Catch of the Day - Seven Years On
Jul. 12th, 2011 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: R
Warnings: merman AU
Summary: Epilogue 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*
Seven years after the events of Catch of the Day, Hannibal makes a frantic call to his old human friend, Dr. Murdock...
Seven Years Later
BA looked back again at the little boy, shuffled close to Hannibal’s leg, both arms wrapped around the tall man’s legs.
The revelation that mermen could give birth was freaking him out.
But there was proof positive of it. That little boy.
The kid had blue-gray eyes, the color of the winter seas, eyes like Hannibal’s, actually, and that chin, those fair curls of clumped hair could have only come from Face. It was strange, thinking of the two of them together, not human, having a child... and he felt a sudden pang of jealousy. They had been able to give each other the one thing that was denied to him and Murdock...
But then, it was, according to Hannibal, when they were trying for their second child that things had started to go wrong with Face. So maybe it was all for the best, really.
This shit was ridiculous...nothing had been the same in his life since the night Hannibal had carried some dumbass kid off his boat. But he’d thought, hoped, that besides his partner’s reawakened interest in cryptozoology, the matter had been laid to rest.
Not a hint of anything strange.
For seven years.
Until the emails started about a week ago.
Several had shown up in Murdock’s gmail account, quick, in succession, the last few sent two days ago, and followed by a phone call. He’d thought the whole thing was a hoax, until the phone call. Hannibal’s voice, unmistakable on the other end.
BA? Is... is that you? Please, I’ve been trying to reach you for a week and your cell numbers are all different, I’ve been calling all over town, trying to get in touch with you...is Murdock there? It’s Face...
The fear in those words, and then how he’d talked to Murdock for a good half hour, and how Murdock had airline prices pulled up online before he’d even gotten off the phone, had all left BA cold.
The story had become a bit of an urban legend on Mount Desert Island. The fisherman who fell in love with that student, the student who’d left him heartbroken, suicidal... nobody really knew the facts, of course, beyond the fact that his fishing boat was found and he never was. But the story that Hannibal had killed himself for love, in the same spot he’d fallen in love, was irresistable.
And BA had honestly thought Hannibal was dead.
And here they were anyway, at one of the Miami aquariums, down in Florida, the whole thing rented out and reserved for the week for just this purpose. Trying to figure out what the hell was going on here. What the hell was wrong with Face. Murdock had made the arrangements immediately after they met up with their old friends down in Key West, Hannibal waiting for them at the airport, so different than he used to be, so much the same, a little boy of six sleeping against his shoulder. After he’d gotten a chance to examine his new patient, make some notes, start speculating non-stop about how, exactly, all of this worked...
It’s probably a survival thing. Some animals, like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, are able to temporarily convert their sex organs to those of the underrepresented gender in times of great scarcity. Lets them reproduce even when there’s an absence of natural females or males. Since merfolk are so rare, and spread out across so much ocean, it would make sense that they’d be able to adapt themselves somewhat to allow for children. And from what Face has told me, either sex can naturally carry a baby for the first few months after the egg hatches, like a nurse shark, I suspect, which has to be...
Life with Murdock was never boring. He could give his crazy baby that much credit.
The kid looked at him again, and tugged on his father’s pants leg. “Da?” he asked quietly, and Hannibal was down at his side in a moment, holding him close. The little boy laid his head on a broad shoulder, one tiny hand tugging at his ear. “Da, the big human is looking at me...”
His old friend looked up, and smiled at BA, more for his son’s benefit, the harbor master suspected, than his own.
“His name is Uncle BA, Tem. Remember what I told you about being polite to our human friends? That we call them by their names? Like we would for any of our own people? I don’t want to tell you again...”
“Yes, da,” he whispered loudly
“Say you’re sorry.”
Those sea-blue eyes turned up to BA’s, squinted up, sad. “I’m sorry, Uncle BA. I’ve never met any humans before and, and, and... and...” and he stuck his thumb in his mouth at that, shying away.
Hannibal tugged the digit out. “Good boy,” he murmured, kissing the kid on the head and standing again, laying his hand along the surface of the water, the surface tension sucking up between his fingers, Face just meeting it with his own.
The big man chuckled, and knelt down. “It’s okay, Tem. I was scared, too, first time I met your...”
