Longer Writes

Fish (Mer AU)

Whale corpses: free and easy food, as long as you don't mind fighting sharks or lone Mers for the best bits, and Garth didn't mind one bit. It was the rest of the group that was being a bunch of dry sponges. Well, one of the group.

"Garth! We've got places to be!" Rokk snapped, shoving a black-tip away by the gills. "Get off that thing's fin!"

"Calm down, Rocky, you're literally the only one not having fun!" He cut a chunk of flesh and stuffed his face mere seconds before a juvenile white shark tried to bolt for it, snarling and puffing up at the thing. "Dey're haffing da time of dare life and you're ober here, sulfing."

"You're disgusting." Rokk scoffed and swam out of the way of the swarming scavengers. Garth rolled his eyes and slid off his perch towards the gaping hole in the dead whale's neck. Matt waved at him from where he'd settled atop its skull, bright blue and green tail sitting half out of the water.

"Nice catch, Sparky."

"I know, my tracking skills continue to surpass my own expectations."

"Yeah, big head equals big nose." He grinned, sharp teeth flashing.

"Oh, go suck a pufferfish." Garth growled without any real bite behind it, ducking to go for the whale's empty throat.

"I'd watch yourself, big blue, there was somethin' mean-sounding down there."

"Probably just a shark that got itself stuck." He waved the striped bull off and slipped down under the hole, beginning to cut chunks out of the softer underbelly and tuck them in his side-pouch for later. And for Rokk, since he was going to be such a sour fish about everything.

He'd almost finished when he'd heard it, a raspy, nightmare-inducing rattle that was no more than a couple feet away. It yanked a knot around his stomach, twisting and squirming tighter the longer he sat frozen in place. Slowly, carefully, Garth turned around.

There was only about an arms length of space between him and the shadowed stranger, and that was way too close for Garth's liking. The stranger filled the whole of the whales skull and then some; long, patterned caudal fin and inky black well of hair spilling over into the open water, which -in hindsight- he probably should've noticed sooner. He probably also should've payed attention to the oversized dorsal fin bending over their side in the cramped space, but it was mostly hidden -bar a faint green glow- and his brain was stuck on other things; like trying to figure out what to say when he was being stared down like he was a next meal.

They leaned forward, nose twitching, whole body shifting into the dim light a ways, and a cold pit opened wide in Garth's stomach.
Grey, mottled skin in a paler imitation of their tail, empty black eyes with a mere sliver of amber in them, and a tattered dorsal fin too long to stand correctly in the small space. Shark. The stranger was a Mer Shark seemingly twice his size, sharp-toothed underbite coming ever closer as they drifted into the open space of the whale carcass.

Garth backed away until he ran out of room, the shark floating along after with a strange look on their face. They rattled softly, teeth bared as the two came nose-to-nose, barely enough room for a sand grain to pass between them.

"Uh, h-hey bud? Kinda rude to be-" Garth tried to worm his arm between their chests -to gain some distance between his neck and those teeth- but the second his wrist brushed sandpaper skin, white-hot needles ripped through his veins.

The feeling burned and pulsed like the touch of a stonefish, paralyzing in the worst way. It warmed and cradled in stark juxtaposition all the same, though, comforting tendrils wrapping soft around his heart. Hundreds of feelings writhed for dominance in Garth's stomach, and whether they were his or not was anyones guess.

He knew this feeling, had heard about Soul bonds 101 times from his parents, and he was most definitely not amused. This has to be some sort of sick joke the universe was trying to pull on him. A feral Shark? Really? His arm getting eaten wasn't enough?

The shark in questions eyes had gone wide, sunset slits rounding into sand dollars that painted a dopey look on their face. That rasping noise in their throat had changed to a full-on purr that shook the water between them, and Garth -as much as he hated to say it- probably looked and sounded the same.

As the overload of feelings died down, something new and anxious started coursing through...not his veins, really, more like a cord of kelp tied directly to his heart and attached on the other end to...yep. Definitely attached to them. The new feeling was accompanied again by that rattle as Shark worked their way out of their stupor, face twisting into a snarl, and Garth was getting the feeling that was how they talked.

"Well, I'm not very happy about it either." He snapped, taking Shark aback. They recovered with a hiss rather quickly though, raising sharp, ragged claws in a threat.

"Go ahead, try it." Garth scoffed. "You'll screw up both our days."

Shark chattered at him, gills puffing irritably as he twisted in the small space, nearly smacking Garth with his dorsal fin.

"Don't you-" before he could stop them, Shark bolted off, currents dragging the blue bull forward. "-dare. Oh nooo, don't immediately break the first rule of a soul bond, it could have disastrous consequences!" Garth grumbled sarcastically, glaring at the space Shark had vacated. "Depths below, I'm screwed."