16. The World is Your Otter

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE WORLD IS YOUR OTTER

The Present: Trick in the pack house contemplating katsu

Which is how Sato Daiki reappeared in Trick’s life and then took over Lovejoy’s kitchen and began to make what turned out to be some of the worst katsu Trick had ever eaten.

A merman, in an oversized yellow waffle robe, frying food for a bunch of werewolves was just surreal enough for those wolves to dutifully push aside Lovejoy’s absolutely delicious stew and choke down the overly dry, yet still raw in the middle, piece of fish.

How had he managed to make it both soggy and burned?

Trick did not help Sato in the kitchen. He wanted to be close to him, but also didn’t. He needed to keep his eyes on him but also couldn’t. So instead, he sat with the pack (the ones currently home) around the big dining table, casting furtive glances at the kitchen more often than he wished.

Thankfully, Lovejoy had already gone to work. They would have to fix the kitchen back to normal later. Tank was getting ready to do the same. Kevin was on patrol. Marvin was getting dressed. Max rarely joined them for meals. The others were all either staring at the merman destroying their small appliances in pursuit of terrible Japanese food, or staring at Trick to see how they were supposed to react to the aforementioned merman’s destructive tendencies.

Even Alec looked nonplussed.

Sato managed to dirty every gadget from food processor to air fryer, but in classic undersea fashion, didn’t actually know how to use any of them. He forgot lids and didn’t understand settings, merely punched at buttons aggressively. He didn’t defrost the fish, so when the knives failed to cut the frozen fillets, he deployed and used his spurs, which were effective but only in a stabby-slashy way. This resulted in uneven chunks of still-frozen catfish sliding all over the counter.

Bryan forayed in to make tea. “Did you go at it with a weed wacker?”

Sato glared at him.

Bryan retreated (without tea) and joined them at the table, looking unbowed and amused. “You know what they say about fish and bicycles. I guess it’s the same for mermen and kitchens.”

“Not a fish,” said Sato.

“We know,” chorused all the werewolves at once.

Eventually Sato left the kitchen, which had survived without burning down, barely. But it did look like militant chipmunks with a vendetta against breadcrumbs had waged a successful campaign in the Great Panko-Induction War of 1871.

During their school days Sato would never have done any of it. Never have cooked (well, tried to cook) and certainly never have sat down with Patrick and a pack of his friends to eat. Sato had never hung out in groups, rarely joined Patrick at parties, he’d just charged in and dragged him away, or waited outside for Patrick to be done. Sato regarded people en masse the way cats regarded water en masse, with deep suspicion and disdain.

For the first time, Trick realized Sato wasn’t like that because he was antisocial (although he was very antisocial) but because he simply didn’t care about anyone else but Patrick. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It was a little scary but also, oddly flattering.

Sato slapped his plate down across from Trick, since there were wolves flanking him, Colin one side and Judd the other, and stabbed at the inedible fish with his chopsticks in a way that would have had his sire rapping his knuckles.

He took a bite. Spat it out. “This is absolutely terrible.” He reached across and batted the dish away from Trick. “Don’t eat that, it might kill you. And I just got you back.”

Trick hid a smile. It was just like Sato to spend ages preparing something when he had no idea how to cook, and then acknowledge without embarrassment when it was an abject failure.

A collective sigh of relief came from the wolves around the table.

“Oh good, we don’t have to eat it, either,” said Alec.

A scraping noise emanated as they all pushed their plates away.

“It’s not crispy! What’s the point of katsu if it’s not crispy?” Judd wondered, not aggressively, just curious.

“I think we have some fish sticks. Do you want fish sticks, Mr Sato, sir? Closest we can get, I think.” That was Colin, who knew their stock relatively well, as he was one of the few Lovejoy allowed in his territory regularly.

Sato gave Colin’s offer the deadpan stare it deserved.

Trick felt his lips twitch.

Sato had always promised to cook his sire’s katsu, but he’d never actually learned how to do so. Sato probably thought that having watched Mr Sato was sufficient.

“Darling! I hate to break it to you, but something seems to have objected to the existence of our kitchen,” said Marvin, traipsing in and sitting down unceremoniously on Alec’s lap.

