Canal pt.5: Waves
work summary » You think the greatest feat of your career is upon you when a mythical creature is stolen from the sea and thrust into your life—then, stubbornly, into your heart.
You both learn there is more to each other than circumstances, and appearances, let on—until an accident threatens to tear you apart. Soon, both of your fates depend on defending everything you’ve worked to build, or setting him free.
ch.summary: There was no going back now from your choice—but with no regrets.
Hange makes a request of Levi, and Levi suggests an alternative to a life on the run.
content/warnings: letting go of grief, Levi knows Latin, virginity loss, cum-eating, monsterfucking, oral (f!receiving), knotting, multiple orgasms, saying goodbye, breeding/mating, praise, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S OVER
wc: 10.2k
a/n: ahhhhh here it is!!! didn't take a whole month after all. im very happy to be done tho im gonna miss writing for this series. mer levi is just :((
i cant decide, again, if i did the ending justice, so i thank @poisonpeche for beta-reading for me!! youre fucking amazing
previous part・work masterpost・
taglist: @ackermandick | @audreys-works | @ackermandick | @sckerman | @katty | @jayteacups | @notgoodforlife | @chaotic-nick | @b-o-n-e-daddy | @levisbrat25 | @1-800-mocha | @oh-my-bakura-akefia | @happybird16 | @s0levis | @rouge-variant | @sparkywrites25 | @levisgreyeyes | + link to sign up
By the time the first week had come and passed, you were accustomed to the nonstop, subtle tossing motions eating and sleeping on Dad’s houseboat entailed. In fact you learned, as you once had, to find comfort in the chaos.
For much of that week, while Levi, upon your strictest insistence, was in hiding, you dusted the boat top to bottom and did your best to restore it to its previous glory.
Today, you were sat cross-legged on the (now again) white deck, swiping your flowery shawl down the edges of the picture frame. The picture of you and Dad.
The glare off the photo itself would have been excruciating on a sunny day, but it was mercifully overcast. You had sustained some sunburn the day previous fishing for food in lieu of going home for some, in lieu of showing your face anywhere for the past week.
The reason wasn’t for caution alone, although that would have been as good a reason as any for you. The more days that passed, the more Hange’s voice crackled through your radio to let you know the situation.
As they predicted, Levi was presumed to have escaped and you, dead. For the loss of such a “distinguished researcher”, as Hange put it, your work received a huge boost in funding. No dismantling, no trial, no accusations had you returned empty-handed.
But the silence today was excruciating.
It was such a stupid reason not to see the boat, you and Hange’s weird falling-out. To the point where it wasn’t a reason at all.
In every room, you had smelled Dad. Reminders hit you over the head. In the closets were his old clothes, in the kitchen his old dishes, his old knickknacks. On the second day, you had stood in the hush of the little dining room, bracing your arms on the table, chest shuddering and threatening tears.
I miss you, you thought, your forefinger ghosting the photograph. It was your 8th grade science project of a model tsunami, you in goggles and a little labcoat looking as awkward as a preteen does next to Dad. His arm was draped around you, shooting the camera a proud thumbs-up.
No, your reluctance was never about Hange.
It’s fitting someone as impossible as Levi would have you do the impossible itself: facing the ugly, twisted past.
“Hey.”
You jerked up straight and whirled your head back, blinking wildly.
Levi was more sun-kissed than you had ever seen him, soaked black bangs parted evenly and a severe glitter on the blue scales decorating his high cheekbones. They reflected the smoky blue in his eyes.
He was beautiful.
His lips pressed. “Are you just going to just look at me? Can’t I come back yet? For thirty miles I found no boats.”
You should have known he would always be close by.
Like a shot, you advanced on your hands and knees to the stern and all but ran him over. The awkward embrace had his face stuffed against your sternum, but he did hug back… before wriggling away and pushing himself upward to sit with you.
“Levi!”
“Give me a real one,” he said—you gaped stupidly; had his lips always been so pink, his face so pretty?—before tugging on your shirt and bringing you right in his arms.
You sagged into the embrace, your cheek pressed to his shoulder. His skin was slick, but warm like an oven.
You had forgotten how safe Levi’s touch, his voice alone made you feel—like a wall around your heart that protected rather than defended. It had only been a week, and yet you were on the brink of breaking and hadn’t even realized.
If Levi had gone to the refuge in the end… you didn’t know what you would have done. Oh, thank god.
A careful hand, mindful of his sharp talons, rubbed your back in slow circles. He chirped a little, feeling the thin, satiny fabric of your shawl. Spring flowers littered it all over in patterns.
You smiled through your blurry vision of the picture frame clasped over his shoulder. “I need to cut those.”
“Yes.” Levi didn’t move. “There’re lots of things you need.”
There was the matter of basic amenities and food once the canned stuff and backup supplies on the ship wore themselves down thin. The matter of money, and less than that at the moment, the work you still, stubbornly, set your heart on.
But also.
“I can check one thing off that list,” you chuckled, and Levi squeezed you tighter. So much so you were forced to practically keel in his arms, your leg near-straddling his tail.
“...Me as well,” he murmured. “Don’t make me do that again.”
Reluctantly, you wriggled back and press your lips to his, a kiss Levi leaned into the moment they brushed. You tasted salt, and more faintly, veggies.
“Want me to make you tea?” you asked against his lips.
Levi nosed your cheek. “I want to know how you are.”
“...Perfect to discuss over tea.”
He gave you a little snuffle, but agreed in the end.
Inside the kitchen, it took some deliberation for you to hold onto the picture frame for Levi to see. It would mean quite a lot to him, you were sure, and you were tired of running while quite literally running from the law. Or, sailing.
Levi was seated further up on the stern, the lower half of his tail idling lazily in the water when you returned with two hydroflasks. He lit up, or maybe it was the tea he took into his hands as soon as he was in reaching distance.
“I’ve been, thinking. Thinking about a lot of things,” you settled, cross-legged beside him. “Mostly Dad. And how—” you faltered, struck by how Levi might feel. “—how… I don’t regret what we did. I regret making you leave, though.”
“...Don’t regret anything,” he replied, shifting, almost squirming. He was much more awkward than before; you had to wonder just what that time away did to him.
“What about you?” you asked softly, thumbing the photograph in your lap. “How did the week treat you?”
He scowled. “Repeat.”
“You said you went thirty miles.”
“I’ve felt…” Then he stalled, took your hand, and pressed it to his cheek, which was humid and clammy to an unnatural amount.
He had been sick.
“I could be without you,” he stammered, looking away. “I could. But I’d rather not.”
“Me too,” you replied, before he could scarcely close his mouth. You leaned in, and pressed your foreheads together. “Levi. I want to stay with you.”
