#the siren writes

[mournfulroses]

Nina Mclaughlin, from "Wake, Siren," originally published in November 2019

[dilatorywriting]

Monster Mayhem: Siren's Song [Part 5]

Gender Neutral Reader x Vil Schoenheit Word Count: 6.8k

Summary: 'Rule 27: It’s a poor choice to help a hare at high noon, but it will certainly appreciate you if you do.'

WARNING for some descriptions of violence

[PART 1] [PART 1.5] [PART 2] [PART 3] [PART 4] [PART 5]

You’d first set foot on The Rose Queen when you were the tender age of eleven. Or, well, something close to that. It wasn’t like most peasant orphans were taught numbers, let alone how to interpret calendars well enough to mark the passing of years.

It was the first ship you’d ever seen up close—sleek, and salt-stained, and creaking beneath your toes. The Boy King at its helm had turned his nose up at you in his too big coat, with his too big boots and tricorn hat that kept slipping down over his eyes. It was a ragtag crew that you’d wandered into, made of nothing but runaways and street rats. The ship itself was just as unusual and fresh-faced. It was built in a very impractical sort of way, with hallways that led to nowhere and portholes that opened up into endless seas of shadow where you could tumble down, down, down for hours and never see an end (or so you’d been warned). There were paintings on the walls, all off-centered and hanging on crooked nails that wobbled with every dip in the waves. The masts and rails were stained a deep, bloody red, in honor of its title. And no matter how the raging winds and waves battered at those petals, your Captain would have you out there the next morning to paint them anew. The Rose Queen was the finest pirate ship in all the ocean, and you only half-said that out of personal bias.

The vessel of the Silver Songbirds was… not like that.

It was grand, certainly. But there was a barren cleanliness to it that didn’t feel lived in. Sure, Riddle’d had you literally scrubbing stains out of the deck with a toothbrush and pot of turpentine, but this was different. Sterile, rather than squeaky. The wood planks didn’t whine with a weary, seaworthy groan beneath your feet that you could feel through the heel of your boots—as if to reassure you it was there. The air smelled of salt, sure, and you could see a group of gulls circling overhead, but the whole of it felt… empty. Lonely.

The black haired man led you to a small, private room in the ship’s hull. That alone was strange. You’d been sharing quarters for the whole of your seafaring career. This new little suite of yours had a bed, and white paint on the walls, and a porthole for a window. He gently coaxed you into sitting at the foot of the mattress and readjusted the coat resting along your shoulders. His smile was soft, kind. The sort of warm, pretty expression that you could read about in a love poem.

You remembered your Siren’s vicious, pointed smirk—red, and haughty, and sharp enough to cut glass—and fought a pang of something you absolutely refused to put a name to.

When you blinked back into focus, his lips were moving in a slow, steady flow and you focused your best on the shape of them. It was hard, with how placid his expression was—with how little there was to make out of anything he was attempting to get across. And whether it be your furrowed brow or a sudden memory that oh right, you’d told him your ears worked as well as a three-legged horse pulling a one-wheeled cart, he startled into silence. His face twisted up with chagrin, and he offered you an apologetic smile with round, pink cheeks.

He fumbled around in his pockets for a piece of paper and scribbled out a hasty note to press into your palms.

‘My name is Neige Leblanche, and I���ll be taking care of you for this journey.’

You paused, fingers worrying at the sides of the neat, square bit of parchment. It felt right to offer your own name in return. That would be the polite thing, surely. But you paused, throat tight with uncertainty and a prickling, unpleasant sort of heat. Because you’d never even told your Siren your name, had you? Not even once.

And beneath that sudden, sour gut punch was something else.

‘Rule 116, your name is not a number, but it is your value. Do not offer it to any whose own interests are undue.’

The first time Ace had found himself with a wanted poster (‘Ugly,’ he’d complained, bitter. ‘How am I supposed to hook any tail with this? I look like a mutant potato. This stupid portrait is worse than prison.’), Riddle had taken your handwritten Book of Rules and underlined that one thrice over. You hadn’t thought much of it until you’d had to cut a hangman’s noose from around your idiot, foxy friend’s throat—the handiwork of the tavern folk he’d been boasting to only an afternoon before. And then it had made sense. Ace had survived (with a new, grand tale of woe that he liked to repeat ad nauseum until you wished you’d left him strung up), but the lesson had remained.

Carefully you swallowed the words resting on your tongue and offered a polite-ish nod in their place.

“Nice to meet you, sir. Thank you. For saving me.”

Neige shook his head in a panicked sort of rush, hands waving back and forth with a clear ‘none of that! None of that!’ before reaching back into his pockets to search for another note.

‘It was my honor,’ he wrote, words jumbled and sloppy in his haste. ‘It’s the duty of all officers to help those in need.’

Your brow pinched. Officer? Officer of what?

Your Siren had called these Songbirds dangerous. ‘Not safe’ written into the sand over and over again with his curled claws. You didn’t know much of mainland politics and other such nonsense, but maybe there was some sort of… Siren Hunting Order? Soldiers of the King sent out to scour the seas and keep them safe for a host of weary, would-be-merman-meals? That would make sense. It would make a lot of sense, actually.

Another note was pressed into your hands.

‘How did you end up stranded on that island?’

Islet, you wanted to correct petulantly. Riddle would have. Your Siren would have.

You opened your mouth and hesitated. Telling Nigel, or Nergal, or whatever his name was that your ship had been besieged by a pod of ravenous mers (and one fair-faced asshole who you already missed far, far too—) was as good as serving them up on a silver platter, wasn’t it? Siren hunters probably traded information like how pirates traded maps or merchants traded gold. And you’d be damned if your loose tongue was what led to your friend companion co-strandee’s family being hunted for sport just after he’d finally managed to make his way home again.

So you stiffened your upper lip and turned to look your savior in the eye.

“I fell overboard,” you said, firm. “Because I’m an idiot.”

He blinked, startled, and you could recognize the spluttered ‘…oh’ shaping his lips.

He handed you another scribbled bit of parchment, gaze averted and awkward.

‘I’m sorry.’

“Never apologize to the half-wit for whatever fallacy of their own led to them falling into the pit,” you recited naturally, and Nigel startled. His doe eyes went round with confusion and he tilted his head at you like a curious hound. Nothing intimidating, more like some kind of fluffy cocker spaniel or primped up lapdog staring up at you with too-long-lashes and too-few-thoughts.

You shrugged.

“Just a rule I was supposed to follow,” you shrugged off. You offered a slanted grin. “Though when you’re the idiot in question, it can be pretty hard to avoid.”

Neville smiled at you with a soft sort of laugh that you swore you could feel dancing along your skin.

Another note.

‘I’ll be back in a bit. Please enjoy the amenities here and get some rest. If you need anything, let us know and I’ll get it sorted personally.’

You dipped your chin in thanks and collapsed back against the small, flat mattress in the corner. It was soft, sturdy, probably good for your back and all that nonsense. The sheets were crisp and white, and they rubbed blandly at your weary hide. You could smell the lingering, sharp fragrance of some kind of tacky soap in the cotton. Totally not unpleasant at all. Theoretically, it should have actually been the best bed you’d ever slept in. But a part of you missed swaying back and forth in a net hammock, and an even bigger part missed plopping down in the sand with the heat of a crackling fire at your front and the even steadier warmth of the long, curling, press of gemstone scales at your back.

