15. In Hawt Water

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

IN HAWT WATER

The Present: Trick on pack property dealing with shit

He was free.

Sato’s all too familiar grip relaxed enough for him to get away. The fire-breathing dragonflies vanished. His head cleared for a moment in utter relief. Nothing else was in there, of course, but no one had ever described Trick as smart.

Once more the instinct to run and shift and change was overwhelming.

Once more there was no safety or recourse in being a dratsie. Maybe an otter could hide better in the bushes. Maybe. But not so much that a werewolf couldn’t sniff him out easily. Especially not here in their territory. And his otter form certainly wasn’t fast enough on land to get away from any one of them.

One desperate look around and he took refuge in the only place that seemed even remotely defensible – the steps to Max and Brian’s apartment, higher ground.

To be honest, Trick was a little scared of Max. He found him gorgeous, of course. Best thing about his mornings, Max in spandex after his run, getting his absurdly sweet morning coffee. But also a little scary. Max was sharp with his words as well as his abilities, cutting. As if all parts of him had been broken into shards of glass. Max clearly didn’t give a fuck if those shards turned into weapons. All of Max could be a weapon, he was that powerful.

So Trick only went halfway up the stairs, not too close to Max, and crouched there, not sure what else to do.

He stared at Sato. The merman was bleeding from a long slash, maybe more, in one leg and slumped on the ground. No longer holding onto Patrick, he was trying to hold onto his own side instead. But his arms looked limp. His spurs had retracted. Probably against his will.

Still, he tried to get to his feet, hunched in pain, lurch toward Trick. Focused solely on him as he always had been. That look in his eyes. That lie. The one that said only Trick mattered. That one big lie Trick had believed with his whole stupid little heart.

Bryan, in wolf form, materialized out of the underbrush. He’d been on shift with an EMT team that day, and usually just ran home as a wolf afterward. Trick wondered how long he’d been there. No doubt since before Alec had arrived. Alec was like that. Prepared.

Bryan dropped the uniform he’d been holding in a plastic bag in his mouth, and leapt to guard the base of the stairs.

So now Sato was facing off against Bryan the wolf defending both Patrick and his mate. There was no way Sato was getting up those stairs.

Sato lost it. “More wolves? Get out of my way!”

Bryan’s hackles were up and his ruff puffed huge. He growled, low and threatening.

Sato lurched toward him. His spurs back out.

Trick found himself saying, like he was back in high school, “No, Sato, baby, not that werewolf.”

But it was too late. As it would have been back then.

And why was he even warning Sato? Why was he even worried about him? Why was Sato still bleeding so much? Why was he clutching his side in so much pain? Why hadn’t he healed more by now?

Which was when Max finally lost patience with the whole absurd situation. He slid down the stair railing like a child. Zoomed past Trick, landing at the bottom right next to his familiar with a flourish.

Max buried his hand in the fur on the top of Bryan’s head. There was a strong smell of ozone in the air, strong enough for even Trick to sense.

Trick knew, in theory, that quintessence was all around them all the time. But for the first time he could swear he felt it activate. Like there were charged particles in the air, electrified dust motes, and they were all being summoned toward Max and Bryan.

It felt like an awful lot of power. An electrical storm or something. If he were in otter form, his fur would be standing on end.

Sato must have felt it too.

But he just stood there, naked, panting, bleeding, shivering, eyes fixed on Trick, on the stairs. Not even acknowledging the threat of the two directly in front of him.

He lurched forward, as if to simply move around or through them, up the stairs to Trick, as if Trick were the real power, as if Trick had quintessence that was summoning Sato.

“Why won’t you just stop ?” wondered Max. “Is this some kind of obsession? Stalking?”

Sato didn’t answer. All his weight on his good leg. Unbalanced.

Max looked down at Bryan, “This is clearly overkill. Why bother to waste the energy?”

Bryan yapped at him in agreement. Then he shifted, right there, into his human form. As naked as Sato and as uncaring. Trick always thought Bryan was the kindest looking of the pack, with his friendly, craggy face, a little scruffy. He was older than Alec and they didn’t look alike. Except they had the same gentle hazel eyes.

Sato said, a touch plaintively, “Why are you all so big?”

Naked Bryan interposed himself between Patrick and Sato.

Alec, Kevin, and Judd all came over and joined Bryan and Max. Now there was a wall of men between Sato and Trick.

Sato looked like he was determined to break through that wall, anyway.

“Why. Are there. So many of you? Seriously, Patrick?”

