Past the first fronds of kelp, he saw Kyo ahead. Alon caught up easily, and slipped alongside Kyo’s moon-brown body. He tangled Kyo’s stroke, spiralling around him. Kyo gave a stablizing kick and nudged closer. Alon locked his arms around his chest from behind, keeping his chin well clear of Kyo’s gills, until the current cradled them both.
They drifted. Kelp strands tickled along Alon’s back and sides; his kicking feet, now and then, brushed Kyo’s. The water was dark, dense on Alon’s skin. Heat sank from Kyo’s body into his. Alon let his eyelids slip to half-mast, his nictating membranes protecting his eyes.
The membranes had been his second surgery, after he came home weeping to his mother with reddened eyelids and blurry vision. Gills could have been a fad, an experimental procedure p
