Work Text:
Derek was braced on his knees, clinging desperately to the icy metal railing of the cruiser as it pitched violently, the boat riding waves that Derek was too afraid to look at. The whole boat groaned as if in resentment at the sea’s relentless abuse and the captain had his whole body pressed against the wheel, his face drained of colour.
The cruiser tilted, climbing and climbing a wave until Derek felt himself struggling to hold onto the railing, the deck sloping like a slick, white rockface under his saturated dress trousers. Derek heard a scream and twisted to look upwards through the thrashing salt water to see a figure careening down the deck, trying and failing to find something to grab onto.
With the crest of the wave looming, Derek didn’t think before he shoved himself away from the railing and grabbed the man’s sodden suit jacket. Then they were both sliding, the man still screaming, and Derek’s stomach dropped sickeningly as he saw the railing at the back of the boat racing towards them.
With his hand still twisted tightly into the man’s suit, Derek hit the metal railing hard, the man’s weight slamming into him and, even with the deafening waves, Derek heard his ribs crack under the impact.
The pain was overwhelming, both sharp like a knife point and spreading like a bone-deep bruise all over his side, and Derek wasn’t given a second before the crest of a wave hit. Terrified and struggling to breathe, Derek forcefully dragged the man’s head towards him and saw huge brown eyes looking back at him as the boat fell. God, the guy was only a kid.
“Hold on!” Derek screamed. The last thing he saw before the boat hit the clashing sea and the wave closed over them was the man’s arm curling around the metal railing, clinging on. Derek, not holding onto anything, felt himself being flung into freefall before a wall of water hit him like solid concrete and he blacked out.
~
Derek came awake retching water and gasping at the pain in his sides, realising quickly that he was upright and surrounded by water. He kicked out instinctively at the water, which rocked him unsteadily, before he became aware that there was something behind him, wrapped around his upper arms and chest and keeping him afloat.
Squinting in the painfully bright sunlight, Derek twisted his head around to try to see what he was attached to, but the movement wrenched his ribs and he cried out in pain, his eyes clenching shut as he forced down nausea.
There was an odd, soft trilling sound behind him and then the things around his chest fucking moved and Derek screamed hoarsely, clawing at the pale-green, whatever-the-fuck-they-were clinging to his chest, just wanting it away from him. There was a harsh screech right behind Derek’s ear and then he was suddenly adrift and choking on water, struggling to keep his head above the surface with the hot, shooting pain in his right side.
Derek felt his upper arms being grabbed again and he fought at first, but the rough waves kept dragging him under so that he couldn’t get enough air and he went limp as he was towed back above the surface, gasping harsh, desperate breaths. He was shaking violently, just beginning to realise how cold he was even though the waters were relatively tepid.
Derek’s eyes had been screwed shut underwater and he didn’t know that he wanted to open them now and face whatever it was that had a rough grip on Derek’s arms. But a soft trill just inches from his face made him flinch and he pried open his stinging eyes, only to tense violently, a harsh inhale caught in his throat.
Half a face stared back at him, barely out of the water. It was a face but it wasn’t human, and sheer shock made Derek’s chest go tight with panic as he fought the strong urge to shove this- this creature as far away from him as possible.
“What are you?” Derek croaked. Pure black eyes stared back at him, the lack of pupils making it hard to tell where the creature was looking. Their eyes were set wider than a human’s and their skin was tinged in a distinctly fish-like, silvery sheen, but their bone structure and the short, dense black frills atop their head made them look male. When Derek looked shakily down at the hands gripping his arms, he saw that the creature had no thumbs, only four claw-tipped silver-grey fingers. Diaphanous fins were attached to the creature’s arms and floated like gauzy fabric with the movement of the sea.
Dragging his gaze away from the impossible creature in front of him, Derek twisted painfully to look for the cruiser, for land, but everywhere he looked there was nothing but sea. Derek swallowed a mouthful of water as he dipped a little and he tried hard to tamp down his nausea. If I live through this, he thought hysterically, then I never want to taste salt again.
