Chapter Text
Shiro hesitates in the mess hall, trying to look like he’s not having a minor freak out over choosing where to eat breakfast. It’s early enough that no one is on duty yet, and at least half of the Paladins and MFE pilots are still in pajamas, all of them chattering and eating breakfast or drinking the warm drink that they have in place of coffee. His options for tables include sitting with the Holts and Iverson (all of whom have at least a good twenty years on him), sitting with Pidge and Hunk and MFEs, sitting with the Atlas officers, or sitting with Keith and Lance and Allura (which he immediately dismisses as an option—he’s not getting involved in whatever that mess is). He’s also not willing to sit with Iverson, because then he has to act like a mature adult and it’s too early for that. Which leaves the MFE/Paladin table or the officers.
The thing is, Shiro hasn’t had to really do any sort of social engagement with people his own age in more than five years. Aside from the occasional mission with Matt, he hasn’t spent any meaningful time around his peers since before Kerberos. The Paladins are great and he definitely counts them as his friends, but they are all much younger than him.
The other thing is that he really hasn’t had any interactions with the Atlas officers outside of briefings and strictly work-related conversations. And sure, one of them is Lance’s sister, but they’re basically strangers to him. So, yeah, he’s not sure if it’s a cop out, but he plans to sit with Hunk and Pidge, but then Veronica McClain makes eye contact with him and waves invitingly.
Well, shit. He waves back awkwardly and starts over with his tray of food. She grins and nudges her companion, who spills his drink and stares at the puddle of liquid with something akin to resignation.
“Morning, sir!” Veronica chirps, shoving a wad of napkins at the mess.
Shiro offers a weak grin. “Morning. Mind if I…”
“Oh yeah, join us! Curtis, stop pouting, you weren’t even drinking it, you got it for the sole purpose of staring at it in horror and I will not apologize for breaking that cycle.”
Curtis sighs and starts trying to sop up the mess. “Morning, sir.”
“You guys can call me Shiro, you know.” He sits down across from Veronica, not wanting to get in the way of the mess. “Especially since I’m not on duty or in uniform.”
“Sure, Shiro. So, real talk.” Veronica has the same smile as her brother, he notes. “Were you a Roman myths kid or a Greek myths kid?”
Honestly, not what he expected. He blinks in confusion, then glances at Curtis in the hope that there’ll be some indication of what to say there, but the man’s busy mopping up the spilled drink and doesn’t offer any clues.
“I…feel like this is a loaded question,” he admits after several seconds of confused blinking. “But I’m gonna say Greek?”
Veronica nods solemnly. “Acceptable.”
“Thanks? How about you?”
“Greek, obviously. The Roman shit was half propaganda created to prop up their empire, and the rest was plagiarized from the Greeks in the first place!” She gestures emphatically as she says this. “I mean, it’s clearly the bastard child of better mythology!”
Shiro nods in mute confusion. Across from him, Curtis puts down the dirty napkins and smiles in amusement before snatching some of her breakfast potatoes, and Shiro’s a little jealous, because they’re obviously good friends and when was the last time he had that kind of casual familiarity with anyone who wasn’t the Paladins?
“Anyway,” Veronica wraps up her speech. “The Greek myths are, like, OG! Curtis, Greeks or Romans?”
Curtis chews slowly and squints like he’s seriously considering this. “Can I go with neither?”
“Explain.” She points a finger at him commandingly, then yanks it back when he tries to bite it.
“I was much more into Vikings.” He shrugs. “Their stories were hardcore.”
Shiro nods in mild approval.
“Fine.” Veronica nods in agreement. “I accept it.”
“Gee, thank you so much for validating my childhood interests.”
Shiro bites back a laugh at this and starts eating his breakfast. It was served buffet style today, mostly prepackaged foods because Hunk was too busy to cook. He’s chosen the most recognizable foods he could find: rehydrated eggs, the last serving of potatoes, some sort of porridge, and some of the not-coffee that they’re stuck with until they make it back to Earth. There had been some prepackaged foods that they’d picked up at their last resupply on New Altea, but he doesn’t know what any of it is, so he left it alone. Shiro would kill for some diner-style pancakes with syrup and real coffee.
“What is that?”
He blinks, coming back out of this revelry, and follows Veronica’s accusing stare.
Curtis shrugs and continues scooping out a spoonful of whatever’s in the weird food package. “Dunno. I can’t read Altean.”
“Then why did you grab it?”
“Honestly? It looked like a pudding cup. Anyway, it’s gotta be edible, why else would they be serving it?”
“Um,” Shiro frowns a little, suddenly worried that his comms officer is about to commit suicide. “There is always a possibility that it isn’t actually edible and it was served because nobody knew better.”
“Well, I’ve eaten half of it already, so…” He takes another mouthful. “It’s not pudding, in case you were wondering.”
Veronica sighs like an exhausted parent. “Why are you like this?”
“What is it then?” Shiro asks. He doesn’t know the man well enough to judge him yet.
“Well, it’s like a socky-hummus.”
“A…what?”
“You know hummus?”
Shiro nods.
“It’s like if you made hummus with socks.”
“What does that even mean?” Veronica frowns. She glances at Shiro, and he shakes his head in confusion.
Curtis shrugs again and holds out the package. Shiro considers his options and decides that dying because he ate sock-hummus would be very on-brand. He takes a small scoop and tries it. It does, in fact, taste like sock-hummus. Veronica tastes some too and grimaces thoughtfully.
“What the fuck?”
“I know, right?” Curtis grins crookedly.
“And you are…enjoying this?”
“Not sure, honestly. But I’ve already eaten half of it, so I feel obligated to finish it.”
Shiro can relate to that, although he also knows that it’s probably not the healthiest approach to food (which would be a hypocritical thing to say given his own food issues). “I can eat some if you don’t want to finish it. It was…not horrible?”
Curtis nods amicably and hands the package over. Veronica gives Shiro a small smile. They all fall into a companionable silence while Shiro eats the last of the sock-hummus and the other two eat whatever they’ve piled on their trays (he’s relieved to see that Curtis has also collected some definitely edible foods to go with his alien food).
After she clears her tray, Veronica launches into a rant about the difference between good, fresh eggs and the rehydrated eggs. Curtis sighs and flicks a bit of egg at her, which spurs her to threaten him with a fork until Shiro declares his support for rehydrated eggs as a food source. Veronica stares in obvious horror, while Curtis tilts his head and looks thoughtful.
“You were one of those people who liked MREs, weren’t you?”
“Hey, there were some decent ones!”
“You’ve got questionable tastes, Shirogane.”
“Says the man who ate sock-hummus!”
Veronica barks out a “hah!” and points at Curtis gloatingly, then jerks it away again before he can bite it like he clearly wants to. The man shrugs and tosses another piece of egg, hitting Shiro between the eyes. Then his eyes go wide as he realizes that he just hit his commanding officer in the face with breakfast food. All three of them freeze for a moment, but then Shiro cracks up, struck by the ridiculousness of his life.
The other two start giggling then, and it spirals from there until all three of them are laughing like little kids.
It’s nice.