Chapter Text
There are many benefits to being a marine biologist.
Chris could sit here and list some of the actual reasons he picked this job: his interest in the field, the satisfaction of advancing science and bettering humanity’s understanding of the world, the lack of forced interaction with other people, the easy access to good food, the pay.
Or, Chris could name the single, completely unexpected reason why he is currently, completely, whole-heartedly in love with his job:
There’s a fucking mermaid in this bay.
An intelligent one, a friendly one. One that keeps coming back to the same shallow, sandy spot on the beach to attempt communication with Chris.
Their first few interactions had been focused solely on assessing each other’s intelligence. Chris quickly understood that this creature was smarter than a dolphin, and he’s fairly certain he made himself appear the same. Or, whatever the sea equivalent is to thinking you know the smartest animal in a biome, only to be proven wrong.
Chris brought tools and puzzles and toys as a way to both show his kind’s technology and to assess the mermaid’s understanding of such things. He was beyond delighted when the creature brought some of its own versions of those things. Knives were a shared inention, as well as puzzles of the fits-together-in-specific-ways kind. Some specialized tools didn’t translate at all, the human spoon useless in the water, versus a large, flat sheet of shiny rock that puzzled Chris for any kind of use it could possibly have.
When Chris went to meet the mermaid with his waterproof whiteboard and marker, the mermaid made a funny sound and dove away, leaving him. Thirty minutes later, the mermaid returned with what Chris recognized as the equivalent: a flat round shell and a pouch of oily ink.
Another similarity between their species. Chris understood the mermaid’s eager delight.
They established more specific terms that way, drawing symbols. First things first, determining a symbol for land, and human, and Chris specifically. The ocean, the mermaid, this mermaid specifically. They stumbled into the concept of names. Chris wrote his down as he said it and pointed to himself. He ducked his head into the water and repeated himself as best as he could.
The mermaid understood that it was looking at script, at language, it understood the introduction. Its attempt at Chris’ name was a short hiss.
Then, wonder of wonders, it showed Chris its own script. It held its shell-board above the surface for Chris and he read it, circles and curves and not a single straight line to be seen.
It, like Chris, said its name in both air and water, speaking in its own environment first before braving the perils of the other’s to repeat it where Chris could hear it better. It sounded like a hum to Chris’ ears, and he spent all of that night trying to find a name he could pronounce that sounded similar. He landed on Minho, a common Korean name, for no reason other than it was also a simple hum when spoken quick enough.
As time went on, their discussions progressed with knowledge and nuance. Chris started thinking of Minho as male for no particular reason, mostly because of the name he picked for the mermaid.
At least, when Chris took a crack at communicating gender, Minho didn’t contradict the assumption. Was it accurate to call Minho a man, the same word that defined humanity?
Minho’s idea of gender was a little different. His drawings made Chris understand that when they have to, Minho’s kind can change their gender to the opposite of what they are surrounded by. Chris knows this to be a trait among some fish, so he’s not too surprised.
Measurements of time lead to age and longevity. Minho is (probably) younger than Chris, but not by a lot, and he can live up to what Chris guesses to be a hundred or a hundred and fifty years. Minho’s drawings of the mermaid symbol kept growing and growing for each time unit (twenty years, maybe) which leads him to believe that mermaids just don’t stop growing.
Chris sang a song, and Minho curiously turned his head sideways in the surface, one ear under and one ear over. Chris then leaned down and dipped his ear in as well, following the example. Minho’s song was high-pitched but soft, too weak to carry through the air.
They have song. They have music.
If Chris’ field of study were something else – linguistics, history, any kind of cultural study – he would have frothed at the mouth. The implication that this mermaid might belong to a group with developed culture? An anthropologist would combust on the spot.
Chris, however, is a biologist. His enthusiasm with music is purely personal interest, no relation with his work.
So, despite the sheer excitement over the song, he has to go back to biology, because that’s the only thing he knows how to study properly.
