A Slice of Blueberry Pie

Chapter 2

Keith

"We're going to the beach?" I slammed my palms down on the kitchen counter. Pidge snorted from the dining room .

"What, you can't impress your alien boyfriend with your emo hoodie? Easy, loverboy."

I slumped back on my chair, glaring at my Cheerios. Great, I thought. Now I'm even wrongly attired to be humiliated. Scrap this whole apologising bullshit. I'll just go there, and do whatever the fuck I have to. also, 'loverboy' was a nickname she had given to Lance during the coalition, when he'd flirt with any mildly aesthetically pleasing organism.

"I'm keeping my hoodie on, Pidge. Fuck off," I folded my arms and sank even lower into my chair. 

It was then that Lance had decided to enter the room. Despite all the mornings when he'd wake up looking like a fucking god, he looked like he skipped his beauty sleep last night. Alteans really did have such low tolerance. He was hungover. I wanted to laugh, but I knew it wouldn't be appreciated in our current... rut.

"Well, someone's looking like a veritable ray of sunshine," Pidge snickered.

"Will you please stop?" Lance grumbled. At least he had the nous to be polite, though I could hear in his voice the strain to keep himself sane. He had definitely gotten the memo about the beach, though. He had a snapback and reflexive sunglasses on, with swimming trunks and a faded old t-shirt. Lance looked like, what Pidge would call him, 'a token straight white male'. I pressed my forehead to the cold kitchen counter, trying to cure my own splitting headache, and avoid eye contact with him.

"It's called a hangover, Lance. It passes. Though, yours might take longer than usual, being such a lightweight," Pidge, bless her soul, had interjected between this awful silence between us. 

Shiro entered the room wearing a polo, khakis and a fanny pack. Due to his build, he looked like a very ripped... dad? He reminded me of those scouts in summer camps, and I nearly expected him to say "ready, happy campers?"

Packing our stuff in the minivan, we had to remove some of the extra sun protection that Allura wanted to bring, reassuring her that Earth's summer Sun was nothing like Altea's one.

Thus, we were all ready for a day at the beach.

Lance

The ride was agonising. All the rumbling and singing-along in the car didn't help the pounding pressure building up against the back of my skull. Pidge, who turned into a bona fide saint that day, volunteered to sit between Keith and me. The day was starting out as painful as I had predicted it to be the night before. There was something called... 'traffic' on the expressway towards the beach. No matter how 'saintly' Pidge wanted to be today, she couldn't help but calculate how much longer we needed to stay in the car to be poisoned by carbon monoxide. To add on, Adam, Shiro and Allura were putting on such a see-through facade that we were just exhausted by the time we got to the beach.

"I need me a margarita'" Keith mumbled as we pulled into the parking lot. Being recently educated on liquor, I knew that a margarita wasn't exactly a remedy to a hangover. 

"Heh. So you're gonna get drunk again to make the hangover go away? You humans are so amusing," I said, before I could stop myself.

"You think that was drunk? Sulking in your cabin and playing video games? Try a drinking game, homeboy, It's much more..." Pidge considered her next words "...much more amusing."

Bless this green gremlin and her attempts to lighten the mood.

The adults took to the boardwalk, taking Allura on a tour of human cuisines. There was a medley of street vendors along it, the smoke from the barbeque wafting towards us. Hipster cafes lined the boulevard, which was located right alongside the boardwalk, but it was air-conditioned. They were going to blow all their cash on some chow, and us kids were left to run around the shore.