#teslatricity

His mother is thankfully still living, and he sends her holovids as much as he can (which, admittedly, isn't often) but growing up he'd quickly learned not to ask about his parents courtship. It always made her so sad, and now that he's old enough to have stared death in the eye, he knows she carries a ghost, too.

But the few times she would answer questions, she said the most selfless and sacrificial way to love someone is from afar, in secret. It was what she and his father had done for many years, before having him.

There is no purer way to want, than to bury your love in the moondust, so that someone else can be a star.

It's something he tells himself too, when it feels like his heart is going to burst like a supernova. It's never enough, but it's close, and closer than she will ever be.

"Captain Shirogane?"

In the close to ten years he's known her, Shiro can count on one hand (he tries not to think of the one he's lost, reshaped and reformed) the amount of times she's called him by his first name while other people were listening, and yet regardless of what she calls him, he can't help but think his name or title always sounds sweeter falling from Allura's mouth.

It's one of the few times on base she looks like a princess, and he turns towards her. She's wearing flowing white robes, her silvery hair falling in waves over her shoulders, her eyes as alert and sharp as always. It's one of the days she's alive, which means it's one of the days she has a mission for him, even if he's just disembarking from one, still standing on the ramp of his ship, affectionately named the Black Lion.

His mouth quirks upwards in a smile. He can't help it. It's always good to see her.

"Yes, princess?"

She takes a step forward, and he sees a grin tugging at her own lips. No matter how much she tries to hide it under formality, to ward off rumours of favouritism, he knows she's always glad to see him too. "I believe you know exactly what I'm here to talk about."

"I do," he confirms. "I wouldn't mind a meal first."

"Of course." Her billowing sleeve follows her arm as she motions towards the mess hall, with dangling golden bracelets, customized with Altean jewels, wrapped over warm brown wrists.

Halfway to the mess hall, he realizes she did this on the purpose with the intent of walking him over and staying for the duration of his meal, which is the same space goo as any other day, but just being with it makes it much better than usual.

"How have things been while I was gone?" he asks in between spoonfuls.

"Oh you know," she smiles, "boring."

It's a dumb, old joke between them, but it coaxes a smile out of him. After a beat, she tells him what's actually being on, things he could all learn in a debriefing, if they actually wanted to be completely professional: their trio of smugglers made well on their promise of new guns, and Keith Kogane has been leading intense training exercises for other defected stormtroopers and pilots.

"And you?" he says. "You're sleeping well?"

Her smile falters. "Reasonably."

She's never said it, neither of them have, but they both have trouble sleeping when they don't know the other's whereabouts. It's a common occurrence, given their line of work, but over the years they've stopped trying to curb it. There doesn't seem to be any way to.

He takes her hand under the table, and letting her warm palm press flat against his metal one, before he squeezes her fingers. "So, what's the mission you have for me?" He expects her to pull away the way she usually does, but she lingers, instead.

"It's not the usual kind."

"How so?"

"For one, you and I would be partaking on it together."

He frowns. "We've done that plenty of times before."

"Yes, but... it may be the most dangerous mission we've ever done, before." Allura draws her hand away, and then sets her jaw, her eyes steadfastly meeting his. "I want you to join me in infiltrating a Galra gala on the planet of Drule. They'll be revealing plans for their new weapons there, to garner donations from the wealthiest Galra and aliens across the universe. I can use my shapeshifting to blend in, but my council thinks it's unwise for me to go by myself."

"I agree with them." The council is made up of whoever survived the decimation of Altean, noble and peasant alike, along with representatives from the many allies they've made over the years, like the Balmerans and Olkari. "And they've insisted I go with you?"

"They've insisted I go with someone, and although I don't want to put your life in any more danger than it already is, I—there is no one I would rather have by my side than you, and I'll need your help in accessing the Galra technology. We'd explain your attendance away, by claiming you're my consort." She pushes a strand of hair behind her pointed ears, a nervous habit only done when her hair is down, and she is more vulnerable. A blush colours her cheeks as she lowers her voice, and he has to lean in to hear her over the din of the mess hall. "You do not have to accept of course, and I can choose another, but... I do not think I can do this without you, Shiro."

He straightens up, their gazes locking. "Then you won't have to," he says immediately, and relief mixed with guilt passes over her face. "When do we leave?"

"Tomorrow."

Shiro gives her a small smile. "I'll start packing tonight, then."

Allura can still remember the first time she met him, her and Coran having left Altea parsecs before its destruction, and fleeing to the farthest galaxy their castleship could take them without completely running out of juice. It had been Terra, and her shapeshifting abilities had allowed her to blend in with the local species of humans with little difficulties. From the intel Coran had collected upon arrival, she knew the planet harboured some anti-Empire sentiment, but not enough that the Empire had any reason to smite Terra's citizens... at least until she and Coran had shown up.

One second, she'd been looking at the dark haired man with starry eyes who was waiting for his drink at the first coffee shop they'd found (a popular watering hole, apparently) and the next he was yanking her to the ground and using his own body as a shield when the windows exploded.

