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shyvioletcat · 11 months

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A/N: I wrote a little something in celebration of Mermay. It’s just fun that spawned from a completely random idea. Yes, it’s another single parent au but who’s gonna stop me? Certainly not myself. Please enjoy.

~~~~~

Aelin’s make-up brush was coated in gold as she ran it over her top eyelids. Working in water, there wasn’t much that would withstand it, but she had curated a good collection after some serious trial and error. There was also the toxins in her make-up to consider, if she killed the fish, she wouldn’t have a job. That was why she left off the glitter gel, that would go on after her water performance. This was the ever glamorous life of a mermaid.

She had worked at the Orynth Aquarium for nearly two years. It had started as a what the hell of it job, and then had progressed into something she loved. Thanks to the support if her parents this job wasn’t make or break for her and realistically Aelin know one day she’s have to get a real job, but in the meantime it was fun while it lasted. Her last minute prep was checking if she had had her earplugs and her airways were clear and ready. The earplugs she tucked into the turquoise scale decorated bikini top she wore and she blew her nose once for good luck.

Aelin hated to break the illusion but with the irritation in her eye today she needed to wear goggles for this performance. If she persevered through it and kept her eye exposed to the aquarium water it could potentially flare up more and then she’d have to stop work completely. And that just wasn’t fun for anybody. She had forked out a mild fortune for this particular pair. They were clear as they could possibly be, both the silicone and polycarbonate lenses. To hide it further she put a circlet over it to cover the straps wrapping around the back of her head.

“Lys, can you?” Aelin said to her co-worker and friend.

“Of course,” Lysandra said, helping secure the circlet onto the straps. She was a mermaid too, and would go on a little later in the day.

It only took a few seconds and then it was done. One benefit of the goggles and circlet get up was that it would help to keep the hair out of her face while she swam. The silicone of the circlet was fashioned to look like clusters of shells, corals and pearls, all painted to match her overall mermaid colour scheme. Aelin did a quick adjustment of her goggles and the top part of her mermaid outfit, making sure everything was secure and not likely to fall off in the water. She was as ready as she could be without her tail.

Aelin left the dressing room that had been repurposed from small storage space for the performers. From the still lingering smell of old fish she suspected it had a prep room for the aquarium residents' food. She’d taken her turquoise coloured tail with her and sitting on the water’s edge rolled down the sides until she got to the flipper. Her feet slipped in and she hooked the strap over the back of her heel to stop them slipping out. Then she lathered herself up in hair conditioner so the tail would slide on a little easier.

It took time and a fair amount of effort, but it wasn’t too long before Aelin was entirely merma-fied. The world became muffled as the earplugs filled her ears. She swung her feet around dipping them into the water, and then eased herself all the way in. Submerging fully for the first time always felt a little odd—getting her legs to kick in sync instead of alternating strides. But after a few good kicks muscle memory took over and Aelin was swimming with ease.

Above the surface Aelin started breathing in and out, readying to hold her breath for her big entrance. She counted one, two and then three and she went under, swimming deeper into the aquarium. Fibreglass rocks jutted up from the tank floor and Aelin made for the decorative arch built, arms in front of her guiding her through the water.

There were fish around her, nothing too bitey or sharp, for safety reasons obviously. Aelin had been diving in the shark tank before, and they weren’t vicious creatures, just sometimes curiosity got the better of them. So she was in here with the tropical variety, also making the swim just that more pleasant. If any inhabitants happened to bump into her it was a lot less distracting.

Just as the front glass came into view Aelin lungs began to feel a little bit of strain. She decided that she would do a swim-by of the glass and then pop up for some more air. With her goggles she could see the audience clearly, on other days they would have been blurry blobs of indecipherable colours, but today she could see everything. When children noticed her swimming towards them, they rushed the glass, faces practically squished up on it. They pointed and shouted soundlessly to parents and friends.

Aelin smiled, one hand swooping down to her side while the other waved at the crowd. There was one girl in particular that caught her eye, brown hair pulled back into two braids, face slack with shock and awe. The precious little thing’s eyes were wide as they tracked Aelin’s movements through the water. It wasn’t until Aelin was almost out of sight that she rushed forward, beckoning to someone behind her. Aelin kept swimming but made sure to give the girl a particular wave before she disappeared from sight.

Catching her breath Aelin then dived back under. This time she swayed her hips, building up to a spin. The girl from before practically chased her across the viewing area, the skirts of her tutu swishing around her knees as she did. On the next pass Aelin slowed down so that she could interact with her audience. She waved and smiled, swished her flouncy tail at them. But she was saving the air in her lungs for a little something special. The brown-haired girl was front row, little hands on the glass as she bounced on her toes. Aelin swam right up to her, putting her own hands on the glass too. The smile she was being given was infectious and Aelin had to try and keep her lips sealed so she didn’t lose the air trapped inside. Bringing two fingers of each hand to her lips Aelin whooshed out a bubble of air and made a heart shape. Bubbles followed the movement making a clear heart that framed the girl's face. Aelin wished she had a camera to capture the pure elation and joy.

When the bubbles faded the girl turned, Aelin saw her say something and her companion stepped out of the shadows and came into view. It was an effort not to lose the rest of her air with just how fine a specimen of the human he was. All broad shoulders, chiselled jawline and an usual hue of silver hair, he was knee weakingly handsome. The distortion through the glass did little damage to the overall effect.

Duty called and Aelin had other viewers to entertain. She went through various routines, backflips and front flips, spins and waves, and more air kisses. A lot of people moved on but Aelin’s biggest fan hung around with her carer who now sat on the lowest step, elbows on his knees as he watched the girl have her fun. He smiled and nodded along with whatever she said.

Aelin’s window for performing was closing and she wanted to give this girl a special experience before she wrapped it up. Gulping in some air Aelin dove back down. There the girl was, waiting on the glass, kneeling because she was probably worn out from all the games of chase. Aelin beckoned her to stand by curling her fingers to her palm. She misunderstood and waved and it wasn’t until the man said something to her that the girl stood. Aelin nodded, indicating she’d done the right thing.

Aelin treaded water to keep herself in place and with her pointer finger she made a twirling motion, trying to convey that she was going to spin. The girl clapped before her hands raised above her head like a ballerina. When the girl said something to the man behind her Aelin followed the line of sight. Her lips tightened into a closed lip smirk as she caught him mid check out of her. In this line of work this kind of thing wasn’t unusual, and at least this guy seemed to be doing it respectfully. He was most certainly blushing when he noticed Aelin’s gaze on him and her expression.

It took some manoeuvring and effort—this was one of the more advanced moves in her routine, but Aelin spun upwards in the water, gracefully turning in full circles, slower than the girl was twirling. She was over excited and frantic. Aelin kept going until her head broke the surface, allowing herself a smile and a few intakes of air before going back down. The girl was still spinning when Aelin saw her again and it took the man pointing out that the mermaid had returned for her to stop. The poor little thing swayed on her feet, too dizzy to see straight, making Aelin laugh out a bubble of air. She swam down again, lounging lengthways in the water to get to the girl’s eye level easier.

The laughter had cost her and Aelin would need to swim away soon. So she waved, blowing another heart kiss to the girl’s utter delight. Aelin needed to get to the surface quickly after that so she started swimming straight up. Her new little friend insisted that the man, most likely her father now that she saw them together, wave as well. He did, and Aelin made sure to catch his eye. She winked, then blew him a kiss too, hoping he was blushing again.

Aelin kept to the surface as she swam back to the edge of the aquarium. She was out of breath when she hauled herself onto the ledge and for a while she just lay there, smiling as she recalled the little girl. The kids and their enthusiasm was one of her favourite things about this job. It gave her a sense of fulfilment bringing a little bit of magic to their lives. This girl had really been something and her father—

“Oh. Oh, shit.” Aelin slapped a pruny fingered hand over her mouth. He’d sure as hell started it but she most definitely might have flirted with a married man. A deep breath out later and she let it go. It was harmless fun and it wasn’t likely that she would see him again.

~~~~~

This trip to the aquarium was proving to be a hit. When Rowan had seen the promotion about the mermaids at the aquarium he’d known that he had to bring Ivy. Mermaids were her current obsession and the chance for her to see a real life mermaid was something he wasn’t going to pass up.

Ivy had loved it, every single second. Her enthusiasm had won her the attention of the mermaid. The kisses, waving and the dancing had probably made Ivy’s year. Since the mermaid had swam away Ivy hadn’t stopped talking about it. She’d been disappointed for sure, but the magic from that moment still held sway and she was buzzing. A huge turtle swam by and Ivy followed it with her eyes, head turning and nearly knocking into the glass as she tried to look at it as long as she could. The way things were going they would be here until they were physically kicked out.

“Ivy, should we go see the penguins?” Rowan asked.

Ivy spun, so fast that Rowan had to steady her with a hand on her head.

“There’s penguins?”

Rowan chuckled. “Yes, there are.”

“Why are we standing here then?” Ivy told him, grabbing his hand and leading him in the entirely wrong direction.

“This way, little love,” Rowan said, gently tugging her hand in the right direction.

It was while they were watching the little, stubby, flightless birds waddle around when the announcement that would change Ivy’s life was made over the loudspeaker.

“Hi there, visitors,” a female voice said. “If you would like to meet one of our resident mermaids please head to Coral Cove where a meet and greet will start in five minutes. They are very excited to meet you, and we hope to see you there!”

“Daddy,” Ivy’s eyes were wide. “Did they say we can meet a mermaid?”

He nodded. “Indeed they did.”

“Can we? Please?” The four year old begged.

Rowan already had it in his mind to say yes, but if there had been any doubt for him it would have been banished just from the look in her eyes. “Let’s go.”

It frustrated Ivy when she kept taking the wrong turns so Rowan just picked her up and carried her the rest of the way. This place was easy enough for him to navigate, not so much for a little girl who couldn’t read. They found Coral Cove in the tropical section. It was all warm lights, pastels and colourful fish. There was a line already forming and the two of them joined the end of it.

“Is it her, Daddy? The swimming one?” Ivy asked, head peering over the heads in front of them trying to see.

“I’m not sure, love. We’ll have to wait and see,” Rowan replied.

Ivy was full of nervous energy and eventually Rowan had to put her down because she was shifting around so much. She got antsy and like a dutiful father he was, he handed her some snacks from the backpack to keep her occupied. That gave her five minutes of peace before she was at it again. Holding his hand, Ivy left the line as far as she could while still hanging on. She gasped, hurrying back to Rowan’s legs.

“Dad,” she said in a harsh and very loud whisper. “It’s her.”

“Is it?” Rowan whispered back.

Ivy nodded, such a wide smile on her face. There weren’t too many people ahead of them so it was only another ten minutes before they got to the front of the line. Like Ivy had said, the mermaid from the aquarium was the one doing the meet and greet. She was sitting on a giant pink clam shell, smiling and waving to the visitors.

She was still wearing her gold and turquoise tail, a white starfish was stuck onto some kind of hair clip to keep her damp hair off her face. The previous kids were finishing their goodbyes so the mermaid hadn’t seen them. Rowan looked down to check on Ivy, she was staring at what could safely be considered her idol with wide eyes. But he also recognised another look.

Ivy was a shy child, she didn’t make friends easily or like talking to people in general. And the look she had on her face now told Rowan she’d entered her freeze response, fully shut down. He crouched next to her, turning her so she could look at him.

“Hey, Ivy,” he said quietly. “Do you want to meet the mermaid or do you want to go?”

“I wanna meet her,” she replied even softer.

“Did you want to just give her a wave and go, or?” Rowna offered.

Ivy shook her head. “No, I want to say hello.”

“Okay, I’m right here if you need me.”

Rowan stood and Ivy’s little hand found his. The mermaid’s focus had turned to them now and she clapped her hands and smiled.

“Oh, you came!” she said, all excitement.

Ivy nodded, the beginnings of a smile on her face.

“I really hoped you would,” the mermaid said. “I had so much fun playing with you before. Would you like to come sit down and I can show you some of my treasures I’ve found on my adventures?”

To his mild astonishment, Ivy took a tentative step forward. She did look up at him for reassurance and Rowan gave her an encouraging nod. Ivy’s hands were curled under her chin, still slightly defensive but she kept walking. The mermaid extended a hand and Ivy took it, holding it all the way until they were sitting right next to each other.

Rowan couldn’t hear what was being said, but only about a minute went by before Ivy had relaxed and she was smiling, animation creeping back into her face. The mermaid was doing an amazing job of bringing Ivy out of her shell and soon they were passing lines of conversation back and forth. Rowan smiled, hiding it as he looked down and shook his head. This woman was dedicated to her job, that much was for sure.

Ivy and her new best friend were still talking and Rowan was left with nothing much else to do but watch. The woman in the costume was stunning to say the least, and if mermaids did by some chance exist she could be one of them. Dressed like this there was almost something ethereal about her. Details he hadn’t seen through the fog of the glass were clearer now. In the water she had looked paler, but sitting here in the light there was a lovely tan to her skin, and it didn’t look fake. Her make-up was fairly simple, just some gold on her eyes to highlight her lids, and there was some glitter on her cheekbones. When wet her hair had looked dark blonde—nearly brown—but as it dried a brighter colour was coming out.

She kept to a colour scheme—gold and turquoise. The bulk of her tail was a rich turquoise, with highlights of gold on the scales and fin. That was truly a work of art, the fin itself was more of a feathery look rather than a short fin, and there were even smaller ones on her hips. Her forearms had what looked like scaled gloves on them along with some chunky coral jewellery. Even her top had was scaled and painted to match everything, and the way it fit it—

Rowan’s eyes snapped away from her chest before his appreciation went any further. He told himself to keep his eyes up, she’d already caught him once and that had been embarrassing enough.

“Daddy!” Rowan heard Ivy squeal along with the pattering of her running feet. “Look what Aelin gave me.”

Ivy held up a bead that looked like a pearl. It clearly wasn’t, it was just cheap plastic but he knew from the look on her face that she would treasure it until she inevitably forgot about it.

“Wow, that’s beautiful,” Rowan gushed. “Did you say thank you?”

“Yeah-huh, I did,” Ivy said. “But Daddy, can you take a photo?”

He nodded, running an affectionate hand over her hair. “Of course.”

Rowan pulled his phone from his pocket while Ivy ran back over, nearly jumping into the seat next to the mermaid, well Aelin he supposed he could call her now. He glanced at the screen and then up, making sure everyone was in position. It was right then that he realised why she had chosen turquoise and gold… her eyes, that's the colour they were too. For an embarrassing moment Rowan stared a little too long. They were so unusual, so exquisite. He had to wonder if they were contacts to go along with the otherworldly nature of her job.

He returned his focus back to the screen and the two of them were smiling at the camera. Snapping a few just in case, Rowan nodded when he was done. Ivy ran over to him, thriving on the excitement of it all. They were walking away when Ivy turned around for one last goodbye.

“Bye, Aelin! Bye!” She was waving frantically as she said the words.

Aelin looked over at her, smiling widely. “Bye, precious. You have a wonderful day.”

“Bye,” Ivy said one last time.

They walked for a while, Rowan leading the way as Ivy looked at the pearl cradled in her palm. He smiled to himself, his daughter’s joy so infectious. They ended up in a shark tunnel when Ivy finally looked up. She tracked the sharks and the stingrays that swam over head, a very soft wow escaping her. Rowan crouched down to watch along with her, just to see the world through her eyes for a moment.

Ivy arms reached out and she hugged him around his neck. Rowan scooped her up, kissing her cheek as he stood.

“How has your day been, my little love?” He asked.

