for rex501st on tumblr — because apparently he hasn't gotten presents since high school and i'm going to prove that wrong; and guess what! just for the occasion, this is written in PRESENT tense (ahahah get it because it's a PRESENT haha,,hah,,,, ok sorry)
for twelve days of shallura — prompt: exchanging gifts
(also unfortunately this got longer than i wanted.)
For someone that isn't even from Earth — and even less the United States — Allura was very keen on celebrating the holidays:
"Good morning, everyone," she greets them one day. "Thank you so much for gathering here —"
"Sorry, I'm late!" Lance announces, casually strolling into the conference room.
"—on time," Allura continues, eyes slanted at the latecomer for a split tick before returning to the rest of them. "I've called you all here today to proclaim that we celebrate Christmas!"
"What?" someone blurts.
"Pidge, here—" Allura says, taking said Paladin into a strong and sudden side hug. "—was telling me about the holiday season and the gift-exchanging that happens around this time of the solar alignment on Earth on this Christmas day — and I think we should carry forward this tradition of giving presents on board to the Castle of Lions!"
"I don't even celebrate Christmas!" Keith blurts, voice cracking a little.
"I don't either!" the princess exclaims in solidarity. "But I believe it should be fun to exchange some gifts between each other, right?"
"I even have a humongous armugon already set up in the main room!" Coran adds excitedly — clearly the Alteans corroborated before letting the Paladins know.
"Right!" Allura says. "And in two days when the stars Solaris and Forno align with the Alpore Galaxy's midsection axis, we shall open all the presents that we've given to each other!"
"Oh, is that actually when Christmas is?" Hunk asks.
"Probably not," the princess replies, nevertheless enthusiastic. "I just needed a trivial event to mark as more significant solely for the purposes of our newfound tradition on board."
And then with bright eyes and an even wider smile, Allura suddenly turns her head toward Shiro. "So what do you think?"
Shiro's eyebrows raise. He looks around him in both directions, looking to the other Paladins for an answer. They're just looking at him though, with no obvious expressions on any of their faces.
"Uh…" he stutters. "Sure?"
And so, when two random stars would align with a random galaxy, the Earth holiday Christmas — on the Altean Castle of Lions, in the middle of the deepest darkest part of space, while steering clear of Galran territories and the occasional asteroid — would be celebrated.
.
.
"I don't even know what I'd give her," Shiro sighs, crossing his arms.
He doesn't know why he's talking his thoughts out loud to Lance, of all people, but hopes that Lance has some creative ideas swimming in his head.
"Yeah, that's hard," Lance agrees, resting his head against the back of the couch, folding his hands behind his neck.
"I just want to get something that would impress Allura, you know?" Shiro continues. "Because whatever I give her is reflective of what I think of her."
"Well, damn, if you say it that way, my abuela did not like me at all," Lance remarks, then turns his head toward Shiro to explain. "She used to get me pants that were always too long — I think she was trying to tell me to grow up."
Shiro snorts. "She has a point."
"Oh I know!" Lance suddenly perks up, resting an elbow on Shiro's shoulder. "I know what you can give Allura."
Shiro's attention is never caught so quickly. "Yeah?"
Lance's mouth curls into a wry smile. "Yourself."
Shiro's eyes narrow. "That's not even funny."
The younger Earthling shrugs. "It wasn't meant to be," he says, backing away from Shiro at first but then suddenly coming towards him again. "But you have to admit that you've thought about kissing her under the mistletoe at least once."
Actually, Shiro hasn't thought of that at all — but now that Lance mentions it, very distracting thoughts cloud Shiro's mind.
"N-No," he replies. "I haven't."
Lance suspiciously at him. "You stuttered."
"No," Shiro denies, shaking his head. He maintains steady eye contact with the other Paladin, just to prove his point.
"Huh," Lance says, letting Shiro off the hook.
Shiro quietly sighs with relief.
"Well, I don't know what to tell you," Lance says, stretching his arms above his head and starting to head out of the room. "You're on your own for this one, my man."
Once Lance leaves the room, Shiro lets out the rest of his sigh and rolls his head back against the couch.
Two hours later, he still doesn't know what to give Allura — and he's still thinking about kissing her under mistletoe. Or whatever the space equivalent would be.
.
.
Shiro finally catches Keith alone in the training room — where the Red Paladin seemed to be more and more often now these days.
Keith, so focused, only seems to notice him once he walks around and directly behind the training dummy. Keith makes a quick voice command out loud, stopping the simulation, and withdraws his bayard, coming towards Shiro.
"Hey," Keith greets him, wiping some sweat off his brow.
"Hey," Shiro replies, and in the middle of trying to figure out the small talk, decides to just fuck it and go for it. "You okay?"
