Chapter Text
It was only a few hours later, when they set off out of the bay again. This time Slaine’s focus wasn’t on his surroundings, but firmly on the people onboard the boat. Their behaviour grew only weirder as their distance from the coast grew. It was almost like the humans were slowly panicking, pacing around and peeking at Slaine over the railings. Inaho wasn’t there with the others; he was somewhere inside, talking with Marito in words that got lost under the sounds of the engine and waves.
As if on cue, the boat accelerated, pushing its absolute limits, and Slaine moved to match its speed. When he glanced above to see faces disturbed by waves and ripples, his heart sunk.
They looked disappointed.
They looked heartbroken.
“Let’s look at the positives; our boat being too slow means that most other boats are too.”
“Speed isn’t everything. He needs to breathe and rest, engines don’t. We managed to corner him with Sleipnir. It can happen again as long as there are corners to drive him into.”
“What, you really think they’re going to do that?”, Inko exclaimed, worry painted all over her features.
“If they won’t, someone else will.”, Inaho sighed. “He will be relatively easy to track this close to the coast, and when he gets far enough out, it’s international waters.”
“We’re on wrong side of the planet.”, Kaoru huffed, “In the middle of the busiest sea. There have been no syreni’s in the Atlantic since the 19th century for a reason”, she said with frustration seeping into each word.
“And none in the Pacific since the very early 20th.”, Inaho said impassively, “And there Bat was anyway.” The subtle sharp edge in his voice had Kaoru twist the corners of her mouth in a frown and lifted Inko to sit up a bit straighter, her worry eased for just a fraction. “It’s best to put preconceptions to rest. For all we know, there could be perfectly healthy populations in all the oceans. More than eighty percent of them are unmapped,unobserved and unexplored.”
“If you have something to tell me, you can just say it.”, Slaine whistled from where he floated. All the heads turned to him, but Slaine didn’t pay attention to their expressions, opting to instead keep his eyes on the grey sky. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like it when they talked like he couldn’t hear them, especially when they so clearly were talking about him.
“There’s nothing to tell.”, Inaho answered evenly.
“Liar.”, Slaine breathed out.
“We-, we hoped it would happen organically.”, Kaoru was quick to try to patch the brewing conflict.
“Organically?”
“Naturally.”, Inaho supplied, “Without being planned or forced.”
“Well, nothing’s ever going to happen ‘organically’ with you.”, Slaine whistled and waited for Inaho to interpret his snide message to the others. Only he didn’t. The brunette stood still like Slaine had just slapped him.
It was too mean, Slaine knew it right away. But he was frustrated. The humans wanted to end their adventure with a convenient, pretty bow on top and call it done. Everyone knew it, but no one was willing to say it out loud.
They had meant to leave Slaine. Or maybe they had wished for him to leave on his own when given the chance and some encouragement. In every other way than in words, they were showing Slaine the mouth of the bay and telling for him to swim his sorry ass out of it. And Slaine hated it.
Maybe it was an attempt at reconciliation, maybe something else entirely. Slaine didn’t care. When Inaho walked out into the dim morning light wearing a black and blue water skin, carrying fake flippers in his hands Slaine felt like he could spend the rest of the day doing somersaults around the bay. He followed Inaho like a shadow as the human moved on the pier, collecting his equipment. Finally, Inaho put on his backpack, pulled the tight hood of his water skin over his head and covered his eyes with wide goggles.
“Is it safe to drop down here?”, Inaho asked casually as he made his last checks.
Slaine hummed enthusiastically. Inaho gave him one more look to confirm they were on the same page before he held onto his mouthpiece, took a step forward off the pier and crashed into the sea fake flippers first. His heartrate boomed through the water clearer than it ever did through air and Slaine shot his sonars to check on the brunette right away. The water was probably cold on Inaho’s face and hands, and even though Slaine couldn’t see him through all the white foam and bubbles just yet, he could feel the way his nose scrunched at the sensation. Beyond that, startlingly, Slaine could finally reach his sonars beyond the goggles and the eyepatch. Inaho’s left eye socket was empty.
Inaho inhaled, the sound artificial and disturbing, and all Slaine wanted to do for a brief second was rip the equipment off of him. He knew better, though, and even though he had hated the gasping sounds since the first time he had heard them in the pool, he knew that was what allowed humans to dive for longer. Slaine reached forwards, grabbed Inaho’s hand and pulled him out of the foam. There was much to do, much to show, and much to discover.
“You can come in from anywhere on the pier, the water is deep and there are no big rocks near.”, Slaine whistled. Inaho’s head moved around slowly, his hair a brown soft cloud as he looked back and hummed. Slaine loved it immediately; he hadn’t had someone else’s voice reverberating through his skin so closely since Sod was taken away. He was drawn closer by the sensation, and as Inaho started to slowly move around, distracted by random rocks and passing fish, Slaine clung close to him, peeked over his shoulder when he picked up smooth black pebbles and swam around Inaho as the human slowly explored. Even if it was just the two of them, swarming soothed something inside Slaine that he couldn’t quite reach otherwise.
