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For your one-year anniversary, you had been briefed in advance about the possibility of getting one wish granted – free of charge, bounding contracts or compulsory compensations. Of course, the only condition was that it was agreed upon by both parties, and that it was made within the realm of possibilities: that meant no wishing for it to rain a million Thaumarks out of the sky – though, at this point, you weren’t quite sure of what wasn’t possible in the world of Twisted Wonderland. You had one thing in mind though, and were quick to jump at the opportunity.
When you had told Azul Ashengrotto your wish, he had immediately recognized it as doable and plausible. He –also immediately– had refused profusely, glasses fogged up in disdain, muttering something under his breath and visibly shaken. Seeing his reaction, you had desisted, but the frown on your brow just wouldn’t go away. Seeing your reaction, he had calmed himself down and dared to ask:
“Is that really something you want so badly?”
Yes – as badly as to go wasting my one free wish with Azul Ashengrotto to make it come true, you assured.
“Fine,” he had conceded, lips tightly under control and not smiling one bit. “But I shall pick the place.”
‘The place’ was a rocky, tiny, inhabited island above the Coral Sea that took a whole ordeal to get to, partly because Azul’s flying was sub-par at best – and he had to manage with you clinging for your life on proverbial ‘back seat’ of the broom. While technically an islet, it seemed more like a series of cliffs speckled with vegetation – waves bursting with high energy chipped away at the rocks, and you knew that if you happened to fall not even Azul could ever hope to retrieve you. However, a concave space between the cliffs created some sort of a bay towards the inside of the island, serving as a breakwater for the crashing waves. As you flied alongside its curve, the ocean got progressively calmer, until you both reached a crevice, an opening in the sediment walls. Within was a cave that was just barely underground enough to be shielded from the sun, but not so far away from the opening so as to be completely in the dark.
It was unlike anything you’d ever seen before. Like a miniature amphitheater of limestone, the carved grotto had layers of rock slowly descending into a pool of blue waters, walls lined with moss and ceiling low, allowing you to sit upright, stretch your arms and be able to touch it. Azul steadied the broom before helping you down, and as the water rolled softly and calmly on the shallow stone steps, possibly moved by the ocean forces way down below, he instructs you to take a seat, and be careful. Dark turquoise in color, beyond the rocks it was unspeakably deep, and he wouldn’t want you falling in. The stone walls naturally merged into two steps: one above the water, and the other just barely covered by it but still close to the surface; so, you sat on the first one, with your feet towards the second.
“There’s an underwater tunnel that goes into the Coral Sea,” Azul says, his voice echoing throughout. The lack of available seating space in the rock formations meant he was flush beside you – not that after a year of dating you weren’t used to his presence, but it still made you feel some kind of way. “I used to come here to think.”
“It’s beautiful,” you gasp, wincing a bit at the cold water flooded your aquatic sandals. Azul had insisted you wear those, plus a short wetsuit, knee pads and shoulder pads. You wondered if all the equipment would not make you sink faster, but safety first, your boyfriend had said.
“Hmm,” Azul hums, deep in thought, before swiftly whiplashing back to his normal self. “Well, we’re not here to do sightseeing, are we.”
His slender, pale fingers fondled with the potion vial hanging from his neck: the answer to his rhetorical question.
“I’ll have to undress,” he adds. “Turn around, please.”
“After all this time?” you laugh dryly, but the mood was not light enough to joke, so you comply.
Even covering your eyes and twisting away from the merman and towards the cave walls, you can still feel Azul’s wetsuit sliding off his shoulder, the damp rubber grazing the side of your back; the clasp of the knee and shoulder pads coming off, his eyeglasses now resting on top of his discarded swimwear, and then a jump – a muted, soft splash.
“Tell me when,” you call, your breath revealing how nervous you were, shaking with expectation and excitement. You had imagined the transformation to make some sort of noise, yet it was unbearably still inside the grotto. The muffled sounds of the crashing waves outside, plus the soft trickle of a leak falling from the ceiling were the only things you could focus on. The stillness between you was so, that if it weren’t for your trust in Azul, you would have thought he ditched you inside the cave as some elaborate mean joke. Thankfully, he was nothing like his moray eel peers – at least not in this sense.
“Done?”
“Not yet,” he replies, hurriedly. “Sorry, Y/N. Give me some time.”
You twist your body to the direction where his voice is coming from, your own hands still veiling your eyes shut.
“It’s okay. As long as you need.”
A loud sigh followed. You felt a pair of hands now grasp at the lower step, where your feet rested, splatting water droplets as they tried to achieve balance. Azul steadied himself, bringing half his body up with the strength of his human shoulders, purposefully keeping the rest beneath the surface.
“Ready. You can open your eyes, now.”
