Catch of the Day - Part Three of Five

[sonora_coneja]

Pairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: R
Warnings: merman AU - but no merman sex here, I swear
Summary: Part Three of Five for a fill for this prompt on the kink meme.

Hannibal is a rugged angler whose catch of the day is a merman, Face. There is an instant attraction, but Face is terrified at first that Hannibal is going to kill him. He grows legs, does not grow legs, whatev.

Right as Hannibal is beginning to make progress with Face, big bad Lynch or Pike gets news of Hannibal’s discovery and tries to steal Face away for experimentation purposes. The more angst the better :D

Second prompt (I’m new to the fandom) I hope its okay! *Hides*

Just when things are starting to open up between them, both Hannibal and Face are dealt with crushing, crushing blows...



Face swayed as they walked, tired and just a little drunk on beer and the whole rest of the evening, bumping right into Hannibal on the dark road back to his house.

“Easy there, kid,” the older man said, automatically grabbing the merman around his shoulders and holding him steady. “We’re almost home. Don’t know why you wanted to walk tonight...”

“Just seemed good. I get all cramped up on your boat...” he said, trailing off. He hadn’t tried to get in the water again, not after that one time, but he did watch it, a sad expression on his face. And then he perked, lifting up a bit against Hannibal’s side. “But I won tonight! Totally worth it, huh?”

“Yeah, kid,” Hannibal said with a sigh. “Yeah, you won. You deserve it, the way you sing...”

“Phhft. All of my people can sing like that. Carries better underwater,” he laughed, and leaned his head on the older man’s shoulder. He was a bit shorter, but his ear seemed to fit there perfectly. It was a good angle, a good place. If he just leaned over, just a little bit... “Can’t humans all sing?”

“Not like that,” Hannibal said gruffly, trying not to look at those beautiful eyes he knew to be fixed on him. He couldn’t, he couldn’t, but he still felt raw from the song, like Face had hollowed him out, and he knew if he looked, he’d be lost. And where would that leave him, when Face left him? “Not nearly that good.”

“Hannibal,” Face began, both hands tightening around Hannibal’s bicep, “Hannibal, I wanted to ask you about how humans...like with Murdock and BA, are they...”

“Kid, don’t...” Hannibal said, terrified he’d lose this battle with himself tonight.

“...I mean, they’re mated, so it’s possible for...” and the kid stopped, looking up at the sky.

“What?” the fisherman asked, stopping himself and following the merman’s gaze. There weren’t any stars tonight. Just clouds and... “What is it, Face?”

“I think I just felt...”

Then Hannibal felt it, too. “Rain,” he growled, and swore, grabbing the kid’s hand. “Come on, we need to get you indoors.”

Face couldn’t quite run, and the rain started coming down harder and harder, making it worse, making his exposed neck start to shimmer, and Hannibal had to grab the kid up and carry him the last fifty feet or so into the house, fumbling with his keys, the kid starting to groan in pain.

“Hannibal, Hannibal, I need...”

“I know, Face.”

Hannibal got the door open, both of them falling inside just in time, and he kicked at the screen to close it as he tore back to the bathroom, setting the kid down in the tub, one hand dropping the plunger and turning the water on full-blast, and the other firmly in the top of the kid’s pants.

It was coming. Fast.

“I...”

“I know, Face!”

The fisherman got it all off only just in time, ripping jeans and boxers and socks and sneakers together in one go, dumping it carelessly on the tile floor, a heavy thump against the interior of the tub announcing the reemergence of that tail, and Hannibal turned on the shower head.

"Better?" he asked, rubbing at the kid's beautiful green scales, right where his knee might have been.

Face tugged at the drenched fabric of his scarf. "Better."

And he leaned in slowly to ease Face’s jacket off, unwind that scarf from his neck, where it was now choking off the gills, pull his simple t-shirt up and off. It all joined the pile of soggy jeans and shoes. Face’s wet clothes, his human clothes, weren’t needed right now.

Because the kid wasn’t human.

And soaked to the bone, under the warming spray from the shower, from the cold rain now beating down hard and fast outside, Hannibal wanted to cry. Like he hadn’t cried since his mother left.

Face would leave him, too. This moment would pass, and the kid would be gone. All the light of the last few weeks would fade to nothing, the beauty of it all, their own little fairytale, replaced again with the harsh realities that merfolk didn’t exist and his bills were still piling up and there wasn’t anybody, no man, no human man he might find in some unlikely future, who’d ever be enough for him, after this...

“Hey.” A webbed hand touched his cheek. “Hey, boss, what’s wrong?”

Hannibal realized he was still leaning over, where he’d stripped the kid’s shirt off, one hand against the back of the tub by Face’s head, their faces close, mouths close, everything, everything too, too close... “Nothing,” he said, pulling back, abrupt, over his heels. He switched the flow of water back to the spout, letting the tub fill now that Face had gotten enough water for some oxygen to diffuse across those neck-gills of his. “There’s nothing wrong. You want me to go get the salt?”

