Chapter Text
Obsidian island was the only island in the Gemstone isle to hold human life and was not open to outsiders. People from the island could come and go as they pleased by a small plane, as was a common occurrence for women who sought out men on the mainland to get them pregnant only to return to the island and never leave again.
Until like those on the mainland and elsewhere in the world, the Obsidians as they referred to themselves, were a people with a secret known only to them.
They knew what lurked in the oceans and what hid in wait for those foolish enough to have forgotten the old ways.
They were a people cursed for taking something that which did not belong to them, and none that shared their blood could ever hope to leave the island, for it was the island itself, that kept the curse at bay. They were an island of women, an island of women until the day Takemichi was born that is.
Merpeople were shy creatures, they didn’t lure people to their death like his Grandma forewarned, in fact, they were beautiful creatures filled with passion and longing if their woefully love songs meant anything.
He hadn’t meant to come upon them, this small colony that frolicked in the noontide in the bay on the other side of the island that Takemichi had lived on his entire life. They say his mother had tried to flee to the mainland only to die shortly after, leaving him to be returned to his Grandmother on the island.
So, it was his Grandmother who raised him.
She’d always been a storyteller.
Takemichi would hang on her every word when she spoke about her life, about the people she’d grown up with and the dreams that she’d dared to dream yet had never amounted to anything, but nothing ever caught his attention the same way she had done the night she spoke of the Merpeople.
“Savage, blood-thirsty things, my boy.” His Grandmother had warned, her weathered face taking on a ghastly white sheen. “They drown sailors and feasts upon their flesh at the bottom of the sea, and there be nothing but bones upon the seabed that be left of any who are caught by them. They’ve evil creatures, Takemichi, that evilness that cannot be cured. Only the devil would make their kind.” She suddenly grasped his hand, squeezing it so tightly that tears fell from his eyes at the sudden pain. “You must never get close to the sea, they can’t come far on land, but if you ever get too close,” she left the rest unsaid.
It was the only time she ever spoke of the sea creature’s and Takemichi was met with a firm warning if he ever brought them up again.
“Would you like to join us?”
So entrapped by the beauty of the Merpeople he hadn’t noticed that another had slid up onto the rocks beside him.
“Ah!” A wet webbed hand caught him from smashing his face against the rocks, its grip leaving Takemichi breathless at the pain.
“I didn’t realize humans were so uncoordinated.” The wispy voice said, sending chills up Takemichi’s spine.
Blue eye’s flickered up to black eyes and a mouth filled with sharp teeth on show due to the smile the creature was gracing him with. There was a looming force that held Takemichi still when he locked eyes with the creature, so strong was it that he couldn’t even flinch when the clawed hand released him only to cup his face and draw him closer.
“Blue eyes.”
It probably wasn’t a question, but Takemichi managed to answer anyway. “Yes.”
The hand released him as a much less feral grin graced the creature's lips, its body moving to slide down the rock and settle itself upon Takemichi's lap.
“Tell me your name?”
Again, an answer fell from his lips without his control. “Takemichi Hanagaki.”
“Takemitchy.” The creature purred, and Takemichi shivered when its nose ran along his neck smelling him directly. “You’ll come and play with us, right?”
And then, as if by magic he was back in control almost throwing the creature away in his haste to stand. “No! I mean, no. It… it wouldn’t be right, I’m not,” He didn’t know what was happening, but he needed to leave. “I have to return home; my Grandmother is waiting.” He almost slipped again as he fully looked upon the creature.
A long slim tail lay against the rocks, the scales a deep black that glittered like jewels in the sunlight. A set of fins ran about halfway down its tail, they lay flushed against the scales, clearly not needed while on land. Its tail fin tapped against the rocks every so often as if unable to be still and a set of gills could be seen on the creature's neck below a set of fin-like ears that peaked out from beneath long blond hair.
“You’ll come back though, won't you?” The creature asked, leaning forward as Takemichi stepped away, putting another step between them.
Although the creature hadn’t harmed him in any way, his Grandmother’s warning still rang loud within his head, telling him to flee back to the village.
“I don’t know,” Takemichi said, cursing his honestly when the creature pouted and gazed at him in sadness. “Maybe.” He said finally and then turned and ran.
Maybe he was stupid for having gone over to the forbidden part of the island, maybe it was his own fault given his Grandmother had warned him or maybe it was just that it had always meant to be? In the end, his fate was sealed with that one encounter and there was no going back. He couldn’t have known the darkness that lurked in the sea was real, nor about the creature that laid in wait.
