Work Text:
“I’ve only seen you every couple of months,” the witch says as she slowly mixes the paste together in her shop. “Do you not live inside the reef?”
Hizashi hums as he watches her work, chin resting on his palms and moderately interested in the mixing of pastes and salves that are used as medicine. “No,” he tells her honestly. “I used to live in a reef, but I left a while ago. Right now I live out…” He turns his head, trying to figure out which way the cave is, then points. “That way!”
She looks up from her work to see which way he’s pointing, and her brows raise in surprise. “The drop off is that way,” she says, as if Hizashi doesn’t know. “There’s no shallows to live in.”
He laughs. “I know.”
“Then where…?”
“I live in the semi-depths!” he says happily, his tail swaying just a little behind him. He can feel his fins fan open and close, but he doesn’t really care. “Don’t worry, I’ve somewhere warm to stay. And company, too!”
Her dark eyes slide behind him, going from surprised to interested. “Then that deep-sea mer that is always with you,” she says slowly, “you nest with him?”
A warm flush spreads over his cheeks, and his fins fan just a little more. Nest. “It’s not - it’s not like that. We’re not mates,” he says, heart fluttering in his chest at the thought. “No, we just - live together. Keep each other company.”
“How does that work?” she asks curiously. “A reef mer living with a deep-sea mer. Would your life-styles not cause conflict?”
“Surprisingly, no,” Hizashi tells her honestly. “Like, I’m perfectly aware of the fact that he needs to eat meat,” he makes a face, to which the witch laughs, “in order to survive, and he’s perfectly aware that I need to not eat that. He goes on the occasional hunting trip - alone because I want no part in that - and sometimes I join him when he makes trips out to a kelp forest to get me food, since it’s kinda far away. It’s been pretty nice, actually.”
“He does not sound like one of those aggressive deep-sea mer you hear stories about,” the witch notes, and only because she doesn’t seem like she’s trying to stereotype Shouta does Hizashi not flare his fins at her. “There’s tales of how they fight each other for territory, even kill. It does not seem that he does that with you.”
Hizashi shakes his head. “Honestly, I’m the more aggressive one out of the two of us,” he says with a bit of a laugh, then flushes just a little bit. “Usually, anyway. But if anything ticks me the wrong way, I’m there, ready to bite!”
“You are well remembered for how you hissed at the guards in the middle of the reef,” the witch comments, and Hizashi scrubs a hand down his face in embarrassment. Ugh, he had made himself a public spectacle. She smiles at him. “I do not think it is a bad thing. It is quite sweet that you are so protective of the one you…do not nest with.”
Hizashi flusters. “Well, of course I am,” he says, not quite meeting her knowing eyes. “He kinda, y’know, saved my tail from certain death. Took me in when I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I’m just glad he doesn’t seem to mind.”
A slow smile spreads over the witch’s face, and she turns to go back to making the paste. “Judging by how he cannot seem to take his eyes off of you,” she says, voice low and tone teasing, “I would say that he doesn’t mind one bit.”
Hizashi’s eyes go wide. There’s no way. He twists his head around, needing to see for himself, to check, and Shouta’s…looking at something at the shop across the way, head down and hair in his face. Something a lot like disappointment wells up in him, and he sighs, about to turn around and complain that the witch got his hopes up - or not because he doesn’t want to say it out loud - when the water surface waves just enough to cast more light on Shouta’s face.
He’s blushing.
His fins fan, open and closed in a slow pattern. Had he been looking at him? Was Shouta just turning his head away each time he looked back, trying to hide the fact that he’d been watching?
There’s a chuckle behind him, and he looks back at the witch, who’s watching his lower half out of the corner of her eyes as she works. “You could not be more obvious in your affections if you tried, young one,” she says, mirth clear in her voice. “Not with how you spread your fins for him.”
Immediately his hands go down to press on the fins at his hips, pushing them flat as a flush spreads from his hairline to practically his navel. “We’re not mates,” he says, adamant and flustered. “We’re not.”
“But you want to be,” is her reply, and Hizashi has no response to that.
* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *
That conversation follows him all the way back to their cave and through the next weeks, floating to the forefront of his mind as they go about their day-to-day lives. It’s there while they talk about anything that crosses their mind, the fish they encounter, the changing of the currents, the ways that they grew up. It’s there while Hizashi plays, needing to get energy out, and Shouta simply watches with one of his small smiles. It’s there when Hizashi sees Shouta off on his hunting trips and waits for his return, bored and lonely and missing him like a limb.
