"What are you worried about? Pendral will love it. Any excuse to have you visit him," Mulder smirked.
"Yeah, well, at least he doesn’t give me bits of half dead shark as courting gifts."
Mulder slipped into the water, fixing on the full face mask that not only let him breathe, but see underwater in the dark. He wondered if he’d hear the strange compelling song again tonight.
He sank slowly below the surface, watching his friend rise up from the small cave to meet him. The displaying started after only a few moments, the twisting and turning, the choreographed dancing no less effective in moonlight than it had been in sun. Pale slivers of light poured off the exquisite creature like liquid mercury, pooling on pale translucent flesh.
Mulder started to sway a little, as he’d seen the merman in the video do, knowing it was a mistake but curiosity as to the reaction he’d receive drove him on. He was positioned with careful water flutters by the merman over the pile of coloured stones, shredded shoes and other objects that Krycek had gathered over the past few weeks. A bower, Mulder identified. As he swayed, Krycek’s movements became more and more complex, twisting closer and closer, adding soft touches from hard fingers.
"Hey," Mulder mumbled through the mask, "I’m not your type, you know. I’m not even your species."
Krycek writhed closer and closer, the long tail twisting around Mulder’s legs.
"It’s not that I intended to lead you on..." sharp claws tugged at Mulder’s swimming trunks. "But I don’t really think we are fully compatible."
The fabric tore a little. "It’s a lifestyle choice, you understand. I choose to breath air and walk around on the ground, and you like to be underwater. If we tried to live together, well, I’d drown if I moved into your place, and if you tried to move into my house you’d end up scraping the skin off your belly. Not that we have to move in together..." he kicked his way up to the surface of the water, pushing his mask off his face, "...but I don’t think you’re after a one night stand here, are you..."
The fabric tore away and Mulder stopped his nonsense rambling. Cold fingers explored his penis, gently caressing him, and Mulder found himself supported and restrained by the long tail while soft warm lips investigated his face, but didn’t particular focus on his lips.
"So, do you guys kiss then..?" Mulder took Krycek’s face in his hands, pressing his lips to the merman’s, the reaction wasn’t quite right. With Krycek it was just mouth pressing, not lip-to-lip exploration of true kissing.
"Let me show you this human thing called kissing," Mulder couldn’t resist the clich? He took his time, showing the merman every technique he knew, nibbling lips, caressing Krycek’s tongue with his own. He avoided the sharp teeth, but his explorations found a mouth in every other way like his own.
Krycek rattled again, softly, and again, until to Mulder it sounded almost like purring. He put his hand against Krycek’s throat, caressing the merman’s jaw and slightly pointed ears, feeling the thrum of the purr under his fingers.
He’s an animal... this isn’t right, Mulder’s doubts surfaced, or at least, he tried to drag them up, but it was a weak excuse as he felt the soft scrape of scales against his legs and the satin slide of Krycek’s skin against his stomach and groin. It wasn’t like he’d initiated this... was it?
Strong arms slipped around his back, holding him close, and he held in return, rubbing his erection against Krycek’s torso and genital opening, feeling his penis slip past the swelling lips, feeling Krycek’s penis kiss his own in passing. The growing heat of their bodies worked against the slight chill of the water. Mulder used his fingers to guide the merman’s penis between his legs, using his thighs to emulate the feel of being held inside another merman’s body, trying to make this as close as possible to what Krycek would remember.
Inside, Krycek was hot, the flesh slick and caressing. The muscles of the genital pouch caressed Mulder’s cock, and he pushed himself deeper. As Krycek became more erect, the heat of him was pushing up against Mulder’s balls. As his penis extended from his body, he was making more room within himself for Mulder to thrust into.
Mulder pulled his mask back into place as he was pulled below the water. Like a crocodile had him in a death grip he was dragged down, twisting and turning as the merman spun them both through the water. Never before had he made love under the water, not with man or woman or human being. He’d fantasised about it, about how romantic and dissociative it would be, but the reality was it frightened him. He wondered, if his mask was dislodged, would the merman let him go, or would he drown here in the siren’s arms? Would the merman mourn? But it was harder to think of things like that as their bodies twisted and ground together.
