Chapter Text
The circus stinks of cruelty, misery, and the giddy fascination people possess for watching creatures deemed non-human suffer.
Kylo has always loathed this sort of spectacle, all garish colors and bright lights and tempered horrors. He squints up at the red-and-white striped tent, then draws his eyes to the hand-painted banner above the door:
MERMAN
Plenty of struggling carnivals tried to pull off the allure of the merfolk. Seldom is it convincing enough to coalesce a crowd of this size.
Kylo is expecting some man in a rubber tail, or a manatee with a disturbingly human face. Perhaps something like the Seal Boy he saw months and miles back. At most, he’s expecting some dead, taxidermied horror.
He doesn’t want to keep pushing through the crowd.
At the same time, Kylo feels pulled forward as if attached to a lure. Every step he takes draws him closer to something he’s unsure he wants to see.
Soon he catches sight of the top of a tank, filled with water that’s an off-putting shade of green. It’s taller than it is long, the edges lined with gold-painted metal.
Kylo’s feet carry him closer, and his height grants him a vantage point over the heads of most other fairgoers. Within the green-tinted water, a flash of auburn comes into view, haloing a face as it weaves through the water. Kylo’s brain goes blank with shock.
The creature in the tank. He's beautiful, in a ruined way. Face drawn and pale, listless and fragile. The bones of his features are fine by nature but made gaunt by nurture.
The crowd finally washes Kylo close enough for the entirety of the tank to come into view, but it still takes him minutes - or is it seconds, or hours? - to draw his eyes downward.
Coated in dulled gray scales - bare in some patches, like they’ve been picked out - is a tail. Aquatic, though not like any fish Kylo has ever seen. Coiled and slender, mottled in shades of gray and rust. At the end is a tattered, gossamer fin, missing its entire left side.
Scales have accumulated at the bottom of the tank, glittering like broken glass in the hazy light that fights through murky water and smudged glass.
No falsity would be designed in such cruel detail.
Kylo steps closer.
The hum of the crowd, the elated cruelty, feels distant. He can hear his heartbeat heavy in his ears, and his fingers are pins-and-needles numb when he presses them to the glass, a motion he hadn’t consciously processed making until it was already done. As soon as his palm touches the glass, the creature twitches, and his eyes focus. He meets Kylo’s gaze.
For all his exterior weakness, his eyes are sharp; hurt and wild and alive.
There’s something so viciously strong about the merman’s gaze that for a moment, Kylo forgets everything. The steadiness, the intelligence, the wheels turning behind sea glass green, weaves past Kylo’s own barrier against the world and lodges in his brain.
Then the echo of misery, and pain, and indignity - it stops being just an echo, surges against the walls of Kylo’s skull and wets his eyes. Kylo tries to disentangle himself and only half-succeeds.
The merman still watches him, keen and aware, something desperate beneath it all. Whatever modicum of carefully-crafted indifference Kylo clung to shatters. Bile and rage rise in his throat, floodwater fast. Kylo is no stranger to cruelty, neither to others nor himself. But the wrongness of this sticks between his ribs and refuses to dislodge.
An hour ago, Kylo’s greatest concern was the sweltering heat and the noisy crowd. Now, he can barely perceive either. Now, and for the rest of his life, whenever he closes his eyes, he’ll see that sea glass shade of blue-green, and the agony beneath it.
A quiet clink and his palm grows damp. Kylo quickly withdraws his hand, revealing a crack in the glass tank and the slow, trickling stream that emerges from it. It’s nothing - barely noticeable - but it is noticed, and the merman finally releases Kylo from his gaze to study the break.
Someone grabs his arm and shouts. Kylo doesn’t care. The merman brings his face closer to Kylo - gaze flickering to the new crack, a kind of restrained perplexity in the tilt of his head.
“Hey! You can’t get that close!”
Kylo swivels, snarl on his lips, and someone jerks and stumbles back.
