Welp. Here goes more mermaid nonsense. Who knows how long this'll be. Cross-posted to my AO3 account, TakingOverMidnight3482.

I don't own Voltron

If there was one thing that Lance McClain really loved, it was the ocean. The way the waves churned against the sandy shore of his family's summer home, how the light bounced across the water and sent rainbows through the mist, the way the salt stung on his lips and eyes when he swam. He loved paddling out into the dusk on his surfboard, sitting with his legs crossed up under him to keep any unwanted fish away while he watched the sun dip into the world's largest bathtub.

But more than anything, Lance loved night surfing.

It was one of the most dangerous things a person could do in regards to the ocean, but he had grown up surfing every summer and had determined that the best waves came in the early morning, or maybe the late night. Whatever someone considered 3 am, that was the best time in Lance's opinion.

His friend Pidge, who lived about ten minutes from his family's summer home and who he had known since he and his family started travelling to the beach, had figured out a way to install lights onto Lance's surfboard that allowed him to see what was under him and around him. While it wasn't perfect, it kept him safer than he would be with only the moonlight to go by, and the lights were such a gorgeous blue that Lance found he could never complain.

Pidge joined him for most of his late-night surfing, claiming that she didn't want Lance to die of stupidity, and while Lance scoffed every time she showed up alongside him, he was secretly grateful to have a friend watching his back in the unlikely event that something went wrong. Pidge didn't surf, was more of a scientist than anything, and she would spend Lance's late night surf parties scouring the shore for things that she could study.

This particular night, however, Pidge was visiting her grandmother on the other side of town, and had texted Lance letting him know that she wasn't going to make it and telling him not to die. Lance appreciated the sentiment.

His only other two options were to either call their friend Hunk, who lived in town and, provided he was awake and willing, would take almost half an hour to get to the secluded beach Lance usually surfed in, or to just not surf.

Lance went with the third, more dangerous option, electing to grab his surfboard and slip out of the house with a whisper of swim trunks and the slightest jangle of keys.

The stone steps that led down to the beach were precarious at best, and despite the solar powered lights that Lance and his sister had put there at the beginning of the summer, he still took his time in climbing down them, phone flashlight trained at the chipped rock. It took almost ten minutes, but by the time his sandaled feet hit sand Lance didn't care, a smile stretching across his face as the smell of salt washed over him.

He moved quickly after that, setting his board down and flicking on its lights to illuminate what he was doing. The board was about a foot and a half taller than him, with blue and teal swirls curling over the top of it. The lights, which were almost an aquamarine color, were placed at strategic locations on each side of the board.

Lance stripped out of his shirt, tossing it impatiently into the sand and putting his phone down on top of it. He left his shoes alongside his shirt, opened his phone to the keypad just in case he had to make a quick phone call, and then picked up the modified board and trotted for the water.

He shivered as he ran in, waves caressing his ankles and sending chills up his spine that made his heart thrum in pleasure.

His first stroke out on top of the board caused his entire body to erupt in goosebumps from the cold of the water, but within moments he was basking in the feeling, night air caressing his hair and blowing it back from his face.

Lance stopped at about thirty feet out, tilting his body to a sitting position and hooking his ankles together under the board. His eyes perused the horizon, watching for a deviance in the skyline that would signal a wave. The lights warmed the board where he sat, sending glittering sparks through the water and over the fish that darted along under him.

It was peaceful. It was calm. Lance could breathe, finally breathe, and he did just that, soul fluttering in delight and a smile dancing over his lips.

That was ruined when something slammed- hard- into the bottom of Lance's board, sending his body plunging into the cold of the cove and waking him up fast.

He twisted in the water, lungs yelling at the unexpected swim and unprepared breath, but he ignored them for a second, struggling to find the source of the commotion. A turtle was his first guess; they were drawn to light and could get massive in the waters he surfed in.

His next guess, and his biggest concern, was a shark. They didn't frequent the cove too often, but when they did they were usually starving and coming close to shore for an easy meal. Lance knew that on the board he looked like something a shark would eat, and while he wasn't scared of them, he was worried he might get a chunk out of his arm.

The thing that flicked off to the corner of the cove, just barely lit by his board, was not a sharks tail though; sharks typically weren't blood red. Nevertheless, Lance finally relieved his lungs, pushing to the surface and straddling his board to paddle back to shore as fast as he could.

"The one-time Pidge isn't here," he grumbled in irritation.

The waves under him picked up and he relaxed, letting some of the larger ones push him back to shore and only getting off the board when he hit knee deep water. The board ground against the sand as he dragged it up the beach, hair dripping in his eyes and salt stinging at his chest, where he had gotten cut when he fell. The blood was non-existent, but Lance was curious about what had hit him.

He dropped the board next to his stuff and tugged his shirt on over his still soaked body. He hadn't brought a towel with him, never did because the walk back to his house usually dried him off enough that he didn't track seawater into the house.

Picking up his phone, Lance turned the flashlight back on and crept towards the shore, eyes scanning the incoming waves in bewilderment and trying to pick out anything unusual. The board remained on behind him, casting an eerie blue light over the cove and making Lance feel like he was being watched.

"H-hello?" he called out, feeling stupid.

No one answered, of course, and Lance scolded himself internally for thinking that someone might be there with him. The only person who might be enough of a jerk to do that was his sister Mariana, the youngest of their family at 14 years old and the second-best surfer right behind Lance. She often accompanied him and Pidge to his late-night rides, but Lance was slightly overprotective and had never actually let her surf at night.

