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Shiro didn't remember much about his life before the Galra and he didn't remember much about his life with them. He could vaguely remember his mother, a small woman. She loved tea, he remembered. Never coffee. Only tea. He remembered tea, sometimes. Warm and soft, delicate flavors and a spreading contentment that filled him with every sip.
That was the closest feeling he could remember to this. It wasn't very exciting, sitting in the common room as everyone worked on their own projects. Keith was watching videos from his last training session, showing movements to Lance.
"..see, right here, you over extended the punch, when you're just gotta get back to you stance as quickly as possible..."
Lance nodded, trying his best to absorb the insight.
Pidge and Hunk were leaning over a project, arguing over which wire should go where for the maximum efficiency. Shiro didn't even try to decipher what they were talking about.
He had a map open on his lap, red dots everywhere, but he couldn't bring himself to pay much attention to them. He saw the section of the universe they were currently residing in, blissfully free of the menacing red, and smiled.
This is what tea was like, what his mother was like. He could feel each one of their presences in his bones. It was rare to be safe, to see them happy. The tension that constantly held him upright slackened as he watched them all laugh, smile, and argue. He couldn't remember anything like this, ever.
He remembered being alone a lot, hearing about his father.
"He's on business in Japan, my love," his mother would say. Shiro had a better memory of stories of his father than the man himself. He was probably tall. He missed his mother. He should probably miss his father too, but memory was like that.
He wondered if they missed him.
His mother would miss him, he thought. She always had little names for him, affectionate titles like darling or little astronaut. She had missed him when he went to the Garrison, he knew. She had hugged him goodbye when he got on the airplane to go start his studies. She called him every once in a while, and he got that feeling of tea, soft, delicate, but all-encompassing and full.
He missed her calls. He wondered if they mourned him. One day he would get back and he would ask, and she might say yes, and he would be warm.
The thought that she would forget about him should have hurt much more than it did, but honestly he couldn't bring himself to care. Not when he already had that feeling coursing through his blood.
His family was already here, surrounding him on every side. He could feel Pidge's warmth on his right as she figured out a particularly difficult problem and threw her arms up in celebration, moving the air around them both. He heard Keith laugh as Lance tried to defend an "awesome move" by stating that Bruce Lee had done it "just like that."
Warmth filled every pore, and it was just like drinking tea with his mother. Soft, delicate, and all-encompassing.
This wasn't Earth, but it was home.