Chapter Text
It had pretty much been a regular and… maybe even an uneventful day for Tavros Nitram. He was walking along the shore of his childhood’s favorite beach and was mostly just admiring the view. It felt SO good to be back to his old hometown. He and his family had moved when he had been fourteen but two years later they decided to move back and he was finally reuniting with his favorite places in the world. The Nitrams had moved into a house right next to the beach he was walking on, since their older house had been demolished. Tavros has now been in town for two weeks, but it wasn't until this evening that he was able to squeeze in enough time to just look around and meet up with his old friends. Tavros had continued his studies in the town’s old high school, it was easy to start there again since it was the beginning of another semester. Today the teenager had spent a long evening all by himself. It felt really great.
His hands were tucked inside his vest hoodie’s pockets and sand was slipping through his sandals as he kept kicking it around. The sun was setting and a mild breeze was running through his brown fluffy mohawk. It was pretty warm considering it was august. He turned to face the setting sun and sniffed. Dang, the sea air smelled great. Tavros had missed literally EVERYTHING this town has. In the new city, nothing had felt quite right to any of his family’s members but they had still decided to give it a try. But they had to return. Things were finally back on track. Tavros picked a few rocks from the sand and threw them in the ocean and thought about whatever crossed his mind. The random thoughts and memories made him smile a little. He really had missed his friends.
Until the thoughts were stopped by odd sounds coming from his right. Was that…. someone speaking? He hadn’t heard anyone coming to the beach? Or had he been just so lost in his thoughts?
By his right was a big pile of huge rocks that he remembered creating something like a cave in between them. When he was little he used to sit on them and watch tiny fish who liked to play hide and seek in there. Now it sounded like there was someone in there, Tavros was sure of that. He slowly walked next to the rocks so he could hear who or what was in there. The noises stopped sounding like talk and turned into something more inhuman. Maybe it was a big weird fish or a seal or something like that. He’s seen a lot of things in his life, but he’s never seen a seal before. It would be pretty cool to make friends with one. His hopes for seeing a seal however, were crushed once he got close enough to see a giant tail splashing against the water that definitely belonged to a fish. Ooh neat, it looked like it was a clownfish-! But- Clownfish are very tiny… aren’t they? If it isn’t a clownfish then what… is….. Tavros peered over the big rock and practically laid on it so he could see clearly. Yep. It definitely wasn’t a fish.
The creature beneath him did have a clownfish like tail, orange with large white stripes and a little black here and there. But instead of seeing a fish head Tavros saw a soft, scratched belly, two thick hands with golden bracelets on both of them and on one of it's fingers was a silver ring with a purple gem on it. Lifting his eyes from it's arms, he noticed that the creature was bare chested and he could spot gills on top of it's ribs. It wore a colorful necklace and then he finally decided to take a look at it's face. His eyes locked with very scared ones. True horror was shining from those bright purple ones. Most of it's face was covered by blond, short, curly and wet hair (wet with both blood and water) The face itself was very round and covered in blood; two fresh scars were marking his face. The other just barely hit his right eye and the other was going straight over the bridge of his round nose. Tavros thought that his face was maybe a little too graceful for such ugly scars. But what concerned him most, was the big fish net that the other was tangled in.
Fuck.
It was another mermaid who had gotten stuck in those nasty things.
Tavros was a little unsure about what he should do next. Sure this wasn't his first time seeing a mermaid in trouble (or in this case, a merman) but.... The last time this had happened, Tavros had only been five years old. And the mermaid in need had also been his age. (this was bringing back old memories of her. He wondered if she was doing okay) But this merman, he guessed, is a lot older than she! Technically they could be the same age again, the other definitely didn't have a beard or wrinkles or anything like that. He seemed young. Although Tavros wasn't even sure if merfolk could even grow a beard? He guessed they could but that's not the point right now! The point is to help the other to feel a little less frightened. Because he certainly looked like he could die from stress at any given moment!
Tavros slid himself down from the rock and stepped slowly into the water so he wouldn't scare the poor guy even more. Luckily he was wearing his shorts today. (although he probably shouldn't go in to the water with these legs) He carefully walked around the rock so he could fully see the merman. This made the merman show his sharp teeth to the other and back away as much as he could in that little water he had. Surprised, Tavros raised his hands in the air as a defense. He wanted to show him that he meant no harm. They both kept looking at each other in the eyes while huffing. Tavros knew that he couldn't handle this the same way like he had ten years ago. He can't just shush and say "no no no, I don't want to hurt you," He doubts that strategy. But... It's the only idea he has in his mind so.... He really hopes he can understand English. She understood it, so why not him too?
