Chapter Text
It takes three nights for the trench sirens to decide to go home.
It could have been sooner, in Hitoshi’s opinion. Should have been sooner, except several of the adults among them had continued to gnash their teeth at him dawn after dawn, putting out various loose, unsatisfying reasons as to why Eri should be given up to them. Safety in segregation. Preservation of the ancient ways. Because those who’d given up their songs once couldn’t be trusted not to do so again, they insisted.
First, he’d laughed at the suggestions. But when they didn’t cease, he’d bared his teeth at the lot of them, fins prickling and the healed wound on his abdomen aching with memory of the last time he’d held his own against the opinions of his old colony.
≈She’s safe with us,≈ he repeats again now, trying and failing to keep enough distance to not hurt his neck as rhoya Enji looms over him. Hitoshi angles his torso away defensively, resisting the urge to hiss and spit like a fearful hatchling, and instead levels at the flinty councillor’s the most dead-eyed stare he can muster.
The councillor’s top lip curls in disdain, vibrant eyes colder than the trenches themselves. ≈You can’t even protect yourself, outsider,≈ Enji cuts back in a low voice. The label gouges deeper than expected, a formal but branding reminder. ≈From neither walker nor our kind. That does not inspire confidence.≈
Hitoshi’s claws curl into the meat of his palms, pinching skin to keep him steady. Excuses weigh heavy on the back of his tongue, twisting like live eels down his throat to his belly. ≈I don’t owe you confidence. I don’t owe you anything.≈
He dodges briskly under the rhoya’s thick arm, feeling the heat-magic that surrounds the other at all times. He hears the growl Enji makes at the show of disrespect, feels displaced water as the length of the other lashes around and a broad hand chases him for it—
≈There you are, Hitoshi.≈
Hitoshi’s heart stutters back to life in his chest and he propels himself to sosvii Aizawa’s side, trying to calm the rapid expanding of his gills. Keeping his back to the rhoya makes his skin crawl, but he can’t bring himself to look back when he’s trying to play it cool. It takes conscious thought to stop his aurals from pinning, and he feels sosvii’s suspicion through the pod bond, edged with faint alarm.
He rolls his shoulders back. ≈The rhoya and the others of the trench are leaving soon,≈ Hitoshi clarifies loudly. ≈I assured him, again, that we’re equipped to take good care of Eri.≈
Aizawa responds with a contemplative walker noise, distorted due to lack of air. ≈Your concern is noted, Enji. But unwarranted. You’ve fulfilled the colony’s debt. We can do the rest.≈ He places a hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder. ≈We’re needed. If there’s nothing else?≈
The navy and orange mer fixes Aizawa with a glare like a volcanic vent, then turns and launches himself off in the direction of the colony grounds without a word.
Hitoshi shakes out the remaining tension in his arms. ≈Thanks.≈
≈He doesn’t know how to leave it well enough alone. He’ll be gone soon.≈ His assessing gaze skips down over Hitoshi’s briskly. ≈Are you alright?≈
≈Yeah. It was all, y’know. Posturing.≈ It almost wasn’t, but Hitoshi isn’t going to dwell on near misses. This kind of thing just comes with the half-breed territory. It wouldn’t be a problem soon enough. ≈Nothing new. Though I thought maybe everything with retrieving Eri would have made them reconsider my place in their eyes.≈
Aizawa arches a brow. ≈You want them to consider you a part of the trench colony again?≈
≈Nah,≈ he answers honestly. Then he clicks with irritation. ≈But it’s like they forgot that they’re the ones who stabbed me.” He feels sosvii’s grievance building at that reminder, and waves it off. ≈You said we’re needed?≈
His podsire side-eyes him, aurals flicking mischievously. ≈Mm. A… rational deception. You were distressed.≈
Hitoshi imagines burying himself in the sand. He’s touched, really, but at times still forgets that there’s no deceiving the pod bond. Sosvii had seen right through him.
So, setting that aside, he clears his throat and changes the subject. ≈The corals and most of the hybrids are opting to stay to rebuild,≈ he explains. ≈Eijirou and Mina say that rhoya Toshinori’s presence has convinced a few of the sirens, too. And… also several of who’d given up their fins before. Like you.≈
Sosvii makes the walker sound again—a hum, Hitoshi thinks it’s called. Apparently it’s his way of acknowledging a statement but offering no further commentary, which is not a satisfying resolution to the conversation Hitoshi wants to have but can’t for the life of him figure out how to start gently.
So he takes the straightforward approach. ≈You haven’t reconsidered giving up your magic?≈
His podsire’s aurals flick up with amusement and he tilts his head to suggest they go for a swim. ≈Do you want me to reconsider?≈ he asks, a sly lilt to his tone.
