Work Text:
Steve tumbles through the deepest blue, spiraling end over end like a leaf in the wind.
The sound of the ship engine buzzes through the water, turning everything into a dream of light-noise-movement.
So this is how he dies. Former captain of the swim team, shoved unceremoniously off the deck of a gay singles cruise by some prick in too-tight jeans.
Sorry for leaving you, Rob, but you’ll be fine. I pretty much always needed you more than you needed me. Also sorry that this story’s going to be so goddamn ridiculous to tell.
Death kisses softly at his cheeks, but that doesn’t mean he gives up. He butterflies through the water, chasing the lightest blue where the cloud-covered sun diffuses through the deep. He surfaces, gasps, chokes.
The sea had looked so peaceful from up on the deck, waves breaking against the sides of the massive boat. It’s far more violent now that he’s in it, and the churn swallows him again and again, eating away at the remaining moments of his life.
Exhaustion picks at the scraps, until he can’t swim anymore, sinking away from the pale blue, down into the black below.
At least a light waits down there, bright and sharp. At least he won’t be alone in the pitch.
Unable to hold his breath any longer, Steve’s body forces an inhale, filling his lungs with liquid fire that burns and burns. It’s a quick flare, a bright match snuffed out when the lack of oxygen covers everything, softening it like frosted glass.
Steve grins as the light floats up beside him, his hand drifting toward it in the cold water.
Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight…
Steve can’t bring himself to fear when something behind that light opens to reveal the sharpest of teeth.
It’s all going to be okay now, Steve thinks, and the blackness of the depths swallows him whole.
Steve wakes, mouth dry, face and body coated in grit. It’s dark, and the ground is a bed of sandpaper. His lungs are tired, strained. But they’re pulling air, pushing it through his veins and limbs.
Alive. Steve is alive.
He definitely shouldn’t be. He pushes up from the sand on shaking arms, rising just enough to turn his head. He’s on a beach, the moon shining off the water as it laps at the shore. His heartbeat quickens.
“Take it easy there, big boy.”
Steve jumps. He tries to sit up, feels a cool hand touch his shoulder and squeeze gently.
“Seriously. You threw up half the ocean earlier.”
“That why I’m face down?” Sand grazes Steve’s cheek and jaw as he speaks.
“Yeah. Wasn’t sure if you were finished.”
“I think I’m finished. Can you…?”
“Yep.” Cool hands find him again, shifting Steve onto his back. He sees the sky first, more stars than he’s ever seen in his life. Even back in Indiana, he’d never seen so many stars. A milky-cream blanket that glitters and winks at him like it knows some big cosmic secret.
Inhaling slowly, Steve rolls his head away from that view onto the person beside him.
“Don’t scream,” his rescuer says before Steve has a chance to really process anything his eyes are routing to his brain.
“Why?” Steve asks. All he sees at first is the silhouette of a person, sitting in the sand with his knees drawn in, eyes and body facing the distant waves.
Then Steve starts to notice all the distinctly non-person things about that silhouette. Fins protruding from forearms and calves. Gray skin that fades into scales. There’s webbing between each finger and each toe.
“Oh,” Steve says.
“Yeah.”
Steve rolls his head back toward the stars, watches an orangey one pulse. “Weird dream.”
An amused huff. “What’s your name?”
“Steve.”
“Hi Steve. I’m Eddie. No way to ask this except to ask, so, why exactly were you in the ocean tonight? A place kinda famously inhospitable to Steves.”
“But not to Eddies?”
“Eddies and water go hand-in-hand. Also pretty famously.” Eddie mimes doing a rimshot in his periphery, makes the sounds even. Ba-dum-tsch.
Steve blinks tiredly at the night sky, glances over at Eddie, realizes he’s nude in addition to having kelp braided into random strands of his long, salt-waved hair.
“Are you a mermaid?”
