#when it was link it was all Weird like. y'know how link is with gender

[autumnoakes]

been having dysphoria over my facial hair then looked in the mirror and went 'i would make a really hot guy i think'

[ai-the-broccoli]

(so I was reminded of this by @kiyomitakada's post about Sayu potentially liking girls, but it's off-topic and I didn't want to derail it entirely so)

if I had a nickel every time there was one scene in a piece of media I love where:

a teenage character (who I'll call T) is shown coming home very late to their family, and -- because they were actually doing something very unusual which they cannot reveal to their family --

either claims that the reason for the late return is that they are actually in a heterosexual relationship with someone (a lie),

or is asked by a family member as to whether the reason for their late return is that they are actually in a heterosexual relationship with someone (a wrong guess),

when actually, the real reason is that T has been engaged in unusual secret activities with a group of people... but also most especially specifically with a certain person with the same gender as T, with whom T has a legendary, intense, obsessive homoerotic rivalry (I'll call this rival R).

R -- a manipulative schemer with noticeably eyebags and a characteristic fondness for sweet food (including or especially ice cream) -- has a relationship (general meaning of "relationship"; not as in they're canonically dating) with T that is not known to these family members in question.

and later in this scene, T also makes a remark (in relation to the "girlfriend/boyfriend" matter that is brought up) at one of their family member, which was definitely not at all meant to imply that said family member is queer, but could be taken that way if you wished to

...I would have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice considering how specific this description is

for context:

Juri’s Father: …By the way, you ain’t staying out late ‘cause of some man, right…? Juri: Why would I bother with men when my old man ain’t finding women? -- Juri Ooba MSS (video / script), from Magia Record

(note for DN fans:

Juri is very gay and has like... a basically canon relationship with Yuna, with whom she has a very homoerotic rivalry going on. Like... remember the Japanese version of Playing His Game? Imagine that, but with heated physical duels between two magical girl gang leaders, instead of two supergenius' tennis match. Yuna and Juri basically do that like every time they fight each other. A lot of other stuff too, though.

No matter how gay you think they are, it's probably even gayer. The extremely suggestive dialogue aside, they have stuff like y'know. canon neckbiting and "you're going to be mine", and by now they have canonically lived as a married couple raising a child together for 14 years. No, really.)

as for the scene in Death Note, I'm referring to the post linked prior about Sayu here, in which the below panel is shown:

(note for MR fans: ...well I mean. DN is rather well-known so chances are that you probably already are familiar with Light Yagami's alloheterosexuality or rather the lack thereof, and you probably also have heard about his rivalry with L and/or the fact that it is an extremely popular M/M ship, so. I don't think I need to explain much lol)

but anyway yeah. now same as with Light's comment towards Sayu, I'm pretty sure that Juri's words were not intended to suggest that she's calling his dad gay, but rather more of a "no bitches" thing, but I mean. this whole scene and by extension this entire character side story is about how Like Father, Like Daughter they are -- AND this extends to Juri's father also having a rival (<- a guy) that he has had a grudge on for a long time (<- you know what they say; "it is a truth universally acknowledged that someone entangled in a passionate and obsessive rivalry must be gay". I can confirm there's truth to this statement because it happened to me) and is going to fight against at the same time Juri is fighting Yuna (<- cinematic parallels), etc. and we know for sure that Juri is very gay as far as rivalry is concerned, so well, honestly, who's to say that her dad is definitely straight?

[p6-rem]

🌿💤Mechanics I'd include in P6💤🌿 ; (Part 1)

Hello, my name is [REDACTED]!!!

I've had this idea for game mechanics and features for P6 for a long time now, and I thought, "y'know what? I might as well just write them down!". [DISCLAIMER] ; Some of these ideas are heavily inspired from this video, this video, and this video. I also wanna point out that this is simply just my interpretation, not what Persona 6 will actually look like and not what I expect it to look like, now anyways, without further ado ;

1 -. GENDER : Now first things first, I know that everyone who I've ever met wants an option for a female protagonist like in Persona 3 Portable. But may I propose the idea of a non-binary character? No matter what gender you choose, some scenes will play out differently, and you'll have unique social links depending on who you choose, perhaps even unique things that the different protags can say!

2 -. SOCIAL LINKS AFTER COMPLETION : I feel like after you max out a social link there isn't really anything left to do with them, so perhaps you can have the option of simply just spending time with them and hearing about themselves, maybe make the player more invested by having it voiced! After doing this, the player is rewarded with a unique item that can help them out in battle. Perhaps even give them unique dialogue if you decide to romance said character! Which brings us to our next couple of topics

3 -. PARTY INTERACTION : The party members in P5 and I guess P4??? Felt very disconnected with each other besides the protagonist, so why not do a Fire Emblem Three Houses and have the party members interact? For example, you get a notification on your phone and you get to see two characters bond, this will have an effect on the battlefield, kinda like how a Miitopia character will jump in the way of an attack to save an ally once they've become closer. Party members can also have discourses between each other which they ask the protagonist for advice to solve and this also has effects on the battlefield. And all of this leads up to the two characters gaining a special ability that they can do together to tag team the enemies!

4 -. ROMANCE : Repeat after me. WE. NEED.TO.HAVE.GAY.SHIT!!! Now I'm not saying make every party member/social link into the protag no matter the gender, but just some! There are even possibilities to end up in a throuple, but again, this isn't for every character, three certain conditions must be met in order to achieve this, 1, the protagonist must have two romances at most, anywhere over that and this is no longer possible. 2, both characters must be romantically interested in all parties involved, if not then the character has to choose which character they have to let go and remain friends with that social link for the remainder of the game. 3, no you can not include an adult social link. In fact, I think it's just weird that P5 made it so you could date older women, so yeah, no. All in all, if you are able to get the throuple route then not only will it introduce different versions of scenes, but also let you max out 2 social links for the price of 1.

5 -. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! : I always found it odd that we never got to celebrate the characters birthdays considering we have a calendar. You can spend time with this character on their birthday, and you have to give them a gift they like, kinda like in Persona 3 when you gift your girlfriend a Christmas present!

6 -. SIDE QUESTS : What I think would be a good idea would be a mechanic that allows you to grind by simply having fun and experiencing different kinds of wild situations, side quests! For example, a guy wants to buy his son a comic book for his birthday, once you give it to him, by the end of the quest you'll be rewarded! You could be rewarded with stat points, items, maybe even a weapon!

7 -. MAKE THE MASCOT USEFUL : Now I hate an annoying mascot just as much as the next person, all up in your face and telling you how cool you are and what to do. Well, how about you let the protagonist think that for themselves like "Maybe I should go to bed", like in games before P5. As for our mascot, give them a reason to say things, perhaps make them a part of the main menu and they can give you tips. Like in the middle of class you need to answer a question and the mascot says "Hey, maybe if you answer this, people will think you're more knowledgeable!", or you wake up in the morning and they say "Hey, maybe today seems like a good day to spend with (insert character) and (insert another character)". Stuff so that the player can keep tabs on what they are doing at all times, not hand holding.

8 -. GAINING A PERSONA: Instead of having the shuffle time and negotiations with shadows, how about interrogations, y'know how there's the good cop and bad cop tactic? Each one of your party members has a different way to convince a shadow to join your party, think of it like Persona 2 where Tatsuya had his motorcycle impression. I liked when Joker was able to choose different party members to distract and steal the crown from Kamoshida in his boss fight, in this interrogation scenario, the leader can choose a party member who aligns well with a shadow. Say that the shadow wants to laugh, you choose a party member who does something funny, say that the shadow is a loner, you choose someone who sympathises with them, that type of stuff.

And those are all of my ideas so far, I'll see if I can come up with more and make a part 2, until then, have yourself a wonderful day

-. [REDACTED]

[ftm-radio]

hey everybody...

...and to celebrate, I want to play an ask game!

I have a pinterest board full of images (currently 786, jfc) that give me gender envy for whatever reason. All you have to do is send me an ask with any number from 1 to 786 and I will find the corresponding pin and share it on this blog.

Might be something cool, might be something weird or embarrassing. Who knows! That's part of the fun. tbh I barely remember what's on here at this point so this will be an interesting game for me, too.

if you don't want any part in this and don't wanna see it, that's ok! It's within your right to be a party pooper 💙. I'll be tagging everything so you can go ahead & block/filter this tag

#trans bday 2023

aaaaand you should be all set! 😊👍🏻

There's more info & disclaimers, please give these a read before sending anything!

💀 i tried to put this under a cut, but tumblr is dumblr 💀

in no particular order...

I'll be opening my inbox & starting this game today (the 14th) but technically my trans birthday is tomorrow. we're playing early because I'm impatient and also it's almost 800 pins, guys! I'd like to see as many of them as possible so my inbox will stay open through the 16th as well.

when you do send in asks, please be patient because I will be scrolling through almost 800 images and trying to remember how to fucking count 😫🙏 in addition to trying not to be on my phone all day.

anon will be on!

you can send multiple numbers in one ask, just, y'know, be reasonable. like no more than 8, alright?

you can send as many asks as you want, the more the merrier! (not to sound desperate but please send asks lmao)

while my inbox is open, if anyone sends other messages and stuff I most likely will not respond to them! just FYI. <3

none of these images are explicit, if anybody is worried about that. idk, just wanted to make that clear just in case!

95% of these images were found just by scrolling through pinterest. they are not mine & so I have no clue whether or not they were stolen or reposted, so that's my big disclaimer. ✌🏻😔

if anybody wants me to share a link to a shirt or whatever: no ❤

That's all I can think of, so here we go! 🥳🏳️‍⚧️

[gabrioblu]

breaks through wall

Y'ALL ARE STILL ARGUING ABOUT KRIS BEING NON-BINARY???

Now, I know there's no point in doing this because:

A. It's already a big argument and this likely won't do anything, and

B. There's no convincing some of you people.

HOWEVER: I feel the need to weigh in on this because that's what my brain is telling me to do right now, at this ungodly hour.

SO: I am going to go through all reasonable arguments I can find, and debunk them.

Ambiguity vs. Characterization

"They/Them is used when you don't know someone's gender."

While this is true, it also... isn't the only use? And why would Kris' friends not know their gender? That's generally something you'd want people to know.

"Frisk's gender was ambiguous in Undertale to allow the player to put themselves in their shoes. It's the same in Deltarune."

This one is... complicated. Frisk (and Chara's) gender is an entirely different and much larger can of worms that I don't want to get into here. Technically, Chara is your reflection, but again, moving on. While that may be true in Undertale, Deltarune is a very different game, and it is EXPLICITLY STATED... A LOT OF TIMES that Kris is not a self-insert. They are their own person. There are many times the game throws you off to, in a way, prevent you from putting yourself in their shoes. That is one of the main concepts of Deltarune.

"It's like Link not having a voice, so you can imagine whatever voice you want."

Now, I don't play LOZ, but again, Kris' gender isn't meant to be ambiguous. Also, here's proof from @suzyundertale on the Link voice thing, showing that that's not even true, either. sucks to suck huh

"Kris has a neutral name and design."

Maybe that isn't to be ambiguous but actually because they ARE NEUTRAL??

Why the other characters would know their pronouns

Like I said above, it seems like something you'd want people to know. But apparently that's not true??

"Ralsei wouldn't know Kris' pronouns, because he didn't even know their NAME when they first met."

And yet he learned Kris' name. (🤯) Same goes for gender. You don't continue knowing nothing about someone forever. That's just dumb.

"Susie wouldn't know either because she's been bullying Kris and they wouldn't want to tell either of them their gender."

I... what?

Okay, there's a lot to go through here, and it's all faulty logic. By the same logic as the last point, relationships between characters change. Susie and Kris are pretty good friends at this point, and it's implied that Kris looks up to Susie due to her rebellious nature. yknow cause Kris wants to get rid of our control

And on that second idea, it makes no sense for Kris to simply "not want to tel them their gender." Why? It makes no sense.

And what about Toriel, or Noelle? Why would Kris' mother use gender-neutral pronouns if Kris wasn't non-binary?

Kris is NOT a self-insert character

"Kris has no independent dialogue and doesn't emote."

Yeah, because they're being CONTROLLED THE WHOLE TIME

The whole point of the intro sequence is to hammer in the idea that Kris is separate from you. If you still genuinely think that Kris is meant to be a blank slate, you have NOT played the game (just like the goof who thought suselle was one sided lmao)

It's not a headcanon

In addition, I see a lot of people calling it a headcanon. No. You really can't just headcanon someone's gender. It's like thinking Mario is actually female. The term would be 'crappy, unfaithful AU'.

Assorted weird stuff

"Siblings of opposite genders usually don't share rooms"

I mean... maybe. But... your point? That's also a really weird thing to say, because, again why would that be the case?

"But- but the shampoo! It says 'for the boys'!!"

No. That is simply not how it works.

holy jalapeno wait until these people find out that i (a guy) wear female slippers they'll lose their flippin minds

Why gender matters

"You never get to choose a gender for your vessel. Why? It doesn't matter."

But y'know what does matter? The fact that the vessel is discarded and replaced with AN EXISTING PERSON WITH THEIR OWN TRAITS.

"Alphys doesn't say 'I'm bisexual'. But, she has crushes on Undyne and Asgore, making her canonically bisexual."

"But that is explicit, unlike the humans' genders."

<rant>

IT IS CALLED "SHOW, DON'T TELL" AND IT IS AN IMPORTANT CONCEPT FOR CHARACTERIZATION IN WRITING. JESUS FRUITCAKE CHRIST. As stated, Toby is very good at this. Which is why, at the beginning of Undertale, we didn't need to have:

"Hi, my name is Toriel, and I'm female, and cisgender, and I like snails and snail pie, and I want to be a teacher, " ET CETERA ET CETERA ET CETERA. It's bulky, and boring, and unnecessary. Instead, sprinkle in characterization through inference and details. Not everything has to be stated. Far from it.

</rant>

Conclusion

Alright. This post has taken well over two hours, but I now have to summarize all of that.

To put it simply, it's asinine to assume that everybody is referring to Kris using gender-neutral pronouns because they don't know their real gender, especially Toriel. She would refer to Kris by their birth gender UNLESS EXPRESSLY ASKED TO BY KRIS THEMSELVES. She would have no other reason to do so.

Toby doesn't have to explicitly state that Kris is non-binary. Did he ever explicitly state that Papyrus is male? No, but he has Sans refer to him as his brother, and with male pronouns.

aw crap i need a good closing sentence uh uhhh

So why is Kris such a special case? Maybe take time to reflect on that.

[thestobingirlie]

(Same anon complaining about fruity four)

Oh my god, the casual homophobia in teens these days, especially from within the community. I'm older genZ, at 25. I have been openly queer for over a decade.

When I first came out all the homophobia I saw/ experienced was from outside the community, casual use of the f and d slurs, using gay as an insult/ synonym for bad, using fruit/ fruity in a derogatory way, and your typical hate crimes/ hate speech.

Now, most of what I see/ hear comes from LGBT+ teens. I have heard teens in a pretty conservative town asking other people (Including adults) if they're fruity. Loudly discussing how strangers are "obviously queer" without caring who is around. And the whole trend of "Is he y'know *limp wrists*?" And the push of micro labels onto almost everyone, who don't want or need to use them.

This links back to the whole "fruity four" thing, because all of these things are used in so many fics for them. Eddie will be limp wristing at everyone. They'll all be describing themselves as fruity. Steve will keep using the word queer to describe his sexuality. Yeah, sure creative liberties and whatever. But it feels unrealistic for a group of teens in the mid '80s. They wouldn't be using all these things that are common in kids now, because they were used in a very derogatory and dangerous way in the '80s. They're teens in a small town in the '80s, they probably wouldn't feel comfortable reclaiming the word queer, let alone half the other stuff they get written as doing when they're written as queer. And they wouldn't be well versed in queer culture of the time, let alone that of today.

i think the reason for this is that these teens are only experiencing queer culture online. the most they get in real life is a commercialised version of pride. all they really know are tiktok comments, where it’s encouraged to imply someone is gay, and loudly discuss what a celebrities sexual orientation might be. outing someone isn’t seen as bad because coming out is seen as a necessity now. i’ve even seen people say that it’s morally wrong and lying not the tell someone you’re gay, which is just insane.

i’ve even seen this post critiquing the word queer because it’s “too vague”… wtf. and yeah! there’s this weird thing where people expect you to totally analyse every aspect of your sexuality and gender and have the perfect word to describe it, and if you don’t totally fit what they think a sexuality is, you’re wrong. and it’s so tiring.

some fics just make it so obvious that they’re writing from a 21st century perspective. like, i’m not saying to write the teens being violently homophobic or anything, but you’ve just got so many st teens treating sexuality with a gentleness and understanding the complexity of it that they just wouldn’t have.

like, robin always knows what bisexual is in fics, she knows the word for it, and she knows exactly what steve is before he even knows. and eddie is flagging and knows exactly what every colour flag mean and he’s a sado dom in small town indiana. and it’s like, get a grip.

i think, when it comes to like robin and steve, it wouldn’t be until they left hawkins, and moved into a city and actually started interacting with queer culture that they would start to refer to themselves with labels. i think in a town like hawkins, where an identity is used to insult you and you really don’t have any other queer people around, it’s harder to just call yourself a dyke or queer. (which is why i love stobin in their 20s exploring queer culture and being able to feel comfortable in themselves and the way they present, because they just really couldn’t do that in the teens).

[siryouarebeingmocked]

SAL>Really, the fact that you consider explainability to be a relevant factor is entirely mind-boggling to me.

The fact that you DON'T should be mind-boggling to me, except I've seen way too many people - especially on this subject - who don't know (or refuse to accept that) politics and persuasion is heavily about appearances.

You can be as morally right as you like, but it won't help you reach your goal if the optics ain't right.

This is, like, Politics 101.

Saying that our rights are dependent on the good will of our betters is a blatant admission that we do not have rights, because rights essentially exist to stop the people who say that we shouldn't have them.

Somehow, before even clicking the link, I just KNEW it was going to be a breadtuber. Should've opened it in Incog, now I've got gluten in my algo.

Great.

Also, what "betters"? What are you on about?

You can't claim LGBT people are a persecuted minority, and also imply that non-LGBT people and society should be forced to protect and respect your idea of LGBT rights, no matter what, even if they conflict with other rights.

Because that sounds like an oppressive overclass. Or, y'know, terrorism.

Like your issue isn't the boot stomping on a human face, forever, but whose foot the boot is on.

I think I'm misunderstanding SAL, and I'm not sure if the problem is on my end or theirs or both. Or maybe the discussion is just too abstract at this point for me.

EDIT: So I just had a literal shower thought.

Like Marc said earlier, what exactly do Femboy Catgirls have to do with being queer?

You don't have to be LGBT to be a foxtrot Charlie*. I suspect it's probably more likely. Unfortunately pew research hasn't run a survey yet.

Also what right is being violated by somebody calling someone a degenerate? And if there is a right, does it apply to anyone who's ever been called a degenerate for any reason or just queer people?

If I roll up into Miami and somebody says I'm a degenerate for wearing an Atlanta Falcons Jersey does that mean my rights have been violated?

Maybe old age has ruined my memory, but I remember when fighting for LGBT rights was about creating empathy. About emphasising how LGBT people were basically the same as everybody else.

These days it's apparently about emphasizing how different and weird they are. And then people wonder why they're losing support.

There is a reason one of the most controversial Twitter accounts about LGBT people was literally just somebody reposting cringy queer tiktoks.

Also, one of the biggest controversies of the past few years was LGBT activists insisting public teachers needed to have sexual and gender conversations with children, without state oversight or knowledge of their parents, which is, um, not a good look.

Heck, a lot of pro-LGBT people have been complaining about how all this extra stuff got tacked on. Like femboy catgirls. Who might not even have a sexual or gender motivation, they just think it's fun.

