Chapter Text
Luca took a breath.
"Silenzio Bruno," he whispered to himself.
"Shhh!"
He sent an apology glance over his shoulder to his classmate, Chira, who was back to focusing on the paper in front of her. Luca adjusted the pencil in his hand and looked down at the paper.
Reading was still hard for him, even after eight months of vigorous studying with Giulia. She was sitting to his right, chewing absentmindedly on her pencil with furrowed brows. He didn't know why; this was her best subject.
It was Luca's worst.
All of the ink was blending together on the paper in front of him as his eyes started to unfocus.
It was what Giulia and everyone else called final exams. The final tests before he and Giulia could go back to Portorosso. To his family, Machiavelli, Senore Massimo, and... well, Alberto, of course.
They'd been exchanging letters back and forth all year. Updates, mostly, but also stories. Alberto was helping Senore Massimo become the most successful fisherman on the coast. Sea monsters were coming up to visit more often and, what threw Luca the most, was the news that his mother was friends with everyone in town.
His grandmother was running for mayor.
A pencil was tapping his paper.
He looked up and saw Giulia staring at him, motioning to his paper with her head. He frowned.
"What?" he whispered.
She pointed at the clock, which Luca has just learned how to read, and was horrified to see that there were only five more minutes left in class and he hadn't made a mark on his test.
He began scribbling frantically.
"Does anyone need any extra time?" his teacher asked.
Luca thrust his hand in the air as he continued writing on his paper.
"Those of you who need more time can stay after class."
It took some of the pressure off of him, but he still didn't feel confident.
Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare...
Giulia left the classroom with most of the class and patted his back.
He could do this.
It was just a reading and some questions about it.
With a flourish of his wrist, he finished his last sentence, threw his paper at her teacher, wished her a good day, and ran after Giulia to the common area. She was sitting with their friends, Iggy and Roz.
Iggy was short for Inigo and Roz was their nickname for Rose.
"Santa mozzarella, what did I tell you?" Giulia called, throwing her hand at him. "He hadn't even read it when class ended!"
"I'm sorry," Luca protested as he sat down. Iggy threw a bit of bread at him. "I was thinking."
"About what?" Roz asked.
He pursed his lips. "Portorosso," he answered honestly. "It's just that Giulia and I are going back so soon..."
"Yeah, you get to see Alberto," Iggy teased, elbowing both him and Giulia.
"Yeah- yeah!" Luca smiled. "I'm really excited!"
"What do you guys think you'll do?" Roz grinned, knowing the answer.
"The Portorosso Cup!" Giulia said loudly, almost spewing food on Luca. "Ay, what else would we do?"
"Have fun?" Iggy shot back. "Instead of training? Just sit back and enjoy the sun!"
“I’m going to go swimming,” Luca said enthusiastically. “I miss the ocean.”
“Yeah,” Giulia sighed. “I miss papa.”
“I miss my mom and dad,” Luca piped up. “And Grandma!”
“And I miss quiet,” Iggy lamented. “No yelling or Giulia waking me up at the ass-crack of dawn.”
Luca cleared his throat quietly and picked at his food. He still wasn’t used to human swearing. It made him feel dirty even to hear it.
“Yeah, Giulia, you’re a morning person,” Rose grinned.
Roz was from the United States of America, and when Luca had found that out, he had bombarded her with questions for three and a half weeks until she asked him to limit his questions to three a day.
He’d started to be careful after that.
Yes, there were sea monsters in America.
No, they were not commonly accepted.
The food there was very different here than there. Another thing he learned was that he lived in Italy.
There were more fish than he had ever imagined in different parts of the ocean.
He asked way more questions to Giulia than Rose, because Giulia was used to his questions and welcomed them.
Most of the time.
She’d tell him about the stars and the sun.
She taught him about instruments and records.
He learned ukulele and how to sing.
He’d also learned that Giulia was bisexual.
It had taken a lot of explaining for him to get it, because where he came from, everyone could like anyone. To find out that it wasn’t a common thing here, or to learn that it wasn’t commonly accepted, threw him for quite the loop.
When it had finally clicked, he has said, “I thought that was normal everywhere!”
