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The text came in at 8:47 on a Saturday morning, which should have been illegal.
Grandpa Ralph: boys I need a new fishing line. the 20lb monofilament. you know the one. also maybe some lures if you see good ones. I would go myself but my knee
Deacon stared at his phone. Then he stared at the ceiling. Then he stared at his phone again.
"Chase," he announced to the lump buried under three blankets on the other side of the bedroom. Chase had made him sleep on the floor the previous night because they had watched one of the Scream movies. "We have to go to Bass Pro."
The lump made a noise like a dying animal.
"Grandpa needs fishing line."
"...What pound?"
"Twenty."
A long pause. "Monofilament?"
"Obviously."
The lump sat up. Chase emerged from his blanket cocoon with his blond hair completely destroyed and a crease on his cheek from his pillowcase, and somehow — somehow — he still looked annoyingly good. It wasn't fair. It had never been fair. Deacon had made peace with this fact approximately never.
"Okay," Chase yawned. "But we're bringing Buddy."
"We don't have to bring Buddy."
"I want to bring Buddy."
"You literally just woke up. You haven't even decided if you want to exist yet and your first thought is Buddy—"
"And Prunella," Chase added, already reaching for his phone. "Prunella likes the fish tanks."
Deacon pressed his face into his pillow and screamed quietly.
𓆞༄･𓆝࿐࿔*:𓆟⊹࣪˖
Buddy was ready in four minutes, which was suspicious. Prunella took forty-five because she couldn't find her specific green jacket — not the other green jacket, the right green jacket, the one with the zipper pull that sounded correct when you flicked it — and nothing could happen, nothing at all could happen, until the right green jacket was located. It was behind the couch. It was always behind the couch.
"Good morning, Deacon," Prunella announced when she climbed into the backseat, jacket successfully located and zipped precisely halfway. "Bass Pro Shops has the largest freestanding Bass Pro Shops in the United States located in Memphis, Tennessee. It's in a pyramid."
"Morning, Prunella."
"The Memphis Pyramid. It used to be an arena. Now it has a hotel inside and a bowling alley and the fish tanks have alligators."
"We're not going to Memphis."
Prunella considered this. "I know," she allowed, in a tone that suggested she was granting him a great favor by accepting this reality. She pressed her forehead against the window. "Our Bass Pro still has good fish."
"It has fine fish," Buddy agreed, buckling his seatbelt.
"It has great fish," Chase corrected from the passenger seat, turning around to give Buddy a look like he'd just said something personally offensive.
Buddy blinked. "I said fine."
"Fine is not great."
"Fine is fine! Fine is a neutral positive."
"There's no such thing as a neutral positive, that's just called mediocre—"
"Chase." Deacon pulled out of the driveway. "We haven't even left the neighborhood."
Chase faced forward, crossed his arms, and muttered something. Buddy, behind him, made a face at the back of Chase's head that Deacon caught in the rearview mirror. Deacon did not react because he was a man who had chosen to survive.
"The alligators in Memphis are named," Prunella reported to her window. "Some of them. I don't remember all the names."
"That's okay," Buddy told her.
"One might be named Chomp. I'm not sure if I made that up."
"Chomp is a good alligator name either way."
Prunella seemed satisfied with this. She began quietly flicking the zipper pull on her jacket — tick, tick, tick — and watched the suburbs roll past.
𓆞༄･𓆝࿐࿔*:𓆟⊹࣪˖
They were twelve minutes into the drive when Chase reached over and changed the radio station.
Deacon had been listening to that station.
"Chase."
"This song is better."
"I was listening—"
"Deacon. Objectively. Listen to it. Tell me this isn't better."
It was, in fact, better. Deacon hated everything.
"You could've asked," Deacon muttered.
"You would've said no out of principle."
"That's not—" Deacon stopped. "That's not entirely untrue," he admitted, which felt like surrendering something important.
Chase grinned at the windshield, smug and golden, and turned the volume up a little. Just a little. Just enough.
Behind them, Buddy had apparently been watching this whole exchange, because he leaned forward between the seats with the energy of someone who had found a new and interesting documentary.