Ivy didn’t look at him, but she did hug him tighter. “It’s been the best day ever.”

~~~~~

It was near closing when Aelin was leaving for the day. Today had been great, eye irritation be damned. She waved goodbye to colleagues as she headed for the front exit, tired and hungry. Water performances always left her famished. Make-up and costume gone, she was wearing a simple pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, looking like any other visitor still hanging around.

She had just walked out the main exit when she stopped to search through her backpack for her car keys. Someone moved past her and she stepped aside to give them some more space. Aelin’s hand was on said keys when she heard her name being called by an unfamiliar voice. She looked up and her stomach dropped. Her new little friend was looking back at her, propped up in her father’s arms and looking over his shoulder.

One key aspect of her job was keeping the magic alive and right now she was watching it fade away before her eyes.

“Oh, hey Ivy,” Aelin said, waiting was the damning question.

“Where’s your tail gone?” The little girl asked.

Her father had stopped and now the three of them were forced into starting up a conversation.

“Well, you see,” Aelin said, quickly scrambling for a reply. “A seawitch put a spell on me and between three and six o’clock I lose my tail and become human. It allows me to get home but that’s about it.” There was a muffled laugh from the girl’s father. Aelin tried not to laugh herself, but the happiness of a small child hung in the balance, so instead she lent in conspiratorially. “To remain a mermaid I need a kiss.”

“Quick, Daddy. Kiss her!” Ivy exclaimed.

The poor man looked a little panicked, no doubt having been weaselled into gods knew what by the little tyrant in his arms.

“Ah, there’s the catch. It had to be my true love,” Aelin said with a sigh, and then something a little mischievous crept in. “And I don’t think your mother would appreciate that offer anyway.”

“Divorced,” the man said quite suddenly. “I’m divorced.”

“Oh, I see then,” Aelin said, biting the inside of her lip to stop any laughter over his abruptness escaping.

All in all, Ivy seemed to buy the whole curse business, even though the premise might have been fairly outdated.

“That’s so sad. You have to find them,” Ivy said, as serious as a child her age could be. “You have to be a mermaid.”

“You’re right, miss Ivy. I’ll have to keep my eye out,” Aelin replied with a wink.

“Ivy, why don't you go grab some pamphlets to show your uncles, huh?” The dad said.

“‘Mkay, Dad.” Ivy was set down and she ran off to the wall that had the pamphlets, taking a moment to consider before she started grabbing.

There was a moment of silence between the two adults, Aelin not exactly sure why this guy had sent his daughter off. She waited, hoping whatever this was would wrap up soon because she was starving.

“Do you do, ah… private functions?

Aelin’s head tilted to the side, blinking a few times. “Ahhh…”

Being hit on was a hazard of the job, she had been flirted with. A lot. And if that was what this guy was going for he was doing a terrible job. In fact, it was coming off a little creepy.

“No, wait. That’s not what I meant,” he said earnestly. “It’s Ivy’s birthday next month and she had such a great time with you today. So, I was just wondering if you worked outside of the aquarium. That was such a clumsy pass on my end.”

Aelin laughed, she couldn’t help it. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“But really, Ivy thinks you’re amazing, but if you don’t I completely understand,” the man said.

Touched by his sincerity, Aelin only left him hanging for half a moment before she answered him. “For the right price, I most definitely do.”

“That would be fantastic, thank you,” he said.

“Aelin, by the way,” she said, finally getting to a proper introduction.

“Rowan,” he said, fishing his wallet out of his pocket and handing her a business card. “Here’s my number, just send me a quick text and we can get it sorted.”

“Sure thing, Rowan.” Aelin tucked the card into her pocket. “Anything for my new bestie.”

That made the father smile. “I’ll let you get back to it. Have a nice evening.”

“You too, Rowan,” Aelin said.

Rowan gave her a final nod before he went off to collect Ivy. He snuck up on her, catching her by the waist and winging her into the hair. The little girl’s laughter echoed and the whole scene was so sweet that Aelin couldn’t help but smile. She hasn’t been lying when she told him she did parties, it was usually just for friends. But watching the duo walk away Aelin decided that she would make an exception—just this once.

~~~~~

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#rowaelin fanfiction #mermay fanfic #throne of glass fanfiction #i know the title is ridiculous but here we are

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dapandapod · 1 year

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For Mermay :)

Eskel and Geralt? Hmmm a word...

Glittering!

No pressure and i hope this inspires you 💕😊

It does, thank you and thank you for indulging me <3 writing spree activated, I'm sorry for so many posts in a day, but aaah, words! Also since it was not specified, I also didn't specify if it is a ship fic or not. I hope you enjoy! <3

Send me a pairing and a word and I will make you some words? ❤️

On Ao3 here

When the sun goes down, the world glows brighter. Anemones and shrimps and little fish and the gentle light of the moon above lighting up the rocks and the kelp and the sea grass.

Geralt only knows it is called moon because of the songs of the humans. Some of the people beyond the reef call it the Silver Sun.

Her pale light doesn’t dive as deep as her brother, but every ebb and flow is at her mercy.

From below, you can’t see her children. For that, you have to reach the surface. It is something that is to be avoided as much as possible, Vesemir instructed them in their youth. Above the surface they hunt you, or you get stranded, or far worse.

Geralt hasn't seen his mother since she went to the surface. All he remembers of her are her colorful fins and auburn hair, her clawed finger gently thumbing the crease of his smile.

Now that Geralt is the age she was when she disappeared, Geralt wants to see the children of the moon. The stars, he heard the humans call them.

It is a calm night, and the skies are clear. Geralt floats, his chest and face and arm just above the surface. Leaving his back unattended, turned to the world below feels weird, his hair floating around him, the same color as the Silver Sun.

He should be fine, though, fins and tail sleek like a shark keep most predators a safe distance from him, recognizing what he is. More than fine, seeing Eskel is there with him, floating just inches from where he is.

The ocean sounds different from here. Sharper, but quieter. If he lets his head sink, he can hear the underwater life sing. Above, it is Silent. Peaceful.

“They look like little jellyfish. Or mareel.” Eskel mumbles. His voice too is different up here, and the water trembles around his chest as he speaks.

Geralt doesn’t respond. He only keeps looking, the far away lights glittering like gems, or scales in the sun.

“Do you think she is up there?” Geralt can’t help but ask eventually. The water around him vibrates, lapping at his skin like little kisses.

“You think she just kept swimming?” Eskel turns his head to look at Geralt, and he can see it so clearly in his mind.

How his mother just kept swimming up, up, up, until she joined them far above in the inky darkness, just like in the stories of their childhood.

“More likely they hunted her.” Geralt says, frowning at the memory of being left behind.

Eskel reaches for him, their fingers tangling together when Eskel grabs his hand, so much bigger than his own.

Eskel always was bigger, stronger. He comes from the north, his body the black and white of the orcas. Even now, Eskel still mourns the loss of his family, and Geralt has sworn never to leave his side.

The stars wink at them, an echo of what is below. Geralt wonders if you could trip and fall into it, a sky of upside down sea.

Eskel’s hand in his is grounding, their hips and fins touch as they float closer together.

“Ready to go home?” Eskel asks eventually.

Geralt turns his head and gives a smile, pulling them even closer and knocking their foreheads together.

“With you, I’m always home.”

But they dive down, leaving the empty quiet above, to the singing depths they know.

#mermay #eskel and geralt #geskel #but only i you want #the witcher #mermay 2023 #dapanda writes #eskel #geralt of rivia #stars #soft and sad #they love each other your honor #in the ways that matter

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the-enby-bird · 2 years

Text

Mermay Day 4- Net

I couldn't remember what the most common name is for Farmer sans (I think it's Kelp or something in leviathantale specially but idk i just don't like that as much) so I just called him Farm

These Mermay prompts and Leviathantale itself belong to @/skumhuu

(Destined Masterpost)

(AO3 Link)

Word Count: 604

~~~

The motor of Farm’s boat purred quietly, making soft splashes as it caught waves. Water sprayed up in his face, the faint mist glittering rainbow in the sun. The air still smelled of fresh rain, last night’s storm having dragged dozens of creatures to the shore. Farm had spent the entire morning throwing the animals still alive back to the sea, taking the things unsalvagable to use as bait. Currently, the skeleton was dragging a net through the water idly, too tired from this morning to actually attempt to fish.

Something caught at the net, heavy enough to slow the fisherman’s boat. A shark? Here was too close to shore for a whale, but too far out for a rock or coral to catch the net. He pulled the net up- or tried to, at least. It was far too heavy for the small skeleton to pull up, instead leading him to tip over the edge of his small vessel.

The water splashed loudly as he fell, bubbles filling his skull. His eyelights fizzed, struggling to adjust to the cold water. They finally surged back into existence, granting him the blessing of sight.

A single eyelight met his, glowing red.

You can’t say he was in the wrong for trying to scream, panic flaring through his whole body. The other eyelight blinked, quietly concerned. Farm blinked several times, still trying to comprehend the other skeleton. Farm took a moment to look down, at the skeleton’s tail- tail? Oh. Fuck. That explains a lot.

“Uh. Hey bud?”

The mer didn’t respond, just blinking again.

“Um. Can you? Can you understand me?”

“...Yeah.” The mer’s voice was deep, accented with a gravelly undertone. It sent a slight shiver down Farm’s spine, prior fear resurging some.

“Are you- Erm- Are you stuck in my net? Or…?” The skeleton nodded, the soft swish of his tail pulling at Farm’s boat. “Hey, can ya stop movin’? I don’t wanna get more of my stuff wet. If you can.”

The mer stilled, and Farm hesitantly swam closer. He briefly thanked his ability to quickly summon ecto, if he didn’t have it then he would be floating to the bottom of the sea. And he did not want to find how deep the water went. He reached out to touch the mer, in hopes of untangling the net that twisted around their body.

The mer flicked himself backwards slightly, looking rather afraid. Farm retreated, holding his hands up. “I’m gonna try and untangle ya, I don’t plan on hurtin’ you.” They relaxed slightly, but their body still hid the same tense suspicion. “Kay, dunno how much I can do withou’ my snippers, but it doesn’ look like you’re too tangled up…”

Farm twisted a strand of fiber away from the mer’s face, tugging an entire section of the net away. Farm continued the process for the rest of the net, the large mer’s eye on him the entire time. He swam back once he was done, scanning for any leftover net. There was some bruising on the mer’s tail and bones, and a few holes in the net, but beyond that nothing seemed majorly harmed.

“You good? Nothing major hurts?”

“...Yeah…”

“Great. I’m. Uh. Gonna be going now, um. Don’t get caught in any more nets?”

The mer silently swam up, pressing their body to his. They pressed their face against his neck, waiting just long enough for a brilliant green flush to appear on the fisherman’s face before they swam away.

Farm stalled an minute longer, attempting to recall what little he knew of mer traditions.

Oh well.

It was probably nothing.

~~~

HDHHDFSDGDFG Poor Horror he just essentially asked Farm out and Farm was like “Nah mate” I feel so sorry for him

Farm’s aro/ace in my head so like ghdjkdgjshdfsk yeah

#farmer sans #horror sans #undertale #undertale au #undertale multiverse #toast writes #bad sans gang #bad sans poly #sans #leviathantale #leviathantale mermay #mermay 2022

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darethshirl · 2 years

Text

got bit by the mermay bug and wrote a little something 👀 if all goes well this MAY get more chapters but for now here’s a taste:

(solavellan mermaid au, 1k words)

—

“That lock is rusted, you know.”

Solas huffed, taking a beat to wipe the sweat off his brow. “I’m well aware, thank you,” he said testily.

And really, who could blame him for his short temper? His current position was a truly ignoble one: with his ass in the sand, his trousers getting progressively wetter from the ocean, and an ancient, seaweed-crusted chest between his legs. The key that used to hang on a chain around his neck was tossed to the side, forlorn and forgotten, and Solas had his hands wrapped around that thrice-damned padlock and pulling as hard as he could. This was what he had been reduced to, apparently: resorting to brute, dumb force.

And failing.

A chuckle floated his way, and Solas cast another disgruntled glance at his impromptu visitor. His noisy flailings had attracted the curiosity of a mermaid, and the creature was observing him with entirely too much amusement for his tastes. She was sprawled on the shallows of the beach, her chin resting on one palm, her sea-green tail glittering in the sunny water. The brown skin of her humanoid side looked smooth and salt-kissed at the same time, dotted with tiny iridescent scales that clustered like freckles on her collarbone and shoulders. When she smiled her incisors showed, just sharp enough to cause a dangerous thrill in Solas’ belly whenever he noticed.

“Poor mortals,” she cooed, and to her slight credit she sounded empathetic rather than disdainful. “Your limbs must be so weak.”

Solas pressed his lips together, swallowing down his reply to that comment. Instead he fished out a suitably large rock from the muddy sand, tested his grip, then started to bang it against the padlock. His palms had already been nicked from his earlier struggles, the small cuts stinging from the salt and grit, but he ignored it all. There was something mightily satisfying about hitting an inanimate object with all his strength right now.

At least it was until he misjudged the distance and hit his own finger. Solas hissed in pain, a litany of curses rising to his tongue. He addressed most of them to his past self, and some to Felassan for good measure.

The mermaid was utterly unruffled by the profanity. “There’s no shame in asking for help, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

Solas leaned back with a sigh, his aching back protesting. “And what would the price of that help be? My eternal soul?”

Her chuckle was throatier this time, her green eyes twinkling. “That’s harpies you’re thinking of.” She gave him another one of her sharp smiles, clever and coy. “I’ll only capture your soul if you want me to.”

Despite everything Solas huffed a laugh, his mouth forming a sly smile of its own accord. He looked at her more carefully, studying her closely. “Can you actually open this lock?”

“I think the question you really want to ask me is, will I open this lock?”

“Will you?” Solas scrambled upright, suddenly alert. “I mean, would you be willing to help me? I’m sorry I was so ill-mannered before. It’s been a… trying day.”

The woman—could she truly be called a woman?—hummed thoughtfully, her eyelashes fluttering as she slowly blinked. “Well,” she finally said, still smiling, “since you asked so nicely.”

She moved towards him on top of a small wave, then when she got close turned gracefully around and planted her rump on the sand. It was an unexpectedly mundane position, and sitting next to him like this she really did seem like a normal woman. Except her body emanated cold rather than warmth, her scent bringing to mind the open ocean. Not entirely unpleasant, as it were. From this close her skin looked enticingly soft, her arm subtly-muscled and dewy with seawater, and her breasts—

Solas averted his gaze, clearing his throat. He moved slightly to the side and gestured politely to the chest. “Are you going to use a spell? Do you need to prepare—” he cut himself off when her hand reached out and broke the padlock with one firm tug. “...Ah.”

“I’m sure you loosened it for me,” she teased.

But Solas wasn’t paying attention anymore. He impatiently lifted the chest’s lid, his eyes trained on its opening as the darkened insides flooded slowly with light…

It was there. Solas breathed out in relief, looking at his orb nestled safely among the protective runes. It shone with a brilliant green light, suffusing its surroundings with luminescent colour. Its whorled carvings were as intricate as he remembered, calling out to his touch. He reached in and cradled it carefully in his palms.

The moment he did his stomach dropped in disappointment. The orb may have looked healthy on the outside but its magic was clearly diminished, still, its power dormant and deaf to his calls. It had been so long. Was he supposed to wait even longer? He was running out of options.

“What is this?” the woman—the mermaid—asked, staring at the orb with wide, entranced eyes. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Is it magical?”

“Yes. Or at least, it was.” Solas peered at her again, observing her under his lashes. Ideas and possibilities started to flash through his mind, a plan slowly falling into place. “May I impose on you for another favour?”

“You’re asking a lot from someone whose name you don’t even know.”

“Of course, my apologies.” He shifted to face her fully, adopting a courteous tone. “My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions.”

“Lyanna.” Her eyes crinkled charmingly when she grinned, the golden specks in her irises glinting in the light. “Lyanna vir Lavellan.”

“Lyanna,” he repeated, tasting the world. He theatrically presented his hand, an offering and an invitation both. Despite himself he felt excitement flood his heart, his smile easy and unbidden. “Will you help me save the world?”

She laughed, her incisors gleaming. “Smooth-talker. How can a girl say no to that?” she said.

And she accepted his handshake, her skin smooth and cool against his palm.

#my writing #mermay #mermay 2022 #dragon age #solas #solas x lavellan #solavellan

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lord-explosion-baku · 4 years

Text

Tempting Tempest

Shark!Bakugou X mer!reader (+more)

Warnings: mentions of noncon/dubious themes, slight violence, sexual themes

A/N: this wasn’t even one of the big ideas I had for mermay, but I started writing it at work and it just sort of happened. I plan on writing scenarios for both option one and option two (see the end of the fic), and if I get inspired, I’ll write scenarios for more characters too! I love mermaids so it would just be wrong if I didn’t post something for mermay.

Peering over a large lump of pink, spindly coral, your eyes narrowed in on an octopus, languidly scuttling its way through the sand. You licked your lips and heard your stomach rumble: octopus wasn’t the most tantalizing meal in the ocean, but at the moment, it was the safest when your food sources were so scarce. That, and a couple of its legs could satiate a few of your sisters who, like you, have not been mated as of yet.

It was May, which meant that it was time for the more male-dominant pods from the south to migrate up to the central waters to enjoy the warming waters. Both your sisters and other pod-mates alike had been snatched up by these tail-hungry mermen, either by being wowed and wooed by different trinquets and talismans the males had created for special bonding occasions such as these, or for the more stubborn and jittery merfolk such as yourself, being captured and forced to mate. Wooed or not, you wanted nothing to do with it, and the repercussions of avoiding the frenzied scuffle was lack of food and resources.

So that Octopus was yours.

Your tail swished back and forth as you slowly pulled your dagger out of your side pouch. Tasty or not, you and your sisters were going to feast. But just as you were about to pounce, a dark shadow loomed over the octopus. You looked up to see a marlin and your dinner-plate eyes only grew that much larger.

Mine.

You swam, fast and furious towards your prey, jetting through the water with smooth finesse. You were the swiftest in your pod, something you pride yourself on—even still, that marlin saw you coming a mile away and darted quickly in the opposite direction. That didn’t stop your pursuit. You chased the giant fish under large, rocky arches and through a tall, kelpy forest, determined to make the fish your meal.

It took you far too long to notice the second shadow that had been falling over you throughout your fishing endeavor. Missing a beat, you slammed yourself into a rock the marlin used to scale to get away. Goosebumps appeared on your arm when you heard snickering from above you.

