#siren reader just dives into the water and hunts all the fish they need | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

too-gay-for-marvel · 3 years

Text

just this once pt.4

a/n: shes LORGE

Word Count: 5,031

Warnings: smut implications, canon typical violence, mentions of blood, non-graphic assassination

Pairing: Natasha x Reader

(pt.1 pt.2 pt.3 pt.4 pt.5 pt.6.1 pt.6.2 pt.6.3 pt.7 pt.8)

“You gonna cum for me, Talia?”

“Need another mission?” Nick asked, shaking Natasha out of a memory. Her eyes darted around for a split second and noted that the meeting was over.

She had missed the last half of the briefing.

“No,” Natasha shook her head, immediately getting up and attempting to rush out past Nick.

“Well that’s a shame,” Nick continued, moving to the doorway and completely blocking Natasha’s retreat. “I needed a legendary assassin to accompany a local fish.”

“Not a fish,” Natasha replied, far too quick for her to stop herself.

“Funny, that’s the exact same thing she said,” Nick said with a smile before crossing his arms over his chest.

Natasha knew she had lost; she hadn’t really had any hope that she would win anyway. If Nick wanted her to do something, she was going to end up doing it, and that was that. She motioned her head for him to walk with her, and his smile grew. Asshole.

“I need you to take out a target,” Nick said as if there had never been any lull in the conversation.

“Who?” Natasha asked. They reached the elevator and she pressed the button to go up to the gym. Nick pressed the button for his office.

“Jake Porter.” He handed a manila folder to Natasha. It was heavy.

“Says he’s SHIELD?” Natasha asked as she quickly flipped through page after page.

“He is,” Nick nodded, looking down at Natasha. “He’s also the snitch from your last mission.”

Natasha nodded, trying to ignore some vital parts of that mission. She had managed to avoid you for a few months again, but she should have known better than to think it would have lasted forever. It seemed almost as if the world was conspiring against her.

“If it’s a hit, why is Y/N going?” Natasha asked, slamming the manila folder closed as aggressively as possible. It ended up just folding back over at an embarrassingly slow pace.

“He’s hiding in an underwater safe house.”

Of course he is.

“When do we leave?” Natasha asked as the elevator doors opened to Nick’s floor.

“In two hours,” Nick said as he walked forward, not even caring enough to look back.

Natasha sighed once the elevator doors slid shut again. A knot formed in her throat and stuck, forcing her to focus on each individual breath. Something was trying to claw it’s way out of her chest; she could only keep it at bay for so long. There would be hell to pay if it ever came forward.

“Is that not cannibalism?”

“No, it’s lunch.”

The voices pushed past the elevator doors before they were fully open, and Natasha couldn’t help the small smile that graced her lips. Both you and Yelena were sitting at the bar, trays of sushi and cups of tea in front of you. Your mouth was full and you weren’t even looking at Yelena, yet she continued to raise her brow at you in disbelief.

“You’re a fish, that’s fish. It’s cannibalism,” Yelena continued, but you shook your head and picked up another piece.

“Not a fish,” Natasha replied for you. The corner of your mouth tilted up and there was a slight shift in your gills, but Yelena just rolled her eyes.

“You two are disgusting,” Yelena mumbled to herself. “Shouldn’t you be planning a honeymoon or something?”

The room went cold. Your head tilted down until you were hunched over your sushi, picking the pieces apart with your chopsticks. There was a tenseness to your jaw that had to have been painful, but it didn’t ease up. Yelena shifted in her seat and looked down at the ground.

“It’s on hold,” Natasha shrugged, desperately wanting to get off the topic.

“Oh right,” Yelena nodded, already back to her usual demeanour. “You’ve got cold feet.”

“I don’t- I don’t have cold feet,” Natasha took a slight step back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Life is just busy.”

“Busy as in you don’t want to-”

“Did you down here for a reason?” You asked, throwing Natasha and Yelena off of their argument. You were still meticulously picking the sushi apart, rice grain by rice grain.

“We’ve got a mission,” Natasha said curtly. “We leave in two hours.”

“Okay,” you said as you stood up from the bar, towering over Natasha for only a moment before walking off. “See you then.”

“Why do they always leave me to clean up their mess,” Yelena groaned, and Natasha turned to see the mess of your sushi.

Instead of answering, Natasha just gave Yelena a wink and walked away. She has a mission to get ready for.

———

“Can you please turn the fucking heater on?” You shouted from the back for what had to have been the 12th time in the past 10 minutes. The pilot ignored you.

“If you’re cold, put on a jacket,” Natasha repeated. Your sigh could have been heard all the way back in New York.

