What the Water Gave Me

Chapter Two

He found him again on the shore a few days later, right where they’d left each other. The man was sitting cross-legged in the sand and staring out at the ocean and he remembered the feel of his chest under his cheek and missed it. He did not miss the expressions on the man’s face, however. Maybe that’s why things like him never saved humans. Eating them was much easier, feelings-wise.

He was a far enough distance away that the man couldn’t see him, but the tide pushed him closer and closer and he let it, let it push him so close his arm disconnected from his shoulder under the waves. The man spotted him soon enough and leaped to his feet.

“Bucky!” He yelled and began waving his arms in the air. He approached the man cautiously and stayed just far enough away that he could still turn around and swim away if he had to and the man waded out again into the water. He let him get closer and closer until his shadow fell over his face and he looked up at him, his lips pressed shut and his heart beating wildly in his chest. The man sunk to his knees in the water so they could look at each other eye to eye and the man stared at him and swallowed hard. He stared back. “Can I look at you?” He asked gently.

Well, you already are, he thought, but he only nodded silently. He felt the man’s eyes travel down his face and his chest and over to his bare, empty shoulder. He put his slender hands there and examined him. Under the water, he turned his hand to show him and the man looked down and gasped.

“Is that your hand??” He asked and he gave a small, close-lipped smile and nodded. The man reached down under the water and took his hand, turning it over and examining his fingers. “This is made of water,” he said. “But it’s solid.”

It’s like magic, he thought. It’s like a gift. It’s also sometimes like a tether. He wished he could share his thoughts with the man.

The man moved on eventually and took his other hand. He spanned out the small, scaly webs between his fingers for the man to see. His fingernails were like his teeth, which was to say, they were more like claws than fingernails, and they were hard and pointed and razor-like and the man ran his thumb over one and came up with blood. He tore his hand back from the man then and gave him a hard look, stern and somehow disturbed, and the man only smiled a little carelessly and put his thumb into his mouth.

“Don’t worry about it, Buck,” he said. “It’s fine.”

He realized that he knew what the man’s blood would taste like in his mouth and instead of feeling hungry, he just felt his stomach turn and he forced himself to stop thinking about it.

He didn’t know why the man was calling him Bucky and Buck. Maybe it was a sort of nickname, he thought. For someone who didn’t have a name. He didn’t know why. He liked it, though.

The man reached up then and touched his lips gently with the fingers that weren’t bleeding and he pulled away and shook his head, frowning.

“I’m not gonna cut myself on your teeth, if that’s what you’re thinking,” the man scoffed and he shook his head sheepishly. The man frowned in thought, and then spoke again. “Wait, last time. Did I hurt your feelings??” This time, he smiled, close-lipped and short, just quick enough and small enough not to reach his eyes, and the man let out a breath. “Huh,” he said. “A siren with feelings? Well,” he started to correct himself. “I guess you’re also Bucky. That complicates things.” The man looked at him and sighed. “Alright, look, I’m sorry, okay? I was just surprised, that’s all. I sort of expected square teeth, like mine, see?” The man opened his mouth and showed to him those square teeth. “Now, would you please let me see?”

He considered for a moment and then shook his head.

“Alright, I promise I won’t say anything,” the man bargained. He pretended to think about this and then a smile pulled up at the corner of his mouth and he gave in, parting his lips and baring his teeth and letting the man examine him. The man whistled. He closed his mouth after a while and gave a small, stilted smile with one corner, but the man had already moved on. His fingers were brushing his face and the man took his face in both hands and turned his head, brushing his hair back and running the tips of his fingers over the scaly gills on the side of his neck. The man’s fingers found more scales later, found them everywhere, from cropping up on the back of his right hand to sprinkled over his tummy to running up nearly half the length of his back. They were iridescent and shiny, looking like green and blue and pink all at once, and he knew they were coated in a layer slimy residue. He wondered if the man found them gross. When the man’s hands ran down his chest and towards his tail, he brought it around in front of him, laid it there beside them both, and flipped the tip of it playfully. He looked over at the man and smiled a little and the man smiled back, then ran his hands gently along the length of his tail, all the way to the tip. But there were barbs there that the man wouldn’t be able to see, so he reached forward quickly and grabbed up his hand before he got there to stop him, and when the man looked over, surprised, he shook his head with a frown.