Sherlock was left in his bathtub for a little while longer, flopping his tail through the water angrily, playing with what appeared to be a loofa lying on the bathtub rim. He was fuming with rage, but for some reason his heart still yearned for his captor. Suddenly the door opened, and Sherlock looked up in anticipation, hoping it was John, when Greg walked into the room, staring confoundedly at Sherlock for a moment before turning to shut the door.
"Surprise?" Sherlock muttered as Greg walked closer, rubbing his eyes as if not able to process what he was seeing. He hadn't changed one bit in the time gap, he looked like the same old idiotic Greg with a goofy smile and corny joke for every occasion, if not a little bit tired.
"How is this even possible?" Greg muttered, steadying himself on a towel rack for a moment as if he felt the need to collapse.
"Merpeople brew potions." Sherlock shrugged. "Potions make legs."
"You vanished, I thought you had died, I didn't know where you went, John said that he didn't know who I was talking about, it made me wonder how insane I really was." Greg muttered. Sherlock just laughed, nodding guiltily.
"Well, turns out you're the sanest of us all. If I had a brain cell I wouldn't have followed the ship in the first place. If I had any intelligence at all, I wouldn't have come to shore." Sherlock admitted.
"Then why did you? How many other people are merpeople, how do I know I'm not a merman?" Greg muttered, groping his own legs to make sure they didn't suddenly turn into a tail.
"Merpeople are supposed to hate humans, they wouldn't dare wander among them. I was the special exception, and that makes me an idiot because now I'm sitting in a bathtub and John's running off to meet his bride." Sherlock growled.
"Is that why you came in the first place? To stop the marriage?" Greg wondered.
"If you remember anything about my visit on earth you already know the answer to that question." Sherlock insisted.
"You're in love with him." Greg remembered, trying to think back to Sherlock's visit. He said it so simply, as if it were something so uneventful, so unimportant.
"Yes Greg, I'm in love with him." Sherlock sighed, already a bit done with Greg's stupidity.
"Well then why is he marrying Mary? Why are you trapped in a bathtub?" Greg wondered. Sherlock groaned, wanting to smack Greg's head into the tile wall decorated with little anchors.
"Ever wondered what happened to us on the docks? Why John suddenly had no recollection of my existence?" Sherlock snapped.
"Well I just assumed he smacked his head on the docks and you drowned." Greg muttered, shivering a bit as if remembering that tragic time.
"My brother got to him, trapped him in a cage, like he's about to do now, and told me that he had to die now that he knows of our existence." Sherlock pointed out.
"Is your brother going to kill us as well, now that we know?" Greg muttered.
"Let me finish my story. We gave him a memory potion, wiping the last couple of days out of his memory so that he never remembered meeting me or loving me or any of that. And now he's getting married and I couldn't have that so I followed the ship and dragged him to shore when he went overboard and he caught me in a net." Sherlock growled. "And now I'm here."
"So like, your brother's not going to kill me?" Greg clarified, as if Sherlock's entire story had gone completely over his head.
"No, if Mycroft knew I was here I'd be dead as well; he doesn't know anything but he'll find out. Somehow he always finds out." Sherlock sighed.
"Why don't you just tell John? I haven't dared mention your existence, I thought he'd throw me in an asylum, I've kept my mouth shut, but you can tell him." Greg suggested.
"I'm not going to tell him, you know how fake it sounds? He'll think I'm lying, he needs to fall in love with me again." Sherlock muttered.
"He never liked you back; I remember after you kissed him he ran. I didn't think the two of you ever got over that." Greg pointed out. Sherlock sighed deeply, trying not to cry, trying not to think of their relationship as it blossomed, trying not to think of how it had withered and rotted.
"Before he took the potion we kissed, he said he loved me. I loved him too." Sherlock whispered.
"And now he's marrying Mary. Hm. This is all rather tragic." Greg muttered.
"You think?" Sherlock growled. Greg sighed, sitting down on the side of the bathtub so Sherlock had a very unpleasant view of his backside, tapping his fingers against his chin, lost in what little thought his pathetic brain could muster up.
"Well I think it won't be hard to make John love you again, if he already had. You know all of his little preferences, and by being his servant you know a heck of a lot more than Mary does." Greg decided.
"Here's a preference, legs." Sherlock snapped, flopping his tail through the bathwater and splashing Greg.
"We can get around that, you still have your top half and your sparkling personality." Greg decided.
"Oh ya, that'll get me far." Sherlock grumbled. "This was a horrible idea, how could I ever think John could love me when I'm part fish?"
"He's a good man Sherlock; I know you know that, don't give up on him so easily." Greg insisted.
"He gave up on me already." Sherlock sighed. Greg sighed, wiping off his wet shirt in disgust and looking at the clock on the wall.
"He's probably down at the castle already, meeting Mary. I hope he hates her." Greg decided.
"Why do you hope that?" Sherlock wondered, doubting it was for his sake.
