Love and Lotuses

A sequel to “Not Your Typical Wet Kiss”, because @flurryofwritingflames asked me for one.

In the months between your discovery of the merman of Nocturne’s
Water (whoever had named this pond had certainly… made it interesting) and now,
you’d started bringing two notebooks with you— one for the frogs, which you
were supposed to be researching, and
the other for Demyx.

It was filled with sketches of him, pressed plants, one of his
scales (he’d just handed it to you one day, and you’d been very scared they
were all falling out, but he laughed a little and said, “Well, yeah, eventually.
They get replaced, though.”), and all manner of other things related to your
secret research project.

He was the only one you ever saw, but it sounded like there
were others, if not in that pond, then nearby.

But the research always came second. The first thing you did every time you
arrived at the water’s edge? Tapped the surface in three sets of three impacts
(so he knew it was you, and on purpose), and then he leapt from the water and
into your arms. It was much easier to catch him when you were expecting him,
but all the muscle in his tail did make him pretty heavy.

Still, you didn’t mind having him in your lap.

He was generally very affectionate, having his arms around
you as soon as he could, and often kissing your forehead or cheek. Again, you
had no complaints (though you did write it down… for the sake of the science,
of course).

But this time, though he sprang from the water with his
general gusto, and kissed you with the same, something seemed a little… off. He
was quiet, almost avoiding your eyes.

He nibbled on the root of a water lily and looked over at
you.

“So.” He finally said, after keeping eye contact with you
for a long time. “I, uh. I’m wondering. Why do you still come here?”

“I need to collect data on frogs,” you told him.

“Then why do you keep calling me out of the water?” He
smacked the end of his tail against the dirt, almost like twiddling his thumbs,
and you moved your arms to let his whole tail move.

“Well, I like hanging out with you. I like you in general.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course I do. I wouldn’t let you sit on my lap like this
if I didn’t.”

This made him giggle, a watery sound accompanied by an
expression that lit up his whole face.

“Okay. I’ll be right back.” He wiggled off your lap and dove
back into the water. You waited for him, trying to get some of the water out of
your clothes, even though you knew he was just going to get you all wet again.

He came back with his hands full of a lotus and something
else that you couldn’t tell from your cursory glance. You patted your legs, and
helped him get back into your lap.

“What have you got there?” You asked him, reaching for his
hands.

“Well, I—” he paused, looking into the distance as a croak resounded
nearby.

He rolled his eyes and croaked back, then turned to you. “Well,
the first thing is this.” He lifted the lotus up and tucked it behind your ear,
smiling when it was placed. “It looks good. The other thing…” He opened his
other hand and revealed a pale white shell on a string.

It was pretty, in a very simple way.

“Oh. It’s nice.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah. What’s it for?”

“Well… merfolk make jewelry for those they love. Earrings
for children, bracelets for friends… necklaces for intended lovers.”

“Oh. Oh, wow.”

“What does that mean?”

“Would you put it on me?” You asked him. He untied the
string to tie it around your neck, letting the shell settle just above the dip
in your collarbone.

“Ooh,” he mused, “it looks good, too.”

When he was finished tying the knots into the necklace’s
string, you lifted up your notebook.

“Earrings… children…” you whispered as you wrote, “necklaces…
lovers.” And then, you closed the notebook and put your pencil down. You
prepared yourself for the taste of algae and guided him to you for a kiss.

“That’s all I can give you for now,” you told him, “I didn’t
come prepared.”

“That’s okay.”

“Next time, though, I’ll have, like, puka shells for you or
something.”

“No, you don’t have to make me anything,” he told you, flicking
the end of his tail happily. “You can just kiss me again.”

Not Your Typical Wet Kiss

waterwifewrites:

Merman Demyx x F!Reader. Xigbar is a silly name for a frog.

@flurryofwritingflames because you were so excited about this. ❤

When he’d drifted to the surface, he peeked out of the water
to the other bank of the water.

She was there.  She
had a notebook out again, but it didn’t look like she was taking notes this
time. Maybe she’d already taken the date, time, and water condition notes. At
least, he thought the people who sat
at the side of the water for that long usually took notes on the water’s condition.
To be honest, he hadn’t paid them much attention before. Not until he’d seen
her.

Keep reading

Morning reblog!

Not Your Typical Wet Kiss

Merman Demyx x F!Reader. Xigbar is a silly name for a frog.

@flurryofwritingflames because you were so excited about this. ❤

When he’d drifted to the surface, he peeked out of the water
to the other bank of the water.

She was there.  She
had a notebook out again, but it didn’t look like she was taking notes this
time. Maybe she’d already taken the date, time, and water condition notes. At
least, he thought the people who sat
at the side of the water for that long usually took notes on the water’s condition.
To be honest, he hadn’t paid them much attention before. Not until he’d seen
her.

As he sat there, just his eyes above the water, a frog swam
over to him.

“You checking out that
girl again?”

