Work Text:
Summer 1999
Up until now, Cody hadn’t really given too much thought to whether it would be practical – or, really, proper, per whatever mer-manners might dictate for a new merman on his first summer in the sea – to try to bring back any kind of underwater stuff for his human mom and dad.
But as he hovered over the stand of red and blue sea sponges, he thought of the natural ones his human mom liked to use.
Really, it was kinda awesome how many things you could do with a sponge, as weird a thing as that might be for a 13 year old guy to think.
Good for skin-care scrubs (made you feel awesome and smooth and clean after a bath or shower), washing a car or boatside (speeds up chores and gets everything nice and shiny), using an old one to sprout seeds (good for gardening with Dad), soaking in baking soda to deodorize a fridge (for when you forget to throw out leftovers and need to get things neat again), nevermind all the different kinds of painting you could do with natural sponges with all their unique and interesting shapes.
All that having been said, though, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to pick any here. If he’d been guessing correctly, they were close to Hawai’i now, so a little bit of a long swim back to California with any sort of souvenir. They still had at least a month or so before they’d have to head back – it wasn’t even all the way into July.
(well, Cody was pretty sure. None of the creatures or stops along the way had any kind of calendars, and with all the drama of transforming and then the sheer thrill of going out to the sea for the summer, he’d let the days run together, so he was kinda trusting his mom to keep the schedule, and she seemed happy to do so)
Still, he was happy to check all these sponges out anyway. Definitely could make a cool story when he got back.
The nearest sponges were like a a stand of squat, maroon-red barrels, growing straight up from the coral-rock below. Like many a tropical afternoon, the sun overhead was bright, and they were not too deep, so the reef around them was colorful and lush. His mom was nearby, just off to his left, foraging for clams or lobsters for lunch, but still within line of sight. The reef was busy, and teeming with life at every turn.
Cody was sure he could live here for a million years and never run out of things to watch, see, experiment with, eat, touch…it was amazingly cool.
Jess was in for the marine biology secondhand tour of a lifetime in a month.
So, for now, the sponges were worth some more investigating. He remembered they were filter-feeders, a bunch of tiny things together whipping microscopic tails together to pump the water around.
Huh. What would that feel like?
He curiously dipped his right hand inside the tube of the nearest sponge, smiling as he felt very gentle, subtle flow as the millions of tiny flagellates inside the sponge structure wafted the water through. Cody wasn’t sure about whether his personal nervous system had gotten some kind of upgrade, but he had definitely noticed that the fins on his arms were really sensitive to any moves or changes in the water around him. Like your fingertips, but your whole arm, and specifically for depth or currents.
…..OK, guess that’s not really like your fingertips at all, but still. Really sensitive.
He experimented with fanning and retracting his arm fin – a weird, new muscle to literally flex, but he felt like he was getting the hang of it – still with his hand inside the sponge, noting the different sensations of pressure on the rays versus the fin portions between them, the scales on his palm, the tiny currents moving through his fingers if he fluttered them.
In his water-flow experimenting, he’d gotten his whole forearm down inside the sponge, watching his own fin flare back and forth. Sponges don’t exactly move, so Cody startled slightly when, right next to his elbow, something very much did.
Every day in the ocean had been just an awesome blast of discoveries (well, usually awesome, some stuff was dangerous, but really that was just a different kind of cool), but it still managed to find new and cool surprises.
Like….whatever that thing was.
It was small, maybe only the size of his thumb, and looked like some kind of slug. A cream-white body, the color of vanilla cupcake frosting, and interesting little speckle-spots of black-bluish dots looking like droplets on the….tube…body….thing?
At one end it had some sort of…maybe antennae, looking like a mini anemone, or maybe more like a set of feather dusters or ferns, that were the same lacey black as the stippled spots. They bristled in the flow of the water too, as the slug inched along on the ridge of the sponge.
It didn’t move very fast (so probably couldn’t attack him), nor was it very brightly warning-colored (so probably not poisonous), but Cody had learned it was probably best not to touch it or let it touch him without asking his mom first.
He had learned about fire coral very quickly a few weeks ago.
So he pulled back, crossing his arms safely over his chest, but not going anywhere, just hovering over the sponge and the slug to watch its slow progress over the brushy surface.
Jess had definitely had a far fancier and more scientific word than ‘slug,’ for something…well, something kind of like this, he’d shown it to Cody in a book…but at the moment, all Cody remembered was laughing at the name for…some reason.
This didn’t help him remember the term, exactly, but he for sure remembered Jess’s funny little trying-to-be-serious smirk he gave him about it, rolling his eyes at Cody’s sense of humor, fighting the urge to laugh too….
The slug paused at the top rim of the sponge-barrel, the forward-leading end raising slightly and wiggling back and forth, as if checking the terrain.
Cody figured he’d have to ask Jess – or maybe his mom – whether these things could see or not.
Ugh, he really wanted to remember the name Jess had used…
…sea…cucumber? No, those looked different….
OK, think, Cody. C’mon.
The fan-things weren’t….well, they weren’t tentacles, they weren’t eyes or anything, they were….uhhhhh…..the lungs? Or, wait, no, the gills?
Cody, personally, was glad he didn’t get gills when he fully changed. That’d feel weird under his jaw, and Sam would probably think they looked weird, plus he liked having the option to breathe air still.
But anyway. OK, they’re the gills, but they do the thing that lungs do…and they kinda look like….hmm? Branches?
….a….a….branch slug?
Nope, that wasn’t it.
C’mon. Why was it funny? What was the joke?
The….hmmm…
He peered at it closely, as if the slug would suddenly sit up and tell him its name.
It didn’t, though Cody did try beaming his thoughts at it. He was pretty sure that was how it worked, but this new language was a lot easier to listen than to speak while he was still so new to all of it.
Apparently, the central nervous system of a sea slug is not sufficient to respond to a merman’s telepathic greetings.
Was it….a…..?
A nudibranch!!!
There was no one save for the nudibranch and the sponges – and a school of fish swirling above the reef cliff’s edge, but they weren’t paying attention – around to notice, but Cody broke into triumphantly mischievous chuckles at recalling the name, and why it was so funny, and why Jess had scoffed at him for laughing despite BARELY not breaking down too.
Nudibranch.
Nude-y brank.
A couple bubbles (somehow? gaseous exchange was a little beyond his speculations right now) fizzled out of his nose as he snorted out another laugh as he sounded out the name to himself.
Nude-y.
The nudibranch, unbothered, made up whatever fraction of a mind it had and continued down into the caldera of the sponge. Cody still kept a safe distance – no need to get stung or anything – but fluttered his tail to re-angle himself to watch its progress, still giggling to himself.
Nude.
Look, when you’re 13 and your incredibly serious and studious scientist best friend tells you that the proper, real-world name for sea slugs basically includes calling them nude, you kinda have to laugh about it, that’s simply logical.
(Plus, Jess’s glare – and the way he was absolutely awful at trying not to laugh when Cody did - was pretty hilarious too)