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mintyfrosty · 3 years

Text

Back To Square One

Hello all you wonderful people!!

Ya’ll want more merfolk Au stuff?? I gotchu fame. Small one-shot under the cut >:3333333

You know.

Most humans didn't find themselves to be half fish somewhere in your early 30s. Right happened to be an exception.

Despair following his every moment, frame tight and compact against the rocky edging on the cave's underwater cavern. Caramel eyes gawked blankly at the dozens of grains of sand that littered the ocean floor. Too many to count in a lifetime. In a way, an odd sense of loneliness captured his spirit, mainly for two reasons. The first being he was alone in a literal sense, his fri-- acquaintance named Reginald had swum off somewhere to get the two of them a meal for the evening. And the second, well, he didn't know of any miracle stories of humans turning into merfolk, let alone if there was a way to revert it. It didn't make sense; he just...fell in a batch of glowing, purple water, sunk to the bottom and suddenly he was equipt with a tigerfish tail.

And with it, everything he was familiar with.

His whole life was gone.

His friends.

His family.

His crew.

His ship.

His food.

His bed.

Gone.

Simple as that.

But just because it was gone, didn't mean it didn't stab a deep wound in Right's spirit.

"Right?"

A voice. High pitched. Familiar.

Sullenly, the taller of the two looked up from his arms that were crunched in a huddled position, nothing less than a glare coming under the brim of his hat. The other had a satchel strung over his shoulder down to his left hip (Er- top of his tail on the left side?), swimming over gently to the man's side. It was good, however, that the two knew each other for about a month before this 'incident'; made the whole process a little bit more bearable. Or, at least it would if the two weren't in a slightly discourse at the moment.

When Right was still human, his ship had swept up the merman in a net and said merman immediately lost it. Turns out, merfolk don't take kindly to figuring out your species is the reason that your ocean has been limiting its food supply or polluting your oceans with junk (even if Right wasn't guilty of either of those. He was a pirate, not a fisher). As a result, Reginald...lost trust in him, even though Right had assisted him for about a month whilst the merman recovered. Perhaps it was related to Reginald's 'clan' situation. He didn't know. Didn't seem to matter now.

At least, however, Reginald was being much gentler and pushing his feelings on the matter behind him to assist the transformed human. That was something Right could appreciate.

The purple painted merman took a seat to the left of Right, pulling the satchel in front of him and unclipping the button that held it together. The shark mercreature was sure to slightly uncurl himself out of his misery as his gaze fell to the contents the other brought out. A variety. Recently slaughtered fish. Some kind of cod. Prawns. Was that octopus?

"I, erm, didn't know what you fancied, so I tried to find as much as I could." Explained Reginald, putting the batch of octopi to the side; seemed to be one of his favourites. Right, however, went slightly pale at the suggestion. Eating raw fish? Well, prawns were okay sometimes. But cod? Let alone octopi? That sounded like a slimy mess of distress.

The other must've caught his disgust, as he began saying something along the lines of: "I...understand you're not used to this. But, unless I'm wrong, you-- er-- drylanders don't eat fish fresh, so, it could be better?"

To be fair, Reginald was as much in the dark as he was. And, luckily, he was somewhat correct; getting fresh fish was extremely rare on the surface. Or, at least, being freshly killed.

So, hesitantly, Right reached an arm forward, hands grasping roughly at the cod and inspecting it. Quite clear to see that Reginald had done all the hard labour of cleaning the thing of its insides before presenting himself. A small feeling of gratefulness developed in his soul. Thoughtful, it was. Very kind.

The shark-merman did find, however, that it was much easier to bite into and chew things with his newly sharpened, second row of teeth. And, frankly, wasn't as bad as he was expecting. Yes, the texture was horrid and he had to push the thought back of eating the thing raw but...not terrible.

"'anks, Reg." Mumbled Right underneath his breath, eyes focused on the meal in his hands. Too focused to not see the bright light shine in Reginald's purple and black eyes, turning his head with a snap. Didn't last long, as the sound of crunching octopus flesh met his finned ears. Well, not after a soft 'you're welcome.'

And now it was quiet.

Both of them, Right knew, were confused. Of course, the taller of the two was much more distressed than he was bewildered, caught between a wave of different emotions. He didn't handle them well; that went for most emotions. Stupid feelings. Stupid attachment. Stupid; all of it.

"I...erm--" Reginald's voice hit his ears, eyes only turning to meet Reginald as his teeth sunk into his cod. The shorter cleared his throat. "I'm sorry-- I don't know of any known...solutions to this. But-- I'm sure I can find something in time. I-I can assure you, though, I'll try my best to be as fast as possible to get you back to normal."