Allura has lost count of the times he's saved her life since then, and vice versa, but she will never forget the first. Nor will she forget the horror that eclipsed her when he came back with only one arm and a prosthetic cobbled together with enemy technology. Or when he stumbled back to her ship, and she helped him hobble onto the ramp, a shock of white in his dark hair and she mopped up the blood running down his face with a rag while Kogane flew the ship home, a nasty cut across the bridge of her Captain's nose.

Shiro has bled and fought for this rebellion as much as he has, and she hates to ask more of him, the way she always is. Sending him off on more dangerous missions, for collecting intel, for taking out targets within the Empire, for any number of things. By comparison, asking him to accompany her on an undercover mission as a fake consort is relatively easy, and yet her stomach still twists with unease.

She's being selfish, for more reasons than one, because if she was acting the way a princess and a leader should, she would send him on missions as far away from her as possible, where his Galra arm and knowledge of the enemy could be used the most efficiently. But she knows deep in her heart she could not bear it, and so the universe has to.

"Princess?"

His voice tugs her out of her stupor, and tugs on her heart. He's halfway up the ramp onto his ship, the Black Lion, and looking at her expectantly. She hefts her bags, full of clothes that can pass for stylish at a gala, as well as medical supplies, matching commlinks, among other such belongings. It's a good thing she'd already given Coran a goodbye hug, as she dropped her few bags easily on the floor—one surprising thing she'd learned about Shiro's people, earthlings, was that they were not nearly as strong as Alteans, which made her appreciation of Shiro's physical strength (and form) all the greater.

Allura can't help but trace the broad line of his shoulders, defined in his captain's jacket at the pilot's seat in the cockpit, as he shifts the ship into lightspeed, and she sits down beside him, stealing a starry eyed glance. She has the self control to look away before he catches her, but a dangerous, foolish part of her wishes he would.

It's the part of her she's learned to keep quiet over the years, even if it still pounds steadfastly in her chest.

They arrive quietly on Drule, landing swiftly with all the right certifications, forged by their favourite smugglers, Hunk Garret and Pidge Gunderson, with some help of charming the right people to get ones to modify, from Lance McClain. It's easy enough to sneak in, with Pidge's purchased cloaking device that doesn't make the Black Lion invisible, but instead have it show up as a Galra ship, alongside Allura's shapeshifting abilities.

There's a pit of unease in her stomach again, as she looks at herself in only mirror on board, making sure to change her skin to the right shade of purple, and adjust her height. She hates looking so much like the enemy, and wonders if Shiro will hate it too—the Galra took his arm after all—but when the ship is on autopilot and he comes up behind her, all he says is, "Purple is a good colour on you."

It's so ridiculous and on the nose, it makes her laugh, and it's only when they approach the landing strip that she thinks maybe he meant it.

There's a bit of hemming and hawing over Shiro by some of the checkpoint operators signing them into the planet's database at the landing strip, as the documents forged for him are meagre at best, but that's all they had to be, as they're waved away once Allura explains he's her consort. She's just glad she doesn't blush too terribly when she says it, and that the operators buy it.

Their motel is dodgy at best, and Allura doesn't let herself worry about only having one bed in their room, as she sheds her coat and starts looking for her clothes for the gala that night. "Do you still have the recording disc on your arm?" she asks him, as Shiro sets down his own bags at the foot of the bed.

"It got damaged a few missions ago, remember?"

"I thought Hunk or Pidge would have repaired it."

"I was a little bit preoccupied, keeping you alive," he says, and she remembers his arm shooting out in front of her chest and getting a laser to it from a blaster. His prosthetic had been smoking, as he'd helped her hobble to the ship.

"I forgot," she says, straightening up as he approaches her. "But I should have remembered. You using the Force."

He gives her a tiny smile. "That's not how the Force works, Allura."

"You still used it," she points out, a necklace chain dangling from her hand. "To hear my heartbeat. To make sure I was still alive."

Shiro's eyes turn tender. That much is true. He's not a trained Jedi by any means, and can do little but connect and feel the synergy of the universe, but he's never been more grateful for his Force sensitivity than he was that day, when her heartbeat was so unbearably faint. "Allura, I..."

She turns her back on him before anything else can make it out of his tight throat, as she gathers up her hair and drapes it over one side of her neck, holding up the necklace with her other hand. "Can you put this on for me, Shiro?"

He clears his throat. They're soldiers, on a mission together, and nothing more. Nothing more than two old friends. "Of course, princess," he says, taking the necklace from her. Standing this close to her oddly makes him want to lean down and kiss the curve of her neck, or the nape of it, but he refrains of course, looping the chain around her neck and doing up the clasp. The silver chain settles, and looks stunning against her dark skin, but she's always stunning.

They dress in the relative silence they travelled to Drule in, and Allura has to fix Shiro's tie for him.

"Ready to be my consort?" she asks him with a hint of the smile, as her fingers fasten the crux of his tie.

"I don't think pretending to be in love with you will be too hard," he says before he can think it through, and blushes furiously. "We've been friends for so long, after all, princess."

Allura's eyes flicker down to his throat, as she finishes fiddling with his tie. "Which reminds me, Captain. Tonight, I am merely Allura, and you are Takashi. Our titles make us too recognizable, and hopefully these Galra will be too drunk on nunvil to notice us."

"If they do," he says, "so long as we have the intel we need, we can kick their ass."