#jjafe

The lights in the unit were never totally out, but no one wanted eye strain from pushing it without the overhead fluorescents. The teeny battery must have been dying, only powering enough of a glow for the artist to see his work, but Rafe’s sharp blue eyes were able to make out that he’s sketching their cell, and that it wasn’t very good. Perspective was all wonky, he was pressing too hard in some of the shading, he left the top bunk empty. 

“Don’t know why you’re trying to document this place,” Rafe murmured, picking up JJ’s attention with that practiced timbre that only cellmates can catch. “There’s nothing here that I want to remember when I leave.” In eight years, ten months, and sixteen days. 

The little pencil kept scratching on the page as he filled in the shadow below the sink, and he ignored the snark. He was always quiet in the cell— quite the contrast to how he ribbed around with the other inmates during the day, in the cafeteria, out in the yard. JJ arrived a few months ago and didn’t make the typical mistake of over-exerting his presence, bowing up to a huge guy to establish dominance and hilariously getting body slammed into a bench. No, he was just… easygoing. Talkative. Always offered to spot other guys at the racks and didn’t argue about what the TV was set to in the rec room. He even joked around with Rafe playing bones with the chipped dominoes, so he knew it wasn’t anything personal when they retreated to their hole and the boy went mute. 

Still… it stung when the bids for attention were left hanging. He kept trying. 

“Are you ever gonna really tell me why you’re here?” Rafe prodded. He knew it was bad etiquette, and he didn’t go around taking a census of everyone he met, but he figured it’d be in his best interest to ask about the recent history of the man he slept above each night. 

Except— he was annoyingly secretive about it. Not that he refused to talk about it, the opposite; in the short time he’d shared a cell with the guy, he’d heard no less than six different crimes that landed him there. None of the guards cared to spill, and nobody went to the same courthouse as him to corroborate or deny his stories, so he seemingly rolled with whatever popped into his mind when questioned in casual conversation. Burned down a Wendy’s. Caught moving six hundred pounds of green. Dogfighting bookie. Busted selling counterfeit Yeti cups to suburban moms. It was clearly a joke to him, something to brush off the discussion and move back to who’s supposed to deal the next round. 

Amateur. Rafe was too nosy for that aversion. 

“M’not gonna judge you,” he added, honestly. “I mean, if you touched kids, you’d already be with the other chomos. So what happened? You try to outrun a cop and realize you can’t outrun the radio?”

That got a soft laugh, just a little puff out of his nose, and for him to look up. His angular face caught the underlighting around his cheekbones and eyes, crinkled up at his bunkmate. “Why do you wanna know so bad?”

Rafe lifted a land lazily, a shrug without even using his shoulders. “Bonding.”

Another giggle. JJ went back to filling in the texture of the concrete walls. Bed checks had been about fifteen minutes ago, meaning no one would poke around their cell for another hour or so. Rafe clambered off the bunk until his light feet hit the floor, then dropped down to sit cross-legged on the cement. 

“Do you know why I’m here?” It’s a peace offering: a reminder that, most likely, nobody had any room to judge if they were in the same damn cell. Information wasn’t free, anyways.

Tough to tell if he’d piqued his interest when he wordlessly flipped the page over and started sketching on the back. A few more moments of silence and Rafe would’ve yielded and crawled back up the ladder, conceding to try another day. 

“You killed your old man.”

The story was out but slightly skewed. Rafe had no issue admitting the charges on him— driving under the influence, vehicular manslaughter. Multiple bad decisions in a single night, his father shouting at him in the passenger seat, a thick tree trunk that came out of nowhere, swerving to avoid it and— nothing more. He woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed with nurses that sneered at him and a preset court date. 

“Yeah.” Rafe thumbed at a crack in the floor, then gagged when his hand came up dirtied. He wiped it on his canvas pants. “So it’s not like I’m here for donating too much to charity. I’ve fucked up. You can tell me.”

If he wasn’t encouraging him to open up, he was at least entertaining. JJ’s lip curled up into a little smirk, but it disappeared when he pressed his lips together uncomfortably. Rafe was inches from almost pouting, begging to know what was so awful he couldn’t confide in someone who pinned his flesh and blood father between the center console and a hundred-ten year old magnolia. But just before he jutted out his lower lip—

“Same reason as you, actually.”

His jaw dropped. “No shit.” It was a hair too loud, and the burly guy next door stirred. They both froze, waiting for the creaking to stop as he found his sleep again, then Rafe continued. “Sorry, just— really?”

JJ nodded. “It wasn’t the same, though. I meant to do it, and I’d do it again if I had the chance.”

If ever there was a time to shut up, Rafe knew this was it. This chick had to hatch alone. 

“He… didn’t treat me too good. I guess one day, I just snapped.” He wouldn’t make eye contact now. JJ focused entirely on his drawing until the pointed tip of lead broke off his little pencil. He sighed, then pressed the pad of his index finger against the loose graphite. “I beat him with a whiskey bottle. He was chasing after me, trying to choke me out, and I grabbed the first thing I found. I know one hit would’ve been fine, but once I saw him on the ground, finally defenseless—”

JJ pinched the lead tip until it crumbled between his fingers. He brushed it off his bed, careful not to fling it too hard towards Rafe. Still didn’t look at him, though. 

“I know I probably deserve to be somewhere worse. For longer. But the judge went easy on me.” His lids fluttered shut and he leaned his head on one of the bars of his bed. “I lifted my shirt at one of my hearings, and I still had marks on my ribs and chest from him. The man was dead, and you could still see what he did to me. Hard to walk away from that with more than the minimum sentencing, in a prison far from the rest of his family.”

He went back to drawing, face pinched in concentration as he worked with the broken graphite. It was a good thing the kid wouldn’t make eye contact, because Rafe’s were probably bugging out of his head. JJ couldn’t— he wouldn’t hurt anyone. He didn’t even like watching WWE. Not like Rafe didn’t know the idea of a limit being broken, though. 

“It wasn’t an accident,” he blurted, and JJ finally, finally looked up from his paper. His brows were furrowed, and Rafe gasped when he realized what he’d just admitted. “What I did. Everyone thinks it was, even my lawyers and family.”

He thought for a moment he’d already said too much, but there was no stopping the words that spilled out. 

“My father was an evil, powerful man, and I’m not the only one he…” Rafe’s thoughts drifted away, gaze locking on the scuffed wall behind his cellmate. “I had to stop him and I didn’t care if it killed me. Literally. I don’t know how I’m alive, I thought I drove hard enough into the tree to take us both out. I told the cops I was on coke and a saliva test came back positive because I’d done it the night before. I…” He remembered what JJ said earlier. “I’d do it again, too. Fuck, I’d try different methods to see which felt the best. I don’t care. And I don’t remember much, but I hope it wasn’t instant. I hope he suffered.”

Several beats passed before he caught his breath. Jesus Christ. What was wrong with him? He blinked hard, scanning over the boy’s face for some indication that he’d gone too far, that he’d revealed what a disturbed fuck he really was. One whiff of connection and he sang like a canary. 

