(I got this idea after riding uphill two miles for a slushie. I felt like this is something Lance would do.)
Sweat drips from his hairline and into his eyes, and runs down his back like condensation on a wet glass. He still feels the stupid urge to swat, even though he knows that it's not another gnat crawling under his shirt. The artificial breeze gently rippling his shirt does nothing the alleviate the heat. He could peddle faster, sure, but he's still got another half mile uphill before they reach the gas station.
Sure, he could've stayed at home, and let Hunk make one out of their pooled resources, but he wanted a real slushie. One that's too sweet, and melts in the bottom before you can drink it, with ice crystals that melt just as they meet your tongue. In the summer heat, a slushie like that was practically heaven. He could have the mango one, even though it tasted more like pineapple, or maybe he could mix the coconut with-
"Dude, watch-" Hunk starts, and Lance turns, only to miss the very thing that he had been warning him of. His front wheel divots into the pothole, and his handlebars swerve, nearly steering him into the street. He regains control of the bike, but he's rolled back to flank Pidge because of the struggle. He offers a thumbs up and a smile, which only makes his handlebar swerve again.
Pidge rolls her eyes and continues pedaling, with occasional boosts from the engine she'd added to it a few summers ago. Personally, Lance thinks the extra weight isn't worth it, but hey, if Pidge thinks it's helpful, fine by him.
"Why couldn't this wait until Matt got back from work?" Pidge huffs, each word an almost insurmountable effort; even Lance had gotten over trying to talk and peddle uphill, and they had been riding in silence for the past half hour because of it.
"Because I want a slushie now." Lance says, as Hunk jogs to cross the distance between them. Hunk had abandoned the idea of pedaling, in favor of walking and dragging his bike along with him, like a toy dog on a string. The handlebars swerved on every pothole they crossed, as if trying to escape his sweaty grasp. "Besides, it's right there! No point in turning back now."
A square, red sign rises above the hill, fluorescent lights flickering weakly under the sharp rays of the sun. With renewed vigor, Lance pedals over the final slope and into the flat driveway. For the first time in nearly an hour, he can glide without effort. Behind him, Hunk is struggling to climb back onto his bike, and Pidge is keeping to her original speed. They park by the side of the building, kickstands scraping concrete as they slide off of the hard, leather seats.
His legs tingle as they walk into the gas station, air conditioning feeling like blizzard winds on their overheated skin. The sweat on his hairline dries almost instantly, and for a moment, he doesn't want to move from the doorway. And then he remembers the whole reason why they came.
Lance makes a beeline for the slushie machines, lined up in an orderly row. Neon colors swirl within them, the smell of sweetened syrup filling his nose.
"I'm getting watermelon." Pidge says, grabbing the medium sized cup. She takes a few sips of water from the drink counter before filling it up. "So you guys need to pick different flavors."
Lance grabs a cup, and is about to reach for the pineapple, when he realises that his pocket feels a little empty. He sticks his hand through the worn cotton, and his thumb sticks out the other side. He pulls the remaining change out and starts to count. Maybe if he's lucky, he can afford to buy a kid's cup for himself. Maybe he didn't lose too much change.
But there's only eight quarters and six dimes left when he counts it, just enough to buy two medium drinks. He sighs. He dragged his friends here with him on the promise that he'd buy; it's only fair to let them have their slushies. If he's lucky, maybe Hunk will make him one at home.
"What flavor are you getting?" Hunk asks, moving his cup to create the perfect cotton-candy swirl. He sticks a straw in it at an angle, giving the drink the appearance of something classy, versus a gas station ice drink.
Lance shrugs. "I dropped some of my money on the way here. I'm not getting one."
Hunk and Pidge exchange a look, and then turn back to Lance. "We'll just share. I mean, it's not like they don't have an abundance of straws here." Pidge says, motioning to the forest of white covered straws in the display behind her.
"Yeah, dude. You're the one who wanted the slushie so bad. It's only fair."
Lance opens his mouth to protest, only to close it as the sight of Pidge's glare. "Okay." He relents. "Let's go pay."
They eat their slushies in the shade of the small oak growing by the curb, passing around drinks as they converse, content to stay there until the lowering sun calls them back home.
OoOoOoOoO
Shiro didn't like him being out so late on his own. Especially when he was chasing after cryptids. Keith usually respected what Shiro wanted. He'd do practically anything for him, but not this time. He'd found a really weird footprint that morning, and had been tracking it's trail ever since. Keith was ninety percent sure that it was Mothman, or something related to him, and he wasn't gonna let this chance go. Even if he was totally unprepared for night tracking. Even if he'd run into about three poison oak trees and was itching like crazy.
