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A siren lurks under the ice floe, conserving his energy for just the right moment. His giant tail is still, curled around a shelf of rock and brown seaweed, helping to camouflage him and his myriad colored scales. Keen yellow eyes roam the water, searching for just one last easy meal.
They instantly dilate the moment he senses a change in the current, and the frills on the end of his tail unfurl and wave like ribbons as he shoots off like a rocket, his muscled body perfect for tight turns and short stops - his arm instantly swings, and he feels cold blood soak his claws, another fish running right to him in its attempt to escape.
By the time he’s done with it, only the bones are left behind for the scavengers.
“Andrew!”
The vibration of sound carries well enough to where he is underwater, and feeling full enough, the aforementioned siren decides to swim up and up and up, until he breaches the surface, sending water everywhere as he pulls himself onto a bank of ice.
“Abram,” he returns, lips turning up and sharp teeth showing as he watches Neil try to shake off the wetness that clings to him.
“You’re like a dog,” he mentions, tone flat but secretly teasing. Anyone else he wouldn’t have entertained for conversation in the first place.
“And you’re a fish,” Neil shoots back in a well practiced come back.
Only Neil would be so stupid as to casually make nice with a siren. Anyone else might have tried running, but not him; Andrew remembers the way he was when he first caught sight of him, a shock of red hair set against the overwhelming white of Antarctica, and a pair of blue eyes that reminded him of the way ice melts.
He was beautiful, and at the time it made Andrew all the more wary - in a place where anything brighter than the usual browns, whites, blacks, and occasional bursts of muted color meant danger, poison, predator - and then there was the fact that he was human. Andrew had good sense to be cautious, even if trying to ambush and kill Neil wasn’t exactly the best first impression to make on someone who would eventually become, well, something.
Two species had somehow come together to form a bond, one that was built on trust, respect and mutual care. Andrew had sworn off socializing all together after breaking away from his family, and yet here he was, risking everything for a human who wouldn’t even return his feelings.
It didn’t matter. Neil was one of his, and so Andrew would protect him.
Neil carefully positions himself next to Andrew on the bank, going slowly so as to not slip and fall in, settling right in front of him as if the threat of sharp claws or teeth don’t even factor into his risk management. So paranoid, and yet he never looks at Andrew as something to be afraid of - he’s such an idiot; it’s infuriating, but Neil stubbornly won’t hear any different on the subject.
“Yes or no?” Neil asks, holding one of his hands out, patiently waiting on an answer.
“I’ll just get your gloves wet,” Andrew points out. Neil stares back, unmoving.
He blows out a breath. “If you want to freeze to death, be my guest.” With that, he takes the idiot’s hand in his, the difference in size visibly apparent as Andrew’s long nails overshadow Neil’s fingers by a good amount.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Neil breathes out, his breath coming out as fog in the cold. Even in the height of summer, the Antarctic holds no mercy for those caught unprepared.
“You should worry about yourself,” he shoots back, his eyes making a slow up and down as he tries to find any injuries hidden by the rabbit’s multiple layers and protective clothing.
“I’m fine. I can handle it,” Neil insists, that same stubborn look in his eyes again. Andrew catches him by the chin, pulling him over until they’re eye to eye. Even now, he’s careful that his claws don’t scape skin.
“Liar.” Andrew scowls. “Tell me the truth.”
Neil glares back at him for a moment before relenting, knowing that Andrew can wait here all day if need be - either way, he won’t be leaving without an answer.
“He’s been angry lately. More than usual,” Neil grimaced. “He came here looking for results and all he has to show for it is two disappearances and an empty tank. The buyers must be tired of waiting; he’s losing time and he knows it.”
“What did he do?” Andrew grits out, wanting nothing more than to meet that man himself.
Neil stares at him, so even and calm that it only serves to make Andrew more angry. “They’re just bruises; I ran before he could do anything worse.” Left unsaid is what Nathan will do when he manages to catch up to him.
Andrew knows he’s underplaying it. He’s not an idiot. He bares his teeth in a show of empty frustration, hissing, “Where?”
“My neck.”
“I’ll kill him,” Andrew snarls, the only thing stopping him from punching a hole through the ice being Neil beside him.
“You can’t,” Neil reminds him. “He has an entire team behind him, and if the black market finds out about you…” He trails off, but the silent threat remains - Andrew would be cut up for parts and sold off.
He doesn’t care. “I protect what’s mine.” It’s as simple as that.
“And I’m trying to protect you!” Neil raises his voice, only to fall forward, their foreheads touching as he closes his eyes. When next he speaks, it comes quiet and hushed, like a secret being shared. “If it means losing you, then no.”
Andrew hates feeling helpless. If he hadn’t gone and gotten attached to the one person he shouldn’t have, then he wouldn’t be in this situation. Neil is impossible, the kind of man to look at Andrew and see not a monster, but a person. He’s the only one.