What right did Sato have to take offense? What right had Sato to turn back up in Trick’s life right when things were starting to be actually not bad for the first time in a really long while?

“What now?” Kevin asked his Alpha. “Impasse?”

Alec sighed. “Trick, what do you want us to do about him?”

“He’s bleeding,” was all Trick could think to say.

“We’re aware,” said Max.

Alec turned and looked at Trick hard for a long moment. Trusting the rest of his pack implicitly to keep an eye on Sato. “I think this might require Isaac. Is he awake?”

“If he isn’t, should be soon,” said Judd. “He’s on shift at nine.”

Alec said, “Kevin, go get him, please. Explain that we need an Omega to handle a merman problem.” He looked at Sato and Trick. “You two need to talk this out.’

Sato sneered.

Trick said, “But the bleeding?”

Alec gave a huge sigh. “It’s a lot harder to be Alpha to non-werewolves. I’m at a loss here.” He glanced around at his pack, “Should I use VOICE?”

“You can try,” said Bryan. “But why don’t I just patch up the merman?”

Trick was shocked to realize he’d momentarily forgotten Bryan was a medic.

“Trick.” Alec was speaking to him again. “Hey, Trick? Why don’t you go get in your car?”

“What?”

“Good idea.” That was Judd. “Familiar territory. Otters have some prey instincts. He probably needs to hide right now.”

Alec said, “Not sure it will work as well with a dratsie, but maybe he’d feel safer there. Get some of his brain functioning again. He seems to have gone all spacey.”

Trick thought they were talking about him and he was indeed feeling spacey but at least Bryan was looking after Sato’s wounds now. The Beta was frowning and focused on Sato’s leg.

Trick was torn, worried about Sato, wanting to make sure he was okay.

But also that was Sato . Yes, he wanted to see Sato badly, wanted him to be healthy, wanted to touch him and get close to him. But he also wanted to get away. Stay away from him. That was the instinct that kept winning and it looked like it might be bubbling up to the surface again.

Now that Sato was getting help, soon he would feel better. Soon he would chase Patrick again.

Then what? Trick heard himself whimpering and his teeth began to chatter.

“He’s panicking again,” said Judd.

Judd was standing behind Sato now and holding him steady. Holding him upright, but also, holding him away from Trick.

“Try VOICE, Alec,” suggested Bryan.

“Marvin said it wouldn’t work on water shifters.” That was Max.

“Can’t hurt to try,” insisted the Beta.

Alec said in a bellowing, echoing, rich tone, “TRICK, GO TO YOUR CAR.”

Trick thought that was a great idea . His sad old car was suddenly the most appealing thing in the world. With its four flat tires and the fact that it probably wouldn’t ever start again. He hadn’t been inside it in weeks. Not since he moved into Colin’s room. But now he should definitely go check on his car. Get inside it.

He stood, legs shaking, and started walking down the stairs.

“What do ya know?” said Max. “Marvin was wrong.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe it just doesn’t work on Marvin,” said Alec.

Trick was thinking only about his car. The only thing he really owned. The only thing that was really his after Sato stopped being his.

Trick sidled past the wolves, hugging the side of the garage. Staying as far away from them, and Sato, as he could.

The pack clustered around Sato, tending to him and entrapping him, keeping him upright and keeping him from following Trick. Behind those massive bodies Trick caught glimpses of Sato’s eyes on him, desperately tracking him. The merman looked so small, surrounded by werewolves.

Sato’s spurs were out and his forearms were up.

Sato couldn’t fight all of them. But he was going to try.

“Ouch, fuck me, those are sharp.” That was Kevin.

Bryan said, “Keep those things away from me. I’m trying to help you, you stupid merman. Judd, grab his damn hands and get them behind his back.”

“Fuck his hands , grab him by the damn balls!” complained Kevin.

Sato wasn’t going to be able to follow Patrick no matter what, now.

Which meant that yet again, Sato wouldn’t follow him. Like before. No Sato would come after him.

Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

Trick heard Sato’s yell and then a kind of keening cry of pain and loss. Not a noise he’d ever heard before. It was the sound a dying dolphin makes.

Alec’s voice came again. That terrible awesome bell-like VOICE, “BE STILL, VANGILL.”

The garage was cold and musty inside. It wasn’t crammed with stuff, just some construction material and tools stacked neatly on the back wall. Mostly it was filled with one very old station wagon, unlocked.

Trick climbed into the way back, curled himself up in his old blanket there. There was a ragged toy there too. A blue fish plushy. Stolen from a convenience store. Left behind by a child with scared eyes a lifetime ago.

