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Lately, it seemed like Raven was offsite more often than not.
Axl couldn’t exactly object to that, but he could certainly sulk. It was annoying enough to just have three people trying to watch over an entire aquarium. I-no might have been a genius, but she was also kind of an asshole. Of the two scientists, Axl would have much preferred having Raven around to talk to. So just his luck that he’d be out for what felt like the fifteenth time in the last month.
He couldn’t complain too much, though. For the most part, I-no had been content to work in the lab by herself, running a couple of tests on Sharon. Axl had been free to go about his business and deal with the daily chores.
With all the other Mer fed and the floors scrubbed shiny, he had settled down in one of the aquarium’s back rooms with a sandwich in one hand and the other buried in a mop of wet white hair.
“How’s the crab, buddy?”
Venom made a little chirring noise, taking a bite of meat. He’d gotten far bigger over the last several months, but still fit comfortably into Axl’s lap. It wasn’t his choice to do so- strangely, it seemed that Venom preferred cuddling up with him while eating. It definitely seemed odd, but Axl took it as a good sign. The ray was growing properly, eating regularly, and getting a little bit more social. He counted it as progress. Even if he still needed to hand-feed him sometimes. Venom had gotten oddly attached to him.
“What’cha think Raven’s up to?” He knew Venom couldn’t reply. It just felt nice attempting to chat anyway.
“Mree?”
“I guess it’s possible. Hope he isn’t thinking of bringing in another one. Then again, Bridget’s fitting in nicely, so I guess a new roommate wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”
Venom seemed displeased by the sudden lack of petting, and butted his head against the man’s hand insistently. Axl conceded, offering some apologetic scritches.
“My bad. Well, d’ya think you’d like a new roommate if we got one?”
The ray seemed to understand that well enough, and gave an indignant huff.
“Taking that as a no, then.” Axl shrugged. “Guess I don’t blame you. This place is getting pretty crowded.”
The two of them continued to sit, just enjoying each other’s company. Axl wasn’t one to complain, especially when he had so much time to himself, but it seemed almost too weird for him.
“I woulda’ figured I-no would call by now…”
He reached down to his radio, only to find that it was missing. “Huh? Wait a second, when did I lose that?” He sent Venom a look. “Any ideas?”
The mer sent him a blank look. If anything, he seemed annoyed that his favorite source of pats was no longer relaxed.
“Sorry, buddy, but I kinda need my radio. Promise I’ll bring extra treats tomorrow?”
Venom offered a displeased huff, slipping out of his lap and wiggling back into the tank. He let himself be pat one more time before he went back to finding a place to settle on the sandy bottom.
Despite the sting of guilt, Axl wasted no time hurrying back off outside. He knew I-no would spare no expense at chewing him out if he’d missed something important. And if there was one thing he didn’t need right now, it was another one of her lectures.
Digging around the front lobby yielded nothing. Axl retraced his steps back through the building, through his morning cleaning routine, but he didn’t manage to find the radio lying around anywhere. He combed what felt like every last inch of the main structure, only growing more annoyed with each failure.
“Coulda’ sworn it’d be in here. Where could I have left it?”
Quickly running out of ideas, he headed back towards the administrative building. Maybe he’d left it in the breakroom? It seemed unlikely, but not impossible. Or maybe the med lab? The scanner room?
There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary in the breakroom. The bag of donuts was empty, so he crushed it up and tossed it in the wastebin while looking over the note Raven had left behind again, for what had to be the fifth time in one day.
‘Apologies, my colleagues, I had to go deal with some negotiations over in Dragonica. I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but hopefully it will be soon. You two, please try not to kill each other while I’m gone. Axl, make sure to check on Bridget and make sure he’s integrating well. I-no, make sure the surgical tools are all properly sterilized.
~Raven’
‘Dealing with negotiations’ was a phrase Raven liked to use. It was never easy to guess what he meant by that. Sometimes it was working with other aquariums and advising them on their facilities, sometimes it was legal business, and sometimes it was custody transfers. The latter was the best, in Axl’s opinion. If they were lucky, it meant they were getting a new Mer sent to the facility.
He dropped the note back on the desk and headed up the stairs. Checking the med lab was always a good idea. He seemed to spend an odd amount of time in there. There was a meeting room, but for some reason, they never had discussions in it, unless Dr. Kreutz finally came out of his office for some reason or another.
There was no sign of anyone when he pushed the door open. Axl supposed that was a good thing. The only person he’d expect to see was I-no, and they tended to butt heads. Especially if he *had* managed to miss something while he’d lost his radio.
