Cold Water

When Cal decided he wanted a shark Bain was unenthusiastic. Even more so when they started tank construction in his favorite lounge and while yes, there are four others each with their own 63" plasma screen television, this one was closest to his room.

Also it was one Cal visited the least often, so that was a plus.

Despite this, Bain held his tongue when the surveyor came through to mark where the giant crescent tank would be, and when the architect explained that they would have to move some structural beams if they wanted to have a second floor where you could go to look down into the tank, and when they decided to chuck all the books they were displacing onto said second floor thus forcing him to actually take stairs to read in the evening.

Nevertheless he kept quiet. Even when sometimes it was especially difficult, like when Cal explained he wanted to get some sort of great white to show off to all his buddies.

Bain wanted to tell him there was no way they could get a great white in that tank, let alone take care of it, but if Cal wanted a dead shark in the middle of their house then who was he to stop him?

So Bain never said a word the entire process. He just stood by and watched, like he always did for Cal’s whims. When Cal would ask his opinion he’d just smile and agree, because he knows better, but he mostly expected the staff to wheel in a shark, dump it in the tank and act surprised when they found it had died in the night.

What he hadn’t expected was for Cal to return from auction with a mermaid.

An exorbitantly expensive mermaid, too. It had been caught from the north and is the first one in a decade at least. He hadn’t been there they day they wheeled it in but Miles assured him it was enormous. A big, mean lookin’ bastard, prettiest thing he’s ever seen. Which is a basket of contradictions that Bain doesn’t actually care about. He doesn’t care what it looks like because it’ll be dead soon anyway.

Thus, they placed bets on how long it would last. After a month he lost, and after two most kind of shrugged and accepted it would hang around. Bain figured maybe it was made of hardier stuff than he first thought.

Or maybe it was dead in that little rock cave Cal had installed and is just rotting.

Either, or, Bain hadn’t worried about it when he left. He cited business in the north, because Cal would have never let him go if he knew Bain was going to visit Emily and the kids, and packed his things. On the plane he’s always twitchy until he lands in Washington, safely tucked into the little cabin by the sea.

The whole month and a half he’s gone he doesn’t think about the mermaid once, too distracted laughing with the girls. When Katie smiles she’s got a gap tooth that makes his heart melt, and Cass is too smart for her own good. He’s smiled more in those few weeks than he’s had in a year.

Needless to say, when he gets back to the house it’s a bit like being dumped in a vat of icy water.

He avoids everyone he can, becoming all but nocturnal. After months of keeping away from his favorite room, waiting for the mermaid to die, he finally decides it’s the best place to be alone, so one night he packs himself up and goes.

When he arrives, the big door reveals nothing, so when he shoulders his way in he doesn’t expect to see the mermaid rolling around in the dim black light. Shocked, he gasps and nearly drops his laptop. The thing is back in his cave before Bain can even right himself, but he saw it.
Maybe he’ll just come back later.

So that leaves him here, standing unsure at the big doors a week later. Should he knock? That’s absolutely absurd, this is his house, he doesn’t need to knock on his own lounge.

Still, with a nervous glance backwards, he squares his shoulders and hesitates a moment before he's pushing open the door.

*

An unhealthy mermaid loses it’s shine. This is especially true for mermaids who have lost their mate, but there are other reasons why a mermaid will wither and eventually return to the mother ocean.
Loneliness is the most common factor.

This is well known; dulled scales are unhealthy. It is also known that scales that fall off when a mer isn't molting is much worse.

Knauss remembers their pod matron, the progenitor of his mother. He remembers her steely blue and grey tail, so colorful in comparison to the muted hues of the rest of the pod. Sleek and beautiful, shining even in the darkness of their caves. Everyone had noticed when she began to fade.

Slowly but surely her tail became as grey as her hair, the rich color leeching out into the water as she became tired and slow.

She was strong, and so she lived nearly a year longer before her weary body returned to the sea.
Knauss worries he’s not as strong as she was.

It had started the same way, with blue scales in the sand of her den, and ended with a new matron. He doesn't want to return to the Mother without ever even seeing her again. There's still things he needs to do and he won't let himself fade before he at least has that.

He just needs to buy himself more time and the false company of a silent companion apparently isn't enough to cut it any longer. Mermaids are too social of creatures to make do alone for that long.

So that night Knauss steels himself, placing the fifth scale he's found in the back of his den with the others, and he settles in to wait for the human to come back.

*

Two nights after the fish in his tank were switched to salmon, Bain returned. He walked in silently, casually dropping onto the couch like he always does and Knauss let's him sit down for just a moment before he swims out.