But when she glanced up, she felt a knot form in her throat. Your thermal suit was clearly not doing anything for you as you pulled what looked to be a third jacket over your shaking shoulders. Blood was showing under your cheeks, and your gills were pulled in tight.

“There’s a space heater in the safe house,” Natasha said softly. You finally looked up and met her eyes.

As soon as your eyes narrowed in on her, she felt time stop. A heat started in her cheeks and spread to her neck and chest. It was as if you were looking into her, so deep that you could find the parts of her she didn’t even know about. Something about that look, something that dug into her core and left her feeling empty as soon as you looked away.

“I’ll freeze to death before then,” you mumbled before tearing your gaze away; you tore a hole through Natasha’s heart in the process.

For the rest of the flight, the only noise was the sound of your chattering teeth. It echoed through the quinjet and Natasha felt the beginning pangs of a migraine popping up in her head. If you didn’t stop soon, she was going to be driven into a homicidal rage.

“Hovering in five,” the pilot finally yelled out, and Natasha stood up quickly with the hopes that the faster she moved, the faster she could get away from the incessant staccato clacking of your teeth.

You stood up after a moment, standing far enough away from Natasha that she couldn’t feel your warmth. But you were still close enough for her to notice the shakiness spreading down your limbs. The way your harpoon jingled on your belt as your body was wracked with the occasional spasm. And yet you put on a brave face and braced for the mission.

“My mask has an hour of oxygen,” Natasha said, already pulling said mask onto her face. “Think we can finish by then?”

“Sh-shouldn’t t-take that long,” you stuttered, teeth shivering between words. “Short d-dive.”

“Opening the cargo door,” the pilot yelled, and just as he said, the cargo door opened and you both stared out into the dark, icy water.

“Age before beauty,” Natasha teased as she gestured out at the water.

“Very f-funny,” you chattered again, but followed her direction and stepped off the cargo door and into the freezing water below.

Natasha was quick to follow suit, wanting to get the dreadful part over as quickly as possible. The very instant her feet touched the water, a painful shock travelled across her skin, sinking deep into her bones. Her fingers reacted slowly when she tried to clench her fist.

“Let’s go,” you said through your comms, and Natasha managed to see you just in time before you disappeared into the inky darkness.

It was like Natasha was swimming through jello. No matter how much she willed her limbs to move, her body to keep going, it seemed she slowed down with each stroke. The water around her started to close in, each breath drawing the pressure closer. Her lungs were on fire and her heart was pounding too hard and the darkness was closing in and she needed out.

There was the whisper of a touch on her arm before she felt herself being yanked upward, finally soaring through the water like she had wanted. In a heartbeat the water released her, the pressure disappearing far faster than it had appeared. She yanked her mask off and inhaled deeply, ignoring the way her lungs screamed at her to stop.

“Trying to get yourself killed?” You asked, and Natasha finally took notice of your hand wrapped around her bicep.

“It was too dark,” Natasha replied, her tongue feeling heavy and slow.

“You didn’t answer the comms,” you continued, “I thought you had gotten lost.”

There was venom to your words. Natasha looked up and managed to calm her shaking enough to see the fire in your eyes, the clenching of your jaw, the freshly picked spots on your bottom lip. Your hand was gripped tight enough that if Natasha had any circulation left in her arm, it would’ve been cut off.

And she didn’t care.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Natasha said, finally yanking her arm out of your grasp. “You stay here for the getaway.”

You nodded and jumped back into the moon pool, already nothing more than a memory. Natasha wasn’t sure if she liked that or not. She shook her head and took off down the corridor, already on the hunt for her target.

It was easy. Far too easy. He was in his room, door unlocked, music far too loud for him to hear anyone come in. A single shot to the back of the head, and the mission was over. Now all she really needed to do was head back to the moon pool and then you could both get to the safe house and warm up.

Except for the small, itty bitty insignificant fact that the base was set to self destruct once Porter’s vitals stopped.

As soon as the sirens started to echo through the base, Natasha was sprinting down the halls. She didn’t know how much time was left, didn’t care, she just needed the both of you to get as far away as possible before you were stuck in the rubble. Natasha turned the last corner and saw you standing on the edge of the moon pool.

“A little faster, please?” You yelled, grabbing Natasha’s arm and pulling her into the water, giving her barely enough time to pull her oxygen mask back on.

You didn’t let go of her arm as you started cutting through the water. She could feel the blood pulling back from her limbs and pooling back in her core, and she felt like dead weight. Your momentum slowed as you pulled her up and wrapped your arm around her waist.

But then the muffled sirens stopped, and you both turned around just in time to see a flash. Natasha’s body wouldn’t react, just felt like lead as you pulled her closer, curling up around her until she was completely covered in you. The distorted explosion reached Natasha’s ears just as she felt the shock wave propel you both further away.

