Galeophobia {crankiplier}

Amy

TW // none

{ Mark's POV }

Mark quickly swam out of the room and took a few turns to make it seem like he didn't come out of there, and swam to the angry-looking sandbar shark that was calling out to him.
This sandbar shark was Amy, a shark who Mark had known for maybe 2-3 years? Definitely not as long as he's known Tyler.
They've been friends for a bit, but Mark has known for a while that Amy had a crush on him. Mark doesn't know if he'll ever turn her down since he doesn't want to see her sad.
"Where the hell have you been??" Amy yelled at Mark, in a mad but also concerned tone.
"Wh- What do you mean?" Mark stammered out. "First yesterday when you went 'hunting' with Tyler and came back WAY later than him, now this morning where you're just completely gone??" Amy yelled again. Mark felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as he realized she might be on to him. "Okay, first, I came back later because I couldn't find anything, and for this morning..." Mark stopped as he tried to think of an excuse. "I was... also... hunting."
Mark finished unsurely. "Mhm. Hunting..." Amy crossed her arms. "When do you ever hunt by yourself? What are you actually doing, Mark?" Amy finished, staring at Mark.
Mark searched frantically for an excuse, but her angry gaze made him want to tell her the truth even more.
"Ok... Ok, you got me. But when I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone else." Mark said nervously. Amy's expression changed from anger to surprise and slight worry.
"Uh.. Yeah. Yeah sure, what... what is it Mark?" She stammered out in a quieter tone than she was using previously.
"Follow me" Mark said quietly and started swimming back the way he got there, hearing Amy swim behind.

{ Ethan's POV }

After a few minutes, Ethan and Tyler had started getting along really well, the conversation flowing surprisingly naturally despite them being mortal enemies a few minutes ago. Ethan was listening to the tiger shark ramble about responsibilities and things, when Ethan suddenly saw Mark poke his head out through the entrance of the room.
He motioned to Tyler to go outside, which made Tyler stop talking and swim over to the entrance. Mark whispered something to him, but Ethan couldn't tell what it was, and then they both swam away from the entrance.
Ethan could hear them whispering to each other outside, accompanied by another voice that Ethan didn't recognize.
After a bit, Ethan saw Mark come back to the entrance with another figure, and Tyler coming in behind them.
The new person was also a shark, but she was smaller than the other two Ethan had met. She had shoulder-length blonde hair and an accompanying blonde tail, which was slightly more gray than her hair.
Her expression was sorta blank, but Ethan could see that she seemed pretty anxious, almost in shock.
"So um... Ethan, this is Amy. Amy, this is Ethan" Mark said, seeming a lot more careful about his wording than he did with Tyler, Ethan wondered why. "Hi Amy?.." Ethan said nervously, feeling a weird tension in the air.
"Uh. Hi." Amy said unsurely, soon turning back to Mark. "Mark- Can- Can we go back outside please." Amy asked, but it seemed more like a demand as she pulled Mark's arm and brought him outside, leaving Tyler in the room standing awkwardly.

{ Mark's POV }

"Ok- Mark, when you said you brought a seal into the kingdom, I didn't think you meant a SEAL." Amy said angrily, Mark's heart dropping as he saw all of his 'get Amy to be okay with Ethan' progress get thrown out the window. "Why did you do this anyway? Why are you choosing to put our lives in danger to protect food?" Amy continued.
"Because he's a person, Amy." Mark snapped.
"How do you know he's a person? We have been hunting and killing and eating seals for like- ALL of our existence. Why do you want to change that now?" Amy said.
"And even so, If you did want to start a revolution or whatever, I think it would be better to, I don't know, NOT keep a seal prisoner?" Amy continued, getting progressively more and more on Mark's nerves.
"He wanted to be here." Mark repeated what he had told her earlier under his breath, but Amy seemed to ignore his words.
"For all of the time I've known you, I don't think you've ever hunted for yourself, or anyone really! But I thought you'd grow out of it, that you could be a shark for once. I thought you could actually care for your kingdom and your own kind, but I guess I was wrong.
You are just a waste after all." Amy said coldly.
"But I love him, Amy!" Mark blurted out, his eyes stinging as tears threatened to fall, and then his heart stopped as he realized what he had just said. Amy also stopped in her tracks as he yelled that, her gaze turning from angry and annoyed to shocked and hurt. The water around them was filled with silence, almost too much for Mark to bear. "Y-You..." Amy whispered out almost to herself, her voice cracking.
Once again a silence passed over them as they stared at each other.
"Go home Amy" Mark said softly.
Almost as soon as he said those words, he saw Amy look like she was about to cry, and then she swam off. Mark lingered in the same spot as he was for a while, trying to comprehend what was happening. Love? Why did he say love? That couldn't have been the right word, right? Ethan is a merman, 'Love' is supposed to only be for mermaids. Mark snapped himself out of his thoughts and brushed it off as nothing. He took a deep breath as he knew he had to go back into the room and explain what happened to the two mermen inside.
He solemnly turned around and swam back into the room.