I was tagged in a super cute post by @number0nel0ser so I’m doing a request for them. I’ve been working on some much longer posts for MerMay and this is just a little taste of what’s coming!
Dick had always been fond of humans. They were so small and cute with their funny little legs. He didn’t mind being in a research facility. As a bottlenose dolphin mer, he enjoyed doing tricks and training procedures. He liked the fish and he especially liked you. He knew that you didn’t speak his language but he loved talking to you anyway. You were his trainer and he adored your sessions together. He would practice his jumps and flips in hopes of impressing you and getting you to spend more time with him. He liked it best when you’d do medical examinations on him.
He figured out that if he faked injuries, he would be able to get you to check him over more often. He realized that you couldn't avoid it without getting in trouble with your boss. He would act like he was in pain until you were close enough to pull into the water with him. He knew that you got upset over it but he didn’t mind how you yelled and squirmed. He would lay you down on his stomach like a calf as he floated on back.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I know, I know.” He coos as he pets the back of your head.
He knew that eventually, you would be too tired to fight and you would let him take care of you like the sweet calf he knows you are. He gently scratches your scalp with his claws as he continues cradling you. He had the chance to dote on you and have you nap on him again. You’ve been working so hard lately. You deserve the chance to relax.
synopsis: you and Dick get curious about each other
notes: NSFW MDNI, also unrealistic sex, like super unrealistic (like last time, if you’re fucking a monster, you deserve a little elasticity) and no gender mentioned but the reader has a cunt, so do with that what you will
tags: ambiguous relationship, p in v, mermaid sex, small moment of dubcon, oviposition, mer!Dick Grayson, wc: 2.5k words
@whistle1whistle (I know it’s been over two months, but just in case you were still interested <3)
I have nothing to say for myself just enjoy
“Do mers have sex?” Dick looked up from the beads he was threading. He was lying on the rocky shore, halfway pulled out of the water, fins and tails still submerged in the clear tide pool.
The sun shone behind you, warm against your back and shoulders, keeping the water a comfortable temperature. It was midday but the tide pool was roughly a dozen miles away from the public beach so it was deserted, not a soul around aside from the two of you.
“Umm, yes?”
“Huh,” you offered him more beads as you uncrossed your legs, dipping them into the water.
“You sound surprised.”
“I mean I guess I just expected you to reproduce like fish, you know?”
“Should I be offended?” Dick snorted as he handed you a particularly beautiful pearl—you accepted it gratefully.
“You said I looked like a horse when we first met.”
It had been a while since you’d first met—back when you’d first started surfing, one miscalculation had you drowning in a riptide.
To this day you knew that you wouldn’t be here without him.
It had been easy to keep your mouth shut about how you’d survived—mysteriously washed up in a cove just a couple of miles from the main beach, people chalked it up to luck.
Luck had a funny tail and pretty eyes.
“I still think you look like a horse.”
“Well I think you look like a dick.”
“Oh haha,” you ducked as his tail flicked up, spraying you with ocean water, “You’re so funny. You could even say you’re horsing around.”
You froze.
Glared at him.
You kicked water in his direction, but he just laughed, showing off sharp pearly white teeth.
“I actually hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
Dick slid over to you, abandoning the waistbeads he was threading, resting his arms on your lap instead. His hands were so careful as they held onto your thighs, carefully not to let sharp claws sink into soft malleable skin.
You shivered at the feeling of wet skin pressed against your own.
“You know,” he said softly, “I could show you.”
“Show me?” you echoed as you ran your hand through his hair—it looked unfairly luscious and dark for somebody who spent most of his time in salt water.
“How mers have sex.”
“It’s not like sharks is it?” you teased, but the curiosity was still there—mers weren’t mammalian creatures but they weren’t fish either.
They were an odd in-between that had never been studied.
And you never wanted to study them—but that didn’t mean it didn’t leave you wondering.
“Nothing like that,” he laughed as he moved his hands to push himself out of the pool, his face hovering just inches away from yours—water cascaded down his form, leaving his tan skin glistening softly in the sun. “It can’t be that different from humans, right?”
“Well I couldn’t tell you,” you said softly as you cupped his face, brushing your thumb along his bottom lip, watching as they parted softly for you. “I’ve never had sex with a mer.”
“Never had sex with a human either,” he breathed against your thumb. You hummed, pulling your thumb away just enough to see the entirety of his pretty face again.
You gently guided him away from you, just enough so you’d have the space to pull your shirt or shorts off and part your thighs for him.
You heard him inhale softly.
“Why is it so far back?” he asked after a moment and a surprised laugh slipped from your mouth.
“What do you mean?”
“Well it’s just-” You moaned softly as cold fingers brushed against your folds, pet them carefully, parted them to reveal your opening. “It’s like, right under you.”
“Yeah, it is,” you laughed again, softer this time—given a little more time to process his confusion, it became endearing. He sounded almost concerned. “Do you like it?”
