swim with me? [klance au]

Soft Hands

https://instagram.com/p/Be-s3MLh-z1/

"A what?!"

"A mermaid," Keith said slowly, and Lance nodded earnestly.

Shiro stopped walking and turned towards Lance, looking him up and down. They were heading back to the beach parking lot to head home, to be able to all talk together with Matt and Pidge about Lance moving in. What else was he supposed to do? He had nowhere to go, even though he had plenty of money at his disposal.

After he had accepted the council's offer- staying on land, saving Keith, being a spy (sort of), Alfor had explained nearly everything to Lance.

1. Lance was only allowed to expose his secret to trustworthy, deserving humans, with a limit of five.

2. There was a bank account under the name Alfor Altea that had a large amount of savings in it. While Lance was allowed to take whatever he needed, he was only allowed to splurge once, just enough to get new clothes and whatever other necessities he needed.

3. Don't get drunk, killed, or a human pregnant.

Lance had counted up to 10 more rules, but he hadn't really paid much attention as he was planning how he would break it to Hunk. Allura already knew, but she had been waiting patiently for Lance when he had finally been released from the holding room after being interrogated by Alfor on the exact events of the morning.

"Lance! Are you crazy?!" she'd shrieked, then had hugged him so hard he thought his ribs would crack. "I was so worried," she said, then let Lance go and put on her 'Mom Face'. Stern and thin-lipped, she frowned, "You better not die up there."

Lance had laughed, then dragged her to Hunk's house where they explained everything to him. He ended up blubbering and kept on telling Lance to make sure to pack his lunch every day and eat healthily and make sure to visit every single week and to not forget him. Lance had poked his cheeks and promised he would eat healthily and visit every chance he could.

It was then that he remembered Allura's crush on Shiro, and had to go through his entire story of the morning's events again, and then answer all of Allura's dreamy questions about Shiro, including if he smelled like cinnamon (neither of them had any idea what cinnamon smelled like, but it was a human word and in human literature, especially the romance novels Allura read when she went to the surface, and authors sometimes described a significant other as smelling like 'pine trees' or 'cinnamon' or 'mint'.

"You lucky asshole, Shiro's gonna fall in love with you instead of me," Allura pouted, her pink luminescence glowing. Lance smiled sheepishly.

"I don't think so... Shiro really isn't my type anyway. And I thought that maybe Keith could be a potential candidate for Lover Lance's eligible bachelors list, but I think he might actually hate me and/or think I'm a total freakazoid because of the whole 'ohmigawd you have a tail' thing. But whatever. Watch out humans, Lancey Lance is coming to town."

"Snazzy," Hunk verified helpfully. Allura just rolled her eyes.

Lance already missed them and his family, who had actually been quite pleased that Lance had been selected for the mission. He still wasn't on great terms with his father, but Lance was sure that Carlos only needed a few days to cool down and he'd be okay again.

He snapped back to reality when he saw Shiro staring at him anticipatingly. "Uh, what?" Lance asked, embarrassed. It was so easy to just drift off... Lance had years of practice from school.

"I said, Keith and I are staying at our friends' house, Matt and Pidge. I need proof that you're a legitimate... mer-person... and they probably will too, but if you're telling the truth then I'm sure you can stay for a few weeks." Shiro smiled earnestly.