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chuubacca-writes · 9 months

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Chuuya Nakahara x afab!Reader

wc: 14k+

general warnings: afab!reader (gn pronouns/nicknames, afab genitalia), mer!chuuya, eldritch mermaid au, author plays fast and loose with the definition of eldritch, thunderstorms, injuries, tension, strangers to lovers, cult references, island survival, hunting, descriptions of food & preparation, unedited writing

nsfw warnings: MINORS DNI, fingering, oral & penetrative sex (all reader-receiving), unprotected sex, handjobs, multiple orgasms, biting & blood, mild dacryphilia

written for the teahouse server's mermay collab, hosted by @petrichorium !!

Rain has notoriety amongst humans for a plethora of reasons.

Some people find it calming, revitalising, a sweet nurturer of life from the heavens. Others live in fear of the rain’s tender lovers, the thunder and the lightning, who join their sweet peacebringer when turbulence rages through the skies.

And one thing that you have learned about rain in particular is how such a gentle nourishing sensation can feel just like shards of glass against your flesh when you’re caught in the throes of a storm.

Soft droplets that kissed your skin when the clouds were still close to white turn sharp and violent as the wind picks up, whipping them around in a frenzy and sending them hurtling back at you.

The small rowboat you’d taken out with you isn’t by any means well-suited for these elements, swaying and sloshing through the ocean with such fierce turbulence that you’re surprised its still holding out on you as you desperately try to navigate your way towards the eye of the storm. By now, the floor of your vessel is drenched, puddling, soaking your poor feet even further. Surely the wood will crack under the damage, the interior not made to withstand contact with water like the hull.

For now, you grit your teeth and carry on, oar so tight in your hands you may very well contract splinters. You are rocked and shaken from side to side within the confines of your little boat, battered by the torrential downpour above and bombarded from all angles by the sea below.

A sharp crack splits from under you.

You are sinking. Fast.

The water rises higher within the body of your boat, reaching your ankles now. Each splitting strike of thunder from above resonates through your body with every desperate oarstroke, and you fight against the elements with all that you can muster.

Foolish of you to think that you could power through against the inexorable rampage of the rain and her tempestuous partners.

Contact with land is inevitable, you suppose, with how long you were drifting on the splintered remains of your boat. Weeks, or even months could have passed with how fragmented time feels when you are on your own out at sea. Of course, the fact that you’re still alive reminds you it has been shorter. But several days must have gone by at least, floating in and out of a hazy state of unconsciousness, becoming aware of yourself for the scarce moments you could drag some soggy old rations from the bag you’d kept around your person before zoning out once more.

And then there is something beneath you, suddenly, a rocking motion that rolls you from the planks of wood you’d clung to, forces you onto something hard that does not bob atop waves.

Whilst the rain from the previous storm continues to drizzle, the winds have ceased on land and the storm itself has all but ebbed. Thick, wet sand clings between your fingertips as you anchor yourself on your palms and rise to your feet. The tide pulls waves up to the beach, which lap at your toes as you double over and catch your breath.

You're lucky not to have drowned out there.

Some machination of fate must have a watchful eye out for you, perhaps. It's a rather daunting prospect to dwell upon.

In the distance, there lies a forest. Small, like the island itself, but you are sure to find decent sustenance within. Through the other side, poking out above the trees like a beacon, is the top of an old lighthouse. You’re sure it probably works, but the light inside is off and moss lies encrusted in thick patches around the walls. If it does still run, it’s surely abandoned by now.

The first order of business, you decide as you make your way along the beach, circling the forest to get to the lighthouse with less issues, is to see if you’re alone on this island.

And hopefully soon, before night falls.

Having a secure shelter is a blessing. Some of the lighthouse walls have holes from years of dilapidation, but there are whole floors still perfectly intact, and the entire top half of the building is still in one piece.

The storage room is the most well-preserved, though the metal barrels and wooden crates that line the walls are all strangely void of contents. Almost as if it was the least used, which you’d think is strange for a lighthouse that clearly must have been operated by someone at one point. At least, you think, there should be some old canned goods that might just about still be edible. But there’s no food stock in sight, nothing more than a few bags of salt- supposedly to cure fresh meats.

It doubles as some sort of records room, you realise when you find the neatly stacked collection of papers on the shelves. These must be the documentation of past keepers, all penned in a language you don’t have a clear grasp over. Similar to writing you’ve seen in older treasures you’ve witnessed over the years, but with scripture that doesn’t fit the patterns you’re used to. Maybe ancient, or perhaps from a lost civilisation you’ve never come across. Either way, you quickly have to give up trying to decipher it.

Your journey through the lighthouse brings you further up to the next undamaged room, what must have been the keeper’s living quarters. It’s almost uncomfortably scarce, no more than a single thin bedroll in the far corner with a handful of crumpled sheets piled on top. You’ll have to try and wash them before you use them, you think to yourself with a crinkle in your nose as you bypass this floor to try and find the control room.

As you ascend the spiral staircase that skirts the inner edge of the lighthouse, you can’t help but notice the strange symbols etched into the walls. They’re scarce on the lower levels, but increase in frequency the higher you climb, until they reach a point where they cover the surface of every single brick.

They lead to the control room, far darker than the other floors so far, only a few small portholes filtering daylight through. There are switches all around, some across the walls and more still upon the various short plinths that stick up from the floor. It looks like they’re arranged in a circle of sorts, with a taller and thicker pedestal in the middle.

Unease settles into the room with you like an old friend, your most constant companion since you had washed ashore. But you need to try and get this thing running, and these switches seem to be the way to do it.

You’ve never had to operate a lighthouse before, and judging by the type of writing you’d found in the other room you’re sure there won’t be any useful instructions around to give you any sort of help. The best you can do for now is try, and surely turning everything on would be a good start.

Making your way to the nearest plinth, you turn one of the switches and another one starts to emit a faint light from beneath. Like a trail of breadcrumbs, you weave your way around the room lighting each plinth in turn. It doesn’t quite follow the circular shape they’re laid out in, criss-crossing over one another as you move from one to the next, but it’s the best possible lead you have to getting this working. There’s surely no harm in keeping up with it.

As the final toggle switch is flicked, the center console glows an ominous deep red. Light runs like a stream of blood along the grooves etched through the room, filling up the various runes and circles until you are surrounded on all sides by bright lines of claret.

There is a resounding shutter-like thunk! from above and, through a tiny porthole window near the ceiling, you can see the lamp at the top of the tower come to life and flood the sea with brilliant white light. Intense and blinding, it shifts to fill the control room and you shield your eyes with your dominant arm to avoid any lasting damage to your vision until everything fades.

By the time you can finally peel your limb back to your side, even the red lines have dissipated. Everything seems to the naked eye like it has returned to normal. And yet, the air is thick, causing each breath you take to feel rougher, heavier. Like something is pressing against your lungs with every single inhale.

It is night-time now, and colder still than it had been. Though the rain has subsided, a sharp chill whips through the building and bites through to your very bones. Each step you take away from the control room is accompanied by an unnerving sensation, something grander than yourself, a malevolent force that is encompassing and suffocating. There is an errant humidity that lingers in your lungs, thick and heavy and far too warm.

Despite the atmospheric clemency, you need to get some air.

It floods into you all at once when you breach into the open, the juxtaposition dizzying as you find yourself able to breathe again. The sounds of waves crashing against the beach, of birds making their way home for the night, distant leaves rustling, all bring you back to your center as you force through several deliberately paced inhales and exhales.

Upon the beach stands a man.

Unremarkable in stature, yet with an aura surrounding him that fills you with a strange sort of dread deep in the pit of your stomach. A creeping sort of fear, that lingers in the corners of your mind and holds on tight to your shoulders, wraps around your wrists and your ankles, keeps you where you are in the sand, frozen.

Something within your subconscious tells you not to entertain the notion of interacting with him.

Something incomprehensibly stronger entices you to take a step forwards.

“Who are you?” you call. “What business have you here?”

