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callboxkat · 3 years

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Banished (part 1)

Prompt: Banished

Author’s note: Mappy MerMay! (edit: I see the typo and I choose to keep it)

Summary: Janus has been banished from his pod for crimes that he did not commit. However, this merman’s bad luck is far from over. A mer is not meant to live on their own in the open ocean, and as one would expect, things do not go well. Enter: Florida Man.

Chapter Warnings: false accusations, past imprisonment, banishment, treating someone as an outcast, censored swearing, crying, death mentions

Word count: 2415

Banished Masterpost!

Writing Masterpost!

Ao3 Link

@badthingshappenbingo

...

“Janus, third child of Mariana and Glycon, you are hereby banished from this pod, and from all pods who condemn the nature of your crimes.”

Janus had known it was coming, but nevertheless, the merman felt the verdict stab through him like a harpoon. The water around him suddenly felt 10 degrees colder, and the walls of the chamber seemed to loom ever closer, suffocating him.

Banished.

Murmurs rippled through the small crowd. Scales shimmered as the gathered mers, most already hanging on the edges of the chamber, tried to distance themselves further from the outcast. From him.

“You will have until sunset to leave the reef. Should you be found within our territory after the sun sinks below the horizon, the penalty is death.”

Janus simply stared at the merwoman before him, holding herself tall in front of the ornate coral design upon the wall of the chamber, her face stony. Her verdict was final, and Janus knew it. It didn’t matter that he was innocent. Officially, he was a criminal. An outcast. Banished. Trying to fight her decision would only further tarnish his image, and most likely that of the family and friends he left behind.

A part of him didn’t care about that. But the part that did held his tongue.

Janus’s eyes shifted toward the back of the chamber, where he could see most of his family huddled together. His mother was crying, being held by his father. His siblings looked stunned. A part of Janus wanted to call out, to tell them to do something, even though he knew that there was nothing any of them could do to save him. He wasn’t sure they even believed him, that he had not committed these crimes. While they never told him so, their notably few visits while he was in prison spoke volumes.

His eyes slid back to the judge, and he dipped his head in bitter acceptance. His fists tightened, and the long, metal chain attacked to one of his arms clinked softly. It was there both to keep him trapped and to prevent him to use his electric abilities, as if he would ever do something so loathsome and barbaric, even if his family hadn’t been in the room.

The judge raised her hands, and the chamber began to empty. A couple of Janus’s siblings glanced back at him as they left, but mostly, the mers who had come for the show avoided looking at him now. They would not want to be associated with an outcast. He understood, even if anger gathered in his chest. Even his parents refused to look in his direction, and the glances his siblings spared him were brief.

Finally, when all who remained were Janus, the judge, and the guards, two off them swam to his sides and unlocked the chain from Janus’s wrist, one keeping a clawed hand at the back of Janus’s neck as a warning. The cuff was replaced with another, lighter, but permanent one. This one was etched with sharp symbols. Janus closed his eyes and clenched his jaw as it was locked in place, a permanent hindrance to how much of his electricity he could use without harming himself, a solemn marker of his fate, and a warning to all others of his crimes. He would never be taken into another pod, not with that on his wrist. Not unless he could somehow get somewhere far enough away that they might not know what it meant.

At last, the guards let him go. He was allowed to leave. To prepare for his departure, and to say goodbye.

Janus opened his eyes and looked up at the judge, who remained at her post, watching him. He knew that he was supposed to thank her for her mercy, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. He figured that the “Go f*ck yourself” he actually wanted to say would do him and his family no favors, so he compromised and simply turned and swam from the room.

His life was over, in every way that mattered.

Outside, the bustling atmosphere of the reef seemed in sharp contrast to the somber mood within the chamber. Fish and other sea creatures weaved between glimmering mers. Cheerful gossip could be heard, as well as mers arguing over prices at colorful stalls, or calling out greetings to each other. Some kids seemed to be trying to see who could get the most pebbles to sail between the fork in a tall spire of coral.

It had been some time since Janus had been “free” this way, which only made the difference feel all the more staggering. To be suddenly thrust back into this normal part of life, even if only for the few hours they allowed him to prepare for his banishment, was… unsettling.

However, the atmosphere wasn’t quite the same as it had once been. None of the mers came close to him, Janus noted, choosing instead to take a longer path to avoid him, even as they acted as if nothing was wrong. As if it were a coincidence that they wanted to swim on the other side of the path. There had always been some nervousness that many mers tended to have around those with abilities like electricity or poison. But this was a whole level or two beyond that.

They knew. Of course they did. He was sure that everybody had been told of his “crimes”. The metal cuff on his wrist burned like a brand, but he refused to rub it, or to hide it with his other hand.

He swam away. He wasn’t even sure where he was going, but soon enough, he found himself at his destination

Of course. He wouldn’t have gone anywhere else.

It wasn’t his home that he found himself approaching, slowing his pace as it came into sight. Most of his family had said their good byes before his sentencing. Instead, he found himself at the home of his best friend: Roman.

Roman hadn’t been at Janus’s sentencing, but it seemed that the merman had somehow known he would come, and had been waiting for him. He was pacing, swimming back and forth between the two large, algae and sea star covered stones that marked the entrance to his property.

As Janus approached, Roman froze, and turned sharply towards him. His face was almost as red as the striping on his gorgeous tail, the pain in his eyes clearly visible with his long hair tied back.

“Janus,” he croaked, and pushed off of one of the rocks, swimming for Janus as fast as he could.

They crashed into each other, Roman’s arms encircling him. Janus choked on a surge of emotion and squeezed his best friend back. It was the first time they’d been this close to each other since his arrest.

“I’m sorry, Jan.”

“It’s okay,” he lied. Perhaps if he could convince Roman, Janus could believe it himself.

…

All too soon, the sky above the water began to turn pink and orange as the sun dipped below the horizon. It was time to leave.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Roman asked.

The two mermen floated together at the edge of the reef. Behind them, bioluminescent lanterns had begun to glow, and the sounds of life had begun to lull as most everyone went home for the night. Everyone except for them. Janus had a bag strapped to his back, with what few supplies he had allowed himself to bring. Some food, his gloves—which still fit over the cuff that would forever mark him as an outcast, thankfully—some bandages, a compass, and two carvings: one of his family made just after his youngest sibling had been born, and one of Janus and Roman, smiling for the carver.

Roman and Janus had gone back to Janus’s home to fetch the supplies. It had been nice to have Roman there, for his support. Most of his family had avoided him, even though he could tell they were heartbroken. A couple of his siblings had told him good-bye, and to take care of himself. Only his littlest sibling, who probably knew very little of the situation, had hugged Janus. She’d grown, since he’d last seen her. Janus had remained resolutely calm as he clung to her for the last time.

“Of course I’ll be okay,” Janus lied, now, looking out at the dark water.

Roman looked unsure, but Janus only turned and offered a half smile.

“So, uh… where are you going to go?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d asked. Janus still didn’t know how to answer.

“Maybe I’ll find another pod to join,” he shrugged eventually.

Roman’s eyes went to the metal cuff on Janus’s wrist, letters etched within it to symbolize his condemnation. He knew as well as Janus did that no mer pod who knew its meaning would take him, not when it was so clear to see.

“Maybe I’ll cover it up,” Janus said, putting a hand over the cuff self-consciously. He did his best to seem casual about it. He’d been almost defiant, back in the busier part of the reef, but it felt different, with Roman.

“Maybe,” Roman agreed halfheartedly.

“You know those arm bands the guards wear? Maybe I’ll get something like that. Or I’ll get thicker gloves.”

“You are pretty good at weaving,” Roman allowed. “You could make them look nice.”

“Naturally.”

They looked out at the open water.

“You could add some beading,” Roman suggested.

“Sea glass,” Janus nodded.

Roman nodded vaguely. “Oh—Jan, I have something for you.” He took off his own pack and started to dig through it.

“I hope it’s not too heavy,” Janus said dryly. “I’ll probably have to swim pretty far. If you’re giving me one of those statues of yours, I’m going to have to say no.”

“Ah, shut up,” Roman said, smacking his arm lightly. A heartbroken look flashed briefly on his face, and he quickly went back to digging through his pack. “No, it’s… here.” He pulled something out with a small flourish. He looked at it for a second, as if hesitating, then handed it over.

It was a small, red scale, a little bigger than the pad of Janus’s thumb, attached to a cord.

Janus took it in careful hands. “One of yours?”

Roman shifted, tucking his hands behind his back. “Yeah. You know, so you don’t forget about me on all your marvelous adventures to come.”

“I’d never forget you, Roman.” Janus looked down at the scale for a few seconds, tilting it so it shimmered in the fading sunlight. He glanced up, biting his lip. “I’m sorry I don’t have any to give you.”

They glanced down at Janus’s tail. It was sleek, nearly black, with a thick yellow stripe down the center that flared out at the fin, with yellow hints at the fins on his sides and back as well. All in all, it wasn’t all that different from most mers’ tails, except that rather than scales, its surface was made up of smooth, thick skin.

“It’s okay,” Roman said. “I’ll remember you, anyway.”

Janus nodded. He put the necklace around his neck, but kept turning the scale in his hands.

Silence fell over them. Above, the sun seemed to dip further below the horizon, signaling just how little time they had left.

And then Roman began to cry.

“Sh*t,” said Janus, looking down at the ground. “Don’t do that. You’re embarrassing me.” You’re going to make me cry if you keep that up.

Roman shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m trying—I know you want to just act like it’s normal, like this is just a normal night, but—Janus, I’m never—” his voice broke, and he had to take a shuddering breath to continue—“I’m never going to see you again.”

Janus knew that. Of course he knew that. He took a deep, steadying breath.

“This f*cking sucks.”

Roman, still crying, nodded emphatically.

“Come here,” he sighed. He reached out and put his arms around Roman. They floated there for a moment, holding on to each other. Roman’s grip was so tight that it almost hurt. Janus tried to memorize the feeling of his bracelets where they rested against his back, the texture of his hair against the side of his face, the way the merman felt in his arms.

“I just… How are you—how are you just okay with this? Why aren’t you yelling and screaming? Why aren’t you angry? Go fight them on this! Appeal or something. Fight. You’re… it’s not like you to just accept this.”

“It won’t change anything.” Janus said, his chin on Roman’s shoulder.

“You could at least… try.”

“I did try, Roman. I promise you I tried.” All the yelling and swearing and fighting in the world had gotten Janus absolutely nowhere. All his attempts to prove his innocence had been stricken down. One last attempt at an appeal would simply be rejected. It was too late to try, with the sun nearly set; and doing his trial over again would made no difference, anyway. Janus’s fate had been decided the moment he was arrested.

