I’m not good at titles. This is my submission for @brutal-nemesis’s ice day with the RSS.
Trigger Warning – also tagged: near drowning.
Word count: 800
The cold water stabbed at Chaia and shrunk her itchy blue jeans around her legs. The ice froze Chaia’s fingertips, using the heat to melt free of her grasp. She fell back under the surface.
The cold water stabbed at Chaia and shrunk her itchy blue jeans around her legs. The ice froze Chaia’s fingertips, using the heat to melt free of her grasp. She fell back under the surface. Maria had already evacuated the lake, switching her skates out for black snow boots. Maria didn’t see Chaia fall back under: she was too focused on the nearing sound of sirens. Chaia kicked in an attempt to push herself back to the surface. Her skate brushed the bottom, becoming entangled in the lake’s hibernating plants. Chaia kicked her free leg again but could not budge. She was stuck. An ambulance pulled up on the road in front of Maria. Two paramedics jumped out. “My wife,” Maria pleaded, “she fell through the ice and is in that hole over there.” She pointed at the spot on the mostly frozen lake where the green water made an evident appearance. The hole was only about 25 feet from the road. “Okay,” one of the paramedics responded. “My name is Lucy. My friend Aaron and I are going to help you out. Is she still conscious?” “Yeah,” Maria responded, “she was a lifeguard back in college and I’ve been seeing her bob up and down since she fell in.” Aaron had already started to check out the lake. He’d only put one foot on the ice when he was stopped by Lucy. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked. “If she fell in, why can’t you? Go get the rope. Wife says she’s still conscious.” Lucy turned to Maria. “What is your wife’s name?” Another unsuccessful resurfacing attempt put Chaia’s panic into high gear. She swam down, feeling around for her caught foot. She was quickly able to wrap her hands around her right ankle. She tried to unlace the skate, but the cold water had stiffened her hands. Every move burned her joints and cramped her muscles. She heard her name in the distance. It was a voice she didn’t recognize. It was the paramedics. Something splashed above her. She reached for it only to graze a finger on the slick plastic surface. Chaia was being rescued, but she couldn’t get herself out. She dove back down and grasped the plants below her skate. Without giving it much thought, she yanked the plants across the sharp surface of her skate. It had been thirty seconds since Aaron landed the rescue line, and Chaia hadn’t responded. Maria was starting to worry. “Go out there and get her! She’s probably drowning now!” she screamed. Lucy wrapped the shivering Maria in a warming blanket. “It’s not that simple. We need to make sure that no one else gets hurt. We can’t just–” “I’ve got her!” Aaron yelled. “Chaia, my name is Aaron. I’m going to get you out. I need you to hold onto that ring really tight, okay?” Chaia nodded. Aaron pulled her out of the hole and onto the ice. “Don’t stand up. Just hold on as I drag you across.” As Aaron pulled, Chaia slid smoothly across the ice. While being sopping wet in the middle of winter was quite unpleasant, the water at least mitigated friction on the ice. When Chaia reached the shore, she collapsed into Maria’s arm’s, taking them both down the frozen grass. Tears poured out of Chaia’s eyes, but her wet face and already red eyes prevented anyone from noticing until she began soaking Maria’s sweater. A metallic warming blanket descended over Chaia’s drenched pink sweater. “You’re okay, lifey. I love you. You are safe. You are with me.” Maria wrapped her arms around her wife. Lucy crouched down next to the frantic metallic heap. “Chaia, can I take your vitals?” Chaia buried her head further into Maria’s chest and pulled her legs closer to her stomach. Lucy sighed lightly. “Chaia, I need to make sure you’re okay. I just need to take your temperature, blood pressure, and oxygen levels. Very quick. Very low-impact.” Chaia shook her head in Maria’s sweater. “Chaia, please.” Maria said softly. “They need to check you out. And then we can get you dry and so much warmer.” “No,” Chaia muttered weakly. It was the first thing she’d said since falling in. Maria and Aaron locked eyes, exchanging knowing looks. After a synchronous nod, Aaron scooped Chaia off of the cold, wet, ground. This did not make Chaia h
CW: Ableism, abusive relative, abuse of a minor, pet whump references, BBU, some brief vague noncon references, blood, drowning kinda, death threats, just general ‘it’s gonna get bloody’ below the cut…
Jo looked over at her older sister, eyebrows raised in perfect arches. She’d lined them herself this morning - the whole eyebrow plucking thing had been a fucking disaster, and now she had to draw them on every day.
