Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

What has he gotten himself into?

This isn't the first time the question has crossed Eclipse’s weary mind, not by a long shot. From interviews loaded with tense conversation and double meaning, to crouching in darkened alleys waiting for the guard at the door to just stop talking and go on his five minute smoke break, to moments of frantic action and hasty flight–  there are a lot of situations he puts himself into that warrant brief self-reflection.

Leaning against the doorframe in a shabby motel bathroom, watching his adopted family member chirp and trill at an overturned bucket in the tub, is definitely one of the calmer, yet weirder instances.

Cycling his fans in a mechanical sigh, he moves his head to try and release some of the tension in his neck. It wasn't like Sol was chirping at the bucket, really, but the pair of hand-sized mers hiding underneath it. 

Hand-sized, malnourished, angry mers. That they had stolen out of a hopefully-but-maybe-not-actually abandoned warehouse filled with illegal goods. 

Eclipse sighs again. 

“You're going to wear your fans out like that.” 

Yellow eyes shift from Sol's back to across the room, where Lunar perches on the bed with his laptop. The lunar bot doesn't look up from the screen as he scrolls and clicks, occasionally pausing to scribble something on a piece of paper. “It's not like we did anything wrong– I mean, morally wrong. Maybe legally, too.”

“I know that,” Eclipse rasps, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I'm just… processing everything.” 

Because legal questions aside, they hadn't done anything wrong tonight.

The only reason Eclipse had allowed both Lunar and Sol to come along was because the warehouse was safe . The group who owned it had gotten busted over something, and the tip Eclipse had picked up was that as long as law enforcement was sniffing around, no one was going to go anywhere near seizeable assets. Not the owners, not any rivals who might end up attracting attention to themselves. It sounded like the perfect opportunity for a couple of on-the-run animatronics and their flower to get their hands on something useful. 

He hadn't realized until Sol butted into him– eyes even bigger than normal with worry and fear, holding the edge of his poncho to form a makeshift basket– that there had been live goods stored in the warehouse.

And so, the bathtub and its occupants.

Eclipse only caught glimpses of them when a fin or scaled side poked out from under their hiding spot, but according to Sol they were both in pretty poor shape, and Eclipse believed him. The warehouse had been abandoned for over a week at least . It was probably a small miracle that both of them were even alive.

“Done!” Lunar waves his sheet of paper at Eclipse, flapping it harder when his older brother doesn't immediately take it. “This stuff should work for tonight, but we're going to have to invest in like, an actual tank and stuff if Sol keeps them.”

“We'll cross that bridge later.” Eclipse skims through the list again before tucking it into his hoodie pocket. Nothing too terribly expensive, something he knows Lunar did on purpose, and he's pretty sure he'll be able to get everything. “Sol?”

The flower looks back over his shoulder, head tilted curiously, and Eclipse feels a warmth in his chest. Ever since he’d appeared at Eclipse’s elbow with his new responsibilities, Sol had refused to leave the little fish alone for even a minute. It wasn’t hard to guess why; the parallels between Sol’s former situation and that of the siren’s almost drew themselves. No matter how much trouble this was going to cause them, he wasn't going to begrudge Sol's show of compassion.

“Mm?”

“Don't let them chew on you too much, okay?” From the infrequent squeaks and flinches, it was obvious that at least one of the mers was feeling well enough to be pointy , and Sol's hands bore the brunt of its irritation. “I don't want you getting an infection or something.”

“It's okay, they've mostly calmed down now. I'm okay as long as I keep my hands away from the bucket,” Sol answers quietly, shrugging in a self-conscious way. “Hurry back safely.”

“I will.”

“-people will literally play this and be like ‘this is the easiest in the game!’. And like, uh-uh honey, I don’t know what garbage takes you’ve got that are powering you right now, but put them back.”

Eclipse freezes in the doorway, one arm full of the things he’d bought, the other on the door’s handle. Lunar is still perched on the bed, sound effects from the game he’s playing just barely audible through his headphones in the otherwise silent room. 

His little brother glances towards him briefly but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge Eclipse’s presence, and Eclipse carefully lets the door shut behind him. There was no sense in trying to talk to Lunar right now; Lunar had a schedule to keep, and only the most dire of hardware or software failures would stop him. 

Really, Eclipse doesn’t mind at all. The handful of dollars Lunar got from streaming more than offset any inconvenience.