Judd pointed at Sato. “He cooked for us.”

Marvin glared at his fellow merman. “How dare you undermine my carefully cultivated reputation of mermen never cooking.”

“Don’t worry, that reputation remains intact,” said Colin.

“Unlike our kitchen,” added Alec, wrapping his arms around Marvin’s waist.

Marvin reached for the katsu plate in front of his Alpha.

“Don’t eat it!” said several voices at once.

Marvin ignored them all, picked up the whole piece with his little finger sticking out, and sniffed at it ostentatiously. He put it back down with a wrinkled nose, brushing the burnt panko off his fingers.

Marvin turned with purpose and evaluated Sato with narrowed turquoise eyes. “Why are you here, vangill? Trying to poison my pack with bad fish?”

Trick suspected Alec had told them all everything while he and Sato and Isaac were sorting out life history. Marvin was just being a punk-ass on Trick’s behalf.

It was sweet of him.

“He’s courting our dratsie,” said Judd. His voice a defensive rumble next to Trick. Trick realized, then, that Judd was close to him on purpose, to protect him.

From Sato.

“Apparently this is a kind of love offering,” added Isaac, clearly not impressed.

“Ooo, no. Not good.” Marvin’s blue-green eyes went huge with horror.

“Not good at all,” agreed Judd.

Marvin looked back at the kitchen. “Lovejoy is gonna have kittens.”

“Why would a werewolf—” started Sato.

“Human saying,” Trick felt compelled to explain, before Sato made a fool of himself. Well, more of a fool of himself.

Sato tilted his head, then asked Alec, seemingly out of the blue, “Do you have cats?”

Marvin perked up. “There’re some neighborhood ones who visit regularly. Why do you ask?”

“I like cats – only sensible things on four legs.” That was a new thing for Sato. There hadn’t been cats around their neighborhood as kids. Also, he rarely liked anything.

Marvin pursed his lips, pleased. “You’re not wrong.”

“Mermen like cats?” That was Colin, looking very confused.

“Apparently,” said Alec. “Would you like a cat, baby?” he asked his mate.

“The best cats happen, they aren’t sought out,” said Marvin, wisely.

Alec looked over at Trick.

Trick met the Alpha’s eyes, scared by the endless compassion he saw there.

Alec shifted his hazel gaze to Sato and finally Isaac. “Is someone going to explain why a strangely weaponized merman is trying to poison my pack with katsu?”

Colin stood. “I’ll heat up the stew, shall I?”

“Yes, please,” said Judd with feeling.

Colin petted the enforcer’s head affectionately and he went to the kitchen. Colin had to wipe down the stovetop before he could put the big pot back on.

Trick quickly glanced at Sato, still trying not to stare at him too much. Sato was trying to look nonchalant. At least his color was back and he was breathing normally. He seemed to be starting to heal at last.

Alec leaned his chin on Marvin’s shoulder and looked at Sato without malice.

Trick loved this about the Alpha. There was no anger in his gaze, only curiosity and a willingness to understand and help if he could. Despite the fact that Sato had invaded his territory and threatened his pack, Alec held few grudges and usually attributed hostility to mistakes in communication or fear. Oddly practical, actually, since that was usually true.

Isaac looked to Trick. “It’s your responsibility to explain to the Alpha, kiddo. It’s your business, of course, but this is his territory, and you brought your business into it. Or Mr Sato did.”

“Just Sato,” said Sato. “Mr Sato was my father.”

Isaac turned to him, fully focused and intent. “Would you like to explain then?”

Sato looked over at the Omega for a long moment. “I got lost to human business and human concerns and was too late to help Patrick when he needed me the most.” That was Sato in a nutshell, putting everything as succinctly as possible and in the context of his own worldview.

It was true, of course, but also Trick didn’t like Sato taking all of the blame. Not now. He didn’t like to see him humbling himself. Weirdly he felt compelled to mount a defense.

“He got caught up in disaster relief when that big tsunami hit Hawaii ten or so years ago. His vangill training pod stayed to help with search and rescue. Took so long I wasn’t able to wait for him to get back. I found out my family was into some epic-level bad shit and ended up running a kinda rescue mission myself. That pissed off everyone in town, humans and shifters and cops. So I had to disappear fast. I did that by going inland, changing my name, and crossing state lines.”

