#there is no dignified explanation only shitposting | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

swan-archive · 7 years

Text

i really have no explanation for this other than that it is the monster shitpost equivalent of me, sitting on Sarah @herowndeliverance’s doorstep in the middle of the night and caterwauling my love for her and her works until she gets fed up and hucks a shoe at me. i’m sorry, you guys.

Evenings are the easiest time for them, George finds.

In the light of day, Alex’s slip-ups and pratfalls appear almost luridly obvious, every flash of too-sharp teeth or misunderstanding of ostensibly simple concepts an affront to the humans he’s trying to mimic. George is on tenterhooks every moment, waiting for someone to declare enough is enough and demand the monster in their midst be put down for the safety of the crew and passengers. Nights are hard, too, given Alex’s stubborn refusal thus far to sleep in the bed until morning. It’s too soft, he complains, it’s too warm, it feels like it’s eating me alive, how do you bear it the whole night through?

It’s where you’re meant to sleep, George argues back, not on the floor like an animal, but night after night he wakes to find Alex curled in a ball by the door and has to rouse himself enough to carry him to bed. More often than not, he’ll wake an hour later to find Alex has just crept back out to the floor. And then comes the morning, which finds both of them ill-rested and ill-prepared to face the whole thing all over again.

Evenings, though. Evenings are better. They can retreat to the cabin for that space between supper and lights-out, and while George busies himself with diary and letters and record-keeping Alex will puzzle at his writing, or bow his head over a book. Hard at work, his brow furrowed as he scratches out an untidy line of notes, he could almost pass for an ordinary human child at his lessons, and the two of them for an ordinary little family. George sits on the bed, having ceded the desk to Alex, and regards him, the scritching of his pen, the way he mutters to himself in an ever-shifting blend of English and French, Danish and a lilting, bird-like stream of chirps and clicks that must be the mermaids’ language.

George knows he ought to be grateful that he’s been given a second chance, strange as it may be, but he can’t help but dream of how it would have been if he’d arrived in Christiansted just a few days earlier. Early enough to save his son in his entirety. There would of course be no need for the exhausting, constant explanations of everything from table manners to furniture to where and what the American colonies are. No need for skulking and hiding in their quarters either—if Alex’s moments of good humor are anything to go by, he’d been a charming boy as a human, and undoubtedly he would have made his share of friends among the other passengers. Alex would have understood who George was and why he’d come, and would have gone with him, perhaps a little warily, but willingly. Maybe would even have been able to convince his half-brother to join them. They’d be here together, they’d be happy, and—

Alex is limping.

George looks a little more closely, and—yes, there it is, in the way he drags his feet as he crosses the room to put an armful of books away in George’s trunk. A momentary flicker across his face, not enough to call a wince, but visible all the same.

“Are you all right, Alexander?”

“Sir?”

“Your feet. Is there something wrong with them?”

“I—no. Nothing. Nothing at all. Why do you ask?” He lifts up one foot as if to examine it, bracing himself on the chair, and that was definitely a wince. George raises an eyebrow.

“Alexander.”

“Really, sir, I’m fine! Only…” He shifts his weight from foot to foot, as if trying to alleviate some discomfort. “It’s just. It’s the knives. That’s all. They’ve been a little worse today than usual. But I’m sure it’s nothing—hey, what’re you doing, don’t shove—!”

George has taken Alex by the shoulders and steered him over to the bed, seated him there with a push sharpened by fear. “Take your shoes off.”

“Sir, this isn’t—”

“Shoes, Alex. Now.”

Alex grumbles, but obediently kicks off shoes and stockings and sits there dangling his feet above the floor. George takes one of Alex’s feet in his hands, and then the other, but no, no cuts, no swelling, no gasp of pain from Alex to indicate he’s turned or sprained an ankle. Everything, by all appearances, normal.

“You see, sir?” Alex says, in far too casual a tone for George’s liking. “I’m not hurt at all. It’s just the normal pain.”