≈What? No.≈ Hitoshi feels the prickle of magic and warmth through his skin, and can’t stop the faint glow of the luminous spots on his face and neck. ≈No, of course not, it’s just that it’s… a big deal.≈
He watches the way sosvii navigates the water gracefully, as if the other hadn’t spent half a lifetime in a walker’s short, fin-bare body. It’s a reminder of what Hitoshi himself was ready to give up, of how he’d privately resolved to take the same deal as sosvii before him to join Denki on the land, on some future far-off moon. He’d have done it, eventually.
But now he doesn’t have to.
He catches up with sosvii, gliding along beside him. ≈I’m… grateful,≈ he continues quietly. ≈Just thought you’d miss this now that you’ve had it back, is all.≈
Aizawa is quiet for a moment. Then, ≈I will miss it,≈ he says. ≈But not in the way I did before.≈
He leads them deeper, towards the center of the colony grounds. Already, construction is underway all around the ruins of the old settlement: on the left, one group is gradually building clay and stone and other materials into rounded walls; on the right, a completed dome structure is being hardened through magic by a pair of adult corals Hitoshi doesn’t recognize. Still, they wave at him with broad smiles as he and sosvii pass. Recognition is an odd experience. He waves back hesitantly.
Beside him, sosvii hides a grin beneath a hand, aurals flicking up once again.
To spare himself some needling commentary, Hitoshi quickly revives their talk. ≈What’s changed, then?≈
Aizawa rolls his shoulders forward slowly in the same way Denki does when he’s unsure of an answer. ≈Mm. Before, ‘missing’ it was… out of my control. The first time, I’d been left with just enough magic that the Chaos within me paced restlessly I thought that distancing myself from the sea would calm it, or make it wither away altogether. My logic was… flawed. This time, I’ll ensure that it’s done right.≈
Hitoshi accepts the explanation with a quiet chirp, though he can’t help but fidget as a more pressing question builds. He lifts his fingers to the back of his neck with a small frown, glancing away. ≈What about your current bonds? Like to sosvii Yamada.≈
Though he doesn’t say it, the ‘and to me’ sits at the forefront of his thoughts, clear as crystal.
A sudden touch to his nearest shoulder makes him flinch, but it’s just Aizawa’s broad hand settling there again.
Hitoshi side-eyes his podsire hesitantly at first, unsure of what kind of pity or apology he’ll be faced with. He doesn’t want to hear that the bond will cease to be, and worse, doesn’t want to see it in sosvii’s expression—
But when he’s met with a soft, deep-chested rumble of reassurance and a subtle, warm smile, he figures he’d assumed wrong.
Hitoshi responds in kind and leans into it, relaxing when Aizawa’s touch slides over to ghost along his thoracic fin. There, the brush of sosvii’s magic says everything that his words do not. It’s a soft weave of security, and a promise that neither the sky nor the deep will ever come between him and those he’s tied himself to. Hitoshi rests his head against Aizawa’s shoulder and closes his eyes.
≈The bonds aren’t going anywhere, guppy,≈ sosvii murmurs.
The shared magic, never deceitful, echoes his sentiment.
Hitoshi smiles.
“Iri kiir de… shavaar e… asa-assay—”
“Asaeriik,” Yamada corrects slowly, drawing out each syllable with the patience of a saint. “You’re getting closer, kiddo! If you flatten the vowel a bit more you’ll be spot on.”
“Right,” Denki says, slumping in his seat. “Yeah, a bit more. Got it.”
It’s a lie. He absolutely does not get it, not by any stretch of the imagination, struggling more and more with each attempt to hear the minute differences between his own pronunciation and Yamada’s. Not for the first time this week, he comes to terms with the reality that he’s going to butcher this phrase beyond all recognition. It’s only raw determination that keeps him at it, twisting his tongue into all sorts of new, frustrating shapes in the struggle to imitate Mermish.
Yamada’s quirked brows and wide grin read as understanding, if also a bit pitying. That’s fine. Totally fine. He’s the one person Denki’ll deign to accept the pity from—shared experience, and all. He knows. Been there, done that.
“Perhaps you should stick to Japanese. Hitoshi will understand,” Aizawa contributes from the far sofa, and ouch. There’s a confidence killer at its finest.
Yamada clucks his tongue. “Shouta! It’s meant to be romantic!"
Denki feels the flush rise from his neck to the tips of his ears.
Aizawa’s huff in mer form comes with a rumble like a big cat chuffing. It’s weaker than it was an hour ago; if the man’s scales weren’t already mostly monochrome, Denki wonders if he’d be going pale. It isn’t the first time the mer has smuggled himself into the belly of the boat to evade talking to the great golden coral Denki’s come to know as Toshinori, and probably won’t be the last.
