Voltron Legendary Defender (Nightbreed) - Sure Thing Falling [2] [Shance]

[scriveyner]

Title: sure thing falling - 2 - selkie
Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender
AU: Nightbreed
Characters/Pairing: Shiro/Lance, Keith
Rating: NSFW/E
Length: 6755
Summary: "Does this town even have one stoplight?" Keith asked, seated opposite Shiro with his elbows propped on the sticky table between them. Shiro glanced out the window of the diner, through the hazy grey morning to the main drag, and then back to Keith, his eyebrow raised.

"Three, on Main Street," he responded dryly, and took a bite of his eggs.



"Does this town even have one stoplight?" Keith asked, seated opposite Shiro with his elbows propped on the sticky table between them. Shiro glanced out the window of the diner, through the hazy grey morning to the main drag, and then back to Keith, his eyebrow raised.

"Three, on Main Street," he responded dryly, and took a bite of his eggs.

Keith rolled his eyes, folding his arms on the table and leaning forward slightly in the booth. "C'mon, Shiro," he said, tone dropping low. "You know you don't have to stay here, right? We've got a place upstate, a base of operations and it's secure. You'd be safe there." He stopped talking as the waitress stopped by to fill Shiro's coffee, although she didn't seem interested in their conversation. "Safer than here," Keith added, watching the waitress go.

"I'm perfectly safe here," Shiro said, and actually believed it, this time. "No-one's looking for me anymore. I'm not hiding." He took a sip of his coffee, and hesitated, looking at the mug, and his right hand. Then he sighed, and set his drink back on the table. "I'm touched you're so concerned about my safety, Keith, but I'm fine. "

He was fine. It had been two years now, and Shiro didn't feel the need to keep looking over his shoulder, to eye each person as they stepped through the door of an establishment, to look at the room and plan an immediate escape route. Shiro looked at his right hand again, remembered the technician pulling the tracking device from his wrist and crushing it under his boot. "I'm not lying," he added, because he saw the disbelief and worry in Keith's eyes.

Keith let out a little sigh, sitting back in the seat and brushing a gloved hand through his hair. He'd gotten taller since the last time Shiro had seen him, his shoulders broader. He was becoming the image of the leader Shiro knew he already was. There was a half-healed cut across the bridge of his nose, up between his eyes, and Keith saw him looking and touched the wound with the pads of his fingers. "Not trying to be like you," he clarified, and Shiro smiled.

"I know," he said.

Keith stopped by every so often, every few weeks or few months depending on what part of the country his team was working out from. He checked in with Shiro, made sure that he was safe and okay and unaffected, and it was sweet ... and he knew that there was something about all this that Keith was keeping from him, and hadn't been able to quite puzzle out what it could be. "It's good to see you, Keith," Shiro said, softly, and he meant it. Keith smiled as he stood up from the diner's booth.

"Be careful, Shiro, okay?" he said, one palm on the table. "There are hunters here, this is their territory. We've been tracking them down the coast, don't make trouble for yourself."

"Watch your back, Keith," Shiro said, and Keith nodded.

Hunters. Shiro shivered slightly as Keith left the diner, acknowledging the cook with an upward head nod as he passed. The word had different meaning for them, and as far as Shiro knew he hadn't run across any yet. It was a small town, and they were wary of outsiders - as Shiro was well acquainted with. If there were hunters local , though...

Shiro looked down at his plate, the eggs half-eaten. He sighed wearily, and raised his hand for the check.

He hadn't seen Lance about town, like he'd anticipated. Which was good, the last thing Shiro needed was another layer of complication in his life, but it had been a few weeks and he still thought about the young man at random, and that bothered him. There had been plenty of quick fucks in podunk towns in his travels, and none had stuck with him like this, a nagging thought that he just couldn't dismiss.

By the time Shiro paid and hit the street, Keith was long gone; no surprise there. He'd turn up again soon, he always did. He smiled slightly at the thought, he always enjoyed seeing Keith even if Keith was exasperated at his refusal to get involved in the Blade. Shiro had seen too much, he was ready for peace ... and there were always plenty of other soldiers to fight Keith's war.

