A/N: I really struggled with this chapter, and scrapped and rewrote half. Thanks to Bendy, Lucy, Kat, Laura, and Meagan for the eyes and/or help.

She felt too warm, with a heavy heat pressed against her. It was both odd and pleasant.

Blinking awake, groggy, Maka struggled to see why she felt so trapped, so pinned, so protected, but she couldn't move. She scanned down, but all she saw was fluffy white just below her chin.

Fluffy. White. Oh.

Maka hadn't shared a bed since-well-since she was a little girl with her parents, really. It was strange, but also weirdly comfortable. Still, he was naked beneath the blanket, she knew that, and she needed to move. Better not to wake him. Better to get everything in order first. She began to squirm in her burrito of blankets, wiggling down slowly. Soul grunted at the movement, muttering something not quite comprehensible in his own tongue of which she caught at least one curse word, Wes, and sleep in the midst of, before groaning and flipping to his back instead of being pressed to her side.

Her relieved sigh was involuntary and, it seemed, enough to catch his attention.

She was just sitting, her blankets shuffled to her waist, when she heard her name, low and rough. Maka turned her head to see red eyes staring up at her blearily, so she forced a smile.

"Good morning, Soul!" she said in his tongue. The cheer was just as forced. There was a naked merman in bed with her, so sue her if she was a little thrown off.

"Mornin'," he offered, voice still rough. She ignored how much she enjoyed the sound, how much his groggy half smile made her feel warm. There were things that needed doing; silly tummy flutters were not going to help any.

"Okay so, I'm just going to find you some clothes-I think Papa's might actually fit-and then-uh-maybe make us something to eat. Can you just-stay put?" She was careful to keep to his tongue for now. This was all so new for him, had to be, that she wanted to make it as easy as possible, to give him something familiar to latch onto.

"Not like I can really get anywhere," he muttered. The smile had slipped, his expression now carefully neutral.

"Great!" Her voice sounded gratingly bright even to her own ears. "I'll just-be back."

Springing off the bed and out of the room, Maka took care of her morning necessaries quickly and grabbed clothes from her dad's room. Returning to the guest room with her arms full of Spirit's clothes, she let her gaze settle on her new houseguest. He had managed to wiggle himself into a sitting position-he must be used to sitting up when he surfaced with his tail-and was leaned up against the headboard, blanket barely covering his lap. Maka was careful not to look at the trail of white below his naval, instead keeping her eyes resting firmly on his.

"So-I got you clothes, and-"

"Maka?" he interrupted, sounding uncomfortable, and she noticed for the first time he was practically squirming, though his face was still unreadable.

"Is something-wrong?"

"I-I mean-" he sucked in a breath "-how do humans-er-excrete?" He was speaking English.

"Ex-Crete?" She blinked.

"You know," he began in English then shifted to a word in his own tongue she'd never heard.

She shook her head. "I don't know that word."

His face fell. "Uh-when-when liquid is expelled-um-from your body, you know?" He was squirming pretty visibly now.

"Oh," she breathed, understanding dawning. "You need to pee! To-" she decided she should probably teach him a more proper word "-to urinate!"

There was no recognition in his eyes but he nodded anyway. "Yes, I guess. Can you-I mean-where and uh how?"

Shit. She hadn't considered he would need to do his morning business, too. Oh god was she going to have to help him pee?

She had to draw the line somewhere. Deciding she would get him to the toilet but anything else was up to him, she nodded. "Okay. Uh. Let's." Thinking fast brought over his clothes. "Let's get these on and then we can walk to the bathroom. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay." It wasn't as though he really had a choice.

Twenty minutes and a good deal of mortification later, Soul was dressed and on the couch, bladder mercifully empty. Maka had needed to help more than she would have liked and had gotten an eyeful several times. At least he'd managed to relieve himself on his own, if a bit messily, and had even walked from the bathroom to the couch alone, though he was definitely unsteady on his feet.

"So breakfast," she said from the kitchen only a few feet away. "I have cereal, oatmeal, or I could maybe make eggs. What's your poison?"

"I'd prefer not to be poisoned," he said in his own language with a head shake, clearly confused by the euphemism. "Don't you have fish? Or-well-" she guessed he was considering, but she could only only see the side of his head since he was on the couch facing away "-I guess I should try real human food? So whatever would be a typical human breakfast."

