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Chapter Text

".....so yeah, managed not to get crushed by a sea lion."

Jess finished that sentence with a satisfied little chuckle, smiling to himself as they rounded the corner of the sidewalk. They were both headed to the greenhouses to meet up when Sam got off her shift, which had led the conversation toward topics concerning other Brantwood Garden Center employees.

Cody's face had more or less been frozen in a rather aghast expression, ever since the simple anecdote about Jess's newfound friendship with Sandstorm - or, guess it was just 'Alex' now - had taken a turn that included him almost getting killed by a sea lion.

He made a scoff-laugh-worried sound, shaking his head in nerves and sort of disbelief at how casually Jess had chosen to explain that. Cody started to say something in response, but Jess was back on his roll before he could get a word out.

"But we saw an octopus in the tidepools before that! I'm pretty sure it was an Octopus rubescens, they're normally a common shallow-water species around there, and it sort of looked red from what I saw, but of course they can change color and texture so it was kind of hard to see as it was going along, I think having all of us walk by probably scared it, everyone else was sort of loud, and THEN we saw a dead mola sunfish getting eaten by a bunch of seagulls! And then...."

"What about the part where you almost died?!?" Cody blurted out. He loved hearing Jess's marine biology rants, but figured there was some modicum of acknowledgment owed here.

Jess, however, just shrugged. "I didn't."

"Did no one there seem to care?!?" Cody demanded ardently.

"Well, sure, they did, but it didn't turn out to be anything bad, so no big deal."

Cody frowned dramatically, several admonishing comments popping to mind about this group of college kids, but after a few seconds, decided that if Jess was fine with this, he could let it drop.

(Ironically, they both often got worked up about how the other could be so cavalier about personal safety, completely ignoring the fact that they were the same way)

Jess snickered again, reminiscing. "I think there was some sort of something going on about Alex and Elaine and Elaine's new boyfriend."

Cody huffed again, making himself let go of the spike of frustration and delayed-reaction worry for his best friend, mentally re-summoning the short list of beach attendants Jess had described at the start of the conversation to catch up with whatever that might entail. "Are they OK with each other now?"

"Well, he says so."

Privately, Jess wasn't about to get into the second, much more personal chapter of socializing. Between the tidepools tour, the life-threatening sea lion encounter, and the social drama, the dually-weird conversation interpolated in there wasn't something he was about to bring up with Cody.

Meeting the motorcyclist guy who told Jess about how, miraculously, he and his high school best friend just happened to fall in love and move in together and go to college together and get heart-shaped tattoos with each other's names.

Yeah, Jess regularly did his best not to dwell too hard on the way that might line up with any personal impossible fantasies.

Cody had been back a week now, after all. Plenty of time spent together, and Jess had managed to get all those flustered feelings under control. It was never going to happen, and he was happy just being best friends. Not even 'just;' his friendship with Cody wasn't second to anything, real or hypothetical.

He'd also not bothered to bring up the one awkward college girl hitting on him. Jess thought that felt almost more surreal and fictional than any other part of the story, and as someone who regularly spent time with mythological creatures, that was saying something.

The greenhouse was in sight now; they both picked up the pace slightly, making it up the last hill.

Chapter Text

Alex wrung out his bandana over the big stainless-steel greenhouse sink, then started re-tying it over his forehead. With the summer heat and general physical strenuousness of the garden center work, it certainly helped to keep things in place and keep cool, especially with occasional cold soaks like this. With the afternoon waning and the walk home ahead (nevermind other errands on the way), one final, fresh, cold refresh was certainly in order. His backpack was already neatly sitting by the door at the ready.

From the other end of the front section of the greenhouse, Sam was giving the table of ornamental grasses a final organizing, dutifully and carefully turning them all so the barcodes on the black plastic pots faced outward and in the same direction. This wasn't actually necessary per the job requirements, but if she had the time, it was usually the way she liked to leave the plant displays. Alex checked the big analog clock that hung over the office door.

"You're going into overtime," he called over with a fake-disciplinary glint in his tone. Sam rolled her eyes at him.

"I'm just finishing up on aesthetic stuff."

"Aesthetics is still work. You're clocked out." The garden center punch cards were decidedly low-tech - just little cardstock things with literal hole punches, as opposed to the computer systems you might see at bigger, fancier places - but Alex had a point.

"Fine then, I'm volunteering." Sam finished turning the last pot at the end of table into place and put her hands on her hips, surveying proudly over the whole display with a satisfied, fond look.

Shaking his head slightly and rolling his eyes, Alex stretched both arms and cracked his neck, muscles somewhat tired from lugging bushes and boxes around, patiently waiting next to the greenhouse door. Ms. Brantwood was away on some business or other in town, so had left it to them to lock up. Since keyholders technically had to be 18, that task was specifically delegated to Alex, at least until next month.

Sam was hastily wiping her hands on her already-hung-up apron - moving the pots around hadn't quite warranted gloves in her opinion at the outset of the task, but the grasses were still somewhat dusty. After a few seconds and deciding that that had done about all it could, she swung her satchel bag over her shoulder and trotted over to the open door.

"Ready?"

"Ready, thanks for waiting."

"Well, y'know, I do have to," he snickered. By now, Sam was familiar enough with the beats of his sarcastic sense of humor not to take any concern from that faux-complaining retort.

They both exited, and Alex went to the work of lift-shift-pull to get the little metal eyelet things welded into the door and its frame into place to get the padlock to line up, while Sam looked down the road.

Sure enough - impressively punctual, given Cody's still-somewhat-habitual tendency to be late for things, at least without Jess's assistance - she spotted her two afternoon companions coming up the hill.

Alex finished fumbling with the lock and gave the door a security-checking tug, before also catching sight of them.

"Shark!" he called over excitedly, bounding into a run to meet them. He had yet to see Cody since he'd come back after the summer.

