Diedrich is forced to confront the past, and must choose between his heart or horror.
...xXx...
A large tail waved in the sunlight, silver and sky blue scales dappling their reflection against the sand. The brightly golden tail beside it nearly eclipsed the other's shine with its own, though it was hardly as long and powerful. A plethora of rounded fins adorned the gilded tail, with barely any spines to accompany them, and the soft shapes happily brushed against their close companion. Several clumps of kelp swayed and swooned as the two tails settled together on a sunlit patch of grass on a small hill.
The pair thought they were alone. Two sets of eyes watched them from afar with fond amusement.
I think he's teaching Feli how to eat an urchin.
Diedrich chuckled softly at the outside thought threading in with his own. The ebony-tailed merman settled further against the warm body stretched along his left side, resting his cheek against a gold speckled shoulder for closeness. Aquamarine eyes stared calmly out over the coral and seagrass landscape towards his son.
Of course, he thought with swell of endearment. That's how Ludwig is.
The younger merman was carefully carving an opening into the small prickly creature with a blade, instructing the splitting image of a much younger and more delicate version of Alexius laying beside him to do the same with his own meal. The other seemed more interested in laying as many yellow fins against the silver male as possible before he noticed.
It was both a joy and a wonder to watch their children together, like this. The pod alphas rested on moss closely to one another atop one of the many coral and granite carved columns, soaking up the beams of sunlight trickling down from the distant surface above. From their vantage point they could spy the many clusters of their families swimming around the Alcazar, hunting and playing and napping about.
Diedrich laced his blackened fingers together with golden ones, lazily letting the moment be.
Smooth fins tickled his scales as Alexius hummed, the throaty rumble sending a spark up his spine.
"He's playing right into his hands," the merman said aloud.
"Hmm? Which one?"
"Your boy."
"Oh?" Diedrich lifted his head and caught the tenderness in his companion's auburn eyes as the other's gaze stayed fixated on the younger pair.
"Feliciano knows how to eat an urchin. The one thing he definitely knows how to do is eat," Alexius explained, flashing him a grin. "He just wants your boy to pay attention to him. Feel like he's taking care of him, you know." The brunet turned his attention back to the juveniles, still smiling. "Oldest trick in the book."
Your boy.
Diedrich watched as Ludwig reached out to adjust the knife in Feliciano's hand, carefully, so he didn't spear his fingers against the sharp spines of the urchin. He felt a pulse of pride and exhaled. "Ludwig's too kind hearted to refuse, anyway. He'd spend his whole life trying to teach slugs to speak if he thought they had a chance."
The shining male's laughter shook him, rocking the waters around them. "He's so like you," Alexius chuckled, his voice a pleasant rumble. "I wish I could have seen him grow."
The obsidian-sleek merman turned his cheek and pressed a kiss to the arm there. Diedrich felt a squeeze in his chest at the way the other went still from the act, and he murmured, "They're ours. Our boys."
The waves of the delight that seeped through the waters around them was palpable, and he could swear he saw Alexius visibly brighten. A sun-dipped finger lifted his chin and Diedrich was made to look up into those luminous amber eyes, seeing the joy there for himself. His heart quickened as the male bent down and kissed him, lightly, sweetly, for several long moments. Diedrich closed his eyes and tilted his head into the contact, feeling webbed fingers threading through his hair.
Pleasure and warmth filled them like a steady tap, pouring into them both, through their scales and skin. Their blood and bones sang an anthem only they could hear.
The turn and press of their stomachs was gradual, unrushed. The twining of their tails even slower.
Alexius brushed his tongue along pale lips once before pulling away. The blond blinked his heavy gaze open and leaned forward, stealing a few more kisses before leaning back, as well. They stayed in each others' arms, close enough for Diedrich to breathe in the spice on his mate's skin, and for Alexius to smell the mossy stone scent from his.
The black-tailed male brushed his nose against the other's, coaxing another small kiss as he murmured, "I meant it." Alexius hummed again, nuzzling his cheek with his stubble covered one. Diedrich nuzzled back.