She had blinked. “Oh,” she had said. “Are you also... bi?”
He had shrugged. “I... dunno. Maybe?"
“Oh. Cool!”
That was the end of the conversation.
Giulia and Iggy were bantering over him as he zoned back into reality.
"Luca," Rose said quietly, "are you okay?"
He swallowed and smiled. "Yeah!"
Luca was itching to get back into the water. It had been a long time since he had been to the ocean. The best that he had gotten lately was rain.
"Two more days!" Giulia roared, throwing her arm around his neck violently. "And then we go back to Portorosso!"
Luca could feel his face light up. "Yeah! Portorosso!"
---
The two days went slowly. Test after test and minute after minute. Finally, the bell rang, he and Giulia hugged Iggy and Roz goodbye, and they went back to Giulia's mom's house.
From there, they ate dinner and went to bed.
Luca could hardly sleep from the excitement. When he managed to doze off, he had a weird dream that he didn't remember when he woke up. Something about Alberto.
Yawning and stretching, Luca rolled over blearily and started rubbing his eyes.
Laying on his back, he looked up at the white ceiling of his room and sighed happily. He was going home today.
As Luca came back into his body, he noticed something strange:
His blanket was tented up.
Frowning, he carefully lifted up the blanket and looked under it. There was no monster there, but his... what had Giulia called it? A dick? Penis? She said a few things. But his... dick was... up?
He sat up slowly, afraid he was about to be attacked.
"Hello?" he asked, his voice raspy with sleep. He winced as he felt the tightness of his sleep shorts. His dick did not respond.
In fact, it throbbed painfully and Luca hissed.
Carefully, he hovered his hand over it. The panic was starting to crash in on him. What was this? Was he dying?
He scrambled to his feet and practically limped to Giulia's room and threw open the door. She was passed out on her bed, snoring loudly with drool dripping from her mouth to her pillow.
Luca almost fell on top of her when he reached her bed.
"Santa mozzarella!" she jumped, scrambling away from the hand that was shaking her awake. "What?" she croaked. "You scared me!"
"Giulia!" he wheezed, his breath coming in shallow puffs. "What is this?"
He pointed down and she stared at it for a moment before bursting into laughter.
"Giulia!" he sobbed. "Am I dying?"
"No," she cackled. "No! No, you- ay, this is too much..."
"Giulia!" Luca said frantically.
Giulia waved her hand at him, out of breath. Her face was red. "You're not dying," she gasped, trying to control her voice. "You- okay, Luca, this is... normal. For people."
He stared at her, then his dick, and then back at her. "What?" he yelped. "What is?"
She motioned at his dick. "That. That is." Under her breath, she breathed, "This is so awkward..."
"I don't know what to do," Luca whimpered. "Is it doing to be there forever? Is this a human thing that I-"
"Luca," she said nervously, "you need to take a breath."
"What do I do?" he asked helplessly. Giulia snorted, embarrassed.
"Uh... well, I think you should go into your room..."
"Yeah?"
"And start touching it. Yourself."
He blinked. "Why?"
Giulia shook her head. "Trust me. It'll solve the problem. I'll explain later."
"Can you help me?" he begged.
She choked on air. "NO! No, absolutely not!"
"Why?" he sobbed.
Giulia covered her face with her hands. "I- uh, no. Just... I'll explain later, okay?"
Luca had tears in his eyes. "Just... go to my room and start touching it?"
She nodded and took her face out of her hands.
"Are you messing with me?"
Giulia shook her head frantically. "No."
He looked down at himself. "And... this will help?"
She cleared her throat, looking at her blankets. "Yeah."
His lower lip started to tremble. "Okay," he whispered.
Luca limped out of the room, each step rubbing against him in a strange way. He could hear Giulia screaming into her pillow behind him. He closed the door to his room and sat down on his bed. Something in him was telling him to take off his shorts, so he did.
His dick, which he had never really paid much attention to before, was standing up and touching his stomach. He whimpered. It hurt so bad.
What would Alberto do?
At the thought of Alberto, his dick throbbed and he gasped.
Giulia said to touch himself, so he took a breath and wrapped his hand around his dick.
