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The tide is coming in, the waves crashing, and John stands there in the weird blue light of that one alien moon. He's grinning, egging you on into the water like it's the most natural thing in the world. Come swim with me Karkat, come on, it's warm, you'll love it; and you stand there on the beach with your arms wrapped around your middle, shivering despite the damp warmth of the air. You feel sick. You feel sick, because you can hear the waves and smell the salt and the wet and your whole mouth is watering for it. Plunge in, go down, drink in the vast, beautiful alien ocean, go go go—you can see the dark of the depths in your head, taste the salt like ecstasy on your tongue as you go down deeper, deeper until you can feel the immense pressure of all the water in the world standing on your chest; on your eardrums and your stomach and on the tiny little atrophied swim bladders you've never used but know you have.
You feel sick.
You hug the turtleneck tighter around yourself, the collar turned up and shielding. You feel cold and disgusting and John is standing in the ocean, shirtless with the waves lapping warm at his ankles as he watches you stand on the beach. You imagine your feet are rooted deep in the shifting sand, a tree to stand the test of overwhelming time, to stand the beautiful, treacherous siren song of the ocean, and when John calls to you again, you shake your head.
No.
No, you're not going in there. You're not going where every molecule of your traitorous biology is craving to go. You refuse. You can't; because you know that if you step foot in those beautiful, addictive waves you'll never want to leave again.
You call him something hurtful, words tumbling out of your mouth that even you don't fully understand, and he shuts up. He shuts up but the waves don't and the wind doesn't as it hums invitingly in your ears, ruffles at your sweaty bangs, salt kissing your chapped lips—calling, and you yearn for it.
God, how did you forget how much you want that, to drink it in salt and all and take your place down there, perfect and beautiful and everything right.
John steps out of the waves, steps along the beach in hissing footsteps, sand sliding loose between his toes. He stands in front of you, taller than you with one hand on your shoulder, and you can't look at him.
"What's wrong?" he asks, and you want to throw him into the waves and run back to Jade's mansion. You want to hide. He makes some dumb joke about the ocean that's so stupid you want to laugh. You trust him so much. You trust him more than you trust yourself, more than you trust the freakish mutant color in your veins, and he takes your hand and pulls you gently over those last few steps until the waves lick like lovers at your toes.
You keep the shirt on. His borrowed swim trunks hang loose on your skinny hips. The water is warm like blood, beautiful and all your element, perfect for you. You step deeper, the water rising to your ankles, to your knees, and John rattles on about childhood fears and childhood vacations and all you can think is how much you want to sink below the waves and never come up again.
"You don't have to be scared Karkat. It's okay."
God, you want to believe him. He's holding your hand, leading your deeper, and part of you is terrified of that other side of you. The ocean is sweet as it tempts you, coaxing, your neck and your sides aching where your gills lie dried up and thirsty for the water you haven't given them in ages.
"I'm going deeper," you say as you drop his hand. Deeper. It feels more like going off the deep end than it should; warm and inviting and intoxicating, the sea spilling up onto your stomach and soaking salty into your shirt—and then you feel the water on your gills and your breath hitches desperate in your throat as your knees fall out from under you.
The water hits your nose, stings at your unprotected landdweller's eyes, but your mouth is open, your gills open, and you suck breath after breath of it down. It's hot and perfect and it tastes like heaven, clear and natural and right, and you never want to taste anything else. You want to breathe this forever. You sink down until you're sitting on the sandy ground, the water clear as sparking glass all around you and cast with blue moonbeams. It's the most beautiful thing you've seen in a long time.
And then John hooks you under the armpits and wrenches you out of that perfect womb. He's breathing fast, saying your name over and over, and he drags you back into the shallows where the sand slides over your heels like silk and the ground is still baked hot from the summer sun. You cough as water runs smooth through your gills and down your sides, out of your lungs, and all you feel is cruel regret as they seal up again against the damp night air.
Your imperfect mutant gills never let out all the water when they close. He moves in closer as you cough and cough. He pats your back and touches your knee, gentle and confused, and you push him away before he decides that mouth-to-mouth is the only way to get you breathing normal again.
"I'm fine," you say. John isn't sure. He's hovering over you with worry in his eyes, but you weren't drowning. You were breathing right for the first time in forever.
"You were down there for like five minutes, Karkat. You didn't even move! It was like you didn't want to come up again!"
"I didn't," you snap, and it feels like confession. You didn't want to come up. You didn't want to come back to this—the air, the land, everything that's twisted your entire life up so wrong, made you work so hard and so desperate and left you so tired. You know you can't stay in the water forever, can't go down into the deep and hide happy where no one will ever see your blood, where you'll be safe. Sometimes that hurts more than anything.
"Karkat?" he says, worried, confused, his hand still hot and reassuring on your knee. All he wants is to see you happy, and nothing tears you up inside like the kind of pure distilled sincerity that John Egbert bleeds.
"I have gills," you whisper. It leaves you like a ghost; guilty. You can't meet his eyes. Your hand goes down and peels up the soggy cotton of your shirt until both of you can see them shining in the moonlight, bright red streaks running like brands along your ribs.
And you expect him to jerk back, to sit there and stare at you and finally see you as the terrible freak you are. You can feel it coming; the disgusted look, the revulsion filling up his eyes. You can't watch it and so you glance away, watch the waves lapping clean at the beach instead while your heart readies to shatter into pieces.
But he doesn't jerk back. He doesn't move. He's still sitting there next to you a minute later. You steel yourself against it and peek back over—and all you find is him still staring fascinated at your gills, his mouth just open and wonder in his eyes.
"That's so cool, Karkat," he murmurs. He meets your gaze; interested and soft and understanding, and you've never had anyone be so plain with you before. "You can breathe the water? Then why were you so afraid of it before?"
"Because," you say. "Only sea dwellers have gills. I don't have the fucking face frills, I don't have the secondary eyelids. I'm a mutant freak and I'm not supposed to be this way." It comes out choked and angry, bitter around the edges but sad, and John hears that.
He frowns sympathetically and he moves his hand from your knee to brush your wet face, gentle and kind and warm and everything you're not. Everything your race isn't. Everything you're scared of being and that he wears so naturally; and sometimes you want to wear him as a skin and be him instead. He leans close and whispers in your ear that you're not a freak, you're not bad and wrong and ugly, and part of you breaks to hear that even as you want to tell him he's wrong.