Chapter One

"Kurt, should we really be doing this?"

The young merman huffed at Finn's interjection, bubbles surprising the small yellow fish as they burst under his stomach. He couldn't help but stifle a laugh at the aghast expression on his gilled friend's face.

"Lighten up, Finn. I'm always late, Daddy knows that," Kurt mused, brushing a chocolate brown strand of hair from his eyes, "Besides, since when were you one to lecture me about this kind of thing? Isn't that Mercedes' forte?"

Finn's eyes darted away from Kurt's nervously, flapping his own fins in an effort to somehow conjure up a feasible answer. He thought of the fiery red crab Mercedes and how she always knew exactly how to steer Kurt clear away from potential troubles like this, and tried his best to channel her powers of reasoning; if there was one thing Finn was not good at, it was forming coherent sentences under pressure. Or really, forming coherent sentences at all.

"I just don't... I don't want you... us... to get in trouble again... and since Mercedes isn't here, I kind of feel... y'know, responsible for you," Finn stammered, uttering the latter half of the sentence in a drowned out whisper

"Responsible?" Kurt scoffed, nudging Finn in the gills as he delivered his trademark Don't-Be-Such-A-Downer smirk and with a flip of his emerald green tail, sped towards the quietly decaying shipwreck that sat submerged almost two feet under the seabed.

Finn called out in protest, but Kurt had already swam through a particularly jagged and dauntingly dark crevice in the ship's flank. Reluctantly, he followed his friend into the murky depths of the shipwreck.

"Kurt," Finn ventured as he inched his way into the unwelcoming darkness, "Kurt I really really don't think we should be doing this..."

A giggly voice carried itself to him from somewhere within the pitch black space. "Hurry up, Finn! Find me!"

"F-find you?"

"It's a human game. You find me," Kurt's voice called in singsong tones, "And I hide from you. It'll be fun!"

Finn gulped. "It doesn't sound like fun to me." He'd expected an offhand reply from the headstrong merboy, but a deafening silence was all that echoed around him. "...Kurt? Kurt, c-can you hear me?"

Worry bubbled up inside the small fish's belly; if he lost Kurt- or worse, if Kurt got harmed- under his supervision... he gulped once more, shaking the thoughts away like a mouthful of bad kelp.

Suddenly something was gripping him by the fins, jiggling him side to side, tinkly laughter piercing the thick silence with an almost heart attack-inducing affect. Despite the all-consuming black, Finn could tell that giggle from oceans away: Kurt.

The agitated fish spun himself around as fast as his recently released fins would take him. He glared at the grinning teenage merboy. "That was not fun. Not at all."

Kurt scoffed. "It wasn't that bad, you big baby."

"I'm not a baby!"

"You so are. Only babies get angry about human games."

Finn took a sharp intake of breath, clapping his larger fin over Kurt's mouth. Kurt's blue eyes widened in shock at the anxious expression of his scaly friend- he looked terrified.

"Don't say it out loud," He whispered.

Kurt pried Finn's slimy appendage off of his face. "Say what? Human?"

"Shh!"

A coy smile crept onto his face. "What's wrong with HUMANS, Finn?"

"Kurt, you know the rules, if your dad knew about your cave full of... their stuff-"

"Their stuff? You mean HUMAN stuff?"

"Kurt-!"

"HUMANS!" Kurt hollered, propelling himself upwards into the hull of the shipwreck to Finn's dismay, "HUMANS, HUMANS, HUMANS! One day, I'm going to marry a HUMAN, Finn-"

"Kurt, please-"

"And he's going to have HUMAN legs-"

"Stop screaming!"

"And HUMAN feet-"

"What's a feet? Kurt, just stop!-"

"And a HUMAN pe-"

"KURT," Finn was getting frustrated now, yellow scales turning redder every second as he wrapped a fin around Kurt's tail and tried without success to drag him from the ship. He seemed to be uncharacteristically over-enthused at the idea of meeting a human. Of course, the whole Kingdom knew of Kurt Trident's ridiculous fascination with the Surface World, and everyone knew of Kurt's desire to one day see humans walking on "Land" (wherever that was), but this was the first time he'd mentioned wanting to meet- and marry- a human. And that very idea terrified Finn even more than the prospect of King Trident's imminent rage when he realised Kurt was missing from breakfast.

Kurt simply laughed again at Finn's worrisome state, flicking Finn away with a strong whoosh of his tail before speeding deep into the ship's uncertain depths once more

"Catch me if you can, Finn! Or are you too much of a baby?"

Finn let out a shaky breath. "The King is going tokill me".