this part is dedicated to
danacias because she is a horrible ho who is LEAVING ME FOR A WEEK TO GO TO HAWAII, TOTALLY LAME i hope she drowns and gets saved by mermaid!Tazer. or at least like, gets horrible sunburns that i can make fun of later.
Part
1 He wakes to the sensation of a mouth over his. It’s only natural to open his own, to lick his way inside-
The punch that comes next feels like déjà-vu. Patrick curls onto his side, groaning, “God, would you quit it?”
“No, you quit it,” a gruff voice comes above him. “Stop going into the lake. You suck at it.”
Patrick splays back onto the sand and blinks water off his eyelashes, squinting against the sun, which-too bright. He cranes his head at an awkward angle, but it gets him under a shadow so he can see properly:
Yep, it’s the mermaid from yesterday. The punch was pretty signature, but staring into those beady black eyes is extra confirmation.
“I knew it,” Patrick says triumphantly. “I knew I you were real.”
With a panicked expression, the mermaid suddenly turns around and pushes for the water. But Patrick’s anticipating it. Lunges forward with a two-armed grab to whatever he can latch onto.
“What are you-“ the mermaid starts, sounding shocked. “Oh my god, get off my tail.”
A couple hard thrashes nearly buck him off, but Patrick’s isn’t the leading scorer for the London Knights and number one draft pick for the NH-fucking-L and like, king of the universe for nothing. “Stop fighting it, I wanna talk to you. This is so cool. I have a mermaid friend.”
“I’ve told you, you stupid piece of shit. I’m not a mermaid. So get off of me-“
With an exceptionally hard lash, the mermaid-merman?-whips Patrick off and sends him skidding into the sand on his ass.
“Wait!” Patrick calls, but it’s too late. With a subtle dive into the shimmering lake, the merman is gone.
Patrick stands up, brushing wet sand off his ass, his legs. Looking out over the quietly lapping water, he could almost have made the whole thing up. Except he was just holding the dude’s tail, knows the feeling of it, strong and powerful and covered in cool, smooth scales.
Has half a mind to storm right back into the water, but doesn’t trust the merman to save him while he’s still obviously fuming.
Patrick will just have to try again tomorrow.
-----
At roughly the same time the next morning, Tazer finds the human idiot drowning in the corridor between his bedcave and the bathcave.
Again.
“Putain,” he mutters.
Maman pokes her head out, coral curlers still in her hair.
“Maybe natural selection is trying to tell us something,” she says. “But do what you want, cheri. Just makes sure you take him away from the kelp bed if you’re going to leave the body underwater.”
Irritation flares up, hot and unexpected. “I’m gonna take him up to the surface,” Tazer says stiffly.
Maman waves him off, leaves Tazer to it. So he throws the human over his shoulder again and takes the same route up as before. Well, at least he’s getting a workout from all this schlepping.
Unfortunately, when Tazer reaches the surface, there are humans on the beach. Just a few, but enough to make it impossible for him to get onshore without being noticed. Shit.
Tazer manhandles the human onto his back, keeping them afloat in the water as he checks for a pulse. Still there, but the kid isn’t breathing.
Double shit. Head swiveling, Tazer scans the lake for someplace for them to go. There are docks floating in the water and tiny outcroppings of rock littering the surface of the lake, but they’re all way too visible. Tazer can’t risk being seen. But then he remembers his small, tucked-away cove where he goes to meditate sometimes, or jerk off, when he’s in the mood.
It’s just-that’s his spot. He’s never taken anyone there, much less some dipshit human.
But then said human twitches in a worrying, full-body thrash, and it isn’t even a question anymore. The cove is just a few miles south of here. If he hurries…
-----
“My hero,” Patrick says, coughing wetly. Above him, the merman has the back of his hand pressed to his lips, looking at him with a strange expression. Or maybe that’s just his face.
Then again, Pat vaguely recalls trying to stick his tongue in the merman’s mouth again. Whatever; it’s just instinct. Patrick’s a stud like that.
“Why do you keep doing this?” the merman eventually asks in a flat voice. “You have a death wish or something?”
“Nah, I just like swimming,” Patrick shrugs, groaning a bit as he props himself up on his elbows. The merman’s sending him a dubious look, which goads Pat into adding, “Besides, I can probably get a shit-ton of money by selling a story about mermaids to the media.”
