[Closed] @eidxiety🧜‍♀️🔬

[winterbolt]

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[dyn4m0]

[Add is so smart- possibly the smartest scientist here in this building- but he can’t quite figure out what Ain is asking for. He says he “wants this”, but that doesn’t really answer his question. Wants…himself? He obviously doesn’t want the female but like…

Add shakes his head, rubbing the bridge of his nose.]

You want…to mate. I assume. But also you don’t want to. Was that female not desirable to you?

[They could try a different female, but Ain is already so stressed he doesn’t want to risk making it too much worse.]

We could satisfy your urges via artificial means, but that would be such a waste…

[eidxiety]

[How does he tell you "no booking breastily"... They make this so hard. Humanspeak is so stupid.

Ain swims a little bit further out, above the waist only, then lays on his back and points upwards to the grate.]

No.

[And then he makes vague motions like he's trying to signal breasts. Well.

So much for avoiding being crass.]

Yes.

[Points to Add.]

[dyn4m0]

[Okay, no female, he gets that part. He doesn’t want her, and probably no other female, which makes zero sense to Add ant all but again maybe Ain just doesn’t want to mate? He may not be comfortable doing so, because as far as they know he’s only just now had the opportunity to do so for the first time. He’s still a young adolescent and-]

…huh?

[Ain points at him, and. Add immediately- ridiculously, stupidly- gets clocked so hard by his own internalized homophobia that he blurts without thinking:]

Me??

[eidxiety]

[Ain literally shrugs at that. Like, his shoulders go up and then down in the sand and everything.]

Add. [And then he nods but points to himself again, trying to explain in the worst way possible that any man will do so long as that man comes equipped and is willing to rawdog him against the glass or something.] Or... yes.

[Because he can't say "or me" because it's like. Yeah girl he's jorked it a couple times that's not fixing his issues.]

Or no. [Or no mating and you just deal with him in heat for the next several weeks regardless.]

[dyn4m0]

[Okay clearly something is just being lost in translation here and he’s just not understanding, there’s no way this fish wants HIM. He definitely means to say something else, but the communication just simply isn’t fully there. Ain is trying at least, poor thing…

Add sighs and rubs both hands down his face, taking a moment to clam down (why is his heart racing, what the fuck is his problem) before he steps out for a second before returning with some steaks for Ain. Red meat is the preferred diet for Sirens while they’re in heat to keep their strength up, and Add has no idea yet how bad of an idea this will be.

He’s at least safe today because he just tosses the meat right in, knowing Ain is currently in no mood for games. He should calm down a bit after the first few days have passed.]

Well, we’ll leave you alone for now. So long as you don’t stop eating, you not mating is more disappointing than an actual problem. I’ll talk to my boss about artificial aids later. It won’t give us any results but it will keep you from being stressed.

[Because he can’t do his work if you’re stressed!!]

[eidxiety]

[Add leaves and gives him meat, but not the meat Ain wants :( Ain doesn't think he got it, but he has no idea how to press further. Quickly, he folds his fin wings over himself for privacy, even if he's definitely soft due to Woman Scent in his tank now he doesn't want Add to look again since Add knows, and literally charges out of his cave to grab the meat in both clawed hands and start shredding the fuck out of it with his teeth.

He's a lot more aggressive than usual about it. Even for a non-breeding male, that behaviour tracks; they'll get very feisty around the season because it's a whole dominance thing. Ain has no dominance, but he was still born male, and some instinct bleeds over into his little brain.]

[dyn4m0]

[Add, being the freak he is, can’t help but be enthralled by the way Ain rips his meat apart. It’s fascinating in a morbid way to watch him eat like a piranha, despite normally being so docile otherwise. It’s a pretty clear reminder that Ain is an apex predator and could easily tear his throat out if he really wanted to.

Add laughs breathlessly as he puts the grate back over the tank and locks it tight.]

