MERMAIDS ARE REAL

She's fighting him much harder than he expected, and he shakes his head back at her with all the defiance she's giving him.

His jaw is clenched against the way the salt feels like it's eating at the raw skin, but his eyes are determined and his brow furrowed at her when she lets her hand brush by his back.

"I'm fine. I'm always fine. And saltwater helps fix everything, right?"

He assures her, ending with a sideway smile. Before she can prevent him further, he dips his head under and tentatively works his arms and legs to tread at the water. He can manage.

She's covered in small cuts from the wear of the rope against her, and he knows it must be torture to be stuck in the saltwater until those heal. But the most concerning thing is her tail, which is covered loosely in seaweed, with pieces that are trailing and about to fall off.

He pulls his head back from the water, swiping the back of his hand across his face, the sting of the water making the rope burns against his wrists feel swollen.

"What happened to your tail? Can you swim okay? Why do you have seaweed on it? Have you been swimming all day with your tail like that?"

He's back to his old self, firing off a million questions a minute, and his brain won't slow down about what's happened to her tail and what his options are to try and help.

To his question about swimming all day, she shakes her head and points down to a reef below them where she rested when she didn't have to be up and moving, when she didn't have to have her body screaming at her to stop.

But as far as what's wrong, she's not sure. All she knows is there's something that has to be internal because she doesn't remember seeing anything when she wrapped it.

Finally giving up, she takes a hand to move the seaweed off. Several many scales are damaged, cracked or scratched, the edges of her fins a little tattered, but the most notable change is how her tail seems to jut and bend a little further down towards the end. It looks unnatural and painful, definitely not something she should have been so freely swimming around on but it didn't stop her.

The way he looks at her when he sees it makes her shrug nonchalantly like it's no real issue and it doesn't feel like it in the sight of all the marks and burns across his body which she is much more concerned with still, looking his skin over with a frown.

"Were you using the seaweed for support?"

He asks, his mind churning as he stares through the water at the faint outline of her bent looking tail. He's holding his chin in his hand and he's clearly lost in his thoughts.

"It looks like you really need a splint, something more rigid. I️ bet the seaweed will just fall off. And you need something for the swelling, it looks kind of swollen. What could we put on it that would stay on in the water... what kind of bandage wouldn't get wet and fall off...."

He's looking back up at the sky with squinted eyes like he's going through every possibility in his mind, and suddenly, his eyes open all the way and he starts nodding slowly to himself, pulling on the side of the rowboat for support, trying not to grimace at the movement of his shoulders and the pulling of the skin.

"Okay, I've got an idea. Are you okay to wait here? Does it hurt to hold onto the boat to keep you up? You should try not to move it as much as you can until I️ can get back, alright? It'll be really quick, I️ promise."

Luna frowns, not liking the idea of him having to move more than he has to, tugging on his pants to try to stop him but he keeps going, pulling himself out of the water.

He’s only hurting himself more and more because of her and it upsets her over and over again. She taps the side of the boat to get his attention, so he can see her frown.

She can’t leap out to stop him and it tires her arms enough to just keep herself afloat where she is by holding herself to the rowboat, so she can’t stop him. All she can do is show her disapproval in his actions.

Her tail falls in the water and it hurts even more now without the seaweed on it and she grimaces with the stinging, but she tries to hide that from him by looking away back out over the water. It forces her to give up the fight she couldn’t even win to begin with, but it helps hide her pain from him so she deals with it.

Sent from Topic'it App

Shand is only gone for about ten minutes, but when he comes back and lowers himself slowly back into the rowboat, he's carrying a mid sized, open wooden crate full of things.

He drops down into the boat with a thud that rocks the little vessel and sends some waves out.

"Ooh, sorry."

He looks over to make sure she's still clinging on alright before he crouches over the box stiffly and starts unpacking it, explaining as he goes.

"Okay, so I️ found some stuff that I️ can use to make a splint for your tail, it'll give you support better than the seaweed can and I️ think it'll stay on better. And this is a salve that will help bring down the swelling so it can heal faster, and then I️ also found an old piece of tarp that I️ cleaned and I️ think if I️ can get this wrapped around your tail, it'll help keep it drier than a bandage would so the salve won't wash off as quickly."