“I’m going to have to learn how to pronounce everything anyways,” Denki points out, rubbing at his face self-consciously. “These words are just… important ones.”
Aizawa ignores Yamada’s coo of delight, arching an eyebrow. “The vows are antiquated—”
“—They’re romantic—” his mate insists.
“—but if you’re going to insist on them, perhaps wait until you can use the language properly.” Aizawa shifts with a wince, the end of his tail and its dark fins spilling across the floor as he props himself up against the arm of the sofa with his elbows. “Learning the sounds wrong won’t get you anywhere.”
Beside Denki, Yamada likewise straightens up where he sits. There’s a dangerous glint to his narrowed stare. “I beg your pardon? ’Wrong’?” he asks, voice deadly even.
Aizawa meets his mate’s stare without flinching. “…Yes?”
Denki suddenly gets the notion that he should be seeking shelter. Or perhaps another boat altogether. He mumbles an excuse to struggle to his feet under his breath, mindful of his crutch and braced ankle, packing up the few notes scattered about with barely-contained urgency.
Yamada utters something in Mermish—too quick and too complex for Denki to grasp, but the sharp-edged tone of his words leaves no room for doubt. Then, more carefully, he forms the very phrase that Denki’s been studying for the last few days: “Iri kiir de shavaar e asaeriik sho’alor irim syare daransuiir.”
Denki can’t help himself, pausing to look up at sound, so delicately-shaped and lyrical. It sounds incredible, like every bit of Mermish he’s learned from the pod thus far, something both foreign and familiar and full of life.
He watches the small smile that curls Aizawa’s lips, and the amused flare and flick of the mer’s aurals. Then the siren repeats it, slowly and softly, and—
It’s absolutely not something human vocal cords are able to replicate.
Yamada throws his hands up in exasperation. “That doesn’t count, Shou! Biology notwithstanding, it’s as close as possible, and you know it.”
The mer gives a one-shoulder shrug, his lazy grin showing off long, sharp teeth. “Sure. But ‘close as possible’ is still wrong.” His red gaze shifts, reining in some of the playfulness. “It’s fine, kid. Remind me closer to the ceremony and we’ll work on the details.”
With a shake of his head, Yamada sighs, before turning his own attention away from his mate and back to Denki. “But just to be sure, you remember what it means?”
“Of course,” Denki replies. The phrase has been gracing his every Hitoshi-related thought since he first learned of it last week. The words fill him with a sort of reassurance, a rightness, like the missing piece of a puzzle, or a token of good luck. He smiles. “It’s—”
Humans are exhausting.
One would think that after decades of carefully-detailed pacts and a carousel of eager volunteers seeking magical highs in exchange for… temporary subservience, well, that one might also be used to dealing with the uniquely human brand of impatience.
This is not the case.
They rush and rush, stress about deadlines and dues as if the sea will be gone when they wake up in the morning. The thought of open-ended debt and favors makes them sweat, apparently, which while vastly entertaining also means that Nemuri’s been working out and marking down obnoxiously specific owings for days on end now.
She stands with a sigh and runs her fingers through a strung canvas of small jewels, each one a debt or pact collected from different rasyakiin in the three weeks since the end of the conflict. They clink against each other gently, the magic of them resonating with her own, a chorus both for her ears and her soul. In truth, it’s an honor to be the keeper of these pacts on the new colony’s behalf, providing this small service to aid in the efforts for peace and rebuilding – and the sooner the humans move along, the better.
The complex magic-weave of the wards, spells, and artefacts around her room shift in response to a more familiar human passing through the open doorway; she doesn’t need to turn to know who it is. The unique magical signature that sings of emerging sunshine and soft ukulele-song is Hizashi’s, through and through, at this point almost as familiar as her own. Even without a proper pod-bond, she can feel his curiosity reaching out to her, and beyond her, to the tapestry of glittering stones.
“Woah. You’re building quite a collection there,” Hizashi says, stopping a few feet away. “Those all from our new… acquaintances?”
Nemuri chuckles, drawing her fingers over them again, each hitting a different note that only she can hear. “Sure are. Some given willingly, some… needing a little coercion. But a sacrifice far more palatable to them than the alternative, as was made plenty clear.” The rest of it goes unsaid as she reaches for a bottle of sake, pouring them each a glass. “How is Shouta?”