When Inaho’s slow pace started to stress Slaine, he took the human’s hand again and started pulling him along. He took Inaho to every nook and cranny of the bay. Slaine showed Inaho the two large boulders between which he had hidden the first night, the rocky slope on which most of the bay’s algae grew, and the rotting net at the mouth of the bay. When their tour was over, he pulled Inaho along to chase a small school of fish that eventually escaped out of the mouth of the bay. Slaine brought Inaho back closer to the pier and held his hands when the brunette inhaled deeper than his usual, almost mechanical rhythm.
“Was that all?”
Inaho’s question was distorted and echoed unnaturally around Slaine as the brunette pushed it through his mouthpiece in between raspy inhales and bursts of bubbly exhales. Slaine tightened his hold on the human’s hands and stared back at his red eye, the only eye Inaho had left. Inaho’s gesture of coming into water had been one of reconciliation, but it had also been a carefully laid trap, insidious in its kind-heartedness. There was no malice, only one, gentle question, and that was exactly why it hurt so much.
There was so much more Slaine wanted to share with Inaho and compared to it all the bay was infinitesimal.
The bay wasn’t nearly as interesting as the storming seas surrounding the Antarctic, or the receding ice sheets of the Arctic spring, revealing new secrets every day. It didn’t have the colours and shadows of large kelp forests, nor the vast, unhindered blues of open ocean. There were no small lights of the deeps, fluttering and blinking as they scurried by, no great stories told in songs by passing ancient giants. No journeys to take, no distant destinations to reach, nothing new to discover on the way there.
What the bay had was black pebbles, a rotted net and a flounder that moved between two or three sandy spots, never quite happy enough with its hiding place.
Slaine should be happy here. He was safe here. His pod was here.
So why wasn’t he?
Knowing one can gather their own food and actually internalizing that knowledge proved to be two completely different things.
The next morning, while waiting for the quiet hours to pass and the humans to return, Slaine laid on the seabed only inches away from the flounder he kept seeing around. These idle, quiet moments had been his worst enemy since he had been surprised during one by the shark that tore his body and life apart. As much as Slaine had wanted to, it was impossible to bound his thoughts to the confinement of the walls that surrounded him. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, it was the same in the bay as it had been in the small tank and the pool. It was a despicable thing, Slaine thought, to never be satisfied. He was insatiable, nothing was ever enough. Even when everything should’ve been perfect, it still wasn’t.
He was hungry. When Slaine’s mind wandered past the mouth of the bay and the rotted net again, the thought came to him like a flash of light flickering through clouds.
He didn’t need to wait. He didn’t need to follow the boat for food. He didn’t need to have his routine dictated by humans. He didn’t need to rely on them.
He could just reach out a few inches, kill the flounder, and eat it.
Slaine grabbed at his chest with a fist that was sure to leave bruises. And right then and there all the troubled looks from Inaho made more sense. The human had tried to push Slaine to choose his food from a selection instead of just accepting it. He had tried to hint at Slaine to start hunting again. He had tried to let him decide for himself. Though irritation and embarrassment were the first feelings to rise like a heat to Slaine’s face, underneath them fluttered something softer.
He could go anywhere he wanted, do anything he wanted, and no one was going to be able stop him.
But if Inaho asked him to stay, he would. All Slaine needed was for Inaho to ask him to stay.
They headed out of the bay again the first thing in morning. It was becoming a new routine, and as most of the routines humans built around Slaine, it wasn’t long until it became suffocating. Slaine contemplated on just letting them go off to the sea on their own. It wasn’t like he had to follow the boat, after all. But still, that was what he did every time. He followed the boat just like Inaho had taught him to and ate the food Inaho gave to him on their way. And every time he followed the boat all the way back to the bay, the humans shared the same defeated look. In some twisted way it was rewarding to see.
Still, every morning they climbed onto their boat, started the engine and headed out. Every time Inaho gave him a small selection of fish to choose his food from, and every time choosing became a little bit easier, and as Slaine’s decisions came faster, the portions Inaho gave him grew smaller. It wasn’t hard to see why; Inaho wanted Slaine to hunt his own food. And Slaine thought about it in the morning hours when sunrise still seemed an eternity away. He remembered the thrill of it, the confidence that came with being self-sufficient and the simple pleasure of holding and eating his own catch. But still, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. After all, that part of his life had ended long ago, and he should be happy with what he had now.
It was another morning, another trek out to the sea, another tense moment as Marito let the engine die and the boat float. It was a new tactic, Slaine had surmised. Float still for hours to drive him away with boredom. If only the humans knew how much of floating in boredom Slaine had done in the pool. He had done nothing but float for weeks and months on end, stuck inside the walls and his head until he had damn near gone insane. Slaine wasn’t sure which he found more insulting; Inaho underestimating his tolerance for boredom or the fact that he was so stuck on the idea of getting rid of him that he was subjecting Slaine to it again.
