TSN: Calm Under The Waves (1/2)
Title: Calm Under The Waves
Author: des_pudels_kern
Fandom: The Social Network
Pairing: Eduardo, Mark (gen or pre-slash depending on your slash goggles)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Potentially triggering suicidal themes and perceived character death
Disclaimer: Any characters mentioned here belong to their respective creators; the names of any real people mentioned refer to fictionalised versions of these people. No money is made and no offense intended.
Length: ~14.000 words (posted in two parts due to LJ's length restrictions)
Status: …I have been told that I will be harassed for the rest of my life unless I write a sequel to this in which they make up.
Summary: When Eduardo asks Mark if there's anything he needs to tell him he fails to mention that he himself has a secret.
Author's Note: Mer!Eduardo for the mer-ficathon that was originally supposed to be a nice little 3000-word ficlet and instead acquired the working title of epic angst fest of doom. My eternal gratitude for offering various beta services go first and foremost to yellowwolf5 who kept letting me send her more angst, with an honorable mention of seascribe and tootsiemuppet. All remaining mistakes are my own.
Title stolen from Maria Mena's song of the same name, which would be the title song for the film adaptation of this fic.
Calm Under The Waves
*
0
*
Eduardo remembers when life was simple. When he was young, he thought life was magical and that he was a prince, living in a castle, days filled with sunshine and games and playing on their private beach and spending hours in the sea, whole afternoons before his mãe called him to come back out for dinner. He loved the sea. It was perfect. When the world was loud and bright, it was quiet and calm, unmoved and solid and muting, cool brushes like a thousand feathery kisses, like the one his mãe still used to give him when he went to bed, back then. When the world was dark and cold it was wonderfully alive, untamed and infinite and the promise of countless possibilities, cheerful waves and patterns of light moving over his skin, making him feel alive too.
*
When they moved to the States, that was what he missed the most. The sea. They moved into a house in the city, with a fenced garden and a pool. No salt in his hair, coolness on his skin, no sense of peace and freedom in the pathetic little rectangle of chlorine-heavy liquid.
He asked his father when they would go back, and he answered they lived in America now. He told him, no, pai, not Brazil, the sea, there was an ocean here, he'd seen it, they'd passed it, and his father had grown upset. He told Eduardo he was too old to let himself go like that and play in the dirt like some animal, that there was nothing to be had in the sea but distraction and that Eduardo was to concentrate on making something of himself, to learn and be studious and do as he was told so he would have all the possibilities the world offered and be someone people respected
Eduardo told his pai that he didn't need those possibilities and didn't want people's respect, but he'd like to go to the beach please, he promised he wouldn't swim far. He was six years old and homesick.
His pai grew even more upset.
They emptied the pool the next day and his father forbad him to visit one of the children he knew from school and go swimming with them. Eduardo did not mind, it wasn't filled with real water and swimming in it hadn't made him feel any better.
Eduardo learned and was studious and did as he was told. He grew to crave respect and the possibilities of the world. He started to lower his eyes so the yearning in them, for the simple comfort and cool peace of home, could not be seen, and smiled at people and was friendly, carefully but vaguely distant, so they wouldn't notice how strange he was.
He succeeded. And if he moved a little bit more fluidly than his peers, if his hands moved in little swirls and his feet made him dance in smooth pirouettes when he didn't pay attention, they attributed it to the more obvious Brazilian part of his heritage. Eduardo learned to blend in.
*
Time moved on, and Eduardo grew to like this other world. It was more complicated but he succeeded in it and managed to substitute new games like acceptance and competition and ambition for his old ones. As he found playmates that were just as not-quite-normal as him in their own ways, these new games proved to be almost as enjoyable as the old ones he used to play by himself, in some ways maybe even more.
Eduardo began to see the appeal of, the possibilities offered by company.
He met Dustin first, who hadn't outgrown his own games anymore than Eduardo but who seemed to not need the harmony of solitude but that of laughter, and was dragged along to meet Chris, who knew what it was like to be different but faced the world where Eduardo hid, and Mark, who would dive into a world of his own and not surface for hours or days, unafraid to delve deeper and go farther than was wise but not to be held back by the threat of disapproval, and Eduardo envied him his ability to do so and couldn't help but want to preserve it.
And maybe Eduardo himself fell too deeply into something he neither completely understood nor could really get out of again.
*
He was afraid to be found out only once. They had all returned to their various homes over the summer, and Eduardo was staying with his parents when Dustin called and announced his intention of borrowing-without-asking his mother's car and driving down from Ocala so Eduardo wouldn't have to spend the rest of his life with the burden of Dustin's death on his conscience when he could have easily saved him from perishing from boredom by taking his friend in and sharing with him the excitement of being young and alive in Miami during the summer.
Eduardo did not expect Dustin to include in that going to the beach to go swimming and hit on girls (he expected the hitting on girls was going to take place in clubs they were both too young to be at but had managed to sneak in anyway, armed with cash and fake ids). He should have expected it, of course. Dustin came from far enough in-land that the beach wasn't routine for him, and people felt the pull of the sea even if they weren't as attuned to it as their kind.
Eduardo was already trudging through sand, the familiar, tempting smell of salt and water in the air, thinking about how to best drop his bottle of coke and accidentally stomp on it to cut his foot and be unable to go into the water when Dustin slowed in front of him and came to a halt, head turning and eyes taking in the tan, fit bodies of the locals around him, throwing Frisbees, playing volleyball, or lying on towels unmoving like statues. He looked down at his own body, soft and creamy-pale, knobby knees under the cuff of his shorts and the slight round of his stomach visible under the shirt he had already unbuttoned.
When Dustin made a show of not finding the bottle of sunscreen in his bag, Eduardo didn't call him out on it. He had never before been grateful for not having a private beach anymore, and felt ashamed for taking advantage of Dustin's insecurity and not reassuring him that he was more gorgeous with his skin like pearls and body of an intellectual than those nipped and tucked cardboard cutouts.
They went back to the house and swam in the pool instead (filled again these days; Eduardo hardly used it even when he was there), Dustin leaving a thin film of sunscreen on the water and splashing and dunking Eduardo mercilessly after a moment of hesitation and half-formed apology when the first push had Eduardo come up spluttering too-warm water and cursing, and Eduardo trying to give as good as a more normal person would and let the laughter drown out the feeling of not-quite-right and chlorine.
*
He was tempted to tell once too. It was the night of the Bill Gates lecture, of groupies and Facebook me!, and of the Winklevosses' cease and desist letter. They'd been happy and excited and proud, life had been good, they were good, he was, more than good, he was great, and then suddenly there had been this thing between them.
