Disclaimer: WEP owns Voltron. Song by Keith Urban (yes, he’s from Oz).
Raining on Sunday
It was a soft awakening, the kind where awareness slowly flows into your body and consciousness into your brain. A gentle, Sunday kind of waking, where you’ve been awake for a few minutes, but keep your eyes closed, half drowsing, because you know you can go back to sleep if you really want to. And you just have to smile, because it’s such a lazy, peaceful feeling, knowing that.
We definitely needed more wake-ups like that. I drifted in and out of dreams for untold hours, savoring the quiet and the pleasant warmth of the bed.
I must have finally caught up on all my missed sleep, because I lay there awake for a long time, just listening to the beat of the rain against the windows, one arm flung over Keith. When it was obvious I wasn’t going to fall back to sleep, I opened my eyes, and that smile stretched wide. Keith’s hair was wild about his face, tousled and tangled over his shoulders. He still slept, curled on his side, facing me, just inches away. And all I could think was, Good.
It had been a brutal week, it really had. Lotor and Haggar and Zarkon had been at us every damn day, ro-beast after ro-beast, with some fighters and Skull-ships for variety, until we were all so tired that it was a wonder we didn’t fall asleep at the controls of the Lions. I’m pretty sure that Allura did, yesterday after she landed; it was a long time before she returned to the Control Room. I know, because Keith insisted that he wait. Which meant I waited with him. He’s a great captain, and I love him dearly, but he just doesn’t know when to quit. He was almost asleep on his feet, and I had to practically carry him back to our room, but he still waited for her to arrive.
He was out before his head hit the pillow.
It looked as though he might have lost that exhausted gray pallor he’d had the past couple days. It was hard to tell, studying him in the faint, watery light from the windows, but I thought a bit of his usual golden color had come back to his face.
Thinking that, my smile slipped a little. While I’d bitched and complained like the rest of us on how hard it was to fight, day after day, I’d never understood before just how very difficult it was for Keith. He was our leader, and he felt that responsibility in his bones. But even beyond that, he took everything to heart. Everything. Every building destroyed, every acre of scorched and ruined countryside, most especially every innocent death . . . they wounded us all deeply, but only Keith felt as if he were personally to blame for each attack. It was something I’d seen before, but never really noticed until this past week.
Some lover I was.
Part of me wanted to wake him up and demand if he was all right. But the more sensible (me? sensible?) part decided that if he was still sleeping, he needed it. And underneath it all was a little voice, saying that he deserved the same kind of waking I’d had, that it would help heal him, somehow. I had grown used to listening to that voice, so I reined in the longing to just brush his cheek with my fingers. No matter how exhausted he was, I knew touching his face, however lightly, would jolt him right out of sleep.
What he really needed—even more than the rest of us—was a day where he didn’t have to think about ro-beasts and Doom and defending an entire planet, where he didn’t have to be the Captain of the Voltron Force. And just as easy as that, listening to the rain drumming on the castle, the idea struck me. I just had to keep him here. We hadn’t had a practice session all week, so I knew he’d want to have one today. I could probably convince him that training in a storm would be bad, and that the team had gotten in enough real fighting to make practice unnecessary today, maybe even for a few days. After that . . . Well, it wouldn’t be easy trying to keep him in bed all day . . .
As that thought wandered through my mind, I smiled again. But we were off to a pretty good start. The fact that we were allowed to sleep, that there hadn’t been an alarm blaring us awake was a good sign that Lotor had called it quits, at least for today.
And it’d sure be fun to try . . .
Keith stirred beside me, drawing my attention back in an instant, and I waited, as I always did, for my first glimpse of those expressive dark eyes.
Keith usually had the ability to become awake immediately, without the yawning and grumbling and sipping coffee that I had to go through. Not this time, though. He blinked sleepily at me, smiling slightly. I couldn’t resist, and gave in to the impulse I’d denied myself earlier. He closed his eyes again and made a sound like a purr, leaning into my caress.
I shuffled a bit closer and kissed him. Like waking up, it was slow and lingering, and somehow, it managed to be passionate without being demanding. I’d never known a kiss like that before. From the way he looked when I opened my eyes, he hadn’t either. So I shamelessly took advantage of his surprise and pulled him to me, not to kiss him, but just to hold him. I buried my nose in his hair, and was satisfied to breathe in his scent, because I’d be lying if I said that there hadn’t been times this week when I was afraid I’d never get to do this again.
