There Is Comfort at the Bottom of a Swimming Pool

November 475 I.C., Odin

Things were different from that point on. The next day, Reuenthal found Leigh at dinner and sat down across from him. It was, perhaps, the first time that anyone had sat to eat with Leigh all year. And so they were friends.

This friendship between Leigh and Reuenthal drove a rift through the top students in the freshmen class. Those who had thought that Reuenthal was “on their side” against the foreign enemy represented by Leigh were suddenly confronted with the reality that Reuenthal had never been with them. The freshmen accordingly sorted themselves into two camps: those who considered Reuenthal tainted by association with Leigh, and those who did not.

Reuenthal thought this actually improved the atmosphere of the freshmen class somewhat, not that he particularly cared, but it meant that he never had to waste much time talking to people he had found unpleasant even before.

And it wasn’t as though Ansbach, Gautier, Dietch, and their allies could actually do anything about Reuenthal. He and Leigh remained untouchable at the top of the class, and Reuenthal was competent enough in the physicals that no one was eager to pick a fight with him. Wisely, they seemed to understand that picking a fight with Leigh would also mean picking a fight with Reuenthal, so he was, for the most part, left alone. Physically, at least.

Leigh’s leg healed relatively quickly, which Leigh grumbled about, because it meant he stopped being excused from weekend physicals after being cleared by one of the campus doctors.

“There are just so many better things I could be doing with my weekend mornings, you know?” Leigh muttered as they walked out of Monday’s last class together.

“Such as?”

“Sleeping, for one. But aside from that, I do have actual work to do.”

“You should drop history,” Reuenthal suggested. The sun was already going down as they trudged across campus, pulling their jackets up over their chins to protect a little from the wind. It wasn’t yet cold enough to break out their winter gear, but it was chilly enough to be uncomfortable.

“Reuenthal, if you’re honestly suggesting I drop the one subject I actually like in order to have more time for going to the gym, I think you’ve fundamentally misunderstood me as a person.”

“Luckily, you don’t actually have to make time for the physicals, since they’re required.”

Leigh rolled his eyes. “Unfortunate, that.”

“You said you were going to make more of an effort. And that you’d come to hand to hand with me.”

Leigh looked at him, maybe hearing the resignation in Reuenthal’s tone. “Do you really want me to come?”

“I do.”

“If you insist,” Leigh said.

And so he did, following Reuenthal the next day to his hand-to-hand class. It was far less formal than the weekend physicals, and so Reuenthal was allowed to partner with Leigh, walking him through some of the very basic exercises. Beyond his initial grumbling from the day before, Leigh was a willing student. He watched Reuenthal with a keen eye when he demonstrated anything.

Reuenthal wished that he could say that Leigh was intentionally doing things wrong so that Reuenthal would have excuses to correct his form, but he suspected that Leigh was just as bad as he seemed. Still, Reuenthal didn’t turn down the opportunity to put a hand on Leigh’s back, or lift his elbow, or push on his shoulder to move him into a better position. Leigh’s body was soft, warm, and pliable beneath Reuenthal’s hands, and if his touch ever lingered too long, Leigh never said anything about it.

Partnering with Leigh meant that Reuenthal was not getting the vigorous workout that he had come to expect from the hand-to-hand class, but that was a small price to pay. Of course, Reuenthal soon realized that these classes with Leigh left him filled with a burning energy that he had no way to satisfy, and that would leave him unable to focus on schoolwork, or even sleep, should he return to his dorm afterwards. Usually, he and Leigh went their own ways after class, Leigh mumbling something about having homework to do, and Reuenthal remaining in the huge athletic complex to find some other way of exhausting himself, so he didn’t have to think about anything.

One Thursday, though, Leigh didn’t leave in his usual brusque fashion after class let out. He hesitated in the hallway, which made Reuenthal stop and not walk away.

“I’ve been wondering,” Leigh began, scratching the back of his head in the funny way he sometimes did. “I was looking for you on Tuesday night— I wanted to ask your opinion on my practicum paper— and I couldn’t find you. Where do you always go after class?”

