Author's Note: So this thing became a monster. I was worried it would be too short and then...it just kept growing, and it's suddenly almost 5000 words. Also - SO PISSED THIS SHOW GOT CANCELLED AND THEY KEPT THAT GARBAGE AGENTS OF SHIELD. REALLY?! YOU COULDN'T KEEP THIS ONE SHOW DOING PRETTY DAMN WELL ON A WEIRD NIGHT AND TIME WITH LIKE NO ADVERTISING FOR IT?! Anyway. I plan to start a petition to save it. No idea how well it will go, but we'll see. Come find me on Tumblr as DisappearingInq (I also just like to talk to people on there). Anyway. Onwards!

PS: Also, since I just spaced on it - CharmHex1375 asked about the ages for the boys in this. I don't really have one, but younger than 18? If I had to say, I would say 15 or 16 for this one, and 18 in the last chapter.

Jonathan stood at the edge of the diving tower, staring down into the crystalline blue water. The bottom looked deceptively close from up here – he could almost convince himself it was only a few feet down. Not the forty feet it actually was.

It even looked bright, and sunny, and almost inviting, considering the heat of the day already and it was barely noon.

Someone brushed against his shoulder and Jonathan jumped like he'd been struck by lightning, shoving himself back so fast away from the water that he nearly tripped off the other side until a familiar hand grabbed his flailing arm.

"Hey – you're fine," Cameron said, smiling, pulling him back onto the platform with gentle ease, not letting go even after he'd found his footing again. "I'm not gonna push you in."

Which Jonathan knew. He knew his brother wouldn't even tease about it. But that didn't seem to matter to his stupid brain that couldn't help but come up with everything that could go wrong just standing this close to open, deep water.

And how forty feet was too far between him and air if it did.

Jonathan would be the first to admit, he didn't like the water. Specifically, he didn't like deep water. Nothing that required him to need a mask or diving suit. Instead of feeling weightless and free like Cameron described it, it always felt like he was being crushed. He didn't even really know why it bothered him so much. It wasn't like he could remember any particularly traumatic incident, or even a close call, or anything else that he thought would explain why whenever he even looked at the deep end of the pool, he felt his skin crawl, and the water pressing in from every angle until he drowned.

So when Sebastian pitched the idea of reenacting Houdini's 'Great Water Escape' to him, Jonathan flat out refused before he even finished the sentence. And that was before their dad mentioned that the actual act was called 'water torture' escapes, or Jonathan watched the biography on how he did it (complete with pictures of Houdini folded in on himself in a giant metal container that looked uncomfortably like the one Sebastian used to lock them in as they poured water in to the container and latched the lid shut), or saw the death toll for how many people had tried and failed at it.

No. Absolutely not. He didn't even like swimming in the hotel pools. He wasn't about to wrap himself in chains, tie himself to a metal ball and hurl himself off the end of a pier for jollies. Especially not because their dad asked him to.

Asked. Commanded. Whatever. It has about the same effect of garnering some colorful language and a some hard to misinterpret sign language involving one finger.

"The only way you're getting me in that water is if you throw me in," Jonathan snapped, folding his arms as he glared defiantly up at Sebastian.

"You think I won't?" Sebastian asked quietly, leaning down so he was looming over him.

Sebastian was not one to tolerate what he called 'irrational behavior'. It hadn't mattered to him that Cameron didn't like small, dark, cramped spaces. He was the better performer – he needed to be the one on stage, and that meant he needed to learn to like them. Or at least tolerate them long enough that he could get through the act. Sebastian maintained that his desperation to escape them was what drove him to be even faster than Jonathan at lock picking.

Well, yeah. Weird, how when faced with a worst fear you learned how to get away from it as fast as humanly possible. Shocking, even.

Sebastian hadn't appreciated his oldest son's sarcasm, and just for that, Johnny couldn't stay with Cam when the time came for learning how to escape an iron maiden.

Jonathan grit his teeth together so hard he thought his teeth would crack. "If you throw me in? You're coming in with me."

If he had to drown for someone's entertainment, he was taking someone down with him, and it wouldn't be Cam.

"I thought you were sick of hiding in the shadows, Jonathan. This is your chance to be in the spotlight," Sebastian pointed out, tone somewhere between mocking and coercive.

Under forty feet of water, with 80lbs of extra weight tied around his waist, his hands, his feet, his neck.

"I'd rather try the bullet catch," he snarled. Because as much as he wanted his own life, it would be a little hard to enjoy if it ended at the bottom of a pool.

