Chapter Text
David Wymack tries not to put too much thought into it, especially considering the words that come out of the merman’s mouth afterwards, but he can’t help but to notice it’s the first time ever that Neil initiates touching him. Not entirely, Neil’s sharp clawed hands grab and pierce the end of Wymack’s shirt instead of making contact with skin, but it’s close enough to touch for someone like Neil. It’s still more than anyone ever thought they’d get.
The aquarium’s most famous exhibit has gone through a lot of change in the past few months. Wymack would not say whatever was wrong with the kid was solved or fixed by any means, but he looked better. Wore his skin and scales as what they were instead of a too large and heavy coat, his shoulders a little lighter, his skin a little darker, blue eyes ever bluer. He stares up at Wymack with those eyes now, the ocean blue dancing with guarded want and bioluminescence in the early morning hours. Wymack knows there’s something wrong before Neil can even start to tell him.
Neil’s cheeks are dusted with hot feverish flush, the fins on the side of his head that function as ears are a hot flaring orange. Even with all of the improvements, Neil still nearly entirely retreats before telling Wymack absolutely anything.
Neil’s words are whispered, partially drowned things meant to be lost among shipwrecks and whale falls. Here, with only Wymack and him and the whirring grinding pumping of many many filtration systems, the words find themselves carefully given instead to Wymack.
“I’m going into heat.”
He sinks and flinches as if Wymack would ever take a swing at him, buries himself up to his eyelids in his saltwater home and watches watches. Maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll have a minute before the kid turns a literal tail and flees. He’s so aware that it very well may be the only minute he’ll ever get. If he wants Neil to ever bring up something like this again, he gets one question and absolutely has to make it count.
Fortunately, there’s only one at the moment Wymack needs to ask.
“You’ll let me know at any point if you don’t like the way he’s treating you.” It comes out as more of a statement when thoughts get vocalized, a promise in which if Neil would tell him, Wymack would listen.
It’s the first time Neil takes his eyes off of Wymack being this close to him. His pupils sink and settle downwards like a sunset. All at once he merman looks very lost and oh so found. A clawed hand pulls away from the grated edge of the dock and starts to toy with his bottom lip in thought.
It’s quiet, less so than his initial confession but just as guarded. “Andrew wouldn’t do that,” he says simply before sinking gently back down into his waves.
-
A week passes and Neil’s cautious yet friendly presence all but vanishes. Wymack hears about it from his divers and cleaners and guests and the aquarium’s more sociable and guest facing manager. He’s learned the names of at least 13 different social media whatnots and the unique kind of crazies each particularly attracts from his daughter, Dan, and warns her seriously that that shit is only going to cut days off her life the rate at which it all melts cells from a person’s brain.
Most of them are wrong, at least. Neil has never been some thrown together long con, some desperate lying money grab. Though he hasn’t seen him, Wymack’s pretty sure he hasn’t died and it’s not as if Neil can grow legs and just walk out. That Wymack knows of anyways, another thing he’d never felt a need to bring up or ask. No, he’s not been sold and no one’s selling him off as an expensive once in a life time sashimi experience.
It’s the ones who get it right that Wymack thinks are the worst. The people who write about Neil and want something from him, who speculate about his genitals and what they’d like to do to him if just given a chance, a moment alone with him.
He’s glad he’s never gone for any of those “Swim with a real living mermaid!” ideas. This kind of response only solidifies the resolve he never will. It’s bad enough Neil is kept behind glass like some sort of attraction, Wymack has no intentions of encouraging that opinion.
He’s expecting Dan or Matt or maybe some boss or boss’s boss with the next knock on the door but can’t find himself surprised when he finds out it isn’t. In truth, he’d been wondering just how long it would take Andrew Minyard to darken his door since Neil’s quiet confession. He’s not surprised at all to learn Andrew knows exactly what it is that Neil needs.
“You’re going to close off the turtle rescue for the next two weeks,” Andrew gives him instead of any normal human greeting.
Wymack makes a note of it on his calendar. “Never took you for a plastic straw enthusiast,” he mutters, blandly.