The Todd on the Rocks drifted slowly into its designated space in the marina; Rafe had been burned by the no-wake rule once, and he was just too tired to actually steer the vessel with the sensitive engine, so he let the bay waters do the work for him. 

Fourteen grueling hours. Alone. He couldn’t remember when the trips went from Barry showing him the trawling ropes to Barry drinks a lot in the cab while Rafe does all the work to Barry still expects him to go out and fill the pots even when he’s too hungover to show up, but he definitely knows he’s not a fuckin’ apprentice anymore. Shouldn’t be paid like one either.

When the hull bumped into the rubber lining of the pier, he dug out the ropes to tie up the bollards with the right amount of slack. The final cleat caught his slightly too-big boot, and he tripped getting back into the boat. 

A big gale pushed Rafe a few steps, forcing his head back and ripping the Tar Heels ballcap off his hairline. He couldn’t scramble for it fast enough; the robin egg, sweat-stained hat with its frayed embroidered logo was whisked away into the darkness. He could just barely see it land and bob along the bay’s surface about fifteen feet from the boat. 

Goddamnit. Spent the whole day out on the water and the cap didn’t budge, but the second he tied up at the docks, it’s gone. He watched it float away and thought back to the game he bought it for— crushed by the Pirates in overtime. Maybe that was a sign.

Something in his exhausted mind told him to jump, to go after it. No one was watching, and he’s a decent swimmer. Then he remembered what people say about cutting their losses and skulked back to the cages.

The aramid gloves clung to his pruned fingers when he yanked them off. He flexed and clenched his fists to get accustomed to full movement and stuffed the pair into the frocket of his overalls. Rafe rolled his neck from side to side, and jumped out of his skin when something hit the dock with a loud splat.

Disgusting imagery flooded his mind— nothing you can escape when working out on the seas. Swollen fish that float to the top for a glimpse of fresh air before the sunlight makes them burst. Juvenile whales that carry on swimming with massive bites taken from their flesh, red and shiny and pulsing when they playfully break the surface to say hi. Pelicans that gorge themselves on menhaden after long flights until their stomach chambers could handle no more and they vomited pink and silver viscera onto the piers. The ocean is a disgusting place, and he winced preemptively at what he was gonna have to scrape off his deck this time. 

But instead of something he’d have to pinch his nose to clean up, there was just a squished pile of baby blue fabric. 

Hold on.

He rubbed his drying knuckles against his eyes, like maybe he was imagining the delivery, but the lump remained. Rafe approached it slowly, not tearing his eyes away from the misshapen ball of worn canvas that pooled a halo around it. He squatted down to pick it up, shaking off the water and sea tangle that had clung to it. It could’ve used a good wash before it hit the bay, but otherwise was in perfect condition. 

Rafe stood quickly and leaned over the edge of the boat, scanning along the waters. Could a dolphin have flipped it back up onto the deck? Sometimes they hovered around the idling boats in the hopes that someone dumped off a bit of chum, and they’re pretty smart. Surely it had earned a little piece of meat for the trouble, and for giving him a hell of a story to tell at parties. If he ever went to one. 

Through the warping surface, he couldn’t make out any cetaceans, no slick gray skin wriggling along the boat’s edge. There was, for a flash of a moment, a glimpse of flaxen hair. A lithe and pale body darting in the water, marlin-fast. 

Wait. Hair?

He extended even further, white-knuckling the railing and ducking his head as far down as he was brave enough to go. Swimming around the pier is certainly not recommended—nobody wanted to be diced up by propellers of yachts that were more blind spot than not. That wasn’t even to mention how fuckin’ cold the water had to be this time of night.

But he knew what he saw. The water flipped and roiled around, something of a storm on the horizon churning the bay around more than usual, but nothing came back up. Well, except for one sheepshead that made him flinch and stagger away from the edge. Rafe shook his head, looked back to the coolers that he’d have to load into the truck and drop off at the warehouse fridges. It’s just… been a long day, that’s all.

Well. At least he got his hat back. 

***

The key slid into the lock easily, the first sign something was amiss. Rust and sea air had corroded the face over time, and he’d grown accustomed to the crunch of pins bending into place. There was no give when he twisted the metal, not when he adjusted the fit or checked to see he hadn’t accidentally used the key to his truck’s toolbox somehow. His eyes fell to the doormat, black coir covered in sand, and noticed a thin piece of paper tucked under the corner. The bucket in his hand clattered to the ground as he scrambled to pick it up and he scanned over the words— failure to pay and termination of residency and eviction.

Godfuckingdamnit. He told Sam he’d get paid next week and the rent would be covered, but he must not have been paying attention. Maybe his luck had run out the last few times he pushed it like this. He crumpled the clearly computer-generated notice in his hands and shook his head out. 

Well, he wasn’t sleeping in the damn truck. 

Around the back of the house, he slunk to where he knew the window over the kitchen sink didn’t latch right. Rafe wriggled the pane open, hoisted himself up, and tried not to kick off the spigot when maneuvering his lanky body through the gap. Probably not the best move in the unit from which he’d just been evicted. 

Rafe rolled his shoulders back, extended himself out in the small living space he called his own. A pot of cloudy water sat on the stovetop; he emptied it, refilled the water and turned on the burner to get a boil going. 

The hat had been shoved into his overalls with the gloves, which he tossed onto the table along with his pocketknife and keys. It was already drying, dusty from the salt and developing a slight odor. He rinsed the fabric in the sink, debated using a bit of dish soap and settling on a tiny drop that foamed up excessively and left the hat smelling like Dawn. 

He fetched the bucket from outside, carefully pulled the young slate-tinted crab from the ice, and placed it on the counter. It was humane, compared to just dropping it into the water and letting it scald and shriek to death, but he still had to close his eyes whenever he did this. As he reached for the thick cleaver on the other side of the hob, the crab suddenly jolted to life again and pinched down on the thin flesh of his thumb. He hissed, yanking back his hand and groaning at the blood that already pooled around the knuckle. 

Damn, okay. That made it easier. He lifted the blade and slammed it down onto the body, perfectly bisecting it in a blink. He dropped the halves into the rolling water. 

When he’d signed the lease for this shithole a few months ago, a hideous gray tabby lingered around the porch, screeching out for attention and food. The landlord had promised to take care of that whenever he got around to it, but Rafe waved him off and said he didn’t mind. No collar, notched ear. Shouldn’t be an issue.

He looked it up, made sure he wouldn’t accidentally kill the poor stray with a good deed, and Google frightened him into giving the little guy his own steamed seafood banquet after some of his shifts. Their orders were for stone crabs, but every few pulls, they’d get a stray blue. If it was big enough, he’d keep it in a separate container to bring home for… the pest he hadn’t named yet. Probably never would. 

Rafe shut the burners off once the body of the crab turned a shiny orange and used a fork to fish the pieces out of the water. He scraped out steaming bits of meat onto a paper plate, blew at where his fingertips pinched the blistering shell, and trashed the hollowed animal in the garbage. 

