Catch of the Day - One Year On
Jul. 12th, 2011 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: merman AU - and yes, here there be xeno
Summary: Epilogue 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*
One year after the events of Catch of the Day, the boys are making a life for themselves, in every way possible...
One Year Later
Face bumped the sweating tumbler on the wicker table between them, shifted a little in his bright green Hawaiian-print trunks, and looked out across the brilliant white beach, the big palm trees, the sun, warm over those turquoise waves.
It was starting to ride low on the horizon.
They’d need to go back to the water soon.
But not yet. Not for a little while.
He leaned back in his chair for now, safe, enjoying the feel of the tropic afternoon, sweet and warm, his mate right next to him. The older man looked calm, wrapped in a borrowed white silk shirt, pale khaki shorts, nursing his second beer, cigar in hand. Cubans, he’d said wistfully, stopping at the upscale little shop on the island’s main drag. Face had offered to con him more, if he wanted, but that single one was all he said he needed.
The younger merman sipped at his own cocktail, barely tasting it, thinking how far they’d come. Almost a year now. Since the boat, the tank, the escape, the rejection... he’d been furious, heartbroken, overcome with grief and anger, after Hannibal had refused to change, refused his birthright. He’d intended to come south then, leave all the pain of the northern waters behind, but he couldn’t. He’d found himself going back to that same spot, day after day, swimming patrols around it, waiting, waiting for something he hadn’t understood at the time.
But what an idiot he would have been, if he’d left.
What good, good thing might not have happened, if he hadn’t found Hannibal, near death, weak, at the bottom of his old fishing grounds.
The merman had wanted to be angry at the man, he really had. But he couldn’t summon it. Nothing but relief at the sight. Relief, and joy, seeing what had happened.
What Hannibal must have done, at least, in part, for him.
The change had taken its toll, though. Hannibal had struggled the first few days, floating in and out of consciousness, fevers, chills, cries. As Face nursed him back to full health, though, he’d started to noticed the differences. How those features smoothed, not younger but less tired, the subtle stretch in his huge, wonderful hands, that tail, that beautiful ocean-blue-gray tail, as long, as wonderful as his in dreams. Better, because it was all real, all his...
It hadn’t taken long, for his mate to pick it all up. Not long to learn his new body, how to eat, how to speak, how to move, how to hunt. And when he’d felt strong enough, he’d reminded the younger merman of his promise, back at the beginning of it all.
North, south, anywhere you want to go, love. Remember what I said? I’ll take you...
So they’d started south, skirting the coast, traveling along the continental shelf, some days spent talking about everything, their pasts, their futures, the world now they shared together, some days pased in utter silence. They stopped a few times, detours, rest, a week once to recover from some minor injuries Face has sustained in an encounter with a shark. Hannibal had killed it himself. It had been clean, spare, elegant, like his mate had been doing it all his life.
It was then, Face knew, that Hannibal truly accepted his new state. They’d never spoken of it in such terms, but he’d known it, because that was the first time his mate had asked to join together, to make love, as he called it, fully, completely. That night marked the first time for them since that night in Hannibal’s little human house. The first time for them both, like they really were. And since then there had been long nights of exploring, of learning, finding each other...
“What are you thinking about, sweetheart?” Hannibal rumbled, blowing a smoke ring and turning to him, squeezing his hand. “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”
“How great this all is, the south seas,” he equivocated, staring out over the ocean they’d be back in, shortly. “I’d only ever dreamed about coming here...”
“Everything you wanted, kid?”
“More,” he said, and smiled at his mate. Hannibal had be handsome before, but the change had made him more; more beautiful, stronger, all those human cares gone, power practically radiating out of him. Like he was finally comfortable in his own skin, like he finally knew who he was. At ease. Utterly at ease. “It’s good.”
“How you feeling about this place, kid? Fit the bill?”
They’d been traveling, island to island, sandy atolls, everything in between. Trying to find a good place to settle down for a little while, secluded caves and lots of fish, the fewest humans possible, no hostile merfolk around. A good place, a safe place, somewhere right for a family, for the little ones who couldn’t swim...not that he’d told Hannibal about that bit.
Yet.
But today...after today...maybe they could talk about how that worked...how they could...
“It’s nice. There are some nice areas offshore, those little islands just out that way,” Face said, trying to be objective, and smiled at a passing tourist girl who was smiling at them. “Doesn’t seem to be so crowded here...”
“This is the only town on the island. And there’s only this one resort,” his mate said, tapping the ash off his cigar. He frowned at the girl. “And it’s a very, very exclusive resort.”
“Is that good?”
“It means there won’t be a whole of of humans coming through here, regardless. Small groups of divers, maybe...”
“I’ll handle that,” Face grinned. “Just point me in the direction of who I can seduce. They won’t want to go anywhere near the place if I ask them just right...”
Hannibal smiled, and stood, offering the younger merman a hand up and then pulling him close, running fingertips down his bare back, the hollow of his spine. “You could seduce a thirty-year nun, kid,” he murmured.
