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“But why can’t I just sit?” Stede asked, staring into the shower stall with trepidation.
Ed sighed. “It’s not that you can’t sit, it’s that you’re not really meant to,” he explained.
Stede leaned away from the grey tiled shower stall and into the hand Ed had on his back for support. He was still dressed, thank fuck, but proving to be strangely resistant to showering. He regarded the waterfall showerhead with more suspicion than it deserved.
“There’s not room to stretch out, and all the soap and stuff is up on the ledge. If I had known a merperson was going to be bathing in my house I would have held off on renovating the guest bathroom so you could use the tub,” Ed continued.
“Tub?”
“It’s like a little pool,” Ed explained. “You fill it with water and soak. Sometimes people put in fancy oils or bubbles.” Stede once again brightened at the mention of bubbles and Ed has to dash his hopes. “But, the tub is out of commission. We can do the bubble thing as soon as the contractor says it’s safe.”
Stede pouted at being denied a bath despite never having heard of one until two minutes ago. “Does this not fill with water when you close the door?” Stede asked, gesturing to the glass shower enclosure. “Not even if you cover the drain?”
“It’s not meant to fill up,” Ed rushed to explain. “It’s pretty water tight, but I don’t know how much pressure it can withstand.”
There were some fancy, fuckoff big fish tanks out there, but Ed thought it best to keep that on the back burner. Orchestrating something like that seemed a bit presumptuous, and potentially offensive. He couldn’t remember what the general mer-consensus on fish tanks was and it was hard enough getting Stede in the shower without him being irate over fish captivity.
Stede hesitantly put on foot into the shower stall, experimentally feeling the smooth tile with a thoughtful frown. “This feels like it will get very slippery when it’s wet.”
Ed grimaced, nodding in acknowledgement. “It can, yeah.”
“My ligs aren’t very good yet!”
“Your ligs are bloody excellent, mate. They might be wobbly, but trust me, those ligs are damn good,” Ed chuckled.
Stede scoffed. “Fine, they look good, but they don’t work!”
“Patience, man. You’ve only used ‘em a couple of times,” Ed said, trying to find the line between encouraging and flirting. “It takes babies like a whole year to use ‘em right. Cut yourself some slack.”
“A year?!” Stede exclaimed.
Ed bit his lip against a laugh. “Let’s focus on showering. We can conquer walking tomorrow.” Stede huffed, and Ed was starting to think all of this was just a stalling tactic. “Are you distracting me on purpose?”
Stede remained stubbornly silent.
“You are, you little shit,” Ed laughed. “What is it? Are you claustrophobic?”
“Am I what?”
“Afraid of being in a small space.”
“Oh! No, I’m not whatever-phobic,” Stede said dismissively.
Ed looked between Stede and the showerhead. “Is it the fact that it’s not salt water?”
Silence.
"It's a freshwater thing, then."
“No!” Stede denied, very unconvincing.
"You little liar! What don’t you like about freshwater? Is it bad for your tail or something?” Ed asked.
Stede scowled at him, turning too quickly and swaying into Ed’s chest on unsteady feet. “It smells weird!”
“What! No it doesn’t,” Ed denied. “Er, well. I don’t think it does.”
“Yes it does! I was over at the place where they park all the boats when they aren’t in the water—”
“The marina.”
“And whenever they use the skinny water tube to wash all the gutted fish bits off the dock it smells like when seagull eggs don’t hatch and they rot in the sun!” Stede exclaimed, scowling fiercely.
Ed’s brow furrowed as he went over Stede’s emphatic words, idly rubbing his hands along the small of Stede’s back as he did so. Stede leaned further into him at the added touch, making it much harder for Ed to think of anything but freckled skin until it dawned on him.
“Oh!” he blurted. Stede jumped in surprise and grabbed at Ed’s shoulders, gasping in alarm when his knees wobbled precariously. “That’s well water, mate. Lots of places have their own well systems over that way. I have city water over here. I don’t know all the details, but it doesn’t have that smell or yellow color.”