The tom purred up a storm while he chewed. Rafe’s own stomach growled, but he just swirled a beer. There’ll be more meals tomorrow, he reminded himself, and stood up to shut off the patio light. 

***

Barry wiped a grimy hand across his brow, dragging what looked like grease over his forehead and mixing it with the sweat that collected there. He hadn’t gone down to the engine room yet— God knew what he was smearing around on his face. “Didn’t pull much yesterday.”

His perspiration was the result of the weather, not labor, as he oversaw Rafe packing up the cages for the next trip. He did clean the knives and untangle the ropes, the easier tasks that Rafe liked to save for last as a cooldown, but the moment physical effort came into the picture? He was plopping onto a rusted drum and reaching into the pocket of his waders for the Camels he kept in there. 

If the way he slammed down the next cage bothered Barry, he didn’t say anything about it. “I was out there literally sun up to sun down,” Rafe muttered, kinda wishing he’d get offered a cig of his own. As if. 

“Funny how that don’t translate to more crab, huh?” Barry snapped his fingers, pointing to the hoop nets Rafe was about to trip on, then grimaced when he kicked them out of the way instead of ballet stepping over them. “Easiest job in the world. I send you out there to nap and jack off, and you can barely fill the orders I give you.”

The mark on Rafe’s temple throbbed and his palm shot to press against his browbone. It had been a couple weeks since Barry’s shoddy stack of crab pots collapsed onto him and sliced his face up, but the lacerations had yet to fully heal and remained sensitive in the sun or when he sweat too much— hence, the stupid hat. He leaned over to stabilize the pots he was currently arranging. 

Not looking for a fight, he ignored the chiding. He had other things on his mind. Like— “You ever seen anyone swimming around the docks?”

Barry laughed around a pull, clearly caught off guard as the smoke sputtered out and lingered around his head. “The hell? No.”

“Are you sure? Like, someone accid—”

“Not a chance.” His boss snorted roughly, then spat what he’d collected into the water behind him. “Half the boats aren’t wired right. You’d fry the second you get in.”

Rafe stopped mid-crouch, blinking up at him through the sunlight. “Huh? That doesn’t make sense. How would any fish swim near the piers if the water is electrified?”

“Do I look like a fuckin’ scientist?” Barry held his arms out like he was really expecting an answer. 

The circles under Barry’s eyes were heavy, dark purple, and it was evident his clothes were less than fresh out the washer. Parts of his lower teeth that flashed when he talked were worn down from his habit of chewing the tabs of his Red Bull cans. His fingertips were nicotine stained and it looked like they also functioned as his only comb.

So, honestly? The answer was yes. But he didn’t feel like scrubbing the dock for the rest of the day, so he kept his mouth shut. 

***

Days off were spent, funny enough, back on the water. 

He stretched his arm back and twisted forward to launch the hook, smiled at the reel’s purring. The canoe rocked a bit from side to side, splashing in the marsh water before stabilizing again. Rafe tightened the line and rested the entire rod against the wall of the small boat, adjusted the bandage on his thumb, then reached down for his can of Busch. 

It wasn’t that the irony was lost on him; he should be with friends and family he didn’t have, staying dry, maybe hosting a nice barbecue and not thinking about anything with gills. It’s true, if he laid eyes on anything remotely crustacean today or was tasked with fixing a shitty engine two presidential terms past its replace by date, he would have a massive breakdown that’d land him on the news. It’s why he appreciated the meditation of a good catch-and-release, the legality of a beer when not operating a motor, and bobbing along in the classically manual canoe. Can’t have mechanical failure on an oar.

Tautness ripped at the line. Rafe jumped, setting down the can and clutching at the rod before it could be yanked into the water. He reeled in, fighting against what had to be a sturgeon that wandered in from further out of the bay. If it got too rowdy, he’d cut the line and mourn the hook, but he wasn’t about to wrangle anything onto his canoe just to toss it back.

As the line shortened and the spool thickened, nothing thrashed in the water. Whatever he caught, it had entirely resigned to being dragged out of the water. 

Probably because it was another ballcap. Certainly not one of his— it appeared to be a child’s, possibly bright red upon purchase but faded in the sun and salt to a cool salmon. The hook hadn’t snagged it by mistake, with the barb forced through the stiff paperboard of the brim so harshly that the point was dulled. 

What the fuck?

Tugging the metal out harshly enough to bend it, Rafe threw the hook and line down to inspect the hat. Nothing printed on it, no identifiable marks or names written in Marks-a-Lot inside the shell. It had probably been in the marsh for weeks, some kid tourist left squinting for the rest of his boat ride after not adjusting the strap. How the hell it got caught on his line, he—

Dawn-cold water splashed at his back. Rafe gasped, entire body contracting like a tangled puppet as chills tore down his spine. Once his brain finished rebooting, he spun around to catch only a flutter in the surface. Gone again.

“Hello?” Rafe called out dumbly. Cringed at himself. He was getting punk’d by a fucking fish. 

The surface rumbled again, a shadowy figure slipping out of the grassy reeds, and the water was breached by a messy head of golden hair. 

Rafe had heard about the uncanny valley before— via an Instagram reel, not any learning institution or textbook— the evolutionary urge to drop and run at the sight of a person that just looked wrong. Protected us from disease-riddled corpses and less-developed hominids when we failed to keep our hands to ourselves. It all sounded like video game lore to him, a convenient explanation for why people think animatronics and too much plastic surgery look creepy. 

His dubiety in the concept stood strong. Because when he laid eyes on this almost human but not quite creature, unsettled is the very last possible word he’d use to describe himself. 

The boy only surfaced enough to expose his collarbones, angular and sloping into toned shoulders. He shook his head out, blinked up at Rafe with soft blue eyes and a gentle smirk. He softly treaded the water with non-webbed hands, and Rafe was ultimately sure that this was a perfectly normal boy taking an ill-advised swim in the marsh and fucking around with his relaxation time. 

Well. Except for the part where he was piscine from the waist down.

Leaning back in the water, letting the sunlight hit every scale south of his hips, he extended his arms out to the sides. The sight made him wince— Rafe was much tanner than him, at least, in the parts of his body that he left exposed during work. Surely a waterborne creature hanging around the surface so much would’ve crisped up a bit. Three slices across his left ribcage blinked and fluttered under the water; above, they flattened against his body. His torso was lean, strong arms and a sculpted chest that flexed down into tight abs and fading into the scaly edge of his tail.

And Jesus, his tail. 

Iridescent, a dark green base and glimmering purple and blue in the sun. Thick and heavy, controlled as if a single muscle, it tapered down into a flared translucent fin at the end. It looked not like a sleeve with full human legs stuffed inside, but like it was simply a part of his body. It was. The tail undulated and waved through the water, contracting enough to keep him afloat. The boy finally opened his eyes, caught Rafe staring him down, and flicked the end to splash some water up onto the canoe. He flinched a bit, but didn’t stop looking.

