So I wasn't actually planning to write Voltron fic, and I definitely didn't think my first one would be shippy, but here we are.

This is what happens when I think about Mad Max and Voltron at the same time. I'm a parody of myself at this point, tbh.

translation

There are words carved into his skin.

Most of them are in the twisting Galra script, though here and there she recognizes other languages, other forms of brutality. They litter his back and his chest and even his arms, weaving their way between the other scars. Burns and lacerations and the long, narrow lines left by edged weapons. The scars she'd been expecting.

She'd known exactly what she was going to say. She'd had it planned, so certain, so very certain. She would tell him he was beautiful, that the scars only enhanced that, because they showed that he had survived, that he was stronger than anything they'd done to him.

And he is beautiful. He is beautiful in spite of the horrible words that adorn his skin.

But that is not the same thing.

He's watching her unflinchingly, his jaw set and his arms spread away from his body, almost defiantly. She can't hold his gaze for long, but looking anywhere else is no better.

"What do they say?" he asks, and his voice cracks around the words.

"Shiro – "

She should have lied. She should have told him she couldn't read Galra, or that the script was too irregular, or – or something. But she didn't, and now the chance is gone. His eyes have narrowed and he's watching her in almost the same way he watches the gladiator on the training deck, his focus absolute and a banked fire in his eyes. His metal hand has straightened like a blade.

The gladiator, she thinks distantly. Why did she have to call it that? And why is she only thinking of that now?

"Please," he says, roughly, and she looks at him again, looks at the script that covers his skin.

The words are ugly: some vulgar and some violent, most of them both. She feels sick looking at them. She doesn't want to hear them aloud, not even in translation. She doesn't want to hear her own voice speaking them.

"Allura," he says. "I need to know."

"Why?" she asks, chokes really. He still doesn't flinch, and she knows she's lost.

"Because it's my body," he says, almost a snarl, darker and more vicious than she's ever heard him before. "Mine, not theirs."

The metal hand clenches once, then sharpens again. He never once looks away from her face.

"All right," she whispers around the ash in her throat.

She reads the words to him. First in Galra, and then the translation, because he's right, and he needs to know. His shoulders are stiff and his right hand is a knife, but he sits silently and perfectly still, and he never asks her to stop.

She kisses each word after she's read it, tells him it's not true, it's not him. Tells him he's beautiful, and strong, and free.

When it's over, when she's read all of the words and her throat is raw with them, he tips her chin up to face him again and smiles at her. It's a small smile, but it's genuine. "Thank you," he says, and kisses her, and she finally lets herself cry.