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Blood in the Water: Another One Bites At Dusk!AU

*Selkie Jim’s story in the Another One Bites At Dusk universe :)

“Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild. With a faery, hand in hand. For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”

-W.B. Yeats

Seven tears shed into the sea.

Seamus knew the lore, yet almost didn’t recognize The Call when it came to him.

Compelled him to come up to the surface and gaze longingly at the man who was sobbing alone off the side of a boat, his bare feet dangling above the water. Like whispers just skimming the surface.

He wouldn’t call himself old then, but he was far from young. He knew humans, knew their misdeeds and their wickedness. He knew to fear them like sharks and other carnivorous creatures that lurked in the depths. But the man’s Call had been so beguiling. So drawing that he had bobbed his head above his surface and simply watched for a time.

Seamus was Ireland. Not all of his kind was from the same shores, but he was Ireland born and part of Ireland he would always be. He was born in a violent squall, as the salty waves climbed on top of one another and crashed together in such a way, that meant fortune would follow his birth, according to his mother.

She who brought him from the water and upon the rocks at Sule Skerry.

Seven years for seven tears, she told him once.

She’d been held captive by a human in her youth, his father.

But the children of selkies and humans, should they live longer than a handful of years, will always be born to the sea. Selkie blood, selkie magic would never dilute through generations.

Seamus was a selkie through and through, giving little thought, other than malice, to the mortal man who’d kept his mother enslaved, until the day she found her pelt once more. Never let them take you, they don’t love. And if they do, run, for they will only love a kept thing.

Every seven years, his kind would walk on the land, amongst the mortals who danced along the shores. But only for a single night. Should they stay past first light of morning, they would be trapped for seven years on land. Wasting away and dying without the sea to anchor them.

To have a pelt stolen that night would mean being forced to wed and live on land until it could be recovered. Or they would simply die, unable to survive the loss of their still-beating heart.

But to be Called was something else entire.

To be Called was to be given seven tears for seven years on land with the Caller. Usually a broken-hearted woman, calling for a selkie’s undying love.

The man on the boat cried his tears, earned his years.

And Seamus watched and waited for his time of arrival. When the man would reach for him.

“Come on, Mercury. Come on!” The desolate man whispered to himself, scrubbing the unshed tears away viciously and gritting his prominent teeth. “Stop crying, you soppy old fool!” He berated himself, sadly, sniffling and clinging to himself in a way that made Seamus yearn to comfort him.

“Freddie! Love, where are you?!”

Another voice called and the crying man… Freddie? Mercury?… looked up with shame coloring his cheeks and a false smile etched onto his lips. He called back a simple, too-bright, “I’m coming, darling! Just a moment!”

And went off to follow the voice’s summons.

Seamus followed the boat until it found moorings at a nearby dock and he climbed from the water. Pelt shed and not quite human eyes glowing in the lowlight of the morning.

He waited for the boat’s occupants to descend, and instead came face-to-face with a sandy-haired boy from the old country.

A man who must have known what the selkie was on first sight, with the way his light eyes widened. Eyes that flicked from Seamus to the pelt wrapped about his waist.

“Roane.”

The man growled, reaching out to snatch Seamus’ pelt away from him. The selkie allowed him. The man was an attendant of his Caller, the man would help him. Wouldn’t he?

For an instant, he trusted. From the instant that pelt left his hold, he trusted a human. Disobeyed every rule that he’d ever been told.

His recompense was silver knife brandished against his neck and his pelt stolen away from him. “Freddie…?” He gasped wetly, against the hardened eyes that stared down at him like some kind of beast of yore. His throat was still thick with seal song, the human words hadn’t yet come. And they would never without his pelt sat astride his body, or without him knowing where it was. Without the choice.

“You can’t have him.”

The boy born from the same shores as Seamus himself, took his pelt, took his voice, took away the only connection he had to his home and to the Caller who had coaxed him from its depths.

The man with a cold heart and greedy eyes left him there on the docks, naked in his human skin and voiceless.

Seamus floated in the water for hours, soundlessly attempting to cry out to his brethren. Human skin raw and bleeding, wrinkled and torn. The seals that came, be they natural or selke, only came to stare in pity, then to guide him into a little cave just below the surface of the water. A little pocket where he could curl up on the rocks and breathe in the stagnant human air. The seals wrapped their fat warm bodies around him, saving him from a chilly death that night and for many thereafter. But his heart was gone.

