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thiswasinevitableid · 1 year

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Deep Down (Indruck)

The winner of the "mer society" prompt poll was: Cultural differences between surface mers and deep-ocean mers. Duck is based on a Senator Wrasse and Indrid is based on a Gulper Eel). This fic is NSFW and contains mentions of ovipostion, but none actually occurs.

How can anyone live down here?

Duck disembarks the VertoSphere miles below where he’s ever stopped before. It opens into an abyss, so dark and empty he fears he set his coordinates too low and now he’s hovering above the Marianas trench.

He swims forward and bumps into something solid. A wall of glass coral. At his impact, a familiar an unexpected voice floats from a recording above him.

“Hello. This is Vincent Mullidae, head of transportation and Security for the Greater Pacific Region. Welcome to the Midnight Zone. If you are a resident, please feel free to draw the open symbol and be on your way. If you are visiting, please float by for more instructions.”

Duck sets the two, woven bags he’s brought with him on the floor and waits.

“If you know the name of your destination, please state it now.”

“Uh, Indrid Cold’s house?”

A pause, then yellow and pink pinpoints of light flicker in the water beyond the glass, “This color indicates the route to that residence. If at any time the lights go out, you lose your path, or you need to change course, use the tablet provided before your departure to locate the direction. It is advised that any mers unfamiliar with the area stay on the lighted paths at all times. Are you ready to proceed?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Nothing happens.

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

“Thank you for traveling with the Pacific Municipal Vertosphere System, and enjoy your stay.”

The glass parts and he swims into the unknown. It’s a relief to find that the lamps lighting his path cast a wide circle in spite of their gentle glow.

He’s not a kid. He knows that the stories about deep sea mers lurking at the edges of trenches or the border where the light stops reaching just to drag unsuspecting sunlight mers down to do who knows what with are made up. Relics from a time when mers had shittier communication and couldn’t travel between the levels of the ocean to get to know each other. All the same, it’s hard not to see tails flicking just out of view, or imagine that the other lights he sees–mainly pathways and store fronts, now that he’s closer to the town of Sylvain–are lures meant to coax him to his doom.

Plus he’s pretty sure there are still some big-ass sharks and squids down here.

Now and then another path flickers to life, but as he understands it the local mers don’t really need the illumination to see, since they long ago adapted eyes that could pierce the darkness. It’s both useful and comforting when another path appears–each one in a different combination of colors–since it reassures him that he’s not down here all alone and also gives him a sense of the basic layout of the town.

It turns out his host lives on the end of it, and he swims up to a sea cave with an oddly rectangular opening. He raises a hand to knock at the wooden door, clearly salvaged from a wreck, when a face appears in the porthole.

“Ah, Duck Newton. Welcome” The door opens, revealing a mer with a long, black tail dotted with a line of silver dots along the top. These match his hair, which is half tied out of his face, giving Duck an unobstructed view of his glowing, red eyes and face that reminds him of sharp, pale coral. He’s a good head taller than Duck; unsurprising, given that deep mers tend to be larger than those who live in the sunlight zone.

“Please, come in. Apologies if I gave you a start, I can see the future, which means I’m always a little bit ahead. I did manage to get your room ready before you arrived; as you can see my home isn’t large, but I hope it will be to your liking.”

“Long as it’s got four walls and a roof, we’re good. I stayed some pretty bare-bones places doin’ field work.”

The other mer pauses, “Do sunlight mers also make homes from bones?”

“Uh, not usually? More like decorations or jewelry, since anything real big dies or falls down here. Mostly meant that I stayed places that weren’t much more than a glorified hole.”

“Ah, I follow. Here we are.” The mer gestures to another wooden door. Duck opens it to find a simple, seagrass bed, rock shelves for all his supplies, and plenty of lights nestled into the walls. There’s also a mosaic on the ceiling, shells and bone and debris from human wrecks cobbled together into a stunning,swirling pattern.

“Wow. You make that?”

“I did. I wanted my guest room to feel welcoming.”

“Mission accomplished.” He swims in and sets his bags by the bed.

Indrid trills in thanks, and several points of light flash blue at the end of his tail. Duck doesn’t mean to stare, but he’s never seen a light display before. The deep mers he’s met in the past were always up in his realm, where such flashes either weren’t necessary or were easy to miss.