“Like, stay the night here?” the merman asked, his tail swishing. Hannibal leaned in to get a better look at it. It seemed healed, all the little webs regrown, the scales smooth around the base, only the slightest white lines marking where the pot had cut him. “In the tub?”

“Yeah,” Hannibal acknowledged with a shrug, despairing a little at the sight. “I know it must be easier on you, being in your normal body...”

“I’m used to the human form by now,” the merman replied, dumping a handful of water up over the gills on his neck. “And, and... it’s not bad, sleeping on dry land. Even if your bed smells a little.”

He felt a little embarrassed at that. “I can change the sheets.”

“No! I don’t mind. Smell’s still...I mean, I smell...you, in the bed, and it smells like you should be there,” Face said sheepishly. “With me. It’s confusing, that you’re not. Smell’s a very stupid sense.”

The last bit was grumbled, and Hannibal sighed, trying to ignore the throbbing that was starting up, deep in his chest, further down in his groin. An ache he didn’t know what to do with. How to stop. “Kid, we, w-we don’t usually sleep together, humans...”

“Unless you’re mated? Like BA and Murdock?”

He choked a little at hearing those words. “Yeah, kid. Unless we’re mated,” Hannibal replied, and looked away. “Like BA and Murdock.”

The merman looked at him plaintively. "Hannibal..."

“Face, if you want to dry off and sleep in the bed, I could...”

“Not without you. Not again,” the merman said, pulling up a bit, leaning over the edge of the tub, water glistening on the skin of his arms as he reached out. “Please, Hannibal...”

He jerked a little too hard, steely-strong, and Hannibal, already a little off-balance, tumbled in next to him in the warm water, clothes and all.

“Oh, goddammit, kid!”

Face laughed, and splashed him. “Oh, man, you should see your face right now! Hee, it’s awesome...”

“You just...I can’t believe you...” Hannibal sputtered, and Face splashed him again, this time with the end of his healed tail, and the older man realized how close they were. How he could feel that length of emerald green agains his own legs. How Face was pulling him back, more contact, more, as he stripped the older man’s jacket off.

And the fisherman brought a hand around as he fell against a water-slick chest, legs on either side, callouses and roughed skin harsh against the smooth surface of his merman’s cheek. Too many things, arousal and fear and exhaustion and a hundred other things he couldn’t identify were starting to well up inside of him, and suddenly, suddenly, he couldn’t stand the thought of going to sleep alone. Of leaving his merman, his Face, his would-be lover alone all night like this. But... “If we...if we do this, kid, I’m not sure I’d be able to let you go.”

Hands held him close. “We...we never stay, not on the dry land, the old ones say. The ocean calls us home, Hannibal,” he whispered, more than a little desperate. “I hear it...I won’t be able to...like, like she...”

“I know I can’t keep you, Face. But I want to.” It felt a little strange, the strong coil of scaled flesh beneath him instead of legs, but his hands found a very human belly and a very human chest and there was nothing about any of it that wasn’t Face. He relaxed a bit, felt it move against him, but reminded suddenly of those dreams, the ones he’d had every night for the last few nights, since Face dove off the boat. Where they were asleep, together, underwater in the faint remnants of moonlight, like he was...like they were...

It was insane. This whole thing was insane. The young man under him wasn’t a man at all. No chance. None. Yet...yet still...

“I do want to be with you, Face.”

The merman smiled. It was like the sun coming up on a still summer sea, warming him through. “I want that, too.”

“But if you go home, where I can’t follow...”

“You could come,” Face said urgently, tail swishing under Hannibal’s legs, hands tight. “You could come with me, I could take you, we could go home together...”

“Face, Face, kid, look at me,” Hannibal murmured, and pulled that chin around. “I’m just a man. A human man. I’d die in your world...”

“I’d die if you kept me here,” the merman whispered back, and his fingers trailed up underneath, tickling and soft.

Hannibal smiled at him. “Face, kid....”

But Face just shook his head. “If...if you could, would you?”

“Face, you...”

“Hannibal, please...if we were mated, if we...if you...”

“Face!”

The babbling stopped. Huge blue eyes, like sea ice just starting to melt, turned up. “What?”

“I’d do anything for you, sweetheart,” he whispered, cupping that truly gorgeous face in both hands, squeezing his thighs against the merman’s tail. “I love you...”

And that’s when Face leaned forward.

And kissed him.

It was tentative, that kiss. Wet, soft lips, barely open, the slightest brush, yet giving everything, offering it all. And in that moment, feeling all of that, , Hannibal said fuck it to anything in his head that was screaming at him about Face being a merman.

He didn’t care.

