97A/N: So I started writing this weeks before s4 was released, so my characterization of Matt is a bit off. He doesn't show up in this chapter, which is mostly setting the place and introducing Shiro, but I promise it won't take long for Matt to appear. I'm also aware that college, military ranks, and other such things don't work in reality the way they work in this fic, but I did this the way I did for the story. To follow reality would make it a lot more difficult and I'd have to mess with their ages a little. Anyway I hope you all can enjoy this. The first chapter is boring, I know, but I have to get that set before I can get into the relationship. Sorry for any errors, typos, etc and enjoy the chapter
"Takashi Shirogane?"
A tan-skinned man with dull brown eyes approached the counter, wisps of white hair tangling in his eyelashes. The rest of his hair was grey and extremely short, nothing but fuzz on the bottom and nearly completely shorn off on the top, besides a tuft of white at the very front above his forehead. He was tall with very broad shoulders, and scars littered his skin where it wasn't covered by his t-shirt, worn leather gloves, or pants. The worst of them that any regular person could see was a pinkish-brown one that stretched over the bridge of his nose.
Everything about him screamed military, warrior, and intimidation. Those in the room with him shrunk away slightly, the very few who had children with them pulling their kids toward them and as far away from the man's path as possible. He looked dangerous, and his tense posture gave away his constant alertness.
"You're Takashi Shirogane?" the old woman at the desk asked, eyeing the man cautiously. He pretended not to notice.
"Yes ma'am," the man, Shiro, told her with a small smile. The woman relaxed at his politeness, and she spun in her chair to pick up the folder next to her computer.
"I just need you to sign a few things on this paper and make sure all the details with your scholarship are right. If you have any questions, feel free to ask," she said, marking a few lines with X's were he needed to sign.
Shiro gave the woman a nod and looked down at the paper, his eyes carefully scanning each and every word. With each correct section, he signed his name, making sure he wouldn't mess up and end up with a hefty bill at the end of the semester. Each section he read efficiently but with enough care to not miss anything, and once he reached the bottom he found that everything was in order. His classes and boarding were covered, and he only needed to pay for food and textbooks. Everything was as it should have been, and Shiro touched the pen to the paper to sign his name one final time. Just before he started, he glimpsed the typed words just above the line, his name spelled out in its entirety and… his rank.
Shiro paused for a moment as his mind flew back to the last time someone had spoken his rank. He'd been fresh out of the hospital, his body held together by stitches and bandages wrapped all around him. And his arm, the surprise he'd woken up to after being so sure he'd die. His arm, nothing but stitches, fresh scars, and so much metal. It had been salvaged to the point that he still had perfect use of his arm and hand, but it wasn't at all the same as before. That day when he'd been discharged, when his former commander fixed a purple heart on his uniform, all Shiro could feel was the cold metal beneath his bandages. It was patched to his skin and filled the parts of his bones that were missing or too broken to mend. Too many stitches held together what would later become even more scars.
Shiro didn't realize he was shaking until his pen tapped the paper again, and he shook his head to return to the present. A quick glance around revealed that no one was staring at him, no one had noticed his small episode. Letting out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, Shiro carefully signed the paper using his name and former rank, then handed it back to the woman behind the counter. She gave him a smile and a tagged key in return.
"Your dorm building and number are written on the tag. If you have any trouble finding your room, just ask for help," she told him when he accepted the key and flipped the tag over to read it.
"Thank you very much," he told her with a slight nod before turning. He retrieved his bags from where he had left them on the floor and headed for the door, not looking back. It was his third year, and his dorm room was the same one it had been the two previous years. A family dorm converted into a single for students with disabilities who may need more space. At a glance, no one would think Shiro was disabled at all. However, he was clinically diagnosed with a somewhat severe case of PTSD from the events of his military career, and that was quite enough to get him labeled as "disabled". He was also allowed a therapy animal, and even though he didn't have an kind of specially trained pet, he did have a cat he'd found abandoned in a dumpster as a kitten. The small creature had been tied up in a plastic bag and was missing an eye and a chunk of one ear. Shiro had never expected to adopt any kind of animal, but the kitten had reminded him of himself. It was alone an damaged, but still fighting.
After a short walk away from the main campus office, Shiro found his building. It was one of the smaller, quieter ones, set up like a motel with two floors rather than the hotel-like layout of most other dorms. It sat surrounded by trees and bushes that blocked out the world, lending Shiro the peace he desperately needed.
Shiro's footsteps were soft and quiet as he climbed the stairs to the second floor, then walked to the very end of the balcony that spanned the entire front of the building until he reached his door. He slipped the key into the lock and listened to it release with a familiar click. The door opened smoothly, and he stepped into the room that had been his home for four semesters so far, going on five.
The room was decently sized, with a living area just inside the door, a small kitchen and dining area off of that, and two bedrooms with a bathroom tucked between them. Shiro wandered through each room, pulling a frayed sweatshirt from around his waist and tossing it on the sofa. He made a stop in the bathroom and pulled a pack of toiletries from the duffel bag dangling from his fist, leaving it on the counter of the sink to be unpacked later. He then stepped into the bigger of the two bedrooms, which he used for working out. He no longer needed to stay fit, as he wasn't in the military anymore, but his old habits brought him a little too much comfort to just let go of them. He dropped his duffel bag on the floor and heard the satisfying clink of dumbbells within it, then moved on to the other bedroom.
