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“Marinette, pass me the sunscreen, please,” Alya drawled, hand covering her face. Reapply every few hours, her mother had said, darker skin can develop melanoma, too. Alya would have rather stayed in her current position – lying on her back on the deck chair, melting into her towel under the perfectly-shining summer sun next to the perfectly-shining blue of the pool – but her inner mom voice was, for her sanity’s sake, best listened to.
“I can do you one better,” Marinette said, and Alya sensed a shadow block the light from her torso upwards. “I’ll put it on you.”
Alya felt the heat rise in her cheeks, but then remembered she was supposed to be the suavest one in their relationship, so she forced her voice to sound casual. “Sure, that would be great. Thanks, Mari.”
“No problem.”
Alya could hear a note of mischievousness in her voice. Oh, no.
The sound of a cap popping open and then – smooth palms against her legs, rubbing sunscreen up her calves, her thighs, her belly–
“Alya, I’m going to need you to remove your hand from your face,” that cheeky note was still there, “I need to put sunscreen there too, you know, and your arms are hard to get this way.”
Alya slowly moved her hand away to take a look at her girlfriend, who was smiling as innocently as any angel about to fall. Oh, no, you are not getting the last laugh in this, Marinette.
She put on her most winning smile. “Okay,” she replied, sweetly, and raised herself up on her arms in a pose she was sure emphasised how well the upper part of her swimsuit fit her. She could see Marinette’s eyes shift for the briefest of seconds before she became noticeably red. Eat that; blush shows more on your skin.
“Come on, Mariiii, ” she whined, feeling a shit-eating grin split her face. “If I get sunburnt I won’t be able to cuddle.”
Marinette appeared to colour even more at that, but before she could reply–
“–what did I miss?” Kagami said, somehow holding three milkshakes, her phone, and her wallet all at once. Alya wiggled her eyebrows at her, noticing Marinette sitting down with a sort of exhausted flushness out of the corner of her eye.
“Marinette was just helping me put some lotion on,” Alya settled, seeing her other girlfriend’s still questioning stare. “She seems like she can’t quite bear going above my waist, though. Would you care to finish the job?” Wow, we are daring today, arent we?
Kagami set the milkshakes on their respective tables and put her wallet and phone back in their shared beach bag, sitting on the edge of Alya’s deck chair. The bright blue of the pool behind her contrasted neatly with the colour of her hair, face, and eyes, and Alya felt a blush creeping up again.
Marinette silently passed the sunscreen lotion over and Kagami, after spreading some on her hands, proceeded to slowly rub it all over Alya’s arms, hands, and chest.
Is my face the colour of my ombre yet? It must be, she thought once she felt the girl’s cool hands against her face. Kagami’s face softened, then – her eyebrows relaxed, a small smile showed up on her face, and she fluttered her eye-lashes, what the–
Alya, nearly fully caught in the rare public moment of tenderness, couldn’t help but be indignant. “What is this, a conspiracy to make Alya blush with not-quite-PDA at the pool?” she muttered after Kagami set her hands back down.
Marinette giggled from the side. “It was my turn last week, babe, you get a share in it now, too,” she chirped, wiggling her eyebrows, mocking my style–
“Babe,” Alya drawled and dropped her eyelashes. Marinette’s face instantly blanched. “If this is so, then you better be prepared for what’s coming for you next–”
“Are you all done flirting? Can we go inside the pool now?” Nino called and Alya turned to see him already half-risen from his chair.
“What about Luka and Adrien? When did they say they’d be back?” Kagami asked, glancing at the beach bag.
Nino shrugged. “Beats me, but knowing how much worse than you three they sometimes are – they’re possibly already behind the bush. We can stay close to the edge of the pool if you want to watch over the bags, but man, I’m about to roast in this chair.”
“You’ll roast more in the water, you know,” Marinette said, rising from her seat to follow him towards the pool steps. “Remember what Mendeleiev said yesterday? Light refracts more in water, so you’re technically being exposed to the sun more.”