Sol flinches at the sound of a footstep behind him, twisting around and then immediately relaxing once he sees who it is. Out of respect for the animatronic in the other room, he too keeps quiet until Eclipse shuts the bathroom door, cutting off Lunar's voice mid-sentence. Only then does Sol uncurl, shaking excess water from his arms as he stands up. “Did you get everything?”

“Yeah.” One by one the bags are emptied, their contents lined up on the edge of the counter. “Though I don't know if it's the right stuff. Lunar was mostly guessing from what you told him, so I might have to get something else tomorrow.”

Sol takes the bottle of fish antibiotics, rolling it between his hands curiously. Besides the medication being specifically for fish, and the lack of any bandages, the small collection of items is identical to what they'd used to patch up Sol when he'd first arrived. “Is this okay to use on fae?”

Eclipse places the last object, a condensation-coated bag of thawing raw shrimp, into the sink. “That's what the guy I asked said, anyway. Something about how fae don't get sick easy, but they're harder to treat with normal medicine, too.”

The bathroom door opens, almost catching the tip of Sol's tail before Lunar aborts the dramatic entrance he'd been going for. “Whoops! Uh, sorry ‘bout that!”

“It’s okay.” Sol curls his tail around his legs, making space in the small room for Lunar to scootch inside. “You’re already finished?”

“Yeah– oof! Figured this would be a lot more interesting than doing the same raids over and over just for materials, especially when the new skins aren’t even dropping until next week.” Lunar pulls himself up onto the sink where he’ll be mostly out of the way while still being able to watch. The tube of ointment almost gets knocked off in the process, until Eclipse reaches out to rescue it. 

“You’re not going to help?” he asks. 

Lunar grins at him. “Nah, my fingers are way too valuable to get mauled by some tiny sirens. I’ll leave the merhandling to you.” 

“ Thanks. ”

Sol giggles, then kneels down beside the tub again. Eclipse catches a brief flash of warm-colored scales as one of the sirens pulls back from the edge of the bucket, as if it had been watching them. 

He frowns, rays flicking briefly. “They can understand us, right? They know what’s going on?”

Lunar nods from his perch, the tip of his tail twitching. “They're fae, so they're fully sapient, and sirens are supposed to be fantastic at languages. Although some of the stuff I read suggested that they might not be able to speak all that well, it depends on how their throats are shaped and stuff.” He shrugs. “I guess we won't know until one of them yells at us.”

Eclipse nods in response. Really the important part was that the little sirens could think–  that they were people . And he's only known of them for a handful of hours, but the idea that someone had kept them in a tank with the intention to sell them, only to callously abandon them to die – 

It makes him feel sick. Bad enough for someone to leave any living thing to a slow death of starvation and illness, even worse for a being that could understand what was happening. 

As if he can read Eclipse’s mind, Lunar pipes up with a hesitant, ”Once we're done, do you want to go back and look for any others..?”

“They were the only sirens I saw,” Sol replies. “And, um… I did look really quick, and theirs was the only tank that… had movement.”

“Oh…”

He doesn't realize he's clenching his hand into a tight fist until he gets a warning, and he forces himself to relax. He could be angry later. Right now he was going to have to stress out a pair of already upset creatures, and he would need to be as calm as possible to make the process easier. 

Eclipse crouches down on the bathroom floor next to Sol. There's a ripple in the water, the sense of eyes watching him, but nothing can be seen under the bucket.

“Alright… you guys are going to hate this, but we're trying to help. Okay?”

Sol adds a few chirps and a soft trilling sound, presumably something meant to be reassuring. Eclipse grasps the bucket with both hands and pulls it out of the water, revealing the tiny creatures underneath.

Two mers: one all tangerine and rust, the other faded gold and cream. Both have tattered fins around their heads, like petals or rays, and a crescent mark on their face that was strikingly similar to the one worn by the two animatronics. 

As soon as they're exposed the tangerine siren hisses , its ragged fins flaring out in a clear threat display. No mystery as to which one had left the bite marks all over Sol's fingers, then. The gold siren lifts itself up a little and hisses as well, though with less energy behind it. Already it was clear which one of the mers was in worse shape; both had boney ribs and spines, patches of scales missing, but the gold mer’s eyes were red and nearly swollen shut, and it lay on the bottom of the tub gasping for ‘air’ between each weak hiss.

Considering what little he knew about the fish-like fae, Eclipse expected more noise out of them, but actually they were rather quiet. Maybe they knew their voices weren't strong enough to discourage someone so much bigger, or they knew it wouldn't work on non-humans. Maybe they were simply too weak to try. 

