Chapter Text
The new teacher's assistant was pretty weird - a giant of a man, with waist length hair, tattoos on his hands, and a kind of hard to understand accent. Mr. Petrou, Mrs. Sandford had said his name was, though she seemed equally as disgusted with him as most of the students. Whether Mr. Petrou picked up on this, understood this, or just didn't make a fuss was unknown, as he watched over the class with a careful eye.
Sebastian didn't pay much mind to him, already familiar with the routine that was class - the lesson would start, everyone else would fly ahead with their work, and he would struggle, like always. Then, when everyone else was finished and Sebastian was only halfway through, Mrs. Sandford would pull him to the front and yell at him, asking why he kept failing again and again. And then, he'd be given a letter home to his upset mother, and she would look at him and say, "why can't you just apply yourself, Mijo?"
The day went on, and so did the routine, leaving Sebastian running out towards the end of the day. He could hear the scoff from his teacher as he ran, but not much after that as he raced to his locker. He almost missed that he was being followed, turning to see Mr. Petrou looking at him with an unreadable expression.
"What do you want?" He asked defensively, one hand going to hide the scar across the bridge of his nose instantly.
"Can I have a word?"
"Why do you care? You heard her, I'm an idiot." He slammed his locker shut, swinging his bag over his shoulder.
"You're not, you just learn differently, that's normal," Petrou told him, stopping the boy in his tracks. "Unfortunately, a lot of more.. traditional style teachers don't like to acknowledge that. Let's go to the office, eh? Have a sit down and we can figure things out."
Despite himself, Sebastian followed, sitting in the office with Petrou and talking about his struggles. At the end of the day, when his Mom came to pick him up, Petrou explained what was going on to her, and brought up a possibility of "ADHD," whatever that meant.
So Sebastian and his Mom followed the TA's advice, and for once Sebastian started to understand, started not to fall quite as far behind. No one else in the class needed the extra help, so Mrs. Sandford basically assigned Petrou to him, because Petrou's methods worked - though she'd never admit it out loud. And when those methods only got Sebastian so far, his Mom contacted Petrou and asked for tutor suggestions.
"I can't think of any off the top of my head, no," Petrou had said. "Hell, I'd tutor him myself but I have my own studies."
"Oh."
"I mean, I want the best for him, he's like I was at his age, but- actually," he paused, pulling out a notebook from his bag, flipping through it. "If you really want, there's a little library downtown, I work there Thursday afternoons to write essays and whatnot, I could probably give Sebastian some help then."
"You would?"
"Yes, but my one condition is that you need to be there too."
"Of course. Thank you, Mr. Petrou."
"Just call me Delta, everyone above the age of twelve does."
And so, on Thursday afternoons after school, Sebastian, his Mom, and Petrou would find themselves at the library, Sebastian working on his homework with help from his Mom and Petrou to stay focused and to answer certain questions he'd ask to understand the material better.
At the same time, Petrou would write papers on his studies - marine biology, Sebastian was delighted to find out, having been somehow worried Petrou would study something boring like business or math. Sometimes, when Sebastian got done early, which was happening more and more as the weeks went on, Petrou would tell him stuff about his subject, and occasionally about diving. Sebastian's favourite sea creature quickly became the mantis shrimp, amazed by its pure strength.
Soon, half a year had passed, and Petrou was working on his final assignment. As study sessions drew on, Sebastian's Mom invited Petrou to come home and have dinner with them.
"It's the least I could do for all your help. Sebastian doesn't dread school now, he's passing his tests, and he's started making friends," his Mom said, a gentle smile on her face. It took a lot of persuading, but Petrou did come have dinner with them, letting Sebastian proofread his essay. "Thanks again for all your help, Delta. It... it's been hard, since Sebastian's father left. I'm so glad to see him happy."
"No problem, Ms. Solace."
"Isadora, I insist."
"Sorry, ma'am, but my mama taught me to respect my elders."
Sebastian swore he was about to see a murder, but his Mom just laughed. "At least someone does," she looked at Sebastian pointedly, "this one told his grandfather that he's old and wrinkly to his face."
"Eh, I did the same at his age, you have to learn the filter."