"Does he do that a lot?" Buddy asked Deacon, too delighted.
"Every time."
"I'm right here," Chase pointed out.
"I know," Buddy and Deacon replied, at exactly the same time, in exactly the same flat tone. They glanced at each other in the rearview mirror. Something passed between them — a rare and fragile alliance.
Chase looked between them both with an expression like he was genuinely betrayed. "You can't team up."
"We didn't plan it," Buddy said.
"It just happened," Deacon agreed.
"Statistically," Prunella offered, not looking up from the window, "if two people know the same person well, they'll sometimes respond the same way. It's called convergent behavior. I read about it."
Everyone went quiet.
"Thanks, kid," Buddy managed.
"You're welcome." Tick, tick, tick.
𓆞༄･𓆝࿐࿔*:𓆟⊹࣪˖
The Bass Pro Shops parking lot was enormous and half of it was inexplicably occupied by a tailgate that had no visible reason to exist. Someone had a griddle going. There was a flag. Deacon didn't investigate further because some questions were not meant to be answered.
"Oh," Prunella breathed when they walked through the automatic doors.
It got her every time. Deacon had noticed this — that Prunella could know something was coming, could have it catalogued and categorized in her head, and still get stopped in her tracks by the actual thing. The waterfall inside, the mounted animals, the sheer overwhelming scale of it. She stood in the entrance with her mouth slightly open.
"Fish tanks are in the back," Chase told her, gentle in a way he only was with Prunella and occasionally with elderly people and dogs.
Prunella nodded, already walking toward them like she was being magnetically pulled, Buddy drifting after her with his hands in his pockets.
Deacon pulled out his phone and texted his grandpa a confirmation, then looked up at the store map. Fishing line would be in the back left. He looked at the back left. He looked at where Buddy and Prunella were already disappearing into the aquatic section in the back right.
He looked at Chase.
Chase spread his hands like what can you do.
"Fine," Deacon muttered. "Tanks first."
𓆞༄･𓆝࿐࿔*:𓆟⊹࣪˖
The tanks were good, Deacon could admit. The big central one had bass and catfish and something enormous and prehistoric-looking that moved through the dim water like a slow thought. Prunella had her nose approximately two centimeters from the glass and was narrating in a low, continuous murmur — species names, depth preferences, diet — to nobody in particular and possibly to the fish themselves.
Buddy stood beside her with his arms folded on the railing, chin on his arms, watching. He had a nice face when he wasn't arguing. Deacon appreciated that about him.
Chase, next to Deacon, watched Buddy watch the fish.
It was a very specific kind of watching. Deacon had a name for it but he'd never said it out loud because Chase would make some kind of face.
"You're staring," Deacon told him.
"I'm not staring, I'm looking."
"There's a fish right in front of you."
"I can see the fish and look at Buddy, Deacon, I have peripheral vision—"
"Go talk to him."
Chase went very still in the way that meant Deacon had accidentally landed something true. "I'm talking to you right now."
"Groundbreaking." Deacon pushed off the railing. "I'm getting the fishing line. You're getting your boyfriend."
"He's—"
Deacon was already walking away. He heard Chase say something else but chose not to process it. This was a skill he had developed over years of practice.
𓆞༄･𓆝࿐࿔*:𓆟⊹࣪˖
The fishing line aisle was peaceful. Nothing in the fishing line aisle was trying to argue about the definition of fine or whether peripheral vision counted as staring. Deacon found the 20lb monofilament exactly where it was supposed to be, grabbed two spools because Grandpa would need two eventually anyway, and stood there for an extra minute just enjoying the quiet.
His phone buzzed.
Chase: deacon where are the lures
Deacon: Same aisle as me, back left, you'll see the spinning display
Chase: okay
Chase: also
Chase: hypothetically
Chase: if someone wanted to maybe hold someone's hand near a fish tank
Chase: would that be weird
Deacon stared at his phone for a long time.
Deacon: Chase
Chase: yeah
Deacon: It would not be weird
Chase: okay cool
Chase: asking for a friend
Deacon: I know who the friend is Chase
Chase: LURE RECOMMENDATIONS GO
Deacon sent him a photo of the jig section with a thumbs up and pocketed his phone.
