ʐօʍɮɨɛ ɢʊʏ

The man, who you now wonder if you can even call him that, is lying on his side in the sand, definitely unconscious. Your concern is waylaid by the fact that in place of where his legs would be, is a tail.

Deep green and blue, with a large fin at the end where his feet would be and a few smaller fins on either side of the tail.

This isn’t at all how you expected your morning to go.

There’s a mermaid—merman?—washed up on the shore where you fish.

Your mind flips through about a million potential scenarios, most of which being some variation of you being still asleep in bed and dreaming this; you know it’s not true, though, and you realize that you have to come up with a plan.

You can’t leave him here, out cold on the beach where the early crowd will soon come, finding him and probably killing him to mount on their wall.

For some insane, absurd reason, you decide the next course of action is to take him home until he wakes up and you can bring him back.

Fishing can wait for another day. Or maybe never again.

—

With great difficulty, you manage to drag him back up the beach and get him situated in the back of your car.

There’s a mer-fish-person in the back of my car, you think to yourself on the drive home, trying your hardest to rationalize it. That’s fine. This is definitely something normal that happens.

After the painfully long drive home, you panic for about three seconds as you try to think of exactly where you’re going to put him.

Eventually, you decide on your bathtub. Where else are you going to keep a semi-aquatic creature?

You run the tap, letting the water warm to a temperature that’s close enough to the sea, and you manage to get him into the tub with a bit more effort. He’s still unconscious, or at the very least, asleep, but he stirs when you get him in the water.

It’s only after you’re done getting him settled that you really take a good look at him.

The deep green-blue scales of his tail stop somewhere around his midsection, just above his hips, where that beautiful color transitions into his human half. The skin of his abdomen is tanned, just a little bit soft but still toned—from all the swimming, is what you assume.

He’s got a little bit of scruff on his jaw, something you didn’t expect from your limited knowledge of merfolk, mostly spanning from poorly-made 80’s movies, but he’s handsome. He has a prominent nose and pretty, dark eyelashes; his hair is shorter, but a dark brown and slightly curly on top.

You’re staring, but you can’t really be blamed for it.

—

He wakes up a half hour later, clearly confused as to why he’s in your house and not on the shore. You’re sitting on a chair beside the tub, having been watching him with untamed curiosity.

“What the fuck?”

Not what you expected, but alright. It takes you a beat longer than you’d like to come to your senses and give him something reminiscent of an answer.

“You were unconscious on the beach, I, uh—“You shift uncomfortably in your seat, trying to find the right words.

“—didn’t want you getting hurt, so..”

“So you brought me home,” he interjects, and you nod.

He shifts in the water, tail flicking slightly as he presumably tries to get used to the new situation.

After a few beats of heavy, uncomfortable silence, he speaks up again.

“Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.”

You give him a polite smile, unable to take your eyes off of those stunning blue-green scales.

He splashes you, getting you out of your head.

“You’re staring at me.”

Your face flushes, and you suddenly can’t bring yourself to look at him at all.

“Sorry, I just—“

He cuts you off before you can continue, chuckling softly. You swear you’ve never heard a more beautiful sound.

“You’ve never seen someone like me. I get it. You can look.”

And you do.

“I’ll bring you back tomorrow morning, early. I don’t want anyone seeing you, I can’t—“ You take a breath, shaking your head briefly at the thought of what might happen to someone as remarkable as him if you let someone else get their hands on him.

“I can’t let anything happen to you. If someone else saw you, they’d probably, y’know.”

You make a vague gesture with one hand, allowing him to fill in the blanks; he nods in understanding.

He doesn’t seem as bothered about his current situation as you thought he might be, probably grateful that you’d saved him from certain doom.

“What’s your name?”

“Cecil,” he answers, simply.

You don’t know what you were expecting, but his name being Cecil was definitely not it.

“Cecil?” You echo, a bit incredulous.

He laughs again, nodding in the affirmative.

“What, you expected something more fantastical?”

Yes.

“I guess I just…didn’t expect you to have, like, a normal name.”

“Can I have your name?”

You tell him, and he repeats the word like he’s trying to imprint it in his memory.