Looking up, you could see only his silhouette. You couldn’t tell who it could have been, but you knew he was male by the sharp point of his fluke; he was a shark—possibly one of the most violent breeds of merfolk around. A short glance out into the abyss and you saw the marlin miles away. Your hungry brain told you that if the merman was in pursuit of the fish as well, and that if you were to fight him for it, you would undoubtedly lose, but looking back at the silhouette, you could tell by the tilt of his head that the merman had no interest in the marlin. But he had his own dagger in his hands. He was hunting and you were his game.

Before you could get another moment to think, the merman curled down in a beautiful arc and dove down straight for you. You inhaled through your gills and bolted away in an entirely new direction in an attempt to throw your pursuer off, but with a deliberate flick of his tail, he made the sharp turn and was trailing behind you in no time.

You stayed low, hoping you could lose him after swimming around around large stacks of sediment, but whenever you could steal a glance back he was right there, grinning wickedly, advancing on you even more.

“You can’t swim forever, little guppy,” you heard him snarl behind you, his tone half-amused with a note of agitation. You felt fingers curl around the base of your fluke, and though you tried to jerk him away, his grip was vice.

You descended, skidding along a sandy seabed, scratching your arms and torso on absconded rocks. You hissed in pain, but managed to keep a tight hold on your dagger throughout your entire fall. Large hands grabbed a hold of your tail and flipped you over with ease, pushing you back down against the seabed where pale, glittering sand pushed up off the floor and floated around you. Finally able to see your attacker up front, you had to hold your breath to keep from gasping.

Despite hating him on sight, there was a moment where you thought to yourself that he was the most gorgeous creature you’d ever seen. Ash-colored hair swayed gently with the easy ocean currents. Hungry, crimson eyes were a beautiful, stark contrast to the incessant blue that flooded your everyday life. And the way his bronzed abs flexed as he caught his breath had liquid heat rushing through your tail. You wanted to reach out and touch the hook-shaped scar on his left peck. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you did. Merfolk were curious creatures, and most of you found that the easiest way to satiate their curiosities was through touch.

So you did. You lifted your free hand and drew your fingers along the rough edges of his scarred skin. He bristled at the contact, but didn’t stop you, opting to eye you with equal interest. You felt the beat of his two-chambered heart thrumming against his flushed skin. It was mesmerizing—almost as much as the gentle rumbling that reverberated from his chest—the tell that he was ready to mate.

The tips of his fingers touched your bare shoulder, slid up your neck, and found their home on your chin. He tilted your head once to the left, once to the right to check your neck to see if you’d already been mated. He let out a content hum and placed his hand on the back of your neck. Fluttering excitement buzzed down your spine to your fluke, and you slapped your tail against the floor to try to ease your sudden fervor. It didn’t help, and by the look on his face, he knew he had you. You thought for a moment that maybe you could mate; there really was no reason to be so stubborn. It was only natural and you were of age. The alluring rumbling from his chest was obviously getting to you, but why would you let yourself be mad over being picked by a very attractive suitor. You could mate with him. You could…

But then he had to go and speak again.

“Not so keen on fleeing now, huh?” The triumphant tone he kept had your scales flaring. “And here you had me thinking you were gonna put up a bit of a fight.” He flashed a toothy grin. Sharp. Dangerous. You didn’t want those teeth anywhere near you.

You swung your dagger at him. He caught your wrist with ease. His grin only grew wider as he pinned your arm back against the ocean floor. You hissed at him, grabbing a fistful of sand and flinging it at his face. He coughed and sputtered, so you used that opportunity to sweep your tail up and across his stupid, beautiful face. He let up and you were able to kick against the floor and swim up in a desperate search for an escape.

From the view, it seemed you had three options.

Option one: you could brave the sea cave you spotted miles away. The contents of the dark were unknown to you, but you figured you could brave the unknown and wait until this merman loses interest. You probably wouldn’t be able to eat for the rest of the day, but it sure as hell beat being mated to some arrogant, two-pricked shark. (Octo!Aizawa—noncon)

Option two: fight the arrogant, two-pricked shark. You might’ve not been the strongest fish in the sea, but you were fast and, at times, cunning. Your pride was on the line anyhow and if it was a fight he wanted, it was a fight he was going to get. (Shark!Bakugou—dubcon)

Option three: swim away some more. The ocean was vast, but you were bound to run into something or someone that could help fend this fiend off of you sooner or later, if he doesn’t get tired from the chase first. Swimming away would surely open a few more paths for you too. But you’d have to be fast. (Other mer!character scenarios that may come up)

TAGS FOR EVERYTHING: @ayeputita @yandere-inamorata @dee-madwriter @unboundbnha @rizamendoza1987 , @rubycubix @smbody-stole-mycar-radio @zellllyyyy @sarcastictextstuck @kpanime @lemonlordleah-shinzawa-kitten @captain-sin-allmight-queen @psionicsnow @wickedlewicked @ghost-of-todoroki @kattariapenn @im-an-adult-sometimes @bnhya @local-senpai @eggpienutbuttercroissant @usernamekate94 @reyvenclaww @hi-ho-and-hello

#bnha x reader #bnha reader insert #reader insert #bnha imagine #bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #mer!bakugou #mer!bakugou x reader #bnha mermay #bnha mermaid au #bnha au #bakugou katsuki #katsuki x reader #merman x reader #tempting tempest

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nitewrighter · 3 years

Text

Let the Waters Roar Pt. 3

Ahhh I started this last MerMay and I was missing it!! So here’s some belated Mermay stuff that I didn’t really have the chance to do with all my schoolwork in May!

Previous Chapters: 1, 2

----

McCree stared down at them, his hand still hovering over his pistol, and Mercy suddenly put her hands up in front of herself, “Don’t--!” she blurted out. Genji read her body language and pushed out of the surf and back into the water, with a few beats of his glittering green tail, he dipped below the surface and disappeared. McCree’s pistol hand dropped to his side with the slumping of his shoulders. He stared, dumbfounded at Mercy.

“...I can explain,” said Mercy. She really couldn’t.

“...That was a mermaid,” said McCree.

“Merman,” corrected Mercy before blurting out, “Dolphin! Dolphin! He--I mean, that was a dolphin!”

“That was not a fucking dolphin,” said McCree, flatly.

“The rare...Galapagos man-faced... man-armed... dolphin?” Mercy stammered out.

McCree’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a semi-snarling expression of confusion and frustration as he itched at the brim of his hat. He wanted to believe the lie, she knew that, or at least pretend he believed it. Maybe not the ‘rare Galapagos man-faced man-armed dolphin’ part, but Genji being little more than a large fish and a trick of the light. She knew it would be easier for both of them if he had pretended he hadn’t seen it at all. But that wasn’t the man Jesse McCree was--not when it came to something that could be a a threat to a fellow crewmate. He slid down the rock face sloping onto the beach, scattering a few pebbles in his descent, and walked down the beach to her. He stopped in front of her, pinched the bridge of his nose, breathed in sharply through his teeth, then put his hands on his hips. “Doc,” he sighed, “I may not be a natural philosopher or what have you, but as a crewmate... show a man a little respect.”

Mercy pursed her lips for a few seconds, and seriously considered denying further before sighing herself. “All right. Fine. He’s a merman,” said Mercy.

“You found a merman and you didn’t tell anyone!?” said McCree.

“You think anyone would have believed me?!” said Mercy.

McCree opened his mouth to retort but closed it.

“And--and--He’s a person! I can’t present him like he’s some... some creature! He saved my life--”

“He saved your life?!”

“I mean, granted, it was after I nearly drowned from the shock of seeing him but he’s kind and he’s clever and he’s curious and he’s funny and he’s---he’s...”

“He’s... still behind you,” said McCree.

Mercy whirled on her heel to see Genji barely visible, only his eyes above the surface of the water, his hair acting almost like a seaweed camouflage, peeking at them from behind one of the iguanas’ sunning rocks.

“Genji!” she blurted out and then McCree flinched with surprise as she suddenly started making noises that seemed midway between dolphin chatter and whale song. Then the merman began making similar noises back at her as he swam out from behind the rock and edged toward the shore slightly.

“What---what the hell is that?” said McCree.

Mercy suddenly flinched, turned on her heel to face him, “Oh... right... Mer,” she said.

“Mer?”

“Apparently you can speak it if you breathe water and he... puts his mouth on yours?” said Mercy, absentmindedly touching at her lips.

McCree’s face twisted in confusion and he gave a glance to the merman behind her. Genji gave him a small, cheerful wave with a hand that had visible green webbing

“...yeeeah, that’s not happening,” said McCree.

“Well it was part of the whole, ‘I nearly drowned’ thing so...” Mercy trailed off.

Genji said something to her in Mer and Mercy just laughed a little before saying something back, but her smile faded and she looked at McCree.

“He knows we have to leave, right? He knows about the war?” said McCree.

“Yes...” said Mercy looking back at Genji.

“...and you’re not gonna tell the crew about him,” said McCree, reading her expression.

“Best case scenario, everyone thinks we’re mad, worst case scenario, something terrible happens to him because I can’t protect him,” said Mercy, looking back at Genji and tucking her hair back, “You won’t tell, will you?”

“If we weren’t chasing after that hell-ship, I don’t know how well I could keep the secret, but... like you said, I don’t want people thinkin’ I’ve gone mad either,” said McCree.

They both looked at Genji, who was apparently trying to figure out what they were talking about from their facial expressions alone.

“A ship full of men half-crazed for the touch of wives and lovers... and you go for the fish--oof!” McCree started before Mercy elbowed him hard.

“He wants to learn just as much about us as we--as I want to learn about him,” said Mercy, folding her arms tight across herself.

Something crossed over McCree’s face then, a flicker of pitying recognition of the loneliness in her. Hell, she had managed to lull him to sleep just by talking about something she obviously cared about... she knew it would put him to sleep. He was a little resentful that she was right, but at the same time, considering how much work she put into it, the acceptance and utilization of the knowledge that he didn’t care as an invariable truth of the world stung. There were a handful of sailors, upper officers, really, that traded around books from the captain’s and her own library, but those were more histories, tales of adventure. He couldn’t really recall anyone on the ship who shared a passion for natural philosophy as intense as hers. And now she made a friend who was equal parts a part of that passion and a sharer of it--a friend that she had to leave.

“I won’t tell, either,” McCree said solemnly.

The way she pressed her lips together and looked back at Genji would have tugged at the heart more if the surreality of the whole situation wasn’t sinking in. The green hair alone was shocking, but the flecks of scales framing his face, accentuating the sharpness of his features, and those sharp features belying even sharper teeth. He was beautiful, but also alien, dangerous. But the expression with which Genji looked at them both had a bizarre innocent brightness about it. McCree wondered if he knew what a gun was--or maybe he just trusted Mercy enough to think she could stop McCree from pulling the trigger. He wouldn’t blame either of them all that much- it wasn’t as if anyone was particularly surprised that Mercy’s ‘scientific expedition’ had ended with her passed out on a beach in her undergarments, and from his own experiences with her bedside manner as the ship’s doctor, he knew she could calm even the most panicked sailor spurting out blood.

“You could speak with him, too--If you don’t want him to put his mouth on yours, I could interpret---” Mercy was saying.

What would I say to it? To him? McCree thought with some bemusement. He could outline some interrogative questions-- ‘Who are you? Who do you serve? Do you have some sort of mer-nation? What are their values? What are their thoughts on the surface? Would they ever harm us?’ But all those questions quickly became overwhelming even in his own head. He didn’t trust himself to ask the right questions... the captain on the other hand... no. They didn’t have time.

“N-no,” said McCree, “We don’t even... know how that language works.”

“Can... can I have a few minutes with him, then?” said Mercy, “I’ll get back to the ship--I will! I just... I need him to understand...”

“You don’t want to hurt him,” McCree said with a shrug.

Mercy nodded. “And I’ll come back--one way or another, I’ll come back.”

McCree just set his jaw and nodded in turn. “I’ll... give you your space,” he said, “But--in case there’s danger--”

Mercy furrowed her brow.

“It’s not like I’ll understand you with all that dolphin talk anyway!” said McCree, bringing his hands up.

Mercy sighed and turned away from him, walking to where the water sloshed up around her ankles and sitting down, edging her bottom just above the line of the tide in the sand.

“It’s safe,” she called out to Genji in Mer.

His finned ears flared with some alertness, but he swam toward them, slow and cautious, barely leaving a wake, keeping only his eyes above the water. He swam up in the shallows, resting on his elbows in the surf, the waves making him bob slightly as he looked at her. His eyes flicked to McCree.

“Who is that?”

“McCree... I... I didn’t tell him about you. The captain sent him to protect me since... passing out on a beach is generally more concerning for humans.”

“Is he your mate?” Genji asked with a skeptical squint, and Mercy sputtered into a fit of laughs.

“N-no,” Mercy managed.

“Is this ‘Captain’ your mate if he was the one who sent him then?” Genji asked and Mercy snorted at that.

“No, I don’t have a ‘mate’--It’s just part of being on the same boat, is all... and well, as I’ve said, I’m the ship’s doctor, so it’s very much in their interest to keep me alive. Do Merfolk act like that with their mates?”

“It depends,” said Genji, “I’ve heard those in the northern sea can be territorial. But...” he paused a bit, “My brother told me stories of kings and queens, some who had many lovers... but they all fell with the old kingdoms. As far as mates we can find now...” he shrugged.

“It’s a bit lonely?” Mercy ventured.

Genji just shrugged again. “Sometimes interesting things happen,” he gestured at her.

Mercy felt her face burning and broke eye contact with him.

“...you said you needed to go... to fight... the old boney?” Genji said after a few seconds.

Mercy looked back at him. “Yes,” she said quietly.

“I could come with you,” he said, as a wave surged up around his shoulders, “I... I’ve wanted to travel for a while.”

Mercy’s lips parted. “It’s too dangerous. I could never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

“But what if something happens to you?!” said Genji, “What if the old boney eats you? I don’t know if there will ever be another human I can talk to like you!”

Mercy visibly winced. “You... you should stay in the waters you know. Where it’s safe. I--I can come back...”

“You didn’t answer my question--what if something happens to you?” said Genji.

A few seconds passed between them, filled only with the soft rush of the waves.

“I... don’t know if something will happen to me,” Mercy said at last, “I can only promise you that... I’ll do everything I can to stay safe so I can find you again.”

“Then I’ll promise the same,” said Genji.

Mercy’s eyes softened and a smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “That means very much to me,” she said, clasping her hands together slightly.

“Hm!” Genji gave a determined nod that prompted a short charmed snort out of her.

Mercy looked down and noticed the length of her own shadow on the wet sand. She gave a glance over her shoulder at McCree, leaning against one of the boulders they would scramble up to head inland. The tide rushed up past and she had to scoot herself a few inches out of the line of foam, still letting it rush around her feet. “Before I go, was.. there anything you wanted to know about the surface?” said Mercy, smiling a bit.

Genji thought for a few seconds. “Yes. How did you make your churdle? ”

“My what?”

Genji pushed himself up from the surf to mime the bow-across-string movements of cello-playing. “I tried making one but it didn’t work.”

“Cello?” said Mercy.

“Yes,” said Genji.

“I didn’t make it. There are many many humans on the surface, you see, and... some of them have very special jobs that they spend their entire lives learning to do. One such human made my chur--my cello.”

“There must be many humans to have such lives...” Genji mused, glancing off.

“Very many humans,” said Mercy, “Probably as many as those old kingdoms you talk about. Maybe more.”

Genji’s eyes brightened with a burning realization at this.

“I don’t know if I should have said that,” said Mercy, glancing off, “But... I think you ought to know, I think you’re... I think you’re very clever. And you’re very brave. I don’t know a lot about your world, but I know only very clever and very brave people are willing to step outside of the world they know. But... this world is not kind to brave and beautiful things, Genji. That’s why I can’t permit you to follow our ship... no matter how much I want you there.”

“I understand,” said Genji, glancing down. Another long pause passed with only the waves filling the silence.

“I said you could tell me about landish things, and I could tell you about the sea,” Genji said at last, “You should ask me a question as well.”

A nervous laugh fell out of Mercy. “God, there’s so many...” she said, looking at her own journal.

“Well, if you don’t ask the right one, you’ll just have to come back some day, won’t you?” said Genji easily.

Mercy huffed and smiled wryly at him before she pressed her lips together for a few seconds in thought. A minute, maybe two, passed in complete silence.

“If you don’t know what you want to ask--” Genji started.

“Do your females nurse young with milk?” Mercy blurted out.

“...what?” said Genji after a few beats.

“Do they--?” Mercy mimed holding a child to her own breast and Genji cocked his head confusedly.

“Maybe... some in the north?” Genji said, scratching his head, “I haven’t really seen enough females with young to know...”

“Oh god--I was nervous--can I get another one?” said Mercy.

“Yes..?” said Genji.

“So do the females of your species lay eggs and then you just-- no wait-- don’t answer that-- I do not want that to be the last question you know of me---” Mercy was pressing her fingertips to both of her temples.

“...milk and eggs?” Genji’s eyes were squinting confusedly.

