sublimation

Next morning, Lance rolled up into the mess hall practically glittering. He grabbed a coffee and took it to the table his squad always occupied. Most of the gang was already eating breakfast. He plopped himself down in the seat across from Shiro.

“Hey man.” Lance held up a hand for a high five.

Shiro looked at him, a little puzzled. He looked at Lance’s waiting hand, and he mouthed ‘Oh!’

Then his eyes went back to Lance’s face with an expression that was more like ‘Oh?’

Lance nodded and mouthed, ‘Yeah.’

Shiro slapped a proud high five.

“What was that for?” Pidge asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lance said.

When Allura landed, she went straight into a mission debrief with the garrison commanders. The rest of the paladins were assigned to each take a group of the new refugees fresh off the ship and give them an orientation. He wanted to see her, so that was a bummer. Working with his girlfriend was fire, but often the same work kept them separate.

Lance wound up dragging his feet back to his room at the end of the day, solo.

Falling water pattered on the walls and floor of the shower in their dormitory. He lathered, he rinsed, he repeated. In between steps, he read the back of his shampoo bottle and tried to sing a freestyle using the list of ingredients as lyrics.

Then the lights flicked off. Lance’s rap petered off mid-word. He heard the glass pane slide open behind him.

“This is a scene out of every scary movie ever,” he announced out loud. “Please let that be my girlfriend behind me and not a murderer.”

“It’s not scary, it’s romantic.”

Lance turned around, letting the shower spray hit his back. Allura’s form looked soft and hazy through the steam surrounding them in the small space. With the lights off, only a soft triangle of light from the bedroom illuminated them through a crack in the door. That, and the markings over her cheeks glowing muted pink.

“You sound like Allura, but you could still be a super hot demon playing a trick on me. Quick, say something only she would know.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “How was the Monkey Milk?”

“I have so much to tell you.”

Allura tapped his hip and Lance understood the silent suggestion in it. He turned sideways and switched places, allowing Allura space to stand under the water.

She was concerned with getting clean first and foremost, so it seemed like she had jumped in strictly for business. Lance just happened to be naked in here when she wanted to shower.

Showersex wasn’t a favorite for either of them, anyway. The options were frustratingly limited and the water washed away all of Allura’s natural wetness as fast as she made it. He knew better from experience, but couldn’t help that it was still conceptually sexy.

It was dim and peaceful, lit only enough so that they didn’t need to feel around in the dark for their products. They had a lot of products between the two of them. Bottles of varied shapes and sizes crowded the shower’s entire niche shelf.

She pumped shampoo into her palm. “Can I tell you something first?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m… I’m afraid that I forced you to consider something you didn’t want to do. I don’t want you to feel like you need to do things only because I suggest them.”

Allura worked it into her hair as she spoke, unselfconscious of the ridiculous ways it left her soapy hair sticking up in places. Lance felt a dopey, adoring smile on his face while he listened to her.

“You didn’t—Well.” He paused. “Okay, yeah, it was terrifying when you just went for my bootyhole with no warning. That’s a huge thing to spring on me.”

Allura opened her mouth to speak, but Lance cut her off to add, “—title of our sex tape.”

She pursed her lips at him, a little fond and a little percipient. “I appreciate you being silly to downplay the situation, but still. I’m sorry I wasn’t more open-minded to your feelings on the matter at the time. I shouldn’t have made you feel like it was not a big deal, since it clearly was.”

Lance, didn’t know what to say to that. He’d been so worried about whether she thought he was vanilla or boring that he didn’t stop to think maybe she was the one not being open-minded.

He popped the cap on a bottle of soap with a gel scented like violets that reminded him of his childhood home. “It’s nothing. I did make a big deal over nothing.”

“I don’t think it was. I didn’t realize it came with such… baggage.”

“You talked to Shiro recently, didn’t you.”

“I talk to Shiro about everything.”

“Same.”

She turned around to let the spray run over her hair. Shampoo washed out of it in foamy white rivulets that rolled down the glistening skin of her back and over the curves of her ass.

“I would not get tired of you simply for not trying something I wanted,” Allura assured. “I feel bad for having been somewhat pushy.”

“I needed a push. The reason I didn’t wanna even try was… um… awful, once I really thought about it. I couldn’t justify it without saying anything ignorant.” Lance’s soaped up palms slid up and over Allura’s shoulder blades, then squeezed them in a little massage. “There’s sort of a difference between not wanting to try it and passionately believing I shouldn’t want it. I guess what I mean is… It wasn’t a harmless personal boundary, it was a whole toxic mindset.”

“Mmm,” Allura hummed and leaned into the pressure. “Toxic masculinity, I remember. Did you escape its ugly grasp?”

She nudged the shower head to point at the wall for now and slung her hair over one shoulder. Both of her hands occupied themselves with applying conditioner in a precise, meticulous method she had.

“I think I pried at least one of its grubby fingers off me.” The slick sensation of soap gliding between their skin made it pretty fun to knead the tension out of her shoulders and the back of her neck. “I tried it and it was kind of amazing. Like, my orgasm felt the way yours look! A full body lift off, I felt like the cosmic brain picture, like I got launched into outer space.”

Allura kept melting backwards into the touch, right up until her back bumped against Lance’s chest. “You get physically launched into space fairly often. It’s not that special.”

“Okay, but—Spiritually launched out of my body.”

“Have you not done that literally as well?”

“You’re thinking of Shiro.”

“Am I?”

“I don’t blame you, he is very beautiful and probably gives tender massages. Now stop poking holes in my metaphors.”

“Then stop using outer space for them.” Her head tipped back to rest against his clavicle.

He saw the marks on her cheeks lighting up, a pink glow that was only noticeable when they were in the dark. She was so close and so breathtaking. The shiny wet sheen on her skin, the soft diffusion of her features through the steam wrapped around them like a thick blanket. Her lips parted as her face turned toward him and Lance leaned over her shoulder to slot his lips against hers. Cozy, warm, and slippery, they kissed.

He felt Allura’s arm reach out, then heard a soft click that echoed off the hard walls and floors. His eyes opened just as she broke the kiss to pour a big glob of shower gel into her palm. The air smelled like violets again.

“I missed you,” she said.

She set the bottle back in the niche and peeled Lance’s hand away from her shoulder. Half of the gel from her hand poured into his right hand, then she took his left and gave it the rest.

“I thought of you before I slept.” Allura rubbed what was left on her palm over the back of his hand, then his fingers, lathering the pads of each digit, his palm, his wrist, all the way down his forearm. “I wondered what you could be doing…”

She took his hands again and placed his palms against her collar. From there, she let go and swept her hair over her shoulder, behind her back. Out of the way.

“Oh—” Lance said.

Her arms rose above their heads and came to rest coiled around the back of Lance’s neck.

“—Oh, okay.” He dragged his palms down her chest, leaving a gleaming trail of soap and tiny bubbles in their wake.

Allura stared downward with her bottom lip squeezed between her teeth. She watched her breasts get scooped up, pushed upwards, and slip out of his wet grasp with a little spring. Lance made a little show of playing with them, since she was watching.

“Not gonna lie, this is super fun,” he commented before doing it again.

“I can tell.” Allura laughed and punctuated it by grinding her butt against the hard on at her lower back. “Go on.”

He repeated the motion, making a slippery little rhythm out of it. “Wanna know what I was doing?”

Her back arched up into his touch, also slippery against the lathered up skin of Lance’s chest. “Yes.”

“Fuck, basically nothing. I just laid there in the dark and it was incredible.”

He felt her deflate a bit against his chest.

“No, trust me, it was sexier than it sounds. I was, like, jello.”

“You enjoyed it, then?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Did you think about me?” she murmured, voice deep and velvety.

“Not much.”

“Oh.”

He laughed at how abruptly her tone flattened. “It was, weirdly, mostly nonsexual? I felt kinda detached, like I was just doing it to feel good and relax, and not because I was horny.”

They rubbed against each other’s slick bodies in what was essentially a standing cuddle.

“But I wanna do it,” he said. “Y’know. With you.”

He could see all the way down Allura’s body from over her shoulder. Something about the sleek, shiny look of wet skin sparked a throb of heat in his gut. It was a powerful look on her. The sliver of light from the crack in the door highlighted her skin in bright lines that streaked like shooting stars each time she shifted. Her nipples were glossy wet as he rolled them beneath his fingertips, dabbed them with his thumbs, flicked them in different directions. Allura scratched the nape of Lance’s neck with her nails as her fingers curled.

