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Dick’s always had a love-hate relationship with water.
He loves the feeling of it… the weightlessness of the chlorine-tainted water in the backyard pool, the vague sense of home on long summer nights as he dips his toes in the mountain stream…
The ocean though…
The ocean is what makes him wary.
Its tug is the strongest while pretending it’s not also the watery grave of both of his parents…
The same grave he would’ve ended up in had Slade Wilson not come by on his fishing boat and pulled him out of the wreckage. He doesn’t remember most of that night. He does remember screaming himself hoarse, fighting to get back to his parents who reached for him as he was lifted out of the water.
The therapist told him it was just his young mind not understanding what was happening.
The odd memories of before, muddled images of water and sand… colorful scales seem to echo whatever mindbreak or weird amnesia he has.
So he doesn’t swim anywhere but the pool anymore.
But the ocean still calls to him… which makes his job on the fishing boat super convenient.
Today is a decent day, maybe a little cold, but it’s not abnormally so.
The nets are slow though which doesn’t do good things for Slade’s temper. Joey’s been slinking around, avoiding their father the best he can given the tight space. Dick stays in a spot in the back, keeping watch over the nets in the event something big gets caught. He leans over the side to stare into the water. It churns under the boat, bits of seaweed floating around. There’s a flash of color and-
There’s a face in the water.
The eyes are almost acid green, reflective as they stare wide at him. They narrow a moment later and the face jets closer. Dick jolts up, away as a body, that looks more human than it should, launches out of the water. A webbed hand grabs his wrist. Dick gasps, almost shrieking as he pulls back. The creature comes with him, a green tail flecked with red and yellow glimmering in the sunlight. It smacks against the boat as it tries to tug Dick back into the water with it while garbling something.
“Help!”
It garbles faster, bright green eyes wide even as the dark brows furrowed in an almost-human frustration. The webbed hand tugs him harder, the tail slipping further back into the water. Joey crashes onto the deck and the creature glances at him, back and Dick, and finally hisses at Joey and Slade as it lets Dick go and plunges back into the water.
“Damnit!” Slade throws an extra net over the side of the boat and grabs a harpoon gun, searching for a long moment. Joey’s grabbed another one after making sure Dick was ok. Slade glances up, “You good?”
Dick just nods, holding his wrist.
It feels weird…
Not quite slimy but… something adjacent to slimy maybe…
It feels like his hands do after dealing with the fish…
The sensation disappears after a minute and he’s searching over the side of the boat for the creature. It’s gone… long gone… but he feels like he’s being watched. The way the back of his neck prickles is eerie.
They don’t talk about it much the rest of the day, week. Slade will occasionally mention it here and there when talking about money. Joey almost seems to avoid it, but that’s just a feeling Dick gets.
Before long, it’s been almost a month. Dick’s done his best to forget it but… he can’t. There’s times he thinks about those eyes… even dreams about them.
Like he’s seen them before…
Or at least ones wildly similar.
Today’s warm, seasonably so. It’s still early though so it might end up a scorcher. They’ve already pulled up a net’s worth of fish and lowered it back down for another. Dick’s keeping an eye on it while mending another one. Slade pops out on deck for a smoke.
The net shifts, starts to pull the boat sideways.
“Raise it!” Slade barks as Joey and Dick both grab the cable winder and turn it. The cables strain and lift the net. Slade reaches over, grabbing it when it gets high enough. A large red tail thrashes around inside as webbed hands try to rip the net apart. A couple of strands give, fish spilling out everywhere and an arm and shoulder get free. Dick and Joey lower it onto the deck, raised enough that whatever’s in there can’t get out. Joey rushes for the med kit while Dick comes around.
Catches the vibrant sea green eyes of the creature who…
Who pauses… and stares at him.
It’s massive, bigger than him and taller than Slade from head to the tips of his tail.
Its mouth opens, something that sounds like it could be words or something coming out before Joey hands Slade a needle and it’s plunged into the creature’s neck. Slade jolts back when it tries to grab him and Dick watches as it deathrolls in the net, trying to get to the railing and… slowly slumps to the deck. Only then does Slade move, unwinding the net, separating the fish into the ice below deck and Joey helps him tie up the creature to dump him in the smaller tub. Dick tries to help when it unconsciously thrashes and they look like they’re going to lose their grips, but Slade barks at him to back off, don’t touch. They finally get it in there, Slade grabbing the tail and shoving it under the water. It’s all squished up, barely fitting in there. Dick feels marginally bad about it.