“You don't know?” barks the man, incredulousness in his tone. “You summoned me here.”

“I fixed the lighthouse,” you correct. “I did not summon anything.”

The moonlight reflects the jewels that hang around the stranger’s neck on silver chains, bounces off the iron buckles of his boots, and drapes along the hints of white undershirt that frame the dip of his chest, deep and v-lined. Around his waist, you can make out the tinge of bright red, a thin scarf belt decorated with little chains and common gems. He wears a black coat and a tricorne hat hemmed with silver, smaller and less fancier than the ship captains you have seen in the past, but grandiose enough to tell you that this man is important to his crew.

He has frowned at you for so long now that you’re certain it’s a permanent feature of his visage. The downturn of his lips is deep-set above his chin, disapproving, and a frustrated huff slips through them as he observes you.

“What I’m taking from this is that neither of us have a way to get off this fucking island, yeah?”

“For now, pretty much,” you say, “yeah.”

“Brilliant.” His arms raise in exasperation, and he turns away from you. “First I’m woken up late, and now I’m here in the middle of nowhere with some idiot who can’t recognise a pharos when they see one.”

“Pharos?” you repeat. “What do you mean?”

He sighs. “You really are clueless, huh?”

“That’s mean.”

“Get used to it, sailor.”

Your pointed jab of the tongue in retaliation goes ignored, sidelined as he continues to speak.

“A pharos,” the stranger says, “is an ancient lighthouse. A lot of them got used for rituals, for summoning eldritch deities to do their bidding. They got taken over by a bunch of cults a few centuries back. This one-” he takes a quick respite in his explanation to turn his attention to the building behind you- “seems newer, but still at least a hundred years old.”

“So why are you here then, if these were meant to summon ancient gods?” You mean it more genuinely than it sounds, but you can’t help taking a bit of a jab at the man who has been nothing but abrasive towards you until now.

“Why do you think?” he returns.

“You can’t be,” you chuckle, disbelief riotous through your tone. “You’re human.”

He scoffs, focusing his gaze somewhere far past you. “You’d be surprised.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on then,” the stranger interjects, swiftly changing topic as he walks towards you, and then passes you by. “Let’s see the damage you’ve caused, we’re going inside.”

“Hey,” you call out as you catch up, legs starting to burn a little from all the exertion of running around the island that you’ve undertaken today. “If we’re going to be stuck together, can I at least get your name?”

“Call me Chuuya.”

“Alright.” You introduce yourself in turn, giving him a name you actually won’t mind being called. “No more of that nickname stuff, okay?”

“You got it, sailor.”

Oh, this is going to be torture.

The trip to the lighthouse- the pharos, apparently- is less daunting when you’ve already taken it once before. You know what you have to expect, and pretty much remember which parts of the early levels of the staircase to avoid so that your foot doesn’t come crashing through the wood.

Though it still seems to stretch upwards endlessly on your way up, the runes on the walls let you know that you’re closer. They’re not glowing any more, and you assume they must have faded once the pharos’ work was complete.

For a moment, you watch the way the Chuuya walks around the space, approaching a wall and running a gloved fingertip across the divots, tracing the shape of one of the runes. You wonder if he’s able to understand them. If maybe he can even read the scriptures you found downstairs.

“You fixed this place up?” asks Chuuya after a while, hands resting on his hips as he continues to idly observe the control room. “Tell me you noticed the cult runes on the walls when you did it.”

“I was a little busy,” you huff, “trying to get help so I could get the hell off this island.”

“And now we’re both stuck here,” he retorts. “Genius work, sailor.”

“Like you could do any better.” Frustrated, you cross your arms over your chest. “Aren’t you supposed to be some fancy eldritch being? Why can’t you just magic us off of here?”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” you scowl. “Well, what are we supposed to do, then?”

“Why are you asking me? You’re the reason we’re here, you think of a way out.”

“The only thing I can suggest is building a boat. Or at least a raft.”

“Then it looks like you need to start collecting some wood.”

“Oh no you don’t, mister. You’re stuck here too, the least you can do is help us both get out of here.”

“Why should I?”

“You’re a pirate, right?” You gesture vaguely towards his outfit. “You know the importance of teamwork. We’ll get this over with quicker if I’m not the only one working my ass off.”

“Fine,” he concedes. It seems you struck a nerve. “I’ll help. On one condition.”

“Yes?”

“I get to be the one that gathers our food. I don’t trust you.”

“Okay,” you agree. “If you’re taking control of that, we’ll both prepare whatever you bring back. And I’ll take the lead on finding things to make a decent raft in the meantime.”

Chuuya doesn’t dignify that with a response, instead turning on his heel to leave. “Let’s get started. The sooner we’re done, the sooner we can get the fuck out of here.”

“It’s nighttime, you really want to start now?” You have to jog a little to catch up with him, taking a few stairs at a time until you’re closer. “Do eldritch deities not need sleep, or something?”

“No, we don’t,” he replies smoothly, and you barely just catch a glimpse of the amused grin that flickers across his lips. “Better get to work, sailor, you’ve got a lot of late nights ahead of you.”

As it turns out, building a raft from scratch isn’t as easy as it looks.

Only a few planks of wood tied together and something to function as a sail would be needed, you’d thought. Simple design, easy to carry out, that’s why it was the go-to survival plan for being stranded at sea.

But when you have to scrounge for the wood yourself, because somehow this lighthouse doesn’t even have spare logs lying around for firewood, things become substantially more difficult. Thankfully, you’d been taught how to chop lumber in your youth- a friendly face when you’d first been out on your own, a skill you’d never forgotten. That doesn’t stop it from being absolutely gruelling work, though. Especially when you then have to haul those very same logs you’ve felled from the forest to the beach. And then try to tie them together with the rope you’ve managed to salvage from one of the busted lower floors of the lighthouse.

In a turn of fate, Chuuya ends up being more helpful than you first expect of him- considering how he’d treated you upon first meeting. It’s still abrasive, clipped speech and thinly veiled insults, but it’s help. You’ll take it.

Besides, he’s not all bad.

You catch him one night finally settling down to sleep long after you, having stayed up late to do… well, he’d never quite told you. He pads into the room quietly, and you assume that he’ll immediately head to his side and fall asleep without any fuss. That’s what he’s been doing lately, and it’s not like you’ve any reason to expect anything different.

And yet this time, he stops.

After a few moments of quiet, you feel a soft weight drape across your body and then the footsteps retreat at last. A blanket rests atop you now, something to fend off the harsh chill of the breeze that cuts into the bedroom from the lower levels of the lighthouse. You don’t know where he found it, you’re sure you scoured this building top to bottom for things like this, but you’re certainly not about to complain.

It’s small things like this that remind you that Chuuya is just out here trying to survive, just like you. It wasn’t his fault he got stuck with you here, and all things considered he’s taken to your new forced dynamic as well as he could.

If you’d been thrust into the same position, you know you wouldn’t have taken things in stride the way he has. It was one thing to have been washed ashore upon an island in the middle of nowhere with no way to escape when it was your own seafaring misdeeds that had brought you here. It’s another entirely to have been going about your day as normal only to have been plucked right from it and dropped into this situation by somebody else.

Even so, he doesn’t seem to hate you. Not really.

He may make the odd quip that seems purposefully vicious, a jab here and there designed to hit hard, but it’s just for show. At least, that’s what the hidden smiles formed from exasperated laughs when he thinks you aren’t looking seem to tell you. The playful gripes that weave their way in with the hounding until the entire ordeal feels like something far more endearing.

Chuuya’s just trying to get by, you think, the same as you. When this is all over, you’ll likely never see one another again- and that’s fine. But you’re still glad that he’s trying to make things somewhat pleasant in the meantime.

One of the few pleasantries of being stranded out in the midst of nowhere is certainly the scenery. A small island like this is the best place to find views unlike any other, to see the beach and the sea spread out in front of you like a feast for the eyes, a veritable buffet of colour and feeling.

The sand crunches between your toes with each step, your shoes swinging gently in your grasp, and the feeling of fresh sea air is as refreshing to your senses as it always has been.

