"I don't know why I thought bring you to a sushi bar was a good idea," Verde says, closing the car door and slotting the key into the ignition. "I thought seeing all the live fish in the tanks would have been nice, but I forgot to account for all the dead ones after." The car starts with a rumble, and he twists around to look out his rear window as he backs out of the parking space.
"Fish're friends, not food," Skull mutters into the collar of his purple hoodie, which is doing a fair job at covering up the faint iridescent scales and gills along his neck.
Verde grits his teeth, spinning the wheel with the ball of one hand to straighten the front tires. The blasted merman would wax poetic about dolphin steaks and talk about harvesting a whalefall, but one chunk of tuna rolled up in rice, seaweed, and dipped in wasabi and you'd think Verde took him out to shoot puppies.
At least the aquarium fish had been a hit. Skull's eyes had all but sparkled at the sight of the tropical fish swimming around in the large tank. His hands pressed flat against the glass and stupid grin on his face as a clownfish darted in and out of the coral decorating the bottom. Verde couldn't help but list off facts about the various fish in Skull's ear. Facts that Skull surely knew already having lived in the ocean for years, but Skull never made it seem like Verde was annoying him and even asked questions about the tank setup.
It had honestly gone perfectly until the sushi platters had been placed in front of them and Verde was one sushi roll deep into his dinner when Skull had uttered that sentence with the most wide-eyed horrified face:
"Fish are friends not food."
Verde slams his foot on the brake and a hand to the horn as some jackass decides to merge into their lane without so much as a turn signal. Skull lurches forward, wrapping his arms around himself like he's cradling something precious. He settles back against the seat, and Verde's eyes narrow.
"What do you have?"
Skull's eyes dart up to meet Verde's for a brief moment, and his cheeks turn a light pink. "Nothing." He stares out through the windscreen, arms still wrapped around himself protectively.
"Right," Verde says slowly. The turn indicator clicks as he checks for oncoming traffic. Behind them, a police car turns on its lights and sirens, and Verde kills two birds with one stone by completing his turn and getting out of the cop's way.
The cop turns onto the road after him.
"Skull," Verde says. "What. Do. You. Have."
Skull mumbles suspiciously into his hoodie. He jolts as Verde goes over a bump in the road, and it's enough for Verde to see a sloshing globe of free-floating water stuffed into the other's hoodie. A clown fish swims up to the top of the globe and then back down.
"Please tell that is not the fish."
"It isn't the fish?"
Verde swears and floors the gas pedal. Skull eeps as the force sends him back against the seat, and the fish globe sloshes but stays within Skull's hoodie. "You can't just steal things," Verde grits out from between his teeth. "You can't just steal fish! How did you even manage that?" He swerves around a soccer mom van.
"Well," Skull shifts in his seat and wraps his arms around his fish globe more securely, "they opened the top of the tank to feed the fish, and I just kinda… scooped them out?"
Well, no wonder the cops were on their tail. It must have been quite the sight watching 25 gallons of water and tropical fish getting 'scooped out' and tucked under Skull's hoodie.
A semi-truck blares it's horn as Verde swerves out of the merge lane and onto the highway proper. The original cop car and three of its buddies merge on behind the semi. "Was this before or after you tried to break down the door to the kitchen to quote, 'Give the chef a piece of your mind'?"
Skull gives Verde a weird look. "After. On the way out the door obviously."
It was not obvious given that Verde completely missed the fish being smuggled in the first place, but at least he can rest easier knowing it happened while he was making apologies to the security guard throwing them out of the restaurant. He's not sure he could live with himself if it happened right beneath his nose with nothing to distract him but Skull's pretty purple eyes.
He's not entirely sure how they managed to get back to Verde's house in one piece. The rest of the drive is a blur of lights, sirens, and quick turns. There's a wet spot in his footwell from where water had sloshed out of Skull's hoodie at some point, and a distinct memory of a fiery purple-eyed glare accompanied by shark-like teeth for the offense. He did lose the cops in the process, so Verde has decided it's a win.
Especially since it only took a few stops at hardware stores and a couple hours of his time to build a fishy paradise for Skull's fish, which now swim all around the lounge in glass pipes connected to a few tanks for them to hide in.
When Verde brings Skull into the room to show him his creation, Skull slowly spins in place, hands clasped against his chest, and grin growing. "This is wonderful, Verde! Thank you!" His eyes sparkle beneath the ceiling light, and Verde coughs into his fist, looking away with a rosy tinge to his cheeks.
"Yes, well- Oof!"
Skull glomps him and squeezes him tightly. There's a watery trill in Verde's ears, and then Skull is gone, flopping onto the couch and hugging a pillow to his chest as he stares at his fish. After a few minutes of Skull watching the fish, and Verde watching Skull, Skull says, "The tank looks a bit empty with all that water and so little fish."
Oh, no, Verde can see where this is going. He takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose with a sigh.
Skull's head shoots up over the back of the couch. "We need more fish!"
The last thing they need is more fish, but Skull's grin is so earnest and so bright and the tanks do look empty with only one small school of fish swimming through them. Verde can feel himself caving into those sparkling eyes with every passing second. He drops his hand with a sigh, "Fine. We can get more fish."
"YES!" Skull falls backwards with the force of his cheer. He twists off the couch, bouncing up onto his feet, and Verde settles himself against the doorframe with his arms crossed and a soft smile as Skull starts babbling to the fish about how he's going to get them so many brothers and sisters to swim with. Verde thinks he could stand here all day just watching him.
Oh. Oh. He never did stand a chance did he?