With a sudden certainty, Kylo knows he can’t stay here. Doesn’t think he’d survive it - it’s too much, all of this. But it still feels like a betrayal to turn away from the creature in the tank, to weave past the crowd. He can feel the pulse of the merman’s presence with every step, past the entrance of the circus. I’ll be back, he thinks, loud and desperate. Wishing it could be heard.
Snoke had warned him of the dangers of empathy, the capacity to feel what others felt. Snoke had taught him how to ignore it - how to inflict cruelty and pain without being trapped by it. But he can’t distance himself from this.
It’s a few hours on horseback back to his grandfather’s home. He stops halfway there, stumbles in dismounting, and dry-heaves over the side of the dirt road, gorged on feeling.
And then he screams.
Kylo wants to purge the memory from his head, but he can't. Knew he never could. Doesn't know how to do anything about it, either, because all he's good for is breaking things and disappointing people.
Still, when he sees an ad in the papers, long after he'd deliberately hoped the circus had moved on: Merman for sale. Real live merman. July 25.
Mind stuttering, rage igniting, fear building. Pots rattling in their place. He can't not act.
The days leading up to the auction are torturous.
Kylo would much rather slaughter the entire circus and take what he wants - subtlety be damned. But he is not that person anymore. Tries not to be that person, anyways.
He busies himself with tidying up his grandfather’s home, though there’s only so much to be done, rotting as it is from the inside. It’s been abandoned for decades and it shows, in the overgrown forest of weeds and the peeling, faded paint, the wood warped by humid summers.
His nights are restless, grating against his sanity. Even in his dreams he sees red and sea foam; sometimes cold with the same blank expression he’d seen at the circus, sometimes accusatory and accompanied with a twisted snarl, words mouthed in the water: why did you leave? Why didn’t you look back? Sometimes he sees them alight with pain and wakes gasping, and other times - by the far the worst - he sees them devoid of any light at all. Flat and empty, the words too late, too late, ringing in Kylo’s head.
Late July comes too soon, not soon enough. Sweltering and ugly.
Kylo stopped at the front of the tent. He's a short second away from violence.
“You plan on participating?”
Kylo stares the person down, but when it elicits nothing but an impatient hand wave, he relents. “I do.”
“Actually participating? Not just standing in the back with a fuckin’ number, taking up space?”
“Yes," Kylo huffs.
“Great,” the person mutters, like this is beneath him, and hands Kylo a rough wooden plate with the number 19 painted large and white upon it. “Have a fuckin’ ball.”
The main tent is packed far past the point of discomfort, stuffy with body heat and tittering voices. Kylo lingers closer to the back, unwilling to approach the packed front. With poorly restrained rage - it must leak into the world, given how others swivel to him and then try to move further away - Kylo imagines how easy it would be to burn this entire place to the ground.
Slaughter everyone here.
He closes his eyes, breathes in too-warm air, and waits.
The auctioneer ducks smoothly through the gap between the curtains. He observes the crowd, squints at the sun’s position in the horizon, and motions. The tent darkens as someone behind them adjusts the curtains. He steps fully onto stage, beams bright. A stage man’s smile, with a hint of something genuine that endears him to the crowd. Sandy-haired, slight and short, he scarcely looks over twenty.
“Welcome! You all know why you’re here. Jabba’s Circus has fallen upon harsher times, and we…” he glances to the side, and Kylo spots a figure waving in the dark. “Uh, never mind all that. Let’s get this thing started.”
He moves with a grace that his words lack, ducking behind the curtains as they’re pulled back, stepping lightly to stand beside the water-filled tank at the center of the stage.
Kylo takes sixty long seconds to reign in his rage, just until it’s simmering under the surface.
The tank has been haphazardly cleaned, the water replaced. It’s filled almost to the brim, heavy lid in place.
The merman is bound by his hands to the top of the tank, presumably to stop him from curling up in some unrecognizable shape. With clear glass and water, forced on display in a way he hadn’t been before, two things are very clear: he isn’t human, and he hasn’t been treated as one.
