I will be PUBLICLY EXECUTED FOR THIS but shipping discourse is in my roots and I will betray little me if I don't talk about this but y'all should still be able to ship seahorse 😭. if wave could exist independently as his own character before he can still do that. someone (we love very much) sat down to write all of this and none of it is real. wave is his own written concept as well as the old man, deacon and like every entity in this piece ever. they only exist in your head and no one's to tell you where the limit of your imagination is. that's what fanon is for. you can just... isolate the two concepts like nothing happened and just go on about your pairing.
cb isn't some religious scripture that you're forced to consume the way it is. and no amount of thinking you'll do will bring you to a conclusion that the ship is immoral if you're aware enough that none of this is real. you're right to feel it's awkward now but you're also right to continue shipping undisturbed. this isn't just about seahorse but like any piece of fiction ever.
people feel so obligated to stick to fictional contexts just because they're labeled canon they forget they can take it out of that context and still be moral. like people saying you can't ship ship A because ship B is already canon. I beg of you never be these people