Face kissed an exposed patch of his lover’s neck. “Is that a feat for a human?”
His mate laughed, that deep, rich sound and settled his arm around his waist, leading him away, back down the street to the private little cove they’d come up through that morning. “Sweetheart, that is something I doubt you would want to do.”
“Don’t want anybody but you,” he whispered back, running his hand down Hannibal’s hip, right at that spot that got the older merman to melt, every time, wishing the scales were back, wanting to be home. Immediately. “Never anybody but you.”
Hannibal stopped to kiss him, right on the street, and Face squirmed a bit as they broke apart, continued walking. “People are staring, boss.”
“Let ‘em,” his mate laughed again, and what a difference that was, from the human he’d met last year, so uncertain, so broken, so worried about those small-minded townfolk of his. “You’re mine, Face. No need to hide that from anybody.”
He felt his cock twitch, and laid his ear on Hannibal’s shoulder. “Take me home, Hannibal. Need to feel you...”
“Always, my beautiful mate...” the answer rumbled, and Face pressed closer, shivering a little.
They didn’t hurry their way back to the beach, to the private beach at the empty vacation home they’d used this morning, even though time was starting to run out. Hannibal could only sustain the human form for a few hours, a day at most, and the strain was already starting to show. The way his eyes pulled up, the way his hip started giving him trouble. And, seeing that, Face hurried them along.
Hannibal still slid up behind him as they made their way down to the master bedroom, a breezy, airy place, white, too human for his taste. But those arms around him were just right, and the nip at his ear was like it always was, and that bare chest against his was unmistakable. “Let me,” he murmured, and unbuttoned the top of those board shorts, sliding the material slowly, slowly down. His mate had a bit of a thing for undressing him, the times they did this...
The first time they’d come to shore, up in Bermuda, after Hannibal’s change, Face had been terrified that his mate would want it all back. Want to be on dry land. But by evening, the burning had started, that terrible burning from before, and it was all Face could do to scam them a hotel room for the night, get him into the tub, wait with him, hold him, until he said he was okay to travel. To make it the mile or so down to the water again. Since then, they’d been careful. Very, very careful. Not that Face was all that fond of the human form to begin with, especially since he didn’t need it to see Hannibal any more...
“This is the only good thing about this body,” he growled low in his throat, taking the younger merman’s cock in hand, pulling once, firmly. “Easy access.”
Face let his head fall back, eyes closed. “Hannibal, please, not here...”
His mate pulled back, luminous blue eyes wide. “I’d never ask you for that, kid. Not like this. Want you home, want you wet...”
He groaned. “Right now, need you, need you, please, boss...”
“Race me.”
Hannibal was faster on land, almost faster than him in the sea, and Face was still a few yards off, out of the house, down the beach, when Hannibal was already out in the surf, waving for him. He put on a fresh burst of speed, right to the edge of the little pier, jumping off, and a wave of relief rushed through him.
Back where they belonged.
Hannibal caught him up, spun him around, pulling them down, diving to the bottom to press him down into the soft, fine sand, already gone dark in the fading day. Face grinned as his mate slid a hand down his tail, fingers searching out that little crease, the pressure already building deep down and...
“Why’s this so important to you, sweetheart?” he asked, voice low, playing right over that spot, a horrible tease. “Tell me. Feels like we should keep going...”
“We should, and... and we will,” Face replied in the same soft tones, trying not to buck up in his mate’s hand. The more he wanted it, the harder he had to work for it, and normally he loved the game, but today, a whole day on dry land, those human women staring at his mate like they were good enough for him, like they could possibly ever amount to a tenth of what his man deserved... “After he’s big enough.”
“After who’s big enough, Face?”
He smiled, pressing a hand to his mate’s cheek, seeing again in his mind’s eye a steely-eyed little boy with his father’s smile, his father’s strength, his own deep green lines, sandy blonde hair... “Him,” he said softly. “Our son. Our firstborn.”
The reaction wasn’t what he was expecting.
Hannibal jerked back and away, as if hooked, and ran a shaking hand back down through his silvery hair. “Son?”
“Well, yeah. That’s what the mating’s for, children...”
“But you’re...we’re not...” and Face had to flit up from the sand, up after his mate, who was backing up at an alarming rate. “Kid, that’s impossible, there isn’t...you’re not a woman, how...”
“Wait, can’t humans...”
“No!”
Face laughed at that, the blush spreading over the other merman’s cheeks, that it could be something so stupid, something he’d overlooked, and surged around him, tails wrapped together, his hands soft on his mate’s strong chest. “I've got the egg,” and he rubbed his own belly, showing him where, “I've been waiting...”
“But men...”
He slid his hands up, up around his mate’s shoulders, up around his neck, locking them tightly together, and kissed the older merman lightly on the lips. “It’s slower, harder, less frequent for us, but I’m your mate, remember? I can do this for you. We can meet him. He just needs his da to wake him up to life...”
He heard Hannibal sigh, a breathy little sound, even underwater, and those hands, those hands he loved run up his sides. “You aren’t shitting me, kid?”