The letter was just lying there on top of the fireplace, open and half-discarded like some annoying but unimportant notice, a reminder to pay the phone bill or confirm something, nothing to worry about or sensitive in nature. Eduardo had just been trying to explain the concept of making money to Mark, who seemed otherworldly enough about the matter for the both of them, so in awe of what they'd created and were still building that concerns of how and why made him balk like Eduardo was trying to confine him to, well, to a pool when Mark wanted the ocean. It was almost enough to make Eduardo step back, to make him give in and give up on what he knew was an economical necessity and tell Mark to dive in and swim as deep and far as he wanted and explore every last corner of this marvelous creation of theirs, Eduardo would make it happen, somehow. And he could have, probably. Turn thefacebook into his pet project, financed with the scraps of what he made that summer or would the next, a charity, something he indulged Mark in because he could afford to. Eduardo had a habit of indulging Mark. But that idea made something in Eduardo balk, made him feel like he wanted to take their ever unfinished company and put it into a pool, restricted and finite, because he didn't believe it would make it in the endless sea.
That was when he saw the letter. Saw it and did a double-take, Mark, what is this, and picked and held it up to face Mark's dismissal and defensiveness. Mark hadn't thought it worth mentioning, he got that, still didn't think it necessary to talk about. Right after they launched the site, god, accusing Mark of stealing their idea, intellectual property theft, and Mark called it mildly annoying. Eduardo had been brought up on crisp paper, black suitcases, and expensive dark cloth, and he knew how this worked, how these situations played out, the stronger fraction forcing those who'd just wanted their simple dreams to bend to their will and conform, and he had to, needed to know about this, no matter how uncomfortable Mark seemed, sitting on the couch, shoulders high and tight and tense, no longer slouched and open, and avoiding Eduardo's eyes.
So he pushed and pulled and didn't give in, standing tall and towering over Mark on the couch, and hated himself for it when Mark looked up at him as if he'd forcibly made him raise his head and refused to look away again as if that would have meant admitting defeat, and met each of his questions and statements with evasions and justifications, defiance and a wordless plea in his tone for Eduardo to understand, to see his point, and Eduardo wanted to believe him, but he had to be sure, for both of them, he had to be sure, because it would be just like Mark to ignore this, because it wasn't compatible with what he wanted, because he didn't want to deal with it, because he didn't know he had to deal with it or how, until it was too late, and they'd lose thefacebook, there'd be restrictions and concessions and where would they be then, where would Mark be. A wading pool not even big enough to stretch out in.
Mark gave.
That one time, Mark gave. To be honest, Mark gave in often those days, probably just as often as Eduardo, but he usually did so silently, at times when no admission of giving was required, but that time he bowed and conceded the point to Eduardo. He said he hadn't thought it important, the apology, the I do see that it was important now unsaid except for his use of the past tense, I'm sorry, please don't be upset anymore implicit in his voice, in the slump of his shoulders, no more aggression and confrontation, the way his hands didn't gesticulate anymore, tense into the very tip of his fingers, but hung limp between his knees, in the way he shook his head and lowered his eyes for a moment, breaking contact, withdrawing, before looking up at Eduardo again, now open and vulnerable the way Mark rarely showed himself.
And Eduardo, Eduardo caved. Took a breath and let himself rub the tension from his forehead, and let it slip, let the implications go unsaid and concentrated on what was suddenly more important, and sat down on, fell in the chair, eyes level with Mark's. No more pushing and pulling.
Mark might not have told him not only because he honestly didn't think it important, but also because he simply didn't want to tell Eduardo, didn't feel he could, didn't want to leave himself vulnerable and less than capable and in control.
Which was stupid, really, because Eduardo was Mark's CFO so Mark wouldn't have to know these things.
And Eduardo was Mark's friend and didn't want Mark to have to know these things, or know the answer to everything. Eduardo was there to have Mark's back. If there was anyone Mark could let himself be vulnerable with, it was Eduardo. If there was ever anything wrong, Mark could tell him. Eduardo was here, he was available, he was on Mark's side. He was safe. He was the guy that wanted to help. Eduardo wanted Mark to know that. He needed him to know that, and he tried to make him understand. This wasn't about the letter anymore, Eduardo was not upset anymore, he was calm and open and quietly collected. He meant what he was saying. Eduardo was there for Mark, no matter what.
He waited a moment to let Mark process, and then asked again if there was anything, anything he needed to tell him.
Mark answered him as calm and collected and in control, a simple no.
For a moment, Eduardo thought that would be it. That Mark would turn the question around on him and ask if there was anything Eduardo wanted to tell him. And for that same moment there he hoped he would. In that moment, he would have told him had Mark only asked. He'd asked Mark for his trust, he should offer up his own secret in turn.
But Mark didn't ask, and Eduardo waited and swallowed and let his courage slip away, the pressure of a lifetime of having to keep himself secret closing in around him again and keeping that information safely locked away, the knowledge of it limited to those of the same blood, the fact of it restricted to the past.
It was with the bitter taste of disappointment on his tongue that Eduardo brought the conversation back to legalities, but he didn't know whom he was disappointed in.
*
Eduardo used to stay because it didn't occur to him he could leave.
He had stayed for school, for hard work and approval and respect, as impossible to reach as the end of a rainbow.
Over time, he had found things that tempered the yearning, sanding off the sharp edges until he could pick the memories up and look at them like pieces of rounded, smooth glass washed ashore, bright and pretty and something to quietly smile at. Hands could move as quickly and unpredictably as a shoal of fish spooked and scattering. Laughter could chime as cheerfully as the low waves of an almost-calm sea and voices sound as dry as one could only feel, inexplicably, after not having surfaced for hours. The warmth radiating from another body was as natural and invisible as a cool current and as impossible not to follow once found. Dimples flashed as unexpectedly and beautifully as a beam of light dancing breaking through water so deep it shouldn't exist.
*
Then he stayed because leaving would have been running. And he had always wanted to run (figuratively speaking), but only ever towards something, never from.
*
Once he was almost found out because he didn't care to hide anymore. A winter night, in Harvard, after. (No need to verbalize after what; no one ever did, in his presence at least, drifting off with awkward glances to the side and embarrassed shrugs, but everybody knew what it meant, after.)
The world was dark and empty and cruel, the Charles River a band of inky silence before him, and he was stuck on a pedestal, tied down and exposed, illuminated by looks of disapproval and superior spitefulness, voyeuristic gloating and pity, with nowhere to go and hide. Harvard was the cage he was locked in for people to gawk at and prod in between coming out to Palo Alto and Miami to let himself be cut open and dissected some more. He didn't feel like there was anything left to hide from, nothing to try for, no one to want to for. The world had found him lacking, had in an ironic twist declared him undesired, after all the time he had tried to want to be a part of it.
