It had only been a few days since Tide and Alex’s adventure in the kelp forest, and all of the merboys were out playing together in the sunlit-shallows, when suddenly a mighty horn sounded a distant fanfare. All the boys raced to greet the sound, excited to meet their fathers at last.
They waited at the edge of the kelp forest, each too fearful to enter. The fanfare repeated periodically, growing closer each time, until it seemed to be blaring out right in front of them. At that point, the kelp plants waved and bulged and rippled outward. The boys backed away to make room, sinking low above the sand in fear of the approaching assemblage.
Just then the wall of kelp bowed respectfully, revealing a proud group of masculine giants. They were astounding, and powerful looking, unlike the pudgy, tender merboys. Even Alex, who had memories of adults, was impressed by just how imposing they were. Not only were they much larger than the boys, they were also muscular and angular and their features were distinctly more fishlike. They had thick scales matching their tail color packed inside their underarms, dusting their chests, creeping down their forearms, and trailing up to their belly buttons. Many even had rough-looking scales growing from their faces in various, attractive patterns.
“Dad!?” “Daddy!?” “Papa!?” One by one, the group of merboys recognized their long awaited parents and rushed to meet them.
Alex, too, scanned the assortment of strapping mermen, griping Tide’s hand tightly in anticipation, and before it had even consciously registered in his mind, he was already shouting joyous greetings at the top of his lungs in excitement at the sight of two butch mermen with beautifully colored tails that would certainly mix together to create Alex’s own particular shade of sapphire blue. He threw his arms around the nearest man’s neck and the other man quickly embraced him heartily from behind as well. They floated together in a blissful, group hug, paying no mind to Tide who had been forcefully dragged to their side and who was still looking around eagerly for his own two fathers. Alex’s brain was fizzing with strange waves of joy and pleasure, a cherubic smile spread unabashedly across his little face as it nestled softly between their slippery, scaly chests, his nose sniffing gently at the fishy odors emanating from their underarms. The skin-on-skin contact with the two virile mermen was releasing incredibly strong bonding chemicals within his brain. He felt deep feelings of devotion and profound respect and love for the men. He felt warm, and giddy and absolutely safe and protected in their arms.
It was nearly 3 minutes before Tide’s eyes landed on another pair of mermen in the distance, floating together on the other end of the clearing. The instincts of his merboy brain effortlessly combined the respective hues and saturations of their tails and told him without question that they were his parents! He darted without thinking towards them shouting childish greetings with manic excitement. He didn’t even realize that he had jerked his mate right out of his parent’s loving embrace, and pulled the boy's dazed body across the entire length of the clearing, all-the-while completely ignoring Alex’s sleepy complaints about not having finished snuggling yet.
When Tide reached his fathers, he dove right into their arms, letting them wrap themselves tenderly around him. He mindlessly nuzzled at them and sniffed their scents, smiling a dopey, smitten grin. The same primitive chemicals were etching an indelible bond into his brain. He would always be devoted, loving and affectionate toward them, and they would always be protective and deeply devoted to him as well.
Now that Alex was fully awake, he looked at his mate basking in his fathers’ embrace and felt a rather yucky feeling at the sickening, schmaltzy display of emotion. He was uncomfortable seeing his strong, confident buddy looking so dorky, childish, and mellow. He scrunched his face, in immature disgust, but just then he felt a familiar pair of solid bodies surrounding him again. He was immediately disarmed of his silly embarrassment at seeing his mate’s dopey grin and he felt his own lips curl into an identical smile. It wasn’t but a moment before he was nuzzling and sniffing again himself. He couldn’t help it, and ultimately he didn’t even want to. Nobody was watching, after all, and his fathers would keep him so very safe… Even from the potential, judgmental taunts of people calling him a silly little daddy’s boy. He WAS a daddy’s boy, really. He loved being a daddy’s boy. He loved his dads so, so much!..
By then Alex was too dazed again to make sense of the conversation going on between his and Tide’s fathers. They were discussing their joined hands. He could faintly feel someone tugging at his left hand and trying to pry their fingers apart, but he was far too engrossed by the manly, fishy smells and intoxicating touch. He rubbed his face mechanically and mindlessly for what seemed like hours, always grinning, always content. He had some sense that he’d spent all day hugging his fathers when he started to feel profound exhaustion coming over him, and as he faded into sleep, he was sure it had been the best day of his life.
