Archive of Our Own ^beta

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.

Chapter Text

The first thing Layla did the moment she felt consciousness settle enough to lift her bones and open her eyes was check her phone. 

Blearily, she scrolled through the recent calls just to make sure she hadn’t missed any, even a brief accident, then for even a single text, but nothing. 

She sighed, flipped it closed and dumped it back on her dresser, rolling over uncaring when it clattered off and down onto the carpet. 

She tugged all the blankets up tight around her shoulders. Her eyes drifted over to the floor length cream and gold wedding dress and veil hanging off the back of the open closet door. 

It had been fifty-three days, almost three months, since she had heard anything from her fiancé Marc, and each and every one has felt like a new tear to the heart. 

She was past asking herself what she did wrong, what he must’ve been going through, by now she had just convinced herself he has to be dead or locked up in some noname prison somewhere. 

Any explanation other than he just ghosted her. After three years, countless dates, missions and scrapes and adventures, their search for the missing heart. All ended now in abandoned wedding plans. 

Alone in everything because she of course just had to fall for a fellow pirate. 

But Marc had to have loved her. It wasn’t possible to go through that much together and fake who you were the whole time. At least that’s what she kept telling herself, curled up wishing his arms were around her waist and his face was buried in the top of her back. 

She wiped her eyes furiously and sat up. She didn’t have any time for this today. She had work to do. 

Pulling herself out of bed, Layla tugged a sports bra down under her shirt, changed her underwear and put on some pants. 

One of these days she was going to stop sleeping in her clothes. Maybe when she finally gave up hope he was coming back, saved up enough to move out of the apartment, stopped sulking through every day, and pawned the dress off. 

But that was not today. 

She went into the bathroom and washed her face and slipped her silk wrap off. She gave her head a hard shake, then gathered her hair back in a burgundy bandana, leaving two uneven clumpings of bangs over her forehead. She wrapped it around twice and double tied it, first a bow, then a knot. 

Holding the cap in her mouth she threw on some deodorant, tucked that away and put her earrings in (two thin crescent moon studs with winding snakes behind them), checking her profile, trying to smile and giving up when it just made her look pained. Tired. God she looked so tired. She didn’t want to have to go and be seen like this. 

But then again she didn’t care what anyone thought of her, and she would give anything to see her fiancé again. 

On the deck of the Scarlet Scarab, both expressions changed, one to frustration, the other to terror. 

“Marc! Quit– quit flapping about!” Layla gave the net a sharp tug, making Steven yelp as his fin resnagged and his tail bent at a weird angle, only just catching himself on his hand and elbow before his head hit the deck, almost upside down.

He groaned, already sporting the worst headache that month, as the back of his head throbbed and the sky above drifted to a slant and then righted itself. He whined pitifully and shut his eyes, trying not to sob. It was no use. 

Layla leaned forward and tilted her head to glare at him, frowning. 

Steven cowered back and turned his face away from her. If he was going to die he wasn’t going to be scrutinized like one his peer’s catches, he wasn’t going to let himself be tormented or prodded, he’d kill himself first if he had to—

“You’re not going to say anything?” 

Steven exhaled and his words came out in a hoarse, hurried tumble, pressing his eyes shut tight.

“P-please don’t kill me or eat please, or kill me and eat me, or eat me alive, please I swear I don’t taste good—” 

“Oh don’t be so dramatic.” Layla huffed, tossing the net back and tucking a loose bunch of curls back into her bandana, dropping back on her haunches. “I’m not going to kill you.” 

Steven opened his eyes and slowly looked up at her. “You aren’t?” 

“Is this where you’ve been all this time?” She demanded, ignoring the question. 

“What?” 

“Out in the ocean?” 

“I…” things were making less sense to Steven by the second. “Yes? It’s where I– ‘s where I live.” 

Steven couldn’t make eye contact but he couldn’t look away from her, either. He had never seen a human even remotely this close before. 

Her curls. The way they stuck out, instead of spreading smooth and defined, floated like a big anemone with fluffy coils for tendrils, not like any he had ever seen.

