Prompt - Something Lost, Something Found

[infringe]

SONG OF THE SEA ( joshua, alecto ) A selkie far from home, searching for his coat. He meets a kind, lonely, young fisherman who tends the lighthouse near the sea.

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[singinthestorm]

Joshua is... not at all equipped for any kind of clandestine activity, and all the more so when it involves his family. Keeping this secret is difficult, and painful, but he justifies it to himself, over and over; that revealing it would result in more pain, that they'd more than settled into a routine and an equilibrium after almost six years, that it wasn't worth disrupting it. And they were all happy as they were, he knows this to be true, even with this quiet gnawing in his gut, clamoring to be let out. He knows it from the look on Alecto's face, in Avery's reluctant tracing of his letters at Joshua's behest, complaining but obedient, in the imagined swell of Alecto's body, even in the pleased expressions of the two assistant keepers, accepting their souvenirs from Joshua's time away and sharing news of the village, the vendors at the market, greeting their family with an accepting, polite friendliness.

He makes it barely four days.

The two days immediately after his return are dark with rain, and he has to spend them at the lighthouse, keeping the lanterns lit almost throughout the entire day, taking careful shifts to keep things operating properly, while still stopping regularly down at the cottage to check on Alecto and Avery. But the third day brings them washed-out sun, and a spectacular sunset, (sailor's delight, as they say), and Joshua suggests an evening's walk to the shore again, so Avery can stretch his fins.

[infringe]

Salt water cures all things. This is a truth that selkies know.

Alecto is sitting in the sand, the water from the sea surging forward in even breaths, dampening his clothes. But he doesn’t mind. He is trying to help Avery don his sealskin - “Give me your hand, arm up…” - pulling the sleeves on for him as the boy impatiently wriggles. Alecto brushes his fingertips, roughened a little from years now of housework, of scrubbing linens and floors and cooking warm meals for his family, over the fur and his heart clenches in pain.

Avery says, “Momma, why don’t you ever swim with me? You’re a selkie too right?”

And Alecto’s breath catches in his throat, threatening to choke a sob out of him.

“Oh, Avery,” he says, shakily, patting back his son’s mess of dark hair. He tries to offer an reassuring smile and he’s not sure if it was meant for himself or for his son. Avery is looking at him with wide, bright eyes, and genuine, childish confusion. “I…I can’t.”

“Well,” Avery huffs, “why not.”

“My coat is gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“A man…before your father, took it from me. And now I’m never able to return to the sea. And it’s why I warn you all the time to keep this,” he pinches the fur between his fingers, “safe. To never give it up, even for someone who says they love you. You hear me?” It’s not worth it.

Avery thinks on this. He ignores the warning, apparently far more concerned about the current issue at hand, unable and unwilling to consider the fears of such a far future. “You belong in the sea, Momma, like the rest of us. That’s just not fair. Can’t you make a new coat?”

Alecto shakes his head, aching but amused by his son’s innocence, as he slowly pulls the hood of Avery’s sealskin over his head to finish the ritual of transformation. When next his son blinks up at him, it’s in his seal form, wordless and sweet, his big, damp eyes concerned. “No, but that’s not for you to worry about my little one. Go on. Go.” He pats his pup’s rump and urges him into the tides. Avery looks back now and again but ultimately swims off, soon having forgotten about the dry land and his mother’s sorrow.

Alecto waits until his son is far enough away to finally break down. The tears burst through him as he clutches his arms around himself, holding himself tight, feeling for the first time, in a long time, that initial loss so starkly. He wails, but tries to muffle it, a hand over his own mouth. His body curls in on itself. He’ll never be able to join his son, he thinks, never be able to swim with him the way he should. The ocean, from now on, will always be just an open wound for him.

[singinthestorm]

The sight of Alecto's tears, the expression on his face, the way he tries to hide his pain, rips the already gnawing wound within him asunder, spilling every vital part of him out into the sand. He feels gutted, like a gasping fish under the knife.

What did it matter, in the end, that Alecto had made some small happiness for himself, for them, here on dry land? The home they'd built, his marriage with Joshua, even their children - there was still no way to make up for that initial violence, that theft, of such an intrinsic part of his nature.

Joshua might be able to swim with their son, their future child, in either of their forms, even if they'd always outstrip him, leave him farther and farther behind as they grew; this was simply parenthood, the natural order of things, even if they didn't happen to be children born of love and magic and the rising waves. He knew - had always known - that was a part of them he could never touch. But for Alecto...

"Dearest," he says, quiet, subdued, almost choking on the simple syllables. "I...think I'll head back first." His arms ache to hold him, to wrap around Alecto and keep him close, to wipe those tears away with his rough fingers, his lips, to taste the bitter salt of sorrow mingled with the ocean's brine. But even if he wasn't the original source of those tears, he was at least a continuation of them, now. He had no right to attempt to ease them now, to attempt to fill that gaping void with his small self, what little he had to offer, though he would willingly pour it all out for Alecto, if he thought it would ease even a fraction of that pain.