Mercy drew a steadying breath. “Sorry I’m just trying to figure out the... the whole ‘fish or mammal’ part, but that’s... that’s probably not the right question.” She paused for a few seconds. “You keep mentioning the ‘old kingdoms.’ What happened to them?”

“Oh that I can answer! My brother knows more about them than me, though,” Genji’s fin ears flared with excitement, “He said wars ended many of them... including our own.”

“You had a kingdom?” Mercy smiled a little.

“We were called ‘Shimada.’ It fell before I was born,” said Genji, before flopping over onto his back and interlacing his hands behind his head, looking up at the sky, “Our cities were conquered by an empire that called itself Atalan. They had formed a pact with the sea witches for power and weapons to conquer their enemies. To conquer us. Our people were scattered. Much of our knowledge, our histories, wiped away in the conquest. But it was said that the Atalans did not satisfy their own end of the bargain with the witches, so the ocean floor opened up beneath them, and they fell into the crushing darkness, smoke, and fire.” He said all this dreamily. Not quite reciting, but something that had definitely been told and retold to him as an explanation of a world that, at this point was seeming simultaneously impossibly vast and suffocatingly tiny. Mercy watched his scales glitter with nacre-like iridescence as they shifted in the sunlight with his own breath before forcing herself to break her eyes away and follow his sight to the sky, trying to imagine vast cities at the bottom of the sea, and deep pits of fire and darkness.

“...a bit like Rome,” murmured Mercy.

“What’s Rome? Is that the land’s Atalan?” asked Genji eagerly.

“Long ago, I suppose. Though I’d say our current Atalan is ‘Old Boney,’” said Mercy, smiling.

Genji’s face dropped. “Has he taken your kingdom?”

“That answer’s a bit complicated,” said Mercy, “In a sense, yes... it has, but... it’s not as though it’s fallen into the abyss. I’ve started sailing with another kingdom to stop France and... hopefully help retake it. ” She sighed. “It’s a beautiful place, my home. Full of high green mountains, capped with snow.”

Genji was fascinated by this description. Green mountains, and snow! Most of the mountains he had seen were the craggy brown peaks of the islands from a distance, or the dark peaks of the undersea canyons far below him. The northern nomads had described snow to him--he understood water being white with foam, white as it moved, but white and still fascinated him. His tail fin tentatively swayed in the water as he imagined these snow-topped green mountains as great towering white-capped green waves, frozen forever.

“...And I’ve thrown my lot in with another kingdom like Atalan to try and get the bloody French out of my home,” Mercy finished with a bitter shrug.

Genji furrowed his brow and shook his head. “No, you are good. You are not Atalan.”

Mercy smiled. “I think you’re good, too,” she said, tucking her hair back.

Another pause passed between them, the anxiety and hesitation over parting, the desire to stay as long as they could, and the desire to leave and get it over with sloshing in and out like the waves and foam.

“I’ll find a way back,” Mercy said, half to Genji and half to herself, “I don’t know how, yet, but once--”

There was a shrill whistle and she looked over her shoulder at McCree, who had already climbed up the volcanic rocks framing the beach, “Y’know we still gotta pick up all your surveying junk before we head back to the ship!” McCree shouted, his hands cupped around his mouth.

Mercy huffed and looked at Genji, who had turned on his side, his tail half-curving around her.

“Don’t get eaten,” said Genji, smiling sadly.

Mercy pressed her lips together and forced a smile as well before pushing herself up to her feet, the tide coming in around her ankles.

“You stay safe, too.”

“Mm,” Genji gave a single nod as Mercy turned, picked up her shoes and stockings and headed to the high rocks framing the beach. Genji watched as she pulled the stockings and boots on, then as McCree scrambled down the rock face to offer a hand to her to help her up. As she reached the highest point of the rock she looked back at Genji, still in the surf.

Genji watched them for a few seconds, then pushed himself back from the sand and disappeared under a surge of water. Mercy took another breath to compose herself before starting to walk further inland toward the tortoises’ grazing territory.

“You okay?” said McCree.

“I’ve met someone whose very existence completely upends our concepts of natural philosophy and history, and learning more about him has to fall to the wayside for this stupid war, what do you think?” said Mercy.

McCree sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“I--I know....” Mercy said, glancing down as they walked across the wrinkly black lava fields, both their shadows long.

“Doc... I can’t give my word that I won’t tell, there’s obviously still a lot we don’t know, and if he turns out to be a threat, later...”

“Why would he be a threat?” said Mercy, shocked.

“Goddamn, woman, I know you could see his teeth! You don’t know what he eats--”

“He doesn’t eat people. He said only sea witches eat people,” said Mercy with a startling matter-of-factness.

“Th-there’s sea witches now?? And--and you’re taking him on his word,” said McCree.

“He could have eaten me when I was drowning--large carnivores are opportunistic, they’ll only play with their prey to tire them out and reduce risk of injury, but for the most part, they’re dealing with a low economy of energy themselves, and thus tend to go for strikes that can kill as quickly as possible--at least from what I’ve observed and read of aquatic predators.”

“You put that much thought into how he might eat you and you still went out to the beach.”

“Because I’ve deduced that it’s highly unlikely that he will eat me, yes.”

McCree pondered this for a short while as they walked, before an amused ‘Hmph,’ fell out of him. “Well... I guess all the stories said his kind were dangerous seducers... but then watching him talk to you... he seemed more like a puppy to me,” said McCree.

“He did not--!” Mercy half protested before sighing, “I don’t... think he had many people to talk to,” she said.

“You know you have people to talk to, right?” said McCree.

“...none like him,” said Mercy.

McCree huffed. “Welp. If there’s anyone in this world crazy enough to find a sharp-toothed dolphin-talking fish-man twice... it’s you, Doc.”

Mercy smiled a little.

“And like I said--so long as we’re more like to look like madmen talking about it, I won’t say anything to the other crew members. Or the captain.”

“Thank you,” said Mercy.

“Better get that surveying equipment,” McCree sighed, “Ain’t fair to leave that lizard in that cage--ugly little devil that he is...”

Mercy smiled at McCree. “I’ll make a natural philosopher of you yet, Jesse.”

-----

“You’ve barely eaten.” said Hanzo.

“Eh?” Genji’s fin ears pricked up. It had been several hours since his and Mercy’s parting, and Genji’s mind was miles away. Corsica. France. Rome. Green mountains capped with white in sunlight. More humans than the old kingdoms. More humans than he could possibly imagine. Humans who made singing wood. Maybe humans who made other things that made other sounds that he had never heard and would never hear for how far those sounds were from the sea. Humans fighting great and terrible battles. Angela in those great and terrible battles. He shook himself back to the present. The light was dim--the sun was low and the water cool as he and Hanzo nestled away from the currents in a reef a ways off from the island’s shore.

“I said you’ve barely eaten. Are you sick?” said Hanzo, “You went near the boat again, didn’t you? You know they dump their filth into the water around it--”

“I didn’t go to the boat,” Genji said distantly. He glanced down at the octopus tentacle in his hand and gnawed off another bite of it, chewing sullenly.

“Sulking won’t convince me to help you capsize it,” said Hanzo, tearing into his own octopus tentacle.

“Why would I want to--?!” Genji started but Hanzo gave him an odd look, “Well it’s... like you said. It’s too dangerous,” said Genji, glancing off before taking another bite of octopus.

“Glad to see you finally getting some sense,” said Hanzo.

They both continued tearing into their food in silence for a few minutes. Genji looked out into the blue of the waters beyond. The way the cool gray-brown sand beneath them, in a handful of miles, would drop off completely into craggy undersea canyons and the vast expanse of the pelagic column. She will come back, he thought with some determination, I should be able to answer all her questions when she does.

“Hanzo?”

“Mm?”

“Could you tell me more about the old kingdoms?”

Hanzo stopped eating and studied Genji’s face for a few seconds. Genji wasn’t looking at him but looking out. Hanzo followed his gaze briefly, wondering what exactly he was looking at. There didn’t seem to be any danger in the distance.

“You never had much interest in them before...” Hanzo started cautiously, his eyes flicking back to Genji.

“Well... if it’s too dangerous to learn about the world above... maybe I should learn more about us,” said Genji, before taking another bite of his octopus.

Hanzo blinked a few times, mildly impressed. “...there’s a ruin in the depths,” he said after a few beats, “It’s Atalan. Not one of ours, but I could take you there--so long as you promise not to do anything stupid.”

“Psh, why would I do something stupid?” said Genji with an eye roll.

Hanzo just gave him a weary look.

“I won’t do anything stupid,” said Genji.

#gency #mer-genji AU #I've missed writing these guys #also I forgot what a delight mer-genji is... and i'm realizing now this is the mermaid equivalent #of those kids in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

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areiton · 3 years

Text

sunlight caught in water - stony

Hey look at me posting my fic on tumblr like it’s 2020 again. Here’s my contribution to Mermay.

Read on AO3

~*~

The boy comes to the water every summer, sunshine bright and beautiful. And below the waves, hidden in the shoals, you watch.

~*~

He’s with a woman, the first time, frail and small next to her side and you watch him stumble, watch him fall, and his hands splash down in your water.

You strain against the arms holding you, against the edicts that keep merkin safe, because you see him coughing but he’s laughing too, bright and beautiful, and he splashes in your waves, and you want to splash with him, see those blue eyes trained on you.

The woman scoops him up and carries him, dripping, into the sand and sunlight and you go limp in Jarvis’ arms, and his tail twines with your tentacles, soothing some of the sad loneliness.

~*~

The boy comes back. Every summer, he comes back, and you watch. As the years slip by, the woman vanishes, replaced by a dark haired boy with hands that are gentle as they help the golden bright boy you can’t look away from.

He’s still too small, frail and blinding beautiful, and you still drift under the waves and watch him.

Jarvis doesn’t always go with you, anymore. The migrant currents that bring you past the golden haired boy are harsh and cold, and you think that he’s better left in the warm tropics, where the waves aren’t troubled by metal boats and rippling searching waves and sleek submarines that hunt like sharks in the dark.

The waves whisper stories, and your cousins carry tales, and you twist in the waves, searching the shore for your sunshine boy because the world is at war, again, the waves twist bloody and the deep swallows up the bodies of too many.

The coldwater merkin feast and you--you hide in the dark, craft your nets and drag them back, the ones who might survive, and you can hear them screaming when you flip in the water and vanish, a cloud of dark dark tentacles and red gills.

You save them, as many as you can find, and you search the shore for a boy you don’t find.

And once, just once, you see someone with sunshine bright hair and seablue eyes and a body as big as a coral reef and you think he’s yours, your boy, because his smile is the same and he splashes in your waves and it sings against your skin like a familiar song sung out of tune.

Then he’s gone and you think he isn’t, he isn’t, he can’t be.

~*~

Rhodey chases you.

You love him for it, for his devotion, for the saltwart presence of him behind you, always. His dark skin and gunmetal shark fins scare off most who follow, scare off the sharks and curious dolphins and the orca.

You love him for chasing you even when you know he doesn’t understand, can’t understand, because he’s never seen your golden sunlight boy smiling into the waves like he can see through them and see you.

You love him for it, because you are strange and other in your pod, with your dark flashing tentacles and darkwater eyes, an egg hatched strange in the warm water beds, alien and wrong. You grow up quick and bright and bored and Jarvis says you’re perfect, exactly where you should be, but the only time you feel like you belong is when you’re swimming with Rhodey and letting Jarvis’ strong arms carry you through the currents, and hiding out of sight in the shoals under a sunbright boy’s unknowing gaze.

~*~

The tides whisper.

The waves tell a story.

Of a bright burning soldier and the war tide he’s turning.

Of blood brothers and a daring rescue and tired feet tramping through dry forests.

Of a war torn beach and thousands of bodies surrendered to the waves, and you shiver, and shake and it’s not him, it’s not him, it’s not him.

Your sunbright boy shakes the world and you chase him as far as the waves will let you and hope that the tides will bring him home.

~*~

When it happens.

When the ocean trembles.

When the waves shatter, rocked by an explosion that wakes the monstrous deep--

When it happens, you’re still riding the currents with Rhodey, in bloody water turned bitter with war, and you feel it, feel the tsunami wave that throws you through the water, rips you from Rhodey and your pod and you scream, and crash into the rocks.

~*~

You wake.

To darkness lit by your strange deepwater gaze.

You wake.

To pain and ripping heat.

You wake.

To unfamiliar fins and the deep deep silence of the monstrous waves, where nightmares swim.

You wake.

And wish you could die.

~*~

You’re smart.

Cephalopods are always smart, and you think of Rhodey, gunmetal gray and worried eyes and you think of Jarvis, his muted jeweled tones and betta fins, and you think of the migrant currents and your sunbright boy smiling into the waves, and you swear you’ll survive.

~*~

There is a merkin in the cave with you, a serious faced man with a clownfish fin and you wonder where his family is, but you never ask, because you don’t want to know.

A clownfish that swims alone is almost obscene.

~They’ll come for you~ he says and you blink at him, tired and shivering. You feel wrong, twisted, missing something essential.

The sharks have ripped away your tentacles, and you cannot swim, cannot protect yourself, can only drift against the cave floor.

~They’ll come for you,~ he says and his words are fierce. ~Don’t let them take you.~

~*~

They take him, in the end, and you--

You use your hands, clever helpful dammed things, drag yourself away while they rip him apart, and it’s silent, so quiet here in the deep, not even merkin screams to break the silence. You tuck yourself down down down, a broken bloody carcass and let the ocean hide you as you heal.

~*~

Time passes slow, and you heal slower.

But time does pass, and you do heal, and you dream, dream of a boy bright as sunlight and waves playing on your hands, and seablue eyes laughing into yours.

~*~

When you emerge.

When you emerge, you are the thing you have always feared, one of the monsters of the deep. You slip from your deepwater crevice, spill inky black tentacles across the water, and stretch in your new grown skin, and when they come, the sharks with their bloody mouths and ripping teeth--

You smile, savage in the dark, and your deepwater eyes gleam and you tear them to pieces.

~*~

You drift along the ocean currents that should feel familiar but nothing feels familiar, not anymore. Merkin drift in your wake, and you can taste their trilling fear, their whispered words shivering through the water against your skin.

Merkin do not become this, do not become at all.

The deep--the deep is made for dangerous creatures, for the sleeping giants and dark made monsters. The deep is not made for merkin, with their love of fast water and warm currents, but you have never been a normal merkin, not with your inky tentacles and curious soul and deepwater eyes.

You drift now, a giant sheltering your kin, and ache because the world feels strange and other and you miss Rhodey, like a tentacle that never grew back.

~*~

When you hear--

You hear so many things, whispers whispers whispers in the water--but there is this too.

A wave tore through the oceans and killed droves of fish, killed merkin and whales and a pod of dolphins, and it was only a family of narwhal that found it. A ship in the water, strange and metal and falling fast, and a body trapped in ice, shining as bright as the sun.

You listen, because you can’t help but listen, and turn your eyes north, north, north.

It’s not him. It’s been decades now, a thousand tides and currents changed while you hid away and grew, and your sunbright boy is long since dead, with Rhodey and Jarvis both.

~*~

Your flashing happy warm water merkin fall away. You swim north, and a pod of orca merkin find you, swim alongside you while the currents change and the tides sweep in and out and then they too turn away and you--you swim north, into water deep and cold and you find--

You find ice.

You find a boy, trapped in ice that glows like sunshine encased in waves and you breathe, the first time in decades, press yourself against the cold cold ice and wrap your tentacles around it, until you’re as close to him as you’ve ever been.

A shadow moves in the deep, and you remember the sharks, the grey flashing bellies and white ripping teeth and you want them to come, want them to take you, think you could rip them apart again, that you are better now, then you’ve ever been and you snarl, twist--

Still.

Stare.

He is so very small. Smaller than you remember, or perhaps you are just too large, now.

But he is still familiar, still your--

~Hey, Tones,~ Rhodey says. ~I knew you’d find us.~

~*~

You drift with him, and he never asks, about the monster you’ve become, only lets you carry him when the tides are too strong, when he is tired. You drift with him, and he talks, tells you of the years when you were lost, of looking for you and finding your sunbright boy instead, of staying close to him because you always found your way back to him.

You drift and sometimes, when Rhodey is swimming and you are sure that he is safe, you dive, dive down into the murky deep, where monsters sleep and the dark glitters, and you tear it apart, the metal ship that brought him into your waves, and pick through the detritus.

Pluck a round metal disk from the waves, and a glowing blue stone that hurts your eyes that you hide away, a whisper of a promise you can’t name gleaming in it’s depths. A picture, a picture of your sunbright boy and a word spilled together that you can’t say but you think might be his name.

~*~

The years pass, and Rhodey stays, and you stay, and he sleeps on in his ice, until the waters shift and tremble and the ice melts, changes the currents once again, drags him into--into murky water touched by oil and humans and you drift along with him, because you cannot leave him, will not leave him.

~*~

Loud men with rough hands and no gils, no fins, no tentacles--they pull him and his ice from your waves and you scream. The ocean trembles and shakes in your fury, but there is this, still, indisputable:

He is gone and you cannot follow.