Hannibal’s other hand tightened on the edge of the tank. “Papa, BA.”
“Right, first time I met your papa.”
The kid sniffled, and then touched his cheeks, pawing at the tears that were coming, a look of fear coming out on his young face, and BA wondered hoe merfolk cried, how they expressed sadness... “Papa’s gonna be okay, isn’t he?”
BA nodded. “Uncle Murdock’s the best doctor I know. If anyone can fix your papa, it’s him.”
“Really?”
“Really, baby.”
Murdock murmured something to Hannibal, something that made the man, merman, whatever, drop his shoulders, falling on to his elbows, Face reaching up to him, both of them holding each other. Murdock asked something else, and Hannibal nodded, shuddering, like it was hard for him to breath all of the sudden.
“BA?” his own partner asked, voice a little strained. “Can you take Tem out to central pool? Let him stretch his fins a bit? I got some stuff to talk over here with the boys.”
“Da?” the kid asked, clearly torn between wanting to get back in the water
Hannibal looked down at his son, his own eyes suspiciously watery, and ruffled his hair with a wet hand. BA noticed a slight bit of webbing there, and damn, this shit was getting weirder by the minute. “It’s okay, kiddo. Go get your tail back.”
The little merman stared back, nodded, and slipped his small hand into BA’s big one, pulling on it. “Can you swim, Uncle Murdock?”
“Not as good as you can, baby,” he replied, and swung the kid around a little, getting a giggle.
Really like any normal human child, that little guy, BA guessed. And children, at least, were something he could do.
All this medical shit, on the other hand, the way Face was laid out in that shallow tank, eyes pulled shut, clenching tight to Hannibal’s offered hand, clearly in pain as Murdock ran his skilled, clever hands across his belly, the ultrasound machine waiting by, the one they used on the dolphins here...
“Don’t let him eat any of the fish in the tank!” Hannibal called back, as an afterthought. “He’ll spoil his supper!”
But judging by the way Tem was smiling up at him, that little conman smile of his papa’s, BA knew he wasn’t going to be able to do a damn thing once he got the kid in the water.
It was starting to get dark outside when Hannibal, limping slightly, came out on the upper landing of the indoor tank, Face in his arms, that emerald-green tail twitching against his lover's side. Just like the first time BA saw the merman, actually. Not with the tail, of course. But the expression on the fisherman’s face, carrying that kid, cradling him close, the way the kid had clung to him...he could have guessed then, really.
Now, anybody looking at these two would have no doubt. Not about how they felt for each other. The merman thing, on the other hand...
Hannibal took a knee, then the other, moving fast but careful, letting Face slip down into the water below. The blonde fell with barely a sound, dunking, pausing for a moment at the surface, hair plastered to his face.
“How’s my boy doing?” he asked.
“Fine,” he replied, cautious. “He been playin’ in one of those fake rock things all afternoon, doin’ wheelies. And he didn’t eat anything...”
“Thanks, brother,” he said softly, clouded with pain, and then slipped beneath the surface. Through the disturbance of the water, BA could see that little dude swimming up fast, and Face barely got two feet down before his arms were full of excited boy. The merman pulled him in to a tight hug, pulled him into a slow spin that probably had the kid giggling...
“Your words, that night, meant a lot to him,” Hannibal said, voice hoarse, and BA realized he’d been crying.
The older man was over by the lockers by the door, stripping off his light, loose clothes, his back a mass of muscle that an Olympic swimmer in his prime might envy. Not a trace of fat anywhere on him now, some kind of light right beneath the skin, smoothing out age and imperfection and concern. One long, rough scar over his left shoulder, a rough patch of steel-blue scales on his hip. He was different, BA thought, so different. Not human anymore. It was all so strange...
“Face. That night, in your van. You told him he could think of you as his brother,” Hannibal continued, folding his clothes up. “He does. He’d never had any family until he met...”
“You?”
“Well, you and Murdock, too,” the older man said sadly, limping back over, favoring that scaled leg. He seemed completely unconcerned with his own nudity as he sat down at the edge of the tank. He didn’t try to touch the surface. “Face lost his family real young, younger than Tem is now. It’s been so important to him, the kids...”
“What’s wrong, man?” BA asked softly, daring to lay a hand on the older man’s bare shoulder. “Does Murdock know?”
