Swim Until You Can't See Land (Rivers of London fic)

I've spent hours on this when I should've been doing other things--not sure why, or if it merited the attention. I meant it to be a little less silly and a little more shippy, but there you go. Posting it in journals only for now, to meet the challenge deadline; I need to britpick some of the idiom before I post to AO3.

Title: Swim Until You Can't See Land
Fandom: Rivers of London
Rating: G
Characters: Thomas Nightingale, Dr. Walid (pre-series)
Spoilers: none for the novels
Warnings: discussion of suicide
Word count: ~4.2K
Disclaimer: not mine, no profit

nb: This was written for the hc_bingo February amnesty challenge. The challenge was to write one fic using three prompts and a wildcard. My prompts were: hypothermia, hallucinations, loss of identity and (as the wild card), PTSD. Note that loss of identity here is more like losing one identity and gaining a new one.
nb: also using it for the "bed-sharing" square on my trope_bingo card.
nb: title from the Frightened Rabbit song of the same name. Scottish band in honor of Dr. Walid.

Summary: It always amused Abdul that he, who so disdained flowery language, could begin the story of his greatest friendship with the phrase, “it was a dark and stormy night.”


( Swim Until You Can't See Land )