Coffee!

You sigh with satisfaction, folding your arms as you scan the place. Everything is going smoothly. You notice a vat in the corner that hardly anyone is paying attention to. There's just one woman and a child. The mer inside has two-tone coloring like a shark. His upper body is a sandy grey and his underbelly is white. A thin strip of black divides the two tones. The child giggles as she boops the mer on the nose. At the girl's insistence, the woman gingerly touches the mer's tail, then wipes her hand on her pants.

You go over for a closer look and almost lose your shit. The mer in the vat goes by the name Dagger and he's not supposed to be anywhere near here. He's classified as a green card, but only because he hasn't been studied enough yet to label him as anything else. His species isn't aggressive but they have poor eyesight, so they tend to treat anything that comes close to their face as food.

The little girl is poking at his mouth, saying, "Look at his teeth, Mommy!"

He presses forward like he's looking for food, but by some miracle, he doesn't snap down on her tiny hand. You break out into a cold sweat and you walk over as calmly as you can.

"Hi," you say, keeping your tone soft and even. "This one is looking a little stressed. Have you seen Mocha yet? Or gotten a cute picture with Sprinkles?"

"Let's do that," the woman says, pulling the girl away. "A disabled merman isn't much fun anyway."

He's not disabled, he has bad eyesight, you want to correct her, but you only scowl.

You discreetly wave at one of the other supervisors and gesture questioningly to the mer. She gasps, her face going a little pale. She points over to one of the new employees and you sigh. Looks like someone is getting fired before they finish their first week. You crouch down to try and keep Dagger busy, offering him the back of your hand to smell so he knows you're there. He needs to go back to his tank asap, but transporting him with all these people here is a bad idea. You glance at your watch. Fifteen minutes until the petting hour is over, and then you can safely get him out of here.

Five minutes pass until Dagger decides he wants to explore what's beyond the boundaries of the vat. He sticks a hand forward, and it just so happens to land on your knee, which gets forced downward from his body weight as he pulls himself forward against the edge of the vat.

"Ten minutes," you plead. "Just stay put for ten more minutes."

His dagger-shaped tail fin makes a splash as he tries to gather the momentum to climb out. You manage to nudge him into the vat again and again for another five minutes. The crowd is filtering out at this point, taking their noise with them. The next time you push him back, he grabs your hand. He doesn't have claws, but he makes up for it with brute strength. He yanks, and you fly into the vat, banging your knees on the edge as you go.

Instinctively, the first thing you want to do is get out, but splashing and struggling is going to confuse him into thinking you're food. You go still and allow yourself to float in the meager three feet of water. You glance down at your knees, but luckily they're not bleeding, just sore. Dagger circles, bumping his tail against you and trailing his hands over your body as he sizes you up.

You can almost hear him thinking, This prey is a little too big for me to eat.

He leans in to investigate with his nose. This close, you have a good view of his smoke-colored eyes and mouth lined with those wonderfully sharp teeth. You feel the warm water flush out of his gills as he draws in a new breath. He grabs you and holds you still so he can get a better scent, pressing his nose flush against your neck as his gills flare excitedly. In times like this, you badly want to know what exactly you smell like. Can he smell the other mer on you? Do you smell like food? Like a potential mate? (The latter has happened before, much to your embarrassment).

One of your colleagues jogs over with a tranquilizer. "Why are you always the one sacrificing yourself?" They whisper.

You shake your head and hold your hand out for the syringe. You use your free hand to rub Dagger's side, just underneath his gills. He flinches from the sudden stimulation, distracted enough that he doesn't even notice the syringe sinking into his neck. Several other colleagues get into the vat to slip a metal tray underneath the mer before he falls asleep and sinks. That way, the tray can be hooked to a carrier for easy transportation. You clamber out of the vat, dripping wet, and get several pats on the shoulder. One of the managers strides in, looking like they've just emerged from an important meeting.

"Good job," they say when they hear what happened. "Risky as that was, I respect the calm approach."

