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Alright.
Matt will admit that he fucked up.
He stranded himself far from the Hudson, which isn’t normally too much of an issue. He has legs, and he’s been doing this routine for years now: turning himself human, shoving on the clothes he smuggled some time ago, and generally wreaking havoc upon the shittier people of Hell’s Kitchen. Which, to understanding, appears to be a large majority. Living alone in the murky depths of the Hudson listening endlessly to the worst of the world will do that. It’s hard to have perspective on the moments of levity when the evil is so much of that: evil.
He loves Hell’s Kitchen. Enough, of course, that he’s willing to risk himself for it, but usually he’s careful. Back in the day, he stuck entirely to the docks, then slowly but surely built his territory outward. He knew how long he could last in this form, how long until he feels a tell-tale ache in his legs and the build of a migraine telling him he needs to go back, needs to switch back to his tail and run himself through the water. Remind himself of what he really is, how nature has shaped him into being. A clean separation from the world of the humans.
It was, however, easy to test those limits of his when he didn’t really know what experiencing the consequences would be like. Hence taking on one more fight when he knew he had to race back to the Hudson. He thought it would be easy.
He did not, however, realize his legs would go entirely numb and collapse beneath him right in time with a blow to the head.
Maybe he has something resembling luck on his side, considering the perpetrators run. Matt usually gets back up after a hit, and they have no reason to think this time will be any different. Thank God for his reputation.
But fuck everything else.
Matt’s groaning on the street outside an apartment complex he can’t entirely place. He should have been careful, but on top of everything, he must have passed out for a bit. His head is killing him, he can’t feel his legs, and he’s trying to drag himself across the concrete in the direction he can hear and smell the Hudson waiting for him, calling to him.
He doesn’t make it far.
It doesn’t help that he’s pretty sure the sun’s about to rise, too, the warmth of it eeking far off on the horizon.
He curses, dragging himself another step.
“Oh, shit!”
Shit.
“Oh my God. Oh my God.”
Matt groans, dropping onto his side. His legs are starting to burn, a sharp stinging pain beginning to shoot up. This is going to get so much worse, and there’s a person right here. He’s fucked. Every errant decision leads to moments like this, sets himself up for failure. Cockiness must be punished, but this?
“I– Dude, are you okay?” The man squats, his heart racing in unobstructed fear, but he pokes Matt in the head, anyway.
On instinct, Matt bares his teeth and snaps at the offending hand.
“Fuck!” the man squeaks, falling back. “Sorry, sorry! Just— oh my God.”
His brain feels like it is rolling about in his skull, and the burning is starting to spread. “Not—” And then he flicks his tongue over his lips, trying to find the words. He’s gotten infinitely better at speaking over the years, but apparently during crunch time, all the language leaves him. “Water,” he finally gasps out, and that, at least, is good. A direction. Not a guarantee, but a statement of what’s necessary, knowing the choice is no longer his own.
The man’s breath hitches. “You– you want me to get you some… water?”
Matt groans again.
“I can get you a glass, but—”
“No.”
“Okay, uh. Can you stand up?”
Matt miserably shakes his head, wincing, his body going tense as he rides out another seizure of pain.
“Shit. I mean, I don’t know what to tell you, but— Jesus, you don’t look good.”
Matt’s eyes loll upward behind his mask—the feeling of it is slippery in the wrong kind of way—as he gasps another breath of air. This was going to kill him, wasn’t it? His own stupidity, his own cockiness that he could handle more than his body truly could. He tastes blood. Why can he taste blood?
Unbidden, the next word falls from his lips. “Please.”
The man inhales sharply. “I– I— Okay. I can take you to a hospit—”
“No. Please.”
“Okay, okay. No hospital. You want water. You can’t walk. Is– Is your back broken? Is that it?”
Again, Matt shakes his head. He doesn’t know how to even begin telling the man what’s really going on, the words just a globular mess in his head.
“Alright.” The man sucks in another breath, then, under his breath, says, “You can do this, Foggy.” Louder, he goes on, “We’re gonna make you piggyback ride.”
Matt’s still in too much pain to make sense of literally anything, but especially that. His eyes flutter closed, and he settles for another questioning groan.
“You… You do know what that is, right?”
He doesn’t want to shake his head at this point.
“Okay, guess I’m getting literally no help whatsoever. Just— c’mon, help me out here. If your back’s fine, can you at least try sitting up?”
Ugh.
Fine.
He wedges himself up on his elbows, then onto his hands. His legs are sprawled out behind him, and he tilts his face up to the man. Foggy? Is that what that meant? Is that this man’s name?
