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Tourists.
They swarmed into the caverns from above in clusters, wearing their stupid plastic fins and ostentatious water wear, swathed in clinging, ever-shifting air bubbles. They gasped and pointed and murmured to one another in low, muted burbles, and Karkat made a note of which ones wore custom fashioned enchanted gems, glowing brilliantly on their rings or at their throats -- the wealthy ones -- and which wore rented bubble medallions from the shops around the bay.
Regardless of these differences, they all moved slow and clumsy through the currents, asking inane questions and touching things they shouldn't, and Karkat hated them with every fibre of his being.
Which was a real problem, because he worked at a fucking souvenir shop. Humans goddamn loved overpriced garbage that existed solely to advertise to other humans that they'd been down here at least once.
He spent his days exchanging garbage for bits of metal. He invariably lost his temper at least a dozen times per day, a spectacle which only ever seemed to serve to attract more of the idiotic creatures to the shop. He had to irritably ask each airbound imbecile to repeat themselves over and over again before he could even begin to parse their questions -- they spoke so monotonously, their language constructed around sounds meant to be transferred in the open air. It took so much fucking effort just to understand the ten thousandth so, how long will the enchanted sea glass keep its charm, again? For-fucking-ever, idiot, now buy a dozen for your friends and family and fuck off.
But the worst, the absolute worst was when they reached their bubbled hands over the coral counter and touched him, like he was an item on display, himself.
The first human to try it that day was a skinny guy with obnoxious eyewear, skin near as pale as the deeprock dwellers and hair the color of snapper scales. Karkat had been watching him closely for near fifteen minutes -- on account of the eyewear, which was not only obnoxious but also suspicious -- before he came paddling up to the counter in that ridiculous lurching way all humans had. Karkat watched him approach impassively, noting the dented and dinged medallion he wore around his neck, carved with the name of some rental outlet or another and barely glowing at all. It was rare to see one so depleted down here. Probably stolen, with no means to renew the enchantment. Karkat narrowed his eyes, frills quivering with barely checked agitation. This one was a delinquent, for sure.
"Can I help you," Karkat asked him, flinging the words like poisoned quills. The skinny human's expression didn't change. He just looked at him, which was unsettling, because Karkat couldn't see his eyes. His tail swished back and forth, cutting through the water, and the human's chin moved just slightly, indicating that he'd seen and registered the movement. Probably didn't know what it meant. Karkat crossed his arms, glaring. "Excuse you? Do you have a question, or are you just going to float there all day and waste everyone's time?"
The human's lips twitched, just briefly. He mumbled something Karkat could in no way parse. Karkat rolled his eyes. Oh no. He was not doing this song and dance, not when the skinny little eel hadn't even brought anything up to buy.
"I can't hear you," he said, lifting a hand to wave him off. "If you have a question about the merchandise --"
The human moved quickly for his kind, simultaneously flinching back and snapping his arm forward to catch Karkat's wrist tightly in his fingers. It was a strange sensation -- the area inside the bubble was cool and dry and utterly alien -- and for one shocked second he didn't react at all. A hush fell over the shop, the human's skin flushed to match the color of his hair, and Karkat's gills flared wide and crimson red in warning. His tail vibrated, quills unsheathing, sharp points of vibrant red among his tailfrills. He sucked in a mighty slug of seawater and erupted into a barrage of sharp clicks and piercing trills, all of which very clearly and obviously meant let me the fuck go before I break you like a brittle bone, and the human immediately released him and kicked himself backward through the water, mouth opening and closing like he wanted to say something but couldn't find the words.
"Get out," Karkat finally managed to articulate in human words, and the human obliged with minimal hesitation, twisting clumsily and clawing his way through the water, his fake plastic feet kicking up a swirl that nearly cleared a shelf of its merchandise on his way out.
The other humans floated in place, eyes wide, watching him.
Karkat grit his teeth, forcing himself to relax, sinking halfway behind the counter. "I don't want any trouble," he grumbled. "You all know the rules."
The tension faded, and ten minutes later, it was business as usual.
But he couldn't get that human out of his head.
This was probably why, hardly a week later, he immediately recognized the human in the approaching crowd. He was still wearing his ridiculous eyewear, Karkat noted with some annoyance. He rubbed his hand absently against a cluster of soft scales around his waist, the memory of how warm his mammalian hand had been intruding unwelcome into his thoughts. Karkat expected him to filter into the cave with all the rest of his kind, but instead, he split off from the crowd and floated past, skipping the shop completely.