A hauntingly shimmery shade of gray, the pale skin of his face almost seemed to match the color of his eyes – of course, you’d seen his eyes without glasses before, multiple times, but something about the way they reflected the scarce light was different now. Around his neck, and all the way through his arms and torso, the texture of said skin turned distinctly non-human; spotted, gleaming like a black opal, changing colors slowly from midnight blue to mossy brown to nightfall purple, mimicking the stone steps, in a way that would make him eerily disappear into the environment if it weren’t for his familiar face, looking straight at you. Something was swirling deep within the water, and you imagined that to be his tentacles; but as expected, he would not show them – not just yet. For your wish had been to see his true form, and you hadn’t specified if all or just half of it.
“Wow.”
“That’s it?”
You gulp before trying to articulate your thoughts again. “You’re so... beautiful.”
“That seems to be your catchphrase today,” Azul snaps back. You don’t blame him for being defensive – after all, you know he feels at his weakest right now, and this is something that not many humans have ever seen before: only a handful few academic personnel in both the Coral Sea human-training boot camp and in Night Raven College, and only for medical reasons that couldn’t be avoided.
“But you are”, you insist. Every human child has at some point dreamed of meeting merfolk, heavily influenced by bedtime stories, in which even the most fearsome sirens were mystical creatures with hauntingly loving voices and glittering scales of lavender. Maybe that is clouding your judgment, or maybe your love is – for this hardworking, albeit finnicky and distrusting boy who you were lucky enough to spend your happiest times with.
“Sweet-talking won’t get you anywhere,” Azul warns, as he is an expert on the subject. “But coming from you, I’ll take the compliment.”
He is about to suggest transforming back, but you spoke before he could.
“Can I touch you?”
“Uh...” Azul stutters, and he might have blushed if he had been in his human form, but as a deep-dwelling merman, the pigmentation of his cheeks only served for camouflage, and nothing more; its default setting being ash grey. “I doubt it’s anything special, but sure, go ahead.”
You descend to the final step of the stone stairs, before the blue abyss that Azul is floating in, so that water comes up to your hipbones – you don’t mind, as long as you can scooch on closer to him, caressing his shoulders and feeling the slimy, slippery texture of his pores. Every inch of his skin seems to have a mind of his own, contracting and expanding ever so slightly at your touch, changing colors as if involuntarily. To the side of his arms, a few small barnacles are growing – you remember he once told you they were like warts on humans, but because they all slept in seashell beds, every merfolk was bound to have a few here and there (and barnacles were a pain to remove successfully).
Azul waits in silence, a bit self-conscious, but still fixed on your face. He cannot believe you would honestly look at a creature like him in such adoration.
“Sorry. Are you feeling alright?” you ask, realizing that your natural curiosity might be making your boyfriend uncomfortable. Well, he was prepared for this much, at least.
“Yes,” he declares. “It’s not your fault. I just – I’d rather been born human, that’s all.”
There is nothing ‘that’s all’ about that statement – it’s a very deep and heavy thing to say, making your frown burrow in worry.
“Don’t make that face. I get to be human most of the time, after all. And on a government aid, no less,” he reassures. His stories about how we underwent human training to be able to walk, run, adjust to hotter temperatures and eat warm foods had always fascinated you.
“What was the thing you looked forward to the most?” you ask. “About turning human.”
Azul gives it a good thought. He’s starting to relax bit by bit, as his hue sets on purple, not trying to melt into the foliage anymore. You’re taken aback by the cold burn of his sudden touch, as his hands lazily graze your calves beneath the water. His tentacles are still nowhere to be seen, though. His temple rests on the kneepads he had insisted you wore, and though lightly, you can feel his lips hovering just below your knees.
He finally settles on his answer. “Jumping.”
“That’s... unexpected,” you blurt out honestly, because you can’t imagine how the same Azul who very profusely hates exercise could come up with that response.
“Hmm,” he hums once more, adjusting his weight up, arms crossed on top of your legs, his breath now so close to your thighs, you can actually feel it. He could very much switch to gill breathing at this point, but he’d rather make you feel his warmth. “Maybe saying I wanted to experience ‘gravity’ is more accurate.”
“I see. Did it hurt? U-uh, walking.”
“By the Sea Witch’s benevolence, when the mermaid princess of old finally turned human,” his voice turns darker, still embellished in his notorious sticky sweetness. For an otherwise introverted type, Azul is an amazing talker, and even better storyteller. “Some accounts say that walking felt like a thousand needles piercing her feet at every step.”
“Oh no,” you exclaim.
“An exaggeration, for sure. The only pains I ever felt were – what do you call them? Growing pains? In my kneecaps and elbows. Curious thing, indeed.”
You let out all the air you’d been holding in anticipation.
