#robotus

Today, after spending your day off wading in and out of the tide pools near your home, toying with sea stars and little crabs that wander into your awaiting palms beneath clear water, you check the bait nets and catch boxes. 

They’re further out — some worn-out traps for crabs that do the job well, catching you food that you need not fish or buy yourself, paired with fish traps too. You know where they are by heart, notice them by the buoy markers attached that bob in the waves. Strangely, they're not there when you swim across and far into the surf. No bright white and red buoy marker welcoming you into the week’s meals.

You dive, time and time again, the salt water stinging your eyes by the time you breach for air around the fifth or sixth time. There’s no sign of the traps, nor the tethers, or the buoys. You swim back, sending yourself to the shore while cursing between panting breaths, feeling the spray of salt on your tongue.

Figuring it's another round of fish trap thefts, you ignore the concern gnawing at your ribs and decide on heading into town for the markets and gathering food there. 

Your worries don’t rise until shortly after you wake up the next morning. 

When it's sunny, your routine starts with washing up while your coffee pot brews away, stepping out into the plush and downy sand with your mug in hand while the waves lap at your ankles. You’re still bleary-eyed when you stand out on the sand, feeling the surf caress your feet and force the sand to sink the slightest bit beneath you, planting you an inch deeper. So it takes a moment for you to spot the clump of netting and debris that washed up a little ways away. 

You wake yourself up slowly, drinking down the coffee and moving more as you go, collecting seashells and little bits of the tide’s treasured offerings in your palm as you go. It's a soft morning, one of those cliche ‘what a wonderful day’ moments. 

The coffee dregs land on your tongue the second you spot the mangled remnants of your traps in the pile before you. 

There are chunks missing from the buoy trap markers, now mottled and split apart by deep indentations and tears from a set of puncture marks, showing something shark gouged it apart. There aren’t any sharks in these waters, haven't been for years. Little shells drop from your hands like pocket-change upon the sand in silence, the waves drowning out your thoughts as you try and comb through the pile of netting on your knees, only finding chunks of the buoys and shattered boards of the traps. 

“Ow — fuck!” 

You’ve cut your hand, slicing cleanly a thin line over your thumbpad, stinging harshly from the seawater. Hissing, you bring it to your lips to suck, soothing the burn even with the acrid taste of blood and salt. Your eyes catch a glint of something embedded in a wood board, ivory white snagging your gaze as red beads at the tip of what seems to be a large tooth. 

You pry it out with two fingers, examining it in your palm and feeling the smooth surface of the tooth, the fleshy end of where it tore out. It's new, and you can’t think of a shark with teeth like this. So you pocket it, along with the remaining shells that hadn’t fallen from your palm, and drag the pile of netting in to sort out and dispose of later. 

Now, you have research to do, fully alert as you return your coffee mug back to the kitchen and clean it out in the sink, too absorbed in your thoughts to catch the flick of a large tail in the seafoam or the telltale image of a shark’s fin peeking out the surface, lurking briefly before sinking down and away, appearing once more at a distance before vanishing entirely.  

Books lay strewn across your dining room table, the library’s best offer in shark identification and teeth displayed prominently beneath the light as you pour over all of them, making notes and sketches while constantly referring back to the tooth that cut you open, now laying in a trinket dish you got from the market, the little ivory triangle clashing against the cheery fish design painted in the glaze.

Plucking the tooth from the dish, you carefully roll it over in your palm, toying with the now cleaned indicator of what beast you were dealing with that now infested your waters. You hold it up to all the different images of teeth from predatory species, scrutinizing everything from the deep sea to freshwater and beyond, noting nothing close to the unique pattern and grain on the tooth. 

Lifting it to the light, you catch a nearly pearly sheen on the surface of it, iridescent patches reflecting from the glow of your ceiling light fixture, leading you to turn it back and forth while examining it once more. 

“Just what are you? What do you belong to?” 

Sighing, you toss it back down onto the decorative dish, shutting one of the books closed with a dull thud before you lean back in your chair, smoothing a hand over your eyes as if that would solve the ache in your skull from this little issue at hand and how it does not seem to be all that easy to deal with. 

You give up on the search for answers for a little while, just a few days until you head back into town for more supplies while re-checking out your books and spot something of interest within one of the store’s windows. 

A gray little camera, surrounded by layers and layers of thick plastic and buffer material, speaks out to you from its pedestal within the store display that adverts the underwater camera, a Bluetooth option that would connect to your phone or laptop and allow you to watch the coverage live as long as it was mounted and had battery life. 

It was yours, after that, and the additional purchase of some overly large batteries to pair. You got to work immediately on setting things up, dragging your boat from by the house all the way down the shore yourself, bare feet making dragged lines in the sand alongside the boat’s dent, vanishing once you meet water then climb in, starting the motor before resetting traps with brand new buoys, lowering it down with the camera attached and woven into the rope strands between buoy and trap. 

After testing it to make sure it was connected to your phone, you sail the boat back to shore and return it alongside your back porch, heading inside while you periodically check the footage and live feed, only catching a few fish on the stream for the next few hours. 

You don’t get a notification or alert for anything appearing on the feed until you’re midway through dinner, pulling the phone from your pocket as the pinging grows incessantly. 

Nearly choking on your meal, you see a murky figure and make out the tail of what seems to be a shark, diving down below to the traps. After thrashing and a flurry of movements take place, jostling the camera, you see bits and pieces of trapped fish and crab float upwards, paired with shreds of netting and broken boards. The camera gets knocked over by the tailfin, making you flinch as you watch with wild eyes as something crushes the screen and shatters the camera, the connection failing imminently. The last image before blackness is of a gaping maw, littered with teeth that seem to match the one that sliced you open.  

It takes you a moment to process that, and about just as long to remember to breathe, inhaling sharply before blinking your weary eyes into ease before they begin to water. 

There’s a shark, or something similar to it, nearly monstrous in size that’s hovering around your shores and eating your food. 

It pisses you off more than frightens you. That’s why you go out and buy more traps and netting the next day, paired with the harpoon gun you got gifted forever ago when you moved to the sea — a friend turning it into a gag gift saying “you were little short of a fisherman anyhow, might as well prepare.”  

You kept thinking about how you didn’t like how prophetic your friend came to be as you boarded your boat, once again drug to shore, and sped off to the area in which you’d been dropping bait. This time, you leave the boat hovering near the buoys, a harpoon gun aimed low and deep as you raise it to knock at your shoulder. 

It doesn’t take long for the beast, shark, whateverthefuck, to arrive, swimming in sleek, flitting motions that remind you of those haunting clips of barracudas striking, streaking in snapping lunges with razor-lined jaws and dead eyes. This thing, whatever it was, was too big to be anything but deadly — shark, barracuda, or something else entirely. 