Cody's eyes widened a little, noticeable even from where Sam was standing, at the taller guy barreling towards him, but smiled nevertheless. Alex almost tackled him with the force of the hug, audibly slamming into him but both managing to stay upright.

With an almost bone-crushing bear hug, Alex affectionately - if loudly - thumped him on the back. "Where've you been? Sam said you've been back a week!"

"Uh, mostly busy with tourboat stuff. Busy season." Cody wheezed slightly through the sentence, still being sports-bro-lovingly-crushed, then noticeably exhaled in relief as Alex let go.

With a momentary gulp - not that he really minded, he loved hugs - Jess realized that apparently it was his turn.

Alex pulled him into a headlock-hug, kind of the default move for taller friends. "Sup Jess, good to see you too!"

"Hi." Jess tried unsuccessfully to look up at him, still somewhat trapped. By now, Sam had made her way over to the three of them. Cody gave her a friendly smile and wave.

"Hi guys."

"How was work?" Jess asked both of them, voice somewhat muffled by still being hug-headlocked.

"Good! Lots of grass today." Sam gave the greenhouse an over-the-shoulder glance as she said it, still subtly proud of her organization job. Any dual meaning of that specific botanical turn of phrase went right over most of their heads.

"So what're you three up to tonight?" 'Tonight' was a somewhat odd choice of words, given that with the summer sunshine behavior, there were still plenty of hours of daylight, but it worked for post-employment terminology. Alex half-released his hold on Jess, but slung his free arm around Cody's shoulders, making him stumble a bit into him. Alex was unperturbed.

"Uh, good question," Cody replied for everyone, looking at Sam expectantly. Sam had suggested they hang out after she got done at work, but there hadn't been any more specific plans than that. Per that situation, Sam shrugged nonchalantly.

"Well, I've gotta return some tapes to the video place, so if you wanted to tag along, you're all welcome to!" Alex responded enthusiastically, letting go of the two other boys and sort of backwards-skipping away in the direction of said destination. The many keychains on his backpack jingled loudly with the motion.

Sam gave the other two a quick glance, getting a pair of interested nods. "Sounds good!"

The video rental store was as good a hangout destination as any for a summer afternoon.

"Awesome, I'll tell you about this thing I watched on the way....." Alex cheerfully led everyone down the turn in the sidewalk, voice rising excitedly. Such trips were always more fun with friends.

Chapter Text

Like many a local video store, the light inside was a sort of neutral-yellowing-fluorescent, a plain bluish-gray carpet, the walls decorated with various posters of movies (some newer and crisp, some faded and outdated), a handful of cardboard standees of more recognizable blockbuster and classic characters (most noticeably, a Darth Maul by the door, a Humphrey-Bogart-in-Casablanca by the classic Hollywood section), a few whiteboards with lists of new releases, aisles of neatly - or mostly-neatly, depending on the section and enthusiasm/age of its browsers - arranged VHSs, and a growing number of DVDs compared to years past, and a requisite staff of movie nerds ranging from the ardently enthusiastic to the absolutely bored.

Alex had managed to seek out his favorite of them - one of the most enthusiastic - and was by now chatting animatedly over at one end of the counters about some classic kaiju movie or other. Meanwhile, Cody had accompanied Sam over to the horror section, while Jess had meandered somewhere or other out in the stacks. With how tall the aisles were and how short he was, he was kind of easy to lose like that.

"N....O....P...." Sam muttered the alphabetical order to herself as she perused down the loosely-labeled vampire section, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she scanned the titles on the spines.

"What're you looking for?" Cody asked, sort of aimlessly looking at the creature-feature section, absentmindedly running a finger down the slightly-dusty edge of the shelf. He frowned at it after a second before unceremoniously wiping it on his shorts and looking back at Sam.  

"It's this....sequel...." Sam backtracked slightly, unsure whether she'd missed a section or if things might be out of order on the shelf "....to Interview with the Vampire, or at least it's based on the same books....."

"They're by Ayn Rand, right?"

Sam's search was decidedly interrupted by her rather loud and surprised guffaw of a laugh, followed by bubbling-down ripples as she clasped onto Cody's shoulder. Eyebrows raised, Cody looked somewhere between amused and embarrassed at how hard she was laughing at that comment.

"N-n-no, Ayn Rand did not write Interview with the Va-a-ampire!" Sam actually coughed slightly, then fortunately stopped and caught her breath.

"....I thought....?"

"Nah, it's Anne Rice. Anne Rice wrote the weird and dramatic vampire novels, Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged."

"Oh." Cody's voice and smile were rather small, nervous, and bashful at that correction. Sam noticed that he didn't appear to recognize that title either.

"She was, like, a total meritocratical asshole. She started the Objectivism movement."

"Ooooooh." Cody's memory was kicking in, threads of conversations past with Jackie. He wasn't sure if 'meritocratical' was a word or not, but generally trusted Sam's command of the English language more than his own. He remembered other past social interactions on the topic now as well, wincing at the thought. "I....I may have, uh, got confused by some stuff to a couple people on the track team then."

"Why?" Sam raised a single eyebrow at him.

"Well, they were talking about Ayn Rand, and I said I'd seen one of the vampire movies, and they asked if I liked Ayn Rand and I said she was alright, but I was thinking of Anne Rice, so...."

Sam was laughing again, affectionately patting him on the shoulder as she turned back to the shelf of horror titles. "If you said 'vampire movies' you're probably in the clear."

Cody was still frowning, now embarrassed for his past self, but eventually shrugged it off after a few moments, looking back at the movies on the shelf. "So which 'Ayn Rand' movie are you looking for?"

"Queen of the Damned, it came out in February." Sam was back to silently going through the alphabet, now trying to parse through the P-section to find where the Qs began. Maybe it had been checked out, or maybe they'd have to get a clerk.....