“No,” he replied, smiling at one of those little phrases his mate just couldn’t seem to let go of. “No, it’s true...”
Hannibal groaned once, and Face thought for a second that he’d made a horrible mistake, that he’d pushed too hard, pushed on some taboo his mate had from those long-past human days, something he wouldn’t accept, wouldn’t want, wouldn’t want him, would leave, would...
“Shh, my sweet boy, calm down,” his mate said then, grabbing him close, pulling their foreheads together. “There isn’t a force in this world that would take me away from you.” And he laid one of those big hands over the younger merman’s, where it was resting, just above where soft skin ran into hard scales. “From both of you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, sweetheart.” Another kiss. “So tell me, what do we have to do?”
Relief washed through the younger merman. “Nothing too different. Same thing we do every night,” he murmured, trying to tease, knowing he just sounded needy instead. “Nothing more complicated than that. I’ll need to concentrate, though, make sure it all...”
“Hmm,” Hannibal said, kissing him again, tongues tangling against the faint tang of the brine around them. There was a feeling of movement, and Face leaned into it, his mate taking them further out in the little, sheltered bay. Out where it widened, deepened. Out into the free space, open, bright under the filtering moonlight, one of his favorite places, their favorite places, to make love. And wasn’t that appropriate, he thought to himself. That’s what a baby should have from the first flutter of his gills to the day when he’d swim away to his own life... “Not sure you’re going to be able to do that. I do aim to distract you...”
“Bring it, old man,” he murmured softly.
His mate laughed. “Brat.”
Face, grinning wide at that, shot away through the evening waters. And Hannibal, still laughing, tore off after him.
“You’ll never catch me, mate!” he yelled back through the water.
“Speed’s not the only thing that counts, kid!”
“You’re only saying that cause you’re slow, boss!”
It was one of Hannibal’s favorite games, Face knew as he streamed through the warm sea, that chase. Because after it came the capture, the surrender, the claiming, always so much more intense, like the race got his blood going, got it going to all the right places. And they could drag it out for long hours, half the night if they felt like it, fleeing, hiding, finding...
But tonight was supposed to be special, the younger merman reminded himself. Tonight was the first night they were going to try for their son.
Tricky, his mother had told him once, when he’d asked where he’d come from, tricky making the egg come. Then you must carry it safely until you can give it life and it hatches and grows a little inside, and then the baby comes.
All that, mama?
All that, my little merman. I did all that for you, because I love you. And you’ll do it someday, or your mate will do it, and you’ll have babies of your own...
This was something he’d waited so, so long for, prayed for, longed for, since he’d first mated with Hannibal, all those long months ago. And then, when the dreams of a child, a son, had come, when he’d started having the belly pains, the little twinges of those subtle shifts that had to happen for him to produce, to carry, the hope had flared up anew.
A family, a real family, his mate, their children...children...
And just then, Hannibal surged up from below and caught him ‘round the waist, letting all the confused momentum throw them into a spin. The younger merman dashed himself loose, flipping away, weightless in three dimensions, soaring, diving, but Hannibal was able to cut off every escape, turn him every which way, driving him up, driving him down, driving them together, expert and quick, and finally, the older merman was finally able to grab on. Get both hands on him and win the game.
Face could hear himself laughing, tugging at those beautiful, huge hands, closing down around his waist.
“Let me go, you rogue!” he said, fighting half-heartedly, but somehow turning around against his mate, fighting until they were face to face. Face to face, the way it ought to be, and he pitied Murdock and BA, if they didn’t get to have it this way. “You won’t have me!”
“Oh? I think I have you...” his mate’s voice rumbled, surrounding him, vibrating the water around them, and teeth, just slightly sharp, nipped at his shoulder. “I think I have you at my mercy.”
“Never!” he laughed, a little breathless, gills flaring their widest, seeking more diffused oxygen, cooling his heated blood. “I’ll never surrender.”
“You have no choice, sweetheart. You lost...”
He affected a mock pout. “I always lose. Why is that?”
“One step ahead isn’t good enough, Face,” Hannibal replied, tipping his chin back. Their movement had almost stilled completely, hanging there in the silence of the coming night, of their new home waters. “You have to be three steps ahead, anticipate...and you, sweetheart, are so easy to anticipate...”
“I like to tihnk of myself as unpredictable...” he sighed, tail rolling forward, scales roughing a bit against his mate’s, earning him a low groan. “I like to think...”
“Not to me. Not when I know your heart like I do,” his mate murmured, one arm firm around his waist, sliding his hand back down to where it had been before, right over the little crease in the front of his tail, the cleft, the hollow where his cock lay, the space that kept him streamlined and sleek in the water. Hannibal pressed his palm against the hardening length within, even that light stimulation enough to send the younger merman’s need spiraling. “Not when I know what brings you to life.”
“His life,” he sighed, and pushed his forehead into Hannibal’s shoulder, bumping them forward a little, hands straying across the side of his mate’s tail. “Bring him to life, mate, bring him...”
