Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The corpse opens its eyes and catches your gaze, and the scream you were holding in your chest finally tears free. It echoes through the darkened cave, joining the frantic skittering of your footfalls as you try—and fail—to scamper backward over the rocky cave floor. Heart hammering, body trembling, your water shoes lose footing on the stones and you fall hard on your ass.

Your eyes have never once left the corpse...and its eyes don't leave you either.

From your vantage point, you can only see part of its naked torso due to the rest of its body—if there is one—being obscured by a boulder. It’s obviously male with smooth alabaster skin practically glowing in the gloom of the cave, skin that's spotted with beauty marks and freckles, stretched over thick muscles. Its face— his face, you correct yourself—is narrow with full, pink lips under a prominent Roman nose. Long hair tangled with seashells frames the corpse’s features and fans out over the ground beneath his head. It's as black as the ocean depths, dark as the half-lidded eyes that continue to bore into your own...and maybe you should stop referring to him as a “corpse” because dead things don't blink or breathe or...growl? He’s growling at you?

His once placid expression is twisted into a snarl and even at this distance you can see that his slightly uneven teeth look unnaturally sharp.

Your brow furrows and you swallow around the lump in your throat, trying to catch your runaway breath as your fear gives way to confusion. You slowly get to your feet with a wince and gingerly rub your aching bottom. The growling man moves, too, alarmed that you now tower over his prone form and are approaching him. He doesn't get very far, he doesn't get anywhere really, due to being hindered or restrained by something. As you get closer, you notice that his arms are pinned to his sides and something is wrapped around him, under his chest...a net?

“H-hey,” your voice comes out as a cracked rasp and you duck your head in embarrassment. Clearing your throat, you try again.

“Hey, are you okay...?”

His response is to growl louder and thrash harder, wriggling along the ground in a weak attempt to put distance between the two of you. You frown at the sight and stop in your advance, holding your arms out in a non-threatening gesture. You're starting to think the answer to your question is “no”. He must be crazy or concussed to be acting so strangely.

“It's okay, it's okay! I'm not gonna hurt you,” you try to reassure him in a soft voice. “...What happened to you?”

He stops thrashing and the snarl slowly drops from his mouth. His countenance softens slightly. He still doesn't speak.

You chance a few more slow steps toward him, arcing your path to skirt around the boulder and get a better look at his body. What you see makes your eyes practically bug out of your head.

He looks thoroughly abused, covered in bruises and gashes and blood. His lips are chapped and cracked. A trail of half-dried blood runs down the side of his face. The arms that are pinned to his sides...the skin there...below his elbows, scales are sprouting from the skin. Obsidian, iridescent scales. You must be seeing things. The dim light is playing tricks on your senses, surely, because those can't be talons at the ends of his long, webbed fingers. That's definitely not a powerful-looking fishtail where his legs should be.

Your staring must unnerve the man because his expression hardens and he tries to wriggle away again, but it's no use. The net restricts his movements in such a way that he can't really utilize his back or his arms, and he just ends up flopping around ineffectively.

“What the fuck…” you whisper in a daze.

The man bellows in frustration, startling you enough to make you jump, and flops onto his back. He turns his face away from you with a huff, wet tendrils of hair clinging to his cheeks and neck.

Your vision is blurred around the edges, your hearing range reduced to your own racing heartbeat and quickened breaths. Did you really just find...a mermaid? A merman in a seaside cave? Proof that mermaids exist and it's on your property, your private beach. You could be on TV! You could make millions! You can't help but salivate over how you could use that money to fix up Gramma’s— your old cottage.

Your eyes greedily rake over the merman’s form once more...and with drooping shoulders, you push a sigh from your nose. You can't sell this pathetic creature to the media or a science lab. He looks half-dead already, battered and weakened from his struggles with the fishing net and who-knows-what-else. You're reminded of the headlines “Idiot Tourists Accidently Beach and Kill Baby Dolphin” and “More Dumb Tourists Kill a Baby Shark Doing the Same Dumb Shit”. You don't want to be lumped in with those idiots, responsible for the death of a majestic creature due to human selfishness.

He's looking at you again, scowling as if he heard your previous train of thought. Your eyes widen and you look guiltily away for a moment before stepping closer and kneeling next to him. He leans his upper body away from you.

“Look, um...you've obviously been at this a while,” you start sheepishly. He just stares. Can he even understand you?

“...but I might have something that can help,” you continue with a small smile.

His eyebrows raise—there are patches of scales at his temples, you find—as he watches you slowly remove the knife you use for shucking clams from its sheath at your hip. Holding it in front of you as if for inspection, you give him a pointed look. His gaze travels from yours to the knife a few times and he works his jaw as if he's considering his options. After a quiet moment, he meets your eyes again and gives a slight nod.

You're so excited by this development that you can't help but flash him a wide grin. He understands English and he's intelligent! You can't wait to learn more about him. Hopefully, once you free him, he'll open up to you enough to tell you about where he's from. The not-so-little mermaid, Ariel. Male-riel? You snicker to yourself.

The stony ground is cool and damp against your bare legs as you scoot up next to his body. Leaning over him, your hands graze over the fishing net as you assess the damage. He must have been making the net tighter with all that struggling because his skin is raw with rope burn and you can barely fit a finger under the rope. The heavy net is wrapped around his body from rib to tail so you figure you're going to be here a while.

With your mouth set into a determined line, you adjust your hold on the knife and glance into his eyes.

“Hold still.”

He obeys but lifts his head to watch you saw at the thick ropes of the net. The cave is quiet aside from your combined breathing and the gentle waves of the ocean whispering along the beach outside. Eventually, you cut away enough to free his arms and you're expecting him to move and flex, or rub at his tired muscles, but he remains still. You look down at his face and notice his eyes are closed, lips slightly parted. Did he fall asleep? His breathing seems too shallow for that to be the case and your eyebrows knit together in worry. You lightly shake his limp form.

“Hey, we're almost done! Hang in there!” you say a little bit too loudly in hopes it will rouse him.

No response. Shit. He really is in terrible shape. You take his face in your hands and gently pat his flushed cheeks. He's burning up, skin clammy.

“C’mon, buddy! Try to stay awake, okay?”

He groans, prying his eyelids open with much effort, as you stroke his damp hair away from his face. He brings a clawed hand up to weakly grasp your arm and looks up at you with unfocused eyes. A reassuring smile curls your lips as you continue to stroke his hair and face, murmuring soft encouragements. Even in this sorry state, he's quite beautiful. Your heart aches to think of what he's had to endure to wind up alone in this dark cave.

“You're gonna be okay. We'll get this net off you and you’ll be back in the ocean real soon,” you promise.

You pull away from his grasp and attack the net with renewed determination, carefully cutting the ropes away from the black scales of his tail. They shimmer when they catch the light, revealing hints of red and blue undertones like an oil slick. There are translucent fins at his forearms and hips, torn at the edges from both new and old injuries. As you move down his body, you try to get a read of his measurements.

You recall one summer when Grampa was still alive and the two of you came across a beached shark. A tiger shark, he said. Some neighbors helped lug it to the pier where it was measured and weighed. At an average three meters and four hundred kilograms, it fetched a fair price and Grampa bought you a new longboard with some of the money. You recall the memory out loud to the merman, giving him something to focus on other than the comfort of unconsciousness. He acknowledges you with a grunt.

The merman isn't as big as the shark, but you figure he's pretty damn close. Maybe two-point-five meters long from head to tail, over a hundred kilograms at least. It's going to be tough to drag him to the mouth of the cave by yourself, let alone down the beach, and you agonize again over whether or not you should tell someone. You chew your lip as you mentally run through your trusted contacts.

Obviously, Grampa and now Gramma are resting in their plots at Lady Amidala Cemetary. You’ve known the townspeople most of your life—and you would trust them with your life, but not the mermaid’s. There are no secrets in a small town. Ma and Pop are hours away; your younger brother is halfway across the country. Oh! You went to school with a girl who became a biologist, right? Yes, but...she studies mosquitoes...again, across the country.

Damn it.

Maybe it's for the best. The fewer people who know about him, the more likely he'll be returned to his natural habitat. With a sigh, you pull the remains of the net from the merman's body and sheathe your small knife. You kneel at his torso again.

“Alright, buddy. You're pretty busted up and probably have a fever. Even if I could toss you back into the sea, I don't think that would be a good idea right now...”

He growls and hisses, very obviously displeased by your amateur diagnosis, so you comfortingly pat him on his arm. You're distracted by his physique for a moment, your eyes trailing from his powerful arms to his broad chest, and down his prominent abdominal muscles. He's fucking ripped and it's getting you a little hot and bothered. You lick your lips and tear your eyes away from his body. What are you doing lusting over an injured fish man? As if you didn't feel weird enough about the situation, you meet his eyes again and see that he noticed you ogling him. He seems vaguely amused. Your face flushes with embarrassment and you glance away, clearing your throat.

“...anyway, I can get you patched up with some stuff from my cottage. I'll be right back.”

As you move to turn away, a large hand engulfs your wrist and another growl rumbles in the merman's chest. You freeze and look at him, wide-eyed. His plush mouth is downturned in a frown and his dark eyes look almost fearful. He hisses again, but this time it almost sounds like…

“...sssst—”

“...Stay?” you ask, lips parting in surprise.

He blinks at you and the grip on your wrist tightens. Your heart does a little somersault in your chest—do you need medical attention, too?—and you pat the clammy hand on your wrist.

“I'll be right back, I promise. I can't leave you like this. You'll either bleed out on the ground or the fever will melt your brain,” you reason with him.

He scoffs as if the idea of him dying is ridiculous. You quirk an eyebrow at him, lips twitching as you try to suppress a smirk. Your Ariel seems to be a bit arrogant.

“I won't be gone long. The cottage is real close and we're on a secluded, private part of the beach, so no one else will come across you.”

You pull away again and this time he allows you to rise to your feet. You carefully hurry out of the cave and up the beach to your cottage, trying to come up with a game plan as the sand gives way to tall grass. The back door creaks as you rush inside and head to the master bathroom. Thankfully, you've lived here long enough to stock up on basic medical supplies and you shove the stuff into a knapsack. Gauze, bacta patches, ibuprofen, and antibacterial gel. His injuries seemed superficial enough that you hope this will be all he needs.

You wonder if he's hungry and reluctantly grab the bowl of fresh clam meat out of the ‘fridge. No clam chowder for you tonight. A bag of ice, a large canteen of water, a lantern, your datapad, another bowl, rags, some blankets, pillows...you're quickly running out of room in your sack so you rush out to the shed in search of an old wheelbarrow in which to put your sack and the rest of the supplies. In the dying light of the sun, something catches your eye amidst the cobwebs. Your old longboard. If you can't carry the merman, perhaps you could roll him. You toss it on the pile and roll out.

By the time you make it back to the cave, the sun has set and you're a sweaty, aching mess. Wheels and sand really don't mix. You flick the lantern on to light your path as you push the wheelbarrow inside. “Ariel” is right where you left him, eyes again closed. You unpack your supplies and set a pillow under his head. He's still hot to the touch. Moaning, he weakly reaches for you and you grab his webbed hand.

“I'm back. Miss me?”

You can't help but smile. It's cute that he's so needy. You dip a rag in some ice water and fold it over his forehead. He needs to take the ibuprofen for his fever—you hope he's human enough that it has a positive effect on him—but you're unsure how to give it to him. Mermaids probably don't have medicine cabinets filled with pills. You decide to crush a couple of pills with a rock and put the dust in a piece of clam.

“Eat this,” you command him gently and place the clam against his lips.

He opens his mouth a bit and slowly works his jaw, which does nothing but wiggle the meat around. The sight reminds you of a movie you saw as a child and you grimace at the implication. Taking the meat with a sigh, you put it in your own mouth, chew until it's easy to swallow, and lean over the merman's face.

It's not a kiss, it's medical attention, you tell yourself, but it does little to calm your racing heart as you part his lips with your own and push the masticated food into his mouth with your tongue. He twitches and makes a small noise in surprise but you're relieved to find that he’s able to swallow the food. You quickly get over your reservations and repeat the action with a few more pieces of clam, placing another ibuprofen pill in the final lump for good measure.

With the merman fed and medicated, you feel a bit better about tending to his wounds. As you clean and dress the lacerations by the light of the lantern, you discover that you were right about them being superficial and the bacta patches will be enough to get the job done. The cave has gotten colder with the coming of nightfall and you shiver from a sudden ocean breeze. You really should be getting back to your cabin, but you’re reluctant to leave your charge alone. What if he takes a turn for the worse in the night? You’d feel guilty for leaving him alone during his time of need, especially when he had asked you to stay.

Chewing nervously on your bottom lip, you look upon his now sleeping form. Even by lantern light, he seems so much healthier than when you first found him hours prior. Some color has returned to his once sallow skin, his breathing is a lot stronger, and his expression is peaceful instead of pinched in pain. Pride swells in your chest. If he survives this endeavor, he really fucking owes you. Maybe he's got a stash of buried treasure he can give you as thanks.

You decide to stay the night. You arrange some pillows to sit on and wrap yourself up in some blankets. For the first hour, you stay up to monitor the merman and replace the icy, wet rag on his forehead. You click your tongue at the tangled mess of his hair. It looks about shoulder length, the ebony tresses are so shiny even when dried. There are pretty stones and seashells braided into the strands and you want desperately to run your fingers through it... He's sleeping and you're bored, so why not? You carefully place his head in your lap and gently use your fingers to work out the stones and seashells and knots from his hair. Humming a nonsense tune to yourself as you braid the baubles back in, you smile as you're reminded of childhood sleepovers with your friends. You spent hours braiding one another's hair and telling stories of princesses and pirates, or superheroes and mermaids. Not even in your wildest imaginings did you think you would be the one sitting in a seaside cave, nursing a gorgeous mermaid of your own back to health.

