More than one tidal wave (closed for Ukstud69)

[Apollo Wilde]

If there was anything close to Heaven on the scarred face of this poor earth, the islands of the South Pacific were it. Oceans that ranged from turquoise to the deepest cerulean caressed white sand beaches, slumbering volcanoes drenched in greens - the sunburst colors of flora and fauna, truly, a paradise on earth. And one that Eden Belmont would do her best to defend. The fact that the island had anything resembling a human population, let alone a bustling tourist area, was enough to make her see red. Not that she held anything against the natives - they’d long learned to live lives that left no footprint on the delicate ecosystem. No, it was the tourists: hedonistic assholes from all reaches of the planet who thought that their money made them more important, that their titles, real and imagined, meant that everything was theirs for the taking. From the littering to the condescending nature of how they treated the “help”- their loud machines, loud voices, everything about them was something to be hated.

Even more when they trashed her beach.

It wasn’t technically “her” beach - she could work for a million lifetimes and never have enough to even buy a house here -, but it was the area in which she worked, lived, and studied. The marine biologist in process, with a special focus on cetology, was, what some people might call a “beach bunny” if they were being charitable (and gross), a "beach bum" if not, and "a meddlesome bitch" all other times. She was the tourist’s worst nightmare: an island conversationist that worked in league with the local island parks and preservations. It was through them that she had her little “home” - really, more of a ramshackle cabin, and the authority to get people removed from the few miles that were under her protection. The home belonged, in truth, to her mentoring professor, Dr. Alecia Nome. Dr. Nome was a flower child from a generation later: white skin tanned into leather from the sun, tattoos of flowers and sea turtles lightened into green by the relentless island sun. Her hair, once a mouse brown, had blown out into heavy silver, always hastily braided back and little fussed over. The land had been purchased by Dr. Nome’s family, ages ago, when these things were still cheap and somewhat exploitive - a sense of guilt, Eden thought, that drove Dr. Nome into marine biology and conservation as well - thought Dr. Nome also had more of an anthropologist’s touch when it came to working with people. She was warm and motherly - and Eden was decidedly not. She’d worked too hard, had too little given to her, to be swayed into an overwhelming feeling of love and good nature for her fellow human. Looking up from the seat of poverty didn’t allow her the privilege of being able to turn the other cheek.

Still, though, Eden did harbor a soft spot for Dr. Nome: Eden was cool and collected to Dr. Nome’s somewhat spacey attitude, with an attention for detail that had played a significant part in her meteoric rise in academia. From her time as a T.A. when she was working on her Master’s, Dr. Nome had come to rely on Eden so much that when it came time for the younger woman to start considering a career after school, Dr. Nome had insisted that she not only join a doctorate’s program, but that she continue to work for her. And, being privy to what made her student tick, Dr. Nome had set her up here. It wasn’t a bad gig at all: though sometimes Eden missed just walking the mall. The most she ever dealt with people was a once a month supply run into the largest town, which was four hours away on roads barely more than slashes cut into the jungle - four hours of ass rattling, teeth grinding, mosquito swatting misery to load up on overpriced supplies that had to either be flown or boated in. Still, sometimes it was nice to pick up old creature comforts: shampoo, body wash. Sugar. New underwear.

As she stretched her legs beneath the threadbare comforter in the wee hours of this particular Saturday, it was with a sense of contentment. Her most recent supply run was behind her, her beach had been free from the most egregious island assholes, and best of all, her dolphins were in the area - at least, that’s what the ancient radio equipment was telling her. The beeps and hisses would all sound the same to a novice, but to her, each dolphin and whale pod had a distinct chime. It wouldn’t take long for her to clear sleepiness from her ears and sharpen that sense to tell which dolphin pod it was - 415-C, spinner dolphins that had a distinct distain for whale watching boats, and seemed to know that the little cove that Eden was stationed at was probably one of the quietest around. Though not too much further - about an hour away, was a makeshift town set up specifically for whale-watching. Her cove would have been open to the same ocean traffic, were it not for the particularly treacherous underwater mountain range which looped around any place that a boat may be able to dock at. A kayak or a canoe would be okay, if they were lead by someone who knew the area intimately. It was a strange little place - on three sides completely surrounded by wilderness, opening only to the ocean, and even that had to be navigated carefully. More than once Eden had wrecked her sad little kayak and spent weeks repairing damage that she was always fated to cause again in just a few weeks time.

