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silverwings22 · 4 days

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Song of the Sea: Chapter 20: Flight School

Chapter warnings: reference to injury, explicit smut, sex in zero gravity, body morphing, profanity Series Warnings: explicit smut, alien anatomy (it's a monsterfucker fic, guys), major character injury, grief, canon typical violence, autistic meltdowns, and my terrible attempts at Mando'a

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Shiani took about a week to get back on her feet after Ryloth, spending most of her time asleep in the bunk, only moving to nap in Tech’s lap in the cockpit during his shifts on deck duty or against his side while he worked at the table on the bridge. He had to wake her to eat, after scouring half of Ord Mantell looking for raw fish instead of ration bars for her. He wasn’t confident she even noticed, eyes barely open when she let him feed it to her before curling back into his side and going right back to sleep. Sometimes he'd squeeze her hands, and get the barest little three squishes back to let him know she got the message.

It was daybreak on the seventh day when she finally actually felt like she could stay awake, lifting her head to find herself alone in the bunk. Her mouth tasted awful and she’d been in the same clothes for days without a shower, so she wobbled down from the bed and gathered her now clean clothes from the cubby she kept them. She flipped the fresher on to warm and looked at herself, unwinding the bloodstained bandages from around herself. There was a little scar on the edge of her gill in the front, and a larger round one on the back of her shoulder when she twisted to examine it. She scrunched her flat nose before getting under the water to wash the gummy feeling of dried sweat off herself.

She hadn’t appreciated how nice showers were at first, but now that she was no longer constantly salt-covered and studded with sand it was a blessed relief. And she liked the smell of soap.

Once she was happily scrubbed up, she got dried off and got dressed. She could hear Wrecker still snoring, so she peeked around the ship to check on everyone else.

Echo and Hunter were outside with Omega, giving her a lesson with her bow. She could hear them talking even with the hatch closed, praising and correcting Omega like Tech did with Shiani and her blaster.

Tech would never leave Wrecker alone while he slept, so she doubled back to find him. She spotted him with his head down on the workbench, asleep amongst pieces of metal he was working on.

She smiled and sat down beside him, gently nudging his arm. “Did I smell so bad you had to leave he bunk?” She teased when he opened his eyes.

He smiled sleepily, lifting his head and reaching for her face in the same motion. “You are awake. Good.”

She nuzzled into his hand. “Sorry. I was so tired.”

“Blood loss can cause fatigue.” He rubbed her cheek with his thumb. “How do you feel?”

“Much better. Only a little scar now.” She turned around and pulled up the back of her shirt so he could see the one on her back. “Not too ugly.”

“There is nothing about you that I would ever consider ugly, cyar’ika.” Tech lightly rested a hand on her shoulder and squeezed three times. The happy little hum she made was better than a cup of caf to start the day.

Him finding out about the squishes had been a fascinating little experiment in and of itself. She thought she’d annoy him with how often she told him she loved him now that she could, but he constantly was telling her wordlessly. Laying in bed, sitting at the workbench, in the cockpit, in the bar, it didn't matter. Squish squish squish. Tech silently told her he loved her more often than she said it out loud. It was her favorite part of the day, when his hand settled somewhere on her and let her know she mattered to him.

“Did you sleep out here all night? That’s not good for you.” She frowned.

“My apologies. I was working on something.” He smiled. “It will be done soon, I assure you. But I should probably shower, and then I thought you and I might try a flight lesson while the others are at breakfast. Wrecker will be getting up soon, so we’ll have the ship to ourselves.”

Shiani nodded. “Okay.”

Her genius headed to the fresher and she settled down with her datapad.

Omega came back inside with Hunter and Echo, grinning. “I hit the target.” She squealed with excitement, running to Shiani. “You’re awake!”

Shiani opened her arms to hug Omega, laughing. “I just needed a nap. Sirens heal when sleeping.” She tossed the girl into the air and caught her, making her squeal again.

“Really?” Omega looked at her with precious, guileless eyes. It occurred to Shiani that the little girl would be so easy to trick like this. She believed in everyone, and their inherent good therein… a slick tongued liar could lure her into no end of trouble.

“I promise never to lie to you.” The siren said gently, booping her nose with a claw. “Yes. Sirens sleep to heal, and if we don’t sleep then sometimes healing goes bad. THere’s no bacta underwater.”

Omega nodded, eyes wide. “But you’re all better now, right?”

Shiani smiled, pulling up the edge of her shirt so Omega could see her side. The little brown fingers pressed against her gills lightly, hesitant to hurt her. “See? I’m better.”

“Does it still hurt?” Omega frowned.

“No.” Shiani turned and let her check out the scar on her back too. Omega startled her by hugging her tight around the middle. “Baby Mega, are you crying?” She felt warm tears on her back and scooped the little one up with her tentacles to bring her around to her face again.

“You got hurt.” Omega sniffled.

“That's okay. I would rather be hurt than you get hurt. You are the future.” Shiani lightly headbutted the girl, enough to make her smile and wipe her tears. “When sirens raise little ones, the whole clan unites to protect them. Mother and father are most responsible, but uncles and aunts help. Grandparents, cousins, everyone comes together to keep the littlest ones safe. And one day, you’ll grow into someone who fights right beside us. Or even leads us.”

Hunter smiled faintly and waved Echo to come back outside with him, letting the two of them have their little reunion. Omega had been anxious about Shiani’s injuries, trying to check her pulse and watching her sleep when Tech had been looking for food the siren might actually eat. The little blonde snuggled into her friend’s side as Shiani went back to her datapad.

“What are you studying now?” Omega looked around.

“Checking Tech’s logs.” She said quietly. “Crosshair was on Ryloth. Tech… has complicated feelings about Crosshair, but he’s still a brother.”

“What kind of complicated feelings?

“He’s mad at him for saying bad things about me, but also he misses him. He’s angry he joined the Empire, but knows Crosshair can’t help it. It’s sad… Tech talked about Crosshair a lot when we were on Kamino. Crosshair was the one that sat and listened to him talk most. He feels the absence.”

Omega nodded. “So why do you check his logs?”

“Tech keeps doing reports like he’s still in the army, only now they go on a private server. He’s got all kinds of stuff in there, like an encyclopedia of experiences and discoveries. I can tell by how he writes what kind of things he feels about it. He types swear words out loud instead of censoring them when he’s upset.” She explained.

Omega giggled. “Oooh.”

Behind them, there was a yawn from the bunkroom. Shiani giggled. “Morning Wrecker!”

“Heeey! You’re up!” The big clone came out, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “I was starting to think you were never gonna wake up.”

“Just sleeping to heal up.” Shiani chuckled. “You must be hungry.”

“Always.” He grinned.

“Echo and Hunter already went to the bar. You take Baby Mega, and I’ll wait for Tech.” The siren stood Omega up, making sure there were no more tears and her hair was fluffed up before sending her with her biggest brother to get food.

It only took a little longer for Tech to come out of the fresher, clean and fully dressed again. “Everyone out of the ship?”

She nodded, taking his hand when he offered it and letting him pull her to her feet and against his chest. She giggled. “Flight lesson?”

“Yes. Come with me, and we’ll get started. I’ve been thinking about the way Hera was flying on Ryloth and that will not do for you and my ship.”

“Your ship. We all live here..” She raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, well. I am sharing it with you but it is my ship. Now, pay attention cyar’ika. Talk me through what you remember from our last lesson.”

Shiani looked so adorably serious as Tech sat in the pilot’s seat, miming the controls as he showed her the various systems and readouts of the Havoc Marauder. She nodded, repeating each device as he spoke. “This is the navigation system. You enter the coordinates here, and can adjust them here.” She pointed to each indicator as she spoke. “And this is the hyperdrive. Check hyperspace route thoroughly before engaging.”

“And why do you check that thoroughly?”

“You could strike an obstacle. At those speeds, it is nearly impossible to survive a crash.” She repeated his words almost verbatim.

“Yes, good. Now, this is how you engage the engine, to lift off the ground. Here, this is most effective if you see it from the viewpoint you will become accustomed to. You’ve only done this once.” He waved her to come over. “Sit in my lap for a moment, cyar’ika. We have enough fuel to perform a liftoff and test flight.”