“Shh, shh, you're okay, we're friends…” Sol trills softly at the little fish, keeping both of his hands visible. Eclipse glances at him, setting the bucket aside before awkwardly raising his own hands in a mirror of surrender. Given how the healthier siren flinches, then hisses louder, Eclipse isn’t too sure that the gesture is putting them at ease.

“So… what’s the plan?” He glances down at Sol. “Start with the sicker one, I guess?”

Sol twists around and gestures at the tube of ointment on the sink. Once Lunar passes it over, he looks up at Eclipse. “Ready?”

Belatedly Eclipse realizes that he’s been volunteered to potentially get bitten– which is fine, honestly. His fingers are a lot tougher than Sol’s, and he’d have insisted on doing this part regardless. So he nods, then reaches out over the tub.

Acting on an instinct to flee , the tangerine mer moves away from the shadow of Eclipse’s hand. For a moment Eclipse hopes that this might not be as hard as he thought– before the mer immediately doubles back on itself to spread ragged fins over its companion, shielding it from view. It keeps its gaze locked onto orange and black fingers, hissing and growling .

“Well, shit.” Eclipse hesitates with his hand hovering over the water. “He’s not going to move long enough for us to grab the other one.”

“Just keep him distracted for a little bit, and I think I can manage.”

“Alright…” Steeling himself for the inevitable, Eclipse plunges his hand into the water. As expected the siren immediately lunges for it, and Eclipse can feel its claws and teeth scraping against his metal fingers. Flecks of paint rise to the surface of the churning water or sink to the bottom, where the gold and cream mer has flattened itself as if hoping to blend in. Distracted by its companion’s struggle against Eclipse’s hand, it doesn’t notice Sol inching closer until his fingers have closed around it, pulling it from the water.

“No, no it's okay, you're okay–!” Sol struggles to hold onto the gold mer as it squirms in his hands. It cheeps frantically, struggles getting weaker as it gasps for air, fins flapping in an echo of a threat display. Teeth graze a green finger, the warning bite leaving dark marks across plantflesh without drawing blood. Sol hums to it as he lowers it into his lap. 

The gold mer lays limp on Sol's legs, breathing hard, eyes squeezed shut as if expecting the worst. When nothing happens it slowly cracks one eye open, looking around. A feeble, questioning chirp escapes it. 

“See? I'm not going to hurt you, we're going to try and help you feel better,” Sol replies softly. He slowly lowers his hands so that they rest on his legs, not touching or restraining the siren. “I know what it’s like to feel sick and scared and hungry all the time, too. It’s awful.”

The tiny siren lets out another chirp, louder this time, tilting its head to the side. It pushes itself up on its arms, tail curling around its body in a comfortable loop. Its fins are still flared, trembling with every breath, but they’re slowly smoothing out as the siren calms down.

A shrill screech has it tensing up again.

Distracted by Sol's calming of the other mer, Eclipse had stopped moving his hand around to keep the orange one occupied. Now it seems to have realized that its companion is gone, and another, louder screech is accompanied by it lunging at the side of the tub, tiny claws scrabbling for purchase. It falls back into the water with a splash, barely hesitating before trying again.

“ Shit , no, hang on–” Eclipse holds his hands up against the edge of the tub, trying to block the siren before it can haul itself out of the water. He winces when the gold mer cheeps shrilly, the sound spurring the orange one into redoubling its efforts. “It’s fine – jeez! Stop freaking out!” 

“Oh, he’s really mad at you now, huh?” Lunar quips from his perch. Eclipse’s rays pin back, but all he can spare is a glare over his shoulder for how decidedly unhelpful his little brother is being right now.

The gold mer cheeps again, trying to climb through Sol’s fingers and get out of his lap, though its efforts are nowhere near as violent. Sol is able to keep it hedged in fairly easily, quietly chirping and humming to calm it back down. Without looking up, he says, “N-no, he’s just scared... they both are. They don’t know what we’re going to do, they’re probably terrified of being separated.”

Eclipse considers this, looking from the exhausted mer still trying to scale Sol’s fingers to the orange mer desperately trying to build up the momentum needed to escape. “I guess we need to hurry this up before they get even more upset– ow! ” 

Sharp pain blossoms along his wrist and up his arm, and reflexively he yanks his hands back to his chest. He feels along his wrist, fingers dipping under the casing where the siren had managed to catch some of the wires with its flailing claws. Nothing seems broken, at least, but the distraction is enough for the orange mer to finally make it up onto the edge of the tub.

