Chapter Text
The sun was setting. People were slowly leaving the beach, the remaining few curled up on their towels basking in the few remaining rays of sun.
Only a few more minutes, Tim, Tim told himself, sighing as he made his own banana-peel-orange-peel-and-seeds-no-fruit smoothie. If he left even a moment too soon, Thalia would have his head on a silver platter, no matter how serious his condition was.
The condition, of course, was being in love.
He felt his breath catch when he imagined his lover. His lover was everything a boyfriend should be; strong, tall, with teeth that could cut and eyes that could only kind of blink. He had to constantly be moving or else he would drown. His skin, when pet the wrong way, felt like sandpaper.
Tim Hooper was in love with Bruce the shark.
—
When there were five minutes left in his shift, a riding club who hadn’t got the gist of a beach day showed up to his stand all begging for coconut-vanilla milkshakes, which took an impressive five minutes to make.
Each.
And given that there were twenty girls in the riding club, he sat there for way too long putting milk and ice cream into a blender over and over and over again. (He even considered putting just half of a banana peel into one shake–just to spice it up–but he remembered the threat of Thalia the last time he did anything even remotely shibby and kept it boring.)
He could hear Bruce crying out to him. Every extra-loud splash of water was Bruce slapping his tail down, begging for attention. The low rumbley sound that passed every few minutes was Bruce, growling to be fed. The creak of wood was Bruce rubbing up against the boardwalk, hoping Tim would be there to give him something. It broke Tim’s heart to see his lover acting this way, but he grit his teeth until the last riding club girl left with her totally-not-tubular milkshake.
After she left, Tim grabbed his crate of food and sprinted down to the beach, his oily hair flowing in the wind, running with reckless abandon. He was going to see his Bruce. His one and only Bruce. Oh, Aideen, even thinking his name made him want to shout!
And there he was! His blue-gray skin shimmered beautifully as he poked his head out of the water, shimmying for all to see. Tim dumped the food into his mouth, crying as his lover moaned with joy. He felt wetness on his face, and didn’t even care that he couldn’t tell if it was tears of joy or just saltwater from Bruce being the messiest eater of all time. No–it didn’t matter at all. Any time, any experience shared with Bruce–those were the moments Tim Hooper held next to his heart.
After Bruce finished eating, he rubbed up against the boardwalk again. Tim reached down to pet him, making sure he was going back-to-front like any cool person would. Bruce whacked his tail in pleasure, before swimming a few quick circles in front of Tim.
“You want a ride, boy?” He asked, before hopping onto the shark. Bruce didn’t hesitate before he swam as fast as he could around Fort Pinta, causing Tim to whoop with joy. He jumped, he dove, he tried his best to give Tim the time of his life.
When he could swim no more, he delivered Tim to the shore of the beach, the inside of his pants nearly frayed from rubbing up against the sandpaper-like scales. Tim blew him a kiss goodbye, and Bruce swam away.
—
Tim watched Bruce as he terrorized the horseback riders who rode just a little too deep out to sea in that not-magic race or whatever. Some of the girls genuinely seemed terrified, others thought it was an elaborate prop, and still some others just jumped over it without thinking.
Tim knew Bruce loved it, of course. Any human interaction always made Bruce happy. But watching the girls ride on water–even as Bruce broke that water every race–made Tim stop and think.
That couldn’t be possible if there were plastic plates, unless there was a specific break in the plates for Bruce… but why would they have planned for a shark to disrupt their race?
It made no sense at all. So Tim knew he was going to get to the bottom of this.
The next day, he had a lot of customers. Of all types, too. Ones that were busy talking on the phone who wouldn’t notice the banana peel in their smoothie. Ones that were attached to their friends by the hip, who needed their drink to be the perfect shade of pink to post to their Jorstagram or Instastable or whatever the newest trend was called (Tim was way too hip to keep up with the trends, duuudddeeee, he just liked to chillaxxxxxxxx). Ones that looked so serious in their racing gear that he was almost afraid of them.
But every now and then, there would be single riders who just wanted a drink and a nice day at the beach. They’d light a few lanterns, play with a metal detector, go fishing, and pretty much just have a chill day.
They were perfect for his plan.
“Hey, you hip-hoppity person, you wanna make a deal?”
The girl standing in front of him looked at him strangely. What, did she not appreciate him being friendly?
“Uh… a deal?”
“Yeah, see, I need you to do the Aideen-water-race thing, ‘kay, but–you know the part where the shark swims up and you have to jump over him?”
“Yeah?”
“You need to stop at that part, wait till the shark goes away, and then just walk on that path, okay?”
“... And what do I get out of this?”
“Free drinks for the rest of the summer.” Tim put his imaginary sunglasses down and gave her his best surfer smile.
“... Okay, I’ve got nothing better to do. Make me an orange smoothie while I’m racing, okay?”
“Sounds good to me! Hey, do you want it with or without the peel–”
But the girl had already run off with her horse to the race. Tim just put the whole orange into the blender and watched as she raced.
She clearly knew what she was doing–she and her horse expertly maneuvered over every obstacle, and the horse didn’t even flinch at the idea of racing on water. When they disappeared out of sight, Tim finished the smoothie to look out just in time to see Bruce approaching the racetrack.
The girl stopped. Bruce swam through. The girl walked through the path like it was nothing, stepping right where Bruce had been.
Right where he had been.
There was no break in the path.
There were no plastic plates that the race was hosted on. There was magic.
Tim was left gawking for several minutes. The girl came back and waved in his face a few times before he snapped out of his shock, handing the girl her smoothie. She took a sip and immediately grimaced.
“What, did you put dish soap in this?”
“Well, how else am I gonna get that authentic orange smell?”
The girl sighed, and finally smiled. “Okay, I can respect that. I’m Tabitha, by the way.”
“I’m Tim Hooper.”
“Nice to meet you. Say, what was that race thing about?” She took another sip and gagged.
Tim pondered telling her the truth for a second. A lie would be easier…
But the truth could end with an ally.
He looked her in the eye. “Tabitha, do you believe in magic?”