Chapter Text
So, according to his first video call three weeks ago with this allegedly oceanographer Nara—allegedly, he might be scamming Naruto to be honest and not being the researcher from a marine center so far away from Naruto’s place—the merman had been trying to reinforce pod hierarchy, and now Naruto realized that he had been mildly aware of it since the tenth day of taking care of a creature like that, since the moment when there were less dangerous growls and there was a stop of attempts to scratch his face.
The merman was an adult specimen, larger than Naruto would ever be with a shiny silver tail, matching the white hair on his head, and since day one, Naruto could tell that the creature was smart: at first, his gray pupils had moved with calculated motions, and during the following days, the creature held a quick understanding towards new things, all despite the fact that they had never shared any proper verbal communication between them. Even at this point, every sound and word had been just unintelligible, complicated breaths.
Now, hand placed over his phone, Naruto wasn’t sure how to formulate the new doubts he had.
He stared at the creature—a male marine humanoid—and gray eyes were already looking back at him from his position inside the large tank. Naruto no longer thought about him as a ‘half-person, half-fish thing’. It felt too impolite and dehumanizing, even if they hadn’t exchanged words in their interactions. Or at least, not the kind of words that they could clearly understand.
It had been hard, of course, but Naruto didn’t avoid the sudden responsibility and he had been quite diligent with his help, perhaps because he wasn’t the type of person who turned his back on anyone.
But then, lately, their everyday interactions had shifted into something that had Naruto concerned somehow. The ‘no-longer-a-half-human-thing’ stopped spending all his time inside the tank—a temporary 400-gallon water tank—sleeping and quiet, and instead he had been more active and vigilant. Perhaps it was due to his recovery: the white-haired merman’s wounds were already healed under Naruto’s caring hands, and the whole pod hierarchy might be another reason behind the change.
Now, when the merman was awake, he kept his attention on Naruto always, watching with intense eyes whatever motion Naruto did, and if he seemed to dislike something, then a chirp-like sound would cut through the air, hitting the walls and earning an immediate response from Naruto. Ugh, practically like a Pavlovian response. It even felt instinctively, too natural, like something was now ingrained in Naruto’s mind, narrowing his full attention toward the larger figure.
And it was like having a big domestic cat. One of about 300 pounds.
This time, though, Naruto refused to walk to the tank to check on his companion, calling the last number saved on his phone and keeping standing a few meters away until he heard a voice from the other side.
“Agh, how troublesome, man. It’s Saturday.”
Naruto huffed out, although it wasn’t his real intention. He just couldn’t stop feeling the heavy gaze behind his back, and he was just trying to ignore it. It felt like a gravitational pull forcing him to take a look at the tank.
“Hey, if you didn’t want me to call you, doc, then, in the first place, you shouldn’t have given me your personal number while telling me, ‘You can call me for emergencies’.”
“Mh, I said that?”
“Doc.”
“Okay, you’re in a weird mood, I see.”
Naruto breathed. Okay, time to be serious, but when he opened his mouth to make his first question, a low call reached his ears.
Unable to stop himself, Naruto looked back at his companion, almost dragging a hand down his face in frustration. The gills on the merman’s neck were moving very slightly, and Naruto knew that it meant he was getting a bit impatient.
“I truly wish I could know what you’re saying but I can’t! ”
Naruto also knew that whatever the merman had said was a question; he knew it by the way the intonation sounded, but at the same time, at the other side of his phone, he could hear, ‘What was that, Naruto?’
Back to his phone, a bit flushed, Naruto said, “S-sorry, I’m a little... I don’t know. Um, you don’t happen to have an alphabet or whatever to understand mermaids, right?”
“Nope. No idea. I mean, the only thing that’s officially documented about their language—or your merman’s language, to clarify—is that it’s only spoken, it lacks its own writing system as far as we know. It has its own phonetics and dialect structure, sure, but I have no idea about it or who might be studying it. If someone is studying it, that’s it. Guess I’ll ask.”
Naruto felt deflated, but there was another question he felt urged to ask.
“Ok, whatever. What about… strange behaviors? You do know about that, don’t you?”
“The hell you mean by ‘strange behaviors’? You having a merman in your care, one that you found almost dead in a shoreline, is already something strange.”
“Look, I’m just... concerned? He has changed in the last few days, and I hope you can help me with that?” Naruto shifted his weight on his feet, his blue eyes quickly flicking back to the merman, almost nervous that he would finally understand Naruto’s words.
“You mean?”
“He’s been weird.”
The scientist heavily sighed, probably hating to speak with him.
“You mean?”