The spinning seemed to last forever, and Natasha felt like even her brain was spinning along with the rest of her body. She didn’t know when it stopped, couldn’t tell when you were still. It was impossible to tell what was up, down, where the surface was, how deep she was, how close she was to death.

Until you pulled away slightly and looked at her.

Natasha went to take a breath and immediately felt freezing water shoot down her throat. She cut the breath off as quickly as possible, but it was too late. The water was deep in her lungs, freezing each individual cell from the inside out. She didn’t have an oxygen mask anymore.

There was a split second where your eyes met hers, and they almost seemed to turn black before she felt your free hand close her nose. She was about to push you away when she felt your lips on hers, cold and chapped. You pulled her closer and teased her lips open, and she didn’t fight it. If she was about to die, then at least she would die happy.

And then you exhaled, and her lungs inflated and felt just a little lighter, and the darkness inched away.

You pulled your mouth away and started swimming again, presumably heading up though Natasha couldn’t tell anymore. Every few seconds you would exhale more oxygen into her lungs, keeping her alive as you dragged both of your freezing bodies back to safety.

As soon as you broke the surface, Natasha gasped and filled her lungs with fresh air before coughing the water back out. She was freezing, her limbs felt like lead, and her body was aching from the inside out. And yet you continued to pull her along, swimming to shore until you could pull her up with you.

The rocks on the shore poked into her suit, leaving bruises that would grow very quickly once she got back to the safe house. You laid on the shore too, back down, small pebbles sticking to your gills. From the way they twitched, it was clearly uncomfortable, if not painful.

You both stayed there, laying in the freezing tide, rocks and pebbles sticking into your skin to the point where you would both be recovering for weeks. Natasha’s eyes wanted to close; sleep seemed to wonderful and it would have been so easy. You could both just sleep and not hurt anymore.

But death was not in the cards, and Natasha wasn’t going to let a little cold win.

She rolled onto her stomach slowly, as fast as her body would allow, before pushing herself up to her knees and then her feet. It was painful; her body felt heavy and little pinpricks were on every inch of her skin. But she wasn’t going to think about it. Instead, she grabbed your arm and yanked you up, ignoring the gasps and hisses that you let out.

“Two miles left,” Natasha mumbled; her lips felt frozen shut.

The walk was slow; neither of you had the energy nor the warmth to make decent time. You both stumbled, tripping over your own feet, or the rocks, or the uneven terrain. But eventually you made it, right as the sun was at its highest point in the sky and Natasha almost felt the ghost of warmth in her cheeks.

“Sit down,” Natasha demanded as she threw the door open. She didn’t bother looking back before moving to grab the space heater and put it directly in front of the couch.

Your eyes were dead; they didn’t shine the way they were supposed to. Your hands kept a death grip on the blankets pulled tight over your shoulders. The shakiness in your body had disappeared, now completely still. It felt like a hole was punched through Natasha’s chest, grabbing her heart and ripping it out.

She sat on the sofa opposite you and just watched you. Hoping that you would move, that you would blink, that you would start shivering again. She didn’t know how long it normally took you to warm back up, didn’t know how long it would take for you to get back to normal. But she did know the word you had used for this condition before; you were torpid.

It felt like hours later, but Natasha’s eyes shot back to your face once she heard a wheezy gasp come from you. Your eyes looked glassy, but you blinked once, slowly, before a shiver wracked your body. Just one. But that was enough for Natasha to feel the vice grip around her throat release.

The ringing of the safe house phone made you both jump.

“Romanoff,” Natasha answered, her eyes travelling back to you.

“You’re safe?” Maria asked through the phone.

“Y/N’s torpid, but we’re secure,” Natasha said curtly. Her pulse was starting to increase.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Maria asked again.

No. No, Natasha wasn’t sure.

“I’m good,” Natasha replied anyway, “just ready to get out of here.”

“About that…”

“Don’t say it,” Natasha mumbled. She leaned against the wall and let her head fall back.

“A storm is rolling in and we won’t get to you in time,” Maria continued anyway. “You’re stuck there for a few days.”

Natasha looked over to you again, noting the rise and fall of your shoulders as you slowly, painfully pulled another blanket over your body, this time covering your head. The flush hadn’t come back to your cheeks yet, but you were moving. She could work with that.

“Will we keep power?” Natasha asked, although she already knew the answer.

“Questionable,” Maria answered anyway, “but the generator is in the back room.”

“How much can she manage?”

“She can handle one room. Use her wisely.”

One room. Not enjoyable, but manageable.

“Keep the phone plugged in?” Natasha asked.

