If You Love Something
Alfred's hands traveled across his chest, a warm water sensation prickling at his skin where ever Alfred touched him. Arthur pressed himself closer to the merman, wantonly, begging for the merman's moist touch, murmuring sweet words that seemed to force themselves from between his lips.
"I love you, Arthur," Alfred said, his voice rasping and heady in the summer air. "Don't you love me too?"
Arthur's naked legs shifted in the sand as he squirmed into a more lewd position on Alfred's 'lap', the shining, rubbery blue skin a familiar and erotic feeling beneath his bare ass and balls. He rubbed himself against Alfred, but there was the question lingering in the air within the few centimeters between their mouths. Arthur closed his eyes, a whimper crawling out his throat. He refused to become lost in the perfection of Alfred's eyes; he needed to free himself from this bond, somehow. He needed to fight. "Why would you ask me that?" he said instead of the simple words that wanted to spill from him. Arthur's limbs trembled with the stress of resisting the enchantment, even for the briefest of times. "Why ask when you know what you'll make me to say?"
Alfred's webbed hands stopped to rest on his hips, flinching in shock. It had been two years and in all this time, now had been the first Arthur had said anything in regards to their predicament – about the enchantment, about being Alfred's mate, about the terms. Alfred was stunned, confused and horny and speechless. What had prompted this response? What had he done wrong? Was the enchantment waning, perhaps? But that couldn't be possible, as he tended to its terms often. Finally words found him and his hands slowly began to inch their way up Arthur's sides, hoping to tease him into agreeing. "What do you mean, my mate?"
He couldn't open his eyes, despite the soft touches and nibbles of sharp teeth, he didn't want to see would probably be the confusion and hurt in the merman's eyes, lest the spell upon him make his heart break with guilt (although he could already feel it beginning to). "You make me say these things… what if… they are… untrue?" Arthur's voice choked and cracked on the last word, his eyes opening on their own accord – enraptured and strangled in Alfred's wild gaze.
"Untrue?" the merman repeated, his warbling voice strained as the implications became clear to him. "False? My love is real! So can yours be! It is! Tell me it is."
The waves in the surf around them began to crash upon Arthur's lower back instead of tickling at the bottoms of his feet, making angry, hissing noises as the water retreated through the sand. Arthur felt his resistance seep from his body, hot tears pricking his eyes as his arms wrapped around the back of Alfred's damp neck. "I love you, Alfred," he cried pathetically.
The wind howled through the trees and fauna of the nearby forest as Alfred grasped Arthur's shoulders and pushed him roughly onto the sand, towering powerfully over the stranded researcher venomously. "tell me it's true, Arthur! Tell me it's not just magic! Tell me!"
Arthur only closed his crying eyes and whispered what he knew only to be the truth, "I don't know."
When he opened his eyes again, Alfred was gone and the ocean was gray and angry, choppy waves sloshing in turmoil and pain. Arthur wept.