The thing was, that whatever Ryan thought was 'fucking awesome' was what among the general population of fish-people was considered a Very Bad Thing.
Scuba divers.
They had oily black seal skins and dull metal tanks strapped to their backs and masks on their faces, and the two tails. These people had fins, though, but in bright unnatural neon yellow and green and pink. When Michael caught sight of them, he yanked Ryan back behind a rock lightning-quick and cautiously peered out at the humans only after taking a moment to recover from his momentary heart attack.
"Did you eat a bad eel this morning, dumbass? It's people."
Despite the forced venom in Michael's tone, Ryan had the shit-eating grin on his face that always dropped a rock into Michael's stomach, because it meant he had some sort of stupid plan to make trouble and generally cause massive headaches for everyone who wasn't him.
"Yeah, but man, you know how they usually have those weird flash-boxes? These don't. I watched them for, like, twenty minutes."
"That doesn't mean-"
"It means we can have totally have fun with them!"
Michael tried to fix Ryan with the stare he used to get from his own mother when he suggested taking a swim out in open water. Are-you-a-complete-dumbass mixed with I'm-not-willing-to-watch-you-die-so-no.
He had gotten good at it over the years, considering how often he received it himself, though recently he'd discovered that grabbing Ryan and otherwise distracting him worked twice as well.
Right now, though, the thought of doing anything he could possible file under the category of 'distraction' with the risk of humans stumbling upon them made Michael feel a little violated. He was fiercely private as it was.
Well. He tried to be. With Ryan, everything was a kind of challenge, to win and get his way. The fact that Ryan got a cheap thrill out of public sex wasn't one of the things Michael appreciated about him and it was a constant point of contention.
"We are not bothering humans, Ryan." Michael had to hiss between clenched teeth, grabbing Ryan's arm with enough force to bruise when the stare obviously failed to reach him. "We are not bothering humans, we are going to swim away slowly-"
The fact that Ryan didn't make a move to bolt out of Michael's grasp immediately was alarming from the start. The hairs on Michael's arms stood up and he felt a nasty something wake up in his gut- the same cold nasty something that alerted him to the presence of sharks and whales and boats with their silent, deadly nets.
The nasty something was never wrong. Evolution had given merpeople good working gills and streamlined fins and an extraordinary sixth sense for trouble.
It was the exact same sense that Ryan goddamn Lochte liked to ignore, to raise and then dash for the adrenaline, for the thrill of it. By the time Michael realized Ryan was waiting for the humans to float over towards them of their own volition, which they were doing quickly, Ryan spotted it and was off like a minnow scared by a barracuda towards open water, cackling all the way.
"Oh, fuck you, fuck you!" Michael bit out as he flashed away from the rock just as fast, quickly overtaking and tackling Ryan. They erupted in an impromptu wrestling match, a flipping and tumbling mess of fish and flesh. They went at each other for all of ten seconds before Michael pulled sharply away, knowing well that if Ryan succeeded in landing a kiss between bursts of laughter then it'd be all over for him, he wouldn't be able to get properly angry. Which he wanted to.
"You just- you know what'll happen if humans discover us, right?"
Ryan fixed him with the look, that don't-lecture-me-mister look he'd had down pat since he'd hatched. The look that was especially infuriating on him, considering he was as dense as whale's blubber and probably needed to listen to the stern words nearly every time.
"Yeah, mom, they'll find us and take us to their, like, weird air caves and cut us open and look at our fishy insides. I know. We all know. Sheesh, lighten up, will you?"
Michael paused for a moment, then felt the nasty something fall away, white-hot anger flashing and burning in its place. He wanted to say something cutting, to let Ryan know that he could go mess around with humans to his heart's desire even if it meant he could be taken away. Yeah, it'd serve him right; Michael didn't care one lousy bit. But Ryan had at least some foresight, the same bone-deep knowledge of Michael that Michael had of him, and with a low laugh and dumb lopsided grin, kissed and sucked the rant right out of Michael's mouth.
His hands were warm and gentle on the sensitive scales on the sides of Michael's hips, where the splash of navy blue tumbled down. His voice was nothing but a rumble, and despite how badly he wanted to roll his eyes at Ryan's next words, Michael was too overwhelmed by something like desire to do anything more than snort incredulously.