He hissed as a wave of pleasure rolled over him.
His eyes rolled back in his head when he moved his hand up and down accidentally as he adjusted his hips.
Luca repeated the up and down motion and his toes curled as he squeezed his eyes shut.
Doing the motion over and over, he could feel his breathing getting faster. Something trickled down his fingers and he opened his eyes to see a white-ish substance leaking from the tip.
Frowning, he rubbed his thumb over it and gulped back a shaky moan.
It was the best feeling yet.
He did it again and a soft, breathy noise escaped him.
"Santa mozzarella..."
Luca had no idea what was happening, but it felt amazingly good and he didn't want to stop.
As his hips began to move, he wondered if Alberto had ever done this before.
And if he had, what did he like? Did he do what Luca was doing? Or did he do something completely different? Did he make the same weird noises? No, if those noises came out of Alberto, they would be cute. Attractive, even.
He imagined what Alberto's face would look like, and- oh.
Pleasure rolled over him like a wave and something white shot out of him, splattering over his stomach. He stared down at himself, breathing hard, looking at the white substance. It turned the skin of his stomach back to his scales.
With shaky hands, he reached over to grab a cloth and wipe it off. Carefully, his face heating up, Luca threw the cloth in his trash can and stood up.
Well, he tried to.
His knees gave out and he fell back onto his bed.
Embarrassment rushed through his chest and he felt as though he had just done something horrible. Dirty. Something he shouldn't have done.
Luca took a breath and tried to stand up again. His upper thighs were shaking, but he could stand and walk. He put back on his shorts and walked out of his room to wash his hands.
When he stepped out of the bathroom, still embarrassed and flustered, he saw Giulia at the kitchen table.
Her face was red and she was fighting back a smile. Luca knew that she smiled when she was uncomfortable.
"So, how was it?"
Right away, Luca felt his face go scarlet and he looked at the floor.
"What was that?" he asked quietly. His hands were in fists.
"Sit down," Giulia said, motioning to a bagel on a plate.
Luca looked anxiously down the hall. "What about your mom?" he hissed.
Giulia shrugged. "She won't be up for another hour. And, uh, this is a... weird topic..."
His legs were still shaking as he walked over to the table and sat down. He picked up the bagel and stared at it.
"What was that?" he repeated.
Giulia cleared her throat and took a breath. As she exhaled, she stared at her bagel.
"That," she started, "was a boner."
Luca cocked his head. "A what?"
She looked him in the eye. "Okay, so, your dick, yeah?"
"I... yeah?"
"Yeah. It gets hard when something turns you on."
He frowned. "Turned on? Like a lightbulb?"
Giulia snapped her fingers at him. "Yeah! Well, no. Uh... did you, you know..."
She made an exploding motion with her hands.
Luca's face was burning as he nodded.
Giulia laughed a little and scratched the back of her neck. "I really didn't think that I'd be the one telling you all this."
"What do you mean?"
"I guess- uhg." She threw her hands up in the air. "I thought you might know! I mean, sea monsters aren't all that different from humans, right?"
Luca shrugged. "I guess?"
"So- ay, Luca," she pinched the bridge of her nose, "do you know what sex is?"
He stared at her and she stared back. Her face was getting a little red. "No," he admitted.
They stared at each other for a few more seconds before Giulia facepalmed. "Ragazzi, I don't- can you please ask your parents about this? You're fourteen, you should know by now."
"You're thirteen and you know about it," he protested. "Please, Giulia, you have to tell me. Is it bad?"
Guilia burst out laughing, her face red. "I mean- no, I don't- uh-"
He looked at her with pleading eyes. She sighed heavily.
"Okay, so... ay, when two people like each other..."
---
"Luca, please."
"It's just- so weird-"
"Luca, we're in public."
"And it feels... good?"
"I- apparently?"
"I-"
"Luca, please, just get on the train..."
He sat down on his seat and looked out of the window, feeling fidgety. Giulia sat down across from him, red in the face.
"So...," she said awkwardly, "are you excited to see Alberto?"
Heat flashed through his body and he coughed into his hand, unsure of what else to do.
"Uh... yeah. Yeah."