Chapter Text
Standing in front of Ripley’s Aquarium, Soren felt intense joy take him over. The CN tower glimmered above them, shining from green to red and back and reflecting off the white snow and onto Corvus’ stoic expression. Though, inside, he was as excited as Soren: this was their first date outside of town and their first day together exploring Toronto.
It was all Soren's idea, but Corvus did most of the planning. They would stay for a few days in multiple hotels and look through various museums across Ontario (mostly about animals and such).
Plus, it was Christmas Break, they had all the time in the world for this.
Soren wrapped his scarf tighter around his face to hide his blush.
“Wow!” He grabbed Corvus’ hand. “C'mon, let's go in! It's freezing out here.”
“Wait, I have to- the tickets- phone-” Corvus sputtered out as Soren dragged him behind him up the flight of stairs leading to the aquarium.
“You can do that inside.” Soren huffed, pulling open the thick double doors. A waft of warm air hit them as they entered.
Corvus couldn't help sighing in relief, pulling off his gloves. His warm winter jacket was covered in snow that Soren patted off chaotically. He tied his jacket around his waist, revealing his Christmas-themed ocean outfit. He wore a green sweater with an octopus drawn to look like Santa Claus on the front and dark denim pants. He had a wide variety of keychains on his belt loops, including a small golden retriever to match Corvus’ singular black cat keychain that the stoic man had crocheted.
Corvus, on the other hand, wore black jeans with red hearts messily embroidered into them (Soren had stolen the pants to add those designs) and a long-sleeved green and red flannel under a cotton black shirt.
Soren gasped at the massive fake skeletons above them, spinning around to examine every bone properly as Corvus searched through his phone to show the worker their virtual tickets.
“Cor, look!” Soren grinned and pointed at a fish. It was extremely pink and had the most light-swallowing black eyes. It didn’t look like it knew that it was conscious. “That’s fish-me.”
Corvus sighed. “You already said that twice when we passed the Sea Raven and the anemones.”
“Can’t I be a bit of everything?” Soren huffed. He leaned against Corvus, hooking his arm to his boyfriend’s arm.
“You’ll be way too overpowered to be scientifically allowed to be alive.” Cor joked dryly.
Soren gasped. “God’s gonna nerf me?”
Corvus hesitated before replying. “Uh… yes. He'll… do that.”
The blond faked a sniffle, putting his face on Corvus' shoulder. Cor gently patted Soren's head, sighing.
“Will you fight for my right to be a Sea Raven-anemone-pink fish hybrid?” Soren asked sweetly. Corvus quirked an eyebrow at him.
“You mean, fight God?” He replied. When Soren nodded, Corvus sighed longly. “You're asking a lot from me, Soren.”
Soren stared at Corvus with a disappointed expression. “I'll kiss you a billion times.” Soren tried to persuade.
“You already do that.” Corvus pointed out. Soren huffed a little curse and mumbled something else about Corvus being too perceptive.
Corvus gently nudged Soren's head off his shoulder to show him an interesting animal.
“The giant pacific octopus.” Soren read the small description next to the tank. “It really IS giant!” He let go of Corvus to rush to the massive tank, waving at the octopus. “Cor, name them!”
Corvus padded over to Soren's side, looking at him curiously. His expression was bland despite his racing heart after seeing Soren smile so much.
“They might already have a name.” He remarked.
“I'll go ask a worker if they have a name.” Soren announced with a grin, getting to his feet swiftly. Corvus felt his heart drop in panic and he grabbed Soren to keep him from going to embarrass himself.
“Isn’t it written on the description?” Corvus stammered, not wanting to pull any attention towards them. Soren, looking back at Corvus, noticed how alarmed he was acting. He visibly hesitated and cringed.
“Shit, sorry.” He mumbled, leaning against Corvus’ side again. “I won't ask, alright?” Cor sighed in relief.
“We can name them… Zym.” Corvus suggested softly.
“Like Callum and Rayla's dog?” Soren clarified.
“It does look a bit like him.” Cor joked, which made Soren giggled.
“This is like the ‘human Nigel’ situation on Reddit.” The blond whispered slyly. “Zym and Dog Zym.”
“It's the other way around, silly.” Corvus grumbled. “Octopus Zym and Zym.”
“Whatever! I want to see the next sea critter!” Soren grinned, grabbing Coruvs’ hand and dragging him to the next area.
There was a massive, circular tank, filled with a kelp forest and probably filled with a trillion different fish species (at least, that's what Soren said).
Corvus’ eyes were specifically caught on the massive pictures on the wall that were taken by a photographer. He particularly liked the one with the massive crab that looked like an alien and the eye of a special fish that had strange particles that helped it camouflage.
