FSE

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"Just a few more seconds. A few more, alright?"

Desmond tried to sound sincere as he looked Simon in the eye. He really did. The other yellow perch was looking back at him with a half-panicked look on his face, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides as the knee-height water lapped around them. Desmond's eyes wandered away from Simon, and the way he was forcing himself to take measured, shaky breaths. Instead, he looked around at the few other people in the shallow lake water, some of them playing, others talking, and a few just walking purposefully up towards or down from the locker rooms. He felt that itch in the back of his head telling him that he was wasting time, and then he yawned.

There was a thunderous splash just in front of him, and Desmond blinked and looked forward. Simon was gone, having dived back into the water. Des could just see him kicking away into the deeper water of the bay, his dorsal fin cresting the surface. Des stared after him for a long moment, and then muttered, "Oh... fuck."

He took a few steps into deeper water, and then dove after Simon. The cool water washed over Des, and he relaxed the gills along his neck to let them open. He breathed in the lake water, and then kicked hard with his legs and tail. The scales along his back were still cresting the water, and he felt the splashing of his movement more than he heard it. The noise of everything happening above the surface was muted and dim. Besides, Desmond was more focused on Simon's voice up ahead of him. "Frick, frick, weird, frick..."

Desmond rolled his eyes, but kept following his friend until the two teenagers reached water that was deep enough to fully submerge them comfortably. Once they reached that depth, Simon finally stopped and hung in place in the water. His hand was up and kneading at his forehead, and Desmond could just hear the echoing sounds of him muttering to himself.

"Okay, that was better," Desmond said as he pulled up. "I figure if we spend a few more sessions like that, we'll be able to get you up to ten minutes in no time."

"No, it wasn't better!" Simon snapped back, finally looking back up at Desmond. His eyes were wide and wild. "Did you even stop the timer?"

"Yeah."

"How much time was it then?"

Desmond stopped at that, his mind reeling to try to decide on an amount of time that would be reasonable, but that would still show improvement, but that...

"You didn't stop the time."

Desmond gulped. "Alright, fine, yeah. I forgot to stop the timer. Still, you're getting better. If we keep up at this rate, we'll be able to play shows up on the shore by next year!"

"Who cares, Des?" Simon gave a frustrated shake of his head. "Why don't we just frigging play underwater?"

"Because that's boring, Simon!" Desmond rolled his eyes. "Look, if we can go up onto the shore, then Glitterbendz gets fans on both sides of the surface! It immediately doubles the audience. It's the perfect plan!"

Simon made a noise deep in his throat. It was a mix of a gurgle of air and a groan. Desmond had long since learned that it meant his friend was angry. "I swear to god, Desmond, don't tell me that you're flaking."

"I am not flaking!"

"But you always flake! That's what you do!" Simon crossed his arms and glared at him.

"But this is different! Look, I care about this!"

"Yeah? So what if it takes me all this year to get to the point where I can breathe out of water long enough to play up there? Are you going to come to the beach with me every day to help me work on it?"

"Yeah!" Desmond hated just how unconvincing that lie sounded in his own ears. From the look on Simon's face, he could hear it too. Desmond pushed further. "Totally."

The two hung in the water for a few moments, glaring at each other. At last, Simon shook his head. "Fine, fine. Just promise you won't flake on this, alright? We've been working our asses off."

"Hey, whose idea was the band in the first place?" It was a casual, joking sentence, not a challenging one. He hesitated a long moment before asking his next question. "Uh... you wanna take another go at it?"

"No," Simon said, and Desmond did his best to hold in his relief. "That was enough for one day. I'm heading back down. You coming?"

"Nah, I'm going to stick around for a while. Talk later?"

"Sure."

With that, Simon took off swimming further out from the shore, and Desmond turned himself towards the beach. The only thing that would be worse than watching Simon dodging in and out of the water every three minutes would be going back home. There was just... nothing to do there during the summer. Sure, he could always practice piano some more, or listen to his mom's old records, or try on some of the costumes he'd made for Glitterbendz, but... it was boring. He always got bored, and then he let his mind wander, and that was how he always got into trouble, one way or another.

So instead, he figured he would skip the steps of growing excessively bored, and go straight to looking for trouble. Soon enough, the water became shallow enough for him to stand in it with part of his legs above the surface. He gave his head a shake, and let his gills close tight on his neck. He took a moment to catch his breath, and consciously remind himself to breathe properly. It was easy enough for him - his mom had taught him how to breathe out of water when he was young.