You can practically taste the salt upon your tongue as you reach the waves, the timid little things lapping at your toes in cautious flowing motions. Gulls cry overhead, desperate shrieks that sound like home.

As you stand there at the edge of the water, you look out to the horizon.

It takes the breath from your lungs with ease. Such a grand sight, the ocean stretching out endlessly in front of you, reflecting the array of reds and golds, pinks and purples that paint the sky in the wake of the sun. Spots of white twinkle where the light hits at its strongest, and the unfathomable depths of the water already feel like the blanket of night that is set to descend.

And then something moves, breaks the gentle cresting of waves.

A fin, by the looks of it. Large, but bright; a striking orange shade you’ve yet to see on any sort of shark.

It slices through the water effortlessly and then dips back below the surface once more, proof of its existence only found in the ripples that fade out from the epicentre of the breach.

This creature, whatever it is, is a hunter. Skilled and deadly, if the silent precision of its movements is anything to go by.

You step back, your toes suddenly far less safe this close to the tides, and hold your breath in anticipation. Whatever is lurking beyond the shoreline, close enough for you to see it so clearly, is new. It’s dangerous.

Despite your self-preservation instincts screaming out to retreat as fast as you can into the safety of the lighthouse, you are so very intrigued.

But the mysterious being never resurfaces.

One beat, and then another, you hold on just to see. Just in case.

Perhaps it had noticed you and is now in hiding, just as bemused by your existence as you have been by it. Maybe it is biding its time, sizing you up as its next potential prey. It was certainly large enough to make swift work of you. If you had been unlucky enough not to spy it beforehand, you could very well have become its next meal.

Or, perhaps, it had simply swam away.

Before you have the chance to dwell on it for much longer, your new begrudging acquaintance is approaching. Bucket in hand, which sways to and fro as he walks, you are met with a bewildered look.

“What are you doing out here?”

“I was bored,” you explain. “I came out to see where you’d gotten off to.”

“There are more fish down by the cliffs,” Chuuya says, jutting his free thumb over his shoulder for emphasis. “I went over to catch them.”

The bucket is practically bursting with fresh fish, some still writhing as the light of their life is snuffed under the intensity of the beating sun. It’s difficult to ignore the gleam of red that lies embedded within the grooves of the wood, as though some of the poor creatures were caught by something far more violent than a simple fishing line, but you’re not granted the opportunity to dwell upon it when Chuuya walks past you, lugging them along with him towards the lighthouse.

“I’m impressed,” you call out, jogging to catch up with him. “You caught a lot, there’s enough here to feed us for at least a week.”

“I told you,” he shrugs, “there were more of them over there.”

As you get inside and start to help him prepare the fish to store them away for the week’s meals, salt-curing the ones you didn’t plan to eat that day, your mind wanders back to the creature you had seen upon the beach.

“Hey,” you speak up, “do you think we’re really alone on this island?”

“Of course we aren’t,” Chuuya scoffs, deboning one of the fish in a singular fluid motion. “There’s a forest, there’s bound to be all sorts lurking where we can’t see them.”

“I mean something sentient- “ you throw your hands down dramatically, small particles of salt flying across the room from the motion- “something big. Not just little bunnies or whatever in the woods.”

“Why are you convinced there’s something out there?”

“I saw something at the beach. A creature, in the water.”

“A shark?”

“No, this was different. I’ve never seen something like it before.”

“Whatever it is, I’m feeding you to it first.” Chuuya rolls his eyes, tossing the last of the fish onto the tray to move to the storeroom.

“And here I thought we were finally making progress,” you sigh dramatically. With a cheeky smile and exaggeratedly batted lashes, you turn back to him. “You really wouldn’t save me from the big scary sea monster?”

“Nope,” he hums, hauling the tray into his grasp and walking out of the kitchen. He throws one last glance over his shoulder towards you, a grin playing upon his lips. “You’re on your own, sailor.”

A few days later, you find yourself making decent progress on your escape plan.

The raft is all but ready in terms of the base materials. You’d spent the best part of a whole week cutting down enough trees to provide sizeable logs that will bind together to float two people- with a little help from Chuuya along the way- and now the next step would be to try and assemble them all.

With any luck, you’d be done in only a few more days.

That is, at least, if you didn’t keep running out of rope.

The lengths you have managed to scavenge from inside the lighthouse are heavy, but deceptively short. By the time you wind them securely around two logs, it’s all but run out. Which leaves you running back in and out of the building more frequently than you’d like to as you try to work in order to look for more.

On one of your trips, you don’t notice that Chuuya has decided to sit horizontally across the platform that joins one floor to the next, taking a rest from his own duties.

Before you realise what’s happening, your weight has been displaced from under you. Arms splaying out to brace your fall, the rope you’d been holding tangles itself around you and makes for a whole new level of accident as you tumble your way back down the stairs.

Luckily enough for you, the plateaus between each floor are rather wide- so you don’t end up falling all the way back down to a lower level. Not to mention, leaving the ordeal with nothing more in terms of injury than an ache in your lower back, though you just know it’ll persist for the rest of the day.

“You should look where you’re going,” snickers Chuuya, looking down at you with an amused simper. He goes to hold out a hand to help you up, but you petulantly bat it away.

“You shouldn’t have been in the way!” you exclaim with an exaggerated pout, folding your arms across your chest and huffing. “Who even sits on the stairs like that?”

“I thought you were out working on the raft.”

“I was, but I came back to find some more rope.”

“Seems like you’re really tied up with that,” he jibes.

“I’m going to kill you,” you threaten halfheartedly, picking yourself back up off the floor.

It’s more of a hassle to get yourself out of the mess of ropes you’ve dropped than it was to stand, and you find yourself stumbling around the plethora of loops in some haphazard sort of dance as you struggle to maintain your balance.

“Here,” Chuuya says, “you’re going to fall again if you keep that up.”

His hand comes to your shoulder to make you stop moving, and the other grabs onto the rope and starts to untangle you. On instinct, you cling to his forearms for stability.

They’re tense to the touch, firm, but you don’t get much of a chance to focus on them as you’re instructed to lift your leg so that you can step out of a particularly perplexing knot that had made its way all the way around your knee. The tips of his fingers brush against your thigh as he slides the rope from your body and an involuntary chill passes down your spine.

Something about this current proximity brings a searing heat to your chest, and the gentle look that he gives you when his gaze flits back up to check on you holds enough power to still your damned heart entirely.

He’s far more caring than he gives himself credit for.

Even now, as he mumbles under his breath about how ‘we’re never going to get off this island if you keep playing with the ropes instead of helping build the raft’, his touch is so tender and cautious. Making sure that you’re entirely safe before he takes a step back starts to loop the rope around his arms to make it easier to carry.

“Thank you,” you say quietly, taking the rope back off him.

“Of course,” he nods. “Now, get to work sailor. I’ll go hunt for tonight’s meal.”

With the raft mostly ready, but a bad rainfall hitting for a handful of nights in a row, it takes several more days until you’re next able to head out to the beach to work on it.

You let yourself get up a little later that day than you have been, a luxury you grant to yourself knowing how near you are to your goal. Only a few hours of work at the most if you apply yourself- and even less if you can cajole Chuuya into giving you a hand. He’s far more agreeable now than he first was, and more often than not you barely even need to bully him into helping you out these days.

Running into Chuuya on the beach as you step out is a welcome surprise.

When he leaves before you in the mornings, he tends to spend the majority of the day fishing or in the forests scavenging. Either way, he ends up entirely out of your sight and you tend to not see him until you’re ready to prepare food for the night.

Now, he’s sat by the edge of the shoreline. A stretch of hope assumes he might be there waiting for you, but as you step closer you see that he seems oddly… elsewhere.

He’s taken his hair down from the low ponytail you’re used to seeing, ginger strands splayed across his shoulders like a waterfall, slightly damp from the fresh sea air.

Salt clings to your tongue as you watch him quietly, settles in your throat and keeps you silent, savouring the peaceful moment.

