[fic] Keep Me From Floating Away
Title: Keep Me From Floating Away
Pairings: Greece/Japan, Greece/the sea
Genre: Romance/Philosophical
Rating: PG-15 for non-explicit sexual references.
Summary: Being a selkie means being "free" to roam about in the sea, but Heracles can't help hoping that Kiku grounds him enough to keep him from floating away.
Notes: Written for the kink meme prompt "Greece/anyone - floating," which somehow turned into philosophical selkie!Greece/Japan. Notes on selkie folklore are located at the end of this fic. (ETA: Made some minor edits with a bit of help from shibbyone.)
Every afternoon when the first haul of the day is complete and the cats have been fed, Heracles goes down to the shoreline, strips off his clothes, and enters the sea.
The sea is warm and welcoming, wrapping around his body like an old friend. Or a possessive lover, Heracles thinks, but these kind of thoughts are soon softened, muted by the feeling of being underwater and surrounded by the sensations of the sea. He kicks his feet and guides with his arms and his body moves through the water smoothly, the sunlight dancing on the surface just above him and fish that could fit in the palm of his hand appearing to wave their fins at him in greeting before politely swimming away to make way for him. The taste of sea salt is on his lips and tongue; the low hum of the sea in all its beauty and majesty in his ears. He does not need to come up for air; he can stay down here forever.
But he will not. These sensations, beautiful as they are, will never compare to the sensations he feels when he has the skin of a seal. Inside the skin and senses of a seal, he would become completely submerged in all the sea has to offer. His body would not merely move smoothly through the water; it would glide gracefully, almost effortlessly as if he is floating on the currents created for him by the sea, guided by his finely honed whiskers and flippers instead of his lanky arms and legs. His tongue would not taste only salt; it would also taste the precious sweetness of fish nearby and the even more precious sweetness of the sea when it is at peace. His ears would not hear a faint, barely audible hum; they would hear the voice of the sea calling to him, loud and clear, in gentle murmurs when it is calm and thundering roars when it is angry.
Heracles changes direction and propels himself to the surface; his head breaks through and the crisp, dry air slices through the dreaminess the sea has enticed his mind into. He places a hand on one of the rocks jutting out from the water, letting the rough texture of the brown stone and the sight of the small, white-gray house located a short distance from the coast clear his head further and bring back the somber thoughts that drifted away to specks when he entered the sea. It is true that his human skin does not let him connect as deeply with the sea as his seal skin does, but that may very well be for the best as the sea is all-encompassing and overwhelming. It does not leave room for other connections without a struggle.
The sea water laps persistently against his shoulders, reminding him of the world that he is now half-out from, but he redirects his thoughts to the sensations and memories outside of it. Sunlight warming his chest and legs as Kiku lays next to him, trying his best to maintain conversation with him without drawing attention to the flush on his cheeks. The fine grains of sand that he tries making castles out of and produces only lumpy messes until Kiku shows him how to create fish, cat, and love out of it with hiragana and katakana. The white-walled and gray-roofed house where he finds warm foods, warm blankets, and cats as cute as seal pups. Kiku himself, with his dark eyes that can smile more brightly than the light-colored but perpetually murky eyes of selkies can, his seriousness about things that selkies take lightly and let float away on the waters of the sea until they've forgotten all about them, his awkwardness about emotions and intimacy that has an endearing quality to it that the effortless grace and beauty of selkies who only blush or apologize when trying to get their seal skins back from humans lack.
These memories come so vividly to him that it is difficult to believe they could ever be washed away like footprints on sand. However, every time his thoughts drift to the feel of seawater on his body, the emotions and details in these memories seem to diminish slightly as if bobbing away from him on the water's surface and him being able to draw them close to him again only because he does not have his seal skin and the seal side of him hence cannot sever the attachments that the human side of him places on these memories and feelings. Heracles knows that if he ever finds the seal skin Kiku hid from him upon his silent request, his human side and everything related to it will be swept away to insubstantial specks over the horizon by the waves of the sea to make way for his seal side that cares only about the sea. His human side will return, but only after a lengthy period of time with his seal side in control.