It’s there while they sleep in the nest together, made more comfortable with the large, thick weave that Shouta got for him, and now smells distinctly like both of them.
Hizashi never thought he’d actually want a mate, not with the way that he was brought up - constantly surrounded by alphas that thought they knew what was best for him - but now… Now he’s wondering if maybe he does.
He’s certainly better than the alphas he grew up with. Shouta’s kind, thoughtful, gentle, and doesn’t pressure him into anything he doesn’t want to do, no matter what it might be. Options are always given to him; he’s left with the ability to choose for himself and always, always respected.
And yes, he is an alpha, but Shouta’s never tried to use that as an excuse for anything or attempted to use it as a way to assert himself. Even when the two of them met, when he declared himself an alpha, it was only to tell Hizashi that he was in rut and that he was intruding on his privacy - perfectly understandable, given the circumstances. The only time he’s ever seen him remotely even act like one was…
Hizashi blushes.
He still doesn’t know whether to be embarrassed by how much he liked it or not. Shouta had looked so dangerous and handsome and was so strong, pinning him effortlessly, and yet didn’t hurt him at all. Just thinking about it has his middle heating up, and the memory has been revisited at least a few times when he has a moment to himself.
Really, he doesn’t think Shouta would say no. They have good chemistry, Shouta does seem to like having him around despite apparently liking his solitude - he’s even said he wants to eat him without wanting to actually eat him, and though that sounded extremely weird, Hizashi’s just going to just take that as a compliment.
He’s just…a little nervous about asking.
Where he’s from, mates aren’t a thing.
It’s a decidedly romantic notion, binding oneself to another through a mating bite and spending a cycle with each other; it’s something that Hizashi had been told as a child was a lost concept due to how humans had hunted the mer population down to their current number. The few times he’d even seen mated pairs were when other shoals swam through the reef he had lived in, and it was only ever from afar since he was hardly ever allowed to interact with strangers. The bite scars on the necks and shoulders looked…painful, but the pairs were always happy looking.
“Foolish of them to only settle for one,” Hizashi once had overheard an alpha say after a shoal had swam through, sounding both sad and apathetic at the same time. “To waste an omega’s potential on a single alpha… They think only of themselves. That they think they can afford to do that when our numbers are so little is such a shame.”
That was the day Hizashi had truly realized how everyone else viewed him, why he was treated so carefully yet so distantly, like he was so precious but stifled him at every turn. Since then he did everything he could to keep himself from contributing to the shoal, even if it meant sabotaging his own heats, forcing himself to get sick when the alphas went into rut so they’d be forced to go through them alone, anything.
He didn’t want to be just an egg for them to breed. He wanted to be Hizashi.
Out here, in the semi-depths with a cannibalistic deep-sea mer, he’s finally found a place he can be.
He wants what he’s seen from a distance, that companionship that the happy pairs in other shoals seem to have, or the ones he’s occasionally seen when he and Shouta make trips to the colony. It looks - nice. It looks like something he wants, that closeness that comes from the bond.
The days pass with him trying to figure out how to tell him, how to ask, and in that time the only indication of his feelings is the unintentional fanning of his fins whenever Shouta’s around. The deep-sea mer doesn’t seem to notice - or maybe he does, but Hizashi has to remind himself that he likely just doesn’t know what fanning means.
Then the ocean decides to help things along, likely tired of him swimming in circles, by sending him something he hasn’t had in months.
His first heat since swimming away from the reef finally hits.
* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *
Shouta’s woken up from his slumber by a sweet smell in the water, much sweeter than anything he’s smelled before. There’s something…familiar about it, but for some reason he can’t place it. Drowsily, he scents the water around him, not even bothering to open his eyes, and rumbles start up in his chest because it just…smells that good. Whatever it is, he’d like to put it in his mouth to see if it tastes as good as it smells, perhaps lick it slowly to savor the flavor. He’s certainly not awake enough yet to chew.
As he shifts a little, searching for the source of the sweet scent, there’s a soft whimper, something squirming against him, and then that smell gets thicker somehow. Frowning, he squints his eyes open, confused.
Then bolts upright when he sees Hizashi, curled up in the middle of his coil, flushed and fevered.