There’s a kind of contempt in the clench of his jaw, but mostly, he just looks upon the crowd with a resigned apprehension.
“He’s not dangerous, folks,” the auctioneer says, slapping his palm against the glass of the tank. “As long as you keep your hands to yourself.”
A couple sparse laughs go through the crowd.
Someone shouts, “make it do something!”
Kylo bites his tongue to stop from screaming.
The auctioneer glances to the tank, then back into the crowd. He makes a helpless gesture. “He's finicky. He does what he wants.”
It’s very clear that nothing about this is what he wants.
“Okay, here’s how this goes," the auctioneer continues. "Raise your - uh, your thing, your number, when you wanna bid. Thousand dollar increments. Starting price is ten thousand!”
There’s a moment of swift silence, followed by offended muttering.
“So, uh, ten thousand!” The auctioneer tries again, a little louder.
A ludicrously low price for a real merman, but still far too steep for the gathered crowd. As if any of them actually intended on taking him home; as if they weren’t just gathered here for the spectacle.
For ten seconds, nobody raises their makeshift plate. The auctioneer glances nervously over the crowd.
Kylo is moments away from making the first bid, when someone close to the front shouts, “ten thousand and three!”
“Hey! We’re doing thousand-dollar jumps, and you raise your - you know what, doesn’t matter, ” the auctioneer rubs his face.
Someone else shouts a number, not loud enough to be heard. There's another shout from somewhere to the left of Kylo.
In a different direction, a board painted 34 raises.
The auctioneer points. “Yeah! Uh - what number are we on?”
Kylo can’t see the man, but he detects the simper of affluence when he speaks.
“Thirteen thousand.”
Kylo waits three seconds and raises his plate. In the way people tend to when Kylo wants their attention, the auctioneer swivels to Kylo as if magnetically pulled.
“Uh - fourteen thousand! Now, who’ll give me sixteen - I mean fifteen thousand, fifteen thousand - “
7 raises again.
“Fifteen thousand!” the auctioneer sounds relieved. “Sixteen thousand?”
Kylo glares, raises his board again.
The auctioneer points at him, then remembers to announce. By this time, two more boards have gone up.
“Whoa, uh - seventeen - eighteen - okay, slow down, slow down! Uh - twenty thousand!”
Kylo shifts his gaze to the tank as he waits for the bidding to die down, catches the merman observing the proceedings with a kind of half-hearted interest. His eyes are heavy-lidded, more lifelike than before, sparking with disgust and - dread , curling off in dark, gentle waves, lacking the edge that hope would give.
Then, just as before, those too-sharp eyes flick to Kylo.
Kylo is used to pinning others with his gaze, less used to being pinned. Adrenaline shoots through every nerve ending. He sinks his teeth into his cheek.
The creature shifts, ever so slight, a shivered strain running down his arms.
“SOLD!”
They both startle, and now Kylo feels dread of his own.
“For twenty-five thousand, to - that guy!”
“Thirty thousand,” Kylo shouts.
He catches his first sight of 7’s face - middle-aged, peppered hair, well-dressed - when the man stands on his chair and looks for Kylo. With a petulant expression that makes Kylo loathe him on the spot, he shouts, “you can’t do that! The auction is over.”
“Hey, pal,” the auctioneer says, “if he’s got the money, he’s got the fish. Highest bidder, that’s the rule.”
7 is red with fury. Stiff, he raises his plate. “Thirty one thousand.”
Kylo shrugs. “Thirty three.”
“Thirty four.”
“Forty thousand,” Kylo snaps, growing impatient. From the look on 7’s face - unbridled, lip-quivering frustration - he can’t top it.
“Forty thousand,” the auctioneer says, stunned. “SOLD! For forty thousand dollars!”
The crowd titters.
Victory flushes sharp delight through Kylo.