Strong arms and tail held him in place as he thrust and gyrated against the merman’s body. He let his hands run over the merman’s chest, finding the small nipples, rubbing and pinching them. Krycek froze for a second, looking at him in surprise, before arching back, bring Mulder over in a perfect arc through the water.
With each new stimulation the merman twisted, grinding their pelvises together, and Mulder gasped at oxygen in short supply, the mask hard pressed to keep up.
Deeper and deeper they went, into each other, and under the water. Mulder felt the pebbled floor against his back as Krycek used the ground to compensate for Mulder’s lack of underwater power. He felt the hot, soft, slick muscles contract around his body, felt Krycek’s last frantic thrashings, saw the merman’s face finally contort in passion and felt his own climax, felt the wonderful spasms as he poured his seed into the merman’s body, as Krycek pulsed his own in heated bursts between Mulder’s legs.
The water turned milky around their waists, but only briefly. Mulder was too content, too desperate for a decent breath to be disgusted as a few small fish took care of the light snack their passions had provided.
Mulder lay on the bottom of the pool, his arms moving lazily through the water to stop himself from floating up, while he regulated his breathing, listening to his heart pound. Krycek floated above him like a ghostly apparition, his face once again placid – perhaps a little softer, his mouth lax, eyes content as he stared down at Mulder.
"This wasn’t a good thing, Krycek," Mulder whispered, "We shouldn’t... I shouldn’t have done this."
He stopped fighting the water, letting it carry him slowly to the surface, aware of being shadowed all the way. He grasped the edge of the platform, but strong arms wrapped around his hips. He tensed, but instead of pulling him in, they lifted him easily. He knelt and looked back into the water, reaching down to caress the merman’s face. Krycek pulled himself out of the water, just slightly, looking up at Mulder with the utmost intensity and concentration.
"Good boy."
A sound soft as moth’s wings, with no power or voice behind it, with the same humanity as the voice of a flute made of bone. Such an incongruously beautiful sound to carry such an inane phrase.
Mulder gasped, leaning down to the merman, "What did you say?"
But Krycek simply clicked his tongue, shaking his head slightly.
"Come on, say it again. Good boy. Good boy, go on, say it."
Krycek cocked his head on one side, and Mulder had the distinct impression he was being laughed at, before he was presented with the vision of the long blue tail flicking with silver light trails back down into the depths of the water.
"Well, I’ll be damned."
Mulder knelt by the pool for a while, before deciding that maybe it would be best if tonight, for the first time in a long time, he slept in his own home. He could listen to the waves of his own private beach and pretend he was here, or that Krycek was there. But somehow, it just seemed for the best that for tonight he put a little distance between them. He grabbed his clothes and jogged home, more enervated than he could remember being in his life. So this was what it was like when fantasy became flesh...
-oo0oo-
"Mulder? Something dreadful’s happened. Get down to the..."
Mulder didn’t wait for Scully to finish. She’d only phone him if it involved the merman, and if it was dreadful he didn’t need to hear any more.
He arrived heaving for breath, his leg muscles screaming at him.
"Where is he?"
"He’s in the cave, he’s moving, but he won’t come out."
"So he’s alive?"
"Yes."
Mulder’s shoulders slumped in relief, then he noticed the police officers milling around, the shocked white faces of the staff.
"What happened?"
"Those kids, the ones that were yelling at him today. You remember, he screeched at them, frightened them?"
"Yeah?"
"They came back. Looks like they wanted to teach him a lesson."
"Did they hurt him?" Mulder could feel the panic rising again.
"We only found this out quarter of an hour ago. He hasn’t come out of his cave yet."
"So why the police?"
"He killed one of them."
"He what?"
"The cleaner found the body floating on top of the pool, bloated and partially disembowelled. He had those spines through him, like Krycek put through the shark. The other boy is gashed, and the third boy is okay - he didn’t go into the water. We’ve got one kid dead, one in hospital, and the other one's hysterical. The police are asking if the merman should be destroyed."
"NO!!" Mulder couldn’t believe what he was hearing. "They broke in here, they tried to kill him..."
"We don’t know that."
"What else would they have been doing? They were trespassing, they got what they deserved."
"How can you say that? A young man is dead!"
Mulder grabbed a re-breather, "I’m going down there. Who knows what they did to him."