The respiratory system is what each of them expected of the other, and this is how Chris finds out that Minho must be some kind of scientist or researcher as well. They agree to try each other’s environments for as long as they can, marking their estimated times before attempting, just to make sure they won’t hurt each other. Minho crawls higher up the shallows and Chris slinks lower, deeper. He ducks his head under as Minho breaks surface. Chris’ estimated minute of holding his breath underwater gets beat by Minho’s nearly five minutes of spasming his gills on air.
Chris gathers his courage and leans on his back, half-floating half-kneeling, to let Minho inspect his hair. Minho, in turn, pushes himself flat to the surface, his dorsal fin sticking out for Chris to examine. He even lets Chris touch his tail, even if just for a little. Chris allows access to his legs in turn.
Things kind of… go that way, when Minho realizes that Chris’ shorts are covers and not part of his body. Chris doesn’t much mind being naked in the sea, but first he makes sure that Minho is not to touch the parts he usually hides. He chucks his shorts to the shore and sits back down.
It’s Minho, then, that brings up the reproductive systems. Chris draws a graph of the human dimorphism, pointing to his own body to show which drawing is which part. He’s more than delighted to see that Minho can understand even this drawing, one with none of their pre-established symbols on it, except for the symbol for human.
Minho draws under the water for a long time, then passes his shell-board to Chris while he keeps the whiteboard under to study.
Chris looks, and… huh. No dimorphism? But Minho said that his kind change genders if the populace is unbalanced. Wait, no, there is a second drawing. Chris has trouble reading it, though. It’s only details taken from the first graph, drawn off to the side, difficult to parse when Chris doesn’t know what he’s looking at.
He pokes Minho’s shoulder and dips the shell-board under, pointing at the bit he doesn’t understand. He traces a question symbol with his finger on the board.
Minho trades boards with him. While he explains, Chris wipes his board. Under the water, he draws the human reproductive again, much simpler this time. This part makes eggs, this part holds the unborn. This part makes sperm, and this part delivers it. Everything else is just… details. It’s better to keep it simple.
Minho looks at Chris’ lap as he draws, his own board forgotten. Through the clear water, Chris sees him point at the male system and then at Chris’s lap. Chris draws the positive symbol in answer, a yes.
Minho points at the ovaries and then himself, then the penis and himself. He holds the shell-board over the surface.
In Minho’s more detailed graph, now drawn twice and mirrored, both sides have a penis over an opening with a channel behind it. On one side, the channel is emphatically separated from everything else until it reaches a womb, which has a loosely-drawn pouch attached, which must be where production happens. On the other side, the penis is connected to the channel on the inside.
Chris isn’t sure he understands, but it looks like both of these graphs can carry. Do they both produce the same? Both eggs, both sperm, both-both? The one with the non-connected penis looks like it’s only able to carry, unable to fertilize. Unless they fertilize internally, and these are ovipositors? Which one is Minho?
Chris dips the board back under. He points to the connected graph, then at Minho.
Minho says yes.
Chris usually sits with his back to the land, but for this one, he thinks they need to be side-by-side. He turns to face the sand and gestures Minho to lay beside him so they can chat more clearly.
Minho is left-handed, Chris has learned. This is very convenient for when they want to talk like this, next to each other, so they can reach each other’s boards easily. Chris can’t use Minho’s writing tool, and Minho has yet to figure out how to hold Chris’ marker. They can each only use their own board, but they can at least point at everything they both say.
So, where they both can see it, Chris draws a big round egg next to the female graph and a little swimmer next to the male graph. Under both of these, he draws the two together, the symbol for time, then the symbol for human.
Minho studies this, then draws on his own board. The male (?) graph gets a little circle in the womb, which then moves to the female (?) graph. This looks like a seahorse situation, so is Chris reading these wrong? Are they the other way around?
