The east India trading company raided tortuga two weeks after Benj had been left on the beaches. His mother, so kind and loving, had no idea how to heal a human. The pod had done their best but they couldn't keep him. Mermaid politics always complicated. So his mother had bequeathed him to his friends. Issac and Jeannette collecting him from the sand and dragging his shaky form back up the beach and into their familiar inn. The merman's treasure forever his safe haven.

"What trouble did you get yourself in this time?" Issac grunted, Benjy sprawled across his back. The merman's leg splinted to driftwood with several pieces of seaweed.

Benjy had laughed weakly. His body had gone through dramatic changes to survive the depths the kraken had dragged him. Scales covered patches of his skin even in human form, no longer just tattoos, and they glinted in the light. His gills were vivid red scars across his neck, visible and bright. The scales were his usual colour of grey blue and they covered patches of his shoulders crossed his rib cage, glinting in the sun. His shirt long lost during the first hazy days with his mother's pod where his consciousness was fleeting. He didn't remember much of those days. "Only a kraken and Davy jones", he grunted as Issac shifted him to begin climbing the stairs of the Inn.

Jeanette smacked him on the arm and Benjy yelped. His body was still adjusting to the changes and everything ached like he had been trampled by horses. He was pretty sure he was running a fever as well. "One of these days you're going to end up dead", she scolded weakly. Her hit must have left a bruise. He was bruising like a overripe peach and it was not a good look. His skin adjusting to the scales and colouring red with irritation.

"Pirate's life for me", he mumbled, exhaustion returning. Together, though Jeanette's smaller frame meant that it was mostly Issac doing the work, they managed to get him back to his room and down onto the cot. He groaned in pain at the movement and sighed as he was settled onto the thin mattress.

Jeanette dragged a blanket over his bare chest, tutting at the patches of scales and the irritated skin surrounding it. "You've grown them on your cheeks too", she hummed as she rubbed her thumb gently over them. They stung and Benjy hissed at her, his teeth still human but sharper than before. He wasn't sure if he would ever recover to his original humanity. The scales felt pretty permanent and they itched in the air. Dotting up his arms, across his collarbones and shoulders with a few sprinkling his face like grey freckles.

"Are your ears pointy?" Issac swiped Benj's hair out of the way. "They are! You look very fishy".

"Oh fuck off", Benjy grunted. He was so tired and his eyes were drooping.

Jeanette just chuckled and patted his cheek. "You're still beautiful. Just a bit more fishy now". Benjy huffed at her. "Issac will go and get you some food".

"I guess I've been told", Issac smiled and Benjy laughed as the bigger man left the room.

"Now", Jeanette grinned as she arranged her skirts to take a seat at his side. "Now, give me the whole story. What happened to Ms Swan?" Benj smiled to himself as he thought back to the kiss. Will and Elizabeth both owned his heart it seemed. Not that he particularly wanted it back. He hummed, a blissful smile spreading across his face as sleep threatened to sweep him back under. He had been sleeping so much recently. His mind brought up the image of Elizabeth's flushed face after their kiss. Her parted lips and the way she breathed into him, skin warm and lashes brushing cheeks. Will underwater with the air Benjy had blown into his lungs, hair dancing in the current and eyes half lidded. Both of them were beautiful. He dozed off before he could verbalise it, their faces in his mind.

Jeanette woke him not long after to weasel the whole story out of him while Issac fed him spoonfuls of porridge, Benjy's limbs too sore to work. He fell asleep right after and woke the next morning to Issac knitting a sock next to his bed. As the days passed and his time awake grew longer, neither Issac or Jeanette left him unattended. One of them was always on hand to keep him occupied while the other bothered their staff with the running of the tavern below. Jeanette reading to him or telling stories of their lives in tortuga. Issac often knitting, more silent than his wife but still engaging in conversations to distract Benjy from clawing at his own skin. His blood restless from being sick for so long.

 By the second week he was able to make his way clumsily around the pub with a crutch under one arm and his broken ankle hovering over the floor. The regulars laughing at his stumbling attempts to do things, chores, dance, anything to keep himself busy. Whatever he had to do to starve off the nightmares where Will and Elizabeth sailed away from him and he was dragged under. The better he got, the worse the dreams plagued him. He wanted to go and find them but his broken ankle was healing slowly and the scales that now dotted his skin out of the water were not subtle. It was only the regulars who knew about him who did not stare in the same way the newcomers were. Perhaps this was why Lord Beckett found him so easily. He could no longer pretend to be fully human. 

