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The pink crescents that sat at the corners of her eyes were hard to miss, but he’d always been a little fond of them. Much of her seemed so wholly human that sometimes Shiro would forget that they were supposed to be entirely different species. The ears—oh, the ears, she would never let him forget that difference—were noticeable, of course, but the markings on her face were his favorite. He called them “cute” once to her face and she had been appropriately aghast at the notion that something that was decidedly a marking of an Altean could be simply “cute”.
He didn’t dare call the others cute.
Because there were more.
He got a glimpse one night while they were working late. The temperature control in the Castle had been on the fritz and they were due to take a stop in a nearby system to resupply and address any malfunctions, but it did leave the residential decks a little warm—it had been more important to keep some of the lower decks as cool as possible, so they closed them off entirely. Allura had been at her station with her flight suit peeled down to her waist.
He’d never seen that much of her before. Underneath she wore a simple black tank-top that was more functional than anything else. Nothing terribly exciting, except for the fact that there were clear swirls of pink dancing bellow her collarbone and along her arms.
Of course he knew better than to stare.
It was hard not to.
Shiro hadn’t even considered that she would have those things anywhere else. Which, naturally, led to the follow up question of just how many of them she had.
And where exactly they went.
He wisely kept those wandering thoughts to himself. She was a co-worker and a friend and fantasizing—no, innocently curious about how her alien anatomy might different was still right out. Most definitely.
(He thought about it more than he wanted to admit.)
But Shiro wouldn't have to wonder for long, for they seemed destined to collide, like two stars slowly rotating around one another, pulled in by inescapable gravity. He had no desire to resist and it seemed neither did she.
As with everything between them, their growing familiarity with each other was natural and slow. Shiro had more reservations about the physicality of a relationship than Allura did for quite a while and she was content to wait and to share as much of herself with him as he was comfortable with accepting.
They lay comfortably in her large bed, illuminated only by the lights built in the curved headboard and their respective tablets. If there was one thing they shared more than respect for one another, it was an overwhelming need to continue to work. Shutting the other down was a rotating responsibility. Shiro knew it was his turn and his attention from work strayed bit by bit as his gaze did.
Allura was so comfortable in her body. Why wouldn’t she be? She was beautiful and strong and always took command of whatever room she entered, both in physicality and aura. There were pieces of her, now, that only he was privy to.
Like the fact that she had two perfectly curved pink marks that followed the line of her hipbones and disappeared beneath the waistband of her panties.
He hadn’t seen farther than that, but the old question of “how far did they go” reared its head again after so many phoebs. He liked to believe that they stopped somewhere above her butt, but maybe they traveled a little lower in the front. “Landing strips” came to mind and Shiro had to choke on air.
Allura looked up from her tablet.
“Are you alright?”
Shiro coughed again, pounding his chest with his fist. “Yeah, I—“ Cough. “—I’m fine. It’s fine.”
Allura raised a brow. “Mmhmm…”
And back to work. Apparently the Torkk System was much more important than Shiro’s ability to breathe properly. Humans and their weak lungs.
Shiro tried to shift his attention back to his own tablet, but he found himself looking through the transparent screen to follow the swirls that traveled down the sides of her thighs. Those he could follow to completion as they teased the outside of her knees, a new pair starting down the sides of her calves. He liked the look of those, twisting just so slightly in the right places around her musculature in an inviting path for him to follow.
Her forearms had similar markings, bending from the inside of her arm to the outside as the tip pointed towards the back of her hand. Her upper arms, however, had crescents much like her eyes that curved opposite of the edge of her shoulder. They weren’t quite as cute, but he still liked them.
The contenders for his favorite parts of her, though, were definitely the swirls beneath her collarbones. They flagged each side so perfectly, taking in the far edge at her shoulder down to dip ever so slightly towards her breasts before they could meet in the center.
Even more inviting than her calves, which was already a difficult thing to accomplish.
He smiled to himself.
Or rather, he smiled to her, because he was definitely staring and she was definitely staring right back.
Shiro coughed again, cheeks darkening in the low light.
Allura raised a brow again. “I take it we’re done with work for the evening, aren’t we?” The amusement in her voice was palpable.
With that, she slid her finger across the screen of her tablet, effectively shutting it down. Shiro pointedly looked elsewhere as she took the opportunity to turn his off as well. Setting them to the side of her bed, she had to choke on her own laugh when she turned around to face him once again.
“What?”
“What?” Allura all but snorted. “What’s with that face? You’re practically pouting.” She grinned, rolling onto her side to lay beside him more effectively as she rested her cheek on the back of her hand. “And here I thought that you might have seen something you liked.”
“Well—“ Shiro started before words escaped him. Or rather, words that didn’t make him sound particularly stupid seemed to escape him. “I mean…yes, but.”
“But?”
He held his tongue again, rubbing the side of his neck as he looked back at her. Allura tilted her head ever so slightly, raising both of her brows as she waited. Ever patient for him even when he felt he didn’t deserve it.
Finally, he sighed and made a lazy gesture to the all of her.
“You’re…pink things. They’re distracting.”
Her amused expression disappeared in an instant. “’Pink things.’”
Yeah, that was definitely the wrong thing to say. Shiro visibly winced, dropping his hands. “The markings, I mean. They’re all over in more places than I imagined.”
“Okay,” Allura began, sitting up straight for this. “First of all, they’re not ‘pink things’. They’re Siluria and they are an important distinguishing characteristic of an Altean. And secondly.” A pause. She raised a brow again. “Where exactly were you imagining them?”
Shiro sputtered, face darkening considerably, and she laughed.
“Not like that!”
“No?”
“Okay, a little like that.”