“Wish I could answer that.” Eddie shrugs. “Maybe? For lack of other sufficient designations, I’m not opposed.”
“Okay.” Steve blinks. “And do mermaids usually, you know, speak English?”
Eddie laughs, putting a hand to his mouth like he’s startled by the sound. His nails are messy, bitten-down to the bed.
“Getting a bit personal there, Steve.” Eddie grins at him, and Steve sees something glint in the moonlight—all those sharp teeth he saw right before he dropped unconscious. Predator teeth. Made to rip and tear and devour.
Steve swallows, warmth pooling in his lower belly, then pooling lower still. And okay, what the hell?
“Am I?” Steve swallows again. Doesn’t think about it. Couldn’t think about it even if he wanted to He can barely move. Even if he somehow navigated the waters—ugh—of hitting on a mermaid, he wouldn’t know what to do with Eddie once he had him.
Lay there and take it like a good boy, duh.
Steve shakes his head, shakes the thought away with it.
“We get to be normal until we don’t,” Eddie says, though Steve gets the impression the word ‘normal’ is for his benefit, not a truth Eddie actually shares. “I was normal in the midwest once.”
“I was also normal in the midwest once. For probably too long. Now I’m in San Fran, hopefully less normal, at least the way everyone back home sees normal anyway.”
“Technically right now you’re being less normal on an uninhabited island off the coast, but I get what you mean.” Eddie turns to face him, webbed toes digging into the sand.
“Can you— Does it turn on whenever you want?” Steve asks, vaguely motioning at his own forehead.
“If you want a good look at my face, Steve, all you have to do is ask.” A soft white glow emanates from the lure attached to Eddie’s head, lighting him from the top-down like the opposite of someone telling a ghost story.
Appropriate.
“God, you’re beautiful,” Steve says without thinking, filter eroded by waves and sand and the small part of his brain still convinced he’s asleep or dead or somewhere between.
“Bet you say that to all the mermaids.”
Steve smiles, keeps looking, entranced by the way skin and scales bleed together seamlessly. Even more entranced by the deep shadows between Eddie’s thighs. He licks his lips and forces his eyes back to Eddie’s face, finds him staring. Watching.
“That would not be taking it easy, Steven.” The light dims.
“No,” Steve agrees hoarsely. “It wouldn’t.”
“Whatever you’re thinking right now,” Eddie says, “don’t.”
“I’m trying.” And Steve really means it. He’s exhausted, limbs weak, energy thin as spilt milk. It is, as horrible ideas go, pretty up there on the list.
And yet.
Eddie sighs, drags his eyes down Steve’s body, and pulls his lips between his sharp, sharp teeth. His gaze has caught on the half-hardness lurking beneath Steve’s skimpy vacation shorts, and he tears it away, licking a pinprick of blood from the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t make me take advantage of you.” And Eddie’s voice comes out deeper, raspier. It scrapes down Steve’s spine, oozes heat into his bones.
“You could.”
“Steve.” And Steve has never heard his name fired off like a warning shot before. He doesn’t duck.
“You could,” Steve repeats, more firmly, almost insistent. “If you wanted.”
“You have to tell me why first.”
“Why what? Why I’d let you? I—”
“Why you were in the water.” There’s a drying trickle of blood on Eddie’s chin. Steve can almost taste it—the iron-sweet-salt that he’d find if he licked his way up into Eddie’s mouth. “I have to know why before I can…”
“Pushed,” Steve says. Just hearing it come out of his own mouth kicks up anger like silt. Steve imagines his own knuckles oozing blood, the satisfying jolt of contacting with someone’s jaw, spittle flying. But no. It’ll be a problem for the authorities if it isn’t already. If one of the ship cameras didn’t capture him going over the edge.
Eddie processes the answer. “Pushed.” Processes more. There’s a flash of sharp white, a low distressed growl. “Pushed.” The lure lights up, flickers, dies. Eddie sucks his teeth, doesn’t ask who but Steve can feel it hanging in the air—thick, stormy. Instead Eddie grabs his wrist, squeezes.
