A/N: I've just read Atonement again so this is heavily, heavily inspired. I'm just trying to keep my prose in shape over the summer.

Chapter 3. Heatwave

When the thermostat malfunctions, they're halfway out of the orbit of a bright burning star, and suddenly they're running far too hot. Pidge says they're sitting at approximately ninety-seven degrees fahrenheit—whatever that means. It's much too warm for Allura to fully wrap her head around what the young paladin is saying, can only really comprehend that it's hot, and that it'll take a couple of day cycles to rectify.

In the meantime, everyone strips down to the bare essentials: boxers and undershirts, t-shirts and shorts—everyone except Allura, that is. Allura was of the opinion that hot weather encouraged loose clothing, and loose clothing encouraged even looser morals. Coran had already chastised Lance for hanging out in front of the open fridge, and she'd caught Pidge and Hunk filling the tubs with cold water rather than working on rebooting the system. Even Shiro seemed to succumb to the hot weather, ditching his usual long-sleeved uniform for a tank top and jeans. Allura ignores the slight abandonment she feels by this simple act. Besides, earthling beachwear was a style of dress unbecoming for a princess. She'd rather stick to her regular formal attire, thank you very much.

But the heat is oppressive and unrelenting, unforgiving of her efforts to maintain some semblance of normalcy through her long skirts, full bodice, and cape. Sweat collects anywhere and everywhere, the small of her back, her brow, it slides from her armpits down her sides. Her hair is a mess, the humidity doing it no favors as it simultaneously frizzes and sticks to her scalp.

"What are you trying to prove?" goads Lance at dinnertime. "Or hide?" he says with teasingly raised eyebrows.

"Yeah, Princess. Where's the harm in letting your hair down for a few days?" adds Pidge.

"I am trying to maintain some sort of decency around here," Allura snaps back, more at Lance than at Pidge. "The heat is no excuse for us to abandon our normal routines."

Across the table she feels Shiro's eyes on her and the knowledge inspires some sort of determination in her. She returns his gaze with twice as much intensity, willing him to look away. But his eyes lack the challenge she anticipated, are innocent in their presumption and hold a certain curiosity at best. Allura feels her earlier resolution dissolve into self-consciousness, and it is all she can do to sequester the blush she feels at the tips of her ears from spreading to her cheeks.

"Do you have something to add?" she salvages her dignity by going on the offensive. If he's going to stare, she won't let it go entirely unpunished. But to her disappointment, he doesn't bite back, choosing to side with her and address the rest of the team instead.

"The Princess is right," Shiro says, his agreement catching her off guard. "We can't forget our responsibilities just because we're in a heat wave. We have to remain alert."

His gaze leaves her, and she finds she misses it as soon as it's gone. Allura shifts in her seat, curtly wipes away a bead of sweat falling from her temple. Her reactions to his attention as of late annoy her. For in truth things had been different since even before they entered this heatwave. Ever since they returned from their last mission, interactions between the two of them had been strangely… formal. He no longer spoke with her outside of meals and then only in regards to paladin business. The other day she'd been down at the gym practicing her sparring when he'd come down for a workout of his own; he'd begun to warm up but then for whatever reason, thought better of it and rather than share the space with her, up and left. This new distance between them wounds her and she resents him for it. If he wants to reduce their relationship to pure formalities, so be it. Two can play at this game.

But now here he is with the audacity to agree with her! After weeks of keeping her at a distance he extends an olive branch and expects her to take it? Please, she's much too proud. Another bead of sweat began to fall from her temple, but she decided that dabbing it away with her napkin would signal some sign of weakness and so she resisted the urge. Between Shiro and this heat Allura has had quite enough. Making a show of finishing off her drink she stands.

"I'm headed off to bed," she announces before making her exit. She feels his eyes, once more, trained on her as she leaves.

. . . . .

Shiro let the cool water of the shower pound against his chest and face, washes off the scourge of the day. She'd been so angry with him at dinner, he could tell. And why wouldn't she be? For in truth, he had been avoiding her over the past couple of weeks. Something had changed after that last mission. He didn't know what. Only that he had realized that he was undeniably attracted to her and had been for weeks without knowing it himself. His desire frightens him. He was her paladin, her friend, and such attraction felt like a betrayal of that trust they had already built. And underneath it all was still the question of position: who is he to want a princess? It was unbecoming, it was naive, there was too much at risk. His desire would surely tear them all apart.

