ArchivedLogs:Everything's Right

Everything's Right
Dramatis Personae Peter, Shane, Sebastian
In Absentia	2013-07-22 '
Location <XS> Lake
Bright, bright, bright; the lake glitters wide and expansive here, stretching off into the distance. Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, it catches them all. Lapping at the rocky shore, its deep waters are frigid in winter and cool even in summer. A stone pier stretches out a ways into the water, wide and smooth, though often icy in winter. The water teems with life nevertheless, home to myriad species of fish that provide for ample fishing or just lazy watching on a slow summer day, for those who want to take a boat from the boathouse out to the center of the lake, or perhaps lounge on the pier and try their luck. Peter's experience with scuba-gear is negligible! Which is why it might be more than a little amusing to watch him /flail/ under the lake's surface, armed with -- a respirator jammed in his face, big goggles framing his eyes, and a vest harness that locks the oxygen tank in place on his back! He's otherwise only clad in swimming trunks and flippers, the latter kicking spastically behind him -- and a rather large, submergible broad-beamed flashlight. Peter floats close to the surface to begin with, staying near the body of the row-boat overhead; eyes sweeping this way and that in search of his /tourguides/... sometimes sweeping the flashlight about, scaring away a school of silver-flashing fish from his path. Peter's companions are /far/ more at home in the water! A small blue /streak darts its way away from Peter, chasing after the fish. The other one lingers near, though, Shane's eyes watching Peter /carefully/ for signs of IMMINENT DEATH. When none seem present, though, he just relaxes, flipping over onto his back to laze alongside Peter's flailing. He kicks lazily -- perhaps in /demonstration/ of the proper way to use webbed feet, an amused smile twitched onto his lips at Peter's more spastic kicking. Shane turns over, when Peter falls into a sort of rhythm. He reaches out a hand, fingers resting lightly beneath Peter's stomach -- mostly a /steadying/ touch, urging flailing into something more sedate. His eyes skip over Peter's equipment with a small thoughtful frown, but then this relaxes just into calm. A small smile. The slow open-close of his gills actually calmly /useful/ for once. He tips his head -- follow me! -- and lets go -- though he doesn't go far. Slow steady kicks, small pushes of his hands taking him further /down/ as he watches to see if Peter is following. "Mmmnnmn," Peter responds to the contact from Shane against his belly with a gentle, muffled mumble; his mouth remains curled around the breathing apparatus -- but he's clearly trying to smile! The kicking grows slower, more steady, as Peter does his best to calm down and focus -- when Shane's head tips, Peter's eyes widen -- but then he's following, head tilting down as he /sinks/ toward the lake's bottom, following after Shane at a very sedate pace -- flashlight occasionally sweeping past Shane's back and legs. It gets darker, down lower; colder, too, though not /too/ much at this depth. The lakebed has a distinct slope to it, though -- it's deeper further out, and that's where Shane is /headed/, although he pauses to look back, check Peter's progress. Check Peter's /comfort/. Down here it is quiet, stiller and darker; there are fish in plenty, though at the moment they're largely /distant/ glimmers in the water, driven off by flailing and taking their time to readjust to the foreign presences. The lakebed has its own share of life, though, a veritable forest of plants sprung up from its bed. The fish that dar through the fronds below are less shy -- or perhaps just as shy but more /secure/ in their foliage-hiding. At first, there's hesitation in Peter's approach; the chill of the water is like a tiny gust of cooling wind against bare skin -- but soon, he's relaxing into it, slicing deeper and deeper toward the lake's bottom, his breath slow and steady -- following Shane at a lethargic, constant pace. The constant swish of that flashlight has grown more rhythmatic, too -- it no longer flails so much as /focuses/, locked on Shane's feet, trying to keep its apex away from those dark, ink-black eyes -- occasionally trying to sneak up