He wandered up out of the shallows and on the land proper. He ducked by the few kiosks selling cheap flipflops and beach clothing for the swimmers, and swimsuits for the walkers. Desmond just headed up to the locker rooms, not too far up from the water. He ducked in, and walked through the rows until he found the locker that his family rented for him. He started getting some surface clothes out to wear over his tight swimming outfit.

"This place is falling apart." A gruff voice muttered from a row or two over. Desmond ignored him and kept getting dressed while another voice responded.

"Oh it'll do just fine."

"How long, though? If the city keeps putting off the maintenance costs on this place, it'll collapse one of these days."

"Come on, it's not that bad yet." The other voice was reproachful. "Sure, the concrete could use some patching..."

"The doors are hanging off their damn hinges, and most of these lockers are ready to fall apart." There was a small bang, and Desmond assumed the owner of the voice had smacked one of the lockers. "Maybe if they decided to spend any of those damn taxes on these places, like they're supposed to..."

"You know that's a hard sell to most of the surfacers, though. Try to justify spending that money on facilities that half of Black Bay barely even uses."

"Then maybe spend some of our share of the taxes on it. Or if the surfacers don't think they need us, maybe we should close down your shipping routes again. Bet that would go over well."

Desmond finished yanking a pair of shorts up over his swim outfit, then walked hurriedly out of the locker room, his bare feet slapping on the wet concrete floor. He dodged a glance down the row that the voices had been coming from, and he wasn't surprised to see an elderly pineapple fish, now squaring off with a middle aged beaver. Desmond sped up, leaving the sounds of their escalating conversation behind him.

He took a deep breath as he got outside, and then dropped the sandals he was carrying and put them on. He cast a quick glance over at the dirty, full-length mirror they kept outside of each of the locker room's entrances. He couldn't hold back a small sigh. The t-shirt that he kept stored there, an old tour t-shirt for The Darkness, was starting to get too short and tight for him. The legs of his onepiece swimsuit were showing beneath the hem of his shorts, but that was less of an issue. Desmond had been on an intense growth spurt for the past six months, and it was having the unfortunate side-effect of making all his clothes fit tighter on him. People, mostly his parents and their family, kept telling him to stop feeling so self-conscious, and that he looked good, but he hated it. He'd originally brought the t-shirt up to store in the locker because it was big and loose, and helped hide his body's dimensions.

Well, and also because The Darkness fucking rocked, and barely any swimmers knew about them.

He started making his way further up the beach. There were plenty of people around - mostly walkers, reclining further up on the solid rock faces. A few children were down on the rocky beach, or playing in the water. None of them looked over at Desmond as he made his way up the beach - it wasn't too uncommon to see swimmers this close to the water. He knew that if he went much further up, though, he would start getting the odd looks.

Admittedly, he'd probably give a walker an odd look if he found them trying to doggy paddle their way through the lower depths of Black Bay's aquatic neighbourhoods.

He didn't have any idea where he was going, so he just wandered towards the rocks higher up the beach. He passed by all of the people sunning themselves, and kept wandering aimlessly. He'd never been up past the main beach on his own before, but that didn't bother him. What was the worst that could happen? If he got lost, all he had to do was walk towards the giant lake.

He wandered aimlessly, unsure of what he was looking for. He stopped when he'd crossed the parking lot for the pedestrian section of the beach, and stood on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets. He glanced left and then right, trying to figure out where he was going and what he was doing. It was as he glanced right that his eyes picked out something.

Off to the right, just away from the parking lot, there was a group of teenagers all gathered and playing basketball. Desmond just stared at them for a short while, watching as they ran back and forth across the pavement, their occasional yells to each other sounding above the steady thump of the ball. It was far from the first time that Desmond had seen people playing basketball, and it had always interested him from the brief glances he'd gotten. Normally it was just while coming up on land with his parents, and noticing kids playing as they were walking by. He'd never had the chance to actually stop and watch, though.

He kept staring for a short while, his eyes following the plays back and forth. At length, he started wandering over, taking care as he crossed the parking lot. As he drew closer, he could make out their voices better, and hear them calling for passes or directing each other. It all looked like a confusing mess to him - people just rushing back and forth aimlessly along the pavement, with one or another occasionally throwing the ball up at one of the nets.

Before he knew it, he was standing on the edges of the court and watching the exchange. There were a couple other kids standing on the sidelines, too, but they didn't pay any attention to him. Out on the court, they were still going, weaving around each other and throwing the ball back and forth. Desmond watched, entranced by the movement.

