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lunarmoves · 7 days ago

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a tide's quarry

pairing: mer!sun/moon x reader

mentions: gender neutral (no y/n or pronouns used), play hunting, underwater diving, predator/prey dynamics, aggressive moon, obsessive/possessive behavior (sunhinged), intensity, misunderstandings, comfort, gift giving

a/n: a very big thank you to @counterbalance for requesting this comm about reader participating in an underwater play hunt with mer sun & moon through a cave system! surely nothing will go wrong, right? :) enjoy! <3

commission info

The ocean today is calm, the turquoise waters glimmering like jewels are scattered just beneath its surface. You breathe in and taste sea salt on your tongue, your eyes flickering down on occasion to your little boat’s navigator to keep an eye on your coordinates. Not too far, now. A few minutes, at most.

And indeed, you can see a familiar outcropping of rocks in the distance, where Sun and Moon had guided you to the previous week so you could record its location in preparation for today.

You kill the engine once you get close enough to the massive outcropping. Then, you bustle about to weigh anchor and eventually slip out of your boat’s little cabin. The sun is hot today, bright and only faintly scorching when you stand exposed underneath it for too long. At least the heat is easily soothed by the fresh sea breeze that curls gently past your face.

Your diving equipment is stored safely in a small compartment beneath the trap door on deck. You beeline straight for it, crouching down in front of it so you can unlatch the door and gaze at the innermost contents.

Last week, when Sun had suggested you take part in a play hunt with him and Moon, you had found yourself hesitantly agreeing. Initially, you’d been unsure—and who wouldn’t be, really—but excitement now squeezes at your insides, having been building up steadily since you’d left the shore.

You have not participated much in mer culture, if at all, and you are eager to experience an aspect of it that you’ve not heard of before. It could be a fun game to partake in with them, you’d thought to yourself.

(Sun had seemed extra excited when you’d given your assent—almost like he hadn’t expected you to agree in the first place. Moon had cocked his head at you, piercing ruby eyes settling you with a thoughtful look. He had seemed pleased, though. Faintly.

It was weird, but then again, you were dealing with mers. You had long conceded to the fact that they would do or say things that would seem a little strange to you.)

You’d already donned your wet suit before setting out, the material light yet ever so snug where it presses into your skin, so now all you need to do is put together the rest of your gear. The cylinder of your nitrox tank is set to stand atop the deck so you can slip the BCD around it and tighten the strap. Then, you rummage around for your regulator setup to start attaching it and streamlining the different hoses.

It’s as you’re squinting down at the pressure gauge to double check that your cylinder is full that there’s a sudden, loud splash to your left.

“Friend!” You hear Sun call out happily, and you look over to see his upper body poking up from the gently waving waters of the ocean. He waves an arm enthusiastically, the petal-like fins surrounding his head drooping backwards now that he’s no longer underwater. “You’re here!”

“Hey Sun. Moon,” you greet back, your eyes flicking down to Sun’s side to see Moon poking the top half of his head above the water’s surface.

You move the cylinder to rest on the deck strap-down—your boat sways with each small wave that passes underneath it; you don’t want your only tank to roll away. Then, you stand up and walk over to the edge of the boat to peer down at the two mers, your forearms resting atop the little perimeter fencing.

“Hope you guys weren’t waiting here too long,” you say, your gaze briefly flicking upwards in the vague direction of the sun’s position in the sky. “I know we didn’t really specify a time…” Late afternoon is around the time when you would typically venture out for a dive, so it only made sense to aim for it.

Sun shakes his head. “Not at all! Are you ready yet for our play hunt?”

You jab a thumb over your shoulder. “Almost. I just need to check a few more things and I’ll be done.”

Moon blows bubbles, his ruby eyes squinting quite a bit as he peers up at you through the daylight. “Hurry up, Little Fish,” he says in his gravelly voice once he’s lifted his mouth above the water. “Tick tock, tick tock.” And then he ducks back into the water without waiting for your reply, his shimmering, navy tail flicking a spray of droplets in your direction.

You roll your eyes when his shadow disappears under that of your boat—likely to hide away from the sunlight—and wipe a palm down your wet face. “Okay, I get it. I’ll hurry.”

