Romano stayed far, far away from the beach for a while. After a few weeks had past he had been able to convince himself it had probably been a very elaborate daydream. Still, he felt uneasy around the ocean, and he wasn't eager to repeat imagining a merman trying to drown him, so he focused on earning money.

Feliciano appeared to have taken their desperate financial circumstance to heart…if taking it to heart meant only eating five bowls of pasta a day instead of nine and showing up for work at a vaguely responsible time. Romano knew Ludwig-the-Bastard was helping out, too, by reminding Feliciano of when he had to work and by inviting his boyfriend over to his house to eat. Then Romano got promoted, which was a huge help, and soon money was much less of a problem.

In fact, they began to have money left over, so Feliciano started dragging him out to 'have fun' with some of his friends. The group usually included but was not limited to Ludwig, his brother Gilbert (an albino who was notorious for getting completely smashed, doing a strip-tease on tabletops, and then taking home three or four girls and sleeping with them all in one go), Antonio (an air-headed farm boy who shared Romano's love of tomatoes and thought pretty much everything, from miniature cakes to Romano, was 'adorable') Francis (a perverted French bastard who swung both ways and dry-humped everything he could get his hands on or into), Arthur (a stuffy college student who couldn't hold his alcohol at all and usually wound up in tears when he went drinking. He tended to recite sad poetry and believed in mythical creatures) and Kiku (a Japanese computer nerd who rarely said anything but was often fiddling with or dismantling some device or another, and who had cried from embarrassment once when Gilbert tried putting his hands down his pants.) Out of them all, Romano hated Antonio the least, so he usually stuck with him when they went out to bars.

However, on this particular night, he found himself sitting next to a thoroughly sloshed Arthur, as Francis had taken Antonio and Gilbert off into a corner where they were all giggling and mostly hidden from view. Romano refused to go over once he realized he couldn't see Francis's hands at all and Gilbert was looking a little too flushed, even though he'd only had a few beers. Arthur had stopped crying a few minutes ago and was nursing a shot glass and looking tragic.

"Er," Romano said uncomfortably, when Arthur sniffed deeply and looked expectantly at Romano. "How are things?"

"I'm doing a report on mermaids for college," Arthur announced. Romano's stomach lurched a little.

"That's a piss-poor subject for a report," he snorted, and Arthur immediately looked offended.

"Mermaids are extremely fascinating," he insisted. "They're portrayed so many different ways! Vicious, beautiful creatures, ugly feral women, sirens that suck you down into their nests and devour you…so many different types, you know?" he waved the shot glass around and looked enthusiastic.

"Oh," Romano said. For some reason, his mind didn't know when to leave well enough alone, and he asked, "So they have to be women?"

Arthur frowned. "I dunno. There are legends of men, I guess."

"Do you think the men would kill you too?"

"Well, that depen-"

"Wait, what if the men were still beautiful? Could the men still be beautiful but have other ways of luring you down? Like if one examined your feet, or something. Are they supposed to seem really nice and then try to kill you? I guess that would make sense, right? Like you start trusting them and then…" He trailed off when he became aware that Arthur was staring at him, looking a little confused. "What the hell is that look for?" he snapped, backtracking immediately.

"I, uh…you sure are curious." Arthur set his shot glass down and gave him a serious look. "Romano, have you seen a merperson recently?"

"The fuck?" Romano scrambled off the barstool, cheeks flaming red. "I have not! Don't project your freaky fantasies on me, you creep! I'm leaving before your stupidity becomes contagious or some shit."

He found Feliciano and told him he was going home early. Feliciano, who was half-supported on Ludwig while shrieking with laughter, immediately straightened up. "Do you want me to go home with you? Ludwig can walk us."

"Fuck no, everybody will think he's our pimp or something!" Romano snapped. "I think I can handle walking a few blocks to a bus stop."

"Fratellllllo, are you sure? I can walk with you, it isn't a problem!"

"I'm sure." Romano patted his brother on the head and glowered at Ludwig. "And you, bastard, get him home safe. I don't want him wandering around the streets trying to make friends at two in the morning."

