Archive of Our Own

Luca had been watching the soft rains sprinkle into the cell through the bar wall when the security guards opened the door. He had been sitting on the floor with his arms hanging off of him, his back against the mattress which was to the left of the door and his head facing the outside view; he had heard footsteps approaching the door but he didn’t look when it opened. He was still recovering from the samples Mr. Saulo had had the extraction team take two days ago from his arms, and didn’t turn to see who they were letting in, too embarrassed of fatigue to be able to stand looking any of the staff in the eye.

“Ehi,” one of the security guards called out. “Little boy.”

Luca didn’t respond.

The same guard pushed air from his nose. “Well, if you’re not going to welcome your new roommate.” The guard stopped speaking, redirected his attention to someone. “Oh, but not new, right?” He chuckled. “At least I assume you two have double-bunked or something before. He keeps saying, boy, you and him are just so close, it’s so sweet-sounding. Why so timid, since he’s a friend of yours, ah?” The guard had pushed the person in past the door, who had yelped out of shock and stumbled. Both guards laughed at this, and the one who hadn’t spoken yet said, “Enjoy your stay. Don’t forget to relieve yourself properly, yes?” She snickered and then the door was slammed shut.

The harsh noise the door made shook Luca up a bit. The rain was continuing to lightly shatter into the cell through the wall bars and there were breezes outside that were beginning to sweep it around outside: there wasn’t a lot to see beyond that. Luca remained on the floor, static and unsure, and then looked to the door. Alberto was just standing there. He was in his sea form, a direct contrast to Luca’s current human appearance, but that was probably because of the storm. Whatever had happened they had caught him somewhere doing whatever it was that was an attempt at rescuing Luca from the research facility and he had told the organization he was here to get his friend named Luca after somehow figuring out he was here. Now he was caught, it looked like.

“I…” Alberto stuttered. At the moment he gave off the impression of pure shock. “...Lu-”

“You-”

Alberto stopped. Luca stopped.

“...S, sorry, I-” Luca stammered through. “How...how did you-”

“Luca!”

Before he knew he had come forward Alberto was embracing him. He held Luca close, as though through this feeling would be passed onto him. His scales, Luca felt, were almost dry and giving way to his human form. But they were still wet—he had come in contact with water recently. They had looked at his sea monster form before putting him in here. But of course they had, he had been registered into the system, he was staying here, they wanted to keep him here.

“Holy cod, grazie a Dio, I didn’t think they’d actually bring me straight to you!” Alberto released his embrace, gripped Luca by the shoulders. “I had kept asking, you know, where you were, when those stupid humans caught me, I’m way too relieved after all the stuff they did! like testing me for stuff and whatever! Is that what you’ve been through? Like I-” His speech broke apart. His eyes had tears in them by then, but he didn’t let himself cry and instead sniffed and pulled Luca in again clutching him, rested his head on Luca’s shoulders. “I can't believe it. You’re okay. You’re actually okay.” He let go again, more slowly and this time completely, and sat on his legs and wiped his eyes. He was grinning and relieved. “Menomale.”

Luca didn’t respond for a few seconds, absorbing the unleashed grief around him as Alberto recovered from his excitement. He was still leaning against the side of the mattress. The rain was falling a bit harder and in bigger droplets now, and it landed into the cell making fatter and heavier noises a few feet away from him.

“What are you-”

“Doing here?” Alberto finished for him. “C’mon, Luca, didn't you expect people to notice you were missing?” He crookedly grinned comfortably as he spoke.

“Yeah, but...” He searched for a right question to ask. “Like how did you figure out where I am?”

“Don’t you, can’t you keep track of time in here?”

“Em, I know it’s...been a while, uhm...I didn’t really think of counting by day.”

“These guys won’t even give the time to you? Almost two full weeks,” Alberto, stunned, pushed his hand forward, trying to illustrate the suspense to him. “We’ve been searching all over Genoa for you for that long!” He waved his hand around in big circles like a clock.

“Well, sure, but you’re not answe—wait, ‘we’ve’? In Genoa?”

“Me, Giulia and mom and dad, your family, everyone, we’ve been trying to find you."

“What? How did you and Massimo even find out?”

“Giulia and her mom came back to town by train, as fast as they could they said, when you didn’t show up at home, and me and Dad were really confused when they showed up at our door. They asked where you were, they thought maybe you’d run away, and when we told them you never came by...” At that point Alberto’s voice had deflated in volume. “When we realized you were missing, we had to organize search parties and everything.” He paused then, as though in the shadow of something. He abruptly shook the remaining excess moisture off of himself: his sea skin vanished and his curly gold brown hair fluffed into shape, which he then proceeded to comb with his hands. He cleared his throat. “But Giulia was the one to mention Mr. Saulo to us, and then we started talking to the school and he was gone too, obviously. So were a bunch of other kids who were sea monsters they said, and a few other teachers...those people here too?”

“Yeah, but...I usually don’t see other kids. We’re not allowed outside our rooms except for—wait, Giulia said what exactly?”

“That the Mr. Saulo guy had taken you she thought. She told everyone, but most people just couldn’t believe he would have done it because he’s a teacher at your school, right? Not to mention there was like no evidence found or something. No one really wants to think about it as a possibility.”

“But you believed her.”

Alberto smirked in pride. “She was really insistent about it. I’m glad she was.”

“But how did you figure out I was here?”

He stifled a grin. “I went through his stuff at the school.”

“Wait, you did?”

“Yeah, I looked at papers he had in his desk at his classroom? I found a note with your name and an address and this creepy message about taking you there for 'further instructions'. I guess it was from the people who run this place. ‘Ocean Specimens Experimental Unit 4.’ Big classroom, by the way.”

“It’s his lab, the one I wrote about in that one letter I wrote last year when I was getting used to school. He’s a science teacher.” Luca straightened up suddenly. “But why were you allowed to-”

“Wasn’t.” Another coy smile. “I had to search in secret because the school’s been shut down for the polizia to inspect since you left.”

“That’s—Alberto!”

“Oh, whatever, it’s fine.” He waved his hand around in dismissal. “Whether I could’ve been caught or not it’s fine, I found you. And yeah alright, I was caught while looking around for you here, but that got me to you.” He shifted his position to criss cross with Luca and smiled again. “Now like, we can escape together.”

