HEADS AND TAILS ⇝ MASHTON [✔]

neuf

"now i could help you."

those five words were ringing through ashton's head as he stared at michael in disbelief. the merprince didn't realized he zoned out until he saw the human wave a hand in front of his face, trying to get his attention.

"earth to ashton, are you there?" michael laughed, his green eyes shining in the light that the crystals gave.

ashton blushed, the crimson red color creeping down his neck as he realized he was still in michael's grip. he quickly untangled himself from the galaxy haired boys arms, trying to cover himself as much as he could. he knew he saw something between his legs, but he was too embarrassed to ask michael what it was. 

after a while, ashton spoke up, "w-what do you mean you could help me?"

"i mean, now that we know for a fact that you can have human legs, i can show you around the land and stuff, y'know, to scratch it off your bucket list," michael stated with a grin. 

the merprince frowned, confusion clouding his face as he didn't know what a bucket list was. michael noticed, and his smile faltered a little when he saw the emotions flickering through the formers face. he noticed the tears going down the mermans face as well.

"ash?" michael asked in a soft tone, not quite sure to do since well, ashton was freaking naked. he decided to scoot closer to the boy, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, patiently waiting for the other boy to speak up. 

there was only silence, only the sound of ashtons erratic breathing made michael confirmed that he was crying again. the galaxy haired boy felt bad for him, from the amount of times he's cried in the past hour, he was a really sensitive guy-or merman?-whatever, he was just really sensitive. 

it was obvious that ashton had a lot to learn before he could really explore the land and meet his friends, but michael was willing to make time for him so that he could experience everything properly, and not having to feel as if he needed to depend on michael as much as he wanted to. 

as michael was soon-to-be lost in his thoughts, he heard ashton's voice quietly ask, "w-what i-if i c-can never t-turn back?"

the galaxy haired boy thought for a moment, trying to remember all of the mermaid shows that he vaguely remembered watching on netflix at 3 am in the morning. what? he was bored, and he couldn't sleep.

wordlessly, michael got up, leaving ashton suddenly cold and missing his touch, but the merprince was too focused on what the human was doing. he saw michael crouch down and scoop up something in his hands, and walked back to where the merprince was sitting. ashton didn't have time to register what was going on until he felt a splash of cold water on his legs, making him shriek.

"what did you do that for!?" ashton shouted, trying to pull his 'legs' up to his chest again, but stopped short as he felt the familiar pins and needles in his legs again. ashton bit his lip as the uncomfortable feeling again, but his shoulders slumped in relief once he saw that his tail was slowly coming back.

once he was sure his tail was fully formed, the merprince quickly submerged himself into the water, grateful to be in the salt water that felt like home to him. 

"well, now that we know you can turn back into a mermaid, we won't have a problem with you never turning back, huh?"

ashton couldn't believe that michael was so normal about this, like this stuff just occurred every freaking day. it made the merprince admire him so much more.

"say, how about you come back tomorrow so that we could work on gettting the hang of your legs? it's getting pretty late anyways, and i still have school tomorrow," michael chuckled.

'what the kelp is getting the hang of my legs,' ashton thought. however, he just nodded and gave michael a small smile.

"i'll see you tomorrow!" michael said, starting to head towards the entrance.

"yeah, see you," ashton replied softly with a big smile on his face, feeling his heart flutter once again. 

and on the way home, those five words kept playing throughout his head, making ashton have a big grin and his stomach full of butterflies as he thought about actually hanging out on the surface with michael. 

sorry for the super short chapter! i've been busy these last few days and it was hard for me to write -lynn