[story] oceanside
Jul. 31st, 2010 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ib_archiveauthor: flamebyrd (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
flamebyrd)
email: flamebyrd [at] gmail.com
"Arcady, does your aunt still have that beach house down south?"
"I don't talk to my family anymore, remember?" muttered Arcady. He stabbed at his food with a fork.
Next to him, Sebastien raised his eyebrows. "Your mother left a message on the answering machine two days ago." He grinned. "She called you Archie."
Arcady groaned. "Well, I try to avoid it wherever possible. You know that." He paused for a moment. "Why?"
Kai shrugged with feigned casualness. "I was thinking of heading down there with the boat next weekend and I thought I'd see if you two wanted to meet me there." Makani, who had been dozing on the dining table, much to the amusement of Arcady and Kai, uncoiled himself to blink sleepily at him.
"Both of us?" Sebastien looked both surprised and pleased.
"Of course." Kai smiled at him warmly. It would have been rude to just ask Arcady, even though it really was just Arcady he needed to come. This kind of thing always required some delicate social maneuvering and if he could get Sebastien on his side, so much the better.
Besides, he really did like Sebastien, who seemed to know exactly how to handle Arcady and to all appearances found his idiosyncrasies charming rather than frustrating.
"Why?" Arcady repeated.
Kai took a mouthful of his drink before continuing. "I just wanted to get away from the city for a while and I thought you guys could use a break too." It wasn't even a lie. He'd been back on land for three months now and was starting to feel like he was drying up.
Arcady was frowning doubtfully. "I guess I could ask my parents about it."
"Great." Makani drifted up to wrap himself around Kai's neck, making him shiver.
Arcady's eyes darted to Makani, then his lips twitched. "Is it because of...?" He stopped, glancing at Sebastien furtively. Invisible water elementals were apparently not among the things that Arcady had shared with his boyfriend.
Sebastien's lips pursed in a little hurt frown.
"No," said Kai quickly. "This is all me."
Arcady clearly didn't believe him, which was fair enough, because Makani was the reason Kai wanted to visit the beach house. It just wasn't Makani's idea this time.
Sebastien had returned to his food, although his frown hadn't disappeared. Makani unwrapped himself from Kai's neck and flowed through the air towards Sebastien.
Kai watched out of the corner of his eye as Maka investigated every inch of Sebastien without touching. Arcady stopped making any pretensions of ignoring Makani and stared openly. It was the first time the elemental had shown even the slightest interest in Sebastien.
"What is it?" asked Sebastien, putting down his fork. "Do I have something on my face?"
Makani completed his inspection by licking Sebastien on the cheek. Sebastien shuddered violently and slapped a hand to the offending spot.
Makani skipped out of the way easily and gazed at Sebastien reproachfully.
"What the--" Sebastien swore softly. His eyes were wide with shock.
Arcady shot a glance at Kai, who shrugged. This was new behaviour to him, too.
"Can you two see that?" asked Sebastien, pointing a shaking finger at where Makani still hovered over the table.
Kai decided to bite the bullet. "His name is Makani," he explained. "Ordinarily non-magic users can't see him." Kai grinned suddenly. "I suppose he felt bad that he was making Sebastien sad."
Sebastien continued to stare. "What is it? I mean, he?"
"I don't know. Some kind of elemental, I suppose." Makani licked Sebastien's cheek again and returned to Kai, twining around his arm and letting Kai scratch under his chin. "I've been trying to find out exactly what he is, but I haven't had any luck."
"And this... Makani?" Kai nodded to confirm the name. "Has something to do with why you want to borrow Arcady's aunt's beach house?"
Kai laughed. "We saw something like Makani there one summer when we were kids. I don't know if it was the same one or not--" Kai was struck with the distinct impression that Makani thought he was an idiot. "Okay. So it was Makani that we saw." He blinked. "He's never answered that one for me before."
"He's not completely unique, though," Arcady added quickly. "We saw another one, that time Kai kidnapped me." Arcady was apparently still a little bitter about that.
Kai nodded. "I'm not sure what that was about. Some kind of pilgrimage, maybe?"