"Don't worry, Mikey, I got this. I know how to swim fast. They couldn't get me if they tried, just like they can't get you, jeah? Reezy's a little smarter than he looks."
So Ryan red-tailed Lochte was beautiful and stupid and absolutely, positively irresistible. So he liked to bother humans and try to squeeze himself in spaces that were obviously too tiny for his double-wide shoulders and stare at his reflection in the shiny silver objects Michael sometimes recovered. So he could beat Michael in the occasional race.
It didn't matter. He was always in motion, just like Michael. They both liked to bang on clams to bother them and catch rides on migrating turtles and make trouble for their sisters. They bothered each other equally and defended the other when inevitable scrapes happened with the other merpeople.
They weren't alike in personality, really, but that was what made it sorta perfect. The knocking, the trembling against one another that had started in their egg lives and never stopped, that was what they both needed. To be bought down to reality, to be sparked to excitement, to be challenged, to be pushed, to be raced, to be loved.
When Michael was with Ryan it was like swimming, it was like breathing and combing through the sun-warmed sandy bottom for lost trinkets. It was natural. It was his constant. It just was. It never hadn't been, and it never wouldn't be.
---
author's note! the title was taken from Neruda's poem, Brown and Agile Child. Sorry this part took so long to come out, the journal kept marking it as spam!
Sorry I didn't comment earlier, I didn't know you'd finished!!
So Ryan red-tailed Lochte was beautiful and stupid and absolutely, positively irresistible.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
When Michael was with Ryan it was like swimming, it was like breathing and combing through the sun-warmed sandy bottom for lost trinkets. It was natural. It was his constant. It just was. It never hadn't been, and it never wouldn't be.
YES YES YES! YES FOREVER
ohmygosh, my heart basically skipped a beat, I was like :DDDDDDD
To express how much awesome all of this is, I would have to quote everything. All the little nuisances their relationship were just so perfect. Love how you built all those mermaid mannerisms so subtly into the dialogue and just into the way you described settings and other mermaids (looking at you Matt and Nathan) and also the amazingness of Ryan winning, that moment was flawless.
The thing was, that whatever Ryan thought was 'fucking awesome' was what among the general population of fish-people was considered a Very Bad Thing.
Scuba divers.
They had oily black seal skins and dull metal tanks strapped to their backs and masks on their faces, and the two tails. These people had fins, though, but in bright unnatural neon yellow and green and pink. When Michael caught sight of them, he yanked Ryan back behind a rock lightning-quick and cautiously peered out at the humans only after taking a moment to recover from his momentary heart attack.
"Did you eat a bad eel this morning, dumbass? It's people."
Despite the forced venom in Michael's tone, Ryan had the shit-eating grin on his face that always dropped a rock into Michael's stomach, because it meant he had some sort of stupid plan to make trouble and generally cause massive headaches for everyone who wasn't him.
"Yeah, but man, you know how they usually have those weird flash-boxes? These don't. I watched them for, like, twenty minutes."
"That doesn't mean-"
"It means we can have totally have fun with them!"
Michael tried to fix Ryan with the stare he used to get from his own mother when he suggested taking a swim out in open water. Are-you-a-complete-dumbass mixed with I'm-not-willing-to-watch-you-die-so-no.
He had gotten good at it over the years, considering how often he received it himself, though recently he'd discovered that grabbing Ryan and otherwise distracting him worked twice as well.
Right now, though, the thought of doing anything he could possible file under the category of 'distraction' with the risk of humans stumbling upon them made Michael feel a little violated. He was fiercely private as it was.
Well. He tried to be. With Ryan, everything was a kind of challenge, to win and get his way. The fact that Ryan got a cheap thrill out of public sex wasn't one of the things Michael appreciated about him and it was a constant point of contention.
