Chapter Text
Sebastian’s mother’s house was unfamiliar to him. He felt an unwanted surge of disappointment, as if he’d actually believed he’d come home to everything the same, his childhood preserved in amber. It made sense. Isabela and Gabriel had to have been out of college by now, living their own adult lives. His mom had no need for their childhood home anymore, the flat brown house with the red-tiled roof and the outdoor toys strewn on the tightly clipped lawn. The new house was off the main road, nestled in the woods. Its faded green paint and miniature flower garden made it seem shy, as if it was trying to blend into the forest around it.
Sebastian glanced back towards the treeline behind him as he slithered towards the house. Beyond were Innovation Inc’s agents, watching him as he left. Part of the deal he brokered was that he would live freely on the surface and not be beholden to them any further, but they’d still return for regular testing. They’d convinced him to accept the clause by suggesting that the more knowledge they had about his condition, the likelier they were to be able to reverse it. Sebastian wasn’t particularly thrilled about getting back into a lab, but he was used to it, and at least this time they’d take basic scientific ethics into consideration.
Sebastian’s mom guided him to the front door, looking back every few seconds, as if she was afraid he would disappear.
“Are you okay?” His mom glanced down at his tail on the pebbled path. “It doesn’t hurt, walking on the ground like that?” she asked.
Walking wasn’t really the right term, but Sebastian didn’t correct her. “The scales on the bottom of my tail are tough, it’s okay.” He tried to sound nonchalant, like she’d nagged him about it hundreds of times, but it was surreal to be talking about fish stuff with her. Scales and tails. He hadn’t really ever voiced what it was like being…whatever he was.
“Okay, if you say so,” she said, looking him up and down with concern. He passed her, ducking under the door into the kitchen. It was like a warped reflection of the one he remembered, a different layout, but the same things inside. A collection of odd ceramic dishes on the corner of the countertop, the same set of wooden spoons in a cup, his own face staring back at him from a set of portraits on the wall. The boy in the frame was still a kid, skin a sunny brown and teeth bared in a wide, braces-studded smile. Sebastian couldn’t recognize where it’d been taken.
Sebastian’s mom tapped on his shoulder. He shifted aside to let her through, and felt a shock spike through him as he bashed the side of his tail against a counter.
“Fuck!” he hissed.
“Ah! Mijo, are you okay?” His mom hurried to his side, circling him in search of any wounds. The pain was already quickly fading.
“I’m fine,” he reassured her. He glanced away from her. The room was a lot narrower than he gauged it to be, and it did nothing to make him feel any less enormous. He was as long as the room was wide. It dragged up old memories of being injected with cocktails of unknown hormones during his experiments. The slow stretch of his muscles and skin, the disorientation of his increasing height. He’d been grateful for his size in the Blacksite, it’d made him a force to be reckoned with. Supernatural strength and claws that could shred flesh made him a terrifying enemy, even when he didn’t have his gun. But now all it did was make clear how out of place he was. He wasn’t built for life on the surface anymore. Or more literally, it wasn’t built for him.
Sebastian’s mother treated him like he was made of ceramic, leading him down the hallway with both hands hovering over him. To his left was her room, and to the right was a guest room. The room was deliberately bare, with white walls and a few tasteful photos on the walls. A bed stood against the corner wall next to a simple wooden nightstand. The window on the back wall showed only the deep green depths of the forest behind the house.
Sebastian’s mom hurried ahead of him to smooth out the dark blue comforter on the bed.
“I’m sorry, I know the bed’s not big enough, I’ll get something bigger as soon as I can.” She wrung her hands, gaze darting back and forth between him.
“It’s fine,” he started. “How were you supposed to know I wasn’t person sized anymore?” He shrugged. “I can help you look for a mattress that fits.”
She nodded. “I was going to make some enchiladas for dinner. Are those…still safe for you to eat?”
God. Enchiladas. After a decade of hospital food and MREs, Sebastian could've cried. “Should be.”
“I’ll be right down if you need me, for anything at all, ” she told him, hesitantly backing away.
“Go,” he told her. “I’ll be settling in up here, don't worry.”
As soon as she shut the door, Sebastian shucked off his jacket and collapsed on the floor. He stretched out to his full length and gazed up at the ceiling. He dug his claws into the rough carpet, grounding himself. Real. This room was real, and it was his. There was nothing to wake up from, and no one to snatch this away from him. Well, not true, but he wasn’t losing it without a fight. The wooden ceiling fan was carved so beautifully. He'd never appreciated the design of lights before. So much work for so little attention. He suspected there were a lot of things that he’d forgotten to appreciate the last time he was on land.