You decide that you like the way your name sounds coming from his mouth.

—

The two of you spend a good part of the morning just talking.

He tells you about where he’s from, a city deep beneath the sea, about how it’s not much different from any other city, it’s just…underwater. You find that interesting, and express your interest in seeing it someday.

He agrees with the sentiment—he’d love to show you if you one day develop gills.

You listen with slight surprise as he admits that he’s never seen a human before; he’s never gotten close enough. He’s baffled by your legs and asks—with a sincerity you can’t even laugh at—how you manage to swim with them.

You answer him honestly, that you don’t swim much, so you don’t really use your legs for that. He plays up his surprise at the notion that you don’t swim that much.

You ask him with the same sincerity how he can breathe under the sea without any visible gills. He tells you that he just can.

A part of you doesn’t want him to leave.

—

Living a short drive from the coast has a few upsides, one of which being your ease of access to fresh seafood—something he expressed that he does, in fact, eat.

So, you went out and picked up some crabs, cooking a few for yourself, while he insisted that you keep his raw. You made a face, but obliged.

It makes sense, but it’s still odd in your mind.

The two of you are seated across from each other, a plate in your lap and resting on the edge of the tub where he resides in the water.

You pick at your cooked crabs, watching as he eats his raw with something you can only describe as morbid fascination.

This isn’t exactly a conventional situation, so you can decide that you can ignore him eating raw seafood.

—

You don’t want to leave him alone, in some odd mix of curiosity and politeness, so you accommodate him, just for the night.

You bring a few extra blankets into the bathroom, setting them down on the floor beside the bathtub in an attempt to make the hard tile floor somewhat comfortable. It’s not the best, but it’s manageable for one night.

He seems grateful for the company, especially spending the night in such a foreign place, so far from home.

You planned on just going to sleep, but as you lay on the floor, staring up at the ceiling of the darkened room, you can’t fight that curiosity, eager to fill the dead air.

“What’s it like, being so far away from the rest of the world?”

You can hear him shift, the water making a noise as he moves, presumably thinking about your question for a moment.

“It’s different, I guess,” he starts, pausing for an extended period before eventually continuing.

“That’s my world down there, y’know? So I’m not really far away from anything, but I know what you mean,” he clears his throat, and you can hear his tail making noise in the water.

“It’s hard being away from it, but it’s interesting seeing what’s up here. I’ve never really—ever—gone up to the shore.”

You listen intently as he explains that to you, and you can’t help but feel the slightest bit guilty about taking him home with you.

“I’m sorry, I should’ve just—“

“No,” he interjects before you can even finish that thought.

“I would’ve died if I stayed out there. Much worse people would’ve found me and probably had me mounted on their wall by the afternoon.”

The air is a little heavier now, more tense with the seriousness of the conversation. He seems comfortable with this topic, so you leave it for the time being.

“You saved my life,” he tells you, voice as sincere as you’ve heard it in the short time you’ve known him.

“I can’t thank you enough for that, seriously. I’ll find some way to repay you.”

You want to tell him no, that he doesn’t need to do that, but it feels rude to interrupt when he’s being so genuine and open with you.

This is probably the most honest, intimate conversation you’ve ever had with somebody, and they’re not even of the same species.

That part of you that doesn’t want him to leave gets a little bigger.

You didn’t even realize you had been getting so into your own thoughts, and it’s only when you feel another splash of warm water on you.

“Cecil, what—“

“You’re being too quiet. I just made this whole speech and everything and you’re not saying anything.”

You quickly realize he’s teasing you. Teasing you.

You can’t stop yourself from laughing at his choice of words, and he laughs along with you. When he smiles, you take note of the slight sharpness of his teeth, and that doesn’t deter you nearly as much as you thought it would.

You’re starting to really like his company, and that’s not good.

—

The two of you end up falling asleep not long after that, and you find yourself getting very used to the sound of his tail flicking in the water every now and then as he sleeps; clearly, he’s not built to exist in your bathtub.

It’s a constant reminder of the fact that he can’t stay here. You have to bring him home eventually.

You wake up before him, and spend this time bringing the bedding back into your bedroom, before ending up in your kitchen to decide on something for breakfast.

