Work Text:
The group were all at their stations, although, only a little bored throughout the immense work they had to do rather frequently, stood around, ready to do whatever was commanded at them.
One of the few members, Jim, was less entertained more than all of the people on that very ship combined, it was rare to even see him not complaining about something or at least talking on whatever had crossed his mind that day.
The dark and deep blue ocean spread open wide, making it seem endless and never ending all around them, it would be rather odd if there wasn’t noise coming from any area of the boat.
But nonetheless, almost everybody could agree on one very thing; that they were all tired of their jobs.
“C’monnnnn! How come you never let me do anything else on this dang ship, Cap’n N!” Jim was thoroughly done with looking overseas to see if there was quite frankly anything out there, only seeing large bits of rocks and abandoned wooden sails that contained few to little resources.
The Narrator huffed, rolling his eyes in a mocking manner before he started to mimic the sailer, moving more exaggerated than necessary as he flailed his limbs around.
“Oh look at me! I’m Jim! I complain about everything and when given the option to do something else I decline because I’m just difficult!” The Narrator knew Jim wouldn’t take it to heart, none of the other sailers did, they all found it entertaining compared to it just being a bit of an ass.
A couple laughs and chuckles went around, Jim included, laughing more than The Narrator thought he would, snickering a little to himself when everybody thought of him as ‘funny’ in the moment.
Coming closer towards the brunette, The Narrator playfully slapped the man on the back, patting the damage he caused right after, forcing himself not to smile too much at the sight of the man wincing a bit.
“Alright now get back to work, if we’re gonna be here for days—maybe even weeks—looking for some creature somebody swore they saw, then we better have a strict eye open at sea, are we clear?”
The Narrator took it upon himself to stare at each member in the eye, watching them all lazily agree as if they weren’t paying attention the entire time, some nodding when he looked at them.
Satisfied with the resulted The Narrator ensued, he left the area inside and exited out, as he was leaving out of the door, he heard one of the sailers call out to him, a familiar voice he could never miss.
It was Cookie9, or C9, which whom preferred the nickname (definitely not due to it sounding alike to “C4”, the explosive) over their own name.
“Ay, Narry! Don’t you be slackin off out there! You’re supposed to be the captain after all!” C9’s voice echoed throughout the room, The Narrator turning around to see them laughing at themselves, but not making eye contact with him as they worked.
Staring for a solid moment, The Narrator left the room again and walked a few feet away from the door, leaning on the walls before he slid down onto the floor, making contact with the floor boards beneath him.
Lifting off the hat on his head, The Narrator was soon fully aware of the sweat on his forehead, using his hand to fan himself off, setting the hat aside, staring off into the distance of the orange fading pink sky.
Taking a small notepad out of his pockets, The Narrator also withdrew a pencil, easing it onto the paper while the lead started to make an appearance on it, fluid, yet messy, strokes throughout the small sketch of what soon turned out to be what he had thought merfolk looked like.
The waves crashed into the boat, feeling the uneven rhythm of when it impacted made The Narrator feel at home, not entirely sure on the reason why, but it was like he could write something out while on this trip.
Yeah, that sounded right, a story, this was going to be a story about a m-
The Narrator stopped drawing right as soon as he heard a splash, being quick to hide what he was doing, shoving the notepad and pencil back into his pockets, keeping away what he was doing in the moment was quite the habit.
Looking around before standing up, The Narrator’s eyes squinted when he tried to get a closer look up on something he had thought he saw, not fully believe ig what he was able to gaze at.
The Narrator swore he saw part of an orange fin and a smudged scene of hair, unsure if it was a dark brown or black, the tail being a brighter orange than described in the village, it was more vibrant, more lifelike.
As The Narrator leaned over the edge of the boat, adding weight towards the rails of it, a sudden splash of fresh ocean water came towards him, hitting him square in the face as it immediately started to soak into his clothes, dripping from his hair to the floor as the wood began to soak it up as well.
The situation was becoming more risky, and more, abnormal, with the sighting of a chance that merpeople actually exist and and about a gallon of water impacted onto The Narrator, he was sure that the one he was dealing with was a bit of a prat.
While The Narrator went to wipe the water off of his face, he had heard a giggle, opening one of his eyes as he caught a sight of the shimmering orange tail, a few feet away from the boat, waving for about a second before it sunk underneath the depths of the sea.
The Narrator stared at the same spot where the tail used to be, the memory of seeing the tail shine with the sun still being there, reflecting off of it while drops of water dripped off of it, returning to the sea.
