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#merman
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Deep Water - Part 3
cw: the ocean, almost drowning, kidnapping, more tags to be added as the story continues
merman x fem reader
Word count: 5k
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
On your first day of work, you were already regretting not pushing harder to get your siren to promise you he would stay away, glimpses of a snaking tail under the water every few hours stopping your heart for a beat every time. 
You ignored your first sighting, reporting into the office, getting a list of duties and of expected intake for the day. 
You asked when you’d be paid, part of you worried he’d say at the end of the month and you’d be stuck without a place to stay for weeks. You let out a sigh of relief when he said at the end of the week. Only two more days then. You could manage two more days. You were sent off on your way without much else said. 
No one was assigned to help you, to figure out what you were supposed to do or how to start, so you did the only thing you could think of. You went and found Finn.
His face lit up the second he saw you, dropping the box he was holding to run over to your side. 
“Hello little lady, how’s your first day going?”
You glanced back at the discarded cargo. “Do you not need to get that?”
“Is this going to take long? Okay, you probably want help, I’ll be right back.”
He rushed over to the dropped box that at the very least didn’t look like it had been damaged and hauled it over to a safer location, amidst some other unpacked boxes. 
He was back at your side before the incredulous huff of laughter managed to escape you, giving you a sheepish look. “Sorry if I’m overeager, we don’t get many pretty girls out here, I’ve gotta try and help you before someone else snatches you up.”
You gave him a humoring laugh, more polite than anything. 
You had a feeling your intentions with one another did not align, but he seemed pleasant and helpful and whatever his intentions happened to be, you could use that right about now. 
And he held true to his word. For the rest of the day, he helped you figure out your various duties, largely abandoning his own, only occasionally popping out to make excuses or run and do something that others laughed and insisted really couldn’t wait. 
The day passed quickly. The work wasn’t particularly hard, just repetitive. Finn did his best to help but once you realized he couldn’t read, it became a little more difficult. 
He still hovered over your shoulder, something that you appreciated but had the unintended consequence of you having to struggle to pull his attention every time you caught another flash of scales out of the corner of your eye. 
They seemed particularly likely to appear whenever Finn set off from his latest task he was ignoring to help you again.
You bristled at the thought, trying to tell yourself you were making up patterns, that it wasn’t anything at all. 
At least you hoped you were. If it was a pattern, you were going to kill him. 
Even once you got the hang of things, Finn refused to actually leave you, insisting that it was improper to abandon you on your first day. You just smiled and continued on, set on getting everything done. First impressions were important after all, and you needed to look just as valuable as your sister had been. 
Before you knew it, the day was over and people had begun filing out. It wasn’t empty, the dock was never really empty, but it had quieted down and you finished the last of your work, marking everything down as neatly and perfectly as you could. 
“I can take that back for you!” Finn exclaimed as you carefully looked over your work for any glaring mistakes. He seemed excited to find something he could actually help you with. 
Part of you wanted to refuse, to take it back yourself, but he seemed too excited, refusing felt like kicking a puppy. Besides, you imagined he’d have a few kind words to say about you and that couldn't hurt. 
He came darting back over in minutes, that persistent, goofy smile plastered across his face as he skidded to a halt. “Mission accomplished, ma’am,” he said with a little salute. 
“Thank you, I really appreciate it,” you said, trying to push as much gratitude as you could into your voice.
“Now that that’s done, I was wondering if you wanted to go out or something. I could get you some drinks or food or whatever, celebrate your first day being over.”
There it was, exactly what you’d worried this had all been leading to. “Finn…”
Water came splashing up through the gaps in the wood on the dock, drenching the pair of you. 
You jumped, reflexively and far too late to save yourself from any of the water. 
As you looked through the slats, you could have sworn you saw the glint of scales. 
“Yes,” you blurted out, bringing Finn’s attention back to you. “That sounds great.”
You gave him what felt like a poor approximation of an excited smile. 
“Really? That’s amazing. The ocean seems to have something to say about it. She’s nervous, poor girl. Promise I won’t leave you behind.” He spoke down to the waves, attempting to lighten the mood as he saw your face go white in your newly wetted skirts. 
