× You were carved out of the sea, watermarked by your ancestry. In a tug of war between the tide and me, what felt like loss was a victory 'cause you were swept ashore like bottles holding prayers. ×

Connor's always loved the ocean.

There's something in the water rocking gently back to shore or crashing violently against the cliff-sides that he finds incontestably enrapturing. The tide is in a constant state of change, never flowing with the same amount of strength, and the life beneath the waves is always thriving and full. There's emotion in the ebb and flow of the beach shoreline, echoes of lost love and rebirth tracing patterns in the sand.

He admires it from a distance, usually, stretched out at the edge of the tall grass where the shoreline ends. The ocean is alive and unpredictable and while that's part of why he loves it so much, it's also something to be wary of. He's always had a fear of drowning, too.

Which is why he doesn't miss it when he catches sight of something new crashing under the waves, something he's never once seen in the many years he's been coming here.

There's a boy in the water and Connor thinks he's drowning.

He freezes the moment he catches sight of the thrashing figure far beyond the shoreline, eyes caught wide and terrified as they realize he's the only one around. It's a private beach, he's the only one who's ever around, and while normally that would be the reason he loves it so much, right now he's passionately cursing it to hell and back.

Taking a deep breath, he launches himself to his feet and races down to the water's edge, kicking up damp sand as he goes. He tries not to hesitate the moment his toes meet the ocean, but he can't help the single paralyzing moment of fear just before he dives in.

Connor knows how to swim. Of course he does. He wasn't always so terrified of drowning, though it's hard to remember a time where the swaying tide didn't both fascinate and petrify him the way it does now. He used to be one of the best on his swim team, before he quit during the last leg of fifth grade.

It's probably how he reaches the drowning man so fast, desperately casting out all thoughts of him possibly suffering the same fate in favour of his incessant need to help those around him. His hands grapple for purchase on a weighted white t-shirt, feet kicking at the water below the both of them as he tries to keep their heads above the surface. Connor splutters, pulled under by the dead weight and unmoving muscles of the boy he's trying to drag back to shore.

The water closes in on him. He tries not to panic, hands clenching painfully where they remain firmly gripped to a sinking set of unconscious limbs. He can't breathe and this boy can't breathe and they're drowning until suddenly they're not.

Connor's feet hit sinking sand and he pushes backwards, landing messily on the shore as the water laps gently at his back on the wet ground. The guy lands heavily on top of him, a mass of thin limbs and sharp bone digging painfully into his chest.

He chokes, shoving the other male off of him as he turns onto his side and wretches up water, trembling as surely as the leaves in this autumn's wind. It's not until he's started coughing up more than just water that he finally sinks back onto the sand, turning dazed green eyes to the muted grey sky.

He doesn't move again until the kid beside him wakes up and starts choking, too.

×

"You're sure you're okay?" Connor demands for probably the billionth time in the past four hours, useless hands flitting uncertainly over the figure of the young man shivering on his couch.

A pacifying smile is all he gets in response for a long moment, blue eyes like the ocean they came from fixed softly on Connor's expression. His voice is equally as gentle when he finally does grant a verbal response. "I'm fine, thank you."

It doesn't reassure him.

"Do you need anything? A blanket? Food? Water?"

The young man laughs at that, cutting through Connor's concern as though it were nothing but a thin rope already partially frayed. "I think I've had enough water," he comments lightheartedly, blue eyes sparkling with amusement Connor's having a little trouble reciprocating. It might be the trauma of recently slamming headfirst into his greatest fear or perhaps the upheaval from pulling a drowning stranger out of the water and bringing him back to his apartment not long after forcing him to cough up half the contents of his stomach and lungs.

Either way, Connor can't find anything more to say as he hovers over a total stranger with whom he's now been bonded to for life through such a harrowing experience.

"Do you want to borrow some clothes?" he suggests after another beat of silence, picking at his fingernails as the water clinging to the other boy drips onto his sofa.

"Oh," is the response, blue eyes going wide in realization. "I'm so sorry. I'm getting your couch all wet, aren't I?"

Connor manages a soft smile at that. "It's fine, it's just water. My clothes might not fit you very well, but it'll have to do for now."

With that, he makes his escape from the living room and this odd situation, rushing behind the closed door of his bedroom and breathing deep as he makes his way toward his open closet. Flicking through the hanging garments, he withdraws one of the comfiest sweaters he owns and moves to the dresser where he picks up a pair of sweats that he knows are way too long for him. Connor nearly jumps out of his skin when he turns to find the guy he's playing tailor to standing right behind him.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

Connor shrugs. He doesn't comment, instead reaching to hold the clothes out to him in question. Pale fingers grasp at them gratefully, dropping them to the ground as the young man immediately peels his wet t-shirt over his head and begins to work at his jeans.