Fins flared, claws digging into the fiberglass tub, its wild eyes zero in on Sol and the other mer. A subtle shiver runs through it before it bunches itself up into a tight coil. Eclipse realizes what’s about to happen a moment too late, his fingers just brushing slick scales as the siren launches itself at Sol. 

“ Ah-! ”

Sol has just enough time to bring his arms up to shield his face before the fish smacks dead-center into his chest. Its claws dig into his poncho while it hangs there for a moment, then it snaps its gaze upward and opens its mouth in a drawn out hiss. 

Eclipse doesn’t wait to see if it follows through on the implied threat– if it really is about to lunge for Sol’s throat, where even tiny teeth were long enough to do major damage, or if this was just an elaborate bluff. Before it can unhook its claws from the fabric he’s already reaching out to grab it firmly, pulling it away from his family member. 

Lunar raises himself up a bit, trying to get a better look at Sol. “You okay?”

One hand on the gold siren to steady it, though it seems to be putting its limited energy into calling to its friend rather than continuing its escape attempts, Sol pulls his collar away from his neck so that he can look down at his chest. “‘M okay. He poked me a few times but it’s nothing serious.”

The orange siren screeches, thrashing in Eclipse’s hands, prompting peeps and trills from the gold one. Eclipse adjusts his grip enough to keep it from squirming free without hurting it, and it retaliates by twisting around to claw at his joints. More pain shoots across the back of his hand when it catches delicate wires, threatening to sever them.

Maybe if their programming had been finished, if they hadn't been slated for decommissioning, Eclipse could think of a better way to de-escalate things. In essence this was nothing more than a tantrum, spurred on by the siren reaching its breaking point from prolonged fear and stress. However, Sol could have gotten hurt, the siren might end up hurting itself soon, and Eclipse had never quite mastered the art of patience when faced with something small and upset screaming its head off.

Rays pinning back, Eclipse raises the siren up to eye level and fixes it with a stern glare. His voice drops into the sharp tone of all parents and caretakers when they have had enough.

“ Stop it. ”

Even Lunar flinches. The struggling mer stills, tiny teeth and claws buried in Eclipse’s fingers. Eclipse considers giving the fish a little shake just for good measure, but he takes in the agonized look on the siren's face, the tremble in its limbs and the almost inaudible hiccuping sound it was making, and guilt immediately starts eating away his irritation. God , he was an asshole.

After all, he can understand feeling helpless when you thought someone important to you was in danger. 

“Hey, it's okay. We're not taking him away from you,” he says, trying to sound reassuring. “Sol needs to check your friend over before we put him back in the water. Okay?”

The orange mer loosens his toothy hold, but its expression remains something between terrified and unconvinced. It isn't until the gold mer calls out again that the orange one breaks eye contact, shrill cheeps and chirps exchanged between them. If the sounds have any specific meaning, Eclipse can't figure it out at all, but Sol has his head tilted like he's listening to an almost-familiar language. 

“You know… if you hold onto that one, ‘Clipse, you can keep him near this one while I doctor. If– if that's okay…?” Sol's petals fold back reflexively.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Whatever would keep the darker mer from trying to launch himself across the bathroom again. Slowly, giving the siren time to realize what was going on, Eclipse lowers his hands until they're level with Sol's lap.

Immediately the mers clasp hands, tiny fingers interlaced. The orange mer squirms a little against Eclipse’s grip, as if testing if it can escape, but it settles down with a disgusted huff when the metal fingers don't budge. Its friend chirps softly to it. 

Being able to see and touch its companion does the trick. It hisses a few times during the exam, attempting to bite down on Sol's leg once when he accidentally touches one of the sore patches on the gold mer's side, causing it to cry out– but compared to before, the orange siren is being a downright angel. Eclipse is certain the constant stream of soft chirps and hums from the gold mer has a lot to do with it, too.

“Okay, I think that's all we can do for now?” Sol eventually says, removing his hands from his patient. “Clean water and medicine and time are going to have to do most of the work, though...”

Before Eclipse can answer, the orange mer in his hands twists violently, pushing aside metal fingers that had loosened their grip while the captive had been on good behavior. The orange mer doesn't go far with his newfound freedom, dragging himself into Sol's lap to curl around its companion. Alternating between chitters and cheeps, it inspects every inch of the gold and cream mer, who patiently allows itself to be rolled around and handled. When it gets to the ragged fins, Sol reaches out to block the small siren.