“Mari, I don’t care. If I don’t feel the heat, it doesn’t matter,” Nino replied, waving a hand as he took the first cautious step into the water. “How come you even remember that, anyway? Weren’t you, like, asleep in class the entire time yesterday morning?”
“I guess my subconscious somehow predicted that precise bit of information would be useful today and took it upon itself to store it properly,” she said, voice slightly absent as she dipped her toes in; Alya couldn’t see her face from where she was sitting.
She started rising from her chair at the moment Kagami turned around to her again. Alya nodded before her girlfriend could ask her whether they should go in, too, and then the latter turned around again and headed for the steps. Alya picked up her milkshake to mix in the cream and slurp some of it before going in and wow isn’t that telepathy working beautifully–
“Eating or drinking before going into the water is bad for your health, you know.”
“Shut up, Agreste,” she replied automatically, raising her head briefly from her shake to note that Adrien and Luka holding hands was still, objectively the only form of PDA that could solve world peace through cuteness overload (with them three with Kagami and Marinette it was a competition, you see, so that wouldn’t work). Luka had Agreste Brand sunglasses on (which Alya could swear had been on his boyfriend’s face before) and was sipping boba with a sort of zen she aspired to reach one day. She mimicked the pose with her milkshake and exchanged finger guns with him.
“I will never understand you two,” Adrien declared, settling down his own drink at the table and heading for the pool.
“Where did you even find bubble tea around here?” Marinette asked, eyeing the plastic cup in Luka’s hand as if she might just vault over and steal it for herself.
“Some secrets must remain...in the black,” Adrien said, apparently aiming for and missing the dramatic deadpan by roughly ten kilometers.
Marinette stared at him. “That was terrible.”
He nodded, solemn. “It was.”
And then they both broke out laughing so hard Kagami and Nino had to hold them not to collapse into the water. “Scratch that,” Alya said, finally setting her drink down and standing up to head to the water. “I will never, ever understand how you two’s friendship functions. Ever .”
“That’s the point,” they both replied in unison, sagging against their respective holders, convulsing with giggles.
“Luka, control your boyfriend, please,” Kagami said and the next thing Alya saw was Nino’s volleyball hurtling towards Adrien’s face. The latter snapped out of her girlfriend’s arms with lightning speed and caught it just before it hit what his father had once, in front of all of them, referred to as ‘a million-euro asset’. “Be careful,” the blond said, smirking in that way that always made Alya think he was at least distantly related to Chat Noir, “you might mess up, ah, what was it, the only thing holding our relationship together? ” he said, mimicking Lila’s initial indignation at learning about their relationship ( boy was that a fun day– )
“I’ll kiss your face better myself if I have to,” Luka replied, finally joining them in the water. Marinette made a gagging expression to the side. Nino looked at her, snorting as he let her arms go. “As if you three aren’t just as bad. Honestly, why am I here again?”
Adrien threw the ball at his face, but Mari expertly caught it with one arm, and when did she get so dexterous, again–
“Is that the best you can do?” she drawled, smirking at him. His grin stretched even wider.
Oh, no. “Children,” Alya said, keeping her voice steady and stern, “we have discussed this already. No competitions in public places when neither Kim nor Alix nor both aren’t around to be blamed.”
“Didn’t we change that rule to never after last time?” Kagami asked, hitting the ball out of Adrien’s arms when Marinette passed it back to him, causing it to splash water all over his face. He chuckled before turning around and lifting her over his arm, eliciting a squeal (Alya had to note that down for later) and dragging her into the deeper end of the water.
“Hey, you had your shot with her, asscat, you don’t get to steal her back now,” Marinette shouted before diving in after them. Alya saw Luka glance at both Nino and herself before shrugging and following the other three further in.
“Asscat,” Nino said, turning to look at Alya. They stared emptily at each other’s faces. “Are we missing something?”
“Probably,” she said, gathering a bit of water into her hands, preparing it for launch. “You know what won’t miss though?”
“What? Oh, hey– ”