Chapter Text
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life's too short to even care at all
oh
i'm losing my mind, losing my mind
losing control
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Soft light peeked in through the blinds, slowly casting its light through the room, stretching across furniture, clothes, books, until it reached the bed, edging up the blanket to the slack face of Takashi Shirogane.
He breathed deeply, eyelids twitching ever so slightly, likely a response to the dream being created within the realm of his mind.
Suddenly, a gold light more magical than that of the sun flashed from underneath his lashes, gone as quickly as it came.
His face pinched together, an eye forcing its way open as the light from the outside grew brighter, pupil dilating and causing him to groan. He sat up, the blanket falling away as he reached a hand up to rub with his Galra tech ha-
Shiro froze. That did not feel like metal.
He squinted down at his right arm, blinking a few times, eyes widening as he recognized that yes, instead of the robotic arm he'd grown accustomed to, there was his arm. Completely free of scars and burns and a sense of utter wrong clenched in his throat instead of the joy he’d thought would happen.
Shiro quickly reached his left hand out to feel the arm, confirming even further that it was flesh and bone instead of casing and quintessence, and he almost didn't know what else to do but scream, but constant nights of nightmares had trained him not to though. Instead he shoved the rest of the blanket off his legs, standing on shaky feet and moving to the mirror that hung off his closet door.
He could only stare at his reflection, lips in a firm line and fighting off the panic that tried to grab at his chest.
The white hair was gone. So was the scar that crossed his nose. The arm too, of course.
At any other time, Shiro would've been crying for joy, but all he could do was try to fight off the panic attack that wanted to claim him, mind working rapidly,
'This doesn't make sense we were-Zarkon was weak and I finally had the bayard-we had that flaming sword-how-why-'
He shuddered and collapsed to his knees, succumbing to the sheer panic and anxiety that roiled in his gut.
'This isn't possible! That all had to be real! Dreams are never that vivid-or-or-realistic-god what happened to Pidge and Lance and Hunk and Keith-'
A dry sob racked his body, both hands going up to cover his eyes because they refused to close and he couldn't stand looking at his reflection any longer.
'Where did they go? Where am I? Why aren't they here? Where are they? Where are they where are they WHERE ARE THEY?!'
He continued to sit there, letting the panic ride out, stomach twisting itself into knots and his throat going raw, having a complete breakdown despite the peacefulness of his surroundings, the morning continuing as if Shiro hadn't been ripped from everything he knew and loved.
It took a full three minutes before it ebbed away enough for him to finally look again, confusion clear in his eyes when it was still that same perfect reflection that wasn't him anymore.
A knock broke his staring contest, head whipping around to the door, heart jumping into his throat when a familiar voice called out to him,
"Shiro, it's Keith! I left my jacket here, could I get it?"
He didn't even know if he had it, jackets were the last thing on his mind, Shiro quickly scrambling to the door and throwing it open,
"Keith! Thank go-"
This wasn't Keith. No, it was, but it wasn't. It was still the same purple eyes and pointed chin and strong stance that was always him, but he was wearing the Garrison uniform, and his long hair was all but gone, a Garrison approved undercut replacing the affectionately dubbed Mullet Lance teased about way too often.
Keith blinked at his sudden actions, raising an eyebrow at Shiro,
"Y-Yeah? We saw each other yesterday you know."
"What happened to your hair?"
Keith squinted his eyes at him, before obnoxiously rolling them, bitterly responding,
"Oh ha ha, yes, the haircut. Seriously, it's been almost a month now, cut it out."
A month?
"What day is it?"
"February 24th, don't you religiously check your-"
"What year?!"
Keith flinched, eyebrows now furrowing in concern.
"2117, are you feeling okay?"
The Kerberos mission was two years ago as of February 10th. Why the hell was Shiro here instead of at the Galra prison?
Keith just continued to stare at him, worry etched into his face as he carefully reached a hand out,
“You sound really out of it, is it another one of your anxiety attacks?”
