Chapter Text
Hayden’s children think he has the coolest job in the world. And he does. It pays well, it’s emotionally rewarding, his children get to crow ‘my dad works with mermaids!’. He does not, however, appreciate the constant clinging stink of fish.
Jackie’s complained about it before, only lightly, only in a way she knows wouldn’t hurt his feelings. Usually with a poignant sniff or a pointed question asking after Shane — but she’s right. No matter how Hayden scrubs and scrubs in the shower, he cannot get rid of that residual aquatic stink.
Having to feed Shane every day, three times a day, does not help this matter. Hayden contemplates this as he hauls a bucket of fish over to the edge of Shane’s tank. It’s a vast, huge thing, with an open-aired arena above, and one wall made completely of glass for visitor viewings. Down below, there’s a deep sandy bed for burrowing, rich with seaweed and ocean brush.
Hayden hauls the foul-smelling fish — trout, herring, mackerel, and some carrots at the bottom if he can convince Shane that they’re a good idea — over the walkway beside the pool, whistling.
As if on cue, he sees a ripple of movement beneath the clear water, and a moment later Shane pops his head up above the surface and he grins at Hayden. He’s only learnt to smile over the past few months. Mer aren’t nearly as expressive as humans, but he’s trying to mirror Hayden’s behaviours. It’s a distinctly human thing, and it doesn’t quite sit right on his face. Shane has too many sharp teeth for the expression to be pleasant, or reassuring, but he’s trying, and that’s what Hayden loves about him.
“Hey, bud. Sleep well?”
He gives an affirmative splash with his tailfin. Shane swims over to the edge of the pool, his head and shoulders out in the air, where water clings in pearls along his collarbones and hairline. Black hair slicked back. He purrs a greeting at Hayden, who crouches by the edge, his rubber welly boots squeaking.
Hayden drops the bucket onto the ledge with a clunk, sending a few stray fish skidding toward the edge. Shane tilts his head, eyes glinting in the overhead lights, watching Hayden fumble with the slippery fish like it’s some kind of ritual. Even though he’s friendly, even though Shane would not hurt a fly, there’s something quietly predatory about him when they’re this close. When Hayden can see the hard muscle underneath his skin and scales, exemplified by his appetite – or lack thereof. Something Hayden is working on with him.
“You ready for breakfast, buddy?” Hayden asks. Shane purrs again, low and soft, and nudges the bucket toward him with a hand-finned flick. Hayden can’t help the laugh that bursts out. It’s the closest Shane comes to giggling, and Hayden treasures it. He can rasp a few human words when Hayden really coaxes him, but the breathy sounds of a human aren’t that compatible with the churs, clicks and whistles of mer dialects. He can understand, though.
He’s a gorgeous creature, Hayden thinks. His beauty is ethereal, he is all sleek, iridescent scales the color of midnight blue, shimmering with hints of emerald and violet when the light catches them just so. His tail, powerful and long, flicks idly below the surface, sending lazy ripples across the pool. But it’s his eyes that always get Hayden. They’re a startling, intelligent brown, like twin suns in that dark, elegant face. Slitted and alien, but full of warmth.
“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Hayden says, his voice softened by affection. He reaches into the bucket, the cold, slick fish making his fingers numb. He holds out a herring. “Protein first.”
Shane’s hand — long-fingered, webbed, with nails like polished black sea-glass — snakes out of the water with impossible speed. He doesn’t snatch, not anymore. He takes the fish delicately from Hayden’s grip, his claws careful not to brush Hayden and slice him open. He pops it into his mouth, crunches once, twice, and swallows. The purr deepens, a sound Hayden feels in his own chest.
They continue like this, a quiet, rhythmic communion. Fish after fish disappears. Hayden talks the whole time, a one-sided stream of consciousness about his kids’ soccer games, Jackie’s new recipe disaster, the idiot from Marketing who wanted to put a tiny hat on Shane for a photoshoot. Shane listens, golden eyes never leaving Hayden’s face, occasionally chirping or clicking in what Hayden has decided are the appropriate places.