And he had. Wanted.
He didn't anymore. It wasn't worth it, none of it. The hurt and the pain and the anger. His pride. It made him feel cold inside. Cold and slow, dark molasses, viscous and thick, turning every stir into a struggle until he just didn't want to try anymore. What was so bad about giving up and quitting the field for those who wanted to walk it?
He looked at his feet (socks and shoes, dark, and cold, why were feet always so cold) and then let his eyes be drawn forward, just a bit, over a couple of cobble stones, smooth and flat from being walked upon by countless feet, set in their angles, so different from the round edgelessness of the ceaseless movement of waves, and then down the slope, down, drawn and falling, onto the black, blank surface of the Charles that was almost, almost home.
Wet and cold and tame in its bed, not quite right, not wrong enough to not be tempting. So familiar that it made him swallow drily as it pulled at him, soft promises silently purling in his ears, and made him shift, not quite moving but still ending up another inch closer to the edge.
It looked like he felt. It looked better than he felt. It looked carefree. Dark molasses, unmoving, unaffected, untouched, just there.
Eduardo wondered.
If he touched it, maybe its inky black thickness would pull him in. In and down and deep, drowning out all but the sound of his heart beating in his chest so he could listen to it calm down. It would be cold, so cold, more so than he was already, finally cold enough to numb and leave him not freezing anymore.
One step. Two maybe.
So close.
Five, six miles to the sea, until the water would turn salty and real and whisper against his skin in a cool, reassuring welcome of home and then he would turn, and turn calm and cool, reassured, welcomed home, no more cold toes and no more freezing air in his lungs, smooth strokes caresses against his body and soft, muted wetness to breathe in, to taste instead of smell, floating freely and surrounded comfortably, calm and serene and safe and passion and life and adventure, everything inside and outside hushed comfortingly in a way the surface could never be, this world of touch or no touch, on or off, that didn't know a shelter that wouldn't dull or muffle or constrict.
He could do six miles, surely, even like this, in this body, with cold dragging him down and freezing him, sticky molasses pulling him deeper and deeper, tight and close and dark and slow.
And if he couldn't.
Well.
Wouldn't it be ironic to drown? Wouldn't it be funny, a joke, the greatest joke, for him to drown, in water that wasn't quite right, not against his skin, not in his lungs, wet and cool but too sticky-sweet and cold around his mammalian body a way the sea was not, would never be more than a few steps in, to drown because he couldn't bear to breathe anymore, this thin, intangible air that bit and was everywhere without being anywhere, no hold, no touch, no sound.
Six miles, and it would be over, one way or the other.
One step, and it would be over.
Pull by pull.
It wasn't running away when he moved towards the calm.
Tiny shifts.
Halt.
A fixed point, a pressure on his shoulder, little weight but more than the symbolic burden of clothing, ungiving unlike the insubstantial resistance of air. Uncommon but not quite unfamiliar.
Touch.
There was a hand on his shoulder, holding him (back) in place, pale fingers against the dark fabric of Eduardo's coat, pale hand disappearing in a dark sleeve, arm bent and tense, and the pale oval of a face, nightly pale, scared-pale, blue eyes dark and grey and golden hair silver and dull in the light of the stars, Chris' mouth a black hole, opening and closing, releasing faint clouds of warmth and a steady stream of sound Eduardo only now noticed above the low, tempting hum of the water.
"…on't, Eduardo, please."
Eduardo exhaled, a wordless question rising in front of his face, and he blinked, surprised that there was enough warmth left in him for this. His eyes crossed for a moment, trying to focus on the unexpected proof of life before him, but it diffused into nothing and he was left to stare over his shoulder at Chris.
"Hey, okay, good, don't-I, I'm cold, yeah?"
Chris, whose fingers dug into Eduardo's shoulder, pale from cold and night and maybe something else, whose eyes were huge and dark and scared, fear screaming out of them that vibrated quietly in the composed, careful tone of his voice. Chris was scared.
"Let's just go back, please, come back, okay?"
Chris, who didn't understand.
"Please, Wardo, come back with me?"
Or who maybe understood too well.
"I," Eduardo had to clear his throat, voice catching in his frozen-dry throat, "Yeah. Okay, yeah, let's go back."
He smiled at Chris, a broken little half-smile moving whichever muscles in his face still would.
"We can pick up some Chinese on the way."
Chris smiled back, a nervous, relieved twitch, and waited until Eduardo had turned to fall into step beside him.
They walked back to Eliot together, Chris with his hand a comforting point of warmth against Eduardo's arm, a purchase to keep him from leaving just yet, and Eduardo… still there.
Yet.
*
Eduardo wasn't sure when he had decided to go back, but the decision to do so on his own terms he made that night with Chris. The both of them sat on his too-narrow bed, their knees pulled up to their chests to keep them from dangling over the edge of the bed, sharing his blanket like two children who were cold, arms brushing as they ate their takeout. It was almost nice, almost safe, almost undemanding. And that was how he made up his mind, watching stupid Mexican soaps online because everything else carried too many memories for their fragile peace. He would finish this for himself, because he could and deserved it, and then he would go, because he could and deserved it and wanted to.
No more contorting himself for the sake of others.
Eduardo would to leave it all behind.
*
They settled. Eduardo knew they would after the first couple of days of deposition, his lawyers did, Mark's too. He wasn't sure Mark knew, Mark was always good at only seeing things from his own point of view.
It took a while; longer than Eduardo would have thought. Probably also longer than Mark had wanted it to, the tenacious desire to not give in and have it his way and his alone outweighed by the need to be able to concentrate all his time and thought on Facebook.
Eduardo had only barely managed to keep going through those long days of avoiding eyes that wouldn't have seen him anyway, the mind behind them too focused on its own desire to return to the depth, and trying not to let the tears fall even as raindrops teased him from outside the windows. He would have broken down and run at the first touch of salty water on his lips, even if it had only come running hotly from his own eyes.
But eventually they settled. Money, shares, and NDAs that their respective lawyers had fought over like starving dogs over a bone and that had nothing but symbolic value for the both of them. A couple of signatures, no handshakes exchanged, and they were officially out of each other's lives and free to return to their chosen haven. Mark would return to the success story he had always wanted and worked so hard for (sacrificed Eduardo for), with friends and family that loved and accepted him, working with people who respected him, able to dive into this ocean of his own creation, this thing Eduardo had to admit he'd never really understood but had be awed by nonetheless, day after day after day, to his heart's content.
