Working on it

“This coupling has been impeccable for his well-being. It's been a full two months since he was reintroduced into the social tank and he's been extremely cooperative with the others." 

You nod, already knowing this.  

You were very proud when you saw him having conversations with other mers in their clicky-squawky language, making friends and even playing with the pups. It makes you wonder why you haven't gotten at least a little raise, honestly. 

“He'll be entering rut soon, his first rut with a mate and frankly, it's bizarre he hasn't tried coupling with you already, I suspect it's because he's waiting for you to offer." 

You shuffle on your feet, not sure how to feel about how forward she's being but you don’t disagree so she continues.  

“We think fostering him pups will cement his new social life. Currently, his well-being seems to mostly depend on one human who can't be with him most of the time. It's not stable, but having pups to raise would give him more stability." 

You lay back in your chair with a sigh.  

“What about foster pups" 

“We’ve introduced him to a few but that seems to only make the desire for his own stronger and most of the foster pups have been claimed by parents already, parents who can be quite territorial." 

You're running out of questions and the doctor must’ve been noticing the panic growing on your face. 

“This kind of coupling isn't unheard of. You think you're the first human a mer has bonded to?” She picks up her clipboard with a raised brow. 

“There are mers who suffer accidents and need to be assisted when coupling and bond with a human in the process. There are mers who ended up bonded with humans due to traumatic events, unusual circumstances, or accidents like yours.” 

She hands you the clipboard with a softer look. 

“You'd be doing him a great help. I've asked one of the older mothers to explain to him how the process works." 

She taps the clipboard, tracing a little diagram. 

“First, he'll be transferred to his old privacy tank, he'll latch and lay. The eggs will be taken to the nursery and incubated for a few weeks, we can expect about two viable eggs from the clutch. Once hatched, it'll be a few days till the pups can be introduced to the social tank where you can meet them if you'd like. Mers are very social creatures so there will be plenty assistance with feeding and raising, you wouldn't have to be that involved at all.”  

You nod along. Lifting the top page and trying not to blush at the informational diagram of human-mer mating. 

“I have two conditions." 

The doctor nods for you to continue. 

“I want to be able to see the him and the pups whenever I want.”

She blinks like she didn't expect you to say that, but nods.  

"And I want a raise… and medical cover.“ 

She nods again with a hint of a smile, "I'm sure I can do that for you.“ 

You walk into the little room leading to the secluded tank, getting some weird sense of deja vu. 

“The process will probably take all day so I’ve arranged-" 

The doctor screams and drops her clipboard when your mer bangs on the other side of the glass, jump scarring her. 

She huffs, picking up her clipboard. 

“I forgot he still does that." 

You give a little sheepish laugh and wave at him, he waves back with a toothy grin. 

She sits down at a tiny desk and your eyes pan to the security cameras monitoring the tank 

She glances up, speaking in her professional monotone. 

“I will be here to ensure your safety and his. You still have a right to privacy, the footage will not be shared unless you give permission, and even then it would only be for scientific study." 

You've had this explained to you, you've had lots of things explained to you, though it's nice that she's trying to make you feel better.  

You step into the small changing room to the side, sliding on a wet suit shirt and bikini bottoms, no use in wearing pants. 

The room is small but it's got an open roof, which is nice at least. Amused, you survey the still waters of the pool, you shake your head and step onto the gentle ramp leading into the water. There’s a soft mat placed on the gentle slope leading into the water and you sit down so the water comes up to your hips.  

You sit down with your legs spread out, pretending you don't see the water rippling as he gets closer. Despite yourself, you still let out a surprised scream when he grabs your leg and pulls you into the water. 

He climbs over you and nuzzles his forehead against yours, giving you wet kisses as you laugh. He leans down further when you deepen the kiss and even with his arms holding up his weight you can still feel how heavy he is above you.  

He flops down next to you on his side with a heavy splash, the plastic mat dipping with his weight.  

You turn to face him, unable to stop yourself from noticing the size difference when you’re so close. He’s probably doing the same, you both know why you’re here, you’ve both been briefed thoroughly.  

You wished you could talk to him, about this, about anything, and you're pretty sure the look on his face says he wants the same. He reaches for your hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing your knuckles before placing your warm palm against his cheek.  

You let him bring you closer, webbed hands pressing you against his chest. You kiss his weird nose and he captures your mouth in a kiss. This is how you communicate, with touches and closeness.  

His cold, wet tongue slides against yours, his sharp teeth tease your tongue with little nibbles that only make you deepen the kiss. His webbed fingers inch between your bikini bottoms. 

