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halcyone-of-the-sea · 10 months ago

Text

FROM FAR DISTANT WATERS

PAIRING: Merman!John Price x F!Artist!Reader

SYNOPSIS: There’s something in the water - you're going to figure out what it is, and why it chose to save you.

WORDCOUNT: 16.8k

WARNINGS: Blood, murder, death/near death, assault, injury, gore, mystery, mentions of suicide, angst, protective!John, pining, sickness, etc.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

The little boat rocks as it slips through the expansive water, a thin hanging of mist in the air. The curtain-like film it leaves makes it nearly impossible to see the dark rocks of the shore a far distance away, and the dip and push of the oars through the chilled waves leaves splashing droplets connecting to your cheeks. You touch the flesh delicately, brushing away the spray as your eyes slide over dark, lapping water—deeper than anything.

In your lap, sitting below the high waist of your skirt, was your sketchbook; the tweed material was all the rage these days, though you never focused much on that. The thick item kept out the chill of the, very, early morning, and that was all you cared about, though, it seemed you lacked the foresight to pack a proper coat. A large woolen shawl sat over your shoulders, hiding the plain white blouse but not its cuffs; not the slight poof of the bottom part of the sleeves.

Your numb fingers fiddle with the pencil in your hands, your open sketchbook filled with page after page of images ranging from the common sea-bird to great ships and shorelines.

“I still have to ask why you feel the need to tag along,” is the voice that breaks the silence, and you blink away from the cloud of condensation from your exhalation. Your ear twitches, but only a small flick of a smile pulls your lips at the older man’s garbled words. “So cold my damn hands are going to fall off. Why am I always the one bloody working the oars?”

Otto Whitworth was a man far into his later years—one who entertained your fascination with the raging waters and the need to immortalize them on paper; that draw to the sights and sounds. Graying, covered now in a large coat and his boots, with the long fishing rod knocking around by your feet, he grumbles more than he speaks sentences, content with only the pipe in his breast pocket and the promise of fresh fish for breakfast.

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” you chuckle, glancing over at his wrinkled face—the glare of dark eyes set into a deep browline that’s more for show of annoyance than genuine emotion. “Gets the blood pumping harder, Mr. Whitworth.” Your vision slides to the shadows of the black rocks, and your pencil finds your palm before the sound of it meeting parchment echoes over the nothingness. “Isn’t it lovely? Listen to the Gannets.”

“Don’t need my blood pumpin’ harder,” the old man grinds out, scoffing. “Gonna make my fuckin’ heart stop, Girl…” Otto sighs, shaking his head as you chuckle. He growls under his breath. “And, no, I’m not listening to the birds—they’ll be trying to steal my fish soon enough. Greedy bastards.”

Your eyes roll in their sockets, pencil shading in the rough shapes of misty rocks, your face cold but still eager for something. There was a type of magic to this place—to Southern England and the small coast town you had settled in nearly a year ago: Redthorpe.

It seemed your talent for the arts was appreciated here, you had a shop to your name and friendly compliments from the locals every time the door was pulled open. People here liked the attention to detail in a place where they had most likely lived for a good ninety percent of their lives.

You tilt your head at the paper as Otto lets the oars drop back into the water, grasping for his fishing rod that you kindly move closer with your foot.

The man takes up the item and sets the line, whipping back the pole and snapping it forward with a wizz and a grunt—a cracking of old bones.

“Now hush,” Otto sighs, settling back.

You send a silent look upward, and at the same time as he does, you say out loud in a soft voice.

“You’ll scare away the fish with all that blabber.”

A heavy glare is leveled at you, but you raise a hand innocently and laugh under your breath.

“I’m as silent as the fish, Mr. Whitworth.”

“Cheeky Bird,” Otto sighs loudly, shifting in his seat until he faces the water, eyes glinting. “You’re too wild for this place, then, eh?”

“For most places,” you breathe, smiling as you study the rocks again before going back to your work. It’s only after there were the wiggling bodies of three fish set into a fisher’s basket that the oars are taken back up and the silent water is again forced back by ripples.

Pencil finding the middle of the spine, you close your sketchbook, the routine is as simple as it always is. Otto will complain about having you at his dock, he’ll begrudgingly invite you in and cook three fish: one for him, the second for his cat, Harriet—older than England itself and missing most teeth; as blind as a bat—and then, finally, you. After that you’re back in your shop finishing up your piece of the misty shoreline, working until the candle burns through both ends and the oil paints are swirling colors as your eyes bug. Bed, and finally, repeat.

A splash of water makes you blink quickly, your head jerking over at the slide of movement from the corner of your vision. Eyes wide, you swear a fin had cut the surface of the water like a knife through butter.

Your body moves closer to the side of the boat immediately, leaning over eagerly.

“Hey!” Otto barks, steadying himself as the vessel shakes back and forth. Your eyes shimmer, a smile overtaking your lips. “Watch yourself—you’ll send me overboard!”

“Did you see that?” Your eyes dart over the water. “I think I saw a fin.”

“You got excited over a fish?” The older man’s voice is unimpressed, hissing in the crackling of age. “Hell, I got three in the basket if you’re that bloody impressed.”

“Shh,” you wave one of your hands, unblinking. “It was bigger than a fish, Otto!”

Your ears twitch to his scoff, his hands grasping the oars harder before he shoves the boat forward. Body looming, the intense pull of adventure dims the longer nothing happens, and after a minute or two of dead mist and water, you hum under your breath like a fool and sit back.

“Lost it,” your numb lips murmur, breath puffing out softly. “Damn.” You shake your head as the wooden dock gets closer, more boats tied and shifting with the waves. “It was strange,” you admit. “Like a deep navy color—with specs of silver along the spine.”

Otto pauses, his hands tight over the oars. He blinks over at you, face for the first time showing an emotion other than annoyance. You barely notice before the sheen of crafted blankness is back.

You smile down the length of the boat, curiosity plain to see. “Do you know of any animal like that around here?”

“No,” Otto grunts out quickly, and your excitement dims sharply, blinking through shock.

Your brows furrow after the silence falls stiffly—the boat had never been uncomfortable to you, the atmosphere quiet, of course, but always easy to charter. Now the air was…muddy. Something had changed as fast as a fish being yanked out of water.

Fingers twitching, you sit back slowly onto the plank, pulling your sketchbook the tiniest bit closer to your abdomen. Face open, Otto continues to row and the entire ride is silent until the boat is docked and tied to the pole by calloused hands. Your digits grasp your shawl and wrap the fabric harder, shifting down to hide your chin into the wool as you shiver.

“...Need help?” You ask, eyes still shifting back to the water like always.

There’s something now that makes your attention drift like the waves themselves—and it wasn’t only the shadows of the rise and fall, it was Otto’s strange behavior. The man wasn’t one to just say one word and nothing more. He could bounce off you like it was a game; you often thought he enjoyed your company just so he could insult someone. Jokingly, of course. It was the companionship he craved, it was why he always let you on his boat in the mornings.

Otto lived alone. You never asked about it.

“Don’t need any help,” he grumbles out, tying off the last knot to the pole and stepping back with a smirk of satisfaction. “M’not in the grave yet, Girl. Been working the boats since I was out my mum’s womb.”

“Feel sorry for her.” Your mutter meets the air as light streaks through the mist. Breathing hot air into your free hand, you rub it over your arm repeatedly and sigh, fingers of the other limb tightening over your book. Absentmindedly, your head turns back to the open water one last time, for one last glimpse of anything you want to commit to memory while you paint—

The fin is back.

“Otto!” Feet swiftly dart to the end of the dock, you stop only an inch away as your skirt whips over. “It’s back! Look!”

A hand grasps your wrist and yanks you away.

Gasping sharply, you stumble until the harsh bark of, “Get back!” echoes across the dock just as it does through your ears.

“Whoa!” You’re quickly let go of, a shadow shielding you from the view of the water as you scramble to make sure your sketchbook won’t slip from your hold. Head jerking to stare in shock at the middle of Otto’s curved spine, your heart stutters in confusion and a bit of hesitation befitting one who was just manhandled. Standing up straight again, your tight face pulls in, the pound of your heart telling you something is wrong.

Glancing past a still frozen Otto, the water is utterly devoid of life again—only ripples to show there had ever really been something there at all.

“You go back to the ocean,” Otto yells, spittle flying from his mouth, fishing boots stomping against the wood as he moves forward a step, pointing. “Go back to the bloody hole you swam out of! There’s nothing for you here! Nothing!”

You watch, struck dumb.

“...Mr. Whitworth?” Your lips mutter out, eyebrows shifting from the waves to the man—utterly confused down to your chilled bones. Who was he talking to?

Perhaps time had caught up to him—was he mistakenly taking the rocks for people? The waves for whispers? All you had seen was a fish’s fin, nothing more, nothing less.

“Otto,” you call again, concerned. You should get the man inside; get him warm and let him cook his breakfast. “Let’s just go.” Your eyes blink lightly, fingers twitching over your book. “Alright…? My eyes must have been playing tricks on me, it’s nothing important.”

His form waddles past you, more in tune to his sea legs than the ones on land, and under his breath, you hear him snarl out a low, “You’ll not take her like you did Eleanor. Mark my words, I’ll be stringing you up by the tail first.”

Withered hand connecting with your shawl’s edge, you’re dragged back with more force than you’d anticipate Otto still having, but you go with him nonetheless.

Looking at the water, there’s nothing to see beyond the stretch of nothingness.

—

You dare to ask when you’re pushing the fish bones over to the side of your plate, slipping some mashed-up scraps to Harriet who lays in your lap purring. The rough scrape of a tongue licks your fingers, and deep gray fur caresses your palm.

“Who were you talking to back there?” Your voice carries over the small hut that Otto calls his own, the sounds of the water meeting the rocks plainly heard seeing as his property was as close to the cliffs as you could get without going over them. “I never took you for someone to believe in spirits.” The joke was a small jab, but even your own amusement was dim in the situation. Your hand puts down the fork and moves to rest along Harriet’s back, lightly petting the old cat as her half-missing tail flicks in satisfaction.

The man’s back over at the sink tightens.

“You watch yourself near the waters, Girl,” Otto grunts, dark eyes glancing over his shoulder. “By God, you watch yourself. There’s things out there—terrible things.”

“What kinds of ‘terrible things,’ Otto?” Your head tilts, sketchbook resting still on the table, your gaze flickering to it. Terrible had a nice ring to it. But something else was swirling in your gut now, a hesitation of a special sort that only comes out with the unknown paths of life.

What could make a man born and bred on the waters so reserved when speaking about them? Your interest had been piqued—your curiosity unsated until you were given a clear answer. You’d only been here a year, that wasn’t enough time to know the secrets of Redthorpe; to be let into those deeper circles.

Otto licks his cracked lips, the wrinkles of his face leaving behind something akin to a scrunched dog’s visage—worn by time and improper care from the damage of the sun. He’d been at work on his boat for decades, and while you took his advice with a grain of salt usually, this time he carried himself differently: you wanted to know why.

He glares with no venom, taking out the scrubbed pan from the soapy water and barking, “What’s it with the younger generation and their bloody pushing? Listen to what I’m telling you and take it as it is, Girl. You don’t go on the water,” he blinks, face grim, “unless I’m the one ferryin’ you through it, eh? That’s the end of it. I’ll say no more.”

Frowning heavily, you sigh under your breath and shake your head. Letting your eyes slip down to Harriet, you scratch under her chin and stare into her milky eyes as she lets out a little chirp.

“So much for answers,” your lips mutter.

But a fire had been lit in your breast now—a low simmering pull like a rope had been tied to your wrist, drawing you closer and closer to the rocky shore, to a boat tied on the dock which you knew was steadily rocking to the deep, dark waves of this isolated place.

To a navy-colored fin in the water, and a shape far larger than any you’d seen before.

Blinking to look out the window of Otto’s home, your eyes find the ocean, and the longing that you’d always had for it grows ten times larger as your sketchbook begs to be filled.

—

It was only fate, you guessed, that you had come to Redthorpe—a tiny, unimportant dot on the map—when the way of life you’d chosen had led you astray. This place was a way to start over. Fix yourself. You’d picked the least-known town in all of Europe, and that was exactly what you wanted.

One trait, though, that could never be squashed from your psyche was the lust for the unknown. It was an obsessive lover; a toxic hand on the back of your neck that dragged you back over and over, until there was only yourself to blame for the repetition of disappointment.

It was the reason you found yourself on the shore two days after you sighted the dark fin that cut the water.

Your lace-up boots were atop a large boulder, shifting as your body turned from left to right, eyes patiently dragging the expanse of nothing. Waves lap only inches below, spraying up to get absorbed into your skirt, shawl whipping with the wind. The breeze is stuck with the sounds of birds, the very beings darting above your head, playing their games with varying cries that sound like throaty groaning.

Bending, your arms wrap your waist, lips flickering. You were cold, limb-numbingly so, but even if you saw nothing today, or tomorrow, the push and pull of the ocean was enough—the call of the birds, the hypnotic sway of water. Calling to you, even if it had no lips to do so.

Taking down a lung-shaking inhale, you chuckle, sketchbook sitting in the small purse around your shoulder.

“What am I doing?” You ask yourself, shaking your head. “It was just a big fish—that old man was just being paranoid, anyways.” Eyes caressing the line where water meets the sky, your smile pulls your chilled cheeks. “There’s nothing out here worth my time. I need to finish my work.”

Leaning back, you rub your hands up and down your biceps, nonetheless enjoying your time despite the burning of something in the back of your head. A knowledge that the fin was nothing documented before? A hope of discovery? A need for adventure? Oh, who can really say—what can be known are only three things:

One, the weather was getting worse, two, the water was getting wilder, and, three, you had forgotten the way the rock you were standing on had shifted when you stepped up to it. Shuffling, your boots connect to the right corner, and your hands extend to keep your balance as you hiss a low breath, purse beginning to slip.

There’s a gruff call from the water.

“Careful, then.”

Your head snaps up to the sound of a man’s voice, and you startle sharply, gasping as your foot slips. A quick cry is all you get out before you’re suddenly plummeting downwards headfirst into the frigid water.

The feeling of liquid is all-consuming as it seeps into your nostrils and ears, all sound muffled entirely beyond the roar of it leaving you so stupendously—a flare, and then nothing. Eyes bugging, limbs slashing through the waves, the chill hits you in the chest with the force of a stone, smashing through your ribs to weigh you down with concrete stuck in your lungs. It was entirely a bodily reaction to gasp.

Through the blue and the bubbles, you start to drown.

Fingers twitching, you claw at nothing as the darkness settles its hands over your panicked eyes, not for a moment thinking about who had called to you in the first place—or who was poking a head out of the water before you’d gone over. Obviously, it was a trick of your senses; no one could survive being out in water like this.

You certainly weren’t going to.

Legs slashing, something is darting in the corner of your eye before your vision fails, but the rapid fear in your heart masks the hand gripping at your shirt’s collar. It hides even the feeling of strong arms until the point where you’re yanked upwards with little effort as one curls your waist. It doesn't hide, however, the way you vomit up water as you’re heaved to the rocky shore moments later.

Choking, you hack up salt that burns your esophagus until your lunch quickly follows—all spilled with little care for your hands caught in the crossfire. Spine arching as if a cat, air can’t come sweeter as it is drawn in rapidly; nearly hyperventilating on the ocean-smooth stones as your clothes are utterly ruined.

Panting, gasping, shivering violently, your head pulls itself weakly upward. It doesn’t take long for your mind to scream at you, and your head snaps behind you in a panic.

But there’s nothing but the raging water and the splash of a large navy-colored tail as big as your entire body disappearing back into the depths.

Your fear can only stay for so long before the threat of a frigid death becomes more and more probable. In your race back up the cliff face to your shop, your purse is completely forgotten, trapped on the top of that shaky rock where it had fallen from your shoulder before the great plunge.

Your shawl is seen floating out to the open water before it’s grasped from below and suddenly plucked—vanishing without a single trace.

—

The fire rages with the inferno of a million suns, and it’s not nearly hot enough. Wrapped in every blanket, sheet, and warm item available, you still can’t stop shivering hours later. A teacup was stuck in your hands, the liquid sloshing over the edges to slip over your quivering fingers and absorb into the cocoon of heat.

Breathing through your shaky lungs, you keep the rim of the cup to your lips, eyes wide and horrified. In the still moments after you’d stripped and tried to stop the onset of sickness that you could already feel coming, there was a flash of realization from your strange and fantastical ordeal.

There had been a man.

The sensation of hands around your waist—the gruff voice that had spooked you so violently. A man. In the water. Every time you blink, you see a shadowed image, a tiny glimpse as you’d turned to the sound of human speech above the shriek of birds.

Short brown hair and narrowed blue eyes set into sockets of pale skin. A bearded face, mustache…square jaw…

“What in God’s name?” You stutter in question over your tea, shaking your head. “That isn’t possible.”

Outside your shop, the wind screams, pushing against your exterior shutters as night sets in. A storm was coming; there’d be no other adventures for you. Sipping your drink, you shiver again, curling in tighter to yourself as wood crackles. The light dances over your easels and side tables, piled high with jars of brushes and pallets—bottles of linseed oil and liquin, labeled with little pieces of hanging paper at the necks.

There are paintings in the tens—in the twenties—hanging on the walls and set to the corners, all blue and gray; misty and clear. The water is a staple in all of them, and the cliffs as well. Perfect imitations of this place, as if you could reach a hand through the canvas and enter a mirrored world. Great ships are in some of them, or little fishing boats, with the birds overhead. Sometimes, it’s only the water itself, and to you, those were perhaps the best of your work.