“But that was...you’re being so reckless.”

“Well,” Alberto reasoned, “if it’s all for protecting you, y’know?” He reflected a cheesy smile.

Luca pursed his lips. The rain was pouring very hard in the background, a few feet from where he and Alberto were sitting.

Alberto noticed his reticence and his cheeky facial expression began to hint at slight confusion. He cocked his head and asked, “You...are happy to see me, right?”

Luca held a somber look. He put his jaw in his hand and looked down at the floor. “…I’m-”

He glanced up. Alberto was staring in this moody strange way all of a sudden. The atmosphere began to smell of slow distraught.

“It’s not that I…” Luca hesitated. “But you really shouldn’t have done this, okay?”

Alberto laughed but he sounded a little nervous. “What do you mean? If you’re worried about me I’m completely fine, I promise. Those weird humans in the coats, their tests didn’t really do anything to me at all. I’m still okay.”

“I know, I get it, but...Alberto,” Luca himself felt something squirm in him, nauseous and disbelieving. “You just got…they put you in here.”

“In here with you? No that’s good, that means they listened to me when I kept asking where you were, for whatever reason.”

“No, the facility.”

“Huh?”

“I’m talking about the facility. You do know what’s happening here is serious, right?”

Alberto ruminated.

“Alberto,” Luca surveyed. “How did you even get here?”

“I swam.”

“All by yourself?”

“To save you, Luca!” Alberto extended his arms upwards, as though he was pointing to something to distract Luca from the conversation. “Why are you acting so prissy-”

“Do you even know why I was taken here?” Luca leaned forward, his hands firmly stationed on his bent knees and speaking much firmer than he was previously. “Do you?"

“Luca, c’mon, I’m here now, so-”

“Alberto!”

Alberto held his tongue. Sudden quiet paranoia began to hatch around them.

“Answer me.”

He looked up from the floor. Luca was leaning forward strictly and gazing at him as though he was attempting to look into him directly. Suddenly he wanted to scream but didn’t know why. A part of him wondered, How did I slip and fall on that rock? This had been what happened while he had been searching for Luca outside and he had crashed into a mess of bush, which had alerted guards nearby. If he hadn’t made that mistake where would he be now, he wondered, what would he be doing and how would he have been doing it. He couldn’t figure that out weirdly. His palms touched the floors—as though this had not occurred on purpose, he looked down at them.

“I’m…”

He dragged his hands across the floor. He returned his attention to Luca looking more nervous than before.

“I’m fine, okay? I’m fine.”

Luca didn’t say anything more for a while. Then out of nowhere he got up and started to pace around the room with a bent pointer finger on his mouth.

“Luca, I’m serious. I’m okay! And, and now that I know-”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Alberto only looked up at him, still criss cross on the floor.

“Wh...why no-”

“Alberto, I’m serious. You shouldn’t. Be here.” Luca stopped walking to face him.

“But why not?” He repeated but he used a strong tone that indicated he was genuinely asking.

“Alberto, you’re-” Luca pressed his palms against his skull standing in place while gnashing his teeth and sucking breath in through them. He was standing between Alberto and the pouring rain, which felt like an unwanted audience—the circumstances were so overwhelming, he was getting a headache. “You actually...mannaggia, Alberto, you didn’t actually think you could pull this off!”

Alberto didn’t answer. He knew Luca was angry but he hadn't expected him to curse even now, and it had stunned him. He was lecturing him very loudly, perhaps the guards or someone else could hear them from outside and people were listening.

“You didn’t even leave a note for Giulia or her parents that you left, did you? I can tell, you know.”

“Luca, hold on-”

“Oh my cod, Alberto.”

“Okay, okay!” Alberto apologized. “I’m sorry.” He paused. “But...you know, I did leave a note.”

“That’s not the point.” Luca was bewildered. “Why would you ever do something like this without help?”

Alberto remained still.

“Alberto,” Luca lectured, strolling here and there, “I’m sorry but, this was actually so stupid of you-”

“Stupid?”

Luca, startled by the injection, turned right to him.

“You think,” Alberto spoke up, “that me trying to get you out of here is stupid? That I’m stupid?”

“Wha—I’m not trying to say anything about you-”

“Really? Because it really feels like you are.”

“That’s not what I’m doing-”

“Did I do something wrong? coming here to get you?”

“Alberto, I can tell you right now that this is way more serious than you think.”

“Luca, I-” Alberto swung his hands around in a despair he had no control over, full of green passion. “I’m doing this for you!”

“Doing what, throwing your life away?”

The rhetorical nature of the question stuck.

Luca gave himself a moment to organize his thoughts. The mood was very tense and he was panicking. “Alberto, you’re in a research facility that’s researching sea monsters, think about that.”

“I-”

“Stop.” He held a hand up towards Alberto but didn’t stop walking. “I can’t believe this.”

Alberto got up in an attempt to follow his pacing. “What’s with you right now?”

“You really don’t get why I’m mad?”

“You should be relieved to see me!”

“Should I?” He pivoted to face Alberto with an aggressive shrug. “Right now? In this situation?”

“We’re together again! Isn’t that a relief for you?”

“This isn’t a very great reunion, Alberto!”

“What are you saying-”

“Alberto,” Luca asked, “you were captured by those humans out there and you don’t even know what they’re going to do to you. To us. How am I supposed to be happy about that?”

Alberto winced and clenched his fists and looked to the wall.

“Was I supposed to be happy just knowing you were out here alone or something?”

A wave of remorse.

“...Okay, lo-”

“Well, what are you doing out here?”

The lush rhythm of the rain stuttered.

“What?”

They stared at each other. Alberto still had his fists held back but his voice was doing all the fighting, his tone repelling, and his eyes flashed a furious shade.

“I didn’t come all this way,” he recited, “to have my best friend tell me I was an idiot for caring about him enough to put my life on the line for him.” He repeated the question. “So what are you doing out here, refusing my help?”

“Alberto, no-”

“Don’t ‘no’ me!” He shoved Luca then. “I came here to save you!”

“You don’t get to-”

“I’m endangering myself to protect you!”

“Alberto-”

“Shut up, Luca-”

“They could kill us!”

Luca pushed Alberto to the ground, at once mighty and brutal.