But, no. Minho draws another pair of mirrored graphs, again emphasizing their singular difference for Chris’ benefit. This time, the circle starts in the non-connected graph and stays there. Then something… starts? Moves? To or from the connected one, a bit of script gets written on top, then, finally, what happened the first time gets repeated. The circle moves from the connected to the non-connected. Then it grows and, finally, Minho draws the circle outside of the graphs, the symbol for time, and the symbol for mermaid.
Chris is pretty sure he just got shown the difference between a fertilization and mere menstruation. The details are unclear, but Chris at least understands that males menstruate in Minho’s species. Do females?
Or, not menstruate. Lay unfertilized eggs. Do they both lay eggs?
Chris tells him that humans make little humans when they reproduce, live birth. He has to draw a graph again, of a human with a big belly and a little human inside, the symbols not enough for it.
Minho draws three eggs in a mermaid and three eggs outside the mermaid. From the eggs come three little mermaids.
Interesting.
Chris starts explaining that humans are mammals, feed their young with these weird things Chris has on his chest, but Minho interrupts him to poke him right in the nipple. Chris breaks into nervous laughter. He explains that this is sensitive and not to be touched.
Minho reads the explanation, looks up at Chris through the water, then flips to his back.
Alarm bells blare in Chris’ head from his time with sharks, but Minho doesn’t seem like floating in this position bothers him. In fact, he brings himself to the surface until his face is out, and his belly and the front of his tail, all the way down to about half of it, where he has to keep kicking himself up with no natural buoyancy of his own to keep him there.
This is the first and clearest image Chris has ever seen of him.
Minho’s face is eerily human, Chris knew this. Two eyes, far closer together than Chris would expect, a smooth protrusion for the nose, over a mouth with lips. The back of his jaw is too weird to fall into uncanny valley, saving Chris from being uncomfortable at the lack of external ears. His arms are almost perfectly human, smooth pink-silver skin with not a scale in sight. Chris is so used to seeing his shiny, iridescent back that seeing the front so smooth is a surprise. So much so that it takes him a hot minute to notice what Minho is actually showing him.
Minho lifts a hand above the water in front of Chris’ face. He brings it down his own front until his fingers find the space between the two sets of fins on his belly.
Oh.
Under Chris’ watch, Minho palms an opening. He parts it between two fingers, the way Chris has seen women do to their own soft parts. Minho doesn’t quite slip a finger inside, but he presses firmly at the top until something comes out.
It hits Chris like a freight train, that Minho literally just pulled his cock out. His erect cock. Chris is looking at an erection right now.
He looks at Minho’s face, feeling his heartrate rise in what has to be panic. He scrambles for his whiteboard under the water, wiping everything that was on there without even knowing what he wants to say. What he just wiped was the explanation that some parts are not to be touched – did Chris make Minho misunderstand?
He starts drawing again, trying to convey privacy and intimacy, realizing as he goes that he hasn’t asked Minho if mermaids have the mating instinct as a means of reproduction or if, like humans and dolphins – the two animals Chris keeps comparing him to – they have it as recreation, too.
Minho dips his head under to read Chris’ panicked scribbles, since his eyes don’t work well in the air. He looks up at Chris through the surface and touches Chris’ knee.
Is this- is this Minho’s way of answering Chris’ mating question?
Chris can’t. He can’t allow this to happen if he isn’t sure.
If it was a mere animal, some random, mindless fish, Chris wouldn’t even flinch to see mating behaviors displayed. It would maybe be noteworthy if a fish masturbated, but it wouldn’t give Chris pause.
But this, this is not a fish. This is a person. And people—
Chris needs to be sure. He needs to know that they both mean the same thing.
He draws the symbol for friendship and connection, then a very crude line going into a hole. He points again and again at the first symbol, trying to make Minho understand.
Minho flips back to his front. He takes his own board and draws friendship, the line-in-hole that they are apparently establishing as sex, and yes. He looks up at Chris over his shoulder.
Chris meets his eyes, uncertain.
Minho, without breaking eye contact, draws a question on his board.
Chris wipes his board again. Unsure, he stares at the dance of the refraction on the white panel.