“Hmm.” Wash considers reminding him that that kind of pain is very much not normal. Decides to keep it to himself. Alex keeps going.

“Some days they ache more than others, it’s not unusual at all. And it’s not as if I can’t walk, obviously, they don’t hurt that bad, it’s just a bit distracting. Although,” he adds, brightening up, “I’m sure if I went back in the water for a little bit it would clear right up! If it wouldn’t be too much trouble…”

“No,” George barks immediately, his stomach executing a flip of pure icy terror. Go back—back in the water—no, George has already lost his son to the ocean once, he will be damned if he sits back and just watches it happen again, lets the pieces of Alex he’s regained slip right through his fingers. “No, Alexander, I forbid it, it’s far too dangerous, you could get hurt, you could drown—”

Alex doesn’t even dignify that with a verbal response, just stares at George, unimpressed. Right, mermaid. Drowning isn’t such a compelling argument. George tries another tack. “Very well, how are you planning to get into the water? If you jumped from the ship you could be injured in the fall. And if you lost sight of the ship, how would you ever know where it’s gone? You could lose your bearings and get left behind. Not to mention…sharks, or, or whatever kinds of creatures live in the open sea…”

He’s grasping at straws by the end there, trying to avoid saying outright and what if you leave me, what if you swim away and never come back, but Alex’s eyes widen and he swallows hard. “As long as I keep moving, I shouldn’t trouble whoever’s out there,” he tries, but he sounds unsure.

“Shouldn’t. But you can’t know that.” George doesn’t know exactly what Alex is talking about, but he doesn’t like the sound of that whoever.

“But if I just went for a little bit—”

“No,” George repeats. “Absolutely not. It’s too much of a risk. That’s final,” he adds, at the rebellious glint in Alex’s eyes. “You’ll stay onboard, where it’s safe. Besides, you said yourself the pain is worse some days than others. Perhaps you’ll feel better in a day or two. You must be patient, Alexander.”

Alex’s mouth twists, like it had the first time George had tried to get him to eat bread, but whatever challenge he’d been thinking of flinging at George doesn’t come out. All he says is, “Yeah. Maybe.”

“That’s right,” George says encouragingly. “And now, I think it’s best if we get ready for bed, don’t you? It’s been a long day, and we could both use our rest.”

Every day is a long day, lately, and that’s not like to end anytime soon, George thinks, as the two of them undress. By the look on Alex’s face, he feels the same way. Neither of them say anything, though, and Alex pulls the shirt he’s borrowed from George for a nightshirt over his head and crawls into bed without another word. George douses their candle and joins him.

“Good night, Alexander,” he says softly. Alex doesn’t reply, just wriggles around, trying to get comfortable. George rolls over and subtly slips an arm over Alex. With any luck, that’ll at least make him think twice before he sneaks out onto the floor again.

—

The next day comes and goes, and the next, and the next.

Things don't get better.

Alex tries bravely to pretend they have, of course, but George isn’t a fool, and he can see that Alex’s limping is getting worse. Can see the way Alex needs to lean on walls or cling to the railing in order to walk any distance more than a few feet. George tries to make himself unobtrusively available whenever Alex needs to go somewhere, so he can offer an arm or a steadying hand on the shoulder. Alex is no fool either, though, and proud to boot. When he catches George trying to coddle him (in his own words) his temper flares quick and bitter in a way that puts George in mind of his own boyhood, although Alex’s invective, its shrill mermaid screech meandering through four or five different languages in a single rant, puts George’s adolescent self entirely to shame.

By the fourth day, Alex appears to have grown tired of cursing at George’s meddling, opting instead for a flat, stony silence. He shows no interest in his books, or in conversation; the only thing that gets his attention is the prospect of an (unaided) turn about the deck, for some fresh air. When they step into the sunlight, Alex staggers to the railing, and George thinks him about to vomit over the side, but he just stands there, his legs trembling a little beneath him, looking out to sea.