After a moment he felt content enough to lean back, cupping the merman's chin in his dark palm. His blue-green eyes were serious, yet gentle. "I mean it. They're ours, Alex. Not just mine, or yours."
Streams of sunlight caught across the flecks of gold in half-lidded autumn eyes, rippling with vivid emotion.
Alexius' voice was quiet as he said, "I'm so glad you're staying."
A bolt of ice shot through his chest.
Diedrich's heart nearly stopped.
The golden male stiffened not long after, face darkening at the sudden change in the obsidian merman. The water around them stilled and went cold. Those amber eyes, shining before, narrowed in on him now and a flame of recognition sparked up.
"You cannot go back," Alexius hissed, voice clawing out from the thicket in his throat.
Diedrich looked away, curling in on himself as he tried to lean out of their embrace. The male wouldn't let him, and just continued to hold him tight. His chest felt like it had a spear through it, serrated edges caught on his ribs.
He thought of the glowing Sapphire Caverns. Their crystals and rock formations catching even the smallest glimpses of the surface sun, alighting in a beautiful array of blues and violets. A certain crystal formed in his mind. One that had grown far into the depths of the darkness and was surrounded by pockets upon pockets of smaller, inferior crystals. It stood out in the center and shone faintly without the aid of the sun.
His throat constricted. It was his home, his—
"You know that I have to," Diedrich managed to say, purposefully looking at the sand and not at the other alpha. "Everyone will be safe here now, and I've already been away too long."
Strong arms tightened around him, golden tail curling around his even more. The heat from the other's skin set an ache in his heart. A beat of silence went by. Diedrich strengthened his nerve and glanced upward to see that Alexius wasn't even looking at him. The male stared over his shoulder, brows furrowed and lips in a thin line.
When Alexius finally met his gaze, his voice rang with inquiry. "We could move it here."
Diedrich tsked, eyes narrowing. "Impossible."
"I knew we should have built the sanctuary there," Alexius groaned as he tilted his head back to glare out across the water instead of at the other alpha. "I told you."
"So close to the surface?" Diedrich balked. "No. Humans would have been crawling all over it by now."
The usually bright merman snarled with barely held back frustration, amber eyes piercing into aquamarine with a harsher heat than before. The blond held in his gasp at the desperation he saw in his mate's eyes, his hands instinctively gripping tanned broad shoulders.
"Well, what do you expect me to do?" Alexius snapped, leaning into his anger. "Just let you leave me again?"
"Alex—" Diedrich tried.
"I'm not letting you out of my reach, asha. Never again." Golden brown eyes squeezed shut. His growl had a note of finality with it as he ducked his head to press their cheeks together. The black-tailed male could feel him trembling.
"Alex, I . . ."
"Please." Alexius whispered. His body sagged against him as the fight left him just as quickly as it came. Those firm arms enveloped Diedrich completely as his heart pleaded with him. Please, asha. Say you won't go.
The obsidian male felt a surge of regret for the past. A lament that lit his heart alight with a heavy mixture of wistful remorse. A grief that he had been storing away for years in some darkened vault built behind his heart.
"Don't cry villain here," Diedrich bit out, holding the other just as close. "I already know it's my fault." Everything is my fault.
The cool water chilled the black and golden scales left uncovered by arms and fins.
"It hurts," Alexius whimpered into his shoulder, "so much to be without you, love."
"You act like you're the only one!"
Diedrich at last felt his voice rising, and he gathered the courage to yank himself out of their embrace. His blood pulsed with heat as his temper finally pierced through his warring mind, trying to cover up the pain that needled into every inch of him.
He'd only heard Alexius ever beg once. He never wanted to hear it again.
"I also ache at night, Alex," he said. "But what do you want me to do? I can't just leave—"
"She's dead, Diedrich."
The words echoed through the water, landing heavily amongst the sand.
Diedrich bit down on his tongue, hard enough to draw blood. Hot iron filled his mouth.
