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“I am like the fish in the aquarium, thinking in a different language, adapting to a life that’s not my natural habitat. I am the people in the other cars, each with (their) own story, but passing too quickly to be noticed or understood.” —David Levithan
The blue light cast shadows on Cameron’s face that should have looked awkward. Charlie thought that if he were anyone else, it would be. Cameron’s face was thrown out of proportion, cheekbones highlighted with the cool glow, but also caught was the tip of his right ear, the center of his forehead, an oblong shape draping over his chin and skipping his neck to land on his sweater.
Cameron swayed forward and back again in time with the kelp from the other side of the glass, seemingly unaware. Charlie was hopeless to do anything but watch, watch.
The plan had been for all the Dead Poets to go to the aquarium, but everyone had slowly squirmed out of it. Knox had to study. Pitts had an important meeting his family needed him to attend, and Meeks was playing moral support. Neil and Todd had come along to the aquarium but ditched them under the guise of wanting to visit the sea otter exhibit— Charlie suspected they just wanted to spend some time together on a not-quite-a-date.
“Are we going to be standing here all day?” Charlie asked. Cameron didn’t move at all, or even seem to register the noise. “As fascinating as the minnows are, I think we can agree to prioritize the sharks.”
Cameron nodded absently. “Sardines, actually.”
“Whatever.” Charlie leaned a little closer to Cameron on an exhale, just an inch. He didn’t notice. “How can you tell?”
“Size. Color. Tail movements.” Cameron’s eyes never left the glass but his arm nearest Charlie twitched slightly, before raising in one smooth movement. His hand landed on Charlie’s upper-forearm, and stayed there.
For the first time, Charlie turned towards the tank and took in the fish. For a second, he couldn’t even notice the individual fish; they were all one whirling mass of silver. Then, he zeroed in on each tiny sardine as they zipped in patterns too complicated for Charlie to follow, synchronized perfectly with the rest of their school. Kelp swayed slowly in the illuminated teal water, like the rise and fall of a chest.
Charlie slipped one foot slightly behind him to brace against the subtle seasick feeling he felt from watching. “It’s kind of like a Keating lesson, huh?”
“Yeah,” Cameron said, lifting his hand opposite Charlie close to the glass before curling his fingers in on themselves and dropping back to his side, never touching but clearly wanting to. A moment passed, and he replied, “Well. No.”
“Oh, c’mon.”
“What, on individualism?” Cameron’s tone was harsh but his face didn’t seem upset, smooth planes thrown uneven under the light and harsh shadows of the dark exhibit. “Pack mentality? Or the value of teamwork, or family, or the cycle of life and that little things get eaten by bigger things. Everything can be a lesson, Charlie.” He sighed. “Everything is already a lesson. Can’t they just be fish?”
Charlie watched the tired slump of Cameron’s shoulders, the set of his brow, still as harsh as it always was. And also he noticed the smooth planes of his cheeks, and his nose which was uncrumpled with annoyance. He loved arguing with Cameron, but he also loved how Cameron looked when they weren’t arguing. This was rarer, and he’d enjoy it while he could.
“I guess so.”
Cameron exhaled, too light to be a sigh, but Charlie had known him for long enough to see it for what it was. Instead of replying to him, Cameron dipped his head once in acknowledgment and refocused on the glass.
Charlie never knew what to do with Cameron.
Not the real Cameron, who was easy enough to deal with. Push boundaries a little, tease and nudge and aggravate, and daydream about later. No, the problem arose with the unreal Cameron, the one that existed just in Charlie’s head and spoke up at the least opportune moments, voice saying things like ‘can I kiss you?’ and ‘I wasn’t sure how to tell you…’ in a way that just made him want to hear it from a mouth, not an imagining of one. An often-imagined one, admittedly.
Charlie had felt a lot of feelings, which was a difficult thing to put into words, but true. It was a point of pride with himself, now, that he always experienced at least one strong emotion a day and wouldn’t want to live in a world where he didn’t. He was angry, or indignant, or manic. Even joyful, sometimes, which was amazing. But Cameron’s existence in his life sparked one that Charlie hadn’t felt before him, and that was… scary. He liked to think he wasn’t one to shy away from anything, but… maybe ‘avoid’ was the right word. Dodge. Skillfully maneuver around, even.