The heart that ached for the sea.

The heart that ached for the beautiful man with tears rolling down his cheeks and a strange small pelt above his lips. Seamus itched to run his cheeks across it in the place of whiskers. He imagined that it would feel pleasant.

The heart that a boy from his own shores had stolen from him, holding like it was little more than a piece of old tat, a discarded oyster shell.

Why did you trust? He imagined the eyes of the seals berating him as they shined in the lowlight.

Why did you trust?

He had no answer for them.

But then again, he had nothing at all.

-X-

He would wonder why he hadn’t perished that day or on any night thereafter, selkies Called trapped on land without a pelt in the care of their Caller would certainly die. He knew that much.

But Seamus lived on.

As unbeknownst to him, the man from his own shores had given the pelt to his Caller. A gift from a fan, he had said. An old fur coat that Freddie simply tossed in a closet somewhere, forgotten about. Brian had been aghast at the realness of it, ranting and raving about poaching and the culling of seals.

But there his pelt rested, out of sight and out of mind.

His stolen heart beat still.

-X-

It was years before he saw his Caller again.

Freddie Mercury.

A name printed on the tabloids and often uttered by lackluster media outlets. A voice heard on records that he played until the tape wore down till near translucency. It wasn’t a replacement for the real thing, but it was enough to help him get by.

He built a life for himself amid the world of humans, the world of men.

Nameless, Voiceless. He called himself Jim. Learned the finger-language of men, attended to their hair like he’d once groomed the pelts of sunbathing lazy pups on the beach.

Sometimes he drank.

Carrying a bottle out to the beach and sat upon the sand. Taking swigs as he warbled a soundless song, he could almost hear the cries that came in return. The eyes that watched him from the water. He wanted to go to them, but his Caller kept him tethered. His pelt only Maker knows where.

Once he drank himself into a stupor at a bar, or at least he’d tried to.

Until a familiar man with a wry smile and a molasses thick voice appeared at his side and every word felt like an acid injected directly into his veins.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

Seamus nodded slowly, unable to blink, unable to tear his eyes away.

Freddie leaned on the bar to order and the selkie felt his mouth go dry. It felt like his heart at just been roughly picked up and slammed inside his chest once more. Suddenly, he was alive once again. “Two vodka and tonics please.” It hurt.

The glass was placed in front of him with a flirty smile.

“So, do you have a big cock?”

The look on Seamus’ face just screamed: Are you fucking serious right now? He choked on the drink, incredulous.

“Oh darling, don’t deny it. I can see it through your trousers, you tease.”

Seamus just stared, it wasn’t like he could do much else.

Freddie paused, pouty mouth on full display, just barely managing to cover up his prominent teeth. “Dear, are you alright? Am I making you uncomfortable?”

Seamus shook his head and motioned towards his throat, pointedly shaking his head.

That lovely mouth formed the most perfect little ‘o’ and he raised both eyebrows in surprise. “Oh, are you mute? Sick?”

Seamus raised a single finger. “Mute, then.”

A smile warmed those lips. “That’s quite alright dear, I once dated a bloke and we didn’t even speak the same language. …Not that I aim to date you, I just…” The usually suave casanova was looking a fair bit rough there, a dusky blush coloring the defined curve of his cheekbones. Seamus’ pale freckled hand reached out of its own accord and pressed a gentle finger against those round pouty lips to quiet him.

Then reaching down to lace their fingers together pointedly.

“Oh. Darling, you’re very persuasive.”

Another close-lipped smile, he ached for Freddie to flash those impressive barracuda teeth once more. “Would you like to go somewhere?”

He couldn’t have nodded fast enough.

-X-

Freddie, all soft skin and gentle curves, stared down at their laced hands, from where they rested on Jim’s bare chest as they lay in bed together.

“What’s your name, lovie?”

Assuming correctly that Freddie didn’t know the language of the deaf, he used a finger to draw the letters, as pointedly as he could into the soft skin of that palm. J-I-M. H-U-T-T-O-N. The name he had chosen for himself. The name that could be spoken freely by human tongues.

