Tangled Ropes

Yuri took a deep breath, inhaling the salty seaside air of the beach. The soft sand shifted slightly under his weight as he walked barefoot through it, his shoes gripped tightly in his right hand. The air grew colder the farther the sun dipped behind the horizon, but he paid it no mind as he continued his stroll. The soft noises of the waves lapping against the shore provided a soothing opposite to the previous loud, angry slaps caused by the earlier storm.

Yuri was content and relaxed, lost in his own thoughts until he suddenly got the feeling that something wasn't right. Pulling his focus back to his surroundings, he looked around for any signs of oncoming trouble. Although he was getting closer to the rocky part of the beach, nothing seemed to be of immediate danger. Except…

The salty air was now tinged with the unmistakable scent of blood.

And if he listened closely enough, someone or something sounded like it was in pain. Yuri followed the noise and smell, heading closer to the large rocks that dotted the beach near the cliffside.

Just as he was about to round one of the bigger rocks, something hit the sand with a force, probably sending grains of it into the air. It almost sounded rubbery. Perhaps a dolphin had been beached by the storm? Deciding that's what it had to be, Yuri let his shoes drop in the damp sand at the base of the rock and walked around it to find out.

The creature he was faced with was definitely not a dolphin.

He had been right about it having a tail, but the rest of what he was seeing made him freeze in shock.

The tail he'd imaged was gray and rubbery, a standard dolphin tail, but this one was several shades of pink, decorated in scales that glinted in the low lighting. The sand behind the two flukes was decorated with blood, which trickled steadily from around the tight netting entangled around the scales. Instead of a dolphin head and upper body, the tail became a man's torso. Long silver hair was flipped back as the merman used his arms and injured tail to pull himself further along the sand, back towards the water. He froze immediately upon seeing Yuri, who looked equally as surprised. He started, falling back against the sand as he frantically tried to push himself away.

"It's okay!" Yuri shouted, putting his hands up in front of him to show he didn't have anything in them. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Does he even understand me? He wondered.

But he must have understood something that Yuri had said or done, because he paused, still holding himself up by his arms. Bright blue eyes looked over him warily, portraying the mistrust the merman held towards him.

"I want to help," Yuri said quietly, nodding towards his bloodied tail. "I can take the net off."

The merman followed his gaze, obviously pondering the idea. He flexed the muscles in his tail, curling it to the side, towards Yuri.

"Can I?" his gaze snapped back up to meet the other's, not wanting to overstep his boundaries.

"Please." His voice was hoarse, but had a heavy accent to it.

Yuri tried not to let his surprise show on his face as he slowly moved forward and knelt in the sand next to the powerful limb. If he wanted to, the merman could probably kill him with one powerful hit, or at least knock him out and break a few bones, even injured as he was. Trying not to think about that fact, he set to work on the rope. The braided material was slick with blood, making it hard to pull away from the merman's flesh. It was slow, tedious work, picking slippery knots apart and pulling the untangled rope out of his tail. Every time Yuri pried a section of the netting away from the bloody grooves it had created among the beautiful scales, the merman flinched, obviously in pain. The unique pink coloring of his tail was gradually being darkened by the dark red of his blood, and Yuri was growing worried by the sheer amount of it.

When he finally finished and straightened up from his previous position of leaning over the merman's tail, he noticed how laboured the other's breathing had become, his eyelids fluttering as he teetered on the verge of unconsciousness.

"Don't you dare die on me." Yuri demanded, startling the merman. He flinched again, and when he opened his mouth to say something, all he could do was cough, the gills on his neck flitting with every gasp. Yuri felt horrible. This majestic creature was suffering, and he could do little to help him.

Yuri moved to crouch in front of him, and held out his arms. The merman looked thoroughly confused, and maybe a little frightened.

"Give me your hands." Yuri said quietly.

The merman reached out without question, taking Yuri's hands in a surprisingly strong grip. The webs between his fingers felt strange on his skin, but the actual flesh was soft, almost unnaturally so.

Yuri almost laughed at the thought. Everything about this situation seemed unnatural. Yet here he was, trying to save a creature he'd thought to be only a myth before now.

"Hold on." He said, before digging his bare heels into the soft sand for some semblance of support before pulling back forcefully. He dragged the merman through the sand, not caring about the cold ocean water growing higher around his body and making his clothing cling to him.

"Wait." The other rasped suddenly, and Yuri stopped immediately, still holding onto his webbed hands. They were far enough into the ocean where the merman's body was almost fully submerged in the water, while Yuri was in up past his waist, trying to ignore the gooseflesh swiftly appearing across his skin.

