What the Water Gave Me

Chapter Thirty-Seven

That morning, the siren surprised him with gifts. There waiting for him in front of his face when he woke were a few dead fish, held down from floating away with a few pretty seashells and rocks. Steve sat up and picked up one of the seashells and examined it. The siren was waiting dutifully in front of him, stretched out across the sand on his belly, curling his tail up above him absentmindedly.

Steve didn’t want the siren to know how hungry he was, so he tried to eat the fish slowly.

“What are the shells for?” He wrote, sliding the board over to himself across the sand and then sliding it back.

“Presents,” the siren wrote back.

“What am I supposed to do with them?” Steve asked and the siren stopped, seemingly stumped by this.

“I dunno,” he wrote. “I guess just look at them. They don’t do anything.”

“Then why did you get them?” Steve asked. He bit into the side of a fish while he passed the board back and the siren threw up his hands.

“They were pretty and they made me think of you, so I thought I’d bring them back!” He wrote. “Look, see? They’re purple and you’re purple. You match.”

Steve looked down at his tail and flicked the tip of it, studying.

“I guess you’re right,” he responded. “Well, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” the siren wrote with a smile.

Steve sat up, polishing off the rest of his fish.

“So, what’s the deal with you?” He wrote. “For real, though.”

“I told you for real,” the siren replied.

“Right.” Steve rolled his eyes. “Sure. The human story.” The siren looked down and his shoulders deflated a little. “So your human boyfriend wasn’t at all concerned by the fact that he was on the menu?” The siren’s eyes flashed.

“He-You-were not ‘on the menu’.” The siren wrote back. “And no, you were not concerned at all.”

“Sirens eat people, right?” Steve countered and the siren seemed to be avoiding his eyes.

“I don’t eat innocent people,” he wrote guiltily.

“But you admit you do eat people?” Steve replied and the siren was frowning deeply now.

“What else am I supposed to do?” He scrawled. “It’s not my fault everything else makes me sick.” He shook his head now. “Look, we’ve had this conversation a lot. You don’t remember, but we have.”

Steve took the board back, studying the siren’s face. He seemed genuine. He sat up now and pushed his hair out of his face, folding his tail underneath him, and Steve saw as he had before that twisted scar under his hip.

"Why are you so different?" Steve wrote. "You're not like any siren I've ever seen."

"I'm not any different," the siren wrote and Steve shook his head.

"That's not true and you know it. Answer my question," he wrote back. The siren shrugged uncomfortably.

"I'm-" he wrote and hesitated. Steve looked from his board and back up to his face. "I guess it was you. You changed me."

"Oh really," Steve wrote skeptically.

"Love does funny things," the siren wrote.

"Uhuh," Steve responded. “Alright well, whatever. I don’t care. But if you’re going to follow me around, we need to set some boundaries to respect, because your boundary-crossing track record so far is really, really bad.”

He didn’t give the siren a chance to answer and instead only flashed the board at him and began to write more.

“Cut it out with the touching, first off,” Steve wrote. “I thought I’d been pretty clear about that, but you keep touching me anyways.” The siren bit his lip and nodded slowly. “That means no more hugging, okay?” Steve continued. “No hugging or grabbing or kissing or assaulting or whatever it is you think you’re doing. Not unless I say yes first, got it?”

The siren nodded obediently.

“No beaching. That one should be pretty obvious, but apparently, it wasn’t before. So none of that. Ever. Anything that makes me completely helpless like that is a no-no, you hear me?” Steve wrote and the siren nodded again. Steve scrawled one more sentence and handed the board back. “You do all that, I’ll let you follow me around, alright? Deal?”

“Deal!!” The siren wrote enthusiastically. “So, you forgive me then?”

Steve rolled his eyes and shrugged and took the board when the siren prodded him with it.

“Sure, yeah, I guess I forgive you,” he wrote.

“Thank you for letting me stay with you, Steve,” the siren wrote once he got the board back and Steve shrugged again. “You’re my lifeline, you know.” He added in small, slow letters. “I know you must think I’m just an annoyance, but you’re everything to me.”

Steve didn’t know what to say when it was his turn with the board. He swallowed.

“Oh,” he wrote and shoved it back awkwardly. Unfortunately, the siren went on.

“I used to rely on you so much and I didn’t even quite realize how much until now, now that you’re different.” He wrote. “You were like a moral compass. You were my true north. And you remembered things I didn’t and knew things I didn’t know and now-” The siren stopped and he rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. Steve was at a loss. “I feel so alone,” the siren continued. “No one’s left to remember the story of us except for me and I don’t have all the details and you’re here and I can keep you now, but I can’t really because you don’t love me anymore.” He glanced up at Steve, who was staring, mortified. He didn’t know how to respond to this outpouring of emotion. This was so uncomfortable. “Everything hurts all the time,” he finished.

A few quiet minutes passed and Steve listened to the constant and palpable sound of the ocean in his ears. The siren stared at the ground and drew shapes into the sand with the tip of his finger.

"Do you have a name," Steve asked after a while and pushed the board gently back towards the siren. The siren looked at the words and took up the pen.

"You named me Bucky," the board said when it was returned to Steve.