“Shh,” and the older merman laid a finger on his lips, replacing them with his own mouth, kissing him again, just like Face loved, hard and slow. The intense pull of their lips against each other, sealing to lock out everything but each other. “We will, we will,” he murmured, the kiss falling apart.
Resuming. Just like before. More.
Everything.
The best part of going to shore, the very best, was how intense Hannibal was after they returned to the sea. How he touched, how he kissed, how he joined, made love, like it was the first time. How his hands roamed and his lips roamed and his eyes burned bright with love or ownership or pride, or some combination of the three. All of it reminding Face, reminding himself, that this was home, this was how they were supposed to be.
The younger merman felt himself already melting under his mate’s ministrations, holding on, floating into the sensation of it all, when the slide of hard flesh against the green shine of his scales made him gasp. When one of those big hands he loved so much laid right over his own cleft and gently worked the thin, delicate crease open wide enough.
It took skill, skill that Hannibal had worked hard for over the last year, to make it feel this good, and Face shuddered against his mate’s strong chest as his cock sprang free of its little prison, hot against the cool waters, trapped between their bodies, the slide of smooth gray and green intensely erotic, silken...
“Please,” he begged, all those little touches sending him higher. “Please, love, I...I want...”
Hannibal let his hand move in a little, find that tight rose of muscle, that spot a few fingers below the base of his cock, stroking across the surface, pressing against him, slipping in, causing him to whimper in pleasure.
“That what you want?” his mate asked softly, stroking his fingers across the younger merman’s jaw, up into him, arousal betrayed by the way his eyes had gone almost black, but no less bright. He closed his hand into Face’s thick, waving hair and scissored his fingers open inside of him, stretching him. “Is this what you want?”
“More,” he gasped, feeling his gills flare again. “More, please...”
“This?” Hannibal murmured, the vibrations of his voice so close Face could taste his words. He thrust just right into the space between them tight, private, theirs alone, the blunt head of his cock right where it needed to be. “This what you want, my love?”
“Yes, oh, yes, Hannibal...” Face moaned, clinging to his mate as they moved around each other, bodies remembering the right angles. It was tricky. Come together wrong and the water would pull them apart. Another thing they’d had a long time to practice... “There, there...”
“What my boy wants...”
And then Hannibal was pushing in.
Face loved this, the feeling of surrender, of giving himself to the man he loved, always loved it. He closed his eyes, letting himself feel everything. The long slide of that thick, beautiful length of hard flesh, right up in to him, the way their tails bumped softly together, Hannibal curving subtly, bending just so, just right, keeping them together, so close together, unable to tell where Hannibal ended and he began, if they were in the sea or in the sky...
But he couldn’t lose himself in the waves and the clouds tonight. No, tonight he had to focus, had to concentrate...had to chase it.
He dug his hands up in that silvery hair, starting to glow under the starlight from far above, the glistening ceiling of their world, and Hannibal clung to his waist, hands straying across his tail, his back, his cock, everywhere, as he began those soft undulations, the thrusts that took them deeper and deeper. Into each other. Into the night. Into the waters below.
Their fins wrapped, tangled, as Hannibal’s thrusts grew in force, willing the seed to come, throwing them every which way, the world tilting, everything sliding away from them, the pair of them suspended in light, bathing them, illuminating them, until every corner of his being was flooded in brightness...reaching everywhere, everywhere, filling him, that beautiful heat, that wonderful release...
Face cried out as he reached that point, more song than speech, he knew, and Hannibal had his head thrown back as he emptied himself into him, pulsing hot, so hot, that light, and something exploded inside him, came together, taking everything...
And a hand was back at his cock, weaker, still stroking, a tongue chasing the lines of his neck. “You didn’t come, sweetheart.”
Suddenly and thoroughly drained, Face moved Hannibal’s hand away from his softening cock, moved away, feeling that hateful emptiness as Hannibal slipped free. But he had to let himself slide back together, hold it all in, just in case. To let it work.
“I think that means it worked,” he murmured, exhausted. “I think so...”
“When would we know? How...how long?” Hannibal asked softly, kissing his head, stroking his hair, the pair of them drifting through the depths.
He sighed, his slumber coming for him now, and dimly reminded himself to give his once-human lover a rundown in the morning. “A few weeks for him to hatch, a few months to grow a little more in me...”
Hannibal chuckled, like he didn’t believe it. “Go to sleep, kid. You’re talking crazy...”
Stupid humans, Face thought without any real heat. It wasn’t Hannibal’s world any more, not his, no threat to them. No threats at all right now, just happy things, just good things. Only ever good things, from now and ever on...
And he knew his thoughts were wandering, swimming away from him, so he let himself be tucked in against a shoulder, strong from its year of swimming. Yawned. Content. Happy. Full. “I love you,” he whispered.
Those arms tightened, holding them together, as they had every night since they’d found this life together. “I love you, too, sweetheart...”
