need you to take over for me for a little longer, Allura.” The smile on Shiro’s face is more self-deprecating than he means it to be, and it gets him a frown from both Allura and Coran. (Which is actually three times the disappointment, because Allura learned her disapproval from her father, so it’s actually like Alfor is disapproving of him too, in spirit.)
“If you think that I’m letting you out of making your amazing cupcakes, you are tragically mistaken,” Allura says. “In fact, I think we should make sure you still remember how to do it.”
“Lead the way, princess.”
xxx
The Cat’s Meow is a two-story building that pretends to be skinny sandwiched between a Thai restaurant that knows them only by their order and a huge block of student apartments full of college students who will file in for their morning coffee anywhere between 7 AM and 2 PM.
The taxi drops them off at the corner, where Shiro can see the sandwich board propped up against the window. Allura is warm against his side, Coran has his arm slung over Shiro’s shoulders, and it almost feels like high school again, walking back from a long day of classes to an evening of bussing tables and making drinks (and sneaking a couple for themselves) and studying in the cafe.
The cafe still looks the same, even though the chairs are a different assortment of comfortable and the pictures hanging on the wall are different. It still feels the same, and that eases some of the tightness in Shiro’s chest, especially when he sees the sandwich board that cheerily proclaims “Welcome home, Shiro!” in Coran’s loopy script.
“I got excited and the sign was finished too quickly,” Coran says, sniffing indignantly at Shiro’s amusement.
“It’s great, I wasn’t saying anything,” Shiro says, hands up in a placating gesture.
“But you were thinking something.”
“Only about how happy I am to have all such a warm welcome from you guys.”
Coran raises an eyebrow. It is judgemental and it is suspicious, but Shiro grins, and so does Coran.
“If you’re done,” Allura says, from the door she’s propping open, “I’ll introduce you to the new barista.”
Shiro is already unwinding the scarf that Allura wrapped for him before they stepped out of the terminal (“I finished it just in time,” she had said, nodding in satisfaction) when he steps inside, shaking his head to get the last of the snowflakes out of his hair, before glancing up to take in the cafe.
The feeling is the same, the lived-in atmosphere and handwritten menu over the register; it even smells the same, which brings a soft smile to Shiro’s face.
“Welcome to The Cat’s Meow.” There’s bored student (college or high school, but Shiro can’t be sure on which one until he can see what kind of textbook he has spread out in front of him) at the register, spinning the sharpie they use to write orders in his fingers. It’s not that his smile is fake, but he’s clearly not enthused to pause his studying. “Can I help you?”
“Lance!” Allura pushes her way around Shiro’s bulk, striding over to the counter, and the boy straightens like a shot, shoving his textbook out of the way with a flush. Shiro shoulders out of his pack and props it up next to the door before he hurries over too.
Allura grabs Shiro by his arm and pulls him up alongside her. Which, jeez, she really has gotten stronger. “This is Lance.”
Lance stares for a moment, before that moment turns into dawning understanding and then horror.
“Oh my god, but he’s hot! Is he going to take all my hours?” Lance’s voice drops to a whisper. “Is he going to take all my tips?”
“I’m going to go see Coran about some real coffee. If you need to defend your territory, please do it outside away from the customers, thank you,” Allura says too sweetly, rolling her eyes in a way that suggests more fondness than exasperation toward Lance, before she ducks behind the bar to presumably put herself between Coran and the steamer.
If Lance is going to work here, work with him , then he’s going to be family too. Unless he actually thinks he needs to defend his territory, but Shiro will give him the benefit of the doubt, so he smiles.
“I think it’ll be a couple of days before I adjust to civilian life enough to work again.” Shiro steps forward and holds out his hand. Lance glances at - eyes, stares, wants to question - his arm. It makes something in Shiro splinter , and the next breath he takes is hard in his chest. He knows his smile is starting to strain.
This is the treatment he’ll get for the rest of his life. He just needs to get used to it. That’s all.
“Shirogane Takashi. But everyone calls me Shiro.”
That’s when the realization dawns on Lance’s face, slack-jawed and adoring, which means that Allura has been telling stories .
“Lance!” he all but shouts, grabbing Shiro’s hand. He doesn’t shake Shiro’s hand as much as he grips tight and moves in directions. “Um. Lance Rodriguez.”