Later that night, with just him and Cameron in the Archive while Sebastian was off doing who cared what with some investors – Cameron cautiously piped up.

"I told Dad I'd do it."

Jonathan's coin dropped from between numbed fingers, the worn and familiar bit of metal rolling away across the floor as he stared at his brother, convinced he'd misheard. Because wasn't that suicidal, was he?

"Come again?"

Cameron shrugged sheepishly, but Jonathan knew it for what it was. If Cameron told Sebastian he'd do something, there was no way to talk him out of it.

No matter how hard Jonathan tried.

"Cam…why in hell would you agree to do something like…" Jonathan swallowed convulsively, because his oh so helpful brain immediately flashed through the statistics of how many illusionists had died trying to outperform Houdini – or even just recreate it.

Illusionists who favored water tricks didn't get a chance to die from old age.

Cameron shrugged again, flipping through his deck of cards with practiced ease as one after another boomeranged out in a graceful arc and back to his other hand. "Because you don't want to."

"So?" That shouldn't be a reason for his brother to risk getting killed in one of the most often fatal tricks in magic history.

"And because you know he'll make one of us," Cameron said quietly.

Because he had before.

"Yeah, but-"

"And it'd be you."

Jonathan felt his heart skip a beat and the blood drain from his face fast enough he saw spots, felt that familiar chill in his fingers when he realized Cameron was right and their dad asked them the impossible and no wasn't an option, like he'd already been dropped in the water wrapped in iron as he watched the crushing darkness eclipse the sun and –

"Hey!"

Warm fingers pressed against either side of his face, forcing the imagined chill of icy water back. He hadn't even realized Cameron had moved from the other side of the couch, but there he was, kneeling in front of him, trying to convince him to "breathe."

It took longer than he liked.

"I'm sorry, Cam, I'm…I don't know why…" he floundered for words that usually came so easily to him, and the more he tried to come up with some way to apologize for something he couldn't even explain, the more the feeling of being slowly suffocated beneath the water started to itch back under his skin and –

Cameron lightly tapped his forehead against his. "Stop thinking."

Jonathan tried to force himself to remember he was breathing air not water.

"I know how you feel about the water. I won't let Dad make you. I'll do this, and you can stay up here, on nice, dry, warm, solid ground. Don't let that brain of yours get carried away with the what ifs, huh?"

"What if you drown?"

Cameron sighed, but smiled good naturedly. "Dude. We have got to work on your pep talks…positive reinforcement goes a long way, you know? I'm not gonna drown."

"How do you know?"

His brother's knowing smile lit the room. "Because. You won't let me."

The amount of faith Cameron had in him was flattering, but Jonathan also knew it was because he had none in Sebastian, and rightly so. Jonathan was the faster lock pick, the more meticulous planner that left nothing to chance because it was more than just their father's reputation on the line.

It was their lives.

Sebastian may be willing to gamble with his own, or think nothing of asking the same of his young sons, but Jonathan was determined he and Cam were going to live their lives long enough not to have to share one.

"You know, you don't have to be up here," Cameron pointed out lightly. He was soaking wet, water dripping from hair that was plastered against his forehead and from his clothes. He wasn't in swim gear – because they practiced the way they performed and no matter how confident Cameron was, he wasn't prepared to be more than half naked in from of thousands of people while trying to escape a water trap – and his clothing plastered to his skin.

Which was looking decidedly blue.

The day may be hot, but the water was still only 60 degrees, and they'd been at this for hours. Sebastian had given Jonathan enough leeway to re-engineer the famous escape only because he thought the new system had more 'wow' factor.

In the original escape, Houdini bound himself in chains – around his hands, around his neck, around his feet, like a prisoner's five point restraints – and carried the cannon ball in his hands that would act as a weight, and then jumped in, head first. Simple enough.

Jonathan didn't like the finality of a weight strapped to Cameron as he jumped into the pool. If something went wrong, if someone had to go and get him, they would have to take the weight, too, and that was not something he was prepared to risk. And the length of time it took Cameron to reach the bottom was precious wasted seconds of air before he could start his escape.

Instead, Jonathan designed it with a winch and length of rope attached to the chains Sebastian insisted upon being used (because a rope wasn't scary enough, Jonathan), so that Cameron would essentially be towed towards the bottom of the dive tower, and tethered there until he freed himself. Or, in the event of an emergency, could be loosened and Cameron was free to swim his way back to the surface, or one of the safety divers could grab him without worrying about extra weight bringing them both down.