*I wrote most of this PS in with GBoard voice, and I doubted it would recognize "femboy catgirl".

And, in fact, I didn't even want to try.

Note the assumption that all LGBT people automatically support each other.

Even though many TERFs/“Gender-critical feminists” are lesbians.

Also, many people specifically say that their issue is not with LGBT people, it’s with “degenerates” hiding behind a minority label.

Including some LGBT people who don’t want to get dragged down with the pervs.

Most of the people who talk about “degeneracy” will apply that label to straight, non-trans people too.

[questioning-culture-is]

hey so. this is probably a WEIRD question but um here you go. so uh. context: I've known i was genderfluid since about a year ago, and some point last year (maybe august?) I was talking with my dad (the rest of the family was also there) and for some reason we mentioned pronouns? And so my dad asked me “what are yOUR pronouns” in. y'know. A very dad voice. And I was like “....she/her” bc I wasn’t out and it was Really Awkward. So then I was like “well what are your pronouns??” and he was like “lol they’re fishing/pole” (or sea/bass or something) and i explained to him “y'know people use neopronouns so its not really funny to be making jokes like that” and he was like “oh ok” and internally i was really surprised he didn’t push back against that but poggers. Anyway, I eventually coerced him into saying he/him, but it took him like. A While. To get there. And i was just like “lmao my dad is weird isn't he” 

Anyway flash forward to today (i have since come out to my parents as genderfluid, and I use all pronouns) at dinner, and my mom mentions how she gets nervous when saying anyone’s pronouns now, since she doesn’t want to misgender me which is, again, a very mom thing to do. That’s not even the point though, because my dad then jumped into the conversation going “you know i don’t care if you mess up my pronouns. You can call me they if you want. You can call me she if you want!!”

And then my mom was like “do you have something to tell us before pride month ends”

And he was like “no lol”

And so I was trying to figure out how to explain that… that’s not a very cisgender thing to. Feel. I didn’t end up saying anything but um. Yeah. 

TLDR my dad may be some form of nonbinary and I kinda need help explaining to them that being cool with all pronouns isn’t a typical cisgender experience and also maybe some resources to help them figure it out if they are in fact nonbinary.

((ALSO i have no idea if youre the right person to be asking this but i saw a post of yours on my dash and i was like OHHH THATS A PERSON I CAN ASK))

I will always recommend looking through @raavenb2619 's cisgender experiences Tag (the link doesn't work but searching on their page usually does).

I can't think of any other resources but searching for experiences with gender by cis and all types of trans people might help them!!

[causticsunshine]

ok i'm gonna rant for a second because as a returned fan who's also a returned larrie and a big loud trans queer person, i just wanna say that the fan pov on HL as both a coupling and individuals is my favorite and most behated discourse, like—

1. half of y'all are still pulling top/bottom discourse in 2021 and trying to equate physical attributes, mannerisms, and even personal aesthetics to sexual preferences like that has any bearing over shit...did you read a bad BL like junjou romantica in middle school and just internalize all those dynamics??

2. also a lot of you in number one also think that top = dom and bottom = sub and that also is determined by physical stature and personal aesthetics, as well as dictating a person's entire personality, so i gotta ask—are you the same person in the bedroom as you are in the workplace? with friends or family? does your love for, i dunno, wearing bracelets mean you also like being dominated and handcuffed? i just wanna understand the logic??

1b. + 2b. you do know that being vers is a thing right.....that also exists....just, y'know, to take into consideration....

3. accusing people—particularly! trans and nonbinary people!—who don't believe harry is cis of being transphobic because you don't like their understanding + relatability to things he's said about gender and how he showcases himself as well as speaking over them to try and reason his 'true identity' by using your weird obsession gender binaryism as fallback reasoning is the actual transphobia, but go off i guess.

4. constantly trying to pit harry and louis against each other—and/or against the other 1d guys, other artists—and argue over who has it worse, who's choosing to stay closeted, who's more or less committed to the relationship, etc. is so vile i genuinely don't even want to talk to you.

4b. and i don't mean 'oh i'm more into louis' music/look/etc. so i pay a little more attention to him' or 'i've always felt drawn to harry for x reason so i'm more tuned into what he's doing' or any kind of normal/healthy "favoritism" that may include going back and forth between the two of them depending on what's going on at the time. i mean: picking a favorite between the two and toeing the line of toxic solo behavior by constantly putting the other one down so you can praise and baby your poor little meow meow at every turn. i hardly think you can call yourself a larrie if you're doing this.

5. too many people read portrait-of-a-you-know-what's blog for too long and internalized a lot of his thoughts in his downward spiral into a conspiracy theory-riddled anti that hates harry and thinks he's choosing to be closeted for pity or clout or what and poor louis, because i see so much of the favoritism links back to that person's reasoning for changing his mind on things + using his ""credentials"" to reason being in the right when in reality, he was literally just going off the rails by feeding into all the BS media fodder. also what credentials?? i wanna see that certificate!

6. i have a personal nitpick over the 'mommy louis' rhetoric that goes hand-in-hand with posing harry as this big dom Man and making louis into this small submissive uwu baby archetype who just wants his big strong husband to seed his curvy body's absent womb aka blouie rhetoric sorry not sorry that also dives into the momrry mindset primarily originating from harry's years-long clear adoration of pregnancy and babies rather than trying to fit him into a box related to cis womanhood + maternity—in turn satisfying gender binaryism once again!—but we'll get into that another day

anyway:

[skelswritingcorner]

Heartslabyul + Autistic!MC

This was originally posted on my Wattpad in October 2020 (link here!), but I vowed to repost my Autistic!MC UA when I got around to making this blog. This series was written to imagine what the story would generally be like with an autistic & AFAB MC and their interactions with the cast in the main story would be like.

Please note that the fic uses femminine pronouns as I was writing it with the MC being female in mind, as I am a woman myself and find it easier to write female MCs/reader inserts (I’m posting it here as it’s written on Wattpad). However, feel free to interpret this MC as any gender you may please since this doesn’t involve things like menstruation (the next two parts do involve stuff AFAB and/or trans women have). Other than that, please enjoy this fic! Under the cut due to length.

Riddle Rosehearts At first Riddle just thought she was a shy person. He had a feeling that it wasn't the case, but couldn't be bothered to ask her. Prior to his overblot, he hardly spoke to her since she was in Ramshackle dorm. However, he noticed that she regularly avoided eye contact with everybody around her. He just found MC awfully passive.

The first time he saw her at one of the Unbirthday Parties, he noticed she often spun around or paced back and forth, occasionally fidgeting with her sleeves. After the party, he entertained the idea of asking her himself about her behavior, but decided to ask Trey if he had any idea after dealing with some rule breakers. Trey couldn't exactly pinpoint anything in particular, he knew she mentioned in passing that she finds certain textures weird or wanders into a quiet location because she says 'I'm a little overwhelmed.'

After his overblot, Cater mentioned in passing how MC had no sense of danger around him, and literally approached him like normal. Everyone, even Crowley, was baffled to her behavior. "She even squished your cheeks and giggled because your skin is soft?" Riddle vaguely remembered her doing that, and the absolute confusion running through his head at her lack of fear.

When he finally asked her about it, MC replied with, "Oh, I'm on the autism spectrum. Some of my behavior might be weird, and I don't know if there's any documentation of autism in this world." After she said that, all of her behavior made sense to Riddle. He even began documenting her behaviors when he could, actions she does to calm down (aka stims), and things like her special interests. He wants to make sure he can understand her, and maybe help her advocate for herself.

Trey Clover This man's pretty chill. He notices her behavior pretty quickly. He has a little sister, and he knows certain behaviors aren't normal. However, because his sister likely isn't as old as MC, he has to talk with Cater to see if any of her behavior could be considered "normal". When Cater confirms that he never seen similar behavior in his own sisters ("Then again," Cater chuckles, "not all women are the same.").

When he asked Ace, Deuce, Grim and MC to collect chestnuts to make mont blanc he noticed how she didn't really care, but she said she kind of wanted to stretch her legs anyways.

When the five made the mont blanc, Trey noticed that MC didn't eat much of it since she said she wasn't a big fan of the texture and wasn't really hungry, and gave the rest to Grim. He kept note of it, but didn't think of asking her.

Later, when the five of them and Crowley were in the library after the events of the Unbirthday Party the day before, Trey noticed she went missing and started to panic. A little while later MC came back with a book that caught her eye. He and Crowley had a word with her to tell them next time when she's going somewhere so they don't panic again.

Out of the five dudes of Heartslabyul, he was the last to find out that MC was on the spectrum when the six of them ate Riddle's tart. She said something along the lines of, "Oyster sauce can't change the texture, but it'll make it too salty for me. Sensory inputs, y'know?" Poor dude was so confused when Cater broke the news to him, but Trey is understanding since Cater himself doesn't like certain kinds of flavors.

He might even ask MC what her favorite desserts are and try to make them for her when he has the chance.

Cater Diamond This dude's pretty easygoing, so he might be the most understanding out of everyone in Heartslabyul. When he first met MC he noticed how she paced around behind Ace and Deuce. When he asked them, Ace replied with, "Oh, she does that a lot. Says she has too much energy and has to use it somehow." He suggested that the three help him paint the roses red. They agreed to do so before class began (since Ace was wearing the collar and MC doesn't have magic, they had to use a paintbrush).

After Cater demonstrated how to paint the roses, he noticed that MC mimicked his actions exactly, down to the smallest movement. He found this interesting, even told a few of his classmates and Trey. Cater wanted to get to know her more, so he decided to talk with MC during lunch.

When he approached her, he noticed that she was somewhat shy and hardly talked much. Then again, she was eating so she likely didn't want to talk while eating food. After asking Deuce, he found out she's not exactly a talkative person.

Sometimes he noticed that she'd go into the light music room when nobody was there to study or read in peace. Part of him wanted to say hello, but he decided to respect the fact that she likely wanted some time alone and left.

When Cater came by after Trey, Ace, Deuce, Grim and MC finished making mont blanc he noticed that she didn't eat any (or had a tiny bit before giving it to Grim) because she didn't exactly like the texture. This made something click that something might be a little different with her. He decided to do some research, but couldn't find anything concrete.

During Riddle's overblot, he was shocked at MC's lack of a sense of danger and how she casually approached him and squished his cheeks and giggled uncontrollably. After the fight, she had Riddle's head resting in her lap when he asked MC about herself.

"Oh, I'm on the autism spectrum. I don't know if there's much documentation of it in this world, I hope my answer helps explain some of my behavior." this clicked with Cater, causing everything he noticed that was unique about her to finally make sense. When he finds out her special interest (let's just say it's drawing since it's one of mine), he might ask to take pictures of her with her art and post it on his Magicam account.

Deuce Spade (I basically gave up here) This confused baby...he's trying his best. He was confused when MC would randomly start crying at first, he'll try to comfort her. Sometimes he sees her spinning around or walking in circles during PE, but doesn't think of asking her about it.

When Deuce and MC went to Sam's Shop to get ingredients for Trey, he noticed how she would often glance at random objects for a moment and then focus on another. Confused him, but didn't think of asking about it.

When he had the impromptu sleepover with Ace, Grim and MC he noticed how she could ramble on and on about drawing. When he asked how she could go on about that topic and seemingly not stop Ace broke the news to him.

Now he just has more understanding of her behavior, he didn't really change much when he found out MC was autistic (other than wondering why she wanted to draw his magical wheel).

Ace Trappola This dude was pretty much the first to figure it out. When he and Grim had a quarrel on Main Street she was getting tears in her eyes randomly trying to stop everything from escalating.

Another time was when she randomly started crying in flying class, when he and Deuce asked her what was wrong she said between sniffles that sometimes she gets this urge to cry for no reason whatsoever, sometimes the same happens but she gets laughing fits.

He was the first one to find out MC is autistic when he goes to Ramshackle Dorm after he got his head 'cut off' by Riddle when she said she admired how he found advocating for himself so easily. When he asked her why, she replied with, "As someone on the autism spectrum I struggle with social skills, one of them being self advocacy."

After that, Ace tries his best to help her speak up for herself and comfort her if she randomly starts crying during class.

[zirkkun]

The Butterfly Effect (Part 1)

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The Butterfly Effect (Undertale Fanfic - overall given a AO3 M rating) Prologue

+ sans x gender neutral reader (first person POV from reader)

+ 2701 words, english

+ fluff, explaining past experience; conflict with adapting to a new environment

+ takes place in the Underground; barrier is not broken

+ part of a series I’ve been passively writing, no idea when I’ll update. only have written the first two parts but have a vagueness of the whole story outlined

+ AO3 link

It wasn't a reality I ever expected for myself, but it was happening nonetheless. The very tip of a temperate finger, silky smooth without even the texture of a fingerprint to taint it, brushed against my cheek. A smile couldn't help but curl at the corner of my lips, mirroring the permanent, toothy smile plastered on the face across from me. A chuckle surfaced from the both of us the second I reacted to his motion; I leaned forward, pressing my forehead against his. The hand against my cheek slid to the back of my neck, the thin fingers fitting perfectly between the bumps of my spine, and pulled me just that little bit more forward to where the space between us was sealed, my lips pressed against his toothy grin. There were no opposing lips to lock mine to, but I no longer minded. That wasn't what mattered. Staying at his side, feeling the tender touch of his otherwise boney and rough fingers against my skin, and cuddling with his head cozily tucked under my chin as he held me close... Intimacy didn't have to be defined by following social norms.

But of course, leave it to me for being the one strange enough to date a skeleton monster before figuring this out. I guess some people just need to find out through extreme examples, myself apparently included.

Nevertheless, I didn't worry too much about it anymore. I used to be more self conscious about it, more hatefully self aware. But between him and his brother, not to mention their friends, I grew more accustomed to the idea of living with monsters no differently than I would any of my fellow human beings. Sure, it was a bit hard to stumble through this at first, but it's not like I was alone in adjusting to this new realization or lifestyle. I was alongside the monster friends I had made, who were adjusting to me living with them in this underground kingdom they called home.

I don't remember how I fell down here. It's been far too long by now. Maybe it was an attempted suicide? I'm not sure. My life outside of this place as a whole is just a blur, but I do remember I wasn't in a place of happiness. Angry about broken societal systems, feeling unable to adjust to the way the world was built just after I finally figured out how to work with my own self, and losing hope for the bright future I was once promised as a child. It would be no surprise if that's why I wanted to leave, why I came to the place where humans were rumored to never return from. And, frankly, I can see why. I don't want to leave this place. Here, I'm free of so many of my fears and worries. I'm free of hatred, debt, betrayal, and confinement. I could do and be how I wanted. The friends and family I've gained while living here are far closer to me than any of the humans I can even vaguely remember from on the Surface. But I didn't always feel this way; it took a certain skeleton to truly convince me to stay.

Until then, I'd been desperate to leave. Afraid of where I'd ended up. There was no one of familiarity around me -- not a single human being in sight for as far as I could see. Monsters of great variety were the only living creatures down here, ones that I couldn't have thought of even for the most obscure of fantasy novels. I was scared, despite the kindness I had received. My fear peaked when I met a murderous buttercup, but slowly began to dip when my life had been saved by a kindly woman with thick fur and the complexion of an anthropomorphic goat. But it never really went away until much farther down the line. Not even through many puzzles, dates, and playful japes did I even really teeter off the edge into security.

It had been blisteringly hot; used to the moderate temperatures from above, the volcanic heat of the lava pool city was not something I could handle well. With the lights of the bright resort coming into view is when I saw him waiting, his stained and tattered old jacket truly obvious amongst the glam and glitz of the Hollywood-like building behind him. His smile was the same as it always was -- while at that time, I hadn't known, but it was false, hiding a pain only he carried then. And yet, even then, when I saw it, the stress hanging in my heart was lifted for just a brief moment. He'd asked me back then if I wanted to get lunch with him, since he was on break. Having yet to develop any feelings, I agreed without much thought whatsoever. "Great, thanks for treating me," he had joked, earning a laugh from me.

We hadn't actually ordered anything. Rather, we just stood across from each other on opposite ends of one of the decorated tables, talking for quite a long time. He told me of the time where he started making jokes to a woman through the door to the Ruins, who I could only assume was none other than the woman who had helped me when I fell down here. But his tone had drifted off when he told this story; his eye contact was lost, that false smile ever so faltering to his thoughts. I hadn't even gotten the chance to ask what was wrong before he answered that question for himself. "Y'know, kid, what drives you to leave this place? You've already got so much down here... What else do'ya need other than some good friends, good food, and some bad laughs?"

I thought about it for a moment. I think he was going to brush aside the topic after my initial response of silence, but I had stopped him, interjecting with my own thoughts. "I don't know," I had answered truthfully. "I don't know what's driving me. I don't remember anything good from where I came from... All I know is that I'm scared, and I want to go back to where things are familiar."

He didn't know how to respond when I said that. That moment is probably the most shocked and unprepared for something I have ever seen him in my entire life. His smile's falseness revealed its truth, slipping away as he stared at me completely dumbfounded of the words that had fallen from my mouth. It was as if he had been hoping to hear someone say that for years. As if he had been begging for someone to answer his question. That broken false smile slowly turned itself into something more genuine as he continued our conversation. "C'mon, now. There's no reason to be scared. Sure, there's a lotta folks who keep ravin' about how your SOUL will free us, but at the same time, you don't have to step forward and tempt the king if you don't wanna." He had shrugged, hands still buried deep into his jacket pockets. "But, I'm not the one livin' your life. You do you. I ain't gonna tell you what you should or shouldn't do, not now."

I had let his words soak into my mind, deeply considering the suggestion he was ensuing. I couldn't help but wonder: what was normal life down here? I'd somehow managed, with my frail self-worth and lack of bravery, to befriend many of those who lived here. There was next to no one alive in the Underground who still wanted to hand my extracted SOUL to the king. With that knowledge, it clicked: it was safer for me here than it was anywhere else in this world. The moment this thought grazed my mind, I was already saying, "Do you know anywhere I could stay?"

I'd thought he was going to cry when I said that. I still don't know why it struck him the way it did, just my asking if he knew someone I could stay with. But regardless, he let me stay with him and his brother.

For a while, I lived on their couch. It wasn't particularly the most comfortable of living conditions -- the old, raggy, stained, and ripping couch was awful compared to my previous, yet very-below-average mattress -- but even so, the skeletons' cozy house eventually became my home. I even began calling it that only a few weeks into living here. Something about living here just clicked. Even when I woke up to aggravated yelling, one brother telling the other to get up and go to work, I couldn't help but just giggle and relax in the environment. They were a chaotic pair, those two, but they were inexplicably generous and beyond kind. I couldn't help but consider them as family in such short time. And, well, in the case of one... I couldn't help but fall in love.

I hadn't meant to. But that's always how it goes, isn't it? No one ever means to fall in love. At first, actually, I hated it. I hated myself for it. The mere sight of him made me paranoid. He became confused as to why I would suddenly reject every moment he was so much as in the same room as me, but I couldn't answer. How could I? I was still adapting to the life of merely living without the presence of humans -- my internal morals screamed at every turn that this was nothing but wrong and disgusting. No one wants to hear that about themselves. Not to mention, these monsters were still getting used to me, as well. To me, they were the weird ones, but to the greater society, I was the odd one out. The anomaly. Why should, by any means, should this guy accept my feelings, when there's thousands of people of his own kind surrounding him?

I hadn't meant to confess to him ever, truly. Had it not been for that one night where a dark dream swallowed my sanity whole, I don't think I would have ever said a word to him. But, as it is, no one ever chooses to have the dreams they do, either.