They turn the boat around, heading straight for the dock. Slade’s making a call as soon as they’re within range of a cell tower and he’s got service. By the time they’ve docked, there’s a car waiting for them. Slade gets off to go talk to him while Dick and Joey box up the fish.
“What do you think that thing is?” Dick asks as he finishes the last one.
Joey wipes the sweat from his forehead and signs ‘If I had to guess? Mermaid… Don’t know if those actually exist though.’
Mermaid…
“Wasn’t there one in Europe? And then it turned out to be a fake….?”
‘Yea…’ Joey glances at the tub, ‘but that thing doesn’t look like any fish I know.’
Slade comes back up onto the boat, his friend or whoever in tow. He’s a rather portly man. Dick thinks he looks kinda like a human penguin.
They walk over to the tub and talk for awhile. The human penguin guy pokes the creature with his cane as he smokes. There’s some arguing, probably money, but the number is ridiculous. Dick shares a look with Joey who just shakes his head, looking stupefied.
“Fine! Done.”
The men shake hands and, by then, a large van, with the local aquarium’s logo emblazoned on the side, has pulled up. A few guys pop out with a stretcher and they wrestle the coming-to creature- possible-mermaid- into it. The creature catches sight of Dick and struggles harder, making frantic sounds that pull at Dick. He feels terrible as he just stands there, watching them take the creature off the boat and down to the van.
Slade’s pocketing a check with a satisfied grin, “Well that was worth it.”
Dick internally shrugs, assuming it was. The money they seemed to get would suggest it was. They were set for awhile honestly and, assuming they didn’t just take some time off, they wouldn’t have to worry about boat repairs for abit… or maybe they could get some new nets.
It takes about a week for everything to change.
He sees the ads, the billboards.
Ice Palace’s newest attraction: Mer of the Deep
The creature they use looks like a 3D rendering instead of the actual thing, but it’s close enough for somebody who hadn’t seen it personally and up close to not know otherwise.
Town’s been busier than ever. The street’s are ridiculous to get through anymore. It’s even difficult to get seating at one of the local joints for under a ninety-minute wait when most of the time you’d be waiting forty, at most, during peak hours on the weekend.
Of course more people means a higher demand for fish so they’ve been running long hours on the boat. Long hours means money and Slade’s been very happy. Everybody’s been happy actually. The local hole-in-the-wall bar maybe not so much. Falcone has been griping about ‘out-of-town-jerkwads’ wanting more expensive alcohol for their drinks.
Dick doesn’t have an opinion on that.
He likes his cheap drinks just fine.
About a month later, Slade’s out of town for a couple of days, some sort of fishing convention or something. Joey went with but Dick opted to stay home. As such, he had a free afternoon for once and decided to sate his curiosity and go to the aquarium. He’s never been before. Slade had never suggested it growing up, something about having the real thing on the boat instead of paying $50 to see something fake. It’d made sense then. Still did to a point…
The line to get in leaves him bored for longer than he thought reasonable. He starts to regret his choice of activity given that it is a rare day off and he’s spending it standing in line. It’s finally his turn and it feels like stepping into Wonderland and he’s Alice.
Except the Alice from that live action movie… the one where she’d been before and forgot.
It’s… eerie.
He walks around, seeing creatures he’s never seen before…
And yet…
And yet, the sharks and the fish all feel more familiar than they should.
And not because he's practically lived on a fishing boat.
He finally finds the new addition, follows the sign of ‘fun facts’ that… don’t sound quite right. There’s no way he actually knows and he can’t put his finger on why he feels like they’re untrue. It still feels wrong to claim that ‘Mer drag humans to the depths to drown and eat them’ though he supposes it’s no different to the fact about clownfish and anemone.
The exhibit is huge.
The crowd around it is bigger, all waiting for a glimpse of the creature inside.
The two sides of viewing glass reach twenty feet in the air. Inside is filled with rocks and seaweed, looking like the ocean floor. There’s nothing else in there, no fish or anything.
Dick squeezes into the room and slowly inched his way through said crowd. There’s no movement. It’s almost like there’s nothing actually in there.
Just an empty stretch of blue broken up by some rocks, coral, and seaweed.