The stunt was easy enough, because that's all it was. Just lock picking under water, but with Cameron's flair for the dramatic. Cameron could hold his breath for four minutes, give or take, and he actually liked the water, so he could take his sweet ass time about getting himself free while making it look like he was struggling, even though he wasn't.

But it wasn't the complexity of the trick that made Jonathan break into a cold sweat every time he watched Houdini's famous escape. It was the words that haunted him. When Houdini started the water escapes, he would turn to the audience and tell them that when he took his final breath before he dove in, he wanted them to do the same. And when they needed to take a breath, remember where he was, and imagine what he was feeling.

Harry Houdini could hold his breath for over three minutes. Most people could barely manage one. So when they gulped for air only a fraction of the way through the stunt, it upped the intensity factor, so sure were they that he must be drowning by now.

Every time Cam jumped in the water, when his head disappeared below the surface, Jonathan held his breath until his brother came back up.

"I think you've had enough practice for one day," Jonathan said, eyeing the safety harness around Cameron's waist. It looked like it was holding well enough, but Cameron's luck (or lack thereof) with safety features was a bit legendary.

"Y-yeah, I kind of agree," he said through chattering teeth as he rubbed his arms, hopping up and down slightly to try and warm himself. "I can't feel my fingers anymore to try and work the locks. I don't even know if I can undo the buckle for the harness."

Jonathan huffed, rolling his eyes at his brother. "You know, you could always call it quits before hypothermia sets in. Just throwing it out there. A bit of an FYI…brotherly PSA. Just saying."

"I get it, I get it…lecture me when I'm not freezing to death. Could you just get it off me? I can't feel my hands and I want a towel."

His lips were turning blue, and his skin was paler than normal, and the clothing did little to hide it.

The slackened rope coiled around itself where Cameron had heaped it after his last dive, sitting in a pile like a sleeping snake on the platform.

"And what's the magic word?" Jonathan prompted, already tugging at the water logged safety harness.

"A-a-abracadabra, you d-dick," Cameron stuttered.

After hours in and out of the water, the leather on the straps had absorbed enough water that they didn't slide easily through the complex maze of buckles and cinches Sebastian had worked into the harness because nothing could be simple with that man, and Jonathan had to yank on them to even get them to move.

"Ow," Cameron muttered every time Jonathan had to really pull on the straps, pulling them tight across water logged skin and chafing fabric. "Ow. Ow. Ow."

"Oh, quit whining, you big baby," Jonathan grumbled. This was ridiculous. He was going to find something made out of nylon or something. What good was a safety harness no one could undo?

"H-hey, n-not t-t-to bother you," Cameron asked, "b-but did you know the winch is winding the r-rope again?"

Jonathan whirled. "What?"

Before he even looked, Jonathan could hear someone yelling several yards away on the other side of the dive tower, and now that he was listening could hear the argument – something on the machinery had failed, and it was winding the rope tight again.

A quick glance at the traitorous rope told Jonathan not only was the cursed thing winching tight again, but it was speeding up.

"J-Johnny?"

Cameron's voice was small, barely audible above the drag of the rope or the operators yelling at one another, slamming on the console to try and get it to stop, but Jonathan could hear the fear in his voice.

"Shit, shit, shitshitshit," Jonathan swore, yanking at the harness with full force now – Cameron could live with bruises, but he was too cold to go back in the water with a full breath of air, and if the leather was hard to move now it was going to be worse under water and why didn't he bring his knife with him today, he could've just cut the stupid rope and been done with it and the slide of the rope on the deck sounded too much like slithering and everyone was shouting around him making it impossible to think–

"Johnny!" Cameron yelled, blue fingers trying to yank at the same buckles Jonathan was working on and he slapped his hands away because it was impossible to see with his hands in the way – blue hands, blue like ice, blue like the water that was about to swallow him whole and –

The last buckle slid free as Jonathan all but ripped the harness off his brother, dropping it to the deck as he pushed Cameron back and away from it just to make sure he'd gotten free of it – and heaved an audible sigh of relief when he could see nothing was still attached, and his brother practically wilted in relief.

Until something cinched tight around his ankle, yanking his foot out from underneath him so fast he couldn't even put his hands out to stop his fall, slamming face first into the deck with a sickening crack and all he saw was stars before he was dragged into the water.

"Johnny!" Cameron shouted, lunging forwards faster than anyone else could even register what happened. His hand closed around his brother's wrist, and he had a split second to suck in one last breath of air before they were both pulled beneath the surface.