I had woken with a yelp and a jolt. The vague snowy light from the window above me still shimmered, despite the hour; adjusting to the time within an underground cave had been a bit of an interesting challenge. But I digress: at this point, such things no longer bothered me. Now, the only thing on my mind was a horrifying nightmare, one terrible fear looping its imagery before my internal eyes over and over again without fail. I hadn't wanted to go to him about this, but I was nearly weeping with fear. Had I been able to, I may have gone to his brother instead to talk to, but unfortunately, this was one of the many nights he opted against sleeping and instead decided to work overtime. I had no other choice, if I wanted to get this horror off my chest, than to speak to him directly.

I had taken a deep breath once I reached his door, my hand shakily gripping the handle. At this point, even though we had been living in the same house for over a month or so, I hadn't even been inside his room. I didn't know if I was welcome. That stress, on top of the fear cycling through my eyes, caused more and more tears to form. I refused to let them fall, wiping them against my shirt as I pushed through and opened the door, allowing myself in.

"Sans?"

The soft whisper of his name had left my lips, each sound struggling to hold together in a cohesive word. I had taken another step in, repeating his name, more softly the second time. The room had been pitch black, and there was barely even any sound to indicate someone might be living in there. Just when I had thought he was maybe too deep into his sleep to hear me, I had begun to turn around, only to register the sound of my name being sleepily strung together in a deep reply. Within that second alone, the dam holding back my tears broke loose; I hadn't wanted it to, but somehow, I had lost all control. I ran to the source of his voice, and without even so much as a thought or hesitation, threw my arms around his figure sitting at the edge of his mattress. He had laughed at first, until I let slip why I came to him in the first place.

"I'm so glad you're alive... I'm so glad I can hear your voice. I don't know what I would have done if that dream was real..."

His laughter fell silent. His body felt stiff in my grip, refusing to move or react for a very long time. Then, as if some instinct washed over him, his whole demeanor changed to hold me at his side and hush away my tears, assuring me he was alive and well with what seemed akin to the sound of desperation lacing his voice. His hands, however small and thin, were careful to caress me gently, reassuringly rubbing my back and softly stroking my hair. Such tender intimacy I had never felt before, and I wasn't so sure as to why I was feeling it now. The guilt of my feelings subsided for just a brief moment as I had nudged my nose into his collarbone.

"I love you, Sans. If you died... I don't know what I would do."

His actions didn't stop. Rather, the soft huff of a cheery chuckle was released as he pulled me closer, leaning in just next to my ear. "I love you, too," he whispered back to me. "Don't worry 'bout me dying on you. It won't happen. And I won't let you do go dyin' on me either, 'kay?"

I had laughed softly, joyfully accepting this response. After my tears began to cease, he still kept me close, and instead I fell asleep in his bed for the first time. In fact, from then onward, I never fell asleep on the couch again. Well, almost never.

His brother, while readily supporting us with open arms, couldn't bring himself to accept the idea of the two of us sharing a room for a fair amount of time. And just when he had started to grow accustomed to it, the two of us had to go and spoil it by... well, let's just say by being a bit too loud. His brother made me sleep on the couch that night. Needless to say, after that, anytime the two of us wanted to be a bit more intimate than usual, we didn't do it at home. Thankfully, his brother somehow wasn't concerned by us disappearing from the house every other night.

It took me, even still, quite a long time to adjust to the whole situation. It wasn't rainbows and sunshine after that. I still kept fighting myself against these feelings, despite being accepted and supported for the relationship I had involved myself in. That human societal morality still dug in my chest -- the society that I was no longer a part of. It was hard to convince myself that this was okay here. It was hard to convince myself that my actions were justified. It was hard to convince myself that everything was okay. It took a lot of bright smiles, soft cuddles, and genuine conversations to really allow myself to break through the old morals I no longer needed. It took me nearly six months to accept the fact that humans and monsters can live alongside each other without having to worry about their differences.

And now, I still remain here, right at his side. I could still feel the gentle touch of his fingertips against my skin as I drifted off to sleep by him for the thousandth time.

So I think you can imagine my fear when I woke up alone in a completely different house.

[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK] [WATTPAD] [QUOTEV]

WARNING: This chapter is mildly NSFW.

NOTE: Apologies for the delay! I had to go to bed extra early last night because I had a busy, dizzy day today. Hopefully you enjoy this update regardless!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"HemmmMRPHLG!"

That was the best description of what came out of Anna's mouth. Worse yet, Elsa could feel every vibration in one of the most sensitive areas on her body. She squeaked and scrambled down into the water as quickly as was humanly possible, but it was too late. Far too late.

"I… I'm sorry, Anna, I'm so clumsy, what- I normally can handle myself! I'm a runway model, for God's sake! UGH! What is wrong with me?!"

But Anna was still dazed. Just sitting there with her glittering emerald eyes blinking at the tiles opposite herself, not even looking at Elsa. And the star understood; she had a lot to process now.

"Anna? Are… you angry with me?" She swallowed down the spike of pure adrenaline. "You are. I'm… I am so sorry. Maybe I should go."

"Go? It's… your room." Then she finally let out a weak little laugh. "Wow, so… that was… super unexpected; I'm stunned over here. Like, you glow up like whoa. So gorgeous!"

The actor wrapped her arms tightly around her body, as she normally did in these situations. Not that one quite like this had ever happened before. Blood rushed in her ears as she shrank in on herself, chest tight, literally shaking. Craving a way to dive down deep into the bubbling waters. "I… I should have told you, I… you…"

"Oh, no, no, it's cool! Woke, remember? I'm not gonna judge, no way." There was that word again. When there was no response, she tried, "Elsa?"

But she couldn't speak. This was a nightmare. She had never accidentally come out to someone before; it was always a choice, and she had a speech lined up, and steps she could take. Plans to ease her anxiety. And now it was all coming apart, her world was-

Trim arms wrapped tightly around her, squeezing tight. Elsa thrashed for just a second before she registered a cheek rubbing her shoulder and remembered it wasn't someone trying to hurt her. It was Anna. A friend.

"You're okay. I got you."

Still trembling, she slowly began to nod. "I… was going to tell you. Right now. I just… didn't mean to-"

"No big. Like I said, I'm no Boomer; you're whoever you are in your heart. But damn, girl, you look so good. I'm losing my shit over here!"

"Thank you," she sighed with a weak smile. Here came this part; it was unavoidable. "I just… want to be taken seriously based on my talent alone. Honey and the casting director, and my agent, and um, the guy who plays my romantic interest are the only ones who know on set. Funny, Brixton took the news a lot easier, but he still… freaked out a little, and then overcompensated by flattering me a lot. That's why I'm not out, why… I don't do swimsuit calendars, or nude scenes, or… it's just going to draw attention, and then I'll be Laverne. She's so gracious about being a poster child, but I just have never had any desire for that to define me, or… all that attention focused on my private life instead of my career."

"No, yeah, I kinda get it. Like… I'm never gonna know what you're going through with either thing, the acting or, um, that." She pointed down toward the surface of the water, and Elsa sank lower in embarrassment. "But I mean, I told you I'm bi. So that part doesn't matter to me. If you're a woman, you're a woman, y'know? And if you're a woman who's packing some heat, well hey, I know how to handle one of those so it's definitely not a dealbreaker for me!"

Elsa chuckled and flashed her a morose smile. "I suppose that makes sense."

"And this is still gonna be my first real lesbian thing, if we go past sitting in a tub together," she laughed. "Besides one girl I made out with at a frat party. And she had braces, so I can totally strike her from the record."

"Ew!" she laughed. "I hope they were clean!"

"They were, she's a good brusher. Just like, the metal… it felt weird, couldn't get past it. Maybe that makes me a dick, I dunno."

"A dink?" They shared a knowing grin. "Thanks for being so good about this - all of it. And I know, I'm not supposed to be grateful, since my gender is valid and so on. But I still can only think about how bad this would go if you weren't so progressive."

"Progressive? Like I'm a name-your-price tool? Dude, I'm just normal. It's the douchebags who wouldn't accept you who are, like… what's the opposite of progressive? Regressive? They're that."

Finally, Elsa felt the knot of anxiety ease… and elation took over. Everything was fine. She had come out to Anna and she wasn't rejected, she wasn't being viewed as a monster. Christmas had arrived a little late for her but it was just as welcome as if it had been on time.

"Soooo. Just to get this big ol' elephant outta here, you did sit on my face. Since we're gay does that mean we did it?"

"BLRPHG!" she burst out — being that she had tried to shout something while also ducking her head low enough the water covered her mouth. Then she started coughing said water up, and Anna had to pound her on the back. "Ah! Oooh, that… that did not feel good."

"Didn't sound good! Sorry… I'm just trying to lighten the mood or something."

"Right! Of course. But… for that to be true, I would have to have gone through with bottom surgery. And I haven't yet."

"So? Like, I still got a mouthful of your ballllllgina!" she hastily amended, wincing and grimacing hard after she finished the fused word. "That. Um, I… yeah, that was super fucking dumb, I don't know what I'm say...ing?"

She trailed off because Elsa was laughing. Really truly laughing again, rocking back as her ruddy cheeks bunched, arms still clamped tight around her waist. Anna merely sat there with a raised eyebrow until she burst out, "Ballgina!"

"Okay, okay," she giggled weakly, ears reddening. "S-sometimes I sound like a doof, I know this."

"You're utterly adorable." Then she leaned in, intending to hug her.

Instead, her lips found another set and they shared a very unexpected first kiss.

                                                   To Be Continued…

[robininthelabyrinth]

Fic: Swimming in a Sea of Sharks (ao3 link)

Fandom: Flash, Legends of Tomorrow Pairing: Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, Barry Allen/Mick Rory/Leonard Snart Sequel to Of Sharks and Men (ao3 link)

Summary: In which Barry Allen, intrepid marine biologist, meets two fascinating specimens a brand new species.

And are Leonard and Mick ever so happy to meet him, too...

A/N: Explicit Sexual Content and human/mershark xenophilia.  Also, this has a pretty severe tonal change from the first fic in this series, but then again, we have switched POVs. Hope you enjoy!

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Barry Allen is going to die, and he's not even scared.

Okay, that's not quite right. He's terrified.

But he's also taking notes as fast as his typing hands will let him and praying his notes will survive even if he doesn’t, because he just made the biggest marine biology discovery ever.

Mermaids!

...okay, no, that just sounds wrong.

Barry peeps out his window at the two creatures (people?) who wrecked his bathysphere and are currently dragging it onwards in their wake with the cables pulled from the top.

They are most certainly not what one would really qualify as mermaids.

For one thing, they lack the, ah, mammary glands associated with the traditional mermaid description.

Actually, wait. Barry can't assume that. They still have nipples, after all...wait, does that mean they’re mammalian? This deep down?! All of those theories about bodily integrity – not to mention the necessary chain of evolutionary development – honestly, if you throw all of that out the window, then who’s to say that they’re not females? So what if their upper bodies are patterned after the typical male human?

Or, y'know, the atypical male human.

God, they're so beautiful.

Strong and muscular and, ugh, those arms; they wouldn’t have been out of place in any of the fitness magazines Barry totally didn’t lots of spend time reading late at night when he was a teenager –

Wait: he could call them mermen!

...no, that also sounds wrong. That still gives rise to mental images of graceful long fish-tails and the background singers in Little Mermaid songs.

These are very clearly not nice peaceful fish-persons with a penchant for cutesy choral music.

These are sharks.

Barry's currently dubbed them Big and Small, even though that's something of a misnomer – with the tail included, even Small is larger than Barry is, though if you measured only from the torso up, Barry's not actually that much shorter, maybe only half a head.

That's just eyeballing it, though. Ugh, what Barry wouldn’t give for some shallow water and a few hours with his measuring tape!

Big, though, Big is...okay, Big is every single stupid football-playing jock Barry's ever unwisely had a crush on, just bigger and better built and freaking gorgeous.

His skin is lighter than Small's, a sandy brown sort of color with a subtle patterning that seems vaguely reminiscent of the tiger shark, and his lower half seems to match up with a particularly spectacular specimen of that species. On his other half, he looks human enough, if you ignore the fact that his skin on the top half is the same color as his tail, and also if you ignore the fin-like spikes on his arms that look sharp enough to cut or the gentle curving fin on his back. And then there are his hands. Broad and gentle-looking, stubby little webs between them, and – while the water is murky and makes seeing difficult – Barry is pretty sure that he has opposable thumbs.

Opposable thumbs!

Underwater!

This is so awesome!

Barry is going to make all of the evolutionary development specialists cry bitter tears!

But putting aside the thumbs, Big's human side has a physique that would make body-builders cry, some seven feet tall (if he'd been human) with broad shoulders and thick arms and chest muscles like whoa that all tapers a little into a thick, firm waist that (if he’d been human) Barry could totally visualize wrapping his legs around. Okay, yes, after that point Big’s hips widen out into a big, thick tail like a shark’s lower half, yes, there’s that, but even that’s just ridiculously attractive, all sleek muscle and rough-textured skin.

Barry used to have a thing about mermaids when he was a kid, okay? It’s not his fault he’s been conditioned to find that sort of thing kinda hot.

Not his fault at all.

And, okay, yes, Barry spends a fair bit of time staring at him, but it's totally not for selfish reasons. It's for science.

Really.

Barry swears.

Also? And this is particularly unbelievable: Big has brands scattered all over.

Actual swear-to-God-they're-real branding marks, in various shapes and figures of all sorts, like the sort you see on cows or horses in movies, except they're all over his shoulders and arms and back, scattered all the way down to his fish half, though noticeably fewer there.

Brands.

Yes, as in applied-with-fire brands, which – they’re underwater, how did they even, is that even possible –

God, Barry wants to examine them so bad and this time it isn’t even slightly about his (apparently) out-of-control libido. This is strictly science: he wants to get up close and personal with them, study them, run his hands over them...

Okay, maybe the libido is a bit involved.

But not that much! Even putting aside the scientific question of how you got fire to work underwater, those brands are a sociologist’s dream: they’re a bunch of different symbols, some of which seem to repeat, and that suggest they’re not just weird-shaped burns. Not accidental. Deliberate, possibly. They might even have meaning – possibly even a form of language –

Brands, holy crap.

Does that indicate Big's kind are sentient? Did Big do it to himself? Or does it mean he's been captured by humans before? If so, which ones – Barry doesn’t recognize the symbols at all, but that doesn’t mean anything; he’s American and woefully monolingual – and why hasn’t he heard about them before? And most importantly, what do the symbols mean?

Barry wants to know everything.

Honestly, just being able to study Big would be awesome enough, but nope, when it rains, it pours – or maybe more accurately, when the ocean starts coming in, it all comes in at once, because Barry is so ridiculously lucky that he’s encountered not just one unknown human-shark hybrid specimen, but two.

And here’s what’s particularly exciting to Barry’s scientist brain: Big looks similar, but (and here’s the key) not too similar to Small.

Small is –

Small is fucking beautiful.

Like, he’s ridiculously beautiful. He's nowhere near what Barry might call dainty or anything, but he's got a human torso like a Grecian statute's dream, long and streamlined, and his fingers are long and webbed and incredibly sharp, coming to claw-like points at the end. He's got no brands the way that Big does, but he's got scars, raised up white flesh that Barry can see through the limited light he's got left in his bathysphere, standing out of his dark grey flesh, all of it slick and fine-textured like a particularly smooth shark or even dolphin, and the scars fall into similar (but not identical) strange-but-repeating patterns over his shoulders, back, and torso.

He’s a bit more human in terms of his arms – he lacks the sharp elbow-spikes that Big has – but as if to compensate, he has an additional second fin on his back, lower down closer to the curve that would make up his hips if he were human.

He's also got a lot of teeth.

A lot.

Small is definitely not part of a herbivore species, let's put it that way.

Neither is Big, for that matter – they’re both sharks, duh – but there’s something about the multi-layered teeth that Small has going on that’s a bit more frightening than the glimpses he’s caught of Big’s sharp-toothed but possibly-also-containing-molars set.

So, yeah. Two different specimens – similar, but different.

Maybe they’re part of a dimorphic species, with one of them as the female, and it’s the gender differentiation that explains the physical differences? It's perfectly plausible; Barry's innate instinct to say they're both male just because they have top halves shaped like human men is totally unjustified.

And yet.

Those brands, those scars – Barry's a marine biologist, yeah, has been ever since he fell in love with the ocean all those years ago after his mom got hurt in a home invasion and his parents decided that they desperately needed to not be in Central for a few months, ending up renting out a house on the coast and letting Barry spend all his time by the sea. But he's taken a class or two in sociology since then and he's always had a fondness for language, and he swears to God that the differences in the symbols speak of different cultures, not different genders. The marks are subtly different, even where they are clearly intended to be analogues – a mark on the left shoulder seems almost-but-not-quite identical – and the method of inflicting them is totally different.

Again, this could be explained by gender differentiation, but for some reason Barry honestly doesn't think so.

Sadly, he has no way to know for certain.

They're clearly together, though, or at least Barry thinks they are from the way they sometimes twine tails, slipping over and above each other in a way that suggests sheer pleasure in each other's company, if Barry applies human standards to the gestures, or, looking at it from a more biologist perspective, possibly they’re engaged in some sort of information exchange – by touch, or maybe pheromones?

Still, Barry would bet his bottom dollar that they’re a mated pair.

Maybe they are male and female.

Though that's a rash and stupid assumption, Barry lectures himself. Same-sex relationships have been observed in numerous animal species outside of humans, and he refuses to go down in history (assuming his notes survive) as That Dude With The Heteronormative Assumptions Fucking With His Observation Skills Even Though It's The Modern Day Already.

No, sirree. Not Barry Allen.

Oh, what he wouldn’t give for a better observation space. The window of his baythosphere is not conductive to even short-term observation of a species of this size. He came down here to study fish and geological formations near the ocean floor, damnit. Maybe some crabs, some sea cucumbers, a few clams…

Not these.

(Of course, in the event that he gets back to the surface, you bet your ass he’s changing the subject of his dissertation, because this is just so unbelievably awesome.)

Well, male or female – assuming, of course, that they fall into those categories and not some strange variant like the seahorse, or one of the hermaphroditic species, or that species that is only female, or the one that changes gender as they age…huh, maybe one of them is a juvenile and the other an adult? Could the differences between them be explained as different life stages, or maybe a result of different diets?

Eh, probably not diets; the differences are way too radical to be explained that way, or at least it would be so far as science currently knows. Of course, science clearly doesn’t encompass these creatures because damnit Barry would have heard about it if anyone had found them already, surely –

Anyway, regardless of what makes them different, they're definitely working together in some sort of cooperative fashion. Big has wrapped the cable that Barry uses to dock to the main ship around his bicep and is tugging Barry along with the greatest of ease, barely slowed down by it.

He is slowed down by Small, who doesn't seem to swim faster than a slow, deliberate prowl.

That might not be the scientific way to put, but damn.

That is 100% no way, no how, no argument, definitely a prowl.

The little rolls Small does with his hips (or, again, the hip-analogue, since Barry doesn't know their anatomy) is, uh, something worth watching.

Goddamnit, Barry has no idea what’s gone wrong with his libido today. Down, boy.

On a more scientific note, Small’s spine realigns with his movements, suggesting that it's not firm bone the way human spines are. Cartilage, maybe?

Small's shark half's got features and coloring more like a Greenland shark than a tiger shark, but not quite right in the way that Big isn’t exactly quite like a tiger shark. Small's human half is particularly fascinating, though. Like Barry mentioned, his fingers end in sharp claw-like points, but what’s interesting is that they’re more brightly colored than the rest of him (bright colors – could that indicate the presence of poison sacs the way it does for tree frogs, despite the dull-colored webbing between the fingers? Would warning coloration even matter in the deep depths of the ocean where almost no light reached? If not, what was the point of the coloration? Was it vestigial? If so, vestigial from what?)