And when Face dreamed that night, he dreamed that there was a third body tucked between them, their little boy, tiny fist clenched around one of Hannibal’s fingers, eyes shut, listening to his da’s heart beat in the silence of the ocean.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: merman AU - and yes, here there be xeno
Summary: Epilogue 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*
One year after the events of Catch of the Day, the boys are making a life for themselves, in every way possible...
One Year Later
Face bumped the sweating tumbler on the wicker table between them, shifted a little in his bright green Hawaiian-print trunks, and looked out across the brilliant white beach, the big palm trees, the sun, warm over those turquoise waves.
It was starting to ride low on the horizon.
They’d need to go back to the water soon.
But not yet. Not for a little while.
He leaned back in his chair for now, safe, enjoying the feel of the tropic afternoon, sweet and warm, his mate right next to him. The older man looked calm, wrapped in a borrowed white silk shirt, pale khaki shorts, nursing his second beer, cigar in hand. Cubans, he’d said wistfully, stopping at the upscale little shop on the island’s main drag. Face had offered to con him more, if he wanted, but that single one was all he said he needed.
The younger merman sipped at his own cocktail, barely tasting it, thinking how far they’d come. Almost a year now. Since the boat, the tank, the escape, the rejection... he’d been furious, heartbroken, overcome with grief and anger, after Hannibal had refused to change, refused his birthright. He’d intended to come south then, leave all the pain of the northern waters behind, but he couldn’t. He’d found himself going back to that same spot, day after day, swimming patrols around it, waiting, waiting for something he hadn’t understood at the time.
But what an idiot he would have been, if he’d left.
What good, good thing might not have happened, if he hadn’t found Hannibal, near death, weak, at the bottom of his old fishing grounds.
The merman had wanted to be angry at the man, he really had. But he couldn’t summon it. Nothing but relief at the sight. Relief, and joy, seeing what had happened.
What Hannibal must have done, at least, in part, for him.
The change had taken its toll, though. Hannibal had struggled the first few days, floating in and out of consciousness, fevers, chills, cries. As Face nursed him back to full health, though, he’d started to noticed the differences. How those features smoothed, not younger but less tired, the subtle stretch in his huge, wonderful hands, that tail, that beautiful ocean-blue-gray tail, as long, as wonderful as his in dreams. Better, because it was all real, all his...
It hadn’t taken long, for his mate to pick it all up. Not long to learn his new body, how to eat, how to speak, how to move, how to hunt. And when he’d felt strong enough, he’d reminded the younger merman of his promise, back at the beginning of it all.
North, south, anywhere you want to go, love. Remember what I said? I’ll take you...
So they’d started south, skirting the coast, traveling along the continental shelf, some days spent talking about everything, their pasts, their futures, the world now they shared together, some days pased in utter silence. They stopped a few times, detours, rest, a week once to recover from some minor injuries Face has sustained in an encounter with a shark. Hannibal had killed it himself. It had been clean, spare, elegant, like his mate had been doing it all his life.
It was then, Face knew, that Hannibal truly accepted his new state. They’d never spoken of it in such terms, but he’d known it, because that was the first time his mate had asked to join together, to make love, as he called it, fully, completely. That night marked the first time for them since that night in Hannibal’s little human house. The first time for them both, like they really were. And since then there had been long nights of exploring, of learning, finding each other...
“What are you thinking about, sweetheart?” Hannibal rumbled, blowing a smoke ring and turning to him, squeezing his hand. “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”
“How great this all is, the south seas,” he equivocated, staring out over the ocean they’d be back in, shortly. “I’d only ever dreamed about coming here...”
“Everything you wanted, kid?”
“More,” he said, and smiled at his mate. Hannibal had be handsome before, but the change had made him more; more beautiful, stronger, all those human cares gone, power practically radiating out of him. Like he was finally comfortable in his own skin, like he finally knew who he was. At ease. Utterly at ease. “It’s good.”
“How you feeling about this place, kid? Fit the bill?”
They’d been traveling, island to island, sandy atolls, everything in between. Trying to find a good place to settle down for a little while, secluded caves and lots of fish, the fewest humans possible, no hostile merfolk around. A good place, a safe place, somewhere right for a family, for the little ones who couldn’t swim...not that he’d told Hannibal about that bit.
Yet.
But today...after today...maybe they could talk about how that worked...how they could...
“It’s nice. There are some nice areas offshore, those little islands just out that way,” Face said, trying to be objective, and smiled at a passing tourist girl who was smiling at them. “Doesn’t seem to be so crowded here...”
“This is the only town on the island. And there’s only this one resort,” his mate said, tapping the ash off his cigar. He frowned at the girl. “And it’s a very, very exclusive resort.”
“Is that good?”
“It means there won’t be a whole of of humans coming through here, regardless. Small groups of divers, maybe...”
“I’ll handle that,” Face grinned. “Just point me in the direction of who I can seduce. They won’t want to go anywhere near the place if I ask them just right...”
Hannibal smiled, and stood, offering the younger merman a hand up and then pulling him close, running fingertips down his bare back, the hollow of his spine. “You could seduce a thirty-year nun, kid,” he murmured.
Face kissed an exposed patch of his lover’s neck. “Is that a feat for a human?”