He should have been relieved -- he didn’t need that boundary disrespecting troublemaker making this day any more complicated than it had to be -- but the rejection oddly stung. Karkat glared as the human floated slowly past an open porthole cut into the rock wall… and then stopped, peering in through the translucent seaglass.
This was when the human noticed Karkat’s attention on him, finally. Their eyes met -- at least, Karkat thought that’s what was happening, hard to tell with his stupid shades -- and the human seemed to shrink into himself, shoulders and neck bunching as he cringed away from the porthole, back out of sight.
What the fuck?
No time to think about it. The rest of the human horde were paddling clumsily through his shop with their fake manufactured fins, and he had to make sure they didn’t trash the place or steal anything or both. They lined up with their hands full of cheap baubles, chattering excitedly among themselves in their fuzzy airspeak, so quickly that Karkat didn’t bother trying to understand any of it.
By the time the day’s crop of visitors had filtered out, the shades guy was long gone, and Karkat was not only cranky but also exhausted and sort of starving. It had been a busy day, and he hadn’t wanted to close for lunch, or breaks, or whatever, and he was looking forward to going home. It was a relief to finally drag the delicate fishbone curtain over the entryway -- closed, motherfuckers. Go the fuck home.
For him, home was a cozy cavern tucked under one of the smaller reefs, not far from the shop. He kept it tidy and mostly clear of knick knacks -- he spent enough time with those at work. A shimmering barrier barred the way in, a simple enchantment to keep strangers and wandering sea life out of his space. He opened his neckfrills and whistled softly, and bright red bioluminescent swirls came to life all over his body, racing up from his tailfrills and down from his neck, flickering softly. Everyone had their own unique pattern and color, which was keyed to a reader just behind the shimmering barrier. A tingle went through him as it dutifully scanned him.
The barrier dropped and he flicked his tail with a happy sigh, home at last. He ran his fingers over the walls of his cave, his touch lighting up the luminescent fungi clustered on the walls near the ceiling, filling the place with blue, steady light. The indicator on his transmitter crystal was blinking steadily. Missed messages, as usual. He hated carrying the thing with him. He ignored it, gliding smoothly through his living quarters. His stomach growled incessantly.
He had just finished preparing a batch of frankly delicious looking kombu salmon rolls when a crystalline device looped around his waist on a delicate braided chain lit up, emitting a warning trill.
He paused, lifting the crystal up to peer at it with narrowed eyes. It was pulsing a sullen reddish-yellow. He’d never actually seen it active before, beyond the first demonstration he’d gotten for the device to prove it worked.
Who the fuck broke into a shitty knick knack shop for humans?
He erupted into a frenzy of irritated chirps and whistles, dropping the crystal with a huff. Bubbles danced around him. He stuffed a salmon roll into his mouth, neckfrills quivering with agitation. Like fuck he was going to deal with this on an empty stomach.
Not long after, he floated in the dark, peering curiously at the entrance to his shop.
The bone curtain was more decorative than functional, meant to serve as a visual indicator for any lingering humans that they should keep right on awkwardly paddling by. Karkat slipped carefully behind it and went to deactivate the barrier that should have been there, only to find that there was no barrier. Had he forgotten to put it up, or had someone taken the fucking thing down? There were devices that would disrupt them, especially particularly simple ones like this, but he had never in a thousand years imagined he’d need sophisticated security for a trumped up junk shop.
He slipped warily into the shop, scanning for any strange activity. It was dark in here, but not so dark he couldn’t make out the essentials. He re-activated the barrier behind him, just in case. No one was slipping out behind his back, at least not easily.
Something caught his attention on the far side of the shop, beyond the uniform, neatly carved rows of shelving. His tailfrills expanded, red spines puffing up in anticipation of trouble. Slowly and silently, he glided around the edges of the shop, focusing on the flicker of movement he’d caught, the barely audible scrape of rock on rock. There was a locked case behind the counter, containing some few items that did have some measure of actual value -- nothing too fancy, though, and certainly not anything Karkat could imagine someone finding valuable enough to break in for.
He peeked in over the counter, claws extended, puffed up as much as he could get, expecting an intruder… but, for some reason, he hadn’t even considered the intruder would be human.
Well, of fucking course.