Demyx sighed, letting out a stream of bubbles, lifted his
mouth from the water, and croaked in response. “Yes, Xigbar.”

“Are you going to get
up the guts to kiss her?”

While Demyx’s gaze at Xigbar started out wide-eyed, he soon
narrowed his eyes into something like a glare. “I shouldn’t.”

“It’s a good way to break
the ice.”

“Does she even know
there are merfolk in this water?”

“She could find out if
you just talked to her…”

Demyx narrowed his eyes again, but this time, looking at
her. “Fine.” He realized Xigbar couldn’t understand him, and croaked again. “Fine.”

“Look… she’s here for
frogs, right? I’ll head over there first, get her all warmed up for ya.”

Demyx sighed again, but gestured for Xigbar to go, and he
followed, slowly.

_

You couldn’t believe how few frogs you’d seen tonight.
Normally, this place was packed with them. You could hear them singing still,
but none of them were hanging out at the shore like they normally did. You were
getting ready to write “no data—couldn’t find any frogs in sample space” in
your notebook, but at that moment, something moved in the water.

You snapped your focus to it, and found it to be a big old
frog, swimming over to you. When it got within your reach, you leaned forward
and scooped it out of the water.

You held it to the ground near you with gentle pressure from
one hand, and with the other wrote down some quick notes.

“First grey-and-black frog found here. Specimen has facial
scar. One eyelid is very dark, that eye is permanently shut. Frog is presumably
male, has vocalized while being examined.”

What you didn’t know was what the frog was saying in those vocalizations.

A lot of it was… not nice. The polite things he was saying were something like “You know, your
hand is pretty heavy, and I wasn’t planning on going anywhere anyway. Like I’d
miss this show.”

You took your hand off the frog and held it up. “Hmmm. No
markings, other than the grey stripes on his back. Weird.” And you moved to drop
him back into the water.

He croaked again (something like “yo, it’s time, get moving”), and you could have sworn you saw
something pop up from under the water’s surface. But it was gone by the time you’d
looked out onto the water.

You made sure the frog made it safely back into the water, but
were surprised that he… wasn’t swimming away. He was floating a few feet away
from you, not doing much of anything. Weird.

You also heard a few frogs’ calls closer to you than they
had been before, so you leaned forward, looking around for the other frogs.

One tiny little croak sounded in front of you (“Now, Xigbar?”) and the black-and-grey
frog nearby responded, or at least it seemed so (“Yes, stop wasting time!”)

Well, there was something blue-green in the water. Maybe it
was a—

A splash and something lunged out of the water, tackling
you. You couldn’t not fall backwards
from the force of it, but soon you realized whatever it was had latched its
mouth onto yours. Finally, your vison cleared so you could see what was on top of you, and… oh. Oh, goodness.

You sat up, and he sat up with you, red-faced and laughing
nervously, smoothing his wet hair back and out of his eyes. Oh, his eyes were
gorgeous.

“Sorry, my frog told me to do that, and I listened to him,
haha. I can just—” before he slid off your lap, you wrapped your arms around
his… tail?

“No, that’s okay. I didn’t know there were mer-people here.”

“Yeah, we stay pretty hidden.”

“Well, you’re more interesting than frogs.” Somewhere, Xigbar
croaked indignantly. “If… no, when, I come back here, could I… study you?”

He blushed again, but slightly shook his head as if to clear
whatever thought had crossed his mind. “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind, as long as it’s
still a secret.”

You laughed. “Of course! Just you and I.” You were nervous,
but laid one hand on his cheek to get him a little closer, and you kissed him
again. Maybe you shouldn’t have, because pond scum, because salmonella, or
because you knew so little about him, other than merman-who-had-kissed-you-because-a-frog-said-to.

But… well, he was cute. And you felt like it could be
something. You flipped to a new page in your notebook, separating it from the
carbon sheet behind it that would have made a copy. Once that was done, you
rested your free hand on your new partner in science’s tail and wrote “new
discovery: mer-people can kiss really well.”

He blushed.

“Our little secret,” you giggled. “But one thing that
shouldn’t be: what’s your name?”

“I’m Demyx.” He told you eagerly. “You are?”

“Y/n.”

“It’s nice to finally really meet you,” he said. “You’re
even prettier up close.”

_

When you returned from the pond that night, your roommate
gave you one look before laughing out loud.

“What happened to you? Your pants are soaked across the lap.”

“I, uh. The frogs were dripping on me.”

“What, did you pull them out of the water in a bucket?”

“Of course not.” You huffed, walking to your room to change
your clothes.

Back at the pond, there was a a riot of croaking coming from
only one frog… and an over-excited merman.

“I did it! I kissed
her!”

Frogs can’t sigh, but if they could, Xigbar would have. “I
didn’t—you weren’t supposed to leap out of the water and kiss her right off the
bat like that.”

Demyx deflated a little.
“But I… it worked out okay. She’s coming back to see me again soon!” He
perked up again.

“…Yeah. Good for you.
Think she’ll be more gentle with me next time?”