“And now,” Hayden announces, pulling a limp orange carrot from the bottom of the bucket. “The vegetable challenge.” Shane’s nose wrinkles. It’s a comically human expression on his otherwise otherworldly features. He lets out a short, disapproving whistle. “I know, I know. But it’s good for you. Jackie says everyone needs fiber. Even mer.” Hayden waggles the carrot. “Come on. For me?”
Shane eyes the carrot with profound suspicion. He looks at Hayden’s hopeful face. With a sigh that bubbles the water around him, he takes it. He holds it between two fingers, brings it to his mouth, and takes the smallest, most disdainful bite imaginable. He chews with the resigned air of a prince consuming peasant gruel.
Hayden grins. “Atta boy.”
The carrot is eventually, reluctantly, consumed. Shane’s teeth aren’t quite versed for chewing something so sharp and hard, but he manages. When he’s finished, he immediately opens his mouth for another fish, as if to cleanse his palate. His trust in Hayden is astounding, even after all this time. When Hayden got hired and met Shane, just over a year ago, Hayden didn’t think he’d be able to cultivate any sizeable change.. He was hostile and shy, constantly hiding, hissing and refusing to eat. He’s gotten better now, over the year. Hayden was introduced to him as a terrified thing that liked to hide. Now he smiles and eats carrots and entertains Aquarium visitors. Hayden was glad to see life coaxed back into him.
The bucket empties. The ritual is complete. Shane, now sated, drifts closer to the ledge, resting his forearms on the concrete. He is so close Hayden can see the individual water droplets beading on his skin, the delicate gill slits fluttering faintly at the sides of his neck. The smell of fish is overpowering here, a tangible cloud around them, but at this moment, Hayden finds he doesn’t mind it as much. It’s part of Shane. It’s part of this.
Hayden reaches out, hesitant as always. Shane doesn’t pull away. Hayden lets his fingers brush over the cool, smooth scales of Shane’s shoulder. It’s like touching living marble, if marble were warm and hummed with life. Shane leans into the touch, his purr shifting into a contented rumble, his eyes drifting half-shut.
This is why he does it. The stink, the scrubbing, the raw hands from hauling buckets — it all fades against this quiet trust. This is the emotionally rewarding part. This connection that exists beyond words, in purrs and shared glances and the careful acceptance of a disliked carrot.
“Alright, you magnificent pain in my nose,” Hayden says softly, giving one last pat before standing. His knees pop. “I’ve got to hose this stink off me before my next meeting. Be good. No splashing the tour group at two.”
Shane blinks slowly, a mer-smile tugging at his sharp-toothed mouth. He gives a soft, acknowledging click, but he’s mellowed out now that he realises Hayden is leaving. He hates it when Hayden leaves. Used to whine and cry and shriek for him when he was out of sight. He doesn’t cry anymore, he knows it won’t do him any good.
Then, with a fluid twist of his powerful body, he slides backwards into the depths, a shadow melting into the blue. Hayden watches him go, then picks up the empty, smelly bucket. He walks back along the walkway, the rubber soles of his boots squeaking against the wet concrete. He’ll smell like fish for the rest of the day. His kids will wrinkle their noses when he gets home and hug him anyway. Jackie will laugh and light a scented candle.
“Pike! Pike!” Hayden’s barely had a chance to take a sip of coffee before Rose is upon him, seizing him by the arm and gripping it tight in her excitement. “Did you hear the news?”
Hayden narrowly avoids spilling scalding coffee over the both of them, and carefully puts it down. “What?”
Rose unlocks her phone and swipes through a few images. She thrusts one into Hayden’s face. The image shows a tank so murky the inhabitant could hardly be seen. Dreadful conditions, mud caked up the sides of the glass, the water dirtied. Hayden grimaces at the sight.
