Catch of the Day - Part Two of Five
Jul. 12th, 2011 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: R
Warnings: merman AU - but no merman sex here, I swear
Summary: Part Two of Five for a fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
Hannibal is a rugged angler whose catch of the day is a merman, Face. There is an instant attraction, but Face is terrified at first that Hannibal is going to kill him. He grows legs, does not grow legs, whatev.
Right as Hannibal is beginning to make progress with Face, big bad Lynch or Pike gets news of Hannibal’s discovery and tries to steal Face away for experimentation purposes. The more angst the better :D
Second prompt (I’m new to the fandom) I hope its okay! *Hides*
The longer the merman stays with Hannibal, the more the fisherman realizes he doesn’t want Face to leave. Ever. And he’s beginning to suspect that Face many share some of those same feelings for him...
“She’s called a humpback!” Face said triumphantly as they were leaving, walking very, very slowly down the street to the little deli. BA had left a note at the office. Need you to come by and talk about financial stuff, Hannibal. Which the fisherman knew could not, in any way, be good. But the kid’s sheer excitement right then was overpowering anything else. “Murdock said she was a humpback! A humpback! I’ve never heard of them. From the... Pa...Pa... what ocean is it?”
“The Pacific, kid,” Hannibal answered automatically, thinking about that image from the documentary again. “Humpbacks are native to the Pacific Ocean.”
“Have you ever seen one? What are they like?”
“Only on TV,” the fisherman said, and sensing the kid’s disappointment, added, “we could check the Internet tonight. My computer’s slow as shit, but we could probably find you some video...”
The merman’s eyes sparkled, that genuine, eager little smile breaking out of its hiding place again. “Are there more whales there? Than the ones here? Murdock said the Pacific was way, way bigger than...”
And why, Hannibal wondered, would Murdock bother explaining something like that to a college kid? Too many unanswered questions at the moment and it was all starting to hurt his head. A lot. So he changed the subject. “So, uh, what did the doc say about your legs?”
Face sobered a bit. “Yeah, those damn things...”
“Are you healing okay?”
“He said I was healing faster than he’d expect. Said I could switch medications and...” he dug in the pocket of his borrowed sweats, and Hannibal made a mental note to take the kid shopping for some clothes that would fit him properly. “Here,” he said, and pulled out a folded, slightly crumpled piece of perscription paper. “I can’t...”
“Right,” Hannibal said, stopping right at the edge of the steps for the diner, and unfolded the paper, expecting to find a perscription or something. Instead, the note read:
We need to talk about your catch sometime. -HM
He stuffed it back in his pocket and head the door for Face, watching the kid clump up the two little steps, hurting again, and wished it wouldn’t look so goddamn bad for him to reach out and pull the merman up to him. “It’s nothing, kid. What else did he tell you?”
Face nodded. “That it doesn’t look like anything’s hurt as bad as he thought at first, so it might be a...whatever he called it.”
Amy was already smiling as the merman waited for Hannibal, playing absently with a lock of hair as she leaned over the counter by the cash register. And Face, to Hannibal’s dismay, was smiling back, sort of taking her in.
She blushed a little. “So, you must be that Templeton Peck we’ve heard so much about?”
The merman didn’t miss a beat, looking right over her shoulder and dragging his gaze, those sweet blue eyes, back down over her. “Please, everybody calls me Face.”
“I bet they do,” she replied with a little giggle, and the fisherman cleared his throat, loud and unsubtle. It did the trick, though. She pushed up, fingers drumming but paying attention to something other than the merman’s delicious physique. “Hey, Hannibal. You boys here for lunch?”
“Couple of lobster rolls, Amy. Coffee, water...kid, you want anything else?” Hannibal grunted, trying to play this like it was every day he had some hot college student from New York mooching room and board off him.
Face shook his head, clearly not knowing what else he could ask for but spinning it otherwise. “Naw, Hannibal, that sounds good to me.”
He counted off a few bills as Amy grabbed the drinks, telling him, like she always did, that the food would be up in a few minutes and that there was a booth in the back they could use.
Good enough.
Drinks in hand, Hannibal was aware of some of the glances they were getting, as he herded the kid back to a booth along the long counter, and indicated for Face to sit next to him.
He tried to tell himself his seating arrangement was only because they were waiting for BA.
Only that.
Not because of how damn warm the merman’s body was, how close, next to his...
“Did he say how long?” he asked, taking the salt shaker away from Face, who was trying to pour some in his water. He’d thrown up the last time he’d tried it, and that experience, explaining the finer points of the human digestive system to a merman hunched over the toilet, was not one he felt like repeating right now. “How long you’re going to need to heal up?”
Face looked longingly at the salt shaker, but didn’t try to go for it again. “Maybe... maybe six weeks, he said. So that’s...”
“...forty-two days,” Hannibal finished for him, and sipped at his coffee. “Fuck, that’s no time at all.”
The merman smiled a bit, and started to say something, and then BA was there, sliding into the booth opposite, and there was nothing more to be said about that.
“Hannibal, man, good to see you,” the big black man said warmly, nodding to him across the table. And his dark eyes turned to Face. “Lord, is this...”
“Face,” the merman said, holding out his hand in greeting, just like Hannibal taught him to do. Perfect. Like he’s been doing it his whole life. “I think we met at the docks the other night.”
BA started laughing at that, and then lunch showed up, and the two older men started talking as Face’s eyes rolled up in his head at the first bite of warm, creamy sandwich.
But the news, as BA laid it out for the fisherman, wasn’t good. The wholesale lobster market was dipping a bit, and Hannibal hadn’t nearly been fishing at quota. Gas prices were going up. Taxes were going up again this year. They had some pretty heavy competition from some of the other fishing grounds in the state.
“You may have a problem, Hannibal,” the black man said, concluding. “You fishin’ around, what, three hundred pots a day?”
“Four hundred, there about,” Hannibal said, picking at his untouched meal, trying to think. BA had quoted a lot of figures, big numbers that the fisherman knew meant trouble, but how much yet, he wasn’t sure.
“You need to be doin’ prolly twice the volume you at now, Hannibal,” BA said, casting a glance over at where Face had demolished his sandwich, grinning happily as he downed the last bite. He had mayonnaise all over his chin, though, the fisherman noticed. Hannibal leaned over him with a sigh, reaching for the napkin dispenser at the end of the booth, bringing his thigh tight against the kid’s.
He tried not to think about that.
“Twice, BA?” he asked, handing the kid a napkin, getting a sheepish little shoulder hunch in return. “Twice I can’t do. Not alone, and if I hire somebody...”
“You back where you started,” BA nods back. “Yeah, I know... but I jus’ don’t know if you’ve got enough volume with me now to get you through the summer later, Hannibal. You should probably start fishing more this month, make your eight hundred pots a day and build yourself a bit more of a cushion,” he held his big hands out wide. “I got no idea what your finances are like. Jus’ wanted to give you a heads-up from a friend. Don’t wanna see you get hurt. Not after all you done for Murdock and me...”
“Oh, isn’t that sweet? The town fag asking the out-of-town fag for business advice. Touching. Really. How you two doing today?”
Hannibal groaned internally, and exchanged a little eye roll with BA as he looked up. “Vance,” the big black man grunted. “What the fuck you want?”
The marine researcher smiled down at them, and that warmth against Hannibal’s own leg jerked a bit. The fisherman frowned, turning to see if the merman was okay, but Face was smiling like nothing at all was wrong. Leaning back against the wall, making it look casual, but that jerk...that’d been fear. And he was as far away from Buress as he could get. Not that it was visible now. Proper conman, Hannibal thought, and reminded himself to figure out just what the hell had happened to this kid in the past.
“Oh, you know, BA. Coffee,” and he brandished his thermos cup, the one with the Starbucks logo on the side. Face’s head tilted a little bit. “On my way into the office. And look who's here. Just my luck, huh? Get to meet the new famous man in town.”
BA grunted, disinterested as always. “Gonna go stick some more shit in formaldehyde or whatever the fuck?”
“Oh, you’d be amazed what kind of stuff we’re doing up at the labs. Far past your level, BA,” Buress sniffed arrogantly, and patted Hannibal on the shoulder. “And how are we doing today, Hannibal? This your lost diver we’ve heard so much about?”
“Face,” the kid supplied, friendly and open, like he didn’t have a care in the world. “And yeah, I’m staying at Hannibal’s place while I heal up.”
“Free diving? This time of year?” Buress asked, something sharply interested underneath his laconic tones. “That’s some balls, kid.”
Face shrugged. “I had a wet suit. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Still, shitty waters for it. Low visibility, nothing much to see down there...”
“The ocean’s always interesting, doc,” the kid replied, and under the table, Hannibal felt a foot bump against his. Something about that little gesture rushed through him - the merman might not trust him fully, but Face obviously felt some measure of safe with him. And would it be too much to ask that he...
“So, what were you after out there? The sound can be a dangerous place for a college kid alone...”
Face grinned disarmingly, and stretched an arm around the back of the booth. “Your concern’s touching, Dr. Buress, but I did have a life before NYU,” he lied smoothly, sticking to the story that he and Hannibal had worked out together over the last few days. He’d grilled the merman on it until he knew it inside and out.
This’ll be fun!, the kid had said.
And now, faced with it, he was doing so, so well.
Hannibal felt an absolutely irrational burst of pride. Followed by a desire to break this asshole's kneecaps.
“NYU, huh? I did my undergrad work there. Marine biology.”
Fuck, Hannibal groaned to himself. How did he not know that? How did he not realize this?
“Hey, me too,” Face said with a smile, and it was all the fisherman could do to jump on him to keep him from finishing that. Only thing the kid knew anything about was marine biology. That’s what they’d agreed he was studying. But bringing that up right now...
“Awesome,” Buress said with an insincere little chuckle. “What dorm are you living in?”
“No dorms. Got a room with a friend.”
Buress shot Hannibal a glance, the older man trying to keep his face as blank as possible. “Seems like you do a lot of that mooching thing, kid. It’s not healthy...”
