Archive of Our Own ^beta

Shiro hated his right arm. He hated the chill of it when he tossed and turned at night, desperate for rest but unable to get any. He hated that he couldn’t trust it. Many of his nightmares involve the arm. It would move on it’s own, lighting up in sickly purple and hurt the people around him, hurt his team – his family. He hated that he didn’t know what all the galra had put inside of it. Pidge, Hunk, and Coran all had looked over it thoroughly on several occasion and while they could make sense of some parts, much of the arm was still a mystery to them. Shiro hated the weight of it, how he’d lay it on someone’s shoulders without thinking and see how they’d shift under the weight. How it pulled on his shoulder wrong if he wasn’t careful. Careful, always careful with it. Like it wasn’t really a part of him.

But as much as Shiro hated the arm, he knew they needed it. His arm had gotten them out of more than a few tight spots. The sheer strength of it was an asset they regularly relied on and utilized.

Shiro never forgot his arm was dangerous, but he also had started taking it for granted.

He realized that now.

“We can remove most of the outer casing, then we could take all the...inner bits and stuff them into a sleeve at the end, so at least you’re not lugging around a heavy chunk of metal that doesn’t work everywhere,” Hunk offered, his tone thoughtful even as his large hands gently moved the nonresponsive fingers of Shiro’s right hand.

A huge portion of the casing at his forearm was caved in so drastically it was nearly flat, while his wrist and fingers all dangled limply like a puppet with its strings cut. All because he hadn’t been fast enough getting through a closing blast door. Stupid.

“Can’t you just repair the damaged parts?” Shiro asked, voice small and distant. He couldn’t focus like he should. Everything felt fuzzy, far away.

Dissociating, his mind helpfully supplied.

Useless, the less kind part of his mind hissed. Defenseless. Weak.

Coran hummed thoughtfully. “I’m afraid we just don’t understand enough about the arm to repair damage this extensive. If it was smaller, perhaps, but...there were things crushed in there we don’t even know what their purpose was. Which I never liked in the first place – walking around with something we don’t understand. I’m afraid we have no choice but to replace it. We can build a replacement arm in under a movement. Don’t you worry about that, Number One. But that’s the easy part of all this.”

Shiro forced his eyes off the mangled mess of his right arm so he could look at Coran. The older man watched him with his usually perky smile in place, but his eyes were soft – sympathetic.

“What’s the hard part?” Shiro asked, his tone far more exhausted than he intended.

Pidge spoke up before Coran could. “The arm doesn’t just cleanly end here.” She pointed to his bicep where the prosthetic and flesh met. “There are bits that travel all the way up into your shoulder. We think they’re connected to your nerves and what allows you to have such fine motor control. Not to mention the metal supports in your bones. They didn’t make this thing with the intention of it ever coming off.” She said the last part at a whisper, like if she said it quietly enough the words would hurt less.

Shiro closed his eyes and took a deep breath to try to clear the fog in his mind. It didn’t really help, but he nodded. “Okay. What are our options?”

“I already have mock-ups for arms for you. I figured we’d need them eventually,” Pidge said. “I’ll take some new measurements to make sure my math is still right and then Hunk and I can get started on putting a prototype together. Shouldn’t take too long.”

Hunk nodded along enthusiastically. “We’ll even design it so it can come off and be replaced. You could have a whole fashion line of different arms.”

Shiro tried to smile at the joke but it felt flat and fake. There was nothing funny about being without his dominant hand...again.

“Before you two get distracted making a new arm, we need to get as much of this one off as we safely can.” Coran said as he swiped a device over Shiro’s arm and frowned at the numbers that popped up. “Hunk’s idea seems like the best short term option so we’ll go with that. But Shiro,” Coran placed his hand on Shiro’s knee, the warmth of the contact finally drawing Shiro’s mind fully into the moment. Their eyes met. “We’re going to have to put you under to fully remove everything and install a new, better, port. Are you okay with that?”

Icy dread slid down Shiro’s spine. The smell of blood, antiseptic, and ozone assaulted his nose.