𓆞༄･𓆝࿐࿔*:𓆟⊹࣪˖
He found them at the aquarium again when he came back — the smaller one this time, near the entrance of the fish section, where the tank was set into the wall and lit up blue-green and full of smaller things. Prunella was sitting on the bench in front of it with her jacket zipper going tick, tick, tick, watching a sunfish do slow circles.
Chase and Buddy were standing a little apart from her, and they were — yeah, they were holding hands. Just. Standing there. Buddy was saying something Deacon couldn't hear, and Chase was looking at him like he was slightly annoyed and also like he couldn't help it, which was the most Chase expression that had ever existed on a human face.
Then Buddy said something else and Chase laughed, short and surprised, and shoved him lightly with their joined hands, and Buddy grinned and shoved back, and then somehow they were close together and Chase was kissing him, quick and easy, like it wasn't a big deal, like they did it all the time —
"Deacon," Prunella said, not looking away from the tank. "Chase and Buddy are kissing again."
"I see that, Prunella."
"The sunfish doesn't care."
"Healthy attitude."
She nodded. Tick, tick, tick. "Did you get Grandpa's fishing line?"
"I got two spools."
"He'll need two eventually."
"That's what I thought."
Prunella finally glanced up at him, considering. Then back at the tank. "I think the Memphis alligator might actually be named Chomper," she announced. "Not Chomp. I've been thinking about it."
"Chomper's better anyway."
"I think so too."
𓆞༄･𓆝࿐࿔*:𓆟⊹࣪˖
The drive home had Chase in the backseat with Buddy, which meant Deacon had the passenger seat and could control the radio without negotiation, which was an unexpected victory. He chose something low and good and didn't turn it up enough to bother anyone.
Prunella fell asleep somewhere around mile four, cheek against the window, left hand still loosely holding the zipper pull even in sleep.
Behind Deacon, Chase and Buddy had apparently resumed their fish debate because Chase was now arguing — quietly, at least — that fine was a deeply disrespectful word to use about any fish and Buddy was insisting that fine was a good word that had been done wrong by everyone who used it wrong, and Chase was saying that was the problem, it had been so misused that it no longer meant anything, and Buddy said "you know what, you might be right," and Chase immediately went "— wait, seriously?" because he'd been ready to argue more and the agreement had thrown him off completely.
Deacon could hear Buddy's smile in the silence.
"Okay but the big one," Chase muttered, dropping back to the more important issue, "the prehistoric-looking one in the back tank—"
"The alligator gar."
"The alligator gar, was incredible, right? Like objectively—"
"Objectively," Buddy confirmed, warm, "it was incredible."
A pause. The kind of pause that had something in it.
"Yeah," Chase murmured.
Deacon looked at the road. Then at Grandpa's fishing line on the passenger seat floor. Then at the road again.
In the back, someone shifted. The radio played something quiet and easy.
"Deacon," Chase said eventually, normal volume again, "you missed the turn."
"No I didn't."
"You literally—"
"Chase. I know how to get home."
"You went right instead of—"
"This way avoids the light at Marsh and Fifth."
A pause. "...Oh." A beat. "That's actually smart."
"I know."
Buddy snorted.
Prunella slept through all of it, the zipper pull loose in her fingers, and the Sunday suburbs rolled past outside like they had nowhere else to be.
𓆞༄･𓆝࿐࿔*:𓆟⊹࣪˖
Grandpa Ralph texted back at 4:12pm.
Grandpa Ralph: good boys. did you see any good lures
Deacon sent him a photo Chase had taken in the store — blurry, slightly tilted, catching the glare on the display, completely unhelpful as documentation.
Grandpa Ralph: perfect
Deacon put his phone down. From down the hall he could hear Chase trying to explain to Buddy why a specific lure color mattered and Buddy saying he believed him but his tone implying he did not believe him at all.
He put his head back against the couch cushion.
It was a fine day, he decided. Or great. He couldn't decide which.
Maybe there wasn't much difference after all.