“You want me to fuck you?” Her voice was low, intimate. Yet somehow, Allura still managed to sound genuinely curious.

“I—” Something defensive in him prickled. His mind automatically grabbed for a comeback to snap or a joke to take it back with. He stopped that impulse in its tracks. It’s stupid to get hung up on who is technically fucked. He fucked Allura plenty of times already and definitely didn’t look down on her for that. He would never. Why would she look down on him for it? Apparently, the implications Lance was so afraid of weren’t even a thing on planet Altea. They wouldn’t have crossed Allura’s mind in the first place if he hadn’t pointed them out. It’s almost like masculinity is subjective or something and not at all connected to what you do with your butt. Wild. “Yeah. It felt amazing and, yeah, it’ll feel better with you.”

Her hand slid into his hair and dragged him into a dripping wet kiss. Hot and tinged with a growing hunger now. Okay. Yeah. Allura was gonna fuck him and she was into it. And so was he, the more he thought about it now. The idea was way hotter now that she was here. Allura twirled in his arms without breaking their mouths apart for a second. She wound up facing him in one fluid motion, graceful and intimate, that Lance was pretty sure he taught her one night when she wanted to learn to dance to his music.

“Nice turn,” he mumbled against her lips.

He felt her smile. “You noticed?”

They lost track of how much time was spent kissing and fondling and rubbing in the steamy darkness. It didn’t really go anywhere. It ended with them pulling away just long enough to finish rinsing off.

The bedroom was where they finished what they started. In Lance’s bed this time, ‘cause that one was closer to the bathroom. There was something decadent about going down on her when she flopped back on the bed, spotless and swathed in just a fluffy towel. Something extra exciting about making a mess down there when it was freshly clean, leaving warm saliva and other wetness dripping down the plush curve of her inner thighs. It was almost a point of pride how quickly he could bring her to her first orgasm now that they’d been together long enough for him to learn how she likes it. He was starting to memorize how to hit all her buttons, and perhaps more importantly, when she wanted each of them pressed.

Allura reached between her legs to hook her fingers beneath Lance’s jaw and gently draw his face up to look at her. The marks on her cheeks glowed pink with the flush of climax, her lips parted to pant for breath, and her eyes were half-lidded with faded pleasure. He pushed himself up to his hands and knees and crawled up her body, as it trembled through aftershocks, until they were face to face. She pulled him in for a kiss without seeming to care that his chin and nose were all glossy wet and slippery, or that he tasted like—well, like she’d just come all over his mouth.

“Is it my turn?” she broke the kiss to ask.

“Yeah, one sec.” Lance leaned away to reach for the drawer of his bedside table.

He felt around until something cylindrical and plastic rolled into his fingers. It was his old friend, Monkey Milk.

Just a glance at the label as Lance took it out was all it took to get a giggle out of Allura. “They still look like babies to me.”

“Nope, these monkeys def look over 18 to me,” he replied, mostly just to fill the uncertain moment that followed after he passed her the lube.

What now? He usually took the fake-it-til-you-make-it approach for these kinda things, but Allura already knew too much. Lance had made a pretty huge deal over the fact that he wouldn’t know what to do in this situation. There was no way to convincingly play it suave here.

But Allura wasn’t looking at him like she expected suaveness here. She wasn’t looking at him at all. She sat up, flicked the plastic cap open with a soft click, and raised it to her nose to take an experimental sniff. It would’ve been dope if Monkey Milk smelled like bananas, but that was not the case. It was pretty unscented. Lance had no clue what Allura was sniffing out, but the lube seemed to pass the test.

She leaned in to kiss him again and Lance’s eyes fluttered shut by instinct. Her gentle hands nudged him to lay back. He had to focus on steady breathing and reminding himself this was all chill. Allura had taken charge and gone on top a bunch of other times before and he loved it. Normally, she took command with such effortless grace that Lance didn’t even realize how thoroughly he’d been owned until well after it was over.

But he never minded who held control of the situation. Just who was the man in it.

Two slippery fingers brushed right up his crack and now this officially veered way off course from all the other times Allura had been on top. Lance made a short squeak like a tire screech in the back of his throat. It was all off-road from here, so buckle the fuck up.

Allura broke the kiss to look him in the eyes. “Well, what do you think?”

The knuckle of her index finger swirled against Lance’s tense hole. Too tense for it to feel any good yet. His cock was hard, at least. But that was ‘cause Allura was right there, naked, and he was only human.

“Um. It doesn’t feel bad.”

Allura pretended to pout and hummed a sad little sound to match it. “Oh, we can do better than not bad.”

She dipped out of sight. His eyes followed her down as she scooted back and sunk to her elbows and knees. Her long, wet hair left droplets like dew along his skin as it cascaded over his thighs and over her face. Behind the silver veil, Lance felt a wet heat against the head of his twitching cock.

“Oh—” His hands scurried to scoop her hair up and hold it out of the way with more haste than grace.

As a favor to Allura, of course. She just washed it! He was being thoughtful. The sight of her clever mouth, kissing the flushed head of his cock and licking up its length with the same affectionate tenderness she kissed his mouth with, was just an added treat.

This was a familiar pleasure that his body couldn’t help reacting to. It didn’t take long for his breaths to grow heavy and his eyebrows to sink. He’d been all smug about knowing how to press Allura’s buttons, but she seemed to have been paying damn good attention to all of his, too. And still finding some new ones. While Lance was distracted by Allura’s mouth tight and warm all around him, the slide of his shaft between her flushed lips so entrancing that he couldn’t tear his eyes away, her knuckle circled his hole again. And this time—”Oh,”—it felt sort of... good?

His reaction encouraged her to take the next baby step. Her fingertip pressed in, just a little bit, just the tip, probably not even past the first knuckle. He’d been there, done this on his own already. It felt strange to have the sensation out of his control, but not in a bad way. Lance rocked his hips into it to urge her on—without realizing that rocked his cock deeper into her mouth as well.

“Sorry—fuck—it’s good, feels good so far.”

Allura gave him a hum that seemed to say, I’m okay, although it also resonated around him and through him in a way that made his vision white out for a sec there. Before he had a chance to blink the stars out of his eyes, the rest of Allura’s finger sank right into him.

“Holy—Wow, okay. Sure. That’s fine. Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

He felt Allura smile around him, which made his heart (and other things) throb. She fingered him with lavish, tender affection. It felt way better than on his own had, for sure. Though that bar was low. His own finger had felt like nothing in particular, just kinda weird.

This, with Allura, still felt weird. Even weirder when she steadily slipped a second finger in. But, like, a weird he wasn’t complaining about. Allura’s mouth there, gently pumping, felt more than good enough to balance out the weird. Then her fingers nudged a spot that made Lance’s shoulders arch off the bed with a strangled, startled moan.

Allura’s eyes flicked up to look at him, and he definitely caught a flash of excitement in them. Her visible delight filled him with this warm, gooey feeling that was, embarrassingly, not even sexual. She only wanted to make him feel good in every way she knew how, inside and out. He hadn’t understood what she wanted him to be if they did this, but now he got it.

“Allura—oh my god—that’s—okay—fuck—god—okay—yeah—Allura—oh my god.” For Lance, getting lost in pleasure often meant letting his mouth wander away from him as well.

Stars were in his eyes again, brighter than ever. He whined softly when her mouth pulled away with one last loving stroke of her tongue, then whined louder when her fingers eased out of his ass. Lance felt empty suddenly, in a way that taking the toy out certainly hadn’t made him feel.

“I could make you come like this,” Allura said, so composed he couldn’t stand it.

He huffed. “Yeah, brag about it—”

“Or we could do more.”

Oh. Lance looked down at himself as he considered. His chest was heaving to catch its breath, his cock was painfully hard and dripping a pool of saliva and precum onto his stomach, and his ass—Uh—Well, it wasn’t really hurting yet.

“I’ll take more for 500, Alex.”

Allura straddled his lap, letting her clit slide along his wet cock. “Is that a pet name?” she murmured.

Lance laughed. He knew references go over her head, but couldn’t stop making these bad earth jokes when he was nervous. “No, it’s—A mood killer, actually. Tell you later. Please, just, keep going.”

At least bad earth jokes she couldn’t even get weren’t turning her off for now. He felt her clit sliding against his cock again. But in a kinda different way. She wasn’t rocking her hips.