Maka considered for a moment. She could cook something like eggs and bacon, but really, cereal was the most typical breakfast she could think of and with everything she would be dealing with today (hell, had already dealt with!), maybe simpler was better. So she broke out two bowls and some Apple Jacks and milk and fixed them cereal.

Strutting over with two prepared bowls, she plunked one down on the coffee table in front of him. "Breakfast is served, Monsieur."

"Ma-wha?" Of course he wouldn't get that. Maybe she should keep them to his tongue as she had resolved earlier. Things were strange enough as it was without throwing a language he was only minimally fluent in into the mix.

"It's an expression, and 'Monsieur' is French for, Uh-" she had begun in his tongue but lacked the word she needed. "Mister," she finished in English."

"Mister?"

"It's a title like-you know what, it doesn't matter. Eat your cereal." She sat next to him to emphasize her point, leaving a cushion between them, and spooned her own cereal into her mouth.

Soul watched her eat for a minute then two, and she felt distinctly uncomfortable.

"What?" she finally snapped.

"Nothing, it's just-I mean, I knew what it was for the-thing you're picking up your food with-but it's different watching someone use one." He was still speaking English.

"The spoon?" She picked it up from the bowl and waved it for emphasis.

"Yeah, that-spoon."

It was strange to think everything was new to him, that even something as mundane as a spoon was odd and fascinating. This was all bound to overwhelm him and she was his guide in this strange new world. Maka really needed to keep that in mind.

"Like this, okay?" She dipped the spoon into the bowl to get a mound of cereal and milk, then raised it slowly, giving him time to see what she was doing. Then she opened her mouth and took in the bite before lowering the spoon to the bowl again. She chewed and swallowed and repeated the motions once, twice, then said, "Now you try." Because she was not going to feed him, just no.

Broken from his reverie in which his eyes had been riveted on her actions, he looked at her, face blank. "I guess." He sounded more than a little skeptical, but he leaned forward unsteadily to grab up the bowl on the table and settle it on his lap with one hand as the other gripped the spoon. He shifted the grip in his hands several times until seemingly satisfied, his final grip looking something like hers. Then he dipped the spoon. It took him a moment to negotiate the now slightly soggy Os that floated in the bowl, but he finally managed to steady a spoon full carefully and lift it meticulously to his mouth. It was excruciatingly slow-Maka could have eaten half a bowl in the same span-but he managed to get the food in his mouth.

The moment the cereal and milk hit his tongue, his face scrunched grotesquely as he chewed. Maka watched as he swallowed roughly, the spoon still hovering just away from his mouth, then put it back in the bowl with a clatter.

"You eat that?" He slipped back into his native tongue in his utter incredulity.

She rolled her eyes. He'd just watched her down half a bowl. Of course she ate that. Maka took another bite for emphasis. "Sure do," she said in English. "Why?"

"It's-it's-" his face twisted. "Fucking disgusting!" He kept to his tongue.

"Not my fault you let it get soggy!" she snapped, but really, she felt bad. She shifted to speaking his tongue to soothe him. "Just-eat. Maybe we can find something you like better for lunch."

He didn't answer, but he did take another bite and yet another, still careful, still meticulous. He was grimacing, but he was eating, so she took her cue to do the same, munching down the rest of her now woefully soggy cereal and then lifting the bowl to her lips to sip down the divinely sweet cereal milk left behind.

Maka felt his eyes on her before she saw them, lifting her own to meet his head on. "You need something?"

"You-" he began in English, glancing between her empty cereal bowl and his own half full bowl on his lap, the little lines between his brow scrunched in thought "-eat-no-drink it?"

"Mhm," she hummed. "It's the best part!" She kept to English, following his cue again .

He didn't look convinced, but carefully brought the bowl still swimming with soggy Os to his lips and cautiously opened and sipped. Some dribbled down his chin-she guessed merpeople probably didn't drink-but he grinned at her. "This shit is good! Kinda sweet, but good!"