When he goes and says things like this, when he goes back to face his potential death every day, all for Andrew, how dare he think that his devotion isn’t wholeheartedly, fiercely reciprocated?
“Idiot,” Andrew says harshly, unable to put it into words.
“Yeah,” Neil chuckles mirthlessly, understanding.
“You’d better come back,” he threatens, “Or I’ll kill you.”
This time, Neil smiles, real and warm. “I’d drag you down with me.”
With what little time they have left, the two of them spend it in silence, simply relishing the chance to stay with each other at all.
Inside of his den, Andrew suddenly wakes in a panic, claws digging grooves into cave walls as something primal and ancient fills his body - fear, hot and overwhelming, spreading from his heart to his head, turning the entirety of his body into something sharper as he rushes out into the deeper waters.
Neil, he thinks, and only spares that one moment for worry before swimming towards the surface faster than he’s ever gone in his life, a speed his rabbit would be proud of if only he could see.
As he goes, the back of his mind notices the lack of fish, the still currents of the inky blackness of night, the usual cold water a shock to the hot adrenaline fueling his blood. Something is wrong - something has happened, and he might not be fast enough to stop it from getting worse.
Around his wrist, one half of a linked set of twin pearls has a crack running down the middle of it, broken and empty. The other bracelet, left with Neil, must have been purposefully broken. It was supposed to serve as protection and warning both - he dreads what must have necessitated its use under the walls of Neil’s father.
The further up he travels, the easier it becomes to feel the vibrations of noise, loud and disastrous. Muffled shouts and talking, words Andrew doesn’t have the time to figure out, just his tail propelling him faster, faster, faster - until he finally breaches the surface, and under the dim light of the moon, he sets eyes on the worst possible outcome.
A line of blood, red on white, leading back in a twisted sort of trail. One man standing above another, both still alive. Both sporting red hair. The glint of a knife in a butcher’s hands. Neil, struggling to run, struggling to breathe as he holds his side. Nathan’s men, about to reach them. The guns in their hands.
Nathan swings the knife, and Andrew screams, the sound ugly and destructive and violent. It instantly causes Nathan and his men’s ear to burst, all of them stumbling back from the sudden and intense pressure. They drop their weapons, and as Andrew drops back down underwater, he has only a split second to hear the sudden, fearful exclamation of, “Siren!” before he’s hunting.
Andrew is an ambush predator, built for waiting until just the right moment to strike - one lunge is all he ever needs to kill, his body a deceptive force of strength. He was quite literally made for stalking prey from underneath the ice and bursting through only to drag them down still screaming.
That’s exactly what he does - in the midst of the confusion and panic, he takes advantage and picks them off one by one, the shock of the cold causing their bodies to shut down as they drift down to the seafloor even as they weakly struggle. Andrew doesn’t even pay them a single glance more than to make sure they won’t come back up.
It takes approximately one minute and thirty five seconds to kill six men. On the surface, Neil has already gotten back up and is stumbling towards the water, because to him the only safe place left is Andrew. Behind him, a murderous, angry look in his eyes, Nathan Wesninski grabs the hood of Neil’s parka and in the ensuing struggle, Neil fighting just to survive, the knife ends up somewhere in his father's guts.
In that moment, Andrew doesn’t think. He just opens his mouth and sings, breaking a promise he made to keep another, to save the one person he wouldn’t be able to live without.
He doesn’t regret it.
His brother was so sure that Andrew would end up losing control. That he wouldn’t even hesitate in using it on that girl he was so infatuated with. (A part of him was scared too. How could he have inherited the ability to take away free will, when so much of his life has been that choice being taken from him? It disgusted him.)
If there is one thing to be savagely thankful for, then let it be that this gift he never asked for, manifesting years too late to save him, was able to save Neil.
Nathan abruptly stills, knife still embedded in his body even as he slowly stumbles his way towards the water, his son now a mere afterthought. Little twitches here and there are the only sign of the person underneath the song - Andrew sings louder, his eyes locked onto his prey.
In the end, he dies too easily. Underneath the water, Andrew looks at the man who’s been the face of Neil’s nightmares for over a decade, the man who hurt him, scarred him, took from him something he will never get back. His claws bury themselves deep into the soft, fragile neck of the Butcher of Baltimore, and then the body floats down, a corpse left for the bottom feeders to get fat on.
“Andrew!” Neil is waiting for him on the surface, his bloody hands coming to frame Andrew’s cheeks in a desperate, relieved hold as blue eyes scan him as much as they’re able. “Are you hurt?”
Andrew looks at him and knows he’ll never be able to let him go. “He didn’t hurt me.” When that doesn’t do anything to calm the frantic panic in his face, Andrew reaches up to grip the back of Neil’s neck, squeezing firmly. “Abram.” They stare at each other, Andrew intent. “He’s dead. I killed him.”