Minho wipes his own board. With room to spare, he draws a much simpler pair of the mirror graphs of his reproductive systems, but this time, he draws them touching. He starts drawing penetration at first, but then he glances at Chris and changes his mind, drawing them just touching each other. Still, he adds next to that the established symbol for sex, the line in the hole.
Next he draws penetration and emphasizes an egg on one side. He draws three eggs alone, next, then three little mermaid symbols. He thinks for a minute, then coins a new symbol for that. Reproduction.
There is a difference. Minho is telling him that these two things are different for him.
The sheer relief that washes through Chris is palpable. It escapes him with a sigh. He draws a big yes on his board.
Minho clears his board. He asks, “Sex?” and half-flips to his back, waiting for Chris’ answer with big eyes.
A mermaid is asking him is he’s down to fuck.
Chris ponders what has become of his life.
Just to be sure, though, he draws sex-yes, friend-yes, then Chris-Minho-question. “We humans mess around with who we like, just for fun. Are you asking to mess around with me?”
Minho answers sex, Chris, Minho, yes, question, yes. “Me and you. Sex for fun, because we can both understand that it’s not a mere instinct for us. Wanna fuck?”
Chris can’t help but laugh. Damn, a horny fish. This is not what Chris was envisioning when he was getting his degree for this job.
“Yes,” Chris draws. “Yes, let’s fuck.”
Minho stabs his shell-board into the sand to keep it in place. Chris does the same.
Instead of letting Minho turn on his back, Chris turns back to face the sea and crawls deeper until he has to stand to keep his head and shoulders out of the water. Minho follows him, doing a cheerful little swim around Chris when he has the space to.
Chris touches Minho’s arm to still him. Like Minho did earlier, Chris too touches himself where the other can see. It probably doesn’t look very different in the water – floating already, it doesn’t go up – but Chris makes himself hard anyway. If nothing else, at least the color changes.
Minho anchors a hand on Chris’ arm and brings himself nearly upright over him. He goes to touch himself too, but the water takes him in a way it doesn’t Chris. Minho has to grab both of Chris’ arms to keep himself in place, and even then his body keeps swaying with the gentle waves.
Chris walks back a little and lays himself to a half-float. This brings the top of Minho’s head out of the water.
Hm. That’s not good, either.
It takes them a good few attempts to find a comfortable position. Chris wants to go deeper to make Minho comfortable, Minho wants to go shallower to make Chris comfortable. It’s kind of cute, but less so when Chris is trying to maintain a boner in saltwater.
They end up at the depth where they usually meet, with Chris sat up to his shoulders in the drink, and Minho propping himself up on his hands in the sand.
Minho touches him first, his curious hand gentle when he pokes Chris’ tip. Chris opens his legs for him, cradles him between his knees so Minho doesn’t drift off.
Minho looks up at him, amazed that this is even an option.
Chris giggles, leans back on his hands. There’s sand in his buttcrack. There always is, after he meets with Minho, but this is a new record.
Chris wraps a hand around himself. He shows Minho how he likes it, or rather, how humans do it. Just up and down, simulating repeated penetration. Fish don’t usually do it like that, but maybe Minho is different. He’s a mermaid, not a fish.
He seems to get with the program easily enough. He jerks Chris’ cock well enough, he even brings his second hand in for help. He tries to trail his touch down and gets completely bamboozled that there’s a ballsack in the way.
Chris laughs. He reaches for his whiteboard. He graphs a quick digestive system, points to the end of it. He leans further back on his free hand and lifts his knees further to show Minho the end in question.
Minho hesitates.
Chris says yes again, sex again, points there. He puts his board in the sand and takes over holding his cock. His abs don’t strain to hold his head over the water as much as one would expect from this position, but it’s not a comfortable position to hold, either. He palms his hole the way Minho had done to his own earlier, then slips a finger inside.
Minho seems alarmed. He reaches out, maybe to stop Chris, but doesn’t follow through.
Chris is as obvious as he can when he strokes his cock at the same pace as he fucks his finger into himself.