The auctioneer waves a hand at someone backstage, and then nimbly steps down from the platform. He approaches Kylo with a smile. Behind him, the curtains begin to fall closed, eliciting a few boos and disappointed shouts. “Congrats, bud,” he beams, and even has the gall to clap Kylo on the arm. “You ready to pay tonight? Or do you need -,”
“I intend to pay now.”
“Great! I’ll bring him around back for ya while you pay the boss. Uh, we gotta clear out the place first, though - don’t think you want anyone following ya home.” The auctioneer waits for some response. When no words come, he tilts his head. “Okay. Do you - need to fetch a… briefcase, checkbook, somethin’ from your - ”
“No ,” Kylo snaps, impatient. “Take me to your boss.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll take you to Jabba’s trailer. Once you’re all paid up, just meet me backstage, swing your cart around. We’ll have you two outta here in a few hours, tops.”
A few hours. Kylo grimaces. Traveling by night along these roads is not something he enjoys, regardless of how he tries to convince himself he adores the dark. Nonetheless, he allows himself to be led through the maze of tents, shadowed silhouettes in the evening light. They approach a trailer of unwieldy size, parked far from the circus.
“The boss is, ah,” the auctioneer winks, “somethin’. Be prepared - and breathe through your mouth.”
Contempt curls Kylo’s lip. Contempt, and the putrid smell coming from within the trailer.
As Kylo slams open the door with deliberate force, steps heavy up the rickety entryway, he becomes aware that the entire trailer is tilted at an angle.
For the trailer to be bathed in darkness would be a mercy. But it isn’t - it’s brightly lit, a warm glow that highlights every swollen, spilling part of Jabba’s body. He’s too big for the nest he’s made at the far end of the trailer, body pressed to either wall. The head, which seems to melt into the body, and two stubby arms are all that is visible - he cannot distinguish legs. His skin has a rough, leathery look, and it is all on display. Worst, by far, is the too-wide mouth, slick with gristle and twisted into the mockery of a smile.
With great distaste, Kylo steps closer.
When Jabba shifts, the entire trailers shifts with him. “Where is my money?”
It’s a struggle to keep his face blank with the spray of shimmering spit that emerges with Jabba’s words.
“I have what you seek,” Kylo says, reaching into his pocket. He hopes his bluff will work.
Jabba follows his hand with a hungry greed, and after that, Kylo knows it will be easy. Performance is always easy to him - once you have their attention, the rest comes naturally.
Kylo pulls the artifact from his pocket, keeps it concealed in his palm. He steps closer, despite every sensory nerve in his body screaming to put space between them. Holds out his fist, nods and motions for Jabba to do the same.
He has to touch it for this to work.
Jabba doesn’t hesitate - Kylo doubts that restraint is one of his virtues - and Kylo drops the golden coin into his bloated palm.
“What.”
The tone is flat and full of scorn, but Kylo feels the poorly-kept greed and fascination beneath it.
Kylo allows himself a slight smile. The enchantments already seeps through the flesh, grips the soul. It’s a simple spell - money is one of the easier bewitchments to make. Illusory in value to begin with, and people are always more easily fooled by that which they desire too greatly.
The enchantment isn’t permanent, of course, but it will last long enough.
“This is worth more than what was bid. Much more,” Kylo lies.
Jabba hisses. “No,” he says, sharp. “You will give me both. The coin and the money.”
Disappointment is not exactly what Kylo feels. Jabba’s refusal would necessitate a different strategy. Kylo’s singular other strategy is to kill him.
Quite suddenly, the man presses the coin to his chest, glares suspiciously at Kylo, as if he’ll steal it back. Kylo can sense his change of opinion.
“Your payment is accepted. Collect what’s due to you.”
Kylo bows, mocking, glad to be out. He thinks about slitting the man’s throat as he leaves anyways, continues to think about it as he makes his way back to the main tent.