Petrou tried to help clean up, being shooed away, so he sat at the table working on his paper, Sebastian sitting with him.
"Hey, Mr. Petrou?"
"Hm?"
"Thank you for your help."
"No problem. Hey, Sebastian, you know I'm going to leave at the end of the year, right?"
"I figured..."
"Hey, chin up, I can still tutor you, I'm not going to disappear off the face of the earth."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
When Petrou finished university, Sebastian and his Mom got an invite to the graduation ceremony, Petrou citing, "you're basically family now," as a reason. Sebastian sat with Petrou's little old mother and younger sister, finding out that their strange accent was Greek.
But something was off, Petrou and his family seemed distant, something sad in their eyes. Sebastian didn't pay it much mind at the time, trying to be supportive of his mentor, the same way Petrou was of him. A week later, helping his Mom deliver a casserole, he found out the truth.
Petrou had just lost his Dad, and well, that was something Sebastian was familiar with, just in a different way. With a running start, he went to hug Petrou, grabbing onto the man's back like a koala and refusing to let go.
"Hey, I'll be okay," Petrou told him.
"I know," Sebastian replied, "but I want to help."
Losing his dad had definitely changed Petrou, he was quieter than before, but he still helped Sebastian, still didn't let his personal issues get in the way. Sometimes he told Sebastian about his new job - he was a scientist now, studying sea slugs, which hadn't been that cool sounding to Sebastian until he was told about a species that used photosynthesis.
"I won't be able to meet you both next week," he said one day, "I'm doing a dive to recover a piece of monitoring equipment after we lost contact with it."
"Awesome!"
"Good luck, Delta."
Well, one week went by, and then two, and then three, before Petrou's sister got in touch.
"I'm so sorry I didn't call sooner, I couldn't find a way to find your number," she said over the phone.
"It's okay, dear, what's wrong? Is your brother okay?"
Sebastian, stood next to his mother to listen in, heard her resolve crack, his heart sinking as Petrou's sister broke down in tears.
That weekend, they attended Petrou's funeral.
Lost at sea, that's what had happened. He'd gone down in a diving bell and the chains had snapped. Rescue efforts had been attempted, but they just couldn't get down to him. Time had run out, and there was no way he was still alive down there. He'd been pronounced dead at sundown.
That was the first funeral Sebastian had ever been to. Petrou's family had looked at him with pity, his mother, sister, and a brother who hadn't been able to attend his graduation for some reason and seemed to still be effected by the guilt from skipping it.
"He just wanted to make us proud," he heard the brother say. That would stick with him for the rest of his life, he just knew it.
After Jan Petrou's loss, things went back to the way they'd been before. Studying got harder, but in a different way, one that made him remember Petrou's jokes and mnemonics to help him remember math equations in a painful way.
Some of Sebastian's friends stayed with him, most of them seperated, not wanting to be seen with the idiot boy who broke down crying in the middle of class, overcome with grief.
All those years later, fifteen years old and sitting at his trial, one for a crime he didn't and would never commit, a crime so brutal he was being tried as an adult, his sentence was passed down, and he looked to the crowd, seeing his Mom who couldn't bring herself to look at him, seeing Petrou's family, disappointed, and he imagined his old mentor was there, looking at him, seeing him and knowing he was innocent.
Death sentence... it hit him hard, that he'd be executed for the brutal murders of nine people. His public defender lowered their head in shame, but accepting, as if their client's life wasn't to be wrongfully snuffed out while the real perpetrator was still out there.
Sebastian couldn't bring himself to cry, to shout, to plead for someone, anyone, to believe him. He was taken from the court, his heart low, and transported to death row.
He was executed two years later, a rushed schedule some may say, but a deserved one. His ashes were sent to his Mother, and he was given a small gravestone with little fanfare in the dampest corner of the prison graveyard.
Or at least, that's what everyone had been told.
No, Sebastian Solace was still very much alive, though warped beyond recognition. On lonely nights - what he assumes to be night - his mind wanders back to his childhood, back to Petrou. He would have loved the state Sebastian was in now, not out of cruelty, but out of a fascination that maybe would have made Sebastian feel more at home in this body that wasn't his anymore.
