Chapter Text
As the human crashed into the waves, Naruto lazily swam around and under him, watching. It was well past the height of the night, and the scant lights of the luxurious boat above couldn’t help the human in the water now.
It didn’t really matter, for the human had no notion of his presence, and didn’t seem to have any real desire to open his eyes to the stinging salt of the sea. The human couldn’t expect to see into the ocean depths, and even though Naruto wouldn’t have minded the chance to peak into his eyes from so close, it wasn’t as if his own amber scales were effervescent – there was only so much either of them would be able to see.
5… 6… 7…
The clap of the water from the man entering the sea had been louder than the otherwise gentle waves currently cresting against the vessel, and they’d been heard by more than just Naruto.
The woman was sleeping, she’d heard nothing. The man’s drinking partner, however, had only been below deck for a minute or so and came running.
14… 15… 16…
It was a boat much too long for only three passengers, Naruto had thought when he’d encountered it. Beautiful, excellent craftsmanship, and when he rose above the surface the variety of smells that met him over the brine were interesting and foreign.
Naruto’d been told once before that those smells were money.
He didn’t have much of an understanding of the concept of money, only that it meant a lot to humans, and that its smell came in many varieties, usually on boats like this. A woman had once huffed and declared such a vessel ‘inordinately opulent’. He’d liked those words and had committed them to his memory.
Humans had so many interesting words.
21… 22… 23…
Being such a long boat, those feet had a long way to run before the maker of such thuds could reach a set of stairs and ascend to the deck once more. As if the figure in the water could hear the commotion – he couldn’t, human ears didn’t work so well, especially submerged - the otherwise unmoving figure gave a few shoddy arm movements, propelling himself deeper into the waters.
Hoping to not be seen.
27… 28… 29…
Humans could only survive for a minute or two underwater, Naruto knew. Had watched, had observed them, more times than he could count. He found his preferred food source infinitely fascinating, and these men had been so entertaining that night he almost didn’t care if he got to have a meal of them or not.
32…33…
“Aniki?”
He wondered if ‘Aniki’ could hear the shouts, but the man didn’t twitch. Had stilled in his attempt at swimming down, and looked almost relaxed as he hovered. He looked past him, up at the boat, heard feet race from one side of the deck to the other, and saw the blurry image of a head stick itself over the railing, distorted by the film of the waves separating their worlds.
36… 37… 38…
Aniki was a word for brother, for family. Naruto had heard it enough times tonight, recognized that it wasn’t a name, and after their conversation was easily able to identify its meaning. The men had talked for hours that night and had been drinking for most of them. Naruto didn’t have much of a family to speak of himself. He’d lost his mermaid pod as a youngling and been looked after by a pod of dolphins instead. He’d traveled far since then and met many other pods of mermaids, some welcoming, some hostile.
But even the welcoming ones turned up their noses when they realized how much he knew about humans. When they saw how avidly he watched them, rather than simply mobbing them and dragging them to their demise. That was fine though. His own kind was boring, humans were fascinating, and he’d much rather spend his time with them.
41… 42… 43…
The ‘Otouto’ had seen something in the depths and threw himself into the water. A beautiful dive.
Naruto had learned enough of their words to figure out that he engaged in something called ethical hunting. As best he could, at least. He didn’t prey on any human that wasn’t otherwise about to meet their end. That being said, at 60 count, this man would be his, if Otouto couldn’t save him.
They’d both been drinking, any more than that would’ve been pandering.
44… 45… 46…
Otouto swam down quickly, the markings of a skilled swimmer in his every movement. Still, Aniki was a fair way down already. The distance was closed relatively quickly, Otouto grabbing Aniki’s elbow at 50 count.
Could he pull him up, though? Would he be able to? Was he stro-
52-
Naruto had swum too close, eagerly tracking the event. He wanted the younger to succeed in his rescue attempt just as much as he wanted him to fail. At the idea that they both might be lost to the depths, he considered briefly how close the nearest pod might be so that he could share his haul rather than let any go to waste.
Then his eyes had met black.
Maybe they weren’t black, ordinarily, or at least not as pitch black as they were now, in the depths of the ocean in the cold of night.
Otouto had one hand on his brother, and had begun to pull and kick back up towards the surface, but met his gaze. Seen him, the distance between their faces maybe only a meter, but the darkness should’ve been too much for human eyes to cut through.
Naruto was seized by those eyes in a heartbeat. The desperation in them, the raw need, the fear.