He keeps taking as he pulls the items out, laying them out across the bottom of the rowboat in the organized order he'll need them in, and they start to fill up the bottom of the boat so that he's caged himself in to one side and he has to side step everything to dive back into the water where there's space for him.

His head bobs up to the top and he shakes the water out of his hair, closing his eyes for a moment as he adjusts to the bite of the salt and the coldness again.

"Okay, now we just need to find a way for you to elevate your tail out of the water so I️ can get to it. Do you think we could find a way to get you into the boat for a bit?"

Luna watches him bob a bit, still clearly upset and worried over him but he keeps refusing to take her concern for his own health as an answer.

Why? It's not fair that he keeps only thinking about her, keeps doing things that hurt him, diving back into the saltwater when it's clear that it stings. Why is he being so stubborn?

The only option she can see is to follow along with him in hopes that, once he feels like she's fine, she can return the favor, finally put his state first and he won't have a way to refuse her. But that's going to require some work on her part.

Her eyes glance up to the rowboat, eyeing it, trying to decide if she can do what he's saying. It feels impossible. She has to do it, this is part of her plan. Hands gripping the ledge, she pulls herself up, muscles visibly straining to carry the dead weight of her tail, the burns and cuts on her upper half along her actual skin burning as her skin stretches and she starts to shake.

She hears him try to swim over to help but that only pushes her to try harder on her own, hoisting herself the rest of the way before he can get to her. When she lands, she makes an audible thud like she had before, but this one is different, louder, a noise of exhaustion rather than clumsiness, and she rests there for a moment, hugging her aching body, trying to regain some composure.

After a moment of lip biting she sits up with a smile and a grimace, looking back at him almost sheepishly, like she's embarrassed by the noise and by the weak show, tail limply hung over the side of the boat, fins swaying on the surface with the small waves.

“I’m sorry, I️ know that hurts.”

Shand’s mouth pulls into a frown as he watches her struggle into the boat, even wearing the pain on her face as she tries to settle into it.

He swims over as quickly as he can, taking her fin between gentle fingers and trying to assess it better. He’s gotten pretty good at dealing with injuries like this over the years, and it’s usually been self treating, so he feels a little strange applying what he’s picked up to someone else.

The stakes feel higher now, like for the first time he’s afraid of actually messing up. So he decides to talk out what he’s doing to calm himself, and maybe also help her feel less tense.

“Okay, so I’m going to put the salve on now. It’s probably going to hurt to the touch a little bit, so you can hold my other hand if it’ll help.”

He extends one hand to her after he’s gotten the top off the small glass jar, and she takes it.

Slowly, he starts to rub the cream in over every place that looks painful or swollen, trying to be as gentle as possibly while making sure it absorbs as much as it can.

“Now I’m going to wrap this over it to keep the salve on... just squeeze my hand if it gets too tight and I’ll loosen it, okay?”

She nods and he starts to wind the ripped piece of tarp around every part of her tail that he’d just rubbed, trying to keep it close to her skin but not tight enough to hurt or cut off her circulation.

“And now these are going to stabilize your tail and help it heal back straight, even if you still have to use it to swim in the meantime.”

He positions two long wooden dowels along the sides of her tail, holding them in place while he wraps the remaining parts of the black tarp around it. When all is said and done, her tail is all wrapped up in the plastic and looks somewhat straighter than before.

He glances back up at her tentatively, as if silently asking if she’s alright and if everything is okay so far.

Every single new step hurts but it's not his fault. He's just trying to help, so she tries to keep her reaction to small little clenches of her hand around his and slight twitches of her face.

When he finishes, she leans over to look at his work, lifting her tail, noting that it feels heavier, stiffer, a little awkward and sore. She pokes at the tarp with her head tilted curiously, trying to figure out everything about this splint he's created.

Luna looks at him quickly with wide eyes, as if expecting some sort of story behind how he knows how to do this, her fascination with him only growing the more they interact. He's like a never-ending story with new details you pick up on the further and longer you read.