The water around his tail was turning an odd shade of red, and for the first time in his life, Yuri was worried about sharks. He was so distracted, he didn't even notice the merman gently pulling his hands out of Yuri's tight grip until they were gone.

The merman moved slowly, pushing himself into the further into the sea using his injured tail. Yuri watched him go, admiring the way he moved so easily under the water, even hurt as he was. His every movement was powerful, and grew in confidence as he got deeper into the water. Just as quickly as he'd appeared, he vanished.

Yuri stared at the rolling waves where he'd last gotten a glimpse of the glistening pink scales, cleaned off from the salty water. He almost wanted to stay there all night, just watching the sea churn until the cool waters were turned orange and yellow by the rising sun.

But he was too exhausted, cold, and dazed. He'd worry about his in the morning, he decided, wading back out of the water and onto the soft sand to retrieve his shoes. He took once last glance back at the water before he left the beach, and he swore he saw something jump out of the water, the moonlight reflecting off the scales on an arched tail before it resubmerged in the ocean waves.

XXX

Victor gasped as he broke the calm surface of the ocean's water, waiting for his gills to adjust to the change in pressure before heading towards the shoreline. He pushed himself up onto one of the boulders in the water, which was low and flat enough that he could get on and off it quickly and easily. The sun was beginning to set, turning the word a golden color as it slowly sunk behind the horizon. That meant he should be here soon.

Victor and grown fascinated with watching the man that had saved his life a few weeks prior. He would come to the beach every evening now, and although Victor had never really cared for the surface world before, always being told that humans were cruel creatures that only cared about their own wellbeing and no one else's, he just couldn't stop himself. So here he was again, waiting patiently in the cooling air for him to arrive.

He absentmindedly twirled the end of a few of his silver locks between his fingers, the other hand under his chin and supporting is head. When a familiar figured appeared on the other end of the sand, he became more attentive, eagerly leaning forward on the still-warm rock. But instead of heading further down the beach like he usually did, the man moved toward the water's edge and paused. Victor watched, transfixed, as the man pulled his shirt off over his head and dropping it to the sand before wading into the water, eventually swimming when it got too deep for him to touch the bottom.

This was new. Victor didn't quite know what to do, so he stayed on the rock and just watched. The man swam so much differently than he did, his movements odd to the merman. While he usually let his arms hang slack when he swam, using just his tail to swim through the ocean, the other had to use all four limbs to stay afloat as he moved through the water.

Victor watched as he stopped and looking around. He looked… lost. Like he was looking for something or someone important. The man turned back toward the shore and slowly began swimming back towards the beach, his movements slow, defeated.

He turned to slide off the rock, prepared to return the the underwater city when he was stopped by someone's scream. His tensed, attention snapping towards the noise, just in time to see the man be dragged underwater. His arms flew upwards out of the ocean, trying to grab ahold of a support that wasn't there. The silvery-white and teal scales of the tail that curved out of the water as the other disappeared were familiar, and the fins were spread in a show of aggression.

Yurio.

Victor didn't even hesitate before diving underwater after them, ignoring the sting of the sudden collision with the surface.

He didn't even remember crossing the distance between him and the place he'd seen them go under, but he could see the man's body being swallowed by the darkness of the sea, Yurio's tail flashing in the low lighting. The deep brown eyes were open wide despite the obvious sting from the water, arms reaching upwards. His mouth was open, lungs trying to take in air instead inhaling salty water as he panicked.

Victor didn't think he'd ever been this mad at anyone else in his life. He was livid with the younger merman, unable to calm the rush of adrenaline through his veins or the way his own fins were spreading in his own show of hostility. He acted purely on impulse and instinct, wrapping his arms around the man's body, which had now gone completely slack, and forcibly pulling him out of Yurio's grasp.

The younger yelled something and attempted to retaliate, but Victor cut him off with a harsh slap of his tail to the other's midsection. Enough to hurt and disarm the victim, but not enough to seriously injure them.

He ignored Yurio's fingers digging painfully into the flukes of his tail in retaliation, trying to pull him down and distract him, and swam upward, towards the surface.

Somewhere along the journey to the shore, Victor realized that the man in his arms wasn't breathing. Inwardly panicking, he swam faster, now even more desperate to get to the beach.

He couldn't let him die.

They finally reached the shore, and he laid the man on his back in the sand. Victor was suddenly at a loss as to what to do. Just how different were people compared to him, exactly? He had absolutely no idea how the human body worked, what if he just ended up worsening the situation?