As the dust settled with them, Eduardo was left with nothing but two decades worth of failure and nothing to hold him there anymore, nothing but pain and disappointment and broken promises, his own and others'. The options of this world that he'd tried to want to hunt, that had even seemed so challenging and desirable at a point, tasted stale and chlorined in his mouth, and success had been revealed to be merely a temporary reprieve that would only have him hit the pool's wall harder the faster he swam, left to hold his aching head and heart and try again and again (and wasn't that one definition of insanity, to doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results).
He just wanted it all to be over. Gone.
He wanted, needed, yearned for the cool, quiet calm of the sea.
The solace of it.
The non-judgmental simple life it offered.
*
I
*
Eduardo packs up what is left of his life. When asked he says he is going abroad, and people nod sympathetically and provide him with the necessary paperwork to terminate his insurance or his cell phone contract, accept boxes full of designer suits even though they don't match the style of most Goodwill customers, or wish him good luck as he checks out of the hotel in Palo Alto he has been staying at for the depositions.
It isn't even a lie, international waters start 12 miles from the coast.
Besides, he hates the thought of leaving behind a mess for other people to clean up.
Once everything is said and done it's so simple. He goes to the airport, hand luggage only, and gets on the first flight back to the East coast - Fort Lauderdale of all places but he doesn't mind; it seems fitting for him to leave from there, to plunge Floridian waters after all.
He arrives at noon and just walks around a bit, soaking up the sounds and sight of a densely populated metropolis, loud and bright and bustling, watching the people around him go about their lives with all the worries he is now done with, and feels nothing but commiserative fondness. He finds a hotel and books a room for one last night in a bed, but ends up spending half the night at the bar drinking instead of using it. He wonders if he'll miss any of this, tries to think of reasons to stay but can't come up with anything more than nostalgia, and smiles to himself at the irony of having cold feet. The barkeeper chats with him when she has nothing to do once it becomes clear he is alone. She says for a guy drinking all by himself he looks surprisingly happy, if a bit pensive. He tells her he ss going home after having been gone for years. She wishes him luck.
He leaves around three, cramming every last bill he has under his glass and then tucking his wallet back into his pocket, and walks down to the beach.
He wanders South for a while, just because he can, shoes and socks in one hand, and marvels at the sand between his toes, and how quickly even the tepid night of a tropical climate leeches the warmth from them. He passes a couple that has fallen asleep on a blanket, legs entwined, frowns at plastic wrappers and crushed cans.
He feels like an addict, clean 17 years, who is about to shoot up again. If addicts feel giddy and anticipatory and satisfied before taking their hit.
When the sky begins to light up he takes off his clothes. Shoes on the ground, the rest of his clothing folded on top of them in a neat pile, keys, phone and wallet on top for identification and his driver's license in the back pocket of his pants because he figures despite or because of the early hour someone might decide to steal his valuables instead of calling the cops or coast guard or whomever people call in a case like this.
*
He walks into the water.
He's up to his chest when the turn takes, and he dives under and lets the air rush out of his lungs, then inhales, chokes that one time, the one transitory breath it always takes, and coughs up air bubbles that tickle his face as they dance to the surface. His second inhale is smooth and easy, and he touches his neck, just to check, but the parallel slits open and close rhythmically with the breaths expanding and contracting his chest, as naturally and without a thought from him as if they'd never been gone. It is as if until now, he had only been breathing through half of the orifices he is supposed to, a bit like that moment after a cold when he could finally breath through his nose again, easy and deep and so much less labored than before. He savors the rush of water through his body, the coolness of it as he breathes in and how it's just that tiny bit closer to his body temperature when he breathes out, the way he can truly feel what he is breathing. For a moment, he feels lightheaded, like a plain dweller hiking up a mountain, not used to the lower saturation, then his lungs grow, his ribcage swells just a bit more to take in the water, and he breathes deeper.
His legs change in the twitch of a muscle cramp, and where his feet used to be almost uncomfortably cold to the point where he wanted to curl up his toes and burrow them deep into the sand on the search for warmth, his caudal fin feels nothing but soothingly cool as he moves it through the water experimentally, touches it with exploring fingers and feels warmth grow at the points of contact, his skin even more sensitive to the difference in temperature now but the contrast curious, not uncomfortable. The thin skin and fragile rays of it feel more vulnerable under his big grown-up hands than they did before, but he knows how hardy they are, he used to play rough.
By the time he's twisting to run his hands up his tail, he's all but sitting on the sea floor. There is no buoyancy without air, and the waves gently toss him back and forth, bop him up and down in the pretend-weightlessness. He lets himself drift, and it feels strange when so long to neither stand firmly nor move forward in decisive steps had meant to flounder and fail and the need to grasp for something to cling to, some kind of framework to guide him while it doubled as an invisible cage.
The rays of his fin connect to his body horizontally rather than vertically, but the curved line of vertebrae that now replaces stiffly bent thighs and shins bends like that of an aquatic mammal, exposing him as an in-between just as much as his gills-and-nose combination. He thinks the scales are larger, and it would make sense, but it's been so long, and he never used to pay too close attention to what he looked like, the fact that he might at one point not see himself for almost two decades and then want to catalogue changes unpredicted by his younger self. They do start to taper out at the height of his hips, though, patches of softer, more sensitive skin peeking through until he can only feel the odd scale here and there, and nothing past his still-present navel. He remembers them being a pale silvery gold, warm in color but not bright like the small tropical fish he'd seen in aquariums.
That he can't masturbate anymore and might end up missing his dick is an afterthought, and he shakes it off with any remaining air bubbles as he runs his fingers through his hair, floating free around his head and, softened by the water, silkier than he ever remembers it being outside, with or without product.
Then he stretches and flexes and starts to move as the sun rises and first rays of light pierce the surface, marbling everything they touch. He swims towards the light, testing his body and growing more secure and at home in hit with every flick of his tail, and soon he is twisting and turning and catapulting himself forwards in corkscrews of spirals, just because he can, just because he wants to and he likes the way it brushes the water against his skin.
Because he is surrounded and sheltered and can still roam freely, because the sea is solid and unmoving and ever in motion, because it is cool and fresh and alive without leeching the warmth from his body and biting his skin and lungs like air did, because it is soft and muted and hushed without being dark or stifling or pale, everything cushioned by the familiar comfort of a thousand gentle touches. It is huge and endless and unknown, his infinite possibilities, no rules and regulations and norms to hold him back, no walls, no expectations, freeing and liberating and alive.
Eduardo is the prince of his magical underwater kingdom, and the world and all its wonders are his to explore.