"Wow," said Sebastien. "That's incredible. You really don't know what he is?"
"Myths and legends are full of elementals." Kai stroked Makani lightly along his spine, feeling the flimsy ruffles of Makani's fins whisper against his fingertips. "Nothing quite like Maka, though."
"Some kind of sea dragon, maybe?" Sebastien offered.
Kai shot a glance at Makani, but the elemental appeared to have fallen asleep again. "I don't think he cares how we categorise him," he said, laughing. "But I can't help but feel there must be some reason he's sticking around."
Sebastien was shaking his head in wonder. "Just when I thought my life couldn't get any stranger..."
Kai snorted. "Tell me about it."
He glanced at Arcady, expecting a similar sentiment, but Arcady was worrying at his lower lip, shoulders slightly hunched.
"It's okay. I like weird," said Sebastien peacefully.
Kai pushed off from the jetty and steered out to sea, his heart thumping hard against his chest in anticipation.
Once they'd cleared the harbour and were into open water, Kai took several long, deep breaths. Tension melted out of him as the sea air flooded his lungs.
Maka wrapped himself around the handrail and looked straight forward. Kai always expected the fins on his back to ripple in the wind, but they were dead straight, only moving when Maka shifted position. He often wondered how much the physical world really existed for Maka.
For his part, the wind was whipping his hair into his eyes and mouth and making his shirt billow out behind him, pulling tight across his front. It was a familiar, and thus welcome, annoyance.
They made good time down the coast. Kai was almost tempted just to keep going, right down to the Southern Ocean perhaps, or maybe turn the boat west, where there weren't even islands for hundreds of kilometres.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, a sure sign that they were approaching civilisation.
There was a message was from Arcady, saying that they'd been a bit late setting out and he'd call when they were an hour out. Another message was from the Colberts, wishing him a safe journey.
Kai smiled and dropped the phone back into his pocket. The reminder of his human attachments fresh in his mind, he angled the boat towards shore.
Leaving his boat safely (and legally) berthed in the marina, he shouldered his backpack and followed the jetty back to shore, Makani floating at his right side.
He checked in at the Marina office. When he stepped back outside, he found Makani submitting to being stroked on the back by an elderly man. The man's mouth was wide with amusement and his eyes twinkled. Seeing Kai, he huffed in surprise. "You see this beauty?"
Kai shifted uncomfortably. "He came with me."
The old man's eyes widened with respect. "Yeah? I've never seen one stick with a human before, not for long."
"You've seen one before?" asked Kai eagerly.
"Sometimes. Not often, not for very long. They're shy." The old man didn't let up his petting of Makani, who seemed utterly disaffected by the conversation around him.
"What is he? Is there a name for it?"
The old man shrugged. "All the old stories disappeared when the missionaries came. All I have is what I've seen. You get them around water - this fellow is an ocean dweller, I reckon."
Kai nodded. "I met him out at sea, a few years back."
"Lucky. He's a little charmer, isn't he?" The old man smiled as Makani twirled around his arm. "He knows he's pretty."
"I've never met anybody who's seen anything like him before."
"You don't get them in cities. Quiet places they like, usually. This fellow must be a young one."
"Do you know why he'd choose to hang around me? You said you'd never seen one stick with a human before."
The old man shrugged. "The ones I've met are shy. Maybe this guy isn't."
Kai's phone rang loudly, and he jumped. The old man rolled his eyes, and Kai flushed as he dug his phone out and answered it quickly.
"Kai? It's Arcady. We're about an hour out now, according to the GPS."
"OK, I'll see you at the house," said Kai. "Drive safely."
"Sebastien is driving," said Arcady, always a stickler for accuracy.
Kai smiled. "Well, tell Sebastien to drive safely, then." He snapped the phone shut and smiled apologetically at his companions. "Sorry about that."
The old man snorted. "You put up with that kind of thing?" he asked Makani gruffly.
Makani untwined from around his arm and flew to Kai's shoulders, defiantly wrapping his tail around Kai's neck.
The old man laughed, slapping his own knee in delight. "You have a loyal friend in that one. You're lucky, kid," he told Kai.
