CoH Fic: "In Deep Water"
Finally getting around to posting this, as promised, oh, a month ago... XD This is the second part of the story I started here. There will be a third part, and I really won't wait a month before posting it!
Title: In Deep Water
Fandom: City of Heroes
Characters: Allerdyce Scheele, Echida (Lucy)
Word Count: 1,753
Allerdyce stood on the rocks above the beach, and stared out at the sea. Lucy had dragged him to Peregrine Island, with the logic that the beaches would not be as crowded there. As Peregrine was dangerously close to the islands where the giant Devouring Earth monsters were marooned, and the old Crey island facilities that were now abandoned and overrun with Rikti monkeys, most civilians wisely avoided even the safer beaches at that port.
He shivered, and it had nothing to do with the temperature, although it was cooler here, with a breeze blowing inland from the sea. The breeze had a sharp tang of salt and seaweed, still strange and unfamiliar. He was no stranger to lake-smell, but that was very different; more of a sour, organic smell, like leaf litter and water plants.
He stared down at the blue-green water and swallowed hard. "Great..." he muttered to himself. Lucy had picked an island offshore of the mainland, far enough so that there was only a short span of beach, before the sea bed dropped off shortly to the depths. He swallowed again. It wasn't the water itself that frightened Allerdyce; if he could see the bottom, he wasn't afraid. Puddles didn't frighten him. The shallow pools of the Cascades, near Kin's home, did not bother him. It was when the seabed dropped off into the depths that he lost his nerve.
But Lucy obviously did not share his reservations, or his fears. She was already in the water, splashing and having a fine time, from the look of it. Her new bikini suited her well; she'd picked a cheerful, kelly green, with a zig-zag pattern of alternating blue and yellow stripes, all of which complemented her red hair and fair skin. It tied in a halter behind her neck and in a bow between her breasts, on the top, and tied on each side with matching bows, on the bottom, something that had not escaped Allerdyce's attention when she'd modeled the suit for him. He even had to admit that the suit she'd picked out for him wasn't bad; baggy swimming trunks in his favorite shade of midnight blue and trimmed in black, and fitting just right on his slim frame so he didn't look to be drowning in fabric. "Drowning...nice choice of words there, Ally; real nice." He groaned.
Allerdyce was no stranger to big water. The mine pits perhaps didn't have the size of the big lakes, but they were deep, often with no gradual easing into the depths, only reinforcing the fact that they were not natural pools. He'd even been to Lake Superior once, when his mother, during one of her rare sober moments, had piled Allerdyce and his siblings into the car, for a spur of the moment vacation, designed to make her spend money on something other than booze. Lake Superior had been a wide, flat expanse of water, smooth as glass and a dark, cold blue, blending into a hazy line where the water met the horizon. He'd spent much of the weekend in their rented cabin, except for those rare moments when his mother forced him out with threats if he didn't join his family on the shore. Nina had not been impressed when he'd told her that he could hear his siblings shrieking as they jumped into the cold water just fine from inside the cabin, and while she hadn't forced him into the water, himself, she had made him spend enough time on the shore to leave him with a knotted stomach for several days after their return from the lake.
The ocean made Superior look like a calm puddle, in comparison. The ocean didn't look calm, it looked angry; flinging waves against the rocks in a steady pounding, the sea more green than blue, the waves frothed with white where they struck the rocks. The ocean did have the same hazy blurring at the horizon as the great lake, but it was so much bigger.... "Water...so much water..." he moaned, under his breath. He felt as though he were drowning, and he hadn't even gotten close enough to the shore to get his feet wet. "Come on, Allerdyce, you can do this..."
"Ally! C'mon! What are you waiting for?!" Lucy called to him from the water. "It feels great! C'mon in!"
He faked a wide, confident grin. "Not yet--I'm playin' Lifeguard, babe!"
She stared at him for a moment, standing in the shallows, lips pursed, hands on hips, giving him that piercing gaze that Allerdyce had long ago learned to recognize as her You are hiding something from me and I know it look. Which wasn't entirely unjustified; he'd never really told her about his fear of deep water. He had mentioned it, but had downplayed the severity of his fear.
"Ally, what is the matter with you? I thought you said you'd do nearly anything to cool down." She pursed her lips in a scowl. "And don't give me that 'lifeguard' line again--you know very well that I can take care of myself."