His eyes searched yours fervently. “You never left.”
You felt, in that moment, you could tell him the way you felt, but the way he pulled away spoke otherwise. Instead, he nodded to your lap. “You’ve been thinking of him.”
“Mhm. You wanna…?”
Like the precious thing it was, Levi took it from your lap, holding it by its edges.
With a tiny snort, he tilted his head. Was that a smile on his face…?
“It’s not funny,” you argued weakly. “I was just a kid.”
“Your kid-ness makes it funny.” Then he tapped Dad’s visage, just softly. “You look like him.”
Indiscriminately, your throat tied itself in knots. “You think so?”
Nod. “I remember. Even when he was older.”
Reverently, he handed it back to you, and licked into the straw to drink his tea. He made a happy humming sound, low in his throat.
You leaned your head on your palm. “I’ve been a little bored, too. I wanna work, but I was thinking, if things could just blow over, I could write papers. What do you think?”
“I think you’re the most stubborn human on earth,” he replied candidly. “Just wait. The future… is uncertain.”
You returned his conflicted expression with worry. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve put you in danger, but I want to rectify that. It’s a matter of your own feelings about your home.”
“My home…?”
The radio beside you buzzed to life. Through the fuzz, Hange said your name. “I have an uppdatteee!”
You give Levi a kiss on the cheek before plucking it up and tugging the antenna for reception. He chirps and leans forward. Between smiles, ruffling his hair while he snuggles your shoulder, you said, “Levi came back. What’s going on?”
“Things are cooling down on my end. At home, I mean. I mean you can’t get away with getting any of your things and you probably can’t ever come back—” they take a big breath, their voice ending on a strained high note, “—but no one’s after your little boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I’d stay in international waters if you can. Levi?”
Levi perked up. After flicking your hand away, he pressed the button. “Glasses.”
“So…” Hange seemed reluctant. “I was going to say something before, but didn’t. I’ve decided, since you’re going to be around: Keep them safe,” they sighed. “I’m definitely not your favorite person in the world, but they probably are. Know what I mean?”
Levi’s frown matched your own as he took the radio outright, and spoke laughably close to it. “Don’t be a gull. I.” His eyes shot demurely to yours. “Even if I had other plans, I—had no other intentions. Now tell me where they can eat.”
You snorted despite yourself, your heart tender. The two of them… You couldn’t have been more thankful. The only reason Erwin had been much more scarce in his transmissions was the danger of it all; you knew how he felt, too.
Hange spoke of a coastal market a few hours’ trip from your current location. That seemed as good a place as any to eat, and bathe.
“Talk to you soon, hon’,” Hange said.
You smiled. “Will do, Hans.”
You ended the transmission, and quirked a brow at Levi. “You wanna go to a lagoon with me…?”
He deadpanned. “Obviously.”
Your groceries of all kinds, mostly fresh fruits and canned goods, sat aboard Dad’s docked houseboat while you and Levi coddled each other in the nearby lagoon. A sharp click broke the air with every one of his nails you trimmed.
Even though you were nude, Levi, faced towards you with his tail bent, kept his hands to himself.
“I wish there was some way you could come aboard with me,” you hummed. Click.
Levi seemed thoughtful. “I’ve never been on a boat. Make a pool.”
Ironic.
“I bet there’s lots of things you haven’t tried. How about apples? Ooo—” Click, “—zucchini?”
“No,” he murmured, slightly perturbed. “Zucchini… Sounds like Latin.”
You giggled. You couldn’t help it. “You know Latin?”
“Semper fidelis.” (Always faithful)
“Wow,” you murmured, nibbling on your lip. He spoke it like scripture. “Levi, I know Latin.”
“That’s why I didn’t say something more embarrassing,” he scoffed, but you could have sworn a little smile sat on his face, complimented by the sunrays above.
When his nails were done, you tucked the clippers on your bag off to the side. Levi watched you all the way until your lips met.
“Have to be quiet,” you whispered.
A hot tongue swept over your pulse point, vibrated by a deep hum. “What else could we be mistaken for doing—you, and a mer?”
“Yeah, well,” you breathed, guiding his hand down. “I’m—I’m naked.”
His rough palm swallowed one of your pillowy tits in time for him to murmur, “And I’m not?”
You sighed at the squeeze. It dissolved into a gasp as his thumb applied pressure, taking your hardening nipple in circles. Like an electric shock to your core. “Oh. Levi.”
“I know that feels good.” With one webbed hand, he held your neck, and nosed the other side. “You smell…” He buried his nose there. “...irresistible.”
Only he would have said something like that with such meaning.
You scoffed softly, planting his hand directly on your chest. If you leaned in any more, you’d drop into a straddle over his… lap.
“What do I smell like, hm? Seaweed?”
His teeth sank in, both hands falling to push your tits together. Your breaths grew heavy.
“Levi.”
He moaned into the bright mark he’s leaving, and lapped at it to soothe.
He whispered in your ear, “Even if you hadn’t told me, I can smell how sweet you are. Like a virgin.”
Poorly-hid shivers wracked you. A virgin. He made a clean word sound so dirty.
If he has a sarcastic quip in mind, you don’t want to hear it. You pull away, gaping at his eyes, dilated to resemble coal.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” You mold your lips together, your thumb encircling his soft pink nipple.
He grunts, a long breath filling his chest.
“This is how I touch you, right?” you murmured, hot lips sliding together. “Teach me.”
Levi hummed, reserved, and trailed your hand downward. His eyes were half-lidded, glazed, but earnest. “Keep going.”
Down under a shallow amount of water, you gasp swiftly to find a short line, soaked in a thick way despite the water. Tracing it with your pointer finger drags a gasp out of him.
“Fucking—” Levi’s eyes rolled back, abandoning your chest entirely to hold onto your waist. “Put it inside. Now.”
The sudden shift in power balance enthralled you. You barely dipped it instead, not as shocked to find it scathing hot, and licked into his parted lips. “What about a ‘please’?”
“You’re one to talk, sweetheart.” Levi’s palm slid up your thigh and squeezed, just faintly. “I’ll make you beg before you ask that of me.”
“W-We’ll see.”
Curse your stutter.
Rough fingertips wandered further upward until his thumb dipped past your lips, pulling a harsh gasp from you, jaw dropping. That thumb sweeps back and forth, a constant pressure to your clit.
“Mm.”
You parted your thighs outright, chasing a fleeting touch. “Levi—”
“Here.”
The next thing you knew, he was dragging your bottom lip down and dipping his thumb inside. You licked instinctively, only to find his tongue meshing with it as well. They brushed around his cum-slathered thumb.