Still, even boredom was easier on the open sea.
By the time the humans were ready to start heading back into the bay, Slaine had come to a simple conclusion. Things couldn’t continue like this. They had to talk it out. They finally understood each other, so how come it was so hard to communicate?
Slaine sneaked to the boat and knocked on its side. The only wall he had to overcome here was Inaho, how hard could that be? He hadn’t figured out exactly what he wanted to get across yet when Inaho’s brown head of hair peeked over the railing, his eyes searching for a short moment before landing on Slaine with a pregnant silence.
“Don’t go.”, Slaine asked before he could think his words through. That was the absolute wrong way to start, and Slaine knew it right away from the way Inaho braced himself, only fortifying his stance instead of opening up.
“…We have to go.”, Inaho said slowly, like he was willing Slaine to understand something, “We can’t stay here forever.”
“Then we can go togethe-”
“You can’t.”, Inaho shut him down before Slaine could even finish. Slaine knew he was going to say that, but it still hurt.
“So you’ll… leave me here then?” His whole body was shaking, and he hoped Inaho couldn’t see it. It was a stupid insecurity to double down on, but Slaine couldn’t help it.
Inaho ran his hand through his hair and lowered his voice. “You can’t keep coming back.”
“Why?”
“It’s… not appropriate.”
Slaine narrowed his eyes at Inaho, already seething at his nonsense. “That’s a made-up word.”
“All words are made up.”, Inaho sighed, “Not appropriate. Not correct. Not right.”, he clarified.
“Why?”, Slaine exclaimed, “Nothing is right!” He pulled at his hair, angry and frustrated. One thing, that’s all he wanted. One thing, and he could be happy.
Inaho’s smile in face of Slaine’s storming emotions was tight but unwavering. The long-haired man behind him held his breath, eyes wide as he watched. Slaine was making a spectacle of himself, and he hated it.
“You have to go.”, Inaho said, measured and decisive. “Go.”
Slaine wanted to scream. Before he knew it, his hands had left his hair and were hitting the boat instead.
“Go.”, Inaho repeated, unfazed. Slaine hit the boat again, hard enough to rock it.
”Fokkaðu þér!”, Slaine cried out. Inaho glanced to Inko for translation, but the girl only cringed. ”Farðu til helvítis!” With one last slam of his tail against the boat Slaine sunk down.
He fell like a rock towards darkness, blue light of the surface getting fuzzier the deeper he sank. Above, Inko finally translated, and in Inaho’s own language Slaine’s ugly words sounded even more malicious. Slaine covered his ears, turned around, and darted away, as fast and far away as he could go.
Soon enough the only things that spread around Slaine were the darkness and silence of the deep. He wandered them aimlessly, hands still covering his ears. Inside his heads, there were voices hollering to be heard. Anger, disappointment, resentment and embarrassment all together in a muddled mess, and hiding under them, somewhere deep and ugly where Slaine didn’t want to touch, an annoying little voice saying that Inaho was probably right.
By the time Slaine finally ran out of steam it had been hours. He swam in circles for a moment, trying to remember what way he had come. There was no beautiful sunset to light his way as he reached with his sonars for the seabed, listening for familiar shapes to be his guide. The evening sky was black with thick clouds hanging low, and when Slaine was finally sure of his route, he couldn’t hide from the sky fast enough. He managed to reach the surface again where he had left the boat in just an hour.
There was no one there.
If Slaine was disappointed, he didn’t admit it to himself. Of course, there was no one there anymore, it was already night, wind was rising, and the waves were swelling. Of course, no one was going to wait for hours on end.
The way waves rolled over him, heavy and harsh, was familiar. As was the howling wind and the low rumbles that he didn’t hear as much as he felt.
For a moment, Slaine froze. Dread crawled up his spine, small and spiky. It was a storm, and he was alone at the surface. Instinctively, Slaine let loose a short volley of clicks, an effort to reach his deep diving pod. Only half a second later he realised there wasn’t going to be any reassuring answer, no calls for him to dive down into the safety of darkness and numbers.
The only thing Slaine might call with his distressed clicks was a shark.
He could imagine it now, lurking just beneath. It would notice his lonely figure against the sky and launch itself at Slaine in an instant. The difference was this time was Slaine didn’t have his spear. He didn’t have his spare spike; he didn’t have any of his tools. The eyes and the gills, but there was nothing to strike with.
Slaine spread his sonars as far as they could reach. There was nothing underneath him. There was nothing in his sonars at all, for miles and miles. In the empty ocean there was just the storm, the surface, and Slaine.
The relief was almost violent. It left him gasping for air for a moment, but once Slaine felt in control again, a calm like he hadn’t felt in a long time settled in him. There was nothing in his sonars, no animal, no human. Only miles upon miles of emptiness, limitless space right on his fingertips. No corners, no nets or tidal pools. Just absolute control, a playing field where he had every advantage. Anything beyond that came down to luck and skill. The only things Slaine lacked were his tools, but tools broke and were lost all the time. He could always make new ones.
