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Rhys has been sleeping a lot lately.
He hadn't noticed how sore his body was nor how lazy and complacent he was becoming until recently.
At first, he thought only that he could use a break after the few harsh days he had.
Rhys Vane went from pirate captain to corsair prisoner to sea creature collectible in less than a week.
He remembered how surprised he was when he first saw Ilya. Not only was he a creature that Rhys never even imagined to be real, he was also huge.
Rhys was not a short man, on the contrary, people used to look up to talk to him, but Ilya’s size completely dwarfed him. If you counted his whole tail, the mer would easily be over 4 meters tall.
Not only that, he was slim, but muscular and his black curtain of hair and sea-glass-like alien eyes made him truly intimidating.
However, as the days went by, Rhys began to see Ilya for what he truly was: a collector and, truthfully, something of a nerd.
He’d often hum to himself when organizing his hoard, muttering broken human words under his breath as he carefully arranged forks by shape or tried to polish a piece of glass with algae. He once spent an entire evening trying to understand the difference between a spoon and a ladle, completely absorbed. Rhys remembered how Ilya's eyes lit up with triumph when, with a little help from him, he finally got it right.
He'd also get excited over learning human words from Rhys, dressing up in picked and curated baubles every single day and adding some new shiny thing from the human world to his hoard.
Even after that first night they spent tangled together — when Rhys had woken nicely sore, depleted and boneless — he wasn't cold like he expected. He was instead covered in some warm linen and pelt cloth. Dry and clean too.
He had no idea where Ilya even found these human things but, as Rhys taught him more human words, he started to bring in more of the stuff that Rhys might actually need instead of filling the cave with random shiny garbage.
As a result, after only a few days, the merman’s den began feeling a little more like a home.
The bed beneath him was much softer now — layers of dried kelp, waxed cloth, and something resembling a woven net now made it's structure. Around him, the ledge had been built up with new objects: bits of wood lashed into shelves, rusty bowls filled with fish, salt-cured meat and fruit that Rhys often ate — mostly oranges, coconuts and bananas.
Trinkets from the hoard had been moved — less chaotic, more ornamental.
Now, tools sat within reach and a rain tarp stretched high above the rocks to catch fresh water in a carved basin nearby.
It was a bit more like a home. But Rhys knew it still wasn’t his home.
Not that he ever owned a house to begin with. He lived mostly on his ship. More than shelter, more than transport. She was the only place where he belonged, the only thing he ever truly chose. A freedom and purpose all in one. Being without her felt like losing a limb. Worse even, considering he didn’t miss his own leg all that much.
Being here, in a cave — even a well-stocked one — felt like wearing someone else's clothes and pretending they fit.
He felt off kilter.
But nevermind getting his ship back from the corsair who stole it. The way things were, he'd never even see a ship again.
In fact, he hadn’t seen a single ship on the horizon since arriving. Instead, he cayght more and more glimpses of fairytale creatures.
He saw mermaids — the kind from old tales — singing, sunbathing, swimming far beyond the rocks. He saw animals — not birds — flying in the sky. And small glowing creatures skulking about Ilya's cave, always trying to steal from his collection — to their demise, since Ilya always ate them.
Rhys once tried to warn one to leave — a fluttering thing with too many legs and a glow like moonlight — but Ilya caught it mid-air with a flick of his claws. He bit down without ceremony, swallowed, and wiped his mouth on the back of his arm like nothing had happened.
Rhys didn't try to talk to them again after that.
The longer he stayed, the stranger the creatures he saw. Soon he realized this wasn’t just a cave or a reef. It was a fold in the world, a place where rules warped. A place that didn’t quite belong to the sea or the land or the humans. Which worried Rhys a lot but also made him all the more curious to know how Ilya got all these human objects
One day, Ilya returned from a long hunt dragging something enormous behind him — a cast iron tub, covered in barnacles and rust but intact. Rhys stared at it, blinking, stunned. It must’ve weighed a ton and come from a wreck or a settlement or gods knew where.
Ilya just tilted his head and gestured to it, proud. "Gift." he said.
Rhys laughed aloud. “You got me a bath?”
Ilya nodded. "Rain. Clean. Warm. You like."
Ilya lingered after that, watching Rhys with a strange intensity. He didn’t seem to expect praise, but his gills fluttered at the edges and he preened a little — arms folding over his chest, chin lifting as if basking in some unspoken approval. Rhys raised an eyebrow at that.
“Don’t get cocky,” he said, cracking a half-smile. “It’s just a tub.”
Ilya’s brow furrowed. “Tub. Gift.”
“Yeah, yeah. A fancy, rusted tub. Still better than anything else I’ve had in weeks.”
That seemed to please Ilya. He nodded and disappeared beneath the water for a moment, returning with a fistful of shells and a bar of something vaguely resembling soap.
He offered them with both hands. “Gift.”