He has the store to run now, where some expendables from Urbanshade would sometimes drop by, or occasionally one of the few remaining sane Rapturians from the city above. Scavenging became an exciting part of his day, as he'd slither through the confines of this place and gather whatever useful things he could find, mostly information.
Though scavenging was becoming harder now, one of the many creatures he released patrolling the waters outside. He didn't remember this one, hadn't been able to find a file on it, but it would stomp past, cloaked in shadow, wailing like some sort of banshee and whale hybrid, attacking anything that got too close - only then would Sebastian get a glimpse of it, as a vivid blood red glow would fill the water, and Sebastian would see its eyes, peaking out from a tangled web of dark hair, and he knew that it knew only instinct.
Whoever it had been before, they were long gone, and Sebastian started to wonder if he'd be like that someday, devouring another creature because he was hungry and it got too close. It made him think about how far he was willing to go to survive. Would he do that? Abandon what remains of his humanity entirely? The thought scared him, but he didn't always have something to distract him.
Painter was a nice change of pace, he had a small camera hidden in the shop so he could keep an eye on Sebastian, where no one else could see it, and he would radio over when Sebastian was alone.
"I can see your little friend in the hallway outside your shop on the cameras," Painter's voice quietly spoke, referring to the other fishman.
"It's not very little, Painter, it's like eight feel tall slouched.
"Little compared to you."
Sebastian huffed, amused, "at least it can't get through the vent."
And right as those words left his mouth, he turned and saw the other fishman sniffing around near the flooded hole in the floor.
"What was that about it not getting through the vent?"
"Shut up Painter!" He hissed, and the artificial sea monster turned to look at him, standing from all fours to its full height, tilting its head. It seemed to be wearing something, like the body of an old school diving suit, with giant boots, pieces of metal armour, and gloves that had metal caps on the fingertips. Its clothes were ripped, exposing more of the dark grey scales, with golden glowing spots positioned down its body and around the corners of its eyes.
Despite its usual demeanor, it doesn't attack, just looking at Sebastian with an unreadable expression. Sebastian can't help but stare back, twitching one of his fin-like ears. The other, with similar but larger ears, twitches the same fin, copying Sebastian.
"Sebastian? Are you okay?"
The monster turns, looking to the radio, then back to Sebastian. It makes a crackling sound, then repeats the sentence, exactly the same.
Sebastian laughs for some reason, confused.
"What? Are you some sort of copycat-fish?"
His words get repeated back at him, the monster lifting its head a little higher and giving Sebastian a glimpse of something hard and black embedded in its throat.
Any amusement he gets from the situation is rendered null immediately and Sebastian lowers himself, brushing thick black hair out of the way.
"Oh my God-"
"Sebastian?"
"Its got a speaker in its neck!"
"What?"
"Yeah. That's how it keeps repeating things."
"What do we do?"
"I- I don't know."
The monster finally pulled away, trudging over to the flooded hole and scratching itself against one of the sharp edges.
"What are you doing?" Sebastian asked, eventually realising it wanted to get the suit off. That makes sense, he reasoned, slithering over and using his claws to slice it open, pulling it away as the monster's glowing changed to a vibrant green.
There were three, long, gruesome scars down its back, ending in a short, docked tail, a nub that fit under the suit without making it look like it had massive buttcheeks or something.
The monster looked to Sebastian, eyes studying him, and Sebastian offered to help with the gloves and boots. The monster dealt with those itself, pulling them off and revealing familiar tattoos on the back of its hands. Sebastian couldn't remember where he'd last seen them, but he looked at that little black triangle, surrounded by those glowing scales.
He slithered back to his usual spot, keeping an eye on the monster. It didn't stick around for long, taking its cut up suit and dragging it away, plunging into the flooded hole, leaving behind its boots, gloves, and armour. Sebastian didn't see it again for a while - though the exact amount of time was hard to track down here, he estimated about a month or so.
He was dealing with some expendables the next time the other fishman appeared, coming through the flooded hole, stopping the moment it saw the expendables, golden glowing turning to crimson.
"Hey," Sebastian says, nonchalant, then turns to the expendables, "would you all hurry up? I have stuff to do."