“They could kill us, Alberto! They could do anything to us and we couldn’t stop them!” He cried out this line. Before he knew it there were tears on his face. Alberto only looked up to him. His frenzy had diminished and his arms were thin and shaking slightly (had he lost weight since last summer?), and he appeared absurdly meek.

Luca abruptly began to wipe the tears from his face. He wanted to speak but didn’t know how to continue; he felt as though he was returning to himself from faraway. “I didn’t come here by choice, okay?” He steadied his breathing. “I’m...I’m scared, Alberto. I’m really scared. So.” He walked away from Alberto, who was still on the floor, to stare below the wall. “Don’t make this any worse.”

Neither of them spoke and only reminisced. The rain was much quieter now but from the dark gloom in the sky the storm would most likely stay for longer. Alberto remained on the floor, a strange feeling inside him.

“If you really want to get into detail,” Luca started again, “I don’t think anyone could’ve known Mr. Saulo was...whoever he is. I still don’t really get what he’s going to do to us.” He felt his arm. “But he’s had some samples of my scales and whatnot taken from, like, my arms and my tail, some from my hair, so I can speculate. Maybe they’re gonna sell us.” He thought. “Maybe they’ll kill us.”

For a while longer neither of them said anything.

“I’m sorry. For pushing you to the floor, and shouting like that, making you feel low.”

Alberto on cue began to stand and say, “No, I was being stubborn, don’t apologize.”

“No,” Luca refused. “I shouldn’t have suddenly started shouting at you. I’m sorry.” Luca turned his head to the side to look at him. “And, I mean, you’re here, whether I want you to be or not.”

Alberto started to refute an apology again. But something about the way Luca was looking back to him—steady, eyes clear, his posture fully realized—stopped him.

Luca walked over to the wall and leaned against it. He lowered himself to the floor and exhaled with a hand on his head. Alberto wasn’t sure if he should sit again or not. The storm was making a nice background fuzz: if they hadn’t been in the facility maybe he might be on break then with Massimo from work and drinking hot beverages somewhere and maybe opening a new letter from Luca, who would probably be having lunch with Giulia.

“You should probably say why you’re here alone,” Luca inquired.

Alberto placed his hands on his hips and thinned his lips. “I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”

“Well, you kind of owe me an explanation either way.”

Alberto considered this. He sat down on the mattress without asking Luca for permission.

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

He squeezed his hands together.

“I wanted to...”

He stopped. Luca waited.

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“...You ‘wanted to’.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the whole reason why you did all this?”

“Yeah. See, you don't believe me.”

“Because you’re obviously skipping over something!” he reasoned. He pushed his upper body away from the wall with his hands. “No one just ‘wants’ to, how did you put it? Put their life on the line.”

“Mm.” Alberto nodded but his mouth was firmly closed.

Luca noticed this, realized what he was thinking. “Hey,” he cocked his head and eyed him. “I’m sorry, okay? Really.”

“Mmhm.”

“You can be so moody sometimes.” He chuckled. “But no, I don’t get to laugh. I’m really sorry.”

“I know.”

“I get that you’re kind of sensitive.”

Struck by this Alberto looked at him suddenly. “What does that mean?”

Luca gazed on pressing his legs together. “Because...you know.” He glanced at the scenery outside. “Your dad.” He paused. “The Viscontis, too.”

Alberto looked down again.

“...Do either of those things have to do with you doing this alone?”

“Why would they…?”

“I dunno, I’m like, taking guesses.” Luca repositioned himself on the wall, straightening his back. “...I get the feeling your dad led you to act more in isolation. Because...you know.”

Alberto looked to Luca again; his mouth was tight again also and he was biting his tongue. He shuffled his feet smally, and then proceeded to sit next to him. They remained that way for a couple minutes. The droplets were getting to be sparser and were now sprinkling into the cell.

“It was more the Viscontis, I’d say, if I had to choose.”

Luca glanced at Alberto. “Really?”

“Yeah, they’ve been, uhm…” Alberto put his arms around his chest. “They still haven’t stopped with the whole avenging their son business, whatever that still is. Ercole comes by a lot more to apologize, too, which, that’s pretty embarrassing for them.” He laughed vaguely.

Luca looked to him, leaned the side of his head onto the wall. “They’re not still doing stuff like tossing fake harpoons at you, right?”

Alberto seemed to turn the question around in his mind.

“It’s...more or less the same with them. Massimo’s had his things locked up since then so they’ve been unable to steal our stuff.” He felt his hair with a hand. “And they don’t do as much on the street anymore where everyone can see. It’s gotten kinda better since you and Giulia visited last summer.”

“But it’s still happening.”

Alberto’s eyelids twitched just so. He rapidly nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

“And so they affected you how?”

He patted the floor, trying to think over how to explain. He only stared at his feet, his face crooked.

“It’s like...I mean, it’s not like I don’t have your family and Dad and everyone. To help me during, y’know, the worst moments back at Portorosso.” He looked to the ceiling. “And the entire town is actually pretty nice, too, which is, nice, given all the weird sea monster talk. People watch over me.”

“Right.”

“And sometimes I’d talk about this stuff on the phone with you and Giulia.”

“Right, yeah.”

Alberto tilted in his spot somewhat. “But, like...I don’t know…” His speech began to flop. “This doesn’t answer your question, does it, I probably sound so crazy-”

“Alberto, if this led you to think trying to rescue me from an abduction operation alone was the right choice to make, it’s probably more important for you to let this out.”

He grunted. “Okay, yeah, yeah, probably, you’re probably right.” Alberto stuttered, “I guess...carp, I can’t believe this is why-”

Luca gripped Alberto’s shoulder. As though urged by an inner force Alberto unexpectedly looked to him.

“Just explain yourself,” Luca told him.

Alberto, strangely, seemed to stare back into his eyes fully: a solemn expression, a fearless soft pulse in the green iris. It could’ve been a reflection of his own eyes, Luca couldn’t tell. Alberto swallowed. The rain, wavy as a whisper.

“I just,” he started and then slumped onto the floor partly observing his feet again, “wanted to be stronger.”

“‘Stronger’.”

“Yeah,” Alberto said, and then added, “Like...boh, how do I...when Ercole first came by and started saying he was beginning to feel sorry about all the stuff he’d done, right? All the murderous intent and everything, you know.” Alberto was using his hands to animate his speech again—his fingers pointed in front of him whilst tightly bunched together. “It was just like, sudden, and weird. I probably don’t have to explain.”

