Inside the Octopod (A Captain Barnacles x Professor Inkling Fanfic)

Planning the Day

     "You... you what?" Professor Inkling felt like he could hardly breathe. Was this real? Was this the truth? What was happening? Had he hear him right?

   "You're that 'special lucky one' that I was talking about." Captain Barnacles confirmed, sighing a bit. Professor Inkling didn't know what to say. What if this was a joke? What if this was a lie? What if this was a test?

    Or... what if it was real? What if the captain truly felt this way about him? What if the captain truly did love him?

    "You don't- you don't feel the same. That's okay. I-I understand. Well, then, I'll be leaving now. Hopefully... hopefully things won't be awkward between us." Captain Barnacles said, with clear pure disappointment in his voice. He turned around and started to walk away, out of the room, staring at the ground every step of the way.

     At that moment Professor Inkling knew that this was real. He wasn't dreaming. He wasn't being lied to. He wasn't being tested. This was reality.

     "Captain- Captain wait!" Professor Inkling called after him. Captain Barnacles immediately turned around, looking confused.

    "Is something wrong, Professor?" Captain Barnacles asked.

    "I... I feel the same way..." Professor Inkling confessed. The moment he said that, he could literally see the happiness in the captain's eyes. He could literally see that the captain was overjoyed, and the captain hadn't even started to smile yet. He immediately ran over to the professor, picked him up, and twirled around. Professor Inkling had no clue how to react; he had never seen the captain this happy before. But, he liked seeing him this happy. He liked seeing the captain celebrating the fact that he /simply liked him back; it truly warmed his heart.

     Captain Barnacles then set him down, took two small steps back, and smiled. He knew that he had probably overreacted and was probably moving a bit too fast by doing that, but, he didn't care much. Professor Inkling was happy. He was happy. There was no one sided love in this situation. They both liked each other in a romantic sort of way, and, in his eyes, that was the most beautiful thing ever.

     There was a few minutes of silence, where the two of them were just taking a couple moments to process what had just happened to them, processing that it was real, and processing that from this day onward their lives would improve drastically positively.

    "So, what now?" Captain Barnacles asked, finally breaking up the silence.

"I'm not sure... you wanted to spend today, our day off, together, right?" Professor Inkling returned to his chair, and leaned back so that he was comfortable.

   "Yeah. What would we do?" Captain Barnacles said, scratching his head and then crossing his arms.

   "Well, I was originally planning on reading more of this book, but I'll be fine with changing my plans if you want for me to." Professor Inkling told him, glancing down at the book he was previously reading.

    "What if you could do both? You could continue reading your book, but you'd still be spending time with me." The captain vaguely suggested.

    "Hm... what exactly do you mean by that, Captain?" The professor asked, quite clearly intrigued by the idea, although also confused.

    "When I say 'spend the day together' I don't mean 'spend all day where you don't do anything other than pay attention to me'," Captain Barnacles began. Professor Inkling looked up from his book to make eye contact with the captain while he spoke.

     "Go on," he said, urging him to continue talking about whatever he was planning.

    "So, I could be in here, while you read your book. If you learn something that you find quite interesting, you could tell me it." The captain offered.

    The wise old squid thought for a moment, and then said, "yes, that sounds nice, but, wouldn't it get boring for you after a while? We'd be bonding, that is true, but we'd be hardly bonding. Isn't there something we could do that's more, well, involved?"

    "We could- we could take breaks! We could take breaks every now and then, to walk, or to eat, and we'd have a regular conversation then. Truthfully, I don't care much about what we do, as long as I'm spending time with you I'll be happy." Captain Barnacles replied.

     Professor Inkling stretched out one of his tentacles to grab his book, and then, with a smile, he told the captain, "of course, that sounds lovely."

   The professor opened up his book to the part he had not too long ago been reading, but just before he could get back to reading, he realized; Captain Barnacles had nowhere to sit.

    "I don't think standing forever would be very enjoyable." He pointed out, snickering a bit at the end.

    "I can sit on the floor if I get tired." the polar bear said.

    "Wouldn't you rather sit in the chair, next to me? There's plenty of room if I just- if I just scoot over a bit." Professor Inkling offered, smiling a tad bit.

   "Oh- oh- yes, that- that would be nice." Captain Barnacles said, clearly a little flustered by the offer. And so, Professor Inkling moved over a bit, and Captain Barnacles sat down next to him.

    As the professor read through and flipped the pages of his book, the captain tried to read along so that the could learn a few things as well, but, the professor read quite a bit faster than he did, so he wasn't able to keep up.

    Every now and then, like they had planned, Professor Inkling would point out the facts that he found the most interesting, and Captain Barnacles would make simple little comments on them, such as "ooh, that's cool!", or "ah, that's nice!", etcetera. Whenever he didn't make simple little positive remarks, he'd be asking a question, and every time he did so Professor Inkling somehow always knew the answer.

    Eventually, they had been relaxing, reading, and learning for quite a while, and Professor Inkling recognized that it was just about time to move on from this and to go on a stroll. So, he closed the book, and set it down on the floor.

    "Why did you do that?" Captain Barnacles asked.

    "Well, it's just about the right time to go on a walk, don't you think?" the squid replied as he hopped out of his chair.

     "Oh, yes. Yes, you're right. Let's go then, shall we?" Captain Barnacles beamed, holding out his paw.

    "We shall." Professor Inkling responded, grasping the captain's paw with his tentacle.

    And so, the two set off on their little walk around the Octopod, paw in tentacle, tentacle in paw.