Archive of Our Own

When Misha Collins awakens, he’s lying on a slab of rock. It’s distinctly uncomfortable — there’s the salty taste of unclean seawater in his mouth and the rough edges of the rock poking into his back and head. The last thing he remembers is the sudden storm. They weren’t shooting any scenes with him that day, so he’d gone out kayaking. The shooting location is a nice island off the coast of Maine, and the weather had been pleasant until maybe two hours out. The storm came without warning, and he was thrown overboard by a large wave. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a problem; he’s a good swimmer. This time, however, his leg had gotten snagged in something on the sinking kayak, and he wasn’t able to free himself before he ran out of air.

He sits up, unsure of how he survived, and shivering from the cold. The waves crash against the rock, occasionally splashing him, so he’s still drenched although the sun is high in the sky. The rock rises about a foot out of the water and is close to an island he can possibly reach with a combination of a little swimming and climbing. It’s as he’s taking in his surroundings and trying to figure out how to get to dry land that he sees it.

It’s... a giant squid.

At least as far as Misha can tell.

And it’s looking right at him as it surfaces. To be fair, he’s not sure exactly how the eyes work, but they’re at least facing him. Do giant squids even come up to the surface? He’s read a lot about how difficult it is to get photographs and videos of them because they live near the bottom of the ocean. At any rate, it’s massive, it has tentacles, its huge eyes are on him, there’s nowhere he can run without getting into the water, and he’s quite sure that’s even less safe.

As he keeps looking around for an escape route, a large tentacle reaches for him. He backs away with an alarmed shout. In his panic, he nearly steps off the rock, and he flails helplessly because there are small sharp rocks behind, and if he falls, he’s pretty sure he’s going to die.

Only, suddenly, he’s not falling anymore.

Another tentacle is wrapped loosely around his waist, pulling him back onto the rock, and as soon as he’s regained his footing, it lets go. So it wasn’t trying to attack after all. Hesitantly, he takes a step closer. The squid’s eyes look... sad, and Misha thinks he must be going crazy at last if he’s reading emotion into a squid’s eyes, but when a tentacle reaches for him again, more slowly this time, he doesn’t try to avoid it. It stops just an inch away from him, and when he doesn’t react, it taps him lightly on the arm.

He blinks.

It moves lower and taps him on the butt, then on the legs.

Is it... curious because it’s never encountered a human before?

The tentacle moves higher again, and he yelps when it taps his balls. It pulls away, as if it understands he doesn’t like it, then tentatively moves higher and pokes him in the ribs. It’s a little ticklish, so he giggles. This seems to be a favourable response, for it keeps going till he’s squirming and breathless, and he has to grab hold of the tentacle to stop it. It’s smooth, a milk chocolate brown flecked with white and gold, and there are suction cups with sharp teeth-like edges higher up on it. It’s been touching him with only the tip where there are no suction cups though, as if it’s making an effort not to hurt him.

Maybe it’s the one that rescued him and brought him here too.

“Thank you,” he says, even though it probably won’t understand, running his fingers along the tentacle in his hands. Looking around, he adds, “I wish you could tell me where I was or how to get back.”

He might be imagining it, but the squid’s eyes seem to light up, and then a second tentacle presses into his hand. The squid glows brightly, and he has to close his eyes against the glare, but suddenly, there are human hands holding his own, and his eyes fly open in surprise. There’s a large man on the rock with him now. A large naked man. Kneeling before him on the rock. And the squid is nowhere to be seen.

“I’m sorry I startled you,” the other says, and his voice is nice, deep as the ocean and smooth as the flow of water. “My mother always said that if I find a creature that doesn’t try to attack me and can learn not to fear my true form, I can reveal to it my secret. You pass on both counts. I’m so glad.”

“Your secret?” Misha repeats, still in shock. Maybe this is the afterlife or his near-death experience or something. Surely, a giant squid turning into a giant human can’t be real, right?

“I can assume the species of any creature I can get a DNA sample of for a short time. I accidentally cut you when I first found you. My suction cups are sharp, unfortunately. Thankfully I did though, otherwise I wouldn’t have known you need to breathe air. I had to shake you upside down, poke at your throat and hit you on the back a few times before you coughed all the water up and started breathing again.”

One day, Misha thinks, he’s going to tell this story at an interview, and no one will believe him anyway because being rescued and groped by a giant squid that can turn into a human is by far his most surreal life experience. People already find it hard to believe he’s had to personally lie down on the ground and make the female llama mating sound.

“Um... Hey.”

The man suddenly sounds unsure, and Misha realizes he’s been spacing out for some time. While staring right at the man’s crotch. And noting that he’s very well-endowed is quite possibly the best way to make this more awkward, which is why that is precisely the train of thought Misha’s mind follows. Tearing his eyes away, he looks up.

“Sorry,” he manages. “This is just... very new. The legends of the Kraken don’t mention anything about turning into gorgeous humans or your friendly neighbourhood lifeguard.”

The other blinks. He has pretty olive green eyes. “Your people are still telling stories about my great-grandfather?”

It’s Misha’s turn to blink slowly now. “Your great-grandfather?”

