Bathing Suit
Cecil’s been putting it off for weeks but they leave for their fortnight in Svitz tomorrow and he needs something he can wear when they visit the lake. Cecil loves wild swimming and they chose that specific guesthouse up on the hill with the winding path down to the shore for this reason.
Carlos’ top surgery scars have long faded to pale lines, barely visible in winter, but easily recognised by those who know them intimately (Carlos, Cecil, Earl…) at the end of the summer months when –during his industrious spurts of lawn-mowing and gutter-clearing– weekend afternoon sunshine has baked his chest the colour of untanned calf leather.
Carlos is at ease in swim shorts and even owns a pair of blue Speedos he bought online along with the packer he’s barely used, one lonely evening in the Desert Otherworld when Doug and Alisha had been talking of digging a swimming pool and Carlos’ mind had drifted to to the times he and Cecil would share when he eventually found a way for Cecil to visit.
For Cecil, however, dysphoria is still ever-present. His old bathing suit rotted away centuries ago, having languished in the bottom of his underwear drawer since he graduated high school and the awkward horror of compulsory swimming lessons ceased. Yes, he could just go with the shorts-and-T-shirt combo he’d always sported at Earl’s annual 19th birthday pool parties, but he craves something he can move in freely in the water, without reducing him to a sobbing self-conscious wreck as soon as he puts it on. Cecil doesn’t believe such a bathing suit exists.
“C'mon Cece,“ Carlos’ voice snaps him out of his despairing reverie and he looks up to see the scientist shrugging on his lab coat, keys in hand. “We’re gonna find something at least OK. It may not be perfect, but I’ll be with you and we’ll get through any horrible gender feels together, so that when you swim in that lake all that will matter is the cool water against your skin and the sun on your face. It’ll be really neat, I promise.”
So Cecil pulls himself up from the sofa, takes Carlos’ outstretched hand, and they step out into the spring sunshine together toward the Mall in search of –if not the perfect– at least an OK bathing suit.
Notes: prompt from fanficy-prompts.tumblr.com
