Fic: Undertow (Terinu/Matt/Gwen. Nothing explicit but PG-13 for language)
"Okay, Mr. Freeman was right, that is pretty creepy, Ter," Matt said over their subvocal implants.
Terinu turned in the water, giving Matt a cheerful obscene gesture. "Not my fault you weren't designed proper." He was floating in the water, wearing a wet suit and weight belt the same as Matt and Gwen. Unlike the two of them however, he'd foregone the facemasks they wore, which allowed them to breathe normally through artificial gills. He'd been pretty sure the same modifications the Gene Mage had given his species to survive in the vacuum of space would also work here, but it was nice to know for sure now.
"Okay, follow me guys," Gwen said. She kicked with her flippers and went deeper into the water, Matt following. With a few moments experimentation Terinu figured how to coordinate his flippers and long tail, using the spade on the end like a dolphin's flipper to shoot ahead of his two friends.
"Hey, slow down, Teri!" Gwen called out.
"Nah! You catch up!" He kicked harder, leveling out to glide over the white sand, about twenty meters deep from the surface. He angled upward over an underwater dune, then flared his tail out, braking hard as Gwen's destination came in sight. "Holy Mother..."
"Welcome to the Great Barrier Reef, boys," she said proudly. A kaleidoscope of colors spread out before them, stretching out for what seemed like kilometers to the east and west, as schools of bright yellow and electric blue fish swam past them. "This section right up ahead of us is the Flynn Reef."
"It looks like a flower garden," Matt said, reaching out tentatively towards a spreading coral formation, until Gwen took hold of his wrist and pulled it back.
"You can look, but you can't touch it. It all looks like rocks but it's seriously delicate."
"I think she's right, Matt," Terinu said, carefully unshielding his bion senses. The effect, even as he tried to limit his range, was nearly overwhelming. "It's alive. It's all alive, in every direction."
"It almost wasn't, back before the Varn Subjugation," Gwen said. "Putting the Reef back together was one of their gifts we didn't really mind getting."
"Nice," Matt said, turning over onto his back to watch the fish swim overhead. "So what do you do here?"
"Float along and look," she replied. "I could do it for hours."
"Borrrrring," Terinu said derisively, trying to hide his temptation to let his senses reel out and lose himself in the underwater biosphere.
"Yeah, well not all of us hyper little space rats," Gwen shot back.
"Well, Ter can't spend more than a half-hour down here anyway, since he's not wearing a breather mask," Matt pointed out.
"More like an hour, since I'm not wastin' energy trying to keep from freezing in the black," Terinu corrected.
"Well, if it's s boring, Teri, maybe you can just go back up now and let Matt and I have some fun." Gwen swam over to Matt and wrapped her arms around the blond boy's stomach, hugging him from behind as he made a startled noise.
"Hey! Leave Matt alone!" Terinu said, kicking towards them both, anchoring his tail around Gwen upper arms. She let out a yelp and let go of Matt, trying to wiggle out the ferin boy's grip as the strong muscles of his tail held her fast.
"Leggo, you little rat!" she shouted.
Terinu smirked. "Say Uncle."
She said a few other words, kicking her fins mermaid fashion in attempt to escape, dragging Terinu upward a couple meters before he countered her by kicking his own fins. "All right, I'm sorry," she muttered.
"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" He uncoiled his tail and let it drift behind him again
"Fragg off!"
"Guys, guys," Matt said soothingly. "I thought we came down here to have fun?"
"Yeah, yeah," Terinu said, turning away from Gwen.
"The way you go on Teri, you'd think you and Matt were dating," Gwen said. A very long, uncomfortable silence passed between them, before she dared to venture. "Um, you're not, right?"
"Matt likes tits," Terinu answered shortly, watching Matt's face flush bright red even in the cool water.
"And only tits?" she pressed.
The blond human boy cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Well, mostly," he admitted.
Terinu could have smacked her, as her face turned back and forth between the two boys, before the light panel finally switched on. "Ah," she said. She turned towards the ferin boy. "But you kissed me back on the Ardie ship. Was that... just an experiment?"
"I like tits too," he said, smirking slightly. "But that ain't all I like."
"Oh. So.. um..." Now it was her turn to clear her throat. "Sorry, Matt. I brought you down here because I thought you were pretty handsome myself. But I mean if you and Teri have a thing than I guess that was pretty stupid..."
"Gwen," Terinu cut in. "Matt and I got a thing. That doesn't mean I'm leadin' Matt around on a leash. If he wants to date a skirt I'm not gonna stop him. Which don't mean I ain't gonna zap you so hard your hair stands on end if you ever hurt him."
"Oh, good," she said carefully. She turned towards Matt as the current carried them along over the reef. "But I wouldn't want to get in the way of you and Teri."
"You wouldn't be," Matt said, face still pink. "I mean, I like... love... Ter a lot. But that doesn't mean I can't care for someone else too."
"Okay. What about you, Teri?"
"What about me?" Terinu asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
"You love Matt, right?"
"Yeah."
"Do you love me?"
He shrugged. "Don't know about that. Guess if you care about Matt, that's a fair reason to care about you too."
"I suppose that will have to do." She kicked over to Terinu, then to his surprise tilted up her face mask, wrapping her arms around him as she kissed him deeply. Then, as she broke off her kiss to fix her mask back on, one arm still around his waist, as Matt moved up to next to both. Then it was the human boy's turn to kiss Terinu, the three teenagers wrapping their arms around each other as they floated above the reef, in the tow of the currents.