He parts, panting against your lips, looking into your eyes. You nod and push his shoulders down, he follows with ease until his head is under water, inches away from your heat.  

You feel more naked than you ever have before when he slips your bikini down your legs, your cunt laid bare for him to smell in the water.  

His hulking tail shimmies, sloshing and splashing water around. He starts with soft kisses all the way down your slit, his hands tracing up and down your legs.  

Short claws prick and softly caress your skin as he pressed his tongue flat against you, easing it inside your warm cunt. His hands never stop grabbing and massaging, obsessed with every inch of fat and muscle they can touch.  

His tongue reaches past what a human's would and then some more, making you let out a surprised moan at the sensation, bucking your hips.  

In response, he slides his tongue all the way out and all the way back in, loving how your walls squeeze down on him.  

It doesn’t take long for him to work you up into a flurry of moans and squirming pleasure. Your thighs wrap around his head and you hear his tail splash in the water.  

Thinking that he can’t breathe, you try to pull away but his hands shoot to your thighs to keep them wrapped tightly around his head. You laugh a little to yourself when you remember he has gills and doesn’t need to breathe through his mouth.  

Tilting your head back, you let yourself get lost in humping his face and fucking back on his thick tongue. His finned ears tickle your thighs as the tip of his tongue reaches just the right spot. You reach down to frantically play with your clit, bringing yourself to a clenching orgasm around his tongue.  

He licks and sucks you as you come down and you have to push him away to make him stop.  

He lifts his head above water, licking his lips with blown out eyes. He crawls up your body till his unsheathed cock presses against you. You look down curiously, the appendage is big as you expected, but still manageable. You’ve been preparing for this for weeks now.  

His clicks softly and you meet his eyes, laying back and nodding your head, giving him a reassuring kiss.  

His cock head nudges your cunt before easing himself inside, your heavy breaths mix. 

He bottoms out, tip kissing your cervix just right. He stays there for a minute, resting his elbows on the padding under you, seemingly catching his breath.  

You buck your hips up just slightly and he clicks loudly, resting his head against your shoulder. You laugh as he holds your hip down with one hand.  

It makes sense he’d be a bit sensitive, you don’t imagine he’s had much experience.  

You hook your legs around him and latch onto his shoulder with your teeth. He whines and bucks into you, water splashing with the harsh thrusts. His grunts get louder and his hips faster the harder you bite, nails scratching down his back making him even more frantic.  

You feel him gush inside you, releasing his slimy seed. It spurts out of you with every hard thrust and the force against your clit has you cumming just as fast and hard as him.  

He heaves above you, his gills flaring and his arms shaking with the effort. You pat his shoulder, trying to get him to roll over but he shakes his head. You give a frustrated sigh but let the stubborn merman show you how strong and capable he is. 

His cock widens inside you, but the numbness from your orgasm keeps you from really registering it until he starts hissing, throwing his head back.  

You thought he was hurt until you felt the little push against your cunt; An egg slowly making its way from him into you. He gave short, deliberate thrusts helping it along. You tried not to clench too hard or move too much, wanting to make this as easy as possible for him, a difficult task when the soft egg nudged against your pliant cervix, wanting entrance.  

Your hands roam his silky chest, circling your hips to help thaw the tension inside you and allow his egg to ease inside ever so slightly, inch by inch, until it finally pops in, nestling inside your womb. You both moan, breaths mixing as he leans his forehead against yours, his hips moving again, readying you for the next one.  

One by one, you received his clutch like a good mate. Your stomach bulging slightly with every addition until you were sensitive and shaking all over.  

He struggled with the last one, trying not to put too much weight on you while grinding his spent cock inside your wet, raw walls.  

That’s when you finally manage to push him off of you and straddle him with shaky legs. The water came up to his gills, and you could see what a relief it was, feeling him relax, his hands falling limply on your thighs.  

You slowly grind down, his cock digging just a little deeper making both of you moan. He whimpers, his blunt claws dig into your hips, keeping you right there.

You lean closer, reaching up to cup your hands around his throat and gently squeeze. He tips his head back, eyes rolling and you feel his gills flare against your fingers. You squeeze harder, and grind down, feeling the egg move deeper inside you.  

You wonder if you’re the first human allowed to choke a mer without being escorted out of the sanctuary by security. 

He releases even more of his seed into your already soaked cunt. His egg finally kisses your cervix and you lean down, making him bend forward so you can kiss him as the last egg eases inside your pliable cervix.  

You let go and slowly slide off his cock to lay next to him on the mat. You stare up at the blue sky, catching your breaths. He’s the first to move, rolling on his side and nuzzling his head into your neck.