You smiled, your heart hammering in your ears, and after another quiet little bit of reassurance, he scurried off, telling you to stay put while he found a coat he’d discarded earlier in the hot sun and promptly forgotten about, and then you could be off.
Simon, you guessed that was what you were calling him now, decided that was an opportune time to breach the surface of the water and look up at you with those big, golden eyes. 
An anger that had been simmering quietly inside of you at every flash of scales you’d seen throughout the day came to a head as he had the audacity to simply appear like this. “Go away,” you hissed, the words coming out louder than you meant them to. 
This wasn’t like the day before. You knew Finn would be back any moment, you didn’t have time to argue on the shore. 
He remained resolutely above the water, looking up at you with a determination that almost frightened you set across his impish features. 
When he opened his mouth, you held your hands out, trying to tell him to stop, that it wasn’t safe. 
And then he started speaking and your hands fell limp to your sides, warning him not seeming quite so important anymore. 
The words sounded different. Maybe he was singing? It was hard to tell. You couldn’t even make out the words, couldn’t understand any of it. All you knew was that he was there. Why were you all the way up here? You should be down there with him. Maybe then you could understand. 
Whatever noises he was making, ones you were too far away to really hear, wormed their way right through your ears into your head, snaking their way around inside you, taking up the space where your thoughts were moments ago. 
There was nothing but him. 
Everything else faded away until all you could see was amber eyes. 
And then, walking carefully and intentionally, you tumbled into the water, seemingly of your own accord. 
The second you hit the icy water, the warm calm you’d been pulled into dissipated. You weren’t sure if it was the shock of the water or your head going under, no longer able to hear the hypnotic noises from the siren you’d thought was harmless. At least to you. 
And what a foolish notion that was. He was a siren. It didn't matter if he'd saved you or not, of course he was dangerous. You weren’t special to him. Why would you be?
As you tried to come up for air his arms met your shoulders and pushed you deeper and you realized, horrifically, just how wrong you’d been. 
You didn’t understand why he did what he’d done, why he’d helped you before. Maybe he’d just been playing with his food, toying with you until he got bored. 
Your mind newly cleared, you fought to swim up. As you did, his tail wound around your legs and you saw a pout break out across his face. 
Panic rose in your chest and he watched, head tilted, examining you carelessly, with your legs still bound together under the water. 
He looked at you, eyes big and bright and expectant, flicking across your face as he tried to fight back a smile. 
You struggled and his hand grasped yours, keeping it in place, effortlessly keeping you under the waves. The bright look in his eyes shifted to confusion, seeming baffled as to why you’d rather breach the surface than steal a kiss from him and let the cold water invade your lungs. 
As he stared expectantly and confused at you, you wiggled just enough to free one leg, something he seemed unconcerned with as he continued to hold you under. He knew he was stronger than you, that you had no real shot of escape. You both did. 
That didn’t matter to you. You brought your knee up as swiftly and firmly as you could in the cold water that forced a horrible, sluggish feeling into your limbs, and kneed him right in his gills. 
That seemed to activate some instinct in him and he wrapped entirely around you, effortlessly countering you at every point of struggle. They were the movements of a practiced hunter. 
You kicked and fought and made every attempt to break away and breach the surface but he was too strong, too practiced at this. At holding people down. 
You wondered how you matched up to them, how hard you fought compared to his other prey, if he’d remember this at all once you were gone?
At some point in the struggle you must have kissed, in the loosest sense of the word. You missed it in the flurry of movement, just another brush of skin against skin in the struggle. It must have happened though because as your lungs burned just a bit too much and your brain forced you to inhale, you didn’t choke on water but instead felt the burning soothe and your instincts calm, despite the salt water flooding inside you. 
Regardless of your newfound ability to breathe, the fight and lack of oxygen had weakened you and your struggle slowed. 
As it did, he rose to the surface
When you breached the waves, the dock was nowhere in sight. You had no idea when in your fight he’d dragged you out to sea or how far you’d gone. 
