Headcanon that Shiro was…really out of it for a while after waking up in the clone’s body.
He had good days and bad days. On his good days he was like the old Shiro, full of battle stratagems and words of encouragement (and the occasional sarcastic remark). On bad days he could zone out for hours at a time, his gaze trapped somewhere in the middle distance despite his friends’ efforts to grab his attention. It was like he was looking through them all, into something dark and nebulous beyond their reach.
On Shiro’s worst days he forgot who he was—what he was doing in space. Those days he’d simply shut down like a broken toy. He only panicked twice, and those times Kosmo knew to teleport Keith to his side. For some reason he always found comfort in Keith’s presence, even when he didn’t know who he was.
(“Your name is Takashi Shirogane. My name’s Keith; I’m your friend. We’re traveling through space now, on our way to Earth—our home. It’s okay. You’re safe here, I promise.”)
Other weird things started to pop up over time. Keith swore sometimes when Shiro stood behind him he could see starlight flicker out of the corner of his eye. On rare occasions Keith would think something and Shiro would reply to it like he’d said it out loud (“What? No, I’m sure you said that. I heard you say it.”) He can’t fly Black anymore, but Keith also heard him talking to the Lions a couple times—very casually, like they were old friends.
Like, Shiro was basically dead for a long time, trapped in the Black Lion’s consciousness. You don’t go through something like that without taking some of death back with you.
Ooooooh I accept this headcanon! Shiro even said to Lance that the whole situation had left him “out of sorts for the last few weeks” so this isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
And yes I love the idea of Keith being Shiro’s anchor during a panic attack!
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