“Please do!” Sun calls after you once you have turned back around to pick up your gear and slip it over your body. There’s another splash of water, and you glance over your shoulder to see Sun has disappeared as well.

Straps are tightened, hoses are arranged properly. You fasten your weight belt around your waist and kick off your shoes. Your goggles are grabbed and strapped to your forehead for the time being. It frees up your hands to grab your flippers and trudge over to the gap in your boat’s fencing to plop down at its edge.

Sitting here, facing the wide expanse of the ocean, you are able to see a glimmer of gold scales passing by underwater as Sun swims circles around your boat. His excitement is palpable, that is for certain. A small smile lingers on your lips as you shove on your flippers, and Sun pops out of the surface just in time for you to push yourself down into the sea.

The water is cool where it slips into your wet suit. You shiver and kick yourself away from your boat slightly, your legs moving in sweeping motions to keep your head above water.

Sun swims a singular, pinched circle around you before he brings himself to a stop just in front of you. He reaches out to boop your nose with a wet finger—mindful of the tapered claw at its end.

“Good now?” he asks with a grin. In the bright lighting, you are only faintly able to see his white pupils back-dropped against grey scleroses.

“Yep,” you say as you use a hand to bring your goggles down over your eyes. You give him a thumbs up. “So. How are we doing this?”

“Moon and I will give you a head start,” Sun tells you. The push and pull of the water is a constant source of white noise in the background. “We will also slow ourselves down to make sure you have a fair fighting chance. Use the caves to your advantage, they will help.”

You nod along to his explanation. “And it ends when either of you catch me?” you ask just for a confirmation. Briefly, you feel a webbed hand trail sneakily around your ankle in the water, and you don’t need to look down to know it’s Moon messing with you. With a quick flick of your flipper, you kick him away.

“Yep! Try not to get caught too soon, hm?” Sun winks, a bit of his pink tongue sticking out from his thin lips. “Give us a challenge!”

“I’ll do my best,” you say with a snort. Not that you expect to be able to outlast literal sea creatures in their natural habitat.

Once you place the second stage regulator in your mouth and give Sun another thumbs up, he smiles and grabs a hold of your wrist as he dives beneath the ocean’s surface. Like this, he guides you deeper into the underwater world.

No matter how many times you have gone diving, the shifting hues of oceanic blue and gentle teal always take your breath away. Sun rays dance over your head, pressing their open palms over your back and shoulders as you are guided down, down, down. Curious fishes dart around you, scared off by the massive, snaking forms of Sun and Moon as they flank your sides.

Their size and the ease with which they slip through the water never fails to amaze you. Both of their tails are easily twice the length of your own body, with scales that shimmer as though a handful of stardust had been cast upon them. Where Sun’s body is a gradient of burnt oranges and warm dandelions all the way down to his flukes, Moon’s is a canvas of navy blues and bright whites. Both of them also have these wispy, burgundy fins that frame their hips and necks. Like ruffles, almost. Ones that are nearly translucent.

What really catches your eye, though, are the swirls and dots of bioluminescence that adorn the entirety of their individual bodies. The little lights get brighter the further you all sink from the touch of daylight, but not overtly so. Just a subtle glow of yellow and blue to brighten and illuminate their associated mers. It is captivating, you have to admit.

You have never seen mers like them before—mirror images of the sky at dusk and midnight. With certainty, you can say that their names are quite fitting. Your gaze slides from their undulating tails to look in front of you with steadily widening eyes.

You’d been told by Moon—back when they had first brought you here via you following them on your boat—that the outcropping of rocks above was actually the location of an underwater cave system. But you hadn’t been expecting just how extensive it looks from the outside.

Indeed, as Sun brings you to a stop quite a distance from the front of the massive wall of cave entrances—carved within it like nature’s grandiose version of Swiss cheese—you have to take a moment to simply take it all in.

Like this, you feel infinitely small, peering up at the tunnels of differing sizes. The one directly in front of you is the largest—more than twice the size of your own body in diameter. Enough to swallow you whole. Others are scattered about, ranging from the size of a plate to the mouth of a large barrel. An adequate size to let you shimmy through, but not a being like Sun or Moon.

