Work Text:
“Alright boys, listen up."
Keith falls into step along with the two other new guards, pulling his gaze away from the tanks set into the walls and the flashes of movement in them to pay attention to their guide. After passing the interviews, and the physical examination, he'd finally been accepted as a guard for the seaside research facility. The biggest and best, with specimens from all over the world and tanks specifically designed to hold creatures from dozens of different styles of environments. Deep-sea creatures barely even seen before they'd developed the technology to move them safely, enormous creatures in tanks of thousands and thousands of gallons, and—
"You'll be night-guards for the time being, until you prove you can handle other shifts. Nothing you see here is discussed outside of these walls, understood?"
He joins in on the chorus of 'yes, sir's, keeping his hands clasped behind his back.
The senior guard stops in front of a door, pressing a hand to the scanner beside it. "This is the lab's largest project, and it comes with special guidelines. Pay attention, stick to the rules, and you won't get hurt." The door opens, and Keith follows the guard inside, just ahead of his two companions.
The tank in the room is large and tall, set right in the middle of the room and surrounded by several tiers of metal platforms that allow observation from different heights. The water is clear, with plants embedded in the sand at the bottom providing a small amount of cover, and a twisting wooden structure set into it with clear inner passageways, and a few spots that look dark and secluded enough to be caves. There's a scientist standing on one of the top platforms, peering down into the tank with a frown, a clipboard held to his chest.
The senior guard walks right up to the tank and knocks on the side of it, eyes narrowed, and then motions for them to stand back a few feet. There's movement within the tank, within the wooden structure, and then Keith's breath catches as the occupant of the tank emerges and comes right up to the side of the tank in a swirl of motion.
A hand presses to the glass, dark grey eyes with slit pupils looking out at them, the pale skin of a well-built chest sliding into black and white banded scales on a long tail, easily three times the length of the torso and with beautiful, partially see-through black and white patterned fins. The fin that starts at where his tailbone would be, as a human, and goes all the way down to just before the tip, has ridges in it. Distant memories of school come back, and a small part of Keith's mind informs him that those ridges look more like spines, which are distinctly poisonous.
Then his gaze comes away from the tail, back up to that chest, and his gaze snags for a moment on the creature's right arm, or what's left of it. There are ragged scars where it cuts off before the elbow, the healed stump of it looking fairly old but still… traumatic. He forces his gaze higher, to short black hair with a white streak near the front, slightly narrowed eyes suggesting an Asian ethnicity — do mermen have ethnicities like that? — and a strong jaw. He meets the gaze of those grey eyes. The merman smiles at him.
He jumps a little bit as the senior guard turns to them and says, "This is the only merman that has ever been successfully contained, and the lab-rats are still trying to study even the basics. You'll check this room once an hour on your rounds, find it in the tank, and then leave. Don't linger, don't try and communicate with it, and don't let it distract you. It will try."
One of the other two guards shifts, and Keith is glad that he isn't the one to say, "Sir, isn't that a 'he'?" The merman smiles a little wider, head tilting.
The senior guard's face tightens, mouth flattening out. "It's a creature. It's a predator. Take a good look and wonder why an ocean predator would evolve to look like you, rookie. You're its favorite meal."
The merman, like it can understand — can it? — pushes away from the glass and flicks its tail, spiraling backwards in a loop before coming back, closer to the ground now. The sand stirs where its fins brush against it, and when it tilts its head and looks up at them Keith can see the flare of four slits just beneath the shell of his ear, what must be gills.
"Does it have a name?" he asks, and when the senior guard looks at him he shrugs. "A lot of the other creatures here have names; it's on their plaques. I don't see one."
"No," is the flat answer. "Don't humanize it; if it gets the chance it will hurt you. Now, rules for the room…”
The guard keeps talking, but Keith's gaze slides back to the merman, and the way it's watching them. When it catches his eyes it smiles again, hand lifting in what almost looks like a wave. He squashes the urge to wave back.
