Drowning

Kaz and Gabriel are special.

Not really, truly, special, in the grand scheme of things, the way some people are so important. No, they aren’t important. They are, however, special.

They are unique, because despite everything, they are still Kaz and Gabriel. Nobody can stop them.

They are sitting on the roof of Gabe’s building, the high metal skyscraper his parents had raised him in, before they were all gone. The water, murky and torrential and harsh, roils below them, turbid and almost attractive, trying to lure them into the drowning depths.

The world had flooded those years ago, but it stays at bay now. The top of the buildings are safe. They have a few floors of apartments they could live in, and plenty of now-scrap metal inside the building, readily available to those who dare face the liquid wrath that churns underfoot. 

Bridges had been erected between some of the buildings, always haphazard and precarious, trembling as they walked across the metal beams, threatening to drop them into the horrors of the depths. Kaz and Gabriel don’t leave their building very often. They are safe there, as safe as they can be.

The boy in the building next to theirs is yelling to them, eyes wild and arms flailing. He is only nine, younger than the two teenagers, but there are those younger just as there are those older. He has the sad attempt of a raft built beside him, as if he were about to try to brave the waters to find someone to help.

“His sister, Carra, y’know her, she’s sick,” Kaz relays to Gabe from where he is sitting, feet hanging over the edge.

“Oh.”

“I’m going to help him build some more bridges so he can reach someone who can do something for her.”

Gabe nods. He knows Kaz. “You shouldn’t sit like that,” he admonishes, taking his spot on the sturdy area next to his boyfriend, far enough from the edge to not fall. He crosses his legs neatly under him and studies the other teenager.

“We have to help them, Gabe,” he says, turning to face Gabriel. Gabe smiles his soft smile, the one that was warm and sweet, the honeyed grin he reserved solely for Kaz when he was doing something brave, something amazing. He places a gentle hand on Kaz’s neck, right where it meets his shoulder, and leans forward until their foreheads meet.

They sleep on the roof, watching the stars that reflect onto the ever-moving water, frothing waves crashing into the sides of the buildings in a way that is almost soothing, if they could only forget what it means. 

In the morning, when Gabe wakes, Kaz is burrowed into his side, the single blanket thrown over the pair tangled hopelessly around their limbs. Their fingers are laced together, hands resting on his chest.

Kaz smiles faintly, shifting but never moving from his side. There is nowhere either of them would rather be.

Kaz is standing in the stairwell, watching the water shift mere inches from his feet.

“Are you sure about this?” Gabe asks, hand still gripping Kaz’s. Kaz nods, despite the obvious fear written across his features. He never tried to hide what he is feeling with Gabe.

Gabe could always see through his mask.

“I have to do this, Gaby,” he says, carefully extricating his hand from his partner’s as he steps into the water. It rises to his knees, shifting and swirling and trying to draw him down. 

He pulls his goggles over his eyes. They aren’t meant for swimming -- they don’t have much that is actually used for what it is intended for, these days -- but they are all he has, so he uses them. 

At least he won’t go blind from the feculent sea he is stepping into.

Gabe says something he doesn’t hear as he steps off his ledge, disappearing under the water. The cold currents crash into him with overwhelming force, knocking the air from his lungs. He forces himself not to inhale the water. 

He has a bottle of air lashed to his waist, but he knows that he will need it more later. He swims down the stairs until his blinding fumbling fingers numbly crash into the door, prying it open with muscle memory and instinct alone.

Gabe is standing at the top of the stairs, pacing, wearing a hole in the cheap carpeting. He shouldn’t have let Kaz go, not alone. He can’t lose him.

Time passes -- an amount he can’t determine, since he lost his watch somewhere the day before -- and Kaz is still nowhere to be seen. It feels like too long, like something is horribly wrong.

The nagging part of his head claims he is going to lose his other half.

But soon, Kaz is back, sitting on the stairs, soaking wet and dripping dirty water from his clothes. He holds a rather impressive collection of metal pieces, ropes, boards, and cables.

He’s grinning dopily up at Gabe, head tilted back so hard he is looking at him upside down, but Gabe can breathe again. He presses a kiss to Kaz’s damp hair, almost regretting it immediately as the taste of dirt and grime overwhelms him, but he doesn’t regret any of it.

It’s still just them, Kaz and Gabriel, always Kaz and Gabriel.

They haul everything up the stairs, onto the roof. Jamey, the boy on the roof next to them, is watching carefully. His building is a floor lower than theirs, but they manage to string together a long flat beam -- it looks like a ladder, a tied together and about-to-break ladder, and gods, if that isn’t a terrifying thought -- and feed it across to his rooftop.

Kaz crawls out on it, securing sturdier parts where he can, but the entire thing still sways wildly as he walks across. Gabe is biting his lip so hard he draws blood, warm copper filling his mouth, but he doesn’t notice.

Kaz is across on the other roof, talking to Jamey, and then he is walking back. He is three steps from the roof when a rope slips and the entire bridge wobbles dangerously.

Kaz falls.

Gabe barely processes what he is seeing as it happens, but then there is a loud splashing, then yelling, and he hears his name. He runs over to the edge, and Kaz is halfway underwater, the cruel tides trying to tear him away from the side of the building. 

Kaz gets his arm tangled in the rope that hangs there, the one that trails off the end of the ladder that goes down the side of the building. He pulls his head above water, and Gabriel drops down the ladder faster than he thinks possible. 

He is standing on the balcony right above water level, yanking Kaz out with his grip firmly on the rope Kaz clings to and the hood of his jacket. They fall in a messy heap on the balcony, stumbling and tripping back until they are on the ground. They lie in a pool of murky water, and Kaz is on top of him, heavy and awkward and dripping wet.

“You absolute imbecile,” Gabe half-sobs. “I love you so much, idiot.” Kaz’s reply is mumbled and muffled, but he’s real and he’s still there.

Gabe is crying before he realizes it, because Kaz almost died and because Kaz is alive. Kaz is here, with him, and he wraps his arms around the drenched boy, laughing hysterically as tears mingle with dirt and grime and water.

He kisses Kaz, honey and salt and mud, revelling in his presence, his reality.

They stay there for a long time, soaked and filthy and blissfully alive, and, as always, they are simply Kaz and Gabriel.