You settle on toast and coffee, and bring a small dish up to him with some leftover tuna from the other night.

He’s awake by the time you make it back up the stairs, the upper half of his body draped dramatically over the edge of the tub. He’s got a pout on his face, and giving a look you can only describe as puppy-dog eyes.

“What?” You ask, a laugh breaking through the word.

“Woke up and you were gone,” he starts, tone overly pitiful and sad.

“Thought you’d completely abandoned me here.”

You roll your eyes and hand him his plate. He accepts it eagerly.

“No you didn’t, you big baby,” you reply, your tone nothing but playful.

He makes a face of mock-surprise, and the next thing you know, his tail is flicking in the water and you’ve been splashed. Again.

“Maybe I should’ve left you on that beach,” you joke, and he snorts, starting to pick at the piece of fish you’d brought to him.

“I would’ve been better off, and unfortunately I can’t drown you.”

That gets a good laugh out of him, and you’re grateful that he’s taking this lightly—the last thing you’d want to do is offend him or cross a line.

You’re quickly realizing that he probably doesn’t even have a line to be crossed.

“Maybe in another life, I’ll come back as a human so that you can drown me,” he muses, joking as he finishes up his plate.

You can’t deny the feeling of warmth that blooms in your chest when he says that.

You don’t want him to leave.

He doesn’t seem to want to leave, either, because he agrees to stay an extra day. For your convenience, he tells you. You don’t know how to feel about that.

—

Since Cecil’s now going to be staying longer than anticipated—not that you anticipated him staying at all—you decide to stay by him to try and keep him somewhat entertained, since he can’t really explore your home, and you’re not strong enough to carry him around for long periods of time.

He very quickly finds a way for the two of you to pass the time, asking about different things that he can see from his vantage point, which you happily explain to him.

He asks about your hair dryer, and you demonstrate what it does by turning it on a low setting and letting him feel the warm air—it completely fascinates him, but you put it away before he inevitably dries himself out with it.

You watch with quiet amusement as he grabs the fork from your lunch plate, insisting that he knows what this is. It takes everything in you not to laugh when he brushes the tines of said fork through his curls, and after letting him carry on for a few moments, you gently take the utensil away from him.

He blushes a pretty shade of pink when you tell him the actual purpose of it, and you find yourself staring at him—not his tail, for once—for a few beats too long.

You have a few questions of your own for him, most of which involve his lifestyle under the sea, which he graciously answers for you.

“It’s just like how I assume life is up here,” he tells you, clearly very interested in talking about his home.

“It’s a city—we have shops and jobs, a governing body, the whole like,” he laughs softly, reverently.

“It’s a lot nicer than you’re probably thinking it is. I’d love to take you there, someday. Show you my home properly.”

That warmth blooms and blossoms in your chest.

“I’d love to visit,” you manage, barely able to keep your voice steady, taken aback by the sincerity of his offer, a contrast to his playful, sarcastic tone.

He grins, so wide that you’d swear he’s just heard the best news of his life.

—

You play him some of your favorite music, and you’re surprised that he actually enjoys some of it.

He likes the vibrations that your speaker makes when it’s playing, so you let him hold it as you choose the next song to play.

Good thing it’s waterproof.

He laments that he isn’t able to show you his favorite songs. Not in the way they’re meant to be heard, at least.

“Sound works differently when you’re that deep underwater,” he explains, trying to find the best words to describe the phenomenon.

“So music is a lot different; it’s beautiful. I’m sure you’ve heard whale songs before?”

You nod. Of course you have.

“It’s like that,” he smiles, and you can detect a bit of sadness in it. Longing.

“It’s so beautiful. The music back home is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.”

You reach over and take his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. He returns the gesture, and you notice that his eyes have gone glassy.

He clears his throat after a beat, using the back of his other hand to quickly wipe away any tears that have surfaced.

“Sorry, I’m, uh—not trying to get all emotional. Just a little homesick, I guess.”

Your heart breaks a little when he says that, and you decide with absolute certainty that he’s going back home first thing tomorrow morning.

“Don’t apologize,” you insist gently, tone soft.