“Can I taste it?” he asked as he looked up at you through dark wet lashes while he sank back down into the water, between your knees. “Would that feel good?”
“Yeah,” you swallowed as you parted your legs further, “You can taste. Just… watch the teeth?”
Dick chuckled softly as he grabbed your thighs, pushing them open a little further to lay his eyes on his food.
“I won’t bite,” he promised. He gently grazed his teeth along the inside of your thigh, making you shiver, but he held strong as you flinched.
Oh fuck.
You were well and truly at his mercy.
You leaned back on your hands as you watched him sit between your thighs. He tugged you a little closer to the edge before licking a long stripe up your slit.
“Mmh!” Your head dropped forward as he continued to softly lap at you, curious and searching.
His tongue was so mobile it made your toes curl. You were panting before you realised it, half-aborted motions to roll your hips against his tongue.
He devoured you as you grew wet, just as eager as he was exploratory. His tongue prodded your entrance, making you moan softly, muffling the rest of your sounds in your hand as he pushed it further.
Your eyes rolled back and you keened as you were stretched out slowly on his tongue, with nowhere to run but further onto his tongue.
“Dick,” you moaned, “So close, so-”
He pulled back, just enough to suck and lick at your clit. In retrospect you were glad your little corner of the beach was empty for the way you screamed, clutching Dick’s hair until you finally came all over his face, soaking him in your pleasure.
He pulled away from you, recognising your trembling for the overstimulation that it had become.
“You taste good,” he said before licking his lips and holy shit, that had been inside of you.
You don’t think you had ever really acknowledged how disproportionately long and thin it had been.
“Are you okay?” he asked, furrowing his brow as he reached up to cup your face. You recovered, shaking your head before leaning your cheek into his palm.
“Yes,” you smiled, “Fine. Great in fact, thank you.”
Dick huffed as he brushed his thumb along your cheekbone.
“Didn’t realise humans got so wet,” he teased as he looked down between your legs.
“Do mers not get wet?” the question sounded idiotic as soon as you said but thankfully Dick didn’t actually comment.
“Less so,” he hummed as he let his hand fall away before gently helping you a little further down closer to the water. “More like…”
He grabbed your hand, guiding it down to the soft underside of his tail. You could feel where the skin softened just the slightest bit, where there was a little give.
Trailing your fingers over the spot had Dick panting, pressing his head against your shoulder. You gasped when your finger accidentally slipped into his slit, warm and sticky as Dick squirmed.
You watched his body, watched the slow roll of his hips as he urged your fingers to explore just a little further.
“Does this hurt?” you asked softly, watching him shake his head as you dragged your fingers across the opening, that most definitely wasn’t there before.
“No,” he shook his head, shaking droplets from his wet hair. “Here, just-”
He guided your fingers, keeping your movements slow until you were kindly coaxing his cock out from his slit.
“Holy shit,” you breathed as you loosely fisted him, watching the way he shivered and moaned. It was so warm, so unlike his skin which was cold to the touch.
It didn’t look human in the slightest, in fact you’d be concerned if somebody’s cock pulled towards the same shade of blue as Dick’s did—it tapered towards the tip too, which fascinated you.
He caught your wrist, looking up at you with wide, teary eyes.
“Give me a second,” he pleaded, and you released him almost immediately, “Sorry, I’m just sensitive-”
“No, it’s okay,” you said, “You’re really pretty—it just surprised me. Sorry, I don’t know where I expected it to be.”
“Where else would it go?” Dick chuckled as he brushed his nose along your jaw, kissing tender skin softly.
“I dunno,” you mumbled, feeling a little warm from embarrassment and lust, “Humans just have it… like, out.”
“Always?” You nodded as you looked down, gaze flicking between him and his dick. “You can touch me now if you want.”
“Do all mers self-lubricate?” Your fingers brushed against his tip, gauging his reaction before properly wrapping your hand around him.
“Yeah,” he swallowed as he nodded, his breathing deepening slightly as you began to move again.
“Generous.”
Dick laughed and pulled you a little closer to the water, until your hips were level, “I’m more concerned about the fact that humans just always have their dicks out—what if somebody attacks them?”
“I-” you blinked at him in disbelief before falling into a fit of giggles.
“Or it gets caught on something?”
“We wear clothes!”
“Still sounds terrifying.”
“Rest assured, most people have intact dick and balls.”
“Human balls are external too?”
You lost your grip as you laughed into his shoulder, letting an absolutely distraught merman hold you.
“How are you not extinct?”
“Don’t worry about it,” you smiled, cupping his face with your clean hand, bringing the other to your lips—you licked it clean, slowly, savouring Dick’s arousal. “Just fuck me?”
His eyes followed your tongue as you licked yourself clean and a grin etched across his face.
“Yeah, baby, I can do that.”
The water was nice around your legs as you were slowly lowered closer to Dick.