They stormed the place during the loudest and busiest time of the night. The Merman's Treasure filled with drunken pirates and scantily clad prostitutes. Tables and chairs shoved into corners to make more room for the dancing as the band on stage played jaunty tunes that had the crowd thumping out a beat under their boots. Benjy was seated behind the bar on a stool, crutch leaning against the sticky surface as he filled pints from the barrels underneath the counter for Issac to pass out. His ankle still sprinted and strapped up where it was propped onto of another barrel. 

It was the busyness that delayed the soldiers as they tried to storm through the doors. At first it was the shouting rising from outside, not unusual when around drunken pirates. Then there was the shots of gunfire, also not unusual with drunken pirates. Benjy looked up at the noise and rose unsteadily on one foot to peer with interest towards the noise. "Who's shooting?" He asked as he staged his crutch under one arm. Isaac was peering over the heads next to him. The taller man looking for his wife amongst the crowd. Jeanette having disappeared to collect empty tankards. 

"Blue coats!" The cry rose up and caught like a wildfire. Instantly the music trailed off and the crowd were moving. Every pirate knew what that meant. The navy was coming for them and if they were caught, it was a prison sentence if you were lucky. A hanging if you weren't. 

"Fuck", Benjy spat as he watched the customers flee through any exit available. Some out of open windows, others through the door only to be pushed back by the tide of people suddenly turning away from the main doors. Benjy couldn't run and he knew that if they were storming the island then he wouldn't get far. He could not run, could not swim with his ankle busted at it was. 

"Benjy", Isaac grabbed him by the waist and lifted him up onto the bar. He swung his legs over as the dark skinned man leapt smoothly over the surface. He reached up to lift the merman back down but a flash of green stopped him. Jeanette, her green dress of the evening bright in the light of the chandelier, was elbowing her way through the panicking crowd towards them. Benjy watched as a well placed kick to a man's balls made him drop and she leapfrogged her way over him to join them. 

"They're coming round the front", She panted, curls a wild mess. "We need to go out the back but we have to be quick about it".

"Benjy", Isaac reached for him and he reached back, allowing the larger man to lift him down from the bar. "You'd better get on my back". 

"I hate this", Benjy grumbled as he reached up and wrapped his arms around the man's neck. Isaac lifting him in a piggyback as Jeanette led the way. The bar was almost empty and there was the increasing sounds of gunfire outside. Only a the drunkards already passed out or those frozen to their seats still occupied the floor. Jeanette wove her way between them and to the backdoor hidden behind a shelf next to the cellar door. It was their secret escape, as every business on Tortuga owned. When dealing with pirates, one had hidden things everywhere. 

She slid back the bolts and pulled the heavy key from her pockets. Benjy resting his chin on Isaac's shoulder as the door creaked open. She made a little noise of bitter sharp irritation as the soldiers waiting in the alley behind the building all turned and levelled their bayonets at them. Benjy sighed deeply and tapped for Isaac to let him down. The man did so and he rested on his crutch as he levelled his gaze at the guns. "Run", he muttered to his friends. "I'll distract them". 

"Benjy", Jeanette shot back as she raised her hands slowly up in a sign of surrender. "Don'y be stupid". 

"I can't run. Go!" Benjy snapped as he reached across her as fast as lightning and pulled the door shut with a slam. The bolts sliding home. Reacting with years of experience, the three of them jumped out of the way as gunfire slammed into the wood. Bullets sending the door shaking and splintering. 

"We should go", Isaac reached out and grabbed his wife by the hand. "Benjy", he glanced back at him. 

"See you later!" He waved as the soldiers outside the door set about trying to break it down. Voice purposely cheerful yet stern. Bitter anger and frustration souring his tongue. "Don't get caught". 

"If you die, I will curse out your name!" Jeanette shouted as she and her husband fled for the nearest window. Benjy watched as they wriggled through it and took off into the town on fire. It seemed that it was not only their bar that was being destroyed tonight. Canons were laying waste to the port outside. Distant booms and screaming. 

Benjy sighed and hobbled his way back to the bar. He lifted himself up onto the counter, feeling the wood stick to his breeches and coat. One hand caught a half drunk pint and he swilled the beer around in the metal before taking a gulp. It wasn't rum but it would do. When the door finally broke, he was waiting for them.

unedited