Chaser 3

Prompt: Submarine/Diver

Optional Prompts:
Quote: "There's no one I'd rather be abandoned by"
Object: Jewel
Word: Delay

Word Count: 2595

The Longest Second

Everything about their day had been routine: waking up before sunrise, meeting at their usual spot near the barge, loading Theo's small, inflatable dinghy with towels, snacks, and beer.

Nothing about that day was any different from normal.

They greeted each other in their typical fashion— Blaise shot Theo a finger-gun, to which Theo responded with a two-fingered salute.

"Think we can top Monday's haul?" Blaise asked cheerily, his feet softly thudding along the wood planks.

Theo snorted, his hands working fast to coil up a long strand of rope. His legs held the small boat in place as he sat on the swaying dock. "No. Mondays are always the best dives; it's when we get to collect all the fancy shit that the weekend travelers manage to lose."

"You never know," Blaise shrugged, dropping a small cooler into the boat— beer, for later. "We might get lucky!"

"You say that before literally every dive," Theo replied, rolling his eyes.

"One of us ought to be the optimist," Blaise reasoned. "And it's obviously not going to be your cranky arse."

"My cranky arse is too tired and cold for optimism."

His friend just grinned. "It is a little brisk out." Theo snorted again at the understatement, his fingers stinging from the cold morning air as he finished knotting the damp rope.

Around them, the water was surprisingly steady. Most days, the mornings brought rougher conditions even into the harbor from which they launched, especially on days as overcast as it was.

But that day, it was calm, almost eerily so. Coupled with the lack of people out at such an early time of morning, the effect was extremely quiet. Theo and Blaise were the only two in the harbor, the barge in the middle of the waterway having been abandoned.

"Shall we?" Theo asked as he finished preparing the boat.

"Let's find some shiny shit!" Blaise cheered, hopping off the dock. The boat lurched to the side considerably, but it stabilized quickly. Theo shot his friend an unimpressed look, but otherwise ignored him.

"Off we go, then."

Their time in the boat wasn't long— their routine dives only took them a small ways off of the shore. Occasionally, they'd plan for further trips to find particularly special treasures, but this one was perfectly normal.

Even in the sometimes painful cold, Theo enjoyed the salty mist as they drove the boat out into the open ocean. There was something so uniquely amazing about being on the water, even when it was too hazy to see much more than a lot of grey-blue waves.

About two miles out, Theo slowed the boat to a halt, and the two began their pre-dive checks.

"Extra gillyweed?"

"Check."

"Wands?"

"Check."

"Air rigs?"

"Check."

They always had a list of backup sources of air in the event that one of their means of breathing were to fail. They favored the air rigs— small, compact disks, a magical invention of their own that spread a thin yet entirely effective suit across their body when applied to their skin. It gave them oxygen, relieved hydrostatic pressure, and included an emergency ascent trigger that would launch the wearer back to the surface.

Still, it was always smart to be thoroughly prepared.

Once ready, Blaise pulled on a backpack full of their supplies and shot Theo a thumbs-up, and the two of them jumped over the side of the boat.

The water was startlingly cold, like it always was. It was curious, Theo thought, that they could do this so often, and yet each time they jumped in he'd still feel the paralyzing— and, frankly, ball-shriveling— shock of the water temperature.

"Bloody hell," Blaise laughed, shaking his wet hair. "Can't it be summer again?"

Theo grinned back as they treaded water. "It's October, mate, I think you're going to have to wait just a tad longer."

"Bollocks."

They started their air rigs, letting the protective suits cover their bodies before shooting each other nods and beginning their dive.

"Dibs on anything weird!" Blaise called through the water, the air rig allowing him to talk. His voice came suppressed underwater, but it was clear enough for Theo to understand. "I promised Luna I'd bring home a present."

Theo grinned at that.

Their wands lit up the ocean as they descended into the darker depths of the sea. Around them, everything was a murky blue. They didn't live in the best place for diving, but they were always willing to make the best of their situation. And in any case, looking up at the surface from down below was always an incredible site.

Theo could scarcely recall how they'd even wound up in such a lifestyle. Something that'd started as a hobby on occasional holidays between Hogwarts terms became a consistent part of their lives upon graduation.

Diving, fishing, exploring— they'd taken to the sea more than they'd ever taken to anything. Maybe it was the escape from a society of judgment and uncertainty considering their pasts and their parents, or maybe it was some sort of masochistic love of all things cold, but they went out on the water at least five times a week.