Human, merman, it made no difference. Face was the man whom he loved, and loved desperately. The man he wanted to be with, even if that was fleeting. Even if he couldn’t keep him as he wanted, be with him as he wanted, couldn’t stay. He could still give him tonight. As many nights as he wanted. Anything he wanted, even if that was to leave.

“Hannibal...” the kid whimpered.

“I’ve got you, kid,” Hannibal promised. And he planted his feet, then, planted his feet and wrapped his arms and lifted the merman, tail and all, clear out of the tub. “I’ve got you...”

It had become too familiar a thing at this point, carrying, drying, easing over, for Hannibal to not know what to do. How to hold the kid just so, how to lay him down, where the moisture needed to be wicked away, what would bring those legs, that human skin, so new, every time. But still, leaning over his own bed, he felt vaguely bad about it, the towel moving in smooth circles across the surface of the merman’s tail.

Face had buried his namesake in Hannibal’s pillows, chest heaving, body only just held back from thrashing. The older man touched as he dried, feeling the fine grain of muscle trembling along the younger man’s spine. The scales were retreating. Then kid gasped a little, gills closing, pitching sideways, and Hannibal moved fast to catch him.

“I’m sorry, Face,” he murmured, holding that warm body to his, one knee on the mattress. Guilty. Guilty that he didn’t know how to do this any other than put the kid through the transformation, something he said didn’t hurt, but seemed to be a little worse for him, every time. Guilty he couldn’t give him any more than this, something foreign, human, cold, dry... “I’m sorry I don’t know another way to...”

A soft hand stroked up his calf, his thigh, and settled, hooking behind his knee. His legs both fell to the side, pale, young skin flawless. His cock was beginning to swell, and he ran a hand down it, tentative, like he didn’t know, wasn’t sure. Slipped a hand around the base, down, around his balls, palm flexing around it, kneading slightly, slow.

So slow.

Hannibal bit the inside of his cheek and realized that his wet jeans were suddenly far, far to tight.

“Don’t be,” Face replied softly, eyes bright, the black pupils overtaking the blue of the iris. “Want to know what it feels like with you, how you feel ...”

Hannibal groaned. “Face...”

The kid flashed him a genuine smile, pulled and lifted, letting his cock spring up, pushing it up flat against his belly, dragging the heel of his hand up along the thickening length, and he breathed in, hard. “Want to see you, Hannibal,” he murmured, stroking up and up and up again, fingers picking at the fabric of his worn jeans. “Let me see you, please...”

The fisherman, half mezmerized by the sight of the merman playing with himself, barely even registered the movement of pulling his shirt off, tossing the soggy thing away. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight. Damp hair, muscle just starting to strain, lip between teeth, blue eyes staring right through him, seeing things in him he couldn’t see himself, and Hannibal wondered those things might be.

“Please...” the kid begged.

“Gotta let me up.”

And Hannibal unhooked the kid’s hand from his knee, kicking his boots off and toeing away the socks, buttons of his fly undone, and then he was shoving it all away, hissing in relief as he own erection sprang free. But it wouldn’t quite come loose, and he had to turn his back on the kid, scoot over to the edge of the bed, try to get the damn things off. The wet fabric was catching on his skin and his hands were shaking.

Shaking.

It all needed to be

And then a smooth body pressed against his back, smooth fingers slid around his waist, enclosing his hand, smooth lips teased his ear, and that smooth voice, the one that only came out when the kid sang, enveloped him completely. “It’s okay, Hannibal, take your time, we’ve got time...”

Hannibal felt his hands steady, Face thumbing along his knuckles, and leaned back into the younger man, pants around his ankles, forgotten for the moment. “You trying to seduce me, beautiful boy?”

“Mmm.” Face leaned a cheek against his shoulder and sucked lightly at a patch of skin on Hannibal’s neck. “Maybe.”

The fisherman smiled, despite himself, despite how disoriented this was all making him, and threw himself around, pinning that wondrous form to the bed beneath him, wriggling his legs in between the merman’s, digging a hand against the blankets to grab one lean thigh and pull it up against his side. It brought their bared groins sliding together, a sensation Hannibal had nearly forgotten after so many years without.

He moaned, involuntary, loud.

Those ice-blue eyes got huge.

“Hannibal...I...” the merman began, touching a hand to Hannibal’s cheek, a little awe, a whole lot of need, dancing in his voice. “Feels good...”

“Are you, Face?” Hannibal asked again, teasing but not really, bucking his hips up a bit, not sure what the hell he was doing, feeling like he was floating, weightless in the ocean. Loving it. Loving the man in his arms. But that voice, the way the kid was...he was hit by a sudden, horrible thought. “Are you just... trying to enchant me or...something?”