She nodded agreeably and climbed into his lap, tentacles curled around her legs to keep them out of the way as he coached her through the pre-flight checks. She followed instructions dutifully, working her way across the console and repeating each section as she did. “Engines, weapons, life support, navigation, communications…” It was easier than it had been on Ryloth, without blaster fire in her ear.

“Very good. Now, start the engine here, and slowly pull back on the control lever here at the same time you press this pedal. This will disengage the landing gear and raise the nose.”

“I pulled it up to fast on Ryloth.” Shiani’s arms and legs were shorter than Tech’s, and she wasn’t fully confident in her ability to do what he said with her tentacles, so she leaned forward and scooted around in his lap to try to get her fingertips to the controls. Tech’s fingers twitched on the armrest when her weight settled on his crotch. “Like this, right?” She asked innocently, carefully taking the controls and pulling back, pressing herself down into his lap more.

“Y-yes. Now bring us up while gradually increasing speed until we exit the atmosphere…”

Shiani nodded happily, pulling the controls and getting comfortable with them. She took them up, pushing through the atmosphere and into space. She turned the ship back to look at Ord Mantell, eyes bright. Even a dusty, seedy place like this was pretty from orbit. Maybe Kamino was pretty too… there was nothing for her there anymore, but sometimes she missed it. “Did I do okay?” She asked after a minute, looking over her shoulder at her distinctly red-faced genius.

“You did spectacularly… please stop wiggling.” He mumbled. “I did not take into consideration the effect of you sitting in my lap or how attractive I would find you being in control of my ship.”

Shiani blinked, hairless brows raising. “Attractive? This is working. You never want to flirt when you’re working.”

“I want to do quite a bit more than flirt with you right now, ner cyar’ika.” His hands were tightly gripping the armrests, the expression on his face telling. It was taking all of his impressive self control not to start stripping her right now. “You have a profound and unique effect on me.”

Shiani stood up and turned to face him, head cocked to the side for a moment before she smiled. “You miss me this much while I was asleep?”

He nodded, reaching for her hips and pulling her back into his lap facing him. “I thought it was obvious.”

Her tentacles wrapped around his middle, shoulders, and legs until she was entirely wrapped around him and she could lean in to kiss him. Tech’s hands on her hips pulled her down against his codpiece, which was definitely out of place by now. “Everything is obvious to you.” She breathed against his lips, nuzzling into the side of his neck. “Exceptional mind can figure anything out.” She loved praising him, both because she meant it and because he turned the most adorable shade of pink when she did.

“If you will allow me to get up, I can think of something you might enjoy.” He chuckled quietly.

She curiously unwrapped herself from around him and watched as he engaged the proximity sensors and turned off the artificial gravity. She squeaked and her boots came off the floor, but she had little trouble keeping herself upright. It wasn’t much different than being underwater. Tech held a hand out and she simply swam to him. “Like Kamino.” She laughed, leaning back and flipping upside down. “But more fun.”

Tech smiled, turning her so she was pressed against the back of the seat. “This could be an interesting experiment, since the conditions are similar to your native environment.”

Shiani booped his nose. “You want to know how to fuck underwater without drowning.”

“... I make a point of not swearing in front of you. Where did you learn that word?”

“Echo.”

Tech sighed. “That is an extremely crass way to put what I am suggesting. But yes, that was the theory.”

She giggled and turned another slow flip, this time kicking her boots off into the air. Her tentacles pulled her leggings down her hips and she flicked them out of the way, legs splitting into four more tentacles as she took full siren form. “This is what you want to experiment with?” She grinned, now in a backbend and upside down with her tentacles gracefully fanned out above her.

“Very much so.” He reached for her again, and she happily crawled up his body until she was rightside up.

“Then I’m all yours.” She cooed. “But make you want to take that armor off?”

Tech had never shed his armor so fast in his life. In this form, in zero gravity, she looked confident and self-assured instead of shy and out of her depth. He had to coax this side of her more often… it was gorgeous.

She floated over him as he tossed the kit and blacks, smiling with her cheek in her hand. The point of her claw ran delicately up his bare back and he shivered, turning to catch her by the wrist and pull her to him. She’d slid her shirt and chains off while he was stripping, so only cool purple skin pressed to his and her bioluminescence flashed in the dim light. He traced his hands down her frame, fascinated by the way she could shapeshift, and finally curiously flipped her upside down.

The anatomy had changed slightly, a near invisible seam similar to the ones on the sides of her mouth now keeping her most delicate places hidden. It now sat in the meeting of 8 legs and the skirt-like delicate skin that connected them to about where her upper thighs would have been in her other form. She giggled and relaxed, the seam parting much like the mouth of a stingray to reveal the more familiar bluish-purple of her pussy. Her reaction to his mouth on her was the same despite her form, squirming and gasping in midair before she slung limbs around the cockpit to anchor herself in place. She whined his name and hummed, fingers scrunched in her head-tentacles and arousal dripping down his wrist when he introduced his fingers into play.

He was familiar with her body and sure she was about to come unglued, when she suddenly detached from the walls and chair. She grabbed him by the middle, snatching him off of her, and tossed him up to the ceiling before following and pinning him there with her hips. Purple limbs twined around all four of his and she gave him a loving but slightly feral smile. “When sirens make love, the females are the ones in charge.” She cooed into his ear softly. “If you want me to fuck you like a siren, you have to tell me.” She pressed him up against the durasteel, arms wrapping around his shoulders as her hips moved into position.

He swallowed, nodding, and she delicately ran her tongue down the side of his neck. “Please…”

“Good boy.” She cooed. His eyes rolled back as she sank around him, riding him hard while her suckers held them from floating away from each other. In this form she had no bones from the pelvis down, but her muscles made up for it with the way she was wringing the life out of him. Her hands were on his shoulders, and there was the stinging sensation of her claws testing his skin that muddled into his senses. Her panting breath whistled through her fangs until she kissed him, her humming and faint singing broken up between hisses, and when she moved her hands to plant them on either side of his head he could hear the durasteel warp under her claws. Everywhere there was a tentacle wrapped around felt like a hickey being sucked into his skin, and he was helpless to do anything but take it.

Tech’s face was starting to scrunch up, sweat on his brow, so she pressed her forehead against his and cooed her sweet siren kiss into his ears. The last nudge he needed to completely fall apart and come radiated around him in a way she could feel in her gills, and it dragged her over with him. Sirens weren’t meant to be out of sync, and she didn’t intend to be. When they both stopped twitching, she held them there in the ceiling a little longer and cuddled him sweetly, as if she hadn’t just absolutely fucked him within an inch of his life.. “You okay?”

“You… are extremely assertive in this form.” He chuckled, sucking air like he was breathing through a straw. “I did not expect to be manhandled, but I am not complaining.”

She giggled. “You’re a man, and I handled you. Siren females always pin males like this. Usually inside houses, but sometimes deep rock caves work. Gotta make sure nothing inside that bites, though.”

“Some humans find biting to be arousing.” Tech chuckled. “It is a documented phenomenon.”

“You would not like me to bite. It hurts, even if I wasn’t venomous..” She kissed his cheeks again, claw delicately tracing under his goggles. She loved his eyes, kept safe behind the yellow lenses. “My favorite color is yellow, you know.” She cooed. “Because of your goggles.”

He smiled. “I have never considered a favorite color before… but I think purple looks nice right now.”

She was leaning in for another kiss when the ship comm went off. She stretched out a tentacle to turn it on curiously. “Hello.”

“Shiani? Is Tech with you?” Hunter sounded grumpy.

“Yes.” She blinked, wide eyed.

Tech sighed. “I am right here, Hunter.”

“Fantastic. Where is the fucking ship?!”

Shiani giggled. “Ship is not fucking. But Tech and I-” Tech cut her off with a hand over her mouth.

“Flight education. We will be back in just a few minutes.”

“I swear to Manda, if there’s any weird stains on the seats I am going to shoot you both in the foot.” Hunter hung up.

Shiani broke out into giggles, nuzzling into Tech’s chest. “You think he’ll notice the scratches on the ceiling?”

Tech looked at the faint gouges on either side of his head. “My estimate is four to six months from now.”