“This guy was found on a feds raid of a fishing transport. Apparently they picked him up in the back of a van heading to Boston.” Rose’s voice is low and serious, and she bites out the last words with clear contempt. “He’s being shipped upstate to us.” She takes her phone back from him. “Upstairs want him to pair with Shane. He can interact with guests, do shows, you know. Takes a bit of strain off of Shane.”
Hayden swallows, trying to hide the sour twist in his stomach. “Pair with Shane…” he mutters, the words tasting wrong on his tongue. Shane, his sweet, obliging Shane, already working three shows a day, feeding, performing, smiling — what did they need another one for? “Shane’s never been with another mer,” Hayden says, more to himself than to Rose. “He was a solo juvenile when they brought him here. This will stress him out. For what? So we can have a double act?” The idea is grotesque.
“I know,” Rose sighs. “But it’s not our call. Our job is to make it work. To help the new one. And maybe it’ll be good for him. Two mermen together, keeps Shane from getting bored, makes shows more interesting for visitors.” She taps the screen again, as if the action itself will make it all better. “Upstairs is already drafting the welcome routine. They’ll have him acclimated within the week.”
Hayden rubs at his neck, feeling the familiar sting of fish odor clinging to his skin, but now it seems irrelevant. “You’ve seen him?” Hayden asks carefully. “The… The one from the raid?”
Rose shakes her head. “Nope. They’re shipping him to arrive this afternoon. But they say he’s aggressive. Not exactly what we’ve got with Shane. We’ll have to make it work.”
Aggressive. That word sticks in Hayden’s mind. He’s seen Shane at his worst — startled, tired, anxious — but Shane’s aggression never really surfaced. And now, they’re shipping in a dangerous mer, one that might bite or snap, and expecting Shane to acclimate to him?
Hayden’s gut tightens. He sets his coffee aside, careful not to spill again. He needs to see this for himself. Needs to understand what the aquarium thinks is a solution, because something about it feels deeply, inherently wrong. “Right,” he says slowly, keeping his tone neutral. “Well… I’ll make sure Shane’s ready.”
Rose beams, oblivious to the tightness in his chest. “You’re the best. Shane’s lucky to have you.”
Hayden watches her go, and as soon as the door clicks shut, he exhales a long, quiet breath. Lucky? Shane isn’t lucky. Shane is performing for strangers, trapped in a glass box, and now they’re bringing in a stranger — wild and potentially dangerous — and expecting… what? Companionship? Entertainment?
Hayden witnesses them unload the new mer from his transportation tank a few hours later.
As soon as the lid comes up off of the box, the mer whips his body around, assessing them with slitted pale eyes, flailing around immediately when JJ begins reaching down into the tank. The mer hisses, baring his impressive set of serrated teeth and snapping towards JJ’s fingers.
He swears graphically, pulling back and narrowly misses the tip of his thumb getting bitten off. So much for the hope that this one was already trained to be docile and pliant to human touch.
The mer snarled, coiling like a snake and flaring his huge dorsal fin forward. Every inch of his body language said ‘stay away’.
The mer lashes out again, tail thrashing, sending water cascading over the edges of the tank. Someone else rushes to grab the catch-pole, the long metal rod with a wire lasso at the end, meant for restraining animals. They manage to loop it around the mer’s neck and he tightens the line.
The noose closes and the mer’s eyes widen in terror as his air is suddenly cut off. He writhes against the line, screeching in desperation and trying to tug it off his head. Those eyes scan the ring of human faces and can’t seem to find an escape.
Hayden watches, helpless, as the scene unfolds like a nightmare — the lashing tail, the terrified screech that is half-animal, half something horribly human, the cruel bite of the wire against pale, scaled skin.
They hold him in a chokehold until he gives up, going limp enough for the catchpole to slowly release. He’s still, wheezing, and only manages a tiny growl when Patrice steps forward and tightens a muzzle around his mouth, before they continue their transportation of him up into one of the empty pools. The mer’s light eyes open to hazy slits, and he stares mutinously at them as he’s carted away.