Nothing wrong with those hunting instincts…

[Hhh. Cool.

Unfortunately for Ain, the scientists keeping him don’t get it and thus don’t put a male in the tank for him, leaving him maleless as the week wears on. Add is inwardly a bit worried about Ain, but there’s not much to be done other than the artificial stimulus route, which he hasn’t yet gotten clearance for since again it’s wasteful even if it’s for the wellbeing of the Siren. They have to wait at least a week to make sure Ain absolutely won’t mate before going that route.

Add goes about each day as normal, though each feeding he gets a little braver, lingering longer to watch the water turn red before he closes the grate again. One day he even stays up there until Ain finishes eating entirely. He can’t help it, it’s just so…

…

This morning, Monday morning, so a weekend without Add, Add carries Ain’s meat bucket to the top of the tank and sits down (???) next to the grate once he’s pulled it back. Instead of dumping the bucket in like a normal person, he holds the meat up with a pair of tongs, dangling it enticingly above the surface for Ain to track.]

Here Bluhen…I bet you’re ready for this, mmm? Can you jump and get it, I wonder…?

[eidxiety]

[Poor Ain is so fucking horny and has zero outlet for it, which is his fault for not throwing more of a fit about wanting to fuck guys but also. He'd take this over being forced to have a female in his tank any day. Better to be horny and unsatisfied than be horny, unsatisfied, and with someone you're not into... or something. That's kind of the same thing though.

Ain's predator instincts are being pushed to the max. Add taunts him more and more each day, and though his weekend feedings are quite tame since he's hiding most of the time, his weekday ones? Insane. Add is an insane man for daring to even dangle his feet in the tank of a hungry, mid-mating-season Siren.

To that end, seeing the steak be dangled in front of him like that drives him fucking insane in the instinct way, and Add will get to watch (probably gleefully) as Ain puffs his frills out completely to make himself look larger, wiggles, and charges through the water like an attacking shark to jump out and grab the food from the tongs with his teeth. He nearly takes Add's whole hand with it.]

[dyn4m0]

[It’s dangerous. INCREDIBLY fucking dangerous. Add is just literal seconds away from having his hand bitten off, just barely jerking back in time to avoid getting bitten as Ain rips the steak from his grasp.

Yet…it gives him a thrill like no other. He’s left panting, his heart racing, his very skin alight from the adrenaline of what was most certainly a near death experience as he watches Ain the steak apart.

No, he doesn’t know what’s wrong with him as he grabs another steak from the bucket with his tongs.]

Huhuhu…good boy. Again! Show me what you can do!

[eidxiety]

[Good boy??? Good boy! He is a good boy thank you very much— and Ain is so very starving from expending all that energy, uh... laying there sadly... okay no it's just Ain and Ain can eat quite a lot. His energy output is lower than normal but his tail must be fat, you see.

To that end, he circles the tank and watches with rapt attention as Add, who has no sense of self-preservation, continues to dangle meat in front of him. He's not quite in his right mind to entirely avoid harm like he'd been doing last time they played this game. Again he fluffs out, only this time he swings his tailfins forward so that the bobbins on the end dance a little as he moves them in a way that's very "anglerfish" in its intent. Of course, they aren't in the dark and Add isn't a fish, so it shouldn't have any hypnotic effect on him...

But still, Ain does this little act while he's winding up, and yet again he surges forward and lunges for the meat. This time, his claws catch on Add's sleeve and tear it because he's a bit too overzealous.]

[dyn4m0]

[If anybody were like, witnessing this, Add would be arrested on the spot probably. Like not even just for endangering himself for seemingly no reason, it’s the WAY he’s reacting when Ain nearly kills him each time.

This time, as he narrowly avoids his arm getting sliced to ribbons by his claws as his lab coat gets caught instead, Add laughs a high pitched, almost elated sounding cackle as Ain falls back into the water and devours his meat, his other hand holding his wrist as his heart pounds loudly between his ears. He’s actually shaking a little, as if his body is trying to physically get him to stop, but he won’t.]

