driftfleet | selvin-9 system mingle

I swear... Mama always told me to be careful and look out for those bad boys.

[Maybe not in those exact words, but, y'know. Lance gives Keith a shoulder bump, laughing softly. He isn't surprised in the least. Thankfully, he hasn't noticed any injuries or bruises on his boyfriend, so at least he hasn't done anything ridiculously dumb.

...he hopes.

.......he probably has, Lance realizes.]

I don't know how fair of a race it's going to be, but you're on.

[Keith smirked.]

Did she, now?

[He considered the statement for a moment, and then shrugged.]

Fair enough. It's not like we've got snowmobiles in the desert.

[Though, if he'd been winning races practically since they got back from their disappearances, it probably wouldn't be. Keith had a strange knack of getting a feel for machines like that really fast.]

You'll get a feel for it. We can even do a few warmup runs if you want.

Fine. You're still totally going down, though.

[Lance knows he's not going to win, especially since Keith has already been racing and winning, but damned if he isn't going to try his hardest.]

Yeah. Sure. If it makes you feel better...

[Keith just smirked. He liked this, easy-going banter between the two of them. It was still that silly rivalry, but it wasn't mean anymore. It was just them teasing each other, and having fun.

It didn't take long to get out of the city and to where the "not-races" were being held. Keith was prepared and had already secured two machines, one for each of them.]

You pick.

[He'd made sure the two machines were fairly evenly matched anyway.]

[To be honest, he knows absolutely nothing about snowmobiles, so he wouldn't be able to tell which one might be better or more suited towards him. So instead he just picks one with the cooler colors, climbing onto it and settling himself down.]

Bet I'm gonna be a natural.

[Keith chuckled a little as he climbed on the other one.]

Let's just take a few practice runs to be sure, okay?

[The last thing he wanted was for his boyfriend to get hurt on their first date because he made a mistake on a snowmobile.]

You ever ride an ATV?

An ATV... Yeah! Once. But I was really young and didn't know what I was doing, and uh, might have crashed it about ten seconds in...

[His older cousin wasn't terribly amused at that.]

[Keith sighed. Okay, so maybe this wasn't such a great idea. He pursed his lips a little as he thought this through for a second, and then got up to walk over.]

Okay... natural or not, you still need to know what the controls do.

[He pointed to a red button just to the inside of the right-side hand grip.]

That... is your engine kill switch. Something goes wonky, you hit that. Got it?

Got it. Last option button.

[He nods.]

Okay.

[He pointed to the lever attached to the right hand grip.]

That's the throttle. Squeeze it hard, the machine goes faster.

[Another lever on the other hand grip.]

That's the brake.

[There was a small grouping of buttons on the left side grip, mirroring the location of the engine kill switch.]

This is your headlight. [The blue button.] This turns on the heated grips to keep your hands warm. [Two small grey switches, one for the right, one for the left.] That's the parking brake. [A small red flip switch that locked the brake lever into position. The last button was a medium sized yellow one.]

And this is the starter button.

[He purposefully waited to show Lance the starter button last, having picked the engine kill button first for a reason. Keith might do stupid stunts on his own, but he'd been riding that speeder back home for years. He already knew what he was doing and found it easy to make the switch between similar machines.]

[Lance nods again, following along as Keith describes all of the buttons. Remembering what does what shouldn't be too hard; the challenge comes in that he has no idea of how this thing handles. But he's still (mostly) confident that he'll get the hang of it. He can't make the race easy on Keith, either, wants to give him some sort of challenge.]

Got it.

Okay.

[Keith went and got back on his own machine.]

Start it up, and I'll follow you for a few shorter slower runs while you get a feel for it, okay?

[Keith was giving Lance the chance to make it a challenge, too. Mostly because he didn't want Lance to make a mistake and get hurt, so he was hoping to prevent it by giving Lance a few basic lessons before they did anything that involved actual racing.]

Please, it won't take long.

[However, it is tricky, once he actually gets moving. Maneuvering a vehicle on snow is a lot different from maneuvering in the air or in space, and he has to account for the traction of the ground. Turns are a lot more difficult, and he's skidding a good amount the first few tries, but he finally settles into it. Mostly. As long as his race against Keith doesn't have a bunch of 90 degree turns, he should be fine.

Once he's confident enough, he drives back up to their start point.]

Okay! I got it! Let's do this.

[Keith waited, leaning his chin on his hand and his elbow on the handlebars of his own machine as he watched Lance figure things out. After a bit, he started up his own machine, pacing Lance a little to watch his technique.

Yeah... good thing the turns weren't sharp along the course.