The fey, mysterious, otherworldly merman vanished, instantly, leaving a nervous, uncertain boy in his place, a sweet boy with blonde hair, dark with rain, a boy aching to be touched, to be held, to be loved. A boy with closed eyes and a blush spreading across his cheeks. His boy. Nobody there but his boy.

“I could,” he admitted. It was a whisper. He touched Hannibal’s face again. "But please, don't make me...can't do that to someone I love..."

Someone I love...

It exploded in his brain, or his heart, or further down, or maybe all over at once. Whatever the case, it sent shockwaves out to his fingers, his toes. Hannibal caught that tentative hand, pressing a kiss into the palm, and sat up over his haunches. “I’d never make you do anything you didn’t want, Face. Only good things for you...”

His pants came off, then, thrown aside, and Hannibal reached over for the little nightstand drawer, grabbing out the small tub of vaseline he kept there, something for sea-dried skin, cracking out in the night, perfect for this moment, right here. He moved back in, Face’s eyes following every little motion, questioning, eager, and tucked the slick under the pillows. Time enough for that later. No interruptions, once this started. It had to be perfect. Had to be...

“You deserve only good things,” he whispered, leaning back in for a kiss, stopping just short of his new lover’s lips, aware of an urgent hardness pulsating against his belly, wet and weeping already. “Deserve everything warm and bright...”

“You’re warm,” Face whispered in replied, eager, craning his head back a little more, like he’d already learned the perfect angle for this, something they’d never done before. “You’re bright...”

That made absolutely zero sense to him right then, but Hannibal kissed the kid anyway, capturing his mouth, one hand on the headboard and the other tangling in to the merman’s damp hair, tugging him up, showing him how to move under him. The subtle little shifts, the turns, the places hands could go, lips and teeth and heels and cocks. The kid’s was leaking between them now, the urgency of youth asserting itself, his own slipping back between Face’s legs, up into his cleft, and Hannibal groaned again. He had no idea if the kid had ever done this before, if he’d had a lover back home, how such things worked for his people, but he’d had to teach the merman how to walk. This was...

Face was whimpering then, sweet little sounds that suddenly turned sour, and Hannibal broke the kiss the second he heard that.

“What’s wrong, kid?”

“Odd,” and Face slid his leg off the fisherman’s side, rubbing his thighs together with a little sigh, like he was pulling himself together. “You’re heavy, and I can’t normally...”

“Sorry, kid,” Hannibal murmured, ignoring his own throbbing need, biting it back only just. He let himself fall off to the side instead, into the sheets next to Face, lifting an arm and feeling his heart soar as the merman burrowed in to his side. Nose to nose. He kissed that sweaty forehead and played a hand down the kid’s sides. “This, this is how humans make love.”

“Make love?”

“Yeah.”

Face smiled. “I like that.”

“Tell me, then, sweetheart. Tell me how you want it. How you like it.” Hannibal caught the faintest beginnings of a blush, and fought the urge to laugh. As needy, as eager, as his merman was, that blush...it was doing nothing to help the fisherman’s arousal. At all. “You tell me. We’ll do it.”

“I’ve never...I mean, I’ve heard about how we... but I don’t really...” and he reached out slowly, wrapping Hannibal’s cock up in one hot hand, and it was all the older man could do to keep from coming on the spot at that light touch. He stroked for a moment, intent on his hand, and then smiled up. “Can humans...can you...inside me, I...”

Hannibal reeled a little at the sudden thought of being this amazing young man’s very first, and kissed him, needing something to balance himself again. It gave him his equilibrium back again, the way the kid’s arms flung around him, holding him tight, just the same as all those dreams, where they were together, floating...

Pushing that swell of memory away, keeping himself in the here, in what was real, he slipped a finger back between those cheeks, pressing ever so slightly right against that spot. “Right here, kid,” he whispered, brushing a kiss across those suddenly parted lips. “Right in here.”

The merman whimpered, mouth opening wide and eyes slamming shut, pleasure so obviously bursting through him. “Oh, ohh...” And his hand joined Hannibal’s, fingers soft, one working down right next to the older man’s, and again, the fisherman’s self control damn near failed him. "From behind?"

"Only if you don't want to...didn't like your legs spread, did you?" Hannibal rubbed his thigh reassuringly. The oddest thought hit him then, that he actually missed the way the kid’s tail felt, all the rich emerald beneath his sea-rough palms. But there was something more pressing to focus on right then, and Hannibal resolved not to even try to figure that one out until later.

Much, much later.

First things first.

The kid was starting to tense up.

No good.

So he kissed Face again on the lips, once, hard, and started moving down, feathering tiny little pecks across his neck, across one jutting collarbone. He ran his hand down the back of the kid’s legs, petting, heavy pressure . “We can get there later, if you’d like. But we’ll keep it simple tonight, easy”

The kid bit his lip again, and smiled, fingers splayed wide against the older man's neck. “How do we do this?”