“Flush an extra every time I use them,” Andrew says just as blandly back.
The scratch of keys across the desk is loud and sharp in the quiet of the room. When Andrew takes them, he’s quick to find the teeth of the currently most important one, presses them into the pads of his thumb as if he’ll need to make a mold of the indents.
“I’m putting any turtle suffering on your conscious, Minyard,” Wymack warns, as if he’d ever stand by and let any creature suffer being a bit cold in his presence.
Andrew doesn’t smile but offers his two fingered signature salute. “Hell is vengeful turtle heaven,” he agrees easily.
-
Despite not having been allowed to do so for most of his life, Neil seems to be progressing through a social crash course on whining like a jet ski in a storm.
“I’m slipping,” he protests again, claws rapping against the single metal handle.
Andrew knows that Neil isn’t a fan of the cart but he’d hoped the merman would be more open to it given the difference from the typical end results but Neil hates the feeling of protective cloth against his scales. He hates the way it slips and moves and leaves him feeling unsteady. He hates the way it takes moisture from his skin and once wet squelches under him.
It’s on the size of just too small for him, meant more for their turtles and the transport of smaller tanks than it is a full sized merman. But it happens to be what Andrew had found and frankly he thinks it would work just fine if the merman would just cooperate and tuck his tail away. Though cooperative is something Neil has never been so Andrew slows and stops for a seventh time to allow the merman to readjust. Andrew simply watches as his merman spins and writhes and wriggles, his best impression of a fish that can’t breathe out of water.
“You can just put me back in the pool,” he says dejectedly. “this is too much. I don’t…” he sighs, breathes, and covers his face as if Andrew won’t know it’s burning. “It’s too much.”
Which Andrew can agree with, for the most part. He too is overwhelmed with the self made pressure to do a good job, to perform pleasantly for a partner who doesn’t know what he wants. It’s the ‘too’ that really he disagrees with. Nothing he ever does or ever will do for Neil is something Andrew would ever the label applies to. All efforts on his part is something Neil will always deserve. Andrew’s less concerned with being ‘too’ than he ever has about being enough.
Still, he understands all of this is overwhelming and probably scary for Neil.
Neil, who told him earlier this week he hadn’t known merfolk could even have a heat let alone that it could ever apply to him. Neil who’s not sure what parts he has and can’t begin to guess how to use them.
So Andrew stops when Neil needs him to, every time Neil needs him to do it. A time existed when he was unsure and terrified too.
“Just put me back, Andrew,” he repeats. “Whatever this… heat… brings, I’ll figure out a way to deal with it on my own.”
Andrew engages the breaks this time, makes sure the cart is steady before he wanders over to stand at Neil’s side. He rests a hand over top of flaring gills and waits waits waits. More gently than he ever has with anything, Andrew runs his thumb over the seam where the flesh flaps of gill and lungs meet. He watches as Neil’s eyes flutter, watches shark-like teeth bury down into a plush lower lip.
“Slow yourself, bunny,” Andrew says, lets his fingers rub rub touch.
Neil gulps down a breath and pushes one out before looking back at Andrew.
“What is it you need from me?” he quietly asks.
“Tucking my tail in like this is cramping it up,” Neil says, “It feels bad to have it gathered up like this.”
He’s aware of Neil’s opinions on restraints but hadn’t considered the confined position would trigger as such. With a moment of thought he leaves to retrieve some sort of makeshift cushion, holds a folded wetsuit out and requests his permission before starting to maneuver him. He rests him on his back and tucks the folded suit under the back of his head and neck to keep the scales there from catching on the already protective blanket.
Andrew’s aware of Neil watching him when he goes back to the handle, sees how bright the merman’s face becomes when Andrew folds him at the hips and slings the rest of his tail right over his shoulder. His arm muscles bulge at the strain of the curl. Neil can feel them wrapped around where Andrew holds his tail, where Andrew keeps hold of him while one handedly keeping hold on the cart.
It feels better this way, outstretched and slung partially on top of Andrew. Andrew doesn’t even let his fins drag along the tile and concrete that makes up the floor.