You watched his dark eyes flutter. “You taste good.”
You turned hot, positively flustered, and lurched forward to swap tongues until you fell in a straddle across his lap. If he wanted to act like that, you could reciprocate.
Two of your fingers dipped past his slit, and finger in and out. Hot breath basked your face, brought on by a beautiful, tiny whimper as you dipped deeper and brushed something fleshy, round and hard.
“Fuck!” Levi gasped, in a tone you’ve never heard from him. Beyond your closed eyes, you find a new color glowing blue, and, confused, you open them to find a beautiful sight: the scales decorating his cheeks hold an ethereal glow, glittering down his neck.
He looked down, as if stung. “It’s—It’s a display. Don’t look.”
You gaped, your fingering picking up proper thrusts. “Make me.
“What am I touching—” Fingers brush that round growth again, “—here?”
“Me,” he breathed. The red on his cheeks compliments the beautiful blue glow. “How about you lay down so I can taste you properly?”
You pinned your lip between your teeth. If he was aroused enough, you knew it would slip out. “If you let me do the same to you.”
“Hah. I doubt it’d compare.”
“That’s your opinion.”
In the shallow portion of the pool, where pure water bled onto your belly and swallowed your calves, Levi made a place with one of your towels, set up between your legs. The very first thing he did, for all his lust, was kiss your belly, dragging his tongue downwards.
“Hah.” Your eyes float closed, clit throbbing. “Levi.”
He growled at the mention of his name and pressed his tongue flat. Through his open mouth, his hot breath beated down on your cunt as it slipped between, and slides up.
A moan was torn from the top of your throat. This, you had never felt before, not ever. His tongue was heavy and searing hot, probing your clit in long sweeps.
“Put your fingers in,” you begged.
He groaned into your pussy.
“Levi.”
“Changed my mind.” He nuzzled the warm crease between your thigh and your cunt, two fingers sliding up, down, then dipping in. He watches with fascination, licking his lips. “You’re a peach. A sweet thing gushing for me.”
You clapped your hand over your mouth, whimpering strained as his two fingers curled.
His hot mouth smeared back on your pussylips, kissing in the same way you were swapping tongues minutes before.
You didn’t know how he did it, but you were gone. Your hand fell down to his hair, hips rolling up.
Levi surprised you when he moaned. You didn’t think he’d like to be yanked around until he squeezed your thighs and his lapping turned rapid
“I thought you said quiet?” he spoke into your clit. Hands venture up and down your thighs all over, squeezing them around his head. “I love these pretty legs.”
You gasped as he actually bit, working the fat of your thigh into his mouth.
Levi took your brief helplessness to his advantage and bent your knee over his shoulder. The angle changed, and your toes curled just as Levi’s fingers did the same. Your pussy squeezed.
“I’m gonna come,” you whimpered over your squelching cunt. Your head fell back, back lifting. “Levi Levi Levi...”
Levi’s tongue pushed up against your clit, those fingers hammering in and out. “Come.”
When you came, it was being thrown up into the clouds, crying out your ecstasy, and breaking out into blind thrashing. Levi held and lapped and fucked you through a climax hard enough to blank, stars flashing, pussy quivering tight to hug his fingers.
His mouth is unrelenting to your clit, suctioning to milk you for all you’re worth. It was animalistic, even, primal in the way he barely slowed when your shivers dissolved into squirms.
You squeezed his hair and gave it a tug. “It’s so—” you tossed your head from side to side, “—fuck it’s too much.”
“...Mm. Poor thing.” Reluctantly, Levi looked up, licking his lips in a comical way, if it wasn’t for the haze settling into your bones. “Are you still intent on making me beg?”
You pinned your tongue between your teeth and took his glowing features in both your hands. The color hadn’t calmed down at all. In fact, you thought it had gotten brighter.
“You’ve been a good boy; I don’t think so.” You nodded towards his eyes, having widened a fraction. “Lay right here.”
You switched places, following around in a straddle over his tail.
Levi raised it, urging you closer to meet him in a searing kiss. The hand behind yourself stroked into his slit, causing his chest to rise, while your free hand scooped up one of his pecs and rubbed.
Your lips smacked, and he growled like an animal; you were nearing the end of his patience.
“This is how I do it, right?” you teased, only to be reeled in by a hand diving in your hair.
You shuffle back as far as the bend of his tail allowed, your soft hands following down hard, packed muscle to his slit. It was even more slick than his scales.
Dipping a finger in stilled Levi’s parting lips. You yourself were surprised to feel him, his cock swell forth from his slit and slap his belly.
Levi squeezed your hip as his cock was fully revealed to you, visibly throbbing and glowing with copious amounts of cum oozing from its round head. It was actually blue, brilliantly hued given how worked up he was because of you.
“...Touch me.” He kissed your shoulder. “Turn that science-brain off.”
“It’s been off. I haven’t seen one before, period,” you drawled, breathless.
“Now you have.”
Levi’s slippery hand guided yours in a tight fist around his base, following up and down.
His blush turned darker. As if in response to that, his mouth took to your neck with a high-pitched sigh.
“Feels good?” you asked lightly, knowing the answer.
Levi grunted. His hand left his cock and squeezed your thigh. “...Don’t stop.”
Enamored, you ran your thumb up along a particularly firm vein, to his slit. At the lightest dip, he groaned, cum oozing over your fingers. It was wet enough to squelch, which you took to your advantage to move faster.
You bowed your head, and suckled his nipple into your mouth. At his approving moan, low and cut at his poor attempts to hide it, you hummed. It felt good to make him feel good.
“Levi,” you murmured, and tilted your hips. “Do you want this?”
His hand on your jaw brought your lips to his in a short peck. “Don’t. Just.” His hips canted up, flopping the water. “Don’t stop.”
You were surprised, but accepted the boundary, and his growing shudders, for what it was.
“Can I do this…?” You angled his cock so your cunt slotted in with his thick girth, and rolled your hips back and forth.
Levi’s jaw dropped with an airy whimper. “It’s hot. It’s too hot.” His eyes rolled back as his hips jerked sharply, making you both gasp. “Ngh. Sweetheart.”
That was all he could say, and you loved it.
Also hot was his breath that hit your lips, and his cheeks when you pressed together. Just right, the ridges of his cockhead kissed your clit with every upwards stroke, so you grinded closer until your chests were pressed right up against each other in a faster and faster rhythm.
“I’m close, s’close, keep, don’t stop. Don’t dare fucking stop.”
That was as close to begging as you could want, because white-hot waves were rising in you as well. With one hand, you reached behind and buried two fingers inside your cunt, using the other to guide his swollen cock through your cunt. Levi held you, and held you.