“Yeah.”

“But of course me and Dad eventually began to trust him. And after a while we could all tell he was being pretty sincere, which was honestly pretty cool. And so luckily he turned out fine; and then, his parents came around saying we were like, ‘infecting’ him, sucking the strength out of him, stuff like that.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember you telling me about that, actually.”

“Yeah, it was...pretty annoying. At first I was scared, then I just stopped caring.” Alberto held his hands together again. “But...you know, Ercole talked to me privately after that incident in the summer.”

“You mean the fake harpoons thing.”

“Yeah, he had heard his parents joking about it. He was worried about you two—hey, did you guys recover from that well enough, by the way? It looked like they barely missed your face.”

He reflected on the memory—oddly, untimely, he found himself smiling. “Don’t worry about it. Giulia seemed to have fun returning the favor, so that helped shake me out of it.”

Alberto let out a stiff cough-like snicker. “Yeah, she like immediately started throwing ‘em back, that was pretty great, actually...but, Ercole apologized for all that. He actually even reported it, which is probably why his parents stopped with the public gestures.”

“Oh, wow, really?”

“Mm. He felt pretty bad, said he was willing to change for them, all that.” He contemplated. “But...I dunno. He seemed so sorry. Maybe I wasn’t used to seeing him like that. Which would make sense, he was the town bully and all that.

“...I’m still suspicious of him. I don’t know if it’s fair of me, but, I always have this weird instinct feeling in me, like an eye, like looking for a sign that he’ll like, betray me and Dad. Probably it’s because he’s tried to kill us multiple times, but..I don’t know, I don’t think it’s right of me.” He took a second to look at Luca. Then he looked to the door. “It’s not like I kept on doubting him. I could tell Dad trusted him, so I did too. But...when he pulled me aside and apologized like that.” Alberto grasped his jaw. “I felt so guilty.”

Luca didn’t respond, remembering the incident himself. Mr. and Mrs. Visconti, he knew, had done more than throw fake harpoons at them three, though that would have been enough to carry the message. He couldn’t remember what Ercole’s parents had said exactly but they had seemed thrilled that summer to have the chance of upsetting all three of the kids who had “damaged” their child, saying things like whether Alberto’s real father had kept him or not (everyone understood he was adopted) it wouldn’t have mattered because, by nature, he was irresponsible, he was a phony and an outcast since he was a sea monster—and either way, his father was regardless a beast as well, so it was of his own instinct to abandon his child, who would’ve been better off dead anyways or something. Even after Giulia had begun to swing the first harpoon back to the couple, Luca had seen the look on Alberto’s face then: he had in fact just tightly stood to bear it with his chest out, no tears in his eyes, of pure internal cloudiness. He had asked him if he was fine after Giulia had finished chasing them off. He said he was fine. His hands had remained at his sides, stiffly put and awkward.

“Were you guilty he was the one to apologize?” Luca asked.

Alberto winked in thought. “Kind of. I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s...like, the fact that he had done that. And for his parents too.” He tapped his feet on the floor. “Like...right then I realized, from when he first started talking to us again, he had decided to wipe his heart totally clean.” His feet extended outwards from his legs suddenly, reaching for nothing. “I felt so...I knew I was doing something wrong. Like, I wasn’t doing enough somehow. I can’t really put it right.”

“What do you mean, ‘not doing enough’?”

“I guess...as in, because I had just been ignoring them, his parents. Sometimes I’d even make fun of them back.” He thought it over. “After that apology Ercole gave...I don’t know, how I was responding, it felt wrong.

“Well anyways he had gotten his parents to stop with the public embarrassment. You were there that summer, so you saw they were a little more quiet after. When you and Giulia left, though, they started again. They probably waited for you two to leave since you guys would speak up about it more and they’d get in trouble again.”

“Makes sense.”

“And...I didn’t really want to tell anyone about it, actually. Like I kind of...had to stop.” Alberto extended his head as far back as he could with his hair pressed against the wall. “It was usually just like, verbal, anyways. I at first promised myself to tell someone if it got physical again, but...when it did, I couldn’t really say anything.

“I don’t really know how to say it, it’s...you know, when you and Giulia had been there and they had thrown the harpoons at us, I’d been scared. And I mean you could probably tell but, like even before I was scared obviously, but when you two had been dragged down with me...it was terrifying. Like by myself it had been just me and it was just like, ‘This again?’ But with other people, and that it was you and Giulia—and then he apologized and...all that anger disappeared. And somehow I just let it die. Cod, this is so weird.”

Alberto went silent to let Luca think. Then out of nowhere he lightly cackled and gripped his forehead. “Porca miseria.” His eyes seemed to radiate this sudden, foriegn sadness. A direct juxtaposition between hilarity and terror. “I’m going insane.”

“So because you felt bad for Ercole, you kept your mouth shut back then.”

Alberto itched the back of his neck. “...Yeah. Yeah.”

“And, when you and Massimo found out I was taken-?”

Alberto conceived the question. “Yeah, I guess. Like it’s weird, the more I let myself fall into just refusing to talk, I could see the pressure everywhere I was. I dunno if that makes sense.” He almost smiled at himself. He placed his hands between his legs and leaned forward into himself. “Maybe the Viscontis started haunting me. I guess I’ve been carrying weights.”

“Like weights that sealed your mouth shut, you mean.”

“Yeah, actually. Huh, that puts it bizarrely well.”

“And you continued to stay quiet.”

“Yeah, I guess. And it’s not like I didn’t get that this wasn’t a serious situation. But...the idea of taking full responsibility for other people, I think I was starting to...to enjoy it, in a way.” Alberto paused and then said: “Wow. I’ve never gone this far into my thoughts before. This is wild.”

Luca examined all this, trying to fit things here and there. He stared at his hands. “Hm.”

They halted the conversation. The downpour outside had grown increasingly stronger and the wind was blowing it around again.

“I should apologize,” Alberto broke the silence.

“Huh?”

He sighed, rubbed his hands over his mouth. “This whole talk we just had. It all seems so dumb now that I think about it.”

“What? No, not dumb.”

“Yes, dumb,” he said. He was holding his chin with the palm of his hand. “I’m like...too uptight.”

“What does that mean?”