This morning, though, it was a good one - she could feel it in her bones as she eagerly got of of bed. Dawn was filtering through the heavy clouds, turning the ocean pale pink and purple, and the morning air was heavy with the scent of salt and upturned rich dirt. She’d go for a quick swim, visit with the pod if she was lucky, then maybe get some gardening done. It was the weekend; she could take it easy! Maybe actually sunbathe - the latter thought she had to nearly laugh off. A year in on the island, and she had permanent tan lines, no matter how much sunscreen she religiously applied. The pattern of her one piece sport suit was etched on the brown skin of her body: pecan where the sun had played with her melanin, bringing it out in depths and hues she hadn’t thought possible, and a paler caramel where her body was perpetually covered. Her eyes, too, were brown - a deep chocolate. And, wonder of wonders, her time at the beach had gifted her with a smattering of smaller, darker, almost black ink flicks of freckles across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. The face itself was in a transition between the late teens and maturity of her twenties - a sharp chin, high cheekbones that were softened by how her cheeks plumped when she smiled, a high forehead that leaned on the edge of overly large from how high her brows naturally sat, and the severity in which she raked back her wild curls. She hadn’t been brave enough to shave her head entirely - instead, she had chopped off all of her chemically processed straight hair, forewent any extensions (sewn in or not), and kept her natural hair braided back in the tightest french braid that she could manage without giving her a headache. A combination of the removal of excess chemicals, good genetics, and healthy activity had seen her hair grow in leaps and bounds since that initial cut - the heavy sway of that braid reached her bra line, a length she had previously never imagined. The sun and salt water had each played a hand in bleaching it from its normal dark brown to the color of new pennies around the ends, a naturally occurring ombré that observers would swear was the work of only the best salon in town.

She was of average height, with the slightly chubby body of a woman who spent more time with books and treats than people. That body was being carved away by daily swimming; only her stomach remained stubbornly soft, no matter how many crunches she did to alleviate it. Some of that would have to do with the pronounced S like curve of her back, drawing attention to her stomach and her rear at the same time. A pleasant figure, but it was more of her self-assured walk that caused the eye to linger, to appraise in silence. Not that she had noticed any of the looks, her mind usually miles away from her present.

Swimsuit, goggles, snorkel, beat up sandals. Watch. There was little else that she needed - not for this, at least. And even if she needed more, her eagerness didn’t allow her to slow down. Out the door, down the rickety stairs that leaned more increasingly to the right as they got closer to the sand. Her battered kayak was tethered to the small crawl space beneath the stairs; she wouldn’t need it. She wasn’t going out that far; she could already see the sleek fins of the dolphins in the near distance. She grinned to herself, the expression bringing out the dimples poked into her cheeks, only visible when she smiled widely. Kicking off her sandals as she went, leaving them carelessly on the sand, she had waded out to her knees before something felt terribly, terribly wrong. For one, a dolphin was closer to her - a sure sign that it was injured. It seemed to recognize her, and began to thrash about in the shallower water.

“Oh, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no,” stream of words, fear turning it high, making her voice quiver as she waded in deeper, to her waist. As she got closer, it was with a small sense of relief that she noted that the dolphin had no visible injury; didn’t leave trails of blood in its wake. Instead, it seemed to be…almost guiding her. It had to be - she’d been around the dolphins long enough to know that their intelligence and ability to communicate was almost supernatural. There was no way to express it in text without sounding like a lunatic - one of the first bitter lessons that she had to learn, and something that Dr. Nome had been fully sympathetic about, having encountered the same when it came to writing about her beloved humpbacks.

“Okay, okay, I got it,” her voice was still shaking, even as she tried to restore her calm. She glanced around: no sign of sharks, anything obviously wrong. Pulling on her googles as she waded deeper, to her chest, to her neck, she quickly dove under once the sand gave way to the bottomless expanse of the ocean. The dolphin was patient enough to realize that this strange creature, one that they had gotten used to, had even come to enjoy playing with, was a poor swimmer in comparison to the rest of the pod. And in the early morning light that penetrated through the water in long shafts of white, illuminating the deep blue world. The rest of the pod were dancing shadows, the water filled with their agitated squeaks, clicks, whines - all beyond her comprehension, but clear in their expression of concern. Once the “scout” dolphin came into view, the pod coalesced around it, then, waiting for her to join them, would not leave until she was secure in their midst. Were it any other time, she would have been excited beyond speaking, thinking that she was in a dream, surrounded by these beautiful animals that it felt, up until yesterday, had only begrudgingly accepted her. She did her best to keep up with them, until the scout dolphin, apparently frustrated with her lack of progress, looped its way beneath her, guiding her to hang on, and took off again. The water was a dull roar in her ears as she was pulled forward, her vision obscured by the strings of bubbles that marked their progress.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been pulled along, but as suddenly as she was moved, she was stopped, the scout wiggling free of her, arching gracefully in the water, directing her towards the thinning line of water, denoting where it was shallower. Unsure of what awaited her, she swam towards the shore, her limbs burning, trembling, when her bare feet finally touched the sand of the bottom. She waded forward, looking around. The rock formations around her were familiar - east from where she was stationed. She’d kayaked past here, in the first months she’d been there, to familiarize herself with the area. It was a smaller inlet, barely able to be called a “cove” - well protected by jagged rock, and the sandy inlet that she was standing on barely accomated her.

So she was beyond startled to see a man laying there, face down in the sand. Or at least it looked like a man; a skim of his body ended abruptly at his waist. It couldn’t have been a tail. There’s no way. Maybe water had gotten into her eyes; irritated them. She had to still be tired; this was a hell of a swim, even with the help of the dolphin. She looked again - it had to have been a trick of the light. Hallucinating the tail or not, there was still very much a man laying face down in the sand, unresponsive.