“Hizashi…!” Shouta gasps, suddenly wide awake, and he gently unwinds, carefully moving so that Hizashi ends up laying down on the soft weave that he’d gotten for him. He moves to hover at the side of the nest, uncertain of what to do; Hizashi had been fine just last night, darting around with plenty of energy, telling jokes and laughing and even singing a bit.
The reef mer moans, pressing his face down into the soft weave. “Shoutaaaa,” he whines, sounding miserable and pouty, and at the very least that calms him down a little bit. If he’s able to pout, then it can’t be terrible. “Why’d you move? Now I’m all…blegh.”
“Because I might need to get you medicine,” Shouta tells him, reaching out a hand to brush the back of his fingers against his cheek. He frowns at how warm he is. “You’re very warm. How long have you been feeling like this?”
A single green eyes peeks out at him from where he has his face buried. “Since I woke up,” is the muffled answer. “And I don’t need medicine.”
“This fever says otherwise. When did you wake up?”
“I dunno,” Hizashi says, squirming and whimpering when he can’t seem to get comfortable. He slaps the weave and curls up tighter as he pouts. “Too out of it to tell.”
Shouta smooths some of his hair back, smiling a little at the way Hizashi all but purrs under the touch, then retreats from the side of the nest, moving over to the supplies. “Let me get something to bring your fever down,” he says, already thinking over the various things that have in their supplies and which would be best for this. It had come on rather fast, after all. Perhaps he might be able to convince Hizashi that ground up shrimp shells in a tonic would help? “You’re too warm for my liking.”
Hizashi groans behind him. “I told you already,” he says, a gripe in his voice. “I don’t need medicine.”
“You’re sick, Hizashi,” Shouta tells him firmly, not bothering to look. He starts to sift through their things, picking up shells of pastes and other things he might need. “Yes, you do.”
“I’m not sick, though,” Hizashi says. “I’m in heat.”
Shouta drops everything he’s holding, and all of them float back down to the supplies into a disorganized pile.
The sweet smell in the water. He’d thought it seemed familiar, but it was just vague enough that he didn’t place the connection. Now though, with Hizashi spelling it out plain and simple, he knows exactly why he’d had that thought. It’s not just familiar, he’s smelled it before. In this very cave, in fact.
Those months ago, when Hizashi had disappeared down the tunnel and the scent of his slick lingered in the air.
This is just heavier, more potent instead of drifting gently past his nose.
Very slowly, he turns around to look at Hizashi, where he’s laying still curled up in the nest, and he sees it now. The flush to his cheeks goes high and yet travels low, down his neck and over his shoulders and across his chest; it makes the freckles on his skin stand out that much more, and Shouta swallows thickly when he suddenly realizes that they speckle everywhere. He breathes shallow and panting, mouth parted, and his chest rises and falls with each one, faster than the pattern his fins fan in, out then back in, slow and shivering.
He tries not to look lower, tries to be respectful, but the light from the crevices just manages to catch a gleam and then Shouta can’t look away. Hizashi’s slit is open, exposed, and slick pulses from it gently like a heartbeat, making the scales just outside the rim shine brighter. He’s so pink inside, swollen, and as he watches he can see him clench on absolutely nothing before relaxing again.
Shouta feels a stirring down below as thoughts of touching it, feeling it for himself come to mind before he can force himself to blink.
“Your heat,” he echoes, as steadily as he can, and looks Hizashi back in the eyes.
Hizashi nods, all but rubbing the side of his face into the soft weave below him. “Mhmm.”
“I…had thought maybe you didn’t get them,” he admits. “It’s been several months, and this is your first one since you came here.”
A snort escapes Hizashi at that. “Wasn’t exactly in the best condition, either,” he reminds him. “Cycle had to take a break so I could recover.”
“Fair,” Shouta says. He licks his lips, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “Well, it’s good to know that you have…cycles. How often do they…?”
“If it’s started back up - ” Hizashi pauses, eyes fluttering as a shudder goes through him, and he looks entirely too pretty like that. When it passes, he pants, catching his breath, then starts again. “If it’s started back up, then twice a year.”
Shouta nods. Twice a year to his every nine months. His mind begins to swim with possibilities, of Hizashi being in heat twice a year and begging for his help through it, and Shouta doing so, giving him his knot and tying them together so that he doesn’t have to feel bereft or empty. Then during the times when Shouta’s in rut - when usually he’d prefer to stay in solitude - Hizashi helps him in return, warming him, keeping him from raging because his knot doesn’t have something squeezing down on it.
