[Original Fiction; Role-Play - Series] A Merman's Tail: Part One
2011-Mar-09, Wednesday 12:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
comma_chameleonA Merman's Tail: Part One
4232 words
Carter/Shizuka
PG
Carter and Eddie belong to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
slytherisa, everything and everyone else are a product of my twisted mind.
“Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t black your other eye, and do it quickly,” Carter said, voice low and almost a growl. It wasn’t a tone he’d ever had cause to use on the man who had been his best friend since childhood, but Trev’s last words had not only caused him to lash out with a punch, but had him all but itching to do it again.
Holding a bag of frozen peas to his swelling and slowly bruising eye, Trev tried to glare back, but he’d never been much for overly negative emotions, and even now it was hard to get mad at Carter when he knew why his friend was angry. Exhaling shakily, he reluctantly set the bag of peas aside and leaned back against his kitchen counter, meeting Carter’s gaze evenly.
“Because, you can’t go around punching everyone who wants to ask your brother out,” he finally said. As soon as he said it, he knew that it probably hadn’t been the smoothest thing to say, but it was the truth. Eddie had had a hard and isolated life, and Carter wasn’t helping right now. Protective instincts or not, Trev knew better than anyone that this wasn’t the way to do things.
“I can try,” Carter replied, hands curling into tight fists at Trev’s seemingly nonchalant words. Trev was lucky. Had he been anyone else, Carter was sure that he wouldn’t have stopped at just one punch. “Please... explain to me how else I’m supposed to react to finding out that you’re perving on my baby brother, and have been for who knows how long.”
It was impossible not to roll his eyes at that, even though it hurt like hell and Trev regretted the motion almost instantly. “I’m not perving on your brother. I just... At some point, I realized that the affection I had for him was more than just brotherly. Is that really such a bad thing?”
“Of course it is! You know what he’s been through! I won’t have you playing around with him,” Carter hissed out, fighting back all the urges he had to rearrange his friend’s face.
It took a lot to make Trev truly angry, but the idea that his best friend thought that he would play around with Eddie – or anyone really – was enough to push him there, and he had to hold himself back from leaping forward and throttling the one person besides Eddie that was like family to him without actually being family. “I am not playing around with him, and if you genuinely think I would, then maybe we’re not as close as I thought we were,” he finally said, letting the hurt he felt at such an accusation show on his face.
Wanting to keep his ire up, Carter found himself deflating a bit at the look on this friend’s face. Trev was right. There was no way he would just play around with anyone, especially Eddie. Trev knew as well as he did how much Eddie had gone through after being cursed by their sister, and he wouldn’t do anything so callous as to intentionally cause the other man harm, be it emotional or physical.
Sighing a bit, he averted his gaze from his friend, feeling a bit bad now – though still a bit justified – for the punch that he’d landed. “... sorry.”
Trev let out a soft snort of laughter at the apology. “You don’t have anything to apologize for except for calling me a heartless bastard.”
“I did not!”
“You might as well have, honestly.”
Opening his mouth to deny that, Carter closed it with an audible click, because Trev was right. Again. The bastard.
“Sorry,” Carter repeated, though this time it was for jumping to conclusions that he should have known better than to jump to. If he thought about it more, the best person that Eddie could be with was Trev. Trev had been there since the beginning, and he wasn’t exactly going to run away screaming because he already knew what Eddie was. “... when are you going to tell him? How are you going to tell him? This is Eddie, Trev, he’s not likely to just smile and nod and believe you if you tell him you’re in love with him.”
It was impossible for Trev to do anything more than shrug helplessly at that, because he knew Carter was right. This was going to be an almost painful uphill battle, and if Eddie didn’t mean so much to him in a lot of ways, he was sure that it would be better just to turn and walk away.
“I do have to be straight with him,” he finally said, ignoring the irony in his words when this topic was almost painfully serious. “As much as I’d love to show him how I feel instead of telling him, he’s about as oblivious as a brick wall to most things emotional, and I don’t want things getting mixed up and confused.”
Carter nodded in agreement. He knew his brother than anyone; sometimes better than Eddie himself. Shows of affection might work well with the majority of people, but with Eddie, it’d be more likely that his brother would just become perplexed and confused at Trev acting ‘strange’ around him. When in doubt, it was a better idea to speak to Eddie than to make him guess at things.
Feeling suddenly grumpy once more at the thought of Trev and Eddie together, though this time for the fact that they’d be together and leaving him as a third wheel, Carter pushed himself up from where he’d sank onto the small couch.
“I’m going to go down to the beach. Check out the tide pools,” he said a bit abruptly as he grabbed his coat, nosing absently through the pockets to make sure his notebook and pens were at hand in case he saw anything of interest. While both Trev and Eddie would probably kill him if they caught him doing anything resembling work while they were on vacation, it was impossible sometimes for him to completely shut down that part of himself.