It's just as he remembers.
*
Continued here.
Author: des_pudels_kern
Fandom: The Social Network
Pairing: Eduardo, Mark (gen or pre-slash depending on your slash goggles)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Potentially triggering suicidal themes and perceived character death
Disclaimer: Any characters mentioned here belong to their respective creators; the names of any real people mentioned refer to fictionalised versions of these people. No money is made and no offense intended.
Length: ~14.000 words (posted in two parts due to LJ's length restrictions)
Status: …I have been told that I will be harassed for the rest of my life unless I write a sequel to this in which they make up.
Summary: When Eduardo asks Mark if there's anything he needs to tell him he fails to mention that he himself has a secret.
Author's Note: Mer!Eduardo for the mer-ficathon that was originally supposed to be a nice little 3000-word ficlet and instead acquired the working title of epic angst fest of doom. My eternal gratitude for offering various beta services go first and foremost to yellowwolf5 who kept letting me send her more angst, with an honorable mention of seascribe and tootsiemuppet. All remaining mistakes are my own.
Title stolen from Maria Mena's song of the same name, which would be the title song for the film adaptation of this fic.
Calm Under The Waves
*
0
*
Eduardo remembers when life was simple. When he was young, he thought life was magical and that he was a prince, living in a castle, days filled with sunshine and games and playing on their private beach and spending hours in the sea, whole afternoons before his mãe called him to come back out for dinner. He loved the sea. It was perfect. When the world was loud and bright, it was quiet and calm, unmoved and solid and muting, cool brushes like a thousand feathery kisses, like the one his mãe still used to give him when he went to bed, back then. When the world was dark and cold it was wonderfully alive, untamed and infinite and the promise of countless possibilities, cheerful waves and patterns of light moving over his skin, making him feel alive too.
*
When they moved to the States, that was what he missed the most. The sea. They moved into a house in the city, with a fenced garden and a pool. No salt in his hair, coolness on his skin, no sense of peace and freedom in the pathetic little rectangle of chlorine-heavy liquid.
He asked his father when they would go back, and he answered they lived in America now. He told him, no, pai, not Brazil, the sea, there was an ocean here, he'd seen it, they'd passed it, and his father had grown upset. He told Eduardo he was too old to let himself go like that and play in the dirt like some animal, that there was nothing to be had in the sea but distraction and that Eduardo was to concentrate on making something of himself, to learn and be studious and do as he was told so he would have all the possibilities the world offered and be someone people respected
Eduardo told his pai that he didn't need those possibilities and didn't want people's respect, but he'd like to go to the beach please, he promised he wouldn't swim far. He was six years old and homesick.
His pai grew even more upset.
They emptied the pool the next day and his father forbad him to visit one of the children he knew from school and go swimming with them. Eduardo did not mind, it wasn't filled with real water and swimming in it hadn't made him feel any better.
Eduardo learned and was studious and did as he was told. He grew to crave respect and the possibilities of the world. He started to lower his eyes so the yearning in them, for the simple comfort and cool peace of home, could not be seen, and smiled at people and was friendly, carefully but vaguely distant, so they wouldn't notice how strange he was.
He succeeded. And if he moved a little bit more fluidly than his peers, if his hands moved in little swirls and his feet made him dance in smooth pirouettes when he didn't pay attention, they attributed it to the more obvious Brazilian part of his heritage. Eduardo learned to blend in.
*
Time moved on, and Eduardo grew to like this other world. It was more complicated but he succeeded in it and managed to substitute new games like acceptance and competition and ambition for his old ones. As he found playmates that were just as not-quite-normal as him in their own ways, these new games proved to be almost as enjoyable as the old ones he used to play by himself, in some ways maybe even more.
Eduardo began to see the appeal of, the possibilities offered by company.
He met Dustin first, who hadn't outgrown his own games anymore than Eduardo but who seemed to not need the harmony of solitude but that of laughter, and was dragged along to meet Chris, who knew what it was like to be different but faced the world where Eduardo hid, and Mark, who would dive into a world of his own and not surface for hours or days, unafraid to delve deeper and go farther than was wise but not to be held back by the threat of disapproval, and Eduardo envied him his ability to do so and couldn't help but want to preserve it.
And maybe Eduardo himself fell too deeply into something he neither completely understood nor could really get out of again.
*
He was afraid to be found out only once. They had all returned to their various homes over the summer, and Eduardo was staying with his parents when Dustin called and announced his intention of borrowing-without-asking his mother's car and driving down from Ocala so Eduardo wouldn't have to spend the rest of his life with the burden of Dustin's death on his conscience when he could have easily saved him from perishing from boredom by taking his friend in and sharing with him the excitement of being young and alive in Miami during the summer.
Eduardo did not expect Dustin to include in that going to the beach to go swimming and hit on girls (he expected the hitting on girls was going to take place in clubs they were both too young to be at but had managed to sneak in anyway, armed with cash and fake ids). He should have expected it, of course. Dustin came from far enough in-land that the beach wasn't routine for him, and people felt the pull of the sea even if they weren't as attuned to it as their kind.
Eduardo was already trudging through sand, the familiar, tempting smell of salt and water in the air, thinking about how to best drop his bottle of coke and accidentally stomp on it to cut his foot and be unable to go into the water when Dustin slowed in front of him and came to a halt, head turning and eyes taking in the tan, fit bodies of the locals around him, throwing Frisbees, playing volleyball, or lying on towels unmoving like statues. He looked down at his own body, soft and creamy-pale, knobby knees under the cuff of his shorts and the slight round of his stomach visible under the shirt he had already unbuttoned.
When Dustin made a show of not finding the bottle of sunscreen in his bag, Eduardo didn't call him out on it. He had never before been grateful for not having a private beach anymore, and felt ashamed for taking advantage of Dustin's insecurity and not reassuring him that he was more gorgeous with his skin like pearls and body of an intellectual than those nipped and tucked cardboard cutouts.
They went back to the house and swam in the pool instead (filled again these days; Eduardo hardly used it even when he was there), Dustin leaving a thin film of sunscreen on the water and splashing and dunking Eduardo mercilessly after a moment of hesitation and half-formed apology when the first push had Eduardo come up spluttering too-warm water and cursing, and Eduardo trying to give as good as a more normal person would and let the laughter drown out the feeling of not-quite-right and chlorine.
*
He was tempted to tell once too. It was the night of the Bill Gates lecture, of groupies and Facebook me!, and of the Winklevosses' cease and desist letter. They'd been happy and excited and proud, life had been good, they were good, he was, more than good, he was great, and then suddenly there had been this thing between them.