The muscles of his bare back tense and contract as he shifts, not incredibly defined but prominent enough to know that he clearly must be strong. He leans forwards, fingers dipped into the water below his makeshift seat upon a large flat rock. It ripples out from the point of contact, tiny little disturbances that flow and change as his hands brush through the liquid.

There is a contemplative rhythm to his movements, as though he’s deep in thought. Pensive, you think, is the best descriptor for it. Somewhere lost between wistful and sad.

Chuuya’s sights are set firm on the horizon in the distance, the sun dipping low and painting the sky orange in its wake. You wonder briefly what he must be thinking about.

An idle crab wanders past your feet and you walk around it carefully, not wanting to risk a nipped toe whilst you’re out here. The last thing you need whilst you’re trying to get off this island is something that stops you for a while.

But now that your angle is adjusted, a few steps forwards and to the side, you can take in the full sight of what is in front of you.

No longer does Chuuya have the steady pair of legs you had accidentally barrelled over the other day. In their place lies a mesmerising fishtail, scales of orange and white and black dappling the surface reminiscent of the koi fish you have seen on travels to the Caspian Sea. Each one reflects the light, iridescent and shimmering, practically twinkling like the night sky under the radiant sun.

The shape, however, is unlike any of the typical fish you have seen in your lifetime. This is larger by far, tapering towards the end, extending out past the rockpools and swaying idly in the water, more akin to some sort of eel or sea-snake.

A webbed caudal fin splays out at the tip just above the water’s surface, stirring up tiny waves that froth and foam and fade away, ochre spines thick and long and extending out past the membrane to curl softly at the ends. It’s easily as big as your torso and as broad as your armspan, if not moreso, not to mention the several feet of tail that it is attached to.

“Wow,” you breathe out quietly, coherency lost to you as you watch each subtle shift of Chuuya’s tail.

He startles at the sound of you, a loud splash as he scrambles back from the water and onto the beach. As the scales begin to dry off from the tailfin up, they shrink and morph back into human flesh, until two bare legs greet you once more.

It is now that you realise what has been piled beside him, what you had assumed at first glance were simply more rocks, or perhaps some loose seaweed. Chuuya’s clothes are folded neatly, shoes resting on top to weight them down, and he is entirely bare before you.

“What?” he snaps. A scarlet blush buds on his cheeks and blossoms along the entire length of his body, betraying his tone. “This the first time you’ve seen a guy naked, or something?”

You avert your eyes, though the temptation to take another peek is almost overwhelming. “You caught me off-guard, is all.”

“I caught you off-guard?” he laughs. “You’re the one sneaking up on people on the beach.”

The scoff of retort you were about to release quickly gives way to a sigh. “Okay, you’ve got me there. I just didn’t want to interrupt you. You looked… peaceful.”

“I was just thinking,” he says.

“About home?” you ask.

Chuuya laughs. “I don’t have a home.”

“Everyone has a home.”

“Well, where’s yours?”

“Hm.” You pause. “Can I turn around yet, or are you still just weirdly naked behind me?”

“You’re good.”

Chuuya is still in the process of slipping his arms through the sleeves of his shirt when you turn to face him, and you’re stilled by the sight of a few stray water droplets rolling down his stomach. The sunlight beating down from above bends and twinkles and reflects the image of those pretty orange scales back towards you in each trailing drip, as though even the slightest contact with the water is enough to spark his transformation.

His lips are pursed in concentration as his head pops up through the collar of the shirt and you can’t deny that you’re almost disappointed in how the rest of the fabric falls across his skin and obscures it from view.

And then you’re hit for the second time as he grabs hold of his hair ribbon and places it between his teeth, keeping casual eye contact with you when he gathers up the loose ginger strands and ties them back into place.

There’s only one thought running through your mind- he’s beautiful.

“Well, come on then. Out with it.” He stands where he is, in stasis with his hair half-tied, hands still stretched back behind his head.

You have to force yourself to snap out of your distraction to finally respond with a half-assed “what?”

“Your home, tell me about it.”

“I don’t remember a lot about my home,” you admit. “I’ve been on my own for a while, going wherever the sea takes me. I’ve spent time with crews on ships here and there, travellers and explorers, researchers and the like, but none of it ever felt right. So I’d always end up alone again.”

“Anyway,“ you interject yourself suddenly, barely allowing Chuuya the chance to process your words, “what about you?”

“I don’t have a home.” He turns away from you, finally lets go of his hair and looks out towards the horizon. “But I found people, and they’re good to me. I like being with them.”

A wistful ache tugs in your chest at his words, how clearly dichotomous his life is to your own. “That sounds nice.”

“It is,” he nods. “I… miss them, sometimes.”

“We’ll get you back to them,” you vow. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Do you have anywhere to go once we’re off this island?”

“I’ll probably keep travelling. I’m going to stick to the land for a while though, I think. Don’t particularly want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere and accidentally summon any more eldritch gods, you know?”

Your speech is light, tinged with gentle laughter, but you can’t hide the way that your inflection cracks at the end. You only hope that Chuuya doesn’t catch on to it, or at least that he will choose to ignore it.

You don’t know him well enough to be acting this vulnerable. He’s still a stranger to you at the end of the day. A stranger who has abilities far beyond your comprehension, who isn’t even human.

And yet, he’s been more realistic with you in the past few weeks than anyone you’ve ever met. Everyone has an agenda, a reason to strike up a conversation with you. He’s no different- you’re supposed to be helping him get out of here. But despite all of that, there is something so undeniably relieving about his presence, especially in the quieter moments like this. Something that, try as you might to tell yourself otherwise, makes you feel comfortable.

Besides, for being the vessel of an eldritch being, he’s not exactly been intimidating towards you. In fact, he’s been downright kind through all of this. Helpful, co-operative, like it’s his natural state of existence. Like he needs to be useful like this with others. It’s sweet, and you can definitely see why he’s the type of person to prefer other peoples’ company if he’s like this.

Chuuya laughs, an unrefined sort of noise that sounds far more natural than the times he’s chuckled teasingly at you before. There’s a little snort to the end of it as he tries to stop himself, and an embarrassed flush to his cheeks as he realises you’ve just witnessed this.

“I don’t think you’re gonna have to worry about that any time soon.”

Three more weeks pass before you’re finally content that the little sailboat you’ve put together is sea-ready. The decision to try and upgrade the initial from a raft to something more sturdy had pushed your escape date further back than either of you had wanted, but it was acquiesced at the potential that this way you were more likely to actually make it off the island and far enough to reach land- or at the very least some other ship that could help.

When you first tried to float the raft you’d built, the poor thing was barely suited for the type of journey you’d need to make. Even in the slightest of breezes, it swished this way and that upon the water, barely controllable. There was nowhere to keep hold of any rations you’d have to bring with you for the trip- who knew just how long you’d end up at sea before you come across any more land? Worst of all, despite your efforts to make the floor of the raft large enough, you’d still ended up practically sat on top of one another when you’d set up for your test run.

But now you had something better, stronger, more resilient to face the turbulent sea and come out of the other side of it unscathed.

Or, at least, that’s what you’d both thought.

The little boat you’d put together was surprisingly well-made considering your limited resources, and it had held strong for the first ten minutes of rowing out. As the island grew smaller and smaller behind you, you’d even let yourself imagine that maybe just maybe this time would be the one that worked.

Angering the spirits of the skies seems to be something you’re uncannily good at, without even trying. A storm, fiercer even than the one that you’d faced that had landed you on that island in the first place, strikes up with a deadly intention. Lightning flashes and thunder roars, and even the sea itself is in fear of their power as it whips and frenzies in an attempt to escape their wrath.

Your poor craft is caught in the middle, tossed from side to side until it fractures and cracks.

The rain no longer merely kisses your cheeks. It spits and slashes, stinging your skin and biting into everything it can reach.

