Chapter Text
It’s a gloomy morning when Katsuki trods down to the beach. A rare morning off, the big storm last night had taken out several fishing boats, much to his employer’s dismay. Debris and pruny, lifeless bodies litter the water, a sight tragic enough to make a man like him wince.
He carefully avoids stray planks as his boots sink into the sand. The sludge clings to the leather like its life depends on it, amassing until he can feel the grains tickling his socks. Grunting, the blond does his best to ignore the growing discomfort in his shoes. Dull eyes lined with dark circles scan the bay wearily, picking out the few corpses of his colleagues.
His stomach churns, and bile threatens to claw up his esophagus from seeing them. And it’s the knowledge that he could have been one of those men if not for his pounding hangover, which makes his hand clamp tight over his chapped lips. Clearing his throat, he gazes across the rubble-strewn sand. Half in the water, he glimpses something unnatural. Needing to escape the death behind him, he stalks toward the object of his fascination.
As he zeroes in, he has to slap his wind-bitten cheeks because there you lay, an otherworldly creature far too beautiful to be seen with man's eyes. He stops at your side and stares down at you with furrowed brows and a tight jaw. If not for the long plank piercing your blood-soaked tail, you’d be lying on your stomach. Your cheek is smushed into the mushy sand, your lip is busted, and little cuts litter your bright skin. Your neck and chest are draped in chains of pearls and seashells.
The blonde is at a loss for words. This can’t be real, can it? Can creatures like you really exist? Were all of the stories his father used to tell him before bed true? Steadying himself with a deep breath, Katsuki crouches by your side. Tentatively, he touches your wound. At the contact, you flinch, your heavenly features scrunching up as you hiss. Your blood drips from his fingertips, warm.
He might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he can see that your life is fleeting. In the spur-of-the-moment kind of decision, he loops his arms underneath your body and hoists you up. You groan, too out of it to protest.
Katsuki hasn’t run home since he was a boy, but he does now as he rushes to get you into water. That’s where you came from, right? The ocean? He throws open the front door and doesn’t bother to slam it shut as he races to the downstairs bathroom. As gently as he can, he sets you down by the bathtub and starts running the water.
Fuck!
Did you need lukewarm water or cold water or fucking cold water? Remembering how cold it is in these parts, he aims for just cold water. The tide couldn’t have brought you in from too far out.
He snatches his towel and dips it in the water before patting your gills, causing you to groan. He secures it around your neck with a loose knot before scampering off to find some salt. And when he returns, he dumps the entire shaker’s worth into the bathtub, stirring frantically whilst monitoring you out of the corner of his eye. His heart is pounding in his chest, and for a moment, he thinks that this is the most alive he’s felt in a long time.
As the water level nears full, Katsuki gulps. It’s time. He unbuckles his belt and roughly pulls it out from his pants. His touch is contrastingly soft as he opens your mouth and places the worn leather between your teeth. He grunts at you to stay still. And when you give no response, his resolve solidifies. With both hands, he grips the sides of the wood jutting out of your tail.
He mumbles underneath his breath, “It’ll be over soon, ‘kay?” Gritting his teeth, Katsuki pulls the plank out clean. You scream into the belt, alluring eyes bulging as you try and focus on the scene before you. Your head throbs; the pain is far too much for coherent thoughts. You barely register the clinking made by the splinter as it’s dropped on the tiles.
Frenzied eyes widen as he gazes at the bloodied, gaping hole left behind. His fingers tremble for a moment, his inner voice repeating that if you weren’t dead yet, you were gonna be now. In all his years as a fisherman’s son and eventually, a fisherman, he’s seen some ugly wounds on his catches. But never before had he seen something like this.
Gulping, he stalks over to you. He embraces you and plops you down in the bathtub. You cry out as soon as your body hits the water, arms instinctively clinging to his neck.
He squeezes your forearm and mumbles in your ear, “’M sorry.” He pulls back and gently eases your arms off him.
You rasp out, “Too warm.” Katsuki stares back at you like a deer in headlights. He may have spoken to you, but he didn’t think you could actually understand him. And he sure as hell didn’t think you could talk back.
He grunts, “What?” But your strength is dwindling as you bleed out in his dingy little bathroom that’s long overdue for a makeover. The man is genuinely grateful that you even fit in his bathtub, given how long your tail is. Your head lolls back, eyes fluttering shut as you breathe out shakily. Panicking, the blonde turns the tap back on and runs cold water in. The bathtub becomes bloodier by the second, and he’s beginning to think he may have bitten off more than he could chew.
He unties the towel from around your neck and lifts the back of your head to retrieve it. With the running water, he dampens the towel again before hastily retying it. He’s mentally screaming at himself to do more, to do better. If he keeps kneeling at your side, blanched and quivering like he’s seen a ghost, then you don’t stand a chance at surviving.
He screws his eyes shut and thinks. If you’re a fish, then he can’t bandage you. Instead, he needs to make sure that your water is clean and the right temperature, and he needs to get you some antibiotics. His red eyes snap open and find you, observing the slow rise and fall of your chest in a trance. He shuts off the tap and silently pleads with you to stay alive as he stands up.
It’s like Katsuki has been possessed as he dashes off to the pet store to buy you some antibiotics, barely avoiding people as he runs down the sidewalk and barrels into the shop. The bell clatters, and he almost screams at the shop assistant who tries to upsell him a fish tank thermometer and discounted fish food like he’s some fish-obsessed madman whose beloved pet is gravely wounded.
By the time he makes it back, you’ve gotten three shades paler. But the man has hope and holds onto it with everything he’s got as he changes your water, dumps the antibiotics in, and refreshes your towel. After cleaning up the blood soaking his floor and his skin, he stays with you the entire night, watching over you, and trying to convince himself that all of this is real until he falls asleep on the tub’s edge.