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Ed swung up onto their island platform, where Stede was ensconced on a pile of pillows. The October air was cool and damp; they’d already moored their boat and moved down to their underwater cave for the winter, but on clear days, Stede came up to the island—to his library.
Ed stretched out beside him, enjoying the warmth and the give of the silk and cotton cushions beneath his chest and arms. He hooked his chin over Stede’s wrist, blocked his view of the page. “What’re you reading?”
Stede, laughing, raised the book higher. “I’ve just gotten to the detective’s explanation!”
Ed wriggled in, laid his cheek on Stede’s bare chest, his favourite position. The very tip of his tail, down past the end of the platform, swished in the warmth of the sea. “I’ve read this one.”
“You have? When?”
“When you and Lucius went to visit that shipwreck, after the kids sent us the underwater camera.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Nope, I didn’t want to ruin your reading. But now you’re close to the end...”
“Did you guess who the murderer was?”
“Not telling. I’ll just lie here; you keep reading.”
Right away, Stede wrapped his free arm about Ed’s shoulders, fingers toying idly with strands of his hair.
Ed kept his eyes open, watching and feeling the rise and fall of Stede’s chest, gazing at the wisps of cloud that formed and disappeared in the otherwise clear blue sky. The morning fog had dissipated hours before; now he smelled the incoming rain.
He breathed deeply and evenly, leaning into the tug each time Stede’s fingers curled a lock tight, then let go.
He wriggled his fins, happy. Quite a few human years had gone by, barely a blink in undersea time. He wasn’t used to happy yet, and he hoped he never would be; he never wanted to take Stede and his life with Stede for granted.
“Let’s play something,” he said, as Stede finished the last page and closed the book.
“A game?” An eager light shone in Stede’s eyes.
“Yep.” He rippled his fins, excited by the way Stede always wanted to join him in fun. “Did you guess the murderer?”
“I didn’t! I never do, really.” Stede made a face. “There always seems to be some twist I didn’t consider.”
“Eh, they never really give you all the clues you need. I figured this one out, but not for the motive the detective explained.”
“You’re a genius, Ed.” Stede tucked the book away in their weatherproof storage space. “What do you want to play?”
He shifted over to the side of the platform. “It’s October in human time, right? And in some places they commemorate All Hallows’ Eve?”
Stede got that mixed up look on his face that meant Ed had misunderstood some human thing and Stede was trying not to laugh at the confusion. Stede never laughed at him, but even Ed allowed that some of the twists were funny, like the time he’d misheard “email” as “eel-mail”.
“In some places,” Stede agreed. “In a lot of places, children dress up in costumes and—”
“That! That’s what I want to do.”
“Oh? What do you want to dress up as?”
“A detective.”
***
“Ah!” Stede sat up, scooting over to the side of the platform so that Ed could drop into the water as they talked. “That’s a brilliant idea, darling. Am I your assistant? Or the person who comes to consult you?”
Ed immersed himself in the sea, arms resting on the platform as the rest of his body floated behind. His fins spread out, purple and pink and white, shimmering under the water. Stede had had years, now, in which to adore them and study them; he knew they only expanded this wide when Ed felt safe, content—and was in the mood for adventure.
“Whatever you want. I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” Ed told him. “I was thinking of the fog, and how it’s going to last for a few days, so we could maybe do something with that. Set clues or have Lucius or someone set clues for us to solve... Dunno. I just want to wear a top hat and carry a walking stick.”
Stede imagined Ed in a tailcoat and a bowtie—and toppled off the platform.
Ed caught him about the middle, laughing, as Stede blew bubbles and kicked with his feet to right himself. Being able to breathe underwater at least saved him the ignominy of having to splutter and cough, and thrash his way to the surface.
“Oh, Ed!” He shimmied close as the waves from his fall dissipated, and hugged Ed about his waist. “You’d look dashing in evening wear.”
“Yeah? Bit tricky, underwater. And up above, I wouldn’t have shoes.”
Stede kissed him between his brows, tasting Ed’s sweet scent past the salt water all about. “We’ll figure it out. Maybe we could put on some sort of play, get everyone involved, half in the water, half on the island.”