"I like to think so," said Kai, smiling politely.
The marina and immediate surroundings were littered with quirky little local arts and crafts stores, cafes and ice cream shops. Kai bought an ice cream and set off in the direction of the Long Beach (as the locals called it).
By memory the marina was about half an hour's walk from the beach house. Kai toed off his shoes and tied them to his backpack as he stepped onto the sand.
He wasn't alone on the beach by any means. As he trudged through the sand where the waves licked he had to weave between sand castles and channels dug by enterprising little hands - gathering no small amount of stares and uneasy looks from concerned parents.
Kai moved on without paying them any attention. Makani played in the waves, diving in and out without disturbing the surface of the water, but all the looks were for Kai.
He wondered what he looked like to them, barefoot, unruly hair, backpack.
When he reached the beach house Arcady and Sebastien hadn't yet arrived, so he sat on the steps that led down to the beach, letting the wind play with his hair and wriggling his toes in the sand. He picked up a twig and started doodling in the sand while Maka explored the dunes that flanked the beach house.
At last, he heard the car rumble up to the front of the house. Kai pulled his shoes on, attempted to tame his hair into some sense of order, and walked around to greet Arcady and Sebastien.
Arcady had brought no less than three laptops of varying sizes, a wireless internet dongle, a wireless access point to network all the laptops, and two boxes of miscellaneous electronics that were obviously works in progress.
Sebastien had a book of poetry, a single notebook and a camera.
They were, Kai reflected, almost completely stereotypical.
Arcady had also brought along a bag of firewood, several shopping bags of junk food, and a smaller bag of real food. Staring into the car boot, Kai eventually located a small bag that probably contained Arcady's clothes.
"How was the trip?" asked Sebastien, as he and Kai carried the food into the house.
"Great," said Kai automatically. "It was really nice to get out on the water again."
"Yeah?"
Kai nodded wordlessly.
"Good." Sebastien looked a little uncomfortable, like he wasn't really sure how to continue.
"How was the drive?"
"Uh, yeah, it was fine. Long. But uneventful."
"Pleased to hear it." Kai was tempted to ask more questions, draw Sebastien out a bit. He'd done the drive himself, he could fake a conversation about it easily enough - but that was just it. It would be another lie.
They looked at each other helplessly for a moment.
"Hey guys," said Arcady, placing the last of his boxes carefully on the dining table. "What's up?"
It was, Kai thought, completely ridiculous that they were relying on Arcady to defuse an awkward social situation.
After dinner, Arcady disappeared into the spare bedroom, citing sudden inspiration and ordering them not to disturb him on pain of messy dismemberment.
Sebastien seemed to take this in stride, much to Kai's relief. "Does he do that to you often?"
Sebastien shook his head. "Not often. But sometimes, yes. I don't mind much. It's pretty impossible to get my attention while I'm reading."
They retreated to the patio with one of Arcady's blocks of chocolate and watched the sun slowly sinking into the ocean.
Kai wondered about Makani. The elemental hadn't shown any interest outside the ordinary in their surroundings or the ocean. He'd been thinking this area was where Makani originally came from, but maybe Maka had just been passing through.
"I kind of wish I understood a little better, though," said Sebastien quietly.
"Hmm?"
Sebastien was silent for a moment. "I was really jealous when he told me about you. You understand about computers and you've known him forever and he'll go on about you like a teenager with a crush if you let him."
"Um." Kai struggled to get his brain back on track. A hundred different responses flitted through his mind, and he evaluated them all individually for the most desirable result. He felt guilty a few seconds later. Not manipulating people was hard. He decided to change tactics. "Did you talk to him about this?"
Sebastien let out a surprised huff of laughter. "Eventually. He told me you turned him down."
Well, that made this easier. "I did. At risk of sounding cliche, I just don't think of him that way. Never have."
"But it doesn't seem to have ruined your friendship."
There was a story there, somewhere. Kai decided to let it slide. "Well, it helped that I was setting out for a round the world sail at the time."
Sebastien laughed again, genuinely this time.
"And I am so, so glad he didn't do anything stupid like wait for me. You two are good together."