The facility is utterly silent at night, apart from the whir of the machines and pumps that keep the tanks running properly. The only light is the dull ones from the exhibits, and a faint running light along the floor that guides his steps. He's been told not to use his flashlight unless it's utterly necessary; it disturbs some of the creatures in the tanks.
He hesitates for a moment at the door to the merman's room, before pressing his palm to the sensor and waiting for it to recognize his handprint as authorized. The door slides open, and he steps inside. The room feels cavernous without the lights illuminating the dark corners, and he has to swallow before he can approach the tank. There are small lights that ring the base of the tank, keeping it dimly lit, and he comes up to the glass, looking into it to try and spot that white and black pattern.
(Now he knows why the rest of the tank is so flatly colored in green, brown, and the beige of the sand; the black and white of that fin stands out against it.)
He frowns when he can't find it, despite peering towards the shadowed depths of the wooden structure. Then there's sudden movement, and he flinches back as the merman spirals out from behind the wooden structure and right up to him. The gasp locks in his throat, and the merman's hand presses to the glass, mouth curved in a smile again, expression open and friendly. He starts to step back, just a little unnerved, and that expression falls, the merman pushing closer to the glass.
Don't let it distract you, echoes in his head, and he breathes out, staring at the pale skin and the lines of scars that cross it.
The merman's hand thumps against the glass — Keith flinches — and then one finger presses to it. He stares, eyes widening, as the finger traces a curve onto the glass, then a straighter line and an attaching half circle and…
"Letters," he blurts out, quiet but seemingly devastatingly loud in the silence. "You're tracing letters." The merman beams, and he watches that finger, translates it in his mind until he can murmur, "Shiro?"
The merman taps the glass, then brings that hand to his chest, tapping fingers over his heart. Traces the letters again but over skin this time.
"Your name is Shiro," he guesses, and the merman's smile softens, head shifting in a nod. He has to swallow again, fights a small shiver, because this is not just a creature. "You understand me. You… You understand English?" Another nod. "Do they know that?"
The smile flickers, and the grey gaze shifts away too, for a moment, before another nod. Then, before he can get it through his head that this facility is keeping a sentient creature locked in a cage, Shiro taps his own chest and then the glass, meeting his gaze again. He narrows his eyes, and Shiro repeats the gesture more slowly. Tap to his own chest and then a tap to the glass; no, a point.
"Keith," he answers. "My name is Keith."
That tail flutters, and Shiro mouths, 'Keith,' silent but clear by the movement of his lips. Then the merman pulls back from the glass, tail stirring up sand as that one hand flicks at him, almost like he's being shooed. He realizes that's exactly what it is a moment later when Shiro's head nods towards the door, smile lingering but smaller than it was.
He glances towards the door, and then asks, "You want me to go?"
A nod, and then Shiro's smile widens a touch as his hand rises. 'One', the merman mouths, holding up a single finger, and then waves at him before turning away. A beat of that powerful tail, a disturbance of water, and he's slipped away and further into the tank, back into whatever crevices of that wooden structure hide him.
It isn't until he's backtracked, leaving the room and hearing the door lock behind him, that he realizes what it means. One hour; Shiro knows the timing of the patrols.
Keith knows he shouldn't, but he still talks to Shiro in the midst of his patrols, in brief snatches. Once an hour, for the entirety of his shift. He's not positive when Shiro actually sleeps — if he sleeps — but apparently it's not during the night because Shiro is always there when he comes in. Either already at the glass or darting up to it within a few moments of his arrival, smiling and pressing that single hand to the barrier between them.
It's a welcome distraction from the otherwise boring walks, and the check-ins with the guard stationed outside, but it's also... frustrating. Every time he interacts with the merman, every time he gets his mouthed-word answers or the charade-game of a gesture (Shiro, as it turns out, only sort of knows English), it sinks in a little bit further that Shiro is a sentient, intelligent, person. Not a creature. Not a beast. A real person with emotions and a name and maybe a life they know nothing about out there in the ocean.