It was hard, but Trev bit back the words that wanted to come out, instead just letting Carter go and have some time alone. The last thing that he had intended to do was to bring up something like this while they were all on a much needed vacation, but Carter had caught him looking at Eddie, just looking, and it had been enough for him to know.
“Alright... come back in time for dinner, yeah? I’ll make your favourites.”
It was an offer impossible to refuse, so Carter nodded and waved a hand as he headed out the door. He needed fresh air and something to focus on that wasn’t the thought of his brother and Trev together. He needed the normality of science, of biology, so he made his way down to the shore, picking his path carefully among algae-slick rocks and crouching down at the edge of the shallow pools of water.
Engrossed in his inspection of minute ocean life, it took him a while to notice that the soft splash of water against rocks wasn’t waves lapping at the edges of the tide pools, as they only occurred when he moved further along the outcroppings. Stilling, he waited patiently, back to the ocean. In a quick movement, he spun around and came face to face with a man peeking over the edge of the rocks. Blinking in confusion and just assuming that it was a bored surfer, he forced himself to stop ogling smooth pale skin and long wet black hair that curled around the man’s round sensual face. “Hello?”
“... hello?”
The echoed word was said in a voice that was thick with an accent that Carter couldn’t place at all, and he was pretty good with identifying someone’s place of birth merely by the way they spoke. Shifting a bit so that he was closer to the wall of rocks that separated him from the ocean, he met the man’s strangely coloured eyes with his own blue ones.
“Are you sure it’s safe to be out there, you’re pretty far from shore, mate,” Carter finally asked, at a loss for anything else to say when the man just continued to stare at him in a way that bordered on fascination. Now that he was closer to the stranger though, he couldn’t help but notice some small details that made the other man seem a little ‘off’.
Beyond the colour of his eyes, which seemed to shift subtly between shades of ocean green and a deep dark blue, there was a lone lock of his long hair that was the dark green of seaweed, and yet it seemed to blend seamlessly and naturally in with the rest of his black hair.
“It is fine,” the man replied, voice soft as he tilted his head to the side slightly, staring at Carter with a quizzical expression and unblinking eyes.
It was such a strange answer that Carter couldn’t help but frown. Not just because of the words themselves, but because of the way the man said them. His unplaceable accent combined with his almost... overly polite absence of contractions had Carter wondering if he was a foreigner, but how many foreigners would be so at ease in dangerous waters that they knew nothing about?
“You’re sure, yeah?” he asked again, shifting a bit to face the man properly, setting his notebook down on a dryish out-cropping of rock.
A small and somewhat flirty smile curved the man’s gorgeous full lips and Carter had to fight to keep himself from getting visibly hard, not the best way to make a good impression on someone.
“I am sure. The water is safe for me,” the other man finally replied, even as he settled his hands on the rocks and pulled himself up and out of the water in one strong movement that had Carter’s eyes widening a bit at his gracefulness and strength.
Swallowing a bit hard, Carter couldn’t help himself from watching the play of water as it dripped and slid down the man’s shoulders and chest. It seemed a little bit unfair for one man to be so completely beautiful. Following the water with his eyes – aware that he was ogling but seemingly unable to do anything but - Carter felt his eyes widen in shock when the man’s pale skin suddenly blended with slick iridescent green scales that quickly formed a massive tail that glistened in the sunlight.
Voice stolen in shock, Carter couldn’t do anything more than stare, surely looking like a gaping idiot but helpless to do much more. The thought that merpeople existed wasn’t that much of a surprise when he was older brother to a cursed vampire, but actually running into one while on vacation was definitely up there on his list of things that he never expected to happen ever.
“You...”
The merman’s head tilted to the side once more and he continued to regard Carter with those ever changing sea-coloured eyes. “I...?”
If he hadn’t been so completely gobsmacked by his presence, Carter would have laughed at how adorable the merman looked while echoing his cut off sentence. Instead he was still trying to make his brain work at all, and he couldn’t stop looking the beautiful creature over from head to tail.
“You have ... much questions.”
The merman’s soft voice finally yanked Carter out of his brainless stupor, and while he did have a million and one questions that he was dying to ask – both scientific and psychological – something about the look in the other man’s eyes had his words dying in his throat. “I do... but that’s not what you came up here for, was it? ... do you have a name I can call you by?”
“Zuka,” the merman said softly, voice still a melodic almost-singsong that seemed to make Carter want to move closer. “I... I am lonely.”
Even as he absently wondered if there was some truth to Sirens being the ancestors of merpeople, Carter felt something in his chest tighten at Zuka’s words. It seemed strange that someone who was so different than himself could be feeling the same emotion that he was feeling right now. “... I’m Carter,” he finally replied, giving in and closing that last bit of space between them so that he could reach out and touch the merman if he chose to. “And I know how you feel...”
“Carter...”