George comes up behind him, very slow. Alex is humming to himself, a curious tune that George’s ear struggles to follow. No, not humming, there are words there, words George can almost understand, if he just gets a little closer, listens a little harder, perhaps. Just a little more…

The boards creak beneath his boot, and Alex jumps and bites off the melody with a startled squeak. He glowers over his shoulder at George and scoots several feet further down the deck, where he returns his gaze to the flat blue ocean. George, in turn, fights down the uneasiness that’s sprung up in him at that song—where did he learn that song—and leaves Alex in peace. Hopefully some solitude will be enough to shake him out of this funk he’s in, and make him more amenable to accepting George’s help.

...It sounds unconvincing even in George’s head. But he has to hope, because the prospect of waiting out the rest of the voyage alongside a mermaid throwing an extended tantrum is a grim one.

Alex doesn’t rejoin George until supper in the galley that evening, and it quickly becomes evident that matters have not improved. Over the course of the day, Alex seems to have developed a cough, and a particularly nasty one at that, loud and dry and hacking. It’s enough to draw stares (and glares) from the other passengers, even though George has taken up his usual position between Alex and the rest of the room to ward off any commentary on how Alex won’t touch anything on his plate but meat, how none of the etiquette lessons George has plied him with appear to have taken. Alex's appetite is poor too; he picks at his meal with obvious disinterest, and every swallow is accompanied by a grimace of pain.

“Drink this,” George says at last, pushing his ration of grog towards Alex. “It’ll soothe your throat.” It’s a long shot; Alex has been stunningly unreceptive to any drink offered him aside from plain water thus far, but George is starting to worry about that cough. If Alex gets sick, on top of everything else...

Alex accepts the mug, though, and even downs a few sips, albeit with a look of utter disgust on his face. “I don’t understand how you can drink that stuff,” he says, shoving the mug away and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He stifles another cough.

“You’ll get used to it,” George says, trying to sound reassuring, but only managing a hollow sort of false cheer.

“Yeah, if you can train the creature off blood first,” mutters someone a few seats down. Quiet voice, but in a tone clearly meant for George to hear.

George stiffens and turns around, but is met with nothing but a sea of blank, hostile faces. No obvious answer as to who the speaker was, and that galls George almost as much as the insult; he’s deprived of even the satisfaction of calling the scoundrel out, forcing him to apologize to Alexander, mermaid or no. As it is, it would be too much of a risk to try and start a fight over a single anonymous insult, and George knows any trouble he gets himself into will come down on Alex tenfold. Restraining his temper with difficulty, George turns back to Alex, who is hunched over his still-full plate. His face is flushed with anger and shame, and under his own controlled rage George feels a guilty squirm of gratitude that Alex has at least gone red and not green, for once.

“Come, Alexander,” George says, “we’ll finish our meal in the cabin. I grow…tired of the company.” Alex’s brow knits at the sharpness in George’s tone, but he lets George take him by the shoulder and guide him towards the door.

As they pass a knot of sailors, one of the men whispers, “Should send it down to the hold after the rats. Maybe that’ll satisfy it…”

Alex blinks impassively at the sailors as George’s grip on his shoulder tightens. His lips curl back in something that could, generously, be called a smile. George is having to work very hard to keep him moving all of a sudden.

“No, Alexander—” and he knows how it must look for him to be commanding Alex as if Alex is a wayward hound, but it’s all he can think to do in the moment. “No, leave them be, it’s not worth it. We’re leaving, Alex.”

Alex shoots one last glare at a bearded, blue-eyed sailor—must be the whisperer—and tenses as though he means to spring at him. The sailor curses and nearly falls out of his seat, and George wrenches a snickering Alex away and hustles him out of the galley before they end up with a real altercation on their hands.

Alex wilts quickly as they head back to the cabin, that fighting tension going out of him now that he’s been deprived of his sport, and it’s in a tone more sullen than fierce that he grumbles, “You should’ve let me…”

“Let you what?” George snaps. “Attack that man? For making a foolish comment that he wasn’t even bold enough to say to your face? You cannot possibly think I would have let you risk yourself in that way.”