You flopped over onto your side and stared at the empty, carefully manicured surface of the desk opposite you and wished more than anything that you’d brought your shell.

.

.

The room was cold when you next woke, and you shivered into the jacket Neige had draped along your shoulders (because it was ‘Neige.’ It had been signed on the bottom of the note he’d left you that morning alongside your breakfast. Which was stupid. The dumbest name you’d ever heard). The starched fabric of it all wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was better than shivering through the chilly ocean mists that were seeping in through the porthole.

You burrowed into the swathe of white and blue wool like a rabbit in a hole, and then winced in irritation when another of those stupid, gaudy pins dug into your cheek.

You plucked the first from its place—the duo of silver songbirds. It really was quite pretty, despite the ominous undertones and all. Two, graceful, delicate sets of feathered wings arching up into the sky—forever frozen in a dance to the clouds. You dropped it into the little, dark crevice between your bed and the wall. Good riddance.

Next came a crest that was familiar in a distant sort of way—a memory that tickled that back of your brain from days long past. You hadn’t noticed it before, what with the echoes of ‘not safe, not safe, not safe’ blaring in your head like an alarm, but it was just as neatly polished as the birds pinned above. It was diamond shaped, the edges embossed in twining lines like the cut of a rope. At its head sat a strange sort of crown, with the arches and more familiar pointed designs replaced by the billowing arcs of sails.  All of that gallantry surrounded a pair of rearing stallions—hooves crossed along a golden edged sword and circled with blue ivy.

You twisted it between your fingers, watching the metal glint in the low light. You hadn’t set foot in proper society since Riddle had let your young, dumb self abscond into the ocean all those years ago. You could hardly remember the flag of our home country, let alone the specifics.

You frowned and the edges of the badge pricked at your fingers.

You dropped this one behind the bed too, with a petulant flick of your wrist to make sure it really stuck.

.

.

‘I’m sorry I haven’t been around more often, there’s some business I’ve been having to take care of.’

You handed the note back with a shrug.

“It’s no bother.”

Neige offered an apologetic grimace nonetheless and another of those smiles that looked a bit too sweet to be real.

‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’

You bristled before you could help it, thoughts spiraling away to harpoons, and nets, and hunting parties. And then you settled your shoulders into a polite, easy line and offered one of your own too-put-together smiles in return.

“Yeah, sure. I mean, you saved me after all.”

Neige smiled again, easy and comfortable, and pressed another slip of parchment into your palms.

‘Where were you headed? When you fell overboard?’

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck you with a barbed cactus branch dipped in—

Ahem.

You cleared your throat in a way that was surely a Very Normal Person Thing To Do, and tried to ignore the fact that he was so brazenly attempting to map out his plan of attack—to pinpoint the route that the sirens had been chasing and run after it like hounds tracking a fresh scent. Which, to be fair, sirens were a scourge on the seas. Hundreds upon hundreds of good men and women had been lost to their crooning songs and wickedly sharp teeth. They were vicious, often cruel, and so much stronger than any mortal sailor that of course the world above would fear them. You’d been very much of the same opinion until only quite recently, and now—now you just couldn’t.

“I don’t know where we were going,” you lied, and Neige’s brow pinched in a dour, rejected kind of way. “But,” you tried, sprinkling in a touch of truth to make the lie go down easier, “I know we were coming from Port o'Bliss.”

He nodded, that uncongenial expression slipping off his face as easily as it’d settled there.

He rattled off something quick and bubbly, and you pointedly arched a brow. The brunette blushed bright pink and hastily scrabbled for another bit of paper.

‘Thank you for being so helpful. I know it can’t be easy.’

Your neutral expression froze on your face and when you smiled it felt more like a polite bearing of teeth. Did he know? Could he see right through you? Or worse, was he getting all the answers he wanted from you either way, no matter how you tried to coat it in a veneer of misdirection.

“Sure thing.”

He handed you another note, this time for his pocket. Crumpled and soft, the ink a bit smeared along the curling letters.

‘It’s a poor choice to help a heron at high noon,’ it said, ‘but it will certainly appreciate you if you do. So my thanks to you.’

Something settled in your gut at the familiarity, something deceptively warm and homey.

“It’s a hare,” you said, without much thought. “Not a heron.”

Neige nodded with a polite, smiling mumble that looked like another apology, and then left you to your own devices.

That night, a veritable feast was delivered to your tiny, white-walled cabin. A grand spread of food fit for a king. There was roasted fowl, pools of thick, spiced gravies, mountains of vegetables that you’d never even seen before. And tarts. So many colorful, fruity tarts that were so sweet they almost made your tongue curl.

“What’s the occasion?” you asked as Neige took a seat at your desk to nibble at the meal alongside you—a cloth napkin folded neatly across his nap and a clear glass flute for wine placed a bit precariously by his elbow.

He smiled, honey warm, and offered you another note.

‘For helping the hare.’

.

.

Neige didn’t come to visit you the next morning, and his absence had the hair at the nape of your neck standing on end.

You paced and paced around your cube of a barrack. It was maybe four steps from one end to the next, but the constant bumping your toes against the wall was better than just sitting there doing nothing. The worst part was the silence. Not the one in your head. Yes, yes, you were more than used to that. On and on, yada yada. But the silence of the ship. The Rose Queen had always felt like a living thing, a great, wooden beast with a pulse you could feel thrumming beneath your toes, your palms. All you had to do was lay a hand against its side and you could feel the rumble of the tide beyond, the rushing footsteps of sailors sprinting about to meet one of Riddle’s orders or other, the thump of heavy, wet mop heads smacking the deck overhead. It was quiet, but it wasn’t quiet. This ship? No matter how you laid against the boards or pressed flat to the walls, there was nothing. And it made you feel like you were trapped aboard a vessel full of ghosts.

The sun had long begun to set by the time Neige returned, and by then you were nothing but a livewire of nerves.

Had they found him? Your Siren? Was he there somewhere, just a few floors above—strung up like a fish in a net? Caught and displayed like a fine trophy? Or had they killed him outright? Had they found his pod? Had he put up a fight? Had he—

A piece of rolled parchment was held out for you to take, a satin blue ribbon tied along its belly. Neige’s soft, brown gaze was glued to the floor and you snatched the paper from his hands like a rabid cat and tore it open. You could barely keep your eyes steady to read it all—fine, pointed print done up in a neat hand.

‘—danger to those who venture—'

‘—for the safety of the people—’

‘—therefore, the decision has been made—'

‘—with the greatest consideration—’

‘—with immediate effect—'

‘—we have declared the extermination of—'

“You can’t!” you wailed, and Neige’s doe eyes darted up to yours and immediately away once more in guilt. “He’s—he’s not bad. I swear! I know how things look—and—and I know he’s not—that’s he’s a—but you can’t—”

Neige’s wavering stared jumped back to you in open surprise, and you saw his lips twitch on one word—delicate brows pinching in question.

‘He?’

