Tim poked at the fabric that was now wrapped around his stomach to cover the wound on his side.
“Leave it be,” the captain chastised from where he was seated a couple feet from him, legs crossed in the sand.
“It’s curious,” Tim huffed before letting his hand fall away. He splashed his tail in the concealed pool that was miraculously on the side of the island. Tim hadn’t been prepared to go back into the sea and he couldn’t stay out of it for too long without risking getting sick which would only make the wound on his side worse.
He chose not to think about how the captain had picked him up to get him around the island for the pool.
“What’s your name?”
Tim glanced up through his eyelashes. He swished his tail around the shallow water, wishing he could slip underneath it and hide, but he knew the captain wouldn’t be happy about him getting the fabric over his wound wet.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Well there has to be something I can call you,” the captain said. “I can’t just call you ‘the mermaid’ or ‘hey you’ or something else like that. If you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”
“I already know your name,” Tim said, rolling his head to the side to give the captain a look.
He blinked, eyes going wide in surprise. “You do?”
Tim nodded. “I heard the people on your ship say it. Captain Todd,” he drawled.
He smiled and started dragging a finger through the sand, creating meaningless shapes. “I wouldn’t say that’s my name. That’s more of my official title than anything else.”
Tim’s tail paused in the water. “Oh?” he asked, trying to feign disinterest.
The captain chuckled deep in the back of his throat. The sound made Tim’s throat tighten.
“Yes. My name’s Jason,” he finally offered.
“Jason…” Tim said, testing the word in his mouth and on his tongue. He liked it. It was different.
“Yes,” he said, continuing to draw in the sand. “Can I know yours now?”
Tim hummed and looked at the rippling reflection of the moon in the pool of water his tail was moving back and forth in.
“Tim,” he finally conceded. “My name is Tim.”
“Tim,” Jason said and nodded. “Nice name.”
He shrugged.
Silence fell between them for a few moments as they both focused on their movements while being aware of their proximity.
“After you swam off this afternoon I thought I’d never see you again,” Jason said quietly.
“I was…curious,” Tim hedged.
“I’m sensing a theme here,” he said.
Tim smiled. “I wanted to know what you would do. And you seemed…like you didn’t want to be alone.”
“Well,” Jason sighed. “I’m alone on an island with no way to get in contact with my crew. I don’t know where they are or if they even think I’m still alive. I’d welcome to have anyone around and since you saved me….I guess I was curious too.”
“Then we have something in common.”
“I guess we do.”
Tim glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “It’s late. Shouldn’t you sleep?”
He hummed. “Maybe. Shouldn’t you?”
“Maybe,” Tim muttered.
Without any prompting Jason fell to the side and rolled onto his back, splaying his legs out into the sand in front of him and tucking his hands behind his head. He let out a long sigh and Tim could see his eyelids droop.
Tim lowered himself onto a submerged rock so the bottom of his torso was in the water, but the bandages stayed dry. He crossed his arms on the rocks and rested his head on them, keeping his eyes on Jason as he seemed to drift off to sleep.
Tim busied himself with tracing patterns against the rock, listening as Jason slowly began to snore until the sounds mixed with the lazy crashing of the ocean waves and lulled him to sleep.
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Tag: mermaid!Tim
Of Todds and Tails (127)
By the time night had fallen, the captain had managed to make a fire for himself on the beach that was burning brightly. He’d captured a handful of fish and was roasting them for dinner. Tim had watched him remove his coat and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to work more easily.
When he’d moved into the water to hunt for fish, he’d taken off his boots and rolled up the pants of his legs. to move into the water. He’d sharpened a stick to a point and used it as a spear to catch the fish.
Tim had watched from a distance further out in the ocean, curious as to how he was going to survive. The captain had seemed determined in what he was doing and Tim was curious as to how he was going to survive the next few days. He obviously wasn’t going to be dying anytime soon as long as he was able to maintain a source of food.
Now that night was covering his presence, he moved closer to the beach to get a better idea of what the captain was doing. The waves moved gently against the sand of the beach, barely cresting over the body of the ocean. The captain had his head tilted back and was looking up at the sky and the stars above him. He let out a heavy sigh and turned towards the ocean.
Tim instinctively moved backwards, thinking the captain might have spotted him despite the blackness of the ocean concealing his presence. The captain sucked in a breath before he started singing low in the back of his throat. It wasn’t as upbeat and happy as the shanties the crew had been singing earlier, this was more mournful, as though he was searching for something.
Tim slipped closer, tail moving through the water. The captain continued to sing and Tim didn’t realize how close he’d gotten until his fins slapped the top of the water. He froze as the captain stopped singing. He squinted into the darkness and pushed himself to his feet.
Tim swallowed and tried to move himself backwards, pressing his hands into the wet sand to push himself backwards.
“Is someone there?” the captain asked, walking closer.
Tim pushed with more force, but his hand sank deeper into the sand and his shoulder fell forward, making a small splash which sounded loud in the silence. The captain turned in his direction and hurried forward and Tim struggled to back up enough where he could move freely, but the more he tried to move, the more his hands sunk into the sand and got stuck.
Tim took a deep breath as the captain’s feet splashed through the water and he continued to close the distance between them. He regained some of his composure and moved backwards, relieved when the sand below him disappeared and he was in deeper water and could kick his tail.
“Wait!”
Tim looked up and caught a glimpse of recognition in the captain’s eyes before he disappeared underneath the waves and moved away to safer waters. He swam around the island to the cluster of rocks he’d found earlier in the day and nestled down between them, trying to calm his racing heartbeat.
The desperation in the captain’s voice hadn’t sounded threatening, but Tim was still nervous to get too close after what happened earlier. He looked out at the dark water in front of him and felt weirdly exposed among the rocks. As much as he snuck out during the day, he’d always usually make it back home before dark. It was unnerving being out with no place to go.
Tim wondered if maybe that was what the captain was feeling too.
He tried to shake off the uneasiness, but something shifted in the water. A quiet he wasn’t used to. Tim looked around, trying to peer into the dark water around him. He squinted and managed to make out the shape of something moving.
Tim pressed a hand against his mouth to fight the instinct to gasp and pressed closer against the rocks. His eyes widened as the being swam closer in the water around him. He tilted his head back, searching for a path of escape. He could get up and over the rocks but it would a close squeeze out of the water. Any other direction and he’d be trying to outswim a predator in open water.
As a dark tail came into view, Tim took a breath and darted around the side of the rock, hoping he’d make it far enough to run up on the beach. He only made it a few feet before something sharp lashed across his side and he let out a scream into the water around him.
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