Chapter Text
Tango jogged down the beach, listening to the seabirds crying and the waves crashing, quietly cursing Skizz and Impulse for being right that he needed to make this errand, but not really liking being outside this early in the morning. The world was pretty light, but the sun hadn’t actually broken the horizon yet, and Tango had left his house when it was still dark. He didn’t like being awake this early. But he knew he needed to get this done before the heat of the day hit.
He yawned, slowing his pace just a bit to do so. Even the sand beyond the reach of the waves was still damp from last night’s storm. But the smell of the rain on the sand was so nice.
Tango hated the beach in general. The water was cold and sand always got everywhere and he hated picking it out from between his toes and constantly getting it out of his boots and socks. He was also pale as hell and couldn’t suntan—he’d just burn and peel and be back to being about the color of freshly fallen snow. He wasn’t much of a swimmer either. The beach was basically the worst.
But the beach was the fastest path into town without needing to navigate winding roads. So here he was, on the stupid beach.
At the very least, no one else was on the beach this early.
He picked up his pace again after his yawn and tried to focus on the seabirds calling and the wind rushing through his hair to take his mind off how much he didn’t want to be on the beach.
He jogged around a bend of the beach—
And froze.
“Hey! You okay, skippy?” Tango called as he put one hand out, partially reaching, partially defending himself.
In the watery light of pre-dawn, Tango could see the figure sprawled out in the sand. Shoulder-length blond hair full of sand. Not wearing a shirt. Lower half covered in hopelessly tangled seaweed. Or maybe kelp. Or something. Tango had no clue. He wasn’t a seafarer.
He ran forward, closing the distance between himself and the figure. The closer he got, the better he could see strong musculature. The tanned skin was scarred slightly.
Tango fell to his knees beside the figure. The sand-filled hair was dark gold on top and lighter brown beneath, giving the whole thing a dirty blond look. There were a few gold charms in a few tiny braids scattered about. The broad shoulders, naked torso, and defined muscles gave a more masculine impression. Tango shook one of the shoulders gently. “Hey, skippy. You okay?” he asked, feeling a note of panic start to set in. “Please don’t be dead.” He shook the person’s shoulder again, then reached around where they were mostly face-down in the sand and pressed two fingers below the jaw.
A pulse beat ticked against his fingertips. Slow but strong.
Alive.
Tango’s chest heaved. He reached toward the figure’s hips and started to pull the seaweed away. The detangling was difficult.
And the person wasn’t wearing anything. Instead…
“What the hell?” Tango whispered.
His fingers slipped down along the grain of fish scales.
His eyes widened.
The scales were deep, midnight blue, shimmering like ink in the weak, early light. A slight fade of green where skin and scales met just below the waist. And definitely fishy. Tango had worked with plenty of fish in his youth to know the look on sight. Apart from the green-and-dark-blue-ness, the scale pattern and shape was distinctly cod-like.
He continued pulling at the kelp or seaweed or whatever was covering the figure, exposing more and more of the scales.
Rather than two legs, a single long fish tail with a cod’s caudal fin grew more and more exposed. Tango’s scarred, burnt hands were nonetheless nimble and strong and more than a little experienced with undoing all sorts of tangles and knots. He flexed his fingers once to stretch them before he continued to untangle the tail.
The figure shuffled, dragging arms through the sand and groaning softly. The tail twitched and shifted in the sand.
“Hey, whoa. Don’t move. You might hurt yourselFAH!”
The figure had whirled around, hissing, sharp teeth bared and pupils narrowed to slits. One hand raised, curled into clawed talons. Just about scaring Tango to death.
Tango threw his hands up in surrender. “Whoa! Whoa! I mean you no harm, I promise!” he exclaimed, backing up. “You washed up, I guess, from the storm. You were in a bad way. All tanglificated.” He gestured to the parts he’d undone. “I was just tryin’ to get ya free.” His voice had gone high-pitched and a little squeaky, staring down those sharp shark teeth, bared in threat. He pushed his hands into the sand, scooting back as best he could in damp sand.
After a moment, the… creature? Man? Fish-… person? lowered his hand and relaxed his mouth. The sharp shark teeth retracted and left normal, blunt, human-like teeth behind.
Tango scooted back even farther, reaching behind him to pull his low, rather short ponytail tighter since he felt the cord holding it slipping. “I don’t wanna hurt you,” he repeated.
The figure had dark eyes. The slitted pupils dilated, rounding out a little. A tattoo of what appeared to be the sun but with thick lines, spirals, curvy beams, and swirls covered his entire right pectoral, wrapping up toward his shoulder. He’d threatened Tango with his left hand. Tango wondered—briefly—if this fish-man was left-handed.
Tango cleared his throat. “I, uh… I’m Tango.”