Reuenthal looked at Leigh. “Swimming, usually,” he said. After a beat of hesitation, he added, “You’re welcome to join me.”

Leigh’s lips turned down in a minute, nervous frown. “No, I couldn’t,” he said.

Reuenthal shrugged. He wasn’t going to press Leigh on this. “Suit yourself,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

Leigh nodded, so Reuenthal started to walk off down the hallway. Leigh didn’t move for a minute, until Reuenthal was at the big doors at the end of the hall, pushing them open with his shoulder. Leigh came jogging after him.

Reuenthal didn’t say anything, not wanting to accidentally scare Leigh off, and just led him down the winding hallways, the smell of chlorine growing thicker in the air as they approached the pool. Reuenthal skirted around the main doors, though Leigh glanced at them, making a surprised face when he saw that the pool’s posted hours ended at seven, which was about an hour ago. Reuenthal instead went through the locker room, the main door of which was unlocked for bathroom access. He kept a locker in there, locked with a combination lock, and he fiddled with it as Leigh watched him.

The locker room was silent and deserted, aside from the two of them, so the clanging metal of the locker bouncing open echoed.

“You want to swim?” Reuenthal asked.

Leigh shook his head. Reuenthal would have offered him his swim trunks if he had— he kept both a heavy pair and his racing suit in the locker. His high school coach had always made them train with higher-drag suits, even making them wear cotton tee shirts in the pool, to increase the resistance. That all seemed like so long ago, now, but the habit of keeping both in his locker remained.

As Reuenthal fiddled around with his locker, Leigh walked away, and Reuenthal heard the doors to the bathroom area clatter shut. He took that opportunity to change into his suit, and was folding his towel over his arm by the time that Leigh returned, shaking sink water off his hands.

He wasn’t looking at Reuenthal when he said, “How are you going to get into the pool? Isn’t it locked after hours?”

Reuenthal dug around in his bag and produced a bobby pin, which he held up silently. Leigh raised his eyebrows. Together, they walked through the back of the locker room, where there was an alternate entrance to the pool deck. Reuenthal picked the lock easily, and the door swung open.

“We’re not going to get in trouble, are we?”

“Were you planning on doing something that would get us in trouble?” Reuenthal asked.

“Aside from following you in here? No.”

“Then no, I don’t think anyone cares,” Reuenthal said. He pointed to a camera up in the corner of the room. “If I was going to get in trouble, I already would have.”

Reuenthal was pretty sure that he had actually been seen by several of the building staff, at one point, but no one had ever stopped him.

“Perks of being first, is it?”

“Probably,” Reuenthal said. He tossed his bag and towel onto the metal bleachers, then stretched a little, watching Leigh very carefully not watch him. There was a reason he had pointed out the camera to Leigh: it would not be a good idea to do anything that could get them in trouble here, even if the temptation was very strong. He didn’t want to prove his father right by ending up embroiled in a scandal and kicked out within his first semester.

The pool was long, and the room was hot and cavernous, the lights half-off. Every sound seemed to echo and bounce off the still water.

Leigh took a seat on the bleachers, pulling one knee up to his chest while the other twisted underneath him. He watched Reuenthal climb the block, and Reuenthal glanced back at Leigh for a second as he curled his fingers around the rough fiberglass edge of the diving block. Their eyes met, and Reuenthal’s lips twisted up in a half smile.

“Tell me to go,” he said. His heart was pounding for no reason at all.

Leigh shook his head, black hair flopping in his eyes, but then said, “On your mark, get set, go!”

When Reuenthal had first learned to swim, he had hated the sensation of jumping off the side of the pool. He didn’t like that single moment that hovered in the middle of being on the ground and being in the water— the moment after moving in a way that was irrevocable. The air was the threshold that he had to cross. Now, though, he liked that instant of pushing off the block, arms swinging out in front of him so that he could arch into the water like a knife. He held his breath, blew bubbles out of his nose, staying underwater until he was more than halfway across the pool.

The water was frigid, and the chlorine stung his eyes— he wasn’t wearing his goggles— and the sound of his own breath and movement in his ears was enough to ground him, to stop him from thinking of Leigh watching him from the sidelines. He turned underwater, pushed off the wall, swam back.

