Mario’s POV
I slowly opened my eyes seeing that I was in a strange room. I heard muffled voices so I turned my head slightly, seeing three blurry figures standing away from me talking amongst themselves. ‘Where. . . am I. . .? What happened. . .?’ I tried to remember how I got here but the last thing I remembered was. . . ‘KIT!!!’ I jolted up and tried to get off, only to have a sharp pain shoot through my side and fell to the ground, yelping. ‘Wh-What happened?!’ I looked down at my tail except. . . it was gone! It was replaced with legs! ‘What’s happening?!’ I heard something heading towards me and felt someone helping me sit up.
“Hey, take it easy.” I looked up, and squinted a bit as my vision was still blurry, and saw a man with pale skin, black hair, and blue eyes looking at me. Wait. . . he was human! I immediately tackled him and screamed, “WHERE IS SHE?!”
David’s POV
This guy freakin tackled me and started screaming, “WHERE IS SHE?!”
“HEY!” I pushed him off and pinned him against the floor.
“LET GO OF ME!!!” He screamed, struggling against my grip.
“Not until you calm down!” I yelled glaring at him. He instantly stopped and shrunk back a bit, looking. . . scared. Guess he's the submissive type. "Are you calm now?" He slowly nodded a bit. "Okay then. I'm going to let you go. Don't attack, got it?" He nodded once more. I carefully let him go and got up. He say up, holding his wounded side backing away from me a bit. "Okay, now that you're calm, let's try this again. My name is David, captain of the Fairlight. What's your name?"
"M-Mario. . .," he answered, quietly, him obviously trying to hide the fear in his voice.
"It's nice to meet you Mario. Can you tell me what happened to you?" He looks away staying quiet. "Look, I want to help you but I can't if you don't tell me what happened."
"A-And why should I trust you?"
"That's up to you whether you trust me or not. I just want to help."
He looked me in the eye, like he was looking for some kind of truth, and asked, "H-How did you find me?"
"We found you floating in the water, bleeding out so we brought you aboard and tended to your wounds, though two of my crewmates seem to know you. One said they were a friend while the other said that you were his brother."
He looked at me with wide eyes and asked, "What're their names?"
"Lucas and Micheal. They're merfolk just like you which I guess makes sense on how they know you."
"Y-You know I'm a merfolk?" I nodded.
"Your tail and fins kinda give it away."
He looked at his legs and mumbled, "So my tail turns into legs when I'm out of water. Guess that part of history was true."
"You're taking this much better than I thought," I said, smiling. I remembered how freaked out Lucas and Micheal were when they saw their tails gone. He doesn't even seem bothered by it. "Can you tell me what happened? What caused your injuries?"
"A-An anchor."
"What?!" I saw him flinch a bit so I quickly said, "Sorry. Can you repeat that?"
"A-An anchor fell and landed on top of me."
"Can you tell me more?"
"L-Like?"
"What were you doing?" God, is he dense or something?
"Umm. . . I was swimming with my sister through an area she found, when I saw a baby dolphin that was caught in a net so I helped it. After I freed it, Kit yelled at me to get away from the surface and that's when we saw a ship coming toward us. We tried to get away from it but I saw the anchor and I pushed her out of the way. Everything else is fuzzy."
"Do you remember what happened to your sister?"
"I. . . remember. . . her trying to help me then. . .," his voice trailed off as his face became pale. "She was in a net. . .. Oh Neptune, Kit!"
I saw that was about to try to get up, so I quickly grabbed his shoulders, pushing him down and said, "Don't even think about it."
"Get off me! I need to find her!"
"I get that you're worried about your sister but you can't go after her."
"And why not?!"
"Look at yourself. You're badly injured."
"I'm fine!"
"Alright then." I held up two fingers in front of him. "How many fingers am I holding up?" Even though my fingers were a few inches from his face, he squinted his eyes to try and see.
"Five?"
I sighed, saying," Its two. You're vision is still recovering and you have a bad side wound. You could end up opening it up. Besides, do you even know where she is?" He looked away. "Thought so."
"Th-Then what am I supposed to do?" he asked, quietly.
"Let us help."