“Kraken.” The human squid shifts to sit beside him, legs dangling in the water. “He wasn’t very nice. Senile old fogey kept wrecking boats and ports, saying he was doing God’s work, and none of us could stop him.”

This just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

“Anyway, what’s your name?”

“Misha.”

“Mine is Jared.” Jared hasn’t let go of Misha’s hands yet, and he squeezes them lightly. “At least I think that’s how it’s pronounced in this language we’re using.”

Curious now, Misha asks, “How is it pronounced in yours?”

Jared makes a sound like water bubbling in two different ways, and Misha can’t help laughing. Jared smiles shyly, but his eyes are twinkling, and Misha can almost forget he’s talking to a squid in human form. Almost.

“You’re very kind,” Jared says suddenly. “It’s in your eyes. Jensen had eyes just like yours.”

“Jensen?”

Jared’s expression turns sad, and Misha feels his heart melt. “My best friend. I used to live further south where the water was a bit warmer. But one day, the water started tasting... strange. Soon, the fish fell sick, and my family fell sick too. When the fish started to die, I told everyone we needed to migrate, but no one wanted to leave home, so Jensen and I, we left by ourselves. Idiot didn’t tell me he was sick too though. We didn’t get very far. He died in my...” Jared looks at their hands. “Arms, I guess you’d say.” Then he reaches up to touch his face. His fingers come away wet. “What is this liquid?”

“They’re called tears,” Misha answers quietly. “They fall from our eyes when we’re very sad.” On impulse, he pulls Jared into a hug, feeling like a terrible person. Pollution killed Jared’s family. Manmade pollution. “I’m sorry,” he says, even though he knows it’s not much. “About your family. And Jensen. I’m sorry.” When he gets back, he’s going to do something big to fight pollution.

Jared’s arms are warm when they wrap around him. “Thank you. It’s not your fault.”

But it is. Even in some small way, it is, but Misha doesn’t have the heart to tell Jared that millions of humans everywhere have contributed in some fashion to the extinction of his species. Most simply don’t know, but some just don’t care.

“I don’t have much time,” Jared continues after a few moments. “I tried to look for your boat while you were unconscious, but I couldn’t find it. I wanted to take you to the beach here, but I can’t swim in shallow water, and I can’t carry you if I make myself smaller. But if you can swim, I can lead you there. I don’t think there are any of your people living on this island, but if you can build a boat of sorts, I can take you to the nearest large area of land. Humans live on large expanses of land, right?”

Misha nods. “Yes.” Still feeling like a terrible person, he blurts, “Why are you trying so hard to help me? What made you save me when you saw me drowning?”

Jared nuzzles his neck as he answers, “I was just drifting after Jensen died. If he’d made it, I would have been happy with just us, but now I don’t have anyone else. I was just wondering what I was going to do all by myself when I saw you sinking towards me, and I thought maybe... maybe you could be a purpose. And you were all alone too.”

~*~

The island is deserted except for birds and insects. There may be other creatures Misha has yet to encounter, but he’s quite sure they won’t be friendly, so he’s not looking forward to meeting them. Then again, he didn’t expect the resident sea monster to be friendly either. Jared said he chose the island because it was the nearest one he knew of with fresh water. As the squid —and Misha is still not quite over the sheer implausibility of being rescued and befriended by the Kraken’s great-grandson— promised, there’s a small river. After drinking some water, he also removed and rinsed out his sodden clothes. There are also wild fruits that he recognizes, so he’s eaten some. When he said he’s not sure how he’s going to build even a raft without any tools, Jared earnestly promised to keep looking for the kayak.

That was several hours ago.

In the meantime, Misha’s looked around, and none of the trees around are particularly easy to convert into a raft. He has, however, found some sharp stones that he can use as knives. He also managed to start a fire on the edge of the beach nearest to the river after about half an hour of trying —thank you, Cub Scouts, even if you’re run by sucky homophobes—, and there are plenty of twigs and dry brush around for firewood. It’s colder wearing wet clothes than no clothes at all, so he has them drying off on a rock near the fire when Jared returns. He walks up out of the water in human form, carrying a large fish.

“I haven’t found your boat, but I’ll keep looking.” He sounds a little frustrated by the search. “In the meantime, I thought you might be hungry. I know humans often catch fish, but I’m not sure what you do with them. I hope you eat fish. This type is my favourite.” It looks like cod, and there are suction cup marks on it.

“Yes, we eat fish.” Misha reckons it’s inappropriate to mention that he’s eaten plenty of squid too, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever see squid the same way again, much less eat it.

“It’s very difficult to swim in your body. It’s really impressive you can stay afloat. Oh, what’s that?” Jared asks, pointing at the fire.

“Fire. It’ll hurt if you touch it, but it provides warmth.”

“Like the sun? It’s pretty too.” He hands Misha the fish.

“Yes,” Misha agrees. “Like the sun.” He thinks he remembers how to gut a white fish, so he takes it with him to the river, Jared following close behind, and begins to cut it open.

“What are you doing?” Jared asks, looking over his shoulder.

“Removing the parts we don’t eat.”