Face laughed, and leaned in, poking Hannibal a little and hooking a finger into his basket of lobster roll and pickle. “You gonna finish that, Hannibal? Cause I’m...”
“Take it, Face,” the fisherman said, shoving the basket his way, letting him have the prop to hopefully dull further questions, and he glared up at the grinning researcher as the merman tore in to the roll. “You just going to stand there all day, Buress?”
Another smug little chuckle. Another look, lingering . “No, I think I’ll leave you ladies to it. But Face, nice meeting you. And hey, if you want to pop by the lab any time you’re here, I can set up a tour for you. We’ve got this amazing study going on right now with bioluminescence...”
“Sure, maybe,” the kid said carelessly, and took another huge bite of sandwich, eyes rolling back in his head, exagerated, as he stuffed a falling piece of lobster back into his mouth and licked his thumb. “Fuck, lobster tastes so much better up here...”
Buress’s eyes narrowed, and Hannibal stared at him meaningfully. The tall scientist snorted then and waved back over his shoulder as he walked off.
“Hate that cocky SOB,” BA said, shaking his head. “Standin’ there, calling you the town fag like he so much better than you.”
“Well you’re the out of town fag,” Hannibal chuckled back with a humor he didn’t feel, reaching over under the table and laying his hand on Face’s leg. Off to the side, the fisherman saw the merman look at him, and then a shaking hand left the roll in its basket, and tangled in to his.
“One of ‘em, anyways,” the big harbor master agreed.
That hand around his squeezed.
Hannibal looked over at Face fully then. “You ready to go, kid?”
“Yeah, my, uhh, my legs are starting to hurt,” the young man said, hurried, instantaneous.
A proper conman.
So, so strange.
Hannibal didn’t ask about it, not until he got his merman home, where he seemed to relax. Where they both could relax.
Where Face collapsed in a heap on the sofa in the single main room, lolling his head around to stare out the window.
Out on to the water, just beyond.
His hand touched the glass.
A single, simple gesture. Everything the young man was feeling, wrapped up, right there.
“You doing okay, Face?” Hannibal asked gruffly, sitting a little ways away from him. “Was that too much today, all of...that?”
"Totally worth it." The kid pulled up to look at him, and flashed him a weary little smile. “That town’s amazing. So many people. So many things.”
Hannibal smiled back, despite himself, and dared to reach over, touch the kid’s knee, rub just a little bit. “Don’t merfolk have towns?”
“We have festivals, sometimes, and then you see everybody. But normally...” and he looked away again, out the window, and that tugged at Hannibal in a way he didn't really understand. What kind of lonely existence did this young man lead out there, under the waves? Did he have other family? Somebody to be with? Somebody to care for him, someone who loved...
“Who was that man today?” the merman asked, interrupting Hannibal’s thoughts. “In the, uhh...”
“Deli,” Hannibal supplied, and nodded. “His name’s Vance Buress. He does marine research up at the facility on the island...”
Face shuddered involuntarily, digging back into the cushions. “He kills things. He doesn’t think anything ,” he said slowly. “Like a shark or something. I don’t think I like him.”
“Kid...”
The merman took a deep breath, rubbing his neck, right over where his gills should have been, Hannibal thought, and then wondered at that. How did he think of this young man? Human or merman? And did it really matter? Did it matter at all, what he was? “Doc Murdock said I should soak my legs today, said the hot water would be good for the swelling,” the kid said, and looked down, despondant, at the braces on his legs. “Can you take me outside, down to the ocean?”
“Kid...”
“I promise I won’t swim off,” Face said a little too quickly, and the fisherman looked at him. He blanched. “Well...”
“Not until you’re better, kid,” Hannibal told him softly and stood, offering him a hand up. “But if you want to get wet, that’s not a problem. My tub’s huge.”
It was, too, some monstrous claw-footed copper thing, a relic from another age, and it took forever to fill. Two people could probably get in there easily, Hannibal figured, and although it would probably be a tight squeeze for the merman, once his tail grew out, hopefully it could give him a little relief. Let him relax a bit.
So he got the water started and went back to the kitchen for salt, coming back to the sight of Face, sitting heavily on the closed toilet, trying to work the straps on the braces.
“Here, kid,” Hannibal said gently, setting the salt down, kneeling down next to him. “Let me.”
The merman’s brilliant blue eyes watched as he eased velcro and plastic apart, working the heavy boots off those fine legs, touching lingering just a bit too long on the outside of a knee, but Face didn’t seem to mind. His clothes were next, overshirt and undershirt and sweats, the young man completely unconscious of his nudity as he leaned on Hannibal’s shoulder and the lip of the tub, easing himself in to the warm water, his human body disappearing under the surface.
It only took a moment.
“Good, Face?” he asked, half in sadness, half in awe, at the transformation that took place. Pink replaced with green, bright scales glinting over those defined muscles, gills splitting open and that tail curling out, longer than legs, more elegant, too, somehow...
Face dunked himself, coming up with a flourish and a smile, hair dripping. There was the slightest creep of emerald across his forehead, a single row of small scales along his cheeks. “It could use a little salt,” he said with genuine happiness.
“Three steps ahead of you, kid,” he smiled back, brandishing the container.
“Awesome,” the merman said brightly, like nothing that day had happened at all, and sunk under the water once again.
Face spent the rest of the day in the tub, humming to himself softly, a sound that reached the fisherman, even with a cigar and a book in his favorite armchair. It went on for hours, the shifting little tune digging under Hannibal’s skin, making him think of things he could barely bring himself to acknowledge, crashing waves and wet rocks and the way sun scattered down through water.
Hours of that. And no matter how hard he concentrated on his book, those images just wouldn’t go away.
He was beginning to suspect it was some kind of ploy, actually, something confirmed when he heard a splash and a loud, “hey, Hannibal? Your tub’s kind of boring.”
He left the cigar in the tray and jammed his finger into place in his book, something about the Roman Empire, headed for that bratty little comment, a smile nonetheless forming deep down. “You aren’t getting out in the open o...”
And as he turned the corner, he felt whatever he was going to say dry right up.
Face was hanging on the edge of the tub with one hand, letting his other run through the water, bring it up through his hair, letting the water run down his cheeks, across that slight glimmer of scales, eyes sparkling between drops.
And then he looked up, grinned, and dunked to breath.
“Boring, kid?” the fisherman asked, trying to compose himself at the sight, hoping like hell he wasn’t going to start sprouting an erection. But that, oh fuck, that...
The edge of that fascinating emerald-green tail splashed a little again, sending miniature waves crashing against the copper sides. “Yeah. Boring. No waves to listen to, nowhere to swim...”
“Kid, you’re hurt...”
“I know,” Face said softly, sobering, and then grinned again. “Doesn’t mean I’m not bored.”
“Want me to read to you?” Hannibal asked, not really knowing where the thought came from, but loving it, the second he saw those eyes light up. “It’s some historical thing, but...”
“Human history?”
“Yeah, kid. That’s the only history I know. I’ve been talking about humans since I found you, remember?”
He hadn’t meant it to mean anything else, not to offend or imply or anything like that, but obviously the kid heard something there he didn’t like. Face blushed dark, and dunked again, staying under.
Not coming up at all.
Hannibal sighed, and laid the book down on the counter, in a clean, dry spot, and knelt down by the tub. “Face, kid, don’t be like that,” he urged, daring to slip a hand into the water, trying to reassure or comfort or reverse whatever he’d done wrong. “I didn’t mean...”
He was looking for skin, in all that warm, salty water. Skin. Something human.
But that’s not what his hand found.
Instead, he felt scales. Fish scales.
Something...mer.
Hard and yet yielding, smooth but just a little rough, catching against the callouses on his palm and soothing them at the same time, strength coiled beneath, a kind of raw power in tight, taut muscle within. Hannibal allowed himself to run his hand down that strange, strange length, taking it in, savoring the feel of it, trying to remember the last time he touched anybody like that, felt the pulse within another human being. There was no pulse there, though, none translating up through that armor. So foreign, and yet so familiar. It felt like Face, entirely like Face...
And he shuddered as it twitched away from him, drawing his hand back, suddenly ashamed of himself for touching like that, almost intimate, without permission, without any right...
But Face caught his wrist in steely fingers, and a warm, wet forehead touched to Hannibal’s shoulder. Gills flared wide along the lines of that neck and those slightly webbed hands closed on the edges of his shirt. Scared. All of it, scared.
"Kid," he choked, suddenly overwhelmed. "Kid, I'm not going to ki..."
“Why won’t you let me leave?” he murmured. "Why are you doing this to me?"
It cut through Hannibal, slicing him open. But yet, it wasn’t grief there. Just confusion. Confusion, and the slightest hint of... "the tub? Face, we've..."
“You can tell me, Hannibal. Please tell me why you want me here...”
“You’re hurt, kid. I hurt you...”
“Is that the only reason, John?” the merman pressed, breaking out Hannibal’s proper name, and the fisherman felt himself automatically wrapping an arm up around wet shoulders. “You feel guilty about me? Is that the only reason you'd keep me around?"
He closed his eyes, and there, there it was, a heartbeat. A heartbeat against his own. Oh, god. No. No. No... “It’s not guilt, Face,” he whispers back. “It’s not that at all. Can’t stand to think of you alone out there...”
“Hurt?”
Hannibal felt something burst inside him, the grief in that single word. “Hurting,” he answered against it. “Nobody with you, the cold spring seas, nothing warm like you deserve...”
That wet head turned a bit, face burrowing into the curve of his neck, and Hannibal thought he felt lips brush skin, the rough pass of scaled cheeks, another flare of gills, right before the merman slipped out of grasp, back underwater.
Except this time, he came back up. On the opposite side of the tub, but up, nonetheless.
“You can read to me now,” he smiled. His tail twitched, disturbing the surface of the water. Like nothing had happened.
And if that was how he wanted to play it...
“Brat,” Hannibal teased back.
And grabbing a towel, stripping his own soaking wet shirt off, the kid’s eyes following him, went for his book.
