Tags: animal transformation, bipoc character, the beach, first kiss, interspecies romance, manta ray shifter, meet cute, mlm, new england, octopus shifter, pov third person limited, present tense, united states of america, unreliable narrator
*
One of the few advantages Kyle has, being the only Amp in town, is that he’s got the bathhouse to himself in the aftermath.
He’s been shedding his skin for a decade, now, Sunday through Thursday, 1 p.m. sharp. Every single time, it hurts. Not just his thick, dry skin, or the sudden limitations of bones and gravity. There’s pain in the harshness of the fish sellers’ calls on the dock above him, the piercing screams of the gulls, the light that scalds through the window.
The minutes it takes to recover feel like an eternity, and even then his legs are weak. They’re the last part of his body to acclimate; until they do, they’re ready to split back into tentacles and drag him back into the ocean.
The streets are still festooned with blue-striped flags and tropical-ocean-themed balloons. Clearly, everyone thoroughly enjoyed the Treaty Day celebrations. Everyone but Kyle, anyway. He’d had the holiday off, but it was hard to celebrate with his family. They brought him crabs from the farm, pulled him out of his den to play, surprised him with gifts of kelp and urchins for his garden, and it all felt like a lie.
They still think he’s some sort of hero because he was with the Amp delegation when they negotiated the Treaty. They think he’s important Above because providing food Below is so prestigious. Nothing he says can convince them otherwise.
But the delegation he trained with six years ago moved on to more important diplomatic work without him, and his “vital role” in food provision is actually second shift as a barista at Opal’s Café, so…
Kyle’s irritation is more than the typical residue of the shed as he walks into town to do the world-saving work of stocking baked goods and steaming milk for lattes.
The grating of skateboard wheels stokes his anger into a tsunami, dark and crushing, as he emerges from the cross street. “Hey!” he yells, his dark, human skin screaming a warning yellow and making the cobalt around his eyes and mouth glow. “Can’t you read? No skateboarding!” The scarf around his neck—the skin he sheds every day to come to this ridiculous job—ripples with warning patterns triggered by the adrenaline rush as he pins the culprit with his black-eyed gaze. He thrusts out his hand to point at the wooden sign on the coffee shop wall:
NO LOITERING, LITTERING, SHIFTING, SKATEBOARDING, HIGH MAGIC
His anger drains away as he actually looks at the skateboarder. He’d expected a punk kid, but this boarder is Kyle’s age, as thin as Kyle is stocky, and he moves on the board like he was born there. He flashes silver-quick along the packed earth like a porpoise riding the surf, skids along the stone curb, then flips the board with one foot as he goes airborne, lands lightly, and spins to a halt. Finally, he turns to give Kyle his attention as he levers the board into his waiting hand. His face is nearly as dark as Kyle’s, flushed ruddy with exertion. He grins broadly, but it wilts into a sheepish smile under Kyle’s glare.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I was in the groove.” He taps the board on the ground. “I just got it; it’s been forever since I rode.”
Kyle swallows. His human skin has gone darker, calmer, but the skin around his neck is now working through a mortifying courtship display. He wishes desperately he’d stayed in his den this morning.
“Yeah,” he manages. “Good. Don’t let Opal catch you out here. She hoards those.” He nods at the board and gestures at the eaves of the shop, then forces himself into his curated “leave me alone” posture.
The boarder’s eyes flick up and widen when he sees Opal’s confiscated boards layered over each other like shingles. His knuckles go white as he grips his board tightly.
“Thanks,” the boarder says. “I appreciate the heads-up. Guess I’ll stick to the boardwalk.” He steps forward and sticks out his hand. “I’m Clovis.”
Kyle freezes, staring at Clovis’s hand for a long moment before taking it. The taste is immediate—not as strong as it would be if he were wearing his true skin, but still striking and intimate.
Kelp. Salt. Home.
“I…I’m Kyle,” he says finally, dropping Clovis’s hand.
