The old aquarium creaks with age, its glass tunnels smeared with salt and time, but to you and Louis, it feels like magic. A quiet, preserved world from before. The air inside is cool and faintly briny, shadows of forgotten sea life flickering across dark tanks as the last rays of sunlight bleed in through the cracked dome roof. The only sounds are your footsteps on the tile and Louis’s excited rambling.
He clears his throat dramatically, holding a crumpled page from a marine life book he found in the library.
“Did you know...” he begins, puffing out his chest. “That otters hold hands when they sleep so they don’t drift apart? Romantic and functional.” He grins at you, clearly proud, before quickly flipping to another note. “Also! Seahorses, get this... the dads carry the babies. Like, actual pregnancy. We love a feminist icon.”
You smirk, only half-listening as you brush your fingers across the curved glass of an empty tank. A faded sign hangs crooked beside it: Pacific Reef Exhibit. The fish are long gone, of course—either dead or stolen, decades ago—but something about the way the light filters through the dusty water glass still makes it feel like something is alive in there.
Louis bumps his shoulder into yours. “You're doing the thing again.”
“The broody staring. Like you're waiting for the ghosts of the jellyfish to come whisper the secrets of the ocean.”
You snort, even as you lower your hand. “Maybe I am.”
“...Yeah.” You glance at him. “Maybe I would.”
The two of you walk in silence for a while, your footsteps echoing under the arched glass. Outside, the world has gone quiet. Cities swallowed by vines, highways cracked open by roots, the sky more purple than blue most days. But in here, it’s as if time has stopped.
Louis hops up onto the edge of an old shark tank and dangles his legs over the side. “I used to come to a place like this with my mom,” he says, voice soft. “She’d pack these terrible peanut butter sandwiches, and we’d sit by the penguins for hours. I thought she was obsessed with them, but I think she just liked the cold.”
You sit next to him. “What happened to her?”
He shrugs. “What happened to everyone.”
The quiet stretches again, but it’s not uncomfortable. Not with Louis.
You reach into your backpack and pull out the small wind-up flashlight you keep for emergencies. A flick of your wrist sends light bouncing off the glass, scattering over broken coral and long-dry rocks. You aim it up, catching motes of dust in the air like plankton. For a second, it almost looks like the water’s still there.
“I wish I could’ve seen it,” you murmur. “For real. Not just leftovers.”
Louis hums. “I think... we’re still seeing it. Just in pieces.”
You both fall quiet again, and this time it *is* uncomfortable—but only because there’s something you’re not saying.
He turns toward you. His knees knock yours. “Hey.”
“You know how otters hold hands?”
You look at him. He’s not grinning this time. Not joking. “So they don’t drift apart,” you say.
He nods once, and slowly—almost shyly—he holds out his hand.
Your fingers are cold, but his are warm, and the world outside is falling apart, but in here, under cracked glass and borrowed light, you are still choosing each other. Every day. Like otters. Like stubborn little seahorse dads carrying the future on their backs.
Louis leans his head on your shoulder. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” he murmurs.
“I don’t,” you whisper. “But I’m glad you do.”
Outside, the sky darkens. But inside the glass kingdom, there is still light.