Making a pair of oars for both yourself and Chuuya was a godsend now in hindsight, as it gives you a better semblance of control as you force your boat to stay upright even with the water that rushes in from a gash along the side. His arms gleam with each new flash of lightning from above, iridescent scales making themselves forcefully known as they abrase the fabric of his clothes.

Though his shins have been folded below his thighs as he kneels to get more traction with the oars, by now it’s no surprise when you start to see the flexing orangey tips of a tail poking out from behind him.

The water starts to lap higher and higher along the sides of your sinking ship, and distant waves crash ever closer, building up ever taller. If the storm doesn’t ease up soon, it won’t be the integrity of your boat you have to worry about.

It’ll be the water itself that claims you.

“Listen,” you say tersely, deliberately avoiding eye contact. “If uh… we don’t get out of here… I just want you to know. It’s not been all that bad being stuck with you.”

“We’re going to be fine,” Chuuya promises. He goes to reach out to place a hand on your knee comfortingly, but another oncoming wave has him recoiling back to grasp his oar harder. “You don’t get to get rid of me that easily, you know.”

One incredible rush of water comes up like a goliath, hulking its way towards the boat with a deafening roar that pierces through your eardrums and reverberates against your very soul. You can feel it consuming you internally before it even reaches you, and you’re thrown into the depths with the most ungodly of crashes.

Something whacks against your side, probably a part of the boat as it fractures underneath the pressure of the tidal wave that’s assaulted you. It screams pain through your body, numbs out your brain until you can’t think straight, close to blacking out.

In the distance, as you force yourself to maintain consciousness and desperately kick your legs to bring yourself up to the surface, you think you hear a familiar voice cry out.

When you feel like the last of the air is leaving your lungs, another hefting weight slams you up to the surface.

It almost feels like you’ve come face to face with the afterlife. Everything’s too bright, too painful, and the view that greets you as you slowly peel your eyes open, rain still falling slick down your cheeks, is something you’d never encounter in the mortal realm.

Chuuya is the one who’s saved you, that much is clear.

But he looks different, in more than the senses you’ve grown used to. This is more severe than the simple manifestation of a mer’s tail that you witnessed weeks prior.

This is something ancient, dangerous, the type of creature you hear horror stories about from passing tradesmen.

Fins run the full length of his back, and the outline of several more protrude from where his ears and hair used to be. You can’t make out any clear details, especially not with your head tucked against his collar like this, but it is incredibly clear that he is no simple mer in this moment.

His hands are webbed now too, thick membrane joining fingers that are clawed and dangerous. The scales that litter the edges of his palms are rough like sandpaper as he grasps onto you, biting into your flesh and leaving small abrasions in their wake.

You cling to his shoulders as he drags you up to the surface, forcing your head above the water to take a sharp inhale of air. It rushes into your lungs like lava, setting your body ablaze as you gasp and splutter.

And it hits you. This is what you saw that day at the beach, not the subtle transformation you had witnessed days later.

This is a version of Chuuya at the peak of his eldritch influence, so far changed that he barely seems the same man whom you accidentally summoned to your side all those weeks ago. And yet, it is still so unequivocally him before you now.

Though it isn’t easy to see him under the quickly falling blanket of night, he feels like the man you know. It is something intangible, unexplainable, and overwhelmingly real.

Bobbing above the water like this, you can finally see more of the man in front of you as you try to stay afloat. You already know that this is more than the form you had seen in the rockpools, monstrous in comparison, but he is astoundingly beautiful in a way you can’t quite comprehend.

Chuuya’s irises have narrowed into slits and his eyes are framed with more scales, spreading out across his forehead and cheeks, all the way up to his hairline and around to where his ears used to be. They are the same dark orange of his tail, but the edges of these scales are lined with a deep crimson that catches the occasional flashing of light like blood.

In place of his ears sit two fins, similar in shape to his tail, but smaller and thinner, translucent and pinkish in the rising moonlight. His hair has been replaced by these as well, gossamer-looking fins that scintillate and lay like bunches of silk all the way down past his chin.

Upon his neck, below the jawline, a set of gills idly flex open and shut as he breathes. His teeth are sharp as well, barely contained within mostly-human lips. They peek diamond-esque out of his maw, like the enticing light of an anglerfish in the deep.

Weaving across his torso are familiar red markings, though rougher around the edges than the smooth carvings in the lighthouse, jagged and visceral like scars cutting into his flesh, these are without a doubt the same sort of glyphs and runes you had been surrounded by for the last month. The skin here is thicker- calloused like the rest of him, but not as rough as the scalier areas- a thin salty sheen catching the starlight and making him all but glow in front of you now.

“Sorry,” he rasps, voice lower and harsher, like the words find themselves trapped in this body. “Didn’t want you to see this.”

“It’s okay,” you say, hands bracing themselves against his chest as you keep one another afloat. You run the pad of your thumb across his pectoral, water slicking below your touch and running in a rivulet past your nail. Quieter, with tenderness as you meet his troubled gaze, you repeat, “it’s okay.”

You dip closer and press a comforting kiss to his cheek, surprised by how cool the rough skin feels on your lips. Around you both, tiny star-studded waves lap at your sides and keep you swaying gently upon the water’s surface. Like a dance in its own way, slow and intimate, and the fond look in Chuuya’s dark slitted eyes beckons you with all the allure of a siren guiding you towards your final perfomance.

“You’re strange,” Chuuya says quietly, breaking the silence. “You aren’t scared.”

“Why would I be scared of you?”

The sharp rows of teeth peeking out from behind his lips practically gleam in the moonlight, large and powerful. They could bite through you in a single, swift movement, with no resistance even against your bones.

“Why wouldn’t you be?”

You drift ever closer, until your chests bump together. Your nose brushes past his own, lips less than a hairsbreadth away. This close, you can feel the erratic beating of his heart, and you’re certain he can feel yours in turn.

“Because I know you won’t hurt me.”

“I’ve hurt people.”

With a steadfast deliberation to your movements, you reach up to cradle the sides of Chuuya’s face and press your lips onto his. Just once, pulling away as quickly as you had swooped in, but affirmingly, leaving him endearingly bewildered as he stares at you like you’ve sprouted a second head.

“You won’t hurt me.” You release a breath, shakier than you’d like it to be, and shift your hands down along his arms until you reach his webbed hands. “Come on, let’s get back to shore.”

Clumps of seaweed try to cling to your ankles as you’re guided back to land. The injury you’d sustained from the crash can’t be anything serious if you’re still able to kick your legs like this to keep yourself afloat, now no more than a tentative hand on your back from Chuuya to make sure you’re still with him, but it’s still enough to slow you down and tire you out faster.

It’s a slow swim. Arduous, even.

The large presence at your side is soothing. Chuuya is colder than he has been when you’ve made contact in the past, in part due to the rain still pounding from above and the other part due to his more monstrous form at present. Occasionally, an exposed patch of your skin brushes against his and it’s rough, enough to make you grimace with how otherwise tender you feel right now, but you’d take it over a potential lack of company.

“Thank you,” you utter when you finally see the shoreline coming close. “I think I might be dead without you.”

You don’t get a response, but Chuuya’s arm moves from behind you to encircling you, squeezing lightly. Like he doesn’t quite want to face the fact that, yes, you really could have perished out there. You suppose you shouldn’t dwell on it too much, either.

As you haul yourself onto the sand, you notice that Chuuya deliberately tries to slip from your grasp. He frowns at you, though it’s far more toothy than you expect it to be, and it seems more like he is just… staring.

“You can’t change back.”

He shakes his head. The upper half of his body has started to dry, and yet not a single scale has returned to flesh. As if stubbornly proving his point, the thick lines of red that cross his chest glow brighter.

“Too hard,” he rasps. “Went too far.”

“You’re going to be okay, right?” you ask. “You will change back eventually… right?”

“It’s never been this bad.”

He’s distressed, though he’s trying to hide it. You can tell in the way that he keeps looking over your shoulder, not quite bringing himself to make eye contact. In how he shifts uncomfortably within your arms and leans towards the sea, desperate to reach somewhere that he can escape from this situation.