The inorganic material of her vest. The metal… teeth? Holding closed her front and many pockets. Steven was enamored with the intricacies. The craftship that went into— 

“Marc I need you to drop this right now.” Steven startled, head snapping back up at her tone. “It has been almost three months! Why the hell did you leave and what is this!” 

“What…? Who’s Marc? No, I…If you aren’t going to kill me what is happening…?” 

“You tell me!” 

“I don’t– I don’t know!?” Steven cried. “Please, let me go, I’m not going to be able to breathe!” 

“You seem to be breathing just fine.” 

Steven paused, and marveled at the fact that he was for a moment before pushing the air from his lungs and shaking his head. 

“No, no no I need water, please! Put me back!” 

“Not until you tell me what’s happening!” 

Steven curled himself up tighter, still restricted, breathing slowly as he realized it was odd, but he was doing fine. He wasn't gasping, he didn't feel lightheaded, at least not from lack of oxygen.

“Marc, don’t ignore me!” 

“I am not Marc!!” Steven shouted, shaking his head, trembling. “I don’t know! Please, I swear, I am so sorry, but I can’t– I'm not, I am just a fish, please, I can’t help you.” 

“Who’s after you? If this was a secret you know I would have understood, I mean, come on, compared to the other shit we’ve been through? This is tame.” 

Layla was going on but Steven couldn’t focus on her words. 

His bottom half he felt so ambivalent about was shimmering in the sunlight as it dried, the brilliant scales dulling, melting, dissolving into his skin.  

His tail was disappearing, and in its place Steven slowly unfolded two stalky legs out from under him with wide eyes, looking down his thighs to his knee joints all the way to his ankles, then feet and toes. 

He touched his fingers to his calf and quickly pulled them away before he’d even felt it, no scales, skin, like his upper half, saltwater prickled, smooth, and peppered with hair. 

He gripped his right foot in his hand in alarm. The three smallest toes were missing, where they would be just bumpy, scarred over nubs. It takes him a second to place why.

“Holy Great Basin…” he stretched first one leg as far as it would go, then the other, then pulled them back and pushed again, the same movement he would use to flap through the water, but with his leg separate, the inputs had to go for both, something confusing, how they felt paired but separate, separated, able to move independently.

Layla caught his foot and grimaced at him, her temper raising.

“Marc! Quit kicking me!” 

“S-sorry!” 

“The hell is wrong with you?” 

“A whole great lot of things…” Steven shook his head, he really was just one more great big ridiculous terrible thing away from a breakdown. 

Layla finally grabbed the open end of the net and put it over Steven’s head, allowing him to pull himself out. 

He reached and gripped the side of the closet crate, got his legs under him, and slowly pulled himself up, shaking a little. His legs felt like they needed to be bent, he had a great lot of trouble getting them stretched fully and staying that way, but once he did, he became very self conscious very quickly of the fact that he was completely exposed in front of someone, mer or not, he had not intended or noticed one bit that he was suddenly naked by human standards. 

“Oh fins, my penis is out, an’ it’s not even mating season, I am so sorry. I didn’t think I was that aroused.” 

Steven clasped both hands over his merhood, hunching his shoulders against the crate, face going red. 

“I mean I am not aroused!” 

“Cool your jets. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. And will you stop it with the accent?” 

He furrowed his brow, and bewilderedly pondered what must be wrong with the way he talked. 

Layla watched his expression as he gave no refute to her statement, then turned and dug around in the crate tucked just inside the door to the cabin, handing Steven some cargo pants. “Go commando, it doesn't matter.” 

Steven took them and turned them over and started to pull them on, but got his second foot stuck on the same pant leg after he got the first. Layla sighed, grabbed the waist of the pants and held it out for him, averting her eyes while Steven burned, gripped the railing behind him and clambered into the other leg of the pants with her help. 

His stomach was still exposed by the cut of his vest and it had a tear in the front and back, but it was decent, at least. 

“Thank you. I’m terribly sorry.” Steven said. 

“What happened here?” Layla caught her finger in the edge of the rip and tilted her head, frowning when she couldn’t identify the material. 