It was another grey day in a grey town ... but the air didn't smell like rain. Just heavy, overcast skies and choppy seas keeping the small stretch of public beach deserted. Shiro liked to walk the beach, he always had. There was something soothing about the rhythm of the ocean, the way the waves washed up behind him and eliminated the long trail of his footprints, quietly erasing the proof of his passage.

This was the long way home. He would walk the beach far past where the small handful of tourists would linger, down onto the rocky sand that ran up against the sheer cliffs. A mile or so past the cliff there was a trail cut into the forest, long and winding, but it led back to his cabin. He had nothing else to do with his day but to enjoy the ocean air; Matt wouldn't be awake until the early evening if he was in at all, and Shiro didn't have much else by the way of friends. He preferred it that way, less people that could get hurt when his past eventually caught up with him.

There was no one on the beach today, which was no surprise. It was a weekday and a gloomy one at that. He stepped carefully over the rocky shore as he passed what would be considered the edge of the public beach and onto the stretch of detritus-strewn sand that lined the base of the cliffs. High above his head here were ancient trees, the very edge of the forest butting up against the eternal swell of the ocean, where the waves crashed into the hard rock cliffs at high tide. It was low tide, though, and that provided a small, sandy footpath that Shiro very much enjoyed.

That is, until he surprised the hunters.

There were three of them with guns and nets, one out in the ocean in waders and one with a dead harbor seal at his feet. The first was struggling with another seal in the shallows, as the third man leveled his rifle at Shiro, who put up his hands and stopped in his tracks. "I don't want any trouble," Shiro said, eyes going to the dead seal pup and back to the man with the rifle.

The realization struck him, and he was weirdly relieved. These weren't hunters - they were poachers.

"You found trouble anyway, buddy," the man with the rifle said, his voice grizzled like his features were under the stained trucker cap. "Don't move."

"It's illegal to hunt seals," Shiro said, as the man glared at him. His words were almost drowned out by the panicked braying of the seal in the shallows, struggling against the cord around its midsection and trying to get at the dead seal in the sand. The one in waders struggled for a moment with it, trying to reel it closer in while the second man shouted over the noise of the waves and the distress seal.

"Shit, here he comes again!"

The man in waders half-turned just in time to catch the blow across his body as a full-grown seal - far larger than Shiro expected, and more aggressive by far - slammed into him. The blow took the man off his feet and he went down, the waves crashing over his head as he disappeared from view. The captured seal keened frantically as the other man grabbed the pole with the rope on it, and Shiro moved at the same time - the attention of the man with the rifle was on the ocean, and not on Shiro.

He turned right into the punch, helping Shiro with his task. The man went down cold, out like a light and Shiro flung the rifle away, hearing the splash as the weapon landed in the shallows. The water had foamed up, rivulets of red washing ashore as the second man, soaked to the bone, dragged the harbor seal up onto the beach. The creature was bleeding but not dead, and there was no sign of the man in waders.

Shiro wasn't concerned with him. He went low, putting his shoulder first, and tackled the only man still standing straight back into the water.

He fought hard, but Shiro was bigger and stronger. The metallic tang of blood in the air and in the surf had infected his lungs, infested his brain and it was only the thought of the man on the beach still, a witness, that kept him from tearing out this man's throat with his teeth. Shiro had him by the throat, though, water washing over his head and by the time that realization settled in the poacher was no longer struggling. Shiro released his neck and pushed himself to his feet in the shallows, and watched as the man lay motionless in the surf.

The distressed braying of the trapped seal brought Shiro back to himself, and he staggered out of the water. His unconscious friend had a knife on him and Shiro used that to cut the lariat, freeing the harbor seal. It didn't cease its noises of distress and flung itself into the water the first chance it got, swimming directly to the large seal that had resurfaced. It nuzzled the smaller harbor seal and urged it into the deep, and the wounded seal vanished beneath the water's surface.

Shiro sat back on his heels, knees in the soft sand, and watched the large seal watch him. Its snout was stained crimson, and he had no illusions about where the man in the waders went. "There's one more on the beach," Shiro said, and tossed the knife in the sand, away from him. "Do with him what you want."