You snort at the absurdity.

Satisfied with your attempt at playing hairdresser, you place the merman's head back on his pillow and snuggle up in your blankets beside him. Exhaustion quickly pulls you into the depths of unconsciousness and you fall asleep listening to the sounds of the sea.

Chapter Text

This merman is kind of an asshole.

His fever broke in the night, along with any sweetness he may have previously harbored for you. The coming of the morning found the two of you huddled close, not quite touching, and you lamented the fact that this stunning creature seemed to be drying out. He was still pretty weak, but able to hoist his upper body on the longboard so you could drag him by his tail deeper into the cave. There was a small pool close by, lit from above by an opening in the cave ceiling, and you figured this might be a good place for him to recover. The pool was deep but only a few meters across. At first, the merman was ecstatic to be back in the water, but as his grogginess passed and he realized he was trapped, his mood soured. He ripped off the bacta in irritation, including the patch on his face that covered the worst of his cuts. The revealed scar ran angry and red from his brow bone, down his cheek and across his shoulder.

You offered him some food to placate him and he threw it back in your face. Literally. Hit you right in the eye with a salty piece of clam.

Now you're both pissed off. He's sulking at the bottom of the pool, arms crossed and glaring up at you while you lean over the edge and glare right back with your bloodshot eye. You're going out of your way to help his scaly ass and this is the thanks you get?!

“It’s only temporary! You barely made it through the night. You're not strong enough to go back yet,” you shout down at him.

He purses his full lips in a pout and you bark out a laugh.

“Really?! I'm trying to help! Why are you being such a jerk?”

The pout drops from his face and his stoic expression returns as he swims leisurely upward, just breaking the surface enough that his eyes are above water. You frown at him. He swims closer until he's right before you at the edge of the pool.

“Come to apolo—”

Your words are cut off by coughing and spluttering as the mermaid spits a stream of saltwater into your face. You close your eyes and shriek angrily, jumping to your feet and clenching your hands into tight fists. The fires of hell direct their blaze at him when you finally open your eyes again. He's smirking! He's fucking smirking and you lose it. You're going to gut him like the fish that he is and turn him into sushi! With a feral roar, you dive into the pool after him and attempt to wring his neck. He dodges you easily, of course; that tail isn't for decoration. You keep after him, pumping your inferior legs, but he jets out of the way every time you get close. The way he moves in the water is effortless and, even though he's toying with you, you feel your anger wilting in the face of your awe of him. You can't hold your breath any longer and as you make your way back to the surface, you swear you hear a deep chuckle drift through the water.

You pull yourself halfway up the rocky outcropping and freeze. Warm hands are slowly skimming up your bare and still submerged legs, talons teasing over your goosepimpled flesh. You gulp and shudder as the creature swims up along your body from behind and places his large, webbed hands on either side of your own on the ledge. He presses himself against you, slowly forcing you to bend forward over the stone with him. Your heart is thundering painfully against your ribs, breath quickening in fear and strange arousal, as he holds you flat against the ground. You turn your head to the side and attempt to squeak out a plea, but he shushes you.

“Ssshhh…” he hisses softly, taking your wrists in one hand and holding them against your lower back. You tried to resist him, right? With all your strength, yet he still maneuvered you with such ease that it was like you did nothing at all.

You feel his tail lazily moving against your legs in the water as he lowers his muscular torso over your back. He releases your wrists, keeping them pinned between your bodies, and pulls your wet hair away from your neck with his now free hand.

“Haaa...fffuck,” you gasp when you feel his hot tongue lick a trail up your neck to your earlobe. He pinches the flesh between his fangs and the sting you feel lets you know that he's drawn blood.

“H-hokay, okay! Your point is proven!” you whimper in a panic. “You're strong... very strong!”

He chuckles again and you can feel it reverberate in your own chest. You can't help but moan as he slowly slithers back down your body and into the pool. His fingers hook into the waistband of your shorts as he goes and he gives them a yank, nearly pulling them from around your hips. You scream and reach to pull them back up again before scrambling over the ledge and away from the pool.

You look back with wide eyes, but the merman has disappeared beneath the surface again. A shaky sigh leaves your lungs and you press the heels of your hands against your eyes, laying your trembling body on the stone floor. He's left you in a painfully confused state—heart full of fear, pulsing pussy empty of relief...

What an asshole.

Chapter Text

Minutes after the merman leaves you panting and wet on the stony ground, you pull yourself into a sitting position and cautiously crawl over to the edge of the pool. You peer inside and see his long body curled around a boulder at the bottom, taking up most of the space, obsidian tresses floating around his placid face like smoke. He gives you a sidelong glance with those dark eyes and it's like electric current shoots through your muscles with how fast you jump away from the pool.

Beautiful...yet so dangerous. You won't be forgetting the “lesson” he taught you any time soon. With trembling fingers, you touch your bitten earlobe and find it damp with blood. A shiver trails along your spine. You reflexively suck the red stain from your fingertips. That lesson pushed all your buttons, didn't it? You fold your legs underneath you and squeeze your thighs together, fists clenched in your lap as you try not to focus on the warmth spreading through your loins and breasts. Even in his weakened state, he had dominated you so easily. Bent you over and literally mounted you—

“ARGH! Stop lusting over the fish man!” you quietly chastise yourself.

But you understand now that he's much more man than fish. His demonstration was as much a display of his intelligence as it was of his power. He wanted you to know that he considers himself equal to—if not superior than—humanity, if the way he restrained and caged you underneath his muscular body is any indication.

“Okaaaaay, I think it's time for a cold shower,” you grumble and get to your feet.

The bones in your knees creak with the effort, tendons and muscles alike feeling stiff. Sleeping on the cave floor was not kind to your soft body and you're surprised that you were able to get any sleep at all. You gather your pillows and blankets as you make your way out of the cave, wincing when the bright morning sun rays pierce your unprepared eyes.

Once inside the cottage, you peel off your water shoes in the mudroom and dump the bedclothes into the wash. They smell like fish and dirt and, with the way “Ariel” was acting earlier, you don't anticipate spending another night in the cave. You head to the bathroom and strip out of the clothes soiled with sweat and cave slime. With a twist of the silver shower knob, the ancient pipes groan in protest at being made to summon water and you reconsider that cold shower when the spray comes out icy. You've calmed down enough during the walk back, you think.

Instead, you kill time until the water warms up by running your fingers through your hair's tangles. You're under a hot spray before long, washing away the day's grime with your favorite fragrant soap in your hands. As your muscles loosen up in the steam and your body relaxes underneath the cascading warmth, your mind wanders down the shower drain and into the gutter.

You think back to the merman and how he exuded such power, such grace when he swam circles around you. His hands moving up the sensitive backs of your thighs, sharp claws skimming along your flesh as he caressed you. The utilitarian ministrations across your skin become more sensual and your eyes glaze over at the memory. He was so warm. You never thought a fish could be warm, but he had to be a mammal. There were dusky nipples perched atop his firm pecs, a belly button nestled in his rippling abs. If merfolk have nipples and belly buttons, then maybe...Your mind’s eye—and your hand—drifts a little lower. His tail was smooth, no protrusions that you could see, but maybe his sex was tucked away in those black scales. Your deft fingers brush along the folds of your own sex and your eyes drift shut with a sigh of pleasure.

This is so wrong, sexualizing this creature, but it's hardly the weirdest of your fantasies. Plus, he started it by licking you like that. He knew what he was doing. Maybe he’s the one sexualizing you.

You're rubbing yourself in earnest now, imagining being back in the cave with the merman’s hard body holding you down, your nipples erect in painful peaks against the chilled stone. This time he doesn't stop when you yield to him—no, instead he just rumbles a chuckle into your chest and continues to lick your neck, occasionally kissing those ridiculously full lips against your heated flesh. Electricity is sparking along your skin where it meets his scales. You're distraught that he's pinned your wrists at your back because you need to touch him, to run your fingertips over his iron muscles.

“No, sweet thing,” the creature's deep voice purrs into your ear, causing a delightful shiver to rack through your frame. You want him in your body as he's apparently in your head. “You don't get to touch me; you are not in charge here.”

He's forcing soft keening noises from you as he works your neck and shoulder with his mouth, one arm supporting his massive weight while the other trails down your side. A loud rip! sounds in the air as his claws tear into the fabric of your shorts and you cry out in surprise when he snatches them from your bottom. He palms and squeezes the exposed globes of your ass, moaning into your neck as he lightly drags his fangs across the skin there. His tail pushes between your thighs, spreading them wide, and you gasp as something long and thick and hot settles against your bare cheeks. The creature cages you within his chiseled arms, holding you close as he nuzzles your face.

“Mmmm...Little human, do you feel that?” His voice is smooth like warm oil, strong like the ocean tide as it pulls you deeper into the depths of your arousal. You moan and push against him, desperate for more.

“I'm going to split you with it,” he murmurs darkly as he rests his scorching dick along your lips. “...bury myself so deep inside you that you'll be ruined for anyone else. All you’ll know, all you'll ever feel again...is ME.”

Your aching cunt is practically drooling in anticipation of his threat and when you feel the tip of his thick meat press into your entrance, you shriek.

“FUCK! Aaaaugh! ”

The traitorous shower head is suddenly pelting you with icicles instead of warm water. Screaming, you snatch your hands away from yourself and fruitlessly bat at the freezing shower as you attempt to dance away from the stream. You slip into the curtain, gripping it tightly as you lose your balance and topple out of the tub. The curtain rod crashes on your back and you scream again, more out of frustration than pain. You lay on the floor in a crumpled heap for a minute or two or forty, naked and embarrassed in front of no one, before you pick yourself up and shut the shower off.

Cockblocked by plumbing. Maybe it's Gramma’s ghost expressing her displeasure at your dirty mind. She’d always thought you had bad taste in men.

-*-

The sea salt breeze rustles through your hair as you roll down Main Street, pumping your legs against the bike’s pedals. Your stomach is loudly lamenting the fact that you've been awake for hours and have paid it no heed, so you're grateful that you only live a short ride from the supermarket. You stroll into the store, past the teen cashier ringing up the tiny and weathered Ms. Kanata. You smile and nod when they bid you good morning. Her shaggy dog, Chewie, is by her side as always and you reach down to scratch the old pup’s soft head. You make your way back to the fish and meat counter and repeatedly slam your hand on the service bell atop the glass display once you reach it.

“Hello?! Doesn't anyone work in this place?!” you shout.

The man who is standing mere inches from you behind the counter, back turned, nearly jumps out of his apron in fright. Scowling at your rudeness, he quickly turns around to address you.

“Just who in the blazes—?!”

He sees you grinning mischievously at him, defenses suddenly dropping as he rolls his eyes. “Oh, I shoulda known.”

“Sal?!” you exclaim in mock surprise. “You ain't retired yet?”

Sal’s grizzled features twist into a grin of his own, his ivory teeth contrasting against his ebony skin. “You know damn well I'm not retired! It hasn't been 48 hours since you bugged me last.”

“Bugged you?! I'm keeping this place in business,” you sniff indignantly, resting your hands on your hips as you look down your nose at him. “Careful that Gina doesn't hear you talking about your best customer that way.”

“Gina would agree with me that you scare off our best customers,” the older man teases. “Now tell me what you want so I can get you outta my hair.”

“What hair?”

You quickly duck under a flying hand towel with a laugh.

-*-

Back on your bike, your basket full of groceries for yourself and your new friend, you roll through town under the clear cerulean sky while finishing a fresh breakfast sandwich. Once you reach the cottage, you park your bike in the front yard and make your way through the house, putting away the groceries save for the packages of fish wrapped in butcher paper. You trade your sandals for water shoes and head out the back door, down to the beach.

“Ohhhh Ariel,” you call out in sing-song once you enter the cave. “I'm back!”

The merman is floating on the surface of the pool, arms and fins spread out. Spending the last few hours in the saltwater has done wonders for his health; his skin is no longer flaking and his once chapped lips look smooth. The irritated, half-healed wounds across his body even look less inflamed. Sunlight filters across his scales in a way you haven't seen before. You notice how the obsidian shade graduates into a wine color in some places and your steps falter as you drink in the grandeur of this siren, nearly breathless.

A handsome face, pale muscles, glittering scales dusting his arms and neck...He turns his head and gaze toward you, but otherwise doesn't move. That odd expression returns to his face, the one that suggests he's amused by your admiration of him.

A bit flustered, you slowly move to the edge of the pool, still wary of the mermaid’s mood as you remember your earlier interaction.

“Are you hungry?”

You lay your packages at the edge of the pool and unwrap each in turn. Sal cut you a variety of premium filets since you weren't sure what the merman would like: salmon, tuna, and halibut. Whatever he chose, you figured he'd want a lot of it, so you bought about six kilograms total. When Sal informed how much you owed, you grimaced and reminded yourself to ask the mermaid about his hidden stash of gold as you handed over some crumpled credits.

Moving through the water to the pool's edge near silently, the merman briefly appraises the selection before slicing off a piece of salmon with a sharp claw. You expected him to grab the whole filet and savagely tear into it with his fangs, but he uses his fingers like utensils and eats small mouthfuls almost delicately. Such etiquette, like he's old French royalty or something. As soon as the thought crosses your mind, his puzzled expression meets your gaze and you turn your head away so he won't see the stupid smile on your face. He resumes his brunch, scaled arms thick with muscles flexing as he makes short work of the salmon with claw and fang. Glancing over at him again, you try not to imagine how that arm would feel wrapped around your neck as he takes you from behin—

A racking cough interrupts your musings as the merman chokes on a mouthful of his meal and you rush over to him in alarm.