“Ah, wait–” He flinches at the outright murderous look he gets, threatening despite the mer's small size, but persists. “Don’t– don't groom them, you'll make it worse. They have to heal.”

The unimpressed expression on the siren’s face, complete with an eye roll , startles a bark of laughter out of Eclipse. Shoving Sol's fingers out of the way, the siren continues its careful examination of the ointment smeared onto the damaged edges. Once it seems satisfied, it flops over its companion, fins flaring in ‘do not touch’.

“How'd we pick up Eclipse’s lost fish twin?” Lunar snickers. Eclipse’s rays pin back and flare again as the question sinks in.

“Lost–?! How is that anything like me?!” he splutters, pointing at the tangerine fish. It shrinks back from the sudden motion, but relaxes when Eclipse doesn’t actually reach for it. 

Now it’s Sol’s turn to chuckle. “He– he has a point! You have the same colors, and rays, and he’s pretty protective.” 

The compliment makes his chest feel fuzzy and his face hot, and all Eclipse can do is look off towards one of the walls while Lunar and Sol giggle about it. “Shut up… it's not like we can also call him ‘Eclipse’.”

“They probably already have names. Right?” Lunar looks to the tangle of gold and rust in Sol's lap. It takes them a moment to realize they've been addressed, the gold mer nudging the other to get his attention, then both stare up at Lunar.

“If they have names they're probably in fish,” Eclipse points out. Which… he could probably get the hang of a fish name if it was made of the same clicks and chirps he'd been hearing from them all evening, but it'd be easier if they could use words. “I dunno, maybe we can nickname them.” 

The sirens look at one another, peeping softly, before the gold one looks up and nods. Nicknames are approved.

Immediately Lunar points at the orange mer. “ Bitey .”

Eclipse chokes on a laugh as the orange mer pushes itself up and hisses at Lunar, fins flaring. The fact that its companion is also chirping in a way that sounds almost like laughter doesn’t improve its mood any, and it hisses at the other mer, too. 

“Okay, okay, not Bitey,” Sol soothes. “Um… all I can think now is that he really looks like Eclipse, though–  maybe something like that? ‘Clipse, Clip, maybe?”

At least ‘Clip’ wasn't one of the nicknames Lunar and Sol used for him very often, so it was probably fine if the little siren took it. “Clip is fine with me. What about the other one?”

Lunar huffs, propping his head on his hand. “He doesn't look like me , so that's not an easy answer. They both kind of look the same, honestly–  just different colors.”

Both fish did look pretty similar; if they were animatronics, they'd probably be the same model. Eclipse drums his fingers on the floor in thought. “...Sun.” 

“Sun?” Sol tilts his head, looking down at the sirens. “Oh– because he's gold? Yeah, I can see that.”

Ignoring Lunar's snort, knowing that his little brother is judging the hell out of him for giving away yet another variant of his name, Eclipse focuses on the tiny mers. “Hey. We didn't really get introduced? I'm Eclipse, and that's my brother, Lunar. And this is Solstice, but we call him Sol most of the time.”

Sun whistles cheerfully, the ragged frills around its head flaring out, and Eclipse finds himself copying the gesture with his rays. Meanwhile Clip just hisses lowly, subsiding into a grumble when Sun glares at him, and shifts to bury his face in Sun's side.

Sun's tail flicks once, then he shoves Clip off of him and almost directly into Sol's hands. Giving the stunned tangerine mer a gentle headbutt, Sun crawls towards Eclipse, who automatically opens his hands for the siren to climb in to. It gets settled in a loose coil of dusty gold and cream, and even though it's breathing awful hard for relatively little movement, he looks rather pleased with himself. 

Clip lets out a downright pitiful cheep, and only gets a trilling response. 

“Uh… I guess he wants me to make sure you get doctored, too?” Sol offers, gently rubbing a fingertip behind the mer's crest in an attempt to comfort it. Clip hisses and makes a halfhearted swipe, more preoccupied with crooning sadly at the golden siren.

“Here, it's fine–” Eclipse huffs, bringing his cupped hands close enough that the tiny mers can once again latch onto each other. “I'm not going to put him back in the tub yet, I don’t want you losing it again. It's a good thing you guys can stay out of the water for a while.”