“You can breathe,” he said, looking at you with that same quiet confusion as when you’d fought against him. “I made sure you could breathe. Why do you still worry?”
You inhaled in an attempt to answer him with a screamed admonishment and then, before a word could escape you, you were coughing up water
He sat patiently as you did, his arms wrapped carefully around you. 
The last time you’d coughed up water like this, you’d been too relieved to be alive to really notice it. You did not have that luxury this time. The saltwater burned coming up, your lungs feeling heavy in your chest as the water poured out of you. 
It felt like you were dying. You didn’t understand how you weren’t. 
He didn’t seem concerned, just holding you as you fought to empty your lungs so you could finally inhale, every attempted inhalation just stirred the churning water in your lungs, agitating them further. 
As you finally emptied your lungs, you sucked in air. Your chest filled and it hurt more than it brought you relief. 
“You have to take me back,” you forced out, the burning in your lungs exhausting you past the point of screaming at him. 
His lips pursed into a pout and his eyes darted away from yours. “You don’t even like it there,” he said, sounding openly disappointed, not even attempting to hide it. But then, why would he? You were at his mercy, he could do whatever he wanted to. 
“I like it better than I like it here,” you said, gesturing around you at the open ocean. 
He looked around at the ocean surrounding you and then returned his gaze intently to your face. “I can take you somewhere else.”
“You know that’s not what I mean, you’d better not…”
And then he was off, swimming quickly through the waves. 
He kept your head above water carefully, although you still had to keep your mouth firmly shut to avoid inhaling anything, but even that didn’t slow him down. 
And then, with no warning, you were going down, back through thick water. You didn’t have a chance to gather your bearing before it was too dark to see anything, Simon’s grip on your arm was the only thing cutting through the cold black abyss around you. 
Your arm brushed against hard rock, scraping painfully before it was gone and you found yourself disoriented in the space around you once more. You could be surrounded by rock for all you knew, inches away from it. There was no way to tell, no way to really know anything about where you were being dragged. 
Your fight renewed as your air began to run out and the darkness still imposed itself around you. You knew better, knew you couldn’t get away. Even if you did, you didn’t even know which direction was up anymore. Your instincts, however, were not so easily suppressed by silly things like facts. 
You couldn’t help but wonder if he was going to kill you. Even more than that, as your time under the water dragged on, why he was going to kill you? Maybe you’d upset him, made an unforgivable mistake when you kicked him or complained just a little too much. The way it looked now, you guessed you’d never know. You didn’t have the oxygen left to figure it out, your brain starting to get foggy. 
And still, it continued. He dragged you down and down and then your head breached the surface and as you gasped in air, the word flipped right side up once more. 
You dragged air into your pleading lungs, this time no wretched water biting your throat as you did. 
Your lungs still hurt though. A quieter ache. 
Your eyes adjusted slowly to the dark and you could barely make him out in what appeared to be a cave, the moon shining in through a few holes riddled in the rock above you. 
“You could’ve killed me,” you said, desperation creeping into your voice. 
His head tilted. “No. I know how long it takes a human to drown. You were fine.”
His words did nothing to settle your unease
“Is this better?” he asked, gesturing around to the cave you’d approached from beneath. 
The water was just a small pool in a larger cave, leading off a few feet before revealing a glimpse of the outside world through the holes that let the light in. 
You hauled yourself out of the water to look and saw that there was no other way out, only the horrible, dark path through the water he’d taken you through. 
You couldn’t get out of here on your own. 
Even if you could, you had nowhere to go. There was probably just more open water outside these walls. Even if there was land, you had no idea where you were. 
You wondered if Finn was worried about you yet. Maybe he was. Or maybe he thought you’d abandoned him, left him alone on the dock in lieu of having to go out to dinner with him. 
You weren’t sure which you were hoping for, which was better for him to believe. Which would be easier to explain when you returned? If you returned. 
“You need to take me back,” you said, trying to force some authority into your tone. 
“Can I ask you some questions about humans?” he asked, completely ignoring you. 
“No,” you snapped. “You can’t. You can take me back.”
