A tale of mermans and witchdoctors

Taking care of a merman is not as easy as you may think.

Vincent was stalling.

There were three possible things he could do about the fish-person currently sleeping on his couch, wound covered.

Four, if he counted the option of throwing the creature back into the sea, which he had eventually decided was a bad idea. Sharks had been sighted, and, while he knew that they weren't interested in eating humans, he wasn't sure about profusely bleeding mermaids. Mermans. Whatever.

That left the above mentioned three options: bringing the creature to his college's lab, to have it stitched together by his biology teacher, taking care of it himself or asking for help to Fritz.

The first option had him shaking his head in contempt. His teacher was good at what she did, but there was no way she wouldn't tell everybody about the creature, and E.T. and the other "kid finds overwordly creature and (insert power of friendship bullshit here)" movies had taught him, American government and inhuman creatures didn't mix well.

On the other hand, he was studying marine biology, not anatomy, and knew there was at least a bit of human in that mer. He could very well mess up something and causate the person a slow, painful death.

The third option was probably the wisest one. Fritz was, wheter he liked it or not, the closest thing his town had to a witchdoctor, and from what he'd said, he did know something about sirens.

But he would also tease the crap out of Vincent.

Like, for years.

He decided to try healing it himself.

What could possibly go wrong?

~~~

As he changed the bandages, Vincent observed the siren, curiosity winning over morals (checking out somebody in their sleep is probably not the most correct thing to do).

It had shaggy black hair and creamy skin. Around the hips, said skin changed with silver scales, that shone with greenish and bluish reflects, and it was nearly impossible finding the point in which the bare skin ended and the fishy body started. Its caudal fin was pierced with three silver rings. On his back and forearms there were other, small fins, and there were patches of scales on its shoulders and on its cheeks.

Strangely cute.

He looked at its chest, noticing the lack of a bellybutton and the presence of gills on its sides. The lack of mass chest made Vincent decide that the poor thing was probably male, but the lack of nipples disturbed him a little. It made sense: for a race that most likely hatched from eggs like fishes, nipples would make no sense.

He stopped. No nipples, therefore not a mammalian.

That meant that females most likely didn't have chest mass too.

As in, boobs. They didn't have boobs.

He groaned in frustration. He couldn't even guess this person's gender! How could he think of fixing 'em up?

He looked back at the sleeping face.

... Was that a beard?

Indeed, on the mermaid's chin, there appeared to be a slight stubble.

"So you're a he?" Vincent looked curiously at the person (man? He took a moment to laugh at the mental image of a bearded Ariel), the fact that he had a technically mythologic creature asleep in his living room sinking in for the first time.

"Wow" he breathed, caressing as lightly as he could the fragile-looking fins on his arms. It took him a bit to remember the wound.

He delicately turned the man on his belly, stopping for a second as he groaned in his sleep.