Cold of the Sea

Chapter Four: Amazement

"So... uhhmm... Keith, I... if we're going to, uhh, continue this conversation, would you mind us going somewhere a little more private? It's... it's kinda open around here and my existence is supposed to be a secret." Lance interjected nervously, making wild hand motions as he spoke.

"If you wanted to keep your existence secret so badly, then why did you tell me?" Keith frowned, crossing his arms, but then uncrossing them as he realized it caused him to sink because he wasn't treading properly.

"I thought we already went over this." Lance pouted.

"Fine. Do you have some place in mind?" Keith sighed, not really believing that he would so blindly follow a merman somewhere after said merman admitted to stalking him most of his life.

"Um, yeah, remember that little bit of beach you washed up on? Surrounded by forests? Yeah, that one." Lance nodded, seeming to be in thought.

Keith thought about it for a second, but then reluctantly agreed. He knew his way home from there, even if he had learned it the hard way, and he really did want to know more about merfolk.

"How far of a swim is it?" Keith asked.

"Well, in human terms it's... it's kinda long, but I think you can handle it if we go at a steady enough pace." Lance thought.

"Alright, okay. Let's do it." Keith huffed some air out.

Lance nodded at the human and sunk under the water, then waited for Keith to get into a position to swim. Once both were ready, they were off. Lance swam under Keith, slightly to the side, and completely emerged. Keith swam at the surface, propelling himself at an okay pace.

Lance held himself back from swimming too fast, trying his best to keep with Keith. It was hard, he was used to swimming at his usual, much faster speed. Keith appeared to be taking his time, swimming almost lethargically, as if he was taking in all his surroundings.

To an extent, Keith's torpid movements annoyed the merman. Could humans not swim faster? He was sure he'd seen Keith swim faster before. He felt as if he was taking a less than a casual trip to the Old Outlook.

On the other side of things, Keith was having quite a good time. He hadn't swam like this in years, and so he wanted to bask in this chance he got. Sure, he was going a bit slow, but it was better that way. The water was cold, almost freezing, but he didn't mind it.

It took them a while to get to the small portion of beach, but when they got there Keith was rather tired. He stopped just before the area where the waves started to form, treading lazily.

"Why'd ya stop?" Lance popped up, questioning look on his face.

"Can't you like... I don't know, not go on land or something?" Keith raised an eyebrow, which made Lance let go a laugh.

"Oh, yeah, it's fine for me to be on land, love. Since I've got this pretty tattoo of sorts on my back, I'm able to grow human legs when I'm dry." Lance smirked jovially.

"Oh... okay." Keith mumbled, looking away, blush covering his cheeks.

"So what're you waiting for?" Lance grinned.

"Sorry." Keith began to swim towards the shore, making it through the rough crash of waves before ending up laying on surprisingly soft sand.

Lance pulled himself up next to Keith, lugging his lower half with him. It was the first time that Keith had actually fully seen the tail. It was a bright, beautiful, electric blue, and dozens of darker symbols and markings lined the shimmering scales. Fins jutted out and hung from the lower parts of his hips and back of the tail. One large fin was attached to the bottom of tail, fanning out in all it's brilliance.

The most poignant feature was the tail's length, it was long. A little more than twice the length of how long Lance's legs should have been. It twisted and spun at weird angles, showing off its size. Keith was in awe of the new sight, it was truly beautiful, ethereal almost. His eyes moved to inspect the scales that covered scattered parts of Lance's body. Gils, looking like three large, dark blue open scars decorated his sides, slightly above where his tail began.

The scales started low on his hips, revealing the general anatomy of a normal human, which surprised Keith some. Now, it wasn't showing off a dick or anything like that, but rather a prominent v-line and a vague outline of abs. Scales began at the top gil on Lance's side, snaking up and around to his back, and ending before restating on his shoulders and moving down and over his biceps and elbows on his front. His hands were clawed, a light blue color flowing from his fingernails and fading at his wrists.

The bright scales were a stark difference to Lance's tanned skin, making the thin, sharp features of the merman more prominent. When looking over him, Keith thought Lance was beautiful. He had never seen something like this.

"Mind helping me further up the beach, babe? It's a tad hard for me to do and I need to dry off." Lance chuckled, pulling Keith's attention to his words rather than his body.

"Y-yeah..." Keith hopped up, moving behind Lance to help pull him to where it was dry.

With the view of Lance's back, Keith could see the entirety of the skin there. Muscles contracted and contorted as he moved, causing the scales, which stopped at the edges of his shoulder blade, to ripple.

And there was definitely a pretty tattoo running along his back. Keith couldn't make out the design, it was weird, but the color was something to behold. At first it appeared white, but shimmered a brilliant blue when it caught the light of the moon and stars.

"Is this good enough?" Keith asked after Lance was far up on dry sand.

"Yep! Thanks hun!" Lance exclaimed, clapping his hands happily.

Keith plopped himself down beside Lance, sat crisscross and facing the body of the merman. In turn, Lance moved his head to look at Keith.

"So, whatcha think?" Lance questioned.

"Huh?" Keith was confused.

"Come now, don't act like you don't know. I saw you checking me out. No need to be ashamed." Lance leaned back, only having the support of his elbows keeping him elevated.

"I-I wasn't... ugh, fine. I was looking at your tail. It's very pretty." Keith grumbled, embarrassed again.

"Why, thank you." Was the presumptuous reply.

Keith rolled his eyes and hunched over tiredly. His chin rested on his palm as he stared at Lance, waiting for something to happen.

"Are you waiting for me to have legs?" Lance raised an eyebrow, honestly concerned after a few minutes of silence.

"Well, yeah." Keith answered, as if it was obvious.

"You do remember that I said I have to be dry for that. That means completely dry. Not just out of the water. Right? You do recall this? Drying off takes a while, dear god, I thought you were smarter than this." Lance furrowed his eyebrows up, beginning to second guess his choice to expose himself to Keith.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know you meant completely dry." Keith crossed his arms, getting offended.

Lance sighed. He certainly had his work cut out for him.