The way he then went from sipping to gulping, heedless of the milk dribbling down his chin and making a trail down his shirt was almost endearing, he was so enthusiastic. After a minute, he put the bowl left with only mush down on the table with a clatter, wiping milk from his lips with the back of his hand with a sigh of satisfaction.

"That was great, thanks for the meal." He grinned at her. "I mean, the other stuff was kinda gross, but I liked the drinking part."

"Yeah, I could tell." She flicked her eyes down his clothed chest to where there was a wet line.

"Sorry." He scratched the back of his head as he looked down, clearly embarrassed. "Drinking is weird. Good, but weird."

Her sigh was only half exasperation; the other half that was fondness was as surprising as it was intense. "It's fine." She stood and stretched, then looked down at him with a warm smile. "I'm going to clean up, then maybe we can work more on walking, sound okay?"

"Yeah." He swallowed visibly. "Okay."

Turning around, she bent slightly to get to the bowls on the table. As she turned back around, she caught a glimpse of the newly risen fabric of his pants.

Oh god, not again. Maka had seen enough of that when she'd helped him dressed earlier to last a lifetime, thank you very much! She felt herself go hot, then scurried off quickly. "I'm just gonna put these away, be right back!" she called out in a jumble over her shoulder as she fled.

Leaving the dishes in the sink with a clatter, she allowed herself a moment just to breathe. This was so strange and difficult, he had so much to learn, and whatever was going on below the belt with him wasn't exactly making things any easier. Was that because of her or because it was mating season? She didn't know, wasn't sure she wanted to know. The very thought of his toned chest as he'd sat up in bed a scant forty minutes ago made her shiver in a way that she wasn't willing to parse.

Well, no time like the present. He needed to learn and there was no one else to teach him. Walking back to the couch, she studiously ignored the bulge in his pants to stand before him. Mating season, she reminded herself. He can't help it. Just because the legs were a fluke didn't mean the rest of the symptoms wouldn't apply, and she imagined arousal must be one. It wasn't his fault.

His fault or not, it didn't make it any less awkward.

Still, they had to manage. They only had a couple of days until Papa would be home from his trip, and Maka wanted to make sure Soul was walking before her dad found another merman in the house. Best if Soul at least had the option to run when she dealt with her Papa's inevitable theatrics.

Resolved, Maka looked him up and down as he smiled at her sheepishly from his place on the couch. With his second hand clothes and his wild head of fluffy white locks, he appeared almost human, certainly enough to get by. She tried not to dwell on how good he really looked in clothes. He had looked good in his tail, too, but that hadn't had her heart skipping and her stomach fluttering. Stupid.

His smile turned into a downright shit eating grin, his shark-like teeth on full display. Her pulse went from skipping to racing in the space of a single beat. "Looks good, right? Like a real human?"

"Yeah." She swallowed, nodded, forced a smile. "Like a real human."

Maka sighed as she held out a hand to Soul; it was definitely time to practice walking. After all, they had a lot of work to do.

That evening, as they relaxed together on the couch, she felt tired yet satisfied. While Maka might, early on, have envied those who had experience with physical therapy or small children or anything involving teaching someone how to use their legs, she now felt fairly accomplished as they sat eating their Chinese takeout. She flicked her eyes to Soul, who was tearing into his Kung Pao shrimp with relish, employing his chopsticks in more scoop than grab. Since everything was new, use of chopsticks had been just as easy as the fork to teach, and she smiled at how much he was enjoying his meal, even if he had declared that, "cooked food tastes weird."

It had certainly been a strange day, so weird was par for the course, she supposed. He could at least walk normally now, even if it had been an all day project. At first, she'd just modeled walking and had him practice, but late in the morning she got the bright idea to look up some things on her smartphone. That had yielded a whole host of strategies for reteaching adults to walk; not quite the same thing, maybe, but the principles applied. And so, after a disastrous attempt to feed him tuna salad sandwiches for lunch (he'd wanted fish and canned tuna was what they had-telling her it tasted like eating a rotting pile of ass had been totally uncalled for!), she had shifted gears and taught him some partial movement strategies that worked up to walking. Since he had both muscle tone and coordination, it was more a matter of learning to use muscles he'd never actually possessed before in ways that were somewhat foreign than anything else.