You frowned and fought the urge to stomp your feet. Because, okay, fine. Sure, you were arguing tooth and nail for someone whose name you maybe didn’t even know. Someone who had swum away from your stupidly sentimental ass with all the power and grace of a beast fit to rule the depths of the oceans while you could barely flounder at its surface. And sure, sirens killed people and ate them. But this one was—he was special, and you’d be damned if you let some primped up fishermen try to reel him in on a hook just because he’d maybe eaten a few people. And—

There was a hand on your shoulder, and Neige was staring down at you with an expression not dissimilar to that of a parent about to tell their child that the cat had got out and met a terrible, squishy end beneath the wheels of your neighbor’s carriage. He sighed, dark lashes brushing along his cheeks, and then reached out with his other hand to tap a finger between your collar bones.

“What?” you snapped, and he tapped again. “Me? What about me?”

He paused, gaze meeting yours with a pointed sort of melancholy.

Oh.

Oh.

You remembered the pins you’d dropped behind your bed, one by one. You remembered the strange coat of arms crowned with golden sails and bearing a great, shining sword. Something regal, something imperial that a commoner like you would have only caught fleeting glimpses of in parades, and marches, and war calls.

Something like, say, Pyroxene’s Royal Naval Fleet.

You glanced down at the parchment again, crumpled between your fists, and smoothed it out into something legible beneath your fingers. You reread the text with careful focus.

‘For the Crime of Piracy’ it said. Right at the tippity top. In red ink.

“…ah,” you blinked. “That makes a lot more sense.”

.

.

You were to walk the plank on the ‘morrow.

Which honestly, you hadn’t even thought was really a Thing—walking the plank, argh. Fiddly dee and a yo-ho-ho. That sort of storybook nonsense. The parables that parents passed onto their children to try and scare them away from a life of villainy. Real pirates were put to the rack, or hanged in the town squares to scare the adults away from doing the same.

But you supposed it was practical, at least. Blood was hard to scrub out of wooden decks, so beheading would have been a bit of a mess. Bullets were best to be conserved out on the high seas where stocks were already low, and honestly, your body would just have to be thrown overboard anyways before it stunk up the barracks. So, like, doing it all in one would be quite efficient. You could appreciate that. 

Your hands would be bound at your back and you’d be given three breaths, three steps, and then you’d be tumbling down into the waves below. Claimed by the waters that you’d patrolled for so many years now. Fitting, honestly. Riddle would be proud (beneath the raging, spitting indignation of you being caught at all, but that was another matter). At least you wouldn’t be going out from food poisoning or something mundane like that, so that was a win. And who knew. Maybe your Siren would find you again when you were nestled to rest in some seabed not too far from here, and he could finally make a meal of your dumb ass yet. Happy endings abound.

You wondered idly at the dual branches of fate you’d wandered along in these past weeks, and if it would have been better to hide away when you’d first seen those sails on the horizon. To keep to the little, crescent island you’d found yourself on and slowly starved to death. Alone, abandoned, and sitting in a forever stillness worse than any silence you’d known before.  Forever staring out over the horizon for a glance of amethyst fins that you knew you’d never see again.

If given the choice between the two, you’d take the plank.

.

Neige brought you another feast that night, and you gorged on it merrily. 

When he nervously kept piling your plate with choice cuts after choice cuts, gaze diverted to the floor and looking like a kicked puppy dog with its tail between its legs, you rolled your eyes and swatted at his fingers.

“Unclench yourself,” you huffed, and he puffed up stuttery and pink in horror. “It’s not the end of the world. You’re just doing your job, right? If we’d met under different circumstances I bet I would have shot you first. So, really. All’s fair.”

He worried his lower lip between his teeth, guilt still swimming heavy and warm in those doe eyes of his.

He said something under his breath, something that you’d bet even if your ears were working at full capacity you wouldn’t have been able to parse out. He leaned forward to scrawl a note on the napkin beside your plate.

‘You’re happier now? After all this? I don’t get it.’

You reached out to pat him merrily on the shoulder, more a smack smack smack then anything really pleasant. He could see him fighting a wince with all the trembling sort of bravery of a field mouse. Poor dear. What was the Royal Navy thinking? Hiring on someone who looked like they belonged on an advert for rouge and sweets. This was the last face a pirate was expected to jeer into? This one? Really? It was a wonder this little, squirrely man hadn’t keeled over the first time someone spat on his boots.

“It’s a poor choice to help the fish at high noon,” you said around a mouthful of crumbs. “But it’s my choice. And I’m happy to do it.”

“Fish?” you saw him mouth, brow pinched, and you batted at his shoulder again before reaching for another of those too-sweet tarts.

.

.

There was a whole procession for your execution. With speeches. Which even with the slowly encroaching panic worming into your guts, you couldn’t help but think was at least a little funny.  

The whole crew was lined up in solemn formation, listening stalwartly to some judge, or high ranking officer, or whatever rattle off who even knew what. Your crimes? A homily? The lunch menu? Fuck if you had any clue. And you were the one being fed to the sharks. There had to be some joke hidden in here, right? The scoundrel pirate who could never be tried, simply because they couldn’t hear their own sentencing. You wouldn’t even know when to stand up and shout ‘I object!’ It would probably be pretty funny, right? If you just did that out of nowhere. And what was the worst that could happen? Oh, no. A fine. Please, sir. Add it to the list of debts I owe from beyond my watery grave. Amen.

A hand at your lower back gave you a gentle nudge forward and you shifted against the ropes binding your wrists. They were nicer than your own stores aboard the Rose Queen. Not nearly as itchy, the fibers neat and clearly expensive. Neige stepped up beside you and offered you a look that was likely meant to be kind, but your growing nerves had started to eat through your willingness to play friendly. You could feel the weight of the crew around you, even if you couldn’t hear them. The creak of the deck beneath your toes as they shifted about, the way their bulk must have been shielding you from the worst of the wind. Unlike with your own mismatched family of castaways, their presence wasn’t reassuring. And you kept your eyes locked forward and away from the field of sharp gazes eating into your hide.

The plank was narrow, and immediately you were fighting the urge to sway on your toes. Having your hands bound at your rear only made it worse. It threw off the whole of your center of gravity and had you feeling dizzy and seasick.

You took one breath, stuttery, and one step. The wood whined beneath your heels in a vibration you could feel all the way up to your knees.

Another breath, another step. You could feel the salt soaked board starting to bend now. Clearly it wasn’t meant to support much of anything, let alone a whole person. And for some reason the idea of it breaking beneath you was so much worse than taking that last step all on your own. A sudden plunge that was out of your control. It had your heart hammering in your throat and cold nausea bubbling in your belly.

You looked down. You didn’t want to, but it was like your gaze was a weighted, magnetic thing. Pulled down into the salty depths below. The water looked rougher than it had a moment ago, or maybe you were just really starting to panic. You could see the white froth of the wake breaking against the ship’s hull. It churned like the start of a storm, which was really, terribly inconvenient. Seeing as it’d been so still and calm just a few minutes before. And, y’know, the fact that you had to fall into that mess of sharp peaks and rocking waves. You swore you could see dark shapes flitting about just beneath the surface, a flash of grey, or maybe green. It was hard to tell, with the brightness of the early morning sun in your eyes.

No one was poking at your back, urging you forward, which you thought was quite odd. You’d been taking your sweet ol’ time sauntering to your demise. You’d assumed they’d have less patience for a pirate with cold feet. Instead, the world around you was just silent and still. Shifting with the raging waves below, but empty and quiet as a tomb for all you knew otherwise.

