Archive of Our Own ^beta

Between Azul's side hustles, Floyd liked the deal-making more than the dining.

Mostro Lounge could use a bouncer sure, but that wasn't a regular thing. Usually it was scolding and sighs whenever he snacked on an order or added something he wasn't supposed to or just had more fun messing with the guests than serving them. It was consistency this, customer service that, and if he wasn't gonna play nice than Azul didn't want him in there. It's not like he did either, but Jade could stand all that hospitality nonsense so he'd have to make do with his kicks where he could get them, whether that meant looming over a table to watch its students squirm or trying to make a new drink at the counter and making monstrosities and the occasional, surprisingly-good concoction.

When someone had to pay though? That was just the thing to get him grinning. The way guys got all white and shaky before he even got to them, running and scattering like small fry! The chase that got his heart pumping so loud he could hear it in his ears like a drum! That was the kinda stuff he liked doing up here on land! None of that boring resto junk Azul and Jade liked roping him into.

He had to admit though. Mostro was getting fun nowadays. Mostly cause of Shrimpy. Cause Shrimpy's fun! They're a stupid kind of fun, and a weird kind of funny, always smiling no matter what he does to 'em, even if it doesn't reach their eyes. They actually try to squeeze back when he squeezes 'em! So of course first time they did that, he took it as a challenge, and they did the same until Goldfishie came along and pulled them away 'cause their ribs were creaking.

They don't mind when he drags em away to do this or that. Sometimes they even head to him first. They got friends, Crabby and Mackarel and Sealie and the other first-years they've schooled with, but after they started coming to Octavinelle a lot and even sometimes before, they'd spot him and ask him to help them hide. He flung em up into a tree once, and forgot them because after their buddies left Jade came to get him. When he came back they'd gotten down somehow and left a note saying thanks and pls don't do that again.

(He'd do it again. He'd do it again a lot if he could, but Azul doesn't want 'em getting sick on him. They just get such a funny face about it, scared of heights but more scared of getting caught. Their smile when they're scared makes their face weirder and funnier.  Carrying them does the same thing though, making them cling to him like he's the tree they're trying not to fall from. They don't have his range but their grip's like a limpet when they want it to be.)

Doesn't matter if he's in a bad mood- seeing Shrimpy perks him right up! Kinda like a battery, he guesses. Having them on him and clinging makes him feel like he's got something buzzing around in his guts. Shrimpy only heads to Octavinelle because they're busy though, cause they have a deal with Azul for helping with cooking and serving for cash and other kitchen stuff. It's annoying to wait, so he'll help em out here and there so they can get to doing the fun stuff without Azul and Jade nagging at them. (The face they made the first or second or seventh time he helped them carry a tray and stopped them from tripping wasn't that funny, but it made him wanna grin like he saw something that was.)

Floyd isn't in a bad mood when he enters Mostro Lounge. Could just be too early for anything to set him off though. He's only there at dawn because Jade asked him to pick up something that got delivered last night.

He finds the stuff near the front of the door, and when he decides to grab a drink,  he finds a shape at a back table. He's baring his teeth before he realizes it, dropping the box to dash over, a delighted "Shrimpy!" ringing throughout the resto.

The shape doesn't move. Not at the noise of the fallen box. Not at the clomping of his incoming footsteps. Not even at another call of their name. The shape is Shrimpy, but they don't smile. They don't move.

"Oi Shrimpy, wake up!"

They pass out easily. He showed them some stuff in his room before and they were knocked out after lying on his bed for just a couple seconds. They'd woken up then when he shook them a little, looking sheepish and sleepy. He touches their shoulder now and they don't flinch, don't startle up with a sorry smile and his name in their mouth.

They stay slumped on the table, head on their arms, and when he turns em over they're breathing, faintly, chokingly, through bloody lips-

There's red dripping down their face, a sticky streak trailing from their nose. Their sleeve is soaked where they were lying on it. Some of it's crusted already.

"Shrimpy. . .?"

Their eyes slide open a little, or maybe he just moved them too much. They don't look at him, or smile, or say a word.

They really are a shrimp, a tiny, boneless thing curled up in his arms as he runs, holding them tight because one of them has to or they'll fall.

~ ~ ~

Stress. Fatigue. Overexertion.