“What in the fuck are you doing standing there like an idiot.” The Narrator automatically turned his head to see who had said it, looking eye contact with The Bucket, it’s gravelly voice croaking out to him, leaning on the frame of the door, one of it’s eyebrows crooked up while the other flattened into a straight line.
The Narrator thought about what he was going to say before he said something utterly stupid, taking chances to look away from The Bucket. “I caught a sighting of some merfolk, just one, but I’m absolutely sure I saw it.”
The way The Narrator choked it out turned out low and barely audible, The Bucket almost didn’t hear it when The Narrator admitted to what had just happened to him.
Unfortunately tension arose, silence thickening the air and the atmosphere all around the pair of sailers, both unsure where to take the conversation.
“Are you sure you saw-“ The Bucket was cut off, his hands were dug into his pockets, well, more like only his thumbs were jammed into them, the rest of his fingers stayed out and hanged off of the fabric.
The Narrator glared at The Bucket, squeezing his hands into fists, draining out any sort of anger from himself before he said something he’d entirely regret. “I know what I saw, T.B. I’m not a fool.”
The Bucket rose his hands up and out of the pockets, as if to make it look like he was surrendering his assumption of doubt that The Narrator actually saw the thing they had spent years to look for.
“Hey now, don’t get all aggressive on me jus’ cuz I doubted you. I just think it’s rather odd the first time we see one of them ‘merpeople’ that it’s you alone who gets to see it.”
The Bucket explained himself, readying himself to endure the long lecture from the captain about catching people off guard and scaring them half to death, or whatever lesson he thought he had to teach him.
The Narrator looked away from The Bucket, staring off at the sea below the two, his posture noticeably changing as he shifted every so often.
“Orange tail, brown-ish black-ish hair, a glimpse of it’s lightly tanned skin. It’s got to be it, T.B. There’s no absolute way that it isn’t.” The Narrator stopped looking at the water and opted to staring at The Bucket instead.
“Well, if you’re the one who it saw first, then I gotta be there to see it too.” The Bucket finally said after the pair awkwardly gazed at each other for what felt like ages.
The Narrator simply nodded leaning back onto the rails of the ship, watching as The Bucket turned around and started to walk back inside with the others, his boots making a slight clicking noise when they impacted on the floor.
Choosing to stop looking at the empty doorway that The Bucket had just gone through, The Narrator started to think back to the merfolk he just met, it was something about their stubborn nature and playfulness made that thought linger on The Narrator’s mind.
Even if they did manage to befriend the sea creature, how could they get evidence to show that they did in fact meet one? Surely it would all be too difficult to do, even if attempted thoroughly and carefully.
All the while The Narrator was thinking deeply, he subconsciously put his hat back on before returning to his original pose, staring at nothing in particular.
As The Narrator wasn’t paying much attention to his surroundings, there was movement in the water, different from the current and the slight waves that crashed into the ship, a certain merfolk that swam close towards the ship and had the tips of his fingers hang off of the edge.
“Watcha thinkin’ about, oldie?”
The Narrator jumped when he heard somebody speak, not familiar with the new voice, but to say the least, it was, nice, to The Narrator, that is.
The voice was smooth, yet a bit raspy, it sounded a bit echo-like when it came out, as if one were far away in a large corridor, it was soothing to The Narrator.
Looking around, The Narrator immediately saw it, or rather, him, staring right back at him with his eyes filled with curiosity and with the intent to play around with him.
The Narrator withdrew an exhale, taking in and out breaths like he hadn’t been breathing at all a moment ago, taking in the merman’s features.
Curly brown hair that the sun shined through from, giving it a slight glow effect, his skin was tanned like it would give a bittersweet taste, many other features that would fit the description of a regular adult male, but what really made him special, was his tail.
The merman’s tail hung close to himself, brightly colored scales that shimmered in the bright light, the radiant orange color that deepened it’s tinge underwater and brightened up in the sun, and how unit was shaped.
While The Narrator gazed at them, completely trapped in a trance, the merman smirked, a full smug look on his face told it all that he was soaking in all of the attention he was given, yet, still reluctant to get closer to the ship with who know how many sailers were on there.