+++++
“Hey,” the merman said the next day, on the way back from Bar Harbor and its mall and their overdue shopping trip. “Hey, Hannibal. I think I’ve got a solution to your lobster problem.”
“Lobster problem?”
“Yeah, you know, how you can’t put enough pots down by yourself. What BA was talking about. I’ve got a solution.”
He was fingering the half-empty latte in its cupholder, wearing new jeans, braces over the top not marring the image at all, not affecting the way those things framed his ass perfectly. A soft long-sleeved tee, sky blue, like his eyes, a darker waterproof jacket. He’d wanted almost everything blue, and had tried his best not to giggle his way through the stores, the colors and fabrics and textures and cuts, all of it amazing to him, on him. The kid had flirted with every salesgirl, tried everything on, acted completely normal, like he’d been doing it all his life. Taking all the cues Hannibal had given him and making them his own.
Even if he had almost started a scene at the Starbucks over the mermaid icon on the cups.
“I don’t want you worrying about that, kid.”
“Yeah, well, money’s important to humans,” the kid replied, an edge of bitterness in his voice and grabbed for his coffee. “All those people care about.”
“I hope you don’t think about me like that, Face.”
Suddenly boneless, the kid flopped back over to the passenger window. “You aren’t like any other human, Hannibal, I think. You’re different than they are.”
“Face, just because...”
“...they killed my parents? Da wanted them to stop what they were doing to our pod, and Ma...” the merman swallowed. “She...she just wanted them to stop.”
“The whaling?” Hannibal asked, suddenly wondering where Face was talking about. “Whaling’s mostly illegal these days, kid, you know...”
“Wasn’t there, I guess.”
Hannibal found it suddenly hard to focus on the road. “Where? Iceland?”
“You ever seen one, a whale hunt? You never forget it. I was a kid, and I still remember how it used to make the water taste, the way the discarded carcasses bloated as they sunk, how the blood drew in the sharks for miles, a blight...”
Very, very hard. “Face...”
“They killed them for money, Hannibal. How could anybody kill for money?”
He let loose a long breath, not even really aware he was holding it. “Do merfolk not kill?”
“Not whales,” the merman said sadly, and tried to smile. “We do kill lobsters, though. Tasty little buggers. Especially with that human...mayonnaise...stuff...”
“Face, most humans don’t approve of killing the whales, either. Iceland gets a lot of flak from the international community for doing it,” he explained, and then realized what the kid had just said. “Wait. Lobsters?”
That got him a nod, when he looked over briefly. “Yeah. I’ve seen some of the other crews in the area. Two people working a boat is far more effective than just one.”
“You shouldn’t be on your feet all day, not while you’re still healing...”
“I could drive.”
“You can’t operate a boat, can you?”
“You could teach me.”
“Face...”
And there was a hand on his arm. “Hannibal, if I’ve got these braces on, what’s the harm? I can’t turn back if I’m confined like that. Nowhere for my tail to grow. I’d kill myself, probably, if I tried to...”
“Face, no...”
“Come on, Hannibal,” the merman urged.
He rolled his eyes over that way. “Why?”
The kid’s lower lip disappeared, bitten up between his teeth. “I... I’m here. I can help. If I can help you out, I want to.”
Hannibal clenched the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white, focused on the road ahead again, thoughts racing. He’d stayed up until two that morning, trying to figure the numbers out. BA had been right. His finances weren’t what they should be, always something of a shaky thing, really, but if the market was dropping like he’d said, and with the break he’d taken to make sure the merman was okay... he would need to average at least six, seven hundred traps a day in order to even break even that season, pay off his debts, the mortgage on his boat, all the little bills that piled up.
It was impossible for him to do alone.
But if he agreed, Face could leave. Face could leave him...
“It’s the ocean, kid. I don’t want to put that in front of you, not right now.”
“Why’d your mother stay?” he asked softly, body fallen softly against the door, hand playing along the length of seat belt. “She stayed when she wanted to go home.”
Again with his mother. The merman kept throwing him for a loop with that one. Hannibal shook his head, listening to the comforting predictability of the truck’s engine for a moment, trying to think of an answer. “She loved my dad and I, you could probably say,” he finally acknowledged. “Sometimes humans are like that. Give up one thing for another.”
“Same way for us,” the kid said, tracing something on the glass with his finger. “So... I could not go home, for a little while. I can’t anyway, right? Might as well be useful while I’m stuck here.”
Hannibal looked over at the kid, who had a genuine smile on his face. A genuine offer, then, maybe, and he could use the help. He really, really could.
But it was more the thought of that smile, that happy, eager little smile, that laugh, that voice, those steady, open hands, that lithe body and that soft hair, the thought of having it all, having Face, with him, with him...
“Okay, Face. We’ll give it a try.”
“Awesome...”
“But you’re wearing a harness while we’re out there,” the fisherman added hastily, pulling on to the island’s small freeway, on the way back to Seal Harbor, chancing a glance back over. “And not that shirt. Looks too damn good on you to ruin...”
“You think I look good?” the merman asked, smiling wider, and leaned further back in his seat as Hannibal felt his own face growing hot. “Yeah. You think I look good.”
“You’d look good in a burlap sack,” the fisherman grumbled to himself.
And Face sat forward, serious again. “Did we get me one of those, too? Because if you think it’d be good on me...”
Hannibal just started laughing.
+++++
And it worked out.
It actually did.
Wake up early enough to grab a bite to eat, make something for lunch, pack up, drive to the docks, Face still a little slow with those braces. A long day of fishing. Evenings at home, dinner there or at BA and Murdock's or at the pub, where the kid was always a big hit with the local ladies, but where the kid always, always, walked home with him.
It was similar, Face fitting in like he'd always been there. Similar, but better. Laughter and stories had replaced the silence from before, the solitary silence he'd never realized was so terrible until he had Face to break it up. Like sea ice in the spring.
Like Face was thawing him out, finding something in him he'd thought lost a long time ago. A man who didn't need to be alone. A man who might be capable of loving another. A man who might be loved in return.
Though it was far, far too unfair to ask for anything like that.
For Face to stay.
Still. He could dream, couldn't he?
Like those dreams that kept leaking in into his mind every night, like seawater into a poorly sealed hull, filling the fisherman with sensations he didn't understand, images of floating in utter stillness, utter silence, moonlight streaming through the cool waters, strong arms wrapped around him and a softly scaled belly pressed to his own, fins tangling in the darkness, holding each other close...
Like those. Like being with Face, on Face's terms.
It was ridiculous.
But still.
He didn't want to see the merman gone.
Hannibal had been terrified, that first day, leaving harbor, the merman wrapped up in two layers of waterproof clothing and that safety harness, locked, thirty feet of rope firmly attached to the boat. Big blue eyes had watched him work all the little snaps and hooks and lines into place.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, kid,” he’d said lamely. “I just...”
Face had picked at the material nylon of the straps around him, and just smiled. Like he was incredibly pleased. “Show me how I help you.”
He’d listened, he’d learned. He’d learned fast and well. By the end of the week, Face had the basics down cold. By the end of two, the kid could bait, drop, mark, retrieve, sort and stack pots almost as well as Hannibal could. He barely had to glance to tell which lobsters were the breeding females that had to be thrown back with a “v” notched in the tail, or which were too small, and went back in the ocean for next year or the year after. He could pilot competently, he could read all the gauges, he could decipher the sonar and GPS well enough to find some of the better fishing grounds he knew about.
And by the end of four, when March was turning into April and the season was coming to an end, he could take the safety line off his harness.
“Hey, boss! Got your knot off!”
Hannibal jerked up from the day’s maps at the sound of that, whipping around to where Face was. Just a little ways away, right by the edge of the fishing boat, sitting on the edge of the boat.
Everything gone but that damn harness, still locked around him.
Hannibal couldn’t breath. He threw the engines in to neutral and stood, hand bracing him up on the pilot chair, the other reaching cautiously out, like he was dealing with a wild animal that would bolt at the first wrong move.
“Face...”
The merman shook himself, and stared up at the sun, then back at the water lapping against the hull. He fingered the nylon. “You think I can swim in this thing?”
The fisherman tried to force the panic down. Tried not to think about damn naked he was, how, even now, he seemed to glow, how otherworldly the angles of that body were, the light in those eyes... “Kid, please...”
“I think I can.”
“Face, please, it’s only a few more days before...”
The merman grinned that petulant little grin of his, the one he flashed when the fisherman told him no, he couldn’t eat a lobster straight out of the trap. “But I’m feeling better now, Hannibal.” And he swung his legs up. “A lot better. I think I should go for a swim.”
“No, kid, don’t!” Hannibal yelled, darting for him, but that infuriating merman just winked at him.
And let himself roll smoothly off, hitting the water with a splash.
By the time Hannibal reached the edge, eyes stinging, the ocean had washed away any evidence that Face had ever been there to begin with.
Panic hit him in a wave.
No sign...
The merman...
Hannibal collapsed down against the inside of the bulkhead, hands shaking into pockets, going for a cigar he got halfway to his mouth before he couldn’t hold on to it any more.
Face was gone.
Face had left.
The fisherman banged his head against the bulkhead in frustration, pissed at himself, pissed beyond belief. Fuck, had he really been stupid enough to believe that this would work? That Face wouldn’t cut and run the first chance he got? That Face might...might want this, might be willing to stay on dry land, with him, with...
Something wet and soft touched his graying hair.
“We got any towels on board, boss?”
He looked up.
Right into a pair of laughing blue eyes, hanging over him, holding on at the shoulders.
“I think I’m gonna need to dry off.” That hand reached back down and touched Hannibal’s face this time, salt gritting against the stubble. “Before...”
Hannibal was on his feet in a flash, turning right into the merman, who was still, for some horrible reason, smiling. He tossed his unlit cigar away and grabbed on to that harness, the one the kid was still wearing, ran a hand up into wet hair, unsure. So unsure, of what he should do or say. Unsure of what he was feeling, what that thing raging through his mind was, what he...
