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About an hour before dawn, Vincent woke to hear the hoarse, throaty bellowing of two creatures fighting on the edge of the swamp. He lurched into awareness unhappily and did a sluggish cost-benefit analysis. The bellows were closer than he liked, by the near shore rather than the far one, and that meant the fight was happening close to where Vincent kept his little garden of mutant broccoli and potatoes. He’d be pissed if he got up in two hours and found the whole thing razed and trampled, but he’d also be pissed if he went out there and got himself gored by some foaming-mouthed beast in the dark. Leaving the safety of his razor-wire compound was a lot riskier than just huddling in here and waiting it out.
He listened more closely to the sound of bellowing, trying to identify the creatures that were fighting. One of the roars was unfamiliar, but the other sounded a lot like the creature Vincent had nicknamed Septy, who lived in the depths of the southernmost waters of the swamp. Vincent didn’t know what kind of animal Septy had started as—a jellyfish, an octopus, a horse—but after half a decade of post-Skywar radiation, he’d mutated into a sleek, moss-green, seven-tentacled waterbeast with silver blood flowing through his translucent veins. Vincent had learned to tell the difference between creatures who were too radiation-poisoned to reason with and creatures who just wanted to live-and-let-live, and Septy was the latter. He’d stick his narrow, elongated head out of the water when Vincent was gardening sometimes, watching him placidly with one sidelong eye, and more than once Vincent had missed a day of watering thanks to illness and come back to find Septy had soaked the soil for him, scooping the swamp water into waves and sending them into the irrigation trenches Vincent had dug near the shore.
Vincent sighed and climbed to his feet in the darkness, pulling on his boots and unhooking his weapons from the wall. If Septy died, some other creature would just take up residence in the southern swamp, and they probably wouldn’t be as friendly.
Better the devil he knew.
...
When Vincent got to the shore, creeping slowly and quietly in the dark, there was just enough moonlight left to illuminate the battle in progress. Septy had five of his moss-green tentacles wrapped around a huge, blob-bodied mutant steer, while his other two tentacles were slapping ineffectually at the steer’s enormous bulk. “Oh fuck,” Vincent whispered to himself. No way did he want to deal with that thing in close combat. Mutant steers were strong as hell and dumb as rocks.
It was clear that Septy’s blows were too weak to do any real damage against the creature; he was mostly just holding it at bay. They’d been going at it for over ten minutes now, and Vincent was sure Septy was getting tired. Vincent grimaced and drew the handgun on hip. He didn’t like using the gun—he was down to his last two boxes of bullets, and he didn’t relish the idea of traveling into a mutant-infested city to scavenge for more—but the sound of a gunshot might spook the thing into running away.
He snuck as close to the water’s edge as he could, hid behind a bush, and aimed above the steer’s huge, shadowy bulk. He fired. The crack of the shot was loud enough that it put a ring in Vincent’s ears, dulling and muffling the sounds of both creatures shrieking in panic. Septy let go of the steer and dove back under the surface of the water, and the steer bucked blindly on its hind legs for a second and then started running. But the dumbfuck didn’t run away from the sound of the gunshot: it ran toward it, thundering directly toward the bush Vincent was crouched behind. For a second, Vincent froze, shock seizing up his muscles, and then with a burst of explosive energy he threw himself sideways.
It was barely enough: the steer’s girth slammed into his side, sending him tumbling and rolling into the murky shallows of the water. It knocked the wind out of his lungs. Vincent tried to gasp, tried to pull himself upright so he could hide from the wildly charging creature, but he couldn’t do either. He could only claw futilely at the air above his chest as he heard the steer’s bellow and the oncoming thunder of his hooves.
Something warm and wet slapped against Vincent’s chest. Then a forceful exertion rolled him sideways, and he felt things coiling around him: long, slimy, muscular tubes. The feeling of his body being gripped and immobilized was enough to shock his lungs into working again, and he took two huge, gasping breaths. He felt a tremendous jerk as the tubes around him pulled taut, and he was suddenly being dragged out of the shallows into deeper water, his head submerging, his arms and legs pinwheeling behind him.
