A Misadventure's Fortune [REED900]

6: Connection

Song Of The Chapter:
Stay With Us - Seoul

Nines awoke to the feeling of Gavin shifting, but he didn't open his eyes yet. Nines could already tell by his mildly dry skin that the rain had stopped overnight. He rather stubbornly wanted to stay here for a little while longer before retreating back to the water. He smiled, letting out a placid sigh.

Gavin moved more after a moment, grunting and moving slightly a little more, trying to flap his wet wings and wiggle out of the fish's hold.
"Nines..." he griped and pushed on the merman's arms wrapped around him, wiggling his legs as well with soft grunts, jerking gently. "Let go..."
Nines finally obliged, flopping down into the sand.
"Fine."
He was tired, and he now realized how weird it felt to be out on dry land for a long period of time. His gills were slightly salted over, uncomfortable and stinging slightly. If he didn't remove the blockage, he knew it would be bad. He let out a little hiss of discomfort, scraping against the fragile skin to try to get some of the salt off.
"Crap," he spat, though he felt little regret for staying out as long as he did.
Gavin shuffled back and sat up after a moment and looked down at the merman. The dried salt against his skin stood out, and his normally smooth skin appeared to be more withered than normal. His eyes widened in concern as he immediately moved and slowly picked up the merman before jumping into the air with a mighty flap of his wings, but proceeded to fall into the water, gasping as the cold water hit his body. On reflex he let go of Nines, wiggling out of the water and dragging himself back up onto the sand with a shaky huff.

Nines gasped at the sudden rush of cool water, but it felt really good. He stayed under the surface for a few minutes, continuing to scratch irritably away at his gills in a maddened frenzy to get the caked salt off. After he finally relaxed, he let out a deep inhale in, then released it. He then poked his head out of the water and said, "Thanks."
Gavin slowly sat up from where he had flopped over, looking winded. He looked down at the merman in the water and slowly nodded.
"You're welcome," he muttered and closed his eyes slowly. He let out a soft groan. His wings were still damp with excess rainwater, so in order to try drying them out a bit, he resorted to laying on his belly in the sun, facing Nines.

Nines circled in the water, becoming somewhat antsy. Around this time his shoal would be going out to hunt.
Nines caught movement in the corner of his eye - a crab, shuffling lazily below him. Nines grinned and dove down, and with careful, practiced hands, he picked it up and swam back to the surface, holding it above the water, until he decided to throw it at Gavin. He thanked his practice with throwing spears- the crab landed only about 2 feet away from Gavin's leg.

Gavin didn't notice the crab for a good minute, his bored gaze focused on the rippling of the water. It wasn't until he felt a sharp pain in his wing did he notice the crab pinched onto one of his feathers. He let out a loud yell and began flopping around like crazy, almost like a cartoon, flapping his wing around trying to fling the crab off his wing.
"GODDAMMIT GET OFF GET OFF GET OFF!!!"
Nines, from his spot halfway submerged in the water, burst out laughing, a gleeful mixture of animalistic clicks mixing into his laugh. He couldn't help it, he didn't expect the events to unfold as they did. He continued laughing, a small whistling wheeze entering his voice.
"Oh my-" He cackled, sinking under for a split second to regain himself, before popping back up, and in the flattest face he could muster, asked, "Are... you okay?" He couldn't suppress a shitty grin from capturing his lips.
Gavin growled and jumped around, flopping around like crazy with muffled curses and yells until he finally pulled the crab off, losing a few feathers. Gavin huffed and looked at Nines with a low snarl before chucking the crab at the unsuspecting merman, the crab's burgundy red claw opening and snapping shut over Nines's nose in an instant.
The siren let out a loud squawk of sound in alarm, before yelling and trying to yank it off. Siren noses were already sensitive as it is- he couldn't just be a careless and rip it off.
Gavin grinned and immediately burst out into laughter at the sound Nines made, rolling onto his side clutching his stomach in laughter.
Out of desperation, Nines dug his nails between the shell of the crab's claw, and with a breath in, he yanked it away from him, hearing a small crack and a pop as the whole arm came off. The claw was still stuck on his nose, but thankfully the crab was off, sinking back down to the ocean floor.
The siren swam up to shore where he rested for a moment, working on trying to pry the rest of the fucking claw off his nose.
"Haha it got you GOOOOD!" Gavin chanted and opened his eyes for a moment, but immediately bursted out laughing once more once he saw Nines with the single crab claw stuck to his nose.
"KARMA, BITCH."
The avian wiped a small tear from his eye before calming down again.