#akioukun

Billy’s features flattened, making him look like an annoyed sea lion in the headlights while his smaller self laughed but scratched his hairless upper lip.

They saw everything the aquarium had to offer - minus the crabs. Chrissy grabbed Eddie’s hand and marched right through that exhibit. Little Steve and Billy cooed and awed at the various dark tunnels with brightly lit enclosures. It was less easy to keep small Eddie confined when some of the rooms were designed to look like enclosures themselves.

“Is this wreal?” he asked, flying up to touch a wall that looked like rock and moss. “Metal! Firwst goth shawrks, and now we’wre the animals! This place rocks!”

Bigger Eddie’s nostrils flared, but Chrissy gently intervened, “Eds, can you sit on my bun? It’s gonna be a while before we have lunch.”

He swooped through the darkness to use the topknot on her head like the back of a chair. With Eddie mollified, he could better focus on small Chrissy. He cupped his hands, lifting her up to better see various animals. It didn’t take long for small Eddie to join the higher vantage point, but he seemed just as pleased to flutter his wings behind him, feeling the air without exhausting himself.

They arrived to a room with walls of fish as well as a central pillar of glass and tropical fish. Steve walked a lazy lap around the room before approaching Billy with the idea to give their littles a similar, higher view, but as soon as his mouth opened, he went quiet. Billy held a hand over his pocket as he silently gazed up at the pillar of colorful coral and striped fish. Little Billy and Steve held onto his forefinger, but the latter had an arm around small Billy, brown hair nuzzling blond.

Steve smiled softly, watching the blue veins of light wander over the little guys before he saw how the same light glowed in Billy’s water-blue eyes. Long lashes blinked sharply when Steve stroked the back of Billy’s other hand. “You want to hit the gift shop and grab some food?”

“Yeah. Take the guys, though. I’m gonna buy an overpriced coffee from concessions.”

“Make it two?”

Billy smirked in his sleepy way at him. “Six sugars?”

“No,” Steve groaned as the littles switched from Billy’s pocket to his own. “...Just two. And a cream.”

Billy snorted softly. “I know how you take your coffee. See you in the gift shop.”

Steve and the others meandered to the contrastingly bright shop while Billy went to the small cafeteria. Steve expected the little ones to be dozing in his shirt, but upon arriving at shelves upon shelves of animal plushies, they proved very much awake. The gasp from his shirt made Steve look nervously down.

“They’wre - they!” small Billy exclaimed, head swiveling between the turtles, snakes, and whales.

“Hold on,” Steve stymied. “We’re not taking all of these home.”

“Why not?” small Steve clipped.

“Because they’re not all for us, and frankly, I can’t afford all of them.”

“But otterws! ” his little argued, pointing to the shelf of them in various sizes.

“I know. This is where I got the one you sleep with. Let’s just relax and breathe for a second. We’re not grabbing anything until we take a lap.”

“What for?” small Billy interrogated.

Thankfully, Chrissy came to his rescue. “So we can see everything and make sure you’re getting the best thing.”

By some miracle, the store clerk was elsewhere, possibly on lunch break. So when small Eddie pulled out a shark plushie and the ensuing shelf following suit, he had a small audience. The weight of the shark pulled him right down, but he had a soft landing.

Eddie might be the rigid one in the pair, but he proved surprisingly gentle as he picked his smaller self up and supported his wings. “Hey, butthead. You okay?”

“I think I pulled a wing.” His tiny bottom lip pushed up like he might cry.

“Nothing Wayne’s bacon mac can’t fix. Just take it easy.”

“The mac ‘n’ cheese with the stawrs?”

“I don’t know if we have the star pasta, but we’ll get some on our way home.”

“And Coco Puffs?”

“You’re milkin’ me dry here, man.”

Chrissy giggled. “I’ll cover the Coco Puffs.”

On Steve’s side of the store, Billy arrived and handed him a small coffee. He eyed the menagerie of toys on the floor. “What’s going on?”

“Just a minor injury,” Steve said as he risked sipping the hot coffee. “Thanks.”

“Biwwy.” The man looked at little Steve, who posed, “We’wre taking a shawrk home, right?”

Billy blinked and clarified, “A toy one. Not a real one.”

The small guys stared at him and then pivoted to murmur to each other as if that hadn’t even occurred to them -

Steve interjected, “Not a real one. We’re not putting a shark in the pool.”

Steve didn’t realize he might have walked into a trap until little Billy pointed and said, “Then that one!”

A shark plushie about the size of their otter hung off the shelf, almost a victim of little Eddie’s mess. Steve picked it up and tested the soft, pliant toy. But right next to them were much smaller versions of animals that could fit in his hand. He held two sharks in his hands and reasoned, “You already have the otter to sleep on. Do you want a shark you can hold or a shark that can hold you?”

This was not the right thing to say.

The littles went very quiet. Steve peered down at his shirt and saw his littler self with big, sad eyes and confused, upturned brows. Like he couldn’t understand why they had to make a choice.

Little Billy was silently having a meltdown. The whites of his eyes went pink as they slowly filled and filled with tears.

Steve quietly interpreted, “Both. Okay, okay. You’re not in trouble. I’m just trying to not take home the whole store. You can have both.”

He looked to large Billy for input or just plain help, but the man stayed quiet. If anything, he looked uncomfortable and ready to leave -

“Stevie?” small Billy asked.

“Yeah?” small Steve answered.

“Would you sweep with me on the shawrk? Or stay on the otterw?”

Big Steve’s eyes flicked between them, trying to understand what the real question was.

“I’wll sweep with you anywhere, Biwwy. Shawrk or otterw. You’wre my Biwwy.”

The tears slipped over his chubby cheeks and he said. “I want the smawll shawrk. I wanna hold him. Stevie can hold me.”

Big Steve stood frozen in place, unsure what just happened and totally overwhelmed. Billy finally did something and took the larger black-tipped reef shark out of his hand and carried the smaller version to the register. Steve mutely followed, busy trying to get a tissue package out of his jacket pocket to clean up small Billy...

A loud clatter jerked his eyes up to a small, bronze-looking otter figurine keychain. Billy looked around at the vacancy of a store clerk and said to nobody in particular, “Should we shoplift?”

Steve didn’t answer that and instead asked, “I thought you’d have gone something shark-themed, too.”

“I already have one.”

“One what?”

“A shark.”

“Really?” Steve puzzled. “Where? I didn’t see anything in your room.”

For a moment, he wondered if he’d said the wrong thing again, because the muscle in Billy’s jaw bulged. “He was in the laundry room when you were over. He doesn’t get to come out all that often.”

A cashier finally arrived, speed walking behind the counter. “Hi! So sorry, I hope you weren’t waiting long.”

“Slow day,” Billy said indifferently, but promptly ripped the tags off. “I don’t need a bag.”

They got out of the way for Eddie and Chrissy to make their purchases, and Billy opened his jacket to insert the shark into his breast pocket in front of the littles. “Tuck in, Snorkels.”

“Snorkels?” Steve overheard with a snort.

“That’s Mr. Snorkels to you.”

“Mr.,” he blurted but then recoiled at the severity on Billy’s face. “Wait, really?”

Billy didn’t answer. He prowled his way out of the aquarium, into the balmy afternoon after so much air conditioning as Steve followed behind him.

“When can I meet him?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know my stuffed animal. Why can’t I know yours?”

A smile cracked on Billy’s face. “Oh, you want to meet my shark?”

“I already met him. I want to meet Mr. Snorkels.”

Billy made a pfft sound as he worked on putting his new keychain on his keys. Whatever the attitude he gave Steve, the small brass otter had to be a good sign...right?

“You promised me food.”