“If I was far away from home and in a completely new place, I’d be pretty homesick, too.”

He squeezes your hand gently, and you continue.

“This has been really fun, and an unbelievable experience, but I’m bringing you home tomorrow.”

He nods appreciatively, and you watch him as he smiles.

It’s bittersweet.

He doesn’t want to leave either.

—

A sort of strange air lingers between the two of you after that.

You both know that this has to end. It’s not right for you to keep him away from his home to live an unfulfilling life in your bathtub, but you’ve grown fond of him in the short time you’ve known him.

He’s silly, but he’s so well-spoken. He’s seen things that you’ve only ever dreamed of or seen in a nature documentary. He’s lived a life so different from your own, and that’s exactly the problem.

You’ve moved your chair closer to the bathtub, sitting beside it and facing him, instead of sitting on the opposite side of the room as him.

You play more music for him, and let him bring your speaker underneath the water with him so he can hear it the way he’s used to. He smiles so wide that you can’t take your eyes away from him.

You keep your eyes on him as much as you can—you know that this is probably the last time you’ll see him, so you’re absorbing as much as you can.

There’s one more thing you really want to do, and when he resurfaces, you build up what little nerve you have left to just ask.

“Can I touch your tail?” You ask him, and immediately cringe, knowing you sound like a little kid at a petting zoo.

He doesn’t seem to feel that same awkwardness, thankfully, and that smile returns—softer, now.

“Sure.”

Before you can think to respond or reach out for yourself, he takes your wrist in his grip, pulling you closer until the palm of your hand rests at about where his thigh would be.

You feel your face go hot, but thankfully he isn’t looking at you—he’s focused on the slow, gentle movement of your hand on his tail. It doesn’t take you long to notice there’s the slightest flush to his cheeks as well.

The texture of it is different than you expected—his scales are smooth, and he feels more like a snake than he does a traditional fish. He keeps your wrist in his grip, bringing your hand down to where his knees would be.

To accommodate for the slight change in angle, you move in your seat, and this inadvertently brings your face a lot closer to his.

He raises his head to look at you, and clearly wasn’t prepared for the decreased proximity between the two of you, his breath hitching in his chest.

“Was that—“ he starts, clearing his throat before he continues. You don’t miss the way his eyes flicker down to your lips for the briefest of seconds.

“Was that okay?”

You can’t do this. You shouldn’t, at the very least. You can feel the warmth of his scales under your palm, the slight tremble of his fingers around your wrist.

You don’t kiss him, even though you know how badly you want to, you don’t. To answer his question, you nod, your eyes never leaving his.

“That was perfect,” you murmur, voice a bit too soft.

You know that you’re going to regret not kissing him, but you can’t set yourself up for that kind of false hope. Nothing could ever come from this sort of lingering attraction between you and the merman you found washed up on the beach.

“Perfect,” he echoes, and it takes a Herculean amount of strength to keep yourself from kissing him right there.

You shut your eyes for a moment, trying to gather what little amount of strength you have left to pull your hand away from his.

You figure that it doesn’t hurt to continue being honest with him, especially now, after something like that.

“I’m going to miss you.”

You swear his eyes have never been wider.

After what feels like an eternity of silence, he manages to get a few words out.

“I’m going to miss you, too.”

The knowledge that he’s leaving early tomorrow morning makes your heart ache that much more.

He shifts in the water, clearly going through the same thought process that you are in that moment. The feeling reminds you of when your favorite family member has to go back home after busing for the holidays. It’s inevitable, but you hate that it has to happen.

“Can I have something to remember you?” He eventually asks, the question catching you a little off guard.

Immediately, your mind flashes through every single thing you’ve ever owned in your life.

You nod in agreement, already having decided on what you’re going to give him.

Standing, you rush into your bedroom to grab his keepsake—a thin, silver bracelet—when it catches the sunlight, it gleams, reflecting the light so beautifully.

You bring it back to him, and when you sit back in your chair beside him, you hand him the bracelet sheepishly.

It’s simple, and maybe a little tacky to be giving him a bracelet, but the way his eyes light up when he sees it is a pretty fair indicator that you’ve made a good choice.

