[fic] VLD - Tangled Up In You

[lysapadin]

Title: Tangled Up In You

Characters/Pairings: Original Alien Character/Shiro

Summary: While on a diplomatic mission, Shiro receives an offer for a more intimate cultural liaison than he was expecting. But he's not complaining.

Notes: Written for the xeno zine Discovery last year, well before canon had decided where it was going with the whole Shiro situation. Not canon compliant, adult for smut of the enthusiastic consentacles variety, 3906 words.

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Tangled up in You

When Shiro hears the door chime, his first impulse is to ignore it—maybe pass it off in the morning by saying he'd already fallen asleep and hadn't heard it.

Then he dismisses the impulse for the stupid idea it is. He's a paladin of Voltron, heading up a diplomatic mission. Not only would ignoring the summons at his door be the height of rudeness if the being on the other side is one of their Eltorian hosts, this is a Voltron mission. It's not a question of whether things will go wrong, it's a matter of when, how badly, and how many Galra capital ships will be involved when it does.

He does allow himself the luxury of grinding his palms against his eyes until he sees stars, rolling his shoulders, and groaning before he arranges his expression in a warm, friendly, speaking-to-the-press smile and going to answer the door.

Their Eltorian attaché, Llior, flattens the tips of two of xer arm-like appendages (tentacles, they're tentacles, whispers a corner of Shiro's brain, even after several days of diplomatic talks) in front of xer chest and leans forward in a bow. "Paladin Shirogane, thank you for permitting this one to disrupt your evening repose."

Shiro returns the bow, reminded once again of home—home-home, not the Garrison—though the similarity hardly aches at all at this point. "Not at all, Secretary Llior. How may I be of assistance to you?"

Llior tilts xer head forward. "This one wishes to speak with you of things private in nature."

Xe would not do anything so crass as request entry to his room, but the hint is broad. "Please, won't you come in?" Shiro steps aside to usher Llior in, already turning over the possibilities. Clearly this isn't due to an emergency, and it's far past the hours the Eltorians devote to social affairs. The Eltorians use their language precisely, and they haven't demonstrated any tendency towards meanings-within-meanings, so it seems unlikely that Llior is here to discuss Eltor's potential role in the federation of liberated systems that they're trying to build. "May I offer you refreshment?"

Llior fans xer arms out; they ripple like grass in a breeze, the Eltorian equivalent of a laugh. "Indeed, Paladin Shirogane, that is what this one has come to offer you."

He's missing something. Within this space, he is the host and by rights must offer food and drink to his guest. Shiro turns his hands up at the tall, willowy Eltorian. "Forgive me for being obtuse, Secretary Llior, but I do not follow your meaning in this."

Llior ripples xer arms again, but xe also mimics a smile, the combination that Shiro has concluded means that the Eltorians are inviting him to enjoy some joke. "Indeed, Paladin Shirogane. This one cannot help but notice that you experience great stress as a paladin of Voltron, and that you are separate from you fellow paladins. It is ever thus with those who must lead." Xe brings xer arms in, curling them close against the long, draping lines of xer robes as xe does whenever pointing out some regrettable necessity or another during negotiations.

Shiro does what he can to keep his expression calm, but the observation hits too close to home, if not for the reason Llior cites. There is distance between him and the rest of the team, a period of several months of trying to make his way back to them, only to find that slipping back into his former role was no simple thing. They'd all had to grow and change while he'd been gone. God, Shiro is so proud of them for how they've grown into themselves, but none of them have quite figured out how to navigate those changes with him yet. And none of that even touches the matter of his new "twin brother" or the unsettling possibility that there are more clones like Ryou out there.

He tries to keep his expression even, but Llior is watching him closely. Xe curls xer arms even more tightly against xer body, tightly enough that some of them disappear beneath xer fluttering robes. "Forgive this one's clumsiness of expression, Paladin Shirogane." Xe fidgets a pair of arms together, twisting them around and around each other. "This one does not mean to bring you discomfort and mentions this only to explain. There is a distance, but your species is not meant for such distances. This one respects and admires you, and desires to ameliorate the situation, if you will permit such a thing to occur."