"Mulder, you cannot go down there. He’s killed someone..."
"He could be hurt." Mulder refused to listen to the voice of reason when it was telling him things he didn’t want to hear. He dove into the water, down to the cave.
Krycek was curled up awkwardly, and barely made room for Mulder when the human crawled in with him. Mulder ran his hands over the merman, looking for wounds. He couldn’t see anything, which didn’t bode well. If Krycek was uninjured, how could he prove that the merman had been defending himself when he’d killed?
"Hey there, are you okay?" the merman wouldn’t even look at him, still hardly moving, totally rigid in that awkward half curled position. Mulder took hold of Krycek’s hips, easing him out of the cave. He could hear Krycek rattling again, the sound definitely one of distress. Krycek’s hand grabbed his wrist, but offered no resistance as Mulder got him out of the cave and started to float them both to the surface.
Krycek wasn’t even trying to swim, holding his body totally still, but letting Mulder move him. Floating under the platform, he had to use the automatic switch to lower it into the water, pushing Krycek onto it as the merman refused to help load himself.
Mulder hit the switch again, raising them both out of the water. He ignored nervous police officers, who stood around with their hands on their guns, equal parts fascinated and frightened. Someone was asking him questions, but he ignored them, trying to find out how the merman had been injured.
Scully knelt beside him, "Can you see anything, Mulder?"
"There’s definitely something wrong. He’s hurt, but I can’t see where." The merman’s breathing was rapid. He was breathing through his nose, his jaw gritted, and it sounded like he was bubbling. Mulder started to listen to his chest to see if there was a lung injury.
"Mulder?"
"What is it?" he responded, distracted.
"Mulder, he’s bleeding from the pouch."
Mulder looked down. There was a small trickle of sticky red blood diluting through the water droplets surrounding the merman’s genital pouch. He reached down, very gently separating the lips.
"Oh god," Mulder whispered. "He’s been stabbed."
"How can you tell?"
"The knife’s still in there."
He heard Scully’s in-drawn breath, and cursed himself more than those who’d done it. He knew enough about human nature to have at least guess they would try something. The merman had made them look like fools, they’d tried to... what, castrate Krycek? No wonder the merman had tried to kill them. Used to Mulder, it hadn’t attacked them as would have been its natural instinct, it had trusted them, probably expecting food or play. Let them get close enough to stab him, even inserting the knife into his body, before realising it was under attack, and attacking back – with deadly force.
"Get the trolley here and get the hot tank ready."
Mulder and two of the aquarium assistants carefully loaded Krycek onto the trolley, and into the heated tank. Mulder was grateful Krycek didn’t view any of them as a threat, wasn’t panicked enough by his pain to attack the staff or himself. Krycek was gasping slightly, his breathing still strained, and his claws dug into Mulder’s arms as he was moved. Not enough to draw blood, but Mulder couldn’t help thinking of the disembowelled corpse that had been floating in the pool this morning. He noted one of the claws was missing, possibly pulled out on clothing or bone. He’d deal with that after he removed the knife.
"Strap him down," Mulder ordered after Krycek was lowered into the small tank. He was strapped onto his back, hands over his head, body partially underwater, but his belly up where Mulder could work. He injected a pain killer directly into Krycek’s groin, one they’d found should be compatible. It hadn’t been used on him before, but Mulder wasn’t going to let the merman suffer for lack of tests. Not just now. Within minutes the merman started to relax, his breathing evening out.
"Well, that worked," Mulder said.
"Like heroin, he’s going ga ga. What was that?" Langly asked.
"Morphine based. He’s mammal enough, human enough, that it should work for him." Mulder leaned over Krycek to whisper, "Good boy," watching Krycek’s eyes half close, his expression quite fuzzy as the drug took over.
Very carefully, he pulled the lips of the genital pouch apart, "Hold this open, Langly."
Langly looked a little put-off, but did it anyway. "Shit, what, did that just break off in there?"
The knife blade was wedged into the soft tissues at the side of the pouch. "Looks like the handle must have snapped off in the struggle. It might still be in the tank. It looks like they tried to carve him up inside here; there’s quite a lot of soft tissue damage. The penis is still intact, although there’s some very deep gashes there."
