First Impressions aren't Everything | Jamilton | Mermaid/Siren/Whatev Au

Y'know what? Screw filler (4)

Not helpless

Strong. Not helpless

Freedom

Home

Not helpless

Still too warm

The siren lunged out at Thomas with no warning. When he didn't reach his target, he simply stayed balanced on the edge of the tank, tail partially submerged in water and eyes slowly growing wider at the events that began to unfold before him.

At the attack, Thomas let out a rather embarrassing squeak, hopping backwards in the process. What immediately followed was an utterly convenient, and somewhat unrealistic, series of events.

Jefferson knocked himself into Washington, George then stumbled backwards and took Lafayette and Angelica down while he just barely caught himself from falling completely. Thomas was so surprised by this, he walked backwards into James, who subconsciously grabbed ahold of John to try to steady himself. Emphasis on try. What happened next was everyone deciding to play human dominos and soon enough almost everyone had fell, and if they hadn't, then they were bumped into. A lot.

Multiple people had been knocked against the tank, which caused the water and sound to disrupt the inside easily. This led to the siren being knocked off guard as the vibrations around him caused him to loose his balance on the edge of the tank. He leaned back into the water to try to get a better grip on his bearings as he watched on in awe as everyone started panicking, falling, and, most of all, yelling from both the falls and the hypnotic trance they were just knocked out of.

It was fucking, absolute, utter chaos.

I don't really feel the need to go through the whole 'calm down everybody' and 'ask the one guy that didn't blank out what happened while said blanking out' spiel, so I'm not gonna.

Twenty more minutes had passed before everyone was calm, and they chalked up the hypnotic trance they were in to a defense/predatory mechanism the siren's species must've developed. Although the fact that it worked so strongly easily kept everyone on edge. However, they did finally decide to leave Thomas to settle into his new work space.

With one more affirmative from Washington, an enthusiastic thumbs up from Lafayette, a warning from James, and a very stern talking to from Angelica, Thomas found himself alone with nothing to do but stare at the siren who had tried to attack him.

The silence started to nag at him. Eventually, he took a half step towards the tank that the siren didn't seem to notice and formally introduced himself. "Hello. I'm Thomas Jefferson." He paused, "Thomas." He slowly pronounced his name and pointed towards himself on each syllable. He only gained a curious glance.

The Virginian took another step towards the tank, only this time, it didn't go unnoticed. The siren appeared to flinch and he swiftly darted farther from the glass.

"Oh, no, no. I'm not gonna hurt ya." Jefferson tried to emphasize once he saw the poor creature's reaction. He tried to think of anything that would make the other less stressed. "Hmm... ah! here let me just-" he cut himself off as he started walking towards the right side of the tank.

The siren stayed where he was, but followed Thomas with an unblinking gaze Thomas climb the short ladder to the platform that hung next to the tank. The platform had a couple of feet sunk into the water by a few inches. If the siren so pleased, they could lift themselves onto the platform and still be in the water, or be where Thomas was and lift himself to sit on the dry edge.

Thomas sat at an angle so his feet were dangling into the water, while he was still sitting on the dry part. "see! We can sort of be on the same level now. If you want." He happily explained to his silent counterpart. Awkward silence filled the room as the siren had yet to move from his place. "Sooo...can you-"

Before he could finish, the siren had projected himself onto the water covered platform and right next to Thomas in one smooth motion. He caught himself on the dry ledge with his hands on either side of Thomas's body, the sirens body would've been practically lying on him if he'd been a few inches towards the right. Both men's noses were centimeters from another, and as Jefferson stared into the other's wide, searching eyes, he distantly took note of the cold air that seemed to switch from the siren's gills to from the nose.

Surprising both of them, Thomas somehow didn't startle at the sudden intrusion of personal space and had only slowly and slightly leant backwards. While it took minutes to process what had happened, it only took moments after that for the Virginian to realize the rather compromising position the two have found themselves in, and he reacted accordingly.

Thomas jolted and tried to move further away, face quickly reddening. The sudden movement startled the siren and caused him to flinch and make a noise that sounded similar to that of a roll of the tongue that cats often make when you spook them. You know what I'm talking about.

The siren moved back into the water but stopped at Thomas's next words. Thomas, on the other hand, was frantically trying to salvage whatever moment of trust the siren had gave him. "Oh wait! Sorry! You just- uuugh." He groaned in frustration. He wanted something interesting to do, but this wasn't exactly what he signed up for.

Thomas rubbed his hands over his eyes, which was his mistake, really, when he received another jumpscare for being off guard. The siren decided it was Pounce Time™️ and promptly tried to claw at Thomas's face with no previous warning, as you do. This caused Thomas to stand up abruptly with a small yelp and almost fall off the ledge.

Standing with the far wall right behind him, Jefferson spoke again. "Okay look. I'm not entirely sure if you can even understand me but...I know you're in a new environment and all and that's scary. But you can't attack what you don't understand. It's unproductive and it gets you nowhere. All it does is start fights that don't need to happen and make people think if you as immature or untrustworthy." He paused to see that the other was, without a doubt, pouting at him from the ledge.

The Virginian decided to dismiss the brief thought he had of thinking the siren looked rather cute and just continued talking. "Just know that...I'm here. I won't let anything bad happen to you. I'm here to help. Okay?"

At this, he only got a blank stare. He tried, really tried, to analyze what was going on inside the other's head, but to no avail.

"You really don't understand what I'm saying do you?" He disappointingly resigned at the siren's neutral expression. He sighed, "Well, I'll be back. I need to get my stuff from my office."

With that, he slowly made his way down the short ladder, across the room, and out the door. He gently closed the door behind him so he wasn't able to realize that the siren's eyes were trained on him or that he had moved in the tank to follow Thomas's movements.

He also didn't realize that if he'd linger for just a little bit longer, he would've heard a gurgling, but oh so soft and quiet, voice from the room he had just left.

"....t-Tom...uh..sssh..." the siren was still staring intently at the door, a new and unfamiliar, but not quite unpleasant, surge in his chest that the human had seemed to give him.

"...Tom-us..."

Summary;
I got tired of filler so I didn't bother with much of it this chapter. Ham spooked Jeff. Jeff initiated a game of human dominos. Here have some fluff ya filthy animals, god knows we need it in this time of need. Jeff thinks ham is cute. Oblivious Ham is oblivious. Ham is learning. He's starting to talk. Oh just wait until he really gets going cause then he ain't gonna stop.

Art Credit; Me

A/N; My memes are Ironic, my depression is chronic. My writing is wack, my insecurities are back. I'm in one of the last "unaffected" states in the country let's goooooo

For real tho stay clean and stay smart everyone. The Bubonic plague was so critical because people didn't properly take care of themselves. So sneeze into your elbow not your hands, wash yo hands a lot, don't touch your face, don't drink after one another, don't be a dumb. Thank you for listening to my TED talk.

And Remember; Only you can prevent the coronavirus.