“Whoa, big guy! You okay?”

The look he gives you is inscrutable and you notice that his cheeks are flushed pink.

“Shit, don't tell me the fever's back,” you mutter and lean over to hold your hand to his forehead.

He's warm but doesn't seem feverish. You're about to pull your hand away and find that you don't want to. Fingertips trailing gently down his forehead, you push away a wet lock of hair from his new scar. Part of you mourns the damage to his beauty-marked skin, while another part of you likes the edge that it gives his features. The bacta didn't get much time to work its magic, but at least the wound is not in danger of infection. A clawed hand gently grabs your wrist as you distractedly caress his face and you bring your eyes to his.

In the light, you notice that his eyes are not black like you originally thought, but a soft honey brown. Maybe even considered hazel with the way they change color toward the pupils...pupils that are slowly dilating. You gulp as your trance breaks. You've been caught staring again; he must think you're so rude.

You stammer an apology as you dip your head and cut off the stare. Heat creeps up your neck and cheeks in embarrassment, and you pull your hand back.

“S-sorry...you're just so…”

His hand doesn't leave yours, instead, he rotates it so that it's palm up and places a piece of salmon in it before releasing you. You blink at him in surprise, eyebrows raised and lips slightly parted.

“...thank you.”

You’re no longer hungry, but you’d be damned to spurn such a friendly gesture—it might even be an apology. You eat the piece of salmon, making a show of how much you enjoy it. Good thing you're a fan of sashimi. The merman seems pleased. As he finishes the salmon, occasionally offering you some pieces to share, he moves on to the tuna. You swing your bare legs over the edge of the pool to kick your feet in the water, bracing your arms on either side of you.

“Sorry for…staring at you.” You briefly glance at him to see that you have his attention. “It's just that I'm curious. I've never seen anything like you before. I don't think any human ever has.”

You take a loose pebble and scratch patterns into the ground with it as you wait for his response. Nothing, but he is still looking at you as he eats.

“Are you curious...about me? I mean, you probably haven't met many humans, either.”

Seeming thoughtful, the merman hums softly with his eyes cast down at his meal. He drifts over to you after a moment and you watch as he reaches out to gently take your right foot in his large hand. The scales lining the back of his hand are raven-colored, but the skin on his palm is creamy like the rest of him, and there's a translucent layer of skin connecting each finger at the first knuckle. His gaze is intense as he traces such a finger over the material of your shoe and picks at the laces, angling your foot in different positions as he examines it.

“They're water shoes,” you explain. “Sports apparel—they protect my feet from rough terrain, but let water filter through so they don't get weighed down. I wear them when I explore the cliffs and caves around here.”

You reach down to unlace and pull off the shoes, setting them on the ground beside you. Legs stretched out before you, toes wriggling, you look at the merman and try not to guffaw loudly at his reaction. His eyes are comically wide, eyebrows high on his forehead and mouth slightly agape as he stares at your toes. He makes an odd noise in the back of his throat.

“They're foot-fingers!” you giggle.

He takes your foot in hand again and you involuntarily shiver at how the pads of his fingers feel against your sole. You grow nervous suddenly and take your bottom lip between your teeth. While you’re happy to sate his curiosity about your toes and legs, you've barely got a handle on your hormones as it is. He holds each of your toes between his index finger and thumb, going down the line from smallest to biggest. He grabs for your other foot to hold them next to each other. Staring, he clicks his tongue as if in disappointment and you tilt your head in question. He taps a claw to your toenail with a glance into your eyes and you snicker, understanding.

“I know, I know,” you sigh. “I’m upset that humans don’t have talons or claws, too. We had to get creative with our self-defense.”

You pat the knife sheath at your hip and he shoots you a smirk, but he's not finished exploring your body just yet. As he glides his hands up your calves and rests them on your knees, your breath stutters and you briefly wonder if you should put a stop to this. Are your romantic prospects in town so slim that you're letting a merman feel you up?

Yes, a thousand times yes!

You've dated some attractive people in your life, mostly out-of-towners, but even they couldn’t compare to the exquisite specimen before you. He pushes your knees apart in wonder and seems really interested that there's space between your legs, hands continuing to wander up to your thighs. You suppress a shudder but can't help exhaling a husky sigh. His movements are slow and gentle, just how you like being touched, and with the arousal blooming in your belly you don't want him to stop.

His damp hands leave wet trails along your skin and wetness begins trailing along your slit, in your panties. You stare at him, breathing heavily.

He’s intrigued by the reactions he's drawing out of you and moves closer, blinking up at you through his long lashes. You gulp, realizing that the redness spreading across his cheeks and chest is actually a blush. The pause in his groping allows some blood to return to your brain, so you grab his hands before they can venture up any further. It’s with great regret and a breathless laugh that you push them back toward him.

“I-I’m sure you'd like to see more, but I don't usually put out on the first date...” you joke nervously.

There's a small smile on his lips when he pulls away from you with a low chuckle. This is the second time he's respected your boundaries at your request...so to speak. Maybe your judgment that he’s an asshole was a bit premature. He goes back to his meal and you continue to kick your legs in the pool, arms at your sides. The silence that follows isn't entirely awkward, but after a time you decide to get something off your chest.

“Soooo... you ever gonna tell me how you ended up here? Was it the sea witch that stole your voice?”

Dark anger immediately slams over his expression and he clenches his jaw. There's a faraway look in his eyes as if he’s remembering yesterday's events. Seeing his reaction, your brow furrows and your own lips turn into a frown. Maybe it was too soon to broach this subject.

“Sorry to pry—” you start, but he cuts you off with a raised hand and a growl.

You mentally kick yourself and look away in contrition. Of course, he doesn't want to talk about how he was attacked and left to die. It was probably a traumatizing experience that he doesn't want to recount to a near stranger. As a creature who seems prideful, being found defeated and broken has also probably bruised his dignity. You decide to change the subject.

“...um...While I like calling you Ariel, you probably prefer your real name…?"

He doesn't respond, just angrily inhales the rest of the tuna. Even after you offer your own name as bait, he doesn't take it, remaining silent. He puts his thick forearms on the ledge and hoists himself up with a grunt, the sound of sloshing water filling the air as he pulls his fin partly out of the pool. He rotates his body and mimics your sitting position on the rocky ledge. Surprised, you just gawk at him as he leans back on his arms beside you. He huffs, catching his breath from the exertion, and then turns his intense gaze to you. He jerks his head over to the overturned wheelbarrow toward the mouth of the cave. It takes you a moment to pick up on what he's trying to say.

“You want to leave…? But there’s no way you’re going to fit in that dinky old thing,” you protest and place your hand on his, imploring. “I think you should at least stay another few hours to rest. What if whoever hurt you finds you again?”

With his mouth in a hard line, he shakes his wet head, shells and stones tinkling as his hair moves about. He squeezes your hand, eyes soft and pleading as he looks into yours. He turns over onto his belly and pulls himself across the ground by his arms until he can raise the black mass of his tail completely out of the water. Lightly nudging you with it, he places his fin in your lap and turns back to look at you, waiting.

“...Oh, you don't want to use the wheelbarrow...you are the wheelbarrow.” You sigh in defeat as you catch his meaning, “If you insist.”

You pull your legs from the pool to put your water shoes back on; you're really going to need the traction to scale the rocks at the cave entrance. It takes a few minutes of angry grunts and problem solving, but you figure out a way to securely grab his tail without pulling on the delicate fin at the end of it or endangering your back. You let him know that you've got his tail and he lifts his torso with his arms, biceps bulging as he moves forward on his hands. You're both grunting and huffing before long, but the progress you're making urges you onward. At the cave entrance, you take a short break and you've barely caught your breath again before the merman is whacking you with his fin to signal that it's time to get back to work, peasant.

Once you make it to the beach, the merman catches a second wind and his pace increases significantly. You almost can't keep up and protest loudly to his willfully deaf ears. The waves crash along the shoreline and up your legs, and he’s wiggling so much that you lose your hold on him—and your balance—to the tide. But he doesn't need you anymore. He's slithering headlong into the sea and when his dark head disappears under the waves, you're taken by a sudden sadness. None of your questions were answered; you didn't even get his name. The feeling of loss is distracting and you don't notice that the tide is pulling you out to sea until your head is nearly underwater. You take a deep breath just in time and feel warm hands on your cheeks as you’re submerged.

The merman.

It wasn't the tide pulling you, it was him. You open your eyes to see that he's smiling sweetly, eyes crinkling at the corners, and he looks so happy that you forget why you were upset. His honeyed eyes carefully rove over your face as if he's memorizing your features before he quickly presses his plush lips to your cheek in a tender kiss.

“Thank you,” he intones in the same voice from your fantasy.

With that, he turns tail and swims away, leaving you stunned, and you nearly drown yourself watching until his form is swallowed by the ocean deep.

Chapter Text

“Thank you.”

Two words have been haunting you for two weeks, distracting you at inopportune moments. Like now, in the middle of work. A tiny bronzed hand accompanied by the urgent calling of your name pulls you from your recollections. You blink away your glazed expression and look down at your boss, Ms. Kanata. Huge brown eyes gaze back at you from behind thick spectacles, sparkling with secret mirth as her hand rests on your arm.

“Where did you go, child?” she asks in a rasp that creaks like old, worn wood. “It feels like I've been calling you for twenty minutes.”

An embarrassed heat rises to your face as you glance away, “Ah shit. Sorry about that Ms—M-Maz.”

It's always been hard for you to call this ancient woman, someone who claims to have taught your grandmother the alphabet, by her first name—at her insistence, of course. She ignores your stutter.

“You were thinking about your young man, weren't you?” she assumes correctly, looking smug as she rests her hands on her hips.

“Huh? No…!” you respond in the negative, like a liar, and return to spooling nylon rope.

Maz sucks her teeth at you, unrelenting in her quest for knowledge of your personal life. “Come now, girl! You've been wandering around the shop in a daze for weeks. I know that look!”

She jabs a weathered finger at you. “Someone's got you utterly infatuated. Who is it! Someone I know?”

You turn your face away and smirk. “No, you don't know him. He's...from out of town.”

“Well, if he comes to see you, perhaps I've seen him around. What's he look like?”

With an exasperated sigh, you roll your eyes. If you throw her a bone maybe she'll leave you be.

“Tall, dark, and handsome,” you deadpan.

“Ahhh,” she winks at you. “That kind is the best in bed.”

You choke back a laugh.

-*-

The following day brings the weekend and warm, cloudless skies. You're excited about taking the boat out for a dive at the coral reef; something you’ve been unable to do since you started living here, due to either faulty gear or inclement weather. You wake early and eat a light breakfast of fruit, toast, and caf before gathering your scuba equipment and driving uptown to the pier.

Of course, it's bustling with activity on such a lovely morning and you occasionally greet familiar faces as you heft your gear across the boardwalk. Grampa’s 1991 Sea Ray, The Resistance, awaits in her usual spot. Though she's old, she's in great shape. Both you and Gramma maintained her to honor Grampa’s memory. You board her and cast off lines, joining the moderate boat traffic with practiced ease and the harbormaster’s guidance.

You're out on the open ocean before long and pick up speed to your eastward destination. Almost thirty minutes later, you start getting worried that you haven't noticed the familiar mooring buoy that marks the location of the reef. It's been a while since you've come out here and you aren't using the navigational computer. Maybe you overshot it? You slow The Resistance, searching the low ocean waves. The moderate weather made you believe that you'd see other boats visiting the reef, so you weren't exactly looking for the buoy as you were sailing...oops, that might have been your mistake.

Before you get too frustrated, you spot it near starboard side and cheer quietly to yourself. Surprisingly, the reef is deserted. You can't bring yourself to mind though, seeing as you come out here to “commune with nature,” if you dare to sound so pretentious. It kind of breaks the immersion to bump into other human beings. You guide The Resistance over to the buoy, dropping into neutral and then stopping the boat when you're close enough. You pick up and secure the mooring pennant with a clove hitch.

Once you strip down to your bikini, you sit down to unpack and double-check that your scuba equipment is in working order. The sloshing of waves against the boat's sides accompanies the squawking of the gulls overhead, and you appreciate the sounds and the warm sun's rays while you can. It'll be cooler below the surface, shadowy and muted. Your thoughts drift to the merman as you secure the buoyancy control device around your torso, wondering what his home looks like. You like to imagine the melancholy mermaid surrounded by colorful seaweed yards and giant seashell homes like The Snorks or Spongebob. You grin around your regulator and hop over the stern, into the sea.

The reef is a few meters away. You kick your (fake) fins and swim through the ocean current, a trail of carbon dioxide bubbles left in your wake. It really is like another world down here with the strange-looking animals flitting through vibrant calcium structures. You watch in wonder as they unfurl tentacles and flap mandibles, large eyes unblinking, or shoot through the water like lustrous bullets. You pretend to be one of them, crossing your ankles so your two fins become one. Your legs are pressed tight together as you gracefully undulate through the water—a femme fatale, fraudulent siren. After executing a near perfect aileron roll, you jerk your head toward the north, eyes wide behind your scuba mask.

...the fuck was that?

You thought you saw something large dart past in your peripheral vision. You unhook your ankles from one another and adjust your BCD in case you need to make a break for it. Sharks aren't necessarily dangerous, but that doesn't mean you're going to happily dive in close proximity to one. You float upright, rotating in a small circle as you take in your surroundings, trying to catch sight of that dark shape again. A glimpse of a fin; it disappears behind the vermilion coral and you stare, immobile and barely breathing.