The dragonflies were back inside Trick again. No longer breathing fire, they now wielded tiny pickaxes and were intent on beating pinholes behind his eyes. The rest of Trick ached like he’d been running for days, rather than just up the hill home to pack grounds.

Ached like he’d run a marathon.

A marathon that had lasted ten years.

And was now over.

The Present: Sato on pack property dealing with shit

“BE STILL, VANGILL.” Alec’s tone was lower than when he spoke naturally, oppressive.

Sato thought he could grow to hate that voice even as he found himself subsiding under the weight of it. Could noise be heavy? The sound settled into his bones, making them do what the Alpha wanted despite his objections. It was like being under deep, deep waters, in the middle of a trench made of volume.

“He won’t stay under VOICE for long,” said Alec.

Sato wondered if this was what it felt like to be locked under a mermaid’s Medusa gaze. He wondered how Alec could gauge the effectiveness of his VOICE. Was it like dealing out a wound with spurs? Did Alec instinctively know the depth of vocal injury from experience?

“I’m surprised it worked at all.” That was the enforcer, Kevin.

“Me too. Perhaps it’s because he has loyalty to Trick and Trick is loyal to me.”

“Or perhaps it’s because he’s vangill, and accustomed to taking orders,” suggested Judd.

Sato felt lost and alone. Patrick had walked away. Patrick was out of his sight. Again. When he’d only just found him. Because of werewolves.

“Separation anxiety is strong with this one,” said a new voice. Yet another werewolf.

Sato dragged his eyes from the Alpha and onto the newcomer. This one was tall, like the others. although not as tall as either enforcer or the Beta. He had an open, friendly face, with a wide mouth and close-cropped, well-tended facial hair. He was lean like a swimmer rather than bulky like the two enforcers.

“You summoned me, Alpha?” said the man, rather sarcastically for a wolf talking to his Alpha.

Alec didn’t seem to mind.

“I think your powers might be called forward, to facilitate conversation.”

“My powers , you say?”

Alec ignored the sarcasm. “Isaac, this here is a vangill merman named Sato Daiki, Patrick’s ex-boyfriend.”

Sato wanted to protest because really, when had they broken up? But BE STILL apparently meant his lips must stay still too. Effective.

Except that it wasn’t.

The weight left him as quickly as it had settled, perhaps because Alec’s attention was diverted or perhaps VOICE had a limited time frame of effectiveness.

He jerked, stumbled, but not much or very far because three wolves still had their massive warm hands on him.

“Patrick?” he rasped, feeling dry and cold and tired and in pain. Lost because he’d finally found Patrick again after all this time, and Patrick had left him.

The Alpha’s voice was steady but no longer weighted with compulsion. “He’s safe right there in the garage. He hasn’t gone anywhere. Just relax. Answer some questions. The Omega will help.”

“How?” wondered Sato. Isaac was just another werewolf, although admittedly this time dressed in tight jeans and a black muscle T with the sleeves rolled up and the logo of some bar.

“Omegas always help,” said Bryan, with soft confidence.

Isaac stood directly in front of Sato and bent to look into his face. Their gazes met and clashed, in a way that for most shifters would’ve been misconstrued as a challenge. But this werewolf’s eyes were somehow accepting. Not kind, but understanding.

“Tell me about your connection with Trick.” Isaac had a mild voice, not too deep but round and resonant. If Sato paid attention to sounds, he might have called it pretty. But for Sato the world above the water had only two kinds of noises, good ones and bad ones. This was a good one.

Sato stayed silent.

Isaac pressed, “You and Trick dated? A while ago?”

Sato considered this. Was dating the right word? How could he articulate his past? How was he supposed to explain how Patrick fit into it? Because Patrick was his past. All of it. The entirety of who he was formed around Patrick. He wasn’t himself without Patrick, because when he lost Patrick he lost the core of himself too. Ever since Sato had performed the act of existing, a surface creature with no depth. The foam on the top of the waves. Under those circumstances, a word like dating seemed childish and insufficient. But to say that might make him sound insane, or obsessed, or trying to aggrandize a childhood crush.

“He is my mate.” Sato didn’t know the exact meaning of the word for werewolves, but he thought maybe their language was the best language in this matter.

“Oh, indeed?” Isaac didn’t seem disbelieving, just curious.

“Do otters have mates?” asked Kevin.

Isaac looked away from Sato, who was relieved to have those all-knowing eyes off him, and said to his Alpha, “The pack isn’t helping. I think you should leave us, Bryan can stay holding him. We’ll be fine. I think this is a private matter and Sato here is a private person.”

