You and I, We Mer-Maid for Each Other

≋ chapter four: something is fishy here

After exchanging phone numbers, it became somewhat commonplace for Keith to get a random text in the middle of the day, or perhaps in the morning. Sometimes it was just a greeting. Sometimes it was an excited declaration of a bit of news or information that should have been benign ("I ate a pretzel today!!"). Other times, it was another weird question. Keith usually read those aloud to Shiro or Adam and they'd share a laugh.

Eventually Keith taught Lance how to send and receive pictures, and then the texts became more frequent. They got so used to communicating in this way that it got a point where Lance could send a picture with only a few question marks underneath of it, and Keith would know what that meant and would take the time to explain what he was looking at. What it was called, what it was used for, the works.

They went to the boardwalk together a couple more times. Lance insisted on buying something for Keith, something to make up for all of his help. They settled on the jacket he'd had his eye on the first time. They got cotton candy together and played a sort of game where Lance would point at a pedestrian and Keith would explain what they were wearing or carrying. An umbrella, maybe, or a laptop.

When they were walking back to the beach after one of those outings, Lance suddenly left the sidewalk and ran out into the sand without warning. Keith chased after him, wondering what the hell was going on in this guy's head most of the time. He saw it when they reached the edge of the water. Dolphins.

Lance grinned and rolled up the hems of his pants.

"Do you want to see a neat trick?" He asked, and something about it was kind of scary. Which was weird. Lance wasn't scary. He didn't wait for Keith to answer him before he waded out into the water. Keith groaned and took off his shoes and socks to follow him.

Lance walked as far as he could without getting his clothes soaked. The dolphins continued to jump, carefree as dolphins typically were. Keith stood beside him. It was nice, he thought. Looking at the dolphins from a distance. But then Lance made a loud clicking sound. Keith could have sworn it was one of the dolphins for how accurate it sounded. The only indication that it was Lance was the volume, and the way he cupped his hands around his mouth to project the sound as far as he could.

Keith nearly fell over as the dolphins changed course and swam directly to them. He worried they'd get beached, coming so close. But the dolphins were smart enough to avoid that, and they stayed back just a little ways, just far enough that that they could still swim around freely. Still, it was closer than Keith had ever gotten to one. The apparent ringleader stuck its head up and chirped back at Lance before it took its friends and left. Lance waved, shouting some kind of farewell in dolphin. Keith waited a moment for his jaw to close before he tried to say anything.

"What the hell was that?!"

"They are friendly creatures. I just wanted to say hello."

"Do you speak dolphin or something?"

"It is not a particularly complicated language. Tonal, mostly."

Lance started to walk back towards the sand. Keith squinted out at the sea for a minute before he shook his head and stomped after him.

"You're fucking with me," he concluded.

Lance just laughed at him and Keith had half a mind to punch him. He had a difficult time answering Shiro that afternoon about why his pants were wet. Because he didn't want to risk sounding like an idiot in saying that he'd been talking to some dolphins.

Two somewhat uneventful days passed. Lance chatted with Keith on the beach before heading off on his usual adventures, Keith worked and went home and answered a stray text here and there. Nothing of note. But on the third day, Shiro called out to Keith when he heard him passing by the gym.