... What?

"Yer gonna...find me a cure?" 'Cure' was probably a bad word to describe the term, but, both of them knew they were thinking about this situation as if it were a problem. Right turned his attention fully now, letting the cod rest in his hands that fell into his lap (lap?). The other had a crimson look on his face now, looking down at the ground, fumbling with his hands slightly.

"I...figured it would be...appropriate because, well, you helped me a great deal-- and that-- well-- how I--" Reginald brought a hand to his face, rubbing it with his webbed fingers, letting out a small groan of frustration. "--look. I'm sorry about being upset over the dry lander thing on the ship. Ugh-- the clan's been in such a slump. And we've messed up heist after heists because of those wooden whales. And I was frustrated and upset-- and I just--"

The purple and gold merman slumped his face into his hands. "I'm so sick of how miserable The Toppat Shells and the answer was right there, even though you were already so kind to me. I wasn't thinking; I was just mad and upset. And now that's led to--"

"Oi."

Reginald cut off his rambling, looking up from his hands to look at the small concerned yet stern expression of the other merman in the cavern. A hand came to his shoulder, grasping it gently. "If ye 'ink f' a second t'at...t'is--" Right gestured to his lower half. "--is yer fault, yer wrong. Yeah, maybe it was a result of some dumb s'it ye were upset wit', but t'ings were gonna turn out dis way because of the 'ole...raid on the s'ip t'ing."

"No-No, I'm not saying that." The brunette let out a sigh, brushing a curl out of his face and slumping against the back wall, not moving from the comforting presence on his shoulder. "I-- erm-- just believe I owe you some payment for...everything you've done for me. How I reacted was uncalled for and...consider this an apology, maybe."

Owed him payment? That was an odd thing for an ex-pirate to hear.

He wasn't paid back for anything; that's just how things were on the surface. Steal. Work as a crew. Get the job done. Do it all over again. Right supposed, however, that it did sort of match his out of character performance of helping a dying fish on the beach and growing slightly attached over time. A lot of things were out of character. This whole damn situation was wrong.

A sigh left Right's throat, coming out as a string of bubbles as he brought his hands back into his lap, too leaning back.

"Can't 'ave that, 'orry. If t'ere's one t'ing 've learned being a 'aptain, ye never play princess. Ain't yer responsibility ta change me back, when it ain't even yer fault. Kinda my business, 'onestly. But, if yer committed, we'll...figure it out together, suppose."

Octopi falling to the ground in a stunned grasp, Reginald's eyes turned up and met the brown ones that belonged to Right, blinking several times to understand what he had said. The ex-pirate held back a smirk, feeling slightly satisfied on getting an upper hand. Of course, it didn't last long, since his expression turned into painted, crimson blush at the response from the other.

"S-Sorry, could, erm, I hug you?"

...Hug? Uhm-- It wasn't an odd request, of course. But Hugging

"Erm--" Right let the cod drop into his lap, brushing a hand behind his head to scratch his hair, even if it wasn't itchy. Might as well not bring another problem to this situation. "I mean-- sur--"

Right didn't need to say one word more, as Reginald was suddenly on his chest, wrapping his arms around the other's torso in a tight embrace, face buried into his shoulder. Taking a sharp inhale, the taller of the two felt his face heat up, despite being the cool waters of the seafloor. With much hesitation, Right wrapping his arms around the other, trying his best to not hit his fins or something along those lines (he didn't have a clue to how sensitive they were). Heh. It almost seemed like Reginald was just as choked up at the situation as he was, despite that not being true in the slightest. However, he seemed to be greatly upset by it, at least.

It only lasted a moment, the smaller individual pulling back, keeping his distance and looking slightly awkward. It was clear that Reginald seemed to express appreciation and gratitude through physical affection, even if it was platonic. Didn't exactly clash well with Right's nature of pushing people away when he was emotional. But...it was manageable. The ex-pirate let out a chuckle, scratching his head once more with a cough of bubbles. "'ow about...we start again? Like, bef' all t'is bullshit 'appened."

Before the pirate ship. Before things had gone pear-shaped. Before when the last time they saw each other was on the beach.

The merman before him took a moment of stunned silence before his lips formed into a smile, sticking his hand forward.

"Alright. Hi there. My name is Reginald Coperbottom; second in command of The Toppats Shells!"

A firm handshake was met with a wave of bubbles.

"'ello. 'm Right."

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