“Thank you for returning my hat,” he blurted, then glanced at the still-dripping gift in his hands. “I mean, if that was you. Surely I can only experience so much weird shit at once that isn’t connected, right?”

The boy broke out into a smile and, God, it was like sunshine in a single face. 

Rafe was bad at this. “Do you… know English?”

He nodded. Batted away a curious bluegill that was nibbling at the caudal of his tail. “Speak a little, too.” His torso contracted and he bent to close in on the canoe, leaning his arms on the walls and bobbing with it. “Crab guy.”

“That’s me,” he blurted, then wondered if he should reciprocate. “Mer…man?”

“Whatever you want,” the boy shrugged, peeled at the chipping paint and dropped it into the water. “You can call me JJ, though.”

Questions tumbled from the back of his mind to his mouth, but his lips didn’t move. Rafe watched the way he interacted with the water, the way the shallow marsh forced him to fold slightly. 

“Y’know, there are better places to pull crab,” JJ said simply, drifting to the side in the water, letting the gentle waves take him wherever they pleased. “I can show you. The next time you’re out there.”

Rafe bit his lip. The idea had occurred to him before, of course. Barry had been pretty specific about the places where he was able to park the boat, very explicitly drawn out the permitted zones with maps scrawled with big NO!s in the sections he knew were more rife. Something about local conservation ordinances trying to keep guys like them from scraping the ecosystem dry.

“I don’t… I have to put the ship where he tells me.”

The boy lifted his shoulders detachedly and Rafe’s eyebrows knitted together. Why would he give up that information, anyways? Sell out his fellow oceanlife to an obvious threat? Was he something of a predator himself?

But— Barry had been on his ass a lot lately about how much he was pulling in. The mental image of full cages and heavier paychecks lit a fire in his stomach. Would he even know where he took the boat?

Before he could change his mind, JJ flipped back under. “I— wait!” Rafe called, then face palmed. He couldn’t hear him through the water. 

He plopped back down on the seat of the canoe, water slapping the sides at the sudden motion. Maybe he’d catch him again when he docked next, and he’d see if the offer—

JJ reappeared on the other side of him, and didn’t shake out his hair before spitting out, “Meet me near the outer buoys next week.”

***

Rafe’s hands buzzed with electricity as he deliberately steered the ship the wrong way seven days later. It had been too long since he indulged his old rebellious streak.

A sharp whistle drew him out of the cab and he cut the engine. JJ shielded his face from the sun with an extended hand, and grinned when he waved hello. It was a struggle describing a location underwater that Rafe couldn’t possibly see, but with new directions to sail out past the last breakers and three minutes towards the sun, they broke apart again.

He parked the boat where he was instructed and watched the radar. Compared to the zone map, the Todd was only just out of the forbidden areas. Still kilometers away from the planned route he’d followed by routine since he was hired. His hands still hadn’t stopped shaking. 

“You’re right fuckin’ above ‘em,” JJ called with a mouth full of water. “Ugh. Sorry. Are your traps ready?”

“Yep, pig’s feet all loaded up. Drop it here?” Rafe asked, then leaned forward to see out of the window. JJ affirmed and flipped back under the water. He pressed the button that automatically released the pots and stepped out into the sun. 

His gaze repeatedly flicked back to the coast, towards where he should be. Barry hadn’t been out on the water in weeks. He’d have no idea if Rafe took her to Bermuda for a weekend if he somehow filled the order anyways. Still, he drummed his fingers nervously on the railing as JJ reemerged.

“So, how does this work?” Rafe asked. “You gonna fill them up by hand? Your hands’re gonna look like hell—”

“They’re full.”

“Shut up, dude. It takes hours to fill.”

JJ laughed, and Rafe’s stomach twisted in a way he had to quickly digest. “I know. I told you, there’s a ton of them here. Pull it up if you don’t believe me.”

The winch cranked up, promisingly strained and groaning, until the pots broke the surface tension and— yep, stuffed full of writhing, healthy crabs. “Oh my God.”

Muscle memory kicked in. He popped the lid on the trap and plucked the first available, a squirmy female with a gorgeous set. He fished in his waders pocket for his gauge and measured both, then twisted off the crusher and pincer and tossed them into the clean water bucket. By the time he returned the now-scavenger to the water, he exhaled around a laugh. Easily half the order in a single pull. 

“Fuck. This is unreal. I haven’t had a trip this lucky since the days after Ophelia. You’re a lifesaver.”

“What’re you gonna do with all your newfound free time?” JJ asked, laying flat in the water.

“Well… I won’t be able to do this every time,” Rafe snorted, shaking his head out still. “He’d get too suspicious and ask questions. But maybe once every week or two…”

“Can I have one?” he asked.

Part of Rafe wanted to crack wise about why he wanted a piece of his load when he had the entire ocean to his disposal, but not when he’d just been gifted such a golden goose. He reached into the pot for one of the bigger pulls and underhanded it.

After removing the claw with an easy snap, JJ tossed the crab away with a skip on its underbelly before it sank below the surface. He cracked the shell in half and brought the exposed flesh to his mouth, sucking out the meat and rolling his eyes back. 

“Mmm,” he nearly moaned, dropping the empty claw half and licking out the bits from the other. “So good. Toss me another?”

“Yeah. These your favorite?” Rafe asked, digging into the pot.

He shook his head and caught it carefully to not get pinched, then ripped it open as well. “Eh. Better than fish, but I like another kind better.”

“What kind?”

JJ froze with a bit of white meat hanging out of his mouth. He finished chewing and shrugged. “Hell, I can’t remember what they’re called. Hang on.”

The waste from his second crab hit the water after he did, and Rafe actually staggered back at the sudden splash. In a few moments, he returned to the surface with something in his hand. 

Extending it up, he first thought that he’d fetched a rock from the seabed, but Rafe’s vision focused to realize what he was holding. “Oh, an oyster!”

“Yeah. Love these,” he hummed, brought it back to inspect. “But I can’t pry them open with my hands. I have to get lucky and find one broken open. Usually they’re all picked at.”

Rafe’s back straightened. “Well… we love them, too. There are special tools to crack them open without hurting yourself. I could get you one, or…” He patted his waders, dug into one of the folds for his old pocketknife. “If you’re careful, you could use this. You can keep it, too.”

It’s embarrassing, offering the dulled blade he’d gotten from a glass case of laser-etched torch lighters and belt buckles at a Speedway. It probably didn’t cost more than a ten, but it was one of the first things he bought coming out here with his own money. It served him well, now it could serve someone else. 

The water bobbed gently around them and the remaining crabs in the pot squirmed around. Rafe felt awkwardly tall suddenly and crouched down to the railing to extend the knife out more. 

JJ shook his head. “I’m good.”

“What?”

“I don’t have anywhere to keep it.”

Only the whole ocean. Rafe scoffed a bit, but JJ didn’t move to defend himself anymore. His eyes flicked back towards the coast, towards the docks that housed the other boats with their webs of rope and moor lines and flags. 

Oh. Right. 

