Chapter Text
The city sprawled below him like a circuit board, all glittering lights and distant lives. The Deep stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of his Vought penthouse, naked except for the towel around his waist, and felt nothing. Forty-three stories up, surrounded by sleek furniture that cost more than most people made in a year, and he felt absolutely fucking nothing.
He'd tried going to bed. Tried scrolling through his phone. Tried everything except the one thing he knew he was going to do anyway.
The laptop sat on the coffee table, closed. Waiting.
Don't, he told himself. Don't fucking do it again.
But his feet were already moving, carrying him across the polished marble floor. The leather couch was cold against his bare thighs as he sat down. His hands trembled slightly as he opened the laptop, the screen's glow washing his face in pale blue light.
He knew the site. Had the password saved. Three clicks and he was in.
The video loaded immediately—crystal clear 4K footage of a coral reef at golden hour, sunlight filtering down through the water in shimmering columns. A school of tropical fish moved in perfect synchronisation, their scales catching the light, bodies undulating in that hypnotic rhythm that made his breath catch.
The Deep’s hand moved to his cock almost unconsciously, finding himself already half-hard just from anticipation. He pushed the towel aside, wrapped his fingers around his shaft, and felt that first electric jolt of contact.
Just this once, he lied to himself. Just tonight.
On screen, the camera panned slowly across a bed of sea anemones, their tentacles swaying in the current like fingers beckoning. The footage was innocent—nature documentary stuff—but his mind supplied the rest. He imagined the texture of those tentacles, the way they'd feel sliding across skin, the suction of their touch. His cock hardened fully in his grip, blood rushing south as his breathing deepened.
He clicked to the next video. This one was different—custom content from one of the forums he frequented, shot by someone who understood. An octopus moved across the frame, its body rippling with colour changes, arms spreading wide. The camera zoomed in on the suckers, each one contracting and releasing in a rhythm that made Kevin's hips twitch forward involuntarily.
"Fuck," he breathed, his hand starting to move in slow, deliberate strokes.
The octopus wrapped around a piece of coral, its body pulsing, and Kevin's mind transformed it into something else entirely. He imagined those arms on him, around him, the wet slide of them, the alien intelligence behind the touch. His grip tightened, thumb swiping over the head of his cock, spreading the precum that was already beading there.
His other hand fumbled for the keyboard, clicking through to his saved folder. The really good stuff. The stuff he'd paid for.
A video loaded—this one edited, spliced together from various sources. Dolphins moving through the water with that powerful grace, their bodies sleek and muscular. The footage had been slowed down, set to ambient music that pulsed like a heartbeat. The camera lingered on the curve of their bodies, the way their fins cut through the water, the moment when two of them swam close together, bodies nearly touching.
Kevin's hand moved faster now, his breathing harsh in the silent apartment. He was fully hard, cock throbbing in his fist, and that familiar fog was descending—the one that made everything else disappear. No more Vought. No more cameras. No more performing. Just this. Just the fantasy. Just the escape into something that wanted him, needed him, understood him in a way no human ever had.
The video shifted to underwater footage of a sea turtle, ancient and graceful, its flippers moving in slow, powerful strokes. Kevin's hips were moving now, fucking up into his hand, chasing the sensation. He imagined being in the water with it, feeling the current, the pressure, the absolute peace of being submerged. Of being home.
He clicked again, desperate now, needing more. The next video was from his premium subscription—the one he paid $200 a month for and would die if anyone ever found out about. It showed a diver swimming with a school of barracuda, the fish circling, their bodies silver and predatory. The camera angle was low, intimate, catching the way the diver's body moved through the water, the fish getting closer, closer, until they were almost touching.
Kevin's hand was a blur now, his cock slick with precum, every nerve ending on fire. He was so close, right on the edge, his whole body tensing. On screen, a massive grouper swam into frame, its mouth opening and closing, and Kevin's mind supplied the fantasy—that mouth on him, the wet heat, the suction, the absolute wrongness of it that made it so fucking perfect.
"Oh fuck, oh fuck—" The words spilled out of him, broken and desperate.