Mentally, you take note of that.

The entrances are not completely dark—illuminated adequately by the overhead sunlight to allow you a glimpse of the rough rock and coral comprising the inner walls. You can see various sea life swimming lazily in and out of them.

At any other time, you think it may be fun to explore around the caves.

But that’s not why you’re here right now.

Sun releases your wrist, and the abrupt loss makes you turn to look at him. He blows a stream of bubbles at you, then nods his head towards the caves. The fins around his head frame his face like the rays of a distant star, drifting gently with each motion he makes.

A glance at Moon—who floats lazily around you and Sun on his back—shows that he’s waiting as well. Moon makes a shooing gesture at you with a clawed hand, flipping himself upright in a way that makes the long angler-like appendage attached to the back of his head flick through the water. You take that as an indication to get going.

With a nod, you tilt yourself forward and kick your legs slowly to approach the yawning entrance of the largest cave. And just before you can slip into its shadows, you glance briefly behind you.

Sun waves instantly, an encouraging grin on his face. But Moon— Moon simply watches you with glowing ruby eyes that do nothing to show what he’s thinking. Rather typical of him, you muse to yourself.

You turn back around and dart into the cave. The sensation of eyes lingers along your spine.

You’d be a fool to not take advantage of the head start. Your breaths are slow, measured, as you make your way quickly through the wide tunnel. You’re not too deep underwater that you would require decompression stops, thankfully. It makes it easier for you to explore the twisting, interconnecting caves.

And isn’t ‘twisting’ such a good descriptor for them. Some of the tunnels feel almost like a winding roller coaster ride as you are forced to move up for indefinite stretches and then down. Others are rather level, all things considered, and you pass by numerous jagged holes in the walls from the tunnels leading deeper into the cave system.

Deeper and deeper you go, wanting to put as much space as possible between you and the mers. Your eyes linger on the gently swaying verdant plants that poke stubbornly out of glistening rock. The small silver and purple fishes that dart around your body. Water presses against your ears.

You lose track of where you are after your fourth turn into an adjacent tunnel. This one is a bit smaller, but still large enough that you can comfortably swim about. You hope it doesn’t take an eternity to get out of this place later.

It’s as you’re looking at a particularly stunning piece of coral sticking out at the edge of a tunnel entrance that you notice it.

A familiar glow coming from deeper within that paints the walls in pulsating blue—that gets brighter and larger the longer you float there blinking at it.

Your heart leaps in your chest.

Moon.

Immediately, you pivot and swim into a tunnel directly above your head. And when you glance back down once you’re a bit of a distance away, you are able to catch the end of Moon’s tail as it snaps past the hole of the entrance. You’re lucky he had decided not to look up. He would’ve had a straight line of sight to you.

A close call for certain. You won’t say you feel smug, per se, but the feeling of managing to evade him is definitely giving you some kind of giddy satisfaction.

Shaking your head slightly, you continue to follow the tunnel up until it eventually bends forward to level out. Occasionally, you look over your shoulder, just in case you don’t notice one of the mers sneaking up on you. You cannot rely too heavily on your hearing down here, after all. Not unless they decide to be obvious about when they catch sight of you in the distance. But even then, they might be difficult to hear.

You exhale, long and slow. You wonder if there are any nooks or crevices you can use to hide from them here. It’ll certainly help if you ever want to take a brief break. You proceed onward, keeping a sharp eye out.

You’re not sure how long you spend on your own, drifting aimlessly through the cave system. It couldn’t have been all too much time, really, even though it definitely feels like hours. But it was unfortunately inevitable that you’d eventually be found.

You see Sun in the distance when you round a bend and immediately freeze in place like a deer caught in headlights. Like this, you have a full view of his side profile as he swims through a perpendicular tunnel, and for a second you think that he hasn’t seen you.

But then he does a little double take from the corner of his pale eye, and his head snaps towards you. A grin snakes across his face as he lights up—literally and figuratively. You have just enough sense to twirl around in the water and shoot off back where you came from at the same time he darts after you with a flick of his tail.

