First Impressions aren't Everything | Jamilton | Mermaid/Siren/Whatev Au

*tosses fluff at you like confetti* "Is this your card?" (6)

Mistakes have been made.

Don't want attention! Don't want!

What is "fuck"?

People?!? Don't need People!! Need Thomas!!

Alexander! :>

?!?!?Attention?!?!???

?!?!?Unwanted attention?!?!???

Warm.

Good warm.

Thomas is good warm.

News spread quickly that the siren could talk. Too quickly in Thomas's opinion.

The Rev Set had immediately tried to coax the siren to talk again, but, as expected, their efforts came off as a little too excited for Alexander's taste. As far as Thomas could tell, the siren wasn't too keen on such pressing attention. For the rest of the day, Alexander refused to come from his tank's farthest corner until his carer was the only person left, and even then he refused to go above the water's surface.

In hindsight, Jefferson should've expected the following incidents.

The next day the Virginian walked through the halls to find several people peering into the already opened observation room. Upon further investigation, more people were inside trying, and failing, to beckon the siren to the surface and get him to speak, their tones suggesting they were trying to train a dog.

Later the same day, Washington called him to his office to receive the latest report on the siren and to confirm whether or not the rumors that he could talk were true.

Several people, several times a day, would try to come up to Jefferson and ask to talk to the siren.

Thomas Jefferson wasn't having any of that shit.

On a more surprising note, Alexander had simply flourished around Thomas.

A remarkably quick learner, Alex began to talk more and more with his carer's encouragement. It began as fragmented words and grammatically incorrect sentences, said with too much emphasis on certain pronunciations and spoken with the wrong tones. Nevertheless, Jefferson figured out pretty quickly that no amount of hinderance would discourage the siren and thus, Alexander got the hang of the English language.

"Hello Thomas," the siren perked up when his carer came into the room, five days after he first started talking.

"Hey Alexander," Jefferson greeted, "have a good night?"

"Mmm, it's rather..." he paused to find the right word, "boring when the lights go down."

"Off," his carer corrected on his phrase 'lights go down', "I'll try to figure something out for you to occupy yourself with. When you're not sleeping of course." At this Alexander's face became briefly uncomfortable, as if he were hiding something.

"...you are sleeping most nights, right?" Thomas asked after a short pause.

"I would not say most nights. Maybe... most of some nights." Alexander said, far too quickly for Thomas to interrupt before trying to change the subject, "What are we going to do today, Thomas?"

"Don't think I'm letting that little tidbit go, mister," The carer warned but ultimately decided to leave the concerning habit to be dealt with on another day, "but, I am glad you asked that. You see, Mr. Washington, you remember him?"

He waited for Alexander to think back on his first few days in the building, and then continued at his hesitant nod. "He asked, since you've progressed so much in the past few days, that I try to reintroduce you to some of my trusted colleagues."