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MerMay Vignettes [6/???]

(Disclaimer: one of the characters in this story does not belong to me. Nic Loughty is the OC of my good friend @the-matpat-ever . Please check out his blog and support his art.)

(Since it’s MerMay, most of my fanegos have gotten a special little shift for the occasion! I’ve organized a new, temporary list of headcanons for The Pentas Family—each member’s species, vague lore-bits, etc.—which can be found here for context.)

(As for the fanego who does belong to me: for more information on Parker, go here. For more information on the mob he works for, go here. )

(Trigger Warnings: body horror, the ocean, descriptions of illegal business, mentions of death/murder, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.)

When selkies were newborn pups, it was very common for their developing pelts to be white and fluffy and snow, darkening and smoothing out as they grew, as they got the hang of switching back and forth between forms. Only a few species kept that pale hue, but darker patches would always form around their backs and muzzles.

Nic had seen plenty other selkies with pelts that were gray, sometimes adorned with a spray of irregular spots. He’d seen other pelts that were nearly pure black, either set off by streaks of white, or eventually revealed to be a deep, dark shade of brown when the sunlight hit them just right.

Nic’s pelt happened to be brown, for the most part. There was a pattern of somewhat lighter rings that peppered their way through the fur almost like freckles on skin. Even so, he felt like his could almost pass that aforementioned darkness test…as long as you only saw his back. His pelt’s underbelly, on the other hand, was a cloudy shade of silver. Even he had to admit that the contrast was quite pretty, but it didn’t make the best camouflage.

But that didn’t quite matter right now, because he wasn’t in his other form, wasn’t in the water. His pelt was, as usual on days or nights like this, wrapped around him like a very elaborate mixture of scarf and poncho. The front flippers wound around his forearms while the back flippers hung near his legs. The entire midsection was flush to his back a few minutes ago…but by now, he’d absentmindedly let it drape lower, the seal’s hollow head hanging against its back as though it’d had its neck snapped in the most violent way.

All selkies had large, dark eyes—so dark that, from a distance, their pupils appeared to have just completely swallowed up their irises and scleras—no matter what form they were using and Nic was no exception. His knew that his eyes were dark enough to help him out right now, here in the shadows of the storage closet.

It’d been a random choice of hiding spot; he’d been more zoned out than he’d care to admit when his keen hearing had picked up on the sound some something smooth and sinuous sliding over the grass outside, and he’d had to rush to stow away just as the familiar pattern of awkward thumps and under-the-breath swearing reached the room.

Still, he supposed it was working well enough. The computer was up and running, throwing its violently bright glow throughout the room. But the desk it was mounted on was positioned in away that left the closet and its ever-so-slightly-cracked door shielded.

He had plenty of cover. He could watch and wonder as much as he damn-well pleased.

Just so long as he didn’t make any sudden moves…

There were many benefits to including a basement in a music studio’s layout. The mass of soil and concrete around the walls was perfect for blocking low-frequencies, and so sound-isolation was made much easier, whether it was for voices or instruments.

Although, just like everything else, there was a set of cons to go with the pros of such a setup.

However, those cons usually involved things like excessive humidity damaging foster molds and audio equipment, or sounds still finding ways to bleed up through the ceiling.

Of all the routines Nic had learned for the sake of this part of the studio, he’d never thought a midnight intruder in the form of a naga could be on the list of things to look out for.

(Then again, none of his co-workers—a rag-tag group of humans and a few harpies—knew about said intruder. Because he hadn’t told them. Because despite how scared he’d been the very first time, the naga hadn’t spotted him, and the naga hadn’t actually done anything to harm the studio or any of the stuff inside it, and he’d maintained that behavior for all the subsequent times he’d snuck in, so Nic personally didn’t see any problems.)

Normal snakes tended to go about home-invasion via cracks in foundation, crawl-spaces, vents, and sometimes even pipes connected to sinks or toilets (Nic wished that last option was as much of a lazy urban legend as it sounded, but one freak-accident in a shady motel years ago was more than enough).

Even if nagas had the autonomy and societal presence to enter places just with a knock on the door, they still had the potential to be more…creative about it.

