Chapter 4 -

Though still tired and a little dizzy from having been suffocated on dry land for nearly twenty minutes, Deidara still found the energy to power back to the alcove in the bluffs where the Akatsuki made their home. All the while he licked his chops, running his tongue over the rough ridges on the inside of his lips to refresh the taste of the other man in his sensory organs. Similar to the Jacobson's organ in cats, the ningyo had a similar trait that allowed them to detect the general health, hormone levels and even powerful emotions from other creatures based on their taste.

With all merfolk having this quality it was natural to connect lips as a way to rapidly exchange information, and from the simple contact one could tell the other's needs and strong desires. Of course this was also a way for a mating pair to express a desire for intimacy as the strength of a sexual desire is amongst the most easily transmitted alongside fear, anger and sadness. As it was established earlier, however, the merfolk do not have external sex organs and do not reproduce sexually. Being oviparous, the ningyo rely on the season of must for egg laying and fertilization. However, it is not to say that they have not evolved a need for pleasurable, intimate contact. Like purposes and humans, the merfolk also engaged in recreational sex, the only difference being that sex for these creatures was purely for enjoyment and held no sway on procreation.

As such, though a kiss, even a deep one with exploring tongue, did not necessarily signify a lustful desire. Instead the action was merely probing, and Deidara had probed just enough. Never before had he tasted the chemicals of the human body, they were strong, pungent and even bitter. Of course the most overpowering flavor was the hormone testosterone, an astringent flavor that was far more powerful in the hanyou than in any merman Deidara had ever encountered; of course in ningyo, being sexually male held much less baring than in land-dwelling societies. Still the blonde ran his tongue over the rough patch of taste buds behind his upper lip, again filling his senses with the taste of his rescuer. He was strong, physically fit and nutritionally well, in the range of 80 to 100 years of age, blaringly male, and surprised to have the lips of a merman against his own.

Deidara couldn't help but chuckle, enjoying the sour taste of the rare emotion of astonishment the kiss had invoked. Of course he had observed human behavior before, and on the very rarest of occasions he would see a kiss pass from husband to wife before a particularly long overseas voyage. He couldn't even begin to understand why then the kiss had been so startling to the man who had saved his life; surely it was a standard human practice.

Either way, the blonde was fast approaching the Akatsuki camp and decided to quickly rid his mouth of the so pungent flavor. Along the way he filled his mouth with bitter sea grass and scraped his rough tongue over algae covered boulders and eve rinsed his maw with sand. Still he was dissatisfied with the result and took a detour away from the nesting grounds of his pod. To be sure that the scent and taste was completely removed from his body, Deidara rolled himself in kelp and sand and mud, a way of washing away the human odor by fading it away and downing it out with other smells. No matter what happened, he didn't want his pod knowing that he'd been in human contact; they thought him treacherous enough fraternizing with fishermen. If word had gotten around that he'd been washed ashore, he'd simply tell them that a second large wave had pulled him back out into the bay and the anchor had simply broken off of his tail. It was foolproof!

Deidara made a happy squeak as he entered the camp to announce his return, turning in a quick barrel roll before spinning around to see if any of his clan members had missed him or worried for him. The overall mood was apathetic; Pein rolled over where he'd been trying to get to sleep early while Sasori looked up from the purple urchin he was plucking at and Itachi yawned. Apparently Hidan hadn't made any point that he had nearly caused the death of the youngest in the group. The blonde male's shoulders slumped visibly.

"You're back early, brat… thought we'd at least have another hour of peace and quiet around here without you talking everybody's ears off." Sasori grunted, returning to plucking the spines off of the venomous creature in his hands.

Deidara visibly deflated to this, having wished to at least have been missed by his clan mates. As it wasn't the case, however, he did not dwell on it publically or make an issue of being ignored; as the 243 year old baby of the pod, he was used to being shoved away every now and again. Without a further word, the blonde darted off, slipping into his silk-lined cave in the bluff that hung over the south side of the camp. The little hollow was just barely large enough for him lengthwise, and he almost couldn't turn around once inside, seeing as it would be impossible for him to back into the crevice. Perhaps the creature that had long ago dug its home out of the cliff had been much smaller than even a young merman.

