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“Um.” Sollux didn’t take his eyes off the (Naked! Very naked!) girl at the door as he shouted over his shoulder. “AA? There’s uh. You should come see this!”
Aradia bounced over and squashed herself into the door next to him. Her eyes widened for a second before her face split into a grin. “Oh! We have a guest!”
The girl at the door lifted a hand and waved webbed fingers at them. Her skin was pale pinkish grey and delicate purple fins poked out of the wild curls of her hair. Aradia tutted and shouldered Sollux out of the way as if he was just bugging out in front of the postman again.
“Don’t mind him. Hi!”
The grey girl waved again and grinned and her teeth were all long and needle sharp.
“Can you talk?” Aradia asked.
The girl opened her mouth and then frowned, reaching up to hold her own throat. After a moment's hesitation she shook her head, her bottom lip jutting out like a kid who’s had their toys taken away.
“Hmm.” Aradia reached past Sollux for the girl’s hand. “Well, you better come in anyway!”
Sollux double checked the beach was empty before he shut the door.
“AA.” He started protesting, as he followed the girls through to the kitchen. “What the fuck?”
“We can’t just leave her!” She said. “She’s a real fish out of water!”
There was a noise like bubbles coming up from the sink and both of them turned to see the girl holding a hand over her mouth with a look of clear delight in her eyes. She brushed her hair out of her face with one hand and gave Aradia an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Sollux did a double take. “Is she… Is she laughing?”
Aradia lit up and started laughing with her and Sollux sighed like his soul was escaping his body. It was going to be a long night.
They lent her one of Aradia’s baggy sleep shirts, a big grey thing with sheep on it, and the three of them sat around the battered kitchen table with glasses of cool cordial in hand to start on a complicated game of charades. The first thing they wanted to do was work out what to call her but that was easier said than done. It was lucky the girl was so expressive really, or they’d have gotten nowhere. Every time they guessed a name that she didn’t like her fins drooped and she puffed out her cheeks, cupping her face and shaking her head so all her hair bounced around her like waves, but when they guessed something that she did like or picked up on one of her clues she wriggled in her seat and grabbed excitedly for their hands. It was… fucking adorable, actually. If you could ignore the teeth.
“So, like fish but not fish.” Aradia mused. “Hmmm.”
“Wait,” Sollux interrupted, “I’ve been assuming this whole time that she’s a mermaid or some shit, what if she’s a fairy-? Woah, okay.”
The girl was bouncing in her seat, gesturing to Sollux and frantically patting Aradia’s hand as though she didn’t already have her full attention. She pointed at his mouth and then stepped her finger backwards in the air.
“...Fairy?” He repeated. “You’re a fairy?”
She sighed in irritation and shook her head, jabbing herself in the chest and then pointing at him again.
“That’s her name, dummy!” Aradia said, but she shook her head again, holding her thumb and finger up a few centimeters apart. “Shorter?” She shook her head again. “...But close?” Aradia said hopefully and puffed up when she nodded.
“Okay.” Sollux said, suddenly interested in the puzzle of it. “So it’s like fish but not fish and it’s like fairy but not fairy. Fish fairy. Fish fairy?”
The girl gave a gurgling laugh and patted Sollux’s arm, repeating the pinching close gesture and then chopping her hand through the air fast. Sollux jerked back, alarmed, and shook his head.
“What?”
She sighed and slowly mimed out two blocks, and then one long, fast line.
“Oh, oh! It’s one word! Fishfairy!”
The girl doubled over with giggles and Sollux snorted. “There’s no way in hell I can say that properly. Fifairy? Fffffe- Fithh. Fuck it. I’m calling her FF.”
“Okay!” Aradia grinned, “So it’s Fishfairy for now. How did you end up out here, Fishfairy?”