They were hunched in front of the case, working furiously at the lock with some device, the bubble of air around them shimmering pink in the light of Karkat’s bioluminescent glow. They didn’t seem to notice the change in lighting, fully focused on their task. It was beyond illegal for a human to stay in the city beyond designated visiting hours, so, what was a little bit of larceny on top of that, really? They must have hidden themselves somewhere away from their group, somehow avoided being noticed missing back at the surface.
It wasn’t something that Karkat could remember ever having happened before.
He let out a sharp, angry whistle, and the human shot up straight, the bubble around them distorting slightly as they leveraged one hand on the wall to spin around.
And that’s how he ended up face to face with delinquent shades guy over the counter for a second time.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Karkat said, full of incredulous fury.
The human said absolutely nothing, and whatever device he’d been using to pick the lock disappeared into his clothes. He held up his hands, his air barrier shimmering faintly. Karkat could just barely make out his eyes behind the plastic. They were blown wide with fear, which was gratifying enough to take the edge off his anger. This was ridiculous. What the fuck was this?
“Well?” Karkat demanded, flicking his tail. “I guess there’s no possible explanation that doesn’t get your ass in big fucking trouble down here and up on the surface, but I still kind of expected you to try? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
The human looked from him, to the door, and back.
“You can’t outswim me,” Karkat said. “Obviously.”
“Okay,” the human said, the first audible word Karkat had ever heard him speak. “Okay. Look.”
Karkat crossed his arms. The human swallowed visibly, dropping his hands.
“I’m waiting,” Karkat snapped at him.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” the human said, and Karkat leaned forward because he must have misheard that.
“You fucking what?”
“I don’t. Want. To hurt you,” the human said again, slowly, carefully pronouncing every word. “But I will if I have to. So, uh… don’t make me. Please?”
“What the fuck makes you think that you could if you tried?” Karkat puffed up again, frills quivering furiously. Okay, so he was a little smaller than most other mers. A lot smaller, maybe. He was still plenty bigger than this puny human, and they were in the fucking water! This was too goddamn much, being condescended to by a human? “If you fuck with me, I’ll fill you so full of poison that only your bloated purple corpse will make it back to the surface, you understand?”
The human shook his head. “I’m going to leave, now. I don’t think you have what I need, anyway. I wanted to be sure, but, nah. I won’t bother you again. Okay?”
Karkat moved smoothly to float between the human and the exit, glowering. “You’re not going anywhere,” he snapped. “Not until the sentinels get here, and then we both know what happens after that.”
The human shook his head and twitched his hand, and a metal band around it flared with brilliant yellow light. A long, metallic filament unwound itself, poking right through his bubble barrier toward Karkat, and then snapped straight like a thin metal rod. Karkat backed up, confused and maybe just a little concerned.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Please just let me go,” he said, pleading. “Please?”
“Fuck you,” Karkat said, and then he lifted his transmitter and began to hum a specific frequency. The human hissed at him.
“Stop,” he said. Karkat didn’t.
So the human raised his suspicious metal wand. Karkat puffed up and shot forward with a flick of his fins, claws extended. Yellow light pulsed from the human’s bracelet and down the length of the device, and the second it touched the water it lit the area around them both into a flickering yellow orb.
Karkat had never felt anything like it. His muscles all seized simultaneously, his body jittering uncontrollably. The loss of control was terrifying, but the pain that followed was worse, dragging an involuntary high pitched keen out of him. His vision filled with red and flashing yellow, and mercifully, consciousness fled him. He plunged into blackness, the sound of his own pained trills loud in his ears.
When he came to, he was shivering uncontrollably, his muscles still involuntarily twitching in the aftermath of whatever the fuck that had been. His whole body felt like he’d spent a day too close to the surface, seared by the sun.
He’d dropped his transmitter, and he could see it sunk to the rocky cave bottom, dull and thoroughly non operational.
At the shop entrance, the human was rattling the fishbone curtain furiously, and Karkat vaguely recalled that he had reactivated the barrier, preventing an easy escape. Hah. Fuck him. It must have only been a few minutes -- someone had to have heard what had happened. Someone would be by to investigate any second.