Also, while Small’s face is, as already mentioned, ridiculously beautiful – magazine covers would pay money, Barry's just saying, it’s that type of beautiful – what's really interesting is his eyes. They’re human sized, or just about, just like Big’s, but unlike Big, Small’s eyes are an unfocused cloudy white, like a blind man’s.

In fact, as they get nearer to the surface, Small's swimming – while still perfect and sleek and somehow subtly threatening – becomes more cautious, and he relies on Big more, reaching out more often as if to confirm with a touch that Big's still there.

Yes, Barry's ascribing them behavior as if they have sentience, but that's the thing – they're a brand new species! Maybe they are sentient! Who knows?!

No one does! Because they haven’t been discovered yet!

Barry has the best job ever.

Well, assuming he's not about to get eaten or something, anyway.

Or run out of oxygen. Kinda also a concern.

At least the two of them seem to be heading up towards the surface, and thanks to Small’s caution, they’re even doing it slowly enough that Barry's not likely to get the bends. With any luck, the two sharks – weresharks? No.

Mersharks!

Wait. That makes literally no sense. 'Mer' just means 'ocean'. “Ocean-sharks” is dumb and pointless and not descriptive of what’s going on here at all. 'Were' at least means 'man' in Anglo-Saxon or whatever.

But 'wereshark' just sounds so...tacky.

On the other hand, if you ignore the etymology, popular culture would probably render the phrase immediately understandable to most people: “mer” to suggest “mermaid” and “shark” to clarify that they are definitely not the sweet-smiling Disney-esque mermaids or seductive long-haired sirens of traditional legends.

Mersharks it is, then. Everyone will get what he means. Hopefully.

It's not like that would be their scientific name.

Holy crap, forget known species, do these guys even have a known phylum?! How would science even start to go about categorizing them? Is this discovery going to upturn all of taxonomy as humankind currently knows it?!

Barry scribbles that one down on the notepad he’s using to supplement his typing under the theory that maybe the electronics will die by there’s a chance he can shove the notepad into a plastic bag and throw it out for the currents to hopefully take to land.

He even adds exclamation marks. Who knows how far up the taxonomic chain they fall? At least it seems clear that they're still probably in the kingdom Animalia, not like, Plantae or something. Not with those teeth.

Who even knows, though? Sure, they could be a super weird variant of human (somehow?), or they could be a radically different creature and all the similarities are just convergent evolution (like crabs!) or they could be so different in every respect that science will have to come up with something brand new just to explain them.

The possibilities are endless.

So. Goddamn. Cool.

Barry's typing up all of his observations and writing a hard copy back-up and his hard drive and notebook are being shoved into his black box the second he thinks he's going to die or get flooded. This research has to make it back, even if Barry doesn't. Even if he suffocates or drowns or gets eaten or –

Huh, actually, now that he thinks about it, Barry wonders where they're going, the mersharks. Big certainly seems to be aiming somewhere in specific, and Small seems content to follow him, though sometimes he goes off another direction and Big has to direct him back the right way.

Maybe they're migrating?

But…why would deep undersea creatures migrate? Especially up to the surface? Are they going to the surface? Sure, they’re going upwards, but maybe just to another level? No, the upward pace is too steady – it’s definitely going to get to the surface eventually.

And if they do migrate to the surface, why hasn't anyone reported them yet?!

It turns out Barry doesn’t have to wait long for an answer as to where they’re going.

The answer is –

Some sort of cave?

Barry checks his instruments.

He’s somewhere in the mid-Pacific around the equator, and the instruments claim he’s still under sea level, technically, except for the fact that these caves seem to have some sort of bubble-like lava-esque quality and there’s definitely a water surface that they’re breaching. Maybe they’re in some sort of underground caverns under some of the islands you sometimes hear about out here, islands that never made it above the surface – that wouldn’t explain why there’s a surface under the sea level, unless some sort of weird pressure thing is going on –

Goddamn it, Barry’s a marine biologist specializing in deep sea exploration. This is not his field.

On the other hand, speaking from a purely human-interested-in-survival perspective: who cares where they are? There’s air! Glorious air!

Small seems confused by the whole 'air' concept, frowning at the surface level and prodding at it with a sharp talon. Big is encouraging him to go up through the breach, demonstrating by going up himself – pulling himself onto a rocky offshoot in the cave with his arms, then diving back in and repeating the demonstration.

Maybe their differences are age related? That doesn’t seem to correlate with the way they’ve been acting around each other, though.

Should Barry try to exit his bathysphere? He’s not too far beneath the surface.

Just at the moment that Barry thinks that, Small attempts to put his head above the surface, and then immediately shoots back down under it, hissing in displeasure. Easily the fastest he’s moved the whole time Barry’s been observing him.

He looks like a displeased cat.

…yeah, maybe Barry’ll stay under a bit longer.

To observe, you know.

Big –

Is Big laughing?

Holy crap, that’s totally laughing! Body language similar to humans, slight bend in the torso, jaws gaping, shoulders shaking – Barry hits the audio button fruitlessly. When the mersharks damaged his radio, he lost access to most external audio, so he can’t hear if the sound resembles human laughter.

Man. Laughter. Real laughter.

They must be some form of sentient creature.

Big is now touching his throat – main gill set – and then his chest, then repeating the action on Small.

Small looks deeply unconvinced.

Like, deeply skeptical. Barry can feel that ‘the fuck you on??’ vibe that Small is emitting from here.

(He’d say that also showed sentience, but to be fair, like, Iris and Eddie recently adopted a pet cat that has a similar expression a lot of the time so really that’s no guarantee.)

Eventually, Small does seem to get with the program and stick his head above the surface and –

Holy crap. Small’s chest area – narrow, fluid, gelatinous, yet strangely lovely – actually expands. There are lungs in there, lungs he’s just not been using so far – actually, that actually makes a lot of sense, there are plenty of deep-sea creatures with inflatable lungs that they use for floating purposes, and assuming a mershark is from far enough down (the coloration seems right for it) that would explain the presence of vestigial lungs, except now he’s near the surface and actually using the vestigial organ for the first time...

Barry’s having a minor science-gasm.

Okay, a major science-gasm.

This is so cool.

Barry can’t even begin to convey how cool this is.

Lungs!

Even as he watches, though, Small pulls himself out of the water, slow and steady – no hesitation now that the decision's been made, just the calm, patient sureness that's marked his actions until now.

Once he's out, he starts running his hands over the rocks, through the air, everything. He's definitely not seeing out of what Barry would recognize as his human 'eyes', which is a definitely contrast to Big, who's similarly pulled himself out of the water and seems like he's watching Small with undisguised fondness. Big clearly seems to have sight, or some sense that serves similarly – the way his head moves to follow the motion of Small's hands definitely suggests some visual method of tracking.

Maybe Small was injured?

Big seems to 'say' something, his mouth moving – curse Barry's broken radio! – and Small considers it for a few moments, then smiles.

Bares his teeth?

Big bares his teeth back and then suddenly they're both turning to look at –

At Barry.

Well, at the bathysphere.

Oh, crap, they've remembered they brought a snack.

Barry hastily shoves his laptop into the black box as the two mersharks push back off the rocks and glide menacingly towards Barry's craft.

They clamber aboard – he can hear them – and the top of the craft starts making a worrisome cracking sound.

If they want in, they're going to get in. That much is clear.

Well.

If that’s the case, then there’s no reason the very expensive piece of equipment Barry's in needs to get injured (well, further injured) in the process.

Barry scrambles up and starts opening the top from the inside.

The cracking sounds stop, almost like the mersharks have figured out what he's doing.

Oh, man, if Barry confirms that they're sentient, he won't just be a legend in marine biology circles. He'll be a hero to the entire scientific community.

The first non-human sentient species.

First contact.

Man, Barry is getting serious Star Trek vibes...

Should he start with "live long and prosper" or something?

Though given what he saw of those teeth, he might not be living and prospering for very long himself...

Still. If they're going to eat him, at least his notes are probably safe and, well, dying via being consumed by a brand new species you just discovered is undoubtedly a marine biologist's preferred way to go.

Barry pops open the top of his bathysphere.

The two mersharks peer down at him.

Barry stares up at them.

Small makes a clicking sound, deep in his throat.

Big makes a similar clicking sound, even deeper, sounding almost amused.

Barry wonders if that's how they communicate.

"Uh," Barry says. "Hi?"

Wow.

Barry is officially the world’s worst person for first contact.

Big reaches down a hand for Barry, wrapping it around Barry's wrist – the skin of the palm of his hand lacks the rough sandpaper-like texture of most sharks, though Barry suspects grabbing onto his back or sides would result in a very different sensation – and he gently tugs upwards, clicking at Small as he does.

Barry climbs up in response, more because he misses fresh air and wants to get a closer look at the mersharks than because of Big's gentle tugging, but Big's grip is firm and Barry has no doubt that he could lift Barry out of the bathysphere by the wrist if he really wanted to.

Small clicks again, and makes a rumbling sound almost like a purr.

Barry can't help but smile at him, utterly enchanted.

"Hi," he says again.

Big hums. "Hi," he rumbles back.

"Holy crap, you talk?!" Barry yelps involuntarily.

Yep. World’s worst first contact person, confirmed.

At least he didn’t accidentally proposition a Vulcan.

That’s fictional, Barry. This is real.

And he just –

Barry can’t even believe himself sometimes.

Big makes more clicking sounds, sounding incredibly amused. And then, after some consideration, he says, "You talk."

Even through his embarrassment (he’s blushing like a tomato, he just knows it) Barry can't stop smiling because stupidity and errors aside, this is still the most awesome experience in the world. "No, I mean – I meant – you can vocalize. Like humans. Apparently, anyway," he says with pleasure. And then, because he has to ask, "Are you mimicking me, like a parrot, or is it organic speech? Like, sentient speech?"

"Parrot?" Big asks, frowning.

Small clicks furiously for a moment.

Big's face clears. "Not parrot."

"Well certainly you're not a parrot, I mean, look at you, you're magnificent, both of you, you're –" Barry suddenly falters. "Wait. I didn't use the word 'not'."

"Yes," Big says, sounding amused. "Know that."

Barry starts hyperventilating.

First sentient species contact! First sentient species contact! This is not a drill! Barry’s just discovered the first non-human sentient species!

"This is so awesome," he croaks. "Please know that I think that. Just – uh – just give me a minute. Please."

He puts his head between his hands and starts taking some serious deep breaths.

There's a nudge on his shoulder.

It's Small, frowning at little at him. Possibly concern in those blind eyes.

Barry smiles shakily at him. "It's okay?" he offers.

Doesn't seem to help.

After a moment's thought, Barry reaches over and very lightly wraps his hand around Small's wrist, giving it a small squeeze the way Big has been doing when Small goes the wrong way, sort of a reassuring type gesture. "I'm okay," he assures Small.

Small looks pleased and shoots off some clicking.

"Mimic," Big says.

"What's that?" Barry asks, releasing Small’s hand, but Big isn't talking to him.

He clicks at Small, then demonstrates inhaling purposefully and, as he's exhaling, says, "Sound."

Barry's eyes go wide. "You're teaching him how to speak?"

Small shakes the wrist Barry is holding pointedly, looking a little offended. Not unlike the way Iris’ cat does, actually.

Big smiles, big and toothsome. "Not to speak," he (?) says. "To sound."

"He's never been up to the surface before, has he?" Barry asks, then quickly revises to, "Have you, I mean," directed straight at Small because he doesn't want to be rude.

But Big is already shaking his head, confirming Barry’s question. He points at Small. "Deep-dweller." He gestures at himself. "Migratory."

Holy fuck, they know complex words. In English.

This is the best day ever.

When Barry invariably wakes up to discover this has all been a wonderful dream, he’s going to be so disappointed.

Though admittedly, dreams usually don’t come with the uncomfortable situation of sitting on a rock jabbing him in awkward places...

"Just to be clear, you mean that he stays in the deep while you come to the surface sometimes?" Barry asks quickly to distract himself.

"Yes,” Big agrees. He points again to Small. “Pole-dweller. Not migratory.” Then at himself. “Mid-dweller. Migratory.”

"So cool. But how do you speak English?"

Small stirs, then, purposefully inhaling and then, somewhat garbled, says his first word. "Radio."

Barry is so proud of him for making that sound right that it takes him a second to understand – and yet another to comprehend – what Small actually just said.

"You can hear our radio transmissions and taught yourselves English from those?!"

"Yes," Small says, looking pleased with his new skill.

"Wow," Barry says. It's kind of pathetic, for first contact, but it's what he's got. "Just – wow. You guys are amazing."

Both mersharks tilt their heads to the sides and shrug their shoulders, a strange gesture that Barry is only able to interpret as preening because of the sheer overwhelming satisfaction on their faces as they do it.

Small clicks something to Big, who clicks back approvingly.

"Do you have names?" Barry asks, unsure of what they’re saying. "Mine's Barry. Uh, Barry Allen. Just Barry's fine, that's my first name, I don't know if you guys do last names..."

"Species does not use names," Small says, which – what? How?

"Nickname?" Big offers.

"Uh, sure! Nicknames are fine. Do you want me to give you nicknames, or do you have some already?"

"Mick," Big says.

"...what?"

"Mick," Big clarifies, pointing at himself. "Designation nickname."

"Wait, your nickname is Mick?” Barry asks, utterly bemused. “How did you get named Mick of all things?"

It’s so...normal.

"Orca," Mick grumbles.

Small's jaw gapes in silent laughter. Nothing aloud, which makes sense given that he's a 'deep-dweller'. Or was it ‘pole-dweller’? Or both?

"And you?"

"Leonard," Small says. “Whale gave it. Friendly.”

Mick. Leonard.

What ordinary names.

Barry has to admit, while he wasn't really expecting anything, really, "Leonard" and "Mick" were definitely not what he was expecting.

All those science fiction and fantasy books with weird names lied to him.

"Well, it's great to meet you, Leonard and Mick," Barry says, smiling broadly.

They both bare their teeth in return.

Barry is abruptly reminded that they have a lot more of those than he does.

"Uh," he says, "just to check – please excuse me if this is rude – but you're not planning on eating me, are you?"

"No," Leonard says, reaching out for Barry's hand and wrapping it around his wrist the way Barry had earlier, before he'd released it. "Not for eating.” He bares his teeth again. “Mine.”

"Uh, okay?" Barry says, because he's not sure what to say, but it makes them both beam so it must be right.

"Ours," Mick corrects, then eyes Barry expectantly.

"Okay," Barry says, more confidently this time.

"Good," Leonard says. "Now: move to the rock."

It takes a little bit of doing, but all three of them go over to the shoreline. They’re definitely some sort of underwater cave with a giant air bubble that Barry doesn't even know is possible, but it has to be because there's definitely cave above him.

The process gets him a bit splashed, but that's fine.

When they get there, Leonard reaches out and puts his hands on Barry's shoulders.

"Barry," he says.

"Yeah? Oh, man, I have so many questions for you guys -"

Leonard moves his hands up to Barry's face. "Barry."

"Uh,” Barry says, holding very still. “What's going on?"

Leonard ignores him, continuing to run his fingers very delicately over Barry's face and head.

"Mick?"

"In order to see Barry," Mick explains, gesturing at Leonard, then at his eyes. "Does not see regularly."

"Oh. He's blind? is that normal, or an accident, or..?"

"Normal for pole-dwellers."

"Got it," Barry says. "You guys, uh, don't use pronouns much, do you? I suppose if you don't have names...why don't you have names?"

"Very few," Mick says. "Recognize all others. No need for names."

Barry can't even conceive of what that must be like. They must all look very different, or else they must be very few in number indeed.

It's absolutely fascinating.

Barry shifts a little, trying to get more comfortable as he thinks of his next question, but Mick looks alarmed.

"Don't move," he instructs. "Leonard, watch the poison claws. The effect on humans is unclear."

Leonard nods, still focusing on running his hands over Barry, now down his cheeks to his neck.

He's very intense about it.

He's very attractive about it.

Barry really hopes that this isn't going to be a full body examination.

Also –

"Poison claws?"

"Pole-dwellers have claws; mid-dwellers don’t," Mick says, displaying his own blunt, rounded fingertips the same color as the rest of his skin – very different from the bright colored highlights of Leonard's claws.

"Right, right – is the difference in the markings because of that, too? His are scars –"

"Scratches," Mick agrees.

"And yours are...brands?"

"Yes."

"Okay, it's probably really obvious but – how?! Do you do it when you visit the surface?"

"No," Mick says, amused. "In the pit. Deep, deep, below even the deep-dwellers, in the middle center between the poles."

"How do you get the fire, then?"

"No fire," Mick says, though he seems regretful about that. "Use the Vents."

"The – wait, the geothermic vents from the earth's magma?! You use it to heat brands? That's so awesome. I know I keep saying it, but it is. I don't – I mean, we didn't have any idea you exist, that anything like you exists, much less so far down –"

"What is down?" Leonard asks.

"Pullsward," Mick says before Barry can exclaim again, because how do you even begin to explain the concept of down? Mick sounds vaguely long-suffering about it, too, like they’ve had this discussion before.

"Pullsward?" Barry asks.

"Pullsward towards the deep," Mick says, pointing down. "Snowsward away from the pull." He points up.

"The pull – oh! Gravity! Okay. That makes sense," Barry says, and thinks about it. "And that means snow – I guess that’d be the marine snow, falling from the upper levels?"

"Yes," Leonard says absently, and then pinches at Barry's shirt. "Purpose of layers?”

“Keeps me warm,” Barry says with a bit of a laugh. “Well, normally, not so much when it’s wet –”

“Should remove garments."

Barry freezes. He couldn't mean – that would be really awkward at this exact moment for, uh, reasons. Reasons involving two gorgeous mersharks, one of which wants to run his hands all over Barry. "Um..."

"Now," Leonard says, sounding very firm about it. "Want to see you."

Barry's doomed.

“Now.”

“Fine,” Barry says. He's just going to have to willpower his way through this. Alternatively, claim that it's totally normal for human men. “But then I get a few hours with my measuring tape with both of you!”

“Deal,” Leonard says, and smiles.

Barry gulps and tries to think of something – anything – that might help get rid of his…reason to hesitate.

Being eaten alive. His parents naked. Gross dead things. Never getting his notes out there. His entire thesis committee frowning disapprovingly at him. His entire thesis committee – including Professor Wells – frowning disapprovingly at him, naked.

Okay, yeah.

Problem solved.

Leonard’s hand drifted down to settle on Barry’s hip.

...not solved.

Barry fixes his eyes on the cliff wall above Mick’s head and thinks of science.

“Why emitting more energy now?” Leonard asks.

“Blush,” Mick says, and laughs.

Unlike Leonard, his laugh isn’t silent. It’s big and bellowing and extremely attractive.

Barry is totally doomed.

He’s going to ruin the first ever encounter between their species with his stupid libido.

…well, that certainly did the trick.

(He hopes.)

"I still can't get the radio to work," Barry moans.

"Thought were using the electricity from the bathysphere to power the laptop?" Leonard asks from where he's lazily lounging in the water. He prefers to move as little as possible, whenever possible – an artifact from his life in the deep, where any unnecessary movement meant lost heat. As it was, he'd started seriously overheating once he was near the surface until he'd apparently discovered a form of venting that permitted to 'air out' more, resulting in a slightly expanded frame for his ribs and a bit of flare to his gills.

He's explained it as well as he could to Barry, who took copious notes. Plus pictures. And measurements with Barry’s trusty measuring tape. Mick and Leonard were both very good sports about it, even opening their jaws (a somewhat disturbing amount; they’ve got very flexible jaws) so that Barry could snap pictures of their sharp rows of teeth.

They’d even all gone swimming together so that he could measure how they moved in the water.

So cool.

Barry's never going to get over this, and it's been two days already.

"My friends are probably assuming I'm dead," Barry tells Leonard, who blinks at him. "Uh, reached thermodynamic equilibrium. No more life."