“A rather odd place for it, I know. I do have these, but they only light up on command, not automatically.” The silver spots on his tail disappear as a row of feathery spines rise, “although these have the benefit of being slightly poisonous if something bites them or I pull one off and jab it into them.”

“Yeesh, you ever had to do that?”

“A handful of times. Mainly to other mers when I was younger and the deep was less…settled. It isn’t permanent, it just induces sluggishness for long enough for me to swim off.”

“Wow. Mers back home will just grapple if they’re really pissed over something, but most of the time you just gotta tell them to back off and they will.”

“Then I shall make a mental note not to wrestle you.” Indrid smiles, suggesting he means this as small talk, “I have some errands to attend to, but please make yourself at home. Anything in the kitchen can be shared.”

“Got it. Thanks, Indrid.”

The other mer swims towards the hall, then pauses, “Oh, and do not go beyond town once a string of red lights to the left of the house turns on. That means the giant anglers are about. It happens once a week or so. Well, see you soon!”

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everyone he told was surprised Indrid had agreed to host a sunlight mer. None were half as surprised as he’d been when the futures suggested it was a good idea.

A corps of them has been sent down to study various parts of the deeper ecosystems over the course of five months. Indrid fully believes in cooperation between deep and sunlight mers, and has traveled upward on more than one occasion to lend his services as seer. But those trips involved very little contact with sunlight mer society more generally, and even with Duck having been here a few days, Indrid still fears he’ll be too awkward or alien and the other mer will request a new host.

It doesn’t help that he’s been called weird by other deep mers. It’s not his fault that his tail wiggles that way when he’s extremely happy, or that certain fish down here are too gelatinous for his tongue and he’ll refuse them rather than seize any meal that goes by. And he doesn’t mean to have odd manners; it’s just hard to remember all the rules of interaction when he sees others so infrequently. Even with a town in place, many deep mers venture into the sea beyond for weeks at a time.

The first week of Duck’s stay is going well, but he remains nervous no matter how kind and polite his guest is. But today, Duck asked him if he was willing to guide him to an area where certain, dark-loving anemones grow.

They’ve found the spot with little issue, and Duck is now flitting from rock to rock with understated delight.

“Lookit the shape of the base. I wonder if that helps ‘em..hmm, if I can just” he peers at where it's anchored to the stone, “no, ain’t that. Hmmm” As he swims to another outcropping he stops, looking at Indrid, “do you need to go back? Don’t bother me none if you stay but me starin at plants ain’t the most exciting thing in the sea.”

“I’d like to stay. I find it rather peaceful out here.” He settles on a rock as Duck nods and gets back to work. He sorts through some futures, lets his mind wander, but mostly he watches Duck move from spot to spot with a growing desire to see his tail in full sunlight; the green is doubtless dazzling.

“Oh damn, Indrid come look at these!”

He swims over to find Duck shining his penlight on a cluster of pale, swaying shapes.

“Ghost seahorses! I know we have them but I never manage to spot them.”

“Looks like the anemone let’s ‘em live on it. So fuckin’ cool” he makes notes into his recording shell, then waves Indrid over to ask him if that rock is supposed to be glowing (it’s not, it’s an orange spitfish in disguise).

They spend enough hours talking, or simply working and watching in companionable silence, for them both to become ravenously hungry. Once they arrive back at the house, Indrid sets out crab for dinner while Duck puts away his supplies.

“Any chance we could turn the heat up? Think the spot we were in all day was in a colder current than usual.” Duck rubs his arms to warm them as Indrid turns the knob to draw in more heat, once again grateful for whichever of his peers figured out they could guide steam up from the deepest ocean vents to heat their homes when needed.

They’re chatting about Duck’s youthful misadventures hanging out in abandoned human piers when a shape catches his eye through one of the only other windows in the house. He puts a finger to his lips and takes Duck’s hand, guiding him over to the window. He presses a button, sending deep red light across the rocky alcove, allowing Duck to see what he does without scaring away their visitor.

“Holy fuck, I didn’t know umbrella octopuses could be black.” Duck moves closer to the glass.

“As far as I can tell it’s rather rare. I started seeing one this color years ago, and left out food to entice it and other tentacled friends to visit. They are not long lived, so I suspect this one is the offspring of the one I saw when I first moved in.”

“Thanks for lettin’ me see him too.” The other mer glances at him, smile warming him more than a dozen trips sunward.