“Oh… har…harpoon…” Steven murmured, thumbing the woven fabric of his vest very seriously before he shook off the impending sophomore crisis to his own reality. He could keep it at bay if he just kept breathing— that was still weird— and repeated to himself that he wasn’t going to die. 

Steven let his weight on the railing and stared at the pants, at the legs under him, his legs. This couldn't be real. How was it real. He really very seriously had to be dreaming. But the harpoon, the scar, how the ocean breeze felt on his skin and his lungs, not suffocating like he’d expected, like he’d always held his breath to keep from happening, no, he was fine, somehow, the air was fine and his skin was dry and he had human legs. 

Except for the headache and the exhaustion, the huge amounts of aftermath from massive waves of adrenaline, he felt good. He felt great. 

Layla disappeared into the cabin and before Steven could even think of anything to say she returned with a worn photo in hand. 

“Oh my gosh,” he blinked. “Would you look at that. That’s me with bloody legs.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Hold on, is that— is that desert?” 

“That’s Cairo.” 

“Cairo?” 

“Yes. Where I’m from. Egypt?” 

Steven looked at her. That sounded familiar.

“You know, like in the Sahara—” 

“The Sahara!” Steven exclaimed. “Oh my days, you mean that’s real?! The lost ocean, dried up, no water, just sand and brush now?” 

Layla narrowed her eyes at him. “You know you can stop with the accent.” 

“I’m not— I’m not doing an accent… I’m a north east Atlantic merperson, we all talk like this.” 

“You’re serious.” Layla slumped defeatedly. She had been certain he was lying, but everything about him said otherwise. 

“I’ve been serious.” He started to push him weight off the crate onto his feet and yelped as his legs nearly buckled under him.

Layla glared at him hard and Steven was not used to being under such scrutiny. He didn’t have any reason to believe this human wouldn’t change her mind about killing him.

“You’re really not Marc.” She said. 

“I… I’m not. I couldn’t tell you why I…” he glanced at the photo again, trying to make things piece together. “Why I look just like him?” 

“You don’t just look like my Marc, Marc, you are him. You’re missing three toes on your left foot just like him.” 

“I… I don’t know what to tell you.” Steven fiddles with his hands. “I wish I did. I wish I was him for you. He seems nice.” 

“He is an asshole!” Layla cried, and Steven flinched, startled. “He up and disappeared from my life just weeks before our wedding!”

“You were going to get married!?” Steven exclaimed. “Oh, congratulations.”

Layla turned back to him and for the third time just that that day Steven was certain he was going to die. 

“I-I-I mean I’m sorry!” 

“I was going to get married.” Layla said. “Not anymore.” She snatched the photo back and stuffed it in her back pocket. “Not after all this.” 

“I’m so sorry, really, I am, that sounds awful.” 

“It’s you! You did that.” 

Steven shook his head. “I assure you I didn’t, I wouldn’t, I really and truly swear to you.” 

“Well then you’ve lost your mind.” Layla threw her arms out over the gunwale, letting her body hang balanced with her head in the crook of her elbow. 

“Or maybe I have.” She murmured, closing her eyes.

Steven planted his right foot firmly of the deck, took a deep breath, and pushed himself off onto it, both arms out.

He was missing his full balance with the sway of the boat on the water, and when he put his other foot forward, where he would have had his toes to steady him he fell, groaned and cursed as he crashed a few feet, beside Layla.

Layla picked her head up and looked at him, turning himself around and trying to move his legs like he’d never taken a step before.

“Until about fifteen minutes ago I thought this was all just a made up story, something my dad used to tell me about.” She said.

Steven rubbed the bruise forming in his side and brightened when he processed her words. 

“Your dad was into… merpeople?” 

“That’s putting it lightly.” She sighed, pushing herself up. “I’m sorry. You’re not Marc, you're like him if he was nice, or something, and a mermaid, apparently.” 

“Merman.” Steven said. “I’m— I’m pretty sure I’m a man.” 

“Whatever.” 

Steven gathered what courage he had and said what he had been begging since he first opened his mouth.