The tangled mess that was the harness had cinched tight around Johnny's foot, tethering him with the rope as the winch continued to pull them down.

As bad as it was being in the water debatably conscious, Cameron was almost a little glad his brother wasn't fully aware of what was going on.

Panicking would be so much worse.

Cameron pulled himself along his brother like some deranged version of underwater leap frog, latching onto the tangled rope around Johnny's foot. It had pulled painfully tight, digging into the skin just above his ankle and Cameron really hoped he hadn't broken anything when it'd cinched tight.

The winch continued to drag them down, and Cameron didn't want to imagine what would happen if the rope kept winding even when they hit the anchor point – if Johnny's ankle was broken yet, it would be after getting caught in the machinery, and then they would really be stuck.

Mentally apologizing for how much it would hurt later, Cameron wrenched his brother's foot free of the rope, feeling it pop beneath his fingers when he bent it at an angle no human foot was meant to go in, but the rope twisted free and they were no longer being dragged downwards.

The previous chill in his limbs was gone, and Cameron wrapped one arm around his semi-conscious brother's chest, swimming as fast as he could for the surface that felt like it was miles above him.

As they broke the surface, Cameron gasping for air, it sounded like he'd surfaced in the middle of a riot – everyone was shouting, either at him or each other, he wasn't sure, but the stage hands were at the edge of the pool, reaching for the both of them.

"Take him!" Cameron demanded, pushing Johnny in front of him.

He hadn't even moved since going into the water. Cameron didn't know if he was even breathing. But for Johnny to even be in the water without a fight was enough cause for concern, and he didn't even know how hard he'd hit his head against the deck – just that there had been a crack.

Johnny was pulled from the water, laid out on the deck as one of the stage hands felt for a pulse at his neck and two others helped pull Cameron from the water.

Sebastian was nowhere to be found.

Cameron shoved his way through the crowd, dropping to his knees next to Johnny's still form. Blood had smeared from his nose, the skin at the crown of his forehead split to the bone and bleeding heavily, but Johnny's eyes were open – just unseeing – and for a heart stopping moment Cameron was sure he was dead.

"Breathe, Johnny!" he shouted, and jabbed his finger harshly into his brother's mouth, eliciting a violent gag reflex. "Come on!"

Johnny started to cough, violently, gasping and choking and vomiting up the water he'd managed to inhale as Cameron turned him on his side so he wouldn't aspirate on it.

He could hear sirens in the background. Someone had called 911.

"You're okay, you're okay, you're okay, we're fine..." Cameron told his brother, trying for soothing but pretty sure he just came off as manic and like he was trying to reassure himself just as much as he was trying to convince Johnny. He rubbed his hand against his brother's back, trying to remember if that was what you were supposed to do for someone that almost drowned, or if it could make things worse. CPR on a conscious person was bad, right? Or was that what he was supposed to do? He wanted desperately to hug his brother, to make feel that he was alive and whole, but he was afraid to touch him.

He settled for the hand on Johnny's back as his other gripped Johnny's – now as cold as his own.

What do I do, Johnny? What do I do?

Johnny's coughing abated, but he still didn't move. He stayed curled over on his side, barely conscious but at least he was breathing – albeit raggedly, but Cameron would take it.

"Cameron, come on, you need to leave before the EMT's get here."

Cameron swatted away the hand on his shoulder. "No. I'm not leaving Johnny."

Not after that.

"Cameron."

That voice got his attention, and Cameron looked up to see Sebastian standing over him.

"If you want to go with your brother, you must leave now," Sebastian warned.

The fact that Sebastian wasn't even arguing that yes, Cameron would be able to go with Johnny, should've made him wonder, but he was too focused on the fact that in his other hand, Sebastian held one of Johnny's hoodies.

"Put it on. Now. And then get dry clothes. We'll meet the ambulance at the hospital."

Cameron just stared numbly at the hoodie in his hand without moving until Sebastian bodily pulled him to his feet.

"Move, Cam."

Except when their father pulled him up, Johnny's grip tightened on Cameron's.

"Cam?"

It was raspy and faint, and Cameron barely heard it, but it was there.

"Johnny?"

"Cameron," Sebastian hissed, not letting up on his arm. "No one can know there's two of you. Do you understand? No one."

Something was different about the way he said it. Not just the normal paranoia, or insistence that the gig would be up if people knew the secret to the Disappearing Boy, but something...darker.

He didn't have time to wonder about it. He could hear the crew directing the EMT's to where they were.