“What?” Ronnie looked up. Her sister, not even quite twenty yet, was hovering over a pot of water that would hopefully eventually boil for pasta. She looked older, and tired, and Jo picked at her own fingernails every time she visited to avoid bringing it up.
Two years ago, Ronnie had been seventeen and beautiful - now she was nineteen, nearly twenty, and she hadn’t slept well since before Paul’s stupid baby was even born, and it showed. Ronnie did smile more, Jo thought, a little grudgingly. Since she’d been kicked out of their parents’ house for refusing to give up Paul’s baby, she’d moved in with his parents during the pregnancy and now the two of them had an apartment and a stupid marriage, and Jo had to admit Ronnie smiled so much more.
Their parents hadn’t gone to Ronnie’s high school graduation, but Jo did. Ronnie had hugged her so tightly it hurt, having to sort of awkwardly shift her hips back so her huge pregnant belly could fit between them.
He wasn’t even born yet and the stupid shit was already ruining things.
There had been photos, a million of them. Jo had gone home that night and told her parents, “Ronnie looks amazing,” and they had turned to each other and kept talking like Ronnie - and anything Jo said about her - didn’t exist.
Because of Paul’s stupid. fucking. baby.
But now, two years later, the stupid fucking baby was a stupid fucking toddler, and Ronnie and Jo together watched him - wispy red hair floating like feathers around his head - as he made a low hum, again and again, holding a small plastic dinosaur and repeatedly opening and closing its mouth, staring fixedly at the sharply-formed plastic teeth inside.
“Oh,” Ronnie said, as if it was totally normal, nothing to worry about. “I don’t know, exactly.”
“You don’t know? I’ve never seen a baby just stare at something that long. Aren’t they supposed to have, like, no attention span? Or pretend it’s biting him or something? I don’t think I have ever seen that kid play pretend.”
Ronnie took in a deep breath. “They are,” She said, hesitantly. “Supposed to. But Tris… I don’t know. He does pretend play sometimes, he really does. Not when-… when it’s just us, or just the three of us, he does, he just… doesn’t, so much, when other people are around. His doctor says it’s nothing to worry about yet.”
“… yet?”
Ronnie dumped the pasta from the box into the water, and they talked about something else.
Joanne Botham comes home - to her sweet little bungalow, snapped up for a pretty penny in a good neighborhood around the outskirts of Berras, perfect for commuting into work at WRU - and dumps her purse on the floor, exhaling in a rush. She kicks off her sensible work heels into the little shoe tray she bought at some home goods store where everything cost about fifty dollars more than it should, but she’s got money to burn, these days.
Or she used to.
In any case, it could be worse.
Luckily, this is more or less a WRU company town, and things aren’t so bad here. The Olympics had aired while she was relaxing in the pool at a hotel in Sao Paulo, and she honestly hadn’t paid them any attention. She’d been vaguely aware of a commotion, a sudden rush of Portuguese from the staff and just about every language on earth from the hotel guests, but when someone said it was a press conference at the Olympics, she’d lost interest.
It wasn’t a terrorist attack or anything important - so she didn’t care. She was on vacation, and nothing was going to ruin her visit to Brazil. She had been taking a guided tour while some pet libbers tried to torch the WRU daycare and “free” the workers, leaving the poor things terrified and clinging to each other, running to the handlers who came to help them.
One of them was still missing, and probably had wandered off and died somewhere, and wouldn’t that be just what those fucking libbers deserved. To be responsible for that.
A handler had gone missing, too. There were rumors the daycare worker had offed him and he just hadn’t been found, but Joanne found that hard to believe. She’s worked on the copy for commercials with those placid little cow-people for years. None of them have a single brain cell not dedicated to childcare. None of them could swat a fly, let alone murder the handlers who keep them safe.
In any case, all of that had happened while she was still gone, had her work phone off, and ignored anything and everything sent her way.
When her plane touched down, though… that’s when Joanne realized the absolute pile of epic shit WRU had just been thrown into.
Two former pets - two people who should be current pets, actually - had spoken at a surprise press conference, and more than twenty Olympics athletes from fifteen countries had shown photos of people they claimed had been coerced, abducted, or otherwise forced into the pet system.
It was all fucking bullshit, but…
Well, it wasn’t allbullshit.
