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As a cadet at the Garrison, Matt Holt didn’t believe much in the poetry of life. He was a scientist at heart, someone who wanted to pick apart every functioning component of the world and understand how it all worked, what role even the smallest of ants played. For as long as it remained an art form subject to opinion and change, it was of not much interest to Matt.
Not that he underappreciated the importance of art in the grand scheme of the world. He wasn't ignorant of the form of communication it had once been, or of the liberalistic expression it will always remain to be. He was pragmatic and logical, not dense.
Either way, life was not art. Life didn’t reflect art, but rather, art, as it was a form of expression by humans for humans, reflected life.
Several years in deep space hadn’t challenged that worldview for Matt. Space was just as much a scientific theory and vaguely rule-abiding magical properties as life on Earth had been. Magical properties being the many, many aspects of the planet that have yet to be discovered. Space was just as logical as Earth had been, and Matt found solace in that.
Then, in one conversation, Matt lost that semblance of normalcy he’d clawed out for himself. It tore apart the little cadet – wide-eyed and unused to the horrors of war – like he was made of thin paper.
“What do you need, Matt?” Shiro’s steely gaze settled on Matt, recognition nothing more than surface level within them.
For nearly three years, Matt had been searching. Looking for every sign there was, every little rock turned so he could find the man he’d loved. Just as many nights spent fraught in a too-empty bed, wondering and wishing and hoping against hope. Every little anxiety-induced what-if, every nightmare he’d calmed himself down with quiet, desperate, “he’s okay, he’ll be okay.” Every flashback slowly turned from a face he recognised to that of a figment as Matt’s mind tried endlessly to erase the aches, not realising that the aches were all that kept Matt from crumbling.
And here the man was, staring back at Matt like he only barely surpassed a stranger. “What do I fucking need? Seriously, Shiro?”
In his anxiety-induced what-if spirals, Matt had once considered the possibility that Shiro had moved on. Forgotten him to the vast, inky void that was space. Matt had never let that thought simmer, because how could he? Shiro was his everything before. Before.
The man in front of him now raised an eyebrow, looking for all the world like Matt was the one acting weird. “Yes?”
“You remember me?”
Shiro nodded. “Yes. You’re Matt. Pidge’s brother. We were on the Kerberos mission together.”
Matt’s heart clenched. Shiro wasn’t much for practical pranks, but maybe things changed in the last few years. Trauma did shit to people, right? It definitely messed with Matt enough that he’d believe it. “Come on, dude, you’re fucking with me, right? ‘Cause, like, ha-ha. It worked! Now you can drop the act, yeah?”
Shiro’s eyebrows furrowed, his eyes narrowing minutely, lips pursing. It was such a familiar expression, a set of motions Matt had spent those first few days after the Arena replaying in his mind, over and over, to the point he was certain it was engraved on his brain. He felt his heart tighten in his chest, squeezing so hard Matt was almost sure he was about to pass out.
“What act?”
“This— this whole you don’t know me thing! It’s really not funny, man!” He flailed his arms at Shiro, gesturing to his whole body as if that would help encompass the absurdity of what was happening.
“I just said that I do know you, though.”
“Yeah, but you’re not acting like it!”
Shiro tilted his head. “And how is it I’m supposed to be acting?”
Matt sputtered, not expecting the question. In fairness, he probably should have. “You’re— You’re acting like all we were to each other was— was coworkers!”
“And what else were we?”
Maybe Matt should’ve seen it coming. Maybe there were signs when they’d been dating that Matt’s affection for him wasn’t as eagerly reciprocated. Or maybe it was the Galra, again. Maybe they’d messed with Shiro’s memories. Maybe Matt was the only one in Shiro’s memories that was inconsequential enough to be wiped, or maybe Shiro chose to clean himself of Matt. Or maybe Matt was catastrophizing, and it was simpler than all that.
“We’re partners, dumbass. Lovers, boyfriends, soon-to-be fiancés. Whatever you wanna call it.”
Recognition did not flash in Shiro’s eyes. Instead, confusion did. And maybe guilt. Matt knew to read Shiro even now. “I’m sorry, what? I’ve never had— with you?”
Matt knew his worth, alright? He may be prone to anxiety, especially these days, after anxiety was the only thing keeping him alive within the Galran prisons and as a leader of a rebellion, but Matt rarely doubted how worthy he was of being where he was. Very few things made that difficult. Shiro’s absolute bafflement, as though the thought of him dating Matt of all people was so absurd he couldn’t ever fathom it, was one of those few things.
