Jimmy didn't really expect to have to get in between Joel and Tango the moment they laid eyes on each other, but-- well.
He wasn't surprised.
Jimmy had been chatting with Tango up at the surface, after they'd eaten and Jimmy had taken the plates back inside. Tango was absolutely fascinated by the wheelchair, but unwilling to try and haul himself up into it to really see how it worked. Jimmy had to admit he must look at least a little undignified as he wiggled up into the seat, but normally the only ones to see him were people he didn't care about looking silly in front of.
Not that he cared about looking silly in front of Tango. Nope.
Anyway. He'd slipped back down to the ground, pulling the chair close so Tango could inspect it. Tango had actually hoisted himself up onto the edge of the pool. Jimmy saw it as progress. A curious mer was one less likely to lash out.
Jimmy perked up his ear fins at the sound of Martyn's voice coming from the house, maybe Lizzie and Joel were here?
Yep, there was Joel's voice.
"Joel-- Joel wait--" Martyn caught the back of Joel's wheelchair, stopping it from tipping into the water-- a moment too late to stop Joel himself from slipping down out of it.
Tango had disappeared from the edge the moment Joel and Martyn had appeared from out of the house.
Jimmy had thought that Joel was going to tackle him-- after all, Joel was definitely one to pin Jimmy down as his way to say hello. But nope.
In a flash of bubbles and a twist of fins, Joel was on top of Tango. Neither seemed to be getting the upper hand, but if Joel was really trying to hurt Tango, there would have been blood in the water--
Jimmy spoke too soon.
"Hey-- hey hey hey hey!!" Jimmy whistled sharply, knocking into the writhing pair of mer, pushing Joel off of Tango and spreading his sails to block the line of sight, "Joel-- both of you-- calm down-!"
Joel let himself drift back, and Jimmy glanced back to see Tango push himself up off the tiles, his colors fired up dark. Great. Tango was the one bleeding, red lazily billowing from along his gills.
"I didn't--" Joel had his mouth open, surely he could taste the blood in the water, "Jimmy I didn't mean to hurt him--"
"Didn't mean to?" Tango chirped, pressing a hand to his torn gills, "You don't get to just say sorry after attacking me, jellyfish-for-brains."
"I said, both of you, calm down--" Jimmy twisted, keeping between them. It was getting to be way too often that Jimmy had to take charge like this. At least Joel was listening. "Joel, go tell Martyn to get Lizzie, I'll help Tango up so she can look at him."
Joel darted away, so Jimmy turned back to Tango, reaching out to grab him.
"No-- no." Tango bared his fangs, shifting back away from Jimmy's reach, "I'm not going anywhere near your humans."
"Tango, please. You're hurt, they can help." Jimmy pleaded, holding his hand out and letting himself sink lower in the water so he wasn't floating over Tango. He was doing his best to seem non-threatening. He needed Tango to trust him, to accept their help. "And I don't think Martyn is going to feel comfortable with putting you back in the ocean unless he's sure you're healed. That's what Lizzie is here for. She's a healer, and she knows how to help mer."
Tango just sat there, blood still seeping into the water from under his hand.
Jimmy hadn't gotten a good look at what'd happened, but it probably wasn't on purpose. Not with how quick Joel backed off. Jimmy knew that Joel's plating was rough in places, but normally his podmate could keep it from doing any damage when they were wrestling. But Tango had thought it was a proper attack.
Tango still didn't trust them.
Jimmy let out a mouthful of bubbles. Even if he promised that he wouldn't be hurt, Tango likely still wouldn't believe him, and even if Jimmy had been able to overpower Tango before-- that had onl been after the other mer had been stung by sedatives. Jimmy could probably get close enough to sting him again, if Martyn had more. It'd be easy to corner him with Joel's help. The pool wasn't that big, and with the way Tango pushed himself further from Jimmy, he knew it too.
"Look. I want you to be able to go home as much as you do. But the others won't let you if you can't survive out there on our own." Jimmy tried, "And if your gills heal wrong. . ."
Tango pinned his fins close and turned away.
Hopefully he'd allow them to help.
It took longer than Jimmy would've liked, for Tango to reach out and take Jimmy's hand, allowing him to pull Tango up to the surface o the pool where the others were waiting. Joel was back in his wheelchair, over by the door leading back into the house, with a medical kit in his lap. Lizzie and Martyn were waiting by the edge of the water, out of lunging range, but still close enough to watch what'd been happening.
"Tango, meet Lizzie." Jimmy said, gesturing over to her, before switching to English as he swam to the edge of the pool closest to them, leading Tango by the hand, "Lizzie, this is Tango."
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Reading List 2023-2024 📚
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
The Song or Achilles - Madeline Miller
The Myth of the Wrong Body - Miquel Missé
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Remainder - Tom McCarthy
If We Were Villains - M. L. Rio
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Bones and All - Camille DeAngelis
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche
Diaries - Franz Kafka
Frankenstein - Mary Shelly
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales - H. P. Lovecraft
The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri
1984 - George Orwell
The Iliad and The Odyssey - Homer
Unnatural Causes - Dr Richard Shepherd
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes - Eric LaRocca
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
The Trial of the Templars - Malcolm Barber
Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
Demian - Hermann Hesse
Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Atlas Six - Olivie Blake
Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reids
Ninth House - Leigh Bardugo
Vita Nostra - Maryna & Serhiy Dyachenko
Pageboy: A Memoir - Elliot Page
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodr Dostoevsky
(updated: 03/01/24)
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I'M SCREAMING I JUST FINISHED FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT AND I HAVE TOO MANY EMOTIONS!!! It's so good I just wanted you to know, I'm scared for the last two chapters /w\
💌 I'm so glad people still like and read "Fake It Till You Make It", it is my baby and I love when people share their feelings about it! I too am scared for the last two chapters, not gonna lie, this fic has taken me 2 years to complete and I just want to stick the landing since there's a lot of things I have to wrap up!
💌 It's been on my mind a lot recently, but I just haven't found the right words yet. That and Chapter 15 was technically going to be the epilogue that sets it up for a potential sequel buuuuut sequels are always so-so and I could probably just put it all in Chapter 15. I do have a sequel in mind tho and it is very tempting to make.
💌 The bottom line is I'm not in the same headspace as I was when I wrote majority of the fic & finding the time to sit and write has been a challenge 🙃
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