“Oh. I just eat it whole. Why don’t you?”

“We can’t digest some, and some others we dislike the taste of.” He rinses the gutted fish off in the river.

Jared crinkles his nose and pushes his long chocolate brown hair out of his face. “Why does breathing... feel different everywhere?”

Misha blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Like when I’m near the sea or the... fire? Or when you were cutting the fish. Even when I was walking near the plants. Breathing seems different.”

“Oh! You mean the air smells different!” Squid don’t have noses, of course, so Jared wouldn’t know. “Different things release different substances into the air, and our noses pick it up.”

“Are they dangerous?”

Misha thinks of air pollution. “Some are, but not the ones here.” He picks up some sharp twigs, rinses them in the river too, and impales the fish with the longest, much to Jared’s evident confusion. Then he props it up over the fire with a pronged twig before sitting down on a nearby rock to wait for it to roast.

“Why are you doing that?” Jared sits down beside him.

“It cooks the fish.” Realizing that cooking is a foreign concept to a sea creature, he elaborates. “It kills bacteria and changes the texture of the flesh, so it’s easier for us to digest. Usually, we add things to make it taste better too.”

“Oh. That’s all rather complicated. You seem to have many problems.”

A breeze picks up as Misha laughs, and he shivers. It’s chilly, and night hasn’t even fallen. He wonders how he will sleep. Suddenly, Jared wraps warm arms around him, and Misha makes a sound of surprise.

“The wind is cold. It was warm when you did this earlier,” the other explains, and they shift so he’s sitting between Jared’s legs with his back pressed to Jared’s torso. It’s definitely much warmer like this.

“It’s called a hug. How much time do you have left in this form?” he asks. Jared has explained that he can only use his ability once a day for a limited amount of time.

Jared thinks for a moment before replying, “About a thousand or so beats.”

“Beats?”

The other nods. “Of the ocean.” At his look of incomprehension, Jared asks, “You’ve never heard it?”

He shakes his head, and Jared seems to have picked up that nodding is ‘yes’ and shaking is ‘no’ because he immediately tries to explain.

“There’s a... sound underwater. A constant rhythm. Like... ah, like how your heart sounds, yes. But slower. Like so.” The other taps his arm gently, waits for maybe three seconds, then does it again. And again another three seconds later. “That’s what we call beats. How do you measure time?”

Misha explains seconds, minutes and hours. As it turns out, they have a similar enough understanding of a day — from one sunrise to the next. By the time the explanations are done, the fish is ready to be eaten, and he uses another of the twigs he washed to prod the scaly skin off before taking a bite. It’s a little on the bland side, but the flesh is sweet and juicy, and fish doesn’t get any fresher than this.

“Would you like to try it?” He offers the cooked fish to Jared. “Careful, it’s hot.” He blows on it a little to cool it.

Jared leans down and mimics him in taking a bite. “Oh. Wow.” He chews and swallows. “It’s really different.”

Misha smiles as he keeps eating. “In a good way or a bad way?”

“Hm... Neither? I guess I’m just used to eating fish alive. I don’t mind it like this though.”

“You should try it with seasonings someday. That would really be something else.”

Jared buries his face in Misha’s hair. “Do all humans... what’s that word you used? Ah, do you all smell different?”

“Yes. Some of us use fragrances to change the way we smell too.”

“What a strange thing to do. I think you smell nice.”

“Thank you, although I probably smell like the sea right now.”

Jared shakes his head. “Only a little. Mostly, you smell like you. Different from everything else.”

Misha finishes the fish and tosses the bones into the fire, then leans back to settle against Jared. It’s relaxing, sitting naked on a rock on a deserted island explaining everyday human things to a magical squid, like a fairytale.

“Hey, I need to go.”

Misha jumps a little. It’s dark. He’d fallen asleep. “Oh,” he mumbles blearily, standing. “Sure.” There’s still a bit of a breeze, and he already misses the warmth.

“Still cold?”

He nods, adding wood to the fire.

Jared extends his hand. “You should come with me. It’s warmer in the water.”

Misha shakes his head. “I can’t sleep in the water, and I’d only have to dry off again, which would be colder.”

“I see.” The other heads back into the water. “Take care of yourself then. I’ll keep looking for your boat.”

~*~

Misha could jump for joy when the kayak surfaces upside down a little way out the following morning. A tentacle flips it over, then there’s nothing for several minutes before another tentacle drops a fish into it. He’s touched by how thoughtful Jared is, searching the ocean floor day and night for the kayak with only a description to go by and even remembering to bring him food in the meantime. They only met yesterday. If only humans were nearly as kind to strangers, the world would be a much better place. The kayak moves towards the beach, and when it’s quite close, Jared surfaces in his human form, holds on to it and swims along to shore. When he reaches the beach, he flops back on the wet sand tiredly.

“I still don’t know how you humans swim like this, but I’m really surprised how much lighter the boat is once it’s on top of the water. Anyway, your little boat was hidden amongst a dense cluster of reeds and rocks, which is why it was so hard to find. And I still can’t find the paddle you described.”