"We're completely different people."
"And that's good. Seriously, he needs somebody to drag him into the real world occasionally."
"The real world is overrated," said Sebastien lightly. "I'll be happy if I can just make him eat actual food occasionally."
They sat in silence for a while as the stars started gathering in mass over the darkened sea.
The sounds of movement from back inside the house broke the spell.
"Guys? Guys, where are you?"
Kai and Sebastien exchanged glances.
"I'll go," said Sebastien, winking.
"I was thinking," said Sebastien over breakfast, "that if it's okay with Kai we could go boating this morning?"
Arcady was looking at Sebastien in disbelief. "You cannot be serious."
Sebastien blinked. "Why not? It's been years since I've done it."
Kai smiled at him. "Of course, I'd be happy to take you out on the boat."
Arcady gave Sebastien a look of utter betrayal. "You can go. I'll be staying here." He swallowed his last mouthful of cereal and stalked out of the room quickly.
Sebastien followed him out, leaving his breakfast unfinished. "What? Arcady, what did I say?"
Kai frowned into his bowl of cereal. Even after all this time it was hard to tell if Arcady was really upset or just being contrary.
Sebastien returned a few moments later. "I cannot for the life of me make out if he's genuinely mad at me or if he's just, I don't know, some kind of evil genius trying to make certain his best friend and his boyfriend get along."
Kai burst out laughing.
Sebastien blushed.
"I can't tell either," Kai explained. "But if you were serious about going out on the boat, I'm still happy to do it."
"I am just about annoyed enough to actually take Arcady at his word," muttered Sebastien. "But somebody has to be the mature one in this relationship."
"I heard that," muttered Arcady, standing in the hallway. He shifted his weight from foot to foot for a moment. "And I'm sorry I lost my temper. I just really hate boating," he added, in a small voice.
Kai stared at him. "Who are you and what have you done with the real Arcady?"
Arcady folded his arms and pouted at him, then yelped as Sebastien wrapped him in a fierce hug.
Kai started laughing helplessly again.
In the end it was another few hours before Kai and Sebastien were setting out to sea. Sebastien proved himself an able seaman, explaining that he'd done yachting as an elective in high school. This just seemed to make Maka more fond of him. Kai could see Sebastien jump occasionally as Maka licked his cheek or wrapped himself around his lower arm.
"He seems really taken with you," laughed Kai, as Sebastien took it upon himself to carefully explain to the elemental that he really couldn't concentrate while Makani was playing with his hair.
"He doesn't do this to Arcady, does he?"
Kai shook his head. "Arcady hates the ocean. Maybe that's it. You don't have any magic, so it can't be anything to do with that..."
"Maybe that's what?"
"Maybe that's why he's chosen to stick around with me. I've been trying to figure it out."
Sebastien blinked. "What do you mean?"
Kai shrugged. "There has to be a reason for it."
"Why?"
It was Kai's turn to be confused. "What do you mean?"
"Why does there have to be a reason? Maybe he just likes you."
Kai blinked.
Sebastien sighed in mock frustration. "You and Arcady, you're both scientists. You think everything has to have a reason, that everyone acts according to some kind of internal logic. Life isn't like that. Sometimes people just like people."
Kai shook his head. "But..."
"I know. You're thinking, why me, aren't you? But there's never any single thing that means people become friends. Like, I've met a ton of geek boys like Arcady but he's the only one I've fallen in love with."
"Love, is it?" Kai grinned at him.
Sebastien shrugged, although his cheeks were pink. "I'm not ashamed to say it. I'm French."
Kai laughed.
"Anyway, what I'm saying is, maybe Makani sticks around because you're friends."
The old man on the quay had said something similar, although Kai hadn't paid it any mind at the time. "I thought for sure it had to be something magical."
"I'm sure he forgives you," said Sebastien wryly.
"Friends, is it?" asked Kai softly.
He was sitting on the back patio, watching the sun set over the ocean. Makani was curled up in his lap, head resting on Kai's left knee. Kai stroked a finger gently along Maka's fins, feeling the cool wispiness of the elemental's skin. Maka didn't stir.