“Yes!” Ed flipped his tail and tugged him along on the current that led to their cave. “Do you think there’s time to let Alma and Louis know? Would they want to come watch? Or be in the play?”
By now, Stede was used to the way the sea warmed him up, and the fact that he could stay below for as long as he liked. But he still could hardly believe the way his family not only knew about Ed, but that they all adored each other; he never wanted to take these relationships for granted.
“It all depends on whether we’re writing the play,” Stede said, liking the idea the moment he’d voiced it. He kicked with his feet, propelling them quicker down to the cave and to his special dry shelf that held a few books, a few candles—and his notebooks and pens.
“Well, no one else has read half as many detective stories as we have.”
“I keep saying they’re free to borrow books whenever. But Lucius and Fang only look at the art books and—” He waved an airy hand; never mind the others for now. “All the easier, if you and I write the play together. How difficult can it be?”
***
“That doesn’t work!” Ed cried. He scratched out the image he’d just drawn in the sand. “If the villain kills a second character, then we need to bring that character in earlier, and we already have five scene sets and one mysterious voice from above to arrange. We don’t have space for a whole other location and scene!”
Stede stalked up and down the shore, notebook pages flapping as he threw up his arms. “Well, we have to have another murder! Otherwise the speech I wrote for the detective makes no sense!”
Ed shimmied across in the shallows towards where he’d begun their mind map. He scrawled a line in the sand with his bit of driftwood, under where he’d drawn the tophatted stick figure that represented their detective. “What if we don’t start with the detective? What if the second character comes in first—”
“At the nightclub?”
“At the fairground, I don’t know! How are we going to build a nightclub or a fairground anyway?”
“Well, we can’t have every scene take place in a grotto! How are you going to wear a tailcoat then?”
“Oh, forget the Poseidon-damned tailcoat! I don’t want to wear it anymore!”
“Forget the play, then!” Stede tossed the notebook aside and crumpled into a heap by the waterline. “It was a stupid idea. I’ve only got stupid ideas.”
“Oh, shut up,” Ed told him, but without heat. He floated across and nudged at Stede’s legs with his forehead, got him to stretch out so that he could lay his head on Stede’s lap, looking up at him. “I like writing a play with you. But maybe we should keep working on it for some other time and, for this Hallowe’en, put on one that’s already been written?”
***
Stede smoothed his hand over Ed’s hair, gathered the locks together, and curled his hand into the warmth of Ed’s neck. “I like writing a play with you, too. But I think you’re right, we’ve gotten a bit whim-prone. Frenchie’s already asked me, ‘but is it interesting?’ when I tried to describe a bit of the plot.”
He’d assumed that whatever he and Ed came up with would be brilliant from the start. Nothing seemed t touch them. ever, and now this slight setback had a frisson of doubt worrying its way into his mind.
“How about,” Ed said slowly, as if thinking out loud, “tomorrow we get up early and come out here to explore in the fog a little? See if it’s really the atmosphere we’re looking for?”
“Great!” Ed’s ideas always eased his concerns. The play could continue!
***
Ed should have returned them home the moment he saw the shiver pass through Stede’s body.
There was no reason for Stede to be cold; the sea shifted all the time, over the centuries, its currents, its corals, its density. The moon did as she liked with the water.
Yet the warmth remained. Athena and Poseidon had agreed; Stede would stay as warm as Ed did, even without a tail of his own.
On their island, Stede had a few articles of clothing. He liked to dress up, mainly for Ed, and Ed liked to borrow a silk shirt or a cravat now and again. In the water, Stede wore shorts, because he still had his human body and every part of him was out in the open instead of safely tucked away.
So when the shudder had him holding his arms close to his body, Ed should’ve realised something was amiss. If it wasn’t cold, then there was something witchy afoot, as Buttons would say, and he should’ve been on higher alert.
Except Stede was excited, as he always was. Every day was an adventure for Stede, and his eager light never dimmed. Ed loved him to bits.
So when Stede said, “you go this way and I’ll go that”, Ed agreed.
They would meet up in an hour and compare notes.
And Ed let him go.
He wandered along by himself, through the fog, interested in the weird shapes he could see among the seaweed and the rocks. It was definitely mysterious, along the shoreline, on the edges where sky met sea and wisps of ethereal cloud curled upwards.