He finds the auctioneer behind the curtained stage. The young man nods and waves, but most of Kylo’s attention is drawn to the merman. As he steps closer, Kylo can see so much more damage to the merman’s frail body. Places on his tail where the scales haven’t just fallen off but were torn out, pinkish-white underneath; cuts and bruises and too many scars, spanning his torso in cruel, random order.
The constant thrum of fear-pain-despair.
The ties that bound the merman’s wrists have been severed, and he’s resumed his customary curled position at the bottom of the tank.
“All good?” the auctioneer asks.
Kylo ignores the question. “You’re a terrible auctioneer,” he tells the man as he passes, hoping the insult will cause the man to leave.
“Yeah, bud, I know,” he laughs, open and unoffended. “I’m actually the,” he makes a graceful, swirling hand motion, miming a finger-person’s jump and twirl, which Kylo can only assume means acrobat. ”Our ringmaster threw a fit about this whole thing, so I had to take over. Oh! I’m Alan,” he holds out a hand, “nice to meetcha.”
Kylo ignores the hand. “Threw a fit? Jabba?”
Alan pulls the offered hand back to rub the back of his neck. “Nah. Jabba's just the owner, he only cares about money. Pryde - he bosses us around and he has, uh, kind of a thing for - I mean, a lot of people do, but. He was a little. Obsessive.”
The words carry weight.
The shadows and bustle of workers pass by, but the stage itself feels strangely isolated. It is, Kylo realizes, the most alone he’s been with the merman. Kylo crouches at the tank. The merman flicks his eyes to Kylo, then back to the corner of the tank, and then - with a kind of forced effort - back to Kylo again.
He is afraid. Pupils fat, back pressed hard against the opposite side of the tank, trembling faintly. And despite the fear, Kylo feels like he is being measured carefully.
Kylo draws back, hurt despite himself. He thought - he doesn’t know what he thought. Why would the creature trust him?
“Hey,” Alan says, soft enough to draw Kylo’s attention. “We’re getting a smaller tank - I don’t think this would fit in your cart. Anyways, this tank is part of the magician’s act. He does this thing where…”
There’s a loud bang and muffled screaming, and Kylo swivels, steps towards the direction of the noise.
A massive man with a water-filled tank - a smaller tank indeed than the other, closer in size to a coffin - steps up, balancing it easily on his shoulder. He grins, a kind of rueful smile of nothing to worry about, ignore the commotion.
Kylo narrows his eyes. Disappointment swirls languorously inside him, no fight to be had.
“Great!” Alan shouts, voice bearing a strained quality. “We’ll get this set up - you go grab your cart? Swing it around the back of the tent.”
Unease gnaws at Kylo. He shifts his gaze back to the merman. The creature’s eyes are fixed at the point where the strongman emerged, the direction of the shouting. He’s so tense as to look barely alive, until he flicks his eyes back to Kylo. Kylo still isn’t sure what there is to protect against, but the merman’s gaze seems less incidentally pinning and more deliberate.
He nods to Alan. “Left field. Farther to the back. Two horses - one black, one dark brown. Covered cart. Fetch it for me.”
Alan blinks. “Oh, uh, yeah, alright. Wait - bay, isn’t it? Not brown. I mean, I’m not sure, but - ”
“Kid, just go,” the strongman says, before Kylo can express the same sentiment in a manner far less gentle.
Alan holds his hands up in surrender and, with a grin that grates on Kylo’s nerves, trots backwards off the stage, disappearing noiselessly into the shadows.
In the new silence, Kylo listens close. There are the familiar sounds of tents being disassembled, sharp voices and laughter. The persistent background screech of cicadas. Nothing that should warrant alarm. But a new sense of urgency has arisen.
Kylo watches the strongman, then eyes with distaste the new tank as he sets it down. It’s very small, not near as clean as the other.
As the other man sets a stool by the current tank and goes about prying the top open, Kylo settles into a crouch again - this time further from the glass, unwilling to incite any fear. The creature is still terribly tense, and he flinches incrementally with each shiver of the tank, as the top is worked open.
