Chapter Text
He fumbled with the door to the bathroom, cursing his new habit of leaving it closed, but managed with a few bumps and bends. The creature in his arms didn’t utter a single noise, hanging limp in his grasp.
Once inside, he plopped it into the tub a little rougher than intended, but his skin was crawling enough as it was.
There were black streaks smeared all over where either Steve or the thing had touched- his boot prints on the floor, lines on the wall where the tail had dragged, splotches all over the tub and tiles. He didn’t even want to guess at what kind of smell he was looking at, his mask still holding tight around his mouth and nose.
He closed the lid and sat down on the toilet, sagging a little.
Numbly, he removed his hardhat, clicking off the flashlight. Then came the safety glasses, and lastly his gloves. His bandaged hand had a line of blood where the knuckles were, his stitches strained if not torn outright. The pain didn’t seem so bad right now. If anything it helped ground him.
He looked at his other hand, calloused and dusted, but pristine in comparison to the black soaking up his arms.
The boy’s fused legs have begun to elongate.
Paired with the scaled skin and flexibility have created the unmistakable form of a piscine tail.
In the artificial light of the bathroom, the thing looked even more grotesque.
He had to- he had to check, he thought suddenly. There was a thing in his bathtub and he had to check that he wasn’t going crazy, that he hadn’t just dragged a tiger into his bed.
He stumbled back into his room, opening the safe and pulling the documents out. He threw the other papers to the floor, gripping the journal tight in his hands and returning to the bathroom.
He pulled out the three photos, shuffling through until he got to the one of James.
With shaking hands he held it up to the creature’s slack face, kneeling by the tub. His eyes jumped back and forth between the two, but it was no use.
This thing was coated in a thick layer of muck, and the face was completely off proportion with emaciation. Any resemblance to the boy in the photo was buried under detritus and deformity.
James eyes stared back at him from the image accusingly. Why couldn’t he see? Why couldn’t he make a connection?
He switched to the picture of gills, holding them close to the neck.
Exact.
The image was near identical to the creature’s, though far cleaner. The neck in the photo was more filled, whereas the creature’s was nothing more than stretched skin over bone and cartilage, textured with grit and clumps of dark slime.
It was more solid resemblance than the kid’s face.
Steve swallowed, sitting back. He reached for the journal and opened it to where he’d last left off, skipping the other children. He was looking for James’ next entry, needing to see what it said.
Case File – James Buchanan Barnes
November 19, 1931
The boy has developed gills. Gills!
I do not make this claim lightly. One might argue that perhaps they are merely a malformity of the skin, or some unfortunate lacerations, but this is assuredly not the case. I have bought several species of fish from the market to make comparisons to, and the likeness is uncanny.
I will need to perform a test of them.
Staining the page was a square of old, dried out glue. He flipped the picture of the gills around, looking at the slight outline of the glue there too. The stains mirrored each other perfectly.
Steve felt a desperate laugh bubbling in his chest. The journal couldn’t be real. It couldn’t, except it was. It was real and it was right in front of him and he was going crazy.
There was another entry immediately after.
Case File – James Buchanan Barnes
November 24, 1931
We performed a test of the gills this evening. A full inspection found they opened into the throat; we fed a wire through the opening to which it came out the mouth. No blood was found, and so we concluded the passage is clear.
The true test, however, was if they were properly amphibious.
I was somewhat remorseful as I held the boy’s head under the water, my colleagues assisting at his arms and tail. He left us all soaked afterwards, and poor Sitwell was struck across the cheek when his grip was lost, but we were in a forgiving disposition as he had been understandably distraught.
The test had proven conclusive though, as after several minutes his thrashing ceased, though not due to loss of consciousness. No, rather than drown, his chest had begun to rise and fall as he breathed in the water! He continued to respirate as we held him below the surface for an additional ten minutes.
After we pulled him and let the water expel from his lungs, he continued to breathe the air as one normally would.
It is truly miraculous.
I cannot deny it any further. The boy is a proper mermaid.
Steve let the journal drop to the floor, his whole body shuddering, his back to the wall and his knees pulled up. A scant foot from him lay the creature, arms tucked into its body and slightly curled on itself, tail too long to fit and leaving the last two or so feet hanging off the edge.
Black sludge dripped off the tip, forming a small puddle on the white floor. The room had turned into a black and white mosaic of filth and cleanliness.
He looked again at the creature’s face, eyes closed in a haunting sleep, body frail from being sealed away for too many decades for anything natural to have survived, except this thing had. The wet rasp of its breathing held the proof of it.
Steve had to face the truth of it, no matter how absurd.
Laying across from him was a mermaid.
Laying across from him was James Buchanan Barnes.