You took your last breath, your last step.

And then the ship lurched and you were plummeting towards the water. The dissonance between having something beneath your feet—no matter how frail—and then nothing was jarring, and it had you gasping on impulse. Hair whipping at your cheeks and lungs squeezing tight as the air screamed past your throat. It felt like you were drowning before you even hit the water.

When you did finally crash into the waves, it hurt. You’d always been a fairly proficient swimmer, but whether it be the mind numbing panic or the ropes binding you tight, tight, tight, you just started to sink. The salt stung like an open wound, and the water was cold. Frigid. Like being tossed into the jagged side of a glacier. You at least had the sense not to gulp down a mouthful of water out of reflex, but that didn’t make things much better.

You screwed your eyes shut, bubbles frothing at your nose, and tried to find that peace that you’d clung to all night long. A life for a life, one catch for another. No one was going to miss you anyways. And if you had to meet the reaper some way, then of all the ends the universe could have spun for you, at least this one had some meaning to it.

You sighed into the darkness, soft, but when your lips parted next around what should have been a mouthful of icy saltwater, all you could taste was air.

Your eyes shot open in the gloom to a mess of familiar golds and purples that you’d thought you’d never see again.

Your Siren pulled back, bubbles curling from the edge of his lips into a soft stream of warmth between the two of you. Nestling as deep as a full breath all the way in the tightest corners of your lungs. You could feel the dip of his claws as he settled his hands at your shoulders—keeping you in place. And immediately you shrieked and flailed in your bindings.

“You—!”

You promptly choked on another mouthful of sea water and your Siren wailed—all that molten fondness in those lovely amethyst eyes of his sharpening into familiar, pissy exasperation from one second to the next. He dragged your face back to his, slotting his mouth against yours and pushing more air into your lungs. You leaned into it before you could help yourself. Half for the whole oxygen thing, and half, because, well—

When he pulled away this time he smacked a hand over your mouth with a sneer, his thumb and index finger hooked upward to pinch at your nose. He jabbed a claw in your face with a clear ‘stay put’ and immediately went to work cutting through the bindings twined along your arms. The ropes fell away beneath his talons like butter to a hot blade, and he fretfully ran his palms up and down your limbs—looking for any stray bits of netting like a compulsion. Once he seemed certain that you’d been properly freed from your ties, he hauled you up against his chest in a grip that had you losing all the air in your lungs all over again. You could feel the cool jut of the sea glass around his neck pressing into your collar, and he buried his head down into your throat until you didn’t know where he ended and you began. The frills of his tail fluttered in the water, and the bulk of those twining strands curled up and around your legs like a barnacle.

He was warm. Warmer than you’d been expecting, for a creature who spent his life patrolling the darkest depths of the ocean. It wasn’t the same sort of heat that would beat off a human’s hide, but it was more comforting than any you’d ever known. You burrowed down against his shoulder, nose scrunching against the side of his neck and the fins at his ears brushing your temple. You could feel his claws flexing at your sides, feel the shift of his scales against your skin. And just as your lungs were starting to burn, he ducked forward to pull you into another kiss—filling your chest with wonderful, wonderful oxygen all over again.

You blinked blearily past the sting of salt in your eyes and he scrubbed a thumb against your cheek.

Now that those high, wonderful, heart bursting emotions were settling back into something manageable beneath your ribs, you took a moment to look at him. Really look at him. Because you’d sent him on his way, hadn’t you? Waved him off with well wishes and a hope for his happiness. And all that aside, how had he even managed to find you—

Bubbles streamed from your nose as that newest shared breath began to run dry, and your Siren hooked an arm around your waist to propel you upwards.

You crested the surface with a gasp, paddling instinctively against the churning wake. When all that did was leave you smack, smack, smacking at your Siren’s chest like a flailing toddler, he hissed—a spitting, pissy thing you could feel on the breeze—and hauled you back up against him. Just like he had all those times you’d swum together in your cove. You forced yourself to settle, bobbing gently against the tide as he kept you both aloft.

Once your body had managed to catch up with your brain to realize that it was, in fact, not drowning, all of the adrenaline rushed out of you like a broken spicket. You slumped against the Siren’s chest, fuzzy headed and dizzy. Because he’d saved you. Which made no sense in the least. But you’d almost died, and he’d saved you—

Your gaze drifted back up to the ship from which you’d only so recently taken your Cannonball of Doom and startled.

There was blood everywhere.

Staining the railings, splashed along the low flying flags, dripping along the deck. A macabre mess of gore and claw marks gutting the once grand vessel like a beached whale. Some of the crew still seemed to be hanging onto the life rafts, others were taking running leaps into the water like they were under compulsion—eyes glazed over and distant. There was a prickling all along your skin, something twisting familiar and strange in your gut, and oh. Oh.

One of the grander looking officers (the one who had been giving your pre-execution speech, perhaps? He looked similar enough) was shouting something from his place at the bow of one of the life rafts—arm extended in a grand show of valor and sword glinting into the light of the morning. And then a great, emerald siren was rearing over the side of that tiny vessel with a sharp grin on his face and sharper talons on display. The officer was dragged overboard, and the siren’s tail came down on the guardrails with a force that had the wood splintering and the already haphazard little boat rock, rock, rocking until it caught on a high wave and capsized.

You could see the flash of colorful scales and the tips of even brighter fins all around. Cresting above the water just long enough to grab hold of another wailing victim and drag them down to the depths. There was enough blood in the water that you could smell it. Acrid and copper against the ocean’s already sharp, salty musk. And sure, you were a pirate. You’d been in raids, you’d seen death. Plenty of it. But this. Well. It was unfamiliar. In a strange, detached sort of way. These assholes had chucked you overboard, after all. So you only really had a teensy, tiny pinch of sympathy for the fact that being eaten alive probably hurt like a sonofabitch.

It was more strange, you supposed, to be at the center of a sirens’ hunt and not be the one facing down the angry, bitey end.

You kicked in the water, nose scrunching when the red tide lapped against your chin.

“This isn’t going to attract sharks, is it?”

Because if you were saved from drowning at the hands of a royal militia only to wind up as a fish’s dinner, you would be terribly annoyed.

Your Siren rolled his eyes at you, like you were just the most ridiculous and stupid creature in all of creation. And then he made a languid swipe of his large, fully-healed tail and began to swim away from the literal bloodbath he and his pod had wrought. With you and all your silly, fragile humanness in tow.

It was far too relaxing, being pulled along against his side. The gentle rocking of his tail beneath you as he swam at the surface—always ensuring to keep your head above the water as he did so. You could feel your eyes starting to dip, feel a yawn cracking along your lips. Maybe it was just the adrenaline crash hitting, or maybe it was the relief that you hadn’t even wanted to address. He’d come back. For you.

The earless pirate who never seemed to do much but stumble into one conundrum after another. Who had only annoyed him at best and shorn his fins to shredded, useless bits at worst. Who had thrown shells at his head and only nicked him a little when you cut the ropes from his hide.

Who had made him human foods with fire and taught him your language in a messy scrawl of sand and snark. Who swam with him in the bay and twined a necklace of shining, purple sea glass around his neck. Who braided his hair, and laughed at his pouting, and—

There was a rough roll of surf that splashed in your face and you spluttered against the white froth.