As he gets close, he thinks he sees a swish of black in the seagrass.
He stands there for awhile, shifting close as the crowd around him swaps some bored members for those who are just starting their luck. He’d leave himself, go see the octopus, if he didn’t feel like he was being watched.
Finally… he gets up against the glass.
And suddenly he’s got a facefull of mermaid.
Some of the guests around him startle, gasping, and at least one screams.
Bright sea glass green eyes stare at him. Black hair fluffs around his head, suspended in the water. There’s a streak of white at the front that almost seems out of place yet looks perfectly natural. It’s a large creature with a huge blood-red tail, flecks of black and gunmetal grey scattered, making it shimmer. The face honestly looks masculine, what he’d call boyishly attractive if it was on a human, but he’s not sure how all that works so he’s not sure what it actually is… or how he feels about… liking how it looks.
Would that make him a scaley? or whatever the people attracted to the Willem Dafoe fish are called...
He’s not sure how long he stands there, staring at the creature. It seems to try to talk to him, the mouth moving, but the glass makes the sounds muffled. He touches the glass and… the creature stares at it, laying a webbed hand over his.
The following afternoon, he’s back and the creature is there, staring, trying to communicate or something as it keeps touching the glass or swimming in tight circles close to Dick.
Slade comes back after that and Dick doesn’t get a chance to go for a few days but… he does find an evening where he sneaks out and spends the last open hour there. The mer seems very happy as it shows Dick a crown made of seaweed. Dick acts impressed and, really, it was a nice-looking seaweed crown.
The hour winds down and he says goodbye. The mer follows him until it hits the edge of the tank and then curls up, looking sad. Dick dawdles a little as he leaves… notices the flier for some part time help. He takes a picture of it and scans the QR code so he can look at it later. It all looks fine, mostly cleaning and whatever but maybe… maybe he could see the mer more often… at least until Slade finds out about it and guilts him into leaving.
Dick decides to be brave and apply. The guy running the interviews is nice enough, seems to like Dick… maybe a little too much when Dick looks back on it. Either way, he gets the post and goes through the training, trailing behind some chick by the name of Barbara, or Babs, for a couple of weeks. She’s nice, mostly, with pretty red hair. He flirts a little bit after the first few days and she seems amused which is not the worst response he’s gotten. They even end up at the bar after a shift and make out in his car for awhile.
Of course the one thing he wants to see… he can’t.
Apparently the mer is a nasty piece of work and most of the employees can’t even get close to it… which seems at odds with the creature that just stared at him through the glass. There’s a special team of three who deal with it. Babs has seen it in passing but has not interest in it.
Why would she when there’s sharks.
Dick likes sharks too… but… he also wants to see the mer.
It’s male, or so they say. There’s no reason to doubt them, but… there’s also not a ton of info on them so he wonders if they can really say for sure. Not that it matters either way. It’s just… something he’s hung up on and doesn’t know why.
It-he also freezes the first time he sees Dick.
Dick doesn’t even remember why he and Babs had ended up there, but they had, and the creature- mid-fight with another caretaker- froze. It even scrambles a little, chirping and making other noises as he tries to get out of the tank, only calming as Dick gets close. Dick feels every single eye on him as he crouches, curled up by the edge of the tank and watches the mer just below him stare.
One of them hands Dick a fish and he tosses it in. The mer ignores it in favor of staring at him. Dick reaches for another one and holds it out, tail pinched between his fingers. The mer takes that one, slowly reaching for it. Minus the sound of the machinery, you could’ve heard a pin drop.
“Huh.”
And, just like that, Dick is promoted to the mer’s care team.
The boat keeps him most of the day, but he comes for the night feedings. They haven’t qualified him to get in the tank, but that’s fine. Dick doesn’t really want to go swimming in there. The mer seems to be happy just hanging out by the edge of the tank while he’s there anyway.
This is life for a few days.
It’s nice. He actually really likes it. It feels… right. Being near this creature with the intelligent sea-green eyes, listening to him chirp at him does something for his insides.
Tonight’s no different. Dick makes his excuse to leave the house. Slade seems fine with him going out with Babs most nights, sometimes makes an off color joke that makes Joey wince. Tonight’s is along the lines of being too young to be a grandfather. Dick laughs and heads out, sighing when he’s stepped foot in the aquarium.
And there he is, waiting for Dick to show up like he always does.