“My pleasure.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------

Duck’s packing up a box of recording shells to send up to the researchers who stayed in the sunlight zone when there’s an argument at the door. Poking his head into the hall, he sees Indrid’s tail flickering orange and red.

“For the last time, if you want predictions that complex, you have to bring payment with you. The contingencies alone will take me hours to sort through.”

“Fine” The voice at the door snaps, “I’ll bring you something. Keep your tail here until I do.”

Duck bristles at the tone; no one deserves to be spoken to like that, least of all someone as captivating as Indrid.

“What was all that?” He swims to the door as Indrid leans against it, arms crossed.

“A party of mers are going out in search of a giant squid. I assume to sell to humans or to eat. They want my help but keep trying to get out of paying for it.”

“Can’t you just take an IOU? Back home we do that all the time, figuring folks are good for it. Or you do a favor knowin’ they’ll do one for you down the road.”

“I wish it worked like that, but deep mers are still so prone to limited interactions with each other it is hard to trade favors. And an IOU is useless when so many of us are content to disappear into the abyss rather than make a home somewhere.”

“Makes sense. You want me to catch dinner so you can wait for ‘em?”

“Please.”

Duck picks up some crabs–Indrid and he both like them, and he happens to know these ones are pests if you live in a house made of wood, bone, or both–and returns to find Indrid dragging something white through the front door.

“Is that-”

“-whalebone? Yes. And big enough that we can throw out that uncomfortable bench in the main room and replace it with this.”

It’s a good idea. Besides, then Indrid could paint or carve into the bone, really make it nice and, and…

And Duck should stop thinking about that. About staying. About this being his home, too. Eventually he’ll have to go sunwards again. So he should just enjoy his time with Indrid while he has it.

—----------------------------------------------------

“Inside! Get back inside!”

Duck reverses course, backing into the house as Indrid comes barreling towards him. The instant the other mer is in, he slams the door and hurriedly swims to each window.

“What’s-”

“-Biting shrimp, an entire migration of them. And worse, after that subsides three days from now, we have two days of red devil squid to look forward to.”

Duck shudders, “Those come up sometimes to feed and I fuckin hate ‘em. One nearly took a chunk of my tail.”

“Hence my absence this morning and my hasty arrival; I had to warn as many neighbors as I could before the swarm began. Ugh!” He flinches as the first few shrimp hit the windows, “I hate them, the biting is bad enough but they crawl all over you and I HATE how their little feet feel–no don’t open that!”

“I won’t let ‘em in to crawl on you.” Duck opens the side window enough to reach his hand out and grab the black octopus, who wriggles in alarm until he releases it inside.

“Oh. You…you wanted to save Void. I mean, ah-”

“I know you named him, ‘Drid. Heard you talkin’ to him the other day. His kind ain’t feisty, and it’d break my fuckin heart to look out that window and see a squid get him.”

Indrid’s tail flashes light purple, “Thank you. I am sorry, I was hoping your time down here would be pleasant but alas, the sea had other plans. We have more than enough food, so hopefully it will not drive you mad to spend five days stuck in the house with me.”

Duck can tell when a joke isn’t a joke, and so he swims close enough to brush his tail along Indrid’s, “I like your company plenty, ‘Drid. Besides, this ain’t all that worse than seabird season; can be minding’ your own business and then BAM, something dives after a fish and smacks into you instead.”

“Goodness, that would be startling. Even for me.”

“My buddy Ned got one tangled in his hair once.” Duck moves to the dinner table, “wanna play Ten Shells before dinner?”

“Oooh, yes please!”

The first two days don’t feel all that strange. He and Indrid eat their meals and play games and listen to books or nap, often side by side. But by day three his body and brain register that he’s been cooped up instead of out in the kelp forests and reefs (or the crags and open ocean, as the case has been these last few months). Sensing his restlessness, Indrid pulls a surprise from the pantry.

“Coconut wine? Damn, how’d you get this?”

“A friend of mine who’s a cook. He likes to send me care packages since moving upwards.”

Indrid’s bedroom is the most insulated from the sounds of the shrimp hitting the house, so they’ve taken to spending a lot of time there, safe from the skitter of thousands of feet. Void floats after them, in search of either kelp snacks or new items to take apart or squeeze inside of.

The wine goes down easy, so easy that when Indrid suggests they open another bottle Duck is all for it. By the time his tablet shows its sunset on the surface, he and Indrid are well past tipsy, trading stories of their younger days and travels.

