get me home for tea

THE SPY FROG IS EVIL

THAT WAS NOT CUTE. THIS IS CUTE

“You going away again?” John asked in his broken English, splashing his tail against the water with a small pout on his face. Paul sighed, leaning on the railing of his boat.

“I have to get back to the shore. The last time I stayed with you there was a full-blown panic going down there.”

John’s pout got stronger, and he made a small swirl in the water, huffing. The gills in his neck seemed to tremble when they came in touch with air.

“When are you coming back?” the merman asked and swam right next to the boat, starting to scratch the dirt from it. Paul shrugged.

“I don’t know. There’s not much fish in this area.”

“I can bring you some,” John looked up at him. “Or I can come- I can come with you.”

Paul winced, shuddering at the thought. Not that he wouldn’t have wanted to take John with him everywhere he went, but because of the things that other people would do to the merman. He couldn’t even bear the thought.

“No, really, You can’t,” he said, sadness in his voice. John huffed again and disappeared under the water in a matter of seconds.

Paul waited, but John didn’t come back.

“I tried to bring you more fish,” John said, swimming back and forth in front of Paul’s boat, looking relaxed, but the end of his tail was twitching weirdly every time Paul could see it.

“You did,” Paul said, already fearing for the discussion that was coming.

“So… I can be very useful,” John said slowly, keeping his piercing look on Paul. Paul swung his legs in the air slightly, from where he was sitting, his legs hanging over the edge of the boat.

“I know,” he said, his voice tight. “You can be very useful.”

John looked at him hopefully, waiting.

Paul sighed.

“I’m sorry, John, but-”

John was gone with a splash, and Paul just wished he could go after the merman, and apologise, and say that they would figure something out.

He couldn’t find John the next time he went there, and then he just had to move to another place, since the fish were gone. And he couldn’t stop the pain in his heart.

“All the fish have disappeared,” one of the older fishermen was talking. Paul was sorting out his nets, and paused in his actions to listen. People were starting to gather closer. “On the whole lagoon. There are none.”

“But how is that possible?” someone cried out, and several hushes went around the crowd. Paul tugged at his net slightly too forcefully.

“They say that when the mermaids cry, the water becomes poisonous,” one of the merchants said.

Paul dropped the net from his hands, pushed his way through people, and ran to his boat. He ignored the alarmed voices of his friends, and soon steered away from the small dock.

He searched for the whole day, calling out John’s name. He knew that John could recognise his boat from below the surface (even though he had never learnt why). It should be any moment- John should be there any moment-

He wasn’t, and Paul had to return to the shore, and he ignored his friends and family, and the other fishers, and closed himself into his small room that smelled like rotten rat, because he still hadn’t found that damn animal that had probably died somewhere under the floorboards months ago.

He went to the sea every day, spending more and more time just standing there, on the deck, looking at the blue, sometimes brown sight in front of him. Water never ceased to amaze him, how it moved, how it changed from day to day, hour to hour. He wondered whether John loved water, or was it like air to him; something that he didn’t notice, didn’t wonder at. John had always loved coming to the surface, after all; that is how they they met each other, as well.

One day, he decided not to go back to the shore. He did, in the end, after a few days, but then did it again. And each time he stayed on the sea a bit longer, until people stopped wondering and worrying. They never asked after him anymore; and soon Paul found that he didn’t exist anymore in their minds.

It was easy to forget something that wasn’t there, but Paul just couldn’t do that for John.

He wanted to try, one time, whether the water had really become poisonous. He drank, and it tasted foul, and he vomited most of it after a few hours, but that was nothing unusual.

Maybe it was just poisonous for the fish, then. Or then John had chased them all away, and went after them, as well.

Then, Paul just didn’t want to take it anymore, and jumped off the boat, and swam down, down, towards the darkness, towards the bottom that must have been somewhere. He couldn’t see a thing, except for the dark shape of his boat above him, and he shouted John’s name even though it sounded funny in his ears. He shouted once, and twice, and then he had no oxygen anymore, and he kicked himself up to his boat.

He did it again, and after three weeks, started running out of food. His nets were in the water as usual, but there were no fish.

And then, one day, Paul just didn’t have the power to return to his boat anymore.

And down he went.

He awoke from the deck of his boat, coughing up water, his fingers numb.

A hand pressed against him, and held him as he shook.

“You are an idiot,” a voice said, and Paul’s stomach jolted, his heart spinning up into a joyful beat.

“Hope you didn’t- poison the fish-” he said through his coughs, feeling like he might throw up. He heard a laugh, and oh, if it wasn’t music for his ears!

“That is a stupid tale. Actually I just shouted at them.”

Paul looked up, and looked at John, and promised that he’d make everything work. He would do it, even if it meant sacrificing everything else he had in his life. And he had a feeling that John wouldn’t mind doing the same, either.

He would make this work.

“Don’t go again,” he said, quietly, and John stroked his face with his thumb, his face gorgeous, framed by the blue, glittering sea.

“Well, if you don’t,” he said, and Paul laughed.

And the sea was always full of fish for him after that.

HAVE THEM ALL IN ANY CASE SWEETIE SINCE YOU ARE SO CUTE