Luca But Make It Gay(er)

Part 1

(fanart by Kendall 🐺GANG on Twitter)

Luca screamed.

"Fish out of the barn! Fish out of the barn!"

He whirled around in the water to confirm himself.

"No no no!" he cried. "Mom's gonna kill me!"

He suddenly caught sight of one of the fish he was looking for.

"Caterina!"

Caterina's eyes widened when she saw Luca, and she bleated and swam off.

"Wait!"

Get back here, you dumb fish!

Caterina bleated again in response.

"Woah!"

Luca bumped into another sea creature and kept swimming, then stopped himself.

"Oh, good morning, Mr. Branzino."

He resumed swimming, then stopped himself and looked back.

Better apologize...

"And also, I'm sorry."

Mr. Branzino sighed as Luca did another round.

It'd only be polite to ask him how his wife is.

"Well, how's Mrs. Branzino?"

"Hi, Luca," Mr. Branzino growled as Luca finally swam off.

Caterina bleated, but Luca couldn't see where she had gone off to.

"Excuse me, ma'am, have you..." He trailed off, stopping in front of a woman creature.

"Yes," the lady interrupted, turning her head to reveal Caterina nibbling on one of her hair-scales.

Luca giggled nervously and hooked her into his sheep-herder, pushing her into a set spot near the barn.

"Giuseppe, get back here!" he hissed, trailing quickly after another goat-fish, grabbing him by the side and pulling him in, turning.

"You want to run off like your buddy Enrico?" he snapped, hitching him up again. "Because I've got news for you. He's either dead, or he's out there. Somewhere. Seeing the world..."

Who would want to do that? The ocean here is the best.

Giuseppe took that moment to try to swim off again, but Luca pulled him back.

"But he's probably dead."

After getting all the fish together in a big herd, he sighed.

"Okay, that's everyone." He nodded to himself, then noticed one of his fish smiling.

"Monalisa, why are you smiling?"

Monalisa looked away, then opened her mouth and a baby goat-fish swam out.

"Anyone else in there?" Luca raised a brow.

Monalisa seemed to sigh and opened her mouth, letting four other babies out.

Luca shook his head and looked over to see none other than Giuseppe swimming off a bit.

"Giuseppe..." Luca sighed. "What did we just talk about?"

Giuseppe looked at him and flapped his fins, going to the right a bit more and straying off.

"Oh, Giuseppe."

Luca narrowed his slit eyes and hooked the whole herd on his stick.

"All right. Let's head out."

As he swam, he saw other sea creatures and smiled at them, as well as adding, "Hello." and "Good morning."

Sometimes they replied, sometimes they just nodded and continued their work.

"Hi, Mrs. Aragosta."

One of the sea monsters looked up and smiled at him.

"Hey, Luca!"

Luca swam off, now energized.

"Good morning!" he greeted another sea-dwelling creature.

"Morning!" the other monster responded as Luca kept swimming with the group of fish.

They went into a not deep, wide trench, and Luca kept stopping the fish and looking around, then letting them go forward.

"Okay. All clear."

They came across the meadow where Luca let them all graze.

"Let me know if you need anything," he said to nobody in particular, since the fish couldn't talk. "Anyone?"

No fish told him anything.

"No? Okay."

I was right, nobody really notices me.

He sighed and sat down on the rock in the middle of the meadow, blowing bubbles.

On the second one, he looked at his teeth and tongue in it, then with another sigh, popped it with his sharp claws for fingers.

That was when he saw one painfully familiar fish poking at something on the ground.