“This ‘boat’ is called a kayak,” Misha supplies, coming over.

“A nice fish swam by. You should eat it.”

He detours over to the kayak and looks in. It’s a different kind, and he doesn’t know which, but it’s quite large and flat. He takes it to the river, guts it and manages to get it propped up over the fire from two sides for stability. Then he joins Jared on the beach in the morning sun.

“The sky is beautiful from up here. I wish Jensen could have seen it.”

After this, Jared will take him back to Deer Isle, and then the squid will be all alone again, and he doesn’t think anything he does will make enough of a difference in time to keep his new friend alive. There’s no way to realistically clean up the existing pollution, after all. Even if the anti-pollution drive is a huge success, he’s probably going to come back here on his next vacation to find that Jared already fell sick and died alone. It’s quite possibly the year’s most depressing thought. Maybe... Maybe it doesn’t have to be this way. Maybe he can get Jared to conservation authorities. But they’ll probably have to move him to clean water, and he’ll survive, but in an aquarium to be studied and displayed as the last surviving member of his species, and how is that any better of a life?

“After you’ve eaten, you can get in the boat, and I’ll take you to where I saw you sinking. You can tell me which direction you need to go from there.”

Misha shifts closer and turns. Jared’s still looking up at the sky, but there’s such resignation on his face, and it breaks Misha’s heart. He tilts his head up to plant a kiss on the other’s cheek. “Thank you.”

Jared turns to face him as well. “You’re welcome. What is that?”

Misha smiles fondly. “It’s called a kiss. A gesture of affection. Like a hug.”

Jared mirrors the expression. “They’re both very nice.” Then he touches his lips to Misha’s cheek too. “We don’t really have anything like them. I think you’d call the closest thing we have synchronized swimming?”

Misha can’t help giggling at the thought of a group of magical giant squid performing underwater acrobatics in sync. It’s too bad he won’t get to see it anymore. The fish turns out to be halibut, and it’s delicious even when roasted plain. Jared tries a bite as usual, and he agrees it’s better cooked than the cod. Cod is apparently much tastier alive.

After he’s eaten, Misha gets dressed in his now dry clothes and heads over to the kayak to find Jared sitting in it and looking very uncomfortable. The canned sardines metaphor feels in distinctly poor taste.

“This kayak of yours is very small.” He seems a combination of puzzled, frustrated and disappointed by this. “Doesn’t it feel very cramped?”

Misha giggles, climbing into the other seat. “Even in this form, you’re a giant, Jared. Most people wouldn’t have any problems fitting themselves inside this space.”

He watches with a grin as Jared clumsily and with great effort extricates himself from the kayak, nearly falling over backwards when he succeeds. Jared chuckles sheepishly, then begins pushing the kayak with Misha in it into deeper water. The water is up to his waist when he pauses.

“I guess this is goodbye then,” he says quietly, and he sounds so sad. “We won’t get to talk after this. When we get there, I’ll come up and you can just point the direction out.”

And Misha reflects on how incredibly unlikely it is that a kayaking mishap should end up in this precise situation, how many acts, occurrences and causalities had to converge for Jared to have been right under the area he almost drowned in. Maybe Jared’s right, and this serendipity means something.

“I’ll visit,” he promises in a rush.

Jared’s eyes light up with hope, and as pathetic as it seems, Misha thinks he’s going to tear up.

“I’ll be here for a few months yet. I’ll kayak out whenever I can, and we can meet up?”

“T—That would be nice.” And Jared is so happy, he can barely contain his excitement. “But how will I know... oh! There’s this type of seashell. It makes a really unique sound when water flows through it. I’ll give you one later, and whenever you come out to sea, just dip it in the water and move it back and forth a few times to call me. If I hear it coming from the surface, I’ll know it’s you.”

With that, Jared pushes them further out and drops beneath the surface, then the kayak starts gliding forward swiftly, pushed along by tentacles. Eventually, the surroundings begin to look familiar, and true to his word, Jared surfaces to watch him point towards the beach he’d started kayaking from yesterday morning. Jared coils a tentacle around his hand and shakes it as if to show he understands, then disappears beneath the water again. For a long time, nothing happens. Then a tentacle reaches up to drop a large red seashell in his lap before they begin moving again. It’s a very pretty shell — the red is flecked with turquoise and white specks, it’s about the size of his hands, and its spirals form an unusual shape. He wonders what it sounds like and dips it in the water to move it back and forth as instructed, but all he can hear is the rush of water, so it’s probably a sound only sea creatures can hear underwater.

Suddenly, tentacles come up and start poking him in the ribs, and he giggles — it’s ticklish and most definitely intentional this time. “Jared,” he protests, but more tentacles join in the tickling, and now they’re everywhere. “Argh, Jared, stop it!” When one snakes between his lap to prod his balls, he’s finally had enough and catches as many of them as he can to stop them just like when they first met. “Hey! C’mon.”

The squid surfaces again, and one free tentacle points at the beach. It’s quite close now. When he turns back to Jared, another tentacle tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. He lets them go.

“I’ll visit, I promise. Either tomorrow or the day after, okay?”

