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Flux is a lifeguard.
He’d picked up the job after his parents forced him out of the house for summer. Flux has zero idea why his parents want him to work while they have the net worth to buy a community whole pool or two, but either way, he’s stuck for the summer.
His friend Thomas had dragged him swimming a lot when they were kids, which meant he’d picked up the basics along the way. Turns out Flux wasn’t a bad swimmer at all, so he took all the first aid courses needed to, and applied to be a lifeguard. Specifically one at the beach, though. If he had to spend one second saving little kids from drowning in the kiddy pool, he was going to go insane.
His shifts are weekdays from mid-day, to sunset, so he would spend eight hours a day sitting up on a chair, hiding under a big red and white umbrella.
There are always kids building sand castles a little too close to the waves, but their parents usually drag them back. Every once in a while there's a child running too fast, tripping, falling, and scraping their knee on the sand. Flux usually just cleans up the cut, gives them a bandaid, and sends them off to play. Thankfully, there aren’t as many incidents as he’d thought there would be, so most of his shifts pass rather peacefully.
That changes on a random Friday.
His shift starts the same as always. He drives to the beach already dressed in a uniform, a pair of loose shorts and a bright red t-shirt with a first aid cross on the front and the word ‘lifeguard’ plastered on the back in big white letters. He climbs up to the lifeguard tower, and sits.
There are a decent amount of surfers at the beach Flux works at, he rarely pays attention to them as he has enough trust in their skills to manoeuvre through water.
Though today, one specific surfer caught his eye.
Tanned golden brown skin covered in white streaks poorly spread sunscreen. Bright white hair that blends in with the white part of waves. Wearing nothing but a pair of black shorts, the sun catching on his bare chest. Flux watches him paddle through the water. When he catches the wave, he pushes himself up to stand on the board, arms out to keep his balance, riding the wave with a giddy smile on his face.
Flux spends a prolonged amount of time staring at him, which probably isn’t supposed to be part of his job. He eventually looks away with great difficulty, making sure that someone didn’t injure themselves while he was.. distracted.
Half of his shift passes by, and Flux keeps sneaking occasional glances at the white haired boy. He’s glad his eyes are hidden behind his sunglasses.
Flux zones out for a while, staring out to the ocean. He wonders what he’ll eat for dinner, maybe stop at Subway for the same exact sandwich he’s been getting for over half his life. He has a twin sister that consistently tells him he has no taste in food because of that.
Flux hears a yell that sounds like someone getting taken by surprise, definitely not something you want to hear as a lifeguard. He snaps his head towards the source of sound just in time to see a wave crash over the surfer he’d been observing all day, sending him off balance into the ocean.
Flux loses sight of him for a few seconds, only to see him wash up onto the shallow part of the ocean near the sand. The surfer holds his board with one arm as he limps to the beach with blood streaking down his leg.
Flux has already put his sunglasses down and climbed down the watch tower with bottled water and a first-aid kit, jogging over to where the surfer collapsed onto the sand. The guy looks up at Flux through his wet hair as he approaches. “Oh, hey.”
Flux kneels down beside the guy. Now that Flux is up closer, he can see some faint freckles and a mole under each eye on the surfer’s skin. How endearing. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah I'm fine.” His mouth is slightly open, almost like he’s gaping at Flux. ”I think I hit something on the ocean floor, probably hit a sharp piece of coral or something.”
Flux nods. “Let me get a look at your leg.”
The surfer sticks his leg out, and Flux gets a better look at the cut on his knee. The bleeding seems to have stopped slightly, but the surrounding skin is turning an angry red, swelling up slightly.
Flux unscrews the bottled water, pouring it over the wound to clean out any stray pieces of sand. He then unzips the first aid kit.
Flux can feel the surfers gaze on him as he carefully coats the wound with antibiotic ointment. “You don’t want to get this cut infected, so that means no more surfing until it heals.”
The white haired boy smiles slightly, nodding. Flux notices he’s got a bit of a playful demeanor to him, almost mischievous. “Yes, sir.”
Flux ignores the teasing nickname, although he goes a bit pink. He wraps the cut in a dry sterile bandage, securing it with medical tape. “It’ll probably be okay to submerge in a day or two, so just over the weekend.”
“Whatvever the expert says!”
Flux rolls his eyes, although it wasn’t in his usual annoyed way. “Okay, you’re done.”