Stede looked skeptical, leaning away from Ed to survey his expression and judge if he was fucking with him. Ed rolled his eyes and leaned around Stede and into the shower stall to turn on the water. Stede yelped and tried to squeeze past Ed but was unable to get his legs to work well enough to manage it.
Ed snickered in delight, trapping Stede between him and the shower enclosure with a little too much enjoyment. He held his hand out and under the cascade of water from the waterfall shower head as it warmed. “See? No terrible egg smell, yeah?”
Stede’s lips thinned as he considered the falling water. “I guess not,” he conceded. He reluctantly extended his own arm to feel the spray of water against his hand and made a pleased sound at the warmth. “Oh, that is nice. Is it always this warm? ‘
“The temperature can be adjusted,” Ed explained, trying and failing to angle himself away from the water splattering every which direction. He sighed, regarding the water on both their clothes. “I suppose I may as well get in with you. I’m as wet as you are at this point.”
Stede suddenly beamed at him, a smug tilt to his grin. “Okay!”
Ed gave him an unimpressed look. “You could have just said you wanted my help.”
“Ed, I’d like your help,” Stede parroted.
“Okay, smartass, shuffle those ligs forward and get under the water,” Ed drawled.
Stede’s nose wrinkled adorably in confusion. “In the clothes? I thought you said humans take them off when they shower.”
“They do,” Ed confirmed, sighing. “But then we’d be naked together. Remember when I said there were a few steps between people finding each other attractive and taking their clothes off?”
Stede leveled Ed with a look that questioned his intelligence. “We took a lot of steps to get in here,” he pointed out. “And you already saw me without clothes on. And I think you’re attractive. Is there something else we’re supposed to do first?”
Ed rubbed the back of his neck, not sure how to proceed. “Supposed to do? Not necessarily; the steps are kind of different for everyone.”
“Okay,” Stede said easily. “Well, I want to take the clothes off because they’re getting wet and it feels weird on my skin.”
“Right.”
“And you find me attractive?” Stede asked, voice going a little uncertain.
Chuckling roughly, Ed let his eyes roam the freckled expanse of Stede’s body. “Very much.”
“Great! So you can take off your clothes too,” Stede enthused.
Ed cleared his throat, letting Stede tug him into the shower. “You ever been in this form while you were actively ‘finding someone attractive’ before?”
“When we were sitting on the ground by your trees,” Stede said, peeling himself out of his now-soaked shirt.
“Ah, not quite what I meant,” he said, holding Stede steady as he shed his sodden clothes with some difficulty. “I meant… have you ever been in this form when, well, when you—”
Stede interrupted him with a sly look. “When I was aroused?”
Ed pinched his hip in playful reprimand for Stede’s cheek. “Sorry for trying to be polite. Though I guess you have similar equipment when you’re in your other form so I don’t know what I’m trying to be delicate for.”
Strangely, Stede blushed, and Ed pumped the brakes on the rest of his snarky remark. “Well, it’s complicated,” Stede replied, deliberately vague.
“Uncomplicate it,” Ed said, slowly drawing his shirt over his head.
Stede cleared his throat, suddenly looking anywhere but Ed. “Well, you know we can be in mer form or human form?”
“Sure.”
“Well, that bit of magic. The one we use to change? We can use it to change, uh, that particular aspect of ourselves to better suit, um, breeding. So we can produce offspring with whoever we pair off with. Not that I've met anyone worth breeding with in my pod.”
Ed’s eyebrows made a mad dash for his hairline from how surprised he was but this particular tidbit. “I don’t recall that being mentioned in—”
“It wouldn’t be,” Stede interjected. “It’s…well. It was one of the reasons many were opposed to announcing our presence.”
“I can understand. That’s something that would get a lot of attention—some of it the wrong kind,” Ed confessed.