~*~

~Rhodey~ you murmur, watching the watery shore. A sunbrigh man stands there, bereft and shoulders shaking, strange against an unfamiliar skyline, a city rising new and sharp behind him, and you linger unseen in the shallows, a monstrous shadow that has followed him his whole life. ~What if we left the ocean?~

~*~

You dive, dive, dive, and bring it up, the stone that gleams the color of your deepwater eyes, electric blue and blinding, and Rhodey watches you, something like fear and awe in his gaze, but trust too.

You smile and think of sunshine and the world melts away.

~*~

Steve watches him, the strange dark haired man with electric blue eyes and the Tesseract in one hand, and shivers in strange recognition, and a chill crawls down his spine, when Tony smiles at him, like a prey caught in the hungry gaze of some ancient predator.

He smiles, though, a flash of white teeth and it’s bright, almost blinding, like sunshine caught in water.

Steve smiles back.

#mermay #stevetony #stony #steve rogers #tony stark #mermaid!tony #superhusbands #iron man #captain america

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robinette-green · 1 month

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Robin's Mer DCA Romance Fics

These are fics I’ve started that involve Mermaids and aquatic life!

Unbreakable Chains:

You’re a mermaid captured by pirates. Scared and injured, two strange metal men care for you while you’re trapped in this scary place and slowly an unbreakable bond is formed between the three of you. ________________ Wind and rain pelted down on the ship as the men scrambled to lift their catch from the water. The waves rolled, tossing the ship back and forth, slamming water down onto the decks as ropes were pulled and the net was lifted from the water. A screech rang out over the waves as something much larger than your average fish was raised from the black depths. Lighting forked across the sky, illuminating sharp teeth and claws as the beast fought to free itself. The shout of pain, as claws met flesh, was drowned out by the rumble of thunder, but the sharp crack from the pistol rang clear across the water, followed by a scream. Another shot and cry of pain, and the men were finally able to lower the beast into the belly of the ship.

Caught in a Fish's Net: (tag)

what if I wrote a story where a human is kidnapped by mermaids. And they were forced to marry two mer princes because of a prophecy that said if the princes married a human they would be able to end the plague killing their people. But the marriage seems to do nothing and now the human is trapped deep in the ocean with these mer because mer bond for life and now magic ties them together so if they’re apart for too long they’ll grow sick and die. OH! And there’s a sea witch who creates chaos. The sky had been cloudless when we'd set out this morning. The sun shone in the sky, causing sparkles to ripple across the waves as my father and I set out to sea in our small fishing boat. We cast out the nets and had a good laugh as we waited to pull them back in, Father at the rudder and me by the tethers we'd connected the nets to. Neither of us noticed how still the water had gotten. Neither of us saw the shadows below the surface.

Bubbly:

A little waterlily mer guppy is trapped, home destroyed, and taken to a pet store to be sold. After spending some time living in a fish bowl, our little guppy is saved and moved to a tank that has been dubbed the daycare by the human tending to it. The daycare tank is set up to rehabilitate fish before they are released back into their natural habitats. There our guppy meets Sun and Moon, two fish that live full time in this tank taking care their healing guests. Sun and Moon and our guppy fall in love and then shit goes down.

Fish Fry: (tag)

Pulled from the sea 5 years ago, I was tied up, beaten, and sold to owner after owner, each deciding I was too dangerous to keep. Back then, I was strong, able to break bones and tear flesh with ease, singing to lure humans to their demise. It's what my kind was made to do, kill humans. But no more. Kept in increasingly small tanks, barely fed, and unable to swim, I started to weaken. Eventually, I was dumped here. It was some kind of oddities collection. My owner had other humans pay to look at his strange assortment of items he had gathered from around the world. Then one day I encountered two strange humanoid creatures that resembled the Sun and the Moon and my life started to change for the better.

Monster in the Sea:

Sun and Moon are human and go by Solaris and Lucien. The MC is a water dragon. Water dragon reader finds Sun and Moon lost at sea during a storm

Dark Waters:

When your parents died all their debt fell on your shoulders. You did everything you could but in the end, you were penniless and without a home. Reaching out to what relatives you had left, your uncle offered you a place, living and working at his little circus in the middle of the desert. It wasn't long after you moved into this little community that you found a strange abandoned tent hidden at the back of the grounds, a large tank inside. Posted just outside was a sign that read 'DANGER! KEEP OUT!' If you had headed the warning maybe you wouldn't be in this predicament but you also wouldn't have met the two most amazing creatures you have ever laid your eyes on.

Fishy Business: (tag)

Attacked and almost killed, I manage to escape my attackers and hide in a cave only to be found by something... not quite human. Too weak to get away and with the beasts that wanted to eat me waiting outside, this non-human kidnaps me, taking me to his ship. This is where I find that there are not one but two of these metal creatures. A story where the main character is a mermaid and is rescued/kidnapped by Sun and Moon

Some of these won't be finished and some are OLD writing of mine. you have been warned. Please don't let that stop you from reading these and enjoying them <3

#glitter rock #fnaf daycare attendant #fnaf moon #fnaf sun #dca fandom #sun and moon x reader #fnaf sun and moon #dca fanfic #fnaf security breach #glitter rock writing #fnaf mermay #dca mermay #fishy business #fishy business au #fishy fry au #caught in a fish's net

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thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

Note

For mermay: #30, wreckage with Danbrey in either SFW or NSFW? Thank you so much!

Here you go! I went with SFW. Dani’s design is based on a Golden Shiner, Aubrey’s on a red-tailed shark.

“Dr. Harris Bonkers? Where are you, you sneaky sea bunny?” Aubrey circles the rocks, sets her hands on her hips and flicks her tail with a frown; for a creature with small fins, that bunny can be incredibly evasive.

“We only have an hour to practice, silly bunny. If you don’t come out, I won’t be able to use you in the show.”

When her pet/assistant doesn’t emerge, she sighs and swims off to her super secret test stage. Then she smacks straight into someone and shrieks in surprise.

“GAHoh, oh my god you scared me.”

“That, that makes two of us” the mermaid she collided with stares at her, golden eyes wide with alarm.

“I’m sorry, this place is always abandoned.” She gestures to the sunken ship, one that’s been here since her grandparents were children.

“I, um, I kind of figured. That’s why I holed up here.” In the filtered sunlight, her tail glitters pale gold. A treasure at the heart of the wreck.

“Are you new in town? I feel like I would’ve remembered seeing you before.” She smiles, hoping it comes across as smooth but not too smooth because she does not want to freak out the cute mer floating in front of her.

“Yeah. I can’t afford any of the spots in town.” She sighs, giving Aubrey the distinct sense this is not a new situation for her.

“You could come live with me! Not like, with me with me, but I live in the Lodge in town and I know there are rooms open. It’s super cheap.”

(If it wasn't, Aubrey would give her the “cute mers with freckles” discount).

“Um, okay, sure. Let me get my stuff.”

“Sweet! Wait, uh, it might take a few more minutes, I have to find my sea bunny.” She swims into the wreck after the other mermaid, poking her head into her pets’ preferred hiding places.

“Is this him?” The mer holds up two woven seaweed bags. On top of one of them is Dr. Harris Bonkers, so white he almost glows in the darkened hull.

“It is! Come here you naughty nudibranch.” She scoops the bunny into her palms, then sets him on her shoulder.

“He’s cute” The mermaid pets his side, “what’s his name?”

“Dr. Harris Bonkers, PhD. That last part is a human school thing, but he worked hard for it.”

“Nice to meet you doctor. I’m Dani.” She smiles at Aubrey, the expression as beautiful as moonlight on dark water, “what about you?”

“Aubrey.”

“Nice to meet you too.” She gives the bunny a final pet and swims out of the ship. Aubrey hurries to catch up to her so they can travel side by side.

“So, um, what do you use the wreck for?”

“Magic practice!” Aubrey sweeps her hand through the water, leaving a rainbow of light in it’s wake, “it’s not, like, super secret or anything, but there’ve been a few, um, mishaps that mean it’s better if I practice away from town.”

“Mishaps?” Dani shoots her an amused smile.

“I once made a huge chunk of reef disappear. It took a whole day to get it back. And there was the time some seaweed floated past while I was practicing and turned into a sea serpent. Relatedly, sometimes a sea serpent follows me around and calls me mom.”

Dani laughs and Aubrey suddenly has so many stars in her eyes you could use them for navigation.

“That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“I mean, it really isn’t. Those are the only big fuck ups, but I’ve decided I’d rather be safe than sorry. I’d hate for someone to get hurt because of me. Um, what about you? Just come to Kepler for a change of scene?”

“Sort of. I’m an open ocean mer by birth but it gets lonely, and sometimes your own kind will chase you off of nice places to call your own. So I decided I’d come here and try to make a home.”

“The Lodge is a good place for it. I, um, I ended up in Kepler after my mom died and my dad and I drifted apart. Mama gave me a place to stay and kept an eye on me; I bet she’ll do the same for you.”

It’s a bet she wins every time. Mama welcomes Dani in with a smile, tells Barclay to make a big dinner to celebrate a new resident, and shows her to her room. Aubrey stays by her side, chatting as she unpacks her bags. Her belongings are sparse, practical, and the only flashy item is a comb with a pearl handle.

They talk until Dani is yawning and Aubrey keeps bumping into walls because she’s too tired to fight the current every freaking second. Aubrey says goodnight, tells Dani to come find her if she needs anything. Dani promises she will, brushing their tails together before closing the door.

As she swims to her room, Aubrey’s thoughts swirl like a school of sardines. Dani’s room is so bare. Dani deserves a room overflowing with beautiful art and sea glass jewelry and vases of sea flowers.

It’s lucky, then, that Aubrey knows just the mers to help her out.

--------------------------------------------

“Oh wow” Dani holds the strands of blue and white glass up to the windows, “Aubrey, this is beautiful”

“Glad you like it” she feels like the red in her tail deepens whenever Dani smiles at her like this, “Ned owed me a favor, and I thought some sea glass curtains might make the room more, um, homey.”

Dani swims to her, rubbing their cheeks together, “You’re the best.”

“Heheee, um, I mean, I’m super glad you like it!”

--------------------------------------------

“Did you draw this?” Dani turns in a slow circle, searching for the perfect spot to hang the picture Aubrey brought her.

“Nope. Indrid did. He was selling some of his stuff this weekend, and I remember you saying you thought Atlantis was one of the prettiest places you’d ever seen. So I, um, I figured you’d like one of his pictures of it. You know he’s actually from there. Like, he’s one of the citizens who sunk with the city.”

“That’s wild. Wait, doesn’t that make him super old?”

“Yeah. Duck doesn’t seem to mind though, and he tries hard to keep up with the times. He mostly succeeds. Mostly.” She snickers, remembering the time Indrid tried to say he thought Duck was handsome and it came out as “looks like a million red-hot lobster claws.”

“C’mon” Dani hooks their tails across each other, ushering her across the room and causing her to completely forget what she was saying, “help me decide where to put this.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I wasn’t able to wrap these, but they’re totally a present for you.” Aubrey holds out the two pots of starweeds, “Duck said they’re a great way to garden in a small space. I know you’re helping with the big garden out back, but I kinda figured you wanted some in your room too.”

Dani takes the pots, not bothering to keep their hands from touching, “Thank you, firefins, they’re lovely.” She sets them on the windowsill, picks up her comb on the way back, voice much softer when she asks, “would you brush my hair before we go down to dinner?”

“Sure!” She loves brushing Dani's hair; if it’s the only time she ever makes the other mer sigh happily, the only time those golden tresses cascade down her fingertips, she’ll die happy.

As she carefully guides the brush through Dani murmurs, “my mom gave me that. She said it’s been in our family for generations. Apparently an ancestor was given it by a human lover.”

“Dang” Aubrey’s amazed anything this beautiful wasn’t just swallowed up by the open water, “I’m glad they hung onto it; it really is gorgeous.”

“I um, I, I want you to have it.” Dani turns to look at her just as Aubrey pulls back.

“Dani, that’s so sweet, but I can’t take this from you. It’s you connection to your family. To your mom.”

“Oh.” The mermaid takes the comb when she holds it out, “okay. Let’s, um, let’s just go meet the others.”

---------------------------------------

“...been like that for the last two days. I know you spent a bunch of time in the open ocean, so I wanna know everything there is to know about what dating is like for mers out. I’ve got to show Dani just how much I care about her.”

“I see” Ned rests back in his chair, watching Aubrey as she swims back and forth in agitation, “I shall do my best, my friend. Let me think...gift giving is common, but that’s the case for all but deep sea merfolk. Painting your scales...no, that was southern mers in general. Aha!” Ned snaps his fingers, “because open ocean mers are nomadic, giving them things for building a home is a sign of commitment and romantic interest. If the feeling is mutual, one might also offer a precious item as a token of affection.”

“Precious item? Like a family heirloom? Hypothetically?”

“Yes, I’d imagine that would fit the bill nicely.”

“Aw beans! Thanks Ned, gotta go, talk later byeeeee.”

---------------------------------------------------

“Dani!” Aubrey rounds a patch of sea grass.

The other mer looks up from where she’s collecting urchins, “Aubrey? Is everything okay?”

“No! Or maybe yes. Dani are you, were you trying to tell me you wanted me to be your girlfriend?”

“Yes, but I’m starting to think that wasn’t as obvious as I thought it was.”

“Nope!” Aubrey launches herself forward, gathering Dani in her arms. The other mermaid laughs, rolling them over to lay in the soft grass.

“I’m sorry” Dani kisses her cheek, “I thought I was being obvious.”

“I mean, I guess you were, we just had a communication breakdown. I just...I can’t believe you’d give me your most treasured possession.”

Dani leans down, kissing her until her lips are buzzing with delight and their tails are wrapped tight around each other, “Sweetheart, the only treasure I need is right here.”

#danbrey #aubrey little/dani #taz amnesty #mermay #mermay fills

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wellthatjusthappend · 4 years

Note

Some couture fashion line sets up their jewelry line on the beach where they know Jason hangs out waiting to see if they can get some nice photos and video of him with them. Jasons however is only interested in interacting with their photographer.

Anon 2:

Mermay!! Jason! :D I would like to see him get recognition for his vibrant colouring and all round aesthetics. The kind tourists and photographers hang around hoping to catch a glimps of. The kind of thing Tim would be into.

These two seem related, so...

***

Tim sometimes wishes that he wasn’t completely broke so he wouldn’t have to take jobs like this. Not that there was anything wrong with Deep Cea’s jewelry line- aside from being outrageously expensive- but it felt like a bit of a waste of his talents to snap photos of pristine jewelry displays for the website.

Honestly, anyone one with an eye and a half decent cellphone camera could probably take adequate photos for this. But the owner had deep pockets and wanted a professional, so it wasn’t like Tim was ungrateful.

The event that was happening today was Mer themed, set on a beach that occasionally had Mer sightings due to the fact that it was an excellent spot for sunning that was still close to a deep drop off. Tim privately thought that having an event like this at this location was a great way to scare the Mer off forever. Greater publicity meant more people and- well, Mer didn’t have great histories with that.

“I think it might be good to set a couple of these up on the coral so I can get some different textures going,” Tim said.

“Ooh, good idea Timmy. See if you can get a few with the water or shells or something,” Dick said happily, piling several boxes of sample jewelry into Tim’s arms for him to photograph.

Tim smiled gratefully and quickly headed a little ways away, glad to have some space from the gorgeous man and his parade of terrifying redhead models.

Tim arranged a couple of glass necklaces on the rocks and took a couple of quick-fire photos. A small crab crawled out of one of the cracks and began shuffling curiously around a set of earrings. Tim smiled and knelt down to catch a few photos of that.

He much preferred photographing living things. But, money was money he supposed.

Pulling out another set of jewelry out, Tim went to swap out the jewelry for some others but… the necklace was gone.

Tim’s heart pounded and he looked around frantically. That thing was worth probably more than he was getting paid and even though Dick wouldn’t think anything of it, Tim would die of shame if anyone thought he had stollen it.

Where could it have gone? Tim had sure it had been secure and he only turned his back for a second-

“What is this?” Tim whirled to find a Mer sitting right there examining the necklace with curiosity.

Tim didn’t even bother lifting the camera, just snapped as many pictures as he could.

“It’s a necklace,” Tim croaked.

“I know that dummy,” the Mer gave him an annoyed look, before turning the piece of glass up so the light shone through it, “I meant what’s it made of? I haven’t seen something like this before.”

“Oh, it’s uh- fused glass with a gold- here, there should be a description on the tag…” Tim said hesitantly reaching out.

“That’s fine. I can read,” the Mer said shortly, flipping the necklace to examine the tag.

“Oh, cool,” Tim said lamely.

Honestly, he’d never seen such a beautiful Mer. He had bold red coloring, but the pattern on his tail and fins were complicated and striking. And that wasn’t even talking about perfection, that was it’s human half.

“Pity it’s not my color,” grumbled the Mer, grudgingly handing it back, “It’d suit a pretty human like you, though.”

Tim turned beat red, and the sly smile on the Mer’s face said he knew exactly what he was doing to him.