Something coiled in Carter’s belly at the way that Zuka said his name, even if he was just repeating it in interest, the expression on his face making it seem like he was tasting the syllables, rolling them around on his tongue and feeling the flavour of them. Unable to fight it anymore, he reached out and touched the soft looking curve of Zuka’s cheek, running rough fingertips down his skin.
His eyebrows rose a little bit at the feel of Zuka’s skin under his fingers. He’d expected it to be not unlike his own, or maybe just a little bit slimy like a fish’s might be, but instead it was soft and cool, and just a little plastic feeling. He wondered if that was in order to keep his skin from getting waterlogged and wrinkled like humans’ did when they were in the water too long.
It was so easy to go from there and lean in, to find Zuka’s lips with his own and kiss him softly; to feel the cool and dampness of Zuka’s lips against his own. A tiny part of his mind nagged at him, reminded him that not only did he not know this man, he also wasn’t even really a man, and that there were probably a tonne of good reasons not to engage in cross-species make out sessions. Still, it was hard to listen to that part, when Zuka was a really good kisser.
Pulling back reluctantly, Carter smiled just a bit when Zuka continued to nose at his cheek, lips cool and tasting faintly like sea salt. “You are so beautiful...”
A soft blush tinted the merman’s cheeks again, and Carter laughed, reaching out to touch the pinkness on his cheeks, loving how it barely made cool skin feel slightly warmer. “You look so surprised... surely other people have told you how gorgeous you are.”
Zuka’s blush deepened and he shook his head, lowering his gaze to the rocks that he sat on, the end of his tail flicking a bit in an almost nervous gesture.
“... seriously?” Carter felt like he was gaping again, but he couldn’t believe that no one had ever told Zuka he was beautiful before. “How is it possible that no one’s ever told you how beautiful you are? Have you been hanging around blind people?”
A tiny musical laugh escaped Zuka at that, and he smiled a bit shyly as he spoke. “I... I am most plain for a merperson... as a youngling, I was mocked very often.”
“And the people like me that you’ve visited?” Carter found himself asking, even as he found it hard to believe that Zuka was considered plain. Maybe to merfolk he was, but compared to humans, it was impossible to think that someone hadn’t told Zuka he was beautiful.
A tiny shrug lifted Zuka’s shoulders and for a moment his expression was so desolate and defeated that Carter had to fight to stop himself from reaching out and taking the merman into his arms to console him.
“The humans I visited before... they were not interested in paying me compliments, whether they thought they were true or not,” Zuka said softly, the musical lilt in his tone muted and sad sounding.
“Then they were idiots,” Carter found himself saying before he could even register the fact. “You’re beautiful, Zuka, and if they couldn’t see that... couldn’t take the time to make you feel it, regardless of why you came to them, then they were exceptional idiots.”
The tiniest of smiles curved Zuka’s lips at Carter’s words, and without even making the conscious decision to do so, he found himself leaning in to kiss Zuka once more. It was just as good as the first time, and Carter found it hard to pull away, continuing the kiss until he could feel his head spinning in confusion. Pulling back reluctantly, he didn’t move far and continued to touch the cool skin of Zuka’s cheek with the tips of his fingers.
“I... I wish that you would not have to leave me...” Zuka said, voice almost inaudible as he stared down at the rocks he perched on, not wanting to meet Carter’s gaze when he was voicing something so serious and so selfish.
His tone was so forlorn that Carter felt that strange and painful pull in his chest again. He wanted to make stupid promises, to tell Zuka that he would never leave him, but a life dealing with the worst in people had taught him never to make promises if he could help it, and to never make them lightly when he had to.
“I wish I didn’t have to either, sweetheart... but you’re a merman, and I’m a human,” Carter replied once he’d gotten himself under control. “I can’t come with you, and you can’t stay here.”
The tears that rolled down Zuka’s cheeks at Carter’s words were thick and luminescent, turning to pearls when they left his skin and clattering softly on the rocks and into the shallow tide pool. It was such an other-worldly thing that it was almost difficult for Carter to look away from the small pearls glistening in the water near his feet, but the fact that Zuka was crying was enough to force his focus on the merman once more.
“Shh...please, don’t cry...” Carter said softly, ready to start begging if it got Zuka’s tears to dry. He hated when anyone cried, because it made him feel absolutely useless. There was nothing worse in the world than being faced with someone’s tears and not being able to do anything about them.
Wiping uselessly at his cheeks, Zuka looked away, not wanting to face the other man when he was being so ridiculous. “I am sorry... I... I do not know why I am crying.”
A somewhat rueful, yet sad smile crossed Carter’s face even as he reached out to gently nudge Zuka to face him again. “You’re crying because you’re sad, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
No matter that they had only known each other for less than an hour, there was something about the merman that made Carter feel whole... connected in a way that he’d only ever felt with his brother and Trev. While it was ridiculous to think that a stranger – and one that wasn’t even fully human at that – could possibly make him feel this way, it was true.
“Will you visit with me some more? If you will be here?”