He dragged his cock through your folds, making you instinctively buck your hips in return—he kissed your temple, wrapped his arms around your body.
“Ready?”
You nodded, burying your face in his neck as he finally pushed into your wet pussy.
You moaned softly, cunt gently spasming around his large cock, struggling to accept his morphology—it was thicker, longer, more intrusive than anything your poor fuckhole was meant to handle—it tickled against your cervix, making you moan and tremble, as his cock squirmed in you, determined to push his thin tip into your tight opening.
“Okay?”
“You’re so much bigger than you look,” you mumbled between breaths. You eventually pulled away a little to look up at him. “Okay, I’m good.”
The beginnings of movement were slow at first, like he was taking his time discovering your body too, petting your thighs, his eyes focused on your glistening pussy, fascinated.
“You’re so warm,” he mumbled softly as he undulated his hips, water softly sweeping across your body as he rocked into you, thrusting his cock in and out of you over and over again, stretching you out, carving a space out for himself. He brushed his fingers along the bump in your belly, fascinated every time he made it return, ignoring how you moaned and babbled for him.
“Are you all so soft?”
You looked up at him, slightly dazed and flustered.
“I’m-” you panted as you tried to find words, but he shifted his hips, just enough for you to reach heaven for moment, “Dick… fuck, you’re-”
Your eyes rolled back slightly as he increased his pace, the sound of wet skin on scales echoing as he bounced you on his cock, smearing fluids everywhere. You reached down to touch your own clit, moaning his name loudly, rocking back against him as his dick bullied itself deeper and deeper into you.
“You’re so gorgeous,” Dick mumbled as he gripped your waist, petting your sides, cold hands dimpling your skin—hesitantly, he replaced your fingers on your clit with his own, making you keen and whine like a bitch in heat.
“Yes, yes, yes,” you breathed as he rubbed your clit, his hips slamming into you faster and faster until you were squirting all over him, drenching his scales in your cum, making him gasp in elated surprise.
He didn’t stop fucking you as he reached his fingers up to taste them, long tongue slipping between sharp teeth to lick your slick off his skin before he was shoving his tongue down your throat instead, forcing your now limp, overworked body to accept his throbbing cock.
In the back of your mind, you wondered if it had been a mistake, underestimating how long he could actually fuck you for. Until you passed out? Your body twitched softly in his grasp, quickly working its way back to an orgasm, his cock squirming like it had a mind of its own, swelling and throbbing.
“Dick,” you mumbled as you panted, flustered and exhausted, staring up at him as he stared where your body connected.
“I’m here, love, right here.”
He slammed into your hips a couple more times before he buried himself as deep into your pussy as possible, the narrow tip of his cock nestled past your cervix, just in the opening of your womb—it was wildly uncomfortable but not yet painfully.
You simply breathed as you waited for Dick, to finish, pull away, call it a day and disappear back into the ocean, when you felt it—his cock swelled a little more before a viscous liquid pearled from his cock to be deposited into your bare womb, like thick syrup. You heard him grunt before his cock swelled again and the facts finally slotted into place.
Eggs.
He was laying clutches of eggs in your warm body, slowly stuffing your body with tiny mer eggs, no bigger than a pearl no doubt. The small bulge in your tummy grew, until it was firm and near painful, your body stuffed full of hundreds of little eggs—you ran your fingers across your skin, feeling the little bumps when you pressed down.
“Feel so full,” you mumbled as you dropped your head but Dick caught it before kissing your face kindly, your nose, cheeks, lids—he was so soft in his affection, you almost teared up. He treated you as if you had been his lifelong love, his cherished lover, like you were the moon and the stars and the entire night sky and he couldn’t love you any more. He cradled you against his cold body but by that point, you had stopped shivering, the sex still lingering, tingling and warm in your limbs.
“Shh, you did great. You were perfect.”
“Are they… are they gonna grow?” you mumbled as you tucked your face against his neck, staring down at your stuffed belly. You felt him shake his head, small droplets scattering across your shoulders.
“Can’t fertilise them,” he said, almost dejectedly, as if mad his own body couldn’t fulfil more than what it had grown to do. Part of you wondered what that truly meant, the other, bigger part of you simply too tired to care at that point, full and satiated and on the brink of sleep. “You can’t fall asleep here.”
Dick shook your shoulder gently, laughing as you grumbled and glared at him.
“At least get back on the rocks so you can dry off properly.”
You grumbled more but agreed, slipping off his cock and letting him help you out of the pool, sinking onto the sun-warm rocks.
“Wake me up when the sun starts to set.”
“Sure thing, love,” a cool hand brushed over your forehead, “Rest. I’m not going anywhere.”
(“So, it wasn’t that different, right?”
“The eggs were definitely a surprise.”
“Oops—probably should have figured.”)