“Please, let me go home?” He requested. “I– I’ve gotta feed my fish.” 

“You have a pet fish?” Layla asked, bewildered.

“Yeah.” 

“Isn’t that a little weird?” 

“Not any weirder than a wolf.” 

“Dog.” 

“Dog, yeah.” Steven nodded. “Yeah it’s not any weirder than that. I mean, kid threw him in the sea, I found him, he’s my friend. I take good care of him. His name is Gus.” 

“Right.” Layla said. “If I let you go I’m not ever going to see you again, am I?” 

“No, no! I don't– you– I can explain to you what I do know, if you’ll…” Steven thought for a moment, and the most fairytale idea came to him, something that made his chest flutter in the first pleasant way in a long time. “If you’ll meet me.” 

“Meet you.” Layla repeated skeptically. “What?”

“Yea, I’ll come back, do you– do you know the cliff downstream from the pier, with the—” 

“Yes. The one in the cove.”

That was a half hour swim from his home.

“That’s it, yeah. I will meet you. Sunset? This evening. I-I promise you that I’ll be there, I mean, I know you don’t have a reason to trust me—” 

“Okay.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Go on. I don’t know if you do time, or whatever, so sunset. By sunset.”

“Yes. Yeah. Okay.”

He nodded. Layla gestured with her whole arm free to go.

Steven didn’t have to be told twice. He pulled himself up over the side, turned and pushed himself off.

He gave a hysterically relieved sigh as his legs fused under him, pushing off the cargo pants and transforming in less than a moment in contact with the water to his short golden orange tail. 

He hugged it tightly to him. He swore he would never take it for granted again. He would never think it was less than perfect again. Legs were nice but if his tail always felt sort of wrong on him, legs were only about a million times worse. 

He started to swim down towards the mouth of the river before stopping, turning back and surfacing.

“Thank you!” He called, throwing his hand up and waving. 

Layla walked up to the port quarter and gave one short raise of her hand back.

“I will come, I promised and I mean it!” 

“You better!” Layla called back.

He nodded and she returned to the cabin.

Steven treaded until he heard the engine start and the boat began to pullaway.

He pushed the air from his lungs and resubmerged, breathing the heavy familiar scent and feel of the brackish polluted water. He coughed and smacked, then bleghed. Not great, but comforting.

“Oh God,” he sighed. “I just got captured by a human. Like a real flesh and blood human with legs and boots with feet in them and… She was beautiful. Tides above she was beautiful, and so, so scary. Shit. Wow. Call me a pufferfish the way I’m high and I don’t think I’m ever coming down. That was amazing. I thought I was gonna die.” 

He felt his his jaw, his neck, his shoulders, and so on all the way down to his hips, that he was all in one piece and all the pieces were as they should be, then swam to start finding his way back home.

“Gus?” Steven called, darfully securing the tarp behind him. It was a bit before noon, he had spent the whole morning getting back, once he finally found the path it hadn’t been hard, but he’d needed to find it.

“Gus!” He called again. He was terrified suddenly he might’ve gotten out again, that he’d been eaten or died from shock and exposure outside his home. He really had no idea what he was going to do if he was dead and it was all because of him and his selfish fantasies. He didn’t have anyone but Gus.

He was just about to give up and let himself breakdown, he didn’t have the energy or the focus to search and he already felt like such a terrible, terrible friend, when he caught sight of a little flash of orange down in the corner, by the opening to the library. 

“Oh, Gus!” Steven rushed, picked up and cradled the little fish in his hands right against his cheek, tearing up.

He smiled when he flapped gently brushing his nose. Behind and under him were a half dozen books missing bits from the edges of their pages. Steven saw this and rolled his eyes, chuckling. He could have eaten every book in his collection and he wouldn’t have cared. 

“Oh Gus, I’m so sorry, you must be completely starving.” He gently turned him over to inspect him. He was a little sluggish, but he looked to be okay.

But that was when Steven saw it. His food was going bad on the stove, right across from that, the filter needed replacing. He hadn’t just been gone all night, it had to have been three days at the very least. 

