Chapter Text
Brendon knows he isn't supposed to be here. In fact, he’s been told so many times that he isn't supposed to be here, that he’s memorized the entire speech he gets from Pete and Patrick about how if they find out one more time that he’s come up to the surface to human-watch, they’re going to tell his father. He’s gotten so good at it he can mouth along the words as he’s lectured. Pete always ends up trying not to laugh, but Patrick never finds it near as amusing.
And it isn’t like he comes up to the surface that often, just once a week on what the humans call 'Saturday'. Gabe told him that the humans have given the days names, as if somehow that’s easier than just following along with the lunar cycle to tell time. Brendon can't help but find it adorable, and sometimes when he’s alone he recites their days of the week to himself just to giggle at how each one tastes on his tongue.
In any case, he only comes up on Saturdays because Saturdays are when he comes, and despite his friends’ warnings about the dangers of humanity and the world above the water, Brendon can’t help but disregard each cautionary tale and swim up anyways. He’s got a little spot that he tends to watch from: a rock close to shore that’s always Sun-warmed and just big enough to keep him hidden from view. He loves getting to lay out in the Sun, loves how the beams that fall on his tail make the lavender scales sparkle and shimmer. He can sprawl out across the stone and observe the humans as they do their cute little human things, like put on strange white goo before they get into the water or sit underneath ominous, giant monster-looking things with long poles and big heads that fan out and cast large shadows.
Brendon doesn’t come up just to watch the humans, though. Well, he does, but he’s only really watching for one particular human.
Brendon found him on a hot Summer day when he’d been swimming just beneath the waves to catch some of the Sun’s rays. The water was clear and calm, warming him the closer he got to shore, but he hadn’t realized just how close he’d gotten until he heard singing. He’d poked his head up curiously, only his eyes above the water and wet hair dripping into his face. And there he had been, sitting cross-legged on the sand and singing to himself. His hair was dark and in loose curls that framed his angular face and his long fingers were strumming some strange, curvy human-instrument that looked wooden with a large hole in the middle. Brendon, immediately captivated, had stayed for hours just to listen to the human sing his songs in a language he himself didn’t understand a word of.
He hasn't the slightest clue what his human is called, but he’s been coming back each week since that first time just to see him. It’s been months now, and the man started to come with a few friends after a while, much to Brendon's dismay. They always come a little bit before the Sun is at its highest point in the sky, and usually stay until just before it sets. Not every Saturday either, but most of them. And the human will sit on the sand, pull out his instrument, and play songs. Brendon can never get enough; he would spend forever on his rock listening to the man’s beautiful music if he could.
But today is different. Today, Brendon swims up from his home deep beneath the ocean—after carefully sneaking away from his father, and then past Pete and Patrick—and slides up onto his rock to watch for the man. However, once he’s situated and looking, he notices that the man is not sitting in his spot and playing music, but is instead holding one side of a big red box up while another man helps him carry it down the dock. The two are loading things into a boat while their friends pack up as well and bring more things aboard. One girl sets an armful of towels on a seat and then gently ruffles Brendon's human's hair, giggling and kissing his cheek.
Brendon frowns. His human never gets on a boat. None of them do, none of them have ever even touched a boat as far as Brendon’s seen. And that girl with the light hair is new too, touching all over the man and pulling him up onto the pontoon. He’s never seen her or this boat and he doesn’t like any of it one bit.
He has to slide back down into the water once they start moving, the waves carrying the medium-sized vessel out to sea, right past his rock. Then, one girl starts the engine and they begin driving further out onto the ocean. Brendon slips down below the waves and follows them, staying a good distance back so he isn’t seen—or caught by the propeller that’s whirring dangerously in front of him, blasting bubbles back. He swims along, easily able to keep up with the slow pace they’ve set, and settles in once the boat comes to a stop a mile or so out.
He stays close enough that he can peek his head up and listen, but not so close that if anyone looked out they’d notice his dark head among the waves.
“Dude, get me a beer, would you?” A voice comes, distinctly male, but not his human’s.
Gabe’s been teaching him human lately, after a long bout of constant begging on Brendon’s part, so he can understand a bit of what’s being said. Though, he’s got no idea what a ‘beer’ is.
“You’re closer, get yourself one,” another voice laughs, and this time Brendon perks. That’s his human.
“You’re such an asshole, Ryan,” the first voice whines.
Ryan. That’s his human’s name? Brendon dares to swim a little closer to the boat and peer up, catching sight of the man sitting sprawled out on a seat, one arm resting on the light-haired girl’s shoulders, the one who had kissed him before.
His hair that had seemed so dark before was now brightened by the rays of Sunshine beaming down on him and his skin seemed a tad darker, warmer than when Brendon had seen the first time.
“Sure, whatever you say, Dan,” he says, grinning.
Brendon smiles to himself. So his name is Ryan; the man asking for the beer—Dan—had called him that. Brendon silently swears to himself that if he ever gets to even talk to Ryan, he’ll get the human all the beers he ever wanted, whatever they are.