Immediately, he slips the cuff on, admiring the way that the silver catches the light coming through the window in your bathroom.

After a few beats of watching him dumbly, you manage to ask him the same question.

“Can I have something to remember you?”

You don’t expect him to give you something—he didn’t exactly come with anything, but he nods, and immediately you start to wonder what he could possibly give you.

The racing thoughts are quickly silenced when he shifts in the water, bending his knees and reaching down near the base of his tail, where his main tailfin begins. You watch as he takes hold of and plucks a scale from the end of his tail.

He hands you the scale, and you hold it like it’s the most fragile thing in the world. It fits perfectly in your palm, no bigger than a half-dollar coin.

It shimmers in the light—a beautiful mix of blues and greens, the hues shifting as you move it slightly.

“Are you sure?” Is the first thing you manage to ask him, completely floored by the fact that he’s literally given you a piece of himself.

His voice is soft when he replies, his eyes holding a depth to them that you’ve yet to see from him.

“They grow back,” he insists.

“I didn’t want you to forget me.”

Your heart twists and knots in your chest.

You’re holding him in your hands, literally. You can’t think of anything else besides the very definite fact that you’re going to hold onto this scale for the rest of your life.

“I could never forget you.”

You swear that he stops breathing for a moment when you say that.

The next thing you know, he’s sinking down beneath the surface of the water, evidently very flustered by this exchange and needing a moment to compose himself.

When he finally resurfaces, you watch the way his curls stick to his skin, damp and darkened by the water.

“I’ll visit you. I’ll come back.”

Now it’s your turn to stop breathing.

You trace your thumb over the surface of the scale, trying to wrap your head around the implications of this all, and the fact that there’s clearly now something between the two of you that’s hard for you to believe developed at all.

You nod.

“Okay.”

—

The tension between you and Cecil has simultaneously been broken and built up even more. You want nothing more than to kiss him senseless, to feel the way his curls feel in your hands, but you resist.

You’re not going to torture yourself, dangling the carrot on the stick in front of yourself like that, knowing that you’ll never be able to truly have him.

You feel okay, though. His scale fits perfectly in a locket that you’d yet to find a use for, so now it lives in the pendant around your neck—a memory that you’re never going to forget for as long as you live.

He’s wearing the bracelet you gave him. It’s silver, so it’ll never rust when he’s back home.

You share a plate with him when you have dinner that night. One side of the fish has pieces of raw salmon that you’d gotten just for him, and the other has a few pieces of the same fish, cooked.

His hand brushes yours “accidentally” a few times as you eat, and every time, your heart jumps in your throat.

—

The sun’s set now, and you’ve turned off the harsh, artificial light in the bathroom, leaving you two in darkness besides the night light plugged in on the opposite side of the room.

You’ve abandoned your chair by this point, having settled yourself onto the ledge of your bathtub. He’s resting his head on his arms, settled onto that same edge, right beside your legs.

He’s looking at you like you’re the one that hung the stars in the sky.

These are two paths that never should’ve crossed. Two lives that never should have met.

You can barely make out his features in the dim light, but you see him so clearly. You want to kiss him so badly it hurts.

His hand moves to rest on your knee, fingers tracing gentle, aimless shapes and circles against your skin, just below the hem of your shorts.

The feeling between you—some sick twist of desire and longing that knots in the pit of your stomach—is near unbearable.

Your hand comes up to rest in his hair, your fingers brushing lightly through his curls. He doesn’t take his eyes off of you for a moment, completely enamored by you and everything that you do.

You swear you’ve never felt such intimacy before in your life.

He’s leaving first thing tomorrow morning; you’re going to drive him back to the beach and bring him right to the water.

He’ll swim away, and that’ll be that.

The pendant weighs heavily around your neck.

You watch him as he shifts, bringing himself closer to you. One of his arms rests lamely in his lap, while his other moves to allow him to continue touching you. His hand has shifted to your calf, still tracing those gentle shapes against your skin.

Now, he’s resting his head on your knee as your hand continues to brush lightly through his hair.

You want to say something to him; you feel like you should.