I think mers are ovoviviparous, but one party lays eggs into a second party, and then a third fertilises them—why did I come up with such a complex system? Because I get to make the rules to my silly little fantasy world—anyway, that’s what’s happening here
Hope you enjoyed this nonsense, here’s Jason’s monsterfucker fic (werewolf) and more from me here (masterlist + wips list ❀˖°) — for requests please check this post ✧˖° thank you
tags; mer!au, slow burn, angst and fluff, mutual pining, purely self indulgent, i have cryptid batfam brainrot how can i not, was supposed to be one big long thing but got way longer than i originally thought so cut it into peices
When you were eight years old, you snuck out onto the docks. Young, curious and emboldened by warnings that felt more like fairy tales in your head full of flowers, the dark, murky waters of the harbor were not something to be feared.
You hid behind huge buckets full of water or fish to stay out of the adults’ sight. There were more people today than you’d ever seen come and go around here from the window of your apartment at the very edge of the city. They wore thick rubber overalls and connected boots that were smeared with a dark substance you assumed to be oil or the usual muck that clouded the water here.
A haggard-looking man shouted something from the oncoming boat, prompting most of the people here to rush towards him and providing a distraction for you to make it the rest of the way to the dock furthest from the city, right next to the giant pile of dirt and boulders dumped from ongoing construction around the area. Some of the planks were rotting and a bit unsteady, but all worries about safety were abandoned the moment you saw something move from the corner of your eye.
You kneel at the edge of the dock, peering down into the water below. It’s so black you can almost use it as a mirror, your own reflection peering back at you with the same curious expression. As you stare, your reflection slowly fades and morphs, turning into someone you don’t recognize. By the time you realize this isn’t your reflection at all, you’re flinching back from the water, a hand clutched to your cheek where tiny, sharp claws have caught you.
There are tears in your eyes as you start to cry, but barely a whimper leaves your lips before something grabs your ankles, pulling you into the water with a small splash. A clawed hand is clamped to your mouth, the other arm wrapped around your front, over your arms, restraining movement.
Scared rigid, you still in the creature’s grasp. You tremble both from fear and the cold quickly eating through your clothes and seeping into your bones, but after a moment, you realize you’re not the only one shaking.
You take a chance, turning your head slowly to the side. The hand covering your mouth curls its fingers, claws digging into your skin, but not enough to cut again. Looking over your shoulder at the adults on the docks is a boy.
He’s not human, you can tell that much. In the scarce light the moon offers, you can see a set of four softly colored slits on the side of his neck, and his eyes—the same shade of blue only the clearest waters have—reflect a little too much light. If he were human, you’d guess he were around your age, though he’s bigger than anyone in your grade judging by his hands.
“Don’t move,” he hisses, quite literally. His voice is filled with a kind of anger you didn’t know was possible in kids.
The claws of his other hand dig into your arm. You vaguely feel a sharp sting.
His eyes are fixed in a glare yet his expression is one you’ve seen before on a classmate who had lost both her grandparents in the same week. Lost, sad, scared, confused.
The adults haul something into a large truck and send it off by pounding twice on the locked door. There’s really no telling what it was, but you think you see two fish tails larger than any fish you’d ever seen in your life. You hear his breathing grow heavy, his chest heaving against your back.
His grip on you tightens.
The truck has driven out of sight when his head suddenly snaps towards you. The hand on your mouth drags down, leaving a cold, clammy trail in its wake, before settling on your throat. Now you realize that his hands are bigger than any of your classmates’, a fact that is all too apparent when it starts to squeeze.
Snapping out of your trance, you thrash wildly, legs kicking at nothing as you try desperately to break free. It’s a minute or two before you start to feel lightheaded, that along with the cold seems to drain the fight out of you rapidly.
He’s staring at you while you struggle.
This is how you are going to die.
More tears gather in your eyes and start to roll down your cheeks in rivulets, his gaze locked onto yours becoming blurry with the mix of water and oxygen deprivation.
Your crying seems to trigger something in him.
He lets go, freezing in place. The storm in his eyes are gone, replaced with something akin to regret. Hastily, he hoists you back up onto the rotten dock before disappearing under the water.
There’s a second of quiet before you get up and run home, going faster than you ever have, even with legs numb from the freezing ocean.
You don’t need to go far, though, as you see your parents around the midway point between the harbor and your apartment. Your mother scoops you into her arms, holding you tight as she sobs.
“Oh, my baby…” she chokes out, her hand running repeatedly up and down your back. Your father hugs the both of you with a couple muffled cries of his own.
Later, at home, dried, fed and warm, your parents ask you what had happened.
You’re not sure what compels you to lie. You tell them you tried to rescue a feral cat that had fallen into the harbor.
At around age fifteen, you’re not ashamed to admit you had made mermaids your entire personality for years after the incident, even if it had caused you to develop a severe case of thalassophobia. You have scars on your cheek and upper arm from the encounter—barely there, but still felt when you ran your fingers along them.