A little off balance, Karkat flicked his fins and puffed out his frills and shot off toward the human. He wouldn’t catch him unprepared again. The human heard him coming, but he was painfully slow turning, and Karkat caught up around the waist before he could get even halfway through his pirouette. He locked his arms over the human’s -- weirdly dry -- chest, and then wrapped his tail around his impotently kicking legs. Karkat’s spines were quivering, ready to go with a single flick of his fins. He flicked them in front of the human’s face, a warning, and the human wisely went limp in his grasp. This close Karkat could hear his breathing, harsh and fast.
Karkat grabbed the medallion that hung around the human’s neck. He seriously considered snapping it off, just for a second. It would be so easy. It was warm to the touch, but only just. Barely had any enchantment left, really.
“Please don’t,” the human gasped, real terror in his voice. “Please, don’t, I don’t -- If you’re going to kill me, just -- not like that, please,” he said, babbling.
It made Karkat feel… awful, somehow. He almost let him go by reflex. Then he remembered what had just happened, what was actually going on, and tightened his grip around him and trilled furiously in his stupid inadequate human ear.
“That thing is going to run out of power any fucking time now,” he said. He didn’t let it go. Insurance against the guy using whatever that thing around his wrist was, again. “I don’t have to do anything. All I have to do is hold you here long enough.” He remembered thinking during their first meeting that his medallion had seemed weak. “Did you even refresh the fucking thing since last time?”
The boy spasmed in his grip. He was laughing, Karkat realized. “Of course not. How the fuck am I supposed to do that? Pay someone to do it for me? With what? I stole this stupid thing a month ago and I’ve been praying for it to last long enough ever since. Sneaking into sanctioned visitation groups and poking around down here as often as I can.” He squirmed. “I don’t know if I could get another one. This one was a bitch and a half. Not that it matters, because apparently I’m gonna be dead, soon.” He slumped in Karkat’s arms, going completely boneless. “Maybe it’s better that way,” he said. “You think it’ll hurt? Drowning? It’s probably gonna hurt, huh.”
Karkat swallowed, his stomach flipping over. He shook his head. His skin and scales felt strange where they crossed the human’s meager air barrier. The guy was strangely warm to the touch.
“Why?” Karkat asked, finally.
“Doesn’t matter,” he muttered.
“It fucking might,” Karkat snapped. “Come on. Convince me you deserve to be let go, especially after the spectacle you pulled just now! That fucking hurt, you little piece of shit!”
The human was nodding. “I don’t,” he said. “How long you think I have?”
Karkat erupted into a series of rebuking clicks. “You’ll be lucky to make it to the surface if I let you go right *now*, so you’d better talk fast.” He was exaggerating, but not by much.
“Won’t be back here again, then,” he sighed. “I have family, you know.”
“I don’t care about that.”
He laughed, again. “Just a sister. Got the stunner from her. She likes it down here better than I do. Learned some tricks for keeping herself safe, poking around down here where she shouldn’t.”
“You aren’t exactly endearing me to her, or to you by association!”
“I know. She’s been sneaking down here since we were barely old enough to walk, let alone swim.” He sighed. “Met a girl.”
Karkat trilled at him. “A mer?”
“Uh huh. Really romantic shit. Snuck down here to meet her every day. I’d cover for her, you know, keep people off her back. Went down with her, sometimes… never liked it, much. Kanaya was nice. That was her name. But it couldn’t last forever, right?”
Karkat thought it over, clicking softly. He’d heard stories. Mers and humans, falling in love. Running away together. It’d always sounded like farfetched bullshit, to him. What was there to like about humans, let alone love? Enough to risk everything for like that?
“She got caught,” Karkat said.
He nodded. Karkat watched his hair, moving so strangely in the air. “Accused her of trying to steal mer artifacts, not to mention all the trespassing and sanction breaking and blah blah… threw the fucking book at her, man. Punished her the worst way they could think of.”
“Severed her air channels,” Karkat said, softly.
“Didn’t just sever them. Blew them wide open. Pumped her so full of sylph juice her brain overloaded and the channels burnt out.” He snapped his fingers. It sounded strange. “No more undersea excursions. Can’t come down here if you can’t find a way to breathe. Never heard what happened to Kanaya, but you don’t know my sister, man. She was never gonna let it rest. She was gonna find that fish girl if it fuckin killed her. Guess it’s gonna kill me, first, though, what a fuckin’ plot twist.” He exhaled, harshly. “God, she’s going to be so pissed at me.”
“What does any of that have to do with you breaking into my fucking shop?”
“Looking for crystals,” he said, simply. Karkat whistled at him.
