my-one-love-is-music:

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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