"Johnny, I promise I will be right back, okay? I promise."

Johnny didn't let go of his hand, but clenched it tighter, white knuckled.

"Johnny, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but I have to go now, but I will be right back. Understand?"

As much as it killed him to do it, Cameron pulled his brother's fingers loose from his, kissing them gently like their mother used to do when they were younger.

Before he could protest more, or have a change at heart, Sebastian yanked Cameron away from his brother, shoving the hoodie over his head and steering him away just as the emergency services people came up the stairs to the top of the tower.

He was managing until he heard his brother panic as they tried to lift the backboard with him on it, and he knew it was because he could see the water again.

Strapped down, tied to something and lifted above the pier where he could see the pool, even through the blood in his eyes, Johnny started to scream.

And then he started to thrash.

"Joh-" was all he managed to get out, turning in his father's iron grip before Sebastian's hand clapped over his mouth, and he bodily lifted him against him.

"No one can know there's two of you," Sebastian hissed in his ear, pinning him immobile as Johnny's panicking grew worse until he was suddenly silent. Either he'd passed out, or they'd given him something, but Cameron felt himself die a little inside, knowing his brother had no idea where he was or what was happening and he couldn't do a goddamn thing about it.

"Get changed," Sebastian ordered. "And find a way to hide your face. We'll meet them there."

When Johnny awoke in the hospital, it was night. The window outside showed the yellow tint of the New York City skyline, and the room was quiet.

There was a steady beeping in the background, which was more annoying than soothing, and Johnny automatically reached out a hand to slap off the alarm, but found it pinned to his side by a warm and heavy.

"Finally," Cameron said, though it was kind of muffled where his brother's face was pressed against his arm. Cameron was curled up like a cat against his side, in what looked like the least comfortable position imaginable.

But he was alive.

The last thing Jonathan remembered was trying to undo the buckles on the harness before it dragged his brother to a watery grave.

He shuddered at the memory, but tried to push it away by distracting himself.

"Is that my sweatshirt?" Johnny asked, and winced at the dryness in his mouth that made his tongue stick to his teeth. His throat made an audible click when he swallowed, and before he could even think to ask, Cameron was sitting up holding a straw out to him.

He went to drink greedily, feeling like he'd been stuck in a desert for days, except when the water hit the back of his throat, everything came flooding back and he found himself suddenly choking again.

"Hey, hey, you're okay," Cameron soothed, pulling the water away just as quickly, rubbing one hand soothingly across Johnny's shoulders. "You're okay."

Johnny pulled in a shuddering breath, chanting mentally to himself it's air, it's air, before looking his brother in the eye.

"But I wasn't...was I?"

Cameron cringed, and for a moment looked like he wasn't going to answer.

"No," he said softly. "You weren't."

They sat in silence, not needing to speak to understand what that meant. What it could've meant. How precarious their lives were.

"They thought you had a skull fracture. And they're still worried about pneumonia or dry drowning or something like that. And I think I green stick fractured your ankle trying to untie you. It's all purple now," Cameron explained in quick, clinical fashion. He paused. "Dad canceled the special."

Jonathan couldn't help the jaw drop of surprise.

"Really?"

Cameron nodded his head once.

"Well, that's…" good? Bad? Jonathan didn't actually know how to react to that, because it was pretty much unthinkable. Delay, maybe, but cancel?

Cameron was quiet again, which was just weird for him, and Jonathan wondered what else happened that he didn't remember. "Cam?"

His brother didn't answer, or even look him in the face. Instead, he curled up back against his side, burrowing underneath his arm in his borrowed hoodie.

Jonathan didn't press him for an answer, but let him get comfortable because honestly, even though the bed was cramped enough, he didn't want his brother to go. They were both quiet for a long while, long enough that Johnny was starting to drift off back to sleep, until Cameron spoke.

"Johnny?" he whispered. "I don't think I like the water anymore."

Author's Note:

So just an FYI - this is in the same universe as Mirrors, which WILL be made into a long fic because thanks to The Cocky Undead, I totally have a plot line that's possibly a bit A/U depending on how this next episode goes. However - audience input time. I like hella dark stories. I mean...*really* dark. And this fandom is very much like Cameron and wonderful human cinnamon rolls, so I don't want to write something that's going to traumatize you all. Unless that's your thing, because we also seem to be a bunch of whumpers. But I do have an explanation as to why Jonathan doesn't like the water in Mirrors (Well, will, once I get to that part in the story). So read and review, let me know what you think!