Neil didn’t seem to believe it.
“Even if he survived the knife in his gut and the open wound in his neck, the cold and the shock would do him in if he didn’t drown first. He’s dead.” Andrew shook him a little, and finally some clarity seemed to come back to Neil, adrenaline wearing off as pain snuck onto his face. His side was still bleeding.
“Do you trust me?” He asks.
Neil doesn’t hesitate in saying, “Yes.” Andrew ignores the ache that causes and goes on. “I can heal you, but I’ll have to sing.” He interrupts before Neil can brush his worries aside.
“I’ll take control of your body. You won’t be able to move as long as I’m singing. I don’t know how long it will take or what it will feel like.”
Neil smiled. “Andrew, you’re amazing. Thank you,” and with that, he slowly folded him into a hug, loose enough that he could break out of it at any point. Andrew, even though he was unfamiliar, even though he should have perceived a foreign body as something to avoid - he didn’t move.
“Sing to me,” Neil whispered, and the way he said it sounded like trust. Like a promise, unbroken and kept.
Andrew sang. Unlike before, it was quiet and hesitant, gentle and soft. It was everything he felt about Neil, put into sound, and it was terrifying, being so vulnerable.
But Neil didn’t look away. He closed his eyes and listened, looking at peace. It was that more than anything that made Andrew realize that this impossible, idiotic mess of a man was staying; they were both still alive and had made it through the worst of it.
Neil was the only person who would ever hear siren song for the first time, hear it kill a man and then hear it again used on himself, feeling no fear whatsoever. He was unbelievable, but he was real.
They could hurt each other so easily, just by virtue of being who they were, and yet they didn’t. In spite of everything, of all the people who had ever hurt them, here they were.
The wound closed, the bleeding stopped, and Neil opened his eyes again. (While he was at it, he healed the bruises, the little aches and pains, anything and everything so much as bothering Neil.) Andrew watched him, and as he smiled, had the urge to kiss him. It wasn’t new, but he was only now starting to accept that it wouldn’t go away so long as Neil’s feelings were left ambiguous. But his feelings could wait; it was looking like they had all the time in the world now that their monsters were dead, and now Neil could finally be free.
Not everything was suddenly okay - there was still the threat of the black market, Nathan’s business partners who would no doubt be wondering where their butcher was, even Neil’s mother’s family might come out of the woodwork at some point. (Not to mention Andrew’s.) But it was enough.
“Look,” Neil turned to the horizon, and in the sky, they watched as it slowly started lightening, the sun rising once again. It was the dawn of a new day.
They’d be together, and that was all they needed.
Andrew leaned his head against Neil’s shoulder as they watched the sun, resting for just a moment until life resumed once again. And he was content.
Neil started humming the song Andrew had sung for him, and he closed his eyes - it was his turn to be serenaded now, it seemed. The sound of it said everything that he needed to know, and even if Neil himself was unaware of his own feelings, the song was clear.
How funny, for a liar to sing truth.
Idiot, he thought, and started humming along.
Andrew gave in to love more easily than he would have thought, but then again, it would have never been anyone other than Neil. Out on the ice of Antarctica, their song echoed over the vast, empty expanse, the wind carrying it off to places unknown.
Neil fidgeted with his broken bracelet, fingers curling over it protectively, and with no small amount of exasperation, Andrew realized that Neil was never replacing it. Around his own wrist, the sheen of the white pearl gleamed under the light of morning, still beautiful even in its ruin. It had worked, had protected Neil just long enough for Andrew to reach him, and for that, he couldn’t begrudge it.
In the future, the civilian researchers set apart from the corrupted handful who were with Nathan would be notified of yet more mysterious disappearances of their fellow coworkers. They would shake their heads and bemoan the loss of life and the lost potential of those counted among the dead, but most of all they would look to the young man who had just lost his father and wonder what poor Nathaniel Wesisnki would do.
(Nathaniel had drowned the same as his father, side by side down under the ice.)
On Neil’s heels would follow a strange blond man, one no one would be able to ever recall seeing before, but whose presence would be waved away as a late addition to the team, or as a possible friend of the former boss’s son, here to help him in his grief. Andrew would never be far from Neil’s side, and even though his eyes were a little too bright and intense, his presence eerie, most of the researchers simply chalked it up to him being protective over his friend and left him alone.
The bodies of Nathan Wesninski, six of his subordinates, and fellow researchers Lola Malcolm and her brother Romero would never be found. Although their deaths were a tragedy, the police acknowledged the fact that they had understood the risks associated with the trip and seeing as there was no motive, would write the loss of life off as carelessness. (For once, the incompetence of law enforcement was all in all for the better.)
Neil and Andrew would return from Antarctica together, never looking back.
(In their new home, they would share a kiss, right where they wanted to be.)