A lifetime ago, long before the Skywar, Vincent had gone water-skiing at a summer camp—he’d done very well at it, skimming on top of the water like one of those little spindly pond bugs. He was long out of practice now. His body lurched and bounced as he was towed through the murky water of the swamp, so fast that he could barely grab a spare breath when his head momentarily bobbed up out of the water. It was impossible to see anything when he was submerged, but on each bounce upward he could just barely make out the glimmer of moonlight on the slippery skin of the creature towing him away: Septy, moving faster than Vincent would’ve thought possible, his tentacles churning the water underneath Vincent’s legs as he pulled Vincent out of harm’s way.
Vincent was so focused on breathing that he didn’t have a good sense of how long they traveled or in which direction. All he knew was that he could no longer hear the sound of the steer’s angry bellowing or thundering hooves. When finally Septy began to slow down, Vincent could get more than just a brief glimpse of their surroundings, and he saw they were approaching an area of the swamp that was too dense with half-submerged trees for Septy to navigate. Septy altered course slightly, moving with familiar intention toward a gap in the trees that was just big enough to swim through.
To Vincent’s surprise, land came rushing up underneath his feet. They had reached some kind of shallows in the middle of the swamp. Septy pulled him through the gap in the trees, and the toe of one of Vincent’s boots caught in a root and pulled free. Shit. That was what Vincent got for trying to be proactive and helpful at four in the morning: half-killed by a steer, half-drowned by a waterbeast, his gun probably lying in a half-foot of water and one of his boots lost in the swampy muck.
The tentacles gripping him began to ease up as Septy came to a stop. Vincent squinted in the darkness and saw that they had arrived at a little lump of an island in the middle of all the trees. Septy gave him one last push toward it, then released him. Vincent stumbled onto the muddy bank and collapsed onto his back, gasping for breath.
Septy’s gleaming head disappeared under the surface of the water, and Vincent heard the muted sound of his powerful tentacles contracting underwater. Then silence. A minute passed, two minutes, and Septy didn’t resurface. Vincent was alone on this little spit of land in the pre-dawn darkness, far away from the safety of his razor-wire compound and his semi-comfortable bed.
Vincent kicked off his remaining soggy boot and stripped down to his underwear and undershirt. He wrung out his clothes, bundled them up, and stuck them underneath his exhausted head as a pillow. He wasn’t sure where Septy had gone, but if he didn’t come back, Vincent would have to wait until daylight to try and figure out where the hell he was and how the hell he could get home.
Vincent closed his eyes and passed out on the wave of an adrenaline crash.
...
Vincent woke to the sight of daylight in the swamp around him and the sound of something firm hitting the mud beside him. He opened his eyes and saw a moss-green tentacle slithering off the bank beside him, leaving an object lying behind. Vincent squinted at it: it was his soggy lost boot, stained with mud and pouring out water.
Vincent raised both eyebrows. Well. That solved one problem, anyway. He sat up, setting the boot upside down to drain, and peered out into the swamp. Septy’s elongated head was visible above the surface of the water, and the creature drifted sideways, looking at Vincent with one of its wide-set eyes. Vincent had always thought there was intelligence in the way the creature acted, but this went beyond what he expected. He’d noticed Vincent’s missing boot and found it for him. He’d saved Vincent from the rampaging steer. He knew that Vincent needed water for his garden, and that the plants needed watering every day.
So maybe Vincent wasn’t being absolutely insane when he cleared his throat and addressed the creature directly. “Thank you,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I thought I was saving your life, but you definitely saved mine.”
Septy turned his head the other direction and looked at him with his other eye. Was there calculation in that look? Emotion?
