Title:  The Sinner in Me
Author:  Cheezey

Theme:  Doomite Fic

Characters/Pairings:  Lotor, Lotor/Allura

Album and Song: Depeche Mode – Playing the Angel; “The Sinner in Me”

Rating/Genre:  K+ / Drama, Romance

Summary:  Lotor thinks about that which always eludes him.
Author's Notes:  Even before I took on this challenge, this song made me think of Lotor pondering “going good” in order to win Allura’s love.

 

 

He stood in the darkened chamber, his eyes fixed on the portrait that hung upon the stone wall.  The canvas bore the image of a statuesque human blonde clad in a flowing blue gown.  From her regal pose she eyed all those who admired her with a warm, if not somewhat coy smile upon her scarlet lips.  Prince Lotor often spent a spare moment or two before that artwork; it was one of the few detailed likenesses of his mother that still remained in Castle Doom.  Actual photo or media images were rare and nearly all of the artwork in Castle Doom that included her had been destroyed years ago by his father, who refused to allow unwanted reminders of her in his presence.

 

However, Castle Doom was a huge fortress and even after all that time, Zarkon had yet to come across every single thing that might have offended him.  The painting was one such item, an overlooked piece he had discovered nearly two years prior not long after he returned to Doom after years of traveling and conquering for the empire.  Renovations were constantly going on in the castle, and when Lotor spied it amongst a pile of things cleaned out from a recently overhauled chamber, he retrieved it and had it hung in his suite immediately.  He had supposed at the time that his father must have never noticed it, given that it was earmarked for storage as opposed to the incinerator, and if he had anything to say about it, he never would, either.  Besides, Zarkon rarely ventured into Lotor’s chambers for more than a few minutes, and he only bothered then if he was angry enough to come looking for him personally rather than summon him.

 

It was not only because it was a rare and detailed depiction of the mother he could barely remember that Lotor was so fond of the painting, however.  In a more abstract sense, she represented to Lotor the ideal of a queen that he would one day have at his side—a beautiful and aristocratic woman to be admired from afar, one intelligent enough to earn his and the people’s respect, but compliant enough to never question or challenge his ultimate authority.  It was Lotor’s unquestioning belief that his beloved Allura, princess of Arus, was such a woman, and as a result he could easily superimpose her pretty face upon the image in the canvas.  It served as a focal point for his obsession, to possess that perfect woman and have her as his bride, complementing his own perfection. 

 

Unfortunately for Lotor, Allura was considerably less accepting of what he considered to be their inevitable fate, and more than once had made it clear that she loathed him and everything he stood for.  Although that angered him—Lotor did not like being balked by anyone, especially someone that mattered to him—he did concede that perhaps her feelings were somewhat justified.  Doom had brutally attacked her beloved home world many times, and after a couple of years in charge of his father’s forces, Lotor himself was responsible for nearly as much of the carnage and destruction on Arus as Zarkon.  Lotor did not deny or even regret his role in it.  After all, it was her fault.  If she had simply given herself to him as he had demanded, all of the subsequent attacks on Arus could have been avoided.

 

It was also Lotor’s firm belief that a large part of her resistance to embracing their love was the influence of her irritating space explorer friends.  He had no doubt that they continuously fueled her anger and poisoned her mind against him.  Why else would she continue to reject him, even after he had proven his love for her?  Here she was, the royal figurehead of a rebellious planet his empire had all but conquered, and rather than throwing her into the Pit of Skulls he had offered her the opportunity to be his queen and lover and rule at his side!  Not only that, but every time she and her Voltron Force friends had been captured, he had spared her the cruel fate intended for the other Voltron pilots.  Lotor recalled the time he had the other pilots bound to be burned at the stake.  Where was Allura?  At his side, at his dinner table!  Were actions like that not proof of how much he loved her, how far he would go for her?  His own people called him a fool for such actions. 

Fortunately for you Allura, he mused in the solace of his chamber, I never cared much what they think.

 

The silent face of Allura that existed only in his mind stared back at him.  You say I’m incapable of love, that I can’t care for anyone, he thought at her sourly.  Why do you deny what’s right in front of your face?  I love you.  I want you.  I’ll do anything for you.  Look at all I’ve gone through, just for you!  Why don’t you see it?

 

Lotor turned his gaze from the painting and found his eye drawn to a brazier burning on the wall.  Its golden flames flickered and danced subtly in the drafts of the old fortress in a way that reminded him of his harem dancers, with their flowing blonde tresses and seductively swaying hips.  A smile tugged at his lips at that thought; he had always kept a vast array of pleasure slaves, but ever since Allura had come into his life it was the ones that resembled her that he desired most.  He had lost track of how many trysts he had indulged in with one of his playthings imagining that she was his elusive Allura, wondering if the princess would move the same, sound the same, or feel the same.  Fantasy never satisfied like the real thing, however, and in cruel irony those encounters satisfied him the least of any he indulged.  Taking a harem girl only made him lust for the real Allura more, and served to remind him of what he could not have—and Lotor never did like being told “no.”

 

Such unpleasant brushes with reality generally sent Doom’s prince spiraling into a bitter and angry mood, and into the company of those who could never remind him of Allura.  The cynical and calculating Haggar never failed to distract him with some hideous robeast he could use to further his plans of conquest, and a mission with the loyal and amusing even if not too bright Cossack did wonders for his outlook.  For a brief time he had even entertained the notion of trying to make some sort of partnership with the snooty Merla work, although not at the time when it would have benefited him most, when Zarkon had forced them to wed.  Lotor had never particularly liked Merla, and while he conceded that she was a ruthless beauty and certainly an adequate match for him in theory, she was nothing like Allura.  Ironically it was when Merla showed genuine compassion for him and went out of her way to save his life—something Allura would do—that he warmed up to the notion of being with Merla.  He had even gone so far as to take her parting words after saving his life to heart—to consider what life would be like if he chose the path of good instead of evil, as she had chosen to do. 

