"You shouldn't have done that."

"Well, I couldn't just let him die!"

"You let all the others die, Seth. Don't try to play the savior card on me. I know you – you're just interested in shiny, pretty new toys, and you found one you like, and you saved him 'cause you wanna keep him for yourself, not because he was gonna die."

Seth falters at that, forced into silence by the harsh truth he'll refuse to accept until the day he himself dies. Beside him, Jimmy smiles, but it's a saccharine smile that makes Seth want to punch him. But Jimmy's the only one who understands the whole goddamn mess they're in, because he was right alongside Seth the entire time.

"What're you gonna do with him, honey? Gonna keep him down here so we can share him? I don't think he'd last very long, though… hmm. Maybe find a way to get him to keep coming back? If he's not spooked by the whole nearly-drowning thing in the first place, that is."

Seth frowns at him. "Shut up, Jacobs. He probably won't even remember when he wakes up."

"And that's for the best. We don't want people to know about this… even if it might get us out of here. He'd sound like a fucking idiot, anyway, if he wakes up and starts telling everyone he knows that a merman saved him from drowning."

"I think he'll be back, though. I think he'll remember something. Enough."

"In your dreams, Seth. You just want to get laid by someone who isn't me."

"No, I'm just tired of this," he insists, barely-repressed emotions simmering under the surface of his false-composed tone. "Tired of being down here. Tired of not knowing a way out. Tired of… everything," he decides.

"And you think I'm not? I love you, but goddamn it I am so fucking sick of being around you, but you're all I've got down here. If I was alone I'd be fucking crazy by now. I have no fucking idea how we ended up here, how we ended up like this, but if I could figure out what the hell caused all of this, I'd erase it in a fucking heartbeat."

Seth just blinks at Jimmy, mouth hanging open like he's been slapped into shock. The outburst is so different from the Jimmy Jacobs he's familiar with – cool, calm, collected, flirting with anything with a heartbeat and genitals.

But this one, the one that Seth catches a glimmer of when Jimmy starts shouting at him, is tired, frustrated, angry, lonely.

Seth is, too.

Roman wakes up shivering and soaked, with the distinctly uncomfortable feeling of wood pressing into his back. Jimmy's face appears above him, creased with concern, until he evidently realizes that Roman's awake, breathing out a sigh of relief.

"Shit, uce. I don't know what the hell came over me, but I thought you were gone, man. I was 'bout to jump in there and save you myself 'til you came back up."

For a long moment, Roman has no idea what the hell his cousin is talking about. But it all floods back into his mind with nearly enough force to induce a headache, and he groans, lifting his arms to rub at his temples to massage away the phantom pain. He doesn't seem injured – he's not sore, even though it's a little hard to breathe – just confused.

"Someone… someone saved me." His voice is rougher than usual, throat sensitive from the harsh rasp of the saltwater he'd accidentally swallowed.

"No way, man. Ain't no one here. Just us. You went down on your own and came back up on your own."

"But…" Roman falters, because he sounds like he's hallucinating, and he probably is, because he's got no proof. None at all. But he remembers teetering on the edge of consciousness, and he remembers someone grabbing at him, pulling him upwards, whispering soft words of encouragement as if he was a child learning to swim, and disappearing once he'd breached the surface of the water.

And he remembers the person had brown hair, with a large blonde streak that stood out like a halo in Roman's mind.

"There was someone there. I saw him. I would've prob'ly died if it weren't for him."

Jimmy purses his lips and shakes his head as Roman sits up. "I think you hit your head on a rock or somethin'. No way there was anyone there."

"I know what I saw."

"Prob'ly imagining things. We ought to go, anyway, it's gettin' dark and Naomi's gonna be worried about me."

Roman sighs and turns his body to look briefly out at the ocean that seems to extend endlessly out beyond the edge of the dock, an ocean that looks vast and empty.

Something tells him there was someone out there, looking out for him, and even though he doesn't push the idea further, he tucks it away in the corner of his mind, like a piece of paper stowed away in his pocket, making a mental note to open it back up later and examine it, very carefully.

Roman's never wrong.

"I told you he would remember! I told you!"

"And no one believes him, and if he's got half a brain in that thick head of his, he won't come back here looking for you."

"But what if he does?"

"He won't find you. You really should remember, Sethie baby, that even if someone were to find you, to find us, realize they weren't hallucinating, and accept us for what we are… you're mine. All mine. Remember?"

And as Jimmy's arm snakes around his waist and his mouth lays claim to Seth's neck, Seth tips his head forward in a nod, albeit a reluctant one.

He wants something new.