Chapter Text
Steven unfurled himself from his tangled mess of a bed, upside down and tasting his own backwash, he untucked the tight tuck his blanket had on his lower half and got out of bed.
It was made out of an old loft strung at an angle, hooked to the corner and the floor and filled with every soft thing he’d collected, a weighty comforter, a large koala plush, and various other pillows. He had a frame with a mattress pushed to the corner, so if he felt like trying to sleep on a surface, he could.
He hummed, combed his hand through his hair, wiped the sleep from his eyes and stretched his arms high behind his neck.
He was noticeably shorter than most merpeople, his tail only making up a half and some of his full height (or length), as opposed to the typical two thirds.
His tail. Shiny and bright orange in color, Steven considered it his worst and his best feature.
Damaged, only just useful, but also beautiful. It was showy, and just another thing about him that stood out. It was his, there was no doubt about it, and he felt it suited him. No one got to choose their tail or body, he was stuck with the one he had and he worked every day to be neutral about that.
He swam up to the mirror, lathered his face and shaved, rubbed cocoa butter into his scars,
He yawned as he pulled on his blue-green sleeveless top, and did up the little ties in the front. He tugged it down close to his belly button, then grimaced and pulled it back up, rolling back his shoulders and pushing his head up, looking over himself in his reflection.
How he wore the clothes didn’t matter.
None of it was going to fix his dry looking eyes, too big nose, or unruly hair. No, he was already running late, if the midday light beginning to flood in from the opening in the cave to the side of his room was anything to go by.
His cave was three layers, three levels to the cliff face partially enclosed by rock, the rest covered with carefully secured old ship sails, leaving a large gap between the cloth and the cliff that let the evening sun in.
The third layer was his bed and chambers, chest where he kept his clothes, mirrors and maps and posters over the flattest parts of wall, papers taped everywhere else.
The second was the entrance, a small kitchen to one side, all his tools and a tiny sitting area with a long bench to the other.
The first, below that, around a bend down to the back, was nothing but books. Huge tomes, tiny paperbacks, hundreds and hundreds of them on handmade plank shelves and in towering stacks and piles. There was nothing Steven loved more on land or in sea than books.
Long books, skinny books, fiction, nonfiction, didn’t matter. He filled his days reading above sea lit and he loved it.
“I’ll see ya later, Gus!” Steven called behind him as he pulled his bag on over his head, sliding the strap snug.
“Don’t wander too far. An’ no book nibblin’.” He warns with a serious expression, but drops it when Gus doesn’t even blink. “Still can’t understand me, can you? Pish.”
He knew it wasn’t something all merpeople could do, that it took practice, and some innate ability, but he felt he’d read enough on it for it to just work by now.
“Well we’re not all so talented, are we?” He shook his head and remembered to seal the sheeting firmly in place over the door, keeping the more brackish outside water to the much more comfortable low salt levels indoors.
He took in the water and the comfortingly familiar surroundings of his home only briefly before swimming hurriedly down the natural path and off it to cross to open waters.
“There y’are, come on then, creepy to lurk in doorways. Was starting to think you weren’t gonna show up.”
The middle aged navy, green, and brown bass merwoman was directing a half dozen other assorted merpeople in the space, but turned to Steven when he dropped in from the upper section of the shipwreck.
“Oh ha ha Donna, very funny. I was here last week.” Steven swam up a comfortable distance from her, eyes roving over the new additions to the exclusive lower section of the library. He’d spend months here if any of the other merpeople would let him.
“I haven’t seen ya in two.” Donna said.
“What?” Steven drew his brow.
“What you got there for me?” Donna dismissed, pointing to the bag on his back.
“Oh! Yeah, I have some salvaged books.” Steven grinned excitedly.
“Le’see ‘em then.”
Steven pulled his bag around and scooped the books out, laying them on a high table in front of a sprawling shelf, tapping the stack with the flat of his hand.
Donna picked over the books, chewing her cheek.
“You didn’t get to these soon enough, they’re all water damaged.”
“Some of them are really good though, isn’t that worth… keeping?” Steven fiddled with the strap of his shirt.
“When it comes to human stuff, we don’t keep books that are messed up. I’ll take these and the hardcovers, but you do whatever you want with the rest. We don’t want ‘em.”
She snapped and gestured another of the archivists over to take the books she’d set aside.
“What about this one, it’s French poetry, it’s really lovely.” Steven held up a small white book.
That one he hadn’t gotten from a wreckage or by the piers or beaches, one he’d found with his things one morning. It was in perfect condition.