It builds, until one night, halfway through his shift he asks, "Do you have a… partner, out there?"
Shiro blinks those slit eyes, looking just a little confused. There's the quick flicker of his hand, flicking towards an ear, that Keith's come to know as the gesture for, 'I don't understand.'
He backs off the specifics, asking, "Do you have a family?" and then following it with, "Or a… a…” He searches for the right word; something more animalistic, more base. "Mate?" he settles on, even though the word makes his cheeks flush.
Shiro looks surprised, and then slightly embarrassed. That one hand rises, rubbing over the back of his neck, as he shakes his head, gaze lowered. Keith almost speaks before Shiro moves again in a rush, hand coming to tap over his heart and then rising to tap the glass, their sign for 'you.'
His cheeks flush a lot brighter. "Me?" he almost squeaks, and then Shiro is suddenly blushing too, mouth parting a little, tail fluttering.
A sharp shake of Shiro's head, a hand clasped over his mouth, and then a sharp repeat of the gestures. Heart, glass, and then a wave of the hand in a large sweep. He stares, not understanding, and Shiro huffs, bubbles streaming from his mouth and up towards the top of the tank. A more insistent point towards him, and then Shiro flounders for a moment before mouthing, 'all.'
It still takes him another embarrassingly long couple of seconds, in which Shiro has started to gesture again, before he blurts out, "Humans. You like humans." Shiro's smile is relieved, warm, and then Keith realizes the implications of that. "Oh. You— You like humans."
Shiro fidgets, nods. Then, in a sharp burst of movement, Shiro taps his heart, the glass, and then darts back further into the tank in a swirl of fins, off to the angles he can't see before he can decipher the gesture.
Keith blinks, and then swallows. Heart, glass.
'Like you.'
If Keith had any doubt that Shiro meant exactly what he thought, that disappears when Shiro avoids him for most of the next week. He still gets enough of an appearance to be able to complete his rounds — the flicker of fins or glances around the wood home enough to at least know Shiro's still in the tank — but Shiro won't come over to the glass no matter how long he lingers and waits, and he can't seem to coax him out from hiding.
Until one night he can't find Shiro. Not a glimpse of him, even though he circles the tank twice and knocks several times on the side of the glass. He loops around one more time to be sure, and then shoves out a breath and heads for the stairs leading to the elevated platforms. He's never been up onto them before, and the clanking of the metal under his feet is a bit strange. He gets to the top, peering down into the open depths of the tank as he stands on the platform, nothing between him and the water but a couple feet of metal and a few inches of open space.
He kneels down to feel a little bit more secure about his footing, looking down into the still depths and the inky blackness of the structure at the center of the tank. The top of it is open, but it's so dark that he can't see anything, can't—
There's a rush of movement, and he jerks back as Shiro comes rocketing out of the darkness, right up to where he's kneeling. He flails backwards a bit as Shiro's head breaches the water, hair flattening out across his skull, eyes wide, one hand gripping the edge of the platform. He takes a sharp breath in, trying to calm down, edging backwards just a little more to what he hopes is out of range of that thick arm. Not that he thinks that Shiro will actually hurt him, not really, but the warnings of the senior guard are ringing loud in his ears.
"Hi," he says, a little breathlessly.
Shiro grins, and the slightly pointed teeth catch his eyes this time in a way that they haven’t before. Then Shiro's head comes further out of the water, and there's a low, rough, "Hi."
His mouth drops open. "You— You can talk?"
Shiro is half beneath the water again, but he gets a nod before that mouth comes back up above the water. "Hard above water." Shiro's voice is low and rough, a rumble from somewhere deep in that chest, and it's… it's nice.
He watches as Shiro tilts his head to one side, and his gaze slides across the gills over the side of his neck. "You can't breathe above water, can you?" A shake. "Do they know you can speak?"
