#a/n — I made these flags so frickin long ago... like probably the first or second month disso was out

[n-tcat]

Dissosodablood — Dissoblood subterm in which someone has an involuntary disconnect from their external blood that makes them believe their blood is soda instead; it is against transitioning

@dissodic-archive

[shy-violet-soul]

Overrated

Title: Overrated Pairing: AU: Merman-Castiel x OFC Binda, Dean & Sam Prompt: merpup Summary: In her world filled with annoying, overbearing boys, Binda just wants something of her own she doesn’t have to share.  Will a kind, quiet merman have the answer? Warnings:  Salt-water fluff.  A couple of curse words. Word count: 2,200-ish

A/N:  I’m so tickled to take part in my first writing challenge!  Thank you to @siren-kitten-his for hosting “Kitten’s Mermaid Challenge”.  This is also my first AU, so I hope I did the characters proud.  A big thank you to @thesassywallflower for being my beta on this one.

Binda - “deep water” (Aboriginal Australia)

This is a work of fiction based upon characters created by CW.  The character “Binda” is my own creation.  Please do not repost without my permission.

(photo: Robert Harding, Getty Images)

With one final grunt of effort, Binda flopped onto her belly and sighed in contentment.  Creating the perfect resting spot took more fussing than a mama sea turtle digging a nest for her eggs, but it was worth it!  The gentle hill of sand she had studiously constructed curved her spine into a gentle arch as she pillowed her face on her crossed arms.  Sheltered here from the currents, Binda smiled as she felt herself sink into a welcome nap.

It was damn hard to get any peace with those two around.

“Bee!”

Damnit.

“Maybe she’s not here, Dean.”

“Nah, Cas said he followed her here.”

DAMNIT!  Binda growled as their voices echoed above her.  She should have known those dumb gobies wouldn’t leave her be.  She also should have known that nosy codfish was going to tail her.

“C’mon, Bee, come out, come out, wherever you are!”

Maybe if she just kept quiet, they’d go away...a clam dropped onto her head and frantically skittered away.

“Ow!” she squawked, flopping upright and glaring upwards as she rubbed the sore spot.  

“Hiya, princess!”  Bright green eyes glinted down at her above Dean’s trademark smirk.  Sam drifted into view, his gaze apologetic, as both brothers blocked out the sunlight drifting into her precious coral cave.  Luckily, her gargantuan brothers were too big to fit through the opening.

“I tried to stop him, Binda.”

“Obviously not hard enough,” she grumbled as she plunked herself back onto the sand.  The poor terrorized clam was struggling to bury itself, and Binda crooned to it soothingly as she sluiced a handful of sand on top of it.  

“Aw, don’t be like that, Bumblebee.”

The childhood nickname grated on her already raw nerves.  “It’s ‘Binda’, Dean.  Go away.”

A chunk of dead coral thunked on her head next, getting tangled in her gypsum-white hair.  Days of being pestered, bedeviled, and hounded suddenly burned like sand in a fresh coral scrape.  Binda snarled, a snap of her tail shooting her straight to the cave’s mouth.  The groans from both her brothers as her skull slammed into their noses was worth the sudden headache.

“What. Do. You. WANT?” she roared into their faces.

“Great Whites, Binda, what the hell?” Dean groused, rubbing between his eyes gingerly.

“I didn’t even do anything this time,” her taller brother whined from behind his hands.  

“Sorry, Sam,” she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.  “Seriously, just leave me alone, guys!  What’s a girl gotta do to get some peace and quiet?”

“Calm your clam shells, toots.  Geez,  Binda, are you heading into your egg-laying season?”  

Red.  She literally saw red.  Dean literally never saw her right hook coming.

“Son of a bitch!” Blood ribboned into the water from Dean’s nose as Binda turned to glare at Sam.

“Don’t look at me! Chasing you was his idea!” Sam yelped, his gold-striped grouper tail scrambling him backwards.

Binda ignored him, stabbing one slim pointer finger towards her brothers.  “You two listen to me!  If you follow me, I will harpoon you in the Amazon in the middle of a piranha colony!”  Infuriated beyond belief, Binda spun and waved her powerful tail, surging away from them.  “And don’t think I won’t do it!”

Weaving amid flurries of fish, Binda ignored Sam’s shout as she swam away.  It’s not that she didn’t love her big brothers; she did, truly.  With their mother gone and their father always away, they’d practically raised her.  From the first toddling flip of her dorsal fin, her brothers had been there for her through it all.  No mermaid in all the seven seas ever had better brothers.