“Better?” he asks, before they start again moving.
Neil nods behind the hands covering his face.
-
It’s the off season for boating and correspondingly the off season for turtle recovery and it’s fortunate the active season for once had been comparatively slow. It works out for them now that the pools and ponds are all empty and drained except for the large submerged one Andrew’s filled up on the far side of the room. It’s shallower than the rest of them, complete with a couple wide steps to help their handling staff climb in and out. Andrew sets what he can of Neil’s long tail within it before helping the rest of him out of the cart.
The water is warm, comfortable like tropical shallows. The gills which run along his sides flare and bubble at the welcoming of water.
It’s nice. The turtle rehab room is something wide and echoing normally but Andrew’s taken the past couple days to set it up for them. He’s sectioned off the space with sheets unnaturally fastened to a ceiling which wouldn’t willingly hold them, confined an already private area off to something more quiet, more intimate. It’s nicer still when Andrew leaves him to turn the overhead lights off, softer still in the dark confined world illuminated now only by Neil’s bioluminescence. Andrew strips down to a pair of black trunks and follows the personal star path back to his side.
Neil’s smile stretched cheeks are a splattered sky of distance burning blue stars. Microscopic scales dusted overtop scar ridden cheek bones. Neil is so far from him yet close enough to touch so Andrew takes a hand and pushes the beautiful face away so it’s no longer aimed in his direction.
It only makes sense that sailors throughout the ages lived and died for such simple things. With his feet barely even wet, Andrew feels like he is drowning.
There’s a television set up for if they happen to get bored on the concrete makeshift shore, remote easily reachable behind patio chair cushions Andrew’s half sunk into the water. Not much further back from that is a quietly humming little fridge with long stretched extension cords. There’s a plastic lidded box and a microwave both crammed on top of it. A mostly open power strip sits on the floor next to it for Andrew to charge his phone if either happen to remember it.
There’s more soft cushioning against his back fin instead of the pond’s sturdy plastic. Gentle waves roll up and over him from where the filter’s running. In the large pond that Andrew selected, it’s possible for Neil to fully stretch himself out.
“This is nice, Andrew,” Neil tells him eventually, once Andrew has settled down onto the wet cushion next to him. “Thank you.”
Andrew’s gaze remains on the show he’s set up on the television, but an outstretched arm hanging back over the concrete behind them moves to pull Neil’s head right into his lap. His world, half submerged, stops and starts over again when thick yet gentle fingers settle into his neck’s gill slits. Sensitive, they flutter open close against the touch. When Neil breathes in more water than air he feels it most where it trickles out over Andrew’s fingers.
-
In the early morning hours, Andrew wakes to the sound of Neil’s hot and heavy panting. The merman, it seems, has yet to become aware of the same condition, left to writhe and whine in feverish sleep.
“Neil,” he says, voice settling just left of gently. He’d like to know what he’s really dealing with but it wouldn’t be right to leave Neil to sleep through it. “Neil, wake up.”
It’s not at all violent like he’d been expecting. Neil often wakes with a splash and a scream but here and now Neil for once wakes up gently, untwists himself from the knot he’s curled himself into and looks over at Andrew with open ocean storms in his eyes. Neil’s going to drown Andrew calling forth hurricanes like that. The slightest wave of flood water and Andrew’s going to jump.
The smile sitting on Neil’s flushed face shows off every knife edged jagged tooth. His eyes half lidded are wide wild slit pupils. It’s when Neil’s inhumanly long and pointed tongue slips out to slide and bleed over lips and teeth that Andrew remembers the creature he’s locked himself in this life with has always been and always will be a carnivore at heart. He looks at Andrew now as if the blond’s a raw and bloody piece of meat and Andrew feels it as the gaze travels all the way down to his clothed but slowly hardening cock.
Andrew shivers at the intensity blue eyes snapping back to his own brown brings, hates how Neil practically purrs a hum out, pleased at the reaction.
“You good good enough to eat, Andrew.”