It was obvious where the course was because a few people had been making the runs throughout the day, so the tracks were there and the snow pressed down into something akin to a road. It was still slippery, and snowy, but it didn't sink quite as much as the fluffy stuff they'd been practicing on.

Keith pulled up to the line next to Lance.]

Alright... Three times around the circuit. We start on three.

[To avoid having to shout over the sound of their engines, Keith used a hand signal to count down from three to one, his pacing and cadence for the count having gotten closer to the length of an Altean tick than an Earth second after their time back home, and then dropped his arm to signal that they go.

And then they were off!

Whether or not Lance noticed, Keith didn't care, but he made sure to keep Lance in sight... just in case. So he didn't pull too far ahead, and he also didn't fall too far behind when Lance was able to get ahead of him.]

[He doesn't notice, not at first, too busy focused on making sure that he did indeed have the hang of this. Even in a race that he knew was stacked against him due to his own inexperience, he didn't want to lose (or at the least, lose that badly). Lance feels a little more comfortable with the controls and handling by the second lap, enough so to start taking a few risks. Taking turns more sharply, speeding up further than he probably should be.

Because now he is noticing. If Keith is good enough to beat natives of this place, then he should be doing better than this. And Lance doesn't want him to hold back. So he goes faster, trying to bait Keith into taking off the kid gloves.

He can totally handle this.]

[Ooohhh no. The last thing Keith needed was Lance messing up a fancy maneuver to try and impress him. Still, the baiting might actually work... and then... it did...

Keith clenched his jaw and cranked on the throttle, leaning down close over the handlebars to reduce his profile and air resistance. His whole posture changed as he pulled himself in close, knees against the sides of the machine, elbows pulled in, shoulders relaxed and down, and took the next turn tight, blasting past Lance on the inside.]

[It really isn't difficult to bait Keith, after all, at least when it comes to something like this. He can't help but laugh when Keith zooms past him; now there he is. Lance kicks up the speed on his own snowmobile, wanting to do his best to keep up, if not overcome him somehow.

The problem is that he's having to take too many risks in an attempt to keep up, and when Lance gets in this sort of competitive mood, he's more desperate to beat Keith than he is to actually think logically. He takes a turn at far too sharp an angle than his speed allows, and before he realizes it, his vehicle is skidding off course. It's too late to adjust more than just a little so that he doesn't flip the snowmobile over (being crushed does not sound fun), and he manages just enough that...well. He ends up launching off a bump at the side of the track, soaring a short distance in the air before smacking right into a snowbank. The back half of his snowmobile is still sticking out.

It takes him a minute or so to dig himself out of the snow, and he groans as he peels himself off of the snowmobile. Lance is pretty sure he has a few bruises, but his pride is hurt more than his body.]

[Keith was kind of expecting the sound of Lance's engine to die off as he pulled away in speed. He was not expecting to hear the rather sudden and loud revving behind him that meant the snowmobile had gotten some air time. He squeezed his own brake sharply and yanked the handlebars hard to one side, hitting the engine kill switch at the same time to bring the machine to an immediate halt after spinning it around to face behind him.

Not immediately seeing Lance's snowmobile, he started his own back up and slowly made his way back, spotting the tracks that indicated where Lance had managed to launch himself into a snowbank, and, following those, the errant machine buried in a snowbank.]

Lance?!

[Keith shut his own machine off and dismounting, running over to make sure he was okay.]

[He's just managed to extract his body from the snowbank when Keith walks over. Although he's sore, it doesn't feel like anything's actually badly injured, so thank god for small miracles. It doesn't stop him from looking upset, though.]

Stupid...snow.

Are you okay?

[Keith made his way up the snowbank and crouched down next to Lance, watching his movement for any signs of injury before putting his hand gently on Lance's back to help him sit up.]

'm fine.

[He shakes the snow out of his hair best he can, trying to brush it off of his jacket as well.]

I just lost control on a turn there.

[Keith furrowed his brow, and then made to start getting Lance back to solid ground and off that snowbank.]

Come on...

[He held on to him, too, just to be sure he stayed upright.]

[Lance stumbles a little bit on his way up, but readies himself soon enough. Other than a little dizziness that's already fading, he thinks he'll be just fine physically.]

I'm good, I'm good!

You sure?

[Keith actually looked worried. He walked Lance back down to the track where the other machine was parked. He was holding on to Lance's arm until they were next to it.]

Here, sit.

Really, Keith, I'm fine.

[He does sit down, though, brushing some more snow off of him.]

Sorry, I kind of messed up our race...

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