"Oh, it was nothing," you mumble, but you're shaky and high from the adrenaline.

"Take the rest of the day off," the manager says. "Get yourself a warm drink and a blanket and put on your favorite TV show."

You nod wearily and glance at Dagger, who's unconscious at this point, his tail fin drooping off the edge of the carrier. "He'll be fine, right?"

The manager shakes their head at you in amusement. "Go home," they say.

The page turned. You were almost certain he hadn’t read a single word on it.

“...What?”

“A capybara. If I just woke up one day and I was one. Would you still love me?”

He finally looked up. The book lowered incrementally, like he was deciding whether this conversation merited his full attention. 

“You’d be a rodent.”

“Yes.”

A pause. “A large one.”

“The largest, technically.”

He studied you quietly. Then his eyes moved to your hands. Then your face. Then somewhere in between, the way they did when he was running through something, building a picture.

“When did this start?” he asked.

“When did what—”

“This feeling.” He’d shifted forward slightly, elbows coming to rest on his knees. “Is it gradual, or did you wake up with it? Any other symptoms like unusual heaviness, difficulty regulating temperature, peripheral vision—”

“Xavier, I’m not actually turning into a capybara.”

“You came back from the No-Hunt Zone 64 two days ago.” His voice was even, careful. “There was that protocore fragment we couldn’t fully analyze. The residual Metaflux reading was atypical. If it had a morphogenic property, something like that could theoretically—” He stopped. His eyes narrowed fractionally. “You’re not asking because of the fragment.”

“No...? I’m asking because it’s a hypothetical.”

A pause. A different kind this time.

“A hypothetical,” he repeated.

“Yes, Xavier. Just a question.”

He leaned back. Something in his face settled, the concern dissolving back into its usual calmness, though not entirely. You got the impression he was filing the fragment concern away rather than discarding it entirely.

“Oh,” he said.

Then, after a moment; “Would you still be you? Your thoughts. Your—” he gestured vaguely, the way he always did when words weren’t cooperating, “—everything else.”

“Let’s say yes. Trapped in there. Tiny capybara eyes, completely aware.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

“Then yes,” he said finally, with an assuring nod. “I’d still love you.”

“You’d just… love a capybara.”

“I’d love you.” He picked the book back up. “The body is irrelevant.”

You stared at him. He turned a page. You genuinely could not tell if he’d thought this through entirely or not at all, and somehow both possibilities were equally believable.

“Would you take me to the park? Let me sit in the water feature?”

“...The one near the east plaza is cleaner.”

“Xavier.”

“Yes?”

“You’re a little strange, you know that?”

He glanced at you over the top of his book. The corner of his mouth moved—barely, but it moved.

“You’re the one who asked about the capybara stuff.”

You settled further into the couch cushions, pulling a blanket across both of your laps. The quiet rebuilt itself easily, the way it always did between you. It was only later, when you got up to make tea and passed behind him, that you noticed his phone on the armrest. A search tab still open;

Protocore morphogenic degradation rate, fragment classification B-tier and below.

He’d looked it up. At some point during the conversation or after, he’d actually looked it up.

𝐙𝐀𝐘𝐍𝐄

Zayne was supposed to be off work, which meant he was at his desk reviewing files instead of resting, which you had long since stopped arguing about. You’d planted yourself in the armchair across from him with a book of your own, coexisting in the particular comfortable silence.

He was circling something in a case file with a red pen. You’d been watching him for a while.

“Zayne?”

“Hm?”

“Would you still love me if I barked at strangers on our date?”

The red pen stopped.

He looked up with the expression he reserved for patients who’d been ignoring his medical advice.

“Barked,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“At strangers.”

“Passersby. Fellow diners. The waiter, potentially. Anyone who caught my eye, really.”

He set the pen down with the precise measured placement of a man deciding how much of his attention this deserved, and arriving at more than he’d like. “Why,” he said, “would you do that?”

