Chapter Text
It wasn’t rare, exactly, for Grace to find- well. All sorts of horrifying sights washing up on the beach outside his home. They were usually within the realms of reality, though, and of course Grace was pretty unphased by them. And, okay, maybe horrifying was the wrong word to use, just sort of gross and sad. With the amount of plastics and other assorted junk being thrown into the ocean constantly, combined with fishing nets that drifted abandoned, every now and then he’d find some poor creature tangled up, often bleeding, usually dead.
The ones that weren’t, he’d take back up to his house and into his small lab, helping them recover before releasing them, if it was safe to. The ones that were, he’d still sort out, trying to give them the respect they deserved.
This was… different, to what he’d usually find, though.
In truth, he wasn’t really sure what he was looking at.
Grace’s morning routine consisted of sleeping past about five alarms, dragging himself out of bed, getting showered and dressed, and then taking a walk down the beach, enjoying the feeling of the sea breeze, the taste of salt in the air, the sound of the ocean against the sand. It calmed him, woke him up, and prepared him for the day, before he’d have to run to catch the bus into the city to start his lectures for the day, pretty much consistently five or so minutes late to the first - his students never complained, at least, most of them barely even awake with it being so early.
If he found something, he’d take it back to his house, do what he could to make sure it was at least not going to die in the time he was gone, and then leave it to worry about later on when he got home.
This morning, though?
…gosh.
Yeah. He’d have to cancel classes for the whole darn day.
It- He? The… thing, that washed ashore that morning, seemed to be… at least partially human. From the waist up, with a few, somewhat horrifying, exceptions. He looked like a man, of some description - tanned, well-toned, dark hair falling to his shoulders. Kind of pretty, Grace couldn’t help but think, despite… everything else.
From the waist down, he was all fish. Red, scaled tail, fins, like- well. Like a mermaid, Grace supposed. Which was a completely ridiculous thought, because mermaids weren’t real. Or at the very least, hadn’t been technically discovered yet - there were plenty of tales, of course, but those consisted of all sorts of unreliable and conflicting information. Grace had a PhD in marine biology, he took this stuff very seriously. He couldn’t discount their existence, because there was still that ninety-five percent of ocean that hadn’t yet been explored, but the fact of the matter was, until that morning, Grace had been fairly certain that mermaids didn’t exist.
He also didn’t look anything at all like the mermaids Grace had heard about in stories as a kid. Nah, this dude was genuinely horrifying to look at. Some bits that he expected, of course - gills on the side of his neck, opening and closing somewhat desperately. (Gosh, this poor guy was probably suffocating, he really needed to hurry up and help him.) He had webbed fingers on his hand, scales down his arm - only one arm. The other seemed to have been ripped clean off, blood and other bits of gore still dripping out onto the sand. He had two mouths, one that looked fairly normal, but then the other on the side of his cheek looked- almost painful, like his flesh had been forcibly teared open to make it, and bearing sharp fangs. And then there was the gashes across his stomach, across his tail, more blood staining his skin, scales and the sand below, a trail of it still mixed in with the water, and…
…Jesus Christ.
What had happened to this poor guy?
There wasn’t a net or anything he’d got himself tangled up in, like most of the creatures Grace found had. Nor was there anything obvious that had caused any of those wounds, no shrapnel or the like wedged into him. He was unconscious, but breathing, albeit shallowly - upon closer inspection, it did appear he could breathe from at least one of his mouths as well, so whilst the gills were definitely panicking with him being out of water, it- probably wasn’t going to kill him, not straight away.
The wounds, though? They definitely would.
Grace couldn’t just leave him here like this. It didn’t feel right to call for an ambulance, because this… really didn’t seem to be within the realm of any human medical knowledge. Would a vet be more appropriate? But then- well, he was clearly at least partially human, or passed for such, that honestly felt a little dehumanising.
Plus, how was he supposed to explain any of this? Oh, yeah, I found a half-man, half-fish monstrosity on the beach that needs urgent medical attention? No, no, they’d think he was crazy, or that it was a prank or something, and then they wouldn’t even come and this maybe-mermaid would end up bleeding out on the beach in a very slow and very painful death.