“I’m gonna come, too,” you breathed, back arching. “Oh, oh—”
“Yeah, there you go, come,” Levi moaned. “Good girl. Good sweet girl.”
His words and your curling fingers had you shaking against him while Levi grunted, his rhythm turned choppier.
The next time you were aware of damn-near anything, he was panting, the light off his scales bluer than ever. He grunted your name in warning.
“Levi,” you breathed, “Levi, please.”
“Mm—” He squeezed you impossibly tight when he came, shooting ropes of cum to your chest and his, head whipped back, features drawn blissed and slack. “Yeah, yeah yeah—”
Your lips slid down his jaw as he moaned, long and low. In your hand, his cock visibly twitched and rose until the last of his load oozed over your knuckles.
He came down with meager little jerks of his hips until all was softly silent, save for his tail swishing the water in slow, lazy flops. The crooning noise he made, muffled in your neck, made you smile as you caught your breath.
In the aftermath, Levi briefly let you go so you could wash off in the deeper end. You didn’t know quite how he did it, so you kept an eye out for him while he recovered. It seemed like whenever he was finished, his sex retracted back into the slit again.
Interesting.
“Quit analyzing me,” he scoffed in your direction. “Perverted of you.”
“Interested,” you corrected him with a well-meaning smirk.
“Worse.”
“I think it’s all good.”
Once you had properly wrapped your soaps back up and tucked them into your satchel, you drifted back over to him. He wasted no time in wrapping his arm around your waist.
Something was eating at you. After his comment back on the boat about “the future”, you decided to ask. “Was there a specific reason you didn’t want to—” you felt your cheeks heat, “—ya know.”
Levi blinked doelike at you. “Yeah. There was. Knot.”
Knotting, Levi went on to explain, was an unavoidable part of the mating ritual within his species. It happened in some mammals, but your lips parted—you hadn’t expected that.
“I don’t think I’d.” Your tongue darted out to wet your lips. “I wouldn’t say no.”
Also considering that wide difference, your species, it would be impossible to produce a child, or so you thought. Levi made a face at the mention.
“No. But that’s not why I’m telling you now. It’s not smart as long as your future’s uncertain.”
“Why?”
Above, a seagull crooned, and you tugged your towel tighter against your chest.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” you said.
Levi cleared his throat. “What does Glasses like to call what I am? A legendary creature?”
“Myths,” you caught on. “You’re saying some myths are true.”
“I don’t know every one. But some myths…” His tale flopped. “It’s mythical, for sure.”
The more he dodged the topic, the more you wanted to take a notepad and begin to write. Just because you were, for all intents and purposes, fired, didn’t leave you any less curious.
“You want to escape your land-seekers,” Levi said, more to the water below than you. “There’ve been stories. Mers who fuck landpeople, and those landpeople end up different. To an extent. It depends on what you want.”
Different, as in, transformed. Your eyes lit up. “How the hell does that work? I have to know.”
“Why do I glow?” he retorted, a scowl in his brow. “I don’t ask; I do.”
Reality, eventually, did catch up with you, along with what Levi was implying.
It was possible for you to become half-mer.
“But, isn’t that the best of both worlds?”
“We would be bonded,” he rebutted. “Connected without chance of tearing.”
Obviously, this conversation made him uncomfortable. He shifted, almost a squirm. “Consider it marriage.”
Thin-lipped, you watched the water for a while and the sunlight glittering off it, feeling the sun beat down on your back—stewing. A sort of helplessness lifted your belly up, but the idea of Levi set you right again. Levi, doing that to you; Levi, the one by your side.
“You’d scarcely worry about them again. Maybe…” He detested the idea of setting up your future for you. “You could remain close, but that’s your decision. If not, your life is fear, but you keep your landfeet. I won’t choose for you.”
You nodded, but a little late for him. He leaned forward and touched your cheek, head tilted. Shining greys searched your own.
“It’s your decision, remember,” he said. “I plan to stay.”
“Stay,” you echoed.
That, at least, was one decision easily made.
Levi looked like a model out of a summer magazine, the way he was posed on his belly, hands propping up his chin and tail bent—with one exception. As you hopped down from the rickety dock and joined him on a shallow inlet of sand, you withdrew the little aluminum foil ball from your satchel, and threw it. He launched up on his haunches to snatch it midair, causing you to throw your head back, you laughed so hard.
The daggers in Levi’s glare were palpable as you plopped down on a towel. Your shorts would be ruined anyway, sand has been inescapable, but you would get used to it.
His mean look is momentary; it fades as he bats the tightly-packed ball in his hands. It had always been one of his favorites.
“Thanks,” he mumbled, popped it lightly in the air, and caught it when it dropped back down.
You nodded in the direction of the boat. Matilda sang loud and bright inscribed across the side again. “Thank you for cleaning the sides.”
“Mm, it looks like someone actually lives in it again. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether that’s a positive or not.”
A few more months past leaving, you would like to think it is. But these days, you need to dock just to save research you had typed up, much less send the documents to Hange to be published. Anonymously, of course.
You leaned over and gave Levi a soft kiss before maneuvering onto your back and opening your laptop lid. Beside you, he shifts, and a dark shadow suddenly waves overhead; he was shading you with his tail.
“Thank you, Lev’,” you murmured, unmistakably fond.
“It’s a hot day on a nowhere beach,” he grumbled. Crinkling could be heard behind his tail. “‘Course I’m doing it. You’ll go up in flame otherwise.”
“We’re here because this is the only place I can get WiFi,” you said distractedly.
Levi sounded out the word. “Why-…Fly.”
“Wi-Fi. Internet. The worldwide web and all that.”
Levi didn’t reply, so you rolled your head back and peered around his tail to find his fingers linked in a wiggly web shape.
A laugh escaped you. Cute.
You reached for your bag. “Here, take this. I should be expecting something from Hange soon.”
Your radio was snatched without another word.
You wondered if your paper made it to Hange. At best, you only got two or three bars out here, and it was possible that it had gotten lost in, indeed, the web.
The radio poured static atop Levi’s chest. Not long after, you heard, “Who and what.”
“Why, it’s me of course!” Hange’s jubilant voice rang out of the speaker. “You must be out of water, Levi. What’s up?”
“What? It's the sky, idiot.”
That’s enough fun. You pushed your laptop off your lap and leaned around to capture the radio, which Levi allowed with a thick chirp.
With you on the line, it was down to business. Hange informed you that they had in fact received the paper by some miracle, and that they were on the way with your things.
A feeling both blue and golden unfurled in your chest; longing, sadness, and victory. You were grateful.