If you didn’t know any better you’d say he looked bashful, clicking happily as he rubs a hand down your swollen stomach. His soft affections and your exhaustion made falling asleep easy.  

You woke up a few times, the sky a different shade each time. In one instance, you woke up to him hissing and covering you with his body. You heard footsteps walking away and his hissing simmered down, then he was feeding you cut up fruits and lifting your head so you could drink some much needed bottled water.  

Another time, you woke up and he wasn’t there. It shocked you in your very emotionally and physically vulnerable state, and you didn’t realise you were panicking until he splashed out of the water and crawled over to you. You didn’t know his face could convey so much concern until then and you let him console you back to sleep, barely noticing the basket he brought up with him before you fell asleep.  

The next time you woke, it was with a contraction. You groaned, clutching your stomach and your mate shot up next to you. He clicked and purred, rubbing soothing circles on your tummy but it only helped a fraction.  

You whimpered as he gently shifted you down so your hips were submerged in the water and you felt him place the basket under you.  

They came out quicker than you thought, they were slimy and thick, heavy as they passed through your walls and plopped into the basket.  

There must have been four or five? By the third the process was more pleasurable than painful and you found yourself grinding in the water as your mate circled your clit ever so gently, loosening you up even more as the last slimy egg slid past your walls.

Once you were empty, you flopped down boneless on the mat and he leaned over to kiss your cheek a couple times before dropping down into the water. You could see his blurry figure, swimming away with the basket, down into one of the underwater tunnels connecting the sanctuary together.  

You were told the eggs had to be taken to the nursery immediately after being laid so the older mers could take care of them and make sure nothing was wrong. 

Even knowing that, seeing him leave still hurt. You felt empty, cold, exhausted, and alone. You waited, laying on the mat, your skin pruney and dehydrated. After a while you heard footsteps and turned around to see the doctor standing at the edge of the pool.  

She kept her eyes on the ground, holding a towel out for you. You shuffled to the edge and wrapping it around yourself. For a moment, you just sat there, finally on dry land but all you wanted to do was swim down into the water and never need to come back 

Just as you turned away, you heard a splash and those distinct clicks. You knelt at the edge of the pool, curling your arms around him and trying to soothe some of the concern off his face. You saw guilt and envy and sadness, you're sure he saw it all on your face too. You kissed his forehead and stood up, wobbling back to where you belonged as he watched. 

Three of the eggs didn’t mature, leaving you with two healthy eggs and a lot of fomo because you weren’t allowed down in the nursery to see them. The tunnels were too deep and too complicated, and you weren’t an experience diver. 

They prepared you for the loss, it was expected especially for mer-human clutches, but your mate still seemed devastated by it. You spent an entire afternoon in silence after getting the news, no clicks, no swimming, no playfulness, just floating and silence.  

As the weeks progressed, he quickly developed a strange mix of anxiety and excitement. He was more territorial of you but also more chatty with the other mers. Some days he'd swim laps and laps around the large social tank, and some he'd float idly on the surface, staring at the sky for hours.  

You asked many, many questions and read many, many mind-numbing scientific articles and papers on everything there was to know about merfolk and pups. You tried to convince the higher-ups to let you see your eggs hatch but it was far too risky. Your eggs weren't the only ones in there and while the other mers were generally accepting of humans in the social tank, it wouldn't be the same if you were near their eggs. 

This means that when your babies hatched, you weren’t allowed to see them. You could only sit in a cold, dark room and stare out the small observation window near the entrance of the nursery.  

You sat there for hours, wrapped in a blanket, imagining what it would be like to swim among the seaweed in that dark world. Imagining what your babies' first cries would sound like, what they looked like. Would they know you weren't there? 

A knocking on the acrylic window snapped you out of your thoughts. Your mate was on the other side, waving excitedly with a basket in his hands.  

You scrambled to the window, as he held out the basket to show you two tiny, chubby faces sleeping soundly. They were bundled up in one of your wet suit jackets to get them accustomed to your scent (his idea). They had tiny, finned ears, and chubby, webbed fingers, they had lips that looked more like yours and noses that looked more like his.  

Your mate eagerly pointed to the smaller one, the one that resembled you the most, with tiny tufts of floating hair and when they opened their eyes, the colour matched yours in a way you didn't know was possible for mers.  

They then started crying and he tensed, looking to you with wide eyes as if you could help. You gave him an incredulous shrug and waved your hands to tell him to take the poor things back to the nursery where the nurses could look after them until you could see them properly.  

He nodded and gave a cute little wave before swimming back into the tunnel.  

You sat back with a sigh, head in your hands and a smile on your face. This is definitely not how you saw this job going.