“H..Hang on!” She wasn’t sure why she was shouting as she charged through the water, running up the small beach to the man. Kneeling beside him, ignoring the fact that he was completely naked, she pressed her fingers to his neck. A faint pulse. That was good. Rolling him over to his back, she tilted his head back, watched his chest. There was no movement. Not breathing, but alive - she had little time, and rudimentary knowledge in what to do. Get him breathing, call for help, wish for the best. It was without hesitation that she pressed her lips to his, blowing into his mouth - pulled back, started chest compressions. “Come on, come on…” Her gaze was glued to his face, panic giving way to the necessity of action. Waited. Leaned over again, her lips against his, hoping that this would get him breathing on his own.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

She didn’t have long to wait for her efforts to bear fruit. “Oopfh!” She was suddenly slung back, landing a few feet away in the soft sand. Stunned, it took her a moment to register what had happened. The wind had been knocked out of her; she’d landed on her side, and it took her a moment to get her bearings straight. As she scrambled to sit up, she turned to gape back at the man.

He’s huge!

She hadn’t really stopped to take a look at him before - being more concerned with getting him breathing - but he was a large man. Powerfully built: he’d managed to sling her halfway across the small beach without even trying. She held up her hands, trying to show that she wasn’t a threat.

“Hey there…calm down…you’re okay…you’re okay…You’re on the beach…” She slowly began to move further away, to put space between the two of them. To keep her eyes focused on the grizzled face.

Doesn’t seem to be bleeding. “I’m Eden Belmont,” she licked her lips; grimaced at the sand and salt that collected there. “I found you here; gave you CPR. The..” Should she say more? He clearly was confused; agitated. Angry. Better keep things quiet. “Do you know your name?”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Okay - he thinks he’s a prince. Maybe he hit his head.

She got the distinct impression that she’d made a terrible mistake. Maybe it was some sort of strange, lucid dream: she was still in bed, curled up under the familiar threadbare quilt with faded ducks and bears.

Her vision was blurred. Oh; right - the googles. Tugging them down to sit around her throat, she squinted in the early morning light.

He was very, very naked.

Like, distractingly naked. Try as she might to look everywhere else - the horizon, the rocks, the sand - her eyes kept drifting back to the figure in front of her. Powerful thighs, yes (definitely wasn’t skipping leg day), but between them? Yikes. There was no way that thing was real. Couldn’t be. And like anything else outside of the realm of the “typical,” she found herself staring. It wasn’t just that it his sex was long - it was that it was thick as well. Almost drawn on his body in its strange smoothness.

He was speaking again, and her attention snapped back to him. “No,” she snapped, as hostile as he was. “What the fuck,” she scowled as he threw it higher onto the beach. Sure, it wouldn’t pose an issue now of being washed away in the ocean (unless it rained), but he could’ve done something, anything else. She’d have to make a mental note to come back to this little place with her kayak and do a clean up. It’d be a good weekend project: something to show the assholes around the area that she did indeed actively patrol further outside of “her” beach.

Why am I thinking about that when I have a clearly deranged muscle man that’s completely naked in front of me? Shock, maybe?

Movement from the corner of her eye - he was standing, walking. The instinct to offer him help was instantly squashed by his rough tones. “I…” To hell with it. I don’t care how crazy this makes me sound. “The spinner dolphins were agitated. Lead me to you.” I don’t have clothes for him, or the means to get him back to my cabin - wait, why would I even try to bring him back? This man could kill me. And I’m stuck here on this little inlet without a way to get back. Hell, if it wasn’t for the dolphins, I wouldn’t have made it here to begin with. “Did…did you fall overboard? Do you remember the name of the ship?”

It felt like a dumb question: he certainly didn’t look like any of the party tourist set. Maybe a bouncer washed overboard? Or maybe some sort of weird sex thing: she’d heard stories about some of the wilder parties that occurred out at sea in international waters. Things she wished she’d never heard of.

And with a dick like that, I’m sure he’s got a line of women - no. We’re not thinking about that. We need to focus on the fact that there is a crazy giant wild man that thinks he’s a prince here on this tiny little inlet that can easily overpower you and you have no idea what really lies on this part of the island and probably would be a good two hours or so on foot to get to anything resembling civilization and you don’t have any shoes or way to communicate.

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Okay, so maybe he had a bit of sunstroke.

She’d heard a lot of wild stories from drunken revelers - “I own a Fortune 500 company; you can’t do this to me!”, “I’m friends with the Prime Minister and I’ll have your job so quick,” “I’m the prince of such and such small country and I have diplomatic immunity!” And so on.

Pressing her tongue to the inside of her her cheek, she took in a deep breath. Tried not to look annoyed or on the verge of laughter: either response would have made this so much worse. Instead, she just nodded. “Okay, Prince Nerites,” she was proud of herself: only the smallest bit of a snorted laugh on the tail end of his name. “I can’t say I’m familiar with either one of those places, but if you calm down,” because his pounding of the sand hadn’t gone unnoticed - a stark reminder that this man was massive, “I’ll help you. But I’m going to have to leave.” Another press of the tongue against the inside of her cheek; a bit of a nervous tic. “See, I swam here - and I can’t make it back with you. So I’m going to go to get my kayak, and I’ll get you to my place. From there, we can phone. But I can’t leave you here. This is a barren inlet,” she jerked her thumb back to the porous volcanic rock face behind them. Truly, the inlet was just that: a small curve in the rock of the island, bordered on three sides by sheer rock faces topped with dense jungle, the fourth side stretching out to the ocean. “And even if you had the ability to get up those cliffs, there’s no telling what side of the jungle that is.”

