Sharkfest and shark week is happening rn soooooo...
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Lance POV:

I swam quickly barreling into my best friend Hunk. He screamed caught off guard thrashing his yellow tail around quickly.

"DUDE." He gave me a disapproving look, I clearly scared him.

"C'mon! Let's go to the drop off!" I whined in boredom.

"Lance you know that it's not safe, we'll get in trouble." Hunk said worriedly. "Besides, what if we see the Cals?"

Cals is a slang term for Caliginous Dwellers. Caliginous' are mermaids like us but they live at the very bottom of the ocean. I'd hate to be them, living in the dark like that. They tend to be what we consider evil. Darks hang with anglerfish and sharks.

Sharks terrorize our villages and we have to seek refuge from them. Anglerfish never have been a problem seen as they never come up this far in the water.

Caliginous' have dark colored luminescent tails. All mermaids have luminescent abilities but theirs glow brighter considering their dark habitat.

"Fine, I'll go by myself scaredy Discus." I turned swimming away with my light blue tail.

"Wait up." Hunk said hesitantly. He caught up and we swam to the drop off.

We got to the edge looking into the dark abyss.

"Okay, we came, we saw, let's go." Hunk whined.

"Fine." As I began to swim away with him something caught my eye. "Hunk, wait. Do you see that?"

He turned around and focused on what I was seeing. Purple glowed clearly someone's luminesce. "It's the Cals, let's go!" He swam away immediately already out of sight. I stayed watching as it continued rising. I hid behind a nearby cluster of boulders.

As more light showed I took a good look at the culprit. A merman with a red and black tail glowing a purple luminescence. He had dark hair and violet eyes. Definitely good looking. That I know for sure.

Though he was indeed a Caliginous, it was confirmed with the carpet shark following closely behind.

What I'm doing is stupid, reckless, and dangerous, but this is the first time I've ever seen a Caliginous. Part of me believed they didn't even exist.

I also didn't expect them to look so... well... hot. I sighed resting my head on my hand staring at him. Bubbles floated up from my mouth causing noise. His head snapped in my direction and I hid carefully.

I didn't hear anything and peaked over the rocks to see if they were still suspicious but they were gone. I let out a relieved breath and turned to leave to come face to with the carpet shark. I screamed and whipped around in the other direction to swim away only to run into the Caliginous.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" He demanded.

I looked back at the non attacking shark.

"Are you one of the surface mermaids?"

"First off, I'm a merman. Secondly, I'm not telling you anything, beach." I crossed my arms stubbornly.

"I suppose that's a yes. Where's your village?" He asked.

"No way I'm telling you, you'll probably have your shark friend there attack it." I snapped pointing my finger at him as my mom used to do to me when I was young. I poked him in the chest before turning away angrily. The boy seemed a little surprised.

"Lenny."

"What?" I turned back dropping my attitude in exchange for a whole lot of confusion.

"The shark, his name is Lenny. He's a vegan." (Yes this is a reference to one of my favorite childhood movies)

I blinked a few times letting the information set in. I then couldn't help but crack into a fit of laughter. I calmed myself enough to look up at the boy. He had a cute sort of half smile as if he didn't get what was funny. "No offense, but for a caliginous, you aren't intimidating."

He folded his arms annoyed, "And for a surface merman you aren't that scared. Why?"

"I already told you, you aren't intimidating." I smirked.

"As if! All of the surface mermaids are scaredy Discus'. The other day one of you saw Lenny and your whole village went under a lockdown. It hurt his feelings." He mumbled the last part.

"That was Lenny!" I realized I just gave away what village I was from and clapped a hand over my mouth. "Son of a beach."

"Relax, I'm not going to attack your village." He rolled his eyes and began to swim back to the drop off Lenny following close behind.

"Wait, whats your name?" I swam after him. "I'm Lance."

He turned around and stared at me for a moment. "Keith."

"Well Keith, are you an octopus because you octopi my thoughts." I shot him my signature finger guns.

"No... I'm a merman." He said confused.

"No, no, it's-its a pick up line. Get it? Like you occupy my thoughts-octopi?" I tried to explain but I gave up when it proved to be hopeless.

He began to swim back down into the dark depths beyond the drop off. I stopped at the edge really wanting to keep going. "What? See, you're too scared." Keith continued swimming.

I took a deep breath and swam off towards Keith. I immediately clung to his arm catching him off guard.

"What are you doing?" He looked a utterly shocked.

"I'm swimming down... there." I gulped seeing the dark abyss.

He stared at me for several seconds before speaking. "You don't have too."

"Bull shark, yes I do." I tried to act a little tougher which was to no avail considering I was still clinging to his arm in fear of the depths below.

"Fine." We started swimming down into the dark. I was soon unable to see anything. Purple flowed illuminating the area around us. It didn't help us to see a distance but at least I could see Keith and Lenny tagging along silently.

The shark swam up next to Keith nudging him.

"Shut up! I do not!" Keith glared at Lenny and pushed him away. Pink gathered on his cheeks and we swam a little faster.

"How far down does it go?" I asked nervous that we hadn't reached the bottom yet. The further down we went, the darker it got.

"We're almost there." Keith assured.

I nodded. I decided while we were swimming I might as well make a little small talk. "So... living at the bottom of the ocean huh? It's very... dark."

"You have a problem?" He raised an eyebrow.

"No, no... it's just lots of creatures down here tend to want to kill us." I looked around nervously.

"As opposed to humans who are constantly wanting to hunt for you. Besides, the guys down here are fine, we don't have any issues." Keith finally pulled me to the bottom.

"Right, right."

"Want to know something cool?" Keith smiled a bit.

"What?"

"This isn't even the bottom of the ocean." He pulled me along a path marked with algae.

