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One loves the sunset, when one is so sad.
A line from a book Lance read as a child. A wistful thing he hadn’t understood back then, but could grasp at, desperately and with clawing hands, now that he was older. When you see something so beautiful you have a physical reaction, and it invokes a sort of awe inside of you - a flurry of big emotions that you didn’t think you were capable of anymore.
Looking at her was sort of like that, like looking at a sunset when you’re lost, when you’re sad. Like loving the way fireflies lit up a garden in the dark. Like feeling the first wave of tide wash across your dry, bare feet. Fleeting, small, but everything all at once.
He could stare at her, like this, until his eyes dried up. He could. He could watch her bite her lip as she read, or trace the wood grain on their dining table. He could follow the strands of her hair down her back and never tire of the way the ends curled against her skin. Looking at Allura was like looking at a sunset, when you feel so incredibly lost, and then you see something so breathtaking it leaves you in wonder. She never failed to wonder him.
He told her as much, once, when they were lying in bed, and she was watching him like she was stargazing.
“That’s so strange,” She told him, whispering, smiling shyly, “I feel quite similarly about you, except I’m not sad.” She laced their hands together. “I’ve never been happier, in fact.”
“That’s so gay,” He joked, to cover up the knot of joy in the back of his mouth.
“That is gay,” She laughed, and then kissed him.
He’d never get tired of the sound of her voice, or how warm her legs were in the morning, or the look of her eyes when she laughed. He’d never get tired of the way she said I love you and the way her entire body seemed to glow when he said it back.
“You’re so adorable,” She said when he told her that, “Watch the pasta, you’re going to burn it while you’re so busy staring at me.”
In response, in a rather classic move, he flicked her behind with the dish towel slung over his shoulder, and she cackled when it hit its mark.
He loved the way she danced when she wasn’t supposed to, how she always found a way to nod her head or shimmy her shoulders, how she’d look at Lance like she was doing something naughty when she decided to bop along to the music playing in the grocery store. He loved the way she perked up any time she made him laugh, how proud of herself she was every single time she managed to wrangle a giggle from him, especially when they were alone. He loved the way she combed her fingers through his hair when she was trying to wake up him.
“Please, go on,” She told him, grinning. The candles between them were red, and the flames on the wicks reflecting the wax and made her skin even warmer than usual, and it felt, to Lance, like it did when he could lay out in front of a fireplace and just bask in the comfort of it.
“I could, don’t try me, I’ve got lists.”
“Like I don’t?”
“Well, I don’t know, do you?”
“Lance.”
He loved she way she put up with his bullshit, too.
He loved her like you loved the sunset, except so much more than that, too. He loved her viscerally, he loved her calmly, he loved her in all the ways one could love another.
“I love you, too,” She said into his chest, their arms wrapped around one another like they’d never let go. Her hair was tickling his nose, so he pulled away, but it gave him an excuse to lean back in and draw her in for a kiss.