Then he’s reaching for Dick and Dick… Dick grabs his hands and, when the creature pulls like he’s trying to get out, Dick pulls him up. He’s not sure what possessed him to do it, but he crouches there, watching as the creature lays there, gasping for breath for a few minutes and then… and then he starts to breathe better and he raises his hands up, staring at the webless fingers. His tail seemingly dissolves, leaving behind two… very nice legs.
Like thighs for days.
Apparently Dick’s a thigh guy…
The creature stares at him, grins, “Cir… I found you…”
Dick swallows, blinks as he stares, “I’m sorry… I don’t…”
The smile falls, “You don’t remember…?”
Dick shakes his head, very much confused, “I don’t… I don’t even know what’s going on. I’m…” he looks around and then back at the mer as he just realizes that-, “You can talk-!”
“Yes…?”
Dick blinks, “Uh… I’m sorry… I… I understand you…”
“Of course,” he sounds like that should make perfect sense as he tilts his head, “You were taken from us, stolen by the humans… We’ve been looking for you for years.”
And the sky's purple.
Dick shakes his head again, “I’m human…”
There’s a sad twist of lips and the creature holds a hand out. Dick slowly takes it. His hand’s shoved under the water and, after a few moments, watches their hands start to grow webbing. He lifts it, staring wide-eyed.
“What…” he glances at the creature, “What is this…?”
“Do you really not know?”
“Know what?”
The creature licks its lips, chewing on one, “You’re a mer, Cir.”
“I’m…”
“Human?... Do humans just sprout fins?”
Dick swallows thickly and stares at his hand. The webbing’s started to fade as his skin dries. He dunks it again… watches the webbing come back and his skin starts to shimmer, something almost akin to fish scales. “So you’re saying that if I jumped in, I’d grow a tail…?”
“You have the ability to yes… but you’d need one of these,” the creature-mer lifts a red and black scale hanging off of a cord around his neck. Dick leans closer, staring at the shimmery thing. “It’s similar to selkie skin only instead of allowing us to shift, it makes the shift faster.”
“So I don’t need one…”
The creature’s lips firm into a thin line, “No… but you’d likely drown before you fully shifted. This-” he jiggles the scale, “-lets it happen quickly. Without it, your lungs can’t breathe water and you’d have to find a way to keep your head afloat while the rest of you is submerged for some minutes. It would be easier to have yours.”
“I don’t have one though.”
“You do,” the mer insists, “Somewhere… there is one… Maybe the human who took you has it…?”
"He…" Slade wouldn't do that right?
“If he has it, then your attachment to him might be more than simple bonding…”
He ends up searching the house top to bottom the next time he has the place to himself, finally ending up in Slade's room. It feels weird being in there. He’s not supposed to go in there unless Slade was there to let him.
And now he’s snooping because a half fish thing told him his ‘special scale’ was around here somewhere.
God he sounds mental.
He digs out some huge tackle box from under the bed and flips through numerous important papers, copies of his and Joey's high school transcripts, his will…
And under it all… there it was… black and blue and that same iridescent shiny.
He clutches it, his brain fighting against what this scale implies… but, between this and his hand turning webbed…
There’s… there’s something to the mer’s claim.
Najos… his name is Najos.
He says they’re from the same pod, that Najos’s dam leads it…
That he and Dick have been promised to each other since they were young… which was a weird thought for Dick and one he hasn’t thought too much about if he’s honest… mostly because he hadn’t really believed Najos…
This though…
This changes everything.
He slams the box shut and shoves it back under the bed. The scale goes in a pocket and he waits around for awhile, but can’t settle the nervous energy. Slade would pick on that though so he eventually leaves, runs into Slade on the way out quite literally.
Slade steadies him… pauses, “What’s wrong with you.”
“I…” Dick scrambles, feeling his insides jitter, “I think I’m gonna propose…”
“Well,” Slade lets him go, “that’s certainly a choice.”
Dick squeezes by him, “I gonna plan,” and darts off for the car, “Don’t wait up-!”
Smooth.
Flawless.
He drives… He’s not sure where, but he drives.
Until he’s at the beach and staring out on the ocean.
Was it all true…?
Did he really belong out there? Under it…?