Shiro hesitates, fingers clenching down onto the metal, and then he shakes his head. "Don't tell?" comes the request, almost pleading. Another breath beneath the water, and then, "Think I can't answer questions. Better that way."
Keith shifts just a fraction closer, peering down over Shiro’s shoulders to the distorted flicker of his tail beneath the water. “What do they want to know?”
Shiro shrugs, sliding a little closer, forearm hooking over the top of the platform. “Others. Details. How I know the language.” Keith’s face must show his curiosity, because Shiro smiles, takes a breath and then lays his head along his lifted shoulder. “Friendly humans.”
“Like me?”
Shiro shakes his head, and then reaches out across the platform. His pulse skyrockets, but he doesn’t draw away, and those damp, cool fingers slide over the back of his hand. “Not like you,” Shiro denies, quietly. “Stay?”
He hesitates, but shakes his head. “I can’t. I have to check in, in a few minutes. I have to go.”
Shiro’s fingers hook over his hand, squeeze, and then there’s a quiet, hopeful, “One?”
“Hour,” he finishes. “Yeah, one hour. I’ll be back. Promise.”
Shiro smiles, lets him go, and slips back down under the water. He watches the pattern of Shiro's tail as it beats into the water behind him, propelling him down into the tank and into the wood in the center with a fluid kind of grace. A couple moments, and the last flash of the white and black tail has vanished into the darkness. He stares for another few moments, leaning just slightly in over the water, and then blows out a breath and gets back to his feet.
This could get him in so much trouble.
He starts meeting Shiro up on the platforms when he gets the chance, and it only takes a couple days for the touch of the cool, damp fingers on his skin to stop feeling weird. He doesn't bring up what Shiro had said — about liking him — but it lingers in his mind. It has to.
He... Well, it's bizarre, and it's odd to even contemplate, but he likes Shiro too. The merman is interesting, kind, and always willing to talk with him and just to smile. He doesn't know exactly when the feeling of interest turned into interest, with a capital I, but he finds himself blushing more often than he should when Shiro touches him. Finds himself swallowing, stammering, and lingering longer than he should when he comes through during his patrol.
On a less innocent note, and an even stranger one, Shiro is handsome. Keith supposes that shouldn't surprise him, given that historically mers have specifically evolved to attract humans (that thought worries him, when he stops to think about it), but he just wasn't really prepared for it. The difference of his slit-pupil eyes and the points of his teeth remind Keith regularly that Shiro is decidedly not human, but that can slip his mind sometimes. In the quiet, dark moments when he's at home.
Since Shiro can only sort-of talk above water, Keith does most of the talking between them. Teaching Shiro more English, and telling him whatever he wants to know about humans and the world outside of the ocean. Slowly, over a couple of weeks, he learns tidbits about Shiro and merpeople in general.
Like that they almost never hunt humans anymore unless driven to, or in self-defense. Or that Shiro has parents, somewhere, but mer families don't stick together often. (They do mate for life though, which brings up some interesting questions that Keith does not ask.) He learns that the spines down the back of Shiro's tail are in fact poisonous, and actually lethal to most creatures, but Shiro himself is immune to the poison as are almost all other mers.
It maybe also starts to hurt, in a way, to see Shiro confined inside the tank. It's a big tank, but he knows it can't be big enough to be remotely comfortable. Not with Shiro's size and the speed he can move at; it probably would only take him a couple dozen seconds to loop the tank completely at its furthest edge.
He also starts to wonder, the question itching at the back of his throat, what happened to Shiro’s other arm. The scars look decently clean, but getting to see them more often they also don’t look particularly old. Not brand new, but probably just within the last year or so? They haven’t started to really fade yet, like some of the ones on Shiro’s chest have. Those are different too, those look ragged around the edges, like they were made by claws or teeth. The scars on his arm look too even for that; too precise.
The possibilities… worry him.