One of the speakers, turns out, had been none other than Paul’s stupid fucking baby, all grown up. He’d given out his real name, which the dumbass wasn’t even supposed to remember any longer, and it had been enough information for journalists to dig up who he was, what had happened to him, and most importantly, who his living relatives are.
There was an article in TIME magazine. Unlikely Voices - how two runaway human pets from WRU became the face of a movement and the cry for justice from a lost generation.
They’d done their research, all right. Tristan’s entire life had been laid bare in that article, in excruciating detail, up until… until he’d disappeared into WRU.
Which meant there had been a mini-profile in a little sidebar. Who is Joanne Botham? A shadowy figure from Tristan Higgs’ past… There’d been a photo of her, taken without her consent, but her attempt to sue had been dismissed.
His little stunt had been making Joanne’s job - and life - hell. She can’t even go into work in her own car any longer, there are reporters camped out who know her make, model, and license plate. She has to catch rides with different coworkers. She can’t go out to a simple restaurant without someone yelling at her, without discovering protesters at her car when she tries to go home. She can’t get her haircut without her stylist - someone she’s been going to for years! - suddenly refusing to cut her hair any longer.
Mysonis autistic, her stylist had said, voice cold. You’ve listened to me talk about Gabe all this time, how could you do that when you did what you did?
It’s not the same-
It’s exactly the same! Get out of my salon!
No one cares about Joanne’s side of the story.
Not that anyone ever has. Everyone’s always blindsided by Ronnie being obsessed with her kid or Tristan being pretty adorable when he wasn’t being terrible. Everyone’s always got wool pulled over their eyes, and only Jo has ever seen it for what it really is.
Tonight didn’t go any better than the last few weeks had. She’d been recognized while picking up takeout Thai food for dinner. The pet lib assholes had to be breeding like fucking bunnies, they seemed to be everywhere now. One of them had followed her from the restaurant to her car, asking her if she had any regrets.
“Yeah,” She’d said, her voice rough and harsh. “Talking to you, that’s my biggest regret.”
He was probably recording that. They’re always recording her, now.
At least her house is paid off, this little bungalow bought with cash from her finder’s fee after Tristan’s application had been accepted by WRU. Her car’s paid off, her house is paid off, her 401k looks amazing…
Maybe she should just retire now, and disappear.
How long would it take the pet libbers to pick some new target, if Joanne Botham wasn’t an easy enemy to find?
She drops the takeout container on the kitchen counter, the smell of cilantro, fish sauce, and chicken rising through the air, making her mouth water. She can’t even remember what she ordered, but it doesn’t really matter. She’ll barely taste it, anyway.
She grabs the remote and turns on the TV, checking the news channels with a nervous new habit. Nothing new, though, it looks like. Nothing too big.
Nothing to worry about.
She pulls down a bowl, dumping the takeout into it, looking at the chicken and shrimp swimming in noodles, sauce, and sauteed vegetables. They left the mushrooms in, she realizes. She had specificallyasked for no mushrooms-
“What a lovely little home you have, Miss Joanne,” says an older man’s voice from behind her, slightly creaky with age.
Yaaaaaaaay, a part two to this, since I had some people seem pretty interested in it. I may have written more than intended and also gotten way more into this than expected, but it’s fiiiiiiiiiiine, I’m not even worried about it
Small trigger warning for brief descriptions of drowning and sleep paralysis, since I know those can be upsetting for some people. The sleep paralysis bit probably isn’t a huge deal, but the drowning bits have significance, and I really wanna see who’s been paying attention to the lore I’ve been dropping for my guy Lyzer
Yaaaaaaaay, a part two to this, since I had some people seem pretty interested in it. I may have written more than intended and also gotten way more into this than expected, but it’s fiiiiiiiiiiine, I’m not even worried about it
Small trigger warning for brief descriptions of drowning and sleep paralysis, since I know those can be upsetting for some people. The sleep paralysis bit probably isn’t a huge deal, but the drowning bits have significance, and I really wanna see who’s been paying attention to the lore I’ve been dropping for my guy Lyzer
Your first week dragged on, eventually turning into two, and eventually turning into three. You chugged coffee and soda like water, you had all of your alarms set to go off every twenty minutes, and they would all be at their loudest possible volume. Your lights never dimmed, and you’d switched from working daytime hours to working nighttime hours at your job. You were desperate not to sleep, and you’d committed to this. You’d do whatever it took to stay awake, because the next time you fell asleep, you were sure that you would die.