Perfect spooky atmosphere for a mystery play.
He swam back to their meeting point, fascinated by the way the fog didn’t seem to let up as the day grew broad, only gathered closer and thicker, even though he could feel the sun, as day broke and Apollo raised his chariot above the horizon and drove it up into the sky.
Stede was not at their meeting point.
He waited, swimming about, eating and drinking a little.
At some point, it occurred to him that more time than usual had passed, in human terms. Apollo’s team rode down towards the West.
Then he remembered Stede’s shudder, and how the fog had lingered, like some sort of shapeshifter.
And now he shuddered, and his blood thrummed in his ears, and his heartrate sped up, and he raised his voice and called. “Stede! Stede! Where are you?”
His voice echoed off the rocks, and all the creatures nearby waved their fins and clacked their claws at him.
And his heartbeat faltered, and he whispered, “Come back to me.”
***
Stede swam here and there, marvelling at the thickness of the fog and how it almost seemed to part like a curtain as he waved his arms and kicked his legs.
Pea soup fog, that was a phrase that came up often in those old detective stories. The type of fog that had blanketed London in bygone days.
How fascinating that this fog should remind him of it! Such perfect atmosphere for their play.
He swam on and, amid the swirling tendrils of fog, noticed more and more shapes that seemed ideally designed for Ed and himself.
A stack of rocks that looked like the detective’s armchair!
Coral that could be the emerald necklace stolen from the main character!
He swam on, admiring the hazy light and the way all sounds seemed muffled. Just right for a scene in which the villain came up and coshed the lover on the head!
He made to swim on, but a grip on his ankle yanked him back.
He looked down. Seaweed had tangled about his foot. He tugged, but the binding cords didn’t loosen.
“This is ridiculous.” He twisted about and got his hands on the plant, attempting to undo it like tangled knitting wool. Loop this bit here, draw that length through here—
“Fuck!” Both ankles were now completely knotted up. He threw up his hands in despair. Far from shoving aside the waters, so that he might see more clearly, all that served to do was swirl the fog even closer about him.
He was caught.
Time passed. He tried to relax as much as possible, in order to simply ease his feet out of the bindings, to no avail. Every tug and yank seemed to wind more loops about his legs.
He called out for Ed, though he felt he had no right to do that. Why should Ed come racing over from his own explorations simply because Stede couldn’t mind where he swam?
He hadn’t learned enough of the undersea world as he should have; he couldn’t even recall the name of this plant! He ought to pay more attention, to their home, to the sea, to all of their friends. He was too selfish, too wrapped up in his own ideas. Writing a play, ha! No wonder Frenchie had scoffed and Lucius had laughed.
Ed had wanted to dress up; Stede should have stuck with that idea, not shoved forward his own.
He swayed with the current, cooler waters flowing down from the surface now that afternoon was fading. So much time had gone by since they were meant to meet up!
He needed to remember the difference between human time and undersea time; Ed had decided they’d meet within a human time frame and Stede had failed him.
He wasn’t steadfast enough, that was the issue. He’d been granted the right, the ability, to stay by Ed—but he wasn’t staying by him was he, if all he did was throw his own opinions about and not listen to anyone else?
If all he did—
If he didn’t do enough—
If he couldn’t even keep to Athena and Poseidon’s arrangement, then his breath—
He wouldn’t be able to swim down here, he’d be cold all over again and have to reach the surface. If he did not do his part, then all the abilities he’d gained—
His breath— He wouldn’t be able to breathe— He couldn’t catch a breath— Mouth full of water—
If Ed—
“Ed!” he cried out, voice thick with tears. No, it was water, water filling him, not air—
That shimmer in the distance— Was that the last light he might see if—
***
Ed swam this way and that, not thrashing, he was not churning up the water as he went. He was not weaving in and out of currents, switching direction—
Stop. Think. Are you going to ask for help?
Not yet. Save that option, keep it open.
First, think like Stede.
Ed swam back to the place near their platform where they’d parted. The fog made no difference to him; he could smell, hear, echolocate.
Stede’s senses weren’t as strong. Follow the current, then, like he would.
Until— Aha, those rocks looked sort of like a stage. He might have approached them. And there— A stand of that pretty coral Stede liked.