It's late and Shiro is tired, so it takes him longer to untangle the formal Eltorian syntax enough to realize that Llior thinks he's lonely. Which—Llior's not wrong, exactly, but Shiro doesn't see what xe proposes to do about it. Certainly the prospect of entertaining xer sounds more exhausting than comforting. "It's very kind of you to offer your time, Secretary Llior, but I must be ungracious enough to decline your company this evening. Perhaps we could enjoy each other's company at some more suitable time?"

Llior presses a double pair of arms together, flattening and relaxing the ends of them several times before speaking. "This one was under the impression that your species also found late evenings to be the most convenable time for sharing such companionship as this."

Such companionship as this…? That can't mean what Shiro thinks it means. And he is far too tired for this. He grips the bridge of his nose briefly before looking at Llior again. "Secretary Llior, permit me to be very blunt: what, exactly, are you offering me, here?"

Llior likely wouldn't be serving as their attaché if xe weren't willing to accommodate the less-refined manners of other species; xe barely reacts to the outright rudeness Shiro has just shown xer. Shiro thinks xe might even be relieved by it. "This one is offering physical intimacy, Paladin Shirogane."

Okay. So Llior really did mean that to sound the way it did.

Llior continues before Shiro can even start to figure out how to deal with this. Xe takes a step forward, close enough that xe can stretch out two arms and rest the ends of them on Shiro's shoulders, the weight barely perceptible through his armor. "Please allow this one to speak further, Paladin Shirogane." Xe inclines forward, stooping to meet him eye to eye. "This one speaks as a private citizen; whatever comes of this conversation shall have no bearing on what may happen between this one's people and the paladins of Voltron. This one merely sees that there is one who goes wanting and alone, and would do what is possible to bring comfort, if permitted." Llior somehow manages to look shy, though Shiro has no idea how xe is managing to do it. "This one thinks very highly of you. To be permitted to share pleasure with you would bring this one much happiness."

Shiro meets Llior's eyes—opalescent and pupilless, no longer as disconcerting as they were at the beginning of negotiations—and tries to think of how to say I'm very flattered, but—

The proper words don't seem to want to come together. "I—it's really not that bad, you know."

"This one is pleased to hear it," Llior says gravely.

"Really, it's not—" God knows who he's trying to convince, Llior or himself, but Shiro stops himself before he can get too far down that road. "Do I really seem that bad off?"

"This one has been placed in close proximity for several cycles and has watched very closely. Such circumstances permit this one to see more clearly than others might." Llior stretches out another arm and touches it to Shiro's cheek, barely grazing it. "That is why this one has come here to you tonight."

It's been—God, it's been a long, long time since he's been touched in anything but the most casual way. Shiro wets his lips, uncomfortably aware of an impulse to lean into Llior's touch. "It's been a while since I've done anything like this." So long that the fact that Llior is only roughly humanoid and has a profusion of tentacles rather than arms and hands doesn't bother him the way he thinks it probably should. God.

Llior squeezes his shoulders. "Then please permit this one to make up for that."

Shiro takes a deep breath. What the hell? "Yeah," he says. "Okay."

Llior smiles (chooses to smile, even though the Eltorians don't express themselves much through facial expressions). "This one thanks you."

This is a thing Shiro is doing: he's following a seven-foot-tall alien with ten undulating tentacles where xer arms should be into his bedroom. He's following Llior into the bedroom and unfastening the cuirass of his armor and allowing Llior to lift it off his shoulders to set aside, is unfastening his gauntlets and then his belt as Llior crouches to unfasten the greaves and take them off as well. For a species without hands, let alone opposable thumbs, Eltorians are very deft, Shiro thinks, choosing to focus on that rather than the fact that he's about to choose to be naked with someone else for the first time since before Kerberos.