A goodbye, or a sappy speech, or a hasty, uncoordinated expression of the feelings for him that have developed over these two days.

You decide against any of it. It’d ruin the moment, anyway.

The room remains quiet, save for your breathing, and the soft sound of the motion of the water as he shifts, the confined space of your bathtub clearly becoming too much for him to handle.

He’ll be out of here tomorrow, you remind yourself.

His hair is soft beneath your fingertips, and you wish you could remember the way it feels forever. You feel the way his hand traces up and down your calf, the motion repetitive and soothing all at the same time.

It’s like he’s trying to memorize the feel of your skin in his touch.

He doesn’t touch you any more than that, and you’re equal parts grateful and disappointed.

Eventually, you move to sit on the floor, leaning up against the tub. You miss the feeling of his hand on you, of his head in your lap, but this is just as nice.

The two of you assume a similar position, arms settled on the edge of the tub, with your heads resting on your forearms.

It doesn’t take you long to fall asleep, so close to him like this.

—

You wake up before him, the slightest bit of dread beginning to sink into the pit of your stomach when you register that today’s the day. He’s going home.

The sun hasn’t risen yet, so you take this time to get your things ready to bring him back to the shore—bottles of water, the bag you use to hold your beach towels—and get it all packed into your car.

By the time you return, he’s awake, and you give him a soft, reluctant smile. His expression mirrors yours.

“Time for me to take you home.”

The smile on his face falters for a moment, but he nods. You both knew this day was coming. It was inevitable.

It’s a bit of a struggle, but you manage to get him out of the water, and carry him back down the stairs through your home.

He’s looking everywhere, trying to absorb as much information about your life as he can gather from your decor.

Though your muscles protest, you walk a little slower, just to give him more time.

Eventually, you get him settled in your car. It’s not a very long drive to the beach, and there’s no traffic so early in the morning, so he agrees to sit in the front seat with you.

There’s a towel laid out on the seat, and you’ve given him a few bottles of water to pour over himself if he gets too dry; you don’t care about your car at all right now.

He takes in the sights of your city as you drive, all the little beachfront shops and tacky tourist attractions, the surplus of hotels for summer visitors, and everything else wedged in between.

The drive to the beach is quiet, but you manage to get there quicker than you would’ve liked to.

The sun has barely begun to rise in the sky, the sunrise reminiscent of the one you’d seen the morning when you’d first found him on the shore.

Once you park and gather your things, you begin carrying him down from the dunes, all the way to the shore.

Your muscles ache, carrying him wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, but you didn’t have much in the way of options.

You know that you can’t just leave him on the shore again and hope he’ll work himself back into the sea, so when you reach the line where the water meets the sand, you kick off your shoes and keep walking.

The water is surprisingly warm, especially since it’s so early in the morning, and you continue to walk.

You can feel the nervous tension, the conflict that lives within him—he’s eager to get back in the sea, you know that, but as you carry him, he clings to you a little tighter.

Your clothes are getting wet. You don’t even care anymore.

When you get to around waist-deep in the sea, you lower him into the water, and he adjusts to being back in a proper body of water—his home.

This is goodbye. You know it is. It has to be.

He gives you that soft, crooked smile, the one that says more than any words ever could, and he disappears beneath the waves.

It’s not a few seconds later that you feel his hand in yours, pulling you along with him. You gasp, taking a quick breath as you’re brought under the water.

You don’t have time to process what he’s done, because before you can think, he’s put his hands on either side of your face and pulled you in for a kiss.

His lips are pressed to yours, his fingers curling around the back of your neck as he pulls you closer. Your hands manage to find their way into his hair, holding him close as you kiss him.

Your lungs burn in protest, desperate for air as he holds you beneath the water to kiss you. He must be able to sense it, because through some process beyond your realm of understanding, he passes breath to you, filling your lungs with air as he continues to kiss you the way you’ve wanted him to from the moment he met you.

It feels like an eternity later when he finally pulls away, and you manage to open your eyes to look at him.

He grins at you, wide and crooked, before he turns and swims away.

You watch him for as long as you can, until you finally have to resurface for air.

You wear that pendant every single day until he returns to visit you.

—