“H-here…” Steven found his hands shaking as he took Gus’ food down off the shelf and dumped a small portion into his hand, holding still so Gus could steadily pick bits into his mouth. 

Steven looked around his home, the quiet, still space, his insides anything but. 

He held Gus for a bit longer and made sure he ate plenty and then he resided to do what he always did when he was concerned and confused or alone and upset.

He went to read.

He dragged out the big book from the bottom of the shelf to the back of his library, one of the biggins, the biggest collection of ancient human-merhistory, banned literature. 

He grabbed a couple smaller ones too, mer biology, an old human captain’s log from the 1600s, and a glossary.

“Don’t go looking through those books.” Someone warned as Steven got situated. He lifted his head. 

“What? Why?”

“Steven!” 

“Hello? Who is this? What is this? Do you think this’s funny?” 

“Why didn’t you just go back home like you were supposed to?” 

“Are you Marc?” Steven asked quietly, unsure if he needed to raise his volume or not. The dimly lit lower room made a voice he couldn’t place to anything all the more unsettling. “From the photo?”

“Goddamnit, you were not supposed to see that! You were never supposed to meet her.”

“Her. You mean Layla.”

“Stop what you're doing. This will not end well.”

“I need to know what’s going on with me.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes, I bloody do!” Steven was angry now, properly angry.

He heard a sigh that turned into a groan that turned to murmured curses before who he was pretty sure was Marc spoke again.

“We’re a hybrid, okay? One of our parents was human.”

“One of my parents was human!” Steven scrambled through the open book till he found the page he was looking for and his alter invested new bad words between every already existing one he knew.

“That!” Steven exclaimed. “That makes me a landwalker! A-a-an undineborn!” He smiled so wide his face hurt. He was part human. He could change his form, live on land. This was the greatest and most frightening thing he could have possibly ever learned. But more importantly, how had he forgotten such a thing existed? 

He smoothed his finger along the text till he found the passages he was looking for.

“Their love created an enchantment, it cast a permanent spell that blessed me with the ability to switch from one set of biological traits to another, or even possess both at once, to survive underwater and on land— it’s the oldest magic there is!”

It was great, it was nothing short of wonderful but at the same time it meant he had been and would be in so much danger, from mer and man alike. 

“So was my mother or father an undine? It was my mother, right?” 

Steven felt a coldness settle in the room from the presence conversing with him. He brushed it aside, he was far, far too worked up to acknowledge it. Him! Human! Half human! Bloody beautiful. 

“I barely remember dad…” he said, scratching where his gills would be. “Probably why I didn’t know, but explains this.” He flattened his fingers to the feature absent from his neck, something he’d wondered about but never dwelled long on. He thought maybe it was related to his fin, if it was congenital, he didn’t know, he’d never known, and it didn’t seem important to ask. Who would he ask? 

But it was true then. The other mers did have reason to fear him. He could assimilate, he could hide, he wasn’t a traitor, and his mother wasn’t, but they had a potential to be, to bring the worst possible harm to all merpeople. Hu-mers like him had done such horrible things, there wasn’t any denying it. But in turn so many like him had suffered for something they couldn’t change about themselves. Even when they weren’t able to do the things they were accused of. 

“Children that aren’t… conceived in love are not blessed to walk on land and live in the sea. It’s genetic chance. They may drown or suffocate if they’re born in the wrong place. Their features will be mixed, some won’t work. It’s kind of awful, actually. It’s why our ancestors facilitated alliances with humans. Because both humans and merpeople were very guilty of… yeah. It wasn’t always that, though. Sometimes mer would just get desperately infatuated with sailors or pirates and not realize it wasn’t mutual. Same thing the other way, too, bloody sirens…” 

But they hadn’t done anything wrong, he was certain of it. If he had legs, it meant his parents had loved each other, that the kind of cooperation and care that had once helped build both their many kingdoms and nations had lived on, in secret. That it lived in him, in his blessing. He was a modern carrier of something seldom discussed openly any longer, but precious. 