She nodded, and they slowly got down from the ceiling and redressed. Tech sat in the copilot’s seat on the way back, walking her through how to take them back and land. She was, as he’d always know, a quick learner. She’d make an excellent pilot with time and a little more practice…

Hunter was going to insist someone else come for flight training from now on, though. He just knew it

#explict #original character #clone force 99 #the bad batch #star wars #fanfic #tbb tech #song of the sea #monster fucker #tech smut

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impossible-rat-babies · 3 years

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tuesday, two in the afternoon

fallen hero / 2.1k words / chargestep (nb!sidestep + m!ortega) / cw: smoking

mostly below the cut!

“Why did you bring me down to the beach? It smells awful down here...”

Pollux kicks a rock across the barren sand, watching it roll into the lackadaisical waves lapping at the meager shoreline. The sand squishes beneath his shoes, water leaking through the crappy canvas.

It rained not long ago—almost caught the both of them in the downpour.

His head is still damp from the few fat drops that landed from between the slats in the boardwalk they used to take cover. He runs his hand across the fresh buzzcut, forgetting for a second there’s no curls to tuck behind his ears.

“I thought you liked the beach.” Ortega comes up beside him, keeping pace as they wander through sand and rock, passing by tiny tide pools refreshed by the rain. The sun will dry what the waves can reach soon, but for now they thrive under the cloudy grey sky.

“I don’t mind the beach, but it always stinks like garbage and wet dog down here after it rains.”

“At least it keeps the place private.”

“If you don’t count the seagulls.”

“They’re worse than the tourists.”

Ortega smiles and Pollux turns to walk backwards, cocking a brow over his sunglasses. Of course Ortega is overdressed to be taking a walk on what passes for a beach these days—a fancy shirt and slacks and the watch he’s got on costs more than four months of rent on Pollux’s shitty apartment.

(Disregarding the sunglasses he’s toting around that are without a doubt the third most expensive thing he owns and even then they were a gift. From Ortega, obviously. He disregards the invading thought that the most expensive thing Ortega has won’t ever be his clothing or a watch, but his spine. Pollux thinks *if*—not *when*—he dies if they’ll pry it out and stick it inside someone else; a replacement for an accident of their own.)

Ortega is always dressed to impress, the silly man. Pollux it’s a habit, or he doesn’t have anything else to wear that isn’t something higher class or luxury, or if he genuinely enjoys silk shirts. The tailored slacks with fancy watches and Italian leather shoes. There’s no one to impress but Pollux and he hasn’t fallen for that trick in years.

“Worried about your shoes?”

“They’re...squishy.”

“You’re gonna ruin them.”

Ortega kicks another rock off towards the waves, stuffing his hands in his pocket as an answer. Pollux snorts, rolling his eyes, and he turns back around, falling into step beside him. He’s always been a fast walker--a faster runner.

Silence stretches out between them and apprehension feels like just another word for awkward, this gap between them. The few pointed inches—enough for static electricity to jump between them, for Pollux to anticipate Ortega’s touch and deftly pull away, leaving air beside his fingertips.

It’s still so hard to let him close.

“Why did you want to meet up here?” Pollux asks just to have something to say, anything to avoid Ortega looking like he’s going to throw his arm over his shoulder and pull him in to mumble something fond, or a terrible joke.

“Just to go on a walk?” Ortega tries and oh he tries so hard. More than he used to.

“Since when did you start walking for fun?”

“When you decide to come along with me. It’s fun, Lux.”

Pollux frowns—he knows this game. Ortega’s got this little tell of looking away just the right way.

“You just wanted to get me out of the house then.”

Ortega shrugs—he’s avoiding, nor is he saying no...

“Okay so I lied. I don’t have anything to talk about. But, if I just wanted to spend time with you then you would’ve said no.”

“True...” Pollux hates how he’s right more often than not. Asshole. “So you picked the beach?”

“I didn’t plan on it raining.”

Pollux sighs, tired of the sand and he wanders away--further out of reach--towards the rocks near the pillars holding up the promenade.

It’s deserted right now, the rain and the fact that it’s two in the afternoon on a Tuesday keeping the crowds away. Give it a Saturday on a cool summer’s evening and it’d be packed to the gills; people screaming on the small roller coasters, the stink of fresh fried food and the lights--the dizzying array of red, blue and yellow. All the people and all the thoughts buzzing through his head; there were so many bombarding him--all of them, just as aggressive as the lights. He’s braved that terrible crowd--all because Ortega asked.

He used to do that, do things because Ortega asked nicely. Because they were fun--he had fun. Does he still remember what that felt like? Being on that promenade, breathless and young, laughing like he knew how to laugh?

They walked down to the very end once, away from the bright lights where it was just the ocean stretching out in front of them like a black abyss. All alone. Ortega asking him, pleading for one ride on the ferris wheel. “Come on Lux just one little ride.” Pollux calling his bluff, shoving his face away because it was all just a ploy for a kiss. Like this is some snapshot romance movie still.

It’s stupid to think about bygones.

There’s no temptation to jump into old times down here, just the water swelling against the rocks and the concrete walls. Trash hiding in the crevices, old green beer bottles that will break and turn to sea glass; left to wash up on the shores of Hawaii.

The beaches there are still nice--worthy of memories. Not this smog stained grey sand.It’s just a hop skip and a jump up onto the slick brown rocks smeared with algae and something that shines like oil. It stinks like it.

Pollux stops, shaking a cigarette out of the package and he cups his hand to protect the fragile flame, watching Ortega clamber up onto the rock beside him. He flops down on a relatively dry spot, free of the worst of the gross.

“What are you doing?” Pollux asks with a faint laugh and a cocked brow, letting his cigarette go unlit. It droops between his lips.

“What does it look like? I’m sitting down.” Ortega replies, smoothing a strand of hair back into the salt and pepper waves at his temples.

“Mr. Ralph Lauren is gonna be pissed you ruined your pants?” A raise of the brow and Ortega looks up at him with a look in those brown eyes.

“My shoes are wet, Lux.” Ortega whines and Pollux is *this close* to kicking him off their rock.

“I think you’re getting old.”

Pollux squats beside him, arms draping over top of his knees.

“Now you’re just being cruel...”

Ortega adjusts, grimacing when he inevitably puts his hand on a wet spot. He untucks his shirt, and he’s rather reminiscent of those “aged like fine wine” men on old magazine covers he found in shitty motel lobbies. He’d fit right on a sandy beach in Florida. These aren’t the right beaches for any of that anymore, still mostly rock. Their original glory immortalized in photographs on the fronts of travel brochures.

But they are healing—slowly. The sand creeps up the shoreline more and more each year.

“I’m not cruel. You just an oversized sun hat and a lounge chair. Maybe a nice hot beer.” Pollux teases and Ortega grimaces.

“It’s January.”

“That doesn’t stop people in Florida or Hawaii.”

“Have you even been to Florida?”

Ortega asks so harmlessly and Pollux pauses.

He’s been there half a dozen times before—fuzzy memories from over a decade ago. Rooftop gardens on top of high rise builds off the coast of Miami, galas with thousand dollar dresses and caked on makeup in the low light from crystal chandeliers. It was all for work, watching and scanning, nimble mental fingers coaxing and teasing truth from the mind’s eyes. He would watch, take in the sights and the sounds through other people’s minds. Take the truth and puzzle over the rest. Ask the dangerous questions: why and how?

He still believes the biggest mistake they made was allowing him to learn.

“I’ve watched movies.” He says instead of lying and he knows he isn’t getting away with it. “Besides, have you ever been to Florida? Or Hawaii even?”

“No, but I’ve watched movies before.”

Ortega grins and Pollux groans, resisting the urge to yet again so shove him off his rock and into one of the tide pools below.

“You’re an asshole.”

Pollux fishes around in his pocket and grabs out a matchbook, flipping it open and fuck he grabbed the wrong one. There’s nothing but the empty packaging in this one, uneven lines from tearing out matches without much grace. He flips it over onto the back and nothing--even the striker strip is shot to hell. Fuck.

“Are you out?” Ortega peers over and he grumbles.

“Grabbed the wrong matchbook” Pollux huffs, about to grab his carton back out and stuff the poor cigarette back in.