“I didn’t say I would. I asked if you’d still love me if I did.”

He looked at you for a long moment with the expression he used when distinguishing between what a patient was asking and what they actually needed to know. “Is this something you’re considering doing?”

“Hypothetically.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s a very good answer.”

He exhaled through his nose and picked up his coffee. The slight compression of his mouth was doing a great deal of work. “You’d be sitting across from me,” he said, “at a restaurant I’d made a reservation at, and you’d bark at strangers.”

“Enthusiastically.”

“I’d want to be clear,” he said, with the careful diction of someone navigating a sentence on principle, “that I would not join you.”

“You’d want to, though.”

He looks at you through the rim of his cup, not the slightest impressed. “I would not.”

“Just a little. Somewhere, deep down—”

“No.” He picked the pen back up, which clearly meant the conversation was over, except that he didn’t start writing. “I’d be mortified,” he said, to the file. “I want that stated clearly. Sitting across from someone who is barking at strangers would be… deeply embarrassing for all parties involved.”

When he reached for his cup again, there was something in the downward angle of his gaze that made him look, briefly, like he was working very hard to stay on the correct side of something.

“But you’d stay,” you said, surely.

A pause that lasted exactly long enough to be revealing.

“Yes,” he said. “I’d stay.” He finally put the pen to the paper. “I’d request a booth with better privacy next time. If it went beyond that, I’d ask for a secluded booth and request we don’t come back.” He glanced up once—quick, dry, and with that particular expression he saved for moments when he was being precise about something he didn’t fully want to say. 

“So that’s a yes. You’d still love me.”

“I already said yes.”

“You said you’d stay. I want the actual words.”

He looked at you over the rim of his glasses with the expression of a man who was aware he was being maneuvered and had decided to let it happen anyway.

“Yes,” he said. “Obviously. Don’t make it into something.”

You smiled. He went back to his file. Two minutes of quiet passed.

“You thought about it,” you said. “Barking back. Just once.”

“I did not.”

“For about half a second—”

“No,” he said, without looking up, and turned the page.

𝐑𝐀𝐅𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐋

He was on the phone with Thomas, which meant he wasn’t really—the device was balanced on the windowsill while he worked, and Thomas’s voice was becoming increasingly frantic about something exhibition-related that Rafayel had apparently agreed to and immediately forgotten. You could hear ‘I just need to confirm the timeline, Rafayel, it’s one question’ drifting across the room with the resigned energy of someone who’d been having this exact conversation for years.

Rafayel was adding a layer of cerulean to a canvas.

You waited until he’d wrapped up—a cheerful ‘we’ll talk later, Thomas, stop worrying so much, it makes you look old’—and then, in the quiet that followed;

“Would you still love me if I muted you mid-call?”

He turned around.

The brush stayed raised. His expression took a moment to fully arrive, starting at neutral and traveling through something that landed decisively in deeply, theatrically wounded.

“You’d mute me,” he repeated.

“Hypothetically.”

“You’d mute me,” he emphasized once more to give you a chance to change your answer if might.

“While you were talking, yes. Just—” you mimed the tap of a button. “Gone. Silence.”

He set the brush down. Oh, this was serious, apparently. He turned fully to face you with the particular quality of attention he usually reserved for a canvas that had started doing something interesting, except in reverse.

“Do you understand,” he said, “what it takes to get five minutes with me? Interviewers have been trying for months. Months. Thomas has a whole spreadsheet. People have written letters.” He moved closer, and there was a gleam in it now, the performance already delighting him as he built it. “My voice, specifically, has been described, and this is a direct quote—as a spiritual experience. And you would just—” another mime of the button, his own this time, accompanied by a small, mock offended exhale.

“I might.”

“You’d really do that to me?” He looked at you with his chin slightly tilted, the look he gave things he was pretending to find tragic. “After everything?”

