title: with gills and a fin you can only be one thing: a fish
notes: Watching The Little Mermaid put me in a mermaid mood.
-.-
"You're a mermaid?"
"We prefer the term mermen, actually. See, no boobs. Therefore, merman."
Ryuko stares long and hard at the mermaid – excuse her, merman – tangled in her fishing net, his fish tail flapping uselessly against the deck of her ship.
She always imagined mermaids as being strikingly beautiful but this in front of her is anything but. His arms are crossed disgruntledly across his chest and his still dripping hair is hanging like seaweed in front of his face. One of her hands comes up instinctively to rub weary circles at her temple as she tries to process the fact that she just reeled up a merman of all things.
"You know," Uzu intones dryly, "not that I don't like the net or anything –"
"Yeah, hold on," Ryuko says. "I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I pulled up a merman."
His tail swishes along the deck, though it doesn't get very far due to the net. Ryuko takes the time to really look at him, from the wet sheen of his tail to the limited pearls that line his hair, and it finally seems to settle in her mind that this guy before is, indeed, a merman. If anything, the tail that she's staring at certainly doesn't disappear the longer she stares at it, so, she's assuming it's real.
Or maybe this is all a very lucid dream and she's actually still in bed. Yeah, that seems much more possible.
"The net?"
"Right." Ryuko kneels beside the man and gets to work on untangling him from the ropes. Except she keeps getting distracted by the scales of his tail and the way the sun glints off of them that it takes her nearly an hour to set him free. It doesn't help that he keeps grumbling and would flick his tail in her direction every time she gets sidetracked.
She seriously considers tangling him back up into the net and just tossing both of them overboard. She can afford a new net.
"There," she states proudly, heaving the net off of his tail. It swishes, the arcs wider and freer than before, and a pleased grin spread across his face.
He slithers across the deck like a snake and heaves himself onto the nearest barrel. He stares with stars in his eyes at the water momentarily before turning back around to face Ryuko. She arches a brow curiously.
"What?"
He produces a seashell from out of nowhere and holds it out for her to take. She just stares at it and he sighs before grabbing her hands and placing the item into her open palm.
"What is this?"
"As thanks," he explains simply.
"And you're giving me a seashell?"
"If you ever need anything, anywhere, just blow into it. I'll show up, I promise."
With that, he jumps back into the sea, leaving Ryuko alone on the deck with a pink seashell in hand. She stares down at it and wonders if that really just transpired. The seashell is real enough and there's still a puddle of water all across her deck.
"A merman," she murmurs disbelievingly to herself. "Really."
Not even a week later he ends up back on her deck, entangled once again in her nets, and she begrudgingly admits that she did indeed meet a merman. He gives her a sheepish smile and all she can do is sigh and shake her head as she strides across the ship's deck towards him.
"I think you need the seashell to call for help more than I do."