Minho flows up over Chris, nearly covering him, one hand in the sand by Chris’ hip. His chest goes to the side to keep his head under, putting him diagonally on Chris’ lap. Chris has to take his hands away from himself to prop himself up.
Minho establishes eye contact and brings himself to Chris – lines his opening with Chris’ cock and parts it between his fingers.
Chris’ stomach flips.
Minho doesn’t connect them, though. He instead lowers himself, tail rotating beautifully to bring himself between Chris’ thighs and point his cock to Chris’ ass. Again, he doesn’t attempt to connect them.
He takes his shell-board and draws the question symbol.
Chris isn’t sure what the question is – is he asking if he’s understood Chris’ description of human sex correctly, or is he asking which of the two presented options Chris prefers?
Either way, Chris takes the spherical writing tool from Minho and draws a clumsy yes on the shell-board.
Minho looks at him. It is impossible to interpret facial expression on a species that’s never interacted with humans before the two of them, but – maybe Chris can learn. Maybe this is hunger in Minho’s eyes.
Minho grabs Chris’ hips with both hands and gives a powerful kick of his tail, rotating both of them so Minho is on his back and Chris is straddling his tail. Oh, this – this is much more comfortable than having Chris underneath.
Minho looks up at him with his mouth slightly parted, eyes squinting.
His hands stay on Chris’s hips.
Chris licks his lips. He grabs his cock, then grabs his chest. In this position, he has to reach behind himself for his hole, and he’s not sure if Minho will understand that. To reach behind himself is a suggestive gesture to Chris, but Minho’s everything is in the front.
He takes Minho’s hands and guides them to his own ass, using them to part himself.
Minho’s eyes widen. A sharp sound from him breaks surface.
“Shh, it’s okay, it’s not hurting me,” Chris mumbles, mostly to himself since he’s the only one here who can both hear and understand the words. He moves Minho’s hands to his chest and makes him squeeze, then finally moves them back to his hips.
Minho repeats the motions: hips, ass, chest, hips. He even goes to touch Chris’s cock again, but it’s only a quick, shy pass of his fingers.
Chris puts his hands on either side of Minho’s pelvic fins. They’re lower on Minho’s torso than Chris expects, which puts them around hip level, if Minho had hips. Minho’s body doesn’t dip and curve like a human does; instead, it’s smooth and hydrodynamic all the way down. Chris estimates it less than three meters long, but it’s hard to tell, since he hasn’t had the chance yet to study Minho’s tail. He’s not even sure what the end of it is like, except that it has some kind of fins there.
Minho looks at the hands on his body and understands what Chris is asking. He takes Chris’s hands and guides him to the spots that are sensitive for him. It’s his gills first, and the inside of his upper arms, then the fins above and below his genitals.
Chris takes ravenous mental notes.
They try that for a little bit, but it’s obviously not what Minho had been hoping for when he turned onto his back for Chris. His shiny hands keep going to Chris’s cock, so Chris returns the favor and finally touches him.
It’s… well, it’s not a dick. It’s softer than Chris expects, and cold to the touch. Obviously. It’s also stickier than he expects. When he fingers Minho’s opening, he’s almost alarmed to find no resistance.
What, anything can go in there? But then again, with a boner that soft, and given the sea currents in these parts, maybe being this open is the only way to get anything done.
Chris carefully tries to insert just the tip of his finger, and Minho thrashes under him. He hears the scary splash of Minho’s tail behind him and retreats his touch immediately.
Minho covers himself now, his hand splayed open protectively, mouth going a mile a minute.
“Look, buddy, if you want my dick, you’re going to have to get ready for it,” Chris says pointlessly. “Unless… damn, you’re really soft inside, maybe it won’t hurt you? Let me see if I understand.”
He goes up on his knees and positions his ass over Minho’s fish dick, which he’s left exposed. Minho quiets down. He ponders for a moment, then removes his hand, allowing Chris access.