Rhys blinked. “Wow, another gift. You trying to court me or wash me?”
Ilya tilted his head. “Court?”
Rhys laughed — a low, genuine laugh. “Alright then. Let’s get to it.”
Ilya brought the materials but Rhys had scavenged everything — old barrels split in half to boil rainwater over a fire pit, seashells crushed with citrus peel to make a kind of exfoliant. He’d sliced fresh oranges and tossed them into some seawater, then stirred the whole tub with a scrap of driftwood.
Ilya watched the entire process like a scholar witnessing a secret ritual. His head tilted at every step — eyes wide, unblinking. He reached out once to sniff a shard of peel, then recoiled at the sting, shaking his hand with a soft noise of surprise.
When Rhys stirred the water with a makeshift paddle, Ilya leaned in close, gills flaring, tail twitching slightly behind him expressing his curiosity. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t ask. He simply watched, absorbing each movement like this, too, was a treasure. Something new and rare and beautiful and worth hoarding.
"Done! And well done!" Rhys celebrated to himself, appreciating his handiwork. He could really use a good bath.
He stripped down slowly, not because he was shy, but because he enjoyed the way Ilya looked at him — hungry, curious, reverent even. Ilya had seen him naked before, had touched him, fucked him. But somehow, this moment felt a little different. Almost… tender.
He slid into the water with a content sigh, gesturing to the tub. “You coming or what?”
Ilya’s eyes lit up. “Yes.”
Rhys watched him rise from the pool like a vision out of some fevered myth — long hair streaming, scales glinting, water cascading down the lines of his chest. He moved slowly, pulling himself onto the ledge with fluid strength. His tail curled under his body for balance as he observed Rhys’s setup with open wonder.
Ilya leaned close to the edge of the tub and sniffed cautiously after his first contact with citrus. “Smell... Good.”
“It’s for your scales too,” Rhys said. “The seashells, the citrus... they should clean and soften them.”
Ilya’s fingers hovered over the surface, swirling the floating slices. “You make this!”
“Yeah,” Rhys said, chuckling. “Not bad for some roguish pirate with no ship.”
Ilya looked up at him, bright-eyed. “Clever."
Rhys smiled openly and that seemed to encourage Ilya to continue. "So clever. So pretty. Mine.”
Rhys rolled his eyes. “You ruin it every time.” But he was still smiling.
The cavern filled with steam and salt and citrus as the warm water unraveled the ache in his muscles slowly. Ilya hovered nearby, watching like he wasn’t sure if he should stay or go.
“Get in,” Rhys said without thinking and removed his wooden leg to make room for the huge creature.
Ilya blinked. “Bath?”
“You dragged it here. You’re getting in.”
At that, Ilya slid into the tub with impossible grace, tail folding beneath him and out of the ledge of the tub like silk. Water spilled over the edges, but Rhys didn’t care. The tub was suddenly too small, too crowded and too intimate.
Ilya watched him quietly for a minute and Rhys tilted his head, watching him back with a crooked grin. “You gonna keep staring or wash up?”
But Ilya didn’t answer. He reached for the chunk of soap and wrapped his fingers around Rhys’s forearm, guiding it up as if weighing it in his palm. Then he lowered it again, letting his other hand follow — a steady, firm drag from shoulder to wrist, leaving a warm, slippery trail in its wake.
He started at the top of Rhys’s shoulder, working the soap into a gentle lather, then traced a line downward — ribs, flank, hip. His grip was secure, unhurried. Each pass followed the shape of a scar, the curve of a muscle, the soft skin behind a knee or beneath a rib.
When he circled behind Rhys, Ilya’s hair brushed wet against Rhys’s back, cool and silk-like. Clawed fingers slid through the lather, skimming the dip of his spine, then higher, parting wet strands of Rhys’s hair to bare the back of his neck. There, Ilya paused. Not to kiss, but to press his forehead briefly against the skin.
Then he kept going. Down again. His claws barely scratched, but it was just enough for sensation. His thumb dragged a lazy spiral at the small of Rhys’s back, then swept around his waist and lower, where Rhys shifted beneath the touch.
Still, Ilya didn’t speak. Just kept mapping him in strokes and circles, like he was learning a new language from memory.
Most of the motions now made Rhys shiver, heat rolling under his skin.
He cursed the way his body answered so easily. As if it had been waiting for this kind of touch. The touches were clearly not meant to arouse him — he thought — It wasn’t even sensual at first.
Rhys swallowed hard. He’d expected hands, maybe lips. He hadn’t expected care and reverence. Not like this.
Ilya had Rhys sitting on his tail now, back to his chest while his claws scraped gently the shape of old scars, smoothed over tense muscle.
“You like?” Ilya asked, voice soft against his neck.
Rhys only managed a nod. He didn’t trust his voice.