Falling back into the well-worn habits of a local, she rubbed the tip of her nose with her thumb. Where would this man go? He was stark naked, the worst for wear due to the sun. Okay, so maybe this was a bit out of her wheelhouse, but she had to do the right thing. He was big, scary, and quite possibly crazy - but to leave him out here was, at best, putting him in severe danger and at worst, dooming him. She couldn’t live with either one of those outcomes.

But there’s something else, isn’t it? A quick thought, followed by her brief scanning of his body. Grizzled or not, sunburned or not, his body was that of elegant power. Big, yes: muscles she’d never seen before, but not bulky - well carved, lean. Unreal.

“I’ll be back, okay?” It was thrown over her shoulder as she pulled her googles back on, started wading out towards the deeper water. In the distance, the dolphins hadn’t left, speckled ghosts zipping just below the surface.








It felt like hours later by the time she’d returned, paddling as swiftly as she could in her beat up kayak. She would’ve returned sooner, but in a burst of panic, she’d gone through nearly all of her recently purchased supplies to bring whatever she thought would help: fresh water, aloe for his burned skin, bandages, painkillers. But by the time she returned, she realized how futile most of it was.

It hadn’t taken her long to pull up on the shore to realize that the man had passed out again - this time, thankfully, face up. Or maybe not. She leapt out to wade forward, then, in a flash, remembered that she needed to pull the kayak further up onto the beach, otherwise they’d both be stuck. The dolphin pod hadn’t left her side - waiting in the water until she was ready, leading the way again. She could hear them splashing behind her as she ran over to the man’s side. His chest was rising and falling, but looked so much worse for sun burn. Where once his skin had been merely hinting at a deeper red, he was turning scarlet - and some sort of strange patches of skin were erupting there, too - almost like scales. She wouldn’t spend too much time looking at them: she had to get him out of the sun and somewhere safe, now. Hooking her arms under his, she started to drag him backwards, as delicate as she could, until she felt something damp across her fingers, her forearms. Looking down, she saw it was blood - deep red against her brown skin. Panic again as she dropped him, searching for the source and finding the wound. “Oh, jeez…” Muttered between clenched teeth as she dug her heels into the sand to lift him further, trying to loosen her grip on his arms to avoid aggravating the wound, but trying to keep the right grip to move him. He was like cement poured into the form of a man: solid, unyielding. The first time she’d tried to move him, her grip failed completely and she stumbled back into the sand, landing hard on her rear. Another go, this time, using her lower back and her legs, and she was able to move him a bit easier. Not a lot, but enough to make some sort of progress.

It was moving in fugue state: she didn’t remember paddling back, didn’t remember how she got him out of the kayak, up the stairs, and into her home. Touch brought some sense of reality back to her: the way his skin felt, overly warm and taunt under the cool wash cloth she’d sponge-bathed him with, the steel cording of his thighs and calves, the curves of his biceps and pectorals. How his nipples contracted against the caress of the cloth into firm points. The rough patches that, somehow, resembled iridescent scales in the full afternoon light of her room. The silky skin of his cock - she’d only allowed herself the briefest of touches there, not wanting to be rude, no matter how much her fingers itched to caress it, single-minded creatures-, the startlingly soft texture of his hair, coarse at first, until it turned into thick satin. And then…his face. Touch, there, too, helped build some sense of reality: the strength of his jaw, the pointed chin. Abnormally long lashes, fine mouth that didn’t seem like it belonged to the current year: ancient marble breathed into a human. Maybe the ancients were onto something - like how faces had changed from classic Hollywood to now - as she moved a strand of hair away from his forehead, she realized that was one thing about him. Haunting: a face that didn’t belong to contemporary times. Should have been in a museum.

The desire to kiss, the heat in her chest - slowly building with the realization that he was not just a man, but a handsome one, handsome in a lasting, lingering sense that was beyond the quick second take stolen on the street or in a grocery store. The face that had stared imperiously down from paintings from the 1500s, or glared with sightless eyes atop a pedestal. A handsome man far beyond anything she’d known, or had even considered real. He was real - heavy, creaking the bedsprings as she turned him over, rubbing the rough skin with soothing aloe to help curb the worst of the burn, applying ointment to the wound - she should call someone, send for help. It wasn’t a paper cut - deep and pointed, penetrating well into the flesh. Similar to shark bite, maybe - but how to even take care of that? Would he need stitches? Too much. Too much to comprehend.

Too tired, too - her body, returning from the dream, was heavy. Screamed in protest every time she moved her arms. Everything was hurt - she could feel her own shoulders sting from long exposure to the sun: she hadn’t bothered with her own protection in her hurry to get to him somewhere safe. And as she pulled away the straps of her now dry suit, she winced. The stark lines between the covered and uncovered skin was a sure sign of burn. No matter now; her melanin would offer some protection. Absently, achingly, she peeled the occasionally damp in spot suits from her skin, took off her googles. The fatigue of it all was sinking in. With one last burst of energy, she staggered to the bathroom; showered in cool water. Dried herself. Put on a robe, anything else was too much trouble, too many holes, too much maneuvering, pulled cushions from the couch in the living room that had seen better days, as well as the afghan that sat across it, put them on the floor in front of the bed. Told herself that if she grabbed just a few minutes of shut eye, she’d be able to be more awake, to better assess her situation.

