THE MAN AND THE MOON
1. good morning
Morning light breaks through the castle window, casts a warm glow upon the bed. Allura's bright blue eyes flutter open, and it takes a dazed moment for her consciousness to catch up with her waking body, to pull itself away from dreams—the flower fields of Altea again, weaving pink blooms through her father's white hair. Waking in the morning has been harder ever since the paladins pulled her from her thousand year slumber. Every morning the sun rises, Altea dies again.
Stretching out, the blankets fall away revealing her dark, naked skin. Her bare breasts, her hips—three dark bruises bloom across the softness of her inner thigh. An moment flashes before her eyes: a warm mouth at the ache between her legs, her ragged breath, a flash of white, peering through half lidded eyes at his concentrated expression, a long scar running across the bridge of his nose.
Beside her, Shiro sighs in his sleep, rolls over to face her. Oh, yes, that's right. Allura closes her eyes and the entirety of last night comes back to her from the moment she and the black paladin locked eyes across the dinner table amidst the flying space goop and the rest of the group's laughter and protests, to the thinly veiled invitation she extended to him after supper to come by her quarters so they could exchange descriptions of their home planets, to the moment they fell into bed, hands torn between struggling out of their own clothes and burning paths across each other's skin.
Shiro's brow is furrowed, his jaw set, and lying back down next to him, Allura presses a kiss to his lips, kisses him once more before his dark eyes flutter open. "Good morning," she murmurs, fingers trailing down the side of his face. But his eyes are still far off, still not entirely awake, he still resides in dream. It's during this moment in the mornings, Allura notices, that Shiro ever betrays that he holds inside of him a deep sadness. But this moment every morning is just that—a moment. And it fades so fast that sometimes Allura wonders if it was ever really there.
"Hey there," Shiro says as he finally comes to, fully awake. Grinning, he pulls Allura into his strong arms, and sets her on top of him, kissing her. Allura giggles just before his tongue slips into her mouth, and her naked body pressed flush against his, she wonders if all earthlings are this hot to the touch.
"Did you sleep well?" she asks after they break for air.
His fingers weave through her long white hair. "I woke up in the middle of the night, but aside from that, I slept fine." His thumb traces the blue crescents beneath her eyes, and his voice still has that morning rasp to it. "You look so peaceful when you sleep." And then: "What is it? What's on your mind?"
She doesn't answer, at least not for a while. She hates the idea of exposing him, bringing to words his secret that he's kept and hid for so long. But she speaks eventually, not meeting his eyes. Instead, she runs her hands through the tuft of white hair that sticks every which way at his forehead. Keith once told her that his hair used to be entirely jet black—but that was before Zarkon took him prisoner.
"You always look so troubled when you sleep," and she feels his body shift beneath her. "Where is it that you always go in dreams?" she asks. Allura fears she knows the answer.
Shiro's eyes look past her shoulder. "I'm back on that ship, reliving those moments over and over again." he shuts his eyes, the vein in his temple thrumming. "Sometimes I think I've remembered something I'd forgotten. Something important. But then I wake up and it's gone." Allura nods her head. She knows better than anyone the struggle of trying to pin down a dream in the waking world.
"Forgive me," she says. "I've gone and forced you to think about unpleasant things." Shiro assures her she's done nothing wrong, that there's nothing to forgive, as he pulls her into his chest. But it is wrong. She's the one who should be comforting him—not the other way around.
"Allura," Shiro says, brushing a strand of hair from her face.
"Yes?"
"Kiss me."
And she does. She kisses him with as much of herself that she can give and hopes that that's enough for now. And perhaps he does sense something in her lips, because he responds in kind, groaning as he deepens the kiss, his hands trailing down her back to cup her ass, and he arches forward to press his hips flush against hers.
Then, without a word, Allura sits up on top of him, and holding his gaze, she throws back the covers and tosses her hair over her shoulder. Satisfaction warms her chest as she feels Shiro's eyes on her body, his pupils dilated, his bottom lip caught between his teeth as his hands reach up to give her breasts a squeeze. Bending down, she bypasses his waiting lips to lick and nip at that spot below his ear, and when he groans, she lets him roll them over so that the weight of his body presses down above her.
Panting above her, Allura recognizes that look in his eyes, and he draws close, his lips just in front of hers. She shudders as she feels two fingers slide inside of her, her back arching perfectly, and through half lidded eyes she watches Shiro take a pert nipple into his wet mouth.
All of it almost sends her over the edge: tension building in the pit of her stomach as his fingers move in and out of her at an agonizingly slow pace, her breath going ragged as he rolls her nipple between his teeth, nipping and lapping at the soft skin of her breast. Rocking against his hand, her orgasm builds and builds, but just as it's about to crash over her, his fingers pull away; his lips leave her breast. Shiro sits back on his knees.
An unintentional moan leaves her body, and for a moment there is only the sound of their labored breath. So close to the edge just a moment ago, she feels her climax begin to fade. Between her parted thighs she looks up at Shiro, his skin a pale gold in the morning light. Her eyes sweep over the musculature of his body, travel the scars that run along his chest and torso, the sun glints across the metal of his Galran arm. Allura watches him stroke his length once, twice, and then three times. She feels herself nod her head.
The hair rising off Allura's skin in anticipation, Shiro bends down, his hot breath at her stomach, before his tongue ventures out, sweeping up her belly, between her breasts to meet her mouth, and Allura groans into the kiss at the same moment that he enters her.
His hand cups her cheek, and looking up at him, Allura finds herself contemplating the same question she asks every morning. How is it that a man can experience so much tragedy, and still remain so gentle and good?
He moves above her, and she loses herself in the steady rock of his hips, her arms wrap around his body and she whispers hoarse Altean into his ear. The coil of tension builds again and she urges him faster, deeper, to touch her there, yes, just like that. A long, dark leg wraps around his hips to draw him in, and her nails cling to his back, the white sheets, anywhere they can find purchase. Their labored breathing and the smack of skin against skin beat in time, and she's so damn close she feels as if she may break.
"Allura, baby," Shiro groans into her neck, "I'm gonna cum." His hips transition from fast to deep, long strokes, and somehow he reaches down, his thumb working at her clit to bring her along with him. Allura only has time to whisper back encouragements before her climax breaks over her, and Shiro spills after. They both cry out, a sound that echoes within the high ceilings of her bed chamber, and then spent, they collapse upon the sweat soaked bed.
The moment one finishes after sex is so very much like the moment after one wakes, Allura thinks to herself. One's body is so much at peace. The morning seems born anew. It is as if she has just awoken from a wonderful dream. She turns to face the center of the bed, and finds Shiro on his back, his eyes closed as he recovers. He looks almost as if he were sleeping—and yet his brow is unwrinkled, the smallest of smiles plays on his lips. And when his eyes do open, they glint, as if the sun rises behind his irises too.
He presses a kiss to Allura's lips, a kiss that's lazy, gentle. "Good morning," Shiro says. And the morning is good. It really is.