The Siren paused and beat his tail against the deeper waters, propping you upright as you hacked and fretfully patting at your back. You could see his mouth moving as he mumbled something, brow pinched, and stared back at him with your own wobbly frown—confused.

“Why did you come back?” you asked, and the Siren’s brows jumped up into his hairline. He looked startled, genuinely. And that only had you even more befuddled. “And how did you even find me?”

This time when he huffed, there was a subtle sort of irritation there that you’d learn to recognize well.

He was pouting.

Something brushed against your fingers in the water, soft and fleeting. You glanced down just in time to catch a blur of lavender flitting nervously below the choppy waves, never dipping close enough again to touch, but looking hesitant to keep much further either.

The Siren followed your gaze only to narrow his eyes, pointed teeth bared as he swatted at the poor, round, little octopus with his tail. A clear shoo, shoo if you’d ever seen one. The octopus squeaked, sending bubbles spiraling in all directions, and frantically looped out of the way of the mer’s petulant tantrum. You whacked him right back, indignant on your teeny friend’s behalf. Because—!

“You followed me,” you burbled, and the little octopus spun in a fretful circle. If you didn’t know better, you’d say the poor, little dear was wringing its hands. Your Siren bared his teeth and smacked out again. “Hey! Don’t be an ass! He saved me,” you argued, and your bitch of a merman just snapped his fangs in your face like a feral cat.

You gawked.

“No way. You can’t be annoyed that you were beat out by a baby, purple octopus the size of an orange.”

He huffed and turned up his nose, and you burst out into laughter for the first time since you’d watched him swim out of your cove all those days ago.

You laughed and laughed until tears were beading at the corners of your eyes, and your Siren was grumbling in complaint and pinching your sides with his curved claws. There wasn’t real malevolence in that stern glare of his, though—just more of the prickly, teasing sort of snide side eye he’d given you in your latter weeks together. Fondness, you realized. That’s what was softening it all. The same sort of warmth you held for him.

Your favorite, pissy, preening, self-righteous goldfish.

You snorted into his shoulder, still shaking on giggles, and you could feel his sigh against your temple. You burrowed down against his side, feeling his fins brush along your hips as he kept the both of you afloat.

“Thanks,” you said, soft. “For coming back.”

You were expecting another melodramatic sigh, another plaintive roll of the eyes. Instead, his fingers came up to twine with yours and tugged your hand to rest against the pendant at his throat. You blinked, confused, and he just curled your palm around that little, sand-smoothed piece of glass.

You arched a brow. “What does that have to do with anything?”

This time he did roll his eyes at you, and when he spoke he mouthed the word dramatic and wide so he was sure that you could see it.

‘Moron.’

You whined in complaint and smacked his fingers away. “But I’m your moron.”

Another huff, soft against the nape of your neck. And you could see the barest twitch of a smile on his red lips as he turned back into the tide and continued his trek home.

.

.

.

[TAG LIST - CLOSED]

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[zepskies]

Lost on You - Part 1

Pairing: Soldier Boy/Ben x F. Supe!Reader

Summary: 1983 is a big year for you. You’re finally chosen to join the ranks of Payback, led by the most (in)famous supe in the world: Soldier Boy. He’ll never admit that he’s trying his damndest to figure you out. You’ll never admit that he’s actually growing on you. But the problem with this game is deciding who’s the predator, and who is prey.

AN: Welcome to Part 1! You guys have really warmed by heart with all the anticipation for this series, so thank you so much. I think it's going to be a fun ride. 😉

Song Inspo: “Magic” by Olivia Newton-John. And check out the full “Lost on You Playlist” here. There’s going to be lots of ‘80s music in this series!

Word Count: 4K

Tags/Warnings: SB being an entitled asshole (strap in for a lot of that), misogyny, bullying, and a “meet cute” of sorts…

🎙️ Series Masterlist || YouTube Playlist || Spotify Playlist

Part 1: Siren Song

April 3, 1983

“Why the fuck wasn’t I consulted about this?” Soldier Boy groused.

Arthur Cohen, otherwise known as “The Legend,” released a heavy puff of his cigar within the relative privacy of his office. Vought afforded him a great deal of luxuries, at the cost of days like this.

So, he’d offered the supe one of his most coveted Cubans to pacify him. Because true to form, he was edging closer to a temper tantrum by the minute.

“This decision came from on high, my friend,” Arthur said, with a smile that hid his inner anxiousness. He tapped some ash off his cigar with a finger adorned by a gaudy gold ring. “Stan Edgar, Stillwell, even the entire board of directors signed off on this one.”

“I don’t give a fuck who bought into this PR bullshit,” Soldier Boy postured, crossing his arms across his dark green supe suit as he leaned into the plush seat adjacent to Arthur’s desk. He raised a solid boot on the edge of the newly polished mahogany, and then another, crossing them at the ankles. His cigar was balanced between his teeth in the corner of his mouth.

“The last thing we need,” he said, pausing to inhale. Then he took the cigar from his lips to blow out smoke in hot annoyance. “Is another broad on the team.”

Arthur inclined his head. “I understand your concerns.”

“Do you?” Soldier Boy snorted. “Countess is bitch enough to deal with, believe you me.”

Arthur sympathized. He knew Crimson Countess’s attitude well, but he supposed Soldier Boy had license to say so more than anyone else, considering she was his girlfriend.  

“Look, I could give you the numbers: expected profit margins, demographics, etcetera, but you don’t get paid to hear that from me,” Arthur said, with a magnanimous hand gesture and a fair bit of old Jewish charm. “I’m askin’ you to trust me. This girl’s good, okay? Not just a wig and a pair a’ tits. Nah, she’s got talent. Got a set of pipes on her too, my God.”

Soldier Boy gave him a sly look. 

“Not like that,” Arthur said. He shook his head in amusement, but not with the face of a man who hadn’t already thought about the girl’s pretty mouth. He stroked his chin.

“She’s…interesting. Well, you’ll see. If she brings up the ratings the way we hope, we’ll be able to relocate Swatto. Hopefully to Siberia. He’s a fucking PR nightmare waiting to happen.”

“All right, the guy’s a moron, but he’s fucking hilarious,” Soldier Boy said, smirking. “Like one of the three Stooges.”

Yeah. Arthur wondered if that homeless man Swatto almost split open in Central Park after a sneeze thought he was funny. 

“And her powers. Really?” Soldier Boy went on. His brows drew together then, as he frowned. “Sounds like she blew something up someone’s ass to get this far, and it ain’t smoke.”

“Trust me, that’s the real deal too,” Arthur assured.

But he could see that Soldier Boy wasn’t convinced. The supe rolled his eyes and released another puff.

“Anyway. I’m fucking bored. What’s the next project?” he said. Arthur took an unfiltered breath and peeked at the files strewn across his desk.

“Well, Red Thunder is coming out this fall. We’re pretty sure it’s gonna be the blockbuster of the year,” he replied. “After that, we’ll see about writing a sequel.”

If it makes back the millions we spent in production going over budget, thanks to this asshole’s weekly benders, he mentally added.

“I don’t care about a bullshit sequel,” Soldier Boy said dismissively. “I want to do something new.”

“Something new,” Arthur intoned.

The supe raised a brow. Again, the cigar was balanced between his teeth.

“Yeah.”