Your hand shakes a little as you thumb the trigger on the harpoon, waiting for a moment to strike and end this, maybe even net the thing and drag it ashore to figure out what the fuck it even is. 

Before you can do that, the boat is upturned. You inhale what feels like half a lung full of water. 

It's dark, you can barely see, and your ankle’s caught in rope. Hands flurry as you try to scramble to the surface, to air and maybe climb oversize the upturned boat. The harpoon’s gone, you’re defenseless, and you can’t think. There’s nothing but survival and panic in your body, no sense or sanity. 

Your finger’s sliced back open in the melee, trickling blood into the open water as the sting returned. Then you see him. 

There’s no scream, and barely any sound beyond water and the lulled thrushing noise it makes as it surrounds you as you thrash, growing weaker as your eyes strain once again taking in the creature before you, eyes wide and red with the salt in them. 

It's a man, fitted with a bloody maw resulting from your catch, and missing his bottom half. 

No.

No, it's there. The bottom half is hard for you to see in the murk of the water, but you manage to make it out.  

He’s the shark. 

You frantically try to flee and reach the surface, but your ankle is still caught in the ropes of your anchor, wound tight and not letting loose no matter how much you thrash or tug. With your body growing weak and limp, you watch the beast move forward, and you close your eyes to accept your fate, lungs barely working as is. 

You feel the shift of water around you and let go as everything goes dark, and you drown. 

Drenched hair sticks to your forehead with a mix of sweat and water, sticky and damp as you writhe against the sand and groan, your body aching. Everything hurts, and your ankle throbs the more you adjust, wanting to just turn over and meet your pillow rather than sand. 

You’re alive —— and you feel like shit. 

Finally blinking and opening your eyes, you wince as the light hurts your reddened eyes, even if the sky has turned dusky. Sitting up, in slow, gradual shifts of your limbs as you struggle to move, you finally realize that you’re alive. 

How the fuck did that happen? 

You breathe shakily, inhaling and exhaling before dissolving into a coughing fit, hacking up all the water you can in an effort to avoid pneumonia. Or at least, to breathe. Your surroundings become a bit clearer, and you realize you’re right on the beach before your house, halfway in the waves that lap at your ankles as if caressing your wounds and attempting to make you feel better. The sea treats you like a lover that way. 

It does take you a while to stand, or at least manage to lift your legs the slightest way, groaning and cursing miles of expletives as you become more alert and unfortunately process more of that pain as your body’s state reveals itself to you. 

Your clothing is in tatters, pants mangled practically into shorts with the number of tears in them while your shirt fairs far less, barely covering your chest and exposing a good portion of your belly. There’s bruising around your ankle from where the rope caught and a few knicks there that continue to sting. 

You give up on standing and just sit back down, knees raised to your chest as you turn your gaze from home back out to the water, dark and indigo from the sky that's now bathed in post-sunset palettes of purples and pinks. 

The white-blue of his eyes cuts through the deep hues as sharp as his bite has cut you. 

You don’t move when you see him, just as before, lest he come for you again. 

He’s out in the waves, merely his eyes hovering above the surface before he lifts, catching a better glimpse of what he looks like from the tops of his shoulders and up. With your gaze darting across the entirety of what's exposed, you spot gnarled scars and indentations, one grazing his shoulder and going down across his collarbone. His ears are pointed, bearing a few scars themselves. It's his eyes you don't feel you can escape from, however — it's not that they see through you, per se. Rather, they see you, and it’s a raw feeling, as if you’re fully exposed. 

You stare at one another for moments, minutes, but neither of you move much if at all. You realize you haven’t been harmed by him, that there’s not a cut on you that reminds you of the buoys that washed ashore, and that you couldn’t have made it to the shoreline on your own and made it alive. 

And so, you wave. 

A beat passes, and you watch the salt spray land upon his shoulder, the seafoam catching on his throat before he waves back. The gesture is hesitant, clumsy. He doesn’t know what it means, or he’s never had someone wave at him. Regardless, there’s a lack of familiarity there, and you don’t think to question or explore the topic. 

With trembling limbs, you shakily stand, nearly caving inwards on yourself as you do so. It takes a while, but you make it up the hillside and to the porch steps of your home, never more thankful for the light and love that emanates from it. Leaning against the doorframe, you glance back at the waves from your backdoor to spot him still there, lurking among the waves, staring at you with fascination you can’t quite decipher.

Waving once more, you say goodbye in a weak, damaged voice before turning in and shutting the door behind you, leaving him to the sea as you return back to safety in your shelter, sleeping off the damage your body has endured while planning on dealing with it in the morning. 

You don’t dream much, but you do remember fish when you wake up, and that trinket dish of yours winking oddly as it waded through murky water, with the tooth darting alongside. 

You lick your wounds for a while, tending to yourself and bandaging your ankle then icing to reduce the swelling. The majority of the day is spent off your feet beyond necessities like cleaning yourself up and making food. You catch up on sleep and half-assedly pay attention to something you put on the tv, liking the background noise. Later, when the heat of the day is gone, and you’re closer to feeling decent, you tenderly step out onto the porch and sit on the steps, leaning against the railing and staring out onto the water. 

The boat has been pushed ashore for you, just far enough beyond the water to not get swept back up in the tide,  and you see nets and the latest traps laid inside. There’s more in there, but you don’t have it in you yet to journey that far to discover it yourself. 

He doesn’t show up for another day or two. 

You don’t head down shore much either in the next few days, staying cooped up at home and working from the comfort of the porch, glancing out every once in a while in case you spotted bright eyes lingering in the waves. When you eventually do reach the shore, on still-tender legs, you spot the trinkets left behind in the boat alongside your gear. 

There are glistening abalone shells alongside piles of coins, new and old. You spot a wallet and a busted Nokia phone and decide to look at the rest later. 

Gathering the nets in your arms, you bundle them taut and drag the traps in alongside, setting them by your porch steps as you drop down and rest upon them, taking the moment to turn your gaze back out onto the sea and you blink before you fixate on something peeking out from the sprays of foam once the waves pick back up due to high tide. 

He’s here again. 

You wave once more and smile. He waves back, similarly to how he had the other day, and falters before trying to replicate the smile and manages to smile, barely that and resembling more of a heavily pained grimace. With a lot of teeth. 

Sharp, shiny teeth.

He nods his head toward the boat and you try to seem as grateful as possible, putting your hands upon your chest and nodding once more. It takes a second but he sinks back down into the sea and you watch as he swims, diving down after a moment once his tail smacks down into the waves and the fin briefly surfaces before disappearing once more. 

This pattern repeats itself for the next few weeks, him depositing little trinkets into the boat before and after your trips out to check and place traps. You return things you don’t want, and he eventually discerns your wants or needs based on the gifts, taking back broken pieces of sea glass or bones and replacing them with more shells and glittering objects. 