Then, one night, he arrives at Shiro’s tank on his first round and the merman is down at the bottom, against the glass. He heads over, and concern rises heavy up his throat as he gets closer. Shiro is curled against the glass, his shoulder pressed to it, head resting against it and bowed down, tail lying limp in the sand. He almost looks asleep, except for the rapid rise and fall of his back.
Keith approaches, kneeling down by the glass and pressing his hand to it. There’s no reaction, so he raps his knuckles against it and then flinches back at how sharply Shiro’s head jerks up. His eyes are wide, wild, and his tail twitches as he twists and then falls forward against the glass, mouth parted and — the movement catches his eyes — gills flaring open in the same rapid, sharp pattern as his chest.
“Shiro?” he asks, maybe a little bit panicked. “Shiro, what’s wrong?”
Shiro’s hand curls against the glass, weakly scratching against it, and then lifts and pats at the side of his neck, at the rapidly flaring gills. Keith swallows, looking at that and then down at Shiro’s arm, as it pushes against the glass again. His breath catches hard at the small, bruised needle-mark at the junction of Shiro’s elbow. It doesn’t look that bad, but the fact that he’s been injected with something… Well it’s something bad, if this reaction is anything to go by.
He always knew that the scientists here weren’t just watching Shiro to study him, and he’s known that there have been experiments, but he’s never had actual proof of it before. It’s never really occurred to him that whatever experiments they’re running might actually be dangerous; he’d forgotten that they don’t think of Shiro as a person.
“You can’t breathe,” he realizes, maybe a little too slow. “You can’t breathe.” The basic training comes back to him in a rush, and he presses a hand to the glass and says, loud enough that he’s sure Shiro will hear, “It’s gonna be okay, alright? You’re going to be okay.”
Then he reaches down and grabs the radio off his belt, something he’s never had actual cause to use before, and clicks it on to contact his partnered coworker; the one stationed outside at the gate’s guard post.
“This is Keith; come in.”
A moment of silence where his heart tries to beat its way out of his chest, and then the radio crackles to life with a, “Reading you. What’s up?”
“Contact the Director,” he says, with no preamble. “We’ve got a problem. The merman is having trouble breathing; it looks like they injected hi— it with something and it’s not reacting well. I’m at the tank; get a hold of the Director and get someone down here to fix this. It looks really bad.”
“Stand by,” is the answer he gets.
He lowers the radio, meets Shiro’s gaze and presses his hand harder to the glass. “I’m here,” he promises. “Just stay focused on me. Try and breathe as even as you can, alright? I’m here.”
Shiro presses closer to the glass, tail curling in, fingers mirroring his. His eyes are still wide, desperate, but his gasps seem to be coming a little more evenly, though still too fast and sharp for comfort. It feels way too long before Keith gets the short answer through his radio that he’s to stay there and keep an eye on Shiro, and that a couple lab technicians are on their way in case things take a turn for the worse; someone else will take over the rest of his patrols for the night.
It’s an eternity that he spends kneeling at the side of the tank, talking to Shiro every time he starts to drift, every time it looks like the merman might slip into unconsciousness. The lab techs do show up, but after some frantic whispering from behind him and a few for-show snarls from Shiro aimed past him at them, they finally tell him that there’s nothing they can do unless Shiro actually loses consciousness.
It’s too dangerous to get in the tank with Shiro while he’s conscious, apparently, especially while ‘it thinks we hurt it on purpose.’ Apparently, standard procedure for actually interacting with Shiro is to release a sedative into the water, wait for it to take effect, and then send divers in to retrieve him and pull him out into a small, mobile tank for transport to the lab. They don’t know how the sedative might interact with the bad side effects already present, and aren’t willing to risk it. The two of them do go up and get dressed into the diving suits, but they stay at the top, waiting for his word that things have gotten worse.
So he does his best to keep Shiro awake, speaking to him as quietly as he can manage, tapping the glass, reminding him to breathe and focus.