By the time the seal hit the shallows, it was no longer a seal. Shiro watched as the young man slung the spotted skin from his shoulders and dropped it to the sand, walking naked to where the dead seal lay. He gathered the seal pup in his arms and cradled it to his chest. "My kin," Lance said, head bowed, damp hair curling at its ends. "They killed my family and I wasn't fast enough to save them."

"I'm sorry," Shiro said, voice hoarse. He rose to his feet, sand falling from where it had clumped on the wet material of his jeans, and he looked up and down the stretch of beach. He walked to the unconscious man, nudging his trucker's hat off with his foot. "I don't recognize them, they aren't local. Poachers, I take it."

"Yeah," Lance said without looking up. "They were looking for me."

"What do you want to do with this one?" Shiro asked, unconcerned.

"Give me the knife," Lance said.

#

Lance buried the seal pup in the soft, damp sand while the tide was out. "A temporary burial," he said, bloodstained hands on his knees as the water rolled up gently behind him. "The sea will take her home."

Shiro stood respectfully back, holding Lance's coat in his arms, the spotted hide transformed into a familiar, multi-tone jacket. "And what about them?" he said, indicating the carnage behind him with the tilt of his head. "This'll bring hunters into town, you know it will."

"These were hunters," Lance said, and rose to his feet. His skin was speckled with blood, and he made no attempt to wipe himself clean.

"These were poachers ," Shiro said. "Not hunters. They were after money, not lives. Well," he clarified, as Lance turned a sour gaze on him. "Not our lives."

"Not your life," Lance said. He brushed the sand from his legs and held out his arm for his coat. Shiro didn't move at first, and Lance folded his arms. " Now you won't give it back?" he said, acid in his tone.

"You could have, I don't know, mentioned the whole selkie thing," Shiro said. "I thought you were a lunatic." He cocked an eyebrow. "I'm not from around here, remember?"

"Give me my jacket," Lance said, and after another long moment Shiro relented and handed over the jacket. When Lance pulled it on he did not transform back into his seal form, and the bafflement must have showed on Shiro's face as Lance zipped up the jacket halfway. "Surprised?"

"You look like a pervert," Shiro said. "A half-zipped jacket and no pants."

Lance rolled his eyes and held out his hand. "I need to borrow your phone. Hunk will bring me clothes."

"You can't go back in the water yet?" Now both of his eyebrows were raised. "How long do you have to stay in human form?"

"Two turns of the tide," Lance said with a scowl. "The cost for transformation is high." His hand was still out. "Phone, now."

"Yeah, about that." Shiro patted his damp shirt and jeans, and then gave a Lance a sweet, sarcastic smile. "I don't have a phone."

"No television, no phone , what are you, some kind of monk?" Lance immediately started down the beach heading toward town, walking in the edge of the water as if it kept him safe. "I'll go see Hunk instead."

"So you're just going to walk into town in broad daylight with your dick hanging out? I know the sheriff doesn't give a shit, but I'm sure someone will call you in." Lance stopped walking and looked back at Shiro, his scowl still firmly entrenched. "Alternatively," Shiro said, "I might know someone who has a place where you can get cleaned up and put on some clothes instead of parading into town mostly naked and covered in blood."

Lance considered this for a moment, and then the scowl crossed his face again. "It's you," he said. "You're talking about yourself."

"Well, I do have a cabin on the edge of town." Shiro said with a shrug.

He looked down the beach, where the sand curved away as the cliff dipped down to meet the shore, before accepting that, despite everything, Shiro did have a point. Lance sighed with aggravation and turned, stopping in front of Shiro and glaring at him, chin tilted defiantly. Shiro was unimpressed by this threat display, and smiled. "I don't like you," Lance said, and stuck his finger in Shiro's face. "One bit."

"You tried to marry me," Shiro said, unwilling to disguise his amusement as Lance stormed past him, heading away from town.

"Clearly I hadn't gotten to know you yet," Lance yelled back at him.

"Just you wait, then," Shiro said, and made certain not to step on any entrails as he followed Lance away.