“What have you two been up to?”
Levi leaned up, ball in hand, his tail unceremoniously flopping on the sand and whooshing a yellow cloud out towards the shore. “Being a subservient umbrella for this brat.”
“Ah-ah-ah,” you interrupted. “Hange, he volunteered to be the umbrella. He thought I would ‘catch on fire’,” you quoted, snorting like a little kid. “How are you?”
“God, you two are adorable,” they cackled. “I’ll see you soon.”
You bid them a brief goodbye, but that conversation—
You flopped on your back again, frowning. Hange must not have been doing well at all. Selfishness made a home in you.
Levi rolled over to face you, dusting off sand caking his arm with a glare. “They didn’t answer your question.”
“I know.”
He frowned. “They have a lot to feel shitty about. I’ll give them that.”
“I know,” you groaned, squinting up at the sky. In the future, would things get better than this?—How likely was it really that you and Hange would have your Friday dinners ever again? Let alone on that barge in your hometown.
You wouldn’t have died from loneliness. Sometimes your thoughts carried you on a whimsical wind towards charting the world’s oceans with Levi by your side, and pursuing your work along with him. Effortlessly flashing your old badge at a person in a lab coat and getting your hands on some scuba equipment; having Levi try linguini; gliding along a blue whale’s back while Levi swam circles around it; absorbing the ocean’s vast secrets without the stress of notoriety that went with it—
You loved that life. Maybe waking up with him in your window was a good start.
But none of these ideas included Hange.
You got lost in thought. Suddenly a shadow is cast over you, Levi, who flicked your cheek a little.
“Do you need to talk?” he asked, earnest.
Do you want to talk about it?
“...I’m, scared,” you admitted. A trial in itself. “Of losing Hange.”
Levi regarded your frown with a deeper one.
In your mind, it was entirely possible, but he shook his head. “They like you too much.”
“Circumstances may not agree,” you murmured.
“Feelings don’t listen to circumstance. Loss...” He clicked his tongue. “No. When Kenny left me, I felt the way that I still do, but it’s an older feeling.”
You quieted. Levi seldom ever spoke about such things, and you intended to give him your full attention, and then some.
“He never intended to stay,” Levi went on quietly.
You waited, asked gently, “Why would anyone not wanna stay with you?”
Levi didn’t respond at first; he had his thinking face on. Eventually his forearms settled outside your shoulders, where he laid, deep in thought.
“...Our feelings differed, I guess,” Levi answered after your eyes had closed. “He taught more than was family. Taught strength. And once I was fit, or too hopeless to teach any more, that was it.”
“Oh, Levi,” you sighed, and put a hand in his warm hair. He leaned into it like a cat.
He cleared his throat, his head shifting to your chest. “My point is that you and Hange have mutual feelings. Circumstances won’t break a bond like that. Feelings get old, but they never die.”
Right on time, the rumbling of wheels on sand took over the inlet. Hange’s brownish, topless Jeep showed up in a wave of sand that missed you and Levi by mere feet. It was full of your stuff.
“Howdy!” they shouted, cranked the Jeep off, and stooped over the windshield. “Long time, no see!”
You jumped up, only to be nearly knocked over by the hug they tackled you with. Laughing, they reached down and patted an interested-looking Levi on the head, to which he scoffed and batted them away.
“Glasses,” he greeted.
“Mm.” Hange pushed said glasses up on their nose. “Let’s get packed, shall we?”
You joined them up on the dock; merciless work. A whole dune climbed up between your boat and the car while Levi (and that ball) retreated to wash off, leaving you and Hange alone.
Or you wish you were. You went back and forth in perfect sync, to the point that you never met in the same place, so for one round you waited, pretending to look over the boxes until they were forced to approach.
When they did, you grabbed their arm. “Gonna tell me what’s up with you?” you asked, innocently enough.
They tried to wave their hand, trying to be casual, but you knew better. You shot them an unimpressed look. “I’ve known you long enough to tell.”
You left the meaning of that up to them to decipher.
“...It’s what’s been up,” they got out in a long, hard breath. “I’m talking to a dead person. Not your fault,” they were quick to add. “But I may or may not have attended your funeral the other day—I mean, not going would’ve been suspicious—and it was sad as hell, okay?”
They waved again. “Of course, I still see you, so I don’t know what’s gotten into me! Aren’t I being crazy?”
“No, wait.” Your jaw stammered. “Things are… strange now. We have to be further apart. It’s. Hard.”
Your voice was already straining. Hell.
You shook your head at their frown. “Hange, I’m…”
“You know I’ll see you again someday,” they said, just above a whisper. “And more than once.”
“I know.” You swallowed.
But this feels so final.
You went for it. You cupped the back of their head and brought them into your arms. “...Love ya, Hange. See you later.”
That was better. See you later was always better than goodbye.
“Yeah.” They sounded just as fragile. Then firmer, “Yeah, yes,” before they pulled back and patted your cheek. “Enough tears... Wanna round up Levi and make sand castles?”
You grinned, unashamed. “Hell yes.”
You placed your hands on your hips and surveyed the little pool—more of a kiddie pool, in your opinion—set up on the stern of the boat.
“Does it have your approval?” you asked a curious Levi, head tilted where he was sat on the stern’s edge—after all this little project was for his own convenience. You had been itching so much for something to do, it only took a day or two to get the circular siding, baby blue plastic, just right.
Besides, it was for your convenience too. Cleaner.
Levi scooted until his backside fell in, where he stirred the water with his hand and stretched out. The water would have to be warmed by the sun, as it was this late afternoon, but he could fit, at least.
“Well?” Levi extended his hand. “Join me.”
You didn’t hesitate as much as you would have had you been surprised by the invitation.
Maybe this wouldn’t go that far, because as far as Levi knew, you hadn’t come to a decision yet, but… you wouldn’t have been complaining.
You crawl towards the water’s edge and cross your arms with intent to take the hems of your shirt. It comes off over your head in a single fluid motion.
Levi’s eyes glaze, chest rising. Instead of waiting, he’s the one who paddles over. He blinks at you.
“Go ahead,” you murmured, and stooped low. Months had passed, and yet you were still shy. “We’re trying it out, right?”
“I’d try anything if you had to do with it,” he murmured into your collar. With your consent, He worshipped your chest with his mouth, webbed hand following down to tug your underwear down.
“What’s the rush?” you asked, despite your heart doing stomps in your chest.
He suckled one of your nipples in, tongue running flat over it. “You make it hard to resist. That’s on you.”
Your cheeks turned hot to be wanted so much.
You guided Levi’s down with your palm before slipping in yourself. The pool, upon a houseboat no less, was shallow enough so that he could comfortably recline at the bottom and kiss you at the same time. Above, sunset burned out the sky.