That's what the doc says. Mostro Lounge isn't Shrimpy's only job, and they don't only work. They tutor and help the ghosts and work at Seahorse's and read until late at libraries trying to find something. They'd tell him when they had other things to do, when they really couldn't follow him. They had a lot of stuff to do recently. Shrimpy's real stupid. They shouldn't have tried to hang out so much in the first place, if they were gonna be like this.

He's seen what happens when people get beat up. Bandages sometimes, but spells mostly do the trick. Spells don't work on Shrimpy. Potions don't really work either, or no one wants to risk it. They don't have any magic, so they could get sicker if they take them. They'd nearly thrown up the water-breathing potion Azul gave 'em back then. Shrimpy beat themself up doing too much, so now they're stuck in bed, asleep, some tube going into their arm because that's supposed to help.

They woke up a little, when the doc was around and Azul and Jade were too. They hadn't looked at them, not really, not at him either. They said something like sorry, something like don't tell, then passed out again. Azul scolded them softly though they couldn't hear, told them not to worry, then he left. Jade stayed for a while, but he left too. Classes would go on. Business was going to run. Shrimpy'd probably be embarrassed if Mostro Lounge closed just because they bled on it. Maybe he'll tell Shrimpy they did close shop to see the face they'll make.

"You're gonna be late to class, y'know."

They always make a fuss about that. They have to help Grim become a great magician. They want to understand how everything here works, like some mer fresh to land and legs.

They breathe and they sleep, and they miss class.

"Your buddies are gonna come lookin' for ya. I'm not helping you this time."

Even when they were tryna hide from the crocodile, when they'd ask to stand behind him as Urchin and Mackarel ran around looking for them, they were always at least a little sorry about it. They didn't want the others to know they were working at the Lounge, but they didn't like seeing them worry either. He should have sold them out. They would have worn a funny face then, instead of lying like this.

"You better get up," he mumbles. "It's your fault I dropped that box of whatever."

It had sounded breakable. Chimed like bits of glassy things as it fell. Maybe he should run back to the lounge and bring back a shard of whatever it was to show em. It would probably cut his hand. They'd probably scold him about it and grab the bandages they always had to patch him up.

They don't do anything but lie there.

"You're being a real pain, right now."

They'd grin about that, and if you weren't a friend they'd let it roll over them. Useless, magicless, pain the neck, nobody- they'd smile, maybe say sure and at least I know it and what's your excuse? Then, whoever said it would get madder, and when he was around, he'd have a bit of fun cause Shrimpy was a worker and Azul always said not to let people pick on the staff. But if it was Crabby or Urchin, or any of their pals saying it, they'd grin wide and bright and it would reach their eyes.

Their mouth and eyes stay shut.

He's been sitting on a chair beside them, but he moves closer. He stretches over them to rest his head on their legs, to look up at them from their lap. Shrimpy didn't like it when he did that, when he made them into a pillow for passing out on his bed.

Why not? he asked.

Nobody likes people staring at their double chin! Shrimpy had their head tipped back, trying to hide that blubber. And you're gonna give me pins and needles!

He hadn't known what that was, and when they told him, he'd switched the two of them around. He'd known what the sensation was after all, known it by some other name once, but pins and needles was more fun to say. He kept them on his lap until trying to stand made his legs prickle and tingle like he just got them again. The tickly feeling trickled into rest of him when Shrimp laughed, their own messed-up feet doing little to help them escape him as he grabbed them.

He lays there as they lay sleeping. The sun climbs higher. Morning classes come and go. Jade and Azul come by too.

"Yuu will be fine," Jade says, and he knows Jade believes that.

"Shrimpy should stop bein' a flounder then."

Azul looks down at them. "Yuu doesn't have your level of stamina-"

"So why'd you let 'em work?"

Azul fixes his glasses, looking away, looking bothered. "They insisted-"

"I insist stuff, but you don't let me do whatever I want."

". . .well, you don't have to worry about that anyway. As of today, Yuu's no longer a part of Mostro Lounge's staff."

He lets his eyes flicker to Azul as he moves away. "You're deciding that for them?"

"I wouldn't have let them work if I'd known their schedule! They're lucky I'm giving them severance pay at all considering the concealment."

"They're gonna be mad at ya."

"Well they're going to have to deal with me being mad at them first. You will not believe how difficult it was to shake off their companions! If anyone asks, they stayed overnight for Octavinelle's library. Understand?"