“I have a bunch of other- other jewelry! I’m pretty sure you’d like some of them,” Tim hurriedly fumbled with the boxes and started laying things out.

“Ooh, that’s more like it,” the Mer grinned, laying on his belly to examine the new pieces.

“If- If you find a couple that you like, you could keep them if you let me take a few pictures of you,” Tim said, taking a gamble.

If Marketing didn’t immediately dismiss all costs in favor of how much money those photos would make their company, Tim would be happy to cover it himself just for the chance to take a few more photos of this incredible being.

“One condition,” the Mer said, holding up a finger.

“Anything,” Tim said, perhaps a bit too quickly.

The glittering smile Tim got back was enough to put a few new fantasies in his head.

“I’d like your name, little photographer,” the Mer said, leaning forward and dropping the necklace around Tim’s head.

“Tim- I… my name’s Tim,” he said hurriedly.

“Mine’s Jason,” the Mer smiled back, “And I think I’ll overlook you human’s running around my cove today if you keep bringing me pretty things.”

Tim wasn’t sure if he was talking about the jewelry anymore or not, but-

“It’s a deal,” he said.

#happy MerMay!#my writing #jaytim #story requests #MerMay #Anonymous

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dapandapod · 2 years

Text

Kelp Forests and trinkets

Hello lovelies!

My brain is very empty but it is Mermay and I had to! Because somfte! Please enjoy!

Oh, and Kuri I love you, thank you for Beta reading, you are a gem!

On Ao3 here For the @thepassifloradiscord Merweek

Normally, Geralt would roam in the Kelp Forests of old. He enjoyed the sunlight filtering down from the surface, the broken off rays of light shimmering between the kelp's thick leaves.

It is not without its dangers, but that is why he is there, to guard their little reef. His folk rely on him to keep the dangers at bay, and he does so to the best of his ability. His body wears the scars to prove it; bitemarks, and sometimes even claw marks from surface creatures.

Usually, it is not so bad. It heals up fast enough when he is allowed to rest back home. But one of his side-fins took a bad beating a few years back, and every now and then it pains him. It is healed, as well as it can be with being torn into pieces, but sometimes when he makes a sharp turn, or when he gives chase after some pest trying to eat his family, he feels it for a long time after.

The Kelp Forest is calm. Their stems sway in that soothing way of theirs. Dancing, Jaskier called it once, and Geralt thinks that, yes, maybe they are. At least when Jaskier sings to them, they do.

That is how they met actually.

Geralt was patrolling the outer edges of the Kelp Forest, when a voice reached his ears. Distance was tricky sometimes, but it sounded close. Geralt had followed it, only to find Jaskier singing to himself as he sat on the edge of a big rock formation, his scales glittering in the sunlight.

At the time, Geralt had been pissed about it because the singing had attracted a rather large shoal of Razers, a small but sharp toothed fish that were too nosy (and hungry) for their own good.

Jaskier, the idiot, apparently did not yet know what it meant to be out in the open like that. While singing in itself is an innocent activity, and usually a good strategy for placating whales or even sharks, it can be a bitch when his folk were unable to read their surroundings and attract attention such as that.

They were not in mortal danger, but would have been had Geralt not stepped in and not only shut Jaskier up, but pulled him into the relative safety of the kelp. After that near-death experience, he took to following Geralt, watching his every move, *singing* until Geralt finally relented and admitted they were friends.

It took even more time for Jaskier to nestle himself into the reef, but no time at all to make sure that there was a place for him in Geralt's home.

Living together came surprisingly easily; his family took to Jaskier like algae to a bone.

And since then, they have been living like that for years. The cave system Geralt had chosen was perfect for inhabitants more than himself. Maybe he had hoped one day to fill those rooms with life, despite the aching loneliness when he originally chose it. Maybe Jaskier had already known, and that is why it was so easy to slip into Geralt's life, once he found the door.

This time, he is making the rounds on his own. It is a longer route this time because his brother, who would usually meet up with him halfway, had to stay home.

Eskel mentioned something about a 'hatchling' that needed his help in the message sent earlier, but Geralt knows full well it's because said 'hatchling' is in fact a full grown mer who had been courting Eskel for a full year already.

If he had the guts to do it, Geralt would probably attempt courting too. Sometimes when he is on patrol, he would spot something Jaskier would like. A pretty shell, smooth sea glass, sometimes even a pearl.

He has a little pouch of things he has found. He has only once ever given Jaskier something from those treasures. The smile Jaskier gave him stayed with him for days.

A few days later, he would be the one who let someone else take patrol. Geralt had made up his mind just the night before. Yes, he and Jaskier live together, do pretty much everything together, but there is one thing he is missing.

The one thing yesterday had given him a taste of. Jasker had fallen asleep while clinging to his arm, his lips pressed against Geralt's shoulder. And Geralt would do anything to get that again.

So this morning he sent Roach with a message, the little sea horse speeding off to Eskel's home. Payback for flirting instead of working, he thought, as he collected another armful of seagrass.

Jaskier won't be back for a while yet, so he should at least have an hour or two to finish up the first step of his plan. When he decides he has enough seagrass, he settles into a nook in the cave wall, weaving the grass together so it becomes thick and soft. Perfect to nest on.

It takes some time, some swearing, and some more gathering of sea grass when he butchers a few too many to keep going, but when he is done, he has new, bigger bedding for his nest.

There is just about enough time to put it into place when Jaskier returns, calling down the halls to announce his arrival. It makes Geralt's blood pump with nervous energy, and before he can change his mind, he rummages through his hidden bag of courting gifts, and picks out a shark tooth.

As per usual, Jaskier bursts into the room, telling Geralt about his day, arms waving and fins swirling with expression. Sometimes, Geralt feels like he could watch him speak forever.

"What's that?" Jaskier interrupts himself, mid story, finally picking up on what Geralt is hiding in his hands.

Geralt feels his face heat up, and he offers up the little treasure to Jaskier with an open palm.

"Found this when patrolling," Geralt mumbles. "Thought you might like it."

Jaskier's smile is blinding. He picks it up, the very tips of his fingers brushing against Geralt's palm. There is no reason for that to send a shiver through him, down to his tail fin, but it does.

Jaskier studies the tooth this way and that, holding it up in the light as he asks what kind of animal it came from, if you can tell the creature's age from it, what this spot right here means, would this be better as a knife or as a necklace, and so on.

Geralt answers all of his questions, and when he quietly offers it to Jaskier as a keepsake, he is rewarded with a kiss on the cheek. As much as he had decided that today would be the day asked Jaskier to be his, he can't fight off the nervous grumble at that.

Jaskier just smiles and swims back to his own nest to place the gift somewhere safe until he has decided its fate.

As soon as the other mer is gone, Geralt finds his little bag of treasures again. This time, he chooses three very small pearls he found. Rolls them between his fingers, feeling their smooth surface, letting them ground him.

He wonders if he can give them to him just like that? Or maybe he should save them, give the pretty rock instead, the one that glitters when turned.

Before he can make up his mind, Jaskier returns, words exploding out of his mouth again with ideas for the tooth. It has Geralt smiling, glowing inside with how his gift was so well received and with so much enthusiasm.

He doesn't notice himself floating closer until Jaskier turns silent, looking up at him with quiet wonder.

"Geralt?" he asks, quietly for once, eyes big and questioning.

"If I told you I picked you dozens of courting gifts, but lacked the courage to give them to you..." Geralt starts, but trails off. The naked hope on Jaskier's face, it catches him off guard somehow.

"Yes?" Jaskier whispers, inching closer too.

He blushes, even his gills turning a pretty pink, and Geralt just wants to reach out and touch him.

"If I collected them to give them to you... would you accept them?" Geralt braves, and when Jaskier's smile wavers, when his chin wrinkles and his brow furrows, Geralt thinks for a moment he read it all wrong.

"Can I show you something?" Jaskier whispers, and when Geralt nods, Jaskier reaches for his hand.

He is guided out of his own room and down the hall, to where Jaskier has his nest. He should be used to Jaskier's tactile nature, but he still isn't. It always surprises him when Jaskier reaches out, when he offers reassurance or seeks comfort.

As soon as they are inside, Jaskier lets go and swims up to one of the upper shelves. His nest has always been a mess, full of things that Jaskier finds interesting and beautiful, his ornaments and instruments strewn about the room, mixed with the little corals growing here and there. Jaskier returns with a sheath, and inside it a whale bone, carved into a knife.

It is beautiful, if a little crooked, but wonderfully decorated with runes and carvings.

"Where did you find this?" Geralt asks with wonder.

"Lambert helped me make it. Or, well. He made it mostly, didn't let me near any of the sharp objects."

Geralt snorts and Jaskier smiles, coming closer and pointing out the finer details on the knife.

"Yennefer helped me with this bit. Said it would help keep you safe. And this one, Ciri put it there."

Geralt admires the handiwork, recognizing the runes and symbols. The one Ciri had put on it was a charm to lead him home.

"And this one?" Geralt asks, pointing to an inscription along the top blade.

"If I told you this is a courting gift, would you accept it?" Jaskier whispers, mirroring what Geralt had asked before.

Gently, Geralt sheathes the knife and puts it down. Then he reaches forward, cradling Jaskier's face in his hands, leaning forward.

"There would be no higher honor," Geralt whispers, and Jaskier's face crumbles again. He looks devastated, and Geralt doesn't understand it, but then the mer is throwing his arms around Geralt's shoulders, pressing close.

He tucks his head in under Geralt's chin, the hands that had been cradling him now holding him close instead, and Geralt finally, finally feels whole.

"Beloved," Geralt whispers, and Jaskier makes a pained sound and presses closer.

"I have had that knife for months," Jaskier admits into Geralt's collarbones, lips grazing the sensitive skin there.

"I have collected courting gifts for years."

They stand there for a long time, just holding each other. Then they hold each other while lying on Jaskier's nest, barely fitting together even with their tails curled around each other.

"I had another question for you," Geralt murmurs into Jaskier's hair eventually, and the mer looks up at him.

"I... uh....made my nest bigger...."

Maybe it is too soon to ask? It feels soon, but also oh so very late. But Jaskier is smiling at him, adjusting them so that he is looking down at Geralt, bracketing him in between his arms.

"Would you share it with me?"

Jaskier kisses him. Soft and lingering and warm and perfect, one of his fingers slowly dragging along Geralt's cheek bone. When they part, Jaskier is giving him another of those blinding smiles.

"There would be no higher honor," Jaskier replies, leaning in for another kiss. Geralt melts into it, losing himself in Jaskier, in the sensations of finally, finally being close the way he has always wanted but never dared.

Too scarred or too broken to think someone like Jaskier would ever want him, but here they are. It has barely reached midday, but it is hard to do anything other than hold each other close and trade kisses.

Eventually, Geralt's stomach growls, and they have to get up and get food. Now that it is allowed, Geralt can't stop touching him.

Brushing their fins together, resting a hand on Jaskier's lower back, thumbing away food from the corner of Jaskier's mouth... He can't stop.

They wrestle, which dissolves into cuddling, into kissing, and it is like all those years of waiting has led them up to this. The first touch is tentative, hands exploring and kisses deepening.

When Jaskier presses closer, presses them together, Geralt can't help the low moan slipping out.

"I thought the courting came first," Geralt teases, but Jaskier won't have it. Not entirely, at least.

"I have spent years courting you in my head. I want this. Please."

Despite those years of mental courting, it is too early for the final step. Maybe this will all fall apart in time, maybe it will turn out they won't be able to stand each other within a few months.

Jaskier just laughs when he says it, and Geralt doesn't believe it either. But for Jaskier, he wants this to be done right.

Day by day passes as he empties his courting bag. Trinkets and gifts and findings are given, and Jaskier accepts each and every one.

Until Jaskier is gone for two full days, returning with a golden ring for Geralt.

The inscription matches the one on the knife, and what Geralt had called him that first night.

Beloved.

Geralt still makes his rounds in the Kelp Forest. He doesn't hesitate to pick up the treasures he finds now. He brings them home to his husband, his mate, presenting each and every one as a gift.

Jaskier calls him a romantic. Geralt calls him home.

#geraskier #mermay #the passiflora merweek #mer!geralt #mer!jaskier #friends to lovers #getting together #fluff #first kisses #cuddling #dapanda writes #courting gifts #i am very tired send help

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wolveria · 4 years

Text

Unable to perceive the shape of you - Ch. 8

Pairing: Connor x f!Reader x Nines

Summary: After breaking the RK twins out of the MarineLife facility, you were determined to return them to the ocean before getting caught by your employer.

What you hadn’t counted on were the brothers deciding you belonged to them.

Prompt: Mermay! (Shape of Water/Splash AU)

Chapter Warnings: Violence, misogynistic language, blood, gore, death

Word Count: 3k

AO3

You only got a few hours of sleep before you were on the road again, the sun not yet peaking up over the horizon. The plan was to make it well into Canada by the end of the day. Crossing the border would involve a lot of swimming and leaving your car behind.

You would miss it, and you’d have to find a way to let your family know you were okay before disappearing, but you’d be lying if you said you weren’t eager to start your new life with the two people who had changed it so completely.

After digging through your car supply kit to find some meal bars to snack on, you listened to Connor talk excitedly about your future plans.

The future, a funny thing. For the first time in your life, you weren’t dreading the uncertain path before you, and that more than anything told you this was what you were meant to do.

You were both in the backseat, Nines having to drive again as your legs were an aching mess from the activities of the night before. You didn’t regret it but your body was sure complaining now. It wasn’t just your legs that hurt, almost every muscle in your body was aching, and a part of you wondered how you’d ever keep up with their stamina.

You were looking forward to finding out.

“And then, perhaps we can purchase some kind of boat,” Connor continued on, eyes bright as he continued to chatter. “If our pod still swims the same waters, we should be able to find them. We have another brother, you know.”

“Really?” you asked. The small smile on your lips hadn’t disappeared since he’d started talking.

“We’re a set of triplets,” he added with a pleased blush. “Our third brother was more cautious than we were. Said not to go near the fishing boats, but… we didn’t listen.”

His face fell, and as naturally as breathing air you reached across to take his hand in his lap. Recalling when he and Nines had been captured was clearly a painful memory.

Connor immediately perked at the touch, wrapping his long fingers around yours.

“What’s his name?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t be able to say it,” Connor said, tilting his head as his smile also went lopsided.

“Humans lack the vocal range to speak our language,” Nines chimed in from the driver’s seat.

When you turned to face him, you could see the headlights illuminating a bridge spanning a river, the sun only now lighting the sky. He had to slow down because it was only two lanes and was made of little more than wood and metal.

Nines himself seemed at ease, the first time you’d ever seen him that way. Ever since last night, he was freer with giving affection and less stiff and aloof. Something had changed within him, but perhaps the same could be said of all three of you.

“And if we tried to speak it above water,” Nines continued, “all we would accomplish would be shattering your car windows.”

You looked to Connor just to be sure Nines wasn’t teasing you again. That’s when you saw the bright stripe of light across his face; his eyes narrowed against the glare of the headlights behind your car.

They grew brighter, increasing in intensity until the white light filled the car.

“What—“

Glass imploded from the rear windshield as you were thrown forward against your seatbelt. Screeching metal and churning tires deafened as the vehicle behind rammed the hatchback door a second time.

“Nines!”

You didn’t know what you were yelling for him to do. There was nothing to do. The tires skidded across wet pavement as your car began to jackknife, pushed from the other larger vehicle toward the bridge railing.

Connor threw his arms around you and braced for the impact.

Everything was a blur after the trailing vehicle hit a third time. Deafening crunches of rubber and metal, the dizzying, floating feeling as the car fell several feet, landed, and rolled down the embankment toward the river.

The agony of each impact, the terror of being so completely helpless as the car rolled again and again. You couldn’t think or move besides clinging to Connor as shattered glass rained down on both of you.

When the world stopped spinning, you could barely breathe. The inside of the car was slowly filling with smoke, and the seatbelt cut across your chest as you hung limp from your seat.

You tried to raise your dangling arms to feel for your restraint. Couldn’t lift your arms high enough. Your limbs and muscles wouldn’t cooperate and you couldn’t even focus your eyes enough to understand the chaos around you.

You heard confused voices, the sound of creaking metal, and then hands were unbuckling you from your seat and carefully pulling you from the car. Those same hands held you against a broad chest, and you pressed against it weakly.

“Is she all right?” one of the voices said, soft and hushed. Cold raindrops splattered against your face and you let out a weak groan.

“Yes. Just dazed,” the second one, deeper and flatter, responded.

There was something you had to tell them. Something very important.

The car… it hadn’t been a car… It was a truck. Ford F-150. White. Michigan plates.

“…Con…”

“I’m here.”

You tried to speak but you erupted into violent coughing, the lingering acrid smoke in the air irritating your throat. Nines carried you further away from the car crash, but you couldn’t tell where you were. It was still too dark to see past the broken headlights of your own car.

Where was it? Where was the truck?

You had to tell them—

“Stop struggling!” Nines growled when you thrashed in his arms, your coughing fit growing worse. “You’re going to hurt yourself!”

