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"Israel? You're going to want to see this." Whenever Stede used his full name he knew there was something wrong. Most likely a mosquito bite, he thought, but he joined his husband's side nonetheless. Stinging Nettles grazed harmlessly over his thick jeans as he walked to the edge of the lake. It was a beautiful sight, the mid-day sun high in the sky and shining on the untouched waters. They were in the Peak District, a secluded part of the mountains that bordered Yorkshire. There wasn't much foot traffic here, Izzy and Stede had hiked for several hours in the morning sun to reach this spot. When they started it had been cool with a light breeze, but by now the sun was beginning to brown their necks and the wind had stopped altogether.
Why exactly were they out all this way from civilization, you might ask? Because Stede Bonnet was hell-bent on being the most famous crypto-zoologist in Britain. And so when Izzy looked down into the deep blue lake to see rocks and lots of weeds, he humoured Bonnet.
"What? I don't see anything." He murmured, shielding his eyes from the sun to gaze into the depths. Okay, perhaps humouring was an exaggeration, but he was trying. Truth be told, Izzy was a sceptic; He never believed that any of this was real, from big foot to the beast of Bodmin Moor, but it made his husband happy.
Stede was currently rolling up his lilac slacks so as not to get them wet when he stepped into the edge of the lake. "See- look, there's something there. It's not too deep."
"Stede- hold on. There's enough reeds to tangle your feet and drown you. There could be broken glass, or sharp flint-" And he was already fucking in the water. At least he had left his hiking shoes on. Izzy sighed and followed him to the shore of the lake, stepping on tall weeds to flatten them as he went. "Please, Stede, don't go any deeper. You'll be fucking crying to me later about the ruined leather boots." His tone grew a little more irritable. He felt a tad guilty for the tone he took with his husband, as though he were a child that needed scolding, but sometimes he did genuinely need scolding.
Stede was pulling something that had gotten stuck in the mud out of the water, something slimy and coated in algae that would no doubt get on his trousers and be a nightmare to wash- Izzy's train of thought was stopped dead when he saw what the object was that Stede was carrying. The stench hit him. A flash of bone white beneath the algae, the shape of it, the brown hanging off that was not as it turned out weeds at all, but rotting flesh. The smell of it made his stomach churn. "Stede, put that down Jesus fucking christ. That's something dead."
Stede realised what it was just as Izzy spoke and threw it away towards the centre of the lake, giving a very manly high-pitched squeak and wiping his hands on his shirt. Not the summer linen . But as the object splashed into the lake, it rippled and rippled outwards. Izzy realised, his mouth turning dry, that that bone was too big to be a rabbit or a fox. But it was also too small to be a deer.
Human.
"STEDE- get out of there. Right now." He shouted, watching his husband washing his hands in the clear waters. Only a few metres away the water turned from clear where the bottom was visible to an insurmountable depth, a dark navy that for all they knew was deeper than the mountain itself. Something moved in the deep. It was subtle at first, almost a trick of the eye, a slight shift in the blue of the middle of the lake. But as the surface moved and rippled in the sun it became apparent that it was not just the wind, or the rancid bone Stede had thrown into the centre. Something was moving, something they had awoken.
Izzy forced himself to remove his eyes from it to look at his Husband, holding out a hand towards the lake where Stede was struggling to emerge. He gave a yelp, caught on some weed, and foot refused to move out of the mud.
“Izzy! Help- My foot is stuck.”
He didn’t hesitate now, all fear of the damage to summer linens left his mind as he grabbed a piece of flint in the depths and jumped into the shallows to join him. The green reed was slippery and slimy but he hacked at it the best he could, with every slice he felt the waters beginning to churn around them more and more. Finally, the last strand broke free and he pulled Stede’s leg out of the mud, pushing him upwards ahead of him, his own feet sinking into the mud with the effort of the movement. His boots, covered in gunk and who-knows-what, just managed to make it out of the mud and into the stinging nettles around them.
And then, all that Izzy saw and felt was water.
Something snagged his boot, something firm yet squishy, like muscle, something that pulled him with such force that there was nothing he could do to resist. He grasped helplessly onto the mud but the dirt came loose in his hands, muddy water making his vision blurry as he was pulled deeper into the lake. He opened his stinging eyes and looked at the creature that held him under: tentacles, Giant rope-like tentacles wrapped around his leg, pulling him below the depths until he could no longer tell which way was the surface. His ears popped as the pressure changed in those depths.
