He was going to join the Reef Guard the moment he was of the proper age to do so. He was going to join the Reef Guard and the first thing that he was going to do was come back to this damn bloody cave and run a spear through the smug Siren bastard's heart!
Harry had been there for approaching two weeks now and was beginning to approach the waxing edge of moderately healed and had, by this point, run through close to a million different scenarios of just how he could go about managing to escape from Tom and this damn cave out in open water. Sending him into the harbor over and over until he went belly up on his own from the poison-laced water. Choking him with some of the coins that he'd collected to build his glittering nest while he slept. Strangling him with Nagini.
Sadly these were all fantasies. For now. But one day, one day very soon, Harry would see to it that the menace known as Tom Riddle was permanently removed from these waters. Mer weren't predators and weren't usually known for being aggressive, unlike their shark toothed cousins one of which was currently keeping him captive at the back of his cave, but in a fit of pique he'd become determined to carve the fin from the Siren's back and use it as a flag on the top of his home.
It was certainly colorful enough.
And if anything the false shows of affection were making him hate the bastard even more. Harry wanted nothing to do with him. Nothing! Had no interested in an aggressive, armor plated, jagged toothed monster no matter how fucking pretty his bloody face was! No matter how able to provide for him he might have been! No matter how 'strong' his genes were!
Because no matter how well he played at being affectionate, breeding was all he cared about and every time his temper revealed itself Harry wound up with another wound. Shallow, comparatively, but deep enough to bleeding and be incredible painful. Every time he tried to treat him the raven wouldn't let him near. Every time he tried to present him with a gift he'd reject it. Every time he came back with food Harry would eat only enough to keep himself from being absolutely miserable.
Tom even had the nerve to seem hurt about the matter! Good. Seeing him sulk was rewarding after all he'd went through.
It wasn't a Siren that he would end up with. It would be another Mer, probably male due to his own status as a Breeder but perhaps a female, and they would be warm and gentle and absolutely everything that Tom Riddle was not. They'd be brightly colored and smooth scaled with small, rounded fins and lean muscle. Not heavily armored with scales like broken shell shards, dourly colored, triangular finned and shrouded in muscle like chorded steel.
He had no desire to be tenderly cradled in the arms of a bristle of sea thorns strong enough to break his spine with a single too-tight squeeze. The Siren could go choke on his tongue for all that he cared.
"Master, you've returned." Nagini's soft hiss carried back to him from the entrance of the cave. Harry coiled tighter around himself, nestling deeper into the mound of treasure that he'd almost buried himself in and listening to the coins shifting around him. "You don't look well."
"I don't look well?" he shifted again in distress; Neptune, why was it that his voice could still affect him so much? "Yes, I would imagine that most creatures wouldn't in my position my dear."
"What do you mean?" Nagini's shadow slithered across the wall. "You haven't smelled like this in years. Of fear and sorrow."
"I've confronted my own end; given up. The only way to have him as my mate would be to break him, and that wouldn't form the bond I need to save my life. So yes, I suppose I would smell of those things. I'm certainly feeling them."
"Master-!"
"It's over, and it's my own fault. My own fault for waiting so bloody long to try and find a partner and now I'm going to suffer the consequences of that fact." The water stirred around him as Tom swam closer. "And all that he'll care about the matter is that I likely won't live long enough for him to heal, train and return to take revenge for being held captive. I've lived on borrowed time as it is; it's time to bite the hook."
"You can't just give up after all you've built!"
"I don't see anything stopping me."
"The Mer could still-."
"Come around?" there was a mirthless edge to his voice now. "The bad blood between our races runs too deep, that much is all that's been proven here. He'll never accept my attempts at affection and courting, let alone reciprocate them, and something tells me it's not because they're clumsy and naïve."
"But Master-."
"I'm going belly up, Nagini! I have a handful of months left, if even that, so pardon me for wanting to retain some dignity!" Another shift in the current as he moved away again. "I need to go to the reef that he came from and find his parents. Tell them that their son will be returned to them come morning."
"Yes, Master." The serpent sounded resoundingly reluctant.
"He'll be pleased, I'm sure, when he inevitably hears of what's become of me. I hope he finds a mate that pleases him one day. I doubt that Mer suffer the same with their pod ties to save them, but still…absolute solitude is a horrible fate."
Absolute solitude? No family? No pod? No support of any kind? The only time he came into contact with another of his kind was to fight and kill them over a territorial dispute. He couldn't imagine, with his loving fantasy and large pod and many friends, how much that must hurt. Maybe the clumsy, largely failed attempts at garnering his affections had been honest after all. Maybe he didn't just want a way to continue his line.
Maybe what he wanted was company.
Tom was dying? Dying from what? Harry found it rather hard to comprehend the Siren that had held him captive, the strongest in a thousand miles, and the legendary name that parents used to keep their pups inside at night and away from dark water, could die. Could go belly up so young from something as simple as…loneliness? Was that even possible?
There wasn't anything that he could do about it anymore. He wasn't sure he really wanted to even if there were. Even when they didn't necessarily intend to be, Siren were dangerous in how strong and sharp they were. And cavorting with one could see him banished. As nice as it would be to live a pampered life waited on hand and tail by the alpha male of Apex predators he wasn't certain he could ever really love him, or that Tom could love him, and didn't want to leave his pod behind without such assurance.
Not to mention the ship seemed to have sailed on the matter.
Harry peered cautiously around the edge of the gold pile that he was hiding in. Tom lingering in the mouth of the cave, staring out at the shafts of moonlight piercing the deep blue water. He really was beautiful and if he were to die…it would be a shame. He settled back down amidst the sand and coins and closed his eyes, drifting off into a troubled sleep.