"Ah, well..." He rubbed the back of his head, glad that his sunglasses obscured his eyes; any doubts she may have had that he was inventing stuff would have been confirmed, had she been able to see his eyes. "You never can be too safe, y'know? Even really experienced swimmers need lifeguards. And besides, I ate not that long ago..."
"Uh, I ate with you, and that was hours ago, before we went shopping! I thought that the no-swimming rule was only for an hour after eating!"
"Yeah, well..."
"And what are you doing, up on that rock, anyway?" She started wading toward the shore, skin glistening as she left the water and trudged through the sand. "You look like you're scared of the water or something."
"Oh c'mon, babe...that's just silly..." Allerdyce managed a halfhearted laugh.
"Yeah. Silly." She gave him another fixed stare, then shrugged and grabbed a towel. "I'd say you just want sun, but you've never done anything like that before. Not that you couldn't." She finished toweling off, then reached for the sunscreen. "Me, I can't be too careful. I don't keep reapplying sunscreen, and I'll be as red as Tyrant's briefs, in less than an hour." She squirted sunscreen into one hand, rubbing her hands together and slathering it along her arms and chest, and even reaching up to apply it to her face, and the part in her hair.
"Here, I'll help with that." Allerdyce reached for the sunscreen, rubbing it onto her back, careful to avoid her clothing.
"Mm. Thanks, sweets. Seriously though...Chess suggested it, and yeah, I know his motives were just to let you ogle me in a bikini--"
"Uh, babe, yeah, but that's not why I--"
"I know, Ally; don't worry. But anyway, I know that's his reason for suggesting it, but I thought you thought swimming would be a good idea. Especially since you were so busy complaining about the heat." She turned around to face him, staring at him expectantly as she slathered more sunscreen on her arms.
"It is a good idea, babe, but--"
"'But' what?" She sat back on her haunches, satisfied that her sunscreen was sufficient. "I mean, aren't you the one who keeps going on and on about how your hometown was the 'land of lakes' or something?"
"Yeah, but..."
"So, you'd think that, being that you're from a place where there's a lot of water, you'd know how to swim, right? Seems kinda silly and dangerous to not teach people how to swim, if there's that much water around. I'd think it'd almost be mandatory--I mean, what if you fell in or something? If the lakes are everywhere, it's bound to happen."
"No--Well, yeah, but that's not..."
"And no, it might not be a snowbank, but I'd think that if you're desperate, then you'd take what suggestions you could, for ways to cool down. You said you'd do almost anything, if it'd cool you off."
"Yeah, maybe, but..."
Lucy stood up, dusting sand off of herself. "Then what's the problem? What are you not telling me?"
"Uh..." Allerdyce paused, his common sense warring with his reluctance to admit he'd hidden the fact for so long. "...nothing?"
She gave him another long, hard look. "Uh huh. Then let's go swimming!" She grabbed his wrist, dragging him toward the water. He yelped as she dragged him into the shadows, water sloshing around his ankles. Lucy tugged him deeper into the water, until he was hip-deep in water, then dropped his wrist, swimming past the dropoff, treading water as she watched him. "See? It's great!"
"Yeah...it's...not too bad..." He dug his toes into the sand, fighting the urge to jump as his toe brushed the edge of a buried shell. He shuddered, trying to focus on the ground under his feet, and not looking at the water, and how it turned from blue to black, just a few feet away. The waves played around his hips, sometimes splashing up over his abdomen, and he let the gentle, insistent pressure push him back, closer to the shore. He took one slow step backward, then another, focusing down at the water directly around him as the water receded past his hips, then his thighs, then his knees. "Yeah...not bad at all...nice and cool, just like you said. It's great. Listen, I'm just gonna--"
"Oh, no you don't!" Lucy caroled. Allerdyce looked up, startled, as he realized the voice was behind him; she had sneaked around him, and he was so focused on trying to back out of the water, he hadn't even noticed. She careened into him, giggling as she wrapped her arms around his waist, pushing him into deeper water, past the dropoff.
Allerdyce felt his stomach plummet as fear gripped his heart. There was no ground under his feet...nothing! He flailed, sinking like a rock, slipping out of Lucy's grasp. He tried to yell, but went under, swallowing seawater in the process. Disoriented, he tried to claw his way to the surface, but couldn't tell which direction was up. His heart thudded in his throat as old terrors and memories rushed to the surface, his mouth filled with the bitter, salty taste of the water. From a distance, he thought he heard someone yelling, or screaming, but there was nothing, no one there, and he slowly stopped struggling as everything went black.