A flash of blonde hair and bubbles, and then the creature was thrashing and retracting. Something smaller, warm, wrapped around his waist as his head began to get dizzy. He desperately wanted to take a breath but he knew that if he tried he would drown. Water was flooding his mouth, the gritty taste of mud trying to push its way into his lungs… and then he could breathe again.
He didn’t know how far Stede carried him, but they were no longer by the lake when he set Izzy down: grass brushed against his wet face instead of nettles. Stede was saying something, but his foggy mind took a few moments to understand any of it.
“...You Alright?” Izzy managed a nod, spitting weeds out of his mouth. “You didn’t have to go all white knight on me there, mate. You scared the crap out of me.” Stede checked his vitals again and again, and after he was satisfied that Izzy was not about to die, a grin broke out over his features. “This is amazing.”
Israel took a deep breath and frowned, failing to see what was amazing about him almost drowning. Perhaps their marriage was going worse than he thought. “Urm… What is exactly amazing?”
“Look!” Stede was brandishing a piece of tentacle in his hand. It was an odd pale white colour, with suckers that were lined with some kind of barb. And it was as long as his forearm. “I cut this off the fucker when I was rescuing you!”
Izzy was still frowning. “Still not seeing the amazing bit.” Not sure what exactly was amazing about a slap of evil tentacle meat.
“Honestly, Izzy, What do you think that was?”
“A very big squid.” He said simply.
Stede grinned at that. “Exactly, a Cephalopod. A giant Cephalopod. But think about it, Izzy, have you ever heard of a freshwater Squid?”
He pushed himself up onto his hands and considered it. “I suppose not. It’s usually salty. So, what does that mean?” Very astute observation there, mr Hands.
“It means we’ve discovered an entirely new species of creature which goes against the entire scientific norm! I mean, think about that. This sample here can prove that I am in fact the most successful crypto-zoologist in the country. Not just the country- the world!” He was beaming again. His smile was really quite endearing, and Izzy would be inclined to be happy about it if he hadn’t just almost died. “There have been stories of fresh-water octopi in North America, but finding proof of one here in England raises a whole heap of questions. An entirely different continent and they evolved in the peak district, are there underwater caves that harbour life? Did you see how many tentacles it had?”
Izzy stared incredulously. “Are you joking? I was a bit fucking busy drowning to count how many fucking tentacles it had.”
“Well, there’s no need to be bitchy about it.”
“ Bitchy? I almost died.”
Stede sighed. He had always struggled to understand when someone else wasn’t as thrilled about his discoveries as he was. Izzy knew that was the way he was, that was why he had given up teaching to pursue a life of adventure and disappointment. He had stuck by him through this midlife crisis of his, but it was unbelievably frustrating at times. But as they looked at each other he saw the hesitation in his husband’s eyes. Like he was really trying. “You’re right. Are you okay, Iz?”
Warmth filled his chest at that simple assertion. That was all he ever needed to hear. “I think so. Just give me a few minutes and we can head back.” His teeth were beginning to chatter with the cold, every inch of his clothing was soaked through with icy water. If it wasn't a warm day he would have hypothermia by now.
Stede reached into his pack and wrapped Izzy slowly in a towel. “Don’t worry, I brought us a change of clothes just in case.”
Izzy smiled, pulling the soft towel around himself and fighting off the cold. “Is that why the bag you made me carry all this way is so heavy?”
Stede smiled at him, and helped him to undress. Once Israel was in dry clothes, he rested in the sun and let Stede take a few pictures of the scene and the tentacle before they left. The lake was eerily quiet, but he managed to convince his husband not to throw anything in to test if the creature would surface again.
“You always did have a thing for the kraken, huh?” Izzy murmured, once again carrying their bags on their hike back to civilization. Stede blushed in response, but didn’t reply. They went slow, watching the mountains around them as they moseyed along. Something seemed different between the pair of them. That tension of married life had washed away, and Izzy saw again the Stede that he had fell in love with all those years ago. The kind and gentle Bonnet, with a passion for unusual things that most wouldn’t take a second glance at. He was the only one to take a second look at Izzy, after all.
And the only one who kept looking.