He felt a shift from the warmth on his arm, and turned to Cameron again, just as he began to wander aimlessly but with direction (Charlie didn’t know that was something someone could do. Only Cameron, he guessed) away from the sardines and towards a larger tank surrounded by more people. Cameron towed Charlie behind him as he lightly shoved past two girls on a date and a kid squealing to his tired parents about sea turtles, parking the two of them in the middle of the exhibit just as a large, sleek, gray-spotted fish swam by.
Cameron’s fingers tightened around Charlie’s forearm again, then slid down to his wrist, and he didn’t swoon, okay, he didn’t.
Instead, he said “Cool,” which was worse than getting to one knee and proposing in his opinion, because then at least the other observers would clap at Charlie making an idiot of himself, except then Cameron’s face broke open into a toothy smile, and it was strange— Charlie could have sworn it was sunny outside just an hour ago, but now the air felt electric, like a thunderstorm.
Cameron angled slightly towards Charlie, mostly facing the tank still. “They’re leopard sharks,” he said, “they’re my favorite.”
“How come?” Charlie asked, expecting a list of interesting facts, or a behavior so clever that he could immediately see it reflected back onto Cameron, but instead:
“Aren’t they beautiful?”
Charlie heard a crack of thunder, but nobody else seemed to notice it. Strange, strange, strange.
“Their skeletons are made of cartilage,” he added, which was more in line with what Charlie had expected, but now it was too late entirely. For what, he still wasn’t quite sure.
Eventually they left the large tank for the aquatic birds, which was endlessly enthralling for Charlie. Puffins! Cameron had a familiar look on his face as Charlie prattled on in baby talk to an apathetic sanderling, indulgent and confused in equal measure, with some other lip-tilt that Charlie could never figure out. After ten minutes Cameron finally lost patience and gripped him by the wrist again, tight but not constricting, and dragged him to the octopus exhibit, which Charlie was not nearly as upset by as he pretended to be.
“Everyone refuses to shut up about the plural of octopus,” Cameron complained without tearing his eyes away from an East Pacific red octopus. “Some people say octopi, which is totally wrong, because octopus is Greek and the -i ending is Latin.”
Charlie nodded even though Cameron wouldn’t be able to tell either way, and stifled a glare when he noticed an aquarium volunteer about their age slant an enamored look at Cameron as he spoke.
“Octopodes is technically correct, because it’s Greek, but it’s also incomprehensible, so that’s not the word to go with either.”
Charle watched the volunteer sigh and brush her hair from her shoulder. Apparently grammar lessons were attractive to nerds, which he would be sure to note. It seemed silly to him, that she only noticed Cameron when he started talking about octopi. Octopuses. Whatever. Cameron was great regardless of his obscure fish and dictionary knowledge.
“So I think we should use octopuses, even though that’s an English suffix. It’s not any less wrong than using Latin, though, and most people prefer it, so.” Cameron shrugged and turned his head to Charlie, as though checking to see if he was paying attention, which resulted in an awkward stretched moment of eye contact before they both turned away, Cameron back to the octopus and Charlie to Cameron’s admirer, who had a slightly disappointed look on her face now.
Cameron tugged on Charlie’s wrist, wordlessly asking to move on, and they walked a few feet to a small dome tank on a short pedestal, with funky purple creatures inside.
“And then these are—“
“‘Flamboyant cuttlefish,’” Charlie read out loud from the sign, and then grinned broadly.
Cameron sighed. “…Yeah.”
Charlie shoved his face closer to the glass, peering in at them. “The ocean said gay rights.”
“I feel like you’re not taking these guys very seriously.”
He couldn’t stop smiling. “I’m not.”
“You know,” Cameron started again, tone caught between disparagement and amusement, “they’re the only known venomous cuttlefish species.”
“Gays bite back,” Charlie replied without thinking, then froze and tried to ignore the red flush crawling up his neck. There was a long pause, and he glanced at Cameron despite himself, meeting a significant look and immediately looking away again.
“…If you want,” Cameron said, before quickly releasing his wrist to walk to a nearby tank boasting something invisible, as far as Charlie could tell.
Charlie took the moment to breathe, adrenaline rushing through him quickly and pointlessly, then moved to follow Cameron, bumping his hand into his as he arrived. Cameron moved his hand to hold Charlie’s wrist again, this time a little lower, thumb brushing the beginning of his palm. Charlie looked to see Cameron smiling slightly in profile.