Once he could walk, using the bathroom and dressing alone were natural extensions; with minimal instruction, Soul could manage. He'd even showered on his own, though he'd yelped when he got soap in his eyes from the shampoo. Explaining how things worked from the other side of the curtain as he washed himself, hidden but still naked and near, had been disconcerting enough that it simply hadn't occurred to Maka to warn him to be careful to close his eyes.

Well, he'd survived anyway, and he seemed pretty content for the moment. She supposed the day was a success. Maybe by the time Papa got back he would even be able to pass for human, a friend in need of a place to stay.

Or maybe not.

An innocuous few days passed. Looking back, Maka would even call them blissful. She made him some of her favorite things (she wasn't an outstanding cook, but her skills were passable, damnitall,) to mixed reviews, teaching him basic table etiquette as they went. They took a walk to the small private strip of sand they shared with their closest neighbors. She kept to her legs and worked on teaching him to swim as a human, worked on teaching him how to move outside the water, to jump, different ways to sit or squat or kneel, even how to run. Watching him mimic her so diligently, his face a mask of concentration even as he snarked about the weirdness of having legs, was somehow endearing.

Through it all, his periodic and ongoing problem in his pants continued, and for her part, Maka continued to ignore it. Unfortunately, ignoring it didn't stop her occasional heated blushes, nor could she help how his deep voice, his rare smiles and rarer laughs made her heart gallop. He might be the one who was in heat, but she was stupidly affected, too. Annoying, lazy, snarky Sharkface though he was, Soul was too damned attractive for either of their good.

There were also questions. For as much as he sometimes liked to feign apathy, to pretend to be above it all or to know it all already, he was also the same lover of human culture she'd met in the cave so many months ago. After a few days of playing twenty thousand questions, even Maka had grown a little tired of sharing her admittedly extensive knowledge-she was an English major and very well read-so she finally made the executive decision to introduce her chance pupil to the wonders of Google.

Soul was an instant convert, and the next day was spent with him glued to her commandeered laptop, headphones over his ears piping in 8track playlists of eclectic jazz as he opened dozens of tabs up on as many topics as he could think of, two finger typing his way to a treasure trove of knowledge and utter nonsense. For a time, Maka sat with him and helped, stupidly enjoying the closeness and basking in his genuine wonder as he vicariously explored a world long barred to him. And for a time, the questions continued:

"Where is Tahiti and should I try to win a trip there?"

"Gain rock hard abs, wouldn't that hurt?"

"Maka, what's a milf and why does sassybuttsecks42 want to introduce me to a bunch of them who are hungry for cock? I mean, that's a male one of those weird birds humans eat, right? So why would I care what they want for dinner?"

Eventually, Maka had patiently explained how to avoid the less savory sites, but as he got the hang of it, she decided to let him do as he would, taking the spot opposite him on the couch and curling up with her latest book, only getting him up to practice his walking every hour. It was a good thing the semester was over-she was pretty sure she'd have to pry her laptop from his cold, dead fingers if she wanted it back any time soon.

When she did manage to snag it from him the next day to check her email, ushering him into the bathtub to soak since he kept complaining the shower was weird, the sudden onslaught of risqué pop up ads was disconcerting to say the least. Frowning, she checked the history.

What she found in the most recent history made her want to laugh and scream and die of secondhand embarrassment all at once. No wonder he'd been so quiet after dinner yesterday.

It was a progression, really.

Human mating

How does a penis work

Sex

Cunilingus

Eating out

Fallatio

Blow jobs

Masterbation

Jerking off

Maka stopped reading and cleared the history; she really couldn't take any more without her face catching fire, it was so hot. The thought of him and all-this-made her feel strange, but the fact he'd used her laptop, of all things. The anger probably wasn't fair, but it was strong, taking the place of whatever else she was feeling with a speed and ferocity she was almost grateful for. She probably needed the distraction.

Storming into the bathroom-since he always kept the curtain closed when he showered so she could sit and advise him, she figured it had become a habit and she was too angry to care anyway-she screamed out as she entered, "What part of stay off of scam sites did you fail to-"

She stopped cold, gaping like a caught fish. The curtain was not closed, and he looked rather startled and drop jawed himself with one hand on his clear arousal, frozen mid stroke.