#

Shiro tossed his waterlogged clothes in the growing pile of laundry just inside the bedroom door as he listened to the shower. Lance had been in there a while, probably intentionally using up all the hot water to be an ass, but whatever. He was a selkie. Shiro shook his head in amusement and sat down on the bed, scuffing his hand through his hair thoughtfully. Well, that explained all of Matt's mysterious ~sea folk~ comments, if nothing else.

Selkies. He hadn't run across them before, they didn't stray far enough inland for him to have much experience with one. Shiro leaned over and picked up the large book on folklore from the floor beside his bed, flipping it to the index and scanning for an entry on the fin-folk. He was so engrossed in reading that he didn't notice the shower cutting off, or that Lance had stepped out of the bathroom, rubbing the last clean towel over his head and watching Shiro intently.

"Your book's wrong," Lance said, and that drew Shiro's attention away from the tale of stolen wives and infants lost to the sea. He looked up, and realized with a flush that Lance was once again entirely naked before him, and entirely too comfortable with it.

"Wrong?"

"Well, misinformed." Lance tossed the damp towel in the direction of Shiro's growing pile of dirty laundry and frowned when the mound shifted ominously. Shiro looked back at the book, tearing his eyes from Lance's naked form with a little more trouble than he expected. "But, I don't suppose books like that often get much of anything right, anyway." He put his hands on his hips and regarded Shiro, who closed the book slowly and tried not to focus on the way Lance's eyes on him made him feel.

"So, what," Shiro said. "You don't shed your skin to dance naked in the surf under the moonlight in the hopes of attracting an unwary meal?" Shiro raised an eyebrow and Lance scoffed loudly in response. He walked around the bed to where Shiro was sitting and, oh, were they doing this again? Shiro wet his lips and took Lance in, and in the soft, warm light of his bedside lamp he could actually see the skin he'd mapped with his mouth just a few weeks ago.

Lance didn't seem to notice that Shiro was almost salivating looking at him. He brushed his hand back through damp hair and then folded his arms, looking away with the slightest air of irritation. "We don't eat humans," Lance said, and then thought about it. "Well, most humans," he amended, touching two fingers to his lips and smiling at Shiro wickedly. Shiro leaned back on his hand, felt the tension in the room tighten like piano wire as Lance regarded him. "You killed a man for me."

"Accidentally," Shiro said.

"Well, you don't seem bothered that you accidentally killed a man," Lance took another step closer, his gaze tight on Shiro's face. "You've killed before."

This wasn't the conversation Shiro wanted to have right now. He tilted his head and closed his eyes a moment, exhaling a past that could overwhelm him if he let it. "In another life." When he opened his eyes again Lance was close enough that he could grab him, capture his wrist and pull him down into Shiro's lap, or beside Shiro on the bed and ...

And he couldn't do that. Couldn't have that. It wouldn't be right.

"Good." Lance said, and took Shiro's jaw in his hand, turning his face back toward Lance. His blue eyes were glimmering in the light from Shiro's bedside lamp, almost glowing , and Shiro wanted to wet his lips again but couldn't move his mouth. Lance's hand tightened on his jaw for a second. "I need a killer."

He kissed Shiro, suddenly savage but Shiro didn't mind, didn't fret over the unnatural sharpness of Lance's teeth as they dug into his lower lip, piercing his skin and causing blood to bead when he lifted his mouth. Shiro panted, Lance's hand still strong on his jaw, but he was locked on to Lance's eyes, so blue he could drown in them alone. Without even thinking he grabbed Lance's arms and pulled him down and Lance didn't struggle, falling back into the bed willingly, eyes still locked on Shiro's as Shiro kissed him again, crawling over his body.

It was quicker than he expected; Lance on his belly on the bed, one hand trapped between him and the mattress and squeezing his own cock tight as Shiro fucked him from behind, as deep as he could get before his knot made things difficult. Lance grunted as Shiro pulled at his cheeks, spreading them so that he could watch his cock shoving in again and again, the lube making Lance's skin shine. Fuck was the only thought Shiro had in his head as he pressed in deep, bottoming out and remembering almost too late, pulling back before his growing knot could make any more trouble for him.