This particular trip didn't bring them much at first. Theo found a locket that he figured he'd try to pry open later, and Blaise found what looked like the shelter of some sort of deep-ocean creature, though it was clearly abandoned. He found nothing weird, to his clear disappointment.

They were just getting ready to return to the surface when the trip became more interesting.

"Wait!" Blaise called before Theo could start to swim up. "Do you see that?"

Theo glanced over, his eyes following the other man's pointing finger. Something lay glistening in the sand, its shine particularly noticeable against all the dark. He tilted his head curiously and followed Blaise to check it out.

"Woah," Blaise exclaimed, picking up the jewel. It was hard to make out all of its colours, but it twinkled with what had to be at least a thousand. "I've never seen anything like this."

Theo marvelled as well. "It's amazing. Where the hell did it come from?"

Blaised shrugged slowly, his hands dragging through the water. "Mermaids?"

Theo smirked. "I think mermaids are busy shoving big pointy forks at children's throats somewhere beneath the Black Lake."

"Classic."

They continued to inspect the jewel, completely taken with how unique it was from anything they'd found before.

"Think it's expensive?"

"Who cares? I wonder if it's magical."

"Ohh, what if it's cursed?"

"That would be awesome, but I doubt it."

"Yeah, we're not that lucky."

The two friends traded guesses and ideas as to what the jewel could be and where it may have come from, blissfully unaware of how loud they'd become. As funny as their voices sounded under the sea, they still carried a considerable distance.

It wasn't until an impossibly large shadow passed overhead that they stopped.

Theo snapped his head up. "What was that?"

Blaise glanced around. "I don't see anything." His eyebrows furrowed together in concern. With his hair swaying in every direction, the look could have been comical, but something about the shadow they'd seen kept Theo from smiling. It'd been huge, and it'd passed too quickly to catch even a glimpse.

Something about the entire situation felt off.

He surveyed the area around them. It was mostly flat, a long stretch of ocean floor with occasional rocks or fish. Off to one side, however, was a massive rock formation, and it was impossible to tell what lay between the parts of it that jetted out toward them. There could have been a valley, or simply a deep, abysmal pit. Anything could have resided there.

Theo eyed it warily. "We should probably get out of here, yeah?"

Blaise nodded quickly, pulling off his backpack to rummage through it. "Yeah, let's leave. Here, maybe just in case take this extra—"

But before he could finish his sentence, or take anything out of the pack, something shot between the two men, a massive body of some sort that knocked Blaise aside and sent the pack floating away.

"What the hell?" Blaise demanded, waving his arms to steady himself upright. Theo turned in the direction the creature had gone, his wand raised.

"What was that?" he wondered aloud.

"No idea, but I need to get our stuff." Blaise started for the backpack, his arm outreached.

This time, Theo noticed the shadow before whatever cast it could reach them, though only by a split second. "BLAISE, WAIT!"

But he was too late. He hardly had time to blink before the large body of something swam by once again, shooting by them with serpent-like speed and power. It collided with Blaise's arm, and sent the backpack even further, until it was nearly out of sight behind the large rocks.

"Agh!" Blaise cried out, clutching his arm. It took Theo a moment to realize that his friend had lost his wand— he was distracted by all the blood. "Shit!"

"Blaise!" Theo exclaimed, hurrying toward him with his own wand out to heal him. "Hang on, let me—"

CRASH!

Theo grunted at the collision, his arms instinctively going out to the sides to stop himself before he could fly too far away through the water. He groaned as his body ached, like he'd been hit by a Bludger. Where his wand had wound up was beyond him.

Shaking off the daze, he took in Blaise still clutching his bloodied arm to his chest as he watched Theo with wide eyes.

"Where is it?" Theo yelled over.

Blaise shrugged helplessly, looking around in clear panic.

Theo's heart raced, his survival instincts telling him to get them the hell back to the surface before the monster could return, but his head reminding him that they didn't really have any means of getting there quickly. He still couldn't even tell what the monster was— just that it was big, and that it evidently didn't want them around.

He raced over to Blaise, his adrenaline pulling him through the water like it wasn't there. "How bad is it?" he asked, gesturing to the arm.

"Not that bad," Blaise replied, though the hiss to his voice gave away his lie. "Damaged my rig though. I'm going to run out of air soon."

