Feliciano Vargas was in trouble. He had just ran away from his own home, managed to make his grandfather and brother furious at him for falling in love with a human. Humans had killed their parents, so he couldn't really blame them for getting upset. This only made him feel worse about leaving. But before he could sort out his feelings, he was stupid enough to feel pity for a fish stuck in a net. Welp, turned out that it wasn't a fish but a hook instead. He was caught in a net full of tiny hooks that dug into him and cut him pretty badly.
He managed to drag himself to shore no problem, but he was stuck. With his tail now rendered useless, he couldn't move. If he couldn't move, he wouldn't be able to eat or circulate oxygen in the water for his gills properly. Before our young merman could figure out what he was going to do, somebody had grabbed him and started pulling him out of the water onto shore.
Feli began thrashing around, trying desperately to fight his way out of there. The human's grab on him didn't lighten up at all. Feli was tired of fighting so much, but he had to put out just a little more energy if he wanted to get out of this mess alive. So, with the little energy he had left, he began to thrash around so hard the human had to let go.
Turned out to be a waste of energy. As soon as his tail started to hit the water or sand, the hooks either stung horribly or dug in deeper. Either which way, he screamed from the pain, his frustration, his fear, take your pick. From the blurry vision Feli had, he could see the human had backed away from him, which was about the only successful thing that Feli accomplished today.
"Whoa, whoa, calm down, Feli!" The human shouted over the shrill screams. "It's me! Gilbert!"
Feli stopped struggling at the human speaking and turned slowly at the name. "G-Gilbert?"
It was Gilbert! The pure white hair and the mis-colored eyes were the physical proof of that. That was really all Feli could see with the water and tears in his tired eyes. He had some blood on his face, but nothing as bad as his tail or other fins on him. He was beginning to get desperately exhausted from all of the events that took place so far.
"Ja, it's me. What happened to you, Feli?" Gilbert spoke with concern etched into his voice.
It was a moment before Feli was able to swallow the lump in his throat and speak. "A...a lot."
As Feliciano lied onto his back, he watched the sun dance with colors. The sun was starting to set, casting an orange curtain over the sky with the clouds lazily lying in the scarlet color. The seagulls were finally starting to shut up and disappear to their nesting grounds to rest for the night. Even the ocean was calming down from working all day and was setting in place evenly. All seemed to be at peace, except the red water surrounding the human helping the merman.
Gilbert watched the sunset with him and didn't ask any questions, right now it was more important that they get Feliciano some help, and fast. "Alright, Feli, can you help me?" Feli's blank stare answered the question for him. "No, I didn't think so. Hold on, let me get Ludwig."
"What? Why?" Feliciano reached out and grabbed Gilbert's sleeve. "I thought he was hurt."
"He is, but I need help carrying you."
Feli's face twisted into a fierce concerned face. "I can crawl over there."
"Feli, no. I need help and you are not going to do that. Not with those injuries," he gestured to all the hooks sticking out of his body, "besides. Ludwig is a big boy and can walk. It just hurts him a little bit, that's all."
Feli watched his albino friend sprint across the sand over to the truck the humans owned. He wanted to pull away his blurred gaze from the humans talking through the window and he really didn't want to see Gilbert having to help Ludwig out of the car. Even worse, he had to witness Ludwig's limping form coming ever so close to him.
The sand was too hot compared to the cool ocean water, which was barely splashing his tail. It was as if the ocean were trying to reach his tail to pull him back in. He didn't belong on land and he definitely didn't want to be in the ocean for a while. With a sigh, he watched his crush and his older brother race across the sand to reach him. It hurt to see Ludwig move like that, it really did. Feli had witnessed some fish swim a little weird before in his childhood, like that clown fish, but it was rare and never really happened.
He wasn't used to seeing anything with legs take a step and go down like they were about to fall. And it was even worse for him to see that thing with legs tripping was somebody he cared about. It was all his fault that it happened too, he didn't know that Ludwig could've ended up like that. He thought that after a few minutes Ludwig would've shaken it off. Most fish are like that. In fact, he had met a fish before who was up above water for over five minutes and was tossed back. The fish was fine after ten seconds of being in the water.
With the conclusion that humans were really weird and natural selection had yet to find them, Feli gave up the thought and focused on the nearing humans.
"Feliciano, are you okay?!" Ludwig fussed over him like a mother hen. "Your tail is-"
"I know," Feli croaked in pain. "I know."
Ludwig and Gilbert shared a look and scrunched their eyebrows up. The blonde studied his tail and sighed heavily. It was pretty cut and was bleeding just as bad."What are we going to do? It's not like we can tell somebody and get help down here." Ludwig muttered.
"We can always do it ourselves," Gilbert suggested.
Ludwig and Feli looked at him, one curious, one unamused. "Gilbert, we can't do that."
Gilbert crossed his arms and gave Ludwig a pointed look. "What else are we gonna do? Leave him here?"
Ludwig glared at him harshly and shook his head. "I am never going to do that," he growled.
"So what else are we gonna do?"