He tends to remind you of a magpie that way, gifting you shiny little things and gauging your reaction from afar. 

You don’t get close up to him again like you had when your boat tipped over until a few days after his latest gift, a series of sand dollars and barely-tarnished strands of necklaces he must’ve found near the tourist's side of the coves. 

Standing along the shore, water at your calves this time as you sort through the offerings given by the creature lurking not far away, you bite your lip as you contemplate your next actions before giving in and trying to wave him in closer to the shore. 

Once he’s reluctantly neared closer, his torso exposed and giving you a good look at the upper half of his abdomen —— a sight you wish you could be wholly unfazed about —— and point towards the dock nearby where you tie your boat up during storm season. He looks between you and the docks before diving down and swimming over, lingering beneath the shade of the dock space as you walk over. 

You slide your thumb over the pendant in your pocket, one of the ones he’s just gifted you, and step tentatively onto the dock, the aged wood soft yet no less sturdy beneath your feet as you make it to the edge and sit, kicking your legs back and forth in the water until he swims out, the water thrashing before he appears and lingers just beside the post on the opposite side of the dock. 

It’s silent for a few moments, the two of you just looking at one another paired with the soft sounds of the water lapping at the posts of the dock, the dull murmur of the sea soothing the race in your heart at being so close to him once more. 

“Thank you,” you ramble, tripping over your words with limited pace, nervously drumming at your knee with your fingers to calm yourself down, “for the gifts. And for saving me I guess.” 

A beat passes and you realize he’s not human, it's foolish for you to assume he speaks your language, if any language. Before you speak up and ramble anymore, he leans up onto the dock. 

“Consider it recompense for the traps —— in addition to the fright I must’ve caused you.” 

You blink, mouth agape as you stare at him, not expecting him to speak. Nor to sound like that. 

He chuckles, resting his forearms onto the dock surface and laying his chin atop them, peering up at you from across the dock’s end, the ladder leading into the water now separating you both. 

The form of him is bulky, solid and broad in this hulking mass that shows a powerful force. His gentle voice emerging from that, clear and cadent with that twinge of unspoken mirth, makes you swallow. Hard. 

“I guess we’re even then.” 

He raises a brow and says nothing, glancing down to your fingers at your knee that drum against your skin, slowed in pace due to your calmer state now. You catch him looking at you and try to smile, something reassuring. Non threatening. 

“What should I call you?” You murmur, gaining his attention paired with a glimmer of something in his eyes, irises nearly iridescent like his scales, “I assume you’ve got a name.” 

His brow raise is paired with a small smile as he stares, that same deep glance that makes you feel exposed, pried open raw like an oyster for him to search around for that little pearl of yourself he desires. 

“Ro.”

“Ro?” 

You mimic the name onto your tongue, voicing it out in sound as you get a nod of approval, finding its weight on your tongue ideal. You want to say his name constantly, incessantly, until he is even tired of hearing it. 

You compliment his name while giving him your own, and watch as he repeats it tentatively and mouths it over once or twice, making sure he remembers your name. Cheeks warm and you wonder why your face is flushing, especially when the sun is so much lower now. 

“I really do like your name. It’s pretty.”

He flushes, or at least appears to do so, pale skin turning a brighter pink around his cheeks, mottled under the flesh. 

“So is yours.” 

You don’t know what to say, so you stare back into the water as the sun’s reflection dapples upon it in such wavering, painterly strokes. Glancing back at him, you see his attention has never defaulted from you, and blink in surprise before coming up with another topic of discussion. You don’t know what to say around him, but it’s due to nerves more than some apprehension to be around Ro. 

“How do you even exist?” The question comes out breathless, in awe of him even as he arches a brow and seems unsurprised by your question, his tail flicking mindlessly in the water to keep him moving. 

Ro’s face shifts from the pursed-lipped expression to raised brows as his eyes take on a slight mirth — he’s entertained, whether by you, your queries, or the situation as a whole you’ve yet to discern. 

His tail shifts in the water, flicking idly back and forth as he tucks an arm beneath his chin, flexing as he thinks upon his answer. He turns his gaze up to you, and the light swipes over his eyes and you watch as the pupils shrink into slits. 

Ro’s begun answering your question and you’re too busy staring at his eyes to realize that you’re missing his thoughtful explanation. 

“ —— our history is limited, reduced down to oral traditions rather than anything regulated or maintained. We’ve always lived beneath the waves, there are our own creation stories. But just like you, we don’t know why — or how — we exist, if that makes any sense. Or at least answers your question.” 

You’re thinking of how to respond and he continues, glancing up at you from where his head has perched itself atop his bulky forearms, paired with fins alongside the outer portion that match the same hue of his tail. There are streaks of that same color in his eyes, lurking around his iris when the pupils shrink. 

“I apologize if that was more confusing than clarifying,” he adds, flattening his lips into a line before huffing abjectly, “I long to know more myself —— but there are endless limitations to knowing.” 

“You don’t have to apologize for anything,” you blurt out, setting a hand down upon the dock between the both of you, not too close but yet, not too far. “I was simply curious, but thank you for placating me and my intrigue. You’re too incredible to not seek out more of yourself.” 

The heat rises to your cheeks as you realize what you said, not fully thinking out your words or what they could imply before you had already sent them beyond your tongue and out into the open, awaiting his reaction like sending a messenger across a battlefield. Acceptance or execution. 

“Flattery seems to be a honed skill of yours.” 

You turn and catch his smirk, something teasing and in the glint of his teeth, playful like killer whales tossing their dead catch in the air just to latch onto it when it returns to the awaiting maws of hungry predators. You are but prey, either for sustenance or entertainment, and he seems to be getting his fill. 

“And sharp-wittedness yours.”  

Ro has the gall to wink and you start to wish he’d just eaten you instead. 

He’s about to say something, but an ear twitches and he shifts his gaze to something near the horizon, pupils turning from semi-rounded in his calm state to thin slits, reminding you that he’s not as human as his upper half truly looks. 

“I assume you must go?” 

Ro’s head whips back to look at you as if he’d forgotten you were there for a moment, and his eyes dilate nearly to fully round as he takes you in before he nods, leaning back upon his forearms and stretching his torso back. 

You smile and think of how it reminds you of the little mermaid, leaving him to only need the spray of seafoam and the wind in his auburn hair to make it truly fit. 

“Unfortunately,” he responds, lingering for a moment before he sinks down into the water, pushing his hands off the dock to dive down. He resurfaces a few feet away, just enough for his head to peek up above the water. 

“See you. Stay safe, little pearl.” 

And with that, he dives, and you swallow thickly before heaving yourself up and heading back home. 

