Work Text:
Holding hands under the sea is one thing, quite an easy thing, if one doesn't swim into any extreme currents or a hostile fish, and holding hands with someone who has webs going on can also be negotiated with care. No, holding hands in the ocean is only a problem when one is engaging in a cross species relationship. Or to put it more accurately, when one is engaging in a relationship with a Deep One, creatures the entire ocean hates. The entire ocean also may as well be a drop when it comes to gossip, and almost instantly everyone has heard that there's a mermaid dating the gold hoarding scourge of the seven seas.
“I thought you would have webs.” says Maria, studying Atlantis’ reptilian hands, all green, clawed, and scaly. No webs to be seen. In fact his hands may as well be human, but green.
The fishman, whose entire body beside his head may as well be human, grins wider, teeth no different to a shark's. He and his beautiful mermaid girlfriend float amongst gigantic fronds of red kelp, the water around them all emerald green and jewel bright. Atlantis fits in well, his red eyes combining sinisterly with his surroundings, while Maria, pink and pearlescent, doesn't fit in at all.
“I told you I'm a supermodel amongst my kind,” rasps the chojin wrestler. “Most of them possess webs.”
“You also told me that you made a deal with the devil.”
“The two things are not unrelated, sweetheart.”
The two interlace fingers and lock hands, taking off on a pleasant swim through the undersea forest. Five minutes in, Maria notices that the fish and other creatures that exist everywhere around at all times, are scurrying away from her, from them. Although she herself used to be terrified of her companion once upon a time, it's somehow offensive that everything else still is. Fish, crabs, porpoises, the odd scuba diver, they all flee from Atlantis, however much they may wish to approach Maria. That is simply the exchange she has made: controversy for love.
Kelp forest gives way to flat plains of rock, and then to coral clinging to underwater cliff faces, and then a soft glow emerges in the blue-green distance. The couple pass underneath a huge ball of undulating fish so vast that the silvery creatures block out the light. Once they emerge, a city, the capital of the South Seas, shines bright in front of them, sea glass spires pointing at the distant surface and the far away shimmering sun.
Maria shakes her flowing stream of glorious golden hair. “Aihe, such a pretty place. They're going to act like they're being invaded as soon as they catch sight of you, ‘Lantis.”
Her friend has no hair, so he shakes the fins that run from the top of his head down his back. “Hehehe, to be fair, I was involved in an invasion of it once…”
“Okay, but that was ages ago.”
“About thirty years. But all Deep Ones look the same, so surely they won't be able to tell it was me, no matter how handsome I may be.”
Truly, the couple simply swim over the borders and into the outskirts of the city since, like most surface cities, it has no wall. They make it a couple miles in, past the industrial area, before anyone realises that a Deep One is amongst them. Then the shrieking and howling and alarms begin, noises which sound very strange and woeful underwater.
Atlantis laughs. “Kekeke! Twenty minutes. That's a new record for me.”