When Hayden next visits Shane, he finds him swimming along the edge of the pool as though pacing, going round and around in anxious circles. He must be able to tell that something is happening, and when the tell-tale sound of the side door opening above the pool sounds, Shane rockets towards the surface and breaches with an anxious sound.
Shane lets out a series of rapid, high-pitched clicks — a sound Hayden has come to recognize as a distress query. He treads water, his golden eyes wide, scanning Hayden’s face for answers. The usual purr of greeting is absent, replaced by a tense, vibrating hum.
“Hey, easy,” Hayden says, his voice deliberately calm as he sets down the bucket. The normalcy of the routine feels like a lie today. “Easy, buddy. I know. You can tell, can’t you?”
Shane swims closer, but his movements are jerky, unsure. He doesn’t nudge the bucket. Instead, he lifts a webbed hand and places it on the wet concrete ledge, his claws tapping a nervous rhythm. His gaze flicks from Hayden’s face to the closed door that leads to the medical bay corridors, then back again.
He smells him, Hayden realizes. Or hears him. He knows another of his own kind is here, and that it’s wrong. Maybe they’ve gone about this all wrong. This Aquarium is clearly Shane’s territory. To have another mer imposing upon it, nevertheless one so overtly aggressive, must be distressing for him.
“There’s someone new,” Hayden confesses, crouching down. He doesn’t bother with the fish yet. Shane isn’t focused on food. “He’s… he’s not well, Shane. He’s been hurt, and we’re going to try and make things better. Sound okay?”
Shane goes very still. The nervous tapping stops. His head cants, the bioluminescent flecks in his skin seeming to dim. He lets out a low, questioning warble.
“Yeah,” Hayden sighs, reaching out. Shane presses his cool, smooth forehead into Hayden’s palm, seeking comfort. It’s a gesture of profound trust that, in this moment, feels almost unbearably heavy. “We have to be very careful. Very gentle.”
He feeds Shane mechanically, the usual playful ritual replaced by a somber quiet. Shane takes the fish without his typical relish, eating out of duty rather than delight, his attention perpetually divided.
“He’s territorial. You’re defending your space.” He crouches lower. “I get it, buddy. I know it’s unsettling. He doesn’t belong here yet.”
Shane stops suddenly, rigid as a spear, and the faint hum that had been pulsing in his chest escalates into a sharp, vibrating rhythm. He flashes his golden eyes at Hayden, wide and questioning. Hayden leans closer, voice calm but firm. “Easy, Shane. It’s okay. You’re safe. He’s… just another mer. He’s not here to hurt you. We won’t let him hurt you.”
Shane hesitates, then slowly glides closer, tail quivering. He presses his palm lightly against Hayden’s, searching for grounding. Hayden feels the subtle tremor in Shane’s limbs and reads it as fear, and hums an encouraging sound.
Hayden goes to check on the wild mer after he finishes up with Shane. They’ve closed the mer exhibit for a few days to let him get settled. Even when it reopens, they won’t be showing off the new mer for a few weeks.
Ilya, Rose reports his name is.
Although Shane and Ilya are on opposite sides of the wing, Shane can tell that something is wrong, and it’s been distressing him. Hayden’s been spending more time with him, feeding him treats and giving him more toys to fiddle with, but it hasn’t seemed to help.
Hayden pushes open the narrow maintenance door leading to Ilya’s temporary holding tank, the smell of stagnant water and fish hitting him immediately. The tank is smaller than Shane’s arena, more enclosed, the walls round and sheer without any corners to tuck into.
Hayden peers through the glass viewing port. Beyond, a powerful body sits at the bottom of the pool. He’s utterly still, without a single ripple or disturbance. He must be hunting, Hayden realises with dawning horror. Staying utterly still in the water so his prey doesn't detect him.
Then he notices the sound. A staccato, high-pitched series of clicks that reverberate off the tank walls. Hayden freezes, recognizing it instantly. Shane used to do this — months ago, when he was anxious or trying to reach someone, calling out to his fellow mer before he realised there were none. Before the aquarium had trained the performance smile, the docile gestures, the obedient routines. Shane had stopped eventually, and Hayden hadn’t even realised he’d stopped doing it. To hear the same sound invoked in Ilya…
Ilya clicks again, faster this time, each sound trembling with intensity. His flared fins and bared teeth are all human-readable danger signals, but Hayden catches the pattern in its rhythm and pitch. It’s questioning, and scared.