Hannibal, without looking over, without tearing his eyes away from the tank, where his little Tem was snuggling in to Face’s side, both of them down at the rocky bottom, shook his head slowly. “Doc thinks that there’s some kind of calcification. It’s right where he thinks...it could be dangerous. It could be causing a lot of internal damage.”
“Is there anything Murdock can do? I mean, I know he crazy, but he a real good surgeon. He’s started takin’ cases again, too, up in Portland, so mebbe...”
“He said he was calling an old colleague. She’ll be out from Atlanta tomorrow. But there’s no guarantee.” He sighed, heavy, sad, and a tear started rolling down his cheek. He ran a big hand up into his silver hair. “We were trying for a little brother for Tem. Face didn’t want him to be an only child, didn’t want him to ever feel alone, and now...now we might not be able to ever...ever have another...”
BA felt lost. What he could say to that? What should he? What did you tell a man whose lover had just lost the ability to have children? “Hannibal,” he groaned.
But Hannibal just smiled, clapped the harbor master on the back, and edged forward. “You’ll never know how grateful Face and I are for everything you two have done for us. It means the world to me.”
“Aww, man, it ain’t no thing.”
“Yes it is,” the older man said, holding BA’s gaze with his blue, blue eyes. And it was then, maybe, that he recognized it. That Hannibal wasn’t human any more. That it didn’t matter, because it was still his friend in there. Still the man he'd known in Seal Harbor. Just...more. Fulfilled, maybe. “It’s a huge thing. One doesn’t find friends like you both every day in this world, to believe in all...this, to help me save my...my mate’s life a second time, when I’ve no way to pay you or...”
“Don’t need to,” BA grunted, feeling a little embarrassed. “We worried ‘bout you, back in Maine, man, wanted you to find somebody you could be happy with, and you seem like you happy now.”
“Yes," and his friend smiled. "And you’ve helped me keep him. Nobody’s ever done more for me. Thank you,” Hannibal said simply, and then his old friend pushed free of the landing, splashing down.
The human gone, it was a merman who dove, fast and hard, to the bottom of the tank, joining up with his family. Stroking a hand down his lover’s arm, petting his son’s hair, steel-blue tail working softly against the rocky floor as he wrapped them up against him.
The big man watched for a moment, and was suddenly overcome with need to find Murdock, kiss him, hold him close, tell him how loved he was, show him... so BA shook his head and stood, making sure the rack of towels were close, whispering a little you're welcome into the air, and left.
+++++
BA slid into his chair on stage at the University of Chicago, ignoring the general excitement around him. The keynote panel at that year’s Cryptozoological Institute of America’s international conference about to begin.
Murdock’s night.
In fucking academia.
Where he has to sit in on the panel, as the primary eyewitness.
He’d been dreading this...
The lights dimmed and came back up, the signal for everyone to find their seats, sit down, shut the fuck up, and listen to what his man had to say about one of their best friends.
Murdock was introduced, the president of the CIA coming out and reading his bio, making it sound like Seal Harbor’s town doc had trekked all over the world looking for his speech’s subject, rather than simply finding it in a friend’s bathtub. The there Murdock was, adjusting his bow tie, his tweed jacket - he had insisted on both earlier that day, said he wanted to look professional for this - looking nervous as all hell as he shuffled his notes, sitting down at the center seat.
He leaned forward, into the mic.
“Hello, everyone, students, curious people. I’m honored to give a speech like this to such a distinguished group.” Murdock tapped his notes on the table. “It’s quite the honor, to be invited to even sit in on a panel at this conference, much less lead one. I know the program don’t offer any details on the creature I’m here to talk about tonight. Would’ya like to know what we’re talkin’ about?”
BA could hear the grin in his voice, and the light shifted behind them, the first slide going up.
A chorus of cheers, groans and whistles went up from the crowd, and the big guy started chuckling to himself, knowing damn well what that slide said.
The Little Merman.
Complete with a graphic Murdock spent four weeks trying to get permission to use from the Disney company.