closer toward Shane, but content, for now, to keep his distance. When Shane looks back, he might be able to see Peter's eyes underneath the goggles as he sweeps his gaze over the collected foliage that creeps over the lake floor -- swaying in a slow, constant motion that mimics Peter's hair, the dim glow of light rippling down across the silt and soil. Peter is /peering/, eyes wide, as if he were trying to SWALLOW EVERYTHING with his sight. The fish get less tentative, the longer they are down here (and the less flaily Peter is.) In the distance, Sebastian is returning, slicing effortless-quick through the water. He stirs up an entire /school/ of tiny red-bellied baby sunfish, swarming their way towards Peter and Shane to dart around them. For a moment there is not much but the cloud of fish before they, too, slip past to sink back into the waving fronds of greenery. Shane grins after them -- more pleased at the flash of colour than /hungry/, the tiny-tiny fishspawn not really /eating/ size. Bastian is licking his lips clean. He slips over to Shane's side; there's a soft-low humming that fills the water, for a moment, as he glances over first his brother and then Peter. /Also/ inspecting Peter's equipment. Shane taps Peter on the shoulder, pointing out a tumble of rocks on the lakebed -- or, really, a long fish, three feet or so, lurking nearby it; slim and silver and spotted with a looooong tapered-slender nose like a sword. He also does not eat this fish. Just watches it. It watches them /back/. At the sight of flashing red-bellied baby sunfish, Peter tenses, less in fear and more in surprise; the flashlight briefly flicks out toward them, causing them to flicker and gleam in that brief swathe of light -- before Peter lowers the light to point at the ground. Sebastian's approach catches Peter's attention after that; so does the sound of /humming/ -- Peter swoops forward a little closer to listen. When his equipment is inspected, Peter tries not to grin around that respirator. When Shane taps Peter's shoulder, the boy's attention rivets first on Shane, then at the fish disguised by the tumble of rocks. The /size/ of it seems to catch Peter's interest, as does the long, tapered nose. Peter sucks in a slow breath through the respirator -- and for a moment, holds it. Flashlight kept low, as if concerned about /spooking/ the fish. But slooooowly, it begins to creep up, inch by inch, as if wanting to highlight it. The fish does not spook; it slides down into the flashlight beam, light glinting off its black-spotted silvery side. The snouth, on closer inspection, has quite a /lot/ of sharp needly teeth. /It/ is, at least, watching the baby sunfish with more interest than perhaps the twins had. The humming continues; Shane's mouth curls up into a smile. He curls an arm around Peter, draws him slowly closer. The quiet humming sound is joined by a second, a little bit softer, a little bit higher, thrumming soft in Shane's chest as he draws Peter nearer. Sebastian slips down behind them, just as the fish darts out, swooping past them to nab himself a mouth of SMALLER fish. CHOMP. This pulls Bastian's mouth into a smile, too. For a moment he watches as the fish slinks back to hide among the rocks again, but then he is gesturing them once more forward! The humming stops. Shane's arm slackens around Peter's waist; he darts a small kiss to Peter's shoulder. And lets go, to continue -- slow, languid -- deeper back into the lake. Peter's tension visibly melts away when he feels Shane's arm around him, drawing him closer; he's clearly eager both for the contact and the warmth. His head is quirked up at the sound of humming, listening to it, even as his eyes follow the large fish that slips through the ray of the flashlight. Peter's head inclines, just a tiny bit, to give Shane a soft headbutt as the larger fish darts out and CHOMPS at a fish. A tiny hitch in Peter's breath; at first, maybe mistaken for tension, but when it continues for several more moments, is perhaps more clear that he is -- laughing! Just a little bit. When Shane delivers a shoulder kiss and continues forward, following Sebastian deeper in, Peter follows with a slow, steady kick -- pushing himself down into that deeper, darker place. It isn't long before Sebastian has once more disappeared, somewhere far off into the