He was making good time, but he wasn’t racing, and Leigh wasn’t timing him.

Reuenthal swam a two hundred before he stopped, leaning his arms on the edge of the pool, looking up at Leigh, who looked down at him.

“I’d compliment you,” Leigh said, “but I have no idea if you’re good or not, so I wouldn’t want you to think I was lying if I ended up making the wrong guess.”

Reuenthal chuckled a little. “I’m fine. I used to compete. I was top in my school, but only better than average at the district level.” He shrugged.

“Really?”

“Why are you surprised?”

“I don’t know,” Leigh said, scratching his head. “I’m not, I guess. It just seems like the thing to say.”

Reuenthal shook his head. “It was something to do.”

“You like it, though.” Was that true? Reuenthal didn’t actually know.

“The same way I like SW class,” Reuenthal said. “Sure.”

"Yeah," Leigh said. "I get that."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"You like to swim?"

Leigh shook his head vigorously.

"Too good to get wet?" Reuenthal asked.

"I just never have," Leigh said. "Pretty sure I'd drown." And now Reuenthal noticed the suspicion with which Leigh was looking at the still surface of the water, as though at any moment it could reach out and grab him.

"They don't have water on Phezzan?"

Leigh opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.

"What?" Reuenthal asked.

"It's not like I spent that much time on the planet," Leigh finally said in a rush.

"Oh?"

"I was mostly on my dad's ship."

Reuenthal raised his eyebrows. "I didn't know that."

Leigh rubbed the back of his head, clearly nervous, though Reuenthal couldn't see why. "Yeah," Leigh said. "Anyway, no, I've never been in anything bigger than a bathtub in my life."

"I'm jealous," Reuenthal said.

"Of my inability to swim?"

"No, of going to space. I've never left Odin."

"It's not that exciting, I promise," Leigh said. "You get used to it." He frowned a little. "My dad always used to say, if something is exciting, something is wrong."

Reuenthal was enjoying this look into Leigh's life. It was clear that Leigh would not give this information to anyone else, so he was savoring it.

"Do you miss being on a ship?"

Leigh let out a little huff of breath. "No," he said, then looked away. "But I do miss my dad."

Reuenthal dipped back underneath the water, pushing off the wall and rocketing away. He swam a few laps of butterfly, sprinting, until he cleared his head again. Being reminded that he and Leigh had nothing in common was a strange and bitter sensation. It should have been obvious, just from looking at him, but Reuenthal had managed to somehow forget.

He returned to the wall in front of Leigh, out of breath this time. Leigh didn't say anything, and so the sound of Reuenthal's breathing traveled far across the water.

"You should learn to swim," Reuenthal said.

"No point."

“I’m sure physicals will involve it sometime,” Reuenthal said. “And when they do, what will you do? Drown?”

Leigh made a face. “I’d just skip them.”

“How many demerits can you afford before you drop out of second place?”

“An infinite number,” Leigh said. “Trust me on that one.” The tone in Leigh’s voice was so weirdly resigned that Reuenthal did.

“If you say so. But you should still learn.”

“Now?”

The rough texture of the pool deck under his arms and the water gently sloshing around his sides took on a heightened quality in Reuenthal’s mind, like they were burning him. “Sure,” he said, very casually. “If you want.”

Leigh considered it for a long second, looking out across the still water of the pool. The lights glittered on the surface, and the lines painted on the bottom seemed to warp and shift. Finally Leigh nodded.

“There’s an extra pair of swim trunks in my locker,” Reuenthal said, then told him the combination. Leigh just nodded again and vanished into the locker room.

The whole point of coming swimming had been to get his mind off of Leigh, but that was clearly not happening. Not that Reuenthal minded. He was frustrated by the presence of the cameras, though, wishing that he could be totally unobserved. That was impossible, of course.

Leigh took a while to get changed, to the point where Reuenthal wondered if he had just decided to leave instead. He wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. While Reuenthal was waiting, he swam, counting the time in numbers of laps— he was very consistent and knew his pace well.