She was out before her head hit the pillow.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Since moving here, sleep had become a balancing act of learning what sounds to filter out, and which to pay attention to. For the first few months, sleep often eluded her: the distant sound of boats, the overwhelming noise of the jungle before night, then the long stretches of something approaching absolute silence in the wee hours in the morning: all new for a city dweller, where the closest sound to the ocean was the distant roar of cars on highways. The more modernity was stripped away, the more adaptable she’d become: if anyone had told her that she’d be able to kayak, chop down stray undergrowth with a machete, she would have thought it impossible. But here she was - and the soft sound of his voice was enough to jerk her awake. One moment she was asleep, the next she was wide awake, jerking upwards - startled by the sound of a not only a new voice, but a male one at that.

“You’re up.” It was partially relieved, partially reaffirming the foggy events of her memory. The dolphins, the initial encounter. The splendor of his body. She ran a hand through her hair, realized it was still pinned up from the shower, and stopped. Might as well leave it up. It took her far longer than it should have for her to realize that not only had her robe opened, but it had slid down her shoulders, leaving her nearly completely bare (and with legs spread indelicately, no less) in front of him. A flare of embarassment, then, panic - calmed by rationality. There was no telling how long he’d been awake: had he wanted to do anything, he probably could have and would have already. As for her robe being undone, that could have easily happened while she was asleep. She made no fuss about shuffling the robe back on; securing it firmly around her waist.

Standing, she tried to appraise the very naked man in front of her as objectively as possible. And failed. More than once, her eyes would have very obviously drifted to his cock, to the thick cording of his thighs. He was taller than her - nearly more than a foot and a half: the kind of height that felt that if even she stood on a couple of boxes, she would still be dwarfed by him. Clearing her throat to sweep away the blush from her cheeks - get it together; you’re not in high school anymore. You’ve seen naked men before, and worse than that - she pressed her tongue to the inside of her cheek before she spoke again. “You should probably get back in bed; you were pretty badly burned.” Tucking her thumbs beneath the terrycloth belt of her robe, it was easier to let herself drift into the role of an uninterested observer. He had been hurt - and that burn, yeesh. She was sure she’d seen something similar in a medical text book once. “If you’re hungry, I think I’ve got some soup in there - and definitely fresh water. Go on - back in bed.” She lifted a brow at him, as if she was chiding a child protesting a reasonable bed-time. “Get in bed and let’s get some painkillers in you. Let’s get you stable before I call a hospital.”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Something she’d said had clearly upset him, and, preparing herself to deal with him like she would any difficult beachgoer, she squared her shoulders and drew herself up a bit taller. Not that it would matter, compared to the bulk of him, but better than nothing.

“You do need a bed. You were unconscious when I found you, and I have no idea how long you were laying out in the sun. And there’s that wound under your arm,” she waved a hand towards him. “Painkillers will help with, you know, pain?” She stretched out the words, pressing deep into each syllable. She was trying to help him! Not that she expected him to be fawning over her in his gratefulness, but some cooperation would be appreciated. “But if you want to suffer, that’s on you,” she added, with an air of dismissal. She couldn’t very well force him to take anything. “But you should get back in the bed at least until I can phone someone in the nearest town - get you to a hospital. You know, hospital? Places where sick people go where doctors with far more education on the subject than me fix people? Or try their best to, anyway.”

Why does he have to be so big and so naked?

Annoyance had helped her keep focused, but as it devolved into sarcasm, her eyes had begun to wander again. Another long look at his thighs, and she was suddenly exiting the room, heading to the bathroom. When she reappeared, she had a towel in her hands - and held it out to him.

“Could you…you know?” A show of turning her face away to prove she wasn’t looking, a bounce of the hand with the towel in it, repeating her offer soundlessly. Wait, he’d asked about something, right?

“Get this on, and I’ll get some soup and water for you,” head still turned, she paused, looked up at the ceiling. “Nautical maps? I mean…no? I’m not sure? I’ll have to look…” There wasn’t much to the island - that much she knew, but maybe there was some sort of map buried under all of the wildlife documentation. She’d never honestly thought to look, thinking that it would be better for her to get to know the island by exploring and learning the intimate ins and outs of it. Things that wouldn’t be on a map. Anything else, she didn’t worry about. Worse came to worse, she knew her best way off the island would be to turn inland towards the cities, not out towards the ocean.

“Here.” The towel was tossed at him. She would’ve given him the robe - ah, the robe! That would be better in the long run. Turning her back to him - perhaps not the wisest choice - she began to root through drawers, pulling out articles of clothing. Beneath the folds of her robe, she pulled on panties, loose drawstring shorts. The robe was shrugged off, her back still very much to him, as she pulled on a sports bra (didn’t want to bother with the straps and hooks of a proper one; she needed to dress quickly) followed by a large shirt - then tossed the robe to him. “Use the robe instead of the towel,” she turned back to him, flustered. “I’ll leave you to it.”