Adrenaline surges through your body with all the strength of a river in a storm. It takes all your control to ensure that your breathing is steady, even as your heart thrums with the surprise of being found. Distantly, you think you hear the clicks and chirps of Sun’s language as he gives chase. What he’s saying, you have no idea, though you’ve been around him long enough to know he’s being enthusiastic.

There’s a little tug at the tip of one of your flippers, followed by the faintest displacement of water. Your head snaps back to see Sun nipping playfully at your kicking feet, a wild smile on his face like he’s having fun. Your heart skips a beat—you hadn’t expected him to catch up so quickly. Though he doesn’t make any move to really reach out to catch you.

In fact, he stays just on your heels. Close enough that if he just stretched out an arm, he could latch easily onto your ankle. But he doesn’t. You shoot him a squinted look through your goggles, then turn around to dart into a section of the cave system with tunnels that twist and turn like a maze.

Your legs kick off of the bends of walls, and your hands reach out to swing yourself around tight corners until finally, finally, you somehow manage to shake him off. In the far distance, the muffled clicks and whistles of his calls ring out after you.

You think it’s less likely that you had managed to dart out of his view and more that he simply let you. It’s not a comforting thought, though you suppose he did say he would slow himself down for you.

You bring yourself to a stop so you can focus on your breathing. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Steadily, you will your heart to ease down from its slight increase in beating. If you burn through your tank too quickly, you’ll have to cut this little game off before anyone can really win.

Once you’re calm, you look around at where you’ve ended up. This part of the cave system is darker. Not so much so that you cannot see, but dark enough that you have to wait a little for your eyes to adjust some more. There is not much life here. You only catch the glint of tiny scales darting off around the closest turn. It is desolate, apart from you. An oceanic ghost town that makes you look briefly behind you as though a drowned specter had breathed down your neck.

You must be rather deep, then. Slowly, you start to swim again.

Your only consolation with the lack of lighting is that it would allow you to better see the bright bioluminescence of Sun and Moon from afar. You have previously bore witness to the extent with which their bodies can light up in the dark. But you think you prefer to find your way back up to a brighter area, if you can.

You are careful as you pick your way through the winding tunnels, your head moving steadily from side to side, up and down, while you drift along a faint current. Any tunnel you see that points upwards, you take, but you don’t have much success in rising in elevation when the passageways twist about like a snake. You hum to yourself in contemplation.

And then you feel it.

That familiar tingling sensation on the back of your neck, your hairs prickling even underwater.

There’s a moment where you simply process what you’re feeling. An unease that skirts thin fingers down the length of your spine.

You look behind you.

Far, far in the distance, is Moon.

He’s just watching you, his body highlighted in the cool blue of his bioluminescence as he lays nearly flat against the bottom of the jagged tunnel. The stance of a stalking predator. But what really catches your attention are the tiny, pinprick pupils of his eyes. Ruby red as they blaze through the water to hone in on your form.

A beat passes. Breath gets held within your lungs.

Moon smiles at you, and it is all sharp, bared teeth.

It’s a look that reminds you of the first time you’d met him—where you were faced with his constant antagonizing, and his intense, predatory looks like he was imagining how best to prepare you for supper. Your heart drops down to your stomach, then again to your feet when he starts to move.

And he is fast, slicing through the tunnel in a way that immediately makes alarm bells go off in your head. Your lips tighten around your regulator’s mouthpiece, and you snap back around to brace your feet against a nearby wall and shoot yourself down an intersecting tunnel. ��

Distantly, you can hear Moon growling through the water—a foreboding sound that pushes you to go faster than ever. Your heart palpitates wildly in your chest, your ears. A hotness starts to spread from the center of your sternum, up to your neck, and into your cheeks.

What is he doing? Why is he acting like this?

You are wildly unsure. There is only the feeling, the urge, to get away away away. You are unable to do much else other than blindly heed it.

The muscles of your thighs and calves start to burn. You make a sharp turn, and glance back in time to see Moon collide roughly with the wall of the same bend. His claws leave deep, terrible gouges in the unyielding rock, before he snaps his tail to continue his chase of you.

