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[sealonging.insanejournal.com]

WHO: Ceana & Bertie
WHEN: Sunday afternoon
WHERE: Their apartment
WHAT: General cuteness of their kind and talk of selkies

Ceana tried not to think very often about that question that always waited somewhere in the back of her head: where are the other selkies? She'd told Bertie that she had fragmented memories of being with her own kind, of swimming in the sea with both seals and seal-folk, but when she tried to pinpoint those memories further they just slipped away. She remembered a sea-husband long, long ago, but she was almost positive he'd never been real. Just like she remembered the cold waters of the Scottish sea even though she knew that she'd never really been there. (Or had she? Although her accent was American enough, people often remarked on it, asking if she was Scottish of Irish. Ceana told them that she had been born there, but had been here for many years.)

She sat now on the couch in Bertie's home, long legs pulled up against her and chin resting on the top of her knees. At the sound of Bertie entering the room she lifted her head and said, "hello."

Comments

[out-there.insanejournal.com]

Bertie offered a bright smile before heading into the attached kitchen to make tea. He was going to show Ceana the wonders of tea, he was sure of it. He just had to be persistent.

Once the water was boiling on the stove, Bertie took a seat next to her. "So, do you really think you might be the only selkie?"

[sealonging.insanejournal.com]

"Maybe," Ceana admitted, resting her chin on her knee again. "I've met plenty of seals but none of them were like me. They were just regular seals. but," she added with a small shrug, "it's a very large ocean, and I haven't seen it all."

[out-there.insanejournal.com]

"We could go to the zoo and look at the seals if you'd like," Bertie offered. That had been his default solution in the early days, whenever Ceana seemed sad. "And maybe the selkies are like you. With humans or hiding out from humans."

[sealonging.insanejournal.com]

"No," Ceana said with a shake of her head. "It makes me sad to see them in tanks like that."

She lifted her blue eyes to look at Bertie and asked plaintively, "why won't you return me to the sea?"

[out-there.insanejournal.com]

"I-I will!" Bertie said, eyes gone full on deer-in-the-headlights. "I just need you to stay for a little while. And then you can go back! It won't be forever, Ceana."

[sealonging.insanejournal.com]

Ceana looked at Bertie and thought yes, he truly believes that, but that didn't make it true. He thought he was the type of man who would let her go one day, but Ceana couldn't be sure if it would actually happen.

"I'm lonely," she told him, curling her arms around her legs. "You go to work and you have a life and you have friends, but I'm alone."

[out-there.insanejournal.com]

"You can go out," Bertie said. "Oh! What about other immortal-type people? I have it on good authority there's at least one leprechaun in this city."

[sealonging.insanejournal.com]

"I already met the leprechaun," Ceana told him, remembering that she'd let Tully come into the house to help search for her skin. He'd also taken a few shiny things home with him.

"What I want," Ceana told him clearly, "is someone to share my bed with."

[out-there.insanejournal.com]

Ah. And here Bertie was thinking he'd felt like a deer in the headlights before. He was trying to think of an intelligent, suave answer, but all that his brain was providing was a high-pitched ringing sound.

"Oh?" he finally managed.

[sealonging.insanejournal.com]

She watched him carefully, trying to read those human features. But it wasn't her strongest skill set. "Is it that I'm not attractive to you?" Ceana asked him honestly. "Or because my skin always smells like salt water? Is it the colour of my hair or the shape of my body? Tell me what it is." There was a touch of desperation at the edge of her tone.

[out-there.insanejournal.com]

"No no no no!" Bertie said, eyes wide. "It's not that at all! You're lovely. One of the loveliest people I've ever seen. It's just...I just..."

He didn't like putting it in such stark terms, because it made him feel like a very bad person indeed. But he had to, if only to keep Ceana from thinking he didn't like her. "I caught you, and I'm keeping you here. Y-you can't go off and find someone else. So I feel like, if I were to be, er, intimate with you, it would be..well, it would be like," he swallowed, "rape."

my father just walked up behind me and asked 'why are you googling 'seal mating'?'