There was a beauty in the nothingness. A mystery. Who knows what’s under that thin surface? Well…apparently, it wasn’t human.

You swallow down saliva and your lips thin.

The thing in the water wasn’t… unattractive, you had to admit. Beyond the waterlogged hair and dripping beard, a large nose sat—full cheeks with an odd mole over them. The more you thought about the brief flash of a visage, the more you grew to hang onto it, strangely. And that navy tail? It had been incredibly unique.

Spiney, nearly—four thin bones going down on both sides, branching out from the tail starting with the shortest that was perhaps only as long as your hand until the final was as lengthy as your entire arm. There was webbing between each spine to help the thing through the water quickly, it spread to the end of the barb until it sunk back in a ‘U’ movement, before once more arching out again to connect with the next spine. Small gasps in the caudal fin calling to either battles or a natural state of being—for show in it…his?...species.

Could you even assign it a human gender?

You close your eyes tightly in your shop, trying to will the image away from yourself. “What in the hell is going on?” Your voice is scratchy and low.

Yet, the undeniable truth was that the fish-man had saved you. It couldn’t be overlooked. Not by you, who now can sit in front of this very fire because of it. Like a moth to the flame, the surge of cautious confusion is burning your wings.

Deep blue eyes like the ocean. A navy tail. A gruff, hard voice.

You open your eyes and glare into the fireplace.

“What has this place been hiding in the water? And why did it bloody save my life right after it nearly ended it?”

More importantly…you had to think of a way to get your sketchbook back without getting on its bad side.

With a heavy chest, and more than a little fear in your heart, it was resolved to do something about all of this tomorrow. There was no use leaving the shop now. Glancing at the shaking window, you could hear the ocean rampaging over the cliffs; hear the slam of the rain hitting the roof like pounding feet.

But that voice played in your ears like a gramophone's bleated chorus.

You shiver again, not from the cold.

Careful, then.

—

There was no question if you’d gotten sick because of your impromptu bath in the ocean—the evidence was in your salt-covered shirt and the stockings that were still drying on the hearth.

Pressing a handkerchief to your mouth as you cough haggardly. You’re bundled in a nice fur dress coat, walking along the street with a skipping heart, a simple cloche hat over your head to protect you from the elements; dark blue in color.

The irony was not lost this morning when the hue had a striking familiarity to a fish-like tail, but it hadn’t stayed in your hand. A small drizzle slapped the fabric, and you were thankful you had brought the hat and coat along with you on the move from the big city.

You weakly smile and nod to the locals you consider friends—at the very least acquaintances. But before long, you’re at the place you feel you need to be to gain answers, too nervous to go back to the shore immediately.

The library.

Something Otto had said came back to you last night, in the throws of insomnia. The two sentences he’d called out on the docks that day—You’ll not take her like you did Eleanor. Mark my words, I’ll be stringing you up by the tail first.

Eleanor? Who was that and how did it correlate to the beast in the water that wears a man's face? Maybe, the local records would tell you the answer—there had to be something about this person, ‘Eleanor,’ in them, right?

If not, there was only one option left, and that was going down to the shore and getting the results first hand…you’d rather exhaust all of your resources on solid land first.

Slipping into the library with a deep breath and a cough in your throat, you sigh and nod slightly. Time to get to work.

“Oh,” the librarian looks up from her desk, standing as you shuffle over. “Hello, Dear,” she breathes through a chuckle, eyebrows pulling in softly. “My, you look a bit under the weather, don’t you? Would you like me to get some tea going…?”

“No, thank you,” you wave an easy hand. “I’m here on a bit of an errand, actually, and I was wondering if you could help me with something? I need to ask about your records.”

“Records?” The woman’s face shifts to confusion, her body slipping out to stand next to yours, you bring back up your handkerchief and sneeze into it, groaning. “What kind were you thinking, then?”

After you can push away the sheen of sickness to your eyes you take a breath and clear your throat of the stuffiness. “Births and work records? Addresses?” You make a small noise in the back of your mouth. “I guess I don’t know…anything that might help me?”

The librarian chuckles a bit, amused. “How about you tell me what it is you’re looking into, and I’ll try and grab any public knowledge that I can find. We’ll work together, then.”

Weight is loosened from your shoulders and you nod appreciatively. “Deal.”

“Go on then,” she walks over to a shelf on the far side of the room, standing as her fingers run the spines. “Occupation I can start with, Dear?”

“Well…” you pause, shuffling after as your head looks from one sizable book to another. “No, unfortunately. Only a first name.”

“You’re lucky Redthorpe is small,” the woman laughs. “Otherwise I would have told you you’re lacking your senses with only something like that to go off of.”

“Eleanor,” you comment, licking your lips and staring at a spine labeled ‘1890-1900 financial records - Redthorpe’. “E-L-E-A-N-O-R, or at least that’s the common spelling, I believe.”

The librarian’s body is stone-still. Comparable to the immovable rocks of the shore as the waves bash against them; the raging of the wind. When you glance over, confused at the silence that infects the building, you’re reduced to a meek hesitation at the blank eyes that dig into your face.

“...Or…maybe it’s N-O-R-E?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,” is the hurried answer, and then the woman moves past with fast feet, heels clicking over the hardwood rapidly. “There hasn’t been an Eleanor in Redthrope. You’re mistaken.”

“Wait,” you follow, stuttering. “I don’t understand, there has to have been—Otto was talking about her not days ago!”

“You’re mistaken,” is the repeated, firm answer, the librarian’s body swirling to face you again, pointing a finger at you. “Go back to your shop. Mr. Whitworth is old, he sees things that aren’t there. Don’t take what he says to heart—”

“I saw it!” You bark, fed up. Your mind was sick of these games being played, left out of the loop like you hadn’t formed a relationship with the people of this town.

The woman’s mouth locked shut with a clack of teeth, something darting over her expression…fear?

She backs up slowly. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dear.”

Your lips twist, a threatening sneeze in the back of your nose. “I’m done with the word games! It dragged me out of the water like a sack of flour and tossed me to shore! It saved me!” Her hands are held in front of her as you stalk closer, trying to brush what you’re telling her aside as she struggles to string words.

“It…it wouldn’t do that—that’s not how it acts. You’re just imagining things; you’re under the weather!”

“Who’s Eleanor?” You huff, stubborn as you cross your arms in front of you. “And what in the hell is a man with the tail of a fish doing living just below these cliffs?”

Wide eyes meet glaring ones, and the librarian’s lips move up and down in a panic.

“I…” she begins, feet tapping the floor nervously as the rafters creak above the both of you. “I can’t talk about it. It’s not something to be said out loud—especially so close to the water.”

You bark incredulously, “There’s a bloody monster that lives down in—!”

A hand is snapped over your mouth and you startle, blinking through the twitch of your body.

“Shh!” The librarian panics, shaking her head, with flaring eyes. “Stop it or you’ll end up being dragged down to the ocean floor like Eleanor was!” You tense behind the hold, shoulders pulled in. It’s a quick spit of whispered words like a fast breeze. “Do you want your body showing up on the rocks?! Stay away from it!”

Your heart pounds in your chest, vision darting back and forth before she finally lets you go in a quick jerk of her body. The woman backs up, quivering as her eyes go to the window, nearly panting from fear.

She looks back at you, blinks, and mutters out a quiet, “If you’ve already seen it, it wants you. Don’t go back to the water,” before she rushes into the back room and slams the door shut with the slipping of the lock.

Left standing in the open library, the shelves sit stationary as if sentinels to your raw distress—this had only left you with more questions and a handful of jumbled answers.

“Careful, then.”

You shake your head harshly and pivot to leave the library in a stupor, shoving your chin back down into your coat’s collar as the wind slaps your face once more. The call of the ocean is like a knife to the back of your neck.

—

Call you whatever name in the book, but you wanted your sketchbook back.

No one in town was giving you anything that was of use, and Otto was tighter-lipped than a lockbox. There was only so much you could do—could speculate—before the need for your belongings was too strong to ignore. It took two more days of pacing your shop before it was decided.

Taking up the heavy cast-iron pan above your fireplace, you slip the thing into your coat, shove on your hat with a defiant grunt, and force the front door open. It’s a ten-minute walk to the shore, and all the way there, dread fills you up like soup until you’re bloated with it by the time your boots hit black rocks. Yet, there’s a point where a woman’s courage outweighs the sense of caution, and today was currently that day.

Taking a deep breath to steady your nerves, you grab your skirt and hike it up, placing your boot carefully on the first of the larger stones leading out to where you’d been previously.

“Don’t look at the water,” you mutter quietly as you move, not shuffling forward until you know the rock isn’t going to topple this way or that. “Don’t even think about it.”

But that tail…that face…

With a growl under your breath, you grind your teeth and continue on.

The weather today was much more agreeable, but cold. It was always chilled in Redthorpe—dreary as if the clouds never left far above. You didn’t mind, and in your coat pocket, the reassuring weight of your pan left you much warmer than you’d like to admit.

The heat of protection, so to speak.

“Even a fish-man can die, I’d wager,” you utter, grunting as you ascend a larger rock, palm slapping the wet stone before you heavy upwards, slamming your boot to the top much like a schoolboy as your skirt bunches. “If I hit him hard enough in the skull. I wonder though,” you sneeze, shuddering, “if he even bleeds? If I crack his head open…will blood seep out, or salt water?”

You shiver, and it’s not from the cold. “Fucking hell, you do like making it harder on yourself, don’t you.”

Lightly panting, you brush down your coat on the top of the rock and turn to look at the boulder where you’d fallen previously, blinking. Pausing, your eyes find not only your sketchbook sitting there…but also your shawl.

Struggling for a moment to try and justify your actions, you swiftly look over the surface of the water, seeing the gentle push and pull of waves. No fin. No tail.

You aren’t sure if the feeling in your chest is joy or disappointment.

Licking your lips, you take a large breath before your face turns grim.

“Grab it and run,” your voice echoes in your own head, heart pounding with adrenaline the more steps you take to the boulder, water sloshing at the sides. You had thought perhaps that the rain—the storm—would render all of your lost belongings null, but as you bent and snatched your items to you, shawl hanging from your arm, you were pleasantly surprised. It was all dry; impossibly so.

Amid your shock, your slack jaw, and the weight of your pan in your coat, your shaky fingers open your book with bated breath.

Everything was in pristine condition, if not only slightly curled at the corners due to…your eyebrows pull in, expression struggling to take on the emotion of anything other than pure awe.

“Fingerprints?”

Eyes slipping from one page to the next, flipping them only to see the press and pull of a long gone thumb, shiting the paper to gaze at the back, where a forefinger would have been. A hand laced in water had been turning the pages, just as you do now—and, yet, there wasn’t an inch that was damaged; nothing smeared.

Shoulders loosening from their tensed position, your wide stare is utterly transfixed as your digits rub the material softly, feet shifting.

Lowering your sketchbook, your small huff of amazed laughter, mind running.

He’d been going through your drawings—he’d somehow protected these items from the rain and salt. How? Why? But another question wrapped its hands in your skull.

Did he like them?

Shuffling the book into the crook of your arm, you carefully wrap your shawl over the material to further keep it safe, not able to find your purse, though the only thing it ever held was your sketchbook in the first place; it wasn’t too important.

Rising your head again, you gaze openly outward, lips opening and closing in a small stutter. Was he out there, this strange creature with a strong face and those deep eyes? That navy tail, looking like a beautiful imitation of kelp…was it just under where you now study the waves?

So many questions, so few answers.

You clear your throat, holding your items tighter. There’s magnetism in your blood, and it sits on your tongue like salt.

“Thank you!” Your voice calls high, joining the chorus of birds far above on the cliffs. Eyes skating the rocks, the shore, the ocean, everything. Call you prideful, but perhaps the best way to gain your favor is to know that someone, whatever bit strange and fantastical, had enjoyed your work to the smallest degree.

The way your eyes spark is still embarrassing, though, but it comes naturally after the heat that simmers over your face.

“Truly,” you shout to the wind. “You have no idea how much this means! If you’re listening, I’d like to extend my gratitude…” Your face is beaming, and you can convince yourself that all of your fear over this is gone, even if that would just plainly be untrue. “My artwork is everything to me, I do hope you enjoyed it!”

A creature so easily curious about your skills wouldn’t drag you to the bottom of the ocean…right?

Hell, he’d already had a chance to do that—a perfect one—and yet, here you are. What the Librarian had said had to be false, it made no sense otherwise.

Seeing nothing, and knowing that you were needed back at your shop, you chuckle under your breath and back up swiftly, walking the distance back to the surrounding rocks and slipping off softly. Grunting under your breath, your boots hit the stone, and you carefully begin back-tracking.

“You’re good at it,” you halt in a fraction of a second. “The images. Where’d you learn to do that?”

It’s a long moment before you turn with a cautious tilt to your head, and find the very same visage as you had a glimpse of days ago. You fight a fast inhale, but your straightening spine tells all the story it needs to. Like a fool, you lose the words in your mouth, as if trying to catch a bird of prey with a butterfly net.

A strong face is poking out of the water only a mere five feet away.

Your eyes slip to the soaked beard, the peak of bare shoulders—broad, of course—and the prying orbs that you feel will never leave; he wades there, arms under the dark water only a flash of pale skin before they’re gone again.

“I…” you lick your lips, blinking through the moment of animalistic panic. You were on land, there was nothing to fear. The sight was still something to be remembered, though. “I was self-taught, Sir.”

Blue eyes blink, serious face only made more so by the twitching of his large nose, which water drips from periodically. Droplets stay stuck to his dark lashes, and you’re near bursting with questions.

But silence persists long after your sentence filters out to nothing.

“You pulled me from the water,” you state slowly. “And I don’t even know your name.”

The man looks you up and down, not arrogant, no, but in a way that is comparable to how you did the same to him. Studying you as if your body was strange to him. The realization almost made you laugh—perhaps it was strange to him.

You want to see that tail of his again. Your fingers itch to sketch its likeness and commit it to muscle memory.

“I scared you,” he grumbles, sighing. “It wasn’t my intention to send you over.” Eyes still stay stuck. “My own fault.”

“I won’t deny you there,” you huff, gaze shifting away for a moment before filtering back. A slash of amusement curls in the thing’s eyes, and he hums. “Forgive me,” your breath wafts out over the air, face going what you can assume to be sheepish. It astounds you, though, that the conversation comes easily. “But I haven’t the faintest bloody clue as to what to call you.”

“John,” is the reply. Accent like gravel. He doesn’t waste his breath, seems.

“John?” You lick your lips, legs shuffling over the stone. The name leaves you holding back a loud laugh. “Well, I suppose I could have guessed that, then. I’ve met more than enough ‘Johns’ so far.”

“Funny, are you?” The response, however dry, is tinged with something you can’t name.

“I try,” you nod jokingly, motioning with a hand. “Just didn’t expect a man with a fishtail to act so….human. Certainly not be named like one, either.”

“Hm,” John grunts, blinking slowly. A hand slips above the water, and you watch it flex and drag to itch at the back of his neck, hair over the arm slick to the flesh. Your face heats, and your eyes dip to see the small shadow under the water almost graze the surface, rippling the waves intimately, as if tail and liquid were of the same sound mind.

It wasn’t out of the question to say you longed for a glimpse.

What would it feel like to touch it?

“You live here?” Your voice is hoarse before you clear it quickly. “Right below the cliffs?”

“You’re the woman that goes out in the boat,” John firmly interjects, and you blink, taken aback.

“Yes, that’s me.” You explain, pulling at the lip of your hat to force it down further over your head. “Otto goes fishing in the mornings—I like to sketch the shore. He isn’t the worst company, of course. He’s kind enough to let me along with him.”

But you won’t be kept down. There’s magical curiosity in your chest now.

“Your tail,” you take a step forward, boots being licked by icy water. John’s eyes widen a smidge, not expecting you to actively move closer. His head tilts as if a bird, confusion brimming though he hides it expertly. You imagined he considered you a bit mad. “Forgive me, Sir, but I must know,” your uttered rambles make his hidden lip twitch, a little twist to your expression that shows wonder. “Is it attached to you, or do you slip out of it like a pair of pants? O-or even like wearing a stage costume? Oh, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

John can’t find the words for a moment, only able to watch and assess as he always did in times like these. You were…different, he supposed. But he knew that the moment you had shifted your body over the side of that old man’s boat—looking for a glimpse of something unknown. He could see it in your eyes.

The water calls to you. It lives in your veins already, waiting. More salt and seaweed than earth and grass. Sand, rock, gulls, they all cry in the back of your mind, and your fingers itch to catalog them into immortality in a way that John was fascinated over—the skill of parchment and memorization. Mastery over detail.

He doesn't know why he’s speaking to you, truly. He’d done his penance; saved your life. But he knows he doesn’t dislike it, and that in and of itself needed to be understood. John couldn’t leave his analytical brain lacking an answer to a question as big as that—a woman of all things? A human one?

Blue eyes can’t seem to slip from yours, as you await a gruff reply.

“No.” You blink, pulling back a smidge when John’s voice is low and graited. “Go back to your home. It’s late.”

“Hey, wait—!”

But he’s already gone under the waves, and you’re left with a waterlogged boot, a cast iron pan, and the two items that had survived because of a grizzly creature's compassion. Your lungs heave, and the cloud of condensation rises into a gray sky.

You stay there far longer than you’d like to admit.

—

You struggled, slipped, and climbed your way back to that point on the rocks every other day, and yet, there was nothing more to be seen of the man with the tail. You knew he was out there, felt it in your bones, and still…you were left here staring out at far-off boats and half-hopes. Wondering. Waiting.