“...Okay, I can work with mermaid-style, absolutely.” Foggy sounds like he’s close to laughing. A kind of hysterical amusement. Matt has no idea why.
Then Foggy’s slowly moving closer again. “Alright, buddy. I’m gonna sit down in front of you, and I need you to wrap your arms around my neck, okay?”
That, Matt can do. He gives a slow nod.
Foggy mutters something else, but then he slowly, tentatively, sits down next to Matt, then scoots so his back is facing him. “Alright, now you just—”
Matt lifts one arm up, hooks it around the man’s neck, then lifts the other as well to secure him into a chokehold.
The man barely has enough air to yelp once, then begin frantically tapping at Matt’s arms. As if that isn’t literally what he’d asked Matt to do. Had he expected Matt to not follow instruction? Or worse, to not understand?
Matt huffs into the man’s nape, ignores the subsequent shiver from Foggy, and releases him. This time, though, he collapses back onto his side.
Foggy sucks in air and coughs next to Matt for a good minute, then says, “Shit!”
Yeah. Matt’s definitely going to die here.
He doesn’t even have the capacity to truly be upset, to let the fear of dying overtake him. The pain keeps building. His legs feel entirely on fire, possibly never going to work again. He can’t switch without water, though, not in such inexact terms, and he’ll be damned before he dies here in the street with his tail exposed for all the world to see. Better for it to be like this.
Matt chokes up another cough, feeling the blood splatter against his lips.
“Okay, screw it.”
And then suddenly he’s being hoisted upward, one of the man’s arms under his thighs and the other at his back. The exertion is immediate, the tang of sweat salty and sweet, and out of habit, Matt flicks his tongue out again to taste it. His head feels light, and it takes him a long time to realize that he’s actually being moved.
Somehow, he’s inside a building. Foggy is cursing, shaking from Matt’s weight, muttering, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” as they roll up in one of those electric boxes—elevator, that’s it—until the door opens, and Foggy rushes out.
It’s with no grace whatsoever that Matt is deposited to the floor. He groans, gloved fingers digging into the carpet, barely hearing Foggy’s harried apologies as he unlocks the door, opens it, turns, and grabs one of Matt’s arms. Then he begins quite literally just dragging Matt inside.
There’s so much indignity in this, and Matt physically cannot care. He feels tears starting to build, his mouth opening and closing with silent gasps of pain.
Foggy returns again with a cup of water. Which. Isn’t nothing.
Matt takes it and dumps the water onto his face, then gasps. There’s some small, tingling relief that’s borderline nonexistent, but still. “M– more.”
“More, okay. Uh. Like, a lot more? You don’t need to drink it, do you? Shit, are you on fire with that, like, invisible fire that only shows up in ultraviolet light or whatever it is?”
Matt moans, flopping his head back to the floor.
“Okay! Okay. More. Um. Bathroom! Whole bunch of water there. Not sure what you need, just—”
And then Foggy’s dragging him over the carpet again. Matt’s skin rubs uncomfortably there, but it’s honestly the least of his worries, especially as another door opens and he can smell, taste— water. Pipes leading to home, the systems like snakes down the building, slithering to where he’s supposed to be.
His free arm reaches.
“Yeah, buddy. Boutta have a lot of water soon.” Foggy releases him. There’s the twist of metal, and the sink turns on.
Matt ignores it, pulls himself onto his hands, and begins dragging his body for the tub.
“Oh! Oh, you— okay, I can—” The sink turns off.
Matt can tell the water will pool here, will be far more accessible than the sink. He can ignore the burning for long enough to heave himself inside, legs slamming hard against the interior surface, loud enough to imply bruising damage, even if he can’t separate it from extant pain.
Foggy is fluttering near the sink, moving awkwardly as if unsure what to do.
Matt starts fumbling for the controls. He’s meddled with enough human technology to have a general grasp on how it works, but he’s still feeling like he just had a headshot. He grasps at the knobs, trying to pull at them and failing. He growls, slapping one. It’s not working.
“Uh, here, let me just… God this is so weird.” Foggy leans in, his hand coming dangerously close to Matt’s head.
Matt tenses but doesn’t react, clocks how Foggy twists the knob for the water to begin pouring out in a rush.
Fuck.
He’s immediately wanting to melt into the water, briefly burrowing his face directly under the nozzle, coughing when a not-insignificant portion goes up his nose. It’s wonderful.