It wouldn’t take long before the smell of some sort of savory broth filled the small shack, and there was the banging and knocking around of large items being moved, shuffled, replaced. Quiet for a handful of moments, then she was peeking her head in the small bedroom. “No nautical maps - at least not from this century - but food’s ready.”

Like the rest of the shack, the dining room was small and somewhat rundown, but in a charming, lived in way, instead of flat out dilapidated. It was clearly set up for only two people at maximum with a closeness that would have bordered on intrusive - scarcely 6 inches between two chairs at a table that seemed more appropriate as a nightstand than a dining table. Dark rings from years of glasses without coasters marked the top of it, with the occasional smudge of pen or marker. The bowl and glass that she’d set out for him were clean, even if, style wise, they belonged to decades past. A spoon was set beside the soup, on a clean paper towel, and, on the other side of the table, a stack of thick, dusty books.

"This was all I could find," she slid into the chair across from his food. "Weird choice of reading material, but whatever. If it keeps you in bed long enough, you can knock yourself out."

 

[Apollo Wilde]

She’d dealt with gruff, older men before. She’d dealt with assholes of both genders; happened often enough that even though it still annoyed her, she could keep “professional.” This guy, this Prince whatever, though? Yeah, absolutely not okay. She’d risked her own butt to bring him back to her home, to get him up and moving - even though he probably shouldn’t be - and yeah, maybe she was expecting a ‘thank you.’ Even the most belligerent of beach goers could cough up something resembling gratitude once she helped them. Appalling table manners aside - she’d silently refilled his water glass, then, thinking better of it, set the water pitcher from the fridge next to the glass so he could serve himself - but as he ripped the pages from the book, that was one slight too many.

“You utter fucking asshole,” she snarled, snatching the book away from him. “This isn’t yours!” She leaned across the table, and with a speed that belied her size, she yanked the pages out of his hand. Thankfully, the only damage done to the pages were from him - no additional tears, not even so much as a dog-eared page. “This is my professor’s! This book is decades old,” she cradled it like a baby. Being a student, being an introvert - books were the closest thing she had to reliable friends. And even though she hadn’t actually read the one that she was now cradling, it didn’t make a difference. It was old, and had been well taken care of, and as a part of the house, it had been her responsibility to keep it all in one piece. “I don’t give a damn who you are; you’ve been an absolute insufferable jerk since you woke up.”

She set the book carefully down on the table, opening it and straightening out the ripped pages as straight as she could, before closing the book again. Maybe the weight of the additional pages would help iron out the wrinkles created. “If you don’t want my help, that’s fine - get out. The door’s that way.” She pointed towards the front of the shack, a few feet away. For him, it would take only 4 or 5 of his strides to lead him out of the small kitchen, through the living room, and out the front door. “You can keep the robe,” she sniffed, as a last bit of good will. Absolutely unbelievable. "I'm sure some boat full of asshole partiers will be along shortly to come get you."

 

[Apollo Wilde]

For some reason, Eden had assumed that the angry, grizzled man would have left without a fuss. He hadn’t seemed like one that was going to argue; just raise his voice and go on about his way. So when he stood and took the table with him, she instantly jumped back a few feet, trying to keep her heart from finishing its journey from her chest to her throat. In that brief moment, the folly of bringing home a stranger, injured or not, came rushing back to the surface. Fear turned her blood cold.

I’m going to end up one of those stories on the news. They’re not going to find my body for week. I’m going to be eaten by seagulls and crabs. This is not how I thought I’d go.

The sharp pain of slamming back into the oven brought her back, and she cradled her throbbing elbow. The strange tingles and ghost pain of whacking her funny bone was a good enough antidote to get her to focus, to bring up that good old “fight or flight” instinct. Keeping her eyes on him, she began to fumble, as discreetly as she could, with her left hand, traveling over the worn oven handle, the burners - looking for anything that she could use as a weapon. Luck would be against her: only the rough surface of a well worn dish towel greeted her.

Damn my cleanliness. She was too far away to reach the sink without it being noticeable - that meant the pot she used for heating up the soup was out of reach.

But wait.

He was whipping off the robe now, a blur of white, an eyecatch of pink under one of the arms. A brief, quick chuckle that was more a huff of air, disturbed disbelief, a pure nervous reaction. She hadn’t thought the wound to be that bad - thought his weakened state was more to overexposure to the sun. True, she thought that he might need stitches, but then she thought she’d been mistaken by how he’d moved around. Apparently her first assessment was right: he was more badly wounded than either one of them had anticipated.

As he went down to one knee, naked as he was, she didn’t know why she took that moment to approach him. She should’ve run, should’ve gotten somewhere safe. Not likely, considering how remote the shack was, but survival was survival. Something she was acting very much against as she got closer to him, sucking her teeth in annoyance.