“Damnit,” Roman mumbled. Somehow, he managed to squeeze Janus tighter.

Normally, Janus was not the most cuddly mer in the ocean. But he’d allow it, tonight. …For Roman’s sake.

“What if I let you stay here?” Roman asked. “I could hide you. My parents left me a pretty big property. It has plenty of hiding spaces.”

Janus shook his head. “They’d figure it out eventually. And then they’d just kill us both.”

“Then… then I’ll come with you.”

Janus shook his head. “Roman, what about Patty? We can’t take them with us.”

Roman turned his head briefly away. He didn’t answer, other than to drop his head down so that his forehead rested on Janus’s shoulder, defeated. He never could have abandoned his sibling, or forced them to share Janus’s fate.

The sun sank lower.

“Just tell me you’re going to be okay,” Roman sniveled. “Really. Promise me.”

“Of course I’m going to be okay,” Janus lied. “I promise.”

It was okay that Roman clearly didn’t believe him. It was just what he was supposed to say, wasn’t it?

…

The moment that Janus was far enough from the reef that Roman could no longer see him, Janus broke. He just hadn’t wanted Roman to see him cry.

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thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

Note

For the mermay fills: 10 & 22 with indruck? 👁️👁️ (nsfw or sfw)

I went with ten (tattoos/piercings) first, since 22 will be part of another fill. I went with NSFW, and wrote this as a follow-up to my “Heat” fill from last year.

Indrid swims up and down the hall outside the palace infirmary. He’s far from the only one doing so; the reef serpent wreaked havoc through the city before the Chosen mers defeated it. He’s not even the only person waiting to see if Duck is alright.

“Have courage, Prince Indrid Cold!” Minerva, sporting a new gash on her face, clamps her hand down on his shoulder in what he knows is her version of a comforting gesture, “Duck Newton is the strongest Chosen after myself. He will pull through.” The blue of her tentacles flashes with pride.

“Besides” Ned, the castle mer who has, against all odds, become Indrid’s closest advisor, flicks his orange and silver tail “you informed us yourself there were no futures where our friend passed away.”

“I know.” Indrid takes a breath, intending to explain the tangled net of anxiety in his chest. All that comes out is another, “I know.”

Behind him, he hears two nurses murmuring that they’d better bump the prince’s consort up in the line, but before he can turn and order them not to, they’re gone.

It happened like this: Duck kept his word, began courting Indrid properly once the seer's heat passed, and Indrid reciprocated without hesitation. This caused a near scandal; yes, Duck was a Chosen and thus noble to a degree, but Indrid was a prince, and a prized one. Indrid pointed out that he rather liked someone who cared about his welfare, not just his happiness, and if they had an issue with that, that was their problem not his. And so the comments about Duck moved from to his face to behind his back, which he counted as good enough.

Duck found the whole consort business stressful, given that he’d forgone his Chosen destiny in favor of tending the kelp forests specifically to avoid that kind of fanfare and politics. Thus, they steered clear of the castle when they could, spending their time with their friends in town or in the sunken ship Duck called home.

When the serpent attacked their town, Duck discovered the limits of his rejecting his destiny, and joined the fight to save his home. Indrid is proud of him, even if his stomach churns whenever the futures shift and he has to see whether the strings of fate weave a grimmer outcome for the man he loves.

It’s well after moonrise when he’s allowed to see Duck. The other mer is half-asleep in his infirmary bed, a massive bandage on his side and one of his tentacles bitten down to a nub

“Hey darlin” The sleepy drawl is accompanied by the mer opening his arms.

Indrid carefully settles against the non-bandaged side of him, rests his head on his chest with a relieved sigh, “I’m so glad you’re alright. Or, well, mostly alright. You’re in one piece. Sort of. I, I’m not conveying this well.”

“I ain’t dead, given how today went I’m callin that a win. Besides, this’ll grow back in no time.” He wiggles the stub of his tentacle.

“Mmm” Indrid cuddles closer, purring softly as intact tentacles pet his tail and back.

“When’d you last sleep?” Duck murmurs, kissing the top of his head.

“Not since the attack started.”

“Seems to me we’re both due for some shut eye.”

Indrid nods, right before falling asleep and dreaming of strong tentacles and stronger arms.

-----------------------------------------

“Guess I gotta get a tattoo now.” Duck studies the scar on his side, his bandages having permanently come off this morning.

“I suppose so. Though, if you’ve avoided so many other parts of Chosen protocol, I fail to see how skipping this one will make things worse.”

“I dunno, I kinda like this one. Used to strike me as macho bullshit, showin off how many battle scars you got. But now...makes me think of how when the forest gets trashed by a storm, or a huge-ass monster tearin through it, there’s a certain kind of pleasure that comes from watchin it heal, watchin it go from desolated and scarred to somethin beautiful.”

Indrid loves when he talks like this, smiles dreamily as Duck adds, “you could even design it for me. I’d like that.”

“I could do you one better; I could apply it as well. And since I foresee you asking yes, I do have the training to do so. Royal mers learn to tattoo themselves, due to rules about being touched by lower ranking mers that I judiciously ignored.”

“No kiddin” Duck grins, two tentacles coiling around Indrid’s tail, teasing the red stripe, “now that I’m healed up, gonna do all kinds of things to you to remind you why you ignored those rules in the first place.”

------------------------------------------------------------------

“Are you nervous?” Indrid finishes setting out his tools on the pristine table in his pristine chambers. He tends towards messiness in his habits, but when it comes to Duck’s health he’s cleaned the whole place by hand and with magic. Twice.

“Nah, I know I’m in good hands.” Even as he says this, a burst of anxious yellow moves up his tentacles.

“All the same, if you need a break at any point, let me know. And if the scar starts stinging or throbbing, tell me at once.”

“You got it, darlin.”

Indrid takes his time using a spell to transfer his design to Duck’s skin, double checking the placement before picking up the charm-powered tattoo gun. When finished, the tattoo will be a small forest of kelp, with the scar making up most of the body of the serpent swimming between the leaves. Six shades of green ink, three shades of brown, one shade of copper, and black for outlining, lay on the table, Indrid dipping into each of them in turn as he brings the image to life.

“Love watchin you draw” Duck sighs, then shudders, “sorry, gettin a hell of an adrenaline rush from the pain.”

“Just try to stay still. If you twitch or fidget too much, it will cause mistakes on my end.”

“Do my best.”

“If you don’t, I’ll just have to tie you down.” Indrid says breezily. The tentacle near him pulses purple. Desire. Interesting.

He’s most of the way through when Duck’s arms shake, his tentacles following suit, occasionally bumping Indrid’s tail or sides.. They’re small movements, all things considered, but in most futures they mean he has to re-do the entire last third of the tattoo.

“Nono, this won’t do at all.” He set’s the gun down, flitting across to the closet near his bed. A sea-grass rope waits, right where he left. There hasn’t been much call for it, Duck capable of restraining Indrid in a variety of ways all on his own.

“Now” Indrid bites off several lengths of rope, “since you cannot be still, I am going to tie your tentacles down. You’re to keep your hands where I put them, or I will tie them as well.”

Ducks tentacles are now deep, unflinching purple, “Holy fuck, ‘drid.”

“Just because I am generally submissive around you does not mean I’m not capable of giving orders.” Indrid smirks, tying the first two tentacles down.

“I, I know, it’s just you, uh, you, you never talk like this.” Duck’s eyes are wide, excited even, as they track Indrid’s circular path.

��I suppose you don’t hear me during advisory meetings, so this is a new experience for you.”

“Maybe I oughta start sittin in on ‘em.” Duck whines when Indrid kisses his cheek but refuses to stick around long enough for Duck to kiss him back.

“Perhaps. Right now, however, you are to sit still until I’m done with you. Understood?”

“Uh huh.” Duck smiles, docile and sweet, and Indrid wonders why they never thought to try this before.

He returns to his work, inking colors into Duck’s skin, enjoying the intimacy of learning the familiar curves of his ribs and belly in new ways. At one point he notices Duck tensing and almost moving his hand, but the other mer catches it in time.

“Good boy.” Indrid purrs.

“Fuck.” Duck tips his head back, “how much longer?”

“About ten minutes more, I’d say. You can manage it my sweet, you’re doing so well already.”

Duck whimpers low in his throat as Indrid goes back to his work. Exactly ten minutes later, he puts a protective covering atop the tattoo and pushes his supply table aside.

“There, all done. You did wonderfully.”

“Great, now untie me.” Duck wriggles hopefully.

Indrid raises an eyebrow, “In a hurry, sweet one?”

“Yes” Duck holds out a hand, trying to coax him closer.

“Whatever for?” He replies airly, as if can’t sense the arousal pouring off his boyfriend in waves, “and stop moving so much, you’ll aggravate the tattoo.”

“‘Drid please” The folds between his front-most tentacles ripple as his cock starts emerging.

“Oh I see.” Indrid swims so they’re face to face, pinning Duck’s hands to the back of the chair as he leans into his space, “you want me to fuck you, is that it? You’re willing to risk pain to new scar tissue, even marring my lovingly done work, just to have your cock played with?”

“Holyfuckinshit, why is this the first time you’re talkin like this?” Duck bites his lip with a little moan as Indrid rubs their cheeks together.

“I don’t know. In hindsight, it seems so obvious; you’re my powerful, competent mate, you always take such wonderful care of me, but you want someone to take away that power from time to time, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Duck tips his chin up, hoping for a kiss, but Indrid floats backwards out of reach,

“What shall we do about that, hmm?” He swims a slow, tight circle around the other mer, staying just out of arms reach, “shall I keep you bound until the urge passes? No, that’s far too cruel for my beloved. Perhaps I should make you see to it yourself? But no, you might accidentally hurt yourself. Hmmm, what to do, what to do….” He taps his chin as Duck growls and whines, tentacles now straining against their bonds. Indrid knows Duck could snap them easily if he needed or wanted to. Which means he wants to remain at Indrid’s mercy for the time being.

“You do look wonderful like this. I didn’t even plan it this way, but how I tied you shows off most of your assets.” Indrid rubs the upper front of his tail, “now you’re getting me all wound up.”

“Good” Duck growls, tentacles swirling purple and pink.

“Yes it, ahnnn, it is rather good, isn’t it. After all, I have the perfect solution to the situation sitting right in front of me.”