He couldn't. But he knew what could, even if he had lost his own way, even if the thought of what would follow fills him with dread.

A package arrives the very next morning, directly to the house, the postman smiling indulgently when Alecto answers the door. "This is for you," he announces with a cheerful grin. "From your husband."

Joshua, eyes bleary with no sleep, watches Alecto accept it curiously, his heart sinking with every single passing moment. But the sight of Alecto, of their son running around the house with the excitement of interrupted routine, is always a quiet balm, whatever his other hurts, and he stores the memory up against their inevitable absence, these smaller, commonplace joys, of simply being together.

For as long as it lasted.

[infringe]

The morning delivery surprises him and he presses a soft kiss to Joshua's bare chest, right above his heart where Alecto and their son had been snuggled against during the night, sleeping, before he gets up to answer the door. He slides on a silky robe, milky white, and glides over, thanking the mailman and taking the small box into his hands.

Well. How nice is this?

He grins back at his husband, finger toying with the ribbon around the top of it. "Oh, what's this now? It looks expensive..." he asks, and goes to sit by the window, admiring the packaging. Behind him, outside, the sea is a calm, clear blue.

"You spoil me, darling," he continues as he tenderly unwraps the box and takes the top off, reveling in the piles of silk he sees initially. He runs his fingers over it - it's cold and so very fine. It feels almost like water itself. "Really," his eyes shine happily as he unfolds the layers in his lap, "you shouldn't have -"

And suddenly, he stops. All the color drains from his face and throat and abruptly, everything goes so, so cold, disharmony spreading all over his body language. Even Avery picks up on the shift in atmosphere, ceasing his romping and peeking at his mother from where he was crawling about on the couch, his tiny hands gripping the cushions. Alecto can't believe what he's seeing.

The box falls to the ground, forgotten. Slowly, cautiously, he holds up a fine, shimmery, sealskin. His sealskin. He's sure of it. He could recognize it anywhere, in fact, had been searching for it, yearning for it ever since that first night he was ripped from the sea and held tight to a selfish man's chest, cursed to the land forever.

The early morning sunlight makes it shine like diamond dust.

"I," Alecto begins, weakly, and his upper lip trembles when he tries to speak. He blinks hard, opening his eyes again with a terrified expression as if he's expecting his hands to suddenly be empty if he so much as breathes. But they're not empty. They're full of soft, magical fur dotted with a constellation of little grey speckles, and it feels like - freedom.

But that moment of elation, of initial shock, is tinctured with something bitter and ugly. A poisonous truth, an equation of time that begins to piece itself together, starting to form a picture that Alecto doesn't want to look at, doesn't even want to consider as a real possibility.

He throat is dry and tight, as if he swallowed a handful of something sharp, something meant for killing. "You -" he turns his gaze to Joshua, to his husband of so many years, a man he adored, that he promised himself to, that he gave children to - but instead of his usual love and trust, Alecto can feel nothing but crushing, furious grief.

"You had this?" His voice is barely a whisper, his tone crushed small by pain, "This - this whole time? You -" He rises, legs shaky, hands shaky, everything just trembling, threatening to fall to pieces. "You kept this?"

[singinthestorm]

He watches Alecto, watches his face as he unwraps everything, as the sealskin spills out into his hands like liquid silver. He watches for elation, but he can still see the turn, the moment his betrayal registers. He can't even justify it to himself, knows that he'd let his own fears, his own selfishness override the trust they had built together.

This is the end, he knows now, the price he's paying for the silence he kept, all the liberties he took for the past two weeks. He can't say for sure whether it's worth it or not.

"The trip I took," he says by way of agreement, dully, almost listless as he sits up, curls in on himself, his gaze fixed on Alecto, but skittering, unable to look at him directly, looking uncharacteristically small and subdued. "They found it with - with Nathaniel's things. But -"

He stifles a sob, a choked sound in the back of his throat. "You're right. I did keep it from you."

[infringe]

Alecto doesn't know what to say, doesn't know if it helps that Joshua had only recently found the coat instead of having locked it away for much longer. A lie is a lie, and a home can still be a cage.

"Why," he asks, flatly, unable to move. He thinks maybe he's being too unforgiving, too cruel, because he already knows the answer: that Joshua loved him. And that when a man is so helplessly so, he can confuse things like possession for adoration.

But he wants to hear his husband admit it.

[singinthestorm]

Avery looks between his two parents, aware of the conversation, but clearly confused at how tense things are, on such a bright clear morning, which would typically be filled with laughter and delight as the three of them got ready for the day together.