"A-And why would you do that? Wh-What do you want?" he asked, looking at me cautiously.
"Nothing. We just like to help."
He looked at me for a moment before nodding and said, "O-Okay."
"Good."
"U-Umm, c-can y-you g-get o-off m-me. . .?"
"Huh?" I then noticed that I was on top of him with him trapped underneath me. "Oh. Sorry about that." I got up and offered a hand to him. "Come on. Let me introduce you to the rest of my crew." He looked at my hand cautiously. "Unless you think you can walk on your own." He gave me a 'shut it' before taking my hand. I pulled him up and he immediately started wobbling. He tried to take a step forward, but instead fell into my chest. He grabbed onto me to not fall over and I couldn't help but smile. "Well aren't you falling for me already, pretty boy." His blushed bright making me laugh. "Aww, is pretty boy embarrassed?"
His became brighter as he yelled, "Sh-Shut up!"
"You're face is all red." He growled at me, looking away. I smiled and said, "Alright, let's go meet everyone." I led him out of the room and onto the deck where everyone was relaxing. "Hey everyone. This is Mario, the guy we saved."
Jakey ran up to us and asked, "Are you okay?!" very loudly. Mario jumped a bit and almost feel over, luckily, I caught him.
"Carefully Jakey. He's not exactly skilled with legs. Isn't that right, wobble legs?" I joked. He growled, elbowing me in the side, making me drop him. He yelped loudly, hitting ground.
"David!" I turned and saw Lucas glaring at me.
"What?! He made me!"
"Sure he did." He walked over to Mario holding his hand out. "You okay, Mario."
Mario looked up at him and for a second, I saw pain in his eyes but it was quickly replaced with anger and screamed, "GET AWAY FROM ME!!!" Lucas quickly backed away as Mario swung his arm at him.
"Woah!" I got in between then and glared at Mario. "What the hell are you doing?!"
"Keep him away from me!" he yelled, glaring at Lucas.
Lucas looked at him sadly and said. "Mario I-."
"Shut up! You don't get to talk to me after everything you did!" Mario yelled, cutting him off.
"I'm sorry Mario. I didn't-."
"Didn't what?! Mean to?! Yeah right! You didn't care about me at all! You only cared about yourself! YOU LEFT US WITH HIM!!!"
"That's not true! I-!"
"That's enough!" Micheal yelled. "You two need to stop fighting! You're brothers for crying out loud!"
"You didn't seem to care about family with Devin," Mario growled.
Micheal glared at him and said, "Don't you dare bring him into this."
"Why?! It ain't like you ever cared!"
I growled annoyed before snapping and yelled, "Alright, that's it! Brandon, take Lucas to y'alls room! Ritchie, stay here with Micheal! Mario, you're coming with me." I grabbed him and went into one of the rooms closing the door. I glared at him and yelled, "What the hell was that?!"
He looked away and said, "It's nothing."
"Sure did seem like nothing!"
"Mind your own damn business!"
"This is my business if you're going to be fighting! He's your brother isn't he?! Why the hell do you hate him so much?!"
"I said it's none of your business!" I growled and turned him around, pushing against the wall.
"You're on my ship so I'm making it my business!"
"Then I'll leave! I don't need your hel-!"
I slammed my fist against the wall and yelled, "Stop being such a stubborn ass! You're hurt! What happens if your wound reopens?! Or you get attacked! You'll end up dying-!" I stop as I saw him looking at me with his eyes wide in fear with tears, and was shaking. I took a deep breath, calming down and raised my hand. He flinched away from it. Did he think that I was gonna hit him? I gently ran my fingers through his hair and quietly said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." He stayed silent and I could see that he had tears falling. I gently wiped them away and said, "It's okay. I'm not mad at you anymore. Okay?" He slowly nodded. We stayed like that for a few more minutes until I said, "Stay here and rest. I need to go check on everyone. Can you do that?" He nodded again so I left. 'Welp, time to be a captain.'