His lover leaned back into the mic, silencing the room again. “It was your usual romance for the world of the hominus oceanus, boy meets boy, boy falls in love with boy, boy mates with boy, boys make egg together, boys expect to become parents. But for my patient, that story went wrong somewhere along the way...” He adjusted his notes yet again, one leg scratching the other under the table, still nervous, probably thinking about what had happened. That was one details they’d promised Hannibal and Face they wouldn’t reveal.
Where things had gone wrong.
“I was put in touch with this extraordinary creature and me, along with my team, assembled here, were able to address his problem and release him back to his mate a healthy, happy merman.”
BA remembered those long days, breezed over in so few words. The seven hour procedure, so incredibly difficult, trying to keep Face’s belly dry and his gills underwater. How Hannibal wouldn’t leave the room the entire time. How they’d had to keep little Tem out of sight for the entire time his daddies were gone, Face terrified some human would steal his boy away, refusing the procedure until BA personally assured him no harm would come to the little guy. How brave Tem had tried to be about it all, how BA had had to spend most of the day in the water with him, telling stories to distract the kid, the boy clinging to him and barely listening. How they’d struggled to figure out painkillers, salves, disinfectants, recovery times. How Murdock had had to rent a houseboat for a few weeks and install a fish-farming net under it, keeping Face in a safe, confined, monitored space while he recovered.
BA remembered those horrible days in the Gulf, unable to enjoy their lazy vacation, knowing that their friends were just below, mourning the loss of what had more than likely been the death of their hatched, unborn child.
We turn into...foam, I guess, when we die, Face had told them, when Murdock figured out that the semi-calcified object had been part of a spongy, delicate shell. Very similar, chemically, to a fish egg, analysis said. So there wouldn’t be anything left of him, no body...
BA remembered how his lover had cried about it. That he hadn’t been able to help sooner, help more.
“Okay, kiddos, we’re going to start with the reproductive system, as our patient’s problems lay there. Hominus oceanus is very similar to homo sapien in most respects, as I said before. One key difference is the way genetic combinations come together. Mating between adult merfolk need not necessarily be between a male and a female. Same-sex pairings are possible, and indeed, given their extremely low population density, seems to be a necessity for survival.”
Another note shuffle.
“We hypothesized that both males and females have the same type of gametes, or similar, with fertilization occurring in an egg, which may be produced by either partner in the pairing. As such, hominus oceanus could be considered an ovoviviparous creature, sustaining its unborn young through hemotrophic viviparity, which leads to questions about the species classification as mammalian. The ladies seems to have an easier time producing eggs. By contrast, our patient spent an extreme amount of energy on the reproductive process, producing only one egg in the three years he'd been trying. We found no evidence that he could have affected this process in any way, although the presence of an alpha male and their sexual relationship probably stimulated his reproductive organs....”
Click.
“He’s fucking crazy,” Buress spat.
“Shuttup, fool. Murdock talkin’ right now.”
“You fucking stole that merman from me.”
BA chuckled. And went back to listening to his crazy baby give that lecture.
“...ypothesize that a male-only pairing can lead to a female embryo, or a female pairing could lead to a male embryo. Genetic evidence seems to support this as a possibility. It's likely much rarer that a same-sex pairing giving birth to a same-sex child, though."
Click.
"You know, sooner or later, it's going to come out, if you guys do this," Buress chuckled, his eyes glassy with one too many beers. "They're going to figure out what happened to Hannibal."
"Hannibal dead, man."
"Bullshit."
“Don’t got a clue what you talkin’ about, Buress.”
"Our patient was unable to shed any light on any of those speculations, but he did assure us that the entire copulation process with his male mate was incredibly fun, and that, in order to ensure proper fertilization,” and BA was sure that his lover’s eyes were gleaming, “they did it as often as possible.”
Buress choked a bit, and BA smiled. Jerked the bastard a little more, waiting for the campus police to show up and haul his worthless ass away.
"Those two were fucking."
"So what? Hannibal just turn into a merman?" BA chuckled again. "Like they all some kind 'a magic?"
"Fuck you, Baracus," Buress snarled.
Murdock lecture went on. Questions were fielded. The police came. All of it very logical, orderly. But that, BA thought, probably didn't have anything to do with this at all. What he'd said, magic, seemed the only way to describe it. Describe them, Murdock's hominus oceanus.
And he sent out a silent prayer for his friends that, whatever the nature of whatever animated them, they'd be able to find their happiness again.
