[The City Adel] (Pevi/Ivahn) "Only the Ocean Knows" Theme #42: tentacles Title: Only the Ocean Knows Author:ivoryandhorn Fandom: The City Adel (Original) Pairing: Pevi/Ivahn Rating: PG-13 Warnings: m/m, s/s (for squidman/sharkman *cough*), xeno, questionable biology Words: 1514 Theme: Kink #42 -- tentacles Notes: (1) I...I can't believe I actually wrote this. (2) Please let me know if the warnings/rating are off--I'm doing the best I can but I'm not sure how good that actually is. (3) Some background, because it will never get anywhere else--the sharks are a relatively more settled, tribal people. The squids are sort of wandering gypsy folk. Summary: For never was there a tale of more woe...
Ivahn nervously threaded his way through the kelp. True, it was unlikely they’d be seen—especially this far out from the school—but he could never really shake the fear that dwelled in the back of his mind, the one that said things like He’s the enemy! and What if the rest of the school finds out? and You could get him so, so killed. It was the fear that warred constantly with the bit of him that said I DON’T CARE I LOVE HIM SO GET HOOKED BY A HUMAN WHY DON’T YOU, which was not coincidentally also the bit that made him feel like a too-young female, giddy and overwhelmed by the fact that this whole affair even existed.
So preoccupied was he that he didn’t even notice the soft flutter of water as someone swam up behind him. “Boo,” a voice whispered in his ear, and while Ivahn didn’t have a pup or anything, it was a near miss.
“Pevi!” He whirled around to face the squid. “I—I didn’t scent you coming.”
“That’s because you were too busy thinking,” the other replied with a knowing nod. Today the patterns on his body were dark blue, to match the sarong draped around his hips.
“I—suppose that’s true,” Ivahn admitted. He exhaled, trying to relax. “I was just—a bit worried.
Pevi’s head cocked in curiosity. “About?”
“Nothing important.” He couldn’t help his smile, taking in the way Pevi looked as he floated in the depths of the kelp forest—wild and strange and proud. “Now that you’ve arrived, at any rate.”
The other smiled at that and drifted closer. “Ah! You wore it.”
“What? Oh. Yes.” Ivahn touched the necklace of shells and rock beads around his neck. “I—well, I thought I should, since I—I didn’t get a chance to, last we met.” He can barely say the words without his gills feeling tight as thoughts of why he never had the chance rolled over him.
Pevi smiled even wider at that and slipped a cold arm around Ivahn’s waist. “I’m glad,” he said. He sounded pleased, as he nuzzled under Ivahn’s chin, mindful of the gills lining the sides of his neck. “I knew it would suit you.”
“Well, I-I’m glad, too,” Ivahn stuttered. Pevi’s hands slipped into his robe, drifting over his ribs and hips and back, his touch gentle and curious as if Ivahn never ceased to be something new and amazing each time they met.
After a moment Ivahn laid his own hands on the cool muscle of Pevi’s arms, and he wasn’t quite sure, but he thought the other made another pleased sound at the touch. It was becoming easier and easier, now, to touch Pevi back without feeling ashamed or scared or—anything other than this was what he knew he wanted, really.
Pevi’s mouth moved up along his throat to his mouth and Ivahn stopped thinking completely as their lips met and Pevi’s long tongue pressed gently against his teeth, moving along his gums, asking for entrance—but he refused, despite Pevi’s little sound of disappointment.
Pevi pulled back, and Ivahn thought the other seemed faintly annoyed. “Still no?”
“It’s too risky,” he replied. “My teeth—“
“I will be more careful this time,” the squid promised, but still Ivahn shook his head.
“It—It’s not worth it,” he said. It couldn’t be, if it could hurt Pevi and maybe bring everything they’d built down around their ears. “If the school scents the blood…I’m sorry.”
He just made another one of those annoyed little sounds. “But this, you cannot object?”
Pevi’s tongue was long and tapered, more like a miniature, unsuckered tentacle than an ordinary tongue—than an ordinary shark tongue, Ivahn corrected himself. Only the tip was free of the little barbs that covered it, and it was this tip that Pevi gently drew along the flaps of Ivahn’s gills. He felt them flutter in response to the teasing touch, felt his body beginning to heat despite the chill of the depths.
“Hmm,” Pevi said into the back of his neck. This time he sounded pleased, Ivahn was pretty sure. “I thought so.”
