Mermay!!

[pursuitofcappiness]

WHO: Steve Rogers
WHERE: all around
WHAT: MERMAY
WHEN: MERMAY
WARNINGS: ....MERMAY

darling it's better

Steve can be found on his now early-morning swim around town, zipping past anyone. He'll happily deliver anything to anyone within the confines of Temba, for any reason, in the early morning, since he makes a whole loop around. He's faster than a shark, but he's got a rather ostentatious blue tail, with red and white striped fins.

He seems to be in a decent mood, if only because he's having trouble with a lot of his memories of the past that don't reconcile with his ones of being a merman. Anytime he tries too hard to wonder why there's a lack of water if he thinks too hard, the memory disappears like seafoam.

He's having one of those such moments, paused mid-fin flip, eyes in concentration as he starts to sink, but then, he shakes his head, and keeps swimming. That was weird!

down where it's wetter

Sitting on a rock somewhere, Steve's drawing things into the sand. If you ask, he could make a whole series of drawings, each of them replacing the last, ephemeral in nature, washed away by the waves.

"I can try drawing you next," he offers. He's not sure how portraits will work out in the sand, but he'll give it a good college try.

take it from me!

[ cw: injury ]

Having swum through a whole nest of sea urchins in order to grab one, somehow Steve'd accidentally loosened a whole bunch of them, and they'd fallen, mostly on his tail.

He swims out of there quickly, but he has lots of barbs sticking out. He pauses to pull one out, only to manage to accidentally shatter a few of the ones in a cluster and leave them further embedded into his tail. Trying to violently flip it doesn't really help, either. He needs to swim somewhere he can sit down and address this as best as he can.

"Tell me you have tweezers on you," he requests of the nearest He-Row that he finds.

Comments

[pursuitofcappiness]

Steve keeps drawing, every so often looking up at Leo, but he's also slightly confused. "What do you mean?" he asks. "Didn't Tony come over with the gameboy?"

And then, realization settles on his face.

Only. It's the wrong kind.

"Is that not what it's called? It's like a, handheld. Videogame, I think he said."

[faceguy]

“Uh yeah, that’s what a gameboy is.” They’re old, from Leo’s perspective (he was born after the Gameboy Advance released), but his family uses a lot of old tech so he’s familiar. “But uh, why was Tony supposed to bring me one?”

Leo hasn’t seen that guy since the whole pod fiasco.

[pursuitofcappiness]

He blinks a little, slowly, and stops dragging the stick across the sand. "He... made you one." A beat. "He didn't bring it to you, did he?"

Steve shakes his head. "He thinks you're mad at him."

[faceguy]

Tony made him a gameboy? Leo’s puzzled look stays until Steve offers something of an explanation.

“Sooo he made me a gameboy so I would stop being mad at him?” Leo huffs, turning his nose up. “He must not care that much if he didn’t even give it to me.”

[pursuitofcappiness]

"No, he made a gameboy because he wanted to cheer you up," Steve says. "He didn't even want to be the one to give it to you. He told me to say that I made it," he says. "Ask Donnie - that's a lie I can't sell."

I mean, maybe he doesn't have to if Steve had to clarify that a gameboy is a videogame, which it isn't even. But he's a proto-boomer, leave him be.

[faceguy]

At the suggestion that he ask Donnie, Leo can't help but hunch his shoulders up a little. Oh look, it's the negative emotions he's trying to avoid!

"I can't ask Donnie. He was sent home."

At least, that's what Leo hopes happened. Based on what they saw in that pod room, he's guessing it is. He doesn't like thinking about the potential alternatives.

"But why does he even think he needs to cheer me up? Or that I'm mad at him? Sheesh, we barely know each other, why does he think he knows everything about how I feel."

[pursuitofcappiness]

Oh. That's what that was. He'd just thought that Donnie had gotten killed or hurt or something, but he'd have returned.

He deflates. "Sorry." And then he crosses his arms over his chest. "I don't know why he thinks you're mad at him. He just gets like that sometimes. He makes up this whole narrative in his head where it's all his fault."

[faceguy]

Let's all be glad Donnie didn't get killed, or Leo would be reacting very differently right about now.

As it is, he shakes that off. "No, it's good," he says quickly. Because it is! It's a good thing that Donnie is home. He was homesick, Leo could tell. He's happy for him!

Let's not talk about how Leo is all alone now, shall we? Let's focus on this whole Tony situation instead.

"I mean, some of it was his fault. A pretty good chunk of it was his fault, actually? But it was my fault and Wesker's fault too, so..." Leo huffs and folds his fins over his chest. "I mean, I guess I am kinda mad at him for not listening to me to begin with. But I'm mad at Wesker too, so he's not special!"

[pursuitofcappiness]

Okay. He doesn't know the exact situation, and he doesn't want to ask Leo about it, because he doesn't want to keep opening these wounds. And he has no idea what Wesker and Tony have to do with this. "Seems like maybe you just need a little space," he says.

Sounds about right for Tony. "Look, how are you doing?" He does want to check in that Leo wasn't all alone.

[faceguy]

“Uh, yeah, I’m not going around Wesker again if I don’t have to. And Tony is avoiding me, I guess. Kinda can’t get any more space than that.”

Why are these adults all so exhausting? Leo thought you were supposed to have your life together in middle age… (Then again, his dad for sure doesn’t.)