But now that she's taken care of, she points at him then points to a spot in the boat beside her, demanding he come back and rest, not forgetting the marks along his back and the burns over his body.

He can't hold back a short laugh at how demanding she looks, how clear her hand motions are, and how determined she is to not give up on what she wants.

"Calm down, calm down."

His lips break into a tight lipped smile, like he doesn't want to mock her because she's clearly very worried, but the way that she just won't let it go is a mix of amusing and endearing.

"You don't wanna check it out first? See how well you can swim with it on?"

He's leaning both arms over the edge of the rowboat now, earnest in wanting her to try out the splint, but knowing good and well that she won't.

Just as expected, she leans forward slightly and grabs his arm, trying to pull him into the boat beside her.

"Stop! You'll hurt yourself."

He half grumbles and half laughs as he pulls himself into the boat beside her, turning away as he winces a little bit from the tension in his muscles and how they pull his broken skin.

But he's careful to turn back to face her afterwards, with a smirk on his face because he knows she wants to take stock of his back, to look at all the marks, but he has no desire for her to see them.

He's embarrassed for her to make a big deal of them, so he tries to pretend it doesn't hurt as much as it does. It hasn't been the first time he's gotten into this kind of trouble by a long shot, and he's sure it probably won't be the last.

She cuts her eyes a little sharply at him, tapping her fingers against her lap impatiently at how he avoids giving in to her, clearly knowing he's trying to hide from her.

Luna swirls her finger to tell him to turn around. He shakes his head. She swirls her finger again with a little more of a demand than a request, sitting up and forward towards him like she's trying to intimidate him. Like this injured out of water mermaid is trying to intimidate him.

When he still refuses, she pouts childishly, pointing to her tail and then around to his back, trying to signal how unfair it is that she is taken care of when he isn't. He deserves this same kind of care, if not more. He's so selfless and kind, how has no one been selfless and kind back towards him? It seems as natural as swimming to her.

Instead, she reaches for what she can see. His face is brighter than it was yesterday, the red color at certain highpoints looking ridiculously dangerous, so she reaches to brush her fingertips over them gently, brow knit and pout shifting more to a shocked, concerned frown, watching his skin momentarily shift colors under her touch. It's all swollen and puffy but she can't stop from exploring it as softly as she can, taking it in and trying to figure out what she can do to help just by a few senses and clues alone.

Shand draws in a sharp breath of air as she presses against his face, and he can feel the sting of the sunburn so much that it makes his head spin.

He involuntarily closes his eyes and pulls his face from her grasp, turning and hunching away from the pain.

In the process, he accidentally exposes his back to her, which makes him cringe in and of itself, but she's too quick and observant for him to fix it.

He immediately feels her fingers on his skin, clutching the sunburnt skin on his shoulders to prevent him from hiding from her again as she takes in the work on his back.

He mostly can't see it himself, but he knows that the captain could have chosen to make it worse, could have used a crueler whip or lashed him more. The worst thing about the pain is that its compounded, cuts on top of welts under and over layers of sunburn, with tiny bits of wood stuck here and there.

But after his dip in the ocean, the water should have helped clean around the open edges and the salt should help some with the swelling and the tenderness.

The best thing, though, is that due to the deep cuts on his palms from the bits of shell he'd used to cut her free, he can't pull nets in for the next few days until they heal well enough for him to work again.

He wants to tell her that as her fingers ghost over his back, give her something to be glad about and take the focus off of what she's seeing. But then again, it would also be fun to surprise her with it tomorrow.

Either way, he's glad that he'll have free time over the next few days to watch her and make sure her tail is starting to heal well.

Luna feels at some of the loose edges of skin on his back, eyes narrowed in frustration and concern, upset he wouldn’t show her, guilty this is her fault, worried by how awful and raw this all looks. This isn’t something any seaweed can help with other than cooling him and keeping salt water pressed to the open tears in the skin.

Well, that may be better than nothing. She’s not sure when seaweed became her answer to everything, but she remembers being wrapped in it any time she had any significant cut so she just always associated it with healing and feeling better, whether that’s actually true or not is yet to be determined. But she’s not really sure she wants to run the risk of such an unknown on him. Maybe it’s a trick that only works on sea creatures and would infect him?

