19 #2
He recalled the night that he had first brought the fiberglass merman to life—the way that he’d cradled Marin in his arms. He’d been so uncertain and frightened in that moment, but Marin had been content enough to trust Blake to carry him, even after having just met him.
Don’t worry, Marin, he thought. I’ll carry you again.
“Hey,” he greeted Marin. The merman dropped deeper into the water, his hair pooling out around him as he continued to scrabble backwards. He plastered his new limbs over the wall of the pool and he turned away from Blake, curling into himself with a soft, warped wail.
“It’s okay,” Blake insisted, pausing several meters away. “You’re okay, Marin. Keep breathing. I’m going to get out of the pool.”
“Don’t go!” Marin cried. His voice was so garbled that it didn’t quite resemble human speech, and Blake had to strain to understand him.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he reassured, heading for the steps of the pool. “I’m going around the pool to help lift you out of the water, okay?”
Marin made a noise that could have been an affirmation, but sounded more akin to a trill.
Keeping to his word, Blake rounded the side of the pool to where the merman had sequestered himself.
Marin began to pull away, eyes dashing between Blake and the new tangle of tentacles that spilled from his lower half.
“Hey,” Blake repeated in a low, comforting tone. He extended a hand towards Marin’s cheek, allowing the merman to close the distance in his own time. “Look at me. You’re gonna be okay.”
Eyes trained on Blake’s outstretched fingers, Marin hesitantly lowered his cheek to his palm. As soon as his cool, wet skin made contact with Blake’s, he squeezed his eyes shut. Brows knitting, he sucked in a sharp breath and sighed it out with a tremulous waver of his new limbs.
“There you go,” Blake encouraged, rubbing his thumb upon the rise of Marin’s cheek. “You’re okay.”
Marin nodded, and one of the pale tentacles inched up through the water, almost shy, before petting the back of Blake’s hand.
“I’m gonna try to scoop you out, okay?” Blake let him know, reaching out with his other arm. Marin watched the hand with fearful eyes, although he didn’t shy away again. “I’m gonna grab you under your arms and pull you out of the water.”
Again, Marin nodded—if his earlier vocalizations were any indication, talking was beyond him by this point. Blake dropped his hand from Marin’s cheek, hooking his arms beneath Marin’s armpits and easing him through the water towards the ledge of the pool.
Unfortunately, the new octopus legs added a considerable amount of weight to Marin’s person, and the suckers were fastened adamantly to the wall of the pool.
Blake knew little about the anatomy of octopus legs, but he was afraid that tugging on Marin with too much force was going to end up injuring him.
“Baby, I’m going to need you to let go of the wall,” Blake directed, voice still calm and reassuring. “Can you do that for me?”
Marin shuffled under him, chittering incomprehensibly—but regardless of what he said, the weight of him decreased in Blake’s arms, and with a great heave, Blake was able to haul his torso up out of the pool.
Marin scrambled forwards, a single wet leg sprawling away from him and pulling the rest of his body along, limbs slapping the concrete in concentric unfurling coils and tugs as he crawled away from the water.
The tentacles inched along by the suckers, glistening as he moved.
Blake tried to follow him, but Marin threw a frightened look over his shoulder, shaking his head so fervently that his hair fanned out around his face.
“Okay,” Blake told him, scooting back towards the pool. “It’s okay. Take all the space you need—I’m right here if you need me.”
Marin looked back down at his new form, spreading the foreign limbs out around him like an eight-pointed star.
They were growing paler by the minute, fading from a light, rosy orange to the color of sand.
He lowered his torso to the ground, all but cowering as he dropped his head into his palms. While the noise he released wasn’t remotely familiar, some deep part of Blake was able to recognize it for what it was: a sob.
Sorrow slunk down Blake’s throat, pooling in his chest like icy water. His hand flickered towards Marin, aching to reach out, to comfort—but he’d asked for his space, and Blake didn’t dare to violate that boundary.
Instead, he reached out with his words, speaking to Marin in a gentle tone: “It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna turn back once you start drying off. Remember those times when you turned your fin to legs? Focus on that. Hold that mental image in your mind.”