After a moment there’s a shift and Brendon sees feet coming towards him so he quickly swims away, appearing a good few feet farther back to listen some more.
He learns that Ryan plays what is called a ‘guitar’ and that the girl who seems to be all over him is called ‘Zee’ and also that Ryan has no desire whatsoever to swim, much to Brendon’s disappointment. He seems content to stay on the boat and drink his ‘beers’ and play a little, and hardly even sing.
--
A few hours in, Brendon can sense the beginnings of a storm and he fights the urge to swim back home. He can tell by the dark clouds coming in and the way the water churns around him that this is gonna be a bad one, and he could really get hurt if he doesn’t get away from the surface, but at this moment Ryan is laughing warmly at some joke Brendon didn’t understand and the sound is so beautiful that it makes his gills ache. He can wait just a little while longer.
Ryan is between songs at the moment, but the more he drinks from the bottle that Brendon thinks is ‘beer’ the more he seems willing to play his instrument and sing. He’s just finished one about a walrus and an egg, and before that he’d done one about an octopus garden that Brendon had absolutely adored.
The clouds are beginning to spiral ominously in the sky, tinged green and lightly drizzling rain down onto the water. Brendon can feel it and he looks at the boat hopefully, waiting to see if the humans notice it too. They don’t appear to be aware of any of the oncoming danger though; they’re all laughing and dancing and drinking their ‘beer’, even Ryan. Brendon desperately wants to swim up and alert them, but even if it wasn’t a terrible threat to his safety, he’s not entirely sure the humans could understand him. He swims wide circles around the boat anxiously, unsure of what to do.
“Hey, is it raining?”
Brendon looks over to see Ryan’s friend who wanted the ‘beer’—Dan, his name is Dan—reaching a hand out to feel the drops.
“Shit, we should get back.” Ryan frowns, standing and extracting himself from the tangle of limbs that he calls Zee.
Dan nods and a brunette who was sipping from a water bottle—the only one who seems to be acting half-sensible, in Brendon's opinion—stands and goes to the wheel. She starts up the engine just as the rain begins to fall harder and Brendon bites his lip. If they don’t hurry, they’re not going to make it.
He follows the boat again just to make sure they all arrive to shore safely, but by the time they’ve made it about halfway, the storm is morphing into a hurricane that’s furiously trying to beat them down. The waves are so big that they’re threatening to capsize the boat and the humans aboard are frantic as they scurry back and forth to try and simply stay upright. Brendon has no idea how to help, but there’s no chance for him to even try and think of a solution when a bolt of lightning comes down.
It’s big enough that despite hitting the boat almost dead-on, the aftershocks send Brendon spinning beneath the water, dazed. He tries righting himself, shaking his head to clear his vision and through the dark water he catches sight of the boat—or pieces of the boat—floating around.
Quickly he scans the area around him, searching for Ryan—or anyone else really—when his eyes lock onto a dark figure slowly sinking down. He swims over, heart pounding in his chest and snatches the shirt of whomever he’s found, darting for the surface again. He has to cradle the human carefully so that their head is above the water, and when lightning flashes again he sees that he’s got Ryan in his arms and the other humans are swimming around, shouting each other’s names.
There’s no way he can bring Ryan back over to them, so instead, he desperately swims for shore. The wind is whipping the trees back and forth, nearly bending them in half and the lifeguard tower has been knocked over and is scattered in pieces across the beach. Brendon drags Ryan up onto the sand with a strained grunt.
“Please,” he whispers desperately, pushing the wet locks of hair out of his eyes.
Ryan isn’t moving; his eyes are closed and hair is clinging to his forehead where there’s a gash dripping red down his skin.
Brendon quickly leans down to press his ear to Ryan’s chest, listening carefully, desperately for the sound of a beating heart. A steady thump thuds in Brendon’s ear and he sighs in relief.
“Thank you, thank you,” he whispers, resting his forehead against Ryan’s.
He hears shouting and looks up. There are flashing lights in the trees and sirens wailing and he knows that this means he needs to disappear, and fast. He debates whether Ryan will be alright alone in the sand, but quickly determines the humans coming this way will help him. Brendon frantically wriggles back into the water and darts beneath the angry waves, swimming back to the spot where the boat had been struck. Already jet skis are speeding that way and once Brendon knows that the other humans will survive as well, he dives down and heads for home.
He knows his father is going to be furious once he finds out where Brendon was—and he will find out, because all merfolk are supposed to stay in the citadel when there’s a hurricane—but he can’t bring himself to regret what he did. If he hadn’t gone to the surface, Ryan would be dead.
The deeper he goes the calmer the water gets, and when Brendon can see the outline of his city, he can’t help but glance back up at the surface longingly. He belongs up there, not down below the waves where there’s no Sun or sky or ‘beer’. He belongs where those things are, where Ryan is. And he’ll be damned if he doesn’t find a way to get up there sooner or later.