Life these days was pretty good. His job was better than most jobs: writing copy and jingles and arguing with Justin about layouts and with Lance about how much the client was going to have to pay was way more fun than most other ways to earn money that he could think of, and his side gig, as DJ in a local club once a week, was even more fun and was slowly getting him a name. Sundays, he'd go fishing with Nick, who lived on his own boat and liked the company. There was nobody permanent in his bed but plenty of willing occasionals including the aforementioned, he had a decent apartment and enough money to get what he needed and what he wanted. Yeah, life these days was good.
It all changed, the day he fished a mermaid.
*
"Aren't they supposed to have, you know?" Nick pantomimed giant watermelons.
"Flotation devices?" Chris looked at his mermaid dubiously. There were no breasts, not watermelons, not oranges, not fried eggs, but he couldn't see anything actually wrong with what was there. Everything was very, very right. Elbow-length sun-streaked brown hair with green strands that turned out to be seaweed. Big sea-colored eyes. They were filled with rage, right now, but he couldn't exactly fault the mer, er, person for that. Chris would probably be pissed, too, if someone stuck a hook in his ear and hoiked him out of his natural environment. So that was fine. Really, very fine indeed. Everything was fine. Except for the tail. The tail, huge, scaly, silver-blue tail was a problem.
Nick yelped in fright as the tail lashed across the deck and almost swept him off his feet. The mer—person gave a snarl of satisfaction and the tail lashed back towards Chris, who retreated prudently. He was reflexively clutching the fishing rod which had set this all in motion, and the hook was still entirely tangled amidst that glorious rippling hair. Chris flinched inwardly. It made him feel queasy just to think of it, and that one glimpse of the torn lobe and the dark blood—
It sounded like the merman was swearing at them.
Chris took a deep breath, and knelt next to the furious merman. Ignoring Nick's babbling, he reached one hand, very slowly, towards that wounded ear.
The merman growled, literally growled, and grabbed his wrist. Shit, he was strong!
"I just wanna help," Chris said, hoping his voice didn't shake. His insides felt pretty shaky.
The merman stared implacably back.
"Please? That's gotta hurt," Chris said. "Let me take it out. It's really tangled, and you can't see...."
The merman's beautiful eyes were still hostile and his grip didn't loosen.
"Nick," Chris said, evenly, "get the cutters. Just do it."
There was grumbling from the direction of tall and blond, but Chris felt a tap at his left hand, and grasped the cutters. That hook was barbed. It has left a nasty wound going in, no way was the barb going to come out again.
He started to explain, but saw only blank incomprehension on the merman's face, and his careful explanation turned into crooning, trying to reassure this creature as though he were one of Chris's kid sisters waiting for her shots. He found himself singing a lullaby, and weirdly, that seemed to be getting through. The merman's face softened from hostility to interest. He was definitely listening. Did mer people like music?
Chris kept singing. He found he'd embarked on a song without really knowing the words, so he made them up, go to sleep my mermaid, close your big blue eyes, hook right through your ear now, let me make it better and don't cry. He felt a bit stupid, and he was pretty sure Nick was rolling his eyes and there was definitely muttering, but the merman was keeping still except for the occasional wince, and the pressure of the cutters on the heavy hook had to hurt. He kept singing. He kept singing until he'd managed to snap the hook and draw the barbed end carefully through that poor ear. It was still tangled in the merman's hair, but at least that wasn't going to be painful. Well. Not too painful. Might need scissors.
Chris stopped singing, and the merman made a disgruntled noise.
"Er," Chris said. "It's okay now. You can, um." He flapped vaguely towards the ocean.
The merman looked at him with disapproval, and voiced a note. Clear, strong, and about a fifth below what he'd been singing. Eyebrows were raised. The merman's expression was... imperious, now, and Chris couldn't quite believe he'd thought that, because seriously, except it really was.
"Okay, then," he muttered, and since the first song that came to mind was You've Got A Friend, he sang that. And the mermaid—merman—harmonized. Towards the bow, Nick shook his head and made rude gestures. Chris ignored him thoroughly, and sang.
It was weirdly exhilarating, Chris found, but as they sang he couldn't help noticing the hole in the merman's ear, and the blood still seeping out into his hair.
"Maybe you should go to the hospital," he murmured.
Nick snorted. "Yeah, that's gonna go well."
Oh, yes. Tail. "Ah, uh. Lemme get the first aid—" As he scrambled to his feet, the merman's hand shot out and gripped him very firmly by the arm.
"Sing!"