"Do you know what type of rubbish I'm going to have to go through to take care of a married couple? First of all I'll have to suffer through her handmaiden, who's probably as insufferable as Harry, and I'll have to learn how to tie a corset and iron dresses and find out what she likes to eat and light candles for their romantic dinners and ugh, I can't even imagine if they start a family, all of those diapers." Greg shuttered, as if that was the worst thing he could possibly imagine.
"Oh you poor soul, actually having to work. If John marries Mary I'd wish I could drown myself, maybe I'll scoop my poor, useless heart out with a plastic decorative sea shell while I'm at it. I came here to stop the wedding, and if it happens any way and I have to watch from a cage, well, let's just say I'm not going to be happy." Sherlock growled.
"What's that around your neck?" Greg wondered, trying to grab at the potion but Sherlock just smacked his hand away in disgust.
"Don't touch it. The antidote for the memory potion, but I have to wait for the right time." Sherlock insisted.
"I could slip it over his food, or tell him it was exotic wine." Greg suggested.
"Even John's not that stupid. No, he needs to drink it willingly; he needs to love me as he pulls off the cork." Sherlock decided.
"Alright, alright, I'm just trying to help. Besides, what's so special about John? There's plenty of fish in the sea." Greg pointed out with a laugh.
"Was that intentional?" Sherlock asked, not amused.
"Not at all, pure coincidence, but that was hilarious! I'm hilarious." Greg decided, sounding very proud of himself.
"Well, good for you, can we get back to John's marriage? There's got to be some way we can prevent it from happening, make Mary dread the moment she ever agreed to come over the ocean with him." Sherlock decided.
"We can push her off the boat and let her drown." Greg suggested. "I'm pretty sure she won't want to come back then."
"That's murder Greg." Sherlock pointed out. Greg's hopeful face dropped.
"Oh ya." He muttered, as if not realizing what he was saying until after he had said it. "Well maybe we could, um, maybe she gets sea sick?" Greg muttered weakly.
"I'll think of something, just...I don't know. Make her clothes get all wrinkled or get them wet or something, make sure her food is cold and her bed is unmade." Sherlock suggested.
"John will surely fire me if I do all that." Greg pointed out.
"Think of something, I don't know! He can't marry her Greg, it simply can't happen, he loves me!" Sherlock exclaimed, nearly flailing himself over the side of the bathtub as if trying to prove a point.
"Sherlock, I don't know what to say." Greg muttered. "I'm sorry."
"Well thank you very much you poor soul. Now go frolic out there with your friends and your legs and your John, I'll just sit here in this bathtub." Sherlock snapped. Greg got to his feet, probably not detecting the sarcasm in Sherlock's bitter voice.
"Well, alright then. I'll see you later I suppose." He decided.
"Oh, ya, I'll be here." Sherlock called at Greg's retreating back. What an idiot. Sherlock lay and flopped in his bathtub for a little while longer; trying to imagine what Mary might look like. The best case scenario is she looked like a cross between a blob fish and a troll, maybe with some facial warts, little to no hair, a big, crooked nose and two missing front teeth. Yes, that would be splendid. The second more ironic version of how Sherlock pictured Mary was an exact female human representation of himself, dark curly hair, high cheekbones and extremely pale. And then John might think he's falling in love with Mary while he was actually falling in love with her male merman look alike. That would be quite nice. But Sherlock knew that Mary wouldn't look anything like him, he knew that Mary wouldn't be a troll or a blob fish, she would be a beautiful human girl, a princess to every meaning of the world, and she'll be adored by John Watson. She'll be loved by the heart that should've been loving him. And Sherlock slid down to the bottom of the bathtub so that he submerged his head, so that his tail stuck in the air and he could see the ceiling of the bathroom through a thin layer of disgusting bath water. He wish he was human, he wished that by sticking his head under the water for long enough that he would drown, that he would die. Oh how he wished that ending this eternal torture was that easy.

When Sherlock finally resurfaced he realized he had fallen asleep, possibly the only good sleep he had in ages. His back hurt, his neck ached, and for a moment he had no idea where he was, in the bathtub of some mysterious room. But then it all came flooding back to him like a dam had broken, and he sank back into the water in defeat. If only he could drink his own memory potion and forget this constant throbbing in his heart. But would the potion get rid of his unconscious romantic urges? It wasn't like he was forcing his heart to drag itself towards John Watson; it was his heart acting all on its own. If the potion only wiped John's mind, Sherlock wondered what his heart was telling him. Maybe John was feeling things that he could never explain; maybe John was second guessing himself every time he turned away from Sherlock. Maybe he doubted Mary's eligibility because the potion was already full? Sherlock knew that was too good to be true, he knew that his mind was making things up and twisting the impossible to try to be even the slightest bit possible. John didn't love him; he was trapping him, kidnapping him from the ocean which he called home and dragging him against his will. Of course Sherlock wanted to be on land with the humans, he wanted to be in John's presence every day, but this wasn't the way he wanted. Sherlock wanted legs and a smile and to be treated like an equal, he wanted people to say hello and good morning and not gape at him like he was some monster. Sherlock wanted to be a normal human, doing normal human things, and loving John Watson the way only a human being could. A merman could not love a human, or a human cannot love a merman. Either way it would never work, and even though Sherlock's heart strings were reaching for John Watson, John was using them to tie his hands together and enslave him. The door opened and a new person came in, someone Sherlock had never seen from the crew or from his time at the palace. It wasn't a sailor, it wasn't a musclebound freak with a thirst for blood and anything alcoholic, it was a rather skinny man dressed in all white with a large white hat on his head. A cook. Sherlock eyed him curiously while the cook just gaped, what a surprise. As if he had never seen a merman in the prince's bathtub before.
