Just An Ocean Apart

Death on the Docks

    By the time Sherlock woke up on the makeshift pile of coral at the bottom of the tank, he heard voices shouting, screaming and oohing and aweing from all around him. He blinked rapidly, trying to get the sleep out of his eyes and trying to run his fingers through his hair hastily as he sat up, seeing a group of yet more visitors crowded around the glass tank, their eyes wide in amazement and their mouths hanging open in awe. Of course, Sherlock knew he was fabulous, but honestly, there were making a big deal about a sleep deprived merman with bedhead. There were about thirty tourists in front of him and he hadn't even eaten breakfast.
"Wakey wakey sleepy head!" Greg's voice called from above. Sherlock looked over in confusion, yawning loudly and producing a large stream of bubbles to issue from his mouth. Greg was standing on the dock with a tray of fish, and he was holding it as he were going to throw each piece into the water individually, as a sort of show. Sherlock couldn't help but notice the stairs were roped off with a collector at the bottom, taking people's money and letting them start their way to the top of the tank. Sherlock rose to the top of the tank, thrashing his powerful yet sleepy tail through the water and bobbing to the surface.
"What's going on?" Sherlock wondered.
"You're a celebrity Sherlock, so we found even better ways of making money off of you!" Greg exclaimed, dangling a piece of tuna over the water as if Sherlock was going to play fetch. He just frowned, not very amused. The richer folks were all standing on the docks now, leaning over the edge and grabbing pieces of fish, holding them over the edge as if Sherlock was going to eat out of their hands.
"I'm not an animal." He snapped. Greg just shrugged, chucking his tuna at Sherlock. The piece of fish landed right in front of Sherlock, who sort of stared at it in disgust and waved it to the side with a slap of water.
"That's disgusting." He decided, and the people all laughed, as if that were some great joke. Sherlock's scowl just deepened. Greg shrugged guiltily, as if he wasn't quite sure how humane this was.
"Just go with it Sherlock, and I'll convince John to skip his dinner with Mary tonight. Maybe we can get a rowboat out here, a couple of candles..." Greg decided, looking around the tank as if wondering where he could set up a small orchestra to play them romantic flute music while they float around a fifty foot pen in a ten foot rowboat.
"Shut up Greg!" Sherlock snapped, noticing all of the people on the docks looking very confused, if not intrigued. The last thing Sherlock needed was for people to know about his minor obsession with John.
"I noticed a familiar red potion in his hands last night, twirling it in his fingers and staring at it, no idea where he got it of course." Greg shrugged, sitting on the dock and letting his feet, still with his shoes on, dangle in the water.
"Greg honestly, we need to put a muzzle on you." Sherlock decided, but he edged up to the docks and took a piece of salmon from some rich old lady's painted fingers. She started squealing in excitement, but Sherlock gave the fish a sniff and smelled something that smelled of rubbing alcohol and cat pee, and threw the fish aside. These unsanitary humans, he may swim in the entire ocean's bathroom but at least he washes his hands.
"Greg, this is disgusting." Sherlock decided, snatching some halibut from some man's hands and throwing it aside as well when discovering tiny little hair on it, looking like shavings from a beard. This was absolutely nasty.
"Ya well, take your complains up with the complaint department." Greg shrugged.
"And who's that?" Sherlock asked.
"Harry." Greg laughed, a wide, evil smile spreading on his face. Sherlock scowled, and swam far enough away that the humans couldn't touch him with their befouling fingers.
"Can't they just, I don't know, get my autograph or something? I could splash them with my tail or do a flip or something, but honestly I wouldn't eat any of that fish they touched." Sherlock decided, noticing that the discarded piece of salmon was floating back for him, as if wondering why he wasn't eating it. He splashed it away far enough that it got lodged on some rocks, and stuck there like a little pink blob of germs and diseases. Greg sighed, but nodded, pushing the tray back at the humans so that they dropped their fish back onto it, all looking rather disappointed.
"Do a flip Sherlock. Tell a joke, can you juggle?" Greg wondered. Sherlock just smacked the surface of the water with his tail, sending a massive wave spraying over the clientele. Maybe that wasn't the best idea, because while the children enjoyed it, the women shrieked loudly as their makeup started to run and their hair started to droop. The men just cursed and sputtered and tried to wash of their shiny golden pocket watches off with their handkerchiefs, looking very angry under their large, bushy mustaches.