In the days that passed, you would explore the shore further, going in nooks and deep bends that extended into the cliffs during low tide, cringing away from the slippery fingers of kelp stuck to the walls. Dead fish, mucus-lined snails—you had made the important decision of leaving your sketchbook at home, the pages already filled with the perfect reflection of a man’s face peeking above the water.

Taking off your hat, you huff on a similar day to those others, this time slipping inside a cave with a direct connection to the ocean. There wasn’t any wind in here—and you sigh in relief as your breeze-bitten cheeks can finally get a rest. You didn’t know what you expected to find doing all this fruitless searching, but it didn’t erase the fact that you enjoyed it; looking for a glimpse of something out of the ordinary.

Brushing your hat of sand and other such items, your head swivels softly, a delicate smile on your face as water drips from the rock ceiling, stalactites like broken fingers reaching for the ground. A pool of sorts takes up most of this place, the thing extending to the ocean through a medium-sized opening in the stone.

You turn in a half-circle.

“Beautiful,” your lips murmur, voice echoing.

Walking forward, every so often your body stoops to carefully grasp shells and smoothed shards of colored glass, beaten down by waves and reduced to harmless trinkets. Continuing, you care little about your boots or your coat, only for the pull in your chest that tells you to keep going until your legs are weak and weary—shaking from a day long spent in selfish adventure.

When you find the pile of rings, sitting in soft kelp, you nearly walk right past them until the glint of metal takes you by surprise. Pausing, your pulse warms as your eyes slash to the side, getting sucked in as easily as cookies to a child.

Only hesitating a second, you slowly walk until you’re inches away, seeing different styles and gems like starlight sitting as if unaware of their raw beauty.

“What are you doing in here…?” You ask yourself, your own voice responding from the walls as it bounces.

Picking up one of pure gold, you shift the band to stare openly at an emerald nearly the size of your knuckle set into it. Lips parting, it’s as if your breath is stolen by a quiet thief. But the sudden arrival of splashing snaps you out of your stupor quite quickly.

Dropping the ring immediately back into the pile, your hand jerks to your chest as an increasingly common face shows itself once more from the water.

You clear your throat, face burning as John raises a slow brow, glancing at the stash of rings silently.

“One day you’re going to make me keel over,” your voice berates, pointedly avoiding his blues. So the items were his.

“A thief as well as an artist?” John asks after a moment, tilting his skull as his body drifts closer to the rocky side of the pool. The next sentence is no question, only a statement. “You’ve been looking for me.”

You take a long breath, sighing, before you shove your hat into your coat’s pocket, glaring lightly. “You left so abruptly, I never got to ask my questions. Quite rude of you to keep a lady waiting, John.”

As you say his name, he glances over, but not before his sizable hands slap to the side of the rock and he hoists himself up with a single push of his forearms. The man grunts, lips pulling, before you’re left breathless.

Eyes stuck on the upper half of his body, the water dripping down the hair-layered bulge of visible muscle, your wide vision skates from one point to another, flesh on fire the more you stay mute. But the tail—that was something you could never describe.

The beginning was all you could see; scales of dark navy and a spread of muddled silver-like dots, nearly impossible to make out except at this distance. They began at the top of where hips should be, the scales, smaller and blending into the skin easily, only becoming larger the more the tail extended down; the appendage was far larger than legs would be, that you can tell easily. You can’t see all of it, as perhaps a little less than half still sits swaying in the water…but even this was enough for now.

This moment would be stuck in your sketchbook for all of eternity.

It’s only after your jaw is slackened that you realize John has been watching you the entire time.

Forcing it shut with a tiny clack of teeth, you try to regain any composure you can. The being’s beard curls in a smirk, cheek pushing to show the lines near his eyes.

“If someone’s avoiding you, Sunshine,” he grunts out, voice low. From the corner of his eye, he watches as his hand rises to itch at his beard. “They usually don’t want to have a conversation.”

“I think it’s fair,” you huff. “You can’t just disappear when I have so many unanswered questions.”

John blinks, attention not moving for even a second. Your own is less than firm, fighting to not dart down to openly study every dip and bend of his bones. He was so…stoic. Gruff. But there were moments of amusement—even annoyed interest.

“I don’t have time to fuckin’ entertain others,” he thins his lips.

Your arms crossed, face dripping into seriousness. “And what else is so much more important, then?” You raise a brow. “Scaring other women into the water?”

He huffs under his breath. “It was an accident—wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so jumpy, eh?”

“It’s not like I expect to see fishmen pop out of the water,” you defend.

“Mer-man, Love,” he licks his lips, sighing, as his eyes shift to glance at the opening of the cave. Your face bleeds into a slight expression of satisfaction, arms over your chest tightening as your feet rock back on their heels.

“Well,” you chuckle. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

An emotionless glare is all you receive.

It was no surprise that you ended up blurting out inquiry after inquiry—what does having a tail feel like? How do you breathe underwater, or do you only hold your breath like a human? Do you have gills somewhere, or lungs? What other creatures are out there like you?

You have no idea what time it ends up being, and you have no intention of stopping soon. It’s a pleasant surprise, then, that John answers all of your quick words with full answers; giving slow, but not condescending explanations.

A few times there had been tiny chuckles, and the little conversations amounted to you sitting on a rock right near the water, only feet away from where the tail drifts in the waves; John’s hands keeping his upper half straight as his palms meet slippery stone.

“And the rings?” You breathlessly wonder, attention darting to the pile. “Do you find them out there? Keep them?”

John tilts his head in an affirmation. “Shipwrecks. There’ll be hundreds of them—I’m not one to keep many belongings, but the bloody things were nicely made.” He sighs. “Seemed a waste to leave them down there.”

You huff a sound of amusement. “I see. Fascinating.”

In the small pause, your eyes once more study the cave, seeing little breaks in the walls where cubby-like indents are. In them, your focus drifts from one glimmering object to another, all previously missed by you when you’d first entered.

You blink. “You live here?”

“Affirmative,” John stares. His body shifts, tail flickering as your focus snaps back to it, almost lost in the way the ends so nimbly slice the water. Like wispy fabric. Your eyes soften like molten metal. You look back at him and find his eyes already locked to yours.

Breath caught in your throat, you chuckle meekly to dispel your embarrassment. John’s face minutely relaxes, stern brow loosening.

“And…” you lick your lips, knowing it was time to leave. The sun no longer shines through the crack in the rock. “If I were to come back, would I be able to find you here?”

There’s a flash of that same indecipherable emotion as before over his bushy face.

The man was anything but small—everything to the swell of his tail; body hair for, what you assume, is to keep out the constant chill of the water. You’d never imagined that you’d find it all so attractive down to the navy scales that shimmered above the push of his side. That healthy layer of meat was eliciting far more of a physical reaction than you’d care to admit to anyone, let alone a priest of any religion during a confession.

Perhaps that fall into the water really had killed you.

“I’ll be here,” John responds lowly, gravel in his throat.

Swallowing down saliva, you push back the ravenous smile that threatens you.

“...Okay.”

—

And this affair became such a constant, that most of the people in town had begun asking about you as you snuck to the waters. Otto was largely concerned, but would not say anything more for some unseen fear—nor the Librarian, who avoided your eyes any chance she got.

Dragged to the ocean floor. Body on the rocks.

The sheen of discovery could be a powerful vice, and for those first two months, you never asked John about the woman named Eleanor or who she might be—what correlation she had to beasts of the water. Then again, you didn’t have to ask. He managed to get around to it himself.

Your eyes blankly stare at the page of your sketchbook, the merman’s rough shape chicken-scratched with small lines into the parchment, and your pencil stays still to it, immobile. From across the cave, John’s face tightens as his eyelids narrow. You’d been quiet today, he had noticed. Usually so bright with your words, the walls had barely echoed with the symphony of your speech, and, more importantly, John’s ears hadn’t twitched to it.

He had become fond of your company, he admitted to himself. A strange human woman with her fur coat and hat, the little sketchbook that held such wonderful imitations of life. John was anything but dull—he knew you drew him, and he entertained the activity. In fact, the thought at one point or another may have made the brute of a man blush a bit. So, when you were as still as the stone you sat on, he had concerns.

He liked it when you spoke, even if it was only a tease. And the tightness of his chest when you don’t look his way is enough to leave his tail twitching in confusion as it sits in the water.

“You’re quiet today,” he starts, frowning.

Your fingers jerk, sending a line over your paper as you blink, looking up as your heart skips a beat. Glancing at John’s face, the thoughts inside of your head slip until you can understand what he said.

“I’m sorry,” you sigh, and the man’s face pulls. “You can speak if you want. I'm just a little distracted.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Love, yeah?” John grunts, hands shifting over the stone. He looks you up and down, tail sitting still below him. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” your lips mumble, and you shake your head. “It’s one of my questions again.” You pause, closing your book. “A difficult one.”

John’s lips flicker. “Well, we’ve been at this for ages. Can’t see how this one is more difficult than the others.” He nods softly, voice a low and somewhat smooth mutter. “Go on.”

“I don’t know if I can,” you huff, standing and placing your sketchbook in the driest part of the cave before walking closer. Bending right in front of John, your face is tight. The man likes it like this—having you closer. He can feel the heat roll off you, and his eyes flutter even when nothing on his face gives away the pull he senses in his chest.

John hums and swallows stiffly.

“Why not?” His head tilts, and he clears his throat to get rid of the raspy scrape of his vocals. “Something going on up there?”

Up there.

The Merman had asked about Redthorpe, as well as the rest of the people who lived there. The atmosphere, the way of life. Your meetings were more of an exchange of information and stolen glances than anything else, the other none the wiser to this magnetic attraction. It was a delicate thing, knowing that there was something more and yet unable to fully express the way it makes you feel. Neither of you knows what to call it.

“More so in here,” you smile tinily, pointing at your head as your cheeks grow hot.

“Then speak to me,” John frowns, trying a low smirk. “Think we both know I’m a good listener then, Love. There’s time,” he glances at the entrance. “Won’t be near dark for a few more hours—don’t want you climbing at night.”

“Awe,” you breathe, beaming suddenly with that glint back in your eyes. John hides the sagging of his shoulders, only offering a hum under his breath as he looks over at you. His kelp-like fins twitch, and he wonders what it would feel like to have you touch them. It was obvious you wanted to.

Not yet.

“Hurry up, Sunshine,” John grinds out, that accent all the more sandy.

There’s a small grunt and a shuffle, and, soon, a warm body is plotting itself next to his own, arm touching his, and a pair of bare feet slipping into the pool. Blue eyes widen in surprise, head darting to where your form rests so simply—so near the crook of his shoulder that he could reach over and draw you to him if he so wanted.

Your feet shift as the hem of your skirt gets soggy with water, and John barks out a firm, “You’re going to get cold.”

“It’s not as cold here as it is out there,” you shrug to him, smiling with a side-eye. “Besides, I’m right next to you—you’ll keep me warm, won’t you, John?”

“Fucking hell,” he puffs out, shaking his head as he rips it forward once more, clenching his jaw. Your scent seeps into his nose, and when your leg slips along the side of his scales under the water, he all but goes a blank-faced scarlet.

You hide a chuckle, shivering at the chill but more so at the unimaginably smooth sensation of John’s tail over your flesh. Your legs move through the water to cross at the ankles, your right hand resting to directly touch John’s left. With every pump of your blood, his own mirrors.

Yet, your mood sobers, and the joy leaks.

“There’s a woman that no one speaks about in Redthrope,” you begin, and John settles to listen, brows furrowing in concentration as your skin sits so well next to his own. “Eleanor.”

The man pauses abruptly, and you keep talking.

“And for some reason,” you sigh out a low breath, turning to look at John and his still face; emotionless. “Everyone seems to blame you for whatever happened to her. I don’t know if she’s missing, or…”

Your words trail off, insinuation clear.

Not noticing any chance on John’s face, you lightly bump him with your elbow, expression going concerned. “Hey, are you alright?” Your opposite hand raises, moving out between the two of you. “I didn’t mean to insinuate anything, I would just really appreciate anything you might know about it.” Eyes imploring, your heart pours itself. “I don’t think you’d do something like that.”

John blinks slowly, finally opening his mouth. “What makes you say that?”

“If you were some murderous creature,” you shrug, “I don’t think you would have tried to pull me out of the ocean in the first place.” Lashes caressing your cheeks, you smile. “Am I wrong?”

“No,” the man huffs, quirking a brow. “No, you’re not wrong.”

“Knew it,” you whisper, eyes crinkling as you side-eye him.

John chuckles, half rolling his eyes as he leans to your ear as he grumbles. “Gettin’ cheeky, are you?”

If you were a bird, you’d be preening your feathers, eyelids narrowed. “Perhaps, John.”

It is a wonder, then, that the two of you don’t lock lips that very instant—long fins curling around legs and shoulders stuck together, pinkies unconsciously sitting atop the others as if pieces of parchment. Blue eyes shift smoothly to your lips, but before you can register that they have, John’s head is already moving back and his spine is straight.

The man flattens his lips, tilting his skull.

“I knew of a woman named Eleanor—she would come down with her husband, Noah, and they would walk along the shore. Got close to this place a few times.” Dark brows tighten. “Found her body in the water after a storm about two years ago; brought it back to the rocks so someone could retrieve it.” Your face loosens as the information settles in. John makes a noise in his chest. “Interesting that I’d be roped into it, but it’s understandable. Always someone to blame, eh?”

“I don’t blame you,” you whisper. “That must have been horrible.”

Blue slips over to you silently, and it’s a long moment before John only hums under his breath, blinking away softly.

“Scared me when you fell in.” Listening, your heart clenches in your ribs. To think about what must have been going through his head at that instant was sad to you, and even worse so when you know he would have blamed himself if you might have ended up seriously hurt.

“Well,” you lean into him, face on fire, “it was a good thing you were there to drag me out, then. A little water never hurt anyone, so long as a handsome merman is there to take them back to shore.”

John huffs out a laugh. “Handsome?”

“Oh, very,” you joke. “The tail is a bonus.” Your expression lightens, eyes glinting. “Since when did you know that navy is my favorite color?”

The feeling of the cold water is only a back-drop to the way John’s fins twitch against your bare legs intimately, and you chuckle as the beard can only hide so much red skin.

“Bugger off,” he grunts.

You’ve never heard a smile so clearly before in your life.

—

Your paintings were selling far better than they ever had, and you had to thank the new muse of them for that fact.

John’s appearance in your work had started small—a glimpse of a fin, the presence of a shadow in the water—and had steadily grown. Now, hidden like a present, there was the image of some fishtailed man somewhere in all of them, a steady injection of magic into the veins of cerulean blue and ivory black. It showed you that fewer people knew about John than you had previously thought.

Initially, you had imagined that everyone knew and the reason you didn’t was because you were relatively new here, but no. Most had been enamored by your work when they found the ‘strange fish-man’ in one, pointing and chucking to themselves, talking about how adorable it was. No one was shocked, no one sent looks.

By the end of the week, you had been convinced that it had been narrowed down to Otto and the Librarian—

The bell of your shop dings.

Looking up from your easel, you smile and stand automatically, thinking about closing soon so you can go and see John. Nowadays, even the thought of him makes your blood pump heavy.

“How can I help you today, Sir?” Your brushes find the side table you had set up, locking eyes with a tall, thin man in his late thirties. He wears a suit, and in his breast pocket, there’s the gleam of a gold chain attached to a pocket watch.

“I’m here to ask about a detail in your paintings, Miss.” He’s well-spoken as well, and you’re shocked to know you haven't met him yet if he lived in Redthorpe—he doesn’t seem familiar at all.

“Of course,” you nod, perplexed. “I’m sorry, I think I missed your name.”

“Noah Moore,” is the even response. Noah is already walking around, bending to look into some of your work which hangs on the wall. “My neighbor brought home one of your pieces; I found I liked it very much. Had even considered commissioning.”

Noah? You blink slowly, watching. Wasn’t that Eleanor’s husband?

“Thank you,” your lips move, thinning. “That’s very high praise, Mr. Moore.”

“This creature,” Noah stands, and dark eyes set on you. For some reason, the hair along your arms stands on end. “The man with a fish tail. Have you seen him?”

Your instant reaction is to lie, and that in and of itself is a telltale sign that something is wrong. Noah makes the alarm in the back of your head go off for no reason other than the way he’s trying to pry with that unblinking gaze of his. The rich apparel; the attitude. He isn’t right.

“Seen him?” Chuckles echo off the walls. “Who? The beast? No, Sir, that…thing…is just something I made up.” You wave a hand, but back up a step, trying to create distance. Your hip lightly bumps the side table, and your materials jerk. Gasping under your breath, your head snaps down, catching your brush before it can fall. “Oh my, clumsy me.” you laugh stiffly. “Apologies, Sir, but that’s the truth. I wanted to create something that all of Redthrope might enjoy; a local legend of sorts, see.”

Your eyes had siphoned back with a dread in your heart. The man mutely stares, a deep frown pulling his lips. As if the conversation had never happened, after a long stretch of tension, Noah smiles widely.

“Ah,” he huffs, “of course. It was silly of me to ask.” Dark eyes are emotionless, and the pull of his eyelids is not there. Spine so tight it could snap in half, and your fingers curl around the brush before you place it down stiffly. “Though,” Mr. Moore clicks his tongue, taking one step closer.

Your eyes widen, but you say nothing. Your mind flashes to John, and there’s a longing for the ocean so strong, it seems a good idea to you, to rush out the door right now and sprint for it; hurl yourself to the waves, if need be. He’d find you—you know he would.

