Don't answer this if the answer will be revealed later but I'm here questioning how much did Lock and Ed talk about this situation? We all know they both seem happy about Nel's presence but have they agreed on this? Or are they both secretly panicking about what this means?
My first thought was that yeah they talked about both of them liking Nel and wanting her to get involved but your tags about them all being idiots just made me question this...
Ok, I sat on this a bit but I've now got a coffee and I can answer properly :3 (thank you thank you thank you)
First off, they’re both absolute idiots in many respects, but they also talk about everything. Locryn is a gruff, brusque lad, but he talks with Edmund. About everything. So, when Nel starts showing up and the feels also start showing up, he's gonna talk to Ned about it.
I think the first time they talk about their mutual attraction to her is briefly after Ned’s near-drowning.
EDIT: I came back to this again even later. Because I wrote you the entire scene instead.
Locryn and Ned discuss Nel (very slight nsfw if you squint, mostly just soft and affectionate)
Content: fluff, reminder that Ned nearly drowned, shifting, and a bit of selkie and sea magic(?) Wordcount: 2014
“Whuff, what a woman,” Locryn exclaimed as he closed the door to his cottage and shut out the whisking wind and the sight of Eleanor Bywater riding away like a queen atop that cheeky black mare. Somehow she still managed to look regal despite the fact that her clothes were soaked and covered in sand and her hair was a wild, wet mess. He didn’t like to think how she was going to explain that one to the Penroses, but perhaps she’d just say she fell off. It wasn’t very dignified, but at least it was more dignified than telling them she’d scrambled down the cliff like a maniac to haul a man from the sea. Scandalous behaviour for a young lady.
Locryn snorted a laugh at that, and scrubbed his hand across his face, stubble rasping against his palm like sharkskin.
When he looked up, his darling Ned was looking at him with a wry twist on his lips. “What?” Locryn grunted, scowling and feeling oddly self-conscious for a man who could turn into a fifteen foot long eel-monster at will.
“You think so too?” Ned asked. He had a wicked rasp to his voice from the saltwater he’d recently coughed up, and Locryn’s heart clenched at the thought of a selkie of all creatures drowning in the sea.
Ned was sitting up in bed, but he looked fragile and wrung out in a way he didn’t normally. Yes, his leg was weak, and yes he was too damned skinny, especially for a selkie, but he was wiry and tough and graceful, not weak and delicate.
“Come here,” Ned chuckled when he saw the look in his lover’s eyes, and he shunted himself over on the bed, still sitting propped against the pillows.