He turns back to the shrimp. He watches their chest rise and fall. Azul was being noisy. Shouldn't that wake em up? Shouldn't their friends being worried wake em up? They don't like lying. When their friends came they never said they worked at the Lounge. They'd say they talked with Jade or Azul or hung out with him.

"Understand, Floyd?"

Shrimpy stays still and sleeping. "Yeah."

Azul sighs. A hand falls on his shoulder. A paper bag crinkles by the foot of the bed.

Jade smiles. "I brought lunch."

"Not hungry."

"You should eat," Azul insists.

"Shrimpy ain't eating, and they're s'posed t'be fine right?"

"I got something for both of you," Jade continues calmly. "Something simple and healthy."

"Bleh." He should get them snacks. They liked the weird snacks he found, and they'd save him stuff from Seahorse's shop too-

"They should wake up by tonight," Azul says, as though if he does it enough times, he'll believe it. "You don't seem keen on going anywhere, so bring them to my office when they do."

". . .kay."

Azul and Jade leave. The sun gets higher. Then it gets lower, and the sky turns orange.

Hey, it's my sky!

Hmm?

My sky! Shrimp sky. It's all orange and white-like a cooked shrimp!

Hah! You're weird, Shrimpy!

Must be cause I'm hanging out with you-

They moved.

Floyd's eyes snap open. He stays very still. 

They move, shifting, groaning. Maybe he's been lying like this so long that he got stuck- he doesn't wanna move as their arms do. A hand falls on his head and stops as it curls around his hair.

They push themself to sitting with their other elbow. They look at him, hand still on his head. They blink. They look startled. They look at him.

"Floyd. . .?"

Their voice is cracked and low.

He laughs at it, at them, as they lean over him, brushing the hair from his face and frowning like he's the one who's been knocked out too long.

"Hey, Shrimpy."

"Floyd. . . .hey? Uh, where are we?"

"Sick room at Octavinelle."

"Sick-?"

"You passed out. Bled everywhere. Don't you remember?"

"I-? Oh. Oh shit oh fuck what time is it?!"

He laughs.

"Floyd, Floyd please, I need the time-"

They're trying to leave the bed, even tossing the blanket away. He finally moves- his arms wrapping around their legs to keep them on the bed as he lies on their lap.

"Floyd!"

"You missed school already!"

"What?!"

"Yep!"

"Grim's gonna kill-Ace and Deuce are gonna- oh the Ghosts the Profs oh everyone's gonna kill me."

"Better just stay here then."

"Floyd!"

It sounds right. That sounds right. They sound alive. They look alive. They look annoyed but happy, they're mad but they're trying not to smile at him. They're holding his face in their hands, and the position kinda hurts his neck after he was lying on one side for so long but he can't really care as they look at him.

". . .you're not gonna let me go anytime soon, are you?"

"Nope!"

They sigh and flop back on the bed. ". . .can you at least get off my legs? You're really heavy."

"Hmm. Nah!"

"Do you just want a pillow? I'll give you my pillow-"

"I want Shrimpy's legs! You're just gonna run off if I let go. Then you'll fall down again."

"I would not!"

"Would." He presses his head down, and snickers at their sigh.

They rise up again to glare. "I'm gonna kick you."

He grins, daring them to. The legs wiggle like bait on a hook but go nowhere.

"Fine! I guess you just own my legs then! Freaky Foot-Thief Floyd-"

"They're mine?"

They stop. They swallow. "That was a joke. My legs are my own property-"

"Maybe I should hack em off. So you stop squirming."

"And what exactly do you plan to do with two human legs?!"

"I dunno. Eat them?"

"Eat-?!"

He cackles. "I heard humans used to eat mer tails. It's only fair, right?"

"I never ate any! Just eat pork! I hear that tastes like humans-"

"But the kitchen's so far!" he whines. "Shrimpy's right here-"

"W-won't I taste like shrimp?!"

He grins, let's find out in his eyes. He opens his mouth over their leg-

And gets a mouthful of pillow. For someone who's been in bed for a half a day, they're surprisingly strong. Floyd blinks up from where he's grinning on the ground. Shrimpy glares at him, pillow raised.

"You're so mean, Shrimpy!"