Sol frowns a little, tilting his head. He gently presses the side of his finger to Clip’s scales, ignoring how the tiny siren wiggles, then reaches over to do the same to Sun. “Oh. I think Clip has a fever. He definitely feels warmer than Sun…”

The tangerine and rust mer makes a kind of grumbling sound, curling up so that his tailfin covers his head, hiding him from scrutiny. Now that he's looking closer, Eclipse can see how the mer's sides rise and fall in the same exaggerated way as Sun's, even if it's not audibly gasping for breath. His movements are more sluggish now as well, whatever energy he'd had beginning to run out. 

So Clip’s apparent health had been nothing more than an adrenaline-fueled ruse. It had probably wanted to also sit miserably at the bottom of the tub, yet fear for its companion's safety had driven it to lash out.

Again, anger curls in Eclipse’s chest, though he does his best to swallow it down for later, focusing instead on how Sol gently turns Clip this way and that to check the raw spots on his fins and down his sides. Sun keeps up the soft chirps and croons that had kept Clip calm earlier, petting the frills around its head whenever possible. 

“Okay… he doesn't have as many bad patches, though he broke the skin on his side here with all the thrashing around.” Green fingers just skirt the edges of a missing patch of scales, where Eclipse can see brighter red against rust. “It's stopped bleeding already, so I think it's alright? I put ointment on it at least.”

Sun trills, squirming in Eclipse’s hands until he loosens his grip, then pulling itself into Sol's lap to sprawl out over its companion. It performs the same examination of every wound, though Clip shoves its face away from his fins before it can start trying to clean them. The tangerine siren is obviously exhausted, only hissing mildly when Sol carefully gathers both sirens in his hands, then moves them back to the tub. Eclipse grabs the bucket and plops it into the water as well, and immediately the fish duck underneath it and out of sight. 

Flicking water from his hands, Sol contemplates the bucket with a kind of sadness. “I'm going to try to doctor them twice a day, I think, and hopefully they'll start getting better. It's just gonna take time.”

“You've got this,” Eclipse says, reaching over to rest his hand on Sol's head. The flower makes a kind of cheep sound, leaning into the contact when Eclipse gently brushes over his petals. Some of the tension eases from his shoulders. 

“Are we done for tonight?” Lunar has his arms resting along his legs, tailtip twitching every other second. The glow of his eyes is dim, and Eclipse can feel his own systems starting to struggle with a low charge. It had been… a very long day, hadn’t it? 

“Yeah, almost.” One last pat for Sol before Eclipse pushes himself up off of the floor. The bag of shrimp seems mostly thawed, and the lid of a styrofoam container becomes a makeshift plate for a well deserved dinner. He takes the time to kind of chop the meat up with a plastic knife as well, hoping that smaller pieces will be easier to eat– or at least just less weird than shrimp tails floating in the tub.

“Don’t give them very much,” Lunar warns, and Eclipse nods. It had definitely been a while since the little fish had eaten anything, and Eclipse knew from experience with Sol’s recovery that too much food too soon would just make them sick. They didn’t need the stress of upset stomachs on top of everything else that was wrong with them.

Still, he can’t help feeling bad about the downright pathetic portions of shrimp sitting on the plate. Not even half a shrimp each, the surface dulled by the antibiotic powder that had been sprinkled on top. Hopefully the medicine wouldn’t make them taste too bad to eat, because this was the best way to make sure they took it.

There’s someone else looking at the shrimp as well. Eclipse considers the large brown eyes staring at him from beside the tub, and with a chuckle he hands the bag to Sol. “Here– there’s no way they’re going to be able to finish off all of this before it goes bad, not at the rate of one shrimp per meal. Just leave them about a handful.”

Sol takes the bag with a quiet ‘thank you’, settling it into his lap. Watching Sol delicately pluck the raw shrimp out of the bag and eat them, tail and all, messes with the part of his programming that insists raw food is unsafe, and Eclipse averts his gaze. A flash of scales draws his attention to the tub, where Sun's head just pokes out of the water. The gold mer ducks under the surface once he's noticed, but Eclipse can see him still watching. 

It'd be easiest to pull the fish back out of the tub, but Eclipse doesn't want to stress them out even more tonight. So instead he takes the plate and simply sets it in the water, holding onto one edge so that the sirens can't capsize it. 

“Alright, c'mon. You guys have got to be hungry.”

