Disclaimer: I do not own VLD.

warning: brief mentions of PTSD, a little more in-depth than together.

"Do you ever rest, Shiro?"

She means it as a jest - a smile tips up one side of her mouth and her head tilts teasingly - but her words are forced and weigh heavy even to her own ears and the flash of something across her black paladin's face tells her he hears it as well.

He swallows and the effort it visibly takes him very nearly breaks her heart. "Sorry, Princess." Shiro squints up at the bright lights in the vaulted ceiling of the castle. "Everything around here's motion activated."

Allura's smile is easy then, as she settles into the seat across from him. "It can be quite the pain sometimes, but you didn't wake me." (A lie that falls unfailingly from her lips, she is strangely connected to the castle in many ways after all and her ears still sing with his broken holler.)

He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "I told Keith and Lance it was lights ou-"

"No, no. You misunderstand, Shiro. They're perfectly quiet." She swallows, keeping the younger paladins in line is second nature - they are her responsibility and she their co-mentor. Being an Altean powerhouse of ancient royalty doesn't hurt her chances of reigning their attention either. It just isn't as clear with her fellow senior of their patched together team.

Part of her insists on respect, it wasn't her business.

Another insists on diplomacy (something Lance has started to tease her about), facing the situation gently and slowly with limitless grace.

The larger part of her, the part of her where he has taken up permanent residency within, wants to throw diplomacy out of the window and slap her hand hard onto the tabletop and demand.

Demand his admittance as she wrenches her fingers into his rumpled shirt and yanks him from his seat. Does he truly think he's fooling anyone?

If he's fooling her? As the princess of a vast people set out to protect, she has seen the shadow that tucks and ebbs and darkens the light in the most beautiful eyes of those that lived through the old wars.

Even in her father and Coran, to a lesser extent.

Even if she knows she cannot truly do anything, does he not think she would understand his anguish, fear, and all of the horrid feelings that prick your head and heart and refuse to be wrangled in? Surely he doesn't believe she would reject him as the Black Lion for what his imprisonment has done to him.

Or turn away from him completely, just as Takashi.

They are bound by far more than Voltron.

Can't he see it? Feel it?

She wants to brush back the shock of white hair from his forehead beaded in sweat and rest her hands at his temples, hoping something in her could silence the echoes of battles he barely won or bear even a little bit of his pain so he might get only one more hour of sleep. Allow her to offer her care and strength like she did to the Balmera. She would weather the limitless exhaustion it took all over again without hesitation.

And happily.

Her mouth tips in a sympathetic smile as she says nothing, letting the sense of her presence drift out toward him like a phantom limb. A token of comfort she can only pray he will physically reach out to and wholly accept one day.

All of these thoughts evaporate as Allura's fingers twitch, aching to settle over his hand… Instead she waves her hand in front of her to shake the feeling. "I was having a dreadfully, awful dream about Lance and Keith shoving each other around in a race to claim the Black Lion."

He scoffs and a sliver of the old him (what she can only guess is the old him) comes back into his eyes. "Like I would ever let that happen. And if I don't get there in time to drag them back out, I'm sure the Black Lion will take care of the grunt work for me."

She laughs, imagining the Lion opening it's wide, wide mouth to spill its occupants into a tangled mess of long limbs back onto the hard floor of the hanger. It's enough for tonight, she'll handle the guilt of lying about why she awoke later.

And maybe he'll call her out on it to tell her she's a terrible liar.

Allura dreams maybe he'll call her by her name for the first time and she'll use his own and the gates of his inner turmoil will open to her just a little as she soothingly ghosts her fingertips over the scar across his nose.

a/n: how could I not? | tumblr: alluran