“Wait, I still got--here.” Ortega pulls a small matchbox out of his shirt pocket, holding it out to him. It’s much nicer than his ten cent books he frequently gets for free from the gas station because the cashier thinks he’s cute.

“You...still carry them around?”

His voice stalls in his chest: it’s meant to be more of questioning incredulity, but it comes out much softer. Forlorn and sticky at the front of his mouth.

Ortega sheepishly looks down at the matchbox, flipping it between his index and forefingers.

“Old habits die hard.”

He ran out of matches a lot, even the crappy little packages where the matches broke more often than actually struck. Ortega started carrying them around, little inch and a half boxes of matches tucked in his coat or shirt pocket. He doesn’t remember when the habit started. But it evolved into a habit of stealing them, seeing how easily he could sneak one away without him noticing.

Ortega protested whenever he caught him and the two of them scrambling for the box until Pollux tucked it away like magic, or Ortega tried tickling him enough times to get an elbow to the nose.

He got him back: a sufficient enough shock and Pollux complained about having a numb hand for the next week.

Pollux had a little stacked collection of them all lined up against the baseboard next to his mattress. He kept the fun ones, the brightly colored and eclectically designed ones--neon blue and mustard yellow. Held onto them until they were falling apart and he painstakingly cut them apart and glued or taped them in the pages of notebooks.

Even now, seven years later Ortega still carries them around and that tugs sharp in the back of his throat and deep in his belly—a sort of nausea that stings his eyes.

He blinks several times and fuck there’s the logo of the cigarette shop Ortega dragged him to once in a blue moon. The floor was some cheap old green motel carpeting--the windows covered in layers of advertisements and wood paneling everywhere else. But god it smelled fantastic--like a humidor stuffed to the brim with anything from cheap cigarettes to fancy and illegal cigars in glass cases.

(Fuck, it was the best place to buy cigarettes--they still had the little machines with the tokens he’d pay five bucks for at the counter.)

“Yeah...” Pollux mumbles, tearing his eyes away. “Kinda literally, you know. Dying.” He chuckles bone dry and Ortega cringes.

“You still recognized the matchbox. I can’t call you a lost cause yet.”

He looks over at him, salt and pepper black hair blowing in the breeze, the little white spots where the scars cut through his beard. The soft smile on chapped lips. Even with all the anger in the world rushing under his skin, he can’t be mad.

There’s just that wistful empty ache and he blinks, looking away. The distant shoreline etched on the horizon of a dark ocean and the patchy grey sky above. He lights the cigarette with a single match, the sharpness of the sulfur and the sweet menthol cloud of smoke the breeze dissolves into nothing.

“Here...” Pollux offers the matchbox back to him.

“Keep it. You need it more than me.” Ortega says, pushing his hand back towards him and he pulls his hand away.

Pollux fixes him with a with a long look before he heaves a sigh and looks back out towards the coast and the ocean further beyond. Smoking the cigarette, filling his lungs on the menthol and tobacco until it burns out at the filter. Ortega sitting beside him, bouncing a leg but he’s quiet. And he doesn’t look over at Pollux.

The sun barely peeks in through the clouds and it looks like this is all the rain they’ll be getting.

#fallen hero #chargestep #fallen hero: rebirth #fallen hero: retribution #fhr #owen writes #oc tag #oc: pollux #i tried to keep it under 2k but! we failed folks #anyway two fics in one week? WILD #i have more stuff i'm gonna spice up lmao but for now. there's this #the lets go to the beech beech fic lsdjlfsd #this is going in the queue hopefully it. shows up lmao

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sweetcatmintea · 5 years

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You sink

Flash Fiction Friday! (But not officially. If I have time, I’ll do the official prompt when I wake up)

This is an attempt at a creepy ocean story as requested by @kainablue! It’s supposed to be more an atmospheric dread style of creepy but I don’t know if I landed it XD (If you want some real dread and aw, watch this video I found while looking for inspiration) I hope you like this Kat! Thanks so much for all of your support! 💜 💜 💜

I hope you all have fun in the water! Feedback is super appreciated ^u^

Prompt: This beautiful picture and the genre Creepy

Words: 1600

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You’re falling.

Falling asleep. Falling through clouds. Falling into water. Salt licks your lips as you shield your sun blinded eyes, blinking bleary colours into shapes. Cool ocean water soaks through your pyjamas, brushing your back and ensnaring your outstretched limbs. Float like a starfish. That’s what your mother had told you. Your steady heartbeat is easily drowned out by waves gently crashing against themselves, rocking your floating body. Your eyes have cleared. The sky above an endless blue spotted haphazardly with white wisps. The sea below and endless blue spotted hazardously with mysteries. Even so, you are calm. The ocean has always been a place of peace for you.

You sink.

Back, then shoulders, then cheeks. The water consumes you, drawing you to its core one lapping wave at a time. You relax into the motion, letting yourself be taken. A natural reflex, you take one last gulp of air as the water closes over you. Noise distorts immediately, liquid filling your ears and pressing against your skull from within. You open your eyes, immediately squinting for the oncoming sting. It never comes. You open them gingerly, slowly widening them enough to look around as you continue the descent. Light sparkles at the surface, glittering and beautiful as the ripples capture it in a dance. You consider turning over, enticed by the allure of watching where you’re falling to. But you stay on your back as you are. You don’t know how deep the water is here. You’re not sure you want to.

You continue to sink.

You’ve been holding your breath for so long now. Your chest aches, longing to release its now unwelcomed guest. You don’t want to. Something tells you that it will be okay, to let go. The shuddering in your lungs exacerbates the urging. A string of air escapes you. You panic, just for a moment. There are no bubbles. You release more air. No bubbles at all. You let it all out, deflating yourself as far as your body allows. A tentative inhale. You can breathe.

You continue to sink.

A low, haunting note splits the water’s rumble. Clicks and whistles melding together in an other worldly melody. A currant rolls you off course, affording you two overwhelming sights at once. Below you, deep, deep, below you, there is nothing but murky darkness. Beside you, all around you, there were giants. Gentle grey and white whales gliding as though unaware of their unbelievable mass. You weren’t prepared for their appearance. The sight captures your breath and your heart. They arc and curve in playful rings, so much more agile than you ever imagined. It doesn’t look like they notice you. Not even the smallest tempted by the curiosity of the mouse in their midst. You feel safe, if not a little lonely.

You continue to sink.

Fish swim around you, flickering more colours than you can name. You are engulfed in schools of tuna bigger than your dog. You dare not touch them. No matter how much you want to trail your cold fingers across their smooth, silvery scales. It’s not worth the risk. Sunlight filters through the water in rays. But it’s getting darker. You keep your mouth clamped shut, saltwater having already proved its character against your tastebuds. Your hair tickles your skin, moving in time with the ocean.

You continue to sink.

Sharks slide out of gloom, joining you as they stalk through the blue. They come so close, you can feel the power of their bodies as they pass by. Their black eyes never linger on you. They don’t stay long, the prey is elsewhere today. You try to avoid looking down. It makes your stomach roll. Alone as you are, there is nothing around but water. You strain your eyes. As above, so below. Nothing but ocean. You are so very small. A grain of sand in the wind. There is nothing you can do to change this. Somewhere, in the world you once knew, people are praying for rain. There are deserts, so savaged by the surface, the inhabitants have not even a drop of water in their memories. It is hard to imagine. For you, here, right now, water is all there is. Miles and miles of endless sea.

You continue to sink.

Finally, a semblance of broken infinity greets you when you peek over your shoulder. Long stretches of dark stone column rising out of the nothing. Sand dusts the impromptu sea floor while skitters of creatures are gone too quickly for you to identify. It is too far away for you to reach. Your limbs are heavy with the weight of the water, the weight of the clothe. You aren’t sure you even remember how to move them. You watch as the slabs grow larger as you draw closer. If you were to move, your descent, as slow and calm as it is, is still too fast. You’re too small to reach the shelf before you sink below it. It disappoints you that there are no corals there. The sun is too week to feed them. There is little more than grey, white, black, and blue. So much blue. You pass the top of the stone, sinking lower and lower. Its massive figure looming over you as you go. In some time, you pass another ridge jutting out below the shelf, then another, and another. Each taller than you, taller than anyone you know. Three steps down and your house was dwarfed. They spread further, the deeper you sink. A god’s stairway stolen by the ocean. It’s getting much colder. You shiver but can do little to soothe the ache spreading through your hands. The shadow of the stones saps the heat prematurely from your surroundings. Your jaw is cramping from your determination to keep your lips sealed. You want to let out a shuddering breath into the water but the needle prick on your mouth is warning enough. If nothing else, you can keep your teeth from stinging.