Chris lets himself hover there for a minute. He lilts his hips as he lowers himself, pointing his cock to Minho’s opening.
Then he sits back on Minho’s tail.
There. Options presented. Minho can make his choice.
Minho speaks again, silent with the surface of the water between them. He rubs himself, first his hole, then his dick, and reaches out for Chris. He guides Chris’s hips into position and spreads himself with a hand again.
“So you do want my dick. But not my hands?”
Minho, of course, doesn’t answer. He touches Chris’s chest. Trying to entice him.
Chris takes himself in hand and notches the head of his cock against the opening in front of it. Minho’s hands move to Chris’s arms, a spot he thinks is sensitive because that’s what’s natural to him.
He’s… kinda cute, actually.
Chris pushes inside.
Just like earlier, Minho is open and soft, taking the intrusion without issue. There’s no resistance at all, in fact he’s slimy inside. It’s kind of gross.
But, then again, most things about sex are kind of gross.
“Is it okay?” he asks out of nothing but habit. He laughs at himself for even bothering. They’ve drifted a little, and now their boards are too far for Chris to ask anything with any amount of detail.
Minho shudders under him, hands harsh on Chris’s arms. His tail kicks and Chris feels it happen around him.
“Oh god.” He grinds his hips a little. The gentle waves work against him – if he moves too much, he’s sure he’ll slip out.
No wonder Minho’s dick is sticky.
Chris wraps a hand around said dick. He tries to mimic Minho’s movements from earlier – not pumping, more like rolling his wrist to give his grip interest. He grinds his hips inside at the same time and Minho’s whole body twitches.
Whenever Minho moves, Chris feels it around him, squeezing his cock to the sight of Minho’s pleasure. Call Chris a service top but he likes watching his partners’ reactions, is that so bad? This is doing it for him and he’s starting to think that the cold of Minho’s body might be working with him rather than against him.
“Fuck,” Chris pants. He bites his lip through a sound so needy he’d be embarrassed if anyone actually heard him. He makes an attempt at Minho’s hum of a name.
Minho almost looks like—? No, he is, he’s changing color ever so slightly. Only on the fins, but on every fin, the thin parts going pinker.
Is he. Is he blushing?
“Are you blushing?” Chris whimpers, equal parts incredulous and aroused. “How are you so fucking cute, aren’t you a fish?”
Minho says something that is definitely not an answer, because it can’t be. He reaches up and makes a clumsy grab at Chris’ chest, mostly succeeding in scraping him with his claws.
Chris shudders anyway. He puts his hands in the sand on either side of Minho’s head and tries very hard not to faceplant into the water. It’s easy to forget it’s there, when Chris’ horny brain is trying to convince him that this is exactly like every other time he’s straddled a partner and fucked them from above.
We’re not in a bed, brain, we’re barely in air, brain, there’s water everywhere, brain.
Minho grabs a double handful of Chris’s ass and squeezes. Chris’s head hangs with pleasure, forehead dipping into the sea. He scrunches his eyes against the splash. When he pulls back to open them again, Minho has lifted himself off the beach floor, very close to the surface.
Chris licks his lips. To his fascination, Minho does the same – almost.
Chris fills his lungs, holds, and dips his face under.
Through blurry, squinty, salty vision, Chris manages to find Minho’s face and nuzzle it. Minho makes a trilling sort of sound, his hands squeezing harder. Chris loses some air and the bubbles tickle both of them.
Finally, Chris purses his lips and presses them to Minho’s. He holds himself there for a few moments to make sure that it seems intentional, then pulls back, out of the water, kneeling up straight where he straddles Minho.
He shakes water out of his eyes, catches his breath. He runs a hand through his hair and feels Minho let go of a singular asscheek, because apparently if he can leave one hand in charge of groping, he will.
Minho touches his own lips.
To Chris, what just happened was a kiss – to Minho, was it?