Lance looked downward and what he saw made his back leap off the bed. “What the fuck, Allura!”

“What?” She blinked her big innocent eyes at him, completely oblivious and devoid of mischief.

“You just grew a dick!”

“I assumed you prefer human! What else do you want?”

“No! And is that—Mine?!”

He compared their dicks, currently aligned almost side by side with him sitting up and her in his lap. They were identical. Same length, girth, shape. Even down to the veins. At least she had the decency to keep it her skin tone.

“Well, yes. I haven’t seen another!”

“Neither had I when I was born with it. Get your own!”

She tilted her head with a sly smile. “Is your cock not all mine?”

Lance opened his mouth, paused, couldn’t think of anything to say to that, and shut it again. “Well-played.”

Allura took advantage of this tentative truce by draping her arms over his shoulders. “And I figure yours is the one we’re both most comfortable with—”

“You don’t think fucking me with my own dick is uncomfortable?”

“Goodness, I’ll change it then.” She rolled her eyes. “What would be better?”

“Excuse me? Nothing is better! Mine’s the best!”

“You just said you’re uncomfortable!”

“No, I didn’t—I was just surprised, just—It’s fine the way it is. There’s no improving on perfection.”

Allura clapped the back of her clean hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. Utterly adorable. Everything little unthinking thing Allura did seemed to fall into one of three categories: 1) The cutest thing he’d ever seen. 2) The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. 3) The coolest thing he’d ever seen.

“What are you laughing at?” Lance tried to demand, although he couldn’t get through it with a straight face either.

With a smile on her lips, she leaned forward to kiss him. Thankfully, she knew when he just needed to be shut up so things could move on. This was fucking ridiculous, but he felt lucky to have her anyway. Lance was coming to realize that if he could trust Allura with his life, with the safety of his planet, with the future of the universe—then he could trust her to lead him through one night of kinky alien sex.

Their cocks—Still weird! But anyway—rubbed together when they pulled each other closer and, okay, yeah, that felt pretty nice. Allura’s hand slipped in between their bodies to wrap around his shaft. Lance groaned, breaking the rhythm of their kiss.

“Do you want to touch it?” she asked softly.

“Uh. Sure.”

“One moment.” Allura pulled back briefly to glance around the bed.

Lance watched her eyes light up with a silent ‘aha!’ when she spotted what she was searching for. She reopened the Monkey Milk and poured a dollop into Lance’s palm, and then her own.

They reached down together to stroke each other in unison. Which was actually super fun. Playing with her clit was fun too, in a mysterious kinda way where he didn’t actually know what would blow her mind until he stumbled upon it. He knew exactly how to jerk off a cock, though. Allura was a little more vocal than usual, too. She made startled little sounds of delight each time Lance tried a new move with his hand. Even so, this didn’t feel like being with a guy at all. Not with the soft noises she made and the press of her breasts against his chest. And that empty feeling nagged at him again, that ache to get closer than they already were.

“Alright, let’s go.”

“You’re sure?”

He nodded.

“Where do you want to be?” she asked.

On his back with her between her legs a few minutes ago had been alright, but a little distant. Lance untangled himself from Allura and laid back again, this time in a half-twist with both legs laying to one side. Allura knew where she fit here, they did it all the time. Lance small spooned most nights, ‘cause clouds of hair in his face bothered him every time he tried to be big spoon. She laid on her side and slid one knee up the back of Lance’s thighs before wedging between them. Girl wasn’t shy to go for what she wanted, Lance had to give her that. And the way her eyes swept over his body, unashamed to show how much desire he stirred in her. She cupped his ass in one hand and gave it a squeeze that made him shiver.

Allura bent one leg, using the knee between his thighs to lift one of his legs and keep it propped open. This made space for the blunt, slick head of her cock to push against his hole. She had one forearm lying across the pillow beneath his neck and Lance reached up to hold onto that hand (just a little too tightly, maybe, but Allura squeezed back a silent reassurance). Their faces were so close in this position, side by the side, that she only had to lean down a couple of inches to capture his mouth. She wrapped her free hand around the base of her shaft to hold it steady as she leaned a little deeper into the kiss, pushing closer. It felt insanely... different. He knew what fingers and lube and shit felt like already, but not this. Lance closed his eyes and breathed. It’s fine, it’s all okay, Allura wanted him to feel good. There was an ache that came with it, but Lance was used to getting shot at, slammed around, bombed. Compared to what he went through on an average mission, this barely registered as pain.

Allura made quiet, silvery sounds all the way through that melted Lance right into the mattress with their sweetness. It reminded him how things that are alien to him have wound up being good more often than bad. This oversensitized stretch and this new sense of fullness… it was scarily new, but not terrible.

Allura guided herself into him, slow and steady. It was so different than the toy or her fingers, so thick and blunt and inflexible in comparison. With her entire body pressed against his side, he could feel how flushed hot she was all over. The heat of her skin was at least one sensation here that was familiar to him.

“Good so far?” he asked, mostly to give a heads up that he was good so far.

Allura made another low, sensual sound that dissolved into his name at the end of it. “Lance.”

It was a tenderness that bit right into his heart and pulled. He swore he could feel his heartbeat around her cock and now he had to try not to make a sappy thing out of it. He was deliriously smitten somehow, as if they were having their first time again. The intimacy felt tangible, like it was wrapped around him, like they were breathing it in, like they never stopped cuddling in the dark steam of the shower. He looked at her beside him and knew she felt it too. There was something deep and boundless in the way Allura gazed into his eyes sometimes. Something that dredged up a sudden reminder that they have nearly died for each other, and would do so again in a heartbeat.

Lance squirmed against her, experimentally. She wasn’t even all the way in yet, but he felt her head brush right up along a spot that thrummed a delicious little thrill through him. He canted his hips that way again and, “Oh my fucking,” that little thrum exploded into a roar of pleasure that whited out the discomfort, “God—” His body abruptly yielded and somehow the last few inches of Allura slid in easily.

Her hips tucked right up against his butt and they made a shuddering sound in unison, both of their groans harmonizing on opposite ends of the scale.

“Movemovemove,” Lance urged in one rush of breath, chasing those thrills and sparks again.

Allura eagerly obliged. The first unforgivingly slow drag outward already had him lightheaded, then the push back inside had hitched whimpers uncontrollably spilling out of him. The kinda sounds he would normally bottle up no matter how good he felt, out of some ingrained notion that he’s not supposed moan like that. But right now, he just couldn’t think around the wet slide of her dick stroking that spot inside him.

Allura’s forehead slumped against the side of his head, panting hot into his ear with each euphoric roll of her hips that somehow felt even better every time. Each thrust slid him up the bed with the force of it, so Lance flung both hands up to the headboard before he got knocked into it. He clutched it tight, holding himself in place on the sheets. Now she could properly drive into him and, holy fuck, he felt Allura shudder all along his side, all the way inside him.

“Lance,” she whispered again, filled with heat and wonder, like she couldn’t form any coherent thought beyond him right now.

She was close. He could tell because he was lucky enough to know the signs on her face, in her voice. Lance urged her on with deep, urgent sounds. When she came inside him—shuddering, gasping, thrusting—Lance braced himself for what the feeling of being filled would be like. Warm, wet, and heart-wrenchingly intimate. He never came inside of her before (And didn’t plan to consider it until they reached a point where stopping people from dying and stuff from exploding wasn’t on their minds. So, hopefully one day, but not anytime soon). Once again, he failed at stifling the urge to make a big, romantic thing out of this.

When Allura collapsed beside him, breathing ragged across his bare shoulder, Lance was still very much taut and aching.

“Fuck, was I not supposed to wait for you to come first?” He realized out loud. Then answered himself, “Of course not, stupid. This is confusing. I mean, it’s fine. I can still…”

He could still pretend he wasn’t actually desperate to know what it’s like to come with Allura inside him. Allura just laughed, airy and shivering. She wrapped one arm around his waist and rolled them over without taking herself out of him. The movement alone felt so good it knocked the breath from his lungs.

Lance propped himself on his elbows to lift his chest off the sheets. “Are you—are you still hard?”

“Mhm.” She gently ground her hips into him to demonstrate. “Want to go on?”

Lance shuddered, overwhelmed by how different a simple change in position could feel. “Wh—How can you keep going?”