Duck’s cock is fully out, it and the slit beneath it tempting Indrid to abandon his plan. He swims in front of the other mer, eyeing his cock approvingly, “yes, you’ll do quite nicely.”

“Thank fuckOHfummmhp” Duck’s surprised moan turns to a laugh as Indrid, having zipped upwards in a flash, finishes shoving his cock into Duck’s mouth.”

“Yesss, ohyes, goodness I love doing this, you look so charming with your lips around my cock. Ah, ah, don’t you dare move your hands from the chair. This” he gives a sharper thrust, “is all I need to be satisfied.”

Duck moans louder, which Indrid takes as his cue to hold his head in place and fuck into his mouth with abandon.

“That’s it love, that’s it, oh I ought to have done this months ago, tied my big strong hero down and reminded him of hisAHAnnn, his duties as consort.”

“‘M ot a ero.”

Indrid looks imperiously down his nose at him, “It’s rude to contradict someone when they’re giving you what you want, my sweet. I guess I’ll need to render you further incapable of speech” He concentrates and extends his cock, a mechanism meant to ensure he can reproduce with mers of any size or genital configuration but that he uses only to make Duck groan with pleasure.

His orgasm is already racing towards him, as it always does when Duck lets him (or orders him to) fuck his throat, and he shuts his eyes, concentrating on tight heat and the happy, muffled grunts floating up to his ears.

“Just a little, nnnn, little more my sweet, let your prince ravish your throat a little longerOH, ohgods, Duck, sweetheart, yes.” He cums, a shudder rippling down his tail, and doesn’t pull out until Duck struggles to swallow the rest down. The other mer is still collecting his breath when Indrid wiggles down and pushes his tongue into his slit.

“Fuck!” Duck jerks hard enough to move the chair an inch to the right.

Indrid snickers, wraps both hands around Duck’s cock, stroking it hurriedly as he raises his head, “What do you say, beloved?”

“Th-thank you?” Duck cracks an eye open. Indrid nods, then dips his head back down to to suck and tongue at the senstive skin.

“Fuckme, ohfuck, ‘Drid, darlin’, this is fuckin incredible, gonna, gonna be such a good consort, do whatever you say, fuck you five fuckin times a day, just, FUCK, just promise we can do this again.”

“Muv ourse.” Indrid thrusts his tongue deeper, twisting his hands on his upstrokes. The fourth time he does, he pops up to suck on the head just in time to catch Duck’s cum in his mouth. He takes his time, sucking him clean with happy trills and moans while his boyfriend utters curses that would make sailors blush.

He pulls away to wipe his mouth, intending to start untying Duck. The futures show that won’t be necessary,

Snapsnapsnapsnap

The ropes break in pairs, rapid fire, and then Duck is on him, enveloping him in arms, tentacles, and love. He tries to press closer, then winces back, “owfuck, you’re right, the tattoo is real sore.”

“It’ll be that way for a few days. Your Chosen strength will help, but you should still rest when possible.”

“I dunno” Duck kisses him sweetly, then nips his lower lip, “you know how stubborn I can be. Might have to uh, tie me to the bed.”

“That, my love, can be arranged.”

#indruck #indrid cold/duck newton #mermay fills #mermay

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wolveria · 4 years

Text

Unable to perceive the shape of you - Ch. 9 [End]

Pairing: Connor x f!Reader x Nines

Summary: After breaking the RK twins out of the MarineLife facility, you were determined to return them to the ocean before getting caught by your employer.

What you hadn’t counted on were the brothers deciding you belonged to them.

Prompt: Mermay! (Shape of Water/Splash AU)

Word Count: 1.8k

AO3

There was nothing in the bitterly cold darkness. Just a sea of inky black where you were lost and unable to remember.

There was something important you had to recall… but you were very, very tired. Hadn’t you struggled on for long enough? Wouldn’t it have been easier just to sleep and forget the events that were already slipping from your mind?

You might have surrendered to the nothingness, but the frozen sea around you was illuminated with a soft glow. The light increased, shining brighter, blue and luminous from two pairs of hands, touching you with a tenderness that was achingly familiar. It called you back, pulled you away from the edge of nothing.

That’s when the burning started. Igniting you from the inside out, molten liquid in your veins as unbearably agony dug into your stomach.

You tried to scream, but you had no voice. No air. There was nothing you could do but suffer, because there was no enduring this.

When you thought you couldn’t withstand the molten fire under your skin, you did. The heat moved from your chest and stomach down to your legs. The agony worsened beyond anything you imagined was even possible.

The hands were still cradling you with gentle firmness as if trying to comfort, but you knew this had to be Hell. Punished for some terrible deed you could almost remember.

What had you done to deserve this?

I failed them.

With a shuddering gasp, you opened your eyes. Clear, bright sunlight caused you to blink rapidly, your heaving chest taking in the salty air. It was cold against your heated skin.

Everything around you was the exact opposite of the damnation you’d expected to find. Shimmering blue water expanded out before you as far as the eye could see, lazy seagulls wheeling overhead against the cloudless sky.

Barely able to move, your limbs uncooperative and heavy, you turned your head and saw you were lying on a sandbar, barely crested above the waterline. You were propped up against something warm and alive.

Your heart leapt in your chest as adrenaline surged through your body. Everything was too much. Too loud and too bright, and there was an animal panic rising to the surface you couldn’t control.

Someone spoke a name, you thought it might be yours, and a hand reached toward you.

Snarling, you bit down on the pale, muscled forearm. Warm, blue fluid filled your mouth; you almost let go but you were too terrified to do anything but latch on tighter.

Words were shouted in a panic. Your brain was slow to catch onto them, struggling to form them into something you could understand.

“Nines!”

“I’m fine, Connor.”

The voices spoke above you. Again, you felt that sense of familiarity, but you also noted the deeper timber of their words. They were larger than you, bigger and stronger. You ground your teeth down harder, trembling and growling in your throat.

“Don’t move,” the second voice spoke again. “Give her space. She feels threatened.”

It took you a moment to process that they were talking about you. There was an undertone of concern there. As if…

…they knew you.

You squeezed your eyes shut.

The lab… driving in the car… the motel pool…

Your jaw went lax.

The campsite… the bridge… the river. Gunshots ripping you open. Nines unmoving on the ground. Connor, in agony, but still trying to comfort you in your last moments.

Releasing your hold on Nines’ arm, you finally lifted your head.

Connor stared down at you from where he was kneeling on the sand, hands curled into fists on his thighs and his face pale. You’d never seen him look so worried before, as if he wanted to reach out but held himself back.

You tilted your chin up to realize your head was resting on Nines’ crossed legs. They were both naked and without their tails, and you saw pale star-shaped scars on their skin. Two on Nines’ torso, one each on Connor’s chest and thigh.

The gunshot wounds. They had healed through them. They were alive. Impossibly, incredibly alive. And somehow, so were you.

“H…How…”

Your voice was hoarse and abused, barely sounding like you at all. You tried to sit up but Connor placed a hand on your bare shoulder. You, too, were naked, and you should have been freezing in the chilly water and morning air. Why weren’t you cold? Instead, you felt almost… warm. As if the earlier fire was still inside you, reduced to a faintly glowing pile of embers.

“You shouldn’t move.” There was something in Connor’s tone that set the hairs on the back of your neck upright. “Just… stay still for a while.”

Frowning, you tried to pull your legs up so you could at least turn toward the two brothers to speak—

Panicked welled inside you. Thrashing clumsily, terror gripped your throat as you writhed on the sand.

“I can’t—I can’t move my legs!”

Nines’ hands were on your arms to hold you still, but you twisted harder, feeling a dull, strange movement in your lower body as you heard the sound of splashing seawater.

Connor was at your side in an instant, your face in his hands as he tried to get you to look up at him, but it was too late. You’d already looked down.

You shook off their hands, propping yourself up on your elbows as your heart thudded in your chest. The slapping sound of the water stopped as the panicked limb stopped thrashing.

“…oh,” was all you said as you stared at the sleek, muscled fin that used to be your legs.

You couldn’t stop staring at it. It was impossible, and yet there it was, staring you in the face. An actual, real tail. Thousands of questions should have been flooding your mind. How this was possible? What exactly had they done to you? Why had no one documented this kind of transformation before?

All the questions were silenced as you reached a tentative hand forward and touched where your thighs used to be. It was warm and rubbery under your fingertips, the pattern a sort of greyscale gradient. The fin was dark along the back, grey along the sides, and a pure white on the underbelly.

You gave it an exploratory pull on a muscle you had no idea how to use, and the fin twitched in response. It definitely didn’t seem as deft and precise as a pair of legs, but you could sense the power lingering in the muscle mass.

You could have stared at it forever, but you eventually tore your eyes away to look back up at the brothers. Connor’s expression was wide and vulnerable while Nines was closed and grim.

“We… we didn’t know what else to do.” Connor’s voice was tight, as if on the verge of panic himself. “You were dying. We had no choice.”

“There was no other way,” Nines added, softer than his brother. “Allowing you to die was… unacceptable.”

“You’re… one of us now.” Connor bit the inside of his cheek, brown eyes wide as he silently pled with you. “Please… don’t be angry. We had to-to do something.”

“Angry? Connor, you…”

You found it difficult to speak past the tightness of your throat. You forced it through, needing them to understand there was only one wrong that had taken place, and it wasn’t theirs.

“You… you saved me. If anyone’s sorry, it’s me.”

You lowered your gaze to the bite mark on Nines’ arm that was still trickling blue, but the apology was meant for so much more than that.

“I... made a promise to keep you safe, and I broke it. I let you both down.”

The lump in your throat grew as your eyes burned and your vision blurred.

“I should have known… it wouldn’t be that simple to get you home. That someone was following us. I should have known Gavin—“

It wasn’t Connor who moved toward you first, but Nines; he pulled you into his arms and against his chest, holding you tightly. Connor joined him immediately after, one hand planted on your back while he pressed his cheek against your shoulder.

Your world narrowed down until there was nothing but you and the brothers. That was appropriate, because they were your world, and without them you would have lost everything that made it warm and beautiful and alive.

Connor and Nines said nothing, allowing you to fall apart within their arms, your soft sobs barely heard above the lapping water. Words were unnecessary, always had been with the two of them. You’d understood them, truly and in all the ways that mattered, before they’d ever said a word.

One of them softly stroked your hair while the other trailed his fingers along your back. You didn’t know which touch belonged to whom, and in the end, it didn’t matter. You loved them both with everything that you had left in you to give.