Ed swam about it, dived below it. Caught a different current and followed it towards a broad grove of sea cucumber and—
Up ahead. Waves where there shouldn’t be and the discordant note of a gasp for breath.
He kicked, hard, and broke through the fog.
Crashed into Stede, got his arms about him, and squeezed. “What is it? Are you hurt? Do we—”
Stede, mouth open, heaving for breath.
Ed pulled back on the instant.
Now that he was with Stede, his heart had calmed. He could think now, not simply react.
He kept his hands on Stede’s shoulders and swished his fins about, dislodging the remaining foggy swirls and cloudy silt, until they floated in a bowl of clear water.
No, not floated—Stede was caught. Ed hadn’t ever been trapped by this weed before, but Archie had, once. She’d fought, with a blade, and Poseidon had reprimanded her. They weren’t allowed, no one was permitted to wantonly cut another.
He’d help Stede get free, but first he had to help Stede, who hadn’t even opened his eyes yet.
“Stede,” he said as softly as he could. “It’s me, sweetness.”
He smoothed his hand up Stede’s neck and cupped his cheek, set his other hand on Stede’s chest, over his heart. “I’m here. I’m here now. I’m here, Stede. You’re safe. Can you take a breath with me?”
He touched his forehead to Stede’s. “Slowly now. Okay?”
Stede’s breaths stuttered. He shook his head. Slapped at the water with one hand.
“It’s fine, Stede. You can breathe under the water, you’re all right.”
Stede shook his head again, more violently, curls flopping.
“Yes you can, sweetness. Do it for me. Do it with me, okay? I’ll count. In, 1, 2, 3, 4.” He brushed his thumb over the apple of Stede’s cheek. “Out, 1, 2, 3, 4. Good man. Let’s do it again.”
He kept counting under his breath, kept stroking Stede’s face, now with both thumbs at his temples, cradling his head. Lower down, he swished his fins over Stede’s hips, along his legs, in that whisper-soft way Stede loved.
Gradually, moment by moment, Stede’s breaths evened out. He opened his eyes. “I’m all right.”
“Yeah.” Ed grinned at him, wobbly and relieved. “Yeah, you are. That was a close call, wasn’t it? Got yourself pretty shaken up there by your thoughts.”
“My feet!”
“Shh.” He wrapped his arms about Stede and squeezed him again. “You’re still trapped. But you need to relax. You gotta take it easy. Otherwise, your arms’ll get tangled up, too, and all the rest of you. And I’m stuck to you now, so I’ll get bound, and then where will we be?”
Stede chuckled, and the waters about them seemed even clearer than before. “I like it when you’re stuck to me,” he said in a small voice. His arms came up, slowly, as if his panic had left them heavy and unwieldy. He brought them together and leaned on Ed’s chest, and Ed hung on to him.
“I can go get help,” Ed offered.
Stede had the same reaction that he did. “You could. But not yet.” He buried his face in Ed’s neck, nuzzled in among the loose strands of his hair. “Is there something else we can do?”
“I guess you tried to untie them?”
“I only made it worse.”
“Shh, you tried, yeah? That’s the main bit.” He cast his thoughts this way and that, recalling legends, poems, secret coves beneath the waves. “There’re fishes that like this seaweed. If enough of them came about and ate it up, they’d free you.”
“How do we attract them?” Stede asked. “Don’t they mostly go where—”
They looked at each other and cried out at the same time, “We need to be a lighthouse!”
***
Stede let Ed go, then, with a promise to return as soon as possible in both human and undersea time. And in heartbeats, too.
Ed gave him a long kiss before parting and told him to count to one hundred. He’d be back even before that, he said.
And he did, having run into Izzy, who’d sensed the odd flow of the water that both Stede and Ed had caused, and come swimming about to investigate.
Izzy gave a long-suffering sigh at the sight of Stede’s bound feet and legs, but all he said was, “You might’ve been an adult human, but I guess you’re still a young one around here.”
Then he went off to fetch Lucius and Fang and the others.
Ed waited with Stede, looping about him, splashing now and again, kissing him here and there.
Stede floated above where he was caught, and basked in the sight of Ed.