“I’m sorry.”
Steve’s therapist would probably strangle him if they could hear his thoughts, but Eddie’s soft touch does nothing to quell his growing desire. Steve can’t help it, the fact that he’s a sucker when it comes to being cared for. Fussed over. Protected.
“Thanks.” It comes out rougher than intended. Steve clears his throat. “I still…”
Eddie laughs softly, leans in closer. His eyes are the milk of the night sky. “Of course you do.” Eddie blinks one set of eyelids. Then another. “I should say no. If I was a good little merthing, I’d say no.”
Steve stares at that single line of blood, can’t stop staring. God, why can’t he stop? “Then please don’t be good.”
The sound Eddie makes goes right to Steve’s cock. He feels it viscerally. Then he tastes it, tongue sliding up Eddie’s chin just like he’d thought about, dipping into his mouth. He cups the back of Eddie’s neck, feels scales and a row of tiny spines. He moans. Tastes more blood and realizes he’s nicked his tongue on one of Eddie’s teeth.
That shouldn’t send a delicious full-body shiver through him. Shouldn’t make his hips buck just so off the sand.
It does though.
“Steve.” Eddie pants, the air between their faces growing humid. He rubs his forehead against Steve’s, licks sloppily into his mouth, covers his body with his.
“No,” Steve says. Because if Eddie’s going to be on top of him, then he needs the little salmon-pink shorts gone. He needs the shirt with all the palm fronds unbuttoned at the bare minimum. Ideally he needs it torn from him and tossed far down the beach.
“No?” Eddie asks, pushing himself up on his arms. “No to what? All? Some?”
“No to me wearing clothes right now.”
Eddie laughs and shakes his head before tugging the shorts down Steve’s legs. He undoes one shirt button and then another, loosening it just enough to rip it over Steve’s head.
Steve shivers when Eddie lowers his body onto his once more, weighing him down on the sand.
“God, yes,” Steve pushes his nose against Eddie’s jaw, licks salt brine from his neck.
There is no end to them like this, no beginning. Skin touches skin touches skin, and Steve flashes back to learning about equilibrium in Mr. Clark’s class. The warmth of his own body, the coolness of Eddie’s. Heat transferring between them and warming-cooling-warming.
Eddie turns his head, chasing Steve’s wandering tongue, sucking it between his lips. Eddie kisses him like he needs it to keep breathing, and Steve answers with the same level of hunger, bucking his hips up, rutting, grinding.
“Are you…?” Steve cannot feel Eddie’s erection against his skin, but God he wants to.
“It’s…” A flicker of lure light. Eddie raises his body, lets Steve see what the shadows had hidden before. Within a thatch of dark hair, gray-scale skin unfolds like flower petals, Eddie’s cock emerging from within.
It’s soaking wet with something viscous, something that drips onto Steve’s skin and leaves gossamer trails streaming behind.
“Still with me?” Eddie asks, nuzzling his nose against Steve’s.
Steve thinks of several almost replies, all half-formed, stuttering incomplete out of his mouth.
“Wish… I w-… if…God…” Steve groans, and what finally comes out is the worst of them, spoken in a hoarse rasp, “Fuck me in the mouth.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Please.”
“Oh, that was not a 'no' in the slightest. Just. Fucking hell, Stevie.”
It’s inelegant, Eddie shifting to kneel in the sand, taking Steve by the hands and dragging him into a sitting position like a rag doll. It works though, making it easy for Steve to lean in and slot his mouth all the way down Eddie’s cock until his nose hits the slit it came from.
It’s still wet, smelling of a deep musk. And the taste—it’s different, gorgeously incomparable to anything or anyone Steve has ever had his mouth on.
Fuck.
Steve groans, then groans again when Eddie curls his hands around the back of his head, holding him still.
