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inexperienced
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Lance has a problem with having his phone in his hand when he shouldn't even have it on his person. In the middle of a skirmish with Galra sentries, Keith will be cutting through an opponent to clear the way for Pidge or Hunk and hear "Oh sick!" and the snap of the camera shuttering. During a diplomatic meeting, a deep buzz from beneath the table will startle everyone but the Earthlings. Lance updates their group spacechat when he is very obviously in the shower. Even now, while they're hanging out in the pool, Lance is lying on a float with his head pillowed on one hand and the other holding his phone up, scrolling through texts or taking a selfie.
Last time they were in the pool together and Keith was on the float, Lance had flipped him over.
Keith figures it's payback time.
Lance hasn't been paying any attention to him anyway while Keith does laps, so he has no trouble approaching the float unnoticed as it drifts aimlessly in the deep end. Keith waits until he's close, takes in a deep breath, and slips underwater. It doesn't burn his eyes like the public pools he's used to swimming in, doesn't leave a grit on his skin when he gets out, or smell or taste like it's choked with chemicals to keep it clean. Keith dives deep and comes up directly underneath the float. It's semi transparent, dipped and darker under Lance's weight.
Keith presses his hands against the underside, beneath the small of Lance's back and between his shoulder blades - and heaves upward.
Lance's surprised shriek is muffled, but the splash as he hits the water sideways is loud. Keith resurfaces before his laughter busts out of him, shakes his hair out of his face and sees that one of Lance's arms has struck out as he went down and caught around the float, saving his phone in a clenched fist. Lance is still sputtering in the water, clutching the float for support. Keith reaches across it and yanks the phone out of Lance's hand as he shoves the float away.
It goes sliding across the water far out of reach, and Lance drops under again, displaced. He comes up a second later, mouth full of water, and spits a stream of it right into Keith's face.
"Ugh, Lance, gross!"
"What the quiznak, Keith!"
Keith wipes the back of his hand across his face, keeps the one holding Lance's phone out of sight as he treads water, casually widening the distance between them. Lance is trying to glare at him, but his attention is divided. He keeps turning in the water, face all but planted in it as he scans the bottom for a glint of bright orange.
"Here I am, minding my own business," Lance is ranting, "And you just attack me out of the blue!"
"You should've been paying attention," Keith says.
"I dropped my phone, you jerk!"
It's waterproof (and shatterproof, thanks to Pidge) so Keith doesn't see the problem. There's probably a limit to how much force and exposure to water it can take, though. When he's a couple of yards away, Keith deliberately slides into Lance's line of sight while the other is casting around with increasing frustration, churning the water.
"You looking for something?" Lance is already riled up, but the extra effort doesn't hurt.
Lance looks at him, mouth pursed into a dramatic pout.
"Yeah, Keith, my phone!"
Keith lifts his phone out of the water, asks, "This phone?"
Lance's face is priceless.
"Hey!"
Keith smirks, and watches with satisfaction as Lance processes his surprise. Then his face does this thing where he's clearly struggling to remain angry and not smile at the same time. It's taken Keith seeing it a handful of times during some of their safer arguments to pin down what it means, and it's exactly what he wanted Lance's response to be. Lance shifts his body in the water, movements slower and more deliberate.
"Give it back."
"Come and take it from me, sharpshooter."
Keith only has a moment to prepare himself before Lance launches forward. The space that Keith has put between them in order to have a slight advantage is not enough. Lance is a strong swimmer, more at home in the water than Keith has ever seen him out of it, and he closes the distance effortlessly. Keith didn't learn to swim until he was fourteen and has had very little practice with it since then, so he's an inexperienced dog-paddler, at best. He dives again, just darting out of reach of Lance's hands and pushing toward the shallow end.
Lance snags him by the ankle before he can clear the slope and yanks him backwards. Keith twists, puts his other foot in Lance's chest, and shoves him back.
They both break the surface, heaving in a breath together.
Keith's is shallow and he dives again too soon, his lungs burning.
He didn't exactly have a plan.
His foot touches the bottom and he stands quickly, still moving back, hair hanging in his face and obstructing his view before he has the chance to swipe it back from his forehead. Lance grabs his elbow, pulls him down into the water as he hauls himself up. Keith lashes out with one foot and takes Lance's knee out from under him, so they both go sideways and come up sputtering.
Lance's hand is still wrapped around Keith's wrist.
Keith lets go of the phone.
It plops into the water. Lance watches it, mouth popping open in indignant outrage. He lets go of Keith to dive after it, and Keith seizes his chance. He grabs Lance under the arm at the juncture of his shoulder, and bends to grab the inside of his thigh, fingers digging into cool skin so his grip doesn't slide. Lance makes a noise right in his ear, his hand landing on Keith's arm in surprise, fumbling at his waist, but he doesn't manage to get a hold because Keith uses all his strength and the leverage he has with his feet planted firmly on the floor to lift Lance clear of the water and throw him back several feet.
