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Steve was the reason his parents got a pool. His mother was a mer captured from the sea and his father did everything he could to prevent her escaping back to it. The reason they'd settled in a landlocked city and had a child soon after their marriage, all to keep her in land.
She'd pleaded then to have more water than the deep baths that had been installed when the house was built. Mr Harrington refused, certain she could somehow move between unconnected bodies of water to escape to the ocean.
Then he returned from a business trip to his son forming a tail while hugging him welcome. Steve was 5 at the time and his parents recounted the event often as a warning to keep his control. They'd rushed him to a bath and this time his mother demanded a swimming pool. She didn't realise that meant she wouldn't be staying home long enough to enjoy it then.
The times his father was home from then on taught him the strict controlling side of his father that he now feared, and he still fears anyone mentioning he's different. Being made to keep his legs hidden even while in the water came with many punishments and harsh lessons, each time carrying on until Mrs Harrington could convince a secretary to remind her husband of the losses a missed meeting could bring so she could get him away from Steve.
It was for his safety that as he reached his teen years, his parents were never home and he still received the orders to join the swim team and any other sports teams he could.