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Lance is already awake when Shiro’s eyes flutter open. He’s sleepy, still a little exhausted, but Lance is still humming something sweet and lovely under his breath, lips pressed softly to Shiro’s collarbone.
Lance is – enticing, magnetic, even when he's got his eyes lined dark with sleeplessness, even when his eyelashes flutter tiredly. Even when he's got his fingers curled up in the front of Shiro's shirt, tugging down at the fabric as he sings something unintelligible against Shiro’s neck. The feeling of Lance’s voice breezing across his skin, it makes Shiro shiver.
Lance is enticing, even when – especially when he's like this. Pretty, soft, sleepy mischief in his eyes 'cause when it comes to Lance, oh, Shiro can try to think he's innocent and sweet and lovely but then Lance's slim fingers reach up to twine through Shiro's hair and tug, ever so gently.
Shiro hums at the jolt it sends down his spine. "Lance," he breathes out, pleased and low. He's rasping, short of breath, high off touch. Lance thumbs at the slow-lethargic pulse at his neck, and a restful and dim calm settles inside Shiro's blood-beating veins.
"Hey," Lance says softly. Gives another soft tug to Shiro's hair, fingertips scraping through the strands gracelessly and without intent beyond sensation and comfort. "You should sleep more."
"I really shouldn't," Shiro hums. Lance smiles, light and airy and he presses his mouth against Shiro's skin – his lips are velvety from chapstick, because Lance has a habit of biting his lips, and Shiro fondly recalls the metallic-sweetness of his mouth.
"Well, I wanna sleep more," says Lance. Flutters his eyelashes like butterfly wings beating across Shiro's all-too-thin flesh.
Sometimes, if he’s fiercely honest, then Shiro feels like his skin is so unstable that Lance could probably just phase his hands inside. Tug and poke at Shiro's blood vessels out of curiosity, play with his heartstrings for fun, and Shiro would probably let him. Wholeheartedly, Shiro would let Lance ruin, ruin, ruin him.
Shiro runs his hands under Lance's shirt – well, it's Shiro's shirt, and that fact sets off a fiery little spark of satisfaction-happiness-affection in Shiro's lungs. Makes his heart expand a little, expand a lot, like there's a galaxy blooming within his fragile insides, new and fresh and adjusting to the physics of stellar kinematics and the velocity of the constant expansion of spacetime. Reverse broken-heart syndrome, except it's put on extreme and turned up high, high, high – all-consuming and wild and frantic inside Shiro's bloodstream, lovely and addictive and sweet.
Sometimes, sometimes, Shiro thinks, as he skims his fingers up the small of Lance's back – presses his thumbs into the dimples there, just to hear Lance giggle and gasp, just to have Lance squirm back against Shiro's hands, craving touch and love and stardust. Sometimes, Shiro thinks he can lie tangled in too-hot bedsheets forever, surrounded by air friction and the hazy rhythm of Lance's breath, the warmth of his tummy when Shiro presses a palm flat up against it, under his shirt – makes Lance shiver and press his lips against Shiro's jaw to stifle that lovely little oh that falls from his lips.
"Hey," Shiro murmurs, just as Lance wiggles his hips and presses himself closer against Shiro. "You're not really sleeping."
"I totally am," Lance breathes, his tired, happy eyes darting up to meet Shiro's. Blue eyes like blue stars, blue like the planet Earth, wild like stellar winds. "This is sleeping. Definitely."
"Sure," says Shiro, even as Lance trails his fingers down the expanse of his chest, light touches inspiring Shiro’s pulse to rush. "That's what they're calling it these days."
"Shush," says Lance. His eyes flutter closed, he presses up against Shiro's hands and rests his head against Shiro's collarbone, lips parting to huff breaths out – warm and fire-lighting, soft and blaze-setting.
Lance is water, Lance is fluid – the air resistance to Shiro's freefall bad decisions, sometimes. The fluid friction that winds up in Shiro's lungs whenever Shiro needs slim fingers entwined with his own, whenever Shiro needs full, rosy brown lips pressed up against his own, whenever Shiro needs that feeling of love, comfort, stardust.
"Sleep,” Lance sighs happily. “Keep touching me, but sleep."
Lance is water, Lance is fluid – and the thing is, Lance is plasma and Lance is sunshine, too, solar flare loveliness and particles so hot that they separate into their base components, tiny subatomic particles. Shakes Shiro apart on the inside, quantum entanglement that arises in Shiro's bones like hydrogen-oxygen-hydrogen particles clinging to all the carbon dioxide diffusing in his blood cells.
Shiro sighs, breathless, a little too dreamy – makes Lance's eyes open up again, dark eyelashes spread wide apart to reveal those pretty, pretty irises.
"You're not sleeping," says Lance, lower lip jutting out. "Wow, Shiro, not what I came here for."
Shiro pauses, contemplating, as he smoothes out the hem of Lance's shirt. Pushes it up further, just so he can get his fingers on more of that plush skin and savor more of that delightful shiver Lance can't withhold.
"Takashi," Shiro rumbles, tucking his chin over the top of Lance's head, nuzzling into that soft, sleep-messed hair. "Call me Takashi, here."
Lance lets out a pleased sound, a low huff of breath that shifts into a giggle. Endearing, so, so endearing, shoots little stars up Shiro's spine and makes his mouth wobbly with a smile.
"Takashi," says Lance, sweet and soft and dreamy – and, and, and –
Sometimes, Lance is too much. Too much for Shiro's self-enforced self-control, too much for everything Shiro tries to tell himself he can't have. Too much, too much, but then Shiro's faced with Lance's fingers wrapped up in the sleeves of Shiro's sweater – the sleeves are too long, Shiro can only see those fingertips and the black-painted fingernails, Allura's choice, because she's kind of a little shit like that, but it's – nice. His color is nice, on Lance.
But Shiro's self-control is a wavering, wobbling thing when it comes to Lance.
“This really isn’t sleeping,” Lance says, but he’s grinning so wide and he’s pressed so close to Shiro.
Lance’s mouth is soft and metallic-sweet when Shiro finally ducks his head down to kiss him. Lance’s skin is warm and the way he squirms against Shiro’s hands is so charming. And his laugh, god, Lance’s laughter is so, so starry and bright that Shiro’s heart starts doing that thing again –
Starts expanding like spacetime, broken hearts in reverse, and Shiro decides, when he savors the enticing, enticing giggle-turned-gasp that falls from Lance’s mouth – he decides that maybe too much isn’t bad at all, sometimes.