Ilya resumed, working lower. His hands slipped around Rhys’s sides, dragging lather in lazy swirls over his stomach, hips, thighs. Each pass of his palms was slower than the last, more deliberate, lingering where Rhys twitched or sighed.
When he finally reached between Rhys’s legs, the touch still wasn’t exactly sexual but it made Rhys jolt all the same.
Ilya hummed low in his throat, pleased.
Rhys closed his eyes and shifted restlessly, skin tingling under each pass of Ilya’s hands.
It was slowly becoming maddening.
He could feel his own pulse hammering now, not from arousal alone, but from the unbearable sense of being known — seen — as something more than just flesh.
He twisted slightly, turning to face Ilya, water rippling around them.
“You gonna keep provoking me,” he murmured, voice low and tight, “or t—?”
He didn’t finish. Ilya leaned forward, eyes dark and hungry, and kissed him.
The heat between them sparked fast. Rhys dragged him closer, hands tangled in wet hair, teeth grazing lips. Ilya responded with a low sound, eager and rough, tail shifting beneath Rhys’s legs.
When Rhys pushed Ilya back against the edge of the tub, straddling his tail, he felt it — the swell of muscle, the flutter of his slit opening along the base of his tail. Ilya shivered.
“You sure?” Rhys asked, lips brushing his ear.
Ilya’s fingers dug into his hips. “Want. You. Now.”
Rhys didn’t need more permission than that.
He guided himself slowly, adjusting for the strange but yielding heat of Ilya’s slit, breath catching as the merman trembled and moaned. Ilya clung to him, tail coiling up around his waist, dragging him deeper into tighter spaces inside of him.
Water sloshed violently as Rhys rocked into him, the small space amplifying every breath, every sound. Ilya’s hands gripped Rhys' shoulders like they were lifelines, head falling back, throat bared. He gasped over and over through his gills and lips, taking wild broken gulps of air.
Rhys couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t. Every time Ilya clenched around him, every desperate pull of his hips drove him harder.
He came with a groan, buried deep, clutching Ilya’s waist.
But Ilya didn’t stop. He pulled him back in.
“More,” he whispered, voice wrecked, trembling from the overwhelming pleasure pending resolution. “Stay. Stay.” he begged and Rhys complied.
Rhys kissed him, slower this time, coaxing Ilya without ever pulling away. Their bodies shifted, tangled in the now tepid water as Ilya's hunger surfaced again, gentler but no less intense.
Rhys kept the pace steady, riding his own aftershocks, one hand braced against the tub’s edge while the other roamed down Ilya’s waist and over his tail, feeling every ripple and flex of the merman beneath him. Ilya arched, abdomen tensing, his entire body vibrating with each thrust.
He gasped, breath broken around each syllable. “Rhys. There.”
Rhys obeyed, angling deeper, finding that sweet spot that made Ilya tremble and keen, his claws digging into Rhys’s back with barely controlled force.
Water spilled in waves as Rhys drove into him again and again until Ilya fell apart around him with a cry so sharp it echoed through the cavern walls. His tail coiled tight beneath and around Rhys’s thighs, shuddering.
Rhys followed not long after, coming yet again. Hips stuttering, pulse racing. He spilled deep inside Ilya, holding him close, breathless. They were both shivering and spent now.
Then, slowly, Rhys eased back and reached for Ilya’s face, brushing wet strands of hair from his cheeks. He pressed a kiss to his lips, then one to his brow, softer than anything he had done before. He found it easy being sweet to someone like Ilya.
They stayed like that for a while, limbs tangled, breath slowly evening out, the water lapping quietly at the edges of the tub as they cuddled.
Eventually, Ilya shifted. Without a word, he pulled Rhys gently back against his chest, cradling him in his lap with the same care he had shown earlier.
His claws began to comb through Rhys’s wet curls, carefully undoing the tiny, tight braids that had been half-undone already by salt and steam. He hummed low in his throat, the same half-song he used when tending his hoard.
Rhys let him. Head tilted slightly, eyes half-lidded, the only movement he made was to let out a soft sigh when Ilya’s fingers grazed his scalp.
Once the braids were undone, Ilya began weaving new ones — looser this time, more decorative than practical. He threaded small bits of sea-glass and polished shell through them, as well as little tokens taken from his collection. Blue beads, golden rings and milky chips jewelry. His claws were careful not to scrape and his palms warm against Rhys’s temples.
Rhys leaned into it.
By the time he was done, Rhys’s hair had been shaped into something wholly new. Familiar in texture, but strange in pattern — adorned.
Ilya pressed his lips to the back of his shoulder. “Pretty. Mine.”
Rhys didn’t roll his eyes this time.
He just let himself rest, still naked, still folded in the merman’s lap. And even though the water had gone cold, he felt no urge to move.
The cozy lazy moment made he think that maybe this is why he's been sleeping a lot lately.