#drew more slop for old times sake

[spastoid]

creepy slopsta

[vampirequeenoffan]

This is terrible. Here it is anyway.

Mermaid powen that I hate with every fiber of me being and I can’t get to read well no matter what I do.

“I feel sick,” the human groaned.

“You just binge-drank half the ocean,” Owen reminded him flatly. “The fuck were you expecting?”

The human pushed himself up onto his elbows, digging little furrows in the sand. Owen watched him more closely than was necessary. Soaked like this, he underwent some interesting changes– his swim shorts clung to him like a second skin, for example, showing off hips that were more than easy on the eyes. His brown hair had gone nearly black, and with the added weight it hung close to the human’s face and neck, framing those huge green eyes, half-lidded with exhaustion. His skin glistened in a combination of moonlight and Owen’s own bioluminescence, and he was still gasping and panting as he struggled for air.

Then he curled half onto his side and began to retch, coughing up bile and seawater onto the sand. Owen rolled his eyes, reaching out to pat the human on the shoulder.

“Yup, there you go,” he drawled. “Good old purging. Having fun there, graceless?”

Graceless’s only response was another loud retch. Owen noticed, belatedly, that he was shivering in addition to the heaves that wracked his body. Right, warm-blooded creatures weren’t a fan of late-night soaks in the ocean.

Owen hooked his fingers under Graceless’s arm, hauling him closer and ignoring his surprised squeak. He bundled him under his arm, tucking the human against his side. Graceless curled further into him, cheek resting against Owen’s shoulder. He was a warm, lazy trail of warmth down Owen’s side.

Owen’s nose twitched.

God Graceless smelled good. Even with the acrid stench of bile in the air, there was no overpowering that underlying sweetness. There was an itch along Owen’s gumline urging him to take a bite.

The human gave another full-body shiver, let his cheek slide down towards Owen’s chest, and twitched violently under Owen’s arm as he loosed a mouthful of salt and acid into Owen’s lap.

“Sorry,” he gasped, then said it again. “Sorry, so sorry. . .”

Owen wiped the mess off his tail with his free hand, making a face at the way it clung to his fingers and along the edges of his scales. He curled his tail like a scoop, splashing water over his lap and, unfortunately, over a bit of Graceless as well. This time, he managed to clean away the entirety of the viscous liquid, and he let his tail slop back down into the shallows of the encroaching tide.

“Clearly,” Owen said, “You have no idea how many creatures shit in the ocean if you think I’m worried about two ounces of puke.”

That set Graceless to laughing. He was still shivering, but slightly less now, and his snickers bumped up against Owen’s ribs like a subsonic trill. Owen’s earfins fluttered, the lures that bobbed at the ends throwing new light onto the wet sand. As Graceless stopped laughing, the light stopped moving.

Owen reached up with his free hand and smoothed his earfin back irritably.

“Thanks.” The human’s voice was rough, sanded down by his struggle for air and his struggle to keep his stomach from turning inside-out. It was a nice voice all the same.

Owen looked away, out over the horizon. The moon, still low in the sky, sent a streak of silver over the water. He swished his tail. Eyed the dark blot on the ocean that had turned tiny with distance.

“Who the fuck falls off their boat and kicks it five yards away in the process?” Owen asked, instead of acknowledging Graceless’s thank-you. “You’re local. You have to know the rip-tides here are killer. There’s a reason this beach is closed-off.”

“Yeah, because it’s mer-infested. The tides have nothing to do with it.”

Oh.

Well then.

That was more sass than Owen had been expecting from a kid who’d been half-drowned already. Owen snuck a look at him out of the corner of his eye. Graceless had his arms wrapped around himself, knees drawn up to his chest, and he’d made no move to get out from under Owen’s arm or to pull himself away from where he was leaning against him. He didn’t look scared, exactly. Unsettled, sure. But mostly, the drawn face and that little crease between his eyebrows looked. . .

. . .tired.

“I didn’t knock you off, if that’s what you’re saying.”

A slight shake of Graceless’s head. “Yeah, no, that was completely my fault. But why didn’t you let me drown, or. . . help it along?”

“You’re welcome.”

And now Graceless did pull away, sitting up enough to dislodge Owen’s arm and to glare directly into his eyes. “I’m serious,” he said, and he looked it. And also tired.

Mostly tired.

Owen drummed his fingers against the ground for a moment, thinking. Then he pounced. Graceless never stood a chance. Owen was on him in an instant, grabbing his shoulders and shoving him down onto the sand. His tail lashed around one of his legs while his hip pressed against the other, keeping the human pinned. Graceless cried out, grabbing at Owen’s wrists. It was useless– Owen was way stronger than any human could hope to be. He didn’t say anything that would dissuade Graceless from trying, though. The feeling of live prey squirming desperately underneath him sent an electric shiver down the full length of Owen’s spine.

Graceless was babbling. His eyes were wide and panicked. “Hey, hey, no no no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, forget I asked, just–”

“Shh,” Owen soothed, but he wasn’t trying very hard to calm him down. The beach was closed-off, after all. It wasn’t like anyone was going to hear Graceless’s screams and come running. “Come on, you fuckin’ pantywaist. It’s not like it’s gonna hurt that bad.”