His mate laughed, that deep, rich sound and settled his arm around his waist, leading him away, back down the street to the private little cove they’d come up through that morning. “Sweetheart, that is something I doubt you would want to do.”
“Don’t want anybody but you,” he whispered back, running his hand down Hannibal’s hip, right at that spot that got the older merman to melt, every time, wishing the scales were back, wanting to be home. Immediately. “Never anybody but you.”
Hannibal stopped to kiss him, right on the street, and Face squirmed a bit as they broke apart, continued walking. “People are staring, boss.”
“Let ‘em,” his mate laughed again, and what a difference that was, from the human he’d met last year, so uncertain, so broken, so worried about those small-minded townfolk of his. “You’re mine, Face. No need to hide that from anybody.”
He felt his cock twitch, and laid his ear on Hannibal’s shoulder. “Take me home, Hannibal. Need to feel you...”
“Always, my beautiful mate...” the answer rumbled, and Face pressed closer, shivering a little.
They didn’t hurry their way back to the beach, to the private beach at the empty vacation home they’d used this morning, even though time was starting to run out. Hannibal could only sustain the human form for a few hours, a day at most, and the strain was already starting to show. The way his eyes pulled up, the way his hip started giving him trouble. And, seeing that, Face hurried them along.
Hannibal still slid up behind him as they made their way down to the master bedroom, a breezy, airy place, white, too human for his taste. But those arms around him were just right, and the nip at his ear was like it always was, and that bare chest against his was unmistakable. “Let me,” he murmured, and unbuttoned the top of those board shorts, sliding the material slowly, slowly down. His mate had a bit of a thing for undressing him, the times they did this...
The first time they’d come to shore, up in Bermuda, after Hannibal’s change, Face had been terrified that his mate would want it all back. Want to be on dry land. But by evening, the burning had started, that terrible burning from before, and it was all Face could do to scam them a hotel room for the night, get him into the tub, wait with him, hold him, until he said he was okay to travel. To make it the mile or so down to the water again. Since then, they’d been careful. Very, very careful. Not that Face was all that fond of the human form to begin with, especially since he didn’t need it to see Hannibal any more...
“This is the only good thing about this body,” he growled low in his throat, taking the younger merman’s cock in hand, pulling once, firmly. “Easy access.”
Face let his head fall back, eyes closed. “Hannibal, please, not here...”
His mate pulled back, luminous blue eyes wide. “I’d never ask you for that, kid. Not like this. Want you home, want you wet...”
He groaned. “Right now, need you, need you, please, boss...”
“Race me.”
Hannibal was faster on land, almost faster than him in the sea, and Face was still a few yards off, out of the house, down the beach, when Hannibal was already out in the surf, waving for him. He put on a fresh burst of speed, right to the edge of the little pier, jumping off, and a wave of relief rushed through him.
Back where they belonged.
Hannibal caught him up, spun him around, pulling them down, diving to the bottom to press him down into the soft, fine sand, already gone dark in the fading day. Face grinned as his mate slid a hand down his tail, fingers searching out that little crease, the pressure already building deep down and...
“Why’s this so important to you, sweetheart?” he asked, voice low, playing right over that spot, a horrible tease. “Tell me. Feels like we should keep going...”
“We should, and... and we will,” Face replied in the same soft tones, trying not to buck up in his mate’s hand. The more he wanted it, the harder he had to work for it, and normally he loved the game, but today, a whole day on dry land, those human women staring at his mate like they were good enough for him, like they could possibly ever amount to a tenth of what his man deserved... “After he’s big enough.”
“After who’s big enough, Face?”
He smiled, pressing a hand to his mate’s cheek, seeing again in his mind’s eye a steely-eyed little boy with his father’s smile, his father’s strength, his own deep green lines, sandy blonde hair... “Him,” he said softly. “Our son. Our firstborn.”
The reaction wasn’t what he was expecting.
Hannibal jerked back and away, as if hooked, and ran a shaking hand back down through his silvery hair. “Son?”
“Well, yeah. That’s what the mating’s for, children...”
“But you’re...we’re not...” and Face had to flit up from the sand, up after his mate, who was backing up at an alarming rate. “Kid, that’s impossible, there isn’t...you’re not a woman, how...”
“Wait, can’t humans...”
“No!”
Face laughed at that, the blush spreading over the other merman’s cheeks, that it could be something so stupid, something he’d overlooked, and surged around him, tails wrapped together, his hands soft on his mate’s strong chest. “I've got the egg,” and he rubbed his own belly, showing him where, “I've been waiting...”
“But men...”
He slid his hands up, up around his mate’s shoulders, up around his neck, locking them tightly together, and kissed the older merman lightly on the lips. “It’s slower, harder, less frequent for us, but I’m your mate, remember? I can do this for you. We can meet him. He just needs his da to wake him up to life...”
He heard Hannibal sigh, a breathy little sound, even underwater, and those hands, those hands he loved run up his sides. “You aren’t shitting me, kid?”