Keith's forehead wrinkles. "Yeah, why?" He turns his body back toward the training circle, as if concluding that whatever Shiro has to say isn't serious.
Shiro sticks out his foot to tap Keith's shin lightly, keeping the younger Paladin in place.
"We were talking about the holidays earlier today," he says. "I didn't you to feel singled out because maybe you didn't celebrate this time of year as everyone else might have."
"It's fine," Keith assures Shiro — and the assurance is genuine, not just one that he's trying to feign. "I didn't have a family to celebrate with, but I always had friends." And then he hesitates for a second, before continuing, "And now, I guess I have a family, too."
Shiro can't help the smile that forms over his lips.
"I'm glad to have you as part of my family, too," he replies.
After a long silence, Keith's eyes flicker up to Shiro.
"Did you celebrate Christmas? You know… back on Earth?"
Shiro frowns and shrugs. "My mom and I celebrated in our own way," he replies. "Not too much family close by and not usually too much time."
The younger Paladin nods, looking off to the side momentarily before returning his gaze to Shiro. "Lance invited me to his family's next Christmas," he adds, almost offhandedly. "Apparently it's a really big thing for them — with like a whole roasted pig and everything."
Shiro smiles. "You going to go?"
Keith hides it, but Shiro sees his lips curve upwards. "Yeah."
.
.
"Oh, that's easy!" Hunk replies, squatting down to check on whatever he has baking in the oven. "If you can't think of anything, just bake Allura something!"
Shiro has never disagreed with Hunk more. "No," he says immediately, but out of desperation, thinks about it for just a moment before repeating, "No — absolutely not. You don't want me anywhere near a kitchen."
"I can help you," Hunk offers.
"Thank you, but that's fine," Shiro insists, gesturing toward the large bowls in the sink and the rolling pin on the counter. "And I want to give her something that no one else is already giving her."
"You're saying that you want your gift to be different," Hunk translates.
"N-No," Shiro says. He can't help the small hiccup in his throat. "I just want my gift to be something she'll actually remember."
"So special."
Shiro huffs, exasperated. "I just want to give her something that's from me," Shiro explains. "Like from me, you know?"
Hunk isn't buying it. "Sure."
"And besides," Shiro says, picking up a spatula from a nearby mixing bowl. He inspects it, seeing something that a lot like brownie batter. "It looks like you have us covered on the cooking end."
"You can never have too much food."
"True," Shiro agrees, casually licking the leftover batter mix from the spatula.
Hunk clucks his tongue and takes the spatula from Shiro's grip, adding it to the pile of dishes in the sink.
"You can always make your own batter," Hunk reminds him. "You know — since you want to be unique about it and all."
.
.
The first person that Shiro thinks of a gift for is Pidge — although Shiro hates to admit that it took him a long time to finally approach the younger Paladin, and then many failed attempts to actually reach into his back pocket and hand Pidge the compass.
"This was something Matt gave to me when we were back in Cadet Academy," he explains. "I think I was really worried about what stewardship I would be matched with. They were all really competitive because my class was really bright, and I was worried that I wasn't going to have any work after graduation."
Pidge doesn't say a word, continuing to look the artifact over.
"He told me that it doesn't matter where I go, I'll find the right direction," he continues.
After a moment, Pidge laughs.
"This compass is so Matt," Pidge says. "It has all these advanced features that honestly you don't even really need — like this bezel ring, and this magnifier, and it even has a straight edge demarcated by centimeter and inches."
"It is," Shiro agrees.
"Matt was so over the top when it came to these things, you know?"
"I do."
Pidge looks back up at Shiro.
"Do you miss him, too?" Pidge asks.
Shiro looks down at the compass in Pidge's hands.
"Yeah," he says.
.
.
To no surprise, Coran doesn't really help clarify a solution to Shiro's gift-for-Allura problem either.
"Hand me the laser if you will," he says, in response to Shiro's question.
Shiro does so nevertheless, tiptoeing to hand said item to Coran, who has grown a few feet in order to fix a lightbulb high up on the wall.
"So what sort of things does Allura like?" Shiro attempts again.
"Allura isn't a very picky girl," Coran says, peering into a small crevice before pointing the laser into it and shooting. He waves off the smoke that clouds out of the crack in the wall. "She was very happy with whatever people gifted her. She had to be — she would get all of these presents all the time from the suitors that happened to be in the area."
"Suitors," Shiro accidentally blurts.
"Indeed," Coran replies, looking into the lightbulb crevice again. "All kinds of suitors from across the universe would give the Royal Family numerous gifts. It comes with being the ruler of a planet, I suppose."
"What sort of things would they give her?"
