Cold Water

When Bain comes back it’s two days later and he bursts in the room like he had when he was drunk. Knauss peeks out hesitantly before realizing the coast is clear and lets himself out to properly stretch. Bain hovers in the entryway but Knauss doesn’t pay him any mind, instead going to catch his dinner and swim to the surface to eat.

He’s nearly halfway through when Bain actually makes his way up the stairs haltingly.

“So,” Bain begins, hand still on the stair railing. Knauss doesn’t even look away from his fish. Bain shifts his weight, glancing over his shoulder towards the door before walking onto the platform, “Like, what’s up?”

What? Knauss squints at him, turning to give him a proper look. Bain’s eyes widen a little at the sudden attention but he’s more concerned. There’s obviously something off here, but thinking back he doesn’t remember Bain stumbling when he came in? He can’t really think of any other explanation than -

“Are you drunk?” Knauss asks. Instantly Bain scowls, huffing a noise and stomping onto the platform.

“No, asshole, it’s just a fucking question,” Bain huffs a show but he doesn’t sit down.

Eyeing him up and down, Knauss replies, “I am eating.” Bain nods.

“Good, good, cool. So like, about Tuesday, right?” Mother, what day is it now? Knauss swallows a mouthful and grimaces, trying to remember how the song goes for the days of the week.

“Yes,” he agrees distractedly. Bain continues his pacing.

“Yeah,” Bain pauses, his face twists like he’s eaten something sour tasting, “I was drunk, so it doesn’t count.”

Knauss stares at him flatly.

“I have no idea what that means.”

Bain makes a frustrated noise and starts pacing faster. When he finally speaks he talks so quickly that Knauss can hardly understand him, “I barely even fucking remember what happened - I just, how do you even fucking know what a kiss is? Do mermaids do that shit? Humans don’t do that to other humans; you only do that when you really like someone.”

Knauss blinks slowly before frowning. Is that what Bain is so worked up about?

“Are we not friends?” Doesn’t that count? He likes Bain pretty well for a human. In fact, he’s the only human that he likes. Bain just makes another frustrated noise and stops pacing.

“No! I mean, yes, but friends don’t kiss other friends!” Bain insists. He’s quite pretty when he gets worked up like this, cheeks flushed a healthy red. It looks nothing like his brother’s unhealthy purple when he gets worked up.

“Why not? Friends like friends?” Knauss asks, finishing off his dinner.

“Yes, but not the same way. You said you knew what a kiss was!” Bain’s voice gets high when he doesn’t know how to handle a situation. It’s a little endearing and mostly painful on his sensitive ears. Resisting the urge to rub at the sensitive area Knauss just grabs the decking to haul himself above water.

“I do,” he assures, reaching to get his glasses.

“So you should know that you don’t do it to friends!”

“Then we are not friends?” Knauss asks archly.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying!” Bain waves a frantic hand, looking a bit cross-eyed. Knauss cocks his head. There isn’t that much distance between them right now, if he reached out he could probably grab the human and pull him over closer.

He doesn’t, but it’s the principle.

When Knauss doesn’t reply Bain starts pacing again.

“Come here,” Knauss says, it gives him a headache when the human is too restless. Bain shoots him a look.

“You ain’t gonna kiss me are you?” Knauss pauses, thinking, and Bain squeals indignantly, “Dude!?”

“No, I will not. Come sit,” Knauss beckons again. This time Bain comes over to sit down next to him. He looks entirely uncomfortable, glancing all around the room like he doesn’t know where to look. Why are humans so complicated? This whole conversation has done nothing but give him a headache.

How had he been so bored a few days ago? All he wants right now is some peace and quiet. They manage to make it another few beats before -

“What?” Bain quips finally, apparently hitting some sort of threshold of silence. He can never go for too long without talking.

“Are there any apples?” In an instant it’s like the stifling layer coating the room was peeled away like a film on the surface of still water. Washed away in a current. Bain turns to him, finally meeting his eye, with his own eyes narrowed.

“Dude,” Bain snaps, Knauss grins. It was worth asking, anyway.