“Turn ‘round,” he murmured into your mouth, exchanging breaths. “Let me eat your pussy and touch me at the same time.”
A full shudder made the hairs on your nape to prick up. Levi’s palm slid up to soothe them.
“I won’t hurt you…?”
He quirked a brow. “Never you.”
You bit on a smile as you shifted around, testing the straddle over Levi’s chest. His rough hands steady you, then jerkily slid you back since he deemed you not close enough.
You breathed a curse as he spread you open. Already, your thighs trembled.
A “Relax,” was murmured against the back of your thigh, following up.
You tried, but his heavy tongue, pushing through your slit, made you gasp all over again. His mouth.
You wrangled yourself, and slid your hand down the scattered scales decorating his hips. In order to reach, you would have had to stoop, and as if sensing this, Levi bent his tail, giving you deliciously easy access.
“How’re you so wet already?” you breathed, pushing your slippery forefinger through his slit.
“Your fault,” he rasped, tail fins flicking. He grunted, soft and heavy, against your hole.
His fault. A scathing lick into your cunt made your back curl while you struggled to focus on his slit.
“God, Levi.” You rolled your hips back into his sloppy mouth.
He groaned low, nails digging into your hips.“Yeah.” A thick gulp of air. “Fuck my face. Your pussy tastes so good.”
Gaping, you scrambled for hold on the back of his head, and that was exactly what you did as a third finger dipped into his own cunt.
Levi all but plastered your pussy to his face, his tail bending even straighter to encourage you. A hand reached around, over your hip, and reached between your thighs.
“Shit,” you gasped, grinding on his tongue. Your hand shot down, encouraging his fingers scrubbing your clit. “Shit, shit.”
Levi was a master at many things, including bringing the filth out in you. A cry was tugged from you, just his cock slipped through your palm and slapped your thigh, coated in cum.
Your hole quivered, the water rocked. “Levi, c’mon.”
Of course. His tongue slipped into your pussy instead, and rocked back and forth in fucking motions.
“I’m gonna come,” you cry, and gasped and gasped. You shook. “Oh—faster, please.”
Three long fingers scrub your clit until your pussy clenched tight, and your jaw dropped open. So much attention was being paid to both places, you didn't know whether to fuck forward or back.
Levi groaned into your cunt like a vice, and gave up on fucking you with his tongue and circled your fluttering hole with it instead until the waves washed away.
The strength it took to hold yourself up for so long drained right out of you; your knees collapsed on either side of his tail. His cock, heavy and hard, idled over your thigh, so you took in your hands, one set on top of the other.
Levi gasped like he deeply needed the air, and squeezed your hips. His long hands roamed up and down. “Come here.”
You gave him a coy look over your shoulder, unsurprised to find a faint blue glimmering off his facial scales. Only when reminded you of your choice did your stomach flip over.
“Not close enough?”
“No.”
Without him, it would have been arduous to push yourself around. Eagerly, you drop into his lap, down low in the water so that it pushes and pulls around the tops of your thighs.
Levi sat up some and leveraged your waist steady, but then stopped.
“Are you…” His dark eyes searched yours. “You want this?”
His sudden hesitance, that knit between his brow, stirred tenderness in your chest. You leaned in and kissed him, so close your noses smushed together. You wanted him to know you meant it.
“I’m always thinking, and I’ve thought it through.” You tuck a tuft of loose strands behind his long ear. “You want it too?”
“Do you know what it is to fuck in open water?” he asked.
You gaped. “...I can’t breathe, remember?”
“You will.” His tongue darted over his lips as you raise yourself up. “If I didn’t want it, I would’ve—” a faint gasp as he guided his cockhead to your rim, “—would’ve changed your stubborn mind.”
“Please,” you whispered, mouth dropping open.
That first—oh.
It’s sopping between you. The first stretch pries you open like nothing your fingers had ever come close to before. The blue flares, suddenly.
Levi’s hand dropped into your hair, his lips molding with the bottoms of yours. You just couldn’t close your mouth.
“You feel good. Only you—so tight,” he hisses, more of a whine that puffed your cheek as you worked yourself onto his cock. His head dropped to your throat, and bit.
“Levi!” Your hand dove into his hair.
“Got tighter,” he groaned.
His audacity never failed to surprise you. He was so thick, you had to pause and grit your teeth.
“Fuck.” He all but nuzzled your neck. “You smell so fucking good. Sweet.”
It wasn’t long before he noticed your discomfort, and let his tail down slightly. The movement jostles his cock, pulling it a little, to your squeak.
“Slow down. Don’t hurt,” he soothed. His lashes kissed your cheek. “We’re in no rush.”
You nodded, a little vacantly. “Sorry.”
“Don’t ever apologize for this.” His eyes like coal were earnest as he took your cheek. His other squeezed the fat of your thigh, sliding over to touch your swollen clit.
“Oh—” Your eyes shut.
“That’s a good girl. I’ll make you feel really good,” he murmured, pulled back, then pushed his hips forward again. “Arch your back—good—and fuck yourself, just like that.”
Him guiding you along like this made you freeze and burn at the same time. You rolled your hips, gasping from the feeling of his cock scraping your walls, then lowered down. The burn in your thighs didn’t register until your ass kissed his tail, his soaked slit.
You sucked in a full gasp, lips spread wide and gaping, you’re so fucking full. Gratefully, you whimper as he grinds up, and you grind down, working in perfect sync.
“That’s b-better,” you sighed, taking his hands. You need something to hold onto.
“You can be still. I’ll do the work for you.”
As if on cue, you sagged against his chest and draped your arm across his shoulders as his hips snapped in slow, smooth thrusts, sloshing the water. That faint glow behind your eyelids glowed brighter, and more water rushed over your thighs.
“Don’t—” He kissed your nose as your eyes fluttered open, holding you so your chests down to your bellies were pressed together, sharing heat. “Don’t look at it.”
“But it’s beautiful,” you whined, not unlike a spoiled kid. “You’re so beautiful I can hardly stand it, Levi.”
He shuddered. You loved the feeling. You wanted, just like then, to contain his precious sighs and grunts, but his little fidgets now too, and that crystal-clear look of adoration in his eyes when you opened your own.
“I saw it on the first day. Your beauty,” you went on, gasping to feel his cock slam in a little harder than before, slapping skin and flesh. “Something about you. I didn’t know exactly, but I knew I could.”
“Could,” he repeated. “Tell me what you could do... Tell me why I felt, safe. How I got sick when you left me.” He groaned in bliss. “How I felt death when you got close to it.”
