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]

"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.