“We can worry about it later,” you declare quietly, pressing a deliberate kiss to his forehead. “For now…”

A contemplative hum leaves you as a new issue arises. You glance over your shoulder towards the lighthouse, then back to Chuuya, who watches you with his eyes narrowed in curiosity.

“Do you need any food? Or… anything?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Okay,” you nod. “Well, I don’t think we’re going to be able to do much to help you whilst it’s so dark out. I should head inside, and we can figure something out in the morning.”

A more aggressive shake, a firmer “no.”

“No?” you echo. “You want me to stay out here? I can get some sheets from the lighthouse and sleep on the beach.”

“No!”

“Stop saying ‘no’! What do you want from me, Chuuya?”

“Stay with me.”

“I will,” you say, “but I can’t do that if you don’t let me sleep on the beach.”

“It’s not safe for you out here,” he says.

“So, what do you suggest?”

His gaze shifts towards the lighthouse and you stare at him blankly for a moment as you process just what he’s insinuating.

“You want me to carry you inside? Seriously? You’re going to be heavy!”

“You can do it,” he states. “I know you can.”

“I don’t like you right now,” you huff, stepping towards the shoreline. Taking a knee, you offer your arms out to heave him up onto the land. “Come on then, let’s get this over with.”

He’s unfathomably heavy, but you’ve gained a unique set of skills over the past few months- namely, dragging massive bulking trees across the island. Though he’s bigger than any log you’ve had to haul to date, the technique is mostly the same. Lift from the knees, don’t put your back into it too much, take advantage of the soft shifting sand below to readjust when you need to. The bulk of his weight is balanced around his upper body, so even though the length of his tail is utterly tremendous, you find its no more hassle than some sort of trailing veil.

“So,” you say after a moment, “what’s with the blunt speech, anyway? I noticed you’re even more straightforward than normal.”

“This form,” Chuuya explains, “isn’t for talking. It hurts.”

“Oh,” you say, “I didn’t realise. You don’t have to keep talking if it’s too much for you.”

“Worth it,” he says, “for you.”

Getting to the lighthouse itself is a little more of a struggle, namely trying to drag him up the stairs to reach the washroom. With the wooden banisters, he’s able to support himself better without your assistance- which allows you room to breathe and rest. But for all you’ve taken this very same trip on the regular, it seems to stretch on immeasurably now.

You take a small break upon one of the plateaus between floors, resting back against the wall to catch your breath. Your muscles ache and burn, and the thwacking you’d taken from the capsizing boat earlier starts to throb from all the latent flooding adrenaline in your system, but you can’t give up just yet. There’s nothing you’ve learned from all of this lately if not how to be incredibly resilient.

“I feel like,” you say between heaves, trying to break the tension in the silence that has descended, “I’m trying to sneak you past my parents, or something, like a kid. Silly, huh?”

Chuuya hums quietly, as if he doesn’t really share the sentiment, and you have to wonder for a moment just how much of a childhood he was really allowed to have. Being a human vessel for an oceanic eldritch deity since you’re barely fresh from infancy probably isn’t conducive to a warm and fulfilling life.

Though he hasn’t divulged much about his past to you, you’re sure it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. He seems happy enough with his place in life now- with the Port Mafia crew, if you remembered correctly- but whether he had been with them this whole time or not is unknown to you.

You’re sure he’ll tell you whenever he’s ready. He’s opened up to you enough lately as it is.

Finally picking yourselves up again, the washroom is reached at last and you start to run the water in the tub so that Chuuya doesn’t have to worry about drying out.

“Do you know if that… actually will affect you whilst you’re like this?” Your question earns a uncertain headshake. “Well. Better safe than sorry, right?”

The running water echoes in your ears as it sploshes around the tub. There won’t be enough to cover Chuuya entirely, but it’ll be adequate at least. By the time he’s in and the fluid has a chance to displace around him, it’ll work. He’s mostly quiet as you finish up, and you don’t even have to help him to lift up and lower into the tub when you’re done. There’s a bit of a far-off guilty look in his eyes as he sits there at first, as though he’s feeling bad about you having to be here like this.

“I like this side of you,” you admit quietly, idly trailing your fingertips across the scales on his upper arm. “You’re not as mean… and more honest.”

That earns you a splashing of water, a loud thud echoing through the room as the ends of his tail thwack against the walls of the tub.

“Alright, you’re just as mean!” you gasp out as the coldness hits you all at once, blinking droplets out of your eyes.

Flashing his sharp fangs at you, Chuuya is smiling now; giving you the best approximation of a self-satisfied smirk that he can manage.

He looks utterly ridiculous crammed into the tub in the washroom. It’s surprisingly spacious, really, especially considering it’s part of a lighthouse that clearly didn’t see regular use- just not when an oversized eldritch mermaid is occupying it.

“You know, we could have stayed on the beach,” you chuckle, perched on a stool near the side of the bath. “But someone insisted I take him indoors because I wasn’t allowed to stay outside at night or leave him alone.”

“It’s fine,” he insists.

The constant fidgeting tells you otherwise. In your peripheral you catch the idle shifting of his caudal fin like that time you had seen him at the beach. The muscles of his upper arms flex and contract as he tries to keep his torso comfortably upright. His hands, webbed as they are and far less than suitable for their current task, grip tight to the edges to keep him from sinking too far into the tub.

“It’s clearly not,” you note, trying to keep your tone light and non-confrontational. Sparking up an argument right now wouldn’t do the situation any good, and would probably only leave Chuuya in a worse state than he already is. “Please, if there’s anything I can do to help. Let me.”

“Anything?” he repeats quietly, almost shy at the prospect of whatever he has in mind.

Perhaps the room has heated up too much from the bath you’ve drawn, because your head starts to spin at the realisation of such a complete lack of proximity between the pair of you. It hadn’t been a problem before, when you had been so focused on making sure Chuuya would be safe. Now, at his insistence, at the situation unfolding between you, it’s hard to ignore the fact that you have your knee pressed up against the thick muscle of his tail. That he is bringing a clawed fingertip towards your shirt, hooking against the fabric and pulling you closer.

That he has brought your face towards his, and that you can now see every single smattered red freckle that has persisted upon his cheeks through his change of appearance. Every individual scale, each of which shift hues so subtly in the dim candlelight of the washroom, sparkling at you enticingly, urging you to lean in.

He stops you before you’re too close, splays out the hand that was holding onto you so that it spreads across your chest. “You can say no.”

“I know,” you nod eagerly. “I don’t want to, though.”

Chuuya’s mouth is cold as you press your lips to his, the sudden sensation almost enough to make you withdraw quickly. But something snaps in the moment that you connect, a tension that has broiled away for the better part of a few months.

The first kiss you share is tentative, cautious. The next is hungry, impassioned, and your shirt is being fisted once more as Chuuya tries to bring you closer, to the point that you’re practically hanging over the edge of the washtub, nearly falling in. You bring your arms out to steady yourself, bracing against his shoulders, clinging onto him.

“You sure you don’t want to be comfier?” you ask, thinking of the way you’d seen him shuffling only moments prior. “This can’t be nice for you.”

“Don’t care,” he says, stealing a third kiss from you, “not anymore.”

He must be fine, you think, by the way that he takes hold of your hip with his free hand and pulls you onto him. Your own earlier injury declares its continued existence through a prolonged throb, but it’s the last thing on your mind when something else starts to stir within your core.

The water in the tub splashes up your thighs, soaks your knees, drenches your clothes thoroughly as you fall onto his chest. You don’t miss the way his slitted eyes trail along the folds of wet fabric, keenly observing how it now clings against your skin and outlines your figure. If you weren’t in such a compromising position, you could be fooled into thinking the look he gives you is that of a hunter seeking out its prey, ravenous, and you are his prized meal.

If there had been any lingering doubt in your mind before about the creature you’d seen at the beach weeks ago, this was by far your most decisive proof.

“This might be a bad idea,” you say between each feverish kiss, but Chuuya is desperate in the way that he clings to you, claws skimming the fabric of your shirt and threatening to tear it to shreds.