Title: In Deep Water
Fandom: City of Heroes
Characters: Allerdyce Scheele, Echida (Lucy)
Word Count: 1,753
Allerdyce stood on the rocks above the beach, and stared out at the sea. Lucy had dragged him to Peregrine Island, with the logic that the beaches would not be as crowded there. As Peregrine was dangerously close to the islands where the giant Devouring Earth monsters were marooned, and the old Crey island facilities that were now abandoned and overrun with Rikti monkeys, most civilians wisely avoided even the safer beaches at that port.
He shivered, and it had nothing to do with the temperature, although it was cooler here, with a breeze blowing inland from the sea. The breeze had a sharp tang of salt and seaweed, still strange and unfamiliar. He was no stranger to lake-smell, but that was very different; more of a sour, organic smell, like leaf litter and water plants.
He stared down at the blue-green water and swallowed hard. "Great..." he muttered to himself. Lucy had picked an island offshore of the mainland, far enough so that there was only a short span of beach, before the sea bed dropped off shortly to the depths. He swallowed again. It wasn't the water itself that frightened Allerdyce; if he could see the bottom, he wasn't afraid. Puddles didn't frighten him. The shallow pools of the Cascades, near Kin's home, did not bother him. It was when the seabed dropped off into the depths that he lost his nerve.
But Lucy obviously did not share his reservations, or his fears. She was already in the water, splashing and having a fine time, from the look of it. Her new bikini suited her well; she'd picked a cheerful, kelly green, with a zig-zag pattern of alternating blue and yellow stripes, all of which complemented her red hair and fair skin. It tied in a halter behind her neck and in a bow between her breasts, on the top, and tied on each side with matching bows, on the bottom, something that had not escaped Allerdyce's attention when she'd modeled the suit for him. He even had to admit that the suit she'd picked out for him wasn't bad; baggy swimming trunks in his favorite shade of midnight blue and trimmed in black, and fitting just right on his slim frame so he didn't look to be drowning in fabric. "Drowning...nice choice of words there, Ally; real nice." He groaned.
Allerdyce was no stranger to big water. The mine pits perhaps didn't have the size of the big lakes, but they were deep, often with no gradual easing into the depths, only reinforcing the fact that they were not natural pools. He'd even been to Lake Superior once, when his mother, during one of her rare sober moments, had piled Allerdyce and his siblings into the car, for a spur of the moment vacation, designed to make her spend money on something other than booze. Lake Superior had been a wide, flat expanse of water, smooth as glass and a dark, cold blue, blending into a hazy line where the water met the horizon. He'd spent much of the weekend in their rented cabin, except for those rare moments when his mother forced him out with threats if he didn't join his family on the shore. Nina had not been impressed when he'd told her that he could hear his siblings shrieking as they jumped into the cold water just fine from inside the cabin, and while she hadn't forced him into the water, himself, she had made him spend enough time on the shore to leave him with a knotted stomach for several days after their return from the lake.
The ocean made Superior look like a calm puddle, in comparison. The ocean didn't look calm, it looked angry; flinging waves against the rocks in a steady pounding, the sea more green than blue, the waves frothed with white where they struck the rocks. The ocean did have the same hazy blurring at the horizon as the great lake, but it was so much bigger.... "Water...so much water..." he moaned, under his breath. He felt as though he were drowning, and he hadn't even gotten close enough to the shore to get his feet wet. "Come on, Allerdyce, you can do this..."
"Ally! C'mon! What are you waiting for?!" Lucy called to him from the water. "It feels great! C'mon in!"
He faked a wide, confident grin. "Not yet--I'm playin' Lifeguard, babe!"
She stared at him for a moment, standing in the shallows, lips pursed, hands on hips, giving him that piercing gaze that Allerdyce had long ago learned to recognize as her You are hiding something from me and I know it look. Which wasn't entirely unjustified; he'd never really told her about his fear of deep water. He had mentioned it, but had downplayed the severity of his fear.
"Ally, what is the matter with you? I thought you said you'd do nearly anything to cool down." She pursed her lips in a scowl. "And don't give me that 'lifeguard' line again--you know very well that I can take care of myself."
"Ah, well..." He rubbed the back of his head, glad that his sunglasses obscured his eyes; any doubts she may have had that he was inventing stuff would have been confirmed, had she been able to see his eyes. "You never can be too safe, y'know? Even really experienced swimmers need lifeguards. And besides, I ate not that long ago..."