“Jim, then. Of course you’d be a Jim.”

A sharp exhale that smelled of toffee and mint tickled his nose, and the heartbeat of his Caller melded soundly with his own.

He was alive once again.

-X-

Months.

It took months, months they didn’t have, before he was suddenly face-to-face with Freddie’s pod.

For what else could it be?

His four partners, their chosen partners, and enough children to fill a small beach. It was a pod. A family. Much like those of selke and seal. He wanted to commend Freddie on both his virility and mating musk to create such a brood. But as he couldn’t speak, aimed to remark on those at a later date.

The last thing he’d expected though, was to come face-to-face with a tiny killer.

A blonde boy with an angel’s face and a vampire’s scent. Fuck. His first instinct had been to bare his teeth, especially when the boy got closer and closer. One of Freddie’s harem was a vampire. But, he assured himself, surely they knew. The rest of the pod was at ease with the land-shark in their midst, so why shouldn’t he be? He attempted to pass off baring his teeth as a smile.

“Roggie, be nice. Jim’s so sweet! He’s quiet and he isn’t like the others. I… I really love him, Rog.” The words turned soft and painful near the end. A bit like he was begging.

Seamus’ heart felt like a buoy in the choppy waves of the sea once Freddie’s words registered. Roger still looked at him like he was contemplating ripping out his throat in a single go. But he did acquiesce, even if he had to have known what Jim was. Webbed fingers and toes, the way he swayed as his walked, his muteness and the animalistic sheen of his eyes. He was far from human.

They both were.

It was a game of acceptance at first. The vampire (dhampir, as he was corrected), the selkie, the huntress and the wolves who cared for them. All intricately laid pieces of the same family.

The children came to accept him.

Freddie’s human partners were only too happy for another soul to love him.

Seamus felt like he could breathe for the first time in years. As he began to ache less and less for the sea.

Until the day one of their rough and tumble little girls, Rory with her big eyes and even bigger heart, came in wearing his pelt as a cape.

The kitchen had been full and bustling.

Children running to and fro like the tides.

Phoebe and Joe attending the food and each other.

Freddie with a laughing Roger plopped on his lap, nose crinkled and blonde hair sticking up in complete disarray as those lithe fingers that were so often laced with his own, tickled the living daylights out of the half-vampire. He loved seeing how much the other partners loved Freddie, how much Freddie loved them.

John was walking about with an upside down Felix over one shoulder to make the little boy cackle.

Brian was writing out another draft or thousandth edit to his thesis, as a blonde baby napped on his shoulder.

But upon seeing Rory…

Seamus had frozen where he stood.

Eyes locked on that pelt with a ferocity he didn’t think he still possessed. He felt like he was drowning. Unable to take in another shaky breath.

Rory noticed him staring and she gave a little smile, spinning around so that the old pelt took flight around her ankles.

“Pretty, isn’t it Unca’ Jim?”

“Where did you get that?”

The first words he’d spoken on land since the night that man from the old world, the once a boy from his shores with that head of sandy hair and soulless eyes, had taken it from him. It took a moment to realize the words had come from him at all. He didn’t recognize the voice. It sounded so much like his mother’s. When she spoke of the time she had been imprisoned on land. But I’m not trapped anymore.

Don’t ever fall in love, she had counseled him once, Selke who love are lost.

“Unca’ Jim?” Rory looked shocked.

Most of the room did to be honest, it fell silent.

As he couldn’t bring himself to tear his eyes away from the pelt his precious child held. The child he had carried in his arms, sung the stories of old to. His daughter, his little tadpole. It was like the godforsaken stories come to fruition. A child finding a selkie parent’s coat and watching that parent disappear into the surf forever more. No. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t. Freddie’s Call still rang true.

“Rory, mo stóirín, this is very important.” She looked scared, like she could feel the gravity of his words. “I need you to take that coat and put in the chest at the foot of my bed, the one with the blue trim? There’s a key in my drawer, a gold one, I need you to lock it away. Please, Ro.” My sweetness, I don’t want to leave you.

She instantly ran off to do just that.

Seamus felt like the stares were tearing bullet holes in him, ripping him apart piece by piece until there was nothing left of him, man or beast, fae or mortal. Each question was a dagger through his racing heart.