That brought a titter out of her. “Perks of being a girl.”

“Oh, fuck. But you—ugh, not even fair. Yeah, keep going.”

Holding his back against her soft chest, Allura rose to sit on her heels and easily brought Lance up with her until both of them were kneeling, with him on her lap. She did it without pulling out. There was something endearingly clingy about going out of her way not to separate from him for a second while they changed positions. It felt amazing too, deep and wide in an entirely new angle that had white spots dancing in his eyes again.

Lance tipped his head back until it lolled on Allura’s shoulder. “Yes, holy shit, yes.”

He could throw his entire weight against her and she wouldn’t budge. That thought sparked a weird, hot surge of adrenaline. Whoa, alright. He rose on his knees to rock against her, before sinking back down with a sharp gasp. Despite not being able to find great balance on his own with his legs splayed on either side of her thighs, he could trust her not to let him fall. He could fuck himself as hard as he liked and she’d hold him up, strong and steady.

That prompted another throb of heat straight to his gut. He was convinced to act on that thought. Lance dug his knees into the mattress and lifted his hips in a building rhythm that tapped his own swollen, dripping cock against his stomach with each bounce. Lance’s mouth fell open in a loud moan at the ceiling. He couldn’t even speak, which was truly rare for Lance of all people. The delicious sweet slide in and out had him so hard it hurt. Allura’s lips found his neck, leaving hot breath and hotter kisses there.

A familiar sensation crept over him. A tingling calofrio that seemed to buzz beneath every inch of skin. The center of that pleasure was at the base of his spine, in the exact spot Allura kept rubbing so perfectly inside of Lance. He groaned and tried to get her deeper, moving so hard and desperate that the clapping sound of his ass hitting her thighs nearly drowned out their moans. Behind him, Allura made a nearly continuous stream of little rapturous noises that were starting to sound like sobs.

The hand holding him up remained steady as ever, though her fingertips curling inward with pleasure inadvertently left little trails of red across the skin of his chest. Her other hand at his hip was also digging in so hard that her nails might break skin, although it had also been helping push him down as far as he could go each time his hips fell.

“A—Allura,” Lance pleaded once the sparkling, fluttering pressure deep inside him started to make his entire body jerk with pleasure. “I—”

She knew what he needed. While he struggled to just get the first word out, she was already doing it. Her hand left his hip to wrap around his shaft instead.

Lance made a strangled noise that he intended to be something like, “Yeah.”

He was still slick and wet with lube from when she stroked him earlier (wow, that label didn’t lie about being long lasting), which made the lash of heat her touch sent through him feel so much stronger. Lance slumped against her in a haze of bliss and lost his rhythm entirely. It threw his hips off beat, torn between the desire to slam down or thrust up into her hand. Lance wound up bucking with mindless abandon, throwing his weight into every frenzied movement, over and over.

He could feel Allura losing it too, whimpering at the way he felt pounding into her while clenched so tight. That involuntary clench around her cock lit more sparks between his legs, which scorched all the way up his back. Lance forgot himself in the frantic blur of skin and limbs he was half of.

The soft and desperate way Allura cried his name when her cock finally started to pulse inside him again was what tipped him over the edge with her. He knew doing this with Allura would feel better than by himself, but he still wasn’t prepared. Climax roared through him harder than he could even conceive. All breath left his body, torn from his lungs in a wounded exhale, and he arched backward against her chest. Allura stroked him through it, until come spilled up his stomach and dripped down across her thighs. Lance couldn’t do anything but shake through grateful, blissed out sobs while he made an absolute mess over both of them.

He crumpled forward when the euphoria subsided, startling Allura to attention as she almost dropped him. Almost. She let him slip out of her grasp only when she had lowered him enough to gently fall forward on the bed. Seconds later, one of the towels they cast aside tapped gently at his waist, cleaning up the mess there before it got all dried up and unsexy.

“You’re lying right in a wet spot, love. Let’s sleep in my bed.”

“I’m fine here,” Lance mumbled into a pillow. “Don’t need you laughing at the way I’ll be walking when I get up.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I wouldn’t laugh.”

“You laugh at everything.”

“Come on, you don’t even need to walk.” She scooped him up in her arms and carried him to the other side of the room like it was nothing.

She put him into bed and curled up beside him, using his shoulder as a pillow and sifting her fingers through his hair. It ended the same way most nights together do. That was a relief, somehow. Lance felt like he just learned who he was all over again, but Allura still curled around him just the same.

“I’m glad you touched my butt that one time,” he said. Because it was easier than explaining the entire inner journey that had been the catalyst for.

Listen. Everyone should date an alien.

Lance’s first time with Allura was an awkward disaster and they couldn’t stop laughing. Truly amateur hour. At one point they had to pause to put out a small fire, naked, because movies had told him that candles everywhere = romantic. It was fine, though. Really. It’s lucky that he was laughing, actually, because otherwise their first time might have made him cry. He was a sap like that.

Their second time was spontaneous. Also the night after their first time. And in the stainless steel kitchen of the garrison. At one in the morning.

“Shhhshshshush. Pass me the butter.” “The what?” “The—That yellow stick thing.” “This? Oh, it’s slippery—” “Don’t drop i—!” “SH!” Splat. “Shit!” “Shhh! Did you just say shit?” “I got it from you, shush!” Lance barked an unexpected laugh, despite his best efforts to keep quiet. Allura’s fingers smushed against his lips to muffle it. It didn’t work very well ‘cause she tried to bend down to pick up the fallen butter at the same time. The ridiculous pose she was in—reaching down in a half-squat with one hand held over her head to quiet Lance—only made him laugh harder. Her, too. They clutched each other in the dark kitchen, trembling and gasping through bottled up hysterics. “Ju—Just leave it. We lost it,” Lance wheezed.

It came out louder than intended. Volume control is hard when you’re blinking back tears. He kicked the stick of butter away, for dramatic emphasis. The sight of it skittering across the shiny tile, leaving creamy skids in its wake, made both of them lose it again. So much for sneaking a tray of cookies up to bed. “Shhhshhsh. They’re going to kill us.” Allura’s voice was inelegantly strangled by the effort it took to whisper while having a fit. “You—You sound like—like Gollum.” Lance was officially sobbing. “I don’t know what that is,” Allura huffed, and then she snorted. Like full on Miss Piggy laugh. His eyes and mouth blew wide open in shock. “Holy quiznak, what was that?” “SH!” Allura clutched him harder and crushed her face flat into Lance’s chest. She used it like a pillow she could muffle her embarrassed scream-laughter with. It sort of worked. Lance held her tight and pretty much did the same with his nose and mouth buried deep in her hair. Somehow, it always devolved into this. Over minor things that absolutely did not merit losing your fucking mind over. It was cathartic. They needed it. There had been times throughout the war where Lance felt like he’d give his left nut to see Allura feel a little light-hearted, just for a while. Behind her brave face, he could see the crushing weight of the universe, day after day.

Those times weren’t over yet. The weight was still there. All Lance had to offer was a little fun, a little distraction. For both of them. Every seize of their lungs was liberating when they laughed like this. Every spasm in their throats, every hitch in their chests. It didn’t subside smoothly, either. They came down from giddy fits like they would from a good hard crying session. Or an orgasm. The aftermath left them flushed and lightheaded, jerky and breathless. Allura lifted her head and rose on her toes to kiss him, but his chest rumbled with silent laughter again. “Goodness, what now?” “Nothing,” Lance said. It was so deeply unconvincing that he immediately just confessed, “You drooled on my shirt.” He’d seen the dark spot on it a split second before their lips touched. “I’ll drool on other things,” she muttered into the kiss, unbothered and deliberate.

Okay, yeah, that did flick a jolt of heat straight down his spine. “Or I will,” Lance mumbled back, ‘cause he didn’t know how to switch off the impulse for competitive comebacks. Allura pulled away. “Fine by me.” She lifted herself up to sit on the counter in a manner so breezy that Lance realized... she’d set him up for that one. “Wow, I walked right into it.” “Is that a complaint?” “Nope.” He was smiling again. They so often felt each other’s lips pulled tight at the corners while they kissed. Warm thighs shifted open to make space for him between. His hands hooked behind both of Allura’s knees and dragged her to the very edge of the countertop with a curt tug.