"I like the sound of that."
the end
flamebyrd)email: flamebyrd [at] gmail.com
"Arcady, does your aunt still have that beach house down south?"
"I don't talk to my family anymore, remember?" muttered Arcady. He stabbed at his food with a fork.
Next to him, Sebastien raised his eyebrows. "Your mother left a message on the answering machine two days ago." He grinned. "She called you Archie."
Arcady groaned. "Well, I try to avoid it wherever possible. You know that." He paused for a moment. "Why?"
Kai shrugged with feigned casualness. "I was thinking of heading down there with the boat next weekend and I thought I'd see if you two wanted to meet me there." Makani, who had been dozing on the dining table, much to the amusement of Arcady and Kai, uncoiled himself to blink sleepily at him.
"Both of us?" Sebastien looked both surprised and pleased.
"Of course." Kai smiled at him warmly. It would have been rude to just ask Arcady, even though it really was just Arcady he needed to come. This kind of thing always required some delicate social maneuvering and if he could get Sebastien on his side, so much the better.
Besides, he really did like Sebastien, who seemed to know exactly how to handle Arcady and to all appearances found his idiosyncrasies charming rather than frustrating.
"Why?" Arcady repeated.
Kai took a mouthful of his drink before continuing. "I just wanted to get away from the city for a while and I thought you guys could use a break too." It wasn't even a lie. He'd been back on land for three months now and was starting to feel like he was drying up.
Arcady was frowning doubtfully. "I guess I could ask my parents about it."
"Great." Makani drifted up to wrap himself around Kai's neck, making him shiver.
Arcady's eyes darted to Makani, then his lips twitched. "Is it because of...?" He stopped, glancing at Sebastien furtively. Invisible water elementals were apparently not among the things that Arcady had shared with his boyfriend.
Sebastien's lips pursed in a little hurt frown.
"No," said Kai quickly. "This is all me."
Arcady clearly didn't believe him, which was fair enough, because Makani was the reason Kai wanted to visit the beach house. It just wasn't Makani's idea this time.
Sebastien had returned to his food, although his frown hadn't disappeared. Makani unwrapped himself from Kai's neck and flowed through the air towards Sebastien.
Kai watched out of the corner of his eye as Maka investigated every inch of Sebastien without touching. Arcady stopped making any pretensions of ignoring Makani and stared openly. It was the first time the elemental had shown even the slightest interest in Sebastien.
"What is it?" asked Sebastien, putting down his fork. "Do I have something on my face?"
Makani completed his inspection by licking Sebastien on the cheek. Sebastien shuddered violently and slapped a hand to the offending spot.
Makani skipped out of the way easily and gazed at Sebastien reproachfully.
"What the--" Sebastien swore softly. His eyes were wide with shock.
Arcady shot a glance at Kai, who shrugged. This was new behaviour to him, too.
"Can you two see that?" asked Sebastien, pointing a shaking finger at where Makani still hovered over the table.
Kai decided to bite the bullet. "His name is Makani," he explained. "Ordinarily non-magic users can't see him." Kai grinned suddenly. "I suppose he felt bad that he was making Sebastien sad."
Sebastien continued to stare. "What is it? I mean, he?"
"I don't know. Some kind of elemental, I suppose." Makani licked Sebastien's cheek again and returned to Kai, twining around his arm and letting Kai scratch under his chin. "I've been trying to find out exactly what he is, but I haven't had any luck."
"And this... Makani?" Kai nodded to confirm the name. "Has something to do with why you want to borrow Arcady's aunt's beach house?"
Kai laughed. "We saw something like Makani there one summer when we were kids. I don't know if it was the same one or not--" Kai was struck with the distinct impression that Makani thought he was an idiot. "Okay. So it was Makani that we saw." He blinked. "He's never answered that one for me before."
"He's not completely unique, though," Arcady added quickly. "We saw another one, that time Kai kidnapped me." Arcady was apparently still a little bitter about that.
Kai nodded. "I'm not sure what that was about. Some kind of pilgrimage, maybe?"
"Wow," said Sebastien. "That's incredible. You really don't know what he is?"