“Like all that. Me choosing to close myself off.” He pushed his cheek into his knees, his breathing slow. “It all made so much sense in my head, but now...”

“I mean,” Luca responded, “choosing to come here alone was irresponsible, but like, wasn’t that you trying to, y’know.” He dragged himself away from the wall to catch a better look at Alberto’s eyes. “Not be the irresponsible monster the Viscontis were calling you?”

Alberto blinked at him. The width of his eyes decreasing just slightly.

They both carried the silence again for a little while. The wind was pushing against the curtains of the rain.

Luca looked away from his eyes. “But you know, you shouldn’t have kept that all to yourself.”

Alberto nodded and his body was still.

“I get why you didn’t want to keep relying on other people, but you were being pushed around,” Luca continued. “And I know how that is, you know. I’ve told you about the kids at Genoa who only see me as this thing.” He pointed to his chest. “But I had you, and Giulia and her mom. And you should’ve spoken to Massimo, or anyone, actually.”

He paused and reflected.

“You know, I’m one to talk considering how I kept Mr. Saulo a secret.”

Alberto gazed away from him. For a while neither of them moved. He got up and sat on the mattress with his hands clasped beside him. Alberto looked up to him.

“I wanna say you shouldn’t have done this regardless,” Luca said, “but then I’d be a hypocrite. Uf,” he sighed. “We both dealt with our issues alone, didn’t we.”

Alberto sat criss cross on the floor. “No. Our situations were different.”

“Not really.”

“I was dealing with town bullies and you...you were being like, hunted. That’s, that’s different.”

Luca quietly sank into the cushions.

“Luca, you...you know what, of course I’m stupid for trying to save you alone, you’re right.” Alberto declared. The look on his face appeared confident, even humored, and yet his tone was fairly cracked. He stood up without realizing it.

Luca seemed to stutter in agitation. “I-I’m not saying you’re stupid-”

“But it’s true.” He was so very stern about it now. “I thought I could handle Ercole’s parents alone, so I held myself back.”

“Alberto-”

“And, and I decided to go searching for you alone, too! I am an idiot, you know.”

“That’s not what I’m-”

“No, Luca, you’re right,” he insisted. “I made a mistake.” He said this like he was attempting to repeat what he was assuming Luca was thinking. “I should have found help before coming here, I’m sorry.”

The air was simmering again. A glaze of spring raintime fog had been levitating outside.

“You’re not stupid, Alberto,” Luca repeated. “Why are you being so pushy about it?”

“Because I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I am, I get that now, you don’t need to beat around it.”

Luca was gripping the mattress like he was on a bumpy ride. “Alberto, I’m not saying anything like that.”

“Cod, I’m an idiot.” Alberto ignored him and turned away to face the door and he was talking to himself.

“Dude, calm down.”

“I thought I could do this alone, all by myself.”

“Alberto, stop ignoring me.”

“And now I’m here and I can’t do anything because I let myself-”

“Alberto!”

“You’re right, okay?” Alberto was madder suddenly and as he turned to Luca his eyes more or less displayed a shine, and he displayed a look of hopelessness. “You’re right.” He hesitated and then shifted and then looked away and was unsure where he should look to. “I’m bad.”

Luca got up.

“I never said you’re bad.”

Alberto backed off a bit.

“You’re not bad,” Luca said, “and I’ll never tell you you’re bad and...if I do, slap me or something, got it?” He put his hands on his hips. “You will never deserve that. I promise. Okay?”

He ceased expecting Alberto to respond. He did not. For the first time Luca sensed a surreal tranquility all around them that extended to the rooms and spaces surrounding the cell as though it was avoiding them.

“All I mean is, you shouldn’t have done this,” Luca said. “And I understand the choices you made a little better. I really know what you meant by all that. I was alone too, and, that’s why I’m here, alone. In a way I don’t get to talk.

“But you could have made a plan, Alberto. And I guess you’re right, we didn’t face the same difficulties, because you were able to make a decision about what to do.” The aggressive reverb in his voice had come out of nowhere, it surprised him. “I understand why you did what you did a little better. You fell into a trap of isolation, I can see that now. And to be honest, I might be impressed by how you matured in response. But Alberto, you really needed to talk to someone before doing all this.” He hesitated. “Because now you can’t. Now...you’re alone, too.”

It was as though through that sentence a door had opened—a door to the inevitable darkness.

For a second Alberto's mouth stayed open, deciding whether he should say what he wanted to. He closed it. He turned away from him.

Luca sat back down on the mattress. The entire room, with its stony walls and floor and ceiling, felt rejecting and stale. A strange aura of sudden stability, a ringing nothingness, as though everything was clear, so clear and bright one might have to shield their eyes due to how disgustingly sharp it was. A few minutes ticked by.

“...Remember when everyone started talking about how sea monsters were real? There were so many journalists who came to the school once those pictures of us got around...Can you believe all this began like, two years ago? I started school, you were adopted, everything was great. We looked really cute back then.

“I hadn’t revealed myself as a sea monster to everyone, so when the news started coming around, and, you know, my face associated with it, there was just a lot of chaos that gathered around me. It all happened so out of my control. Some people started bullying me, the media kept on asking questions. I was alone. It was crazy. I was really glad that I had you and Giulia to talk with. All this, happening because of us, you know; we’re the only reason why the world knows about our whole species right now.

“...The distance between us got in the way, didn’t it? And I realized I needed someone like you there with me, actually there. Like...every time I’d talk on the phone with you after school, I’d finish and we’d say goodbye to each other and I’d hang up and for the rest of the night I’d feel so relieved, like I had a home no matter where I was. And then, the next morning I‘d wake up, and for a long time I’d go to school and there’d just be so many problems I had to deal with. So I guess, like...Mr. Saulo, when he first started defending me at school. He was always really open about his fascination with sea monster society after the news came out. Thinking about it now it was really suspicious, but like...he was so nice to me after everyone found out about me. I felt so comforted.”

The rain dancing outside. Alberto looking down, Luca talking alone.

“When we get out of here, I wanna go back home with you for a little while. Make up for all the moments I could have talked to you and didn’t. Hey, didn’t the Aragosta sisters start a bar after me and Giulia left last summer? I wanna see if they serve espresso macchiato there.