The two of you meet up at the docks a few times a week. You’ve started a practice where you exchange things, little gifts and trinkets that you see if he’s seen or encountered before 

He enjoyed the old ipod you set up for him in that waterproof pouch with headphones. He's ruined the earbuds thrice now but seems to have an affinity for Sinatra. You both also have developed finds of the week. What once was a seashell display of things you’ve found on your own has become essentially an altar for what he brings you that you keep. 

One of your favorites is a knife that looks like it’s from a fairytale. From your excited reaction to being handed the blade alone, he's begun searching for more, mentioning in passing a blade caught in a wreck he passes on his way to see you. 

You’re trying not to get your hopes up, but you’ve already cleared a space to hang it on display in your living room. 

“What is this?” 

You grin, biting your bottom lip to hide your giggles and any semblance of laughter. 

“Just — just guess what it’s for.” 

He’s holding a Rubik’s cube, something you found in town and realized he’d absolutely never know, precariously pinched between his fingers as his brows furrowed, examining the object in deep concentration before looking back to you and tossing it upon your lap, exasperated. “I have not a single idea as to what that could be.” 

“It’s a Rubik’s cube.” 

“A what?” 

This time, you do end up giggling, dissolving into a cackle moments later as Ro snatches the object from your lap and fiddles with it, tail shifting in the water agitatedly. His lips are pursed and it nearly resembles a pout as the object lingers between his hands, allowing you to admire the way the muscles in his forearms shift and roll while his focus is directed towards the toy. 

“A Rubik’s cube, they’re puzzle toys,” you answer, a little breathless, both from laughter and watching his body work, “you try to align the colors and have each side of the cube be one solid color.” 

Ro squints at the cube before flicking his wrist and setting a row back, aligning two blocks of blue together alongside a litany of others. He tests it again, and soon enough is wholly enveloped in attempting to solve the cube, already having made two sides solid within the first few minutes as you stared and watched. 

“I can see why this is entertaining,” he drawls, glancing up at you, pride glimmering in his eyes as he grins, sharp and sleek, “I’ll admit, it’s enjoyable,” he trails off, brows furrowing again as he glared at a row he’s unable to clear, getting a little frustrated as his limbs grow tense and his jaw clicks. 

Covering your mouth with your fist to hide your glee, you watch as his gills flutter and his tail flick back and forth in the water, fin peeking out of the surface as it thrashes once he completes the row and finishes another two sides. He turns to you, proud and elated with a little flush on his cheeks — he’s never looked prettier — grinning brightly. 

“You have to get me more of these. I can’t just solve the one.”

“Ro, you can continue to play with it. You can scramble the colors then resolve it over and over,” you explain and watch his eyes dart across your face, lips kissing his teeth as he takes in your words. 

You sigh though, shaking your head a tad before looking at him once again. “They do have other versions — I’ll see what I can do.” 

He takes what he can get, and goes back to solving the cube and finishes, presenting it to you before you show him how to reset it and let him solve it again, watching as he gets better at doing it, rapidly able to now finish the puzzle within a minute or two. 

“Damnit,” he sighs before glancing up at you, squinting with feigned malice, “Now all I’ll want to do is play with this little cube.” 

Smirking, you nod, chiming back with “and isn’t that just fantastic.” 

He groans, guttural, and it flickers something alight in your belly you instantly tamper down. You don’t need feelings, not now. Not him. 

Not so fantastic. 

It grows quiet, a pregnant pause festering in something malignant, feeding on your nerves before Ro clears the silence with a snarling set of clicks from his jaw, directed back to something near the horizon in the waves that near every few seconds. 

It’s a fin, and you only realize it after he says something to you, catching your attention with the way his pupils dim into pointed slits, dagger-like in the same terrifying sharpness as his teeth, both rows of them. He ducks down beneath the water, lingering for just a few seconds before diving deeper and fading from view, the last you see of him is a brief sway of his hair, moving in the water before he ducks and disappears in a flurry of bubbles, silent beneath the surface. 

The fact he can move, all of him, both torso and tail, beneath the waves and make not a single sound proves to you just how lethal he can be. 

You back up on the dock until the soles of your feet meet soft sand, watching in worry as the waves crash back and forth, the air not changing for the moment as something snares around your heart. He’s a sea creature, a literal beast, he can handle himself. 

But you’ve seen the scars around his body, the jagged lines and faded pink skin. You’re no fool to what can happen. 

Which is why your breath fully flees your lungs the second the fins appear upon the surface, and thrashing sounds out, drowned in the heavy beats of the seafoam to the shoreline. You can feel the salt of the spray sting your eyes as you keep your attention locked out at the sea. 

Nothing happens after the tail slaps at the surface, once, twice, then nothing. Even the sea stills for too long a time to be comforting. You perch yourself barely a few steps forward from where you are in the sand. Hugging your arms around yourself, you sit down, watching and waiting for however long. 

Trying not to think about all the what ifs, the imagery of whatever gory end Ro could have met, only ceases the second his fin, with the telltale nick scar, breaches then dives down near the shallows as he heads to you. Scrambling to the edge of the dock, you climb down the ladder, low tide allowing you to sit on a step and kick your ankles in the water as you wait for him. 

He rises, and you hiss while kissing your teeth, seeing the blood immediately bloom upon his temple as he rises from the surface, sliding down the side of his brow and face, and you reach out to smooth it away immediately without thinking, ignoring the way he leans into your touch the slightest fraction. 

“What — what happened? Are you okay?” 

Ro tries to arch a brow and ends up wincing in pain, biting the slightest bit down on his lip and nearly breaking it open to bleed the same. He laughs at your horrified expression at seeing him all bloody, and the pleased smile on his face does not calm you in the slightest. 

Especially not the piece of something, someone, snared between his teeth like leftover food. 

“The worry’s hardly necessary pearl, I’m fine.” 

“What about the rest of you?” 

He meets your gaze and then stops and you huff, leaning back, pressing your spine to the ladder, pulling your touch from him as well as you wash off the blood from your hands with the sea. 

“I’m fine.” 

“Doubtful,” you bite, fixing him with a look before you shakily turn on the ladder, ignoring his confusion as you head back up to the dock and waving off his questions as you head into the house, telling him you’re grabbing something before you return with some antibiotic cream from the med kit and some swim shorts on, making your way into the water to stand waist-deep. 

You stare at him expectantly and he slowly nears, almost sheepishly, and lays the underside of his tail upon the sand before exposing his torso and just below his pelvis, looming overhead for the first time. 

You’ve seen him in the water, both partially and fully submerged. But never out of it. 

He grins, and you hope it's due to the way you halt in your movements, but it's absolutely due to how he can hear your heart race and the way it quickened as he lifted up. 