"Oh come on Sherlock, really?" Greg growled, fixing his hair quite like the ladies and looking kind of offended.
"It's not a crime, come on, it's just water!" Sherlock snapped.
"This hat cost me ten dollars, and this trip up here cost me five. Now both are ruined!" a lady exclaimed, storming off in her wet high heels, which were splashing water out as her fat feet smashed down in them .
"Ya well; this is not a zoo lady!" Sherlock yelled back, and Greg just giggled a little bit. The rest of the rich people kind of just scuffed and brushed themselves off, but they stayed and watched as Sherlock looked rather guilty, biting his lower lip and looking at Greg for approval.
"Don't tell John I terrorized the guests." Sherlock muttered, flopping his tail in shame. Greg just laughed, getting his feet and proceeding to shoo the guests of the deck, promising them half their money back or something like that.
"This wasn't a good idea in the first place; I'll tell John it was a flop. Literally. I'm still getting a row boat though." Greg decided with a mischievous smile, herding the women who were all holding onto their dresses to make sure the bottoms didn't get soaked in water. Sherlock just groaned, but sank back under the water and down to the glass tank, where he swam the length a couple of times and did a couple of flips just for show. Everyone got very excited about that, and they all chanted and oohed and some little girl started to cry and tell her mother how much she wanted a mermaid. Sherlock didn't bother to correct her gender pronouns; honestly it was just a waste of his breath anymore. The rest of the day was very bland, very repetitive, and very boring. Sherlock just sat on the coral and watched as the people crowded around, looked amazed, and walked out, towing their children and their extravagant dresses and held their chins up high. Sherlock wanted to throw up. Finally when the hours were over and everyone disappeared, Greg was true to his word, and four men came in carrying the smallest, most pathetic little rowboat Sherlock had ever seen. It could probably fit two people, but three would probably sink it. They brought it up the stairs with some effort, heaving and grunting and pulling the little boat up the stairs under finally the dropped it onto the deck with a loud bang, making Sherlock jump back in fear as the surface of the water rippled. The men all looked down at him in wonder, and he looked up with the same timid confusion. Their foreheads were beaded with sweat and their clothes were bland, they were servants, obviously. Sherlock surfaced, poking his head curiously above the water to get a better look.
"Hello." He decided.
"You're the mermaid, huh?" one of them grunted, smiling with a beautiful row of missing teeth.
"Merman." Sherlock corrected, and they all just laughed some more.
"Ya, it's a shame; I would love to have a half-naked fish woman swimming around out castle." One of them joked, grunting with stupidity.
"Sorry to disappoint." Sherlock snapped, crossing his arms with a scowl.
"We've got your rowboat, although, I can't imagine how you're going to get in it. Didn't think on that one did you?" one of them laughed.
"Obviously you can't think at all, so I think we're even." Sherlock snapped. They scowled, but Sherlock just shrugged, rather happy to get them all mad when he knew they couldn't do anything about it. He doubted they could swim anyway.
"Ooh, the tuna has a temper, huh?" one of them asked, looking around at his trio of idiots with a pleased smile, as if thinking he was going to have the pleasure of knocking Sherlock's pretty little teeth out. Sherlock didn't know how to respond to that, so he just frowned, making sure to look as unamused as possible as the men came closer and closer, cracking their knuckles as if ready for a fight.
"Can you all even swim?" Sherlock wondered. They chuckled a little bit, but looked rather uneasy.
"You can't, can you? So what are you going to do, try to smack at me with the rowboat paddles? Don't be idiots; go back before I get John." Sherlock snapped. The men just sighed, cracking their necks in large, crackly circles as if they practice their 'tough guy' impressions in the mirror.
"Oh, I never thought that I would get to beat up one of God's mistakes, but here we are with fish boy, and we're going to knock his tail right off." one men decided.
"Alright, fine, but if you drown it's not my fault. My terrain." Sherlock insisted, deciding that he could just swim away if need be. The men just looked around nervously, and then heaved the boat off of the deck, letting it fall into the water and watching it as it started to float away.
