#shallurangst

Shallurangst Week 2019

Day 4: Bittersweet / Unrequited

“We’re meant to be together. But we’re not meant to be.”

Shallura Week 2020

Day 3 - Moon

And so I’ll say goodnight to the moon, 

because the stars and everything 

ON NOW!!!

See the page for prompts and rules. We can’t wait to see your creations!

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She barely realizes what's happened until she feels a warm pool gathering under her. Eyes wide, she looks down from Shiro's eyes to the lower half of her body. There's a dark bloom over his torso, a triangle of silver at the center. Streams of red dribbling over her paladin armor. 

She looks back up at him. "You're dying," she gasps.

His smile doesn't waver. "I saved you," he simply replies, voice calm.

"But you're dying," she repeats. Her chest tightens, her breath quickens, and the thoughts in her mind start to fog. This couldn't be happening. This can't be happening. This can’t be happening again.

He can't die now. He can't die ever. 

She would never allow it. She cannot let him die. 

Not here. Not on this mission. Not when the end is so so close and their happy ending is just within reach.

This mission failed. This mission failed again. 

How many times does she have to try to keep him alive?

How many times does she have to reset reality?

Each and every time it ends the same way. He saves her, and she loses him. No matter what she does, no matter what she changes, this is always how it ends. 

Is this how it is always going to end? Is this really what fate offers two star-crossed lovers?

He coughs, then turns his head to spit away some blood before he returns his eyes back to her. She cradles his head in her hands, holding back the tears in her eyes.

She's seen him dying hundreds of times over. She should be used to the sight of it by now. But she's not. 

"Hey," he reassures her, lifting a hand from the floor and taking her wrist. "It's okay. It's going to be alright. You — "

"No," she tells him. "No. I'm going to make this right. I won't fail again." 

"What?" he asks, confused. His eyebrows furrow as they do each and every time she tells him again.

He'll never know.

He should have known he never stood a chance.

He’d tried everything he’d seen couples do in all the movies and TV shows that girls were supposed to like.

But all for naught.

Girls liked confidence, his older brother had told him.

So he tried to be confident, in his skill as a pilot (he knew he was good, it was everybody else who needed a reminder) and as a sharpshooter (the nickname did so count, Pidge).

But Allura had turned her nose up at his exhibitions of strength and skill, preferring Shiro’s quiet assurance to his braggadocio (Pidge had taught him that word, after telling him that).

Girls liked funny people, his mother had told him.

So he cracked every joke and quip he knew but Allura didn’t seem to get half of them. And it stung when he saw Shiro and Allura together (not together-together, he’d told himself), laughing about something he wasn’t privy to.

Girls like gentlemen, his grandmother had told him (his abuela, not his mee-maw)

But when he’d rushed to get the door for Allura (five times he might add), she’d told him she could handle opening doors.

Isn’t that what gentlemen do? Open doors for pretty girls? Was there something else he had to do? (ask Shiro, Hunk and Pidge had told him)

Girls like guys who take their relationships seriously, his sister had told him.

So he’d poured on the juice to show her how much he cared about her, only for her to blow up in his face to stop smothering her.

But Shiro was almost always around her, why wasn’t that considered smothering?

Girls like deep guys, his younger sister had told him.

He…didn’t want to go into that.

No matter what he tried or how he tried it, Princess Allura of Altea seemed to have her heart set on Shiro.

Not that that was a bad thing.

Shiro was a great guy, his role model even.

But still…

He’d thought the depth of what he felt for Allura would win her over.

Apparently he was wrong.

But she was happy and really, wasn’t that all that mattered?