She tasted incredible. Like the chocolate chips she’d pulled from the pantry earlier. Another laugh from Lance reverberated against her lips because he hadn’t seen her eating from the bag at all, yet the evidence was in her kiss. It didn’t make her pause this time. Her silken lips smiled into it too and her long nails scratched delicate patterns into the back of his neck. A hand wended its way beneath the nearly-sheer folds of her nightgown. Lance’s fingertips trailed up the soft skin beneath. She wound one leg around his waist, opening up more space for him that wandering hand to finally hit home. The pad of Lance’s thumb grazed her hot clit through the thin cloth of her skirt. A delighted little open-mouthed sigh ghosted over the skin around his lips and chin in response. He wondered if Allura felt like he did; wonderful, giddy, and loose. She didn’t seem tense at all. Didn’t seem like she had any desperation to get off. They were just playing. She took his hand and brought it to her breast, inviting him to cup and squeeze it. For a minute there they just made out while she arched into his touch, then back, then arched again, following the pace of his fingers beneath her skirt. Allura’s nipples swelled and stiffened beneath her nightgown. That wave-like rhythm between them snapped when Lance pinched one through the fabric. Allura made an airy, feminine sound that was half giggle and half gasp. It stirred up all kinds of bright and bubbly things Lance felt for this babe. The kitchen tile chilled his knees through his pajamas when they touched the floor. He didn’t care, because going down on her tasted incredible too. But not like chocolate chips. Like another addictive sweetness that didn’t have a name. Sometimes he dragged long, hot licks across her swollen clit. Other times he lapped it up in quick, light flicks. Lance’s dark blue eyes turned upward and saw Allura shivering, flushed and grinning again. She had two of her own fingers in her mouth, silencing her sighs with them. Or maybe not. Lance watched as, while he was still eating her out, Allura drew those elegant fingers out of her mouth and inelegantly dipped them into the bowl of dough they’d forgotten on the counter. Correction: Lance had forgotten. “Are you seriously eating that? Right now?” Allura froze—A doe caught in headlights—Her mouth wide open and two fingers coated in dough hovering an inch in front of it. “It’s—so good—?” she tried to say, but she couldn’t get two words into the sentence without a self-aware giggle. Lance smushed his face into her thigh, hoping to muffle his own laugh in it.

After a moment, he collected himself enough to shrug and say, “So… I’m just gonna keep going, then.” And that made Allura fucking lose it, again. She laughed so hard it could’ve been a shout. Lance desperately tried to shush her, but couldn’t. He dissolved into incoherent hysterics with her. Loud enough to wake anyone in the nearby dormitories this time. They acted innocent enough when superior officers in their pajamas stomped in to chide them. Hero status has its perks, at least: They were not presumed to be having sex in the kitchen and were allowed to finish baking the cookies.

Neither Lance nor Allura “finished” that night. They sort of just fell asleep on each other with half-munched cookies and their crumbs scattered over the bed. But they both came twice as hard next morning, so at least that. That was their third time.

Yeah, they were kind of a mess at sex. But messes are fun to make.

Fourth time was also bright and early.

“I love that you wake up like this.”

“With morning wood?”

“I love it,” Allura repeated, as if that was something special that only Lance did.

Seriously, dating an alien is the best thing ever. Every atom put together to make Allura came from a different galaxy than every atom that Lance was made of. Could you believe that? They were separate universes coming together.

The next few times went so damn well that Lance lost count. They were getting the hang of it.

Or, so he thought.

Well.

Here’s what happened.

The scene of the crime was on Allura’s sheets in the two-bed dorm they shared at the garrison. Lance’s bed often went untouched for days, since hers was closer to the door. So they were on the bed, on each other, bare-assed. Allura trailed kisses along his jawline and down his neck. Lance’s cock brushed up along the plush, hot skin of her inner thigh. Pretty amazing. Absolutely nothing wrong with a girl on top.

Until the moment her hands slipped beneath his thighs and gently spread his legs. Her touch completely bypassed his entire dick area and went straight for No-Man’s Land. “Ay!” Lance jolted, as if she’d pinched him.

“Excuse me?” he drawled, purposefully over-pronouncing each word.

His thighs clamped shut on impulse. Or, tried to. Squeezing against Allura’s grip felt like trying to crack open a watermelon, even when she wasn’t trying. A soft furrow formed between her brows and she took the hint to let go.

“What was that?” Lance said, raising himself to sit and drawing his knees up to his chest.

Not super comfortable with a boner, but he needed to build defenses here. He wrapped both arms around his shins for extra measure.

“I just—wanted to touch you.” Allura looked a little spooked by the reaction.

As if she had any right to be spooked here, right after nearly making Lance jump out of his skin!

“There?”

“Y… Yes?”

“Why?”

She blinked a couple times at that, somehow shocked to be asked why. “We’ve, well, always done it the one way, so I thought—”

“We do not always do it the same.”

She gave him a doubtful look.

“We’ve done cowgirl, doggy, sitting, standing, sideways, on your stomach, bent over…” Lance lifted two hands in front of his face to count them on his fingers.

“All of those were inside me.”

“Um, you seemed to like it,” he retorted, indignantly over-enunciating every word again.

“I do,” Allura said, although the way she said it sounded like an incomplete sentence.

“But?” Lance reluctantly prompted through a clenched jaw.

“But…” She shrugged and gave him a bashful little smile. “I want to be inside you too sometimes.” The sheets whispered beneath her as she scooted closer. Close enough to kiss his bare shoulder. “I want to feel every part of you.”

A beat of silence between them. Lance gazed into her eyes.

“Allura, I poop from there.”

“Are you pooping right now?”

“No!”

“Then, what?”

“Wh—It’s—You can’t jus—Look—Look. Earth men don’t really... do... that.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Allura said slowly.

“Okay, it’s not true, bu—Wait, how would you know?”

“I have asked and been told it is not only possible, but extremely pleasurable,” she declared, matter-of-fact, like this was a mission briefing.

Lance’s voice cracked. “Asked who?”

“There is no need to get hysteric—”

“I’m not hysteric!”

“Of course not. Haven’t you touched yourself before?” she asked, as casual as if she were wondering if he’s seen any of their friends around lately.

“Not there.”

He got a curious hum in response to that. “Hmm. Well. I’m not going to rush you into anything.”

“It’s never gonna happen.”

“Alright.” Allura dropped the interrogation with a soft voice and an obliging smile. She patted his knee, consoling it. “That’s fine. I promise I will stick to places you know you like.”

Lance rolled his eyes at that, but she leaned over and kissed him before he could be a smartass about it. She pulled his lower lip between her front teeth, then trailed away. Her lips went to the corner of his mouth, along his sharp jawbone. Lance tilted his head to make space for teeth to close around the soft skin of his neck next. His hands around his knees relaxed, and fell to his side. Despite that awkward little hiccup, they were both still DTF.

It was easy to laugh that road bump off and forget about it in the moment. They had lots of hilarious lost-in-translation hijinks.

But he thought about it later. Just a couple hours later on that same night, on that same bed. Allura dozed off during their post-coital cuddle sesh, and Lance was doing the same, when a terrible thought made his eyes snap open in the dark. Was he vanilla?

He looked down at Allura, sound asleep on him. One side of her nose was mushed pretty adorably into a kinda lopsided pig snout shape against his bare chest. She was a dream. Literally the coolest person in the universe.

Who knew what kinda wild sexual norms aliens have… and Lance was supposed to live up to those now? He frowned at the dark ceiling.

She said they always did it the same way. He didn’t want it to always be the same! He wanted it to be exciting! Why couldn’t she have suggested chains and whips or… something? Lance was an open-minded guy. He would be down for anything but butt stuff.

But he wasn’t down with it, the very first weird sex thing Allura ever suggested. So now Lance was probably irreversibly marked as totally unadventurous in the sheets. How embarrassing. Not on brand at all.

She didn’t seem too disappointed by it in the days after, at least. Their relationship picked up as normal and they fucked like normal without a hitch.

Except now Lance was bothered that he used the word normal to describe his own sex life. Yeah, we’re pretty normal in the bedroom; Who the fuck wants that? It’s for sure not the life Lance wanted to lead. He couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that he flunked some kind of test that night. The conversation just kept replaying in his head, stuck on repeat.

Which is how Lance wound up pondering his own asshole while in the shower one day. You know. As you do. He always thought he had a pretty cute butt, for a guy. Allura certainly thought so. She would often idly place her hand on the curve of it when they stood next to each other, right where it started, so that it could look to anyone else like she’s resting it on his lower back.