Ro’s an absolute specimen, thick and broad, absolutely built with the muscles lying beneath layers of protective fat. You swallow after you as he lowers a bit so you can tend to a few shallow cuts alongside his abdomen and the one at his temple, your eyes darting along the thin lines of red blooming blood that flows like ink in water across his damp skin. 

You wipe away what you can with a washcloth, wrenching it clean before submerging back into the water, softly apologizing as the salt stings and soothing the cream on the cuts, rubbing it in as gently as you can. The muscles twitch underneath your hands and it makes your head spin feeling him, even in this circumstance. 

He stretches when you step back, feeling the way your shirt clings to your waist from the water before you crane your head and curse, moving around him as you do the same for a larger gash across the left side of his back, branching from the more rubbery skin near his fin of the darker hue to the paler sort further out near his sides and belly. You take your time on this one, nearly straddling his tail from where it lays idle between your thighs, kicking the tailfin back and forth in the shallows, the only sound you hear beyond shaky inhales. 

“What happened?” 

You press again when you’re done, keeping a hand grazing his arm as you step around him and make it to higher ground on the sand, your eyes finally settle upon his, unwavering as you watch him hesitate before smiling softly, in that bittersweet way that lets you know he wants to tell you, but doesn’t know how. 

“Tomorrow?” You ask and sigh approvingly as he nods, knowing that you can get your answers the next day and that you can go for the night. 

“Go sleep, pearl. I’ve caused you too much worry for my liking,” he prods, nodding his head to your home before he slips back, going into deeper segments of the shallows near the dock, close enough but more comfortable for him to freely swim and not linger, his nature being restless, constant. 

“Will you be safe?” 

He grins, and the teeth glint in the dim light, the day had faded by the time you finished tending to him. “Always. Go on, I’ll be here when you rise tomorrow.” 

And with that, you head home, waving at him one last time when you reach your porch steps, watching him dive back down and then linger beneath the dock, disappearing from sight as you tuck into your home. 

Your ceilings provide no answers nor any comfort as you stare at them through the night, sleep evading you cruelly as you fixate on pale scales and shiny eyes, tossing and turning as you accept damnation into the situation you have entangled yourself in.

Ro is there waiting for you, as promised, by the time you are dressed and stepping out of your kitchen into the soft light of early morning. You meet him at the dock soon after. 

He bears no gift for you this time beyond the sight of him well-rested and less disheveled, lacking the blood smeared over him like oil. His brows arch as you near once he spots your expression, laughing away your worry in a kind way. The ‘I’m alright, you need not worry’ way. 

It doesn’t work wholly, but you try and let it. 

“Told you,” he gestures, exclaiming a bit over the waves, “all better! See,” and for your woes he shifts, turning around and showing how his cuts and nicks have already sealed shut and left puckered reddish-pink lines on his skin. They’re not gone yet, but they will be soon, joining the array of scars you’d never seen given nor know the stories of their origin. You hope to know the stories of no more. 

He notes the look in your eyes and the uncharacteristic silence he’s been filling and props himself up on the wooden slats and swallows the groan as his shoulder twinges, hiding it from you to make you worry less. He’d hate to bother you more. 

“I promise I’m well,” Ro swears, looking up at you before watching you silently sit beside him, kicking your legs back and forth over the edge of the dock while he leans his head atop his forearms. 

There’s a pregnant pause, silence sticking in the air like smog as you gnaw on your bottom lip, watching the waves in the distance and avoiding the questions in your head about how often this will happen and how you’re terrified of how attached you are to him, and the gutting feeling of anything bad happening. You can barely stomach it. 

“Is there something I can do to make it up to you?” 

You feel his hand atop yours where it rests on the dock, and before you can even think, your head turns to stare at him. Lip tugged taut between teeth, you almost speak and hesitate, the words caught in your mouth as if you were choking on them. 

“I don’t like seeing you hurt.” 

They’re simple words but they do the trick, and you squeeze his hand in yours. It takes a moment, but he squeezes back, and for a while the two of you just sit there, facing the ocean and facing the sand. 

You can feel the sun on your back, beads of sweat atop your shoulder blades from your shirt, the sleeves having dropped down with the loose neckline. Ro taps at your hand to draw your eyes away from the waves to look down at him where he stares up at you with mirth in his gaze. It gets the first smile out of you for the day. 

“Come in the water with me.” 

Eyes widening, your posture straightens as you lean back and direct your attention to Ro fully. “What?” 

“Get in the water with me. It’s hot and the water is warm. Join me.” 

He says it so simply that it's both enticing and aggravating. He pesters you enough to fight your anxiety so you shrug off the overshirt and shorts to reveal the one-piece wetsuit beneath, watching with a satisfied grin as you fold your clothes and leave them at the side of the dock. 

Before you know it, you’re climbing down the ladder into the warm water as Ro hovers a few feet away, idly flicking the tail beneath the surface as he holds his arms out once you get to the bottom rung of the ladder. 

“It is really warm,” you marvel, kicking your feet beneath you in the water to keep yourself afloat after stepping off the ladder and submerging. Turning to Ro, you don't expect the soft gaze you receive as he offers his hand and the slight smirk he offers as you take it, sharp teeth shining in the sun. 

“Where are you taking me?” 

He shakes his head, the auburn and gray hues still damp yet drying in the sun cling to his forehead, framing his face. “We are staying right here — unless you’d like to go somewhere else?”

This time you shake your head, murmuring a soft no before squeezing his hand once more as you near, feeling the water shift beneath you as his tail flicks idly, back and forth. You smile easily, enjoying how the water kisses your skin and that the sun no longer stifles you. 

That, and you have lovely company. 

You inch closer after faltering in your movements and apologize, not wanting to invade his space and be too forward. Ro raises a brow, mirroring an expression you must have taught him at some point, and huffs. 

“You aren’t close at all, here,” he moves and tugs you towards him, forcing yourself to place your free hand upon his chest to stop from crashing into him. His skin is damp and cool, making your body feel all the warmer in comparison as you feel the blood rush to your cheeks, trying not to directly stare at his chest and where your hand lies above where you assume his heart is. 

“This is close, correct?” 

Shakily, you reply. “Yes.” 

Ro’s other hand instead of passing by in the water supports you once your legs get weak. You feel him in your bones when he secures an arm around your waist, letting you lie against him in his hold as he keeps you both afloat. 

You know of sharks being able to smell blood, but you worry about other things he may be able to smell off you. It's not even necessary to question whether or not he can hear your pulse, you know better. Especially since you can feel him with your hand still pressed upon his heart. 

Ro hesitates and shifts beneath you, tail wriggling impatiently as if with a mind of its own before he looks to you, bright blue eyes hooked onto yours, and you have never seen anything prettier than how his irises glitter like the sea. 

“Can I — can I get closer?” He mutters low, and you can feel the rumble in his chest with how his voice always barrels out, but you feel it against your hand. Practically thrumming in your body. 