"Not that great of an idea, was it?" Sherlock asked with a laugh, gently leading the boat just far enough away so that they couldn't jump onto it. The men growled, stirring uneasily.
"Oh, now you're asking for it, fish boy, come on, let's go." He decided, and with that, one of the stupid, stupid men jumped from the dock for the boat. At first Sherlock thought he was going to make it, he had a good jump, but soon his weight got the better of him and he started to fall, plummeting from the air and smacking his head off the side of the wooden boat, landing in a daze on the top of the water and sinking fast. Sherlock watched him go, and for a moment he debated whether or not he should save him or not, but then decided a man's life, no matter how stupid and wasted it was, was worth more than some stupid grudge. So Sherlock dove under the water, rocketing down to the man who was now trying desperately to swim to the surface, kicking his feet uselessly and letting all of his air out of his nose in large panicked bubbles. He was so stupid...Sherlock swam for him quickly, grabbing the man around the shoulders and starting to heave him up. But unfortunately the man decided that if Sherlock was trying to grab him then he wanted to fight, and his combat mode went on. The man tried to grapple at Sherlock, wrapping his legs around Sherlock's tail, and trying to catch him in a headlock, all while letting all of the air out of his lungs with the effort.
"You need to breath, stop...ow!" Sherlock's words were cut off when the man punched him in the nose, and once more a large stream of blood started to collect through the water, turning it scarlet. Sherlock tried to swim up, but every time he tried to pump his arms the man would pull them back down, slowly turning a shade of blue but not seeming to notice.
"Breathe, you need to..." The servant head butted Sherlock and sent him stumbling back, his head rolling on his neck like a ball on a string. But it didn't matter, this man was dying, and he was so determined to beat Sherlock up that he didn't consider his own oxygen supply.
"Come on, swim up, swim up!" Sherlock insisted, doubling over as the man kicked him in the stomach. Sherlock coughed and sputtered, and at that moment he noticed the man start to panic, trying to flail his arms and kick to the surface, but to no extent, he gasped for breath, opening his mouth wide, but all he did was breath in mouthfuls of water and immediately started to struggle, falling limp in the water and floating lamely to the bottom. Sherlock, who was still recovering from his underwater beat down, swam as quickly as he could to the man's aid, heaving his limp body over his shoulder and swimming as fast as he could to the surface, his own breathing feeling nearly impossible as the man's footprint still throbbed in his stomach. Sherlock broke surface and immediately hurled the man onto the deck, a large welt on his forehead and his face completely blue.
"Do something, DO SOMETHING!" Sherlock screamed, pulling himself onto the deck as he watched the men immediately go into rescue mode, running around and flailing, trying their best to save their idiot friend's life. The men obviously had no idea how to do CPR, or even to pump the water out of that stupid man's chest, they just flailed around, slapping his face and trying to yell at him to wake up, to spit out the water and get on with his hostile, useless life. But the man didn't get up, he didn't stir, he lay there on the docks and he didn't move. Sherlock panicked, he didn't want a death on his hands, especially not one of John's servants. This would be his fault if he let this man die; he had to do something, anything. So Sherlock pulled himself onto the deck, flopping hopelessly and shooing the men away. They all seemed rather reluctant to let him near, as if he was going to push the unconscious man back into the water, but he didn't, he started to push down on his chest with both of his hands, pressing his lungs down and trying to push the water up and out of his system. But still, the man didn't move. He didn't even gurgle or twitch, he laid there as limp and motionless as a rag doll. Sherlock felt a horrible shutter go down his spine as he realized he didn't feel a heartbeat through his palms. He realized the man's chest wasn't even trying to move up and down. Sherlock gasped in horror, scrambling away as best he could and flopping onto his back, as far away from the blue, water logged corpse as he could get.

"His...pulse. Check his pulse." Sherlock managed, his words sounding very small and the world seeming very far away. The man was dead, he knew that long before another servant pressed his two fingers against the man's neck, feeling for a heartbeat that wasn't there. He was dead. One of the servants screamed in agony, not taking any time to mourn or anything, he just turned right to Sherlock with a fiery look in his eye.