Soaped-up hands explored down his sides beneath the spray of warm water and he tried not to think about what a goddamn cliche this was (Latino_Twink_Plays_With_Ass_In_Shower.mp4). His fingers slipped past the springy swell of his buttcheeks and—Nope. Nevermind. He couldn’t do this. He was definitely just washing up down there, no funny business whatsoever. Just a normal dude cleaning his crack here.

Lance rinsed the soap away, then swiftly had another change of heart. He’s a super chill guy! He’s adventurous! He’s down for anything! He can prove it! His hand dove back in there and—No. He lost that sensual whimsy immediately, just from the feeling of trying to push a finger inside himself. It was uncomfortable, and felt weird, because it was weird, and his body resisted anyway. He was so tensed up he couldn’t push past his own squeamishness even a little bit.

That feeling of failure was there again, even though Allura was nowhere near. He started to wonder if it even had much to do with Allura.

-

Lance grew up believing that men are supposed to act a certain way. He remembered the first time he saw a painting of Lanzarote del Lago. A knight in shining armor holding his sword out on a white horse.

“That’s you,” his mom said in Spanish, tapping the cavalier on the page of her storybook. “He was the most handsome and popular knight of the round table. Even the queen, Ginebra, loved him.”

He remembered the queen behind Lanzarote in the illustration, poised and beautiful. Handmaidens knelt at her feet to hold the train of her gown.

“I would hold the dress for her,” five year old Lance said.

“Mijo, no,” His mom laughed. She tapped the knight again and repeated, “This is you.”

And that’s just the way it was with him. Always reminded that the things he’d like to do are things boys don’t do.

-

He shifted his weight from foot to foot on the doorstep of the dorm Shiro and Pidge shared.

Knock, knock. “Hey, Shiro?”

Whenever Pidge didn’t have to work late, she would spend the night at home and arrive together with her dad or brother in the morning. So Shiro had the room to himself sometimes. Lance really hoped this was one of those times.

The door whooshed open only seconds later, like he’d assumed it was urgent. “Yeah?” Shiro said.

Lance stared up at him, still not entirely used to the new silver fox look. Then around him, inspecting the room for any signs of Pidge. The coast seemed clear. But Lance chickened out anyway.

“Nevermind! Just a dumb question. It’s really not—Yeah, whatever. I’m just gonna…” He pivoted on one heel and started to duck out of there without finishing that sentence.

Shiro’s hand hooked around Lance’s elbow as he turned, yanking him to a halt when he tried to walk off. “I wasn’t busy, so just shoot.”

“It’s really stupid,” Lance insisted. More like, whined.

Shiro gently pulled him into the room. The door closed behind them.

“Is this about Allura?” It didn’t sound like a question at all. Shiro’s tone said, I know it’s about Allura.

Dark blue eyes narrowed. “She asked you, didn’t she?”

“You can ask me any questions, too.”

“I’m not—” Lance’s voice dropped from its normal volume to an outraged whisper for this last word, “questioning.”

“I really didn’t think you were. You told Allura you like both anyway, what’s there to question?”

His eyes felt like they bugged right out of his eye sockets now. “How much did she tell you?!”

It was impressive, and a little annoying, how calm and reassuring Shiro remained in the face of Lance’s spasms here.

He reached out to pat Lance’s shoulder as a consolation. “Sorry. She tells me everything.”

Everything? Lance’s eyes squeezed shut and he pushed two fingers into the space between his brows. “Oh, god. And have you been updated?”

A long pause. Then, “Yup.”

Lance dropped his hands to his side and deflated with a heavy sigh. His eyes stayed clenched shut, unable to look Shiro in the face while knowing he knew what he knew. “So, what’s the damage? She thinks I’m lame because I didn’t even want to try?”

“Not at all. She was just confused. She thought it was a given that you’d be interested, since you told her you’re interested in guys too…”

Lance’s eyes opened, just a little bit, to glare at his shoes. “Well, no. I have a penis and it goes in things. That’s the only thing men are for.”

He had an unbreakable habit of talking with his hands without really thinking. That led to Lance making some unfortunate gestures without realizing.

Shiro snorted. “Yeah, I’ve heard your sister preach that before.”

A short, nervous laugh came out of his lips in a quiet puff. “I guess I should have explained to Allura that I can like guys and still not want it up the butt.”

Shiro made a face like he wanted to say something. He didn’t. He just shrugged.

“What, Shiro.”

“What?”

Lance made a face like he knew Shiro was holding something back. He turned his palms up to Shiro, silently asking ‘What?’ in return.

Shiro made a face like he was debating how to word this. His jaw hung slightly open while he thought it over for a few seconds before finally saying, “Nothing. I was just… I had a couple of relationships when I was a student that actually ended because, well. I was inflexible in my preferences and they were inflexible in theirs.”

“Oh?” Lance’s eyebrows came up.

Shiro did not look anywhere near as bashful to admit that as Lance thought he would. “I’m going into TMI territory only because I think you need to hear this.”

“Why… You think it’s bad that you stood your ground?” Lance tried to sound as innocently curious as he could. All the while thinking: Oh, this is gonna be good.

“I think it’s… For me, masculinity was too closely tied to topping. I didn’t feel like I was feminine, or campy, or loud, and thought that meant I had to be strictly a top. Plus, you know, feeling guilty if I fed any cultural stereotypes.”

Despite how juicy it was to get TMI from Shiro of all people, Lance just groaned and stomped his foot ‘cause he didn’t appreciate getting called out like this. “I’m feminine and campy and loud! Not bottoming is the last manly thing I have going for me!”

Shiro pulled a chair out from Pidge’s desk—Well, it was a shared desk that every dormitory room had, but this particular one had its entire surface cluttered with Pidge’s things.

So Shiro took a seat, swiveling the chair so that he would still face Lance. “I just got really caught up in the labels. Who wants to be on the bottom of anything? Being on top just sounds better.”

“Yes!” Lance clapped. “Exactly!” He clapped again. “Even in Spanish, you don’t say tops and bottoms. You say activo y pasivo.”

“Right. We’re not the type to choose passive. If we had to choose.”

Lance started to nod, then abruptly paused when he realized where this was going now. “But you pretty much said you think it’s bad to be inflexible.”

“No, I don’t think it’s bad and I don’t think anyone needs to change preferences for a partner. But I think it’s healthy to examine why you prefer it.” Shiro shrugged one shoulder.

“Then, why are you, uh, inflexible?”

Lance knew it was a nosy question, but he was shameless. It wouldn’t bother him to get shut down for prying into stuff that was none of his business. Besides, at this point, his curiosity had grown into more than just looking for gossip.

To his surprise, Shiro didn’t hesitate to answer. “I used to be. Then I finally started dating a close friend I always liked. He went, ‘I’m a top,’ and I went, ‘Alright, well, me too.’ And neither of us wanted to budge.”

Shiro had a little smile of wistful nostalgia. Annoyingly, still not even flustered. Lance stood still, astonished at how personal this had gotten. He shouldn’t have been, because Shiro was always an open book who jumped at any chance to get into a personal talk with every friend he had. Especially when he caught a whiff of self-doubt coming off of them. But. Y’know. It had always been in a Rated PG way.

“I don’t have that problem with Allura,” Lance blurted.

“I know.” Shiro’s tone and expression were so warm and nonjudgmental that Lance immediately felt dumb for blurting it.

“Okay. So, um. Who wound up budging?”

“Both of us. We really liked each other, so we went out of our comfort zone to figure it out. On our own.”

“Not... together?”

“No. We did try it together first. It wasn’t great,” Shiro said with a little laugh, “I was really tense and he was like ‘Relax,’ and him telling me to relax really didn’t make me relax, it just made me think of the size of my butthole and that made it impossible not to clench.”

Lance covered his mouth to stifle a laugh halfway through that, but didn’t feel bad about it because Shiro couldn’t get through retelling it without smiling either. Lance carefully moved aside some of Pidge’s trinkets and leaned against the desk to sort of half-sit against the corner.

“I’m learning way too much about you and it’s guh-reat.” He made an ‘ok’ shape with his thumb and forefinger, which he punctuated with a click of his tongue.

“Allura told me everything about you without your permission, so I guess it’s only fair. Besides, you needed to hear it.” Shiro was still laughing a bit as he said it, and looking up at Lance with a fond expression.