distance. Shane knows, at least, where /he/ is going; he turns, past taller fronds, past a rather /large/ pike that he points out to Peter -- four and a half feet of murky-green yellow-spotted fish. /This/ one, Shane /does/ eye with a touch of hunger as it drifts past. Deeper and deeper; where Shane leads them it is growing more /cluttered/ with rocks. Old fallen logs. A wrecked hull of sailboat. Shane pauses, near one cluster of rocks, to examine a small spiny grey-brown fish, but then -- gesture Peter onwards. Through a gap between two rocks -- it's darker, past there; he points to the flashlight before beckoning him onward. Into the GLOOM. The giant pike gets more of a nervous stare out of Peter; he is not used to dealing with fish that are nearly as long as he is /tall/. But! So long as Shane is nearby, Peter proceeds -- cautiously! -- forward. Oho, but the sight of that wrecked sailboat gets a little sound of out Peter! Shane might have to give him a gentle tug to stop him from immediately launching forward to /explore/ (he might, in fact, have presumed that this is where the twins sleep. OBVIOUSLY, sunken sailboat!), but -- when Shane points to flashlight and gloom, Peter turns away, swinging the light forward into that darkness and slinking forward with him. But there's light here /already/, dim and glowing from a cracked pair of /glowsticks/ that Sebastian has lit up here before them. A cave, of sorts; really more a /niche/ tucked among a large stretch of old logs and a number of very large rocks and a rocky hump swelling up to form something behind them too low to really be called a /hill/. But among all the crags its clear enough that this place has been -- /furnished/, of a sort. Little niches in the rocks have been decorated with tiny bone-carved figurines. A little dog; a small spider, a figure on a horse, a bat-winged gargoyle, a tiny lizard. A little school of things that might be fish and might be birds; they look like they might be taking /wing/ through the water. Some of them have colour, small bright-colourful rocks worked into the designs. There's a pair of planispheres tucked into one rocky shelf. A small /robot/ -- submersible? FISH? Deactivated and resting on another rock. A plastic cooler sits in one corner. A scooped-out burrow has been dug out of the soft lakebed, small and -- probably /just/ about the right size for a pair of sharks to ball up and sleep. Peter makes another tiny-noise at the sight of the dwelling -- and soon, he's forging forward -- maybe a bit more quickly than Shane or Sebastian had anticipated! To see /ALL/ the things. The sedate rhythm of his feet speeds up as he moves toward this tucked niche, a small rush of expelled air rising up from his respirator as he slinks toward that crag -- and /peers/! -- at the sculptures, first; the school of fishbirds seems to draw his attention the most. Peter seems to be resisting the desire to TOUCH ALL OF THE THINGS here, keeping his hands tucked to himself -- but that politeness seems to flag at the sight of SUBMERSIBLE ROBOT, which he proceeds to reach for -- and investigate! -- quite thoroughly. Sebastian is here, already. Nestled in the back, sitting cross-legged on the cooler. He watches with a small smile as Peter investigates; that quiet humming returns, in shorter bursts. Shorter bursts that receive a soft accompaniment of harmony, as Shane settles down onto the floor by the cooler, resting his head against Sebastian's knee. Only for a /moment/, though; Sebastian is up soon enough to eel his way towards Peter and turn /on/ the fishbot. Its tail swivels back and forth, jointed body wriggling slightly in Peter's hands. Its mouth opens! Like it is going to EAT PETER. Except actually there's just a camera inside. Probably the camera has no intention of eating anyone. "!!!" is the best Peter can manage under the water when the fish starts to wriggle in his grip, turned on; the camera lens that peers up at him is peered right back at -- with another brief spurt of tiny-bubbles from along the corner of his mouth. Peter releases the fish, gently; like he was releasing a bird! -- letting it float up into the air to watch its progress with wide-eyed curiousity; he glances back to Sebastian -- then to Shane -- and then! A slight flush of violet; hard to notice, save that Peter's now perched