Obsidian claws creep over the edge of the reef, followed by a dark cloud of hair and a pale forehead. An ornate circlet of tarnished gold rests against his skin. The creature releases the coral and swims slowly from behind it, toward you. A huge pillar of bubbles is filtering from your regulator due to your quick and uneven exhalations. The drumbeat of your heart threatens to burst from your chest as you process the sight before you.

It's the same merman from the cave, his scarred face holding a teasing expression. He looks even bigger when in his own domain and you have a feeling that if he were human he would still dwarf you in size. Rather than meeting you face on, he swims past and circles around you. The black mass of his tail cuts easily through the water. He sizes you up, no doubt wondering what the hell it is you're wearing.

“Indeed,” he rumbles, his deep voice quickly becoming familiar.

Somehow it's clear and loud in the water, not muffled like other sounds. He swims back to your front, dark eyes wandering from the bubbles drifting above your head to your artificial fins kicking against the current.

“How fascinating...this contraption you use to encroach on my territory,” he teases.

Encroach...? Hardly! No one owns this reef; it's public property! You glare at him and fist your hands against your hips, shaking your head in disagreement.

“No? Hmm...I thought that was the correct English term. What else would you call it when a being invites themselves onto another's property?”

He's picking thoughts from your head like you're projecting—yes exactly, he vocalizes in affirmation, you are projecting—a holovid. You shudder involuntarily in fear, in awe. Who is this creature?

“Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, Emperor of the Coruscanti Sea,” he replies to your silent question, smug.

Emperor? You gape. It makes sense. His grace and eloquence. His pride. He definitely has attitudes and mannerisms befitting of royalty. You gulp around your regulator and stare as he moves closer, scrutinizing your mask with disdain.

“How am I supposed to talk to you when you're wearing this hideous thing?” he murmurs, tugging on the first stage of your regulator.

You squeak in alarm, hands flying to his before he can pull the tube free. He gently swats you away, annoyed.

“Yeah, yeah. I understand you need this stupid thing to breathe. I'm not going to endanger the stunning creature that saved my life.”

He thinks you're...stunning? You blink at him as heat creeps up your neck and cheeks. He peers at you, trying to catch your eyes through the mask.

“But I want to see you, little starfish. Hold your breath and remove this,” he demands softly.

Oh...how can he be so terrifying and alluring all at once? With trembling hands, you remove the mask first and squint at him through the salty seawater. Next, you unbuckle your BCD vest, shrugging it off along with the air tank, and attach the mask to it. You take a deep breath before removing the second stage of the regulator from your mouth and hooking it to the vest. The equipment floats to the surface when you release it. You look at the emperor and try not to panic.

He's grinning toothily at you, his fang-like lateral incisors and canines looking dangerously sharp, and for a moment you're scared that he lied; he was planning on eating you this whole time and you just unwrapped his meal for him.

“Good girl,” he praises and lunges for you.

He grabs your face in his large, clawed hands and you grip his meaty wrists as he presses his mouth to yours.

“Mmn!” is your shocked response.

“Mmm...” he replies, open eyes on you.

You feel something happening, aside from the excitement of being kissed by a knight emperor merman. A tingling sensation blossoms from where your lips are connected to his, traveling across your jaw and down to your neck. You feel a warmth growing there and then a chill, a wetness seeping into your throat. The seawater isn't burning into your eyes anymore and you can blink more comfortably, can see more clearly. Kylo Ren releases your face and his hands drift down your bare arms to grasp your small hands.

“Breathe,” he says with inappropriate nonchalance.

Your forehead is starting to hurt with all the brow-furrowing you're doing during this confusing and frightening encounter. Pulling your hands out of his, you feel at your neck and find the skin on either side is split into slats.

“Grblbl!” you gurgle in disgust, exhaling large bubbles.

Gills! You have gills at your throat! What kind of fish fuckery…? You glare at the merman as your lungs burn with carbon dioxide build-up and decide to make a break for the surface. But Kylo Ren’s grip on your waist is like iron and he holds you fast.

“Breathe,” he insists.

You’re starting to get light-headed, so you listen to the mysterious sea creature and take a deep breath of the ocean. Water filters in through the sides of your neck and air fills your lungs. Your carbon dioxide bubbles disappear. You pull in a few more breaths, tasting the scent of the sea at the back of your throat, and you blink at Kylo Ren as a wondrous smile splits your features. He smiles back, chuckling.

“I can breathe underwater!” you exclaim.

Well, you attempt to exclaim. What actually comes out of your mouth is a garbled mess of air bubbles and muffled utterances. You grab your throat and frown at the mermaid. Why can't you speak like he can?

Kylo Ren throws his dark head back and laughs heartily at both your predicament and your reaction to it. It's a beautiful sound that thrums across your heartstrings.

“Silly thing,” he giggles after calming himself. “Your vocal cords won't work down here like mine don't work up there. The charm only allows you to breathe.”

Lame. If he was going to disfigure you, he could've done it in a more useful way. You could breathe with the scuba gear.

“Be that as it may, it was unnatural and hid you from me,” he says, tracing a claw down the side of your face and making you shiver. “You're not disfigured, little starfish. It's not permanent.”

The look in his eyes when he uses that pet name... Fuck. You look away from him, flustered and all too aware that he's still holding your half-naked body against him.

“What's that?” he asks with a tilt of his head. “‘Fuck’. You think it often.”

Your traitorous mind immediately supplies all of the fantasy scenarios that have plagued your lonely nights since the cave, scenarios where the mermaid is verb-ing you in the cave pool or on the beach or in your own bed.

Expletive. It's an expletive. A swear. Dirty word. Profanity. Obscenity, you think wildly, hoping the first explanation didn't reach him.

His eyes darken as if your hope was misplaced. The tip of his tongue runs across his lips and he takes his bottom lip briefly between his fangs. You really like the sight of that.

“I see…”

The scent in the water has changed and for some reason it makes your already frantic heart race even more. His gaze settles on your breasts cradled within your bikini top.

“Why do you cover yourself? In my kingdom, females are as bare-chested as the males,” he says, bringing his hand up to the strap across your shoulder.

You're unsure if the brush of his knuckles across your nipple was intentional or not. Regardless, it's hard enough to cut glass now. You bat his hands away from your body as he did to you earlier, deciding to take some control back in this flirtationship.

Human female nudity is coveted, you mentally project at him. Only a select few are blessed to view it.

With that, you toss your head and swim haughtily away, turning your attention to a particularly active bit of coral. You think, not for the first time, about bringing a camera down here. If only the waterproof ones weren't so expensive. Speaking of expensive, you realize your scuba gear is going to float off if you don't recover it. Shit, shit! You quickly take off in the direction you last saw it, praying to Poseidon that it hasn't drifted too far.

Kylo Ren—just “Kylo” is fine, he says—trails after you.

“Why bother? I can just charm you the next time you visit,” he teases.

Yes, you've been plenty charming, you think, hopefully to yourself.

There's the shape of your scuba gear. You kick after it and strap on the BCD, relieved to see the mask and regulator are also still attached. Kylo sucks his teeth in disappointment at seeing your chest covered even further.

He sighs, “A shame.”

You turn your head away to hide your flattered smile. Unfortunately, you don't have stacks of cash to spare—unlike some people, you gesture to the mermaid’s circlet—so letting thousands of credits worth of equipment float away isn't really an option for you. You cast a sidelong glance at the mermaid and think about a sunken ship, overflowing with gold and gems. In your opinion, he still owes you for saving his life. His brows lift to his hairline and he crosses his arms over his broad chest.

“Is that so? My mistake for thinking your actions were out of kindness. Humans are just as shrewd and greedy as they say.” His lighthearted tone confutes his harsh words.

You smirk and offer him a wink. Unfortunately, one can’t eat kindness. You drift back down to the reef, fully intending to take advantage of this mermaid magic by continuing to explore the colorful coral. Kylo keeps you company, occasionally offering up names for the animals you see: marmal (sea horse), rancori (urchin), plar (eagle ray), octo-fish (octopus). You also learn that this isn’t the Atlantic Ocean but the Coruscanti Sea, and Kylo has been emperor of it in the few years since his adoptive father died under mysterious circumstances. He doesn’t divulge much more than that and you remember his reaction to your personal questions from the cave, so you don't pry.

A short while later, Kylo warns you that the spell will be breaking and you head back to The Resistance. The gills fade into your skin and your first breath of fresh air is awkward and uncomfortable, making you belch up seawater in front of the merman.

Sexy, you cringe.

You try to save face by deftly hoisting yourself onto the platform at the boat’s stern, and you are successful—! ...until you forget just how big these fucking flippers are. After the second failed attempt to put your flippered foot on the platform without dislocating your hip, you opt to remove the fins in the water. More awkwardness ensues; you need both hands for that and one hand is currently gripping the edge of the boat so you don’t drift away.

You grow more and more abashed as the seconds tick on, and you don’t need to look at the ever-watchful Kylo Ren to know he’s thoroughly entertained by your antics. You eventually get your gear off and sit at the boat's stern, panting from the effort, as Kylo rests his forearms on the platform and looks up at you, tight-lipped but with smiling eyes.

“Well, Your Majesty, I'm glad to see your health has returned,” you sniff with a false affectation. “Perhaps when I return, you'll have a substantial, ah...recompense for my troubles…?”

You look down your nose at him, trying hard to keep a straight face. Kylo does not follow your lead and laughs openly at your ridiculousness, the sound just as lovely on the open air as it is under the sea. He schools his expression and gives you a super serious nod. You imagine he's saying, Indeed, my lady. I will give you all the riches you desire.

He takes your hand in his claws, dark eyes on yours, the mirth gone from them. Your heart skips a beat as he presses his pursed mouth to your knuckles, releases you, and then slowly disappears beneath the waves. You sit beaming at the stern of The Resistance for a while before your mind clears enough for you to make your way back home.

-*-

Several days later, you find yourself restless in bed.

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream, you’ve been pleading for hours now as sleep has evaded you.

It’s too warm. You kick off your blankets in frustration. It’s too quiet. The house is filled with creaks and groans from the old wood settling, and the drip drip from the leaky faucet you have yet to fix in the second guest bathroom, but it’s absent the low sound of the TV that Gramma fell asleep in front of. It’s absent Grampa’s shuffling, slippered feet as he sneaks into the kitchen for his nightly glass of warm milk. You’re having a hard time tonight with your mind reliving the things that used to be.

It was only 8 months ago that you called Gramma to wish her a happy Grandparents Day and last heard the smile in her voice, promising you would visit when you next accrued vacation time from work. And you were going to follow through with that promise, booked the flight and all, but then Pop called you—ever-aloof Pop, who never calls “just ‘cause”—and the flowers you bought were decorating Gramma’s tombstone next to Grampa instead of her dining room table.

You give up on sleep and stumble out of bed, stumble out of the cottage and into the muggy night air, down the rough wooden steps that lead to the dock—to the only place that’s ever brought you solace from your restless thoughts. You stand in front of the sea, bare save for a thin slip of a nightgown and underwear, and stare into the navy ocean as a nightbreeze blows across your skin. A near full moon illuminates the gentle waves formed by the breeze and turns the hot, silent tears rolling down your face into silvery streams. You lower yourself onto the dock and pull your legs up to your chest, resting your chin on your knee. The steady breath of the ocean waves meeting the shore eventually clears your mind of thought; all you do now is focus on your physical senses. The warm wind rustling through nearby trees. The sound of the breaking waves. The smell of salt on the night air, into which you breathe a sigh and hug your knees. Only time will heal your grief, but for tonight the sea acts as a balm to your lonely heart.

Sitting like that for quite some time, you finally start getting sleepy and stand into a full-body stretch before slowly padding down the dock. Your steps slow and then stop, and you look to the ocean again. An odd sound is floating on the breeze, something that’s not the waves or a night bird. A voice... singing. A chill grips your spine. You walk back to the dock’s edge and squint into the darkness, nervously grasping the hem of your nightgown at your thighs. The singing grows louder, more magnificent. It’s...beckoning you. There are no words but you understand that it’s calling to you, promising you something intangible that you so desperately crave. You step off the dock and plunge into the inky ocean, into the waiting arms of Kylo Ren.

Together you resurface, looking into each other’s eyes. He’s unsmiling, and there’s something in how he’s staring at you that makes butterflies dance in your belly. He holds your elbow in one huge hand as you float and brings the other to the fading salt trails on your cheeks. His eyes are sad as he erases them with the seawater wetting his thumb.

“Your Majesty, were you singing to me just now?” you tease him with a grin, hoping that your expression will be infectious even if your mood doesn't match. You don't want him to be sad for you, for anything.

When his eyes meet yours again, the light has returned to them. He opens the fist that was raised to your face and shows you a thin length of gold chain, knotted with small luminous stones and creamy pearls. He looks nervous all of a sudden as he carefully separates a lock of hair from the side of your head, his eyes searching yours for permission. You’re speechless and can only nod, watching as his focus switches to braiding the gift through your wet strands. His hands rest on your shoulders as you both admire his work. More tears burn unbidden against your eyes as you finger the nearly glowing stones in the moonlight.

Before he gets the wrong idea about your reaction, you choke out, “They’re so beautiful. Thank you…”

The tears fall. The merman sighs. You sob as he tenderly kisses the streaks running down your face before pressing his warm lips to yours. His kiss sends electric currents through your blood and you feel that strange tingling at your neck again as he pulls you back under the waves. As your new gills draw in the scent of the briny sea and Kylo’s pleasant musk from the water, you struggle in stopping the flow of your tears.

