Chapter Text
Tommy is forced awake by his phone at three AM a few days later.
It’s still nighttime outside and his bedroom is dark and for a second he’s a little confused.
For once, he hadn’t spent the night tossing and turning. He was going to see Spot tomorrow after all and had decided that since he would visit in his free time, he wouldn't care whether he would overstay the aquarium’s welcome or not.
He squints at his phone. It's a foreign number, but he still decides to pick up.
“Hey Tommy,” Bobby says, sounding nervous on the other side. “I hope I didn’t wake you up.”
“‘S fine,” Tommy says. “What’s up?”
“So, uhm,” Bobby says. “Flora and Daphne are doing an international heist with all other aquarists who have merpeople in their custody and they just lost their scouts.”
Tommy stands up, feeling wide awake in a second. “Bobby. Your wife is a cop.”
“I noticed. Hen is distracting her,” Bobby says as Tommy leaves his bedroom. “I will deal with that later. Can you meet us by the aquarium as soon as possible?”
“I will be there at most in an hour,” Tommy says.
“Thank god,” Bobby says, but he doesn’t sound surprised. “Turn off your phone and take a cab until north Pacific Boulevard and pay with cash. From there all the cameras down to the aquarium don't work and the area isn’t well-lit so wear black. Grab something you can hide your face with. I’ll get you a phone when you’re here.”
—-
Tommy and Eddie run into each other a street away from the aquarium and find Chimney waiting for them in front of the building. They both had the same idea as Tommy, wearing beanies and old black mouth masks from the corona days.
They only make brief eye contact, before Chimney leads them into the backside of the building, handing Tommy a burner phone. Tommy’s resolve is rock-hard. He's not even a little bit dubious about all of this; Spot deserves his freedom. He’s already been living in a cage for three years and he deserves so much more than that. If giving Spot his freedom meant that Tommy was giving up his own for a few years, so be it.
Flora meets them in the garage, also wearing a mask. She’s pushing a huge stretcher with Bobby, Spot rolled into his carrier sheet on top of it. It looks like a body bag, but Tommy forces himself to choke down the bile and focus. Chimney hands them some latex gloves.
“Is he sedated?” Tommy asks as he puts on the gloves.
“Yes,” Flora says as they all lend a hand and start pushing the trolley towards the opposite side of the garage.
“Why?” Tommy says.
“You want him yapping about tuna all the way to the south coast?” she grunts. “He should be awake before we get to the coast.”
They stop the trolley in front of a seemingly random delivery truck for the aquarium's fish supply. Flora opens the door, they lift the sheet by the handles and hefts Spot in-between the empty foam boxes where he would be shielded from view and not thrown around. Daphne is already in the driver's seat, wearing black clothes on top of her own and for once not puffing on her vaping pen.
“Alright, the only thing you need to do now is scout for us,” Flora says and closes the door to the truck when Spot has been secured. “Drive ahead the truck and diverge in each of the 710 gates and send us a signal if you see patrol cars on the highway.”
“Tommy, you're driving with Chimney in his car,” Bobby says. “I'm driving with Eddie.”
“Alright, let's roll,” Daphne says just as the sound of a door opening comes from the hallway.
Flora whips back towards the sound and then there's a male voice calling out for her.
“Shit,” she hisses. “That’s the security guard.”
“I’ll distract him,” Daphne says, already ripping off her mask. She lights a cigarette and hurries towards the sound of the voice.
Flora turns to look at them. “Fuck!” she says as she rips off her mask too. “I need to be there too, we're both on the night shift. He wasn’t supposed to be here! We put so much shit in his coffee he should be bedridden!”
“Don’t worry, we got it,” Bobby says calmly and climbs into the driver's seat. “Tommy, come on, we're driving the truck. Eddie, drive ahead of us on Highway 1 heading east. Chimney, take the 710 heading west. Use the burner phone to give us a heads-up if the police shows, my number is listed as K.”
Eddie and Chimney nod, before running outside presumably to their cars and Tommy gets into the passenger seat of the truck.
“Cameras should still be off up until the Boulevard,” Bobby says and starts the engine.
“How the Hell did they pull this?” Tommy asks as they depart from the garage, swift but not fast.
“They’ve been planning it for a while,” Bobby says. “Got hackers, pilots, drivers, cops, smugglers and a lot of other people involved. Their scouts didn’t show up because of a random drug search of their car, so they called us for backup.”
“Crazy that you just went along with it,” Tommy says, because it sounds a little odd.
“Crazy that all of you just went along with it,” Bobby says instead.
The drive towards the highway is relatively calm, no signs of blue lights or anything. They’re driving slowly to give Eddie and Chimney time to drive ahead of them. Presumably the night guard wouldn't realise that Spot is missing from his cage for a while yet. The aquarium is big and Spot isn't visible in his tank when he’s sleeping.
“She's going to divorce me so hard,” Bobby says grimly.
“Only if you get caught,” Tommy points out, because he does not need Bobby getting cold feet right now.
And then there's a shuffle in the back.
The phone rings and Tommy grabs it.