“Do you like the view, Mr.Stunning?” The merman teased, snickering when The Narrator had realized how much he had been staring and tried to excuse himself, the merman waving it off only to show off his looks. “It’s okay to look at me, I already know how dashing I look, Y’know I’m pretty sure if all the people who knew how attractive I looked like, then-“
“You’re quite appealing. Beautiful, even.” The Narrator interrupted, words spewing out of his mouth before he could shut himself up and prevent himself from saying anything, in fact, as soon as he had said it, he regretted admitting it out loud.
Safe to say that the merman was stunned by the sailer’s compliment, not bothering to continue his rant about himself as he was much more focused on the ‘beautiful’ and ‘appealing’ words that came out of the humans mouth.
“..what.?” Was all he said in the moment, it was rather all was on his mind, simply unable to process that anybody would actually call somebody like him that.
“I said that-“ The Narrator didn’t get to finish his sentence, reasons that not only was he cut off, but he was blabbering off again and was desperately trying to stop himself from saying something that he didn’t mean again.
“I know what you said. I heard it. I just..” The merman trailed off, his tail flipped and flailed a little as if he was using it as a hand to gesture himself trying to remember what he was going to say.
The Narrator took it upon himself to look around the ship, to see if anybody was witnessing what he was, both content and disappointed when he didn’t see anybody else.
Looking back at the merman, he tried to carry on his sentence as he looked like he had already forgotten what was he about to say.
“Well? You just, what?” The Narrator referred back to when the merman stopped his sentence without actually finishing it, waiting for them to continue on, not really in the mood to resume speaking about what the sailer had just said about him.
“I just, never heard anybody refer to my kind as ‘appealing’ or ‘beautiful’.” The Narrator looked back at the male, a pitiful expression was painted onto his face, noticing that the merman wasn’t reacting well to it at all.
Swaying a few more feet away from the ship, the merfolk showed nothing but a turned off look, like he was disgusted at how The Narrator reacted towards his temporary sorrow.
“Eugh, can you stop it with that? Hate it when people do that and pretend that my kind matters the most in this damn world as soon as I say that.” The merman reacted bitterly, turning slightly away from The Narrator as he seemed more closed off than he did before.
The Narrator stopped having whatever face expression he was showing and also looked away from the merman. “I apologize.” The Narrator said, he was mostly unsure of what else to say, whether to say sorry or not.
“Okay.” The merman talked less, slightly filled with regret when he caught a glimpse of the man looking hurt by how he reacted towards him.
The whole situation soon turned awkward for the both of them, it would have to be either one to continue or stop the conversation, which none obviously wanted to do.
“I’m Stanley.” Stanley addressed himself, knowing that neither would continue the chat they were so graciously having about a minute or two before, swimming a bit closer to The Narrator.
The Narrator felt hope again, now acknowledging that he could still save the starting damage he had caused at the start unknowingly, feeling a small smile break onto his face.
“Narrator, that’s what everybody calls me, at least. But I can accept any nickname you give me.” Relatively more at ease when the earlier moment had changed and had been forgotten long gone, soon that moment would be replaced with a far better one, a newer and the one that The Narrator would never forget.
Stanley didn’t stop smiling, in fact, he seemed to smile in a way to show that he was fairly amused by The Narrator’s name, deciding to continue on his snarky yet flirtatious act quickly. “So is Mr.Stunning still on the board?”
The Narrator chuckled deeply, taking the compliment well while internally confused if it was just teasing or if the merman was actually into him, unsure to choose the latter statement at all.
“Depends, do you find me attractive, Stanley?” The Narrator didn’t mean for it to sound the way that it did, but didn’t say anything about it as Stanley took it quite well, working a little too well for somebody who didn’t know how to flirt at all.
Stanley found himself stumbling on his words, picking them on random and blurting them out as if he had just learned how to talk. “Well!—I do—well don’t—I mean—I do find you very handsome—er not handsome—I mean you are handsome it’s just—fuck I mean—yeah! Wel—yeah—no I meant—shit-I should just stop talking.”
The way Stanley changed up from how cocky and arrogant to somebody who couldn’t seem to find their words or sentences made The Narrator only laugh more, attempting to stop himself while Stanley’s face burned up, his cheeks flushed a harsh tone of pink right after they embarrassed themselves.
In between a few breaths, The Narrator spoke towards Stanley, reassuring him while still trying to calm himself down. “It’s okay—take your time” Sounding breathless from laughing.
Stanley, on the other hand, wasn’t too convinced to try talking again as he just humiliated himself right on the spot, wondering where all of his courage went a few minutes before.