Keke…heheehee- yes! Yes-! Good boy!! Tear it to shreds! Rip it apart!

[Get therapy or like rail him already good LORD

Anyway Add is not stopping and this time…THIS TIME, he goes too far. He grabs a steak with his gloved hand, holding it by the very end so that Ain can grab it out of his fingers, in theory.

He’s too high on the adrenaline rush to think it through as he jerks the meat up a little, clearly taunting Ain with it.]

Come on, come get it! Jump!!

[eidxiety]

[The corporate therapist in 3-5 business days: Okay, so, you have a problem,

Ain is in full hunting mode despite himself. He's fully engrossed in this game (source needed) they're playing, not quite thinking, definitely smacking his tailfins into the glass walls when he does turns that are far too wide for this space. Add will be happy to know that this doesn't deter him at all, even despite how harshly he thunks into the glass. It's a loud, reverberating type of sound.

Completely not paying attention to the environment or himself, or Add at all to be frank, Ain kicks his powerful tailfins until he leaps out of the water again, this time missing the mark of meat entirely and chomping down too high, right on Add's arm instead, and instead of letting go, he drags the man into the water with him.

...

It's only when the tang of human blood hits his tongue that he realises, a fraction of a second too late, just what he's grabbed. Add's quite lucky that Ain doesn't tear his arm off, but even so... even so.

Humans melt in water, don't they?! Oh god he's fucked up oh god what does he do oh god Add's going to drown—

Thinking on his toes, Ain's throat suddenly glows in a way that Add likely hasn't seen before, and Ain surges toward him again, this time wrapping him up in all his tentacles at once and suddenly going for the throat— or, that's probably what it'll look like to Add, but instead he's actually being kissed with Ain's very bloody mouth right now as he passes on a Siren's blessing to him. That is, hopefully preventing him from melting (Ain, he wasn't going to melt), but also letting him breathe underwater... and giving him the very intrinsic understanding of Siren language, and vice versa for Ain.

It's a last resort. But Ain doesn't know what else to do to prevent the human from dissolving (Ain, they very ofteN DO NOT DO THAT).]

[dyn4m0]

[It’s comical just how fast Add goes from having a great and fabulous time, to having not a good time at all.

It was bound to happen at some point, with the way he’s been teasing Ain so openly. If his colleagues saw, they’d call him insane and say he deserved it. The Siren was just following instinct and did nothing wrong. Now, he’s tempted fate one too many times. He knows that intimately as he feels the biting sting of teeth sinking into his skin as he’s pulled bodily into the water with a splash that soaks the floor below.

Almost immediately, the violent sloshing at the surface triggers the gate to immediately snap and lock closed as a safety precaution, nothing going in OR out at this point. The moment Add hears the slam, he knows without even fully having time to comprehend it that he’s going to die. Even if his coworkers will eventually come due to the alarm, it won’t be in time to save him. He has no air, he took no breath, and the lack of oxygen is truly the least of his problems with a vicious, blood thirsty Siren in the tank.

It’s more likely Ain will devour him before he drowns. He knows this. What a fitting end for someone like him, isn’t it?

Bubbles stream from his nostrils as he struggles to cling to what little air he has as he feels Ain’s fins churn the water, and given that his eyes have yet to adjust, he tries to hold his arms up to keep the Siren away, even kick or push him off in a waste of precious oxygen, but it’s pointless. He feels Ain grab him with his entire body, wrapping up around him tight for a killing bite to his neck.

Again, a fitting end.

So imagine his surprise when their lips are crushed together, and he’s struck with the taste of blood and fish and something else he can’t describe, and the shock causes even more of his air to escape his lungs. He thrashes, tries to get away, but the sudden surge of energy that fills him disorients to the point where he couldn’t break free even if he wanted to. It allows Ain the time and space to finish the transfer, leaving Add to float there bewildered for just a moment.