After the octopuses, they unanimously decided to look at the jellyfish, getting slightly lost on the way. This was what they got, Charlie figured, for refusing to get a map at the entrance. Pride never helped anything, Charlie was slowly realizing.
Pausing them from their drifting, Cameron suddenly froze in place before changing directions, almost yanking Charlie’s arm out of its socket before he realized what was going on and rushed to keep up, stuck between a walk and a jog to keep pace with Cameron’s long legs.
Charlie felt the fingers around his wrist loosen and fall away as Cameron picked up pace, finally stopping with his back to him in an illuminated glass tunnel that, upon further inspection, was a strangely-shaped tank of fish. Charlie froze where he was, struck, watching Cameron stand surrounded by blue light like a halo. For a second he looked like an avenging angel, or the sun, or— and Cameron turned around to look at Charlie and laughed with childlike glee, and he looked like a beautiful, beautiful boy.
They found the jellyfish after an embarrassing amount of meandering, too stubborn to ask for help and too content to really mind.
The jellyfish exhibit was different from the rest, mostly because it was blanketed with an awed quiet. Cameron seemed to sink into the place like it was a second skin, like this was how he was meant to be looked at, surrounded by glowing animals that floated like stars, backlit and stunned and stunning both.
Cameron walked from tank to tank almost in a daze, but Charlie wouldn’t call it that at all, actually, because he was lighting up like a city at night. This was the most awake Charlie had ever seen him.
“What’s your favorite so far?” Cameron asked in front of the sea nettles. “Of all the animals we’ve seen today.”
“The jellyfish,” Charlie said, and then, “you know, they kind of remind me of you.”
Cameron shifted his weight, which Charlie could feel from where they were pressed closely together at their sides, only their interlocked arms stopping their bodies from meeting like closing a circuit. When had that happened? “How?”
Because they were both beautiful and dangerous. Charlie’s hand lifted on its own, the one not heavy under Cameron’s palm reaching slowly but steadily for a smudge of freckles on Cameron’s left cheek.
“Orange.” Charlie smiled, rerouting at the last moment to tug on the hair above Cameron’s ear, now half an inch long and in need of a cut, if Cameron was to be believed, which he wasn’t. Charlie liked it long.
The movement still turned Cameron’s face to Charlie’s, and something flickered past his face as quick as lightning that Charlie felt bounce back to him— almost like he had missed an opportunity, but not quite. Slowly, slowly, Charlie let go of Cameron’s hair and let his hand drift down to his side again. Not quite like that, but close.
Cameron’s tongue flickered out to lick his lips nervously, and Charlie watched him turn back to the tank suddenly, face flushed, although it was hard to tell under the colored light. “Yeah,” he said, voice slightly hoarse, and he coughs slightly before repeating, “Yeah. They really are…”
“Pretty,” Charlie said, still looking at Cameron.
Cameron turned back again, quickly, meeting Charlie’s gaze straight on, his eyes as startled as Charlie was sure his were.
“I mean, the fish.” Charlie blushed and looked away, at his shoes and then stubbornly at the jellyfish, drifting by obliviously .
“Don’t think I don't know a line when I hear one, Nuwanda,” Cameron enunciated carefully, but when Charlie finally managed to make himself look back at him, Cameron was smiling wide and close-lipped. Time stretched on like taffy while they just looked at each other, hyperaware. Then, like sunrise, Charlie felt Cameron shift his hand lower on his wrist, carefully slotting each of his fingers through his own. Charlie swallowed hard and saw Cameron’s eyes flicker down to follow the movement, before he leaned forward and tipped his head onto Charlie’s hair, bringing their bodies close together in what couldn’t really be called a hug, but couldn’t be called much else, either. Charlie brought his free hand up and wrapped it around Cameron’s back, nuzzling his face into his neck.
They stayed in that quiet limbo for a breath, or an hour (Charlie couldn’t tell and didn’t care), before Cameron slowly pulled back, keeping their hands intertwined, and pulled the two of them out of the jellyfish exhibit and into the light.
Maybe they could brush hands in the touch tank, Charlie hoped. Maybe they could kiss in an abandoned corner, glowing teal, or maybe that would wait until Charlie had taken him on a date or two— whatever Cameron wanted. Maybe this would all end in crashing flames.
Cameron broke the companionable silence with a sudden, loud giggle, before clapping a hand over his mouth, horrified. Charlie turned to look at him in surprise, before they both started grinning at each other, unabashed, almost as though—
Almost as though they had a chance at this thing.