Two tentacles wind snugly around him in what he’s guessing is the squid approximation of a hug, and oh God, this is pathetic — his eyes are stinging. It’s supposed to be a happy moment, Misha, come on.

Then Jared’s gone again, and he’s being pushed towards the shore. When the water grows shallower, he begins paddling with his hands to move forward more quickly because Jared can’t help him anymore. As soon as he reaches the beach, he turns for a last look, and in the distance, he thinks he sees a bit of chocolate brown vanish beneath the waves. Just in time too because, all of a sudden, the entire cast and crew is on the beach, running towards him.

Lisa reaches first and gasps, “Oh my God, Misha! We were just going to send out a search party! What happened?”

For a moment, he considers telling them the full fantastic tale, but then the seashell in his lap reminds him that not everyone would leave Jared in peace. Jared trusts him, he realizes, with the innocent sincerity of a child, and he’s not going to jeopardize that. So he instead offers the most basic facts. “Got caught in the storm, lost my paddle. It was really hard getting back here.”

Lawrence comes over to help him out of the kayak. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you need a doctor or anything?”

He shakes his head. “No. No thanks. I’m fine. Just need a shower, some food and a good night’s sleep.”

“Well, take the day off anyway. We’ll shoot your scenes tomorrow if you’re up to it.”

He nods gratefully and heads towards his room in the inn they’re filming at. Sherri catches sight of the shell when he picks it up.

“Oh, what a pretty shell! Where did you find it?”

He smiles and runs his fingers along the shell’s smooth surface. “I was near an island when the storm hit, so I stopped there to wait it out. Found this on the beach. Thought it’d make a great keepsake.”

They let him go then, and he showers, eats some stew for lunch and frowns at the calamari on the table. By the end of lunch, he’s too tired for much else, so he returns to his room and sinks into bed. The shell is on his bedside table, and looking at it in the dim lamplight, he misses Jared already. Tomorrow, he has to work, but the day after, he’s going kayaking.

~*~

Every day that he doesn’t have any scenes to shoot, Misha goes out kayaking. When he’s far out enough, he calls Jared, and his cephalopodic friend takes him to a nearby spot where they can both sit on a flat slab of rock and talk. He loves their secret meetings. Jared is fun, full of curiosity and wonder, and a fast learner. Each time, Misha will bring a different item from land with him to show Jared, much to the other’s delight. Jared will occasionally bring him pretty pieces of coral and other trinkets from the ocean floor. Jared likes candy and white chocolate macadamia cookies, and he hasn’t disliked anything Misha’s packed for lunch. Misha brought his iPod once, and Jared thinks human music is varied and strange, but enjoyed Our Lady Peace, Pearl Jam and Nirvana. After explaining what he does as an actor, Misha brought his laptop out, and they watched a movie on it together, which Jared found extremely fascinating — he kept asking questions about acting and actors, whether he knows the actors in the movie they watched, who decides what movies to film and what they’ll be about and why, and so on. Today, Misha has his camera, and Jared is excited before he’s even been told what it is.

“Ooh! What does this do?”

“It takes pictures.” At the uncomprehending tilt of Jared’s head, he decides to just demonstrate. “Here, let me show you...” He switches it on and pulls Jared closer by the shoulders so that they’re cheek to cheek. “Smile!” He holds the camera as far as he can and points it at their faces before pressing the shutter button. When he hears the telltale click, he turns it around and shows Jared the picture on the display. It’s not a bad photograph.

“Oh! That’s us! Hm, your eyes look even bluer there, more like the sea than the sky.”

“Yup! It’s called a camera. We can photograph all kinds of things and look at the pictures again and again.” He snaps one of the view from where they’re seated and shows Jared. “Now I can see this view even when I’m not here.”

“Wow. That’s really cool. So if other people take pictures like this, they can show you places they’ve been to that you’ve never even heard of?”

Misha grins. “Got it in one. People do that all the time.”

“Ah, what about underwater? Does it work there too?”

“This one won’t, but there are some special ones that are built to withstand the water and pressure. Those even come with powerful lights because you need enough light to get a good picture, and it’s pretty dark down there.”

Jared nods attentively. “If you have one of those, I could bring it down and take some pictures with it for you.”

“I don’t, unfortunately.” Jared deflates, and it makes Misha think. “Well, I suppose I could buy one. Or borrow one. Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re making me consider this.”

Jared shakes his head. “That sounds like trouble. I just wanted to show you my world. There are some places down there that are really pretty. It’s nothing like experiencing it yourself though. I’ve seen humans underwater. Not very deep down though. They carry bulky things on their backs with tubes connected to their mouths. I’m guessing that’s for air? You should do that someday and come down with me.”

“Yeah. That’s scuba diving. It’s dangerous without proper training though, and it takes special equipment and years of training to go much deeper than a hundred feet. Humans aren’t really cut out for underwater conditions.”

“Oh.” Jared is clearly disappointed by this; he has a very expressive face and is completely transparent about his feelings. “That’s too bad.”

Misha sighs. “I’ll see what I can do about that deep sea camera.”

Jared cheers and claps his hands. “Score!” Then he throws his arms around Misha. “You’re the best, Mish.”