He drifted towards you and you pulled back further onto the patch of dry land. 
That seemed to hurt him, like he couldn’t understand why you would possibly be wary of him. 
He rested his head on the rocky shore, looking defeated, slowly drying blonde hair curling up around his eyes as it was freed of some of the weight of the water, and you fought to not think that if he hadn’t just done what he did to you, maybe he’d look sweet. 
“Who was that?” he blurted out, his head lifting with his words as his jaw moved against the stone below him. 
“What?”
“On the dock. He was talking to you, you were leaving with him. Who was that?”
“Who, Finn? Why do you-” A thought began to dawn on you. “His name is Finn. You hang around the dock, do you not know him?”
He shrugged in the water. “I’ve seen him.”
“And you care now? That’s kind of sudden.”
“I guess.”
“Alright. Did you kidn- Did you take me so I wouldn’t go with him.” You did your best to keep your voice measured in an attempt to get an honest response from him. 
“You’re supposed to go to the beach. You weren’t going to the beach.”
“No, you rejected my deal, remember? I thought I wasn’t going to the beach because you were just hanging around.”
He rolled his eyes just barely, enough to make a quiet irritation stir in your stomach. “Can’t talk to you when I’m around,” he said, matter of factly. “You said you’d go to the beach.”
“I know, but something came up. I’d have come back. I can’t miss one day?” you said, trying to reason with him. 
“One day? It was the first day!” he said with a huff. 
“I hadn’t even left yet, how did you know I wasn’t going to go meet you.”
“Were you?” he asked, and you didn’t have a good answer for him. 
“We’ll never know, will we? Because you decided to kidnap and almost drown me.”
“I didn’t almost drown you. I would never drown you.”
Now it was your turn to roll your eyes. “Alright, well at the very least you decided to hurt me.” Sharp words bounced off the stone walls of the cave. 
His eyes widened. “I hurt you?”
“Yeah, of course you did. I couldn’t breathe. And that’s beside how bad coughing up sea water hurts.”
He shook his head. “You’re fine, why would it hurt?”
“Simon,” you said, “It hurts humans when we can’t breathe. And we aren’t meant to have to breathe water, it burns when I have to get it out.”
For someone who presumably had drowned dozens of humans, he seemed to have little idea how drowning actually felt. To be fair, he probably didn’t have many chances to learn about the human side of the experience, you didn’t imagine many survived long enough to tell him about it. 
“Oh,” he said, deflating a little. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Right, just to kidnap me.”
He nodded with no air of shame regarding his actions. “Yeah.”
You settled back against the wall of rock behind you, trying to think of what else you could say to get yourself out of there. 
He looked up at you and suddenly he seemed unbearably nervous. “You want to leave.”
“I thought we discussed this, I have to leave. I can’t just disappear, there are people waiting for me.”
“Finn,” he asked, saying the name like it tasted rotten in his mouth. 
“Yes, Finn. I told you, I can’t just disappear.”
You had to lean closer to him to hear his next words at all, his voice unbearably quiet. “It’ll hurt you.”
You slid back into the water beside him, hope sparking through you. “I’ll be fine, I just want to get out of here.”
His hands snaked around your sides, pulling you close to him. “Do you want to hold your breath or breathe the water?” You could feel his breath on your skin as he spoke. You didn’t understand how breathing worked for him, where his lungs ended and his gills began. 
You shivered as you thought back to retching up the water, how it had burned coming up, how the attempted gasps felt inside already heavy lungs. “I’ll hold my breath.”
He nodded solemnly. “I will be fast.”
You sucked in a breath before he pulled you down, a luxury you had not been granted last time. 
He was true to his words. You could feel the water rushing past you as you held your breath, clinging to him the whole way. 
When you breached the surface, your lungs didn’t hurt quite as much as they had the first time around. His grip on you was tighter than when you’d arrived, a fear present in him that wasn’t before. 
Your hands were wrapped around his neck, the desire to get yourself away from him gone now that you were fairly certain he’d bring you back, even if he wasn’t happy about it. 