“So, in response to your sister being punished for trying to steal our artifacts, you… decided to try and steal our artifacts?”
“She’s a diviner, and a damn good one. She decided to go to the transmuters for a solution.”
“...Transmuters. I don’t follow.”
“Yeah,” he laughs, again. The sound of it is far from mirthful. It leaves a pit in Karkat’s stomach, which is ridiculous, because he doesn’t give a fuck about this human or the last story he’ll apparently ever tell. The flimsy film of his air barrier is growing fainter by the second. “I didn’t at first, either.”
Karkat trills, softly, tightening his grasp on the human. Is he really just going to hold him down here until that thing gives out? Is he capable of that?
He’s never killed anyone before. Never wanted to, really. His insides churn.
“Thing is, Rose is smart. And brave. Way braver than I am. Way smarter, too. She offered them divining services, if they’d work on a big ass transmutation problem, for her.”
Something clicks in his head. He chitters nervously, bubbles swirling around them. “She wanted them to make her a mer.”
“Or as close as they could get, at least. Something that could survive in the sea.”
“And you just went along with this stupid idea?”
“I couldn’t have stopped her if I tried. She’s got, like, an iron will, man. And she’s sort of legendarily gifted, so they agreed. Had her on standby for all sorts of weird experiments, using her like they do all the rest of their tools and magical devices while they worked on her stupid biology problem.”
“Like people haven’t tried before. Your people used to kidnap mers all the time, poking and prodding and experimenting with your human magic --”
“I know,” he cuts him off. “Everyone knows all that. But Rose is smart. She’s not a transmuter, herself, but she knows the theory. She knows the goddamn theory behind every school like the back of her hand. And she met another girl there, a transmuter, but otherwise a lot like her. They were figuring it out, together.”
“How did that end up with you down here, then?”
“They figured out they’d need a hefty supply of undinite.”
Karkat whistled, again. Then puffed up indignantly, tailfrills quivering. “And you thought a fucking shitty souvenir shop would have something like that?!”
“This wasn’t my first stop,” he laughs, again, and he sounds so sad. “One of my last, actually. I mentioned I stole this stupid fucking medallion a month ago, right? I thought I might get caught, but hey, if they blow out my air channels it’s not gonna bother me any. Never liked the water. Rose says I’ve got a fire affinity, whatever that means.”
“What are you?” Karkat asks, suspiciously, kicking himself for not thinking to ask, before. Wondering why it suddenly matters. He’s going to be dead in ten minutes, maybe less.
“Nothing,” he says.
“Bullshit,” Karkat snarls at him. “You’re all something.”
“Abjurer,” he relents, finally. “But I can’t actually do anything. Rose got all the talent in the family.”
Karkat makes a thoughtful sound, trilling softly. His skin and scales are drying out where they cross the air barrier. It’s not so bad on his skin, but his scales are starting to itch.
“Rose is your sister,” he says.
“Oh. Obviously, yeah.”
“...What’s your name?”
He tilts his head back, hair brushing against Karkat’s shoulder. Karkat looks down, and he can see his eyes behind the shades. They’re closed. “Does it fuckin’ matter, man? I’m dead, anyway. I always knew I’d drown, one day.” He laughs again, and Karkat feels him shiver in his grip. It doesn’t stop. “Fuckin’ ocean,” he mutters.
“Well… I’m Karkat,” he offers. Simultaneously, and stupidly, he makes a decision. He unwinds his tail from where it’s wrapped around the human’s legs, puffs out his frills, and starts to glow. The barrier dissipates. The human makes a confused humming sound. Karkat keeps his grip tight around him, flicks his fins once, twice, and then shoots for the surface, fast as he can go.
And he might not be the biggest or most intimidating mer in the sea, but he’s always had one thing going for him: he’s pretty goddamn fucking fast.
The human gasps, spasming in his arms, struggling weakly on instinct. Karkat sees his eyes fly open and is distracted momentarily by how pretty they are -- jewel red, reminiscent of his own bioluminescence.
No time for that bullshit. He’s only got a few minutes.
No one bothers them. It’s late enough that everyone’s retreated to their homes or further into the reef, and maybe no one even sees them. It’s been years since Karkat has been anywhere near the surface -- decades, really -- and a wild sort of terror kicks up in him as the night sky forms beyond the edge of the ocean above them, the moon hung high, full and bright. They’re so exposed up here. The water is noticeably warmer.