They spend the rest of the time taking photographs of each other and their surroundings. Jared is photogenic and a natural at posing for the camera, and Misha has to explain porn to a blushing Jared when he jokes about sending the photos to an agency. By the end of their time together, Misha has about fifty new photographs of them together and apart in various poses, and he’s fairly certain quite a few erotic magazines would pay for most of Jared’s. It’s a pity his friend can’t leave the ocean.

~*~

The months fly by quickly. In the meantime, he’s taken to bringing goggles and snorkels with him and leaving his clothes in the kayak, so that he can swim around with Jared a little, even if it’s just near the surface, and that made his friend very happy. He’s seen Jared snag a nearby fish and eat it whole and heard the beats the other had mentioned before. When he’d first joined the squid underwater, Jared tapped his ear with a tentacle to tell him to listen, then tapped out the beat in sync on his arm. When he submerged himself again, he closed his eyes and concentrated, and after several moments, he heard it, a rhythm like the heart of the ocean. He tried to see if he could hear the shell too, but to his disappointment, there was nothing. Every so often, Jared would bring him fish, and he had to make up a story about running into a guy fishing while he was out kayaking.

Sometimes they watch movies together, and Jared was overjoyed to find that he uses a collage of their pictures as his laptop’s wallpaper before wishing he had something like that too. Some asking around led to a glass artist sealing a photograph print with coloured glass between two pieces of clear glass, and the piece is probably in some secret nook at the bottom of the ocean now — Jared was ecstatic when he received it. He also made Jared a miniature kayak out of wood as a keepsake, and even though he said it wouldn’t last very long underwater, Jared loved it and took it with him. And as time passed and filming drew to an end, Misha found he didn’t know how to tell Jared that he would have to leave Maine soon.

It’s his last week here, and he still hasn’t said a word about it. Today, when he calls Jared, several tentacles gently place a bright orange starfish on the deck of his kayak. Jared takes him to one of their usual spots and joins him on the rock with a cheery smile.

“Hey, Misha. I saw that on my way here and remembered you said you like the colour orange. If you leave it out for a bit, it’ll dry up, and you can take it home.”

“Um, but aren’t they... I don’t know, your neighbours or something?” Being friends with Jared has somewhat redefined marine life and seafood for him. Fish is fine —Jared eats fish and brings him fish to take back—, but he’s not sure where the rest of the aquatic world falls along those lines; the last thing he wants is to inadvertently eat some distant cousin of his friend’s. “Here,” he hands Jared a bag. “I brought you more cookies.”

“Yay! You’re awesome!” Jared pecks him on the cheek before digging in. “And starfish? Ew, no. They’re not even fish, really; heck, I’m not sure what they are. They’re just pests,” he continues between mouthfuls of cookie. “Well, okay. To be fair, quite a few of them do a pretty good job of cleaning up the ocean floor. But most of them, this one included, eat away at people’s homes. Imagine you’ve been living in this pretty cluster of coral for years, and then one day, the entire place collapses. That’s what these pesky little critters do. And you can’t talk to them and tell them it’s mean because they’re not even sentient. They’re like... automated home wreckers.”

Misha snorts and dissolves into giggles. One day, he’s going to have to explain to Jared what humans mean when they use the term “home wrecker.” But for now, he decides “They’re like the ocean’s termites then.”

“What are termites?” Jared asks, still stuffing his face with white chocolate macadamia cookies, and Misha is pretty sure squid aren’t meant to eat cookies, but Jared just doesn’t care if he’s killing himself slowly with every bite of chocolatey, buttery, sugary crumbly goodness. Then again, if stealing Misha’s beer, soda and cheeseburgers hasn’t killed him, cookies are probably okay.

“They’re insects, tiny creatures that eat wood. A lot of human homes are built with a significant quantity of wood, so if termites get into the wood, they eat their way through it, and in the end, the entire structure collapses.”

Jared nods vigorously. “Yes! That sounds about right. And most starfish are like this, deceptively pretty to look at, but they also have some really nasty cousins, big and ugly poisonous spiky things. You know, Jensen? He used to play this game, and it was kinda mean, I guess, but he’d grab starfish like this one and throw them at their ugly cousins until they were impaled on the spikes, and even then, they wouldn’t die! Actually, I don’t know if they even can die unless they get sick, eaten or taken out of the water. When they get sick, they melt. At least the ones I saw melted. That should have been our first sign to leave, in hindsight, when all the starfish started melting. But anyway, I know a few species that eat starfish, but I’ve never tried it. An old friend of mine did though, and he said it was gross. I’m inclined to take his word for it. Who wants to eat the thing that cleans your floor, right?”

Misha can’t argue that. At any rate, brooms, mops and vacuum cleaners aren’t edible, so it’s somewhat moot. “It’s pretty though,” he says, resting his head on Jared’s shoulder. “Thanks.”

Jared grins. “I’m glad you like it. Aww, that was the last cookie!”