"We need to get to the surface," Theo said, running a hand through his hair roughly, still looking around for the monster. There wasn't a shadow in sight, but he was pretty sure that he'd seen the thing dart toward the large rocks. It could be watching them at that very second for all he knew. "Can you make it?"

"Definitely," Blaise replied confidently. "We got this."

Theo frowned at the drops of blood floating around them. "Blaise… Are you sure about that?"

"We don't have time to wonder!" his friend retorted. "Let's get out of here before— oh crap."

Theo whipped his head around, looking for the monster, but as far as he could see, it hadn't returned. He looked at Blaise questioningly.

"It's not the creature," the injured man explained. "It's my rig. I can feel my legs exposed to the water. The suit's going away."

Theo's stomach dropped. They were so many meters below the surface. A monster loomed nearby, probably waiting to kill them both, and their pack of back-up air supplies, along with their wands, had all been sent in every direction.

Theo resigned himself to a hard truth that he simply couldn't delay any longer.

"Blaise…" he began carefully. "There's no scenario where we both make it out of here alive. You realize that, don't you?"

Between his nervous glances toward the rocks, Blaise scoffed. "Don't be thick. We're getting out of this, alright? We can trade off with the working air rig—"

"That thing out there will kill us both before we make it to the surface," Theo interrupted, pointing at the mangled arm that Blaise still cradled.

"Well what bloody other choice do we have?" Blaise demanded. "We're sitting ducks right now, we need to move!"

Theo glanced around. There still wasn't a sign of the monster, but he knew it was only a matter of time before it came back to finish them off. "Look… if I stay, I can buy you enough time to get out."

"That's not an option," Blaise argued, his good fist clenched. "We're both going."

Theo sighed in frustration, growing more worried about his friend's oxygen consumption by the second. If his legs were free from the suit, the rest of him would follow quickly. "It's the only option, Blaise. Take my rig and go!"

"You go!" Blaise shot back. "If you're so insistent on someone staying behind, I'll do it."

"You have a fiancée," Theo snapped. "I have a fish tank and an otherwise empty house. You're going."

Blaise opened his mouth to argue, but Theo reached out and grabbed his friend by his rash guard's collar. "Blaise, stop talking. Your oxygen is limited enough. Just take my bloody rig and go before that thing comes back!"

The other man shook his head angrily. "I'm not going to abandon you down here!"

Theo smiled wryly. He'd delayed too long already, but he couldn't help the wave of fondness as his friend glared at him so earnestly. "There's no one I'd rather be abandoned by."

Even in the darkness of the ocean, Blaise's desperate glower was clear. "Shut the hell up and get out of here with me!"

But Theo wasn't about to give his friend a choice in the matter. He tore off his air rig and clapped it onto Blaise's arm, despite the latter's thrashing to avoid it.

"Damn it, Theo, stop!" he snapped, moving to pull it off of himself.

Before he could, however, Theo hit the trigger that would pull Blaise up to the surface.

"No!"

The suit launched him upwards. Through the water, Blaise's protests were muffled, but they were still loud and explicit and painful for Theo to hear. He could see Blaise tearing at his rig, but they'd designed it so that it couldn't be removed during the emergency ascent.

Blaise couldn't stop it, and before long, he was far enough away that his cries and shouts were scarcely audible.

Relief, at last, coursed through Theo.

He let out a long sigh, the last bubbles of air trickling from his nose, and let himself slowly sink to the ocean floor. Theo watched Blaise's silhouette against the surface slowly shrink as his friend grew closer and closer to safety.

Out of the corner of his eye, he was fairly certain that the monster had returned. Something big drifted by him, ominously circling. It approached slowly, but Theo kept his eyes on Blaise.

The pressure on his head made him see spots, and the burn in his lungs was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. He'd never felt so physically stuck, so unable to move or think. The dark spots grew until he could barely see, but he forced himself to keep his eyes open to watch his friend go.

And maybe it only lasted seconds, his slow fall toward the ocean floor as the monster closed in. Maybe, to someone with a clear head and a stable amount of oxygen, Theo's remaining moment of consciousness lasted no longer than the blink of an eye. A single second.

But to Theo, that second was an eternity, a never-ending moment of Blaise gradually becoming smaller.

Smaller.

Smaller.

Until there was only the dark.