Page 107 of Fish in a Barrel
“Your fault, you know. You opened the door. I’m going to take advantage.”
“That’s your job, Counselor,” Jackson said, smiling slightly.
“I do my best, Detective.” Ellery loved—loved—that Jackson had turned his vocation into an endearment. It somehow made the thing they loved doing—and loved doing together—important. It acknowledged a part of each other’s soul.
“Jackson,” he said, his voice shaking. “I… I boss you around a lot. And tell you how to do things. Wear this shirt, give this gift to my mother, don’t get shot.”
Jackson suppressed a laugh, and Ellery continued.
“But that’s only because I’ve been taking human lessons from you for over a year. Things like loving people for who they are and judging less and helping more. Things like not dismissing people because of their mistakes, and treating every soul as a human being, whether or not they reciprocate. I… I may have believed in these things before, in the abstract, but you’ve made them very, very real. You’ve made me a better person, living these ideas as a part of our lives. A true soulmate is somebody who makes you better by simply being who they are. You talk all the time about improving who you are for me—I don’t think you understand how much better I’ve become just because I love you. Hopelessly. Without reservation. You were going to ask me to marry you. I’mbeggingyou to marry me, because I’m selfish. I want to keep being this person, this person who could have the friends you’ve brought into my life. Who’s imbued a job I already loved with meaning I didn’t know it could have. Together we’re… we’re perfect. I mean, we’re not—”
This time when Jackson laughed, he sputtered tears, and so did Ellery, but Ellery had to finish.
“Neither of us. But together, we make the world a better place. Please marry me. Please build a life with me. I’m so spoiled by loving you. I couldn’t love another person like this. It would break my heart.”
Jackson nodded fiercely and opened the ring box. Two simple platinum rings sat in it, one with an onyx stone. Elegant and plain and perfect. “Yes,” he said.
Ellery pulled one of the rings out. It had Jackson’s name engraved inside in a bold print, and a he assumed it was his. He held the one withElleryengraved in the center for Jackson to slip his finger into, and then Jackson took the other one and did the same.
“Yes,” Ellery said.
He lifted up slightly, and they kissed, another briny disaster, but this kiss didn’t have pain in it or stress or desperation.
It was absolute, 100 percent unfettered joy.
In the hazy background, Ellery felt his phone buzz in his pocket and heard Henry say, “Perfect. Congratulations, you guys. Henry out.”
He wouldn’t look into his pocket until later, as they lingered over the cake—and the sparkling cider Dave and Alex had provided along with the champagne. But when he did, he found the picture of them kissing, surrounded by the trappings of tradition and the thoughtfulness of family and captioned with a simple, “Yes.”
Henry had sent it to everybody, including Ellery’s family, and the congratulations had filled up both his and Jackson’s phones.
“Would you look at that,” Jackson said softly. “I guess people have been rooting for us.”
“I know I have,” Ellery told him, and they both put their forks down by mutual decision and kissed again.
This kiss ended up in the bedroom, where they made slow, careful love. This time, Ellery took care of Jackson, because he was the only lover Jackson had ever allowed the honor. This time he worked carefully around the hurts and took him, softly, sweetly, without pain. Jackson’s crest was a breathless break of a slow wave, and Ellery came inside him as effortlessly as breathing, as spectacularly as a shooting star. He spent an eternity after that running his fingers through Jackson’s hair, rubbing his hip, kissing his shoulder, soothing his lover until Jackson’s even breathing told Ellery he was asleep.
Ellery let out a deep breath then and lay there, still inside him, both of them on their sides, as he waited for Jackson to sink a little deeper into sleep.
He would need to move to do some cleanup in a moment; his practicality wouldn’t allow the exquisite cake to sit out or the bucket holding the unopened champagne to soak through to the table with condensation. He needed to blow out the candles and feed the cats and do the dishes—and very often Jackson helped with these chores, but not tonight.
Tonight, Jackson’s only job was to sleep.
He’d done all the hard emotional work. He’d faced so many demons, and he had the scars to prove it, but he’d won.
For once, Ellery prayed Jackson would get a full night’s sleep and wake up refreshed and happy to see that the world had changed around them, but they were still the same.
Together, heart and soul, burning with purpose, as long as they could march hand in hand into the battle.
They had so much work to do.
Author’s Note: A word aboutCrullers
Crullersstarted out as a series of “thread the needle” ficlets on my Patreon—and boy did these shorts threadeveryneedle, covering pretty much every couple mentioned in the Fishiverse toward the end ofSchool of Fish. Altogether, they came to about 30,000 words—but there was no cohesion to the batch of stories if youhadn’tread pretty mucheveryword in the series. However, certain groups of the fishlets did manage to go together, and the whole work functioned better split into three pieces. The first chunk is in the back ofConstantly Cotton, and the second chunk is here. The third will go best withUnder the Stars, a novella about Jai and George, who are from the area of the Fishiverse occupied by Ace, Sonny, Burton, and Ernie. So enjoy this oddly shaped story. Something happens at the end that people have been asking for since Lucy Satan insisted that Billy Bob should get a friend.
Crullers
Part 1