She points to the supplies still left on the bottom of her boat around them. What had he called it? Salve? Was that it? She can’t remember but it seems irrelevant as she asks for him to hand it to her, assuming it’s what he needs if he used it on her.

Though... What if she used that and then wrapped the sea grass around him like he had the tarp around her tail? No, that seems stupid. Again: What if that’s bad for humans? But he keeps refusing to give her what she wants to help him and it’s annoying her further.

A quick huff and she’s rolling herself out of the boat, sinking in the water almost instantly. Her tail is heavy and hard to move, swimming is a slow process where she has to only move half her body now and it’s draining. She gets to the ocean floor just fine, it’s the climb back up that takes a while.

Her hands grip the boat again and she grits her teeth hard, pulling herself back up, even more exhausted than the first time she tried this but she managed after several failed attempts, slipping back into the water a few times. When she collects herself enough to sit up, she points to the wet dark plant draped around her neck then back to whatever that ointment is.

It’s clear she’s not about to take no or “don’t worry” as an answer, seeing right past all of that.

Sent from Topic'it App

He feels his face heat up even more, and something about the idea of her touching him, caring for him like that makes him self conscious. He's always been the one to take care of himself. No one else has ever seemed to be this concerned about it before.

Granted, he's never been able to reach his back, but it's never kept him from healing before.

"It'll heal on its own, it's okay."

He keeps trying to reason and convince her not to waste the effort, but that determined look on her face doesn't fade and the more she pokes around the ripped edges of his skin, the harder it gets to conceal the pain.

Thankfully, with his back to her, his face is turned away from her so he can try to hide how he's biting his lip, his face clenching into a grimace, his eyes shut tight.

But the more she touches and the more his muscles tense away from her, the more it pulls his skin. He has to speak around his gritted teeth.

"It'll be better in a day or two, really."

Even in the pain, something about the soft way she touches him, rests one hand on his shoulder to keep him from moving, is tender and sweet and he's partly confused by the gestures, by why anyone would care so much, and partly melted by how embarrassed it's making him, how much he doesn't want to admit that it feels nice for her to care.

Luna huffs loudly, reaching around him and snatching the salve herself since he's refusing to give in, but now that she has it she doesn't know what to do with it. Yes, she had seen how he used it, but the idea of openly touching his raw back concerns her almost as much as seeing him having to deal with it is. It's going to hurt.

Still, someone has to care for him because he's certainly not going to take care of himself, as much as she wishes he would, and she begins quickly rubbing down his back. She's trying her best to keep the touches as light as possible while also getting the job done and it hurts her to see him tense and hold back the shakes his straining muscles are trying to release.

Once each spot is taken care of, she takes the seaweed from around her neck, patchworking them on his back, letting the ends dangle freely for now, softly pressing so the tiniest bit of salt water mixes with the treatment. Now it's time to tie it all off so nothing slips which requires her to reach around him in several hugs, tying each pass at his back to make it difficult on him to undo any of her work.

She tries not to think about all the close contact, how she presses against his back and can feel his warmth against her front, knowing now is not the time to dwell on that sensation... Not that she minds it.

Finished, she leans back, patting her work down, giving a small little nod, satisfied with how it turned out. It'll have to be changed tomorrow, for sure, but, for now, it will keep everything safe and clean. It nearly looks like he has another shirt on with how much wrapping she had to do and that brings even more concern bubbling up to her eyes, frowning as she looks him over.

He can’t hide how painful it is to the touch, and as she starts to rub the salve into his open wounds, he can feel his breath start to shake with the effort of not yelling. He keeps repeating over and over to himself that this is going to make it better faster, but right now it’s hell.

He can’t suppress every gasp, but he tries, and he’s biting down hard on his lip, his knees pulled into his chest, hands grasping hard at his ankles to relieve some of the tension.

By the time she’s done, every breath trembles shallowly and audibly and every muscle is rigid. He has to get his mind off this.

He twists slightly, sending fire up through him, but he can see her now, how tiny cuts cover her torso too.