“Preferably,” Maria answered, the sound of a smile coming through the phone. “I’d like to talk to you every now and then.”

“Then it’ll be ready,” Natasha replied with her own small smile. She missed Maria. She missed her a lot.

“I’ll try to call after the storm hits, test out the line,” Maria continued.

“I’ll be waiting for your call, then,” Natasha continued.

“You two are disgusting,” you called from the sofa, and Natasha was brought back to the current situation.

Right.

“Go check on the fish,” Maria sighed, “and keep yourselves warm.”

“Yes ma’am,” Natasha teased.

She stood up and hung up the phone before turning to check on you. You were shivering steadily, and your eyes were looking around. There was the faintest blush to your cheeks and forehead and your lips were looking slightly less chapped.

“W-what’s the w-word, bird?” You asked, looking up to meet her eyes.

“We’re stuck for a few days,” Natasha sighed as she sat on the sofa opposite you. Unlike you, she could heat up quickly. Now the cold was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

“So basically,” you started, “they’re leaving me to die.”

“No one is leaving you to die,” Natasha huffed, rolling her eyes.

“Yes they are.”

“You’re so dramatic,” Natasha shook her head. “You have every blanket in the house wrapped around you, how are you not warming up?”

“Because I can’t warm up like that and you know it,” you groaned before falling back against the mountain of blankets.

“I’m not putting up with this right now,” Natasha said, all concern from earlier gone. “Give me a blanket, I’m going to get some sleep.”

“Take the one off the top,” you pouted, “it’s not helping much anyway.”

Natasha walked over and grabbed the blanket you had mentioned, pretending not to notice the ice and pebbles still currently sticking to your gills. You looked absolutely miserable, and she felt a pang in her chest at the sight of your shivering frame.

But she couldn’t bring herself to say anything, instead just turning around and heading off to the one bedroom. She was going to get some sleep if it was the last thing she did.

Or so she thought.

Natasha woke up to darkness and a cold starting to seep through the blanket and her thermals. She planted her feet on the freezing floor and took a deep breath, not really prepared for the fact that the power was out, and she was going to need to watch you at all times to make sure you genuinely didn’t die.

She grabbed her blanket and the two pillows off the bed and made her way to the living room. There was a flickering glow on the walls, and she walked in to see you sitting in front of the space heater and a fire. The generator was more quiet than she had expected, but it still released a constant thrum throughout the safe house.

“When did-” Natasha cut herself off, her eyes having locked onto the bloody gauze and minuscule shrapnel pieces littering the floor.

“About three hours ago,” you replied, either ignoring her hesitation or not caring. “You were out for about seven.”

“Did Maria call?” Natasha asked, trying to walk around you without seeming obvious.

“Yeah,” you nodded. Natasha could see your eyes focused on your abdomen, shaky hands moving deftly. “Said the storm would last for about two day from the time she called.” You looked up with a raised brow. “And that she loves you.”

Natasha finally got a good look at what you had been doing while she was asleep. A jagged piece of metal was sticking out of the left side of your abdomen. There were numerous blood spots on the remainder of your suit, and some bloody tweezers and towels were on the floor in front of you.

“What happened?” Natasha asked, eyes still zeroed in on your side.

“From the blast,” you shrugged before looking back down to continue picking shrapnel out of your skin.

The blast? Natasha hadn’t gotten any kind of injury from the situation, aside from a headache and maybe some oxygen deprivation, but she didn’t recall anything hitting her. Why had it hit-

Oh.

Oh of course.

She was torn. She wanted to help, was desperate to fix you up so you wouldn’t hurt or bleed. But it would have been crossing a line; you never wanted anyone’s help. On top of that, anyone’s hands on your skin made you uncomfortable.

But you were doing such a bad job.

“Give it to me,” Natasha said. She held her hand out as she sat down beside you, already using her other hand to start taking the blankets off of your shoulders.

You huffed and started grumbling to yourself, but handed the tweezers over anyway. She finally made it down to your skin and found the true culprit of the metal sticking out of your side; an entry wound on your back, near your left shoulder.

“You pushed it forward so you could reach it, didn’t you?” Natasha asked as she got to work on the piece, picking smaller pieces out as she found them.

“Does it matter?” You asked. Natasha didn’t answer, instead just pushing the piece out of your skin and ignoring the hiss of pain you sent her way.

“Hand me the first aid kit,” Natasha demanded. You grumbled again but did as you were told.

It was quick work patching you back up; your low blood pressure was very beneficial in the moment, and she wasn’t worried about you bleeding out before you could get back to the tower. You wouldn’t be comfortable, but at least you would be safe.