No. Grace had to do something about this himself.
The problem lied, then, in figuring out how to get this guy off of the beach and into Grace’s house. Sure, Grace’s house was probably as close to the beach as one could get without actually being on the sand, but what that really meant was up several flights of stairs to the cliff edge overlooking the beach. He could transport smaller sea creatures in buckets and the like no problem, but…
Well. The mermaid was way bigger than him, honestly bigger than any regular human had any right being. And Grace wasn’t a strong guy, not in the slightest. Not to mention the fact that he was unconscious and actively bleeding and…
“Right,” Grace muttered to himself, clapping his hands together and bending down towards the mermaid. He’d been standing there staring for entirely too long, he just- he needed to do something. “Please don’t wake up before we get you back to my place. This is… gonna suck, probably, and I could really do with you not freaking out.”
The mermaid likely couldn’t hear him, of course, being unconscious and all, and- hey, even if he could hear him, who was to say he could even understand English? But Grace was very used to speaking to sea creatures who definitely couldn’t understand him as if he was having a conversation, so whatever. It wasn’t as if there was anyone else around to judge him, apart from the unconscious, slowly dying mermaid who had far greater things to be worrying about.
Grace tried, first, for some sort of bridal carry, looping one arm under the mermaid’s back and the other under his tail, where his knees would theoretically be had he had legs, but… yeah, nope, not happening. It was hard enough to lift him enough to actually get his arms under, let alone lift him fully off the sand. The mermaid was heavy. And Grace wasn’t exactly known for being particularly strong, nope - he was an academic, he couldn’t even remember the last time he stepped foot in a gym.
It would maybe be possible with another person, perhaps someone with actual muscles, but Grace didn’t exactly have anyone handy. So…
Plan B. If Grace couldn’t pick him up, then his only other option was dragging him across the sand.
Which, whilst a real workout, actually did seem to work. Left a… trail of blood across the beach, which wasn’t exactly comforting, and would be a terrible look for him was anyone to stumble upon the scene, but at least it got the two of them moving, got them just that little bit closer to Grace’s house. The real problem was when they reached the end of the beach, and the start of the stairs leading up to the house.
Grace took a moment to catch his breath, letting go of the mermaid and stretching out his arms and back. Then he looked up at the stairs, then back down at the mermaid, and cringed in sympathy, letting out a heavy exhale.
“I am so sorry for this,” he murmured, bending down again to loop one hand under the mermaid’s arm, and the other… well, just sort of gripping onto the skin of his back, given there wasn’t a second arm to loop under. “Really hope you’re not too mad at me when you wake up. I promise this’ll all be worth it.”
The mermaid didn’t show any signs of stirring, though, not even any discomfort and Grace unceremoniously dragged him backwards up the stairs, wincing each time his tail hit the steps. Though, in all fairness, the poor guy was probably in enough pain as it was, whatever had caused those wounds, however the heck he’d managed to get his whole arm ripped clean off, was probably way worse than whatever scrapes he’d get from the stone steps.
It took Grace a while to reach the top. He had to take several breaks to catch his breath and wipe the sweat from his forehead, almost dropped the mermaid a few times but thankfully managed to grab him before he slid all the way back down to the beach and managed not to have a heart attack himself. But eventually, he made it, with the mermaid still mostly intact.
He was losing a lot of blood. The trail out in the ocean and along the beach now also continued up the stone stairs. Thank God Grace wasn’t particularly squeamish, was able to distance himself from the horrors that lay in his arms to just focus on making sure the poor guy was safe.
Speaking of. He really needed to focus on getting the mermaid inside, and cleaning up those wounds, to whatever degree Grace could. Yeah, Grace was technically a doctor, but unfortunately not the medical kind. It was fine, he’d figure it out, he had to.
