In contrast to the morbidly serene scene on the beach, the one Sheriff Turner walked into at Embers Medical Center was utter chaos. Three nurses were struggling with a young man in a hospital bed, trying to hold him down while he thrashed about, yelling in a language no one could understand. They tried to assure him they were only there to help, but he wasn’t listening. The doctor had explained to Abel when he arrived that he had managed to take care of the worst of the boy’s wounds while he was still unconscious and sedated, even performing minor surgery on the through-and-through in his back and stomach, but the second he’d woken up and seen all the people surrounding him, trying to tend to the more minor injuries, he freaked.

The vampiric doctor shook his head, one fang protruding over his bottom lip. “I just don’t understand it, Sheriff,” he said. “He must be able to sense from their energy that no one is here to hurt him, and yet he won’t calm down.”

Abel frowned. “He’s in a strange place surrounded by strange people, most of them human,” he said, trying to make sense of it all himself. “I’d probably freak out, too.” He glanced at the doctor. “Do you have any idea what he’s saying?”

The doctor shook his head again. “No idea,” he admitted. “There’s not one person on staff who can speak Sarathian, not even me, and I’ve been here much longer than the rest.”

“Awesome,” Abel sighed, pulling out his phone. He brought up Lynn’s number and pressed the green phone icon, bringing the device to his ear as it began to ring. “Thankfully, I know someone who does.”

“Hey, Daddy,” his oldest daughter’s cheerful voice greeted him. “What’s up?”

“Hey, sweetheart,” he replied. “Does your brother have class today?”

A brief pause. “I think so, why?”

“Think he’ll be willing to skip out to help me with something?”

She laughed. “Ash will take any excuse to get out of class.”

“Yeah, that’s what bothers me,” Abel muttered, rubbing his forehead with three fingers. “I need you to get a hold of him for me, tell him to meet me here.”

“Why can’t you?”

Abel grimaced. “He blocked my number.”

“Again?”

The older man sighed. “Lyndsey, please just text him for me, would you?”

“What should I tell him?”

When Abel explained the situation, her entire demeanor shifted from suspicious to excited. 

“You got it, Pop!”

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. He hated being called Pop. “Thanks, Lynn.” He hung up and pocketed his phone, taking a seat in the nearby chair in the corner of the room. “Now we wait.”

The Sheriff and the doctor looked on helplessly as the young merman continued to fight off his perceived attackers, flinching anytime a hand came too close to his face, and screaming at one nurse who had touched his hair.

Abel stiffened. 

Not his hair.

His braids.

He frowned as he rifled through his memories, on the things he’d learned about Sarathian customs and culture. There was something in there to do with those braids, something important. When he caught the glint of glass beads woven into the two hair pleats, he was sure of it. The problem was it had been years since he’d done any research on merfolk, and very little of it had been retained, especially since none of them had come to the surface in decades.

What he could recall, however, was that the length of them was also incredibly important, and that touching them was considered an insult somehow. He sat up and nudged the doctor.

“Hey, tell them to stop touching the kid’s hair,” he said. “Specifically the braids.”

“Why?” the doctor asked, genuinely puzzled. “There’s a wound under them they need to treat.”

“Just trust me on this,” Abel said.

The doctor gave a resigned sigh and made his way to the bed, trying to get his staff to hear him over the boy’s frantic screaming and their pleas for him to calm down. He even tried to reassure the boy that they wouldn’t touch his hair again if he would only let them help, but he wasn’t having any of it.

Abel slouched back in his chair, scrubbing both hands over his tired face. Fuck, Ash, hurry the hell up and get here already. The campus is only two minutes away!

It felt like hours before Ash finally stepped through the door, ushered in by a harried male nurse who was trying to talk him out of it, even after Ash told him who he was.

Suddenly, to everyone’s utter astonishment, the boy in the bed went absolutely silent. His brilliant blue eyes widened as they fixed on Ash’s face, his arms slowly falling to the bed as he released the wrists of one of the nurses. The staff, recognizing the sudden change, also began to quiet. They turned to see what it was that had affected the merman so completely, many of them relaxing when they saw Ash Turner standing there, staring at the merman.

The two said nothing for several long moments, just stared at each other, neither of them moving a muscle. In the silence, Abel could hear the pattern of his son’s breathing change. He wanted to believe it was because he was coming face-to-face with a merman for the very first time, something he’d been dreaming about since he was a kid. 

However, Abel Turner wasn’t an idiot. The merman was an attractive kid, with soft, wavy blue hair, bright blue eyes, smooth skin, a small nose, thin lips, and slightly pointed ears. Even covered in bruises, cuts, and scrapes, he was still a beautiful creature. His son was gay and attracted to boys just like this one. Abel hoped that wouldn’t get in the way of Ash doing what he needed him to do. There had been a few times where Ash had ended up flirting with some guy Abel needed his son to talk to, and it had only complicated things more in the end.

Please, for the love of Hero, behave yourself for once, Ash.

He cleared his throat, breaking the silence. Ash flinched as though he were being awakened from a trance.

“Oh, s-sorry,” he stammered, pushing his dark hair back from his face. He glanced at his father. The merman didn’t even blink. “What’s going on?”