His words made you want to cry and laugh at the same time. You drifted deeper into his caress as his hips picked up, fucking you like he would simply beg for your cunt otherwise.
“Oh, oh, I, I could—” The angle changed.. Your eyes snapped shut. “Love you. I could love you.”
Levi broke out in gasps as his hold went into a full-on squeeze. Somewhere far in the background water splashed over the deck, but closer, he said your name like a gunshot.
“Mean it,” he begged into your ear. “Mean it mean it.”
“I d-do. Meant it when I couldn’t say it.”
His tail behind you takes up an arc, causing his cock to slap as it buried inside. His harsh thrusts kept that rhythm until you’re all but on top of him.
That perfect angle shoots stars through your vision again. Again and again and
“Don’t stop, don’t fucking stop I’m—”
“Touch your cunt.” His voice is strained just like yours. “Come on me. Give it to me.”
The smack, both of skin and water turned so quick it mingled together in your ears. Your back bent into a perfect arch when you tipped, then fell.
Your jaw dropped with a silent cry, and Levi’s thrusts stammered to keep up. Stars danced in your vision as his hand joined your own, rubbing between your thighs just above where his swelling cock pummeled in and out.
You loved when he came, when his eyes rolled up and a stuttery gasp made his chest rise, when the blue glow peaked and time briefly stopped, flipped, and tumbled undone with his climax. His cock pistons inside, briefly stuttered with your name small on his lips, and fucked back in with bruising force.
Your lips mashed, not quite kissing, just pressed as liquid heat shot deep inside you. You didn’t expect to feel even more full than before, and then somehow fulfilled, like this moment was just the perfect one you had been working towards.
Levi groaned.
Oh.
Oh.
His cock was growing thicker, or bigger. The haze that had come over you, like longing, but less painful, made it hard to think of anything other than more.
It stung.
He kisses your swollen lips, then your cheek, and smacked one to your jaw for good measure. When your tongues brushed, you tasted salt.
Your hold grew tight on his hair. Despite the water having gone but wavy in his stillness, you still felt like you were getting fucked. Like your climax hadn’t dissipated yet. You squirmed in his arms, mewling out his name.
His eyes were heavy and lidded. “I know it stings. Be patient—” his thumb skirted your cheek, “—please.”
“Doesn’t, much,” you sighed, shuddering. “F…Feels like I’m coming.”
He chuckled breathlessly. His lips were everywhere. “It feels like you’re coming, too.”
“Oh god.”
You shook. Something swollen and hard remained swelling—the knot. Just when you thought it couldn’t have gotten any bigger, it did just that until you could barely stand the urge to squirm and sink into his strong arms at the same time.
“How much more?”
Levi’s lips were parted, eyes closed. You kiss one of his lids, and they flutter open with a small whine. His cheeks were hot, beet-red.
“Levi.”
They shut again. “I’m close again,” he whispered. “I can’t—pull out anymore.”
As if to punctuate that, he tilted his hips, but nothing happened. You were locked together.
“It’s so big,” you moaned. Your pruned fingers settle between your thighs, stirring your clit. “I—I think I’m.”
“Come.”
As you gradually broke out in shivers, Levi held you so there was literally no space left between you. Any closer, and you would have to phase into him.
“That’s a good girl.”
He groaned to the tune of your whine as more shot inside you. “That’s right.” He pet your hair. “Keep coming.”
The squeeze was perfect; no other word for it existed. The apex, the peak, the little death.
He carried you through your next weak orgasm before your head landed on his sturdy shoulder, exhausted, and yet craving.
He said your name in a whine. His hips ground but weakly, and with a gasp, he filled your cunt again, if you weren’t somehow full before.
For each whimper, he whispered a praise into your hair. “You alright?”
“It’s so much,” you managed, just barely. Your full cunt gave a meager twitch, squeezing the knot further. If you looked down between you, there would be absolutely nothing else you could take, or for him to give.
It was everything.
“Look at me.” Shaky fingers brushed your jaw. Compared to the deep blue glow, almost blinding now, his weary eyes looked like diamonds. This must be taxing for him, too. “It’ll take some time. Just feel good.”
You doubt you could feel less.
Three more times, you hugged Levi as his eyes fluttered and crossed, his hips jostling and light glaring for a flash before his knot unloaded more and more.
By the time his knot had slackened enough for some to begin to flow out of you, you were barely half-awake. Both of you knew, but neither were eager to put in the work of flipping you over to keep his loads of cum inside. You felt complete, and Levi didn’t let you go for the briefest pause.
“S’almost…” His hips bucked up. “Fuck, fuck.”
“A little more,” you encouraged, kissing his forehead. You had pinned his bangs back. “Good boy.”
“Ah.” Levi’s heavy head threatened to fall back as his cock gave another spasm, and a meager amount of heat flowed into you. He groaned, almost sleepily.
In the aftermath, you coddled each other. Inside you sat a sense of wholeness you felt you always wanted without being aware of it in the first place; something you needed, but never knew.
You nosed his neck, and settled. The knot had gone all the way down now, leaving room for much of the mess to flow out. You felt… sore.
“Are you okay?” you asked under your breath. Your voice was a little shot.
“Mm,” Levi hummed, and squeezed you. In slow motions, he rubbed your back. “As long as you are.”
“I’m…” You dared smile. “Happy.”
“...Then so am I.”
Today, you woke up on the right side of the bed, more rejuvenated than usual. It had been a week since what happened between you and Levi, but by the way you had been feeling, nothing might as well have happened at all. Nothing extreme had changed. Yet?
You made good use of your energy by scrambling eggs on the stove, but, as always, your gaze was drawn elsewhere, past the fluttering curtains and into that vast, blue, rolling landscape. He would be here soon.
Bacon sizzled. At the perfect moment that you were looking away, a wet flop sounded right in front of you, and you were met by Levi’s soaking-wet visage. As he always did, he visited when you woke up, and he had been right on time lately. He sat up on the stoop so you were at perfect eye-level.
“Hey,” you greeted with a smile. You leaned up on your tiptoes, and he leaned forward for a peck.
“Morning,” he said.
”I can sense when you wake up,” he had claimed, which you would have found fishy if it weren’t for the fact that you had been… having feelings lately. A feeling would open up your chest at a random point or two in the night, waking you.
The tension was a little palpable since you both agreed a week would pass before you tried setting foot (Tail? Would you really have a tail?) in the water.
“Did you wake up at 4:30 this morning?” you asked, trying to be casual.
Levi tutted, head tilted curiously over the sizzling bacon. “I don’t sleep much”
“So that isn’t a weird question…”
Connection, this connection—could it have been cemented when you did what you did?