The group of expendables left quickly, being growled at the entire time. Certain that they were out of earshot, Sebastian gestured to Painter's camera, and lowered himself to not seem as intimidating to the creature he has personally seen rip a shark in half with its bare hands.
The scars on its back were gone now, and the tail was no longer docked. Three large fins, the middle one tall and proud, and the other two hanging down to the side like too small wings. The middle fin ran down along its back, down its long tail. At the end, there's a whale like paddle, much smaller than Sebastian's, with a more rounded shape.
"You like research, yes?" The artificial sea monster spoke, its booming, layered, robotic voice startling Sebastian. "I get that reaction a lot. Research, yes or no?"
"Uh- yes, I love research, I trade in research," Sebastian replied, still suprised by the beast's ability to talk. "You wouldn't happen to have a name, would you?"
"Oh! I know this part! RODIN sent me some files on Rapture's experiments," Painter's voice shouted out
"Rodin?"
The AI ignored him, "this is Subject Delta, from the Protector Program, nicknamed the Big Daddies. Have you ever seen those big diving suits walking around? That's why he was wearing that. They're kind of like you, Sebastian, they're handymen."
"Not anymore," Subject Delta shook his head, and a distant part of Sebastian remembered how his Mom used to call Mr. Petrou ‘Delta’. "We are to guard our little ones. I... failed. But I know where she is, she is why I am of my right mind, as much as I can in this state. But I cannot help her now, I can only reassure her."
"Big Daddies guard Little Sisters, harvesters of a miracle drug. Most of them are stolen from their real parents and bonded to a Big Daddy. Delta's Little Sister was one Eleanor Lamb, daughter of Dr. Sofia Lamb, who had been imprisoned for trying to overthrow Rapture's power."
"Most people do not understand we have no choice either. We are all drones, workers, we are not made to think. We are programmed. Sofia wanted her daughter back, I do not fault her for that, but... her methods I disagree with. I do not want to speak more on this."
"I understand," Sebastian said after a few moments, remembering his own experiments. "About that research?"
A folder zipped across the floor, Delta having shoved it with his foot, retreating to a corner and curling up, tucking his tail over his face. The folder - in a waterproof case - spoke about a species of sea slug, ADAM slugs, which Rapturian scientists used in genetic research. It didn't take a genius to put together that Delta's experimentations had been with those slugs, despite a few pages following the ‘severe effects’ section being missing.
Sebastian honestly expected Delta to leave after that, just like last time, but he didn't. The other fishman would sit in his shop, half asleep, somehow turning his glow off as he dozed, until someone came in, and Sebastian would light up the room with his lure, then the scales around his eyes would light up golden and change based on how the customer acted - Sebastian quickly came to learn that green was good, red was bad, and gold was neutral.
Occasionally, Delta would leave, but never for long, and he would bring back research and supplies, more things for Sebastian to sell to the very few left unspliced and expendables, who were now more hesitant to flash him after the first incident had someone torn apart at the teeth of Delta. It was kind of fun to tell them that he wouldn't give up Delta's file - because he didn't have it, yes, but the expendables didn't need to know that.
They had a pretty good thing going, Painter calling over when days were slow, Delta leaving and reappearing like clockwork, the odd customer, and Sebastian's cache of research growing.
"We might have enough soon," he told Painter one day, "we might actually be able to do it!"
"Do what?" Delta asked, scratching his neck with one of his feet.
"Get out of here! That's the goal, we get out, bargain our way to safety with all our research, and I can be fixed!"
"Are you sure that's possible?"
And that right there hit Sebastian hard.
"I- what do you mean?"
"Are you sure what has been done can be reversed?"
"What are you talking about? It has to be, I can't be doing all this for nothing."
"Freedom isn't nothing."
"It isn't freedom like this!" Sebastian pulled at his hair, coiling his tail up.
A distressed whale noise cut through the chaos in Sebastian's mind, and Delta, took one of his hands, pulling him down and hugging him, wrapping his tail around Sebastian's body.
"Just breathe."
Sebastian must have fallen asleep as he sobbed into Delta's hair because when he woke up, he was alone, time having clearly passed. His heart sank, feeling Delta had gotten fed up and abandoned him, like his friends back in school all those years ago after Mr. Petrou's death at the mercy of the very thing that imprisoned him now.