Neil’s voice sounds good like this. Gravel gritty beaches, each grain of sand a singing polished pearl. Should have filled his ears with wax, he thinks and knows the thing which Odysseus fought against his ship for.
He would let him. God, Andrew would let Neil eat him away by the inch if only to know if his flesh would prove pleasant when placed upon his tongue.
Andrew holds a hand out, lets it hover just above Neil’s plump bottom lip and wait wait.
-
Yes or No?
-
Neil’s tongue darts out further from behind his teeth. The soft tipped ending finds Andrew’s calloused skin. Flicks, tastes, only once before devouring. The talented tentacle-like tongue rolls and curls against his fingers, beckon his body deeper deeper, further out to sink among the waves. Neil only has to bite down once.
Andrew’s blood looks the same among what’s already coating Neil’s busy tongue. He only recognizes that he’s the one bleeding when Neil withdraws his hand. He offer’s Andrew’s only sliced fingertip a single long lick than a kiss. The tiny bubble of blood paints Neil’s lips a beautiful heavy red.
-
Yes. Yes. It’s always yes with you.
-
He cups Neil’s jaw with both intact hands and kisses him for all he’s worth.
They’re pushing each other like this. The slow rock back and forth and back and forth of a boat on calm endless sea. The security of clear perfect skies and anchor laid windward. All the violence and fight hidden just under the waves.
Andrew nips at his lips and Neil bites him right back. He lathes up Neil’s spit and Neil’s busy drinking him down. When Andrew sticks his tongue out and circles with it, dances, around the tip of Neil’s own tongue, the only thing Neil can rationally do is wind the wet tendril around it and pull him deeper deeper. Andrew doesn’t even choke when it enters and tickles the back of his throat. His fingers ever careful are still cupped to the back of Neil’s jaw. Beautiful fire red curls push through all his cracks like sidewalk trapped flowers and grow grow grow. With just the pad of his thumb he’s petting the thin velvet webbing that makes up Neil’s ear fin.
When Neil eventually pulls his tongue back, Andrew drools the both of them out after it.
Andrew’s eyes are hazy and distant but never once far enough to miss Neil’s smile. Every thought blaring inside his head tells him he’s screwed, screwed, screwed.
“I really like kissing you, Andrew,” Neil says, bright and real and so so much.
Andrew slaps a hand against his mouth just to shut him up. The smile settling against his palm burns like a brand.
“You could use some practice.”
And Neil answers with an “I can’t believe you” snort and Andrew is screwed, screwed, screwed.
“How much of you are you?” Andrew asks after a too long quiet moment.
It’s relieving when Neil stops and takes the time to think. There’s some of him still in there at least, and that alone is enough to make Andrew feel better.
“Mostly,” Neil mostly slurs out. “I’m mostly aware of what I’m doing, what you’re asking.” He frowns with his whole face and draws out a hum. “Might need some time to answer you well, but I’m here, Andrew. I promise.”
Andrew flicks him on the forehead just between the eyes before kissing the red spot his nails leave. Those same blunt nails press little crescent moons into Neil’s tightly held close shoulders.
He pulls back, settles a little lower on the cushion and trails a handful of fingertips down over Neil’s soft lip over throat and down down to trace along his stomach where the scales start to form. He pets them idly, smooth and cool one way, rough and scratching in the other. Where a belly button is absent, Andrew’s fingers circle circles.
He’s not sure where to really start is the issue of it. Andrew’s had plenty of practice when it comes to pleasing other men, but thus far all of them had had a pair of for him to spread out like a map. Neil’s tail is beautiful, bright fox fire orange striped in calico with blacks and whites. A limb of muscle and nerves and bone, snake built all the way down to until it’s flowing silk scarves. Neil’s body is a masterpiece carved by cruel unloving hands, a broken abandoned statue submerged along with a deity’s temple.
Andrew’s not sure where to start so he goes right back to the beginning, pulling and pushing and kissing kissing.
His hands leave Neil’s jaw and neck to search and wander. Slides them downwards between and over defined pectorals. His nipples are a darker shade than the rest of him, they pebble under Andrew’s attentive thumbs, which will have to do while his tongue is fucking the gill slits on Neil’s pretty and stretched out neck.
