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Cellbit wasn't sure about the existence of mermaids. Sure sailors brought home tales of mermaids all the time but that didn't mean they actually existed. The only way to find out if they actually exist is to go out and investigate.
To be able to know when to investigate Cellbit needed to figure out when mermaids were most active. Despite sailors telling tales of mermaids their accounts of meeting them didn't provide any consistency of when they would appear. Cellbit had resorted to looking into when fish were most active to use that to decide when to go look for mermaids. Both creatures lived in the water and Cellbit had no other leads on when to attempt to find a mermaid.
Cellbit ended up with two choices; go in the evening and deal with all the other beachgoers or to go early in the morning. Now, in the evening he risked not being able to see one with all the other beachgoers out in the water. Cellbit now was carrying a thermos full of coffee, a notebook, and a sketchbook. He was going to document as much as possible if he got to meet a mermaid.
Cellbit walked out along the dock until he reached the end. Cellbit sighed as he sat down and removed his socks and shoes before sitting down on the edge of the dock with his feet barely grazing the water. Cellbit glanced out across the water at the sun barely rising on the horizon. Cellbit lifts up his thermos to take a sip of coffee and sighs.
Now, all there was to do was wait. Cellbit set his thermos at the dock and moved to stretch.Cellbit felt his hand hit his thermos and reached out in a panic to try and save it from rolling off the dock. Cellbit’s fingers slip off the thermos allowing it to roll into the ocean.
“Caralho.” Cellbit whispers under his breath.
“Mira. Sabes que tirar basura es un crimen., no?” A voice asks from the water.
Cellbit jumps at the sudden voice and looks down at the water to see one of the most handsome men that he has ever seen. His brown hair is pushed out of his eyes with an obviously damp bandana. Cellbit could see a bit of water running down the man to where his chest met the water. The man shakes Cellbit’s thermos in his hand.
“It was an accident.”
The man glares at him.
“Bueno,” The man pauses and Cellbit realizes that the man is waiting for his name.
“Cellbit.”
“Bueno, Cellbit. I’m Roier and I saw you push this container into the water.”
“I didn’t push it into the water.”
“Didn’t push it into the water tu culo.” The man replies.
“I accidentally knocked it over and it fell.” Cellbit retorts.
“¿Y por qué estás aquí ahora? Roier asks, raising an eyebrow.
Cellbit rubbed the back of his neck nervously as he glanced over at his sketchbook and notebook. “I was looking for mermaids.”
“Mermaids?” The man asks, tilting his head.
“Sim, I thought there was a greater chance to see one before the sun rises.”
“What were you going to do if you met one?” Roier asks almost too genuinely.
“Não sei. Study them I guess?”
“No mames. ¿You want to fuck a mermaid? Wey, lo entiendo.”
“I do not. I want to study mermaids for science.”
“Could still be for science.”
“I don’t like fucking.”
Roeir nods in understanding before he speaks again. “Bueno, what proof would you want?”
“Qué?” Cellbit asks.
“Sabes, What would you want to see to prove mermaids exist?”
Cellbit hadn’t thought that far. What proof would he need?
“I guess I would at least need to see a tail?”
“¿Como esto?” Roier says, before he dives under the water and Cellbit is confused until a large tail pops out of the water and moves around a bit, as if Roier was taunting him, before disappearing under the water again.
The tail is smaller than Cellbit expected. He had expected it to be large and decorative like the ones that goldfish had. There were so many stories of men being lured out to sea by creatures in the water and Cellbit had always attributed those stories to creatures like mermaids. It would have made sense if their tails were made for looks rather than something useful.
Roier’s tail was even thinner than the ones Cellbit had seen in those fake mermaid tails you could buy online. There didn’t look to be a spot to hide the person wearing it’s feet like the fake tails normally had. The tail thinned out right before the fin to the size of barely larger than a person’s calf before it turned into the fin. The fin itself was thicker but and reassembled something made more of pure muscle than decorative scales.
“Nem feudendo.” Cellbit murmured under his breath, as Roier popped back out of the water.
“¿Qué, never seen a mermaid, Gatinho?” Roier teased.
“That can’t be real.”
“What? Do you want to touch it?” Roier asks, raising his eyebrow and smirking. “I won’t bite.”
Cellbit gives Roier an unimpressed look.
Roier raises his hands in a pacifying gesture, still holding Cellbit’s cup in one hand. “En serio, es para la ciencia, ¿no?”
Cellbit sighs in frustration.
“I also still have your cup.” Roier says, shaking it.
“Can I have it back?”
Roier hums as he swims backward a bit more from the dock, before he smiles mischievously. “Come get it.”
“The water is freezing.”
“I think it’s fine you just obviously don’t want your thermos.” Roier taunted.
“Please, Guaptio.” Cellbit begged adding the nicknames in a hope to sway the other man.
Roier shook his head and moved a bit farther into the water.
Cellbit glares at Roier before he stands up and takes off his jacket. Cellbit goes to unbutton his pants and strip down to just his boxers and undershirt when he hears a whistle from the water. When he looks down at Roier, he is staring up at him with a smirk. Cellbit looks away and can feel his cheeks heating up.
“I am not getting all my clothes soaked just for my thermos.” Cellbit says, before he continues to take off his jeans.
When he turns back around he sees Roier looking him up and down as if he was checking him out.
“Que?” He asks, crossing his arms.
“Nada, Gatinho.” Roier replied with a wink.
Cellbit sighs before he jumps into the water. When Cellbit resurfaces he is only a foot or two away from the other man. Cellbit moves to swim forward and reach out for his thermos when Roier dives sideways out of the way and dives under the water taking Cellbit’s thermos with him.
“That isn’t fair.” Cellbit shouts to the open ocean.
Cellbit feels something that feels oddly like a hand brush his foot and he kicks out in the general direction of it but doesn’t feel his foot connect with anything. Cellbit is looking out into the farther ocean waiting for Roier to reappear and try to lure him out farther. Cellbit is surprised and bites back a yelp as Roier pops up in front of him mere inches away from his face.
“Caralho.”
“Hola.” Roier says and Cellbit can't help but notice how much better he looks close up. Cellbit can even see some red scales on Roier's cheekbones that seem to draw Cellbit's eyes to his. Cellbit wonders how much different the scales feel to the rest of Roier’s skin.
“Olá.” Cellbit replies, feeling as if the air was sucked from his lungs.
He can understand how sailors were lured into the sea. Roier looks even more handsome this close with the water droplets running down his skin. Cellbit thinks he would let Roier drown him if he wanted to.
“See something you like, Gatinho?”
“Talvez.”
“Oh.” Roier says as he smirks and swims a bit closer to Cellbit. “What would that be?”
Cellbit doesn’t say anything as he leans in and cups Roier’s cheek with his one hand. As Cellbit kisses Roier he uses his freehand to grab his thermos from Roier’s hand, Roier lets go of it far easier than Cellbit expected.
“My coffee.” Cellbit says as he pulls away.
“Oh. Is that all?” Roier asks, raising his eyebrow.
“Não. You are handsome too, Guaptio.”
Roier smirks as they lean in for another kiss. Cellbit doesn’t know where the future will take him but doesn’t mind if it takes him back to the water.