“A merman can’t find what the land hides,” explained Marvin. “Especially not a merman like Sato.”

“Why him specifically?” Alec asked his mate.

“He’s vangill. The vangill always get swallowed by the Deep. The rest of us mermen can escape, but the mermaids want the vangill, so they keep them close. And they keep them forever, or until they’re no longer strong and viable enough to be useful.”

Colin returned to the table with the pot of reheated stew and a trivet. Bryan got up, retrieved bowls for everyone, and began dishing it out. Colin sat back down next to Trick, green eyes sympathetic.

“Why? Because of those teeth on his arms?” wondered Judd, sounding rather impressed.

Marvin bit his lip. “Spurs. Yes, but that’s only a part of it. Vangill can produce viable offspring.”

“Stud services?” Judd’s forehead creased and his eyes narrowed.

Marvin nodded.

Trick was shocked. He hadn’t known that. He hadn’t realized Sato would be forced into that kind of thing. He hated that idea.

“Arranged marriages?” asked Isaac, who had grown up in a cult where such things were commonplace.

Marvin looked at Sato. “I don’t think so. Generally merfolk don’t practice any forms of restrictive monogamy. Anything that narrows the breeding pool is unacceptable.”

Sato said, looking bored but obviously trying for Trick’s sake, “No marriage, but yes, I’ve been pursued as a sire since I became a vangill.”

Trick felt himself go very hot and then very cold. “Have you sired children, Sato?”

Colin’s hand was suddenly in his, warm and dry. Trick’s own felt clammy. He worried it would feel like a dead fish to his friend. But Colin didn’t seem to mind, his grip supportive.

Sato looked at him, untroubled and not understanding why Trick would be upset by such an idea. “How would that even be possible?”

“Sato Daiki, answer the question!” yelled Trick. Colin squeezed his hand.

Sato rolled his eyes. “Of course not. I told you, there is only you. I refused.”

Judd and Isaac both looked relieved.

“You can refuse?”

Sato seemed confused that they should question his autonomy. “Not outright, but I pretended that I got tail elsewhere.” He tilted his head slightly, tucked a lock of stiff salt-crusted black hair behind one ear. “It has been increasingly difficult of late. They are remarkably persistent.” His dark gaze slid over to Trick. “I would, of course, refuse outright if necessary, especially now.”

“Why now?” wondered the Alpha.

“I have no reason to stay with the mermaids anymore. I was only there because the Paralia travels near the shores regularly. I could guard her and continue to look for Patrick at the same time.”

“Is she not your sister?” asked Colin.

“She is.”

“Don’t you want to stay with her because she’s family?” asked Bryan, who had stayed with his brother when they moved to the Bay Area.

“I want to stay with Patrick. Nothing else matters.”

“Not even your sister?” that was the Alpha.

“Not even her.”

Alec nudged Marvin with his cheek. “This lack of familial loyalty is concerning.”

Marvin patted the Alpha’s head condescendingly. “Don’t worry your pretty noggin about it. Remember, I left my sister without a qualm for you, babes. Merfolk aren’t like wolves. We aren’t naturally loyal to blood or family group. Merfolk are loyal for reasons of politics and survival. The mermaids stay in pods to raise the children and stay safe during migrations. There’s no real affection to it. And mermen aren’t part of even that much. Remember, they abandon us to shore the moment we sprout legs. It is the natural way of things. We are not wolves or humans. We are a different species. We do not act as you might expect.”

The Alpha still seemed concerned. His eyes were steady on Sato’s face.

Sato met those eyes directly. “So can I stay with you instead of them? Or at least near you? For Patrick.”

Alec shook his head. “That isn’t up to me. That is up to Trick.”

Trick felt all eyes on him then. Five werewolves, two mermen, all staring at him expectantly.

He stayed silent. Normally he enjoyed being the center of attention, but this time the hairs on his arms prickled. If he were an otter, he’d be all fluffed up. He wanted to escape again. Run away from having to decide.

