Part of my collection of SBI-centric flufftober oneshots. These can all be read as standalone.

Flufftober prompt: Supernatural creatures!

Technoblade might have developed a tiny bit of a nasty habit when it came to blaming the universe for his misfortunes.

It was probably easier than confronting the psychological implications of why he kept allowing himself to end up in situations like these. It wasn't Techno's fault that he was born a deep-sea mer, it wasn't Techno's fault that he was raised in a terrible pod that hated his guts for existing, and it definitely wasn't his fault that he was exiled as soon as his parents died. Whatever cosmic deity pulled the strings behind the universe's scenes just had it out for him.

That did make it easier to dismiss the small, nagging voice in the back of his mind telling Techno he's in these situations because he's a 'fucking idiot'.

The voice sounded suspiciously like Phil too, making the entire thing even more ironic. Techno wouldn't be in this predicament to begin with if it wasn't for Phil. He was trying to do something nice.

Being nice was severely overrated, Techno thought, as his exhausted body tried to struggle against the relentless nature of the waves washing him onto the shore.

A few days of staying with Phil's pod to recover from his injury had turned into a few weeks because Techno had a hard time finding anywhere else to settle down aside from the gulch where Phil and his family already lived. Then a few months as there was no real hurry for him to go anywhere. And then - before Techno noticed it - the tides had changed again with the pull of a new season. It was spring, soon to be summer. Techno was still living with Phil's pod.

Techno was a part of Phil's pod too. He couldn't deny it anymore.

And to be a member of the pod meant to carry your own weight. That's how Techno had been taught pods worked while growing up. Now, he had also since found out that Phil's pod had a slightly different notion of what 'carrying your own weight' meant and Techno had tried to fit into that notion.

Phil and Tommy were tropical mers. During the day, they often swam out of the trench and caught fish higher up near the surface. Wilbur was a swamp mer. He had a great talent for digging up seaweed and finding trinkets in the thick algae forests that grew near the top of the gulch. Technoblade's deep-sea genes meant he could see well in the dark and thrive on low oxygen. He caught the shrimp at the ravine's lowest points and used a knife made from sea snail shell to pry clams off the rocks. At the end of the day, they always had enough food and material to go around.

That was only one facet of community though.

There were other things that felt more… foreign to Techno. Small shows of kindness his old pod never afforded him. Like the way Wilbur used gentle fingers to comb out Phil's long hair and pin it up for him before he went out hunting. Or how Tommy would always help Wilbur with the molding of his piebald scales. Or how Phil stretched out the sore muscles in Tommy's tail after a long day of swimming.

Techno's parents were good to him. They loved him.

But they were also afraid to touch him.

The fins along his back were sharper than theirs, and so were his teeth. The parts of his body that lighted up vividly in bioluminescence when he was angry or upset or excited made them flinch away. His claws could easily dig out an underwater cavern from hard rocks and it scared them.

Watching Phil, Wilbur, and Tommy do stuff for each other that went beyond the gathering of resources made his skin itch. It made Techno flutter away uncertainly and say he was getting lightheaded and then he had an excuse to swim down where none of them could follow him. Their nest was about halfway down the ravine. The conditions there were perfect for Wilbur and 'good enough' for the other three. Techno found the oxygen levels running a little thin sometimes, though migraines were easy to deal with. Phil and Tommy learned to cope with the cold by fashioning some improvised clothing and spending sufficient time near the surface.

Techno had gotten the extremely bright idea to try and do something in return for them and that had gotten him stuck in his current predicament.

So coming full circle: kindness was overrated and Techno was once again experiencing decompression sickness.

That would soon be the least of his worries, though. Techno had swum up too close where the water broke into foamy curdles and the air beyond nipped at his skin. He'd been hoping to find a specific human trinket, rare among mers. Scouring the area around the ravine came up empty, prompting him to risk a journey closer to shore. A mirror was what he was after. If one was lucky, they could often be found beneath the thoroughfares where ships passed. Through his growing headache and dizziness, Techno had persisted. He could be very stubborn when he wanted to be.