Despite the worried thoughts running through his head, he decided he had to try. He'd hate himself forever if he didn't.

He ran his hands over the man's body, searching for something, anything, that would tell him if the other was even still alive or not. He found it in the form of a pulse, beating unevenly at the place where his neck met his jaw. It was gradually slowing, fighting to stay alive without oxygen.

Oxygen. That's what he needed.

(Okay, quick note. I know that CPR is supposed to be 30 chest compressions and then 2 breaths, but for the sake of the story we'll say Victor doesn't know that, and tbh, a merperson probably wouldn't. I don't even know if just breaths would work but let's pretend it would, for Yuri's sake.)

Victor pulled himself closer to the other's head, using one hand to gently open his mouth and the other to pinch his nose shut. Taking a deep breath of the cool air, he exhaled into the other's mouth.

He pulled back and studied the man's face for a moment. Nothing.

So he did it again.

And again.

And again.

Just as Victor felt hot tears well up in his eyes, a crushing sense of failure washing over him, the man below him stirred.

Sand was sent flying in the wake of Victor's surprise, the merman jolting backwards. The previous feeling of sadness was swiftly replaced with one of hope.

The man turned away from Victor and half-coughed, half-vomited the water out of his body between gasps of air.

Victor didn't even hesitate before throwing himself onto the other and hugging him, inadvertently crushing the newly-acquired breath out of him.

"You're okay!" He cried, tears of sadness changing to one of joy.

"I- what? yeah." He gasped, still disoriented.

"Sorry!" Victor said, jumping back as he suddenly realized he was probably crushing the man below him.

"S'okay." He said between deep breaths as he sat up too. "You just saved my life, didn't you?"

"Just returning the favor." He said.

The man suddenly seemed to realize who he was talking to, his eyes widening and sweeping over the merman in front of him, gaze lingering on the healing wounds that still crisscrossed the glittering pink tail.

"It's you!" He gasped. "You're okay! And you're real."

"Of course I'm real." Victor cocked his head to the side, obviously confused. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Umm, nevermind… What's… Do you have a name?"

"Of course I have a name!" Humans are so weird. "It's Victor."

"Oh, um, My name's Yuri."

"Yuri…" He tested the word on his tongue, unable to miss the way the other visibly shivered at the way his heavy accent rolled each letter. "I like it."

Yuri was clearly still in disbelief that this was happening. His gaze dropped from Victor's cerulean one to linger on the gills flitting gently at the base of his neck with every breath before moving to the fins on his forearms and eventually the strikingly beautiful tail weighing heavily in the sand. Actually, now that Yuri wasn't as panicked as he'd been the night they'd first met, he realized that everything about the merman was beautiful. His platinum hair cascaded down his back in long waves, and fell over his left shoulder like a silver waterfall. The moonlight reflecting off the ocean's surface caught in the wet locks, causing them to glimmer along with his tail. It was all so surreal.

Victor watched as Yuri studied him, unable to help the small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He wanted to know everything there is to know about this man.

"Oi! Victor!"

The spell is broken by Yurio's voice.

Victor tenses, not even wanting to face the other just yet. He can't help the way his fins spread again, his anger momentarily taking over.

"Vitya, come on."

This voice isn't Yurio's, but the threateningly calm one of his mentor and, in a way, father. He immediately knows he's in for it without even looking up. Instead, he looks at Yuri, who is wearing an expression of badly masked fear. His brown eyes are widened in disbelief, mouth slightly agape. Victor can tell he's afraid by the way his body is tensed to either defend himself from a potential attack or simply flee from the situation.

"Will you be back here tomorrow?" Victor asks quietly.

Yuri's eyes snapped up to meet his, and he visibly relaxed when he saw that Victor was still entirely focused on him.

"Yes, yes! Will you?" His voice and expression were filled with hope.

Victor wasn't usually one for promises, but he knew this was one he'd try his absolute best to keep.

"Yes, tomorrow and every day after that."

If the smile he received was anything like the one he hoped he would get the next time they saw each other, he'd spend all night on the beach with him.

A/N: So I've started writing my YoI Equestrain AU and honestly I'm so exited I cant wait to finally start posting it, which I'll probably do when it's done or close to it. Also I don't think I'm going to be doing a Halloween special oneshot thing at all because like I just... ran out of time I guess? So I really have no idea what my next oneshot is going to be. Possibly a second part of this, if you guys want one.

~Uni