Isaac came to his defense. “It’s a lot, all at once. He thought he’d been abandoned. He was running a long time before he found us.” Isaac understood. Isaac had been running and hiding a long time too, when Tank found him and they fell in love. Isaac had been the opposite of Trick – overly wanted. But they had both been chased, and hounded, and scared. Isaac had hidden for different reasons, but probably understood Trick best.

So Trick looked to him. “What should I do, Omega?”

Isaac sighed. “I hate giving advice. I’m best at listening. But I guess, reconnect? Take your time. Talk as much as you can. Rebuild trust if you think he’s worth it.”

Alec said, maybe seeing something in Trick’s sudden frozen stillness. “You don’t have to run again.”

Colin added, “We want you to stay.”

Trick swallowed against believing that. But some part of him must have – he felt less prickly and unsettled.

He looked over at Sato. Forced himself to focus on that familiar face. The new lines tension had made at the sides of his mouth.

“You’re here.”

“Finally accepting it, are you?” Sato pushed back his chair and stood, came around the table. Carefully, as if he didn’t want to startle Trick. He ended up standing next to his chair. He still smelled like sea salt. That smell had been on Sato’s futon the first day they met.

Trick twisted and tilted back, looking up at him. He still looked like Sato, too. Harder, meaner, but Sato. “You’re really actually here.”

“Yes, in this pack house. I made katsu. It sucked.” Sato crouched down, lowering himself below Trick’s eye level. Those kelp dark eyes of his were intent on Trick’s face. That too was familiar. Sato watching him like he was something amazing. Sato had done that from the very beginning. When Trick was a tiny wild chattering creature in Sato’s room. Sato had been hypnotized by him. Stayed hypnotized.

“I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“To make katsu?”

“This hardly counts as katsu. Please forget I ever tried. No, to find you. You have no idea how sorry I am.”

Trick thought to ask, then, a thing he hadn’t contemplated until that moment. “Was it bad, all those years, without me?”

Sato hung his head. “Worse for you, I think.”

“This isn’t a competition over which of us had a shittier time, Sato.”

Sato glanced back up at him, then down, then closed his eyes. Like he was having to think too hard. He brought his hands up, fluttered them slightly, the language of the sea. An ineffectual gesture on land.

For some strange reason, Trick remembered the first time he’d hugged Sato. Sato’s webbed hands had clenched at his sides, tight and unsure – gripping hard onto emptiness. The last time they had hugged, those hands had clenched in Patrick’s shirt, scrunching the material taut across his lower back – gripping hard onto Patrick.

“I don’t know,” Sato said finally. “There was just looking for you and surviving long enough to find you. There was holding myself together so hard, afraid the currents could break me open or wash right through me. I swam around with an open wound for a decade.”

“I’m surprised the sharks didn’t get you.”

“Me too.”

Trick caught his breath. “You fought them.” No doubt, Sato had sought them out.

“I did.”

“A lot of them?”

“Enough.”

Trick sighed. His eyes burned. Why did Sato have to be so very much Sato , even now?

While Trick had been running and hiding and scared and longing for Sato. While he had found his cafe and his friends there and this pack, and grieved that they were not Sato. While he had been building a life and nursing resentment. Sato had searched and spiraled. Sato had gripped onto emptiness.

Trick really thought about it then. Their shared past. He had grown into adulthood the sole focus of all Sato’s attention. But while the void Sato left when they parted had been vast and cold, it hadn’t been empty. For ten years Trick had been unmoored and lonely for one man and trying to fill that void up with other people, but it was Sato who had drifted alone.

Sato spoke then, ignoring the avid ears of the pack around him. He never cared how he sounded. “I didn’t know what to do, without you. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t care about anything. There’s only you, Patrick. It was always only you.”

Trick understood then. He’d been an enthusiastic eight-year-old, excited to have a kid his own age, another shifter, move in next door. But Sato had been abandoned and alone in an entirely alien world. Trick had always seen their past as something where Sato was the strong one. This solitary rock in the middle of the ocean that Trick clung onto for dear life. His best friend. His great love. His childhood sweetheart. An uneven distribution of affection – Patrick giving unfettered adoration while Sato gave dutiful care.

Perhaps it had not been so one-sided.