He hadn’t wanted to take this life, this world, for granted, but he’d let himself forget how quickly it could be upended, even taken away. He needed to learn more; as Izzy had said, he was young here, still, and there was much to discover. He didn’t need to berate himself for not knowing all there was to know right away, not when Ed and his friends had grown in these waters over millennia.
Ed would help him—Stede only had to ask.
He clung to Ed as Ed swirled his fins about him. Held Ed by the arms and reached for one lingering kiss after another.
For the first time in all their years together, a hint of frenzy crept into their kisses. As if Stede were still short of breaths, and could only catch them by pressing his lips to Ed’s.
They were always sweet when they joined, careful and slow, delighting in soft touches and the gradual building of heat between them.
This evening, a thread of fire ran through their bodies, pushing them harder together than ever before. Their kisses grew messy, teeth clacking, tongues searching. Their hands scrabbled in each other’s hair.
Then came the sound of Fang’s laugh, and Ed broke away. Somersaulted in the water and came up behind him, wrapping his arms about Stede’s waist.
“Hey Fang, Pete,” he said, and Stede nearly giggled at the wobble in Ed’s voice that only he could hear. Ed acting shy was a rare, dear sight. But no one would guess what they'd been up to, how they'd almost gotten carried away.
Pete held a mirror and Fang held a bigger one. Behind them came Lucius with an armful of handheld mirrors.
Ed slipped aside then, though he kept a hand on Stede’s shoulder, and began to direct the angling of each mirror.
He went all the way down the row of their friends, and when he’d arranged them all just right, then the light from the candles they’d lit in their cave, far, far off, bounced back, one mirror to the next, and blazed all about Stede.
Ed returned up the line, and linked his arm through Stede’s, and they waited for the fish to want to be caught by the light.
***
As the dark of evening descended, the fishes came. A few scouts at first, then more of their friends, until Stede’s lower half was a swirling cloud of multi-coloured scales.
The fish ate their fill, and the candles burned low, and one by one their friends returned the mirrors to the cave and to their own coves.
Ed kept his hands on Stede. Even as the fronds of seaweed fell away and were swallowed up, as he checked Stede over for cuts and scratches, as Stede waved his gorgeous legs, free, in and out of the nearest current, Ed kept his hands on Stede.
He rested his palm on the small of Stede’s back. He let his fingers graze wherever he felt the urge, down Stede’s arm or at his hip, or wherever Stede leaned in, inviting more of his touch, at his waist or beneath his hair, at the back of his neck.
Stede thanked everyone personally, friends and fish alike, taking the time to ask them about random details of their lives that even Ed had forgotten, like Jim’s Nana being due for a visit, or a new stitch that Wee John had learned.
Archie hung about the longest, telling Stede in gory detail all about the time she’d gotten trapped, and attacked the plants with a knife, until a writhing mess of sea snakes had set her free.
Ed began to lead them away, and Archie followed, now telling Stede all about Poseidon’s verdict on her adventures. She hugged them both at the cave entrance, promised to send some of Olu’s tasty mussel treats at breakfast, and swam on.
Stede entered the cave, and Ed watched him for a while as he fussed with the displaced mirrors and the stubs of the candles. “You can get some new ones,” he suggested, knowing Stede looked forward to shopping and/or raiding trips.
But Stede hummed, noncommittal. Came out of the dry area back into the water and just...swam about, curving and twisting. His hair fluffed out about his head.
Ed swam closer, hands clasped before him. “Hey. You okay?”
Stede stopped twirling and looked at him.
The next thing he knew, Stede had caught him about the waist and slammed him up against the velvety side of their anemone bush.
He stilled, then, and kept his gaze on Ed. Did Ed want this, the frenzied touches they’d begun earlier, so different from their usual syrup-slow joining?
Yes, he did. He’d promised himself not to take their life together for granted. But he’d forgotten to leave room for mishaps, for accidents, for anything beyond his control.
And also for room to grow, with Stede.
He nodded.
Stede surged in, collapsed against him as Ed snapped an arm about Stede’s waist and crushed his mouth to Stede’s.
The sea rolled all about, and the waters in their home heaved from side to side and up along the cave walls. Ed flickered his fins as Stede drove a hand into his hair and kissed him harder. He gasped with need, and Stede kissed him through it, tongue finding his. He whimpered with longing, and Stede whimpered back, pliant in his hold.