And then the whale call started up, and Delta appeared through the flooded tunnel, dragging dozens of boxes behind him.
"You want research, have research."
Delta shoved one of the boxes over to him with his tail paddle, and Sebastian carefully cracked it open to find it stuffed to the brim with folders and files.
"I- where'd you get this?"
"We can bargain freedom with Rapture's experiments too. Need to raid Persephone further - secret prison."
"Not exactly in a talking mood today, huh?"
"Busy, need to get a move on."
Delta grabbed his old armour pieces, boots and gloves, pulling them on and disappearing back into the flooded hole.
"Hey, kid?"
"Yeah Sebastian?"
"Can you keep an eye on Delta? He's being cryptic."
"I can't track him in Rapture itself, I'll contact RODIN."
"I still don't know who that is."
"I'll explain later."
Sebastian sighed, looking at the boxes.
"Thanks, Painter."
"No problem."
In the meantime, Sebastian would look through the files, see which ones held the most helpful information, which ones were the most powerful in this trial he was faced with. It didn't take long before he decided Rapture was just like Urbanshade, after reading the folders on Little Sisters and the newer, scarier, Big Sisters, gatherers that grew up in agony and uncertainty.
He honestly didn't want to look at the Bog Daddy folders, afraid of finding out something Delta wouldn't want him to know, but in the end he decided he would let the other fishman read his file, the only one he kept locked away out of shame. Most of the Daddy models weren't well documented, they had the basics, yes, but specific subjects weren't included. Judging by the description that most of them had been altered to fit the suits exactly, and the photos clipped to the page, Delta wasn't a bouncer, rosie, rumbler, lancer, leaving the alpha series, with a folder that could barely close.
The alpha series files ended up being a gold pile of information, with detailed documents on each subject in the series, most with names related to the Greek alphabet, and armoured parts similar to Delta's. The stars were aligning, and Sebastian was blessed to find a folder, slightly larger than the others, with a black triangle on the front, the very same as Delta's hands.
Is this wrong? Maybe, but for everything Sebastian would find out, he was fine paying it back to Delta, but there was so much his greedy little mind wanted to know and now that the information was at his fingertips he couldn't hold back.
The moment he opened the page, he was greeted by a mugshot, and his heart sunk as he recognised it. The man in the photo was bloody and bruised, having taken a severe beating. His waist length hair was matted, greasy an unkept, someone's hand holding it out of his face, keeping his head up. One eye was swollen shut, and the other was unfocused, with a thousand mile stare, holding memories he would lose, memories the man he is now likely doesn't have. He was wearing prison clothes, with blood staining the collar of the shirt, and he had a trickle of blood running down from his broken nose and out of the corner of his mouth.
A tear slid down Sebastian's cheek. "Mr. Petrou...?"
"Sebastian, are you alright?"
Sebastian jumped, forgetting that Painter could see and hear him. He put on a brave face and an unwavering voice as he answered, "ye-ah, yeah, I'm okay, kid."
"Are you sure?"
"Just a... blast from the past."
"Is that a good thing?"
"I- I don't know... I just..." Sebastian swallowed the growing amount of saliva in his mouth, suddenly really aware of it. "I- don't know how to explain it. You know your creator? How you were close, and you owed him your existence? It's similar, in a way."
"I'm sorry, Sebastian."
"It's hard to see this. His mugshot is like mine... He looks so defeated. I don't think he remembers."
"...I'll ask RODIN where Delta is."
"Thank you."
He flipped through the pages, three eyes taking in every detail - Johnny Topside, arrested under suspicion of being a spy, he was one of the first taken for the protector programme, third or fourth roughly, and given the most ADAM out of the entire alpha series. It didn't take long to figure out why, and Sebastian's eyes widened when he read about Dr. Thomas Gore's specialist voice box and subsequent brutal murder at the hands of the very same voice box.
Designed to control other Big Daddies, with a greater vocal range and the ability to mimic. With just a bit of practice and a clear mind, he was predicted to be able to make his own words - something the scientists clearly didn't want. It looked like they thought Delta would be more obedient, until he hit a limit. The extra ADAM must have been for this voice box, and Sebastian doubted Delta even knew the full capabilities of it. He knew he had to tell Delta about this.