Not even for an instant did Carter even consider saying no. They were still here for almost another week, and he couldn’t imagine not spending time with Zuka even if he knew it was better for both of them that the merman left this area and moved on to somewhere new.
“Of course.”
Zuka’s smile was wide and beautiful, and Carter bit back the words that wanted to come out, that Zuka shouldn’t stay in this place for that long when it was dangerous. In the face of such a joyous expression, Carter couldn’t find it in himself to tell Zuka to not come back.
“Just… be safe, please?” he asked when he could speak again without his mouth betraying him. “Stay out of sight of boats… and don’t do anything rash.”
Head tilting to the side in confusion, expression so adorably perplexed, Zuka spoke even as he leaned into Carter’s light touch to his cheek. “What is… rash?”
Smiling softly, calloused fingertips seemingly helpless to do anything but caress Zuka’s soft skin, Carter loved that the merman didn’t know some words. “It means… to do something quickly and without thought. I don’t want you doing something that will put yourself in more danger than just staying here already will.”
“You worry too much,” Zuka said, but his smile was fond and Carter found himself melting a little bit under that expression. It was ridiculous to feel this way and he kept telling himself that, but he still couldn’t seem to help himself.
“I don’t think you worry enough,” he found himself saying softly, honestly worried that Zuka would do something reckless and end up hurt, or worse, captured.
Zuka smiled softly at that, but it was an expression so heavily tinged with melancholy that Carter had no trouble holding back the questions he might have wanted to ask about his past and family. Those constantly shifting eyes more than hinted at a sadness to his past, and Carter couldn’t be surprised. He knew what humanity was like when it came to things that were even remotely different, and Zuka wasn’t even just on the edge of different, he was right smack in the middle of different.
“Will you swim with me? Before you return to your dwelling?”
Pulled from such dismal thoughts by Zuka’s question, Carter blinked a few times, wondering if he’d possibly heard the other man wrong. “Swim with you?”
Nodding, a tiny mischievous smile playing around edges of sinfully full lips, Zuka flicked his tail just a little bit. He’d been out of the water longer than was smart and while he knew he should get back into the ocean, the last thing he wanted was to leave Carter’s side just yet.
Focusing now on Zuka instead of his own thoughts, Carter frowned at the almost sickly shade of green that Zuka’s skin was turning, instead of the faintest pale green it had been earlier. Wanting to kick himself for not thinking about how long the merman had been sitting up on the rocks with him, he nodded, knowing he’d do anything right now in order to get Zuka back into the water where he belonged.
A soft melodic chirp escaped Zuka as his smile widened into something stunningly beautiful and purely happy.
Carter watched in awe as he twisted and pushed off of the rocks, diving into the water cleanly. He searched the dark water immediately for signs of Zuka resurfacing, the tiniest bubble of apprehension in his belly growing with every second at the thought that Zuka might have been playing with him when he saw nothing.
When the merman’s dark hair finally broke the water, he let out the shaky breath that he had been holding and climbed to the edge of the rocks, ignoring his clothes and shoes as he jumped down into the cold water and Zuka’s waiting arms.
His breath escaped him in a sharp exhale when he surfaced, the water far colder than he’d anticipated. It was difficult to hold back the curses that wanted to spill free, but he really didn’t want to be the person who taught Zuka words he really shouldn’t be knowing. While he knew that the merman was far from a child in terms of years, he had an innocent air to him that Carter didn’t feel comfortable corrupting.
Pulled from his thoughts by the sound of a soft melodic song, he turned his eyes to Zuka, surprised to see that the singing was coming from him. Absently wondering if his earlier thoughts regarding Sirens were perhaps closer than he’s thought, he felt the tiredness and stress leave his body as he treaded water and listened to Zuka sing.
While deep down he knew it was dangerous to give himself over to the music when he barely knew Zuka and there was nothing stopping the merman from luring him further out to sea, he instinctively knew that Zuka would do nothing to harm him, even if others of his kind might.
“You are getting cold,” Zuka said softly after a bit, halting in his singing to swim closer to Carter and touch his cheeks with cool, wet, fingers. “You must get out now. If you stay longer and get sick, I will be sad.”
About to protest that he felt fine, Carter felt the real world come rushing back when Zuka paused in his singing, and the merman was right, he was bloody freezing. Fighting to keep his teeth from chattering, Carter allowed Zuka to tug him partially to the shore, but allowed him no further.
“If someone even caught a glimpse of you, there would be nothing I could do, and I don’t want you getting killed, or worse, stuck in a laboratory and experimented on for the rest of your life,” he said as he floated in the still deep water, hands on Zuka’s strong shoulders in order to keep himself effortlessly afloat. Before Zuka could ask what a lab was, Carter leaned in and kissed him once more, wondering if it was possible to be addicted to someone’s mouth. Pushing such dangerous thoughts away, he turned and swam towards the shore, turning only once to wave to Zuka, praying silently to himself that nothing would happen to him before he could return.