"Gah!" Cody squeaked out a surprised noise, jumping startled at a sudden poke in the small of his back.

Completely unrepentant, Jess just snickered as they both turned around, matching exasperated smiles as they looked down at him.

"You move like a ninja," Sam assessed jokingly, heartrate coming back down.

"You stab like one too." Cody laughed as he lightly shoved Jess back by the shoulder.

Ninja-ness could stand to go uncommented-on; Jess delightedly whipped out the movie he'd had behind his back, looking at Cody with a teasing grin. "I found your biography."

"My wha - ?" Cody's question stopped short, giving way to a play-offended smirk as he noticed the title Jess was holding up proudly.

Creature From the Black Lagoon.

Cody rolled his eyes, looking at the rather unpleasant-looking green fish monster guy on the cover. "Are you saying I'm that ugly?"

"Nope." Sam answered on Jess's behalf before he could, turning around and patting Cody on the shoulder again, some blend of reassuring, teasing, and affectionate. Similarly, Jess shook his head with a smile.

Cody was a much better-looking fish-man by his reckoning; though to be fair, that was a low bar. Some part of Jess's general social awareness suggested that it might be a little weird to think that he found Cody just as attractive with his tail and fins as he did in just plain old human mode, but he wasn't about to be hampered by such human norms. His best friend was an absolutely adorable merman in any state of aquatic or terrestrial physiology.

Not that he'd ever say that to anyone.

"I've never actually seen this one." Cody commented interestedly, so Jess helpfully handed it to him. Turning the box around, Cody started reading the back. "Wow, 1954?"

"Yeah! They had all kinds of cool underwater photography innovations for that!"

The three of them all turned in surprise at Alex's voice. He already had a small bag of new tapes slung over his wrist, other hand hooked in his jean pocket, standing casually behind them. Maybe the thick carpet made ninja-ness of silent movement easier than most retail spaces. "Did you find your vampire thing?" he asked Sam.

"Uh, no, I'm gonna ask one of them." She vaguely gestured to a gaggle of rather idle-on-the-job clerks hanging by the far end of the aisle's display.

"Cool. Shark, Professor, c'mon down this way, I've got some recommendations for you guys...."

Chapter Text

The afternoon was already fading toward dusk when the four of them exited the video store, the small electronic bell beeping loudly as Alex swung the door open and held it for the other three.

"Tell me what you think of Daimajin!" one of the employees called after them (obviously directed at Alex).

"I will!" he said back with a wave as the door swung closed behind them.

"What's that?" Sam asked, looking down as if to see through the side of the bag Alex was carrying. What with it being responsibly-reusable canvas, she couldn't actually see anything.

"Classic Japanese giant-creature movie. Or, really, it's like a giant demon god thing in an animated statue, or so Miguel said." Alex jerked his head in the direction of the store behind them as they all started down the sidewalk. "We'll see if it's any good."

Outside a general cultural osmosis of knowing who/what Godzilla was (save for Cody, who had a little more background by virtue of having gone to see the American 1998 remake in theaters with Sean and Zach for his 12th birthday), the other three didn't have quite the same knowledge of the kaiju genre to comment any more pertinently. Alex didn't seem to expect as much.

"You find your vampire thing?" he asked Sam as they approached the crossroads where the sidewalks would diverge: back south and east into town for Alex and Sam, downhill and to the west/water for Jess and Cody.

Sam shook her head. "Nah. Maybe I'll try another time. Heather has a cousin who like, downloads movies and music and stuff off the Internet, maybe he has it." If that was the case, Sam would have to go over to the Beaubiens' to watch it; the whole DVD thing was still kind of new and expensive to be any kind of omnipresent, but Heather's mom worked for Sony or some other tech company, so managed to get a demo model.

"My middle brother got the second new Star Wars that way from a guy in college, but it had all these number stat trackers on the top of the frame and everything was all stretched out." Alex snickered at the memory, spreading his hands wide vertically as if to demonstrate the warped picture. DVD bootlegging was far from an exact science.

The three of them stopped at the crosswalk, per the directions of the red-lit hand symbol, despite no cars coming in either direction.

Alex looked in the direction he and Sam would be headed before his next comment, before turning back smiling down at Jess. "I wanna know what you think of that, dude." He indicated the tape in Jess's hand: the new Lord of the Rings film.

Jess hadn't really elucidated any details of certain misconceptions, but did privately find it a little funny that Alex had somehow derived the 'fact' - erroneous as it was - that he was into swords-and-sorcery type of stuff. Guess he did kind of have the look for it; he didn't really mind, just appreciated the thoughtfulness. He wasn't quite that species of nerd, but he could give a new movie a shot nevertheless.

Cody kind of just generally liked action movies of any sort, so had also taken the recommendation in stride.

"Yeah! I'll let you know!" Jess smiled and nodded, right as the crosswalk flashed to the bright stick-figure, ushering them silently to cross. He and Cody paused for a second for a goodbye.

Alex double-fist bumped them both. "Good to see you guys!"

Sam, a little more familiar and teasing, just double hair-ruffled them right after. "See yas. Have fun with the goblins or whatever."

With a pair of smiles and replied goodbyes, Jess and Cody both turned to make sure to catch the crosswalk light. Behind them, Alex and Sam's light had changed too, sending them off in the other direction.

The hill sloped down somewhat steeply on the other side of the street. A line of flowering trees hung over the fence to their right, forming a pretty shady green roof over the sidewalk, their tendril-like leaves hanging down, making Cody flinch slightly and duck away from one or two brushing over his hair or tickling the back of his neck.

"Perks of being short," Jess added with a satisfied chuckle, looking up at his predicament.

"Yeah, yeah."

Jess had looked back away, giving Cody a snap idea. He reached up and snapped a small leafy stick from a passing branch, hiding the noise with a fake cough. Jess didn't notice.