The Champion will make an excellent test subject.

Phantom pain rippled down his arm from his shoulder. Distant cheers and shouting echoed over the roar of blood in his ears. He still didn’t know how he’d lost it in the first place. But he knew, instinctively, that getting on another table would be bad. They’d take him apart. Rip off another piece and make him even less of himself. Break him. All over again.

Shiro latched onto the feeling of Coran’s hand on his knee, a solid and real warmth. He wasn’t there. It was in the past. He was safe here. Coran, Pidge, and Hunk would never hurt him. He’d fall asleep and when he woke up his arm would be gone. The terrible weight, the fear, the uncertainty. All gone.

He took a deep breath and no one commented on the shakiness. He nodded. “Okay.” his voice cracked and he had to cough to clear it. “But not-not today?”

“Oh ancestors, no.” Coran said, patting his knee one more time before he started bustling around the room, gathering supplies. “I need to study your charts and scans more, make a surgical plan, and we need a replacement port ready first. It’ll be several quintants. Plenty of time to prepare.”

Shiro nodded again, this time with more certainty. He sat up straighter, pulling his leader facade around himself. Having a plan helped ground him, allowing him to pull himself together. He couldn’t let himself completely fall apart over this. They were just replacing what had already been lost. No big deal.

“Can I request something other than purple for the new arm?”

Pidge and Hunk beamed at him.

~*~

Shiro glared at the report hovering in front of his face. His eyes burned in the way that said he’d been staring at a screen for too long in the dark, but there was nothing he could do about that. These reports needed written. It was just taking twice as long since he only had one hand.

The door to the bridge opened and a moment later Lance poked his head over the side of Shiro’s chair, brow raised in question. “What are you doing up so late?”

“I should be asking you that. I thought you’d gone to bed hours ago.” Shiro glanced at the time. Three in the morning and he was only half done. The knowledge that he’d be working all night settled in his stomach like a stone.

Lance came around to sit on the steps in front of Shiro with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. “Got hungry. I was on my way to the kitchen to grab a snack when I saw the door was cracked open. I thought maybe Pidge had fallen asleep in her chair again.” His eyes flicked over the report between them. “Do you want help?”

Shiro smiled to hide his knee jerk instinct to grimace. It was just reports, something he did every day. He didn’t need to shove his responsibilities onto the others just because it was taking him longer than normal. “Thanks but no. I’m almost done.”

Lance eyed him suspiciously. “How much is ‘almost’?”

Dammit. Why did he have to be observant when Shiro didn’t want him to be?

This time Shiro shrugged. “Half.”

Lance’s eyes widened. “You’ve been at this since dinner.”

Shiro bristled. “It’s a little hard to type fast when your hand only covers half the keys,” he snapped.

Lance flinched at Shiro’s harsh tone and Shiro instantly regretted his words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rip your head off. You should go get your snack and get some rest. You all are going to have to fight without me for a little while. You’ll need to be well rested.”

Lance eyed him, a defiant spark in his eyes for several painful seconds before he sighed and stood. “Okay.”

But instead of leaving, he walked up to Shiro’s chair, reached around and tapped several buttons. The keyboard disappeared and then his reports reappeared. “Uh, I know I said it was hard to type, but having no keyboard makes my job even harder,” Shiro said with a confused smirk.

Lance snorted and pressed a small symbol at the bottom of the report with a knowing smirk. “My name is Shiro and I need to learn to ask for help.” As he spoke the words typed themselves onto his report.

Speech-to-text… Of course the Alteans had speech-to-text. Why hadn’t he thought to check.

Shiro tried to keep himself from blushing but the heat radiating from his face said he’d failed. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

Lance slapped him on his left shoulder. “No one is going to think less of you if you have to ask for help every now and again, Shiro.”

And with those final words Lance walked out.

“But I will,” he said into the silence around him.