He’s still reeling when Clovis opens the door for him with a sweeping “after you” gesture, then follows him inside.
Kyle knows, in his bones, in his skin, in his blood, there’s something different about Clovis. And Clovis—as far as Kyle can tell, Clovis is blissfully, frustratingly, completely unaware.
*
Kyle doles out change and bares his teeth in a facsimile of a smile before looking up to greet the next customer.
His smile falters; the skin around his neck ripples blue and green. “Clovis.”
“Hi, Kyle.” Clovis’s smile curves wide, indenting dimples into his dark cheeks and nearly hiding his eyes. It’s more natural and captivating than any facial configuration Kyle has ever managed.
“Hey. What can I get you?” he asks as he tries to cover his skin’s latest display.
Clovis scans the board. “What do you recommend?”
“Uh.” The more Kyle grasps for a reply, the more his mind goes blank. “The sea-salt caramel latte? That’s the one I like.”
Clovis tips his head in consideration. “Yeah? Awesome. Make it a big one!”
“You got it.” Kyle puts in the order. “Three-fifty.”
Clovis hands the coins over and throws another in the tip jar as Kyle points down the counter to where Vestain is handing out drinks.
“Thanks.” Clovis waves.
Kyle nods and takes a deep breath, turning to help the next customer.
At the end of their shift, Vestain hands him a latte in his favorite mug.
“What’s this?”
“Your friend bought it for you. He asked me to deliver it when you were done for the day. ‘A “thank you” for the recommendation,’ he said. It seems it made an impression.” Vestain’s zen smile carries a hint of humor.
“Oh.” Kyle says.
Your friend.
“Thanks.”
*
Kyle doesn’t make friends Above, and he certainly doesn’t go out after work. But when Clovis asks, it doesn’t feel like a choice, it feels inevitable.
Like the push-pull of the tide.
“Why skateboarding?” Kyle asks as Clovis rolls up beside him, returning from a series of tricks along the boardwalk. The air is heavy with humidity and the smell of the ocean, and for once Kyle isn’t desperate to pull his skin on and slip back into the water.
“Why not?” Clovis shrugs. “It feels good. It can be easy, just the smooth ride of the road, or challenging, like when I’m learning a new trick. And it feels powerful, you know? Free, like flying.” He laughs. “I used to think I was a Viv, I loved it so much. Then a bunch of my friends had their first shift, and I realized…I just like it, I guess.”
Kyle looks at the long blue marks that run parallel to Clovis’s collarbones. He considers saying something about how swimming feels like that—like freedom and weightlessness. He’s silent. Everyone finds their way in their own time, and he doesn’t know, not really. He just senses it, like the warning tingle of a barracuda cresting the reef behind him.
“A Viv, huh?” he teases instead. “I’d like to see one of them do that triple-flip thing. Even with wings, that’d be tough.”
Clovis laughs. “Right? I was always better at skating than they were.”
He shrugs. “Guess everybody’s got something, huh?”
“Yeah, they do,” Kyle agrees vaguely.
“You’re gonna try it, right?” Clovis asks.
Kyle snaps his head around in alarm. “Try what?”
“The board. I’ll show you. C’mon!”
“No, no, I’m good,” Kyle protests while Clovis tugs his arm and makes dubious promises that he’ll keep Kyle in one piece.
In the end, Clovis’s a pretty good teacher, and Kyle’s a terrible skateboarder, but for every bruise, there’s a bout of laughter.
Secretly, Kyle considers the day a success.
*
Clovis points, tacitly inviting Kyle to lean closer. “Ursa Major—the bear. And that one? That’s Orion, the hunter.”
“In the ocean, we just draw them ourselves,” Kyle says, trying not to be distracted by Clovis’s shoulder touching his, tasting temptingly of kelp and sea salt. “The algae in the Deep, it glows like that. My siblings and I played in it when we were young.”