And then, suddenly, the mer jerks his head and whips around. He locks eyes with Hayden and lunges towards him. He coils and snaps like a predator, only veering out of the way when he’s about to collide with the glass viewing window, before he circles around quickly and impatiently.
Pale eyes flash from beneath his golden eyelashes, and his tail slices through the water with violent arcs. Hayden instinctively steps back, heart hammering. The dorsal fin flares like a sail, a warning signal that feels almost alive, and the mer lets out a low, gurgling growl, the kind that reverberates through the water and makes Hayden’s bones vibrate.
“Jesus…” Hayden mutters, swallowing hard. He’s seen Shane tense before, but this — this is pure kinetic energy. Aggression raw and untamed. Shane had never moved like this, Shane had never growled like this. He’s always so… friendly. So pliant.
He stands there, separated by inches of reinforced acrylic, his own reflection a ghostly overlay on the spectacle of contained fury. The clinical part of his brain, the one that writes reports and follows protocols, begins to catalog: defensive posturing, territorial display, vocalizations indicating high stress. He notes the way Ilya’s gaze never leaves his, the charge in every movement meant to communicate, to warn, to establish a boundary as solid as the glass.
But the other part of Hayden — the part that knows Shane’s purr, that has coaxed out smiles and shared celery — feels a chill that has nothing to do with the cool, damp air.
Shane’s friendliness, his pliancy… they were earned. Hayden’s connection wit him is the product of months of patient, gentle work. Looking at Ilya is like looking back in time, to a Shane that never was — a Shane who would have arrived just as furious, just as terrified, had his origins been ones of capture and cruelty instead of careful rescue. The aquarium had smoothed Shane’s edges, taught him human rhythms. They had, Hayden supposes with a sudden, uncomfortable clarity, unmade some essential part of him. Domesticated him.
Ilya rams the glass with his shoulder, not hard enough to injure himself, but with a solid thump that vibrates through the floor. A final, emphatic statement. This is my space. You are a threat.
Hayden doesn’t flinch this time. He meets that pale, fierce gaze. He sees the intelligence there, sharpened by trauma into a weapon. He also sees the exhaustion beneath it, the way the magnificent flare of the fins droops slightly after the display, the too-prominent line of the mer’s spine.
“Okay,” Hayden says quietly, his voice barely a breath in the humming room. “Message received. Loud and clear.”
He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t try to coax. He simply takes a slow, deliberate step back from the viewing port, reducing his presence, his threat. He watches as Ilya, still vibrating with tension, sinks back toward the bottom of the tank, his eyes tracking Hayden’s every move.
Hayden leaves the medical bay, the echo of Ilya’s guttural growl lingering in his ears, superimposed over the memory of Shane’s cheerful, trained chirps. The fish stink on his clothes is now layered with the scent of chlorine and fear.
For the first time, Hayden wonders not just if he can help them both, but what helping them will truly mean. What will be left of Shane’s gentle world if they try and help Ilya, how far will it undo the steps they’ve done to acclimatise Shane to this environment — and what raw, beautiful, dangerous thing might be awakened in Ilya’s?
The coolest job in the world has just become a terrifyingly delicate balancing act on the edge of two different kinds of deep.
The next day, Hayden gets in early. One of the janitors catches him in the staff-room when he’s shrugging off his coat and pulling on his boots. He’d been awake last night thinking about Ilya’s clicking and crooning, and the sounds have haunted him until he comes back.
The man’s hands work in anxious circles as he talks. “I just thought you should know. I, uh, I overheard the new mer—”
“Ilya,” Hayden supplies, crossing his arms.
“Yes, Ilya, I heard Ilya making noises at Shane. It was so quiet that I guess they could hear each other.”