~*~

Shiro raised what was left of his right arm, watching the way the muscles in his bicep flexed in the mirror of the shower room. Pidge, Hunk, and Coran had done a great job removing what they could of the old arm and packing everything they couldn’t into a cap at the end of the stump. Shiro marveled at how light his arm felt as he raised it up to his head. His shoulder ached in a good way. Like the ache of a good stretch after a hard workout.

For one traitorous second Shiro almost wished he didn’t have to put on another arm. It would be heavy and although it would be safer than the galra arm, it would probably be no more comfortable. But then he shook his head, as if he could shake the thoughts from his mind. He needed two hands to live his life. He couldn’t fly properly without a right arm, let alone fight.

He let his arm fall back to his side and turned to the showers. The other paladins were running drills for at least another hour, so Shiro had plenty of time to figure this out. He shucked off his pants and slipped into the last shower all the way in the back.

Then Shiro faced his first hurdle. He picked up the bottle of shampoo, and flipped the cap up and then paused to consider his next step. He couldn’t squeeze the bottle into the hand he was squeezing it with. Could he hold it between his thighs? He tried and cursed as the bottle clattered onto the floor.

“Everything alright in there, Number One?” Coran’s voice echoed from the entrance.

Shiro just barely kept himself from slipping on the wet floor as he jumped. “Yeah-yes, Coran. Thank you.”

“I heard your silly Earthly curse words. Do you need help?”

Heat bloomed across Shiro’s face and traveled all the way down to his chest as mortification filled his stomach. “No!” he rushed to say and then winced at how scared he sounded. “No, I just dropped the shampoo bottle. It’s fine.”

There was silence for a moment and then Coran’s voice came from much closer. Right outside the stall, it sounded like. “Shiro, I’ve peeled you out of bloody armor, I’ve cleaned your wounds, stood vigil over you while you healed. If you need my help to shower, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. There’s nothing I haven’t seen already.”

Shiro’s eyes slammed shut in shame. It was a stupid shower. He shouldn’t need help to wash his damn hair. And yet… he looked down at the shampoo bottle on the floor. He still didn’t know how he was going to get the damn stuff out. He just wanted to wash away the sweat and grime of the last two days and take a nap until the others were done training.

Shiro reached down and picked the shampoo bottle off the floor before holding it out of the stall. Coran gently took it from him. Shiro hurried to turn around so his back was to the entrance as he heard the sound of clothes hitting tile. He glanced back over his shoulder as Coran slipped inside. He’d taken his shirt and shoes off.

Shiro turned back around, his shoulders up to his ears. The bottle cap popping open forced his shoulders even higher. Then fingers slid through his hair, blunt nails scraping gently over his scalp and ever ounce of tension drained from Shiro’s body so fast he felt light headed. His hand reached out and pressed against the wall.

Coran gave a small chuckle, half amused and half fond. “Do you need to sit, Number One?”

Shiro didn’t want to dislodge the wonderful fingers in his hair so he didn’t shake his head. He merely grunted, hoping Coran understand that to mean no. All his words had left him with the tension and he couldn’t seem to find where they’d gone.

Several moments of peaceful silence passed as Coran thoroughly scrubbed his hair before his head was very gently pushed forward under the spray. Shiro stayed loose and let Coran push and pull as he needed, content to just exist in the moment.

Shiro floated, swept away by the feeling of another person’s touch as Coran lathered his hair a second time. Yesterday Coran’s hand on his knee had grounded him, pulling his mind back into focus. Now it was pushing him out to sea, ebbing and bobbing like he was at the mercy of the ocean. He swayed, and an arm wrapped itself around his waist, preventing him from dropping to the floor as his knees slowly liquefied into jelly.

“Easy there.”

“I’m sorry,” Shiro mumbled, his mouth struggling to form the words he needed.

With his back pressed against Coran’s chest he could feel the older man’s quiet chuckle. “I was once known as the best hair washer in the castle, you know. But no one has ever been swept off their feet from it before. Really flames the ego, I must say.”

Coran’s mustache tickled his ear as he wiggled his mouth in pride.

Shiro huffed a chuckled. “No one’s ever swept me off my feet by washing my hair either. So I guess this is a first for both of us.”