Soren peered over Corvus’ shoulder and snickered.
“Imagine if aliens actually looked like crabs, but massive and smart! We would be absolutely cooked.” Soren snickered.
“We would be even more ‘cooked’ if the aliens were like octopuses. They're very smart.”
“Octopus Zym would keep us safe.” Soren affirmed confidently. He pulled Corvus towards the large tank in the center of the room that was slowly inching downwards.
“Anyways, look! So many fish!” Soren exclaimed, smiling from ear to ear.
“One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.” Corvus mumbled.
“HAH! My infectious rhymes have gotten to you!” Soren cried eagerly.
“It's a Dr. Seuss book.” Corvus snapped.
“Oh. Right.” Soren cleared his throat. “Is he even a doctor?”
Corvus offered him a confused shrug.
“Is that even legal?” Soren muttered as he slid from side to side to see the tank from all angles.
An orange fish turned to look at Soren with wide eyes, accidentally smacking against the glass.
“Is that fish also you?” Corvus asked monotonely, but only Soren could hear the tease in his voice.
“Yes. It's my spirit animal, Cor!” Soren grumbled. Corvus examined the glowing tablets, his eyebrows raising curiously.
“Apparently, it's viviparous.” He informed.
“Woah.” Soren sighed. He had a slight clueless look on his face.
“It means that it doesn’t lay eggs and develops its young inside itself.” Corvus explained. Soren reddened in embarrassment.
“I- I know! I just… forgot a bit. High school was a long time ago.” He grumbled. “I’m not a super smart vet like you.”
Corvus gripped Soren’s hand tightly, glaring at him firmly.
“Don't compare yourself to me, Soren. You have your own amazing qualities and feats. I can list them, if you'd like.”
“Oh- no! No, I believe you!” Soren blushed even more, but now he was smiling. Corvus was glad to have finally reassured his lover.
“Sweet, caring, loving, confident-” He leaned in closer to Soren, kissing his cheek. Soren was starting to look like a tomato. He gently pushed Corvus’ face away from him, grinning like a lovesick fool.
“Corvus, stop!” He giggled. “PDA!”
Corvus smiled proudly, squeezing Soren’s hand.
“I just wanted to make sure that you understood.” He hummed smoothly.
“Let’s just go to the next section.” The flustered man grumbled. Corvus happily followed after him with a stoic expression.
Corvus gasped when they walked into the next exhibit.
“What is it?” Soren asked, and then turning, he saw what had shocked Corvus so much.
“Japanese spider crabs?” He read. “Okay, WHAT? HOW!? That thing should be nerfed instead of me.” He hopped over to the small glass tank in the wall, smiling at the three massive crabs.
“Soren!” Corvus called suddenly, rushing to his side. “Don't you remember our High School science classes? I did a project on this!”
“Pfft, you were such a nerd.” Soren said lovingly, glad that Corvus was showing his expressive side for once. “That's awesome! Quick, tell me a fun fact!”
“When mating, the male waits for the female to molt so that he can penetrate her with more ease.” Corvus blurted out. Soren hesitated for a long moment.
“That's… creepy.” Soren noticed.
“Yeah.” Corvus agreed with a shrug.
“Dolphins are still worse, though.”
“Of course. Nothing beats a dolphin's creepiness.”
Soren crouched to get to the crab's level, acting as if he was poking the spider crab through the glass.
“Wanna continue?” He asked, getting up.
“Wait, let me take a few photos before more people come.” Corvus grabbed his phone and caught a few pictures of Soren in front of the Japanese spider crabs doing a crabby pose and Soren kidnapped his phone to take a few selfies together beside the kelp forest tank facing the crabs’ exhibit (and then somehow managed to take a few 0.5 photos of Corvus).
Soren marched off to the next exhibit, staring at each fish. Corvus made sure to read everything on the walls before examining the sea life.
“They're so colorful.” Soren whispered, staring at the tropical fish. “Heh- Corvus! Look at that one!” He gripped Corvus's arm and pointed at a big, grey fish with wide eyes and an eternally open oval mouth.
“PUFFERFISH!” Yelled a child behind Soren, pulling their parents towards the glads to stare at the silly fish. Corvus glared at the child and Soren could nearly see a vein pulsing in his forehead.
“It's a porcupine fish.” He huffed under his breath, turning his gaze away to the tank to calm down. Soren chuckled softly and squeezed Corvus’ hand.
“You’re so smart.” He sighed lovingly. Corvus shot him another angry, but blushing, glare. Soren playfully poked Corvus’ side to rile him up.