At your most vulnerable, with your emotions so raw, you're having a hard time accepting such a priceless gift. Even if you did save his life, why would the merman emperor deign to give you anything? Such extravagance for an unimpressive human, a broken nobody...

The bright moon and Kylo’s magic allow you to see his radiant form floating before you. He holds onto your face so delicately, his clawed fingers curling into the hairs at the nape of your neck as he continues to kiss your face and mouth. You rest your hands on his thick, scaly forearms as you sniffle.

“Oh, sweet thing...my little starfish, please don’t weep,” Kylo coos between kisses. “You're not nobody, not to me.”

He pulls you against him in a tight embrace, one arm across your back with his other hand holding your head to his chest. You wrap your arms around the muscles of his mid-back and seek out his heartbeat. It's steady, if a little fast, and helps calm you as he slowly strokes your hair. Being held like this; it feels safe. It feels like home. He called you his little starfish, didn't he? Both of your hearts stutter simultaneously and he takes a deep breath.

“Yes, that was me. That was my song...to you.”

Eyes widening, you pull away to look at his pale countenance. His eyes shine as he meets your gaze and a wrinkle settles between his brows.

Kylo continues, “They call me the siren, the maneater who lures men to their doom...but no one spoke of you. There was no warning of your song that's left me enchanted since that first day I awoke to you highlighted against the cave opening. I don't know why or how, but I'm completely...taken by you.”

His hands drift down your body and enclose around your waist. His intense stare never leaves you as he moves to your eye level, bringing his face closer. The vulnerability you first saw is fading into a dark hunger and his passion ignites your own. He places an open-mouthed kiss to your jaw, his hot tongue lingering on your skin.

“You're the true siren here,” he whispers against your lips and places a quick kiss there. “And I will happily follow you to my doom if it means I get to taste you...to be inside of you.”

You gasp at his words, into his mouth as he crushes himself into you again. He holds your hips in a bruising grip and you wrap your arms around his shoulders to take his silken locks into your hands. Your tongues and lips rub together in a heated dance as your bodies press desperately into one another, aching for contact. Before you can stop him, his claws shred your nightgown to expose more of your skin to him. The rags drift away on the ocean current. Kylo withdraws from the kiss—withdraws from you entirely—to get a better look at your nudity.

You pout at the loss of him, your arms and legs now have to work on their own to keep you suspended in the moonlit sea. You watch him as he watches you, his ravenous eyes practically glowing in the dark as they roam across every inch of your bare skin, and you start to feel self-conscious under his intense scrutiny. You raise your arms to cover your breasts but he stops you, grabbing your wrists with a growl, “Don't you dare.”

Pulling you into him, Kylo takes your breast into his mouth and swirls his tongue around your areola. He's careful of his fangs but not his claws, and the ruined fabric of your panties floats off to join your nightgown. You thread your fingers through his decorated hair and hold his head within your arms. His mouth’s attentions travel to your other breast, forcing moans to bubble from your throat, before trailing kisses down your sternum and belly to the mound at the apex of your thighs.

He pauses here and stares. Your lips are glistening with arousal, inviting him to taste, and taste he does. His long tongue splits your folds and brushes across your clit, making you cry out and grip his hair tightly. He hums his approval against your cunt and does it again, over and over until your whole body is vibrating in his hands. You mewl and moan, head thrown back as the sea turns your noises into bubbles and takes them to the surface. Your stream of thoughts is nonsense as you rush into your orgasm— no stop yes wait please more yes more I can't yes more YES!

Body seizing, your vision flashes white as your release crashes over you in waves, leaving your ears ringing, your gills fluttering as you curl your twitching body over Kylo and gasp for breath. He joyfully cleans the come from your body, unnaturally long tongue licking you from taint to clit.

“So it's human females who create their own slick,” he murmurs to himself. “Good...good girl.”

He cranes his neck, pridefully looking up into your blissed-out expression as his large hands settle on your hips. They glide across your skin to the fat flesh of your bottom and squeeze.

“What is this?” he moans into your belly. “You have more breasts back here, instead of a fin? A ‘bottom', you called it?”

You burble out a laugh, cradling his head in your arms, as he squeezes and massages your ass. “I love it. Mmmm...I love your bottom, your ass.”

Smiling, you gently tug on his hair to beckon him back toward your mouth. He comes eagerly. You give his jaw a bite and a kiss as you wrap your legs around his tail, hands stroking the delicate fins at his forearms. Kylo purrs at the sensation and grabs the underside of your thighs, pulling your pussy flush against him. He sighs into your mouth and you feel the length of his engorged phallus brush up your body as it emerges from his tail. You kiss him messily and rub your sex along it, making you both groan. It’s similar to a human cock in everything but size. Much longer and nearly as thick as aluminum can, it's slick with Kylo’s own natural lubricant. You would be crazy to try and take all of him inside you. Your cunt pulses eagerly at the thought.

“Yes, inside you. Now,” he rasps against your temple, tightly clutching your ass cheeks with claws dangerously close to piercing your skin. “Guide me.”

His demanding tone makes you giddy and you want nothing more than to please him, so you quickly reach between your bodies and grab his dick. You loosen your thighs’ hold around his hips and roll your own hips forward to line him up with your entrance, lowering yourself onto him. Tight, so so tight. His invasion of your body is burning you, stretching you. You whimper and release his member, wrapping your arms around his neck and laying your head there.

“Please, li-little starfish, relax...ungh... fuck …”

You try to obey, sucking in deep breaths of oxygenated seawater, your amusement at his expanded vocabulary helping matters greatly. Kylo rocks his tail forward and back, loosening your walls with each push into you, forcing you to take more of him.

He groans and shudders as your tight heat swallows down his shaft, “Yes, nnnngh! Take all of me, lover...I need you.”

Filled nearly to bursting, you still want more. You want to take all of him like he asked, to be his good little starfish. Keening and moaning, you will all of your muscles to go limp and you both cry out as he’s able to sink his cock home against your cervix.

How many centimeters? You don't know. The largest cock you've taken by far, he's truly a monster and it's truly reckless to stuff all of him inside you at once. Incredibly reckless. You don't care. All you care about is Kylo, all you feel is Kylo; the growling, trembling mess that is Kylo. He really is going to ruin you.

You grab his face and roughly kiss and lick his mouth, his powerful arms wrapped around your waist as you grip his tail between your thighs. Both of you unmoving for now, enjoying the feel of each others’ bodies. When his hands trail back to your ass, he slowly pulls himself most of the way out again. The friction is delicious and you don’t feel like yourself; you’re otherworldly, floating in space as your omnipresent, ethereal lover encompasses all of your cunt and mind. Your eyes roll back in your head as he pushes back into you and sets a slow, hard pace.

Kylo’s beautiful babbling fills your ears as he’s taken in by his pleasure, palming your ass and thrusting deep into you.

“Gods, you feel exquisite ...amazing, my little starfish...shouldn’t have waited so long to take you…”

Eyes filled with tears of ecstasy, your body begins to vibrate again, the assault on your pussy quickly bringing you to another climax. You can tell he’s close, too, as his rambling gives way to animalistic sounds and his pace increases. You decide to help him along, rolling your hips toward him and—oh, why didn’t you do this sooner? Kylo’s scales catch your clit at the perfect angle and it only takes a bit more undulating of your hips before you’re careening over the edge of bliss and coming hard on the mermaid emperor's massive cock, your cry carried away by bubbles, nails cutting into the flesh of his shoulders.

He curses in his strange tongue, arms snaking around your waist and upper back to hold you closer, as he feels your tight walls spasm around him.

“That’s it, my sweet girl. Soak me in your come, my lover... my empresssss!”

Grunting, Kylo shoots thick ropes of his seed inside you, the force of it hitting your cervix makes you gasp and jerk. The scorching load fills you and then gushes out of your overstuffed channel. His fangs tear into the flesh where your neck meets your shoulder, ripping both a scream and another orgasm from your violently shuddering body.

You cling to each other, and even now Kylo’s fin is working to keep you both suspended upright. His mouth remains attached to your neck and his body is still within yours, erect. He kisses your wound apologetically. You can’t believe this kinky fucker bit you. Animal. His tongue laps at the blood and a strange warmth spreads through the muscle, the pain fading slightly. What is he doing to you?

You sigh a string of bubbles and shrug away from him so you can look at his face. He’s slow to meet your gaze, so you grab his cheeks and press your nose to his. You fill his vision and he can’t help but look at you now. He’s thoroughly embarrassed at being so taken by his passion, a blush is dusting his high cheeks and Roman nose. You smile sleepily at him and kiss his plush mouth, pushing his lips open so you can massage his tongue with your own. He welcomes your kiss with a moan, holding your shoulder blades in his clawed hands. When you pull back to look at him again, brushing his floating hair away from his flushed face, he still looks sheepish and you make a face at him. It’s really not a big deal, you try to reassure him with your eyes. You’ve been bitten in the heat of the moment before. You liked it. He frowns at that and shakes his head.

“No, it’s...more than that,” he grumbles and looks down at where your bodies are still joined.

He’s still hard? Under normal circumstances, you’d be up for round two, but considering you’ve been floating in the middle of the ocean in the dark for who knows how long...You’re pretty sure you’re wrinkled as a raisin at this point. You move to unhook your legs from his tail but he squeezes the underside of your thighs in warning. You level a look at him.

“Please...just, you have to wait until the knot loosens, else it’ll be painful for us both.”

What.

Kylo gulps, glancing away, “The knot ...do human males not have that?”

You stare blankly at him. He groans and puts his face in the crook of your neck.

“Sometimes when meri mate, the base of the male’s penis engorges with blood and he’s... l-locked inside the female. It’s to help ensure, uh...insemination,” he mumbles into your bite wound. “It’s sometimes involuntary, an evolutionary vestige. The urge has never hit me so strongly before and you feel so incredible wrapped around me, I just...”

Blinking, you drum your fingers against his shoulders and stare into the abyss beyond his head.

“It won’t last very long,” Kylo assures you with a quick kiss to the corner of your mouth.

Well, this is what you get for fucking a mermaid.

Chapter Text

You dozed off in his arms, in the dark sea, for as long as your bodies were interlocked. Now he rouses you with tender kisses to your temple and carries you back to the shore, watching as you struggle up the moonlit beach on shaky legs like a newborn fawn. You stumble forward when Kylo's charm dissipates and place your hands on your knees, breathing heavily. A belch bubbles up from your belly, followed by a stomachful of seawater. A foreign pang of worry cuts through your fatigue and you fall to your knees, groaning as you lean forward to press your forehead into the cool sand.

You feel like garbage. Hot, left-in-the-sun, run-over-too-many-times garbage. Your stomach is roiling, either from swallowing too much water or being filled with Kylo’s caviar, you can't say. Your neck hurts. Your womb hurts. Your eyes hurt. You want nothing more than to pop a bottle of Advil and sleep for the rest of the month.

Curling up in a fetal position, you whine and wish upon a star for Kylo to grow legs so he can carry you to bed. This is his fault, after all. He should fix it. Your worry increases and is now accompanied by guilt—why do you feel guilty...? You burp up another mouthful of seawater before you can really examine the feeling. Bleurgh.

The tide washes across your ankles and Kylo rides upon it to beach himself beside you. His muscled arms wrap around and under you, pulling you into his warm body, and he kisses your wet hair. You feel a little better already and relax into his embrace, your arms tucked between your bodies. He strokes a hand up and down your bare back and starts to hum a soft tune. A soothing lullaby.

The tension coiled in your muscles diminishes slightly—the pain and nausea, too. The worry and strange guilt turn into waves of comfort and peace. You’re rocked to sleep on these waves with the heart under your ear beating in tune with the one in your chest.

When you next wake, it's only minutes after sunrise and the sky is a canvas of watercolors bleeding into golds and pale roses. You feel refreshed, with the previous night's ailments now a distant memory, and you have no doubt that the sleeping form wrapped around you is responsible. Kylo is spooning you as you rest your head on his firm bicep, his lustrous tail following the curve of your slightly bent legs. His other arm is wrapped around your front, forearm nestled between your naked breasts, the hand curled at your neck and under your jaw. You take this massive hand in both of yours and marvel at the thick talons, the armor-like scales. It's definitely the paw of an apex predator but you can't find it in yourself to be afraid. You curl the fingers inward and kiss the scaly knuckles. You somehow know these hands would never hurt you.

Well, you must know nothing at all because the once limp fingers flex and pinch at your cheek, which definitely does hurt.

“Ow!”

Kylo chuckles at your angry and futile attempt to extricate yourself from his hold, wrapping his powerful arms around you in a firm embrace. He hums and nuzzles his face into your neck to place a wet kiss on your bite wound. You grumble something about him being a mean bastard but lean into his affections anyway.

His claws drift carefully over your skin as he strokes your arm, your side, down your belly. More wet kisses land on your neck and you tilt your head to give him better access, sighing in pleasure. His hand drifts across your pelvis, making the sensitive muscles there tremble, and the warmth of your arousal begins to grow. Kylo growls in your ear, tongue slipping out to lick across the shell of it, cock slipping out to rub against your ass. Those warm embers of arousal ignite into a blaze when you feel him.

“Nnnnngod,” you moan as your heart rate picks up and your cunt pulses to the beat of it.

The thick arm that was resting across your collarbone shifts so that Kylo can roughly palm your breast. He rocks his tail into you and thrusts his long slimy cock between your closed thighs, rubbing against the lips of your swollen pussy. Pressing your thighs together more tightly for him, you hold onto Kylo’s meaty forearm and roll your hips against his tail. His free hand falls to your hip and gives it a squeeze as he slowly fucks himself with your thighs, moaning into your neck.

“Aaah...Kylooo,” you sigh.