FF took a deep breath and slumped her shoulders, her mouth scrunched up to one side in thought before she jumped up out of her chair and started miming out her story. It started with a villain, with big mimed with fangs and a frowny face, who wanted to kill her (a sharp cut across her throat was clear enough for that) but she obviously managed to negotiate an escape. She tried three times to mime “magic”, eventually settling for pointing to Aradia’s bone collection stacked up on the window sill and then making wild sweeping gestures with her hands until one of them guessed. She stuck a leg out and wiggled her foot, her legs were part of the escape plan but she pointed to her mouth and then shook her finger. Legs, she could have, but she had to give up her voice. She mimed another exaggerated frowny face and a pair of long curly horns before covering her mouth and then huffed, blowing a stray strand of hair away from her cheek and gesturing to them both and the room as a whole.
“That,” said Sollux when she finally sat down, “is pretty much the entire plot of the Little Mermaid. What the fuck is life.”
Aradia rested her chin on her hands and considered FF carefully. “Do you think she has to get true love's kiss to go back?”
“AA!”
“What! I was just asking!”
FF’s cheeks flushed even brighter pink and she shrunk down in her chair. She shook her head but the corners of her mouth quirked up when she met Aradia’s eyes. Sollux felt his skin heat up and promptly cleared his throat.
“So.” He said. “What now?”
Aradia glanced over to the first light of sunrise starting to peek through their net curtains and shrugged. “Bedtime!”
--
The fish girl ended up sharing the bed with them.
It’s not like Sollux minded, although you bet your ass he complained anyway. Aradia was warm as always, her hair braided out of the way and her back bare against his chest. FF curled up behind him, cold, even through Aradia’s shirt, with her arm tight around his waist and her fingers clutching the waistband of Aradia’s boxers. He didn’t remember falling asleep but when he woke up they’d both rolled over onto him, pinning him to the bed with their legs tangled over his and their faces buried against either side of his neck. He closed his eyes, took a slow breath and prayed for strength as Aradia stirred next to him, turning her face to lazily smooch his collarbone. He squirmed as her hand drifted over his stomach, unable to bat her away with their guest laying on his arm.
“AA.” He whispered. “AA, the fish fairy’s still here. AA!”
He yelped and tugged his arm free, shoving her off him just as her hand brushed the waistband of his underwear. FF stirred sleepily as he moved and pushed herself up off him, sitting on the edge of the bed with her legs tucked underneath her and a quizzical frown on her face.
He pulled the covers up over himself. thudding his head back into the pillows. “Man, I need some coffee.”
FF attached herself to his side and didn’t let go until they were in the kitchen again with three hot mugs of coffee on the counter. She poked curiously at hers as Sollux wrapped himself around his as though it was the only thing keeping him upright. Aradia hopped up onto the table to watch them both with a huge grin on her face and Sollux squinted at her through steamed up glasses. Her grin was almost always suspicious as fuck. She swung her legs, took a long sip of her coffee and hummed.
“So.” She said. “Let’s see about getting you back to normal, huh?”
Getting her back to normal turned out to be much easier said than done. Unlike Disney, life doesn’t provide an easy explanation, a convenient deadline or a singing crab to shuffle things along for you. The first day passed by before they even worked out a proper method of communication and the second day they only learnt how to communicate so that Sollux could properly teach their guest the house rules of Smash. Time just slipped by like that for a while, hour after hour turned into day after day, until the three of them collapsing into the bed in a tangle of limbs became routine. Sollux caught himself rolling over one morning, his hand tangled with the mermaid’s thick hair, her cold hand drifting up his shirt, and catching Aradia’s warm lips in a sweet good morning kiss. Later when he stood alone, banging his head against the wall of the shower he couldn’t work out how his life came to this. Not that he was opposed it was just… Something he felt like they should talk about. It wasn’t fair on AA for him to be having, god forbid, feelings for a fucking sea creature like this. But then, she didn’t exactly try to hide the way her hand lingered over FF’s every time they touched, or the way she breathed in that sharp smell of salt and metal cold that lingered in FF’s hair whenever they were cuddled close. Maybe, maybe, maybe. God.
