Wait...Humans Need Air, Right? (Merstuck! DirkJake Fanfic)

18. Catching Up With Cronus

"Long time, no see, Cronus."

"Wait, you know him?" Jake asked, confused.

Karkat pointed out, "But he's a human, and you fuckers said you didn't know any other humans!"

"Well, he wasn't always a human," Kankri said quietly.

His brother's head whipped around. "HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW THAT!?!??"

"Because I saw him as a merman."

Jake and Jade just sort of stared at everyone. They weren't really sure of what was happening and were general confused.

As a result of the situation at hand, Jake, Jade, Dirk, Dave, and Karkat looked at Cronus and proceeded to say, all five of them in unison, "You got some explaining to do."

Kankri looked at his boyfriend. "Should I tell them or do you want to?" He asked politely.

"I think I've got this, thanks babe," Cronus said, speaking for the first time since he came to this table. His accent was similar to Eridan's, only with a less nasal sound and he could, to an extent, actually pronounce the letter "V". He kissed his boyfriend's cheek softly, causing Kankri to become extremely flustered and hide in his candy red sweater.

Cronus leaned over the table and made a gesture with his hands, starting, "It all started about a year ago....."

------------(CUE THE FLASHBACK WITH TARDIS NOISES AND A POV CHANGE)--------------

I was swimming out of the city limits after one of my most recent attempts at landing a date. I hadn't planned on going anywhere, really; just far away from everything as possible.

It wasn't long before I found the cave. It was big, led to the beach humans sometimes hung out on, and, best of all, was empty.

But not for long.

A few minutes after I got comfortable, I hear footsteps running toward the cave. Thinking quickly, I dove behind a nearby rock.

A few seconds later, this guy runs in and collapses onto a huge-ass rock formation. His hair was dark and real messy, he was wearing a red sweater and he was sobbing hard.

Like, REALLY hard.

I was surprised his lungs could take the constant heaving.

"Alright, Cronus, I think they understand the measure of the young man's crying," Kankri interrupted. "You know some people may find it triggering to talk about men crying as they feel it demasculinizes them. Oh wait, did my interruption of your story trigger you? My deepest apolo-MPFFF!?"

Cronus cut him off with a quick smooch.

Red-faced and embarrassed, Kankri went back to hiding in his sweater.

Cronus turned back to his small audience. "Now, as I was saying....."

The poor guy was sobbing, too hard to notice me. I couldn't do much other than watch him. Anything else would get me killed by order of the Royal Guard.

Then a sudden thought came to me; What if I were to go and talk to him? I almost brushed the thought away immediately. That kind of thinking is what got merpeople culled. But then I thought, It's not like he'll know right away, right? And he looks like he could use some support.

So I swam over and started talking to him. He was really scared at first, because he could immediately tell I wasn't human.

Apparently, humans think earfins are weird.