Curled up beneath the morning sunlight, the seaweed anchoring him on the seafloor he rested amongst his clan. They were one of the last clans to their knowledge, many having been wiped out by the humans long ago, and yet still their numbers decreased with each passing year.
He had thought to leave, to go join the other clans in the far North or perhaps the clans in the great open oceans to the east, but something kept him here, unable to leave the island his brother had chosen as their safe haven. The place where his brother had died. He hadn’t known the reason he stayed, hadn’t known until he’s spotted the inky locks of some human boy peeping upon them.
He had slipped from the water intent on killing the human, protecting his clan from those that would harm them. He had gone on land to kill, and yet he’d allowed the human to run back to its own kind. Alive, not at all dead like he’d intended.
Blue eyes and a face so eerily similar to his brother had kept him from killing the boy. A young thing by his face, not nearly as old as Mikey, yet humans didn’t usually live very long. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the boy had somehow broken his control, something which had never happened before to him.
Strange.
A feral grin was plastered across his face as he slid back down the rocks into the refuge of the welcoming sea, signaling to his clan to return to the deeper depts of their home.
Now, resting on the seabed, he cast his black eyes on his clan, curled around one another, and were deep asleep with the notion that they were safe under Mikey’s watch. They were a dwindling race. The females hunted to the point that it was rare for a single one to be born and even more difficult to draw one away from its clan given how precious they already were, and those born after the war were still too young to carry, like his sister who was protected at all times.
The boy, Takemitchy, there was something about him that drew Mikey to him, something familiar that stirred his loins in a way that had never happened before.
His tail wriggled in anticipation, a pained wimped leaving his lips as his cock slipped past the folds that kept it hidden. His hand immediately went to cover it, knowing that his body shouldn’t be reacting in such a way when there was no mate within his reach, and then it suddenly all made sense.
The boy.
Against his better judgment, Takemichi found himself returning to the other side of the island more and more as the days passed until he ventured over every day to seek out the black-eyed merman whom he came to know as Mikey.
His friend.
Mikey was playful in an almost childlike manner. He’d tickle Takemichi’s toes, poke at his teeth, he was amazed by Takemichi in a similar way Takemichi was to him. Somehow, their friendship just seemed to work, despite his earlier fears.
“Tell me of your family, Takemitchy,” Mikey asked, tail lazily drifting back and forth in the small pool of water they had found in the rocky section where they met.
“My mother died when I was little,” Takemichi began, trying not to pull his foot away when Mikey’s nail tickled the underside of his foot. “My father was from the mainland, they’re not welcome here for some reason, so after I was born my Mother returned to him. I think they hoped to raise me as a family, expect my Mother died days after arriving and I suppose it was too much for my Father to raise me alone.” He struggled, hand reaching to play with some of the seaweed in the pool. “My Grandmother took me in after that and raised me.”
He didn’t mention that she was in fact passed nor that he lived alone. He decided to keep that to himself.
“Your Grandmother, did she also mate off the island?” Mikey asked, wiggling his little toe in fascination.
Takemichi had to think about that, she had never mentioned having left someone on the mainland, and there were no men on the island apart from himself. “I suppose she did.”
“Could you ask?” Mikey’s black eyes were suddenly alight with something mischievous.
“Um, no... not really, she’s very quiet about these things. I wouldn’t feel comfortable asking anyway.” He said trying to leave the subject behind, or he had been until something clicked in his head. “I do remember her saying something about the sea, she was sick at the time, a bad fever. She’d mutter stuff and say things that made no sense. I remember her talking about eyes. Eye’s that were black, a black abyss.” He looked into the black eyes in front of him that mirrored that same abyss. “Mikey, you didn’t?”
Mikey smiled that feral smile Takemichi had grown used to. “Not me, no. I’ve never even spoken to a human before you.”
It gave Takemichi a feeling of relief.
He didn’t know why but the idea of being part Merperson was just a little too much for his simple mind to comprehend.
A clicking sound echoed from the bay, the other Merpeople watching them from a distance calling to their leader.
“Looks like it’s time to go,” Takemichi said with a smile, noting the frown that Mikey turned his way when he stood from his seated position on the pool's rocky edge.
“Hey, Mitchy.”
He couldn’t help but smile at the little nickname Mikey called him.
“Yes?”
“Would you like to meet them, my clan?”