"Uhm okay, uh. Please calm down, and like... I am not going to, hurt you. And... Could you please not bite off my hand, maybe?" he had started his sentence in a boost of confidence, but the merman had some really scary teeth! Aradia did NOT have such things!
The merman squinted his eyes just a little bit and closed his mouth. He still looked very doubtful. Looking at those squinted pair of eyes, Tavros noticed that he had probably been crying. They looked a little puffy and red. But apparently the clown had understood Tavros because he was now visibly more relaxed. Seeing how he reacted, Tavros let out a relieved sigh. Smiling a little he continued.
"I really want to help you. If you let me, that is. I mean, you've gotten yourself into a, quite a mess", gesturing at the net all around him. The merman was looking at Tavros very confused. Then he looked at the net and then back at Tavros. He ended up shrugging carefully, being too scared to actually make a sound. Well, at least he understands.
Tavros picked up a very sharp rock to cut the net and that made the merman nervous again. But once he was convinced that no, this human wasn't going to STAB him to death with a rock like everyone had told him, he relaxed again a little. Tavros was trying to make his way through the net, slowly freeing his orange tail and arms.
"So um... What's your name?" Tavros asked him. Cutting the ropes might take awhile so why not make this a little less awkward. Or this is going to go exactly the other way around and get even more awkward. But he'd give it a shot.
After a short silence, the merman finally answered in his unused voice.
"Gamzee. This motherfucker's Gamzee", and ended his answer in a cough.
"Oh, that's a nice name, I guess. I'm Tavros. Are you uh... From around... Here?" He wasn't sure if he could even ask that. Around here? Ugh, he hated his reply.
"I suppose. My place ain't that much far", he shrugged and tried to move his almost freed tail. It was starting to fall asleep. Which was annoying as shit.
"O-oh. It would be great to see that. But I can't breathe underwater or, anything like that, hehe..." with that nervous laugh he got back to cutting the net. He worked in silence after that. Things were pretty awkward during it; both of them were just looking at Tavros’ work and kind of hoping that they weren’t there. Tavros thought that it had been a lot more interesting and exciting when he had been five. He and Aradia had chatted about various things such as what does it feel to swim all the time? or why do you have those “toes”? and do you have a fish friend like in that movie “The little Mermaid”? All of those were just silly questions asked by little children (Although she did have a puffer fish who she liked to play with. Kinda like the equivalent of a dog) and right now it was hard to create any kind of small talk. Things were a lot more awkward and generally just more horrible. First of all, Aradia hadn’t been bleeding back then, her tail was just in that mess. Second of all, neither of them had been scared, they had had so much fun together! They had even met again every day for a couple of years! God, why did everything had to be so much more complicated once you grow older.
Gamzee wasn't feeling any better. All his life, he had been told not to get too close to the shore or to any of the humans. All his life he had been warned about all the bullshit that humans do and would do to you if you interact with them. Even just a little while ago Karkat had told you NOT to go too far away from the city to "get your dumb ass in a fucking mess again", But what could he expect. He had managed to get his lazy ass in trouble. Again. But this time he was in some deep shit. One of the deepest he's ever been. He couldn't even compare this to anything. He had been close to the surface, some humans had mistaken him for a seal or something and thought "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could catch one???" Then they had thrown the fish net at him, it had gotten stuck on his tail, he had crashed to the bottom rocks and hurt himself. Then he had swam away as quickly as possible, which wasn't very quickly, he had ended up by this very shore he was sitting on right now and tried to free himself. And that's when.. Tav...ros? Had showed up. Ughh, he cannot BELIEVE what kind of an idiot he can be. Maybe everyone IS right. He can cause nothing but mess. Turning his head so he doesn't have to look at this human and remind him of his fuck up, he decided to stare at the setting sun instead and pretend that everything's miraculous in the world. Like they used to be when he was younger. He sighed very loudly and heavily as he rest his head on his only free hand. This caught Tavros' attention.