Or perhaps it had been one-sided, but in the opposite direction.

Perhaps for Sato it had not been so much duty as necessity. That he had needed Patrick not just for friendship and eventually sex, but for survival. Perhaps Sato, all along, had been the one clinging to Patrick. He’d thought Sato was naturally solitary; maybe it wasn’t natural, maybe it was just cultural conditioning.

Patrick had seen Sato as his port in a storm. His lifeboat. His safety net. All those euphemisms that human sailors had invented to compensate for their discomfort in an environment not made for them. Because Patrick’s life was chaotic and full of drama and situations and other people. It always would be. He was a trickster born of a trickster species. A social animal who loved others easily. Sato was none of those things.

Trick was naturally dramatic. He surrounded himself with gossip and amusement in his work and now in his home life. In the end, he had friends and resources because of who he was, what he was. Sato had none of those things.

Where had Trick gone when he felt under threat? Not to the water, in the end. Not to the wilderness. No, Trick had gone first to the cafe and then here, to the pack house. To the pack. To a new family that was not even his own species. But were his friends. Where had Sato gone?

Where could Sato go to feel safe? To feel welcomed? To feel loved? People, groups, friends, humans, other shifters were not safe to Sato.

To the ocean? The sea and its people had rejected him. Cast him out at age ten. As an adult they demanded him back, wanting things from him he could not and would not give.

To the land? Certainly not. Sato had never felt secure on land, he always said it was too heavy there. Too loud. Too fast. It was a dry, confusing place, inhospitable.

Perhaps Sato had searched for Patrick his whole adult life because he truly had no other option.

When he had said, It was always Patrick . For him there really was only Patrick. Sato had meant that precisely . Sato always meant what he said.

But perhaps it was also, actually, true.

“I missed you,” Trick said to the merman, looking him full in the face, meaning it. And then he worried that now he had spoken those words out loud, the consequence was eternal. They had been dropped like pebbles into still waters. And all water-folk know that ripples had consequences.

So Trick added, “I’m sorry I couldn’t stay waiting.”

Sato’s hand carefully, cautiously, gently, curved over the side of his face. “I’m sorry I was late.”

The Present: Sato in the pack house contemplating Trick (and more)

Sato was many things, but he wasn’t stupid, certainly not where Trick was concerned. He stood up and held out a hand, impossibly grateful when Patrick placed his smaller one into it. Skin as soft as sea lettuce, and fortunately a lot less slimy.

He hoisted Patrick up all the way out of the chair and into his arms. Patrick melted into the hug, clung onto him with both hands, pushed his face into Sato’s shoulder. Sato tangled his own webbed fingers in the soft fabric of Patrick’s shirt, breathing him in. Grateful for lungs instead of gills.

Patrick drew back, not letting go, just so he could look up at him. Something in Sato’s face reassured him, sure Patrick was the only one in the world to find solace there.

He let go, but when Sato would have stepped away, Patrick tugged him toward the stairs. Sato followed him obediently, not taking his eyes off him. Nevertheless he was aware that the werewolves had been staring at them with interest the entire time.

As soon as they were on the second floor, Sato heard the Pack start talking behind them. Sato did not care, he paid attention only to Patrick.

Patrick dragged him into the small room that was right near the top of the stairs. “This one is mine. And werewolves have supernatural hearing, remember?”

Sato tilted his chin slightly. “Will we be making lots of noise, Patrick?”

“You learned how to tease while we were apart?”

“I don’t want to presume” – although he did want to do all the kinds of things to cause Patrick to make noise. He wanted to know what made him squeal with delight. He wanted to rediscover all the planes and angles of Patrick. He wanted him whimpering and under him.

Patrick pushed him gently onto the small bed. Stared down at him for a long moment. Then closed his eyes, small face resolute.

Opening them he looked, determined. He climbed into Sato’s lap, straddling him, wrists resting on Sato’s shoulders.

Sato felt like he was holding his breath. But also, his hands had a will of their own, smoothing and curving around to grab Patrick’s ass, grip tight, pulling him closer.

Patrick moaned.