Or maybe not at all. He isn't sure if spending many years as a human is strengthening his humanity or only making the seal inside of him increasingly restless and set on making sure it will never be caged like this again the moment it gets its chance.
His mother said that this halfway state between human and seal must be a curse inflicted on their bloodline by Poseidon to show them the true price of freedom in the sea. Heracles hadn't really understood, not even when he had to shed his seal skin to weep for his dead mother because seals didn't weep - he had even been grateful for his seal side's indifference toward human emotions and how being enveloped in his seal skin made the grief float away from his mind. It wasn't until he dove back into the sea after his first meeting with Kiku and his desire to see this cute, interesting human again, so strong and sure on land, was all but forgotten by his seal mind that found nothing important to remember about a creature that didn't live in the sea, that he truly understood.
He tried staying away from the sea entirely after that experience, only to be tormented by dreams of floating through the ocean like an angel through clouds or feeling nothing but the happiness of being at home in the sea that left him tossing and turning in his sleep and once even crying openly in the morning light and making Kiku's eyes fill with a fear and helplessness that Heracles had never witnessed from him until then.
But Kiku was able to help him. His quiet but clear voice cut through the roars of the sea in Heracles' ears and he embraced Heracles, touching and kissing him in defiance of the sea's intangible voice and his own propriety until Heracles stopped feeling like he was in danger of floating away and relaxed against him.
Heracles singles out in his mind one particular memory of him and Kiku, and then ducks his head back underwater. Kiku is arching over him, his navy blue yukata undone just enough to expose a thin but long swath of skin extending from his collarbone to just below his bellybutton. His normally neat hair is tousled, some of the wild strands covering his eyes and enhancing the desirous look in his eyes, and his tongue flicks over swollen pink lips. Heracles wants to kiss those lips, but he can't move from his prone position on the bed, not even as Kiku moves to straddle him tantalizingly close to that area of him. He tries bucking up his hips, straining against his bindings, but Kiku holds them down and reminds him that he has chained him to his bed and hence controls him.
The sea stretches out in an infinite expanse before him, its hue of blue growing richer the deeper he can see. No, not an infinite expanse. A beautiful expanse, but... Heracles gives his mind a mental shake. But Kiku soon leans down to satisfy that part of Heracles that has been aching for attention for the longest time and Heracles, with a moan escaping his lips at Kiku's ministrations, remembers why he lets Kiku chain him like this. Kiku enjoys this kind of private activity, of course, but there's also something appealing to Heracles about being physically chained up like this and told outright by his captor that he's essentially at his mercy, and nonetheless trusting his captor to not hurt him and remove the chains if they grow to be too much for him.
And Kiku is there in the flesh, eyes seductive yet loving, and for that moment, the only sounds in his ears are the breaths and words Kiku murmurs into them and the only sights his mind is interested in are the ones revealed as Kiku slides his yukata down all the way off his shoulders. Kiku grips Heracles' arms as he moves slowly into him, and this touch helps Heracles come back to reality after the soaring sensation of his orgasm and wrap his arms around Kiku when his bindings are unlocked by him.
Heracles reemerges from the sea and makes his way back to shore, smiling and gathering up his clothes that have become damp with sand from having been dropped too close to the water's edge. The sea still hums somewhere in the back of his mind, but he concentrates instead on the feel of sand against his bare feet and then the sound his sandals make against the sandy path as he walks to the white-gray house where Kiku is waiting. His thoughts still wandered to the sea that one time, but he's getting better at keeping a mental grasp on them and maybe, just maybe, turning his new habit of spending an hour in the sea every day into something more than a concession to the seal side of him.