Then, his neck. It burns, and Ain might actually hear him scream underwater as he claws at his neck, and not in a kind way either. His nails dig painfully into his own skin like he might be able to get out whatever is hiding under the surface, the scars under his fingertips all the more prominent now as the skin splits open to make way for gills. In Add’s mind, he’s just ripped himself open and is going to die faster.

Eventually he can’t hold on. His lungs ache, his body wails desperate for oxygen, so he inhales out of reflex and instinct just seconds before he passes out, water rushing in and then passing through his gills, leaving him with the sense that he took a breath. But also didn’t.

He floats there awkwardly for a moment, gasping like a dying fish and holding his neck, unable to comprehend WHY he isn’t actually dead as he finally fills with water enough so that he can slowly sink towards the sandy bottom.]

[eidxiety]

[Ain isn't all too sure if the blessing took hold or not, because Add doesn't immediately start swimming or say "oh hey what's up" and actually looks very very dead when Ain lets him go finally, and the Siren isn't sure what to think. He's been a bad boy, huh? He dragged his human into his tank and now his human is not only bleeding, but might not live in general...

He whines, then kicks off Add to check out the grate. He's not sure why it shut, and he's been very well behaved so far, but if Add melts because of the water then Ain has to save him before that happens. He swims close to it with Add in his arms, then carefully flattens four tentacles underneath where it latches into the wall... and finally pulls, pulls, pulls, until it eventually starts to shudder under his strength and be forced back. When the gap is big enough, Ain plops Add onto the landing whether he's awake or not, then crawls out himself and shakes dry like a dog. He can explain the grate if the blessing took, maybe. He'll probably be called a bad boy, but there are more important things... And it's not like he broke it, he just shoved it back!

Picking Add up again, they go downstairs, and Ain realises that he has to soothe that wound. Add's labcoat is as red as Ain's teeth right now, and looking at it makes him feel guilty, but he has to own up to his mistakes and fix it.

Sirens fix wounds much differently, though. After Ain takes the wet, cumbersome labcoat and tosses it halfway across the room, he puts the also very wet Add on the couch and starts licking the wound much like a dog would and like he did to himself when he got injured, licking and licking until the bleeding stops and the wound starts to partially close. Oftentimes he wishes his healing was better, but that's what he has being so young and kind of naive about things. Ain recalls that Add put some kind of white cloth on his hand when he got hurt, but all he finds in the desk when he gets up are a million average sized little sticky ones. Frustrated, Ain supposes these will do, sitting down and peeling the white backing off and sticking them carefully over the wounds, except Add's skin is wet and they don't want to stay and AAAAAAAAAH—

He whimpers and lays his head on Add's chest, thankful to still hear a heartbeat, but otherwise looking incredibly frustrated with himself. This is not the time to feel so very sad and forlorn, he has an Add to fix!! He shakes it off, gets up, and walks around looking for the towels... Add always said he didn't like the floors getting wet. Something about melting, Ain's sure, and luckily they're in the cabinets but the cabinets have been locked. Add locked them to keep Ain from thieving.

Ain is going to cry.

Ugh, how does he dry his human and keep him warm? Does he break the lock? That seems like such a waste since Add clearly doesn't want him in here but yeah he breaks the lock. It's actually incredibly easy for him to bend, snap, and access that cabinet. He's been — again — far too good for far too long, and now Add will know he's very capable of escaping and breaking whatever he wants and he hasn't solely because he's food and praise motivated and likes that he doesn't get hunted by sharks here.

He finds the towels folded up all neat, grabs six of them, and plonks his way back to the couch to cover Add in them.

...

Unfortunately Add is going to wake up burritoed, like, he will have to wiggle his legs to escape burritoed — and his arm has acquired several more sticky little adhesive bandages since Ain finally figured out how to make them work. The box is on the floor, and Ain has his head on Add's chest and is ringing to try to wake him up.]