But now, you can confidently say that, that phase of your life is over. You no longer obsess over people who are half-fish. You don’t constantly peer out of your bedroom window at the harbor, hoping to catch a glimpse of something. Anything. You’re no longer afraid to step foot on the docks; not that you’d go anywhere near them now, mind you, but the thought of being on the wooden planks no longer makes you sick.
As if to prove just that, you’re on vacation at your grandparents’ beach house. It’s nothing fancy, more like a cottage than those billion dollar mansions that just so happen to be by the beach. It’s quaint and homey, built by your grandpa and filled with furniture handmade by your grandma.
Two weeks. You take a deep breath, feeling the sand beneath your feet. Two weeks you’d be staying here.
The clear blue of the ocean here is a lot less daunting than the harbor back home, the difference almost startling considering your hometown is only two or so small cities away.
You spend the first couple days wandering the expanse of the sandy beach or venturing into town a moderate bus ride away. There’s an antique shop you stopped by once, a silver ring the shape of a seal curled into a loop having caught your eye. The owner sold you a tale about a selkie and his bride, claiming they lived on an island not far from here only decades ago.
You find a cove on the third day. It’s on a rocky part of the beach where no one really goes for the simple fact that the rocks hurt like hell if you step on them wrong. That, plus the risk of slipping and bashing your head open was a major turn off for most people.
It’s well worth the risk, in your opinion. The place feels like something out of a fantasy novel. The water that washes inside the small cave casts pretty blue-ish lights on the stone even at night, and the calming sounds of the ocean bounce off the walls in such a way it sounds almost like a song.
You find out later that another reason why locals avoid the cove is because of the strange rumors floating around, ranging from ghosts to mermaids to monsters. You’re inclined to believe them, but at this point the place has become your favorite spot here. You keep going back.
One afternoon, after begging your grandma to take you to the night market in town and waking up early the next morning due to seagulls fighting right outside your window, you’re so tired that you fall asleep in the cove.
You wake up to a face hovering above yours.
Instinctively, you scream, shoving whoever is looming over you and scrambling away. Unfortunately, ‘away’ in this case means further into the cave, backing yourself into a corner.
The person who’d been watching you doesn’t say or do anything, staying a couple feet away from you as you so clearly want, but not willing to back further away.
When you look again closely to gauge the situation—and possibly your chance of survival—you finally notice it.
His tail.
A giant fish tail. Where his legs should be.
“Fuck,” you breathe out, unable to really formulate any other thoughts.
The mermaid—merman? merboy?—tilts his head in the same kind of way that dogs do when they’re confused. He crawls closer with his arms, the scene honestly like something straight from a horror movie with the way he moved, too fluid to be normal for humans.
Your gut tells you to run but your legs remain frozen still. There’s no way to bolt past him to the relatively small mouth of the cave without him grabbing your ankles or tripping over his tail or some shit. The only thing you can really do at this point is stay still and hope he isn’t hostile.
He doesn’t seem to be. The adrenaline in your veins tells you otherwise.
He stops a foot away from you and just.. stares. For a while. Long enough for you to really take in the sight of him after calming down just a little.
His hair is wavy, the wet strands falling in a way the boys at your school wish theirs did. His skin is a healthy shade of tan, scales scattered from his shoulders and more running down his arms, leading to clawed hands that are webbed at the first knuckle. His eyes seem to glow in the dark, not in the murky green way mammals’ do, but his retinas actually glow with the faintest light of the same color, which in his case is a very pretty blue.
Pretty. That really is the word to describe him.
Y’know, if you weren’t so busy fearing for your life.
There’s almost something.. familiar about him, too. Your mind flashes back to that boy back in the harbor. But what are the chances of running into the same mer twice, right?
Then again, what are the chances of running into a mer at all?
You feel his gaze run over your face. It stops at one spot and he furrows his brow. This eyes roam lower to the exposed skin of your neck.
“…I’m sorry.”
Your mind short circuits. “..what?”
“‘M sorry,” he repeats, gesturing vaguely at your neck. Your hand comes up almost subconsciously to rub at the scars there. “..for doing that to you. I really am..”
His lips press together in a line before he looks away at the ground, like he’s ashamed.
So he is the same boy.
“…I’m not ready to forgive you yet,” you mutter back. He tried to kill you. That warrants a lifelong enemy, at least.
He nods, eyes flickering over to you before looking back at the sand again.
“I, um.. usually hang out here,” he says, like he feels the need to explain himself. Or maybe he just can’t stand the awkward silence. “I won’t bother you again though.”
You nod slightly and he crawls back into the water. The beach in the cove gives way to deeper water pretty close to the shore, so he’s gone in seconds, the shimmer of scales on his blue tail the last thing you see of him. You’re still trying to process what’s happened when you hear your grandpa calling you for dinner outside.
Over the rest of your stay, you kept away from the cove. Although the mer had promised to stay away from you, you were still skeptical.
That didn’t mean you couldn’t feel his presence, though.