Between the weak, heart-wrenching, and pitiful noises that he was making, Marin managed a nod, using the sides of his hands to try and slough water off of the cephalopod limbs.
“Don’t worry about forcing it though. I don’t want you to stress yourself out,” Blake continued to coach him, staying in place by the side of the water. “You’re gonna be okay no matter what, all right? I’m right here with you, I won’t let anything happen. Remember to breathe.”
Marin continued to nod, and drew in another breath—it was much more steady than his previous attempts, and Blake praised the action, urging him to hold it for a moment at its peak.
“Good, then release it in a nice, slow hiss—like that. You’re doing great, Marin, keep breathing,” Blake coached him, pulling himself into a cross-legged seat and trying to make himself as small as possible in hopes that it would ease Marin’s anxiety.
A moment later, Marin whimpered, glancing at Blake through the gaps in his wet tresses. His pupils had returned to normal, although they were still blown wide with fright, leaving a thin ring of burnt orange around them.
“B-blake…” he whispered, extending his hand. It sounded like he was talking for the first time, voice hoarse and broken.
“I’m right here.” Blake sat straight up, inching towards Marin on his knees. “Do you want me?”
Marin nodded in desperation, fingers closing around the air.
Blake closed the distance between them, allowing Marin’s full weight to disperse in his arms as he fell across Blake’s chest. Marin hooked his arms under Blake’s, rubbing his face into the hollow of his collarbone as he continued to suck in desperate breaths.
“You’re okay, you’re doing great,” Blake repeated the mantra, cupping the base of Marin’s skull and pressing a reassuring kiss to the damp crown of his head.
Below them, the tentacles were shrinking and retreating, the base thickening and filling out to look more like a cuttlefish than an octopus. “See? You’re already turning back.”
Marin glanced down at his legs and released a shaky breath that terminated in a small laugh of disbelief. The tentacles were absorbed back into his tail before his fins unfurled like the petals of a translucent flower.
“Oh thank God ,” he groaned, dropping his forehead back to Blake’s chest. Blake reached around with his spare arm to stroke his back, bringing Marin in closer. The wet tail between them split back into human legs, the flesh cold and trembling against Blake’s own limbs.
“ Fuck ,” Marin whimpered, and something warm dropped onto Blake’s skin. “Fuck, fuck . I’m sorry Blake, I’m so sorry…”
“You’re okay,” Blake continued to reassure him, matching the strength with which Marin gripped him. “You have nothing to apologize for. Nothing happened.”
“I—I…” Marin repeated. He pulled away from Blake, the whites of his eyes stained pink with tears.
The dampness trailed light down his cheeks, activating tiny incandescent freckles in its wake.
“It’s not okay, Blake—it’s not . I don’t know what happened.
One moment I was fine and then I was so hungry and then—”
He looked up at Blake in horror, reaching out to stroke his cheek, as if making sure he was really there. “I had all these impulses —I wanted…”
He shook his head, looking disturbed by his own words. “It’s so messed up.”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to—” Blake began.
“No!” Marin pulled away. “No, Blake I—I wanted to hurt you!”
“But you didn’t,” Blake told him, placing his hand over Marin’s.
Marin sobbed, dropping his head again as his tears overtook him.
“You stopped,” Blake continued to soothe him. “You could never hurt me, Marin.”
“But I wanted to!” Marin looked up, eyes round with sheer horror. “I wanted to—to bite you until you bled.”
“You wanted to bite me?” Blake echoed, blinking in shock.
The way Marin had been talking, he was sure that the merman had wanted to devour him whole.
The fact that he’d only wanted to sink his teeth into Blake was tame in comparison to all the other horrible ways he could have harmed him with the octopus limbs.
“That’s… baby, not to downplay your fears, but that’s not… entirely uncommon?”
“It’s… not?” Marin frowned, looking a little mystified. Blake shook his head no.
“No, not at all,” he said. “Even outside of a… situation like this, things like biting and scratching and even bloodplay aren’t really out of the ordinary in. Uh. Certain communities.”
“That’s… that’s not me, though,” Marin shook his head, still petting Blake’s cheek, like he was the one trying to comfort Blake. “I’d never want to hurt a partner. I’d never want to hurt you .”