As far as Barry can tell, Leonard's species is very casually brilliant – having guided themselves through the waters using magnetism and gravity as their sole guides, they've developed a fairly extensive basic understanding of certain fundamental principles regarding natural forces and use it to explain things that humans usually simplify.

Of course, this applies only to some of the natural forces.

For instance, Leonard still thinks that the Sun-core, as he calls it, is little more than a smaller version of the Earth's core because both emit heat. Barry's attempts at explaining the solar system were met with a certain lack of understanding that was probably reasonable to expect in a species that lived by a "when I see it with my own two (blind) eyes" philosophy and which had never seen the night sky.

Oddly enough, though, every once in a while Leonard throws out a fact about the galaxy that is, as far as Barry knows, dead on right with modern day scientific discoveries about how the universe works...

That being said, he does keep making comparisons to waves and currents and pieces of snow when he does it, though, so it isn't always entirely clear to Barry what he means.

"Friends?" Mick asks from where he's doing something to the fish he'd caught earlier. Barry had been a bit wary about eating it raw at first – he didn't want to get sick – but Mick had wanted to show Len all the different varieties of what could be done with both fish and fire anyway, so it was okay.

He still insisted on Barry trying one particular sushi-esque recipe, assuring him it was a family recipe, guaranteed human-safe, and, well, it was delicious.

Barry still has no idea what exactly was in it, but it inspired a certain longing for more, and both he and Leonard gulped down their portions with glee.

Mick beamed at them the entire time.

"Yes, friends," Barry tells Mick. "Family-of-choice, I think you call them."

Leonard frowns. "Mates?"

"No! Cisco's like a brother to me, man. And Julian's...probably that weirdo cousin that you see every Thanksgiving and want to punch in the face, but, y'know, whatever. And there's Iris – my best friend –"

"Triad?"

"No, Leonard, not everyone is dating. Uh, mates. Mating. Not everyone is mating everyone else. There's a lot of humans, you know. I told you."

Leonard sniffs. "Clearly, humans need more predators."

"Don't get any ideas," Barry warns him, just like he has every other time Leonard has expressed that thought. "You have a sister, don't you? What would she do if she thought you were dead?"

Leonard blinks at him.

"...right, you don't see her more than once every few years, and even then by coincidence," Barry sighs. "You probably didn't even tell her you were coming to the surface. The idea of missing someone who isn’t your mate is probably a foreign concept to you. Mick, you have family, right?"

"Meet every migration," Mick confirms. "Want to punch often, like Julian."

Barry can't help but laugh. He's started to get used to their strange way of speaking, where they drop the pronouns except when they are trying to emphasize the importance of something ("mine" and "yours" being particular favorites). He thinks it might be a fault of translation, though; when they click at each other in their natural language, they're notably more fluent. Barry bets that they think they're using pronouns just fine, and that humans (at least, English-speaking humans) are just drama queens that insist on emphasizing who is doing what all the time for no reason.

Which…is probably fair, Barry’s got to admit.

“Listen, Leonard, you understand the concept of mates, right?” Barry says.

He already knows the answer is ‘yes’. Mick and Leonard are mates. That much has been very clear. Mersharks apparently do not believe in the concept of shame. Or privacy. They were quite happy to have Barry watching, actually.

Also, the pole-dweller mating dance is…seriously hot.

Give Barry a break, okay?! It’s unbelievably attractive. It’s not even awkward, given how humanoid they both look. And yes, he knows it’s not properly scientific, but damnit these are sentient humanoids of the sort that Barry maybe-kinda-sorta always had a bit of a thing for ever since he saw the Little Mermaid as a kid and drew some fairly disturbing fanart for. He’s entitled to stare.

And possibly record.

For science!

…yeah, even he’s not buying that one.

(Still, it was worth every last bit of embarrassed blushing and the fact that he’s never going to be able to explain this to anyone ever. Every last bit. It was that hot.)

“Yes,” Leonard drawls. For someone who just learned how to vocalize in a way that humans can understand, he’s gotten very good at infusing his voice with all levels of sarcasm and irony.

“Friends are like mates, but, uh, without the mating part.”

“Like at the start,” Mick tells Leonard. “Companions.”

Leonard inclines his head regally, conceding the point.

(Barry’s still not sure if nodding and shaking heads are natural mershark traits or something they picked up from humans somehow.)

“Anyway,” Barry says, dragging his mind back to the subject at hand. "I need to find a way to reach them and tell them I'm okay."

"Can see next migration," Mick offers.

"When paths cross again," Len agrees.

Barry rolls his eyes. "I keep telling you, that's not how humans work! We form intense social bonds, both romantic and platonic, and we need to check in fairly regularly to keep them up. Or we worry. Especially when the person disappears under mysterious circumstances! I could go without seeing my friends for a week or two –"

Childhood summer camp experiences suggest that teary phone calls may need to be involved, but he could.

"– but not when I know they're worried about me."

The mersharks don't entirely get it, Barry can see that.

"Leonard, you'd be upset if Mick disappeared and you thought something had, I don't know, eaten him, wouldn't you?"

"Would hunt the creature that did it down and avenge."

"...right. But what if he hadn't been eaten, and he'd just gone hunting or something? You'd be upset that he didn't let you know?"

Leonard blinks very slowly. "Would know if mate were dead."

Barry sighs.

"Take this one as human-specific, maybe?" he offers. "I'm moderately sure you guys have an equivalent; I'm probably just explaining it badly."

They nod.

"Come eat," Mick suggests. "And tell more of how humans upkeep social bonds."

"I've already told you about that – we hang out, we talk, we –"

"Romantic bonds," Leonard clarifies.

"Ah," Barry says, feeling his face flush. Mostly because he's thinking of the mating dance again. "Right. Um. It's pretty individualized –"

"Tell what you would like," Mick says. He used a 'you'; that means emphasis on the subject.

"Fine, fine," Barry says, cramming down idle daydreams of dating a mershark à la Disney movie. Or at least something by Guillermo del Toro. "But then you have to tell me more about mershark courting methods."

Okay, maybe not cramming it that far down. For shame, Barry; you're a scientist.

That just means you need to record this closely.

For science.

"Will tell you as much as want," Mick says, smiling at Barry before reaching out to lightly touch Leonard on the arm, a gentle touch filled with affection.

Barry's a bit jealous.

"How'd you two meet, anyway?" he asks.

"Went to the midplace between the poles," Leonard says. "Found Mick."

"Kidnapped," Mick adds, looking fondly at Leonard.

"He kidnapped you? Is that normal? Er, I mean, traditional?"

"No. But wanted very, very much."

Mick nods in agreement.

"Well, seems like it worked out," Barry says. "Uh. FYI: Humans don't do that. Well, anymore. Nowadays we'd call the cops if someone did that and be worried sick the whole time." He sighs. "Which is why I need to get home."

"Why?"

"Because I want to see my friends and family!"

"You want," Leonard says, deliberately using the emphasis again. "Not they want. That's different."

"Can work with that," Mick agrees. "But not yet."

"No, not yet," Leonard agrees.

"Wait – are you guys agreeing to take me home?" Barry asks, brightening. That's definitely what it sounds like. He was hoping for, like, access to a crappy radio at best, but the mersharks are so considerate; it's awesome.

And really, he should've anticipated that they wouldn't care about the concerns of theoretical humans they'd never met, but still want to make sure Barry, who they have met and seem to like, is happy.

"Yes, but not yet," Leonard says. "First Mick."

"First Mick what?"

"Migration," Mick explains.

"Mig– oh," Barry's eyes go wide. "Oh. Wait. Are you here for–"

Barry looks around the cavern with new eyes. It's very large. Very, very large, with additional entrances and exits that suggest an even larger structure. Far too large for just two mersharks, one of which doesn't even regularly go to the surface.

"You're here for the migration! We're going to meet your family!"

Multiple mersharks!

"Yes," Mick agrees. "First time being mated. Introduce to my triad-mothers."

Barry blinks, distracted from the thoughts of dozens of Micks, all big and burly and hot, by a new phrase. "Triad-mothers?"

"Mersharks," Leonard says – he picked up the phrase quickly, saying that enjoying the way it sounded – with a shrug. He does that quite often with cultural differences that he finds unimportant.

"But what does it mean?"

"A relationship triad of three females," Mick says. "One of which did the bearing."

Barry blinks. "So, a lesbian threesome? Uh, sorry, ménage-a-trois?"

They blink at him.

"Never mind, I think I get it. That's a usual arrangement?"

"For migrators," Mick says. "Pole-dwellers bear alone."

He smirks at Leonard when he says that, causing Leonard to do his equivalent of eye-rolling; an inside joke of some sort.

"Pole-dwellers meet briefly for pup purposes," Leonard explains. "Or bear without meeting, sometimes; if there is no one around." He frowns. "Meeting-born pups are preferred. Dangerous to have too many pups born alone."

"Sexual versus asexual reproduction, got it," Barry says, nodding. "Parthenogenesis."

Leonard and Mick glance at each other in the way that suggests that Barry is speaking nonsense again, but that he's very cute while doing so.

Unfortunately for Barry, he's pretty sure it's the 'cats on the internet' type of cute, not, well, the type of cute he'd prefer.

“Tell me about your family, Mick –”

“No.”

“No?”

“Tell us about human romantic bonds first,” Mick says. “Information on family later.”

“Barry-specific romantic bonds are fine,” Len adds.

Barry flushes.

“Uh. Okay. So – let’s discuss ‘dating’ – again, I can’t speak for everyone, but my personal favorite type of date is –”

The mersharks smile with wide, sharp teeth.

Barry wonders why they’re so interested.

It's another day and a half before the first of the Great Migration, as Barry has dubbed it – Mick is a bit unclear why the only migration his species does needs to be called anything at all, but Barry kind of likes the idea of a name – begins to arrive.

By that point, it's not that Barry has forgotten about it so much as, well, Mick and Leonard are off mating again and invited him to watch (he thinks he was invited to watch, there was definitely some sort of invitation there and his libido immediately ran away from him) but he decided he needed to stretch his legs-slash-take a very cold shower instead.

He mostly ends up going somewhere private so he can get himself off in peace. Goddamn libido, interfering with science.

(It'd be more scientific to get an inside view of that mating ritual, you know.)

No it would not. Shut up.

(But they're so pretty...)

Shut up. Be objective. Be a scientist.

Barry is having this very fruitful conversation with himself when a hand snakes out of the water and grabs him by the ankle, pulling him in even as he yelps in surprise.

"I told you not to do that!" he exclaims. "Humans are more sensitive to shock as a result of temperature changes –"

He cuts off, staring, as he realizes the mershark in front of him is most definitely not either Mick nor Leonard.

It's older, for one thing, if the lines cutting its face into a craggy rock mean the same things as for humans. It's the same colors as Mick, but a little bigger.

And, unless Barry is mistaken about the curve of that jaw, it's female.

There are no over-developed mammaries, Barry is compelled to note. That much he’d like to make clear.

Wait, they’re a sentient species – does that mean they have gender identities? Is he being too hasty in assume that simply because his brain pings ‘female’ for this mershark the way it pings ‘male’ for Mick and Leonard that – no, wait, Mick definitely used the word 'female' at one point, but is that a real meaning or a translation issue -

The new mershark smiles.

There are many, many teeth.

Barry’s train of thought is instantly derailed.

"Oh shit," Barry says, abruptly realizing that Mick and Leonard's generous pro-science, pro-human approach might not exactly be the prevailing one. "Uh – hi? I'm a friend of –"

Mersharks don't have names, Barry suddenly recalls. Just nicknames.

Nicknames that might not make sense to anyone else.

"Mick!" Barry shouts. "Leonard!"

The mershark laughs, deep and guttural, and begins hauling Barry in.

"Help! Someone!"

Barry tries to kick at the mershark, but she bats his leg away easily and continues to pull him closer, her smile still wide and her eyes hungry.

"Heeeeeeelp!"

The mershark abruptly lets go.

Probably because Mick has just barreled into her side in what can best be described as a flying (swimming?) head-on tackle.

Next thing Barry knows, he's being hauled up backwards to the beach.

He starts to panic for a minute, then feels the gentle brush of claws against his neck – the back of the claws, of course, to avoid any injury – the way Leonard has taken to doing recently, and Barry relaxes immediately, glancing back to confirm it is, in fact, Leonard.

It is, thank god.

"Tell," Leonard says, nodding at the fighting mersharks.

"Tell you what?" Barry asks. "They're fighting."

He feels really bad. This might be one of Mick's family, they haven't seen each other in a migration, and the first thing Barry does is start a fight between them.

"Yes," Leonard says. "Think it's silly, too. What a waste of energy. But thinks it's important – fighting for a mate. To show off, understand?"

Barry takes a second to parse that. "Oh!" he exclaims. "It's a mating display for Mick's type of mershark? Showing off his prowess for his chosen mate and/or mates?"

"Yes," Leonard says. "Very important. But up here, it is hard to perceive details. Can see it – describe it."

"Uh, sure," Barry says, happy to be permitted to observe and, even better, be a part of this process. Another mating ritual – and one that’s distinct between the mid-dweller and pole-dweller varieties of mersharks! “Okay, so assuming you want a play-by-play, Mick just headbutted the other mershark in the gut, knocking her back. She just did a twist and lashed out at him with her tail. He dodges – ooh, he just did a backflip over her tail, go, Mick! – now a punch right to the kisser – uppercut – ugh, she got him with an elbow slice – no, looks like he backed off in time; now he’s lashing out with his tail – she ducks, comes up close – now they’re grappling – no, wait.” Barry frowns. “I’m pretty sure that’s a hug.”

“Cousin,” Mick says happily.

It’s definitely a hug.

Wait.

“Your cousin tried to eat me?!”

"No," Mick says.

"A little," Mick's cousin says.

Oh, look. Death glares are the same regardless of species. Though Mick's version is also accompanied by puffing himself up and flashing his elbow spikes.

"Just a test bite or two!" the cousin exclaims, glancing at Barry with a smirk.

"No test bites," Mick growls.

"Barely a nibble –"

"Humans do not handle limb loss easily," Leonard says sternly. "No test bites. Or else I will fight."

Oooh, an "I". Leonard's emphasizing himself in the sentence – either a sign of his being serious, or an implicit threat that he could kick the cousin's ass, despite being notably smaller.

Does the term 'kick your ass' really apply when your lower half is more streamlined fishperson?

The cousin clicks something rapidly to Mick, staring at Leonard, sounding more impressed than intimidated.

"Yes," Mick says, puffing up in pride and putting a hand on his heart. "Pole-dweller – mine." He nods at Barry. "Human – pursuit, mine."

Barry pauses.

Wait. Could he mean – was it possible he meant – is it possible – that he means that Barry –

"Like crabs," Len adds.

...wait, what?

"Crab?" Barry asked.

"From the mud flats," Len explained. Mick is nodding. "Difficult to catch, very tricky. Or better: like kraken."

"Kraken is very impressive," Mick agreed, looking at Barry with a smile.

Barry smiles back, although he's a little disappointed, and also mad at himself for being disappointed. This is clearly just another cultural misunderstanding: they're clearly just complimenting him with comparisons to things they value highly, like some sort of metaphor. He's pretty sure he's heard of similar things in, like, Norse myth or something - although that was with insults - so it's not like there's no precedent.

It was only Barry's imagination (and overactive libidio) that made him think that they were maybe-kinda-sorta propositioning him. Or even better, pursuing him with an eye to making him part of their triad.

But no, it’s just him willfully misreading things again.

Besides, they're different species. Like reasonable and normal specimens of their species, they're curious about him, not interested in him. He's the only one with the xenophilia issue derailing his scientific work.

Not that he'd have said no if they’d really meant it. The scientific value alone -

Ugh, now Barry's thinking about publishing his sexy daydreams, which - no thanks. Not even for his beloved science.

Clearly he'll just have to stick to daydreaming. And to stop letting himself pretend that they're hitting on him! It's clearly interfering with his objective scientific analysis.

The cousin splashes Mick with her tail, but the gesture looks approving. She says something rapid in her language, Mick responding in the same.

"Speaking in English for benefit," Leonard murmurs. "Earlier."

"I guessed as much," Barry says, a little amused. "She kept smirking at me when she talked about the test bites, so it was pretty obvious that it was for my benefit. What's she saying now, though?"

"Complimenting on strange tastes," Leonard says, rolling his eyes. He likes that gesture – he says it conveys maximum meaning for minimum cost outlay. "And is explaining how met."

"I don't think you're that strange a taste," Barry volunteers loyally. "And for what it's worth, both you and Mick could definitely kick her tailfin."

"Why would..?"

"Defeat her in battle," Barry clarifies.

"Of course," Leonard says, his self-confidence implacable. He smiles. "Tell Mick. Will be very pleased. Is right; good feeling."

Barry makes a mental note to tell Mick that he, at least, was impressed. Especially if playfighting is some sort of showing-off ritual among Mick's kind; Barry doesn't want him to feel bad just because Leonard is too apex predator to really be impressed when someone is obviously kicking ass to show off for him.

It's an interesting cultural difference, actually. Presumably Leonard's pole-dwellers don't fight because they see each other rarely, and because it would be a waste of energy – while Mick's migratory mid-dwellers probably only fight when they gather up on the surface, like walruses during mating season...

Leonard slides closer to Barry, reaching out a hand and placing his palm gently on Barry's hip.

Barry swears he can feel the coolness of Leonard's skin even through his wetsuit. It feels – intimate.

Barry's pretty sure he's had make-out sessions less intimate.

"Stay with me," Leonard orders, emphasizing himself. "Will care for and protect you from others."

Barry is touched. Leonard is using pronouns for him.

"I will," he promises, but then he looks around as the splashes grow louder – more and more mersharks breaching the surface or crawling onto the rocks. "Can we explore, though?"

Leonard, who hates unnecessarily movement, nods and slips silently into the water next to Barry.

Sadly, this process involves removing his hand from Barry's hip.

Oh, the sacrifices Barry makes for science...

They start moving along the shore, Leonard with his usual prowl and Barry clunkily wading through the surf at his side, head twisting around to look at everything around him.

So. Many. Mersharks!

He digs out his waterproof tablet and starts taking photographs.

"Who are?" one particularly gargantuan mershark demands, another female. This one has gorgeously clear tiger-shark lines.

Damn, Barry forgot to ask Leonard or Mick about the gender thing. Later.

"My name's Barry," Barry says. "I'm, uh, human. In case that wasn't obvious."

Leonard drawls something in clicks.

At first Barry thinks he's translating, unnecessarily, but when the mershark demands something else in clicks, he realizes that the question was addressed to them both.

Mick breaches the water next to them and pulls himself onto the beach with his strong arms, so that he's on Barry's other side. He looks proud.

Leonard hisses something and slips deeper into the water.

The female mershark follows suit.

They're glaring at each other.

"Are they going to fight?" Barry asks Mick, who nods happily. "I thought Leonard's type didn't fight to show off..?"

"Do not," Mick agrees. "But do not take challenges lightly, either."

"Your fight was awesome," Barry tells him, remembering his mental note. "Very impressive. I thought you were really cool, very powerful, very skillful."

Mick beams.

Leonard resurfaces a moment later, looking smug. The female mershark also resurfaces, looking...unconscious.

Wow.

That was quick.

And Leonard is not exactly what one would call a quick mover.

Mick clearly wasn't kidding about the whole 'not taking challenges lightly' thing.

Two other female mersharks surface next to the one that challenged Leonard, poking at her side and clicking at her until she groggily wakes up again.

Then they direct their clicking at Mick.

He clicks back rapidly, gesturing at Leonard, and then at Barry. Then he turns to Barry and says, quite proudly, "Triad-mothers."

"Wait," Barry squeaks. "These are your mothers?!"

"Yes," Mick says.