It’s Chimney. “Blue lights on 710 West,” he says dryly.
“Got it,” Tommy says. “Road is blocked going west, Cap.”
“Okay, we were heading south anyways,” Bobby says and takes a deep breath.
“What now?” Chimney asks.
“Head north,” Bobby says and Tommy repeats him.
There’s another shuffle and then a groan. Tommy and Bobby throw each other a glance. Suddenly Tommy realizes that Spot might not have been briefed on his own heist. It’s okay. They were driving towards Highway 1 and Eddie still hasn’t called them.
Spot coughs and utters a low moan.
Tommy fumbles at the partition. He thought they had more time, but now he needs to talk Spot down before he panics.
“Daphne?” Spot shakily calls out. “Flora?”
He moves uneasily, undoubtedly finding himself restrained by the sheet and boxes around him. Tommy can't freaking unlock the partition.
“Flora? Daphne?” Spot calls out again, his voice cracking at the end.
“Spot!” Tommy calls.
Spot slaps his tail onto the ground, trying to writhe out of his bindings.
“No,” he wails, slapping his tail against the floor of the truck again. “No, Daphneee! Floraaa! No go. No go. No go!”
“Pull over!” Tommy exclaims as Spot starts to sob, smashing his tail and trying to get out, but for some reason Spot can't fucking hear Tommy.
Tommy gives up on the partition and instead knocks the code for the 118 on the partition as loudly as he can.
Spot quiets.
“Tommy?” he whimpers.
Tommy knocks the rhythm again.
Bobby ends up leaving the highway to find a spot they can pull over and Tommy jumps out before the truck even stops and rounds it. He opens the doors and crawls inside, but between boxes and Spot there is barely any space. Spot thankfully stays quiet.
Tommy closes the doors and knocks on the partition twice, so Bobby knows he can go.
“Hey Spot,” Tommy whispers, forcing his voice to be soothing even though his nerves are jittery.
Spot sniffs. “Tommy?” he says, his tail twisting underneath the sheet.
“Hello you,” Tommy says and puts his hand on Spot’s arm, Spot jerking with surprise. “We’re taking you back to the water.”
“Bye bye, Flora, bye bye, Daphne?” Spot asks.
“Maybe you will see them again,” Tommy says. “But hopefully not. You’re going home.”
“Home,” Spot says and sniffs a few more times, before lying still. “Sister.”
“Oh, you have a sister?” Tommy asks.
“Yes,” Spot says. “Sister gone. Spot, come, look. Spot gone.”
Tommy squeezes his arm. “You got taken because you were looking for your sister?”
“Daphne, Flora, bye, bye?”
“Yeah, bye bye.”
Tommy's backup phone starts ringing and he picks up.
“Eddie says Highway 1 is swarming with police cars, but he doesn’t know why,” Bobby says without preambles.
“Head north,” Tommy says. “There’s a parking lot at the gym near the Walmart at the big mall.”
“Why there?”
“That’s where I took the cab,” Tommy says. “We’ll switch cars. There isn’t any surveillance. I have a hot tub.”
And thank fuck. Tommy only picked that spot because he knows that’s where a lot of drug dealers work exactly because of the lack of cameras.
Bobby doesn’t question it. He just hangs up and starts driving and Tommy is relieved that they had to leave the highway. For the next half an hour Tommy is rubbing Spot’s arm, trying to sooth him while his own leg is cramping, Spot sniffing the entire way.
“Why face?” Spot asks suddenly.
“Why face what?” Tommy asks.
“Why water eyes!” Spot snaps. “Why water nose water eyes tail dry!”
“Oh,” Tommy says and can't help cracking a smile at Spot's frustration with language. But it makes sense that he’s confused. Spot has barely breathed for a month, so it would not be odd for this to be his first encounter with tears and snot. “It’s called crying. You cry when you’re upset.”
“Crying,” Spot says, audibly chewing on the word with the vehemence of someone trying to distract themselves from a situation. “Children crying. Flora crying. Sad?”
Tommy squeezes his arm. “That’s why you’re here, Spot,” he says. “People were upset about you not being home. But, Spot, it seems like you have to stay at my house tonight.”
“Okay,” Spot says. “When home?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow one sleep?”
The truck slows and then gently parks.
“Okay, Spot, we have to be quiet now,” Tommy says. He takes his car keys and unlocks. The responding beep is right besides their vehicle. “Bobby and I are going to try and lift you into my truck, but you have to be still and stay stiff so it’s easier to carry you.”
“Good boy,” Spot says.
“That’s right,” Tommy confirms. “You’re my good boy, Spot.”
—-
By the time Bobby and Tommy have burned about five days worth of calories trying to as silently as possibly squeeze Spot into his back seats - that he so far has always thought were more than adequate, at least according to his nightclub hookups - Tommy is starting to feel a little more settled.
“I've got it from here,” Tommy gasps.
Bobby frowns. “How are you going to get him in the tub by yourself?”
“Once his sheet is off he can roll,” Tommy says.
“I didn’t know you had a hot tub,” Bobby says.