Finally the effects seem to ease, and over time Shiro breathes easier, gaze becoming progressively more tired and less desperate. He doesn’t actually realize how long its been until the main lights click on, and suddenly there are other people coming in, and he tries to stand and his legs cramp, all but screaming at him. He grimaces, rubbing at his legs with his free hand as the flood of people come in, spreading out around the room.
The Director is among them, and she heads straight for him, the click of her heels loud against the ground. Shiro moves, tail stirring the sand, and he automatically turns back, murmuring a low, “Hey, it’s alright. It’s alright.”
Shiro’s mouth flattens out into a thin line, eyes narrowed as he looks up the Director, but he doesn’t move away from the glass. The hand mirroring his on the glass stays too.
“How is it?” the Director asks, without preamble, hands bracing on her hips.
He pulls his hand away from the glass, twisting to look up at her as he carefully stretches one leg out. “He— It seems to have mostly recovered. It’s breathing normally again, and it seems to be able to move again, at least somewhat.”
She nods, watching him for a moment before looking over to Shiro. Then she says, quiet but flat, "Since it allowed you to keep him calm, I'll be ignoring the fact that you've liberally ignored the rules regarding this creature." He freezes up, and Shiro snarls, nails curling against the glass. She doesn't look intimidated. "You've clearly developed a relationship with it, which you were told not to do." She steps back, looking down at him again. "Clock out and go home; don't let this progress any further than it has, or I'll be forced to fire you."
He can only manage to duck his head and agree, "Yes, ma'am."
She walks away, moving off to speak with the regular daytime workers, and he slowly gets to his feet. Shiro stays near the bottom, and seems to understand at least some of what happened because he doesn't get the customary wave, or anything else, as he leaves the room.
It's the end of his work week, so it takes another two days before he gets his next chance to check on Shiro. The guard before him is waiting in the guard center, arms crossed and soaking wet.
"Watch out," is the warning he gets, voice flat with frustration. "The merman's been pissed the last couple days; splashes everyone he gets the chance to and he's going to make you get up on the damn platforms to find him in there so he gets the chance. Hope you don't mind getting wet."
"Thanks for the heads up," he answers, and his coworker just grunts and stalks off, trailing water behind him.
He checks the cameras quickly before he heads out on the first round, and sure enough, Shiro isn't there when he finally comes into the room. He comes up to tap on the glass, and catches the flicker of a black and white tail before sharp movement, spiraling up to the top of the tank, at the platform. He hesitates a second — the cameras in here are inside the tank itself, not focused on the room — before climbing the platforms and heading over to where Shiro is waiting.
He kneels down, cautious, and Shiro smiles at him. "I hear you've been splashing people," he says, as Shiro reaches out to tangle fingers with his.
"Don't want them near me," Shiro answers, with a small shrug and then the sharp flash of teeth. "You alright?"
"Yeah." He squeezes Shiro's fingers, and then says, "I— I'm sorry for what they did to you."
Shiro watches him for a moment, and then the fingers tangled between his pull and he pitches forward with a gasp. He hits the water with a crash, adrenaline spiking as Shiro circles him, tail curling around him, hand sliding into his hair. He panics, and then Shiro's mouth is on his, tongue forcing his lips apart before air is rushing into his lungs. He inhales automatically and it makes him dizzy, makes him cling to Shiro's arms. Another breath, and then Shiro pulls away, fingers gentle in his hair.
"Not going to hurt you," Shiro says, voice a muted, soft thing within the water. “It’s alright, Keith. Trust me.”
He blinks, looking up to the surface of the water, just a couple feet above his head. Then, slowly, he nods his acceptance. Shiro smiles, leaning in and kissing him again, and this time he's ready for the rush of air, ready for the way it makes his head swim a little bit. He's ready to close his mouth again too when Shiro draws back, holding his breath and opening his eyes.
"Thank you." Shiro's hand slides through his hair, to cup the back of his neck. "For staying. For helping."
He can't actually speak — every instinct warns against it — so he settles for nodding, squeezing Shiro's shoulders briefly.