He unlocked his door, again dragging the mermaid now through his house and into the laboratory at the back. It was the biggest room in the house, though to be fair that wasn’t exactly difficult with how cramped the rest of it was. He’d tried to make it as bright and colourful as he could with it still being clean and somewhat clinical, walls painted a lovely blue and a huge glass dome for a roof offering plenty of natural sunlight, and a perfect view of the stars come night-time. Various tanks were scattered around the room, like his own personal aquarium, various species of fish and other assorted sea creatures he’d rescued from the beach, on their way to recovery.
In the centre of the room there was a large table of sorts, the edges tilted upwards and a thin sheen of water covering the surface. He’d use it when studying specimens, and… thankfully, seemed just big enough for the mermaid to lay on, maybe with his tail hanging just off the edge. It would do.
Actually getting the mermaid onto the table was also a struggle, even more of a work-out than dragging him here had been, but he managed to figure it out somehow, all but throwing the mermaid’s upper half onto the table before lifting the tail up to follow.
Blood immediately pooled into the water, far too stark against the white table. Grace’s stomach twisted with worry.
It was fine. The mermaid was still breathing, and now Grace could actually do something to help him. He still ended up staring at the mermaid for a good few moments longer before he could convince himself to leave the room in search of medical supplies, really hesitant to leave his side, but he knew the situation would only get worse the longer he waited.
He left the lab, moving as fast as he could to grab a first aid kit from his bathroom, and also send out a real quick email to his students to tell them to not expect him today, citing a vague personal emergency. He- God, he had no idea how he was supposed to explain this to anyone.
He had a mermaid in his house. An honest-to-God mermaid. Holy smokes.
“Focus, Ryland,” he muttered to himself, moving back into the lab like a man on a mission. “Who cares if he’s a mermaid, he’s dying out here.”
In the few minutes that he’d been gone, the mermaid had… shifted positions onto his side, which Grace wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or concerned about. It showed that the mermaid was definitely still alive, at least, but he would be aggravating his wounds, and he still wasn’t completely awake. Perhaps on the road there, though.
He had to be quick with this. He really didn’t want the mermaid waking up half way through Grace tending to his wounds, didn’t want the mermaid to freak out and make things any worse. He very gently, very carefully guided the mermaid back onto his back, moving first to clean, disinfect, and bandage up the hole where his arm clearly used to be. That seemed to be the main source of the blood leaking out, the largest patch of red right near that shoulder, so- yeah, seemed to be the main priority.
It was a little awkward, to be fair, with the way the mermaid was positioned, but Grace did get there in the end. Again, it would have to do for now - maybe once the mermaid woke up and if they could speak to one another, he could do something a little better with the mermaid’s help.
The gashes across his stomach and tail weren’t quite as bad as Grace had initially thought, once he cleaned them up and got to dressing them, certainly not as bad at what used to be his arm anyway. They were fairly surface level, not quite as deep as Grace had been dreading, the blood oozing out of them had just made them look worse - so that was good, gave him a little more hope. The only super concerning thing to Grace was the pretty sizable patch of missing scales around the gash on his tail, but- well, it definitely could’ve been worse.
Once the mermaid was all nice and bandaged up, Grace drained the bloodied water from the table, scrubbed off any excess blood staining it, then refilled with some fresh salt-water, enough that it just about covered the mermaid’s gills, which soon sprung back to life.
“Okay,” Grace muttered to himself, stepping back from the table and- finally giving himself a moment to actually breathe. “Problem solved. Now, just… please don’t die on me.” He hadn’t realised, until that point, just exactly how panicked he’d been throughout all of that, how fast his heart had been racing. Now that the mermaid was all patched up, and breathing through both his mouth and his gills, everything would be fine.
He… needed a drink. Vodka would’ve been nice, had it not been, like, half nine in the morning, but he supposed a nice, calming cup of tea or something would do.
Grace was reluctant once more, to actually leave the mermaid’s side, but hey, at this point the only thing he could really do was wait for the guy to wake up, and just- staring at him wasn’t going to achieve that. If anything, it’d probably just drive Grace further into panic, with every second that ticked by one step closer to the steady breathing stopping. No, what Grace needed was to distract himself. And… maybe to clean up the blood now staining his hands, lower arms, and the floors leading from his door to the lab.