You couldn’t have a basement without a window-well. And nowadays, you just couldn’t have a window-well without a grate on top of it.

And yet, despite the paranoia said grates were associated with, Nic had only see a few that came with actual locks. The one that sat atop Ear Caffeine’s window-well certainly didn’t.

The fact that the frame around the window’s outer screen had corroded enough for it to fall away easily didn’t help.

The window’s actual lock wasn’t broken, didn’t have any deformities that kept it from latching properly, but as Nic had seen, that didn’t really matter.

Rain had been pelting the roof for almost half an hour, and if the sound of deep, distant rumbling even further above was anything to go by, the storm was only just getting started for the night.

But for now, it wasn’t enough to start making the window well before more like a traditional well, to make it look like a very unconventional fish tank until it gradually soaked into the dirt beneath the rocks that lined the bottom.

A low, metallic creeEEAak filtered into Nic’s ears, and he watched as a strange silhouette descended down the well’s wall, pausing just outside the window.

A muffled chorus of little clicks and crinks bled through the glass…and then it was being pushed aside, momentarily letting in a cool, humid draft.

The entering figure lingered on the windowsill, then carefully maneuvered himself into a partial handstand on the floor, moving forward bit-by-bit as the rest of it followed along.

Like most other nagas, his upper-half looked humanoid enough. Sure, it was covered in a thin layer of grayish-white scales, along with bands of black that wove along his arms and curved around his cheekbones and jaw in a way that nearly resembled the imprint of a face-mask, but he still managed to stay a good distance from the Uncanny Valley. (That wasn’t even mentioning his eyes; they were just as dark as Nic’s.)

And then, just about where a human’s hips would’ve gone, his waist funneled into a sinuous tail that stretched about seven feet in total length. Those inky stripes kept going from there, growing wider and wrapping about the white in near-perfect circles.

His scales glistened in the light, as did the short, dark thatch on the top of his head (because, just like merfolk, nagas had even evolved so far as to grow perfectly good hair while still being cold-blooded non-mammals! How the hell did that even work?!)

Droplets were sliding down all over him, courtesy of the storm outside, leaving thin rivers to trickle down the water and form small puddles on the floor. More of it trailed below the naga’s tail, as he turned to haul the window shut.

He didn’t seem to mind, though. Not at all.

Despite the lack of gills growing along his chest, he was clearly meant for watery environments; the end of his tail was vertically compressed into a paddle-shaped tip that boasted some vague resemblance to a fin.

Hell, Nic had even seen it in action once or twice, apart from these midnight rendezvous.

Back when he’d first moved to the Cove Port Inlets, he’d gone out of his way to find a rental as close to the local beach as possible. Yes, the bungalows and condos that had been built on on certain parts of that beach would’ve been even better, but they also couldn’t even be rented without either selling a few of your organs, or coming from a rich family with the purpose of being handed a swanky paid internship and still potentially winding up selling someone else’s organs.)

From there, he’d long-since made a habit to visit the beach a couple times per week, using some of his free time to shift and dive and swim, all the things his pelt was meant for.

Nic usually kept to himself on such swims, but it wasn’t at all uncommon for him to become a random onlooker to local merfolk and the like. And that, in turn, had paved the way for him to occasionally catch a long, spiral-striped tail gliding through the water’s haze, usually by the cluster of sea-caves that sat near the cove.

That same naga, he was sure of it, his coils winding through the water in a way that made his stripes seem to be spiraling around him. Nic had never approached him there, and he didn’t plan to in the future. Whatever errands he’d been running, wherever he was swimming to or from, he always moved so fast…

The visitor pulled away from the window, hefting himself up, finding the right balance to keep his torso upright. Metal glinted in one of his hands—a pair of long, silvery objects that ended in odd, thin hooks. He reached over to the small, dark green backpack slung around his shoulder, coaxing it open to deposit the lock-picks (that’s what they had to be, right?).

He glanced all around the room, at the equipment set up both behind and outside the viewing glass that took up the far wall.