"Myths and legends are full of elementals." Kai stroked Makani lightly along his spine, feeling the flimsy ruffles of Makani's fins whisper against his fingertips. "Nothing quite like Maka, though."
"Some kind of sea dragon, maybe?" Sebastien offered.
Kai shot a glance at Makani, but the elemental appeared to have fallen asleep again. "I don't think he cares how we categorise him," he said, laughing. "But I can't help but feel there must be some reason he's sticking around."
Sebastien was shaking his head in wonder. "Just when I thought my life couldn't get any stranger..."
Kai snorted. "Tell me about it."
He glanced at Arcady, expecting a similar sentiment, but Arcady was worrying at his lower lip, shoulders slightly hunched.
"It's okay. I like weird," said Sebastien peacefully.
Kai pushed off from the jetty and steered out to sea, his heart thumping hard against his chest in anticipation.
Once they'd cleared the harbour and were into open water, Kai took several long, deep breaths. Tension melted out of him as the sea air flooded his lungs.
Maka wrapped himself around the handrail and looked straight forward. Kai always expected the fins on his back to ripple in the wind, but they were dead straight, only moving when Maka shifted position. He often wondered how much the physical world really existed for Maka.
For his part, the wind was whipping his hair into his eyes and mouth and making his shirt billow out behind him, pulling tight across his front. It was a familiar, and thus welcome, annoyance.
They made good time down the coast. Kai was almost tempted just to keep going, right down to the Southern Ocean perhaps, or maybe turn the boat west, where there weren't even islands for hundreds of kilometres.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, a sure sign that they were approaching civilisation.
There was a message was from Arcady, saying that they'd been a bit late setting out and he'd call when they were an hour out. Another message was from the Colberts, wishing him a safe journey.
Kai smiled and dropped the phone back into his pocket. The reminder of his human attachments fresh in his mind, he angled the boat towards shore.
Leaving his boat safely (and legally) berthed in the marina, he shouldered his backpack and followed the jetty back to shore, Makani floating at his right side.
He checked in at the Marina office. When he stepped back outside, he found Makani submitting to being stroked on the back by an elderly man. The man's mouth was wide with amusement and his eyes twinkled. Seeing Kai, he huffed in surprise. "You see this beauty?"
Kai shifted uncomfortably. "He came with me."
The old man's eyes widened with respect. "Yeah? I've never seen one stick with a human before, not for long."
"You've seen one before?" asked Kai eagerly.
"Sometimes. Not often, not for very long. They're shy." The old man didn't let up his petting of Makani, who seemed utterly disaffected by the conversation around him.
"What is he? Is there a name for it?"
The old man shrugged. "All the old stories disappeared when the missionaries came. All I have is what I've seen. You get them around water - this fellow is an ocean dweller, I reckon."
Kai nodded. "I met him out at sea, a few years back."
"Lucky. He's a little charmer, isn't he?" The old man smiled as Makani twirled around his arm. "He knows he's pretty."
"I've never met anybody who's seen anything like him before."
"You don't get them in cities. Quiet places they like, usually. This fellow must be a young one."
"Do you know why he'd choose to hang around me? You said you'd never seen one stick with a human before."
The old man shrugged. "The ones I've met are shy. Maybe this guy isn't."
Kai's phone rang loudly, and he jumped. The old man rolled his eyes, and Kai flushed as he dug his phone out and answered it quickly.
"Kai? It's Arcady. We're about an hour out now, according to the GPS."
"OK, I'll see you at the house," said Kai. "Drive safely."
"Sebastien is driving," said Arcady, always a stickler for accuracy.
Kai smiled. "Well, tell Sebastien to drive safely, then." He snapped the phone shut and smiled apologetically at his companions. "Sorry about that."
The old man snorted. "You put up with that kind of thing?" he asked Makani gruffly.
Makani untwined from around his arm and flew to Kai's shoulders, defiantly wrapping his tail around Kai's neck.
The old man laughed, slapping his own knee in delight. "You have a loyal friend in that one. You're lucky, kid," he told Kai.
"I like to think so," said Kai, smiling politely.