Fairytales deserved a happy ending.
Rating: R
Warnings: merman AU
Summary: Epilogue 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*
Seven years after the events of Catch of the Day, Hannibal makes a frantic call to his old human friend, Dr. Murdock...
Seven Years Later
BA looked back again at the little boy, shuffled close to Hannibal’s leg, both arms wrapped around the tall man’s legs.
The revelation that mermen could give birth was freaking him out.
But there was proof positive of it. That little boy.
The kid had blue-gray eyes, the color of the winter seas, eyes like Hannibal’s, actually, and that chin, those fair curls of clumped hair could have only come from Face. It was strange, thinking of the two of them together, not human, having a child... and he felt a sudden pang of jealousy. They had been able to give each other the one thing that was denied to him and Murdock...
But then, it was, according to Hannibal, when they were trying for their second child that things had started to go wrong with Face. So maybe it was all for the best, really.
This shit was ridiculous...nothing had been the same in his life since the night Hannibal had carried some dumbass kid off his boat. But he’d thought, hoped, that besides his partner’s reawakened interest in cryptozoology, the matter had been laid to rest.
Not a hint of anything strange.
For seven years.
Until the emails started about a week ago.
Several had shown up in Murdock’s gmail account, quick, in succession, the last few sent two days ago, and followed by a phone call. He’d thought the whole thing was a hoax, until the phone call. Hannibal’s voice, unmistakable on the other end.
BA? Is... is that you? Please, I’ve been trying to reach you for a week and your cell numbers are all different, I’ve been calling all over town, trying to get in touch with you...is Murdock there? It’s Face...
The fear in those words, and then how he’d talked to Murdock for a good half hour, and how Murdock had airline prices pulled up online before he’d even gotten off the phone, had all left BA cold.
The story had become a bit of an urban legend on Mount Desert Island. The fisherman who fell in love with that student, the student who’d left him heartbroken, suicidal... nobody really knew the facts, of course, beyond the fact that his fishing boat was found and he never was. But the story that Hannibal had killed himself for love, in the same spot he’d fallen in love, was irresistable.
And BA had honestly thought Hannibal was dead.
And here they were anyway, at one of the Miami aquariums, down in Florida, the whole thing rented out and reserved for the week for just this purpose. Trying to figure out what the hell was going on here. What the hell was wrong with Face. Murdock had made the arrangements immediately after they met up with their old friends down in Key West, Hannibal waiting for them at the airport, so different than he used to be, so much the same, a little boy of six sleeping against his shoulder. After he’d gotten a chance to examine his new patient, make some notes, start speculating non-stop about how, exactly, all of this worked...
It’s probably a survival thing. Some animals, like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, are able to temporarily convert their sex organs to those of the underrepresented gender in times of great scarcity. Lets them reproduce even when there’s an absence of natural females or males. Since merfolk are so rare, and spread out across so much ocean, it would make sense that they’d be able to adapt themselves somewhat to allow for children. And from what Face has told me, either sex can naturally carry a baby for the first few months after the egg hatches, like a nurse shark, I suspect, which has to be...
Life with Murdock was never boring. He could give his crazy baby that much credit.
The kid looked at him again, and tugged on his father’s pants leg. “Da?” he asked quietly, and Hannibal was down at his side in a moment, holding him close. The little boy laid his head on a broad shoulder, one tiny hand tugging at his ear. “Da, the big human is looking at me...”
His old friend looked up, and smiled at BA, more for his son’s benefit, the harbor master suspected, than his own.
“His name is Uncle BA, Tem. Remember what I told you about being polite to our human friends? That we call them by their names? Like we would for any of our own people? I don’t want to tell you again...”
“Yes, da,” he whispered loudly
“Say you’re sorry.”
Those sea-blue eyes turned up to BA’s, squinted up, sad. “I’m sorry, Uncle BA. I’ve never met any humans before and, and, and... and...” and he stuck his thumb in his mouth at that, shying away.
Hannibal tugged the digit out. “Good boy,” he murmured, kissing the kid on the head and standing again, laying his hand along the surface of the water, the surface tension sucking up between his fingers, Face just meeting it with his own.
The big man chuckled, and knelt down. “It’s okay, Tem. I was scared, too, first time I met your...”