You’d begun to hear voices when you were home alone, but you never found anyone when you went to investigate, so you chalked it up to your sleep deprived mind playing tricks on you. You were jumpy, you were forgetful, you were hearing things that weren’t there, and your basic ability to communicate was gradually fizzling away. Your exhaustion had gotten so bad that you’d developed some complications with speaking, so if you could help it, you opted to stay quiet.
It was your night off, and you’d curled up on your couch to watch a movie, content with a bowl of popcorn and a blanket. If you got cozy and accidentally dozed off, you had countless alarms to wake you. It’d be fine, you’d be fine, you could do this. As your movie started, you absentmindedly rubbed your eyes, trying to rub away whatever traces of sleepiness lurked there. It wasn’t long before you’d gotten completely sucked into your movie, quietly spacing out at the screen and mindlessly picking at your popcorn. Your eyelids began to feel heavy, and you glanced at the clock on your wall. Twenty minutes wouldn’t hurt, right? You’d get a little shut-eye, and it wasn’t enough time to allow you to slip into the REM cycle. As long as you weren’t in a deep enough sleep that allowed for dreams, you’d be safe, and you had the alarms ready to go to guarantee that.
With much hesitation, you got up and wandered over to the entertainment center, pausing your movie and flinching as the first of the alarms began to go off for that night. Well, at least you knew that one was working. You then went back over to the sofa and nestled into the corner seat again, letting out a deep sigh and pulling your blanket up over yourself. This was fine. You needed this, you really did. Twenty minutes was alright, it wasn’t enough time for anything to happen. You would be safe, you’d done this plenty of times already, so you knew exactly what to do.
Despite not feeling completely comfortable with the situation, you closed your eyes and proceeded to pass out almost immediately. Unfortunately for you, there were a pair of unwelcomed guests in your home, and they’d taken the time to observe and memorize your routine. The one with mismatched eyes fled to your basement, while the one with a floating target lingered in the shadowy corner of your living room, keeping a close eye on you.
As soon as the one with mismatched eyes reached your basement and spotted the breaker box, it was all over.
Darkness flooded your house, and at the flip of a switch, all of your electronics were silenced. The entity with the floating target emerged from his corner gleefully, eager to roam freely without worry of suddenly being bathed in light. It was only a moment before your eyes snapped open and you began to panic. Your limbs felt as heavy as cement, and your chest heaved; you knew what this meant, and tears welled up in your eyes. No, not again. Not right now. What happened to the power? You checked it every few hours. There shouldn’t be any reason for it to suddenly quit on you like this. The air grew cold, and something slithered over the back of your couch.
Unable to turn and look at it, you squeezed your eyes shut. If you really tried hard enough, maybe you’d wake up. Maybe this was nothing more than just another bad dream. Deep, rumbling chuckles could be heard beside you, and then there was weight suddenly pinning you in place. Opening your eyes instinctively in response, your gaze flicked down to both of your arms, and the faintest whimper escaped you as you took notice of the goopy tendrils that were holding them in place. As if that was really necessary; you couldn’t move anyway to begin with. A dark figure was leaning over you, using the lower half of his body and another set of tendrils to cage you on your sofa.
Peering at you with one glowing cyan eye, a whisper could be heard in your mind, “I told you I’d see you again soon.” Tears began to drip down your face and you whimpered, completely helpless beneath him. There was another chuckle, and just as before, a tendril suddenly pierced your chest, seeming to phase right through you. The wind was knocked out of you and you were breathless, only able to watch quietly as some heart-shaped object was withdrawn from your chest. Before, it had been glowing brightly, but now it was dim and barely cast any light at all. Your chest began to feel tight, and the figure tilted his head. In your mind, the voice could be heard again, “Do you want to know why it feels like drowning?”
He lifted a hand and placed it over your eyes, and it was as if you were abruptly plunged straight into a body of water. You felt wet and cold, and water was everywhere around you. You knew you weren’t moving, but you saw your arms thrashing in the water, and you saw another pair of arms wrapped around your torso, dragging you deeper down. More tears ran down your face, and the figure removed his hand, the water vanishing and bringing you back into your dark living room. You stared at him with wide, pleading eyes, watching in horror as his face seemed to split open, a white abyss appearing where his mouth should be. The same voice that had appeared in your head just moments before could be heard again, this time coming directly from him as he murmured, “Since you managed to… entertain me so well, and since you tried so hard to challenge me, I’ll make it fast."