“I said hypothetically—”

“I would never do that to you,” he said, with a slight pout on his lips. “Never. You could be telling me about your grocery list, alphabetically, reading every ingredient on every label, and I would be listening.” He picked the brush back up. “Because it’s your voice.”

“That’s very sweet, but you’ve fallen asleep on calls before—”

“I was resting my eyes.”

“You snored.”

“I rest loudly.” He turned back to the canvas. “And that is completely different from deliberately silencing someone, which is... which is frankly mean, is what it is.” He made a mark on the painting that was possibly just to have something to do with his hands. “And you want to know the worst part? I’d call back. Immediately. The second you muted me, I’d call back.”

“And if I muted you again?”

He glanced over his shoulder. The theatrics had thinned just enough for something else to show through, that particular look that came out when he forgot to keep it managed.

“I’d keep calling,” he said simply. “Until you picked up.” A pause. “You’d answer eventually. You always do.”

You opened your mouth, and closed it.

“So yes,” you said. “You’d still love me?”

“Obviously.” He turned back to the canvas. “But I’d like an apology.”

“You’d get a very small one.”

“I’d accept it.” A beat. “And then I’d make you listen to an hour of me talking on speakerphone so you understood what you’d been missing.”

“That sounds like a punishment.”

“It’s a gift,” he huffed. “You’re welcome.”

His ears, you noticed, had gone the faint pink they got when something had landed and he didn’t want to make a thing of it. You watched him paint for a while, the afternoon light doing something gold and unhurried through the studio windows.

“Yeah,” you said eventually, mostly to yourself. “I know you’d call back.”

He didn’t answer. But the pink didn’t go away.

𝐒𝐘𝐋𝐔𝐒

The record was mid-side, something slow and warm that filled the penthouse without demanding anything of it. Sylus was at the shelf, turning a small piece of amber over in his fingers—opaque, irregular, genuinely unspectacular, which was probably exactly why he’d bought it. The N109 Zone glittered below the windows in its usual state of low, industrious chaos.

You were on the couch. The question had been sitting in your head for about ten minutes looking for an opening.

“Would you still love me if I turned into a mashed potato?”

He didn’t stop turning the amber. But the small rhythm of it paused for just a beat.

“Mashed potato,” he said, to the shelf.

“Yes.”

He put the amber down and turned around, and the look on his face was already doing something. The kind of expression that meant he’d decided this was going to be interesting.

“I’d eat you,” he said.

“Excuse me—”

“You said mashed potato.” He walked toward the couch in a lax manner. “If you turn into a food, I’d eat you. That’s just logical.”

“That’s horrifying.”

“You brought up the potato.” He settled at the other end of the couch, that almost-smile still exactly where it had been, and there was a brightness to his expression now—the particular animation that came out when something genuinely entertained him. “Though I’ll be honest with you—” he tilted his head, “—if you turned into an antique vinyl, I’d play you. Every evening. I’d know every skip, every worn groove.” A pause. “You’d be my favorite song.”

You opened your mouth and found you had nothing to say.

“And if you became a stone—” he continued, as though this were a perfectly normal progression of thought, “—even if it’s not a particularly shiny one—” a look, brief, that dared you to argue, “—I’d have the finest display case in the N109 Zone built around you. Velvet lining. Lighting that costs more than most people’s apartments.” He paused, apparently considering the specifics. “You’d be the centerpiece.”

“You’d put me in a display case...” you deadpanned.

“I’d cherish you in a display case.” He reached over and took the glass from your hand with the calm ease of someone who’d decided it was his now. “The mashed potato, though—yes. Eaten. Immediately. I don’t negotiate with potatoes.”

“You can’t just—”

“Kitten.” The almost-smile finished becoming a wider one. “Yes. Obviously yes. To every version of you.” He sipped the drink. “Though I do prefer this one. She asks better questions.”

The record reached the end of its side. The needle tracked quietly through the runout groove—a soft, repeating hiss that neither of you moved to stop.

“You’d really have a display case built?”