“Jim, what’s going on?!”

“You can speak?!”

“Jim?”

“Are you alright?”

Phoebe and Roger looked at him with knowing eyes. “Was that..?” Roger sounded wretched, full of sorrow for him. And that was it, Seamus was running.

He locked himself in a bathroom, tore off every stitch of clothing. The ocean roaring in his ears like echoes in a conch shell horn. And filled the tub till it was near to overflowing. Not realizing that the heart-wrenching wails that bounced off the walls endlessly, were coming from his own mouth. His voice had returned.

He wept for hours in the water.

The water that was was too pure. The water that didn’t taste like the sea. The water that was a reminder of everything he’d lost and given up in too short a time. Not even swaying or burying himself in the liquid helped and for a moment, he contemplated giving up.

Tricking his brain and holding himself down in the water until he drowned. The creature from the water, finding its death within it.

Poetic, he supposed.

-X-

He buried the locked chest in the wee hours of the morning, beneath the azaleas in the garden.

Those flowers never died, not even in the winter months when snow would blanket the ground to give rise to new life.

The magic of old never did like to let go.

-X-

He carved out a place for himself in that blessed oversized family.

That blended family.

He found a home on land with them.

How does one explain true love?

He broke every rule that he was meant to follow and he did it with an impossible joy alight in his chest. A sort of freedom. He became a parent, a husband, a brother, a friend. Depending on what each of them needed him to be. He was never jealous of Freddie’s love for his three other partners, how could he be?

When all he’d ever wanted was for Freddie to be happy.

Parenthood was difficult.

More difficult than making fifty cupcakes overnight for a class party. Or teaching a dozen little tadpoles to swim. Parenthood was a child running for safety in your arms after a fight with their siblings or someone else. Of scoldings and angry shouts. Parenting was joy and pain.

Parenting was walking into your oldest sons’ bedroom to pick up any dirty laundry that never seemed to find its way downstairs, and seeing your second oldest son in a full face of makeup.

His first instinct had been to chuckle, not understanding the gravity of it all. Not then anyway.

“Okay, which one of your sisters did it? …Shall we get them back, son?”

But the look on Mikey’s face, stopped him in his tracks. There were tears in his eyes and a painfully tiny voice that said.

“None… It was me who…” A vague gesture towards the war-paint.

“Oh. It looks nice.” A sweet genuine smile as he picked up the boys’ dirty laundry and plopped it in the basket on his hip.

“I’ll go wash it off!” The preteen spoke too fast, his words climbing over one another in their haste to get out.

Seamus just paused, brows furrowed as he took in the boy’s clenched fists and trembling shoulders, holding back tears.

“Why? It looks lovely. You did a good job! In fact, you should show your Bapuji, I think you winged the liner better than he does.” A huffed laugh to break the tension, an attempt that fell short.

Mikey just shook his head, a sad smile alight on his lips.

“I can’t, they don’t know that I’m not a boy.”

Hands instantly clamped over his mouth and the tears genuinely started to fall. He looked utterly devastated by the confession.

Seamus didn’t know what to do. What to say. His first reaction though, was to drop the sodding clothes and hold his boy… (girl?). His child. So he did. Racing over with open arms that poor Mikey fell into. Sobbing so hard that their back was shaking. All of their body was trembling.

“Mo stóirín, please take a breath. It’s alright. Everything is going to be alright.”

He cooed, into that sweet-smelling soft hair. “I’ve got you, I’m here.”

Parenthood.

“I’m a girl.”

“Okay. Is Mikey still okay?”

A nod into his chest. She used to love to fall asleep like that, plopped across Seamus’ chest, a recurring theme with the tadpoles. Not to his displeasure in any way, of course. It reminded him of being a seal pup again.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Another nod.

“How long have you known?”

“…Forever.”

“Why haven’t you told anyone?”

A shrug, more tears.

“…Why did you tell me? Because I saw?”

A head shake. “…You’re trapped too, aren’t you? Trapped in the wrong body? You understand.” Her voice cracked in the middle.

“Mikey, it isn’t the same.” Those big doe eyes were overflowing with tears. Waiting for the backlash, for the ridicule, the shame. “This shape may not be the one I chose, but it is still mine. Love… you have never been a boy.”