Hizashi draws out a thoughtful, high-pitched hum, ending it with a weak shrug and half-smile. “Getting impatient. I’d say it’s not like him, but honestly... it feels sorta like the old him. In a good way.” Half-smiling, the blonde sucks on his lower lip and falls gracelessly into the chair at Nemuri’s decorated vanity. His gaze tracks to the porthole on the wall and his fingers beat a tuneless tempo on the bony curve of his knee. “Y’know, he keeps going on about taking a long trip inland and staying there ‘til we’re old and gray. Sorta like he used to, for all he says he’s not going to make the same mistakes.”
“He won’t,” says Nemuri. She offers him a glass.
“He won’t,” Hizashi agrees, flashing a grin as he accepts it. “But I’m letting him believe his own bullshit for now.”
Nemuri snorts. “He may be freeing himself from obligation to the sea, but he’s kidding himself if he thinks there won’t be something pulling him back.”
“One might even say three somethings.”
“Or more. I saw him eyeing some of the other young ones just yesterday. I think he’s starting to collect them.”
“Oh, lovely,” Hizashi says, his tone perhaps trying for ‘exasperated’ but instead falling solidly into ‘fond’. The corners of his eyes crinkle with excitement. “I’ve always told him he’d make a good dad.”
“And the ones who haven’t spent time around humans will need a teacher. Or teachers, plural.”
The blonde arcs a thin brow, but his smile doesn’t waver. “Mm. Plural sounds about right.” He raises his glass, holding it expectantly. “To teachers?”
Clink.
“To teachers.”
“I’m impressed—this is a lot faster than we expected, even factoring magic in. The colony’s healers did a really impressive job, Kaminari. I think your ankle’s as healed as it’s going to get.”
Uraraka pulls away from Denki’s outstretched leg, letting him flex it back and forth.
Finally liberated from the ungainly cast it’s been in for nearly a month, it’s stiff enough that it smarts and makes him wince when the muscles protest. But beyond that, there’s no deeper pain. He doesn’t remember the last time it’s been that way—years, at least. It’s almost surreal.
The sudden uptick in his heart rate is due to a completely different reason, however.
“I’m healed. That’s it then,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady. “That’s all of the conditions met.”
His words are met with silence; he glances up, seeing the confusion written clear across both Uraraka’s and Bakugou’s faces in squinting eyes and shifted brows. One kindly curious, the other irritably expectant.
And just like that, Denki comes to one very, very important realization: he forgot to fucking tell them.
“Oh,” he says faintly, staring down at his legs. “Y-yeah, yeah, I didn’t mention, hah.”
“Didn’t mention what?” Bakugou pushes, voice challenging. Although Denki can’t see the other blonde’s face, he watches Bakugou’s calloused fingers curl almost threateningly around the edges of the cut-off cast.
Denki clears his throat reflexively. “Nothing bad! Actually it’s… really exciting? So, um. It’s just that… uhh. Well. We’ve found a way to make it so that Hitoshi and I can stay together. Without uh, biological differences getting in the way.” He can’t look up, can’t make himself see their reactions as his mouth keeps moving. “Buuut Mr. Aizawa asked us to wait for three things to pass first—the conditions I mentioned, yeah? The hunters leaving, the colony settling, and,” he gestures to his legs with a nervous laugh, “…me getting better.”
Uraraka’s hand settles over his. “You mean Hitoshi is going to do what Mr. Aizawa did? Leave the sea for you? Wow, Kaminari, he must really love—"
“No! No,” Denki replies, voice strangled. “I mean. He would have, I think, I know he—but that’s not—it’s. Uhh.” Another laugh bubbles up from somewhere deep and anxious. “It’s… the opposite, actually.” He swallows thickly, trying to steady himself. “Mr. Aizawa is going to give me his magic. He thinks Eri can make it happen.”
There’s a long moment where the silence seems to stretch on like the sea at the horizon, and Denki can feel the weight of their stares, but can’t meet them. It’s only when Uraraka’s hand tightens on his and he hears a watery giggle that he instinctively glances upwards.
The worry clutching his heart releases at her teary eyes and wide smile. “You dummy,” she says softly. “You say it like it’s a death sentence. Do you really think we wouldn’t be happy for you?”
Speechless, he glances to Bakugou.
“Fuck,” the other blonde swears under his breath, then shakes his head and laughs. His voice is strained. “You idiot. It’d be stupid for us to be upset, though why you’d wanna live in a hut underwater is beyond me.” He pulls a face, brows creasing with some delayed realization. “I won’t be able call you ‘creaky’ anymore.”
“That was rude to begin with,” Uraraka murmurs.
As Bakugou grumbles a reply, Denki can’t help but look back and forth between them. That’s… it? No interrogating, no protesting? He can’t read them like Hitoshi, but neither has ever been prone to lying to him.