Stede nodded, biting his lip as his fingers danced along the waistband of his soaked shorts. “But, all that to say that I, uh, well. I choose to have the other equipment when I’m in that form. It’s…less cumbersome. And like I said, it's not like there was anyone I wanted to breed with.”
Ed shrugged. "Sex isn't just for breeding. You don't have to like someone to find them attractive."
"Well, I didn't like them enough to mate for non-breeding purposes either," Stede said. "I like you though."
"I like you too," Ed replied, smiling. He held Stede at arms length to catch his eyes without being distracted by the feel of his skin, exhaling shakily at the sight of water sluicing down his skin. “So, you—you haven’t been attracted to someone with this particular—”
“No,” Stede confirmed. “I haven’t. It’s difficult enough to concentrate on changing my form to begin with. I’m not certain I could even change that part of me in this form.”
“Whatever you like in whatever form is alright with me. Not that it matters,” Ed amended. He worked his hands through his tangled hair in an attempt to keep them to himself during such a heavy topic of conversation. “My helping you is not contingent on me finding you attractive—although I would, regardless. The equipment doesn’t matter to me as much as the person. Merperson.”
Stede smiled, shy and pleased, and went back to fighting the button fly on his borrowed shorts. He paused in thought just before slipping them off his hips. “How did we get on that subject again? What was it you were asking me?”
“Oh! You were being a smartass about me trying to handle the topic of arousal in a delicate manner,” Ed reminded him. He let Stede get in a good pinch of his own for Ed’s smart mouth before continuing. “So. Have you?”
“Have I what?” Stede asked, distracted by shimmying the wet bottoms down his legs and kicking them into the corner.
“Have you been aroused with this equipment?”
Stede coughed self-consciously, eyes lingering on Ed’s hands and he fiddled with the fastenings of his own trousers before slowly traveling up the bare skin of his chest.
“Not yet,” he said, voice gratifyingly strained. “Though I think that’s, uh, changing.”
Ed snorted. “Well, brace yourself, mate. That’s not the only thing that’s gonna change.”
Stede’s eyes darted to Ed’s, confusion in his eyes. Ed couldn’t help the cocky (haha) grin that took over his face, nodding his head toward Stede’s new equipment while never breaking eye contact.
Falteringly, Stede looked down and Ed watched as his face morphed into surprise. “Oh!”
“Yes,” Ed chuckled. “‘Oh!’.”
Stede looked back at Ed, eyes wide and face flushed. “Is that—”
“Normal,” Ed replied. “Totally normal.”
“And it happens every time?”
Ed paused, considering how to reply. Stede’s face transformed from an expression of surprise to one of annoyance. “Uncomplicate it,” he parroted, accurately predicting what Ed had been going to say.
“You can kind of control it,” Ed says, sighing. “But I think we should be more invested in controlling your legs than your dick at this moment.
“Is—” Stede began, cutting himself off as Ed shucked his own trousers. Stede blinked at the sight of Ed’s hardening dick, biting his lip and mumbling under his breath. “Oh.”
Ed used his foot to shove all their wet clothes into the corner of the shower, not bothering to cover himself or disguise his arousal. “Yeah. I wasn’t lying about finding you attractive, mate,” he said honestly.
Stede's eyes fluttered, water clinging to his reddish lashes he looked at him with the same awe Ed had felt when he saw Stede on the dock. He shifted his weight, carefully taking a step back to get a better look when Stede stepped directly under the spray of water. Startled, he immediately slipped against the tile. Ed lurched forward and managed to catch Stede round the waist before he could fall and experience his very first human concussion. He snorted at the ridiculousness of the situation, and soon they both dissolved into raucous laughter while the shower did its best to drown them.
He set Stede on his feet, jaw aching from how often he’d smiled in the past few hours. Stede’s laughter tailed off with a sigh, eyes crinkling with happiness. “One thing at a time?” Stede asked ruefully.
Ed nodded, reaching around Stede to grab the bodywash. “One thing at a time.”