Misha takes the bag and puts it back in the kayak, then they both lie back on the rock, watching the birds fly by overhead as they swap stories about life on land and under the sea. Every now and then, they have talking days like these too, and they’re Misha’s favourites because Jared’s company is the best he’s had in a while. It’s a shame he won’t get to enjoy it for much longer. The thought weighs on his mind, and when they eventually fall silent after some chatter, he finally shifts to lie on his side, facing his friend. He owes Jared a proper farewell, at least.

“Hey. Jared?”

“Hm?” Seeing that he has changed positions, Jared rolls onto his side to face him as well. “What’s up?”

“I...” Oh God, this is hard. “The truth is... this is my last week here.”

And even though he expected it, he still can’t bear the way Jared’s face falls, like he’s utterly crushed by the idea.

“H—How many days?”

“Three.”

“O—Oh. That’s... That’s not a lot.”

And fuck, but Jared’s already crying, and it’s tearing Misha’s heart to pieces. “I’m sorry,” he says, even though it doesn’t change a thing. “I came here for work like I told you, but it’s time to go home now, and my home isn’t very near the ocean, certainly not this ocean.” His eyes are stinging too, as if Jared’s tears are infectious, and if he knows his magical squid, they probably are. “Shit, I’m so sorry, Jared. I wanted to tell you earlier, but I was an idiot, and I didn’t know how. I’ll miss you.” And he knows that no matter how true that is, it won’t be the same. He’s going home to family and friends. There’s Momma and Dad and Vicki and Darius and everyone else waiting for him, but Jared... Jared doesn’t have anyone else anymore. He’s leaving Jared all alone, and he doesn’t know what to do or how to make it better. “I—I’ll try to come here as often as I can.”

“No, no, I get it. You have to go home. I know you have friends and family. That’s important. I understand. It’s just... you’ve already been so wonderful. Of course I’m sad I won’t see you anymore.”

And although Misha isn’t superstitious, the finality of that sounds ominous somehow. Even though he’s read up on marine pollution, supported a number of organizations that are working to curb it and started his own initiatives to use less plastic and patronize businesses that don’t contribute to it, he can’t shake the feeling that it’s going to be too late, that when he kayaks out here on his next vacation, no one’s going to answer the shell’s call because Jared will have died all alone choking on pesticides and plastic.

Damn it, he can’t do this.

He sits up abruptly and wraps his arms around himself.

“Hey...” Jared sits up too, tentatively places his large hands on Misha’s shoulders. “Mish? What is it? What’s wrong? Please. Don’t... Don’t go so soon?”

Misha shakes his head. “I’m just... I’m just scared I won’t see you again,” he confesses at last.

Jared embraces him from behind and pulls him into his lap. “Don’t say that,” he murmurs against Misha’s jaw. “You said you’ll visit whenever you can, right? I’ll wait for you.”

Fuck.

He turns to tell Jared to stay as far away from human habitation as possible, that he should find the four percent of the ocean that’s still untouched and use his magic to live there instead, but when he does, their lips meet, and suddenly, he just can’t stop. Jared opens up to him and doesn’t ask any questions when he presses their bodies together even though the squid probably has only the vaguest idea what they’re doing. And this will likely make things worse, but Jared’s hard as well and kissing him back, and what does it all matter? At least they’ll have another memory.

So he lowers Jared gently and blankets the other’s body with his own, maps every inch of smooth tanned skin with his hands, his lips, his tongue. Jared just smiles wistfully up at him —those olive green eyes suddenly seem so old— and lets him have his way, holds him close and arches up into every touch. For all his boisterous chatter, Jared is oddly quiet like this, moaning softly when Misha takes him into his mouth, sighing his lover’s name as he rolls over so Misha can trail kisses down his spine. He whimpers when Misha finds his entrance, circles it several times teasingly before pressing in, and Misha holds those muscular thighs apart as he fucks Jared with his tongue. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but Jared doesn’t taste so different, maybe cleaner, and it doesn’t take long before Jared jerks and cries out, clenching tightly around him as he comes. Jared tugs him back up, kisses him on the mouth with a mix of curiosity and desire, runs his hands through Misha’s hair, down his back, and finds every place on the human body that he just learned feels good when touched. Misha can only moan his name desperately, bury his face in Jared’s neck and rock into his lover’s hand.

Suddenly, Jared tenses and pulls away. “Ack, time,” he gasps. “Sorry.” And then he slides off the rock into the water.

Misha blinks, chagrined and unsatisfied, but then a tentacle snags his ankle, and he falls back into the water with a surprised shout. When he surfaces, Jared is everywhere, exploring his body with all his limbs, and Misha has to hold on to the rock to keep from sinking when one coils around his cock as another slides smoothly into him. It only hurts for a moment before he remembers to relax, and then all the pleasure crashes over him at once, and he shouts Jared’s name as he sees stars, shaking as the tentacles stroke him through his orgasm.

When it’s over, he just rests his head on his arms on the rock, let’s his body float in the loose tangle of squid tentacles. Jared too remains where he is, floating beside him with a dejected look in his big round eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he can’t help saying again because he doesn’t know what else he can do.

A tentacle reaches out to rub his cheek, as if to say, “It’s okay.” It drags a bit through the stubble and flicks at the hair near his ear affectionately.

