Chapter 9: The Merman's Request
The quiet in the cottage shattered with a crack of lightning. A searing white flash split the gloom, etching the room in a frozen negative—the stark silhouette of the tub, the wild scatter of Yamato’s sheet music, the wide, startled amber of Taichi’s eyes. Thunder followed instantly, a booming concussion that shook the walls and made the single bulb swing, throwing shadows into a frantic dance.
Taichi jolted. A full-body convulsion wracked him, his tail thrashing against the porcelain with a sound like a hammer blow. Another shudder, more violent than the last, twisted his torso. He gripped the edges of the tub, his knuckles paling, claws scraping grooves into the enamel.
“Taichi?”
Another flash. In its stark light, Yamato saw the true state of him. His skin had taken on a sickly, ashen cast beneath his scales. His gills were fluttering rapidly, a desperate, shallow rhythm. The earlier calm was gone, obliterated by the storm’s pressure drop and the deep, bone-cold that was reclaiming him.
Taichi turned his head. His gaze locked onto Yamato’s, and there was no pride left in it, only a raw, animal need. His voice was strained, pulled taut as a fishing line. “The cold… it is inside the marrow. I need warmth.” He swallowed, the muscles in his neck working. “Your warmth.”
Yamato’s breath stalled in his chest. The words hung in the charged air, more intimate than any touch they’d shared so far. He saw the violent tremors wracking Taichi’s frame, the chattering of his sharp teeth. This wasn’t desire. This was survival.
He didn’t hesitate. He nodded, a short, sharp movement. “Okay. Okay, hold on.”
He stood, his own legs unsteady. He grabbed the worn towel from its hook, then knelt by the tub. “I’m going to lift you. It might hurt.”
A grim, jerky nod from Taichi.
Yamato slid his arms into the water, one under Taichi’s back, the other beneath the thickest part of his tail, just before the fluke. The water was cool. Taichi’s skin was cooler. He braced his knees and lifted.
It was like hauling a waterlogged statue. Taichi was dense, heavier than any man his size had a right to be. A pained hiss escaped his lips as his body left the support of the water, his injuries protesting. Yamato stumbled, caught his balance, and carried him the few staggering steps to the narrow bedroll in the corner. He lowered him as gently as he could onto the thin mattress. Taichi’s tail, gleaming and magnificent, hung off the side, the crimson fin draping onto the floorboards like a spill of exotic fabric.
Yamato straightened, breathing hard. Without a word, he peeled his own damp, salt-stiffened shirt over his head and tossed it aside. The air in the cottage was cool on his skin. He lifted the rough wool blanket, then lay down on the mattress beside Taichi, the old frame groaning under the combined weight.
He slid an arm around Taichi’s waist, feeling the smooth, solid muscle there, the abrupt transition from skin to the rough texture of scales. He pulled them together, chest to back, fitting their bodies into the limited space. Taichi was cool and damp against him, but not unpleasantly so. It was like holding a piece of the deep ocean.
Then he felt it—the rhythmic, pulming flutter of Taichi’s gill slits against his sternum. A vital, alien rhythm. The shuddering in Taichi’s body was less violent now, dampened by the contact, but fine tremors still coursed through him.
For a long moment, they lay still, listening to the storm rage. Rain began to lash the roof, a frantic drumming.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Taichi turned within the circle of Yamato’s arm. He shifted until they were face to face in the dim, storm-lit gloom. Yamato could see the faint bioluminescence in his scales, a subdued, copper glow. Taichi’s gaze searched his, the slit pupils wide and dark.
He pressed his face into the curve of Yamato’s neck. His breath was a cool ghost on skin. His lips parted.
Yamato stiffened, a instinctive flash of fear—the memory of fangs, of venom. But then he felt it: the wet, gentle slide of Taichi’s tongue against the pulse hammering in his throat. It was a slow, deliberate stroke.
A jolt, hot and electric, shot straight down Yamato’s spine. It wasn't pain. It was something else entirely, a warmth that burst in his stomach and pooled lower, immediate and shocking.
“I will not bite,” Taichi murmured, his voice a low vibration against Yamato’s skin. But as he spoke, the sharp points of his fangs did graze the same spot, a fleeting, dangerous caress.
Yamato shuddered, a full-bodied thing he couldn’t suppress. His hand, which had been resting on Taichi’s hip, slid down almost of its own accord. It found the place where the vibrant scales began to soften, at the very base of his tail, where the body’s architecture shifted. The texture there was incredible, like the finest, most supple leather over solid muscle.
Outside, the world was chaos—wind screaming, thunder splitting the sky, rain trying to beat its way inside. But inside, beneath the scratchy blanket, a different kind of storm was building. The air between them grew thick, charged with a silence louder than the thunder. Yamato’s heart was pounding a frantic counter-rhythm to the pulse of Taichi’s gills against his own chest.
Taichi’s breathing had changed, deepened. The tremors had finally, completely ceased. He was utterly still, yet Yamato could feel a potent, coiled tension in him, a waiting.
They didn’t speak. There were no more instructions, no questions. There was only the shared heat beneath the blanket, the press of skin and scale, the cool, healing dampness still drying on Yamato’s throat, and the relentless, building fever in his own blood. The storm crashed around the little shack, but inside, for the first time since he’d found him, Taichi was truly warm.
And they breathed, slowly, as one.