All at once, somebody scored, and then an otter who was out on the court called out, "Alright, let's switch out. Jordan, Mel, come on out, and how about..." His voice trailed off as his eyes fell on Desmond, and he blinked in surprise. The otter hesitated for a second, his eyes wandering over the fish. Desmond, for his part, felt the normal discomfort when somebody got a good look at his body, but he forced himself to stand a bit straighter. It seemed like the otter was looking for something, and his voice was uncertain when he asked, "Hey d- uh, kid, you want in?"

Desmond blinked. He was probably about the same age as the otter, by his own guess - it hardly seemed right for him to be using 'kid'. A few of the others looked over at him, but it seemed like they were all fine with letting the otter handle it. The perch cleared his throat, then called over, "I mean, yeah."

"Sweet. You know how to play?"

"Not a fucking clue."

The otter's questioning face broke into a grin. "Sweet. I guess you're on my team, then. Name's Braydon. And you're...?"

"Des," Desmond said as he walked out onto the court. A few of the other players had run to grab sips from water bottles, and the rest were taking the opportunity to catch their breath.

"Des." Braydon nodded at that, though he still had a conflicted look on his face. His eyes wandered up and down Desmond's form, and there was almost a hint of impatience in the way he'd said the name. When he spoke next, his voice was reaching, questioning. "Short for?"

Desmond wasn't sure how to react to that at first. Did it matter what 'Des' was short for? And why did Braydon keep giving him those looks? Was this some weird walker thing, where they needed to give their full names, or...

It came to him quite suddenly, and then it took everything he had to not laugh. They didn't know. They couldn't tell if he was a guy or a girl. Why would they - so few simmers came up on surface that they probably didn't know any other fish around their age, and despite his growth spurt, it wasn't like Desmond's voice had dropped yet.

He opened his mouth to respond, and then hesitated. The moment stretched out between the two of them, verging well into awkward territory. Desmond was just stuck on a thought: what if they just kept thinking of him like that? His mind searched, and he thought back to that play he'd been to see with his dad on the surface last year. There had been that one really badass woman in it, who kept wanting to get into fights...

"Short for Desdemona," he said. After a breath, he added, "Uh... lots of my friends call me Desi, too."

"Desdemona." Braydon nodded. He looked like he was... like he was suddenly standing on solid ground again. "That's such a cool name."

"Thanks."

"So, you ready to play, Desi?"

Desmond cleared his throat, and briefly wondered if he should be trying to speak higher or something. No time to test that, though, so instead he just shrugged. "Sure, Braydon. Tell me what to do."

He went out onto the court, and Braydon brought over the ball. Braydon casually bounced it back and forth, off of the ground and up to his hands, and then tossed it over. The ball felt bigger and heavier than Desmond had expected. At Braydon's nod, he brought the ball down, and attempted to bounce it. It went down, slapped against the pavement, and then came up much faster than Desmond expected. He threw his hand out wildly to try to bounce it again, and just caught it at the height of its bounce. It killed a lot of the ball's momentum, which turned out to be a good thing. It came down, bounced off of the pavement, and then rebounded up right at Desmond's face.

He let out a startled yelp, and just managed to get an arm up in front of his face to block it. He stood there, stricken, staring as the ball bounced away from him across the court. It took a couple moments before he realized that Braydon was laughing.

Desmond shot a look over at the otter, and Braydon ducked his head and raised a webbed hand. "Sorry, sorry, I should have warned you." The otter was having to say it around laughter, his face showing a bit red through the fur.

Desmond rolled his eyes, then glanced over at the rest of the players. They were beginning to gather on the court again, and were shooting him and Braydon glances. "So," Desmond said, glancing back to the otter. "You think I'm ready to go in, coach?"

Braydon snorted. "Maybe let's hold off on that for now. Uh... Hey, Mary?" He called over to a duck who was standing on the sidelines. She nodded back. "Desi's new to this. Could you give her a hand with dribbling?"

Desmond ignored the odd lurch that sentence left in his guts, and instead focused on Mary as the duck wandered over. They grabbed an extra ball, and then headed off of the court while the rest of the players started the game again.

Mary was quiet, but helpful. She helped Desmond get a bit of an idea for the rhythm of dribbling, and even got him walking a bit while dribbling in a smooth, slow rhythm. She was patient, and more or less let Desmond figure out the rhythm for himself, only giving small pointers whenever it seemed like Desmond was getting comfortable.

Eventually, the players on the court swapped out, and Mary was replaced by a collie named Terry. He, admittedly, was less patient, and seemed a bit annoyed about having to show Desmond what to do. But still, he did it. If anything, his impatience was a bit helpful to Desmond - the collie would get bored showing Desmond basic, simple things, and then push him to try something that was inevitably too difficult. Still, it forced Desmond to push himself, and every once in a while he was able to actually pull off something that Terry was saying.