“Did... did those... c-can...?”

He can’t even spit words out with how his chest rattles, but he reaches for the salve she’s still holding.

Honestly, he wants to pull her arms back around him and just hold her there, let the weight of her body against his back and the pressure of her against him calm him and dull the pain, but he can’t think of a good way to do that that doesn’t make him seem like a child.

She can't quite figure out his intention as he reaches for the salve to take it back, at first thinking he's upset with her, sees what she did as some sort of assault, wanting to take the weapon away. So she hesitates, leaning back away from him, salve out of reach, brow furrowed at him.

He frowns at her through his pain and continues to try to reach for it, engaging the two in a quick game of keep-away, which she is clearly winning. Eventually, he sighs and tells her why he wants it and the words make her pause, now embarrassed she had misread him that much.

Per usual, apparently, he just wanted to help. It's really not that bad, though. Yes, she has cuts and burns, but they don't split and fester like his do. How can he be so wrapped up in her condition right now?

He's basically leaning completely over her now and she's noticing that she has to look up at him, noting yet again that, if they were the same species, she would be significantly shorter than he is, but really just how close they are makes her blush. Makes her blush and her heart race.

Her shaky hand releases the salve back to him in defeat, trying to ignore that he's so close she can smell his sweat mixed with sea water and ointment right off his skin near her nose.

Shand's leaned over her, and when she gives him the jar back, he wants to move, to make sure she's not uncomfortable or embarrassed by how close he is, but he's at an awkward angle and he can't move right.

He tries, but the pain shoots through him and prevents him from trying again. He's got one palm rested on the floor of the rowboat, holding him up, and he moves that arm, thinking he can turn better this way.

But he's wrong. It counteracts his balance and he's falling, and before he can really do anything about it, his face is pressed against her chest and he's practically laying in her lap.

He can hear her heartbeat thundering, like the movement has shocked her too, and he starts a long string of embarrassed apologies that he knows would be turning his face red if it wasn't already.

But something about her skin against his face feels cool and comforting, and he wants to stay there, pressed against her, but at the same time he knows she probably wants him off of her, so he tries to pull himself up.

Luna sees him fall, instinctively reaching out to catch him, make sure he doesn’t hurt himself, keep him from moving too much, but that just opens her arms up to unintentionally embrace him. She pauses.

His face is right on her, right against her, she can feel his breath and the vibration of his throat and chest as he speaks, apologizes, rambles like he always does. It tickles and, if she could laugh, she would.

Her hands hover over his shoulders and her eyes are wide in shock and embarrassment, face a different shade of red than ever before, nearly rivaling his sunburn in just a few seconds. The tips of her fin still hanging off the boat in the water twitches, splashing a bit of water up but not much.

What is she supposed to do? Shove him away? Slap him? Yell - Well, okay, she can’t do that one. What is the right response here? He didn’t mean for this to happen, that much is obvious, so is she supposed to be upset? At the same time, he’s not really moving so maybe she should be mad? Each question leads to a new question and not an answer so she stays frozen under him.

Her eyes manage to spot one of the shells in his hair and she pulls on it a little, trying to distract herself from this until he can collect himself, figuring its best not to overreact.

But, the longer they stay like this, the more she thinks she doesn’t really mind. He’s warm and calming, muscular but still somehow soft. Maybe this isn’t a bad position? Inappropriate, yes... Possibly... Right? What are the rules around contact like this? If they both seem to like it, do they still move away from each other or do they stay as they are?

She has no clue and she’s hoping he does.

Sent from Topic'it App

He tries to push himself up against but his hand slips against a wet spot in the bottom of the rowboat, and he silently curses himself for not patching those holes like he'd meant to.

He chances the shortest of looks up at her to see how upset she is, if this has absolutely ruined whatever it was they'd had and maybe she'll never want to see him again.

But she's giving him a strange look, like she's confused but also not as uncomfortable as she was initially, and her hands in his hair are getting softer, more gentle, until they're around the opposite side of his head, gently holding it.

His heart is beating faster and faster once he realizes that she's enjoying the feeling of his skin, just like he is hers, and he pushes himself to sit up just a little bit, so that his head is resting against her shoulder instead of awkwardly in her chest.