He came across Lance's lower back, stroking out to completion and keeping his knot covered with his hand as Lance groaned, going flat and pliant in his sheets. "Fuck, fuck ," Shiro said suddenly, realizing what he'd done, knee on the bed and cock still in his hand. "What the fuck did you do to my head? "

"Nothing," Lance mumbled into the sheets, body trembling with the aftereffect of his own orgasm. "Nothing, that's all you." He exhaled but didn't roll over, and Shiro sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, his cock going soft against his thigh, knot deflating slowly. "I don't have any of the mind magic mumbo-jumbo, you're thinking about sirens an' shit." Lance sighed out another breath, but there was contentment in it. "You're a good choice."

"I thought you didn't like me," Shiro said, rubbing his face with one hand.

"Eh, you're growing on me." Lance rolled slightly onto his side, wincing for a moment before dropping back down onto his belly. "Besides, doesn't change the fact you're useful."

"I'm not a killer," Shiro said, the words sour in his mouth. "Whatever you want with me, I'm not that."

"I need help." Lance remained faced away from him. "The seafolk can visit dry land, but we can't live here." He sighed wistfully at that, forlorn, and Shiro looked back at him. "Unless we marry a human. Then we have free rein to come and go as we please."

"And why do you want that?" Shiro twisted on the bed, and Lance rolled over and sat up, looking at Shiro earnestly.

"Those poachers, they're not the only ones," Lance said, and the hate drifted into his voice. "They're not the first. There's a lot of them and they're coming from somewhere, looking for something." He sat up on his knees, hands curled into fists on his thighs as he stared down at the stained and crumpled bed sheets. "They kill my family and take our skins and there's nothing we've been able to do to stop them for generations. I can't stay on the surface long enough to even begin to hunt down leads, not unless my tie to the sea has been severed." His eyes dragged up to Shiro's. "Not unless I am taken."

"And you picked me," Shiro snorted. "Just eyeballed me at the bar and said, yup, let's go with this guy?" He shook his head. "I can't help you with this, Lance. What about your friend, why didn't you go to him instead? I bet he'd help you out."

Lance gave Shiro a long, measured look. "You will help me," he said. "I've been watching you for a while. You help people."

Okay, it was weirdly flattering that he had apparently been stalked by a seal for god-knew-how long, but Shiro shook his head again. "You should ask your friend," he repeated.

"He can't help now, even if he could," Lance said. "Besides," he added, voice gone soft. "To marry a selkie, you must take their coat and consummate your bond." He met Shiro's eye, and then looked to the door, where Shiro had courteously hung Lance's disguised sealskin on the back of his bedroom door. When Shiro looked back at Lance, eyes wide, Lance actually had the temerity to blush . "You've already accepted my covenant, husband."

#

He was right, Lance had used up all the hot water. Fortunately a cold shower was exactly what Shiro needed right now, because it made him focus on the moment and not the rising sense of panic in his chest that he'd entered blindly into a contract with the fae. Selkies were not the same as shapeshifters, not entirely, they had magic about them ... and Shiro did not have the best track record with members of the Seelie Court.

By the time he stepped out of the shower, Lance had made himself a nest on the couch again. "You sure do like that blanket," Shiro said, drying his hair with the towel Lance had left on his pile of dirty laundry and cursing himself not for the first time for letting his laundry pile up so long.

"Mm," Lance said, wrapped in the dark colored patchwork blanket. "It smells like you."

Shiro hesitated a split second but kept walking, hoping that Lance didn't notice the way he blushed at that. He shouldn't , but there was a strange, casual fondness to Lance's tone that resonated in him. "You know," Lance called over the back of the couch, "if I'm going to stay here you should really get a TV."

"I don't like television," Shiro said, returning with coffee. Lance held out his hands gratefully for a mug and curled around it, sighing with satisfaction. "And who said anything about you staying here?"

Lance gave him a look over his mug. "You'd really throw your husband out?"

That struck Shiro a bit, but he swallowed the way the word lodged in his chest like a bullet. "I haven't agreed to anything, yet."

"You agreed plenty." Lance shifted his position on the couch, still wrapped tight in the blanket. "Repeatedly. Twice now." He smirked at Shiro, and Shiro groaned in response.

"Okay, I'm weak," he said. "No more sex."