It was such a dear, familiar noise it made Sato’s eyes burn with missing it. Not having had that for so long. It made him ache both in his heart and his cock. It made him want to be fierce and demanding, and also slow and careful and lingering. It made his hands clench reflexively.

Which made Patrick moan again and wriggle against him.

Sato couldn’t help it. He flipped him over and flat onto his back on the bed. Patrick bounced and squeaked adorably. But did not let go of his neck. Even dared to dart forward and nibble at his ear.

Sato nearly lost reason, but then remembered his chatty Patrick should be chattering, not moaning. “Isaac said we should stay talking. And I know you like to talk. So talk,” he tried to glare at him. “I’ll occupy my mouth with other things.”

Patrick actually giggled. “If memory serves, you are one of the few who can make me lose my voice.”

Sato didn’t like the implication that there had been others, but also, he took that as a challenge. Fortunately, and by design, the yellow robe was as easy to get out of as it had been to get into. He was still bloodied and bruised but he was healing. Any lingering pain was being swamped by his need for Patrick. His Patrick, right there under him. Squirming just like he used to.

Patrick’s eyes were dark and bright, shining and focused on Sato’s body. He liked that. Preened under the attention. Tried not to drown in them. The only place he could drown.

One small hand touched his ribs tentatively. “Do your ribs still hurt?”

Patrick was touching him again. Patrick . Sato swallowed a groan. Took a deep breath to slow himself down.

“Why are you still dressed?”

Patrick’s hand trailed down his stomach over to his hip and down his leg. “It’s already scabbed over. I forgot how fast you heal in this form.”

“It’s my shifted state, made to be under threat and heal faster, since it’s not safe. Your hand should be further up.” His cock hurt, he was so hard. Patrick’s hands were on him, yes, but still so cautious.

Patrick’s gaze drifted and he licked his lips. But Sato wanted to taste Patrick right now. Not the other way around. Yet Patrick was still fully dressed.

So that meant kissing.

He bent, pressed his lips to Patrick’s, who turned his head into the kiss, arched upwards a little. Not sloppy and eager as he had been in their youth, but welcoming and practiced.

Sato coaxed with little kisses and nibbles, used his tongue to lick a the seam of Patrick’s mouth. Questioning, not insistent. Patrick’s chin tilted and he opened to him. Yielding.

Eventually Patrick was inciting kisses. Patrick was making little whimper noises deep in his throat.

Patrick’s words between kisses (yes, he was still speaking) were nonsense now. Words like Sato’s own thoughts always were, jumbled by lust.

“It’s annoying how good you are at kissing. Did I never tell you that? Merfolk don’t kiss. Why should you be good at this?”

Sato just kept slanting over his mouth, tongue delving deeper. Consuming him like he was fresh meat, tender and salt bright, sweet and savory.

“I hate that you’re still good at this.” Patrick spoke between moans and kisses. “Oh, do I think that because we learned together? So this way seems like the best way?”

Sato moved to his neck. Bit against it, not hard, just soft little nibbles trailing downwards until he was thwarted by Patrick’s shirt.

“I missed this,” said Patrick. About the bites or the kissing or the making out Sato wasn’t sure. But it made him so happy.

Patrick’s clothes were different now. More complicated and elaborate, floaty layers of fabric like kelp forests. Sato wasn’t sure how to get Patrick out of this style of attire without ripping it. He wanted to tear them away, but Patrick was fond of clothing – that would upset him. But he needed to go slow. Not chase. Be careful. Not scare Patrick into running again. Never that. Sato wanted to destroy and claim, but that need only drove him to move slower.

He plucked ineffectually at the layers of material, trying to worm his hands under and touch skin, but there didn’t seem to be any gaps. It was very frustrating.

Patrick laughed at him. “Lemme up.”

Sato rolled to one side, reluctant to stop touching, but willing to do anything Patrick wanted that kept them together.

“I really did miss this, but I’m scared.

Patrick stood and began to strip out of the layers one at a time.

“What exactly are you scared of?” Sato asked, hoping he could correct for whatever it was.

Each time Patrick pulled off a garment, he said one thing to go with it. As if he were doling out truth into a growing pile of discarded cloth.

“I’m scared I’ll fall for you again, too much, and exactly like before.” A feather-light scarf fluttered to the floor.