It doesn’t make much sense, but his hand had grown webbing…
It’d never done that before…
He’s been swimming in pools and lakes and…
Dick shakes his head, feeling frustrated and checks the time, noting his shift starting soon and heads over. They let him in early and rope him into prepping the food buckets while they wait for the last of guests to leave. He grabs the one for Najos and heads over, feeling both springy yet like his shoes are made of concrete.
The mer’s waiting for him. Dick stands on the edge, toeing off his shoes as he fingers the scale. He slowly pulls it out and shows Najos. The mer’s eyes bug and he darts over to see it. Dick crouches, holding it out. Najos doesn’t touch it, just stares at the blue and black while Dick pulls his shirt off. He stands, loops the chain or whatever it was over his head, and shucks his shorts before letting himself fall in. Najos was there, smiling at him when the bubbles cleared. He watches as Dick's arms grow vaguely shimmery and his hands grow the webs again. His legs fuse, disappearing as a tail, black and blue, takes their place.
“Holy… fuck…”
The creature smiles, brushing some hair out of Dick’s face, “There you are, Cir.”
Dick blinks, staring, “What does that mean?”
“What?”
“Cir.”
“That is your name… or at least the one your parents gave you… the one I’ve known you by.”
“Oh.”
And the thing of it is?
Something about it rings true in the back of his head… there’s something that recognizes it…
Just like a deep instinctual part of him recognizes this feeling of being in the water, of how a tail feels as opposed to legs.
It still feels a little weird, but it doesn’t freak him out like he’d expected
That being said, he can’t seem to move all that well. He tries to flick it and it sort of works but nowhere near as fluid as Najos makes it look. “How do you…”
Najos just smiles a little, looking amused, “It will come back to you.”
“Maybe,” he looks around even as he keeps trying to move enough to not sink, “This place is…” It doesn’t feel big enough, not really. He’s not even really swimming and he already knows he wouldn’t be able to do much in here. Drift around? Sure, but there’s no room to really get going. Even with a space as big as Slade’s cathedral ceiling living room, it wasn’t big enough to really stretch a tail out.
Like putting a large dog in a standard apartment.
“We need to get you out.”
Najos’s face lit up, “We can go home-!”
“What?”Dick brows creased, “No. I…”
Najos’s face fell, “You would not come with me…?”
“No? I’m…” he gestures helplessly, “This is…”
Najos touches his face, pressing their foreheads together, “The surface dwellers stole you from the water. It is your birthright to go back,” and pulls away, “but if you choose not to, I will stay.”
“No-! You belong-”
“I belong with you and if…” he looks around, “-if this cage is how I keep you, I will stay in it.”
“Jos, I… You can’t be serious.”
“And why not? I’ve waited years to have you back. Do you really think I would give you up? After finding you again?”
“There are so many other mers out there-”
“But none are you and you were promised to me. As is the way of our people, apart from death, I can not… not that I’d even want to.”
“We were kids. I've been up here for… twenty years? Or close to at least.”
“And that changes things, how? We’re still promised-”
“Nobody promises kids for marriage-!”
“Maybe not humans… We are not human. We are mer, with our own way of life… I… understand that you might not feel that way, being raised as a human… but do not expect me to change how I feel and leave you behind… not after finding you again.”
Dick feels almost unreasonably frustrated, “I can’t leave you in here-!”
“Then come home with me,” Najos touched his hands, “What is here for you? Except the human who stole you away?”
“My entire life is up here-! and you want me to just drop it?”
Najos squeezes his hands, looking upset, “I just want you home… but… if… if you’ve decided that this is your home… then I will stay…”
“And if I… got married? Had kids?”
Najos’s face flinches, “I would stay.”
Dick huffs, feeling frustrated, feeling a little… manipulated, “That's not fair...! Like I'd be able to knowing there's a sad little mer-person drifting around in here because he thinks we're supposed to be-!"
“I understand. You have… forgotten what it is to be promised among the mer-”
“Don’t twist this and make it my fault-!”
Najos snaps his jaw shut, staring for a moment, “That was not my intention… I do not blame you… for any of this… You were stolen away and taught the ways of the human, which conflict with the ways of the mer. I understand that… I… I wish I could… show you what it is to be promised, to understand what that means to us,” he blinks a few times, looking very upset, “I wish I could show you why I must stay if that is what you choose… I can not… Now that I’ve found you again, I can not go home.”
He's about to retort but sees red up on the platform and swims up, “Babs?”