“That sounds incredible,” Clovis says. Then, he goes quiet—one of those long silences Kyle has learned not to take personally—and tension grows slowly, coiling in Kyle’s body where they touch. “Can you tell me…?” Clovis’s voice wavers with uncertainty. “What’s it like Below?”
Kyle stiffens, his skin going pale. It’s a charged question to ask anyone. Most people, you can’t tell their other form on sight. Of course, everyone knows Kyle’s an Amp because of all the fanfare that came with the delegation’s arrival and the start of his training.
But most people have the decency to pretend they don’t.
Kyle trusts that Clovis doesn’t mean to be invasive or rude. If anything, he sounds desperate. But, even with the best of intentions, Kyle’s experiences are hard to explain. The way his family celebrated him on Treaty Day is the kindest example of how his existence is misunderstood.
Kyle sighs. Whether Clovis realizes it or not, he should probably know what’s out there and, while Kyle may not be the best option to tell him, he is the only one here right now.
“It’s quieter,” he says finally. “Meditative, almost. But the language, the priorities—the entire structure of everyday life—they’re different. It’s hard to explain. Like, try to imagine describing here to someone who’s never even…taken a breath. You can’t! There’s no context to understand, no frame of reference. So, it’s hard to say. If you experienced it for the first time, it would be completely new. You can’t try to map your life Above to it, you have to just…feel it when you’re there. Go with what your body tells you. I guess, well, it’s slower and sharper, somehow. More in focus. Simpler and more immediate. You’re more…embedded in it; not just on it, but part of it, the landscape and the water and the other creatures…it’s beautiful, too; there are forests and canyons and colors you can’t imagine.” He smiles softly, thinking of bringing Clovis Below.
“You like it better there, huh? With your family?” Clovis asks. His voice is quiet. Reflective.
“I used to hate it here,” Kyle admits with a sigh. “It’s so intense. The shed is hard. I’m so clumsy. Everything is loud and bright, and my body is dull. It doesn’t feel the world the way it should.” He swallows, reluctant and nervous. “But lately…hanging out with you, I’m starting to see the good. I never watched the sun set from Above before.”
Clovis looks at him, eyebrows in his hairline. “Never?”
Kyle shrugs, glad his skin’s colors are muted in the moonlight. “After the delegation left, I didn’t bother with things like that. What’s the point of trying to make a life Above if I’m no good as an Amp?”
“Seriously?”
Kyle shrugs uncomfortably. “Yeah. I mean, they’d know, right? Amps, if they do it right, they help people. Change lives. So, if I’m not good enough for that, what’s the point?”
Clovis tips his head. “Wait. But…from what you’ve told me, you negotiated for your family’s farm, right? Like, the prices and the space, and the import of the initial stock?”
“Yeah, but the delegation arranged for the shark protection detail. They coordinated the purchase of the land and fair payment to the temperate sentients.”
“With your help.”
“It was more like an apprenticeship kind of thing.”
“But didn’t you set up Opal’s salt-sourcing with the porpoises?”
Kyle sighs. “That was her idea.”
“You drew it up and made sure it was fair, right?”
“It wasn’t like that!” Kyle flushes. “I’m not a diplomat. I just try to help out when I can.”
Clovis chuckles. “You really don’t see the difference you’ve made?”
“I haven’t—” Kyle protests.
“You have. You’re an Amp, Kyle—a good one—and there’s so much to do here. I’ll bet that’s why you didn’t get assigned when the delegation left.”
“No. They told me—”
“We think this is the best place for you,” Demia had said.
“Did they say you weren’t good enough?”
“Not…not in so many words…” Kyle’s caught in a tumbling wave of memories and forgotten kindnesses.
“I think you’re right where you need to be,” Clovis says.
“Oh,” Kyle whispers, stunned. “Thanks.”
Clovis settles back with a sigh and stares at the stars until Kyle relaxes and joins him, seeing them in a whole new way.