“You, y’know, a, a buddy of mine swore he took a summer trip and hooked up with a deep mer that had six eyes and, and six dicks.”

Indrid laughs, “Claiming both is, hic, rather a stretch. I’ve known, hic, a few with four eyes but, hic, never six.”

“What about the dicks?”

“A gentlemer never, hic, tells.”

“Aww, c’mon.” Duck rolls so his head is on Indrid’s shoulder, “always wondered if, if deep mer fuckin’ s’wild as they say.”

“Mmm” Indrid rubs their cheeks together, “because every–hic–one knows sunshine mers only kiss in the clear blue water and, hic, mate after marriage.”

Duck giggles, “Pfft, naw. Get up to plenty of wild stuff. Just, y’know, when you’re all sixteen and shootin the shit, someone always talks ‘bout a friend of a friend who got carried off by a deep mer and came back swimmin’ funny or with bites. Or didn’t come back at all ‘cuz the deep mer was so horny it kept ‘em.”

“Goodness” Indrid’s tail flashes deeper and deeper purple, “we don’t do that. No, hic, no matter how fun it sounds. Unless you, hic, think it sounds scary. Then it’s scary and I’d, hic, never do it.”

Duck nestles closer, blushing “Definitely jerked it a few times thinkin’ about it. And if it were you…wouldn’t be scared of you. Couldn’t be.”

Indrid trills softly, tail a pale blue, “I would never want you to be. No matter how fun it sounds to hunt you.’

“Thought you didn’t eat us.” He teases.

His friend yawns, then curls his tail beneath him, “Some deep mers prefer quick mating, hic, sessions. But others prefer to draw them out, to chase each other down once they’ve agreed to, hic, be together. Both come are holdovers from when it was much harder to find others in the, hic, dark depths. I always preferred the hunt.”

“Let you hunt me anytime, darlin.”

A gentle purr as Indrid takes his hand, “Let’s let the wine wear off first. Then we can talk about it.”

Duck snuggles in for a nap, “S’fine by me.”

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a long talk and what felt like an even longer wait, Duck floats in the main room, realizing just how much a courtesy Indrid did him by keeping the lights on all the time. Because with them all off he can’t see more than a few inches in front of him.

He swims forward, unnerved by the fact he has no idea where the other mer is; the house isn’t that big, and Indrid isn’t small. So where the fuck is he?

“My, my. Whatever is a little ray of sunshine doing down here?”

Duck spins to his left in time to see glowing red eyes appear in the darkness, accompanied by a possessive, green flash of the tail.

“I, I don’t mean no harm. I was out for a swim and I got turned around and with all those squid around I had to find shelter.”

“I see…” The red eyes move closer, “and you’re not at all here because you’re a nosy little thing who wanted a peek at some big, scary, deep mers?”

“No” he gasps as Indrid’s tail coils around the base of his own.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you what happens to sweet, warm sunlight mers who wander too far from home?”

“N-nope” He shivers as Indrid’s tail loops tighter. Is it really so much longer than his?

“Then allow me to enlighten you: it is a lonely life down here. My own kind prefer to move, never settling in one place, which makes, shall we say, courtship? Difficult. Which is why some of us like to find a foolhardy mer who swam further than they should and keep them as nice, soft toy. Or place to lay, if that’s one’s preference.”

“It ain’t!” It’s more of a squeak than he means it to be, but all the same he wrenches his tail free and swims as fast as he can away from Indrid. This doesn’t get him very far, and he pretends not to know where the bedroom doors are as Indrid rounds the corner after him. The other mer hits a rock on the wall as he does this, bringing enough light to the space to reveal himself.

If Duck really was minding his own business and turned to see that rushing towards him, he’d be terrified.

As it is, the most he can manage is a moan as Indrid catches him with his arms and tail.

“Such a rude guest, running away from the one who gave you shelter.” He plucks a spine from his tail and jabs it into Duck’s own. It doesn’t hurt, but Duck thrashes to keep up appearances.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Some insurance against you running off again. It’s not as if I need you mobile for this.”

Duck’s tail is barely strong enough to keep him afloat, his arms feel heavy, and his brain is foggy, meaning it feels like a slow-motion dream as Indrid pulls him in for a kiss. It’s shockingly gentle given the context, and even the little nip to the corner of his mouth as Indrid pulls away feels sweet.