Once she was sure you weren’t going to ooze through the gauze, Natasha gathered the bloody articles and got up to throw them away. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see you pulling the blankets back over your shoulders, wincing every now and then when you twisted the wrong way.

When Natasha got back and sat down on the sofa, she just watched you. Watched your slowed breathing, the occasional shiver, the inaudible groan when you shifted. You looked miserable, but at least you were breathing and talking.

“I’m bored.”

Maybe she didn’t like that you were talking.

“Then you’re going to have a rough few days,” Natasha answered.

“But I’m bored,” you whined. “Help me not be bored.”

“You’re an adult, find something to do,” Natasha shot back. She got up and walked over to the bookshelf, leafing through things that she knew she wasn’t going to read, but was hoping it would give you the idea to find something.

“If I get too bored then I’ll die,” you sighed. “Do you want me to die?”

Natasha turned her head slowly and raised her brow at you.

“How dare you,” you whispered.

She turned her head back to the bookshelf so you wouldn’t see the smile desperately trying to show on her face. Your sounds of indignation continued to reach her ears, so she hurriedly picked the next book her fingers touched and walked back to the couch.

You both sat in silence for a while, and Natasha actually managed to get some reading done. She had no idea what the story was actually about, but that didn’t matter. All that really mattered was that she was killing time, and if she killed enough time then it would be time for her to go back home and forget any of this had ever happened.

“Nat, I’m bored,” you said again after more silence.

“I already told you to find something to do,” Natasha replied without looking up from her book. “I’m not going to find something for you.”

“Fine,” you grumbled as you pushed yourself up from the floor. “I’ll do it myself.”

Natasha sighed but let you go. She didn’t look up, but she was still hyper aware of where you were in the safe house. Aware of each step you took, of each cabinet you opened. Just knowing where you were gave her a sense of comfort.

“Wanna play a game?” You shouted from the other side of the safe house.

It was going to be a long few days.

———

“Connect four,” Natasha said as she slid her red chip into place. Again.

“Connect four my ass, you fucking cheater,” you said as you tried to find out just where Natasha had cheated.

“How do you cheat at connect four?” Natasha asked, a smile threatening to show through her facade.

“I don’t know, but you did,” you said, pointing your finger at her. In turn, Natasha just chuckled and took another sip of her vodka.

Two empty bottles were on the kitchen counter.

“I demand a rematch,” you said again, giving her a deathly stare.

“You’ve been saying that for the past 37 matches,” Natasha said simply.

“Fine, then we’ll play another game,” you said quickly. “We’ve got… Clue, Monopoly, Parcheesi.”

“We’ve played all of those, Y/N,” Natasha pointed out.

“Doesn’t matter, we’ll play them again and again until I win and you stop cheat-”

The sound of the generator shutting down made the both of you fall silent. Almost instantly, Natasha noticed the cold soak into your bones and your body start shaking. Your teeth clattered and you instinctively pulled the blankets tighter.

“That’s not good,” Natasha whispered. Her voice seemed to echo in the now-silent house.

“It’s cold, Talia,” you shivered. You sounded like a scared little kid.

It broke Natasha’s heart.

She didn’t know if it was the butterflies or the alcohol, but she ignored the feeling in her stomach and moved over until she was sitting directly next to you. Her hand lifted the blankets up so she could get under them, and then found her arms wrapping around your shoulders and pulling you against her.

Your body was tense against her, but it relaxed quickly once you were settled. There was a peace about you that Natasha hadn’t felt in months, since before that mission so long ago. And your body relaxed against hers gave Natasha more peace than she could ever hope to get with anyone else.

“You’re ridiculously warm,” you mumbled from under the blankets.

“It’s a gift,” Natasha teased. You chuckled, but then sat up and switched the positions, pulling Natasha into your lap.

“You’re warmer this way,” you mumbled as you laid your head against her neck. Your breath tickled her skin.

Sitting in your lap was a dangerous place to be.

“We can’t do this,” Natasha said softly.

“We’re still on a mission,” you said, your lips moving against her skin. “It doesn’t count if it’s on a mission.”

“You know that’s not true,” Natasha said. You lifted your head and looked at her.

She could see the flush in your cheeks, going down your neck and tinting your gills. There was a darkness to your eyes, reminiscent of the inky water you two had escaped from. And just like that water, they pulled Natasha in. Pulled her in and held her captive as they engulfed her completely until there was nothing else but her and the water.

“It can be,” you whispered, moving in slowly.

“Don’t kiss me,” Natasha said so softly, her voice more like the ghost of a whisper.

“Say it like you mean it,” you said, now only a fraction of an inch away.

“I can’t,” Natasha whispered around the knot in her throat.