“Don’t gotta sound so surprised,” he grunted, straightening his back. He rolled his shoulders back and narrowed his eyes at the taller man. “We dated at the Garrison? We had this whole thing of going to space together? We even signed up for the Kerberos mission together, man. It was your idea, and obviously I wanted to go along.”
Nothing. Shiro’s eyes remained baffled, though now there was a sliver of anger brewing beneath the confusion. For all Matt had within him, he couldn’t figure out how Shiro could be feeling angry right now. He wanted to pull his hair out.
“I’m sorry, Matt, but I don’t—”
“Okay!” Matt said abruptly, coming to the sudden realisation that he does not need to deal with this. Not now, anyway. “Okay!”
He turned on the balls of his feet, felt his overcoat swoop around his legs, and struck the floor ahead of him with his staff. He turned his back on Shiro, glancing back only once. “Let me know when you’re yourself again, babe!” He stormed down the castle’s halls, looking for the private quarters he’d been designated for the time being.
Shiro never did reach out.
Matt kept his distance, and Shiro avoided his eyes. Matt kept his distance, and Shiro never called him by his name. Matt kept his distance, and so did Shiro.
Matt never meant to let the distance linger so long. He’d figured Shiro would reach soon enough, come to his senses, and embrace Matt the way he’d been longing for since that first day they’d been captured. Matt held out hope through the next few months, the way he had the previous few years, but it had started becoming unbearably clear how it was all meant to play out.
Amidst war meetings and war plans and tending to the injured and rescuing as many as possible, Matt found the time to set aside to confront Shiro, just once more.
Then it all went to shit, and Voltron was gone.
***
As a cadet, Takashi Shirogane had believed that life always had a way of righting itself. It wasn’t like he was spiritual or superstitious or religious. He simply believed that every person ever born traversed the planet with a particular path carved out for them. He believed life would serve justice the way humans never rightly could.
He didn’t believe in God, but he saw the world to be bigger than any one person could ever understand.
His time amongst the Galrans as Champion had made him doubt his faith. After all, how could his path lead him here, a graveyard they called an Arena, where he alone remained above ground, bloodied hands and all? There was no justice in fighting for one’s life while hurting others who couldn’t do the same.
There was little left in him to think much of anything but survive, survive, survive, though, so those inconsequential thoughts faded to the recesses of his mind.
When Voltron finally entered his life, for just those few months, faith in an all-knowing, faceless being watching over them all returned anew. He’d spent those brief months among peers who fought for the same goal; with friends he could share a laugh with; a tentative family he could come to love without hesitation, given more time. But very little ever worked out in Shiro’s favour, whether due to divine misfortune or simple spite of the universe.
The Astral Plane only existed for him for a few hours. He knew, vaguely, what was happening with Black but not enough of anything in particular to commit to memory.
Escaping what felt like his hundredth specially designed Hell was a mix of liberating and all-consuming grief.
Grieving the time he’d lost, the bonds he could’ve cemented by now, the laughs he’d never share, the aches he could never cushion. He was an outsider within his own team, trailing behind while Keith and Lance bickered with a solidified camaraderie, so unlike the blossoming friendship, thorny and still new, that Shiro had witnessed. He watched Hunk and Pidge conspire in hushed tones, watched Lance ruffle Pidge’s hair with a cackled holler as he slinked behind Hunk to avoid a retaliating punch. Keith hooked an arm around their neck, drawing them close. Shiro watched as Pidge’s free hand hovered over Keith’s neck, an excruciatingly familiar mischievous grin stretched across their face as they tickle-bombed Keith.
Shiro thought about Matt a lot.
Throughout his journey in space, he’d wondered where Matt was. How he was, whether his leg had healed up well. He wondered if Matt still smiled with all his teeth, or if Matt’s dimples still showed through his now time-worn face. Shiro had lain awake many a night while still the Champion, hoping against hope that Matt was safe. Matt’s face had almost slipped from Shiro’s mind, seeping into the trenches of it where Shiro was too guarded to ever venture into again. When he met Pidge, Matt’s face became entirely impossible to forget. Shiro sometimes had to double-take, making sure the scrawny, dirty-blonde with round, thin-framed glasses and a knack for tech wasn’t in fact the man Shiro longed for like another limb.