"Oh my God," Connor gasps, turning around the moment he realizes what's happening. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), he's already seen the entirety of the drowning boy's fit torso.

Which, now that he has a little time to think of it as he stares at his off-white walls, was covered in strange tattoos. They were pale, nearly translucent, and only glistened when the light turned to hit them a certain way, but they crawled up his rib-cage and his chest, stretching over his shoulders to presumably continue down his back.

Connor knows there's a story there, printed finely in white lines of ancestry, but he also knows it's not really his place to ask. This strange man standing in the middle of his bedroom must be some kind of psychic, though, because not a moment later his voice is sounding softly from behind him.

"I don't know what they mean. I don't remember. I- the last thing I do remember is getting a mouthful of water and thinking I was going to die."

Connor frowns, turning back around under the assumption that this means he's finished getting dressed. He's correct, pale hands clinging to a heap of wet clothes as dry clothes cling to pale limbs. "What's your name?" he asks, because he can't just keep referring to him as 'the guy'.

'The guy' tilts his head, looking stumped for a minute so long Connor thinks he may have forgotten that as well, before his entire face lights up in realization.

"Troye," he states firmly, determination coating the lines of his lips. Connor smiles despite his uncertainty over the whole situation.

"Connor," he replies, reaching out a hand to shake. Troye smiles back as brightly as the sun hanging high over the rising tide.

×

Troye spends the night. Connor sleeps with a bat by his dresser, just in case. They go to the police in the morning.

×

Troye stays the week. Connor moves the bat to the corner. The police can't tell them anything about this mysterious boy with no past.

×

Troye is still there a month later, just as clueless to his own history as the day Connor carved him from the sea. Connor tucks the bat back into its space in his closet, his heart aching for the ocean every day he stays in with Troye instead. The police shrug and tell them he'll remember it all eventually.

×

Two months pass and they're sitting on his couch, watching Connor's childhood play out on his TV in the form of Finding Nemo, huddled closely as Troye traces along the scar down the older boy's arm.

"What's this from?" he asks softly, fingers following the jagged edges of Connor's history even as his blue eyes fix to where his own is printed palely on his sea foam skin. Connor hums, moving the arm that's wrapped across Troye's shoulders to touch at it himself. He frowns, trying not to remember too hard, before a soft sigh leaves his lips and he settles back on the couch.

"A boating accident," he mutters into the coral curls of Troye's soft hair. "I almost drowned."

Troye perks up in interest at that. "Like me?"

Connor tries to smile. The crush of the water against his fragile ten year old bones is too strong, though, and the tide is filling his lungs with liquid death as it pulls him under the surface. His arm screams in pain where there's something wrapped around it and tugging, probably one of the ropes off the boat, and he can't find the strength to kick himself to life again.

He forces it back, running his hands along the white lines of Troye's only clue as to his origins. "Like you," he whispers.

×

Somehow, he ends up telling Troye every single moment of his childhood that he can remember. He doesn't know why. Maybe it's got something to do with the desperation leaking into this odd boy with every day that passes and no sign of memories resurfacing arrives. Maybe it's got something to do with how completely enthralled Troye seems by everything he says.

Connor doesn't know. He doesn't really care.

×

"Why were you on the beach?" Troye asks one day, three months after he was swept ashore. They're in the kitchen, him seated at the tall island while Connor fashions them two plates heaped high with pancakes. Music floats in from the living room, instrumental and reminiscent of the swaying tide as it swishes back and forth between heavy and light as the air between them.

Connor frowns, scooping another crepe onto one of their plates. "What do you mean?"

Reaching across the counter to snatch his breakfast despite Connor's disapproving glare, Troye licks at his lips and flicks his eyes down to the thin white lines peeking out from under his dark t-shirt. "When you saved me. You were the only one on the beach that day. Why?"

Connor shrugs. "I like the ocean," he says, like that's all there is to it.

Troye's expression is thoughtful, if a little disbelieving.

×

A week later, Troye curls into the comfort of Connor's bed with him while he reads him well-thought lines from Dostoevsky's The Brother's Karamazov. He's warm against Connor's side, a firm pressure of reality with frail arms curled across his torso, and his breath fans out along his skin like a gentle reminder that Connor isn't as alone as he used to be.

"Above all, don't lie to yourself," he recites, Troye shifting a little more consciously against his side as the simple sentence floats through the air around them. Connor pretends not to notice the sudden investment of interest that wasn't really there before, continuing the paragraph he's read a thousand times over. "The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect, he ceases to love."

Troye lets out a breath. Connor gives him a minute, stilling the flick of his eyes across the page as he glances down at the boy on his chest.

"Connor," comes a soft whisper against the equally soft fabric of his sleep shirt. "Can we go back to the ocean tomorrow?"

Connor lets out a breath. Troye glances up at the boy who's chest he's resting on.