As soon as the thought crossed his head, he spotted the black box perched by the sink. A surprising amount of stress lifted off of his shoulders as he approached and grabbed it.
“Sheesh, how’d I manage to do that…C’mere, you little troublemaker.”
The device was safely reattached to his belt, and checked twice to make sure that it wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe he needed to replace the latch? It didn’t look broken. He didn’t like to think that he really had been so reckless and just left it there, but…
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
Axl was snapped out of his thoughts by a harsh voice. He spun around, catching sight of a familiar face, even though it certainly didn’t look happy to see him.
“Shi- ah, I-no, hey, just had to-”
That just seemed to annoy her more. She immediately stormed into the lab, pushing past her co-worker to start digging through the cabinets furiously. “Ugh. The one thing I tell you not to do, and you-”
“Hey, hey, hold up.” Axl tossed his hands up defensively. “I lost my radio, I was just trying to find it.”
Her mouth pressed into a thin, hard line. “…Alright, I’ll buy that.” I-no went back to yanking open drawers. “Now d’ya need me to babysit you all day, or can I get back to my job?”
“Yeesh, what crawled up your-” Axl cut himself off. No need to piss her off more. “Sharon causing trouble?”
“Sharon? Nah, put her back in the tank half an hour ago.”
He tilted his head. “So what, then?”
I-no paused again, sending him a look. “That’s none of your business, Low. Now get out.”
“But w-”
“Out!” The scientist was perfectly willing to start dragging him along towards the door. “I can only deal with so much at once!”
He stumbled along as he was pulled, taken off-guard at just how strong the woman was when she’d been annoyed. She still held the tools she’d grabbed from the table in her other hand, clutching them with a white-knuckled grip. Awkward as it was, he could swear that he could make out at least one scalpel. What the heck did she need that for?
As he turned, he caught sight of something moving in the tanks. It was minute, difficult to even notice, but he could swear he saw something colorful standing out from the usual plants and sand.
The door slammed hard behind him. Axl took a moment to rub the spot where it had hit him on the back of the head, then turned to look at the plain metal. I-no certainly hadn’t been messing around. What had managed to get her so riled up? It seemed ridiculous that she’d be so angered just because of a little accident.
He knew that he should have turned and left. Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t his business. There wasn’t any reason to stick around any longer. No reason. None at all.
Axl crouched down, pressing an ear to the door. Everyone had already been fed. The world wasn’t going to end if he just wanted to indulge some curiosity.
The steel was thick- specifically for the purpose of keeping people from trying to do what he was doing right that very moment- but he knew a good spot near the bottom that made it a bit easier to hear. Not to say that he used it in abundance. Only that Raven and I-no tended to listen to him more if he just-so-happened to bring the treats that they just-so-happened to have been thinking about the night before. That was all.
“Dammit, I thought he’d never leave…” He could make out I-no muttering to herself. She gave an irritated sigh. “…might as well deal with you, then.”
So there was someone else? It couldn’t have been Raven, that made too little sense. Another Mer? He could have sworn he’d seen everyone while he was feeding them. Aside from Sharon. Was Sharon causing problems? Why would I-no lie about her being finished, then?
The sound of something snapping was easy to figure out. But what were the gloves for?
“…The fuck did I leave that petri dish? Can I just have one thing go right today?”
Axl couldn’t help but agree to that question. He turned a little, trying to find the right spot again.
“There it is. Alright, prettyboy, time for you to hold still.”
Ky, maybe? I-no did have a habit of calling him that. It answered a couple questions, but not enough. He could count the amount of times Ky had gotten himself hurt or injured on one hand, how would he have managed something like that so suddenly?
“Easy…I said sit still…sit still!” Somewhere, water splashed. “Stop moving!”
That was even odder. Ky was supposed to be one of the well-behaved ones. He took his vaccines and blood samples with utter calmness, only rarely getting wound up when tests dragged on and on. So it wasn’t him, then?
The distressed squeak that followed more than answered his question. Definitely not Ky. And from the sound of it, not any other Mer at the aquarium. So they’d gotten a new one?
Axl couldn’t help but be annoyed at that. Why would they keep that from him? Because they knew that he liked being able to greet the new transfers? What was wrong with that?
A moment later, his anger dissipated. He could care about the ‘why’ later, what was happening in there that made the poor thing sound so upset?
It was tricky to discern much over the sound of splashing water. It had gotten a lot louder all of a sudden, which he couldn’t think of as anything but a bad sign.
“Hold still, damn it!”