They shuffle for a moment. Minho kicks his tail and pushes both of them shallower, as if he really thinks that it’s too deep for Chris, and not that Chris went under on his own. Chris’ cock slips out even as he shuffles on his knees to keep the two of them close. He takes himself in hand and dips inside, making both of them shudder, before pulling all the way out again. He does it again, all the way in, all the way out, and they settle as he plants his knees in the sand better to make the movement happen.
Curiously, Chris shuffles his hips forward. He lets go of himself to take hold of Minho and holds him in place to grind his ass down on. It is and is not like grinding on a cock; when Minho catches on Chris’ hole, he sticks, bending with the movement, almost feeling more like a tongue than a dick.
Minho wraps his whole hand around Chris and starts jerking him quick and dirty, but adorably too loose for Chris to enjoy. Chris chuckles and wraps his hand around Minho’s to guide him tighter.
Minho’s hand is smaller than his. Cute.
Minho makes several sounds in a row, unclear if they’re words, and pulls on Chris’ dick to guide him back where he was. Cute! Cute!!!
“Okay, okay,” Chris laughs. He positions himself as well as he can on his hands and knees and lets Minho guide him home.
It’s a whole-body reaction, this time, the way Minho takes him. His eyes close and his head tilts back and into the sand, his shoulders come up to his jaw, his back arches. The hand that was pulling on Chris gets caught between their bellies. His tail kicks far up enough that it splashes, and Chris feels the muscles contract all around his cock.
Honestly, this specific bit feels more like fucking thighs than fucking pussy. Any squeezing Chris feels is not a result of belly-clenching, but feet-kicking, a conscious – and very strong – muscle.
Chris fucks him as well as he can. The current is calm enough but the unfamiliar environment is working against him, and Minho’s hole feels really good around him, so Chris can’t even tell if he’s doing a good job. He wishes he had some better ways to communicate than the boards and plain body language.
He wishes Minho would tell him he’s doing a good job.
Minho’s hands grab Chris’ hips. It’s a strong grip, but it’s still just a hand grip – it doesn’t hinder Chris’ movement at all.
Fuck, it feels good, though. Minho’s hands are so small, but so firm.
A sound from Minho breaks surface, then another one. Minho’s grip wavers. His whole body arches, then bows, his head coming up out of the water.
Just like Chris dipped his face in the water earlier. Completely involuntary reaction.
One last clench around Chris, and then he’s being pushed away. It’s not until Minho flips back to his front that Chris even realizes he managed to get Minho off.
He also realizes that this is the closest he’s ever been to Minho’s back. The soft-rayed part of his dorsal fin folds under Chris and between his legs, brushing up on him.
Chris touches it gently. Minho shudders under him.
Chris’s fingers trace the fin, unfolding it under him. It barely feels like a fish’s, almost as solid as skin. He makes his way to its root and measures the height of it with his hand. In fact, Chris puts his other hand on the other side, sort of enveloping the fin between his palms.
Minho gives a violent shudder and slips out from under him, crawl-swimming a full foot ahead.
He turns to look at Chris with wide eyes.
Chris blinks.
“…Are you… sensitive?”
It’s probably a sensitive body part…? And Minho did just come, so maybe any kind of touch would be unwelcome.
Chris stands up in the shallow water. He walks over to the boards and picks up his own to plop back down with it.
He draws a quick Minho, circles the fin in question, and writes a no with a question symbol next to it.
Minho stays where he is for several minutes. Face-down in the sand, even, once it’s clear Chris won’t move either. Minho recovers eventually and approaches still crawling on his hands more than swimming with his tail.
He reads Chris’ question and picks up his shell-board to answer. Before he can put his writing tool to the surface, though, he does a double take on Chris’ lap.
He puts the board back down.
“You can ignore it,” Chris says, even as he puts his own whiteboard aside to allow Minho access. “Baby, it’s fine…”
Minho wraps his small, cold hand around Chris’ flagging erection and immediately revives it. These hands that held onto Chris so strongly just a few minutes ago are so hesitant when they touch him now. His strokes are weak and when Minho tries to reach up to touch Chris’ chest, he can’t quite get there.