The look of horror that follows is priceless. Patrick throws his head back and laughs. Jesus, the guy’s easy to wind up.
“I’m kidding, you know,” he relents as he sits all the way up, elbows on his knees. That’s when he notices they’re not on the beach. It’s dark inside, like a cave or something, though not that far in because the sun is still bright behind the merman’s silhouette. The wet, grey sand under Patrick’s ass is packed to a hard surface, and kind of rocky. “Dude, where are we?”
The merman’s face goes shifty as he lightly slaps his tail into the puddle of water behind him. Then again, idly, like he’s thinking.
“We’re still on the lake,” he finally says.
“So what is this, your lair? Or like, a love dungeon. Dude, you’re about to tap this, aren’t you? Unless…hey, do fish have dicks?”
Looking offended, the merman scoffs, “We’re not fish, fuckwit. And of course I have a dick.”
Patrick looks him up and down, from his broad shoulders to his tapered waist, where skin blends seamlessly into scales, flaring out into a thick, strong-looking tail that gleams blue and green and pearly in the sun.
The merman covers his nipples with one arm, the other hand keeping himself upright. “Stop leering you perv.”
Patrick snaps back to the merman’s face, which has gone a little blotchy and pink. “I don’t see a dick.”
“Jesus Christ-why the fuck would you be able to see my dick?”
Patrick raises an eyebrow. “What it like, retracts and stuff? Holy shit, that’s weird.”
The merman’s face goes all pinched, like he’s too good for this conversation. Whatever. But when he tosses a wistful look at the water behind him so Patrick quickly adds, “I mean, my dick is always hanging out.”
The look of disgust isn’t exactly what he was going for, but at least he’s got the merman’s attention back on him. “I mean, it’s not just me,” Patrick rambles. “All guys hang out. Like, human guys. I mean, our dicks get bigger and stuff when we’re turned on, and I know some dudes have foreskin, which is this thing that-“
“Oh my god, shut up,” the merman says, sounding ill.
Patrick laughs, hard and bright because the look on his face-Jesus Christ, that shit is funny. He could do this all day.
The merman rolls his eyes (he’s got an attitude problem, for sure) and digs his fluke into the sand, dragging himself backwards as he pushes away from Pat.
“Wait,” Patrick says, scrambling to his knees. “You’re going? How am I supposed to get back?”
“Follow the beach three miles that way,” the merman says, pointing as he lowers himself into the water.
“But how will I-“ Patrick stops himself, feeling stupid before deciding this whole situation is pretty stupid and like, possibly a vast hallucination and it’s actually the first weekend of the summer again and he’s still in Gagsy’s bathtub, so what has he got to lose? “How will I find you again?” Patrick blurts.
That makes the merman pause, face going blank. His dark head bobs above the surface, moving further and further out.
“Hey, mermaid! I’m talking to you-“
“It’s Tazer,” the merman snaps, glaring across the water with the force of a thousand suns.
Well, shit. Mermaid’s got a name, and it’s even more awesome than Patrick would’ve guessed. Tazer. That is so cool.
“Hey Tazer,” Patrick grins, kneeing forward until sand gives way to water in a steep shelf. “I’ll be here all summer. My house is like, twenty minutes from the beach-“
“I don’t care,” he snaps, but he’s still there, treading water.
“-and I can be here tomorrow if you want to like, hang out. I’ll bring beer.”
“I’m not saving you again if you get drunk and fall in the water, retard,” Tazer shouts, and it’s a little hard to hear him because he’s floating away.
“My name’s not ‘retard’, it’s Pat!” he yells, because he doesn’t want Tazer to just like, go back to his underwater sandcastle and forget him completely. “Patrick Kane!”
Tazer is far away enough now that Pat can’t be entirely sure, but he thinks he’s being flipped the bird. The sight fills Patrick with warmth.
But then, with a tiny splash, Tazer flicks out of view and Patrick realizes he has to trudge home three miles in the hot sand, which sucks because Pat’s still got a week before training starts up and was planning on using the time to be as lazy and/or sloshed as physically possible.
Maybe next time Tazer can give him a piggyback ride.
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