“Actually, I think I wanna hold on to this one…” he murmured, thumbing the cover and Donna rolled her eyes.
“If that’s all, you can go.”
“All the books, yeah.”
Steven stayed put while Donna moved some crates of books around before speaking up.
“So uh, have you put any thought into, you know, me becoming a full fledged archivist, working here for real?” Steven asked, trying as conversationally and politely as possible request yet again what he considered his best and highest calling.
“You knocked over half the shelves upstairs down time before last you were here.” Donna said.
“That was an accident! You know it was!” Steven groaned.
“Don’t think we really want a clutz like that.”
“I was sleep deprived, an’ I was leaning on the supports because I was trying to keep out of mers’ way. I picked up every single one and put them back, nothing was damaged. Come on.”
Donna sighed and straightened her thick tail, turning back to Steven.
“Can I be frank with you Stevie?” She said.
“Steven.” Steven said, low and annoyed. “Uh, yeah, sure.”
“You’re a slimy little weirdo and no one wants you around.”
“What?” Steven blinked. “Oh. I– ow, alright…”
“I mean what are you even? You don’t have gills—”
Steven subconsciously clutched the side of his neck with his hand.
“‘M a goldfish,” he replied, shame creeping into his tone.
“What’s a freshwater merperson doing out in the sea?”
“Wow.“ Steven frowned, his expression going flat. “That’s real progressive of you.”
“You’ve only got one fin.”
“Yeah, well, I am disabled,” Steven gave a sarcastic flourish. “Thank you for noticin’.”
“You don’t hunt like the rest of us.”
“Again, disabled, and I’m vegan.”
“You’re what?”
“I don’t eat fish. They’re friends, not food.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“Yes it is.”
“No. You made tha’ up.”
“No, I mean maybe it’s not a thing for us northern hemisphere folk, but in some parts down south, out west of here, and plenty of humans–”
“Ah! Knew I was forgettin’ somethin’. You’re also just right obsessed with bloody humans.”
“I’m not obsessed.” Steven made a face. “I just– I just think they're sort of neat, you know, there’s billions of them an’ they have all sorts of different cultures, some of them even correspond to–”
“The reason there’s billions of them is why there’s only hundreds of thousands of us.”
“Right.” Steven sighed.
“If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were married to one.” Donna shook her head and Steven felt his face heat a little. He didn’t like humans that much.
“Sounds like something you’d do. You’re just the traitor type, a loner an’ everything, no school, not living with anyone, just came outta nowhere.”
“I was blipped.” Steven scoffed.
“Sure you were. Anyway, no, you will not be an archivist here anytime soon.”
Donna turned and swam over to correct a tall pollack merman, J.B., Steven was pretty sure he was called, on his alphabetization. Steven tucked the rest of the books back into his bag and followed.
“You know merpeople in power used to be required to like fill the role of organization and give jobs to every merperson in their community.”
She glanced down at him from the top shelf. “Yeah well this isn’t the Middle Ages. Get over yourself.”
Steven slumped. “I was in a good mood this mornin’.” he pleaded. “I was kind of excited to come here, because you told me you’d think about it.”
“Oh boo hoo. I said that so you’d shut up abou’ it. Go on then. We got work to do. You have your answer. To your seaweed or whatever it is you do.”
Steven let that hang in the water for a moment, then spoke. “Why do you hate me?” He deadpanned.
“I don’t hate you.” Donna corrected. “I just don’t like you. None of us do.”
“Clearly.” Steven muttered. He was pretty sure she was lying. And he for sure hated her.
He slung his makeshift sack back on, and swam back up out into the open section of the library.
“‘Slimy little weirdo’,” Steven grunted as he tugged a fistful of seagrass up. “I wash regularly!” He cried as he shoved it into his bag.
“An’ I am not weird, am I, Crawley?” He looked up to the gold statue half buried in the soft sand. “Okay. That’s hardly fair.” He rolled his eyes.
“I dunno. I jus’– you know I don’t think I even care about being friends with anyone there. I just want to do something meaningful with others. Wanna be a part of something. Is that too much of an ask?”
He stared hard at the statue’s tiny, convex, pupilless eyes.
“Yeah, thought so.” He sighed and bundled up his harvest with some twine, heading home as the sun made its way low over the water.
“You an’ me both Ariel. Life is not better down where it’s wetter…” Steven murmured as he gazed up through the choppy water to the bright clear blue sky above. The tape he had on his little dry spelled tv was one he’d seen a million times, he knew it by heart.