“I want you,” he says simply. Kisses you again.

And you’re not exactly in a position to argue with him when he has you all but pinned to his body like this, one arm snaked around your waist and the other still pressed in between you, firmly sunk against the flesh of your chest. Not that you’d want to anyway, you think, as heat swells in your stomach and a fervent desire pleasantly clouds your mind.

“Okay,” you agree against his mouth. “I’m yours.”

Your declaration seems to spark something feral within the eldritch mer, fiercer than the behavious he’d already exhibited, and far more exhilarating. One of his claws tears into the fabric of your shirt and rends the poor thing straight off of your form, the remains falling off your shoulders and into the tub below the pair of you.

Having your body exposed to him like this is thrilling, a chill running along your spine as he takes hold of your flesh within his large hands and squeezes tentatively. A rough thumb runs across the bud of your nipple and it rouses at the touch, pebbling in the cool air of the washroom. His mouth finds your neck, tongue lathing along your throat, making you arc forwards into his touch.

“Can I?” he asks hoarsely, hand stopped just above where you need it most, and you grind down against the pad of his fingers in response.

“Please,” you whine, “I need you.”

The pressure of his thumb against your clit is fucking heaven as he brings his mouth back to yours and kisses you hard. The heady intoxication of sex in the air combined with the powerful friction brings you close to your first orgasm far quicker than you could have expected. And yet, despite his clear thirst for you, Chuuya manages to take his time to fully coax that first tantric climax from you. It bubbles up slowly, quietly, blossoming from your core until your entire being is consumed by flames, hot and heavy, and so damn good.

He isn’t neccessarily skilled or not at the act, in fact you wouldn’t be surprised if he’s only done this a handful of times before- and most likely not at all in this current state of being. But there is a abstruse emotion that dances with you as you move together, reaches its peak with you and flows out between you. It wouldn’t matter even if he was bad at this, you think. It’s simply the fact that it’s him making you feel this way that has everything so very heightened.

The same man you’ve spent the past few months with such a budding tension growing between you, who you’ve shared late night talks with and vulnerable conversations- even though he’d been so standoffish with you upon first meeting. You’d gotten to know him, as much as he’d let you. And he had in turn learned about you.

Sure, part of it feels like it was a necessity to ensure your continued survival on this island- there’s no way you’d have made as much progress on your inevitable escape if you’d continued to be at odds- but you won’t deny that it feels like so much more than that.

And that is why, as you come for the first time that night, crying out your partner’s name as your nails find scaled flesh and dig in tight, riding out your high against those thick rough fingers, you are already so very desperate to seek out more.

Continuing to grind against his hand as your afterglow washes across you, thoughtless movements that ebb and flow and pulse your orgasm away with them, you shift to balance yourself against his chest with your palms.

The new angle brings about a new sensation with it, something warm and hard pushing against your ass. His cock has released itself from the confines of the slit it was previously tucked away in, still humanlike in size but textured with ridges and bumps that press into your skin and give you a precursor of what’s to come.

It’s not huge, but it certainly isn’t small either. And the prospect of being stuffed full of it is so very enticing.

Indulgently, your hand slips between your bodies to take hold of the organ.

To the touch, it’s far slicker than you’d expected, and Chuuya hisses at the sudden contact, his mouth finding your neck to stifle the noise. There’s a moment of pressure as his teeth graze your skin, and then a release, the sharp fangs puncturing the first few layers and drawing small wells of blood into your clavicle. It’s by no means deep enough to do any real damage to you, but it certainly causes you to gasp out in shock at the sensation, making you grip onto his cock harder. This in turn has him run his tongue against the wound, eliciting another salacious whine out of you.

“Fuck,” you exhale, a bubbled laugh catching in your throat, “you’re rougher than I thought you’d be.”

“You thought?” he echoes, unable to quite bring himself away from you for long enough as his mouth finds your jaw, then your cheeks, then your lips again.

“Mm.” You roll your hips down absently, indulging in his kiss, pulling away to pepper smaller ones across his cheeks. “I thought about it a lot recently, how this would feel. Admittedly, I didn’t expect you to be-” you run your fingertips across a small patch of scales- “quite like this. But I’m not complaining.”

With his cock still in your hand, you move to align it underneath you. The anticipation of what you’re about to do builds within your chest, exciting, enthralling, and you pause right on the very precipice.

“Is this okay?” you check.

He nods.

“Alright, tell me if you want me to stop.”

“I won’t,” he assures, leaning in to place a kiss to your forehead.

The tip alone is thicker than it looked, and it spreads you apart far more than his fingers had. Your jaw tenses as you try to adjust to the sensation, and Chuuya notices this. Leans down and kisses along the tightened muscle to try and soothe you, trailing absently along your neck and all the way back up again.

“I can stop,” he mutters against your cheek.

“Please don’t,” you beg.

To prove your determination, you try to sink yourself down a little lower, and both of you keen out at the sensation. It had been a while since you’d had sex like this, a few months even before you’d been stranded out here let alone after, and the fullness is such a profound experience.

Once the initial discomfort has passed, a euphoric bliss takes its place.

Feeling bold enough to start moving, you set a slow pace. Lifting yourself up just a little, barely enough for him to really shift inside of you, but enough to feel that delicious drag of his cock in your cunt. The descent feels even better, the slight rub of your clit against the hard scales that surround his sex, and you let yourself sit there, speared by his full length, eyes shut tight to sink into the sensation.

“You feel amazing,” you coo out, stealing a kiss as you move again. His hands come to your hips to keep you in place, purposefully gentler around your side injury. “Wanna make you feel good too.”

Fucking Chuuya like this brings a warmth to your veins, holding onto one another like a lifeline as you clench around him and ride your way to another climax. It’s tantric, emotional, and every single thrust of your hips makes you feel closer to him in a way you’d never imagined.

Your second orgasm starts to creep up on you unexpectedly. A combination of the perfect friction, the angle you’ve sat at where his cock curls against your g-spot each time you fuck down onto him, and the ardour that seeps into the air between you, all building up within you until you’re close to exploding.

As it hits, you curl forwards into Chuuya, bracing yourself hard against his chest with your palms. He takes over the brunt of the work, gently fucking up into you as you pulse and throb around him. When his own climax peaks, he pulls from you, releasing onto your stomach with a breathy pant. The worst of it becomes one with the water you’re sat in, and you grimace at it briefly, knowing you’re going to need to change that out when you’re done.

But for a moment, you can rest, basking in the afterglow of your sex.

Empty now, but emotionally sated, you rest your head against Chuuya’s chest as his arms wrap around your torso. But it’s not to let you relax, you find, when he lifts you from below the arms and sits you down on the edge of the washtub.

“What are you doing?” you giggle breathlessly, heart still pounding.

“Want to taste you,” he says simply.

Exactly how he plans to do that, you don’t understand at first. Until, that is, he picks you up again, firmly grasping your thighs to keep you stable, and shifts so that he is on his front and your back has been pressed up against the washroom wall. It’s freezing cold and your body jolts at the contact, but it is very quickly replaced with an overwhelming warmth when Chuuya dips between your thighs and kisses your clit.

You’re still sensitive from the two orgasms you’ve already had, but that isn’t about to stop him. His tongue is hot as it flicks out to swipe along your folds, slowly, teasingly. He really is going to take his time to savour you, you think, and your head comes to fall back against the wall as your back arches forwards to lean into the friction.

It feels like he’s swallowing you whole as his tongue eases into your cunt, so incredibly long and just textured enough to drag against your insides in the perfect way. The tips of his fangs graze across the outer skin of your pussy, gentle like he’s actively trying not to hurt you. Your hands find the back of his head and push him against you harder, working with his mouth to bring you to the edge once more.

This orgasm takes longer to peak, even with how desperately you grind with him to reach it. The overstimulation in your core has all of your nerves feeling like raw electricity, frazzled and intense.

