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“Are we there yet?”
“Ask me that one more time and you’ll be walking the rest of the way.”
Javy’s mouth shut with a click. He huffed, but very carefully stayed quiet, and turned to look out the window. It felt like they’d been driving for ages, and the trees rushing by seemed to be endless.
He sighed quietly again.
This vacation was gonna suck, he already knew it. They’d left three hours later than they’d planned to, all because Danielle had to wait until the last minute to start packing.
He snorted to himself. Okay, he’d also started packing his bags that morning, but it wasn’t like he had a bunch of girly stuff like make-up to pack. He had his clothes and crap, and also his Top Ten Awesomest Sharks book, but that was all he needed.
Just then, he felt the car begin to slow, a bump, and then the loud sound of gravel crunching under the tires. Excited, he perked up in his seat, slipping under his seatbelt to try and get a view of what was ahead.
The car slowed, pulling up on the top of a hill that sloped shallowly, small buildings with people in various states of dress milling about. Up ahead, Javy could see the sparkling blue water and endless horizon.
“We’re here!” He cried happily, unbuckling in a hurry and scrambling out of his seat.
In a whirl, he and his siblings clamored out of the car and began unloading while his mother checked them into their motel room.
“I’m gonna see a shark!” He told his sister proudly, hefting his bag onto his shoulder.
She puffed, and squinted at him. “There ain’t sharks in these waters, Dad would’ve told us.”
“But I’m gonna find them,” he insisted, turning and running to his brother to tell him the same thing.
He crossed his fingers; seeing a shark would make it so much less sucky.
Javy waddled out of the cold water, pouting. Of course he wouldn’t see a shark over here, the water wasn’t deep enough for them to fit.
Looking around the sandy shore, he frowned. There were also too many people, and all the books and videos said sharks are actually afraid of people. He needed to find a better shark look-out.
So, Javy grabbed his book off his beach towel and began walking up the curving stretch of sand, intending to go further into the ocean where the water would be deeper and there would be less people. His arm floaties squeaked and rubbed a little uncomfortably with each step. For a second, he thought about taking them off, but remembered his father’s words about the strong ocean currents.
With some effort, he managed to adjust them while holding onto his book. He shuffled onward over the sand, noticed the rocks getting bigger and the sand becoming more coarse. Ahead, he could see where all the sand turned into a bunch of big rocks.
All the way at the end, he could see a big smooth rock, a little taller than the rest: the perfect shark look-out. He smiled to himself. All the way out here meant he would be the first one to see a shark when it swam by.
Javy clutched the book with one hand, using the other to balance along the tall rock wall, and walked very carefully on the rocks. They were slippery and he could see some barnacles, which were cool but looked like they hurt to fall on.
When he reached his destination, he felt tired, but had held onto his book and hadn’t slipped even once. Carefully, he sat himself down and opened the book, smiling as he looked over the words and pictures he’d memorized by now.
“Tiger shark,” he murmured to himself, squinting into the waves. The sun was bright and made it hard to see anything in the water. Javy scooched forward, looking back down at his book.
“Up to ten feet long, with a triangle dorsal fin and stripes on their scales, just like a tiger,” he read to himself, looking at the picture. He checked the water again. Nothing.
He wiggled forward a little more, flipping the page.
“Maybe I’ll see a mako shark,” he said to himself. “The fastest of all sharks, over thirty-one miles per hour!”
Something splashed.
His heart leapt and his head snapped up, eyes squinting hard into the moving waves. He leaned forward, confident he’d just heard a shark, when-
The world tipped and his stomach dropped as he slipped off the rock, too startled to even scream.
His head went under and he held his breath, squeezing his eyes shut. He was cold all over, couldn’t feel his book in his hand anymore, and kicked his legs, trying to swim up.
When he broke the surface, he gasped, blinking back sea water and tears. His floaties kept his arms held up and out to his sides, but when he looked at where he’d been sitting, it had grown a long distance away.
He panicked, realizing he was being pulled out to sea by the current, quietly sniffling as he fought with everything he had, trying to kick and swim how his father taught him.
He sputtered, water sloshing into his mouth, his legs growing heavy. His eyes began slipping shut, barely strong enough to keep his head above the water.
Then, from far away, he heard splashing again. Great, there was a shark swimming by and he was gonna miss it. The rock had grown very small and far away. The world slowly faded to black.