“I dunno, Shiro. I get stressed out just thinking about it.”

“I get that.”

“Why?” Lance asked, soft and lost.

“I feel like... anytime I had been asked to sort of bottom it was with this expectation that I didn’t like. I didn’t really want an experience focused on, I guess, ‘getting fucked.’” Shiro twitched two fingers into air quotes, “because of reasons that I already talked about. I just didn’t want to deal with the mental politics of another person being there, and then thinking about what my role was.”

“I hate… not knowing my role. In general, in life, y’know. Finding out I don’t even have that down in my relationship… kinda sucks.”

“Yeah, I worried about that too. So I just got it down on my own time, on my own terms, without any pressure. Not thinking too much or trying too hard, just letting whatever happens happen.”

“So… what did your role wind up being?” Lance kept pushing the envelope with these prying questions.

Shiro shrugged, unbothered and unruffled by making himself obscenely vulnerable if it would help Lance sort his shit out. “I wound up really liking it. Sometimes I would go on a month where I would just binge bottom and then I’d go back to topping. It was up in the air, just depending on what our chemistry was on any given day and what I wanted and he wanted in any given moment.”

For almost a minute there, Lance just chewed on his lip. Then, “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“For prying so damn much. For a minute there I forgot that, uh…”

“I don’t mind,” Shiro cut him off to assure. “It’s the first time I’ve been able to talk about him since I got here. I mean, really talk, without someone taking it to an awkward, depressing place.” Shiro had that fond look in his eyes again. “It feels sort of good that you forgot, actually.”

“Yeah? I mean. Anytime. I think it helped a bunch, so… thanks.”

“Same here. Thank you, too.”

Cut to: Lance marching in a determined beeline straight to his and Allura’s dorm, days later. His sister tried to greet him, but Lance only threw a short, “Hey,” over his shoulder in return and walked faster.

He locked the dormitory door behind him, shrugged the backpack off his shoulders, unzipped, and tossed its contents out over his bed (Not Allura’s, even though it was the closer bed to the door). Out tumbled his wallet, key card, phone, a palm-sized plastic bottle, and a perfectly square little box. The box was blank white on all sides, no labels, no pictures.

He picked up the bottle. The label was kind of ridiculous, covered in banana and speak-no-evil monkey emojis, which was partially why Lance bought it.

Okay. Kinda lost him at Vaginal Dryness, but the promise of no Anal Bacteria got him back on board.

Lance couldn’t bring himself to open the box yet. A digital chime rang from the door, the sound of Allura trying to swipe in while it was locked from inside.

“Lance? Are you in there?”

“Yeah, just a sec!” He snatched the box and crouched down to shove it beneath his bed.

“What are you doing?” Allura’s voice came muffled from beyond the door.

“Nothing!” He scrabbled to his feet and rushed to the door, smacking his palm on the pad to unlock.

It whooshed open a split second faster than expected. Allura definitely caught Lance scrambling to casually lean on the doorway. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Everything’s fine,” Lance said.

“Alright,” Allura answered slowly, standing still in the hallway, and he realized she hadn’t asked.

The awkward pause that followed was broken by several little squeaks from down below. Mice scampered through the space between Lance’s ankles and over his shoes.

“Aww, they thought you were on your way out,” Allura translated as she crouched down, “and worried you forgot your things!”

One by one, the mice delivered Lance’s wallet, phone, key card, and… jesus christ.

Allura stood straight with one hand balancing Lance’s essentials and the other holding the bottle of lube up to her eye-level. “Monkey Milk?”

“Holy sh—Shushushushhhhh!” Lance yanked Allura into the room and promptly locked the door behind her again.

“Personal lu—Lubricant?” She read out loud, very loud, once she got to the next line.

And that’s exactly why he’d yanked her in and shut the door.

Her bright eyes looked up at Lance, puzzled. “I’m sorry, is this for my—” She glanced back down to the bottle to make sure she had read correctly, “Vaginal Dryness?”

“No, nonono, you don’t have a dry vagina!” Lance tried to take the bottle from her.

Allura clamped her fingers more firmly around it. “What’s a monkey?”

“It’s like—Uh—” Lance tried to pry them open in vain. He might as well have been trying to break a padlock with his bare hands.

“And why are there pictures of a baby on the label?”

“What baby?”

Allura passed him the bottle now, tapping the monkey emojis on the label with one finger. “It’s the same human baby over and over again.”

“Allurathosearemonkeys!” Lance rushed to get the words all out before erupting into barks of laughter. “Oh my god!”

She squinted at the bottle, unamused. “It looks like a human face, and hands, and ears.”

“Fair.” Lance paused again to get another burst of laughter out of the way before finishing the thought, “You’re not wrong. You know, some people say ‘que mono’ to babies because it means ‘how cute,’ but it literally translates to calling them monkeys.”

“Then, it should be called Mono Milk.”

“Allura, no. That’s gross.”

“And Monkey Milk isn’t? Does it taste like Kaltenecker’s?”

“Okay, no, Monkey Milk is also a gross name.”

“If it’s not for my dry vagina, then…”

“Your vagina’s fine! I got it for me.”

“For your…?”

“Ass.”

Allura did not look anywhere near as tantalized by that as he thought she would. "Er. Lance. You really don’t need to do anything you’re uncomfortable with just to please me. I respect your preferences and I swear I don’t mind them.”

“Yeah, I know. It hasn’t really got anything to do with you at this point. I talked to Shiro and he basically said sticking something in my butt will end toxic masculinity’s ugly vice hold on me. So, yeah. It’s gonna be magic.”

Allura smiled. “I doubt he said that, but I’m glad you spoke with him about it.”

“He totally said that in those exact words.”

“Sure. And you promise it has nothing to do with me.”

“Sorry, princess, you’re not even invited. It’s just gonna be me kicking back with my Rih-Rih playlist and my Monkey Milk.”

“Well, you’re going to have a wonderful night all to yourself.” Allura stepped forward and slipped her arms over Lance’s shoulders. “Because I came here to get a kiss farewell before I go off-planet to ferry a new wave of rebels in.”

Between all the sexual mishaps in this story, they have been aiding the planet Earth in recuperating from its occupation by the galra as well as rebuilding it into a safe home base for refugees and allies. But this story isn’t about that. It’s about Lance and Allura. Mostly Lance, though.

He kissed her goodbye, deep and sweet, but Allura pulled away with a sigh.

Lance frowned. “What is it?”

“Oh nothing,” she mumbled flippantly, “just that my vagina is only ‘fine’ by your standards.”

“Allura!”

“I could blow up in space and my last dying thought would be that Lance only thought she was ‘fine.’”

“Oh my god? Don’t blow up then!” Lance wondered why she’d say something so damn dramatic for no reason, then realized: “Wow, you’re starting to sound like me.”

She cracked a smile. “I thought you’d like that.”

“I’ll show you what I like.” Lance pulled her in again. “How long do we have before you need to go?”

“They’re not leaving without me.”

He took that as a green light to tug the zipper of her garrison uniform down. She made it easy for him to slip the pink jacket off her shoulders. Everything was easy now that they had passed the initial, bumbling stages of figuring out what the other likes, when and how they want it. Well, most things were easy. Clearly Lance had hit a block with the butt stuff, but that wasn’t even on his mind right now; as kisses lingered and hands explored. His palm slipped inside Allura’s open top to cup her breast. She made a breathy sound into his mouth, then broke the kiss to hastily remove the rest of her uniform. He followed her lead, throwing his clothes in a pile next to hers.

They were hurried this time. When they fell back on the bed, Allura skipped over the foreplay and just pushed Lance’s shoulders down. No complaints from him. There was an achingly desperate part of him that just felt eager to give her absolutely everything, and felt intoxicated whenever Allura explicitly wanted anything he offered.

“Gonna miss you,” he muttered into her skin, nosing along the supple curve of her belly.

She slipped one long, firm leg over his shoulder. “It’s only a day.”

“Don’t forget me,” he went on, pretending to lament.

“I wo—Oh—”

His tongue had flicked out to taste her. He traced wet, hot shapes along the length of her folds, warming her up. “Lance,” she whispered his name when his mouth wandered up, licking wide circles around her clit without actually touching it. Just a whisper from her was all it took to raise goosebumps on his skin.