Hannibal felt his heart swell again, wondering why such a creature would want him, not caring, not worried about anything except how good this was going to be, having his boy, giving him everything, and reached for the little tub of vaseline under his pillow, opening it, dipping his fingers in. “Just enjoy, sweetheart,” he murmured, scooping a generous amount of the slippery substance from the tub. “Tell me the second it’s not perfect for you.”

He slipped his finger inside at that, drawing a shudder and a gasp.

"That okay?"

"Y-yeah...oh, yes..."

Hannibal kissed him gently, worked him slowly open, taking his time, careful, trying to remember the best way to do this, the best way to touch, to stretch, where that nub could be, finding it, more cries, more slick, more kissing, more everything, until he was finally slipping three fingers in and out.

Until he kissed the kid's nose and drew out and whispered, "you ready?"

Face smiled again, arms still around Hannibal’s neck, bringing their foreheads together. "Yeah..."

"Turn around..."

He settled Face back against him, together on their sides, no weight, no spread, feeling every vertebra of that long, arching spine against his chest, kissing a hot line up his merman's neck, lining up, hands just right, everything just so, where it was supposed to be, his cockhead right against that slicked and slightly open rose.

Almost home.

Hannibal didn't realize he'd said it aloud until Face threw a hand back around, threading it up into Hannibal's hair. "Please, take me there, please...I...I love you...sweetheart...”

Hannibal shivered at the way that little endearment sounded. “What do your people say?” he asked.

“Mate?” he offered, trembling a little in the fisherman's arms. “You could...if you wanted...I could be your mate...”

“Mate,” Hannibal echoed, rotating his finger slowly, sensing there was something more to that, remembering what Face had asked earlier, begging him for something he couldn’t give, that little you could come. And he didn’t care, not at all what he would have to do, what he could do, to stay with Face, to have Face stay with him, telling himself that whatever it was, he’d find a way, find a way, find a way... “I love you too...my beautiful mate...”

He pushed in.

Through that still-tight ring of muscle.

Slow.

Steady.

All the way.

Sheathing himself.

Perfect.

And the cry that tore loose from his boy, Hannibal knew, would be with him for the rest of his life.

The rest was as smooth as everything Face, graceful and tender, just a little aggressive, very, very easy. Like everything they’d ever do together would be easy. Like it was supposed to be that way. The way Hannibal felt himself just fitting into that tight, tight body. The way Face flexed back against him, ass to thighs, back to chest, like the rhythm had been there all their lives, pulling them up together, always together, up towards the place where vision went blank and nerves overloaded and everything would vanish into white. The way the kid shook through his orgasm, getting there first, the second Hannibal closed a hand on his frantic erection, tugged once, and whispered for him to come. The way that drew him up, the squeezing pressure, the moaned pleasure. The way the kid took everything he had, a release that went on for an eternity, drawing out, drawing out to the very edge of the horizon. The way he wanted to stay here forever, despite the way he was softening, the way he was slipping free. The way Face’s eyes practically glowed with the wonder of it all when they kissed again.

The way Face just seemed to slot right in, filling the space between cock and chin and shoulders perfectly, like he’d been made to fit against Hannibal, or like Hannibal had been made to hold him, just like that.

“My mate,” the kid murmured, voice sleepy, eyes shut again, everything in him quiet as a night surf, a single tear rolling down his flushed, heated cheek. “Mine...”

“Yours,” Hannibal confirmed, feeling himself being tugged out as well. Still close enough to wipe that saltiness away, taste it for himself, wonder. Just wonder... “All yours, my beautiful boy...”

He dreamed again that night, of the ocean and of Face, but it seemed more like a memory now, a memory of something that hadn’t happened yet, that would, that could happen, if he could only find the answer, if he only knew where to look...

But he couldn’t, and he was drowning, alone beneath the waves, falling into the blackness.

Until steely fingers closed around his wrist and pulled him close and kissed him hard and somehow, in some way he couldn’t understand, everything was okay again.

Everything was exactly what it was supposed to be.

He was home.

And in his dream, it seemed like he should have known that all along.

+++++

Face slurped the last of the milk out of his cereal bowl. “This stuff is good,” he said cheerfully, that little smile firmly in place, and got up to get the carton out of the fridge. “Really, really good.”

It had stopped raining sometime in the night. But it was foggy outside, and almost the weekend, and when he’d woken up that morning, mind drifting on the remnants of his strange dream, his boy, finally his boy, really and truly his boy, asleep in his arms, he’d decided they weren’t going out on the water that day. No, they were going to stay right as they were. Hold on to the edge of the previous night as long as they could. Because as wonderful as all of this was, he had a sinking feeling in his gut that morning, one that wouldn’t go away.

One that was telling him this was all going to end.

End badly.