You whimpered louder, only for him to shush you. He then ran his fingers through your hair and began to softly hum a tune. The baritone of his voice paired with the tune itself was eerily soothing, but you refused to allow it to calm you. At this particular moment, you believed you had the god-given right to be terrified and to not feel any other way. Nearly choking on a silent sob, you watched through teary eyes as he raised the heart shape—which you were starting to think was your soul—to his mouth. He locked gazes with you, and then, without any hesitation, he opened his mouth and pushed your soul inside. His mouth sealed shut again once he’d consumed your soul, and immediately, your body temperature dropped.
It was like you were placed in a tub full of ice water, and your vision became spotty. It began to dull and fade in and out, and then, without warning, there was only blinding light. No matter where you looked, all you saw was empty white space. In the distance was a small black figure, and you hesitantly attempted to move toward it. To your surprise, it worked. Your body cooperated, and you broke into a sprint, calling out to the figure. It looked up at you, and you immediately came to a halt, frozen under its dead, solid white stare. There was a purple heart shape floating in front of it, and its gaze shifted, settling on something for a moment before it offered you a hand. You warily reached out to accept it, a scream erupting from you as your hand began to burn, feeling as though it was touching lava.
The figure’s grip tightened, and no matter how much you struggled, you couldn’t pull away. There was movement out of the corner of your eye, but you couldn’t bring yourself to focus on it, given the amount of pain you were in. When the figure finally decided to let go of you, you reeled back away from it, wide-eyed and sobbing as you cradled your hand close to yourself. You opened your mouth to shout angrily at the figure, but it merely tilted its head, offering you a wave. You were taken aback by this, and then let out a sharp cry as a set of arms threw themselves around you from behind and yanked you backwards. You fell, but when you expected to collide with the floor, you broke through, now submerged in a sea of black. The arms around you tightened and dragged you further down into the endless abyss, your limbs cold and heavy, and your struggling slowed, as if there was something invisible hindering your movement.
One huge cyan eye opened, noticeably larger than the entirety of your body, and the light it cast was enough to illuminate your surroundings; all around you were other humanoid figures, all floating adrift, completely still and seemingly lifeless. Unsure if they were dead or alive, you began to thrash and scream for help.
made an oc for gregory horror show blame @canonwulf
whirlpool (they/them) is a water elemental who works at the jacuzzi in gregory house. if you make them upset, you’re likely to get swept away in one of their violent floods - or maybe they’ll just melt into a puddle on the floor. depends on the day, really.
once a nervous wreck of a guest who found solace only in the water (they may have drowned a couple of times but no big deal), whirlpool represents the fear of losing emotional control and spiraling. thankfully, they’ve got someone watching out for them between realities who helps keep their waters still
‘Cause these words are knives and often leave scars The fear of falling apart And truth be told, I never was yours The fear, the fear of falling apart
It’s been just over two years since I drew this right after the music video came out, and I got the weirdest urge to re-try it and see how much I’ve developed
Author’s Note: I experimented a bit with a bit with a different writing style, let me know what you think!
She wouldn’t say that she didn’tknow how to swim (admitting to such weakness was unacceptable to her) - she had taken three years of swimming lessons, and had become quite proficient at it. Or at least as proficient as one could become when they trained without a pool.
She was good at performing the strokes and could hold her breath for as long as she liked when out of water, but had never got around to putting any of the skills into practice. It just hadn’t been necessary - why swim when you can fly? Any incidents involving a water rescue (such as sinking ships, collapsing docks, and the occasional flash flood) usually did not require her to actually dive beneath the waves if she arrived early enough, and most of the time she simply acted as moral and medical support to the victims until the nearest emergency response team arrived. That was the purpose of ‘Kryptonian intervention’ as the United Nations had dubbed it: be the first to arrive, act, and assist until humans could do the same.
Today was no different. It was a weekend, which meant that she was working from home, seated in her usual spot at the dining room table with her notes strewn around her and both TVs in the small apartment playing various international coverage channels on a low volume. In addition to that were fourteen more tabs open on her computer each streaming some natural disaster or incident that might require intervention, but the twenty-one other tabs and graphing application she had open were dedicated to virtually testing another circuit orientation she had been working on. Today was, in short, no different from any other weekend.