"Aw," Lance pouted this time. "I do like the way you feel inside me, marital congress isn't the chore my auntie said it would be." He cocked his head to the side, still eyeing Shiro over his coffee. "Although I do suppose your word is law, in the old traditions."

Now that was interesting. "in the old traditions, the husband was in charge?" Shiro said, eyebrow raised.

"Yes, we had to do whatever our husband commanded. It was why selkie wives were so sought after." Lance looked down into the blackness of his coffee, and then he smiled, sharp and pointed. "But you gave me back my coat," he said. "Dismissing me. And freed from the covenant I returned of my own will, so." He shrugged. "You lost out on your chance to be the unquestioning boss in this relationship, Shiro."

"Holy shit, you are a clever little minx, aren't you." Shiro shook his head, amazed at the gamble that Lance had undertaken.

"No," Lance said, and sipped his coffee. "I'm a seal."

Shiro laughed despite himself, and then stood up. "Fine, then, I guess I can't command you to help me, but we've run through the last of the towels, and I'm nearly out of clothes and that's one hundred percent your fault." He nodded toward the bedroom, and the unseen but knowing mound of clothing. "It's time to do some laundry."

#

They ate dinner at the diner, while Shiro's laundry rattled around in the coin laundromat across the street. He made Lance get up and move the laundry from the washers to the dryers twice, and Lance very imperiously let Shiro know he was letting Shiro boss him around before going to do what he was told. Shiro sat in the booth, farther from the door than the one he'd sat in with Keith just this morning, and thought about how the world turned on a dime when he wasn't paying attention.

"Shiro, right?"

Shiro looked away from the window, attention taken from the front of the laundromat where he was waiting for Lance to emerge. It was the line cook, actually, standing beside his booth and giving Shiro a scrutinizing look. "Uh, yes," Shiro said warily. "That's me."

The cook didn't say anything for a long moment, and then the entrance jingled and Lance's voice rang out. "Hunk! I didn't realize you were working today!" He latched onto the cook's side with a grin, and then looked at Shiro. "Oh, you've met Shiro?"

"I've seen him around town." Hunk didn't sound like he was thrilled with Shiro. "Seriously, you gave your coat to him? He already gave it back to you once. "

"Twice, actually."

"You know, there are ways to unwind that whole thing, right?"

"Hunk," Lance said patiently, and then kissed his friend's cheek. "You can't un-consummate a relationship. We're a little past unwinding it." Hunk flushed scarlet, and looked at Shiro with a horrified expression.

Shiro said nothing, because he really didn't want to engage in this conversation any further than he already had. Hunk let out a large sigh and shook his head, gently prying Lance off his arm and then putting both of his large hands on Lance's shoulders. "You know you can call on me for anything, right?" Hunk said earnestly. He gave Shiro a side-eye but didn't divert his gaze from Lance's. "Anything you need, bro. I've got you covered."

"A TV and a phone," Lance said without any hesitation.

#

"You don't even live here," Shiro said pointedly, carrying with some prejudice the box that the television Hunk had given them had arrived in. Lance hummed happily as he cleared a space, moving the ratty recliner aside and pushing the coffee table back against the wall to serve as a television stand. "This is my house."

"It's a wedding present," Lance chirped enthusiastically, as Shiro placed the box on the floor and groaned. He honestly hadn't expected the cook to deliver, nevermind turn up as they were bagging the last of Shiro's laundry for the walk home with a brand-new television in a box, and a phone as well.

"Where did he even get a new television at 10pm?" Shiro asked as he moved the two bags of laundry into the bedroom. "Do I want to know?"

"Hunk has his ways." Lance was already fiddling with the television, looking at the cords. "He's a finder. It's what he's good at."

"I thought he was a cook."

"That too." Lance was distracted now and Shiro shook his head and went to put the laundry away. He would let Lance discover on his own that there was no reception out here, and it wasn't like Shiro was going to pay for cable service.

Lance eventually wandered into the bedroom to watch Shiro sort the rest of his clothes. He had carried a duffel of his own clothes, provided by Hunk from the times that he stayed with his friend; and Lance took his jacket off and hung it on the hook behind Shiro's bedroom door, where Shiro had placed it earlier in the day. "Looks good there," he said, and nodded decisively.