The kid’s body was hanging down the side of the boat, scales glinting bright in the afternoon sun, his long tail all afire with it, every curve and detail so apparent now, clearly visible, so beautiful...Hannibal ran a shaking hand down the kid’s side, right to where a hip would be, where the fish mixed with the man. Where he could feel what Face really was. “Kid...”
“Come on.” That tail smacked the dull paint of the hull, an anxious noise. “Dry me off or let me fall, Hannibal.”
Have him as a shadow of a man, or lose him to what he really is, the fisherman thought, and tasted salt on that smooth skin, his face turned into it. He couldn’t chose. It wasn’t his choice. Not his right, to make Face stay with him...
That tail thumped again. Face twitched.
“Need to breathe,” the kid gasped.
Hannibal opened his arms automatically and stared after, the kid slipping down into the water with a smile, barely breaking the surface at all as he fell. He bobbed up moments later with a wave, looking all the world like some dumb human, treading water in fifty degree seas.
“Thanks! We, uhh, got any towels up there?” he called up.
“A few, sure.”
The kid vanished into the ocean, and leapt up, tail coiled, thrusting, projecting him up not quite effectively. He caught the side with his elbows, hanging on, wincing a little as he scrambled for purchase.
Hannibal clamped both hands around the kid’s wrists. Holding him still. Pulling him up.
“A bit sore, still,” he reported as Hannibal eased him down onto the deck, his tail wriggling a few times. The fisherman threw him a towel, keeping one for himself, grabbing the discarded gear where it lay and coming back with the lot. “But I think it’s healing up. Murdock’s a good doctor.”
“I’m just glad the fix translates,” Hannibal agreed gruffly, sliding that towel along the kid’s tail, feeling the material catch on all that molten green. “It’s good. You’ll be back out there in no time...”
“...without you,” Face said softly, biting his lip, and jerking a little as his human legs reasserted. “And you’ll be here without me. Human...”
A soft hand touched his leg, and Hannibal covered it with his own, thinking he should probably move it away or something, finding he couldn’t. “I am human, kid.”
Face just smiled, like he was going to say something, and then shivered. “It’s cold out here.”
“No shit,” Hannibal replied, shaking his head. “Come on, let’s get you dressed.”
They worked on that together. And for some reason, it took a long, long time.
+++++
Hannibal grabbed their beers, steering back to bump Murdock, over to where the doctor was eating an entire peanut from the big bowl on the bar. Shell and all.
“When the hell did they start doing...whatever the hell this is?” the older man asked, looking at the little stage in the corner of the pub where Amy was just finishing up a sweaty and somewhat off-key rendition of some Shania Twain song, a little TV propped up on a barstool, scrolling the last of the lyrics, bowing over the mic, waving a little at the enthusiastic applause.
Waving at Face, actually, who was waving back, BA laughing next to him, over by the dart board.
He tried to ignore the wave of jealousy that crashed over him.
Who the hell knew if merfolk even...
“One night karaoke contest, I guess,” Murdock nodded, breaking him out of the same thoughts that had been consuming him since the little episode on the boat, a few days back. The peanuts must have passed muster, because the doc was filling one of those smaller bowls for them. “I think it’s kinda fun. Karaoke and stuff.”
“It’s insane.”
And Murdock cast a glance over at him, that batshit grin he always wore fading a bit. “Yeah, well, maybe Face’ll like it.”
“Why’s that?” Hannibal asked, sipping at the beer.
“Cause merfolk love their singing,” Murdock said, like it was the most logical thing in the world to be dropping on him in the middle of a bar, and made to go back to the table where his partner and Hannibal’s houseguest were cheering the next act, a couple of teachers warming up for what sounded like AC/DC.
And Hannibal caught the doctor before he got too far for a subtle whisper.
“Merfolk?”
“Yeah,” Murdock huffed. “I am a doctor, after all.”
Hannibal felt cold. “That doesn’t make any sense, Murdock. Mermaids, m-mermen, that stuff, it’s not real...”
The doctor smiled, and tapped Hannibal on his nose. “I was president of my grad school’s cryptozoology club. I could tell you stories about wild Bigfoot hunts that would scare you shitless. Face ain’t so strange, really.” He popped another peanut, and pulled loose. “He probably ain’t even the first merperson to come through the island.”
Hannibal stared for a moment, and then scrambled after him.
But he couldn’t reach Murdock before he reached the table, ducking under the cover of one of BA’s massive arms, that happy little expression on the black man’s face welcoming him in.
They’d never been overt about what they had together, but they’d never been ashamed of it, either. When they’d moved up to Maine from Georgia, about eight or nine years ago, Hannibal had thought them so different, different personalities, different lives entirely, bickering constantly. Strange to think they were even together at all.
“Harder bein’ together back home,” BA had explained when the fisherman had managed to work up the courage to ask. “Interracial gay couple down there? Surprised Murdock never got killed over it.”
Murdock had been a neurosurgeon back in Atlanta, it turned out, BA the owner of his own custom-build garage. But after one too many near-assaults, BA had found the family practioner job up here for Murdock, and moved with him. Without complaint. Without a single backwards glance. Packed up and left. For his man, his lover. No other considerations considered.
And as Murdock cuddled up to his partner’s side, offering him a shelled peanut, Hannibal felt a stab of jealousy burn through him. They’d found each other. Found somebody to be with.
While he’d always been alone. And always would be.
Asking Face to move to Maine, Hannibal suspected, would be a completely different situation altogether, and he was pretty damn sure there wasn’t a way to follow the kid...
Then, right then, like he knew what was going through the older man’s mind, Face was there next to him. He cocked his head a little, looked sideways at Hannibal, and the older man knew he was lost to whatever was coming next. Kid had his lip in his teeth. There was something about him, like that, not quite shy, not quite innocent...
“What?” Hannibal grunted.
“Can I go sing next, boss?” the merman asked coyly, taking his beer from the fisherman’s clenched fist. “Huh? Can I?”
BA glanced up from where Murdock was really, really trying to feed him a peanut. “Why he callin’ you boss?”
“Cause he’s working for me right now, BA, and Murdock told him to,” the fisherman sighed. “And no, Face, you can’t. It’s stupid. The words scroll across the screen and you read them...”
He hoped Face would take the hint. The you-need-to-read-to-play-this-game hint. But the kid just smiled wider. “Unless you got something memorized cause some old guy has a radio.” He looked over at Murdock. “Can they play anything?”
“Sure can.”
“C’mon, Hannibal. Please? Please, please, please?” Face begged, half-joking.
Half serious.
The boy did love to sing...
Hannibal shook his head and stared down at his beer, feeling hollow, though he couldn't have said why to save his life. “You don’t need my permission, Face...”
“Awesome!”
And then Face was sauntering up, hands stuffed in the back pockets of those jeans, the braces off tonight. He was a little unsteady, but he still seemed the most graceful thing in the whole damn town. The merman had his scarf on from the walk over, and it somehow accentuated the way his hips swayed as he leaned over to talk to the girl working the karaoke machine.
“What’s wrong wif’ him singin’, Hannibal?” BA asked.
“Nothing,” he grumbled, setting his beer down and going for a stogie. Face was getting set up up front. Looked so damn pleased with himself. Cute of him. Hannibal had no idea why, but there was something about the way the merman sang that reached straight through him, dug out all kinds of strange things. Like those dreams about the ocean he kept having. “Nothing at all.”
The employee manning the karaoke machine stood, microphone in hand, waving. “Okay, okay folks,” the girl yelled through the speakers. “Our next brave contestant up is Face, that NYU student we’ve come to love over the last few weeks since his...”
“Stupid accident?” the merman offered, loud, and everyone laughed.
Hannibal puffed on his cigar.
“Well, stupid or not, we’re glad to have you around, Face! Now, what are you singing for us tonight?”
She held the mic out to him, and he took it, a little more nervous now. Hannibal doubted that anybody noticed. Not the way his boy was running a hand back through his hair, leaning against one of the stand-alone speaker boxes, the very picture of confidence.
“Yeah, right, so, back home, we’ve got a lot of music that you all would probably consider weird,” the kid began, laughing a little. It was just vague enough to sound like he’s talking about New York. “But this place is a lot different, and I thought... thought I might break out one of the songs I’ve heard on Hannibal’s radio in the evenings, cause, you know, the man doesn’t own a TV.”
More laughter.
More cigar.
“So, uhh, Hannibal, I blame this song entirely on you.” Face nodded. “I think some of you might recognize this, but you’re going to have to let me know...”
The music started up.
The first few notes.
Face started singing.
And Hannibal was lost.
“Gotta take a little time...time to think things over...I better read between the lines...in case I need it when I’m older...”
Scattered applause at the choice, at the kid’s truly amazing voice, a few whistles, and the loudest clapping of all came from the back corner.
Where Buress was standing with a couple of his coworkers.
Smiling a little to himself, predatory and hungry.
It tore Hannibal out of the thread of the song, just for a moment, long enough for some instinct he didn't understand to start screaming at him, screaming at him to grab Face and get the fuck out of there...
"...And through the clouds I see love shine...it keeps me warm as life grows colder..."
But the kid’s voice, that subtle, seductive voice, pulled at the fisherman as surely as the waves pulled at the shore, tugging him out, back into the song, and Hannibal couldn’t do a damn thing.
"...in my life there's been heartache and pain...I don't know if I can face it again...can't stop now, I've traveled so far...to change this lonely life...”
Couldn't. Not as the synth-pop music started to swell. Not as Face's voice began to grow with it. Taking him over. More and more and more...
"I wanna know what love is...I want you to show me...I wanna feel what love is...I know you can show me..."
Something, deep down in the fisherman, burst open, ripping a hole in him he knew, right then and there, he'd never, ever be able to close again.
And his hand closed down so tightly around his cigar that the damn thing burst open.
But he stayed. Held. Held by that voice, by the way those hips were swaying slightly into the words, by those closed eyes that still seemed to bore into him.
Until the very last ...I wanna know what love is... faded into thunderous applause, and the spell was broken, and Hannibal thought he might die from the loss of it.
Except that Face was smiling through it all, through everything else, through everything around them.