The sky is darkening though, so he needs to get back. “I have to go,” he whispers sadly.

If possible, the squid looks sadder, but it still reaches for the kayak and holds it steady as Misha climbs in before guiding it back to where the beach is in sight. When they arrive, Jared surfaces beside him again for a last look, and on impulse, he leans down to press a kiss to the squid’s mantle. It’s slippery smooth on his lips, and he’s inappropriately reminded of sushi, of which he will never eat squid or octopus again. It’s strange and beautiful, and he’ll miss Jared terribly.

“Take care of yourself, Jared.”

A tentacle reaches for his hand and curls around his pinky in a promise like they’ve seen in a movie, and it’s just too sad. But he can’t live underwater, and Jared can’t live on land, so what can they do? Maybe he can move to Maine, but how long will it be before that ceases to matter?

“Goodbye,” he says because he has to, sooner or later.

Jared pats his cheek again, then slips beneath the water and pushes his kayak towards the shore. He paddles back, and when he turns around as he reaches the beach, there’s a lone tentacle waving at him, and he just... Shit. He grabs the starfish, runs back to his room before anyone can see him, donates everything he can spare to Oceana and cries himself to sleep.

~*~

The next two days pass in a flurry of final shots and packing. Even though Misha can’t stop thinking about Jared, he hasn’t had the chance to go on one last kayaking trip. Packing is almost done though, so maybe tomorrow morning. A worker at the inn helped him dry the starfish, so it’s now sitting in a tray of salt and baking soda on the balcony. Misha puts the shell in a box and sets it aside, then heads out to the balcony to see if the starfish is ready for its box too. It’s really pretty, a vibrant orange with white patterns, and it’s stiff when he pokes it, so he reckons it’s ready. He’ll spray some sealant on it when he gets home and display it next to the shell.

As he’s taking the box inside, he hears someone shouting, and he turns. A worker is running towards the inn, yelling at the top of his lungs, and when he comes closer, Misha finally catches the words.

“Oh my God, help! Help! Someone call a doctor! There’s a man, just washed up, and he’s not moving!”

And even though it could be anybody, Misha’s already running for the door, the starfish forgotten on the balcony table. He reaches the beach in record time; sure enough, there’s a man lying on his side in the sand, and holy shit, it really is Jared.

He’s by the other’s side in seconds, tapping him on the cheek. “Jared. Jared!”

To his immense relief, olive green eyes open and focus on him. “Misha~ Hey... I know I’ve said this before, but swimming as a human is exhausting!”

He pulls Jared into a tight hug. “What the— God... You stupid squid, what are you doing here? How much time do you have left?”

Jared shakes his head. “I missed you. I wanted to see you before you left. And I found a way to reverse the constraints. From now on, I only have to spend two hours a day in my true form.”

“Two hours? Just as well I live near a big lake, huh?”

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, they both stiffen. He pulls away to find Jared looking up at him with such hope. Tentatively, Jared asks, “You’d... take me with you?”

“O—If you want,” he manages. “I mean...” He sighs, frustrated. “Life up here isn’t nearly as simple as it is in the ocean. You’ll be living with people who spend their days destroying your home. I know you’ve seen that even if you won’t mention it.”

Jared looks down guiltily.

“And you’ll be leaving the entire world you ever knew behind. No more live fish everywhere to eat, no more starfish to play with, no more... ocean music. I... I wouldn’t ask you to leave your home, Jared,” he finishes quietly.

Jared reaches up to cup his cheek, getting sand on Misha’s face. “You’re so sweet, Mish,” he says, chuckling. “But you’re wrong, you know. Home isn’t a place. It’s a feeling.” He sits up to kiss the corner of Misha’s mouth lightly. “This is home,” he murmurs, and the surge of elation leaves Misha a little giddy as he throws his arms around Jared again.

Just then, people start coming out onto the beach to see what’s happening, and a man who’s probably the doctor approaches. “I’m guessing you’re the one that washed up here,” he addresses Jared. “How are you feeling?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Jared answers cheerily. “Just... long swim. Sorry for the trouble.”

Misha finally pulls away again and grins happily at the other before looking around. “Um. Any chance we could get a towel? Maybe some clothes that will fit?”

One of the staff brings him a towel, and eventually, someone gives them a pair of shorts that fit, but no one has any shirts or footwear for someone of Jared’s size. Misha helps Jared up and leads him to his room.

“Say,” he starts suddenly as the thought occurs to him. “How did you get the time constraints fixed? If you could have had it so easy all this while, why didn’t you do it before?”

Jared shrugs. “No reason, I guess.” Then he turns and winks. “And surely you don’t think I’m the only magical creature in the ocean.”

Misha blinks, then snorts. “Right now,” he says, tiptoeing to peck Jared on the lips. “You should put some magic into getting some clothes big enough.”

Jared picks him up and carries him along. “Silly Misha. Who needs clothes anyway?”

One day, Misha will tell Jared all about indecent exposure laws and keeping warm, but for now, Jared’s right. Who needs clothes anyway? They can deal with that when they get home.