“You don’t trust me.” It caught his attention again, with a soft smile that was easily mirrored. “Good idea. You don’t know me. I could hurt you.”

“Will you?”

And quickly, “Never.” How absurd to even ask. The hat made them allies. The full pots made them brethren. “Please?”

The knife was presented once more, and JJ swam timidly to the boats edge to take it from him. Their fingers brushed on transition, and Rafe was shocked to feel how warm he was. 

“Thank you,” JJ said softly, ran his thumb along the scales.

“See if it works first,” Rafe blurted, waving his hand towards the oyster still in his other palm. He nodded, flicked open the knife and wriggled it into the hinge. JJ pried the shell off with ease, poked at the meat inside to loosen it, and swallowed the flesh in one gulp. “Good?”

“Fuck,” he threw his head back. “Like manna. I see why y’all make tools for this.”

“Just wait until you try it with lemon and Tabasco.”

The confusion on his face was only visible for a moment. Blink of a wave crest. “I really can’t keep this, though,” JJ sighed, folding the knife back up with one hand and tossing it back onboard. 

Rafe flinched instead of even trying to catch it, and it clattered on the deck near his feet. “Are you sure?”

“It’ll go dull. Water’s not good for it.” His eyes drifted down the barnacled, paint-chipped side of the boat and back up to Rafe. “It’s not good for anything of y’all’s.”

He looked down at the knife that dripped sea water onto the liner. Too right.

***

True to his word, he returned to the shitty spots. 

Hiding the suspect loads didn’t stop with Barry. The claws were always taken to a guy on the island who weighed and distributed them to the local markets, and too many lucky hauls in a row would easily raise eyebrows with him too. Not like anyone wanted to be peddling illegal crab. 

So, back to the doldrums. 

He tried taking up crosswords to pass the time; hours were spent filling pages of wood pulpy booklets from the grocery store that loved to reference accountants and Lucille Ball’s first husband and sparkling wine from Piedmont. Clues that stumped him were scratched out and replaced with the correct answer regardless of how inky and blotted the grid became, but he refused to flip to the back for the answers. It forced him to slow down, anyways, as he waited on the traps and watched the sun set towards the land. Two more hours to go. 

The customized Presto alarm blared from his phone. There was only one person in the world shrill enough to earn a matching ringtone who had access to his number. His heart thudded, scrambling for the device and swiping across the screen.

“Hello? Rose?” he answered, pressing the warm glass against his cheek. 

Kyle Richards’ snappy voice echoed in the background before hastily quieting, followed by the sharp clearing of a throat. “Oh. Sorry, Rafe, I didn’t think you’d answer so quickly. I figured since you’re working now, they’d make you put your phone in your locker—”

“Rose,” he interrupted, rubbing his forearm against his face. “What’s wrong? Are my sisters okay?”

His stepmother scoffed, and he could tell from the noise that it was around a crystal rim. “Yes. Why wouldn’t they be?”

Rafe’s tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Because, like I’ve told you, the only reason you should be calling me is if something happens to Sarah or Louise. That’s the only reason your number isn’t also blocked? Any of this ringing a bell?”

Her biting laugh dug into his ear. “So, what? You think I’m your secretary, or…?”

“You changed their numbers the day after I moved out. I’d still like to know how they’re doing,” he explained with pinched-shut eyes, moving his chest to mimic deep breaths but not actually taking any.

“God, Rafe, don’t act like it’s all our fault. You’re the one who chose to be like this and throw a fit. They could still call you if they wanted, anyways,” Rose sneered. 

They absolutely could not. New phones from Ward, wiped contacts, and Rafe did not hold it against the two young teenagers for not having memorized one specific number out of their dozens of friends and relatives. The punishment had been clear.

“I’m hanging up now.”

“I thought you’d like to know,” Rose sighed, finally getting to the point, “that we’re gonna go through the old room and turn it into a display area for the girls’ trophies and awards. Anything you want out of it is yours.”

In the months that he’d been gone, the space he had occupied ceased to have ever belonged to him. Simply the old room. Not his, just a space that aged the home and wilted its legacy. Something to paint over and refurbish, to gloss over the telling, ugly scars.

“You’re calling me because you want me to drive ten hours both ways to clean out a room for you?” The monotony in his voice no longer needed practicing; there was no fight left. 

Rose scoffed again, horrified at the mirrored audacity. “Well, if you don’t want us to just throw away what’s left.”

Yeah, he’d heard enough. He pulled the phone away from his face, hit the red button warping through his tears, and navigated around the menu screens until he found the Block Contact button. Rafe froze for a moment, then pressed it. 

The device clattered to the table and his chest cracked open. He stumbled backwards until his thighs hit the stool behind him, and he collapsed into a heaving mess. Rafe choked and sobbed, burying his face into his dirty hands. Out on the ocean, no one could hear him weep, so he released his pain out into the echoing cabin, wailed until his voice went hoarse.

At least. He thought no one could hear him.

“Are you okay?”

Two weeks ago, his first thought would’ve been that God started speaking to him for the first time in years. How silly, of course, as he wiped his face and went to greet the merman out in the water. 

JJ kept a safe distance from the trawler, but his head poked above the waterline with a craned neck to peer inside the cab. “Rafe?”

“Yeah,” he grunted and wiped his runny nose on his sleeve. “Yeah, I’m fine.” 

It’s easily forgiven that this wasn’t enough for JJ after what he’d heard, but he just leaned back to expose more of his chest. 

“Do you have a family?” Rafe asked, dug his fingers into the railing and ignored the scorching heat they absorbed. Was there a clan of merfolk, roaming the oceans and telling him what to do? Did somebody love him unconditionally, or was it a power struggle of obedience and will, of independence and shame, of—

“No.”

Oh. “I— oh. Really?”

“Just me.” He brushed his hair out of his eyes and the wet locks drooped right back down. “No curfew or anything,” he added with a weak smile. 

Rafe toyed with a coiled rope hung on the railing. “I don’t either. Don’t really know what to do now.”

The setting sun didn’t mean it was time to go back. Old routes meant old fill times, and the last time he pulled up the pots, they were barely half-full. The bay would stain orange and then eggplant before going black, and the west coast would steal away the last bit of warmth before tomorrow. He’d probably barely make quota. 

“This is gonna sound kinda crazy… but do you wanna go for a swim?”

Crazy, right. “Uh, sure. When?”

“Right now.”

Rafe looked back to the cab, to his dead quiet phone and the abandoned crossword and the radar that blipped the trawler’s position. Fuck it. 

“I don’t— should I take off my clothes?” It felt dumb the moment it fell out of his mouth, and JJ’s smirk roiled his chest. 

“You take off as much as you wanna take off.”

Hours to go before nightfall, and the water was still tap warm. Rafe unbuckled his waders and kicked them off, tugging down his basketball shorts with it. He hesitated when his fingers gathered at the nape of his neck, then took it off anyways. Level the playing field. 

Rafe dove off the back of the boat, earning a wolf whistle from his audience. “Great form,” JJ clapped, gleeful face betraying the attempted sarcasm in his voice.