The fish-man lowered his brows, the corners of his mouth turning down.
“Do you speak English?” Tango asked.
“Is that what this language is called?”
Tango squawked in surprise, nearly falling back in the sand. To be completely honest with himself, he hadn’t actually expected the fish-man to be able to speak.
“Geez. You’re jumpy, aren’t you?” The fish-man had a slightly different accent to Tango.
“You were about to bite my head off a few seconds ago!” Tango said defensively.
The fish-man considered for a moment. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. Sorry about that. A merman never knows what he’s gonna get, washing up on land after a storm. Thought you might be trying to turn me into food or something.”
“What? No! Of course not. First of all, you’ve got a human upper half”—Tango ignored how incredibly refined said upper half was—“and second of all, I’m not a fisherman. I wouldn’t even know how.”
The fish-man’s eyes flicked to either side, taking in the empty beach. “What are you, then?”
Tango slowly raised his hands, showing the fish-man the burns and scars over the back of them. “I’m a smith. A metalworker. Mostly a blacksmith but I’ve done some silversmithing in my time.”
The fish-man cocked his head to one side. “A jeweler.”
Tango shook his head. “No! No, no, no, no, no. What little silversmithing I’ve done was, like, cutlery and platters and stuff. Dining utensils and plates. Nothing as fine as jewelry and not even very often. I work with weapons and armor, mostly. Steel and iron and… stuff.”
The fish-man pushed some of his messy, almost matted hair out of his face. Two golden cuff charms in two small braids clinked together. An abalone charm braided near the bottom of another one glimmered gently in the rising dawn.
Tango brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. “If… if it’s not too much to ask,” he began. “What’s your name? Or something I can call you?”
The fish-man—merman, he’d called himself—narrowed his eyes. “You can call me Jimmy,” he said.
Tango smiled. “Jimmy it is,” he said. “Do you want to finish detangling yourself or would you like me to help you?”
Jimmy’s tail wiggled. Not much was still tangled, but there were still hearty knots around what Tango could only call Jimmy’s ankle. The narrowest part of his tail right above the caudal fin. He yanked his tail closer to himself and started ripping the seaweed with his sharp talon-like nails. “I got it, thanks,” he said. His voice dropped to a quiet mutter. “It’s bad enough that you’ve seen me, let alone touched me.”
“Well, excuse me,” Tango retorted sarcastically. “Screw me for trying to help someone in need, I guess.” He shoved himself to his feet and wiped the sand off his breeches and hands and arms as best he could while it was still damp. “Good luck, skippy.” He stomped around behind Jimmy to go back on his errand.
He heard a huff. “Waaait,” Jimmy called, sounding reluctant about it.
Tango considered not stopping, and got three steps farther before—
“Please,” Jimmy added.
Tango stopped and twisted around. He set his fists on his hips. “What?” he asked snappishly.
“I apologize. Rudeness is unbecoming of me.” Jimmy swallowed, his throat bobbing. “Thank you. For helping me. And…” He huffed out his nose, making before-invisible flaps of skin on his neck raise and lower. Gills. “I would appreciate a bit of assistance getting back in the water. Should you be willing to give it.”
Tango considered for a moment. “Fine,” he said.
Jimmy tore away the last of the seaweed tied around his ankle, freeing himself from it.
“Okay. How do you wanna do this? Want me to pick up your tail and you walk on your hands in front of me? Drag you by your arms?” Tango asked, shifting all his weight to one foot to cock his hip higher than the other. “Princess carry?”
“What’s that?”
“I hold you by your waist and your knees—or whatever the main bend in your tail is called—and hoist you up into the air.”
Jimmy thought for a moment. “What do you think would be easiest?”
“Depends on your dignity.”
“Mm…” Jimmy pursed his lips. “Would it trouble you greatly to pick me up and at least get me to where the waves can reach?”
“No. Just don’t squirm. Your scales are slippery and shifting weight could make us both fall.” He approached and crouched. Jimmy bent up his tail so Tango could get his arm beneath it. The other circled Jimmy’s waist. His could feel strong back muscles and this close could see how incredibly defined Jimmy’s abdomen muscles were. He did his best to ignore that.
“You sure you can pick me up?” Jimmy asked. “Merfolk have a lot more body than humans.” His tail’s caudal fin flapped against the sand to make his point. His tail alone seemed as long as Tango was tall.
“I’m a smith,” Tango said. “And stronger than I look.”
He tightened his hold on Jimmy and got his legs beneath him properly before standing, lifting with his knees. Once he was standing straight—or as straight as he could, leaning back to brace Jimmy’s weight against his torso—he shuffled to get a better grip.
Jimmy gasped softly.
“You okay?” Tango asked, turning to look Jimmy in the eye.
