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thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

Note

For the prompt fill, number 3 for Indruck seems pretty fitting!

Here you go! Prompt 3 was “sweet” , Indrid’s design is based on a barracuda and I went with SFW on this one.

“Duck, can you do me a favor when you lock up?” Leo dumps orange taffy into a glass jar.

“Sure, what d’you need?”

“Got some locks for the garbage cans; put ‘em on after you set the alarm out back. Somethin’s been getting into our trash every damn night for the last week. It makes a god-awful mess and I’m worried we’re gonna get a fine for littering.”

Duck nods, turns his attention back to the flock of tourists approaching the window. The afternoon is swallowed up in a pit of sugar-sticky air and blasts of welcome cold from the freezer. There are worse places for a summer job than Tarkesian’s Sweets--he’s right by the water, can watch the wildlife on his lunch break, and Leo is low-maintenance boss--but after eight hours on his feet getting splashed with soda or burned on the popcorn machine, he’s ready to head home. The trash locks have other ideas.

It takes ten minutes of cursing and fumbling to get the first bin secured. He doesn’t even know how the damn things are getting overturned; they seem too heavy for a raccoon or seagull to knock to the ground.

A tiny splash behind him, probably a fish jumping.

Then a crooked, shiny pole slowly enters his periphery. In dim yellow of the streetlight, he can tell the end of it is curved. It pokes inelegantly at the wall, then the locked can, then the wall once again, and then Duck’s leg.

The hook pulls back, pauses, then pokes him again.

“The fuck?” He grabs it when it goes for another jab, pulls up only for his arms to be wrenched towards the water. Not to be outdone, he tugs harder. His opponent retaliates with enough force that he almost tumbles off the pier. He growls, braces his foot on the railing, and hauls the hook and its owner up onto worn wood with him.

It’s a guy about his age, angular face framed by a mess of silver hair and pierced ears. Figures it’s some sort of artsy punk swimming around poking people in the leg. That explains why he’s shirtless too.

It does not, however, explain why he has a tail.

“Rude.” The guy sits up on his hands, silver and black tail flicking droplets of saltwater everywhere, “I don’t go around stopping you from eating.”

“Look man, I just wanted you to stop jabbin me and knockin the trash over.” Maybe if he doesn’t mention the tail it will go away.

“How else am I supposed to get at those odd, pulpy tubs full of ‘cookies and cream’ or ‘bubblegum’?”

“The fuck--wait, you were tryin’ to get the ice cream containers out of the trash?”

“Yes? I also want more of the caramel apples” he pronounces the last word “applees” causing Duck to giggle in spite of himself.

“Look, I have to piece words together from the signs on your store. And you obviously know what I meant or you would not be laughing, so do you have any in the cans or not?”

“Nope” Duck gets his laughter under control, “sold out of caramel apples today.”

“Drat” the visitor starts scooting across the pier towards the unlocked trashcan, “I’ll see what else I can find.”

“Wait don’t fuckin knock that over, Leo’ll be pissed at me if he comes back to a mess, and I don’t feel like pickin up trash because you want a snack!”

“But I’m starving!” The merman, because at this point there’s no way he can deny that’s what’s been rooting through the garbage, whacks at Duck with his tail.

“I know for a damn fact there’s food down there.” He points at the bay.

“Only if you can catch it, and only if it is not in another mer’s territory. Which much of this area is; I am new here, young, and thus have no claim to any patch of sea.”

“You ain’t got any family?” Something pings in his chest. It’s the part of his heart that made him pick out the runt of litter when his mom let him get a cat on his thirteenth birthday, that means he always splits his lunch with Juno because she’s running track and needs it more than he does, that makes him tear up when he thinks about everything a sapling has to survive to become a tree.

“Merfolk leave home at sixteen.” The merman shrugs.

Duck sighs, grabbing his keys, “If I bring you somethin to eat, will you leave the trash alone?”

“Yes.”

He shuts off the alarm, grabs a cone and fills it with bright blue ice cream. The merman is back in the water when he returns, arms resting on the pier.

“Oooh, my favorite!” He takes the ice cream, biting huge chunks out of it as Duck re-arms the door.

Crunch

“...The container is edible!!”

He sits next to the merman’s arms, “Guess you wouldn’t have had an ice cream cone before, huh.”

“No, but it is lovely. I wish humans threw these away more often.” He polishes off the treat, licks his fingers clean with moans Duck hears in his dreams later, and smiles, “thank you for the meal. Goodnight.”

There’s a final flash of silvery tail, and then Duck’s alone in the breezy night air.

--------------------------------------------------------------

“That’s a sandwich, correct?”

“AHfuck” Duck knocks over his water bottle in surprise. He’s eating behind the candy store like usual and not expecting an aquatic dining companion.

“Apologies. I have seen you eating here before and thought you may like some company.” He sets a sea urchin on the ground and proceeds to bang on it with a rock.

