Limitless Love

Chapter 46

Dean POV:

We return home by 4 am after spending time with his mermaid friends. I promised them that I would never reveal their little secret to anyone, so they talked to me friendly. I can understand their fear so I won't take any chance in this secret.

I want to clarify with Seth about everything, but the exhaustion in his face shows he needs sleep now. Once we have done the showering, he tries to explain something, but I drag him to the bed and make him lay on it, throwing the blanket over him.

"We'll talk about it later. Now sleep!" I press a small kiss on his forehead and stroke his hair gently until he drifts into sleep.

I glance at his beautiful face and think about the current moment. There are no silent nights on a cold mattress anymore. No interrupting horns are blaring through the silence to wake me up suddenly, and instead of dogs whining in the cold, there is the gentle feeling of waves crashing into the rocks.

Best of all, though, is that now all the nights are filled with an arm draping over me. And the face with a too scratchy beard nuzzling into my chest with soft sighs as we lay in bed.

While laying on my side, I shift to bring a hand up to run my fingers through Seth's hair again and let out a sigh of my own. "Never again.." I whisper to myself as I continue to stroke his hair. My chest starts to itch again as he tries to look up at me with barely wide eyes.

"Never again, what?" He asks groggily before burying his face back into my chest.

I twirl a strand of hair as I kiss the top of his head gently. "You should never hide anything from me again."

He looks at me confused and tries to move, but I stop him from doing it. He shoves my hands away and sits up straighter to observe me perfectly, "Did you think I hid everything on purpose?" His head is tilting at me like he is gauging my response, every minute shift in expression or body language.

I look back at him in turn with my eyes narrow curiously. I'd been thinking about this because it kept wearing on me since I knew about him. We had been great for a long time, and I thought we had no secret between us, even if it was not possible.

Everything would finally be the way it should be now, so we could leave the past behind and move on and be happy. Maybe there are still things buried beneath the surface between us that we haven't fully resolved, and we still need to.

"What? I didn't think like that." I say dismissively. I'm pretty sure it's not gonna be the end of it.

He certainly doesn't look convinced yet. He shakes his head slightly, "I don't know, but it feels like you have thought."

"Seth," I exhale, holding his hand in mine. "Truth be told, I did. I know it's stupid, and it's happened in the past. But I don't know; it's hard not to think about it. It's like it's still haunting me, even when I try to push it away and ignore it. It just made me felt like an idiot sometimes, the fact that you were so miserable for so long, and I never really realized it. Or maybe it made me feel like even more of an idiot that you never told me how you were feeling. Like you didn't trust me."

"I didn't want to put any of my shit on you, Dean." He tells me gently. "I just wanted you to be happy. And I knew you finally were. I didn't want my crap to affect you. I didn't want it to taint any of our wonderful memories."

"But maybe it still did," I confess, my voice sounding in pain now. "It still fucking sucks knowing that you hold everything in your heart and take all the pain. You didn't tell me that you were struggling with all this heavy shit so I could help carry the burden. I had some of the best times of my life with you. Maybe now it kinda feels like a.. lie. Because maybe some part of you didn't want to be here with me."

"Dean, I wanted to be with you every single day." He tells me earnestly because it's the truth, and it always will be, regardless of everything else. "No matter where it is. I don't care. That's why I'm here right now. I love you."

I nod and look at him in the eyes, "Yeah, I know. Rationally, in my head, I know that. But maybe the rest of me still wondered if you would've been happier if none of it had ever happened, if you never changed into a human, never got threw out of the ocean... If we'd never met at all," I finish, voice low and hollow.

Seth POV:

I can see the faint ghost of heartbreak in Dean's eyes. I certainly had no idea about all of this was going on inside him, but it was like he'd been thinking about everything and beating himself up just out of his intense love for me and his need for me to be happy.

I have no idea how to respond to that, so I just let out an incredulous laugh instead. "You're fucking joking, right?! I was dreaming about land, how would it be before I came here. You're right; I'm craving to be a merman again because that's what every living being wants. Wanting their true identity!"

I sigh and place my hand on his cheek, looking into his eyes. "You saw what I was like in the beginning, and it wasn't pretty. I didn't know where the fuck I would be right now without some of that structure, without you and our friends. I probably wouldn't even be here right now. I probably would've been dead in a fucking ditch somewhere a long time ago."

"It was certainly difficult to live in an unknown world, but not with you!" It probably sounds morbid. I knew it would've been my unlucky if I didn't find something important, something greater than myself, something to believe in, the one thing I needed that I wasn't even looking for.

"I try to believe your words, but I can't because you're looking for freedom from this land." He says quietly.

"Yeah, but I wouldn't be me now without you. It's not just about freedom. It's about my nature!" I admit, letting out a long sigh. "Maybe it's easier sometimes not to think about the past. Easier not to miss anything or want to go back. It's harder to move on if it relates to our identity. But everything had to happen the way it did. I wouldn't change it. It's just.. life, you know?"

"Do you still miss it sometimes?" He murmurs, having something on his mind already.

"Yeah, I miss it. I miss my family and friends. I miss floating into the water and wandering around the ocean. I miss being a merman!" I spill my heart out and grab his hand, holding in mine. "Apart from everything, I love you!"

"But things may change." He finishes somberly.

"I got a chance to get my identity back once, but I wasted it," I say with a shrug. "Cause the love, which was the reason to get me a curse, keeping me here."

We fall back into silence for a little while, absorbing and processing everything that's been unearthed. It feels good to say everything that I've been humbled to, everything I've been coming to terms with myself over the past few months.

I just needed a bit more time and distance to put it all into perspective. And finally, be able to be truly honest and open about everything. I hope it grants Dean some comfort now, puts to bed some of the doubts and worries that are still nagging at his head and heart.

"So.. you didn't think I hid everything on purpose." I acknowledge after a minute, still sounding slightly uncertain.

He says nothing for a moment, and when I finally look up at him accurately, he leans in and kisses me gently on the lips instead of a response. Because sometimes words don't easily matter, aren't enough.

I make a soft, pleasing noise before kissing back, sighing against his lips, moving closer to him as if by gravity, loosely curling my fingers into the front of his shirt.

"Still, I don't accept it. But I don't fucking think like that for you." He says firmly. Like it should have been obvious all along.

"Okay," I say, giving him a slight smile. I wrap my arms around him and place my head on his chest, hoping everything will be all right.