When his little girl cried, this time they were tears of joy and relief.

Parenthood.

-X-

He bought her a dress the color of sea-foam and curled her hair with butterfly clips. Told her she was far too young to wear any makeup, but clear polish and lipgloss, outside of the house.

She hugged him so hard around the waist that he was drowning for an entirely new reason.

And he couldn’t bring himself to truly mind.

-X-

On the worst day of his existence, the day when the Calling tie between he and Freddie faded away, the sea almost claimed his child.

They were sitting outside at dusk.

Freddie, the newly turned vampire, curled up in his lap. Anchoring him to the land, to the rest of the odd planet he’d found himself on. Of course he loved his beloved as a vampire. Even when that heart that stole his own, beat no longer and he was faced with a Freddie that he’d never known. A Freddie that was a boy, but also a man and a beast.

His arms held fast to his lover, beautiful with every movement, every word. Afraid to let go and afraid of what the future held. Everything was alright with Freddie in his arms.

I won’t ever leave you, I’d sooner die on land than ever live without you and our family.

Phoebe and Joe were laying on the grass and giggling like schoolchildren. Roger dragged John out to play in the lake’s surf like a hyperactive little boy.

“I thought you couldn’t cross running water, dhampir-boy.”

“Duh, Deaky. The water’s not running, I am!”

“Rog, it doesn’t work like that!”

Watching the bassist heave the blonde over one shoulder, the older boy screaming with wild joy as they spun around and around in glee. He wondered how he’d once called Roger a bloodthirsty killer. The blonde wouldn’t drink to kill, even if it meant an impossible show of restraint, or pain on his own end.

Brian joined them, coming up behind them to take the both of them into his arms, accompanied by a motley of shouts and cheers. Freddie would surely be running out to join them, but he was more than passed out on Seamus’ chest. The selkie played idly with his hair.

The children had run off to play one game or another in the shallow water, playing around on the edge and chasing off all the birds that dared to linger for a second too long. Soon they’d have to send them all to bed, a few of them had school the next day.

He slipped into a warm doze, shoving the need for the sea away into the pits of his mind.

The scream that tore through the night was spine-chilling though and every adult snapped into wakefulness in an instant.

“Joshie’s drowning!”

He didn’t know which child screamed it, but he was running before he’d fully processed the sentence.

Tearing his way towards the water. He understood what had happened at warp speed. The calmest strips of water, the streams that attracted small children who only wanted to play, was a riptide. Riptides were merciless and could drown even the strongest of swimmers. Including their tadpole babies, each of which he’d trained how to swim with his own two hands.

Roger, Deaky and Bri were all closer, but Seamus reached the water first.

The wordless cry that left his lips attracted the familiar eyes of seal and selke alike from the depths. His people calling him home. No. No.

He was running for Joshua and Joshua alone.

He heard nothing but the sound of his own heartbeat roaring in his ears, as he dove into the same riptide. Disappearing into his first home to search for the human child. The force of the tide was like being yanked forwards from the navel, twisting and turning, being battered like a ragdoll.

But the seals that followed allowed him to latch on and dragged him towards his boy.

The slick fur that had once been his own was difficult to cling too, but he didn’t dare slip. Every second counted, every missed breath.

The tiny boy was nudged into his arms, bone-white icy half-curled puka shell fingers caught in his hair.

One of his seal brethren attempted to catch them when there was a sudden dip in the tide and he nearly broke his neck. The seal was the only reason he didn’t, those sharp teeth digging brutally into his side to save him the impact. But in turn, severing something important inside of him. He could feel it. The blood started to pour.

Too much.

Too fast.

His heart was in his throat.

But he had to get Joshua to the surface. The seals, selke or no, carried them there once the blood loss had become too much. He felt as weak as a kitten, batting for some sort of purchase.

Yet before they truly broke the surface, several hands reached and dragged him up of their own accord.

Joshua was safely taken from his arms and he collapsed in the surf, or he would’ve, if Deaky hadn’t been there to steady him. Practically holding him aloft as the other three worked over Joshie, thankfully he hadn’t been without air for very long and was caterwauling up a storm within a few moments.

