#@JOHN! THERE IS A REASON YOU ARE ADJUSTING QUICKLY AND IT IS CALLED 'THE SEAWITCH FUCKIN SCRAPED OUT YOUR HUMANITY WITH RAZOR WIRE'

[swan-archive]

I love your murderfish au so much it's probably going to be one of my fave mermaid aus of all time at this point lol I was wondering tho how murderfish!johns first hunt would go? I loved both of those chapters so much!!!

hello, soldier, says John, and the young Brit kneeling at the water’s edge startles and jumps to his feet. John ducks down low in the water, as if he’d been startled too, but doesn’t dive all the way under, doesn’t take his eyes off the man in his bright red coat. mustn’t lose sight of the prey.

what—what— the redcoat stammers. balled-up shirt in his hands—not important enough to hire a laundress, it seems. you—you’re a mermaid. you’re a fucking mermaid.

yes, obviously, and John would like to roll his eyes and launch himself out of the water at the man, but he restrains himself. smiles soothingly. close-lipped. Alex has been very clear on that point. don’t give the game up right away, don’t go straight for the throat, let ‘em get their guard down, let ‘em relax before you—

—kill them.

Alex had winced a little. i mean, yeah, but i was trying to be polite about it.

why?

well, i—you—this is new to you. doing it for yourself. it’s, for a human, it’s—i didn’t want to scare you, or, or…

John had rolled his eyes. look, you can mother hen me all you want later, but for now just tell me the right way to do it, and i’ll do it, yeah? no point in pussyfooting around.

i suppose. Alex had looked at him hard, unblinking, for a long moment, before changing the subject to Compulsion. not the first time he’s come over all suspicious since John was changed, as though he’s expecting John to break down in—not in tears, they can’t cry, but in something like that—over his lost humanity any second. touching, but unnecessary. John’s adjusting quickly. quick enough to surprise himself, even, at times, but this now is just a matter of practicality. he’s a mermaid. he has to eat. and in order to eat, he has to hunt. that’s all there is to it. no need for hysterics, Alex, get a grip.

and speaking of Alex—

Alex makes his appearance, bobbing to the surface just downstream of John. scales a warm gold all over, like his skin would be if he were human, green only just visible in the hollow of his throat and the webs between his fingers. the redcoat jitters, outnumbered, makes as if to dash off, but Alex lays his head to the side and looks up at him out of the corners of his big dark eyes. a well-practiced act. John recognizes that coy flutter of eyelashes, that coquettish set to the shoulders, from when he and Alex had shared a tent and a bedroll.

don’t be scared, says Alex. sings Alex. don’t be scared, we won’t hurt you, all we wanted was to see you. funny how he sounds to John now; John had never really understood Alex’s complaints about having a less-than-stellar voice, but now that John’s a mermaid too he can hear the rough edges and the muddled tone that human ears couldn’t catch. can hear Alex working harder to straighten those out, to keep his Compulsion true. John lets out a low, rolling hum, and Alex glances at him—i can do it myself, thank you— but it bolsters his voice a little bit, and when he sighs please don’t go the redcoat steps back toward the riverbank, his will softening.

why’d you want to see me? he asks, still with an edge of distrust to his voice.

why not? why wouldn’t we want to? face like that. body like that. ‘course we’d want to see.

handsome, purrs John, adding his voice to Alex’s, and the redcoat shivers. handsome boy. wanted to see you close.

see you, echoes Alex.

touch you.

hold you.

wanted to… John’s tail swishes through the water, sinuous. less vulgar than a wink and a bitten lip, but a human would read it just the same. a human is reading it just the same, to judge by the flush on the redcoat’s cheeks.

you won’t— he says a little thickly. shakes his head like a dog bothered by flies. you won’t hurt me? promise you won’t hurt me.

Alex smiles. teeth very close to the surface. promise. come here now. come here. let us hold you.

just for a moment. only a moment, and then i have to get back to my regiment. the redcoat kneels back down where he’d been sitting before, and John and Alex draw closer, closer. close enough to see the fine hairs on the redcoat’s knuckles, the pale nick of a scar on his chin. brown eyes and soft curling hair. he really is pretty, John thinks. the kind of boy he would have mooned and sighed and spent into his handkerchief over once upon a time, before he was a mermaid, before Alex. now the pretty face is less important to him than the warm blood under the skin.

what’s your name, handsome boy, says John, reaching out of the water, laying his hand on the redcoat’s arm. greenblue on red. redcoat doesn’t notice the claws.