Of course the thing that would be the same was mental attacks, just the way the dice rolled for Shiro. He slowly nodded, maybe Keith would offer to stay, and he could figure out where he was and what had happened and try and determine how the hell he was going to fix this.
“You want to just talk? Get your mind off of it?”
Shiro nodded again, taking a step back so this other Keith could walk in, wordlessly going over to sit on the bed.
So for the next hour Shiro put on a face, carefully gathering whatever information he could from Keith, trying not to be too suspicious with his questions, and after he had left he was thankful to see this Shiro still at least held organizational skills, searching through the papers on the desk and checking his holopad for any missing pieces, and nearly had another panic as everything fell together.
Two years ago, instead of going with Matt and Sam Holt on the Kerberos mission, Shiro had dropped out at the last minute. The holopad diary entry that would’ve held his reasoning was locked and encrypted, and he had no hope of figuring out why he’d turned away from the deep-space travel mission. It didn’t matter either way, because the mission was still a failure due to pilot error (which was still bullshit, the pilot who’d replaced him was still one of the best at the Galaxy Garrison) but that meant instead of everything that was supposed to happen during those two years of his lost life, didn’t play out like it was supposed to.
The easiest thing to see was that Keith was still here, instead of hermitting out at the shack in the desert and hunting down the Blue Lion, top of the pilot roster as to be expected and still listened and followed Shiro as if his word was the truth and he could do no wrong, which only had Shiro cringing, because of course Keith trusted him, but never had he spoke so highly or worshipped him, because even his Keith knew humans were naturally flawed and that included Shiro.
That was just the start of the domino effect, because Keith’s staying at the school meant Lance never rostered past cargo pilot. This information had been harder to find, Shiro actually had to find this out through more private school files, but his heart had dropped when he pulled up Lance’s information. He was just barely passing, in testing and lessons and simulations, which made Shiro have to take a step back. His Lance was the most energetic and faithful person he knew, and this one sounded like a total 180 from who he knew.
Hunk had still been placed as an engineer, of all things with this Keith’s crew though. From the way he sneered and complained though, it sounded as if things were rocky between them. This Hunk was constantly calling his choices into question, and 85% of their simulations failed in communication skills between the two because they would constantly argue, and not in the way he knew his Keith and Lance would. It almost seemed as if this Hunk didn’t so much as look at this Lance either, their friendship failed when they had been separated and that had hurt the most to learn.
What took the cake was Pidge though. Apparently Pidge hated Shiro for whatever reason, likely the Kerberos mission if he used deductive reasoning right. Shiro didn’t blame Pidge, she was probably angry for him not going on the mission, maybe blamed him for them not coming back (and it killed him because he would do anything to have that mission go right, even if it meant he had to stay in this backwards world for the rest of eternity), but it all bothered her enough to actively hunt him down and harass him about it, if this Keith’s words were anything to go by, and was why he had asked about him having an anxiety attack.
Everything had been turned on its head and Shiro felt as if he was drowning. His team was disconnected and hated each other, and Shiro wanted nothing more than to go back to where everything made sense, and even looking down at his unblemished body made things worse, only reaffirming what was now his new reality.
Wait, reality. Slav had talked about alternate realities. About the infinite amounts and possibilities (still didn’t mean he forgave the alien for being as picky as he was about every little detail) and ways each could develop.
He looked back into the mirror, wishing he could at least have the comfort of the body he had become accustomed to, mind grabbing at possible solutions.
Maybe there was a way to get back? Most television and movie tropes he remembered that involved alternate realities and universes dictated there was always some way to go back.
Shiro mentally prepared himself as he got dressed, still in disbelief that he was wearing the Garrison uniform once more, and studying quickly over the schedule pinned up on his corkboard detailing where he was supposed to be going, and cross-referenced it with all the schedules of Keith, Hunk, Lance, and Pidge.
Whether it was making things right between his team or having to haul all their asses out into space, Shiro was going to fix things here, and get back to his home and family, and he’d go kicking and screaming if anyone tried to stop him.