“Though,” Noah continues, tilting his head. “There is a striking resemblance to a creature I recall seeing from the cliffs, the day my wife’s body was found at the rocks.”

Backing up another step, your muscles ache with how you hold them like a shield to your organs.

“As far as I know, only two others were searching at my side that day. And in it I am certain,” he hums, “you weren’t even here.”

Otto and the librarian, you think quickly, mind a mess of information and fear. It’s why they’re so spooked. They think John actually killed Eleanor and left her—they saw him bring her body to shore.

It’s a lack of foresight on your part, that the next bark is more of a reaction to the panic than proper knowledge, cracking under pressure.

“John would never kill an innocent woman!”

It’s as if a switch goes off, and, suddenly, there’s a ruthless hand grabbing at your throat. Yelping, you stagger back and snap your fingers to Noah’s wrist, clawing until there’s blood under your nails; air is sucked in with a wheeze. In the back of your head, there’s wild screaming, and you can’t tell if it’s the pounding of your blood or the internal sensation of primal fear.

Raging eyes shove themselves right in front of yours, faces so close you can feel Noah’s hot breath moving over your burning face. You try to cough but find you can’t as one of your hands struggles to slap to the side table—searching fruitlessly.

“John?” Noah sneers, holding tighter. “The thing has a name?”

Your easel clatters to the ground, back being shoved right into it. Mouth opening and closing, the cut of oxygen reduces your mind to acting purely off instinct—breaking down like glass to fracture to only one thing: survival.

“It was perfect,” Mr. Moore growls, eyes ablaze. “I had it all planned out, only to be ruined by a freak of nature at the last moment!”

Your nails gouge the wood, dragging, searching, slapping. Anything—anything at all to help as your boots scrape from under you. You can’t even comprehend the words being said; all of it is a blur as blackness peels the side of your vision.

Tears splatter down your cheeks.

“Two years, and then you had to come along and fucking speak to it! What did it tell you? Eh? What did it see that night?”

Your hand curls the glass bottle where you store your brushes and without another thought, you slam the side of it to Noah’s head.

Shouting, the man releases you in an instant, glass leaving long lines of blood splattering out to sprinkle your face as it shatters, collapsing into itself. Connecting to the ground, your hacking can only take place for under two seconds before your boots scramble for purchase, stumbling and flailing at least once; lungs gasping.

Shoulder connecting with the side of the door frame as you bang it open, an enraged scream follows you into the rainy afternoon, the rumble of deadly thunder far overhead.

Running, you don’t know how to stop, and it’s even harder to catch your breath by the time you’re down to the rocks, looking over your shoulder as if Noah would be right behind you. He wasn’t—but the fear was enough to keep you going until you were bathed in sweat and barely strong enough to fall into the entrance of John’s cave, fingers cut up and raw from grappling over stone.

There’s a quick call of your name from across the enclosed space, but your ears are ringing too loud to hear—whipping around to stare at the entrance as you struggle back on your hands, legs shaking.

“Love!”

Your eyes slash to the side, and through the quivering of your lashes, through the blur of tears, you lock onto the desperate slash of grayish-blue that’s a near-perfect reflection of the ocean itself. Painting, the realization comes a moment too late, as pale fingers touch your cheek and you flinch back with a deep pain in your neck.

Pulsing veins echo along your entire body, but there, at the point of where hands had wrapped your flesh, it burned with a horrible fire that made thin noise escape your lips.

“Hey,” John breathes, having dragged himself at a moment’s notice across the floor of the cave. “Hey,” he repeats slower, eyes slashing you up and down for any sign of injury.

His hand is outstretched, but he doesn’t try to touch you again seeing how you’d jerked away. The man’s heart had stopped at that—his concern shooting up similar to how he felt when you’d raced through the entrance as if a fire was on your heels. A near panic at the fear on your face, leaving his body on high alert; eyes skating the surrounding quickly.

But the splatters of blood on your face were something to reduce him to an enraged beast.

“What is going on,” he tries to keep the rough anger from his tone, attempting to leave it soft and smooth. There’s only so much he can do, though, as you shake and pant.

Your body gradually slows itself, attention seeping back to allow you to take control of your limbs. The first thing you see clearly is John’s outstretched hand, and, then, the clench of his jaw—the eyes that follow every teardrop down the flesh of your cheek.

Openly gazing, when John sees you’re back, his blues slip to a softened caress.

“Love,” he mutters, face tight.

You shove yourself into his arms and let off a sob that echoes louder than any laughter could. Curling into his chest, water seeps into your shirt, but the all-expansive hand that keeps you close is worth every clothesline you would have to hang.

“Shh,” John breathes, knowing that he’d get an explanation when he calmed you down, even if his mind was breaking itself to try and understand. “I’m right here, Sunshine. Breathe, then…I’m right here, yeah?”

His nose pushes itself into your scalp as your head hides away, quivering body curled like a cat around a fish—no air between the two of you, chests running across the others. So little space, and yet this breathlessness was one you could welcome time and time again.

John watches, eyes always open as he glares into your hair, grip tightening the longer you cry; a feeling so potent brimming in his chest, he would be a fool to ignore it.

You were more precious to him than any ring, than any trinket he could stash away and forget about. The way his heart bent to yours was stronger than any storm.

Breathing down your scent, John sighed, kissed the top of your head, and lightly rocked you back and forth.

He’d wait as long as it took.

—

When it became apparent you couldn’t speak beyond broken little coughs and wheezes, John was quick to bring you to the water of the pool.

Now, perhaps hours later, you sit with the burn and fatigue of crying eyes, sniffling as you shove away the stain of red on your cheeks.

“Careful,” John lightly comments, grasping your hand and pulling it away. His own replaces it, wet from the water he now wades in to help. “Let me get it, eh?”

Your eyes stay stuck to his nose as fingers push away the crimson of blood easily, firm but still utterly delicate.

“I’m not glass,” you croak, one hand near your throat.

Blue eyes blink at you. “Never said you were,” he grunts, frowning, and you see his Adam’s Apple bob. “Don’t like seeing you with blood on your face, Love.”

Like it had never happened, the fingers return, and a moment later, he grumbles out, “And stop talking—you’ll make it worse.”

You hadn’t explained, not yet, but by the utter rage you see John trying to hide from you, you know he understands how you might have gotten the swelling now present on your neck. His heart had been visibly pumping the entire time you’d been here; you could hear it when he was holding you, a relentless, thump-thump-bump, thump-thump-bump in your ear.

The brunette had been clenching his jaw more as well, grunting as if a boar after every sentence, a nervous habit, perhaps. He was trying to mask it for you, but you weren’t blind.

John pauses his cleaning, glancing at your throat.

He studies your face after he hums under his breath, having to dart his gaze away for a moment.

“...Can I?” You pause, swallowing as the burn persists.

Nodding after a minute of slow contemplation, cold hands shift to press carefully—not tightening, not holding you there—resting to give relief. You only tense a little, but as the seconds draw, John watches you sag forward with a large sigh through your nose.

He lets a small sliver of calm enter him.

“Easy,” John whispers, blinking. He keeps the chill of his hands at your neck, fins shifting the water to keep him still. “When you’re ready, explain it to me, eh?” His head tilts, voice a low tease. “Glass or not.”

Your lips twitch, and the way your eyes melt could only be compared to safety. You open your lips, and John mutters lowly as your fingers brush over his own, “Quietly, now. Can hear just fine—don’t push yourself.”

Blue flickers to your touch, fingertips trailing his knuckles as the man grunts, attention fluttering back.

All you say is one name.

“Noah.”

There’s a moment of confusion on John’s face, skin wrinkling, before the understanding settles swiftly—he wasn’t a fool. From there, his expression changes ten times over; that rage, then fear for you, confusion, and stubbornness. It’s of little surprise to you that a man so loyal was reduced to a dog.

A dog with scales, that is.

Your body is still running hot—your heart still pumping, though the adrenaline has left with all of its stimulation. You’re tired, yes, that much is obvious. But you want John to hold you again.

When you shift your body, the man’s eyes widen, and he blinks quickly in shock as your legs then slip into the waves inch by inch.

A noise exits the back of his throat, and John’s mouth moves in serious question. “What are you doing? Fucking hell, would you just stay still and let me have a look at you—”

Arms grapple around his waist, and a warm head burrows into his neck.

You rest against him, body suspended in the water of the deep pool, a merman’s tail swishing to shove you the tiniest bit closer unconsciously. John’s chest bounces with every emotion, but all he does is stop you from sinking by holding you. Your eyes close at the dig of his hands, and, letting the water move the both of you, the smooth scales along your legs feel as if the finest silk. A thumb caressing up and down your spine; breath at the top of your head.

You both say nothing, and it’s a long while before either of you takes any action to leave.

—

When your words could be strung together and not broken every other sentence, you explained all of it, and the hunch you’d strung together in the meantime.

You fiddle with one of John’s rings—the emerald one—as you glance up and speak softly, voice still delicate. The pain still blossomed, but some things needed to be explained.

“I think he killed his wife.”

By the way John stops massaging the flesh of your neck, letting you rest your head in the crook of where his tail begins and skin ends, you knew he already pieced that together a while ago. Your clothes were still heavy with water, and a puddle had formed around the both of you on the rocks.

“Hm,” is all John says, fixing the position of his lips as he looks away.

He shakes his head, growling out, “You’re not going back up there. Not while he’s still walking the streets.”

You frown, but John glares without any venom. “It wasn’t a question, Love.”

“What will you do,” you whisper, voice hoarse. A brow quirks. “Run after me, John?”

The man stares, not taking it as lightly as you. “If I have to.”

Your breath hitches, hands resting numbly over the ring as John’s fingers once again continue their touching—as if he can rub away the swelling; the damage of the veins.

“You don’t have legs,” you utter, having to pause in the middle of the sentence to breathe deeply.

“I’ll crawl,” he grunts.

“The rocks are sharp.”

His face is immobile. “Then I’ll bleed.”

Your mind memorized the stubbornness of his expression—the pull of the crow’s feet beside his eyes. There wasn’t an ounce of a joke in John’s eyes; no lie. Watching him, your face is loose with wonder, and water drips from your temple to connect with those dark navy scales, glinting with the light from the outside sun growing low.

The ring in your hands is frozen, stopping its turning as your pulse soars.

John licks the corner of his mouth, glancing at the item of gold and green.

“Keep it,” he mutters, tilting his head to the ring. “More of a use to you.”

Larger fingers capture yours, and in one deft motion, the elegant item is slipped onto your digit, sitting comfortably as if made just for you.

John shrugs. “The rest of ‘em, too, if you want the damn things.” His blues card over the view of your hand, and imagines fingers filled with every bit of gold and silver obtainable to him, brought up from the ocean just to sit pretty atop your flesh. Necklaces, bracelets, belts, and accessories; the things he’d seen from far distant waters.

Oh, but they’d pale in comparison to how you would wear them.

A muse to a song. A painter to a portrait.

A women to the water.

He’d seen your latest sketches—you’d brought them down to him here—and when you were exploring this cave, he had taken a peak. Unlike him, yes, but there was a pull to it, that parchment bound by leather. He’d not seen anything like it, and as he had watched you work on occasion, he was entranced as he’d listened to you explain it. You’d told him that you could even manipulate color, and that had left his eyes widening in awe.

You were incredible, and when he saw his own likeness littering page after page, John had been unable to take his eyes off of you. A silent appreciation—a voiceless devotion. He’d never been…captured like this, so to speak. A mirror image. Details he didn’t even know himself, and yet there they were.

Beauty marks across his cheeks and nose, the scars that littered his flesh that he’d all but forgotten about, the list was endless.

But he looks at you now, and he can understand why there’s a draw to immortalize the mortal.

His fingers stay at yours, and they brush skin as they dip along your hand, falling to your wrist. You stare up into his eyes, he stares down into yours. There’s little air to be taken in between the two of you.

“John,” you utter, blue gaze stuck to your lips.

He hums, tilting his head, his body looming over yours like a shadow. By the time his face is so near to yours, you don’t want to fight it, you don’t want to think about the strangeness of this predicament you’ve found yourself in—a creature living in the cliffs, handsome and half-inhuman.

When smooth lips brush over yours, and your eyelashes begin to flutter, the shouts from outside break whatever spell had just started weaving itself.

Head snapping up, John’s body tenses as you push upward quickly. Attention slashing to the cave entrance, it’s not long before you realize what’s going on with a sharp breath and a leap to your pulse.

The smash of something connecting to rocks echoes like a feral killing song. Yells. Yowls.

“John,” you say hurriedly, flinching from the pain in your throat. Your eyes dart to his tension-ridden form, his arms wrapping above your body. “You need to run,” you choke out. “Go! Quickly!”

You only get a glance, and the clench of his jaw is as stubborn as it always is. Your brain already knows it’s fruitless. He won’t leave you here alone.

“They’ll kill you!” Your hands push at his chest, finger grasping at the bristle of hair to try and shove at an iron will.

“Stay under me,” John mutters, voice low and nothing more than a chilled order. Yet, even he knows there’s little that he’d be able to do. His eyes flashed to every trinket and bauble he had collected, the new ones he’d yet to show to you, but there was few in the way of weapons. A dagger or two from a trench, a sword from under a ship—a spearhead. All too far away and rusted for it to even matter.

There was a sharp feeling in John’s chest. A need. An oath that he gave to himself the moment he’d seen the way your little stick could breathe his image onto a sheet made of fibers.

He was to watch over you whenever you were in his sights, and that had extended itself to gliding through the water as he watched you climb and grunt your way to his cave; a careful eye that he had no need to tell you about. That was just how he was.

“John!” You try to bark again, growing desperate.

Yet, it was already too late, and the merman hadn’t shifted even an inch before Noah, Otto, and the Librarian burst through the entrance like bats from hell. They hold all manner of weapons, though the more you blink in a panic, the less afraid of them you seem, at the very least, the older man and the woman.

Otto held a cut-up and dented club, nothing more than something you’d keep for a home invasion beside the bed—the Librarian, a heavy book that seemed to contain every bit of information available to the world, so large it strained in her hands. Noah, though, was a different story.

He had a sharp, long knife and eyes that could cut flesh by themselves.

Half of Mr. Moore’s face was sliced up, cuts leaking blood to the ground—skin hanging and an eye completely poked with glass; shards in its gentle makeup.

You swallow saliva and stutter through a shaking breath, and John’s glare could burn cities as he feels it reverberating against him.

“There!” Noah shouts, balking closer. “See! I knew it was here—seducing the next woman to take to the ocean!”

Your wide eyes try to take it all in, hands slapping the ground sending droplets of collected water flying. John’s face hones in, digging in like how the glass from your brush container had into Noah’s visage, and, somehow, you think that dead stare can cause more damage. Grasping the merman’s waist, you attempt and silently urge him to go.

“Girl!” Otto calls quickly, eyes darting from you to John and back. Even if you could yell, you’re not sure you would. You wouldn’t even know what to say. “Get away from it!”

“I’d put that down,” John grunts to Noah, disregarding the old man and the librarian entirely. He clenches his jaw. “‘Fore you end up hurting yourself. Leave.”

“Otto,” you start, glancing at the woman beside your friend who looked like she was about to pass out when John had started to speak. The man in question’s face pulls, wrinkles thinning. “You have to listen to me, please, it’s not how Mr. Moore told you—”

“It speaks!” Noah barks, pointing his knife harder at John. “Freak of nature, it already has its hold on her.”

“Oh my,” the Librarian gasps. “Noah, it’s horrible—look at the tail.”

Your eyes flare with rage as John doesn’t react.

“Hey!” You shout, but instantly slap your free hand to your throat, coughing raggedly until your spine hunches. The merman brings you closer, but you’re already pushing until you’re on your feet, stumbling for a moment as John gives you a sharp look.

“You watch your bloody mouth,” you grid out, glaring, whipping your hands to get rid of the water droplets. Noah licks his lips as John grabs onto the back of your knee, fingers resting firmly. Sending a look down to him, your shoulders loosen at the expression he levels. You can almost hear the words.

Steady. Keep your head on.

Though, a slash of silent pride made your heart stutter a small bit.

Your eyes glint. “Drop your weapons,” your sentence is crackling but nonetheless sharp. “Leave. John is innocent—he told me all of it.” You turn to Otto. “Mr. Moore attacked me in my shop, I smashed a glass container into his head so he would release me.” Otto tenses, club getting strangled by his fingers.

“Noah killed Eleanor,” you breathe, John’s grip pulling a bit tighter as if sensing something you have yet to see. Noah shifts quickly, boots squeaking along the rock as he growls.

“Absurd—!”

“He pushed her over the rocks and blamed John when he saw him bringing back her body,” you interrupt as fast as you can, pain bouncing off your throat. “You all saw it on the shore, the lie was simple enough for a man like him. Saying she drowned to a creature.”

It didn’t surprise you that John was quiet, that he was studying more the stance of men instead of talking or trying to defend himself. While he could be hard-headed and stiff, he was never dull—he never missed ques. So when Noah launched himself at you, Otto and the Librarian more confused and concerned than anything, there was only a heavy push on the back of your knee that left you buckling with a gasp, and then the explosion of water as John sent you both quickly to the water.

Hands whipping to snare around the merman’s shoulders, you’re only able to get a quick breath in before you’re completely enveloped in water, with John’s hand setting itself over your mouth just in case. The sudden rush is comparable to a heavy wind, yet far more cold and nearly like a slap to the back of your spine.