There was another squeak, even louder than the last one. Axl was pretty sure that he would have been able to hear it even if he wasn’t pressed so close.
Something slammed against the counter. He flinched at the noise, but I-no’s tone offered very little comfort or reassurance.
“Fine…guess we’ll do this the hard way…”
He really didn’t want to know what she meant by that. He was about a half-second away from busting right on in when an ear-splitting cry almost made him fall right on his ass out of shock. This one didn’t stop like the other had, boring right into his ears for what felt like a millennium, with the splashing growing harsher the whole time.
At one point, he could hear something spilling over. All of the analysis tanks were built into the floor, it was impossible to tip them over. The Mer had escaped?
“How- hard- is it- to keep- you- still- ?!”
Was…was I-no wrestling the damn thing? Was this really happening? He had to be hearing wrong, right?
The splashing died down, instead replaced with wet slaps. Axl was getting a vague sort of idea on what I-no was attempting to do, yet it still confused him greatly. Was she trying to drag it back into the tank, or out? What had she been doing to make it scream so loudly in the first place?
After a minute or two of struggle, I-no seemed to have gotten it where she wanted it. “Shit, what a mess…gonna be a pain in the ass to clean this up. What did you have to do that for?”
Another displeased noise acted as a reply. It sounded like someone right on the cusp of crying.
“…It was just a needle. You need to calm down.”
Axl could hear weak sniffling. Injections? God, he knew some of them didn’t take needles well, but this was something else. Not even Venom had been that loud. It sounded like someone being tortured.
“…Take it easy.” I-no’s voice went unexpectedly soft. “I’m not doing this to hurt you.”
The room went quiet, aside from the soft whimpers. Axl wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. He knew that whatever was going on in there was probably just routine medicine, but all he had to go on were the poor creature’s frightened screams, and those were not painting a very pretty picture.
“Shit, where’d I put…?” Just like that, her voice went hard again. “It broke?! Are you kidding me?!”
He had no idea what she was ranting about. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to.
“When did the last drug shipment come in? Damn it…”
It took Axl a good moment to realize that I-no was approaching the door. He managed to clamber to his feet in relative silence and round the corner, pressing back against it.
The door opened not a moment later. I-no’s boots clunked against the linoleum almost curiously, like she had been expecting to see something. She couldn’t have known he was there, could she?
Footsteps started plodding down the hall. Axl barely waited until they were out of earshot before he swung back around the corner. The door had been left open, effortless for him to weasel on through and slide in.
He noticed the signs of the struggle immediately. Puddles had been left all over the floor, with a few smashed bottles littering the tile with shards. One of the tanks was an absolute mess, half-empty with sand and plants kicked up into piles and adding to the mess on the floor.
In spite of the mess, Axl couldn’t focus on it for very long. He caught sight of something squirming and twitching, half-hidden behind one of the supply carts. Fighting down an unexpected spike of unease, he carefully avoided the broken glass and approached the other side of the room.
Synchiropus Splendidus, the mandarin dragonet. Axl could recognize the species immediately. The bright colors and lovely patterns had made it one of his favorites, but he could also easily tell that something wasn’t right with this one. The veins of rainbow running down its sides were dimmed and dull, twisting against a backdrop more the color of muddy pond water than sapphire. The human half fared no better- with each nervous, heaving breath, Axl could catch a full view of the creature’s ribcage, pressing against the skin as though there was barely enough space for them to fit. The bare skin was ashen and sickly-looking.
He realized that the Mer had long noticed him, and was watching with frightened eyes. He also realized that I-no must have dragged him in order to try and keep him still while she worked. The examination table had holes for restraints- one for each arm, one for the chest, and two for the tail- rendering the creature unable to move outside of pitiful wiggling.
“Hey…” Axl extended a hand, doing his best to look nonthreatening.
It didn’t work. The table rattled and clattered with the force of a body slamming against it again and again, desperately trying to pull itself free.
“Woah, easy, easy- !” He tried to reassure the creature, frantically looking over his shoulder to make sure that I-no wasn’t alerted to the noise. He reached out to try and distribute some pats on the head, trying to be forceful enough to make the slamming stop while also being calming. If he wasn’t worried about I-no, he’d still be concerned about the damage the Mer could do to itself by bashing its head like that.
He felt the thrashing die down into an uncomfortable squirm. Axl merely offered more pets. “Easy…there we are. Nobody’s getting hurt today, savvy? Jeez…” He let his hand slip back to make sure there weren’t any bleeding wounds from the banging. From a glance, it didn’t look too bad. “What’s got you so riled up?”