She could feel your breath on her lips, could feel the way your fingers were digging into her thigh and hip. The fire left a warm glow on your face, illuminating the scars, the shaved hair that was starting to grow back in, the sparkle of the inviting water in your eyes.

And Natasha wanted to dive in.

Until the rumble of a quinjet landing nearby shocked her out of her trance. She pushed herself off of your lap, rushing to the door as quickly as possible and throwing it open to see Maria standing on the cargo door.

“Need a lift?” Maria asked over the roar of the quinjet.

“And a medic,” you said, suddenly appearing behind Natasha. You had ditched the blankets and were standing tall, although Natasha could see the slight shake in your hands.

“Lucky for you, we’ve got both,” Maria said with a smile, ushering for the both of you to hop in.

Natasha got in first and looked back to help you in, but you ignored her outstretched hand and crawled in on your own, face scrunched in pain as your wounds pulled. You didn’t look at her when you passed, instead heading straight to the medic and letting him get a look at your injuries.

You ignored Natasha the entire trip home.

Natasha swore everyone on the jet could hear her heart explode the same way the underwater base had.

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha x reader #black widow x reader #marvel #my writing

301 notes · View notes

monstersandmaw · 5 years

Text

Mute male siren x female reader (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

This is a tier reward for a lovely patron who wanted a siren who's never been able to use his voice, and is thus treated poorly by his own kind for being 'useless' in their eyes. Hope you enjoy!

It’s been up on my Patreon for a while now, so if you want to have access to stories before they go up on Tumblr, plus a number of exclusive rewards, access to our Discord server, polls, artwork, character concepts, etc. then head on over and check it out!

___

It was the eerie melody - almost more of a feeling in your chest than a sound in your ears - that drew you out onto the jetty from the beach where you’d been walking barefoot, flip-flops dangling from the fingers of one hand. You knew about the shoal of sirens who lived and hunted off the reef that guarded Starfall Bay, but you’d never seen them; they didn’t come too close to shore very often after all, preferring the vast open waters of the channel beyond.

Something about their song that afternoon seemed harsh, cruel, despite the plainchant beauty of it and a tear spilled from your eye before you’d even noticed it forming. The song faded as the sirens clearly dived back down again, and it left you strangely hollow. Humans were far from immune to the hunting calls and songs of those hauntingly strange creatures, and in the silent wake of their absence, you found yourself humming softly. The tune was a cheerful one as you tried to rally your spirits a little.

Squinting against the reflections of the strong summer sun against the rippling water, you clambered down to sit on the edge of the dock so that you could dangle your feet in the cool, clear water. A little crab scuttled around in the rocks beneath the jetty’s pilings, minding its own business, and you watched him for a bit. As the hairs on your arms prickled suddenly, you looked up and found that you were not alone.

Lying half slumped over a nearby rock which had been smoothed by the constant caress of the sea was a creature that was unmistakably a siren. You frowned, wondering what they could be doing just metres from the shoreline, and half-hauled out of the water. Something about their size and shape suggested that they were male, and you stared openly at the stunning colours of his tail and upper body. The thick muscle was covered with inky blue scales which were in turn dotted here and there with pearlescent scales. It brought to mind the clearest of night skies. The fan of his tail was feathered and spread out in the water behind him, while his upper body was smooth and free of scales. His skin there, however, was a dark blue-grey, and he had little fins of iridescent blue at his elbows. Plastered to his head and hanging halfway down his back, his hair was black as an oil slick, and he stared at you with huge, dolorous, sapphire eyes, blinking slowly.

“Hi,” you called, waving. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a siren up here before. Do you come here a lot?”

He waved back, somewhat hesitantly, and then gestured with a clawed hand at his throat, opening his mouth silently.

“Oh,” you said. “You don’t speak…? Is that right?”

In answer, he gave a slow, sad nod, those bright, completely blue eyes turning down to stare at a spot of vivid green seaweed on the rock.

Something about his dejected posture made you keep talking, so you asked, “Do you know Sign?”

His head jerked back up at that and he tilted it curiously to one side in a silent question.

“You know, Sign Language?” you asked. “It’s what people who can’t hear or talk - or sometimes both - use to communicate. They use their hands.”

The siren froze but his lips parted in soft astonishment, eyes wide with wonder. He clearly hadn’t known that there were other ways of expressing himself, and your heart twisted at the anguish in his storm-blue eyes.

“My friend teaches it,” you went on, thinking on your feet. “I don’t know it myself, but if you’d like to learn, I’m sure I can ask him for you.”

He nodded emphatically but then went still again.

“What? What’s wrong?”