He cools down at the question, his usual smile fitting right back onto his face. “I’m good! Fintastic, even!”

[pursuitofcappiness]

"Oh, great," Steve responds, choosing to take Leo at his word. Hey, listen, if he really wanted to talk, Steve would be listening, too.

"I'll talk to him," he says. "Uh - Tony, I guess, I don't think Wesker would listen to me. I can tell him you're not actually mad at him, right?" he asks. Because it seems like they had a decent enough friendship going. And Leo could use one of those right now.

[faceguy]

Unfortunately Leo does not simply volunteer his true feelings to anyone, so with no more poking that’s where that discussion ends.

Steve is also overestimating his and Tony’s relationship, at least from Leo’s perspective. The two of them have only talked a few times, and never really gotten to know each other. To Leo, Tony is the guy who his brother got close to and who most of the He Rows seem to regard highly, but who really failed Leo when he needed help. Leo certainly wouldn’t call him a friend. Mostly just a weirdo.

Of course, Leo is also assuming Steve must have context here.

“Uh, no, because I just said I am kinda mad? He hasn’t apologized to me. I don’t even know if he apologized to Donnie.”

He knows something happened, but Donnie hadn’t seemed interested in talking about it. And now he’s gone.

[pursuitofcappiness]

Strange, he would've thought that this would've happened because of Donnie's disappearance, and not before that. He's definitely missing a whole lot of context here.

"He's not really an apologies kinda guy," Steve confirms. But that means that Leo shouldn't hold his breath hoping for one. That doesn't mean he has to forgive Tony either, just, not expect an apology.

[faceguy]

He's joining a story already in progress, as it were.

"Then don't go telling him I'm not mad at him. I barely know the guy, we don't have to play nice with each other."

Especially now that Donnie's gone. The impetus to be nice to Donnie's "father figure" isn't there anymore.

"...It's weird that he made me a gameboy, though." He's still stuck on that point.

[pursuitofcappiness]

"Okay, okay, I won't tell him. It's just. I know he's worried about it. He kinda makes things sometimes, when he thinks you're mad. Not even because he wants you to forgive him, he just... does it." Yes, he is aware his friend is strange.

"That's why he made it. You should... just ask him for it. It's for you."

[faceguy]

Huh. Leo is seeing more and more why Donnie got so attached - Tony is just like him in a lot of ways. Including making gifts to try and smooth things over, or just to show he's thinking about you...

Of course, Donnie has also made gifts that shocked Leo, or blew up in his face, or did other unwanted things, so... hopefully Tony isn't too much like Donnie in that way.

"...I'll think about it," he says after some consideration.

[pursuitofcappiness]

That's really all Steve can ask for. He brightens a little bit. "Great."

And then, he returns to the portrait, which is shaping up quite nicely. "Hey, come look at this," he says, smiling proudly. It really does look like Leo - he's even used the shadows of the heights of the sand to his advantage to give him a little more of a 3d shaded look.

[faceguy]

Leo comes over to look, curious. He can't help but smile when he sees it, floating above the portrait to get the best view.

"Whoa, hey! You did pretty good; looks just as handsome as me."

He flips in the water so he can look at Steve again. "You're pretty good at this!"

[pursuitofcappiness]

"Oh, thanks," he says, beaming, even as the waves start to push away the tallest of his mounds already.

"Thought I'd really like to capture your smile. Too bad I couldn't find anything blue though," he says. Not that he needs the bandanas to tell the brothers apart - even with just sand, it's obviously Leo.

[faceguy]

“Well I don’t blame you, it’s a great smile,” says Leo, cocky because he doesn’t know how to take genuine compliments of any kind.

It’s true the bandanna is unnecessary, and the drawing won’t last long, anyway, but Leo still turns this over in his head.

“Why don’t you gather up some stones and shells with good colors? You know, for the next one.”

[pursuitofcappiness]

"I could," he says, "I could gather supplies - but I also think that there's something about the pictures only lasting for a couple waves that makes them special."

They're only intended for one viewer, after all.

[faceguy]

How does disappearing make them special? Leo doesn’t really get it, but then he isn’t an artist.

“Ah man, my little brother would love you. He loves all this artsy-fartsy stuff.”

No offense!

“Well, if you change your mind, I found a sweet spot for shells earlier. Might make a necklace out of ‘em. Even better if I find a shark tooth.” That’d be sick.

[pursuitofcappiness]

"Is your brother an artist?" he asks. He assumes that Leo isn't talking about Donnie, though. But he's vaguely aware that they have other brothers.

He wonders if they're also separated by colored headbands.

"I can come help you look for shells if you want," he offers.

[faceguy]

“Yeah, Mikey! He has graffiti art pieces all over the…”

Hm. Where did they live back home? Leo’s memories get… strangely fuzzy when he thinks about it.

He shakes his head to clear the weirdness. “All over the walls,” he finishes, before swimming up.

“Yeah, if you want! It’s back that way.”

[pursuitofcappiness]

Steve doesn't even think it's weird that Leo has trouble recalling where the graffiti used to be. Personally, he feels like there's been a lot of that going around lately.

"Sure thing, just lead the way." For some reason, it's always just more comfortable to continue doing what they were doing, which in this case, was going hunting for seashells.