He let out a long sigh and watched the bubbles trail up. “It sucks.”
He turned and shut off the player, ejecting the tape and tossing it with the others, watching it drift into the box.
He loved seeing how humans thought mermaids were these magical, beautiful things, the ocean like this bright rainbow paradise. Well, he did know magic, he supposed, but humans were the beautiful ones, with their dresses and houses and bicycles, they lived like merpeople used to. Like he wanted to. They used to be magical.
“Should I do it again, Gus?” He asked the fish, sitting up and leaning on his bent tail. ”I mean I know I shouldn’t… but I think I’m going to. It’s not that dangerous.” He tilted his head, picking at the nub of his absent ventral fin, flexing the muscles around the little bit of bone in there, what would direct his fin in a smooth circle if he had it still.
He hopped out of his loft and down to the ground floor to check on his seagrass on the stove, pushing aside the hot rock holding it down with a wooden utensil handle and putting out the bubbling fire under it. He cursed himself remembering how long it had taken him to light and that he should probably get a head start on the rest of what he’d collected.
Whatever. He’d do it later.
Steven swam up the Thames, just a few miles, to one of the beaches not too far inland, but far enough there were people. He kept to the rocks by the edge of the pier and just watched, the couples and the kids and the old people going about their day.
Maybe it was a little creepy, going up to people watch, but besides sitting at home reading there wasn’t much to do. At home he could read about how humans talked and ran and fell in love, or he could see it for real.
Not every human was a merperson hunting sailor, and most of them didn’t even know his kind existed. They weren’t inherently dangerous. So long as he didn’t let himself get seen, he’d be fine.
He chuckled as a girl shoved an ice cream into her partner’s face, making her give a shout and playfully shove the other, both of them laughing.
He loved his heritage, and he loved his history, his home, his culture, all of it, but every now and then… he wished he could’ve been a human.
He knew it was silly. He knew it went against what all he’d been taught, and that it probably was why merpeople like Donna saw him the way they did.
But he couldn’t help it. Life up there looked so exciting, unpredictable, and easy. They had trees and shops and weird little flat boxes they carried around that could let them read about anything.
And the books. The history. He knew they had libraries and museums filled with things about both his and their history, the legends of his kind and the world they had shared for millennia.
Granted, a lot of it was biased and wrong. A lot of it was stolen. But that didn’t make Steven want to see it any less, to know what the world above was, how they lived, breathed, fell in love.
He wondered what wind felt like. How leaves smelled. What it was like to walk and how things that were baked with dry heat tasted.
But no. As unacceptable as he was with his peers, he would be with humans. He didn’t even have any way to get up there. He couldn’t breathe the air or walk the… what were they? Sidewalks?
No, that wasn’t a life available to him.
The pier began to vacate, people trickling out towards evening, till the vendors were closing shops and the lights visible down the streets began to light one by one.
Steven was too mesmerized with the sunset over the buildings leading into town, the reflections scattering pink and gold to notice the ship sailing
He turned his head and was met with two wide eyed people staring right at him, their shocked expressions saying everything about how well he was hidden behind the rocks, the taller of the two gesturing a third over.
“Oh shit—!” Steven was cut off by his own coughs and quickly plunged himself back under the water, inhaling deeply, feeling his heart go from a swim to a mad sprint.
His eyes darted over the rock in front of him as if it had options
“Maybe they didn’t see me…”
He just peeked his eyes up over the surface of the water, to now easily a dozen people swarming the deck of the boat, heading alarmingly fast right towards him.
Steven stooped back down immediately and swam far back across the mouth of that part of the river, clutching himself protectively.
“No! Oh crustaceans, they saw me, they saw me!” He began to hyperventilate, regretting it in the dirty Thames water as he felt his lungs irritate.
He shook his head hard and began to swim as fast as he could in the direction out to open waters away from the boat, ducking between the weathered wooden pier supports, keeping close to the shoreline, not wanting to put himself in the open.
Shit shit shit!
He should have hidden better, should have left the moment the streetlights came on and the time of day shady pirate types came to dock came, he shouldn’t have come out to where there were humans at all.
It was starting to get dark. He was a terrible swimmer.
He stopped, back against the rocks, trying to make out if the disturbed water above was a ship rudder or just waves, if he was really being chased, and if so, how he could not lead them back to the other mers.
He yelped as a harpoon struck the sand just inches from his tail, glinting, its intent clear.
“Steven!”