“No,” he replied, smiling at one of those little phrases his mate just couldn’t seem to let go of. “No, it’s true...”
Hannibal groaned once, and Face thought for a second that he’d made a horrible mistake, that he’d pushed too hard, pushed on some taboo his mate had from those long-past human days, something he wouldn’t accept, wouldn’t want, wouldn’t want him, would leave, would...
“Shh, my sweet boy, calm down,” his mate said then, grabbing him close, pulling their foreheads together. “There isn’t a force in this world that would take me away from you.” And he laid one of those big hands over the younger merman’s, where it was resting, just above where soft skin ran into hard scales. “From both of you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, sweetheart.” Another kiss. “So tell me, what do we have to do?”
Relief washed through the younger merman. “Nothing too different. Same thing we do every night,” he murmured, trying to tease, knowing he just sounded needy instead. “Nothing more complicated than that. I’ll need to concentrate, though, make sure it all...”
“Hmm,” Hannibal said, kissing him again, tongues tangling against the faint tang of the brine around them. There was a feeling of movement, and Face leaned into it, his mate taking them further out in the little, sheltered bay. Out where it widened, deepened. Out into the free space, open, bright under the filtering moonlight, one of his favorite places, their favorite places, to make love. And wasn’t that appropriate, he thought to himself. That’s what a baby should have from the first flutter of his gills to the day when he’d swim away to his own life... “Not sure you’re going to be able to do that. I do aim to distract you...”
“Bring it, old man,” he murmured softly.
His mate laughed. “Brat.”
Face, grinning wide at that, shot away through the evening waters. And Hannibal, still laughing, tore off after him.
“You’ll never catch me, mate!” he yelled back through the water.
“Speed’s not the only thing that counts, kid!”
“You’re only saying that cause you’re slow, boss!”
It was one of Hannibal’s favorite games, Face knew as he streamed through the warm sea, that chase. Because after it came the capture, the surrender, the claiming, always so much more intense, like the race got his blood going, got it going to all the right places. And they could drag it out for long hours, half the night if they felt like it, fleeing, hiding, finding...
But tonight was supposed to be special, the younger merman reminded himself. Tonight was the first night they were going to try for their son.
Tricky, his mother had told him once, when he’d asked where he’d come from, tricky making the egg come. Then you must carry it safely until you can give it life and it hatches and grows a little inside, and then the baby comes.
All that, mama?
All that, my little merman. I did all that for you, because I love you. And you’ll do it someday, or your mate will do it, and you’ll have babies of your own...
This was something he’d waited so, so long for, prayed for, longed for, since he’d first mated with Hannibal, all those long months ago. And then, when the dreams of a child, a son, had come, when he’d started having the belly pains, the little twinges of those subtle shifts that had to happen for him to produce, to carry, the hope had flared up anew.
A family, a real family, his mate, their children...children...
And just then, Hannibal surged up from below and caught him ‘round the waist, letting all the confused momentum throw them into a spin. The younger merman dashed himself loose, flipping away, weightless in three dimensions, soaring, diving, but Hannibal was able to cut off every escape, turn him every which way, driving him up, driving him down, driving them together, expert and quick, and finally, the older merman was finally able to grab on. Get both hands on him and win the game.
Face could hear himself laughing, tugging at those beautiful, huge hands, closing down around his waist.
“Let me go, you rogue!” he said, fighting half-heartedly, but somehow turning around against his mate, fighting until they were face to face. Face to face, the way it ought to be, and he pitied Murdock and BA, if they didn’t get to have it this way. “You won’t have me!”
“Oh? I think I have you...” his mate’s voice rumbled, surrounding him, vibrating the water around them, and teeth, just slightly sharp, nipped at his shoulder. “I think I have you at my mercy.”
“Never!” he laughed, a little breathless, gills flaring their widest, seeking more diffused oxygen, cooling his heated blood. “I’ll never surrender.”
“You have no choice, sweetheart. You lost...”
He affected a mock pout. “I always lose. Why is that?”
“One step ahead isn’t good enough, Face,” Hannibal replied, tipping his chin back. Their movement had almost stilled completely, hanging there in the silence of the coming night, of their new home waters. “You have to be three steps ahead, anticipate...and you, sweetheart, are so easy to anticipate...”
“I like to tihnk of myself as unpredictable...” he sighed, tail rolling forward, scales roughing a bit against his mate’s, earning him a low groan. “I like to think...”
“Not to me. Not when I know your heart like I do,” his mate murmured, one arm firm around his waist, sliding his hand back down to where it had been before, right over the little crease in the front of his tail, the cleft, the hollow where his cock lay, the space that kept him streamlined and sleek in the water. Hannibal pressed his palm against the hardening length within, even that light stimulation enough to send the younger merman’s need spiraling. “Not when I know what brings you to life.”
“His life,” he sighed, and pushed his forehead into Hannibal’s shoulder, bumping them forward a little, hands straying across the side of his mate’s tail. “Bring him to life, mate, bring him...”