"And who might you be?" Sherlock muttered lazily.
"I'm um...Gary." He muttered, holding some sort of silver platter in his right hand.
"Gary, hello Gary." Sherlock sighed. The cook just stared at him some more, and Sherlock wondered if he actually had a purpose or if he had just come to ogle.
"I have food, his majesty requested some fish?" Gary muttered, as if he were asking more than telling.
"Fish is fine." Sherlock sighed. "About time too, I'm starving." Gary stayed where he was, looking down at his platter nervously, as if not wanting to come any closer.
"I don't bite." Sherlock pointed out, waving his fingers through the air and examining them, his skin now dry.
"You're very beautiful." Gary blurted out, covering his mouth with the other hand as if trying to shove his words back in. Sherlock just smiled with amusement, this seemed to be a recurring theme in his life.
"Am I?" Sherlock wondered. The cook nodded slightly, his face ghostly white."You know who else is beautiful?" Sherlock asked, leaning forward slightly, his eyes gleaming.
"Who...?" Gary muttered nervously, as expecting Sherlock to say it was him.
"John Watson. But don't tell him, okay?" Sherlock laughed, splashing back down in his water and staring up at the ceiling. Sherlock was a very bad person, but then again, he didn't necessarily care.
"No, of course not." Gary muttered, coming closer with the platter of fish. Sherlock turned his head ever so slightly to examine the fish out of the corner of his eye.
"What kind of fish?" Sherlock asked lazily, letting his fingers run down the tile wall. Gary kind of stumbled to get closer, holding the platter right in front of Sherlock's face.
"Well, right here, that red stuff, that's salmon, and the grey bit next to it, that's halibut, and then this here is swordfish, and that's flounder. All prepared with lemon juice and fresh parsley." Gary finished, smiling proudly and waving the platter right under Sherlock's nose as if expecting him to get very excited about his murdered fish friends.
"I haven't the faintest idea what a lemon is, but otherwise it sounds very intriguing." Sherlock muttered. He was lying, of course, he was sure however the humans prepared fish was far from how the merpeople did, and he was sure that it would be revolting. To make matters worse, the portions were far too small. He didn't know if they were thinking he was on some sort of merman diet, but he was a big person and he needed his nutrition. These looked like appetizers when honestly Sherlock could eat an entire whale.
"So, would you like to try some?" Gary asked. Sherlock sighed, pulling himself to a sitting potion in the bathtub and ripping off of a piece of the salmon with his fingers, eating it curiously and feeling the need to gag. This was very much not how the merpeople made it, but with Gary looking so darn excited, Sherlock forced himself to smile.
"It's good, it's very good." He decided. Gary smiled back, although he still looked rather apprehensive about taking his eyes off of Sherlock, as if he was going to knock him unconscious with the loofa or something.
"Your name is Sherlock?" he asked nervously, his cheeks getting red again.
"Yes, my name is Sherlock, Gary." Sherlock muttered. Gary nodded furiously, as if this was very interesting news.
"I'm sorry they took you from your home." He muttered. Sherlock sighed heavily, nodding in agreement and trying to look very sad.
"I'm the last of my kind, the only home I have is the ocean and the only person I've ever known was John. He betrayed me. Say, do you mind if I could just take this whole platter?" Sherlock asked, changing the topic very quickly because Gary was starting to look very upset.
"Oh, um, sure, I guess. Ya." Gary muttered. Sherlock smiled the fakest smile he could manage, nodding as he eased the platter out of Gary's hand.
"Thank you very much. That will be all." Sherlock decided.
"Are you sure you don't want anything else, water, wine, um...crackers?" Gary asked hopefully, as if he wanted to spend more time with Sherlock and less in the kitchen.
"Oh no, thank you very much Gary, no, that will be all." Sherlock assured, trying to sound as polite as possible so Gary skedaddled and left him with his overcooked fish.
"Alright then, sir, enjoy your fish." He decided, dropping into a low and unnecessary bow, all while clutching his hat to make sure it didn't fall to the floor, and walked out of the room.