Kiku is sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of tea. He glances up as Heracles enters, then quickly looks back down as if the paper he's writing is far more fascinating than the naked, wet man in his doorway. Heracles' smile broadens and he kicks his sandals off by the door, drops his sand-soaked clothes into the laundry basket, and dries his body and hair as best as he can with the towel draped over one of the kitchen chairs.
"Did you enjoy your swim?" Kiku asks, keeping his eyes on his paper.
"I did," Heracles replies as he finishes putting on the shirt and pants that has been laid out neatly on the other side of the kitchen table. He steps close to Kiku to slide an arm around his shoulders and press a soft kiss to his temple, as he knows Kiku was mentally adding too much to the end of his spoken question.
Kiku clears his throat, a sound that can be interpreted as disapproval of Heracles' actions, but there is no true disapproval to be found in his eyes or the way his body leans back almost imperceptibly against Heracles. "We will be making the second fishing trip in about three hours. You may rest until then."
"Mmm," Heracles says, but doesn't move. He doesn't like sleeping alone with only the sounds of the sea for company; the cats' purring helps to counter them, but not as much as Kiku's warmth by his side and his soft breaths by his ear do. He closes his eyes to take in the smell of Kiku's hair, but when the waves begin to ripple from the back of his mind to the front, he opens them again to take in the slope of Kiku's jaw and the lock of extremely dark brown, almost completely black hair tucked behind the shell of his right ear.
Kiku sets down his empty teacup on its saucer with a soft clink and turns to face Heracles, his lips almost brushing against Heracles'. "Many of the cats have chosen to rest on your bed after their lunch," he says softly, "Would you like to check on them?"
Heracles nods and smiles, and Kiku stands up from his chair, maneuvering them from around the kitchen table to the hallway leading to their bedroom. A window there has been left partially open, and Heracles' careless gaze happens to fall on it and see what lies beyond it. His feet pause momentarily, and he feels Kiku's shoulders stiffen underneath his arm.
He grips Kiku's face with his hands and kisses him deeply. Kiku's arms immediately fly around him, clutching at the back of his shirt as his tongue makes frantic contact with Heracles'. After several seconds of almost frenzied kissing, Heracles tries to make their kisses and touches slower, evener. He doesn't want sex between them to be desperate or fearful; he wants it to be defined only by them and their bodies.
The window is still open - at least one window has to be left open to get some fresh air into the house - and Heracles knows that what it opens to is something he cannot shun entirely, just as he cannot fully stop his mind from drifting to it even with Kiku in his arms.
But there is something about Kiku that makes Heracles' human side feel larger than his seal side and want to be anchored to him, and something about their built relationship that makes him believe with conviction, especially when their fingers or lips touch, that it is not just a hidden seal skin that makes him stay at this house.
*
Notes:
There are many stories of the selkie-folk, supernatural creatures who resemble seals but can shed their seal skins to become humans. Most of the stories are about selkie women who are forced to marry human men when their seal skins are stolen by them but return to the sea as soon as they find their skins, but some of them are about selkie men who are said to be very handsome and have great seduction powers over human women. Regardless of the gender, the stories almost always end tragically with the selkie leaving the human for the sea.
I always wondered just how powerful the selkie's connection with the sea had to be for it to so freely abandon its lover and children the moment it finds its seal skin (even if the lover had stolen its skin against its will), and how it might well be more of a curse than a blessing with the selkie fully belonging to neither sea nor land. Also, while some of these stories make it clear that the selkie was staying with the human only because it didn't have its seal skin, many of them imply that the selkie really did love the human and just loved the sea more, which has huge potential for "human lover vs. the sea" angst if the selkie actually tries to fight off its natural inclination to return to the sea.
I mostly based my general depiction of selkies here off the film The Secret of Roan Inish and the book The Folk Keeper, the two works that sparked my fascination with selkies, in case you're wondering where the "selkies can breathe underwater even in human form" aspect came from. The "seal vs. human" came mostly from my imagination, however, as I haven't really seen any selkie stories about that kind of internal conflict.