You clung to them both as tightly as possible, unable to truly believe they were here, alive, and you were there with them. All of your knowledge and education and expertise told you it shouldn’t be possible.

Perhaps humans had a lot to learn about what that word actually meant.

They held you until the last of your tears dried and your hitching breaths had become smooth breathing. You didn’t want to move, wrapped in solid warmth that made you feel truly safe in such a long time, but the strange, new limb was already itching to be used. It flexed almost on its own, gently flicking at the water as if it knew exactly what it was meant for.

And you realized, for the first time in as long as you could remember, there was no pain.

Too soon, Connor and Nines pulled away, their hands never leaving your skin. Now that they were touching you, they seemed as reluctant to let go as you were.

“What do we do now?” you asked as you looked up at them, feeling for the first time that you were the one out of your element, relying on them for guidance. The future was tenuous and unknown, and you hadn’t begun to figure out what it meant yet.

Nines’ brows rose as a subtle curve touched the corners of his lips. But Connor’s smile was wide enough to show teeth, his eyes bright and full of something too indescribable for you to name.

“Now,” he said. “We swim.”

Unable to perceive the shape of You,

I find You all around me.

Your presence fills my eyes with Your love.

It humbles my heart,

For You are everywhere.

#detroit become human #detroit: become human #connor x reader #nines x reader #mermay #mermaid!Connor #mermaid!nines #rk800 x reader #rk900 x reader #rk1700 x reader #my writing #my fanfiction #unable to perceive the shape of you

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hermannsthumb · 4 years

Note

star crossed lovers and curses? TYSM for writing these btw I love your writing

64. Star Crossed Lovers & 98. Curses

from fanfiction trope mashup here

ANOTHER 2 YR OLD PROMPT….this concept seems sufficiently fairy tale enough for a little Mermay, perhaps 👁👁

so like. this got a lot longer than I intended because I was having so much fun with it. OH WELL

———————-

It was a real slap in the face–Newt has to admit–for the institute to deny him funding for this one. Ten years of thorough, groundbreaking, devoted research–ten years of PhD after PhD–ten years of no vacations, or weekends off, or even dating–Newt just assumed all he’d have to do was waltz into his supervisor’s office and they’d shell out however much he requested, no questions asked. That’s how it’s always been.

And yet here he is now, solo-manning a rented skipper with rented diving gear and a backpack full of disposable waterproof cameras, sunburned and dehydrated and miserable, all just because–

(“It’s stupid?” he said. “You think my idea is stupid?”

“With all due respect, Dr. Geiszler,” his supervisor said, not even pretending to be apologetic about it, “yes. We’re not going to pay for you to chase after the Loch Ness Monster.”

“That’s in Scotland!” Newt shouted, and then Newt started shouting some more, and he maybe had to be escorted back to his lab, but he wasn’t fired, at least, and the next day he cashed in ten years’ worth of hard-earned vacation and declared he’d be fucking off to the coast to pursue a completely legitimate doctorate in crypto-marine-zoology. Or whatever it’s called. He’ll worry about the name once he gets it.)

Two weeks into his spite-fueled expedition in the middle of the fucking ocean, Newt begins to wonder if this isn’t a mistake. He’s running low on food, for one thing, and what little fishing he learned as a Boy Scout can only take him so far. For another, it’s really hard to do this sort of work by himself. Though Newt usually goes solo for shorter expeditions, he’s used to having an intern or two tag along to help him take pictures on longer ones like this–or at the very least, provide enough conversation to keep him from going nuts.

But the biggest indicator so far that this is one giant waste of time is the fact that in the course of those two weeks at sea, Newt hasn’t found one single, solitary shred of evidence. No giant squid tentacles. No sea monster humps rising from the waves. No mermaid tails. He hasn’t even seen a shark fin, for God’s sake. Just endless, deep, blue.

Starting to thing this might be career suicide, Newt writes in his field journal on the fifteenth day.

And then his boat is capsized.

Well, not really. His boat is almost capsized. Low in the list of Newt’s priorities for trip preparation–so low, in fact, it came in after pack razors and do laundry–was check weather report. It just didn’t seem important at the time, you know? He had other shit on his mind. It’s why the storm takes him by complete surprise.

Newt woke at dawn today to the sound of rain tapping lightly on the roof above his cramped quarters. The drizzle quickly became a thunderstorm. The thunderstorm quickly became–well, whatever this is. Waves smacking against the sides of the boat. Water sloshing onto the deck. A perfectly good cup of French press coffee upended all over Newt’s only map.

His boat isn’t capsized, but it gives a great, shuddering jerk that sends Newt sprawling to the wood planks and grasping for anything to steady himself–his bedposts, the ruined map, a chair leg–and a great flood of water rushing in. Newt manages to scramble up in time for his jeans to spare being soaked. (He probably should’ve packed more than one pair.)

It’s at this moment Newt finally allows himself to panic a little.

“Fuck,” he hisses. “Shit. Okay, fuck. This is–” Another shuddering, wood-creaking jerk of his boat. Newt takes a few sloshing to the door and forces it open against the wind.

Iron-grey sea to his left; to his right; behind him; in front of him. The waves are angrier than anything Newt remembers from Boy Scouts. He flips up the hood of his rain jacket and stumbles out into the gale to lower the sails, or weigh down the ship, or something, anything to just–

There’s something pale bobbing out in the ocean some thirty feet away from his boat. A head, Newt realizes, a human head, a human head attached to shoulders, and his shock mingles with horror because oh, God, it’s a person! Their boat must’ve been wrecked by the storm–or they must’ve been thrown overboard–or both, Newt has to do something.

He cups his hands around his mouth and bellows in the direction of the mysterious bobbing head. “Do you need help?!”

Nothing.

“Hello!” Newt shouts.

Whoever it is suddenly disappears under the water; without thinking, with nothing on his mind but saving the drowning stranger, Newt shucks off his leather jacket and dives under.

At least this time, he knows it’s a mistake.

Newt is warm when he wakes up. Warm, and dry. The sun is shining overhead; the boat is still; the waves are calm. There’s someone touching his neck–a hand, damp, and oddly chilly.

“Stop,” he mumbles, and swats them away. He’s trying to sleep.

The hand returns. “Stop,” Newt says, and swats again, more. viciously this time.

He hears a small, offended huff. The hand retracts, though not before depositing his glasses on the bridge of his nose and swatting back in return. “Well, I’m terribly sorry for attempting to return these,” someone says.

Newt’s eyes shoot open.

There’s a man above him–sharp-cheeked, brown-eyed, shirtless and pale, his short, dark hair plastered to his head like he’s just gone swimming. He’s scowling at Newt. There’s something familiar about him that Newt can’t quite put his finger on–until he does. “You were in the water!” he says, sitting straight up. “You were drowning!” He wracks his brains for the memory of that morning: a head bobbing in the water, Newt going overboard, the cold, dark rush of the ocean, his frantic, wheeling arms– “I saved you!”

“Not exactly,” the man says.

No, that’s not right. There was the dark rush of the ocean, his wheeling arms, and then two cold, sturdy hands pulling him up, onto his boat, pressing down on his chest, a cold, wide mouth breathing air into his lungs. “Holy shit,” Newt says. “You saved me! What were you even doing out here, dude? It’s–”

Then Newt looks down.

The head leads to shoulders, which leads to a torso, but below that– “Holy shit,” Newt squeaks again, and then, at a loss for anything else to say, “Can I take a picture of you for my field journal?”

Where there should be hips and thighs and calves below the waist is nothing but a long fish tail, curving and shimmering and brightly-hued enough to make Newt’s eyes sting. It tapers into two large, translucent, fanning fins, the left of which is misshapen, almost as if it were wounded somehow. The overall effect is gorgeous, frankly. Newt’s never seen anything so gorgeous in his entire life.

“No,” the man–merman–says. “Goodbye.”

He begins to wriggle to the edge of the boat. Newt reaches for him frantically. “Wait, wait!” he says. “Don’t go! I want to talk to you, please!”

A foot from the edge of the boat, one hand on the railing, the merman turns back to Newt. His eyes are narrowed. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Well,” Newt says. “You, obviously. You’re–” He sweeps his hand in a broad gesture across the merman. “You’re not human.”

“Yes,” the merman says.

“And you saved my life,” Newt says.

Another scowl. “Yes. You’re bloody lucky I was passing by,” the merman snaps. “What on Earth were you doing out here in the middle of a storm like that? You could’ve gotten yourself killed.”

Newt shoves his glasses up higher and scoots closer to the merman. “I’m a scientist. A marine biologist, technically.” And, if you were to get even more technical, only a fifth marine biologist. Newt tended to look at his doctorates in a glass-half-full way. “I was, uh, gathering research.” Suddenly it occurs to Newt that he and the merman might have cultural differences he never even dreamed of, and he flushes with embarrassment. “Wait, do you know what a scientist is?”

“Yes,” the merman snaps again.

“Right,” Newt says. He coughs. The merman’s scowl hardens. Frankly, legends of sirens luring sailors to their deaths aside, Newt didn’t expect merpeople to be quite so…bitchy. Maybe he just got stuck with the most foul-tempered one in existence–it’d be just his luck. “Well. Uh. My name is Newt. It’s nice to meet you?” He holds out his hand, and then remembers himself. “Uh, this is how humans greet people. You shake it.”

“I know,” the merman says, and then (in a way Newt can’t help but feel as somewhat condescending) shakes Newt’s hand with a firm “Hermann.”

Newt snorts before he can help himself. Hermann pulls away. “Hermann,” he echoes. “You know–”

“I know,” Hermann says again.

“It kinda sounds–”

“I know,” Hermann says.

“It’s just kinda funny,” Newt says, and begins to snicker.

“So is ‘Newt’,” Hermann huffs, and then, before Newt can stop him, he dives back into the ocean with a splash and a flick of his shimmering tail.

Newt rushes to the railing and peers into the murky depths below, but it’s no use. Hermann’s long gone. His first real, solid evidence of crypto-marine biology, and he couldn’t stop being himself long enough to ask a few simple questions.

“Shit,” he sighs. He makes note of the meeting in his journal anyway.

He sees Hermann again four days later. It’s a bright, sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, and–in a better mood than he’s been since he started out–Newt decides to take the opportunity to do some maintenance around the boat. Turns out Doc Martens don’t offer the most amazing traction on slippery decks, especially when you’ve somehow managed to wrap ropes from the sails around yourself and lose the ability to move your arms. Newt learns this the hard way.

Luckily, Hermann is there to catch him.