Relief flooded Seamus’ every limb. That or the backlash of the blood loss. He stumbled and Deaky caught him with a concerned look and then one of horror, once he drew his hand away to find it smeared with crimson blood.

“…’m!? Can you hear me?”

He could taste sand in his mouth, his feet still floating in the brackish surf. He wanted Freddie, but everything was so hazy. His warm blood was making a little tide-pool around his body, yet he’d never felt more cold.

As a seal he’d never been cold, he’d never felt the sensation.

Being human was full of new sensations. New everything.

He didn’t see the way Mikey ran towards their house, towards the garden at full-tilt. The way she fell upon the ground and ripped up the azaleas like each had purposefully wronged her. Uncovering a chest that hadn’t seen the light of day in years. She carried it towards her fallen parent, with all the strength she possessed in her small body and flung it upon the ground.

“Unca’ Jim! Where’s the key?! Unca’ Jim!”

He lolled his head over to her blurry shape and there were a million things on his tongue. Mikey, you need to tell them the truth. You need to marry someone who loves you, if that’s something you even want. You need to love yourself first, no matter what.

Little angel, have the most amazing life.

He still had lessons to teach his children.

Rory, love, never let anyone tell you that you aren’t smart enough to be a doctor. Walk into every class and know that you are the smartest person there, male or female.

A million kisses to give Freddie, a million I love yous that would still never be enough.

More days watching movies as a family, more late nights making kelp tea for Phoebe when it became obvious that he was feeling terribly ill with the full-moon so close. More days of life and love. He just wanted more.

But he had made his choice long ago.

A life without his family was no life at all. He would rather die on land with them than live beneath the waves without them.

He wasn’t expecting his daughter to forgo that choice.

When Mikey Deacon couldn’t find the key, she and Robbie beat the damn thing to smithereens. He heard the wood splitter into bits, amid the pressure Roger was putting on his belly wound. The blood came anyway. Washed away in little laps from the waves. He felt his pelt long before he saw it. Long before it made contact with his skin again.

“Please.” He gasped, searching for Freddie’s face. “Don’t. I’ll have to go.”

Mikey was sobbing, open mouthed and he could feel her tears as they dripped onto his pelt.

“You’ll die! You could go home and live! Do you expect us to let you die?!”

His fingers sunk into the sand when he scrabbled for purchase. “It wouldn’t be a life.”

The seals watched from the surf, but it wasn’t his daughter’s hands who laid the pelt over his body. It wasn’t her, Phoebe, Joe, Freddie, John, Brian or Roger. Nor was it Dom or any of the wives or other children.

It was a selkie girl who chose for him, who came from the water, with eyes that echoed his own and a familiar curve to her rounded pup cheeks. His mother had never truly left him. There was no lesson this time.

Simply a gentle touch that brushed his hair from his eyes and wrapped him up tight in his second skin.

“What in the hell?” Deaky whispered. None of them could look away from him or the selke lass. The way the dappled pelt fell down her ivory shoulders, and her hair sticking to the curves around her eyes. Eyes filled with a heart-wrenching sadness that was shared by all their kind.

Roger stepped back, hands falling and blood dripping down his fingers.

“She’s…” Beautiful, strange, from the sea, a seal maiden?

Seamus opened his mouth to finish. “My mother.” But all that came out, as his flesh knit itself back together, feet bobbing in the waves, were the barks of a seal. His voice and choice stolen from him once again. Only this time through love rather than villainy. He was devastated. No. No! He had to stay, he wanted to stay!

His mother tugged him to his feet, their pelts fluttering in the night wind, both of them standing in the waves like seal regents of all they knew. The soft glow of the change beginning to form between them. He was crying.

The last human piece of him.

Seals didn’t cry for sadness and loss.

Those heavy eyes that knew all the oceans of the world, looked back to see his family standing on the sand. Not a single face was dry. Even those who didn’t understand what was happening.

“She’s his Mama.”

Felix whispered, from where he was riding high in Brian’s arms. Seamus nodded slowly, his hand intertwined with his mother’s, tying them together. The night sky was awash with lights of a dozen colors. Almost like the northern lights.

Calling them home, like he’d been Called once before.

“I love them.” He cried. The sounds of a seal with a broken heart.

