“Yeah, we’ll head down and see you then,” Blake nodded.
“Thank you, Noel,” Marin leaned forward, reaching out to place his fingertips on Noel’s elbow.Marin raised his eyebrows, sincere.“I know it must be really scary to reveal yourself to someone.I genuinely appreciate you taking the risk to help me.”
“Mmm hmm,” Noel hummed in lieu of a proper response.He tapped the toe of his boot, beginning to jog his knee in place.To Blake, it looked like he was about to burst out of his skin in discomfort—it didn’t surprise him.There was a good chance that Noel had spoken more words in that one conversation than Blake had heard out of him the entire time he’d known the poor guy.
“We’ll let you go clean up, Noel.Thanks for all this.”Blake waved, knowing when to take his exit.Marin turned to the door of the employee lounge alongside him.As they exited the room, Blake heard the sound of Noel releasing a tremulous breath.
You weren’t wrong about that social anxiety, Matt,Blake thought as he and Marin descended the stairs.
“You doing okay?”he asked.Marin started, appearing to have been wrapped up in his thoughts.
“Hm?”He turned to face Blake, shaking himself.“Yeah, sorry—I’m happy to have found someone like me, but… it’s a lot to process.”
“Yeah, the ‘other mythical creatures living among us’ thing sent me for a loop.That and the ‘mermaid hunter’ part.”Blake shook his head.“That’s some Men in Black level stuff.”
“What should we do about Celeste?”Marin asked.“Since they’re collaborating with us on this, I want to let them know that we have someone else helping, but I don’t want to out Noel.”
“I agree.Let’s get Noel up to speed once we get down to the pool and see what he has to say,” Blake said, leading Marin down the stairs.“He’s also probably going to have more questions about the whole pygmalion thing in general.You sure you’re okay getting him involved?”
“If he’d like to help, I wouldn’t have a problem with it,” Marin told him as they crossed through the arcade towards the park entrance.
Twenty minutes later saw Noel arriving in the wave pool building, dressed in a tee shirt and swim trunks.It had taken Blake a solid thirty seconds to recognize the guy without the theatrical cut of his black eyeshadow and white foundation.Noel’s face was round and boyish, the bridge of his nose covered with a pronounced splatter of freckles.He was patient as they explained the situation to him, sure to mention Celeste’s involvement, the caveats, and what they knew so far.
Noel chewed his lip, chipping away with his nail polish with a furrowed brow.“Would it… would it be okay if I helped?”
“That would be amazing!”Marin beamed, reaching out to touch Noel’s shoulder.
“Honestly, we could use all the help we could get,” Blake told him.“We’ll be sure to keep your secret safe, though—maybe we could tell Celeste you’re an expert on merpeople?”
“No, that won’t be necessary.”Noel shook his head, balling his hands into fists and tucking them at his sides.“For the sake of transparency, I want your friend to know about me as well.If they already know about you, and it’s been safe so far, then I think—I think I would be okay with that.”
He hazarded a glance at Blake.“I know I’ve had problems with you in the past, Blake, but I know you’re a good person and I want to do everything I can to help save Marin.”
“Thank you,” Blake and Marin said in unison.
“Your trust is appreciated,” Marin continued, squeezing Noel’s shoulder before turning his attention towards the pool.“You’re really kind, Noel.”
As Noel mumbled his thanks, the three settled on the lip of the pool, their feet grazing the surface of the water.Both Noel and Marin’s calves were peppered with small, twinkling scales—Noel’s a blush pink, Marin’s lavender and blue.
“Whether or not you’ll start to transform is going to depend on the humidity and how much you’re submerged,” Noel was explaining as he shucked off his Ghost band tee.“Something like washing your hands isn’t going to change you without your willing it, but if you dunk your hands or feet in water, the wet skin will get scales, like this—so you’ll have to intentionally prevent yourself from transforming.”
“What humidity should he watch out for?”Blake asked.
“It’ll start getting iffy around eighty percent, but once it hits ninety, you’re going to have to make a concerted effort not to sprout scales,” Noel said.“Be sure to keep an eye on the wet bulb temperature, too.”
“Should we be writing this down?”Marin chuckled.
“Oh!I uh, I’ll make a folder on Google Drive with all this info in it that I can send you later,” Noel told him, rubbing over the scars on his forearms.
“Google… Drive…?”Marin repeated, mystified.
“Yeah, it’s like… it’s not a big deal, I’ll explain later.Here, let’s get in,” Noel uttered, scrabbling out of his shorts and hurling himself into the water in a quick, smooth movement.Beneath the panels of the water’s surface, his legs blurred together, flushing to a baby pink before taking on a pearlescent sheen.A pair of diaphanous fins unfurled from the tip, spreading out in the water.Noel surfaced a moment later, and the spray of freckles on his nose had become a Technicolor splatter of fuchsia and violet, his ears transformed to small fins laden down with his gauges.
“So,” he began, head bobbing in the current his tail produced.“Even when you’re underwater, you should be able to switch between your fin and legs—I saw that you were able to switch back after getting out of the kiddie pool.”
“Yeah,” Marin confirmed, tugging off his shorts.At that particular moment, Blake found it very important that he take out his cellphone and scrutinize his background picture.
Once he heard Marin enter the water, Blake allowed himself to glance back down at him.Marin’s scales glittered beneath the water; the light reflecting off of his and Noel’s tails cast prisms over the bright blue bottom of the pool.They circled one another as they conversed, moving with a fluidity that Blake had never before seen in humans—it would have been a little eerie if it weren’t for the otherworldly beauty of their aquatic forms.