Smiling just for him.
Rating: R
Warnings: merman AU - but no merman sex here, I swear
Summary: Part Two of Five for a fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
Hannibal is a rugged angler whose catch of the day is a merman, Face. There is an instant attraction, but Face is terrified at first that Hannibal is going to kill him. He grows legs, does not grow legs, whatev.
Right as Hannibal is beginning to make progress with Face, big bad Lynch or Pike gets news of Hannibal’s discovery and tries to steal Face away for experimentation purposes. The more angst the better :D
Second prompt (I’m new to the fandom) I hope its okay! *Hides*
The longer the merman stays with Hannibal, the more the fisherman realizes he doesn’t want Face to leave. Ever. And he’s beginning to suspect that Face many share some of those same feelings for him...
“She’s called a humpback!” Face said triumphantly as they were leaving, walking very, very slowly down the street to the little deli. BA had left a note at the office. Need you to come by and talk about financial stuff, Hannibal. Which the fisherman knew could not, in any way, be good. But the kid’s sheer excitement right then was overpowering anything else. “Murdock said she was a humpback! A humpback! I’ve never heard of them. From the... Pa...Pa... what ocean is it?”
“The Pacific, kid,” Hannibal answered automatically, thinking about that image from the documentary again. “Humpbacks are native to the Pacific Ocean.”
“Have you ever seen one? What are they like?”
“Only on TV,” the fisherman said, and sensing the kid’s disappointment, added, “we could check the Internet tonight. My computer’s slow as shit, but we could probably find you some video...”
The merman’s eyes sparkled, that genuine, eager little smile breaking out of its hiding place again. “Are there more whales there? Than the ones here? Murdock said the Pacific was way, way bigger than...”
And why, Hannibal wondered, would Murdock bother explaining something like that to a college kid? Too many unanswered questions at the moment and it was all starting to hurt his head. A lot. So he changed the subject. “So, uh, what did the doc say about your legs?”
Face sobered a bit. “Yeah, those damn things...”
“Are you healing okay?”
“He said I was healing faster than he’d expect. Said I could switch medications and...” he dug in the pocket of his borrowed sweats, and Hannibal made a mental note to take the kid shopping for some clothes that would fit him properly. “Here,” he said, and pulled out a folded, slightly crumpled piece of perscription paper. “I can’t...”
“Right,” Hannibal said, stopping right at the edge of the steps for the diner, and unfolded the paper, expecting to find a perscription or something. Instead, the note read:
We need to talk about your catch sometime. -HM
He stuffed it back in his pocket and head the door for Face, watching the kid clump up the two little steps, hurting again, and wished it wouldn’t look so goddamn bad for him to reach out and pull the merman up to him. “It’s nothing, kid. What else did he tell you?”
Face nodded. “That it doesn’t look like anything’s hurt as bad as he thought at first, so it might be a...whatever he called it.”
Amy was already smiling as the merman waited for Hannibal, playing absently with a lock of hair as she leaned over the counter by the cash register. And Face, to Hannibal’s dismay, was smiling back, sort of taking her in.
She blushed a little. “So, you must be that Templeton Peck we’ve heard so much about?”
The merman didn’t miss a beat, looking right over her shoulder and dragging his gaze, those sweet blue eyes, back down over her. “Please, everybody calls me Face.”
“I bet they do,” she replied with a little giggle, and the fisherman cleared his throat, loud and unsubtle. It did the trick, though. She pushed up, fingers drumming but paying attention to something other than the merman’s delicious physique. “Hey, Hannibal. You boys here for lunch?”
“Couple of lobster rolls, Amy. Coffee, water...kid, you want anything else?” Hannibal grunted, trying to play this like it was every day he had some hot college student from New York mooching room and board off him.
Face shook his head, clearly not knowing what else he could ask for but spinning it otherwise. “Naw, Hannibal, that sounds good to me.”
He counted off a few bills as Amy grabbed the drinks, telling him, like she always did, that the food would be up in a few minutes and that there was a booth in the back they could use.
Good enough.
Drinks in hand, Hannibal was aware of some of the glances they were getting, as he herded the kid back to a booth along the long counter, and indicated for Face to sit next to him.
He tried to tell himself his seating arrangement was only because they were waiting for BA.
Only that.
Not because of how damn warm the merman’s body was, how close, next to his...
“Did he say how long?” he asked, taking the salt shaker away from Face, who was trying to pour some in his water. He’d thrown up the last time he’d tried it, and that experience, explaining the finer points of the human digestive system to a merman hunched over the toilet, was not one he felt like repeating right now. “How long you’re going to need to heal up?”
Face looked longingly at the salt shaker, but didn’t try to go for it again. “Maybe... maybe six weeks, he said. So that’s...”
“...forty-two days,” Hannibal finished for him, and sipped at his coffee. “Fuck, that’s no time at all.”
The merman smiled a bit, and started to say something, and then BA was there, sliding into the booth opposite, and there was nothing more to be said about that.
“Hannibal, man, good to see you,” the big black man said warmly, nodding to him across the table. And his dark eyes turned to Face. “Lord, is this...”
“Face,” the merman said, holding out his hand in greeting, just like Hannibal taught him to do. Perfect. Like he’s been doing it his whole life. “I think we met at the docks the other night.”
BA started laughing at that, and then lunch showed up, and the two older men started talking as Face’s eyes rolled up in his head at the first bite of warm, creamy sandwich.
But the news, as BA laid it out for the fisherman, wasn’t good. The wholesale lobster market was dipping a bit, and Hannibal hadn’t nearly been fishing at quota. Gas prices were going up. Taxes were going up again this year. They had some pretty heavy competition from some of the other fishing grounds in the state.
“You may have a problem, Hannibal,” the black man said, concluding. “You fishin’ around, what, three hundred pots a day?”
“Four hundred, there about,” Hannibal said, picking at his untouched meal, trying to think. BA had quoted a lot of figures, big numbers that the fisherman knew meant trouble, but how much yet, he wasn’t sure.
“You need to be doin’ prolly twice the volume you at now, Hannibal,” BA said, casting a glance over at where Face had demolished his sandwich, grinning happily as he downed the last bite. He had mayonnaise all over his chin, though, the fisherman noticed. Hannibal leaned over him with a sigh, reaching for the napkin dispenser at the end of the booth, bringing his thigh tight against the kid’s.
He tried not to think about that.
“Twice, BA?” he asked, handing the kid a napkin, getting a sheepish little shoulder hunch in return. “Twice I can’t do. Not alone, and if I hire somebody...”
“You back where you started,” BA nods back. “Yeah, I know... but I jus’ don’t know if you’ve got enough volume with me now to get you through the summer later, Hannibal. You should probably start fishing more this month, make your eight hundred pots a day and build yourself a bit more of a cushion,” he held his big hands out wide. “I got no idea what your finances are like. Jus’ wanted to give you a heads-up from a friend. Don’t wanna see you get hurt. Not after all you done for Murdock and me...”
“Oh, isn’t that sweet? The town fag asking the out-of-town fag for business advice. Touching. Really. How you two doing today?”
Hannibal groaned internally, and exchanged a little eye roll with BA as he looked up. “Vance,” the big black man grunted. “What the fuck you want?”
The marine researcher smiled down at them, and that warmth against Hannibal’s own leg jerked a bit. The fisherman frowned, turning to see if the merman was okay, but Face was smiling like nothing at all was wrong. Leaning back against the wall, making it look casual, but that jerk...that’d been fear. And he was as far away from Buress as he could get. Not that it was visible now. Proper conman, Hannibal thought, and reminded himself to figure out just what the hell had happened to this kid in the past.
“Oh, you know, BA. Coffee,” and he brandished his thermos cup, the one with the Starbucks logo on the side. Face’s head tilted a little bit. “On my way into the office. And look who's here. Just my luck, huh? Get to meet the new famous man in town.”
BA grunted, disinterested as always. “Gonna go stick some more shit in formaldehyde or whatever the fuck?”
“Oh, you’d be amazed what kind of stuff we’re doing up at the labs. Far past your level, BA,” Buress sniffed arrogantly, and patted Hannibal on the shoulder. “And how are we doing today, Hannibal? This your lost diver we’ve heard so much about?”
“Face,” the kid supplied, friendly and open, like he didn’t have a care in the world. “And yeah, I’m staying at Hannibal’s place while I heal up.”
“Free diving? This time of year?” Buress asked, something sharply interested underneath his laconic tones. “That’s some balls, kid.”
Face shrugged. “I had a wet suit. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Still, shitty waters for it. Low visibility, nothing much to see down there...”
“The ocean’s always interesting, doc,” the kid replied, and under the table, Hannibal felt a foot bump against his. Something about that little gesture rushed through him - the merman might not trust him fully, but Face obviously felt some measure of safe with him. And would it be too much to ask that he...
“So, what were you after out there? The sound can be a dangerous place for a college kid alone...”
Face grinned disarmingly, and stretched an arm around the back of the booth. “Your concern’s touching, Dr. Buress, but I did have a life before NYU,” he lied smoothly, sticking to the story that he and Hannibal had worked out together over the last few days. He’d grilled the merman on it until he knew it inside and out.
This’ll be fun!, the kid had said.
And now, faced with it, he was doing so, so well.
Hannibal felt an absolutely irrational burst of pride. Followed by a desire to break this asshole's kneecaps.
“NYU, huh? I did my undergrad work there. Marine biology.”
Fuck, Hannibal groaned to himself. How did he not know that? How did he not realize this?
“Hey, me too,” Face said with a smile, and it was all the fisherman could do to jump on him to keep him from finishing that. Only thing the kid knew anything about was marine biology. That’s what they’d agreed he was studying. But bringing that up right now...
“Awesome,” Buress said with an insincere little chuckle. “What dorm are you living in?”
“No dorms. Got a room with a friend.”
Buress shot Hannibal a glance, the older man trying to keep his face as blank as possible. “Seems like you do a lot of that mooching thing, kid. It’s not healthy...”