Realising he was otherwise entirely alone on the rough, seemingly endless ocean made Derek’s fear of the black-eyed creature dissipate almost instantaneously, replaced with a fear of being completely abandoned and left to drown out here. He reached out tentatively to grasp the creature’s striped shoulders, feeling rough scales and hard muscle beneath his fingers. His ribs screamed at him for just lifting his arm, especially with the weight of the sodden suit still hanging off him, but he gritted his teeth and bore it. The creature’s eyes briefly narrowed at the contact and they gave another sharp trill, but they didn’t release their grip on Derek and Derek twitched a hysterical half-smile in relief.
“Think you could take me back to land?” he rasped. “Or back to the boat?” The thought flashed across Derek’s mind that there may not be a boat anymore, that that kid with the brown eyes might be- but Derek pushed it away. He couldn’t do anything, hell, he would have been dead already if it wasn’t for the creature currently staring at him just as intently as Derek had been.
The creature blinked, doubled eyelids flicking across their large eyes and Derek blinked back unconsciously before he licked over his salt-caked lips, cringing at the sandpaper-feel and foul taste inside his mouth. Delicate, palm-sized fins at the sides of the creature’s head that Derek hadn’t initially noticed, fluttered mostly underwater and Derek resisted the vague desire to reach out and touch them.
Without any apparent cue, the creature abruptly turned their head away, seeming to be scanning the sea, before their hands disappeared from Derek’s arms and they slid straight out of Derek’s hold in less than a second.
“No!” Derek screamed as he flapped in the water, pain and panic welling up. “Wait,” he croaked futilely, before there was a disturbance in the water behind him and arms clasped tightly around Derek under his arms, a cold, narrow chest pressed to Derek’s back. Even though the contact hurt his ribs, Derek released a breath of utter relief that the creature hadn’t left him. Then Derek was dragged under the water mid-breath and his eyes became full of grainy, blue-grey water rushing past him as Derek felt himself being propelled through the water, the creature’s arms wrapped around him as securely as iron cables.
His empty lungs burning after only seconds, Derek slammed his hand against the arms around his chest and felt, to his relief, the mercreature propel them powerfully upwards, moving in strong, fluid movements, before they emerged into the salty open air a second later. Derek gasped, dizzy with the rush of air and pain from his spasming ribs and hung limply in the creature’s grasp.
There was another trill and Derek took it to be a warning, drawing a full breath before he was dragged under again. With his lungs full this time, he was able to briefly marvel at the speed at which the mercreature powered through the water even whilst dragging Derek’s ungainly weight along with him.
The creature pulled Derek back up every time he needed air, letting Derek catch his breath before setting off again, but Derek was still feeling disorientated and dizzy by the time he clumsily tapped the creature’s arm and was pulled up to see a smear of something on the horizon through his burning, blurry eyes. He squinted at it hopefully before the creature tugged him done again and Derek hoped desperately that he was being taken to a shore with people and a hospital.
Every time they came up, the shore was closer and the creature trilled to Derek as they came to an abrupt stop about a hundred or two hundred yards from the beach. Derek couldn’t see anyone actually on the sand and his eyes were irritated as hell, but he could see bright, white buildings inland and figures moving. He was so close and his bruised chest tightened with desire, exhausted as he was.
The creature was still trilling softly and Derek twisted stiffly around to see those liquid black eyes staring at him, before they blinked. Derek blinked back. The creature lessened their grip on Derek and then gave him a gentle push towards the shore and Derek realised belatedly that the creature didn’t want to go closer. Derek forced his legs to kick sluggishly and hold him up.
“Thank you,” Derek said quietly, meaning it completely. The creature’s fins fluttered either side of their head before they slid under and were gone with a flick of a shockingly huge, silver tail, leaving Derek treading water, more tired than he’d ever been in his life, but still alive. He made slow progress towards shore, almost crying when his feet touched sand and he felt real land beneath him.
Unable to hold himself up, he crawled onto the beach and flopped down on the sand amid the gently frothing surf, crying in soft gasps with a mixture of pain and pure gratitude. Sometime later, he heard voices above him talking in a language he didn’t understand and felt himself being rolled over before warm, human fingers were touching his face.
“I’m alive,” he said roughly, still crying silently. “I’m alive.”