"Watch out, the tree's alive!" With that, Cody playfully swiped the leaves over the back of Jess's neck, light enough not to hurt but quick enough to surprise him. Jess yelped and stumbled forward with a clumsy startle, catching his balance after a few seconds to turn and look indignantly at Cody, who was unrepentantly twirling the leaf-stick and laughing at him.

Jess couldn't even stay fake-pretend-offended for more than a millionth of a second - not with the sight of those annoyingly-adorable laugh dimples.

Cody tossed the stick over the fence as they both started along again, still grinning mischievously.

"Oof." Cody jerked a little bit at the sudden impact: Jess bumped his shoulder into his arm and lightly elbowed his stomach at the same time.

"That's what you get, you tree."

At that, Cody was laughing again. "Your insult skills are off the charts."

"Tree." Jess responded insistently, barely managing not to laugh too.

"Maybe there's living trees in this?" Cody indicated the video with his eyes. "I think I remember something like that from a trailer?"

"Hmm. Maybe. Guess we'll see."

Cody just nodded, looking forward again: both to keep their footing on the steeper hill, and more conceptually in general to the movie night with his best friend. After a moment or two, he affectionately wrapped an arm around Jess's shoulders and squeezed him into his side. Jess stumbled a little, but just grinned in response.

He wasn't about to complain about a side-hug from his tree.

Chapter Text

"You sure you don't want any?" Cody gave Jess another querying glance as he added a second scoop of vanilla ice cream to the bowl on the counter. Alex had said this movie was quite long - only barely shy of 3 hours - and technically neither of them had really eaten actual food since lunch.

Naturally, that didn't mean either of these 16 year olds saw anything particularly wrong or irresponsible about that.

Shaking his head, Jess went back to reading the back of the VHS. He genuinely just wasn't hungry; maybe by virtue of having a rather small stomach, he still felt full from lunch.

Cody, maybe by virtue of having transformation and super-healing powers, kind of always was. Or at least wouldn't say no to most snacking. They hadn't quite worked out the science, but it certainly made sense that the extreme plasticity of tissue he could essentially command at-will definitely consumed a lot of calories.

Plus snacks are fun, especially for a movie night.

"Well, if you change your mind, we've got the pause button for a reason." Plucking up the bowl, he led the way to the back room, the one with the VCR. It probably was once a porch when the house was built, but at some point had been closed in for a sort of mini-extra living room, the same one they'd slept in for the first time Jess had stayed the night back in sophomore year. With Jess still holding the tape, he crouched down to get the VCR running while Cody flopped back lengthwise onto the couch. A few more minutes, and the screen was showing its usual FBI warning, then starting a handful of upcoming-attraction trailers.

As Jess backpedaled over, Cody drew his legs up to give him more space on the far end. The night was certainly cooling down; neither of them felt the need for any of the blankets neatly folded in the small basket on the floor below the couch's arm, but that would probably change over the course of Fellowship of the Ring's considerable runtime.

Cody reached over and turned off the side-table lamp, leaving just the peripheral light coming through the doorway from the main part of the house and the light from the TV to see by.

"Can you get the door?" Cody asked. His parents weren't going to be home til late, but no reason to potentially bother them with swords-and-sorcery sounds should they arrive early. Jess stretched awkwardly over the side of the couch, his short arm only barely letting him fumble the knob with his fingertips, but managed to get enough of a grip to swing it closed. He slumped back down into the rather-squishy couch, smoothing his shirt down from where it had ridden up with that stretch.

Now mostly in the dark, the screen reflected more noticeably in Jess's glasses; as Cody resettled to get comfier in place (the couch cushions had a habit of sliding) and still balance his ice cream bowl, he caught himself absentmindedly watching the trailers in reverse, as they flitted across Jess's glasses.

Jess's eyes were kinda pretty in the dark.

After a moment - Jess hadn't noticed Cody looking at him - he also curled up into the couch a little bit more, already starting to feel the coolness of the night. He was wearing a polo shirt, jeans, and warm socks, so wasn't too cold yet; Cody, per usual, hadn't felt the need for more than a T shirt and jean shorts. Merman imperviousness to cold.

He glanced over at Cody after hearing a somewhat-loud chomp as he took a rather large ice cream spoonful.

Mostly silently, Jess snickered at the mandibular enthusiasm, prompting Cody to look over at him apologetically.

"Sorry. I won't do that again." Despite this alleged commitment to better manners, he did still have  his mouth rather full. Jess just found it cute, one of his cheeks puffed out like that, voice slightly ice-cream muffled.

"You're like a viperfish."

"A what?" Finally, he swallowed dramatically with a loud gulp. Cody vaguely remembered that term - an abyssal species, not one he'd encountered in person, but probably one Jess had talked about before.

"Bioluminescent, and they have big teeth and jaws," Jess teasingly gestured to Cody's spoon with another smile.

"My teeth are normal." Cody rolled his eyes, faux-complaining at Jess's joke. "I'm hungry."

Sometimes bravery struck Jess Wheatley like a sudden lightning bolt. This was one of those times.

Or maybe that was just being 16, with the associated snap-decisionmaking and hormones to contend with.

"Your jaw's probably pretty strong though, crunching barnacles and stuff." With that, he boldly and suddenly leaned toward him, close enough to playfully run his index fingertip down Cody's jaw, from just under his ear to graze scintillatingly under his chin.

Tucking his chin spasmodically and squirming away with a surprised giggle, Cody gave him a half-confused look; Jess immediately dropped back into his spot, heart pounding, looking pointedly back at the screen, deeply sorry that he'd touched him so unexpectedly and intimately.

Really? Gentle jaw-tracing? What in the world possessed him to do that?

Mercifully - at least from Jess's perspective - Cody laughed after a moment. "Yeah, I guess."

