The story of us (Shance Fluff Week 17/18)

Flutter eyelash on my cheek, between the sheets (2018 Day 1: Memories/Dreams)

It was twenty to two in the morning, and Shiro was awake.

He wasn't uncomfortably awake though, like some nights where tiredness stung and buzzed behind his eyes like hornets. Or the nights when he tossed and turned, and had to leave the bedroom before he woke Lance up.
Instead, he woke up weirdly comfortable, warm and supported, with Lance snuggled lazily into his side as he muttered in his sleep.
Sure, he couldn't move much - Lance was practically stuck to him, with his arms locked around his middle haphazardly - but it wasn't like he was trapped. Truth be told, he didn't remember Lance coming to bed last night; Coran had sent him to bed early after several nights without sleep, and his hazy memories of Lance joining him extended to a press of lips to his forehead and a dip of the mattress next to him.

It wasn't even like he wanted to move, even though he knew he should. He should've be doing something productive with the time, planning tactics or looking over armour upgrades or something-
But he was cosy, warm, safe.

An odd feeling.

"Hmm," he heard Lance groan next to him, and he rolled in his arms so that they were practically face to face, "Sh'ro?"

"I'm here," he replied quietly, running a hand through Lance's hair as the tension melted from the sleeping paladin's face, "I'm here, don't worry."
Lance shifted, crinkling the blanket around their legs as he rearranged his feet, and he snuggled further in, practically burying his nose in Shiro's sleep shirt. "St'p singin'."

Stop singing?

Shiro snorted quietly and moved his hand from Lance's nape to his cheek, careful as not to disturb the Paladin tossed across him. Lance didn't dream often, or at least, not usually as vividly as he appeared to be.

At least it wasn't a nightmare.

Most of the dreams they had, or at least since the war got bad, were less than stellar. Lance didn't like to admit it, didn't like to admit the images that ran across his eyelids most nights, but Shiro knew he suffered worse than he let on.
Sometimes he'd talk about them, and describe how Galra leaders would leer and glare, yellow eyes flashing in a blood-soaked darkness, edging closer and closer as shots just glanced off their chest plates. Sometimes the team would be there, sometimes they wouldn't, but the times when Lance had to describe their injuries in some attempt at scourging the images from his mind were the worst.
There have been times when he's held Lance at godforsaken hours in the morning, shaking and screaming and sobbing, unable to take breath properly as he whispered a familiar mantra into the empty air.

The reverse was also true though, and Shiro couldn't count the times that Lance had run hands through his hair and wiped tears from his face with calloused thumbs after a flashback to the arena, how many times he's shouted himself hoarse at the shadows in the corners of the room.
Lance was there for every single one.

So, it was a relief to see him happy, mumbling through snores with a dopey grin settling on his face. It was also stupid how pretty he looked, how relaxed he was in this moment, asleep in the light blue tint of the room.
It almost didn't seem real.
But then again-

At some point, whilst Shiro was lost in his thoughts, Lance had started humming.

It wasn't particularly loud or anything, more the broken whisper of notes through silence as he felt Lance hum against his chest. Unfortunately, it wasn't a tune he recognised; probably one from his home, sung to a rumbling harmony of crashing ocean waves and the buzz of tourists outside the window.
Judging by the warm smile that drifted over Lance's face as Shiro mirrored the tune as best he could, he wasn't far off.

Then another snore cut through the quiet, harsh and snapped, before Lance's eyes fluttered open, catching Shiro's in a brief moment of alertness before falling open half-lidded.
Time seemed to stop in that moment, as Shiro brushed a section of sleep-matted hair away from his face to see blue, shadowed but still glittering in the barely-there light.
Shiro decided he could drown in blue, and love it.