Face laughed, and leaned in, poking Hannibal a little and hooking a finger into his basket of lobster roll and pickle. “You gonna finish that, Hannibal? Cause I’m...”
“Take it, Face,” the fisherman said, shoving the basket his way, letting him have the prop to hopefully dull further questions, and he glared up at the grinning researcher as the merman tore in to the roll. “You just going to stand there all day, Buress?”
Another smug little chuckle. Another look, lingering . “No, I think I’ll leave you ladies to it. But Face, nice meeting you. And hey, if you want to pop by the lab any time you’re here, I can set up a tour for you. We’ve got this amazing study going on right now with bioluminescence...”
“Sure, maybe,” the kid said carelessly, and took another huge bite of sandwich, eyes rolling back in his head, exagerated, as he stuffed a falling piece of lobster back into his mouth and licked his thumb. “Fuck, lobster tastes so much better up here...”
Buress’s eyes narrowed, and Hannibal stared at him meaningfully. The tall scientist snorted then and waved back over his shoulder as he walked off.
“Hate that cocky SOB,” BA said, shaking his head. “Standin’ there, calling you the town fag like he so much better than you.”
“Well you’re the out of town fag,” Hannibal chuckled back with a humor he didn’t feel, reaching over under the table and laying his hand on Face’s leg. Off to the side, the fisherman saw the merman look at him, and then a shaking hand left the roll in its basket, and tangled in to his.
“One of ‘em, anyways,” the big harbor master agreed.
That hand around his squeezed.
Hannibal looked over at Face fully then. “You ready to go, kid?”
“Yeah, my, uhh, my legs are starting to hurt,” the young man said, hurried, instantaneous.
A proper conman.
So, so strange.
Hannibal didn’t ask about it, not until he got his merman home, where he seemed to relax. Where they both could relax.
Where Face collapsed in a heap on the sofa in the single main room, lolling his head around to stare out the window.
Out on to the water, just beyond.
His hand touched the glass.
A single, simple gesture. Everything the young man was feeling, wrapped up, right there.
“You doing okay, Face?” Hannibal asked gruffly, sitting a little ways away from him. “Was that too much today, all of...that?”
"Totally worth it." The kid pulled up to look at him, and flashed him a weary little smile. “That town’s amazing. So many people. So many things.”
Hannibal smiled back, despite himself, and dared to reach over, touch the kid’s knee, rub just a little bit. “Don’t merfolk have towns?”
“We have festivals, sometimes, and then you see everybody. But normally...” and he looked away again, out the window, and that tugged at Hannibal in a way he didn't really understand. What kind of lonely existence did this young man lead out there, under the waves? Did he have other family? Somebody to be with? Somebody to care for him, someone who loved...
“Who was that man today?” the merman asked, interrupting Hannibal’s thoughts. “In the, uhh...”
“Deli,” Hannibal supplied, and nodded. “His name’s Vance Buress. He does marine research up at the facility on the island...”
Face shuddered involuntarily, digging back into the cushions. “He kills things. He doesn’t think anything ,” he said slowly. “Like a shark or something. I don’t think I like him.”
“Kid...”
The merman took a deep breath, rubbing his neck, right over where his gills should have been, Hannibal thought, and then wondered at that. How did he think of this young man? Human or merman? And did it really matter? Did it matter at all, what he was? “Doc Murdock said I should soak my legs today, said the hot water would be good for the swelling,” the kid said, and looked down, despondant, at the braces on his legs. “Can you take me outside, down to the ocean?”
“Kid...”
“I promise I won’t swim off,” Face said a little too quickly, and the fisherman looked at him. He blanched. “Well...”
“Not until you’re better, kid,” Hannibal told him softly and stood, offering him a hand up. “But if you want to get wet, that’s not a problem. My tub’s huge.”
It was, too, some monstrous claw-footed copper thing, a relic from another age, and it took forever to fill. Two people could probably get in there easily, Hannibal figured, and although it would probably be a tight squeeze for the merman, once his tail grew out, hopefully it could give him a little relief. Let him relax a bit.
So he got the water started and went back to the kitchen for salt, coming back to the sight of Face, sitting heavily on the closed toilet, trying to work the straps on the braces.
“Here, kid,” Hannibal said gently, setting the salt down, kneeling down next to him. “Let me.”
The merman’s brilliant blue eyes watched as he eased velcro and plastic apart, working the heavy boots off those fine legs, touching lingering just a bit too long on the outside of a knee, but Face didn’t seem to mind. His clothes were next, overshirt and undershirt and sweats, the young man completely unconscious of his nudity as he leaned on Hannibal’s shoulder and the lip of the tub, easing himself in to the warm water, his human body disappearing under the surface.
It only took a moment.
“Good, Face?” he asked, half in sadness, half in awe, at the transformation that took place. Pink replaced with green, bright scales glinting over those defined muscles, gills splitting open and that tail curling out, longer than legs, more elegant, too, somehow...
Face dunked himself, coming up with a flourish and a smile, hair dripping. There was the slightest creep of emerald across his forehead, a single row of small scales along his cheeks. “It could use a little salt,” he said with genuine happiness.
“Three steps ahead of you, kid,” he smiled back, brandishing the container.
“Awesome,” the merman said brightly, like nothing that day had happened at all, and sunk under the water once again.
Face spent the rest of the day in the tub, humming to himself softly, a sound that reached the fisherman, even with a cigar and a book in his favorite armchair. It went on for hours, the shifting little tune digging under Hannibal’s skin, making him think of things he could barely bring himself to acknowledge, crashing waves and wet rocks and the way sun scattered down through water.
Hours of that. And no matter how hard he concentrated on his book, those images just wouldn’t go away.
He was beginning to suspect it was some kind of ploy, actually, something confirmed when he heard a splash and a loud, “hey, Hannibal? Your tub’s kind of boring.”
He left the cigar in the tray and jammed his finger into place in his book, something about the Roman Empire, headed for that bratty little comment, a smile nonetheless forming deep down. “You aren’t getting out in the open o...”
And as he turned the corner, he felt whatever he was going to say dry right up.
Face was hanging on the edge of the tub with one hand, letting his other run through the water, bring it up through his hair, letting the water run down his cheeks, across that slight glimmer of scales, eyes sparkling between drops.
And then he looked up, grinned, and dunked to breath.
“Boring, kid?” the fisherman asked, trying to compose himself at the sight, hoping like hell he wasn’t going to start sprouting an erection. But that, oh fuck, that...
The edge of that fascinating emerald-green tail splashed a little again, sending miniature waves crashing against the copper sides. “Yeah. Boring. No waves to listen to, nowhere to swim...”
“Kid, you’re hurt...”
“I know,” Face said softly, sobering, and then grinned again. “Doesn’t mean I’m not bored.”
“Want me to read to you?” Hannibal asked, not really knowing where the thought came from, but loving it, the second he saw those eyes light up. “It’s some historical thing, but...”
“Human history?”
“Yeah, kid. That’s the only history I know. I’ve been talking about humans since I found you, remember?”
He hadn’t meant it to mean anything else, not to offend or imply or anything like that, but obviously the kid heard something there he didn’t like. Face blushed dark, and dunked again, staying under.
Not coming up at all.
Hannibal sighed, and laid the book down on the counter, in a clean, dry spot, and knelt down by the tub. “Face, kid, don’t be like that,” he urged, daring to slip a hand into the water, trying to reassure or comfort or reverse whatever he’d done wrong. “I didn’t mean...”
He was looking for skin, in all that warm, salty water. Skin. Something human.
But that’s not what his hand found.
Instead, he felt scales. Fish scales.
Something...mer.
Hard and yet yielding, smooth but just a little rough, catching against the callouses on his palm and soothing them at the same time, strength coiled beneath, a kind of raw power in tight, taut muscle within. Hannibal allowed himself to run his hand down that strange, strange length, taking it in, savoring the feel of it, trying to remember the last time he touched anybody like that, felt the pulse within another human being. There was no pulse there, though, none translating up through that armor. So foreign, and yet so familiar. It felt like Face, entirely like Face...
And he shuddered as it twitched away from him, drawing his hand back, suddenly ashamed of himself for touching like that, almost intimate, without permission, without any right...
But Face caught his wrist in steely fingers, and a warm, wet forehead touched to Hannibal’s shoulder. Gills flared wide along the lines of that neck and those slightly webbed hands closed on the edges of his shirt. Scared. All of it, scared.
"Kid," he choked, suddenly overwhelmed. "Kid, I'm not going to ki..."
“Why won’t you let me leave?” he murmured. "Why are you doing this to me?"
It cut through Hannibal, slicing him open. But yet, it wasn’t grief there. Just confusion. Confusion, and the slightest hint of... "the tub? Face, we've..."
“You can tell me, Hannibal. Please tell me why you want me here...”
“You’re hurt, kid. I hurt you...”
“Is that the only reason, John?” the merman pressed, breaking out Hannibal’s proper name, and the fisherman felt himself automatically wrapping an arm up around wet shoulders. “You feel guilty about me? Is that the only reason you'd keep me around?"
He closed his eyes, and there, there it was, a heartbeat. A heartbeat against his own. Oh, god. No. No. No... “It’s not guilt, Face,” he whispers back. “It’s not that at all. Can’t stand to think of you alone out there...”
“Hurt?”
Hannibal felt something burst inside him, the grief in that single word. “Hurting,” he answered against it. “Nobody with you, the cold spring seas, nothing warm like you deserve...”
That wet head turned a bit, face burrowing into the curve of his neck, and Hannibal thought he felt lips brush skin, the rough pass of scaled cheeks, another flare of gills, right before the merman slipped out of grasp, back underwater.
Except this time, he came back up. On the opposite side of the tub, but up, nonetheless.
“You can read to me now,” he smiled. His tail twitched, disturbing the surface of the water. Like nothing had happened.
And if that was how he wanted to play it...
“Brat,” Hannibal teased back.
And grabbing a towel, stripping his own soaking wet shirt off, the kid’s eyes following him, went for his book.