Angling your hips so the fat head of his dick catches your clit with every thrust, you reach back and grab a handful of his thick, black hair. His dick is still dribbling pre-ejaculate, lubricating your thighs and easing his passage through them. He's being so noisy— growling, groaning, hissing. You figure he's making up for his inability to say dirty things into your ear, which you think is a goddamn shame. The way he talked to you last night made you feel incredible...how he wanted to “take you sooner”. How much sooner? At the reef? In the cave? Maybe if you had played your cards differently, your shower fantasy didn't have to be a fantasy. Your train of thought delivers you whimpering into a mild orgasm.

It's like Kylo was waiting for you to come because it's only half a heartbeat before he's pushed you on your stomach and mounted you. He pulls your ass up against him with a forearm under your hips, kneeling on his tail as he positions his throbbing dick behind you.

“K-Kylo, please,” you whine and reach back to hold a hand against his hip before he can split you open. In the moment, you want him to pound you hard into the sand but upon remembering last night's aftermath, you're not sure your future self would feel the same. “N-not so rough this ti—”

His response is to shush you and snatch both your wrists behind your back in one giant hand, the position similar to when he had you bent over in the cave. The hot glans of his cock finds your opening and slowly, deliciously presses into you. Your fresh orgasm still has your sex quite sensitive and you moan at the wonderful friction against your walls, easily accepting him into your very willing body. You gasp and rest your cheek against the damp sand.

Kylo seems to be losing his shit at the feel of you. Pressing his forehead into your shoulder, he releases a noise that sounds like a rusty sob as his cock throbs inside you. His tail twitches and he starts to saw into you, whimpering. To his credit, he doesn't stuff your pussy all the up like you were afraid of (and would like) and his pace is moderate. You're soon joining him in wanton moaning and other such vocalizations.

“Ungh, fuck! …yessss...f-fill me up, Emperor Ren...god, you big b-bastard,” you murmur, panting over the wet sounds of your coupling. “...feels so fucking good…”

Your racing heart flutters at your words and you feel your lips turn up in a random prideful smirk. It's knocked off your face as quickly as it comes with Kylo knocking around in your guts like he is. His thrusting becomes faster, mouth and fang suckling at your neck, and you're not sure what you're more afraid of: that he's going to bite you again or come before you can greedily claim a second climax.

“Mmm-wait, Kylo...baby, let me…” you plead with him to release your hands so you can rub yourself, but he only grips you tighter.

Kylo bites you again when he comes, groaning and pumping you full of his hot fluids. You're grateful for his restraint this time as he doesn't break skin or knot you. He pries his jaw from your neck and pulls out of you with a squelch, his bulk collapsing beside you on the beach with a satisfied sigh. His copious seed oozes from your body and dribbles down your thighs, making you shudder. You both lay in the sand for a time, gasping for air and composure.

He clicks his tongue at you to get your attention and you peel yourself off the ground to move closer to him. A smile spreads your lips as you take in the sight of this blushing, breathless mermaid. You did this to him. He pulls you forward by your bicep and gestures toward his face, so you lean over him to pepper his mouth and cheeks with sloppy kisses. Apparently, that's not what he was trying to mime. He growls and turns his face away, but you're relentless and crawl further over him to continue your affectionate assault. You notice that he's struggling to contain a grin.

With you bent over him like this, he's able to clap his large hands over your ass cheeks and force you to straddle his chest.

Oh. Ohhh.

You catch his meaning now, not needing his forceful push against your ass to walk up his body on your knees. Breathing heavily, you look down at him as you hover your pelvis over his mouth.

“Is this what you wanted, Your Majesty? Breakfast...?”

The emperor doesn't answer, just maintains intense eye contact with you as he grips your thighs and slowly opens his mouth.

His velvet tongue swipes across your folds and cleans away your combined juices, making your nerves light up in burning pleasure from cunt to crown. He takes your breasts gently in his hands while he tongue-fucks you, bronze eyes shining in the morning light, drinking in your lust-twisted expression. You fist your hands in your hair as you writhe above him, whining, and it doesn't take long for him to coax another climax from your dripping core.

As you come down, Kylo gives your quaking thighs soft kisses.

“Oh, wow...you're pretty good at that,” you grin, chest heaving as you sit beside him on the beach. He answers you with a smirk.

You lean back on your arms and lift your face into the warmth of the sun, eyes closed. Even though you're covered in sand and completely nude in the unforgiving sunlight, you've never felt more comfortable or relaxed. Being with Kylo has chased away your sorrow and lifted the burden on your heart if just a little. Is this what happens when you get your brains fucked out? It feels amazing.

You turn to look at him and find that he's been staring at you. He's mimicking your posture, wearing a small smile but his eyes...they seem a little melancholy.

You pull your knees to your chest, fold your arms atop them, and rest your head on your arms. You return Kylo’s smile with an even brighter one—super watt.

“You're...really amazing,” you tell him.

Such big, brown eyes. They're so expressive. They widen in his shock. He makes a small noise as his lips part and he gapes at you for a moment.

“Tch!” he scoffs and turns his head away.

...but he can't hide his sheepish smile from you and you decide to leave it at that. You're starting to think that, despite his arrogance, maybe he's not used to getting genuine compliments. You rise to your feet and pad down to the shoreline, sashaying your hips since you know Kylo has his eyes on your bottom. You wade into the shallows fairly quickly to mitigate the biting change in temperature, hissing when the chilly waters cover your breasts. As you rub your hands across your skin to wash away the sex and sand, Kylo pops up beside you, flipping his wet hair and sending his strands and water flinging in an arch above his head. You can't help but giggle at the drama, especially since he seems to have done it without irony. He hears you laughing at him and glares before disappearing below the surface.

You stop laughing immediately, suddenly worried. What's he planning? In the water, you see a dark shape quickly heading for you and before you can move, Kylo’s underneath you, your calves in his claws and your ass on his shoulder. You shriek as he surges upward, lifting you out of the water and then tossing you bodily away. You crash into the waves screaming. When you gracelessly come up for air again, spluttering and pulling soaked locks of hair from your eyes, he's laughing at you now.

Roaring ferociously, you swim after him. He lets you catch him and you cling to his back like a barnacle, arms around his neck in a mock choke-hold. Kylo decides to humor you, pretending to drown, and you pump your fists in victory when his torso drifts below the surface. Suddenly, the mermaid jets further out to sea and you squeal in delight as you speed through the water, gripping his back and sides with your legs to keep from falling off. He eventually circles back to the beach and you just enjoy riding him for a spell, grinning and thinking of nothing at all.

Your stomach is thinking about food, however, and embarrasses you by grumbling as much. Kylo has resurfaced by now and you're resting your chin on his shoulder, arms lazily draped around his broad chest as his tail churns the sea.

“I should make a real breakfast,” you mutter against his cheek. “I'll bring something for you too, okay?”

He hums, seemingly distracted, and you part from him to climb up the shore.

Inside, you quickly toss on bikini bottoms and an oversized shirt before you set about making breakfast. You rush to cook something simple for yourself, eggs and toast, and something even simpler for Kylo—fried salmon. Your hand pauses in scrambling the eggs and you glance out the window overlooking the beach, feeling...strangely regretful. Is it the eggs? Maybe you don't really want eggs...it's too late now, they're cracked and cooked. You plate the food and try to ignore the odd feeling.

Before you even step foot on the beach, you know that Kylo is gone. You can sense it.

There's no sign of him that you can see, but you can't really see much with the tears welled up in your vision. Lowering yourself to the sand, you place your meal in your lap and set his pointless meal beside you. You try to force the scrambled eggs past the heartache constricting your throat. Try to ignore the tears spilling over your cheeks. Try to reject the feeling that you won't be seeing Kylo Ren again. Try to pretend you don't care that he didn't even say goodbye.

You try and fail.

Chapter Text

Whatever.

Being loved and left is nothing new. Hell, you've done plenty “loving and leaving” of your own. All you wanted was a li’l strange from a beautiful mythical creature anyway. Apparently, despite the emotional sweet talk, that's all he wanted, too—on to the next. You give up on eating your breakfast and stand on the beach, barely resisting the urge to send the plates sailing into the ocean. Perhaps if you launched them far enough, one would catch Kylo across the back of his cowardly cranium.

The door slams into the wall of the mudroom as you storm inside the cottage. You drop the soiled dishes into the kitchen sink with a shattering crash. Why are you still crying? You're annoyed now—mad, even! And these aren't angry tears. There's an undercurrent of sadness to your anger—and you are a little sad, you liked that dumb mermaid—but it feels foreign somehow. All morning you've felt strange, with random emotions filtering in and mingling with your thoughts. You pull on your hair and let loose a strangled, frustrated yell.

Breathe. In. Out.

You rest your hands on the cool porcelain of the farmhouse-style sink as you try to calm yourself.

Are you overreacting? He’s Emperor Kylo Ren, meaning he's got a kingdom to rule, responsibilities and shit. He probably got called away on important mermaid business. Surely he'll come back to his “enchanting little starfish”...? You still can't shake the feeling that he's not coming back. You're certain that he left with no intention of returning, though you can't say how.

Whatever.

He was just a nice lay—a great lay—but now you can cross “fuck a merman” off your bucket list and move on with your life. You stomp into the bathroom and chance a look at yourself when you've stripped nude in preparation for a nice, long shower. The reflection staring back at you looks like a diseased womp rat. A red-eyed stare set in a flushed, puffy face, hair damp and wild. You scowl at the beautiful chain still braided in it. Your gaze travels down to your neck and you pull your hair away from your bite wound to finally examine the injury.

You blink, brow scrunched in confusion, not really understanding what you're seeing...or not seeing.

The wound hasn't been painful at all since last night, so you haven't given it any thought until now...and that's because it's gone. Kylo must have healed it when he soothed away your other pains. Wait, no—when you move a certain way, your skin catches the soft bathroom light and kind of shines. The bite mark has scarred over already, super-smooth new skin formed over the indentations of teeth in a tint that's a bit lighter than your skin tone. You huff a sigh. This is all so fucking weird. At least you no longer have to explain why you looked like you were attacked by a zombie.

You untangle the jewelry from your hair and get in the shower. Your shift at Maz’s shop starts in a bit and you briefly debate calling in (heart)sick. Though you'd rather not discuss what happened or field questions about your foul mood, you're also not thrilled with the idea of staying home all day with nothing to do but think about Kylo. While soaping up your hair and body and having a good cry, you decide to go to work. The distraction could do you some good.

After exiting the shower, you’re running a comb through your hair when Kylo’s glittering gift catches your eye again. You frown at it thoughtfully. Why did he give you something so valuable if he was just going to run off? Was it really only a token of gratitude for rescuing him? His mellifluous words after he gave it to you suggest otherwise. You growl in frustration and tear the comb a bit too roughly through your tresses. Apparently, mermen are just like human men: masters of mixed signals.

You're about to leave the bathroom when you stop, turning around to look at the faintly glowing jewelry again. Maybe you're a master of mixed signals too because you still want to wear it, you still want to some kind of proof that what happened was real. Sighing, you braid it back into your hair in the same place where Kylo first put it. As loathe as you are too admit it, it makes you feel a little better.

-*-

Luckily for you, boating essentials are in high demand today and the nonstop stream of customers keeps your mind plenty preoccupied. It's tough but you manage to put on a brave face, your sunny façade masking the black storm clouds drifting through your mind. You stay a bit later than usual to help Maz unload the latest shipment of inventory. Of course, she senses something is wrong but she accepts your lie about being fine and doesn't press the issue.

Once home again, you numbly peel off your clothes and pull on some comfy pajamas. Your dinner consists of cold leftovers as you lay in bed, watching true crime documentaries on your datapad until you fall asleep.

Wake, rinse, repeat. This is your routine in the days leading up to the weekend, where you find yourself at a loss of things to do. The forecast predicts beautiful weather but you don't want to go outside at all. You don't even want to look at the beach or smell the ocean. The reminders threaten to shatter your fragile façade.

Yet you still wear his gift. You haven't removed it since that first morning, opting instead to carefully wash and style your hair around it. It makes you feel closer to the dumb merman who charmed you with his cheeky attitude and soft, sable eyes.

The creaky spring mattress groans with you as you reluctantly pull yourself up to start the day. You decide that today will be the last day that you acquiesce to disorder and mentally put together a to-do list of home improvement projects. First up is that damn leaky faucet. You put on your battle regalia—old stained clothes, Grampa’s work gloves, and Gramma's scarf to keep the hair out of your face—and spend the day in a whirlwind of wrenching and hammering.

When the sun sets on your chores, you're blissfully exhausted and fall into a dreamless sleep. The following night...you are not so lucky.

You dream of the coral reef. Bright pillars of sunlight penetrate the deep, illuminating the vibrant calcium structures that tower over you like buildings. Sea anemones the size of cars wave in the smooth ocean current and a giant—in size and amount—school of colorful fish swims above your head. The merman emperor is watching you from within the coral. You gasp when you spot him and quickly swim to him. Since he's forever teasing you, he turns it into a chase.

Breathing comes easily to you in the water, as does swimming. So easily, in fact, that you have no trouble keeping up with Kylo. You glance down at your legs and see that they have been replaced by a mermaid’s tail, the bright scales glimmering in a color you've always adored.

“Do you like it?” Kylo rumbles into your ear as he comes up behind you, wrapping his arms under your bare breasts.

Soft bubbles accompany the excited giggles filtering from your mouth. “I love it!”

You pull away from him, using your powerful new tail to spin in place. Raising your arms to examine them, you see that your hands are also sprouting talons and webbing. Scales the same color as your tail creep up your arms to your elbows.

“This is incredible!”