You both disappear into the deep with a spray, Noah’s muffled yells of terror seen far above near the surface, arms captured by the Librarian and Otto—held at his sides. There’s a flash of those dark eyes, horrible things, and then John’s fins hide the rest as they slash through the water.

When you both resurface, retreating far back near the watery entrance of the cave, John keeps you firmly behind him, your arms around his waist as you gasp for air. He keeps his head slightly turned to the side—always having you in the corner of his vision. Above the spread of his shoulders, you peek softly, legs suspended below.

“Lier!” Noah screams, face contorted. “She’s lying!”

You look at Otto and see the grim way he’s already looking back, struggling to keep the younger individual from breaking free. He was sensical, but stubborn in his ways. Otto had a choice just as the librarian did—believe a woman who’d been here a year or someone they’d known nearly their entire lives.

“Noah,” Otto grunts, gritting his teeth. “Breathe, boy! Stop spitting, let her speak—”

The knife in Noah’s hands slashes the air, and suddenly there’s a yell from the librarian and a spray of blood.

“Otto!” You scream, fingers flinching.

The old man stumbles, hoarsely crying out as he grasps at his neck. Your eyes widen, mouth ajar as John pushes his hand into your head, shoving it into the back of his hair as he watches blankly, eyes glinting with a deadly hate.

“Don’t move,” he utters quickly, sternly, to you as your breath breaks, mouth slack to stare at nothing. Scales skate your legs, great kelp-like fins curling your ankle. “Keep still. Focus on my words, Love.” Under his breath is a tight, “Fuck!”

John speaks above the gargling—the spillage of blood to stone. He mutters through the screams of the Librarian as Noah slips trying to run to the entrance, scrambling with bulging eyes.

“Don’t look,” John says to you lowly, shifting his body as he keeps your face hidden away and let him hold you like a corpse to the earth. The sounds…oh, the sounds were horrible.

But the man holding you tries very hard to hide them.

Your body quivers violently as the slam of a body hits the ground, the frantic calling of the woman still here with the both of you; the loud calls from the fleeing murder outside the walls.

“That’s it,” John’s fast lips are on the top of your head, muttering and trying to make his voice as even as possible. “That’s it, then. Doing good, don’t move until I say so, alright?”

When you don’t answer, only shoving your visage deeper into his neck, his spine-breaking-hold squeezes once, and his pounding heart bounces opposite yours. You don’t have to say you know him to understand that he’s only holding onto a thread of good manners, and that was certainly only for our own sake.

Otto was dead.

John leads you out, the gold and emerald of your ring glinting in the moonlight as he holds your body to his, the powerful make of his tail doing the work as it shines in the water. He leaves you outside, where the still running form of Noah is visible, yet the only person noticing is John himself. Your hands are so shaky that it would be impossible to hold your sketchbook, let alone a pencil.

John takes one of them as Mr. Moore gets too close to the shoreline, slipping and getting his foot caught in between two stones. He panics, yelling loudly, as water is lapping up to his knee.

“Hey, hey, you hear me?” John asks, uncaring to the man, as he sets you down softly on a flat rock shelf. Fingers move to sit at your chin, and, through tight sniffles, you make delicate eye contact. He blinks, trying a tight smile—a flash nothing more. “There she is. Good...I need you to listen one last time, yeah? Just like before; don’t look until I say so.” Your face creases lightly, blinking through a haze of senses and horror. Otto was dead.

The man that brought you out on his boat—the man that cooked you fish and acted as if a guardian to you. His cat, who would take care of her? It seemed a silly thought given the circumstances, but you can’t stop your mind from running. The house, the boat, the cat. The blood.

“There’s nothing out here that can hurt you,” John grunts, grasping your hands and holding them, letting calluses and scars speak. “So long as I’m here, I won’t let it.”

He nearly growls out the words. In one movement, he puts your hand to his heart, and your brain latches onto the rhythm as your own rampages in your ears.

Noah is still screaming, but now it’s for help.

John’s voice lowers as he utters, “Hey,” the man licks his lips, eyes dancing to the side every once and a while. You stare, swallowing down bile. He says as fluidly as possible, keeping constant locked gazes.

“Stay here. I won’t be long.”

Fingers glide down your neck again, feeling that swelling, and just as you register the kiss that’s leveled to your hand, to that gifted ring, John’s already away; his tail slipping over your flesh, fins gripping, writhing with their film.

Yet, you have no trouble following his advice.

The rising screams from Mr. Moore are numb to you, and the following wave of water that swallows him is only accented by the hand that grapples for his neck.

John always seemed the one for revenge.

—

With the Librarian's newfound cooperation, the story became simple.

Mr. Moore, distraught over the death of his wife, had finally lost it all when down on the beach with Otto, yourself, and the local Librarian—attacking and killing the old man in response to being so near to where he and his wife always traveled to. Afterward, he’d walked into the sea and had taken his own life.

The authorities weren’t going to dispute it.

You sold Otto's house a week after his death, seeing as he’d named you the sole inheritor of his estate and belongings. There was no need for two properties, and sitting in that small place was akin to torture. After all, he’d been doing what he thought was right, and dying for a lie is nothing short of cruel to those left behind who knew the truth.

Harriet stays in the shop with you, where she’ll probably live out the rest of her nine lives peacefully. She’s quite fond of the fireplace.

Most days, people find you near the water, and it’s something that wasn’t going to change even after Noah’s body was found in the rocks—freakishly close to where Eleanor’s had been. Some were calling it poetic and you’d have to agree…but for different reasons.

“You shouldn’t be giving me all of these,” you huff months later, sitting on the rock looking out over the water. A large collection of John’s trinkets is piled high in a wrapping of seaweed, shining bright as you mess with your pencil, leaning to stare at him.

John’s lips flicker into a smirk. He hums, content to watch you, from where he rests not an inch away. You lean into him, sighing, as the innumerable glinting rings on your fingers shimmer.

“Want to,” he grumbles.

Rolling your eyes, you look back down to your book, three of four replicas of the man’s scale pattern sitting, shaded and duplicated—lifelike. His tail sways with the water, half of it lost below.

Your hands reach for them now, the scales closest to you, and you lightly poke and prod as John grunts above you, silent but willing in a way that speaks volumes. He’d let no one else touch him like this for the rest of his life—the softness of your fingers and the care on your face more precious than gold. You revered that tail of his; as if it gave over magic like a wishing well.

Shivering, John’s breath hitches as your exploring moves, pushing lightly at where the top of his hips would be.

Your talent was fascinating to him, just as you were. If you wanted to ‘paint’ him, he’d allow you to do all the studies needed. Not only to give you a distraction….but because he can’t bear to be away from you anymore. It makes him nervous, and that in itself is an incredible feat.

“Where do you come from, John,” your question moves the air, and the man moves to pull your jacket higher up your body to stave off the chill. You glance at him, smiling, before your attention returns to your drawings. Sketching more, John resets his lips and tries not to stare at your face. It was getting harder to deny that pull.

That near kiss.

“No answer, Love.” You stare as he quirks a lip, voice lowering. “I won’t be going back to distant waters anytime soon.”

John glances down at your sketchbook, seeing every scratch and bend of care. The both of you were strange creatures, perhaps. Unique—made for one another despite the obvious.

He nods his head to it softly. The water laps at your boots from below, but you care little before John shifts your feet carefully further up with a push from his tail. You chuckle at him breathily, face heating.

“Getting water on you, Love,” he breathes. “New painting soon?” John asks when the silence settles once more, with you shifting your legs to sit under you. He still isn’t sure what painting entails, but you had told him that you would show him soon, so he knows to be patient. But yearning for anything regarding you is ingrained into his mind now—instinct.

“Mhm,” you smile softly, sending a look at your paper and the images. A huff escapes your mouth. “I think I’ll make this one a portrait.”

John blinks, tilting his head slightly. “Portrait? Why’s that?”

Your lips find his, moving back up in an instant.

For a second, the man’s surprised eyes pull back; only lowering as he hums moments later, fingers curling up under your chin as he sags. Lids flutter closed, and his tail twitches lightly.

“I have a subject that’s caught my eye.” You mutter into his flesh when you pull back, face burning as deep blues sear your mind, turning it into mush. Your skin tingles as chilled digits trail your chin, dripping water down your healed throat.

John watches, lips parted, as you continue on.

“And I’d be a fool if I let him swim off.”

The both of you were going to be perfectly fine.

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flippinpancakes64 · 3 months ago

Note

Hello! I love your stuff and I wanted to request their response to:

Reader: Let me take care of you.

Them: It's rotten work...

Reader: Not to me...not if it's you.

Keep writing! You're amazing! (And I need something to read while I stay up)

Taking care of the Cullens

Ok ngl this ask has me giggling and kicking my feet

Jasper let me take care of you 😡😭❤️

Uhm and remember in my request rules thing where I said I don’t do narratives… i might be a big fat liar cause that’s what I did here… don’t come for me

And thank you so much for the kind words! Thank you for requesting and I hope you enjoy!

Edward:

We all know he has a bit of a complex when it comes to his worth and his humanity

He tends to get in his own head a lot

Especially when it comes to you and your relationship

He doesn’t really get jealous in the normal sense

He just sort of gets sad when he sees you with other people

It’s one day after school and Edward seems to be avoiding you. You’re sitting at the table with Emmett, Alice, Esme, and Jasper playing a card game.

Only Edward is nowhere to be found.

The game finishes, Alice winning and Emmett immediately going into ranting mode about how it’s rigged. You excuse yourself to go check on him.

You find him upstairs in the piano room, plunking away on the keys mindlessly. If he wasn’t a vampire and you didn’t know better, you would say he didn’t even notice you enter the room.

You stood behind him for a while, watching as his fingers danced over the ivory keys.

“It sounds beautiful” you say.

He doesn’t respond.

“Edward, what’s the matter? You’ve hardly spoken to me all day.”

“Do you ever wish I was human?”

The question catches you off guard.

“To wish for you to be human would be to change you, and I happen to love you just the way you are.”

He huffs, his fingers halting.

“But don’t you wish I was warm? Don’t you wish I could eat the foods you like, actually sleep next to you at night, grow old with you?”

You sit down next to him at the stool and take his hands in your own.

“What were you like when you were human?”

The change of subject seems to catch him off guard, his face twists slightly as he thinks. He pauses for a beat before answering.

“I was a bit of a troublemaker. My mom always said I was giving her grey hairs way too early. I didn’t do any of my schoolwork, I just wanted to go and be free.”

“Hm, sounds like the you that could sleep, eat, and grow old was a bit of a wild card. Not really my type. You know I prefer the sophisticated, musical type.”

He laughs at that, hanging his head down to press a kiss to your joined hands.

“So what you’re saying is you like the version of me without a soul better,” he says bitterly. You frown at that.

“No, I’m saying I like the you that I have now. I love you, Edward. I would never trade you for anyone else in the world whether they have a pulse or not.”

He’s quiet for a moment.

“You know this is how it will always be, right? I’ll always be here, trying some new way to push you away from me. To make you realize that you deserve better.”

“And I’ll always be here to take care of you and make sure you know that my mind will never change.”

“Taking care of me for the rest of your life… talk about the worst job you could get.”

“Only it won’t be a job. Not for me. Not when it’s for you.”

He looks at you then, finally. His big, black eyes staring into yours.

You’ve wished it before, but in this moment you wish you were the one who could read his mind instead of the other way around.

“You’re so stupid,” he smiles, and leans in for a kiss.

Maybe one day he’ll fully believe you.

Alice:

Alice has a tendency to shut down whenever there’s too much going on

Too many people are on the cusp of making decisions that could change their lives

It seems that every person she meets on the street has a vision attached

She can’t take it anymore

You find her curled up in a ball in her room, the TV playing a program you don’t think she’s watching.

Around her are scattered sketchbook pages, each one hastily ripped from the pad and thrown to the floor.

On these pages are drawings of buildings, people, animals, and tragedies. You catch the face of a woman who’s screaming as a bullet heads straight for her face. In another is an open room with a small grenade in the center.

No wonder she’s been so upset.

None of the pages show joy, every single one a warning of a disaster that’s just waiting to happen.

In front of her, there’s a stack of drawings that she’s flipping through. On one of them you catch what looks like your face, only it’s contorted in a scream. In another you see Jasper, but you can’t make out what’s around him.

“Alice,” you call out, and her head whips up. Maybe she hadn’t heard you like you thought she did. “What’s wrong?”

She looks at you like a deer in headlights for a moment, before her eyes glance back down to the papers in front of her.

“There’s nothing wrong. Not yet, at least.”

Her tone is grave. You can hear the desperation for an answer, or at least a break.

You sigh, and move to sit next to her. You reach to take the stack of papers from her, meeting no resistance. If she wanted to keep them from you, she could. But she knew now that fighting you was always going to be useless.

“Alice, I know you can’t control the fact that you see these visions. But you can control how much you obsess over them. This isn’t healthy.”

“I don’t need to be healthy. I can’t die or get sick.”

You sigh again. “That’s not what I mean and you know it. You can’t keep withering away in here obsessing over what might happen.”

“But-“

“No buts.” You say, throwing the stack of papers to the side. “How long ago did you have these visions?”

She thinks for a moment.

“Yesterday, I think.”

“Alright. Have they happened yet?”

“Well, no…”

“From what you saw, are they still a possibility now?”

“…they are… a very low possibility…”

You could see her reluctantly piecing together your words, clearly not wanting to admit her mistake out loud.

“Look, Alice, you know that I’m always touched by you looking out for me, but in moments like this I need to look out for you too.”

She looks into your eyes, then hangs her head again.

“But that’s not how it’s supposed to be. My gift, I should be the one taking care of you-“

“No. There is no ‘supposed to’ anything. Humans aren’t ‘supposed to’ be with vampires and yet here we are. So please just come with me and watch a movie or cuddle or something?”

She looks at you again, then. Staring into your eyes, then glancing around her room, at all of the papers, then back to you. She smiles slightly and floats up to her feet.

“Fine. But I’m picking the movie.”

Jasper:

This is a man who needs some serious love and reassurance

He’s always on edge around you, even if he plays it off like he isn’t

He’s just always so scared of hurting you or doing something wrong

And a lot of the time that manifests as him isolating himself to try and get you to leave him

It was gonna be one of those nights again.

A night that you would spend alone in the bed you were supposed to be sharing with the love of your life, Jasper.

But no. On a night like this, he’s out in the woods, far, far away. Stewing in his feelings and brooding.

You don’t even remember anything happening this time. Sometimes something can set him off; a jab from someone at school, a hug he gave you that ended up being WAY too tight, anything really. Anything that reminds him of how he’s not supposed to be with you.

But right about now, you’re sick of it.

The Cullens have taken to being quieter at night since you’ve started sleeping over a lot more, but you know they’re all here- all except for the one you want.

So it being 2 am won’t bother any of the other residents of the house. You roll out of bed and march your way over to the door, throwing it open (politely) and stomping down the steps.

Emmett is the first one you see, and you decide he’ll be perfect for the job anyway.

“What’s got you going, firecracker?” He asks.

“I need you to go find Jasper and bring him to me. Now. I need to talk to him,” you couldn’t help the anger and frustration that seeped into your voice. Lack of sleep will do that to you.

Emmett stood up straight and gave a stupid salute, “One loner coming right up, boss.”

And with that he was out of the door, and you trudged back upstairs to wait for your boyfriend.

You were laying in the bed, still trying desperately to go to sleep when you heard a light knock on the door. Your eyes flicked open to see Jasper standing in the doorway, looking completely out of place and uncomfortable.

All of your anger left instantly, all you saw was the sweet man who was far too worried for his own good.

You sighed and scooted over, patting the spot next to you.

“Come here, Jasper.”

A look of what could only be described as fear flashed across his face before he shook his head and muttered a small, “i can’t.”

You sighed again and stood up, making your way over to him. When you reached him, you stretched your arms out to take his face in your hands, his eyes wouldn’t meet yours.

“Look, Jas, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I have a pretty damn good idea. You’re not gonna hurt me.”

“You don’t know that,” he says, looking into your eyes, something about the black made him look more human, more scared. “Vampires are already dangerous, but I’m the worst of the worst. You’ve found yourself a faulty cannon amongst rifles, darling.”

You frowned at his analogy, squeezing his perfect face in your hands.

“You are NOT faulty, you hear me? You are perfect. Perfect for me, at least.”

“The perfect man for you wouldn’t be tearing himself up inside trying not to kill you.”

“And a lesser man would have already done it.” He was shocked at that, stunned into silence. He hung his head slightly, not meeting your eyes once more.

“And what if I do hurt you one day? Would you ever forgive me? Could I ever forgive myself?”

“I don’t think you will. But if you do, Carlisle will put me back together and I’ll jump right back into your arms.”

His eyes bore into your soul as he stared at you like you were crazy.

“Why the hell would you do that? Come running right back to me?”

“To make sure you don’t hate yourself for too long. Now come on, I’m tired and I can’t sleep without my personal AC unit.”

He looked at you with disbelief. You knew he didn’t believe you, you don’t know if he ever will.

But that’s okay. You’ll keep him right here, and pull him back to you every time he runs away.

Eventually, he’ll understand that you love him.

Rosalie:

The topic of kids has always been a very touchy one for Rosalie

It’s all she’s ever wanted, and all that she still wants

Most days, the pain is not too much of an issue

But some days, it just gets to be too much

You and Rosalie were walking down the street, hand in hand as you strolled by the different shops and food stands.

The city was busy today, many young couples out and about, shopping, talking, kissing far too passionately to be in public, the usual.