Shiro inhales, the muscles below his stomach tightening as he thinks of that day down at the training room when he'd walked in on her sparring— her chest rising and falling with each breath, and that suit that clung to her body, worshipping every curve of her hips and thighs. He'd had to leave, forgo his workout that day for fear she'd pick up on his longing. But in his loneliness he returns to the memory, back to her body in that suit, and enters again the fantasy in which he doesn't leave the gym but stays and presses her body into the floor, peels that suit from her skin, and kisses his way up her thighs, his tongue sweeping across dark skin as she whispers his name.

Groaning, Shiro forces his eyes open and turns the water to the coldest setting.

. . . . .

In the privacy of her own chambers, Allura lies in bed dressed down to a pair of shorts and a tank top. She guiltily enjoys the cool relief brought on by the escape from her formal robes, her mind clearing the longer she spends reclined upon her sheets. She was perhaps too harsh at dinner. Allura sighs. That means she'll have to apologize— to everyone. Lance and Pidge can wait until tomorrow, but Shiro… she's not sure where to even begin. Her ego assures her that an apology from her isn't warranted until he apologizes first, and yet her diplomatic sensibilities encourage otherwise. With another sigh, Allura rises and gets dressed. She slips back into her formal robes and lets her hair fall from her bun around her shoulders before heading out.

Shuffling uncomfortably, she raps three times at his door. She'll apologize for dinner, finally get to the bottom of the nonsense that's been going on over the past couple weeks between them, and leave. The plan is set and she's determined to achieve it—she's never been one to abandon aspirations or goals before they've reached fruition. But then the door opens, and she's faced with a bare chest and Shiro's rapidly reddening face.

"Allura— Princess!"

"I'm so sorry. I didn't know you'd be— I can come back."

"No, you're fine. Just, um, just give me a second."

The door shuts again and Allura releases the breath she didn't realize she was holding. Her cheeks and ears burn as she fails to stop herself from thinking about the beads of water dripping from his hair down his neck, his arms and chest thick like mountain ranges, and the muscle of v pointing downwards… It is with horror that she realizes that the heat burning her cheeks belongs less to embarrassment than it does to desire when the door opens once more. Allura quickly straightens up, composing herself.

"Sorry about that," Shiro says, now fully clothed.

"It's quite all right," Allura quickly responds. They stand in uncomfortable silence for a moment before she speaks again. "May I come in?"

"Yes. Of course. Please come in."

His room is just as neat as she expected it to be—the floor spotless, the walls bare save fot a mirror across from his bed. Something about it makes her just the slightest bit sad. She spots the shower door, still wet, and his damp towel hanging out to dry on a chair, and the idea of him naked not too long ago in the space that she now stands makes her robes feel tight and hot.

Shiro takes a seat on his made bed, looking up at her expectantly. "So how can I help you, Princess?"

Remembering herself, Allura returns to the words rehearsed in her head from the time she left her room to the time she arrived at his door. "I came to apologize for my inconsiderate behavior at dinner. Snapping like that was completely unwarranted and for that I am sorry."

He shakes his head. "You did nothing wrong." And then, "Are you sure there isn't anything else?"

Allura bites her lip, feels the heat rising to her face once more. She hadn't anticipated his eager agreement, hadn't anticipated him asking such a leading question. She had planned to confront him about his distant behavior, hadn't foreseen him walking her straight into it. Her composure begins to loosen as her mouth goes dry. Exasperated, she speaks: "It's just that the past few weeks have been so strange, and then tonight at dinner I don't know what came over me. Things have just been so different between us and I was so angry with you for it—it must be the heat, the close quarters. I just don't know."

Guiltily, he looks away. "I think you're right. You're right. Things have been different."

"You've been avoiding me."

He nods. "I've been avoiding you. And I know that I shouldn't. It's just that I don't know what else to do."

Despite his words, Allura feels herself draw closer to him. And she suspects that the force that draws her closer to him is the same force that brings him to his feet before her.

"I don't understand," she says.

Something rises in her chest and she wishes he would just look at her. But when he does, there's something in his eyes that she doesn't entirely recognize, doesn't entirely understand. "The truth is that you make me feel lightheaded," he finally says, "and I don't think I can rightfully blame the heat."

"What are you saying?" she whispers back.