He hadn't noticed the pull of the tide until it was too late.

A healthy mer would have been able to fight it. But Techno was a deep-sea mer who had just spent hours growing weaker and weaker as he went places he shouldn't. What started as a slight tug of the water flowing in a singleminded direction had quickly grown in strength. By the time Techno was truly aware of how badly he had screwed up, he was in a losing battle against mother nature.

The force with which the water pushed him back was one he had never experienced before. And sometimes it would let up for a couple of seconds, a brief flash of Techno thinking he'd be lucky and manage to duck under them. But then a wave would well up and crash into his face.

He was being forced into the shallow, sand digging under his fingernails. His tail beat against it, sending up spray after spray of silt. Techno could deal well enough with the coldness that bit at his skin. But his gills had folded themselves closed in response to him surfacing and the fresh air stung his lungs. His chest ached with it, sending painful sparks into his core.

Then suddenly Techno could feel only the beach and no more water. Or not enough of it for comfort, a thin layer that soaked into the sand. It washed over him with even strokes, though it managed to only make him feel more miserable.

He had been beached.

He lay there, heaving and coughing. His ribcage felt like somebody had taken a match and set it on fire. Everything hurt.

Somebody touched his shoulder and the pain flared alive twice as bad.

Techno rolled over and hissed at them. His bioluminescence was working overtime trying to frighten off the predator attacking him. In the bright sunlight, it was barely noticeable.

"Oh, oh no. Don't-" Her voice was soft, but cut through the wind with unexpected clarity. "You're going to hurt yourself."

Uncomfortably squinting because the brightness was blinding him, Techno looked at the person who had spoken. It was a woman, long skirt pulled up to keep the hem from trailing along the sand. She had shoulder-length hair in a color dark as night, but then the parts at the front were as white as the beach Techno had gotten stuck on. It was strange enough to make him almost forget about the pain.

"Can you… understand me?" she tilted her head a little.

Techno nodded. "Y-yeah."

A large grin made her cheeks bulge, accentuating the small freckles that dotted her skin. "Oh, that's- I knew it, nobody would believe me but I always knew!"

At a loss for words, Techno shuddered and curled down a bit to keep out of the sun's harsh glare. The woman gasped, only then noticing his state. "You shouldn't be up here, should you?" she asked. Techno supposed human knowledge of fish would tip her off that he was meant for deeper waters. "Here."

She unwound the scarf she was wearing around her neck and walked deeper into the shallow, holding her skirt up around her knees with her free hand. After dipping the scarf in the water, she returned to Technoblade's side and kneeled next to him. When she reached out to hold it up to his face, he recoiled.

But she only offered him a patient smile. "I'm not going to harm you. Please, I can help."

"Why?" Techno asked. He found it incredibly hard to believe anybody - especially a not-pod-member somebody - would offer care without expecting something in return.

"Consider it returning a favor," she said. "My name is Niki. I almost drowned once."

Again, Niki moved towards him. And this time Techno allowed her to wrap the cloth around his eyes. Not being able to see while beached made all his instincts scream out in revolt. It was dangerous, foolish, it would get him killed.

Not accepting help would also get him killed though.

"That's better, right?" Niki asked. "Don't worry, I'm keeping an eye out for other people. But you're lucky, this part of the beach is pretty secluded. Nobody comes here this close to dusk."

"Except you," Techno said. Cutting away the light allowed him to think again.

There was a smile in Niki's voice when she answered. "I love the ocean. My house is right up the hill there-" Techno had the impression she might have pointed at it, but due to the improvised blindfold he couldn't see. "So I look out at the sea a lot. I saw you wash up. And thank the gods I did, hm."

Techno nodded, though his next words broke off into more of a cough. "Uh, yeah. That was pretty great timing of you."

"We should get you back in the water," Niki said. "You'll die if you stay out here too long." Her hands were slower this time, aware that his lack of vision could make him jumpy. Techno did almost bite her the first time she touched him.

"You seem pretty chill about the whole 'mermaids are real' thing," Techno mentioned. He felt very silly, having her semi-drag him against the crashing waves. He tried to wiggle in a way that could be interpreted as helpful. But he was too weak to really do much heavy lifting.