“Yes.” 

He does, and he doesn’t know what to do when he does get closer, hovering in the same space as you once you are gently brought closer, nearly chest to chest with him. You catch how the water catches the hair on his chest and droplets cling to the strands. 

Ro catches your gaze and when you are caught, locking eyes with him after he tilted your chin up with his webbed hand, and it's instinctual when he leans forward and is chest to chest with you, mouth lingering over yours as his calloused thumb smooths over your jaw. 

“Even closer?” 

You hum, smoothing your trembling hand over his shoulder and weaving it into his hair, dampening it with your sea-soaked hand as you thread it into his dry hair. “Please.” 

He does, but he falters, and you take over since he did all the hard work. Pressing your lips to his, you gently show him what to do, feeling him slowly kiss back and move his lips over yours, ebb and flow as you just move, just exist in each other’s arms as he supports the both of you in the water. 

Ringing sounds in your ears and you both part, with Ro turning his gaze to your home not far away as you blink dazedly at him, wholly unfocused as you wipe some spit off your mouth with the back of your hand, tasting the salt of the water from where it clung to your skin. 

Turning your head back to where Ro faces, you realize it's your home phone ringing. You shift your gaze back to him and give him a smile before extricating yourself from his hold, moving back to the ladder. 

“I’ve got to go,” you murmur, moving your hand up in the water but faltering halfway, wanting to fix his hair but needing to leave, knowing if you’d touch him once more, you’d never stop, “I’ll see you soon.” 

He watches as you climb the ladder, following as you grab your folded clothes and pad off the dock onto the sand, making footprints that he watches form as you head home. Ro waves after you do before you go inside your house.

He doesn’t leave immediately, hoping and holding out for your return. It's dark by the time he makes his way back to his own home, sinking his teeth into his dinner more mean than normal, teeth tearing out with the frustration of body you seem to bring. 

He wants you, craves you, seeks you out in everything he does. Ro just doesn’t know what it means. 

You’re no better either, tossing and turning in bed after talking on the phone for a while, unable to wipe the touch of his mouth off your lips nor the way his arm felt around you, so heavy and solid even through the fabric of your swimsuit. 

It's between you and you alone that your hand glided down your belly over the course of the night, and below the seam of your sleep shorts. It's your secret too about whose name you cried out all night. 

He still doesn’t know what's going on with him, and you, and he’s still confused when he’s considering asking when he sees you next. It's the next day, early in the morning and the sun’s out with a vengeance. He can feel it on his cheeks, on his shoulders where they peak out the water near the dock. 

They flush more when you appear out your house, dressed in short breezy linens that are too transparent to hide the tight-fitted wetsuit beneath. 

“Hi Ro!” 

You trot down the sand, a basket in tow, and meet him at the docks as per the nearly daily routine. Happily perching yourself on the edge of the wood, you join Ro where he lumbers up and lifts his forearms to rest atop the wood, idly flicking his tail in the water. All routine. 

You force yourself to not stare at his arms, or him in general all too much after what you did beneath the covers last night. 

“Hello,” he mumbles, chin laid atop his forearm where the hair bristles his skin. Ro marvels at the sun as it kisses your skin, and wonders what it would be like to grace those parts of you with his mouth like he touched yours yesterday. 

“You okay? Seem mopey.” 

He blinks, lifting his head to look at you while squinting, the light catching in his pale eyes, “mopey?” 

“Sad, depressed, morose,” you list off, counting on your fingers as he stares at how they move, unrestricted by webbing, “y’know, down in the dumps?” 

He hums, pretending he understands, but he just watches you, aching for an opportunity to take your mouth against his and feel something new like he does with you. Something human. 

Its as if the two of you cannot bear to make a first move, to take the leap (or swim) of fate, and it eats away at you both until you’re literally stripping at your coverup and tossing it aside before diving in the water, making Ro scramble to slink down and join you. 

Soon enough you’re fully in his arms, legs locked around his waist as he crowds you against the ladder to the dock, weathered wood softened by the water pressing to your back as you swap spit with the merman. 

Every little kid’s perfect fairytale. 

“Ngh, fuck Ro, gotta’ breathe,” you whine, breaching off after tugging him back by his hair. 

He huffs, tilting his head to nip at your chin, your jaw, following down to your neck where he licks the salt off your skin and sucks before biting, grinding against you before he knows what he’s even doing. “Too bad.” 

Groaning, you roll your eyes even though he can’t see them — or know what they mean exactly — and press against him, the seams of the wetsuit grinding taut against your cunt, making you writhe against him, wriggling like an eel. 

You’re about to speak before you’re interrupted, again, by a voice calling out your name on the beach. Groaning, you tilts your head back and Ro stalls and huffs again, withdrawing before peering down at you with wildly dilated eyes, practically wholly black. 

He stalls you before you move to climb the ladder, directing your attention to him with a sharp look, gripping your chin with his wet hand. 

“You’ll return tonight. I’ll bring food.” 

With no room to question, you do as he says and hurry back to the beach, basket in hand full of the treats you meant to give him that you’ll have to save for later. You were called into work by your boss, who makes small talk with you along the waves as you try and hide your hickeys beneath your coverup, blaming the warmth on your cheeks and the lack of focus on the sun getting to you. 

It's easier to believe than a shark being to blame. 

The day passes by in a blur, the half day at work helping take your mind off what's to come later in the night, and by the time you get home you’re getting ready in such a rush that you forget to bring him the snacks you had previously but prep to make something with whatever he brings you. Cooking on the beach was fun for you, and you’d love to see what he thinks of your food. 

You’re in a breezy linen wrap, catching and flowing in the breeze gifted to you by the sea as you venture out with your replenished basket to the docks, only to see Ro waiting with some netting draped over his arm. 

Rushing over, you hide the smirk on your lips as you watch him take you in, noting how the light fabric does something for him when draped over you. 

“Hello pearl.” 

You falter in your approach before recovering, and it's him that takes up the smirk. “What have you got there?” 

“Stuff for dinner, and you?” you prompt, standing near the end as you peer down at him, trying to calm yourself down even though you feel his voice everywhere, “what’d you bring me?”  

Instead of answering audibly he just lifts the net to reveal two fish, fluttering in the net once they breach water, the scales of the sea bass catching the light as you take the net from him and tote it along to the side of the deck, unpacking your bag to clean and prep the fish as you talk to Ro. 

“Thank you for these, they look beautiful,” you praise, removing the head before cutting and cleaning the fish, setting it aside before venturing onto the shore and making your fire, setting it to build as you wash off a flat rock before making everything. 

You cook something lemony with capers and citrus with a pan sauce after frying the fish, pasta fluffy and plump once you serve it in the bowls you brought and portion out the two plates, topped with the flaky white fish portions. 