He sputters, not bothering to listen as Foggy makes concerned noises. It’s not good, nowhere near perfect or what he’s eventually going to need, but right now, it’s enough.
The tub is slow to fill, not helped by Matt’s splashing. For a minute, he rests his head, panting, feeling the water creep up toward his legs, the pain in his head receding inch by inch.
Right.
He fumbles at his mask, barely hearing Foggy go, “Woah woah WOAH wait am I supposed to—” before he’s tearing it off and throwing it to the side. Absently, he hears the battering of Foggy’s heart quicken even more. Matt just keeps moving, ripping off his gloves, tossing them out, then hauling his shirt off over his head, clanging his arm against the faucet as he does. The pain of that doesn’t register at all.
He can feel the weight of Foggy’s stare, but the man isn’t talking anymore. Probably fine. Regardless, it’s not like it’s something Matt can exactly focus on at the moment. He’d really, really rather not die, and also really like to not destroy himself in his own transformation.
Boots and socks come off next. He has to stretch to reach them, hold a leg with one hand while freeing the items with another. Feeling is just beginning to return, but it still burns, and he still can’t actually control his legs. Another future problem.
Then he’s pulling out the belt and hissing as he starts taking off his pants.
“Oh sh— oh shit, I should— ohmyGod—”
Foggy turns around and keeps talking to himself about things for whatever reason. Matt cannot care right now. If Foggy isn’t going to help—because, no, Matt is not going to ask for help—then he’s free to do whatever he wants.
It takes much longer than usual to finally get the pants off, and as soon as they’re gone, he can practically cry in relief. Matt doesn’t waste a single moment longer before letting his body shift into its natural form, a long tail spooling out from his hips and pouring over the side of the tub—but he can feel it. The pain has gone down so gloriously much, back to what he’s used to, what’s manageable; the pain of his head now more just a throbbing.
The tub itself is even less comfortable now—with his longer body, for one thing, most of his tail splat to the side—and what remains inside the tub isn’t helping, what with the bulk of fleshy membrane from his tail’s rays rubbing along the basin—but the sensitive frills along his forearms get squished, too, even after he tries to adjust.
So, yes: uncomfortable, but certainly manageable, especially as the tub begins to properly fill and—
“Oh. Shit.”
Matt’s head lolls over to face Foggy.
Right.
This might be another problem.
Foggy’s heart is still hammering loudly. Maybe close to a heart attack, maybe not. Matt decides to wait it out.
“You— You’re—”
The end of Matt’s tail flops loudly. It’s uncomfortably dry, the frill at the end feeling particularly papery and itchy, so he pulls it toward himself to attempt to dip it in some of the water, patting down the parts of membrane that drift upward for the surface.
With a sploosh, the tub begins to overflow.
Foggy’s hand darts out quickly to turn it off, as Matt only realizes once the water has stopped flowing.
He frowns, then moves to twist it back on again.
“Don’t. Do that. I am not paying for the repairs of you turning my bathroom into a– a– fishbowl. Holy— You’re— I was joking about the mermaid thing. You realize that, right? I didn’t know— mermaids were real?”
Alright, this could definitely go worse.
He flops his head back again, taking care that his ear frills don’t scrape up against anything. “If that is… right,” he says. “Then… sure. Mermaid.”
“Oh my God,” Foggy says again. Then, “Merman. I guess. Well, mermaid, if you want. Uh, merperson? I don’t—”
“Whatever,” Matt says. The word feels strange in his mouth. All words do, all of the talking like them does, as decently as he has gotten at it for something meant to live underwater, especially when not actively suffering from the world’s worst headache.
“Whatever,” Foggy echoes quietly. “Okay. Okay. Uh… Are… you… okay? I know it’s a stupid question, but, uh. I really don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. This is like the water growing toy thing except way se— hot— um.”
Matt hums, dragging his hands over his face, against the raised bumps of scarring and through the poof of hair over his forehead. Foggy’s temperature is increasing, and he smells like he’s sweating again. Matt can pay even more attention to it now. It’s sweet, an aftertaste of peach. Matt likes it.
Only now is the relief giving way to reality. Well and truly.
He is in his natural form before a man, and not only that, he is in a bathtub. Aren’t these things for cleaning the freshly born? Either way, it’s far too small for Matt, and this isn’t even the smallest of his issues.
Still, he sits up with as much dignity as he can muster, gripping the side of the tub with both his hands and twisting to face Foggy. When his face tilts up toward the man, he can hear another jump in his heart. “You are not g—”
But at the same time, Foggy has apparently also deemed it a great time to speak. Sounding almost entirely unbidden, Foggy mutters out, “You’re pretty.”