"Yeah," he mutters eventually. "Sure, let's go."

×

The beach hasn't changed at all since Connor last saw it. The water still rocks gently back to shore and crashes violently against the cliff-sides he can just make out a couple kilometers away. The tide is still full of every emotion he has trouble expressing within himself, change echoing in the soft blue waves of an ocean that's never had the same thought twice.

It's alive, as it always is, and Connor didn't realize how much he missed it until he's breathing in deep and feeling like he's just inhaled the whole world.

He even somehow manages to entirely forget the boy by his side, right up until the moment Troye moves past him to head closer to the water. Connor watches, silent and transfixed, as pale toes curl into the shoreline and the white lines sketched across white skin dance like secrets tumbling down the grapevine. He doesn't move from his familiar position in the tall grass just off the sandy shore, but he wants to when he sees blue eyes the same shade as the ocean before them flit shut, a twisted expression curling over his friend's face.

"Hey," he calls softly, pressing his toes a little harder into the rough canvas of his shoes. "You okay?"

"I'm fine!" Troye calls back, taking a deep breath full of salty seawater air that Connor can see even from this distance. He frowns, stuffing his hands into his pockets, and picks his way a little closer to the boy by the water.

The wind picks up a little more noticeably. Connor pauses, two feet away from the rocking water, before crossing the short distance left and coming to a halt at this strange boy's side. "You're sure? You look a little pale."

Troye laughs, eyes slipping open as he scrubs a hand down his face. "I'm always pale."

Connor gives him a look, reaching out to wrap his hand around Troye's and draw it away from his face. Troye turns his head to him as he does, something desperate and uncertain flickering like wildfire behind storm-catcher eyes. Connor makes his voice soft, gentle, kinder than it ever has been before when he says, "Hey. Come on, Tro. What's wrong?"

Sighing, the paler of the two men turns back to the ocean at their feet, casting it a mournful glance like he's tossing it bottles full of silent prayers and watching them float away into oblivion.

"I want to remember," he offers eventually. "I want to know what happened and who I was, who I am, and I want to stop bothering you and having you take care of me when you don't know me any better than I know myself and I want- I want so many things, Connor. And I'm so scared of getting any of it because what if it isn't what I thought it'd be? What if I remember and it's something awful? What if there's a reason I forgot it in the first place? What if-"

"Troye," Connor cuts in, squeezing his hand painfully tight to draw him from his crushing waves of thought. Troye takes a deep breath. Connor gives him a small smile. "You're not bothering me. In fact, I think having you here has been good for me in a way. I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't have many friends."

Troye opens his mouth to object, a pained look crossing his sculpted features, but Connor cuts him off before he gets the chance.

"As for your memory- well, there's nothing you can do about it. It comes back or it doesn't, either way you have no control over it. And if you never remember, maybe that's okay. It doesn't change who you are right now and it doesn't change that you can build yourself a life here regardless of whether you know the life you used to have. If you do remember, then that's great. Maybe you'll go back to who you were. Maybe not. Maybe you'll be some child prodigy who's rich off their ass and successful as fuck or maybe you'll be an ex-con gang member or something, I don't know.

The point that I'm completely failing at getting at is, though, that none of that matters right now. We can cross those bridges when we get there or burn them to the ground, if you want. For now I think you should let things be and start making yourself a new life. Like I said, there's nothing you can do about it. We've tried everything, Troye."

Silence stretches like molasses through the salted air, heavy and tangy where it sits on both their tongues in the form of a slow-working poison. Connor watches Troye and Troye watches Connor and white lines of a history neither know disappear under the glow of the burning sun. Troye's next words are the antidote to the acid, airing out the hazardous materials in their throats. 

"You know," he says, smiling thinly with his face so close to Connor's he can make out the shift of all his tiny freckles, "sometimes I really hate how much sense you make."

Connor grins, presses his hand a little tighter into Troye's, reaches out to draw his head against his chest in an embrace. "I know."

And that's that.

Eventually, Connor will complain that his arm hurts and draw away from the taller boy. Troye will laugh like the sun setting across the ocean and shove at his shoulder as they crawl their way back up the sandy hills to the car. They'll tumble into the vehicle giggling like children as they banter back and forth as though they've been friends for a century and barely notice the engine roaring to life beneath their vibrant chatter.

Troye will kiss him, a peck on the lips right before they pull away from the ocean that started it all, and it won't be anything but a simple kiss as natural as the breaths they take.

They'll go home. They'll go to sleep. They'll wake up. They'll live their lives.

Maybe one day Troye will remember the inheritance of the lines along his skin, maybe he won't.

It doesn't really matter, either way.

× Dive in, with your eyes closed, for the life you were born to claim. And the water will be paralyzed by the courage you contain. And the flutter of your earnest heart, it will fill the silent seas and all will be restored in your melody. ×