“Yeah, I bet you like watching my form.”

He’s clearly not expecting it, the way JJ’s face twisted into shock. “Alright, alright. Easy now.”

A thought struck him. “Do you just hang around my boat?” His banshee wailing surely disturbed the peace of whatever fish was in range, but that shouldn’t have included him.

He’d never actually seen him blush before. “No. I mean, kind of. What you do is kind of cool, and I like seeing the boat work. I heard you, and—” He cut himself off before he could say anything silly, but Rafe was already grinning. 

“Wanna race?”

“Shut up.”

“No, seriously.” Rafe leaned back and executed a perfect backstroke— thumbs out, pinkies in. Legs fluttering back and forth. “You’re lookin’ at the fastest swimmer in the Camp Kildare freestyle competition two years in a row. Well, in the dolphin category. I couldn’t keep up with the kids in great white, but they’d been swimming since the fuckin’ womb—”

“Rafe,” JJ already stopped him, so close that the waves coming off his chest bumped into his own. “I would smoke you.”

“Yeah? You don’t think I could keep up?”

“Yeah. I’d swim to the shore and back before you knew it.”

He was drifting towards him, breaths mingling between their faces, and Rafe was finally able to notice the soft flecks in his eyes. His lip was curled into a smirk, so cocky but so boyish, and he’s suddenly overwhelmed. God, I really want to kiss him. 

JJ made the call for him, leaning forward and crashing their lips together, a little misaligned with the water bobbing them both around. Rafe gasped at the contact, jerking backwards until they separated with a wet pop and JJ’s eyes flew open in a panic.

Wait. Fuck. Don’t freak him out. They collided again and Rafe’s fingers carded through his impossibly soft hair. He spent his life in the brine, yet the blonde waves were silk in his touch. 

With JJ holding both of them afloat, his legs stopped treading and instead wrapped around his tail. The scales were smooth, slick, no friction and hardly any ridges as his thighs squeezed around him. His calf slid down, along the bend of his tail that would theoretically be his knee, and JJ let out a noise that makes Rafe freeze up before realizing it was a moan. He liked that. 

Rafe opened his mouth to let their tongues slide together, both boys panting into the other’s mouth with a kind of unrestrained desire that scared them. Hungry, desperate, biting and slippery. They gnashed into each other, grinding hips forward and clawing at chests and backs. 

One of JJ’s hands slipped down to palm the front of his boxers, cupping around his shaft and squeezing until Rafe whined. He thrusted forward, eyes rolling back, chasing the warmth of his palm. The idea of reciprocation came to mind but he wasn’t sure how, so he used his right leg to keep stroking his tail. 

“When do you have to go back?” JJ asked around a kiss, hardly breaking it to let him answer. Fingers still around his cock. 

“When I get too cold to stay.”

JJ grinned and wrapped his arm around him tighter. Guess they’ll have to keep each other warm.

***

He was late. 

Okay— he obviously didn’t have any sense of time, didn’t carry a pocket watch wrapped around his fin to structure his day. They used the tides, something he knew far better than even Rafe did, to organize their rendezvous. A day would be picked, and when the bay water swallowed up the highest parts of the algae-encrusted piles, the boys met at an agreed location, typically outside the rocks that bookended the marina. And today, he was late. 

He left you. Like they always do. Difficult to ignore those thoughts, to tell himself JJ was different than the others when he really had no evidence one way or the other. Are half-fish men any more decent?

Rafe pinched the side of his thigh. Shut his brain up. Maybe… maybe they said they’d meet at the docks, and he forgot. Maybe he’s late. 

The pier was empty, all the restaurant tables cleared and patrons staggered back onto solid ground around closing time. If anyone took issue with him nosing in, they didn’t even acknowledge his existence to sneer. 

A tingly feeling bubbled around his spine, an unease that wrangled his stomach and shook his nerves. Something was wrong. 

His eyes flicked across the surface, where the legs of the pier disappeared into murky unknown unpenetrated by the marina lights. The water rippled something deep below, a struggle too warped for him to make out. Dark figures writhing, fighting, thrashing unnaturally. He’s in trouble.

Ice ripped through his body the moment Rafe plunged into the water. Had he stopped to think first, he may have fetched his coat from his truck before diving, but without anamnesis, he simply was above the surface one moment and under it the next. His chest spasmed, goosebumps erupting over every inch of his body, but he flailed around to drag himself downwards. 

It was a goddamn fishing net, tangled around JJ’s tail and too gnarled to easily swim out of. The netting dug into his scales, daring to draw blood and alert the sleek predators that hovered around the piers for diners’ waste.

The knife. Thank God JJ actually returned it. Rafe reached into his back pocket for the blade and flipped it open, immediately sawing into the nylon and ignoring the cold that froze his knuckles taut. He ripped at the polymers, struggling to find each new snag in the lines, until a final cut freed JJ from the snare. 

One problem replaced another— with JJ loose, Rafe was now left an easy thirty feet below the air and in desperate need of reaching it. A panicked gasp pulled the first dart of water in, salt abrading his esophagus, every cough a new draw of saline into his mouth. Rafe’s limbs clamored through the water, desperate to pull upwards, but direction was meaningless in tenebrosity. Every angle was nothing, he froze to his core, muscles cramping and stuttering. He was running out of reliable senses and his mind sputtered out. The faint lights from the pier dimmed. His eyes fluttered shut. An alarmed wail pulsed in his ears. 

Death by drowning was… not the least likely way he thought he’d go out. He did spend the majority of his days out on the water by himself with squalls daring to pull him into the rough and unforgiving sea. Nature always won, anyways. Rafe was prepared for a good storm to swipe along the East Coast and take him with her, but this wasn’t the worst way out either. 

His companion hadn’t resigned so easily, though. The feeling of JJ grabbing his shoulders, pulling him close, and slotting their lips together was only tangible enough for him not to assume his brain had shut off and began to cater him placating fantasies in his final moments. Rafe convulsed, unsure why he thought this was a good time to continue what they’d started, but the blonde boy’s grip was too much to wriggle out of in his state. 

Their lips parted, and JJ exhaled into Rafe’s mouth. The breath was thick, warm and seeping into his lungs. Breath was a misnomer anyhow, as it was clearly water exchanged between them, but— no more spasming of his bronchioles. He tensed, slowly opening his eyes to see JJ pulled away, tilting his head at him curiously. When Rafe failed to move, he pumped a hand over his chest, signaling him to take a breath. 

Rafe’s jaw fell open stupidly, letting salt water hit his tongue and teeth. His lungs ached, and it was still too far up to reach for fresh air before his vision would start going spotty. He had to trust him. 

So he sucked in a bunch of water. Waited for the violent reaction to the foreign fluid to start racking through his body, but it never came. The breath relieved him, loosening the capillaries that had constricted in his struggle. He inhaled again without thinking, his brain so overwhelmed with the pleasure of oxygen that he failed to process he was breathing underwater. Another breath and another, expecting himself to suddenly choke or lose consciousness. 