There was a moment of silence, pregnant and poised, as if they were standing on the edge of a cliff and Coran was trying to decide whether to jump.

“Do you know what being ‘touch starved’ is, Shiro?” Coran asked, his tone light but serious.

Shiro nodded. “’know of it. You think that’s what’s going on?”

“I don’t just think. I know.”

Shiro shook his head. “The others, they hug me all the time. Can’t be that.”

Coran hummed in answer, but his tone didn’t sound like he thought Shiro was right. “No matter. Think you can hold your feet just a little bit longer? Need to rinse out these suds, give you a good scrub, and then you’ll be squeaky clean.”

Shiro squashed down the the part of him that didn’t want to stand because that would mean Coran would let go. He stood, legs shaky but able to hold his weight. He kept his hand against the shower wall, just in case. Coran’s hand pressed against the back of his head, pushing it back under the water and with one last scrub Shiro’s hair was clean.

When Coran reached around Shiro to get to the soap Shiro gently snagged his wrist. “Thank you, Coran. But the rest I can do myself.”

“Really Shiro, it’s no trouble-”

“My hair was a two hand job. The rest isn’t. Please.”

He hated how desperate he sounded and Shiro couldn’t tell if that was because he didn’t want to endure the embarrassment of Coran washing...certain areas, or because he didn’t want to imagine how he’d keep his feet with someone touching him all over. This whole thing was mortifying enough. He didn’t know how his pride would ever recover. Best to take what was left of his dignity and retreat.

Coran let out the smallest of sighs but he gave Shiro’s shoulder a small pat. “Alright. I’ll wander back by in about ten minutes. Let me know if you need any more help.”

And then he slipped out of the stall, leaving Shiro alone to finish his shower.

~*~

Shiro sat on the exam table in the med bay, trying his hardest to push down the dread clogging his throat. Coran had laid down a blanket on the table to help distance him from the sterile-ness of everything but Shiro could still feel the hard, cold, unyielding metal underneath and the sensation threatened to pull his mind down into dark memories.

Keith laid his hand on Shiro’s shoulder and gave him a firm squeeze for reassurance. “You won’t feel a thing. Coran knows what he’s doing.”

“Indeed I do. Why, one time Alfor ended up with no less that twenty-seven slivers of metal embedded all over his right side. Now that was an operation I won’t soon forge-” he clammed up when he turned and saw Shiro’s expression. Or maybe it was the murderous energy coming from Keith?

Shiro shivered and suppressed the urge to wrap his arm around his middle. The med bay was always chilly, but Shiro knew the cold seeping into his bones was all in his head.

Coran gave him a soft look. “Apologies, Shiro. Why don’t we go ahead and get you under? Pidge and Hunk should be here with the port any tick now.”

Shiro nodded, his throat too tight for him to speak. He laid back onto the table but jerked at the hard, cold feeling under his shoulders.

Straps held him down so tightly he could barely feel his legs. The lights above blinded him, morphing the already indistinct shapes into dark blobs. Voices warbled sickeningly around him but he couldn’t understand. He was cold. So cold. And his arm burned with a pain unlike anything he’d known before. The pain consumed him until it was all he could think about. He tried to move, to jerk away but the bands held him down.

The sound of a saw started and Shiro froze, heart in his throat.

No… No! Please! NO!

“Shiro!” Keith said, his tone making it clear that wasn’t the first time he’d called his name.

Shiro blinked up at him.

“I’m okay,” he croaked, throat still too tight.

Concern crinkled the skin around Keith’s eyes, making him look older. Shiro hated that he’d put those lines there. That he was the reason Keith grew up so fast.

“I don’t know about this, Coran. Maybe we should wait,” Keith said.

“No,” Shiro snapped. He needed his arm back. He didn’t want to keep being a burden to the others.

Coran approached, his movements slow and nonthreatening, a clear mask with a canister attached to it in his hand. “Are you sure? There’s no rush, Shiro. The port isn’t going anywhere.”

Shiro nodded.