“I’d commission it tonight, if you want,” he said, without any hesitation at all, in the tone of someone who was only partly joking and very much wanted you to sit with not knowing which part.

You looked at him for a moment. The amber piece was still on the shelf where he’d left it. He’d turned it over in his hand for twenty times by now.

“You and your collection,” you huff.

Something shifted in his expression. “Everything I collect,” he said, “I keep.” He handed your glass back. “That’s the only rule I’ve ever applied consistently.”

The record hissed on. You leaned back into the cushions, and a moment later his arm settled along the back of the couch—not quite around you, but close enough that the warmth of it reached you anyway.

𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐁

He’d been talking about wind shear for about six minutes, which you understood was a real and serious phenomenon and also that Caleb would talk about it for six more minutes without noticing if you let him. His hands kept moving,  tracing the shape of an approach path in the air between you, unconsciously, the way they always did when he was explaining something he actually cared about.

“—and the thing about crosswind correction is that most people overcorrect, they lose confidence in the aircraft when actually—” He caught your expression. “You stopped listening, Pips.”

“I’ve been listening.”

“You went somewhere else around the three-minute mark.”

“I came back.”

He laughed, easy and quick in the way that things were easy when it was just you, no rank involved, no distance between now and all the years before it. “Sorry. I know it’s not exactly—”

“No, keep going,” you said. “Actually… First, would you still love me if I clapped when the plane landed? Every time?”

He stopped.

The laugh was still fading from his face, which made the pause funnier—him sitting there mid-expression, recalibrating.

“Clapped?” he repeated to make sure.

“Applause. Full clap. Maybe a little cheer.”

“Every landing?”

“Every single one.”

He ran his tongue over his teeth, and that was the tell, that was what he did when he was actually thinking about something rather than just reacting. Then he laughed again, properly this time, a little helpless, tilting his head back.

“You’d be embarrassed,” he said. “Right? You’d be the only one. Everyone else just collects their bags and you’re just—” he clapped three times, slowly, demonstrating, “—putting in full effort while everyone looks at you.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t be embarrassed.”

“You’d be a little embarrassed.” He was grinning now. “Though I guess, I’d be the only pilot alive with someone in arrivals who actually clapped.” He considered this with some satisfaction. “That’s not nothing.”

“So that’s a yes.”

“I mean, obviously, yes.” He shook his head, still grinning. “But here’s the thing—” and something shifted in his expression, “—I’ve taken you up, what, four, five times now? Private aircraft. Smooth approaches every one of them.” He tilted his head. “You never clapped.”

“I was trying to be cool.”

“You were trying to be cool.” He repeated it like he was tasting how absurd it was. “For me. You’ve known me since we were kids. I’ve seen you apologize to the wall after accidentally hitting it. And you were trying to be cool.”

“Don’t make it weird—”

“It’s a little weird.” He pointed at you. “You were sitting right there in the co-pilot seat and you stuck the landing and I didn’t get anything. Not even a little—” he did a small, pointed golf clap.

“I said thank you.”

“You said nice.”

“That’s a compliment—”

“Nice.” He said it again, flat, like he was reading a verdict. “Four years of flight school. Ten thousand hours. And all I get is nice.” But the grin was back now, brighter than before, the one that had nothing self-conscious in it. “Next time I take you up—” he leaned forward, elbows on knees, “—when we land, and we will land perfectly because I am excellent at my job—you clap. As much as you want. Make a whole thing of it. Stand up. Whistle if you feel moved.”

“You just want someone to clap for you.”

“I want you to clap for me,” he said, easy as anything, like the distinction barely needed explaining. “Which is different.”

He sat back and went back to the wind shear explanation like that had been a completely normal sentence to drop into the middle of a Sunday afternoon. When your knee ended up against his on the couch, he didn’t move.

He glanced down at it once. Then back up at whatever middle-distance thing he was describing with his hands.

Starting to get sleepy by the time I write for Rafa, but heeey, we must continue (˶˃𐃷˂˶)