It halts Matt in his tracks. The language escapes him again.
His tongue flicks over his lips and he cocks his head. He… didn’t mishear. But. Surely he misheard.
His tail splashes about, knocking more water from the tub with the heavy, lolling weight.
Matt keeps himself poised there for several more seconds, his head carefully cocked.
The realization comes to him suddenly: Ah, yes. This man is insane.
“Pretty,” Matt slowly repeats back at him, tasting the word on his tongue. Maybe there’s some other meaning based on context that Foggy assumes he has right now. Clearly, he doesn’t. He’s not even human, wasn’t born into their languages. Context isn’t easy to grasp in his conditions.
Still, he gives it a go, tongue flicking out briefly again before he does. “You’re pretty.”
There’s an immediate effect. Namely, the possible heart condition is brought to the forefront as Foggy sucks in a surprised breath, growing ever warmer. There’s something with tang in there, too, his scent at a constant collision course with his emotions. “Oh,” Foggy says. “That’s, uh. Nice. Of you to say.”
Good enough. He can try to stay on Foggy’s good side as he figures this out. He makes an approving chirp before immediately moving to twist the water back on.
“Oh, you little—” Foggy’s hand swats at Matt’s.
Matt rears back with a hiss, snapping his teeth once as Foggy twists the knob off again.
“Don’t you start with that,” Foggy chastises. “I can’t believe it. You were trying to– to flatter me just to convince me to let you drown my apartment? I’m not easy. Or stupid.”
Matt’s tail thrashes. The end is out of the tub again, too-quickly drying out as he slaps it against the floor. “Easy,” he snaps, because the way Foggy said it seemed to imply it was an insult. “Stupid.”
“You don’t need to start being a dick! I’m already helping you. More than the average New Yorker would, at that! I would think you could be capable of being a tiny bit nice.”
Matt has been nice. He hasn’t bitten Foggy, and he certainly hasn’t killed Foggy now that Foggy has seen what he is. “You,” he growls, “just thought I was hot.”
“Jesus Christ, did you just—”
“It is what you thought!” He thumps Foggy’s leg with his tail, and the man jumps. “Nobody would otherwise. Nothing here is kind. I smell it. The heat. Citrus. My bad for thinking you had kindness.”
Matt’s aware his own speech patterns are messy, sometimes hard to follow. The people he attacks in the night make that clear enough in the instances Matt really tries communicating. He’s far better at just listening than trying to make people actually understand him.
Foggy’s quiet, rubbing at his arms. Matt’s pretty sure the man is staring at his tail, and he has to resist the urge to spool it back in toward himself. The secret is already out, after all.
“You think… I wasn’t being kind,” Foggy begins, “because you can… smell. That I think you’re attractive? And because Hell’s Kitchen generally isn’t nice?”
…Well. Yes.
He lifts his chin and spits out, “Easy,” again.
“Are you just mad ‘cause I’m right?”
“No,” he lies. He shoves his hands into the water, elbows sinking in to feel the water against the frills.
“You don’t even know what ‘easy’ means, dude. Oh, my God. You’re a whole— like, creature. How have you been pretending to be human? Wait, no, not the question I meant to ask.” He waves his hands through the air in no gesture Matt can make sense of. “Why do you think I’m now being mean if you thought I was being kind earlier?”
It’s obvious. Why is he asking? “The water.”
“Okay. I… You’re wanting more water. I get that. But if you get too much water, then I’ll get in trouble. Someone could find you.”
“I’ll turn human,” Matt says, which is also obvious. He wrinkles his nose.
“Wait, you didn’t turn into a mermaid because you touched water? Is that not how it works?”
He scratches at one of his ears before smoothing over the frill. “No. That’d be bad.”
“Because you encounter water a lot, right, that… makes more sense than the alternative.”
“It starts to hurt,” Matt says, and why he’s offering this up willingly, he’s not completely positive. “I– was knocked out. Lost the time. Too long and too much of it.”
Foggy makes a noise. “So you got knocked out. Too much time out of the water. Is it, like, connected to the daytime? Or do you just— oh.”
Matt’s head cocks further. He isn’t sure why Foggy stopped talking—there isn’t the total heartbeat jump of surprise, more just something softer, quieter—but… It’s a nice thing to be understood. And strangely nice, too, to not be feared.
So he does the dumb thing, opening his mouth to answer. “Not connected. Easier to hide at night. It’s about time out. Need water.”