Hannibal’s other hand tightened on the edge of the tank. “Papa, BA.”
“Right, first time I met your papa.”
The kid sniffled, and then touched his cheeks, pawing at the tears that were coming, a look of fear coming out on his young face, and BA wondered hoe merfolk cried, how they expressed sadness... “Papa’s gonna be okay, isn’t he?”
BA nodded. “Uncle Murdock’s the best doctor I know. If anyone can fix your papa, it’s him.”
“Really?”
“Really, baby.”
Murdock murmured something to Hannibal, something that made the man, merman, whatever, drop his shoulders, falling on to his elbows, Face reaching up to him, both of them holding each other. Murdock asked something else, and Hannibal nodded, shuddering, like it was hard for him to breath all of the sudden.
“BA?” his own partner asked, voice a little strained. “Can you take Tem out to central pool? Let him stretch his fins a bit? I got some stuff to talk over here with the boys.”
“Da?” the kid asked, clearly torn between wanting to get back in the water
Hannibal looked down at his son, his own eyes suspiciously watery, and ruffled his hair with a wet hand. BA noticed a slight bit of webbing there, and damn, this shit was getting weirder by the minute. “It’s okay, kiddo. Go get your tail back.”
The little merman stared back, nodded, and slipped his small hand into BA’s big one, pulling on it. “Can you swim, Uncle Murdock?”
“Not as good as you can, baby,” he replied, and swung the kid around a little, getting a giggle.
Really like any normal human child, that little guy, BA guessed. And children, at least, were something he could do.
All this medical shit, on the other hand, the way Face was laid out in that shallow tank, eyes pulled shut, clenching tight to Hannibal’s offered hand, clearly in pain as Murdock ran his skilled, clever hands across his belly, the ultrasound machine waiting by, the one they used on the dolphins here...
“Don’t let him eat any of the fish in the tank!” Hannibal called back, as an afterthought. “He’ll spoil his supper!”
But judging by the way Tem was smiling up at him, that little conman smile of his papa’s, BA knew he wasn’t going to be able to do a damn thing once he got the kid in the water.
It was starting to get dark outside when Hannibal, limping slightly, came out on the upper landing of the indoor tank, Face in his arms, that emerald-green tail twitching against his lover's side. Just like the first time BA saw the merman, actually. Not with the tail, of course. But the expression on the fisherman’s face, carrying that kid, cradling him close, the way the kid had clung to him...he could have guessed then, really.
Now, anybody looking at these two would have no doubt. Not about how they felt for each other. The merman thing, on the other hand...
Hannibal took a knee, then the other, moving fast but careful, letting Face slip down into the water below. The blonde fell with barely a sound, dunking, pausing for a moment at the surface, hair plastered to his face.
“How’s my boy doing?” he asked.
“Fine,” he replied, cautious. “He been playin’ in one of those fake rock things all afternoon, doin’ wheelies. And he didn’t eat anything...”
“Thanks, brother,” he said softly, clouded with pain, and then slipped beneath the surface. Through the disturbance of the water, BA could see that little dude swimming up fast, and Face barely got two feet down before his arms were full of excited boy. The merman pulled him in to a tight hug, pulled him into a slow spin that probably had the kid giggling...
“Your words, that night, meant a lot to him,” Hannibal said, voice hoarse, and BA realized he’d been crying.
The older man was over by the lockers by the door, stripping off his light, loose clothes, his back a mass of muscle that an Olympic swimmer in his prime might envy. Not a trace of fat anywhere on him now, some kind of light right beneath the skin, smoothing out age and imperfection and concern. One long, rough scar over his left shoulder, a rough patch of steel-blue scales on his hip. He was different, BA thought, so different. Not human anymore. It was all so strange...
“Face. That night, in your van. You told him he could think of you as his brother,” Hannibal continued, folding his clothes up. “He does. He’d never had any family until he met...”
“You?”
“Well, you and Murdock, too,” the older man said sadly, limping back over, favoring that scaled leg. He seemed completely unconcerned with his own nudity as he sat down at the edge of the tank. He didn’t try to touch the surface. “Face lost his family real young, younger than Tem is now. It’s been so important to him, the kids...”
“What’s wrong, man?” BA asked softly, daring to lay a hand on the older man’s bare shoulder. “Does Murdock know?”