“You’re determined to be an insufferable old ass, aren’t you?” She was kneeling beside him, her voice warm against his right ear. “Come on…” She looped an arm around his side, under his uninjured arm. This close to him, his skin felt odd. Human, yes, but cooler than normal, then hotter than normal. Solar flare of sunburn competing against a body temperature naturally lower than her own. The texture too wasn’t like her own, too smooth, slippery. Human skin drawn taunt like an overinflated beach ball, more water repellant than her own. Almost like a dolphin’s, even with the wire brush coarseness of his hair. This close to him, she could see those eyes, deep shifting tide pools, the spirit within, though weakened, enough to suck her under. “You’re lucky you’re so cute,” she muttered. Ill-placed humor, a confession that needed to be vented, “Otherwise I’d call the cops on you.” A peace offering, of sorts: he was still wounded. And the book could be repaired. “On three…one…two…three!”

Heavy grunt from her, flexing of muscular thighs as she lifted him from the floor as carefully as he could. Even with his being awake, his size, his frame, was immense compared to hers, and in just the simple effort it took to get him to his feet, having him lean on her, was enough to make her knees feel like they were going to go out, for her legs to tremble visibly. “So where are you from, then, you grouchy old fart?” Less biting than it was before - she was trying, but he had to meet her halfway.

Who knew that a good looking face would make me lose any sense of dignity?
She was digging in, steeling herself with each step as she tried to herd him back to the bed. Sure, he hasn’t thanked me. He ripped up a book. Oh, but he’s not well, Eden, of course he’s going to be irrational. He probably has sunstroke and is out of his mind. Let him rest and maybe he’ll turn out to be one of those hippie surf bums that are always so nice, even if they trespass. "Like it or not," her voice shook with the strain of his body, "We're going to get you back to bed and you're going to stay there until you've rested more."

 

[Apollo Wilde]

She’d almost dropped him when he chuckled. Maybe the old fart had a sense of humor in there somewhere. It was brief, little more than a flicker, but it was enough to soothe her. I’m doing the right thing, that little chuckle seemed to remind her. Even if he is big and scary and probably a rich asshole, you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you just abandoned him to whatever was out there. Maybe he's got a touch of heatstroke making him act weirder than he usually would. That happens.

Not that she had a lot of time to belabor the point - soon enough, all of her concentration was moving the mountain of a man back to the bed. It didn’t come quickly enough that he was sitting back, and she felt that she could have jumped to the moon with how light she felt after she got him settled on the bed. For a moment, she couldn’t do much more than just keep her feet grounded, take in one deep breath after the other. With a quick glance to make sure that he was settled, she went to the kitchen to refill the pitcher of water and brought him another glass.

Setting both on the bedside table, she had to mask a snort as he reiterated where he was from, capping it off with the simple fact that he was a merman. “Yeah - I dunno what kind of surf bum you are, but there are no such thing as mermen. Merpeople. All of that.” She filled the glass and handed it to him. “I’m sure once you get some rest and the undeniable heatstroke wears off, you’re going to be mortified as all get out that you told me you were a merman."

 

[Apollo Wilde]

How could she respond to that? He certainly seemed convinced. And he’d proven himself to be considerably stronger than her - so fighting with him was out of the question. Rather than belabor the point, she was willing to concede to him, just to make things go easier.

Not that he would allow her to figure out another course of action. As he lifted his arm, she took a look at his wound. Trident? Wasn’t that the thing of fairy tales? He really was trying to play up this whole merman thing. But…maybe he had a point? There were three puncture wounds, spaced perfectly apart.

But before that could register, his hand was on hers, pulling it to his thigh. The skin, so cool, gave way to something even smoother, beyond the feeling of flesh. That wet beach ball feeling, magnified.

At least, until her hand slipped. This close to his sex, it would make sense that her hand could, or would, slip. Scales gave way to the silken flesh of him, and her eyes went wide. Even flaccid, the weight of his sex was considerable. The first instinct was to jerk her hand away. It would’ve been the right thing to do. But, instead, she ended up just…sitting there, her hand on him, her left hand going to his other thigh to keep her steady. This gave her the distinct advantage (or disadvantage) of being face to face with him, so close that their noses almost touched. She seemed to be holding her breath, her dark eyes searching his own, nearly lost in the deep violet of them, such an unnatural color, ocean water at twilight, intelligent, lucid, despite the wild tangle of gray hair.

“I…” She licked her lips, suddenly dry, her fingers twitching ever so slightly on his shaft. Why couldn’t she just move her hand?

 

[Apollo Wilde]

She really, really should move her hand.

His body responded - it would only make sense, the same way that she would shiver or flinch if someone drew a feather across the side of her neck - the stiffening making it that much harder for her to think clearly. The impulse was to tighten her grasp, to stroke, to tease, to full erection, to savor the feeling of his skin, similar to her own but different enough to be strange, all for the reasoning that what she was doing was under the “air” of scientific indifference. If he was a merman (why was she even humoring that) - then, surely, there would be physical differences. And as an aspiring marine biologist, it would be her duty to examine him.