And when their cycles happen to match up…
Shouta clenches his hands tight enough that his claws dig into his palms, and the pain helps to silence the way the alpha in him snarls at the idea, wanting it now, now, now. “Alright. That’s good to know for the future,” he says calmly. “Is there anything you need that can help you right now?”
Hizashi curls up, just a little bit tighter, even as his fins fan more as his sides. He’s quiet for a moment, looking at him with wide eyes, then he finally asks in a small voice, “You?”
It takes every bit of restraint that Shouta has to force out his reply, fighting against the alpha in him the whole time.
“No.”
Hizashi’s fins all but snap back to his sides, and he looks…genuinely hurt as he stares at Shouta, something that twists in his chest painfully. “Why?”
“Hizashi,” Shouta says, slipping a little more towards the tunnel regretfully, “you’re in heat.”
“I know,” Hizashi snaps, pushing himself upright. He sways a little as he does so, but he keeps his eyes on him, clearly unwilling to let him out of his sight. “I was the one who told you that.”
“You should lie down,” Shouta tries to tell him, but Hizashi scowls at him.
“No,” Hizashi snaps again. His brow pinches just a little, eyes going a little glassy, and his lower lip trembles just the smallest bit. “I just - I just want to know why.”
“Hizashi…”
“Please, just - If it’s because you don’t…like me or something, then just - just tell me, and I-I’ll let it drop - I just - I thought - “
“No, no, that’s not it,” Shouta hurries to say. Fuck, this isn’t how he’d ever thought Hizashi’s heat would go; he didn’t think that the mer would just…proposition him, or get upset when Shouta tried to respect him. He scrubs a hand through his hair awkwardly as he tries to figure out a way to explain this to the reef mer without upsetting him further. “It’s not because of that. Not at all. I…”
“Then why?” Hizashi begs. “I thought… I thought maybe you liked me.”
He’d never planned on telling him any of this.
“I do like you,” he admits, not able to look him in the eye for how much he can tell his face is burning. “A lot. More than, even. In fact, you’re the only mer that I’ve ever cared for this much. And the last thing I want to do is take advantage of you while you’re in a state where you can’t…consent. That’s why I’m saying no, Hizashi. No other reason.”
There’s a long moment of silence between them.
“...You care for me?” Hizashi asks in a whisper.
“I do,” Shouta replies just as quietly.
“Enough to want to,” he pauses, hesitating, “want to mate me?”
Shouta looks up at him. “Since you told me you would protect me, too.”
“Then - then I’m giving you permission!” Hizashi says, pushing up to sit on the nest, propping himself somewhat sideways with his arms locked beside him. His fins begin to fan again, only there’s a shiver to them, almost like they’re trying to decide between that and a flare. “I-if it’s something we both want, then I consent! I’m saying yes! Do it! Mate with me! I want that, Shouta, please!”
“You’re in heat,” Shouta stresses, shaking his head. “I won’t touch you.”
Hizashi whines, a desperate noise, and slaps at the nest. “I want you to touch me!”
“No, Hizashi,” Shouta says, trying to be firm. “I won’t.”
“I’m asking you to!” Hizashi pleads, entire hands clenching at his nesting material. “We both want this! I want this!”
Shouta grits his teeth and turns around. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he says, pushing himself up to start swimming properly towards the tunnel. “I’ll be within ear shot if you have an emergency, but I’m not going to touch you while you’re in heat, Hizashi.”
There’s a frustrated growl behind him, the sound of some rustling, a small clatter, and then something smacks into the back of Shouta’s head.
He stops, entire body going still at the unexpected hit, so still that he slowly lowers to the sand beneath him. He lands at the same time as something else, something small that rolls and makes some noise as it does so, and he looks down to his side to see the kelp stalk ball that Hizashi had made to entertain himself, some of the lava rocks inside visible through the weave.
Reaching down to pick it up, he holds it in his hand as he turns to face a panting Hizashi, who’s now sprawled on the sand floor close to where he usually keeps the ball and scowling up at him. Shouta gives it a little shake, just enough to make the lava rocks clack against each other, and slowly, deliberately asks, “Did you just throw this at me?”
“You,” Hizashi snarls, teeth bared and arms trembling harshly as he struggles to push himself upright, “are not listening to me.”
“I have been,” Shouta says as calmly as he can. “You want something which, in your current state, I cannot - and should not - give you.”