And then he turned to the final page, coming face to face with a picture of a little girl, one that looked like Petrou did, like the old childhood photos Petrou's family showed him and his Mom after Petrou's death. Eleanor Lamb, Delta's pairbonded Little Sister, who was reported to have seen him as her father. Part of Sebastian wondered if she really was his daughter, they looked nearly identical.
With a now heavy heart, he locked Delta's file away with his own, collecting the other folders and putting them in his stockpile. He ended up just sitting, thinking, trying to imagine if things were different, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't picture himself as the person he used to be, couldn't remember his own face in the mirror.
By the time Delta returned, Sebastian was curled up in the corner.
"Hey, chin up. Did more expendables flash you?" Delta's robotic voice spoke.
"None came by. I was just... thinking."
"Oh? Can't have been just thinking if it left you like this," Delta stepped over, sitting down next to Sebastian, his mouth opening to let out a soft whale call as he spoke, one that Sebastian had grown to find comforting.
Sebastian looked to Delta, imagining Petrou in his place - even though they were one and the same, it was hard for Sebastian to really accept that, how Petrou, the gentle giant, could become Delta, capable of crushing a regular human under his foot and willing to do so.
"I realized I can't remember what I looked like before... this. And I was thinking about home."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Can I?"
Delta shakes his head with a laugh, "I wouldn't have asked you weren't allowed."
"I miss my Mom- my Mami," his fin ears fold down as he admits it out loud for the first time quite possibly ever. "I used to just call her Mom because I got shit for calling her Mami in school, I got enough shit already, I just wanted some of it to stop. I think it hurt her when I stopped calling her that. I wish I could go back and apologise."
He lowers himself, sitting on his coiled up tail. As he spoke - ranted really - Delta preened his hair, combing it with his claws and putting in a little braid.
"Sebastian, I think... I think we need to leave soon," he said at the end, "leave the Blacksite, leave Rapture."
"What?"
"My daughter has been in contact, through our pairbond. I'd like for you to meet her, but she's not safe. I need to get her to the surface."
"Is that where you've been going?"
"Yes. I've found some allies within Rapture, which is why I've been able to find all this research. Eleanor's mother has been in control since Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine's deaths, and she wants to use my daughter for something, I don't know what yet. I'm not sure how long she'll be able to hold her mother off."
"You're gonna need to explain this all to me," Sebastian finally settled on, and so Delta did, about the pairbond, and the Rapture Family, and whatever plans Sofia Lamb had in store. By the end, Sebastian thought about his Mami, about Petrou, and made a decision. "You get Painter, I'll pack the research."
"On it."
Within two hours, Painter was on a PDA, Sebastian's pouches and pockets were full, and Delta was hauling along the last two boxes, with his floor length hair in a long braid. As they set out into the water, making the swim up from the Blacksite and into Rapture proper, Sebastian felt his heart jump. They were really doing this! They were leaving! They found their way to an airlock, pushing in at the Adonis Resort, and Sebastian got to finally see Rapture in all it's horrible mucky glory.
"Can't believe people would leave the surface for this junk."
"It was a lot nicer back in the day," Delta explained, promptly doing drugs and shocking a generator to life, which confused the shit out of Sebastian. "Granted, still horrible, but in the way some serial killers are - pretty on the outside, highly deceiving, and deadly on the inside.
"I just don't see the appeal."
"The appeal is not having to pay taxes."
A screech cut through the air, and some scrawny version of a Big Daddy came launching at Delta. Sebastian stumbled back, as the Protector fought the foe off, eventually forcing them away. Before he could even open his mouth, a loud but collected voice cut overhead on a speaker, giving a speech about family - no, the Family - and ending with a rather ominous but scarily gentle, "and remember, Big Sister is always watching."
A chill creeped up Sebastian's spine, and he knew it would be a long, arduous journey to escape, with a lot more twists and turns than he ever could have anticipated. Slowly, he slithers on behind Delta, giving only one last glance back in the direction they came from.
He had a future to build.