When it hits, it courses through you slowly. Bubbles up from the pit of your stomach until it crescendoes into a bursting supernova, a cry of utter bliss falling from your lips like a holy mantra. A song of worship, all for the archonic mer that is settled between your legs, swallowing every last drop of your essence like its the first morsel of real food he’s ever had.

There are tears welling up in the corners of your eyes as you come down from this third high of the night. Your hands don’t know where to put themselves as your spent energy dissipates into the musky, sex-steamed air of the washroom. You settle for idly running along the sides of Chuuya’s body as he pulls away and balances himself in front of you, chest to chest now.

Traces of a glossy sheen linger around his mouth, and not from the water in the tub. It awakens something possessive in your soul, seeing parts of you across him like this. With the way his own eyes sweep the expanse of your body, it looks like he’s thinking the same thing about the marks from his teeth and claws that now litter your skin.

“Was that good?” he asks, voice notably less raspy than it had been earlier but still tinged with something gravelly.

“It was wonderful,” you chuckle. Your head falls into the crook of his neck and he holds you there just like that with him. The steady beating of his heart echoes in time with your own. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” he echoes with a grumbly laugh. “I needed that.”

You press a kiss to the scaled skin beneath your lips and pull back. For just the smallest moment, everything feels so unimaginably right.

Then the bruise on your side starts to pulse again. It has blackened now, a bristling purple that spreads across the tender skin like a cluster of flowers, made far worse from all the jostling about of the last hour or so.

Now that you’re coming back down to reality, every muscle in your body seems to be aching tenfold.

“I think I need to get some sleep,” you say lightly, giving a squeeze to his shoulders. “Are you going to be okay like this?”

“I’ll be fine,” he replies, leans in to press a kiss to your cheek. “Get some rest.”

You clamber out of the washtub as adeptly as you can manage given your condition. Before you have the chance to leave him fully, Chuuya takes hold of your unhurt side and pulls you back. Spreads kisses along your neck and collarbone as he takes hold of one of the washcloths settled nearby and tries to clean you up. It’s a little difficult and unrefined with his hands webbed like they still are, but the effort is unbelievably sweet, and you let him do the best he can before you finish the job yourself.

“Good night.” The tiles on the floor are cold as your damp feet press against them, and you jump a little at the contact, almost slipping and falling from the momentum. But you gather yourself up before Chuuya even has the chance to worry, laughing it off. “Yeah, I really need to go and rest, huh?”

As you turn back one last time, a sleepdrunk smile on your face, you could swear the eyes that gently smile back at you have more of a human gleam to them.

It’s still dark when you first wake up, the faint silvery light of the moon idling through the porthole window above the dingy little mattress you’d settled on. Only a couple of hours had passed, but that didn’t seem too strange. Sleep has been a bit of an anomaly for you ever since you’d first washed ashore on this island.

You find that you’re alone, which isn’t a surprise. After the events of last night, you’d dragged yourself back here to get some ample rest- but it feels almost too quiet on this level of the lighthouse.

There’s no sound of moving water coming from the washroom, unlike how you had fallen asleep, and you bolt upright to check on Chuuya.

Missing. The water in the tub has been thrown out and any mess that had splashed around is long gone from the bathtowels lining the floor, cleaned up deliberately. So he must at least be okay, but that doesn’t answer the more pressing question of just where he’s managed to run off to considering you’d had to haul him up here in the first place.

Your search drives you out to the beaches, the most sensical place to look. The early morning sunlight starts to edge its way above the horizon, the post-storm air still just chilly enough to warrant you wrapping your arms around yourself to hold in your body heat.

Below your bare toes, the top layer of sand shifts and molds itself to your footprints, clinging onto your skin each time you lift your feet. You’d lost your shoes to the storm, unfortunately, and hadn’t found the time to fashion yourself new ones between returning to land and the other… events that had unfolded the night prior.

You were right, though. He’s out here just as you had expected. With his back to you, looking out towards the horizon, the same way you’d found him near to the start of your time together.

“Figures I’d find you out here,” you say loudly enough to alert Chuuya to your presence. “Did you even get any sleep?”

He sits the same way you’ve seen him before, legs morphed into a pretty tail as they lay submerged in the rockpools. Smaller than what you’d seen last night, more controlled. It’s a relief to see his eyes back to normal, lighting up upon sight of you as he turns around. In fact, his entire upper half is notably human again, and you can tell he’s just as relieved by the change as you are.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“That’s fine, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

You step carefully around the sharp rocks and make your way to his side, sitting down and letting your toes dangle in the water. It’s cool, refreshing, and the view of the horizon stretched out as far as the eye can see before you makes the entire experience all the more relaxing. You can see why Chuuya likes to do this.

His shoulder presses against yours at this proximity, but it’s pleasant, warm even, a nice contrast to the sensation of the flowing tides below. Impulsively, you give in to the urge to rest your head upon his shoulder. In turn, he rests his against you.

“I’m glad you’re back to normal,” you say, hand finding his and fingers interlocking. “I was worried for you.”

“I think you helped,” he admits. “I’ve never been stuck like that for so long, but you being around made it all feel like it wasn’t going to be the worst thing in the world if I couldn’t turn back.”

“I’d have stayed with you, you know,” you confess, “if you had to stay that way.”

“I thought you didn’t get along with people,” Chuuya teases, bumping his shoulder against you and making both of you sway gently.

You push him right back, stifling a giggle. “You’re not exactly ‘people’ are you, mister vessel of an eldritch deity?”

He squeezes your hand pointedly, “okay, you’ve got me there.”

The air between you quiets, but there’s no awkwardness. It’s pleasant, this silence, relaxing. Morning breaks above your heads and showers you in comforting sunlight, warm, inviting. If it weren’t for the fact that you were both actively trying to leave this place, you’d almost feel inclined to stay.

“Hey…” you speak up after a moment, fiddling with the hem of your shirt, “can I ask you something? It’s a little personal, so I don’t mind if you say no.”

“After last night?” Chuuya laughs. “Ask away.”

“Okay,” you nod, bracing yourself for the topic you’re about to broach. “Why didn’t you just… stay with the cults when you were younger? Let them worship you as a god, be revered and adored by so many people?”

“You could have had it all,” you continue. “Riches, power, people worshipping you and laying their lives down for you. Whatever you wanted.”

“It's all bullshit,” scoffs Chuuya. “You know what happens when you have a bunch of people at your feet? There's nobody left to see eye to eye.”

“That’s why you found a crew.”

“I may have subordinates on the ship, but more importantly I have their respect. Not their fear.”

There’s a far-off look in his eyes as he speaks, reminiscent and light. Clearly, he misses these people- cares for them greatly. You know he’s the type of person that thrives around the company of others, unlike yourself. He’s built himself into a community, into a life that works for him. And it happens to be so very different from the type of life you’re used to.

But you can’t say it isn’t the sort of life you wouldn’t try to give one final chance to. At least, certainly not when it also involves the company of someone you’ve very much grown to enjoy over the past few months.

“Well,” you say, breaking the silence at last. “We’re no use to anyone moping around on this beach. Let’s scavenge what we can of our old boat and start to fix it up.”

“You want to try again?”

“What else would we do?”

“And if it fails?”

“We try again,” you insist. “And we keep trying until we finally get out of here. Or until someone finds us, whichever comes sooner. I’m sure your people are already looking for you, if they’re as family-oriented as they seem to be.”

You almost miss what Chuuya asks next, words much quieter and fragile. They slip from him as if involuntary, and he silences himself immediately after.

“Would you come back with me?”

A determination fills your soul, resilience surging through your veins. And you smile. You smile so brightly that it is your turn now to be envied by the elements, by the rain and her lightning and thunder.

“What else would I do?”

author notes: i've popped these down here bc the warnings are SO LONG they were already making all the pre-cut stuff horrendous lmfao. anyway, i hope if y'all made it to the end that u liked it <3 i personally feel like it gets rather ooc in parts because of how much i was fighting this tooth & nail in the writing process, but i'm still very proud that i finished this and that's good enough for me >:)

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