“You were going to.”

“I was not,” George says, before realizing Alex has goaded him into a child’s sulky denial. He regroups. “…Regardless. The point is that I didn’t, and you mustn’t either, not if you want to stay safe here. You have to prove to them that you can control your, ah—instincts, that you’re no threat.”

Alex presses his lips together in a thin, unhappy line, as though fighting to keep something in. It doesn’t work for long. “What if I can’t?” he says.

“You can. I know you can. You just need to remember how—”

“But I’m not even human,” Alex protests.

“You are close enough as makes no matter,” says George firmly, although his stomach twists at hearing it laid out in such matter-of-fact language. Alex flinches.

“It's not…I’m not...” he begins, and then trails off. Coughs. George waits for him to finish, but he just shakes his head. He looks very pale in the lantern light.

They make their way to the cabin in silence, after that. George lights their lantern and urges Alex to finish his meal, but Alex’s appetite is no better here than it was in the galley. He barely seems to taste his food, and after a while lapses into staring down at his lap. George would call this an extension of Alex’s earlier silent treatment, but the listlessness of it is out-of-character enough to concern him.

“Would you like to use the desk? I can fetch some books for you,” George offers after a while, hoping to tempt some kind of energy back into him.

“No,” Alex says dully, not bothering with the thank you for asking that George has been working on with him. “I’m tired. I don’t want…I’m just tired.”

It’s still early, far earlier than Alex would habitually go to bed, but George doesn’t have the heart to chide him for being slothful, not when he’s in this state. “It might be for the best that you get some extra sleep,” he says instead. “Especially if you’re feeling unwell. If that cough of yours is worse by tomorrow, I can see about getting a tincture for you, something to clear your throat…”

Alex nods unenthusiastically, and it’s with a certain lethargy (and a great deal of coughing) that he limps about the cabin, preparing for bed. After casting one last longing look at the floorboards in front of the doorway, he climbs up onto the bed and curls up on top of the coverlet into the smallest ball possible, his face to the wall.

George sighs. At least it’s some kind of progress.

Alex may be too tired to stay up any longer, but George is still on edge from the events of dinner, and it would be discourteous of him to send Alex off to bed for his health but then toss and turn too much himself for the boy to sleep. Some work, then, to distract him until he’s ready to turn in. He takes a seat at their desk, shuffles through his papers, and extracts the draft of his letter to Martha.

My Dearest,

I write to you from aboard the Necessity, with such astonishing news as must constitute an act of Providence itself—

George reads to the end of what he’d completed in days past with a critical eye before setting quill to paper and pressing onwards.

He’d written to Martha from Christiansted, in the shaky, near-illegible hand of an invalid, informing her of the death of his son just a few scant days before George had arrived in port. Of his failure, and his intent to return home empty-handed as soon as possible. That letter had left the islands shortly before he himself had, and at the time George had wished for nothing more than that it might reach Martha swiftly and prepare her to receive him, comfort him in his grief and help him readjust to the rhythms of ordinary life.

Now, though, that letter is full of gross inaccuracies, and George must correct them as quickly as he can. Hence, this new draft, to be sent off the moment they make landfall. Martha is a practical woman, and clever, in her sweet, understated way; she’ll be invaluable in figuring out how best to provide for Alex, how to keep his nature hidden. And they will have to hide it, because George can’t imagine any way the gentlemen and ladies of Virginian high society would accept a flesh-eating mermaid in their midst.

It’ll be fine, he reminds himself. It’ll all be fine. Alex is smart, that much is clear, and even if he’s resistant to George’s teachings now, he’ll surely come to understand that he must blend in to stay safe. Martha has a gentler hand than George does, too, so she’ll be able to smooth over any…behaviors…that George himself can’t correct. No use worrying about any of that now. It’ll sort itself out. For now, just focus on explaining the how and the why of the creature he’s bringing home with him.