It was weeks later and he’d almost forgotten entirely about sending her back to the sea, preoccupied with his own pitiful struggle, when he woke up and found that she wasn’t in the bed. He sat up and squinted down the hall to the gentle glow of the outside light coming from the open front door and a horrible panic sank in his stomach. Still groggy he fumbled for his glasses in the dark and shook Aradia awake.
“AA.” He hissed. “AA, she’s gone.”
Aradia sat up, scrubbing her eye with the back of her hand and frowned. “Where?”
The two of them bundled up in blankets and followed the light out onto the beach. The sand was still damp and stiff so they followed her footprints all the way to the shoreline, shivering against the night breeze. They found her sitting with her feet on the tide line, watching the sea foam bubble up over her toes every time the waves rolled in. Aradia frowned and Sollux shrugged, pulling his blanket closer around his shoulders.
“Hey.” Aradia said, her voice hushed. “Are you okay?”
The mermaid glanced over her shoulder and shrugged, and Aradia’s face fell. Her shoulders bounced with a determined little huff of breath as she plopped herself down on the sand and wrapped half of her blanket around FF’s shoulders. Sollux hesitated and joined them, leaning gently against FF’s other side.
“...You miss it, huh?” Sollux said.
FF nodded and Aradia rested her head on her shoulder. She took Sollux’s hand behind FF’s back and FF sighed.
“I’m sorry.” He added lamely.
She laughed, that bubbly deep sea laugh, and he couldn’t help but smile.
“Y’know,” Aradia said, “we’re still going to help you. Even though we like having you here. It’s more important for people you love to be happy than to get hung up on selfish things like seeing them all the time.”
FF looked up suddenly and frowned at Aradia.
“But,” she continued, placing a finger over FF’s mouth as though she was going to interrupt, “when we do get your tail back you have to come visit or I’ll swim into the sea and beat you up.”
Sollux snort laughed and it wasn’t long before the mermaid joined in. Aradia’s face split into a smug grin and soon the three of them lay on the beach laughing, with arms lazily draped over each other as the sky turned pink and the dewy chill settled into their bones, forcing them to cuddle closer and closer. As the last of the stars disappeared into the soft morning light the mermaid girl sighed and turned, gently kissing them each on the lips.
There was a pause, a comfortable heavy silence, and then she squeaked and bolted upright.
The couple startled and shuffled back as FF stroked frantically at her throat. The sea foam bubbled up around her in impossible swirls. There was a flash of bright green light and when the waves receded she was laying on her back with a look of breathless shock on her face and a thick pink fish tail flexing lazily where her legs used to be.
Sollux’s jaw dropped. “Holy fucking shit.” He said. “That probably shouldn’t be as hot as it is.”
Aradia started laughing and so did the mermaid but this time it was a light, clear, excited giggle. She propped herself up, curling her tail under her and leant forwards to press a quick smooch to the corner of his open mouth.
“Thank you!” She said.
Aradia gasped and shuffled forwards to take her hand. “You talked!”
“Yes!!”
The two of them burst into giggles again, hugging and kissing as though they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Sollux leant back in the sand and watched, unable to stop the grin from breaking across his face. The mermaid brought the giggles to an end, sighing happily and glancing back at the water.
“I want to swim.” She said.
Sollux’s face fell but Aradia nodded. “Of course you do! But remember what I said about coming to visit.”
She nodded and shuffled over to grab Sollux’s hand in both of hers. She tugged him forwards for another kiss. “I’ll be back!” She said. “I promise! I’d have to be a reel idiot to abandon my true loves!”
She laughed and Sollux just absently touched the cold spot where her lips touched him and nodded.
Aradia stood up and waved as the mermaid rode the impossible waves back into the water. It wasn’t until she was floating comfortably, her tail drifting slowly in the water beneath her, that she turned back and waved.
“Oh!” She shouted, “And it’s Feferi!”
And with that, she disappeared under the waves but they knew they’d see her again.
