Title: Hook, line, and sinker
Pairing: Ohno Satoshi/Matsumoto Jun
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Ohno is a fisherman, Jun is his catch, Nino is aggravated.
Warnings: AU, Jun being a merman of sorts
A/N: dear negai3104, this is what came to my mind when I read in your sign-up that you like fantasy/supernatural stories. I'm not sure if it can really be categorized as either, but I wrote it hoping you'd like it at least a little.


“OHNO SATOSHI!”

In the kitchen, Ohno stops his hand mid-air, and his face contorts into an ugly grimace before he schools it back to a neutral expression. It's never a good sign when someone shouts out your full name at the top of their lungs, and for a moment he considers ignoring it and going back to the task of making dinner. But deliberately ignoring Nino like that can't possibly end well, so Ohno puts the knife down on the counter, and after wiping his hands clean he heads to the bathroom, where he's sure Nino is.

As soon as he enters the room, Nino turns towards him, and the fury in his expression makes it hard for Ohno to keep a straight face.

“Oh-chan,” Nino starts, looking straight into his eyes, “what's that?” he asks, pointing at the bathtub behind him, where Jun is relaxing with a smile on his face.

Taking a few seconds to consider the best way to approach the question, Ohno decides to avoid actually answering it. “I went fishing today,” he says instead, waving a little at Jun without raising his arm.

“You go fishing every day, that's your job,” replies Nino, clearly trying to keep his rage in check.

“And that's a fish,” supplies Ohno helpfully.

The look Nino gives him is one of pure disbelief, and Ohno has to bite his cheek to avoid laughing. Laughing at Nino would definitely not do any good at the moment.

“What I sell at the market is fish, what you were hacking away at with a kitchen knife a moment ago is a fish, but this thing,” he stresses pointing his finger in Jun's general direction, “is not a fish!”

There's a moment of silence during which Nino's heavy breathing can be clearly heard in the small bathroom, punctuated by the little splashing sounds Jun makes by idly moving his tail in the bathtub.

“Well, I do have what can be considered a fish tail,” decides to finally contribute to the conversation the creature in question, splashing the water more decisively with the mentioned appendage. Jun looks rather relaxed where he is, if not slightly cramped.

Nino jumps, surprised, and almost slips and falls, but Ohno manages to hook his arms around his waist and keep him standing upright.

“It talks!” shrieks Nino, to which Jun gives him a very blank stare. “That's it, fishes don't talk, therefore he isn't a fish!”

Ohno, still holding onto Nino, tries to muffle a laugh into the other's man shoulder. Calmly, Jun replies, “Oh, they do talk, they're just dreadfully dull. That's why I accepted Ohno-san's offer to visit his house.”

“You invited him? What the hell is wrong with you, Oh-chan?” almost yells Nino, but the man in question doesn't really understand why his friend seems to be so upset. For his part, Ohno is pretty excited about having discovered merpeople exist and having made friends with one.

“Well, he looked really bored. And I thought it would be nice to have someone over for once,” says Ohno, his tone making it clear he doesn't see anything weird or wrong with the whole situation.

Nino decides to not comment on it, he disentangles himself from the other man and stomps out of the bathroom muttering something that sounds like, “This is probably just a hallucination caused by Sho's food.”

x

Nino doesn’t come back until the sun has disappeared from the sky, and he has to make his way through the house in the dark. He almost goes straight to bed, but then he hears voices coming from the bathroom, and with a mild feeling of dread he goes to investigate.

“I almost had myself convinced it had all been a hallucination,” he says out loud as soon as he opens the door, finding Ohno sitting cross-legged on the floor, talking animatedly with Jun, whose eyes are sparkling with fascination.

They’re so caught up in whatever conversation they’re having that they don’t even notice him, so Nino quietly closes the door behind himself and goes to bed.

x

The sun is already high in the sky by the time Nino wakes up. He yawns loudly and shuffles to the bathroom without even opening his eyes.