Kylo is smiling gently at you, eyes alight with adoration as you move toward him in your excitement. You take his face in your webbed hands and bless him with your lips—three quick kisses.

“You did this, didn't you?” you ask, capturing his gaze in yours.

“Yes,” he answers and takes your hands. “So you could stay with me.”

Darkness begins to swallow the light as your face falls.

“If you wanted me, why did you leave me...?”

The world shrinks to just you and him and the abyss of your heartache. Your eyes glisten with tears but instead of falling, they lift away and become little stars, shining bright as they drift on the undersea current. The flow is neverending and the two of you are soon surrounded by constellations of sadness as you're suspended in the sea of the Milky Way.

Kylo Ren's face folds in anguish. The heartrending sight is the last thing you see before he kisses your eyelids closed.

When you next open them, it's to the sight of your own bedroom. You pinch your eyes shut again as harsh sobs rock through your frame and more tears drip onto your already damp pillow. You cry yourself to sleep with your hand pressed against the bite mark at your neck.

An impossible breeze carries the whisper of your name across your skin and your pained expression softens into one of peace.

You don't dream again.

-*-

Monday morning finds you using the wall-mounted kitchen phone to dial a number you know by heart.

You can't summon The Façade today.

Instead of answering with the usual “Boating Essentials; what do you need?” Ms. Kanata greets you by name, taking you aback. The shop doesn't have caller ID.

“How'd’ya know it was me...?”

Maz chuckles, “We don't open for another 30 minutes and you're usually here by now. Who else would it be? Tell me what's going on, child.”

You sigh into the receiver and rest your forehead against the aging, yellowed wallpaper. For a moment, you consider telling her everything. Yes, everything. If you trust anyone to listen to you, it's Maz. She might not believe a word of your story but you don't need belief, you need a friend.

Perhaps another time…

“I, uh...I'm not feeling well today, Ms. Kanata. Stomachache. Do you mind if I take the day off?” you ask with a grimace. You hate lying to her.

“Hmm,” the old woman croaks. “You have a stomach in your heart?”

God damn it, Maz! You cover the mouthpiece as you curse. You hate lying to the woman because she can easily sniff it out. Why does she own a boating shop? She could be a fucking toll-free psychic!

“You’re not as good an actress as you like to think, my dear. You've been in a funk all week and it sounds like you've been crying all morning. I'll give you the day but tomorrow we're going to have a chat over some tea...or whiskey if you prefer,” she says with a smile in her voice.

A small smile of your own curls your lips at her caring offer, “Thank you, Maz. That sounds good. I'll see you tomorrow.”

You make a big deal out of breakfast this morning with almost all of your favorites piled high on a tray. You go back to your bed with it and spend the day binge eating and watching shows on your datapad. When nightfall brings the darkness, you get nervous. Not because you're scared of the dark but because you're scared to dream. You don't want to again wake up to your face encrusted with tears of a lost lo—.

Dragging your hand down your face, you groan. Don't say it, don't even think The L Word...that's not what this is. A siren cast some freaky spell to make you enamored with him and it will wear off. You just have to give it time.

The display on your datapad reads Past Your Bedtime but you can't bring yourself to power down. Instead, you make a pot of caf and some popcorn and snuggle down in your blankets to watch bad horror movies. The plots are nonsense with terrible acting and writing, but none of that matters when the gore is what you're after. Just senseless violence and hatred. As far from romance as you can get.

You greet the morning as a bleary-eyed member of the undead but at least you didn't dream.

-*-

Guilt at leaving Maz alone to handle all the previous day's work forces you to show up early for your shift. When she enters the shop, she takes a moment to look you over and her eyes crinkle in pity. You just bite your lip and cast your eyes aside; you know you look a hot mess. However, she doesn't speak on it and instead reminds you of your promise to chat with her later, shuffling into the tiny break room to put on a pot of caf afterward.

It's not so busy today as it was last week and so the day drags on. You find yourself getting more and more nervous about talking to Maz. Are you really going to tell her the truth? You want to be honest but you also don't want her to think you've gone insane.

Your fingers keep absentmindedly drifting over the bite mark. For some reason, you find comfort in the gesture.

Twilight finally creeps over the horizon and you lock up the shop as Maz and the shaggy Chewie climb up the stairs in the back. You follow them into the apartment above the shop and realize that this is the first time you've been here. Maz already has a record playing of some upbeat tune with male vocals doo-wopping in a language you don't recognize.

The apartment is small, made smaller by the tables and shelves that line the edges of the room. Every surface is cluttered with knick-knacks either scavenged or bought: painted clay vases, vibrant glass-blown animals, dolls in elegant dresses, even small machinery with scabs of rust. Her place looks like an eclectic gift shop. It's very distinctly Maz.

One corner of the studio is reserved for a kitchen and at the end of that kitchen is a breakfast nook with a table for two. The large window beside it overlooks the pier and the ocean beyond, where the sun is being dragged into the sea and desperately casting its final amber rays against the encroaching violet sky.

You wander through the tiny apartment and Maz sets the table with delicate porcelain cups and plates. She removes some cookies from a jar shaped like Winnie the Pooh for a snack. The teapot shrills and you awkwardly dance around Chewie to sit at the table.

“I'm guessing this is about your young man?” she asks, pouring the boiling water over your tea bag.

You throw your head back with a groan. “Am I really so transparent?”

Maz just offers a knowing smile as she takes her seat across from you.

“He just...ran off! Left without saying goodbye after we, um...after I…”

You flush with embarrassment and duck your head. You can't look at Maz and instead scratch the fuzzy nose resting on your knee.

“Did he give you that?” She gestures to the stones and pearls braided in your hair. “It's beautiful, very unique.”

You nod. “I...did him a big favor. Huge. He gave me this...in gratitude.”

“Gratitude? That seems a little excessive for a ‘thank you’, don't you think?”

“I do think,” you grumble and stare into the steeping tea.

Maz says nothing while she waits for you to open up and you decide “fuck it”. There's no point to being here if you're not forthcoming.

“So he gives me this and...and sweettalksmeoutofmynightgown...and then disappears while I'm making breakfast for us!”

Your fingers are at your neck again. You pull your hand away and clench it in your lap, looking down at the lacy tablecloth.

“I know we're from...different worlds, so things were doomed from the start...but I didn't think he'd be the type to just leave.”

You slouch in your seat and pout, “Even one-night-stands have kissed me goodbye and said ‘see ya later, kid’ even when we both knew it was a lie.”

Maz hums, sipping her tea. “Have you tried reaching out to him?”

You shake your head and smirk sardonically. “I don't have his shell—I mean cell phone number.”

The bronze old woman quirks a brow at you, her smirk like a confused mirror to your own.

“Well, call me old-fashioned,” she says, “but when a guy gives a gal an expensive gift, that usually means he's playing for keeps. You say you're from different “worlds”...is this man a big shot CEO or something?”

“Or something,” you snort.

“Maybe in the light of day he got nervous. Love is a terrifying thing,” Maz says. “Only the bravest of us dare to face it.”

You scoff, “This isn't love. We just...found each other at the moment we needed one another the most…”

“Some would argue that's exactly what it means to be in love.”

Your breath catches in your chest and you blink back the sudden tears threatening to spill. As you try to compose yourself, you stir some sugar and milk into your tea and take a cautious sip. It's not a flavor you've had before but it's delicious and soothing. You take another sip from the delicate cup. It feels like it's missing something, though...

“Maz, you mentioned something about whiskey?”

She chuckles as she moves to a low cabinet and pulls out a bottle of spirits. “Sadly I don't have any whiskey. Will cognac do?”

“Oh yeah, even better...and maybe you should make a whole pot of tea this time.”

Maz takes your suggestion to heart, grinning wickedly as she spikes the teapot with a generous amount of the alcohol. You stay a couple more hours and the conversation shifts from your personal woes to the adventures of young Maz before she settled down here. She was quite the globetrotter. As her stories lift your mood and the cognac warms your blood, you find yourself laughing for the first time in a week.

The merriment dies down into a sleepy quiet and you help Maz clear away the dishes and cookie crumbs. You thank her for her hospitality with an awkward embrace around her wee frame.

“You're very welcome, my dear,” she smiles with her warm brown eyes. “I hope your young man comes around and realizes what a catch you are. But if not, there are plenty of other fish in the sea.”

You blanch. She winks.

God damn it, Maz.

-*-

The following weeks are as similar as the last: lonely. Walking along your backyard beach until the sand crusts around your feet like irritating socks. Sitting at the dock for hours, your ass and legs feeling like a TV channel with no signal before you move again. Still, there’s no sign of him. You even venture back into the cave in full knowledge that it’s pointless. The disappointment still bites when you find it empty of mermen.

It’s on the weekend that you resolve to finally stop waiting.

The day is cloudy and gloomy when you take The Resistance out on the choppy ocean. You hitch her to the mooring buoy at the coral reef and don your scuba gear, a wetsuit replacing your usual bathing suit due to the chill. It's dark at the reef, eerie in that there seems to be less life flitting around than usual. This cloudy day just might turn into a stormy one. What luck.

You're not really sure what to do now that you're down here. Is Kylo’s kingdom even nearby or was it just a coincidence that he found you that day? You swim a few laps around the reef and even venture outside of it to see if you can find anything interesting.

Nothing.

The sea grows darker before you call it quits and climb back into the boat. A storm warning goes out as soon as you reach the pier and you head home, defeated.

That night you're cuddled up in a nest of blankets and pillows on your couch, stuffing your face with the greasiest burger in town as you watch Freddy Krueger slice up some teens when you feel it. Your heart throbs on a particularly powerful beat and your whole body pulsates with it. Eyes wide, gasping, the burger falls from your hands and you whip your head toward the hall that leads to the kitchen, to the back door. Something’s there.

Mine.

You're overcome by a powerful feeling of possessiveness as it happens again. A single, thundering heartbeat. Your body thrums. It feels like your consciousness is echoing out of your body. Then the backdoor shudders before it bursts open and the sound of wood splintering cracks through the air. Footsteps cross the threshold, wet and heavy. Hesitant. The sound of your name booming through the cottage compels you to clumsily vault over the back of the couch and rush down the short hall to the kitchen.

Desire stands before you, swallows the color of your irises and slides down your spine like warm oil. You can barely summon the breath to say, “Kylo.”

Chapter Text

“The door was...unlocked,” you whisper in a faraway voice.

Kylo has the decency to look bashful as he stomps toward you on his naked and unsure legs.

“Little starfish, forgive me.”

Your wide, shining eyes never leave his as your brain tries to find the words with which to respond. Nothing comes; you're too overwhelmed by conflicting emotions and the myriad questions that want to surface all at once. He's on you in that time, holding and kissing your face in his still-damp hands, mumbling confessions into your skin that your stunned brain can't yet comprehend.

As you hold onto his thick forearms for support, you briefly note that he has more skin than scales and the fins are missing. His hands also end in blunt fingertips—sans claws, sans webbing.

When his lips find yours, you moan and fist your hands in his wet hair hard enough to hurt. Relief floods you, but so does anger. So does lust, hurt, excitement. Your heart's going to fucking burst, filled to capacity with all these contrasting passions. Kylo sighs your name against your lips in contrition.

“Forgive me! I was so foolish,” he pleads. “Please forgive me, cyar’ika…”

His large hands roam down your body to hold you at the small of your back, pulling you into him like he's trying to absorb you through his skin. You growl and bite at his mouth.

“No, you bastard. You utter asshole. You can't just barge in here...a-after weeks...and k-ki...kiss it all b-betterrr— haaa…”

Kylo is trying his damnedest to do just that. Massaging your ass and trailing kisses down your jaw and sensitive neck, his fangs find the scar he gave you and you just unravel when he nips at it. You jump on him, legs and arms tight around his wet body, indifferent to the vanishing dryness of your clothes, and he stumbles from the added weight. Quickly regaining his bearings, he leans back and wraps his arms under your bum.

“You-your nest,” he manages through your assault on his mouth. “Where is it...?”

Your mind is hazy with lust as you respond, “...mmmm...my what…?”

You vaguely assume he's talking about your bedroom and that seems to be enough for him to pull the location from your head. He stumbles toward it blindly as you battle each other with clashing teeth and silken tongues. You thrust an elbow backward to force the door wide open and Kylo lowers you gingerly onto the bed, mouth still suckling yours. As his knee sinks into the sheets between your legs, he squeaks and pulls back from you in surprise.

“What—?” he questions, forcing his knee into the bed and making it bounce.

You giggle at the shocked look on his face and lean up on your elbows. “It's a mattress. It has springs in it.”

His expression suggests that explanation actually explains nothing at all. He gives it another experimental bounce. “Will it support us?”

Running your hands over the hard ridges of his abs and up to his bulging pecs, you blink slowly at him through your lashes and lick your lips. “Let's find out.”

His impassioned eyes meet yours and he grins. Your heart skips a beat. He crawls up your body and presses you into the bed with his warm weight as he kisses up your throat, legs entwined with yours. The scent of him is intoxicating—sea salt air and something masculine, distinctly his. When you feel him grow hard against you, you can't help but writhe beneath him, the teasing friction pulling a groan from his chest. The hand not supporting himself brushes down your neck to your collarbone to your breast and fondles you through your shirt. He growls into your neck when he feels your nipple turn into a pebble under his palm.

“You have...legs,” you whisper breathlessly against his temple, rubbing your smooth legs against his scaly ones. “How?”

“A sea witch,” he smirks against your lips.

Kylo invites himself into your mouth and his warm tongue massages yours. You glide your hands along his broad shoulders, up the sides of his neck and into the hair at his nape as your tongues tousle.