He ducked downwards, burying his face in the crook of Graceless’s neck and inhaling deeply. Oooh yeah, that was the stuff. He parted his lips, licked a thick stripe up the side of the human’s throat, and relished in the renewed round of squirms it brought out. Fuck, he tasted even better than Owen had thought he would.

Seemed like the human wasn’t done trying to talk his way out of this just yet, though. “P-please don’t, I don’t wanna die, you– you didn’t drown me earlier, so you’ve gotta understand that, right?”

Owen scoffed. The human was trying to twist his leg free from where it was trapped in a loop of Owen’s tail, so Owen curled his tail like he was trying to ride a current. The tightening grip of scales around his leg seemed to be enough to get the human to stop trying that particular tactic.

“Look, shark bait, whatever you’re gonna try here? I’ve heard it. You can’t appeal to my better nature, you can’t try to convince me you taste bad, and– though I haven’t actually run into a lot of people morally bankrupt enough to try it– you’re not gonna be able to bribe me into letting you go so you can bump folks off the boardwalk for me.”

Something wet dripped onto Owen’s cheek. He sat up slightly, looking for the human’s face and– yup. Crying. Fuck. He’d stopped struggling too, was just laying limp in Owen’s grip like it had finally dawned on him that there was no escape. His eyes, those pretty green eyes, were screwed tight shut, and he was biting his lower lip to muffle his sobs.

Well, this was no fun.

Owen let go of one of Graceless’s shoulders, reaching up to wipe away the fresh tear tracks that trickled down from the human’s right eye. At his touch– or, more likely from the cold that accompanied it– the human twitched like an aborted sneeze, then cracked his eyes open. His remaining tears turned to crystals in the light of Owen’s lures.

Owen huffed. “I was gonna wait to tell you until I was done, but clearly you’re done putting up a fight at this point. Kinda pathetic, honestly. Anyway, I’m not going to kill you. I just want a taste since you smell like goddamn gourmet.”

The human just stared up at him for a moment. If Owen had expected relief, he didn’t get it. Graceless just seemed blank and confused. Owen let out a couple of irritated clicks, then tried again.

“If I was going to eat you, I would’ve dragged you the rest of the way under. I won’t say I don’t play with my food but I definitely don’t do it on land. Do you get that? Are you understanding my words here? Because if I actually fried your brain I might backtrack on my decision to let you live.”

That got his attention. The human blinked once, twice, like he was coming out of a daze. He sniffled, and it was the cutest fucking thing Owen had ever heard. He thought he might copy Graceless and hurl.

“Y-you’re not going to kill me?”

Patience was a virtue and Owen was never going to qualify for sainthood but goddamn if this shouldn’t cancel out one or two sins.

“No, I’m not.”

“But you’re still going to. . .”

“Taste you? Yeah.” What exactly was so hard about this?

The human swallowed. “How can you taste me without. . ?”

Oh for fuck’s sake. “Think vampires,” Owen said, and that was all the warning he gave him before leaning down and digging his teeth into the human’s neck.

He’d gotten better at this with practice. He remembered his first kills vividly– they’d been clumsy but effective, getting more blood on his victims’ white coats than he did in his mouth. He hadn’t been aiming for food then, it had just been a happy bonus on the side, soft mouthfuls of warm flesh that seared burning trails the whole way down his throat. At the time, it had been the most amazing thing he’d ever tasted.

Now, careful not to tear out a chunk of Graceless’s neck and only biting deep enough to draw blood, he thought that this might just rival that first euphoric feeding spree. Human blood was always tasty, but this human was especially so– thick and sweet on Owen’s tongue, with something fresh to it like the scent of dune roses. Owen swallowed his first mouthful and moaned, ignoring the sound of a keening cry through gritted teeth that came from the human underneath him. He’d be fine.

Owen licked at the punctures, drew more blood into his mouth. He could never get over how warm humans were, and now he had that warmth under him and in him and as he swallowed again, swallowed a third time, he felt like he just might boil over and evaporate into nothing.

The flow of blood from the circle of punctures was starting to wane. Owen groaned quietly, but took one last mouthful, rolled it on his tongue, and swallowed. He pulled away, licking the last of the blood from his lips and untangling himself from the human underneath him.

He let himself flop bodily down onto the sand beside Graceless. It stuck to his skin like the salt of the ocean, and with a wriggle or two he’d gotten himself situated, shoulder digging into the beach enough so that he could comfortably rest his head. He closed his eyes. He was warm and full and content, he could honestly pass out right here and he wouldn’t care if fishermen gutted him before morning came.

Beside him, he heard movement. Presumably, the human had just sat up. He still had tears in his voice, but he no longer sounded like he was actively crying.

“. . .that hurt.”

“Oh, no shit? Oh man, hold on, I gotta reevaluate my life choices here, I had no idea devouring humans alive was hurting them. I might be a gross man-eating fishman but I have boundaries, right?”

Something nudged Owen’s side. Had the human just elbowed him?

“Apparently you do. You didn’t kill me.”

Owen grunted noncommittally. “I’m just hoping you’ll fall off your boat again sometime and I’ll get seconds. Don’t get used to surviving our encounters because I might just decide I want all of you next time.”

There was a moment of silence. Owen waited for Graceless to book it back towards civilization.

In a careful tone, Graceless said, “My name’s Parker. But. . . most people call me PJ.”

Owen opened his eyes. Rolled over and looked up at the human he’d fished out of the sea.

“. . .Owen.”