[dyn4m0]

[Add had passed out briefly at some point between falling in and being given the blessing, the whole ordeal just enough of a shock to the system, one supposes. It makes sense, given that his human body really isn’t built to breathe underwater, so it’s a lot to acclimate to. To that end, in the throes of unconsciousness, he’d pretty much accepted that he was dying in that moment due to his own stupidity. What a way to go out, in the end. Either drowned, or devoured, or more likely both.

So imagine his surprise when he blinks his eyes open to the sound of his phone ringing, the whole room around him blurry, and feeling like he’s been buried alive and can’t move. He reflexively goes to inhale, only to immediately start coughing up the rest of the water that was in his lungs (gills? The gills aren’t there anymore, now that he’s outside of the water), but- for a mercy on Ain’s part- it’s the clearest sign he could have that Add is alive. He did not, in fact, dissolve in the water.

And Ain is here, laying on him mimicking the sound of his phone ringing.

Why…didn’t he eat him?]

Wh…how did I…

[He doesn’t remember escaping the tank. It was closed over, the alarm probably sounded, where are his colleagues? The answer is that Ain forcing the grate back probably broke something in their security system and now they can’t reach Add or view the cameras right now, meaning that they’re alone in this moment…at least for now.]

[eidxiety]

[His human!!!!

Ain sits up and stops ringing, earfins flapping, and chirps excitedly a few times. This is still Siren nonsense, but what isn't...]

Add!! Can you hear me? Do you understand me?

[Ain puts his hands on Add's face and squishes his cheeks, brushing under his eyes and over his cheekbones. Oh, good, he's warmed up a bit. Ain thinks, anyway. Maybe he hasn't.]

I pulled you out of the tank after you fell in. I'm sorry for biting you. I didn't mean to, it's just a really bad season for me... I was scared you'd melt in the water [ain] so I gave you the Siren's blessing so you could breathe. I don't know if it stops you from melting so I pulled you out. —Oh, I already said that.

Hi!!

[dyn4m0]

[Add is staring. Staring at Ain. Staring at him some more with wide unblinking eyes as he rubs his face with his wet little paws.

He’s talking. He’s talking to him. Add just kindof lets it happen, too bewildered at first to react.]

…I’m dead, right? I died and I’m hallucinating. Or I’ve gone insane.

[eidxiety]

Oh, good, I can understand you too! Haha, wow, that was difficult before, wasn't it?

[He's going to start unwrapping the towel-burrito that is Add now, at least his upper body, so he can show him the, uh... repairs done on his arm.

Look man he doesn't understand how humans do this, he tried his best with that box of bandaids okay? Okay.]

You didn't die. I pulled you out of the water, see? And I tried my best to patch you up, but I know I didn't do a good job...

[dyn4m0]

[Logically, being bitten and nearly drowned by Ain should be higher on Add’s priority list. Even now, he’s staring at his arm and turning it this way and that like he can’t fully comprehend what he’s seeing, or maybe moreso that Ain was able to bandage him on his own.

But besides that…Add is currently freaking out because he can understand Ain. Though he’s definitely still speaking in Siren tongue, he’s able to understand it, like English subtitles have suddenly been slapped over Ain’s every word.]

H-hang on! You said you gave me a “blessing”?? What’s that!? You need to explain this to me right now, Bluhen-

[eidxiety]

My name is Ain.

[Just by the way! Satisfied that his horrendous, patchwork job of fixing Add up has remained in place, he sits back on his calves with his tail plap plapping the floor. He looks so proud of himself, even though he's waiting to be called a bad boy.]

The Siren's blessing is something we can give to humans with a kiss so they don't drown. It lets you breathe underwater, and lets you understand us too. We don't really use it much... at least, this was my first time ever using it, but I doubt any of the other Sirens in the pod have either.