Keith and Coran shared a look before Coran nodded. “Very well. Take deep breaths for me and count back from ten.”

Coran placed the mask over Shiro’s nose and mouth. He stiffened, worried his mind would slip back into memory when he smelled the gas, but he had nothing to worry about.

“Blueberry? Really?”

“I don’t know what blue berries are, but I thought a sweet scent would help. Now count.”

Already his limbs felt heavy, tired and weighed down. Like he’d run for hours without stopping.

“10.”

His head spun. Keith’s hand in his felt distant and disconnected.

“9.”

His eyelids grew heavy and with each blink he struggled to lift them. The lights above twisted and swirled like someone had run a wet paint brush across reality.

“8…”

He couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore. He felt a tight squeeze on his hand but his fingers were lead and they wouldn’t listen to him anymore.

“Stay…”

The quiet sound of whispers drew Shiro’s mind slowly out of the warm embrace of unconsciousness. His body weighed a thousand pounds and cotton filled his head, making it hard to think. He couldn’t find his eyes to open them so he didn’t bother to try.

“You guys really outdid yourselves this time. This thing looks amazing,” Lance said, his voice less a whisper and more just his usual voice toned down. There was the quiet sound of metal clacking against metal.

“We can’t attach it for a few days. Coran says we have to give Shiro’s arm time to heal and adjust to the new port, but we should be good to test and adjust things by next week,” Pidge said as the metal sound shifted and then stopped.

There was a long moment of silence and then someone ran their fingers through his bangs. “I know it’s the drugs, but I haven’t seen him sleep so peacefully in a long time,” Keith said, voice fond but with an undercurrent of sadness.

Why was Keith sad? Did he need him? Did the others need him too?

Shiro fought against the fogginess of his mind and cracked open his eyes. The lights overhead were set to low, and he was grateful for whoever had thought ahead because even the dim lights made his head throb.

“Hey,” Hunk sighed in relief and then a beaming smile entered his field of view, the straps of Hunk’s headband dangling down and almost tickling Shiro’s nose. “Welcome back.”

Keith’s face appeared next to Hunk’s and Shiro could see it was his fingers still running soothingly through his bangs. “How do you feel? Any pain?”

Shiro blinked at them, his mind slow to process their words. He closed his eyes so he could focus on his body. His right arm felt heavy and numb, more so than the rest of him. Fighting to reopen his eyes would take more energy than he had so he just shook his head, stomach flipping when he dislodged the fingers in his hair.

He whined, the sound small and sad, and the fingers were immediately back. Several voices shushed him and someone else took his hand with a gentle squeeze.

“Okay,” Hunk whispered, “you’re probably really tired, huh? We’ll let you sleep.”

They were leaving? No, don’t go. He didn’t want to be alone like this, helpless and weak. He clutched the hand in his as tightly as his exhausted body would allow and let out another, even weaker whine.

“Don-don’t go…” he slurred.

There was a bemused snort by his head and a small hand gently squeezed his right shoulder. “We’re not going anywhere,” Pidge said. “I was just thinking we should put on a movie. Kill a few hours while you rest up some more. How’s that sound?”

As long as they weren’t leaving.

He didn’t have any more energy to answer but the others didn’t seem to need one. He went limp, the tension leaving his body as the sound of movement and quiet conversation washed over him. He picked up Lance playfully arguing with Pidge over which movie to watch and Hunk’s whine when Pidge pushed for some horror movie he didn’t know. Keith’s fingers continued to slowly but steadily brush through his bangs before slipping back and running gently over the top of his head too. Shiro shifted, his head rolling on the pillow so he was closer to Keith.

Keith gave the smallest of chuckles. “I think Coran was right.”

The others paused their conversation.

“It makes sense, right?” Lance asked. “He spent a year in a galra prison. I doubt there was much hugging or hand holding going on. Even loners like you, mullet, need a hug every once in a while.”

Keith grumbled about the mullet comment but didn’t argue.

“I wish he’d let us do things like this when he’s not high out of his mind on pain meds,” Hunk half chuckled.

