#so y'all better be nice and thank me for changing my mind 🤣

[theflyingfeeling]

You said you're still doing the AU's. So Fantasy underwater like Mermaids and such with Niko/Joonas?

Ooh, lovely! And I'm gonna go ahead and assume you want both of them to be mermen? Because otherwise I'd be very tempted to write THE most tragic "human falls in love for a merman" summary you've EVER had the misfortune to read, like, H. C. Andersen who?? ..But I shan't 😇

Merman!Niko is obsessed with the shipreck he discovered the other day. He goes there on a daily basis and spends hours exploring it, often dragging one of his friends along, especially if the currents are strong (it's easier to swim together, while holding hands of course 🥰)

Aleksi, for instance, is always happy to go with him, as he loves discovering new thingamabobs to use as instruments in his one-man band. Joel is his biggest fan and so sweet for him that he's always down to going with Niko in Aleksi's stead whenever he can't go himself and bring him new gadgets and gizmos aplenty (Aleksi has a condition in his fin and can't swim long distances for too many days in a row) 🧜‍♂️

Tommi doesn't care about the shipwreck but offers to stand in guard for sharks so that Niko can adventure inside the ship in peace [insert a comedic scene where Niko is singing to himself, focused on his shipwreck investigations, while Tommi is wrestling a tiger shark outside the ship] 🦈

Olli is not interested in the ship either, as much as he is in the pearl oysters that inhabit it. He knows it's a shot in the dark, but one day he hopes he'll have enough pearls to make a bracelet and give it to a certain someone as a symbol of his undying love 🦪

And then there's Joonas, whose only goal on the trips to the shipwreck is to make Niko happy 🥺 He finds it impossibly endearing how excited Niko gets whenever he discovers something new or finds another piece of the broken handmirror he thinks looks exceptionally beautiful

"Do you know what else is exceptionally beautiful?" Joonas asks him

"What?"

"You," Joonas says and kisses Niko on the cheek 🥺

Niko blushes, because they're not officially dating yet, but they truly have become better friends during the long, lazy swims back to the nautical city of..Ouluntis? 😅

Joonas could spend days just observing Niko as he swims around the shipwreck, already knowing it as well as he knows his own maritime home. Sometimes Joonas finds something too and tends to make fun out of it, such as pushing his head through the rotten canvas still attached to a fancy-looking picture frame and making silly faces. Niko rolls his eyes but laughs, that's how fond of this idiot he is 💕

Niko likes to imagine stories about life on that ship when it was still stailing afloat, and Joonas always listens to every word with utmost care. His favourite is the one about a princess and a streetrat who fall in love against all odds. He often asks Niko to repeat that story, and Niko happily grants his wish, only Joonas can't help but wonder why Niko becomes sad all of a sudden every time right before he gets to the ending which Joonas is yet to hear. Joonas is curious to know what happens in the end, for it to make Niko so melancholy.. 🚢

Even treasure hunting can be strenuous work sometimes, so when Niko gets bored of his shipwreck studies, Joonas likes to entertain him by initiating silly roleplays. Niko loves the one where Joonas is an unsuspecting captain of the ship, humming as he pretends to steer it by the rudder that is still in surprisingly good condition, and Niko is a siren that lures the poor mariner to certain doom. It is during that game that they share their very first kiss 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

..After which the shipwreck becomes not only a place for Niko's investigations but also their making-out hide-out. Their friends would never let them hear the end of it if they knew about them, after so many years of insisting they're just friends

Over ther years, the shipwreck keeps decaying gradually, much to Niko's misery, but they still swim there on their anniversary each year 💖