"Are you serious? It's even deeper?" I was dumbfounded.

"Yeah, I don't think we could even survive down there Keith said slightly intrigued at just the idea. "It's amazing to think about what little we actually know about the place we've been our entire lives."

"So, um, are all Caliginous' like you?" I asked still clinging to him as we swam through the dark only able to see two feet in front of us.

"Like me?" He said with a bit of offense.

"No, not like a bad thing. I mean just, you're very different from what my teachers and stuff made you out to be." I rubbed the back of my neck nervously.

"What did your teachers say we were like?" He asked raising an eyebrow.

"You won't like it." I started but when he continued to stare at me I began. "Well, you definitely weren't supposed to be this cute and you're definitely nice in your own way."

"What?" Keith said a little surprised. "Cute?"

"Yeah, you're like totally hot. Caliginous' were made out to be ugly, have sharp pointy teeth, and would tear us to shreds if given the chance." I said casually.

"Oh." Keith said simply. He was quiet for a moment or two. "Hot means...-?"

"Really attractive."

"Right."

It was quiet for a few moments and I began wonder if I crossed a line calling him hot. We stopped and he turned to look at me. I liked the close proximity.

"Would you like to...-" he started a little shy.

"Yes." I said immediately.

"You-you didn't even know what I was going to say." Keith said with a small voice crack.

"Okay, what were you going to say?"

"I wanted to know if you'd like to meet more of me?"

"Oh, okay, sure. I was hoping you were going to say make out, but that works too." I smiled at the sight that Keith was hiding a smile of his own behind rolling his eyes.

"Just follow me." He grabbed my hand and pulled me along. We came upon a sunken ship and we swam to the entrance. Keith went inside without a second thought but I hesitated. "What's wrong?" He asked swimming back to the door when he realized I wasn't behind him.

"Nothing." I slowly swam in looking around cautiously. Wait. Where's Keith? I began to panic, I didn't see the glow from his luminescence and it was now pitch black. "Keith...," I whispered warily. Nothing. "Keith." I repeated a little louder. Nothing. "Keith!" I said quick loud before hiding in a split second in case I attracted anything dangerous.

The bright purple glow returned and I saw Keith looking around worried. "Lance? Where'd you go?"

I swam out and grabbed his arm. "Leave me like that again and you're a dead fish."

"Sorry," He looked around, "hey Shiro, you home?"

"Yeah, you need anything?" A tall merman with a black and white tail swam in. He had a more yellow luminescence. His face grew stern when he saw me and drew a sharp look to Keith. "Who is this? You shouldn't have brought a surface mer down here. You know what they think of us."

"His name is Lance, and he came down here on his free will." Keith said folding his arms which was a little awkward considering I was still holding onto his arm.

"What about others, people who know him, they will blame his disappearance on us." Shiro narrowed his eyes.

"Sorry to but in, but when I go back couldn't I just say it wasn't your fault? I could speak well if you guys and they'll realize that your not all big and scary like they say." I added.

"See Shiro, it's fine, this could even help us." Keith said.

"Fine, but you should get him back quickly." Shiro instructed.

Keith nodded and pulled me towards the door. "C'mon, Lance." We swam back up the drop off.

"So, how about this: can you call a lifeguard? Because I'm drowning in your eyes." I did my signature finger guns.

"But you can't drown you're a-wait, I get it." Keith said.

"Really?"

"No. It doesn't make sense." Keith looked to me.

"I'm complimenting your eyes." I explained.

"Oh. I drown in your eyes too." He attempted.

"You still don't get it do you?" I asked flatly.

"Not even a little."

I laughed and although Keith didn't know why it was funny, he laughed a bit too. We neared the top and I stopped Keith. "You'll be back again right?"

"Yeah, I come up here sometimes to collect things for the ship." Keith said.

"Yeah but, will you ever come up here to see me?"

He seemed a little surprised by my question. He nodded and I smiled which he reciprocated.

We reached the top only to see Allura, Pidge, and Hunk waiting nervously.

"Lance! Buddy, you're alive!" Hunk exclaimed.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, you took off."

"To be fair, I thought you were behind me." Hunk pointed out.

Pidge picked up a couple rocks. "Does no one realize he's standing next to a Cal?"

Allura picked up some rocks too and they attempted to throw them, of course they were harmless as the water slowed them enough for them to land gracefully in the ground in front of me and Keith.

"Hold your seahorses, they aren't bad like you think." I said raising my hands.

"Well, not all of us are good either." Keith added.

"What?" I turned around to look at him.

"Well, their are mer like Lotor, Zarkon, and Haggar, along with all the Galra." Keith explained.

"You tell me this now?" I raised an eyebrow and he just shrugged. "Okay," I turned back to the three, "so not all Cals are bad."

"How do you know that for sure?" Allura put her hands on her hips.

"Ahem, still alive and unharmed over here." I folded my arms.

"How do you know he isn't just tricking you?" Pidge asked.

"Keith are you tricking me?"

"No." Keith said flatly being me.

"See." I raised my eyebrows. "Plus, he's to cute to be bad." I grabbed his hand and clung to his arm as if to prove my point.

"Lance just because he's-" Allura began.

"Nope, he's good. I can tell."

"Fine." Pidge dropped her rocks and swam forward. She extended her hand, "I'm Pidge."

"Keith." He shook it. I smiled widely.

Allura was reluctant but soon followed. "I'm Allura, daughter of King Alfor."

Hunk being a wuss swam over slowly. "I'm Hunk."

I smiled. I was so happy they were accepting. "Allura, we are gonna have soooo much boy talk later."

She looked a little surprised but then smiled. "Really Lance, all the fish in the sea and you choose someone that everyone else is scared out of their wits of?"

I looked at Keith closely and back at Allura. "Yup!"