The vision of those same markings marring your own softer skin makes you feel as though you have been plunged in icy, icy water. You do not like the feeling one bit.

You cannot tell if Moon is slowing himself down for you or not, but he hasn’t caught you yet, and that provides the smallest sparks of light in what feels like a vantablack room. Your surroundings feel like a blur in your steadily growing haste, but you are just able to register a familiar yellow light in the tunnel up ahead.

You curse in your head right as Sun appears within the light, his mouth automatically quirking up into a pleased grin at the sight of you zooming in his direction. Another quick glance over your shoulder shows that Moon is still on your tail—utterly relentless. It feels as though your brain is moving on overdrive. You have enough sense to pivot into a wide tunnel to your left.

With Sun and Moon now chasing after you, there is this awful, awful feeling starting to take root in your stomach. You are not quite panicking—they would never harm you, you repeat to yourself again and again—but the initial feelings are there and it is difficult to shake that innate sense of danger lurking in the back of your mind.

Sharp teeth, sharp claws. Tails that can knock you unconscious with just an idle swipe.

You pick up the pace.

Your eyes dart about, looking for an escape of sorts. A hiding place. Anything. And you are in luck, for up ahead, you catch sight of a small cave entrance—similar to the ones you had seen right outside of the cave system. Large enough for you to squeeze through, but not Sun or Moon. Now you just have to get there.

You swerve down a little so you can reach out to the cave’s floor and use jutting rocks to propel your body forward. With another look behind you, you are right on time to see Sun shove Moon to the side as the latter is overtaken. A scowl splays itself across Moon’s face when he careens off course a little, but he does not retaliate. No, he is too focused on you. His tail snaps him back into motion. Your teeth tighten even more around your mouthpiece.

There’s a light catch at the tip of your flipper. The briefest displacement of water.

And then you shoot yourself through the smaller tunnel like thread through the eye of a needle.

There’s the rough sound of hands catching themselves against rock, of sharp nails clawing at dense minerals. Sun whistles after you from afar. You don’t look back. The walls press in around you, nearly fitting around your body. But you slowly guide yourself through the upwardly-winding tunnel until you find yourself surfacing within a dimly-lit air pocket.

There’s a small, flat, island of sorts in the middle of the air pocket made of the cave’s same dark rock. You swim towards it and pull yourself up so you can sit down with your legs still in the water.

Immediately, you spit out your regulator and take in deep, heaving breaths of air. Your hand runs over the top of your head. Water trails steadily down the sleek material of your wet suit.

You don’t know what that was, not at all. Your heart still pounds like it is trying to ram itself out of your chest. Deep breath in, deep breath out. You will yourself to calm, but part of it is futile.

Mer culture appears to be a bit too intense for you, it seems.

You don’t want to do this anymore. Anxiety makes your limbs feel like brittle paper. You suck in some more air, your hands momentarily clenching together. You wish to be back on your boat—back at home, in the comfort of your apartment.

You sigh, a long and weary thing. Though you are wary of being caught, at least this whole play hunt thing will be over once you are. This is definitely not worth the stress.

You rub at your face. And once you feel as though you have collected yourself—eased the minor trembling of your fingers (they won’t hurt you, they won’t)—you slip back into the water with the full intention of giving up.

The tunnels feel more restrictive as you cautiously make your way back through them, even though you know, logically, that they aren’t. You chase the lingering remnants of sunlight you’re able to parse out in the dark, following the brighter paths until you are back in an area where you can see properly.

Fish and seahorses swim about in small schools or on their own. You follow them idly, soothing yourself by brushing your fingers gently against softly swaying stalks and leaves of plants sticking out of the ground. Your legs kick leisurely behind you, and you are only a bit wary as you look around for any familiar glowing lights.

Maybe you should start to make your way to an exit tunnel of sorts, you think to yourself. It’s better than wandering even deeper into the caves. You hum, then spin around to see if you can peer through any of the openings near you in the hopes that they will lead to open water. You can try following some of the fishes too, you suppose.

Before you can really do anything, however, you catch a glimpse of cool blue light down a tunnel to your right. And upon pivoting towards it, you are caught entirely unawares when something abruptly seizes you by the upper arms from behind.