the massive flashlight in one of the niches, pointed outward -- bathing the room in a yellow glow. As if to explain this flush, Peter points to Sebastian -- then to Shane -- and then -- shrugs. Kind-of-grinning embarassedly around the mouthpiece as he does. The fish floats upwards, still wriggling. Then downwards, slightly, turning itself towards Peter. Only for a moment, though, before it starts to swim away; Sebastian backs up to let it fin its way past, swimming deeper into the back of the cave and then pausing near a wall. Backing up. Trying a new direction. Bastian seems content to ignore the fish, now; it's very busily -- getting lost? Or at least examining the walls in turn with a slow up-down-over wriggle of movement. The humming has continued, almost but not quite musical in its two-toned back-and-forth. Shane grins at the fishbot, unfurling himself from the floor to move to Peter's side. His arms curl around the other boy -- on land he tends to feel cool to the touch but down here in the chill water for once he actually feels warm in his embrace. His eyes close, face pressing up against Peter's shoulder, not really a kiss, not really anything but a long press of contact. Peter /watches/ the mechanical fish's exploration of the room with brief, rapt attention; he's particularly interested in the way the fish seems to back away from a wall once it encounters it. But when Shane closes in to wrap his arms around him, Peter's attention is drawn away, back toward Shane; the faint hint of violet becomes a bit more fierce -- and Peter's other arm curls back, squeezing into that warmth. And then! Veeeery cautiously, as Shane presses his head against Peter's shoulder -- Peter reaches! For the respirator. Fiddling with it, slowly -- tug. Tugtug. Tug. There's a brief spurt of bubbles, and then! Peter's mouth is free, descending to nuzzle experimentally against the warmth of Shane's cheek. Humming in response! Though his own is thoughtless and without structure; just a general, happy /hum/ of sound. The fish /does/ in fact back away from obstacles once encountered; it also subsequently manages to avoid those obstacles in future, navigating around already-mapped parts of the room with greater ease. Still not finding its way to the /exit/, though. Also one time knocking over a statuette (one of the tiny birdfishes), apparently too small to register on its obstacle-dar. Sebastian frowns at the bump, absently repositioning the statue but mostly watching the fishbot critically. Shane's mouth curves into a wide smile, at that nuzzle. His head tips back, mouth pressing to Peter's, soft, deep; he holds the kiss a long moment before pulling back with a /wider/ grin to reach for the respirator! And poke it back towards Peter's mouth /instead/. Peter hums again in response to the kiss, much louder, up against Shane's mouth. He presses, close, apparently very reluctant to give said kiss up! When Shane pulls away with that grin, Peter releases a series of bubbles from his mouth, /peering/ at that respirator as if it were some sort of /villain/. But, he reluctantly accepts it, mouth settling into it snugly -- and. Breeeeeath. Peter makes a tiny grabby hand motion at Shane's gills, as if he suddenly /wants/ them for himself. But he's still grinning, even as he occasionally watches that fumbling fish from the corner of his eye... and leans a bit into Shane, weightlessly dragging him close to coil him around himself like a blanket. Lazily peering at the sculptures, eyes slinking around the room. The humming sound returns, for a moment. Shane grins /brighter/, shoulders shaking in a silent laugh as he darts a glance towards his brother. He waits! For Peter to take that breath. And then another. And then reaches for the respirator again, plucking it out to replace it with his mouth, arm curling snugly to pull Peter close against him. That first tiny suck produces nothing, really, just Shane's mouth pressing airlessly to Peter's. It is not until /Shane's/ gills close -- and even then there's a long moment of recalibration before he manages a slow-small exhale against Peter's mouth. Sebastian is watching this, more with intense /curiosity/ than any sort of voyeurism. Experimentally, his gills close. A slow stream of bubbles blows out of his nose. They halt as his gills flap open again. Peter