19
L ittle glowing freckles and drops of water glimmered on the bridge of Marin’s nose, clinging to the wet vees of his eyelashes.
With a hesitant hand, Blake reached out to caress Marin’s cheek, reveling in the press of cool flesh against his palm.
For a moment he simply admired him: this man who was stirring feelings in Blake’s chest that he thought he’d never experience again.
I think I love him , Blake realized with a stunned hitch of his breath.
Beneath the fan of Marin’s eyelashes, Blake spotted a glimpse of glossy black. A cheeky smile curled up the side of Marin’s mouth as his eyes flicked all the way open.
“So were you going to kiss me or…?” he asked, a fingertip wandering out of the water to catch Blake by the edge of his chin.
Blake bobbed in the water in front of Marin, reaching out to tuck a lock of pastel hair behind his webbed ear.
With much greater care than he could recall ever taking, Blake moved in closer, eager but tentative.
Sensing his trepidation, Marin smiled and pulled Blake down, tangling his fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck.
“Kiss me,” he demanded. And Blake complied.
They fell together with ease, their mouths a soft surge of warmth in an otherwise cold pool.
Blake pressed in closer, his other hand coming up to hold both of Marin’s cheeks, tilting his head so that he could deepen the kiss, licking his tongue into the velvety wet heat of Marin’s mouth.
Marin groaned in appreciation, and Blake pulled away to settle down on the rock shelf beside him.
The foreign weight of Marin’s tail filled Blake’s lap, the pressure of the action settling somewhere low in his gut. Their mouths met again and Marin’s teeth scraped against his tongue—a sharp, numbing, satisfying rake that stirred up basal instincts in Blake’s chest.
God , he thought, fingers sliding back around the base of Marin’s skull, tangling in the wet strands of his hair and gently tugging his head to the side.
Marin allowed it with a satisfied moan, baring the vulnerable length of his neck.
Blake’s mouth surged against Marin’s skin, which was already beginning to heat despite the cold drops of water still clinging to it.
He fastened his lips over Marin’s pulse, rewarding his pliancy with a harsh suck.
“ Blake !” Marin gasped, fingertips dimpling Blake’s back as he tried to pull him even closer.
His tail shifted in Blake’s lap, the texture of his scales grinding over him.
Blake pressed his mouth farther into Marin’s neck, groaning as the tender flesh buckled under the grip of his teeth.
Marin’s gasps and moans reverberated against his mouth, further unfurling those creature instincts lurking within his mind.
Marin continued to writhe appreciatively against Blake as he nipped and sucked up the length of Marin’s neck, slaking his lust into the willing flesh, searing the bruised skin. Palms, nails, and fingers pressed Blake closer, closer—
Something slick and vice-like constricted around Blake’s waist, yanking him forward. Blake surfaced from Marin’s neck with a surprised gasp, eyes falling to the foreign limb that had encircled him without warning.
From either side of Marin’s tail the pair of thick, tentacle limbs had emerged out of matching slits in the flesh, one entwined around Blake.
They glowed the same shades of purple and blue as his fins, pulsing with phantasmal colors in time with the light of his freckles.
Noticing that Blake had pulled away, Marin furrowed his brow and observed his expression with a smirk.
“Heh,” he panted. His eyes dragged back up to Blake’s, heavy-lidded and full of salacious intent. “You like these, don’t you?”
Blake couldn’t even make words as his mind was flooded with images of himself bound on those thick new limbs. His mouth hung open, eyes dragging up the expanse of Marin’s chest and to his face, taking in the almost carnivorous tilt of his head—and his tentacle tightened the smallest fraction.
“Don’t think I didn’t see the look on your face at the pool yesterday,” Marin accused, cupping Blake’s cheek to slot their mouths back together.
Blake throbbed between them as his hips jolted forward against the heat of Marin’s tail, mouth parting to emit a ragged gasp.
“Do you like this?” Marin asked, voice a low rumble in his chest. His hands roamed up over Blake’s abs, palms pressing hard over his pecs, pebbling his nipples. Blake’s breath hitched and he keened into the bright, sharp sensation of Marin’s nails rasping over the peaks.
“Y-yes,” Blake replied as Marin’s hands crested his shoulders, mouth falling searing hot along his clavicle. His heart was slamming up into his throat, almost choking him.
Marin’s second tentacle wrapped possessively over Blake’s thigh, crawling up the small of his back and tracing a slick line up his spine.