It was the little things. The prickling feeling of being watched on an empty beach, the shimmer of a tail too big for a shallow water fish in the distance.
Most prominent though, are his gifts.
While walking along the beach, you’d find little things in your path. Seashells of pretty colors in too perfect shape to have just washed up naturally, pearls the size of your fingernails, even a gold coin sticking out from the sand one time. And though you don’t want to see him again—yet, anyway—you’re not going to turn down things like these if they’re presented to you.
It’s your last night here before you know it. An inside pocket in your messenger bag is filled with treasures from the sea.
It’s a bit of a stupid decision, but you decide to visit the cove one last time before you leave. Maybe you just need closure, maybe you’re just not content leaving without visiting the place that looks like a literal fairytale.
Either way, it’s just supposed to be a quick trip since night comes early here and the moon’s already risen. You have a pepper spray in your bag you bought the day after you met him again though, just in case.
There’s a splash of water when you enter the cove, which is weird since the waves are just little ripples. You feel his gaze almost instantly. There’s a large oval-ish spot and shallow trail of wet sand near the cave shore.
“…you can come out,” you call, against your better judgment.
Around a minute passes before he emerges from the water. The sight of a human head just appearing from nowhere is a bit heart attack inducing.
“Hi,” he says, almost sounding sheepish.
He really is pretty, isn’t he?
“Hey, stalker.”
Honestly, the fact that he’s literally been stalking you should put you on edge. But it feels fine, in this case, somehow. It’s not like he can follow you home or anything. Y’know, inland.
His cheeks grow dark at your comment. “I’m not—” he objects before he cuts himself off, not able to really deny the claim. “..sorry..”
You shrug. “It’s okay.”
The silence lasts a bit too long.
“..I liked your presents.”
His face seems to light up, a small smile tilting the corners of his lips. You wonder what a genuine, full smile from him looks like. Must be as bright as the sun. “Really?”
“Yeah, some of the shells were my favorite color.” You offer a little smile of your own. Finding a dryish rock near the water flat enough to be comfortable, you sit, beckoning him closer. He obliges, still semi submerged, pulling himself up onto the sand while his tail stays in the deeper part of the water.
“You’re a mermaid?”
“Merman,” he huffs indignantly.
“Merboy,” you compromise. There’s still a little pout on his lips.
It’s about time to address the elephant in the room.
“Why’d you try to kill me when we first met?”
He flinches. Bright blue eyes travel from the ground up your neck, stopping for a moment before continuing to your face, landing in your cheek. He stares for a moment before he realizes you’re looking at him, waiting for an explanation. He blushes again.
“I..” he tries a couple times, mouth opening and closing before he finally finds the words he’s looking for. “..I was mad, I guess.”
“At me?”
He shakes his head. “At humans.”
You tilt your head, beckoning him on. He sighs shakily.
“That night. The boat, my.. my parents were on there,” he says quietly, his hand playing with the sand to distract himself. “They were killed by poachers.”
“…I’m sorry,” what else can you really say? “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
He shakes his head. “No, it’s fine.. I owe you an explanation.”
“You’ve told me more than enough.”
“I…” he hesitates, looking up at you from his spot on the shore. There’s a vulnerability in everything he does right now, from his place being lower than yours to this softness in his eyes. “…can I tell you about them? Please?”
“..Alfred says it helps when I talk about it,” he adds. You don’t know who Alfred is, but you nod anyway.
The world seems to narrow down to the small space of the cove as he tells you about his parents. What they were like, what they did, how he grew up. He tells you about his travels back when he was little, to the tropical regions, or to the arctic sea, even to the Mariana Trench once, though that was just him sneaking off for all pf a minute before he was caught and swiftly pulled away.
He tells you of how his parents loved him. How his dad took both of his hands and flung him out of water to teach him his first flip. How his mom taught him how to hunt, and how to string shells with seaweed or abandoned nets to decorate his waist. He’s getting more and more animated as he talks, more expressive, and you think you catch glimpses of his true brightness every now and then.
“After that night when I met you, Bruce took me in,” it’s a bit into the night when everything’s out in the open. You’re not mad at him anymore, not really. You’re not scared of him either.
“He’s been good to me. More than he should have, really, I was a nightmare when he first met me. Alfred’s been a saint, too.”
“Who’s Alfred?”
“Our butler. He’s family though. Like my grandpa, really.”
As if on cue, you hear your own grandfather in the distance, calling for you to come home. You stand up and dust yourself off but hesitate. Just leaving him now feels.. wrong.
“I never caught your name.”
He shifts on his forearms, looking up at you hopefully. “Does that mean you’re planning on seeing me again?”
You bite the inside of your cheek.
“Next summer. I promise.”
“…it’s Dick.”
You press your lips together to keep a little giggle from slipping out, instead giving him your name, too. You dig through your bag, muttering a small victory under your breath when you find what you’re looking for without much trouble.