“You're so easy to annoy. And your reactions! Priceless.” Soren laughed. “Oh- see! Man, you're so pretty when you're angry. And when you're calm. Whenever!”
“Soren, shut up. People are staring.” Corvus hid his face from the strangers that turned to look at them because of how loud Soren was being. An old couple shot them a particularly disgusted look. Soren squeezed Corvus’ hand even tighter and glared back at the old people who fearfully inched away.
“I’ll quiet down a bit.” Soren promised. “But if someone judges us, I will fight them,”
“Soren.” Corvus warned.
“Fine- fine! I'll just stare at them until they go away.” He mumbled.
Corvus glanced over at the next section and nearly sighed in relief.
“Forget about them.” He smiled gently. “I bet you'll love the next section.”
Soren's eyes lit up like a dog who had just been given a treat.
“What's in the next section?” He gasped. Turning, he saw that the entire next room was a glass tunnel surrounded by thousands upon thousands of liters of water.
“Holy shit. Who cares about homophobes when you have THAT?” Soren grinned.
He stepped onto the slow conveyer belt, dragging Corvus onto it with him. The marvel was evident in his bright eyes.
“Why are we in such a big tank if there are only small fish?” Soren asked curiously. “Shouldn’t there be at least one-”
Corvus pointed at something behind the fake coral reefs.
“Grey nurse shark.” He recognized. Soren gasped joyfully, barely keeping himself together.
Oh, my god.” He was grinning from ear to ear and gripping Corvus’ hand like it was the only thing keeping him stable. “Look at his- her? Their little mouth! They look so silly!” Soren spun around to stare at the shark as they swam above him.
“Her.” Corvus finally corrected. “You can tell by looking between the lower fins.”
“Ohh. Cool!”
For a long few minutes, they admired the sharks, the fish and the turtles that passed by them. At some point, Soren was extremely convinced that a turtle had waved back at him with its fin.
Finally, they were instructed to get off the conveyer belt to enter another section.
And it was filled with children.
Soren chuckled nervously, hiding behind Corvus.
“What are you doing?” He sighed.
“Using you as a shield?” Soren mumbled. “God, they're screaming so loud.” He started drumming his fingers on Corvus’ arm. That was one of his favorite stims, but he would only do it when he was especially overstimulated.
Corvus stopped walking and Soren bumped into him. He took his backpack off and started searching through it, pulling out his dark noise-cancelling headphones that he usually wore after social events to recover his battery. Soren gingerly put them on and muttered a small ‘thanks’. Corvus made sure to reach the next area as fast as possible to spend the least time in this loud food court/game room that was covered in running, yelling and crying children with worried adults rushing after them.
“Phew.” Soren sighed when they were finally in the clear, far enough for the screams to only be a faint mumble in the air. There was little to no one around them. Soren was safe to remove his headphones.
“Thanks, Cor.” He kissed Corvus’ cheek as a reward for being sweet and returned his noise-cancelling headphones.
“Of course. I couldn't leave you to drum my skin away.” He joked blandly.
Soren still looked a bit on edge, but he was smiling.
“Let's continue.” Corvus said, holding out his hand to Soren, who grabbed it instantly.
…
“Cor, we NEED this.” Soren ordered, shoving a massive axolotl plush into his boyfriend's arms. The people in the gift ship were looking through all the merchandise curiously beside the couple. Corvus examined the axolotl for a long moment.
“I can make this at home-” Corvus objected, but was cut off by Soren throwing a second giant stuffed olm into his face.
“Oh, right.” He cleared his throat and gently put the stuffies back into their place, patting Corvus’ shoulder apologetically.
Corvus sighed loudly once more, his eyes rolling instinctively.
“Plus, we already have an army of shark plushies, and octopuses, and banthers, and owl-bears, and dragons, and-” Corvus counted on his fingers but gave up after a few seconds because there were too many things to count. Soren shushed him.
“Don’t give the plushy burglars any ideas!” He whispered. “I don’t want them hitting the lottery by ROBBING us!”
“Soren, no one’s going to ROB us.” Corvus huffed. “We live hundreds of kilometers away from here!” Soren shot him a pouty glare.
“Oh, that reminds me,” Soren hummed, “we should get to the hotel soon, it's getting late.” Corvus nodded.
“We should text Callum and Rayla when we get there. They're probably worried.” He suggested.
Soren held open the exit doors for Corvus.
“Well, we shouldn't keep them waiting!” Soren announced.
“They have been for the past twelve hours.”
“Whatever!”
The two men headed back to their car with Soren ordering Corvus to be the ‘passenger princess’ because it was his turn to drive the car.