Clip is just a dusky lump in the bucket’s shadow, its fins flicking at the sound of Eclipse’s voice, but it shows no sign of wanting to move. At least Sun is more active, barely; it swims back towards the bucket when the plate touches the water, but soon pops its head up again. Irritated eyes squint at the plate and its contents, then up at Eclipse. It whistles a question.

“It's food.” Eclipse inclines his head towards Sol. “Same as what he's eating.”

The ragged crest around its head flares out and smooths back, reminding Eclipse of how he’ll move his own rays unconsciously when thinking. The little siren is definitely thinking right now, gaze moving from the plate, to Eclipse’s face, to Sol. An indecisive wiggle sends ripples across the water. Finally, with one more agitated whine and a quick glance back towards the bucket, Sun slowly swims closer to the plate.

Eclipse holds it as still as possible when tiny hands cautiously grasp the lip of the plate, Sun pulling himself up just enough to peek over the edge. Its eyes widen at the sight of the shrimp, crest and fins flaring out. Excitement, maybe? 

In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it maneuver, Sun lunges onto the plate and snatches a chunk of shrimp, then flicks his tail and shoves himself away. Now safely outside of arm’s reach, the siren floats on his back so that he can better examine the squishy bit of meat in his webbed hands, sniffing it like a cat with unfamiliar food.

Honestly, given what they’d learned from Sol, the shrimp might actually be unfamiliar food. Even if it was so blatantly obvious that the best food for a fish was ‘other things from the water’, the people that had kept Sol decided that a plant with teeth could live off of dirt, so it was likely that the sirens had only known something equally unappetizing.

Not anymore, though. Sun finally works up the nerve to take a tiny bite, and the downright shock on his face, followed by him cramming the entire chunk into his mouth at once, immediately has both Eclipse and Lunar laughing. 

“Yeah, Sol had the same reaction the first time he got a decent meal,” Lunar volunteers from his perch. The flower in question ducks his head, tail curling around himself in embarrassment. 

Sun trills brightly, returning to the plate to grab another chunk. However, this time he dives under the surface, a flash of gold across patchy scales as he swims back to the bucket. 

Ah, of course. Something warm and fuzzy curls in Eclipse’s chest as he watches the hint of movement in the shadow of the siren’s hiding place. No sound makes it to the surface, but it’s pretty easy to guess what happened when Sun returns to the plate with no shrimp and a hesitant Clip swimming in his wake. 

“Wait, hold on–”

Eclipse lifts the plate away from the water just as the two sirens reach it, and the utter betrayal on their faces and in their tiny wails stabs right into his core. “No, it’s okay, I’m not– I’ll let you eat, I promise! Just, you have to stay at the surface to do it.” He tilts the plate a little, trying to show them the top of it without the shrimp sliding off. “That powder that’s on it is medicine, but it’ll wash off.”

Ignoring Lunar’s snickering, Eclipse slowly lowers the plate back to where the fish can reach it. Given the mix of mistrust and irritation in their expressions he’s half expecting one of them to try to knock the plate out of his hand for that little stunt. What he’s not expecting is for Sun to swim close enough to nip his finger before retreating. It doesn’t hurt, of course, but the message is crystal clear. 

“Yeah, okay. I’m sorry I did that without warning,” he says. The gold siren glares at him for a moment longer before its fins smooth back down, and it turns its attention to its companion, chirping and peeping encouragingly. 

In the end, Clip isn’t brave enough to take any of the food for itself, hanging back where it can watch Eclipse’s hands for any threat of grabbing while Sun brings it pieces of shrimp. It doesn’t escape Eclipse’s notice that Sun deliberately grabs the biggest chunks for its companion, eating its own portions while still at the plate where Clip can’t see, and he makes a mental note to try and cut future meals into about equal volumes of large and small pieces. It wouldn’t do the siren’s recovery any good if it was going hungry while trying to take care of Clip. 

The plate clears out in no time, and as soon as Sun realizes that there’s no more food, he turns sad, pleading eyes up to Eclipse and trills a question. The animatronic can only shrug apologetically as he removes the plate from the water. “Sorry. I know it’s not enough, but we don’t want you making yourselves sick.”

Sun cheeps sadly, sinking lower in the water. Clip is already curled into a loose knot of rust and tangerine at the bottom of the tub, apparently too tired to keep himself afloat, yet the hint of a yellow eye proves that it’s not willing to relax as long as there are people around. Probably the only reason its tolerating being so exposed is because it refuses to let Sun out of its sight.