“Something like two or more percent of an average merperson’s DNA is actually human because that’s just how common intermating was.” Steven turned the page to an illustration of mers exchanging handmade glass sculptures for human grown fruit and woven baskets. “No one likes to talk about it. But we’re evolutionary cousins. It’s why mer biology is so variable; rays, fins, all of it, how overtly merlike one presents.” He’d seen and met mers with scales trailing farther up their bodies, fins on their backs, some had gills on their ribcage, others had different teeth, eyes…

“Can you quit the history lesson?” Marc clipped. 

“It was really more biology.” Steven corrected. 

“Goddamnit, Steven. You are not going to go meet her, you are going to stay as far as possible away from that cliff. You are going to fall asleep and give me back the body so I can get you relocated.” 

“The body– relocated– what?! No, no you stop, stop and explain to me what is going on. You– are you me? What are you? How are you? What is this? You knew I was half human, didn’t you!? Before today, before any of this!” 

“Of course I know we’re half human! You were not supposed to know. You’ve fricked this all up but it’s not too late for me to fix things, just give me the body.” 

“The hell are you talking about?” 

“Look it’s not an ideal situation, but the setup we have works. I live on land and you live out down here with your friends and your books and I don’t get in the way of any of it. Now, give me the body.” 

“You live on land? All those dreams– they’re you! You’re some sort of what– James Bond? No! No no no, this is unheard of. See, this,” Steven pointed to the diagram of the two typical forms of an undineborn. “Makes sense. This,” he tapped his temple. “Does not!” 

“Steven, give. Me. The body.” 

“What does that mean!” Steven shouted. 

“You go to sleep and let me take control. We need to get out of here. It is not safe.” 

“Control? My body? What, so you can abandon Layla? Again? What is wrong with you!” 

“You don’t and you can’t understand what’s at stake here.” 

“No, I do. I do and you can kiss my tail.” 

“Steven—” 

“I’m going to go meet with Layla—” 

“Steven—!” 

“And I’m going to explain to her everything I know about this.” 

“Steven!"

Steven shut the large tome he had spread across his reading desk, pressing bubbles from the dry spelled pages.

Having lost his bag, he dug around in his things upstairs till he found an old human crossbody bag, shoving Marc’s pants and the poetry book and carefully coaxing Gus into an open plastic bag, and placing him carefully have zipped up inside as well. He also changed his shirt, setting aside his damaged one for repair. 

Marc continued to scold him, but even tired and overwhelmed as he was, Steven had excitement throbbing in his every vein, no matter what, he knew what he had to do. 

“You came.” 

“Of course, I said I would.” 

Steven pulled himself up on the ledge below where Layla sat, leaning on her bent knee. 

He kept his tail in the water, not keen on experiencing mammalian bipedalism again just yet. 

“I uh…” he began. He had to work hard to get his words to work. Being right in the presence of a human still didn’t feel right, but damnit if he was going to forget his manners. “I didn’t properly introduce myself the last time. I was a little too… you know.” He gestured.

“My name is Steven,” he said. “Steven Grant.” 

“You already know mine, but sure, Layla El-Faouly.” 

“Layla El-Faouly…” Steven repeated, nodding. He didn’t know what the El meant, but he assumed it was a human thing. “That’s beautiful.” He said. 

“How long exactly have you been living… under the sea?” 

“Oh.” Steven huffed. “My whole life.” 

“Your whole life?” 

“Yeah. Well, except for– except for Marc.” Steven reconciled then and there that was truth. It was frightening, to think all those things he’d thought were his overactive imagination were real, that, somehow, a whole other consciousness shared his body, his life, his time. 

But Steven was logical, pragmatic, and he’d been searching for explanations for the odd, unexplainable things in his life, all the unsettling details, the gaps in his memory, the scars, how he ended up places he never remembered going, how he found himself, falling asleep, waking up, blacking out, and being uncertain if he was dreaming, for months upon months, and this, this was it. 

The only thing he didn’t know was why. 

