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Earth was distant beneath his feet, the smell of dirt and dust and smog unfamiliar to his far-traveling senses. He’d been looking forward to home, but home greeted him weakly, his grandfather having passed on thinking his only grandson died on a moon at the edge of their solar system.
It was hard to push down that feeling that told Shiro that he didn’t have a home anymore, the feeling that said he didn’t belong anywhere, not after he’d become a monster.
He’d been fighting that voice for years and years; a practiced voice and trained smile pushed it down.
Lithe fingers found their way between his and squeezed. Keith’s eyes softened Shiro’s smile into something less strained.
Shiro had a home. They both did, and now, with the war behind them, they finally had time to make it real.
The first first thing they did was learn about the Earth again. With nothing but oversized backpacks and a generous government stipend, they learned it all. They started in Japan.
They arrived too early for the cherry blossoms, but the hot springs helped ease the wait. The water started the healing, pulled the tension out of long-healed scars and too-tense muscles, and what those didn’t fix, gentle touches did. They hadn’t realized how tense they’d gotten, not when everyone else was stiffening in the same way, and as the stress was pulled away bit by bit, they started to remember what it was like to be a person.
Shiro’s distant relatives were happy to host them, to welcome their superstar world saving great-great-nephew-in-law, and Shiro’s roots started reaching back into the planet. They loved Keith, too, happy to see that death hadn’t kept Takashi from falling in love.
The cherry blossoms bloomed, and fell.
Some part of Shiro wanted to stay, to build a family in the soil he came from, and every part of Keith wanted to go where Shiro did, but not yet. The world still held too many secrets for them to give up just yet, especially with so much time lost away from it.
They headed west, experiencing everything there was to experience. In China, they visited the plateaus and the cities, the jungles and the northern desert, so different from the desert they remembered. Keith ate anything that was put in front of him and insisted that Shiro never ask what it was. He laughed at Shiro’s faces at he tried to swallow his bit of scorpion. He laughed even harder when Shiro had to spit it out.
“It’s a delicacy,” Keith reminded him.
Shiro just stuck his tongue out, trying to get the taste out of his mouth, and Keith collapsed in fits as Shiro pouted.
The food in India was much more to Shiro’s taste, rich sauces accompanied by delicate smells, rose flavored drinks and spices he was just barely strong enough for.
The crush of people grounded him like nothing else could, hundreds of people who barely knew that Voltron, that men in their midst, had saved their planet.
The woman who single handedly ran their hotel with calloused hands and brisk words, always accompanied by a smile, made sure they went to the festivals.
Keith had never seen Shiro smile as brightly as he did when he was covered in colors, blue and pink and red dust staining his white hair rainbow, the shouts of humans drowned out by the way all of Keith’s senses locked in on Shiro, the sound of his laugh, more free than Keith had ever heard it. Shiro kissed him in his joy, the red on his lips mixing with the blue on Keith’s.
With a tight hug and a promise to return, they left India and continued their trek. Shiro made a joke about following the Silk Road and they did just that, a hush falling over their excitement in awe of the holy sites they encountered in the Middle East, the ancient structures carved into the stone of Petra, the buried ziggurats that reminded them how young they really were.
Every person they met, every meal they ate, every smile and night they shared put another root into the ground. By the time they got to Europe, Earth was home. Every single part of it. It welcomed them back with vigor and light and color. No one looked at their scars and forced them away, at Shiro’s arm and ran.
In the top floor of a hotel in Paris, Shiro sat on the edge of their unruly bed, flexing the fingers of his hand in the early morning light streaking through the grand windows, watching the light reflect off of the metal and making the whole room shimmer. Keith’s chin dug into Shiro’s shoulder and his hair tickled Shiro’s neck.
He hummed, nuzzling into Shiro’s neck. He could almost see Keith’s half lidded eyes.
“It’s early,” he said, muffling his voice in the warm skin his lips found.
Shiro huffed a laugh as he turned into Keith’s hair. “It’s always early for you, love.”
Keith grumbled something indecipherable, and Shiro turned back to the light on his hand, the dust motes that got stuck in-between the window and him, how each one shined. Keith relaxed against Shiro’s back and his arms threaded around Shiro’s middle. Shiro’s free hand found where Keith’s hands clasped and rubbed soft circles into the rough skin he found.
“What’s wrong?” Keith asked the quiet morning.
Shiro’s smile lifted Keith’s hair as he kissed the messy head, a chaste gesture of reassurance.
“I’m good,” he said, “I’m really good.”
Keith kissed Shiro’s shoulder, returning the moment.
“Yeah?”
Shiro breathed. “I used to hate it,” he started, “something I didn’t ask for, a symbol of the people who hurt me, the person I almost became, it’s just—“
Shiro’s breath hitched and the arms around his waist tightened, just enough to encourage him to go on.
“This thing, it helped me save every single person here.”
Keith shifted behind Shiro, readjusting so he could look at Shiro’s face, moving the white hair out of his hair. Shiro kept going.
“For the first time since we got back, since I got this, I’m a person again.” Shiro felt the sting between his eyes, and then, a gentle thumb pulled the tear away as quickly as it came, followed by quiet lips to heal the track.
“You’re the best person I know,” Keith said, “and I love every part of you.”
Shiro closed his eyes, nodding. “Thank you,” he said, “and you know I love you more than I will ever be able to say.”
Keith pulled Shiro’s shoulder and they held each other, Paris light shining off the edges of their hair and scars, off of metal and clean white sheets.
They saw it all. They made up for everything they missed, and when they got tired, they bought a home in Japan.
The cherry blossoms bloomed, and fell. The next year, they did the same. Shiro and Keith smiled at each other under the twisting branches of colorful trees as the world stretched out before them.