AU a Day - March 13th
Lifeguard AU
ao3
Lying by a pool, letting her skin soak in the sunlight and just relaxing sounded exactly like what Yang wanted to be doing. Unfortunately, Yang actually had a job on the poolside and so was forced to not lie down, not let her skin soak in the sun and not relax. Typical.
Yang was aware that she had actually signed up for this and so it was entirely her fault that she was so miserable, but come on she hadn’t even been able to give any hot people mouth to mouth. Why the hell had she even signed up for this in the first place? Aside from money. It was really all about the money.
Yang saw the exact same thing, day in, day out. Kids were playing loudly in the pool and their parents weren’t doing anything to stop them because they were here ‘on holiday’ and so left the whole looking-after-the-children thing to the staff. Which was not in their job description, Yang had checked. She had to say the words ‘no running’ so many times that she was pretty sure they had lost their meaning.
Then there were the teenage idiots that were spending their first week away from their parents ever and so decided to go absolutely wild. This didn’t usually cause a problem for Yang since she didn’t have to deal with them whilst they were blind drunk, although she felt sorry for the people who did, but when they left and she had to clean out their rooms? Holy hell it was the most disgusting job Yang had ever had to do, and she had toilet trained a puppy.
Oh look, and there’s another one, a teenager grinning like he was some sort of mastermind about to push one of his friends into the pool. He had that ‘better than you’ demeanour that Yang had grown to despise and gave the girl he was standing behind a little nudge. Since she was at the edge of the pool, that was all it took for her to tumble in.
What Yang wasn’t expecting was her reaction.
The girl’s eyes widened in fear and her arms were flailing wildly. She screamed, properly screamed, and all the boys who were responsible were doing were laughing. Assholes. She seemed to fall in slow motion, almost in a cartoon kind of way, into the water and the panic she so obviously was experiencing resonated across the whole poolside.
Yang jumped into the water immediately, her splash simultaneous with the girl’s, trying desperately to get to her as soon as possible. It wasn’t her fault her friends were dicks, and oh god they’d pushed her into the deepest part of the pool. When she reached her, Yang wrapped her arm around the girl’s waist and kept them both afloat.
“Hey, hey, shhh.” Yang tried to calm her down as she slowly guided her to the edge of the pool. “Everything’s okay. I’ve got you, you’re not going anywhere. You’re going to be fine, you’re safe.” And they were there, ready to pull themselves out. Yang lifted the girl until she was out of the water, and then heaved herself up to follow. The girl never once let go Yang, whether that was clinging to her arm or her wrist or anything. She kept constant contact.
She looked majorly spooked. Even Yang could see that she obviously had a fear of water, why had her friends pushed her in? Oh right, cause they were probably assholes who were going to leave their room a mess when they left. At this point Yang was very familiar with the type.
“Hey, I’m here. You okay?” Yang wrapped an arm around the girl’s shoulders, and gestured to the staff to find her a towel.
“Y-Yeah I’m fine.” The girl took a deep breath, trying to compose herself. “Thanks.”
“Hey just doing my job.”
“Yeah.” The two shared a look. “Uh, I’m Blake.”
“Yang.” She smiled at Blake as she was handed a towel, and wrapped it around her. “You need to lie down or anything.”
“That’d be great, thanks.” As Yang was guiding her away to somewhere cooler and quieter, Blake nuzzled into Yang’s side. Must have been a subconscious act of relief or something. Either way, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Neither was this job, now that Yang had had time to contemplate it.