*
Kyle finds his instinctual crush complicated by their friendship, established despite his initial reluctance. More than the antics of his skin in Clovis’s presence, he thrills at Clovis’s compliments and challenges, at his haphazard approach to conversation. Kyle never knows what’s coming, and he actually likes that. But Clovis still seems blissfully unaware that he might belong to the ocean as much as to the land, and it’s starting to feel like something Kyle is keeping from him.
Vestain is quietly watering plants when Kyle finally seeks advice.
“Hey,” he says, trying to sound casual as he stocks the bakery case. Vestain looks up, their pale face serene as always. “Yes?”
“I…” he trails off. “Have you ever met anyone that didn’t know they had another form? Like, they did have one, but they just…didn’t know? They’d never shifted?”
Vestain smiles and croons at a palm tree. “Sometimes, the heart knows things before the mind does. But they come into alignment with patience.”
Kyle sighs. Vestain is wise, and old. The downside is that they can be incredibly cryptic.
“Uh, thanks. I think.”
“You’re welcome,” Vestain laughs softly. “Patience will serve you, Kyle. Everything will find its place.” They glance out the broad window fronting the store. “I believe I need to put some things in the back.” They smile as they head into the storage closet, and then the bell over the door rings as Clovis walks in.
“Hey,” Clovis says, voice cracking. It sets off Kyle’s markings, which flare in warning to an unknown threat.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
With a shake of his head, Clovis answers vaguely, “Yeah, yeah, of course. I just…I wanted…” He stares up at the drink board.
Something is wrong.
“Clovis—” Kyle tries again.
“Can I get…can you give me that drink you suggested? The salt one?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Clovis digs for change with shaking hands, and Kyle waves him off. “On the house.”
Oblivious, Clovis keeps searching.
Kyle touches his arm. “Seriously. I got it.”
“Yeah.” The digging finally stops. Clovis looks up at Kyle like he’s waking from a dream. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”
The café stays quiet as Kyle brews the espresso. He calls to Vestain on his way to Clovis’s table, “Taking my break!” Then, he passes the coffee over and sits. “What happened? You all right?”
After a long sip of the latte, Clovis barks a laugh that verges on hysterical. “Yeah? Yeah, I’m good. I’m…I’m good.”
Kyle waits. Under the table, his hands worry against each other, the self-soothing of wrapping his tentacles together.
Clovis looks at his mug, the wide-mouthed one Kyle knows he likes. He tips it one way, then the other. “I should have known,” he says. “The first time I had this drink, I knew where the salt was from. Not just…not just that it was from the ocean, but that it was this ocean, this bay, specifically. I could taste it. That’s…” He looks up. “Most people can’t do that, can they?”
Kyle smiles gently. “I don’t think so.”
“I lost my dad when I was a kid. Did I tell you?”
“You didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“The only thing my mom would tell me was that the sea took him. Took him. Weird way to say it, right? I…” He laughs again, high-pitched and frantic. “I thought he drowned. I thought that was why we moved inland.”
Kyle covers Clovis’s hand with his and tastes the sour taint of fear. “What happened?”
“I’ve always been afraid of the ocean.” Clovis looks out the window, voice quiet. “But I’ve always been fascinated by it, too. The waves and the sand and…and what’s underneath. And I thought…you’re there every day, right? It can’t be that bad.”
Clovis turns his hand under Kyle’s and holds on like he’s afraid of being ripped away. “I didn’t swim, I just…I barely got wet, but I…I couldn’t breathe. Something happened. Something changed. I couldn’t see. I…” His free hand goes to his chest, to the blue markings there.
“You started to shift,” Kyle says quietly.
Clovis nods, over and over, like he’s forgotten how to stop. “Yeah.” He looks at Kyle. “Did you know?”
“I suspected.” Kyle steels himself for anger, but Clovis just keeps nodding.
“Oh.” Clovis looks around them, restless. “Well, thanks.”
“For what?”
“For talking to me. About your life there. I know I shouldn’t have asked, but I just…it felt important, and you talked to me, and you didn’t rush me, and I…I appreciate that.”
