part one
———
Keith can feel it bubbling up inside him.
He’d like to think he’s grown to have a handle on it, the rage. It’s no longer his first reaction to things, no longer his response to everything. He’s not the little kid who trusted no one and hated himself for things that weren’t his fault anymore. He’s grown. He’s learnt to recognise how rarely he truly feels anger; how often it is pain, or sadness, or fear that he doesn’t know how to handle.
He knows this feeling is terror. He knows he is looking out into the endless, endless sea and quavering, in his mind, rendered mute at the future he may have, or lack thereof. What he is feeling is fear, at the roots of things.
But anger is all that’s bubbling up, anyway.
“Are you fucking serious!” he shouts, rattling the boat with the force of his rage. “You got us lost?!”
Luckily, or maybe unluckily considering their situation, Lance has never been the cowering type. He’s just as stubborn and headstrong as Keith, evident in the way he carefully sets down the useless GPS, jaw set, and turns to face Keith.
“I was not the only fool to inebriate myself in a largely unmanned vessel,” he shoots back. He’s doing that thing he does, when he’s furious, when he’s convinced he’d backed into a corner and on his own, where he speaks like a fucking decorated college professor so no one can accuse him of being stupid. ‘Lawyering up’, Keith has always called it. And usually it makes him sad on Lance’s behalf, knowing exactly the string of experience that has led him to that response, but right now it only pisses him off.
“Oh, cut the fucking bullshit, Lance. You were supposed to put down a fucking anchor!”
“I did!”
“Fucking obviously not!”
Lance’s fists clench, and a muscle jumps in his cheek from the tenseness of his jaw. His next words are growled, practically spat in Keith’s direction.
“I put a fucking anchor down, Kogane. It was the first thing I accomplished. It was a current anchor, and I’m certain I set it properly.”
Keith yells, wordless, just a loud shout so he doesn’t explode with everything inside him, gripping his hands in his hair so tightly it hurts. “Well, obviously fucking not, Lance, because I’m at fucking sea right now! Surrounded at all sides by fucking water!”
“How is it my fault that the anchor failed?” Lance shouts, finally cracking his careful composure. It satisfies Keith in a horrible kind of way, to see him just as frantic and furious as Keith is, no bullshit. “Huh? Want me to fucking take it up with the fuckers at the hardware store?”
“I’d love that, except you can’t, because you fucking got us lost!”
Something snaps in Lance’s expression, and he lunges forward, but before Keith can react, he brushes past him and dives overboard, crashing into the gentle waves. It takes Keith several seconds to fully register what the fuck just happened, and by the time he drops to his knees and leans over the side of the boat, Lance is several feet away and rapidly swimming farther.
“Lance!” he shouts, panic replacing the anger in his voice. The only thing worse than being stranded is being stranded by himself. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Lance pauses, treading water as he glances over his shoulder in Keith’s direction. “Avoiding doing something I regret, ” he says shortly. “I either shoved you or jumped myself. One of those is a significantly less shitty decision.”
Keith stares at him for a moment, then pinches the bridge of his nose, taking several seconds to exhale as long and loud and exasperated as he can. He’s almost annoyed to find a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.
“Lance,” he says, pursing his lips, “get the fuck back here, you pillar of dumbass.”
For several minutes Lance doesn’t, likely just to out-stubborn him, but eventually gives in and paddles over. He pauses at the edge of the boat, reaching up one hand to steady himself and letting the rest of him just float.
“I’m not going to yell anymore,” Keith says after several moments. He means it, too; he knew yelling and fighting wouldn’t solve anything but chose his fury over his fondness for Lance, and he wishes he hadn’t.
Lance shakes his head before he can finish. “Nah, I think a little yelling was necessary. I did get us lost. Well, kind of. Fifty-fifty, I think.”
“Fifty-fifty?!” Keith responds indignantly. “I think the fuck not, Oh Captain My Caption! Eighty-twenty at best!”
“That’s absurd. Fifty one-forty nine.”
“That’s not a real offer, jackass. You just brought yourself back up to ninety-ten.”
Lance flicks a drop of water at him, grinning. “Sixty-forty?”