“ Now we’re done. Right?” A yawn threatens to topple Lunar right off of the sink, and without waiting for Eclipse’s answer he hops down onto the floor. The sudden movement startles Sol, who had been dozing off against the wall, heedless of how the bag of shrimp is leaving a growing wet spot on his clothes. The flower looks around blearily, then yawns, muttering something when Lunar grabs the bag.

“Yeah, we’re done for tonight.” Eclipse lets his fingers trail in the water, creating gentle ripples. It was kind of hard to believe that not twelve hours ago he’d been doublechecking that he had the right address for the warehouse, and his biggest concern was making their raid as efficient as possible. Now it was nearly four in the morning, there was only a pathetic amount of salvage in the corner of the room, and their otherwise unused tub had a pair of sickly sirens in it. 

A flash of muted gold draws him out of his head. Sun is inching closer to the hand that he still has in the water, fins tucked tight in uncertainty. To Eclipse’s surprise, the siren gathers its nerve before it presses into the curl of his fingers, settling against them with a nervous smile and soft peeps. Its tiny claws run over the damaged paint and scratched metal, gently grooming him. 

A thank you. 

For saving them from the warehouse, for treating their wounds and feeding them. The sirens were both still terrified , and Eclipse has no doubt that if he moves anything more than his rays or fingers, the little fish will be back under the bucket in a heartbeat– not to mention Clip will probably attack him– but for now, Sun was trusting him.

The anger he’d felt before bubbles up again, and he has to manually lock his arm controls for a moment so he won’t scare the fish by moving. His other hand clenches into a tight fist around a handful of his pants, the fabric worn and faded. Like the patchy scales on Clip and Sun’s sides, the scars twisted around Sol’s extremities. The inescapable marks of abandonment.

They didn't deserve this. 

He has no idea if the sirens had been hatched in captivity or taken from the ocean, but either way, being trapped in a tiny tank with no food and filthy water, with only each other as company… it wasn't any way to live. 

No more than being on the run because you were just a loose end to be tied up on some pencil pusher’s inventory, or being hacked apart constantly so your limbs could be harvested.

His thumb gently rubs against Sun's crest, and the gold mer freezes at the contact before leaning into it with a tiny chirp. Eclipse’s throat feels tight, forcing his words into no more than a murmur. “Hey…we’re going to look after you guys now. You’ll be okay with us.”

Lunar mutters something about Eclipse being a ‘sap’ but there's no real bite to the words. His little brother acted aloof, like what had happened to them was a terrible time that he’d moved on from– and yet Eclipse knows it’s exactly that: an act. Lunar is just as worried about the newest additions to their family as himself and Sol. 

And that thought plagues him: as he twitches his fingers to signal to Sun that he was about to take his hand back, and the siren heads for the bucket without further prompting, followed closely by Clip; as he scoops up a sleepy Sol, who protests that no, he hadn’t fallen back asleep against the wall, and who sacks out as soon as he shucks off his damp clothes and crawls into bed; as he hands Lunar his charging cable and does one last check that the door is locked, turning off all but one of the lights before heading to bed himself.

His family. He was responsible for their safety. 

The pile of salvage sits in the corner of the room as an unpleasant reminder of the danger Eclipse courted every single time he took a shady job. It paid well, of course. They always paid well. And he didn’t really like moving from place to place, but he and Lunar didn’t have a choice at first.

Sol had complicated things. A terrified, sickly organic that needed to be fed and kept warm and a place to sleep regularly. Suddenly taking quick naps in the bushes off the side of the road and stealing car batteries wasn’t good enough. 

Eclipse had already been toying with the idea that maybe it was time for him to wash his hands of this lifestyle for good– every job he took risked putting him into contact with the people that had once owned Sol, which put all of them in danger.

And now the little sirens. 

The door to the bathroom is just a dark shape in the mirror, and the angle would be all wrong for Eclipse to be able to see into the tub anyway, but the bucket with its two occupants looms in his mind. They would need to be kept in water, they needed a proper setup once they were better. There was no way Eclipse could keep a whole aquarium tank on his bike. The sirens needed a permanent home.

They all did.

A low battery warning pings at him, and with a sigh Eclipse files his thoughts away for now. Take things one day at a time. Tomorrow the fish would need to be doctored and fed again, and the water in the tub changed. After that… is after that.

As Eclipse enters sleep mode, he just barely catches what sounds like quiet singing from the bathroom, and he falls asleep with a smile.