Bleary, Javy coughed, salty droplets flying out of his mouth. He shifted, felt his face against soft, squishy sand and slowly opened his eyes. He was laying down on the beach, but it was completely empty.
With shaking arms, he pushed himself up and looked around. He’d ended up outside of the safety of the cove and was alone, piles of large rocks and chunks of the tall cliff a short distance to his side.
He looked back down, and noticed the oddly limp and flat shape of one of his arm floaties. He frowned, jumping a little when a wave washed up the shore and into his lap.
Between the sloshing sounds of the waves, something splashed. His head whipped to the noise, jaw falling to his knees when he saw the source of the noise.
Half-washed up, there was a boy, tanned skin and light hair with a whisper of curls, lying shirtless in the sand. But the most surprising part was probably the way his torso melted into a colorful, scaly tail where there should've been legs.
“Holy cow!” Javy cried, jumping to his feet, freezing when he realized he had no idea what to do. “Holy cow!” He repeated. “You’re a fish!”
The… fish boy looked up at him, tail flopping as he propped himself up on the sand. His eyes were a light color, and there were odd, frilly fish fins around his ears.
Javy lifted a hand to cover his gaping mouth, taking in the fish boy’s full body.
The fish boy scowled. “I’m not a fish! I’m a merman,” he said, like he was the dumb one; Javy knew a fish when he saw one.
He squinted, frowning and pointed an accusatory finger. “You can't be a man, you're just a kid.”
The fish boy frowned back. “Well, you’re just a kid too. A dumb kid who almost drowned.”
Anger flashed in his chest and he stomped forward. “I’m not dumb! I know a lot about sharks and I was looking for one when the wave knocked me off my rock.”
He stopped a short distance from the fish boy, who’d shrunk back and was glaring.
“Okay, fine, you’re not dumb. Now can you help me get back in the water? It’s only fair because I helped you,” he reasoned, pointing a webbed finger at the sea as a wave crashed on shore. The water rose up the sand, reaching just past the fin at the end of his tail, too shallow to wash him back out on his own.
Javy huffed, still annoyed that the fish boy called him dumb, but went to help anyways. He held out his hands, waited for the fish boy to take them and grabbed on tightly. It was a little funny, because his skin felt like normal skin, but there was a slippery-ness to it.
With his whole body, he turned and hauled, dragging the fish boy around and into the sea. With each step, he dug his heels into the soft sand, grunting with the effort.
“You could help, y’know,” he told the fish boy through gritted teeth, taking another step back. The water was at his knees now but part of the other boy’s tail was still on the dry sand.
“Oh, sorry, let me just grow some legs,” he said, rolling his eyes like how Dani rolled hers.
Javy scowled but kept heaving. “Don’t be sarcastic, I’m helping you.”
“I helped you first, dummy!” The fish boy protested.
With a grunt, Javy yanked hard, satisfied when a wave slapped right into the fish boy’s face, making him sputter. “My name’s Javy, fish boy.”
“Well, my name’s Jake, not fish boy,” he replied, indignant.
The weight had lessened, Jake’s entire body now in the water. Javy gave one last pull and stumbled backwards when there was no resistance, falling into the water.
He pushed up off the sandy ground, spitting out water, and felt his stomach drop when he couldn't touch the bottom. He flailed, tipped his head back and took fast, shaking breaths, trying to tread like how his brother did.
He swallowed a mouthful of water, choking, when arms wrapped around his chest, lifting him up.
He coughed hard, water dribbling out of his mouth and blinked. Against the back of his legs, he could feel smooth scales and the ghost of those feathery fins he’d seen, swishing gently.
“You’re a good swimmer,” he said aloud, without really meaning to, and wiped a hand down his face, turning to look over his shoulder.
“And you’re a bad one,” Jake said, but not in a mean way. Before he could defend himself and tell Jake he’d actually passed his level three swim classes, they were moving faster than Javy had ever gone in water.
“Woah.” The sand sank between his toes, the waves gently pushing and pulling around his knees.
He looked back at Jake, who was carefully staying where it was deep enough to swim.
“Okay, you’re cool, we can be friends,” Javy declared, walking back into the water.
The pure shock on Jake’s face vanished when the water reached Javy’s shoulders and he darted under, popping up right in Javy’s face less than a second later.
“Are you trying to drown?” Jake asked, exasperated.