He had been terrible to Inaho. Even if the brunette had deserved it, it didn’t make it right for Slaine to use him to just let out his frustration.
It was a stupid fight. Slaine pressed his palms against his eyes hard enough that shapes and colours started swimming in his vision. He was stupid and Inaho was stupid and everything and everyone else were stupid too.
This was all so damn stupid, no one talking to one another, no one answering questions, no one ever explaining a single damn thing. Slaine himself had refused to do it for the longest time, too scared and suspicious to open his mouth and be understood. He hadn’t wanted to talk, he hadn’t wanted to share, he hadn’t wanted to reveal anything that could be used against him, anything that could lead land creatures to other merfolk.
So, the humans had learned to work around the merman’s stubbornness. They had learned to push Slaine to get things done. They had learned to be ruthless in order to keep him healthy, to keep him fed and safe. And they had learned to not talk either.
Slaine had forced the humans into that role.
Because if it had been up to Slaine, he would’ve died in that tidal pool Inaho had trapped him into.
And not a single one of the humans, or even Slaine was to blame. They had all simply done their best.
Slaine let himself break the surface. Waves rose and fell around him, but they weren’t strong enough yet to throw him around. Just how afraid had he been to leave the tidal pool? Scared enough to not leave at all and just die. How afraid had he been to leave the manmade pool? Scared enough to try and crawl onto land instead. So, how afraid was he now to leave behind the bay? To trust in himself again, and not cling onto anyone else?
At what point had Slaine stopped making his own decisions? At what point had he freely given it all away to Inaho?
It was past midnight when Slaine slithered back into the bay. He had spent the evening hours ruminating on his thoughts, but in the end, everything was still confusing and too much. When he surfaced for one last gulp of air before settling down to uneasy sleep, Slaine saw that someone else was still awake too, huddled in a bundle on the pier. Slaine couldn’t see as clearly in the air as he saw underwater, but still, the form was familiar. Inaho had stayed behind.
Slaine crossed the bay slowly, until the human came into focus. He was sitting down, tired eyes trailing off into the horizon past the bay’s mouth, one of the thick quilts wrapped tightly around his shoulders. As if pulled by gravity, Slaine swam rest of the way to Inaho. The human must’ve known he was there, but he wasn’t acknowledging Slaine’s presence at all. Carefully, Slaine started to pull himself up too. Inaho’s eyes flickered to him before they returned to the dark bay.
One last chance. Slaine’s heart was already wavering, and he hated it. Even as he gripped the planks to get out of the water, closer to Inaho, all he kept thinking about was everything the bay lacked. That, and the way he had cursed the human earlier.
“I’m sorry.”, Slaine muttered as he climbed closer. Inaho held his breath for a moment before he sighed. Slaine wished he would look at him, but Inaho stubbornly kept his gaze forward.
“Why do you keep coming back?”, Inaho asked, his voice a quiet monotone. It would have sounded like an accusation, if it wasn’t for his sleeves, pulled tout and out of shape, covering all his fingers in nervous fists.
“I don’t know.”, Slaine mumbled his answer. He felt like a stubborn preteen.
“Yes, you do. Why?”, Inaho pressed.
When Slaine refused to answer, Inaho let the silence stew for a little while longer before opening his mouth again.
“I don’t want you to limit yourself or force yourself to adapt to something that doesn’t fulfil you.”, he said seriously. “It’s an unfair compromise when you’re the only one who suffers for it. It’s not healthy.”
“But you brought me here.”, Slaine tried, “Even though you have a sister.”
“We were always going to bring you here.”, Inaho faced Slaine, “Our schedule and circumstances changed, but you were always going to be brought here.”
Slaine felt a small stab in his chest. “But…” He had felt it had been more special than that. That he had been rescued from the brink. That he had been worth fighting for. That even now Inaho had been there, sitting on the pier, just waiting in the darkness for Slaine to come back.
“It’s the way the Cetacean Centre operates. Bring the injured animal in, quarantine it, make sure it heals, educate the public, move it into a sea-pen, release it.”, Inaho said, his eye piercing right through Slaine’s. It made Slaine feel tiny, like his perspective had always been too small, too narrowminded. Still, he felt like the humans had done far more than what Inaho was willing to admit.
“…What about Sod?”, he asked mechanically. He didn’t want to think about himself anymore.
“Sod was found after a mass-beaching. Nina tried to carry her back into the sea, but Sod kept beaching herself. We think something caused her pod to panic.”, Inaho explained slowly, “She was brought in, quarantined, and when she was well enough, she was moved into a sea-pen to join a pod of other belugas. She’ll be released soon too, just like you.”
“So she has another pod already?”, Slaine whispered to himself. Sod was safe and in a new pod. And not in another pool, but in the sea, just like Slaine was. She must’ve been loved. Hell, how could her new pod not love her?
“You will be released.”, Inaho said, voice full of conviction. “And I will go back home to my sister and fix everything.”