By now though, the title music had started: wistful, mournful strings, a low and mysterious woman's voice providing cryptic narration, followed by the gold-swirly title.

The Lord of the Rings.

Viperfish jaws and bold chin-scritches aside, they both focused forward as the movie began.

Chapter Text

"Yeah, sure, I'll ask him. Did you guys find anything else interesting?" Heather switched the phone from tucking it under one side of her jaw to the other as she continued diligently sponging the stovetop in the kitchen. She'd attempted being a bit more adventurous with frying rice earlier in the evening; from a taste perspective, it had mostly been a success.

(By her own review anyway. Tucker had been less than enthusiastic, but as usual it was hard determine which of his opinions were honest and which were just mischievously contrarian; Tyler hadn't commented all (which was odd, but she was willing to take it as a positive). Maybe at least one of them was growing out of the obligatorily-annoying-little-brother stage of life, but she wasn't about to hold her breath)

The state of the kitchen afterward, however, certainly needed a little more attention. She swapped to the more abrasive green side of the sponge and re-attacked a rather stubborn oil stain.  

Sam had called shortly after getting home from the video place, both just generally to catch up and somewhat curious about Heather's cousin and his computer-vaguely-illegally-acquired-digital-media skills.

"Uh, I guess so. Alex was picking up another Japanese giant monster thing. And he convinced Jess and Cody to try the first Lord of the Rings. I think they're gonna watch it tonight." Sam almost-silently laughed under her breath: a little more acquainted with Jess's subtler facial expressions, she could tell that he was politely abiding Alex's kind of adorable attempt to connect with him on 'nerd stuff.'

"Hm." Heather commented neutrally as she rolled her eyes, not that Sam could see. As far as she was concerned, those movies looked both incredibly long and boring and had only, like, 1 (one) hot guy on the posters outside the movie theater. What's the point of sitting through three hours of medieval historical stuff for just that? And there were apparently going to be three of them.

Sam, unaware of Heather's important and cultured film appraisals, commented again after that rather noncommittal sound on Heather's part. "Oh, and I think Cody might have also rented the old Creature From the Black Lagoon movie?"

Heather made a snickering sort of noise as she tossed the sponge into the sink, satisfied that it had done all it could on the stovetop. Tucker and Tyler were speed-cramming their summer math packets in the dining room and definitely not cheating off each other's answers to finish quicker; her mom and dad were kind of nonchalantly not-watching the evening news in the living room.

But on the subject of that particular 1950s horror experience, Heather had a few more specific opinions. "I always thought that one was, like, ridiculously weird."

"You've seen it?" Sam asked with a note of confusion.

"Not actually, but like, I know what happens."

From how long they'd been best friends, Heather could imagine Sam's singular raised eyebrow from her tone in perfect detail.

".....what do you think happens?"

Conscious of the rest of her family being more or less in earshot, Heather dropped her voice and cupped her hand around the mouthpiece-end of the phone, a dramatic and semi-aghast whisper. "She totally hooks up with the fish guy, right?"

"Um....." Sam, as it turned out, had also never seen the original Creature From the Black Lagoon, but was pretty sure that that wouldn't have flown in the Hayes Code era. "....I seriously doubt that that's what happens. I think the creature just kidnaps her to, like, eat her or something."

"I thought that the big thing about it though, like at the time, it was, like, a forbidden romance story?"

"....I think you've got some things super mixed up." Sam laughed through that sentence at the absurdity of the concept.

Heather wracked her brain for a couple of half-remembered scenes caught on late night TV movie channels from when she was a kid and was definitely supposed to be asleep, blended with a handful of Halloween-era movie promotions for such programming. "Huh. Guess we can ask Cody when he's done."

Rather glad for the conversation to have appropriately veered away from hypothetical forbidden romances with fish-men - not that Heather knew or ever would know how potentially close-to-home such topics might be - Sam just nodded to herself and silently exhaled. "Yeah. So how'd the fried rice experiment go?"

Chapter Text

Well, this movie was certainly long.

Cody had finished the ice cream and deposited the bowl on the couch's end table within the first 15 minutes - then had re-adjusted his position on the couch, sprawling more comfortably on his two-thirds, his feet over the arm and casually leaning his back against Jess's shoulder. 

Jess had barely moved since this had happened. Once their movie-watching poses had changed, he found himself considering the slow pace and eventual runtime much less objectionable. This movie could go on as long as it liked.

After the pretty-cool flashback intro with all the battle scenes, the pastoral stuff with all the short guys who didn't wear shoes for some reason had been a bit meandering and slow, but things had kicked in afterward. The battle with the creepy faceless riders on the old castle tower had been genuinely creepy and engaging; the scene where the elf lady summoned the river to destroy them had been pretty cool as well.

Now in the elf city, things were a little slower and more atmospheric again, but at least the plot was moving a bit more.

Still carefully keeping his shoulders as stable and pillow-like as possible - Jess had had to catch his breath as subtly as possible when Cody had rested his head on Jess's shoulder during one of the more suspenseful Ringwraith scenes, like it was no big deal, then stayed there - he actually was a little more drawn into the dialogue now that the main human hero-guy and the elf girl who saved them were apparently in a forbidden romance.

Elves being immortal was apparently the main stumbling block in their relationship.....but apparently, that could be changed.

"I choose a mortal life."

The line was dramatic and breathy, the elegant elf woman staring at her lover (and the camera) passionately; Jess did on some level appreciate how earnest this movie was, but it did ping some sort of weird thought in his mind.

The subject of Cody's mom's age was still a bit of a mystery. Still, Jess was pretty sure that if merpeople were functionally immortal, she'd probably have told him by now. So there was probably nothing to worry about like that.

But the thought still lingered.

The idea that Cody might someday similarly slow to an elegant ageless-adult appearance, more or less forever, while Jess eventually got old and withered away.....wasn't something he liked to think about too long.

