Fian bit his lip, his tentacles coiling in on themselves.“It’s not that either,” he told the ocean.
Fian looked around, wondering what he should do.Go to Kai, run to him,he thought.
Kai would be on his way to waking now.He’d slept so deeply, so peacefully, but that had taken work on Fian’s part.Kai’s dreams skewed toward dark things, nightmares in which creatures more vile than any demon haunted him.Fian had found a clear current, had whispered calming words to Kai, and that had worked to keep the nightmares at bay.
While Fian got angry at the magic that had been done to Kai—the magic that was likely the cause for those bad dreams, he almost bumped into two mermaids dressed in shell bras to entertain dreamers at the Carnival.
“Watch where you swim, you mammal head,” one of them said.Her hair was pink with orange strands running through it.
Fian’s color shifted to pale blue and pink.“Sorry.”
Fian righted himself and looked around to get his bearings.The other mermaid, her hair bright yellow, frowned at him.
“At least we have these.”She cupped her bra.“What’s your excuse?”
Which was when Fian recalled about his clothes, his pants specifically, the very ones Kai had commanded him to take off.The memory made him smile fondly.
“Ugh, what’s wrong with his face?”the pink-haired mermaid asked.
The other one flicked her flipper.“Stroke?Hey, kraken-head, are you having a stroke?”
“No.Nope, I’m not.I just met a human and—well, he gifted me rosehip jam if you must know.”Fian’s tentacles flexed with pride.
Neither of the mermaids seemed particularly excited about the gift though, and all of a sudden, Fian felt as if he were talking to Mikano.These aren’t agents he’s sent after me to make fun of me, right?That’s paranoid.Yeah, it’s paranoid, and he wouldn’t.The Human Liaisons Unit has better things to do.
“Do you mean the human threw that jam stuff in the ocean?That’s not them gifting you anything, it’s them littering.”The yellow-haired one ran a hand through her hair before crossing her arms.
The other one nodded.“Yeah.You work at the Carnival long enough, you see all kinds of things.They don’t mean anything by it.”She cocked her head.“Did you try giving the human your clothes in return?”
Fian’s color was becoming agitatedly patchy all over.
“Oh, look at the time.Let me apologize to you once again for not watching where I swim, but I really have to go.I, ah, have carvings to do.”
Fian swam away before either of them could say anything back at him, but he could feel their eyes watching him retreat.“Of course Kai wasn’t littering.He would never.”
Fian was sure of that, and even if Kai did litter occasionally, it was probably a habit he could be broken of.The rosehip jam had been an honest gift, but Fian didn’t have to waste his time convincing mermaids of that.
Yet habits were important, or the right ones were when one was preparing to take a landbride.Having a landbride meant they would spend time together, swim together, live together, snuggle together on some furniture that allowed Fian to wrap Kai in his tentacles… Fian thought about that as he swam, not back toward the human world but to a quiet piece of shoreline he called home.
There, not too far away from the Carnival but just enough out of the way to make it a hassle for Mikano to visit, Fian had found a small plot he’d been able to rent.It had come with a little house—only one room and a dream fire hearth—and a shed next to it.The shed Fian had turned into what he thought of as his studio.He did his carvings there.Until very recently, it had been stuffed full of phalli, much like the holes of the hungriest, kinkiest dreamers.
Or like Kai—but no.What he and I did wasn’t just thoughtless dick worship in the dream ocean.I took care of him.And I held him.I made sure he could rest.But still, the taste of him during orgasms…
Fian broke the water and slowly let go of his tentacles.Legs were easier on the shore, and his nakedness irritated no one here.
Except even as he thought himself safe from prying eyes, the front door of his one-bedroom house was thrown open, and there, in Fian’s very own door, stood none other than the nightmare creature that was Mikano.
“Tickle!”His shark smile never faltering, Mikano looked down even as Fian froze, waves lapping at his calves.“Why are you naked?”
“I…well, I…”Don’t tell me he sent those mermaids to watch me after all.
Mikano put his hands on his hips.“Is this an artist thing?Tom says artists are strange like that although I told him you weren’t all that strange.But, Tickle, this won’t do.We were thinking a beachside wedding, but you will have to wear clothes for that.And for the party after.The rehearsal dinner as well.Tom says the rehearsal dinner is important, and the expectation is that you attend it fully dressed.”
Fian might have felt smaller, but then he remembered Kai, his landbride-to-be, that human who tasted so good in his dreams, that human Fian couldn’t wait to get his suckers on in the waking world.And Mikano cannot take Kai from me.I found him.Mikano has his surfer.
“It’s not your wedding today, is it?”Fian asked, his color settling.
Mikano cocked his head.Usually, Fian would be at about his third apology by now.“No.Well, whatever.I was waiting for you.When I told Tom about you being my best demon, he explained about everything you’d have to do in that role.”