Uraraka reaches for his hand, and squeezes it.
“I may be an asshole,” Bakugou adds lowly, as if the words are dragged out of him, “but I’m not fuckin’ blind. The fish is obviously good for you. So, stop anticipating our reactions and give us a little credit, dumbass.”
Something inside Denki that had knotted up in worry unravels in an instant.
He flushes with embarrassment and ducks his head, overwhelmed with fondness for the two people in front of him. They’ve been there every step of the way, as the weeks turned into months and the first brush with stuff of myth steadied into something palpable and undeniable and more real to Denki than anything he’s ever known. He chases his foolishness away with a stern thought and sheepishly rubs at the back of his neck.
“You’re right,” he laughs quietly. “I was being a dumbass, huh.”
Bakugou leans back, crossing his arms. “Damn right you were.”
Denki snorts; yeah, honesty as far as the eye could see. He picks up the discarded cast and tosses it aside, growing the collection of things he’s going to have no material need for, soon. A weird thought. “Good thing I have you to set the record straight, Bakugou.”
“Katsuki.”
For a moment, Denki freezes, then whips his head around and stares, meeting the heavy gaze of the other mechanic. “Uhm?”
Bakugou raises his chin, staring down the length of his nose in challenge. “My name, moron. It’s Katsuki.”
Denki flounders. “Well, yeah, I know that, I mean—”
“And you should call me Ochako,” Uraraka cuts in, leaning forward with a bubbly-light grin that leaves Denki flustered with its eagerness. “We did save a whole colony together, you know. That should count for something!”
It should. It does. And if not these friends, who else?
“Okay,” he agrees, voice shaky as he tries to belay the tears that threaten to blur over his vision. “Yeah, okay. Then call me Denki, yeah? I mean… the mer only use one name anyways, and it’s what Hitoshi knows me as, so. So I’ll be Denki. It’ll be good practice.”
Katsuki nods, his part in the discussion clearly over as he feigns interest in some of the nearby tools.
Ochako, though, beams. “Denki,” she says, as if trying it out, then: “Are you nervous?”
It takes only a beat for Denki to find the answer within himself.
“Actually,” he replies, eyes drifting closed. “I’ve never been more certain.”
The tides never stop moving. Not completely.
Change is good, refreshing, necessary, and the urge to use change has prickled inside Eri for as long as she can remember. Denki says it’s probably because she slept for so long—oh, he has no idea—but the why is so insignificant.
All Eri cares for now is the when.
Then, one night, she wakes up knowing. The tides rush to tell her, as if all the eagerness and relief and excitement that has been building in her pod has finally taken physical shape. It’s been hard to make sense of in the past moon, but now, the current’s path lays clear before her. Change is coming today.
She turns her eyes to the moon. This is going to be up to her, she knows. They’ve talked about it; she knows what she’s being asked, that she’s not losing any of her family but just shifting the shape of it slightly. They talk about it quietly and with soft encouragement and words, as if it’s something they think is difficult to understand, and more difficult yet to fix. Maybe it’s because they can’t feel the movement of Chaos the way she does. Maybe they don’t see that this ‘change’ they’re asking of her is easy, like untangling knotted kelp—simply straightening fronds that have always been twisted, waiting for her careful fingers. She’ll set them right, in a way they’ve never been before.
Right in a way they’ve always meant to be. The tides have told her so.
Eri reaches out through her bonds and touches each of the souls around the ship. Most are sleeping; few are awake. She can hear the tumbling brooks and rushing falls of their thoughts, recognize in turn the sharp angles of their worries and the rounded corners of their relief.
One, when she brushes him, brushes back. Eri? Hitoshi’s presence in her thoughts is like cool rain pattering the surface of the sea, gentle but steady. He’s somewhere beneath the boat, swimming lengths around it maybe, not even attempting to sleep. Is everything okay?
She pushes confirmation back at him with a short verbal trill that she cuts off when sosvii Aizawa shifts, curling his body more tightly around her. He barely fits in the little pool on the deck, and more than once has woken up grumbling about the arrangement, but repeatedly refuses to sleep in the colony grounds. This time though, he remains asleep.
Need something, or just can’t rest? Hitoshi presses.
It’s an open-ended question, which is something they’ve been working on—Eri knows all the words in Mermish and the walker languages, but she doesn’t think in them, not like the others do. When she offers her replies, they’re in pictures and colors and instinctual feelings first, and words second. It takes her a moment to find the right one to summarize her thoughts the best: Excited.
Oh yeah? His warmth and amusement tinge the thought; she can picture him smiling. What about?