Ludwig sighed and closed his eyes. He didn't know what to do. He had never thought that something like this would've happened. He opened his eyes again and examined the cuts on his close friend's body. It was scarred and red was filling the valley between each scale. His once beautiful tail was now mained and hooks stuck out everywhere. It was like a stab to the chest to see this. If it was possible, Ludwig would take the pain. Feliciano still had tears in his eyes and Ludwig's heart soared with how proud he was that Feliciano wasn't fussing.
But Gilbert was right, they couldn't leave him there. Ludwig already stated that he was never going to leave him behind, and he was intending to follow that through.
With a final sigh, he glanced at his brother and locked eyes. "We'll put him in the pool inside. You'll fill it with salt water, no chlorine can be in that water, do you understand?"
"Drain it and refill it. Got it," he cracked a smile. "How hard can that be for somebody as awesome as me?" He continued on about how that rhymed while Ludwig studied the tail again. "I'm going to take him to grandfather's office to get all the hooks out." He turned to the merman in pain. "Is there anything you need, Feliciano?"
"I can't get dry," he whimpered out. "I'll die if I do."
Stress was automatically stacked on Ludwig upon hearing this. "Right, okay. No drying out." He wanted a bucket to pour water into. It would be fairly easily not to dry out if you had a bucket of water splashed on you every couple of seconds. But there was no bucket, and if the bucket fell over they were screwed.
Instead, Ludwig peeled off his shirt and placed it in the water for a few seconds, making sure that it was soaking wet. He pulled it back out and gently placed it on Feli's tail. "We've got to get him back to the truck."
"Right." Gilbert placed his arms under Feli's and lifted his upper body while Ludwig picked up the lower body. "Jesus, you are heavy. Lay off the meat for a while, okay?"
"Gilbert, now isn't the time," Ludwig strained out.
Feli was in a daze. Not only was Ludwig half naked, but he was carrying him. And in a way, Feli was wearing his shirt! It was a dream come true for the merman. All it had was a tad bit too much pain inside for his tastes. But it was definitely worth it. Every other step, Feli went down somewhat with Ludwig's limping form. It felt weird, hurt a bit, and made him fear for his friend;s health, but he couldn't really do anything.
Gilbert was leaning against the truck while fumbling for the tailgate handle. The added weight of Feli made it a bit harder to reach, but he managed to get it. Once he had it, he pulled it open and jumped up, forcing Ludwig to take all of the merman's weight. Gilbert finally got back far enough before pulling Feli back into his arms and pulling him in. Ludwig grunted with the released weight and climbed up in with him.
"Will the shirt make it?" Ludwig asked the bleeding fish. "It's only a few minutes back to our house."
Feli nodded and winced from the pain. "Si, that's fine."
Ludwig nodded and sat down next to him. "You're going to be fine, Feliciano. I promise you."
None of them notice a figure in the distance watch with horror as the humans drove off with his grandson. He had watched Feli try and put up a fight, and he tried to get closer to him, but the human returned with reinforcements before he could. He had to watch the monsters drag his little Feliciano into their machine and drive off to heavens know where. The grandfather began to cry and keep ahold of the little hope he had for Feli. Roma knew something like this was going to happen...
Once they had gotten to the house, Gilbert had barely stopped the truck before jumping out and going over to the bed to see Ludwig holding Feli's hand tightly. Feli was starting to go unconscious from the blood loss, being out of water for so long, and from the intense buring pain. Ludwig was so scared that he might lose his friend, he started shouting at his brother to hurry his ass up and to help him.
They carried his unconscious body thought the house, blood dripping on the carpet everywhere they went. "Well, looks like if we lose him we can find him," Gilbert commented dryly.
"Shut up." Ludwig hissed. "I can't deal with you right now."
Gilbert sighed and carried Feli the rest of the way with Ludwig in silence. He could feel the fear coming off of Ludwig and wanted to help, but he knew the only real thing that would help now was if Feli was all better miraculously. Gilbert deemed that after he was put on the wooden desk of their grandfathers office it was a good time to go and fill the pool with the correct water.
Their pool was a decent sized pool, being inside and all. It was barely used by either of them, so it was clean-ish when he went in. The pool was the size of one that could be used by a high school, so it wasn't too bad. It had been placed in a room surrounded by a wall of windows that filled the room with sunlight or moonlight, it could be quite romantic if Gilbert ever brought a girl over.
Speaking of, he would have to take care of the smell before Ludwig got in there. Gilbert sighed and pulled the drain at the bottom. It would take a while for it to completely drain it, wash it out, fill it back up with salt water, clean the area around the pool, make everything okay for Feli to use before he could go in, the list goes on. Gilbert really was not one for work and this list was way too long.
But Ludwig was the one who had to stitch up his soon to be boyfriend, and he had to bring him back down here once he was done. It wasn't very easy to hold Feli, that was just a plain fact. Gilbert felt bad for his brother who had to do all of that on a twisted ankle. That wasn't going to be fun to hear about at all.
He looked around at the floor. Things were spilled on the floor, some sticky thing was all over the chair (Gilbert blushed at that part), rubber ducks were scattered around. Yeah, it was a very good idea to hurry and clean all of this up before Ludwig and Feli got down there. It meant doing a lot of work, the top thing on Gilbert's "I don't do this" list. But, Gilbert groaned loudly as he got out the cleaning supplies, Feli saved them. It was just their turn to save him back.