Hannibal, without looking over, without tearing his eyes away from the tank, where his little Tem was snuggling in to Face’s side, both of them down at the rocky bottom, shook his head slowly. “Doc thinks that there’s some kind of calcification. It’s right where he thinks...it could be dangerous. It could be causing a lot of internal damage.”
“Is there anything Murdock can do? I mean, I know he crazy, but he a real good surgeon. He’s started takin’ cases again, too, up in Portland, so mebbe...”
“He said he was calling an old colleague. She’ll be out from Atlanta tomorrow. But there’s no guarantee.” He sighed, heavy, sad, and a tear started rolling down his cheek. He ran a big hand up into his silver hair. “We were trying for a little brother for Tem. Face didn’t want him to be an only child, didn’t want him to ever feel alone, and now...now we might not be able to ever...ever have another...”
BA felt lost. What he could say to that? What should he? What did you tell a man whose lover had just lost the ability to have children? “Hannibal,” he groaned.
But Hannibal just smiled, clapped the harbor master on the back, and edged forward. “You’ll never know how grateful Face and I are for everything you two have done for us. It means the world to me.”
“Aww, man, it ain’t no thing.”
“Yes it is,” the older man said, holding BA’s gaze with his blue, blue eyes. And it was then, maybe, that he recognized it. That Hannibal wasn’t human any more. That it didn’t matter, because it was still his friend in there. Still the man he'd known in Seal Harbor. Just...more. Fulfilled, maybe. “It’s a huge thing. One doesn’t find friends like you both every day in this world, to believe in all...this, to help me save my...my mate’s life a second time, when I’ve no way to pay you or...”
“Don’t need to,” BA grunted, feeling a little embarrassed. “We worried ‘bout you, back in Maine, man, wanted you to find somebody you could be happy with, and you seem like you happy now.”
“Yes," and his friend smiled. "And you’ve helped me keep him. Nobody’s ever done more for me. Thank you,” Hannibal said simply, and then his old friend pushed free of the landing, splashing down.
The human gone, it was a merman who dove, fast and hard, to the bottom of the tank, joining up with his family. Stroking a hand down his lover’s arm, petting his son’s hair, steel-blue tail working softly against the rocky floor as he wrapped them up against him.
The big man watched for a moment, and was suddenly overcome with need to find Murdock, kiss him, hold him close, tell him how loved he was, show him... so BA shook his head and stood, making sure the rack of towels were close, whispering a little you're welcome into the air, and left.
+++++
BA slid into his chair on stage at the University of Chicago, ignoring the general excitement around him. The keynote panel at that year’s Cryptozoological Institute of America’s international conference about to begin.
Murdock’s night.
In fucking academia.
Where he has to sit in on the panel, as the primary eyewitness.
He’d been dreading this...
The lights dimmed and came back up, the signal for everyone to find their seats, sit down, shut the fuck up, and listen to what his man had to say about one of their best friends.
Murdock was introduced, the president of the CIA coming out and reading his bio, making it sound like Seal Harbor’s town doc had trekked all over the world looking for his speech’s subject, rather than simply finding it in a friend’s bathtub. The there Murdock was, adjusting his bow tie, his tweed jacket - he had insisted on both earlier that day, said he wanted to look professional for this - looking nervous as all hell as he shuffled his notes, sitting down at the center seat.
He leaned forward, into the mic.
“Hello, everyone, students, curious people. I’m honored to give a speech like this to such a distinguished group.” Murdock tapped his notes on the table. “It’s quite the honor, to be invited to even sit in on a panel at this conference, much less lead one. I know the program don’t offer any details on the creature I’m here to talk about tonight. Would’ya like to know what we’re talkin’ about?”
BA could hear the grin in his voice, and the light shifted behind them, the first slide going up.
A chorus of cheers, groans and whistles went up from the crowd, and the big guy started chuckling to himself, knowing damn well what that slide said.
The Little Merman.
Complete with a graphic Murdock spent four weeks trying to get permission to use from the Disney company.
His lover leaned back into the mic, silencing the room again. “It was your usual romance for the world of the hominus oceanus, boy meets boy, boy falls in love with boy, boy mates with boy, boys make egg together, boys expect to become parents. But for my patient, that story went wrong somewhere along the way...” He adjusted his notes yet again, one leg scratching the other under the table, still nervous, probably thinking about what had happened. That was one details they’d promised Hannibal and Face they wouldn’t reveal.