He really must be bored, Arthur thought, if he actually wants to work.

“All right, let me brainstorm on that for ya,” Arthur said. “Matter of fact, tell you what. Give me ‘til the end of the week. In the meantime, we’ve got the security team monitoring the police scanner for potential saves.”

The supe didn’t look impressed. His brows furrowed, as if he was irritated that he didn’t get an immediate answer, but his slight nod signaled his agreement before he finally got up from his chair. His boots dragged off Arthur’s desk, knocking over a framed picture of his kids with it, and thudded heavily on the ground. He left the office thereafter.

Arthur heaved a breath of exasperation. He didn’t get paid enough for this shit. 

Fucking supes.

But he didn’t dare utter that thought out loud.

It was days before Ben finally crossed paths with the new girl. Not that he’d been giving the idea much thought.

After that day in Arthur’s office, Ben became engrossed in his own devices—namely one of the assistants, Joanna, his stylist, Angela, and Rachel, his maid, after Donna blew him off for dinner for the third night in a row. This time for some tree-hugging conservationist gala of some kind. 

Frigid bitch, he thought, shaking his head. 

On his way to the gym, he passed the T&T Twins gossiping. Just the sight of them irritated him. Tommy was a kiss-ass, and Tessa shared a brain cell with her brother, so she wasn’t saying much for her gender either. 

“Would you pick your tongue off the floor already! You’re so disgusting,” Tessa said, shoving her brother.

“What? She’s fucking hot,” Tommy snapped in defense. When they finally saw Ben coming, Tessa piped down with her attempt at a “demure” greeting.

Tommy came in hot with a too bright voice and a, “Hey, boss!”

Ben gave them a stoic nod, fully intending to blow past them.

“Have you met the new girl yet?” Tommy asked, with an unmistakable pop of his brows and indecent smile.

Ben nearly rolled his eyes. “No.”

And don’t fucking care, his tone conveyed. He continued on his way to the gym. Behind him, the twins gave each other a look, and a shrug.

When he got to the gym, Journey was playing overhead. Ben frowned as he saw Black Noir working out by himself. The young man wasn’t wearing his suit. Instead, he was bare-chested and running on a treadmill with a nearly 90-degree incline, sweat glistening on his skin. 

Fucking show off, Ben thought. 

Then there was Gunpowder, his young sidekick, practicing his archery. Ben went to him and slapped a hand on his back in greeting, none too gently. The teen stumbled, his arrow landing into the wall instead of the target. 

“Spot me at the bench, ey kid,” said Ben. “And grab me a towel while you’re at it.”

“Uh, sure,” Gunpowder replied, ducking his head as he went. Ben got settled at his usual bench press machine, sliding his back down the thin leather cushion. He waited for the kid to add on his fifty-pound weights on either side, until it reached two hundred pounds. That was just the warm-up. 

“You met the new girl yet?” Ben asked, after he began lifting his first rep. Gunpowder stood behind his head.  

“No, sir,” he said. “Haven’t seen her yet.”

“I haven’t either,” said Noir. He’d come over on his way to the showers, regaining his breath all the while. Ben gave him a sharp side-eye.

“Did I fucking ask you?” he said. 

Noir paused. He hid his frown behind a stoic front, since he didn’t have his mask to do it for him. He toweled off his face and chest as he left the gym. 

Ben shook his head, but he never broke stride on the bench press. 

You seemed to be mysterious. 

Barely anyone had seen you, and you hadn’t gone out of your way to ingratiate yourself with every member of the team, like Ben would’ve expected. Donna had set him in her sights on her very first day.

With fake demure in her hazel eyes, a flick of her long red hair over her shoulder, and a sultry smile, she’d let him take her hand and bring it up to his lips for a gentlemanly kiss. 

That same night, she’d accepted his invitation up to his suite and let him do some very ungentlemanly things. Ben smirked at the memory as he made his way down Vought Tower’s infinite hallways. She sure knew her way around some kinky shit.  

And she still did, the little minx. She’d just been putting the freeze on his balls lately, for whatever her reasons were this time. He didn’t pretend to care or keep track at this point. 

If people only knew what a royal pain Crimson Countess was.

Ben was only taken out of his thoughts when he heard someone singing in the breakroom, gently, but beautifully. He couldn’t make out the words though. He stopped and leaned inside the doorway, just to see who it was. It was early enough in the morning that he was surprised anyone but him was awake.

You were standing there at the counter, making some coffee from the percolator. Soft and dulcet notes fell from your lips in some kind of lullaby. Quirking a brow, the oddness of it managed to draw Ben’s steps into the kitchen. You were wearing a leather supe suit that molded to your every curve, not unlike Donna’s, except yours was black with violet trim lines.

You eventually noticed him with a smile.

“Good morning, sir.”

Ben gave you a charming grin, blatantly eying you from breast to toe before he noted that the coffee had finished percolating. 

"Hey there, sweetheart,” he said. “Pour me a cup, would ya?" 

You did so, and he admired the graceful movements of your hands, and the sweet sound of your voice as you continue to hum to yourself. 

"You're a little crooner, aren't you?" he asked, taking the plain white coffee mug from you. 

When your hand brushed his, he felt it.

Your power.

It threatened to overtake him, drawing you into him like the crash and current of a tidal wave, where he couldn’t help but be pulled undertow. There in that darkness, he craved your warmth as well as your body. The thought, the need gripped him at his core… 

He wanted you to devour him, body and soul.

And he finally registered that your eyes were glowing violet, along with your knowing smile. 

Then you blinked. The violet haze was gone, along with your hold on his mind. 

You went back to sipping your coffee as if nothing had just happened. Ben faltered, mentally and physically as he was forced to grip the counter. He even had to catch his breath as his mind reeled from the loss of connection. 

He covered his unbalance with a steely, angry frown. What the fuck just fucking happened?

He looked at you harder than before, drawing himself to his full height and towering over you. Still, you didn’t seem all that intimidated.

“What the hell did you just do?” he growled.

Your knowing, easy smile remained. 

“Nothing,” you replied. “Just a little smoke.”

Ben’s eyes widened.

“Sounds like she blew something up someone’s ass to get this far, and it ain’t smoke.”

How the hell had you heard about that?

He quirked a brow, but you just sipped your coffee with a gentle slurp. Your gaze moved away from him as you went to the fridge to take out a carton of eggs.

“Want some breakfast? I’m thinking of making some eggs, sunny side up,” you said.

Ben’s hand clenched at his side, but then, he forced himself to relax. Or at least, to look relaxed. You had some fucking audacity to try toying with him…but he had to admit, you were something new.

Interesting.

“What’s your name?” he asked, in a tone that demanded.

“Sirena,” you answered. Your superhero name, which he’d already known when Stan Edgar told him about you a week ago.

Ben’s frown deepened, but he reminded himself to retain some charm. He took your chin between his fingers. His grip was light, but his green eyes were intense, and focused on you. 

“No. Your real name, sweetheart,” he said, brushing your cheek with his thumb.

You blinked, but you obliged him with your name, and a smile that edged at flirtation.

“What’s yours?” you returned.

He had to smirk. He knew you knew full well who he was.

“Call me Ben,” he said.

Three Days Ago…

You tried not to be completely overwhelmed by the sight of this huge tower as you pulled your suitcase behind you. Vought-American was an institution of superhero production, and Payback was the face of it all. The absolute pinnacle.