Llior rises from xer crouch. Instead of reaching for Shiro's flight suit, xe touches the clasps at xer shoulders. Xer robes slip off, sliding down xer body, and puddle in a billow of silky cloth around xer feet.

Shiro stares—knows he's staring—and can't manage to stop himself. Llior's body is slender, very nearly attenuated by human standards, but somehow the inhumanly long torso and legs and the profusion of arms that flow from xer shoulders form an aesthetically pleasing whole. It isn't a human kind of beauty, but that doesn't mean xe isn't beautiful.

Xe fidgets a pair of arms together. "Is this one pleasing, Paladin Shirogane?"

"Very pleasing." His voice comes out unexpectedly hoarse. He glances up at Llior and reaches out a hand to circle his fingers around the end of one of xer arms. Xer skin is warm under his fingers, buttery-soft to the touch. "I don't know how to give you pleasure." He gestures to Llior's groin, or what would be xer groin if xe had any genitalia. "We're not equipped the same way."

"May this one see?" Llior asks, gentle, even as xe coils the end of xer arm around his hand, stroking the tip of it over his palm.

Shiro draws a breath and nods. "Yes."

Llior continues to hold his hand even as xe reaches for his flight suit, finding the invisible seams and stroking them open, carefully easing it off him. Shiro feels his face going hot, but xe doesn't seem to see anything remarkable in the mess of scars covering his body. Xe does take a step closer to him, bringing xerself near enough that Shiro could put his arms around xer waist. "This is your human… equipment?" xe says, gesturing at his cock and pronouncing equipment carefully. "Is that correct?"

"Sort of," Shiro says. "This is one variation that humans can have."

"You have variations?" Llior leans closer, stretching out an arm as if to touch before xe stops. "That is fascinating."

"It's okay if you want to touch," Shiro says, since he's not at all prepared to get into a discussion of comparative anatomy this late at night.

Llior gives him another smile, shy and fleeting. ''This one does want." Xe stretches xer arms out—Jesus, Eltorians are built for touching, what with all those arms. Xe wraps some around his torso, flattening the ends against his skin and stroking it, and traces the tip of another over the line of his cock, and stretches still others down to run them over his thighs and along his arms.

It's a lot of contact all at once; Shiro gasps, shocked, and Llior stills instantly. "Is everything well, Paladin Shirogane?"

Shiro doesn't know that he'd recognize well if it was staring him in the face these days, but that's hardly something he can say to Llior. "I'm all right." He can hear how unsteady his own voice is. "It's good. It's just—a lot. And it's been… it's been a really long time." Long enough to have forgotten what skin on skin feels like, long enough that being all wrapped up in Llior's arms has him dizzy.

"This one apologizes for being so hasty." Llior brushes the tip of one arm against his cheek.

"You don't need to apologize. It really is good." He turns his face, following after Llior's touch so he can brush his lips over xer arm. Llior flicks the tip of xer arm away from his mouth, clearly startled, and it's Shiro's turn to apologize. "I'm sorry, I was—does your species not use your mouths for intimacy?"

He can feel a ripple move down the arms Llior has wound around him. "It is not… customary, though this one believes it is not unheard of."

Oh. Shiro's managed to hit on some sort of Eltorian perversion. Is it worth pointing out that going to bed with an alien with tentacles for arms would definitely count as a human perversion?

Llior takes the question out of his hands by stretching that arm out again, touching the tip of it to Shiro's lips. "It was not… unpleasant."

"It shouldn't be unpleasant," Shiro tells xer, lips brushing against the softness of xer skin; he feels another shiver work through Llior's arms and sees xer eyes close a bit. He takes a gamble and parts his lips as he leans forward, drawing xer arm into his mouth and stroking the flat of his tongue against it. Xer skin tastes like the spicy-sweet bathing oils the Eltorians seem to favor, and xer eyelids drop a little further.