Sato was beyond grateful for the understanding. A weird sensation, because why should he be grateful to the werewolves for anything?

Alec cocked his head a moment, then said, “If you think so. I’m hungry anyway. Inside, boys.”

With which the majority of the wolves simply left. Disappearing with remarkable effectiveness into the overgrowth.

Only Bryan stayed behind, holding onto Sato in a way that was both supportive and confining. Sato didn’t mind all that much. He wasn’t going to struggle. He doubted his stupid human legs were still working anyway. He didn’t like being touched by someone who wasn’t Patrick, but at least he was still upright.

“ Mate isn’t exactly correct, is it?” Isaac’s intensity was focused on him once more.

“Mermen are naturally solitary, or at least that’s what I was always told. Your Marvin seems to be an exception,” Sato said. There was something about Isaac that made it easy to talk, even for him.

“The Alpha-mate is exceptional.”

Sato frowned. “I’m not. I’m also solitary. The exception for me was always Patrick. From the beginning. I don’t need you. I don’t need a pack. But I need him and he needs me and he’s been lost for so long. I’ve been searching for a decade.”

“You didn’t abandon him?”

“Of course not.”

“You have a good explanation?”

“If he would listen. I came back. He did not wait long enough.”

“Ah, you abandoned each other.”

Sato thought about it for a moment. “That seems increasingly likely.”

“You’re an odd one, aren’t you?” said Bryan from near his left ear.

“Said the wolf to the fish,” replied Isaac. “I’m just going to step into the garage and see how Trick is doing. You two stay here for a moment.”

Silence descended. Bryan did not let go and he did not talk. Sato shivered and was grateful.

A long few minutes later and the garage door went up. Sato was looking at the insides of a box that contained a few assorted objects and one very sad old vehicle. The back hatch was up and Patrick was curled inside the trunk area. Isaac stood outside next to him, arms crossed. Both of them were looking at Sato.

Bryan let Sato go.

Sato stumbled but remained upright, proud of himself for that. He limped slowly – well, stumbled – to the car. Sat gingerly on one corner of the bumper, the opposite side from Patrick.

Talking hadn’t been helping him much so far. This time Sato stayed silent and just took Patrick in.

He’d always been a tiny slip of a thing and he was still slender, too much so. His face was leaner. He’d lost all his baby fat, but he still had that big forehead and pretty eyes. There were crinkles at the corners of those eyes that had never been there before. His hair was short now and it had darkened to brown. His amazing smile seemed to have vanished along with the floppy blond hair. Both had been ubiquitous when they were kids.

Sato could hardly believe it, but there were things he’d forgotten. That Patrick’s eyes angled down a little at the outer corners. That his lashes were long and his nose slightly too large. That his bottom lip was fuller than his top one, so that when he wasn’t smiling he looked pouty. Sato was shocked at having forgotten anything at all about this boy .

The silence continued. The two of them stared at each other.

Finally Patrick shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “What are you doing here, Sato-san?”

“Again with the san ? You really are mad.”

“Ten years, Sato-san. Ten years since you didn’t come for me. I waited. I waited until I couldn’t anymore and I had to run and you never came for me!”

Isaac said gently, “Give him time to explain, Trick.”

“He’s had ten years !”

Sato moved closer. He was always better at touching than he was at talking. At least with Patrick. Sato put a hand out and curled it around Patrick’s ankle.

Patrick jerked away and back into the car.

It hurt.

Isaac turned and looked at him. “And you need to give him space. Ask before you touch.”

He retracted his hand. “If you insist. But I am never letting him out of my sight again.”

Patrick was truculent. “I’m right here in front of you.”

Sato acknowledged this with a curt nod. But he slid back to sit inside the trunk area as well. He coiled back so as not to touch and not to be tempted to touch, as far away as he could while still being in the car with Patrick. The strain of it made his bones ache. Or maybe that was just the aftereffects of a bear fight.

“I see what the Alpha was on about,” said Isaac, to no one in particular. Maybe Bryan was still there. Sato refused to look away from Patrick.

Patrick said, finally, still staring at him hard. “Explain then, and it better be a good one.”

So Sato explained. He told Patrick about the tsunami, and the rescue efforts, and the rebuild efforts, and more rescuing. About none of the phones working and by the time he got through never getting an answer from Patrick or his sire. He told him about working with the vangill, as a team. He told him about the stupid metal medals that the humans insisted on giving them, even though mermen had nothing to pin awards onto. He told him every detail he could think of, to corroborate his story.

