#(probably yeah)

PAGE 08

Yeah sure

Summary: Just me blabbering about this super cute idea I had about a reader who’s an object/dateable, a mermaid decoration in a fish tank and their hypothetical friendship and relationship with Hector as the house wallflowers.

Warnings: The reader is referred to as mermaid which would mean that they’re fem and would use she/her pronouns, but there’s no mention of anything like anatomy since they are literally just one of those porcelain figurines that you see sometimes in fish tanks and decor. Also, the specific relationship between Hector and the reader is never actually specifically mentioned to be romantic, so if you want you could see it as platonic too. That or you could imagine it as a friends-to-lovers thing. Typically Hector stuff. Honestly, I don’t think anything too bad is in here or could cause problems except for that.

Everyone always hypes up the fantasy of being a mermaid, but if you had to be entirely honest it was actually kind of (really) boring

Well, then again you technically aren’t a real mermaid anyways. You’re actually just a porcelain figurine that the homeowner put in their fish tank in the living room for decoration. Yeah, you’re not even the fish tank itself, which might have been just a little bit cooler, you’re just the pretty little decoration sitting inside

But you suppose you’re being a little bit dramatic. After all life isn’t so bad. You were still able to see and interact with everyone in the living room, and with where the tank is positioned, you can even see outside too. So you could definitely interact with everyone else. You got to see Chairmi rehearse, Telly and Connie were entertaining to talk to. And you could even join in on Curt and Rod’s judging of the entire neighborhood. Matter of fact they keep you updated on the on going saga of the mystery woman who comes over after the girlfriend of the couple who lives two doors down is. Rod fully believes that the boyfriend’s cheating, but Curt has a theory that she’s actually the boyfriend’s relative of some kind.

“I don’t know. That hug they do doesn’t give off ‘you’re my side piece’ vibes. Plus, they kinda got the same face.” “Maybe they’re just putting on an act to throw any suspicion off of them. I mean, how often do people really visit their sibling or cousin, hm? And how come it’s always when the girlfriend leaves?”

You’re personally on the fence. You can’t really see the ordeal yourself, but both of them make very interesting points

So yeah. Maybe not entirely boring. But the days do just sort of blend together when most of them consist of sitting in the water watching the day go, and the fish in the tank swim around with their blank (but still cute) stares and occasionally pecking left over fish flacks on the gravel.

That was until you met your part time neighbor right above you, Hector

You can’t really remember the day you formally met or how you started talking in the first place. You suppose the both of you were just really bored one night and you finally noticed that he was up there and he noticed that you were down there. After that, you guys formed a pretty solid acquaintance-ship, if you’d say so yourself

You two mostly had small talk whenever Hector came to the living room vent to maintain the room temperature for the homeowner and observe them since you initially figured that it gets a little boring to just watch the same person all the time

You were proven wrong when he proceeded to pour out his heart, barely prompted, about them. I mean, you get it. Maybe you don’t yearn for and fantasize about them as much as he does. But you can understand.

After a while you two get closer. Talk about whatever comes to mind. Eventually you learn about his book and he has the confidence in you to not judge. And in turn you start to open up about yourself with him. For the most part you fill him in on the fish drama in the tank like how Mr. Bubbles has been fighting his reflection in the glass again. Or how Sheldon the filter snail can’t seem to understand the concept of personal space

Sometimes you gossip. Not to the level of Scandalabra and Bathsheba or Curt and Rod. But when somethings new, might as well talk about it, no? After all people/object watching is just about to only thing wallflowers like you can get up to outside of the usual

You guess in a way you two also just stumbled into having more deeper talks through that too

Hector confided in you just how much he wishes he had the confidence to leave the vents and the attic, but that he thinks that world would just reject him and cast him out due to his appearance. You felt a little bad for him and tried your best to comfort him. But then again, you can’t really say much to help since you yourself have never actually seen his face. But you tell him that you think he’s pretty great and would be there for him if he ever did decide to brave the world. You also encourage him to actually talk to the homeowner since he likes them so much, and just watching them doesn’t really get the possible train of a relationship going.

You also opened up to him about your struggles too. Like how you feel like you’re trapped in such a tiny bubble inside of the tank. You see everyone else get to live out such fulfilling purposes and do interesting and fun things, meanwhile all you do is sit in the water making up personalities and names for fish and filter feeding snails, only occasionally getting to be a part of conversations with the others. You actually admitted to him, much to his surprise, that you were even jealous of him because he actually had a purpose compared to you

And you even shared with him the one time that you wished for, more than anything, that you’ve never said to anyone else, was that you always longed to visit the sea. The one place that you knew deep in your porcelain body that you belonged.

“Sometimes… in the night when the house is dark and the night time setting is on for the tanks light. I like to close my eyes and pretend I’m in the sea and the light is the moon coming in through the water. And that’s Mr. Bubbles is a whale or a shark passing over head.” “That sounds nice.” “It is.”

You always just settled for the fantasy until Skyler and the Dateveators came. Nothing much happened in the beginning. You just talked to the homeowner and let them get to know you. Occasionally telling them about the fish drama. It wasn’t until you were having another one of your deep conversations with Hector, mentioning how you wished you had the ability to leave the tank, that he simply said “Well, why don’t you just ask?”

You think you actually managed to fluster him pretty bad when you realized that was an opinion. “Hector! You’re a genius! Why didn’t I think of that?!”

You will admit that after that you were a bit nervous. You were actually going to leave the tank and go to new rooms in the house, meet fresh new faces! That was amazing! That was one of your dreams! But you realized that there were so many rooms with so many other objects. That’s kind of overwhelming.

That’s when you asked something of Hector, something that you think might have actually deepened your friendship even more. You asked him if he would watch over you while you went room from room when the homeowner dried you off and placed you around.

“Please? You have a vent in almost every room and I wouldn’t know anyone else there. You don’t need to talk or anything if you don’t want to, but if I know you’re there then maybe I’d feel more comfortable since I’ll have someone.”

To say that he’s honored that you would find solace knowing that he’s there with you, let alone that you find a sense of solace and comfort with him at all and value him so much is an understatement. Of course he says yes!

After that, things changed. A lot of things changed. The homeowner took you out of the tank, dried you off, and started to place you in a new room of the house every day so that you spend that time meeting everyone in the specific room. You met a lot of new people. You finally discovered the couple who were always fighting were Harper and Dirk.

You were placed on Dasha and got to meet everyone in the office, with Chance admiring your design. Mac started calling you web surfer. And Jerry offered to hold onto anything you and the fish might not want anymore. The gesture was nice but you didn’t want to enable him.

You got to… experience… Johnny and Jean Loo’s… singing… in the bathroom. Amir looking at you with pity and apology as you witnessed it was also the first interaction you ever had with him too. Though he did eventually get to complementing you on your beautiful features in his usual fashion

And somehow the Hanks’ energy was so infectious that you think you just agreed to letting them do extreme scuba diving in the fish tank, whatever that means. You’re not entirely sure, something about paragliding off of the winds from Hector running the HVAC system and diving into the water of the tank

But when all is said and done and you return to the fish tank, you feel a new sense of happiness inside of you knowing that things are actually coming together for you

When you talk about your adventure with Hector he sounds so happy for you and tells you that he was so happy that he got to see such a close friend be so happy about their dreams coming true