Tavros raised his head up to look at the sudden noise in this otherwise quiet moment. He looked at Gamzee and thought that the other looked pretty... Sad. This filled the human with worry. Sure it was understandable that he couldn't be jumping from happiness, (no, he literally couldn't) but he started to wonder how he had gotten himself into this mess in the first place. Tavros knew that he can't just.. Blurt it out or whatever like, "Hey how did you get into a mess like this? Also, why are you sad??" He could try to be sneaky about this. Or something like that. He coughed to catch the clown's attention.
"Okay uh, I'm almost done with this, the net I mean. So I was just wondering what happened? Though I understand completely why you wouldn't want to talk to me, we are so, different after all. But uh.. How are you feeling?"
Surprised, Gamzee raised his head and turned to face the human. After swallowing nervously, he answered. “Ah, motherfuck… I don’t know. I guess I ain’t feeling all happy about this whole situation. My tail’s pretty much asleep by now and my face feels kinda hot and shit. Suppose it’s bleeding”, He raised his hand to brush one of the scars. Yep he had been correct. He was bleeding. “Fuck…”
“Would you mind if I take a look?” Tavros asked him and only received a shaking head as an answer.
He dropped the rock from his hands to take a better look at Gamzee’s face, placing his hand onto the other’s face and with his left hand he gently touched the fresh scars. When the Clown hissed from pain, Tavros quickly withdrew his hand.
“Yeah, I guess It’s going to scar. I could clean it for you, if you want me to?”
Gamzee looked around embarrassed before asking. “Would it help to up and make them less visible?”
“Well, it depends. Most likely yes though. So should I go get some uh, medical help?”
“Yeah if you don’t mind it that much. I don’t think my pop would approve if I came back lookin’ real motherfucking nasty”, The last bit he said in a lot more quiet tone. Tavros decided to shrug it off. Then he quickly cut the last rope that was keeping the merman’s tail imprisoned.
“Alright. I’ll be back in a moment. Please, stay put!” And he ran off.
-n-
It wasn’t long before Gamzee’s right part of face was completely covered in bandages. Tavros had never done anything like this before, so his work looked a little… sloppy.
“Well I’m sorry, but you really have to wear this… thing! For a while! And you can’t get into the water before that”, Tavros said laughing at his new friend’s face.
“Ah Tav, the mess you made of my fucking head doesn’t really bother me. Even if I can’t see shit right now! But it’s just that I don’t know when I should be back home. Though I’d rather spend more time up here with you and all your weird human.. things,” Gamzee laughed back and wiggled his fingers in the air a bit.
They had moved away from the sharp rocks and were sitting side by side on the much softer sand and giggling about some stupid things. Their awkward chit chat from before had quickly changed into smiles and laughs and before they knew it, they were sharing stories from their own worlds and talking like they had known each other for years. The sun had almost completely set and it was getting chilly. But it wasn’t going to stop them.
"Oh right Gam, you said your dad wouldn't like it if you came back home covered in blood, or, something like that. Do you have any other members in your family?" Tavros suddenly asked him. He'd gotten curious and demanded to know more.
"Well I only have a little brother. He's a cute lil fucker, even if he doesn't talk that much. We get along just fine but me and pop don't.... Really get each other. Like, okay, I wouldn't say he's a bad father or any other shit like that cause they'd be full lies. It's just that I don't think he believes that I'm the kind of guy to be the motherfucking prince who has to get married to a princess sooner than I’d want to. And honestly, I don't think that either. So if you didn't notice these golden things that are holding tight on to my wrists, they are the mark of a royalty or something along the lines", Gamzee replied and showed his wrists to Tavros. "But to me they kinda feel like shackles", He continued and pulled his chest to his tail and just sat there in silence while staring at the open sea. Now Tavros was hoping that he hadn't just asked that. Biting his lip worriedly, he decided to try changing the subject.
"O-oh. Uh, I had no idea you had a kingdom down there. Up here we have few countries with, kings and queens. But here we have a president and democracy. Which is good even if I don't, always fully understand how it all works",
Tavros dared to take a look at Gamzee, who was still just looking sadly at the waves as they hit the shore. He hadn't really succeeded on his mission. Until he got an idea. "We have a lot of stuff that could easily seem cool to you, or to anyone else who hasn't seen them before. I hope that we can meet again later so I could give you a tour around here", This finally caught his attention.