Leigh emerged from the locker room when Reuenthal was in the middle of a lap, and it took until he made it back to the deep end of the pool to notice that Leigh was there and watching him. Reuenthal stopped, treading water easily. He looked at Leigh, with that same lingering, evaluating gaze that he always did. Leigh stood there under the scrutiny, rubbing the back of his head, seemingly more interested in the glinting of light on water than he was in Reuenthal.

Leigh had an average build, without much definition to his arms, and skinny legs. His chest had a bit of a dent in the middle, not noticeable when he was wearing a shirt, but visible now. Sparse, dark hair covered his forearms and legs. Now that he was barefoot, Reuenthal noticed that he was standing on the balls of his feet, his toes curled, heels hovering off the ground, like he was mid run, despite standing still. There wasn’t one specific thing about Leigh that Reuenthal could have pointed to that made him so interesting, but the gestalt of him captured Reuenthal’s attention like no one ever had.

“Well?” Reuenthal asked. “Are you going to get in?”

Leigh was startled to hear him speak, after that moment of silent contemplation. “Oh, er, I guess.” He sat down on the edge of the pool, stuck his legs in timidly, then cringed at the temperature of the water.

“You get used to it,” Reuenthal said. “It’s easier if you just get in.”

Gingerly, Leigh lowered himself into the pool, clinging to the wall.

“It helps if you kick,” Reuenthal said. “But don’t tense up; that won’t help you float.”

“Okay,” Leigh said. The goosebumps were visible on his arms, and he didn’t relax at all.

Reuenthal decided that actually teaching Leigh to do a stroke would probably be a little ambitious, but he could at least teach him to float, so that he didn’t drown immediately after letting go of the wall.

He had thought that he had grown used to the feeling of being more physically adept than Leigh, after he had found him bleeding in the woods of Neue Sanssouci, and after hours of partnering with him during hand-to-hand class where Leigh was barely passable at even the basic exercises, but this was different. New, at least, and it brought the feeling back to the forefront of Reuenthal’s mind.

Reuenthal was willing to admit that Leigh was his superior academically, even if their class ranks didn’t reflect that. When he read over Leigh’s game transcripts (which he always did, with just as much fervor as the other students, though for different reasons,) he realized that Leigh made moves with economy, foresight, and creativity that he himself lacked. There were things that Leigh did, maybe instinctually, Reuenthal didn’t know, that set him up to win, without his opponent ever noticing that the floor had fallen out from underneath him. Reuenthal could pick these maneuvers apart in hindsight, but when he put himself in Leigh’s shoes, he knew he would have never made the same choices. He almost certainly would have still won those matches Leigh was playing against the other students (after all, they were both undefeated), but Leigh’s solutions had an elegance that Reuenthal admired.

Being in a position where he had the obvious superiority was a strange and unnatural feeling. There was a part of him that wished that Leigh was his equal or better here, as well, but perhaps if that was the case, something different would have been lost.

“Here,” Reuenthal said. “Let go of the wall, then just spread your arms out and tilt your head back. You should float.”

Leigh gave it an honest attempt, but his arms were too stiff, and he didn’t quite lean back enough, and he started to sink, which caused him to flail and grab the wall. “What are you trying to get me to do?” Leigh asked, audibly frustrated. “I don’t think humans were meant to be in the water.”

“I’m trying to get you to float on your back,” Reuenthal said. “It’s the first thing anybody learns when they’re swimming.”

Leigh made a face. “I seem to just be sinking.”

“You can do it.”

“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Reuenthal frowned. “Do you need me to show you?”

“Yeah,” Leigh said. “Show me.”

The command spurred Reuenthal into action, and he moved away from the wall slightly, enough that he wouldn’t accidentally bump into Leigh. He easily kicked his legs up and laid back on the water, spreading his arms and floating. Of all the parts of swimming, Reuenthal liked backstroke, and being on his back, the least. He had always felt very exposed and vulnerable, and unable to see where he was going. He still felt that way now, but the feeling of Leigh’s eyes on him intensified that vulnerability, and at the same time, turned it on its head. He lay there, silent in the water, for some time before turning his head to look at Leigh. They made eye contact for a second, then Leigh looked away, and Reuenthal righted himself in the water.