Mermaids could speak? Okay, no reason why they shouldn't be able to speak, or sing, either, he'd seen Arial, some of his kid sisters had been through a Little Mermaid phase before they wised up and got goth. "Look, I need to put some antiseptic on that ear, I'll be right back," he said.
"Sing!"
"Of all the mermaids in the sea I had to pick the high maintenance one," he grumbled, secretly gratified. The merman looked at him cynically, so Chris hurried into a loud and lively song and, once the merman started singing along, eased his arm out of that firm grasp and sneaked towards the cabin. He kept singing as he opened the locker and the first aid box, along with several plastic plates and a teakettle, fell out. Okay.
Provided he kept singing, the merman graciously permitted Chris to swab his torn ear, clean it, and dab at it from the elderly tube of antiseptic cream. Even the cleansing sting didn't halt the merman's harmony, but Chris had a hard time remembering the words as he dealt with the damage his hook had done. He kept going, though, because it seemed like it was helping the merman to deal. And... it felt good, singing with that beautiful voice singing with him.
They sang and sang, sad songs and happy songs, slow songs, fast songs, anything that came into Chris's head, and the merman either knew them already—what, maybe he'd heard them played on the radios of the boats that went bay?—or he understood where the melodies were going and just found a place to harmonize. It was amazing.
"We're gonna have to get back to the dock," Nick said, and Chris was amazed to realize that the sun was so low to the horizon. And his throat was beginning to feel it.
"Good singing," said the merman. To Chris's astonishment, the merman leaned forward, kissed him on the mouth, and with a flick of his tremendous tail, he was overboard and under the water, leaving Chris stunned, splashed, and bereft.
*
One day, Chris thought, one day he would find he'd unpacked every last box. Probably about four years from now. How did he get so much Stuff? But he looked around his shiny new home—actually his kinda drab new home, he was going to have to do some painting. Everything here was beige. Like it had been decorated by Lance. Heh. He must drop that into the conversation next time he met up with the guys. Lance would be so ticked.
The doorbell sounded. He wasn't sorry to put down the box—sheet music, and heavy—and open his very own front door.
"Uh," he said, startled. He wouldn't have been surprised to find a UPS guy or a mailman or even a friendly neighbour bearing cookies, but a tall, slender man in an immaculate suit and tie, and mirrored sunglasses? Maybe he came to the wrong house?
Somehow, the stranger was walking past him and... Chris scurried back into his box-littered living room, where already the stranger—the oddly familiar stranger, but why?—was looking disapprovingly at the mess. The stranger's hair was long and tied back into a neat and very unexpected ponytail.
"Are you sure you're in the right place?" Chris said. "I'm Chris Kirkpatrick, I just moved in." He held out his hand, and the stranger looked at it thoughtfully, then, as Chris was about to retract, grasped it.
"You can call me JC," said the stranger, and walked out through the wide-flung doors onto the terrace towards Chris's pool.
"So, uh, JC, can I just ask—why are you here?" JC did not answer. Chris decided that having an incredibly good-looking stranger invade his new home was not the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him, probably not even the weirdest thing that happened this week, after that thing with AJ and the watermelon, and really—really amazingly good-looking stranger, he thought, who was most likely just in the wrong place but what the hell. "You wanna swim? I mean, uh. There are some spare trunks..."
JC strode towards the pool, knelt beside it, and dipped one elegant hand into the water. He sniffed his wet hand and recoiled in disgust, then dried his hand on those immaculate gray trousers. "Revolting," he said. "Nasty chemicals. Needs to be salt water."
"Er, it's hygienic—" Chris began, though in truth he wasn't entirely sure what went into his pool or why. He'd just accepted that that was what pools were all about.
"If I am here," JC stated, "water must be salt water. And never invite people to swim with me." He obviously saw Chris's bafflement, and a little smirk appeared on his lips. "Tail," he said. "Wet, then tail."
Ah.
There were about a thousand thoughts jostling for position in Chris's head now, and he couldn't figure out how to say any of them, but it turned out not to be necessary. JC's smirk softened into an actual smile, which wow, and then he walked over and kissed Chris, and all the questions kinda melted out of Chris's head and by the time the kiss ended—too soon, though he did need to breathe—he didn't feel the need to ask any of them any more.
"Tomorrow," Chris said, "I will find out how to get the pool filled with salt water."
JC smiled and took off the sunglasses, and the expression in his sea-colored eyes made Chris's knees go weak. "Whatever will we do until then?"
"Uh... sing?"
"Later," said JC, and that was just fine with Chris.