His eyes were green. Sort of. There was some murk to the color, muddling it to almost a hazel. The slitted pupils were almost fully round and his eyes were a bit wide. He had long, dark eyelashes and Tango finally took in the strong browline, strong jaw, and defined nose. Tango did his best to ignore that Jimmy was drop-dead gorgeous.
“I’m fine,” Jimmy said. “Er…” He took a deep breath. “Your eyes are beautiful.” He turned away like the admission embarrassed him.
Tango walked them down the sand, closer to the sea. The tips of Jimmy’s caudal fin still dragged in the sand. Tango got the feeling that were Jimmy humanly-proportioned with legs, he’d be a decent chunk taller than him.
“Hmm,” Tango said. “Thank you. Yours are quite striking as well.”
Jimmy reached up with his hands and fiddled with one of the little braids in his hair, not looking Tango in the eye.
When they got to the edge of where most of the higher waves were reaching, Tango slowed down and looked around. The sun had broken the horizon and had almost entirely cleared it. The rest of the world was going to be waking up soon. They couldn’t afford to linger if Jimmy wanted to get back in the water before anyone else saw him. Based on what he said before, his kind didn’t want to be seen by Tango’s. Which Tango could understand.
“Well. This is where we say goodbye, Jimmy,” Tango said.
Jimmy’s head whipped to look at him. His eyes were wide. “I-I…” he stammered. Tango raised a brow. “Allow me to meet you tomorrow night. To repay you for helping me.”
“Appreciate the thought, but it’s not necessary,” Tango said.
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t.”
“No, I’m serious.”
Jimmy reached up and cupped Tango’s face in one hand. His dirty blond hair fell away from his face as the sea breeze kicked up, revealing he had human ears with fins poking out from the curve of them. A slightly darker blue than even his dark tail, but still a midnight sort of shade. “Please?” he asked.
Tango blinked at the intense but gentle look in his eyes.
“U-uh… okay,” Tango said. “Tomorrow night?”
“Yeah. Near here. After dark.”
“O-okay. I’ll be here.”
Jimmy nodded. “Until then… take this.” He reached up and unwound one of the gold cuffs from one of his braids. “My promise that I’ll be back.” He tucked it into the breast pocket of Tango’s shirt. “And don’t even think about refusing.”
A wave rushed up and nearly reached Tango’s boots. In his jolt to try and avoid getting them wet, Jimmy rolled out of his arms and splashed into the thin layer of water. He dragged himself down the rest of the way to the ocean. Another wave caught him up. His caudal fin clapped against the surface of the water and with a streak of deep inky-blue, he vanished into the sea.
Tango reached up and touched the chest pocket of his shirt, feeling the little gold cuff sitting inside. Confirming the whole thing had, in fact, been real.
He stared at the water, backing up to keep the waves from soaking his boots, for several long moments.
That… was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him in his life.
His heart was beating so hard in his chest—from the running, the adrenaline of being threatened by claws and teeth, the exertion of carrying that weight (not the intense and immediate attraction. Certainly not)—that he thought it was trying to escape.
He glanced toward the sun, not looking directly at it. “Dammit,” he muttered. “I’m gonna be late.”
Backing up to get away from the frothing reach of the tide, he went running back down the beach. But he put the gold cuff in his clenched fist so he wouldn’t lose it.
—
“So,” Skizz said, leaning one hip against an anvil that wasn’t currently being used. “I notice you’ve seemed… distracted today.” There was a hint of something suggestive in his otherwise playful tone.
Tango’s hammer rang between the sword he was making and the anvil he was using. He didn’t even spare Skizz a glance. “Have I?” he asked, keeping his tone light and oblivious. “And how is that any different from every other day we’ve been doing this, exactly?”
Skizz narrowed his eyes. “What’re you hiding, Tango?” he pressed.
Tango struck his hammer to the sword again, working out the blemishes in the metal. “Who says I’m hiding anything?” he retorted.
“You’re distracted.”
“I’m always distracted.”
“But, like, this one is even worse than usual!” Skizz exclaimed, flinging one hand in the air.
“What’s goin’ on?” Impulse asked, entering the workshop, slinging his thick leather apron over his head and beginning to tie it behind his back.
“Tango’s being weird!” Skizz said in the tone of a child tattling on a sibling.
“I’m always weird!” Tango protested. “This is no different from my usual weirdness!”
Skizz pulled his ponytail tighter with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “Yes it is!”
“Okay, you two,” Impulse said, chiding them. “Weird how, Skizz?”
“He’s got this faraway look on his face and he’s working a lot slower than usual,” Skizz said.
Oh. Tango did his best to keep his grimace to himself. Had he been slower than usual? He hadn’t meant to be. He thought he was keeping up. “Maybe I just realized my usual pace was unhealthy,” he retorted.
Skizz scoffed.