A necklace with a tiny clover incased in a thin circle of clear resin as its pendant. You’d made it yourself a month or so ago after hunting in the sun for four leaf clovers. It’s something you’d miss but wouldn’t be devastated about if lost.
Without much thought, you crouch down in front of him, your shoes are getting wet but you pay it no mind as you clasp the chain around his neck. Your hands brush against his hair at the base of his skull and you swear he shivers.
“For insurance,” you explain, pulling back and straightening up again. “So you’re sure I’ll be here next year.”
He nods, a bit of color tinging his cheeks once more. It’s easy to make him blush, you think.
True to your word, you come back next year, and the one after that, and after that. The visits become more frequent over the years too, trips to your grandparents’ place going from only once every summer to an additional week in spring break as well. Each time you step into the cove, Dick greets you with a bright smile and a breathless little ‘you’re back’, like he didn’t think you’d really show. Every time.
The waves are colder in the spring, threatening to bring back memories you’re not so fond of, but the presence beside you chases them away with what little body heat he has. Ironic, when he’d been the ones to cause them in the first place, but you’re not complaining. Your head finds rest on his shoulder, the rest of you pressed against his side like a heat-seeking missile.
He’s changed noticeably through the years. Yeah, he’s always been pretty, but his jaw is sharper now, more angular, the muscles of his torso much more defined. You’d been caught staring more than once. He doesn’t seem to mind, but the teasing after is relentless. His hair falls into a tousled, perfect bed head sort of look without effort and his tail is sparklier than ever, around two and a half times as long as his torso. More if you count his fins. They flare out in a way that reminds you of expensive tulle or silk.
It moves in the water absentmindedly, scales catching the light. The necklace you’d left him with a few years ago is wrapped around it, just above where his caudal fin starts.
Your feelings towards him have changed just about as much as you both have over the few years you’ve actually known him. There’s a tiny spark burning deep in your chest, one that comes alive whenever those sky blue eyes meet yours. You don’t know when it got there, but it is, and it’s staying no matter how much you try to get it out. Maybe it started when you were sixteen, and your friends started getting into relationships. Most of the ones who weren’t were still mildly boy crazy, talking about things they’d heard from their older siblings. That was when you’d learned why it was nearly essential to compare hand sizes.
Or maybe it was when you were seventeen, when you were invited to your cousin’s wedding. You were never one to dream about your own wedding gown, but you still wanted to find someone to walk down the aisle to, whether that be in a wedding venue or just doing your weekly shopping together at the the grocery store.
Or maybe it wasn’t a specific moment at all. Maybe it had been collected in tiny pieces, little drops of water that gathered at the bottom of your heart until it formed a well too deep to drain. The well that seemed to get just a little bit deeper every time you caught sight of the shells decorating your shelves, when you snapped a photo of somewhere inland where you knew he’d love to visit, when he smiled at you like you were something special. Droplets that run down your cheeks when reality hits.
You know it’ll lead to nothing. But when you’re with him, you allow yourself to just forget that little detail and hope that maybe, just maybe, things will work out in your favor.
Somewhere along the line, his hand ends up half on top of yours. You pick it up out of boredom. His hands are big, it’s always been like that, you assume all mers are the same way since it helps with swimming. An evolutionary thing. Still, you put your palm against his, wanting to see the difference.
“Why’d you stop talking?” You ask, glancing at him in the corner of your eye when his voice dies down in the background. His eyebrows rise slightly, lips curving into a lazy smile.
“You weren’t listening,” he replies, fingers curving forward slightly, just enough to slot between yours but not quite closing around your palm.
“I was, though.”
“Don’t lie to me, you’re awful at it.”
In the corner of your brain, something your friends had said once lingers.
The hands are proportional to a man’s d—
You cut it off, sighing dramatically as you hide your face in his shoulder.
His smile turns into a smirk as Dick seems to read your mind. “Y’know, my ring finger’s longer than my pointer, too.” He hums, pressing his palm closer against yours.
You don’t give him the satisfaction of responding.
Your fingers find their way down until you’re holding his hand in yours.
He’s glad you can’t see his face when it happens. You’re warm. And soft. Two things mers very much are not. Before you came along, he didn’t understand the ones who would swim up to the surface in the middle of nowhere, just to find a sunridden rock to lie on. But the warmth of you against him is rare. Addicting.
Trying his best to ignore the blood rushing rapidly to his cheeks, he reciprocates.
You risk a look up at him to find he’s already staring. His face is too close to yours.
‘What are we?’
The question dies at the tip of his tongue. Not because he doesn’t know the answer, but because he knows nothing can come of it.
“Prom’s in like, a month,” you hum, turning away, staring at nothing in particular. Beside you, Dick’s shoulders slump slightly.
“That’s the party thing before you graduate, right?”
You nod. “A couple guys asked me. I dunno who I’ll go with, though. I have to find a dress online too, which is more than a little risky..”