“Found some lunch?”

“I followed some otters; I was mainly trying to draw them, but they led me to a kelp bed no one else was in.”

“...Wait how do you draw underwater?”

“Let me finish cracking this open and I will show you.”

Duck spends the rest of his lunch break on his belly, the merman showing him a sketchbook and enchanted pen that conjures whatever colors the illustrator envisions. The mer is genuinely excited to talk to him. He assumes the nuzzling is due to him smelling like cotton candy; he doesn’t mind, the mer’s skin is cool and he makes cute little noises whenever he touches Duck.

Before the stands, Duck asks, “You got a name?”

“Indrid.”

“Duck.”

Indrid’s eyes flick to the nearby estuary.

“Yeah, like the bird. It’s a nickname.”

“I like it.” Indrid smiles, dives, and flaps his tail once in farewell.

------------------------------------------------------

“Cutting school again?” Indrid’s voice bubbles up by his feet.

“Yep.” Duck watches the spring clouds roll by from his favorite spot on the beach. It’s secluded and far from town, meaning no one will give him shit for skipping class and nobody will see Indrid.

He worked at Leo’s until this past summer, only quitting at the start of his senior year of high school when Indrid pointed out that much of Kepler was surrounded by water and that, if Duck wanted to see him, he did not have to keep working at the candy store in order to do so.

“Not that I mind the free food.” Indrid winks.

“Just gonna bring you bulk ice cream from Safeway; no way am I missin out on that chirpin you do when you eat it.”

Duck slides the grocery bag towards the surf, “not like KCC is gonna rescind my offer. Ain’t a fuckin Ivy League or some shit.”

“And you will be happy there?”

“Yeah. They got a decent work-study program with the park, so I can still get a job as a ranger if I want to.”

“Oh. Good.”

Indrid sounds sad, and Duck sits up on his elbows. His friend’s torso is fully on land, his tail fidgeting in the foam.

“What’s up?

“I...Barclay told me his human is going to a school further inland, and I know there are many places you could got to learn. You...you did not choose to stay in Kepler because you feel the need to look after me, did you?”

“Course not.” Duck is sitting up now, aching to stroke Indrid’s hair, “I mean, I’m glad we’re still gonna be able to see each other, and I really hopin I can get a room near the beach so it’s easy to come talk. But this is the right choice for me; if I really want to, I can transfer to a different school in a few years, and I can learn a lot here without takin on a shit-ton of debt. Besides, ain’t like I think you’re helpless; I love bringin you stuff and rubbin your fin when it’s sore, but that’s because you’re my friend. Don’t think you’re helpless. I never have.”

“Not even when I was stealing trash?”

“Thought you were a fuckin nuisance, not helpless.” He playfully nudges his shoulder with his toes.

Indrid turns his head and nips his calf, “How’s that for a nuisance?”

“Not much, felt kinda nice. Uh, I mean, uh, fuck, so, where’d that worry about my stayin come from?”

The mer crawls and wiggles until they’re shoulder to shoulder, “I think my future sight is finally developing; my fathers arrived around the time he turned eighteen, so it makes sense mine would arrive at a similar point. The trouble is, I am having a hard time telling the futures from my own imaginings and worries.”

“That fuckin sucks.”

“I’ll manage. All seers struggle at the beginning. I just wish I was quicker at learning whether certain timelines are really more likely or if they are just ones that I want to be likely.”

“Like what?”

Indrid glances at him, opens his mouth, then shuts it and faces the sea.

Duck smirks, “‘Drid, there somethin you wanna ask me?”

“No. Yes. Maybe? I, I just don’t want to pressure youOOOHhhh that’s not fair” he flops on his back with a groan as Duck scritches his upper tail, “you know I’ll do anything when you touch me like this.”

“Damn right I do. And what I want is for you to tell me the truth.”

Indrid whines, covers his face with his hands.

“Do it or I’ll stop.”

“Rude” Indrid lowers his hands enough that his red eyes peer over the top, “is that any way to treat a mer who wants to kiss you?”

Duck gives his answer by pouncing on his friend, pinning narrow shoulders into the sand as he devours his mouth in kisses.

“You like that treatment better?”

“Goodness, yes.” Indrid pulls him back down, slipping his tongue between his lips and nibbling his neck when he finally stops to breathe. Then his hand flails sideways, grabbing the plastic bag and chucking it further up the beach.

“The, the tide is coming in and I, ah, foresee us working up quite the appetite.” He tugs Duck’s collar down with his teeth, nuzzling and licking across his skin with little hums of pleasure, “so I want to save those for afterwards. Who knows” he grins, “maybe we’ll need energy for round two as well.”

Duck cups his cheek, inhales the scent of the sea and the sight of his future, “I like the way you think, sweet thing.”

#Indruck #indrid cold/duck newton #mermay fills

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