*

Lately, Knauss has rediscovered his love of music. When he’s swimming, or when he’s watching a particularly boring program, he will catch himself whistling ancient songs of the sea. He remembers when that was a big deal that Bain had heard him, but now it’s just another thing.

Most of the time he finds himself humming, not entirely willing to give the melodies a voice but unwilling to keep quiet. It’s easy to tell that Bain is paying rapt attention but he’s long since decided that he actually doesn’t care.

Like tonight, his deep voice giving life to the song of the seabird his grandmatron would sing.

It isn’t till he slowly peters off, the last notes falling quiet as he dozes on the decking, that Bain finally speaks up.

“What song is that?”

He’s asked before, and while he usually brushes him off, tonight Knauss just hums acknowledgement.

“It is an old tune, about a lost seabird trying to return home,” he admits. There’s silence and he isn’t sure Bain heard him, opening an eye to glance over towards the human curiously. Bain is staring back, eyes unseeing.

“Does he make it home?”

“He tries, but no,” Knauss replies, earning a frown.

“That’s a shitty story,” Bain scoffs, but he’s still looking at him, expression thoughtful. Knauss shrugs with one shoulder.

“Not all stories end happily. The Mother takes care of her own.” Bain still doesn’t look pleased, but Knauss just closes his eyes again, happy to idle the evening away. They don’t speak again for the rest of the night.

*

Sometimes, Knauss thinks about what Bain does when he’s not here.

Does he travel? Of course not, he’s nearly always home with him. He used to be gone more, back before they started talking.

He wonders if that’s ever strange. There have been nights that he’s caught Bain on calls with other humans - “Cal just keeps me busy in the evening now. No I can't talk about it, fuck off man, maybe another time.” - or other times there will be a knock on the door and before Knauss can even dive into his den properly Bain is shouting at whoever it is to keep the fuck out.

Is it normal for humans to spend so much time alone? He’s never considered it before.

On quiet nights like these, when Bain is dozing downstairs on the couch in front of the TV, his phone face down on his chest, Knauss can’t help but catch himself staring.

It feels… comfortable. It’s comfortable to lounge upstairs, laughing at whatever program is on, or to doze on the decking after a particularly vigorous set of laps around the tank to the sound of keyboard keys tap tapping away.

They’ve found a soothing routine where Bain visits most nights, or every other night, and they just lounge together. It’d be more comforting if it didn’t remind him of the last time he became this complacent. His gills still have scars from when the nets twisted around him in his thrashing, and there’s a clean scar on his hand where he got it so twisted in the wire that it cut nearly to the bone.

Mother knows there’s no peace and quiet for him and, despite Bain’s loud mouth, it’s… relaxing. It could never last.

*

It doesn’t. He isn’t surprised to wake up the next afternoon to the sound of humans stomping around the upper deck. Storming and shouting and causing a ruckus so loud that he has trouble getting back to sleep.

Half-curious, but mostly annoyed, Knauss swims out that evening when Bain arrives and notices it instantly.

“Hey man, woah- Jesus Christ those are bright,” Bain cuts himself off, squinting as he trudges his way up to the second floor. Knauss frowns and swims to the surface.

The lights above the tank, already a cold, sharp white, were even brighter than before. Knauss blinks, eyes sensitive and star struck after catching an accidental blast of direct light when swimming up.

“This is terrible. Change them back,” he says, pushing the ball of his hand into his eyes to try and soothe the flashing spots of lingering light.

“Yeah, let me just call up a fucking electrician,” Bain scoffs, but he drops his laptop in the chair and goes to get a better look at the light fixture, frowning, “This actually looks more complicated than changing a bulb. I’m just gonna text Chanel.”

“What?” Knauss grouses, hauling himself onto the deck.

“She’s uh, in charge.”

“I thought Cal was the boss,” Knauss adds enough derision to the statement that Bain shoots him a look between texting.

“Don’t be a dick. Cal’s the boss around here, Chanel just does everything else,” Bain explains, cryptic as ever about his pod hierarchy. All that Knauss can understand is that Cal must have become some sort of human matriarch (despite lacking eggs or any other qualifying features) by being so loud that everyone just agreed to go with it. There’s no other reasonable explanation.