+++++
“Hey,” the merman said the next day, on the way back from Bar Harbor and its mall and their overdue shopping trip. “Hey, Hannibal. I think I’ve got a solution to your lobster problem.”
“Lobster problem?”
“Yeah, you know, how you can’t put enough pots down by yourself. What BA was talking about. I’ve got a solution.”
He was fingering the half-empty latte in its cupholder, wearing new jeans, braces over the top not marring the image at all, not affecting the way those things framed his ass perfectly. A soft long-sleeved tee, sky blue, like his eyes, a darker waterproof jacket. He’d wanted almost everything blue, and had tried his best not to giggle his way through the stores, the colors and fabrics and textures and cuts, all of it amazing to him, on him. The kid had flirted with every salesgirl, tried everything on, acted completely normal, like he’d been doing it all his life. Taking all the cues Hannibal had given him and making them his own.
Even if he had almost started a scene at the Starbucks over the mermaid icon on the cups.
“I don’t want you worrying about that, kid.”
“Yeah, well, money’s important to humans,” the kid replied, an edge of bitterness in his voice and grabbed for his coffee. “All those people care about.”
“I hope you don’t think about me like that, Face.”
Suddenly boneless, the kid flopped back over to the passenger window. “You aren’t like any other human, Hannibal, I think. You’re different than they are.”
“Face, just because...”
“...they killed my parents? Da wanted them to stop what they were doing to our pod, and Ma...” the merman swallowed. “She...she just wanted them to stop.”
“The whaling?” Hannibal asked, suddenly wondering where Face was talking about. “Whaling’s mostly illegal these days, kid, you know...”
“Wasn’t there, I guess.”
Hannibal found it suddenly hard to focus on the road. “Where? Iceland?”
“You ever seen one, a whale hunt? You never forget it. I was a kid, and I still remember how it used to make the water taste, the way the discarded carcasses bloated as they sunk, how the blood drew in the sharks for miles, a blight...”
Very, very hard. “Face...”
“They killed them for money, Hannibal. How could anybody kill for money?”
He let loose a long breath, not even really aware he was holding it. “Do merfolk not kill?”
“Not whales,” the merman said sadly, and tried to smile. “We do kill lobsters, though. Tasty little buggers. Especially with that human...mayonnaise...stuff...”
“Face, most humans don’t approve of killing the whales, either. Iceland gets a lot of flak from the international community for doing it,” he explained, and then realized what the kid had just said. “Wait. Lobsters?”
That got him a nod, when he looked over briefly. “Yeah. I’ve seen some of the other crews in the area. Two people working a boat is far more effective than just one.”
“You shouldn’t be on your feet all day, not while you’re still healing...”
“I could drive.”
“You can’t operate a boat, can you?”
“You could teach me.”
“Face...”
And there was a hand on his arm. “Hannibal, if I’ve got these braces on, what’s the harm? I can’t turn back if I’m confined like that. Nowhere for my tail to grow. I’d kill myself, probably, if I tried to...”
“Face, no...”
“Come on, Hannibal,” the merman urged.
He rolled his eyes over that way. “Why?”
The kid’s lower lip disappeared, bitten up between his teeth. “I... I’m here. I can help. If I can help you out, I want to.”
Hannibal clenched the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white, focused on the road ahead again, thoughts racing. He’d stayed up until two that morning, trying to figure the numbers out. BA had been right. His finances weren’t what they should be, always something of a shaky thing, really, but if the market was dropping like he’d said, and with the break he’d taken to make sure the merman was okay... he would need to average at least six, seven hundred traps a day in order to even break even that season, pay off his debts, the mortgage on his boat, all the little bills that piled up.
It was impossible for him to do alone.
But if he agreed, Face could leave. Face could leave him...
“It’s the ocean, kid. I don’t want to put that in front of you, not right now.”
“Why’d your mother stay?” he asked softly, body fallen softly against the door, hand playing along the length of seat belt. “She stayed when she wanted to go home.”
Again with his mother. The merman kept throwing him for a loop with that one. Hannibal shook his head, listening to the comforting predictability of the truck’s engine for a moment, trying to think of an answer. “She loved my dad and I, you could probably say,” he finally acknowledged. “Sometimes humans are like that. Give up one thing for another.”
“Same way for us,” the kid said, tracing something on the glass with his finger. “So... I could not go home, for a little while. I can’t anyway, right? Might as well be useful while I’m stuck here.”
Hannibal looked over at the kid, who had a genuine smile on his face. A genuine offer, then, maybe, and he could use the help. He really, really could.
But it was more the thought of that smile, that happy, eager little smile, that laugh, that voice, those steady, open hands, that lithe body and that soft hair, the thought of having it all, having Face, with him, with him...
“Okay, Face. We’ll give it a try.”
“Awesome...”
“But you’re wearing a harness while we’re out there,” the fisherman added hastily, pulling on to the island’s small freeway, on the way back to Seal Harbor, chancing a glance back over. “And not that shirt. Looks too damn good on you to ruin...”
“You think I look good?” the merman asked, smiling wider, and leaned further back in his seat as Hannibal felt his own face growing hot. “Yeah. You think I look good.”
“You’d look good in a burlap sack,” the fisherman grumbled to himself.
And Face sat forward, serious again. “Did we get me one of those, too? Because if you think it’d be good on me...”
Hannibal just started laughing.
+++++
And it worked out.
It actually did.
Wake up early enough to grab a bite to eat, make something for lunch, pack up, drive to the docks, Face still a little slow with those braces. A long day of fishing. Evenings at home, dinner there or at BA and Murdock's or at the pub, where the kid was always a big hit with the local ladies, but where the kid always, always, walked home with him.
It was similar, Face fitting in like he'd always been there. Similar, but better. Laughter and stories had replaced the silence from before, the solitary silence he'd never realized was so terrible until he had Face to break it up. Like sea ice in the spring.
Like Face was thawing him out, finding something in him he'd thought lost a long time ago. A man who didn't need to be alone. A man who might be capable of loving another. A man who might be loved in return.
Though it was far, far too unfair to ask for anything like that.
For Face to stay.
Still. He could dream, couldn't he?
Like those dreams that kept leaking in into his mind every night, like seawater into a poorly sealed hull, filling the fisherman with sensations he didn't understand, images of floating in utter stillness, utter silence, moonlight streaming through the cool waters, strong arms wrapped around him and a softly scaled belly pressed to his own, fins tangling in the darkness, holding each other close...
Like those. Like being with Face, on Face's terms.
It was ridiculous.
But still.
He didn't want to see the merman gone.
Hannibal had been terrified, that first day, leaving harbor, the merman wrapped up in two layers of waterproof clothing and that safety harness, locked, thirty feet of rope firmly attached to the boat. Big blue eyes had watched him work all the little snaps and hooks and lines into place.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, kid,” he’d said lamely. “I just...”
Face had picked at the material nylon of the straps around him, and just smiled. Like he was incredibly pleased. “Show me how I help you.”
He’d listened, he’d learned. He’d learned fast and well. By the end of the week, Face had the basics down cold. By the end of two, the kid could bait, drop, mark, retrieve, sort and stack pots almost as well as Hannibal could. He barely had to glance to tell which lobsters were the breeding females that had to be thrown back with a “v” notched in the tail, or which were too small, and went back in the ocean for next year or the year after. He could pilot competently, he could read all the gauges, he could decipher the sonar and GPS well enough to find some of the better fishing grounds he knew about.
And by the end of four, when March was turning into April and the season was coming to an end, he could take the safety line off his harness.
“Hey, boss! Got your knot off!”
Hannibal jerked up from the day’s maps at the sound of that, whipping around to where Face was. Just a little ways away, right by the edge of the fishing boat, sitting on the edge of the boat.
Everything gone but that damn harness, still locked around him.
Hannibal couldn’t breath. He threw the engines in to neutral and stood, hand bracing him up on the pilot chair, the other reaching cautiously out, like he was dealing with a wild animal that would bolt at the first wrong move.
“Face...”
The merman shook himself, and stared up at the sun, then back at the water lapping against the hull. He fingered the nylon. “You think I can swim in this thing?”
The fisherman tried to force the panic down. Tried not to think about damn naked he was, how, even now, he seemed to glow, how otherworldly the angles of that body were, the light in those eyes... “Kid, please...”
“I think I can.”
“Face, please, it’s only a few more days before...”
The merman grinned that petulant little grin of his, the one he flashed when the fisherman told him no, he couldn’t eat a lobster straight out of the trap. “But I’m feeling better now, Hannibal.” And he swung his legs up. “A lot better. I think I should go for a swim.”
“No, kid, don’t!” Hannibal yelled, darting for him, but that infuriating merman just winked at him.
And let himself roll smoothly off, hitting the water with a splash.
By the time Hannibal reached the edge, eyes stinging, the ocean had washed away any evidence that Face had ever been there to begin with.
Panic hit him in a wave.
No sign...
The merman...
Hannibal collapsed down against the inside of the bulkhead, hands shaking into pockets, going for a cigar he got halfway to his mouth before he couldn’t hold on to it any more.
Face was gone.
Face had left.
The fisherman banged his head against the bulkhead in frustration, pissed at himself, pissed beyond belief. Fuck, had he really been stupid enough to believe that this would work? That Face wouldn’t cut and run the first chance he got? That Face might...might want this, might be willing to stay on dry land, with him, with...
Something wet and soft touched his graying hair.
“We got any towels on board, boss?”
He looked up.
Right into a pair of laughing blue eyes, hanging over him, holding on at the shoulders.
“I think I’m gonna need to dry off.” That hand reached back down and touched Hannibal’s face this time, salt gritting against the stubble. “Before...”
Hannibal was on his feet in a flash, turning right into the merman, who was still, for some horrible reason, smiling. He tossed his unlit cigar away and grabbed on to that harness, the one the kid was still wearing, ran a hand up into wet hair, unsure. So unsure, of what he should do or say. Unsure of what he was feeling, what that thing raging through his mind was, what he...