Oh.

"Um-Uh-nevermind!" Her face was combusting as she turned tail like a coward and fled from the bathroom.

Neither of them mentioned it and dinner was abnormally quiet, but since Soul didn't pick up her laptop again, she put on a movie instead. He was fascinated by human entertainment and especially wanted to watch things on the television. No time like the present to introduce him to the wonders of Star Wars, she supposed.

Of course, the questions about that were as unrelenting as she'd come to expect from him. Maka appreciated the return to something like the odd yet comfortable equilibrium they'd established over the last few days, even if the thought of what she'd walked in on still made her feel altogether too warm.

Unfortunately, the equilibrium they'd regained couldn't last.

Midway through Episode V, the front door was flung inward and Maka heard a long, loud exclamation of her name that made her cringe visibly.

Looking startled, Soul seemed about to ask something from his place beside her on the couch, but before he got the chance, a tall red head was in front of the television, hovering over them both from just beyond the coffee table.

Her father looked more angry than Maka could ever remember seeing him and it startled her for an instant, but she recovered after a blink or two and coughed lightly.

"Oh, hey Papa, this is Soul. He's a friend from school. I told you he was visiting this month last week, remember?"

She had told him no such thing, but he likely wouldn't remember and he wouldn't call her out if he did.

"Bullshit," he practically growled, eyes narrowed towards Soul dangerously.

Or maybe he would.

"Be nice, Papa! Soul's from out of town, and he didn't want to go home during summer break, so I offered-"

"Do you honestly think-" he cut her off, eyes never leaving the man who sat beside her "-I wouldn't know a damn Sharkblood when I see one? How did you even find one? What is he doing here?" There was something like murder in her father's sea green eyes, and it made her instantly bristle. She reached over to grab Soul's hand emphatically, squeezing it half for show, half to reassure him.

When she glanced over to him, however, Soul looked awed more than anything. "You're Spirit Albarn," he finally managed in his own tongue. "The Spirit Albarn. I mean, I knew that I guess, that you were Maka's dad, but it's-You're a legend." He scratched the back of his neck. "Not necessarily the good kind, more like the type of cautionary bullshit they tell to scare little kids at night, but still."

"I'll kill you-you-you-octopus headed shark fucker!" Spirit bellowed and launched himself over the coffee table towards Soul, who had at least enough warning to flinch if not the sense or coordination to run. Fortunately for him, Maka was faster and well used to her father's particular brand of ridiculous, so she managed to bolt up and peg him in the head with a book from the coffee table, hitting him neatly in the forehead and stunning him. He collapsed to his knees and sobbed her name.

"Maka, my life! My angel!" he sobbed into his hands. "You don't understand, precious, sweetest. Anything but a Sharkblood."

The growl Soul let out surprised her, and even Spirit looked up at that. The sobbing stopped and he leveled his gaze at the other merman, though he didn't rise from his knees.

"You don't deserve her." He spoke the mertongue for the first time since he'd arrived. "And I'll be damned if I let my only daughter mate with a shark-"

"Nobody's mating," Soul grunted in his own language, cutting off the elder merman. "This," he gestured at his newly formed legs, "is a fluke, and once the month is up, I'll be out of your gills." He glanced to Maka and back, and her frown deepened at the look that passed between them. "So if you'd just-chill. Nothing's going on. We're just friends. You don't need to pull this human overprotective father crap."

"Sure, kid." He rolled his eyes. "Look, you touch her, I'll filet you myself, simple as that," Spirit said as he stood, then sighed as he looked to his daughter. "Your tainted friend can stay, but only this once. Next season, he finds another port." Though spoken to Maka, the words were in the mertongue and she knew it was meant for Soul, but she wasn't worried about the next season, just the here and now.

She nodded. "Thanks, Papa."

"Does that mean Papa gets a thank you hug?"

She frowned up at him. "Don't push it."

Another sigh and Spirit was down the hall, his bedroom door shut behind him.

Maka resumed the movie, but her attention was elsewhere. Her Papa had taken that both better and worse than she had anticipated, and the unexpected contrast had her mind whirling. Looking briefly to Soul, who looked similarly lost in thought, she couldn't help but wonder what the rest of the month would bring.