Lingering awkwardly at the edge of his tank closest to the human, he considers for a moment before deciding just to come out with it.

“The water is too hot,” he says. It's the most he’s said in a single sentence since he's arrived. The song notwithstanding. The humans couldn’t understand it’s meaning anyway.

Immediately Bain straightens like he always does when Knauss speaks, but he doesn't make like he's going to turn around and it takes a lot of effort not to dart back into his den. Forcing a deep inhale of the stale, warm water, he refuses to move.

“Yeah?” he says haltingly, “Why ain't you said nothing before?”

Knauss parses that sentence a moment before deeming it unworthy to even acknowledge. Is that really even a real question?

After a long enough silence Bain sighs, “I'm standing up. You cool if I go switch the temp settings?”

Knauss is tempted to scoff because of course he isn't cool, he's been boiling alive since they dropped him in this tank of scalding water, but he's more focused on the first bit of his sentence. He's going to have to get up and move to fix the tank, Knauss fights down the urge to scurry back into his den when Bain stands slowly. Knauss keeps a sharp eye on him as he makes his way around the tank to a little rectangle on the wall where he fiddles with the contraption.

“Aight. How cold you want it?” Bain asks. Knauss considers.

“Very,” he says finally.

“We do Fahrenheit here. I'm just setting it to 65 and you gotta tell me tomorrow if it's better,” Bain punches the little buttons that Knauss can barely make out from this distance before stepping away.

“Can I go sit back down without you freaking out?”

Knauss feels distinctly like he's being laughed at, so he settles on more silence. When Bain turns around back towards the couch he stubbornly doesn't run. Instead, he keeps himself still. Bain doesn't look up at him, but Knauss is openly staring.

It's the first time he's been able to properly see the strange coloration speckled across the human’s face. It's subtle against the already tan skin, but it's still as interesting now as it was before. He wonders if the human is perhaps just dirty? Do they bathe? The humans he's unfortunately come into contact with all feel strange; like a mer left in the dry air too long.

Bain keeps his head down, purposefully not looking towards him until he's past the tank and safely back on his couch.

Silence once again falls, except this time it feels heavy, expectant somehow. Knauss doesn't know what the human expects, though, so he just lingers awkwardly.

“It is hot still.”

From the couch Bain scoffs, sounding a lot more like he usually does, “Yeah, it doesn't just immediately work. You gotta wait.”

Knauss frowns. He's used to waiting, but now what he wants is so close. It's more difficult.

He distracts himself by doing a few laps, swimming to the surface to listen to the television above water (which sounds a little strange, a lot clearer without water to muffle it), before swimming back down.

Should he thank the human? It's something he's seen often in the television programs when one human is grateful to another.

He opens his mouth, and then closes it to swim another lap. Maybe he will when the water stops boiling him alive, but for now he figures he's said enough. The human should have the rest of the evening to rest even though he assumes speaking doesn’t exhaust them like it does him. It’s not as terrible this time than it was before, though, and he takes his small victories.

*

That day after Bain had packed his things and left Knauss finds himself squashed into his den, joints cramped from the too tight space, pondering the human’s features. A slightly rounded face, a mess of sandy hair, and the most curious eyes. They were dark, unlike the human that had fallen into his den. He’s never seen such strange eyes, so dark they reminded him of mud, and just as deep.

He was not disagreeable, Knauss decides finally, for a human at least.

The more he thinks, the more curious he finds himself. The wretched emotion, if he had never been born with it he’d be much better off, but as it is, curiosity keeps him awake in the morning hours before the human staff comes streaming in to dawdle and do whatever the humans do during the days he remains in his den.

Fleetingly the urge to stretch his fins has him sighing as he dismisses it. Tonight there will be plenty of time to stretch out and he’s had an eye on one fat salmon drifting by the mouth of his den foolishly for the past hour.

If he had less restraint he would have simply snatched the thing and eaten it already, but he’s trying to pay more attention to the water temperature. It does feel like it’s gotten better, less like a boiling tropic, and more like a particularly warm summer in his hunting grounds.

Hot, but not nearly as unbearable as what he had been suffering with. He didn’t know it would lighten his mood so drastically, but right now he just feels like moving. Every day until now feels like he had been slowed and he hadn’t even realized it until he had a taste of some cooler water.
Not that it couldn’t be colder, but he’ll take what he can get.

Perhaps tonight he will tell the human, or maybe he would thank them, he hasn’t decided.

Regardless, Knauss sinks back into his den, the smooth rocks lining the bottom scrape pleasantly against his scales as he wiggles to get comfortable enough to sleep until the night.