“Yeah, of course. I just thought…I wanted to help. If I could.”
“Well, you did.” Clovis gives him a wan smile. “Can I…” He shakes his head. “Never mind.”
“Ask me. Anything. What do you need?” Kyle asks urgently.
“Can you come with me? Tonight? Can you…can you show me?”
A warmth grows in Kyle’s chest. Clovis trusts him. Even at his most vulnerable, Clovis wants Kyle with him Below. Just as Clovis has been his guide Above.
“Absolutely!” Kyle squeezes his hand reassuringly.
Clovis closes his eyes and takes a shuddering breath. “Thank you.”
“Gimme one minute,” Kyle says, then steps away to knock on the closet door. “Vestain? I’m sorry, would it be all right if—”
The door opens, and Vestain is already nodding as they emerge. “Go ahead. Don’t keep your friend waiting.”
Kyle stares, then smiles. Somehow, Vestain can still surprise him. “I owe you one,” he says, pulling his apron over his head before heading back to Clovis. “Whenever you’re ready. There’s no rush, okay? I’m here as long as you need me.”
Clovis’s face goes tight, and he rubs his cheeks briskly. “That…wow. Thanks. Can we just walk?”
“Sure.”
Kyle holds the door.
*
“I thought these were birthmarks,” Clovis says. He rubs a finger along one of the blue lines that jut above his collar.
“Gills, I think,” Kyle says, gauging Clovis’s reaction. There’s not even a hitch in his stride. “They should open when you go into the water. That might be what you felt when you went in earlier. If your gills opened above the water, that would feel…really scary.”
“Yeah.” Clovis shivers. “It did.”
“My first shed was when I was thirteen, and we lived in the Deep. If we hadn’t been hunting in the shallows, I probably wouldn’t have made it to the surface. I know how you feel. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
“I know you will.”
They walk along the beach, Kyle closest to the waves.
“What if I don’t come back?” Clovis asks.
“Nothing hunts near town; we won’t go into the Deep. You’ll be safe.”
Laughing nervously, Clovis says, “That’s not…I meant, what if I go in, and I never want to come back? That happens, right?”
Kyle thinks back. “Maybe? But you won’t be a different person down there. You’ll still be yourself, still want the same things you want now.”
Clovis looks at him sidelong. Looks away.
“Think about what’s here, Above. What’s important?”
“My mom.”
“What else?”
There’s an odd intensity when Clovis looks over again. “I don’t know.”
“Skateboarding?”
Clovis shrugs. “What if it’s just a poor substitute for swimming?”
“What if swimming’s a poor substitute for boarding?” Kyle smiles gently. “Anything else?”
“The lattes at Opal’s,” Clovis says, sly.
“We have amazing omelettes, too,” Kyle laughs. “Have you tried them?”
Shaking his head, Clovis huffs a laugh.
“So, you’ll have to come back at least once.”
A grudging smile. “Yeah.”
“You’re gonna be fine. I’ll be with you the whole time.”
Nodding, Clovis edges closer to the water. “I…can we try?”
“Let’s start in the bathhouse, okay? We’ll get you a locker.”
Kyle brings Clovis to the residents’ side—the lockers there are larger, for long-term use. Clovis chooses one next to Kyle’s, and they strip carefully, hanging their clothes up before Kyle leads Clovis into the alcove. The water laps up from under the dock, and Kyle steps into it first, resisting the stretch of the skin around his neck as it strains to cover him. He turns to watch as Clovis enters the water and gasps, his expression hovering between fear and awe.
“Kyle?” he says, voice wavering.
“You’re doing great,” Kyle assures him, moving closer.
“It feels…it pulls, I can’t describe it.”
“You don’t have to,” Kyle assures him.
Clovis smiles tightly. “Right. Of course.”
Moving into thigh-deep water, Kyle waits for Clovis, waves rising and falling around them. Clovis wades deeper and reaches a hand toward Kyle; Kyle accepts it gladly.