The letter was just lying there on top of the fireplace, open and half-discarded like some annoying but unimportant notice, a reminder to pay the phone bill or confirm something, nothing to worry about or sensitive in nature. Eduardo had just been trying to explain the concept of making money to Mark, who seemed otherworldly enough about the matter for the both of them, so in awe of what they'd created and were still building that concerns of how and why made him balk like Eduardo was trying to confine him to, well, to a pool when Mark wanted the ocean. It was almost enough to make Eduardo step back, to make him give in and give up on what he knew was an economical necessity and tell Mark to dive in and swim as deep and far as he wanted and explore every last corner of this marvelous creation of theirs, Eduardo would make it happen, somehow. And he could have, probably. Turn thefacebook into his pet project, financed with the scraps of what he made that summer or would the next, a charity, something he indulged Mark in because he could afford to. Eduardo had a habit of indulging Mark. But that idea made something in Eduardo balk, made him feel like he wanted to take their ever unfinished company and put it into a pool, restricted and finite, because he didn't believe it would make it in the endless sea.
That was when he saw the letter. Saw it and did a double-take, Mark, what is this, and picked and held it up to face Mark's dismissal and defensiveness. Mark hadn't thought it worth mentioning, he got that, still didn't think it necessary to talk about. Right after they launched the site, god, accusing Mark of stealing their idea, intellectual property theft, and Mark called it mildly annoying. Eduardo had been brought up on crisp paper, black suitcases, and expensive dark cloth, and he knew how this worked, how these situations played out, the stronger fraction forcing those who'd just wanted their simple dreams to bend to their will and conform, and he had to, needed to know about this, no matter how uncomfortable Mark seemed, sitting on the couch, shoulders high and tight and tense, no longer slouched and open, and avoiding Eduardo's eyes.
So he pushed and pulled and didn't give in, standing tall and towering over Mark on the couch, and hated himself for it when Mark looked up at him as if he'd forcibly made him raise his head and refused to look away again as if that would have meant admitting defeat, and met each of his questions and statements with evasions and justifications, defiance and a wordless plea in his tone for Eduardo to understand, to see his point, and Eduardo wanted to believe him, but he had to be sure, for both of them, he had to be sure, because it would be just like Mark to ignore this, because it wasn't compatible with what he wanted, because he didn't want to deal with it, because he didn't know he had to deal with it or how, until it was too late, and they'd lose thefacebook, there'd be restrictions and concessions and where would they be then, where would Mark be. A wading pool not even big enough to stretch out in.
Mark gave.
That one time, Mark gave. To be honest, Mark gave in often those days, probably just as often as Eduardo, but he usually did so silently, at times when no admission of giving was required, but that time he bowed and conceded the point to Eduardo. He said he hadn't thought it important, the apology, the I do see that it was important now unsaid except for his use of the past tense, I'm sorry, please don't be upset anymore implicit in his voice, in the slump of his shoulders, no more aggression and confrontation, the way his hands didn't gesticulate anymore, tense into the very tip of his fingers, but hung limp between his knees, in the way he shook his head and lowered his eyes for a moment, breaking contact, withdrawing, before looking up at Eduardo again, now open and vulnerable the way Mark rarely showed himself.
And Eduardo, Eduardo caved. Took a breath and let himself rub the tension from his forehead, and let it slip, let the implications go unsaid and concentrated on what was suddenly more important, and sat down on, fell in the chair, eyes level with Mark's. No more pushing and pulling.
Mark might not have told him not only because he honestly didn't think it important, but also because he simply didn't want to tell Eduardo, didn't feel he could, didn't want to leave himself vulnerable and less than capable and in control.
Which was stupid, really, because Eduardo was Mark's CFO so Mark wouldn't have to know these things.
And Eduardo was Mark's friend and didn't want Mark to have to know these things, or know the answer to everything. Eduardo was there to have Mark's back. If there was anyone Mark could let himself be vulnerable with, it was Eduardo. If there was ever anything wrong, Mark could tell him. Eduardo was here, he was available, he was on Mark's side. He was safe. He was the guy that wanted to help. Eduardo wanted Mark to know that. He needed him to know that, and he tried to make him understand. This wasn't about the letter anymore, Eduardo was not upset anymore, he was calm and open and quietly collected. He meant what he was saying. Eduardo was there for Mark, no matter what.
He waited a moment to let Mark process, and then asked again if there was anything, anything he needed to tell him.
Mark answered him as calm and collected and in control, a simple no.
For a moment, Eduardo thought that would be it. That Mark would turn the question around on him and ask if there was anything Eduardo wanted to tell him. And for that same moment there he hoped he would. In that moment, he would have told him had Mark only asked. He'd asked Mark for his trust, he should offer up his own secret in turn.
But Mark didn't ask, and Eduardo waited and swallowed and let his courage slip away, the pressure of a lifetime of having to keep himself secret closing in around him again and keeping that information safely locked away, the knowledge of it limited to those of the same blood, the fact of it restricted to the past.
It was with the bitter taste of disappointment on his tongue that Eduardo brought the conversation back to legalities, but he didn't know whom he was disappointed in.
*
Eduardo used to stay because it didn't occur to him he could leave.
He had stayed for school, for hard work and approval and respect, as impossible to reach as the end of a rainbow.
Over time, he had found things that tempered the yearning, sanding off the sharp edges until he could pick the memories up and look at them like pieces of rounded, smooth glass washed ashore, bright and pretty and something to quietly smile at. Hands could move as quickly and unpredictably as a shoal of fish spooked and scattering. Laughter could chime as cheerfully as the low waves of an almost-calm sea and voices sound as dry as one could only feel, inexplicably, after not having surfaced for hours. The warmth radiating from another body was as natural and invisible as a cool current and as impossible not to follow once found. Dimples flashed as unexpectedly and beautifully as a beam of light dancing breaking through water so deep it shouldn't exist.
*
Then he stayed because leaving would have been running. And he had always wanted to run (figuratively speaking), but only ever towards something, never from.
*
Once he was almost found out because he didn't care to hide anymore. A winter night, in Harvard, after. (No need to verbalize after what; no one ever did, in his presence at least, drifting off with awkward glances to the side and embarrassed shrugs, but everybody knew what it meant, after.)
The world was dark and empty and cruel, the Charles River a band of inky silence before him, and he was stuck on a pedestal, tied down and exposed, illuminated by looks of disapproval and superior spitefulness, voyeuristic gloating and pity, with nowhere to go and hide. Harvard was the cage he was locked in for people to gawk at and prod in between coming out to Palo Alto and Miami to let himself be cut open and dissected some more. He didn't feel like there was anything left to hide from, nothing to try for, no one to want to for. The world had found him lacking, had in an ironic twist declared him undesired, after all the time he had tried to want to be a part of it.