The marina and immediate surroundings were littered with quirky little local arts and crafts stores, cafes and ice cream shops. Kai bought an ice cream and set off in the direction of the Long Beach (as the locals called it).
By memory the marina was about half an hour's walk from the beach house. Kai toed off his shoes and tied them to his backpack as he stepped onto the sand.
He wasn't alone on the beach by any means. As he trudged through the sand where the waves licked he had to weave between sand castles and channels dug by enterprising little hands - gathering no small amount of stares and uneasy looks from concerned parents.
Kai moved on without paying them any attention. Makani played in the waves, diving in and out without disturbing the surface of the water, but all the looks were for Kai.
He wondered what he looked like to them, barefoot, unruly hair, backpack.
When he reached the beach house Arcady and Sebastien hadn't yet arrived, so he sat on the steps that led down to the beach, letting the wind play with his hair and wriggling his toes in the sand. He picked up a twig and started doodling in the sand while Maka explored the dunes that flanked the beach house.
At last, he heard the car rumble up to the front of the house. Kai pulled his shoes on, attempted to tame his hair into some sense of order, and walked around to greet Arcady and Sebastien.
Arcady had brought no less than three laptops of varying sizes, a wireless internet dongle, a wireless access point to network all the laptops, and two boxes of miscellaneous electronics that were obviously works in progress.
Sebastien had a book of poetry, a single notebook and a camera.
They were, Kai reflected, almost completely stereotypical.
Arcady had also brought along a bag of firewood, several shopping bags of junk food, and a smaller bag of real food. Staring into the car boot, Kai eventually located a small bag that probably contained Arcady's clothes.
"How was the trip?" asked Sebastien, as he and Kai carried the food into the house.
"Great," said Kai automatically. "It was really nice to get out on the water again."
"Yeah?"
Kai nodded wordlessly.
"Good." Sebastien looked a little uncomfortable, like he wasn't really sure how to continue.
"How was the drive?"
"Uh, yeah, it was fine. Long. But uneventful."
"Pleased to hear it." Kai was tempted to ask more questions, draw Sebastien out a bit. He'd done the drive himself, he could fake a conversation about it easily enough - but that was just it. It would be another lie.
They looked at each other helplessly for a moment.
"Hey guys," said Arcady, placing the last of his boxes carefully on the dining table. "What's up?"
It was, Kai thought, completely ridiculous that they were relying on Arcady to defuse an awkward social situation.
After dinner, Arcady disappeared into the spare bedroom, citing sudden inspiration and ordering them not to disturb him on pain of messy dismemberment.
Sebastien seemed to take this in stride, much to Kai's relief. "Does he do that to you often?"
Sebastien shook his head. "Not often. But sometimes, yes. I don't mind much. It's pretty impossible to get my attention while I'm reading."
They retreated to the patio with one of Arcady's blocks of chocolate and watched the sun slowly sinking into the ocean.
Kai wondered about Makani. The elemental hadn't shown any interest outside the ordinary in their surroundings or the ocean. He'd been thinking this area was where Makani originally came from, but maybe Maka had just been passing through.
"I kind of wish I understood a little better, though," said Sebastien quietly.
"Hmm?"
Sebastien was silent for a moment. "I was really jealous when he told me about you. You understand about computers and you've known him forever and he'll go on about you like a teenager with a crush if you let him."
"Um." Kai struggled to get his brain back on track. A hundred different responses flitted through his mind, and he evaluated them all individually for the most desirable result. He felt guilty a few seconds later. Not manipulating people was hard. He decided to change tactics. "Did you talk to him about this?"
Sebastien let out a surprised huff of laughter. "Eventually. He told me you turned him down."
Well, that made this easier. "I did. At risk of sounding cliche, I just don't think of him that way. Never have."
"But it doesn't seem to have ruined your friendship."
There was a story there, somewhere. Kai decided to let it slide. "Well, it helped that I was setting out for a round the world sail at the time."
Sebastien laughed again, genuinely this time.
"And I am so, so glad he didn't do anything stupid like wait for me. You two are good together."
"We're completely different people."
