Harper Geraldus x Harper Bor (Boraldus) having a mermaid moment.
Snippet below (carries on under the cut)
Bor can hear Arthus shouting behind him, almost drowned out by the sound of his own thumping footsteps. The deck lurches as Bor runs - and for a moment he’s not stepping but flying - as the ship beneath them rocks.
The storm is getting worse. The sudden swirl of dark clouds above robbing the light.
His boots reconnect with the deck a moment later, and he keeps running.
“Bor don’t be a reckless fool - Bor -”
But his brother’s voice doesn’t stop him; and he sees Arthus’ face for only a moment, his look of anger and horror as Bor grins at him and throws himself over the gunwale into the roiling sea.
He battles the waves to swim to them, the stranded figure struggling in the currents, keeping his grip on the axe in his hand no matter how much harder it makes every stroke. The shadowy form is circling in the water, drawing closer - the threat of the storm no match for their hunger with prey in sight.
“Just hold on,” he calls, swimming past the figure - focused on driving away the threat.
He strikes at them, swinging the blade in the maw of a hissing, slithering thing half made of teeth. They keep coming, and he keeps striking; jaws clamp down upon the blade of his axe, and between the creature and the choppy waves the axe is pulled from his grip.
A poor weapon for a battle in turbulent water - as the creature snaps and jolts forward - Bor draws on his other, pulling on the fire in his blood, the frustration and fever of it - he won’t fail in this rescue.
He roars in its face, and clocks it right in the jaw with a sharp fist.
As it retreats, he tries to speak - turning in the water as best he can.
“Come on,” he manages, the words a struggle with heaving lungs and waves battering his sides, “we’ll get you back to the sh-”
Bor sees dark hair, big eyes - wide with alarm - and as his eyes catch their bare arms - their exposed collar - something brushing against his legs as he paddles in place - he realises this was no castaway thrown starboard.
No - this is a -
He barely has time to register the shimmering tail and the realisation of who - or what - he has saved when an errant wave overtakes him, and he’s pulled under the surface.
Like the hand of a colossus reaching up from the ocean floor to snatch him; the grip of the current around his body drags him down into the darkness.
The light of the surface is pulling away in his stinging sight, and in his mind is a distant thought; if I survive this, Arthus is going to kill me.
Not the most momentous final thought, but it is what he thinks as his lungs start to burst, the air choked out of them. The darkness swirls as he sinks.
Suddenly, air. Pushed with force into his starved lungs. Lips on his own, breathing into him with a kiss.
Bor feels hands on his shoulders; for a moment the air rushing out of his nose in a flurry of bubbles until he realises what is happening - the blurring visage of dark hair around him as lips linger on his own a moment longer.
Those hands grip him, his saviour moving around him effortlessly, gliding through the currents and locking around his waist, and Bor knows he needs to hold this breath as long as he can as he feels himself pulled through the depths.
–
He chokes out the water in his lungs, taking in heaving, painful breaths as his mind catches up; he’s on dry land - sort of - he blinks away the burning salt water and realises he is in a pocket of air, the stony surface below him a cavern, not sand.
Looking down at him, a pair of big eyes, a mop of sodden dark hair that is dripping on his face; and as he sits up he feels fingers retract from his chest.
Bor takes him in at last.
Snatched from death into the arms of one as beautiful as this; Bor thinks, and recognises the delirium in the words, but he is beautiful. Sweet, soft features - parted lips like a bow - and trailing back into the water - a tail of silver blue scales, tinged with gold.
He is tense, arms wired, eyes darting across Bor’s face with trepidation.
“Don’t be scared,” Bor says, and the words come out roughly - his throat is still raw, “I won’t hurt you.”
But he looks confused.
No - he’s not afraid - he’s wary - prepared to be attacked.
“Y-you’re not…” he mumbles, his voice small and soft, unsure, “you’re not afraid of me?”
The stuff of Harper superstitions and hushed warnings, and not a bit the vicious creatures we were warned about, Arthus will never believe this.