“I think this means I owe you,” Vincent said. He tapped the heel of his muddy, rescued boot. “So if there’s something that you need from me, just…let me know, if you can. I’ll do it.”
For a long moment, Septy just drifted slowly in the sluggish water, observing him. Then with a startling lurch he pulled himself partway up onto the muddy bank of the island, water streaming from his large, sleek form. Vincent had never seen him this close-up before: he looked with fascination at the silvered veins tracing paths underneath the jelly-like flesh of Septy’s tentacles. The creature heaved himself forward again, coming close enough to Vincent that Vincent felt a prickle of unease. “Not violence, right?” he said, holding his hands up to show they were empty. “We’re buddies now. Right?”
Septy’s head swiveled again, and Vincent stared at the large, dark eye that was observing him. Septy’s gaze didn’t feel threatening, just a little too alien to read. “Yeah,” Vincent said. “We’re good. We’re buddies.”
Septy’s tentacles pressed down in the mud with a squelch, and he lifted the bulk of his body up off the muddy bank. Vincent saw something sinuous move underneath the creature’s bulk: it was another tentacle, but much thinner than the others, and entirely silver instead of green. Vincent had never noticed it before. Shit, had Septy being carrying around a secret eighth tentacle this whole time? It felt a little late in the game to re-name him.
The tip of the thin tentacle snaked out toward Vincent. The end was covered in what looked like strange, shining scales, layered over one another and tapering down, and Septy poked Vincent in the shin with it. Despite their glassy look, the scales were soft and fleshy, although the muscular power behind the tentacle was forceful enough to make that poke hurt a little. “Easy, buddy,” Vincent said. He shifted in the mud, moving so he was sitting cross-legged on the ground. “You’re a lot stronger than I am.”
The thin tentacle tapped against Vincent’s kneecap, and then, unexpectedly, it tapped at the dark line of flesh where the back of Vincent’s calf was pressed against his thigh. Vincent’s eyebrows drew together as the tentacle pressed down, sliding between his sandwiched flesh, like it wanted to touch the underside of his knee.
Then the tentacle started to move. The thin, sinuous tip of it started to thrust, rapidly, into the fleshy channel formed by his calf pressing up against his thigh. For a second Vincent froze, too startled to react. “Uh,” he said.
Septy’s other seven tentacles started to writhe and undulate against the mud, and the bulk of his body seemed to tremble with exertion as his eighth tentacle thrust hard into the pocket of flesh behind Vincent’s kneecap. Vincent felt something warm and wet erupt between his calf and thigh, and the tentacle slowed down, twisting around in the newly-slippery channel of flesh for a few last pumping strokes.
Then it pulled free, and Vincent stared down at his crossed legs, slowly unbending his knee. The pocket behind his kneecap was coated with a slippery, silvery, almost iridescent liquid.
Well. Shit. It wasn’t the first time Vincent had been treated to an external cumshot before, but it was definitely the first time he’d gotten it from a tentacle behind his knee. “Okay,” he said, keeping his voice as even and friendly as he could. “So you either want to mate, or you’re feeling a little lonely. No judgment either way.”
Septy extended the silver tentacle again. This time, the wet, oozing end of it tried to press into the crease of Vincent’s armpit, and Vincent jerked back in ticklish surprise. “No, uh, not there,” he said. “Maybe, uh, you can just try…”
He awkwardly cupped his hands together so his curved palms formed a bumpy channel, and he held his hands out toward Septy. Immediately the thin silver tentacle wedged itself between his palms and started thrusting, the smooth fleshy scales on its tip dragging back and forth with ticklish friction against his skin. Already there was more of that silvery, slippery come starting to leak from it, oozing out from underneath the fleshy scales, and it made the thrusts easier and faster on every stroke. It was all so weird and unexpected that Vincent didn’t know what to think, his mind racing, a confused lurch sending his cock pushing up against the confines of his underwear. It’s not like this was sexy, but it was sex, kind of, and Vincent hadn’t had sex in a very long time. The silver tentacle was about as fat around as a dick, and even with the weird scales it kind of felt like a dick in his hands, awakening an old, old muscle memory of kneeling on the floor of his college dorm room, pumping his hands on a guy’s dick, leaning forward and letting his tongue touch the leaking tip of the head.