Guess there were certain hazards about being best friends with a mythical creature; and normally, he was pretty good at not dwelling on these things.

But the parallel in the movie was also pretty good at reconjuring those thoughts.

He could never ask Cody to become human. He was pretty sure that was impossible anyway, but he could never do it. So Jess definitely empathized with the human hero-guy's protest of such a move in his next line.

That whole scene was apparently to be left unresolved; there were supposed to be three total giant-length movies in the series, after all.

To Jess's slight disappointment, Cody sat up and stretched soon after the title drop: the moment where the elf-king guy declared the group 'the fellowship of the ring,' complete with the whole bunch of them dramatically marching into the wilderness to some incredibly bombastic and dramatic brass fanfare.

"You OK to pause?" he asked, crouching down to look for the remote on the floor. "I gotta go to the bathroom."

"Yeah, sure." Jess sat up a little straighter and uncurled his legs from underneath him, stretching where his knees had gone somewhat numb from holding a perfect-pillow-pose for so long. Cody strolled past and out the door, leaving it somewhat cracked as he trotted through the living room, the light from the living room lamp pouring in to through the slit.

Jess shook himself, mentally pushing any thoughts of becoming mortal for love and potential merpeople non-aging aside. There was plenty of plot and movie to focus on otherwise. He took a few minutes to reset his brain after all of that.

"Chips?" Cody's voice carried from where he, by the sound of it, was now in the kitchen.

"Uh...." Jess got up, not particularly feeling comfortable yelling room-to-room in someone else's house (or at all really). He poked his head out of the back room door, spotting where Cody was standing in front of an open pantry cabinet.

"They're salt and vinegar..." Cody held up the bag with a raised eyebrow.

"I think I'll pass," Jess chuckled. He felt neutral about salt and vinegar chips: in small doses they were OK, but too many prickled his tongue unpleasantly. That said, he knew they were Cody's favorite.

"I feel bad with you not eating anything." Cody frowned as he found another bowl and tipped some of the chips into it. Not that his personal choices so far for the evening were anything close to properly-nutritious, it still felt un-host-like, however comfortable he was by now with Jess essentially being a regular part of the household. "Are you sure you're not hungry?"

"Positive." That was true; even with the length of the movie, Jess didn't really feel the need for snacks so far.

Cody shrugged, face still somewhere between awkward and apologetic as he rolled the top of the bag closed again. He looked around the counter, then ducked to check the floor. "Lost the close pin...." he muttered distractedly.

"I think it's a 'clothes' pin," Jess suggested with a smile. Cody looked up at him inquisitively.

"But it holds stuff 'close.' Closed."

"But I think it was invented to hang up clothes." Jess made sure to enunciate the buzzy th sound in there.

Cody furrowed his eyebrows in consideration as he now was checking under the fruitbowl; successfully, he plucked it out and dutifully closed the bag. "I think it can go both ways."

"Maybe," Jess replied with a quiet laugh and conceding head-tilt. He was still pretty sure it was a clothes pin, but such terminology wasn't any kind of relevant sticking point for right now. He held the back room door open as Cody walked back over, chips-bowl tucked under one arm.

Jess sat back on his side of the couch, leaving his legs more normal-sitting-position to avoid the awkward cramping from before, feet almost on the floor.

(When he had first started hanging out at the Griffins' in 8th grade, sitting on this squishier of couches meant his feet couldn't touch the floor.)

He self-consciously looked at the screen, banishing any of the jitters of hopes of Cody deciding to resume his almost-cuddly pose from before. That just wouldn't be logical.

So his eyes widened rather dramatically at his merman best friend's new choice of movie-watching couch arrangement.

"Ahhhhh...." Cody sighed with a grand, dramatic tone, as if he'd just downed a Coke in a soda commercial....as he luxuriously stretched out on the couch, feet up over the arm again, but with his head and shoulders squarely on Jess's lap.

If he was trying to give poor Jess a heart attack, he was doing a fantastic job of it.

Longer-top of his hair flopping out with how his head was almost upside-down, neck over Jess's thigh, Cody smiled mischievously up at him and balanced his chips on his own stomach, then took one out and popped it in his mouth with a satisfied crunch.

"Comfortable?" Jess asked, subconsciously starting to raise his right hand as if to run it through Cody's hair before almost snatching it back with an internal don't make it weird Wheatley.

"Yup." Cody grinned as he chomped on another chip.

Taking deep breaths - breathe, think, don't read into it, don't get carried away - Jess looked around for the remote again. It had fallen back to the floor.

"Remote?" He gestured in its direction, still trying to keep his breathing something close to even, voice something close to casual. He was actually impressed with himself that it didn't crack; he fixed his eyes back to the screen. 

"Oh, yeah." Cody sat up, and Jess briefly thought to himself OK we're in the clear now, the whole laying-on-my-lap thing was a joke.

Cody grabbed it off the floor, then - was this awesome or awful? - laid back down on Jess's lap, head settled a little better right above Jess's knee. Apparently this was genuinely how he intended to watch the movie. He looked up at him again, thumb over the Play button.

"Ready?"

Jess gulped, steadying his nerves, then reached over to steal a chip. Cody gave him a small, amused smile at the gesture, but was privately glad that Jess at least was eating something.

Still not the most nutritious of options, but neither of them were about to be concerned with such things. Jess politely finished crunching the chip and swallowed, nodding down at him.

OK, he could stick it out. Totally normal platonic best-friends movie watching pose.

"Yup!"

Chapter Text

The snowy mountain scene (and evil-wizard-Christopher-Lee-directed blizzard) concluded, giving way to not-at-all subtle foreshadowing that if the group of adventurers went through the dwarf mines, something bad was going to happen.

Atmospherically, the movie was doing a good job with the tension - the sense of foreboding, the eerie setting of the still lake outside the cave....