His eyes passed by the storage closet, lingering just long enough for Nic to hold his breath and bite his tongue so hard that it was a wonder he didn’t draw blood.

The naga then slithered over to the computer, pushing the swivel chair aside and dropping his cargo next to one of the speakers. With that, he loomed in from of the monitor; despite the webbing between his fingers and the short, sharp claws in place of nails, he was pretty damn dexterous on the keyboard.

He reached into his bag again, this time fishing out a USB flash drive, as well as a thin binder. He carefully plugged the former into one of the many slots offered by the computer.

The next few minutes felt like hours as the screen flickered, as he clicked and clacked.

Like the many other times he’d dropped in, his expression was difficult to read. He seemed so engrossed in his thoughts. He didn’t blink once this entire process (though, for a humanoid snake, that was probably natural), his brow furrowed with concentration.

If Nic was completely honest, this naga had one of the most severe cases of Resting Bitch-Face he’d ever seen. But his movements were usually calm, calculated, apart from the frequent pauses and glances all around the darkened studio. Or how the paddle-tip of his tail habitually swayed back and forth with an unmistakable similarity to someone bouncing their knee or tapping their foot.

Eventually, he leaned back from the monitor, folding his arms across his chest, raising a hand to rest his chin on his palm, claws thoughtfully drumming against his cheek.

He nodded to himself, a forked tongue darting in and out of his mouth like a party favor. The corners of his lips twitched, and a tiny smile crept onto his features. It wasn’t long for this world, though.

Getting back to business, the naga ejected his USB, then searched through the binder, unclipping a few papers—sheet music, Nic knew without a doubt—that he delicately stacked on top of the audio interface. After that, he packed up his things, gave the room one last anxious glance, and crawled back over to the window.

Nic kept watching, just as he had been this whole time. He didn’t mind having to stay so still for so long, but now that he’d seen what was dropped off, his muscles were suddenly screaming at him to go over and examine it.

He knew his co-workers would find out tomorrow (not from him; they were perfectly capable of discovering the new music themselves), knew that they’d probably tell him things as well as ask him things, knew that they’d make announcements to their other clients and local listeners about the latest mystery-prize of songs and notes, courtesy of their very own urban legend. (Not just an urban legend, but an urban legend who just had such. A damn. Way with words. The songs he left behind never failed to be emotional and well-tuned.)

But he just couldn’t resist the adrenaline of getting to take the very first peek.

There was just something so…thrilling about having a ghost-singer/lyricist choose the studio you worked at to sneak their craft into the world.

Of course, this begged the question: why did this naga feel the need to sneak around with his music when he could always just apply to the studio in broad daylight like a normal person?

Well, for one thing, normal and music did not mix. Never had, never would, no matter how much the pearl-clutchers bitched and moaned.

And for another thing, plenty non-human folks around here were content with living semi-feral. Sure, they were adept with human languages and could be seen interacting with humans, but that didn’t mean they had to live like humans. They could consume certain luxuries, chat about pop culture, inform themselves on current politics, do all that good, modern stuff for one half of the day, and then spend the next half swimming or flying to catch their dinner, or make some adjustments to whatever nest or grotto they called home.

It made some things inconsistent, yeah, but it wasn’t hurting anyone.

And Nic couldn’t blame non-human creatures for doing that.

Not needing a job because you could hunt for your food and make your own dwelling out in the wild, along the beach, under the water…it sounded a lot like freedom, even if it took hard work.

The only reason Nic wasn’t living like that was because he’d been raised around nothing but humans and their jobs and buildings and clothes and culture. His parents had made sure to show him how to be a selkie, to accommodate his needs as much as they could, but there had just been so much going on back then. And there was only more going on now.

___

Grass dragged against scales as Parker slithered further and further away from Ear Caffeine. Dirt smeared around his coils as he ducked past nearby trees and bushes, but the rain was rinsing him off. On top of that, it was singing with its famously soothing rhythm, and there were so few rhythms you could actively move around in, be surrounded by.

Besides, he’d get a more thorough cleaning soon enough.