Blue eyes widen as they darted to the mer’s jumping about the bay in a chase.
“Could I?” He asked and then realized that they might not be like Mikey. “I mean, is that something they’d like? I know that they might not want to be near humans, not after what you told me happened in the past.”
Mikey’s hand, which once had made him flinch with every touch, was now a familiar feeling he’d grown used to given that Mikey liked to constantly touch him, grasped hold of his ankle.
“They’ve been asking about you, my sister, especially wants to meet you.”
Eye’s that reflect blue jewels widened to an almost impossible size. “A mermaid? A real one?”
Eyes the same colour as the name given to the island narrowed at his words. “You’re not going to go fall in love with her just because she’s a girl, are you?”
Takemichi blushed, hands waving as he outright denied the accusation. “Nooo. Mikey! Don’t say that.” His face was no doubt bright red from how embarrassed he was that Mikey would even think that. “I’m not going to just fall in love with your sister.”
Mikey’s eyes had darkened at the thought, lightened as his toothy smile reappeared on his lips. “Well, as long as you don’t were ok. She’s underage you know; it will be at least another 70 years before she’d ready to carry her first.” Mikey supplied as if this was a normal conversation.
“She’s a kid!?” Takemichi cried, even more outraged that Mikey would think he would fancy a child. “Mikey, I don’t know how it works for you, but it’s against the law to have a relationship with a child, it’s something I’d never do.”
Mikey grinned, completely unapologetic at what he had accused Takemichi of moments ago.
“So, you’ll come to meet them?”
“Uhh?” Takemichi looked from his friend to the other’s biting his lip as he thought over whether now was the right time.
“Please?”
A single glance at Mikey and his wide eyes and pouty lips were enough to break Takemichi’s resolve.
“Ok.” He tried to offer a similar smile to the one Mikey was offering him, but there was no way his smile could ever be so bright.
Foolish.
The word repeated over and over again in his mind as he was dragged down into the depts, the air leaving his lungs in bubbles that floated almost peacefully back to the surface which grew further and further away as his mind also seemed to grow darker with each passing second without air.
His struggle had ended the moment Mikey had pulled him beneath the surface, the merman’s strength seeming to be tenfold what it had been that first time he’s grabbed Takemichi. His arms were steel bands encasing Takemichi in an embrace that he hadn’t even tried to fight, not while the other clan members circled around the pair in a frenzy.
It was a fitting death, he thought as his consciousness faded, the sun’s light penetrating the surface to cast rays of light down upon him.
‘Maybe those rays of sunlight will carry me back to Granny.’ He thought as he finally slipped into darkness.
“Are you sure this is what you want? That it will even work?”
Mikey barely spared Draken a glance as he dismissed him and then began the task of removing Takemichi’s wet clothes. The breeding caves beneath the main island are not an option, not when he knows that the last one escaped.
Breeding with humans is something that was done in the old days when the world was at peace with one another. Those of the past had left traces of their love to remain when they had gone. Children who were born of the land and sea.
Takemichi was one of the reminders.
Mikey’s brother had fallen in love with one of the inhabitants of the island. A female whose beauty he said was incomparable.
His love had led to his death.
He had died leaving Mikey to lead the clan, Mikey who was still a child himself.
Almost 100 years later and still the pain lingered, and yet here before him, in the form of a boy was all that remained of his brother.
His hands smoothed back the inky locks that he could only have inherited from Shinichiro, as well as that same smile that Mikey could remember from his youth and those eyes.
Shinichiro had done nothing but talk about those blue’s that mirrored the sea for weeks. Those same eyes that Mikey had told his brother were nothing special were exactly like how his brother described.
“Don’t worry, Takemitchy.” He lay his head down on the sleeping male's chest, the crystals above them lighting up the small unground cave located on one of the smaller islands. “You’ll be safe here; you’ll not be able to escape like your Grandmother.” He promised both of them.
The steady rhythm of the heart beating in Takemichi's chest was the most beautiful sound Mikey had ever heard, it lulled him to follow Takemichi into sleep.
Carefully curly around the slumbering male, Mikey allowed himself to drift off to sleep in the knowledge that his clan would watch over them both.
He comes back to conciseness in flashes, a ceiling of stone above him and Mikey smiling at him. Glowing crystals that grow from the walls at shape angles and weird plants that wriggled to some unheard tune.
“Hi, Takemitchy.” Mikey’s sang from his side, his hand brushing up against Takemichi’s nipple had the boy shooting upright.