Hayden stiffens. “What kinds of noises?”
The janitor shrugs. “They didn’t sound friendly. Like, low, and threatening.”
Hayden presses a palm to his temple. Christ. They haven’t even begun to introduce the two mer to each other, and they’re already in conflict. “How did Shane react?” he asks the janitor.
The janitor hesitates, glancing around as if he might be overheard. “I didn’t see anything actually happen, but… I think Shane was trying to tell him to back off. Or warn him. Something like that. He kept pacing back and forth. Ilya stopped when he saw me, though. And swam away.” He shudders, “fucking scary thing.”
Hayden swallows, jaw tight. Shane’s friendly, obedient, a little fragile, and now some wild, untamed merman is intruding into his territory. Shane’s behavior yesterday — the pacing, the anxious clicks, the nervous tapping he’d been doing along the wall — he’d interpreted all of it as territorial stress. And now, from all accounts, it’s escalating.
“Thanks for letting me know,” Hayden says, forcing calm into his voice. But inside, his gut twists. Shane had always been careful around humans. He had control, routines, ways of signaling what he needed. And now someone else — someone enormous and aggressive— is in his territory. Hayden can almost feel Shane’s unease like a weight pressing against his chest.
The staff meeting room is small, fluorescent-lit, with a long table covered in paperwork, pens, and half-drunk mugs of coffee. It used to be where they kept the waterproof overalls and Hayden swears he can still smell the stink of the clementine cleaner they used to rub them down.
Hayden sits near the end of the table, arms crossed, staring down at the floor. Svetlana, Ilya’s assigned caretaker, slides in beside him, her expression calm but sharp. She takes off a large mitt she’d been wearing, large enough to protect her whole arm all the way up to her elbow. It makes a damp smack against the table, and Hayden could see the indented bitemarks that lined the leather.
“Morning,” she says, voice low. She drops her folder on the table. Hayden glances at her, grateful for a familiar face who seems to actually understand the creatures. “He bit me again,” she huffs as she seats herself next to Hayden. She scrapes a hand down her face. “I thought we were getting somewhere, but then he whipped around and tried to bite me.”
It is an unfortunate but common story with anything that has to do with the mer Ilya.
“Morning,” he mutters. “I wanted to talk about to you about that, actually. How best we should introduce him to Shane. I’m worried its stressing him out.”
Svetlana leans back, fingers tapping a practiced rhythm on the folder cover. “Ilya’s not trained. He hasn’t been socialized with humans beyond feeding. And yes, he’s aggressive — at least from our perspective. But he’s not hostile in the way people think. He’s reacting instinctively, defensively. Don’t assume to understand him yet.”
Hayden nods slowly, thinking of Shane’s pacing and nervous clicks. “Right. So… introducing them, it’s going to have to be slow. I don’t want Shane to get hurt, but I also don’t want to make him feel trapped. Show them to each other, maybe. We have that tank with the divider down the centre.”
Svetlana gives him a small, approving nod. “That could work. I still don’t know how Ilya would react to him. It might set him back too. I’m still working on trying to make him feel safe.”
From the far end of the table, one of the managers pipes up, eager. “We could have him learn some of Shane’s tricks, right? Maybe his bubble formations, coordinated swimming patterns. It’d be fun for the visitors.”
Svetlana’s gaze sharpens. Hayden notices the steel in her voice as she replies, “No. No humans, no shows. We can’t be trying to teach him tricks when he doesn’t know where he is, who we are, and if we’re going to hurt him or not. If we push him, it’ll have damaging repercussions.”
The manager shrinks back slightly, muttering, “Oh… right, okay.”
Hayden swallows hard. He glances at the other staff chatting about schedules, performance routines, and visitor engagement, and a sinking feeling grows in his chest. He knows the way this will go if no one keeps a careful eye: Shane will be forced into the role of compliant performer, and Ilya will be judged for natural instincts he cannot suppress. They have to get this right — but Hayden doesn’t want to see his boy hurt.