“Dick-! They saw you jump in the water and-” Babs stares, eyes wide, “You’re a-!”
Oh shit.
Dick thrashes, “Wait-!” but she just looks even more disturbed and dashes off. “BABS!”
“She’s going to tell them…” Najos comments, “They’ll capture you.” Dick glances at the other mer, “They will probably separate us. You should go… while you can.”
Dick finds himself shaking his head, “No. We’re getting out.”
Najos looks confused and then smiles as Dick swims to the edge and hauls himself out. He turns, pulling Najos out, almost falling back in as his tail slides, just Najos catches himself and pulls himself the rest of the way out while Dick’s flapping his tail to get the water off. He uses his shirt and stumbles to his feet once they’ve regrown, yanking his jeans on and dashes off to go hunt for more clothes. There’s a set of shorts and a shirt in an open locker next to the currently-on showers. He grabs them and darts off. Halfway back, the alarm sounds, a loud shrieking thing.
Najos had gained legs by the time he gets back and Dick’s helping him tug on the shorts. The shirt’s apparently very confusing and he’s having to guide him through every hole in the damn thing. Everything is too small on the larger mer. Once it’s on enough, he’s grabbing Najos’s hand and tugging him up and out of the aquarium. He hears voices and runs faster. The Mer’s legs don’t work very well, but Dick parked close. He about shoves Najos into the back of the SUV and jumps into the driver’s seat just as security is busting out the doors, screaming at him to stop. Dick floors it, peeling out of the parking lot and down the road. It’s not long before he sees the flashing lights but he keeps going until he’s skidding to a harsh stop in the parking lot of the nearest pier. He barely gets the car in ‘park’ before he’s out and tugging Najos out of the back. The other mer stumbles after him the best he can, hanging onto his arm for dear life as he tries to get his legs up and under him while they keep moving. Najos finally get it and lets go, dashing down the rest of the way on his own. They keep going down the docks even as people are screaming at them. He leaps off the edge of the pier…
Splashes down into the water he’s spent so long staring at.
Clothes are shed and he’s off, going as fast as he can as his hands web and his legs fuse. Najos’s grabbing his hand and speeding away, dragging him as he figures out how to actually use his tail again. Once he does and he gets those first few powerful waves, he knows, for sure, that that tank had been entirely too small.
It’s a swim, not too long. They swim for maybe a few hours, though it’s entirely possible that it’d take less and he’s just slow. It’s actually kind of heartbreaking to see how close, really, that he’d been this whole time.
They come up to a large bit of coral and seaweed. The fish swim around in ways he’s only seen on Discovery channel or the Little Mermaid. There’s even a hammerhead and Najos swims entirely too close, rubbing it like it was a pet. The shark barely reacted, merely cutting a sharp right when it was tired of it.
And then… there’s a mer.
And another…
He sees a face, one he doesn’t actually believe he’s seeing, “-Mom?”
Her face, one he only vaguely remembered in dreams, breaks into a huge smile, “CIR!” and she bolts over, wrapping him up tight.
“I thought you were dead.”
She ruffles his hair, “No… We thought you were… When that human grabbed you… We searched for so long… Najos never agreed with us.”
“And for good reason,” the mer replied. Dick glances over, sees Najos flanked by a large mer with a black and yellow tail and a younger one… with a familiar green, red and yellow tail. The small one looks annoyed but smug. The big one, the leader of the pod doesn’t look any particular way though he does have a hand on Najos’s shoulder.
She finally lets him go to go find his sire and Najos sidles up to him, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her that happy.”
“I’m just happy to have seen her at all…” he swishes his tail, turning towards him, “I wish I could remember more than their blurry faces… I wish I could remember you…”
“I’m not surprised you don’t,” Najos replied.
Dick cocks his head.
“Too much air…” he grins, cupping Dick’s face, “Your brain dried out.”
“Must have…” Dick stares at the mer, his promised, the son of the pod leader… “How? I was pulled out of the water and not seen after. For all intents and purposes, I was dead.”
Najos smirks, leaning in close, “We’re promised,” and kisses him and swims off. Dick watches him go… and looks around, feeling a sense of wonder as home starts to settle in. He glances back the way they’d come, knowing he’d realistically never be able to go back. Slade would know he knows by now.
But that’s ok.
He turns back around and chases after that red tail.