“What? What’s going on?” He cried out upon seeing the stone walls encasing him in on all sides. A section of the ground gave way to a pool of water that looked to be the only exit.
“Do you like it?” Mikey asked, hands rubbing up Takemichi's bareback.
‘Bareback?’
“Mikey! Why am I naked?” He immediately curled in on himself, hands covering his cock from Mikey's view. “Just where exactly am I?”
Mikey grinned and as usual didn’t give thought to the fact that Takemichi might like some personal space. “These are some of the old breeding dens. They’ve been out of use for a long time, but I prepared this place for you when I realized you’d need somewhere safe to stay.”
Takemichi was horrified by the explanation, shaking as Mikey ran a wet tongue up his arm before offering him a shy smile.
“Do you like it?”
Words escaped Takemichi as his eyes roamed the room.
“Mikey, this is all…. This is all nice and whatnot, but I can’t stay here?”
Mikey cocked his head to the side in confusion.
“You don’t like it?”
Despite the situation, Takemichi didn’t want to offend his friend. “No, it’s lovely very… homey.” He didn’t know what to say. “I like… Is this a bed?” Takemichi asked, taking note of the soft fluffy stuff he’s been laying on.
It oddly enough radiated heat.
Mikey grinned, sprawling himself to suggest how comfy it was.
“It’s made from rayrex petals.” He motioned to the wiggling plants.
Takemichi shook his head and stood, thankful that the cave was big enough that he could probably jump up and down without fear of hitting the ceiling, and wide enough that he could walk around if he wanted to.
“Mikey, how did I get here?” He asked, looking down at the tunnel beneath the surface of the water.
Forget about being self-conscious about his nakedness, something told him that he was in a lot more trouble than if he’d been eaten.
“I brought you here.”
“I can see that, but what I don’t know is why?”
Mikey blushed, a faint pink appearing upon his cheeks as his tail wriggled and did some kind of thrusting movement. “I’m going to breed you.”
Takemichi felt something inside him grow cold at the words, the colour draining from his face as he stepped back onto the small bank of the pool.
“Mikey, I’m not a girl.” He said trying to appeal to the other male, who was gazing at him with hungry eyes. “I can’t get pregnant.”
Mikey smiles, the blushing growing strong as a pink cock began to poke out from the slit in his tail before quickly retreating.
“Expect you can.”
Cold terror washed over Takemichi as he became aware of the fact that the stories had been right all along.
Monsters.
“You’re going to bear my child, Takemichi.”
He doesn’t even have to time to think before Mikey is diving across the floor and pushing him into the cool water. His mouth fills with water before he is righted and laid pressed against the slope of the pool.
“You’re going to be the perfect mate, already pretty, but you’ll be even prettier when carrying my child.” Mikey cooed in his ear, his tail thrusting against Takemichi’s ass.
His fingers clawed at Mikey trying to wriggle out before beneath the monster pinning him down.
“Mikey, that’s not how this works. Please, please get off of me.” He tried to reason as Mikey’s hands forced him onto his back, his tail now situated between his legs.
Clicking his tongue, Mikey ran a finger beneath Takemichi’s eye, careful of his long nails. “My brother said thoses eyes were beautiful, I didn’t believe him until now.”
“Mikey, I can’t have children.?” Takemichi cried, chest rising and falling at a rapid pace due to his fear.
“Your grandmother is the reason my brother died, Takemichi.” Mikey’s next words had Takemichi freezing in fear. “She escaped from her breeding cave and took something precious with her, my brother's child, your mother.”
Lies his mind shouted.
“That not true, my mother wasn’t a mermaid,” Takemichi said, shaking his head in denial.
“My brother died trying to retrieve his child before its birth. Our kind must be born into the sea. Your mother was born on land, but she was still my brother's child, had we known we could have taken her,”
“And what,” Takemichi cut him off, eyes wide with fear. “Forced her to give birth to one of your children?!”
“No, not me, but one of my clan,” Mikey said in a patronizing way. “But to think my brother's blood would be so strong that it carried over to you, such things aren’t usually possible.”
Tears streaming down his cheeks as Takemichi tried one more time to reason with him, the feel of the tail thrusting against him this time was accompanied by something poking at his hole.
“Mikey, I’m a man. I don’t have the organs necessary to get pregnant.”