Tank open, now, the merman seems even more determined to plaster himself as close to the bottom as he can manage.
The strongman hops down, stage rattling as he does so. Then he turns to Kylo, face set and very serious. It would be intimidating to anyone else.
“I’d recommend you get out of town. You have a distinct look about you, something people here will remember. They’ll come looking. Plenty of this crowd came looking for a spectacle. Plenty more came looking for an easy mark. A real, live merperson can fetch a hefty price.”
Kylo nods. He’s right, but the statement is wasted. Kylo does intend to linger.
The strongman keeps looking at him, so Kylo changes the subject. “Is there anything I should know about - caring for him?” The words are stilted. Caring for him. Like a pet.
“He doesn’t eat much, not lately. But most anything seemed fine for a time. He can breathe air and water. But the water gets…,” the strongman shrugs, clearly unsure how to phrase it, “old. It needs to be changed. That’s about all I know. It’s not really my job. Oh, and he hasn’t in a while, but he can talk.”
“I’ve only heard him speak once,” Alan says.
Kylo jumps, then sets his shoulders and glares. He isn’t used to being surprised.
“Cart’s ‘round back,” Alan says, smiling in the face of Kylo’s scowl. “I gave your horses apple slices. Is that okay?”
Glare wasted, Kylo turns back to the creature. There’s so much about the strongman’s poorly described regiment of care that Kylo isn’t sure where to focus, which part to feel the most angry about. It all settles inside him; heavy, liquid iron in his blood.
“Whose job was it?” Kylo asks, wondering who he should blame. “To care for him.”
“The ringmaster,” Alan answers, cheer diminished. He mutters something indistinguishable.
Then there’s another surge of clattering outside and shouting, arguing, and someone yells, “Raf!”
Unhesitating, the strongman jumps and heads towards the noise.
“Not everyone is in agreement with his, ah, departure,” Alan says, sheepish. “I mean, I think it’s for the best, but-,”
“The ringmaster objects?” Kylo asks. His fists tighten.
Alan nods. “You should get out of here. Just, um - give me a hand?” He jerks his thumb in the direction of the tank.
Kylo is struck by a sudden sense of uncertainty . Alan seems to find this amusing, bright little bursts of it curling off of him, a smile on his face again. Kylo doubts he’d find it so amusing if Alan knew how close he was to being choked.
In lieu of asking what do I do, Kylo glares until Alan directs him. There isn’t much direction to be had, apparently.
Alan shrugs. “Just - grab him?”
“Is that a question,” Kylo asks, flat.
“Usually Raf just tips the tank on its side, but he hates that. Plus, we’re on the stage, so. The wood.”
Kylo doesn’t think to conceal his rage until he meets eyes with the merman again, catches the bleed of constant fear sharpening into a more immediate panic. Buying time, Kylo turns to Alan. “There must be a better system than this. How long has he been here? You couldn’t have come up with something more - ?”
More humane.
It itches at him. Even Alan - who’d taken time to feed Kylo’s horses apples - seems to only regard the creature in half-guilty glances out the corner of his eye.
And that’s all Alan does now. Shrugs. “He’s been here longer than me, but I’ve only been here a couple months, so.”
Kylo hesitates until he realizes that’s all he’s doing, flinching from action, and so he moves. His heart beats fast, ridiculously so. He’s beaten men to death with a barely elevated pulse. He steps onto the stool that the strongman - Raf - had placed and looks down into the water. The merman looks up at him. His mind goes blank.
What now?
Kylo can’t reach the merman from where he’s plastered to the bottom of the tank, and in any case, forcibly dragging him out of the water would be a terrible foot to set off on.
He tries to relax his shoulders. I’m not going to hurt you, Kylo thinks, a little desperate. He’s not expecting it to work, certainly not with the miasma of fear surrounding the creature, and so he’s surprised when the creature presses itself up, faster than Kylo could have anticipated.