Her smile shifted from teasing to something a few degrees more forgiving. Even in the dim light, he could see it reach her eyes, moving those little crescents he loved so much just a little on the edges of her cheekbones.
“Good.”
Shiro blinked. “Good?”
“Of course.” She reached out, taking hold of his flesh and blood hand. “I like having you curious. It means you’re still interested.”
He balked at that. But before he could refute the notion that he would ever, somehow, lose interest in all the wonder that she embodied, she placed his hand on her upper thigh. Shiro swallowed.
“It’s okay, Shiro. You are allowed to touch me.”
“I…know that.”
The pause gave her a little hesitation. “If it’s too forward—“
“No!” He cut her off. “No, that’s not it. It’s just, like…sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t be.”
Allura’s brows furrowed. Shouldn’t be? Where would he get that idea—until it dawned on her. No, it wasn’t ‘shouldn’t be’ because he was nervous, not in the sense that touching another person was something he was new to. It was ‘shouldn’t be’ because he didn’t feel he had a right to.
An ongoing discussion between them. And not one that she wanted to delve into too deeply while she was still feeling playful. So, instead, Allura just pressed her hand more firmly on his.
“I want you to.”
Shiro stared at her for a long moment. Even in the dark the nebulae of her eyes seemed to catch all the available light in the room. How could he not want to follow them wherever she may lead?
“Okay.”
So he touched her. His eyes dropped down to watch his fingers move. He flattened his palm along her skin, let the pads of his fingers touch the softness of her thigh. But the marking—no, siluria, he corrected himself—had a slightly different texture. Still soft, but almost velvety. He ran his thumb along it and she smiled, eyes warming.
“They’re soft.” He looked up from her thigh to catch the softness of her own gaze. “You’re soft.”
Allura chuckled lightly. “Thank you, I think?”
“It’s a good thing,” he said around a grin of his own.
“Then thank you.”
“Are they all like this?”
Allura hummed an affirmative. Not wanting to put him entirely on the spot, she guided his hand upward towards her opposite forearm and let him explore that swirl as well.
“Yes, although some are more sensitive than others.”
Shiro raised his brow at that as he gently massaged the marking in his hand. “Oh?”
“Not that one.”
Hm. “Which one?”
“It’s a secret.”
Shiro blinked.
Oh.
Then forced himself to cough again.
Oh.
“You are having a lot of difficulty breathing this quintant. Is the Castle’s air circulation not functioning optimally for human lungs?” She asked innocently.
“Oh, you’re full of crap and you know it.” But he couldn’t help and grin around his complaint.
Allura just smiled at him and removed her hand from his, letting him explore if he wished.
And he did. Shiro had spent so much of his quiet times with her wondering what they felt like, where they went that when he finally settled into the reality of actually getting to do it, his hand seemed to wander on its own.
He traveled up the length of her arm to trace along the dips by her shoulders. His eyes strayed a little too long on the markings of her collarbones, which pulled a laugh from her, but Shiro kept his gentlemanly reputation and only touched the very ends, leaving the enticing curve of her breasts for another time. He did, however, indulge in those swirls along her calves that had been calling to him so loudly. Then took the opportunity to tickle her toes until she threatened to kick him and something else in Altean he couldn’t understand, but still very much good the gist of.
It was when they were finally both laying on their sides, gazing at one another that his eyes strayed back to what had called to him in the first place—
Those cute little crescents beneath her eyes.
Allura trailed her own fingers along his jawline, lips hanging open just slightly as she appeared to be just as entranced with him as he was with her. Why, though, Shiro couldn’t say. There she was laying in front of him like something of dreams and starlight in the quiet warmth of her bedchamber, all covered in elegant swirls and rounded vowels.
He wasn’t sure if he would be able to look away again.
“Allura?”
“Mm?”
His thumb gently ran along her cheek, then directly underneath the siluria on her face. “What about these?”
“What about them?”
“Can I touch them?”
The pause between his question and her answer brought something of a reverent look on her face, and the smile that followed was terribly fond.
“Yes. Of course you can.”
Shiro huffed through his nose. “Just thought I’d ask.”
“Your hands have been many other places tonight.”
“Yeah.” They sure had. Slowly, carefully, he ran his thumb along the gentle curve of her marking. ”But these seem special.”
Her smile only grew. “They are special.”
It was Shiro’s turn to pause. “…Not—like—“
Allura’s laugh was breathy and she shook her head. “No, not that sort of special.” She moved her hand from his jaw to his cheekbone, her own thumb tracing where Shiro’s siluria ought to have been. “But this…this was an Altean custom. Or rather, a taboo.”
Both of Shiro’s brows raised, his hand stopping pointedly. “Taboo?”
“Mhm. This gesture, in public, could be uncouth with an audience.” Her thumb moved again with invisible lines guiding her motions. “The touch of these siluria is meant to be private between lovers only.”
“Oh.”
Oh.
“So, yes, of course you may touch them.”
She had a way of putting his heart on the spot when he least expected it. She could make him ache in ways he had almost forgotten were possible. So the only logical response was to trace those little crescents again as he pressed his lips to hers once. Twice. Too many times to count.
When he pulled back, they looked pleasantly drunk on each other.
“I think these are still my favorite,” Shiro said softly.
The statement was so unprompted, so…matter-of-fact that Allura wasn’t sure how to process it at first. Then it was her turn to choke on a laugh, sudden and bubbling from within her chest.
“You have favorites?”
Shiro nodded. “I always liked these. I thought maybe the others might change my mind—and I do like them all—but these are just…so cute.”
Allura scoffed and, in one fluid motion, grabbed her pillow and slammed him with it. Shiro’s laugh was anything but innocent.
“Siluria are dignified!”
“And adorable.”
“Humans are the most disrespectful species I have ever known!”