Blue Scales || Muke ✓

twenty-two

"Michael, please come get in the water with me. It's only two feet deep here and I promise I'll be holding on to you the whole time," Luke said softly, holding out his hands, "Nothing bad will happen. You promised you'd try and you'd let me teach you."

The black-haired boy stood shyly at the edge of the pool, watching Luke already up to his chest in the pool water. He could see that the blue-haired boy was on his knees and was waiting for him to get in.

"Can you hold my hand as I walk in?" Michael asked, his voice coming out as a whisper as he watched Luke get up and walk towards him.

Luke had convinced Michael to let him teach him a few swimming basics so that what happened the last time they went to the pool wouldn't happen again. It basically took a lot of bribery of not using fish puns and promising to buy pizza that made Michael finally agree.

They were at the community center's pool for the afternoon and Michael was trying to get in the pool without screaming and crying.

Luke grabbed onto the nervous boy's hands and slowly started inching his way into the water. The pool descended as the two boys walked in slowly and Michael panicked more.

Michael felt the same warmth again spread throughout his body and he felt a bit more at ease for being in the water.

"You're okay Michael. I got you," Luke said softly, leading Michael into the four feet of water area. He didn't want to go too deep but if they were too shallow they wouldn't be able to do a lot of swimming.

Luke helped Michael get up to his shoulders in the water and motioned for the black-haired boy to go all the way in. Michael soon quickly clung onto Luke when he got up to his ears. He definitely did not want to stick his head underneath the water.

Luke held onto the boy and soothingly ran his fingers along his back. "You're okay Mikey," Luke reassured, for maybe the one hundredth time.

Michael shivered, feeling Luke's hands on his bare back.

It didn't bother Luke that they both only had swim trunks on, he was raised around people that only had tails for the longest time. This was different for Michael though.

"How about we work on floating instead? It'll be very simple and you won't get hurt," Luke whispered, his voice a lot softer than normal.

This was a huge step for Michael and Luke wasn't about to scar him for life.

"Okay," Michael shakily breathed out.

Luke shifted his hand to rest on Michael's knees and the other to rest on Michael's middle back, slowly lowering the boy so that he was laying down in the timid water. The black-haired boy was very tense and Luke knew this would not end well if he stayed like that.

He tried to slowly lift the boy so that he was standing again but it took him by surprise and the boy started thrashing around, sputtering out water. Michael stood up so the water was at his waist again and glared at Luke.

"I was trying to help you! You can't be so tense! Water is your friend! This is not the open ocean and you have a lot of supervision, me and the life guards," Luke reassured and JT soon turned to rambling, "I won't let anything happen to you. You need to trust me. If I wanted you to drown I would've done something a long time ago. Trust me," Luke said softly.

Michael nodded his head slowly. He gulped but then allowed Luke to lay him back again and have him rest on his hands. He was much more relaxed now since Luke had told him what to do and he had a basis of how to float.

"I'm going to move my hands," Luke whispered. Technically he was giving Michael a warning, just not loud enough for the boy to hear.

Luke slowly moved his hands from underneath Michael but his plan obviously did not work when Michael clung to him like a koala.