The kid’s body was hanging down the side of the boat, scales glinting bright in the afternoon sun, his long tail all afire with it, every curve and detail so apparent now, clearly visible, so beautiful...Hannibal ran a shaking hand down the kid’s side, right to where a hip would be, where the fish mixed with the man. Where he could feel what Face really was. “Kid...”
“Come on.” That tail smacked the dull paint of the hull, an anxious noise. “Dry me off or let me fall, Hannibal.”
Have him as a shadow of a man, or lose him to what he really is, the fisherman thought, and tasted salt on that smooth skin, his face turned into it. He couldn’t chose. It wasn’t his choice. Not his right, to make Face stay with him...
That tail thumped again. Face twitched.
“Need to breathe,” the kid gasped.
Hannibal opened his arms automatically and stared after, the kid slipping down into the water with a smile, barely breaking the surface at all as he fell. He bobbed up moments later with a wave, looking all the world like some dumb human, treading water in fifty degree seas.
“Thanks! We, uhh, got any towels up there?” he called up.
“A few, sure.”
The kid vanished into the ocean, and leapt up, tail coiled, thrusting, projecting him up not quite effectively. He caught the side with his elbows, hanging on, wincing a little as he scrambled for purchase.
Hannibal clamped both hands around the kid’s wrists. Holding him still. Pulling him up.
“A bit sore, still,” he reported as Hannibal eased him down onto the deck, his tail wriggling a few times. The fisherman threw him a towel, keeping one for himself, grabbing the discarded gear where it lay and coming back with the lot. “But I think it’s healing up. Murdock’s a good doctor.”
“I’m just glad the fix translates,” Hannibal agreed gruffly, sliding that towel along the kid’s tail, feeling the material catch on all that molten green. “It’s good. You’ll be back out there in no time...”
“...without you,” Face said softly, biting his lip, and jerking a little as his human legs reasserted. “And you’ll be here without me. Human...”
A soft hand touched his leg, and Hannibal covered it with his own, thinking he should probably move it away or something, finding he couldn’t. “I am human, kid.”
Face just smiled, like he was going to say something, and then shivered. “It’s cold out here.”
“No shit,” Hannibal replied, shaking his head. “Come on, let’s get you dressed.”
They worked on that together. And for some reason, it took a long, long time.
+++++
Hannibal grabbed their beers, steering back to bump Murdock, over to where the doctor was eating an entire peanut from the big bowl on the bar. Shell and all.
“When the hell did they start doing...whatever the hell this is?” the older man asked, looking at the little stage in the corner of the pub where Amy was just finishing up a sweaty and somewhat off-key rendition of some Shania Twain song, a little TV propped up on a barstool, scrolling the last of the lyrics, bowing over the mic, waving a little at the enthusiastic applause.
Waving at Face, actually, who was waving back, BA laughing next to him, over by the dart board.
He tried to ignore the wave of jealousy that crashed over him.
Who the hell knew if merfolk even...
“One night karaoke contest, I guess,” Murdock nodded, breaking him out of the same thoughts that had been consuming him since the little episode on the boat, a few days back. The peanuts must have passed muster, because the doc was filling one of those smaller bowls for them. “I think it’s kinda fun. Karaoke and stuff.”
“It’s insane.”
And Murdock cast a glance over at him, that batshit grin he always wore fading a bit. “Yeah, well, maybe Face’ll like it.”
“Why’s that?” Hannibal asked, sipping at the beer.
“Cause merfolk love their singing,” Murdock said, like it was the most logical thing in the world to be dropping on him in the middle of a bar, and made to go back to the table where his partner and Hannibal’s houseguest were cheering the next act, a couple of teachers warming up for what sounded like AC/DC.
And Hannibal caught the doctor before he got too far for a subtle whisper.
“Merfolk?”
“Yeah,” Murdock huffed. “I am a doctor, after all.”
Hannibal felt cold. “That doesn’t make any sense, Murdock. Mermaids, m-mermen, that stuff, it’s not real...”
The doctor smiled, and tapped Hannibal on his nose. “I was president of my grad school’s cryptozoology club. I could tell you stories about wild Bigfoot hunts that would scare you shitless. Face ain’t so strange, really.” He popped another peanut, and pulled loose. “He probably ain’t even the first merperson to come through the island.”
Hannibal stared for a moment, and then scrambled after him.
But he couldn’t reach Murdock before he reached the table, ducking under the cover of one of BA’s massive arms, that happy little expression on the black man’s face welcoming him in.
They’d never been overt about what they had together, but they’d never been ashamed of it, either. When they’d moved up to Maine from Georgia, about eight or nine years ago, Hannibal had thought them so different, different personalities, different lives entirely, bickering constantly. Strange to think they were even together at all.
“Harder bein’ together back home,” BA had explained when the fisherman had managed to work up the courage to ask. “Interracial gay couple down there? Surprised Murdock never got killed over it.”
Murdock had been a neurosurgeon back in Atlanta, it turned out, BA the owner of his own custom-build garage. But after one too many near-assaults, BA had found the family practioner job up here for Murdock, and moved with him. Without complaint. Without a single backwards glance. Packed up and left. For his man, his lover. No other considerations considered.
And as Murdock cuddled up to his partner’s side, offering him a shelled peanut, Hannibal felt a stab of jealousy burn through him. They’d found each other. Found somebody to be with.
While he’d always been alone. And always would be.
Asking Face to move to Maine, Hannibal suspected, would be a completely different situation altogether, and he was pretty damn sure there wasn’t a way to follow the kid...
Then, right then, like he knew what was going through the older man’s mind, Face was there next to him. He cocked his head a little, looked sideways at Hannibal, and the older man knew he was lost to whatever was coming next. Kid had his lip in his teeth. There was something about him, like that, not quite shy, not quite innocent...
“What?” Hannibal grunted.
“Can I go sing next, boss?” the merman asked coyly, taking his beer from the fisherman’s clenched fist. “Huh? Can I?”
BA glanced up from where Murdock was really, really trying to feed him a peanut. “Why he callin’ you boss?”
“Cause he’s working for me right now, BA, and Murdock told him to,” the fisherman sighed. “And no, Face, you can’t. It’s stupid. The words scroll across the screen and you read them...”
He hoped Face would take the hint. The you-need-to-read-to-play-this-game hint. But the kid just smiled wider. “Unless you got something memorized cause some old guy has a radio.” He looked over at Murdock. “Can they play anything?”
“Sure can.”
“C’mon, Hannibal. Please? Please, please, please?” Face begged, half-joking.
Half serious.
The boy did love to sing...
Hannibal shook his head and stared down at his beer, feeling hollow, though he couldn't have said why to save his life. “You don’t need my permission, Face...”
“Awesome!”
And then Face was sauntering up, hands stuffed in the back pockets of those jeans, the braces off tonight. He was a little unsteady, but he still seemed the most graceful thing in the whole damn town. The merman had his scarf on from the walk over, and it somehow accentuated the way his hips swayed as he leaned over to talk to the girl working the karaoke machine.
“What’s wrong wif’ him singin’, Hannibal?” BA asked.
“Nothing,” he grumbled, setting his beer down and going for a stogie. Face was getting set up up front. Looked so damn pleased with himself. Cute of him. Hannibal had no idea why, but there was something about the way the merman sang that reached straight through him, dug out all kinds of strange things. Like those dreams about the ocean he kept having. “Nothing at all.”
The employee manning the karaoke machine stood, microphone in hand, waving. “Okay, okay folks,” the girl yelled through the speakers. “Our next brave contestant up is Face, that NYU student we’ve come to love over the last few weeks since his...”
“Stupid accident?” the merman offered, loud, and everyone laughed.
Hannibal puffed on his cigar.
“Well, stupid or not, we’re glad to have you around, Face! Now, what are you singing for us tonight?”
She held the mic out to him, and he took it, a little more nervous now. Hannibal doubted that anybody noticed. Not the way his boy was running a hand back through his hair, leaning against one of the stand-alone speaker boxes, the very picture of confidence.
“Yeah, right, so, back home, we’ve got a lot of music that you all would probably consider weird,” the kid began, laughing a little. It was just vague enough to sound like he’s talking about New York. “But this place is a lot different, and I thought... thought I might break out one of the songs I’ve heard on Hannibal’s radio in the evenings, cause, you know, the man doesn’t own a TV.”
More laughter.
More cigar.
“So, uhh, Hannibal, I blame this song entirely on you.” Face nodded. “I think some of you might recognize this, but you’re going to have to let me know...”
The music started up.
The first few notes.
Face started singing.
And Hannibal was lost.
“Gotta take a little time...time to think things over...I better read between the lines...in case I need it when I’m older...”
Scattered applause at the choice, at the kid’s truly amazing voice, a few whistles, and the loudest clapping of all came from the back corner.
Where Buress was standing with a couple of his coworkers.
Smiling a little to himself, predatory and hungry.
It tore Hannibal out of the thread of the song, just for a moment, long enough for some instinct he didn't understand to start screaming at him, screaming at him to grab Face and get the fuck out of there...
"...And through the clouds I see love shine...it keeps me warm as life grows colder..."
But the kid’s voice, that subtle, seductive voice, pulled at the fisherman as surely as the waves pulled at the shore, tugging him out, back into the song, and Hannibal couldn’t do a damn thing.
"...in my life there's been heartache and pain...I don't know if I can face it again...can't stop now, I've traveled so far...to change this lonely life...”
Couldn't. Not as the synth-pop music started to swell. Not as Face's voice began to grow with it. Taking him over. More and more and more...
"I wanna know what love is...I want you to show me...I wanna feel what love is...I know you can show me..."
Something, deep down in the fisherman, burst open, ripping a hole in him he knew, right then and there, he'd never, ever be able to close again.
And his hand closed down so tightly around his cigar that the damn thing burst open.
But he stayed. Held. Held by that voice, by the way those hips were swaying slightly into the words, by those closed eyes that still seemed to bore into him.
Until the very last ...I wanna know what love is... faded into thunderous applause, and the spell was broken, and Hannibal thought he might die from the loss of it.
Except that Face was smiling through it all, through everything else, through everything around them.
Smiling just for him.