“You are a bloody menace,” he scolds, as a half-soaked–but safe–Newt blinks dumbly at him in the safety of his surprisingly sturdy arms. “What were you even attempting to do?”

“Uh,” Newt says. “Fix the sails?”

Hermann rips the ropes off of him effortlessly, then lifts him higher. Newt stays still, blinking, before he realizes he’s supposed to be climbing onto the deck, and then scrambles up over the railing. “There we are,” Hermann says, sounding equal parts smug and satisfied.

“Thanks, dude,” Newt says. “If you hadn’t been here–” He frowns. “Wait, what were you doing here?”

“Nothing,” Hermann says, too fast, and Newt grins.

“You were totally spying on me!”

“I was not,” Hermann snaps. “I was merely passing by. You’re awfully hard to miss. So–noisy.”

“Uh-huh,” Newt says. “Well, lucky coincidence. Can I interview you for my journal now?”

For a moment Newt expects Hermann to dip back beneath the waves, but–glowering up at Newt–he folds his arms and rests them against the side of the boat. “What would you like to know?”

Newt digs his tape recorder from his pocket and switches it on. “Everything.”

Hermann is a begrudging interviewee, but he’s an interviewee none the less, and answers each of Newt’s questions with only a small dose of sarcasm. He eats fish, like some larger fish might. He speaks English, like most fish don’t. He lives in a city populated with other merpeople, who have jobs and families and houses, though significantly different from the jobs and families and houses humans have. “Technically,” Hermann says, with a strange, furtive glance around, “I shouldn’t even be telling you these sort of things. Interacting with humans is considered highly taboo in my society.”

“Oh, shit,” Newt says, and inches forward. “Seriously?”

Immediately, Newt’s brain works overtime to concoct an exciting, Little Mermaid-esque scenario: Hermann’s dad as the strict king of the ocean, wary of humans because of some ancient feud, Hermann longing for freedom, Newt–well, Newt would be down with kissing Hermann to help him get rid of that fin. He’d be down with kissing Hermann regardless. Newt’s scientific interest in him aside, Hermann is pretty good-looking. And–well. The forbidden, star-crossed aspect of it all is kinda exciting.

“Yes,” Hermann says. “Humans have hunted merpeople for centuries. Or so I’ve been told. But…” His face twists strangely–the corners of his eyes crinkling, his teeth flashing into view–and Newt realizes he’s smiling. Awkward, and shy, and unpracticed, but smiling. “You seemed different. I took a gamble.”

Newt blushes, just a little. “Hunted,” he echoes. “Is that what happened to your fin?”

“My fin?”

“It’s injured on the left side,” Newt says. “Like something attacked you. Did a human do that? Or another predator, like a shark or something?” Do merpeople have to worry about sharks? Maybe they keep them as pets. That’d be cool. If Newt was a merman, he would have three pet sharks.

“Oh,” Hermann says. “Oh, no, nothing so dramatic. That happened when I was human.”

Newt drops his tape recorder. It narrowly avoids bouncing overboard. “When you were what?”

“When I was human,” Hermann repeats. “Did I not mention I used to be human?”

“Uh, no,” Newt says.

“Ah, well,” Hermann says, “yes, it was some time ago. Perhaps a hundred years.”

“You look good for a hundred,” Newt says, because Hermann can’t have more than a couple years on Newt’s thirty-five. To his surprise, Hermann snorts.

“Yes, see, I was involved with a man,” he says, “and–well, he wasn’t pleased when I wanted to put an end to things, move on, you know, pursue other relationships. Only there were a number of things I didn’t know about him. He practiced–mastered, really–a strange kind of magic. He cursed me. I’ve been stuck this way–half-human, never aging another day–ever since.”

Merpeople, magic, curses–this is too fucking good. No one is ever going to believe Newt if he publishes this paper. “What kind of curse?” Newt says. “Like, one that can be broken?”

“Presumably,” Hermann says.

“Do you have to learn a lesson?” Newt says. He pushes up his glasses and leans closer. “Does someone have to kiss you? Like a true love’s kiss?” Newt was never one for reading fairy tales as a kid–having preferred the much more interesting alternatives of poking slugs with sticks and rolling around in the dirt–but he knows that’s a pretty big deal in those kind of stories. Frog princes and shit.

“I don’t know,” Hermann says. “All I know is that this has been very irritating. I had a laboratory, you know, with all sorts of fascinating equipment. I was a scientist. And now–”

“Can I try kissing you?” Newt interrupts.

Hermann flushes and shuts his mouth. “Ah,” he stammers, “I–I’ve got to–”

He disappears, in another splash and glint of fin. It was worth a shot.

Hermann comes back a few days later, and he comes back after that, and after that. Sometimes Newt asks him questions about being a merman. Sometimes Newt asks him questions about his previous life as a human. Hermann seems to like talking about being a human more, for reasons that aren’t very hard for Newt to guess. He was born in Germany, like Newt, though was schooled somewhat prestigiously in England (which explains the stuffy accent). He walked with a cane and a slight limp. He owned a very nice and very expensive telescope, which he misses, and worries about the well-being of, constantly. Sometimes Newt tells him things about himself, too: about his myriad of tattoos, his studies, how the human world has changed since Hermann’s time.

One day, as Hermann watches Newt eat potato chips and transcribe one of his numerous interviews from audio to pen, he suddenly reaches out and touches the corner of Newt’s notebook. “May I read this?” he says.

“Sure,” Newt says, hoping that Hermann doesn’t flip back to last week and read Newt’s entry where he described, in great detail, his attraction to Hermann, and the incredibly steamy dream he had about him as a result of that attraction.

Hermann skims Newt’s notes quickly, politely ignoring the grease stains Newt left behind, then pushes the book back towards him. He didn’t read about the dream. Thank God. “You called me a specimen,” Hermann says. His eyes crinkle in amusement. “How impersonal.”

“Yeah, well,” Newt says, heart pounding a little, because if he didn’t know any better he’d say Hermann is being flirty, “can’t let my institution know I’m on a first name basis with my subject. Conflict of interests.”

“Now, tell me,” Hermann says, “what do you plan to do with the information you’ve gathered when you return home? A book? An article? An exhibition? If you’re going to ask to put me on display, my answer is a definite no.”

“Nah, nothing like that,” Newt says. The truth is that Newt has no idea what he’s going to do with his significant compilation of research about Hermann. It’d be one thing if he found evidence of Hermann’s whole colony, or even a merperson besides Hermann, but to go zooming back off to his superiors with nothing three weeks’ worth of tapes and maybe a photograph or two–and after that tantrum he threw last month–he has a feeling no one is going to buy a single bit of it. Maybe he’d have a chance if he took Hermann back with him and did display him, but throwing his friend on the mercy of a society that would gladly dissect him without a second thought is completely out of the question. Maybe he’ll just write a weirdly detailed children’s book. “I might just keep it for myself, actually.”

The answer seems to please Hermann. He toys with Newt’s chip bag for a few seconds before–cheeks going a shade pinker–he says “I feel I ought to confess something.”

“Be my guest, dude.”

“I was following you the other day,” Hermann says. “I was following you that first day, too. And–” His eyes dart down, away from Newt’s. “Before then, even. You intrigued me, and I wanted to know what you were doing all the way out here.”

Newt grins. “I intrigued you. Ha! Cool. Well, now we’re even.”

Hermann smiles at him.

The last Friday before Newt is due to turn back and set course for home, he finally gets his first sign of other human life out here in the middle of the ocean: a fishing rig, at least twice the size of Newt’s tiny little rental, motors up not too far away from him and begins to cast its nets. Newt, an extrovert at heart and only mostly sustained by conversations with Hermann (who has a tendency to disappear for days at a time), is so starved for social interaction that he bolts out from his cabin when he spots it and begins waving frantically at the crew.

“Hi!” he shouts. “Beautiful out here, isn’t it?!”

He gets a friendly wave back. Newt expects he looks half-crazed, from his wild hair, to his unshaven scruff, to the explosion of freckles across his cheeks and neck, so he can’t really blame any of the crew for their hesitance.

“How are the fish?” he continues to shout.

A thumbs up.

“Cool!”

A net is drawn up; it’s a decent catch, but nothing too impressive. Earlier in the week, Hermann explained to Newt that, this close to mer-territory, anyone would be hard-pressed to find anything but smaller fish. Merpeople are much better hunters than some humans with a boat could ever dream of being. “I’ve been out here for over a month,” Newt continues his one-sided conversation. “I was looking for sea monsters. Have you ever caught anything like that before?”

No, they haven’t. The net is thrown back into the ocean.

“Okay!” Newt says. “Just wondering!”

The faint sound of groaning wood makes him stop in his tracks as he turns to head back into his cabin. Groaning wood, and splashing. Loud splashing. Excited shouts. It looks like the fishing rig netted something big.

Newt–determined, still, to be sociable–cups his hands around his mouth to call his encouragement over, but the words die on his tongue almost instantly. There, tangled up and flopping around in the rig’s netting, is a very familiar glimmering tail with a very familiar tattered left fin. “Hey,” Newt shouts, “stop! You’re–that’s my friend, you have my–!”

For the second time, Newt dives into the sea for Hermann.

He closes the distance between the two boats in no time at all, and–powered by pure adrenaline, ignoring the yells of surprise and anger above him–begins hacking blindly at the net with his pocketknife. A few more pieces–a few more strands–

It spills open. Newt feels a Hermann-sized shape graze past him, and a moment later, Hermann breaches the surface of the water. He doesn’t look very happy. “They caught me in their net,” he spits. “As if I were–!”

Newt hugs him. It’s not very graceful, considering the circumstances, but it’s something he’s wanted to do for a while, and he’s too happy that Hermann won’t be dissected or stuffed or something to care. “You caught my friend in your net while he was swimming,” he tells the fishermen over Hermann’s shoulder, now moderately more calmly. “I thought he was–uh–going to drown.”

The fishermen are profusely apologetic, to the point where Newt actually feels kind of bad for them, and it takes him waving them off with assurances they won’t sue or anything for them to hastily speed away. Hermann doesn’t look away from Newt once the whole time, his expression soft and just a touch unreadable. “You came to my rescue,” he says.

“Well,” Newt says, puffing out his chest, “a little bit, yeah.”

Hermann kisses him. Newt responds enthusiastically.

He’s so worked up over it all–grabbing Hermann’s hair, biting his weird frog mouth–that he doesn’t notice that the gentle fanning of Hermann’s tail against him has become the slide of skin against denim until Hermann suddenly grips at his arms. “Newt,” he says, eyes widening, “Newt.”