I still can’t believe they chose me, you thought, but you tried not to let that show. You needed to make it seem like you knew what you were doing. You belonged here, and you were seizing this chance.

Madelyn Stillwell, the head of Superhero Public Relations, personally greeted you at the gate and showed you up to your room. However, you’d barely gotten a chance to step inside and look around before her pager went off. She wore a certain smile when she saw the number on the screen. She tossed a strand of strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder and glanced up at you.

“Sorry, sweetie. I have an appointment to get to, but the directory is there on your desk if you need anything. Feel free to get comfortable,” she said, gesturing at you with her pager in hand. “I’ll be back in an hour or so to give you a tour of the building.”

“Okay, thank you so—”

The door closed behind her before you could even finish your sentence. That deflated you a little, but you tried not to let that small exchange bring you down. Your apartment was huge. Or at least, it was much bigger than the shoebox you left in the Village, let alone the Brooklyn brownstone you grew up in, sharing with two other families on each floor.

You hefted your suitcase onto the bed and began to unpack your clothes, makeup, and toiletries. 

You also took out the only framed picture you had—one that housed your parents and your older brother Chris. You were both grown already, but in this picture, you were barely twelve years old. That little girl didn’t know that her entire world was about to change, when her powers manifested for the first time. 

That thought did succeed in dimming your mood for a moment, but you sighed and set the frame down on your new dresser. You’d have to remember to call Chris. His son was turning four years old in a few weeks. 

Though your attention shifted to a black shape in the corner of your eye. It was a garment bag hanging on the closet door. You went over and unzipped it, revealing your new super suit. It was all black leather and violet accent lines down the sides, along the collar, and down between the breasts in a V-shape. It was strategic to accentuate curves and bust. 

You whistled lowly. It was beautiful, but Jesus did it look tight. 

“Wow,” you remarked, trying out the zipper up and down. “They really like their leather, huh?”

Still, you itched to try it on. After a few minutes of struggling and wiggling, you managed to get into the suit. They’d taken exact measurements, so it did look good. You felt like a new person…a superhero.

You smiled at yourself in the bathroom mirror. But then, you forced the smile off your face and shook your head, schooling your expression into something less doe-eyed and pathetic. More in control.

There you are, Sirena, you thought. You had long ago trained yourself with that enigmatic look. You knew how it felt on your face. The easiest way for you to get what you wanted in this world, the way you’d gotten this far, was with this exact face.

Only show them what you want them to see.   

Almost two hours later, you’d finished unpacking your belongings and explored every corner of your new beautiful apartment, but still, Miss Stillwell wasn’t back yet.

You checked your watch and hummed to yourself. Your curiosity getting the best of you, you decided to leave your apartment and explore the tower by yourself. You took off the suit as well, so you could make your way around more anonymously. You were sure no one really knew who you were yet. 

Your theory was proven true when you walked through the halls, passing Vought employees without even a blink in your direction. That was okay though. Soon enough, all these people would know your face, as well as your name. 

You reached one of the top floors, where you thought you remembered The Legend’s office was supposed to be (according to the directory). Maybe you could meet him and get a jump start on your schedule.

You stopped short, however, when an office door slid open. Out came a slightly disheveled Miss Stillwell. Her blouse was hastily tucked into her gray pencil skirt, and strands of her blonde hair were a bit frizzy as they brushed her shoulders, as if she’d combed them down with her fingers. You plastered yourself to a wall around the corner, only peeking around after she passed by.

Your brows popped up incredulously when you read the name plate beside the door she just came out of.

Stan Edgar…holy shit. His signature was on my contract!

Along with Arthur Cohen, or The Legend, as Stillwell had told you when she welcomed you in. He was the Senior Vice President of Hero Management, so who the hell was Stan?

Well, whoever he was, he was giving it to the head of PR.

Okay then. You shook your head and continued on your way. At the end of the hall, you finally found the right office. You were about to open the door, when you heard male voices coming from inside—one older and dry, and the other deep and strong.

You reached out with your awareness and allowed your powers to engage, likely making your eyes glow with a violet hue.

Sure enough, you sensed two men in the room. And as the voices raised, you recognized one of them. It was unmistakable; you’d been taking the time to binge all of his movies for the past month, ever since you auditioned to get into Payback.

Soldier Boy. 

A smile spread across your face. For a moment, you were incredibly excited…until you actually heard what he was saying.

“The last thing we need is another broad on the team.”

Your mouth fell open in shock as your brows drew together. You carefully pressed yourself to the door and kept listening.

“And her powers. Really?” he said. “Sounds like she blew something up someone’s ass to get this far, and it ain’t smoke.”

“Trust me, that’s the real deal too,” Arthur assured.

You glared at the door furiously, as if you could burn lasers out of your eyes. You crossed your arms, but you breathed evenly as you strived to keep your emotions contained. 

Control, you reminded yourself. With another deep breath, you managed to let go of your ire, but the more you listened to the conversation, the more impossible that became. You turned away from the door and made clipped strides down the hall.

You knew you had to tread carefully here. You’d heard some of the real stories about Payback, because you’d taken the time to listen. You weren’t about to enter Vought Tower without having some idea of what you were getting into, and you knew you’d have to prove yourself as the rookie on the team. You just hadn’t expected their leader to be such a chauvinistic asshole. 

Though inwardly, you snorted. Well, the guy is from the ‘40s. Best generation, indeed.

You rolled your shoulders and shook it away, like water off your proverbial feathers. Your mouth set in a firm line as you held your head high.

The game begins, you thought.

For the next few days, you watched. You studied each member of your new “team” as you encountered them, and you quickly realized that this team wasn’t much of one. 

They looked out for themselves, and bickered amongst themselves, in the case of the TNT Twins. Crimson Countess had given you a lovely, polite face that still somehow mocked you when she walked away, along with the bounce of her red hair. 

Your powers didn’t allow you to sense or read women, but you recognized a diva when you saw one.

Clearly, she was used to being the woman on top, especially as Soldier Boy’s girlfriend. You wanted to roll your eyes at the thought. From what you’d heard (and the masculine cologne you smelled on Arthur’s assistant Joanna yesterday), Soldier Boy got around. His relationship with Countess was either very open, or it was well-crafted PR.

You had another growing, unsettling thought. The more information you gathered just by observing the team, the more you had a hard time believing that you were ever going to fit in around here. 

It was only your third day in the Tower though, you reminded yourself, as you got dressed for the day in your suit. That kind of negativity wouldn’t serve you here. 

So you left your apartment in search of coffee and breakfast at the breakroom and lounge area, exclusive to the team. You supposed these guys were either late sleepers, or they got their food brought to them. You were relieved to find the room empty, and you let out a deep breath.

Remember why you’re here, you thought. It’s not about you. 

It had never been about you. 

You rummaged through the cupboards in search of the one thing that would perk you up—good coffee. You found it near the top shelf and began to prep the coffee maker. You hummed to yourself while your hands moved on autopilot. The tune strengthened, deepening and then sweetening on higher trills. 

Suddenly, your spine prickled. Your mind buzzed faintly with awareness as you sensed a presence.

It was familiar and overwhelmingly male, with heavy, confident steps coming down the hall. You tilted your head and frowned. 