"We are not bothering humans, Ryan." Michael had to hiss between clenched teeth, grabbing Ryan's arm with enough force to bruise when the stare obviously failed to reach him. "We are not bothering humans, we are going to swim away slowly-"
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The fact that Ryan didn't make a move to bolt out of Michael's grasp immediately was alarming from the start. The hairs on Michael's arms stood up and he felt a nasty something wake up in his gut- the same cold nasty something that alerted him to the presence of sharks and whales and boats with their silent, deadly nets.
The nasty something was never wrong. Evolution had given merpeople good working gills and streamlined fins and an extraordinary sixth sense for trouble.
It was the exact same sense that Ryan goddamn Lochte liked to ignore, to raise and then dash for the adrenaline, for the thrill of it. By the time Michael realized Ryan was waiting for the humans to float over towards them of their own volition, which they were doing quickly, Ryan spotted it and was off like a minnow scared by a barracuda towards open water, cackling all the way.
"Oh, fuck you, fuck you!" Michael bit out as he flashed away from the rock just as fast, quickly overtaking and tackling Ryan. They erupted in an impromptu wrestling match, a flipping and tumbling mess of fish and flesh. They went at each other for all of ten seconds before Michael pulled sharply away, knowing well that if Ryan succeeded in landing a kiss between bursts of laughter then it'd be all over for him, he wouldn't be able to get properly angry. Which he wanted to.
"You just- you know what'll happen if humans discover us, right?"
Ryan fixed him with the look, that don't-lecture-me-mister look he'd had down pat since he'd hatched. The look that was especially infuriating on him, considering he was as dense as whale's blubber and probably needed to listen to the stern words nearly every time.
"Yeah, mom, they'll find us and take us to their, like, weird air caves and cut us open and look at our fishy insides. I know. We all know. Sheesh, lighten up, will you?"
Michael paused for a moment, then felt the nasty something fall away, white-hot anger flashing and burning in its place. He wanted to say something cutting, to let Ryan know that he could go mess around with humans to his heart's desire even if it meant he could be taken away. Yeah, it'd serve him right; Michael didn't care one lousy bit. But Ryan had at least some foresight, the same bone-deep knowledge of Michael that Michael had of him, and with a low laugh and dumb lopsided grin, kissed and sucked the rant right out of Michael's mouth.
His hands were warm and gentle on the sensitive scales on the sides of Michael's hips, where the splash of navy blue tumbled down. His voice was nothing but a rumble, and despite how badly he wanted to roll his eyes at Ryan's next words, Michael was too overwhelmed by something like desire to do anything more than snort incredulously.
"Don't worry, Mikey, I got this. I know how to swim fast. They couldn't get me if they tried, just like they can't get you, jeah? Reezy's a little smarter than he looks."
Reply
So Ryan red-tailed Lochte was beautiful and stupid and absolutely, positively irresistible. So he liked to bother humans and try to squeeze himself in spaces that were obviously too tiny for his double-wide shoulders and stare at his reflection in the shiny silver objects Michael sometimes recovered. So he could beat Michael in the occasional race.
It didn't matter. He was always in motion, just like Michael. They both liked to bang on clams to bother them and catch rides on migrating turtles and make trouble for their sisters. They bothered each other equally and defended the other when inevitable scrapes happened with the other merpeople.
They weren't alike in personality, really, but that was what made it sorta perfect. The knocking, the trembling against one another that had started in their egg lives and never stopped, that was what they both needed. To be bought down to reality, to be sparked to excitement, to be challenged, to be pushed, to be raced, to be loved.
When Michael was with Ryan it was like swimming, it was like breathing and combing through the sun-warmed sandy bottom for lost trinkets. It was natural. It was his constant. It just was. It never hadn't been, and it never wouldn't be.
---
author's note! the title was taken from Neruda's poem, Brown and Agile Child. Sorry this part took so long to come out, the journal kept marking it as spam!
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So Ryan red-tailed Lochte was beautiful and stupid and absolutely, positively irresistible.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
When Michael was with Ryan it was like swimming, it was like breathing and combing through the sun-warmed sandy bottom for lost trinkets. It was natural. It was his constant. It just was. It never hadn't been, and it never wouldn't be.
YES YES YES! YES FOREVER
ohmygosh, my heart basically skipped a beat, I was like :DDDDDDD
ILU 4EVR basically lol
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