"Mean?! You're the one trying to eat me!"

"You wouldn't feel it! You were dead to the world since you passed out!"

"Since I-?!"

Their face changes again. It's hard to get bored of it. It's hard not to stare after it had been stuck on nothing but asleep and nothing for so long.

". . .have you been here this whole time?"

"Yeah? Not like there was anything interesting to do."

They look down at him from over the bed, their hair falling all around their face as their sunset sky lights them up. He looks up at them as he lies with his back on the floor. He remembers, for some reason, that storybook that he and Jade used to have, and the picture of a human prince looking over the edge of his ship and into the eyes of a mermaid princess in the sea.

Something sparkles in the orange light. Something wet falls onto his face. They blink and more watery pearls fall, and they retreat to the bed, out of sight-

He gets up immediately, to keep them from disappearing.

"Sorry! Sorry just- you shouldn't have done that, you didn't have to stay. . ."

They like mixing their feelings and faces, but they don't like showing it. Behind the hands they're trying to cover their mouth and eyes with, they smile at him with tears in their eyes.

"Sorry. It must have been really boring for you."

. . .it was. It sucked. He plops down beside them and leans over, their head in the crook of his neck. "Yeah, was pretty dull. So you gotta make up for it, Shrimpy!"

They make an odd little laugh that's colored with their crying. "Sure. Will do!"

They are a mean little shrimp. It's nice being there, sitting side by side, and he could've fallen asleep like that if they didn't try to stand. But they do try to stand, and that makes him fall sidewards a bit. It also tugs the tube in their hand and they give it a look.

"Can I yank it out?"

"No way! You're supposed to- where's my bag?"

"Mostro, probably."  Must have been there by the table where they took a nap. Azul might have gotten it, and that reminds him that he has to take em to the octopus.

"Hey, Shrimpy?"

"Yeah?"

"You're fired."

They glance at him from the drawer they're rifling through. They look at him a moment, then sigh. "Yeah, figures."

"You aren't mad?"

They shrug, a roll and scissors in hand. "It is what it is. Told Azul I could handle it, and I couldn't. . .hey, can you help me with this?"

He does. They do let him yank the tube out after all, once they've peeled the tape around it off and told him which way to tug. They press the gauze on their hand, and it stains red under their fingers. He looks at the tube in his own hand, its end red, and lifts it to his mouth-

"Aww, you don't taste like shrimp."

"Who told you to taste it?!"

He laughs as they elbow him. There's a sound then, a growling grumbling thing, and they pause their lame beating to look mortified.

"Oh yeah, Jade got ya something."

He tears the bag open and immediately makes a face.

". . .it's mushrooms, isn't it?"

He shoves the container of risotto their way. "You eat em."

"Later. Hands busy."

"You could just shove your face in there."

"I'm not Grim!"

"Nope! You're a tidy little Shrimpy."

"Tidy little Shrimpy asks you take the box away from tidy little Shrimpy's face-"

He wants to smash it into their face more then, but that would make them smell like shrooms. He huffs and finds the spoon. "Here."

They blink at the bit of plastic filled with rice. "Floyd, you don't have to feed me."

"We gotta head to Azul before you go. Don't wanna wait."

"It'll be another minute. Just hold on a-arhguh!"

He snorts as their mouth closes around the spoon, just so it doesn't spill. It doesn't work.

"Hehe. Shrimpy's messy!"

They glare with beady shrimp eyes. "And whose fau-urghhg!"

He laughs again, and again, and again as they try to talk and he shuts them up. At last they snatch the paper bowl and the spoon from him and feed themself.

"Aww, is Shrimpy ma-argrhmn!"

He gives a look that promises murder as they cackle. They quickly gulp down the rest of the food and dart out of the way of his first lunge, taking the other container of risotto as they do. They down it with impressive speed as he chases them around, but at last they're cornered. They toss the empty containers aside.

"Whatcha gonna do, huh?"

Their confidence melts away at the look in his eyes.

A minute later, he's hauling them out of the room. They cling to his neck as he runs through the halls of Octavinelle for the Lounge.

"Lemmedownlemmedownlemmedownlemmedown-!"

"Nopenopenopenopenope-!"

They bury their face his chest and he holds them tighter as he runs, grinning like crazy.

~ ~ ~

"Why'd you need money anyway?"