“Forget my fucking heat for a minute!” Hizashi yells, his fins flaring now. His flush has gotten deeper in his anger, making his cheeks a dark, dark red. He punches the floor weakly, sand floating up around his fist. “I. Want. This.”
“Hizashi - “
“Don’t you fucking get it!?” Hizashi screams at him. He blinks quickly, eyes looking glassier than before. “What the fuck have I been telling you for months about what sort of choices I used to have? What about the reasons I swam away from my shoal? The reasons why you are constantly allowing me to choose things for myself!? Shouta!”
He pauses, surprised.
“For the first time in my life I’ve been allowed to have a choice about this,” Hizashi continues, breath catching on a sob. “I’ve been dreading this for years. I have done everything I could to not spend my heats with anyone, to avoid the alphas while they were in rut, because I knew that I wouldn’t have any control over how things would go or what would happen after.
“But I’m choosing you,” Hizashi tells him, and his fins fan in and out, again and again. “Don’t you - don’t you get it? I want this. I actually want this, Shouta. This isn’t - this isn’t my heat-brain begging for a knot, this isn’t my inner omega begging for company. This is just…” He raises a shaking hand to press his fingers against his chest. “This is just me.”
Shouta…hadn’t thought about it like that.
Before swimming away, before accidently bursting into Shouta’s life, he never did have choice, did he? Hizashi didn’t have any freedom to be able to choose the things he wanted for himself; everything, every little thing, was done and chosen for him. The fact that he’s gone this long without being forced to spend a cycle with anyone out of pure tenacious intent is frankly amazing - and deeply saddening.
Hizashi shouldn’t have to spend cycles with mers he doesn’t want to, rebuilding the population be damned. It shouldn’t have to be such a fear that he swims away from his shoal, the only safety he’s ever known, to brave the vast dangers of the ocean entirely alone.
Here and now, Hizashi is making a choice for himself. Instead of spending his heat alone, actively trying to make sure that he won’t be touched in any way like he’s done for others in the past, he’s reaching out to someone that he trusts to help him through it.
Slowly, Shouta swims back across the cave, dropping the ball along the way so that it rolls across the sand to a corner somewhere. He lowers himself down in front of him and gently reaches out, brushing the back of a clawed hand against a too-warm cheek, and Hizashi shudders, leaning into the touch and sighing even as emotion still pinches his expression.
“I heard you,” Shouta tells him, thumb smoothing over his cheek, and behind him his lure glows softly. “I heard you, Hizashi. I’m here.”
Green eyes blink open, looking a little blood-shot from crying, and a part of Shouta wishes that the ocean wouldn’t take all mers’ tears away so that he could take Hizashi’s instead. The hand on Hizashi’s chest reaches up to him, a clear indication of what he wants, and Shouta moves to get his arms down and around the reef mer, lifting him up and off the sand floor.
Arms wrap around his neck, and Hizashi stares at him for a moment, inches from his face, eyes searching. Then, all at once, he’s surging forward to press their lips together in a kiss.
Shouta’s eyes close as his arms tighten around him, feeling his pulse race and head swim. Hizashi’s lips are so soft against his own, so warm with the fever of his heat, and he shudders as he has to hold back the urge to open his mouth and bite, to feel them give just a little and bleed. The alpha in him has instinct at war with itself because of it; one side wants to bite, to dominate, while the other wants to make sure the omega is never hurt because of them.
Instead he just moves against him, enjoying the way Hizashi pants as they kiss, pressing as close as possible and tangling his hands in his hair. By feel he moves them over to the nest, settling down to rest Hizashi sideways across his lap, and he begins to rub his hands up and down his sides, from his ribs all the way down to where his hip fins connect to his skin.
Hizashi shudders, and Shouta can feel his tail trying to curl somewhat around his much larger one - which is both endearing and arousing, that only some kissing and light touch can make him want to curl tails with him.
Then he’s blinking his eyes open when Hizashi suddenly pulls away, panting heavily, to pout at him.
“You aren’t opening your mouth,” he complains, one of the hands in his hair tugging lightly.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Shouta tells him, rubbing his thumbs over Hizashi’s hips. “My teeth could cut you.”
“So?”
Shouta frowns at him. “Hizashi - “
“Maybe I want you to,” Hizashi says, tugging on his hair a little harder and leaning in until their lips are almost brushing, and he presses the length of his body over him until his slit - still open and leaking slick - is pressed right up against where Shouta’s own is, his cock aching behind it. “I thought you wanted to eat me, Shouta. To put me in your mouth. To bite me.