Andrew’s hands slide down from heaving pecs, ghost their affection over Neil’s taut quivering stomach then too finally land themselves each on a set of Neil’s gills. His sides aren’t nearly as sensitive as the pair on Neil’s neck, but Andrew assumes they’ll work just fine when Neil’s body tenses and shivers. Far behind him in the pond, Neil’s heavy tails lifts and lifts and slams, throwing water all the way up to rain against Andrew’s back.
“Fuck,” Neil manages to just whine out. He shakes and shakes and tries not to writhe, his hands are two fisted shaking things, held stubborn put in the water beneath him.
Andrew’s thick fingers barely fit in his gills but he’s managed to push four in on both of Neil’s sides. Fit each of eight fingers a single knuckle deep in tight fluttering caverns, just as he’d done with his tongue and Neil’s neck.
Andrew flexes his fingers and curls his tongue.
“Fuck, fuck, oh, oh fuck, oh fuck,” Neil sounds like he is suffocating but Andrew knows he’s perfectly fine. There’s a good working pair of lungs underneath his pretty chest. Even if he were to close off Neil’s gills entirely, the mer would still be able to breathe.
“Andrew Andrew Andrew Andrew,” Neil is singing out when something in him opens. “Oh!” he cries, feeling something wet and warm and lost open deep inside his stomach. “Ohh!” he moans at the electric like zip down the front of his tail. “Andrew! Andrew!!”
And Andrew pulls back from him at the slightest edge of panic. Every single bit of the warmth radiating from where their skin touches pulls away when Andrew does. Neil has never before felt hot enough to burn.
“Andrew,” he moans and whines again, feels the part of him that opened pulse and pulse and squelch. He squeezes his eyes tight in attempt to hide himself.
He practically feels when Andrew’s eyes land on it, on him. Feels it throb from just the heavy attentive gaze.
At the top of his tail and right down the middle, Neil’s scales have parted to reveal a quiet part of him, though it’s hard to imagine ever having missed it previously seeing how engorged and needy it looks now.
For a moment, Andrew just watches him, evaluates and estimates and lets Neil’s heaving chest somewhat settle before he’s going back in.
“Yes or no, Neil?” he asks against the scar on Neil’s cheek.
“Yes,” Neil breathes, smiles at the answering kiss Andrew leaves where he’d asked.
When Andrew comes face to face with Neil’s once hidden slit it’s a plush fatty pink thing, straining against Neil’s ends. Andrew presses two fingers down on each side of the dividing line and Neil is bucking, babbling.
Andrew’s quick to grab hold of the extra cushions, shoves them one after another under Neil’s hips until the slit’s no longer submerged. He runs his fingers through it again, traces the line of Neil up and down and listens to his siren sing out: “Andrew, Andrew, Andrew…”
Ever so slowly, Neil opens for him, comes apart until Andrew can once again be knuckle deep from the top to bottom. There’s more waiting for him, Andrew knows it like he knows himself and knows how much he wants this. All he has to do is go after it.
Neil shivers against the first long drag of Andrew’s tongue all the way up and then right back down and there’s something… something coming and Neil feels flayed and split and somethings coming coming.
“C-Coming…” he tries to warn before whatever it is finds him. He gets halfway through the word before his body is ripping, screaming, burning. Inky black slick spills from the sides of the slit where Andrew didn’t catch it, the rest of it coats Andrew’s chin and tongue shining, dripping vicious like oil.
All at once, Neil feels drunk and embarrassed. He’d asked Andrew for help and this is what he did to him, stains his face with shot out ink like a stupid squid and doesn’t even fully warn him. He’s up and reaching for Andrew’s soiled chin in attempt to mitigate some of the damage before Andrew’s had the time to catch his breath.
He catches Neil’s hand instead, wraps warm gentle fingers around the merman’s wrist and softly pets the scales there, swipes his thumb down and down and down.
“Breathe,” Andrew reminds as he’s trying to do the same.