Pairings: Greece/Japan, Greece/the sea
Genre: Romance/Philosophical
Rating: PG-15 for non-explicit sexual references.
Summary: Being a selkie means being "free" to roam about in the sea, but Heracles can't help hoping that Kiku grounds him enough to keep him from floating away.
Notes: Written for the kink meme prompt "Greece/anyone - floating," which somehow turned into philosophical selkie!Greece/Japan. Notes on selkie folklore are located at the end of this fic. (ETA: Made some minor edits with a bit of help from shibbyone.)
Every afternoon when the first haul of the day is complete and the cats have been fed, Heracles goes down to the shoreline, strips off his clothes, and enters the sea.
The sea is warm and welcoming, wrapping around his body like an old friend. Or a possessive lover, Heracles thinks, but these kind of thoughts are soon softened, muted by the feeling of being underwater and surrounded by the sensations of the sea. He kicks his feet and guides with his arms and his body moves through the water smoothly, the sunlight dancing on the surface just above him and fish that could fit in the palm of his hand appearing to wave their fins at him in greeting before politely swimming away to make way for him. The taste of sea salt is on his lips and tongue; the low hum of the sea in all its beauty and majesty in his ears. He does not need to come up for air; he can stay down here forever.
But he will not. These sensations, beautiful as they are, will never compare to the sensations he feels when he has the skin of a seal. Inside the skin and senses of a seal, he would become completely submerged in all the sea has to offer. His body would not merely move smoothly through the water; it would glide gracefully, almost effortlessly as if he is floating on the currents created for him by the sea, guided by his finely honed whiskers and flippers instead of his lanky arms and legs. His tongue would not taste only salt; it would also taste the precious sweetness of fish nearby and the even more precious sweetness of the sea when it is at peace. His ears would not hear a faint, barely audible hum; they would hear the voice of the sea calling to him, loud and clear, in gentle murmurs when it is calm and thundering roars when it is angry.
Heracles changes direction and propels himself to the surface; his head breaks through and the crisp, dry air slices through the dreaminess the sea has enticed his mind into. He places a hand on one of the rocks jutting out from the water, letting the rough texture of the brown stone and the sight of the small, white-gray house located a short distance from the coast clear his head further and bring back the somber thoughts that drifted away to specks when he entered the sea. It is true that his human skin does not let him connect as deeply with the sea as his seal skin does, but that may very well be for the best as the sea is all-encompassing and overwhelming. It does not leave room for other connections without a struggle.
The sea water laps persistently against his shoulders, reminding him of the world that he is now half-out from, but he redirects his thoughts to the sensations and memories outside of it. Sunlight warming his chest and legs as Kiku lays next to him, trying his best to maintain conversation with him without drawing attention to the flush on his cheeks. The fine grains of sand that he tries making castles out of and produces only lumpy messes until Kiku shows him how to create fish, cat, and love out of it with hiragana and katakana. The white-walled and gray-roofed house where he finds warm foods, warm blankets, and cats as cute as seal pups. Kiku himself, with his dark eyes that can smile more brightly than the light-colored but perpetually murky eyes of selkies can, his seriousness about things that selkies take lightly and let float away on the waters of the sea until they've forgotten all about them, his awkwardness about emotions and intimacy that has an endearing quality to it that the effortless grace and beauty of selkies who only blush or apologize when trying to get their seal skins back from humans lack.
These memories come so vividly to him that it is difficult to believe they could ever be washed away like footprints on sand. However, every time his thoughts drift to the feel of seawater on his body, the emotions and details in these memories seem to diminish slightly as if bobbing away from him on the water's surface and him being able to draw them close to him again only because he does not have his seal skin and the seal side of him hence cannot sever the attachments that the human side of him places on these memories and feelings. Heracles knows that if he ever finds the seal skin Kiku hid from him upon his silent request, his human side and everything related to it will be swept away to insubstantial specks over the horizon by the waves of the sea to make way for his seal side that cares only about the sea. His human side will return, but only after a lengthy period of time with his seal side in control.