When they switched next, Braydon came off the court and paired off with Desmond. He watched Desmond dribble for a short while, and then shook his head. "That's definitely an improvement. But like... not to be rude, have you never dribbled a ball before?"

Desmond snorted. "No. Fuck no, basketball's a bit of a tricky proposition underwater."

"Yeah, but, like, even passing a ball back and forth?"

"You have any idea how hard it would be to bring a ball down from the surface all the way to a dry room?"

Braydon blinked. "Huh. Hadn't thought of that before. Well here, let's try passing for a bit. I think everybody's almost worn out, so once they're done we'll try taking some shots."

The two of them worked for a bit, with Braydon getting them into a comfortable rhythm of doing a couple dribbles, before passing the ball. Desmond was amazed by how difficult even that small movement was. Every time Braydon sent the ball to him, it was done with precision. Desmond had to learn to trust that Braydon was throwing the ball to the right spot, because his brain kept telling him that he would have to reach lower to catch it. His passes back to Braydon were... inconsistent, at best. He wasn't sure how much power or height he had to give the ball for it to go back to the otter properly.

Throughout it all, he was nervous that Braydon would get annoyed with him, but the otter was patient. After everybody had finished out on the court, Braydon led him out and brought him up to a line just out from one of the nets. The two of them practiced shooting, which Desmond soon decided was impossible. He couldn't get the ball to go anywhere close to the net - he couldn't even get it to go anywhere with any consistency. He could feel himself growing frustrated, but it was... odd. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so bad at something. Normally it all just came easy for him. Even if he started out bad, it never took him long to get better. This was just a consistent wall of difficulty.

After quite a while, Braydon piped up. "Well, it's getting late for me. I should probably head home."

"What?" Des looked over at him, then blinked. "Wait, what time is it?"

"Like, five?"

"Aw, crap. I'm going to be in so much trouble when I get home."

"Oh, shit. Uh, sorry, I didn't mean to get you in trouble."

"No, no, it's fine. My fault. I'm glad, though, I had a good time."

"Awesome, I'm glad to hear it." Braydon hesitated, then nodded at Desmond's shirt. "So... Darkness fan?"

Des grinned. He was relieved to have the topic turn to something he felt comfortable with, after so much time out of his depth. "Yeah, totally. I love their stuff."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah! I mean, normally I go for punk or metal or stuff, but everything about The Darkness is just... extra and fully out there."

"Can't argue with that," Braydon laughed. "I'm more partial to metal myself."

"No joke?"

"Yeah! Are you a big music fan, then?"

"Yeah, I've got a band," Desmond replied, then added cheerfully, "We're terrible."

Braydon laughed. "Fair. You do vocals?"

"God no. My friend Simon handles that. I do backing stuff sometimes, but mostly I do keyboards and help come up with costumes. Why'd you ask?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. I guess it's sorta the stereotype, right? The girl in the band doing the vocals."

"Right, right," Desmond nodded jerkily. "Well, either that or playing bass."

Braydon snorted at that, then raised an eyebrow. "Wait, costumes?"

"Yeah costumes. Glam rock, man. All sequins, everywhere."

"Right, right, The Darkness. So, are we going to see you again?"

Desmond hesitated at that. The day had been frustrating as hell, and he genuinely didn't know if he'd gotten any better. It was hard. But it was... it was a different kind of hard. It wasn't like school or playing the piano, where the hard part was just making sure he paid attention. Plus, they'd all been... nice. Really nice. He couldn't deny the feeling whenever Braydon had called him 'Desi', either. "How often do you play?"

"There are normally people here during the summer. We're here most weekends during the rest of the year, too."

"Sweet. You'll definitely see me, then."

"Cool. Nice to meet you, Desdemona."

Desmond nodded, and then turned away. He found himself walking fast back towards the beach. Once he got to the lockers, he went to step into the locker rooms, and then stopped. He glanced over his shoulder, and back up the beach towards the court. He scanned the area for any of the others from the court, just to make sure they weren't around or watching. Then, he ducked his head, and made his way into the men's locker room.

He was slow, pulling off his sandals and removing his shirt. He ignored the voices of the people around him, many of them talking about work, or the upcoming city election, or whatever they'd watched on tv the night before... They all faded away as he thought about the past couple hours.

It was hard. That game had been hard. He didn't understand even the basics of it, but hell did he want to learn. It was the effortless way the rest of them had moved, how perfectly they timed their jumps and their throws, and the seemingly intuitive way that they knew how and when to let go of the ball. For a while he tried to keep that separate from the way he'd felt whenever one of them called him 'Desi', but eventually he gave up on that and let it mix in with the rest of his recollection. He kept replaying all of it over and over again in his mind, even as he made his way out of the locker rooms.