Shiro sighed and shook his head, not letting the exasperated grin escape. "You gonna help me put this stuff away?' he asked, indicating the towels and his spare set of sheets, woefully stained but now at least something resembling clean.

Lance shook his head. "Nah. I like watching you." He flopped onto the bed and managed not to disturb Shiro's carefully stacked pile of clothing. "Maybe when you're done we can fool around more?" he asked hopefully.

"I thought I said no more sex," Shiro said, glancing over his shoulder to see Lance with his hand unashamedly down the front of his pants and watching Shiro with an innocent expression.

"Yeah, you did say that," Lance said, and shifted, which pulled his pants down over his hips slightly. "I don't think you meant it."

Shiro glanced at the stacked pile of his clothing, and then at Lance, in the process of shimmying out of his borrowed clothes, and without preamble dumped the rest of it off the bed. "Oh, yeah," Lance said with a smirk as Shiro climbed on the bed with him. "I knew it."

#

Shiro woke in the morning with his arm over Lance's chest and face nestled against the back of his neck. He blinked sleepily, but Lance didn't stir, the rise and fall of his chest soft and consistent. He smelled like the ocean, warm and with a hint of salt, and Shiro stared thoughtfully at the mop of brown hair that mostly obscured his vision.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually woken up in the same bed with someone, safe and secure.

Keith nudging Shiro with his nose, the rain falling heavier outside. "We have to go, now."

Shiro didn't feel like moving just yet, and if he was on the schedule to work today it would be for the night shift if anything at all, so he closed his eyes against Lance's head and thought of how nice this was. Lance wasn't smarting off to him, and they were just together in this moment, warm and comfortable. Once Lance woke, though ... he knew that would change.

So he'd accidentally married a selkie. So what? There were plenty worse things that had happened to him by far, this didn't even rank. Besides, his selkie was handsome and exactly his type, the sex was fantastic, and the only downside were the three sets of remains left at the base of the cliff.

If they were lucky, everything would vanish into the maw of the ocean, devoured by predators and scavengers. If they were lucky, anything left would wash ashore much farther north or south and leave this cozy little cove unnoticed by hunters entirely. If they were lucky, nothing would come of yesterday, and Shiro would be worrying for nothing.

He should really know better by now than to wish for 'lucky.'

Lance rolled over in his arms, eyes still closed. "Mmngh, warm," he murmured, tucking his face against Shiro's chest. Shiro lifted his arm the moment Lance started to move, and smiled despite himself when Lance curled in close, seeking warmth and comfort. He stroked his fingers down Lance's back and felt him shiver, and then Lance blearily cracked an eye open. "What time is it?"

"Dunno. Early." He continued to run his fingers down Lance's spine, feeling the bumps of his vertebrae under his skin. "Sun's up."

Lance made the same noise again and squeezed his eyes shut. "Seals are nocturnal," he muttered, and wrapped his arms around Shiro.

Shiro laughed and nuzzled his head against Lance's. "They are not," he said, and Lance groaned.

"Do we really have to get up?"

"No." Both of Shiro's hands ran down Lance's back now, and settled firmly on the rise of his ass. He kneaded Lance's butt, felt the way he squirmed and that his legs started to part already, one leg hooking over Shiro's thigh. "But I'm up," Shiro murmured into his ear, and Lance shuddered and let out a small, breathy noise as Shiro ran his fingers over Lance's hole.

" You're up," Lance repeated, and there would have been a teasing lilt to his voice if it hadn't gone breathless. He seemed intent on pressing his body to Shiro's, and their naked cocks touching sent small tremors of electricity through Shiro's nerves. "I can tell."

They didn't speak much more, Lance tilting his head up for a good-morning kiss as Shiro tugged him slightly up the bed. His leg dragged up over Shiro's thigh until it was situated over his hip, and Shiro's cock nudged at his hole. He was still wet there, slightly loose from the sex before they slept, and there was only a little resistance when Shiro pushed in.