And that’s a difficult enough task in and of itself, for George still hasn’t pieced together all the details of how Alex came to be what he is now. He’s tried pressing Alex for more information, but Alex just gets confused and angry, spits out a few disconnected sentences before retreating into unhelpful stammering, vivid green splotches flickering across his skin. After that point there’s no use in trying to get anything else meaningful out of him. Don’t you think I’d tell you if I knew, he snarls, curling and uncurling his fingers ineffectually for want of claws. I was—and then I wasn’t—it was dark—I wanted—I wanted—

So for now, George supposes, he’ll have to work with what he’s got. It’s slow going, because there’s no good way to put my son died and then turned into a mermaid into words that doesn’t make him sound like he’s taken leave of his senses. The paper is soon littered with more scribbles and cross-outs than before, and he glumly considers the prospect of having to recopy the entire thing. At which point he’ll no doubt discover even more mistakes, more to add, more to re-write...

It doesn’t help his concentration any that Alex, instead of drifting off to sleep, keeps up an erratic stream of coughing as the evening drags on. Three minutes of silence—a tiny cough—two more minutes—another couple of dry hacks—five minutes—a protracted coughing fit that ends with Alex curled even more tightly around himself, seemingly embarrassed by the racket he’s making. He doesn’t sit up and ask George for help, though, and that grates on George’s nerves even more than the noise. As Alex launches into another bout, George resolves to bring him to the surgeon the moment he can get on his feet again, regardless of the lateness of the hour.

Alex coughs, and coughs, and then, quite suddenly, his whole body goes stiff and he starts to gasp. A horrible, rasping sound, like an animal in its death throes, and George leaps from his chair and rolls Alex over. Alex lets out a terrified whine and continues to fight for breath, and a great wave of panic crashes over George, what is this, he’d been fine earlier, hadn’t he been just fine?

“Alex, Alexander, speak to me, what’s happening, what’s wrong with you?”

“Can’t—can’t—” Alex chokes out. “Can’t—breathe—please—” He stops, wheezing too hard to form words, his eyes bulging and his mouth gaping like someone’s caught him by the throat and is squeezing the air out of him. He claws helplessly at George’s arms.

“I’ve got you, Alex, I’ve got you, don’t be afraid,” George babbles, catching Alex in his arms and dragging him off the bed, “stay with me now, sweetheart, we’ll get help, just stay with me, the ship’s surgeon will know what to do…”

“No—” says Alex. He tugs on George’s sleeve with surprising strength. “No—not—please, I need—I need—” He draws in a rattling breath. “Water.”

Oh. Oh. George freezes, halfway to the door with Alex in his arms. He needs the ocean, he can’t breathe without water, he thinks—but he can’t, he can’t bear the thought of just running up to the deck and throwing Alex overboard, not when he’s in this state, what if that hurts him even more, what if the shock kills him—

His eyes light on the washbasin.

As gently as he can, he lowers Alex to the floor, grabs the washbasin, still full of brackish water, and places it in front of Alex, heedless of the water slopping out over the edge. Alex pushes himself up and, with the mindless twitching desperation of a beached fish, topples forward into the basin, face-first.

His shoulders heave as though he means to drink the basin dry, and George watches in horror as his body convulses, his skin bristles with scales, and his legs melt away. A sickening series of pops and crunches, and a fishy tail sprouts past the hem of his borrowed nightshirt; his hands on the rim of the basin have gone clawed and webbed; and George can see on Alex’s neck the red rents of gill-slits, with clear water gushing through. Nothing of the human boy left, just a creature out of its element, suffering too much to care what a pitiable spectacle it makes.

Minutes tick by, or perhaps hours, George couldn’t say. All he can do is sit there, count the pulses of Alex’s gills and the twitches of his fins. Every one another sign that he’s alive, still, somehow. A monster, but alive. Finally, Alex shudders, heaves himself half up on his elbows, and flops over on his side, his eyes shut tight, his scales paler than George has ever seen them. He’s still panting, but the death rattle has gone out of his breaths. George reaches over and pulls Alex close, so his head is resting on George’s knee. Alex twitches a little bit, as though he’d like to push George away, but he simply doesn’t seem to have the energy, and he falls still.