“I’ll be alone.”, Slaine whistled, the sound hollow even to his own ears. The world was terrifyingly large, its oceans deep and unforgiving. Slaine missed it, he loved it, but he didn’t know if he could survive it anymore.
“You think too lowly of yourself.”, Inaho sighed. “I’ve seen you integrated into a pod of dolphins, form a close bond with a beluga, and open up to a group of humans. You learn languages like it’s second nature to you. You’re smart and resourceful. There’s no reason to think you can’t make a home for yourself wherever you go.”
“I don’t want that.”, Slaine whined. He sounded pathetic, and he hated how revealing it was.
“Then what do you want?”
“I want you to tell me to stay.”
“…You know I’m not going to do that to you.”
“I want you to!”, Slaine yelled. The sound echoed in the otherwise silent bay.
“I know.”, Inaho said, his own voice clipped and barely heard, “But I won’t.”
And that was it. Inaho wasn’t ever going to tell Slaine to stay, nor was he going to stay himself. He was going to tell Slaine to go every time. They were all going to leave the bay, disperse into their own directions, to their own people, to their own lives. Time wasn’t something Slaine could stop, and this wasn’t something he could prevent. Out of all the little choices Inaho had given Slaine, this one actually important one he was still making himself.
Slaine thought back to the day he had seen Inaho for the first time. He had been desperate; lost, injured and starving, surviving only on the flippant generosity of the spinner dolphins. He had thought he had been at his lowest, but all the low points had still been in front of him, waiting just beyond the horizon.
“…Why?”, Slaine asked the familiar question. His eyes wandered the dark horizon, already regretting asking and having to be disappointed. It wasn’t like he was ever going to get an answer no matter how many times he repeated it.
“Because we thought you were extinct.”, Inaho answered without missing a beat. Slaine whipped his head around to face the human fast enough to almost hurt his neck. Inaho gave him a small glance before looking off to the horizon himself. “Because you are the first live specimen in over 100 years. Because we didn’t know if you would survive without intervention. Because there was an opportunity for scientificdiscovery. Because we could, and thus felt a moralobligation to do it.”, he continued, face lax, as if he had spent the last year and a half repeating the same words over and over again to numerous others. Slaine stared at him, and Inaho stared back, unblinking.
Inaho was telling the truth. Slaine felt like if he averted his eyes to look away again, he would break apart. This wasn’t the answer he had wanted to hear. It didn’t ease his heart one bit. These cold, impersonal statements that Inaho gave him with an indifferent expression weren’t the truth he had wanted.
They weren’t worth his year of hell, not nearly enough to justify one minute of it.
And if Inaho had once thought they were, Slaine didn’t think the human in front of him thought so any longer. Not with the way Inaho was looking at him now.
“Because I was curious. Because I wanted to know. Because all I had ever seen was a black and white picture in an old book. Because I didn’t want anyone else to catch you first. “, Inaho said slowly and carefully, like he was showing Slaine something important, letting him peek at a long-held secret, fragile and a little bit embarrassing. “Because I wanted to save you.”, he finally breathed out. “It was all because I saw you, and when I saw you, I wanted to save you.”
Slaine studied Inaho for a moment. He had pulled his sleeves over his knuckles again. It was a nervous gesture, something the brunette did whenever he tried to soothe himself. Slaine inhaled deeply and took Inaho’s hands. Gently pried the fingers apart from where they were pulling at skin and methodically scratching at nailbeds. He wished that instead of his cold touch he could warm them, but as always, it was Inaho’s touch that warmed his hands, never the other way around. As always, it was Inaho who tried to give Slaine something a bit more meaningful to hold onto. He remembered the way Inaho had looked at him that day, when he had tried to escape the tuna net. All the other humans had been shouting and pointing and waving. But Inaho had looked at Slaine still and quiet, like time didn’t exist.
I wanted to save you.
“Thank you.”, Slaine said more to the hands than to Inaho himself. From the way Inaho tensed he knew he was uncomfortable. Glancing up, there was a familiar unsettled expression pulling at the human’s lips, like he had tasted something sour.
“…There’s nothing to thank for. I made everything worse. I’m not good at… this.”
There it was, in the angle of his jaw and the slight squint of his eyes, like closing them fully would reveal too much.
Shame.
“But you did your best, didn’t you?”, Slaine asked, genuinely curious of what Inaho thought of himself. “You made things better, too.”
“You think too highly of me.”, Inaho murmured.
“Thank you.”, Slaine repeated wilfully, “For telling me.”
Finally, Inaho let out a breath and sagged forward. “I should’ve just said it sooner then.”
“Usually speaking up helps with getting things across.”, Slaine teased, but he didn’t earn the small huff of humour he was expecting. The effect was opposite, with Inaho’s eyes closing off and face falling back into its normal deadpan. To be fair, he didn’t feel like laughing either. Everything that had happened since he had been trapped, had happened because of a choice Inaho had made. Slaine frowned at their sour mood, his eyes skimming Inaho’s eyepatch. He wandered who had hurt Inaho and why. Why he had been shown a short snippet of the beating the human had received. Why they had fled the pool so suddenly. Who or what they were hiding from.