He made an empty kind of cough, mouth opening in an unvoiced hiss of frustration - more of a choke, really - flashing razor sharp teeth. Then he looked back at you and rubbed his thumb against his fingertips in the gesture that said ‘money’ almost the world over. He’d clearly been around landfolk often enough to have picked that one up.

Waggling your legs slowly through the water as you thought, you pouted and then said, “I can ask if he’d be willing to help out anyway… He’s the kind of guy that would do that.”

The hope that kindled in those sad eyes nearly tore your chest in two.

“I’ll ask him right now. Hang on.”

One quick text later and Jera was agreeing to come down to the beach in ten minutes to meet the siren. The bright green of the lizardfolk’s tail seemed to fascinate your siren, and the two of them seemed to hit it off almost immediately. You couldn’t help but notice the way he flinched away though whenever either of you made a sudden gesture or raised your voices - even to laugh - and as you and Jera made your way back up the beach after promising to return the next morning, your friend voiced his concerns.

“For a siren to have no voice…” he muttered darkly. “He must be the lowest of the low… he…”

“He seems to desperate to communicate,” you commented.

Jera shook his head and made a soft growl like an alligator. “It’s more than that. They use their voices for everything: hunting, mating, socialising… Without that, he… he has no role, no function.”

Your heart ached for him and you said, “You mind if I sit in on the lessons too? That way he’s got me to talk to as well…”

“I kind of assumed you’d want that anyway,” Jera grinned. “We’ll start tomorrow.”

Over the next three weeks, you and Jera spent hours down at the shore with the siren. He was literate as it turned out, and at the start of your first lesson he wrote his name with a talon in the hard, wet sand.

“Ilta,” Jera repeated, looking up at him. “That means ‘evening’,” he added, and both of you eyed the starry night sky of Ilta’s tail.

“Appropriate,” you grinned and Ilta blushed darker. His face was so sharply defined, his features so intense and clearly belonging to a predator, that to see him turn a little softer sent a thrill through you.

When he saw the way you smiled, he signed, “Thank you,” with a hesitant and bashful hand.

One morning perhaps a month into your daily lessons, as you hurried through the town, with your heart fluttering and your chest light with excitement to see him again, your phone buzzed and you paused at the harbour to read the text.

Jera: Hey, I can’t make it today - something’s come up and they need me to cover for another member of staff at school. Sorry! x

You replied that it was fine, and that you and Ilta could practise together anyway. However, he wasn’t there when you got to your usual meeting spot in the cove, and a stab of worry hit you like a hammer blow. Eventually, after thirty long minutes of pacing the sand and staring at the water, the surface of the sea rippled in a rush of bubbles, and you saw Ilta’s dark tail propelling him towards you.

“Hey,” you called, waving to him, but when you saw how dejected he looked, how broken down, you knelt in the water, heedless of the splashing waves, and held out your arms to him. “Come here,” you murmured.

He lay in your lap, his chest heaving silently, and he flung his lean, muscular arms around your waist. Stroking his wet hair seemed to calm him and after a moment you felt him shiver. “Ilta, what happened?” you asked softly, but he only tightened his grip on you and buried his face from sight. “Ok, it’s ok,” you crooned. “I’m here.”

After a while, you recalled something that Jera had said about song being so important to the everyday life of a siren, and you began to hum quietly. It was the tune you’d sung on the day you’d first met him; a variation of a folk melody that had always cheered you up when your grandmother had sung it to you. Within seconds, his body went limp beneath your touch and he let his hands fall to the sand on either side of your thighs. He listened to you sing it through twice before he took a deep, shuddering breath, and then pushed himself upright.

His strange gaze met yours and he reached a lethally-clawed hand for your throat, his fingertips just brushing against your skin as you continued to sing. The urge to stop was overwhelming, but something made you keep humming. He blinked slowly, dark lips slightly parted, and he continued to touch you. Eventually he withdrew his hand and signed an embarrassed, “Thank you… I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” you asked, using your hands instead of your voice now.

He shuffled slightly, splashing you as he got comfortable enough that he could sit half-coiled up on himself, balanced and able to use both hands to speak. “Sorry,” he grinned as you wiped the droplets off your face with a quiet laugh. “I… I had a bad day with my shoal.”

“What do you mean?”

He rolled his eyes in frustration, though it wasn’t directed at you. “They use their voices on me,” he admitted.

“I don’t understand…” you said gently, movements of your hands small, quiet, faltering.

He turned his gaze back to meet yours and said, “You know how we hunt, right? We lure our prey in and then we use our voices to stun them. The sounds are…” he paused, frowning, searching for a way to explain it to you. “You know how some whales hunt by blasting sound at fish, making the air inside them expand or leaving them twitching and immobile…”

Horror slid into your stomach and you stared at him. “They did that to you?”