Mario's POV
I sat there quietly, listening to David's footsteps slowly disappear and I found myself, missing his warmth. I looked at my wound and saw that it was stiched. Guess got hurt more than I thought. I sighed, thinking about Lucas. It's been years since I last saw him, my memories with him aren't good, he made my life hell, and he left me with him, but the funny thing is I don't hate him. Neptune I just want Kit. I need to find her but I can't do that while I'm here. I need to leave. Tonight.
I quickly sneaked onto the deck, grabbing onto anything I could so that I didn't fall over. I honestly couldn't wait to get my tail back. I soon got to the railing and was about to jump into the water when someone behind me said, "Thought you'd try to run away." I jumped quickly turned around and saw a guy with dark purple hair and purple eyes. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you."
I looked at him and asked, "What do you want?"
"To talk. Can we do that?" he asked. I thought for a moment before nodding. No harm, right?
"What is it?"
"Look, I'm not going to pretend that I know what's going on between you, Lucas, and Micheal since it's really none of my business but. . . don't you think you're being a little unfair to them?"
I glared at him and said, "No. I don't, not after what they did."
"And that would be?"
"None of your business!"
"Lucas, your brother, was crying after y'alls fight. Maybe if you tal-."
"Why should I care if he's crying?! He never seemed to care when I was upset or hurt!"
"So you're doing this out of spite? That's not right you should-."
"Oh here we go again! Someone else making me the villain! Lucas is the victim and I'm in the wrong! That's what you're getting at, isn't it?! Well guess what! He's most defiantly no victim!"
"Did he really hurt you that much?"
"He stood by and watches while I was in pain! He knew what I was going through and did nothing to help! Hell, he even caused some of my pain! So yeah! He did hurt me that much! I don't know what he told you to make you feel sorry for him but he's nothing but a pathetic excuse of a brother!"
He looked at me and said, "Are you done?" calmly.
"What?"
"You finally got all that built up anger out. Do you feel better?"
"Honestly. . . no."
"Well answer me this. Do you really hate him?" Hate him? I'm mad at him. Mad at everything he's ever done to me but. . . I can't hate him. "Or are you just so overwhelmed with pain and betrayal that you try to replace it with anger so it hurts less." I looked away, silently. "Am I right with the second one?"
"I don't know how I feel towards him."
"And I get that. Trust me, I know. I had an older brother that I fought with too."
I looked at him and questioned, "Had?"
He sighed sadly, saying, "Look, I want you to talk things out with him so you don't end up making the same mistake I did before. The last conversation I had with my brother was us arguing and me screaming that I never wanted to see him again. A week later, I got a call saying that he died."
"I-. . . I'm sorry to hear that. . .."
"Don't be. It was my own fault for not trying to fix our relationship." He placed his hand on my shoulder and said, "I'm not saying forgive him. Just hear him out and see things from his perspective."
"Like that'll change anything," I mumbled.
"If you don't want to hate him then give him a chance to explain himself."
"And let him "justify" why he made my life hell? No thanks."
"So he can explain why he wants to make things right with you. He cares about you more than anything. There was never a day where he didn't talk about your sister and you."
"Tch, yeah right."
It was silent before he said, "He told me that you were the first one to learn to dance out of the three of you when you were kids."
I looked at him surprised and asked, "R-Really?"
He nodded, adding, "He also mentioned that you were a quick learner and loved the library. You'd get excited whenever there were new books." He smiled a bit. "He said that you were the best brother he ever had."
"He. . . d-did. . .?" He nodded again.
"Look, just give a chance."
"I'll. . . think about it. . .."
"That's all I'm asking for. Good night Mario." He turned away and started walking.
"W-Wait!" He stopped and looked at me. "Y-You never told me your name. . .."
He smiled softly and said, "It's Pat."
"Th-Thanks for listening and taking to me. . . Pat. . .."
"No problem. Night." He then left. I sighed softly, looking out at the ocean in deep thought.
'Give him a chance, huh? I want to but. . .'
"YOUR FEELINGS DON'T MATTER!!!"
"I HATE MY LIFE!!! I WISH I WAS NEVER BORN!!! I HATE YOU, LUCAS!!!"
'What if I just end up getting hurt again?' I looked at my bracelet, figdeting with it a bit. 'Only one way to find out I guess.'