“You really need to go.”, Inaho finally said. He ran his thumbs back and forth over Slaine’s knuckles. Slaine wanted to argue with Inaho, raise hell for the humans for trying to get rid of him, for Inaho abandoning him, but all the sharp words died on his tongue. Inaho looked at him knowingly, almost daring him to refuse.
Finally, Slaine sighed and dropped his head onto their joined hands. “I know.”, he whistled under his breath, defeated.
“It’s not safe for you here.”, Inaho stated what they both already knew.
“I know.”, Slaine sighed. Him being there put the humans in danger, too. They had already been attacked once.
“You’ll be fine.”
“…What about you?”, Slaine lifted his head again. Suddenly Inaho smiled, and Slaine’s eyes travelled to the eyepatch again. He remembered how Inaho had looked that night, his head almost bashed in. Other humans had done that. They might do it again.
Inaho shook his head slightly, a small smile pulling at his lips. He wasn’t convincing anyone, not even himself. It wasn’t something Slaine could help with, and that gnawed at his insides. Whatever happened was out of his control. As long as Inaho stayed on land, he couldn’t protect him.
That almost violent urge to protect the human in front of him startled Slaine. He had felt it for a long time already, but he had never examined those feelings. But now that he did, the facts stared right back at him, with the deadpan expression of Inaho.
Maybe family wasn’t always blood. If that selfless, pure connection was something able to flower in the most unexpected and unfair circumstances, who was Slaine to fight it? It was lopsided to find family in the people who had ripped him away from his home, but Slaine couldn’t fault them for that, either. Their actions hadn’t been without reason; forceful, but never knowingly cruel. Slaine sighed and let the warmth in his chest flow freely, all the way to the crown of his head and the tips of his flukes. It fluttered stubbornly in his chest, unwilling to be ignored.
More than family.
“Ég held að ég elska þig.“, the words flowed out of his mouth, as natural and weightless as spring water, startling but not out of place. Inaho‘s hand rubbed slow circles on his back.
“Are you cursing again?“, the brunette asked. Slaine chuckled, and Inaho sighed. “For a glorified porpoise you have a crude sense of humour.“
“Betri en þinn.“, Slaine hummed, willing himself to not think of future what ifs and instead focus on the warmth enveloping him in the now.
Loving someone more than they loved him wasn’t anything new to Slaine. If anything, it had been the norm throughout his life. Slaine was naturally suspicious, but once someone had his trust, they also had his loyalty, and that was unwavering. It had to be; he couldn’t mess up because he wouldn’t be granted a second chance. The awful stories of land creatures, of outsiders and the terrible things they did if they caught you, the fear that with time and distance had twisted into deep-rooted hatred of anything unknown, and seeped into everything had crushed a young, curious calf under their weight until he had conformed. Little by little, Slaine had begun to think that maybe all the stories weren’t true. That the merfolk’s isolation and anger had failed them.
Because right in front of him there were land creatures, humans, people, who tried their best. And they failed, miserably, many times, but they still got up and tried again.
And Slaine thought that they weren’t that much different from himself.
So, when Inaho looked at him with that curious sparkle in his eye, brown hair tussled by salty breeze, Slaine felt his heart stutter in his chest over something precious and a little painful. He reached his hand up to cup the human’s face, his fingers snaking their way to the back of his head, claws carefully twisting into his hair. Inaho’s hair stood on end and Slaine felt a shiver run across the human’s sun kissed skin.
This man, a wonderfully infuriating human, was trying so hard to set Slaine free.
“You.”, Slaine pointed his finger at Inaho, the tip of his claw almost touching the human’s nose, his own face positively burning, “You really just love to make things complicated, don’t you?”
Inaho merely lifted his eyebrows slightly and smiled.
Loving someone more than they loved him wasn’t anything new to Slaine. But if there was someone who could love him equally, it had to be the one doing his everything to make things right again, trying to build Slaine up again from the pieces he had shattered into. Someone working so hard to fix the things he had unknowingly broken. Slaine pulled Inaho down, his fingers curling into brunette hair in a way that had to hurt. But he couldn’t quite get himself to loosen his grip; not with the wet, viscous tears rolling down his face. Because he loved Inaho and was certain Inaho loved him too. And nothing could’ve made him simultaneously as happy and as devastated as he was.
Something was itching all over, just beneath Slaine’s skin. He was restless as he paced along the seabed, black pebbles flying in his wake. More often than not, he found himself awake during the nights and napping during the days. It was a return to the rhythm he was most comfortable with; after all, nights had always been the best time to hunt, when all life in the sea rose just a little bit closer to the surface to follow the darkness and fading light. But nothing was rising to the bay. It was deep, but not anywhere near deep enough to attract anything new to venture inside.