Blake shuddered as gooseflesh erupted over the nape of his neck, feeling every minute kiss of the suckers marching up his vertebrae.
Ensnaring him. Owning him. Devouring him.
It was too much.
He couldn’t be sure if it was the fear of admitting to himself how bad he wanted this, that they were still a little too buzzed, or that they were getting too hot and heavy too quickly.
But even though he knew that Marin would never intentionally harm him, even if Blake was into this sudden, rapacious side of him… Marin wasn’t himself.
“Wait,” Blake said, pressing his palms to Marin’s shoulders. “We’re—I’m sorry. I need to stop.”
Marin snapped his gaze away from Blake’s chest, leering at him with glowing eyes—his irises were glowing jack-o-lantern orange, pupils transformed into horizontal slits, and body brimming with voracious intent.
Blake could tell that he had to consciously hold himself still.
It was evident in the tremble of his muscles.
Marin’s mouth fell open as he began to pant hard, displaying a jagged gleam of fangs. His eyes flicked around, as if attempting to orient himself in a new space.
“Marin?” Blake asked, struggling to keep himself calm. With shaking fingers, he brushed over the glowing freckles across the bridge of Marin’s nose. The little spots were spreading over his flesh, rippling and winking in and out of existence on his skin, endlessly repeating halos of light.
The gentle action stirred some awareness back into Marin’s countenance. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, as if trying to clear away an ugly thought.
“I’m sorry,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m—I’m having trouble with—of course we can stop. I-I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine,” Blake told him, reaching out to pet along the slick length of one of the tentacles that grew from Marin’s hip. Rings of blinking spots radiated out over the cool flesh, fading from dark to light in the beat of an erratic breath. “We’re fine.”
“I—I don’t know what’s happening,” Marin admitted, pressing a palm to his temple and shaking his head, as if trying to rid the state that had come over him. He looked over at Blake, his oblong pupils swollen with terror. “What’s happening to me?”
Blake twined his fingers around the thick end of a tentacle, hoping that the gesture was comforting to Marin. “I’ve got you. Take a deep breath.”
“I—” Marin sucked his lower lip, a violent shudder wracking his frame. “I’ve—I’ve never felt anything like this before, never wanted anyone like this in such a—such a—”
Blake could tell that Marin’s words were failing him. He reached up and touched the sides of Marin’s cheeks with his fingertips, stroking down his face and along the sides of his neck. His fingers passed with ease over wet, flaring slats that had not been there before—Marin had developed gills.
“Shhh,” Blake soothed, stroking down Marin’s arms until he was able to ease the tension rippling under his skin. He pulled Marin in close, wiping gentle arcs over the crests of his cheeks, pressing chaste kisses into his hairline. “Just breathe.”
But despite Blake’s efforts, Marin was getting worse. His breaths came with heavy, exaggerated heaves of his shoulders, air expelled with terrified whimpers.
And then, the tension in his body snapped.
Throwing back his head, a hoarse shriek cracked through the air. Down below, Marin’s tail blossomed into six more tentacle limbs curling and undulating in the water, spilling into Blake’s lap.
With a terrified gasp, Marin shot backwards out of the grotto.
As Blake pursued him through the waterfall, Noel’s earlier warning washed up in his mind, far too late:
“ Some merpeople can learn how to transform themselves into other sea life, ” he’d said. “ But in rare occasions, it can happen automatically, even if those tentacles are already out. Like when you’re feeling really scared or uh…”
Noel had also mentioned that staying in those forms could have very permanent side-effects—Blake recalled the other merman’s serrated grin.
Blake had no idea how long he had to get Marin to revert before the effects became irreversible. The last thing he wanted was for Marin to have part of his body stuck like this forever, or—God forbid—be trapped in this form permanently.
Shit , Blake thought, emerging from the grotto. ShitshitSHIT.
The sight that met him was less than encouraging.
Marin had swum out into the middle of the pool, thrashing around in terror.
Horror blossoming on his face like some awful flower, he began to unfurl his new limbs, raising them out of the water and extending them to their fullest capacity, as if attempting to stretch them as far away from his person as physically possible.
He affixed his pleading gaze onto Blake’s eyes, reaching out to him with a helpless hand, fingertips atremble.
Blake advanced towards Marin, palms held up to the merman in a gesture of comfort.