He gets a brighter smile for that, before Shiro nuzzles at the side of his face, cool skin sliding against his. Shivering doesn't quite work underwater, but his body does its best to anyway. Then there's a slide of fingers down his neck, arm wrapping around his back and holding him close. Carefully, he lets his hands come down from Shiro's shoulders and come to his back instead, feeling out the hard muscle. Shiro makes a sound by his ear like a clicking chirp, reminiscent of a dolphin, and it takes a moment for him to realize it's a pleased sound. Encouraging.
Probably.
He exhales, watching the bubbles lift, and Shiro shifts to give him another breath. He wonders, as he parts his lips, if this is a purely utilitarian thing for Shiro or if it means more. It's a question that's answered the next moment, as Shiro stays in the kiss, shifting against him even after he's given the breath, a tongue that has no other explanation for being there exploring his mouth. It's definitely not just a practicality; Shiro is definitely actually kissing him and he's not even trying to protest that.
Shiro gives him two more breaths in the span of the kiss, and he feels dizzy by the end of it, feels like the only thing keeping him from sinking is Shiro's grip, which is not entirely untrue. Shiro makes another of those strange, dolphin-esque sounds, and then he feels Shiro's tail move, feels it beat against the water. He opens his eyes just as his head breaches the water; his gasp is automatic, even though he has air in his lungs still.
The roll of back muscles beneath his hands catches his attention, and when he looks down Shiro nods up and to the side. He follows the gaze to the metal platform, and gets the hint a second later when Shiro rolls both shoulders back as if trying to dislodge him.
"Got it," he says, as he reaches out and grabs the platform, keeping himself afloat. "I… You were serious, about liking me."
Shiro nods, then lifts his head enough to say, "Yes." A pause, a flicker of eyes to the side, downwards, and then, "Do you?"
He flushes, considering the undeniable yes that has to be his answer. But… there's no future here. No possibility. This can't go any further; he'll be fired, maybe sued, and Shiro… Shiro is trapped in a cage by a company that doesn't consider him a person, bound to be experimented on and studied. One wrong drug and he could die; their last night was proof enough of that. Shiro doesn't deserve any of this. He's—
"Don't have to answer," Shiro says, softly. When he focuses Shiro gives a small smile, but he can see the sad edge to those inhuman eyes. "I understand."
"No, wait, I—” He swallows, then reaches out and into the water to find Shiro's hand. The fingers curl with his without prompting, and he squeezes them. "I'm going to get you out of here," he promises, in a rush. "This isn't right, what they're doing to you. I'll get you out."
Shiro's expression lights up, and then there's a laugh and a sharp lunge forward and Shiro is kissing him again, above the water where he can inhale sharply without it being Shiro's gift to him. He makes a surprised sound, tightening his grip on the platform. Shiro's hand circles his back again, clinging close, and he can feel the smile against his lips. Then Shiro drops away, back into the water. He feels the brush of Shiro's hand down his chest before he opens his eyes and find Shiro smiling up at him, something like relief in his expression.
"Thank you," Shiro repeats. "Thank you."
He blushes again, but nods. Then, struck by the realization that he's been here too long and he has to get back and check in before someone comments, he clambers out of the tank and back onto the platform. Everything on him is soaked, and the weight drags him down as he flops onto his back, scraping his hair out of his face.
"How am I supposed to explain this?" he asks, gesturing vaguely at how utterly soaked he is. Then, before he can do more than blink, a wave of water blindsides him. He sputters as Shiro snickers, and the warning from the other guard comes back into his head as he wipes water out of his eyes. "Were you doing that on purpose so you could pull me in without anyone noticing?" he demands, a little incredulously.
Shiro winks, and dives.
It isn't nearly as hard as he thought it might be. It only takes a couple days of covert poking around for him to find where the keep the mobile-tank for Shiro, and it's a sturdy, hard-plastic thing so it's pretty durable and not something he has to worry about transporting carefully. The next problem is transport itself, and that he solves by setting up the lie that his car died and is in the process of being fixed, and he's borrowing a friend's van until it's done. (Renting a van, more like, but he peels the stickers out of the windows and makes sure it looks like his, and that's enough.)