“...You know, it was after that winter you and Massimo and my parents visited us for the holidays that Mr. Saulo started doing things to me. It’s funny, if you all had stayed back for a little longer, maybe we wouldn’t be here right now. I could be eating lunch right now. And you could be working on another pizza order, or maybe you and Massimo would be taking a break and Machiavelli’s kids would probably be bothering him. Actually, now that I think about it Mr. Saulo once told me he wanted to see where I had come from—both my home and the Portorosso, the place where everything began. I wonder what he wants to do there. He could do it now, to be honest, now that he’s detached himself from the school.

“...We...we needed each other, Alberto. I don’t know why we stopped relying on each other. Are we even that close anymore? We still talked during that winter, but...you know, our conversations shortened, I was always so tired, our schedule from my first year had crumbled. Mr. Saulo started asking me to stay back for school, said he wanted to spend more time with me. I was so stupid for that. He got so much information off of me. And..he started taking samples at the school, you know. It’s insane. He’s insane. And he convinced me, you know, I tried to leave when I realized what he wanted to do...he told me no one would believe me. He’s really popular with the kids at school. I don’t know. This is…this is my fault, isn’t it? This is all my fault. You wouldn’t have felt like you had to look for me, none of this would be happening if I had just talked to you more, or maybe if I had just seen something in that stupid teacher. He’s out there right now in those hallways probably. Or somewhere else in this building. Is he laughing? At us?

“...I don’t even know if we can get out of here ourselves. The only time the door opens is for meals, they control our meals so we produce certain chemicals only sea monsters produce, did you know that? And we can only leave our rooms when the researchers here want to experiment on us. We’re like animals here. You shouldn’t have done all this. You shouldn’t be here. If you weren’t I’d feel so much better, you wouldn’t be in danger. You know that, right? I don’t know how we could get out of here. But...we have to. We have to, I want to now, because I don’t want you to get hurt, I can’t let that-”

Alberto had rushed at Luca and held him so closely and carried so much force that they had almost collapsed into the mattress. They leaned back for a moment. He had been so concentrated on what he was saying; he couldn’t recall if Alberto had been moving at all. Lightning struck miles away.

“Wha—Alberto, wait, wait-”

Alberto’s face pressed itself into Luca’s shoulder. Out of instinct Luca initially started to shove him away, and then, calming down, stopped and tried to grasp him equally.

“Alberto, hold on, calm down-” Alberto was squeezing him by the shoulders and his arms were compressed against his rib cage, it felt absurd and aggressively painful. “Alberto, stop, let go!”

His grip loosened but he didn’t let go completely. Luca tried to reposition himself, almost clawing at Alberto’s back. Then he realized Alberto was crying.

“Alberto, hey, c’mon, what-”

Luca’s fingers gently felt Alberto’s back. Alberto was sobbing quietly and he could feel tears soaking his shirt. His throat sounded very full and empty all at once like there was much he could no longer control within it, and Luca could hear him alternate between shaky breaths and sudden jerks where he would wail loudly for random intervals and then stop midway, giving off the impression of a run-down machine. The thunder that followed the lightning from previously abruptly struck in the distance. Alberto’s nose was brushing Luca’s shoulder also somewhat and his soft hair was grazing his cheek. His arms, toned and firm, held him closely.

When Luca realized what this was—not just the hug but the search to find him, the mangled escape plan, and everything else—it was not a moment of clarity but of further perplexity and shock. The awareness tore his mind apart. He didn’t know what to do or where to look and he just sat there, compressed, mystified. Everything—the rain, the door, the furniture—seemed to be listening.

Alberto left Luca’s embrace and stood in front of him very still. His face and eyes were somewhat red, though not completely puffy; he looked down nervously. For a moment he did not make a sound. Suddenly in a volume quiet and sober he whispered almost jokingly, “Mannaggia.” He scoffed at himself seemingly. “I’m going insane, I swear.”

Luca only stared at his face, unable to speak or process speech. He knew, immediately, that Alberto would let him kick him to the ground, if he had wanted to.

They stayed positioned that way and then Alberto sat next to him.

“That was sudden of me,” Alberto said, as though he had hugged him as a joke. “Crying into your shoulder like that...I should be ashamed.” He laughed at himself, like he was telling a funny story. His nostrils were stuffed and so his breath was shaky.
Luca had his eyes on Alberto completely drawn in, but no dialogue emerged.

“...You couldn’t have known, Luca,” Alberto stated, looking Luca right in the eyes. “You said that yourself earlier.”

Luca stared and he was not sure what to say.

“...You remember when you found out I got you that ticket to Genoa, don’t you?”

His brain took one step forward. He nodded.

“Hah, I cried for a whole hour after the train had left. Your parents brought all this stuff from your house to try to make me feel better. I was so sad, letting you go.” Alberto tossed words around in his head. “It...I actually first doubted that you’d come back. It was like how it was with my dad. Just like, you would’ve gone and, you know, never came back.” He sniffed. “It seems like such a crazy idea now. I mean, why wouldn’t you have come back, anyway?”

Something invisible, poignant and strong-scented. The repetitive, powerful sound of the falling rain.

“I thought about you for a while,” Alberto continued. “I moved on from you leaving for school, and all those calls we had together helped a lot. Man, like, actually”—he took a break to clear his voice—“the first time I heard your voice on the phone, you sounded so close. I think that was when I started to notice I had feelings for you, you sounded so close to my ears. And of course I didn’t know why that had made me so nervous then, but, yeah.

“When the Viscontis started pushing me around and everything, it had been a struggle for me. And like you said there were a lot of paparazzi and hot stories on the whole sea monster revolution and things, so I dealt with the news outlets and all that too, like you did. And we’d talk a lot on the phone, and Giulia would make a lot of jokes and she’d make me feel better, and sometimes she’d brag about people at your school that seemed to be interested in her and you. I had a good time with you guys, it was basically my way of escaping.

“When you guys first came back, it was after the harpoon incident that I began to think about things more. There was obviously that choice I made of shutting up about what I was enduring...but I think that fell into something else. Like, I know there’s no way I can defend not forming a functional plan before coming here, but that’s not what I’m trying to do.

“But I think the reason I did this at all was because...I was spending a lot of time having fun with you and Giulia that summer but, something had felt off, like different. I couldn’t really say what was going on. I knew I had taken away something from the talk with Ercole, I think it’s actually part of why I chose to stop talking...to be honest, the way he kept on apologizing for something he didn’t do, it reminded me of...myself, really.