“Good morning,” greets him the creature currently inhabiting the bathtub, and Nino literally jumps from the surprise.

“Fuck,” is his eloquent answer, “You’re still here?”

Jun raises one of his elegant eyebrows and curls his lips a little in what is an unmistakable expression of What do you think?

“Well, excuse me for hoping you’d be gone by now.” Nino turns back towards the sink and starts washing his face. “It’s not like we need to use that bathtub or anything...”

A moment after that, there’s a sound of heavy splashing, and as Nino quickly turns towards him, he finds Jun heaving himself up by holding himself on the edge of the bathtub, in a not unimpressive display of strength. It takes a couple of tries, but the merman manages to swing his tail out of the tub, and sits on the edge for a few seconds while his tail transforms into two human legs.

Jun leisurely stretches his arms and his legs for a couple of minutes while Nino simply stares, one hand clutching his toothbrush in an iron grip and the other in front of his mouth, because he doesn't trust himself not to let out a stream of curses, or possibly scream.

Now looking entirely human, except for some scales that seem to have remained on his hips and down the side of his legs, Jun starts making his way out of the bathroom, but Nino grabs his arm, stopping him.

“You could do that all along,” he says, failing to make it sound like a proper question.

“Yes,” replies Jun simply.

“Then why did you spend the whole night sleeping in the bathtub?” asks Nino, maybe irritated but also genuinely curious.

“Ohno-san likes fishes,” is the very matter-of-fact answer, and Nino thinks the man should at least look a little sheepish while saying something like that. Instead, it's followed by, “And I like Ohno-san,” said with confidence.

Nino blinks once, then turns back to the sink to finish brushing his teeth. It's too early for him to deal with this.

x

Ohno comes back in the middle of the afternoon, but he doesn't even make it inside before Nino hounds him to check what he caught and if there's anything he can bring to the market to sell. After seeing the other off, Ohno can finally walk into the small house and make himself some lunch, but when he reaches the kitchen he finds someone already there.

“Ohno-san! I made you lunch,” says Jun, smiling as he places two plates on the table. He's wearing an old pair of pants and a t-shirt that Ohno recognizes as having been left and probably forgotten at their place by Aiba long time ago, and on top of them there's the pink apron Ohno usually wears when cooking.

He stands still for a moment, feeling like there's something he should comment on, but then his stomach lets out a low growl, so he sits down at the table. “This looks delicious! Thank you, Jun-kun.”

Jun preens at the praise, and sitting down at the other side of the table, he starts eating. They eat in silence, and Jun ends up paying more attention to the man in front of him than to the food.

“Thank you for the food,” says Ohno when he's done, and he reaches for a glass of water. He looks thoughtful, and after a moment he speaks, “Is it uncomfortable?”

Jun lets out a questioning sound around the mouthful of food he's chewing on, and Ohno adds, “The legs, I mean.”

“Oh. They're not bad, but I'm not really used to walking on land,” he answers after swallowing, “I couldn't just hog the bathroom all day, though, Nino might have killed me. Not like having me around the house seemed to particularly please him, either.”

“Nino might seem mean, but he's a good guy,” says Ohno, and Jun gives him a calculating look. “I'm lucky to have him around.”

“I could totally take care of you and the house, too,” says Jun with conviction.

Ohno smiles happily up at him. “Yes, it would be nice if you stayed. You could come fishing with me,” he adds a little dreamily, “Nino really doesn't like spending the day out on my boat.”

After clearing the table and cleaning the kitchen, they move to the brightly illuminated living room, where the huge windows give a clear view of the beach outside the house, and the sea that comes after that. Ohno digs around for his art supplies, and after a while he looks at Jun, who's sitting on the floor and looking back at him. “I want to paint you.”

Jun's cheeks turn a little pink at that. “Sure. Is like this okay, or do you want me to...?” he asks, motioning vaguely to his legs.