“You’re mine,” Ed told him, swaying them over to their mossy bed. “Don’t. Leave.”
“I never want to leave,” Stede said fiercely, dropping back on the moss, taking Ed atop him, the waters all around surging up into waves created by their movements, washing over their heads. “After today, I’m never going to leave your side.”
He rained kisses down Ed’s neck, squirmed beneath him and latched onto a nipple.
Ed’s pleading sounds turned to deeper groans. He arched his back, inviting more, and that just led to him grinding down into Stede at their core.
“I’ll be a barnacle.” Stede shifted up again, lips begging for more kisses. He wrapped his arms and legs about Ed’s body. “Never let go.”
“Perfect.” Ed slipped his hands down Stede’s sides, tugged at his shorts. Stede canted his hips so Ed could slide them off; Ed was always better at this, used to the push and pull of manoeuvring in water. He hadn’t slept on a bed before Stede, but Stede had also been the one to fulfil his dream of a lover he could rest on, and where better than on a comfy surface? Even when under the sea.
“Let me take care of you,” he said, as he tucked Stede’s shorts into their out-of-the-current nook.
“Let me,” Stede countered, already reaching for him as Ed turned back to face him. He got his arms on Stede’s shoulders and hung on, as Stede shifted them to stretch out, horizontal, on the moss, and skimmed his hand down Ed’s chest, past his belly, to his hidden area.
His skin tingled, the muscles of his tail quivered in anticipation. His fins fluttered out, wide, and wavered in the warm water. Stede kissed him thoroughly, and stroked him, coaxing him to open, his pace quicker than he’d tried before.
Ed’s body responded. His cock slipped free, already seeking friction. Before, all their past years together, he and Stede had moved like cream, like honey. Now they tumbled like a rill gurgling into a rock pool, like a stream hurrying down to give its waters to the sea.
He kept reaching for kisses, not allowing them a moment to catch a breath, until he grew lightheaded, and his head fell back. Stede insinuated both hands into Ed’s hair and, as eager as Ed was, Stede didn’t slow either. He nuzzled into Ed’s neck, kissing him in every crevice, along every line, as if he’d left a gap here and there in all the other times they’d come together, and now he meant to cover every inch, leave no part of Ed unkissed, unloved.
They rolled about on the moss, side to side, both their hands reaching to grasp each other’s cocks at the same time.
“Stede, I love you,” he said, slurring his words, pushing into Stede with his whole body and waving his fins in eel-like shapes to shift the waters about them.
“I love you, Ed.” Stede’s hand knocked against his as they tightened their grips at the same time, kept stroking, wet with the all-encompassing sea and their own desire. “Harder, please, I want to feel—”
“Yeah— Closer—”
They floated away from the bed and Stede threw his legs about Ed, wrapped his arm about Ed’s shoulders, just as Ed needed. Enveloped, not only held to his lover’s chest, but strapped to his whole body.
Together, they quickened, gasping into each other’s open mouth, held by the water all around. With his last remaining awareness, Ed tried something new—he spread his fins to their furthest extent, then, feather-like, delicately, he waved them closed, and wrapped them about Stede’s body. Flickered them, softly, along Stede’s skin.
His fins fluttered as slowly as his hand swept quickly over Stede’s cock. Stede gave him the same, both the dreamy slowness of his kisses, now toying with Ed’s earlobe, and the surety of his hand, swift as lightning.
“Darling—”
“‘m here. Sweetness. You’re here. Come—”
“Yes—”
They burst like a new constellation, like falling stars together, sparkling as they shot down from the sky. And the sea was more heated than ever before all about them, all warmth and goodness, as their breathing evened out and they glided back towards their bed.
Stede lay upon it, and Ed laid his head, now on Stede’s chest, now in the crook of his neck. And they kissed, and whispered to each other, words of love and safety, and a promise to never part again.
***
The next day, he and Ed swam out to an island Ed knew of on which aloe plants grew. They rubbed some of the juice on Stede’s cuts and the abrasions on his skin, then lingered in the shallows, talking about their play.
Stede rose up and declaimed what he thought was his best speech, the moment when the main character argued for one culprit, just before the detective revealed that the person he’d chosen couldn’t possibly be the villain. “Now you,” he told Ed, who floated on his back as he watched Stede perform.