And he had. Wanted.
He didn't anymore. It wasn't worth it, none of it. The hurt and the pain and the anger. His pride. It made him feel cold inside. Cold and slow, dark molasses, viscous and thick, turning every stir into a struggle until he just didn't want to try anymore. What was so bad about giving up and quitting the field for those who wanted to walk it?
He looked at his feet (socks and shoes, dark, and cold, why were feet always so cold) and then let his eyes be drawn forward, just a bit, over a couple of cobble stones, smooth and flat from being walked upon by countless feet, set in their angles, so different from the round edgelessness of the ceaseless movement of waves, and then down the slope, down, drawn and falling, onto the black, blank surface of the Charles that was almost, almost home.
Wet and cold and tame in its bed, not quite right, not wrong enough to not be tempting. So familiar that it made him swallow drily as it pulled at him, soft promises silently purling in his ears, and made him shift, not quite moving but still ending up another inch closer to the edge.
It looked like he felt. It looked better than he felt. It looked carefree. Dark molasses, unmoving, unaffected, untouched, just there.
Eduardo wondered.
If he touched it, maybe its inky black thickness would pull him in. In and down and deep, drowning out all but the sound of his heart beating in his chest so he could listen to it calm down. It would be cold, so cold, more so than he was already, finally cold enough to numb and leave him not freezing anymore.
One step. Two maybe.
So close.
Five, six miles to the sea, until the water would turn salty and real and whisper against his skin in a cool, reassuring welcome of home and then he would turn, and turn calm and cool, reassured, welcomed home, no more cold toes and no more freezing air in his lungs, smooth strokes caresses against his body and soft, muted wetness to breathe in, to taste instead of smell, floating freely and surrounded comfortably, calm and serene and safe and passion and life and adventure, everything inside and outside hushed comfortingly in a way the surface could never be, this world of touch or no touch, on or off, that didn't know a shelter that wouldn't dull or muffle or constrict.
He could do six miles, surely, even like this, in this body, with cold dragging him down and freezing him, sticky molasses pulling him deeper and deeper, tight and close and dark and slow.
And if he couldn't.
Well.
Wouldn't it be ironic to drown? Wouldn't it be funny, a joke, the greatest joke, for him to drown, in water that wasn't quite right, not against his skin, not in his lungs, wet and cool but too sticky-sweet and cold around his mammalian body a way the sea was not, would never be more than a few steps in, to drown because he couldn't bear to breathe anymore, this thin, intangible air that bit and was everywhere without being anywhere, no hold, no touch, no sound.
Six miles, and it would be over, one way or the other.
One step, and it would be over.
Pull by pull.
It wasn't running away when he moved towards the calm.
Tiny shifts.
Halt.
A fixed point, a pressure on his shoulder, little weight but more than the symbolic burden of clothing, ungiving unlike the insubstantial resistance of air. Uncommon but not quite unfamiliar.
Touch.
There was a hand on his shoulder, holding him (back) in place, pale fingers against the dark fabric of Eduardo's coat, pale hand disappearing in a dark sleeve, arm bent and tense, and the pale oval of a face, nightly pale, scared-pale, blue eyes dark and grey and golden hair silver and dull in the light of the stars, Chris' mouth a black hole, opening and closing, releasing faint clouds of warmth and a steady stream of sound Eduardo only now noticed above the low, tempting hum of the water.
"…on't, Eduardo, please."
Eduardo exhaled, a wordless question rising in front of his face, and he blinked, surprised that there was enough warmth left in him for this. His eyes crossed for a moment, trying to focus on the unexpected proof of life before him, but it diffused into nothing and he was left to stare over his shoulder at Chris.
"Hey, okay, good, don't-I, I'm cold, yeah?"
Chris, whose fingers dug into Eduardo's shoulder, pale from cold and night and maybe something else, whose eyes were huge and dark and scared, fear screaming out of them that vibrated quietly in the composed, careful tone of his voice. Chris was scared.
"Let's just go back, please, come back, okay?"
Chris, who didn't understand.
"Please, Wardo, come back with me?"
Or who maybe understood too well.
"I," Eduardo had to clear his throat, voice catching in his frozen-dry throat, "Yeah. Okay, yeah, let's go back."
He smiled at Chris, a broken little half-smile moving whichever muscles in his face still would.
"We can pick up some Chinese on the way."
Chris smiled back, a nervous, relieved twitch, and waited until Eduardo had turned to fall into step beside him.
They walked back to Eliot together, Chris with his hand a comforting point of warmth against Eduardo's arm, a purchase to keep him from leaving just yet, and Eduardo… still there.
Yet.
*
Eduardo wasn't sure when he had decided to go back, but the decision to do so on his own terms he made that night with Chris. The both of them sat on his too-narrow bed, their knees pulled up to their chests to keep them from dangling over the edge of the bed, sharing his blanket like two children who were cold, arms brushing as they ate their takeout. It was almost nice, almost safe, almost undemanding. And that was how he made up his mind, watching stupid Mexican soaps online because everything else carried too many memories for their fragile peace. He would finish this for himself, because he could and deserved it, and then he would go, because he could and deserved it and wanted to.
No more contorting himself for the sake of others.
Eduardo would to leave it all behind.
*
They settled. Eduardo knew they would after the first couple of days of deposition, his lawyers did, Mark's too. He wasn't sure Mark knew, Mark was always good at only seeing things from his own point of view.
It took a while; longer than Eduardo would have thought. Probably also longer than Mark had wanted it to, the tenacious desire to not give in and have it his way and his alone outweighed by the need to be able to concentrate all his time and thought on Facebook.
Eduardo had only barely managed to keep going through those long days of avoiding eyes that wouldn't have seen him anyway, the mind behind them too focused on its own desire to return to the depth, and trying not to let the tears fall even as raindrops teased him from outside the windows. He would have broken down and run at the first touch of salty water on his lips, even if it had only come running hotly from his own eyes.
But eventually they settled. Money, shares, and NDAs that their respective lawyers had fought over like starving dogs over a bone and that had nothing but symbolic value for the both of them. A couple of signatures, no handshakes exchanged, and they were officially out of each other's lives and free to return to their chosen haven. Mark would return to the success story he had always wanted and worked so hard for (sacrificed Eduardo for), with friends and family that loved and accepted him, working with people who respected him, able to dive into this ocean of his own creation, this thing Eduardo had to admit he'd never really understood but had be awed by nonetheless, day after day after day, to his heart's content.