While it was obvious that the creature was unwell, even with a closer look it was hard to tell why. There were no clear injuries or trauma, at least nothing on the surface. Malnourishment, maybe? It would make sense. Considering the beautiful scales, he could see an eccentric socialite buying a Mer and not knowing how to take care of it properly.
While lost in his thoughts, he barely noticed a hand grasping for him. With how it was restrained, it was hard to get far, but Axl was close enough that fingers could latch onto his leg suddenly, making him jump back.
“Fu- don’t do that!” He gave the creature a look, but there was little bite to it. “What do you want from me…?”
Reaching into his pockets, he pulled out a little container of shrimp that he usually used for luring Venom out. Just the sight of it made the dragonet start wiggling again, staring at the food intently.
“Huh? You hungry? Guess I can buy more…” Axl trailed off, pulling a shrimp from the container. He held it over the Mer, who shot up far quicker than he would have expected to snatch it. “Want another one?”
“Step away. From the table. Now.”
He felt his heart sinking, muscles going tense from I-no’s sudden voice. Sheepishly, he turned towards the door, looking as embarrassed and pitiful as possible in the hope that she would take pity on him.
The woman’s hard expression held no trace of sympathy. In one hand, she gripped a glass bottle of something he didn’t recognize at a glance. As soon as he moved, the dragonet started getting restless again, slapping his fin against the metal.
I-no’s eyes locked onto the temp. “Go wash your hands, right now.”
“Huh?” Sure, that was standard procedure when they were done, but why did she feel the need to tell him? “What’s the big deal-”
“The ‘big deal’ is that if you don’t get your stupid ass sterile, you’re gonna be crawling with bugs!” Annoyed with his inaction, I-no grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him over to the washing station. “D’you really just put your hands on everything like a dumb kid?”
“Bugs?” Axl was still about half a minute behind her. “Wait, what do you mean?”
Rolling her eyes and huffing, the biologist pinched the bridge of her nose. “Parasites, Axl, he’s crawling with parasites. They transferred him to our facility so we could flush them out.”
Despite her words, he found himself more worried than disgusted. Still, to appease his co-worker, he got to work scrubbing his hands.
“Poor guy…wondering why he looked so sick. Any idea what we’re dealing with?”
“Is ‘everything in the damn book’ an appropriate answer?” I-no had already wandered off, going back to the Mer on the table to look him over as he eyed her warily. “Because, that. Even some off-book symptoms. Can’t exactly do anything too severe until Raven gets back, but until then I’ve gotta take down stuff for the lab file.”
Her eyes flicked back up to Axl. “Care to explain why you came back in after I kicked your ass out?”
“I-I heard screaming.” He replied half-truthfully, hoping it would be enough. “I was worried someone had gotten hurt.”
I-no sighed, annoyance betraying a hint of a smile. “Goddamn boy scout. You at least managed to get him to quiet down for a good minute. Maybe it won’t be a waste to keep you around. Besides, I need a grunt to write stuff down for me.”
“How touching.” Axl replied, knowing that was as close as he was going to get to a real compliment. Without missing a beat, he swiped a blank medical file from the nearest cabinet. “Ok, can I get a name?”
“Nothing officially registered, but his last handlers called him ‘Zappa.’
“Wait, what? Like the singer?”
She shrugged in reply. “Not a damn clue why. He responds to it, more often than not, so no point in changing it.”
“Whatever you say.” Axl started writing. “Mandarin Dragonet, right?”
“Yyyyyep, captive-raised in a facility down in Sydney. Adult male. Can’t say much for his current physical state, ‘absolute shit’ isn’t exactly something we can put in the books.”
“Okay, got it.”
“Not much to say about cognitive functions, they’re pretty standard for the species. Bit shy, from what I’ve seen. It’s hard to pin down a lot of behavior patterns since he’s in a lot of pain right now and it’s making him erratic, that can get dealt with once we’re done scraping out his guts.”
“Woah-woah-woah, time out a sec.” Axl nearly dropped his pen. “You’re doing what?!”
“Surgery. Too many worms in his guts for drugs to be of much use.” She replied nonchalantly. “Pretty much gonna start putting him down as soon as we’re done with his paperwork. Raven should be back by then.”
I-no wasn’t joking, was she? “It can’t be that bad…” He trailed off, looking at the sickly Mer again. “…right?”
She leveled a calm, frank look at him. “Axl. You can’t get all bleeding-heart on me now about this. He’s got so many worms in him that he can barely eat. They’re starving him to death. We had to schedule it for today no matter what, because if they waited any longer to put him under, he probably wouldn’t have been strong enough to live through it.”
