Drown With Me

You lie there, your lungs sucking in air again and again as your muscles finally find the strength to move.

Blinking away the blur that invaded your eyes, you see the blue, cloudless sky overhead, and feel the hot afternoon sunlight on your naked skin. Turning your head to the side, you realise that you're lying by the side of your pool. Sonata's still in the pool itself, gasping for breath as she clings on to the metal ladder.

"Did.. did you just save me?" you ask despite the shortness of breath.

Sonata shakes her head and brushes the limp, wet hair from her eyes. "That was all you. I just saw you swim up and drag yourself out of the pool. I didn't do a thing."

"I don't remember doing that."

Sonata shrugs her shoulders. "Survival instinct?"

"Must've been," you reply.

But wait, if you went against Sonata's orders to drown, that means you don't have to obey her for anything, and that means-

Your brain is suddenly hit with a strange spasm of cold pain; it feels like your mind just crashed through a window made of ice. And an instant later, it's gone. In fact, your mind feels clear for the first time in days.

"Uh, are you okay, man?" Sonata clearly noticed your wincing.

"Quick, ask me to do something!" you demand.

She blinks in confusion, then offers a hand. "Help me outta the pool."

"No," you snarkily quip, the rush of relief and happiness making you grin like an idiot. "Get out yourself."

Sonata flashes you a callous What the Hell kind of look before she realised what that meant. "The charm!"

"I know!" you cheer. "It's gone! That near-death experience thing worked!"

"You're free!"

"I know!"

"That's fantastic! But seriously, I need help getting out the pool," she grimaces behind a blush. "You were not gentle towards the end, and I think I'm gonna be walking funny all week."

You cough a dry laugh, deciding to take that as a compliment, before grabbing her by her outstretched wrist and pulling her out of the water. As the exhaustion sets in, she collapses by the poolside next to you, letting the warm sun wash over both of your naked forms. You make a mental note to fish the trunks and her swimsuit out of the pool later.

While your body recovers, your mind is still free to roam. There's so much you want to thank her for. The experiments in breaking your charm. Sticking with you through the whole ordeal. Even just turning up to your pool-bar with her friends; if she hadn't even turned up, she might never have met you. She might never have charmed you either, of course.

In the end, you decide that it was worth it.

*******

The summer sun's heat plays off the pool's playful waters. The scent of dry air and wet chlorine - you added more chlorine than usual to counteract your experience with Sonata yesterday - wafts on the faint breeze. The sounds of splashing water mingles with the chatter of the patrons sitting nearby. You ring up another freshly made cocktail and clean up a nearby empty glass.

Sonata's still snoozing in your bedroom, which is perfectly fine by you. For the small amount of time you've actually been dating, you honestly wouldn't mind her moving in with you. Or would that be taking things too fast, you wonder? Surely it would be better for her than living with-

"Well?" a sudden, expectant snarl almost made you drop the glass you were cleaning.

You look up to see Adagio in all her wrathful glory. Knowing she's actually a thousand-year-old magical beast explains a lot about her, but it doesn't do much to help your nerves. She's not just a sassy psudo-girl anymore.

"Mojito?" you ask hopefully.

"Sonata."

Crap.

"Lemme guess, Aria told you about us?" You crane your neck around Adagio's poofy hair to find Aria sunbathing on one of the sunbeds, minding her own business.

"Of course she did," Adagio lowers her eyelids teasingly. "Dating a Siren? You're either brave or stupid."

"I'll let you decide," you respond as neutrally as possible. Adagio jumps on that sentence like a leopard.

"Stupid, in my humble opinion. If you wanted to throw your life away so badly, you might as well have gone for me," she caresses the fabric of her bikini for no other reason than to spite you. "You might as well have enjoyed the ride."

"Hey, Sona-"

"Sonata's different?" she cuts you off. "Of course she is. She's the most different out of all of us. But a different Siren is, at the end of the day, still a Siren."

You sigh; there's no way of arguing with Adagio, so the next logical step is to just sedate her. "You want a Mojito or not?" She pushes the exact change for one across the counter, without dignifying that response with words. The next minute is spend carefully constructing her drink as she stares at you wordlessly. It's like she's dissecting you with her eyes.

By the time you're done, and you hand the drink to her, she's no longer riled up. Adagio stirs the cocktail with her straw, before taking a thoughtful sip. "Why her?" she asks calmly. Unusually calmly for her. "Why did you go for Sonata and not me?"

It didn't sound like a loaded question, but it certainly felt like one. "How can I explain feelings? I just... clicked with her. I'd call it fate, but I'm not that spiritual." You hide the need to squirm under Adagio's burning stare. "I guess we just chose each other."