“I’m sorry,” Alex wheezes, his tail stirring feebly against the floorboards. His eyes are still closed, and George knows, with a sick certainty, that Alex is trying to spare him the discomfort of looking into them, black and inhuman as they are. “I tried—I tried to—but I couldn’t—if I’d been more—”

“I know, I know,” says George. “Shh. You did fine, dear heart. You’re fine. You don’t have to any more. Just rest now.” He strokes a lock of hair off Alex’s forehead, where it’s caught on his scales. Alex’s face crumples and his shoulders tremble, as if he’s about to weep, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t.

“Why—” he says, choked off in an awful gulping noise. As close as he can get to a sob, without tears, with barely enough breath to force the sound out. George’s already broken heart cracks a little more down the middle. Why am I like this, George’s mind completes the question, why are you doing this to me, why does it hurt so much, help me understand, I need to understand.

All George can do is gather Alex up in his arms, lift him to his shoulder, and let him hitch and choke, sodden nightshirt and cold scale be damned. I’m sorry, love, he thinks, rubbing circles into Alex’s back just above his dorsal fin. I’m so sorry. Sorry I let this happen to you. Sorry I don’t know how to fix it. Sorry I was so selfish, I nearly killed you all over again. Alex lets out a thin wail and George shushes him, gentles him like a baby, hums a snatch of lullaby. Hopes Alex remembers lullabies, that he doesn’t take it for a threat, but most likely that memory was lost along with everything else that went when he drowned. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Well, at least there’s one part of this mess he can make right, though it might kill him to do so.

“Alex?” George asks, when Alex’s dry sobbing has petered out into uneven, hiccuping breaths. Don’t startle him, George, easy now. Alex makes a little noise, not quite a word. It’s good enough for George. “Alex, I’m going to take you to the water now. Do you think you can walk for me?”

“Water,” Alex repeats groggily. Shakes his head slowly like someone just waking, and then the meaning of George’s words hits him. “W-water? Wait, sir, no—” He pushes himself off George’s shoulder in alarm. “You don’t—I’m sorry, it was my fault—I won’t go, I don’t need to, I’ll do better—” He’s doing his best to string words together while hiding the rasp in his voice, but he can’t hide the hope on his face. George could weep at that, but he steels himself instead.

“I will not have you die because of my—” Incompetence? Idiocy? Failure as a parent? No phrase seems strong enough to describe the monstrosity of George’s actions. “—Because of my mistake,” he manages. “And if this is what it takes to make you well, then so be it.” George swallows, then asks, uncomfortably, “Can you…can you change enough to walk, then?”

“‘Course,” rasps Alex, in a shadow of his ordinary stubborn tones. He can’t sit up all the way, not in this shape, but he holds himself a little straighter, breathes in as deep as he can. His tail flops side to side.

Nothing happens.

Looking puzzled, Alex tries again, his whole body tensing with the effort. Some of the scales pull away from his face and hands, his gills seal, his tail goes unpleasantly limp and insubstantial-looking—and then it stops.

“It’s not working, I can’t, I can’t—why won’t it—” He paws at his tail with hands not quite webbed, a thin glistening film caught between each of the fingers. “It won’t go, something’s wrong with me!” The scales are already creeping back over his cheeks, and his gills open back up with a slick, wet sound. Alex gasps and claps his hands over them, the tears springing up in his eyes and just as suddenly stopping, cut off by his shifting body.

“Alex, Alex, shh, it’s all right,” George hastens to reassure him. “It doesn’t matter, you don’t have to walk. I’ll get you there.” Easier said than done. Alex is almost as long as George is tall, like this, and he has no hips or knees to speak of; George gets one arm around Alex's chest, and has to settle for wrapping the other around his tail more or less where his hips would fall if he were human. Alex clings to George’s shoulders tightly, every too-deep breath slicing through his gills to land with a puff of cool air on George’s neck. Careful not to tread on Alex’s fin, George shoulders the door open and makes his way up to the deck.