“You sure about this?”
Steve gives a weak thumbs up, a slight nod.
“Okay.” Breathing in, Eddie rocks back, rocks forward. Pre-come leaks across Steve’s tongue, and he groans even harder, realization slamming into him because that’s the taste. The taste of all that wetness coating Eddie’s cock. Steve whines and digs blunt nails into Eddie’s hips, tugs on him in encouragement.
“I’ve got you, Steve.” Eddie pets his hair, thrusts into his mouth, finds a rhythm. In some unspoken agreement, Eddie never goes deeper than the back of his tongue, never pushes into Steve’s throat, never cuts off his airway for even a second.
But it’s so good even like this—the texture of Eddie in his mouth, the taste of him and the sounds of his panting breath, his punched-out moans.
A stream of drool runs down Steve’s face, oozing down his chin, his neck.
“Is this all you want?” Eddie asks, slowing down, hips bucking erratically like he can’t quite make them stop.
“No, I…” A lewd pop. Steve falls back in the sand, and he doesn’t want to stop, but it feels so, so good to lie down. “I want you on top of me again.”
“That can be arranged,” Eddie says, finned arms bracketing Steve’s body.
This time, Steve feels him hard against his lower belly, leaking-wet as Eddie ruts against his skin.
“Fuck me, you are pretty,” Eddie says, webbed fingers tracing softly down Steve’s face and jawline, making his stomach flutter.
“I’m trying,” Steve pants. Weakly, he reaches between them, pushing their cocks together within his fist and squeezing. Eddie chokes out a sound before dropping his mouth to Steve, eating the noises he makes in return.
It goes on and on, moans blending together inside their mouths, beautifully discordant harmonies rattling around Steve’s skull.
God.
Steve’s eyes flutter shut, roll back a bit in his head.
“Let me,” Eddie says, lips brushing against his. “Let me take care of you, pretty boy.” And it sounds nice, to be able to rest, to be able to let go and float within feeling.
Knocking Steve’s hand away, Eddie wraps them in webbed skin, rubs his cock alongside Steve’s, kisses his sweat-damp temple with soft reverence.
Rubbing, floating. Eddie’s pace flows from needy to feverish, hips thrusting harder, lengthening their tandem slide every time.
Until Steve slips past the base of Eddie’s cock, feels himself sinking into the shallow slit, cockhead gliding into slick.
“Holy—” Steve claws at the sand, back bowing off the ground. “Oh God, fuck, Eddie, I—”
He had wanted this to go on forever in some way, but it won’t. It isn’t. He’s a car without brakes careening down a hill, a beautiful little death waiting at the bottom.
“Whenever.” Eddie’s tongue drags hot-wet behind his ear. “Whenever you want, Stevie boy.”
Their bodies move once, twice, three more times before Steve feels the car rolling, before he comes undone, crying out into the night.
It’s a sound so raw it burns all the way out, reminding Steve he nearly died not too long ago.
Reminding Steve that he goddamned lived, oh fuck did he live.
All night, Steve’s been largely ignoring the uncomfortable grittiness of the sand chafing against his skin, but he’s grateful for its softness when his head smacks backwards into the ground, his mouth open wide to let his moans carry up toward all those winking stars.
“God, look at you,” Eddie says, tongue tracing the column of Steve’s exposed throat, body still grinding into the tunnel of his own palm, dragging Steve’s cock along him, then inside him, where their fluids mingle together and drip out onto Steve’s skin.
It’s too much, too much, too-
Eddie grunts, presses his nose into the crook of Steve’s neck, clamps his lips against his skin. Come spurts lukewarm onto Steve’s belly, his pelvis, his hip. All the while, Eddie groans against his flesh, keeps groaning.
It feels like Eddie comes for minutes, for lifetimes, for eons.
Then, like a puppet with cut strings, Eddie goes still.