Your heart leaps up to your throat. Hands spin you around until you are faced with the bright, glowing face of Sun. The relief you feel at seeing him and not Moon lasts only brief seconds before he immediately presses close into your space. Too close.

His face hovers over your own, head fins flicking around his head in exuberance. His eyes are wide, white, and all-encompassing where they bore intently into your own. There is only the barest hint of the grey of his scleroses. It is not a familiar look.

What is going on?

Your skin prickles with discomfort when Sun tugs you close, close, close, towards him. He makes these fast clicking sounds, then rubs his cheek into your jawline in a way that makes you instantly freeze. You have to unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth. What is he doing? Is it over? Your eyes dart to what you can see of Sun’s head obscuring your vision, then they snap over to Moon when you notice him swimming lazily around in your periphery.

He looks… calm, now. Aloof, even, as he floats around you. With the claw of his pinky, he picks at his sharp teeth idly. The change gives you whiplash, almost.

But you just can’t stop thinking about those flashes of intensity from him as you’d played their game. Chasing you like you were nothing but a minnow trapped in a shark tank. A predator, you remind yourself.

A predator whose forehead seems to crease as he watches you through soft ruby eyes, then moves them over to look at Sun.

You are unable to decipher his expression before Sun gives a powerful flick of his tail and pulls you along with him down the tunnel. Your eyes squeeze shut, and there is only the sensation of movement through water until finally, finally, you feel your head breach the surface.

Rivulets run down your face and hair in steady streams. The white noise of the ocean and seagulls cawing overhead is an implosion of sound that surrounds you. It is overtaken by the sharp whistles and clicks of Sun directly in front of you.

He’s excited.

Too excited.

One of his hands moves to push your goggles up to sit on the crown of your head, while the other plucks your regulator from your mouth to let it dangle around your neck. You blink rapidly, a feeling in the bottom of your stomach growing steadily worse when he rubs his face atop your head almost in a ruthless manner.

“I caught you! I win!” he breathes out in one quick rush. His hands tighten around you, unwilling, as they are, to let you go. His chest heaves like he can’t quite take in enough air. “I get to keep you,” he says breathlessly. His entire body seems to vibrate. “You cannot leave me now, okay? You are mine.” He hums out the word, then inhales deeply as he presses his face to your forehead. “Mine, mine, mine.”

Cotton lines your throat. Your skin feels like it’s burning up where he continues to hold his forehead against your own. An alarm starts to go off in your head again. What is he talking about?

“S—” you try to stutter out. But you can’t get any words out. Sun leans back to flick his gaze rapidly all over your face. You swallow heavily and feel like ants are burrowing into your skin when Sun follows the motion of your throat with his eyes.

Something gentle brushes against the bottom of your foot. And like the tide rising to meet the shore, Moon surges smoothly up through the ocean’s surface to inject himself between you and Sun. Gracefully, you are pushed back by a thick, navy tail and forced to tread water with Sun no longer holding you up.

You wipe water from your eyes right as Moon snarls something at Sun. Breathing bated, you watch as Sun aims a thin smile back at him, sharp like the blade of a knife. They both devolve into rapid clicking and snapping; you are wholly lost, but grateful for the respite so you can catch your breath and ease your thrumming pulse.

At one point, Sun tries to loop around Moon to get to you, but he gets immediately blocked. You find yourself slowly backing away to your boat, not removing your gaze from the two mers at all, lest you end up accidentally caught in the crossfire.

Sun makes a few more attempts, his teeth bared with his low growls. It’s only until he looks at you—really looks at you—that he suddenly stops.

You wonder how you must look like, to him, when you feel his gaze flick over your face. Your jaw tenses.

“I—” Sun starts, then stops himself. He wilts, the petal-like fins around his head drooping as his face dips down until his mouth is just above the water. “Friend, sorry.” He blinks a few times until his pupils return back to their normal size. He looks guilty, almost. Devastated in a way that makes you itch. “I am sorry. I got too… excited.”

You don’t know what to say. So you don’t. You only swallow thickly again and give a jerky nod of your head. There’s a trembling to your fingers that you’re having a hard time getting to stop, but you manage, somehow, in your focus to keep yourself afloat.