Sato did not answer because that was what he wanted.

“What happens if you leave me now?” Off came one shirt.

“That will never happen,” vowed Sato.

“That’s a childish thing to say. We’re all grown up now. We know more than anything that we don’t control our own fates or futures.” Patrick’s other shirt came off then. His chest was still slender but less boyish, his skin was lighter toned with a few freckles, and he had more chest hair than he’d had before. Sato’s fingers itched to touch. Was it soft?

“I will not leave if I can possibly help it, and I will cut ties so no one else has any sway over me.”

“That’s such a Sato thing to say. That the solution is further isolation.”

Sato wondered what Patrick wanted from him.

“No matter how hard both of us try, it could happen and I can’t do it again.” Off came Patrick’s necklaces and other jewelry from wrists and hands. Patrick could wear rings. Sato could not. They looked pretty on his small hands. “I don’t want to run anymore. I want to stay here. I like it here.” Off came his shoes and socks.

“I won’t do anything to drive you away,” Sato vowed.

Patrick stopped, half naked, and glared at him. Sato added, “Fine, I will try hard not to. I will do my very best.”

That earned him Patrick’s belts and the top layer of whatever was wrapped around his waist.

He was so beautiful. Sato was in agony.

“And if for any reason at all I have to leave here for any length of time, I’ll make sure you are safely here, in this box, surrounded by pack. And I will come back to you.”

Patrick took off another layer. He was going so slowly.

This was the worst.

And the best.

“I won’t make promises back, Sato. I’ll need to trust you again. That’ll take time.”

“I understand.” Although he didn’t, not really. But at least Patrick was speaking to him. Telling him things. Taking off his clothing right there in front of him.

Sato tried to sit back and enjoy it. He also tried begging. “Just please don’t run away from me. Please try talking first. That should help, right? You’re good at talking.”

“I thought you had too much pride to beg.”

Sato wondered why. What pride? “I will do anything to stay with you,” he said. Because it was the truth. Begging was just words. Words may not come easy to Sato, but they cost nothing.

It had been ten years. Sato wanted to touch and taste, not watch and beg. He wasn’t a patient person. Despite his best efforts, Sato found himself whining. “Please, just take the rest off and come here.”

Patrick’s grin was evil. “You can wait a bit longer.”

“I waited ten years.” He raised himself up on his elbows and watched. Carefully not touching himself – he was too close and it had been too long.

Patrick looked comically disbelieving. Arched eyebrows, big forehead, big eyes. “Did you really?”

What an odd thing for him to disbelieve. What possible incentive had Sato to lie about such a thing?

“There was only ever you for me, Patrick. I told you.”

Patrick paused and cocked his head. Squinted down at Sato. Nodded once and then continued slowly stripping. Unlike Sato, Patrick had always been a bit of a tease. He was busy activating his power, testing Sato’s control.

Sato let him. Held himself back. Whatever Patrick needed to feel secure about him again.

“What if you never found me?” asked Patrick.

“Not an option.”

“What if I had died.”

“ Definitely not an option.”

“I don’t think even your stubbornness can keep someone from death.”

“Did you miss the part where I spent years training to be a vangill? It’s what I’m supposed to do.”

Finally Patrick shucked the last of his clothes. Stood naked before him. Unashamed by his own nudity.

Sato scooted himself to the edge of the bed, reached out and dragged Patrick to him by the hips. Swallowed him down. Using his mouth to rediscover everything about Patrick. The way he tasted. Smelled. The texture of him.

“I forgot how good you were at this.” Patrick gasped it out, breathing uneven.

The best kind of compliment, to be praised for something he enjoyed, rather than something he was just good at, like fighting. Still, Patrick was managing to voice coherent sentences. Sato needed to try harder. Be better.

“You know I always kinda of hated that about you. I mean, whose first lover is actually good? Whose first time is glorious? How dare you ruin me for others like that?”

More praise. Sato smiled around Patrick’s cock. Occupied his hands rediscovering the rest of Patrick’s body, how much it had changed and how much it had not. Where his new erogenous zones were, and if they were the same as the old ones.