After Ludwig's solemn promise to keep his brother in line, Romano caught a bus home. He had planned on sitting on the couch and brooding when he got home, but perked up when he overhead two women talking about how the huge storm two nights ago had thrown all sorts of artifacts up on the beach.

Except…the beach. Romano started chewing on his lower lip. It had been a daydream, right? Which meant avoiding the beach was kind of idiotic. And anyway, clearly he was well equipped to fend Alfred off.

Except Alfred didn't fucking exist.

Right. Okay, then. He would go down to the beach.

Romano decided it was a good idea almost right away, once he got there. The sand was warm from the sun, even though it was setting, and the ocean was at low tide, so the waves were gentle and soothing to hear. Plus, the women had been right; all sorts of things had been tossed up on the beach. Romano was partial to sea glass, which he found fascinating, and he started collecting it in his pocket as he meandered up the beach. He had spent maybe twenty minutes walking when he heard a low, but distinctive groan from the rocks to his right.

His reaction was instantaneous; he leapt back with his hands up and cowered. Then, when nothing happened, he quickly straightened up and cleared his throat, brushing off his shirt a little and pretending he wasn't flushing because dammit he wasn't so easy to scare!

Another groan had him skittering backwards across the sand. "Who-who's there?" he demanded, reaching anxiously for his gun only to remember he'd gone right from work to the bar, and hadn't brought it to work with him. Shit! "I'm…armed!"

Nobody answered, but there was a distressed whimper after a few minutes of silence. Had somebody been horribly mutilated and left to die? Damn, he didn't want to deal with that! Still, curiosity won out, so he crept a little closer to the rocky outcropping, alert should somebody come surging over the rocks to attack him.

Finally, he got close enough to peer over the rocks. They formed a loose circle formation that kept water in them at all times, almost like a tidepool. These formations occurred all up and down the beach.

However, this one was slightly unusual in that it had a mermaid in it.

He recognized it instantly. The same face, same blue eyes, same build and magnificent golden tail. However, there were also a few differences. An inflamed, nasty looking wound was lurking on the mermaid's shoulder, spidery black lines beginning to spread out in the tell-tale marking of blood poisoning. His skin had lost its healthy sheen and seemed to hang off his frame; more than that, his eyes were clouded and unfocused and the skin on his face and torso was dried and beginning to crack. "Alfred?" he gasped, and then, remembering their last meeting, "You fucker, how dare you try to kill me? I try to be nice and you damn near drown me?" Snarling with rage, he clambered over the rocks to…well, he wasn't sure what, but it would have been something drastic.

Alfred, however, flinched away from him, using one hand to try and scrabble across the rocks. His other arm, the one with the bad shoulder, hung limp and useless, and the little pool was too small anyway for him to go anywhere, so he ended up pressed against the rocks on the other side, tail thrashing uselessly in the shallow water as a low, distressed keen left his throat.

Romano frowned. Alfred didn't look well at all. The wound on his side seemed to have healed fine…in fact, there was no trace of it. So what had happened with the stupid bastard's shoulder? "What, your creepy mermaid magic didn't work on your shoulder?" he demanded, pointing at it with a sneer. Alfred flinched again and started talking in an odd, stilted language. When Romano came a little closer to hear, Alfred squeezed his eyes shut and cringed down.

It was honestly pathetic. It was worse than pathetic. Romano actually felt guilty for shooting the jerk in the first place, and then when he realized he felt guilty he also felt horrified with himself. The bastard had tried to kill him! Why should he feel guilty? "Alright, Alfred, c'mon. I'll give you ten seconds to get back into the ocean and I won't kill you and we'll call it a day."

Alfred opened his eyes and gave Romano the best puppy-dog eyes he'd ever seen. If he was Antonio, he probably would have gone into cardiac arrest over the 'cute.' Since he was, thankfully, NOT Antonio, he only felt worse about shooting the fucking mythical mermaid.