“You know I do– I feel like I’ve seen you before.” Steven said, trying to articulate what was a vague but strong, persistent feeling. “I don’t know, it feels like I’m just dreaming, maybe, still. I don’t want it to be a dream. It’s really weird. I’m tired, all the time. I am so tired and it’s like when I’m asleep my dreams are actually happening and when I’m awake I’m barely here, I forget it all, so much of everything. I’ve just sort of…” 

Goodness, he felt so silly. He’d said he was going to explain, and now he was here just venting all his unobjective feelings and thoughts to a complete stranger, a human stranger at that.

“I think I’ve been Marc when I’m dreaming.” Steven said with a sense of finality. That was it. His life was two sided, in each world, and Marc knew and he never told him, he probably stole him away from his life down there for love or money or something of the sort. Or maybe he was a traitor. Oh he did not want to think about that right now. 

“I did wonder why he’d been so strange those weeks before he left, what was going on.” 

“Can… can you tell me more about your father? I’m sort of, I sort of study humans and mers, I would really love to know more about what humans know about us.” 

“Well you can’t, because he’s dead.” 

“Oh. I’m so sorry to hear that.” 

“So Marc just had a break and turned into a nervous wreck of a British fish person?” Layla asked, but not addressing Steven.

“Great.” She answered herself. 

Steven wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“You know what, that’s fine. I can do this by myself. Would have been great if he’d said something, even just a text like ‘I can’t do this anymore’, but I guess I expected too much of four years and an engagement.” 

Layla stood, and Steven straightened his back, gazing up as she towered over him on the rock.

“You enjoy your life, whoever you are now, I try not to get caught in nets.”

“But wait, I…” 

“Let her go Steven.”

Steven glances at his rippled reflection by his tail and frowned.

He looked back to Layla and she folded her arms expectantly. 

“I mean, I– thank you. For not– not killing me.” 

“Sure.” Layla turned, climbed down off the rock, and Steven heard her boots crunching on the grass and she marched away.

Steven watched her, until the top of her head of curls disappeared from his point of view behind the short cliff face.

“I hope you know just what deep shit you’ve dragged her into. She is not going to move on from this.”

“I like her.” Steven sniffed softly, brushing his nose with the back of his hand. 

“She’s going to get herself hurt.” Marc continued, trying weigh his options, none were good. “Gotta find some way to get her away from all this…”

“I like her a lot.”

“Hey, that’s my wife.” 

“No, she is not your wife, because you left her, you left her alone!” 

Marc went silent at that. 

“You left her alone and she thought you had died, Marc. You broke her heart!” 

“I kept her safe! There are bounty hunters after me, they want my frickin’ head and I will not let her get herself killed trying to defend me. Do you understand that, Steven? Do you understand that she is selfless and reckless and I love her and she will die horribly if I go back to her?!” 

“You don’t know that. You don’t know that at all. You’re not doing her the favor you think you are.” 

“You’re a goddamn idiot.” 

“Oh stop,” Steven splashed at his refelcetion. “Stars, I am so tired.” He groaned as he pressed his fingers to his temples, even letting his eyes fall shut one second made him feel as if he were about to slip under. 

Marc peeked up. “Yeah, you should get some sleep.” 

Steven snapped his eyes open. “Hold on, no. No, you don’t– you’re not going to, I’m not going to let you.” 

“No, Steven, really, you swim on home and get to bed, get some rest, and I will take care of everything.” 

“No! Stop that! Stop it! I am not yours to control…! Just stop, oh good gods, bloody…” Steven shook his head and that act alone almost made him pass out. It had been catching up on him all day but right then he was almost certain he were going to fall asleep if he so much as held still for even a moment.

Steven scrambled up the rock face, to the higher ledge, but couldn’t get his tail to find purchase. He heard an engine of some kind starting and panicked. 

“Layla!” He called. “Laylaaa!” 

He grit his teeth and pulled himself higher and was about to call again when Layla appeared over the edge of the cliff, helmet in her hands, perplexed and annoyed. 

Steven startled and breathed, relieved, and with the saddest circled brown eyes asked one thing. 

“Layla, I– I need your help, please, I’m not—” he shook his head, completely out of the ability to convey anything but desperate for her to understand. “Can you please, please help me?”