[To give Add an example, Ain starts acting like he's going to cast it again, which causes that bright green-yellow glow over his throat to reappear. He points to it like this is super obvious that That's what that means.]

Lots of us like humans. [He comments as it fades.] And I didn't want you to die... you're my human.

[dyn4m0]

…Ain?

[He speaks his name- his real name-!for the first time. The whole “you’re my human” thing he’ll have to unpack later. For now, he traces his fingertips over his wounded arm, looking still as bewildered as before. Ain…kissed him? Now that he mentions it, he feels like he has a vague memory…and also the distant taste of copper on his tongue.

…oh god his first kiss was stolen by a FISH.]

I. I don’t understand. If you could have done this all along to understand us…why haven’t you?

[eidxiety]

Were you ever gonna let me close enough to try in the first place? Besides, when I was growing up, I was told by our pod's shaman that we had to keep stuff like that a secret. Some Sirens don't want our worlds to overlap, and there's this fear that if humans understand the ocean, they'll try to conquer it... I'm not dumb. I know what your race has put in our oceans.

[Traaaaaaaash.]

But I really like humans...! It was more fun to try to learn your language than immediately cheat. I can only talk to you like this. I can't talk to the other humans... and I don't really intend to go around kissing everyone here. Not until I know I can trust them, at least, like I can with you.

[dyn4m0]

[…okay yeah Ain makes a very good point. A few of them, actually. While Add abhors what people do to the environment and would dismantle the government if he was in charge, he gets it. That simply isn’t the reality they live in, and the Sirens probably struggle enough as it is without humans getting directly involved. But even so…]

Us not being able to understand you means people are under the assumption you understand less. That you’re less…

[Well. Human. This facility has an implicit understanding of a Siren’s sapience and intelligence, but he knows not all of them do. Some treat them like animals, and though they do their best to try to respect their wishes, it doesn’t always come through.

I mean, they have a facility full of captive Sirens literally taken from their natural habitat right now, even if it was because they were endangering a local human population. Just who exactly got there first?

Ugh. This raises far too many questions when Add just got bitten and nearly drowned, though as he looks at his arm he’s surprised to see the wound isn’t nearly as bad as he remembers it. It’s bandaged up too, which must have been Ain’s doing…]

…I. Guess I should thank you, anyway. For saving me. I got too carried away.

[eidxiety]

My hunting instincts are strong, and during mating season, I tend to black out and lose myself... It's just a bad season to trigger that reflex. I never wanted to hurt you.

[He has been a very bad Ain. He points to the bandaid mess.]

I couldn't find the white cloth you used on me before, so I used the sticky cloth. I also broke the thing keeping the tall rectangle shut to get the soft squares for you. And I shoved back the thingy over the top of the water tank so I could get you out, but I don't think it's broken. I don't know why it shut on you.

Oh, but you don't have to thank me, haha. You're my favourite, so of course I was going to keep you alive. I get so sad when you're not here.

[dyn4m0]

[Okay but how does he get you to do that again because he didn’t hate it?? Like yeah it was scary but not enough for him not to want to test his limits a second time. What Add doesn’t realize is this is not just a weird fascination but it is, in fact, a fetish-

Add heaves a sigh, looking up at the ceiling with his brows furrowed.]

Me falling in triggered a safety mechanism that locks automatically just in case of an emergency. I guess we didn’t think about the possibility someone could fall in.

[So you know maybe they need to work on that.]

We need to get you back in the tank before my coworkers come breaking the door in. They’ll think you attacked me, but I can make up something believable.

[He just. Says this, suddenly, as he works to detangle himself from the towels. Is he not going to call Ain a bad boy…?]

That explains why you get so depressed when I’m not here. Since you can understand me, I am going to always come back, you know. And you shouldn’t get attached to me anyway. My colleagues will do exactly the same things for you that I will…seems they taught you more anyway while I was on PTO.