Slaine had grown used to inaction, to floating and circling and ruining his body and surroundings just to make passing time bearable, but now it didn’t feel enough. The frustration he felt wasn’t foreign, it was just distant. Slaine remembered it from the first weeks and months of his captivity, from the time before his gradual, reluctant acceptance.
Tired of his own spiralling thoughts, Slaine focused on his environment instead. He felt around the bay with his sonars, searching for something to latch onto, something to pass the time with till the morning. That’s when the tiniest little movement from right next to him reverberated in the water.
It was the flounder, blinking its bulging eyes in dyssynchrony. It was in its usual spot, almost invisible to the naked eye but not nearly hidden enough for Slaine’s sonars. It was a foolish fish, Slaine thought, to still be in the bay when it could never truly hide amongst its black pebbles. Without another thought, Slaine attacked. The flounder didn’t stand a chance. It barely managed to react at all.
Chewy thin skin and soft flesh. Bendy, fresh bones that snapped easily in between his teeth, tangy taste of the organs and drips of blood that dissolved into nothing before Slaine’s eyes as he tore the flounder apart and ate. It was all familiar, gruesome and natural. It tasted like home.
How Slaine had spent over a year eating fish that had been killed days or weeks in advance, he didn’t know. Suddenly he remembered how he had turned his nose at the first piece of tuna Inaho had ever given him, disgusted by it but too starved to refuse it. How bland and boring it had been, how all the shapes and textures had been reduced to a uniform mush, all taste and colour stripped until only grey was left. How every part of Slaine’s life could have become so controlled, how every little bite of food could’ve come through human hands?
And how had Slaine forgotten that those had all used to be things he could freely control?
The clear night sky morphed into a cloudy morning peacefully. For once Slaine’s mind wasn’t racing. He floated and watched the north wind move the clouds. Something new was bound to start once the sun reached the sky. Slaine could feel the change in his bones. How the pieces found their places with ease. How the fractures left behind weren’t a hinderance, but a sign of healing. He was going to struggle, but he could also overcome.
Inko was the first one to walk out. She yawned as she pulled the tarp that sheltered the bow of the boat off, rolled it into a haphazard bundle and threw it inside the cockpit. Without doing any of the other chores Slaine knew she was supposed to do, Inko instead curled into a ball on a small bench on the bow of the boat and promptly fell back asleep. If Kaoru wasn’t busy talking shop with the two newcomers on the other side of the pier, she would’ve undoubtedly told her off. Inaho followed behind her, but he let Inko sleep. In his hands was the familiar bucket, full of fish, no doubt. Slaine cringed at the idea. Before Inaho could have a chance to offer any of it to him, Slaine waved his hands around to catch his attention first.
“Do you want to see?”, Slaine asked, and when Inaho just stood there, clearly not understanding Slaine’s question, he lifted his left arm and rolled his shoulder in as wide a circle as he could. The thick scar tissue around his shoulder and arm pulled uncomfortably, like it always did. “I can lift it this high already. Can’t get it straight all the way up yet, though, but maybe it will get better with time.”
Inaho frowned. Slaine knew that look; the brunette was only seeing the things that lacked and finding the fault for them in himself. As if he hadn’t been the one who had made sure Slaine’s arm healed properly. As if he hadn’t half-forced Slaine to work on rehabilitating his left side.
“You know, I could hunt again.”, he offered with a small whistle. That made Inaho perk up, and Slaine smiled. “It’ll be harder than before, but I think I’ll manage it.”
“I’m glad.”, Inaho whispered, his voice barely loud enough to hear under his relief. Then after a pause: “Do you want to have some?”, he gestured to the bucket he was still holding.
It was like ever since eating the flounder Slaine had seen clearer. Colours were brighter, shapes sharper. Maybe it was his imagination, but he felt full, more complete. And the world around him was more complete, too. He saw Inaho’s offer for what it was: an offer. Not an expectation, an order, a lure or a condition for something else, just an offer.
“Nah.”, he said without even glancing at the fish, and just like that, Inaho moved the bucket away, like he couldn’t be rid of it fast enough. Slaine waited for Inaho to turn back again before he opened his mouth. They were going to talk, and Slaine was going to make sure of it.
“Was it supposed to be your goodbye?” Slaine tapped at his forehead, the spot the brunette had kissed. “If so, it was a shitty goodbye. You’re supposed to blow air when you kiss.”
“Humans don’t do it like that.”, Inaho was quick to defend himself. Behind him Marito jumped into the boat along with the two strangers who had been joining them on almost every expedition out the bay since the first one. One of them was holding a dark boxy device, the type that flashed and clicked, Slaine was certain. Inko was startled awake, and she followed grumbling Marito to do the rest of her chores. Slaine considered Inaho’s point for a moment.
“Still, it’s a lot more fun with bubbles.”, he settled on. Inaho hummed and sat down, his legs dangling off the pier. Sun was rising through orange clouds in the horizon, but there was already another spring storm forming, dark northern clouds ready to roll over the sky. Slaine reached up to touch Inaho’s shoes. The brunette looked down, but he didn’t have time to brace himself before Slaine’s fingers were wrapped around his ankles. Without a warning, Slaine pulled, and Inaho fell with an undignified yelp and a crash.