Where things had gone wrong.
“I was put in touch with this extraordinary creature and me, along with my team, assembled here, were able to address his problem and release him back to his mate a healthy, happy merman.”
BA remembered those long days, breezed over in so few words. The seven hour procedure, so incredibly difficult, trying to keep Face’s belly dry and his gills underwater. How Hannibal wouldn’t leave the room the entire time. How they’d had to keep little Tem out of sight for the entire time his daddies were gone, Face terrified some human would steal his boy away, refusing the procedure until BA personally assured him no harm would come to the little guy. How brave Tem had tried to be about it all, how BA had had to spend most of the day in the water with him, telling stories to distract the kid, the boy clinging to him and barely listening. How they’d struggled to figure out painkillers, salves, disinfectants, recovery times. How Murdock had had to rent a houseboat for a few weeks and install a fish-farming net under it, keeping Face in a safe, confined, monitored space while he recovered.
BA remembered those horrible days in the Gulf, unable to enjoy their lazy vacation, knowing that their friends were just below, mourning the loss of what had more than likely been the death of their hatched, unborn child.
We turn into...foam, I guess, when we die, Face had told them, when Murdock figured out that the semi-calcified object had been part of a spongy, delicate shell. Very similar, chemically, to a fish egg, analysis said. So there wouldn’t be anything left of him, no body...
BA remembered how his lover had cried about it. That he hadn’t been able to help sooner, help more.
“Okay, kiddos, we’re going to start with the reproductive system, as our patient’s problems lay there. Hominus oceanus is very similar to homo sapien in most respects, as I said before. One key difference is the way genetic combinations come together. Mating between adult merfolk need not necessarily be between a male and a female. Same-sex pairings are possible, and indeed, given their extremely low population density, seems to be a necessity for survival.”
Another note shuffle.
“We hypothesized that both males and females have the same type of gametes, or similar, with fertilization occurring in an egg, which may be produced by either partner in the pairing. As such, hominus oceanus could be considered an ovoviviparous creature, sustaining its unborn young through hemotrophic viviparity, which leads to questions about the species classification as mammalian. The ladies seems to have an easier time producing eggs. By contrast, our patient spent an extreme amount of energy on the reproductive process, producing only one egg in the three years he'd been trying. We found no evidence that he could have affected this process in any way, although the presence of an alpha male and their sexual relationship probably stimulated his reproductive organs....”
Click.
“He’s fucking crazy,” Buress spat.
“Shuttup, fool. Murdock talkin’ right now.”
“You fucking stole that merman from me.”
BA chuckled. And went back to listening to his crazy baby give that lecture.
“...ypothesize that a male-only pairing can lead to a female embryo, or a female pairing could lead to a male embryo. Genetic evidence seems to support this as a possibility. It's likely much rarer that a same-sex pairing giving birth to a same-sex child, though."
Click.
"You know, sooner or later, it's going to come out, if you guys do this," Buress chuckled, his eyes glassy with one too many beers. "They're going to figure out what happened to Hannibal."
"Hannibal dead, man."
"Bullshit."
“Don’t got a clue what you talkin’ about, Buress.”
"Our patient was unable to shed any light on any of those speculations, but he did assure us that the entire copulation process with his male mate was incredibly fun, and that, in order to ensure proper fertilization,” and BA was sure that his lover’s eyes were gleaming, “they did it as often as possible.”
Buress choked a bit, and BA smiled. Jerked the bastard a little more, waiting for the campus police to show up and haul his worthless ass away.
"Those two were fucking."
"So what? Hannibal just turn into a merman?" BA chuckled again. "Like they all some kind 'a magic?"
"Fuck you, Baracus," Buress snarled.
Murdock lecture went on. Questions were fielded. The police came. All of it very logical, orderly. But that, BA thought, probably didn't have anything to do with this at all. What he'd said, magic, seemed the only way to describe it. Describe them, Murdock's hominus oceanus.
And he sent out a silent prayer for his friends that, whatever the nature of whatever animated them, they'd be able to find their happiness again.
Fairytales deserved a happy ending.