Moon spins around in the water and tries to approach you slowly once Sun distances himself. But when you flinch back from him (sharp claws, sharp teeth, piercing ruby eyes), he stops and instead settles you with an inscrutable look. The skin above his eyes furrows slightly. Then, he shifts back from you as well, joining Sun with a low hum.

He’s fine now, you try to tell yourself. He’s back to being Moon. He even helped you, just now, when you’d nearly gotten swept away in all that was Sun.

But it’s hard when your skin continues to prickle, and it feels like a heavy weight is pressing down onto your chest.

Warily, you keep an eye on Sun and Moon while you take one deep breath in, one deep breath out. Again, and again, as you slowly swim backwards towards your boat. They keep their distance as they trail after you. A way to give you space, you realize, even though they are both not quite looking directly at you.

They are not completely silent, either. Just over the white noise of the ocean, you are able to hear low whistles and faint, musical humming. Not the first time you have heard such sounds from them, by any means, but as your muscles slowly relax and your jaw unclenches, you realize they’re trying to soothe you. In their own, strange, mer-like way.

It works, just a bit. You breathe steadily, looking up at the sky to watch a few cotton-candy puffs of clouds move slowly across it. The buzzing underneath your skin eases until there is nothing once more.

This is fine. You are fine.

But there’s this feeling you’re left with that spreads from deep within your chest to the outermost layer of your skin. An ache that festers and makes you long for a balm to relieve it. Now that the chill of danger has passed, you recognize it for what it is—made ever so prominent by the empty distance between you and the mers.

You sigh, long and resigned. In the end, you want things to be okay between you and them. A cursory glance at their faces shows that they both look equally as guilty or bothered. You’re not going to be able to make progress if you don’t take some steps of your own volition.

You clear your throat. Then, tentatively, you ask, “...Hug it out?”

Both their gazes immediately snap to your own. Surprised, you think, at your request. Maybe they hadn’t expected it at all.

Sun instantly gives a flick of his dusk-like flukes as he makes to dart over to you. But he lets out a yelp when Moon snags him by the tail and tugs him back rough enough to splash droplets everywhere in a small burst. You watch curiously as Moon gives Sun a sharp look and a quick click of his tongue. It causes Sun to pout, but he eases back—hovering just behind his counterpart’s shoulder.

Slowly, Moon slips his way towards you, cutting through the water like a hot knife through butter. Your stomach jumps slightly at the sight, but you focus on the motions of your arms and legs as you tread water—letting yourself settle down and relax.

He pauses a foot or so away from your side, then just looks at you—gaze flicking about your face. Searching for something, you realize. You look back at him.

When Moon doesn’t seem to find what he’s analyzing you for, he reaches out to wrap you up in a slow, purposeful, side hug. Cool, webbed hands press themselves gently into your arms and back. And when you don’t make any move to push him away, he tugs you closer towards him, allowing you to rest your limbs as he takes on the burden of keeping both of you afloat.

You lean into him, but before you surrender yourself completely, you look over to Sun. He’s followed after Moon and lingers just a small distance away, his face half-submerged in the water. He blinks large, round eyes at you, his fins drooping across his forehead, then—after watching you carefully for a few seconds—he swims closer until he wraps you within his arms on your other side.

The warmth from Sun’s body is a pleasant contrast from Moon’s cooler temperature. You exhale through your nose as you get cemented solidly between them. Your arms move to loop around each of their thin waists. Faintly, you can feel a rumble of sorts from their chests. Sun presses his cheek to the top of your head, and you feel—more than hear—the way he sighs in contentment. Moon hums soothingly into your ear.

It’s nice, you think to yourself as you close your eyes. Better than the turbulent emotions you’d been feeling before. You could get used to this.

But like all good things, the hug eventually has to come to an end.

“Better?” Moon asks in a low voice as he draws away from you. He lingers in your space, though, soft ruby eyes fixed upon your own.

“Yeah.” You sigh, then offer him an apologetic smile. “Sorry. Things just got uh, a bit too much for me.”