“I think she wants you to put her down,” Connor said, dark eyes wide as he took in the state of your struggling.

That wasn’t what you wanted, and when Nines lowered your feet to the ground, you clung to his shoulders with the desperation of a drowner.

“He’s…” You coughed again, gagged at the irritation crawling up your throat. “He’s… here… Run…”

Nines frowned. “Who’s here?”

White headlights blazed against the three of you from the dark, lighting up the service road where your car had finally come to a stop rolling down the embankment.

Nines and Connor flinched and tried to shield their eyes with their hands, but you stared past Nines’ arm, recognizing the row of floodlights on top of the cabin of the truck.

Only one bastard drove a monstrosity like that.

“Looky here.”

Boots crunched over wet rocks and gravel as a hated and familiar silhouette cut against the glittering rain dancing before the lights.

“Fish-girl and her two slimy pets.”

Nines spun, baring his teeth in a snarl as he shoved you behind him.

The report of a gun and the flash from a muzzle immediately followed. Nines staggered back against you.

You tried to hold him up, not understanding—

Gavin fired the gun again, and Nines crumpled to the ground.

You stared at the figure at your feet, rooted to the spot, but not Connor. With an inhuman cry, he bolted toward Gavin, and was rewarded with a bullet shot through his thigh and upper chest.

Watching Connor collapse into a heap at Gavin’s feet jolted you out of your paralysis. There was no sense to what you did, no planning as you rushed forward on numb legs. All you wanted was to tear your nails through Gavin’s eyes and make him suffer, make him bleed, make him scream.

Gavin sidestepped your attack and slung his arm around your neck, effectively pulling you into a headlock against his chest as he held the pistol to the side of your head.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he said, clearly enjoying himself as he turned so you could see both brothers lying on the ground. “You’re not getting off that easy. You and Flipper.”

He gestured at Connor, his loathsome voice speaking right into your ear.

“It’s worth a small fortune, you know. Shame I had to damage it, but… I didn’t ruin the parts they want, anyway.”

Gavin laughed, a mean sound that made you struggle harder.

Nines lifted his head clumsily, as if he didn’t have the strength to quite do it. You could have sobbed seeing he was still alive, but the blue liquid pooling under his chest was an alarming amount. It mixed with the rain as it came down harder, drenching the world and making it colder.

“Now, Free Willy over there...” Gavin tsked through his teeth. “That fucker’s too dangerous to haul back. A body will do just fine.”

He lifted his service pistol toward Nines.

You immediately bit down on his aiming shoulder, able to wiggle out of his hold for a brief moment of distraction.

The fired shot missed, sparking the ground next to Nines’ head.

“Fuck!”

You dug your teeth in even as Gavin cut off your air.

“Son of a bitch!”

He managed to tear you from his arm and toss you to the ground. The shock traveled up your knees and legs, but you ignored it and lunged for Gavin again.

He backhanded you across the face so hard you saw stars behind your eyelids and tasted iron in your mouth. You staggered backward and almost fell, but managed to keep your feet as Gavin descended on you.

“You filthy, fucking slut!”

He looked deranged, soaked in the rain and his eyes wide and furious.

“Spread your legs for a couple of fish but wouldn’t give me the time of fucking day! Is that it!”

You cried out and struggled to get away when he reached out and grabbed a fistful of your rain-soaked hair.

“Don’t you fuckin’ worry,” he snarled with a shake of his hand as you felt some of the roots of your hair tear from you scalp. “I’ve got lots of time from here to Detroit to teach you a fuckin’ lesson.”

Finger still clamped onto your hair, Gavin dragged you back toward his truck. You screamed and dug your fingernails into the back of his hand, but it was like he didn’t even feel it. He barely even seemed human.

He’d pulled you halfway to his truck before he shouted, his hand jerked away from your head as he was tackled to the ground.

Connor, bleeding and snarling, bit and tore his nails into Gavin as they rolled on the ground. The gun was knocked from Gavin’s hand and skidded across the gravel.

You dashed for the gun and grabbed it, desperate and shaky, and when you raised it toward them they were both locked in a heated fight. You couldn’t pull the trigger without fear of hitting Connor.

You didn’t know if the water running down your face was rain or tears, your breath hitching in your throat as you screamed. “Connor, get away from him!”

Connor looked up, saw the pistol in your hands, and scrambled away from the bleeding, raging man.

You depressed the trigger but Gavin was faster. Lying on his back, he jabbed a hand down to his waistband and pulled something out, pointed it at you, and fired.

The boom was much louder than the service pistol. But you barely heard it, barely heard anything, past the blooming agony in your gut and the sudden lack of strength in your legs.

You collapsed onto your knees, the gun dangling from your fingertips as you struggled to draw breath. Triumph in his eyes, Gavin rose to his feet and aimed the revolver toward your head.

Before he could fire a second time, a figure low to the ground grabbed him around the ankle and bit into his calf.

Gavin screamed and tried to kick Nines away, bringing his revolver around, but Connor grabbed his shoulder and bit deep into the side of Gavin’s neck. With a jerk of his head, he tore out a chunk of flesh, and blood spurted from the wound like a cut hose line.

Neither brother stopped for a moment, snarling and ripping into the man with inhuman ferocity, resembling two wolves tearing apart a grizzly even after it had dealt them lethal blows.

Gavin finally dropped to his knees, no longer screaming, his eyes wide and his face bloodless. The brothers only released him after he tumbled the rest of the way to the ground.

Nines didn’t move, either. Motionless, he looked as lifeless as the body next to him.

Connor didn’t look much better. As he wobbled and staggered over to you, you could see the bullet wounds in his chest and leg. Gavin had miscalculated. Even over the rain you could hear the wet, sucking sound of a perforated lung.

You began to fall forward as he drew near, and he caught you at the last second, gently lowering you the rest of the way to the ground. His hands were gentle even as they were slicked with blood.

Wanting desperately to comfort him but unable to speak, with one hand pressed to the seeping mess of your stomach the other searched for his hand. Connor took it and held it, lying down beside you as he pressed his face against your hair.

The strength sapped from your limbs, the world around you faded to a dull, flat noise. The plinking of the rainwater sounded far away, and farther beyond that, another sound.

It was difficult to hear past the sound of Connor’s breath hissing through his clenched teeth. Your mind was solely trying to focus on that sound, but you pushed past it to another. The faint roaring of water.

Nines’ voice, faint and hollow, echoed to you across your memory.

Whatever damage is caused will heal in the water…

Pulling away from Connor, you forced yourself onto one elbow, emitting a strangled whimper as the agony in your gut flamed anew. You pushed past it and rose to your knees.

Connor struggled to keep his wavering gaze on you, his eyes half-lidded and unfocused, before they finally slipped closed.

“C… Connor.”

He didn’t respond, and the last rush of adrenaline gave you the strength to grab and tug his arm.

“You have to… get up…”

Connor didn’t respond verbally, but when you put his arm over your shoulder and tried to pull him onto his knees, he managed to cooperate, barely conscious as he was.

Somehow, through the waves of agony coming from your abdomen, you struggled to your feet along with Connor. He wavered as you pulled him forward but you didn’t have any more strength than he did, and you leaned against each other and staggered like two drunks out of a bar.

When you approached the spot where Nines was lying, Connor whined and reached for him.

You kept pulling him forward. Even as your heart was ripped to shreds, especially when Connor continued to whimper as you left his brother behind. You couldn’t stop. If you lost your momentum now, you’d never get Connor to the water.

You didn’t want to think about how it might be too late for Nines. How getting Connor to safety was what he would have wanted. You couldn’t think about any of that. Not while Connor still needed you.

Reaching the bottom of the short embankment to the shoreline, you didn’t fight gravity as you and Connor collapsed onto the sand. He understood what you were doing now, and he crawled the last few inches to the water.

Not wanting him to drown by submerging his head or the gunshot wound to his chest, you helped roll him legs first into the water. The sleek, grey tail rippled down his legs, bursting through his shoes and leaving his pants in tatters.

Connor didn’t move after that, lying on his back as he struggled to breathe, and you wanted to stay just in case…

But the edges of your vision were starting to darken. You didn’t have much time left.

You didn’t bother to try to stand up again; you crawled back to where Nines lay, stopping halfway to wretch and gag, the iron taste lingering in your mouth. You pushed on, your entire world honed in on the figure on the ground, ignoring your torn and bleeding elbows and knees. What were a few more wounds.

By the time you reached him, your breath was uneven and hitching, your abdomen numb and your limbs shivering with cold. You were going to go into shock soon, or had already started, you didn’t know.

For this, you would have to stand up again, and you did it through sheer, panicked desperation. There was nothing outside of that moment except you grabbing Nines’ wrist as tightly as you could as you pulled him back toward the water.

It wasn’t far from where he’d collapsed, only a few feet, but each inch might have been a mile and each footstep the climb up a mountain. You dragged him, your shallow breaths now weak sobs, your chest hurting more than your gunshot wound.

You couldn’t think. Couldn’t look past the next step. There was only the weight you pulled behind and the glimmer of rushing water ahead.

You fell to your knees for the last time. Removed your hand from the gut wound so your bloody, shaky fingers could roll Nines the rest of the way into the water. You miscalculated the heavy weight of his body and how fast the river was actually moving, and when the waves grabbed at him and pulled him away, you cried out and reached for him.

Nines disappeared beneath the churning, grey water. All you could do was helplessly watch from where you’d fallen onto your stomach, finger trailing in the water as the last of your strength vanished. The water lapped at your fingers, cleaning them of the dark, purple liquid covering them. A mixture of red and blue.

Letting your eyes drift shut, you let the knowledge that the brothers would never again be caged act as your sole comfort as you surrendered to the cold and the darkness.

Your dying mind clung to one last memory. Something you’d felt many times before and had always brought solace on the bad days. You wanted to feel it again so desperately that you imagined you could actually feel it. The sensation of long, slender fingers wrapping around your wrist and gently pulling you into the water.

And to that too, you surrendered.

Next Chapter

#detroit: become human #detroit become human #connor x reader #nines x reader #rk1700 x reader #mermay #mermaid au #connor #nines #rk800 #rk900 #my writing #my fanfiction

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the-cookie-of-doom · 4 years

Text

@blvckcanry : D MerMay has come a week early.

Stiles is waiting out on the dock as he usually does this time of night. The late hour means most of the nearby pier is closed, with only the bars staying open. The tourists are an ever-present swarm in the distance, but Stiles is certain no one will notice him against the back drop of black water.

It's easier this way, even if some small part of Stiles is afraid of the leviathans that lurk in the ocean's depths.

Stiles is kicking his feet in the ice cold water when he hears a splash, and the water is broken by a familiar form.

"Stiles," the creature greets with a hiss, all sun-bronze skin and a narrow waist that tapers into a powerful tail, his hips shimmering with golden scales just above the water. The moonlight glints off his slick skin and turns his black hair silver, and he's the most beautiful thing Stiles has ever seen.

"Hi," Stiles says, breathless, because even after two weeks of this he still can't believe any of it's real. He watches Mitch haul himself out of the water and onto the dock, the muscles in his back shifting under his skin, every inch of him corded with strength.

Mitch leans in close—because all creatures of the ocean are used to the slide of bodies pressed to close, grouping together in clusters for protection—and grins, his slitted eyes sparkling. "There's something I want to show you," he says.

Stiles, filled with more curiosity than he can contain, would never deny such an offer.

"I don't have my gear."

"You won't need it." Mitch doesn't give Stiles the chance to ask more questions—he knows by now that the only way to stop Stiles from talking is to shut him up. It's easy for Mitch, when his mere presence is enough to render Stiles speechless.

They're already close enough that Stiles can feel Mitch's breath on his skin, yet he pulls Stiles even closer, pressing damp hands tipped with sharp claws to Stiles' face, holding him still. The moon reflects in Mitch's eyes and Stiles swallows thickly, wondering if Mitch intends to kiss him. He parts his lips in a silent question that he never gets the chance to voice, before Mitch presses their lips together in an open-mouthed kiss and exhales salty sea air into his lungs.

He's cold. That's the first thing Stiles notices. He's thought about this before, what it would be like to kiss Mitch, if it would be like kissing a fish. Which is stupid, because Mitch is close enough to human from the waist up. His lips are cold and soft and he tastes like the ocean, and it's over before Stiles ever has a chance to do much more than gasp.

Without waiting for a reaction, Mitch slips back into the water. Stiles lunges for him, almost throwing himself into the water after him, catching Mitch's hand.

"Wait!" A thousand thoughts are running through Stiles' mind—why did Mitch kiss him? Was it bad? Did he not like it? Can he try again?—when Mitch trills at him; a distinctly inhuman sound that always makes Stiles' face heat.

"Come on," Mitch tells him. He wraps his nimble fingers around Stiles' wrist, feeling the rapid pulse of his heart. Mitch falls easily beneath the small lapping waves, black water up to his shoulders. Stiles leans over the edge of the dock, one hand braced on the splintered wood. When Mitch looks at him like that, his eyes dark and intent, Stiles would follow him anywhere.

The cold water is a shock to his system. Stiles has the wherewithal to gasp a lungful of breath before Mitch pulls him beneath the surface, the sharp inhumanness of his features softened through the lense of the water.

Mitch wraps his arms around Stiles' middle, holding their bodies pressed together. The rough-smooth of his scales catch and slide against Stiles' board shorts as his powerful tale propels them deep underwater. The moon—full, like a luminous pearl in the sky—begins to fade away.

Stiles wrapped his arms around Mitch for the security of having something to hold on to; when his lungs begin to burn after just over a minute, he slaps at Mitch's shoulder frantically, because he cannot breathe and Mitch is still pulling him deeper.

I'm going to drown, Stiles wants to scream, but he can't risk releasing what air is still trapped in his lungs, even as the blood pounds in his skull from the pressure, and his vision blackens at the edges. Or is that just the depths pressing in around them?

When Stiles can't take it anymore, he exhales in a rush. The bubble of carbon dioxide ripple through Mitch's hair and towards the surface. Stiles looks up to find a kelp forest blocking out the light.

His heart is pounding and his skull is pounding and all Stiles can think is that he should have listened to all the sailors that came before him, telling tales of beautiful sirens that drag their quarry beneath the waves to drown.

All Stiles wants to know is: why? He thought Mitch was his friend.

They can't have been swimming for longer than two minutes, three at the most, when Mitch takes Stiles by the shoulders and violently shakes him. Stiles feels like his eyes are spinning in his skull, and he can barely make out the scowl on Mitch's handsome face.

"Breathe, idiot," Mitch tells him, Stiles somehow able to perfectly understand his voice. He shakes his head. Eyes widening Mitch shakes him again, and when that doesn't work, he constricts Stiles in a hug that forces him to gasp, flooding his lungs with water.

The taste of sea water is normally so strong with salt that it makes Stiles retch. Now, it's as fresh as the air above the surface, filling Stiles' lungs, granting Stiles the ability to breathe. He heaves in desperate breaths, and fixes Mitch with wild eyes.

"What's happening to me?" he shouts. This time there are no bubbles to filter to the surface. Mitch grins sharply and traces his fingers over Stiles' parted lips.

"Made you breathe," he answers simply, like it should have been obvious. Like any of this could possibly be obvious.

The only thing that comes across as obvious to Stiles is: of course Mitch didn't kiss him just for the hell of it. Why would he?

But Stiles finds it hard to feel sorry for himself when he's so far beneath the surface with a mythical creature, breathing on his own with no assistance. It's like he's walked straight into one of his dreams, only It's real. He hopes it's real.

"Is this what you wanted to show me?"

"Not quite."

Without Mitch to hold him down Stiles begins drifting towards the surface; humans are naturally buoyant creatures, and Mitch has to catch Stiles by the ankle when he drifts too far away, pulling him back down again. Stiles smiles, jittery with excitement, and wraps his arms around Mitch's neck.

"Show me, then."

Stiles finds his surprise at the bottom of the bay. The sea floor is alive with life and light. Colorful bioluminescent illuminates the forest of kelp and coral. Anemones skitter across the sand with crabs and schools of fish travel in glittering schools, stirring up the water.

"It's beautiful," Stiles breaths. What's more, he can hear it. The sound of activity isn't muffled by burbling respirators and his own movements. He can hear it clear as day, like the birds that chirp outside of his window, and he may be crying at the beauty of it. It's impossible to tell when salt water surrounds him on all sides.

After what feels like forever, Mitch brings Stiles back to the surface. He helps Stiles back onto the dock where they met with a hearty shove, watching while Stiles coughs a lung's worth of water back into the ocean from which it was borrowed, and Stiles convinces Mitch to stay for just a few more minutes. He's exhausted, but still alive with euphoria.

"How long does this last?" Stiles asks, touching his throat.

"I don’t know," Mitch responds, lying beside Stiles on the aged wood. His tail hangs into the water below, fins flicking in the shallow waves. "Be careful."

"You'll just have to kiss me again, then." Mitch looks at Stiles quizzically, like he's the mythical creature that by rights should not exist. "Do you know what a kiss is?"

"Show me?"