However, right when Stanley was about to attempt speaking again, he was horridly interrupted by a nearby shout inside of the ship. “Hey, Tv box! Come over here!” Whoever was yelling sounded impatient by their tone, whom was Player.
Another yell come out of the ship, this time it was a different person, the voice was more feminine yet sounding more like a creature than an actual human being. “Yeah old man! It’s urgent, come quick!”
The Narrator looked towards where the noise was coming from, a short groan was exhaled from his mouth as he was annoyed that it meant he wouldn’t be able to continue talking to the merman.
“I’ll have to go now, being a leader ain’t easy, Y’know.” The Narrator reached his hand out to shake Stanley’s hand, only to end up feeling a small wave of pain at his palm.
Taking his hand back to look at it, there was teeth marks from where Stanley had bit him out of habit, the marks obviously being different to normal human teeth bite marks.
Stanley has accidentally bit Narrator to the point that he was bleeding a little, almost immediately apologizing when it had been done, feeling upset at himself for doing it in the first place.
Knowing that The Narrator had to go, Stanley promised him that he would be back soon, apologizing once more before he simply told The Narrator goodbye and left, diving back into the deep depths of the ocean.
The Narrator, now alone and a bit confused, stopped leaning onto the rails and started speed walking back inside, not surprised to see his group fooling around.
Trying to avoid the others from seeing the wound, The Narrator slightly covered it while making his way to the Med-bay section of the ship, of course getting caught in the process.
“There you are, Narrator! ‘Was seriously starting to think that you abandoned us!” Naiomi had their hand on The Narrator’s shoulder, only moving it away when he smiled awkwardly and stepped out of her reach. “You okay? Why’re you head’n to Med-bay?” Asked Naiomi, staring at the hand Narrator was covering.
Despite the amount of reassuring The Narrator did, Naiomi wasn’t fully convinced, pretending to finally “lay off” as it watched him continue walking into the room and shutting the door behind himself.
“Is he okay? He didn’t even look at the mess we made!” Player was looking over their shoulder, staring at the closed door before them. Naiomi didn’t know what to say to answer Player’s question, only hearing a faint wrapping and a single sigh from the room.
After The Narrator come back out, his hand was wrapped up with bandages, still hiding it away from the rest of the crew from seeing it, not knowing why he was so ashamed of showing an injury.
The night went on after that, The Narrator having to order some the members who were involved to clean up the soapy mess they made, clearly bothered by the wound on his hand in some kind of way.
#
The Narrator and Stanley kept meeting up after that, the ship slowly making their way back when the others found out what he was doing outside of the ship, which didn’t make Stanley react in any way possible as he knew it was bound to happen at any moment.
“You found a merman and you decided not to tell us for weeks?!” Jim screamed at The Narrator, C9 and Mariella chatting with Stanley while The Bucket simply admired the creature, same done with Stanley.
“I didn’t think you would take me seriously!” The Narrator tried to defend himself but was instantly shut down when The Settings Person argued against him.
The whole situation soon got sorted out after a few minutes, calming down before realizing they now had a new situation on hand. If the crew were to bring Stanley back to land, he was for sure going to be hunted for anything that was considered useful on him, for instance, his scales.
“What’s that?” Stanley pointed towards the fabric that would be soon placed onto him, looking up at The Narrator for assistance for what it even was.
“It’s a skirt, it’s gonna hide your tail from being seen so people won’t come after you, you’re gonna be wearing clothes, Stanley.” The Narrator told Stanley, helping him button up his shirt, Mariella helping with putting the skirt onto him.
The clothes Stanley was going to wear were simple: a white button up shirt with a sleeveless layer on top and a long skirt that covered up a little more than needed.
Taking Stanley back to land was still difficult, but it was worth it in the end when it still worked out, returning to a large home that could easily be mistaken for a work place.
Unfortunately, Stanley was discovered by a group of people being too mosey about his appearance, The Narrator and his crew having to threaten taking Stanley back to the sea if they wanted to kill the merman.
The Narrator didn’t want to do it, but ended up having to resort to said option when The Bucket came crashing in, holding Stanley while out of breath, saying that the people found out and attempted to kill him.
Lucky that the town calmed down from their previous attack, The Narrator still kept his eye out for anybody while he went out to the village, having some of the team stay behind to protect Stanley while the rest stayed along with The Narrator.
But when night had fallen, and the people went back into their homes, The Narrator came back to Stanley, climbing into bed with him as he kissed his cheek and had soon fallen asleep.