4232 words
Carter/Shizuka
PG
Carter and Eddie belong to
slytherisa, everything and everyone else are a product of my twisted mind.“Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t black your other eye, and do it quickly,” Carter said, voice low and almost a growl. It wasn’t a tone he’d ever had cause to use on the man who had been his best friend since childhood, but Trev’s last words had not only caused him to lash out with a punch, but had him all but itching to do it again.
Holding a bag of frozen peas to his swelling and slowly bruising eye, Trev tried to glare back, but he’d never been much for overly negative emotions, and even now it was hard to get mad at Carter when he knew why his friend was angry. Exhaling shakily, he reluctantly set the bag of peas aside and leaned back against his kitchen counter, meeting Carter’s gaze evenly.
“Because, you can’t go around punching everyone who wants to ask your brother out,” he finally said. As soon as he said it, he knew that it probably hadn’t been the smoothest thing to say, but it was the truth. Eddie had had a hard and isolated life, and Carter wasn’t helping right now. Protective instincts or not, Trev knew better than anyone that this wasn’t the way to do things.
“I can try,” Carter replied, hands curling into tight fists at Trev’s seemingly nonchalant words. Trev was lucky. Had he been anyone else, Carter was sure that he wouldn’t have stopped at just one punch. “Please... explain to me how else I’m supposed to react to finding out that you’re perving on my baby brother, and have been for who knows how long.”
It was impossible not to roll his eyes at that, even though it hurt like hell and Trev regretted the motion almost instantly. “I’m not perving on your brother. I just... At some point, I realized that the affection I had for him was more than just brotherly. Is that really such a bad thing?”
“Of course it is! You know what he’s been through! I won’t have you playing around with him,” Carter hissed out, fighting back all the urges he had to rearrange his friend’s face.
It took a lot to make Trev truly angry, but the idea that his best friend thought that he would play around with Eddie – or anyone really – was enough to push him there, and he had to hold himself back from leaping forward and throttling the one person besides Eddie that was like family to him without actually being family. “I am not playing around with him, and if you genuinely think I would, then maybe we’re not as close as I thought we were,” he finally said, letting the hurt he felt at such an accusation show on his face.
Wanting to keep his ire up, Carter found himself deflating a bit at the look on this friend’s face. Trev was right. There was no way he would just play around with anyone, especially Eddie. Trev knew as well as he did how much Eddie had gone through after being cursed by their sister, and he wouldn’t do anything so callous as to intentionally cause the other man harm, be it emotional or physical.
Sighing a bit, he averted his gaze from his friend, feeling a bit bad now – though still a bit justified – for the punch that he’d landed. “... sorry.”
Trev let out a soft snort of laughter at the apology. “You don’t have anything to apologize for except for calling me a heartless bastard.”
“I did not!”
“You might as well have, honestly.”
Opening his mouth to deny that, Carter closed it with an audible click, because Trev was right. Again. The bastard.
“Sorry,” Carter repeated, though this time it was for jumping to conclusions that he should have known better than to jump to. If he thought about it more, the best person that Eddie could be with was Trev. Trev had been there since the beginning, and he wasn’t exactly going to run away screaming because he already knew what Eddie was. “... when are you going to tell him? How are you going to tell him? This is Eddie, Trev, he’s not likely to just smile and nod and believe you if you tell him you’re in love with him.”
It was impossible for Trev to do anything more than shrug helplessly at that, because he knew Carter was right. This was going to be an almost painful uphill battle, and if Eddie didn’t mean so much to him in a lot of ways, he was sure that it would be better just to turn and walk away.
“I do have to be straight with him,” he finally said, ignoring the irony in his words when this topic was almost painfully serious. “As much as I’d love to show him how I feel instead of telling him, he’s about as oblivious as a brick wall to most things emotional, and I don’t want things getting mixed up and confused.”
Carter nodded in agreement. He knew his brother than anyone; sometimes better than Eddie himself. Shows of affection might work well with the majority of people, but with Eddie, it’d be more likely that his brother would just become perplexed and confused at Trev acting ‘strange’ around him. When in doubt, it was a better idea to speak to Eddie than to make him guess at things.
Feeling suddenly grumpy once more at the thought of Trev and Eddie together, though this time for the fact that they’d be together and leaving him as a third wheel, Carter pushed himself up from where he’d sank onto the small couch.
“I’m going to go down to the beach. Check out the tide pools,” he said a bit abruptly as he grabbed his coat, nosing absently through the pockets to make sure his notebook and pens were at hand in case he saw anything of interest. While both Trev and Eddie would probably kill him if they caught him doing anything resembling work while they were on vacation, it was impossible sometimes for him to completely shut down that part of himself.