“It’ll be hard to mate me,” Hizashi whispers, his pupils blown so wide that his irises are nothing but a thin ring of green, “if you don’t want to bite me.”
Shouta growls, tightens his hold on Hizashi, and rolls them over until he has him pinned to the nest below him, all but slamming their lips together in an open mouthed kiss.
This must be exactly what Hizashi wanted because he moans loudly, arching up into him yet doesn’t try to pry his arms from where they’re kept next to his head. As Shouta bites at him, sinking his teeth into his lips and just keeping himself from pulling blood - though no doubt they’ll be swollen and possibly bruised, later - their hips rock together, Hizashi’s rim catching on where his own slit is starting to bump out.
Hizashi gasps again and again each time he feels the bump against him, panting into Shouta’s mouth, and eventually Shouta’s yanks both his arms over his head to press them hard into the soft nesting material with one hand so that he can drag his other one down between them. He thumbs at the slit, testing the give, and when Hizashi shakes, he carefully slips a finger in, aware of how his claw could so easily tear him inside.
Yet Hizashi bucks into it - his hip fins fan out, hard, and beneath him his tail all but thrashes, so much so that Shouta wraps it up in his own tail to keep him still, half afraid that with all the moving he might hurt himself.
“Fuck - !” Hizashi shouts, tearing his mouth away as he suddenly tightens around that one finger and slick floods out around Shouta’s hand.
The tip of his cock eases out at that, not needing to be stroked out after witnessing the delicious display.
Shouta watches with wide eyes, thrusting his finger steadily as below him Hizashi sobs, clenching rhythmically around him and shaking, the sweet smell of his slick heavy in the water around them and all but making him drunk off of it. “Just from that?” he can’t help but ask, awed. “From one finger?”
“Don’t - tease me,” Hizashi warbles out, still trying to buck up into the thrusting. He tugs on his arms and tail weakly, but there’s no heart behind it, as if he’s perfectly content being right where he is. His lashes flutter as he pants, head lolling. “Been - been thinking about this for…awhile, okay?”
Shouta feels warm. “Me putting my fingers in you?”
Somehow, Hizashi’s flush deepens. “...Your fingers in me while you’re pinning me.”
His cock twitches, and there’s no doubt that Hizashi felt that because it bumped right below his slit.
He licks his lips, staring down at Hizashi. “Is that why you disappeared after I had pinned you that one time?” he asks, rumbling, and he already knows the answer from the way he can feel tightening around his finger. “When you darted away, and then everything started to smell like slick?”
“Y-you could smell that?” Hizashi gasps, eyes opening to look at him in embarrassment.
But his hips don’t stop moving.
Shouta eases another finger into him, watching as his eyes roll back into his head. “I had to sit there and pretend I couldn’t smell a thing,” he tells him, stretching his fingers as he pumps them in and out. “Sit there and keep myself from letting my cock slip out, from going to investigate, because I thought you just wanted to be alone.
“If I had known that you were wanting me,” Shouta nips at Hizashi’s lips, “then I might have swam down the tunnel and joined you.”
Hizashi nips right back. “W-would you have pinned me again?”
“Yes,” he answers, tightening his hand on his wrists and squeezing just a little more around his tail, and he rumbles when Hizashi shudders beneath him. “I’d have pinned you down and eaten you up.”
“Shouta,” Hizashi whines, and he’s already starting to flutter again, his hips bucking a little bit more up to the fingers pumping into him. “Shouta, I want that, I want you to do that - keep me pinned, eat me - “
He slips another finger inside, and Hizashi tosses his head back as slick spills from him again.
By now, Shouta’s cock has extended all the way out, the full length of it rubbing beside Hizashi’s slit among all the slick covering his scales. The heat there feels good, amazing; it’s much better than the rare occasion he puts his hand on himself, only his own pre-cum there to act as any lube. Normally he doesn’t feel any desire for sex - oftentimes even feeling off-put by the very idea - but with Hizashi…
He’s never wanted to connect with another mer more than he has in this moment.
He’s gorgeous. He’s funny. He’s cute. He’s aggressive. He’s willing to listen when others would swim away. He’s willing to fight for him, to put himself in harm's way just because he thinks he might be treated unfairly. He doesn’t care that Shouta’s a deep-sea mer, doesn’t care that he has a particular diet.