Or maybe not at all. He isn't sure if spending many years as a human is strengthening his humanity or only making the seal inside of him increasingly restless and set on making sure it will never be caged like this again the moment it gets its chance.
His mother said that this halfway state between human and seal must be a curse inflicted on their bloodline by Poseidon to show them the true price of freedom in the sea. Heracles hadn't really understood, not even when he had to shed his seal skin to weep for his dead mother because seals didn't weep - he had even been grateful for his seal side's indifference toward human emotions and how being enveloped in his seal skin made the grief float away from his mind. It wasn't until he dove back into the sea after his first meeting with Kiku and his desire to see this cute, interesting human again, so strong and sure on land, was all but forgotten by his seal mind that found nothing important to remember about a creature that didn't live in the sea, that he truly understood.
He tried staying away from the sea entirely after that experience, only to be tormented by dreams of floating through the ocean like an angel through clouds or feeling nothing but the happiness of being at home in the sea that left him tossing and turning in his sleep and once even crying openly in the morning light and making Kiku's eyes fill with a fear and helplessness that Heracles had never witnessed from him until then.
But Kiku was able to help him. His quiet but clear voice cut through the roars of the sea in Heracles' ears and he embraced Heracles, touching and kissing him in defiance of the sea's intangible voice and his own propriety until Heracles stopped feeling like he was in danger of floating away and relaxed against him.
Heracles singles out in his mind one particular memory of him and Kiku, and then ducks his head back underwater. Kiku is arching over him, his navy blue yukata undone just enough to expose a thin but long swath of skin extending from his collarbone to just below his bellybutton. His normally neat hair is tousled, some of the wild strands covering his eyes and enhancing the desirous look in his eyes, and his tongue flicks over swollen pink lips. Heracles wants to kiss those lips, but he can't move from his prone position on the bed, not even as Kiku moves to straddle him tantalizingly close to that area of him. He tries bucking up his hips, straining against his bindings, but Kiku holds them down and reminds him that he has chained him to his bed and hence controls him.
The sea stretches out in an infinite expanse before him, its hue of blue growing richer the deeper he can see. No, not an infinite expanse. A beautiful expanse, but... Heracles gives his mind a mental shake. But Kiku soon leans down to satisfy that part of Heracles that has been aching for attention for the longest time and Heracles, with a moan escaping his lips at Kiku's ministrations, remembers why he lets Kiku chain him like this. Kiku enjoys this kind of private activity, of course, but there's also something appealing to Heracles about being physically chained up like this and told outright by his captor that he's essentially at his mercy, and nonetheless trusting his captor to not hurt him and remove the chains if they grow to be too much for him.
And Kiku is there in the flesh, eyes seductive yet loving, and for that moment, the only sounds in his ears are the breaths and words Kiku murmurs into them and the only sights his mind is interested in are the ones revealed as Kiku slides his yukata down all the way off his shoulders. Kiku grips Heracles' arms as he moves slowly into him, and this touch helps Heracles come back to reality after the soaring sensation of his orgasm and wrap his arms around Kiku when his bindings are unlocked by him.
Heracles reemerges from the sea and makes his way back to shore, smiling and gathering up his clothes that have become damp with sand from having been dropped too close to the water's edge. The sea still hums somewhere in the back of his mind, but he concentrates instead on the feel of sand against his bare feet and then the sound his sandals make against the sandy path as he walks to the white-gray house where Kiku is waiting. His thoughts still wandered to the sea that one time, but he's getting better at keeping a mental grasp on them and maybe, just maybe, turning his new habit of spending an hour in the sea every day into something more than a concession to the seal side of him.