He manages to shift himself at the shoreline so you can sit near him on equal footing. After handing him his, and a fork, you realize it's not what he’s used to so you correct yourself. “You can eat it with your hands, or from the bowl, either’s fine. I’ll make you something else if it’s not to your taste” 

Ro nods and waits for you to take a first bite before he digs into his own bowl and moans at the taste, tilting his head back and the bowl with it to take another mouthful and chew happily, the warm food on his belly comforting and new. 

You watch as he eats while you slowly finish your own portion, cleaning your bowl while he slops his down, flaky parsley stuck to his lip and you try not to laugh or reach out to wipe it away just yet. 

“So, was it good?” 

He nods, lifting his gaze to you, licking his lips and flashing pearly white teeth as he licks up the parsley and cleans his teeth while presenting his empty, cleaned bowl, clearly proud of himself. 

Laughing, you beam, “glad to know you liked it! If you catch me things from the sea I’ll be sure to cook.” 

He beams, toothy once more, and it's more appealing than affronting. 

“You’ve got a deal, pretty pearl.” 

Blood rushes to your face again and he notices, reaching a finger beneath your jaw to tilt your head back, letting your neck crane so he can see the indent from his teeth earlier. 

“We’ve eaten, but I still hunger,” he whispers as he nears you, mouth hovering over yours, “can I eat you now?” 

Swallowing, you nod, and he places his mouth nearly atop yours once more, but he hesitates and you cup his cheek, bringing him closer as the tide rolls over your ankles from where you sit in the sand.

“How about I show you what to do?” 

Ro sharply inhales before you press your mouth to his, molding your upper lip to his as he swipes his tongue out to the seam of your mouth, making you squeak before he breaches your mouth, humming as he tastes the lemon off your tongue before he nips at your lip, making you whine. 

“Need somewhere quiet, Ro,” you pant, cheeks warm and lips glossed in spit, eyes lidded as you peer up at him, “wanna’ feel you.” 

He can’t fight that request, the plea broken on your lips, and he lifts you into his arms in a repeat of earlier that day, locking your legs around his waist. This time, he places his palm at the base of your spine to support you before he lifts you fully into his embrace and slinks you into the water with him before snagging the cloth you sat on, tossing it over his shoulder before he swims away around the shoreline near your home to around the corner of the inlet. 

All the while carrying you, he’s been mouthing at your neck and bared shoulder from where the strappy cover up fails to hide. 

There's a little cave insert before leading to a sunny space between the rock faces and cliffs, a private beach, and Ro wastes no time before spreading out the blanket and you atop it. 

You tug him down by his biceps before weaving your hand into his wet hair and bringing him down to lay on top of you, mouthing your lips over his as his nose knocks against yours. 

“I —” Ro hesitates, and you watch him fight for the words in order to explain what he needs. 

“I need you.” 

Preening, you coo and kiss the corner of his mouth, then his cheek, then his jaw, following to his neck and the swell of his throat. “I’ve got you Ro, lemme’ take care of you,” you murmur, smoothing your hands down his shoulders and the planes of his back, feeling the strong muscles twitch and roll beneath your touch. 

He follows your example and kisses down your neck again, leaving salty wet spots from his lips in his wake until he makes it to the bites he left, soothing over them with his tongue to ease the sting before he leaves another. 

“Feels good,” Ro mutters against your now salty skin, feeling the waves hit the sides of his upper tail as he tastes you, the sweat and musk of you paired with the sea, and he returns for more, “‘need more of you, pearl, please.” 

Abiding, you shift your hands down to his waist, pressing his ass down to drag his hips against yours, bringing out your breathy sigh and his groan as he rolls the two of you over, his great tale whacking in the water as you reside upon him, grinding your little hips into his monstrous form. 

What can you say? You like them bigger. 

You feel him shift beneath you, nearly whining as he grinds his hips against yours, sucking at your neck all the while his hands guide your hips against his. It's as if he thinks there’s just grinding, frotting back and forth against one another is all that there is to this. 

Breaching one hand off his waist, you bring it to his groin, pressing down where he writhes most and find an engorged slit there. You part the slit and lean back as Ro moans, partly covering his face with a webbed hand as the slit gapes with your help and reveals not just one pretty, weeping dick, but two. 

There’s white, pearly precome weeping from the tip that you notice, even in the dim light of soon approaching nighttime, and you press it to your fingertips and web them together, pulling apart to watch the stringy fluid coat your digits before you wrap your fist around the tapered tips of both and pumping. 

All the while, Ro is whining pathetically, brokenly like your whore and you drink it in as you grind your hips against the broad base of his tail while you stroke him. With your free hand you undo the straps of your gauzy coverup and let it drop down your chest to pool at your hips, revealing the sheer wetsuit beneath that your cooled nipples prod through. 

His eyes open and the sight of you is remarkable, getting him off as you use him yourself to get release, your slick pooling against him making the glide all the easier as you buck your hips. 

It riles him up enough to plant his hands harshly at your hips and pressing you down as he rocks his hips up, getting you to arch your back and whine through your teeth for him. “Fuck Ro, just like that,” you praise, turning your gaze to him and giving him an encouraging smile before his breaks out into a gaping, open mouthed sigh as he grinds himself against your still-clothed cunt as your clit catches the surface. 

“Want you bare, I want to see you. All of you,” he requests, tugging at the tie of the swimsuit until it comes undone, leaving you to undo the button and control whether it really comes off or not. 

You lift your hand off of him reluctantly only to lift your hips and slide your coverup off, tossing it to the side with your wetsuit soon joining it, wrestling with the fabric momentarily in how it clung to your skin, leaving you in chills as you sit back on top of Ro, closer to his pelvis now. 

Tilting your head, you feel the water lap at your legs and give you a bit of comfort as you stand bare before him, observed and perceived wholly. 

He leans up on his forearms before brushing some of your hair back and he stares up at you in wonder as the fading daylight casts your skin in something syrupy, amber tracing your damp skin like his mouth yearns to do. 

“You’re beautiful.” 

Flushing, you smooth a hand up his belly and chest, toying with the hair splayed over it as you peer down at him, tilting your head, “so are you.” 

He takes the compliment, but smiles so adoringly it's about cracked your heart in half, having known a love like this. 

You grind down on him and whimper, your puffy clit sliding against the smooth surface of his tale underbelly, leaning your other hand back to brace yourself as you rock your hips. Squeaking as you get yanked around, Ro drags you to rest on his pelvis, his dicks caught between your thighs and his belly. 

“Ro, will you fuck me?” 

Even though the concept of fucking is novel to him, the whole sex thing being explored firsthand, he understands. Lifting one of your thighs over his elbow as he props it closer, he guides the fatter dick of the two over your gaping, silky cunt and smears it back and forth, craning his head back and swallowing loudly after crying out every stressed syllable of your name. 