“I know, I can tell,” Blake assured. “Remember what Noel said? One of the reasons transforming like that can be dangerous is because you can pick up certain impulses from the different species—you probably got a little carried away by those new instincts.”
Marin’s body language softened, a tremulous tension in his posture snapping like a wire. He sagged against Blake in relief, shoulders trembling as he cried.
Blake continued to stroke his hair, pressing another kiss to his temple. “But even if it was something you wanted, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It would be something we’d have to discuss beforehand.”
“I never want to hurt anyone,” Marin said after a moment, voice impossibly small where it was muffled against Blake’s sternum.
“I know,” Blake said again.
“I’m sorry,” Marin apologized once more. “I’m so sorry. I absolutely botched this whole thing.”
“I gotta say, it didn’t exactly play out like I thought it would,” Blake chuckled, attempting to lighten the mood. “But as far as first kisses go, at least it was an exciting one?”
Marin made a wet noise. It was somewhere halfway between a laugh and a cough.
“That was a little more than a kiss,” he sniffed, and when he pulled away, he was smiling through his tears. “And even if it was just a kiss, it was our second one.”
Blake laughed. “You’re right.”
“Sorry—about all this,” Marin apologized, turning away from Blake whilst he cuffed away tears with his wrists. “I’m naked and wet and covered in snot… kind of a mood-killer, huh?”
“Honestly, sex is the farthest thing from my mind at the moment,” Blake admitted. He reached out to help Marin brush away his tears, catching one on the tip of his thumb. “I’m more concerned with making sure you’re okay.”
Marin laughed. “I think I’ll need some more time to calm down. Uhm…”
He looked down at his bare legs, which were still trembling with adrenaline. “Would you bring me my clothes? I’m getting grit in some really uncomfortable places.”
“Of course,” Blake said, standing up. After taking a moment to ensure that Marin was steady, he went around the side of the pool to gather up their clothes before returning Marin’s, slinging his own over his arm.
Marin stepped back into his underwear, Blake leaning over to help him slip his shirt back on.
Although they were silent, there was little discomfort in the quiet between them.
Despite the fact that little more than heavy petting had transpired between them beforehand, helping Marin through his transformation had brought them even closer.
“What did you want to get up to?” he asked. “I can go grab us something to eat or drink from the kitchen, or we could hang out and talk for a little while longer?”
“I’d kind of like to go to sleep, if that’s okay?” Marin requested, folding his pants over his shoulder. “After everything tonight, I’m feeling absolutely beat.”
He reached out, taking Blake’s hand in his. “And honestly… I just want you to hold me.”
Blake grinned, tucking his chin into his shoulder to hide his flush. It was stupid. They’d been close to having sex fifteen minutes earlier, but it was an admission like that which made him blush.
“That means a lot to me, Marin,” Blake said, turning to face him. “That you’d seek out that kind of comfort from me.”
“Of course I would,” Marin replied, a disbelieving furrow on his brow. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Blake smiled. His chest could have been glowing for as warm as it felt. He leaned forward, drawing Marin into another brief kiss.
“Thank you,” he said before guiding them towards the guest house.
As they stepped inside, Blake frowned down at his boxers, still soaked in pool water. Not wanting them to ruin the expensive-looking sheets, he shucked them off, trading them for his jeans.
They settled down onto the little bed with an easy familiarity. Blake rolled onto his side and Marin tucked himself into his open arms, drawing in a deep breath. He had finally settled.
However, after several moments of stillness, Marin buried his face in Blake’s shoulder, giggling in near-delirium.
“What’s got you laughing?” Blake asked, smiling down at him. Marin pillowed his chin on Blake’s chest, drawing the sheets tighter around them. Blake could have been mistaken, but when he grinned, the points of his dogteeth looked a bit sharper than usual.
“Earlier,” he whispered, almost cherishing the words, his nose wrinkled up in joy. “You called me ‘baby’.”
“I did?” Blake’s eyelids fluttered in stunned realization. “I did. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“No, don’t apologize,” Marin shook his head, leaning up to press a kiss to Blake’s cheek. Marin smiled against Blake’s skin before he dropped his mouth to Blake’s ear and whispered: “I like it.”