“Rose, do you mind if we sit down for a bit? These shoes Alice chose for me look really nice, but they are so uncomfortable.”

She giggled, but nodded and led you both to a bench. You sat down with a heavy sigh, finally getting off of your feet after what felt like forever (even though it was only about an hour).

Across the way in the little park you’ve both found yourself in, a young couple is sitting on a bench.

The woman has long, flowing, blonde hair that frames her face in loose curls. She’s wearing a gorgeous floral-patterned dress, and on her left hand is quite possibly the biggest, gaudiest ring you have ever seen.

To her right, a man sits, one who bears a striking resemblance to you, regardless of gender.

And in the middle, a little baby. A perfect mix of the two, her hair and his eyes, her nose and his jawline, all swaddled in a cute little onesie.

You’re about to turn to Rosalie to point out the cute baby (she always loves to look and maybe go touch it if the parents allow her to) when you see that she’s already looking.

Her face is grave, like she’s looking at her own headstone. Her face is twisted in grief, and she looks on the verge of tears.

It takes you a second to connect the dots, but once you do, your heart clenches for her.

That woman looks like her, reminds Rosalie of herself. And the man looks like you. And that baby is what she wants, all she’s ever wanted. What she can’t have.

Babies are always hard for her, but this struck a deep chord.

“Rose… do you wanna go home?” You ask softly, not wanting to come off as pushy.

“…”

“Come on, let’s go,” you grab her arm to pull her up, she goes with you, but keeps her head craned back to the young couple the whole time.

Once you’re far away, she breaks down. You’ve never seen a vampire cry, and that’s probably because they can’t. But if they could, Rosalie would be sobbing.

You know it’s bad because she doesn’t even care that she falls to the floor in this dirty, nasty alleyway. Normal Rosalie would rather die 100 times over than get her clothes dirty, especially here.

You sit down next to her, letting her dry heave and gasp into your shoulder, her wails breaking your heart.

You’re helpless here. Cause what can you really do? You can’t give her a kid, she can’t give you one either. You can’t go back in time and stop her from being killed. And you can’t go back and steal that baby from that couple (even though you kind of really want to).

So you just hold her.

You run her hair, pat her back, kiss her head, and whisper into her ear. How much you love her, how she’s perfect, how it’s okay, how you don’t think less of her.

Once she’s calmed down and her breathing has slowed, she looks up at you.

“I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t be seeing this side of me.”

“What? I want to be here for you, Rose. I know I can’t fix this for you, but at least I can-“

“Fix it? Darling, don’t worry about fixing me. I’m already completely broken, there’s nothing to fix.”

With that you just take a moment to look at her. Her face screams that she is broken. In her soul, at least. Her and Edward are a lot more similar than they like to think.

“Rosalie. You are not broken. There is nothing wrong with you.”

She scoffs at that. “I’m not human. I’d say that’s pretty wrong. Not to mention the fact that I can’t even look at a couple with a baby and not want to violently kill someone.”

“And that’s okay.”

She scoffs again.

“No, really, Rose. I mean it. I’m never ever going to think less of you for something like this. You went through something I can never even imagine and now you’re left to pick up the pieces. Just let me help you.”

She looks at you, her eyes staring into yours. The grief that she’s feeling is evident. But deep in her eyes, you see a touch of something else. Trust, maybe.

“You know, you’re gonna be picking up pieces for the rest of your life.”

“That’s okay, I don’t mind. Not if it’s you.”

Emmett:

He likes to pretend to be all big and bad all of the time

But in reality, he's still a person

He just has a hard time remembering that sometimes

You don't know where he got all of that energy from.

I mean, realistically, you know that he can never get tired.

But really, even for a vampire this was unnatural.

Some nobody in school had challenged him to an arm wrestle. Of course, he can never resist. He grabbed the guy's hand and prepared to pummel him, only to flinch and have his hand thrown down against the wood of the desk.

The guy had one of those fake shock things in his hand, and as soon as Emmett clamped down it vibrated like crazy.

To say he was pissed would be an understatement.

And now he was taking all of that anger out on the trees around the Cullen house.

"That-" punch "fucking-" punch "ASSHOLE!" punch punch punch

It had been days. And you were honestly getting worried. He hadn't hunted in those days, much less came inside the house. You're surprised the park ranger hasn't come knocking yet.

You heard a hollowed cracking sound and looked to see Emmett standing triumphantly as a rather large oak tree fell to the ground, followed by a guttural roar from the man.

"Emmett," you called, barely above a whisper. But you know he heard you. "Come over here please."

He looks at you with a slightly guilty look, the anger from before fading away as he hangs his head and trudges over to you. He stops just a few feet in front of you, lamely kicking the rocks beneath his toes as he avoids your eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s that stupid fucking guy-“

“No,” you stop him, putting your hand up to silence him. “What’s actually wrong? Don’t tell me you’re seriously this pissed about losing an arm wrestling match with some nobody.”

He just stood there in silence for a second. You took this chance to stand up and grab his face in your hands, instantly he leaned in, perching his head on your palms.

“I just… need to be strong. That’s what I am, I need to be strong,” he whispered, his voice coming out shy and meek.

You just smiled at him sadly and rubbed his cheek.

“I can be strong too you know. So every once in a while you can let me take care of you instead.”

He laughed at that.

“You, strong? As if. I could fold you in half!”

You punched him lightly in the arm.

“You jerk! I’m trying to be sentimental!”

He laughed again and grabbed your hands, bringing them back up to their previous spot cradling his face.

“Ok ok, serious sentimental time.”

You just laughed and kissed him.

Esme:

She has a bad habit of overreacting

Just a dash of anxiety

So when something-anything happens to you, she freaks out

This is bad.

Like really, really bad.

You were supposed to be driving to go see Esme at the Cullen house, but of course your piece-of-shit car decided that now would be a perfect time to break down.

Too far away from home to walk back, too far away from the Cullens to walk there, and the nearest anything was also too far.

Not to mention the snow covering the ground didn’t really entice you to get out of your still-warm car.

So you tried calling someone to come get you.

Only, of course there’s no service out here because why would there be.

Just your luck.

You weigh your options, and decide that walking is just gonna have to do.

You didn’t pack a winter coat because you didn’t think you’d be outside for this long, but you had a blanket stored in your backseat and it was better than nothing.

So off you trekked through the freezing cold winter storm to the Cullen house.

Inside, Esme was (in)patiently waiting.

Your favorite meal was waiting for you, already plated and getting colder by the second on the dining room table.

You said you were on your way 30 minutes ago. It takes about 30 minutes to get from your house to their house.

So where were you?

Her ears perked at the sound of a slowly beating heart coming from down the driveway.

It didn’t sound like one of the foxes or deer that roam around this time of year. No, it sounded a bit bigger, a bit more human.

She was out the door in a flash. Before anyone had the chance to ask what she was doing she was by your side.

“Oh my god, honey, why are you out here?!”

“An angel…” and then you collapsed.

Cue Esme absolutely freaking the fuck out.

She has you in front of a lit fireplace, a heating blanket rested over your shoulders and a warm towel on your head.

She’s pacing back and forth in front of you. She wants to hold you so bad, to kiss you, cuddle you, protect you. But she can’t. She’ll just make the shivers wracking your body even worse.

“Es…” you croak, your eyes blinking open finally.

“Oh my god! Are you okay? How are you feeling? Why were you out there? Where’s your car? Why didn’t you call me?”

“Shhhh,” you whisper, bringing your finger up to shush her. “Just come here.”

You open up your blanket in an invitation to her.

“Are you out of your mind? I can’t cuddle with you right now, I’ll freeze you!”

“Please, you deserve to be taken care of too.”

She crumbles at that, you can see the resolve leaving her face. And then she figures that you won’t get too cold with the heated blanket and everything.

She cuddles up next to you, wrapping her arms around your waist and ducking her head into your neck.

“I’m so sorry, I should have been there. And least of all I shouldn’t be such a mess right now.”

“It’s okay to be a mess, I’ll always be here to hold you.”

Carlisle:

No one really talks about the stress of being a pretend father for a bunch of eternal teenagers

Really, it’s a blessing that he doesn’t need sleep and isn’t affected by long hours

But despite that, he still gets so worn out

Today had been a long day for Carlisle.

It was student-teacher conference day. And while that’s not usually an issue since he always tells the kids to behave, Emmett decided it was necessary to punch a kid last week.

To be honest, Carlisle didn’t really care if the kid was a bully or not, all he viewed it as was something more drawing attention to them.

On top of that, the cattiness between Edward and Rosalie seemed to be especially bad today.

They were at each other’s throats for the better part of the day, and nothing would get them to separate.

At work, at least a dozen new patients showed up. A factory that was close by had a gas leak, very minor. None of the people were harmed at all, but many still insisted on going to the clinic.

Carlisle’s not one to discourage people from getting checked out, but he is one to tell people to go home when they’re fine, which everyone was.

But these people kept insisting something was wrong. A boy with a broken arm had to wait for three hours for a room to open up because the factory workers refused to leave.

By the time he got home, he was exhausted, you could tell. His eyes were heavy, as were his footsteps. His hair was disheveled, he had clearly been running his fingers through it all day from the stress.

He looked like a mess. But even then, he greeted you with a smile and a kiss on the cheek.

He always takes such good care of you, whether you’re sick or not, he’s always there with whatever you want.

Now it’s your turn.

“Carlisle, are you busy?” You ask, peeking into his home office. Even after the super long day, he’s a man of habit.

“Not particularly,” he turns to look at you, setting his pen down, “why?”

“Follow me.”

You lead him to the bathroom, where a nice, warm back is drawn. Complete with lilac scented bath oil and two candles lit on the sink.

“The bath looks beautiful, darling. I’m sure the lavender will be great for your skin.”

“Oh, it’s not for me,” you quip. All he does is raise an eyebrow. “It’s for you. I know you’ve had a long day, so go relax and meet me in the bedroom when you’re done.”

You don’t give him a chance to argue before you leave, shutting the door tightly behind you.

He emerges about 30 minutes later, still toweling his hair off.

“Ok now come on over here,” you pat the bed next to you, motioning him to sit there. Again, all he does is quirk and eyebrow but he obliges.

You take the remote to the TV in yours and Carlisle’s room, turning on his favorite movie. A classic one from the silent film era.

“But this… I haven’t seen this movie in years… how did you get it?”

“That’s the beauty of streaming platforms.”

You both sit in silence for a while, Carlisle seemingly happy to just watch his favorite movie after so long. Eventually, he turns to look at you with an inquisitive expression.

“So, what’s all this for?”

“What, am I not allowed to take care of you from time to time?”

He laughs slightly at that.

“A human taking care of a vampire, how twisted.”

You grab his face between your hands at that, drawing him close and looking deep into his yellow eyes.

“It’s not if I want to do it, and I would move the Earth for you.”

“Hopeless romantic,” and with that he kisses you.

Vampire! Bella:

She tends to… shut down

We all know how she was when she couldn’t be with Edward

That translates over

It really wasn’t supposed to be that big of a deal.

Your Spanish class was going to be taking a two week trip to Spain.

Only, Bella wasn’t in Spanish. This time around, she chose to take French. Which was all fine and good, until it meant that she couldn’t go with you.

Cue two weeks of endless calls and texts.

On the phone with you , she sounds fine. But from your calls with Alice, she’s not doing too hot.

She hasn’t been hunting since you’ve been gone, she’s completely stopped going to class, and she also hasn’t talked to anyone in the house.

It’s the last night of your trip, you’re in your hotel room, the girl you’re sharing with is sound asleep in the other bed, but you know one girl who’s never asleep.

You call Bella’s number, and she answers instantly, like she’s been waiting all day for you to call. In all honesty, she probably has.

“Hey, what are you up to?” You can hear the attempt to be nonchalant in her voice, but her eagerness gives her away.

“Oh nothing, I just got off the phone with Alice… wanna tell me why you didn’t leave our room today? Or yesterday? Or the day before?”

You can hear her pause on the line, like she’s trying to come up with a convincing lie, but eventually she sighs.

“I just… I’ve just been missing you a lot, is all. I want you here next to me, I feel incomplete without you.”

Yowch. Right through the heart.

You decide then to help in some way, you don’t know how immediately, but you have to do something.

So you start to hum.

Whenever you have a bad day, Bella hums the song her mom used to sing to her. You always ask her to, and even though she says she isn’t a great singer, she indulges you anyway.

Sometimes it’s the only thing that can stop you from a panic attack or calm you enough to go back to sleep after a nightmare.

You hear her gasp slightly before y he sound of sheets rustling, presumably her laying her head down.

You go through the whole song twice over, Bella never telling you to stop or joining you.

After your voice fades out and the line stays dead for a moment, you swear you can hear Bella overthinking.

“You know, you didn’t have to do that. I’m an apex predator. I shouldn’t be so upset whenever you leave for a little bit.”

You laugh lightly at that, and you can hear her scoff across the line.

“I don’t mind. Especially when it’s you. Bella, I love you and I would do anything for you.”

“Even if I’m a beautiful monster who was designed to kill you?”

“Even if you did kill me, I would hope that my blood nourishes you for months on end.”

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mochatsin · 8 months ago

Text

When MC can Draw (Dateables Version)

Drawing and the arts is one of the things you’re most passionate about. There’s a lot of things, and certain demons, that are out there to give you inspiration to draw. How will the dateables react when they find out you’re a great artist?

Wow my first dateables version of my prompts. Hope i’ve written them all well. This version is requested from my tumblr :0 thanks for reading!

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Diavolo

Diavolo took notice when you saw your eyes lingering among the paintings during your tour around his castle. There were portraits of prominent figures from Devildom, from old kings to spearheads that shaped their history. He explains how there’s one royal painter for every royal king, thus the similar styles in every portrait. Since you’re an exchange student then it’s essential you learn about these demons, and Diavolo is happy to tell their tales for you.

He was taking a stroll around RAD before going home when he spotted you in the school’s gardens, seemingly preoccupied. He wanted to call on you but he was more curious to see what you were working on. Diavolo watches you closely from a distance, afraid that you might hide from him if you spot him like how the others do.

To his surprise, he saw you working on a portrait of him in a style that’s similar to the ones he’s shown you. The way your eyes lingered on those paintings when he toured you around before, it clicks to him now that you were trying to study the art style itself as well. It’s almost identical, but with your added personal touches to make it unique.

His towering size doesn’t hide him very well when you immediately spot him at the corner of your eye. The pillars don't do justice to how large Diavolo is as a demon. You try to conceal the art you were making, it’s embarrassing when the subject of your art is actually a few feet away from you. But he quickly smiles as he walks over to you. Now that his cover's blown, he definitely wants to see everything up close now.

“I didn’t mean to be rude and spy on you like that. But you don’t need to hide anything! Even from a glance I could tell you’re talented. Would it be alright for me to see what you were working on?” You can’t really turn down such a polite request, but you most certainly can’t turn down the volume of his voice that’s booming with excitement as he flips from one page to another.

When you finish your portrait of Diavolo, expect it to be treated like a national treasure. A beautiful artwork of the young prince made by the human exchange student? It deserves the best frame that Diavolo can get his hands on. Expect Barbatos by your door the next day with high quality art supplies. He’ll treat you like one of the finest royal artists to ever live in Devildom.

Barbatos

He invited you for some afternoon tea at the castle as thanks for lending him a hand in his duties the other day. Though there were some other matters around the castle that Barbatos needed to attend to, he asked for you to stay put first and help yourself to some of the treats he had prepared beforehand.

You always admired the intricate designs of the tea set Barbatos always prepared whenever you came over. Since you’re a bit bored, you took out your sketchbook and decided to draw the fancy little tea cups while you wait for Barbatos to come back.

The tea sets that Barbatos prepares always have beautiful pattern designs that range from dainty floral prints up to sets that look more expensive than the Mammon’s weekly bills due to how much the patterns are embedded in gold. If you look closely, you could probably spot little devils on it and it’s cute in its own way.

Little did you know he’s been actually observing you for a while now. He finished his last minute duties rather quickly since it would be rude to keep a guest waiting and that’s when he spots you keeping yourself busy by drawing, your glance going from the tea set to the paper. He wanted to admire that look you have whenever you concentrate for a little bit.

He lets out a small chuckle which gets your attention, a gentle smile on his face as he approaches you. “You’re quite the talented one, aren’t you?” Barbatos says as he takes a seat next to you, glancing at your sketchpad. “Maybe you can tell me more about your work while we enjoy some tea together?”

Barbatos wouldn’t push for you to show anything, but he’ll be happy once you do. He’s impressed at how well you can make patterns that range from something simple to ones that have intricate details. He likes how you can make a portrait of the tea sets he’s been preparing, and secretly he grabs his finest sets to see if you’ll be inspired enough to draw it as well the next time you visit. Maybe he can also pull some strings to put your own pattern designs onto an actual tea cup and serve it to you next time.

Simeon

Sometimes you go to Purgatory Halls to get away from all the constant nagging and chaos of the demon brothers. It’s nice to find that peace and quiet you needed to do your daily tasks or just laze around since you felt like it.

Simeon lets you stay in his room for today while he tries to focus on writing for his novel. He plans on introducing a new character soon and since he trusts you, he starts talking about the character itself. How they compose themselves, what they’re like, the possible role they’ll play in the story, you get all these details before the chapter is even written.

Once he’s done talking he lets you get back to whatever you were doing while he continues trying to figure out how to write the next few parts. Though he soon hears the sound of scribbling pens and wondered if you were doing some homework? He could’ve sworn you were done with those already.