End soon.

Hannibal leaned against the counter, waiting for the coffeepot to start brewing, tried to shake it off. Trying not to remember his dream, what that all meant. No point in borrowing trouble, he told himself, and hooked the kid around his waist, spinning him around, pulling him in, back to chest. Just like the previous night, together in the darkness...

“You like that, Face?” he teased, attempting levity, tapping the carton of 2%.

The merman made a little happy noise in the back of his throat, and arched back against him, milk in hand. “I like...”

A kiss to that fine neck, and Hannibal cuddled his merman close, marveling at the entire thing again, unable to understand why this beautiful creature had even given him a second glance, thanking god or whoever else was listening that it was so. He tugged the milk away, and turned the kid around, lifting his chin. “You want to spend the rest of the morning eating? Or did you want to try something else?”

“Like making love again?” the kid asked, eyes bright. “Like that?”

The fisherman groaned, those few little words going straight to his groin. “Do you want to?”

“I want everything with you, Hannibal. You said you’d show me how it works with humans,” came the answering little purr, accompanied by a hand playing at the waistband of his jeans. It was amazing, Hannibla thought, how quickly the merman shifted gears, how he could go from normal boy to horribly wounded to sensual, so damn fast, so completely, coming in bursts and fading away again to nothing. “And then I can show you how it works with us...”

Hannibal kissed him, finding it nearly impossible to go five minutes this morning without doing so, and as Face started moaning, going for the top button of the fisherman’s jeans, it hit him.

What Face just said.

“Us, sweetheart? Merfolk?”

Those eyes got brighter, if that was possible, and Face stood up on his toes to nibble at Hannibal’s ear. “Yeah, boss. Us.”

Hannibal shook his head, a little off-kilter, and smoothed back a section of errant caramel-colored haired. “I’d love to know how it works for your people, Face. I feel like I know so little about you...”

Face jerked back a little, still smiling, but not as sweet now. Smiling like he was trying to hide something, and his face clouded, just for a moment. He went for the milk, and slid back into his chair. That feeling in Hannibal’s gut started to expand again, hot and horrible. He couldn’t figure out what that was. What was that? What had he said wrong?

“There’s not so much to tell,” the kid said, fingers turning the carton around and around. “We’re not as complicated as humans are. No cities, nothing we really build or make. Just fishing and swimming and...”

“Sounds peaceful,” Hannibal mused, and Face turned the strangest expression on him. Inscrutable. Completely unfamiliar. Something he’d never seen on anyone before. He coughed, and turned, like he was going for coffee, to cover how much that affected him. “Sounds very peaceful.”

“It’s lonely,” the merman replied longingly. “It’s so lonely sometimes, out there.”

He pushed away the flare of anxiety that the kid’s words stirred up. Like he was missing something critical here. But it wasn’t the time to be worrying about his own fears, irrational or otherwise. That was his boy, hurting.

So, kissing the top of the kid’s head, tousling his hair, Hannibal sat down next to him. Pulled one of those long, clever hands away from the milk and into his. Wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “You’re not alone anymore, Face.”

But the kid didn’t respond. Not for a few moments, and finally turned himself half in to the older man, sighing a little.

“Did you mean it?” the merman whispered into the crease of Hannibal’s neck. “Last night, did you mean what you said?”

I love you...my beautiful mate...my boy...all yours, Hannibal thought, and smiled. “Never meant anything more, kid. I’ll be with you, you can stay with me, as long as you want...”

“Stay with you?”

“Be together,” Hannibal clarified, something warning him that the kid might have interpreted that as...

...but it was too late.

He’d already said the wrong thing.

Face stared at him for a second, and then scrambled to his feet, shooting out of the chair and out of the kitchen, running out.

Hannibal got up slowly, and wasn’t three paces towards the bathroom when Face re-emerged, shoving his feet into half-dry sneakers and arms into the fisherman’s big waterproof slicker. It was big on him, almost comically so, and he was halfway through adjusting the collar when he looked up.

And stopped.

“I gotta go, Hannibal,”

There it was. What the fisherman had been afraid of since that first moment on his boat.

"Not that," Face explained softly, pulling himself together, straightening, running a hand across his jaw, scratching just a bit. All those little gestures he used when he was...lying. “I need to go, err, talk to Murdock.”

“About your legs?” the fisherman asked, feeling that...thing in his gut bubble up, boiling hot. He’d fucked up. Oh, god, he’d fucked up. The kid was lying to him and he’d fucked up. Said the wrong thing. Ruined it. Ruined everything. After last night, after what they’d said, what they’d shared, he’d thought...he’d thought...

He’d thought wrong.

Face nodded a little, and tried to smile. But that was the same smile he gave Amy, the fake smile, and that fear got hotter, melting out every internal support Hannibal had.

“I can drive you,” he offered.