“...It all goes back to my dad, I guess. I think I’ll always be looking for a reason why he left that doesn’t point at me. Finding an answer like that’ll probably never happen. But...Ercole, he...I think after that, something whirred in my head. Like, I stopped looking for answers, it’s hard to explain.

“I had been thinking about Ercole a lot that summer because of that. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy that summer, of course we had a lot of fun times. But...do you remember that time when we were just hanging around at the beach? I think I...like I realized what it was partly, like I was sitting around ‘cause I was tired after all those fake photos we took of me trying to eat you, and you and Giulia were splashing around and she was laughing at you because you were like, pretending to be a merdog or something? And I was just watching you pretend to chase around your tail and you were laughing, you were having so much fun out in the water. And for some reason I just kept watching you. You’d shake yourself every once in a while and your face would go dry and your hair looked so wild and messy, and Giulia would be roaring and then she’d toss water on you and you’d pretend to get mad at her and try to catch her. And like...I just kept watching you. You looked so pretty. And then you and Giulia left for school again a month later.

“It was actually one of your letters, one of the first ones you sent last year, you sent it at the beginning of September. Dad had handed it to me at the end of the day, after work, and I took it up to my room and was reading it. I was in a funk, I dunno why, the day had been fine, our customers had been alright. I guess I still missed you and Giulia; but to be honest, I had been thinking about you a lot more. And I read your letter and you had written...I might be saying it wrong. You said you might not be able to keep up with writing back home because you had a bunch of tests that week, but then you wrote something like, ‘No matter what, I’m going to keep remembering that you gave your Vespa up to give this opportunity for me. I’ll make sure you didn’t waste your money.’ It was a funny thing like that you wrote, something along those lines.

“It was such a simple sentence, it wasn’t even all that impactful, but...I had never really thought about it like that. I understood that school was important to you, seeing the world was something you wanted to do, and back then I had realized that me wanting to see the world with you shouldn’t have meant you should like, have to follow me. So I decided to let you go. But the way you put it...it felt like a sacrifice more than a moral choice. That hit me so hard.” Alberto licked his lips. He had dehydrated himself from crying. “And...Ercole shouldn’t have had to apologize for his parents, but he did because they wouldn’t, he did it for him. And so I chose to endure his parents for him because I didn’t want him to feel like he had to...and, and it’s the same for you and me, Luca.” He looked at Luca leaning forward on the mattress, his pupils crisp. “I gave you all I had. I wanted you to leave me. This was all for you.”

Even now Luca did not have any strength. Every word Alberto spoke only seemed to salt the hole in his chest where his heart should have been.

“When we realized you were missing...and we all went to Genoa together and people looked all over the place for you and couldn’t find any traces of you and Giulia kept talking about a ‘Mr. Saulo’ and...I just had to look. And I found Mr. Saulo’s room with his name at the door...I saw your name on his papers. I just...I just had to do this for you.” Alberto might have started crying again but he held it in, but only barely. “I genuinely didn’t care at the start what happened to me, I had to try.”
He went quiet. The speech had been self-centered and immediate and all the air in the room felt renewed.

“...I’m sorry,” Alberto said yet again. The tears went away and he did not cry and he looked downwards. “I’m sorry. I...failed. And I ruined everything.”

For what felt like a minute Luca only caught breath, trying to absorb every word spoken. His mind felt so burnt out all of a sudden. He leaned forward, covered his mouth with his hands.

“Alberto,” he heard himself say.

Alberto pointed his head up.

“What-”

He began but then without knowing why and without deciding on it he started to cry and tears ran down his face. Alberto’s eyes widened at once, stunned and scared.

“L-Luca, hey-”

“What are you even apologizing for?”

They both did not say anything else. Alberto was gaping slightly and Luca began to wipe his face with his sleeves. He was wearing an elongated shirt with long skinny sleeves and wool shorts and Alberto had on a light summer T-shirt top and cargo shorts. Unsure what to do Alberto slowly stroked Luca’s back and allowed him time.

Finally Luca gulped and exhaled. “...I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t need to say anyth-”

“Alberto,” he struggled to speak, “you like me?”

Alberto was taken aback.

“Dude,” he whispered, his eyes shining, “that was the craziest love confession I’ve ever heard.”

They sat together in that dark space for a second. Then Alberto started laughing. Luca laughed with him, rubbing his eyes whilst doing so. The rain sprinkled outside.

“Wait,” Alberto said after a while, “you’re not implying you’ve heard confessions before, right?”

Luca felt his cheek. “A few people in Genoa have come up to me. Mostly girls, one or two guys. Most of them look okay but, eh. I guess everyone seems to think the curls plus the baby face on the fifteen-year old is wild sexy.” They laughed harder at this. Luca continued to clean his face with his shirt.

Luca felt at the mattress with his palms. He laid down on it, wanting to think. Alberto looked down watching and when Luca saw this he patted the spot next to him. He laid down next to him.

“You don’t feel the same way.”

Luca pushed his cheek into the fuzzy cushioning on top of the springs. His nose was all stuffy after crying. “Uh...no, I don’t. And I don’t think I’m into guys, anyways. Sorry.”

“Ah, gotcha. Well, I get it.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Nah, not right now.”

“We’re still friends, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Luca hummed a note in reply.

“...You really did all this because you felt like you had to give me everything you could?”

Alberto pondered his summary. “Well, in short...I guess. But like…” He searched for the right phrase. “I mean, ever since the train, y’know? Our relationship, it’s just consisted of all this giving.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. I mean, me supporting you at the Portorosso Cup and like, almost dying with you, the ticket for the train...it’s not like I had a lot to choose from.” He moved his hand over his forehead and swept his hair. “In a way, we’ve been leading up to something like this.”

“...You know you don’t have anything to prove to me, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess, but...it was like, an immediate thing for me to do.”

“Well, don’t feel like you’re required to do anything. I’m not gonna leave you. What happened in the past had nothing to do with you.”

“I know.”

Luca looked back up to the ceiling. “Anyways you make it sound like we’re a couple.”

“Well, to be fair, we became pretty close because of intensity. That’s kinda like what married couples go through, right? Stick together in the heat of things.”

