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Cahir hadn’t really expected much when he moved to this shitty little coastal town. The locals wouldn’t call it shitty, but, well, when you compared it to the metropolis of Cintra it really didn’t stand a chance. Fuck, he missed the big city. Getting fired from his job had been a big enough blow, but when he had been run out of the city itself through a further series of misfortunes Cahir had finally realized that whatever was up there in the sky must hate him. Determined not to end up homeless, he had gotten on a bus with the last of his savings and ended up here. In middle-of-nowhere-ville, working at the docks.
It wasn’t bad work, per se. Just monotonous and exhausting. Cahir hadn’t been a total office vegetable in his old job, but nothing compared to the daily exertion of lifting and moving pallets, crates, and nets. He’d dropped a particularly large crate on one of his first days, and his left hand still hadn’t recovered, three of the fingers bent awkwardly to this day. Every day he went home sore and exhausted, too tired to do much more than make himself dinner and fall asleep in front of the TV. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, since any free time would probably let him realize just how alone he was here.
Cahir had never been possessed with a particularly personable temperament. Back at his old job people had mainly stayed out of his way, and that had carried over here. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to make friends. It was mostly that he didn’t know how to do it. People were hard to trust, and he didn’t have a very friendly looking face. No one was lining up to try and break through his cold outer exterior to get to the warm and friendly person underneath. Not that even Cahir himself was sure what was underneath the cold outer exterior. He’d never really had to think about it before.
The only person who really regularly talked to him was another dock worker by the name of Lambert. Maybe they gravitated together because Lambert didn’t have many friends either. He was loud and opinionated, and had a habit of saying the worst possible thing at the least opportune time. More than once, Cahir had seen him smacked by one of their coworkers for making a comment that came across as far too suggestive. Luckily for Lambert, Cahir was pretty much completely oblivious to innuendo, so he only really ‘got it’ when Lambert would laugh at his own jokes about himself. That was just the kind of man Lambert was: simple.
Cahir had him pretty much figured out, or at least he thought he did. There was still one thing that didn’t add up when it came to Lambert. He didn’t have any friends here, that much was obvious. But he didn’t just sit and eat his lunch at the dock’s cantina like all the rest of the workers. Cahir didn’t think he had been driven out, since the rest of the workers didn’t seem to hold a very hard grudge against him. But every day at lunch, Lambert would scurry off in the direction of the beach, clutching at his unusually large lunch box. Was he shy about how much he ate? Was it a particularly small lunch hidden inside of that big box and he was embarrassed about that instead?
For some reason, Cahir just couldn’t get the mystery out of his head. Maybe it was because sometimes, when he glanced over at Lambert, the man would flash him a smile that was strangely fond for all the teeth it contained. The contrasting warmth and aggression made him wonder just what else Lambert was hiding. Finally, after weeks of turning the problem over in his head with no success, Cahir couldn’t handle it any more.
"Why do you go to the beach so often?" he blurted out as Lambert grabbed his lunch box from the shelf.
The man paused, turned to Cahir, and fixed him with a serious stare. The silence made Cahir squirm, and it took all of his courage to speak up again.
“You always run off to the beach for lunch. Every day. And I just wondered why.” He said, keeping his tone even and hopefully non-threatening. Cahir had never been good at judging that.
The stare Lambert was giving him made Cahir feel like his whole life was being weighed in this instance. Like he was being judged against some scale he had no knowledge of, only to be found…
“Come with me, I’ll show you why.”
...worthy. Somehow, the trust in that sentence was overwhelming, and Cahir felt his heart stutter in his chest. He nodded, and grabbed his own lunch to follow Lambert to the beach. They walked together - Cahir silent, Lambert whistling a cheerful tune - the sound of the docks fading behind them. Eventually they crested a small dune and looked down onto a hidden bay of sorts, the waves crashing softly against a small protected stretch of sand.
Lambert bounded down towards the ocean, calling out “Sweetheart, I brought company today! Want you to meet my new friend!”
And nothing Cahir could have imagined or predicted could have prepared him to see a man wash up on shore, his torso strong and tan and his legs gone - replaced with a strong silver tail. A fucking merman. A merman that Lambert was maybe fucking, given the way they greeted each other with a rather steamy kiss. Cahir had never felt more out of place in his life than he did right now, watching as the merman turned his attention from Lambert back to him.
“Eskel, this is Cahir. He works at the docks. Cahir, this is Eskel, the most beautiful man in the world.” Lambert said, grinning proudly at his own introduction skills. Cahir watched as Eskel, whose face was marred with so many scars he’d probably never had anyone call him beautiful before Lambert, flushed and ducked his head in embarrassment.
“Pleased to meet you.” Eskel said once he could raise his head again, “You must be pretty special for Lambert to bring you here.”
Cahir had a feeling that everything was about to get a lot more special, as he considered that maybe, just maybe, living in a shitty coastal town could have its perks.