Under the Sea

Chapter 5 rewrite

Keith slept in Lance's bed that night, much to his comfort. Lance took the floor (it had been washed with Pidge's help while Keith was in the shower) and most of the blankets. By the time Keith had woken around midday, Lance was long gone. A little peice of paper was left on the little table next to the bed, with words scrawled on it. In a language that Keith couldn't read. Which surprised him, since Keith could easily read three languages, and understand four, including his native tongue, thanks to the Blade of Marmora. Though, it didn't seem that these words were ancient Galran, the one language he struggled to read. This was forgien to him. Knowing Lance and who he worked with, it was probably Altean.

The door swung open, and Lance walked into the room, wearing fresh clothes and a grin. "Morning, sunshine! Did you sleep well?"

Keith shrugged a bit. "It was alright," he lied. That had been the best, deepest, most comfortable sleep of his life.

"Good." Lance said, and threw something onto the bed. They looked similar to what was on Lance's feet. "These are called shoes. We wear them over socks on our feet to protect them."

Keith nodded. "Alright. Do I have to wear them?" He got a nod from Lance, and frowned. "But I don't even like these!" He whined, gesturing to the clothes he slept in. "Why do you humans cover up so much?"

"Because, it's called public decency." He shrugged. "Sit down and give me a foot."

Keith rolled his eyes, and lifted a leg. But, his brows furrowed as his leg still on the ground shook a bit, and he fell backwards onto the bed with a bit of a yelp.

"What the quiznak was that?!" He asked, his looking perplexed up at Lance.

Lance, trying to contain his laughter, knelt in front of Keith to grab his foot. "You lost your balance. It was pretty funny."

Keith frowned, but nodded, pretending he understood what that meant.

Lance slipped Keith's socks and shoes on easily, giving his ankle a pat as he stood. "There. You think you can stand in those?"

Keith shrugged. "Dunno. Don't wanna try, either."

Lance rolled his eyes, grabbing Keith's wrists to pull him to his feet, despite the squacks of protests from the smaller boy. Keith stood a little shaky and awkwardly, but at least he was standing.

"See? Not that bad. Now let's work on walking." Lance grinned.

It took them about a solid half hour before Keith could walk steadily, but slowly. And another half hour to get him to speed up some. Keith kept falling, and Lance kept needing to catch him, though there were a few times that he couldn't. But for the most part, Keith wasn't falling. Until Lance wanted him to walk across the entire room.

Keith glared at Lance from where he was waiting by the door of the room. Lance was trying to bribe Keith with food, and it was working. Keith sighed, and started walking steadily, watching the ground where he was putting his feet. One foot infront of the other. Slowly, slowly....

Until Keith's foot caught on the edge of the bed, and he fell foward with a yelp. His eyes squeezed shut in preparation to hit the hard ground.... But he never did. Instead, he felt arms wrap around him, and fell against Lance, who was looking down at him. His eyes opened, and he glared without heat at Lance's pretty dark blue ones.

"I don't like walking," the boy stubbornly complained, and Lance snorted in reply.

"To bad. You're gonna be walking quite a bit if you're gonna stay on my ship. I don't want you freeloading, ya know?"

Keith just huffed, and while Lance helped him stand properly, Keith noticed that his breathing had sped up, just by a bit. He ignored it, and was helpless as Lance brought him back to where he'd started, before going back to the door without Keith.

"Try again."

~

It'd took another three tries for Keith to make it across the room without falling, and even after that, Lance had to help him walk to lunch with an arm around the boy's waist. Keith pouted the entire time, about needing to walk in shoes- or at all. He'd rather prefer to stay in Lance's comfortable bed. He changed his mind when Lance brought him to the galley (which was difficult to get to because Keith and stairs didn't mix well). He sniffed, smelling something cooking. Lance just grinned at his expresion.

"Yeah, we didn't have the best wuality of food for a while, but I had some men raid Lotor's ship for food, and we got some weird galran stuff that makes things last longer. It's safe, trust me. We've had it before."

Keith nodded, not really paying attention to what Lance was saying. Two plates were pushed towards them, and Lance took one, and another random crew member took the other without question, and they went to the wall. Lance managed to prop Keith against it, pushing him to sit as he took the other plate from the crew member, and handed it to Keith.

"Eat up."

Keith hesitently took the plate, staring at the food. "What is it all?"

Lance sighed, and pointed to everything, showing him what the bread, potatoes, and cheese were. "We'll have better food, soon. The next thing I'm gonna get for this ship is a magical chest, that provides whatever food that is desired when it's opened."

Keith frowned. "Those exsist?"

"Oh, yeah. We did have one, it was stolen the one time I was hurt and we were raided. It worked amazingly."

Keith nodded, and started eating hesitantly. Though, once he got a bite of the food, his eyes brightened and he ate quicker. He hadn't realized that he was so hungry before. Lance just laughed, taking a bit more time to eat his. Keith was finished before Lance was even half-way done. "Can I have more?"

Lance shook his head. "No, sorry. When we get that chest, we can all have as much as we want, but the chef divides it up like this so we can ration it."

Keith nodded, watching as Lance finished his food. As soon as he did, the man who Lance assumed was the chef, who he recognized as the man named Hunk, swept up their plates to be washed. Lance grinned, and helped him up. As soon as Keith was standing, a loud noise was heard from above deck, and cheers sounded, loud enough to make Keith jump a bit.

"What was that?!"

Lance grinned devilishly. "That, my friend, was a conch horn. It means we've reached land."