They were always there for her.  Really.  Always frickin’ there.  

If it wasn’t Dean needling her to go treasure hunting, Sam had his latest scroll he just couldn’t wait to share.  They were there in the mornings, eating her favorite North Pacific krill.  They were there to swim her home after her lessons, glaring off any cute mermen she even blinked at.  They were there in the evenings, arguing over which lagoon to hit for dinner.  As much as she loved them, Binda felt like she couldn’t breathe sometimes with how always...there...Sam and Dean were.

Distracted by her thoughts and frustrations, Binda didn’t check the corner before banking around a coral outcropping and plowed headfirst into something.

Someone, actually.

The someone in question flailed backwards at the force of their collision, straight into a swarm of visiting electric eels.  The alarmed critters sputtered and thrashed, snapping great sparks into the unsuspecting soul thrust into their midst.  Binda shrieked, darting forward and grasping a wrist to yank him out of the spitting, arcing tangle.  The merman collided heavily into her, his face smashing into the curve of her neck and shoulder.  Hissing with displeasure, the eels hurried on their way.

Gasping to catch a breath, Binda leaned back just as the mystery merman did.  She found herself snared by a pair of astonishingly blue eyes.

“Castiel?” she asked dazedly.  The merman straightened and moved away, rotating his shoulders a bit stiffly.

“That was unpleasant,” he rumbled in that deep voice.  

“Oh, my gosh, Cas!  Are you okay?”  Binda’s gaze flitted over him, searching for injuries.  

“I’ve sustained no permanent damage.”

“What are you even doing here?” she quizzed the merman, her brows twitching with confusion.

“I, uh -” the dark-haired mer glanced downwards, rubbing the back of his neck a bit sheepishly.  “I followed you.”

Binda’s eyes popped open at the remark.  “You followed me?”  Exasperated anew, Binda flung her arms up.  “Of course you did!  Everyone follows me!”

Cas cocked his head to the side, squinting at her.  “I do not think everyone follows you, Binda.  There are many species in our cove who aren’t…” His voice dwindled off when the mermaid levelled a hard glare in his direction.  “Nevermind.”

“Oh!  What is it with you mermen?!  Can’t you leave me alone for even a second?” Frustration rolled off the maid in waves, and Cas couldn’t help but stare.  The current washed around them just so, billowing her white, waist-length locks around her in tantalizing tendrils.  Her gorgeous tail, the bright gold and orange of a fan goldfish, gleamed about her in delicate, flowing fronds.  It reminded him of the fancy dress adorning a human woman he’d seen on a distant shore long ago.  Her green eyes, different from her oldest brother’s, shone brighter than any anemone, like a gem he’d spied in a wreckage.  Practical soldier though he was, Cas was convinced Binda’s smiling gaze could soften the hardest of hearts.

That gaze wasn’t smiling at him now.  

“I’m sorry, Binda.”

“No, you’re not!”  She advanced at him, wagging a finger under his nose.  “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t have told those two yahoo brothers of mine where I was!  For carp’s sake, Castiel!  You three are gonna be the death of me!”  Her ire growing with each moment, Binda began swimming a line in front of Cas, arms gesticulating wildly.  “When I wake up, there they are!  When I go out, there you are!  I can’t even go browsing for new top shells alone!  Can’t I, just once, have a moment to myself?  Have something that’s only mine that I don’t have to share?”

“I just...”

“What, Castiel?  Just - what?”

“I just....want to make sure you’re safe.”  With those words, all the ire drained out of her like air out of a puffer fish.  This amazing, strong, handsome merman wanted to make sure she was safe.  Binda would be lying if she said her heart didn’t flutter about the serious Castiel.  While the other mermaids fawned over Dean’s vivid green and black cichild scales, or Sam’s bright gold stripes, Castiel’s midnight blue and black betta tail had always caught her eye.  Different from any other mer, Cas possessed an extra set of fins separate from his tail.  Thin, nearly translucent, the two long slender fins hung from his shoulders like wings.  Chest muscles she’d blushingly admired bore an intricate tracery of gold in some ancient script - Enochian, Binda had heard Sam call it once.

Yes, Castiel was altogether quite the catch, pardon the phrase.  But it was his quiet, gentle presence Binda most enjoyed.  He often joined her as she tended the Pearl Reef, sometimes sitting with her as she rested in the quiet away from the busy-ness of cove life.  He’d point out some bright flag of seaweed that made a picturesque splash against the rocks, or tell her about the seahorse hatchlings he’d seen the day before.  Binda had always hoped she might catch affection in his gaze one day..