"Do not disturb the water...." the main hero-guy chided the small hobbit who'd been (rather stupidly, in Cody's opinion) been throwing rocks into the lake.

A turn in the music, an ominous quiver in the lake's surface on the screen, and both Cody and Jess were paying a little more attention.

Call it predictable, but both of them were pretty reliably drawn in by a potential sea monster in any movie.

As far as the couch seating arrangement went, Jess had eventually gotten used to it, managed to chill out and pay attention to the movie despite Cody remaining comfortably laid across his lap.

For Cody's part, he was enjoying the movie so far: the action scenes had been pretty good, and the music especially was memorable and really went well with the story. The grim tomb-scene - showing that the dwarf guy's people had clearly been wiped out years ago - added to the building horror of the where the story was headed....

....so he jumped when the main hobbit got grabbed by a tentacle from the water, kicking off another fight scene as they all tried to fend of the huge evil octopus-thing emerging from the lake. The creature was obviously meant to be unnerving and dangerous as a villain.

But for two sea-monster enthusiasts, this was a point in the movie's favor.

Cody snuck a glance up at Jess - he was still flat out on the couch, his back on Jess's knees, head propped up at an odd angle on the spot where the arm of the couch joined the cushion. For someone with rather thin and bony legs, Jess was pretty comfortable to lay on like this.

Jess's eyes had widened a bit, leaning forward slightly to watch more closely. Cody smiled to himself at the change in his expression, feeling like he could see the marine-biologist gears in Jess's head turn and mesh with the fantasy-adventure ones.

"D'you think it looks like a vampire squid?" Cody asked, almost a whisper, the better not to interrupt any kind of dialogue. The creature had clicked a rather ominous-looking toothed beak, a worthwhile trait to compare to a vampire of any sort, cephalopod or otherwise.

Without really thinking through the action, Jess leaned forward with an interested brow-furrow to rest his chin on his folded hands in thought - without realizing that that meant he planted one elbow on Cody's chest, and the other poking into the soft part of his stomach.

Cody jolted with a surprised squirm and yelp, then a play-indignant scowl as Jess quickly retracted his elbows.

"Oh, sorry."

"You did that on purpose," Cody jokingly whined.

"Did not." Jess shook his head quickly and apologetically, cheeks going slightly red, which Cody figured meant he was being honest. "But no, the tentacles have no webbing, see?" Jess gestured to the screen.

"Ah, yeah, I guEesEess so." Without meaning to, Cody let out a rather large eeeeee-ing yawn through pronouncing 'guess,' closing his eyes momentarily.

He didn't exactly expect it, but he wasn't about to complain when Jess somewhat-shakily stroked his hair back off his forehead and gave him a smirk once Cody opened his eyes again, looking up at him curiously.

"Sleepy?"

"This movie's long." Cody sat up a little and stretched his arms over his head.

(Jess mentally whacked down the part of his brain that was very interested in sneaking a glance at the way Cody's shirt rode up, before he pulled it back down. Cody didn't notice.)

"You wanna pause it, finish tomorrow?" Jess asked. Cody re-settled into place, shifting a little lower, using Jess's thigh as more of a pillow for the back of his head instead of the awkwardly-bent push against the arm of the couch. He smiled a little at the way Jess kept his fingers gently in his hair, adding a few slow, tentative scritches.

Maybe all this was merman touch-oriented-ness - maybe it was just Cody touch-oriented-ness - but despite what he had at first thought was a little awkwardness from Jess about cuddling during a movie night, he really liked that he was reciprocating enough to play with his hair in this comforting, soothing-sleepy way.

That said, if Jess hoped he was going to stay awake for the rest of the movie, stroking his hair was not helping any, but Cody wasn't about to complain. Not that he consciously thought of it too specifically, but that was something he had always loved about Jess, even right from when they first started hanging out more in 8th grade. Compared to other guy friends, he'd always been more comfortable with touch.

Sean (and the rest of his swim team friends, but as his then-best-friend, Cody noticed it most) had grown out of being OK with anything more than a high five or hand-slap-shoulder-bump by 5th grade; at the time, Cody hadn't realized how much he missed anything more. He'd been rather happy that at least some of the track team guys were occasionally down for bro-hugs, but he still preferred Jess over all of them any day.

"MaaaAaybe?" Cody yawned again, but then shook his head a little. Jess withdrew his hand quickly, looking uneasy for a second, eyes pointedly back to the screen. Cody privately wondered if he'd accidentally non-verbally (and falsely) indicated that he didn't like Jess playing with his hair, but felt like it might make it weird if he, like, asked him to do it again.

On the screen, the evil octopus had smashed the gates of the dwarf underground kingdom-tomb, locking the heroes inside to contend with whatever horrors the mountain caves had in store.

Well, without any soothing head-scritches, Cody was more inclined to think he could stay awake. "Nah, let's finish." How much longer could this movie be, after all?

(A lot longer)

He scootched himself a little further into Jess's lap, finding the softer part of his upper thigh as a better pillow, when he noticed the chill in the night air. It was August, so they didn't have the heat on in the house, but the basket of blankets on the floor was in reach. Cody rolled over to mostly-smoothly grab the top one -

- as it turned out, it was the quilt Jess's mom had made, the one Jess had given him when he'd gotten hurt and shaken up by the fish repellant Atherstone probes.

Jess gave him a small smile, recognizing it, as Cody half-clumsily fanned it out to spread over both of them. He drew the edge up to his chin satisfactorily, grinning up at Jess like he was proud of his handiwork. Extra movie night comfyness successfully executed.  

"You sure you're not about to fall asleep?" Jess asked with a teasing under-his-breath laugh.....and accompanied it with another gentle hair-pushing-back head stroke. From his perspective, Cody had all but tucked them both in now, and looked to be settling in for the night.