“You had me scared there for a second!” you scold him, and Azul smiles and shrugs. Absent-mindedly, you squeeze at the muscles tensing in his shoulders. “Ah, then I guess that means your human form matures with your age. That’s interesting.”
“Fortunately, our lifespans are pretty much the same.”
“It must have been so weird,” you continue, as intimate talks like these were rare, what with Azul always busying himself with his various, uh... businesses. “Growing bones and stuff, right? A–are you... you don’t have any now, do you?”
“My human half does,” he says, tilting his head so his eyes meet yours. “Oh, I know that look. You want to see the rest, don’t you?”
Foolish of you, thinking you could get past his wit. “Uh...”
“Not included in the bargain this time,” Azul says. “Though I might... comply, for a small fee.”
“–oof. Knowing you, no thanks. I’ll pass.”
“You wound me, Y/N. You’re not suggesting I’d ever demand collateral from you, are you?”
“As if you haven't before!” you exclaim, not that he needed any reminder of the Mostro Lounge anemone incident.
“Ah, ha, right,” he chuckles wryly.
Azul turns pensive again. He’s got both hands on your legs now, and you wonder if there is an unconscious longing for feeling his own now that he’s in his primordial, cephalopod form. Not speaking a word, he clicks your protective kneepads to remove them, lips ghosting from your thighs to your knees, making you squeak in surprise; he then rests his head in between, and you come to the realization he’s been trying to distract you from feeling the grasp of two tentacles on your ankles.
“Ah –”
“Don’t say it. I know. It’s disgusting.”
That’s a very far cry from your choice of words. It felt novel, and it tickled a bit, feeling the tiny suction cups nibble at your skin, but it wasn’t unpleasant at all.
“I like it. I like all of you.”
A pause. Biting your lip at your embarrassing confession, the cold humidity of the cave is starting to get to you, unwillingly giving you goosebumps.
“Can you show me?”
“No.”
“Aw. Well, okay.”
“Giving up so quickly, are you?”
“Azul!” you let out an exasperated sigh. “Which is it? Do you want to show me or don’t you?”
It feels like a rite of passage at this point. If he passed this opportunity to show all of himself to his lover, no such chance would come by twice. It has been a literal odyssey just getting to the cove, and to be precise – he did want to show you. He was just afraid.
“Your legs,” he says, lips pressed to them as he speaks, further sending shivers down your spine. “What marvelous things. The veins, the moles, the stretch marks,” his hands are human, but in this form, feel scaley and rough against your supple skin; his blackened nails growing out like claws, yet, by the boy’s own gentleness and self-control, managing to not scratch you. “Compared to this, I...”
I’m a monster, he wants to cry out, but he’s no longer into self-pity. And you know that’s not his final say in the matter, so you decide to wait.
They come crawling from the sides. Aside from the two tugging at your feet, two more envelop your waist – although the thick fabric of the wetsuit refrains you from feeling the raw touch, you can still feel the pressure from the suctioning, this time amply stronger. The closer they get to his lower body, the bigger the muscle membranes get, and thus their vacuum force much fiercer. He feels heavy enough, easily able to pull you down to the depths if he wanted to – in fact, you too have a potion hanging down your neck, which Azul had made and given to you personally, A water-breathing potion, in the very odd case you needed it, if his instincts gave in and lost control, or if a tide took you and you got separated. But he loves you too much to let such things happen, so it sits there unused, dangling idlily as you take the whole situation in, feeling your chest get tighter.
Azul reinforces his tentacle grip once more. With his human arms, he cradles your knees and nuzzles his head on your lap, closing his eyes. While your left is being used to stable yourself and sit upright, your free hand now moves to the back of his head, caressing his wet and curly hair gently. As his several arms embrace you, you are lost in thought. In a good way, his scent is like the sea. Not a summery day on the beach, but more like the skies before a storm – salty air, a sharp freshness rolling with the rainclouds. His choice of setting, this dark cave that would catch the remnants of sunshine in its underground pool, a lightshow of turquoise refracting off the surface; it was far away from his usual date spots, smart and cost effective, but it was him through-and-through.
“Well, what do you know,” Azul muses, and each word itches against your skin. “I’m weightless in the water, but my stomach feels like I just jumped from a trampoline and am free-falling into a bottomless pool.”
“That doesn’t sound too enjoyable.”
“No, don’t get me wrong. It is. I’m glad I got to show you.”
“Thank you,” you whisper. “For granting my wish.”
“Aren’t I compassionate?” his modest laughter makes him softly sway in the water. While he had promised the whole ordeal to be free of charge, you were sure he’d find a way to get back at you later.
“By the way, Azul,” you call, suddenly remembering why you were there in the first place. “You still haven’t told me what your anniversary wish will be.”
“That’s strange,” the once-greedy boy says, lips still flushed against your legs, pressing one more kiss on each inner thigh. “I can’t seem to think of anything.”