Levi nodded, as if confirming your thoughts.
“Closer now. It’s…” He frowned. “I feel you,” he told you, loose strands of his damp hair pushing and pulling by the sea wind.
You shivered despite yourself. To feel so irrevocably connected to another person—not even that, a being, a heart—so that you might as well share the same mind, the same blood running together…
You bit on a smile and set aside the bacon slices on a plate next to the eggs, on the side stacked with napkins to soak up the grease.
When you looked up, Levi cradled something in both his hands. He nudged them in your direction.
Expectantly, you opened yours. You didn’t know if it was Levi himself or his instincts, but every now and then he would give you a gift, not unlike the coin he gave you before your life changed; a rusty, twisted tine off a fork, to a blue pearl, a sun-bleached clam, and today, you laughed to yourself and turned the perfectly-preserved tulip shell around in your hands. The bottom meets at a point, and swirls and elongates and enlarges in a swirl of grey until a cleft opened up. The top jutted out, folded.
Usually, there would have been a mollusk or crab that would call this shell home, but today it was a gift from Levi to you.
“Wow, Levi,” you murmured at his pinched little smirk. Even to touch it feels clandestine. “This is gorgeous.”
“I know,” he replied, like he knew all along, even before he found the thing. His tail slapped the boatside, the way it did when he was pleased.
“Where’d you find this?”
“In the deep, buried.”
You should have known such a precious artifact would have resided in the most secret, buried of places.
Like it had for days, the smallest reminder permeated your mind with possibilities for yourself. For him, he had been as limited in captivity as the endless stretch of the sea made him the opposite.
You wouldn’t have called yourself free, but Levi’s way of living surely begged the definition.
“So,” you cleared your throat, “after I eat…”
He leaned past the sill and kissed your chin. “I’ll wait for you.”
Upon that enormous splash that alerted Levi's leaving, you found eating to be an arduous task. A mush entering your mouth and going down your throat in a messier mush. Your nerves wracked/, anxiety sky-rocketed.
What if it didn’t work, or worse in your anxious mind, what if it did? Could you not know how to work around such a powerful organ and simply sink? And you knew how fish breathed, of course you did, but what if you couldn’t?
Stepping onto the deck felt like walking the plank. At the edge, Levi raised his head.
“Are you scared?”
Here, you faltered as you sank to your knees in front of him. Admitting it, you feared would offend him.
You folded your legs a little tighter underneath yourself. “You can’t smell it?”
Levi pushed his nose into your hand. “You told me it was creepy to point it out, no?”
“Maybe a little.”
He snorted. The next time he looked up, his eyes, dashingly blue in the soft morning light, were earnest. “If you’re in for long, then it happens. I told you that, you wrote it down. No reason for fear.”
And when you were out of the water for a long enough period, you would regain your legs. It sounded like the best of both worlds, if only the anxiety itself didn’t make you so reluctant to follow Levi’s lead.
“Could you…” Your cheeks heated at the request. “Hold me. Before.”
“Yes.”
Affection warmed your chest, hearing him take you up on that offer immediately. Stomach light, you crawled closer to the edge, scathing your already-burned knees before your legs dropped off the side. One deep, steadying breath later, you buried yourself in wavy water and right into Levi’s arms.
Your level mind reminded you that nothing was going to happen at first—no explosion of light or color, no bubbling or fizzing—and it didn't. With a swift push from Levi’s tail, you were thrust on your belly with him underneath, like a hammock. Water occasionally bled onto his chin and retreated, but other than that he idled on top of the water like a buoy effortlessly.
He felt, literally and not so much, like the only thing keeping you afloat. So you could lay on his shoulder, you shuffled and laid your head down with your arms wrapped around him.
“How was your morning?” you asked distantly.
He gave a little chirp, the hand messing your hair stilling. Your body rose and fell with his chest. “I almost brought a turtle shell to you, but disgusting barnacles were attached to it.
“My favorite part of the day… is sunrise. Maybe you felt me wake then for that reason. It’s colorful. Warm.”
“Reminds you that night has an end?”
“Thanks to that prison, I happened to miss the sky in general.”
You frowned, and leaned up. “But I brought the sky back to you, right?”
“And the air. Wind, sun, and rain.” Rough fingertips brushed a lock of hair behind your ear. “Salty air, clean air, and dirty air. And…” His blush contrasted against blue. “And you showed me things I thought were bullshit.”
Your eyes closed. It came to you, that you didn’t even know who you would be without Levi—enough of a person to not only bring Dad to pass, but to harness bravery itself.
You leaned down and kissed him, moving your lips together with great reverence. It was slow and unhurried, but conveyed all your passion.
“I…” You searched his eyes. “I mean this. I really l-love you, Levi.”
His lips pinched in embarrassment, eyes twinkling under clean skies. “That’s an easier way to say it rather than me rambling.”
A funny feeling began to simmer just under your skin, dragging you downwards. You sucked in a gasp
The next thing you knew, Levi’s voice was by your ear. “Not so hard, not hard, c’mere.”
You floundered in his arms, breathing hard. Levi’s rigid calmness, almost clinical in its feel, served to infuse into you as you stilled in his arms.
Your legs—you couldn’t feel them. Instead it felt like they were one entity, an extension of yourself. Looking down, you spotted hints of muted reds contrasting gently against Levi’s boundless blues.
“Why is it solid?” you whispered in his ear, and squirmed. “Levi I’m shirtless.”
“It’s new,” he said evenly. “Think of it like being young and not old like you are.”
You laughed, the sound bordering on manic. According to him, shirtlessness seldom mattered, and you supposed, since you were out alone like this—that it was a little like skinnydipping.
He pulled back, searching all over your face, then touching your face, down the slope of your neck, and pushing your hair back.
“Not—Not bad.”
“Oh, only the highest of compliments from Levi, I see,” you breathed, reaching up and touching your ear, which… you realized didn’t feel unlike how his own slanted ones looked.
His brows knit a little. He took your cheeks and squished them. “Look… You’re very beautiful.”
The smile on your face rose in your next swift breath. You could be together, now. Setting him free led so swiftly to a drop in certainty, to the guarantee that you would never part again.
He kissed your salty lips, and in-between, murmured, “Kick. You can do it, sweetheart.”
The hardest task in the world, again, was effortless. You parted, but you squeezed his hand tight, and refused to let go. Like a baby, he saddled your waist next to his, and guided you in a push through the top waves. It was a little like navigating a flying submarine, a shaky one at first, until perfect rhythm was found and fresh confidence pounded through your veins.
Could, would, should have—all led to the moment of your heads disappearing under the stretch of the water’s surface.
Together.
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