“Like that,” he said.

“You don’t have to do anything?”

“Just let the water hold you up,” Reuenthal said. “Try it.”

Tentatively, Leigh let go of the wall, trying to get himself into the right position. He wasn’t leaning back right, so he was just slipping down into the water. Reuenthal intervened. Under the water, he put his hand on the small of Leigh’s back and pushed up, gently raising him to the surface.

Leigh made a sound that might have been a laugh of surprise, but his breathing was irregular and shallow.

“Relax,” Reuenthal said. “You’re not going to drown.”

With his other hand, Reuenthal pushed Leigh’s shoulder down, so that his body was approximately flat on the surface of the water. When it seemed as though Leigh had mostly figured it out, Reuenthal pulled his hands away, letting Leigh float unassisted.

He had figured it out. Leigh’s head was back, hair drifting in the water. His mouth was slightly open, and his breathing had evened out a little bit. He looked up at the ceiling, and Reuenthal wanted to touch his neck, or his face, but then he glanced up at the camera on the ceiling and didn’t, keeping his hands at his sides while he silently and easily tread water next to Leigh.

It seemed as though they could have stayed there forever.

“You were right,” Leigh said after a long moment.

“About what?” Reuenthal’s voice was low and quiet, almost afraid to disrupt the relative serenity of the pool.

“You do get used to it,” Leigh said. “I’m not cold anymore.”

“Oh. Good.”

“You can get used to pretty much anything, I guess.” He didn’t seem uncomfortable or self conscious, floating there, talking.

“Oh?” Reuenthal asked. “What else are you getting used to?”

Leigh was silent for a second. “All of this,” he said. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t grow up drinking the water here, breathing the air,” Leigh said, hesitating, as though he was struggling to put something into words. “I took the IOA exam as a joke. I never expected—“ He paused. “But now I’m here.”

“You are.”

“And I’m used to it.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said yes,” Leigh said.

“But now?” Reuenthal watched the slow rise and fall of Leigh’s chest.

“I don’t know,” Leigh said. “It’s dangerous, isn’t it?” And he turned his head to look at Reuenthal, eyes wide.

Reuenthal glanced again at the camera on the ceiling again. “You think I’m dangerous, Hank?” It was the first time he had called Leigh by his first name, and it made Leigh’s lips twitch in something like a smile.

“Maybe,” Leigh said. He let out a rueful laugh. “But maybe I’m more dangerous to you.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I’m a foreign influence, aren’t I? That’s dangerous.”

“I don’t care,” Reuenthal said, voice hard and assured.

“I know,” Leigh said. He looked at the ceiling again, all the cross beams tangling across the roof like a spiderweb. “We’re the same, I think.”

Reuenthal was silent, waiting for Leigh to continue.

“It’s not you that I’m scared of getting used to,” Leigh said. “It’s everything else. You drink the water long enough, and it becomes part of you, you know? And I keep waking up in the middle of the night and thinking…”

“Thinking what?”

“Everything’s rotten here,” Leigh said. “To the core.”

Reuenthal nodded, but Leigh wasn’t looking at him.

“And what if I get so used to that, if I let it all inside of me, and I start to think that everything I loved before is evil, and everything I hated before is good?”

“I don’t think you’ll change your nature.”

“I might.”

“Nothing’s changed mine.”

Leigh was hesitant. “True.”

“You’re still warm,” Reuenthal said. “Even if the water’s cold.” And he couldn’t resist, and touched Leigh’s shoulder with his fingertips. Leigh shivered at his touch, so violently that he broke his float, and he grabbed for the wall, hoisting himself out of the pool.

“I can’t swim,” he said, looking at Reuenthal, half breathless and wide eyed. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Reuenthal didn’t know what to say to that, so he just nodded. Leigh practically ran back to the locker room, scattering droplets of water behind him as he went, and leaving a trail of damp footprints on the concrete floor.

Reuenthal stopped kicking his legs and let out all of his breath, dropping like a stone to the bottom of the pool, where he sat until he couldn’t bear the strain in his lungs any longer. The water roared in his ears and burned his eyes.