Despite all the noise, she did her job quietly and quickly, always keeping an ear out for any sign of trouble. Of course, with the Earth being as big and populated as it was, there would always be something she could do, but she had learned to differentiate between ‘the police/military/emergency services can handle it’ and ‘they’re going to need help’ pretty fast. It was late afternoon when the eighth incident that might need her assistance came up - a sailboat in Hobb’s Bay (about five miles off the coast, by her estimate) had cracked its mast and that had somehow lead to the flooding in one of the motors though the clearly amateur captain still had the sense to put out a distress signal to the local CG on one of the radio channels she kept an ear on, yet the CG were unfortunately engaged with a freighter incident farther south and would take some time to get a cutter out there but long story short it was a chance for her to stretch her legs.
Shirt off, cape on, boots on, hair up. Twelve seconds. Not bad.
It only took three minutes to arrive at the site of the incident, though it could have taken less if she decided to break the sound barrier (she preferred to avoid doing so over heavily populated areas like Metropolis). It was a cruising dinghy by the looks of it, a bit on the larger side and likely not very well maintained - though she had it admit, she knew next to nothing about boats except that they were expensive and supposed to float. This one was sitting quite low in the water and listing to one side, looking like it would much like to do the opposite of float, but the captain and his three passengers (no doubt having been out on a joyride or joysail or something) hardly seemed to notice the danger as they were too busy staring at her hovering a few feet above the crooked mast. Bright red capes tended to attract lots of unwanted attention.
She pointed out the list to the captain, who somehow managed to drag his gaze away from the flying alien overhead long enough to notice that yeah, they were in a little bit of trouble. Landing on the rolling deck, she helped him to deploy the inflatable emergency raft (luckily for him, one of the few things that looked up to current water safety standards) and got the passengers into their life vests before they boarded the tiny bright orange boat. Everything looked alright and the Coast Guard would arrive within the next half-hour, so her job could be considered done and assistance no longer necessary - but since there were no drastic incidents occurring elsewhere as far as she could hear, she decided to stay with the group until they were officially rescued.
The sun was starting to set and it was getting dark out, though the captain found a flashlight in the raft’s emergency kit and now that the shock had worn off some, the four of them began to ask her questions as she hovered a few feet away above the water.
When would the Coast Guard arrive? About twenty minutes, forty-five at the latest.
Did she break their boat just for the recognition of rescuing them? Of course not, why the fu… why would they even think that?
The waves are getting choppy, did she have any Dramamine for motion sickness? No, she didn’t have any pockets and never used the stuff.
Couldn’t she pick the raft up and simply carry them all back to the mainland? No, too dangerous (here she had to resist the urge to give a lecture about how despite her strength, there was still the issue of the strength of the raft, not to mention that removing them from the site without government authority was a partial circumvention of the law surrounding incidents occurring under the influence, which led to the next question.)
Was she going to tell the Coast Guard that they had been smoking marijuana? The Coast Guard would figure that out pretty quickly on their own, and she would likely leave before they arrived.
Why had she made them get off the boat if it was still floating? The boat, she told them, was only as upright as it was because water had flooded the hold and the weight distribution had caused a partial neutral buoyancy to occur belowdecks, but one good wave or two more minutes of flooding and it would go under.
Fate must have been listening because the words were hardly out of her mouth when that one good wave arrived. She heard the sway and crack of the mast as the boat shifted and she moved to catch it, but that same wave also rocked the drifting life raft into the path of the falling sails. It was in that split second that she was forced to make a decision: catch the mast and hope the sails were dragged away from the raft, or dangerously push the raft to safety.
She hesitated less than a moment too long, diving for the raft instead of the mast only for the heavy wood to come crashing down on top of her in a toppling blow. Before she had a chance to react, she was trapped in a hurricane of sails, dark water, and quickly-sinking weight dragging her away from the surface and into the murky Bay. The shock of the sudden darkness and freezing current caused her to inhale sharply, water immediately invading her mouth and nose, and flooding into her lungs with each panicked gasp.
Stay calm. Stay calm. Kryptonians, or at least ones that have had long-term exposure to G-Class main sequence stellar radiation, can go without breathing for hours on end. She wouldn’t drown. She wouldn’t drown if she didn’t breathe. Gasping was an emotional response, not necessarily a need for air. Breathlessness was still possible, though it typically only occurred when one was passionate, surprised… or afraid.
Aquaphobia is the fear or anxiety caused by the sight of a body of water.