At least this Chanel sounds more promising.

“Chanel will fix the lights?” Knauss asks. Bain stands a moment, watching his phone screen.

“Yeah,” the phone buzzes, “Actually, no. What the fuck, I’m calling her.” With that Bain mashes the device to his head and walks towards the stairs. Knauss raises an eyebrow as he goes but doesn’t stop him. He expects Bain to stop walking when he gets to the first floor but instead the human keeps on until he’s out of the room.

Knauss scoffs but he chances staying on the deck rather than hiding, Bain will be back quickly.

When the human does finally return he’s got a big bundle of cloth in his arms.

“Will that fix the lights?”

“No, they ain’t going anywhere, Chanel said they was Cal’s idea. I brought some ice though,” Bain explains as he juggles the bundle of towels and what’s apparently ice.

Ignoring the mer’s sour expression he makes quick work of laying out the ice on the ground and throwing the damp cloth over top.

“Might hurt your ass but at least it’s cold,” Bain says, straightening. Knauss simply stares at the pile on the ground before turning back to Bain with a disinterested stare. Bain juts out his chin, hands on his hips and legs spread, “Try it at least, asshole!”

Knauss continues to stare before he turns to the ice. He can already feel his scales drying out uncomfortably, they always are the first thing to dry. Not made to be above water as often as he is, he supposes. Squaring his jaw he scoots himself to the pile, laying out on it and Bain’s right, it’s a little uncomfortable but no worse than rocks.

He’d never admit it, but the ice feels instantly better on his overheated body. He relaxes in spite of himself.

When he’s situated he looks back over to Bain who is currently grinning, “What.”

“Nothing. You look cozy for someone who got ice in their ass,” Bain snickers before tilting his head and stepping closer. His shadow blocks the blinding lights and Knauss can’t help but trill a quiet, contented noise, “Actually, I didn’t really see them that well but you got a lot of scars, what the hell?”

“Hm?” Knauss glances down at his stomach and Bain’s right, the way the light hits the divots and scar tissue on his tail and abdomen is much more pronounced than it had been with the last lighting figure they’d had installed. He relaxes again with a half shrug.

“How’d you get so many?” Bain presses, nudging him with his foot. Knauss waves it away lazily.

“I hunted,” he explains flatly, ready to get to the part of the night where he just dozes and watches TV. It seems that Bain has other plans because the human is squatting next to him to get a better look. He can’t help but jump a bit when the warm texture of human flesh skims across his stomach.

“Hunted?” Bain asks, he doesn’t meet Knauss’ gaze but he also doesn’t move his hand from a particularly nasty bite he’d received when he was younger.

The shark had been startled and he hadn’t been thinking. Once his pod mates had gotten him back to their temporary den he made a full recovery, but the bite wound never faded. Bain pokes at the textured skin before moving up to another scar he’d received in a training accident. Then another in a hunting mishap.

He wants to say something about the touching, but if he brings attention to it Bain will stop and he’s surprised to find that he doesn’t actually mind.

“Yes, for food. For the pod,” Knauss explains, distractedly.

“You call your family a pod?” Bain responds derisively. He still won’t meet his gaze, but when Knauss reaches out to hold his arm he stops.

“Yes. Do you have scars?” For a moment Knauss thinks he will just pull away and leave. Instead, with his free hand, Bain rakes his fingers through his hair and then moves to stretch himself out a little.

“Got one here, and another on my leg,” he explains, lifting his shirt to show a puckered, circular scar. It doesn’t look like anything he’s ever seen. Perhaps something like a lamprey bite on a salmon, once you’ve pulled the parasite off, but it’s not quite the same. Knauss can’t help but reach out to touch.

“How is it so round?” The wound is very old, the scar texture for humans is different than his own, but still interesting. Bain shifts his weight to get more comfortable.

“Bullet wound,” he shrugs before letting his shirt fall back down. Knauss can’t help but be a little disappointed when he stands and walks to his chair, flopping to get comfortable. Running his tongue lightly against his sharp teeth, he relaxes back onto the mostly melted pile of ice.

That’s the end of that.