“Yeah,” Tommy says. “Because I haven’t told you.”
“Tommy,” Bobby says and stares at him. “I haven’t ever been to your house.”
Tommy straightens up, feeling more and more confused. “Yeah, we’re usually at your house.”
“We’re committing a felony and I’ve never been to your house,” Bobby says.
Spot taps the window. They’ve loosened the sheet a little bit around his chest and face so he could breathe easier, but he has tugged the sheet off his head and is wearing the blanket on top of him like a scarf as he peers outside at them.
Tommy has never thought about what the outskirts of a parking lot looked like, but Spot’s eyes are dazed as the lights shimmer in his irises.
“We’ll talk about whatever that was later,” Tommy says.
—--
“You can look,” Tommy says a few minutes into the ride, because he can’t bear another minute of sniffling. If all of this fails, at least he can allow Spot ten minutes of looking outside a window where he probably wouldn’t be seen and where he could quickly hide if Tommy told him so. “Just stay away from the windows.”
“Yes,” Spot says and wiggles surprisingly little to upright himself. Maybe it would be easier to drag him into the garden than Tommy thought.
With the blanket still on top of his head, Spot peers out of the window. He stares with a quietness and stillness Tommy has only seen him that one time he fell asleep in front of him.
“Flora, Daphne, Tommy home tonight?” Spot asks as Tommy reaches his house.
“No,” Tommy says and stops the engine. “Maybe tomorrow. We’re here now. How are you doing?”
The answer comes slowly. “Dry.”
“We’ll fix that in a minute,” Tommy replies. “I’m going to loosen the sheet around your tail. I need you to try and push into my hands as much as you possibly can when I pull and protect your head with your arms. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Here goes nothing. Tommy goes to open the gate to his fence and goes back to tighten the sheet around Spot’s head and loosen it around his tail. There would be a brief second, a few steps between the car and gate where Spot’s sheet would be exposed, but it’s dark and in front of the gate itself they’ll be shielded by his trash containers.
“One, two, three.”
Tommy pulls and Spot whips his tail like he’s swimming and surprisingly easily he falls out of the car.
It’s still a hard job to drag Spot into the yard, but the merman learns to move his tail in a snakelike fashion. Dragging him across the grass is even easier, but Tommy is still drenched with sweat when they get to the hot tub. He rips off the covering and turns on the faucets on the lowest setting, praying his neighbours can’t hear him filling his tub at four AM in the morning.
“Give me a second,” Tommy says and walks back to close the door to his car and close the gait as well. Fuck he doesn’t even have a lock. He looks around and finds an old bench he was planning to throw out, left from the previous owners. He pushes it in front of the gate and piles small statues on top of it. If someone opened it by force, at least it would make noise.
After he’s done, he goes back to get Spot’s sheet unclasped. And there he is, looking red-faced and tear-streaked, but resolute.
“Roll in,” Tommy says as he kneels. “Easy.”
Spot slides inside with Tommy’s hands supporting his weight so it isn’t an outright drop. He fits, somewhat, but if Tommy had removed the seats it would have been far more comfortable for him.
“Eat tuna?” Spot asks.
“Later, I have - I have shrimps and salmon in the freezer,” Tommy says. He stands up and walks to the shed to get a rake and smoothens the tracks on the grass.
He views his garden with new lenses. The hot tub is placed on the outskirts of his patio and is partly shielded by the patio’s roof. Tommy can’t see the hot tub from his own rooftop and between the roof and high fence, the neighbours could definitely not see Spot unless they climbed the fence. The privacy of the spot is probably why the previous owners placed the hot tub there.
“Wait here,” Tommy says as if Spot can go anywhere. He walks inside his house through the backdoor and finds a bag of frozen shrimps and a singular frozen salmon filet, already feeling bad that he doesn’t have any other seafood available.
“Tommy,” Spot whimpers from the garden.
“Quiet, quiet,” Tommy says as he hurries out with the bag. “Here. Shrimp.”
Spot eyes the bag sceptically. “No tuna.”
“Not today,” Tommy says. “Tomorrow.”
“Always tomorrow!” Spot exclaims.
“Shush, shush,” Tommy says. “Be my good boy, Spot.”
Spot sways back. Then his cheeks start to flush. “Your good boy,” he says. “I’m your good boy.”
“You are,” Tommy promises.
Spot opens the bag and starts chewing the shrimps. He looks upset when he realizes that the shrimps are frozen, but nonetheless that’s what he has those long, sharp teeth for. He eats slowly at first, but must realize how hungry he is along the way, because the rest of the bag disappears in a matter of minutes and so does the filet.
“Stay,” Spot whispers when he sees Tommy stand up. “I’m a good boy.”
“You are. I’m just going to get a blanket and a pillow,” Tommy informs.
After having done so, he lies down on one of the lounge chairs. Spot is staring at him as Tommy gets comfortable and keeps staring at him after, but Tommy is used to the staring by now. His lids are turning heavy and between one blink and the next, Spot has dived underneath the water. With Spot laying down to rest, Tommy falls asleep.