“Right,” Foggy says, a little breathily. “Right, yeah. Makes sense.”
He doesn’t sound… sated.
Matt wriggles again, shifting which parts of his tail are in the water again, trying to let the cool relief spread as far as it can. “Hurts without water. I can. But don’t like to.”
“So you just prefer to have water to, uh. Regain the tail, and everything. I got it.”
He doesn’t sound like he has it. “What’s wrong?”
“No, no—nothing’s wrong. Just… You don’t have eyes.” He laughs, sounding self-deprecating. “I don’t know why I would think you could call me pretty if you can’t even see me. Hell, you didn’t look like you saw anything when you were human, either. Jesus. You’re blind, right? Unless those flaps somehow, like… make you see?”
Oh. More human insanity. Matt isn’t about to call Foggy stupid again, though it’s tempting. “No. I’m blind. I don’t see. Can still call you pretty.”
“To manipulate me. Or make fun of the fact that I called you pretty.”
“You sound pretty,” Matt snaps defensively. “Smell nice. Everything smells bad.” He gets an idea, then sticks his nose up directly against the metal faucet where the water comes from. It also smells bad, but it also smells like his water, so he sucks in another long sniff.
“Right. I’m not sure you’re the best judge of smells considering you’re doing… that.”
“Smells like home.”
“The Hudson?”
“All of it. The water.” He pulls back to face Foggy again. “You’re not mean. Trying to be nice, yes? You’re not going to tell.”
“About—? No, no. No grand mermaid tales from me. Your secret’s safe. Cross my heart.” He does another little gesture.
Matt hums, splashes over closer, and grabs Foggy’s hands. “Again?”
The heat is back. Foggy’s voice is suddenly higher. “Uh, again— what? Hm?”
“Thing you did. Promise. Let me see.”
“Oh! You— right.” Foggy clears his throat once, then again. “It may be easier if I…” And then he is gently removing Matt’s hands, grabbing his instead with a single reassuring squeeze.
Matt’s feeling a little cooler than usual at that, a kind of nice buzz as Foggy guides his hand to his chest, has him point with a finger, and form an ‘x.’
“There,” Foggy says. “Cross your heart.” Another beat, and then he pulls back.
Matt nods slowly, then does the gesture on his own.
“Exactly that,” Foggy says. Then, “Hey, uh—if you can turn human, I can probably take you to a place with a lot more water. It’ll be kinda gross. I mean, maybe not grosser than the Hudson, but it hasn’t been cleaned in forever since it was abandoned, but me and a few other kids at school used to dare each other to dive into it. Still water might be bad, I think that’s a whole thing. Maybe the equivalent of a sewer?” Matt’s expression—his alertness, the way his ear frills fan outward to better hear, listen to this good news. “It’s at, uh, Fogwell’s. Unless someone drained it, which I doubt.”
Matt’s already turning human again, wincing as he clamors up—his legs are working again, which is good—and says, “Take me.”
“You! That—! Yep, yep, I’ll take you, just, uh, let me grab some clothes for you to wear for the time there? It’s just down the block. Might give you enough of a rest to make the trek to the actual Hudson, ha. Uh. Okay I’m gonna get you some— clothes—”
Foggy scurries away.
Matt tilts his head, listening. He shakes out his head. The pain is still there, but hopefully Foggy’s right that it’ll do as a waypoint to the Hudson.
He’s feeling warm now, too. Maybe similar to how Foggy had been. It’s nice.
Matt grins to himself. Okay. Perhaps there is one nice thing. He still loves Hell’s Kitchen, in spite of its lack of kindnesses, but he also loves that it has a habit of proving him wrong when he needs it to do exactly that the most.
Funny, how being perhaps so close to his own death or destruction, wrought entirely to his most vulnerable self for anyone to exploit, that it proves itself. That Foggy decided to be kind to someone who all else seemed to fear.
Perhaps he’ll visit the man tonight. Leave him a fish or two.
He’s grinning by the time Foggy returns, clothes in hand, one hand over his eyes as he promises to bring the ‘extracurricular outfit’ with him.
Matt takes the bundle in his arms, picking them apart, finding the pants first. As he puts them on, he says, “Matt.”
“I’m— sorry, what?”
“Matt,” he says again.
There’s a pause. Then, “Foggy. My name’s Foggy.”
Matt already knew that, of course. He slips on the shirt, holds his breath against a wave of pain, then nods. “Foggy.”
“Yeah, buddy. C’mon. Just get your shoes back on, and I’ll take you to the pool.”