Kiku is sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of tea. He glances up as Heracles enters, then quickly looks back down as if the paper he's writing is far more fascinating than the naked, wet man in his doorway. Heracles' smile broadens and he kicks his sandals off by the door, drops his sand-soaked clothes into the laundry basket, and dries his body and hair as best as he can with the towel draped over one of the kitchen chairs.
"Did you enjoy your swim?" Kiku asks, keeping his eyes on his paper.
"I did," Heracles replies as he finishes putting on the shirt and pants that has been laid out neatly on the other side of the kitchen table. He steps close to Kiku to slide an arm around his shoulders and press a soft kiss to his temple, as he knows Kiku was mentally adding too much to the end of his spoken question.
Kiku clears his throat, a sound that can be interpreted as disapproval of Heracles' actions, but there is no true disapproval to be found in his eyes or the way his body leans back almost imperceptibly against Heracles. "We will be making the second fishing trip in about three hours. You may rest until then."
"Mmm," Heracles says, but doesn't move. He doesn't like sleeping alone with only the sounds of the sea for company; the cats' purring helps to counter them, but not as much as Kiku's warmth by his side and his soft breaths by his ear do. He closes his eyes to take in the smell of Kiku's hair, but when the waves begin to ripple from the back of his mind to the front, he opens them again to take in the slope of Kiku's jaw and the lock of extremely dark brown, almost completely black hair tucked behind the shell of his right ear.
Kiku sets down his empty teacup on its saucer with a soft clink and turns to face Heracles, his lips almost brushing against Heracles'. "Many of the cats have chosen to rest on your bed after their lunch," he says softly, "Would you like to check on them?"
Heracles nods and smiles, and Kiku stands up from his chair, maneuvering them from around the kitchen table to the hallway leading to their bedroom. A window there has been left partially open, and Heracles' careless gaze happens to fall on it and see what lies beyond it. His feet pause momentarily, and he feels Kiku's shoulders stiffen underneath his arm.
He grips Kiku's face with his hands and kisses him deeply. Kiku's arms immediately fly around him, clutching at the back of his shirt as his tongue makes frantic contact with Heracles'. After several seconds of almost frenzied kissing, Heracles tries to make their kisses and touches slower, evener. He doesn't want sex between them to be desperate or fearful; he wants it to be defined only by them and their bodies.
The window is still open - at least one window has to be left open to get some fresh air into the house - and Heracles knows that what it opens to is something he cannot shun entirely, just as he cannot fully stop his mind from drifting to it even with Kiku in his arms.
But there is something about Kiku that makes Heracles' human side feel larger than his seal side and want to be anchored to him, and something about their built relationship that makes him believe with conviction, especially when their fingers or lips touch, that it is not just a hidden seal skin that makes him stay at this house.
*
Notes:
There are many stories of the selkie-folk, supernatural creatures who resemble seals but can shed their seal skins to become humans. Most of the stories are about selkie women who are forced to marry human men when their seal skins are stolen by them but return to the sea as soon as they find their skins, but some of them are about selkie men who are said to be very handsome and have great seduction powers over human women. Regardless of the gender, the stories almost always end tragically with the selkie leaving the human for the sea.
I always wondered just how powerful the selkie's connection with the sea had to be for it to so freely abandon its lover and children the moment it finds its seal skin (even if the lover had stolen its skin against its will), and how it might well be more of a curse than a blessing with the selkie fully belonging to neither sea nor land. Also, while some of these stories make it clear that the selkie was staying with the human only because it didn't have its seal skin, many of them imply that the selkie really did love the human and just loved the sea more, which has huge potential for "human lover vs. the sea" angst if the selkie actually tries to fight off its natural inclination to return to the sea.
I mostly based my general depiction of selkies here off the film The Secret of Roan Inish and the book The Folk Keeper, the two works that sparked my fascination with selkies, in case you're wondering where the "selkies can breathe underwater even in human form" aspect came from. The "seal vs. human" came mostly from my imagination, however, as I haven't really seen any selkie stories about that kind of internal conflict.