"Mariana?" he called out, raising an eyebrow and sweeping the phone light around the area. "If that's you, you don't get a ride. Not until you're 16, I told you!"

No response came, and Lance breathed a little easier after a minute went by with nothing but the sound of lapping waves and crickets in the woods behind him. Still, he slid his phone light over the edge of the water, just to make sure that nothing was about to creep up on him, and-

-what the hell was that?

Lance frowned, squinting and slowly starting in the direction of the large lump that was on the ground at the edge of the cove. The area was surrounded on either side by tall cliffs that twined their way around the shores of the beaches, speckled with underwater caves that Lance and Pidge had gone spelunking in many times. At the edge of the cliffs, sprawled in the wet sand under the mouth of an overhanging rock, Lance could just make out the vague shape of a person.

His heart leapt into his throat and he walked faster, thumb starting to dial the local police station so that he could alert them to an injured swimmer or surfer. "Dude?" he called out, his feet kicking up sand as he walked and flecking his calves. "You good?"

There was a soft groan from the shape and Lance winced. "You want me to call someone?"

They didn't respond, and Lance moved faster, his feet slipping in the water as he got closer to the person. He shoved the phone into his pocket momentarily so that if he lost his balance he wouldn't lose it and proceeded carefully, knowing that the closer he got to the cliffs, the more moss he would find under him. The still standing water was a breeding ground for the slippery stuff, and Hunk had taken a couple nasty spills on it before.

Despite his caution, Lance found himself flailing as he stepped the wrong way, not ten feet from the guy on the ground. His knees hit the ground first, barking in pain at the sensation of solid sand and rock under them, and Lance hissed a curse between his teeth as tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.

Still, the person was clearly hurt, so Lance moved forwards on his hands and knees, brushing off his right hand on his shirt and pulling the phone out of his pocket again. The light flickered off the water and he froze, body going rigid as the liquid under him churned with crimson.

"Holy…"

Blood. He was kneeling in blood. Either his knees had gotten cut badly, or…

Lance lifted his head and his flashlight to flash directly on the person.

He had never screamed so loudly in his life, practically throwing his phone at the shape in front of him and backpedaling in the water so fast that his fingers slipped and he slammed his head against the sand. His phone vanished somewhere onto the beach (thank god for little miracles), and he whimpered, rubbing at the back of his scalp and cursing.

Because that was definitely not a person lying face down in the sand. At least, not a whole person.
Trembling, Lance lifted his upper body so that he was propped on his elbows, his shirt now soaking wet and clinging to his body like a second skin. He couldn't see anything now, thanks to throwing the phone, but he could still picture in his head what he had just seen.

Blood, everywhere, first of all. A shirtless torso. Dark hair. But lower, from the hips down?

Lance swallowed hard and crawled back up the beach, fumbling in the sand until he located his phone again, training it in the general direction of the body.

Light flashed off of ruby red and crimson scales, though Lance wasn't sure if the crimson was from blood or the actual scales themselves. They faded from existence where the red met the pale of the man's torso, melding seamlessly into two separate body parts. Lance slid the light down the body, eyes crawling down the tail and landing on the flippers, which matched the red of the scales and curved in a sharp "V" formation.

Gathering his courage, Lance edged closer and shined the light all over, trying to spot where this guy…this…merman…was injured. Nothing on the back of him seemed like a problem though, so Lance steeled himself, set his phone down with the flashlight facing up, and squatted in the water.

Fingers tightening around the guy's shoulders, he pushed and heaved and nearly faceplanted trying to roll him over. When he finally did, with a loud splash that rang through the cove, Lance was panting like he had just run a marathon, sweat trickling down his face.

"Damn, you're heavy," he grunted, picking up the phone again and starting at the lower part of the tail. About halfway up, he found the source of all the blood; a massive gash ran from where his knees would be, if he had knees, and up to the thigh area. Lance winced and continued up the body, jolting a little when the light caught on glimmering dark eyes that reminded Lance of the deepest part of the cove.

"Holy shit," he gasped, pressing a hand to his forehead. "Don't fucking do that, you asshole."

His lips twitched, like the guy was trying to decide whether or not he wanted to laugh, and Lance managed a weak smile. "I'm uh…I'm going to try and get you fixed up. If that's cool."

He studied Lance warily, teeth playing at his lower lip as he nodded. Lance tilted his head and tugged his shirt off, grimacing as it stuck to his skin. He used that to put pressure on the wound, trying to ignore the fact that he was hovering over a mythical creature—a mythical hot creature—and focusing on dialing Hunk's number on his somehow still-functional cell phone.

"Hey Hunk? Yeah, I know it's late, sorry buddy…listen, can you meet me in the cove? And bring like…first aid supplies….? No, you dummy, I'm fine. Please?"

He grinned after a moment. "You're the best, man."

He hung up, tossing the phone back into the sand, and then gazed down at where he knew this guy's eyes were. "Uh…I'm Lance, by the way. And you're gonna be fine. Promise."

There was silence for a moment, and Lance relaxed into the feeling of his wet shirt in his hands, the water gliding around his knees and calves, the bizarre feeling of scales under his knuckles.

"Thank you, Lance."

Lance started at the voice, soft and deep and somehow fitting for this guy, and he was glad that it was dark, because his blush was definitely as bright as this guy's tail. "You're welcome," he murmured.

The silence was perfect after that moment, the crickets hushing in favor of frogs as the early morning started peeking over the horizon, gold and pink filtering over the water and reminding Lance that he had been there for almost two hours.

All serenity was shattered, however, when Hunk showed up and screamed.