"You killed my friend. My best friend is dead, because of you." He muttered, his voice sounding simply poisonous, forced between his clenched teeth. Sherlock tried to pull himself back into the water, but the men were already closing in on him, and he couldn't thrash his tail fast enough to retreat before they had made a small circle. Sherlock looked at them fearfully, now he was on land, on their terrain, and for some reason he didn't think they would care if he was John's special merman, if he was the only one of his kind, or if he was making buckets upon buckets of money for their kingdom. As far as they knew, he had killed their friend, and he was going to pay with the same price.
"I didn't kill him, I was trying to drag him up, to save him, he wouldn't let me." Sherlock insisted, his voice very small, trying not to focus on the corpse on the deck, starting to leak water out of the blue skin.
"You liar, you held him down there, tried to play it off as an accident, we know how these things work, we know how to make it look like an accident." One of them men growled. Sherlock felt himself start to tremble, there was no talking his way out of his one, there was no one to save him...
"I didn't, I swear, please don't hurt me." Sherlock muttered, still trying to inch away when one of their large boots stomped down on his fin, smashing it into the wooden floor and making Sherlock howl with pain.
"JOHN, HELP ME, JOHN!" Sherlock screamed, and one of the servants rushed up and stuffed their hand over his mouth, making Sherlock taste what seemed to be gun powder and the hull of a wooden rowboat.
"There's no one coming to get you, not John, not anyone." He growled, and with that one of them kicked Sherlock in the stomach, making him cough and heave for breaths that were almost impossible. He tried to turn onto his stomach, protect his stomach and chest the best he could, but they were holding him down, all he could see was the top of the man's grimy sleeve and occasionally a fist or a foot come flying in his direction, and all he felt was pain, the rest of the world seemed irrelevant. Pain in his chest, pain in his fin, pain in his tail, what little vision he had was getting filled with little black dots, he started to float in and out of consciousness, blow upon blow until Sherlock wondered if it was even worth it anymore. Why did he constantly fight this pain, internal and external? Why did he make such a fuss for someone who would never love him back? It was either stay in this cage and watch John get married and fall in love or sink back into the ocean in defeat, get pressed under Mycroft's thumb and locked in his room once more. Those used to be the only options, but now Sherlock was being presented with a third, final choice. Death. It seemed so simple, all he had to do was let this pain take over, these fists and feet, they could just loll him to sleep, a permanent sleep, help him to find a simpler, more peaceful life where he could never have the false hope that John might see him as he was. Maybe it was worth dying just to see how many people came to his funeral, to see if John would cry, to hear his last words...The dark spots started to collect in front of him, pain, pain, it all seemed to be so simple, so right. The pain felt more like a soft, tingling sensation, something more pleasant and more peaceful than a simple kick to the tail. He was going to show John how much he loved him by dying for him, and John would never even know. Maybe it was better this way. And then the pain stopped, and there were screams, unfamiliar screams, for once they weren't from his own mouth. The attacks stopped, there was what sounded like a little bit of a skirmish on the dock, some splashing, some gasping, some screaming, the hand fell away from Sherlock's mouth and his head fell to the dock, he was alive, but his vision was still foggy, still limited, maybe he could still pull it off. The screaming stopped, and there was what sounded like someone falling to the dock in a heap, an unconscious heap probably.
"Sherlock, Sherlock?" asked a voice above him, a voice that couldn't be there, a voice that Sherlock refused to hear. Sherlock's eyes opened a little bit, just enough to see a brown head floating above him, someone that just simply couldn't be in front of him. A wild hallucination, no doubt. His head was lifted softly off of the deck in a damp hand, water soaking through his hair, as if his rescuer had just done some swimming.
"Sherlock can you hear me?" he asked softly. Sherlock groaned, still trying to open his eyes a bit more.
"Victor?" he whispered. He heard a small laugh above him, a hand on the side of his face.
"Sherlock." He muttered with relief, as if that was all that he could say.
"Victor..." Sherlock breathed, letting his eyes close once more, knowing he was safe, knowing that while Victor was around, no matter how impossible it was, he was safe. And with that he let the pain rock him gently to sleep.