He turns around and to his astonishment, you were sketching the character he was just discussing with you earlier. Given his detailed accounts of the character, you were able to design it well. It’s an understatement to say Simeon is happy. He is ecstatic. You brought this character to life in just a matter of minutes all for him, and that brings Simeon more ideas on how to proceed with writing.

“You never told me you actually knew how to draw. Your talent at visualizing is exceptional.” Simeon would listen carefully while you talk about your journey to the arts and how you honed your talents while he looks through your other works. Afterwards, he starts to praise your art like a professional critique, telling you what he loves in each work.

His heart skips a beat whenever he finds your old works that’s dedicated to his novels. Learning that you’re also talented with the pen like he is, just in a different element, makes him feel a little bit closer to you. If you’re not busy, he may ask for your help when it comes to visualizing something he’s having a hard time with. He’ll treat you to something nice as thanks!

Solomon

Being Solomon’s apprentice means that there are times he’ll require you to assist him with his research. There’s a few spells and potions that he wants to work on, though they all require a lot of preparation work. You both agreed on doing a bit of divide and conquer on those tasks so that it won’t be too time consuming to finish.

You managed to do a lot of chores for him which is quite tiring, though Solomon is grateful for your efforts and he has one last request from you which he said is essential to the potion he’s making. There’s a delicate Devildom flora that Solomon harvested recently, and you have to make sure the flower stays fresh because it can wither very quickly if not taken care of and the potion would fail if that happens. He’ll take it off your hands once he’s done preparing everything else.

Normally, one would’ve kept it in a vase full of water and called it a day. Though you decided to not only put it in a vase, but draw up a summoning circle that would keep it fresh. It’s something that you learned from Solomon’s notes, and the sorcerer is astonished you drew the circle so accurately enough to work on your first try when he came to check up on you.

“Now how did my little apprentice actually manage that so quickly? That would’ve taken me several tries to get the patterns done.” Solomon says with an amused smirk, staring at the circle in awe. Getting one line wrong would’ve instantly killed the flower but right now, he sees that not only is it very much alive but it looks more vibrant than ever. The magic is more potent, Solomon is sure that any potion he makes with its petals would be very effective.

While he was waiting for the potion to boil over in the cauldron, he decided to learn more about this hidden talent of yours. He makes you draw some summoning circles from one of his books, already starting out on the difficult types to draw. All of it is perfect somehow since you’ve had a history of drawing, so your hand is quite steady and you act like it’s no big deal. Solomon will definitely want to see your works in the future.

“A lot of sorcerers can cast magic, but not everyone has the talent to make summoning circles as quickly and accurately as you do.” That’s big praise coming from humanity’s strongest sorcerer. Though that means he’ll want to exploit that talent and call you over every time he needs it in his experiments, it’s a win for him either way because he gets to spend more time with you.

Luke

There’s a new event in Devildom where the angels and you were teamed up to open a stall that’s focused on selling sweets and pastries. Luke appreciates your input when it comes to taste testing his sweets since none of the demon brothers are able to give proper critiques like you can, Simeon tends to be a little too nice to Luke, and Solomon is never allowed near the kitchen. Ever.

Your company is always welcomed and Luke would gladly add any of the sweets you recommended onto the menu. You always come back to the House of Lamentation with a bag full of samples you both baked that day, which always brings a smile to the brother’s face.

You come back to Purgatory Hall only to find Luke seemingly having a dilemma. He reassures you that it’s not because of the batch of sweets and pastries since you helped him perfect the menu. It’s the fact he needs to make a logo and design for the stall. If it can’t attract any customers then all the effort you both put into baking this would go to waste.

You sat down with Luke to brainstorm with him, watching the angel stare blankly at the paper with frustration while you ask him for what ideas he’s already had so far. Luke had to go back to the kitchen to pipe some frosting on the cupcakes, though by the time he came back you were already done with the sketch.

Luke is awed at the design, seeing as how you incorporated both his and your idea for the stall in a way that still blends well together. “Y-you’re incredible! How’d you do that so fast though? You know what, let’s show Simeon first!” If Luke had a tail, it would be wagging from sheer joy. He’d be so excited to get the decorations and paint for the stall that he almost forgot about the cupcakes in the oven.

By the time the stall is finished and running, Luke would definitely flaunt your talent not just for helping him bake but for also designing the stall. “You like the design? They did that!” He would say with an excited grin on his face before pointing at you. Luke enjoys working with you that you both barely notice the brothers getting jealous over the amount of time the angel gets to spend with their human.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me headcanons #obey me scenarios #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #obey me simeon #obey me solomon #obey me luke

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arolesbianism · 1 month ago

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Old art warning

Look at all of my bgugs

The real pro of most of the eternal gales cast having originated as doodle characters is that every now and then I get to remember I actually do have a shit ton of images of my ocs that I can go look at and I clap and go yaya yippee yay :D!!! The downside is that it's all old art but it's ok

#eternal gales #keese draws #technically. I guess.#but yeah most of these would probably be from about 5 or 6 years ago? idk for sure I didnt date my shit #and I still dont babey #but yeah I need to hunt down more of my old sketchbooks at some point so I can find more images of them all #I've already dug through most of my main sketchbooks but thats not where the majority of the eternal gales action is found #the real battleground where I drew these guys was on my schoolwork from the half a year I went to the shittiest highschool Ive been to #which means that a HUGE chunk of the eg art Ive made has been lost to time but I wanna see if I can find any remnants #I have my binder for my old english class in my room but Ive already dug through that #finding other things from the time period is probably not going to be very feasible but I can try #not tonight ofc some other time #anyways time to enter my current battlefield aka trying to go to sleep wish me luck boys

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 6 months ago

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Am I the Asshole for ruining a person's life?

This is an old story from when I was in high school. I was a quiet nerdy kid, but I was well liked. No one messed with me and I was on good terms with most of the popular kids. I just tended to like to read and learn. I did academic decathlon, I spent my breaks in the library, I was in the top of the class etc.

My junior year of high school, there were these two sisters that moved into the school. They weren’t twins, but they were in the same grade. The Older (We'll call her Lina) was held back one year. We'll call the younger one Wendy. Lina and Wendy were both painfully awkward little nerds, so we tended to be in the same circles. We were in the same classes and they also joined the Academic Decathlon. I spent a lotttttt of time around them.

Lina was a cunt.

Seriously an absolute cunt. She went out of her way to absolutely DESTROY any confidence Wendy had. Wendy was SO SMART. Way smarter than me. And Wendy didn't have a mean bone in her body. A very kind person. But Lina felt the need to point out EVERY small mistake or blamed everything that went wrong on Wendy. I once saw Lina SLAP Wendy and then demand Wendy apologize for it. Lina called her names, belittled her, etc. And it pissed me off.

It pissed me off even more when I met their Mom and it was SO OBVIOUS that their Mom favored Lina. She even said that "Lina is definitely the prettier one. She could be a model" when Wendy was RIGHT THERE. It pissed me off SO MUCH.

So, I might have reacted in a way that could be an asshole move.

Like I said, I was a quiet nerdy kid. But I was also pretty well liked and I used that to my advantage.

I became a little whisper in people's ears. I spent an ENORMOUS amount of time and effort turning everyone against Lina. I spread rumors that were just baaarely exaggerating the truth. I encouraged people to shit talk Lina and talk kindly about Wendy. I basically changed Wendy's reputation into a glowing saint in the eyes of the school (not difficult, Wendy was great) and I turned Lina's reputation into garbage. Like, actual garbage.

It got to the point where Lina had no friends. No one DARED to risk being seen with her. Everyone loved to shit talk her. She couldn't keep a secret for anything. If she tried to confide in someone, the news would come out immediately. No one was on her side. I even had her boyfriend spilling embarrassing intimate secrets. He kept dating her just so he could make fun of her.

Well, she did have one friend. Lina had me. I was such a kind and faithful friend, who would NEVER gossip about her or be mean. She could tell me anything.

She even drew this REALLY pretty portrait of me. Just a pencil drawing on sketchbook paper. Whatever else Lina was, she was a good artist. It looked just like me.

I still have it, btw, it really good piece of art.

(I didn't have to worry about it staining my reputation, I was already known as being too kind for my own good. It's really not that hard to get a nice girl reputation.)

Anyways, I have been told that this was an asshole move when I tell this story. I don't think it was and I don't regret it, but other people seem to think it was excessive. When I think back to how much more CONFIDENT Wendy was by the time we graduated, and how she went on to an Ivy League college, I'm glad I ruined her sister's social life. Lina was so stressed out that she couldn't even TRY to harrass Wendy. And if she HAD tried, Lina would have had the student body at her throat. I didn't just ruin Lina, I also helped Wendy gain her footing in a new school.

Anyways, WAS I the asshole for ruining her? Or were my actions just?

#aita #am i the asshole

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mandy-asimp · 5 months ago

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Needed me

Emily Prentiss x fashion designer!reader (they/them)

Warnings: angst, fluff, happy ending

A/n: they dragging babygirl through hell this season 😔

"I'm sorry, but she is not my responsibility anymore. I can't be there to tell her it's going to be ok when she couldn't do that for me." They grumbled as they sat across from Rossi.

He sighed, "she's dealing with a lot."

"And I wasn't?" They didn't let him get further. "I get that you all are going to support her, she's your teammate. But you all didn't know her as your fiancé. The absolute love of your life who for the love of fucks, left you at your lowest."

The old man wasn't going to give up. He believed that there was still apart of them that would cave. "Y/n, you know I wouldn't have flown out here if I didn't think it was serious. She needs you."

It was them who sighed now. Standing up from the table. Leaning across to kiss the old man's cheek. "I'm sorry Dave. Unless she is at the point of tears and just giving up, I will not be roped back into it. Not again. I deserve better. I'll see you around."

And they were off. They never looked back to that table, knowing they were too close to facing...but they couldn't help but wonder what was so bad. Then there was what she did, how it flashed so quickly.

She came home that day to find her fiancé in tears. Body racking with sobs. "Babe? Baby what's wrong?" She was quick to drop her stuff and come crouch in front of her.

"Everything I've worked for it's gone." They got out between wiping away tears that seemed to never end.

Emily frowned, "what? Y/n, what happened?" She was trying to think of anything this bad. Had they been told bad news? Something someone said?

They picked up their phone and with shaky hands pulled up the news, a video of a burnt down building. "The studio...everything in it. All of it...this sets everything back..." they calmed their sobs to hiccups and a few more tears. "I'm absolutely ruined. This was supposed to be it. This was the break I was gonna get and then actually get to enter the real fashion world. I was going to go somewhere and I was going to make it," they spewed out so many worries. Mentions of how much time they'll need to restart, how this was the such an important thing.

Emily though, she froze up. There was so much happening she didn't know what to do. She's never witness them spiral out before. Within the four years, they knew how to keep themselves calm. Even if they couldn't, it's never been this intense. It scared her.

She knew it was a reasonable response to what had happened. Their entire future just went up into a crisp. Everything in her wanted to try and comfort them, truly she wanted to figure it out together.

Yet, the few bricks of the wall she'd built had more impact. She fell back behind it and regretted her next choice before it even happened. After that, Emily swore she blacked out because when she realized what happened, she was in a hotel room alone.

Y/n was just as shocked. The woman they were about to confess their undying love to just walked out. Not a single word said, but just gone. Even when they tried to ask questions, she gave them nothing.

For an entire week, Emily didn't try to reach out or fix anything. Instead she read every text that came through. Even the one that said all her shit would be on the curb for her. The one that set in what she did was calling off the wedding.

That was only a few years ago. The two had completely moved on, or at least Y/n tried to. Never wanting to look back on how much pain was caused, but apart of them wouldn't let themselves fall in love again.

But here they were. Sitting in the apartment, trying to sketch their next line, and only being able to think of Emily. Rossi came and he wouldn't have if it was serious. If they were to go to her, it would be unwrapping the bandages on a wound that hasn't been fully healed.

"No. You are stronger than this." They whispered to themselves. Staring at the sketchbook once again.

If they did...there would be a chance for closure. It would be nice to know why she ran. Why she couldn't just stick it out. They would've been the most badass couple. The FBI unit chief and a famous designer.

If they did...they would get the chance to finally express their anger. But it wouldn't be the right time if she's suffering. How is she suffering? What is going through her mind?

"Fuck." They shouted before getting up. Heading into their room to start packing a suitcase. Dialing Dave at the same time.

"Rossi"

"When are you flying back to Virginia?"

"I'll have the car there in ten. Thank you Y/n."

The call ended quickly, and Y/n was left to grumble. "Oh thank you Y/n! Thank you for having to be the damn adult once again. Thank you for willingly putting yourself through hell for her!" They had a nasty taste on their tongue as they spoke. It's honestly what silenced them.

Throwing a few outfits into a suitcase with the basic needs, they zipped it and began to pack a second bag. Grabbing everything needed to continue working on their summer line. This was done more carefully, with more precision on where everything went in.

Their eyes scanned over the packed bag, making sure everything was in there right. Right before Dave texted the car was out front.

One more sigh was let out before the apartment was locked up. The start of what might be either the biggest, or best choice made.

Emily was in her office. She was lost. She was loosing her mind over this case. Her wack-ass neighbor had hit a nerve she would've never expected.

It was just a mess now. Whoever was behind all this was winning and she couldn't figure it out. She was just fucked.

"Hey...how bad?" Rossi had popped into the room. Watching as the woman pulled out a box of cigarettes and lit one. "That bad?"

"Restricted duty until they see fit, so the BAU is yours." She tried to act calm, trying to keep it together infront of him.

Rossi huffed, "I don't want it. I'm not fit for it."

Emily pinched her nose. "None of us are! Hell! Me most of all. I need you to step up here Dave." She just needed him to make this easier.

"There has to be something?"

"This is happening." She shook her head and turned her back, her purse being a lame excuse for a distraction . The walls couldn't stay up as she felt herself begin to crumble.

A soft hand on her back made her gasp. She expected to turn and see Rossi, someone who she could only go so far with. Yet, her eyes were met with Y/n. She couldn't help it. Her legs gave out as she just sobbed into their chest on the floor.

It killed Y/n to see her like this. Emily was known for her tough demeanor and being able to keep it together at work. But that's what the team knew. Y/n knew her as their fiancé. They saw her breakdown at least once a month from the case build ups.

This however, Y/n could tell this was months on months of a build up. This was a low point, one that they would be there for.

It was half an hour before Emily could get out anything. Her brown eyes, wide and glassy, looked up to them. "What are you doing here?" Her voice was weak and defeated.

"I was told you needed me." Was all Y/n answered with. Naturally, their thumb wiped away the tears. "Why don't you sit on the couch and I'll make you some tea, hmm? Then you can tell me what's got you so...low."

The older got up and moved towards the couch. Y/n leaving the room to make the drink, remembering how Emily liked it like it was their own preferred. Within five minutes they were back and handing over the tea.

They stood, leaning against the desk. "Was it Brian again?"

"How did you...?" The question trailed off as Emily took her first sip. Trying to not let the warm feeling rush through her. They remembered her tea flawlessly.

Y/n glanced out the window, "I saw him lingering on the way in." Emily laughed a little at that. "But really....are you ok?"

"I've failed as a team leader. This job has corrupted me into breaking laws and lying to my team. I'm chasing with nothing but a conspiracy theory. I sounded crazy to the biggest conspiracy theorist in Virginia. I've been benched because of him. I just...I don't know what to do anymore." She so easily confessed. Her head falling into her hands for what felt like the millionth time today. "This can't be how I go out."

Internally, Y/n battled with going over there and holding her or keeping this distance. It put them back once again. They wouldn't be able to live with themselves if they did what she did, it just wouldn't make anything right. So they went over and held her again. This time placing an understanding kiss to her temple.

"It's not. I mean, it will be if you let it. And trust me when I tell you, you're going to want to let it. But that's not Emily Prentiss. She has been through so much worse than some theorist. This will be a fresh start. A chance to start anew. You will take it, and you will figure out this case. You will get your guy or whatever you call it, unsub? This is not your lowest. It's gonna feel like it, but it's just a low before the high. It's all going to be ok." They spoke from their heart. Even as it ached to be back in this position. Even as tears fell from their own eyes.

They were sharing her pain without wanting to, but needing to. Needing to let her know this wasn't it. Needing to let her know that someone was her to share her burdens again.

For the first time, both felt connected entirely. Beating with one heart. Thinking with one mind. Feeling with one body.

That night they had fallen asleep on the couch in her office. Holding onto one another like it would all go away as long as they were together.

Y/n had woken randomly, searching for any source of time. Rubbing their eyes as it was two in the morning. Emily didn't have to be back her till at least eight. They let their eyes fall to Emily. How she seemed so peaceful lying on top of them. She needed this more than Y/n had thought.

So, without much debate, Y/n was carrying the sleeping beauty and her bags out. Doing everything to prevent her from waking, which wasn't hard as she was out cold.

They drove in silence back to where they were staying. Knowing that if it came to it, they could drive to get her an outfit. The silence gave them time to really think. What were they doing? This is the exact opposite of what they were expecting.

Was Emily going to easily fit her way right back? It wouldn't be fair. She caused them the pain and yet they still love her. They would, without a doubt, let her as well. All she had to do was ask. It was just unfair, and they were going to live with it.

Emily stirred in the nice duvet. Confused as it wasn't hers and far too nice to be a hotel. She knew this duvet. She slept in it many times before.

"The coffee is being made. And breakfast is on the way." That voice she missed hearing in the morning.

She hummed while stretching, "how long have you been up?" She finally opened her eyes and seeing Y/n in sweats and a baby tee. Their casual lounge wear.