Shrimpy frowns at him in the evening light. The way to Ramshackle is long, and Azul didn't trust them not to pass out. He didn't either.

"It's. . ." They look ahead, away- "It's not for me-"

"Is someone shaking you for cash?"

"What? No, just. For emergencies. For Grim, if something happens to me."

"What's gonna happen to ya?"

"Who knows?"

"Hmm."

"Hey, I'm not going anywhere now-"

"Things'll happen to ya if you go looking. And you go looking for trouble a lot."

"Me? Nooooo-"

He leans and grins. "You sure, Shrimpy?"

They stop. They blink dumbly as he tips his head, looming, teeth shining sharp-

Then they grin, their choppers blunt and set in their own bright smile. "I'm sure!"

They spin on their heel but their smile and their eyes're in his eyes and he's remembering that dumb picture book again, those little shapes of a human and mer-

"Oh, you going back now?"

They've gotten ahead of him, despite his longer legs. Maybe he should chop his legs off a bit so they'd match. Or maybe he could chop off theirs and eat them and just carry em around.

He laughs at the thought.

He catches up and they give him a happy-confused kind of look because they heard him chuckle, even though they don't know what he was thinking, and that makes him want to laugh more.

"Anyway, since I'm down a job, guess we can hang out more, huh?"

The words tug at his mouth. He always smiles a lot with them, so much it hurts. It would be fun, whatever they do, whether they're hanging out or hiding or even doing lame stuff at Mostro-

Stress. Fatigue. Overexertion.

It's dim, but there are circles around their eyes. He can see them in the dark again, blood on their face, gaze distant, voiceless like a dead, floating thing-

"Nah, you'd just pass out."

They laugh. It's bright. It's alive. They're alive. They walk and they talk like they never needed a tube in their hand, like he never dragged them anywhere, or scared em, or messed with em after they've been busy-

"See you, Floyd!"

They're at the gate to Ramshackle, hand raised in a wave.

"Thanks for. . .you know."

They look happy to be back. Whenever they ran to him, almost nothing was new. When he'd walk em back or dump them in their dusty dorm, they'd have a new scratch or some scrapes. If they were a mer, they'd have nicked off all their scales by now, and he'd have laughed at the blood in the water.

They've got a hand on the gate that he wants to tear off. They're a human but they have scales- tough patches on their fingers from all their scrubbing and writing, scabs between the scars from being a klutz. If they weren't so bad at having magic Azul could just give them a new one, and he could keep the old one until he'd get bored. They've got a smile with teeth and shape soft as they are, and he'd pluck it out if he could. He'd put the pearly whites in his pocket like stones on the seafloor to line up and look at whenever he'd want. They've got a look in their eyes that he's seen a million times, the kind they have when their pals call em a pain, when he looks when they call his name, and he should be bored of it by now since it isn't that weird or funny, but if he ever had to yank out their eyeballs, he'd want them to look at him like this as he does it, even if the look would stick forever. (He probably won't have to. He probably won't. Their face now's as much a barnacle on his brain as their face all morning. )

Floyd grins with fangs and raises a hand and its claws. "Bye, Shrimpy!"

Another smile. Another wave. They head up the hill, and he thinks of running after them, slinging an arm around their shoulders even if they'll end up tumbling down the slope. They'd give a goodbye even if they'd said it before. They'd say it at Mostro, then again if he'd followed them to the dorm entrance for squeeze. They'd laugh, Kay, now see ya! , then they'd leave just to run back to him the next time they needed sneaking from their buddies.

They don't turn back. He doesn't move.

They don't fall. They reach the entrance. They're pulled into the doorway, then pulled inside. The wind carries whispers of worry as the door shuts behind them, the shouts of their friends for being gone for so long-

Do you even know my name?

Yeah?

You ever gonna use it?

Ehh, why should I?

I dunno. Variety? You don't call Jade or Azul anything. 

That's cause Jade's Jade and Azul's Azul-

And Shrimpy's Shrimpy?

Yep!

. . .ha, fair enough. Would be weird to hear you say it now, honestly-

He stands in the dark, the old dorm looming like a distant lighthouse.

"Bye, Yuu."

The night and its winds swallow his words like the building on the hill swallowed its prefect.

Nobody runs out of Ramshackle.

Floyd turns away, and he lets the night eat him up too.