Keith sighs. “I’ll take it.” He holds out a hand. “Come up, dorkbrain.”
Lance grabs his hand, smile widening. Keith realises his mistake a milisecond too late.
“Oh, you motherfucker —”
Lance yanks him into the sea, cackling as he sputters sea water on his way back up. His cackles turn quickly to shouts of alarms, though, when he reads the murder in Keith’s expression, and quickly he books it, swimming as fast as he can to the opposite side of the boat. Keith chases him with full intent to drag him under and drown his bitch ass, but unfortunately Lance grew up with a fuckin’ mermaid tail, or whatever, and Keith has to call it when he genuinely starts to worry he might drown from exhaustion.
He grabs the rope on the side of the boat, heaving himself up until his elbows hook over the edge, legs dangling in the water. Lance mirrors him, still on the opposite end. Keith is gratified at least to find him panting, out of breath as well. The look at each other, and reach a wordless agreement, climbing back onto the boat and flopping on the floor. The take a minute, chests heaving, to catch their breaths, sobering as they look up at the cloudless sky and truly realize the predicament they’ve gotten themselves into.
“Well, it could be worse,” Lance says quietly. He continues before Keith can ask him how the fuck that could be. “I mean, I planned for this to happen. Not, like, I planned for it to actually happen to us, but I packed a bunch of emergency supplies on the off-chance that we would somehow get stranded.”
Keith raises his eyebrows. “Yeah? For how long?”
“Well, long as shit, I would suppose. I packed enough for six people to last a month.”
“So the two of us are set for God knows how long.”
They lapse into silence, both pondering the seriousness of their strandedness, the reality of the helpless situation they’re in. They have food and water, sure, and a few other survival things, but what about shelter? Something that’s not a hard boat to sleep on, or old pillows? What about when it gets cold at night, or it rains, or they run into something bigger than their boat? They’re totally lost, communications dashed, GPS unavailable, and honestly still a little hungover. They are, objectively, in for a fuckin’ rough one.
A hand reaches over and wraps around Keith’s, startling him from his thoughts. He looks over at Lance, but Lance looks pointedly away, gaze fixed firmly at the sky, something unreadable written on his face.
“You know, not that it fixes anything,” he starts quietly. He hesitates a moment, long enough that Keith opens his mouth to ask him to finish his sentence, before continuing. “But I’m grateful, at least, that it’s you I’m stuck with.”
His words hang in the air, a heavy blanket settling over them. Keith’s face heats. The tiniest of smiles pulls at his lips, and he squeezes Lance’s hand as he looks away.
“Yeah,” he whispers, “yeah, I lucked out there.”
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A little in training pants who promises they won't go potty in their pants, but they get caught up in looking at the toy aisle at Target. The only way they know what's happening is their big saying "oh look at you :(" while running over as they get overwhelmed with an uh-oh feeling. Now they gotta go change, and that's strike one on big-boy/girl pants.
oh no!! poor little, it's not their fault that there are such interesting toys in Target! there's just so many interesting toys nowadays, with new, interesting gimmicks and features!! or even just extraordinarily soft stuffies!! there's just so many toys that can distract a little for a bit too long...
luckily for their cg, whether or not they have a diaper bag with a change of clothes, they're in a Target! at most Targets I've been to, the pharmacy and the accompanying family bathroom/extra large single toilet bathroom, tend to be not too far from the toy aisle!
sure, they'll have to pass by a pharmacist to get to the bathroom, but a good CG knows that it's important to get things cleaned up right away - their little can wait a moment while they tell the pharmacy tech that there's been a "little spill" in the toy aisle! ... even if that person has to then radio a custodian to get to the spill
and if the CG has a change of clothes, then it's smooth sailing, as the accompanying sink makes clean-ups a lot faster! but if the CG has to make a quick run around the store to pick up any necessary clothes, maybe even some protection for their leaky little, I'm sure that the little can wait patiently for CG's special knock to open the door again
and if they're too little and teary-eyed to wait by themselves, well, it's not the end of the world if they have to hide their face in their CG's shoulder as they walk around the store with a tell-tale stain on their legs until they get to the check out...
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