He wants to be here with him. He chose to be here when he could have stayed in the colony, where the sun reaches the sand easily and keeps the waters warm, where there are plenty of others with the same diet as him and he wouldn’t have to travel leagues upon leagues to find food.
Shouta wants to mate with Hizashi, to create that bond with him, and he’s astounded that Hizashi wants that, too.
He eases his fingers free, shushing when Hizashi makes a noise of discontent, then shifts so that the tip of his cock rests against Hizashi’s slit. Just that has Hizashi’s eyes popping wide open, staring at him breathlessly, and Shouta can see his fins fan out beside him, shivering in anticipation.
“Ready?” he asks.
“I want this,” Hizashi replies.
Both of them moan, all but clinging to the other, when Shouta pushes inside of him.
He folds himself down and slips his arms around Hizashi to hold him once they’re flush together, hips to hips; he can feel all of his fins flaring along the length of his tail, shivering, and he curls around Hizashi’s own tail just a little tighter, squeezing in an attempt to not just start grinding into him. His mouth lays open and panting where he’s pressed it to Hizashi’s temple, and he presses a shaking kiss to his forehead after a long moment.
It’s tight, warmth and heat hugging him so deliciously, and the walls around him flutter and clench, just like they had on his fingers but better. Hizashi shakes under him, and with his arms finally free again has wrapped around Shouta, his blunt fingers clawing harmlessly at his back while he buries his face up into his neck.
Neither of them move yet, simply holding each other and getting used to the feeling, until eventually Shouta feels Hizashi’s fingers drift up into his hair, tangling up like they’d been earlier.
“Shou,” Hizashi says, voice muffled in his skin, “you’re glowing.”
Opening his eyes, confused, Shouta quickly understands what he means when he sees the light of his lure casting shadows around him and over Hizashi. It’s bright, brighter than it normally gets, and he realizes in embarrassment it’s because of how good it feels to be inside of Hizashi.
“Sorry,” he mutters, ducking his head down to hide. He attempts to turn off the glow, only managing to make it marginally less bright than it was before. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I like it,” Hizashi tells him, and he feels lips press against his shoulder. “It’s a part of you, and it’s so pretty.”
His ears feel warm.
The fingers in his hair card through, once, twice. “Are you glowing because you feel good?” Hizashi asks softly.
Shouta presses another kiss to his forehead. “I feel very good,” he tells him, and he carefully grinds their hips together. It makes Hizashi’s mouth fall open against his shoulder and the fingers in his hair to tighten again. “You feel amazing. I’ve never felt anything like this.”
Hizashi pants, head rolling to the side, and Shouta can feel him try to move his hips, too, but he’s completely unable with the way he’s got his bottom half pinned still. “N-never?”
“Not once,” Shouta says - and he begins to pull back just enough to begin thrusting, groaning at how slick it feels between them. He’s squeezed around just right, so perfectly, and he deliriously thinks that he could do this all day, everyday, for the rest of his life. “You’re - you’re my first.”
A moan escapes Hizashi at that, and the fingers tighten in his hair while he starts fluttering again. “And you’re - “ He whines, shaking. “You’re mine…!”
Shouta rumbles, tightens his arms around him, and begins to thrust faster.
It becomes more animalistic from there. There’s panting, grunting, hands turning into claws that rake down backs and sides. Shouta presses open mouthed kisses to every inch of skin that he can find while Hizashi does the same, and steadily, his thrusts get longer, deeper, faster. A hand moves down to keep Hizashi’s hips still, a single growl of warning for him to stop moving being all it takes for him to do so, and Shouta thrills in that Hizashi bares his neck for him in submission, going still and allowing him to simply fuck into him.
Soon enough he can feel his knot beginning to grow, and occasionally it’ll catch on Hizashi’s rim with a slick noise. It pops in and out, each time making the mer beneath him jolt and cry out, and it’s only the way Hizashi tightens with each thrust, slicks up even more, that he keeps going because he knows that this is more than alright with him.
He knows he’s close - can feel it winding tighter and tighter in his gut - so he nuzzles down, curling a bit more so that he can kiss across Hizashi’s neck. The reef-mer’s head falls to the side, letting him have access with only a moan, and Shouta pants, dizzy with desire.
“Do you still want this?” he asks, teeth just grazing skin.