"Whoa brother, how could you do that? I believe you've already noticed that I ain't got no legs. I can't really come any further than this", Gamzee said looking really interested in whatever Tavros had in mind. How the fuck could he get him into any of the human cities or to his house? Or more than 20 meters away from the shore. He guesses that rolling around would be an option. Or if Tavros carries him. He doubts that. Even if Tavros seems kinda strong, he's more than sure that he couldn't carry him more than couple of steps. He may have gotten a little bigger than what he was a few years ago. Although being carried sounds tempting.
"I think we still have my old wheelchair somewhere. I could push you in that! We might have to hide your clown tail so people wouldn't, freak out about it. Not everyone has seen a mermaid. Even if I have. Twice", he said with a proud shrug.
"Oh right, Aradia. But shit bro, it'd be so cool to see those pretty trees and, and flowers, and those motherfucking fluffy animals you up and mentioned!" Gamzee replied enthusiastically. He was visibly jumping on his spot. Which looked rather silly. It would seem that Tavros had finally succeeded on his mission to change the subject from problems with the family, to hope for something new and better. He didn’t like it when people were sad. No matter who they were.
“Whoa, slow down. How can you even jump that high?!” Tavros laughed.
“I don’t know man, I guess I have a really strong tail or some shit like that. I just got really fucking excited! This is my first time this close to humans. I’ve been to surface only a couple of times before and this is my very first motherfucking time sitting on any sand. I don’t like how dry I’m getting. I ain’t used to this! And my brain thought that today was gonna be one of the shittiest days of my life, but instead of all that nasty stuff, I got to hear so much more about the world top of our own's!" he said smiling and honestly, Tavros thought that his friend was going to burst at any given moment! His head.. Bandages were also starting to slip off, so he quickly reached out and tried to fix them.
"Okay yeah, I did a horrible job with these. But I'm glad I got to, help you. It was a miracle that I even showed up! I was going to head in just before I heard you", Tavros said while trying to tighten the ropes. But he was quickly distracted again as Gamzee suddenly went quiet. Oh god, did he say something bad again? Ughhhh, can't he do anything right? Maybe without upsetting anyone? He found himself once again chewing his lip and just as he was about to open his mouth, Gamzee replied.
"Yeah. It really was a true motherfucking miracle", he said in a hushed tone and smiled very faintly. "Thanks Tav", hee turned to look at Tavros. Now he was actually really looking at him. He noticed that his shining nose ring had a stripe on it. Noticed that his brown haircut looked very dirty yet nice and he kinda wanted to touch it. He noticed a small pimple on his dark skin. Noticed that he had slightly dry lips and very pretty hazel brown eyes that were sparkling like the water around them. Man, he could look at those forever.
Then he also noticed that his heart may have just skipped a beat. Dang he was in cute company.
"Gamby?"
Fuuuck.
"Gamzee?"
His brain suddenly stopped. The Clown tried to shake his head clear but it just ended up hurting him. The scars were apparently still very sensitive, despite Tavros' help.
"Wha?"
"It's my brother. He texted me and asked where I am. I didn't even notice it was so late, I'm going to be so tired for school tomorrow", sighing, Tavros tucked his phone back to his pocket and stood up. "Ah, I should probably take the bandages off or they're going to get, really wet-"
"No no, don't! I'll uh, figure something out. I think the scars ain't feelin well just yet", Gamzee blurted and pointed at his face.
"O..kay... Well uh, do you need any help getting back into the water?"
"Nah, I think I can wiggle my way in." It looked very difficult, but Tavros decided to let it be. Once in the water, his chest submerged, Gamzee turned once more back to Tavros. "So uh, will my eyes get to look at your face again?"
"Well that's what needs to happen if you want to see my house or, the city. So how about we meet uh- no wait we can't do it tomorrow I need to study. Uhhh... How about the, day after that? Next Saturday at noon?" he suggested. Gamzee shrugged and answered with a simple "Sure"
"Great! I'll see you then! I really have to hurry now, or Rufio's going to be upset", he said with an eye roll. "Bye Gam!" Tavros picked up his sandals from the ground, waved and took off. Gamzee stayed behind and waved back at him. He didn't feel like going back home to face everyone, to face Karkat's anger, even if he did have a good reason to be upset. (Gamzee did appreciate Karkat’s fussing however. It was nice to know someone cared) Trying not to think about it, he submerged and took the bandages off while swimming as slowly as possible. He held tight onto the bloody rags, not wanting to lose them.