Well, even then it takes a bit. Newt kind of has a one-track mind when it comes to this sort of stuff. “Mm, yeah, Hermann,” he groans happily. He goes back in for another kiss, but Hermann dodges it.

“No,” he says, “I’m–” He gives a little kick.

Oh. “Oh, holy shit!” Newt exclaims, and laughs in delight. “Legs! You have legs!” Naked legs, in fact. Long naked legs–of course he’s taller than Newt. Hopefully he has some clothing that’ll fit the guy.

“Legs which don’t swim very well, I’m afraid,” Hermann says. He’s giving Newt another broad, awkward smile. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Newt says.

There goes Newt’s paper, he guesses, but–strangely–he can’t really bring himself to care.

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag #Anonymous

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monstersandmaw · 5 years

Text

Male each-uisge (sea kelpie) x reader (sfw) - Mermay story #6

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

This started out as a hippocampus kelpie, but upon being reminded of the glorious and vicious 'each-uisge ' of Scottish legend, that fitted him so much better. There's room for a Part Two in the future, so don't let me forget about this one!! It’s been up on my Patreon for a little while now, so it’s time to share it with you folks!

Content: near drowning, brief descriptions injury and blood (not to reader), gender neutral reader, sfw.

***

Inky water coiled around you the instant that your back hit the sea. The squall had swept in off the open Atlantic, and the deck of the tiny boat vanished as the waters closed above you. It took immense mental strength to force your mouth to stay shut before you sucked in a gulp of water in place of the air that your body was already craving as the adrenaline surged.

Panic, hot and searing and in total opposition to the bitingly cold waters, coursed through your veins and you fought off the wild, flailing fear as best you could. Clawing your way towards the surface, your clothes dragged at you, and as you tried desperately to kick off your shoes, you realised with a thrill of horror that something cold and slippery was coiling around your ankle.

The surface had slipped a long way away now as you sank under the weight of your own clothing, and your futile kicks only used up precious air without propelling you upwards.

You risked a glance down and your stomach turned over with horror.

There, wrapping black fronds like slick kelp around your ankle, was a creature you could never have dreamed up, even in your strangest nightmares.

The black head of a horse stared out of the depths at you with wild, white eyes, and strands of black, wafting hair and weed waved in the water around its head and neck. Below, its sinuous, eel-like body tensed and contracted, and as you opened your mouth to scream, forgetting the pressing tons of water on all sides, it latched another tendril around you and yanked you not up but down.

Your ears popped and you fought and twitched and struggled like a bird in netting as the thing from the deep pulled you down and down. In what felt like minutes, but what was in reality more likely to have been seconds, you found yourself being dragged into a dark opening in the craggy rock beneath the roots of the kelp surrounding the shore.

A moment later, you were thrust out onto a hard surface, and you were coughing water from your lungs.

Blinking and dazed, you looked around and discovered that you were lying on a bed of hard, damp sand, cradled in the hollow of an underwater cave. And there was air. The walls of the strange, rocky bower were illuminated by ethereal, glowing weeds and plants, and to your right was a pool of water that led out into the sea beyond. It lapped vigorously at the hard sand like ink in a shaken bottle. You were in an air pocket, and like a conical flask thrust underwater, it held the air for you to breathe. You blinked, vision blurred from the stinging salt and raging panic, trying to calm your breathing and the burning of the salt water in your throat.

You heaved and wretched the remnants of the seawater from your lungs and mouth, bedraggled and weak, but as you shifted your legs, a flash of memory seared across your mind and you recalled the horrific creature who had dragged you here.

Had it drawn you underground to keep you prisoner, or to keep you alive?

You whipped your head around to stare once more at the midnight-black water that pulsed rhythmically, as though the sea’s troubled heartbeat throbbed in the deep, and there, just breaking above the water, was the creature with the large ears of a horse. Its dead-white eyes were fixed unblinkingly on your face.

“What the hell are you?” you hissed, more to yourself than to the thing in the water as you scrabbled backwards and left scars in the smooth sand.

The creature rose above the waves just enough to reveal its mouth, and to your horror, you observed that the split of its mouth ran far up its skull, almost to its ears. This was not the head of an ordinary horse; this was the head of a predator, of a creature that hunted with those jaws and with the canines of a killer. Its long black tongue slipped free of that deadly maw for the briefest of instants, and then it hissed, in a voice like crunching sea salt, “I will not harm you.”

With your blood pounding in your ears and your breath hard to catch, you tried to swallow as you stared at the milky eyes of the horse that had spoken to you. “What are you?” you repeated.

“I am… an each-uisge,” the strange creature said, still not coming nearer to you. “I will not harm you.”

“What do you want with me?” you blurted, a violent, almost spasmodic trembling spreading through your already shivering limbs as the biting cold and choking terror caught up with you.

“Want?” it said, its strange, ageless voice echoing dully in the sea-hewn chamber. “I saved you. When you are recovered, I will take you to shore.”

“Oh…” you said, feeling only a little less afraid. “Why… Why did you save me?”

The creature bobbed amid the frothing water, and you noted how the coal-black coat on its neck gleamed in the odd light cast by the otherworldly corals and plants. “You were going to die,” it said simply. “Humans cannot breathe the sea like we can…”

“What are you?” you repeated, not believing that a creature from folklore could have come to life like this.

The being in the water blinked and said rather slowly and patronisingly, “I am a each-uisge… A water spirit, like a kelpie, though my herd makes its home in the sea.”

“But… you’re not real… You can’t be real…”

A braying, wild laugh answered your breathless statement. “Do I not look real to you, human?” it jibed, and then it swam a little closer, putting its weed-wreathed fore-hooves on the sandbar on which you lay sprawled like a piece of flotsam. Its eerie jaw clicked shut and its dead eyes rolled. “This is no fairytale, no folk-tale to frighten the children.”

Without warning, your blood pulsed in your temples and suddenly blackness closed in around the edges of your vision, and you collapsed onto the sand beneath you, unconscious before your head even hit the earth.

When you woke, you still lay on the sandbar, but the water was much closer to your feet, and you were alone.

You struggled to stand, fighting the waves of nausea and vertigo that swept through you from the lingering taste of the sea in your mouth and the exertion of your ordeal, and you turned your gaze warily to the dark waters beyond the hard sand.

The scuffed hoofmarks at the edge of the water told you that the creature had been there not long ago, and your heart threatened to beat its way out of your chest as you stared at them. You’d lived all your life by the sea, if not here in this town, and you knew the fish-wives’ stories as well as anyone. Your own mother had told them to you to frighten you out of going swimming beyond the safety of the lifeguard’s buoys, but as you’d grown older, you’d seen the tales for what they were: warnings to avoid the sudden currents and moods of the sea. That was all. They were not supposed to have a grain of truth to them.

Your sodden, salty clothes still clung unpleasantly to your skin, and gooseflesh washed over you again as you shivered. You had to get out of here before that creature with the eel’s tail and the horse’s torso and head came back. You couldn’t shake the image of those predator’s teeth, nor those cold, misty, dead eyes.

Just as you turned around to see if there was a way out of the air-pocket, perhaps upwards into the rocks and up to the safety of the surface, a gentle splashing disturbed the regular breathing of the sea in the cave, and you turned with dread billowing thick and acrid in your stomach.

The creature had returned.

Clenching your jaw to stop your teeth chattering, you turned slowly and sure enough, floating there like a scrap of weed-bound driftwood, the horse’s black head glistened in the water. It blinked its dead eyes at you, then broke the surface and champed its unnerving jaw a little. Finally it said, “You are leaving.”

It wasn’t a question, but it drew a flickering frown from your brows. “Yes. Will you let me go?”

The tapering, almost elegant, black ears of the monstrous creature swivelled back a little. Not flat to its head like an angered mount, but almost sadly, like a kicked puppy. It nodded once and rasped, “Of course.”

“You say that like it should be obvious,” you said, “But I know a little about kelpies and each-uisge from the stories… You eat humans. You hunt humans.”

“We do sometimes,” the creature replied steadily. “But only when we’re desperately hungry. And I’m not.”

Its blunt words sent a fresh thrill of fear through you.

“Besides,” it said rather conversationally, “Seals are much better. Personally, I don’t see the attraction to human flesh. The taste is… awful.”

“Right,” you whispered, feeling faint.

The creature sighed, air bubbling through the water. “If you climb up the rock there, it leads to the shore. It’s far from human houses and the stone wall of the harbour, but you’ll get home alright.”

Something in its tone made you pause. “You don’t want to keep me, but you don’t seem all that enthusiastic about letting me go either…”

At that, the creature snorted a laugh - a sound like a horse’s whinny - and half reared out of the water, making you stagger back over the sand, arms flailing as you fought for balance. “I was not made for traversing the land, human,” it sneered at your reaction. “You don’t need to worry about me lumbering after you like a beached seal.”

You nodded slowly, feeling your rapid heartbeat in your throat.

The each-uisge braced its powerful equine forelegs on the sand, propping up its upper body and revealing a sleek, muscular figure, with an incredibly long mane tangled with seaweed and starfish. Its lower half was the murky, muddy green of an eel, with a long, papery-looking fin running the length of its spine. There was an odd beauty to the mottled skin of its sinuous tail, at odds with the joints and individual muscles of the horse’s chest, forelegs, neck and head.

It spoke to you in that strange, deep, rasping voice, and you found yourself inclined to listen, despite your instincts telling you to run from the predator. “I’m curious about you, I suppose,” he said. “My herd usually hunts squid and the like in the deep. I’ve only seen humans from a distance.”

“Seems like you’ve been close enough to taste one,” you blurted combatively, and to your surprise, the creature laughed again.

“True, though in my defence, he had drowned all on his own already.” When your lip curled in disgust, the each-uisge sighed. “Go on, go. You should go.” A second later, it added, “So should I.”

“Your ‘herd’?” you asked as a thought occurred to you, and it nodded. “Are… Are there many of you?”

It gave a kind of shrug, its weedy forelock flopping across one of those dead, white eyes before it tossed it out of the way again and said, “It varies. We are not so numerous as we used to be, but my herd is strong. We number about twenty.”

Your eyebrows rose, and it laughed softly at your surprise.

The thought of twenty of these predators surrounding a person in the water like teeming piranha and tearing them to ribbons with their sharp teeth suddenly made you feel sick to your stomach, and you turned away, squinting at the rough cave wall behind you. It was still illuminated by the soft glow of those mysterious corals, but now daylight filtered through the circular space above you, and as you neared the rock face, you looked up and saw that this was an old blow hole in the rocky shore.