"Paladin Shirogane…" Xe strokes xer arms against his chest, over his arms and legs, along his cock—Shiro groans around Llior, the uncertain coals of anticipation suddenly fanned to life with xer touch. Llior widens xer eyes as he starts to go hard. "Fascinating." Xe strokes him slowly, exploring the shape of him with teasingly soft touches. "Does this bring pleasure?"

Shiro has to let xer slip free of his mouth to answer. "Very much." Llior has him wrapped up pretty well, but he still has freedom of movement and can rest his hand against Llior's chest. "What brings you pleasure?"

"Touch," Llior murmurs. "Just as you are doing."

Come to think of it, the Eltorians haven't show a lot of physical demonstrativeness… but he's only seen them in public. In private, perhaps they tangle themselves up in one another like Llior has twined xerself around him.

This really isn't the time to be pondering abstract Eltorian customs; now is very much the time to enact concrete action. Shiro spreads the fingers of his Galra hand against Llior's chest, stroking xer, and slides his other hand over the length of an arm. Llior's eyes go heavy-lidded again, so Shiro keeps going, stroking his hands over the coiling flex of Llior's arms, warm under his palms and sleekly smooth over powerful muscle. Some are tougher than others, specialized for labor perhaps, while others are slender and evidently very sensitive, judging by the way Llior utters a sharp sound as Shiro sucks one of these into his mouth. Xe quivers from head to toe, arms moving restlessly over Shiro's skin, coiling around his cock and rippling around it.

Shiro groans and rolls his hips forward, fucking into xer grip—it's not like fucking another human, not like sucking someone's cock, but it's still good—good to fill his hands with the texture of a lover's skin, to feel Llior moving over his tongue, over his cock, as pleasure tightens low in his gut. It's going to be over too quickly—it feels like Llior is stroking every last bit of his skin, urging him along, and it's been far too long since Shiro's been intimate with even his own hand.

He comes, bucking against the arm coiled around his cock, throbbing with the way pleasure seizes on him, wringing him out. He sags against Llior's hold when it releases him, breathing hard, skin buzzing in the aftershocks.

Llior takes his weight easily and looks down on him. "Paladin Shirogane…?"

"Sorry." Shiro has to clear his throat of its rasp. "That was… faster than I expected it to be."

It figures that this is how one of them finally gets to see a disconcerted Eltorian. "Is this one to understand that you are already finished?"

"No… no." He's lightheaded, dopey with endorphins; Shiro suspects he's giving Llior a very silly smile. "I can keep going, it's just pretty easy to get off after a long dry spell." He catches one of Llior's slender, sensitive arms and slides his fingers over it. "We could probably lie down, though."

"That would be better," Llior agrees, right before xe scoops Shiro up and transfers him to the bed.

"God," Shiro breathes, higher thought temporarily short-circuited by how easily Llior just did that. He's never been the smaller bed partner, never the one a partner could lift and move at will. The response that pulses through him is visceral.

"Ah," Llior observes. "You are not finished after all." Xe runs an arm over his cock, already going hard after flagging for a moment.

Shiro shudders, rocking up against the touch, groaning as Llior toys with the head of him. "Llior… Llior, God…"

Llior stills briefly; xe glances at him, and the word that springs to Shiro's mind is quizzical. "This one must be bringing you much pleasure," xe says, rubbing the tip of xer arm back and forth. "This one is glad for that."

Shiro only groans, sliding restless hands over Llior's arms; when he can, he guides one to his mouth, one of the thick ones. It stretches his jaw and presses his tongue down, and it's so good he groans again, hoping Llior is enjoying xerself as much as he is. Xer eyes are heavy-lidded, gone darker, like the iridescence of polished shell; xe strokes xer arms over him, touching every part of him impartially—the inside of his wrist, the arches of his feet, the insides of his thighs. Xe cups his balls, handling them as Shiro groans around xer arm, and pauses when he spreads his legs, wanting more. "Paladin Shirogane…?" Xer voice has deepened, too, is warm like sunlight through honey.

Shiro pants as xe draws xer arm from between his lips. "You don't have to, not unless you want to, but do you want to fuck me?"