They lay like that for so long time stops feeling real. Life bleeds away, becomes nothing but the gentle lapping of waves and Eddie breathing in his ear. Once or twice, Steve feels a lazy kiss press against his collarbone. But mostly they just breathe together, exist together.
Overhead, the stars keep flickering. Steve moves his thumb gently over the spines down Eddie’s back.
“That feels so fucking good,” Eddie sighs. “No one’s ever…”
“Oh,” Steve says. “Are you, you know, alone down there?”
“Not alone,” Eddie says. “But, uh, like this? Yeah, I’m alone.”
“Oh.” Steve keeps touching him, stroking Eddie’s back in starts and stops as he drifts through different levels of consciousness. At one point, Steve swears he hears Eddie humming something familiar, but he falls into dreams before he can put his finger on what it is.
Steve wakes up alone, his clothes folded neatly beside him. He blinks once, twice, squinting into the early dawn light. Then he sits with a gasp, grabbing at the sand beside him, head swiveling.
“Easy, Steve,” Eddie says. “I’m here. I just had to…” A beat. “I wanted to let you rest, but I was about to wake you. I doubt either of us packed sunscreen.”
Steve slips on his shorts. God, he wants a shower, to feel all the sand and salt (and come) sluice off his skin. But he wants to find Eddie more, so he does, following his voice to a little natural cave about the depth of an apartment bathroom.
Inside, Eddie squints at him. “A little bright for me out there.”
“Oh.” Steve unfurls his shirt and joins Eddie in the deepest part of the cave, wrapping it just around their faces, cocooning them in a little blanket of semi-darkness. “Better?”
“Yeah.”
“Kiss me?”
“Double yeah.”
Steve nicks his tongue on Eddie’s teeth again, but he doesn’t care. Will never care. He was very nearly murdered the previous day, and yet the world feels more promising than it has in years.
“Do you think we could, uh… I mean…is it possible to…?” Steve inhales, blows the breath out. “I wanna see you again.”
“You do? Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
A beat. Another. “You realize we could never really…”
“I don’t know. It’s not all that different than me meeting somebody who lives in a different city and refuses to move. At least if you dump me, it’ll be on a beach.”
Eddie wiggles one of his hands up into the folds of the shirt, webbed fingers curling around Steve’s neck. “And if I don’t dump you?”
“Then I’ll clean out my savings and buy a run-down yacht and some blackout curtains.”
Eddie huffs a laugh. “Sure you will, Steve.”
“Try me.”
Eddie cocks his head, eyes boring into him—eyes that Steve can see now are not completely milk-white but more of a muted brown. Coffee smothered in cream.
Steve lets Eddie appraise him, meeting his gaze, only failing to when he glances at Eddie’s lips. Eventually, Eddie finds whatever answer he’s been looking for in Steve’s eyes. His lips curve into a smile, showing row upon row of teeth.
Those teeth look even more dangerous in the daylight—violently sharp—and Steve’s swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
“Steve, respectfully, you have got to stop being horny for things that could kill you.”
“It’s just you,” Steve says, “if that makes a difference.”
“Oh is it just me? And you knew I wouldn’t kill you last night because?”
“Because why would you save me if you were?” Steve shrugs.
Eddie hums and gives him a sly smirk. “Maybe I like to play with my food.”
“I…” Steve licks his lips.
“Steve, we just talked about this.”
“You said it in a sexy way!”
Eddie gives him a look of mock innocence. “Did I?”
“I swear to…” Shaking his head, Steve grabs at Eddie’s neck, leans in, slots their mouths together.
The air inside the shirt is humid, starting to cross over into stifling, but it’s worth it when Steve tickles the spines along Eddie’s nape, when he gets to hear Eddie whine soft and sweet into his mouth.
“Try me,” Steve says again, curving it into a question this time, one that comes out hoarse, breathy: “Try me?”
“Okay,” Eddie says, nodding against his forehead. “Yes. Obviously.”