The creature had been right and all you had to do was use the natural hand-holds in the stone to pull yourself up. It was a fair few metres, but with one last look back at the creature who was still mostly beached on the sandbar, watching you with a dolorous expression, you began to climb.

The encounter with the each-uisge stayed with you, and you found yourself researching them in your spare time. You didn’t have a huge amount of that, but what free hours you had, you dedicated to mythology and folklore of the region. There were newspaper accounts of the area, going back centuries, of men and women being lured out to sea by what they thought was a drowning horse, only to find themselves with its dread jaw clamped around them, their body straining as it dragged them down into the depths. To your surprise, however, you discovered one or two tales of kelpies falling in love with humans and using their equine strength to help their chosen love. Admittedly, these were all the kelpies who supposedly lived up on the higher moors inland.

You found no tales of the each-uisge falling in love.

And yet something eventually made you return to that submerged cave one afternoon.

The autumnal beach was deserted as you strode across it, the base of your jeans quickly soaking up the puddled seawater from the retreating tide. A piece of sea glass caught your eye, lying on the ribbed sand, and you stared at it. It was white and frosted with the battering of the sea against the sand, and it instantly reminded you of the each-uisge’s blank, milky eyes, set like two full moons in its inky face. You stooped and pocketed the rounded piece of glass and continued back along the rocky shoreline, skirting deep rock pools and crevices that would lead to a broken leg at best if you slipped into one. For all its beauty, this part of the coastline was treacherous.

With trepidation, you stared at the blow hole in the dark rock for a long time before you mustered your courage and descended into the blackness below.

The sand was smooth and unmarred, the corals still glowed merrily, and the slap of the freezing water against the rock still filled the small, tomb-like space. Other than that, it was lifeless.

You stared at that small stretch of dark water for a long time, half expecting that the creature would burst up through it like a crocodile from a river and seize you like hapless prey, but nothing happened. It seemed that you stood in a timeless space between the underworld and the earth above, waiting for some wraith to emerge. Feeling suddenly foolish, you took out the pebble of sea glass and turned it over in your hand. With a sigh, you bent and left it on the sand before climbing back up and into the daylight.

That was not the last time you found your feet taking you back there, and the next time you went, you found the sandbar as empty as you had the first time, your little sea glass pebble nowhere to be seen. You thought it must have just been swept away by the rising tide, and you left another piece there, higher up this time, and when you returned for your third visit, it too was gone.

You hadn’t managed to find a third piece of glass to leave there this time, so you descended empty handed. To your shock, halfway down, you found not the empty sandbar, but the curled figure of an each-uisge slumbering atop it like a story-book dragon atop a hoard of golden coins.

Its wheezing, rattling breath reminded you of the wind whistling through the rigging of ships, and you froze like a spider on the wall, torn between continuing and returning. It had all been real after all.

Before you had the chance to decide, the creature stirred and raised its head. At the sight of you, its large, elegant ears pricked up and it whickered softly. “You came back,” it murmured. “I don’t believe it.”

Taking a deep breath for courage as fresh fear, and a small trace of relief that this was ‘your’ each-uisge, you asked, “Am I still safe with you?”

The creature bowed its head and snorted. “I swear it, human. No harm will come to you from me.”

Taking that on faith, you nodded and continued your descent until your soles hit hard sand. Completely out of the water like this, the creature was much bigger than you’d realised. Had it been a normal horse, it might have reached sixteen or seventeen hands high; a mount fit for a king or a cavalryman. But this was no ordinary horse.

You let your eyes drink in the full length of that mottled tail, and the each-uisge watched you with amusement as you stared openly at it.

Finally, you asked, “What’s your name?”

Its lips curled softly, as much as its strange jaw would allow, and it said in a low voice, “Rhion.”

“Is that a male or a female name?”

“Male,” he said gently. “May I know yours?” You told him, and he nodded, repeating it. The echo of it on the walls of the cave made you shiver and sent a cold, scraping finger down your spine.

You stepped a little closer and he watched you intently, tilting his head slightly to one side in a manner that reminded you of a young and wary dog.

“Why are you here?” you said. “I thought your kind lived in the deep?”

He smiled again in that subtle way. “I… I thought… perhaps foolishly… that you might come back.” That surprised you, and when it showed on your face, he rasped another laugh. “And here I thought it was you leaving me these little tokens… Was I wrong?”

“Tokens?”

He shifted slightly, parting the forelegs that were folded neatly beneath his equine chest, and you recognised the two milky pieces of sea glass you’d left behind on your previous trips. When he saw your expression, he laughed and said, “I was right then. Why did you leave them?”

Embarrassed and awkward, you mumbled, “They reminded me of your eyes.”

He raised his head at that, and then shook it in soft disbelief, sighing cavernously. Then, to your surprise, he lowered that big, dark head and placed his chin on the sand like a big dog waiting on a porch. His eel’s tail twitched and thumped disconsolately once against the sand.

“What is it?” you asked, stepping nearer before you’d even thought that it could be a trap or a ruse on his part to get you to go close enough for him to snatch you away into the water.

In fact, he didn’t move at all, and only watched you approach. His ears drooped softly, hanging out to the sides like a horse at ease, and you felt so emboldened that you actually knelt down in the damp sand beside him. He kept watching you, but didn’t speak.

You raised your hand and, with only a slight tremble in your fingers, asked silently if you could touch him. He blinked slowly, which you took for assent, and he permitted your hand to rest on his head, just below his ear. He rumbled a wheezing groan, like a wounded animal, at your touch, and his lunar eyes rolled closed.

After that, you explored his body with your hands, stroking his soft, dark coat that was now dry and shone like black silk, and when you came to his belly, where the eel’s tail began, you looked once more to his face for permission.

He just jutted his nose at you in a ‘go ahead’, gesture, and you took a breath and passed over the transition from fur to skin. Where you had perhaps expected it to be slimy, his skin was smooth and dry, tough and leathery, with little bumps and rough patches like sharkskin where the pigmentation differed. He must have registered your surprise, because he admitted sheepishly, as though it were a sin, “I shouldn’t stay out of the water much longer. I’m at risk of drying out completely, but I’ve recently discovered that I love the feeling of the air on my skin…”

“You’re… not what I expected,” you said as you shuffled back towards his head.

He brought his nose to your shoulder and pausing there for a moment, he then began to nuzzle you. His eyes rolled shut again and he blew out a long, slow breath as he tipped his flat cheek against you. “Nor are you,” he said, experimentally inhaling your scent and moaning again. “I was taught that humans would hunt us and lop off our heads to stick on their walls as grotesque trophies, or stuff us and send us to a museum of curiosities…”

“I’m sure some would,” you said quietly.

A beat later he said, “And you think we’re barbaric for hunting you…”

“At least you do it for food… even if you enjoy chase too…”

He laughed and nodded. “Tell me about where you live,” he said, changing the subject to a less grim topic. “I’d like to hear more about your world.”

So you described the walk up from the harbour, past the shops and the pub with the broken compass on its sign, past the blazing pink geraniums in the window boxes, and then onto the narrow, cobbled streets of the town beyond. “I actually chose my house because of its lovely red door,” you laughed. “I had to have it. It’s a tiny old fisherman’s cottage I think, and there’s barely enough room for me in it, but it’s pretty cute. It’s the only one with a red door on the whole street. The man who owned it before me liked to buck the trend, I think…”

Rhion had been sitting with his head in your lap while you talked, and you played with his coarse forelock, untangling it and gently plaiting a strand into it with idle fingers. Suddenly, he lurched up and scrabbled away from you, his huge hooves nearly clipping your thighs, his ears straining, his gaze locked on the inky pool that led down into the depths of the sea.

“What?” you asked, ready to stand, body tense. “What is it?”

He cocked his head, all his focus on listening. Then he cursed. “You need to leave. Now.”

“What is it?”

“My herd. They’re hunting in the shallows. They…” he broke off and you heard the faint sound like a whale’s call, only shriller. It had the echo of a horse’s whinny to it. “Oh no,” he said, and he shoved you hard with his nose, a desperate gleam in his wide, white eyes. “Go! Please… They’ve caught your scent. They’re coming. If they find you here with me they’ll… they’ll…”

He was scrambling to get back into the water, his tail thrashing and sending salt spray everywhere as it hit the shallows. Water splattered across your face in a cold chain of fat drops and as it ran down your cheek you were reminded viscerally of the time you’d hit your head as a child and blood had run down your face. You rose and reeled backwards until the rough rock was at your back and he was staring at you. His jaw opened and he made the unearthly sound a horse makes in immense distress. It struck you to your core and as his mouth opened in that guttural scream of pain and anguish, you froze.

“Go! Please! They’ll kill you if they find you here. Go, and don’t ever come back!” he said in a horrible rush.

You scuttled back up the rock as fast as you could, but your muscles locked when you heard him scream.

You looked down and saw that another each-uisge had breached the surface beside him. It lunged for you, but Rhion jostled his shoulder against it and it stumbled, rounding on him with a vicious snarl. It opened its immense jaw full of sharp teeth and latched onto Rhion’s neck. Thrashing, Rhion was dragged screaming below and the waters seethed, empty and broiling, until you finally fled.

His was not your world, and you tried to put it behind you as you sped back up the beach towards the town. You couldn’t shake his final scream from your mind and it haunted you long into the night.

Too unsettled, it was long after midnight before you’d even thought of going to bed, and as you finally rose from the sofa, you heard an irregular scratching at your front door. Frowning, you stood, thinking perhaps it was a cat or even a fox, but even as you stood there, the scratching became a weak thudding.

Peering through the peephole revealed nothing, so you opened it cautiously, nerves thrumming.

Half collapsed on the step was the naked figure of a scrawny, wiry young man. In the moonlight, you could see that his pale skin was green and mottled like dappled shadow on fallen leaves, but it was slashed with cuts and - horrifically - deep puncture wounds arranged in an arc. Bite marks. Blood tracked down his torso and thigh in thin ribbons to his bare feet.

And as he looked up at you, you saw those dead white eyes from behind a curtain of lank, wet, black hair. “Rhion?” you asked, darting forwards as he swayed, half doubled over already.

He smiled, though it was weak and obviously pained. “I knew you’d recognise me,” he said, pitching forwards as his balance failed him and his legs wobbled. “I didn’t know where else to go. I remembered your story… I… I found you…”

“Come on,” you said, hooking an arm under his and guiding him inside. Blood dripped onto the flagstones as you led him towards the kitchen and eased him into a wooden chair. You had emergency supplies, and told him you’d be right back as you darted upstairs to fetch lint dressings and bandages. You were no surgeon, but they didn’t look deep enough to need stitches. You couldn't exactly take him to a hospital anyway.