Impulse set his fists on his hips. “Somethin’ botherin’ you, Tango?” he asked. His tone was gentle, but firm enough to say I’m here to listen, if you want to talk. And I expect you to have an explanation. His dark eyes reflected the light from the forge’s embers, giving their brown an almost amber quality.
Tango cleared his throat and adjusted the strap of his leather apron around his neck so it wasn’t twisted up. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m just tired after running into town at the crack of dawn and running all the way back.” He shot a glare at Skizz, then Impulse. “Which, if I may remind you, was both of your idea! So forgive me if I’m a little distracted.” His eyes flashed off the forge’s fires and he went back to hammering the blade of the sword, setting and maintaining a steady pace.
Impulse and Skizz were quiet behind him. He didn’t need to see them to know that they were communicating with one another without speaking. Speaking just in looks and maybe gestures. They’d known each other longer than Tango had known either of them, and today was one of those days where the weight of their silence conveyed how much deeper their friendship ran.
He ignored it and continued working.
He also tried to ignore the weight of the charm in the pocket of his breeches. The thing was small. Barely thicker than a wire for inlaying filigree into a sword’s hilt. It really wasn’t heavy (despite the fact that it seemed to be pure gold and gold was a fairly dense, heavy metal) but Tango was hyper-aware of its presence in his pocket.
He tried to ignore those muddled green eyes in his memory, staring at him. The feeling of a slightly-callused hand cradling his face as Jimmy insisted on meeting him again tomorrow night.
His heart sped up at the thought, making his chest tighten with excitement and curiosity in equal measure.
—
Jimmy swirled through the water, spinning and twisting, humming to himself. Not really paying attention to the water around him. His mouth was tilted up just slightly in a dopey, dreamy smile. He swam alongside a current that he could see faintly rippling the water column and stuck his hand into it, feeling it rush through his fingers. He chuckled at the sensation and spun away from it, changing trajectory to head home.
He bumped into something firm but squishy. Organic and not coral. He shook his head to clear it and smiled up at the merman he’d bumped into. “Op! Sorry about that, Scar,” he said.
“Well hello there, Your Highness,” Scar greeted, spinning around. His long, dark hair drifted around his head. “What’s got you so cheerful this fine morn—JIMMY!” Something sparked in Scar’s bright green eyes.
Jimmy looked around at the water surrounding them, as if Scar could be addressing anyone else. “Er… yeah?”
“Where have you been? Your parents have been worried sick! Your sister thought you died!” Scar’s orange tail lashed through the water and he used the blunt end of the trident he was holding to usher Jimmy toward the palace. “You’ve been missing for hours! No one’s seen you—no one knew where you’d gone! Where have you been?”
Jimmy let Scar babble his worry all the way back to the palace, not actually offering an explanation until Scar ushered him into the throne room.
“Your Majesties! He’s here! He’s alive!” Scar called.
Jimmy’s parents whirled to see him. In a blur of bubbles, they’d crossed the entire hall and slammed into him. His mother’s tail wrapped around him, holding him tight as her dark pink hair drifted across Jimmy’s field of vision. “Jimmy!” she exclaimed. “Where have you been?”
“I went for a swim to clear my head last night. Couldn’t sleep. Got caught in the storm,” he explained. His mother ran her nails through his hair, getting stuck in the snarls from it getting buffeted by the storm. “I’m okay, Mother, I promise.”
She pulled back, holding his shoulders, scrutinizing his face and shoulders. Searching for injuries or lies. Her eyebrows tilted down on the outside edges. “Oh, my baby,” she said softly. “You lost one of your cuffs.” She reached up and pinched one of his little braids between her fingers. Her tone was sympathetic and a little sad, not angry at him.
“I know. But it’s fine,” Jimmy said. “I’d rather lose a cuff than my life.”
“Good point,” Jimmy’s father pointed out.
A trilling chitter caught their attention.
A streak of soft pink and dark blue was all Jimmy saw of his sister before she plowed into him. “You’re alive!”
“I’m fine, Lizzie,” Jimmy said, putting an arm around her.
“She was worried you died,” Joel informed Jimmy over Lizzie’s head.
“Scar mentioned that. I’m okay. I promise.”
Lizzie withdrew from the hug—and slugged him in the chest, right on his tattoo. “Don’t do that, James!” she snapped.
Joel snorted. “Uh-oh, full-named,” he muttered.
Jimmy didn’t listen. “I’ll be more careful next time, I promise.”
Lizzie glared at him. “Don’t let there be a next time.”
Jimmy thought about tomorrow night. Sneaking out to repay Tango for his kindness. That was definitely a next time. Lizzie didn’t need to know about it, though. “I’ll do my best,” he said. Intentionally evasive.
“Good,” Lizzie said firmly.