Most of the passengers have retired to their cabins by this hour, for which George is abjectly grateful, because Alex is fully mermaid again by the time they emerge from below into the moonlight. He’s started to wheeze again, and George keeps up a stream of meaningless encouragement, almost there, dear heart, just hold on for me, only a bit longer, you’re doing so well, as much to reassure himself as Alex. Alex’s only acknowledgement is the occasional flick of an ear-fin, which, George admits, is about all the reaction his nonsense deserves.

The sailors are muttering amongst themselves at the sight of Alex, what’s happened to it and where is he taking it, but no one interferes, thank God. George feels quite sure that he would tear anyone to pieces who dared to lay a hand on Alex right now. They reach the railing, and George has a moment of doubt: how to get Alex into the water? Surely he can’t just drop him over the side, and going down to the water isn’t an option—perhaps George could lower him on a rope—?

The night breeze kicks up sea spray as the ship crests a wavelet, and George and Alex are showered in a cool mist. Alex trembles with the chill.

...Alex starts up, as if he’s suddenly realized where he is, his eyes wide and black and shining. He squirms, the life flooding back into him, and strains toward the railing.

“Alex, no—I can’t hold you, Alex, please—”

Too late.

Alex writhes in George’s arms, his tail slicing back and forth with a mermaid’s terrible strength, and George tries to cling to him, but Alex pushes himself away, gets a hand on the railing, and leaps—

George cries out and flings himself forward just in time to see the splash as Alex hits the water. The foam where he fell shows pale for a moment before being washed away in the ship’s wake. And then, nothing. “No, no, no no no no no,” George says, unable to silence himself. He clenches his fists on the railing, his knuckles gone white. “Alexander, Alexander!” he cries, as if there’s any way Alex would be able to hear him.

No reply but the sounds of wind and water.

He’s gone.

You fool, George, you utter, utter fool, he screams at himself. He should have known better—he shouldn’t have made Alex wait so long—he should have made sure, somehow, that he’d have some way to ensure that Alex would return. But he didn’t, and now George has lost him for good.

George deserves nothing better, though. How could he? What has he ever given Alex to balance out the loss of his freedom? Ship’s rations and cramped quarters, unfriendly eyes on him every hour of the day, a halting, uncertain affection that would mean little enough to a lonely boy plucked from his home and even less to a mermaid. Pitiful. It’s a wonder Alex stayed as long as he did.

Cruel, though, of whatever higher power is guiding George’s life, to force him to face the loss of his son twice over.

And then—a flicker of movement, out behind the ship, not quite in sync with the steady rolling of the waves. George peers out, a bubble of hope building in his chest. Sees only ocean. Please, God, he prays silently, please bring him back, I’ll give anything, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him safe—to make him safe—just give him back to me…

“Sir!” calls a voice from the water, just below where George is standing. George jumps, and looks down, and—there he is, keeping pace with the movement of the ship, his fin cutting a little wake on the surface. “I’m here, sir,” Alex shouts, a bit unnecessarily, waving a hand up at George.

“Oh,” George breathes. For a long moment all he can do is stare, unbelieving. Alex, there in the water, Alex, swimming along as though nothing is wrong. Alex. A hundred different endearments war with just as many apologies in George’s head, but the only thing that comes out when he finds his voice again is, “Are you hurt at all?”

“No, sir, I’m fine!” says Alex. He executes a playful roll to show just how well he is, flicks his tail theatrically. George makes a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob.

“That’s good, that’s wonderful, just—just stay close to the ship, please. Don’t go too far. Don’t leave.”

Alex makes a little face, says something that’s lost in the noise of the waves (obviously, maybe), and with a swish of his tail, plunges underwater.