“No, no, I...I want to walk. Before...” and he stopped again. “I want to walk.”

Determined.

Desperate.

To leave.

“It’d be quicker if I drove,” Hannibal replied quickly, everything in him starting to dissolve. The whole fucking world collapsing. “It’d be...”

And Face threw his arms around him then, kissing his neck, just below the jaw, silencing him with a finger to his lips. That warm, pliant body hard and eager against his. “Hey, Hannibal, remember that story you told me about your mother? About how she left? I gotta tell you...”

Hannibal closed his eyes against it all, against the growing certainty that this was it. This was the day he’d been fearing. The day he’d promised...and he couldn’t listen. Not to anything Face was about to say. He couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t hear that the kid was about to leave him. No. No.

That wasn't how fairy tales ended.

But this was the real world. Merman or not. And the real world seldom allowed happy endings. Like Face's family. Like his own.

So Hannibal took a deep breath. Held it. And said what he had to say.

“I know, kid. I know.”

“Y-You do?”

“Yeah,” he said, surprised at how steady he sounded. “I know. And if that’s what you want to do, I’m not going to get in your way by...”

“Thank you,” the merman murmured, and pulled away, practically shaking with excitement. “Thank you, Hannibal, thank you...”

The fisherman felt his heart crack, the pressure building, everything threatening to overwhelm him entirely. “S-say...say hi to the doc for me.”

Face nodded, and made for the door, the fisherman following automatically, and he turned when his hand hit the knob. Hesitating.

“Hannibal...”

And Hannibal was right there, rushing to his side, gathering him up, kissing him with every ounce of emotion he had for the boy, wanting the merman to feel everything he felt for him, wanting him to know. To really understand, before he left...”

A touch to his cheek, like the kid had done so many times before, like he’d done the night before, when they were joining, instead of parting.

“My mate,” Hannibal whispered, holding that hand to his face, barely holding it together. “Mine...”

Face’s eyes turned on his once more, a genuine smile replacing the falsehoods of before, and slipped his hand free. “The ocean calls us home,” he said softly, laughed, happier than Hannibal had heard him yet, and that was it.

He was gone.

Out the door, down the street, swallowed away by the fog.

Gone.

The fisherman’s legs gave out at that, as the last of that mysterious, beautiful, strange, familiar boy vanished into the swirling grays of the morning, fading from his life. He fell, everything that held him up giving out at the same time, collapsing into a heap under the wide bay window.

And it seemed to him that he was still there, still watching the man he loved disappear into the mist, when Murdock and BA came by, four days later.

+++++

Face poked, testing, the blue plastic wall of the tank they’d thrown him in to, trying to keep the panic down. This isn’t the same, he kept trying to tell himself. It’s not a boat and it’s not the middle of nowhere and they aren’t whalers and the shark’s promised to help. It won’t be like before.

But keeping the memories at bay was becoming harder and harder, the long he was in here.

Mama, unconscious, breathing hard and fast, barely dry enough for the change to that human form, long hair tangled, skin across her back torn from where the harpoon had caught her. Trying to wake her, trying to get to her, stuck within grimy glass and dirty water, crying, wanting her to get up and grow her fins back and take him back to the good, deep waters, their whales, his Da...

This had to be different from that.

It wasn’t glass, this stuff, but it certainly wasn’t going anywhere, wasn’t letting him out, but at least it was clean. The water was clean. It wasn’t a lot of room, hardly any space to get a good swim going, but the temperature was right and it had some big pipe at the end that was a good place to get a deep breath, and it was ocean water, which was something to behold, and he’d done this to himself anyway.

You’re doing it for him, Face reminded himself for the hundredth time, settling to the bottom of the glowing blue space, trying to shut that color out. Your choice.

Even though he knew it really wasn’t.

That morning, the morning after that strange, wonderful night, nothing where it was supposed to be but all of it right nonetheless, Face had known what he needed to do. What needed to be done.

Because Hannibal had mated with him.

A mate.

His.

Finally.

After so many years of looking.

Someone who loved him fiercely in return.

Hannibal, who’d claimed him, entered him, flooded him, taken his heart, given his own in return, been so gentle, so worried, so careful. Hannibal, who’d said such wonderful things, who’d promised they’d be together...

And since there was only one way that was going to happen, since Hannibal seemed to understand that too, Face had left, headed for town. He’d only been thinking of reaching Doctor Murdock, who seemed to know about these things, and asking the human how he did it. How they could do it.

How the transformation happened.

How he could give his mate that part of himself he deserved.

He’d never gotten to Murdock’s, though.

He’d been...intercepted. Blue and white car. The odd-looking man with the big eyebrows who’d thrown in the back, then taken him to some small stone room, barred on one end with cold metal, left him there until it was dark outside. Until the man from the deli came, the one Hannibal didn’t like, the shark in human form. And eyebrows had held him down while the shark ripped his shirt up and poured a bottle of water over his belly, exposing thin lines of scales and told him, told him...