…
Maria knocked softly on the door to the guest room. “Mijo? Can I come in?”
“Sure, mama,” he replied.
“Food’ll be ready in about twenty minutes, I’ll-” she stumbled on her words as she saw him, coiled like a snake on the floor. “I’ll bring it up if you’d like.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
The coils he wrapped himself in put his tail on full display, and Maria eased closer to get a better look. As she processed the patterns marking it, she felt the cool calm she’d been attempting to cultivate all afternoon burn up in her throat. She recognized the shape of a scar just above one of his fins. She'd seen it at the hospital she used to work at, on a kid not much older than Sebastian had been when he disappeared. A friend followed anguished behind him, sobbing apologies at anyone that would listen. A gunshot wound.
“Mijo…” she started slowly, not to startle him away from the conversation. “Where did you get this?
“I got it when I broke out.” Sebastian rested his head on the coil of his tail, eyes darting away.
“But I thought- those men from that company, they rescued you, right? They didn't-”
“No. They didn't hurt me. But the soldiers at the Blacksite did. No one even knew I was down there, or what they were doing to people, not before *I* broke out and contacted Innovation.” Bitterness seeped through his gritted fangs.
“And what…” she dreaded asking the question, of breaking the illusion of calm that had settled over them since he arrived back home. “What *were* they doing down there?”
“Human experimentation, obviously.” Sebastian gestured down at himself. “They said the point of it all was to figure out a way to give humans gills.” He scowled. “I guess everything else was just a side effect.”
Maria reached for his hand. “And?”
“They made other things, too. These…creatures.” As he spoke, Maria rubbed a finger across his hand. The skin around his wrist showed signs of being rubbed raw, and two of the nails on his four fingers were broken. “They had other people too, but they… I’m the only one I know who lasted as long as I did.”
“Honey. You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to.”
“Thanks,” he sighed. “I will, just… not tonight.”
“Do you mind if I stay up here while you eat?”
“No, no.” Sebastian said. “Not at all.”
They sat on the floor in a fragile silence, Maria idly scrolling on her phone while sparing glances at Sebastian when she thought he wouldn’t notice. The fork was far too small for his claws, but he maneuvered it with unexpected precision. He inhaled three enchiladas in minutes, ear fins fluttering contentedly as he ate. When he was finished, he sank deeper into his coils. Ever so gently, Maria leaned back to rest against his tail.
Sebastian poked his head out. “What, uh-”
Maria bent forwards. “Sorry-”
“What have you been up to?” Sebastian regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. ‘What have you been up to,’ like he was meeting an old friend at a party and not living his most unrealistic, childish dream.
She slowly settled back into place. “I mean, nothing much these days, now that I’m retired. I’ve been gardening a lot, that’s been nice. Just something I can really get into. Oh, but Gabriel is in school for computing, and Isabela’s graduated law school! She’s a lawyer in the city, so she’s busy often, but she makes time to visit… They’re both going to be so happy to see you.”
Sebastian felt like the ground had slipped out underneath him. His siblings were both grown now, and although Isabela was an adult the last time he saw her, Gabriel was barely in middle school. Urbanshade had stolen everything from him, his body, his family, his future. But the people his siblings had been while he was gone wasn’t something he even knew how to miss.
That was the first thing that occurred to him. Then came another. “Wait. I thought Isabela was getting a business degree?”
“She was,” Maria said. “But after what happened to you… she said she wanted to make sure no one had to go through what we did. She never believed you were guilty.”
Sebastian hadn’t been then, but he sure was now.
“It’s been so long, especially for Gabriel. Do you think he’d even recognize me?”
“He certainly has a worse memory than Isabela and I, but he *loves* you. When they sentenced you, he… He’ll be so happy to see you, no matter what you look like.”
Sebastian couldn’t imagine that. He couldn’t even imagine Gabriel himself, honestly. It wouldn’t be the little brother he knew, with the brightly colored t-shirts and the cargo shorts, tinkering with a kid’s circuitry kit. The shape of the man that formed in his mind was nebulous, slipping off the corners of his mind. Not anyone he knew, hardly a real person at all.
Could this be something? Could Sebastian and his family actually be something that resembled even the barest bit of what it had been? There was some sort of miserable hilarity to it, a mom, two kids, and their giant sea serpent brother. Like the world’s shittiest sitcom.
He scraped the last bit of enchilada off his plate. If he was lucky, (and he was), he could get something at least sort of close.