makes a sound, small but sharp -- akin to a muffled, close-mouthed squeak! -- when he catches this breath. Drawing the tiny morsel of second-hand air in. The hand at Shane's upper back lifting, coiling at the back of his head, fingers squeezing in. Eyes closing behind the goggles as he waits, a moment -- before releasing it from his nostrils and trying again. It is a slow transition again, gills closing; Shane's arm tightens around Peter harder when they do. A pause, a small hitch in Shane's chest before he manages another exhale. Sebastian's fingers drum against the rock he is now leaning against. His gills close again. Another stream of bubbles. Gills open. Drum of fingers. Elsewhere, his fishbot has finally found the /exit/. It is swimming its way out the narrow tunnel. Sebastian's gaze flicks to it with a slight frown. "Mmnhh..." More tiny-bubbles. There's a slight shift in Peter's posture, then; once he's drawn in this next exhale, Peter pulls his head back -- and releases the back of Shane's head, moving his hands gingerly to his goggles. Tugging at them, slowly. Tug, tug -- eyes closing as he does so. To sloooowly lift them -- keeping them sealed against his skin -- but pushing them up past his nose, then, up against his hair -- water beginning to slowly leak into their space. And then, head tilted back, /slowly/ peeking his eyes open. With a little grimace. Before... tug-tug, /off/ the goggles go! Left to sluggishly float to the ground, with Peter's eyes exposed; hazier, with everything blurry and confused -- more sensitive -- but with less in the way. Shane's hand curls up against Peter's back, fingers running up to tangle in feathery-wet hair. His mouth presses to Peter's again, deeper, hungrier, his other hand sliding up to brush fingers up Peter's cheek, against the side of his head, cupping the other boy's face in his hand. It takes a moment before he breaks off, gills opening again; he nudges at Peter's respirator as he buries his face against his neck instead. Peter presses close into that kiss once more, close and heated, hesitantly pressing along the edge of those carefully hidden teeth. A low, happy-needy sound in his throat at the pressure -- when Shane pulls back, Peter's exposed, without goggles; he blinks lazily -- owlishly -- making out the dark shape of the respirator. He presses his mouth against it slowly, having to take a moment to make out the shape and side it; then, he draws in a heavy, long breath -- narrow chest swelling. One of Peter's hands drift into Shane's own hair, Peter's drifting off in loose, languid waves, drifting like fronds of seaweed. He squeezes as he pushes his face against Peter's neck -- as Peter's other hand drifts, slowly, almost questioningly -- down to the buckles that secure the vest to him. Giving a tiny, exploratory tug. Shane's kisses press to Peter's neck, his fingers rubbing slowly against the back of Peter's head. He hums, too, soft and just as happy. His hand drops to rest over Peter's at that tiny tug of buckle, not stopping Peter's hand. Not helping either. Considering. Sebastian does get up here, though. Swims closer, to check the gages on Peter's tank. His hand swipes -- NOPE -- in a cutting-off gesture at neck level. Like a /killjoy/, he gestures back towards the tiny exitway. Peter's throat /hums/ with sound as Shane kisses against his neck. "Mmmhmmn," is Peter's response, briefly distracted at the sudden inspection of his tank at Sebastian's hands; more violet comes at that swiping gesture toward his throat. VERY RELUCTANTLY, Peter's hand moves away from the vest buckle, giving Shane one last, careful squeeze -- before reaching! Somewhat clumsily, somewhat blurrily -- for his goggles. Not bothering to put them back on, because! They are full of /water/, now. Looping them around his neck, before reaching in the direction of the glow of his flashlight, to seize up! Shane offers more kisses -- tinykisses, dotted up the side of Peter's neck and up his cheek. But then he acquiesces to his brother's /pragmatism/ -- Kissing a corpse is /probably/ less fun anyway -- and rests a hand on Peter's shoulder. /Steering/ him, this time, with his blurrier vision, towards the exit. Sebastian now brings up the rear rather than the lead, trailing the others back out. Up, up, up! Peter is lead up and out of the small