[sealonging.insanejournal.com]

"Rape?" Ceana asked with genuine confusion. She was an animal first and foremost, a seal even with this woman-skin she wore. She was used to being chased by males to breed, was used to their sharp teeth nipping at her. The ways of human men always seemed much the same to her - displays of prowess in the hopes of catching the attention of a suitable female.

But rape? Well, she'd seen it on television shows but Bertie was no a violent man and she was offering herself. "If you hurt me, I'd just bite you until you stopped," Ceana informed him easily, as though this were the only issue she was seeing. "But you are a nice man and well-formed, physically, for your kind anyway. My own body reacts when you're close by," Ceana added, "and it seems foolish for us to live as man and wife without being lovers. It's what married people are supposed to do."

Sometimes she thought Bertie was a very clever human. But other times, like now, he seemed particularly dense.

TO SEDUCE AN AWKWARD MAN, DAD

[out-there.insanejournal.com]

Well, that was certainly news to Bertie. He'd assumed that Ceana had been making passes at him because that was just what selkies did. The idea that she might be genuinely interested in him was a surprise.

"Ah, well, I, well-" he stammered, trying to find the right words. "I-I just don't want you to be unhappy."

GOD, DAD, YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND MY NEEDS!

[sealonging.insanejournal.com]

"You seem perturbed," Ceana said, tilting her head to the side as she watched him. "You're a very strange man, Bertie. To talk a seal-wife and forget to be her husband." There was a small smile on her lips - she was unable to hide her amusement. "I've grown very fond of you." Today it was completely true. Some days it wasn't and she would scream at him then and forget that fondness she held right now.

MY SEXY SEAL NEEDS

[out-there.insanejournal.com]

"I'm very fond of you, too," Bertie said, and that at least was easy to say. He hadn't expected to become as close with Ceana as he had. He reached out to pat her shoulder. "You're one of my favorite people."

Parents, man.

[sealonging.insanejournal.com]

Ceana looked at his hand patting her shoulder and felt like a house pet for it. She realised here that times had changed and although in the old days a man would make the first move, Ceana might need to do it here.

She moved so that her legs were no longer pressed against her chest, because then she could sit properly and lean across to Bertie, her lips meeting his softly.

[out-there.insanejournal.com]

Bertie went still, feeling frozen in place as Ceana kissed me. He knew that he should probably lean back, should tell Ceana that she had completely missed his entire point. But her lips were warm, and she was very beautiful, and Bertie's strength of will only went so far.

So he leaned forward and kissed her back.

[sealonging.insanejournal.com]

He tasted like dry land to Ceana, a foreign magic that she would never quite understand no matter how long she walked on legs. Ceana would always belong to the sea.

It seemed now that things had been discussed, Bertie had decided that Ceana had been correct. (Of course she had. Bertie was just a boy. He barely knew anything of life yet or of women.)

When Ceana eventually broke the kiss it was to ask, "to your bedroom?"

[out-there.insanejournal.com]

"I-I all right," Bertie stuttered. Good Lord. He was bringing Ceana to his room. He was bringing his selkie wife to his room. The possibility of him being murdered post-coitus was there, but Bertie didn't quite care at the moment. He rose unsteadily to his feet and took Ceana's hand, tugging her back towards his room.

I DIDN'T KNOW YOU'D REPLIED. Ashamed to have missed the awkward!

[sealonging.insanejournal.com]

Ceana took his hand, and let Bertie lead the way. In the room she looked at him and asked, "are you afraid of me?"

Ahaha, damn it, IJ, why do you ruin things?

[out-there.insanejournal.com]

"No," he responded. "I just...I'm not sure what to expect." He smiled lopsidedly. "It's been quite a while since I've done this."

[sealonging.insanejournal.com]

Ceana smiled a little. "Probably not as long as since I have," she reminded him. "I haven't even been on land for at least a century."

[out-there.insanejournal.com]

"Then, er, maybe I can-" He ducked his head a few times, trying to remember where to put his nose in this whole process, and then leaned in to kiss Ceana.