Curtisson: The Mermaid & The Mafia

Chapter 1: Too Big to be a Fish

Burt arrived at his apartment without being noticed. Which was surprising because his clothes were still pretty soaked after falling off a cliff, while running from the cops, nearly getting eaten by a shark, only to wake up on a secluded sandy shore, and he swears he thought he saw a man with blonde hair and blue eyes. Stepping through the door he is surprise attacked by a curly-orange-haired man with a bear hug.
"Burt! We were so worried when you didn't come back from the mission!" Said Burt's roommate, stepping back after getting soaked himself from the hug.
"You were MIA for 3 hours. What happened?" Said a black-haired woman.
"Carol. Leprechaun. Sorry. I was chased and ended up falling off a cliff. It's a miracle I'm still alive! And I saw a shark!" Burt explained.
Carol and Leprechaun looked at each other. Then Carol speaks "You do realize sharks don't pass through these waters right?"
"Well... yes, but..."
"Then you must've just saw a fish."
"It was too big to be a fish." Burt defended himself.
"Well, whatever it was, I'm glad you didn't drown, laddie." Says Leprechaun.
"I told you, you should learn how to swim," Carol says with zero empathy, crossing her arms.
"Who needs to swim when they work with paper all day?" Burt takes off his hoodie and shirt while heading to the clothesline.
"There's more to life than just work, Burt," Leprechaun says.
Burt sighs. His thoughts become occupied by the blonde again. "Who was that? Was he real?" He thought to himself.
"Oi! Earth to scuba diver! Are you listening?" Carol waved in front of his face, snapping him out of it.
"Hu? Sorry, what were you saying?"
Carol sighed. "I was saying, Right Hand Man called asking where you went. He wants you to meet up with him and explain what you did wrong on the mission." She shifted from frustrated to worried too quickly.
Burt gulped and took a deep breath. "Oh boy. Do you remember where my will is?"
Carol lightly hit his shoulder "No need to be that dramatic. He's not going to kill you... hopefully. It was your first heist! We're just lucky you're alive or not captured." Carol paused, waiting for Burt to cut in with a freakout, but when Burt just stayed quiet looking pale at the floor, she continued. "I'll call him and say you'll meet up with him tomorrow morning, alright? You could use some sleep. Must've been a long day."
"Yeah. Thanks, Carol." Burt flashed her a light smile and headed to his room. Closing the door, he then changes into a pair of tan shorts and plops onto his bed, dreaming about that blonde-haired man and his blue eyes, sparkling like the most precious of ocean gems, fighting off a bloodthirsty shark to protect him.

Early in the morning, at the secret beach...
A blonde-haired man swam looking for something. A glimmer on the seafloor made his eyes sparkle with purpose. A pair of orange headphones left behind by that white-haired lad, that's caught his curiosity. He dried off and walked into the forest the same way the owner of these headphones went.
The blonde-haired man wore no shirt, but had pale blue pants with an interesting off-white pattern in the front and had a gold necklace with blue pearls embedded into the design and a space that must have once held a shell.

The city sounds seemed new to him with the way he reacted. Nearly frightened, but he was determined to find him. "Var är han?" He spoke. "Hur hittar jag honom?" His foreign tongue prevented him from asking for directions. Not like he had a good way of explaining he was looking for someone he didn't know the name of.
He decided to take a break on a park bench and looked at the headphones in his hands. He puts them on and it muffles the sound and a slight sigh of relief escapes his lungs.
"No, no, no! I'm going to be late!" He heard a familiar voice. It was him! He was running in the same outfit as yesterday through the park.
The blonde followed him out and kept a good distance. But what does he say to him? Nothing I guess unless they can speak Swedish too. He thought of just leaving the headphones somewhere he can find them.
"Yer late." A gruff cowboy-looking man said when Burt arrived.
"I'm sorry Sir. My pants were still damp when I woke up."
"Yes. Carol told me you went for a swim. So Burt, do you know what you did wrong?"
'So his name is Burt!'  The blonde's heart fluttered.
"I panicked. I let the anxiety take control and couldn't do anything but run." Burt answered his superior.
The red-head cowboy nodded "I see. I told Reg it was a bad idea to just throw you into the frontlines. But we're pretty understaffed once our low-levelled drug ring got shut down. The boss and I have been trying to obtain enough valuable treasures to earn us enough respect and keep everyone off our backs. But we need money to do that. Tell ye what... Help us in the conference room with some suggestions on how to show our power and we won't send you into the field anymore. Sounds good?"
Burt seemed relieved and anxious "Y-Yes sir! I'll see what I can come up with!" With a salute, the cowboy disappeared into the dark. "Valuable treasures? Like what? Well, I heard they uncovered the Tunisian Diamond recently. Maybe..." He mumbled to himself and walked out, nearly running into our blonde-haired stalker. "Oh, sorry." Burt stared into those familiar oceanic eyes "Wait, I know you. You... You saved me yesterday, didn't you?"
The blonde looked flushed and nervous, taking off the headphones and gave them back to the accountant.
"Oh! My headphones! Thanks. Um... I'm Burt. Burt Curtis. And you are?"
"Ah... S-Sven." He said.
"Well, nice to meet you Sven, and thanks for saving my life yesterday, and bringing back my headphones. Uh... You wanna grab a cup of coffee?"
Sven nods his head then tilts to the side. "Vad är kaffe?"
Burt stared blankly "you're not from here are ya?"
Sven shook his head.
"Well, follow me. I know this great café just down the road from here." And they walked while Burt did most of the talking.

They sat inside Burt's favourite coffee shop waiting for their drinks.
"So you don't speak English?"
Sven nodded.
"but you can understand English?"
Sven nodded again.
"Can you write English?"
Sven thought for a moment and gestured to the waiter to borrow a pen. He starts writing on a napkin that looks like chicken scratches.
Burt chuckled "well, I've translated worse handwriting. It's ok. How long will you be in town? Maybe I can teach you a few phrases."
Sven hopped out of the chair, nodding in excitement. But in doing so, he bumped into a waiter carrying a glass of water that spills all over Sven and looks frantic for the bathroom.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" The waiter said. Sven didn't stick around to let her finish and ran right into the men's vacant bathroom.
"Sven?" Burt follows his new friend into the stalls. "Sven, are you ok?" He opens the large stall and sees Sven laying on the floor, scared that his new human friend has now seen him in his true form.
"You're... You're a m-mermaid?"

To be continued...