It was hard, but Trev bit back the words that wanted to come out, instead just letting Carter go and have some time alone. The last thing that he had intended to do was to bring up something like this while they were all on a much needed vacation, but Carter had caught him looking at Eddie, just looking, and it had been enough for him to know.
“Alright... come back in time for dinner, yeah? I’ll make your favourites.”
It was an offer impossible to refuse, so Carter nodded and waved a hand as he headed out the door. He needed fresh air and something to focus on that wasn’t the thought of his brother and Trev together. He needed the normality of science, of biology, so he made his way down to the shore, picking his path carefully among algae-slick rocks and crouching down at the edge of the shallow pools of water.
Engrossed in his inspection of minute ocean life, it took him a while to notice that the soft splash of water against rocks wasn’t waves lapping at the edges of the tide pools, as they only occurred when he moved further along the outcroppings. Stilling, he waited patiently, back to the ocean. In a quick movement, he spun around and came face to face with a man peeking over the edge of the rocks. Blinking in confusion and just assuming that it was a bored surfer, he forced himself to stop ogling smooth pale skin and long wet black hair that curled around the man’s round sensual face. “Hello?”
“... hello?”
The echoed word was said in a voice that was thick with an accent that Carter couldn’t place at all, and he was pretty good with identifying someone’s place of birth merely by the way they spoke. Shifting a bit so that he was closer to the wall of rocks that separated him from the ocean, he met the man’s strangely coloured eyes with his own blue ones.
“Are you sure it’s safe to be out there, you’re pretty far from shore, mate,” Carter finally asked, at a loss for anything else to say when the man just continued to stare at him in a way that bordered on fascination. Now that he was closer to the stranger though, he couldn’t help but notice some small details that made the other man seem a little ‘off’.
Beyond the colour of his eyes, which seemed to shift subtly between shades of ocean green and a deep dark blue, there was a lone lock of his long hair that was the dark green of seaweed, and yet it seemed to blend seamlessly and naturally in with the rest of his black hair.
“It is fine,” the man replied, voice soft as he tilted his head to the side slightly, staring at Carter with a quizzical expression and unblinking eyes.
It was such a strange answer that Carter couldn’t help but frown. Not just because of the words themselves, but because of the way the man said them. His unplaceable accent combined with his almost... overly polite absence of contractions had Carter wondering if he was a foreigner, but how many foreigners would be so at ease in dangerous waters that they knew nothing about?
“You’re sure, yeah?” he asked again, shifting a bit to face the man properly, setting his notebook down on a dryish out-cropping of rock.
A small and somewhat flirty smile curved the man’s gorgeous full lips and Carter had to fight to keep himself from getting visibly hard, not the best way to make a good impression on someone.
“I am sure. The water is safe for me,” the other man finally replied, even as he settled his hands on the rocks and pulled himself up and out of the water in one strong movement that had Carter’s eyes widening a bit at his gracefulness and strength.
Swallowing a bit hard, Carter couldn’t help himself from watching the play of water as it dripped and slid down the man’s shoulders and chest. It seemed a little bit unfair for one man to be so completely beautiful. Following the water with his eyes – aware that he was ogling but seemingly unable to do anything but - Carter felt his eyes widen in shock when the man’s pale skin suddenly blended with slick iridescent green scales that quickly formed a massive tail that glistened in the sunlight.
Voice stolen in shock, Carter couldn’t do anything more than stare, surely looking like a gaping idiot but helpless to do much more. The thought that merpeople existed wasn’t that much of a surprise when he was older brother to a cursed vampire, but actually running into one while on vacation was definitely up there on his list of things that he never expected to happen ever.
“You...”
The merman’s head tilted to the side once more and he continued to regard Carter with those ever changing sea-coloured eyes. “I...?”
If he hadn’t been so completely gobsmacked by his presence, Carter would have laughed at how adorable the merman looked while echoing his cut off sentence. Instead he was still trying to make his brain work at all, and he couldn’t stop looking the beautiful creature over from head to tail.
“You have ... much questions.”
The merman’s soft voice finally yanked Carter out of his brainless stupor, and while he did have a million and one questions that he was dying to ask – both scientific and psychological – something about the look in the other man’s eyes had his words dying in his throat. “I do... but that’s not what you came up here for, was it? ... do you have a name I can call you by?”
“Zuka,” the merman said softly, voice still a melodic almost-singsong that seemed to make Carter want to move closer. “I... I am lonely.”
Even as he absently wondered if there was some truth to Sirens being the ancestors of merpeople, Carter felt something in his chest tighten at Zuka’s words. It seemed strange that someone who was so different than himself could be feeling the same emotion that he was feeling right now. “... I’m Carter,” he finally replied, giving in and closing that last bit of space between them so that he could reach out and touch the merman if he chose to. “And I know how you feel...”
“Carter...”
Something coiled in Carter’s belly at the way that Zuka said his name, even if he was just repeating it in interest, the expression on his face making it seem like he was tasting the syllables, rolling them around on his tongue and feeling the flavour of them. Unable to fight it anymore, he reached out and touched the soft looking curve of Zuka’s cheek, running rough fingertips down his skin.