You continue to sink.

In the dim light, you begin to make out the outlines of still, grey, pillars. They are pebbles to the stone fading beside you, whales to you. Sperm whales standing solemnly in the deep dark nothing, a graveyard of living tombstones. They don’t move as you pass, continuing their sombre vigil. You wonder what they are trying to accomplish. You want to tell them you understand. To convey in some meaningful way that you can see them for what they are. You can’t. Because you don’t.

You continue to sink.

The blue, long since navy, then velvet, fades darker still. Soon enough you can no longer see the shadow of the heavenly stairs, nor the outline of the silent whales. You might as well have fallen into the sky, drifting deeper into space than man has ever dreamed of. It’s vast. It’s endless. You are alone. Not even clouds of cold breath to keep you company, to remind you that you exist. Is this death? Your thoughts echo in your head. They’re too loud noise has no place here. Pressure wraps around you, making its presence known against your skull. It doesn’t hurt. The pain passes through you easily, hinting at what it could be, given the chance. Too cold to feel, your limbs are detached. Only the pull of the water to remind you they are yours.

You continue to sink.

Maybe you found the seafloor hours ago. An unknowing passenger in your own skin, you’re not sure. You feel like you’re sinking, if nothing else. Like the illusion of spinning as you fall asleep. You don’t know which you would prefer. Movement darts overhead. The water presses against you in response. A pinprick of sunlight blinds you once again. You squint, trying to make sense of the glowing orb. To have something smaller than you was a foreign feeling. Your eyes struggle to adjust. It is too bright. The light begins to dance, bobbing and wiggling. A shimmer of scales. A fish draws closer, mesmerised as you are by the light. Snap! The fish is gone. A mouthful of broken glass shards closes millimetres from your eye. There is no controlling the shudder convulsing down your spine as you leave the dead-eyed angler behind.

You continue to sink.

Long stretches of isolation. There is nothing but the tiny you in the vast, unending liquid night. You wonder how anything else can exist. How there can be anything other than ocean. If you are lucky, flickers and glows temporarily accompany you. If you are unlucky, you see their faces.

You continue to sink.

You no longer lament your loneliness. Pale forms shift around you. Big. Glassy eyed. Mostly teeth. There is purpose to their movements. They brush past you. Never touching, but teasingly close. Milky pupils settle on you. The creature’s mouth curves into a natural grin. It looks through you, staring beyond what you know. Beyond what you could hope to understand. You feel small in a whole knew way. A terrible way. The long, long, long bodies writhe around you. Achingly precise, they circle your arms, your torso, your legs. Weaving lazy figure eights into your space. They glue their awful, unseeing, all seeing, eyes into yours. They don’t touch you, only grin. Rows upon rows of too many teeth so white they glow despite the ink. You want them to go away. Paper frilled gills laugh at you. Deep, deep, floating in the void, there are things so much worse than loneliness.

You continue to sink.

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Tag list

@inkovert, @snobbysnekboi, @kainablue, @i-rove-rock-n-roll, and @goblin-writer

#If it's not creepy enough I can try writing something else ^u^;;;#writing #short story #flash fiction #creepy story #ocean #original story #existential dread #feeling small #writblr #ask to tag

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amaranthinecanicular · 7 years

Text

It was just a fairytale. One of those bedtime stories parents tell their kids to make them wary of the surface. Merfolk didn’t fall in love with humans, they didn’t fall for the sweet words of seawitches and they didn’t fall out of the ocean with legs only to fall back as seafoam. It was just a fairytale. It was supposed to be a fairytale.

[continue under the read more or on ao3]

Ritsu measures time by the faces.

Certain faces during feeding, hundreds of faces during exhibit hours, familiar faces – the man’s face, Suzuki, Ritsu once heard a worker say it–when the aquarium is closed and he is ushered into a separate, smaller tank for examination and interrogation. The humans seem certain that Ritsu can understand their questions, and more certain that he has the ability to answer. Ritsu doesn’t give a shit what they’re certain about. Suzuki sits in front of the tank or else he stands in front of the examination table and he asks the same questions, over and over, and he doesn’t blink. Questions about where he’s from, and questions about Shigeo, though he doesn’t call him that. Usually it’s just the other one, which Ritsu thinks (hopes) means he doesn’t know that Shigeo is his brother, and that’s how he means to keep it.

Suzuki is unbothered by Ritsu’s silence and impervious to his glare. Under his gaze Ritsu feels flayed open. He doesn’t blink.

In the mornings, what Ritsu hates most is that the water is exactly right. It’s perfect: just like home on the best of days, when noonlight filters in and warms his scales and the current is cool like a breeze. It would be easier if it were chlorinated, or if it were fresh instead of salt, or if the temperature were off by even a handful of degrees. He would wake without those terrible half-seconds of hope, then, without the thought that this has all been some awful lucid dream to forget as soon as possible, that his parents are just outside the cove grooming the reef and Shigeo is right beside him, still sleeping, safe. If not for the perfect water Ritsu would never forget that this is not his home.

But the water is perfect, and Ritsu does forget, and every morning he relearns that he’s not at home and Shigeo is still missing. That there are still soft human faces smeared to the glass and watching him, and as soon as the aquarium is closed he’ll be pinned beneath a microscope just to be watched some more. Ritsu remembers that the nightmare is waking. He hates the water for that.

This morning there are no fleshy human faces pressed to the glass. The aquarium must not be open yet. There is only one person, and none of him touches Ritsu’s tank; he peers at Ritsu with his hands shoved in his pockets and his head tilted to one side. His hair is a bright cloud of color–the image of him is somewhat warped by water and glass, but there’s something unnervingly familiar about him all the same. About his eyes, and about his stillness. Ritsu knows he’s never seen him before but the familiarity persists. He keeps very still but the human must know he’s awake, for he lifts one hand and very slowly – deliberately – presses it to the glass. Ritsu does nothing. He watches. The human watches back.

Eventually, another human that Ritsu recognizes as one of Suzuki’s underlings appears to usher the first one out. His hand is the last thing to go and the heat of it ghosts an imprint on the glass for some time afterward. Only when Ritsu is certain he’s alone does he dare to swim out to the star-shaped outline and fit his own hand to the memory, finger by finger. Their hands are the same size.

Just once Suzuki says, “Take your time. I am patient,” and Ritsu loathes and despairs, because he thinks Suzuki is telling the truth, and he thinks he may never escape this place, and he thinks those terrible things he said to his brother might have been the last things he’ll ever say to his brother. Times like these – most times – Ritsu hates Suzuki more than he has ever hated anything, more than he ever thought he could, and the hate is liquid, he breathes it. It’s his fault Ritsu is trapped here when he should be looking for Shigeo. For all he knows his brother is seafoam already, and all he can do about it is brood at the bottom of a glorified fish bowl and refuse to say a word.

Well. If that’s all he can do, then he’ll do it. Maybe he’ll die before he escapes, but he will die too before he gives Suzuki one word about his brother. I can also be patient, he thinks, and refuses to blink first.

The next time Ritsu sees the human who put his hand to the glass, three weeks’ worth of faces have cycled by and the handprint has long since faded. The aquarium is closed and it’s dinner time but the familiar faces are nowhere to be seen. Only this one human remains, leaning far enough over the edge to peer down but not far enough to touch, and that’s fine. Ritsu has no desire to touch any of them, and no desire to feed for their entertainment. The dead fish will bob far above him and he’ll wait until all the eager eyes have slinked away before picking the thing apart and eating only what he has to.

There’s the familiar plop, then a flash of silver, then Ritsu’s blood is racing and then–

He doesn’t know what happens then, because the world blinks out and only blinks back on when he’s hooked his fangs deep in the gills of a live mackerel. Blood inks through the water, Ritsu is breathing hard – he must have put on quite a show – and he isn’t even put off by it because, god, he hasn’t had fresh food in forever. It’s the best thing he’s ever tasted.