Coran shrugs. "Beats me — half the time we weren't exactly sure what they were. We also had to make sure they weren't dangerous either, of course." Coran motions for Shiro to hand him the square-shaped metal hook on the table next to him. Shiro hands the instrument to him. "But usually they would give her pretty gems, or a vintage book, or even a sword set — expensive things mostly."
"I see," Shiro says.
"You're trying to figure out exactly what to give Allura for this Christmas thing, aren't you?" Coran bluntly asks him.
"Well. Yeah," Shiro confesses.
"That's so amusing," the older Altean continues. "Everyone else came to me earlier asking the same questions, but I think the ones that know her the best are the mice — but of course, I can't even really communicate with them."
"Yeah," Shiro replies, thinking on how it also actually is quite unfortunate that he isn't even able to really get an answer out of Coran, who can actually communicate with him. "I just don't really have any ideas off the top of my head."
"Maybe an idea will come up while you help me clean the crypods," Coran suggests.
Shiro looks at the row of yellow maintenance lights blinking all the way down the hallway.
He doubts that the busy work will actually amount to anything, but he also figures that he doesn't have much else to do anyway, and if anything, he thinks that helping around the ship can serve as part of an overall present back to Coran, who has been so unconditionally supportive of all of them through these times.
"Sure."
The idea never actually comes, but Shiro does get to hear more about Altea, and more about Coran's memories of what happened ten thousand years ago — and Shiro thinks that seeing the older Altean's eyes lighten as he recounts his past and his planet is plenty good enough of a gift for the season.
.
.
"Sorry," is the first thing that Shiro says when he sees Allura that morning when Solaris and Forno aligned with the Alpore Galaxy's axis.
Allura frowns, furrowing her eyebrows. "Whatever for, Shiro?" and then she adds, a little more softly, "You're always apologizing for things that you haven't done."
He blinks twice. "Exactly," he says. "I haven't gotten you a present. I… I wasn't sure what to get you."
"I see."
"Sorry," he repeats. "I know you were really excited about the gifts."
Allura tilts her head. "The gifts?" she asks.
"For Christmas," Shiro explains. "That's why you're doing all of this, right?"
The princess blinks, processing. "Oh," she exclaims. "I'm so sorry — is that what you thought I was doing this for the whole time?" She shakes her head. "No, no, I didn't mean for the presents to be an essential thing for our celebration."
"Oh," Shiro replies. "I thought that's what this was all about."
Allura shakes her head again. "I should have explained that better," she apologizes, coming forward to take Shiro's hand in both of hers. "Pidge had just been explaining to me about the holidays, about family gatherings and celebrations, and I wanted to do something for us aboard this ship too — you know, for our family."
Her gaze is intense. His hand between hers. His face is turning warm.
"Right," he says, slipping out of her fingers. "Well — I guess, regardless, I wasn't able to get you anything." He looks away. "I…well, I couldn't find anything that I felt worth giving you."
She looks touched, eyebrows furrowing and her eyes softening.
"Shiro," she tells him, coming close. "Just you being here is a gift enough for me."
The words don't make it out of his mouth.
"And actually," she continues. "While you're here, I might as well give you what I was going to give to you for Christmas."
"You have something for me?" he asks.
"Yes," she replies, turning around. "Of course."
She smiles.
"Close your eyes."
His heart jumps a bit. He thinks about her lips, and he thinks about — well, fuck, all he can think about are her lips.
"Here," she says.
He feels a small box being placed in his hands. He opens his eyes, notices the shimmering wrapping paper around the cuboidal gift and the glittery ribbon.
"Thank you," he says, feeling the dense weight of it. "What is it?"
She winks, her eyes bright. "Why don't you open it and see?"
He nods, turning the box over so as to figure out how to best peel open the wrapping paper without destroying the practically perfect handiwork.
"Oh, no, no," she exclaims. "Don't open it here."
"Huh?"
She laughs when she sees his confusion. "You'll see why. Go open it in your own quarters."
He smiles, curiously. "Alright," he says. "Thank you, again."
"Of course."
He turns to step out of the room, slightly shaking the box to hear the rattle of whatever mystery might be in her present.
"Oh, and Shiro?"
"Hm?" he asks, swiveling.
She catches his lips on the other side.
His eyes widen for just a second, as he inhales, surprised, trying to put all the pieces of what's going on in his head together. And then he exhales, parting from her kiss and coming forward again to better position himself, bringing her waist in with his free hand. She breathes in and out through her mouth quickly, taking his jaw into her hands and deepening the kiss.
On the second breath, they separate, lingering just a distance away.
"This was my second gift," she whispers.
"Ah," he says, softly chuckling "I owe you two now."
She smiles, pulling him in again.
"I think two kisses should suffice," she murmurs over his lips.
notes: ok but bets on what's actually in the gift box that allura gave to shiro?
and of course, wishing you the very best for the holidays — whatever that may mean —
thir13enth