His eyebrows rose a little bit at the feel of Zuka’s skin under his fingers. He’d expected it to be not unlike his own, or maybe just a little bit slimy like a fish’s might be, but instead it was soft and cool, and just a little plastic feeling. He wondered if that was in order to keep his skin from getting waterlogged and wrinkled like humans’ did when they were in the water too long.
It was so easy to go from there and lean in, to find Zuka’s lips with his own and kiss him softly; to feel the cool and dampness of Zuka’s lips against his own. A tiny part of his mind nagged at him, reminded him that not only did he not know this man, he also wasn’t even really a man, and that there were probably a tonne of good reasons not to engage in cross-species make out sessions. Still, it was hard to listen to that part, when Zuka was a really good kisser.
Pulling back reluctantly, Carter smiled just a bit when Zuka continued to nose at his cheek, lips cool and tasting faintly like sea salt. “You are so beautiful...”
A soft blush tinted the merman’s cheeks again, and Carter laughed, reaching out to touch the pinkness on his cheeks, loving how it barely made cool skin feel slightly warmer. “You look so surprised... surely other people have told you how gorgeous you are.”
Zuka’s blush deepened and he shook his head, lowering his gaze to the rocks that he sat on, the end of his tail flicking a bit in an almost nervous gesture.
“... seriously?” Carter felt like he was gaping again, but he couldn’t believe that no one had ever told Zuka he was beautiful before. “How is it possible that no one’s ever told you how beautiful you are? Have you been hanging around blind people?”
A tiny musical laugh escaped Zuka at that, and he smiled a bit shyly as he spoke. “I... I am most plain for a merperson... as a youngling, I was mocked very often.”
“And the people like me that you’ve visited?” Carter found himself asking, even as he found it hard to believe that Zuka was considered plain. Maybe to merfolk he was, but compared to humans, it was impossible to think that someone hadn’t told Zuka he was beautiful.
A tiny shrug lifted Zuka’s shoulders and for a moment his expression was so desolate and defeated that Carter had to fight to stop himself from reaching out and taking the merman into his arms to console him.
“The humans I visited before... they were not interested in paying me compliments, whether they thought they were true or not,” Zuka said softly, the musical lilt in his tone muted and sad sounding.
“Then they were idiots,” Carter found himself saying before he could even register the fact. “You’re beautiful, Zuka, and if they couldn’t see that... couldn’t take the time to make you feel it, regardless of why you came to them, then they were exceptional idiots.”
The tiniest of smiles curved Zuka’s lips at Carter’s words, and without even making the conscious decision to do so, he found himself leaning in to kiss Zuka once more. It was just as good as the first time, and Carter found it hard to pull away, continuing the kiss until he could feel his head spinning in confusion. Pulling back reluctantly, he didn’t move far and continued to touch the cool skin of Zuka’s cheek with the tips of his fingers.
“I... I wish that you would not have to leave me...” Zuka said, voice almost inaudible as he stared down at the rocks he perched on, not wanting to meet Carter’s gaze when he was voicing something so serious and so selfish.
His tone was so forlorn that Carter felt that strange and painful pull in his chest again. He wanted to make stupid promises, to tell Zuka that he would never leave him, but a life dealing with the worst in people had taught him never to make promises if he could help it, and to never make them lightly when he had to.
“I wish I didn’t have to either, sweetheart... but you’re a merman, and I’m a human,” Carter replied once he’d gotten himself under control. “I can’t come with you, and you can’t stay here.”
The tears that rolled down Zuka’s cheeks at Carter’s words were thick and luminescent, turning to pearls when they left his skin and clattering softly on the rocks and into the shallow tide pool. It was such an other-worldly thing that it was almost difficult for Carter to look away from the small pearls glistening in the water near his feet, but the fact that Zuka was crying was enough to force his focus on the merman once more.
“Shh...please, don’t cry...” Carter said softly, ready to start begging if it got Zuka’s tears to dry. He hated when anyone cried, because it made him feel absolutely useless. There was nothing worse in the world than being faced with someone’s tears and not being able to do anything about them.
Wiping uselessly at his cheeks, Zuka looked away, not wanting to face the other man when he was being so ridiculous. “I am sorry... I... I do not know why I am crying.”
A somewhat rueful, yet sad smile crossed Carter’s face even as he reached out to gently nudge Zuka to face him again. “You’re crying because you’re sad, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
No matter that they had only known each other for less than an hour, there was something about the merman that made Carter feel whole... connected in a way that he’d only ever felt with his brother and Trev. While it was ridiculous to think that a stranger – and one that wasn’t even fully human at that – could possibly make him feel this way, it was true.
“Will you visit with me some more? If you will be here?”