Well, that gentle hair-touch made a compelling case for such activities.....but Jess only did it once, so Cody was still confident in his ability to finish the movie.

"Yeah, I'm good."

The giant orcs - or, as Jess recalled from the dialogue, 'Huruk-Hi,' or something similar - had caught up to the main heroes after the wizard leader died and they'd left the elf city. Jess got the impression (accurately) that this battle would be the final set piece of the film.

That said, his eyelids had gotten more and more heavy and droopy over the last 15 minutes or so.

The cuddly, warm merman on his lap who was snoring quietly, snuggled with his shoulder into Jess's stomach - gosh, Cody was even smiling softly in his sleep for some reason, how was Jess supposed to function like this? - also made it rather difficult to focus too much on swords-and-sorcery action, especially as they neared the three-hour runtime.

The last thing Jess remembered before letting himself sink down all the way into the squishy couch and let his head loll back was the main human hero-guy telling the hobbit to run as he turned to face off the Huruk-Hi (was that how it was spelled? Jess couldn't be sure).

But the second-to-last thing he remembered was Cody rolling on his side, facing Jess now (or technically, his face facing Jess's stomach, almost like he was going to snuggle his nose into Jess's shirt), and drawing his legs up slightly, the better to keep his feet under the quilt. The move had also managed to pull the covers more over Jess, from the adorable way Cody was clutching the edge of the quilt.

The small threaded designs made tiny waves and swirls over the multi-colored, worn pieces of cloth. Even with almost a year here in the Griffins' house, Jess still got a hint of the smell from home on the fabric.  

This probably wasn't going to be the most comfortable and cramp-free sleep position come morning - and the last flickers of Jess's awake-brain suggested he should maybe turn the TV off, that it was probably less-than-ideal to sleep in his jeans and in a sitting-upright position - but all he cared about as he drifted off was that, nervousness aside, his adorable best friend had again decided to cuddle with him at an impromptu sleepover.

That was a perfect recipe for a warm, comfy, wonderful night as far as Jess was concerned.

Chapter Text

Cody was pretty sure it might, hypothetically, be the early hours of the morning....the perfect gray-white of the sunrise suggested over the sea-sky, soon to give way to the rising yellow in the east, the water turning from twilight-gray to daytime-blue.....

.....or maybe not. Poetic imagination of the coastal morning aside, the windows were still dark. The faint light that had prickled through his eyelids wasn't the morning sun, but the snowstorm-static screen indicating that they'd reached the end of the video.

Guess they'd have to try again if they wanted to give Alex any kind of thoughtful review. In the moment, Cody was still too starting-to-wake-up to even remember much of the long, meandering plot. There was something about a giant evil octopus and lots of talking.

He was sure, however, what exactly had made him wake up, before the light or lack thereof in the room.

Through the last....however many hours, it was hard to tell....he and Jess had apparently managed to get themselves into some approximation of ergonomic couch-sharing positions, though things had turned out decidedly pretzel-like: Jess slumped into the gap between the couch cushion and the arm, face smushed into the back of the couch so his glasses were sticking out at an odd angle, his mouth slightly open and nose adorably squished, one foot hanging down toward the floor, the other curled up awkwardly on the seat in some kind of figure-4. A little closer to normalcy, Cody had been splayed out, lying face down, one hand fallen to the floor, the other pinned under his chest, head on Jess's soft lower belly like a pillow.

As he stretched - carefully, the better to not bother Jess in their almost-intertwined positions  - Cody smiled to himself, remembering Jess's insistence that he wasn't hungry from the night before, considering that his own wake-up stimulus had been the quiet grumbling of Jess's stomach in his ear, the low sound vibrating his cheek.

Looking around, Cody eventually found the remote, digging it out from where it had slipped into the crack between the couch cushions, and clicked off the TV. He then crawled closer to the far end of the couch, the better to see the clock on the wall by the door. A human might need a lamp, but his sea creature low-light vision told him it was almost 2 AM.

His mom and dad were probably home by now; if he had to guess, they probably had found them asleep in the TV room and decided against waking them up. He even rolled his eyes imagining the way they probably laughed and thought they were 'too cute to wake up,' (cheesy and somewhat embarrassing a thought as that was, that was sort of the kind of loveably-awkward parents they were) passed out in front of a movie like little kids. That was probably why they forgot to turn off the screen.

Well, gastrointestinal sounds aside, Jess looked perfectly content, or as sleeping-soundly as possible, given his pose.

And Cody was still rather sleepy himself. Luckily, Jess was small and light enough to make things easy enough to accommodate.

He stretched out down to the basket on the floor for a second blanket and folded it over once again, patting it to check for appropriate pillow-ness, then gently slid his arms under Jess's torso to lift him into a more lying-down pose, flat on his back. He tucked the blanket-pillow under his head, then delicately picked up his legs to lay him out straight.

It was incredibly cute kind of funny how Jess made a little satisfied hmm sound and rolled onto his side, his face re-smushed into the back of the couch, his back to Cody. Cody snickered and shook his head as he reached over and carefully extricated Jess's glasses from the situation, then set them on the side table on the stack of fishing magazines.

Maybe the couch was a little bit small for his next move, but Cody was too tired to really give it much thought about such physical logistics.

He laid down too, on his side, so his chest was to Jess's back, then pulled the quilt up over them both. His left arm stayed tucked under him (that would be pins-and-needles asleep by morning, but he didn't know/wasn't considering that right now), but he reached his right over to wrap around Jess's middle, cuddling him close.

Jess's short hair brushed against the tip of his nose, so Cody readjusted, tucking his chin over the top of Jess's head.

Maybe this was a little bit weird by outside-perspective standards, but Cody was too sleepy and rapidly-drifting-off for such worries or self-consciousness.

After a moment, Jess leaned back into him, like he was cuddling closer into the warmth of the sleep-hug. It was only a few more moments before Cody was sound asleep too.