#but none the less I am the younger brother of an eater of human flesh!'

[orangerosebush]

From: Lu Xun: Selected Works (1956), Volume I, trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang.

[haku23]

A Fish By Any Other Name Chapter 6/?

Rating: G (the eye of mer-sex has passed, and focuses now on someone else) Wordcount:1,360 Warnings: none? I think Notes: help this sad old man and his fish bf

Ao3 link is in my sidebar, or read it under the cut!

“Here,” he says and tosses a fish. The merman catches it, and looks from the fish to Baze.

“A fish?”

“I thought you might be hungry.”

He’s never seen the merman eat, so it’s not an entirely selfless gift but then he doesn’t think the rock was either. His teeth are sharp, but more like a shark’s than an eel’s; if he ever decides to bite Baze it might take more force than just a nibble to slice him up.

“You should keep your fish, you need them to sell to the other humans, don’t you?” he asks, still looking from the fish to Baze as though trying to parse some hidden information. His tail flaps against the deck as Baze crosses the deck and takes a seat, legs crossed as usual. He should get a cushion if he’s going to make more of a habit of it.  

“One fish isn’t going to bankrupt me. Take it.”

“I didn’t give you that rock because I wanted something in return,” he says. His eyes narrow and Baze shakes his head.

“I’m not that cheap that I’d give you a fish in return for that.”

“You aren’t? Your crew, they always say ‘Captain is so cheap’ when you’re up in your cabin.”

Maybe the merman can’t cut him up easily with his teeth, but his words on the other hand... Baze grunts, “they just want more money.”

“I’ll talk to them next time they say it,” the merman says with a grin.

“How many times do I have to tell you?”

The merman laughs, and Baze watches him. Watches the way his eyes close and his gills flap with every exhale. He’s a picture of bliss in that moment; Baze has to avert his eyes for a moment just to keep the memory of the other night (among other things) from rising. It’s too early to be thinking like that.

“If you told them we wouldn’t have to hide, I could come up whenever you wanted.”

“You’d never come up.”

The merman laughs again, and Baze can’t help but join him-he feels transparent when he’s talking to him, like he doesn’t have to sugar-coat anything because the merman sees through his words to the heart of their meaning. He feels understood. It’s a nice feeling.

He slams the still wriggling fish against the deck and Baze jumps at the sudden sound, “it was suffering.”

“Probably.”

“It was, I can tell,” the merman says. He stares at Baze for a moment, and then looks away and bites into the fish. It’s brutal, his lips turning red with the fish’s blood, each bite punctuated by the cracking of bones and tearing of flesh. But he can’t look away. He sits and keeps watching.

“You eat the bones?” he asks, and the merman looks up.

His first reply is unintelligible by virtue of the merman’s mouth being full, and then he swallows and tries again, “no, I’d choke. You know as far as fish goes, I do prefer Wrasse.”

“Oh, you do, do you?”

The merman shrieks with laughter-different than his usual tone-and flops sideways, landing with his head on Baze’s lap. He takes another bite of the fish and holds it up by the tail, “would you like some? I can share.”

“No, only idiots eat fish straight from the ocean.”

“Well it’s not my fault your human body can’t handle fresh food.”

His human body also can’t tear through an entire fish, but he doesn’t say that or the merman might get strange ideas on how he could help. He watches the merman continue to eat, his mouth dry like. He takes a breath and tries to expel that thought-he’s not a teenager, and there’s nothing hot about a fish eating a fish. But the merman does sound like he enjoys it, and Baze isn’t exactly a popular date around town. If the merman notices him watching he doesn’t say anything, but he makes short work of the fish regardless then tosses the remainder over the side of the boat.

“You’re a messy eater.”

“I am?”

He must be drunk, he feels bold enough to swipe his thumb across the merman’s mouth, “you’ve got blood all over you.”

“Oh, that. Well, you didn’t give me any of those-what are they called? The things you cut things with?”

“Knife?”

“You didn’t give me a knife.”

“I wasn’t aware merpeople used utensils,” he says, deadpan, and the merman laughs. He laughs less when Baze shrugs off his jacket and starts to use it to wipe his face with the addition of some saliva.

“I can clean myself!”

“Stop moving.”

“You spit on me!”

“Well I don’t have any water.”

The merman settles, and Baze lets his jacket drop. “How come you didn’t let me touch you the other night?”

“What?”

“I would have, you know, I’m not a selfish lover,” he taps on Baze’s knee and moves his finger with every tap until it’s on Baze’s inner thigh, “I wouldn’t cut you or anything.”

“It’s not about you.”

“What is it about? You always do that,” the pout is clear in his voice, and Baze wonders at whether all merpeople are prone to that behaviour or if it’s just this one.

“Do what?”

“Be mysterious. You can talk to me you know. It’s not like I have anyone to tell your secrets.”

He shrugs, “you never talk to me.”

“Yes I do.”

“You don’t have anyone else?” he asks. The merman stops tapping.

“Some of you humans can be destructive.”

“Yeah.”

They’re quiet, but neither feels the need to fill the silence. He realizes at once; the fish wasn’t the only one suffering.

--

“Come on, Baze, we know you’re talking to it,” the other man says. He grins and leans forward, his hand wrapped loosely around his beer, “I’m sure you can tell it to give us a little bit of help too.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He doesn’t pause long, just enough to give his response before he tries to head further into the bar. It smells like cigarettes and booze; not exactly a surprise there.

“Don’t be like that, you should help your brothers out; don’t hog the luck for yourself.”

He doesn’t dignify it with a response. He wants to tell them the merman isn’t lucky, that he’s mostly just a fish-finned annoyance but even that doesn’t feel right. He finds a booth far enough away from the rest that he probably won’t have to yell to speak. Kaya is late; but then she’s not exactly known for her punctuality, especially on work nights.

When she arrives they split up for a moment for him to get their drinks and then he settles back in place.

“So, what’s up?” she asks. She has a smudge across her cheek of something that she hasn’t bothered to clean off, and she still wears her stained overalls from the job site.

“You’re right,” he says and takes a sip of his drink.

She looks at him for a minute and he shakes his head, “about everything.”

“You’re ready to call it quits? Now?”

“I’m not getting any younger.”

“No, but-Baze this isn’t because of what happened last month, is it?” her face is creased in concern and he shrugs.

“I’ve got money saved, no kids, no wife.”

“You could have both of those things; it’s not too late, you know,” she says, and she’s right about that too but.

“It’s not for me. Either of them.”

She looks at him, really looks at him in the low light of the bar and he wishes that the place were darker. She smiles, “what about a husband then?”

It’s not a big deal, and she says it like it isn’t; she’s not like his parents who until the day they died were trying to set him up with girls. She’s a modern woman-there was never any doubt that she would accept it, or that Kili will too, but.

He takes a drink and she pats his hand, “you’re lucky, I hear beards are in style now.”

"It's not a beard," he says, "it's a goatee."