Not even for an instant did Carter even consider saying no. They were still here for almost another week, and he couldn’t imagine not spending time with Zuka even if he knew it was better for both of them that the merman left this area and moved on to somewhere new.
“Of course.”
Zuka’s smile was wide and beautiful, and Carter bit back the words that wanted to come out, that Zuka shouldn’t stay in this place for that long when it was dangerous. In the face of such a joyous expression, Carter couldn’t find it in himself to tell Zuka to not come back.
“Just… be safe, please?” he asked when he could speak again without his mouth betraying him. “Stay out of sight of boats… and don’t do anything rash.”
Head tilting to the side in confusion, expression so adorably perplexed, Zuka spoke even as he leaned into Carter’s light touch to his cheek. “What is… rash?”
Smiling softly, calloused fingertips seemingly helpless to do anything but caress Zuka’s soft skin, Carter loved that the merman didn’t know some words. “It means… to do something quickly and without thought. I don’t want you doing something that will put yourself in more danger than just staying here already will.”
“You worry too much,” Zuka said, but his smile was fond and Carter found himself melting a little bit under that expression. It was ridiculous to feel this way and he kept telling himself that, but he still couldn’t seem to help himself.
“I don’t think you worry enough,” he found himself saying softly, honestly worried that Zuka would do something reckless and end up hurt, or worse, captured.
Zuka smiled softly at that, but it was an expression so heavily tinged with melancholy that Carter had no trouble holding back the questions he might have wanted to ask about his past and family. Those constantly shifting eyes more than hinted at a sadness to his past, and Carter couldn’t be surprised. He knew what humanity was like when it came to things that were even remotely different, and Zuka wasn’t even just on the edge of different, he was right smack in the middle of different.
“Will you swim with me? Before you return to your dwelling?”
Pulled from such dismal thoughts by Zuka’s question, Carter blinked a few times, wondering if he’d possibly heard the other man wrong. “Swim with you?”
Nodding, a tiny mischievous smile playing around edges of sinfully full lips, Zuka flicked his tail just a little bit. He’d been out of the water longer than was smart and while he knew he should get back into the ocean, the last thing he wanted was to leave Carter’s side just yet.
Focusing now on Zuka instead of his own thoughts, Carter frowned at the almost sickly shade of green that Zuka’s skin was turning, instead of the faintest pale green it had been earlier. Wanting to kick himself for not thinking about how long the merman had been sitting up on the rocks with him, he nodded, knowing he’d do anything right now in order to get Zuka back into the water where he belonged.
A soft melodic chirp escaped Zuka as his smile widened into something stunningly beautiful and purely happy.
Carter watched in awe as he twisted and pushed off of the rocks, diving into the water cleanly. He searched the dark water immediately for signs of Zuka resurfacing, the tiniest bubble of apprehension in his belly growing with every second at the thought that Zuka might have been playing with him when he saw nothing.
When the merman’s dark hair finally broke the water, he let out the shaky breath that he had been holding and climbed to the edge of the rocks, ignoring his clothes and shoes as he jumped down into the cold water and Zuka’s waiting arms.
His breath escaped him in a sharp exhale when he surfaced, the water far colder than he’d anticipated. It was difficult to hold back the curses that wanted to spill free, but he really didn’t want to be the person who taught Zuka words he really shouldn’t be knowing. While he knew that the merman was far from a child in terms of years, he had an innocent air to him that Carter didn’t feel comfortable corrupting.
Pulled from his thoughts by the sound of a soft melodic song, he turned his eyes to Zuka, surprised to see that the singing was coming from him. Absently wondering if his earlier thoughts regarding Sirens were perhaps closer than he’s thought, he felt the tiredness and stress leave his body as he treaded water and listened to Zuka sing.
While deep down he knew it was dangerous to give himself over to the music when he barely knew Zuka and there was nothing stopping the merman from luring him further out to sea, he instinctively knew that Zuka would do nothing to harm him, even if others of his kind might.
“You are getting cold,” Zuka said softly after a bit, halting in his singing to swim closer to Carter and touch his cheeks with cool, wet, fingers. “You must get out now. If you stay longer and get sick, I will be sad.”
About to protest that he felt fine, Carter felt the real world come rushing back when Zuka paused in his singing, and the merman was right, he was bloody freezing. Fighting to keep his teeth from chattering, Carter allowed Zuka to tug him partially to the shore, but allowed him no further.
“If someone even caught a glimpse of you, there would be nothing I could do, and I don’t want you getting killed, or worse, stuck in a laboratory and experimented on for the rest of your life,” he said as he floated in the still deep water, hands on Zuka’s strong shoulders in order to keep himself effortlessly afloat. Before Zuka could ask what a lab was, Carter leaned in and kissed him once more, wondering if it was possible to be addicted to someone’s mouth. Pushing such dangerous thoughts away, he turned and swam towards the shore, turning only once to wave to Zuka, praying silently to himself that nothing would happen to him before he could return.