Alan makes a small noise from beneath them.
The creature moves immediately to the far side of the tank, but it’s barely three feet across. He sways, shivers faintly, and grips the edges of the tank until his knuckles go white. His face is sharp and terrified and - proud, despite everything.
Kylo’s mind stutters, unable to get past close close close. Without the veil of smudged glass and water between them, the merman feels too vibrant, too beautiful.
Well? The creature mouths the word rather than verbalizing, and he accompanies it with an impatient raise of his eyebrows.
“I don’t know,” Kylo starts. His words are too loud, too clumsy, and the creature is so thin , still radiating a bone-deep fear that clouds Kylo’s mind.
When he brings his hand closer, uncertain what to do with it, the creature flinches; violent and instinctive, sending a wave of water over the top of the tank. Kylo withdraws his hand as if burned. The ache blooming in his gut flourishes, works its way up his throat like constricting ivy.
It would be humiliating to cry, but Kylo thinks he might, and he hates himself for it - and momentarily hates the creature, too, for making him feel so much.
Something steely flashes behind the merman’s eyes. He sets his gaze on the smaller tank nearby, as if to reassure himself it’s still there, and then reaches out and grips Kylo by the shoulders. His touch is cold and damp and Kylo’s eyes grow wide at this unanticipated boldness.
“Sorry,” Kylo says, and forces himself into action. He reaches into the lukewarm water and wraps his hand under the creature’s tail. The merman hisses, perhaps at his apology or perhaps at the contact.
The creature is both heavier and lighter than Kylo expected. He imagined the tail would weigh a significant amount, presuming it to be all or mostly muscle. But for the size of the tail, and the long upper half, the merman is entirely too light.
Kylo doesn’t dawdle. He steadies himself, trying not to derive any joy from the way the merman clutches his shoulders with surprising strength, vice-like and thrillingly painful. Kylo is certain he’ll bruise. It takes him all of ten seconds to deposit - less gently than he ought to have - the merman in the smaller tank.
Once the creature has righted itself, running a hand through wet red hair to unstick strands from his face, he turns to Kylo and glares with affront. His irritation, for the flicker of a moment, takes hold before the fear is back.
Kylo swallows, steps back as to not loom quite so terribly.
“He’s not usually so cooperative,” Alan interrupts, chewing a nail.
Alan steps closer to the new tank, and even though it doesn’t elicit more than an impersonal whorl of discomfort from the merman, Kylo’s fingers still twitch in a rush of protectiveness, or possessiveness.
Alan only crouches to move the lid into place, locking the merman inside - like a piece of cargo. But the creature only relaxes, shoulders released from their painfully rigid set, as if the boundary between him and the rest of the world is a comfort.
Not much later, it appears that the commotion has died down. The strongman - Raf, Kylo reminds himself - helps Kylo carry the new tank to the back of his carriage. He's surprisingly gentle in laying it down and Kylo senses that the fear still rolling off the merman isn't directed at Raf.
Kylo notes the presence of blood in the water - thin trails, some newly opened wound. It could come from any number of places - the torn-away scales, the scratches on his back, the raw skin at his wrists. The various other injuries that Kylo has yet to catalog.
Alan watches as he leaves. Raf, too, with an unreadable expression.
“His name is Hux, by the way,” Alan says.
Kylo pauses and looks back.
Alan isn't smiling now. He's serious. Assessing Kylo. “His name is Hux. Some of the others just call ‘im Red, he didn't seem to mind that. But his name is Hux.”
Even the strongman seems surprised.
Alan shrugs, chagrined, casual again. “He told me once, that's all.”
Kylo nods, throat tight. He suddenly regrets his instinctual hatred for this kid who the merman - who Hux - trusted with his name. He gives a brief nod and climbs into his carriage, spurns his horses into motion and doesn’t look back again.
It’s nearly a six hour journey to home. And throughout all six hours, a single question permeates the litany of uncertainty roiling through his brain: what are you doing?