“We’ll just have to get sneaky about it,” Lance drawled.

The ambient light through Shiro’s eyelids grew dimmer and the sound of shuffling settled. Music started up, quiet and far away and Shiro slipped down into the blissful dark.

~*~

When Shiro woke next his mind was clearer and his body not as heavy. The team had set up a cot in the rec room so they could all keep an eye on him without crowding his room and they seemed happy to see him be able to sit up and have an actual conversation with them. He vaguely remembered waking up the first time but most of what happened or what was discussed was lost to him. The only clear thing he remembered was how soothing it was to have fingers brush through his hair, but he kept that to himself.

They’d propped him up on a bunch of pillows, several more under his right arm so it was above his heart. It helped ease the throbbing. When Coran came by he examined his arm and seemed pleased. Moving it ached and the skin around the port was extremely sensitive, threatening to remind him of darker times, of dark cells and cold floors, infection and fever, of forcing the arm to move even as it drove spikes of pain through his limb because it was either use the arm to fight or die.

Fingers brushed through his hair and he jolted, eyes snapping to Lance’s face as he smiled softly. “Back with us?”

“Sorry,” Shiro sighed.

They wouldn’t accept his apology, their expressions making it clear they knew where his mind had gone and why. Everything was very close to the surface and had been since he’d gotten his arm crushed in the first place.

“Not to worry, number one! Everything is healing nicely. In a few quintants you’ll be right as parmax.”

Whatever parmax was.

“And then you can try this bad boy on,” Pidge said, pulling something wrapped in a blanket from behind her back. She laid it on his lap.

Shiro pulled the blanket back and stared in awe. In his lap laid an arm. An arm made of metal, shaped just like his old one, but that’s where the resemblance stopped. This arm was sleek and beautiful, made of some kind of white metal that felt almost warm to the touch as he ran his fingers along it reverently, following veins of light blue he thought might glow like the castle lights when it was active. It was lighter than his old arm, so much so he hardly believed a hunk of metal was in his lap.

“What’s it made out of?” he asked, glancing up at Pidge and Hunk.

Pidge puffed out her chest in pride. “I took inspiration from Olkarion. I mixed their materials with metals from the castle. It’s a tenth the weight but just as strong.”

Hunk pressed his fingers together nervously. “What do you think? I know you can’t put it on yet, and we didn’t exactly ask you if this is the design you wanted, but we figured sticking with something resembling what you had would make the transition easier. We can always design something different later. We plan to make you several backups. So you never have to be without an arm again.”

Shiro’s throat tightened and when he opened his mouth no words came out. Instead he held out his arm in a silent request for a hug. They both surged forward. Pidge climbed up onto the cot, half in Shiro’s lap, and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and squeezed. Hunk then wrapped them both up in a crushing hug, nearly lifting them off the cot.

Shiro chuckled as Keith and Lance scrambled to press down the cot before it could tip. “Thank you. It’s better than I could have ever imagined,” he breathed into the top of Pidge’s head.

~*~

“Ready?” Hunk asked, holding the arm just below his port.

Shiro took a deep breath and nodded. They’d said connecting the arm might hurt, something about nerves and receptors and other terms that went over his head. But they said whatever pain he felt should fade quickly and the first time should be the worst. They didn’t create an arm he could remove just for him to never take it off because putting it back on would hurt, after all.

Hunk gently pushed the end of the prosthetic up into the port and then in one smooth motion spun it sharply clockwise. Pain zinged up his bicep and into his shoulder, like a static shock in his bones, but he barely had time to flinch before the pain was gone. He stared down at the arm in amazement.

“Well? How’s the pain?” Pidge asked, her stare practically drilling into him.

“Good, actually. It hardly hurt.”

“Try wiggling your fingers,” Hunk said, a scanner in his hand.

He thought about curling his fingers into a fist and after a split second delay they did. They moved smoothly, without stuttering. He clenched them tight for a moment before he released.

“There’s a bit of a delay. More than the old arm.”