She offers him a glimpse of the coming day, the Heart, the magic that’s thrumming in the waves as it readies itself for change. She doesn’t know how to translate so much into a handful of sounds for him. It’s so important to all of them, it’s what they’ve been waiting for. Excited. Excited!
Me too, Hitoshi replies faintly, desperately, and it’s like he’s left his heart right open for her to touch the strings. More than anything.
She pushes further into his mind, brushing across the golden-colored thought that’s pulling his attention. Golden hair, golden eyes. The fierceness with which Hitoshi holds that face close to his heart makes Eri smile.
Love, she thinks at him, giving it a name.
A very similar emotion branches out from him towards her at that, stretching in a gentle way until it wraps her thoughts in warmth. Yeah. Good. Yeah, it’s love.
She knew that already, though. Love is everywhere in her pod; they have enough of it between them to fill the whole ocean, she thinks. The colony, too, is using it to heal, to rebuild, to define themselves. It’s in their smiles and their hope, it’s their strength, their abundance. It’s the reason for their survival.
She pulls away from Hitoshi’s thoughts. Her eyelids droop and she buries her face into sosvii Aizawa’s chest. His arm settles around her, holding her close.
Love is something Eri knows she’ll never go without.
Which is good, because she has plenty of it to give back, too.
In a time before the sea meant more than him than the land, before he’d known the touch and taste of magic that wars were fought over and civilizations crumbled to protect, Denki had measured his successes in weeks and months and years. Time itself is a painfully humanizing restraint, when it comes down to it; there’s a desperate balancing act between too little and too late, because for all that their species is one of unstoppable progress and insuppressable innovation, one lifetime is surprisingly little to work with.
Just as with your flames, he recalls Toshinori saying once, You burn brilliantly, beautifully, brighter than anything else—and so terribly soon, you burn out.
A crucial design flaw in the human blueprint. Also one that might very well have been intentional, like a check-and-balance to regulate the aforementioned progress and innovation against the rest of the universe.
“You ready, kiddo?”
He knows he’s one of the lucky ones. The luckiest, even.
“…Kaminari?”
His measure of success had been skewed from the start. Now he sees the truth of it, in shimmering stones spread all through the dome-like ceiling of the Heart. Souls, all of them. Connected to one another, and to something that not even time can extinguish.
A hand jostles his shoulder, startling him. He blinks up at Yamada, who’s kneeling over him in the gleaming cavern with a punchy grin and laughing eyes.
“Can’t have you checking out on us now, little listener. The show’s about to start, and you’re centre stage.”
“Yeah, I—yeah,” Denki mumbles, heart doing backflips inside his ribcage. “I’m good! I’m good.” He shifts his back upon the warm stone, easing up on his elbows and craning his neck to glance around.
By virtue of the Heart simply being unable to accommodate the masses, they’d managed to keep the occasion away from the curious eyes of the rest of the colony. Everyone Denki can imagine wanting at his side for this is waiting in the water below, and that’s really all that matters, isn’t it? There’s Nemuri, holding a change of clothes and murmuring something to Aizawa with a sly grin as the latter makes his way to the raised rock with Eri in his arms. Nearby float Katsuki and Ochako, one silently studying various gems in the walls as the other gestures excitedly with her hands to different glittering groups of them. And closest of all, with eyes for nobody except Denki himself, is Hitoshi.
His mate’s lips curve into a small smile. Soon, he knows they’re both thinking.
Then Aizawa pulls himself up out of the water, his obsidian length dragging along the uneven rock as he moves to the opposite side of the raised platform from Denki. He sets Eri down between them, before raising his dark eyes to meet Denki’s gaze.
For a moment, Denki’s reminded of the last time they’d encountered each other here; those red irises had been equally as striking back then, but filled with threat, amnesia, violence. Not a hint of that nightmarish craze remains. Instead, he watches as Aizawa’s eyes gently half-lid.
The mer’s aurals relax, and he assumes a familiar half-smirk. “Let’s get this over with. I miss my bed.”
Denki nods rapidly, letting himself slide back down to lay flat on his back as Aizawa rotates to do the same.
“D’you… think I’m gonna look like you do?” he asks, unable to stop the nervous bubbling-up of all the questions he’d set aside and never gotten around to asking. “Like, black all over? Because it might not go with my hair. Unless that changes too—oh gods, I can’t even picture that. Me with black hair, I mean. I can tell sirens are usually dark, but… hold on, am I going to be a siren? Does your magic determine what subspecies of mer you are? I couldn’t find any concrete records of this kinda thing happening, but maybe if it has it just wasn’t documented—wait, do you think they would’ve kept records if it went wrong? Like that’d be a story passed down for sure, right? It’s just—”
“Kid,” Aizawa interrupts, voice low and soft, yet able to silence him in an instant. “Breathe. I don’t know those answers any more than you do, but it’s going to be alright.”