"Leonard just assaulted your mother?!"

"Won a challenge against a great opponent," Mick says proudly. "It is a great honor."

"Well...I mean…if it's a great honor...listen, if you ever meet my mother, don’t do that, okay?"

Mick grins. “Promise not to.”

One of the other triad-mothers – oh, Barry wishes they had names! – swims up closer to Barry. She clicks rapidly at him.

"Uh, sorry," he says awkwardly as she looks him up and down in a very evaluating way. If he didn't know better, he'd say she was checking him out. "I don't – I'm not really a linguist. I barely passed Spanish."

Damnit, in all the movies the protagonist learns the language in a montage. Barry can't montage!

She clicks again.

Mick says something back.

She looks approving, then – of all ridiculous things – actually shoots him a thumbs up before returning to the other mothers.

Clearly, she’s the nice one.

As opposed to the middle one, who's more combative.

And the last one is the most contemplative.

...Barry's going to mentally nickname them Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Which.

That, of course, is when the conversation starts in earnest.

Conversation in the mershark language, that is. Rapid-fire clicks in multiple directions, Mick waving his hands to emphasize something, that sort of thing.

Barry takes comfort in the fact that even Leonard seems somewhat taken aback by all the talking and movement and –

Wait, he had a question.

He pokes at Leonard, who looks at him. "How do you determine gender?" Barry hisses. "Among mersharks?"

Leonard looks confused.

"You're male, right? And Mick's triad-mothers are female, right?"

Leonard nods.

"How do you determine that? Is it via some sort of reproductive system – the females bear the children?"

"Any who wish to can bear a child," Leonard says.

"...wait, really? Oh, right, I remember now; you were saying earlier about parthenogenesis, which wouldn’t make sense unless you were hermaphroditic and capable of giving birth on your own...is that true of Mick’s type of mershark, too?"

Leonard nods.

"Okay, cool, that makes sense. But then how do you, well, know? I was just guessing based on how the faces looked, and, you know, someone might look female but be male and vice versa and I don't want to mess up."

Leonard considers this.

"Worrying too much," he concludes.

"Leonard!"

"If are male, have a signal indicating it," Leonard says. "Same for females. Not really important. If a mistake is made, it will be corrected – or not. Not important aspect."

"Your species is so cool," Barry tells him. "And also wow is there going to be culture shock if/when you guys ever meet humans."

"Will meet humans," Leonard agrees. "After the migration is finished."

Barry analyzes that for a second, hoping that he's correctly reading the omitted pronoun as 'we'. "You will?" he asks hopefully. "I mean, you're not just going to, I don't know, drop me off somewhere and I'll never see you again?"

Leonard turns to face Barry, his blind eyes studying Barry contemplatively as if he just said something much more interesting than he did.

"No," Leonard says, very slowly and a few endless moments of thought. Then he puts his hand on Barry's shoulder, causing Barry shiver inappropriately again. "Mine."

Barry musters up a weak smile, trying to ignore his insane and thoroughly inappropriate libido. "You know, if you do plan to meet other humans, you should know that that term has, uh, certain connotations –"

"Quiet," Leonard says. "Watch Mick. Will talk later."

Barry shuts up and watches Mick, which is easy enough to do – over the last few days, he's gotten to know Mick well enough that he's instantly recognizable even among a whole slew of his own kind. So he can observe Mick travelling amongst his family, getting into what are now clearly identifiable as show-fights, examining fish and other seafood collected by other mersharks (presumably for dinner), and generally interacting with the several hundred mersharks that have shown up for this migration.

It's fun.

And besides, scientific observation is what Barry should be doing. He's a scientist! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity!

He should not be letting himself get distracted with implausible crushes.

Leonard keeps a hand on Barry the whole time, even when Barry breaks out the camera and the notes and the measuring tape on the vainer members of Mick's family.

They don't all look like tiger sharks, which is pretty damn cool. There's a pretty diverse coloring set going on, though Barry hasn't been able to figure out if there's any noticeable difference between male mersharks, female mersharks, and ones that identify as neither.

He can always tell, weirdly enough, just at a glance. Barry's never been great at figuring out anything about humans just by looking at them, but for some reason, he can look at a mershark and immediately knows that the one he's measuring, for instance, identifies as neither male nor female.

Maybe there really is some sort of signal they give off about it. Pheromones, maybe? But such a strange usage of them...

"Does this migration include all of the mid-dweller mersharks there are?" Barry asks Leonard, who shrugs.

"No," the mershark whose backfin Barry is currently measuring says. "Our kin-group. Several others also exist, but not here."

"Really?"

"Too many," Leonard comments with a toothy smile that suggests that he would be happy to volunteer his services to assist with a population reduction.

"Yes," the mershark says to Barry, ignoring Leonard. "Many more mid-dwellers than pole-dwellers."

"How big would you estimate your population to be, in total?" Barry asks. "How many kin-groups? Are they all this size?"

He just get shrugs from both mersharks.

"You don't care about your population generally?"

"No," they both say.

"But if there's not enough food –"

"Apex predator," Leonard reminds Barry, smiling even wider to show off his rows and rows of teeth. "There will be food."

"Overpopulation –"

"Unlikely," the mershark points out, which, fair.

"Underpopulation, then - though I guess you can do parthenogenesis so it's less important–"

The mershark laughs. "Hands will be full with this one," he tells Leonard, who smirks. "Enjoy."

"Will do," Leonard says, even as the other mershark flips tail and dives back into deeper water.

"What does that mean?" Barry complains. "And why is everyone congratulating me? You and Mick, I get that, you're just recently mated, right? But why me?"

"Will explain," Leonard says. "Later tonight. Did not realize confusion: will be more clear as to intentions."

For some reason, the way Leonard says that makes Barry shiver again.

It also makes it increasingly hard to focus on his scientific observations, or at least it does until the mersharks proceed to drill a hole into one of the little island until there's a loud hiss of smoke and heat and holy crap did they just make a miniature volcano?

And are using it to make food?!

"Pulling up core life," Leonard mutters with some disapproval. "Waste! Better to eat it directly."

Leonard, Barry has learned, has some strange views about heat.

But he still follows Barry when Barry goes to investigate the cooking, making sure one of his hands is on him at all times like he's afraid Barry will get lost.

The mini-volcanos are half firework, half cooking tool, Barry learns, and once it is created a whole bunch of mersharks (including Mick) get busy making a whole bunch of food very rapidly.

And then there is a feast.

What a feast.

What food.

Leonard even removes his hand from Barry so as to better stuff his mouth full, not that Barry (also shoveling food in) has any room to talk.

Mick looks extremely proud.

Barry initially thinks that that's the end of it, and that he'll get the explanation Leonard promised, but no – apparently there are performances after the feast, which is probably really awesome and cool, but which Barry doesn't get. At all.

In fairness, he also doesn't get most human theater either, so maybe it's just him.

He's yawning by the middle of it, even though he desperately tries not to – so much cool scientific observations possible! He needs to keep going! Where's his adrenaline gone? – but Mick doesn't seem offended, leading both Barry and Len to a little dip in the incline by the cliff, just a little above the water line, that's clearly been decorated with all sorts of soft moss and seaweed and such.

It feels like falling into a feather bed after a week of sleeping in his bathysphere.

Barry's out like a light within minutes.

And when he wakes up – only a few hours later, he thinks, or at least the sound of performances is still on-going – he finds –

"Um," he says. He's got Mick draped around his back, letting Barry lean his back against his strong chest, and Barry himself seems to have wrapped an arm around Leonard, who's snuggled in equally close from the front.

"Awake now," Leonard reports, unnecessarily in Barry's view. "Give the box."

Mick shifts a little, stretching to get something without pulling away, and then puts a box into Barry's hands.

Barry's first thought upon feeling the plastic finish is the crazy idea that mersharks somehow developed manufacturing capability, but no – it's a human-made box, wrapped in plastic to show it's still unopened (and undoubtedly helping with the waterproofing) and it's –

"Chocolate?" Barry asks, surprised. "But you didn't know what chocolate even was a few days ago!"

"Explained," Mick says. "Cousin obtained the box when asked."

That seems like rather a lot of effort to go to.

"Worth it," Leonard murmurs. "Need to resolve a certain – misapprehension."

"Oh?"

"The chocolate is for Barry," Mick says, emphasizing Barry's name.

"Uh, thanks, I guess –"

"Barry indicated that chocolate was used in human courting rituals. Correct?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah –"

"Chocolate is for Barry," Mick says again, his voice at a low rumble.

They can't mean what Barry keeps thinking they mean.

"Invitation is for Barry," Leonard agrees.

...can they?

"But – uh – okay, listen. You two are mates, right?"

They nod.

"Then why would you be giving me a romantic courtship gesture if –?"

"Proposing a triad," Leonard says patiently. "Barry, Mick, Leonard. Have been inviting to join courting dance for days, but it seems like offer was misunderstood."

Holy crap, they really are! This is a proposition! To mate! With him!

Holy crap!

"I – uh – I mean – I’m honored – I – it would be unprofessional of me –"

Mick leans forward and nuzzles Barry's neck. Barry loses his train of thought for a moment, but rallies.

"Is it just because I'm the first human you've seen –"

"No," Leonard says. "Just want you."

"Won't force you," Mick says. "But want you. Do you want us?"

Barry's entire body feels like it's going into somewhere between gibbering shut down and 'yes take me now' lust.

"Well?" Leonard asks, as calm and intent on Barry as always.

"I mean – what does it entail?"

They both give him pointed looks, and Barry blushes. "I mean, is it short term, long term..? I don't want to get anything wrong – I mean, that is, if I agree. Because that's an if. Obviously."

God, he's hopeless.

Leonard smiles and runs a slinky hand up Barry's side. Slinkily. Which is unfair because a slinky Len does things to Barry.

As does the smoldering look Mick is giving him.

"Details can always be renegotiated," Mick says comfortingly. "Can start together, figure out details later."

"Yes," Leonard says. "But if agree, then until indicate otherwise – you are mine."

...yeah, okay, Barry’s good with that.

Barry's gonna break every scientist rule in the goddamn book, but he's going to achieve the ultimate dream of sci-fi/fantasy fans everywhere, so it, like, breaks even or something.

Right?

"Okay," he says. And, "Can I kiss you?"

Mick purrs – there's no other word for it – and reels him in.

Heh, reel.

Leonard catches Barry by the shoulders a second before his lips meet Mick's, pulling him back until he's flush against Leonard's deceptively cool body. "What is so funny?" he purrs in Barry's ear.

Barry gulps.

Not in a bad way, though to be fair he'd thought he'd managed to hide his amusement quite well.

"Well?" Leonard asks, his hands ghosting down Barry's arms.

Barry is abruptly struck with the sense-memory of him doing that before, when he'd been examining every inch of Barry with his fingers - supposedly to get a better 'image' of him, the liar - asking all sorts of innocent questions like why Barry was blushing – getting hot for him – or, as Leonard calls it, spilling out his life energy - wow, on second thought, that sounds super kinky -

"Answer the question," Mick suggests, leaning forward to lick a line along Barry's collarbone. "Won't drop it otherwise."

"Oh, I –” Words. What are words? Words are clearly not important, there are extremely attractive mersharks intent on banging you. “– uh –”

“Answer,” Leonard insists.

“You know you're not making it easy for me to think right now -"

"Sure are up for the challenge," Leonard laughs in his ear.

"It was just a bad pun about Mick reeling me in for a kiss - reeling, like when you're finishing - is this really important right now?!"

"No," Mick says, and finally kisses him, long and slow and dirty.

Barry tries to kiss back as fiercely as he can, hoping to speed it up, but Leonard catches him still again, one arm across Barry's belly and the other under his chin.

"Slow," he demands. His eyes are intent, avid, fierce in a way that the normal reserved mershark rarely shows; it makes Barry shiver with anticipation.

Mick breaks free and laughs.

"Bossy all the time, I see," Barry says, twisting to roll his eyes at Leonard, his tone warring between fond amusement - Leonard being bossy is zero surprise - and his entirely reasonable desire to get on with the sex part of these events now-now-now.

"Need to watch the teeth," Mick explains.

Oh.

Yeah, that makes sense. He is kissing a shark.

"No," Leonard says impatiently. "Going slow is necessary -" and here he smirks "- for proper observation."

“You can’t observe things, you’re blind,” Barry says. "Also, you're going to hold the science against me forever, aren’t you?”

"Yes," Leonard says, then leans forward and licking along Barry's other collarbone, a mirror image of what Mick had done earlier – except Leonard doesn’t stop, going up his neck.

Apparently Leonard's tongue is a lot longer than it appears on first glance.

Barry should really record the full length of it at some -

Mick slides his hands under Barry's shirt.

Right. Priorities.

Sex, not science.

(At fucking last, Barry's libido says, throwing up its metaphorical hands. Literally fucking!)

Barry pulls away from Leonard to pull off his shirt and what's left of his wetsuit, since he'd had Leonard cut it in two days ago. He wants to be naked, to feel the unusual fine-grain texture of their skin against his own.

Mick and Leonard eagerly assist him in removing his clothing.

They're not very good assistants - they keep stopping to run their hands over newly exposed skin, and maybe leaning down for a kiss or a lick or even pressing their sharp teeth against the flesh so it bears an imprint of their jaws - but somehow Barry doesn't really mind.

"Dance?" Leonard asks from where he’s pressing kisses onto Barry’s palm.

"Not this time," Mick decides. "Don't want to overwhelm."

"I won't be overwhelmed," Barry protests.

Though, thinking of that undulating dance that Leonard does, all sleek and hypnotic movements designed to show him off to the best advantage...

Barry swallows, and his cock jumps a little in immediately interest.

“Definitely overwhelmed,” Leonard agrees, sounding amused.

He pulls Barry towards him, turning him around until Barry’s facing him, while Mick moves forward as well. It’s a slick maneuver that results in Barry being pressed between the two of them, sitting a little back on the part of Mick’s tail that would be Mick’s lap if he were human.

He can’t think of anywhere he’d rather be. Mick is warm against his back, big and solid and with strong arms boxing him in, and Leonard is cool and slippery and moving against his front, and Barry cannot even believe that this is his life.

Leonard opens his mouth with all its layers of teeth and, making sure that Barry is watching, leans forward and lightly presses them into Barry’s shoulder, causing a not-quite-pain that makes all of Barry’s nerves jangle in something not too far from pleasure.

Barry whimpers.

“Likes to be watched,” Mick murmurs in Barry’s ear, nodding at Leonard as if Barry hadn’t figured that out, but before Barry can reply, Mick’s hand slips around to wrap around Barry’s cock.

“Yes, that,” Barry says inanely, but in his defense, he’s been best friends with his right hand these last few days – ever since he found the mersharks – and he’s finally getting some outside stimulation.

Mick laughs and starts moving his hand – less a solid stroke and more a torturously slow exploratory touch. “Need to make extensive observations here,” he says, amused.

“Very extensive,” Leonard agrees.

“You guys need to stop making fun of my science – holy crap yes.”

That last one was when Leonard leaned forward and to lick a stripe right up Barry’s cock, then using his ridiculous extendible tongue to wrap around the part of Barry’s cock above Mick’s hand.

Barry’s hips jerk up, but Mick catches his hip, forcing him down.

“Likes that,” Leonard observes a few seconds later.

“Very much, yes, I like that very much, please get back to do it, give me more –”

Somehow, in Barry’s fantasies, he took a little longer to get to the begging stage.

Reality is so much better.

They both laugh.

Mick focuses on holding Barry still, after that, letting Leonard take his damn sweet time exploring all the most important parts of Barry’s body with his tongue and fingers and extremely sharp nails with actual poison in them, which shouldn’t be such a turn-on but it really is. Barry just whines and writhes on Mick’s lap the whole time as Mick presses kisses to the side of his neck and cheek, his hands keeping Barry steady so that he doesn’t accidentally hurt himself against Leonard’s sharp everything.

And all the while, Barry can feel something growing hard against his ass.

Barry had tried, without much success, to ask questions about the basics of mershark reproduction – beyond the fact that they were hermaphroditic and capable of parthenogenesis and that they kept their genitalia inside an internal slit, only to emerge for mating purposes – but his own prudery had gotten in the way. It’s one thing to study how fish and dolphins mate, and a very different thing to ask someone how their dick (if they have one) works.

Sure, he’d caught glimpses when Leonard and Mick would mate in his vicinity (which he now realizes was meant to be an offer to join), but he had made himself not look too long, thinking it would be rude and an invasion of privacy.

Clearly an error in judgment.

“Hold up,” Barry manages to get out in between whimpers, his voice unusually high-pitched, reluctantly pushing Leonard away to turn to look at Mick. “Hold up, lemme see, I want to –”

Oh.

Uh.

Wow.

“There’s two,” Barry says blankly.

Which is dumb because there was no reason to assume that mersharks would have a more humanoid physiology rather than, well, a more shark-like one but, uh, yeah, wow, huh, two.

Sharks have two claspers – though only one is used for mating at a time, he’s pretty sure – because they’re located next to the two pelvic fins, which are doubled, but other than the duplication, Mick’s claspers are very, uh, humanoid, which is good.

Very good.

He’s got a great cock. Cocks, whatever. They’re long and slick, with a bit of a head, and definitely very –

Large.

Barry’s totally not a size queen (he’s not, whatever scurrilous gossip Iris might be spreading) but even he can appreciate something so well-built. Mick’s not proportional – thank god, Barry would literally die given that Mick is like ten feet long – but if you just looked at his top half and guessed, you wouldn’t be that far off.

“Would you like to do some observation?” Mick asks, stressing the pronoun and smirking, leaning back with his hands folded behind his head.

Uh, yes please.

Barry would very much like to do some in-depth observation here.

“But no measuring tape,” Leonard adds wryly.

Barry snorts even as he scrambles around to take a closer look. “No, I don’t think we need that this time,” he says. “But another time. I promise to make it good for you.”

He’s thinking of maybe trying for a blowjob, but Mick preempts him, rumbling “Already good,” and pulling Barry flush against him so that they can grind together, the feeling of it only heightened by the slickness already coating Mick’s cocks.

Barry moans, rocking forward.

Leonard’s hands come and wrap around Barry’s thighs as he continues pressing his teeth into various parts of Barry’s hips and sides and ass, little love-nips just like a shark but careful not to press his teeth in too deep.

It’s good.

It’s very good.

Barry and Mick find a rhythm together, thrusting and grunting and moaning, and it’s so good – Barry can feel himself sliding against Mick, can feel his cock against his, can feel his own next to the two, between the two, and it’s utterly alien but absolutely wonderful.

“Good,” Leonard murmurs in Barry’s ear, his voice thick with lust. “Very good.”

God, yes.

Still, that’s a good reminder; Leonard might like to watch, and touch, but surely he’d like to be a more thorough part of the proceedings…

Barry turns and tries to reach out a hand for where Leonard’s cocks would be, assuming it’s the same place as Mick, but his hand slides along Leonard’s tail without any luck.

It takes a second for Barry’s brain to emerge enough from his haze of lust to realize that nothing’s emerged yet.

“Is very cold,” Mick says before Barry has the opportunity to start worrying about whether Leonard really is into this or not. “Takes time to warm up.” He grins with all his teeth – not as many as Leonard, but more than enough. “We can help warm up.”

“I’m open to ideas,” Barry says, leaning forward to kiss Mick again.

Mick kisses him back, then pushes him away. “Get on belly,” he says, his eyes bright.

Barry goes with hands and knees, but he figures that’s close enough. Unlike the mersharks, who are used to mating while floating in water, Barry figures he has a better understanding of what Mick’s looking to do.

From the sound Mick makes, he has zero objections to Barry’s chosen position.

Barry grins.

Looks like the mersharks aren’t the only ones who can be seductive.