“I mean, he doesn’t want me to leave him alone, y’know? And today he hasn’t stopped trying to talk to me. Now I believe that he would literally jump from his tank to land on me if I tried to leave his vision range. I even needed to rearrange everything around here. Is he sick or somethin’? Although he has gained weight, even musculature. I mean, he looks healthy... But perhaps it’s an internal pain? I even gave him massages, he let me, but I didn’t feel anything strange beside, uh, well, his scales and the, uh, muscles underneath it.”
“Okay, okay. So he seems to be more needy of you, that’s what you’re referring to?” Naruto hummed in agreement before the scientist exhaled, a brief silence that indicated that he was really giving it a thought before he asked, “Something different that comes to your mind? Maybe a change in the level of salt or any other alteration in the atmosphere?”
“Uh, no?”
“Sure?”
Naruto closed his eyes, trying to recall everything that might come to help. He said the first thing that sounded a little relevant in his mind. “Ah, well, I tried to include in his food the medicine you tell me. Not so unexpectedly, he didn’t like the taste; he refused even if I cooked expensive salmon, so I forced him. I’m not gonna let his body starve to death after bringing his ass all the way out here, y’know?”
Oceanographer Nara paused, a long beat. Then, slowly, he asked, “You forced him?”
“Yeah.”
“How exactly, man?”
Naruto blushed, red flushing even creeping towards his ears and neck. He turned around to not be seen by the watchful merman.
“Heh, like with a cat? A dog?”
“Ah. You opened his jaw and put pills into his throat? That sounds pretty challenging, their teeth can literally slice you.”
“Um, I mean, no? I tried at first. It didn’t work so... I used a different tactic. But it was one time! No, two. Maybe three.” Naruto rushed to say at the same time that something behind his mind was telling him to stop talking.
“Which is…?”
“Mouth to mouth? I put the pills inside my mouth and then it was easy-peasy.” Although the other man wasn’t seeing him, Naruto rubbed his nape a bit sheepishly after the silence between them grew.
Naruto almost jumped when he heard the other’s voice once again.
“Let me get this straight. You fed an adult merman like a nesting bird feeds their baby birds? No, wait, you used tongue and all that to shove medicine and whatever down his throat, I guess? Man, that sounds fucked up enough for me.”
For a moment, Naruto remained still as he processed the words, his brow slowly beginning to form a scrunch. Then, when he was able to derive the meaning, realizing that that was exactly what he did and that he pretty much forced himself into a thinking and sentient being, Naruto could not be more ashamed.
“Oh, shit. Shit! I’m such a fucking creep!” He heard the sound of dripping water behind him but he couldn’t give it any focus.
Was he that stupid? He was a little too frustrated back then, and then it worked so perfect, still…
“I’m the worst…”
“Geez, calm down. At least we’re not talking about ‘cannibalism’ here. You know, like preparing sushi from his flesh.”
“That would be really fucked up, doc."
“Yeah. So as long as you keep that in mind, you’re just a little creep.”
“Aw, doc. I should just throw him back to the ocean. Am I a bad person?”
“I said calm down, how troublesome. I’m not thinking poorly about you, and I already told you that you can’t put him back in the ocean, not if we’re not sure what happened to his pod. And if you don't want to turn your life into a fuss, keep him out of the public eye.”
Well, Naruto was already getting himself into a self-deprecating mood. He wouldn’t want anyone else’s attention on him.
“Anyway,” Shikamaru Nara started again. “It seems that there’s already a fixed domesticity routine in your closeness with him.”
“Uh, yeah?” And when Naruto took a new look at the merman, he found the sight of half his body out of the water. Both their gazes locked, and somehow Naruto found it hard to swallow. And then, as the pervert he had believed himself to be for the last few minutes, his blue eyes lay on the hard abs marked just above the start of the tail.
The scientist’s voice brought him out of his momentary haze.
“Anyway, I might have a hypothesis. It sounds to me that you accidentally courted him by merfolk courtship display standards, and it maybe even started before the three kisses.”
“What?” Stupefaction filled him. “WHAT?”
The merman shouted out something, looking suddenly agitated, water getting on the floor, but Naruto only glued his phone closer to his ear.
“Shit, don’t scream,” the scientist admonished him. “But yeah. Even some of his vocalizations could have been a response to your attempts to attract him as a mate.”
“No. It can’t be. I didn’t–”
“You've been his caregiver, and then he showed conduct that reflected that he claimed you as a pod member; he already held you in high esteem. Watch out, maybe both of you are literally married in his eyes.”
Naruto’s cheeks were flushed like they’ve never been before.
Great, now he had a fish-boyfriend (a fish-husband, maybe).
“But you’re maybe wrong, right?”
“Then we’ll just have to put a wager on it. For now, I could only advise you to not make any dramatic change in your treatment towards him. He might take it badly and behave really strangely this time. Don’t put yourself in danger.”