Ahead of him, he could see the glow of a fire burning. It was either Mothman's fire, or that of regular humans. As much as he'd prefer it to be mothman, he doubted that he'd have a phone with a charge on it.
He pushes through the brambles and kudzu and branches, and is almost through to the other side when he hears a shaky voice. "Who's there?"
"Keith." He says, pushing through the final barrier separating them. The vines and growth stick to him, and when he stands up, he's covered in mud too.
"Stay back." The boy warns, a log held in his hand like a bat. "I'm warning you."
Keith pulls the vines off of him, and throws them to the ground. The mud is still on his shirt, but his face is visible now. "My name's Keith. Can I borrow your phone?" It takes every ounce of self-control he has not to yell. Jeez. Isn't it obvious that he's human?
The boy blinks, brown skin changing colors with the flickering of the fire. "Uh, okay."
The smaller one, who's sitting on a log, a plastic bag separating their pants from the damp log, tosses the brown boy a phone. He offers it to Keith, and then pulls it back, a hanky thrusted in it's place. "Clean your hands and face off first. You look like you've been rolling in the mud all day."
Keith wipes the mud off with quick, angry movements slapping mud to the ground. "I've been chasing Mothman all day."
The boy snorts, and offers him the phone once more. Keith takes it and dials Shiro's number, the only one he knows by heart. It rings, dull noise a contrast to the call of the cicada that continues to sing from somewhere in the bushes. "Hello. Who is this?"
"Hey Shiro. It's Keith. I'm using, uh, a friends phone." Keith replies. He doesn't have any friends here, not so soon after their move; but it's a lie that will keep Shiro from freaking out, so he goes with it.
"Right, and you're doing what? Where are you and why didn't you call sooner?" Shiro says, and Keith immediately feels bad for disobeying him; Shiro has a tendency to worry, especially after he came back from the war.
"I…uh…" His mind goes blank, and he doesn't really know what to say. The brown boy takes the phone from his hand and holds it against his ear.
"Hey there, Shiro. I'm Keith's friend, Lance. Sorry he didn't call you sooner, but his phone died when we were out at the lake."
Keith can hear Shiro's tinny voice through the speaker. "I- uh, Hello, Lance. I'm afraid Keith hasn't told me about you yet."
"We met him this afternoon. He kinda stumbled into out camp, but we've adopted him now, so he's stuck with us."
"Who's 'us'?" Shiro asks, ever the stern one.
Keith sits down on an open log, and feels the dampness of rot seep through his pants. It doesn't bother him; he's already dirty. "Pidge," Lance points at the smaller one, who tossed him the phone. "and Hunk." He points at the big dude, with the stature of a football player. He offers Keith a kind smile.
Lance continues talking to Shiro, talking him out of his frenzy with the promise to get Keith home safely the next morning. Hunk whispers, "Leave the mud on the poison oak; it'll help with the itching."
Keith nods, and sits there awkwardly until Lance is done. "Did you seriously say that you adopted me?"
"Yup," Lance replies happily, sitting back down between his two friends. Pidge takes the phone, and slips it into a ziplock bag before dropping it back into her bag.
"And then you invited me to your campfire."
"Yup."
Keith snorts. "That's ridiculous. I could be a mass murderer or something, and you just invited me to stay the night with you in a remote location."
"But you're not," Pidge says, not looking up from her computer. "because you were looking for Mothman, and I highly doubt that a cryptid hunter is gonna be a mass murderer on the side."
"And it's not that remote." Hunk adds. "My house is only a mile away."
Keith settles into the log, and pulls a map from his backpack. "I must've followed the trail wrong then." He mutters. "The footprints led this way, but-"
"You were seriously tracking Mothman?" Lance asks in surprise.
"Yeah. What of it?"
"Nothin'. That just seems kinda cool for a dude who got poison oak his first time in the woods." Lance says, leaning into Hunk's broad shoulders. "Maybe next time you could ask the locals for help."
Keith's cheeks burn under his lazy gaze. "Maybe I will."
OoOoOoO
Keith doesn't have a choice the next morning when Shiro finds their camp, determined to meet each of them face to face. Suddenly, his whole summer is intertwined with theirs, doing impossible things, like tracking aliens or simply stupid ones, like jumping off of Backman's cliff naked. But as the gentle summer breeze turns into the brisk one of autumn, and the notion of school isn't so far away, he finds that he didn't mind it so much.
(Yeah, I got lazy. Tumblr deleted my progress twice.)