Salty Skin ☾cake au

4

Joy, Calum's mother, was having a get together with the people from her office today and she was forcing Mali and Calum to dress up. Calum unwillingly buttoned up a white long sleeve shirt and pulled on his usual black skinny jeans. His mother saw her son in his jeans and sighed but decided not to push him since she was lucky she was able to get him to wear a button up shirt at all.

People began arriving and Calum's mother and father posted themselves near the door and welcomed everyone while Mali politely remained seated on the couch, unbothered. The living room was beginning to feel full so Calum decided to sneak away to his bedroom only to be faced with probably ten small children playing around in his bedroom. He groaned and went to find his mom in the living room.

"Mom," Calum said once he reached her.

"What's wrong, hun?"

"Why are there a bunch of kids in my room?" he asked, agitated.

"Well, the adults need somewhere for their kids to remain occupied while they talk, so I offered your room. It's only for a few hours-"

Calum cut his mother off by annoyingly walking away. He went to the back of the house and out the back door to the porch where, surprisingly, no one was already occupying. He walked down to the steps and sat there with his head rested on his folded arms on his knees. Calum wanted to take off his shoes and dig his feet in the sand of his backyard, if you could even call it that since the beach was a thirty second walk away, but he knew that would only stress his mother out more by dragging sandy feet inside the house.

He tried to clear his thoughts and just sit there but instead, tears slowly fell from his eyes as he dug his head further in his arms.

"Calum," the crying boy faintly heard in the distance and he assumed it was just Mali so he ignored it since he didn't really want to talk to anyone in the house at he moment.

"Calum!"

Calum's head shot up that time. He thought he was hallucinating but he could recognize that voice anywhere. Sure enough, Luke came out of nowhere and stood excitedly in front of him, completely nude.

Calum stood up, his jaw dropped to the ground as he approached the merman who was... standing, on feet and legs. "Luke?! What the hell are you- how did you get here?! Why are you naked?!"

"You left your wallet under the cliff and one of the cards that has a picture of you on it has your address so I just looked for the house with the same number and I found you!" Luke practically jumped for joy. "And I'm naked because the feet don't really come with clothes, but isn't it great!"

Calum was beyond confused and also wanted to ask where his wallet was but he thought he should probably fix Luke's nudity situation first.

Calum quickly began unbuttoning his shirt and taking if off before wrapping it around Luke's bare body and hastily buttoning the buttons back up. The shirt barely covered Luke's butt and crotch but it would have to do for the time being. Calum was now shirtless and looked at Luke and shook his head as he tried to hold back a smile. He grabbed the blue eyed boy's hand and guided him to the back door of his home, "try not to be seen by anyone. You don't have pants on."

Luke walked in front of Calum as the shirtless boy cautiously guided him through the back door of his house. The stairs weren't that far away so they had to be quick if they didn't want to get caught. Slowly, they inched closer to the stairs until they reached the bottom and Calum pushed Luke in front of him as the two sped quickly up the stairs. Calum pulled Luke into his bedroom before closing and locking the door.