He headed into the kitchen, flicking on the kettle and scrubbing his hands clean of blood in the sink. And then washing them again, and again, just to be extra sure. He poured out a cup of tea and stared out the window as he slowly drank it in the smallest of sips, going over the events of that morning again in his mind, now that he had time to really digest it all.
He had a mermaid in his house.
That was… honestly? Actually pretty incredible.
He’d essentially discovered a new species of marine life! That was, like, his entire life's work! And as horrifying as he looked, the mermaid was also kind of fascinating - oh, Grace would give anything for the opportunity to study him, to figure out his biology.
Except- okay. He couldn’t get too ahead of himself. If this mermaid was anything at all like an actual person, he… would have to approach this carefully, couldn’t just start- performing experiments or whatever on the poor thing. No, if it was an intelligent life form, he’d need to at least speak with him first, get permission, and- be okay with it if he said no. Christ, thinking about it, what Grace had essentially done was kidnap him, even if it had been for a good cause. The mermaid would probably want to return to the ocean, once he was all healed up, right?
Yeah. Yeah, Grace needed to offer him that, at the very least. He’d learn whatever he could whilst the mermaid was in recovery, without being invasive if he could help it, and then release him back to his usual life. Maybe he’d manage to scrape up just enough information for a paper on it. His field would think he was absolutely insane, but that wouldn’t exactly be new.
His cup of tea was empty now, far too quickly. He thought about pouring another, but- no, no, he had too much to do - a brief glance out the kitchen door and into the hallway, seeing the blood soaked wooden panels that made up the floor, was enough to remind him of that. He gathered up some cleaning supplies, ready to mop the floor leading from his door to his lab-
-and then heard a loud crash in the laboratory, followed by a string of panicked swears, and Grace immediately started to panic himself.
He dropped the mop, rushing over to the lab as he quickly as he could whilst still trying to be careful not to slip on any blood. The mermaid… wasn’t on the table anymore, Grace noticed straight away. Meaning two things - he was awake, and that crash had likely been him.
Meaning he could have injured himself even further.
For goodness sake.
Grace desperately searched the room, and thankfully, it didn’t take him long to locate the mermaid again. Unfortunately, finding the mermaid did absolutely nothing to calm him down.
He’d somehow managed to pull himself - or maybe just fell off - the table and into the corner of the room, his back up against the wall, tail curled up to his chest, his one arm held out in front of him as if in defence. He looked absolutely terrified - wide, beyond frightened eyes, his body shaking.
“Hey, hey,” Grace said, his voice as gentle as he could make it, as he approached the mermaid, crouching down to his level.
The mermaid flinched, curling further into himself. “Stay the fuck away from me!” he yelled, his voice hoarse, broken, though Grace could tell he was trying to sound threatening. It- almost worked, the way his extra mouth bared his fangs at him, a low growl escaping it.
“Okay, okay, I’m not coming any closer,” Grace assured him, and stuck to his word, halting in his movement. The mermaid understood and spoke English, then. That was good to know. Would certainly make things easier.
“Who are you? Where am I? What- What the fuck do you want?” The mermaid was only sounding more and more distressed with every word that came out of his mouth. It made Grace’s heart hurt - just what exactly had happened to the poor thing?
“Calm down, it’s okay, I’m not here to hurt you,” Grace tried to reassure him, holding his hands up as if to show surrender or peace.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“My name is Grace,” he introduced, still keeping his voice calm, despite how fast his heart was beating. “Dr. Ryland Grace. You’re in my house. I found you washed up on the beach, you were injured, I brought you back here so that you wouldn’t bleed out. That’s all, I promise.”
There was a silence that followed, for a long moment, the mermaid staring at him with wide eyes. Clearly distrustful, and honestly, Grace couldn’t even blame him, but… once the initial shock seemed to wear off, a look of pure exhaustion creeped into his expression. Still afraid, though… maybe not at Grace, exactly.
“Can you… tell me your name?” Grace asked, taking one step closer to the mermaid, this time without him flinching.
He didn’t respond immediately, still just staring at Grace, though eventually, he slowly lowered his arm.
“…Simon.”