Meeting Matt again tore away any semblance of trust Shiro had in the unknown.
“Matt…” he said, his throat closing up as his eyes roved over the sturdy, battle-hard man standing before him. The man with a staff for a weapon and a scar sliced down his cheek. The man with dirty-blond locks grown out, thick and unmaintained. The man Shrio wanted nothing more than to embrace and never let go.
Too bad for the hologram-call connecting them, not allowing for physical touch.
“Jesus, man! What happened to you?” Matt asked, his tone light and harmless.
Shiro chuckled, bringing the heel of his human hand to press against one eye. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
Matt offered him a strange look in response. “Is it true? What Pidge said about— about you being back for real this time?”
Shoving down the urge to burst into tears, Shiro nodded. He let Matt take him anew, hazel eyes darting from Shiro’s head to his eyes, to the scar splitting his face. His eyes lingered on the scar, and Shiro could’ve sworn he saw tears in the other man’s eyes before he turned his head away.
“Fuck,” Matt muttered, a hand reaching up to his face to wipe across his eyes. “Fuck, Takashi!”
Shiro hadn’t been expecting the exclamation; the small monkey-shaped part of his brain told him to tense up, and he listened. He watched Matt furiously rubbing at his eyes, trying to keep himself composed for his fellow rebels no doubt hovering around somewhere. Privacy was only relative in space.
“Matt…” he stopped himself, unsure how to proceed. Should he apologise for the time lost? Would Matt appreciate an apology? Should he try to lighten the mood? Bring up an anecdote he was sure Matt looked back on with fondness. He never got to say any of it in the end.
“I’m sorry, Shiro.” His voice was trembling from the tears, his gaze shifted away from Shiro onto some spot on the other end of the call. “I’m sorry.”
There was a part of Shiro that understood what Matt was saying before the rest of him did, the part of him that saw all the little things Matt hadn’t wanted to say before. Before. There was a part of him that knew long before he’d plugged in the right codes to reach Matt. Maybe he never should’ve entered them.
“What?”
Matt met Shiro’s eyes, and the grief reflected at him answered every question Shiro didn’t want to ask. It answered all the questions he didn’t think he could ever voice, ones he’d never wanted to ever give thought to.
He was too late. “Oh.”
“I’m so sorry, Shiro, I—"
“It’s okay,” he lied. Nothing felt okay anymore, but he let himself push his lips up into a smile, forcing his eyes to meet Matt’s, perhaps for the last time before they shifted into something they’d never truly been: simple allies, mere acquaintances. “It’s okay, Matt. Really. I get it.”
He’d been too late, and the lack of justice in the world punished him for it with this. Matt had moved on— long since moved on, or perhaps, it had been a recent thing. Maybe Shiro wasn’t nearly as late as he’d thought, just late enough that it didn’t matter that he’d shown up at all.
Matt made plans to meet up, hastily noting coordinates and pitching times. Matt assured Shiro it was okay, when Shiro felt nothing like it. It felt like his whole world had come and gone. Nothing could matter nearly as much from here on out. The Galra were worse than any other ache Shiro would ever carry, but this loss? Matt had been his guiding hope, his lighthouse in an ocean of dread and terror; his everyday life had been.
Maybe this meant nothing, really. Matt didn’t love him the way Shiro loved him, the way they used to love each other. But there was still love in Matt’s eyes when he gazed at Shiro; Shiro knew Matt well enough to see it. It just wasn’t the same, and there will forever be a part of Shiro that mourned what they had; what they could have had; what they never truly got.
Maybe he should even resent Matt for moving on, for finding happiness with someone new. Maybe he should resent him for forgetting Shiro so easily, as if what they’d had was nothing but a simple fling to move on from. But Shiro knew Matt better than he knew himself. He knew if Matt had ever seen a future with Shiro, a world where they got to be together, happily, and with a life they were both fulfilled with, he would’ve hung on. He was stubborn to that fault. The thought that there had been a point Matt had to sit down and decide that Shiro wasn’t coming back nearly brought Shiro to tears on its own.
Shiro had failed him.
“How about in three quintants?”
“What?”
“I’ll come to you in three days?”
Shiro felt his body move without him meaning to, felt his head bob in answer even though that was the last thing he wanted. “Three days,” he heard himself say, as though ensuring a promise.
Matt nodded. “Three days.”