Shiro's feet covered the familiar distance between the doorway and the bed that was tucked into the corner. He turned and slowly sat on the plain mattress, hearing the bedframe creak under his weight. Shrugging his backpack from his shoulders, Shiro let out a deep sigh and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and dropping his face into his hands. He was exhausted already from the long drive to the college, the hours of being regarded with tension and unease while working on checking in and doing paperwork related to his scholarship, and lugging two heavy bags the entire way. Everything in his body ached, and even the hunks of metal that had replaced most of his right arm felt tired.
Meow.
The zipper on Shiro's backpack clanged, and the man turned around just in time to see a fluffy head poke through the small unzipped portion of the bag. A cat, much smaller than it should have been at its age, looked at Shiro with nothing but innocence. It's head was black with a white circle around its missing left eye, and splotches of white dotted its chest and back before melting into pure white to the base of its tail and middle of its legs. At those points the fur turned black again, all the way to the underside of the cat's paws. The only aberration was the cat's right foreleg, which was entirely black except for some small splotches of white. That was the part of the cat Shiro loved most, besides its sweet behavior and the comfort it brought him.
"Eurus!" Shiro called softly with a small smile. His voice rasped, betraying how tired he was, and the cat seemed to notice. It wiggled out of the backpack and jumped onto Shiro's back, climbing to his shoulders before dropping on his lap and flopping on its side. "Good girl," he said to her, and the cat, Eurus, nuzzled his hand affectionately.
Shiro settled into a rhythm as he stroked the cat's soft fur, and her purrs reached his ears even after he had lain back on the bed and closed his eyes. Shiro didn't even know he was drifting off until he was already swallowed up by dreams.
-000-
Shiro awoke to a warmth on his chest, and when he blinked his eyes open he found Eurus curled up on him, asleep. It brought a smile to the man's face, and he lifted a hand to scratch the cat's chin as his gaze turned to the window. It was dark out, but he didn't have a clock to tell the time. He had his phone, but it was in his back pocket and he wouldn't be able to get it without disturbing Eurus.
With a quiet sigh, Shiro resigned himself to waiting until Eurus stirred, and he traced the faint lines of the uneven surface beneath the paint on the ceiling with his eyes. They were swirly like clouds, and reminded him of the sky. He began to feel the memory of wind in his hair, blowing his bangs from his face as he stood on the runway. The echo of roaring engines filled his ears, and he was back in his jet. The world around him was a beautiful blue with puffy splotches of white clouds surfing lazily in the breeze below him. A streak of grey caught his eye as one of his crew whizzed by, howling with glee through the headset. Shiro couldn't bring himself to tell the soldier off as a small chuckle escaped him. The force against his chest as he accelerated after his comrade was a familiar embrace that he welcomed, at least until it began to grow too strong. Puzzled, Shiro attempted to speak, but his vocal cords were suddenly strained and raw, incapable of making anything but pathetic rasps. The next thing he knew, he was in captivity.
Ropes bound Shiro tightly to a chair, biting his wrists and constricting his chest. Each breath took energy he didn't think he had. The bridge of his nose throbbed and burned, the wound still relatively fresh and growing infected. The blindfold tied around his head was tight enough to make him feel the pressure on his skull. He could feel his ribs straining his skin, his muscle and fat gone from weeks and weeks of starvation and little movement. His mind was lost, afraid, hurting, and broken. A small part of him hoped rescue would come, but he'd mostly given up on that. All he could feel was pain and misery, and despite the break from torture at the moment, he knew something worse was to come.
A sharp pain drew Shiro out of his mind and he gasped for breath, bolting upright and starling Eurus. Her claws dug further into his stomach during the motion before she tumbled completely off him and onto the bed. Shiro's eyes widened momentarily and he reached for the cat quickly. Picking her up, Shiro stroked Eurus's head a few times apologetically and set her back on his lap, where she turned to look at him.
"Sorry," he mumbled, still a little out of breath. Eurus stared another moment, then nudged her head against his stomach. Shiro smiled and began to pet the cat again, thankful for her forgiveness.
When Eurus jumped off of Shiro's lap and jogged to the door, Shiro remembered he hadn't fed her in a while, and he hadn't had access to a little box all day. He hurriedly jumped to his feet and ran to the room with his duffel bag, which held a large plastic bag full of litter and a litter box. Shiro dropped the box in the corner before dumping the litter in, and he'd barely finished before Eurus was in the box.
Shiro left Eurus to do her business and returned to his bedroom, where he opened his backpack and emptied it. He put the clothes in the dresser, taking extra care with his aviation uniform, and stacked the books on the desk, then pulled out the various other things that filled the nooks and crannies in the bag. A sack of cat treats went on the desk, a pocket knife beside it. A laptop charger and laptop were set out on Shiro's bed, and he plugged the laptop in and turned it on to check out his class list one last time. A few other things from the backpack were settled in various places around the room, then Shiro finally pulled out his phone to check the time. 6am.
Deciding it wasn't worth it to sleep, given his classes started in three hours, Shiro moved on to the other room to unpack his duffel. Dumbbells were placed gently on the floor, and a small standing punching bag was pushed into a corner. A medicine ball rolled to a stop next to the dumbbells. Some more clothes and a few other things were pulled from the duffel bag until it was empty, and Shiro wandered through his dorm placing everything in its place until his arms and both his bags were empty. Once he finished, he checked the time again. 6:45am.
Shiro spent the remaining two hours before his class checking for assignments online, making his bed, working out, showering, and devouring a couple granola bars for breakfast. At 8:30am he was headed out the door in his uniform while Eurus weaved around his feet until he shut the door.