By the time they’re waist-deep, the fear on Clovis’s face is fading, but he still clings to Kyle like a barnacle.
“You’ll be all right,” Kyle reminds him, letting Clovis take the lead.
“I know. I know.”
“When you’re ready, you’ll know what to do. We won’t be able to talk after the shift, but I’ll be there, okay? My family’ll spread the word, and someone—someone like you—will come and show you around.”
Clovis’s grip tightens. “You said you’d stay with me!”
“I will! But you’ll need someone like you to help with questions I can’t answer—about your form and your group, where you can stay and get food, what’s protected. The one who comes, you two will understand each other. You and I won’t—different forms, different languages.”
“Okay. I guess…okay.”
Clovis is just starting to relax when his gills flutter open: first the long ones that lie along his collarbones, then smaller ones that gape along the line of his neck. “Kyle?” His eyes are panicked.
“Easy now…slide down.” He helps Clovis float so his gills move rhythmically underwater. “It’s okay. Relax, now.”
“You’ll stay?” Clovis pleads.
“No matter what,” Kyle promises.
The change begins, and Clovis gets heavier in his arms. Pectoral fins flow out from his sides, incorporating hands and arms and unfurling majestically; his legs stretch into a beautiful whiptail. Kyle walks him deeper until they’re both submerged; Clovis flaps experimentally, drifting out of Kyle’s arms. The world is a strange combination of color and vibration; only when his lungs begin to burn does Kyle pull on his skin.
Clovis swims a tentative circle, then returns, his form—a manta ray—dwarfing Kyle as he glides overhead. Kyle stretches a tentacle out to touch him, and the powerful flavor triggers his skin into a full-fledged courtship display. The shallows are clear water, sand and stone. Knowing his siblings watch from the edges of the kelp forest, Kyle freezes with embarrassment. He’ll be fielding a lot of questions later.
A nudge from Clovis brings Kyle back; he shakes off his self-consciousness even as his skin continues to broadcast his feelings through the shallows.
He leads Clovis deeper, into the kelp forests where his family lives. Their dens are hidden among the outcroppings of sand and stone, camouflaged with lush growth.
A shape from the deeper water resolves into another ray: the ambassador Kyle has been expecting. He’s halfway to greet them when Kyle finds Clovis frozen behind him. Kyle reassures him with gentle strokes along one pectoral fin as the ray approaches more slowly.
Kyle stays close as Clovis relaxes. The rays talk, first with slow undulations of their pectoral fins, then with more animated, deliberate gestures of their bodies, tails, and cephalic fins. They seem to come to an understanding, and then the ambassador swims off toward the coral canyons. Clovis follows, and they move together with an ease that has Kyle forcing back a burst of jealousy.
Just as he’s convincing himself not to wallow in self-pity, Clovis circles back and slides underneath him playfully, lifting Kyle briefly on his broad back and then spinning around when Kyle slides off. He dives again, swirling Kyle into a whirlpool before veering away. It feels joyful, free, the way Clovis had described skateboarding, the way Kyle had felt years ago when it was just him and his siblings in the Deep.
The third time Clovis comes around, Kyle gives in and joins in the fun, snagging a tentacle on Clovis’s back so he’s pulled along, flattening his body so they glide easily through the water together. Clovis leaps above the ocean skin, and Kyle clings fast.
Teasingly, Kyle lifts his tentacles to create a rudder and send Clovis off course. Clovis responds by leaping high, forcing Kyle flat and close. They can’t speak, but they’re beginning to understand each other; this is a language Kyle looks forward to learning.
The other ray joins them and leads Clovis in increasingly complex flips and acrobatics until Kyle releases his hold to watch from Below, marveling as the rays’ huge bodies slide under the water then thrust back above it.
It’s beautiful. Where Kyle’s own skills lie in subtlety and camouflage, the rays’ are in strength and agility. He’s never dared to imagine sharing this with someone. Knowing someone, Above and Below. Being known, completely, by another being. The enormity of the moment tugs at him like the jet stream—he’s helpless, bursting, overcome with emotion.