“C’mon,” he says, reaching back to help stretch himself open for them. “Fuck me.”

Hey, Barry never said his version of seduction was subtle.

“Like that phrase,” Leonard murmurs, moving his hands over Barry.

“Yes,” Mick says, moving forward to position himself. “Want to hear often.”

He starts pushing in, slow and inexorable the way Leonard usually is – for all of Mick’s boisterousness, he has just as much self-control as Leonard in his own way.

Which is good, because Mick is – big.

Luckily, the slick his body produces works extremely well as lubricant, and it doesn’t take long before he’s sliding in deep, thick and wonderful inside of Barry, and Barry’s moaning like crazy and pushing himself back to try to get more.

Sure, maybe the feeling’s not quite the same as a human, but honestly, that’s a plus.

Barry can feel Mick’s second cock sliding through his legs, too. It’s like he’s getting both penetrated and fucked between the thighs at the same time.

He likes it.

He likes it a lot.

Though, still –

“Glad you only use one,” Barry pants in between moans and grunts and groans that shake his whole body every time Mick rolls the equivalent of his hips, a full-body gesture that lets him thrust himself all the way in before pulling out.

Mick laughs in his ear. “This time.”

Holy crap.

Does that mean it’s actually possible to –

Yeah, they’re going to have to try that. Eventually. After Barry practices a bit with some toys and, like, a truckload of lube.

“My turn,” Leonard suddenly says, and Barry knows he means it because he said ‘my’.

Honestly, this whole sometimes-pronoun business is actually quite helpful in terms of emphasis…

“Let him finish me first,” Barry begs.

Mick laughs again. “Same time,” he says, and pulls Barry back against him.

Barry’s not entirely sure what he means until Leonard slithers confidently into place underneath him.

Leonard’s cocks have still not emerged.

So what does –

Leonard arches his back up so that Barry’s cock skates right across his small, slippery slit.

Oh.

Yes.

Yes please.

“Why don’t help warm up?” Mick purrs.

Barry can definitely do that.

He reaches out with one hand to grab Leonard by the hip, pulling him forward until they’re flush, until Barry’s cock is right at the edge of the slit, until he’s pushing in –

God, it’s like nothing he’s ever felt before.

He can feel Leonard all around him, the tightness and the pressure, but he’s not body-warmth-hot the way Barry’s previous partners were – he’s not cold, of course, he’s still somewhat warm, but the feeling is completely different.

The feeling is amazing.

Barry maybe loses his mind a bit and starts thrusting madly, which gets Mick to start moving again, too, in a smooth rhythm that’s a perfect counterpoint to Barry’s own wild thrust, and gets Leonard to laugh.

“Fast,” he observes. He sounds approving. “Good.”

Barry’s glad Leonard likes it, because he’s not sure he can stop.

It feels so good, him inside of Leonard, Mick inside of him, thrusting together or not but everything feels good, so good, and god, Barry’s not going to last like this, he’s not going to last another minute –

Mick grunts behind him, stilling, and suddenly Barry can feel him shifting inside, and holy fuck that’s a spur locking into place as Mick comes and spills inside of him and holy crap, he just fucked a mershark, he’s fucking two mersharks right now –

Barry’s not sure if what he shouts when he comes is Mick’s name, or Leonard’s, or some smushed-up amalgamation of them both.

Probably the last.

“Good,” Mick says with a groan, not pulling out. Barry’s not sure he can; he’s probably still coming now that the spur is locked in place. “Very good.”

“Yeah,” Barry says shakily. “Very good.”

He pushes back a little; Mick, getting the hint, draws them both back away from Leonard so that Barry can pull himself out.

Leonard’s not done yet, after all.

Leonard watches with amusement that shifts into surprise, then curiosity, and finally pleasure when Barry replaces his cock with his mouth, licking the slit that’s warmer than the rest of Leonard’s flesh, a hidden way into the heat, the life-energy, within.

Just because he came doesn’t mean that Leonard has, after all, and Barry does so very much like to please his lovers.

Leonard likes it when Barry goes fast, Barry finds, likes the pressure and stimulation when Barry tries new things to see what Leonard likes best, and he’s got an amazing stamina that means he takes forever to even show signs that he’s being affected by what Barry’s doing – but Barry’s young and excitable and he’s up to the challenge.

Interestingly, though, it turns out going down on Leonard is just the last bit of warming up that Leonard needs for his own cocks to slide out, slow at first, but steady, not quite as big as Mick but long and shapely.

Luckily for Leonard, Barry likes blowing people just as much as he likes eating them out.

(With mersharks, there’s clearly no need to force yourself to pick between the two.)

“Enough,” Leonard says after a good while.

Barry obediently pulls away, albeit reluctantly. “But you haven’t come yet,” he argues.

“Enough time has passed,” Leonard says.

“Yes,” Mick agrees, gently lifting Barry up so that his cock could slip out – the spur had gone down while Barry was busy, and Barry’s thighs in the water are slick with Mick’s come. “Your turn.”

Wait.

“My turn,” Leonard agrees, and smiles, all those rows of teeth bared.

Barry gulps, but makes sure not to object.

After all, he wouldn’t want them to get the wrong idea about stopping.

It’s a very good thing that Barry’s libido has been going as crazy as it has been, because he’s going to need every ounce of it to make it through tonight.

And possibly some very interesting nights after that…

"We're almost there," Barry says gleefully. He's perched in his bathysphere while Leonard and Mick drag it along forward towards the beach where he'd agreed to meet his friends.

One of Mick's cousins had offered him a cell phone as a post-mating gift with a (in Barry's opinion) totally unnecessary compliment about being noisy.

Apparently it's a sign of vitality or something.

Anyway, he'd gotten a working cellphone with dying battery, but he'd run around the cave until he'd found a place that had the barest scraps of reception and ended up being able to get a few seconds of connection before it died entirely.

It was a good thing he'd disciplined himself to just start with the name of the beach, a date and a time, or else the only message Cisco would've received was a "WHEEEEEEE!!"

Barry's still kind of regretful he didn't start with that.

And not just because of the scientific discovery he's about to surprise his friends with, either.

Sure, he's still a little anxious that Leonard and Mick will ditch him once they find the world of other humans, but Mick reassured him that Leonard had only ever seen one of his type of mershark before settling on him and he hadn't changed his mind yet.

Which was something of an understatement, given that Barry is pretty sure that Leonard's increasing enjoyment of Mick's beat-downs had less to do with appreciating the fighting and more to do with his desire to scratch the eyes out of a handful of Mick's more annoying cousins.

But either way, he's floating along on his bathysphere, heading straight for the coast with the private beach that he and his friends frequent the most, with his two mershark boyfriends dragging him along in their wake as they glide beneath the water without even a hint of fin breaking the surface, and if he squints he can just see the whole group is there waiting for him: Cisco and Caitlin and Julian and Iris and even their new intern Ralph. No sign of Professor Wells, but his wheelchair doesn't react well to sand; he's probably waiting further inland.

No sign of Barry's parents or Uncle Joe, either, which Barry sincerely hopes meant that they haven't been informed of his disappearance but sadly more likely means that they hadn't been able to find a flight to the coastline on such short notice.

He starts waving from a distance, but they don't actually notice him until he's bobbing along pretty close to the shore. "Guys!" he shouts, waving.

"Oh my God, Barry!" Iris shrieks, and dashes towards him.

Barry beams and tumbles his way out of the bathysphere to give her a hug.

"I was worried about you, you dick!" Cisco shouts, but he's there with the hugs a second later.

"I'm okay, I'm okay –"

"How did you make it back up to the surface?" Caitlin asks. "The bathysphere's engines aren't that good – do you have the bends?"

"No, I don't have the bends –"

"You called from a foreign number and got out like one word, Bar, you trying to give me a heart attack –"

"Your parents are going to kill you," Iris tells Barry. "Assuming I don't do it first."

"This had better not be staged," Julian says, because he's an asshole.

"It wasn't freaking staged – how would I even stage something like that –"

"But how did you get back to the surface?" Ralph says loudly enough to half-deafen everyone.

Barry beams. "Oh, you know," he says. "Only by making the biggest marine biology discovery in our lifetimes."

"That's what you said when you discovered a new type of sea cucumber waste," Julian says, unimpressed.

"It – kinda was, Barry," Caitlin says apologetically.

"I thought it was pretty cool," Cisco mutters loyally.

"I'm sure this is more interesting than that," Iris says briskly. "What did you discover, Barry?"

Barry gestures at the water behind him without turning. "These guys."

Then there's a few moments of awkward silence as nothing happens.

Oh, they had better not be backing out of their promise to appear at the appropriately dramatic moment because Barry's gonna be so mad – and possibly worried about his sanity –

"Oh my god!" Iris shrieks.

Barry turns and grins as Mick heaves himself up to the sand. Leonard is not far behind him, though the way he keeps rubbing the sand between his fingers suggests that his curiosity was the reason for the sluggish response.

"Are those – people in costumes?" Ralph squeaks.

"Nope," Barry says happily.

"What in the world –" Caitlin starts, gaping.

"Holy crap," Cisco says.

"What are they?" Iris demands.

"I call them mersharks," Barry says.

"That's an awful name," Julian says, more on automatic bitchiness than out of real dislike.

Mick looks up, though, with a contemplative look. "I like it," he declares, emphasizing the 'I' with a pointed look at Barry like a 'see I can use pronouns if I have to' sort of thing.

"They speak!" Cisco shrieks.

"They've gotta be costumes," Ralph says.

"No," Mick says, and bares his teeth at him. "Not costumes."

And then everyone's asking questions all at once and whether they can touch them and if they're male and female and –

"What is going on here?" Professor Wells' voice cuts through the din. "I thought I told you to bring Barry inland."

He's come all the way down to the sandline in his wheelchair.

The entire group just parts – they were standing in between Wells and the mersharks, so he hasn’t seen them yet from his vantage point – and gesture towards the mersharks in wordless unison.

And then Barry gets to see something he's never seen before: Professor Harrison Wells dumbfounded by something.

And then Leonard clears his throat to speak for the first time.

He lifts a hand and points one of sharp claw-like fingers right at Professor Wells.

"Gonna eat it," he announces, and next thing Barry knows he's pulling himself along the sand at his usual sedate pace and wait did he just say –

"No!" Barry yells, running forward to intercept him. "Leonard, don't eat him!"

Maybe introducing Leonard and Mick to human life isn’t going to go as straightforwardly as Barry thought…

[sceptilemasterr]

“I, uh... I love you.” (Part 5 - Sunset)

Main Pairing: Estela x Taylor (gender not stated)

Other Pairings: Diego x Varyyn, Craig x Zahra, Grace x Aleister

Genre: Pure Fluff

Warnings: Mild swearing

Summary: Estela and Taylor share a private moment on a secluded cliffside.

Note: Just a cute one this time! The bolded part is where you’d probably have to pay diamonds, if this were a Choices book. But I don’t charge for fluff!

Previous Chapter: Link

Masterlist: Link

You leap into the air and intercept the volleyball, sending it back over the net straight toward Varyyn!

"Varyyn! Spike it!" Diego shouts urgently.

But to everyone's surprise, Varyyn grabs one of his daggers from the belt around his waist and stabs the ball! "Spiked it!" he calls out triumphantly.

There is a momentary silence. You, Sean, and Diego all exchange confused glances...and then burst out laughing. "Oh my god! Varyyn," Diego says between laughs, "I didn't mean that literally!"

"Oh. But you said 'spike it,' so I thought..." says Varyyn, looking dejectedly at the now-deflated volleyball. "I am sorry, Diego." If it weren't for his blue skin, you're almost certain he would be blushing right now.

Sean shrugs, flashing Varyyn a reassuring smile. "It's all good, dude. There's more volleyballs here where that one came from. But I think you might want to let Diego explain the volleyball terms to you before we play again."

Diego chuckles. "Um, yeah, I probably should. So, in volleyball, 'spike' means..."

You leave the beach volleyball area by The Celestial's pool and sit down on a lawn chair. Sean joins you. "Nice to have some downtime for a change, isn't it?" he asks. "No weird monsters, or time fields, or random space station portals..."

"Heh. Yeah. Almost feels like a normal vacation, for a change." You sigh, dwelling on the memories of your recent terrifying escape from Rourke's satellite. "Sean?" you ask.

"Taylor?"

"How do you do it? Relax completely, I mean." You hold your head in your hands, emotions threatening to overwhelm you. "Everything that's happened since we got here...it's been impossible, the things we've seen. How can you just forget all of that?"

Sean shrugs. "It's not about forgetting, Taylor," he says after a brief silence. "You just gotta take it a day at a time. I enjoy each new memory as it comes, you know?"

Enjoy each memory as it comes...Sean's words seem to resonate with you. "Guess I never thought about it that way before," you say. "Thanks, Sean."

He smiles at you. "Anytime." Then he stares off toward the beach, where Diego is slowly, but surely, teaching Varyyn about volleyball. "Y'know, Taylor, you're pretty lucky, all things considered," he says.

"What do you mean?"

"You and Estela. Just like those two over there--" he gestures toward Diego and Varyyn, "--you two have something special. You gotta learn to appreciate that."

Almost immediately, you feel your cheeks grow hot with embarrassment. "Uh, wait. What? That's not...who said...we're not..." you stammer nervously.

Sean laughs. "Are you serious right now? You do know 'Esteylor' is the absolute worst-kept secret on La Huerta, right?"

"'Esteylor?' Who came up with that?"

"Uh...Diego."

Of course. "Umm, right, anyway," you say, desperate to change the subject. "How about you? Anyone you're interested in?"

"What? Well, I...uh..." Luckily for Sean, he is saved by Estela's sudden arrival by the pool. "Oh, look, your girlfriend's here; guess that's my cue to leave!" he says, standing up abruptly. "Hey, Estela, have fun tonight!" Sean winks at her as he walks back toward The Celestial's back entrance.

You watch as Estela picks up a lawn chair and shoves it as close as possible to your own before sitting down next to you. "Taylor. Hey," she says, a hint of nervousness in her voice. "So, uh...how's it going?"

"It's going fine, I guess," you say, smiling at her. "You missed Varyyn stabbing a volleyball."

She laughs. "Sorry, what? This I've got to hear."

You tell her all about you, Sean, and Diego attempting to teach the Vaanti leader how to play the game, and the result. Estela's laugh is infectious. "...So we've definitely got a long way to go with him, yet," you finish. "Varyyn still doesn't really understand slang."

"That's hilarious. Wish I'd come out here sooner, in that case."

"What were you up to, anyway?" you ask. "I tried to find you earlier."

Estela shrugs. "The Celestial is huge, after all. I was checking out the upper floors none of us are using. I'd hoped there might be some more secret rooms, or hidden passages, or...you know, something."

"So, did you find anything?"

"Nope. Just some perfectly ordinary hotel rooms." Her face falls.

You smile and shake your head. "Estela. It's okay. We're safe for now. Don't you ever take a day off?"

"A day off? From what?"

"I know things have been pretty strange around here lately, but look around you!" You gesture to the beach around you, stretching directly from The Celestial's back door all the way to the ocean. Diego and Varyyn on the sand, laughing about something or other. Michelle and Quinn on beach towels, sunbathing side-by-side. Raj sitting under an umbrella, wolfing down a plate of mini sandwiches he'd presumably made himself. Craig and Sean running in and out of the water, tossing a football back and forth. "We've all earned a few days to relax. The Vaanti are on our side now, Arachnid is out of the picture, and that giant kraken thing won't be bothering anyone anymore." You pause, remembering. "Thanks to a certain badass named Estela."

She smiles at the compliment. "It wasn't all me. This incredibly attractive 'Taylor' person helped me out, too."

You can't help but laugh. "Ha. Guess it was a team effort. But seriously, Estela, it's okay to take a day off. Any other mysteries to solve will still be there tomorrow. Let's just relax tonight, huh?"

"I know. You're right," Estela says with a sigh. "I just feel like...like I can't afford to waste even one day, you know? We've been here for months, now, and I'm still no closer to finding Rourke!"

You take her hand in yours. "I know how important this is. But like I said about the island's mysteries, any clue to Rourke's location will still be there tomorrow. Plus, if you don't give yourself time to relax, you won't be at your best when we do find him. It's important to take care of yourself, too."

"'We?'" she echoes.

"Well, yeah. In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm going wherever you go. And that includes fighting Rourke. You don't have to do it alone."

"You really are one interesting person, Taylor. You know that?"

"Someone might've mentioned it...once or twice." You shrug. "Come on. Let's just go."

As you stand up and hold out your hand to her, Estela looks up at you quizzically. "What? Go where, exactly?"

"Oh, I dunno. Someplace we can go, just the two of us. Do you trust me?"

"I can't believe I'm saying this. But yes, Taylor. I trust you."

Estela takes your hand and you pull her to her feet, making your way over to the back gate before casually unlatching it and slipping outside. Thankfully, no roaming crabs or other strange beasts appear in your path to cut your impromptu date short. You lead her further from The Celestial, staying close to the shoreline as you make your way north beneath the rapidly darkening sky. Thanks, Varyyn, you think to yourself, remembering the elyyshar's suggestion about the spot you were now leading Estela to. As the two of you navigate the tangles of trees, vines, and other plant life, the jungle starts to gradually light up with bioluminescence all around you. "It's almost a shame to cut through it," Estela remarks as you come to a particularly dense patch of thorny vines, dotted with small glowing flowers, blocking your path.

"It'll be worth it, though. I promise," you say as she unlimbers her spear and, with a few quick cuts, opens a path for you to proceed.

Eventually, the jungle gives way to a rocky outcropping that overlooks the beach. Behind you, the top of The Celestial is barely visible over the treeline, the Rourke International sign obscured completely. Up ahead is a prominent area of cliff jutting out from the rest, extending completely beyond the beach and out over the ocean. You spot a wooden bench, clearly of Vaanti craftsmanship, at the edge of this cliff and facing the water. "There it is," you say, and glance nervously toward the horizon. "Just in time, too."

"Just in time for what?" asks Estela as you take her hand again.

You smile. "No better place to watch the sunset. Well, according to Varyyn, anyway." You sit, side-by-side, on the Vaanti bench and look out across the water. "I figure he'd know all the best spots on this island. Seeing as he's lived here his whole life, and all."

"Well, you're probably not wrong. I'm guessing the Vaanti come here often, if they'd leave furniture."

"Guess so."

You gaze toward the rapidly setting sun, painting the water with beautiful shades of red, orange, and purple. "Taylor," she says, "this is amazing. I'm glad I let you take me here."

"I'm glad, too. This might sound crazy, but lately I've been thinking. A lot. ...Mostly about you."

"Oh? What about me?" Estela asks, a hint of coyness in her voice.

You gulp nervously. "Just...everything, really. The adventures we've been on, the little moments we've shared, I just...I know we're stranded here, and things have been pretty rough. But given the choice, I'd get on Jake's plane every time, if it meant getting to meet you."

"Taylor, that's...I think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me." She sighs, and there's a long silence between the two of you as the sun sinks lower. Somehow, though, it doesn't feel awkward in the slightest, but instead, comfortable.

Several moments pass before Estela speaks again. "Taylor. Back at Hartfeld, people hated me." You aren't quite sure how to respond to that. "I could hear the others talking, especially since they never bothered to try to hide it. They thought I was some kind of...freak. They didn't understand me, and were all terrified of me as a result." She smiles weakly. "I'd almost convinced myself that it was a good thing. That, by letting them be afraid of me, I'd somehow 'won.'" She scoffs and looks away from you. "Like I said. I'd almost convinced myself."

A surge of anger wells up in your heart toward the other Hartfeld students who'd treated her this way, and you wrap your arm around her shoulders protectively. "Estela...I'm sorry. What a bunch of assholes."