As the dust settled with them, Eduardo was left with nothing but two decades worth of failure and nothing to hold him there anymore, nothing but pain and disappointment and broken promises, his own and others'. The options of this world that he'd tried to want to hunt, that had even seemed so challenging and desirable at a point, tasted stale and chlorined in his mouth, and success had been revealed to be merely a temporary reprieve that would only have him hit the pool's wall harder the faster he swam, left to hold his aching head and heart and try again and again (and wasn't that one definition of insanity, to doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results).
He just wanted it all to be over. Gone.
He wanted, needed, yearned for the cool, quiet calm of the sea.
The solace of it.
The non-judgmental simple life it offered.
*
I
*
Eduardo packs up what is left of his life. When asked he says he is going abroad, and people nod sympathetically and provide him with the necessary paperwork to terminate his insurance or his cell phone contract, accept boxes full of designer suits even though they don't match the style of most Goodwill customers, or wish him good luck as he checks out of the hotel in Palo Alto he has been staying at for the depositions.
It isn't even a lie, international waters start 12 miles from the coast.
Besides, he hates the thought of leaving behind a mess for other people to clean up.
Once everything is said and done it's so simple. He goes to the airport, hand luggage only, and gets on the first flight back to the East coast - Fort Lauderdale of all places but he doesn't mind; it seems fitting for him to leave from there, to plunge Floridian waters after all.
He arrives at noon and just walks around a bit, soaking up the sounds and sight of a densely populated metropolis, loud and bright and bustling, watching the people around him go about their lives with all the worries he is now done with, and feels nothing but commiserative fondness. He finds a hotel and books a room for one last night in a bed, but ends up spending half the night at the bar drinking instead of using it. He wonders if he'll miss any of this, tries to think of reasons to stay but can't come up with anything more than nostalgia, and smiles to himself at the irony of having cold feet. The barkeeper chats with him when she has nothing to do once it becomes clear he is alone. She says for a guy drinking all by himself he looks surprisingly happy, if a bit pensive. He tells her he ss going home after having been gone for years. She wishes him luck.
He leaves around three, cramming every last bill he has under his glass and then tucking his wallet back into his pocket, and walks down to the beach.
He wanders South for a while, just because he can, shoes and socks in one hand, and marvels at the sand between his toes, and how quickly even the tepid night of a tropical climate leeches the warmth from them. He passes a couple that has fallen asleep on a blanket, legs entwined, frowns at plastic wrappers and crushed cans.
He feels like an addict, clean 17 years, who is about to shoot up again. If addicts feel giddy and anticipatory and satisfied before taking their hit.
When the sky begins to light up he takes off his clothes. Shoes on the ground, the rest of his clothing folded on top of them in a neat pile, keys, phone and wallet on top for identification and his driver's license in the back pocket of his pants because he figures despite or because of the early hour someone might decide to steal his valuables instead of calling the cops or coast guard or whomever people call in a case like this.
*
He walks into the water.
He's up to his chest when the turn takes, and he dives under and lets the air rush out of his lungs, then inhales, chokes that one time, the one transitory breath it always takes, and coughs up air bubbles that tickle his face as they dance to the surface. His second inhale is smooth and easy, and he touches his neck, just to check, but the parallel slits open and close rhythmically with the breaths expanding and contracting his chest, as naturally and without a thought from him as if they'd never been gone. It is as if until now, he had only been breathing through half of the orifices he is supposed to, a bit like that moment after a cold when he could finally breath through his nose again, easy and deep and so much less labored than before. He savors the rush of water through his body, the coolness of it as he breathes in and how it's just that tiny bit closer to his body temperature when he breathes out, the way he can truly feel what he is breathing. For a moment, he feels lightheaded, like a plain dweller hiking up a mountain, not used to the lower saturation, then his lungs grow, his ribcage swells just a bit more to take in the water, and he breathes deeper.
His legs change in the twitch of a muscle cramp, and where his feet used to be almost uncomfortably cold to the point where he wanted to curl up his toes and burrow them deep into the sand on the search for warmth, his caudal fin feels nothing but soothingly cool as he moves it through the water experimentally, touches it with exploring fingers and feels warmth grow at the points of contact, his skin even more sensitive to the difference in temperature now but the contrast curious, not uncomfortable. The thin skin and fragile rays of it feel more vulnerable under his big grown-up hands than they did before, but he knows how hardy they are, he used to play rough.
By the time he's twisting to run his hands up his tail, he's all but sitting on the sea floor. There is no buoyancy without air, and the waves gently toss him back and forth, bop him up and down in the pretend-weightlessness. He lets himself drift, and it feels strange when so long to neither stand firmly nor move forward in decisive steps had meant to flounder and fail and the need to grasp for something to cling to, some kind of framework to guide him while it doubled as an invisible cage.
The rays of his fin connect to his body horizontally rather than vertically, but the curved line of vertebrae that now replaces stiffly bent thighs and shins bends like that of an aquatic mammal, exposing him as an in-between just as much as his gills-and-nose combination. He thinks the scales are larger, and it would make sense, but it's been so long, and he never used to pay too close attention to what he looked like, the fact that he might at one point not see himself for almost two decades and then want to catalogue changes unpredicted by his younger self. They do start to taper out at the height of his hips, though, patches of softer, more sensitive skin peeking through until he can only feel the odd scale here and there, and nothing past his still-present navel. He remembers them being a pale silvery gold, warm in color but not bright like the small tropical fish he'd seen in aquariums.
That he can't masturbate anymore and might end up missing his dick is an afterthought, and he shakes it off with any remaining air bubbles as he runs his fingers through his hair, floating free around his head and, softened by the water, silkier than he ever remembers it being outside, with or without product.
Then he stretches and flexes and starts to move as the sun rises and first rays of light pierce the surface, marbling everything they touch. He swims towards the light, testing his body and growing more secure and at home in hit with every flick of his tail, and soon he is twisting and turning and catapulting himself forwards in corkscrews of spirals, just because he can, just because he wants to and he likes the way it brushes the water against his skin.
Because he is surrounded and sheltered and can still roam freely, because the sea is solid and unmoving and ever in motion, because it is cool and fresh and alive without leeching the warmth from his body and biting his skin and lungs like air did, because it is soft and muted and hushed without being dark or stifling or pale, everything cushioned by the familiar comfort of a thousand gentle touches. It is huge and endless and unknown, his infinite possibilities, no rules and regulations and norms to hold him back, no walls, no expectations, freeing and liberating and alive.
Eduardo is the prince of his magical underwater kingdom, and the world and all its wonders are his to explore.
It's just as he remembers.
*
Continued here.