Denki swallows. His hands and feet prickle with the touch of anxiety he just can’t shake, but he does as instructed and takes a deep breath, shakily asking, “Yeah?” on the exhale.
“Yeah.”
Denki nods again, despite knowing Aizawa can’t see it from his own position. He bites his lip and continues the breathing exercises as Yamada slips off the rock to join the others, leaving just him, Aizawa, and Eri. While he should be focusing on what the blonde man is saying, all Denki can think of is, well shit, these are my last few seconds as a human, huh?
The idea of it stabs him in the chest, leaving him winded. The world spins even as he’s certain (mostly certain… somewhat certain??) that the rock beneath him hasn’t budged. Oh, fantastic, he’s going to throw up.
He jolts in surprise when Eri’s small, cool palm settles on his forehead.
“Wait—wait,” he gasps out under his breath, fingers scrambling at the stone on either side of him.
Another hand finds his, fingers intertwining and grounding him. “Denki?”
He can hear the worry in Hitoshi’s tone, feel it curling like a nervous creature in the empty space between them. Of course. Down here, where their connection thrives even without a full bond, Denki must be broadcasting every ounce of anxiety on a damn loudspeaker. He tilts his head and stares at his mate, immediately trying to form an apology for worrying him, insisting he wants this, he truly does—
“I know,” Hitoshi says out loud in response to the riptide of feelings that Denki can’t quite shove into words. The siren blinks slowly, drawing his thumb over the back of Denki’s knuckles. “Don’t worry. All safe.”
“Don’t let go,” Denki whispers.
Hitoshi’s gaze is steady as his aurals flare.
Whether it’s through Hitoshi’s bond or straight from the magic soaking every last atom of the chamber around them, Denki isn’t sure, but he feels Eri form an unspoken question at the forefront of his awareness: Ready now?
He squeezes Hitoshi’s fingers and closes his eyes. Will it hurt?
Eri’s mental giggle rolls through him like lapping waves and glimmering sunlight and parting clouds. The words aren’t as clear this time, but insinuation is unmistakable: she thinks he’s being silly. Warmth rolls through him from the point her touch instead of the cold Denki’d anticipated, relaxing his tension away almost as if on command. Feels nice. Feels right.
Peaceful.
It’s the last thought he has before he’s falling backwards through the stars, unbound from humanity.
.
.
He’s unmoored, afloat. The constellations behind his eyelids burn in colors he has no names for. He’s still sinking, somehow, but now there’s sensation to it. Hands push him down, down, down.
He does not care to resist. It’s possible that he couldn’t even if he tried.
He trusts those hands. He is content to drown.
.
.
.
At last, it’s dark and deep, but for once he doesn’t fear it.
Something strokes along the sides of his neck, brushing against what feel like twin slashes of open-ended nerves. A full-bodied twitch snaps through him at the sensation—discomfort, strangeness, unfamiliarity. He parts his lips to protest, but finds them quickly covered.
Voices hum and burble at the edges of his awareness. He strains to listen and is surprised to find new muscles that flex when he asks them to. The brush against his neck repeats itself, and he arches away from it, the muscles contracting and sucking water—
And it feels like a gasp of fresh air. The sensation licks through him pleasantly, and after a few moments’ consideration he does it again, forcing small currents through his body in this new, strange way. He focuses on that as someone moves to pull off his shirt—or the remaining scraps of it, how did that happen?—and gets the picture when the hands cause the same discomforting twitch at either side of his chest. Contract, draw in, expel. He teaches the new muscles in his torso this fancy trick. Breathing, but not.
He's—he’s happy. Not sure why, exactly, but everything is draped in this close, reassuring purple blanket of rightness, a promise that it’s going to be fine, you’re doing great, you’ve got this. He still feels impossibly heavy and unwieldy and different but it’s not unlike waking up in the dentist’s office with a numb mouth, or maybe waking up with pins and needles in his crossed arms after dozing off on the workbench for too long. Is that what this is? Waking up?
He can do that.
Denki opens his eyes.
Years from now, he’ll remember this blessing: that the first sight he gets to see in his new life is Hitoshi’s familiar, stunning face, wide-eyed and elated and glowing in so many hues of purple and pink that Denki can’t name them all. He wants to, he wants to chronicle every last detail of this moment, his vision sharper and more capable than it’s ever been, he thinks he’s even seeing new colors and he plans to treasure every single last one of them and—
And then Hitoshi’s features are front-lit by gold, and that doesn’t really make sense, until Denki realizes that the new light is coming from him.