He remembered singing to each child in turn, singing lullabies of the sea. The sounds mimicking the rasp of waves of the sides of a currach. The songs of ancient Irish shores. His children were screaming, crying out for him. They understood then, what most of the adults did not. If he returned to the sea, he would never come home again. The Fae laws would never release his soul.

Some called selkies the souls of the drowned and the unbaptized, others called them angels fallen to earth.

But it was Freddie who stopped him in his tracks, who made him do more than stop and stare.

Freddie with tears of blood coursing down his cheeks and something shiny clutched in his hand. A circle. A ring. He stepped into the water with them, curled dark tresses whipping about in the violent air. “I meant to give you this earlier, darling.” A small huffed laugh. Tears wetting his fingers, the ring was gold and silver, two knots laid on top of each other. “It’s meant to be a celtic love knot.”

It was.

On the top.

Underneath was another kind of celtic knot, a sailor’s knot. Two intertwining ropes meant to symbolized the memory of a family waiting back home during a long voyage. The simplest knot yet the hardest to break. The love knot laced on top wrapped the gold around the silver, holding it in place.

“Ask me.” He tried to demand, despite the barks and snuffs of a beast instead of a man. All he’d ever demanded. Yet Freddie had fallen in love with a mute. If anyone could understand him, it was his beloved.

“Seamus? Will you marry me?”

The first time Freddie had ever used his real name.

And there were tears of pain instead of love shared between them.

When he threw himself into Freddie’s arms, the kiss tasted like loss.

He extended a hand, looking straight into his lover’s eyes. Those dark eyes like the swirling depths of an undersea chasm, perhaps Charybdis itself. His mother was watching, the seals at her feet, the family on land. As Freddie delicately took his hand in-between two of his own, like he was a precious creature, something frail and breakable. Yet knowing he was the farthest thing.

“In the name of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit.” Touching each finger in turn before it slid into place on his ring finger, as far as the webs would allow.

This boy, this man, was his husband.

With a pair of trembling hands, Jim wiped the tears from his own cheeks and Freddie’s.

“Seven tears.” He whispered with wonder. No. It couldn’t be that easy. It wouldn’t be. But he did it anyway, tugged the seal skin off his body and wrapped it around Freddie’s narrow shoulders. This is what I can give you. You are everything to me. This is my ring, Freddie.

“I will give you my eternity.”

Seven years. Seven Hundred. Seven Thousand.

I give them all to you.

He stepped out of the waves, hand in hand with his mate.

“I’m a selkie, Freddie.” A secret he should’ve shared long ago. The dark-haired man huffed a little laugh, the tears beginning their last descent. “I’ve gathered, love. I’m a vampire.”

Jim gave a warm little smile. “I know.”

“You’ll stay?”

He nodded. You’ve claimed me, Freddie. I’m going nowhere. But he did turn back to his mother with a familiar ache in his chest. An ache that used to be for the sea. But hadn’t been for a very long time. “Mother… I…”

She shook her head, she was a creature of the sea. But he was part human.

Despite selkie blood breeding true, he’d always been a little different. He wasn’t ashamed anymore.

Go home, her eyes told him. Even if it was against everything she’d ever taught him about humans, about the world above the sea. His home wasn’t the same as hers. His home wasn’t Sule Skerry anymore.

His home was a babe in each arm and a boy who had once been his Caller. A pair of wolves, a few human vampires-in-waiting, a dhampir, a huntress, several lovely ladies and a garden full of flowers. That was home for him. And it wasn’t anywhere beneath the waves.

That didn’t mean she would ever leave him.

There would forever be seals in that lake, even when times were less temperate, and their glowing eyes would follow his children and family, as well as all who came to wave hello every so often. Echoes of a life he no longer wanted anymore.

There was loss that day, loss of a kind, just not the kind he’d been expecting.

It was funny in the end, when he had all he’d ever wanted, that his chosen life had come from so little, just seven tears shed into the sea.

-X-

“My son, remember me in your stories and in your songs. Know that I will always love you, always.”

-Song of the Sea (2014)

#fic #submission #author: waywardrunawaycherryblossom #relationship: polyamorous #jimercury #froger #joger #maylor #frian #breaky #deacury #vampire au #magic au #au #angst #series: another one bites at dusk #theme: parenting #folklore

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