"But I'm the hot one. Surely I'm the better choice, right?"

"There's way more to life than being hot, Adagio," you respond, ignoring her scoff. "If you're dating someone, you need to look beyond what's on the surface. For example," you try to mention something interesting you know about Adagio, but when that turns up dry, you change tactic; "what's one of your favourite hobbies?"

"Used to be singing, obviously. But not anymore. We lost our voices. Thanks for reminding me."

"Then find something else to do! Something that you know you're good at."

"Like what?" she replies almost interrogatively. "Charming people? That's out of the window too, and nothing we can do seems to bring that back."

You wisely choose not to talk about Sonata's accidental charming misadventure. It's better this way, right?

"Uh," you go though a series of replies in your head before eventually settling on; "you could be a model. You said it yourself; you're the hot one. Make use of that gift."

"Modelling, huh?" she thinks aloud. "It's no mind-control, but it's the closest thing a human can get to it. Except maybe a radio talk-show host."

"I uh, I didn't mean it like that!"

"Hah. Sure you didn't." she smirks, taking another sip.

You don't respond, despite Adagio's metaphorical neon sign begging to you to rise up to it. When the silence drags on for a little longer, she hums to herself thoughtfully. Perhaps you weren't as easy to manipulate as she reckoned.

"Can you promise me something?" she says finally. You raise an eyebrow, letting her continue. "Look after Sonata, okay? I know we're usually snarky around her, but she's one of us. We look out for each other."

You nod. "Aria told me the same thing a few days ago. Of course, I'll be doing my part to treat her right, but Sonata's more capable than you'd think."

Adagio's expression turns impossible to read. "That's a first. No one's ever said that about her before."

"You should know more than anyone. She's your friend."

Her eyes drift distantly for a moment before suddenly coming into sharp focus. The very face of sudden realisation.

"You're one of the good humans. I hope you make her happy." With that, she tips back the last of her drink and leaves her seat. "Now if you'll excuse us, we have modelling roles to apply for. C'mon Aria! We've got a new plan of attack!"

Some folks never know when to give up.

*******

Taking an early lunch break, you disappear back into the apartment and work on getting a snoozing Sonata out of bed. Rather than actually knocking on the door and waking her up like a normal human being would, the hopeless romantic in you decides to let her nostrils do the waking.

Five minutes later, and the whole apartment is awash with the scent of waffle batter cooking in the kitchen. Sonata, as you predicted, ambles out of the bedroom. You can't help but notice she's wearing nothing but one of your shirts. Cliché as hell, but you let it slide.

"Mmm," she greets you, wiping the sleep from her eyes. Wordlessly, she takes a seat and gratefully tucks into her syrupy breakfast.

"I saw Adagio and Aria earlier today," you make casual conversation as you cut a piece from your own waffle. "I think I accidentally gave them careers."

"Haff!" she laughs with her mouth full. "Foundf like fhem! Fhey're gonna gef info all fortf of fhenaniganf af ufual."

"Whatever helps them move on from charming people I guess. Even though we know the secret to it, it's better to let sleeping dogs lie, right?"

She finally swallows the last of her mouthful. "You asking me? You got doubts about that?"

"Yeah."

Sonata looks down at her half-eaten plate, as if it were a magic 8-ball. "Well, I personally don't wanna go back to what it was like. We were chasing power that, at the end of the day, wasn't gonna make us happy. It's an endless hunger sorta thing. If they find out they can charm people again, they'd probably try to drag me back into their world-domination thing. Only with blood-drinking instead of singing. Hard pass from me. Can't rock the vampire look."

"So... keep it secret to spare any potential victims?"

"Bingo." And back to the waffle-slaughter she goes.

You nod in response. Hearing it from the lips of a Siren herself re-enforces the decision. The rest of the meal's quiet, save for the noises of summer fun outside. Once you're both done, you dunk the plates in the sink for later; you have a job to get back to.

"You know, the pool's quiet today," you suggest. "I reckon its missing you."

"Well, I haven't done my apnea thing for today. I guess I can come with, but..."

"But?" you stop just short of the front door.

"Where do we go from here? Dating, I mean." When you take a moment too long thinking about a reply, she continues. "Are we just gonna be here forever? Swim in the pool, go for a meal, fuck like rabbits - preferably not drowned rabbits next time - rinse and repeat?"

"Of course not," you reply. "Summer doesn't last forever. We have the rest of the year to figure out what we wanna do. But for now, I wanna make the most of our time here, in the sunshine. With you."

"Heh. Ya romantic dope," she blushes, holding out her hand. "I can work with that. C'mon. Let's make the most of it."

And so, you take her by the hand, and open the door to the rest of your lives.