Pidge growled and plopped her laptop down on the couch next to his arm. She stuck some wires to the outside, connected them to her laptop, and then typed rapidly. “Make a fist again.”

He did. She typed some more and then told him to do it again. And again. And again. Slowly the delay decreased until he was clenching both fists at the same time, the prosthetic reacting at the same time as his natural arm.

They ran him through half a dozen more tests, ranging in strength and dexterity. They had him pick up small objects, draw pictures, lift ever increasing weight, do push ups, and hand stands.

“Okay, final test for today,” Pidge said. “Try activating the weapon.”

Shiro tried to activate it like he would his old arm but nothing happened. He frowned down at it and then at Pidge and Hunk.

Hunk groaned. “I told you we should’ve run the activation software through Rover first.”

Pidge glared at her laptop screen like it had personally offended her.

They popped the arm off and took the opportunity to teach him how to remove it himself. There was a latch on the port, facing his torso so it was all but hidden against his side. With a press and a turn the arm popped off. He frowned. “Should it really be that easy to take off? What if it comes off by accident?”

Pidge and Hunk shared a look. “We thought about that but we figured if you’re going to find trouble, it’s probably going to be in your armor, which will cover the latch anyways.”

Hunk nodded as he popped off part of the casing and dug around inside. “We wanted you to be able to take it off by yourself so we couldn’t make it too complicated to remove or else why make it removable in the first place, you know?”

Shiro snorted. “I doubt I’ll take this one off much either.”

They stared at him in horror.

“Shiro, no! At least take it off to sleep.”

“Yeah, imagine how nice it’ll be to roll over and not have something hard dig into your side.”

He held up his hand in surrender. “Alright, alright.” He chuckled. “I can see I’m outnumbered. I just,” he hesitated, “if there’s an emergency, I don’t want to waste precious time scrambling to get my arm on when I’m already used to sleeping with it.”

Pidge shrugged as she pulled some wires out of the arm and Hunk popped the casing back on. “Well, we can’t make you. It’s your arm. But I don’t think you should sacrifice your comfort for an extra second of prep. You’re always the first one out of your room in drills anyways. And we made it so it would be easy to put on.”
Hunk snorted. “But just know, we’ll give you as much grief as we gave Keith for sleeping with his boots on.”

They all laughed.

“I’ll think about it,” Shiro relented. “But first, you need to get it working.”

Hunk held the arm out to him. “It should work this time. Try putting it on yourself.”

It was awkward. While the arm was much lighter than his old one, it was still heavy for one hand to hold. He ended up holding it from the elbow, pressing it into his side and leveraging it up until the end slid into the port. He twisted it until he felt that zing run up his bones. He flexed and wiggled the arm and then focused on activating the weapon. The whole arm vibrated with a deep hum that made his teeth itch. The veins that ran all along it glowed bright blue but the rest of the arm didn’t glow at all.

Hunk picked up a softball sized ball of metal and gently chucked it at him. Shiro swiped his arm at it and when the prosthetic hit the metal ball, his fingers slid right through it like a hot knife through butter. The two halves plopped onto the couch on either side of him. All three of them smiled, their expressions practically feral. Pidge and Hunk grabbed several more of the balls as Shiro scrambled off the couch and into a ready stance. They went through the entire stack and by the end they were laughing so hard Shiro couldn’t keep the arm lit. They collapsed onto the couch together, Hunk on his right, Pidge on his left.

Pidge pulled her laptop into her lap and turned so she could press her back against his side, her smaller form fitting snugly against him. Hunk slung his arm along the back and pulled the prosthetic into his lap. They asked him questions and for his opinion, coming up with plans for improvements and ideas for the other arms and after a while they were using terms Shiro didn’t understand anymore. But he was content to sit between them and let the sound of their voices wash over him.

He leaned his head back and rested it against Hunk’s arm and let his eyes slide closed. Large fingers carded through his hair and slowly his mind drifted into a light doze. Maybe Coran was right about him being touch starved. But he had a feeling his team wouldn’t let him stay that way for long.