George stays. George waits on the deck, at the railing, keeping an eye on Alex as he swims along. He’s not quite sure what help he’d be, if something did go wrong, but can’t bear the thought of leaving him all alone out there. When Alex dives out of sight, George counts the seconds and the minutes, his heart thundering in his ears, until he surfaces again. More than once, he comes up with something silver and wriggling in his mouth, which he darts underwater again to consume. Living blood, thinks George, living prey, he can’t sustain himself forever on salt pork and hardtack. On human food. Something will have to be done for him when we get to land.

Alex has made a short sprint up to the bow of the ship, and as George watches, leaps out of the water like a dolphin and lets out a whoop of delight. Not human, but so happy, so lively, as he is only in fits and starts on board the ship. George knows now, knows to his bones that he’d do anything to keep Alex that happy.

So Alex will need to eat: fine. George will be ready for that when the time comes. He won’t be caught by surprise again, not like he was by this disaster. No, he will have a plan in place and that plan will make everything right.

Until then, though, he’ll just have to watch and wait. Not an altogether unpleasant prospect. He’s never seen Alex swim before now. A rare and unusual treat, to be able to watch a mermaid in its element without fearing for one’s life.

Alex flips over apparently for the fun of it and drifts along for a ways on his back, the pearly scales of his belly glinting in the moonlight. George settles in for the night.

—

The sun is well up over the horizon, and George is leaning wearily on the railing, half-drowsing, when he hears Alex’s voice calling for him again. He jumps to his feet and looks down at Alex, who is swimming as close as he can to the side of the ship.

“Sir? How do I…” A wavelet catches him in the face, and he dips under it for a moment, comes back up. “How do I get back onboard?”

“I—yes, one moment, Alex, just wait there a minute,” says George. Probably a stupid thing to say to someone trying to keep pace with a moving vessel, but if Alex rolls his eyes or gives any sign of impatience, it can’t be seen from the deck. George grabs the nearest coil of rope he can find and, ignoring the irritated glares of the crew, tosses the end to Alex. Alex catches hold with no trouble, and George slowly, hand over hand, reels him in. He prepares to haul Alex up over the railing, but Alex is ahead of him, and when he draws up level with the deck his legs have already come in enough for him to climb over on his own. He stands there before George, drenched, still greenish in spots, looks down at himself, and starts guiltily.

“Sir, I’m sorry, your shirt...” he says. Makes no move to cover his nakedness—still hasn’t learned enough for that. “I meant to, that is, I ought to have taken it off before I went—but I wasn’t thinking straight, and by the time I remembered I’d already left it behind, I can repay you for it, somehow, there must be some way I can make up for it—sir!” George has dropped to his knees and thrown his arms around Alex, crushing him close despite the seawater soaking into his clothes. Alex wriggles a little, but doesn’t shove George away.

“I don’t care,” says George with feeling, stroking Alex’s sodden hair. He really doesn’t. What difference could one shirt possibly make? It doesn’t even register next to the fact of Alex, here, in his arms. “You’re back. You’re back.” He pulls back just enough to cradle Alex’s face in his hands, looks full into those eyes still too dark to be human. “You came back.”

“Of course I came back,” says Alex, furrowing his brow. He laughs a little. “Where else would I go?”

George’s heart clenches—he’s only staying because he has no other options, because he feels an obligation, because, because—but his relief outweighs his fear, and he pulls Alex back into his embrace. “Nowhere, love,” he says. “Nowhere but here. With me. Where you belong.”

Alex hesitates, then, with a sigh, relaxes against George’s chest. The last of his scales slough off.

For now, it’s enough.

#swan talks #hamilton for ts #murderfish au #whatever you're about to say to me....look....i Kno....I Kno #for the record i tried to get SEVERAL people to stop me but did they stop me? no. and here we are #when will i stop ripping off sbos signs point to 'whenever @hod gets around to throwing that shoe at me'#'hopefully that is soon for the sakes of all my poor followers who end up clicking through to this monster of a post'#fig tree

36 notes · View notes