“Nah.” Ed flipped about, and Stede dropped back into the water to be near him. “Reckon you’re the one the Muses favour. Why don’t you recite the whole thing?”
“Do you still want to get dressed up, darling?” he asked, determined to focus on his love and not on the excitement of standing before everyone— “Oh! What if you were the host?”
“In a play? Oh— Do you mean if we change the whole— We should have a talent show!”
“Oh, Ed, that’s beautiful!” He’d wanted to efface himself, make sure he was learning more of Ed’s world, of the world Stede had chosen. A talent show was the perfect way to let them all celebrate each other, together.
Though Ed came first.
Stede spent the next couple of weeks sourcing the perfect outfit for him, with a little help from Alma and Louis.
Finally, everyone was ready.
John had helped everyone with their costumes, and he and Izzy were staging a tribute to Calypso. Jim was also involved, but they had a separate act planned with Archie, Olu, and Zheng, something to do with snakes. Auntie had written their script, and also helped Roach with the preparations for the feast. Roach had a brief turn on stage as a juggler, along with Pete, who planned to feature accents in his sketch. Pete and Lucius were reviving a classical Greek comedy, with Fang. Fang was also going to include a few animals, along with Buttons. Buttons had written an ode to Amphitrite and the sea nymphs, and he and Swede would sing together as well. Swede and Jackie were providing the drinks, and preparing the decorations with Frenchie. Frenchie was the lutist for the evening, and Ed’s official assistant.
Ed, in turn, was the master of ceremonies, and would join Stede midway through the night, when Stede recited his play.
Stede had cut most of the characters and scenes, shortened it to a one-act mystery, and he did all the voices. At the end, when he revealed who the villain had been all along, he earned a resounding cheer, and applause that echoed off the rocky shore.
He waited until Ed had announced the next performers, Olu and his troupe, all weaving sea snakes about themselves as they stepped up to the platform, before he joined Ed backstage (behind a rocky outcropping) and clung to him.
“Shaky again?” Ed asked softly, holding him up with both arms and tail.
“Yes. But in a good way.” Last time, he’d been fearful, and beset by worry. Tonight, he simply felt the thrill of a powerful performance. And for the first time, he could look back, and not feel only regret, or guilt. He’d come out stronger, determined to never hurt his home, to do his best by his found family. And he could see, thinking back on his life, that all the puzzle pieces fit, no matter how ugly some of them might be. Many more of them were wonderful.
And Ed, Ed was the most beautiful of all.
He drew back and looked him over, from waterproof top hat—cloth sourced by Louis, hat fashioned by Alma—to the braids of his hair beneath it, bedecked by flowers and butterfly-shaped clips, then down to his dazzling white shirt and tuxedo jacket, fashioned to allow his fins their freedom, and accented with an amethyst pocket square and embroidery that matched Ed’s own hues.
His gold-topped walking stick floated nearby, ready for Ed to grab it before he swam off for his next turn on the stage.
Until then, Stede could linger by his love, and kiss his beloved face as often as he wished. He’d imagined that Ed would look dashing all dressed up, but hadn’t been prepared for how much he would dazzle Stede.
“Ed! Let me get the underwater camera!”
***
In the wee hours, they regained their cave.
Faces together, cheek to cheek, they took one last photo. Ed couldn’t wait until spring, when Alma and Louis could have the photos printed, and he and Stede could hang them all over their cabin on the boat.
He remembered a word he’d once learned, hiraeth, a word in Welsh for a homesickness tinged with grief and sadness over the lost or departed, a mixture of longing and wistfulness for home, for Wales, for the Wales of the past.
He hadn’t thought it applied to himself, nestled all his life in the waters of his birth.
Yet he’d carried that ache of longing, of yearning, with him always.
Only now that it had passed did he recognise it, and know that it was Stede who’d eased that ache, met that longing, kissed him for his yearning.
As he and Stede wrapped themselves about each other that night, his cheek resting on Stede’s chest, he flared his fins a final time, filled with joy.
“I’m happy, too,” Stede whispered, with a kiss to his brow. “I love our home.”
And Ed flickered his fins, and kissed his love, and his love kissed him back, and they made each other happy.