Let’s get this straight, Face. You aren’t human. You aren’t even a goddamn endangered bird or anything like that. Which means you aren’t protected by any of our laws. Which means I can fucking gut you right here. But I want you alive. I want to understand how you work...

Face had scrunched his eyes shut, trying not to think about his mother, her disgrace in the room where they’d been locked up together, how human after human would come, sometimes forcing her head up while they did what they did, her eyes always avoiding his, her pain always palpable.

Then he realized. What he needed to know, what he could get out of this.

If I go along with it, if I...cooperate, will you tell me what you learn? Will you tell me why I change?

And the shark had just grinned at him.

And thrown him in here.

Almost morning. Quiet all night.

Face stretched out on the bottom of the shifting tank, staring up at the way at the floating plastic cover, like a skin stretched across the surface of the tank. He’d tried, but he couldn’t push it up, not the least bit. It was strange, disconcerting, the color, the feeling of being sealed in like that, so he didn’t think about it.

He thought about Hannibal instead. The reason he was here in the first place

He couldn’t quite pinpoint when he’d figured it out.

Only that Hannibal was different.

He’d known that since the first evening on the boat, when the fisherman had been so gentle, so afraid in his own way and yet so brave, to reach instead of strike, those big hands such a wonderful thing to feel. All his attempts to understand, his willingness to offer explanation for even the stupidest of questions, the way he picked him up when he fell, how he’d never asked for anything in return for all the kindness.

The way Hannibal looked at him that first night, the next morning, wiping the stink from his new human skin...nobody had ever looked at him like that before. Not ever.

Hannibal was so different. Not like the humans who killed his parents, destroyed his family and left him alone in the middle of the black waters to die. Careless things, those humans. Thoughtless. Selfish. Brutal. Monstrous.

He wasn’t like the people in town, either, in love with themselves and their things and their rules and each other, terrified of finding themselves without. He was noble, in his own way. He was strong; even if he mourned his differences; he had obviously stayed himself, all these years of his life. Hannibal loved the ocean and his solitude and his own thoughts and his freedom.

And then, there was the photograph on the shelf. The one of Hannibal’s mother. That face, her hair, her story...

She could be. She had to be. She couldn’t not be.

Which meant her son, her handsome, kind, noble son was...

And Face had let himself go after Hannibal, then, tried everything he could think of, everything short of straight up enchanting the man and taking what he wanted. But while his people could mesmerize humans, take them, do anything with them, it wasn’t the human in Hannibal that Face wanted, some plaything to take and throw away once drowned and dead. No, not that.

He wanted more than that.

A partner, an equal. Somebody to swim against the current with, somebody to watch the storms tear at the surface with, somebody to sleep with in the weightless dark, holding close, held closer...

For the past few weeks, Face had been dreaming about that. How it would be.

All the rough human strength in him translated to sleek movements and streamlined muscle, his beauty refined, all the hard edges washed away. That tall form turned all the length and grace, clad in blue-gray probably, the color of the cold winter ocean, everything smooth. His quick mind freed from the stupid distractions the human world forced on its denizens, worries lifted, immediacy of survival replacing all the far-away nonsense of money and those rules... Freed. Tossed in to a struggle for existence, rather than a struggle for meaning. At peace.

What a force he would be, Face mused, staring up at the sun, letting one hand wander down his belly a little.

As a merman

The merman in Hannibal had it in him to be.

The merman that Hannibal seemed to know he was, if their last conversation was any indication, the merman that had been denied too long, the one that was fighting hard to get out...

Ripples above him, and Face registered a corner of morning sky. Dark figures pulled away a corner of the plastic on the surface of the water, and one knelt down by that cleared space.

“Face!” it yelled. “Face, get up fish-ass up here! It’s time.”

His hand pulled back. He hesitated, just for a second.

Considering.

It was going to hurt. It was going to hurt a lot. Sharks always hurt when they attacked, not because they meant to, but because they just didn’t care, which was worse. But the agreement had been struck, the stakes too high to back out now, and Face knew, with a little shiver of very real fear, that his refusal wasn’t going to mean anything to these people. They’d take what they wanted, just like they did with Mama, all those years ago...

He shut his eyes for a moment, thought of Hannibal, and swam for the surface.

“You called, Vance?” he asked lightly, smiling disarmingly, pushing the wet hair out of his face.

“Nice try, Face,” the shark said, and one of the men with him, eyebrows from before, brandished a long pole with a metal ring at the end. “Let’s get you into the lab, shall we? See what makes you tick.”

The metal opened.

A collar, then.

And remembering his dream, one more time, Face leaned his head to the side, and let it all close down around him.