The eye contact is a lot, also, since Lance’s eyes keep moving down before they dart right back up to his face, firmly on his face. Lance is trying. It’s...sincere. And it’s reaching sincerely panicked now.
“I have been shaking your hand a lot. I have been shaking your hand too much.”
“You’re doing okay, but if you’d like to stop, I wouldn’t say no?” Lance immediately lets go, fast enough for Shiro’s hand to just hang for a couple of seconds before he realises what’s happening. “That’s a good grip you’ve got.”
“T...thanks?” Lance looks halfway to terrified. He puts his hands down over his textbook and glances down at it, like he’s realising that it’s open for the first time and slams the cover shut. “I was not doing my textbook reading while I was on my shift. No way. Don’t tell Allura. And please don’t take my tips?”
Shiro doesn’t laugh exactly, but it’s warm and fond. He can see Lance working evenings in the cafe and offering to close up for Allura, but getting shooed away so he can go study. Or coming by in the mornings before a test to get some actual coffee for luck.
“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me, Lance.” Shiro ducks behind the bar too, clapping Lance on the shoulder. “And if you really want to know, I can tell you the story some time?”
Lance stares down at Shiro’s hand on his shoulder to his missing arm to Shiro’s face again. The awe is still there, under all of the uncertainty of...of maybe meeting Shiro, like he can’t believe that Shiro is really here. “Okay, I’m not going to lie, I’ve already heard a lot of stories from Allura. You’re going to have to clarify which one.”
“I’m pretty sure you already know which one I’m talking about, but I’ve got some more if you don’t want to hear about that yet,” Shiro says lightly. It’s not a lie. Someday, he’ll tell Lance how he lost his arm. It just won’t be now. Or soon, even. “I’m going to go talk to Allura and see if she’ll let me help her close up or not. But I’m sure we’ll get to talk later.”
“Uh. Uh yeah. If you’re not talking to her about firing me? Please don’t fire me?”
“Relax, Lance. No one’s planning on firing you,” Shiro says. There’s warmth in his chest again when he smiles at Lance. “I know I’m a little late, but welcome to the family. It was nice meeting you, Lance.”
He gets a weak, starstruck wave in return and returns his own, even though he’s walking about five feet down the bar to where the steamer situation is mostly under control, but the milk Coran is steaming is still blue (for some reason?).
“So Lance is nice,” Shiro says, leaning on the counter next to Allura. She’s watching the machine like a hawk, or like a diffusion squad and the steamer is the bomb.
“If you have time to lean, you have time t - oh, sorry, thought you were Lance!” Coran says, from over by the pumps. He has pink milk foam in his mustache and a dab on his nose, like he went face first into a latte.
“I’m not leaning!” Lance yells from where he’s leaning at the register.
“You’re not going to steal his hours are you?” Allura says. She’s not looking at Shiro, because maybe something will still explode with milk foam. “I really think he needs those hours. He’s got so many siblings. I think he likes spoiling them too much.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. I could steal some of yours, maybe,” Shiro replies, grinning when Allura finally looks up, if only to frown and scoff at him. “You seem like you could work a little bit less.”
“And then what would I do?” Allura says, rolling her eyes. “Stand around and look pretty? I think we both know that you are much more suited for that than me.”
Shiro doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t. But he doesn’t manage the smile. It’s wrong on his face, a grimace that hurts to fake. His fingers dig into the counter instead, so they don’t fly for the space where his arm is supposed to be.
Allura reaches out, her eyes soft and her hand hovering just over Shiro’s on the bar before he takes a step away. Some things didn’t change, it seemed. Allura was still just as driven to protect as she always had been (which only magnified when Alfor passed away).
“I’m sorry, Shiro, you know I - ”
“Allura it’s - ”
Shiro stares at Allura and Allura stares back for a beat. And then two. And something loosens in Shiro’s chest that he didn’t know was wound so tightly and the next thing that comes out is laughter. Allura grins, and it only grows wider when Shiro reaches out to hold her hand.
Some things really didn’t change. Of course they would try to throw their apologies at each other at the same time.
“Okay, you can go first,” Shiro says, squeezing her hand.
“Whatever you need to be comfortable, just say the word and I’ll do it.” Allura squeezes back and her smile makes it seem like her promise is actually as simple as it sounds. But it is, for her.
“Thank you. We can talk about it soon. I think I just...need to adjust to everything first.” And that’s his promise back.