He surged upwards, propelled by feelings he didn’t understand, catching both men and bringing them to the surface in moments. He’d saved a human girl once in the past, far from hungry and swayed by her desperate flailing, but this was different.
He was efficient, spurned by what had moments before been calm – waiting for his meal – suddenly turned emergency. Ensured both faces met the air, before hauling them to the ladder at the back of the boat. He pushed Otouto for it, who quickly climbed. The back of the boat, a lower segment, was easy enough for Naruto to reach, and once Otouto was on the deck he utilized a few powerful swishes of his long tail to heft Aniki up and over the lip of the boat, dropping the man as gently as he could on the hard deck.
Then he swam back out of sight.
He heard thuds, cursing, and activity as the younger attended to the older. The seapeearr – Naruto had seen it done enough times – was successful, thankfully. Coughing and spluttering sounded soon enough, and the younger’s voice was soft as he spoke to his Aniki, though with the older man breathing, the Otouto had sat upright to look back out over the water, eyebrows furrowed.
Naruto watched on as Aniki was sat up, his back patted, sometimes solidly, sometimes gently. Watched as Otouto lovingly pushed dark strands of hair out of a pale face, and after some time fetched some towels, bundled Aniki up, and took him through a door into the boat.
He watched, and he thought. He tried to understand his own response. Humans were fascinating, but they were dangerous. When they knew about his kind, they became obsessive. That had been drilled into him by every pod, without question. They’d shared stories in shoals on moon-bright nights of the horror humans wrought when they knew mermaids existed.
Even the girl – he hadn’t spoken to her. He’d shooed off the tiger shark, picked her up in his arms, soothed her crying, and carried her to land.
He shouldn’t have saved the Aniki, and shouldn’t have shown himself to the Otouto. Should’ve let nature stay its course, not intervened, let–
Otouto came back out.
He had a towel around his neck and had run it roughly through his dark hair, leaving it spiked up in all directions. The moon was slim that night, but there were some soft lights at his back, more than enough illumination for Naruto to see the angular face, but they did nothing to help Naruto understand the expression on his face.
“…Are you still there?”
His voice trembled before stabilizing, just in those few words. As if he doubted Naruto’s existence and had to convince himself to ask the question properly even as he forced it out.
Don’t do it.
Naruto crested the water tentatively and swam slowly closer until dark eyes snapped to him. Otouto let out a shaky breath, railing gripped tight in his fists.
“Did you pull him in?”
Naruto tilted his head slightly, hoping that might be enough of an answer, while he thought. Did humans have stories of mermaids pulling them to their deaths? He wondered how such stories came to be when his kind worked diligently to prevent witnesses.
Otouto growled. “I’m pretty sure you understand me, so yes or no. Did you pull him in?”
Naruto rolled his eyes, and when that made the man recoil with surprise, he let himself chuckle, his mouth still under the water. He really did spend too much time with humans to react like that and to have never had a conversation with one.
He shook his head in the negative, trailing strands of silky blonde floating in the water around him.
“Oh. Ok.” The man had been bold, but he hadn’t actually expected an answer. “Wait, are you like a siren then?”
“A what?” Naruto asked, confused, barely conscious of his decision to speak up.
“You know, a siren. Like, did you sing to him to make him jump in?” He gesticulated vaguely, voice growing softer as he spoke, unsure.
Naruto snorted.
Otouto huffed, crossing his arms as red stole across his face.
“Those can’t be real,” Naruto smirked.
“Said the mermaid,” the human snapped back to him.
Naruto laughed properly this time, amused. The human’s shoulders slumped down as he relaxed, softened by the sound.
“I didn’t sing to him to make him jump in. He jumped all by himself.” Naruto swam idly sideways, drawing his tail closer to the surface, before swimming forward, watching dark eyes follow what it could see of his muted, golden form, knowing the lights would catch on his shiniest scales.
Eyes watched him, but ears still listened to his words. The man slumped against the railing, energy escaping him. “He jumped?” His voice was low, and Naruto swam ever closer to listen, catching onto the rungs of the ladder and looking up at him. “Are you sure he didn’t… fall in?”
“He acted with purpose,” Naruto said, amusing himself as he switched his tail back and forth, delighting quietly in the way it held the handsome man’s attention.
A choked sigh escaped the Otouto, who ran his fingers through his hair before he turned and slumped down against the wall, almost out of sight. Naruto huffed, annoyed, before grabbing the ladder and hauling himself up.