niche; there is /probably/ not as much sight-seeing this turn around since, Peter's visibility is, at the moment, largely nill -- and he's a bit more uncomfortable now, without the goggles. But once they reach the boat -- Peter's head cresting the surface with a SPLOOSH and a WHIP of darkbrown hair, snapping back like a rat tail -- he is tug-tugging the respirator out of his mouth and reaching for Shane (or, at least, the one he /thinks/ is Shane!) to deliver a sudden, fierce, gaspy kiss -- even as he squeezes his eyes shut, blinking rapidly to clear them. "It is," Peter says, in-between kisses, "really beautiful down there." /Hopefully/ it is Shane; at least he is kissing back, /fierce/ and hard and squeezing Peter to him close. Sebastian is clambering into the boat -- rocking it heavily! -- with a small smile. Shy. But happy. "-- I'm glad. That you came." Shane just /kisses/. For a while, at least, before he lets Peter breathe /properly/. "You're the only person who ever has," he adds, his grin quick and sharp. "It's --" Another smile. "-- Some day we'll show you our place in the bay, too. Only once you get used to /this/. That's -- deeper." Sebastian is flopping out along a seat in the boat. "Sorry. I might have been able to let you guys down there a /little/ bit longer but you haven't -- done this before I wanted to. Be safe." "Not unless you grow our eyelids," Shane says with a -- blink! Of clear inner eyelids. He clasps Peter's hand and pulls himself up and in, rocking the boat yet again. "Your robot ran away again," he adds with a snort to Sebastian. "She'll come back." Sebastian shrugs, curling an arm over his eyes. He doesn't bother moving from where he flops. Shane eventually /does/ move, over to the boat's motor. "More practice would be good. For, uh, both of us! It's -- actually really hard to /switch/ -- mmn. Breathing. Underwater like that. But neat to try." "I didn't want /either/ of you to suffocate." Bastian frowns as Shane moves towards the motor. "Can we not --" He stops, closes his eyes. "Go. Back. For a little while, anyway." "Does she have a tracker...?" Peter asks, even as he helps Shane into the boat, shedding the last of his gear -- and giving Shane a /tinysqueeze/ at one of his thighs, even as he lounges back in his seat with a wet whump. The mention of /Shane/ possibly suffocating makes Peter's eyebrows spring up, though; even when he's lazily lounging. "--either of...? Oh, /oh/," and now there's an intentful look -- toward Shane, then back to Sebastian, and... "--is that -- oh wow. Could you -- drown? If you..." He draws in a slow breath, then, frowning: "I shouldn't have tried that without... talking to you, first." That last comment from Sebastian gets Peter interested; he makes himself comfortable, head slouched over the side of the boat. "Mmnn...? I'm fine with -- resting here. For a while." Kind of lazily. "Something wrong...?" "She does," Bastian says, "but I don't /usually/ have to use it, she goes back to her base eventually. So long as I keep /it/ charged. But -- sometimes she has a harder time finding her way back than other times so -- occasionally if she gets lost I have to track her down. It's good when she wanders, though, she's kind of -- buggy so I get to fix what's -- wrong with her." "Hardest part was actually getting her to /move/ right," Shane says with a small twitch-smile. "Autonomous 3-D movement is -- not. Easy." He drops his hand away from the motor, returning to sit next to Peter instead, flop downwards with his head on Peter's lap. "We can drown," Sebastian agrees. "Just like we always -- kinda-almost-suffocate on land. It's -- /harder/, our /gills/ work by default so like. If we're unconscious or something in water we just slip back to that and that's fine but --" "-- but if we /think/ about it," Shane says wryly, "we can fuck ourselves up. Inhale a lungful of water and we're still pretty fucked." "And switching between them is -- well, it's fine, but -- I'd never really tried," Sebastian muses, "doing it quite like /that/." "Like. Needing to retain air from one -- to the other, it's -- took a bit of --" Shane shrugs a shoulder. Sebastian slinks down to the floor of the boat, tucking himself near the others with /his/ head rested up against Shane's legs. "Nothing's wrong," he says, eyes closing. "Everything's /right/."