Ivahn tried to turn around, but the other’s tentacles had already wrapped around him, holding him in place. Pevi’s hands slipped under his robe and traced patterns over the skin of Ivahn’s chest and stomach, making him heat even more. One blue-slashed hand drifted lower, squirming under his sash, past the line where smooth skin melded into rough scales. Ivahn clutched helplessly at Pevi’s arm, pulling another one of his noises out of Pevi—reassuring this time, Ivahn recognized that one at least—as his fingers stroked him, touch deliberate and slow.
“P-Pevi,” he stammered. Ivahn tried twisting around again, even though he knew it would as useless to try as last time. “I—I want to—“
“Shhh, shhh,” Pevi murmured. His other arm shifted and tightened its hold around him, pulling Ivahn tighter against him. He felt one of Pevi’s longer tentacles slide up his robe from below, rubbing against the hand pressed against—against Ivahn, seeking his own pleasure in ways Ivahn didn’t entirely understand yet. “Soon, soon. Breathe.”
Ivahn nodded, and made himself relax in Pevi’s hold. Instinct told him to keep alert and keep moving lest he drown, but he knewthat as long as he remembered to breathe through his mouth he’d be okay, safe in all of Pevi’s arms. He tried to distract himself—not a very hard thing—from the instinctive panic, focusing instead on the feel of Pevi’s body pressed against his back, on the broad bands of Pevi’s tentacles wrapped around his tail…on the coaxing touch of Pevi’s hand beneath his clothes. It was tricky to tell with the squid, but Ivahn thought that Pevi was heating too, the one tentacle pressing harder against his own hand, and soon, he thought, soon Pevi would pull away his hand and then they’d, they’d be—
A song echoed through the water, an ululating thing that throbbed through the deep sea currents. After a brief pause, the call repeated itself, just as terror surged through Ivahn; the school, they were looking for him, calling for him—if they found him, oh no, if they found him like this, wrapped in, in Pevi’s body, they’d kill him, rip Pevi to shreds in a frenzy and then maybe Ivahn too.
“What? What is it?” Pevi asked, as his whole body instantly tensed at the sound. Ivahn began tugging at the heavy coils of his tentacles, unwilling to just kick free and risk scraping Pevi’s flesh with his rough skin, afraid of letting blood, squid blood, into the water because if he could hear the call then the school was surely close enough to scent it. Pevi clutched at him, all of his limbs tightening around Ivahn. “It’s nothing but whalesong, I’m sure I saw a pod of them earlier—“
“No, no, no,” Ivahn said desperately, trying to squirm gently. “It’s—it sounds like it, but it’s not, just trust me, it’s—it’s a hunting horn, we use them to signal prey or enemies or to call for people, please let me go Pevi, they’re looking for me—“
“But there was barely time!” Pevi protested, even his tentacles fell away, cold water pressing against Ivahn where he’d been warmed by their touch.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Ivahn babbled. He pulled off the necklace and thrust it at Pevi, who stared back at him, face blank with shock. “I—I won’t have time to hide it again, you’ll have to keep it for me, please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I—“
Pevi slowly took the necklace from him. “When—when can we meet again?”
“I don’t know,” Ivahn said desperately. “I—some of the others are starting to ask questions, not really seriously but I—I don’t know when it’ll be safe for—for us again.”
A tentacle brushed Ivahn’s cheek; both of Pevi’s hands were fisted in the shell-and-stone necklace. “You will signal me?”
Ivahn nodded desperately. “Yes, yes of course I will, at the usual place…I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”
“Shhh, go.” Pevi leaned in and kissed him hard, his tongue pressing everywhere Ivahn could afford to let him reach. “Hurry.”
“I’m sorry,” Ivahn said again. “I—I wish we could have had longer too—”
“Go,” Pevi repeated, and he turned around, jetting deeper into the kelp.
As soon as he was sure the other was safely hidden among the seaweed, Ivahn kicked himself free of the fronds with two strong flicks, turning to where the call had begun sounding once more. When he returned to the school there would be questions and lies and more questions and even more lies, but all he could think about was the stricken look in Pevi’s eyes when he’d had to give the necklace back, the stutter in his usually serene voice.
“When—when can we meet again?”
Please, Ivahn thought as the water streamed past his eyes. Please, let it be soon.