The rain bounced off his backpack, some stubborn droplets clinging on as though they were angry about not soaking into the fabric. Waterproof stuff was an obvious requirement for people like him, and this thing had been worth every damn penny.

(Well. It probably was to its previous owner, whoever had been fishing on one of the public piers that Parker had drifted directly beneath as to snatch this very backpack without being noticed. But if they could afford something so durable in the first place, then they’d have no problem getting a replacement.)

It didn’t take long for Parker’s eyes to readjust. They were built for darkness. He’d been lurking around the shadowy corners of reefs since his hatching-day. He’d swam through all sorts of depth, something letting his tail drift over the stretches of underwater sand, long after sunset.

He glanced over his shoulder a few more times than he’d care to admit; this little hobby of his had already been risky enough, and that selkie-kid hiding out in that closet only added to said risk.

…But then again, he’d caught said selkie-kid watching his trips multiple times before now. He hadn’t called it out then, because that definitely would’ve led to more trouble than he wanted to deal with. And due to the lack of any cops patrolling the cove and marina and sea-caves with a sketch of his face on-deck, the selkie still had yet to say anything about his song-planting habit.

So, he figured he just had a weird little silent agreement. From what he’d gathered through careful glances around the studio after hours, the selkie was pretty much harmless. In fact, he honestly seemed pretty chill. Nice, even. And Parker was the type who could usually just tolerate anyone and everyone outside of his personal circle. (

Hell, he found himself having to tolerate the people in that very circle, even if they had his trust and he had theirs.) So, that assessment was considerable, coming from a guy with an attitude like his.

(Good thing, too. Even with the mob’s special policy on selkies…well, Parker wouldn’t feel quite right if the one in Ear Caffeine wound up getting into trouble with his peers. Even if he didn’t know him, he was still pretty young. And he’d already proved capable of keeping secrets.)

He flicked his tongue a few times, taking in the fresh, earthy smell all around him. He hadn’t veered off—he was still on the route he’d taken on his way to the music studio.

Sooner or later, the trees opened up, leaving a decent amount of space for a creek to yawn out of the ground.

The water rippled and gurgled as the raindrops met its surface, but the storm wasn’t violent enough—yet—for the bottom to be completely obscured.

Parker crawled over to the edge and peered down.

It took a moment of scanning, but he eventually found them: a pair of glassy eyes, frozen in a moment of pain and terror, that stared up at nothing through the surface, but more and more silt was actively forming a dark, viscous shroud all around him.

It was kind of ironic; this target had met his sorry end in the ocean, near the sea-caves Parker had claimed a long time ago…and yet, he’d still found himself dragging the body out and dumping it in a creek.

Sure, he could’ve just left the corpse floating. He could’ve sought out Caliban or Murdock or any of his other peers to deflate the lungs and force it to sink, but there was still a chance that it could wash up somewhere on the beach after a while. And even if, thanks to his scales, he didn’t have much to worry about in the way of fingerprints, The Pentas Shoal was all about being thorough with the jobs they took.

They could only ever leave evidence behind when they needed to, when it was part of the game-plan.

Besides, a good amount of time would pass before anyone would have a chance to discover this guy. The raindrops were coming down harder, faster, starting to form a strange curtain to distort the air almost like an enormous school of fish. The storm was churning the creek, stirring up the mud in thick, murky clouds below the surface.

The body was already half-buried. It would take a few weeks, but he’d decay down there. There was a slight chance he’d melt into the creek floor before anyone even found him in the first place.

People got drunk or high and wandered around the city at odd hours all the time, and people—even when they were completely sober and alert—fell into canals or rivers or lakes and drowned every single year, in multiple cities across the States.

Sure, a set-up like this might look suspicious at first, but someone would inevitably bring up those variables. It wasn’t at all inconceivable for this to be chalked up to a tragic accident and nothing more.

Satisfied, Parker slithered around the creek, listening to the sound of waves in the distance. The smell of salt was steadily growing stronger–he’d be back on the beach soon, back in the water soon.

He’d have to report to The Boss before he could officially go off-duty tonight, but it would be wise to avoid his actual home for a little while longer anyway.

Just in case.

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