There’s an unusually long pause before he responds, his head coming to rest on yours. “You’ll be fine. You’d make a trash bag work if it came down to it.”
“You’re such a cliché.”
“Only for you, dear.”
There’s something bothering him. You can tell by the way his lips form the slightest pout, the way he breathes in deeper than usual.
He’s a mer. He can’t go on land, even being here right now is technically forbidden. But still, he selfishly wants to be the one to take you to prom. He wants to be the one at your door in a fancy suit, the one who gets to see you all dressed up, the one to take you out and walk you home. Maybe even take you back to his place.
But that’s not in his cards, so he just keeps his mouth shut and smiles, telling you more about his little brother.
Prom is better than what you’d been expecting. The school has been cleaned of its usual muck, and what remains is easily hidden by the ‘mood’ lighting that had replaced the usual fluorescent white.
Your ‘date’ ditches you for a college girl he’d been texting for weeks. Apparently she’s in town just for him. You don’t mind, you didn’t really know him anyway, and your friends are a lot more fun. By the time you’re walking home, it’s a little over an hour before your curfew. You decide to take the scenic route since you have the time, feeling a bit melancholy now that you’ve left the loud music behind.
You’re walking along the pier and humming a melody stuck in your head from the party when it catches your eye. A shimmer in the moonlight that most definitely should not be here.
Dick?
Your mind blanks. Dick’s at the harbor. Why? Wouldn’t he want to stay away from the place where his parents got killed? It was why you’d never asked him to visit you here, the reason you assumed he never offered. So why was he here now?
You rush to where you saw it, at the last dock, where you’d first met him, but your feet come to a dead stop at the last minute. You don’t know what you were expecting, but it wasn’t… this.
Dick is.. simply put, an absolute wreck.
His hair is flattened in some parts and sticking up in every direction in others, the whites of his eyes are red like he’s been rubbing at them for the past ten minutes. He’s gripping onto a pillar for dear life, not caring if the barnacles dig into his skin. From what you can see, there are dark red scratch marks on his arms. They look self-imposed, except for one set deeper than the rest.
Taking off your heels, you walk the rest of the way, deliberately making your footsteps louder as to not startle him when you sit down, legs over the edge of the dock.
“…you okay?”
“…”
He doesn’t look at you, holding onto the pillar tighter. There are barnacles cutting into the skin of his cheek.
Taking a deep breath, you leave your shoes and jacket on the ground before slipping into the water. You’ll figure out an excuse as to why you’re soaked later. Hovering near him by holding yourself on the dock, you slowly move one hand to his shoulder.
The reaction is near instant, a series of things happening all at once. He tenses under your touch for a moment before he turns his head the other way, but the next moment you’re in his arms, being crushed against his chest. Your arms wrap instinctively around him, one hand rubbing his back while the other snakes its fingers into his hair. He buries his head further into your neck, a broken sob muffled against your skin.
The warm buzz from colored lights is gone now, leaving you exposed to the elements. You don’t feel cold, though. All you feel is him.
You hold him as he lets everything out, shoulders shaking violently even though he can’t shed tears.
It feels like forever before he can formulate words.
“He’s gone,” he gasps, hands fisted tight in your dress. “Jason.. he’s— it’s my fault, it’s all my fault…”
You comb your fingers through his hair. “Dick.. I’m sure that’s not—“
“Yes, it is!” He shouts, suddenly pulling away from you like you’d burned him. The force with which he pushes you away dunks your head underwater, and you flounder for a moment before familiar hands find their way around your waist, lifting you up. “Fuck, I’m sorry— shit..”
He holds you an arms’ length away, like he’s not quite sure what to do. In the end though he pushes you back onto the dock. A hand closes around your ankle and he presses his cheek to your calf, taking a shaky breath as if steeling himself to take a hit. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice hoarse, before he disappears into the depths.
You think you felt a fleeting kiss on your leg before he left.
the Mer King has two children. one is a tiny little scrappy thing he found in a gorge somewhere, rumour has it. lots of people have a lot of bad things to say about him, but anyone who has actually met him usually shuts them up pretty quick. the merchild is mouthy and blunt to very near the point of rudeness, but he has a heart as big as all the seas, and that it more than enough (and since all his fins healed up, he’s quite striking, what with all that iridescent red banding). the other child is a little halfling boy that came to the palace already part-grown. those who had reservations about the elder child suddenly found themselves singing his praises - if they’d thought him rude and ill-suited to palace-life, the halfling shows them true rudeness. the Mer King takes his elder son in his arms and reassures him that he is loved, that his second child simply comes from a different place and that is why there is such disconnect.
the elder child thinks of the younger’s appearance, how he is almost ghostly in parts, how his blood and bones can be seen through his skin.
“I coulda guessed,” the child says, and does his best to welcome the new child. he knows what it’s like to suddenly be thrust into a different world, after all.
(there is another mer, more than half mad but completely obsessed with the king. we know how this story goes.)