Mikey cooed in a low tone seemly trying to calm him. “I don’t need you to get pregnant, Takemitchy. I need you to carry my egg within you till it is ready to be born.” Mikey smiled then to Takemichi’s horror, the blush returning to his cheeks as he wiped away the freshly fallen tears. “Don’t you see Takemitchy, mermaids can only carry again once their child is of age, it’s one of the reasons we are dwindling in numbers, but you, you can carry each year without the waiting period. I will give you a new egg each year to carry. My brother's blood within you mixed with mine will make them strong.”
More tears fell with the terror that came with Mikey's words and a tremor shook his frame when Mikey laid a lingering kiss upon his lips.
“Don’t be afraid, Takemichi. I’ll make you feel good.” Mikey promised, his tail wiggling in excitement as he bent to bite Takemichi’s nipple, pulling forth a cry from the boy. “Your young, but I’ll teach you everything you need to know, I’ll make you scream so loud my clan will hear you outside the caves.” Another shy smile. “Together we will save our clan.”
A splash was heard as Mikey lowered himself further into the water, pulling Takemichi over the ledge with him until Takemichi was submerged neck-deep in the water. The merman smirked at him from beneath the water as his mouth opened to engulf Takemichi’s cock in his mouth.
He tried to twist, move somehow, but couldn’t struggle much with the angle that Mikey held him at, his hips pinned to the rock wall. Takemichi could do nothing but try his best to stay afloat and not drown as water constantly spilled in his mouth with every moan Mikey pulled from him.
“Ahhhh.” He cried, when a hand gripped him softly by the balls, massaging them gently until he felt the rush of cum shot into Mikey’s awaiting mouth.
Mikey’s dark eyes continued to watch him from beneath the water. The glowing crystals gave light when Takemichi would have preferred to have seen nothing. A whine of pain left him when a clawed finger entered him and he found himself trashing against it, until a face pressed into his thigh and sharp teeth bit into him drawing blood.
“Please,” Takemichi begged teary blue eyes locked with black. “Don’t do this.”
Mikey ignored the words, returning instead to continue sucking and licking Takemichi’s cock. Drawing sounds of both pain and pleasure, much to Takemichi’s frustration.
His body was tense until the finger inside of his brushed against something within that had him crying out in pleasure, his facing heating at the fact that he had enjoyed whatever it was Mikey had done to him.
Mikey, without a doubt, had noticed the reaction, and adding a second finger began a constant rhythm that gave Takemichi no relief from the new pleasure that was assaulting his system.
He bobbed up and down in the water, breathless from both trying not to drown and pleasure that had his moans echoing off the cave walls.
The fingers within him seemed to curve at an odd angle and then he felt them press into some kind of pocket within him.
Mikey seemed eager to press into the pocket as much as possible after finding it, it felt like he was stretching it within Takemichi.
“It’s your womb,” Mikey said, popping up to capture Takemichi's mouth in a kiss. “It’s something that happens to those with our blood born on land, it allows you regardless of your gender to carry my egg.”
Words were useless to Takemichi as he sucked in a deep breath, grabbing at Mikey’s shoulders to try to stay above the water.
Mikey’s fingers continued to stretch him; his own cock having been fully released from its slit rubs against Takemichi's own cock with every roll of Mikey’s hips. The friction between them sent jolts of pleasure through Takemichi’s cock with each rock from Mikey.
He can’t see it, but it feels different from his own, like a mushroom of sorts.
A streak of white-hot pleasure shot down his spine as he comes with a cry, tears continue to spill as the plants above him wriggle in what seemed to be a mocking gesture.
“I’ve been waiting so long, Takemitchy,” Mikey says pressing his lips against Takemichi’s collar bone, his hot breath sending goosebumps against Takemichi’s skin and slowly those shape claws leave him as carefully as they’d entered him.
His body is hoisted up onto the slope, barely given the chance to come down from his high before Mikey’s weight is settled upon him. His ass hangs just on the edge, his legs dangling in the deeper water with Mikey’s upper half laid across him to hold him down.
The shift allows for Mikey's cock to catch against Takemichi’s hole, his insides loosened from when Mikey’s fingers had been pressed inside, and with a more centered trust, a scream is torn from Takemichi as Mikey forces his way inside of him.
Immediately Mikey sets a brutal pace, rutting against Takemichi without care for the other. The snap of hips is echoed around the cave, Takemichi’s cries lost between the sounds of slapping skin and grunts from Mikey, the water trashing around them with the force of Mikey’s thrusts.