She plucked the file from his hands and glanced over it. “Good. That should be all we need for now. I’m really gonna have to ask you to leave, I can’t have you interfering.”
“Wh- I’m not gonna do anything, promise!” He protested.
“I don’t believe you.” I-no placed the file down on the counter, before procuring a little bottle from her labcoat pocket and an empty syringe from a drawer.
As soon as she attempted to fill the syringe, the Mer on the table began pitifully squirming once more. When it didn’t work, he began to scream, loud and shrill as he tried to slam his tail against the metal and find a way to break free.
“Stop, stop!” Shouted I-no, though she and Axl both knew that shouting back was pointless. She dropped the needle and grabbed onto the table to keep it from wobbling.
Axl tried to grab on as well, but a floor puddle made his shoe skid and knocked him on his ass. “I-no, he’s afraid of shots!”
“Yeah, no shit, genius!” She hissed back. “But did you miss the part where he’s going to die if I don’t give him one!?”
“I know, I know, just-” He cut himself off with a grumble, picking himself back off the ground. “Shit, he’s gonna give himself a concussion at this rate.”
Zappa had stopped wriggling so hard, noticing that there wasn’t someone trying to stab him anymore. I-no took a little step back. She slowly reached out towards the abandoned needle which worked for all of two seconds until he caught her and began wiggling again.
“It’s medicine.” Axl said. “Um, wait, you don’t know what that means, do you? Medicine is good for you…”
The Mer still looked at him with distrust. Axl rubbed at the back of his neck. “Dammit. Just gotta find a way to show him…” A thought hit him. “Hey I-no, can you hand me an empty needle?”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Are you about to pull some stupid stunt on me.”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“…Fine, here.” Handing him a plastic-wrapped syringe, I-no immediately went on to opening the storage cabinet and rifling through it. “But if you end up giving yourself an embolism I’m gonna leave you on the floor.”
“I can accept that.” Axl replied. He unwrapped the little package and dropped the wrapper into the wastebin. Zappa still looked at him with caution, but he didn’t start resisting again.
“Here. This is a shot, see?” Zappa winced as he held the object up, giving a couple of warning thumps with his tailfin. “Easy, mate. Just relax a sec.” One hand reached across to roll up the sleeve of his shirt. When that was done, he took the plastic cap off the needle and let the Mer see. “I know it looks really pointy, and that’s really scary, but I promise it won’t hurt. I’ll show you!”
Axl reached back across himself, took a deep breath, and sank the sharp tip into his upper arm. It stung slightly, of course, but he kept his breath calm and held it there for about as long as a shot usually took. He withdrew the needle from his arm, drawing a bead of blood but otherwise no worse for wear.
“See? Jus’ a little pinch.” He dropped the used syringe in the biohazards bin. “That’s all. Think you can do it, too?”
He didn’t know if Zappa understood his words, but after seeing Axl stab himself and not immediately keel over, he seemed much more calm. I-no seemed to take it as a good sign and grabbed the bottle.
“Not too shabby, Dolittle. Let’s see if it stuck.”
Zappa still watched her with a bit of fear as she approached, but he didn’t scream again. Axl decided to stay in view, keeping a comforting smile. There was a brief whimper as the sharp tip went in, but Zappa kept his eyes shut and remained otherwise calm until it was finished.
“Done. Stuff’s pretty fast, it won’t knock him out all the way, but he’ll be so out of it he won’t be afraid of anything else I do before Raven shows up.” I-no nodded firmly. “What’s with you and pulling weird stunts like this?”
Axl raised his hands innocently. “Relax. I promise it’s not gonna become a habit or anything.”
“Well, I’ll believe that when I see it.”
He could have kept arguing, but he simply rolled his eyes and turned away. Zappa already looked calmer, head lolling back and forth with drowsy, half-closed eyes.
“Heh. Probably feelin’ a little fuzzy, huh?” Axl reached over to brush a bit of hair out of his eyes. He noticed the way the markings drew up past his cheeks, and a reddish blotch seemed to almost make a heart shape in the middle of his forehead. “Pretty thing, huh? Gonna look even better when you’re all better. They’re gonna fix you up all nice and good, okay? And you aren’t even gonna feel it. You’re gonna sleep right through everything, and then you’ll wake up all better. And I’ll be right here when you wake up again, okay buddy?”
It was hard to read the Mer’s expression. Axl just hoped that he believed him.