"I'd...hoped," his words come out haltingly, shaky, but genuine, "that - maybe I could be enough." He glances at Avery, and then again at Alecto, at the new shared life already growing within him. "But I do know now that I can't - that I could never - be enough."

"I wasn't - I'm still not - ready for what I think this means. Because of what I know I've done. But that's my responsibility to bear, not yours."

[infringe]

He listens, his expression unchanging, though something in his heart softens. He finds himself, once again, with the sea to his back and the man he loves before him, and unable to move, to choose.

"Joshua," he says, quietly, a little helplessly. His heart still pulls towards him, pained to see him in pain, even if Alecto himself was still struggling to forgive him for bearing this secret. "I..." do love you he wants to say. That hasn't changed, won't change. But how can he explain that he's more than just this, that he's a wild creature, bound to the song of the sea, and that sometimes loss can be so big, bigger than imagining, too big for even love to cover over -

" - need to go." The words are barely audible, the hum and call of the ocean now so clear, so reachable.

Alecto's hand goes to his stomach almost automatically, and then glances over to Avery who looks so confused, so defeated. There's an immeasurable sorrow that fills Alecto now, making him want to rush to comfort his son, hold him close. He's innocent in this, completely. Alecto feels terrible to have to put his pup through this pain.

"Come here, my little one," he beckons, bending down, and Avery instantly rushes to him, sensing something is changing, leaving. Alecto kisses his forehead as he starts to cry, a bright tear tracing a path down his cheek and dripping onto his son's dark hair. "Listen to me. Be good now. I need to...I need to go for a while, do you understand?" Avery doesn't, it's clear in his little face, and he may never, but Alecto rushes on.

"Remember when you asked me to swim in the sea last night? I can do that now, and I - I can go home." He cups the side of his son's face, tilts it to look up at him. "I haven't been home in so very long. So I - I need to do that now. Alright? Help take care of your father for me, will you? Oh, my little tidal wave. I love you so." Alecto's voice cracks just a little, clutching his son close, his sealskin between them, a thin divider, before he pulls back and quickly lets the robe he was previously wearing fall to the ground, replacing it with his coat, the fur sliding onto him with such practice familiarity. Safe, he feels safe and whole. Finally.

He makes for the door, a blur of silver and magic, and chances a look back at his husband, at the house they made together, the family they were building. His chest goes tight. It's not fair, he thinks. It's not fair that he has to break Joshua's heart to mend his own.

[singinthestorm]

He watches Alecto closely, quiet throughout the tender exchange between him and Avery, every word a needle of pain - Alecto's resolve, his quiet determination, his care and consideration for their son. He doesn't deserve the little thoughtfulness, he thinks, a wry curl of dark humor in the midst of the despair he is desperately trying to hold at bay. There is nothing he can say, he has no right to try to sway Alecto. He had known this was a possibility the moment he grasped the contents of that letter and chose silence over truth, out of fear; but it would do Avery no good for him to add to the complicated confusion of the moment, to be caught between his two parents and their two different worlds.

Joshua stands up from where he's been sitting and walks forward, takes Avery's hand gently in his own as he walks past him where he is staring, teary-eyed and bemused, and leads him to the door where Alecto is standing, looking back. Joshua's eyes are dry, his expression as calm and steady as he can make it, but if anyone in this world knows him well, it is Alecto Archer, his wife of six years, the keeper of their home and his heart, the mother of their son, of another child he might never get a chance to meet. He reaches out with his other hand, his fingers tentative and gentle as they wrap around Alecto's wrist, as he bows his head low and brings it up to his mouth for a kiss, the slightest brush of his lips against the back of Alecto's hand.

"Please take care of yourself," he murmurs. He doesn't know if he can say everything else in his heart - how much he loved Alecto, how much he would be missed, how often he would look out at the sea and wish him well, how sorry he was for his human weakness and sentiment.

And then he lets go.

[infringe]

Words are lost on him. He swallows around a lump in his throat. The press of Joshua's lips to the back of his pale hand makes Alecto want to cry, a sob heaving itself out from deep in his chest. He turns fully, temporarily, away from the door, to grab hold of his husband's handsome, tired, despairing face and kiss him, fully, mouth open, apologies and regret and love pouring forward all in equal measure.

He wants to stay. But he can't help but leave.

"Darling," he says, that treasured term of endearment, now a farewell, trembling with so much feeling. He pulls back to press their foreheads together, briefly. But, try as he might, nothing else comes to him then, a multitude of things he wishes he could say, wishes he could explain, compromise on. But the tide is calling and his magic must run free -

So with that, he flees, his tears stinging cold on his face, but the breath of relief he feels when he finally pulls up the hood of his coat and turns back to what he's supposed to be...it's unparalleled.

Alecto disappears beneath the swell of the rising tide, a flash of pearl white. On the black rocks of the sea cliffs from where he leapt, he leaves behind his wedding band, a thin gold halo glinting in the sun.