He made another small sound, perhaps startled, but wrapped an arm around me in return and pressed close. It was a long time before either of us spoke.
“Sleep well?” I asked quietly.
Oh, no, none of that. “I have no idea,” was my cheerful reply.
He pulled away at that, and stared at me, eyes wide.
“And it doesn’t matter,” I continued, “because you are going to stay in bed with me all day.”
“I am?”
I nodded, taking heart from the way that he sounded confused rather than defiant, and hoping that he wasn’t going to object. “Yep. We’re gonna stay in bed all day and do nothing.”
“You think so?” Keith laughed, in disbelief, I knew, but the sound warmed my heart nonetheless. He made an effort to climb over me and get up. “You’re insatiable . . .”
I pushed him back down and pinned him by rolling on top of him. Looking into his eyes, in a tone as soft and serious as I could make it, I said, “This isn’t about sex, Keith. Not this time. This is just about you, and me making sure you relax. That’s all.” I bent and kissed him again. There was desire—there’s always desire in our kisses— but it wasn’t a “let’s get naked” kind of kiss. It was a . . . a kind of “I’m here and I always will be” kiss, for reassurance, as much to convince me of his safety as to tell him that I meant it.
He tensed for half a second, then gave in. His arms wound around me, one hand in my tangled hair, and I knew he wasn’t going to try to get away again. Or at least he wasn’t going to try too hard.
When I pulled away, he made one more half-hearted attempt to resist. “But . . . the reports . . . I’ve gotta . . .”
“The reports can wait,” I whispered against his lips. “They can sit there until tomorrow, or forever, for all I care.” He opened his mouth again, to protest, so with a little sigh, I said, “Tomorrow, love. I’ll even help you with them, if you really want . . . but that’s tomorrow. Right now . . . for all of today, we are going to do absolutely nothing.”
“What about . . .”
“Well,” I went on thoughtfully, “nothing productive, anyway.”
“But I . . .”
“If you get hungry, I’ll ask Nanny or one of the maids to bring up something, but we are not going to leave this room.” Then I grinned down at him. “Unless you want to go out and play in the rain.”
At last, Keith realized I wasn’t going to listen to any of his objections, and gave me a smile and a little mock sigh, settling back into the pillows. His eyes twinkled as he looked up at me.
“A day of rest, hmm?” He stretched his arms up over his head, flexing his shoulders until the joints popped, then wrapped them around my waist. “A strictly enforced, no-thinking-about-anything day with nothing to do.” He tried to look solemn and failed. “What if I go crazy?”
I snorted. “I would hardly think . . . eeeeeahh!” He grinned devilishly and kept tickling me, the imp, sitting up to chase me as I tried to squirm away.
“That’s right, love, you hardly think . . .” he snickered, getting me right under my short ribs, which had me convulsing with laughter.
Flailing helplessly, I managed to grab a pillow and began to buffet him with it, then, when he backed off, giggling, I retaliated, trying to attack the sensitive area behind his knees. He lost it, laughing and kicking. We tussled, wriggling around to tickle whatever we could reach. Bedclothes, pillows and feathers from the pillows went flying, as our laughter echoed.
It was some minutes before we managed to stop, both of us panting and grinning like idiots. In our wrestling, we’d shifted around on the bed, and I ended up lying crosswise, my feet in one corner by the headboard, my head at the corner opposite by the foot. Keith was on top of me, so I guess he won. Somehow, I had kept hold of a pillow, and tucked it absently beneath my head. He slid off me to curl up by my side again, his head resting on my shoulder, and I folded that arm around him loosely, fingertips just brushing his shoulder. An easy silence descended on us, and I thought, perhaps, we’d be able to just drift away again.
“Is it raining hard?” he asked after a while.
I blinked at the question, then tilted my head back for an upside-down glance at the windows. Water was pouring down the glass in rivers. “Yeah, it is. Why?”
He chuckled softly, and when I looked over at him again, he was grinning, contentment shining out from him fit to melt my heart. “Well,” he said, a bit shyly, his hand tracing lazy circles on my chest. “I thought that maybe, if you want . . . we could go out and play in the rain . . .”
I felt a smile spread slowly over my face.
***
January 23, 2003