Llior hesitates. "This one does not know what you mean by that."

Right, of course xe doesn't.

Explaining anal sex to an alien while half out of his head on pleasure is not the most difficult thing Shiro has ever been called on to do as a paladin of Voltron, but it's right up there near the top of the list. Llior listens closely, evidently fascinated. "This one is willing to try if you desire it, Paladin Shirogane," xe concludes once Shiro has explained the mechanics. Xe stretches an arm to the panel over the bed, which hides a cupboard stocked with more things than Shiro knows the purposes of and selects a vial from among these. Xe offers it to Shiro to sample. "Will this do?"

It's an oil, something akin to the Eltorian bath oils, herbaceous. "It should be fine," Shiro decides. If not, well, he'll have some interesting conversations in his future.

Llior promptly upends the vial over a pair of arms and slides them under Shiro. He groans, arching against the stroke of xer arm, slender and pressing against him, tentative to start and then more firmly, breaching his body and sinking into him. "Oh," Llior says as Shiro groans. "This one didn't realize…" Xe doesn't finish the thought, is too busy stroking deeper. Xer arm doesn't feel like a cock, is too flexible and not hard enough, but it's still good.

Shiro cants his hips up and licks the tip of the nearest of xer arms. "You can do more," he says, encouraging, and then cries out as Llior takes him at his word and curls the arm inside him, hitting his prostate and setting off fireworks inside his skull. He clutches at Llior, who twines reassuringly around his grip, and cries out again as Llior moves, gaining confidence with each flex and the way Shiro groans for xer, until xe's fucking him steadily, driving into him with ruthless accuracy as he writhes and groans. Then xe remembers his cock and coils an arm around it.

Shiro's back comes off the bed as orgasm rakes through him again, lightning crawling over his nerves.

Llior hesitates and he catches an arm, pleading. "Don't stop—please don't stop, I want more."

Llior strokes an arm over his forehead. "This one will not stop until you are satisfied, Paladin Shirogane," xe assures him, sliding the slender arm out of him so xe can replace it with one of the thick, muscular arms.

The stretch is so fierce that Shiro can only gasp with it, rocking himself down on its girth as fresh sweat breaks out over his skin. Llior strokes his forehead and slips an arm between his lips, fucking him slowly, curling inside him until he groans, water standing in his eyes with how intense the fullness of it is, too much to be called pleasure but nothing he would stop, either.

Llior fucks him steadily, filling his mouth and ass, stroking his body and his cock, arms always moving, exploring every bit of him and never stopping. Shiro comes again—may come several more times; he loses track of that, can't focus on anything but the way sensation rolls through him, changing pitches when Llior switches one arm for another, sometimes filling him with a set of multiple slender arms or drawing a thick arm tight, as thick as it will go, and fucking him relentlessly, but the intensity never eases, not until xe pushes him over the edge one final time and Shiro blacks out.

It isn't for long—he doesn't think it's for long—but when he blinks his eyes open, Llior is dressed again and Shiro is beneath the blankets, clean and dry and warm. Llior is sitting beside him, stroking his hair. "Ah. This one sees that you are awake again."

It's funny that a species without hair would adopt the gesture of stroking his hair, but Shiro lets the thought move through him, unremarked. "That was… amazing. Thank you."

Llior ripples xer arms gently. "This one is pleased and honored to have shared intimacy with you, Paladin Shirogane."

That doesn't seem like enough, somehow. Shiro is utterly exhausted, but makes the effort to catch one of xer arms so he can kiss it, soft. "I'd be pleased and honored to share intimacy with you any time, Secretary Llior."

Llior touches his lips lightly. "You should repose yourself now, Paladin Shirogane." Before Shiro can do more than feel a brief sting of disappointment—what exactly was he expecting?—xe picks up his hand and stoops, touching xer mouth to his fingertips. "Perhaps you would permit this one to join you tomorrow evening?"

Shiro exhales and smiles. "Yes," he says. "Yes, I would like that very much."

end

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