“That was badass,” says the human, somewhat garbled through the water, and Ritsu, delirious with the taste of home on his tongue, can only think absurd thoughts: Mom would have killed me if she heard me swear like that. “You’d think that after all their dumb tests they’d figure out you like hunting.”

That’s when Ritsu recognizes him–thinks he recognizes him–and remembers their hands, somehow the same size. He devours the mackerel and dares to break the surface once he’s done. It’s the first time he’s wanted to get a better look at a human. He doesn’t think about what that means because it probably doesn’t mean anything.

The human is a boy, or seems to be, and also seems to be Ritsu’s age–but maybe humans age differently. He’s got ocean eyes, flickering from green to blue like a trick of the light, and hair as vivid as coral on the reef. Ritsu didn’t know humans came in that color. There’s something birdlike about him, in the sharpness of his eyes or the tilt of his chin or the way he perches on his toes when he crouches. He balances his forearms on his knees and Ritsu remembers something his mother once told him: be careful of the seabirds, Ritsu, they’re clever enough to know you’re not their food and clever enough to pick at you anyway, just because they can.

“I like your eyes,” the boy says, and grins. His teeth are luminous in the florescent light off the water. Ritsu resists the urge to swim closer just to confirm that they’re really as blunt as he knows human teeth to be. There’s just something about them that gives the impression of sharpness. “I like that you haven’t given up. That’s good.”

It might be a threat or it might a promise or it might be something else entirely, Ritsu can’t decide. What he decides instead is that it doesn’t matter. He’s seen the human and sated his curiosity. The next fish tossed into the tank is ignored as he turns round and settles back among the synthetic reef at the bottom of the tank, but not before snapping his tail behind him and spraying the boy with water.

The boy laughs. Ritsu can hear it, can even feel it, it bounces off the walls and vibrates through the tank like sonar. “Okay, okay, I get it. Done talking, huh? Then I’ll be back tomorrow to talk some more.”

Maybe he will and maybe he won’t. Ritsu doesn’t care. They can’t be trusted, he reminds himself, once the boy is gone and he’s tracked down the fish. Shigeo was wrong. None of them can be trusted.

So it turns out the thing Ritsu hates most changes. Sometimes it’s the water, or Suzuki, or the human who bewitched his brother, or the seawitch himself. And sometimes it’s the octopus in the tank across him.

He’s seen that thing escape no less than four times during his internment in the aquarium, and how he feels about it is a fifty-fifty shot in the dark: either vindictive satisfaction to watch the humans flail and panic, or irrational jealousy that a stupid fucking invertebrate can find it’s way out of here and he can’t.

The boy does come back the next day. And the next day, and the day after that. He chatters away and doesn’t seem to mind that Ritsu won’t answer. Ritsu lifts his eyes and ears out of the water to better hear him, better watch him. He’s different than the others and that makes him dangerous, for all that his appearance indicates otherwise. The way he sprawls out next to the tank, and the playful cadence of his voice, and the leisurely way he tosses the fish – by looks alone he seems harmless. He says his name is Shou.

“How old are you?” Shou asks, parroting Ritsu’s own thoughts of less than a week ago, and looks neither surprised nor offput when Ritsu keeps his silence. “I’m thirteen. You look like you’re around my age, but I can’t tell with mermaids, y’know?”

Merfolk, Ritsu doesn’t snap, though he wants to. It’s a near thing. Shou’s grin sharpens, just at the corner. He continues blithely. “Who knows, maybe you’re like, ancient. How old do mermaids live, anyway?”

Maybe not so blithe. Shou may seem harmless, sure, but Ritsu is a predator, he knows the tells. For all his smile is easy his eyes are rarely still; they’re watchful eyes, ever-shifting, clear as the shallows and sharp as the salt spray. Ritsu has never been told that he’s easy to read, but this boy makes a game of reading his mind. It’s annoying, and that’s what takes Ritsu aback more than anything else: he’s not angry, not hateful, not resenting. He’s just annoyed. Shou talks too much and sees too much and Ritsu is annoyed by him. But he doesn’t hate him–-and that is annoying, too.

“You can talk to me, you know,” Shou says, a week later. “I won’t tell anyone. I make sure to turn off the audio on the surveillance cameras before I come here.”

As though Ritsu would ever believe that. His gaze remains steady, cold, and silent. It’s more than a little irritating that Shou looks pleased by his suspicion.

“Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t buy that. I mean, It’s true, but you’re too smart to believe everything you hear, right? Oh well. I guess I’ll have to talk enough for both of us.”

He does.

“So what cool mermaid powers do you have? Can you talk to fish and stuff?”

Obviously not, Ritsu thinks. That would be stupid.

“Hey look, I drew you! I’d give it to you but then it’d get all soggy. Maybe I could laminate it? Anyway, what do you think?”

It’s… not actually terrible. I like the colors.

“Hamsters are my favorite animal, I’ve got five at home. I’m guessing octopuses–-octopi?–-are yours, what with how long you spend ogling the guy in the tank over there. That or you’re jealous of how he keeps getting out. Ha ha, hit the nail on the head, huh? I guess he’s smarter than you, mermaid,”

Shut up. You just finished telling me how you got stuck in a dog door. Twice.

“Ooh, maybe I could bring one of my hamsters to visit you!”

Please don’t. That’s a terrible idea. (He does anyway. The hamster is soft and impossibly small, small enough for Shou to smuggle in via coat pocket. Ritsu is permitted to dampen its little head with one finger once he nods to Shou’s demands to be careful. It’s the closest they’ve ever been, and when their hands brush Ritsu dives back into the water.)

“The stories say that mermaids sing. Can you sing, mermaid?”

He can, but the mere thought of singing for Shou gets him flush around the gills, and he betrays himself by glancing away too quick. From the corner of his eye he can see the white flash of Shou’s grin.

“That’s awesome. You’ll have to sing me a song once you finally talk to me.”

He says it like it’s a sure thing. Ritsu wonders if Shigeo sings for his human, and then remembers what would happen if he did, and goes on to remember that Shigeo has no voice to sing with anyway.

The experiments don’t hurt. That’s not the worst of it, but it makes up part of a complex whole, a webbing fine enough to be an ecosystem, or his nervous system, or any other system of terrible awful things. The experiments don’t hurt and that’s what Ritsu hates most—that and the water that is always perfect. That and Suzuki’s unblinking eyes. That and the last things Ritsu said to his brother. The experiments are probing. They’re invasive. They’re awful, they’re fucking awful, and Suzuki stares all the way through it but it doesn’t hurt a single bit, and Ritsu hates nothing and everything more.

Day by day, week by week, they fall into a rhythm. Shou fills Ritsu’s tank with words and words and words, he chases away the silence by himself, and even though Ritsu never answers his questions Shou still manages to learn things about him. Like being jealous of the octopus. Like what type of fish is his favorite, by studying his reactions to the different types thrown in, whether the chase is sluggish or lively. Like calling him a mermaid just to get a reaction. It’s something like infuriating, how easily Shou reads him. Maybe telepathy is a power that humans have, he thinks, briefly; he knows one or two merfolk who can do it, and doesn’t doubt that one day his brother will learn and surpass them all.

But the idea is dismissed as soon as it comes, because if they could read his mind, well, why would they keep asking him questions? Unless it’s just to torment him. He could easily see Suzuki doing that. But Shou—Shou is so strange, a walking, talking contradiction, guarded but genuine, clever but silly, restless eyes with all the weight of the ocean bearing down the few times Ritsu has his unwavering attention. The few times his gaze is still.

And Ritsu—Ritsu wants. To speak, to sing, to trust him. He wants, and that terrifies him. More and more often these days he has to remind himself that humans aren’t trustworthy, that humans like this one took his brother away and trapped him here.

But maybe they aren’t humans like this one. Maybe the only human like this one is Shigeo’s human, or maybe there are none at all. Maybe Shou is special. He makes Ritsu feel special. He makes him feel like maybe they aren’t so different, like in another life they could be friends, like they could laugh and joke and exist together. Shou makes him feel younger than his real age—or maybe like he’s exactly his real age. Ritsu likes to forget he’s only thirteen.