“It's fine, I don't mind either way,” replies Ohno, crawling towards the other man and examining his legs. After he's been staring and poking at his toes for a while, Jun wiggles them, and Ohno can't help giggling, which makes Jun smile widely.

Then the man's attention is diverted to the purple scales that still litter Jun's legs, and pressing a finger to them, he starts dragging it up Jun's left leg, following the trail. He's so focused on mentally taking note of every single small shiny scale present on the merman's skin, that he lets out a surprised “oh” when he reaches the hem of the pants Jun is wearing, a little above his knee.

Jun laughs a little, and looking up, Ohno finds him staring down at him. “Let me take these off,” says Jun, and Ohno nods without really paying attention to what he's agreeing to, until he feels the leg he's still touching move, and looks at Jun wiggle out of his pants without bothering to properly get up.

“Oh,” says Ohno again, “You're not wearing any underwear.”

Scrunching up his eyebrows, Jun asks, “Should I have? It's actually the first time I'm wearing human clothes, and Nino didn't say anything.”

Ohno hums a little in response, “No, it's fine, don't worry.” Then he goes back to marveling at Jun's legs, slowly running his fingers upwards until he reaches his hip, where he splays his hand over the largest cluster of scales, gently rubbing them to feel their texture under his own skin. After a moment, he bends down to place a kiss there, and he can feel Jun's body stiffening a little at the action.

“Ohno-san?” says Jun, sounding unsure, as if he doesn't know what he's trying to ask himself.

Ohno doesn't move from where he's nuzzling Jun's hip, and he simply replies, “Jun-kun is beautiful.”

Jun can feel his cheeks heat up, but he also gains back the confidence necessary to act. He hooks his hands under Ohno's arms and hauls him up, making it so the man is effectively straddling him. “Ohno-san is beautiful, as well.”

The man makes a confused face that Jun finds utterly adorable, and says, “I'm not really anything special.”

“You are, though,” says Jun, “You know what you also are?”

Ohno shakes his head a little, and smiling, Jun says, “Wearing too many clothes.”

Laughing, Ohno doesn't waste any time in taking his clothes off, taking care of pulling Jun's t-shirt off as well. After he's thrown everything on a pile somewhere near his forgotten art supplies, he goes back to making himself comfortable on Jun's lap.

Jun really likes the man's tanned skin, and lets his hands roam Ohno's chest and sides, enjoying the contrast between the dark skin and his own fair one. For his part, Ohno seems content in letting Jun do as he pleases, and busies himself with staring at the merman's face instead. He wants to reach out and touch the small moles around his lips, but he doesn't want to disturb his exploration, so he tries to distract himself by looking at something else, and after a moment he's staring at Jun's nipples. This time he can't help himself, and he pokes one, rubbing it a little.

“Hey,” says Jun, his tone neutral. Ohno looks back up, but before he can reply he finds his mouth otherwise occupied.

Jun kisses him slowly but resolutely, wrapping his arms around his waist to bring him closer, and Ohno obediently parts his lips to grant him access. He wonders if it's just his imagination, or if Jun really tastes like the sea, salty and familiar on his tongue. But his investigation is rudely interrupted by Nino yelling at them from somewhere near the door.

“Can't you two at least not do that on the living room's floor?” Nino screams more than ask, and Ohno has to move away from Jun to laugh. He would be at least a little embarrassed if he wasn't enjoying himself so much, so he just turns around to shoot an apologetic smile to his friend, but his lips are still curled up in a happy smile.

Jun doesn't seem to be feeling any embarrassment either, and he actually looks a little smug as he stares straight into Nino's eyes. In a remarkable display of strength and coordination, he then in one swift move gets up to his feet and pulls Ohno up into his arms, turning towards the bedroom and heading there.

“Let's go make ourselves comfortable in the bedroom, Ohno-san, there's many things I want to ask you about the human body,” says Jun happily.

At Nino's half-annoyed, half-resigned groan, Ohno laughs again.