He brought you to the shore, a familiar spot.
Something occurred to you as you found yourself in shallow water. “How’d you even know where to take me? When you first found me, you took me right here.”
“I know where the ships are going. Always to the same spot.” He sounded almost annoyed at the ships’ predictability. 
“Well, they have to go to a dock.”
He grumbled in response, his discontent evident. You weren’t sure how much of it was from this grudge against ships and how much was because he’d had to bring you back to shore.  
You pulled yourself out of the water and wanted just sit there for a while, regain some of your energy. 
The second you hit dry land, Simon was gone, disappearing before you could say so much as another word to him. 
You didn’t really have time to talk or rest anyway, running back onto the dock as quickly as you could, hoping Finn hadn’t left yet. 
You found him standing alone on the dock, looking dejected right until his eyes drifted towards you. His eyes widened as they met yours and his expression shifted from surprise to concern, rushing towards you. 
“What happened?” he asked, pulling the jacket he’d run off to retrieve over your shoulders. “I thought you’d gotten bored and abandoned me but a swim at this time of day hardly seems like a good idea.”
“I fell in. Guess I’m more tired than I thought,” you said with a sheepish smile, hoping it was anything close to convincing. 
His hand drifted up to push wet hair away from your face. “I’m sure you’re not feeling up to going out anymore…”
“No,” you said, not thinking of Finn at all but instead set on rebelling against the attempts to stop you from going. It wasn’t fair to Finn, but by the time that occurred to you, you’d already spoken. “I mean, you waited all this time for me, it would be rude not to go.”
He seemed too excited to notice how suspicious you were being. “Alright, but make sure you’re not overextending yourself.”
You nodded with an unenthusiastic smile and let him lead you off to a tavern somewhere. 
It was a largely uneventful evening, all things considered. He bought you some soup, something nice and hot that you could feel in your bones, creating a comfortable warmth in your core. 
Your reticence to talk was barely noticed. Finn seemed more than happy to fill the silence, letting you bundle up under the thick wool of his coat and focus on your food. 
Before you knew it, it was gone and there was nothing left to distract yourself with. 
You waited for Finn to finish whatever story he’d been telling that you hadn’t been listening to and said, “This has been lovely, but I should be getting back.”
He laughed. “What, back to work? I’m not that boring, am I?”
You started as he pulled you fully out of your head back into the tavern. “What? No, of course not.”
“So where are you staying then?” he asked.
You shrugged. “Nowhere. I’ll find an inn after I get paid but until then-”
“You could stay with me!” he blurted out before you even had the chance to finish your sentence. 
You weren’t quite as enthused. “Look, Finn, I don’t…”
“This isn’t me trying to come onto you, honest. You shouldn’t have to stay out in the cold, it’s not right. I mean, no wonder you're tired. If you don’t get some proper sleep you’ll drown, and then who am I supposed to try and impress every day?”
It was most certainly untoward, but the offer was tempting nonetheless. 
You reevaluated Finn, trying to determine how much you really trusted him. Enough for dinner, sure, but enough for this?
You thought about spending another night alone on the cold shore and decided that yes, you did trust him enough for this. 
As soon as you nodded your assent, he grabbed your hand, pulling you towards the stairs in the tavern. 
You couldn’t help but think that taking you to the tavern he was staying at felt presumptuous but the allure of a warm room and blankets were too strong for you to say anything to that effect. 
His room was decently sized, with a large bed pressed against the back wall. Reassuringly, he started to set up a space on the floor for you, moving some blankets from a chair in the corner to the floor. 
To your chagrin, he began to settle into the nest of blankets on the ground and you immediately moved to set it right. 
“Absolutely not, you will not sleep on the floor in your own room.”
He looked up at you with big, sad eyes. “But-”
“No buts, I will leave.”
He sighed. “Fine. But know that I’m not happy about it.”
You settled onto the floor and he slid another blanket off the bed onto you. You accepted it without argument, allowing him this at least. Besides, you were in no state to be turning down blankets. 