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Alex woke up slowly the next morning. He found himself back in his cubby hole, his arm draped around the partition separating his cubby from Tide’s. There was already a bustle of activity going on in the nursing grotto. Families were clustered together in every corner of the place making first introductions. Alex was startled when he noticed his and Tide’s fathers floating right next to them with five younger merpeople. Three of them were colored exactly the same shade of seafoam green as tide, and the other two exactly matched Alex. They were their brothers…
Once both Tide and Alex were awake, their fathers made the family introductions. Alex’s brothers were the very childish looking Courdly, and the much-older Reuben. Tide’s brothers were the young Vespin, tweenish Perdix, and older Auron. Their fathers and Reuben and Auron had been compelled to return to the mating grounds as a part of the mating drive, as well as to pick up the newly hatched boys. Auron and Reuben were coincidentally mates as well, so the two families had already been well acquainted. This was their first year being driven to spawn, and the honor fell upon Reuben to lay their first egg; an honor he was clearly embarrassed by, and one that Courdly seemed to tease him about relentlessly, which surprised Alex. He thought it would be neat to lay an egg, and if mates took turns each year, what did it matter who went first?
It was explained that Tide and Alex had fused their hands together by eating the mating fruit of the kelp plant and would not be able to separate themselves for many months. For that reason the families would have to live together in Tide’s home until they were able to separate. An arrangement that nobody besides Tide, Alex, Reuben, and Auron seemed to care for. It wasn’t customary for young merboy mates to spend very much time together after first meeting their families, and their fathers worried it would make separation difficult later, but they had no real choice. The carnal properties of the Kelp bladders was potent, and though its full effect could not register within Tide and Alex’s underdeveloped bodies, the resulting union was accordingly much longer lasting…
Perdix was put in charge of leading the younger boys back to Tide’s home, while the older boys and the adults remained to take part in the mating drive.
************************
Months of having the two families living in close-quarters together had been lots of fun for a while. Alex’s stories of the gas lands were popular with everyone in town, even if they didn’t always align with the older folks’ first-hand knowledge of the place, and Tide enjoyed exploring his new stomping grounds with his inseparable friend. Still, several months was a long time for two families to coexist, and it frayed some nerves after a while, and really, it wasn’t all Alex had hoped for either. It was so embarrassing to have his dads tell him what to do all the time right in front of his mate! Of course he’d always end up doing as he was told, just the same as he would have anyway, but if Tide weren’t around to hear his dads give the commands, he could at least have played it off like everything he did had been his own choice. Here he was constantly being transparently revealed to be a submissive little child, and he hated it! Of course Tide had the same issue to deal with, but Alex was so consumed with his own self-consciousness and wounded pride that he didn’t really notice his mate’s own complete parental deference.
Still, it was a much better arrangement than being split up, the eventual separation of Alex and Tide was too grim to consider. At some point their families would split apart, but the boys just couldn’t let that happen. They’d already spent the last few days pretending to still be stuck together, but their father’s were getting wise to the deception and asked the boy’s point-blank if they were faking, and they were compelled to answer honestly; even in the face of being torn apart they couldn’t lie to their fathers… Alex’s dads were furious and made plans to leave the very next day. They had businesses and responsibilities to return to, after all.
Tide was confined to his room by his fathers as punishment for faking being stuck together and Alex ran off alone when he heard the news. He was crying in a deep fissure on the outskirts of town when he heard a strange monotone voice with a robotic, humming quality to it speak to him from above.
“Tears will not keep you from losing your mate.”
Tide was shocked by the voice. It was frightening in tone, but it was even more frightening that it seemed to know his very private problems.
He looked up to see a bizarre looking man floating above him who was like nobody he’d ever seen. He looked like a merman in many ways, but very different in others. He had a head of hair and a human torso like a merman, but his overall body was comparatively unfit. His physique was tight and sort of thick, but not visibly muscular, with a thick beer belly firmly suspended in front of him. He had no scales of any kind, but was clearly a very mature adult. His chubby, cone-shaped tail ended in a thin membrane-like fin that flitted and waved erratically, and the entire thing was completely mesmerizing to behold. It seemed to give off its own light and shift between colors and patterns with rapid speed. The most startling things about the man were his giant, saucer-shaped eyes bulging out of his head, and his mouth, which consisted of tentacles pursed together in a single cone-shaped proboscis that shared the same flashy coloration as his tail.
“Wa.. What are you?” Alex asked with alarm, backing away slowly.
“Do not be alarmed. I am a Cephalomorph. My physical traits are patterned after the humboldt squid. I wish to help you.”
Alex was astounded to notice the Man's mouth did not move when he spoke and his voice was not so much heard, as it was projected directly into his mind.
“He-he-help me?... How?”
“You do not wish to leave with your family tomorrow. Correct?”
“That’s right.” Alex said, sniffling. “I wanna stay with Tide.”
“I can make it so.”
Alex looked the frightening man over again, becoming lost in his dazzling display of lights.
“You’ll talk to my Daddys and make it so I can stay?”
“My methods are my own. All I require from you is payment.”