"Thanks." Another long moment passes before she looks back at you, a single tear running down her cheek. "Yeah. They really were. I had my mission, had my job to do, and I told myself it didn't matter. And then I came here, and at first it was more of the same. Hell, I left the group right away, on purpose, just so I wouldn't have to go through all that again."

You can't blame her. "To be honest, with what you'd been through before, I probably would've done the same. But I'm glad you came around. What changed?"

"That night. The party. Everyone was down there, having fun, laughing, drinking...like all the college parties I'd ever been not invited to. Everybody was having so much fun, except me, sitting off by myself, alone. But you chose to sit by me instead." She smiles tentatively, and you smile back, pulling her in closer. "I never asked. All the games and fun at the pool...why did you choose me, that night?"

The question catches you entirely off guard, and you struggle for a bit to come up with a response. "To be honest," you say after a moment, "parties are nice and all, but sometimes I just really prefer some peace and quiet. And you definitely intrigued me in all the good ways. Guess I just felt comfortable with you."

The sun is nearly at its zenith, but neither of you are really watching it. "Taylor..." says Estela softly, looking into your eyes. "I..."

"Yes?" you ask.

But Estela doesn't say a word. Instead, she suddenly wraps her arms around you and pulls you in, kissing you softly on the lips!

She pulls away quickly, embarrassment written on her features. She averts her gaze. "I...oh my God, I can't believe...I'm so sorry, Taylor, I swear I didn't...never meant to--" You cut her off by gathering her into your arms and returning the kiss, holding it for several seconds this time.

When you finally break apart, Estela's eyes are watering, and you feel your own eyes starting to do the same. "Hey. You're...."

She sniffs, and wipes away a tear. "I just--I don't know why I did that! Taylor, I was so afraid. I don't even know where that came from."

You laugh, in spite of yourself. "Well, whatever the reason, I'm glad you did. This is officially the best day of my life."

Relief washes over Estela's features as she pulls you in for another kiss. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For everything. This spot, especially. I mean, as long as I was going to suddenly kiss you...this is a pretty great place for it."

You look back toward the horizon. The sun is completely gone. "Really? But we missed the sunset! That was the whole point of coming here," you say, dejected.

"It'll still be here tomorrow," she says. "Besides, we've...uh...well, we've kissed now."

"Guess we have, haven't we?" You can't help but smile out of pure happiness. "Wow."

"Well, uh...considering it's officially nighttime now, think we should be heading back?" Estela asks.

"Yeah, that's probably smart. I'd really rather not run into any weird monsters or anything in the dark. I mean, who knows with this island?"

You both stand up. Just as you turn back toward The Celestial, a sudden light appears out of the corner of your eye, and you turn back to face the ocean. Your jaw drops. There is Estela, framed by the...sunset? Sunrise? Weird-backwards-sun-thing? You aren't sure what to call it, but the sun is back, just barely above the horizon, frozen in that singular moment between evening and nightfall. "I don't believe it," says Estela breathlessly. "How...?"

"La Huerta continues to amaze me," you say to her. "Guess we didn't miss the sunset after all."

"Guess not. I'm glad I'm spending it with you."

There, illuminated by the impossible reverse-sunset, the two of you kiss once more, neither one of you willing to break away until you're both forced to come up for air. "Estela, you're incredible," you say. "I love you."

"What?" she asks, momentarily shocked. "I, er...I mean, of course."

"'Of course?' What's that supposed to mean?" you ask her, shoving her playfully.

She laughs and wraps you into a tight hug. "It means...well, it means I, uh... I love you."

You kiss her softly on the forehead. "Somehow I thought so."

"Shut up," she teases, but she can't manage to wipe the infectious grin off of her face as you take her hand in yours once more. "Let's just get back to the others. For real this time."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," you say, glancing over at the sun. "That thing could reverse again any second, for all we know."

"True. Also, let's keep this a secret from the others for now, huh?" She holds up your conjoined hands for emphasis.

You decide not to tell her that 'Esteylor' apparently wasn't really a secret to begin with. "Sure. My lips are sealed. But can I at least thank Varyyn?"

Estela seems to ponder this for a long moment. "Well, seeing as that place had some kind of magic, sure, why not."

"Wait, magic?"

"Well, yeah. There must have been some kind of magic, to make me kiss you all of a sudden. I'd sort of hoped you would, but I'd never normally have kissed you like that! That was the most terrifying moment of my life."

"You had nothing to be afraid of. It was the most amazing moment of mine," you reassure her.

This time, when the two of you kiss, there is no awkwardness, fear, or uncertainty whatsoever. Just a feeling that for this one moment, all is right in the world.

Next Chapter: Link

Tag List: @brightpinkpeppercorn

[folded-feathers]

this is just a collection of Gay Themed™ ramblings I have on my mind and wanna put somewhere, I feel weird

~

tbh I don't celebrate pride, I don't feel a reason to and I don't feel connected to the lgbt community at all somehow, maybe 'cause there's too much drama in it, and anyway I don't feel proud of my sexuality either. It's just... how I am, idk, it doesn't majorly affect my daily life and the effects it does have aren't fabulous. Or maybe I feel no pride because of internalized homophobia, who knows lol

Or heck, maybe I feel all distant because I'm just not interested in relationships rn and i have no experience in that field either, I'll be 22 next month and i still don't feel old enough to start dating. I just don't understand those feelings 90% of the time and when i do I still don't feel any reason to date people. I thought maybe I was interested like a year ago but on second thought that shit's complicated.

I don't believe that I'm aro or ace anymore but there is sOme kind of disconnect there. Wish I knew what that whole deal is.

I don't seem to lack any kind of attraction towards others, I just lack whatever the hell social link other people seem to have. I've never been great at socializing and somehow I've gotten worse with age despite practice. I can barely stammer through a conversation with a stranger and never ever make eye contact if i can avoid it. Meeting people and being around anyone other than the ones I'm already close to is just so uncomfortable, how on earth does anyone even attempt dating?

I haven't questioned being bi in a long time and I don't really see a reason to change my label anytime soon anyway, since I haven't been in a relationship before so who the heck even knows who I'm attracted to. Bi always just seemed like the safest label to put on myself because I've had some sorta feelings for someone of every gender and in my mind being bi always meant "attraction to both sexes" without gender meaning anything. But somehow I've suddenly started feeling dissatisfied with it? Maybe because I'm tired of seeing arguments on tumblr and I don't like the bi flag as much as literally every other flag. Why is it so dark and plain

You know, I've literally asked myself if I'm just lesbian multiple times but always decided I'm not because I like the concept of dating a guy... y'know, if that guy isn't, well, a real one lmao. So maybe I'm just fooling myself there. But for real, fictional men are the only ones I can tolerate for long periods of time, I wouldn't want to live with a real one forever in a romantic context. It gets more complex than this but I don't feel like going into detail so I'm just leaving it at: men gross me out but I still find the occasional attractive, I don't think I'd wanna date one though even if I was interested in dating in general. But I could date a girl, that concept doesn't make me feel weird. idk

But I guess none of this matters anyway. No matter what label I slap on myself, I don't feel a strong enough desire for a relationship to risk coming out and being the big shame of my family. If dating means either sticking with a man or outing myself to my family, then it's not really worth it unless it's something I'm really interested in -- and I'm not particularly interested.

This all seems like things that someone at the age of 15 would be figuring out but I'm always several years behind everyone anyway haha

[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]

NOTE: NSFW moment at the beginning here, and a lot of NSFW discussion afterward.

As you probably guessed, my morning involved being jabbed in the hip. It did take a lot of willpower not to do anything about it. Like… it's not so much that I like dick, to be honest. More that I enjoy getting one off, seeing the other person squirm. Usually it's a guy, and I derive a dark satisfaction from being in control. But with Knives… it's different. With her, I want to make her happy. Flood her with all those fun endorphins that I avoid like the plague. So there were two different reasons that the little bump throbbing into me through my shorts and her pyjamas had me biting my lip and trying to think about baseball.

When her hips started moving, I wondered if I would have to poke her and wake her up. She was basically asleep and dry-humping me in her dreams. In the end, I made a compromise and I cupped her butt and let her go to town; didn't encourage further, didn't go further. Just let it happen up against my hip until she woke up on her own.

"Hmmhh?" she muttered when her eyes finally fluttered open.

"Was wondering if you'd wake up before or after you splooge."

"Ohh…" Then she flashed me a sleepy, embarrassed grin as she squeezed her eyes shut. "What am I doing?"

"Humping my leg." I started to tell her to keep going, then decided it might not be the best phrasing; it wasn't supposed to be a command. How could I make this clear? Lucky for me, I'd been awake another five or so minutes before she was or my brain never would have come up with anything. "Not that I mind." There, that ought to do it.

"You don't?" Licking her lips, she began to grind more, breath coming a little faster. After a minute of this, she then said, "Wait… are you sure?"

"Yeah, Knives. If you want to… I wish you would go ahead." Maybe that much encouragement was too enthusiastic. I wanted to tell her she could do even more than that, but after being so pushy before, I was gunshy. This was good for now.

And she seemed to agree, if the way she kept at it was any indicator. Just like that first drunken night, I felt her get harder as she put in more effort, then everywhere was getting warmer. She was pretty close to… there. My face nuzzled her neck, left little kisses of encouragement.

"You sure this isn't weird?" she asked after a while, putting in the full amount of force now.

"Not any weirder than life in general. Seriously… enjoy yourself. Whatever."

For some reason, we didn't kiss. Not during. Kissed necks and the sides of heads, but we didn't look at each other and didn't let our lips lock together. Watching her was kind of a dream come true: I had been wanting it ever since I got smacked in the forehead. Another chance to see her come into full bloom like that, without the moral dilemmas.

Her voice became more broken, turned into more moans than breaths or words. Definitely wanted it in me, but could settle for this. For now. As long as Knives was doing what made her happy and satisfied.

She blew, and I didn't even have to ask to make sure. I kept up my kissing, kneaded her ass with my one hand while she thrust a few more times, spasming her way through strangled cries. Like the last time, I could feel warmth pooling where she had deposited the proof of what we did, and it felt both a little gross and really interesting. I dunno. Then she flopped down, completely spent for the moment.

"Mmm," I purred with a smile as I kissed her forehead. "Pretty hot. How was it?"

"Wow," she breathed.

"Really?" A little nod. "Huh. Didn't figure that would really do much for you."

Her hand petted up and down my stomach. "It did. Like, it was pretty hard to finish that way, just grinding against you, but, um… it was… you being here makes it better. You really thought it was hot?"

"Dude, I'm soaking wet right now. So yes."

The redness in her cheeks was the darkest I've ever seen it. "You are? O-oh, I'm sorry…"

"Don't be sorry. Like you said about popping a hard-on; just means I enjoyed the show."

For a few seconds, I thought that was going to be the end of this encounter. She did her humping thing, got off, and I had the satisfaction of knowing I'd done it right this time. All in all, a great start to our morning. But then I noticed her hand caressing my thighs.

"Hey. What's up?"

"Just wanted to… y'know. If you wanted. No pressure, of course! Since I haven't ever tried that on a girl. Or I could watch you do it, or you could… on m-my leg…"

A little fear was in with her usual bubbliness. The suggestion had been a little off-hand, but I had a gut feeling that I should pick that one over the other two. "Let me handle this. Take notes." When she started to sit up to go get something, I added, "Mental notes, ugh. You really think I want you running to find a notepad right about now?!"

"Oh…" Blanching, she laid back down and kissed my cheek. "I'll stay by your side."

With an offer like that, I felt both a lot more excited to jill off than I had in a while, and a little intimidated. This was literally the first time I'd ever done that to myself with someone else watching; a couple of my dates had tried to finger me with varying degrees of success. If I didn't threaten to cut their hands off for jumping in too soon. My hand began to snake down past my waistband as my eyes flicked back and forth between that and Knives's face.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty curious. As long as you don't mind?"

I did, a little. Made me feel like I was doing it on stage in front of a crowd, which I was only used to when I was being a badass with my trap set. But Knives looked so eager…

That was not only one of the hardest orgasms of my life, but probably the fastest since I was in junior high. The whole situation, her being next to me, recently-spent cock pushed into my hip through our clothes, had me so ready to come that it only took me a couple of minutes. My girlfriend-ish person was so invested that I don't think she blinked at all the entire time; just kept her eyes glued to my body, mostly watching my hand and looking up at my face to watch my reactions now and then. Left little kisses on my shoulder. I did it no-frills, just flicked the bean until I saw stars, but she was mesmerised and I was beyond satisfied.

"Whoa," she finally breathed when I flopped down to recover.

At first, all I could bring myself to do was gasp for breath and whisper, "Yeah?" Then I turned to smile at her, swallowing to re-coat my dry throat. "I probably… looked ridiculous."

"No way! Not like I did, rubbing on you like a dog!"

"H-hey, I don't normally find it hot when dogs do that." Then I cringed, being forced to think about dog dicks for a half-second.

But Knives didn't seem to care about that. She just snuggled in closer, kissing my lips very briefly. She did let out a little squeak of surprise when I rolled onto her, taking her lips hard, needily, initiating a kiss that lasted for a good few minutes without any break.

"So," she finally asked when we broke apart, eyes dazed and cheeks flushed, "if I came, and you came… does that mean we did it? Kinda?"

"Kinda," I admitted. For us, as awkward first-time lesbians who both had a few issues, it counted. Then I made an observation: "You're poking me again."

"Yeah. But um…" A little shrug.

"What?"

"I can't go again. I've tried, it never…" She trailed off.

"Twice in a row is asking too much?" A little nod. "Gotcha. So this is like, when you want more pizza but your stomach is already way too full?"

"Hey… yeah! That's it exactly! Kim, you're so smart!" She gave me two kisses to both of my cheeks, which had me rolling my eyes and trying not to smile so wide.

"Nerd."

"Nerd for you." Her hands pet up and down my back. "Sorry if I'm being too shippy."

My brow wrinkled. "Shippy?"

"Relation-shippy. You know… like, saying girlfriend things when you're not sure about… this whole situation. I just like you a whole lot."

"Clingy shippy nerd." But the tone must not have been too off-putting, because a second later she let me kiss her again. Then I settled in against her body. "Mmm… still crazy. You and me. Out of everybody, y'know? I thought you'd end up with Scott, or Neil. Or even Stephen before he came out. I was pretty low on the list."

"Not on my list. I just didn't… well, y'know… the gender thing."

She lost me. "Huh?"

"Well, because I'm trans, I kind of… expected to need to date men? And I did, and they're okay sometimes, but that night with you really opened my eyes to like, the possibilities. That I could be a lesbian — or bisexual, of course. 'Cuz there's always that whole, 'why don't you just stay a guy if you're going to date women?' thing."

"But you said you weren't a guy. Like, that you are definitely a girl."

Patiently, she went on, "Right. I get that, but other people don't. They think I can just 'switch back' if I'm going to date girls. Like, just because I have a dick doesn't mean that dating guys makes me a gay guy, either, so why would I be a straight guy for dating girls? It's kinda dumb. But… I still kinda bought into it, so I never, like… gave dating women any serious thought before you jerked me off."

My entire body winced, and I know she felt it. "Man, I wish you wouldn't say it like that."

"Like what? You did!"

"I know! Gah, I don't remember it though! Like, I remember watching it happen thanks to your glove, but I was definitely not in my right mind when I did it, I just… reacted. Because…"

Because why? That was kind of a mystery. Maybe my feelings about Knives were already there, buried deep, or maybe I just liked the feeling of her dick so much and my curiosity was so high that I reacted on instinct. But now wasn't the time to contemplate that any deeper.

Mostly because Knives's phone started going off right then. She rolled over to grab it, and I immediately hated the loss of warmth, even in the summer.

"Shit, it's my second alarm; I'm gonna be late if I don't go shower and change. Um… sorry."

"It's cool. Can I watch?"

"Shut up," she giggled, and I shrugged with a shy smile. "But um… that was really fun. We'll have to try it again sometime. Or maybe more?"

"Maybe." I forced myself to say that instead of "definitely", or "please split me open and slam into me." All it had taken was a little more proof that our physical chemistry was damn good to know I really wanted to bang her. Or her to bang me, or whatever.

That did put a thought in my head. One that bumped around and mutated for a little while as I started coffee, changed shorts — and underwear, because snail slime is not fun to carry around all day — and waited for her to get out of the shower. When she bounced out in her uniform, the question came out too randomly and without previous context.

"Should I buy a strap-on?"

"Huh?" she asked, still pouring coffee. Then her brain fully caught up to the meaning, and she gaped at me, stunned into silence.

"Knives… Knives, the coffee…"

Blinking, she stared down at how her cup was running over onto the counter. "OH NO! Oh God, crap, oh no!"

Together, we got that cleaned up without too much fuss, wringing out paper towels into the sink to use again. Once it was mostly done, I mumbled, "Sorry for that. I, uh… could have used a little more tact."

"It's okay," she laughed, still a little nervous and self-conscious. "I just… y-yeah, wow. Hadn't even thought of that."

"Me either, until this morning. Because… I don't know, something about the way you keep saying you weren't sure about normal 'boy-and-girl' sex. And like, that's obviously you banging me, but I was thinking about how, uh, normal lesbians can take turns with that if they have a strap-on. At first, I was like 'shame I can't do that for Knives.' And then I realised that I could, even if it's… not exactly the same. But I didn't know if you would even be into that."

Both of us were a little stunned at how much I over-explained, and I shut my lips tight as I spritzed cleaner onto the counter to get the last of the coffee. Eventually, Knives said, "Yeah… that's a whole other thing, huh? Butt stuff."

"Right. Not something I care about normally. But… if you do-"

"Actually, I don't know. Like, I think I told you I tried fingering myself before but barely did anything. So I really have no idea if I'd like… y'know… going the whole way, a dildo in there, or whatever."

"You did? Wait… yeah, you did." Now I remembered: at the time, I thought she had been talking about fingering a vagina, of course. Having no clue she didn't own one of those. Then my eyes widened when I realised what she did mean, and painted a very vague mental picture. "OH."

"What?"

"Well. I mean… how was it?"

A tiny shrug as she sipped at her coffee. Funny how she could drink some of my crappy brew and then go work somewhere they made actual good coffee; maybe she was just being polite, or maybe she wanted to make me feel better. Whatever. "Weird? I guess I didn't hate it, but like I said, didn't get going enough to know for sure."

That brief image of Knives worming a finger into herself was hotter than I had anticipated. Like, I really mean it when I say I had zero interest in anal. Still didn't, on me or on anyone else. But for some reason, with Knives being a girl who didn't have anywhere else to finger, it had a whole new meaning. That vision dancing in my head, my sweet ninja on her back and moaning while she did that to herself, practically had me needing to go another round of bean-flicking.

"Yeah… I… yeah." Clearing my throat, I finished wiping down the counter and rinsed out the cloth. "U-um, add that to the list of… things I would try with you… if you ever…" I didn't even bother to finish the sentence. I couldn't.

"You'd finger my butt?!" Knives seemed not so much touched or turned on by the idea as just flat-out shocked. "Wow, I didn't- w-well, I mean, I'll remember! Don't worry! But you'd really want to? I mean, it's… y'know…" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "A butt."

"I'll wear a glove," I reassured her. Reassured both of us, really. "Means I have to cut my nails. Normally do, though, but…"

A little nervous laugh escaped her. "H-hey, don't… worry, I'm not ready for it yet! No rush!" She bit her lip, smiling. "Wow…"

Smirking with dark glee, I slipped an arm around her waist. "Imagine me doing that for you while I go down on you. Just really wanting to make you feel good all over."

Watching her face turn into a beet was totally worth the way she shoved me away a few seconds later, pushing both hands into the beet-face and turning away. "AAH! Shut up, I have to go to work!"

"Wonder if I could fit two in there?" But she was already running for the bathroom, squealing the whole way.

                                                              To Be Continued…