But science was the furthest thing from her mind. Like wading through quicksand, she tried to get her mind to move forward, to move past where her hand was. His hands grasping her hips was enough of a start to get her to move - at least, enough to put her right hand on his right thigh, mirroring the placement of her left. Intimacy was still there, but the rumbling beast of sexual tension had stepped a few inches back. It wasn’t as blatant now, but not banished. Not when she was close enough to catch the length of his tongue, the forked edge of it -

“I…” She closed her eyes; tried to shut out the deep burning of his own. The musical lilt of his voice, unlike anything she’d heard, pure in its beauty enough to shake her reason. “There can’t be such things as mermen, mermaids,” her voice dropped as her conviction faltered. If he kept speaking to her like that, he could have her convinced that the earth was flat and that the sun rose in the west. “There’s no way - man has believed a lot of things, based on misinformation…” She trailed off, willing herself to look away. To look down at his thigh, to let her fingers brush over the patch of scales. There was no earthly explanation that her frazzled brain could conjure up. Nothing to explain away the color, the roughness and smoothness there, like a shark’s skin, like a dolphin’s sleek side. Something in-between. Could there be differences in merfolk’s tails, based on ancestry, evolution, habitats…?

His hand traced her stomach - a flinch there, animalistic realization of the exposure of a vulnerable point -, moved to her heart. Due to the fullness of her breasts, there was not, if any, true space between the two of them. Too engrossed with the feel of him beneath her hands did it come too late, as if waking up, that his hand was pressed on her breasts. An invasion of her inviolate personal space. No less than what she had done to him. Nothing sexual there; she could feel that in her gut. No move to cup, caress; to find the sensitive points of her nipples.

Her right hand closed over the side of his own, small brown fingers against the vast expanse of his roughed fingers. Gently moved his hand from her chest to the side of the bed. Her heart had been pounding, threatening to escape the confines of her chest. A deep breath pushed it back down. He was right - there were many things in the world that she had not personally seen that she knew existed - gravity, the atoms that made up the air that she breathed, the microscopic building blocks that made her blood, her cells. Could he be right? But surely myths, songs, stories, weren’t enough to be considered as true historical records. There was science - carbon dating, proof of previous cultures.

A shake of her head. Reason. Despite the…She reached up, cupping the sides of his grizzled face. Peered deep into his eyes. They were clear, still - nothing there that could hint at his being a liar. He was older than her; it wouldn’t take a genius to see that. But centuries? That was pushing it. And hadn’t she humored this enough? She needed more proof than supposed scales, a wound supposedly made by a trident.

“Open your mouth. Let me see your tongue. Like this,” She stuck out her own. Small pink thing, definitely not forked. As quick as it’d appeared, it was back in her mouth.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Her face gave her away before her hastily fumbled for words did - her eyes googled at the sight of his tongue. Somehow she’d assumed the fork was man-made, a more extreme body modification for a man clearly old enough to have had a few…experiences. Not too unlike the burned out beach bums who told tall tales of peyote and acid.

“Oh my god.” And she’d reach out, without thinking, to run her fingers down it, as soon as he’d stuck it out again, after his invitation for her to do just that. One finger, then two - drawing down the line of muscle then pressing into the fork. Thinner, longer than hers. Thicker at the base. Childish curiosity - sticking her tongue out again, she moved closer, top lip touching his own, pressing her tongue against the length of his own. Not quite erotic, but not entirely without sexual overtures.

“Oh, Jesus,” she gasped, “I’m so sorry,” she jumped back - Not bad enough that I touched some strange man’s tongue, no, I just had to go that extra step and touch mine to his. What in the actual fuck, Eden.

In her hurry to back away, she’d wrenched his hand free of her neck. Then she grabbed it, holding it up to her own, palm to palm. Not only was the difference in size magnified, but the sheer webbing, slight as it was, between his fingers was clear. “Oh my god,” she breathed again. Her eyes darted down to his thighs. Was…there was no way. “So where’s your tail?” she blurted out - “I can’t just toss you in the bath tub and you’ve got a tail again, right?”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

“So…” She dragged the word out, looking for any sort of break in his face. He doesn’t seem like he’s lying. But that..a merman. I just…

Even as her mind wandered over how he couldn’t possibly be telling the truth, her hands wandered over his own, his wrists, his arms - and then, she gave a small squeak of surprise as he tugged at her shirt. As before, she instantly wrenched it from his hand, though less out of annoyance than modesty.

“Humans wear them because it’s decent,” she managed, though she was flustered. “We can’t go around naked…Protection from the sun…Modesty…” She trailed off. Why can’t I think of any good reasons why humans wear clothes? “It’s not a matter if I’m proud of my body or not - and why would I be? I mean…I haven’t shaved in forever and I’ve got a gut and weird tan lines. Not exactly what most are looking for.” An off-handed shrug. “But my body does what I want it to, so I guess I can’t complain.”

She was idly twisting the bottom of her shirt between her hands, wringing it until the fabric was well-wrinkled. Looking down and realizing what she was doing, she dropped it. “Okay…so if you’re a merman, because I may as well believe you now - why are you on land? Shouldn’t I get you back to where you belong? Like, if you were an injured seal, and a rescue found you, we’d nurse you back to health and then set you back out in the wild - there’s no reason to keep you on land. I mean…should I send you back? I don’t think your wound is healed, though and I don’t think you should be moving with it. And I think you’ve had too much exposure to the sun…so you should stay here for a while.”