Lance looped his arm over Shiro's neck and tilted his head back, eyes gone closed and mouth slightly open as Shiro slowly, slowly filled him. He crawled, because Lance wasn't as loose as he thought but the sensation was intense, and when he finally bottomed out Lance came gasping between them. "That was all it took, hm?" Shiro murmured, stroking Lance's softening cock.

" Fuck ," Lance sobbed, unable to form any other thoughts.

Shiro could agree but didn't speak, fucking him slowly on his side. He kept his hands on Lance's hips, and kept his pace lazy and sedate. The friction was wonderful , and the sunlight creeping in through the small window above his bed caught the dust motes in the air above Lance; the entire thing felt magical in a way he'd never experienced before.

By the time his body started twitching and complaining and demanding to come, Lance had started to recover, stroking his own dick between them loosely, eyes still closed tight, head tilted in toward Shiro. Shiro took that expression to mean that Lance desired more, and without speaking he rolled them, pushing Lance down underneath him and resuming his tortuous, slow pace for a moment while Lance's eyes rolled back into his head. Once he was certain that Lance had adjusted to their changed angle he sped up his thrusts, pounding down into Lance and making the box spring squeak and Lance shudder with every impact of his cock.

Shiro was so enthralled, he almost forgot about his knot.

The bulge caught at Lance's rim and the tug of it made Lance shudder and moan, and the pressure on his sensitive gland brought Shiro back to reality fast. He thrust in deep again but this time pulled out, feeling the pop and Lance's shudder behind his navel. "No, no ," Lance was distraught, hands flailing for Shiro's thighs, "inside, I want you inside- " and Shiro relented, re-entered, but didn't go deep enough for his knot to sink in. He was so close.

Shiro's orgasm fizzled white-hot, as he emptied himself inside. Lance rose up slightly off the bed, pumping his own cock and moaning, his other hand digging into Shiro's skin and leaving behind perfect half-moon punctures along the muscle of his thigh.

He hung over Lance, panting, held up on his right arm - the prosthetic was locked rigid at the elbow and was the only thing keeping him upright. Lance slid off Shiro's cock with a wet pop, dropping to the mattress beneath him, chest heaving and sweat shining on his skin and in his hair.

"Holy shit ," Lance whispered, and covered his face with one arm, the other still gripping his limp dick. "Holy shit. "

"You okay?" Shiro croaked, wetting his dry lips.

"No," Lance said, gasped. He twitched and raised his ass, where some white fluid was streaked along his inner thighs. "Yes. Holy shit. "

"Will you die if I leave you here and take the first shower?" Shiro asked, taking Lance's chin in his hand and running his thumb over Lance's bottom lip. Lance shook his head wordlessly, and then closed his eyes when Shiro kissed him again. "You know," Shiro said thoughtfully, "I could get used to this whole husband thing."

Lance smacked his chest with both hands and, laughing, Shiro pushed off him to stagger on weak knees toward the bathroom.

#

There wasn't a lot of hot water in the tank, so Shiro's shower was short and effective. He thought of nothing but the water hitting his skin, washing his hair, and when he stepped out from under the spray he scrubbed his head dry with one of the clean towels and stared at himself in the steam-coated mirror for a minute.

He'd let his hair go wild in the two years since he'd escaped, and the long dark hair and two day's worth of scruff really made him look like a hobo. Shiro scratched his jaw and pulled back his hair with one hand, tying it back. Then he ran the sink to shave.

Shiro was mostly through when he heard someone knocking at the front door, and froze.

He didn't get unexpected visitors. Matt vaguely knew where he lived, but he'd never been here; and the only other person who knew the cabin's exact location was Keith, already gone and off to his next mission. Shiro slung the towel over his shoulder, patting his face dry only to see that the bed where he'd left Lance fucked out was empty, and that the knocking had stopped.

Oh, no.

He rushed through the bedroom in time to see Lance opening the front door, naked as a jaybird and with Shiro's cum still leaking down his thighs. "Lance," Shiro barked, but Lance didn't look over at him, scowling instead at whoever was beyond the door.

"What do you want?" Lance asked, as Shiro crossed the room he heard a familiar, confused voice on the other side of the door.

"And who the fuck are you? " Keith demanded harshly, before his eyes lit on Shiro and went wide.

Well shit.