The video showed a close-up now, an eel emerging from a crevice, its body thick and muscular, moving with serpentine grace. Kevin's vision was blurring at the edges, his entire world narrowed down to his hand on his cock and the images on the screen. The eel's mouth opened, showing rows of teeth, and Kevin imagined that mouth, that body, wrapping around him, taking him, claiming him—
His orgasm hit like a riptide, pulling him under. His back arched off the couch, hand working frantically as he came in thick spurts across his stomach and chest, his mouth open in a silent cry. Wave after wave of it, his cock pulsing in his grip, his mind white-hot and empty of everything except the pure physical sensation of release.
For maybe ten seconds, he felt good. Felt something.
Then reality crashed back in.
Kevin stared at the ceiling, his chest heaving, cum cooling on his skin. The video was still playing—some footage of jellyfish now, their translucent bodies pulsing rhythmically. He felt the disgust rising in his throat like bile.
Not again.
But he had. Again. Just like he'd promised himself he wouldn't. Just like his therapist had told him to stop doing.
"Kevin, these compulsive behaviours are a coping mechanism for your isolation," Dr. Patel's voice echoed in his head, calm and clinical. "They're not actually providing you with connection. They're reinforcing your disconnection from real human intimacy. You need to stop seeking escape in fantasy and start building genuine relationships."
He'd nodded. Agreed. Promised he'd try.
That was three weeks ago. He'd lasted four days.
Kevin grabbed the towel and wiped himself off with mechanical movements, his hands shaking slightly. The laptop screen glowed accusingly, the jellyfish still drifting peacefully through the water. Beautiful. Serene. Completely fucking wrong to sexualize.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
He slammed the laptop shut, but it didn't help. The shame was already there, settling into his bones like cold water. He'd done it again. Gotten himself off to fish porn. To footage of sea creatures just existing, just living their lives, while he sat in his expensive penthouse and jerked off to them like some kind of degenerate.
His therapist was right. He knew she was right. This wasn't connection. This was the opposite of connection. This was him, alone in a sterile apartment, seeking comfort in something that could never touch him back, never know him, never care.
This was pathetic.
Kevin stood up, his legs unsteady, and walked to the bathroom. He turned on the shower, made it scalding hot, and stepped under the spray. The water beat down on him, and immediately his gills flared open—that involuntary flutter along his ribcage, the slits opening and closing in rhythm with his breathing.
He pressed his forehead against the tile and closed his eyes, but he could still feel them. The raised edges of scar-like tissue that ran along both sides of his torso, just below his ribs, puckered and ridged. They looked like wounds that had never properly healed.
I need to meet real people, he thought, the words hollow even in his own mind. I need real connection. Real touch. Something that isn't this.
But even as he thought it, he knew the truth: who the fuck would want to touch him? Who would want to run their hands over his body and feel those slits, those openings in his flesh that shouldn't exist? He'd seen the way people looked at them when they caught a glimpse—that flicker of disgust, quickly masked but never quick enough.
"They're fucking gross, dude," one of his early hookups had said, drunk and honest. "Like, I get that you're a Supe and whatever, but... they're just really fucking weird to look at."
She'd left before morning. They always did.
Hot water ran over his gills now, and they pulsed gently, doing what they were designed to do. In the ocean, they made him powerful. Made him belong. But here, in the human world, they made him a freak. A thing. Something fundamentally other.
He had no idea how to be a real person with real people. He was The Deep—celebrity, superhero, Vought's aquatic asset. He wasn't Kevin. Kevin didn't exist outside of this apartment, outside of these moments of desperate, shameful fantasy.
It's the gills, he thought. It's always the fucking gills.
The laptop was still in the other room. He could hear it calling to him, that familiar pull. Just one more video. Just to take the edge off. Just to feel something that wasn't this crushing, suffocating loneliness.
No. No, I said I wouldn't. I said—
But he was already walking toward the bedroom, his feet moving on autopilot. The shame was there, hot and acidic in his throat, but it was distant now. Manageable. He could deal with shame. Shame was familiar.
What he couldn't deal with was being alone in this apartment for one more second without something to distract him from the fact that his life was completely, utterly empty.
Just one more time, he told himself. Just tonight. Tomorrow I'll—I'll figure something out. I'll be better.
But even as he thought it, he knew it was bullshit.
He climbed into his king-sized bed—alone, as always. The sheets were cold. The apartment was silent except for the hum of the air conditioning.
Kevin reached for his phone on the nightstand, his thumb already opening the browser, already typing in the familiar URL.
Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow I'll be better.
But tomorrow never came.