He hears the human suck in another sharp breath right before his air barrier flickers once, twice, and dies with a burbling pop. Air bubbles escape through his nose. His stupid glasses get caught in the current and fly off somewhere, sinking into the water behind them, but he doesn’t notice because his eyes are shut tight.
Karkat breaks the surface of the water for the first time maybe ever, and lets him go. ‘
He flounders for a second, thin limbs flailing, and sucks in an unsteady breath. Karkat does, too, tentatively. His lungs obey him, but the sensation is different and he gets dizzy, for a moment, oversaturated in oxygen.
The human swims beside him, badly, still shivering, but whether that’s lingering fear or the temperature of the water, Karkat isn’t sure. It still feels too warm, to him.
“Fuck,” the human says, and Karkat startles. His voice sounds so clear up here in the air. “You -- why did you --?”
“You’re welcome,” Karkat gripes at him, and his voice sounds different up here, too.
“Thanks,” he gasps, once. “I feel,” he starts, but then his eyes slip shut and he goes limp, sinking right down back below the surface. Karkat explodes into a furious cacophony of clicks and curses. He dives and catches him easily, dragging him back up, and he doesn’t regain consciousness, but thankfully, he does start breathing, again.
“God damn it,” Karkat mutters, swiveling slowly to squint at the ominous chunk above the water in the distance. The land itself looks formless black in the night, but it’s studded all over with bright human lights. Well, he’s come this far. It’d be stupid to let the fucker die now.
He flops the human’s deadweight onto his back, and starts to swim. It’s slower going than usual, since he has to move awkwardly to keep the human’s head above water. As they pull in closer to the beach, Karkat scans the shoreline for other humans, insides all squeezing with fear. He wants nothing to do with them, or this, or any of it. He isn’t even completely sure why he’s here.
The beach is abandoned, so Karkat pulls himself in around a cluster of rocks, shaking as he slings the human’s unconscious body off his back and onto the sand. He can’t push him too far up -- he refuses to completely leave the water, refuses, so he’ll just have to wake the fuck up before the tide comes in.
He leaves him there, stretched out in the shallows, limp and pale in the moonlight.
Oh, who the fuck is he kidding.
He waits by the rocks for the idiot to wake up, his head barely poking out of the water. The wind feels utterly foreign on his face, feather light and so very dry. Somewhere nearby, sea birds are squabbling noisily over a catch. He shouldn’t be here. He needs to go home.
But he doesn’t.
Eventually, the boy stirs. His limbs spasm and he coughs, turning over on his side, dragging himself up on his hands and knees. He runs a hand through his hair, pats himself down like he’s shocked to find he still has a body, and crawls part way up the beach, into the dry sand. He throws himself onto his back, there, and lays there for awhile, chest rising and falling. Karkat stays put, blowing air bubbles through his nose into the water. He forgot he could do that. Neat.
He should really go, now. The guy is going to be fine.
But… he doesn’t.
Another interminable length of time passes before the boy sits up, dragging his knees up against his chest. Karkat can’t read the expression on his face, not at this distance. Can’t see the color of his eyes anymore, either, though he remembers well enough.
“Karkat,” he hears him say, softly, like he’s testing it out. He laughs, quietly, and still he somehow manages to sound so fucking sad. “Dave,” he says to no one, because there’s no way he can see Karkat here in the dark, barely breaching the surface by the rocks. “I’m Dave. Not that it matters.” He snaps the medallion off his neck and cradles it in his hands, just for a second. “Not like I’m ever going to find another way back.” He leans back with the medallion in his hand and pitches it as hard as he can, sending it flying off to splash unceremoniously into the sea. Then he pitches backward onto his back again, covering his face with his hands, and if he’s making any sounds, Karkat can’t hear them over the water against the rocks and the wind in his ears.
He’s been here long enough. Way, way too long, really.
He sinks under the water, diving deep enough to hide the sky overhead, down and down and down all the way to the ocean floor. Only then does he start off toward the reef, tired and sore and dizzy with half-formed thoughts and undefinable emotions.
Halfway there, he finds a pair of idiotic shades, resting wedged between a set of jutting stones.
He takes them, of course. “Dave,” he says, thoughtfully, turning them over in his hands. Testing it out. He lets out a little trill and folds them, resolving inexplicably to keep them somewhere safe.
Not that it mattered, or anything.