Her hips squirmed beneath him, trying to make him hit the right spot. Lance smiled and let her clit just barely graze his tongue with the tilt of her hip, only for a second, before dodging it in favor of attending anything and everything around it. Allura groaned, frustrated and delighted. They repeated this little game a couple of times. All the while Lance felt Allura’s body quickly heating up, wetting his lips and chin in gushes of arousal, twitching and shivering across the bed. When Lance finally took hold of her trembling thighs and went all in on her desperately ignored and swollen clit, it took maybe two minutes flat to get her full body shuddering while soft sobs of pleasure spilled from her gorgeous lips.

He was glad to have that moment fresh in his mind later that night.

Lance wound up going for his own butt in the shower again. Put one foot right up on the ledge and reached down to blindly search, feeling awkward and vulgar when his index finger found his hole. Hello, we meet again. He remembered what Shiro said and tried specifically not to think of Allura for this part. Don’t think too much, or try too hard. Relax and let whatever happens happen. Except now he was thinking of Shiro’s voice while touching his butt, which was… Extremely inappropriate. But. Strangely calming?

It kind of helped with taking sexual pressure off the situation. Lance aesthetically appreciated the masterpiece chiseled by angels that is Shiro, obviously. But they were friends now. Shiro had given him a friendly suggestion to explore.

Lance’s fingertip pressed as hard as he dared and steadily worked itself inside with the help of his new buddy, Monkey Milk. He shifted to look at the bottle of lube set down next to his other bottles of shampoo and face wash, with the speak-no-evil monkey emojis on the label facing out. Lance snorted beneath his breath, remembering that Allura thought they were babies. And while he wasn’t thinking about it, his finger eased inside right up to the second knuckle.

There wasn’t pain. Just an uncomfortable pressure from his skin slowly adjusting to the intrusion. How underwhelming. It felt super tight right there at the pucker, but a little ways in it was just soft. He could sort of feel his pulse, he thought. Lance was kinda hoping it would hurt, honestly, just to get a decent excuse to quit here and say he did his best.

Instead, he found himself stuck with a feeling of, Well, I got this far now, so might as well figure it out. Lance wriggled around in there, looking for that legendary p-spot that supposedly pops a boner with one touch. No such luck. Stuff in the butt didn’t make him feel hot and bothered yet, but the premise of it was looking less freaky. That was progress, right?

Lance came out of the shower with a towel around his waist and a damp bottle of lube in one hand. He reached beneath the bed to take the box from earlier out, set it down on the nightstand with the bottle, then lifted the lid. Inside, a black plastic toy that looked silly enough to not be intimidating.

It was about the length of Lance’s palm from top to bottom, and not any wider than two fingers. The shape of it was the funny part. The long part was weirdly bulbous, kinda like an uneven bean pod. Or like a Looney Toon’s injured finger, you know, when just bits of it swell up. The bottom was like a cartoon villain’s moustache, a wispy little curlicue looping out from two sides of the base. “It’s like that so you can pull it out easily and the toy won’t get lost up there,” a very chill shop employee had explained.

Lance snorted to himself as he lathered Monkey Milk onto the stimulator. It looked so dumb. It looked like a rejected design for the pokemon Unown. Definitely not gonna feel like a finger, and hopefully that would be a good thing.

Alright. It’s showtime. Lance laid back, drew his knees up just slightly until his feet were flat on the bed, and delicately plugged that thing in where it goes. It was a slow, uncertain slide in at first. Not unlike his finger several minutes ago, except maybe a little less uncomfortable. Lance wouldn’t be surprised if every weird bulb and curve in the design was methodically engineered for this. It had an ergonomic look, like a team of horny gay scientists calculated every angle of the ass when making it. Then the last inch or so of the toy’s curve popped right in without any assistance from Lance, as if it had a mind of its own and knew where it was going. Which was weird, because the stimulator was really just a bit of plastic with no batteries. No vibrating or any of that.

Much like it had been in the shower, popping the toy in now was also anticlimactic. Just a really weird stretchy sensation, but no pain or pleasure involved in it. What even had all of Lance’s fuss over this been about?

Oh right, machismo. Shiro was right about this being way easier by yourself. Lance would’ve been a nervous mess if Allura was here.

He tensed up just at the thought of it. The subtle clench shifted the stimulator within him in a way that pushed the breath out of his lungs so fast it felt like someone had stepped on his chest. Oh, fuck, there’s that mythical button. God damn. Okay. Lance took deep breaths, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.

The guy he bought this from said the toy was “Minimal effort, you won’t even need to touch it after it’s in.” Lance had nodded and liked the sound of that, but he had no concept of what that meant at the time. Now, he was was learning what it meant. It meant the toy was tightly nestled in place by Lance’s insides and would shift with every tiny ripple of motion.

The head of it seemed near his prostate, but not aggressively prodding it. Even when lying still, the inhale and exhale of each breath would brush the curved tip ever so slightly against his prostate. So slightly that it still didn’t really feel like pleasure, not like that first unthinking squeeze that made the toy hit it by surprise. When Lance laid still and just breathed, the sensation of the tip against that one spot was nothing more than a different kinda pressure compared to the rest of the toy against the rest of his inner walls. Just pressure, with a hint of a feeling like he needed to pee but it wasn’t urgent. Pretty weird, but Lance chose to focus on those sensations instead of chasing the urge to clench.

The delicate brush of the head against his prostate gently tap, tap, tapping with each breath was oddly therapeutic. The taps felt like they were equal to his heartbeat in force. It felt good, but in a subtle enough way that Lance could easily forget the toy was even there if he took his mind off it.

So he didn’t focus on it. Without even needing to sit up, he reached into his drawer and tore open a sheet mask. He laid it over his face and set a twenty minute timer like he would on any other designated self-care night. It was nice. He didn’t often get these nights. He closed his eyes and just listened to Rihanna, even managed to doze off a little bit before the timer went off. He peeled the sheet off, carefully reached over to set it over the wrapper it had come from on the nightstand, and patted the serum into his skin with his fingertips.

Even with Lance completely ignoring the stimulator and doing nothing to so much as wiggle it, it was still affecting him. Specifically, a feeling behind his balls that was bright and… prickling? Still not quite pleasure, though certainly something interesting.

It reminded him of earlier that day, on the other bed across the room, the rising goosebumps on the skin up his arms and down his back. It was like that, except concentrated in one small area that was insanely sensitive.

He had a change of heart towards not wanting to think of Allura for this. That soothing pressure inside of him seemed to get heavier when he recalled the sweet, breathy sounds she made for him just a few hours ago, her mouth parted and back arched like a sundae spoon. The playful roll of her waist when she tilted her hips up against his mouth, smiling even while she’s about to come apart.

His cock twitched to attention at the thought and he could somehow feel his blood pulsing around the stimulator as well, that’s how sensitized he was. That prickling sensation was spreading outwards now, leaving his entire lower body feeling like it was buzzing beneath the skin. When he breathed in, it tingled. When he breathed out, it tingled. If he flexed the tiniest contraction down there, a burst of tingles. He wasn’t even doing anything, it was just happening.

That amazing feeling spread up to his chest, down his arms, all the way to his fingertips. It was in his toes too, which curled into the sheets. He kept muttering “Holy shit” a lot. It didn’t feel at all like trying to get off. It was just a deeply content feeling. Like the way you feel while getting an amazing massage that turns you to jelly.

That prickly-bright feeling inside of him, right behind his cock, had evolved into a constant rippling and glowing sensation. The feeling expanded over the next ten minutes, bigger and brighter. It felt like a morning stretch at first, until it gradually blossomed into feeling exactly like butterflies fluttering in an extremely specific point at the absolute pit of Lance’s stomach. “Holy shit.” Involuntarily, Lance began to tremble. He cried out and twisted his grip in the sheets on either side of him. Uncontrollable twitching shook the toy inside of him, “Hoshit,” and butterflies fluttered all the way up his spine.

It was like—holy shit, like—like a pebble had been dropped into his gut and the ripples pulsed out in waves. The swell of each wave made him feel so warm. When a wave passed, those chills, the goosebumps, would spike again. Some ASMR shit. These pulses washed over every part of him. His scalp, his nose, his lips, his toes, his fingers, even his shoulders. Was he having an orgasm in his shoulders? What the—“Fucking shit!”

Fuck, he just came without doing a single fucking thing. Or did he? His dick was pretty dry and felt like it had only been half-paying attention that entire time.

He had to tell Allura about this.