More than once he’s caught himself imagining Shou with gills and a tail and scales to match his hair. He’d fit in well with the merfolk, and he’d be good at hunting—maybe better than Ritsu—but his singing wouldn’t be anything special. In that department at least Ritsu would have him beat, and he’d show it off, too, tease him for it, because Ritsu wouldn’t be afraid to speak to him. Sometimes, even outside his daydreams, Ritsu forgets to be afraid to speak to him. He’s had more than once close call, tripped over his tongue and barely managed to keep the words back. That’s what’s really frightening.

Once, when Ritsu is melancholy and missing home and thinking he’s hiding it better than he really is, Shou asks him about Shigeo.

“What’s your brother like?”

Something of Ritsu’s shock must show on his face, because Shou’s eyes snap wide and he backtracks.

“Hey hey, don’t worry, we don’t have him. I mean, we’ve got part of him—just a scale, I mean, sorry, I guess that could’ve been taken the wrong way. We only know he’s your brother because like, analyzing his scale and yours told us so or something? You can put the fangs away, dude, I’m sure your brother’s fine,”

So Ritsu does, feels two rows of knives sheath back inside his gums, and pretends that he knew he bared them before Shou said so.

“I’m only asking ‘cause he must really be something special,” Shou says. “Pops thinks you were pretty far from home when he caught you because you were chasing this mystery bro, wherever he is now. He’s convinced he turned human somehow, did he tell you that? But that sounds a little too fairytale to me.”

Ritsu thought so too, when Shigeo first brought it up. He dismissed it then, biting back his curiosity for fear of putting his brother under undue stress. It was supposed to be a fairytale. But then he learned of the human, and then he learned of the seawitch, and then there was the fight and then—

And then Shigeo was gone.

“Oh,” Shou says, and Ritsu knows even as he flattens his expression that it’s too late. Shou’s gaze is pinned to Ritsu’s face, recording every thought and feeling he hadn’t been quick enough to hide. “Not so fairytale after all, huh?”

The fangs shoot back out, Ritsu is just as helpless to stop it as he is to stop his fins from flaring, or his heart from hammering, or the hiss that scrapes up his throat. Shou does not look frightened. His eyes are neon in the glow from Ritsu’s tank. He doesn’t even look away.

“Don’t worry,” he says, “I won’t tell the old man.”

When Suzuki interrogates Ritsu later, he asks all the same questions as usual. There is no indication that Shou broke his promise. It could be a trap—they may just be trying to gain his trust to betray him later. Shou could be lying.

But Ritsu wants to trust him. He wants and wants and wants. So he does.

It was just a fairytale. One of those bedtime stories parents tell their kids to make them wary of the surface. Some days Shigeo would get quiet and thoughtful and so far away that Ritsu thought he had legs already. Merfolk didn’t fall in love with humans, they didn’t fall for the sweet words of seawitches and they didn’t fall out of the ocean with legs only to fall back as seafoam. It was just a fairytale. It was supposed to be a fairytale.

“So like, I know you probably hate all humans and stuff,” Shou says one day, lying on his side with one arm pillowed under his head. The other hand is tapping rhythmically against the tiles, one two three four, one two three four. The angle of his head throws light into his eyes, and the light throw the shadows into sharper contrast—he looks sleepy. Ritsu’s arms are crossed over the lip of the tank, his chin resting on his forearms. His tail makes lazy waves behind him in time with the beat, one two three four. He supposes he’s pretty sleepy too.

He thinks, I do hate all humans, and very deliberately does not think, except for you.

“And go ahead and hate away as far as old man Suzuki is concerned, but not everyone here is awful, if you can believe it.”

I don’t.

“Shimazaki can be pretty cool—he works with the sharks—and Serizawa’s a big softie, really. He’s real good with all the animals here. Suzuki is the worst far and away.” A pause. “I really hate him.”

That’s how Ritsu learns exactly how much of what Shou has been telling him all these weeks is the truth—the answer is an unnervingly large amount—because none of it looked like what’s on Shou’s face now. His quick gaze has gone slow and Ritsu knows, down to the marrow of his bones, that this is what a lie looks like: a boy who wants to hate Suzuki but can’t, and hates himself all the more for it. Why can’t he hate him?

“I’m telling you all this because I have something else to tell you too. Something I probably should have told you a while ago, but.” He shrugs, and doesn’t elaborate on why he didn’t tell Ritsu a while ago. “Anyway, it’s about how you got here, and how I got this job—you may not know this, being a mermaid and all, but kids our age don’t usually get jobs feeding the greatest scientific discovery of the century.”

He’s babbling. He’s stalling. Ritsu realizes he misread the shadows in his eyes: drowsy is not the same as restless, something he’s always been, but never before has he avoided looking Ritsu in the eye as he does now. His fingers are still clicking, faster and faster, onetwothreefour, and something like dread settles thick and syrupy in Ritsu’s guts. Shou chews at his lip and then he blurts, “The man who caught you is my dad.”

Maybe he says something else after that but Ritsu doesn’t hear it because he’s already burrowed as deep into the reef as he can go. From far above: “Yeah, I was afraid that’s how you’d react.”

Ritsu should not feel betrayed. He does anyway. No wonder Shou looked so familiar—no wonder Shou’s stillness and his eyes made him wary, haunted his dreams. They’re Suzuki’s eyes, Suzuki’s stillness. He’s Shou’s father. Shou is working for him. So what if Shou makes him laugh, so what if Shou makes him happy, so what if Shou makes him forget that he’s being held against his will? He is being held against his will. Shou is helping to keep him trapped here. Shou is Suzuki’s son, Shou is one of them.

“I’m not like him,” Shou says. His voice is tinged a little bit desperate. “I know that’s hard to believe, but I’m not. I should have told you about Pops before, but—well, I was afraid you’d hate me. You don’t, do you? Mermaid?”

The first thing Ritsu thinks when he hears the plop is that Shou is trying to bribe him into forgiveness with fish. But the new thing in his tank isn’t silver. It’s pink, and then it’s joined by another one just like it. Two pink fish-sized attached to Shou’s body as he leans out over the water. Ten little nubs wiggling. Ritsu has never seen bare human feet before.

He isn’t quite sure what he’s thinking when he does it. Maybe his thoughts are going too fast to process or maybe he isn’t thinking at all. Shou’s feet are warm in his hands and then suddenly he’s yanking and pulling and Shou is too shocked to even scream, he tumbles in with only a muted splash. Maybe Ritsu will use him as leverage, force Suzuki to let him go, force him to help him find his brother—no, that would just put both of them in his hands.

Maybe he’ll just drown him.

Ritsu can feel his heart trying to thump out of his gills, can feel it pulsing through his whole body, or maybe that’s Shou’s heart, Shou’s pulse, fluttering hot and fast beneath Ritsu’s hands. Maybe Suzuki will kill him for this but maybe that’s alright, because if he can do nothing else to hurt him then he can do this. He can take someone precious from him, scoop out his heart and leave it waterlogged and swollen at the bottom of the tank. That’s what the merfolk of old used to do; it would be nothing less than natural. Maybe he’ll drown him. Maybe he’ll drown him. Maybe he’ll—

He doesn’t drown him. Not for lack of trying—maybe for lack of trying. There is no deliberate attempt to drown, though Ritsu certainly doesn’t let him go intentionally. But Shou is not as paralyzed by fear as Ritsu assumed he was; his reticence gives Shou ample opportunity to punch him right in the gills, he doesn’t so much as hesitate, fuck, fuck. Ritsu howls, loud enough to vibrate the glass. By the time the dark spots have cleared from his vision Shou has pulled himself back out of the pool and is busy coughing his lungs out. Ritsu rises only high enough to watch him; then he rises just a little more, because he thinks maybe the water is distorting the sound, but no–-the coughing has indeed morphed to laughter. It’s wet and harsh and wheezing, but it’s laughter all the same.

“Fair enough,” Shou coughs. “My mistake. I guess you do hate me now.”

Something funny happens to Ritsu’s heart.