"Uh, I ate with you, and that was hours ago, before we went shopping! I thought that the no-swimming rule was only for an hour after eating!"
"Yeah, well..."
"And what are you doing, up on that rock, anyway?" She started wading toward the shore, skin glistening as she left the water and trudged through the sand. "You look like you're scared of the water or something."
"Oh c'mon, babe...that's just silly..." Allerdyce managed a halfhearted laugh.
"Yeah. Silly." She gave him another fixed stare, then shrugged and grabbed a towel. "I'd say you just want sun, but you've never done anything like that before. Not that you couldn't." She finished toweling off, then reached for the sunscreen. "Me, I can't be too careful. I don't keep reapplying sunscreen, and I'll be as red as Tyrant's briefs, in less than an hour." She squirted sunscreen into one hand, rubbing her hands together and slathering it along her arms and chest, and even reaching up to apply it to her face, and the part in her hair.
"Here, I'll help with that." Allerdyce reached for the sunscreen, rubbing it onto her back, careful to avoid her clothing.
"Mm. Thanks, sweets. Seriously though...Chess suggested it, and yeah, I know his motives were just to let you ogle me in a bikini--"
"Uh, babe, yeah, but that's not why I--"
"I know, Ally; don't worry. But anyway, I know that's his reason for suggesting it, but I thought you thought swimming would be a good idea. Especially since you were so busy complaining about the heat." She turned around to face him, staring at him expectantly as she slathered more sunscreen on her arms.
"It is a good idea, babe, but--"
"'But' what?" She sat back on her haunches, satisfied that her sunscreen was sufficient. "I mean, aren't you the one who keeps going on and on about how your hometown was the 'land of lakes' or something?"
"Yeah, but..."
"So, you'd think that, being that you're from a place where there's a lot of water, you'd know how to swim, right? Seems kinda silly and dangerous to not teach people how to swim, if there's that much water around. I'd think it'd almost be mandatory--I mean, what if you fell in or something? If the lakes are everywhere, it's bound to happen."
"No--Well, yeah, but that's not..."
"And no, it might not be a snowbank, but I'd think that if you're desperate, then you'd take what suggestions you could, for ways to cool down. You said you'd do almost anything, if it'd cool you off."
"Yeah, maybe, but..."
Lucy stood up, dusting sand off of herself. "Then what's the problem? What are you not telling me?"
"Uh..." Allerdyce paused, his common sense warring with his reluctance to admit he'd hidden the fact for so long. "...nothing?"
She gave him another long, hard look. "Uh huh. Then let's go swimming!" She grabbed his wrist, dragging him toward the water. He yelped as she dragged him into the shadows, water sloshing around his ankles. Lucy tugged him deeper into the water, until he was hip-deep in water, then dropped his wrist, swimming past the dropoff, treading water as she watched him. "See? It's great!"
"Yeah...it's...not too bad..." He dug his toes into the sand, fighting the urge to jump as his toe brushed the edge of a buried shell. He shuddered, trying to focus on the ground under his feet, and not looking at the water, and how it turned from blue to black, just a few feet away. The waves played around his hips, sometimes splashing up over his abdomen, and he let the gentle, insistent pressure push him back, closer to the shore. He took one slow step backward, then another, focusing down at the water directly around him as the water receded past his hips, then his thighs, then his knees. "Yeah...not bad at all...nice and cool, just like you said. It's great. Listen, I'm just gonna--"
"Oh, no you don't!" Lucy caroled. Allerdyce looked up, startled, as he realized the voice was behind him; she had sneaked around him, and he was so focused on trying to back out of the water, he hadn't even noticed. She careened into him, giggling as she wrapped her arms around his waist, pushing him into deeper water, past the dropoff.
Allerdyce felt his stomach plummet as fear gripped his heart. There was no ground under his feet...nothing! He flailed, sinking like a rock, slipping out of Lucy's grasp. He tried to yell, but went under, swallowing seawater in the process. Disoriented, he tried to claw his way to the surface, but couldn't tell which direction was up. His heart thudded in his throat as old terrors and memories rushed to the surface, his mouth filled with the bitter, salty taste of the water. From a distance, he thought he heard someone yelling, or screaming, but there was nothing, no one there, and he slowly stopped struggling as everything went black.