Keith sucks in his breath, picks up the phone from between his feet, and swims back to the opposite end of the pool before Lance has managed to coordinate himself again.
He retrieves the float and climbs up, turning to sit with his legs in the water.
Lance is sitting in the water exactly where he landed, just the top of his head poking up from the surface as he stares at Keith. Keith takes the chance to catch his breath, muscles aching, Lance's phone clasped in his hands between his knees. Water runs in heavy rivulets from his hair and Keith absently pushes it back from his face, reaches over his shoulder to gather it at the base of his neck and squeeze some of the water out. His chest is heaving gently, heart still humming with excitement.
He can't figure out what Lance is doing. He hopes he's not sulking. Keith was having fun, but maybe he shouldn't have thrown Lance like that….
He waits another tic, gives Lance a tentative smirk.
"That mean I win?"
Lance lifts the rest of his face out of the water to force out a short, sarcastic-sounding, Ha! But he just ducks right back down again, submerging completely. Keith warily watches Lance's wavering outline as Lance moves through the clear water like it's a part of who he is. He can hold his breath a long time, Keith thinks as Lance crosses almost the entire length of what could easily be considered an olympic-sized pool, squared, without once coming up for air. He slides right beneath Keith, who pulls his legs up to hug the float and turns to keep Lance in his line of sight.
Something grips the float between his legs, and shoves it back hard.
Keith drops into the water with a gasp.
He doesn't go all the way under, so the brief fear that spikes from his stomach into his chest is for nothing. His leg gets caught, knee hooking around Lance's elbow and getting locked in his hold as Lance yanks Keith to his chest. Instead, it's a bolt of heat that unfurls low in his gut. Lance's other hand lands on Keith's side to hold him close, long fingers splayed into the dips of his ribcage, thumb inching upward over slick skin, and Keith doesn't quite manage to stop the sound he makes, something deep that sticks in his throat.
Lance laughs, quiet and confident, a gust of warmth across Keith's neck that goes straight between his open legs.
"That mean I win?"
The question sends sparks shuddering up Keith's thighs, and his face burns red when he involuntarily squeezes Lance's chest, the heel of his feet digging into Lance's lower back and shoulder blade. Lance's fingertips burn into his skin. Keith recovers enough to scowl and fill his lungs with much needed air. He shoves Lance's shoulder down, forcing him under water, and whether this breaks Lance's hold or he simply lets Keith go of his own volition, Keith doesn't know.
It frees him.
He's kicked away to the other side of the wayward float before he realizes he let go of the phone.
Great, he thinks, dropping his gaze.
There it is, right at the bottom of the deepest section, about halfway between where he is and where Lance is, looking more smug than Keith would like. He doesn't like conceding defeat - especially to Lance - but they both know who the better diver is. Keith watches Lance's chest expand as he pulls in a deep breath, watches his long dark legs and the toned muscle of his body as Lance ducks underwater and turns, surging toward the bottom of the pool.
He kicks off once he gets his phone, and comes up across from Keith on the other side of the float. He exhales easily, and Keith distracts himself from watching the way Lance's lips push together by fisting a hand into his own hair, forcing some of the clinging water out of it. It's stuck to his face, and he brushes it back impatiently, one arm folded on the float, still heated and bothered.
Lance puts both elbows on the float too - and proceeds to put his phone up between them. Annoyance rises in Keith's chest, simmering low in his lungs.
It's almost enough to choke him.
Lance tips the phone aside, looks at him, and Keith startles.
"You wanna get Hunk and Pidge in here to play chicken?"
Keith blinks at him for several seconds too long.
"What?"
"Y'know, chicken - four people, two person teams, you get someone up on your shoulders and try to knock the other team down - "
"I know what chicken is," Keith snaps.
Lance laughs, "Well you said what, mullet, I thought you didn't understand. So, what? You wanna? I bet we could take 'em." Lance gives him a more serious imitation of his flirty come-hither look, makes a back and forth gesture with his index fingers. "Laith versus Punk."
It takes a second for Keith to realize what he's saying.
"Why is your name first?"
"Because it sounds cooler."
"In what universe?" Keith laughs.
Lance becomes indignant, defensive, and any negative feels that were starting to grow in Keith's chest evaporate because he realizes Lance is playing with him, not messing with him.
"In every universe!" Lance insists,"Do you want to throw down with Team Punk or not, Keith!"
"Fine. But we gotta have a good incentive."
"Losers have to clean the food goo dispenser for the next two movements?"
"That works!"
Keith swats the flat of his hand against the float while Lance grins and issues the challenge via text. After getting confirmation from both Pidge and Hunk that It Is On and a few friendly insults fired in the group chat, Lance abandons his phone on the side of the pool and joins Keith in the shallow end to get some practicing in last minute.
They're still arguing about who's going to be on the bottom when Pidge and Hunk arrive.
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(A/n) Something fun and dumb for the summer~ Let me know what you think! I'm working on a bigger (like way bigger wow) project atm but i also want to try and write more smallish stuff to decompress! Season 6 got me so good goddamn.
-bobtac