The surfer smiles a bit wider, pushing himself off the ground and grabbing his board. “Thanks dude, see you around!”
Flux catches himself smiling to himself and instantly forces his face back to neutral. The guy was nice, but it’s probably a one time thing, it's not like Flux would see him again, right?
Flux spends the weekend with his mind completely hijacked by the surfer boy with white hair. He can’t believe himself. What was so special about that guy anyways? Sure, he had unique white hair, a charming smile, and was scarily close to Flux’s type, but that doesn’t mean Flux should be thinking about him like they were dating! He didn’t even get the guy’s name!
Despite Flux’s best efforts, the boy occupies his mind anyways.
Monday morning, he’s back at the beach for another shift. Flux finds himself scanning the beach for the same surfer from last week like a desperate teenager would at school. An hour passes. Then another. There’s no sign of white hair on the beach, yet.
Flux leaves to take a break in the lifeguard headquarters, resting and snacking on a small pack of crackers. 30 minutes pass and he’s back on rotation, climbing back up the watchtower.
He looks out to the beach, and lo and behold, he spots a white head of hair in the sea. Flux smiles a little to himself, suddenly feeling jittery all of a sudden. He can’t exactly abandon protocol and walk off to go talk to his eye candy– uh... potential friend, so he just continues his duty as a lifeguard.
He looks away for barely a few seconds as the surfer ends up near the shore, making sure there aren’t actually any drowning children, and focuses right back on the surfer, except he’s lost sight of him.
Before Flux can even scan his surroundings, he hears a familiar voice from somewhere in front of him. “Yo, lifeguard, what do I do if I get stung by a stingray?”
Flux looks down to see the same white haired guy holding his arm up. There's a puncture wound on his forearm. “What.”
The guy looks sheepish. “My bad…?”
Flux sighs, climbing down the ladder to drop down onto the sand. “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“Over there,” Flux points to a small building at the edge of the beach, the same place he takes breaks at. “I need to rinse your arm with hot water.”
The surfer nods a bit too enthusiastically. “Okay!”
And so, they start heading to the building. Flux keeps his eyes glued to the sand in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the boy sneak him a glance. “My name’s Saparata by the way. You can call me Saps.”
Flux blurts out the first thing he can think of that isn’t weird. “That’s a stupid name.”
Saps laughs, completely unaffected by the remark. “Rude. What’s your name?”
“Fluixon,” Flux offers. They reach the lifeguard lounge and he holds the door open for Saps, then gestures to the old couch at the other side of the room. “You can call me Flux.”
“That’s a unique name,” Saps comments, watching as Flux mixes steaming water from a kettle with a bit of cold water, pouring it into a big bowl. “I thought you would have some sort of nametag like most workers do.”
“If we did, it would probably get swept away with the amount of lost and injured surfers we have to save.” Flux says sarcastically, heading back to Saps with the hot water. He places the bowl on the table next to the couch, gently grabs Saps’ arm, and submerges it underwater.
“Oh, so it’s just a daily occurrence?”
“Yep. Happens all the time.”
Saps’ smile fades a little, expression forming into something that looks like a pout. “That’s unfortunate. I thought I was getting special treatment.”
“In your dreams.” Flux jokes lightheartedly. “I haven't seen you around before.”
“I just moved here recently. It’s a nice place, I like it here.”
“Makes sense.”
They talk for a bit more as Flux waits for the venom to neutralize the venom, pouring more hot water whenever the water cools down. Saps seems all too happy to be sitting there with an open wound in his arm, but hey, Flux isn’t complaining. It isn’t every day he gets to talk with a pretty boy.
Flux feels disappointed when realize he can’t be leaving the beach unattended, but he has to excuse himself either way. “Alright, I have to go back to work. That guy over there will monitor your injury.” Flux points to the other lifeguard on break across the room and adds, “Stay out of the ocean once again. Give it at least a day.”
Saps looks the tiniest bit crestfallen when he hears that, almost like he doesn't want Flux to leave, but he cheers up instantly. “Okay, thanks for the help! See you around!”
“We’ll see about that.”
A week goes by, then two. Flux spends every weekday working at the beach, as usual, though there seems to be a new pattern added into his shift.
Almost every single day without fail, Saps gets injured. A cut there, a scrap there, anything that ends up with Flux having to climb off his watch tower intervene. Saps would come limping back every time, clutching whatever body part he injured pathetically.