"She has been, for years," Alexius continued. His voice was too soft, his eyes too red. "There's no coming back. The rift is closed; she made sure of that. You've known this, Die, for a long time. So please."
The obsidian male could feel the merman's appearance crack with every word, his grand façade falling apart. The slip caught Diedrich off guard, stunning any sort of retort he could have made into silence. Alexius ducked his head, appearing like a scorned child. The sight allowed him to glimpse the hurt bleeding through his clenched jaw.
A look that he recognized from the first time he left. And the second time.
Especially the second time.
Alexius forced his gaze up. He whispered and spoke with a struggle, "I don't think I could take another year without you. Damn you, I'm almost grateful to that beast for sending you back to me!"
Diedrich grasped at the chains weighing down his heart, and he swallowed the taste of blood.
"I was never far," he managed to say.
"You were, though." Alexius motioned to reach a hand out towards him, but stopped short. He shut his eyes with a huff and pushed upwards from the moss, treading upright as he looked towards the distant surface. "You are far from me. Have been for a long time."
"Alex." Diedrich pushed up, his eyes widening.
"Do you even love me?"
The black-tailed male's insides turned over themselves and he choked. "What?"
"Do you?" Alexius asked quietly. "Sometimes . . . sometimes I can't feel it."
"How dare you." Diedrich grabbed his arm tight, claws slightly drawing blood as he fought for every word. "That's not fair, and you know it."
"Then say it, Diedrich. Go on." Alexius met his gaze, amber eyes dulled nearly to grey. The golden merman swallowed. "Lie to me." The blond was speechless as his mate's voice cracked on a whisper. "One last time."
Diedrich couldn't breathe. All at once the ocean was too big, too dark, too crushing. He didn't resist as Alexius slowly pulled his arm out of his grasp.
"What more can I say to convince you?" the brunet murmured. His voice rang calm, as if they were discussing a passing school of fish. He lifted a hand to wipe at his eye, brushing away a few fallen, gilded pearls. A mirthless laugh left him. "It's fitting, really, that our tears are considered treasures."
Alexius didn't look to him as he twirled his fins around and swam in the opposite direction. His tail hardly made a glint.
Diedrich hung back as if he'd been struck. Mouth agape. Heart torn open. Gutted like a catch. He was surprised that the folly organ was beating at all after his mate had just ripped it out from its cage. Left to rot on the ocean floor.
The sight of the merman swimming away from him as fast as he could was . . . horrifying.
It was the one visage he'd never thought he'd have to suffer. Always the fish, never the fisherman. He couldn't let him leave.
Tail moving, fins splaying, Diedrich picked up his heart and bolted after Alexius.
"Wait!" he called after the male. The other merman didn't even flinch, already dozens of tail lengths ahead of him. The blond was so sure that the wreckage in his chest was going to fall out and crash to the seafloor. "Wait, don't—Alex! Stop! I asked you to stop!"
That head of auburn hair turned, and he felt every fiber within him scream.
"Please!" Diedrich cried out. His voice rang through the waters above the Alcazar like a siren's call. Loud. Haunting. Desperate. "You know I can't catch you! Alexius!"
The distant merman stopped. Diedrich didn't.
He immediately grasped onto the golden male as soon as he was within reach, rushing into him so violently that the two mermen spiraled through the water for several meters. By the time they stopped spinning, the obsidian-male had entangled himself around the other just as they'd been before. Clutching around his mate's neck, tails tied. He pressed his chest as close to the other's as possible, hoping the pressure would hold in the breaking pieces of his heart.
It was a long, too long, moment before he felt arms holding him back.
I'll stay.
His heart spoke before his mind could, and Diedrich couldn't hold back the shaking. His own pearls chased after his beloved's. He would have to stay now, if only to keep himself from ever having to see Alexius leaving him behind again.
The fear, the regret, the grief—a sacrifice worth the warm, strong arms around him.
...xXx...
Their mysterious past continues to plague them, but did anyone doubt that these fools were madly in love? No? Good.
This will be the last chapter featuring Diedrich as the POV! The rest of the story will consist of merely our main duo.