If anything, JJ became clearer in his field of vision. The blue tinge of the water warmed away, and the pink in his cheeks returned. His ears had popped long ago, soon after he’d hit the water, but the bubbly hum faded away, and he could hear the snapping JJ was doing right in front of his nose. 

“Hello? Rafe? Are you okay?”

Clear as day. No garbling of water around his tongue, no air pockets slipping out of his throat that warped his words, just a simple question that he wished he could answer. 

“How— what did you…?”

“I don’t know,” JJ admitted, not needing to even know the question. “I’m not sure why, but I can do that.”

Rafe looked around, to the sliced net that sank to the floor and the barnacle-crusted legs of the pier. Little smelts and minnows fluttered around them, before slipping away in search of algae. Patches of seaweed flowed in the current, bending and swaying like the wheatgrass above. A new ecosystem, a new world buzzing around him, clear as the day and warm as a hug.

“How long… how long can you make this last for me?” Rafe asked, looking up at the surface. 

JJ hesitated, tenderly flexed his tail that looked like it still ached. “As long as I want. Right now, an hour.”

An hour. Plenty of time to explore his new world, to fall in love with something offered to no one else. To get lost.

“Show me around?”

***

Hot sand beneath his back. Sunlight glinting into his eyes. Skin warmed from within, brushed by coastal winds. His fingertips pressed below him, into the earth, and he didn’t care how it got under his nails. 

The light was blocked, and he scowled before opening his eyes to find a new celestial body in its place. Just as golden. Twice as bright. 

Close enough to memorize, Rafe noted every freckle, every crease near his sweet eyes. Soft blonde lashes. Lips that slot against his own. His mouth parted at the gentle intrusion and tongues slid together eagerly. 

They’re both pulled into the abyss, encompassing, thick. His movements smoothed as Rafe’s control waned. He tried to grab at his hair, but his fingers won’t separate. His legs lost independence, jerking together in a flag motion. 

His time was ending. His lungs were closing, seizing and fighting for a new breath, but the surface was too far. His nose and mouth were afire, scorching down the rest of his body, and his mind flared. 

Turn me. Fix me. Save me. Save me. Why aren’t you saving me? SAVE ME—

Rafe sat up in bed with enough sweat on his forehead to collect and swipe off. His ceiling fan rocked as it spun, creaking out in his room steadily. He staggered out of his bedroom to get a drink of water, but the tap in his kitchen remained mockingly dry when he twisted both handles. 

Even with the ocean blocks away, the faint roar still echoed in his head. 

***

Barry actually showing up for work probably should’ve been the first warning sign. 

The second was his dead silence while setting up the pots. He usually had some dumb jokes about Rafe’s speed or how poorly he closed up shop the night before, but he wordlessly twisted bungees around the cages and packed the bait. O-kay.

The third, and most damning, was Barry diverting from the original route he’d been paid to follow the last six months. The route he took… about seventy percent of the time. Twenty nautical miles out, and he cut a hard left that nearly sent Rafe into the railing. 

“Whoa, the fuck?” he shouted to his captain, who waved him off and dug into his pocket for a smoke. O-kay again. 

When the shore was a thin black line separating water from sky, Barry killed the engine. Didn’t even pretend to set up the traps before laying his own. 

“I think it’s time you and I had a little chat, hmm?”

Maybe four years ago, this kind of confrontation would run the blood in Rafe’s veins ice cold. When he had a little more to hide about himself. Now, he’s just annoyed. 

“Yeah? Need me to explain the currents for you?”

“I was thinkin’ more of the illegal crabbing you’ve been doing.”

Mm. That’ll do it. “What are you even talking about?” Rafe tried, tugging off his gloves and throwing them on the counter. 

“You think I wouldn’t find out eventually, you stupid punk?” Barry spat, then pointed to a screen with some rough squiggles flashing out. “Computer logs every time you take this rig out. You know how fucking close you got to trawling in the restricted zone? You would’ve fucked us.”

“I watched the maps, boss,” he insisted. “It was fine.”

“Fine?!” Disbelief took the form of sheer amusement. “I see, I see. You think fine is putting my rig at risk because you’re a lazy piece of shit.”

“Watch your fucking mouth.”

“I’ll watch whatever I want. You’ve been screwing around, taking routes near the restricted areas, sneaking blues that are out of season. You could be in a heap of trouble, kid.”

Christ. You try to feed a tabby a few times and suddenly you’re a crook. “How do you even know about that?”

He lazily smirked. “Lucky guess.”

Rafe threw his hands in the air. “Fine. Whatever, you caught me. I filled the pots faster than you ever could and the government didn’t give a shit. What now? You gonna extort me for money I don’t have? You gonna kick my ass? What?”

His nostrils flared. “Y’know what? Maybe I will, while we wait for the Coast Guard to get here.”

Ha! “Fuck this.”

Rafe stormed from the cab, tried to slam the door behind him but Barry caught it in his palm. “Don’t you fuckin’ walk out on me. Where are you gonna go? The back of the boat?”

Nothing but blue horizon in front of him. So far out, even the birds had sparsed away. Rafe half turned back, little smug smile on his face, and dove off the side of the ship leaving Barry sputtering and confused. 

“Where you goin’? Them marlins will pick you clean by the hour!”

His arms ripped through the water, dragging himself forward another yard with each stroke until the sounds of Barry’s screams died behind him. Every few pulls, and the trawler shrank in his vision. The waders slung over his shoulders were an accidental sail, and he unclipped them to drop the weight. Not like he’d need them anymore. A shiver racked through him with the insulation gone, but he could swim much easier without the drag. 

“Rafe?!” he heard, stunning him into thrashing and turning. Something wrapped around his ankle and jerked him under the water, forcing water up his nose and twisting coughs out of his chest. “What the hell are you doing?”

JJ pulled him close and kissed him, only giving him enough air to stop panicking. Or, almost enough. He swung his arms wildly until he could find JJ’s shoulders, shaking them and babbling. 

“Please—” Rafe begged, water garbling his voice while he still acclimated to the change. “Please do more. Longer. Do it forever. I—”

“Dude, stop—”

“I can’t go back. I don’t want to go back.” He screamed and thrashed around, pulling himself down and dragging JJ with him. “There’s nothing there for me. There never has been, but—”

“Rafe.”

He panted, finally catching himself in the new medium, and looked up at JJ. “I’m sorry, I just…” Rafe scrubbed at his eyes, examined his hands. “I’m being kicked out. Again. I have no family. My boss just threatened to turn me into the cops for the illegal crabbing. I have nowhere to go. Please don’t let me go back.”

“I can’t,” JJ said firmly enough that Rafe knew not to point out that he really meant won’t. “I can’t do that to you.”

Call him manipulative, call him a brat, but Rafe couldn’t stop the tears that bubbled up to the surface. It was a strange sensation, crying underwater, vision re-blurring with the foreign refraction. He bawled like a baby, spun away from JJ and awkwardly tried to swim away from him. 