"Like I said, I almost drowned once. A mermaid saved me." Niki huffed under her breath, struggling with his weight. "Besides, I grew up on all the stories. Did you know we share a common ancestor? It's fascinating. I don't know when people suddenly decided to make history into myth. It's pretty annoying though, they treat me like I'm insane."

"That is fascinating," Techno agreed. Then another surge of water hit him, spraying his face. He flinched.

The smell of iron tinged the salty air.

"What's-"

"It's fine," Niki said. "We're almost there."

She pushed on, trying to stay out of the way when Techno started to slightly beat his tail against the shallow. Clawing his fingers into the sand to pull himself along. If he got under there, he could breathe properly again.

And then suddenly it gave way and Techno's head submerged under the foamy surface. Water rushed over the side of his neck, drawing an unhealthy amount of oxygen. But the fact that he had in his gills again made all the difference.

He felt Niki's hold slip away.

Techno turned so she wouldn't fall. He reached up to push the blindfold up and was met with the bleeding cuts in her hands from where his razor-sharp fins had torn through her skin.

Oh.

"Go on," she said. "You can't stay here."

"You're bleeding."

"So? That's nothing compared to dying." The expression on her face felt almost… sad to Techno.

"Techno?!" Phil's speed even in shallow water was impressive. Techno supposed tropic mers lived around islands. Their bodies were built to spend time along the beaches, unlike his own.

Still, he stopped the other man with his arm. Niki had gotten close to being attacked by two different mers today.

"Phil, it's fine. She's helping me." Techno quickly said. He could feel Phil's fingers wrap around his wrist, to pull him back into the tide more.

"That's great and you can thank her later. You're going to get yourself sick." Phil pulled harder, the panic in his voice made Techno feel guilty. Despite that, he tore himself loose and turned to Niki again.

"Do you have a mirror?" he asked.

Niki blinked at him in confusion. Her hair was a great mess, strands blowing wildly. She had given up on her skirt, soaked through and hanging limp around her feet. Then she nodded.

Techno pulled her scarf away from his face fully and wrapped it around her hand instead. Niki kind of winced, salt water stinging the wound. But it stopped the droplets of red from falling into the ocean.

"If you go straight south from here, there's some cliffs that stick out of the ocean," Techno said. "I'll be there at noon. Bring a mirror."

"Won't you get sick if you come to the surface?" Niki asked.

"That's nothing compared to being beached."

Her laugh was light, kind of bewildered. She waved at him when Techno allowed Phil to tug him back into the sea proper.

As he went below the waves again, Techno gradually started to feel a little better. Though it took a handful of minutes for his head to clear again and readjust to the pressure, so Phil's speech sounded like static at first. Techno thought he was probably getting chewed out.

Until Phil's arms closed around him in an embrace.

And he did it in such a way that none of Techno's sharper edges cut into his skin.

"-so fucking scared. Don't ever do that again." Phil pulled back, shaking him. "Do you understand? Never."

"Yeah," Techno said. "Yeah, that wasn't very smart, huh?"

"It was the stupidest fucking thing you could possibly do." Phil prodded at his chest. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"I'm fine," Techno said, then at Phil's deadpan stare he continued, "Seriously, just get me to the deep again and I'll be good."

"Why were you up here to begin with," Phil asked as he started to make their way to the gulch again. He stuck close by Techno, in case he needed support. But simply not being on the beach anymore already made a huge difference.

"It's a surprise." Just because he had his quest ruined didn't mean he would let the whole thing be in vain.

Oh no, Techno had spent a long time thinking about something that would really help Phil with his hair. A mirror would be perfect.

Phil laughed. But his arms slid a little more securely around Techno's shoulder, almost as if it belonged there. "You dying is not a surprise I'm looking forward to, mate."

"Very funny." Techno was never escaping the 'zero self-preservation' allegations at this rate. "Nothing bad is going to happen, I already have a plan."

Skeptical, Phil raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh?"

"I'm getting a friend to help me."