“Much better. Come along.” Indrid carefully guides him into his bedroom, pausing as they reach the pile of seagrass that he nests in, “sweet one? Are you certain you’ll be able to respond if it becomes too much?”

“Uh huh” Duck pets his face, “feel a little loopy, but I’m all here.”

A relieved smile turns sharp, “Good. Now let me see what I have to look forward to.” He pushes Duck onto the bed, curling their tails together as his fingers tease the sensitive patch of scales near Duck’s belly. Duck whimpers as they ripple open, revealing his slit and several short, flexible tendrils on all sides of it.

“Oooh!” Indrid trills, tail wiggling even as it holds Duck in place, “you sunlight mers, every part of you is so welcoming.”

“Fuck you.” He gasps as Indrid sinks his teeth into his shoulder. The pain doesn’t let up until he actually cries out.

“Now, now, don’t fuss.” Indrid grins, “If you behave I will have no need to do that again. Here is what will happen. I am going to try you out, and if I enjoy myself, I will keep you.”

“I, uh, I ain’t gonna, I won’t, uh, fuck.

“It doesn’t matter if you enjoy it. I just said it was for me.” a hungry purr, “and how could I do anything but enjoy myself, with a lovely thing such as you?” Indrid moves a hand down his tail, gripping the base of the cock emerging from his slit. It’s thicker at the bottom than at the tip, though there are two short protrusions on the tip, giving it the appearance of horns. Two rows of bumps run along the bottom, which is a new one for Duck.

He tries to back away but the combination of Indrid’s grip and the poison make it impossible. All he can do is lay there as Indrid slides in with a low, possessive trill.

“Nnnnf, oh you are wonderful. So warm, so soft” he digs his fingers into Duck’s belly, “I, I do not know why any of you waste your time up there, when clearly all you were meant for is being willing holes for mers with far harder lives.”

“No, no we’re not.”

Indrid thrusts harder, “‘We?’ Not ‘I’? Interesting. Maybe you did come down here just for this.”

“Uh uh, I didn’t, I FUCK” he moans as the horns at the tip of the dick begin moving on their own.

“Do you like them? They double as ovipositors. Right now they’re, ah, investigating to see if you’re the right place. Ohoh it seems you like that.” Indrid grins triumphantly as Duck’s tendrils coil around the base of his cock.

Duck nods, too overwhelmed by the feeling of Indrid inside him, of their tails twined together, to keep up the ruse of resistance.

“Good. Now, let me see, if they’re positioned like that…”

“AHFUCK” Duck clings to Indrid’s biceps as he fucks him harder, the motion functionally jerking the tendrils off, “fuck yeah, that’s it’s darlin.”

“Oh I’m darling now, am I? I like the sound of that.” He nibbles Duck’s neck, “such nice manners you have up there.”

“‘Drid, please, please I’m gonna cum if you keep doin’ that.”

“That’s rather the point. Well, that and fill you so full you never doubt who you belong to now. But no laying today, I think. We can do that later. It’s not as if you’ll be going anywhere, my lovely little cocksleeve.”

Duck cums with a groan, the sensation heightened by the fact the rest of his body can do little but twitch as it races through him. Indrid pounds into his limp body with a triumphant snarl, tail and spines flashing blue and purple as he cums in him with a trill.

They roll onto their sides, in no hurry to separate, and Indrid coats his face in slow, loving kisses until Duck drops it onto his shoulder.

“Satisfied, sweet one?”

“Fuck yeah. Sleepy too, but I can’t tell how much is from you stabbing me or you just wore me out.”

“Technically both are stabbings.”

Duck snorts a laugh and headbutts his shoulder.

There’s nothing but the faint sound of Void playing with a puzzle cube until Indrid murmurs, “I wish you could stay forever.”

“Me too. And maybe I could, someday. Or maybe you could stay with me.”

“Dearest, your trip ends in two months.”

“So? Don’t even take twenty minutes from here to home in the VertoSphere. We could visit each other whenever we want. There’s some places up there I’m dyin’ to show you. If, uh, if you want.”

Indrid cuddles closer, purring, “You would truly let a deep mer be your partner.”

Duck kisses his nose, “Hell yeah I would.”

#indruck #mermay #duck x indrid #indrid cold/duck newton #mermaid au

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