#hes so exhausted hes mourning the bright future he might have had thirty years ago and hank just invites themself into the room and 2b is

[analisegrey]

Perchance to Dream

When Shiro is very young, he dreams in green. Not the dark green of emeralds or grass, but the paler green of the glowing stars his parents let him stick on his bedroom ceiling and walls. He sees them each night before he closes his eyes, and he dreams of space, the calm dark expanses lit with soft green stars, and he knows that someday he’ll go out and see them in person.

At sixteen, Shiro dreams of crinkly white, the color of hospitals and doctor’s offices, overly bright fluorescent lights flickering above him. He’s just been diagnosed with a disease that’s supposed to cripple him by his mid-thirties, but right now-

Right now he’s still young. He knows the diagnosis is bad, he can tell by his parents’ reaction when they hear the news, and he has a feeling he’ll be more upset as time goes on, but for now he feels good. They’ve started him on a course of treatment that’s helping; the aches he hadn’t realized he’d become accustomed to are fading, leaving him feeling better than he has in ages, and it’s hard to believe what they’re saying about his future. Hard to believe that in another ten to fifteen years his body will fail him, might even kill him. But that’s years from now, so far ahead in his future it’s inconceivable to him- it might as well be fifty years, a hundred, forever from now. He still has time, and the bright whites don’t bother him.

In his junior year at the Garrison, Shiro grows close with his flight partner, Adam, and his dreams become the soft brown of Adam’s eyes, twinkling in the lights from the control boards of their aircraft simulator, and the warm honey brown of his hair. Shiro’s dreams are heated, often matched with reality once they get together, and they’re some of the sweetest dreams Shiro has ever had. They graduate, and are so close nothing can tear them apart, not a busy schedule, not Shiro’s illness, nothing. Until Kerberos. Shiro’s dreams sour, the warm brown of Adam’s eyes turning calculating, accusing, hurt, but Shiro’s been dreaming of the stars far longer than he’s been dreaming of Adam’s eyes, and he can’t let those go, not when this might be his only chance.

Shiro doesn’t dream much on the way to Kerberos. He’s the only pilot, though he knows the Holts can make small flight adjustments if necessary. He doesn’t get much sleep in general, and when he does he’s so exhausted sleep feels more like a very long blink than actual rest. He feels Sam’s eyes on him sometimes, concerned, but not really worried. The few dreams he has are vague, quiet, silent like the expanse he can see through the thick glass of the windows.

His dreams while with the Galra are nightmares, images splashed in vibrant purple and the lurid red of blood. The glistening white of bone, and the wet pink of muscle, knowing what the inside of his own arm looks like, seeing things nobody should ever see and still be alive at the other end. He dreams of helplessness, hopelessness, and they carry over to his waking hours in a gray fog until he can’t tell the difference anymore. Is he awake or dreaming? It doesn’t really matter; he screams either way.

And then he’s free. He’s unconscious for the first few hours of his new-found freedom, no dreams at all. When he’s drugged at the Garrison quarantine hut, he doesn’t dream then either. He thinks he’s dreaming when he wakes up to see the familiar sepia tones of the desert, Keith’s face, sharper and older than it was the last time he saw it over a year ago, but he quickly realizes he’s awake. This is real. He’s out, away from the Galra. But he also knows he can’t stay. He knows what a threat they are. He knows they’ll do anything to get what they want, and what they want is Voltron. If it’s here on Earth, he has to try to get it out.

The next time he sleeps, it’s on the Castle of Lions, and he slips into sleep just as he worries that he won’t be able to sleep at all, the buzz of adrenaline from the day still a low hum in his veins. He dreams of the vastness of space, of the Lions, and in the back of his mind is a low rumble he somehow knows is the Black Lion, even if he hasn’t met it yet.

Time passes, and while his sleep is never easy, it does calm, nightmares only every few nights instead of every night, and while he knows it’s not great, it’s as good as it’s going to get while they’re in the middle of a war.

And then he dies.

He doesn’t dream at all in the astral plane, because he doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t have a body that requires it, and time is largely irrelevant. His mind drifts, wanders, and when he’s shoved back into a body, it’s a shock. He’s only awake briefly before passing out again, and while his body and soul try to acclimate and realign, he remembers. He thinks of Keith, briefly of Adam, of how far he’s come.

When he wakes again, it’s to Allura and Keith and a ridiculous poofing wolf creature, and they’re off and running again. They’re going home, and while there’s some trepidation, he’s also excited. He hasn’t gotten to see earth- really see it- in years.

Things happen fast and furious once they reach Earth, and he collapses each night more exhausted than he can remember being in a long time. He dreams of Adam, though the dreams are more muted by grief and remembrance than fact at this point. He has nightmares of Sendak, destroying the planet while he stands by helpless. So many dreams, his mind reels with them.

Then the Atlas flies, and oh- he doesn’t even know how to describe it. It feels similar to his Lion, but so much younger, and he wonders if this is how Allura felt while piloting the Castle. Black had been big, but the Atlas is enormous, and when he’s piloting he can feel all of it, a connection like he’s directing a large, overly-exuberant child who has the capability to destroy cities. They win, somehow, and in the calmer aftermath, after the speeches and celebrations and mourning for those they’ve lost, he can finally rest, and when he dreams, he sees the colors of the Atlas, surrounding him, made of comfort and calm. The color is slightly off from the pale green of his dreams as a child, but it’s close, and when he dreams, he sees the stars.

#voltron legendary defender #spoilers #spoilers for the whole series #vld #vld spoilers #introspection sort of #analisegrey fics #flash fiction #oh thank god I can still write #body horror #blood #gore #vld Shiro