He wasn’t done with his first conversation.
He swiveled to sit in the gap made for the ladder, letting his long tail trail in the water. Then he sprawled his arms behind him, webbed and clawed fingers marveling at the wood beneath his fingertips. He leaned back, resting his weight on his hands, and looked at the man. The human sat somewhat dejectedly, though his eyes watched Naruto. Again, now, they were less than a meter apart, but there was light behind Naruto now that shined on the human’s visage, and he was beautiful.
Eyes as dark as they had been below the waves, and just as expressive and captivating. Naruto resisted the urge to reach out for that soft, pale flesh, to touch what seemed so perfect. Instead, he sat in silence and simply watched the man who watched him.
He was not afraid of this human. Quite the opposite in fact.
His head rested against the wall behind him, hair puffed slightly where his head had dragged down, and the way he regarded Naruto was with curiosity, but burdened by more. Understandable, really, because he had just met something otherworldly in the process of saving his Aniki from a suicide attempt.
“He told me…” The man licked his lips, and Naruto’s eyes honed in on the movements of the average human's strongest muscle, small and pink as it darted past soft lips. “Tonight, uh… that he was the one who killed our parents.”
“I heard.”
“You were listening?” He frowned, but his lips quirked slightly. “For how long? That’s creepy.”
“No,” Naruto shook his head, certain. “Creepy is old men with young women.”
“No,” he said firmly, quirking lips finally turned up in a small smile. “Creepy is doing something others don’t like, causing them fear or apprehension.”
“Appre-what?” Naruto frowned.
The human suddenly laughed, squishing a palm into his eye. “What the fuck is happening right now.”
Naruto understood the tone of his words, disbelief bordering on mania. “You’re talking to a mermaid,” he supplied, with a grin, definitely being unhelpful.
“Fuck me,” he shifted, letting his head thump back against the wall. “Why? Why were you listening to us?”
Naruto shrugged. Another human thing. He was annoyed, though, because the human’s eyes were shut, and he hadn’t seen it. What was the point of shrugging if it went unseen? “It was interesting, and I was waiting.”
“For?”
“…Four?” Naruto held up his hand, tucking his thumb in. The human looked that time, cracking another smile, though his eyes lingered on the webbing between Naruto’s fingers.
“No, not the number four. I meant, what were you waiting for?”
“Dinner,” with attention once again on him, Naruto shrugged once more, before turning his eyes back toward the sea. Conversation cues he’d learned, suggesting he wasn’t the least bit apologetic or remorseful.
“… I see.” The human didn’t seem entirely upset, or disturbed, by his answer. “But you didn’t eat him.”
Naruto opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. He glanced at the human, who watched him so intently, before glancing away. He didn’t really have a reply for that. “…No, I didn’t.”
“And you didn’t eat me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Conversation lapsed.
Naruto could feel the gaze burrowing into the side of his head, but he didn’t look over. He didn’t know how. No, he knew how, but he didn’t know… what to say. Or what to do. He hadn’t eaten either of them, though he’d had the distinct urge to do so. Had been on the cusp of so large a meal he’d pre-emptively thought of sharing it with others. All he’d needed to do was pull down instead of pull up... But he hadn’t.
“My name’s Sasuke.”
Naruto looked over, startled by the sudden words. It was Sasuke’s turn to cast his gaze forward, pointedly ignoring Naruto’s glance.
“…My name is Naruto.”
“Naruto,” Sasuke said slowly. Naruto swallowed, feeling decidedly off-kilter. His name had never come off a human tongue before, never trembled through the air, and he wasn’t sure which of them was savoring the sound more. Sasuke looked back over, eyes a little fonder, a little less scared, than they had been before. “Thank you for saving my brother.”
Thank you.
Even the little girl had been too young to say those words to him.
“…You’re welcome.”
Sasuke nodded as if that was all that needed to be said. It had been a long night, and soon Sasuke’s eyes slipped shut. He was too tired, too worn out, and possibly too drunk to move, to seek out a bed, or even a blanket. Naruto stayed there, watching, entranced as the lines of his face softened, his breathing evened out, and his head lolled gently as waves continued to rock the boat.
Mystified by the human who felt safe enough to fall asleep right next to him.
The sun slowly came up, and he stayed a while longer, appreciating the man beside him in the growing light of day. At the first hint of movement within the boat, he said a soft goodbye, ran his hand gently over the pale one resting slack near his, and slipped silently back into the ocean.