Patrick hit him with one tiny fist, ineffectually and with no real intent. “It’s so annoying, you know?”

Sato licked all along the shaft, replaced his mouth with one hand. Looked up, confused. Had he missed something? Patrick reached down with one small, soft hand, curled it around the side of Sato’s face tenderly.

Sato lost himself in those fathomless eyes.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Why are you so good at sex when you’ve barely ever done it? Upsetting, actually.”

Sato sighed. “You trained me. Stop chattering, Patrick. I know Isaac said to talk but now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“Then shut me up,” suggested Patrick, leaning forward for another long kiss.

Sato gave him that and more. He let his own need take over. He let bits of his own wanting trickle into his actions now. Biting down harder. Digging his nails into Patrick’s ass. Muscling Patrick around just because he could and he wanted to.

It was a mixed-up jumble of all the things he had longed for. Plus all the things he had forgotten he longed for. Things he had loved and missed. Patrick’s silken movements. The salt-sweet taste of his flesh and his need and his tears overwhelmed Sato. Three different flavors, complementing each other. He tasted like the ocean after a rainstorm.

The little whining eager noises Patrick made overwhelmed Sato’s ears. How he talked and talked and then suddenly stopped and inhaled sharply. The way it became Sato’s challenge to make him do that.

Sato was driven to take Patrick, the ultimate chatterbox, to places where he had no words and he barely had any breath.

Sato remembered how pleasing it was when Patrick bucked up against him. He was reminded that Patrick liked to lick the webbing between his fingers, that this caused tingles through his body that went straight to his cock. The membrane there was soft and delicate, a memory of the fins in his true form.

He wanted Patrick to ride him. So he could see everything. The slight wince of pain mixed with pleasure as he slid inside. And he also wanted Patrick face down and entirely vulnerable, so Patrick could not see anything, so Sato did not have to look into those fathomless eyes full of regret. He wanted the eternal boy-Patrick of his memories, all angles and hollows, all fine bones and fragility. And he wanted this new Patrick, all lean and sinewy, angles tempered by age, sharpness dulled by life, fragility hardened by dry land, tough but still bendy.

He wanted the long arch of Patrick’s back, and the flex of his hips under the webs of Sato’s fingers. He wanted the ache of him, the need. He wanted him so close it was like they were trying to crawl inside each other’s skin. Patrick would have his tail, and he would have Patrick’s fur.

He wanted them coiled and connected at all possible points. Which meant, in the end he had Patrick sitting in his lap, like they had started out. All four of Patrick’s limbs wrapped around him. Sato driving up into him from below, using the pure strength of his muscles and bigger body to get any kind of leverage. His hands on Patrick’s hips and ass and lower back, encouraging him to move. His lips pressed against Patrick’s until there was no kissing possible, only gasping for air.

Patrick undulated like the open ocean. Cresting and falling over Sato, waves breaking on the shore. Patrick beached himself upon him, landed on Sato like something the sea was rejecting. Turning Sato, creature of the salty deep, into the warm soft sand of an otter’s resting place.

If Patrick was Sato’s salt water home, his sustenance and reason for existence…

If Patrick could be Sato’s whole ocean, if he could dwell in those fathomless eyes…

Then Sato would try to be Patrick’s shore. He would be the land for him. He would be the place where Patrick stayed and rested. He would be dry and sun-baked, heavy with too much gravity, if that was what it took to keep an otter.

By the end, Sato lay flat on his back with Patrick plastered against him. As much of them was touching as could possibly touch. Both of them were covered in sweat and Patrick’s cum and Sato’s. Even spent, neither of them relaxed. Sato found his arms wrapped around Patrick’s back, still, his hands gripping Patrick’s sides, unable to let go.

But Patrick seemed to be the same. His legs wrapped and locked around Sato’s, his arms coiled about Sato’s neck.

It was as if their muscles were locked together like that. Knotted and tied, bound by memories and time, resentment and hope, pain and love. The measured balance of it all, the returning rising tides.

Sato was exhausted, every part of him, but still he had this lingering strength in his shifted bones. This need to keep clinging, out of fear and hope. Out of a memory of absence. Out of practice.

Neither of them wanted, ever again, to be the first to let go.