“Hush. Don’t apologize,” Moon chides you. “Not your fault Sun is a bad courter.”

At that, you feel the way Sun jerks back from you in offense, his fins bristling around his head. His hands tighten across your shoulders just a tad, before he eventually lets you go to shoot Moon a squinted glare. You are forced to tread water on your own again, lest you sink. “Hey! Not fair! You are as well!”

Moon snickers something back, but you don’t catch it—occupied, as you are, on rotating Moon’s words in your mind.

You blink once, then twice.

“What?” you blurt. “Courting?”

Sun and Moon exchange glances, confused, before they return their gazes to you.

“Yeeess,” Moon says, his head tilting in a way that drapes his head lure over his shoulder. “The play hunt. It was a courting custom for us.”

“We thought you knew?” Sun adds with a small frown. He rubs at his chin in a manner like he’s mulling something over, then looks away as he presses the palm of his hand to his mouth. He mumbles something, but you are not able to make it out.

“How was I supposed to know?!” you reply in slight exasperation. There’s a burning feeling rising up to your cheeks as you think back to their behaviors over the last hour—and even before the play hunt, really. The burning intensifies until it forces you to look anywhere but at them.

Suddenly, some things are starting to make a whole lot of sense.

Moon only hums and whistles something in his language at Sun. You don’t even try to gauge what they are discussing. Instead, you groan silently to yourself and turn around so you can make your way back to your boat. Your arms and legs are starting to ache again—getting out of the water for some rest is ideal.

Plus, it’ll give you some time to collect yourself. Your face burns hotter than a fire, it feels.

Chirps and clicks follow you back to your little abode before they eventually disappear. You hoist yourself onto the deck and begin the process of disassembling your gear and packing it away properly once more. Your mind buzzes with the force of your thoughts, your movements practically automatic. When you finish, you smooth some wet strands of your hair away from your face, then make your way back over to the gap in your boat’s fencing so you can sit down and let your feet dangle into the water. You are alone, it seems. For now.

You rub at your face, willing the heat to fade. Honestly. Courting custom. It’s not like there’s a book out there on every single aspect of mer culture. You’d been none the wiser the entire time. Maybe that’s why the play hunt had felt so intense. You sigh and brush your fingers lightly across your mouth.

And after a few moments of sitting there, swishing your feet around as the ocean ebbs and flows around you, you are joined by Sun and Moon once more.

They resurface near your shins, rising up from the water like pale ghosts. And when Sun nudges your leg gently, you realize that they’re both holding something.

“For you!” Sun beams as his palm opens up at you to reveal a stunning, magenta piece of sea glass. You blink at him owlishly, then reach down to take it from him. It’s smooth between your fingers, and shaped almost like a perfect oval.

“Thanks?” you respond questioningly, then turn to Moon once he pokes your calf as well. His palm opens. Oh. “A… rock.” You reach down to pluck it from his hand to roll across your palm. There’s nothing remarkable about it, really. It’s simply a rock. You clear your throat. “I mean, uh, it’s a rather nice rock, I suppose,” you add on lamely.

Moon snickers at your tone. “Silly,” he says in amusement as he reaches up to boop your nose. “This is a placeholder until I can find a better gift.”

“Oh. Makes sense.” You then pause and mull over his words. “Wait, is this a courting thing too?” You can feel your ears growing hotter.

“Yes,” they both reply in unison, Sun’s eager voice contrasting against Moon’s lower one.

You groan and slump forward as you rub your palms into your cheeks. “I can’t believe I didn’t know. How embarrassing.” For you and for them, you muse.

Sun chuckles. “You are not solely to blame.”

“We can stop, if you want,” Moon adds on, and though he sounds open to you turning them down, there is something faint to his voice that tells you otherwise.

And, well, it’s not like you are entirely opposed to the idea.

“No, no,” you find yourself saying. You peek through your fingers at them and offer them a tentative, shy smile. “It’s okay. You uh, don’t have to.” The heat returns to your neck and face with a vengeance.

They both laugh, and you’re certain you’re not imagining it when something in the air—and your heart—gets infinitely lighter.

#shay's writing comms #dca x reader #sun x reader #moon x reader

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