Finally arranging himself so that his head rested on his folded arms at the mouth of his chamber, Deidara let out an exhausted sigh, the water rippling through his gills as he exhaled. He closed his eyes and allowed his mouth to twist into an expression of dissatisfaction as he fought to catch some early sleep. Absently all the while, the ningyo's rough tongue slid over the sensory buds on his inner lip, searching desperately for the tiniest scrap of the hanyou's taste that might still linger in his mouth.

Back on the beach, Inuyasha and Miroku were just settling into their freshly made camp; blankets had been rolled out on the sand for their sleeping, and a fire pit had been scraped out of the sand. The dry driftwood they had gathered snapped and glowed vividly as the bright orange flames licked at the warped branches. The hanyou laid on his side with his head propped up in one hand while his gaze concentrated on the crackling fire. Ever since he had crawled out of the surf looking like a drowned rat, his mind had refused to let the strange encounter go.

He had only been being a Good Samaritan, aiding a living, thinking creature that would have perished otherwise. He should be satisfied with his deed, proud of it even; it felt like it had been so long since he had acted for the good of anyone other than himself. He had been involved in an almost constant string of heroic efforts for a solid year, but after all the jewel shards had been collected and Naraku had been vanquished, he found himself feeling purposeless. Neither did it help that Kagome had returned permanently to her own time to live the life of a normal teenage girl of the 20th century.

Inuyasha, try as he might, could not get the scene out of his head. He had revived a merman who was near to the brink of death, and been rewarded with a very intimate kiss and a coy thanks before being abandoned completely. Perhaps, he thought, it was in the nature of the strange fish-people to act impulsively, thinking more like sentient animals than like evolved humans. But still that raised the question; what impulse could possibly drive a male creature to lock lips with a strange man?

It was like a particularly complex puzzle-box, and no matter how Inuyasha turned it, he simply couldn't put an answer to the notion. There was simply nothing that seemed to explain the tongue that had invaded his mouth that afternoon. In all his deep pondering, the hanyou must have appeared cross, because after a long while of concentrating on his thoughts, Miroku finally interrupted.

"Inuyasha, are you feeling okay?"

"Hu? Oh… oh yeah… I'm fine, just… thinking about stuff…" He tried not to look the monk in the eyes, fearing that perhaps his friend would see what was troubling his thoughts so badly.

"Ever since you rescued that ningyo from the beach, you've been… quiet… Is something bothering you?" The raven-haired man's brow finally furrowed and he leaned in a little closer to his companion, lowering his voice to a whisper as if passing on a secret. "Have you been thinking about Kagome again?"

"No!" Inuyasha blurted defensively; of course he hadn't been thinking of her. "I've just been going over some stuff in my head about how I miss being this big hero all the time… and I guess saving that man-fish… what did you call it? Ningya?"

"Ningyo."

"Right… anyway… Saving him felt… weird I guess…"

"How so?" Miroku raised one brow inquisitively, it was very rare to get so much of a conversation from Inuyasha, especially one regarding his thoughts and feelings.

"Well he… I don't know…" Again the hanyou had considered telling the weird little story to his friend, but again backed out due to shame and embarrassment. "Just… do you know anything about fish-people?"

"You mean merpeople? Not much, I'm sorry; only a few wives tales and myths, but nothing of substance. Why the sudden curiosity?"

"Well I figure I ought to know a little something about the things I find on the beach." Though his voice sounded sturdy enough, the half demon's ears twitched to the sides slightly, and Miroku could immediately tell that he wasn't being given the whole story. Still, he allowed Inuyasha to have his own secrets; it truly was none of his business after all.

"Perhaps after our vacation is over you can pose your questions to Kaede. Surely she will be more knowledgeable than I."

Inuyasha only nodded and gave a slight grunt, turning back to the fire to continue his cogitation. Even as his mind wandered, the hanyou could swear he could still feel the merman's rough muscle grinding against his tongue.