“Mmmph, feels s’good Ro, keep doing that,” you praise, rocking back and forth and crying, nearly falling out once the weepy tip of his dick prods at your clit and glides, smearing itself sticky all over you. Its wet and gross and sloppy and you want him to fuck you stupid like an animal. You’re hoping, practically praying, that your wishes will get fulfilled. 

“On it, almost there, you just feel so good,” Ro murmurs, wrapping his palm around the base of his dick, stroking and nearly getting lost in his own touch and the closeness to you before positioning it into your cunt and lowering you onto it, inch by delicious, pleasurable inch until he’s bottomed out and fills your walls snugly. 

He’s bullied his cock in, using the slurry of slick from your cunt and the drooling pool of precome he's released to soak his dick before nudging his tapered cockhead inside, glancing between your legs and back up to you, where you’re open-mouthed and gaping, torn between wanting him sheathed fully and for him to take his time. 

“Ah, oh god Ro, sit s-still for a minute so I can,” you moan, trying not to move too much while his dick wriggles against your walls, kissing at your cervix in a way that makes you want to lift off almost yet slam down to get more of the feeling, “so I can adjust. Y’so big Ro.”

At that, he grins, dazed and prideful as he smooths his touch over your hips, waiting in a grand show of patience for you to get settled and adjust. If this is how you react to one, taking both was surely to be a mess. 

Ro shushes your whines softly when he stalls, sliding in further as he smooths a hand down your calf and inner thigh, pressing gently to pry your legs apart further, sighing pleasantly once he sees your cunt fully exposed for him as you clench impatiently. 

His other dick smears a sticky line of precum across your belly, standing taut between the both of you where he’s got you snug taut on his dick and pressed to his stomach. 

“So pretty,” he marvels aloud, voice wavering as he stares at you abashedly as you sit on his cock, pressed against his chest once he sits upright, “my little pearl, all mine.” 

The possessiveness in his tone does something for you and sends you clenching around him, whining into his shoulder as he lifts you up then settles you back down on his dick, crying out as you claw your nails into his biceps, leaving little half moons in his flesh that will be gone by the time you both are done. 

However long that will be. 

“All yours, Ro, all f-for’you,” you warble, watery in both voice and your eyes as you feel him so deep, pressing to your walls, hitting every nerve in such precision you feel like you’re not just about to cum, but that you’re about to implode — dying like a star in his arms. 

As he fucks you, uses you like a ragdoll with his primal strength, you decide it wouldn’t be such a bad fate as to be impaled on his cock. 

There’s a ring of creamy precome and slick smeared around the base of his dick from where he fucks in and out of you, and it spreads over onto the other dick that drools pearly drops all over his broad belly and down his pelvis where it paints it against yours, utterly debauched and dirty in how he fucks you. 

One of his hands remains on your waist while the other splays across your chest, tugging at your nipple with interest and watching you keen and writhe, pressing your clit with a free hand while the other remains planted atop his shoulder while you rock your hips up and down, growing desperate and frantic in your movements as you draw closer and closer to release. 

Gritting his teeth, Ro pistons his hips up and down, over and over as he draws closer and closer to release and you work for it, lifting up an inch or two before slamming down, crying out as you tilt your head back as he batters at your sloppy cunt and draws out more sounds from you. 

“Can feel i-it, s’close,” he’s mumbling, grinding his teeth together as he puts forth everything he has into getting to come, feeling it moments later when you lean in and bite at his ear, tugging it between your teeth while moaning his name. He cums then, absolutely flooding your cunt in his creamy cum until it spills over and nearly flows out of your overworked pussy. He’s weakly puttering his hips all the while, combating the oversensitivity as he milks every last drop into your fertile cunt. 

His other dick splattered cum all across his belly, marking your own stomach and chest with the shiny, viscous drops of his orgasm. 

“Ah, oh pearl, thank you,” he murmurs softly as his lids lower halfway, still puttering his hips as you grind down, watching you roll your fingers over part of your pussy and he takes over, pressing his fingertip over the bundle of nerves and rolling his touch hard, with gentle pressure, and you cry out his name, stretching the end syllable as you finally cum with a silent cry and shake in his arms. 

You gush over him, sending another wave of cum leaking out your cunt before you fully fall apart, legs trembling around Ro’s waist as you cling to him, rocking pathetically back and forth while you use him to get off, wrenching out the very last of your orgasm as you fuck yourself through it, kissing at his neck in open mouthed, sad little presses to his sweaty skin. 

It takes several moments for you both to come to your senses, and it's Ro who soothes you when you can’t stop shaking with soft little nothings, kisses to your hairline, and his hand smoothing over the skin of your back as you continue to cling to him. 

“You’re okay, little thing,” he murmurs, staring up at the stars while he holds you close, “okay now?” 

Nodding, you inch your head closer to his neck and practically nuzzle against him, drawing a laugh rumbling from his chest as you press yourself as close as humanly possible. Occasionally, you feel the spray of the salt and the foam of the water kick up from where his tail flicks back and forth idly, weaving a dent into the sand below. 

“I should get home.” 

He hums a low note, making no move to let you go or even take you home just yet until you attempt to sit up, the both of you groaning once you let his softened dick slip from you and watching as the remainder of your fluids drips forth. 

“Jesus, you made a mess out of us, huh?” 

Ro doesn’t really know what to do with that, so he just exhales a little huff and presses his cheek to yours, rubbing softly. 

You shake as you sit up, still tremoring before he follows suit, once again swallowing his own discomfort as he tends to you. “Home?” 

You nod, and he wastes no time in sweeping you up into his arms once he ventures back into the water, snagging the sandy blanket on the way. He attempts to almost submerge you but you have to rush out the reason of getting ill if you get into the water with your sexual organ in such a state. 

You love him, but you would like to avoid a UTI where possible. 

Soon, you are deposited on the shore where you quickly take your clothes and blanket before kissing him goodnight and shakily making your way up to your house, waving once you’re inside and watching as he waves back and dives under, going back to his own home. 

After washing up, you snuggle into bed, the sun of the day and the fresh-fuck glow allowing you to drift off rapidly and sleep dreamlessly. 

The next morning, you take the lazy day and wake up late before wandering back out onto the beach on shaky legs, wearing some swim shorts and a loose shirt. You brought a trash bag and some gloves so you could clean up the mess you left after cooking dinner last night and make your way to the little spot nearby. 

You didn’t spot Ro in the ocean or near the dock but thought nothing much of it, wrapped up in other thoughts as you walked over to the place where you dined last night. 

Spotting a figure reclining there, it's a man. He looks familiar, and you almost think he resembles Ro. But he has legs, and has on clothes.