Before Inaho could fully experience the shock of being thrown into the ice-cold sea, Slaine pulled him through the veil of foam and bubbles, gathered his stiff limbs against himself, tied his fingers into his hair, pressed his mouth to the corner of Inaho’s mouth, and blew.
A burst of bubbles escaped through their lips, pushing against the skin of their faces, weaving through their hair and tickling on their way up. When Slaine pulled back, Inaho looked too stunned to even realise his lungs were probably burning. His hair and clothes floated gently in the tide’s current. Slaine wanted to keep that moment going forever, but the unfortunate reality was that Inaho was going to run out of air in a matter of seconds and freeze to death in just minutes.
Slaine pushed Inaho back to the surface and the human gasped pitifully, pulling in air in heavy gulps, half of them down the wrong pipe, Slaine was sure. Legs too heavy from the cold, the only thing keeping him on the surface was Slaine. Inko was already there, and so was Kaoru, ready to pull Inaho back onto the pier like a heavy, wet lump of seaweed, the brunette boneless and already violently shaking. Slaine would’ve felt guilty if it wasn’t for Inaho’s face, flushed bright red. The other humans’ worried exclaims and attempts at getting Inaho to change out of his wet clothes right then and there was just muted background noise.
“See? That’s how it’s done.”, Slaine whistled brightly. For once in his life, he got no arguments from Inaho.
“There’s one more thing I don’t think I’ve said to you before.”, Slaine whistled just as the first droplets of an incoming downpour fell. They dripped down Inaho’s already drenched hair and clothes, reflecting the blue of the sea. Kaoru had managed to rip his outer clothes away, and Inko was busy covering him in every warm piece of fabric she could get her hands on.
“I forgive you.”, Slaine smiled, and the Japanese words found their shapes as if Slaine had spoken Inaho’s language all his life. Thunder rumbled somewhere off in the distance, and Inaho opened his mouth slightly only to close it again. Slaine studied the human for a moment, carving out the shape of his uncovered eye, the angle of his jaw and the softness of his brow. The balanced way Inaho was hunched still inside his pile of towels and quilts, despite Inko trying to pull him up onto his feet, the little twitches of his fingers and his dark, wet mop of hair.
Slaine wanted to laugh, but he didn’t. He breathed out a long exhale to empty his lungs before inhaling deeply. “Let’s go.”, he whispered through his smile, and dived to the bottom of the bay.
Slaine waited another half an hour longer before the engine of the boat finally roared alive. Getting Inaho warm again had taken some time and effort, but Slaine was glad he could join them anyway. He felt almost giddy with anticipation when he crossed the rotted net again. As the boat cleared the coast it gained speed, carefully angling itself against the growing waves to not be swept over by them. Slaine revelled in diving in its slipstream and the storm.
It had taken half an hour for Inaho to warm up enough to join the rest of them. And knowing the brunette, it hadn’t really been enough, just the bare minimum. The boat crashed and fell among the waves. It was going to be a short trip; the boat wasn’t a nearly big or strong enough to handle the swelling waves.
Their needs were completely different. No matter how important the humans had become to Slaine, there was never going to be a future for them all in the bay. It wasn’t fair but trying to deny it was even more unfair. As the weather grew worse, the humans finally turned their boat. Slaine dived a little deeper to follow its path with his sonars. They were probably trying to find a less stormy route by following the shoreline far off in the distance.
Slaine let himself lose all momentum and be rolled around by the waves. In his sonars the only thing he could feel was the boat, rapidly gaining distance as it trekked back towards the general direction of the bay somewhere far beyond the restless waves. The sea below him was deep enough that he could never reach the bottom alive. He had tried it before, tempted the familiar pressure and found his one absolute limit. Sunrays appeared and disappeared in the ever-shifting blue and the racing clouds. Spring was almost here; Slaine could almost taste in the water that somewhere far, far up north the ice sheets were melting.
He laughed and dove. The following jump landed right into an approaching wave, sending him tumbling to get the right way around again. Somewhere, from miles away a whale reached for him. It must’ve kept taps on him as it passed by and had heard his fall. Slaine clicked an elated greeting to it before jumping again. This time his form was cleaner, with a little spin like the spinner dolphins liked. He would have to practice it more to get it right, though. From far away he could hear a faint cheer. It must’ve been the humans. Slaine basked in the spotty sunlight and crashing waves for a few more moments before he turned around and dove almost all the way down to the still coldness of the twilight zone. Tiny specks reflected faintly the little light there was in the darkness. With an underwater somersault Slaine started his own trek towards the direction he had heard the whale, now eagerly inviting him for company with the promise of a story.
Slaine’s heart stung as the sound of the boat’s engine grew more and more distant before it disappeared completely. But it wasn’t all that bad. Inaho still had his land, but the whole storming blue world was Slaine’s.