"Can't," Alfred whispered, and held up his hands, which were scraped raw and bleeding. Actually, so was the front of his torso. He had clearly tried to drag himself over the rocks at some point, and it hadn't worked. Romano, blinking at him, suddenly realized he was standing in water…in his work shoes.

"Fuck!" he yelped, and jumped backwards, clinging onto the rocks as he furiously shook his feet free of water. Alfred, wild-eyed, started scrambling again, making the strange keening. It got higher as he got more distressed. "Ow! Bastard, shut up, that's hurting my ears!" Romano snapped, and Alfred immediately stopped.

"Sorry," he muttered after a moment. Romano, busy sliding his shoes off and holding them up to inspect them, didn't respond, or really even look down. So he was in for a shock when he felt a cold, wet hand encircle his ankle. On instinct, he jerked it away, then realized it was Alfred and started flailing wildly.

"You bastard, don't you dare try to kill me again!" he screeched, scrambling up the rocks for safety. Alfred started babbling hysterical apologies and waving his hand around. Romano, meanwhile, went off in a tangent of wild Italian, gesturing and shrieking.

Alfred stopped abruptly and stared at him; then a bright grin unfurled across his face and he lunged towards Romano, looking excited. Romano, with a very manly wail, toppled from his precarious perch from the top of the rocks and landed with an 'oof' on the sand on the other side. A few seconds passed as he lay still, blinking at the sky. Then Alfred's face popped up from between two crevices, and he exclaimed, "Italian! Italian!"

"What the fuck?" Romano very eloquently asked.

"Italian Italian Italian!" Alfred insisted, pointing at Romano. "You speak it! Italian! You Italian! I speak can too!"

Romano noted in passing that when he got excited, he mixed up his words. "I…well, no fucking duh," he managed after a minute, when he realized Alfred seemed to harbor no ill will towards him. "I am Italian. I was raised in Italy. Wait…how do you know Italian?"

"I learned it! Many many times ago, a little girl taught me. We were friends!"

"Were?" Romano asked. "Did you drown her, too?"

Alfred blinked and slunk back below the rocks, muttering. Then his face popped back up and he said sulkily, "Accident."

"What?"

"There was a storm. She fell off dock. Tried to save her, brother fight me off, told me I couldn't." Alfred shrugged his shoulders. "Oh well."

"Oh well?" Romano shrieked. "You could have saved her! She died because of you!"

Alfred made a cat-like spitting noise and Romano shrieked again as he watched Alfred's nails shoot outward into claws. "I'msorrydon'tkillme!" he wailed, forgetting Alfred couldn't get out of the rocky tidepool. Then he remembered and he cleared his throat, straightening up. "Look, this hasn't been fun, but I need to go, so…um. Yeah. Have a good…life." Slowly he began to back away from the rocks, keeping a wary eye on the mer-thing, which was looking more and more anxious as he departed. Finally, just as he was about to turn, Alfred called out to him.

"Wait!"

Romano raised one eyebrow and stared at him. "What?"

"I…I am hunger," Alfred said carefully.

Oh, fuck no. Feliciano already ate enough to feed a small army. Or a large one. "So eat some fish."

"None here." Alfred resumed looking pathetic. "Have been stuck for a whole moth."

"A whole moth." Romano repeated flatly. "Look, I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say, so-"

"Human time! Moth! One moth? Twelve moths in a year!"

"Oh, you mean 'month', you stupid bastard, and…what! A whole month? How are you still alive?"

Alfred shrugged. "Don't need to eat too frequently. But haven't eaten in a very long time because I couldn't hunt because I am hurt!" And he pointed to the wounded arm that looked very inflamed from all the recent activity.

Romano looked at the way his bones in his face were beginning to stand out, and at the way the wound was very clearly infected, and the way his brilliance was clouded and fading. He intended to turn around and go home. For some reason, his mouth took control as he turned, and said, "I'll be back with some food, bastard."

He was halfway down the beach when he registered what his mouth had said, and shrieked, "WHAT?"

….

A/N: Oh. This is so late. Oh well. Here is chapter two. It's kind of tragic because I'm trying to get the story rolling. My apologies.