"Princess…" his voice strains, "Allura. Surely you must know."

And she thinks back to that moment on dinner, with his eyes on her, that moment in the gym. The formality of these moments transforms into newly recognized self-consciousness. She thinks back to her own attentiveness to his presence and absence, her own flustered state. How could she have been such a fool this entire time?

"Yes, I think I know exactly."

The kiss feels so inevitable, like gravity, like dying stars. His hands are on her body and her hands are in his hair, the both of them burning hot and bright. Allura sighs into his embrace, becoming soft against his touch. And days later when she thinks back to this moment she'll wonder how it was two fools found each other and thank her lucky stars they did.

Shiro groans against her lips, his arms pulling her closer. His tongue slips into her mouth and he ignores the beads of sweat collecting at his temple. Losing himself in her, he grinds his hips against hers and she moans, and, their kiss broken, her lips find his neck where she playfully bites and nips. Her hips buck against his, and carefully, he swings her up onto the bed where he pins her beneath his kneeling figure. Whipping off his shirt, his eyes meet hers.

She's beautiful with her hair billowing around her head like sun flares from a star, and the quick yet gentle rise and fall of her breasts with each breath. She looks up at him curiously, her bottom lip caught between her teeth in a sort of half smile. And Shiro blushes as he feels her take his body in, eyes traveling from the curves of his shoulders to the hard muscle of his torso and down. A hand reaches out to stroke his length through the fabric of his pants. Shiro inhales.

"What are you waiting for?" she whispers to him.

There's so much fabric involved in her robes that he needs her assistance untangling her from them. But when she's finally free from it all Shiro kisses her stomach, her breasts, her mouth again before dragging her to the edge of the bed. He drags his tongue up and down the insides of her thighs, revels at the tiny gasp she gives, before he takes the tip of his tongue and touches it to her center. Shiro takes his time, tasting her slow and easy. He alternates between kisses and licks to her clit, his Galran arm reaching up to caress one of her breasts. And when she cries for more, he slips two fingers inside her, bringing her to a crescendoing climax. But even as her breath heaves and shudders, he doesn't stop, his tongue and his fingers working together to draw moan after moan, orgasm after shaking orgasm from her body.

"Shiro," Allura calls his name. "Please."

Pressing one last kiss to her pulsing clit, Shiro stands, unzipping his pants and freeing his orgasm. He feels the princesses eyes take him in, and his arousal grows deeper in his stomach. Looking to her for assurance, he pulls her to the edge of the bed towards his standing frame. His moan is stifled by her own cry as he enters her, and in the pause that follows his eyes meet hers. In that split second, he remembers who she is, who he is, and what they're doing, and a certain shyness returns. Who is he to love a princess? The entire universe feels as if it's at stake between their sheets. But inhibitions will be the death of this, and so Shiro tries to forget and think only of her.

Sweat collects at the small of his back, rolls down his chest, as he rolls his hips back and forth. Her soft moans encourage him as one hand rests on her inner thigh and the other works her clit. Her hands find purchase in the sheets, on his forearm, anywhere they can and when she comes again it takes everything in his power not to follow. The flick of a wrist folding laundry, dirty dishes in a sink—he thinks of the mundane, the unassuming, anything to keep his orgasm at bay.

She whispers something about wanting to get on top and Shiro obliges, happy to take a break from doing the work in all this heat. He hops into bed, laying on his black as she climbs onto him, swearing in Altean as she slides down onto his stiff length. And then she begins to move above him, and he is mesmerized by the sway of her hips as they twist and swing to and fro. At one point he turns his head to the side and catches a sight of the two of them in the mirror: her arched back, her cascading hair, her parted lips—it is so easy to get lost in her. Shiro squeezes her ass and holds on for dear life.

His orgasm approaches gradually, and he uses his thumb on her clit again to make her come with him. And as she careens into another orgasm, it's as if he's fast approaching a cliffside, his stomach tightening and his breath getting shorter and shorter before he spirals downward. "Oh, god, Allura" he says through clenched teeth. With a groan, he thrusts up, spilling into her as he falls.

Spent, she collapses into bed with him, half laughing as she does. She presses a soft kiss to his cheek before rolling off of him.

Just then, machinery begins to rev as the air starts up again. The both of them look around the room, bewildered. Allura turns to Shiro and smiles.

"Shall we go again?" she asks. Shiro is happy to oblige.