It was late and the blankets helped against your still damp form. The calm itself was refreshing and you fought the urge to thank Finn, who seemed like he’d already drifted off to sleep since you’d begun to settle down. 
You had no choice but to try and follow him. 
You slept restlessly but at least you slept.
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lilystrations · 1 day
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"Raiding Party"
I might be returning to my merfolks phase with a vengeance. Oh so very loosely based off a lionfish mermaid I designed maybe a decade ago.
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Okay so Merman Elliot draft number 2 because what is consistency?
I just pulled a "Little Mermaid" and said they met because she nearly drowned. Plus it gave me an excuse to work on flowing, underwater hair.
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lunali-moon · 18 hours
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First dive - part 2
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danskjavlarna · 2 days
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Source details and larger version.
If you're into mermaids and mermen, my collection of vintage merfolk is going swimmingly.
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jayyydraws · 1 day
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next of mertoken, ii
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rawdickulousreturn · 3 days
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ash3 · 2 days
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Angry fish woke up
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pigeonneaux · 2 days
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Killian Jones as a mermaid. Emma as Captain Rondo. Send twits.
(drawpile collab with @enfoutreur-du-futur , he did the colouring of the mermaid🫡💖)
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zai-alt · 1 day
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I was rally bored so... MERMAN FOOLISH
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I like it but at the same time i hate it so I don't know how to feel
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iliothermia · 2 months
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moonjellybeans · 2 months
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"Be careful venturing too deep, darling, things aren't always what they seem in the dark..." I remember reading a note in one of the art books that the eels' body is luminescent since they live in the deep sea and I just...went a little out of control again and my victim is Jade.
This was so HARD, I don't draw underwater things, but I think this turned out really nice <3 I especially had fun adding the speckles to Jade's body.
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y-w-a-y · 1 month
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Captain Hua Cheng has got a huge crush on a pretty merman 🏴‍☠️🧜🏻‍♂️
IG: @y.w.a.y
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alohamoon · 2 months
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I love you ocean, I love you beach, I love you seashell, I love you fish, I love you moon, I love you sun, I love you stars, I love you mermaids, I love you ships, I love you sailors, I love you surfers, I love you weird deep sea creatures, I love you pearls, I love you fossils, I love you treasure chests, I love you houseboats, I love you anchors, I love you waves, I love you sea foam, I love you sea glass, I love you-
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nopiedraws · 5 months
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🌊
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A guy doing marine research into phytoplankton is far out to sea and waiting for the samples to be ready when he spots a fast-moving ripple in the water up ahead.
Fully aware that this spot is home to a migratory orca pod, he assumes he's stumbled across an orca hunting a seal and settles against the railing to watch, because it's not every day you get to see that.
The ripples get closer, the shadows in the water more defined, the water choppier, and suddenly the orca and its unfortunate prey are zooming directly towards the boat and he's waiting, breath held, for them to duck right underneath--
When the water breaks, the ocean sprays, and he's suddenly smacked fully in the face by a very wet, very confused, and very pretty merman, throwing them both down onto the deck while the boat rocks as a confused and now quite hungry orca dives beneath it.
The merman, it turns out, thought that the boat was an ice float and didn't realise his mistake until it was too late. But he's very thankful for the impromptu rescue, and wow don't you have nice arms, and holy shit you've got legs, can I touch them? Is that weird? Can I touch them anyway? And your hair--
So of course they get to talking because they're both utterly fascinated with the other, and soon the sun has set and the samples are long-since ready and the moonlight is making the ocean look black and they part with the knowledge that they'll never meet again, and a kiss, and a lingering look over the shoulder for all the things that can't be...
And the researcher gets back to land, moors his boat, readies his samples. He packs up his things, shoves them into his bags, and prepares to go home. He steps onto the jetty boards and thinks of the merman and the solid wood beneath his feet seems to sway for more than one reason.
There's a splash. He turns, pulled as if by the tide, and there's a ripple in the water. A face. A pair of eyes made black by the moonlight.
And this is how the researcher acquires a merman boyfriend who helps him find samples and the merman acquires a human boyfriend who rescues him from whales.
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