It's about at that point that he realizes that if he goes through with this, he's probably going to go to prison. Or at least never have a normal life again. A look around his life at his lack of real family, or more than casual friends, decides it for him. Shiro is kind and needs his help; there's no real decision as far as he's concerned.
Shiro's excitement is nearly tangible, and it drives him forward through all the rest of the planning. Which, since he's realized that there's no way he gets Shiro out without being caught on camera (or maybe busting his way through the gates), isn't much. If you're not trying to avoid actually getting caught, there isn't much to try and get around.
He waits until midway through his shift on the night it's going to happen, having already moved the mobile tank into place, and then gets Shiro into it. Which is, alright, harder than he expected. Outside of water, Shiro is heavy, unwieldy, and hard to move into the tank by himself, in the limited amount of time that Shiro can actually breathe outside of water. He manages it though, after three tries and one instance of Shiro having to jerk away from him and back into the water to breathe.
After that it's just a matter of getting the tank out of the facility and to his van, and since he's the only one stationed to watch the place at night, that's easy. Shiro gets loaded into his van, and he presses a hand to the glass for a moment — Shiro mirrors it, with a small smile — before shutting everything up and heading around to drive out of here. His only coworker — the guy at the gate — stops him with a slight frown, but it looks more like concern than anything else.
"Hey, Keith; what's up?" the man asks, leaning on his window after he's walked outside of the little guard outpost.
"Careful," he answers, making a show of covering his mouth with his arm. "I—” A faked cough that he manages to make sound pretty terrible. His coworker backs off a step. "I'm feeling pretty awful. I called our boss; he's sending somebody to replace me, just—” A harsh breath, muffled into his jacket as he winces. "Hold down the fort for a bit till they have time to get here? I did the rounds just before I came out; it's all fine."
The guard steps back again and then nods, grimacing a little. "No problem, man. Go get better."
“See you tomorrow,” he offers, with a weak smile.
The gate opens, and he makes himself drive through slowly instead of just booking it; makes sure he stays slow and within speed limits the whole way. His phone hasn’t gone off yet when he pulls up to the dock of their town, getting as close as he can to the actual wood of the dock before he shuts the van off.
He takes a moment to breathe, long and slow, and remind himself that he really is doing this before he gets out of the van and circles around to open the back. Shiro is twisted to look up at him through the end of the tank, and gives him a smile that instantly makes him feel better. It takes some effort to get the tank out of the van, but it’s durable so even when he drops the last bit of it it doesn’t actually break. Thankfully.
The wheels at the bottom are a godsend, and probably the only thing that lets him get the tank out onto the deck without frustration and tears. Then it’s just a matter of opening it, and shoving it over the side. Not the most glamorous way, but there’s no way he’s just tipping it over with the wheels on the bottom. Not by himself.
Shiro surfaces after just a moment, one hand bracing against the wood of one of the dock’s supports, smiling so wide it looks like he might split his face right open. “Thank you,” Shiro says, one hand reaching up towards him.
He has to kneel to be able to reach it, but he tangles his fingers with Shiro’s, smiling back. “Of course. You’re welcome.”
A small tug to his hand. “Come with me.”
He blinks, surprised into silence for a couple seconds before he glances out at the ocean and says, “I can’t survive out there. I— I’m sorry.”
Shiro’s fingers tighten on his, and there’s a moment of clear indecision before Shiro offers, “You can. I can change you.” An underwater breath. “We don’t have your… your devices. But we have our own. Different.” Shiro tilts his head sideways, rolls the shoulder on his missing arm. “Replace my arm with other; change you. It’s possible.”
He doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to respond, and Shiro gives a soft smile.
“Long way from beasts,” Shiro says, quiet against the lap of the water. “Trust me?”
That he does know the answer to.
“I do.”