Vincent leaned his head forward and let his tongue touch the oozing wet tip of the tentacle. It was instinctual and so fucking stupid of him that it defied the imagination, because God only fucking knew what was in a mutant waterbeast’s sperm—poison, or radiation, or worse. But the blame and self-recrimination would have to wait for later, because two things happened once Vincent’s tongue touched Septy’s eighth tentacle. Vincent tasted sweetness, so heady and appealing that his lower lip dropped open in surprise—
—and the silver tentacle lunged forward, sliding eagerly along the slick length of Vincent’s tongue and pushing straight down into the clenching tightness of his throat.
Vincent’s consciousness fuzzed white. He didn’t feel panicked—he didn’t feel like he was choking—he felt like his mind had just been catapulted into the air, gliding upwards in a graceful arc, rotating elegantly in the air. His tastebuds ached from sweetness, and his throat was full, and it didn’t seem weird at all that his throat was full, even though he’d never been able to take a dick that deep without gagging before. He could feel the friction of those fleshy scales against the inside of his throat as the tentacle thrust into his mouth, and it felt ticklish but good, like the mild pleasure of someone’s nails scratching against his skin. Oh God, there was something wrong with this, he knew that intellectually, but his body had never felt this content in all his years of being a postwar refugee. He could live the rest of his life like this, lying flat on his back in the muddy swamp, letting Septy drip delight down his throat for days and weeks and years.
Then a rush of fluid suddenly filled his throat, and he swallowed reflexively, and he realized Septy had pulled out of his mouth, the dripping silver tentacle hanging in the air in front of him. Septy’s second load was sloshing around in Vincent’s stomach now, but the panic that would normally accompany that realization didn’t materialize in Vincent’s brain. He felt like his thoughts had been simplified down to only the bare essentials, and it turned out panic wasn’t essential at all. “Oh, buddy,” Vincent breathed, staring raptly into Septy’s dark, peering eye. “I don’t think putting this in me is going to do anything, but if you really want to, I’ve got one more place for you to try.”
Vincent pushed down his underwear—oh God, his cock was as hard as a steel bar, when the fuck had that happened?—and he flipped over onto his stomach in the mud, pushing his ass up into the air. He heard the lurch of Septy’s huge body in the mud, moving forward, getting close enough that he could press the dripping, fleshy end of his tentacle against Vincent’s long-untouched and unprepared hole.
Vincent’s consciousness fuzzed out again, his mind launched ten thousand feet into the air as Septy pushed inside of him. No struggle, no pain, just the silver tentacle easing him open and filling him so perfectly that Vincent never wanted him to pull out. Septy started his thrusting rhythm, hard and rapid and without preamble, and Vincent moaned and gripped his cock, jerking himself frantically as his knees slid in the mud of the swamp bank. It was the first time he’d been fucked in years, and better than any fuck he’d ever had, and it’s not like there was any finesse to it—just muscular power, and static in his brainstem, and no panic or fear, just sweetness, and pleasure, and an unwavering faith in the simplicity of the universe.
The light switched to dark in front of his eyes. It was nighttime—the moon was sitting high up in the sky. Vincent looked over his shoulder, and in the darkness he could see Septy barely visible now, just a glimmer of heaving, gelatinous green. He was still fucking Vincent. Vincent’s cock was limp, and the mud was sloshing wet underneath him, and it was midnight without ever having been noon or evening. Septy's tentacle pounded into Vincent, hard and slick and unceasing.
“Well,” Vincent breathed, “I guess that was the right place to put it after all. Huh, buddy?”
He laid down his head in contentment and took it.