Eventually, the other ray talks with Clovis and swims off, and then Clovis nudges Kyle into leading them back through the kelp forests, where Kyle shows him how to swim near the ocean skin so the fronds slide along his belly. Clovis flips effortlessly so they dance along his back, and Kyle catches a ride with two tentacles hooked over his fins.
They explore the forests together, chasing each other through the tangled leaves until Clovis is moving smoothly, quickly, without snagging his fins or getting caught on the shelves of rock that hide eels and urchins.
The glow of the sunrise is just piercing the shallows when Kyle leads them, exhausted and ecstatic, back to shore. He laughs when Clovis finds a burst of energy to race him to the dock. Kyle sheds his skin while he’s still swimming and catches Clovis as he crests the waves, raising his gills above the water in frustration.
“Easy,” Kyle soothes, hoping Clovis understands the tone if not the words. “Take it slow, it’ll come. I’m not going anywhere.” Clovis pushes out of the water again, then slides lower to wet his gills. “Good. Don’t drown yourself.”
Slowly, Clovis’s shape narrows.
“There you go! Take your time, you’ve got it.”
For a few minutes, Clovis is stuck between, his whiptail churning in the sand.
“Easy, now. I’ve got you. Don’t worry, now, just a minute.”
One second, Kyle is holding a narrow ray in his arms; the next, Clovis slides into his human form with a shudder, grinning ear to ear.
“That was amazing!” Clovis stumbles as he remembers how to stand, and then he spins, whoops, grips Kyle’s arms and leans in. “I never imagined— That felt incredible, better than I could even—! And everything is gorgeous, I mean—wow. Kyle. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Heart bursting, Kyle schools his voice. “I’ve…that was really something.” He laughs. “Your first time out—you were swimming circles around me!”
Clovis laughs, loud and bright. “Guess my skateboarding really did come in handy.”
“You’re a natural down there!” He moves toward shore, and they clamber into the bathhouse together.
Kyle hands Clovis a towel and grabs one for himself.
“So, the ray we met?” Clovis offers nonchalantly. “He said your skin…it…you were flirting with me?”
Kyle flushes.
“Were you?” Clovis asks incredulously.
Kyle’s heart pounds in his ears. “Was I…well, it’s not…it’s actually…yes?”
Clovis grins. “Really? Oh, that’s…awesome.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah,” Clovis nods, pulling on his pants. He gives Kyle a sly smile. “Not to be forward or anything, but…ah…you want to get some breakfast?”
“Are you asking me on a date?” Kyle laughs. His legs shake as he fights his way into his clothes.
“I can’t do the flirty skin thing! This is all I’ve got! But,” he says enticingly, “I do know a nice coffee shop. I hear great things about their omelettes.”
Giddy, Kyle laughs again. “That sounds…perfect.” He waits for Clovis to pull on his shirt before he offers his hand.
The world shrinks, silent and still, as Clovis pulls him close. Raising a hand tentatively, he whispers, “Can I?”
Kyle nods, his skin rippling.
There’s a hint of kelp, the mineral tang of the deep sea in Clovis’s fingers against his cheek, and then their lips meet, intimate and uniquely human.
“Thank you,” Clovis whispers against Kyle’s mouth. Stunned and breathless, Kyle stares at his radiant smile as they drift apart.
Clovis clears his throat and looks away, then steps back and opens the door, guiding Kyle through with a hand on his back.
There’s something about the way the world looks, now, Above. There’s a depth of color only his human eyes can see. Sunlight sparkles on the sand. He can imagine exploring Above with Clovis and finding joy in it. There are so many things he wants to show Clovis, Below.
Something inside him has been split open. Everything is new.
“Ready?” Clovis asks, reaching out.
Their fingers tangle together as they fall into step, and the breeze off the water is fresh and full of possibilities.