Work Text:
He was stripped of his name long ago, when he was tossed from his home, to the streets, and eventually to the sea.
But that really doesn’t seem to matter anymore.
“What do I call you?’ Sebastian asks, whispers in the dark when he has mustered the courage.
“Call me yours,” he says, and he will be, even after the day they die.
--
Sebastian is first. The only consolation is his own life will not be long thereafter. He prays that Sebastian’s hands are freer, that despite all hope and expectation, his beloved Sebastian will live.
Their gazes meet for the last time and, while there is fear in Sebastian’s expression, there is in equal measure a love that mirrors his own.
Sebastian falls. The crew erupts in a riotous, macabre cheer and he’s forced to watch long enough to see Sebastian disappear. Shock, first, keeps his heart from cleaving him in two.
Just as well when he is sent overboard, then, pushed mercilessly by the same cruel hands he has far too often been at the mercy of.
--
He struggles as he hits the water. His eyes open and search for Sebastian futilely. It’s impossible to keep any control, constrained as he is, either to break the surface or to spot his beloved, and soon his vision darkens. Hell, then, is where he will have to find Sebastian.
Arms wrap around his torso, slow his descent. Lips cover his own, a deliverance in his final moment.
--
He awakens. His heart is still beating, his thoughts still flowing. He inhales, exhales, the action difficult and rapid, boarding a shameful panic. His gaze sweeps around the room, unlike any he has ever seen. The room is spare in furnishing yet beautiful in design with iridescent walls, like the interior of a shell. So much brighter, cleaner, than to what he is accustomed. He lays upon a hard, uncomfortable surface, smooth and cold as he runs his hands over the rectangular slab. He sits up, disoriented and confused, a sudden pain lancing through his body from the movement.
Sebastian comes into his vision, eyes bright and worried, hair feathered around him, loose and free. He is not pale and bloated in the way of the dead, but as beautiful - maybe even more so - as ever he was in life. Health flushes his cheeks and down his neck. There are bruises still left from the last beating they both took, but there is a greater ease and fluidity in the way Sebastian holds himself.
He opens his mouth, reflexively, to speak Sebastian’s name. The word is distorted and garbled.
It’s the first thing he should have noticed, really: they are completely underwater.
--
There are many tales of improbable creatures and impossible places -- the sirens who sing men to madness on the rocks; the Kraken hiding in the briny depths; the beautiful merfolk who live beneath the ocean’s surface; the lost cities from ancient civilizations.
He has never had reason to believe any of these things to be true until now.
--
He doesn’t remember blacking out, but he is waking again.
Sebastian is still at his side, holds his hand steadfastly. He squeezes to alert Sebastian and to affirm for himself that he is, in fact, holding onto someone real. He breathes in and out and the water is like air in that regard, which must be why he didn’t notice before.
“My love,” he hears -- words he has longed for so long that he almost doesn’t notice that Sebastian’s lips aren’t moving.
Almost.
--
It had never escaped his notice that Sebastian used words sparingly and often in returned affirmations of what he said first. Sebastian expressed himself in body language -- the looks Sebastian cast his way, like he is the only person in the world who matters; the tight grip of Sebastian’s hand in the face of brutality; less frequently, the gentle brush of fingers in the darkest hours of night; and the one rare, stolen moment with the lean of Sebastian’s body towards his own. More frequently, less pleasantly, he has seen the downward slope of Sebastian’s shoulders, Sebastian’s arm extended outwards as they are wrenched apart, Sebastian, laid prone, pain keeping him from curling in on himself.
Communication of the mind is -- strange. Words help shape everything, but thought isn’t a static thing. There are flashes of influence from emotion and history, the desire to stumble over everything at once. He has so many questions crowding in so close upon one another that it’s difficult to give them order.
Sebastian’s brow furrows and he shakes his head. “It will come to you in time.”
--
There are still nightmares which leave him tense and shaking with remembered abuse. He can’t touch Sebastian for hours afterwards, and no matter what his mind informs his body, he still doubts their safety. Sebastian is patient, staying near to him, patient and devoted in a way he has always been,
He doesn’t like leaving his room, but he strays farther each day in Sebastian’s company and at his coaxing. His body appears mostly the same so far -- riddled with fading bruises from the last beating and the other indelible marks left upon his skin from long before that -- but there is part of him that still believes they are dead, because of the impossibility of survival. Sebastian has mentioned gradual adaptation, for both of them, given the time they need.
He doesn't think about it too much, since he's still getting used to having a now, much less a future. But he is getting there.
--
“What is this place?” is the first he asks successfully.
“My home,” Sebastian says.
With the words come impressions of Sebastian, far younger, and completely alone. His family lives, but the solitude Sebastian felt as he aged was a growing chasm within his heart. The loneliness Sebastian felt almost crushes him. It had driven Sebastian from the sea to seek a human life. Sebastian had never been able to stray too far from the ocean, had travelled different ships until they had met. Each night, Sebastian had thought how close they were to a place of safety, but still so desperately far away.
Sebastian could not return, unless he found someone who loved him enough to die for, and who would die for him.
Had Sebastian told him these things in words alone, it might not have been enough, he might have been incapable of comprehension. Now, he reaches for Sebastian carefully. He places his hand over Sebastian’s heart, feels the fast and steady drum of life. Sebastian leans forward and kisses him, soft and sweet and long, long enough that even underwater, he's still left gasping.
There are days he still sometimes thinks he drowned and is dead.
This is not one of them.
--