He acts on the sudden impulse to find her other hand and lace her fingers up with his, some of the left behind salve still sticking to them and making them a little tacky. But he doesn't mind. Some of her wet hair is falling in his face but he lets it. She smells like salt and sugar and warmth.

Before he knows it, his arm is wrapped around her middle, hugging her, and her arm is draped over his shoulder, fingers curling his hair around them slowly, gently, and it soothes him. He feels like she's going to lull him to sleep any second.

Then she rests her cheek against the top of his head, and he can start to feel the tension in his shoulders melt away, like they've just both accidentally found the most comfortable position possible in this tiny, cramped little rowboat.

There's no way around it now: They're laying down. They're laying down, her back against the boat and him pressed over her. It's probably the most peaceful moment she's ever had in her life, enough that she can feel a yawn coming on when it isn't even her time to sleep usually.

Her hand combs through his hair on the back of his head, getting caught at one of the shells which she then twists and plays with for a bit, but her eyes remain on his face.

He's calm and childish and stupid and brave and wonderful and incredibly handsome. The shape of his forehead to the tip of his nose, how his brows hang over his eyes and his jawline cuts up towards his ears, yet there's still some softness to his cheeks... Everything about him melts her and her hand in his hair slowly reaches to carefully trace over every detail of his face like she's drawing and sculpting it herself.

She's never met another human before but she's convinced he's perfect. There will never be another one that lives up to the standard he's set without even trying.

A soft finger trails over his bottom lip, noticing the bite marks from when she had just wrapped his back, gently pressing at the splotchy coloring of the tender skin.

Luna presses her face to the top of his head, hiding herself there, but her finger stays preoccupied where it is on his face while her other hand is busy clutching his, and she keeps observing his calm expression and how his skin moves under her touch. It all makes her heart race loudly for him to hear.

Gently, she pulls her tail up the rest of the way on the boat, wrapping it up to rest over him, long flowing fins like a wisping slick blanket, but also keeping him every closer to her, locking him where he is, afraid he'll get up any second and this will be over.

The more her fingers trail over him, slowly, intentionally, his eyelids grow heavier and heavier. He can't ever remember feeling this way in his entire life, like he could close his eyes and sleep and have no worries, have no fear or anxiety or anything.

He feels so, so safe. He's never had a home or a room or a bed of his own- the closest he's come have been the old rowboats he's taken over. Could this be what having a home feels like?

His breath is getting longer, deeper, and he can feel the air from his nostrils bounce off her soft, cool skin and hit his face again. How every part of him could go from feeling so incredibly in pain to feeling so ridiculously relaxed is beyond him, but as she pulls her tail up over him like a blanket, he doesn't care much about understanding it anymore.

She's got her fingers in his hair, tousling and curling and playing, and he lets a contented sigh slip past his lips, a little hum rumble in his chest and he wonders how long she's been out there, swimming around alone, waiting for someone.

Maybe she's been looking for him as long as he's been looking for her, without even knowing it. He turns his face over and buries it in her skin, letting the tip of his nose glance over and over against her shoulder. It glistens perfect white in the shining of the moon and he lifts his hand to trace over the shadow the faint light leaves over her collarbone.

"Luna."

He whispers to himself, repeating her name just for the way it feels on his tongue, the way his mouth feels forming it.

"Maybe this is crazy."

He pulls his face out of her shoulder only slightly, just so he can glance up quickly at her eyes to make sure she's still awake, then back down to his finger on her skin.

"But I️ feel like...do you wonder, I️ mean, maybe... I️ think this might be what love feels like."

Her breath hitches at his question and the world around them suddenly feels silent. If she could speak, she'd be speechless.

Love? Is that what this is? This content feeling of safety and warmth, of home and purpose, is love? All she's ever known were greedy hands and backhanded words all done overly sweetly, under the proclamation of love.

At one point she tried to convince herself that was love and, for a long while, believed it, carried the deformed definition with her everywhere she went. Now, under him, both wrapped around each other, that foundation feels shaken. No, not just shaken: It feels cracked, broken, eroded away, destroyed into dust.

