First Swim

“Eridan, are you sure this’ll work?”

"I promise, Kar!" Eridan bounced on his heels, five sweeps and dressed in a a garish cape and scarf Karkat had to admit was awesomely fluffy. Karkat adjusted the diving suit’s glove, decorated in purple and a tad too big. He twisted the helmet and grabbed Eridan’s hand.

“Just to your hive, and that’s it.”

“Yes!” He said, smiling widely. He waded out into the water, and Karkat swallowed while following. He’d never admitted it, but he didn’t like the water. He’d never been in anything bigger than a rusty shower, partially because of how far his hive was from the ocean. The fact Eridan even traveled so far to get him to see the seadweller’s home, however, made it hard to say no. Only a douche would, and Karkat did his best to not be one of those. He took an unnecessary breath and dove down. Eridan was barely kicking his feet, but Karkat had to scissors to even move an inch. Eridan let go of his hand and floated around, laughing. His gills flipped out, moving in and out like fans as he chuckled at his friend.

“Not like that, Kar!” He laughed, and the only thing Karkat noticed was the light flush spreading across his cheeks. “You swim like this!” He kicked lightly, slicing through the water with his hands. He kept his fingers closed, and Karkat took note of how his feet shifted in response to the currents. “Try again.” Karkat sucked in another breath- subconsciously noting this one was harder than the first one- and tried to copy Eridan’s motions. He flailed around for a moment, but eventually started getting into the flow of things.

“Noww you’vve got it!” Eridan said encouragingly, before holding out his hand again. “Still, better keep close.”

“Right.” Karkat agreed. “Why do we have to go underwater again, if your hive’s on an island?”

“It’s faster this way, and I thought wwe might be able to stop and see Fef.” Karkat gave a rough approximation of a shrug.

“Makes sense…” He could tell the end of his word came out funny… a little wavy. Maybe it was something to do with the water? Eridan glanced at him, gripping his gloved hand tighter as he turned down and started swimming again.

“It’ll be about fivve minutes from here. My lusus is out huntin’, he’ll be back in a feww days.”

“Makes… sense…” Karkat tried to breath through his nose and decided the wavy lines in his vision must be from the water. Eridan told him about sea life they were passing, (for some reason he hissed at a really big whale, but wouldn’t explain why) while Karkat tried not to let his eyes go crossed. Finally, after it was getting a little harder to see from their distance from the surface (although Feferi’s hive in the distance was incredibly well lit and impossible to miss) Karkat realized he couldn’t let go of Eridan’s hand. Not for any real reason, he just… couldn’t. It was like his arm was frozen.

“Kar? You okay?” Eridan sounded worried, and Karkat swallowed again, this time realizing he could barely go through with the motion. The seadweller’s scarf floated up around his horns as he twirled around to see Karkat’s face. All the blood drained from his cheeks as he grabbed Karkat’s arm. “Shit shit shit…”

“W… what?”

“Oxygen leak, havve to get you up NOWW.” Eridan started kicking as hard as he could, and Karkat closed his eyes, realizing he could feel a trickle trace its way down his cheek and water was closing in with a soft ‘whoosh’ through what could only be a tiny crack in the helmet. He could feel Eridan’s legs slicing through the water next to his head, but only faintly. The water was sliding into his helmet faster now, and he could feel his face heating up.

He’ll know your blood color… the revelation didn’t phase Karkat much, mostly because he could feel every part of his body contracting from the quickly lessening pressure. After a few more seconds, he decided to let the black tunneling in on his vision to simply take over.

Eridan felt Karkat go completely limp and spared half a second to glance down. The light red blush that had illustrated his cheekbones was now a full flush, reaching up across his forehead and wavering in the growing amount of seawater flooding the helmet. Eridan knew that the other must be burning up, and gripped Karkat’s arm tighter and started swimming faster.

Can’t let him die, can’t let him die… He repeated it to himself, over and over. Can’t let him die…

___

Eridan gasped, himself not used to such quick ascensions, but forced himself to get over it as he yanked off the helmet.

“Stuck- fuck!” He planted one foot on the ground and the other on Karkat’s chest before yanking as hard as he could, twisting simultaneously. The helmet flew off, sending Eridan back into the water while clutching it. He tossed it up on the beach, before stumbling back to Karkat. His diving suit still glistened with dampness, but his chest wasn’t moving… without thinking, motions muscle memory from what Fef had taught to rolling eyes nearly half a sweep ago, he started pumping down on the chest. Two, three, four. He pressed his lips to Karkat’s and blew down, before going back to pumping.

Come on, come on… After about a minute, Eridan’s fins were flat against his neck. It’s not wor- As he tried to blow air down Karkat’s throat again, he was suddenly shocked as Karkat threw his arms around Eridan’s head and pulled him down, making the seadweller practically collapse on top of him. His eyes were wide, and when Karkat let go a few seconds later, he scrambled off.

“Wwhat the FUCK, Kar?” Karkat wiped his mouth, chest heaving as he hauled in air.

“That’s for trying to kiss me while I was unconscious.” Eridan crossed his arms, huffing.

“I wwas savving your life. See it wwasn’t wworth it…” Karkat coughed, before flopping over on his stomach, pushing himself up and crawling over to Eridan. He sat himself up and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek.

“That one’s for saving me.”