"Since maybe five. These sketches don't finish themselves unfortunately." They sat down at the desk that was perfectly illuminated by the sun at anytime of the day. "Oh, also your team is coming here tonight. You're taking the day according to Dave. He said it's his order and you should follow it."

"Why are they coming here?" She swung her feet out the bed. Her head turning to take in the room. "You kept your apartment here? What about living in New York?"

"My home in New York makes this look like a doll house. Smallest is the home in California. I move with the seasons." They simply explained. Frowning when Emily laughed.

"You're such a snob. Three houses? Really?" She got up and came to look at the sketches. Not saying anything as Y/n just began sketching again.

She couldn't help but stare at them. They made that concentration face still. Where the creativity would float in their eyes as the rest of their face was resting.

Y/n could feel her eyes on them. It wasn't anything out of their routine. Oh how they fell so easily into the routines.

"I'm a big fashion designer. I'm constantly doing something somewhere else. It's like you, Ms. FBI. Always away doing something," they hummed. Never once did they look up to her, they seemed to be battling the inevitable.

Emily didn't say anything, she just took in the sketches one more time and was off to the bathroom.

Both in their own thoughts and silence. Neither one knowing how to approach the situation of each other. Emily not knowing how to go about work. Y/n not knowing how to go about the designs. There were many thoughts floating in the air.

They let the silence stay around as they waited for breakfast to show up. Emily still clueless on why the team was coming. And she could've asked, but the thrill of a surprise put together by Y/n seemed to make her against it.

Y/n had been trying to sketch within the silence, but knowing Emily was only a few feet away made it hard.

"Babe! I'm home!" She called into the apartment. Noting how quiet it was. "Y/n? Are you even here?" A text saying 'study' came through, leading her through the quiet home.

When she pushed open the door, she found several mannequins with different outfits all lined up. "Isn't it beautiful?" Y/n hummed from the table of gems. They seemed to have been hand sewing each one on.

"Stunning. You didn't have all this done before I left?" Emily came to get a closer look. Being able to see the glimmer of proudness in Y/n's eyes. "What's it inspired by?"

Y/n didn't answer, instead just took int their work. Each outfit was inspired by their favorite memory with Emily. Between outfits they wore that night, or how they felt in the moment. The line was a collection of their love.

"Alrighty, leave me in the dark till it's released. Are you hungry? I imagine you've been to busy working to eat?" Emily left, getting comfortable.

Y/n looked over the sketches one more time. Sighing and dropping their head with a loud bump. They hadn't struggled this hard with sketches since when the two had first split.

They pushed up from their spot and headed into the kitchen. Rubbing their eyes to try and see anything clearly. They lost focus as they stared at the working coffee pot. This trip was already off on a different path than they wanted.

"If you want...I can leave." Emily's voice broke into the silent kitchen. Her head hung low and her hands picking at each other. She looked out the window briefly, bracing herself to meet the others stare.

Only, it wasn't on her. Instead Y/n moved around to get coffee, their back to the woman. "If you want to, I can drive you. But by no means are you gonna get kicked out." Two mugs got pulled down. They were matching ones Emily had gotten for them once upon a time ago.

They frowned to the memories of both mugs. There was a moment with a sigh. They forgot how much they avoided coming here and how they left everything almost the same.

The coffee was poured and the mug was handed over. Now they met each other's eyes. Emily wearing a frown as Y/n tried to keep their shit together.

"Unfortunately for me and fortunately for you, I couldn't kick you out even if you stabbed me. But I wouldn't try, we both have too much to loose for that." Y/n kept their distance still. Eyes either on Emily or anywhere else in the house. It was getting quiet again and it wasn't enjoyable. They rubbed their eyes again, "I need to get back to work. Feel free to make yourself comfortable but not too loud."

They were off and back in their study before Emily could even get anything out. "What about breakfast?" She called out and after, following herself.

Y/n flipped over their phone, "it's about ten minutes away." Their voice was cold and stale. Short of the comforting Emily had heard last night.

It confused her. "You are so confusing." She mumbled. Her head shaking just a bit at the cold demeanor.

"Funny coming from you." Y/n shot back almost instantly. A nasty taste washing over their tongue again. They sucked their tooth before turning around. Eyes immediately locking Emily in. "If this is confusing for you, let me tell you what's confusing for me. The fact that when my entire future burnt into literal crisps, the only thing you, my fiancé at the time, quite literally walked out and said nothing. For a week you then ghost me, mind you I was the one you were marrying in less than a month, and then after years of not looking back, David Rossi shows up. You know what THE David Rossi asked me? To come help you. And here I am, trying my absolute best to keep my shit together so you don't have to worry about another thing. Because you know what Emily? I care for you enough to be there for you." They spewed everything out, hands being thrown around in dramatics as their chest heaved.

Emily was too stunned to speak. What was she to say? Y/n was right. She left when they needed her the most and left without a word. And yet, here they were giving her nothing but what they always have, love.

"I'm sorry," was all that she could manage.

They only scoffed, "whatever. Breakfast is almost here." Y/n shook their head and sat back down at the desk. "You can put my food in the fridge."

"Y/n..." Emily sounded broken, even more than last night. It killed Y/n, but they deserved their reason, and she knew that.

Cautiously, she moved in closer. Coming to Y/n's left and sitting down on the floor. Her knees bent just enough to rest her arms on.

"I panicked...I had never seen you break down like that before..I didn't know how to respond and I just fell behind a wall and did what I always did..I ran from it instead of facing it. And it wasn't fair to you. I truly have no excuse for what I did, except I was a coward." She spoke quietly into the air. Feeling tears prick her eyes as the feeling of guilt and embarrassment kicked her hard. "I only can say sorry, and I say it knowing it will never be enough to make up for all of the pain I may have caused you."

Both had taken the next moment to sit in silence and process everything. Y/n had tears falling from the moment Emily had sat down next to them. Emily had let her tears fall once she finished.

A few beats had passed and Y/n had let their hand fall to Emily's head. Sliding to her cheek as she looked up. "You Emily Prentiss, have caused more pain than I can bring up again. And I hope you have learned from it. I hope you didn't do it to anyone else and you won't do it to anyone else." They had this frown she had never seen, one she knew she had caused.

"I'm so sorry Y/n.." she quietly cried leaning into the touch. Feeling the warmth of the designers hands. "I'm so sorry."

"I know," they hummed as tears fell down their rosy cheeks. "I know you are."

Hours had gone by. Filled with nothing but tears and sniffles. Emily had moved from the floor when she began sobbing, into Y/n's lap. Her face buried into their neck as they shushed her to asleep.

Y/n had tucked her back into bed and continued to work on the designs. Pulling out the old sketches from their scrapped line. Staring over each outfit that was designed after their love.

The mannequins were in the studio, locked in a specific room. They questioned if now was the right time to bring them all back out. If it was, they knew it was ready to be launched, giving them more time on the line that sat unfinished.

They picked up their phone, "Jackie? I need you and Joana to bring me Project L.E.P. The key is in my desk, bottom left drawer, hidden under her picture, tied with a red ribbon. It's hard to miss, the ribbon has L.E.P in gold on the end."

"Are we launching it?!" The assistant grew overly excited. "Oh! Y/n you have no idea how wonderful this is!"

"Is that Y/n?" The other assistant, Joana came into the room.

Y/n assumed Jackie nodded, "yes! They want us to bring L.E.P to their home."

"They're launching it? But then that would mean Em- Oh my God!" The phone was snatched and it was Joana now. "Did you guys talk?! I want to know everything! How did you lay it down?!"

"Joana." Y/n simply cut the assistant from bombarding with questions. "When I see you, I will answer your questions. I need that line, bring the truck with them all. We're going to review them."

"Yes boss!" They both said before hanging up. Y/n knew they were geeking out in the studio at this point.

They assumed it would be at least half an hour before the two got there. Giving enough time to finally take a well needed break and eat something.

While they warmed up the breakfast, Emily had stirred awake. She laid in the bed, taking in the familiar smell of Y/n's shampoo on the pillows. She began to think over everything they had said.

They said it was unfortunate that they couldn't kick her out even if they wanted to. What did that truly mean?

Emily realized, they've already gone through the hardest conversation, this one would be nothing. She swung the covers over and began to look for Y/n. Checking the study first.

Her curiosity for the better of her. She came close to the desk, looking over the designs. There were a few that had yet to be finished, and then there was one in red that really caught her eye. She picked it up, scanning over the paper and realizing she's seen it before. On the bottom had L.E.P written in gold. Emily couldn't place where she's seen it, but she knew for a fact she had.

Placing it down, she left to the kitchen next. Finding Y/n dancing slightly to their own tune. She watched as they prepared their food before acknowledging her entrance.

"Would you like yours as well? I can heat it up?" They offered without even looking over before grabbing the second meal. "How'd you sleep?"

"Good...I do have a question though," she came in closer. Leaning against the counter while staying out the way. Y/n looked over, showing she had their attention. "When you said..."

"I meant it." They knew her thoughts better than anyone. Emily swore in another life they were either a profiler, or a mind reader. "If you want to stay, I'm not going to stop you. If you want to leave, I will drive you. I'm here because you needed me, and I think....apart of me still needed you. If I wanted to be over you, I would've been. I know I would've been. I would've cleaned out everything that ties to you, but I didn't."

"When we ended...I thought that everything was going to go to shit. My career was caught in a fire, my relationship was ending, and I began to spiral. I began to just accept that this was how I was going out. Would never be a big fashion designer, never have a love life, nothing to live for....but I thought of it as letting you win without a fight. And that wasn't how I wanted you to win."

"I don't deserve you," she had whispered. Her head tilting and her silver waves fell to the side.

It was the first time Y/n had actually taken her in entirely. How she aged and yet was still the most beautiful woman they had ever come across. It made them want to just kiss her and tell her that she was welcomed home always.

"And yet...you have me." They sighed, hand coming to cup her cheek. "And maybe thats why I've been so confusing. Because I'm supposed to be mad at you, I really really want to..but anytime I try to, this nasty taste fills my mouth. Like I don't mean anything bad I try and say. And I don't."

"Y/n..." she furrowed her brows. This was more confessing than she had expected. "You don't have to tell me anything-"

"Damn it Emily," they groaned. "I'm not telling you this because I think you need it, I'm telling yo this because I need it. I'm being selfish. I'm loosing my shit with you just standing here. Do you know how easy it is for you to walk right back into my life? When I said I was going to love you forever, I meant it. I meant it with everything then. And I'm going to mean it with everything now." They had their own tears now. Finally caving into the painful feeling of being in love.

Emily was stunned, but she wasn't going to miss her second chance. She pulled Y/n in by the pockets of their sweats, standing on her tip-toes to meet their lips in a passionate kiss.

They both felt airy as they got lost in the feeling of home. Holding each other so impossibly close that it was undeniable they were staying together.

Once they pulled apart they just stared at the other. Both trying to find some answer to what they were feeling. Was there anything to say now?

Y/n came out the trance first, a smile gracing their lips. "Why don't we eat? Jackie and Joana are gonna be here soon and will probably want to question us."

"What are they bringing you?" She held Y/n there for a little longer. Enjoying the closeness and safeness. "Fabrics?"

"Project L.E.P." Was all they answered before heating up the other box of food. "I think I'll release it before the one I'm working on now."

Emily watched them move, "what does the L.E.P mean?"

Y/n was quick to shrug. "It's just the name that Jackie and Joana gave it." They dismissed the topic. Eyes trained to the microwave as it counted down the minute. But the small smirk they held told her they knew exactly what it meant. "I got you your usual."

They handed over the box and the two prepped before heading to the couch. Sitting knee to knee as they ate and watched whatever was on.

It was an enjoyable moment, and one Y/n would remember. And that's when the next line came to them. They tried to be subtle to finish up their food before rushing into the study. They grabbed a sticky note, it was red, and they scribbled on it before slapping it against the window.

Soon designs started to be taped up to the windows. The evening sun peaking through the papers. The ideas began to flow and make sense again. They felt relieved at the feeling.

The front door had opened, and the two assistance were quickly to make their presences known.

"Oh my! Y/n! You dog!" Jackie's voice filled the entire apartment at the sight of Emily. Her head snapped to Joana. "This is so not real!"

Y/n forgot how young her assistance were compared to them. They walked out shaking their head. "How many mannequins did you bring?"

"We figured you still had six here, we actually know you do because you never returned them. So we brought the other six. Then each piece is stored in its own bag and box." They stood tall and in line. "We just need to grab everything."

"Well let's get to it. Six mannequins and twelve boxes are not getting up here that easily. Em, you'll stay up here and make the trips from the elevator back. Joana you'll be on elevator duty. Jackie you're unloading and I'll carry everything to the elevator."

It was the perfect team work. And within no time they had everything upstairs and the three were working on setting them up facing the window. Emily, having no hand in sewing or fashion just watched the three move in harmony.

Joana and Jackie worked to just get the outfits on the mannequins as Y/n did touch ups. They worked until the night fell. And it was perfect.

"Y/n you've outdone yourself still. Are we really ready to release project L.E.P?" Joana walked around the designs and took in every seeming detail. "Truly a genius."

Y/n had a glimmer of pride in their eyes. "Yeah. I think it's time." They only broke away to look at Emily who sat on the couch. "What do you think?"

She had dropped her gaze to look at the twelve outfits. "They're absolutely beautiful. They have been since when you first had them all laid out." She stood to come next to them. "Are you ready to release them?"

Y/n inhaled with a smile, exhaling their worries. "Yeah." They grabbed Emily's hand. "I am ready." They were confident.

"So...what are you gonna call it?" Emily went closer to examine the detail as well. The room was silent as everyone thought of something.

Jackie hummed, "mmm what if we keep L.E.P?" She threw out. "It holds meaning, it's cute, it's secretive, secretive is sexy."

"L.E.P in gold writing, your writing. We tease it with close up pictures first. Then we host a big launch party and have them all come out on a runway." Joana began to plan everything out. Already seeing a vision.

"But what is L.E.P?" Emily butted in. Getting silence and all eyes on Y/n, who was looking down to Emily.

"Loving Emily Prentiss," they only could smile even kinder at the reveal. "It'll be the start of a collection. The E.P collection. It's bright, it's new, it's warm and giving. That's how it'll start."

The doorbell had rang. "That must be your team. You two are dismissed. Thank you for the help today. Start your magic and fill me in in the morning. Love you both," they bowed their head. Watching as the two assistants began to pack up.

"Um, Y/n? I have nothing to wear?" Emily glanced down at the big t-shirt and sleep shorts.

"Your outfit was laid out on the bed before we even started touch ups. You go change and I'll greet everyone." Y/n shooed as they moved to the door. Opening and being greeted first with Dave.

"How is she?" He placed a kiss to their cheek before leading everyone in. They all seemed worried at first.

"She's better today. And that's what matters." They hummed. Moving towards the kitchen to begin cooking for everyone.

Stopping at the instant gasp and whispers. The team had seen the designs lined up. "Wait..your the Y/n? Like designer Y/n?" Penelope stared in awe at the outfits.

"Guilty. That's the next line. I guess a sneak peak." They shrugged, smiling as Dave began to prep to help cook. "You can get close, everything is set in stone at this point."

Just then Emily had walked out in a one-of-one dress. Y/n had designed it and worked the first night to make it for her. Telling themselves that it was either a goodbye gift or a welcome home gift.

She looked stunning, and Y/n could take their eyes off of her. Their best model walked into and began to get wine glasses down.

"Emily, you never mentioned Y/n was a fashion designer?!" Penelope was still caught on the fact. Earning a laugh from Y/n.

"Ouch, four years and almost married and you didn't tell them about my job?" They came near Emily, crouching next to her to get out some seasonings.

Emily looked down to them, taking in the moment of being taller for once. "She would've flipped out. I also figured she would've down a background check on you without my knowing." Both glancing to the bubbly woman.

"I...I didn't because I wanted to respect her boundaries." She got out, looking to everyone else who seemed to have knowing looks. "Don't tell me..."

"We all...kinda knew." Tara broke the news, hugging the friend as the look of betrayal washed over her.

Y/n had shrugged from their spot. "I had no part in this." They cleared their name.

That night the team had laughed, eaten, drank a few bottles of wines, and enjoyed a nice round of desserts.

A few months has passed and Emily and Y/n began to work things out. She appreciated Y/n's efforts as well even with all the press and media.

There had been an article that really stood out.

And why did you name it L.E.P?

Well....when I had made it I was with this amazing woman. Each piece was meant to represent a moment of our relationship.

And why are you just now releasing it?

We had honestly gotten into a fight a month or so before our wedding. We ended up splitting and I just couldn't come to scrap it. So I locked it into a room until now.

And what made you choose now?

Because she needed me and I realized I would always need her. And this is my gift to her. A token of my love with what I was meant to be doing. Fashion. And what better way than to express love through fashion?

Emily had came over and smothered Y/n with all the love she could after reading that. It made her look at the entire line differently and hold it near to her heart just as well.

They laid next to each other in bed, just staring and having a wordless conversation. But Emily could see it written on Y/n's face. They loved her. And that made her see everything worth fighting for.

"I love you." She had whispered before realizing.

Y/n smiled. "I know." They switched to a cocky smile. Pulling her closer by the waist and bending her just slightly back. "And I love you too. Always will."

They shared one of their most passionate kisses that night. It sparked a new sense of love. Mature, mannered, and workable. As long as they had each other, it would always be workable.

#reader insert #fanfic #criminal minds #emily prentiss #emily prentiss x reader #x y/n #criminal minds evolution

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