Hitoshi’s surprise folds easily into the biggest grin Denki’s ever seen, and then he’s leaning forward in the water, pressing their heads together.
≈You are incredible,≈ he says raggedly. ≈Denki. Chaos, look at you.≈
The words drag Denki’s consciousness forward the rest of the way, and in an instant, he knows. He understands the near-automatic push and pull of water at his throat and ribcage to be gills. He understands the odd, disjointed flicking at his ears to be aurals. He understands why he can’t move his legs, because he has none, but when he shifts his hips and flexes his abdomen, a yellow-and-black mottled tail slides effortlessly through the water, knocking gently against Hitoshi’s own.
It's going to be an adjustment, that.
He’s thrilled.
Hitoshi’s hands cradle his cheeks, stroking across freckles of light and striped scales. His face slides up to nuzzle into Denki’s hair, then brush against—against horns, wow, yeah.
Denki wishes he could see himself. Maybe one of them up there has a mirror. Part of him wants to stay right here forever, where the world is lit up only by their care for one another – but they’re not done yet.
He can’t really speak Mermish yet and isn’t quite confident about talking without using his lungs, so he pulls Hitoshi’s forehead back down to his own.
Let’s go up, he says. We’re not done yet, yeah? It’s time. He smiles, giddy and bright.
Yes, Hitoshi agrees, closing his eyes. It’s time.
At the surface, he’s met with gasps and grins and beams back at them without hesitation.
His hands trailing along the canary-yellow of his tail, with its dusky gold and black patches in messy bands down the length of him. When Nemuri produces a mirror, he sees the same pattern across his face and upper body, how his bright irises now sit on dark sclerae and two horns like lightning bolts curve back over the crown of his head. His fins are sharp and sleek like a siren’s, and he still hasn’t stopped glowing from the freckle-like arrangements of bioluminescent scales scattered in winding patterns all across his form.
Denki meets the gazes of all of them, and commits to memory all of the details that his human eyes never picked up. The faces of all these people he loves, and whose love he can plainly see reflected at him in their eyes.
He finds Aizawa’s face last—human-shaped again, human for good—and his expression is the warmest of all.
“Looking good, kid,” the man murmurs, crossing one leg over the other and leaning against the wall, shoulder to shoulder with Yamada.
When Hitoshi lifts a hand back to Denki’s cheek, however, everything else falls away.
There’s no real ceremony when it comes to vows, Denki knows. Whether said privately or in the company of others, they’re binding all the same, a promise from soul to soul and to the Chaos from which all once came. Even the words aren’t technically necessary, for all the Denki insisted upon them the moment he’d heard of them from Yamada. But they’re beautiful, and symbolic, and—well, Hitoshi’s worth all of it.
They’ve been waiting so long for this, it’s easy to forget that they’re halfway there already.
He looks at the purple and yellow stones, embedded side-by-side in the chamber wall.
It feels so long ago now that they’d put them there, and part of him wonders if Hitoshi had known all along what such a thing might symbolize, what kind of oath he was making to the Heart when they gave those small pieces of themselves over. It had been the start of a bond, after all—the communication, the empathy, the promise to return. And here they were.
The currents had carried them together.
Hitoshi presses his forehead to Denki’s. I love you, he says simply, privately, just for them.
Denki feels like he could come to pieces with the wave of adoration that crashes over him.
Those are good words, wonderful words. I love you too, he thinks back. And yet they aren’t words he’s held onto quietly for weeks, the ones he’s practiced into perfection, the ones engraved in his heart for this exact moment.
So, on a shuddering breath, he lifts a hand to the back of Hitoshi’s neck.
The fin there feels like starlight and gentle rainfall and a quiet smile in the middle of the evening. It’s the magic that makes up Hitoshi himself, unique and unforgettable now that Denki’s soul has brushed along it and found its perfect match.
Hitoshi’s fingers trail across then settle on Denki’s own thoracic fin, and it takes his breath away. The magic in his own bones sings, bright and satisfied, and he knows this is it.
“Iri kiir de shavaar e asaeriik sho’alor irim syare daransuiir,” Denki whispers. Something inside him reaches, seeking, and finds its match in the words echoed back at him.
≈I see your soul, and within it drifts my chosen eternity.≈
Denki is home.
You've got a big heart
The way you see the world, it got you this far
You might have some bruises and a few of scars
But you know you're gonna be okay
And even though you're scared, you're stronger than you know
If you're lost out where the lights are blinding
Caught in all, the stars are hiding
That's when something wild calls you home
If you face the fear that keeps you frozen
Chase the sky into the ocean
That's when something wild calls you home
['Something Wild', Lindsay Stirling & Andrew McMahon]