The merman sighs your name and briefly sucks your bottom lip into his mouth. “You always taste so good.”

Your face heats up and you glance away.

“Let me see you,” you demand suddenly, pushing against his hip and shoulder to roll him onto his back.

He obliges and awkwardly lays upon the odd lumps you call “pillows” as you kneel on the bed beside him, drinking in his pale form kissed silver by moonbeams.

The ebony scales have retreated from his hands to litter only his outer forearms. His new legs are just as long and muscular as the rest of him, with calves and shins that are completely encased in scales. They continue to creep up his knees and to the outside of his thighs and hips like racing stripes. You stroke up the scales of his lower leg and across the creamy skin of his inner thigh to his groin where his considerable cock stands at attention, blushing and leaking.

Biting your lip to keep from drooling, you reposition yourself between his legs and glance up at him. “I bet you taste good, too.”

Your eyes stay on his face as you lower your mouth over his twitching member, making sure his skin slides along the length of your hot and wet tongue, all the way to the back of your throat where you swallow against his pulsing glans. The way he falls apart is so lovely. Flushed and gasping. He tried so hard to maintain eye contact with you, but the velvet feel of your mouth on his most sensitive area proved to be too much and he threw his head back against the pillows, groaning and gripping the sheets tightly in his meaty fists.

“Ahhhh ffffffuck!”

There's still an inch or so of him that won't fit inside so you wrap your hand around the excess as you hold him in your throat and hum. Kylo cries out hoarsely when the sensation vibrates through him and involuntarily thrusts his hips up into you, burying his fingers in your hair. As you pull your mouth away, you replace it with your hand, dragging your fingers through the trail of saliva you've left on his skin. With a twist of your wrist, you moisten the rest of his dick when your hand and mouth make their way back down.

“Mmmm! Oooh, my b-beautiful girl...good gods, what...w-what are you doing to me…?”

The sounds he's making are absolutely addictive, sweet praises and breathy panting. You lament that you can't suck him off all night, but you have other plans for him. You wait until he's close to his climax before you slowly remove his cock from your mouth. He makes a noise of frustration and his eyes beseech yours for answers.

You say nothing and just gaze lustfully back at him as you stand from the bed, your thumbs hooked in the waist of your shorts. Kylo is a beautiful mess before you with his heaving chest and sweaty strands of hair clinging to his reddened forehead and cheeks. You slide the shorts down your legs and let them drop to the floor. The hem of your oversized tee stops just below your mound and you don't miss how his eyes dart toward it.

You slowly turn your back to him while bending forward and roll your panties over your hips and bottom, down your thighs. Kylo moans a soft “oh gods” and the need in his voice makes your pussy throb. He has a great view of it now, with your tee riding up your waist and your panties down, and you let him peek for a moment before you stand straight again to pull the shirt over your head.

You turn back to face him and trace your hands down your body, over your breasts and hardened nipples, down your soft belly. You watch him stare at you, enraptured, bottom lip in his fangs as he fights the urge to tackle you to the ground and fuck you senseless right now.

His desperate eyes meet yours and his throat bobs as he swallows a whine. “Don't be cruel.”

You hum through a tight-lipped smile and straddle his chest, pinning the arms at his sides under your knees with your full weight. He winces in pain. Leaning over him, you grab a handful of that gorgeous hair and force his head back to expose his neck. He blinks at you, confused by your suddenly harsh treatment of him. Your eyes are dark.

“‘Don't be cruel,’ you tell me. You've got some fucking nerve,” you respond in a low voice, breath ghosting over his cheek. “It was cruel of you to leave your ‘little starfish’ heartbroken and lonely.”

You gently bite his chin and drag your teeth down his neck where you feel a moan rumble up his throat.

“I'm sor—”

“Shut up!” you growl and pull his hair, earning you a pained gasp. Your—his?—arousal spikes.

“I should tie you to this bed and edge you until your balls are swollen and blue, until you’re crying for me,” you threaten.

The emperor gulps, soulful eyes begging for mercy. He doesn't completely understand your threat, but your description still seems truly awful.

“The only reason I won't is because I can't wait any longer to impale myself on this monstrous dick.”

And then you do just that, slowly and tortuously, making you both sigh in bliss. Kylo clutches your thighs and arches his back against the bed as you sink onto him, his eyes shut tight. He's biting his lip and breathing hard through his nose and the sight makes you clench around him. He's so beautiful like this, coming undone inside of you—because of you—and you grin wickedly at how powerful that makes you feel.

Sitting straight and throwing your head back, you slowly bounce along the sea creature’s hot girth, enjoying how he stretches your walls and fills your tight heat. He's thankfully not as big in this form and you feel confident in taking all of him without consequence. He actually seems annoyed by this.

“Aaahh, don't pout, baby. You're...still the biggest I've ever had,” you breathily reassure him.

He growls, “I should be...the only one you've ever had...I will be...I will—hnnn, gods!”

Kylo draws a shiver from you as he glides his nails up your belly and ribs to take your bouncing tits in his hands. You moan when he rubs across your hardened nipples. A moment later, you pull his hands away and lace your fingers through his, leaning into his strong arms as your burning thighs start to tremble from your exertions.

The intimacy of it makes Kylo's heart flutter and he squeezes your hands gently, awed by the sight of you taking him inside your body, the sweat beading on your skin, hair wild from your thrashing and his hands. Your silken walls massage him so incredibly, he's not going to last and you aren't either once you thrust him against that sweet spot inside, feeling his climax building against yours, his emotions echoing against yours. He's inside you and you're inside him, but you need to be closer still—hands and hips are not enough.

Kylo wraps his arms around you and flips you so you're beneath him, still snug around him, and you bring your arms up to hold him as close as he's holding you. Your bellies and chests and hearts are pressed together, thundering in the hurricane of your lovemaking, lightning splintering across your skin where you're connected. You claim his mouth in a kiss wet with rain, sloppily as your bodies rumble and undulate against one another. You can feel the static building, the wind of your sighs howling. Lightning strikes then and both of your hearts stop in la petite mort. The cloudburst ruptures and you're drenched in one another's pleasure, trembling and clutching each other, panting as you wait for the blissful storm to dissipate.

A few heartbeats pass, then a dozen, then hundreds before the desperation for each other dies down into gentle kisses and light caresses.

Your siren rolls onto his back with you in his arms and you settle into him, one arm tucked between you while the other splays a hand over his chest, your legs either pressed against him or draped over his. Your ear finds a home over your favorite place—his heart. Kylo strokes one hand down your shoulder and grasps your hand with his other, mapping the lines of your palm with his fingertips.

You lay like that for a long time, just breathing and being.

But then you remember.

“Soooo...who talks first? Do you talk first or—?”

Kylo sighs and tenderly kisses your knuckles. “I suppose I have some explaining to do…”

“You can start with why you let me make you breakfast when you weren't planning on sticking around,” you grumble bitterly. That was your last salmon filet.

“To protect you, I thought,” he replies softly. “But as I said, I was foolish. I thought I could outswim a mating bond—”

“A...mating bond?”

He hums in affirmation. “That night when we...mated, a psychic bond was formed between us. Accidental, but powerful nonetheless.”

He moves your hand to his shoulder where you feel smooth, crescent-shaped scars. You vaguely remember digging your nails into him before he bit you. Scarred you.

“I...didn't mean to,” he says. “I've never had the urge to bite before. I didn't even think it was possible to form a bond with a human…I would have asked beforehand.”

You chew your lip in thought, brows stitched together. “So what does all that mean…? That you are what I've...I've been feeling in my head?”

“Yes. Our minds are connected, our emotions. We can gauge each other’s moods, locate one another over distances, tell when one is in pain...”

A long pause. You think he might be drifting off to sleep.

“I did not mean to hurt you, cyar’ika.”

That word again. “‘Sherry ka’...?”

Kylo shifts down and turns so he can face you, look you in the eyes at your level. He clasps your small hands in his huge ones and holds them to his lips.

“Beloved.”

The word steals the breath from your lungs and makes your eyes wide as a whale’s.

He continues, “I was betrayed and left to die in that cave where you found me. After you...rescued me, I went seeking my vengeance...but the traitors slipped from my grasp.”

The emperor’s eyes glaze over, teeth grinding as he remembers, and for a moment he's lost to the rage. He comes back to you when you speak his name, eyes soft again.

“When I realized I had claimed you for my mate, I thought the best thing for us both would be for me to disappear. I worried that if I continued to see you, my enemies would find you as well...find ways to do you harm to get to me.”

He kisses your fingers again as you look at him, speechless. “I just couldn't bear the thought…but I realized my mistake soon after. Every hour away from you was agonizing, little starfish. I could feel how I had hurt you. So I resolved to find a way for us to be together.”

At this, his face lights up and he gives you a small smile. “And I did. I found a way...for you to come back with me.”

Your lips part in surprise, brows lifted up your forehead. “For me to come back with you? But your legs—”

“They're not permanent, thankfully.”

“I…”

You what? You gape at him, mouth working but no words form. He's asking you to go away with him, leave your home and abandon the open air to live with him as a...as a mermaid?

“We prefer the term ‘meri’ but yes.”

That's crazy! Utterly insane! You have a life here. Your grandparents’ legacy is here.

“I can't just leave behind everything my family has built,” you murmur, pulling your gaze and your hands away.

Kylo quietly searches your face with his worried eyes. The initial pain of rejection cuts into you both. While he understands how terrifying his proposition is, he also knows that he can't be separated from you again. You can feel his resolve.

“What they built. Their legacy. Don't you want to forge your own way? Create something new for yourself? Holding on to the past is only keeping you from who you’re meant to be,” he argues passionately.

Staring at the ceiling, you chew your lip and think of all the things you would lose. The sun. Boating. Ice cream. Movies. Your family. Maz and Chewie.

Kylo sees that you need some more convincing. “But think of all you would gain.”

He moves closer, trailing his hands teasingly up your arms as he kisses your forehead, the tip of your nose, your lips.

“You love the coral reefs, don't you?” he asks. “You can live in a palace made of coral. You won't want for anything. I'll give you all that you ask of me.”

His lips trace soft kisses along your jaw as his devilish right hand draws patterns over your breasts. You arch into his affections with a quiet gasp.

“There aren’t just coral reefs to explore but giant kelp forests, too…”

You're on your back, squirming and panting, hands on Kylo’s broad chest as he slowly glides his fingers down your stomach and over your mound.

“Trenches and deep-sea caves filled with bioluminescent creatures.”

His fingers brush over the stiff nerves bundled in your folds and you whine, toes curling.

“You could swim with those creatures, be one of them,” he murmurs huskily into your ear before suckling your lobe into his hot mouth.

When he drags his fingers through the combined fluids still leaking from your body and smears them over your clit, you moan and buck your hips into his hand.

“You would make a beautiful meri, my sweet girl, so majestic and dangerous. You'd have claws...”

He strokes you in ever-so-gentle circles, building up the pace as he kisses a trail down your neck.

“...and a powerful tail…”

His mouth hovers above your mating scar and he parts your thighs with his hips.

“...and me,” he murmurs in his deep voice, biting down on your scar as he thrusts his desire into you.

Why does it feel so good when he bites you there? You cry out and seize your lover's muscular shoulders as he works himself in and out of your body. You were right; he cast a spell on you and you are lost, so very lost. You think of how unfair this manner of persuasion is. You'd say yes to being dragged into the sea and eaten at this point.

“Ungh gods yes I would love that, little starfish…I'll d-drag you off and eat you... eat this lovely pussy I've missed so much,” the sea creature moans, driving himself into your sweet spot relentlessly, building up that static deep inside again.

“Kylo…!”

“Please, cyar’ika. C-come...come with me. I need this. I need you, everyday. Come with me...I’ll protect you. Come—”

Then you do. And you will.

“I will!” you whimper, the shock from your climax breaking your voice.

You clench and shudder as Kylo continues fucking you, forcing obscene noises from your shaking body. He leans back on his calves and pulls one of your legs to rest over his shoulder with the other over his forearm, spreading your thighs so he can watch himself split your folds. You grab at your breasts just for something to hold on to while the emperor pounds into your sensitive sex.

“Mmm...I can see it...I can see everything. Fuck, legs are...amazing,” he pants as he presses his cheek to your calf, mouth half-open and practically drooling down your leg as he stares.

The sight must be too erotic for him to last. His thrusting stutters and then stills, grunting through grit teeth, your name spilling from his mouth as his seed spills into you for the second time that night. You’re grateful that biology won't allow the two of you to procreate because you're sure you would be swollen with Kylo’s little guppies by now. Something primal in him purrs at the thought.

As you come down from the clouds, you think about his words and how your grandparents would probably agree with him. They always encouraged you to pursue your own interests rather than blindly follow behind them or your parents. Gramma’s will even suggested that you sell the cottage or use it as a rental property, but you balked at the idea and returned to this seaside town to be closer to her in your grief.

But maybe it is time to let go. Their legacy isn't in the cottage or the boat or the beach. It's in you. It is you.

Kylo flops beside you and pulls you close, smattering kisses across your sweaty forehead. Exhausted mentally and physically, you slot your trembling thighs between his and pass out before your eyes even finish closing.

-*-

As Eos stretches her rosy fingers across the velvet curtain of night and parts the way for the dawn, tiny seafoam-dusted waves lap at your ankles and the ocean breeze playfully pulls at your hair.

You stand before the chiseled son of Poseidon in the low tide, nude and natural as you were always meant to be. The creeping daylight is already chasing away his pseudo-humanity and his claws grow sharp as he extends his hand toward you, beckoning. You're enchanted by the future you see in those brown eyes turned amber by the morning light, unafraid to take his hand and step through time.

You don't look back.