But his gaze held only duty, just like always.

Binda’s shoulders sagged at the thought.  It wasn’t Cas’ fault, really.  Her father or her brothers had probably told him to keep an eye on her.  Trying for nonchalant and failing, Binda drug up a half-assed smile for the merman.

“It’s alright, Castiel.  I’m sorry for yelling.  I think I’ll head on home now.  I’ll see you later.”  With a wave of her side fins in farewell, Binda took herself off for the family caves.  

Castiel sighed, brow creased in frustration as he watched her go.  This wooing was much more difficult than he anticipated.  He didn’t dare ask Sam or Dean for advice.  He needed help from someone who wouldn’t laugh at him.  And he knew just the one!

In a flurry of blue-black fins, Castiel took off for the friendliest corner of the cove.

Curled up under a large network of seaweed fronds, Binda lay quietly, staring up at the surface.  The sun above shimmered like hammered silver in fleeting glimpses between the leaves.  She huffed a sigh as she rolled to her side, twitching when something tickled her.  One, then two, then five little pink seahorses poked their wee heads up above her fins.  Binda smiled as she held out her hand to let them weave between her fingers playfully.  

The boys had mercifully left her alone, and Binda had it in her heart to feel bad.  Almost.  At least for making Dean bleed. Although, she wasn’t going to waste the peace and quiet gifted to her.  And if her smile looked a bit mopey - well, her peace and quiet were the only ones there to see.

“Shhh!”  The muffled sound barely caught her attention, but it did that of the seahorses.  The little creatures bobbed forward curiously, and Binda waved herself upright.  

“Hello?” she called out.

“Uhhh…” Binda would know that confusion anywhere.

“Castiel?”  She swam a bit higher to see over the seaweed; the merman seemed to be hunched weirdly backwards, like his anal fin was caught in his wings or something.  “Are you alright?”

“I - I consulted Garth about my quandary,” he spouted out, his cheeks a bit flushed with...what?

“Oh.  What quandary?  Can I help?” Binda asked, her eyes tinged with concern as she swam nearer.  

“No.  Yes.  I - I -” The poor mer couldn’t seem to make up his mind; the expression on his face looked like he might spontaneously combust.  Was he ill?  He suddenly lurched, his features contorting in discomfort.

“Cas, did those eels hurt you?  Let me see!”  Binda demanded, approaching him determinedly.

“No!  Uh - this is for you!”  The poor soul looked almost green as he thrust something into her arms.  Binda’s arms instinctively closed around it, and the mass came alive as it wriggled and whined and…licked?

The merpup was all white, fur soft as the sand from a place called Puerto Rico her father once visited.  His gleaming scales were iridescent green, showing hints of blue and purple in the light.  And the black eyes that looked up at her had her falling in love in a heartbeat.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, cuddling the little pup under her chin.  Her happy laughter splashed out when sweet puppy kisses found her jaw and cheek.  “Oh, Castiel, thank you!”

“Please accept this canine as a token of my affection for you.”  Castiel thought he spoke out loud but he wasn’t sure.  His heart was pounding so hard with nerves, he honestly thought he might throw up, but Binda’s blinding smile distracted his queasiness.

At Castiel’s mumbled proclamation, Binda’s heart skipped and skipped again.  Without thinking, she wrapped an arm around those broad shoulders and smushed a happy kiss to his lips.  A spark that had nothing to do with any eels leapt between the two, painting matching flushes on both faces.  

“Th-thank you, Cas, I accept!” Binda managed to stammer out.

“That’s...reassuring to hear.”  Binda’s smile widened as Castiel’s shoulders sagged with relief.  The pup continued to whine happily, yipping as he craned his head to swipe more kisses on Binda’s face.  “I don’t know how much peace and quiet you’ll find with him”

“Peace and quiet are overrated!  What should we call him?” she cooed, reaching up to scratch the little ears.

“Garth said his name is Mr. Fizzles.  Which I find confusing because this canine emits no effervescence of any kind.”

Pure delight echoed in the chuckles Binda couldn’t hold in, and she beckoned the merman with a bob of her head as she cradled the merpup closer.

“Come on!  Let’s get him settled!”  

Snared by that blinding smile, all for him, Castiel couldn’t help but follow.  The two spent a lovely hour getting Mr. Fizzles comfortable, and Binda eagerly waited for her brothers to return home so she could show him off.  Her pup and her Castiel. 

(very sad photo editing by me of a very cute puppy)