"And that's good. Seriously, he needs somebody to drag him into the real world occasionally."
"The real world is overrated," said Sebastien lightly. "I'll be happy if I can just make him eat actual food occasionally."
They sat in silence for a while as the stars started gathering in mass over the darkened sea.
The sounds of movement from back inside the house broke the spell.
"Guys? Guys, where are you?"
Kai and Sebastien exchanged glances.
"I'll go," said Sebastien, winking.
"I was thinking," said Sebastien over breakfast, "that if it's okay with Kai we could go boating this morning?"
Arcady was looking at Sebastien in disbelief. "You cannot be serious."
Sebastien blinked. "Why not? It's been years since I've done it."
Kai smiled at him. "Of course, I'd be happy to take you out on the boat."
Arcady gave Sebastien a look of utter betrayal. "You can go. I'll be staying here." He swallowed his last mouthful of cereal and stalked out of the room quickly.
Sebastien followed him out, leaving his breakfast unfinished. "What? Arcady, what did I say?"
Kai frowned into his bowl of cereal. Even after all this time it was hard to tell if Arcady was really upset or just being contrary.
Sebastien returned a few moments later. "I cannot for the life of me make out if he's genuinely mad at me or if he's just, I don't know, some kind of evil genius trying to make certain his best friend and his boyfriend get along."
Kai burst out laughing.
Sebastien blushed.
"I can't tell either," Kai explained. "But if you were serious about going out on the boat, I'm still happy to do it."
"I am just about annoyed enough to actually take Arcady at his word," muttered Sebastien. "But somebody has to be the mature one in this relationship."
"I heard that," muttered Arcady, standing in the hallway. He shifted his weight from foot to foot for a moment. "And I'm sorry I lost my temper. I just really hate boating," he added, in a small voice.
Kai stared at him. "Who are you and what have you done with the real Arcady?"
Arcady folded his arms and pouted at him, then yelped as Sebastien wrapped him in a fierce hug.
Kai started laughing helplessly again.
In the end it was another few hours before Kai and Sebastien were setting out to sea. Sebastien proved himself an able seaman, explaining that he'd done yachting as an elective in high school. This just seemed to make Maka more fond of him. Kai could see Sebastien jump occasionally as Maka licked his cheek or wrapped himself around his lower arm.
"He seems really taken with you," laughed Kai, as Sebastien took it upon himself to carefully explain to the elemental that he really couldn't concentrate while Makani was playing with his hair.
"He doesn't do this to Arcady, does he?"
Kai shook his head. "Arcady hates the ocean. Maybe that's it. You don't have any magic, so it can't be anything to do with that..."
"Maybe that's what?"
"Maybe that's why he's chosen to stick around with me. I've been trying to figure it out."
Sebastien blinked. "What do you mean?"
Kai shrugged. "There has to be a reason for it."
"Why?"
It was Kai's turn to be confused. "What do you mean?"
"Why does there have to be a reason? Maybe he just likes you."
Kai blinked.
Sebastien sighed in mock frustration. "You and Arcady, you're both scientists. You think everything has to have a reason, that everyone acts according to some kind of internal logic. Life isn't like that. Sometimes people just like people."
Kai shook his head. "But..."
"I know. You're thinking, why me, aren't you? But there's never any single thing that means people become friends. Like, I've met a ton of geek boys like Arcady but he's the only one I've fallen in love with."
"Love, is it?" Kai grinned at him.
Sebastien shrugged, although his cheeks were pink. "I'm not ashamed to say it. I'm French."
Kai laughed.
"Anyway, what I'm saying is, maybe Makani sticks around because you're friends."
The old man on the quay had said something similar, although Kai hadn't paid it any mind at the time. "I thought for sure it had to be something magical."
"I'm sure he forgives you," said Sebastien wryly.
"Friends, is it?" asked Kai softly.
He was sitting on the back patio, watching the sun set over the ocean. Makani was curled up in his lap, head resting on Kai's left knee. Kai stroked a finger gently along Maka's fins, feeling the cool wispiness of the elemental's skin. Maka didn't stir.
"I like the sound of that."
the end