In a sudden motion, Naruto sat on his haunches, nodding although it was only the merman who was watching him.
“I– I’ll call you later.”
“Don't stress it too much.”
“Sure, doc.”
With that the call ended and Naruto remained still, astonishing reflected on his face, and he could tell that the merman noticed it, keeping his eyes on Naruto as if asking wordlessly what was wrong with him, and before he knew it, Naruto walked towards the tank. He propped his arms on the glass side, crossing them, and the merman got closer to him, heads on the same level. There was a notable scar crossing his left eye, the most visual of the marks scattered around his body, but it didn’t make him, well, ugly. The face in front of Naruto was especially handsome, gorgeous, with almost transparent small scales adorning part of his sides.
Naruto sighed and let himself fall into the merman’s eyes.
“One day we will swim in the sea, all right? Maybe I should move on to a cabin near there?”
Whatever the white-haired merman replied back, it sounded quite like he agreed.
Fine, Naruto’s life had always been so weird, but he needed to figure out his next move. It could be refusing to acknowledge what he just had learned, right? Keep doing everything he had been doing like the days before, but before he could seriously ponder over it, his stomach rudely interrupted him with a growl, reminding him of how long he hadn’t put any food in him.
Ah, right. He needed to eat something. His fish-boyfriend (fish-husband, maybe), had him worried all day, trying to figure out if he was sick or whatever.
But then, his stomach twisted again, this time in a swooped feeling, his mind realizing something too sudden.
Quickly, blue eyes popped open wide, any thought shifting into understanding.
Oh, were those chirp-like sounds and unintelligible words worries about Naruto’s well-being today? Was the merman nagging him and telling him to eat? That he hadn’t seen Naruto preparing his ramen or anything at all?
Naruto’s expression softened and the merman got much closer. Naruto tilted his blond head when he asked his following question in a gentle tone. “You were just telling me to eat?”
A small and equally soft noise seemed to answer ‘Yes’.
.
So what if late at night Naruto squeezed himself into the water tank? Still all dressed? Probably not following Nara’s advice about not doing anything dramatic, but anyone who knew him would not judge him, knowing how unpredictable he truly was.
And it felt nice being with... well, whatever his name was. Maybe one day Naruto would learn to pronounce it. Or translate it into a proper human equivalent.
For now, they were face to face, and part of the large tail was wrapping him around Naruto’s waist, quite possessive.
Naruto was aware of the fact that if he kept there for at least another half an hour, he would get half hard.
So, he was kind of a pervert, huh? A virgin pervert, to clarify.
The merman told him something, low and making a flow of new emotions rush through his veins. Yep, he would get hard, and Naruto averted his eyes shyly. “Agh. I don’t know what you’re telling me…”
The flesh around him tightened, and a new sound like a whisper made him look at gray eyes again. “I don’t know? Maybe it's, 'Take your clothes off’, or maybe, ‘Suck on my fingers’. And y’know? Now that I’ve been really thinking about it, I might do any of those things if you really ask them. But I cannot know.”
The merman leaned forward to him, not pronouncing anything but Naruto felt like carefully being examined.
God, this man could make him feel flustered so easily.
“I– I think I’m getting a little carried away, and it’s kinda frustrating because if I suck your fingers, I can totally imagine you saying something like, ‘That’s good, baby, keep doing it like that.’ Perhaps then I’d prematurely come, because apparently, as stated in the last sentence, I have a remarkable praise kink!”
One of the merman’s hands reached him, softly putting it to the back of Naruto’s neck, and Naruto closed his eyes, but he could easily imagine how that hand was—the webbing membranes between the spaces of the fingers, flexible and thin flesh that didn’t hinder the dexterity of those fingers, then retractile nails, a big palm, and calloused skin on the inner parts of each knuckle. Here, Naruto thought about how good those hands could feel around his cock, but before he either depeened himself into the idea or decided that he needed to run, he felt how the other started to rub his cheek against his jaw, clearly an affectionate gesture.
“Um, what?”
Then he felt lips that ghosted over that same jaw.
Ah, kisses. Right, kisses. Like the days before.
Naruto had ‘kissed’ him, so it was logical that he was asking for a kiss.
No pills in the middle. Unnecessarily.
They leaned over to each other, and a slow and deliberate kiss started. Naruto clearly didn’t know what he was doing, but hell, it felt perfect. Too good. Soon, the kiss shifted into something else, and Naruto exhaled hard from his nose as soon as the other wanted to taste the inside of his mouth, tilting his head and moving his lips with enthusiasm—a ravenous kiss.
Naruto later laughed boisterously, butterflies fluttering inside his stomach.
Ah, he didn’t know he could easily start falling in love, and even if Naruto didn’t know his name, he could start calling the merman ‘Husband’.
Better dive in all with the courtship display thing.