Luca nodded. They rested on the mattress. The atmosphere was now buzzing hot. By now lunch would’ve been over and they both would be working, Luca at school and Alberto taking an order or delivering another pizza.

“What are we going to do now?” Alberto asked.

“...I don’t know. I want to escape but...I don’t know how that would work. Attempting to burst out through the door the next time it opens would probably be dumb. There are the security guards. Actually I get the feeling pretty much all of the adults here have some kind of weapon on hand. But I can’t really figure out any other reasonable way to get out of this room besides that.”

The two thought over the matter. The mattress, they both realized, was quite comfortable for a facility.

“...Why do you like me, anyway?”

“Oh, well...you’re really cute.”

Luca ejected a singular cackle.

“No, I’m serious, you’re so cute, Luca!”

“What, do you dream of cuddling me in a forest and sleeping with me under the fish every night or something?”

“...Kinda.”

“Gross—!” But he giggled to assure Alberto he didn’t actually care.

“Oh, shut up, you asked the question. And besides, I bet you have somebody yourself who you think about like that. Wish it was me, but.”

“Well, first of all, no, actually. Nobody at school is all that attractive, to be honest. Giulia’s okay, but she’s just my best friend.”

“My sister over me…? And besides, I thought I was your best friend.”

“It’s an affair, you’re both my best friends.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

The storm was still pouring very hard but the clouds were somewhat lighter in color. Something about this made the room strangely cozy.

“So if I did like you back...what would you want from me?”

“Whatcha mean?”

“Like what kind of relationship are you looking for.”

“Well...to be honest, I’d just like to, y’know, be with you. I don’t really care about how you act as long as you’re nice. You’re a good person, Luca, I love that about you.”

“Aw, sweet of you.”

“And...I guess maybe we could go out into the ocean and find deserted islands and burn stuff on them.”

“That doesn’t sound very romantic.”

“Well, it’s what I like. I’m a total trash fishie.”

“Well,” Luca said and suddenly sat up, “whether you think it’s romantic or not, we could still do stuff like that as friends.”

Alberto put his arms above his head. “Really?”

“Yeah. It’s similar to what we used to do together, anyways. Either way it would be fun. And again I don’t reciprocate, but I don’t really care if you have feelings for me. If anything that makes our relationship stronger.”

“Hm. Guess you’re right.”

They soaked in the odd serenity. Time was passing by.

“...Do you want to go under the rain?”

Luca looked back at Alberto, who got up after asking this. Alberto leaped off the mattress and walked into the space where the rain was falling into the cell. He gripped the bars and looked outside. He glanced back to see Luca and his appearance was changing as his skin reacted to the water. His periwinkle sea skin blended with the clouds above, and he looked like he was painted directly into the setting.

“Come on. Get over here.”

Luca remembered something and hesitated.

“What are you sitting there for, c’mon!”

Alberto jumped forward and grabbed his hand and pulled him off of the mattress. Luca’s hand bloomed a shade of aquamarine and before he knew it they were both in the rain.

“It feels nice,” Alberto said, “after all that crying we just did.” He looked at Luca with and concealed his smiling. “Dude, you look even better than I remember, holy carp.”

Luca scoffed. “You’re making it weird now!”

Alberto grinned and giggled. “I can’t help it with you, you know. You’re literally the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, you grew up really well for a student.”

“A—agh, stop!” They laughed again. “You didn’t drag me out here to look at me like this, did you?

“I won’t answer that question.”

“Gah.”

Alberto put a hand behind his neck and smirked. Then suddenly he looked behind Luca. “Hey, wait.”

“Hm?”

“Your tail…”

Luca looked to his tail. Scars ran across it and certain parts of it seemed uneven and chipped.

Alberto didn’t ask any questions. An unsettled pause spread over as they fumbled with each other.

“They really treat sea monsters like farm animals here, don’t they?”

Luca turned and faced the bars. “No. It’s worse for us, actually, at least farm animals have like, freedom.” He examined the land below them. “To a certain degree, anyways.”

Alberto gave a hard smile and stood next to him, looking outside at the storm. Now that he was observing he could see some greenery below them and no bodies of water in sight. They were on the building’s fourth floor.

“So we can’t jump down, can we?”

“We could try, but I think we’d die.”

“At least you get a nice view.”

“I had a nice view back at home. All of my homes.”

They were quiet.

“...Did you really mean it when you said they could kill us and we couldn’t stop them?”

Luca looked at Alberto, his yellow eyes focusing on him.

“They won’t kill us.”

“How do you know that, when you were the one who suggested it?”

“They...they have no reason to. Those tests they gave you, they were just like analyzing your sea skin color and your tail width and stuff, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think they have any reason to, then. They probably want to study us for our value or something.”

Alberto’s feet poked at each other and he looked down at them and then to Luca.

“What if they do anyways?” he asked. A slight crease between his eyebrows indicated genuine fear.

Luca’s hands tightly held onto the bars. He held his breath and the rain hit his face.

“Promise me something, Alberto.”

He nodded.

“Promise me we’ll stick together. No matter what, no matter what happens.” He suddenly felt a surge of conviction and put an arm on Alberto's shoulders. “Promise me you’ll stay by my side, always.”

Alberto’s mouth was slightly open and he just looked at him for a second. Then he nodded again, more rapidly and for longer. “I do. I promise, Luca.”

Luca smiled. He pulled him closer. “Hey,” he said. “You know I love you, right?”

Alberto, confused, blinked back without saying anything. Then he realized it was half a joke and half an oath. He chuckled. “Did you just repeat that thing your mom says to you all the time?”

“Oh, shut up, you know what I mean.”

They laughed underneath the rain and looked out onto the world from their height, the hush of the storm soothing but gripping. Alberto moved his arm under Luca’s suddenly and held his hand, which was slung over his shoulder bone. Luca didn’t object or show signs that he noticed or cared. Their hair seemed to glow underneath all the water falling onto them. Luca remembered something a girl at school had said about it as a means of teasing with him, which had been something about him looking like a flower or something, he couldn’t remember. Now that he thought about it she had been onto something but he personally thought he and Alberto looked more like coral then, as they stood in the rain. Two structures of glowing bright color, fragile yet graceful, as intense as they were vulnerable, not once caring, and yet so easily reducible to nothing more than pale, dying branches.

“But, yeah,” Alberto admitted. “I do know that you love me. Always have.”