 

Contrary to what many might have believed, Lotor had thought about it.  Acts of kindness and goodness did not come naturally to him, but the lingering gratitude from Merla and the Voltron Force’s unexpected kindness to him after his father had imprisoned and sentenced him gave Lotor reason for introspection.  Though he was used to being feared, respected, and admired, Lotor was not used to being genuinely cared about.  Zarkon was hardly what one would call an affectionate parent, and Haggar, while she harbored some pseudo-maternal feelings for Lotor, still ultimately viewed him as an extension of Zarkon and treated him in a way reflective of how Zarkon happened to be treating her at the moment.  Lotor’s slave lovers of course treated him well, but he had no real affection or respect for them, and he would never be foolish enough to think that a slave’s words were spoken out of anything but self-preservation.  He did not doubt that Cossack was loyal to him, but while that made the commander someone he could include on confidences and lean on to an extent in weaker moments that he was loath to admit even existed, Lotor also knew Cossack well enough to know that he did not—and probably never would—understand the way he felt about Allura.  That much had become crystal clear when he snapped at him on the ship on the way back from their most recent mission.

 

In the end, though, words and thoughts and promises of a life that might be better were not enough to justify a change that went so against the grain of his nature.  Lotor turned slowly and stared at the painting on the wall again, although it was Allura’s face that he saw staring back at him.  “You want me to be good, Allura, to be something I’m not.”  He frowned and folded his arms.

 

“I tried to be…for you, and it didn’t work.  Merla might have said it, but what made me consider it wasn’t her, it was you.  I’m grateful to Merla, but I love you.  If being ‘good’ was what it would take to have your love, I was willing to try… and that I even considered it ought to prove how much I love you,” he asserted with bitterness in his tone.  Her blue eyes, filled with disappointment, answered him in stony silence.  “But no, that’s not good enough for you, is it?” he went on to challenge.  “They say women are never satisfied… perhaps it’s true.  I bet I could never be ‘good’ enough to please you.”

 

The Allura in his mind had no answer and seemed rather unimpressed with his candor, but he continued regardless.

 

“So many times I offered you my love, and you rejected me.  You call me a monster, you call me evil, you say that you could never love someone like me.  Yet then,” his frown deepened, “when my father chains me in the Pit of Skulls, who shows up and comes to my rescue?  You.  All right, you and Merla and your friends, but still, we both know that if you didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to see me saved, redeemed, you wouldn’t have.  I know you love me whether you admit it or not, Allura.”

 

At that an indignant look flashed across the envisioned Allura’s face.

 

“Oh yes, you do, and we both know it,” Lotor argued.  “Why else would seeing me ‘be good’ make the desire light up in your eyes the way it did when you told me how nice it was to see me acting like a ‘real prince’?”  The imagined Allura began to respond with an objection, but he cut it off before it could materialize in detail.  “When I asked you to marry me, I was serious, Allura.  I would’ve helped you and your friends overthrow my father.  For the promise of you at my side I would’ve done just about anything.  Merla, the plans I’d made so carefully to lure you all in, and the consequences of throwing it all to the wind, none of that mattered to me that moment you looked at me with such affection.  I would have been good for you, if only you’d said yes.”

 

He picked up a wine goblet set out on a nearby table and traced his gloved finger along its rim thoughtfully.  “No, perhaps it wouldn’t have lasted.  Like the saying goes, the leopard doesn’t change his spots.  I am who I am, and I’m rather proud of it.”  He straightened arrogantly and stared at the imagined face of Allura dead on.  “But I was willing to try for you, Allura, if only you’d given me the chance.  Maybe I’d never be the shining example of morality that your space explorer friends are,” he said with disdain as he thought about the Voltron Force, “but I would’ve been a loyal lover to you, and would have given up far more for you than you give me credit for.”

 

The prince’s handsome face then clouded with bitterness.  “But now more than ever you won’t believe that, especially since I proved you ‘right’ by following through with my plans in the end.  But it didn’t have to be that way… it was your choice, Allura.  You chose this when you spurned me.”  He swirled the wine in his goblet.  “So in the end, why bother with the trouble of being ‘good’ when it won’t even get me what I want?”

 

His lips parted in a sardonic smile.  “So it seems we both want what we can’t have.  You want a prince from some little girl’s storybook, and I want you—no matter what it takes.”  Lotor raised his goblet toward the painting and the envisioned Allura in a mock toast.  “To us, my dear, and how delightful our life together would be… if you weren’t so stubborn, and I wasn’t me.”

 

* * *

 

“The Sinner in Me”
Lyrics by Martin L. Gore

 

If I could just hide
The sinner inside
And keep him denied
How sweet life would be
If I could be free
From the sinner in me

I'll never be a saint
That's not a picture that your memory paints
Not renowned for my patience
I'm not renowned for my restraint
But you're always around
You can always be found
To pick me up when I'm on the ground

If I could just hide
The sinner inside
And keep him denied
How sweet life would be
If I could be free
From the sinner in me

I'm still recovering
Still getting over all the suffering
More known for my anger
Than for any other thing
But you've always tried
To be by my side
And catch my fall when I start to slide

If I could just hide
The sinner inside
And keep him denied
How sweet life would be
If I could be free
From the sinner in me

 

 

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