“Shh,” and the older merman laid a finger on his lips, replacing them with his own mouth, kissing him again, just like Face loved, hard and slow. The intense pull of their lips against each other, sealing to lock out everything but each other. “We will, we will,” he murmured, the kiss falling apart.
Resuming. Just like before. More.
Everything.
The best part of going to shore, the very best, was how intense Hannibal was after they returned to the sea. How he touched, how he kissed, how he joined, made love, like it was the first time. How his hands roamed and his lips roamed and his eyes burned bright with love or ownership or pride, or some combination of the three. All of it reminding Face, reminding himself, that this was home, this was how they were supposed to be.
The younger merman felt himself already melting under his mate’s ministrations, holding on, floating into the sensation of it all, when the slide of hard flesh against the green shine of his scales made him gasp. When one of those big hands he loved so much laid right over his own cleft and gently worked the thin, delicate crease open wide enough.
It took skill, skill that Hannibal had worked hard for over the last year, to make it feel this good, and Face shuddered against his mate’s strong chest as his cock sprang free of its little prison, hot against the cool waters, trapped between their bodies, the slide of smooth gray and green intensely erotic, silken...
“Please,” he begged, all those little touches sending him higher. “Please, love, I...I want...”
Hannibal let his hand move in a little, find that tight rose of muscle, that spot a few fingers below the base of his cock, stroking across the surface, pressing against him, slipping in, causing him to whimper in pleasure.
“That what you want?” his mate asked softly, stroking his fingers across the younger merman’s jaw, up into him, arousal betrayed by the way his eyes had gone almost black, but no less bright. He closed his hand into Face’s thick, waving hair and scissored his fingers open inside of him, stretching him. “Is this what you want?”
“More,” he gasped, feeling his gills flare again. “More, please...”
“This?” Hannibal murmured, the vibrations of his voice so close Face could taste his words. He thrust just right into the space between them tight, private, theirs alone, the blunt head of his cock right where it needed to be. “This what you want, my love?”
“Yes, oh, yes, Hannibal...” Face moaned, clinging to his mate as they moved around each other, bodies remembering the right angles. It was tricky. Come together wrong and the water would pull them apart. Another thing they’d had a long time to practice... “There, there...”
“What my boy wants...”
And then Hannibal was pushing in.
Face loved this, the feeling of surrender, of giving himself to the man he loved, always loved it. He closed his eyes, letting himself feel everything. The long slide of that thick, beautiful length of hard flesh, right up in to him, the way their tails bumped softly together, Hannibal curving subtly, bending just so, just right, keeping them together, so close together, unable to tell where Hannibal ended and he began, if they were in the sea or in the sky...
But he couldn’t lose himself in the waves and the clouds tonight. No, tonight he had to focus, had to concentrate...had to chase it.
He dug his hands up in that silvery hair, starting to glow under the starlight from far above, the glistening ceiling of their world, and Hannibal clung to his waist, hands straying across his tail, his back, his cock, everywhere, as he began those soft undulations, the thrusts that took them deeper and deeper. Into each other. Into the night. Into the waters below.
Their fins wrapped, tangled, as Hannibal’s thrusts grew in force, willing the seed to come, throwing them every which way, the world tilting, everything sliding away from them, the pair of them suspended in light, bathing them, illuminating them, until every corner of his being was flooded in brightness...reaching everywhere, everywhere, filling him, that beautiful heat, that wonderful release...
Face cried out as he reached that point, more song than speech, he knew, and Hannibal had his head thrown back as he emptied himself into him, pulsing hot, so hot, that light, and something exploded inside him, came together, taking everything...
And a hand was back at his cock, weaker, still stroking, a tongue chasing the lines of his neck. “You didn’t come, sweetheart.”
Suddenly and thoroughly drained, Face moved Hannibal’s hand away from his softening cock, moved away, feeling that hateful emptiness as Hannibal slipped free. But he had to let himself slide back together, hold it all in, just in case. To let it work.
“I think that means it worked,” he murmured, exhausted. “I think so...”
“When would we know? How...how long?” Hannibal asked softly, kissing his head, stroking his hair, the pair of them drifting through the depths.
He sighed, his slumber coming for him now, and dimly reminded himself to give his once-human lover a rundown in the morning. “A few weeks for him to hatch, a few months to grow a little more in me...”
Hannibal chuckled, like he didn’t believe it. “Go to sleep, kid. You’re talking crazy...”
Stupid humans, Face thought without any real heat. It wasn’t Hannibal’s world any more, not his, no threat to them. No threats at all right now, just happy things, just good things. Only ever good things, from now and ever on...
And he knew his thoughts were wandering, swimming away from him, so he let himself be tucked in against a shoulder, strong from its year of swimming. Yawned. Content. Happy. Full. “I love you,” he whispered.
Those arms tightened, holding them together, as they had every night since they’d found this life together. “I love you, too, sweetheart...”
And when Face dreamed that night, he dreamed that there was a third body tucked between them, their little boy, tiny fist clenched around one of Hannibal’s fingers, eyes shut, listening to his da’s heart beat in the silence of the ocean.