The merman had a slight edge on maneuvering. He darted around and pressed a hand against his chest. “Stop it. Calm down, Rafe.” JJ cupped his hands around Rafe’s face, fingers framing his ears and palms pressed against his cheeks. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this. Breathe.”

An ironic demand, but one that still helped. JJ didn’t have to tell him that the request was too much. To change him for an hour, to pull him into his world for only a taste was one thing. Rewriting his fucking DNA was another. 

They swam quietly for a moment, Rafe tugging off his t-shirt that only slowed him. When JJ gave him air, his body warmed enough to not need it. Someday he’d be immodest enough to take his boxers off, too, but he left himself covered for now. 

“I’m sorry,” Rafe repeated, less frantic this time. “That was a lot. I know it’s fucked to ask that of you, like— like you’re a vampire or something.”

JJ smiled gently. “Have I ever bitten you?”

“Mm. Maybe a little,” he thought back. “You didn’t draw blood.”

“The longer you’re down here, the harder it’ll be to go back,” JJ explained, swimming close enough to brush a hand against his cheek, which Rafe caught and wrapped his own around. “You’ll become a better swimmer and a worse walker. It’ll take longer to breathe air again. I’ll change you.”

What a fool he was. What fools they both were. “I know.”

JJ didn’t respond at first, just held a serious eye contact that startled Rafe into lowering his gaze. He knew it was too much, but he had to at least try—

“How about a week?” 

Rafe’s head snapped up. Now we’re talking. “Yes, yes, please. Please, baby, just— whatever it takes, I’ll do it. I beg you.”

“No begging. Come here.”

It felt… different. A claim staked on his lungs, his tongue and teeth, his brain. Vines sprouted down his limbs, reshaped the cords of muscle in his hands and fingers, swirled around his heart and lungs until they pulsed thickly. The urge to tread evaporated; in its place, the impulse to move twisted his body into swimming forward. JJ caught on immediately. 

“How do you feel?”

“Fucking amazing.” He twirled around in the water, spread his limbs wide. “What happens when this runs out?” Rafe asked, lying flat as he drifted and staring up at the rippling surface. 

“Same as always,” JJ hummed. “You stop breathing, and you go back up.”

Rafe nodded and flipped backwards, spinning around until he was upright again. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

Saving me came to mind but he just shook his head. He had plenty of time to come up with how to thank him. Seven days, for starters. JJ extended his hand out, and Rafe clasped his own in it. 

“One week at a time?”

Rafe tries to understand, but the Camerons have piano keys harder than diamonds. Not to mention the never-ending access to whatever healthcare they desired, frivolously elective or not. It kills him to see JJ in pain, to watch him work up the courage to use the potent mouthwash or rub absentmindedly at his cheek and jaw. He’s aware of the bad associations he has with the dentist. He gets why JJ refuses to go back. But that doesn’t stop the bone-deep urge to fix it, especially when he catches him wincing while eating a waffle fry. 

“Let me take you to the—”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was gonna—”

“I don’t want you to take me anywhere that isn’t a haunted house. Is it a haunted house?”

“...”

“Then no.”

Fortunately, Rafe is not above taking things into his own hands. When it’s for the good of his baby, of course. 

JJ stirs outside of Camden, wriggles in the passenger seat and tests which of his limbs will respond to him. None, at the moment, but he’s giving his best efforts to squirm out of the awkward position he was thrown into, chin slumped to his chest and neck screaming from the tension.

“Hrngh?” he mumbles, tongue heavy. Teeth aching. Wait, no, that’s normal— still, nothing below his shoulders is acknowledging the cues to move. He can lift his head up to lull back against the headrest, he can peel open his eyelids to see it’s the early dawn hours, he can process he isn’t in their shared bed like he should be. Not much else. 

“Oh, good! You’re awake.” 

His head carefully, focusedly turns to see Rafe gripping the steering wheel with both hands. Moonlit stretches of farmland flank the roads and the radio purrs with the latest audiobook his boyfriend has been listening to. Rafe turns down the already-gentle sound, side-eyeing his passenger to make sure he was feeling alright. 

JJ grunts out a sound, no formed words in his reach yet, but the cadences are close enough to what happened? or maybe where am I? that it earns him an explanation all the same. 

“So don’t freak out,” he starts, not tearing his gaze away from the streets. “You’re going to get a little surgery.”

“Wha—?”

“Don’t freak out,” Rafe repeats. “I called this dental office, a nice place in Elizabeth City that has a good oral surgeon. He has great reviews for prostheses and accepts out-of-pocket payments, and I pretended to be you. Told him all your symptoms, faxed over your x-rays and whatnot, and he recommended it best to book the appointment sooner rather than later.” Rafe turns off his brights as another car passes in the opposite direction. “I agreed, of course.”

“Rafe.” It isn’t perfectly articulated by any means but coherent enough for the driver to flinch defensively. 

“I’m sorry I had to do it this way,” he says, laced with sincerity that makes JJ’s head struggle to find solid ground. “Please don’t be mad at me. It’s really nothing to be scared of— you’re gonna be totally out, they’re gonna remove the clearly-dead tooth and put in a pretty new fake one that won’t hurt whenever we eat anything harder than a milkshake. Hell, you’ll be stitched up and on the couch again by this afternoon.”

JJ is able to twitch his fingers, kick around his ankles a bit, but he’s definitely confined to the seat for the foreseeable future. He pitifully looks to Rafe again, who presses his lips together and juts his chin out at his paralyzed body. 

“Chloral hydrate in your nightly beer,” Rafe explains, answering the question JJ wouldn’t be able to ask for another half-hour or so. He hardly remembers the night before, the pizza they shared and fading much faster than normal while watching Mad Men. He figured it was just a food coma, but apparently it was lover-induced. “It was a bitch to get my hands on, let alone finding something that wouldn’t have a reaction with the ketamine they’re definitely gonna shoot you up with once you’re there.”

Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. A wave of panic begs his muscles to jolt around, but the only way his body obeys him is through the whines he lets out in the cab. He won’t tuck and roll out of the truck or anything, but maybe if he has a little more control over his speech he can plead Rafe into turning them around and perhaps rethinking this. 

“Relax, baby,” he reassures, and reaches over to squeeze his stiff hand. “I think I read something about fighting it making it last longer. And we kinda need you to be up and at ‘em by the time we reach the office, or they won’t believe you consent and we’ll have to find a whole new dentist.”

Wouldn’t want that, now. JJ struggles to relax, to close his eyes and let the sedative kick in again, but the half-life is too short. Maybe— maybe this will be okay. He’ll smile and nod at the office, sign whatever forms get him put down as quickly as possible, and he’ll wake up tomorrow with a new 14 molar and no pain. Rafe loves him, knows what’s best for him, so he need only kneel. 

“I’m doing this because I love you,” Rafe reassures him, echoing his thoughts almost too well. “I’ll do anything to make sure you’re okay, even if it means doing something like this.” He’s still holding his hand, so he lifts it to his lips and presses a kiss against the ridges of his knuckles. “You know that?”