“You could look it up,” he said. “I think there are even pictures of us online somewhere. Although it was a long time ago, before the interwebs were really a thing.”

Patrick was looking more sad and thoughtful than angry.

Sato continued, “And then I had to swim all the way back to you and my sire. By the time I got there, I was three weeks past the date you said you were leaving for college. Sire was dead. There were strange humans in his house. Your family wasn’t there anymore. I assumed you’d gone on ahead but there were crazy rumors about human children, and you being a bad guy, and you vanishing illegally. You had disappeared into the dry world of human roads and endless land. When I asked too much about you, the uniforms started following me. I assumed they were after you, so I returned to the Deep. But I didn’t give up.

“I followed you. Or I thought I was following. To that school and that massive city. You weren’t there. Or anywhere around there. I searched all the places and things you had mentioned. Other universities in other cities that had drama departments like you wanted. But there was no trace of you at all. It was as if you had died like my sire. I just kept hunting, didn’t know what else to do. Then my sister became the Paralia of All Seas. She needed a vangill, and the easiest, best option was me. I thought because she was Paralia at least I would get to have consistent contact with the landbound and other water shifters like dratsie. So every time we came to shore I asked. I looked for you. I looked for any trace of any dobhar-chú whatsoever. Your people are hard enough to find. You alone was harder.”

Patrick said, softly, “Dratsie don’t like to register with DURPS. We make it a point to avoid such things.”

“But you were never like that. You always said you didn’t want to be like them. You said you’d go legit. So I checked the registry every DURPS I could. I checked it here when I arrived.” Sato wondered how much his Patrick had changed on the inside. Sato had only been noticing outside differences, but perhaps the parts that he could not see were even more altered.

Isaac smiled down at Patrick. “Legal issues? I know how it goes. I was on the run myself for a long time.”

“Why didn’t you wait for me to get back?” Sato asked. “I know I was late, but I was always going to come for you. When had I ever not? Was it your family?”

Patrick pulled up his legs and hugged them, rested his face inside them so his eye sockets matched up with his kneecaps. He looked very small and Sato wanted to hug him very badly. He pushed himself back until the hard edge of some broken bit of car dug into his back.

When Patrick’s voice came again it was muffled and thick. “I ran out of time. And everything got so bad and so crazy so fast. I couldn’t risk waiting for you. The things my family was doing, and the people they were paying off, and your father dying, everything came to a head. The only thing I could do was run away. So I ran.”

“I wish you’d left a message for me.”

“I didn’t know where I was going, only that I had to get away.”

Isaac said, “So there it is, you two missed each other, and now you’re back together again. Is that so bad?”

He was obviously asking Patrick because Sato saw nothing bad with any of this except that he couldn’t hold Patrick.

And then Patrick lifted his head and rested his chin on one knee, and the fear was still in his eyes. He carefully looked away from Sato to Isaac.

“Yeah, because of what I became for a long time when he wasn’t with me.”

“What did you become?” asked Isaac, gently.

“Lost.”

“Ah, I see. You fear trusting again when you barely survived the first time parting.”

Isaac, Sato realized, was good with words. And understanding. Was that what made him an Omega?

Sato was somewhat relieved. Patrick’s fear wasn’t of him, it was of losing him again. Missing him after depending upon him.

“So if I just stay close. If I just don’t go anywhere. Would you maybe come to like me again? Let me hold you again?” Sato wondered.

Patrick’s eyes on him were sad and desperate. “I don’t know. Was that bit of me broken a decade ago, or was it, like you, just missing for a really long time? Does the part of me that loved without fear return with you, the source of the pain, or is it gone forever?”

Sato considered this. Considered Patrick. The missing bit of his soul. Possibly his whole soul. Had he felt anything at all since Patrick left, or had it just been the numbness at the bottom of the ocean? He was a solitary creature of some ancient sea-borne lore, a throwback monster with weapons for arms and a heart that had only ever opened one time for one person.

“I guess we will find out, since I’m not going anywhere.” He would take any part of Patrick he could get, even if it never returned to what it was. Even if it was only a fraction. Even if what had been a tree was now nothing but driftwood. He didn’t have any other choice.

Patrick sighed. “As single-minded and stubborn as ever.”

“You may have changed, but I did not.”

Isaac said, “Everyone changes.”