Flux takes pity on him all the time, putting up with every bit of nonsense that came out of Saps’ mouth while Flux patched him up. ‘Putting up with’ was a bit of a stretch, though. Saps would also cheer up suspiciously fast, but Flux brushes it aside.
Near the end of his shift one day, Flux is shamelessly watching Saps again. It’s around seven forty five, the sun has started to set, and the day has passed without a single incident from Saps.
As much as Flux doesn’t want to admit it, he enjoys talking to Saps, it makes his boring shift a bit better. Maybe a lot better. Maybe at this point it’s the highlight of Flux’s day, but he doesn’t plan to feed into Saps’ ego.
Either way, back to watching Saps. Right. Most families have packed up and left, so there aren't too many people left on the beach, most of which are just taking photos away from the water. Less people on the beach means less people who can get injured, which also means less people to watch. Flux takes that as a sign to keep watching Saps, it’s become a hobby at this point. How professional of him. The colors of the sun highlight his features far too well, even from where Flux is sitting.
Barely a couple minutes later, Flux watches as Saps loses his balance on a stray wave, his board digging into the water before bouncing back, striking Saps right across face.
Uh oh.
Flux is running towards him before he can think. He’s lost sight of Saps already, so when he reaches the edge of the water, he paddles out to Saps' general direction. Looks like one good thing came out of him ogling Saps from a distance. Thankfully, Saps isn’t too far from shore, and Flux manages to spot his white hair floating amongst the dark water.
Flux locates his surfboard floating a few meters away, mounting Saps onto it .
“My knight in shining armour, what would I do without you?” Saps says teasingly as Flux paddles through the water, dragging him up to shore.
Flux rolls his eyes. “Drown, probably.”
Saps scoots his way off the board when they reach dry land, sitting there leaning back against his hands. “Have more faith in me.”
Flux takes a look at him and realizes there's blood coming out of Saps’ nose. “Your nose is bleeding.”
“Oh, it is?” Saps reaches his hand up to his face, brushing the skin right above his mouth. He retracts his hands to see red smeared all over his fingers. “Oops.”
Flux sighs. “Wait here.”
He jogs back up to the watchtower, grabbing sterile gauze, and jogs back.
“Keep still,” Flux warns, before softly grabbing Saps’ face and carefully wiping the blood away. Despite his focus, he can feel Saps’ gaze on him.
Flux then reaches down to grab Saps’ hand, directing it to his own nose, putting his fingers in place. “Here, pinch your nose like this.”
Saps obeys without a word.
Flux observes him for a bit. “You know, you get injured so often I'm starting to wonder if you’re doing it on purpose.”
Flux’s tone is completely lighthearted, the comment coming out as nothing but a teasing joke. He freezes immediately when he sees Saps turn into a tomato within seconds, suddenly avoiding eye contact.
“Oh.” Flux honestly doesn’t know what to say. He can feel his own face turning red as well. “Actually?” He manages to ask quietly.
Saps looks down at his free hand for a long moment. Flux honestly thinks he looks endearing that way, all flustered and shy, different from his usual confident composure. Saps rubs the back of his neck, sheepish. “Well, in my defense, I thought I was being subtle.”
“I actually thought you were just a really clumsy person in the beginning.” Flux admits, taking a seat next to Saps on the warm sand. He hesitates a moment before joking, “you know you could’ve just started a conversation like a normal person without getting yourself injured on purpose.”
Saps scrunches his face up. “Normal is lame. And only some of them were on purpose,” he says defensively.
“Right.” Flux pauses, suddenly getting a surge of confidence. “You could’ve just asked me out directly, you know?”
“I mean I guess but–” Saps starts before cutting himself off. He turns to Flux, surprised. “Wait, are you flirting with me?”
Is he flirting with Saps? Who knows. Too late to figure that out, might as well double down! “What does it look like, dumbass?”
Saps looks extremely taken aback, completely unaware of the fact that Flux had spent the past two weeks checking him out from a distance. Saps is somehow still getting redder. “I.. don’t know…?”`
“Okay.” Flux let's out a fond huff. “Would you like to go out this weekend then?”
“REALLY?” Saps exclaims excitedly. He registers the sound of his own voice and looks even more embarrassed than before. He clears his throat. “I-I mean yes, yes that would be nice.”
Flux smiles softly. “Okay then. It's a date.’