“I’m hoping you can tell me,” Abel said, nodding to the boy. “No one can understand a thing he’s saying.”

Ash turned back to the boy.

“They’re trying to help him, but he won’t let them,” Abel continued. “He’s fighting them, getting more aggressive when they touch his braids to get to the gash on the side of his head.”

Ash frowned. “That’s fucking stupid,” he muttered. “They should know they can’t do that.”

“Do what?” one nurse snapped, popping her hip out, a fist resting upon it, the other hand gesturing at the merman. “Help our patient?”

“Touch his braids,” Ash replied tersely, dropping his backpack heavily on the floor next to his father’s chair. “He’s an acolyte, you idiot, one of the Second Order. You’re insulting him and his gods by touching them.”

“But—”

“Just get out of my way.” Ash shoved his way through the crowd of medical staff, grabbing for the tray that contained the basic medical supplies needed for a task like this, and the swab out of the nurse’s hand. She tried to argue with him, but his dark glare shut her up. 

“Fuck off,” he snarled. “If you can’t show some basic respect for a warrior of Poseidon, then you have no business treating him.”

“Oh, and you can do so much better?”

“Yeah, actually, I can,” he bit out, tilting his head slightly. The boy’s lips twitched in a smile. “Unlike you, I actually know how best to treat a wounded Sarathian. Now, either you can assist me, or you can all beat feet and let me take care of him.”

There was a tense silence that filled the room like a thick smog. Abel bit the inside of his cheek, fighting every urge to grin with pride. Ash Turner was nothing if not direct, refusing to take shit from anyone, even those in a profession he had no real training in. His son might be a pain in the ass sometimes, but he deserved the respect he had earned in this town. After a moment, the staff began to file out, leaving Ash and Abel alone with the doctor and the snarky nurse who tugged the tray closer to her with an irritated growl.

“Fine,” she muttered. “But if he reacts to you the same way he did us, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Awesome.” Ash turned back to the boy, his features relaxing. “Gyna-ha, jym he-ma Ash Turner.”

The nurse’s eyes went wide, as did the doctor’s. Abel merely smiled. All those years of sleepless nights pouring over old Sarathian texts hadn’t gone to waste after all.

The boy jerked in surprise, his mouth agape. “G-gyna-ha,” he replied slowly in a soft, almost hushed voice. 

Ash smiled. <What’s your name?>

The boy blinked. “Co-Bieasah,” he said. <You speak my language.>

Ash shrugged. <I’m interested in your people,> he said simply. <Am I doing it justice? Or do I suck?>

Co-Bieasah laughed, a musical sound that eased the tension in the room almost immediately. <You speak it rather well,> he said. <I’m just surprised, that's all.>

<Understandable.> Ash lifted the swab. <I need to clean that cut on your head, Co-Bieasah, but I can’t get to it because of your adornments. If you’ll allow it, I’d like to treat you.>

The boy’s eyes fell to his lap, his fingers clutching at the covers. He said nothing for a long moment, doubt in his face as he chewed on his bottom lip. Ash watched him, waiting patiently. This wasn’t just about getting to a wound under a sacred hairstyle, this was about any form of physical contact. Typically, most merfolk kept a thin sheen of scales covering their bodies at all times, believing their skin was not ever to be touched by anyone other than those they deemed suitable, i.e., their eternal, or fated, mates. If anyone else were to make contact on bare flesh, the recipient felt violated, not to mention unworthy to be a true child of Poseidon or other sea gods.

<If it helps,> Ash said, <I can wear gloves. I can see your scales aren’t able to cover you fully yet. Probably because your energy is still too chaotic from trying to heal itself, right?>

The boy slowly nodded, followed very quickly by a full body freeze, his eyes going wide. With an audible gasp, he tore the blanket aside, his hand going to the bandages on his stomach, side, and thigh. He began to panic, his words flying out of him so fast, Ash could barely keep up.

Ash set the supplies aside and gently took hold of his shoulders, covered in the provided medical gown. <Co-Bieasah, relax, it’s okay! They were healing you, that’s all!>

<They touched me!> he shrieked, glaring up at the doctor with so much venom, the vampire took a step back. <They touched me! They sullied my body! Ignorant wretches, how could they—>

<They used gloves, Co-Bieasah,> Ash said calmly, trying to draw the merman’s attention back to him. <They can’t perform any medical treatment without them, especially surgery.>

He turned to the doctor. “You did wear gloves, right?”

“Of course I did,” he replied, almost offended at the suggestion of any form of medical malpractice. “All of us did.”

<You see?>

Co-Bieasah relaxed slightly, but his breathing was still slightly labored, his blue hair trembling over his eyes before he brought them back to Ash. He swallowed hard, doing his best to calm his racing heart, something he was finding difficult to do being so close to this human…a human that wasn’t trying to hurt him, to insult or disrespect him. A human that spoke his language.

“Coby.”

Ash’s brow ticked. 

“You can call me Coby,” he said softly, his cheeks flushing slightly. He relaxed against the propped up hospital bed, his hands shaking in his lap as he finally managed to get his breathing and heart rate under control.