She did not have aquaphobia, that was for sure. She liked showers and thought the ocean was interesting and would occasionally go rock-skipping with Clark down at the creek behind his mom’s farmhouse - she was even fine with wading pools and bathtubs, as long as the water never went past her throat (which was why she only washed her face with a small damp cloth). She did not have aquaphobia. She was simply terrified of having water on her face.
When she was fifteen years old, she was violently waterboarded and raped as part of her ‘training’. The incident had been the cause of a severe concussion and hairline fracture along the left part of her skull - she could still feel the bump beneath her hair. For the longest time she was not sure if it had been done to train or to simply take advantage of her, but now she knew - it was both.
Stay calm. Don’t breathe. Stop gasping, stop gasping, there is no air for you down here. You are panicking. You are going to drown if you continue to panic. You are going to drown because you do not know how to swim.
There was water in her lungs, sloshing and moving and settling uncomfortably as it mixed with the blood rising in her throat. The water was getting darker, though she could not be sure if that was because night was falling or because she was slowly losing consciousness as her struggle towards the surface slowed to a weak paddle and finally a sinking halt as strength drained from her like water through a sieve. She could see shapes overhead - a round, black circle which must be the emergency raft, a large and twisting mass drifting off to her right that she dimly recognized as the sailboat, and a bright red swirl diving into the water.
A cape, she realized as it moved towards her, and then the bright red cape went black.
V*V*V*V*V*V*V
The first coherent thought she had was that it was warm. The second was that before opening her eyes she could already tell where she was based on the rumble of the engine and distinct evergreen-scented car freshener - the passenger seat of the little commuter car Lois and Clark shared. Upon fully waking up, she was not surprised to see the Boy Scout himself driving, one hand on the wheel and other gently rubbing feeling back into her hand.
Are you awake, he questioned in a whisper, and she nodded.
Good.
It was dark outside her window and the radiator was blowing hot air on full blast, which felt surprisingly good and soothing after her swim in barely-above-freezing water. Her boots and cape were off, wrapped up in a towel on the back seat, and she was sitting with her legs wrapped in another towel while apparently wearing what she immediately recognized as one of Clark’s biggest and warmest sweaters. Wow. He must have been worried about her.
It was not hard to piece it all together: She had known that Clark had been down at the docks for a few interviews in preparation for a story on ferry maintenance statistics. Having heard the moment when the mast finally fell, Clark would have flown out there in time to pull her out of the water before she lost consciousness and assumedly not long before the Coast Guard showed up for the boaters. Knowing that to fly her home would be a bit dangerous considering the high winds and amount of fluid in her lungs, he had only taken her as far as his car (which was still parked at the docks at the time), gotten her decently dried and warmed up, and started the drive home.
Was she okay, did she need anything, were the next few questions he asked, disturbing the comfortable silence. She opened her mouth to answer him, but instead found herself signalling for him to pull over in time for her to open her door and promptly lost the contents of her stomach on the side of the road. It was mostly seawater, hard and brackish on her tongue, but she hardly noticed it as much as she noticed the warmth of his hand on her shoulder, carefully holding her hair away from her face as she heaved into the dark grass only lit by the car’s headlights.
What happened, he asked in reference to her near-drowning, rubbing her back through the thick sweater as she coughed up the last of the water and breathed deeply for the first time in what felt like hours.
Badly maintained boat, she answered. Caught me off guard, not a big deal.
She didn’t tell him that the boat had barely been involved. She didn’t tell him that she had next to no idea how to swim.
“Step right up, step right up distinguished guests! See the wonderful merman in it’s natural habitat!”
As the pirate in front of him continued to speak, Na'loon tried banging on the glass, attempting to get the attention of the human audience. Mermaids could hold their breath for up to 2 hours, 3 if absolutely necessary and it was rounding out to about 2 and a half hours since he had been forced into the tank. Aside from the obvious problems of being dragged away from his family, forced into a tiny glass tank, and being carted far, far away from any large body of water, there was one more.
Mermaids did need air to breathe.
And the tank didn’t have any air holes at the top like the one they transported him in. His strength was slowly leaving him and he was considering just letting go, just sinking to the bottom and dying. It would be better than this miserable life with the traveling circus that’s for sure.
But just as he closed his eyes, prepared to meet his doom, a loud creaking noise filled the tank. He glanced up, wondering what foolishness the pirate had engaged in now, only to gasp in shock as his hair was gripped tightly.
“Now then wonderful folks! You may be wondering how it’s scales feel! Not to worry, for a simple fee of 5 gold is all it takes to have a touch!”