“If Patrick wants me to change, I will change. If he wants me to come to land and never swim again, that is what I will do. I would have followed him to the big city. I will follow him here into your little town. I will come to your pack lands and court him if that’s what’s required. I will sleep in this car on the side of a road with him if you do not want us. I would have done all of it back then and I will do any of it now.”

“What happened to your pride?” said Patrick, as if he really missed it.

Sato cocked his head. What pride had he ever had? Pride in what? Pride in his tail because it was big and pretty-colored? Patrick was not in the water where he could chase and catch him using it. Pride in his spurs because they were powerful? They had only brought him to the attention of the mermaids who would otherwise have left him alone. The only thing he’d ever been proud of was earning Patrick’s love, and he had no idea how he’d done that. The most precious thing in the world was a gift that he’d valued more than anything and still somehow managed to destroy. What right had he to be proud?

“I think you’ve confused pride with being an antisocial asshole,” said Sato, meaning it.

Patrick gave a funny, watery chuckle. Not a sound Sato had heard from him. He missed that unguarded bright bark of laughter Patrick used to give whenever Sato spoke his mind and was accidentally amusing.

“What about your sister?” Patrick asked.

“What about her?”

“You are her vangill. The protector of the Paralia of All Seas. Surely you love her and wish to take care of her. You can’t simply abandon her and your duty to pod, and ocean, and family. Can you?”

Sato scoffed. “Have you forgotten how few shits I have to give? If Mother wishes to move their pod here to this little dirty bay of yours, then I will stay her vangill. If she does not, then we will part ways when the diplomatic pod dissolves. I was with her to find you. I have found you. I’m done.”

“What if they ban you from the seas?”

“Your Alpha has won rights to this bay. I can swim in it at his discretion. But even if they went so far, I will learn to swim in freshwater.”

“You would give up your tail for me?” Patrick seemed truly surprised.

How could Sato possibly make him understand?

“I would give up anything. I don’t care. It’s just you.” He was frustrated. How to voice this so Patrick would truly understand? “There is no alternative. There is only you or looking for you. I have no future plan or place to go without you in it. I was always going to just keep searching until I found you or died trying.”

Patrick’s eyes were wide on him. Shocked.

“Oh. Did you think I was the strong one? No, baby, that was always you.”

Patrick looked briefly away from Sato at Isaac, clearly confused.

“You are his moral compass, I think. He imprinted on you, like a cult leader, and that’s all he knows to do. I’m afraid you got yourself a merman whether you like it or not.”

“Is that healthy?”

“I’m a bartender, not an actual shrink, you know?”

“Still?”

“Probably not. But of all the shifter species, the merfolk are the most alien to us landbound creatures. One tail compared to four legs – it’s nearly impossible to understand. Even Marvin confuses us werewolves most of the time. Including his mate.”

“Sato and Marvin are very different,” insisted Patrick.

“And yet both, in their way, chose exile. I think, if pressed, Marvin might say the same thing about Alec. It’s a different dynamic, of course. But Alec is his world, and has been since high school.”

Patrick blinked at him, startled. “I had no idea.”

“Yeah, they met way back then, Marvin was this weird goth kid, used to watch Alec’s swim practice. Met him again years later when his sister came to land to investigate and brought him along as liaison. But Marvin knew which pack they were going in to talk with. He knew Alec would be there. I think he even made a point of requesting him as point of contact. He’d never forgotten Alec either.”

Sato turned his head, looked to the side, considered. “Maybe it takes some of us like that. Or maybe all of us mermen are secretly like that, it’s just that most aren’t lucky enough to find their… what did you call it… moral compass?”

“You’re not mad at being diminished like that?” wondered Patrick.

Sato shook his head. Who was he to be diminished by the truth? He wondered what he might do to get Patrick to accept him again. Or at least to stop huddling like that, cringing and alone.

Time was whenever they were together they would be touching. He missed Patrick’s small hands all over him. He missed it so much.

He took a deep breath, turned to the Omega. “Do you have any catfish?”

“Random question. You’d have to ask Lovejoy but he’s at work already. It’s Friday night – his food truck is catering opening ceremonies for that Marine Biology conference. You could check the freezer, I suppose.”

Sato stood. “Show me where.”

Isaac blinked at him. “Right now?”

“I need to make katsu.”

Patrick’s shoulders relaxed. “Katsu?” his voice was less thick, more hopeful.

“Katsu,” said Sato, firmly. “And you should come watch me do it and tell me how bad it is and how different from sire’s technique and stick your finger into the sauce when I’m not looking like you used to with him and?—”

Patrick firmed his mouth, then unwrapped his arms from his legs. “Okay, katsu.”