He pulled himself away from the rock face and turned, breathing hard, panicked, looking around frantically for whoever called his name, someone who could help, maybe.
“What?” He trembled, his voice hardly there, squinting in the rapidly dimming water. “Hello?”
He had no clue how he was going to get back, how far in what direction it was, or where he could hide until he could get to the surface to navigate. He’d just been attacked, every warning and horrid story he’d ever heard, illustrations of mers gutted and strung up on hooks and pins flashed in his head, all the accounts of violence and mutilation and desecration. That was going to be him, he was certain of it. He was going to be scaled and skinned and have his heart ripped out of his chest.
“Shit, what are we doing here? What are you doing all the way out here?”
“I-I don’t– Who—?” Steven began, but before he could speak anything more, and much less react, a harpoon shot right through his upper back and down through his chest, his ribs, lodging itself between the rocks, pinning him.
He gasped and choked on it. He tasted bile in the back of his throat. Wisps of red seeped into the dirty water.
It took a blinding second to register, the pain, and when it did, wrenchingly, suddenly, along with a sharp tug that dislodged the weapon from the rocks, Steven blacked out completely.
Steven came to on the sandy riverbed, coughing at the kicked up sand as he lifted his head.
“Oh sweet mother of pearl,” he groaned, dead tired and sore to his bones. “Not again…” He shakily pressed himself up, wincing. Not one thing didn’t hurt in some way.
He had a terrible headache and it felt like his muscles had been through a blender and poured back into him like a sea sponge to reform.
He must've fallen asleep on the way back home and had a nightmare. A really, really bad, vivid one. So vivid he could still feel— Steven froze, his fingers grazing a freshly healed four pointed scar in his chest, right under a large tear in his top.
He stared ahead through the water with wide eyes, not daring himself to look at it or to take his hand off it. It was real. It had actually happened and he should be dead. Why in trench wasn’t he?
He pulled both his hands up and pressed them, balled, knuckles first, hard into his temples. This was all ridiculous, it was all completely bloody bonkers but he couldn’t figure a thing out till he got home, back to his room, his books, and Gus—! He needed to take care of Gus, he’d been away all night.
He threw his hands down and nodded. Whatever this was, whatever happened, could wait. He was alive now and he needed to keep it that way.
But before he could orient himself and figure out which direction he needed to head in, a large net was rushing towards him, and in an instant, struggling and far too lethargic and dizzy to think or find a way out, he was scooped right into it.
Layla sat in the cabin of her small tugboat, the Scarlet Scarab, hands poised to rip a salty air faded photo clean in half, her jaw clenched, fingers pressed so hard together the blood flow to her fingertips was interrupted.
She tucked the photo back into its place on the console, groaning and dumping her head into her arms, sighing.
A reflective flash of orange out the window to her left caught her attention.
She tilted her head, making out the shape of it, and immediately got to her feet, hurrying out onto the deck. Sure enough, the boat passing her, going in to dock, had picked up something.
“Hey!” She cried, waving both arms. “You’ve got an overgrown goldfish caught in your net!” She called.
The first mate of the vessel looked at her, perplexed, then tapped the side of his head and shrugged.
“Oh for crying out….” Layla growled, pointing.
“Your net! A goldfish—” Layla shook her head and gestured. “Just bring it around, I’ll take care of it. God, no respect for the sealife out here…” she added in a murmur to herself as the net collided with the side of her boat and she reached from over the side to gather it up.
She couldn’t make it out in the dark water this early in the morning, the bright light in her eyes, the rocking of the waves, all she saw was orange and what looked like seaweed.
She got the weight of whatever creature was stuck in the net to the surface of the water, took in a breath and heaved, hauling the bundle over the edge of the boat, toppling onto her butt beside it as its weight dumped out of her grasp in a tangled, ocean wet heap.
Her eyes traveled up the stunning orange scales to an unmistakably human back and torso.
Steven flailed desperately against the thick weave all around him, not even noticing he wasn’t holding water in his lungs anymore and breathing quite heavily.
Layla watched, agape, unable to blink.
A chill went down Steven’s neck, and he turned, sand clinging to his hair, deep circles under his eyes, limbs suspended in rope, his teeth showing.
Their eyes locked for a moment, awestruck, both bright brown in the sunlight.
“Marc.” Layla almost laughed, tossing her grip on the net aside. “Oh my God.”
Steven stared in stunned silence.
“My God, you’re okay, you're alive, I missed you.” She got to her knee, brows downturned, hands flat on the deck.
Steven screamed.