He was somehow more conscious of the weightlessness as he wandered into the water this time. His scales were thankful for the cool wetness spreading over them, but Desmond almost missed the weight of his body out of the water. He'd always thought about it as a nuisance before, but now all he could think of was the incredible levels of nuance in how the other players had used it. His hands stung as he slipped fully into the water, and he glanced down at them. They were raw from the unfamiliar work of handling the ball.

It consumed his thoughts all the way back home. He kept close to the surface for quite a while, letting his dorsal find slice through the water and up into the air. His legs and tail propelled him forward, and he was able to let his mind drift. Further out, it was always quieter close to the surface. Sure, there were plenty of laws preventing the freighters or personal boats from using the waters above Black Bay's aquatic districts, but most of the swimmers were still hesitant to be up that close to the surface. There were more than enough urban legends about gups that had wandered up too high while some reckless walker was running their engine too fast.

He skimmed along the surface until he was about sure that he was in the right area, and then he dove. His legs and his tail kicked hard, helping him cut through the water. He closed his eyes as the echoing sounds of the city along the lake floor drifted up to him. There was always a bit of a readjustment whenever he spent more than a few hours out of the water.

Soon, he could feel the vibrations of the sounds around him on his skin, and he opened his eyes. He was already down among some of the higher buildings, with long tethers reaching down from their bases towards the lake floor. Desmond pointedly avoided any of the other people that he saw and heard along the way. He waited until he'd passed through the bright, attractive lights of the commercial depth before he stopped to get his bearings.

It didn't take him long after that to swim home. His family's home was a bit further down from there, just on the edge between the middle class depth and the upper class depth down lower. It was down far enough that the light pollution of all the stores was muted to the point that you could ignore it.

Desmond swam up to the door, and pushed his way through. His parents were angry, of course. He was supposed to have been back hours before, and he'd completely missed his scheduled piano lesson with his mom. He was eventually able to excuse it by saying that he and Simon had just spent extra time practicing breathing out of water, and that seemed to calm them down. Desmond couldn't really blame them, though - he knew how often he let his mind wander, and when he did, he was bad at checking in.

Later, after dinner, he and his mom went into the dry room, where she kept her keyboard. It was the top floor in the house, and required crawling up out of the water into the pocket of air that was kept there. Desmond dried himself off while his mom got to work setting up the piano. Soon enough, she'd put a record onto her turntable, and Desmond was playing along to David Bowie's Oh You Pretty Things. He couldn't remember if this was one of the albums in her vast collection that she'd gotten from the artist themself - he often lost track of those things. He just played along, occasionally stumbling over the notes while his mom sang along softly.

It was good. It was good, and it was calming. Throughout it all, though, Desmond kept feeling the occasional sting of raw scales whenever his finger pressed down on a key. That basketball had been rough on his hands.

After they'd finished, and his mom had given him some suggestions, she headed back down out of the dry room, and Des stayed up top to do some more practicing. He stopped after his first time through the song, though, and glanced around the room. It was mostly dominated by his mom's mementoes from when she used to tour - her record collection, a bunch of old pictures of her with various musicians, and even a framed copy of one of her own albums up on the wall. There was also his dad's small collection of walker books, kept in a bookcase off in the corner, but Desmond rarely looked at those.

Desmond just sat there at the keyboard, and then got up and stepped over to look at a few of the pictures, of his mom rocking out on stage and looking like a total badass. There were even a few pictures of her and his dad, though all of those were older - pictures of the two perch in their late teens, the tall gangly guy in a leather jacket with his arm around a much shorter girl. Desmond always loved how she looked in the touring pictures, with her scales gleaming in the stage lights. He always looked at them whenever he was trying to come up with costumes for Glitterbendz.

He stopped, and then glanced over at a mirror that hung on the wall. He hesitated for a long couple of seconds. Then, he wandered over to the cupboard. He opened it, and then carefully pulled out his dad's old leather jacket. It hung down past his hips, and he had to bunch up the sleeves to get the cuffs around his wrists. Still, he walked over to the mirror, and looked at himself.

He turned left, and then right, then tried to strike one of the poses from the pictures of his mom. At last, he looked himself straight on, in the eye.

"Desdemona, huh?"

He snorted, and rolled his eyes. He turned away from the mirror, pulled the jacket off, and hung it back up. It was probably just another thing he would flake on. Nothing to worry about.