Ilta nodded. “They’ve always done it,” he went on. “But since I’ve been coming here and learning to talk another way, they’ve been doing it more and more. I… I can’t defend myself from that.”

“Can you leave?” you blurted aloud.

He shrugged. “Probably, but only if I stayed in and around the harbour. I learned to hunt in the shallows the way other merfolk do, with a spear of sharpened shell, but they think that’s hilarious of course.”

You made a disgusted noise in the back of your throat and he smiled broadly.

“What?”

“I love the noises you make,” he said. “Sometimes it’s just really cute and other times it’s beautiful. You have a lovely voice you know?”

You snorted softly, flushing. “You should have heard my grandmother. She was a real singer.”

“What’s a real singer?” he asked.

“You know, someone who sings for audiences… People pay to come and hear her…”

“Oh,” he said. “You sang for me though,” he added, his movements suddenly shrinking down to barely-there twitches of his hands. He’d picked it up much more quickly than you had, and you almost missed what he said.

“I couldn’t think of any other way to make you feel better,” you said shyly. “Did it work?”

“Yeah.” It was obvious that there was more to it though, but he didn’t go on immediately.

“Did… Did I do something wrong?” you asked, trying to catch his eye but he was too busy looking at a patch of bare sand just beside you.

He shook his head.

“Then what is it…?”

He swallowed and looked up at you at last. “It’s something a mate might do,” he said with trembling fingers. “No one has ever done anything like that for me before. I thought they never would… you know… because of…” he finished by gesturing weakly at his voiceless throat.

Feeling brave, you reached for his face and traced your thumb across his cheekbone. “Ilta,” you said and he brought his hand up to your throat again before dropping it so that he could speak.

“I love your voice,” he said. “I wish I could sing for you. I wish… I…” His hands fell limply into the water beside his tail and he sighed. Slowly he brought the fingers of his right hand up to his own throat, claws digging into the muscle of his neck. For a horrible moment you thought he might hurt himself, but he relaxed a second later and opened his mouth. As he exhaled, gills flaring briefly in his neck, he let out a wet choking sound. It was just air in his throat, with no vocalisation at all. “I can’t,” he signed. “I’ve never been able to…”

You took his hands in yours briefly once he’d stopped talking and kissed his knuckles gently. “I know it’s… it’s been awful for you,” you said as you continued to kiss his cold skin, “But… I think that not having a voice has made you partly who you are. I’m not saying I wouldn’t love you if you could sing, but… I love who you are, Ilta. I love spending time with you and listening to your stories about what it’s like underwater… I would never have known any of that if I hadn’t met you.”

Ilta listened to your words and stared at you, stunned, barely breathing. Eventually he slid his hands free of yours and asked, “You mean that?”

“Of course I do,” you reassured him.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked immediately, and when you nodded, he grinned again.

He knocked you back into the sand, pressing his whole body against yours, and it was as if his touch became his song. Silently, he sculpted his feelings for you against your skin, running his hands up your legs, his gills working as he became more and more aroused by the feel of you. He lifted your top and raked his teeth over your warm skin, making you gasp and cry out. The cove was mercifully pretty empty, with only a few people about, but they were a long way off.

His fluke flailed in the surf as he dragged himself up towards your shoulders, his body still pressed along yours. His long hair fell to one side and you looked up into his eyes. “You were going to kiss me,” you grinned.

Ilta’s answering smile was sharp and wicked but full of fondness, and he kissed you hard enough that you let out a low moan. One of his cold hands wrapped lightly around your throat as you continued to mewl and groan under his touch, and you knew that his touch was his answering song for you. Together, the two of you made a song of your own. When you said as much, he tipped his head back, almost in victory, and rutted up against your thigh, his scales suddenly slick where they touched you.

Ilta continued to touch you with reverence and wonder until you could no longer stop the sounds from falling from you. He took every single one of them and returned them with his body until the two of you were gasping together, sharing a breath as he spilled his release across your thighs, his forehead pressed to your collarbones and his fingers tangled in your hair.

With one final, soft, decadent moan, you kissed the top of his head and he signed something vague that might have been ‘thank you’ but you weren’t quite sure. To be fair though, you weren’t in a much better position to be articulating anything either.

—

I really hope you folks enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to let me know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!

For all early releases, character art and bios, upcoming story info, and much, much more, join me over on Patreon!

You’ll have access to stories before anyone else, and you’ll get instant access Patreon-only content as well, including polls and an exclusive monthly story for those on the Pixies and Goblins tier or higher!

#merman #siren #exophilia #monster boyfriend #merman boyfriend #siren boyfriend #sign language #mute character #patreon reward #commission

2K notes · View notes