“No, of course not.” Javy slapped his hands down, fingers spread and palms flat, splashing Jake in the face. He grinned. “Let’s play Tsunami!”
He received a blank, confused stare in return.
Javy straightened and put his hands on his hips, bouncing on his toes as the waves rolled by. “It’s a game,” he explained, “we splash each other and see who can make the biggest splashes.”
Jake nodded slowly, still looking like he’d never heard of it in his life. Which was silly, because if Javy lived by the beach, he’d be playing Tsunami with his siblings every day, obviously.
He didn’t even have a second to register the movement before a massive surge of water crashed into him, sending him falling back in the water.
Bobbing to the surface and sputtering, Javy coughed and scrubbed at his eyes. “Okay, wait, this isn’t fair, you have a tail.”
Javy could picture the sparkling gleam on his teeth like he was in a toothpaste commercial when Jake grinned at him.
“What do you mean? This is fun.”
Javy got crushed in Tsunami harder than ever before in his athletic career, but it was also the most fun he’d ever had playing with a friend.
Bernie, was a fully matured adult in every sense, which meant that he had the self control necessary to keep himself from face-palming hard enough to break the bridge of his own nose, it was just a question of whether he wanted to or not.
He didn’t, not really, but at that moment the consequences seemed not so bad.
“I’mma need you to repeat yourself, very slowly, Jake,” Brenie said, calling on the strength of his ancestors to keep his voice level and at an appropriate volume.
The young mer visibly swallowed, eyes darting and tail flicking. Bernie stayed perfectly still and upright in the water, arms crossed.
“I can tell you’re mad,” he said, already off to a bad start, “but what else was I supposed to do? Javy was gonna drown, and I- I couldn’t just let him-”
Bernie took a page from his husband’s book and cocked a single eyebrow. “Oh, he has a name?”
“No,” Jake said quickly, gills puffing. His ear-fins flared out and he hurried to clamp them against his head.
Bernie closed his eyes against the beginnings of a headache. This must’ve been what Solomon was worried about: the kid straying too close to the humans, getting caught, and being in danger.
But then again, Jake was fine. Bernie opened his eyes to verify it. The kid was still curled in on himself, but there wasn’t a single scratch on him.
He sighed. “Aren’t you…” he gestured vaguely, “supposed to be afraid of humans?”
Jake blinked, slowly gliding forward to let the water wash through his gills. “I mean… Your human is nice, so, I dunno, I thought more of them might be nice too.”
He’d need to have a word with his husband to fix that. “Solomon is a heartless, cruel human like the rest of them.”
When Jake giggled, a small stream of bubbles rose from his mouth, catching the moonlight as they dissipated.
Biting back another sigh, he lazily glided through the water, taking a deep breath.
“You’ll have to stay away from the cove for a few days,” he began, pausing when the young mer’s face fell immediately. “Is there a problem?”
“...I kind of told Javy I’d play with him again tomorrow?”
Bernie counted to five, and then ten, and then twenty. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and mentally beamed his distress into his husband’s head.
“I told Pete I would keep you safe. Letting you play with humans is the exact opposite of that.”
“It’s just one human…”
“That’s not my point.” He let out a long sigh but it didn’t make him feel any better. “I’ll talk to Solomon first. Do not go and see that boy without my permission.”
“Okay.”
Bernie knew better than to believe he'd listen, but let it drop. He took a moment to orient himself and started in the direction towards the cove.
“Do you want dinner or not?” He asked without turning around. The swishing of a much smaller, frillier tail followed and together, they swam through the deep blue.
“Bernard.”
“Don’t say my name in that tone.”
A huff. “Only when you start making sense.”
Bernie rested his forehead against the cool stone. “It’s the safest option.”
“He’s also just a kid, one who can’t spend months all on his own. He needs a friend his age.” Solomon’s warm hand touched his shoulder, thumb tracing small circles.
He grunted in response.
His husband hesitated before continuing. “I could… watch them? They’ll probably stay where it’s shallow.”
“And give up your precious afternoon of playing with colored paste?” He asked, though he turned the offer over in his mind with careful consideration. He was confident that Solomon could easily overpower a human child if it came to it, but that child would probably have parents who’d be unhappy with a grown man roughing him up.
“You like the paintings I make for you,” he hummed, patting gently.
Bernie conceded with an affirmative noise, rubbing a hand over his face. Who knew taking care of a kid was this stressful.