Stiles has to exhale deeply to gain his bearings, because god yes. "Yeah, okay, I can do that." He props himself up on his elbow and Mitch does the same, looking up at Stiles with the same curiosity he had when they first met, and he wondered what the strange, black-clad mechanical creature in his home was. Stiles brushes his fingertips over Mitch's lips, aware of the sharp teeth that lay behind his deceptively soft mouth. "It's like what you did before, to make me breathe."

"I can breathe fine," Mitch says, with a quirk to his mouth that makes Stiles wonder if he's being deliberately obtuse. He decides he can live with it if he is, if it means he will get to kiss Mitch again.

"You just, kind of…" Stiles leans in and presses their lips together in a chaste, somewhat-awkward kiss. Just as quickly he darts back to look at Mitch and see what he thinks, only to find him humming thoughtfully.

"That's it?"

Stiles blushes fiercely. "No."

"Well then, show me." Mitch says it like a challenge. One that Stiles is eager to accept.

Stiles leans in again, just a chaste as before. Soft kisses that go nowhere, until Stiles gains the confidence to deepen it. He threads his fingers into Mitch's damp hair and slides his tongue against his bottom lip until they part for him. Stiles' eyes flutter closed as he slips his tongue against Mitch's; he tastes like the ocean without the overpowering salinity, a delicate brine that Stiles wouldn't mind tasting for the rest of his life.

Stiles shivers when he feels the tips of Mitch's claws scrape the nape of his neck with ticklish pressure. He gasps when Mitch pulls him closer, mouths colliding in a deeper kiss that feels like waves crashing over rocks. It's dizzying; Mitch kisses him with abandon and without restrain; where before Mitch had given Stiles the ability to breathe below water, now he's breathless above land.

Mitch pulls Stiles' bottom lip through his sharp teeth when they part, trilling happily. A smattering of bioluminescent markings that Stiles has never noticed before glow in his skin like a blanket of stars, and Stiles can't help thinking that it's because of him.

"Like the ocean," Mitch tells him, tapping Stiles' lips with his fingertips.

#cookie writes #stitch #stiles stilinski #mitch rapp #mermitch is one of my true loves in life #remind me to finish all those mer fics this may lol #final word count: 1.8k (and change)

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vannahfanfics · 4 years

Text

Waste the Night Away

Category: Mild Romantic Fluff

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Characters: Hanta Sero, Ochako Uraraka

Additional Tags: Mermaid AU

Hello, everybody! This is another piece for @bnhabookclub‘s MerMay event, this time for the prompt “Well, this isn’t how I expected to spend my Saturday night”!

This is also a present for my lovely beta-reader and number-one supporter @deliathedork. I love you dearest! You certainly make all my hard work worth it! <3 Enjoy!

“Needless to say, I keep her in check! She was a bad-bad, nevertheless-! Callin’ it quits, da dunna dun duh…” Hanta sang along to the music pumping in his headphones as he jaunted along the concrete sidewalk. He punctuated the words with very exaggerated motions, earning him quite a few concerned glances from passersby; not that he noticed, because he had his eyes closed as he skipped a few steps flapping his arms like a chicken. “Then you’re left in the dust-! Unless I stuck by yaaaaaaa! You’re a sunflowwwwwwer! I think your love would be too much!” he yowled and spun around a light pole on the corner before hopping off and scooting a few more steps down the sloping sidewalk.

It was about seven o’clock in the evening, and Hanta was on his way home from a riotous day of videogames at Denki’s house. Hanta had proudly obliterated Denki, Katsuki, Eijirou, and surprise guest Fumikage at Super Smash Bros. Needless to say, he was still riding the victory high- so much so that he had elected to walk home rather than take the bus. The night was pleasantly chilly, just enough to stave off the heat from all his wild dancing, and a few of the stars were visible between the wispy gray clouds trawling over the inky expanse of the night sky. The evening was still young, so as he jitterbugged his way through town, he distantly wondered what he was going to do for the rest of it.

“I can hear you tellin’ me to turn around! Fightin’ for my trust, and you won’t back down! Da dunna dun duh, da dunna dun da…” he clumsily sang as he hopped over the curb to jaywalk across an empty street. He trotted down another incline, which led to his shortcut- a waterway that traveled the length of a series of highway overpasses. The watercourse siphoned excess water away from the city reservoir; it had rained a considerable amount lately, so the freshwater was lapping up at the edges of the levee. The splashing and gurgling of the water served as an accompaniment to his performance while he strolled along, occasionally stopping to kick his legs or punch the air energetically. “You’re the sunflowwwwwer! You’re the sunflower!” he howled again, skipping to the edge of the levee and shaking his hips, before the song ended. He then wrenched his headphones off his ears to rest them around his neck and released a self-satisfied sigh, placing his hands on his hips and staring out at the canal.

Hanta always took a moment to appreciate the view when he came this way, if the water level was high enough. It was extraordinarily breathtaking when the stars were out. Light sparkled across the gently sloshing waves like millions of diamonds. Just above the concrete slopes of the other side of the levee, through a rusted chain-link fence, spread the expanse of the city; gold lights floated like orbs in the distance, emanating from streetlights and houses and businesses. If he squinted, he could make out the reds and green of traffic stops as well, or the flickering neon flashes of animated billboards. He could not hear the deafening noise pollution of civilization, though, aside from the humming of car engines bouncing down from the highway half a mile from where he stood. No, the sounds of nature reigned- the babbling of the water, the chirping of the crickets in the bunches of weeds springing up from the cracked sidewalk, the baying of stray hounds and the hooting of the barn owl that nested in the crooked old tree beyond the fence. He closed his eyes as he drank it all in. The bubbling. The chirping. The howling. The hooting. The little muffled whimpers for help-

Wait a second.

Hanta’s eyes snapped open, and he strained his ears to make sure he had indeed heard what he thought he had. Sure enough, floating down the waterway from his right were small, stifled squeaks and sobs. Someone needs help! He took off down the sidewalk, whipping out his phone to turn on the flashlight. A bright circle of white illuminated the stone construct before him, and he swung his phone side to side wildly to check every square inch of space.

“Hello? Who’s out here? Do you need help?” he called, cupping a hand to his mouth to increase the volume. The noises ceased for a moment, and he worried that he might have frightened them off. “Don’t be scared! I just wanna help you!” He remained still aside from his slightly ragged breaths, eyes searching the dark and ears straining the fresh night air for any sound, any at all.

“… Please help me.” The plea was meek, but close, close enough for him to tell it was a girl. A million deplorable scenarios flew through his mind at once, but he forbade himself to settle on any of them; instead, he focused on picking his way down the slick slope to where he thought the voice originated from. Suddenly, the disc of light from his phone’s flashlight puddled over a caramel-haired, brown-eyed girl with her body half in the water.

“What the shit?!” Hanta panted under his breath. He cried out as the sole of his sneaker slipped over the wet rock, and he sank into a split. He let out a shrill whine as his thigh and groin muscles strained way past the point they were naturally meant to. His feet scrabbled against the slimy, rocky levee wall until he managed to regain his footing again. Hugging the levee surface, he allowed gravity to slide him the rest of the way down the slope until the toes of his sneakers barely breached the rippling surface of the water. “Don’t worry, miss, I gotcha,” he reassured the frightened girl as she shied away from his sudden presence. He held his phone up so that the light illuminated her fully but also fell on him so she could see his kind smile. “We’re gonna get you back up just… just… fine…”

His words trailed off when he happened to look down at her lower half, which rested in the water. It was just instinctual. He hadn’t been sure what he had been expecting, given the situation; he could have discovered any number of sickening or unsavory things. What he discovered was not sickening or unsavory, but downright befuddling. Rather than human legs, the lower half of the girl’s body was in the form of a bubblegum pink, scaly fishtail, with thin, curving fins like a flying fish. Hanta stared incredulously at the appendage for a few seconds before he realized why the girl- mermaid, rather- had been crying out for help. Wrapped around her tail were industrial-sized plastic rings. The hard edges were digging into the flesh, slicing right through the hard scales to cause blood and effluent to ooze out. The mermaid stared fearfully at him the entire time.

“Right! Uh, knife, I need a knife,” he mumbled and began patting his pockets in search of his Swiss Army knife. One never knew when one needed a particular tool, so Hanta had always made a point to keep one on his person. He never dreamed he would be using it to cut some plastic off a mermaid, though.

“Ah-ha!” he grinned triumphantly when he finally tugged it out of his back pocket. He flashed a reassuring smile at the mermaid. “Don’t worry, Miss Mermaid. I’mma have you free in a jiffy.”

“Erm… Thank you,” she flushed shyly and dropped her gaze. Hanta then realized he would need two hands to cut her free, so he grinned bashfully at her.

“Er, would you mind, uh, holding this for me?” he asked with a shake of his smartphone. She stared curiously at the device and gave an unsure nod, reaching up with her small hands to take it. “Just keep that light pointed on your tail- Jesus Christ, she has a tail- uh, keep it pointed there so I can see.” Obediently, she turned the phone so that the flashlight kept her tail illuminated. Hanta bit down on his bottom lip as he hunched over the appendage to begin cutting the plastic loose.

Some areas were more accessible than others; in several places, the plastic was lodged half an inch down in the meat of her tail. He felt pangs of guilt every time the poor thing yelped with pain when he would dig his fingertip into the gaping wound to pry it out. She began to squirm around and sob pitifully, so he decided to try and distract her from the discomfort. “My name’s Hanta. Sero Hanta,” he informed her with a quick smile. “What about you? Do you have a name like humans?”

“In your language, it would be Ochako. Uraraka Ochako.”

“Cute name, cute name.” He winced when she whimpered again, for he was digging into a rather deep laceration to force out some clinging particles of the stretchy plastic. “How did you even do this?” he muttered disparagingly. He glanced at her face to see her eyes tearing up and a self-pitying pout making her lips quiver.

“I just swam into it like a big dummy… I freaked out trying to get it off, and next thing I knew, I was up in this channel. I got it all tangled with my fins, so it was getting hard to swim…” She used to her free hand to wipe at the tears glittering on her brown lashes. “I thought I was gonna be stuck here forever…”

“Hey, hey, don’t worry about it! Good thing I happened upon you, huh?” he interjected as she began to cry piteously. He probably shouldn’t have delved too much into the backstory. A bright idea struck him like a thunderbolt, and he wrenched off his headphones to stick them over her ears. “Here! Listen to this, and it won’t hurt as much,” he instructed her and tapped on his phone screen to restart the music. Her eyes went wider than the full moon above as the music began blasting in her ears. The tears ceased leaking down, and slowly, she began bobbing her head a little. Hanta beamed widely, pleased his clever plan worked, and resumed cutting at the plastic. He gave the mermaid an amused side-eye as she began humming along to the tune.

Once he had tossed the last bit of the plastic up onto the top of the levee, Ochako gave her tail an experimental flap. She flushed pink and slapped her hand to her mouth as she involuntarily splashed water all down his front and into his face. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, it’s just water,” he laughed mirthfully when she began to squeak apologies. “It’ll dry,” he purred and wrung out his shirt. The water gushed down onto the stone levee with spattering splashes. “Anyway, do you think you can swim now?”

“Yes, I do,” she agreed and lowered the headphones from her ears to glance gratefully down at her tail. Thin lacerations painted red cross-crossing lines in the bright pink flesh, but her fins now fluttered freely. He gawked in awe at the realization she could manipulate each one of them voluntarily. She noticed him staring and giggled. “Would you like to touch it?”

“Is that weird?”

“No. Go ahead,” she chuckled. Hanta immediately splayed his palms out over the fishy tail, dark eyes going wide. It wasn’t nearly as slimy as he thought it would be. The scales were a little soft and pliant, feeling like thin discs rolling under his skin. The membranes of her fins were so delicate-looking that he was scared to touch them, but when he did, pinching them between the pads of his forefinger and thumb, they felt like the sheerest lace.

“It’s beautiful,” he murmured on reflex. He looked up to see Ochako blushing and bashfully holding a hand to her reddening cheek. Realizing just how embarrassing that was, he hastily retracted his hands and straightened up. “Anywa- Ack!” He had put too much force in the movement and essentially flung himself. He slipped down the rest of the levee to land with a splash in the water. The bank was only about two feet deep, so he could sit there on his rump in the water and grin shyly at the concerned mermaid. “Well, guess now we really don’t have to worry about you splashing me, huh?”

“No,” she agreed with a girlish giggle that made Hanta feel all dreamy-like. Sighing contentedly, he crawled back up onto the levee and reclined against the slope on his back, putting his hands behind his head and bending one knee. “Well, this isn’t how I expected to spend my Saturday night,” he chuckled.

“Me neither,” she laughed and stretched out on her belly beside him. She raised her tail, and as it caught the moonlight, the scales shimmered like thousands of pink opals. Water cascaded down from it like liquid crystal to plop in the water below. Hanta caught himself staring again and returned his attention to her face, finding her smiling warmly.

“I’m sorry. I’ve just never seen a girl- mermaid- as pretty as you.”

“I’m the only mermaid you’ve ever seen.”

“That automatically makes you the prettiest, though!” Ochako laughed loudly at his explanation. He found himself savoring her laugh. It rang out like bright bells, full of cheer and goodness. He rolled onto his side, resting a cheek in his hand. He ignored the way the rough stone scraped his elbow, because he just wanted to keep looking at her. He knew he would probably never see her again, so he sought to get his fill. Ochako tilted her head to the side coyly.

“Hanta?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me about the human world.”

So he did. He told her everything his spastic little brain could think of- cars, trains, movie theaters, bubble tea, traffic stops, coffee, videogames, the little old lady next door with the Chihuahua he swore was the spawn of Satan. The amount of information that tumbled from his mouth was disgustingly overwhelming and mind-numbingly mundane. Still, Ochako hung onto every word with the most rapturous expression on her round face. Hanta found himself getting pointlessly excited about it all and was soon sitting straight up, gesturing wildly with his hands. Occasionally, Ochako would pipe up about a counterpart they possessed in the underwater realm, and they would gush about it for a few minutes. They didn’t notice the moon swiftly traveling across the sky, nor the golden lights of the city flickering out one by one. For that brief period, it seemed like time did not exist at all; that waterway was theirs and theirs alone. That little stretch of levee was a dimension beyond all responsibility and borders. They were perfectly content to waste the night away until the dawn came creeping in, flooding the world with its warm light.

The bubble burst when Hanta’s phone began to ring. He grimaced when he noticed it was his mother, and hurriedly picked up, because he’d never hear the end of it if he rejected her call.

“Yeah. Yeah, Mom, I got caught up at Denki’s. I’m all right. I’ll be home soon. Bye.” Ochako was staring at the phone like it was its own life form when he hung up. She then frowned sadly.

“Does this mean you have to go?”

“Unfortunately so,” he sighed heavily and rubbed the back of his neck, then smiled sheepishly at her. “This might sound corny and all, but I’ll never forget you.”

“Why do you say that like you’ll never see me again?” she asked, looking hurt. He blinked stupidly at her and then flushed.

“Well… I mean… Isn’t it dangerous for you to swim up in the canal? You know, getting kidnapped by humans and sold off to a circus and all that?”

“Yeah, but I don’t care.” He reeled in her utter disregard for her safety. She gave him a roguish smile that was ridiculously cute on her round face. “I’ll come back tomorrow!” Hanta made a mental check of his plans to ensure that an excursion to the channel was indeed feasible before nodding excitedly.

“Yeah! But be careful,” he grimaced. She giggled coquettishly and fluttered her eyelashes at him.

“It’s sweet that you’re worried about me.”

“Well, I am a gentleman,” he huffed, puffing out his chest and closing his eyes with a self-possessed smirk. Ochako took advantage of his lapse in security, and the next thing he knew, she had her lips pressed up against his cheek. All his mental processes screeched to a jarring halt, and he just gawked open-mouthed at her with a brainless “Uhhhhhh…” rumbling in his throat. Ochako giggled at his bashful response and shot him another flirty smile.

“See you around. And thanks again!” Before he could think of anything intelligent to say, she dove off the levee into the water. He tried to scramble to his feet. He only succeeded in tumbling back into the water again, this time with his phone in his pocket. His headphones just barely avoided suffering water damage, and he wrenched his phone out of his pocket to hold it aloft, praying that it was true that it was waterproof. He just barely caught a glimpse of Ochako’s bright pink tail swaying underneath the surface of the glittering black water before it faded into the shadows.

“See ya,” he called softly. Though it was impossible, he still fancied that she heard him.

Groaning, he climbed back up the slope of the levee to the flat sidewalk. He shook himself out like a shaggy dog and wrung as much as the water as he could from his clothes, then placed the headphones snugly over his ears. His phone was thankfully working just fine. He started his music back up and began swaying to the beat a little, then took off in a jog down the path leading home.

“Even if we gotta risk it all right now, oh-! I know you're scared of the unknown! You don't wanna be alone! Da da dun dunna dun dun dun… You’re my sunflowwwwer…”

When his mother inquired what the big smile on his face was for, he merely replied that his Saturday night hadn’t been a wasted one.

DISCLAIMER: The rights to “Sunflower” belong to Post Malone.

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