Hizashi’s hand tugs at his hair as he whimpers. “Yes,” he begs, voice rasping. “Yes, I want it - bite me, eat me, make me your mate, Shouta, please - “
With a growl, he sinks his teeth in, blood spilling hot on his tongue and smelling sharp in his nose to mix with the sweet scent of slick in the air, and Hizashi screams as he cums, slick gushing out of him. He holds him tightly through it, feeling how his tail attempts to curl around his own despite how it’s pinned, his hips try to rock into the thrusting, his hands try to claw into his back. The tight heat around him keeps clenching, again and again, and it brings him closer as he fucks Hizashi through his orgasm, fast and hard and rough, trying to make his knot finally catch…
Then blunt teeth bite down on him, a mirror to where Shouta has sunk his sharp ones into Hizashi, and his vision goes white as his knot finally swells, locking them together and keeping everything in as he spills deep inside.
He shudders through it, unable to help grinding his knot where it’s caught just inside Hizashi’s slit, and the taste of his blood in his mouth along with the heavy, sweet scent in the water makes for an heady, intoxicating combination. Rolling both of them - rumbling when he feels Hizashi all but spasm around him - he unwinds his tail so that he can coil up in the nest properly, holding him to his front. An arm stays around his back, keeping the mer pinned, and his other trails down, his hand grabbing onto a hip and gently moving him against him.
A weak moan is warbled out into his neck, and he feels those blunt teeth bite let go so that Hizashi can duck his head down to bury into his chest, nuzzling there. “Ah, Shouta,” he says, voice hoarse. “We’re locked.”
Very carefully Shouta pulls his teeth out of Hizashi’s neck, feeling him shiver, and he spends a moment licking over the wound with his tongue to soothe it. “We are,” he finally says, and he’s not entirely surprised that his voice comes out more rumble than words. The hand holding his back begins to smooth up and down his spine. “...You bit me.”
Hizashi breathes out a laugh, and Shouta can see his fins fan, in and out, almost happily at his sides. “You bit me first,” he tells him, and when he looks down, he sees tired green eyes squinting up at him with a fond, adoring smile. “I had to bite you back.”
His lips curl upwards in amusement even as his heart skips beats in his chest, as the alpha in him rumbles and purrs at the omega he’s holding returning the mating bite he bestowed upon him. “Oh,” he chuckles, “is that how it’s supposed to work?”
“Yep,” Hizashi says with a nod. “You made it a rule.”
“I’m pretty sure it was, ‘if you bite me, I’ll bite you back,’” Shouta reminds him, grinning now.
“Well, there’s no reason that can’t be a two way current,” Hizashi says, completely reasonable, and Shouta laughs as he leans in to kiss him on the lips.
It’s not like their earlier kisses, filled with passion and desperation and eagerness. This one just simply is, something sweet that’s a press of their lips together, a gentle brush that has the both of them sighing into each other’s mouths. When they pull back, it’s just barely, and only to touch their foreheads together as they quietly purr.
Shouta knows it’ll be a while for his knot to die down, so he makes sure that Hizashi is comfortable, tucking him against him and dragging his claws carefully through his hair to rid it of any tangles their mating so far has caused. Every now and then he can feel him flutter around him, shivering, and a pulse of slick will leak from him, but it’s nothing like earlier; he’s no longer quite so warm, panting for each breath, or so flushed that it goes down to nearly his scales.
Hizashi still has one hand tangled loosely in his hair, but the other one draws senseless, slow patterns across Shouta’s chest. It’s not meant to tease or tickle; Shouta finds it calming, the fin-light brush against his skin. The two of them have been close, always sleeping in the same nest and being comfortable with friendly touches, but he thinks…he can get used to this type of intimacy with him, meaningless and peaceful, if it means that he can just be with him.
Just when he thinks he might fall asleep like this, doze off for a while, Hizashi whispers his name. He blinks his eyes open and hums, thumbing at his shoulder.
“...Is this real?”
This isn’t the first time Hizashi has asked this question, but it’s the first time he’s asked in a long while. He’d stopped sometime after their first trip out to the colony, no longer hesitating when offered something or a choice or the chance to do something on his own. It was something of a relief, in a way, that the reef mer was starting to trust him enough to believe that he was safe without the need for any reassurance.
Shouta curls both arms around him and kisses the top of his head.
“It is,” is what he replies, not daring to let go or pull away for even a moment. “At least, I like to think so.”
Hizashi slowly curls both arms around him, too, holding him in return, and Shouta can feel the way his lips curl into a small, little smile against his chest. “Okay,” he whispers, tired and exhausted and happy, and he slips into sleep with a purr in his chest.