[It'll be a few times of that repetition before finally - finally - after what seems like far too long only because time slows with the panic of everything... with a gasp and a strangled cough, the water goes out of his mouth and Keith breathes, ragged but breathing nevertheless.
He doesn't immediately open his eyes and coughs out a few more times, between gasping for air, desperately trying to orient himself again even before he's really stable - the pain from his leg is impossible not to contend with all at once too, even with his high threshold for this kind of shit... it's a lot. AUGH.
When he does manage to stop spitting out water, he slumps, and weakly opens his eyes, searches for and finds him with his gaze like nothing else could quite anchor him like this.]