Is this what true, honest love feels like? Is this what it is?

She slips a hand under his chin, angling his face back up towards her, missing the site of it the moment he turned away. Honestly, she's in awe of how he looks staring up at her like he is, how he feels pressed to her, pulling her tighter against him, and how his eyes make her thoughts blank in seconds.

They keep a long steady gaze for a while and she's content to stay like that forever, thumbing over his jawline, trying to ignore the bumps all along her skin from his soft hand on her collarbone.

Slowly, intentionally, she nods in response to his question as she looks down and watches him.

A sleepy smile spreads across his face as he lets her angle it up toward her, like the most comfortable, easy place to exist is under her gaze where he doesn't have to try, or work, or pretend to be anything. He can just lay there, eyelids fluttering, and be accepted. Be cared for by her as much as she cares for him.

And it's that thought that jolts him awake just a little bit. He remembers what had put him here in the first place. Gently, he turns his head to scan down her body, taking stock of all the places she bears those ropey cuts from the net.

There's a moment of sorrow, of guilt that she wouldn't have been hurt if she hadn't been trying to follow him, to stay close to him, and for the first time he wonders if her interaction with him is bad for her. He can only hope it doesn't get her more pain, like it had this time.

But for now, he'll deal with what he can see. And he readjusts his weight under the blanket of her tail slightly, pulls the jar of salve back into his hand, uncaps it.

There's a short, deep, thin cut near her last rib and he looks at it for a moment, presses a short, sweet kiss into the skin right beside it, and then rubs some of the ointment into it gently.

He goes about all the cuts he sees in the same way, kissing them better, then rubbing the salve into them to create a protective barrier until one by one, all the cuts on her body have been covered with the ointment and with his kisses.

Is this a human thing? Do all humans kiss at each other’s cuts and bruises?

The close intimate contact makes her skin feel hot under his warmth, nearly cancelling out the pain of the treatment on her cuts. Nearly, she does still have to grab at any part of him she can grab depending on where he is on her body at that moment. Shoulders, arms, hair, neck, anything as some cuts sting more than others and she fights to hold back the pain from her face because, even with all of that, his lips more than make up for it.

Maybe this isn’t a human thing, maybe it’s just a him thing. It’s a Shand thing to hover over her and care for her, patch up a person he just met that is the reason for the breaks in the skin on his back.

She’s not sure how long they’ll be together in life but she’s suddenly determined to make it for as long as possible, for forever, even.

When he’s done, he looks up at her and she sees that concern in his eyes again, just like when he was wrapping up her tail so she shakes her head to try to dismiss it, tell him she’s fine, drape her fin back over him properly. Her hands find both sides of his face, pulling him back up towards her, and she’s hoping he can’t see how red she is, how his mouth and touch have sent shivers all along her skin, especially not now that his face is above hers.

She thumbs over his cheeks, looking over his face, his expression, unable to hide the awe and wonder from her face. And the feelings are enough to move her lips to his face, right near the corner of his mouth, returning all the ones he had just given her.

Sent from Topic'it App

It's strange because once she's kissing him, although just moments before being too close to her had felt awkward, it feels like the most natural thing in the whole world.

He's never kissed anybody like this before, well, really anybody at all, but once her lips are pressed to his, it feels like it doesn't matter that he's never done it before. Everything just seems to come together on its own.

Her hands still rest on the sides of his face, gently caressing the tender skin like she's willing it to heal under her touch. He thinks if there's anything capable of that, it's her touch, her hands.

He reaches for the back of her head, cupping it gently, letting her wet hair fall between his fingers and get caught in loose tangles in his palm. Up and down her neck, back to her hair. Like he can convey all the gentleness he has in one touch.

He kisses her back, soft, deep, like this is the ultimate prize, to be here in the bottom of this wet, leaky rowboat, both of them in pain, but hovering with their faces presses together, their hands soft and warm on each other.

He has to pull away from her to breathe, because this feels like being underwater but with so much more adrenalin. But he keeps his face close to hers, their noses and foreheads touching, so that they can feel the other's breath on them still.