A human bursts into the room that Ritsu recognizes as a blurry shape outside the tank. Up close he has a cloud of dark curly hair, an umbrella clutched tight in one hand, and an expression that Ritsu knows but can’t place. He hustled Shou away the first time Ritsu saw him and he hustles Shou away now, throwing looks over his shoulder at Ritsu as he goes. Ritsu knows a thing or two about a heavy gaze, knows how to sharpen it to a knifepoint and make the other blink first for fear of being cut, knows how to stare down Suzuki and Shou and dare them to blink first.

He looks away from this man, and only figures out why once they’re gone. That expression, that look in his eyes—he’s seen it on his mother’s face, sometimes his father’s, once on Shigeo, years ago. Concern and fear and anger, fiercely protective. I’m fine, Serizawa, Shou had whined while being bundled out the door, but he folded into the man’s embrace, and he didn’t look back at Ritsu. I’m fine, Serizawa, he said, but before that he had been laughing, and the laughter had sounded wrong, and he was covering his eyes. I guess you do hate me now.

The air stings in Ritsu’s lungs so he plunges back into the water. The water stings in Ritsu’s bruised gills and there’s no way to flee from that. Hiding in the reef he curls into himself, and curls tighter, tighter, tries to coil around the single point in his chest that feels like it’s shattering, tries to disappear. I guess you do hate me now. Something funny happens to his heart.

He refuses to cry. That’s just what Suzuki would want.

He doesn’t expect Shou to come back. For two days he doesn’t, and then four, and then a week. It’s back to the faceless workers at feeding time throwing dead fish into his tank, and Ritsu is fine with this. Of course he is. He doubletakes when any of the humans have loud hair during exhibit hours, but that’s just habit. He’ll break it soon enough.

“I heard you found out that Shou is my son,” says Suzuki, and Ritsu barely manages to keep his breathing steady. In, hold, out. Again and again. If his heartrate spikes the machines he’s hooked up to will pick up on it and that would be just as bad as answering.

“Did you think he was your friend?” Suzuki continues. His curiosity is clinical, cold. He doesn’t blink; neither does Ritsu. “Did you think he would help you? Or did you think you could use him against me? Ransom to buy your freedom?”

In, hold, out. In, hold, out.

“Clever, but it wouldn’t have worked. You’re too valuable an asset to bargain with. It would just have made you a murderer.”

In, hold, hold, hold—

Ritsu remembers the last things he said to his brother. He tries not to but he always does, more often now without Shou to distract him. He remembers in small ways, in pebbles they used to collect and faces that look familiar and in dreams, in those painful heartbeats between sleeping and waking. Here is the water and here is the reef and here is the cove. Here is Shigeo, telling Ritsu that he’s in love with the human he saved, that the seawitch Mogami will use his magic to give him legs in exchange for his voice. And here is Ritsu, yelling at him, telling him he’s a fool—that human tried to hunt you first, Ritsu reminds him, or did you forget that?

Hanazawa is different now, Shigeo insists, gentle but resilient. He’s changed, he’s better, I want to be better too—

Then go ahead. Maybe if Mogami takes your voice then I won’t need to be afraid of you anymore. Go on. Mess with the seawitch, go to the human, turn to seafoam, I don’t care.

Turn back the clock. Play it again. Ritsu will apologize this time, he’ll admit he was just afraid of losing him, he’ll say that he understands now what it’s like to be enchanted by a human but it isn’t worth it, losing him and turning to seafoam isn’t worth it—

This isn’t the right water, or the right reef. There is no cove and no Shigeo. Only the silver flash of a fish, swimming in his tank.

Ritsu swims to the surface so fast he almost clears it completely, has to fight his own momentum to keep his tail in the water. Shou is lounging near the edge of the pool, smirking at him. He keeps his feet pulled beneath him and his knees tucked close, very carefully out of Ritsu’s range. The bright bubble of emotion buoying in Ritsu’s chest threatens to pop when he thinks about why.

He opens his mouth. A hundred and one things sit on his tongue waiting to be said, and none of them come out: I’m sorry. I’m scared. I want to go home. I want my brother. Things die when he sings. I’m afraid I’ll never see him again. I was afraid I’d never see you again. I missed you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

He closes his mouth, swallows. Shou scoffs and raises one brow.

“Dad took some convincing to let me come back,” he says, and then rolls his eyes hard enough to move his whole head. “By which I mean he didn’t actually care at all. I thought you were smarter than that, Shou, how disappointing. Whatever. Serizawa took actual convincing. He’s a big softie, can’t take him anywhere.” Serizawa—the protective man, the one who actually cared. When Shou rolls his eyes this time, the action seems nowhere near so violent, and fonder, perhaps. “He was afraid you’d try something again. Will you?”

“No.”

For one priceless second, Shou looks completely baffled. Ritsu is a little baffled too, by how easy it was, how undramatic, one little word popping like a bubble along the water’s surface. The surprise passes over Shou’s face like a cloud, and it leaves only sunlight.

“I believe you,” he laughs. The laughter becomes a smile. Ritsu warms beneath it. Shou inches closer and Ritsu does not inch away. Closer, and closer—until finally they’re close enough to touch, and then closer still. Ritsu forgets how to breathe oxygen. He flinches when Shou lifts a hand and hates himself for it. Hates himself a little less for how Shou flinches too, bites his lip, rolls it around behind his teeth, and then says, very careful: “Can I touch you?”

No one else has asked.

He doesn’t really nod, but it must show in his face—it always does, with Shou—because then Shou is reaching again, slower now. Ritsu nearly closes his eyes, but doesn’t, because the touch never comes. Shou’s hand hovers. His expression is shrewd.

“You’re not gonna try to drown me again, are you?”

Ritsu gives him a look and Shou laughs. Before the laugh has tapered off there are four points of pressure on Ritsu’s cheek, warm and dry and ghosting. Water gathers on Shou’s fingertips and rolls down the line of Ritsu’s jaw.

“That’s crazy,” he says, soft enough to keep his voice from trembling, but his hand does that for him. “You’re like—like seaglass. That’s what you feel like. Crazy.”

What do you want? Ritsu thinks, as Shou marvels over the feel of him, glass weathered by the tide but still rough enough to cut if you’re not careful. Shou is careful. What do you want from me?

And Shou—Shou sighs, the look of wonder in his face tempered by something quiet, something gentle and troubled that his father never is, and he says, “I can’t rescue you if you don’t trust me. I wish you’d let me help you.”

Mind reading, that’s right. Ritsu feels a little giddy, and feels strange for it, because the feeling is so unfamiliar. He asks why and Shou does not hesitate.

“Because my dad’s a dick and what he’s doing is wrong,” he says, straight and true. They watch each other, and here in this moment, absurdly, is the hesitation that the last moment lacked. It flickers in Shou’s eyes, there and away, it shows his youth. Ritsu notices very suddenly that Shou has freckles. He notices because there is a flush of pink across his nose that brings them out. “And because you’re my friend, even if you did try to drown me. Isn’t it obvious?”

His fingers have stalled over the shell of Ritsu’s ear, warm in a way so few things in the ocean are, and Ritsu thinks that maybe he was wrong, all those weeks ago—maybe he does hate Shou, maybe he hates him the most. This boy whose father captured him. Who loves hamsters and wishes he could hate his father and calls Ritsu his friend. This human boy, seabird boy, infuriating boy that Ritsu hates precisely because he can’t, not really, not ever.

“Ritsu,” Ritsu says.

“What?” Shou says.

“My name. You should know it if we’re going to work together.” His voice is rusty with disuse. He coughs. “And since we’re friends, I guess.”

“Can I still call you mermaid anyway?”

Ritsu splashes him and Shou startles into laughter, obnoxiously loud. The tension threading the moment together snaps. They concoct an escape plan for two days time, and for all his teasing Shou says Ritsu over and over like he can’t get enough of it. If this is half of how Shigeo feels with his human, then Ritsu might understand, or he might be starting to. It feels like something Ritsu hasn’t known since long before the aquarium. Something like home – something like hope.

#mp100 fic #mp100 valentines week #belatedly #mob psycho 100 #ritshou #kageyama ritsu #suzuki shou #kageyama shigeo #suzuki touichirou #background terumob

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