Chris touches Minho’s hand around his length and waits for Minho to look at him before doing anything else.
Minho has to turn his head to the side to see. So that is the side Chris rolls him into when he wraps him up in his arms and pulls him sideways across his lap.
Minho startles, but he allows the manhandling (merhandling?) He curls up in Chris’ lap, cutely tucks his head against Chris’ chest.
From here, he has much easier access to anything of interest.
Plus, Chris can get a sneaky look at Minho’s front. The dick is gone again, but the hole still looks fucked open, the fins over and below it still pinker than usual.
Chris guides Minho’s arm under his own and around his waist to hold onto his ribs. He brings Minho’s free arm to his chest and guides his fingers for him, urging him to squeeze the whole muscle or thumb at the nipple.
If Minho knew what he was doing, or if Chris could explain details, he could maybe ask Minho to be a little rough here. But that’s not what’s happening, and Chris would like to end the day with the same number of nipples as he had when he started it.
So, wrapping one arm around Minho to hold him tucked close, Chris takes himself in hand.
Honestly, it’s not very good. The saltwater is a bother, and Chris had never thought of lube of all things as sticky but he now wishes he had a stickier grip on his cock. Which is not a wish he’s ever had – hell, usually he very desperately wishes things were more slippery, not less.
Minho’s head does not lift once. His full attention is on the movement of Chris’ hand, which he can see better than Chris can, being underwater and all.
Chris closes his eyes. He can’t see much from up in the air, anyway.
He focuses on the sensations from earlier – Minho’s powerful hands and tail, his sensitive reactions, the way he felt around Chris’ length. How his voice rose so sharp that it broke surface several times.
Chris’ mind maybe slips a little, takes a turn and gives Chris the idea of fucking Minho in a bed, much more comfortable than this beach. Like any other person has ever fucked in a bed. Would Minho still be loud? Or would his voice weaken with the air, like his every other attempt to speak where Chris could hear it?
There’s no doubt in Chris’ mind that fucking Minho between the thighs on a bed would feel just as good as fucking him just now on the beach. He pictures Minho with his legs crossed over Chris’ shoulder and arching his back like he did just now.
It’s enough to get Chris over the edge.
It’s not a very good one, admittedly. There is still too much sand up Chris’ butt. But he opens his eyes and Minho is there, his arm tight around Chris’ ribs as if Chris will run away.
No, wait.
He’s holding so tight so Minho won’t drift away – he’s anchoring himself.
Something flips in his chest.
“Ah, Minho…”
Minho takes his hand from Chris’ chest and waves it through the water over his cockhead. He can’t… keep track of Chris’ release, can he? In fucking water?
“You’re kidding me,” Chris mumbles.
Minho perks up. He presses the side of his head to Chris’ chest and taps his ribs a few times.
Chris laughs. “Yeah, I’ve got lungs in there, buddy. A whole bunch of air inside my body. Can you hear me talk?”
Minho dives off to the side, nearly off of Chris’ lap, to grab his shell-board. Chris’ arms instinctively tighten around him.
“Chris,” Minho writes. “Chris, Chris, air, Chris.”
“Yeah, Chris’ got air in him,” Chris agrees. He traces the yes symbol on Minho’s board.
“No,” Minho writes. He sits up in Chris’ lap and, in the air, gives the short hiss that is his attempt at Chris’ name. Then he writes again, “Chris, air, Chris.”
“Oh,” Chris breathes. “You want me to say my name like this for you?”
He points to his own rabbiting chest. There’s no way Minho can hear anything but that from where he is.
Minho writes “yes” and puts his head to Chris’ chest.
Chris takes a deep, shuddering breath. Fuck, what has he gotten himself into?
“Chris,” he says, out loud, as clearly as he can. “Chris.”
Minho pokes his head out of the water. With his gills still under, his only discomfort is the squint of his eyes.
He opens his mouth and calls, only a little warbled, “Chris.”