“I don’t have any money, sir, but I can ask one of my dads for a few sand-dollars if-”
“SILENCE!.. I require payment of another kind… I require… Your memories! The memories of the gas lands…”
Alex was stunned that the man wanted his gas land memories. Everybody told him that they were inaccurate. They hadn’t seemed to have any value to anyone but him. They amounted to little more than a dream of a distant life with funny-looking landfolk. There weren’t even words to describe the vast majority of the odd things he could recall.
“You want my memories?” Alex asked, scrunching his face uncomfortably.
“REQUIRE.” The Cephalomorph repeated. “Sign this contract and you may stay with your mate.”
The Cephalomorph held out a scroll with writing on it that Alex couldn’t decipher. It was written in the local script that he had not yet even begun to learn to read. The man pricked Alex’s finger while he wasn’t looking and urged him to press his blood onto the signature line to seal the deal.
Alex didn’t like this at all, he had clear memories of sea witches from his old life that would take advantage of merpeople and turn them into slimy, plant creatures.
“No!” Alex shouted in defiance. “You have a garden of slug people, don’t you? You trick mermen into signing contracts and stick them in a garden of misery for the rest of their lives, don’t you?! This is a trick! You wanna turn my family into p-p-pplolyps!”
“You know of my garden? That IS interesting… Perhaps these memories of yours are worth an honest deal. I will amend the contract. Your family will remain mermen. They shall not join my garden, and you will stay with Tide forever. In exchange, I will own the memories of your previous life. Is this deal fair?”
Against Alex’s better judgment, he wanted to be convinced. If the man really valued his memories, perhaps he would keep the deal clean, but it was probably still a trick. His memories were very clear that he should not trust such a person, and hadn’t future-Tide warned him about someone like this? Someone enticing?.. But this might be his only chance to stay with Tide, his family was leaving in the morning… Could he really just go with them and leave Tide all alone? Surely future-Tide wouldn't have wanted that!
Alex was arguing the matter back and forth, with himself and didn’t notice the Cephalomorph’s body flashing more rapidly with even more eye-catching colors. His eyes were subconsciously drawn to the hypnotic display. At some point he stopped thinking rationally and became lost in the light show, his arm was extending on its own, obeying his deepest desires, it extended farther and farther, floating out in front of him, reaching for the paper, it hadn’t even registered with him what he had done until his name scrawled magically onto the paper.
x 𝒜𝓁𝑒𝓍
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
Alex was shocked that it was over. He had actually done it! It was what he wanted, wasn’t it? He tried to shake off his concerns and embrace the joy of being able to stay with his mate. He had made a good deal. His family would get to go and tend to their affairs, and Alex would have his mate near to him always!
"Now I shall take payment." The monotonous voice droned.
The Cephalomorph’s body glowed brightly, alternating rapidly between crimson red and black. His mouth-tentacles suddenly burst apart, revealing their intricate pattern of suckers, and at the center of the tentacles where a person's mouth should be, was a sharp, black beak.
Alex screamed and tried to run, but the man was far too fast. He latched his tentacles onto Alex's head and enveloped it in a tight, inescapable grip. Alex felt like his skull could be crushed at any moment. He could feel the suckers pumping and sucking at his scalp. He could literally feel his mind being emptied. He wasn't sure at first, but the longer the process continued, the more he could tell he was forgetting. He was losing skills and school learning, his first car, his pets, his friends, his favorite places, his family's faces, it was all disappearing. Women, airplanes, restaurants, Spanish, the drums, there was so much more there than he'd realized, it was all flashing before him and then suddenly each facet if his previous life became irretrievable. He was becoming so much less than he could have imagined. He feared he was becoming nothing, that he would be left with no mind at all, and suddenly it stopped.
The man roughly released Alex, who raised his hands to his head and moaned. He tried to remember anything from before he hatched, but came up with nothing at all. Who had he been? Who was he now? Alex, of course... He was Alex the merboy and now he'd be able to stay with his mate just like he'd wanted. He was proud of himself for making such a good deal. He felt just the same as he had before, didn't he? What had he lost? Nothing that he could remember! Nothing of consequence! Everybody else hatched with no memory of their previous lives, he was just savvy enough to get something in exchange for his!
"Take this" The Cephalomorph said, handing Alex a small box with a coin inside. "Place it in the center of your dwelling tonight, but tell no one. Then go to your mate."
Alex took the box and touched the coin experimentally with one finger. It was freezing cold.
"And then Tide and I will stay together?"
"Of course."
Alex marveled at the little coin and wondered how it could make his wish come true. Then he looked up to find the mysterious man had vanished silently.
He swam home in a daze. He really wasn't bothered by his lost memories, and he was excited for the morning to come.
He'd get to stay with Tide now for sure.