Heart thumping in his chest, he watched the creature drift closer warily, contemplating whether or not he should trust a human, before he reeled back and Keith felt his nerves go haywire, fearing that he did something wrong and that the creature would once again leave. Though, for one reason or another, the creature still remained floating before him, primal intrigue making its way into inhuman eyes. He almost thought he'd take his leave, maybe just eat him and get this over with, but it was obvious he understood the difference between them. The distaste was the one expression Keith would never forget, though, and if he looked back on it--experienced in the way merfolk dealt with each other--he'd probably laugh, but for now, he learned his lesson. No direct exchanges between them, just leaving trinkets for each other.

Still, the other creature was relatively close, and he looked like a vision in the water, like a mirage in the desert. For a moment Keith flashed back to books his eyes skimmed over in libraries, the mermaid drawn and colored to entice, leading the sailor down into the sea-to his death. That’s what he understood about merfolk and that's probably what the man would have done, if he were some long-haired, winsome, delicate thing and less obviously the most lethal presence in a hundred mile radius. He could see his tail flicking underneath him, though still poised for a quick runaway. Keith realized he got distracted taking his huge figure in when he felt something wet and rough gently coax his arm down, and his breath hitched, eyes immediately interlocking again with this merman, then they fell down to his hand.

The motion was sudden, but the way this man moved was so fluid, Keith didn't flinch back, and he couldn't stop a little shudder and intake of breath. It felt like the skin of a shark, and the boy only gently caressed the skin with his thumb, trying to settle the other's nerves and ignoring his own haywire ones. It was years since his father took him to an animal museum, but feeling shark skin wasn't an easy thing to forget. That, and the whale sounds. It was strange, really, how one so close to being one with the sea still felt so fearful of it. It called to him, and he always heard the calls, but he never took things further than a short dip. He never tried to swim in the deep, and he never had someone to goad him into doing that. So, all was forgotten. 

And since anything and everything was possible, the creature spoke. He guessed that was what it was; the clicks and the whispers, the elongated notes. The voice was guttural. His breath made a soft [i]whoosh[/i] as he spoke too, like the wind around the edges of the shack’s warped screen door on a windy night, and Keith realized the barely visible raised marks below his ears were gills and he was able to breathe through them. So this creature did belong to merfolk, and surprisingly, Keith did understand him. It wasn't so clear of a voice, and it sounded like it was from another world. This was a dream. His imagination ran free, and conjured up all of this. He was still in bed, deep in sleep, drunk as hell, but he still indulged like he was still a teenager that didn't know what was best for himself.

"Alright.. sorry," he murmured, an apologetic tone underlying his words, realizing he might have overstepped a boundary as he let the creature's hand coax him to place the shell back on the wood, the scraping of the tough surface of the shell clear in his ears once he put it back on the slats. His hand brushed against the rough skin once more on its way up, and Keith felt his senses on high alert as he rested his hands against his own thighs, not wanting to touch so much, even if he ached for it. The voice had already been low and gentle, too gentle for Keith's own good, and he'd only hoped his own voice sounded the same for the other man.