Work Text:
“Write me a poem about sharks.”
“O-kay,” said Nursey, every syllable drawn out in uncertainty. Chowder rarely made direct requests like this, ones about poetry the least of all. “That could be chill. What kind of poem do you want it to be? Like, what format?”
Chowder faltered. “Uh, I dunno. I don’t know that much about poetry,” he said. “Whatever you want it to be, I guess?”
They were sitting in the Haus kitchen. It was a lovely Tuesday morning, on which Nursey got up early for once without the threat of practice, and the sun was streaming in through Bitty’s curtains without a care. They’d got textbooks and whatnot strewn all about on the table, Nursey with his readings, Chowder with CS stuff that Nursey still hadn’t gotten a single clue about. He was feeling pretty awake after coffee, but apparently that wasn’t enough, considering he still hadn’t fully processed what Chowder’d said.
But fuck if Nursey wasn’t interested. He straightened. “What brought this on?”
“I was thinking.”
“Ch’yeah, dangerous activity.”
“Shut up. Let me finish.” Chowder was smiling. “Like, I was thinking, right? About sharks. And what people think about them. Do you think sharks have feelings?”
“I thought you were pretty sure they did?”
“Yeah, but I want your opinions.”
There were a few ways this could go. Nursey could laugh and dismiss this and say no, they’re fish, how are they supposed to have feelings?, and maybe Chowder would laugh along and counter that with one of his usual rants; or he would go quiet, in that Chowder way where he changed topics as easily as breathing, save for a dimming of his smile. Or Nursey could play along to it and say ch’yeah, obviously, at which Chowder would give him a grin and exclaim, I know, right! Or, he could—
“Define feelings?”
Chowder furrowed his brows. “Emotions? Like, happiness and stuff? Do they get sad when there’s not enough prey? Do you think individual sharks have their own favorite food?”
“I don’t speak shark, C, I wouldn’t know.” Then, quickly, before Chowder could make a response, “Maybe they do. Maybe some prefer cod or something, or tuna. Like how cats have favorites. And they’d get happy when we feed them that, so sharks probably would, too.”
“Yeah, I think so, too.” Chowder’s eyes were fully on him now. “What else do you think about them?”
It was Nursey’s turn to falter. “Uh. They… look smooth?”
“Nursey!” Chowder said. “I told you they’re rough!”
“Yeah, but, like, they look smooth. Like if you touched them it’d be mad slippery. I mean, look at the way they swim. Most fish swim the same, but, like, sharks move smoother. There’s a certain kind of grace in their savagery.”
“Is that part of the poem?”
“It could be.” Nursey chewed on his bottom lip. “Have people touched sharks before? Marine biologists must have at some point, right?”
“Yeah. Oh!” Chowder brightened. “There’s a video on Youtube where they give a shark head rubs.” He typed out something on his phone, then gave it to Nursey. “Here, look!”
The video was barely over twenty seconds long. Whoever edited the video gave the shark blushy lines and some dialogue, which referenced something Nursey barely understood. But it was cute; the shark swam at the diver, who then rubbed its snout in a manner that Nursey, in his rather inspired state, could describe as affectionate. “That’s chill.”
“It’s super cute!” said Chowder. “Did you know that’s actually how they immobilize sharks?”
Nursey's brain stopped computing—hah—for a second. “What?”
“Yeah. They’ve got, like, nerves in their snouts that when you touch them, it makes sharks go into a trance-like state. It’s called tonic immobilization.”
“Chill,” said Nursey. Chowder beamed at him. Nursey was briefly reminded of March—the month, not Ransom’s fling—though it was only January.
“So, yeah, what you just saw was the scientist subduing the shark. But actually they don’t know why the nerves do that!” Sometimes, when Chowder ranted about shark facts, he smiled so hard that his nose scrunched up a bit, which is what it was doing right now. “They said it serves no evolutionary purpose, really, because sharks are apex predators and they don’t have a reason to do that.”
“Maybe they just like it,” said Nursey.
“Being immobilized?”
“Ch’yeah, but, like.” He waved a hand. “Being in a trance? I think— being touched, more like. Yup.”
“What do you mean?” Chowder’s voice held a note of wonder, which he gave out so generously, and which stunned Nursey every time. Not that he’d admit that.
“They don’t get touched in general, not with a purpose,” said Nursey. “Humans, however, have hands. It’s not like anyone really knew what a shark felt like until somebody touched one and told everybody else. Who was the first person to ever touch a shark? Do sharks tell each other about what the touch feels like? Even if they don’t like it, it’s—strange. It’d have to be, the newness. You live your whole life underwater, then one day someone comes, and they touch you. Before that, you didn’t even have the concept of touch. Now you do. And maybe it only happens once in a while, even only once in your entire life, however long sharks live, but—” He noticed Chowder’s eyes on him, and his breath ran out, for absolutely no reason. “Yeah. Maybe they wouldn’t like it. But they’d feel lucky, like, oh. A creature came and touched me today. I had never felt like that before.”
Chowder exhaled. He was leaning closer to Nursey now. “Nursey. That’s a whole poem.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. I never thought about it like that.”
“Did you… like it?”
“I loved it!” That’s another word that Chowder gave out so readily, so sincerely every utterance, and Nursey always wondered how a person could contain so much love and not feel miserable. He wouldn’t know. But, then, again, he wasn’t Chowder. “I didn’t think you would really do that, y’know, write a poem. I mean, you didn’t write, but that’s poetry.”
“Aw, C,” said Nursey, “you know I’d never deny you shit.”
“Still. It’s not what you usually write about, isn’t it?”
That was the second time this morning Chowder had surprised him. “You read my poems?”
“Not all of them,” Chowder admitted. “Mostly the ones published in The Swallow. And the ones you showed me.”
And you remembered them. “Well, I do like a challenge,” said Nursey. “And mostly it’s not about the shark. It’s because of you.”
“What, me?”
“You love them.” With anyone else, it’d only be a gimmick, a random fact about someone that their friends could chirp them about over a meal, in an inane conversation. Chowder, however, loved his sharks so fiercely that it blinded Nursey sometimes. “Poets eat that shit up—love, and everything that comes with it. Sharks aren't even close to the weirdest metaphor some of them could make.”
“Were sharks a metaphor about something in your poem, then?” said Chowder, with a sudden intensity that was usually reserved to when he was in the crease, and it made Nursey a little dizzy. His eyes were on Nursey again, careful and watchful.
Well. “Maybe,” Nursey said. His hands itched, as if longing to hold something—a pen, a sheet of paper, anything. “If you want to read it like that, yeah. It definitely could be.”