Perkins. Thomas Perkins. er. Lieutenant Perkins.

an officer, fancy that, says Alex, letting a bit of humor bleed in under the Compulsion. isn’t this an honor. how-d’ye-do, Lieutenant Perkins. he shoots an amused look at John, and John fights down a snicker. he knows his uniforms as well as the next man, and if Perkins here is ranked any higher than a sergeant, John’ll beach himself. trying to show off for the pretty mermaids, maybe. serves them well enough. they have a name now, and there’s power in that, even if it’s just a hollow human by-word for a man and not a true naming.

hello, Thomas, John says simply. he watches Alex take the man by his other sleeve, careful not to touch skin. much harder to believe a creature willing and wanting if you know it’s as cold as John and Alex are.

Thomas-the-redcoat is fooled, though. and what do you ladies call yourselves, he asks sleepily. he settles down on the bank, dangles his legs in the water without bothering to take his boots off first.

does it matter, sings John. 

doesn’t matter at all, sings Alex. won’t you come and swim with us, Tom?

come here now, Thomas. pretty Thomas. handsome Tom. come swim with us. 

and that does it. the redcoat sighs and slips down into the river, and John and Alex catch him in their arms and bear him under. silver bubbles trailing from his mouth and nose. he blinks at them, dreamy, unconcerned, and stretches out a hand to stroke Alex’s cheek. his brow furrows a bit in confusion at the sandpapery scritch of Alex’s scales, not the soft smooth skin he’d expected to feel. Alex murmurs don’t worry don’t fear you are safe with us, and leans into the touch, and fixes their little redcoat with the stare of a hunting shark.

Alex smiles.

really smiles.

before Thomas has time to even go stiff with fear, Alex lunges forward and buries his needle teeth in the boy’s neck.

Thomas goes urk— and a thread of blood unspools in the water and John smells it, tastes it in his mouth and in his nose and in his flaring gills, and the hunger coiled in his belly leaps up sharp and fierce and screaming. he clamps his fingers around Thomas’ arm and yanks him close and bites down on his shoulder through thick red fabric. venom in his mouth, bitter, and hot sweet blood. he jerks his head to the side and tears off a mouthful of flesh, gulps it down, and it’s so good, so much better than squirming fish, so much better than he can ever remember human food being, so warm, so alive, he needs more, he needs more.

Alex snarls something in the mermaid language John still only half-understands, stop and mine and don’t, and John snarls back without words and hauls on the redcoat’s arm so hard he hears a crunch of bone. and like hell is he going to be left with nothing but a measly arm when there’s still soft unprotected belly to be spoken for, lungs and liver and guts, and heart still, somehow, beating away under a flimsy cage of ribs, so he drives forward and rams the redcoat down against the riverbed. the last of the breath escapes him in a hollow gurgle.

John sinks his claws into the redcoat’s chest. rips away flesh and bone as easily as red cloth. reaches into the hole there made and draws out the heart, hot as a coal against his cold scales. tears into it. the whole world flushes red for a moment. beautiful, perfect red. iron on his tongue and in his gills. lifeblood sliding down his throat. 

it’s right. it’s good.

mine mine mine, howls Alex, clawing at John, jarring him back to reality. John hisses reflexively and darts backward with the heart in his hands, slaps Alex with his tail to send him reeling away with scales flaring poison-green. he bares his teeth at the interloper, at the kill-stealer, at the scavenging runt.

John, Alex wails, and the world fractures a little, slips out of true. John. that’s him. he is John Laurens, and he is holding in his hands the heart of a man, a man he just killed, a man he intends to eat. something in his head slams itself against the bars of its cage, screaming shrill and unintelligible. wrong. something is wrong. wrong to kill a man, and tear out his heart. wrong to eat it. wrong because—

John, Alex cries again, and John loses the shape of it. wrong because—this is Alex’s kill too. wrong to lay claim to it, when Alex lured the prey, when Alex had the first bite. he deserves to taste. yes, that must have been the problem. easy to fix.

Al-icks. the name is leaden and awkward on his tongue underwater. he tries again. Alex.

Alex blinks at him with sharp, distrustful eyes, his claws still curled threateningly.

Alex. John holds out what remains of the heart. difficult to shape the Mermish words, but it’s getting easier every day, every hour, and he finds them eventually. come. come to me, Alex. come to me.

Alex swims a little closer.

yours. yours, Alex. come to me. Alex. Alex.

Alex’s scales have faded back down to soft turquoise. still a lingering warmth in the twist of muscle and gore in John’s hands. Alex must be able to feel it in the water, just as John can.

yours, Alex, love. yours, love. come and take it. yours.

Alex reaches out and grips John’s wrists, hard enough to make John gasp. he bows his head over John’s hands.

mine, he agrees, and eats. tongue and lips and fangs against John’s scales. heartsblood in the water.

heartsblood in his mouth, when he finishes, when John pulls him up for a kiss.