Bor smiles. How could he possibly fear him, with lungs still filled with the air from his own?
“Well,” he says, “I hadn’t expected to find out merfolk exist today, but I hadn’t expected a lot of things today. Why would I be afraid of you?”
“You saved my life,” he says, and holds out a hand.
The man looks at it, perplexed expression growing - brows drawn into a knotted frown.
Perhaps they don’t shake hands, Bor considers.
“I’m Bor,” he says, instead, resting his hand over his chest - feeling how his heartbeat is hammering under his fingertips.
His saviour understands, placing his fingers over his own chest in turn.
“Geraldus,” he says.
He gestures to him, repeating with a small, growing smile; a glimmer of excitement in his eyes, “Bor.”
Bor’s voice was soft, low in the quiet of the little room.
Geraldus nodded. Wrapped up here in his arms, his naked skin at his back - he wanted to. He wanted to trust him so badly; wanted to trust anything as much as he had, once.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
Geraldus swallowed.
He closed his eyes. He focused on the warmth at his back, the gentle tickling of Bor’s breath as he pressed his nose against the shell of his ear. He felt Bor smiling against his neck.
He kept breathing. The trick was always to keep breathing; even as his pulse started to hurry, he listened instead to the steady thud of the heartbeat against his back. Of Bor’s heart; of the intimacy he offered without expectation or compromise.
Geraldus felt his fingertips grazing slowly, studiously down his side - lingering as they trailed down his arm, across his ribs, a shiver sparking across the delicate skin that followed their path.
Those gently calloused fingertips holding upon the line of his hip. Drawing for a moment across the little inked birds that adorned the skin.
Then, slow and careful, he felt Bor’s finger tracing - a simple circle, a small flick upon each apex, and then a line, drawn through its middle.
Safe house.
Bor’s fingers drew again. A simple circle, with a small flick upon each apex, and a line, drawn through the middle.
Safe house.
Again. More shivers rippled through him as Bor drew again and again and again.
Safe house. Safe. Safe. Safe.
Geraldus drew Bor’s hand between his own - letting his fingers draw across his palm in turn.
A Harper Pin/Tattoo design inspired by Harper Geraldus and Harper Bor.
I realised their weapons combined created a bit of a Harper Pin - and wanted to try and weave in some references to Harper symbology - the linework used in their code symbols as well as a few elements from them, too.
Thank you for the tag dearest @ankhegs-in-my-salad!
No pressure tags for @laserlope @beesht and OF COURSE @lemonsrosesandlavender
Two lil snippets from me, putting under a cut because there's some straight up Soup smut here.
From the next bit of A Harper Fell Here (Bor x Geraldus)
”I don’t know mate,” one, a man, said, “just found him here like that - I thought maybe he was….”
Dead, Geraldus thought, spotting the blood on the stone steps. His eyes trailed up them, seeing the doors of the temple closed; had the tiefling been brought here for sanctuary? Dragged here and dumped?
”Maybe he’s the murderer,” a woman said from behind them, “the one that got Father Lorgan.”
Bor’s eyes swivelled up to the woman, a look of deep exasperation on his face.
"He wasn’t even in the city when Father Lorgan was killed,” he said bluntly, trying to maintain an air of calm. He returned his attention to the tiefling, “Danis, can you hear me?”
Abdirak x Donnick - from The Never-ending Broth (smut smut smut)
“Please,” Donnick murmured again, even more desperate now.
Abdirak could torture himself far longer yet; allow the throbbing ache that consumed his every part to become unbearable - but his lover was giving in to temptation. Donnick could endure no more teasing, and in this moment, betrayed his faith for another.
How many times, Abdirak thought as he pressed a sating kiss to Donnick’s sweat-leaden brow, letting his fingers trace the soft trail of golden hair down his navel towards the stem of his cock, must we learn this lesson?
How many times must we show one another, he thought as he circled his grip around Donnick's length, that our truest devotion is found not upon our knees or in the aches of our weary hands, but here, in this bed?