When you came back he was just sitting there, staring around.

“Rhion?”

He turned vaguely and smiled at you. “Thank you,” he said faintly. “I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” you asked as you got to work on cleaning and disinfecting the wounds. He hissed at you in protest at the antiseptic, but let you continue.

“They said I should have caught you and brought you to them. They said I was a disgrace. They said I betrayed my own kind.” His chest heaved. “I barely got away.”

“I didn’t know your kind could take a human form,” you said carefully as you encouraged him to lean forwards a little so that you could wrap the bandage around his ribcage where the worst of the bite marks were. Luckily he wasn’t bleeding through the dressing. Each-uisge it seemed were much tougher than humans. You wiped up the blood that had trickled down his skinny legs with a kind of clinical detachment, despite your growing curiosity about him. You wondered if it felt strange for him to have legs now.

He huffed a rather sharp laugh and said, “It’s… It’s not something we can do as easily as our kelpie cousins,” he said. “It nearly killed me to shift. I won’t be changing back for a while.”

“What will you do?” you asked. “You can’t stay here…” you added, easing him back against the chair so he could catch his breath and running your thumb across his gaunt, unusual face. “We don’t tend to get too many humans with green skin like yours…”

Rhion laughed bitterly. “I don’t know. I just had to get away. I suppose I’ll go back to the sea and find a new herd somewhere far away.”

Your heart lurched at that and you thought that perhaps he saw a little of your emotion because his pale greenish-grey lips twitched softly.

“You should rest a while first,” you said. “Come on, you can sleep in my bed.”

His thighs trembled as you helped him up and tried not to stare at him. Anatomically, he resembled a biologically male human in every way except for the colour of his blotchy olive green and grey skin, and you wanted to afford him at least a little dignity as you supported him up the stairs and into your bedroom.

Rhion eyed your bed warily as you looked about for some clothes and found a baggy t-shirt that you usually used to sleep in. You dressed him in it so that he wouldn’t get cold and would at least be a little covered, but when you eased him down onto the mattress, he groaned with pleasure and sank gratefully onto it, moaning as you drew the sheet up over his body.

“Where will you sleep?” he asked, his words softly articulated and almost slurred with his exhaustion.

“There’s a sofa downstairs,” you said, but he frowned.

“Stay?” he said. “I… I’ve never slept on land before.”

“You’re afraid?”

He didn’t speak for such a long time you thought he might have passed out. “Yes,” he said very quietly without looking at you.

With a smile, you crossed to the other side of the bed and undressed. You felt his eyes on your back, but he said nothing. Wearing your pyjamas, you climbed into bed beside him. He kept his distance, lying very still, and you weren’t sure if that was because of his injuries or because of his manners.

It took a long time for you to fall asleep, though Rhion was unconscious in mere seconds, jaw slack, delicate fingers softly curled beside his sharp features, eyes tracking back and forth behind his closed lids. His long black hair flowed all the way down his back and it was still damp. The braid that you’d plaited into it while you’d told him the story that would later save his life, probably, was still there and you fought the urge to touch it. You thought vaguely that you should have washed the seawater out of it before letting him sleep on your pillow, but somehow you couldn’t muster up quite enough energy to care.

When dawn came, sensation filtered slowly back into your awareness, and you opened your eyes to find him trailing his fingers along the inside of your wrist. You smiled up at him and he jumped when he realised that you were awake.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t meant to disturb you.”

You inhaled thickly and shuffled slightly. “You didn’t,” you said. “I still can’t quite believe this is real though…”

Rhion’s smile was sad.

“How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” he admitted, shuffling his mottled green torso experimentally. “And… I’m scared.”

“You can stay here as long as you need,” you said, reaching for his skinny, pale green fingers and clutching them suddenly. “You don’t have to face them yet.”

“Thank you,” he rasped, his milky eyes swimming with tears. Were it not for the accuracy of his gaze, you might have thought those eyes were sightless.

You brought his knuckles to your lips and kissed them softly. A shaky breath escaped him and his smile broadened, crinkling his eyes and bringing little curving dimples to his gaunt cheeks.

“I don’t scare you any more, do I?” he asked.

You shook your head just a little and kissed him again.

“When I’m better,” he said, “I’d like… I mean…”

“I know,” you grinned. “I think I’d like that too. For now, rest and heal. Everything else will come afterwards.”

His tired eyes fluttered and he allowed himself to fall back into a healing, dreamless sleep while you watched over him for the time being.

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#exophilia #kelpie #each uisge #male monster #gender neutral reader #sfw #monster x reader #male monster x reader #sea monster

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fraink5-writes · 4 years

Text

Blue Ceiling - Tablet XI

Happy Mermay, y’all! It’s only appropriate that this fic comes to end during this month!

Thanks a bunch to the great @leio13 and her editing prowess!

Summary: Expecting to become king of the merpeople as son of Tiamat, Kingu is suddenly forced to give up his tail and to go the surface to restore humanity’s disregarded respect for the Goddess of the Sea. However, he severely underestimates the Uruks’ willpower, especially that of their stubborn king, Gilgamesh.

This chapter can also be found on Ao3 here. Without further ado, please enjoy!

A few days later, Kingu woke up with the sun. He longed for the sea, its warm embrace and caressing currents. For the first time, he didn’t feel heavy with illness; he felt light as though his soul was nearly detached from his body. For that reason, he decided to make the long journey to the beach. He had heard stories of Uruk funerals where the deceased were dressed up and put out to sea, so he decided to put on his best outfit, one Shamhat had given him that Gil had said looked good. But when he looked in the mirror, he didn’t see anything remotely beautiful. He was a corpse in clothing, skeletal and pale. But no one would send him off, so it didn’t matter how hideous he looked.

In a short while, Uruk’s streets would fill with vendors and shoppers, but as he was leaving, they were empty. Kingu would miss them. He looked wistfully at Uruk’s grand wall before crossing through it. He couldn’t return to the inside again.

When Kingu arrived on the beach, the sun was already high overhead. Overcome with exhaustion, he collapsed onto the coarse sand, then pulled his body into the water. He lay half in the water, half on the sand, gasping for each breath, not unlike a dying fish. The frigid waves crept up his legs but recoiled each time. Even the sea had rejected him. It was neither warm nor gentle as he remembered. He laughed bitterly.

Finding comfort in neither sand nor sea, he watched the slow parade of clouds, outlining their shapes in his mind.

“Somehow I knew I would find you here.” A golden figure towered above Kingu. “A lot has changed from that time, hm?”

“You were looking for me?”

“When Siduri went to your house this morning, she discovered you were no longer there, so she, Shamhat and I went searching for you. You must be glad that I found you.”

Siduri, Shamhat, and Gil? Kingu nodded weakly.

“Should I carry you back again?” Gil’s gaze drifted away with a slight glow of embarrassment. “Although, even if I rescue you, I don’t think we could ever be even.”

“No,” Kingu choked out. “It’s too late.”

Gil nodded solemnly before sitting on the sand. He picked up Kingu’s hand and eased its trembling with his fingers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner.”

“I haven’t been here that long.” Kingu tried to laugh to lighten the mood. “Besides, you’re injured.” Kingu could still see thick layers of bandages wrapped around Gil’s waist.

“Those are nothing.” Gil dismissed Kingu’s concerns. “It’s thanks to your actions that they weren’t that serious. Oh, I hate being in your debt.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“Don’t start revering me now! Don’t you have something petty and unreasonable to demand?”

Kingu had many unreasonable desires, but he couldn’t ask Gil about them. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

Gil’s eyes had the serious look which Kingu had admired countless times. “Thank you, Kingu. You have saved me so many times.”

Neither of them wanted to hear the end of that thought. “Perhaps I should have come up with something?” Kingu laughed.

“It’s not too late.” A lie.

“Well…” When Kingu searched his brain, he only found anxiety. “Actually, I have something to tell you. Will you listen?”

“That’s your request? For me to listen to you?” Gil’s attempts to alleviate Kingu’s nerves failed.

“Seriously and considerately?”

“Of course. I will hear anything you have to say.”

Kingu inhaled slowly. “Gil,” he hesitated. “I…” The words faltered in his chest.

Gil put a gentle finger to Kingu’s quivering lips. “If you don’t want to say it, you don’t have to. I already know.”

What could you possibly know?

Gil’s lips curled into a smirk. He leaned in and tenderly kissed Kingu. His lips had a hint of wine, and they reddened Kingu’s cheeks and numbed his mind. If Kingu tasted them for too long, he would surely become intoxicated.

A tear slipped from Kingu’s closed eyes, but it was softly wiped away by Gilgamesh’s thumb, which caressed his face as it slid toward his ear.

Kingu could still feel the warm mingling of their breaths after they parted. Gil’s eyes had lost their sharpness, but Kingu was enchanted by their crimson depths. Gil whispered, “Any other requests?”

Kingu shook his head ever so slightly to avoid breaking eye contact. Don’t leave.

Gil’s fingers traced light circles on Kingu’s skin, running through his hair. Their message lulled Kingu from a panic to peaceful near-sleep. Was it okay for him… to close… his… eyes…?

Kingu felt exceptionally light. If he let his mind slip for even a bit, he would lose unconsciousness forever. Anxious as he was, his heartbeat was almost non-existent. He desperately clutched Gil’s hand. There was a return squeeze. Gil was still there.

***

Kingu’s grip grew weaker with each squeeze. The sea was slowly taking him from Gilgamesh, dissolving his body. But Gilgamesh would not let go. He had refused to acknowledge the goddess Tiamat even after he nearly died, and he wouldn’t start now.

Of course, the sea would try to take back her child, but Kingu was an Uruk now. As Uruk’s king and as an individual, Gilgamesh could not lose him.

Kingu’s body had faded so only his hand and a few strands of hair remained in Gilgamesh’s hands. It was only a short matter of time before he was gone entirely. If Kingu could give up everything and save Uruk, why couldn’t Gilgamesh save him from a few waves?

The small, white bubbles, glittering in the sunlight, floated upon the waves where Kingu had just been. They flirted with the land before pulling away. Such pure beauty could never last. Their transience only made the memory more dazzling as they were scattered by the incoming waves.

#Fate series #Fate/Grand Order #Gilkingu #Kingu #Gilgamesh

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