Every thrust leaves Takemichi gasping for breath, his hands clawing at Mikey’s back, the only thing that anchors him to reality. His inner thighs will no doubt be bruised black and blue with the grueling pace Mikey hammers into him at, his cock entering into that pocket inside Takemichi with every thrust of his hips.
There is nothing he can do but lay there as the man whom he thought was his friend rapes him without any regret.
Mikey, despite the force with which he enters Takemichi, is gentle as he press’s loving kisses across his chest and neck, purring a low sound that is almost as loud as the moans that spill past Takemichi’s parted lips.
Unexpectedly the pace slows, the thrusts losing some of the force behind them, it edges on almost love making the pace at which Mikey suddenly sets, or it had until Takemichi feels the sudden growth in Mikey's cock.
Its round Takemichi thinks through the haziness that swallows his mind.
It’s as if a ball had entered Mikey's shaft, and the thrusts are slowly moving it up the shaft and towards the head.
Mikey’s egg his mind supplies.
His cock twitches, coating himself and Mikey once more in his cum, much to his shame.
Mikey’s face is flushed, a soft pink spreading across his cheeks as he gazes at Takemichi. His mouth falls open in a silent O as the egg is deposited into Takemichi.
It felt no bigger than a normal egg but takes up the entire space within Takemichi as if it were made to fit perfectly.
Again, the pace begins to grow, and Takemichi cries out as Mikey’s cock presses the egg in further, expect there is no place for it to go.
He is a fucked-out mess when he comes again, mouth hanging open gasping for air when he feels the warmth of cum spilling forth from Mikey within him.
He doesn’t feel Mikey slip out from inside him, nor does he notice when he’s pulled back onto the petal bed on the cave floor, instead, darkness creeps over him like an old friend, whisking him off into a dreamless sleep.
It is with great success that his egg was planted within Takemichi, his body the perfect host to carry the future of their clan.
The pouch within Takemichi had sealed itself shut once the egg had attached itself to the inner walls of Takemichi’s womb. It was now that it would fuse both his own and Takemichi’s DNA together to create a child that was a mixture of both of them, a child that was the future of their clan.
Takemichi had been doubtful that the child would be his but Mikey explained that by having swallowed Takemichi’s sperm he had indeed fertilized the egg meaning it was a child created by them both, a child which then Mikey had then passed over to Takemichi to carry within himself.
For a time, Mikey had worried over his Mate’s dislike at their egg, his words had driven Mikey to even fear for their egg for a time, but eventually, Takemichi had grown to care for it as Mikey had done since the beginning.
Watching their egg grow had left Mikey craving Takemichi’s body more than he had done before, even without the need to breed, Mikey found that spilling his seed within Takemichi was just as enjoyable as creating an egg was, and Takemichi was often forced into the water to sate his mate's desire.
And when at last the time came for Takemichi to birth their child, Mikey helped hold him above the water of the pool. The cries of pain were causing his heart to ache as he tried to soothe his mate. His belly was large with child, and Mikey could feel it move within as it fought to free itself and enter the ocean.
Already a fighter, Mikey thought with a smile.
His clan lingered in the tunnels, passing by the entrance below every so often to see if his child had been born, they were just as excited as Mikey at the coming of his child.
When the water below began to flow red, and Takemichi's legs which had been using Mikey's tail as a means of bearing down loosened slightly, he felt the touch of another brush against him softly before a small wail echoed the cave as his child broke the surface behind Takemichi.
Immediately the small thing swam towards Takemichi, Mikey distancing himself slightly so it could wriggle its way against Takemichi’s chest, sighing once it had attached itself to his mother.
A black tail, the same shade as Mikey’s own gleamed brightly, to the proud father's pleasure.
His mate’s eyes were wide in wonder and as usual overflowing with tears, his hand stroking the back of their child’s head, its tail wiggling between the two of them as Mikey pressed close to bracket their child between them.
“A strong child.” Mikey praised as he held both his mate and child above the water, basking in the delight that both were safe in his arms.
It would be the first one many, Mikey would see to it that his mate never knew what it felt like to be empty, already his body stirred at the thought of creating another child, but as his mate’s eyes dropped and his child cooed, he thought to himself that it better to wait.
They had many years ahead of them after all, and with his brother’s blood active in Takemichi’s blood and his own seed feeding him life, Takemichi’s life which once had been bound by human time would never know age as he had once done.
Now, they could be together forever.