Soldier Boy, that asshole. 

But then, your lips curved upwards. This could be fun. 

When Soldier Boy walked into the breakroom, he noticed you. You pretended not to realize he was there, but you felt the heat of his gaze roaming over your body. You wanted to sigh. Predictable.

Right then, you made a quiet, firm decision. Today, this man was going to learn your name. And he wasn’t going to forget it. 

You turned to him with a smile when he approached—the most pleasant one you could manage.

“Good morning, sir.”

AN: Game, set, match. 😘💚 As many of you know, this story is expanding on this Soldier Boy imagine, which I wrote almost a year ago now. In the back of my mind though, I always thought this idea could be more someday.

So please let me know what you thought of Part 1! I'm so excited for you guys to see what's coming up next...

Next Time:

“Countess, I’m not trying to replace you. I’m not trying to take anything from you.”

“Except my boyfriend,” she shot back. Finally she turned her head towards you with cool disdain. “You think I didn’t see you flirting with him last night at the afterparty?”   

You rolled your eyes, though you hid a sliver of embarrassment. You should’ve known she’d spot that.

“He approached me, okay?” you said. Maybe you were about to let your pettiness to get the best of you, but you couldn’t help it. You smiled slyly. “And from what I hear, I’m the least of your worries. Looks like Ben has quite the appetite.”

The cracks of Countess’s cool façade finally broke through to anger.

▶️ Keep Reading: PART 2

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[allurilove]

Yan! Prince x Siren you

Rated 18 + — mature short content !

Includes: Gore, murder, death, cannibalism?, physical violence, non-consensual touching, implied sexual exploitation, fem reader, and decapitation.

*This is just a fun short story I wrote for the class I am taking, and I just decided to upload it here! Some parts are influenced by the yandere fic I already made lol! This is purely fictional writing!*

Synopsis: All you have known is peace, all until you get captured by a group of men that unlocks a different side to you. You then meet a prince, a prince driven with a bloodlust for power, and he gives you a proposition.

Men. All they do is bother you.

Your heart beats fast.

Your vision blurs as the familiar blues turn into browns, and your eyes fixate on the woodwork and rustic charm of what is considered to be a ship. The rope burns onto your skin, and your body contorts into an unnatural state as she is hoisted onto the boat.

Your tail thrashes and you try to bite your way out of the trap—teeth gnashing and chewing—and you cry out as youre is hit with a paddle. Your head starts to ring, and your eyes widen as you see the group of men in front of you.

Their garments are quite different from yours; in fact, they are fully dressed from head to toe. Their clothes are all dark, and their blouses have ruffles at the top. They wear boots, have swords at their sides, trench coats, and carry a heavy musk of sweat and battle.

With a sharp and intimidating blade, one of the men cuts through the net. Multiple hands grab for you, and your world comes to a pause as you panic. You feel like you can't breathe and your lungs are about to collapse. You scratch and attempt to plead with your captors, your nails digging into their forearms, drawing long red streaks.

But they do not listen.

“Mighty thang we got ‘ere!” one of the men says, his hair darkened by the rain peltering their bodies. He has a rough scar running down his face– a deep incision that caused his skin to never heal.

You can see a prominent and yellow snaggletooth whenever he speaks. He has an air of authority surrounding him, and his hat has gold embellishments compared to the regular silver everyone else has. That one particular man holds a predatory gaze, his eyes set ablaze with a whirlwind of mischief. “Tie her up, we could use a beaut like her on top of the mantle.” 

Laughter fills your ears as the group of men start to agree, and you feel a chill run down your spine as they touch your smooth cheek, their fingers trailing down to your jawline, and moving lower to your collarbones.

Each touch feels intrusive as they pet your silk-like hair condescendingly. “We could send her to the owner at The Pearl of the Eye; I know they are lookin’ for new girls to show off,” another says, his arms crossed as he leaned against the post.

“Aye, tha’ a popular place.” The man with the highest regard starts to pet his scruffy beard in thought. He then catches your withering glare, and a flash of amusement crosses his face. “Feisty one, aren’t ya? I know men who would pay a pretty coin for that temperament.”

“Keep it up, trollop.” he snickers, his finger moving to boop your nose. “You’ll make me thousands of gold in no time.”

Your pupils turn to slits as you bite down onto the man's finger, a metallic taste bursting into your mouth, satisfaction lingering on your tongue. His blood becomes sweet nectar, and with renewed strength and clarity, you unhinge your jaw and attempt to swallow the human whole.

Your hunger becomes endless, and a gnawing angry feeling grows into an insatiable appetite for flesh. For skin to be peeled off meat. For meat to be taken from bone, and their vocal chords to be a part of yours. Your body adjusts to the change, your throat expanding to the men’s silhouette as they traveled down your gullet. Their screams were words of encouragement, egging you to continue.

Humans, and men in particular, tasted different from the fish you were used to. They were heavier, harrier, bloodier, and infested with nasty ambition of lust and pride. You revel in the taste of their guilt, their fear, and the past memories of their wickedness. 

No matter how hard the group of men tried to band up and defeat the siren, their swords were no match for your unwavering hatred. You waste zero time to snap multiple necks, your teeth digging into any area that you could rip into shreds, and your stomach becomes full off of their disgustingly filthy urine soaked bodies.

One last man is standing, his eyes wide as saucers and his tears roll down his pale cheeks. He looks young and his uniform doesn't fit him properly. Your nails help your body to crawl towards the shaking figure, he can't even defend himself, and the weapon in his hand shakes. The wind continues to whip around them, the clouds darken as a loud cry comes from the sky, and an array of purple and dark blue strikes down on the earth. The boy yelps when you have an iron grip on his ankle. 

Unbeknownst to the siren, a smaller vessel has pulled up to the larger ship.

“I wouldn't touch him, if I were you.” The voice is cutthroat, a harsh demand that sends chills down the spine of the scariest and deadliest creature. You wince as you feel a sharp pain on your scalp, and your hair is now wrapped around a stranger's hand as they yank you back. You crash into a barrel filled with treasures as you are thrown across the ship, and a bunch of diamonds and pearls spill onto the floor. 

A tall and proud man stands in front of you, he has pitch black hair that flows in the wind, and his blue eyes shine like bright lights. The unknown man's presence is regal-like, his back straight like an arrow, and his face is trained with unusual niceties. Then the little boy ran into his embrace, and his arms wrapped around him tightly… all before the man pulls out a dagger from his sheath.

Without a single thought, a clean cut to the throat separated the head from the body, and the man’s lips stretched into a wide eerie smile. He isn't phased by the limp body falling to his feet and the blood spilling onto his perfect shoes.

“You… you are exactly what I need.” The man’s eyes are glued to yours and he stares down at you. “My name is Prince....” 

The prince that stands before you is practically last in line for the throne. That is what you could surmise from his little rant. He is sadly and disappointingly the second youngest, and he isn't close to the crown and title, at all.

He paced around, one hand on his heart, and the other continued to grip onto the hair of the decapitated head. “I need to be king. I am the only one fit to rule the land. It is like the gods have forsaken me, and they decided to punish me for no apparent reason.”  

The man huffs, his eyes narrowing. The waves crash against the sides of the boat, but he stands his ground. “Six siblings ahead of me, and one measly brother behind me– does that seem fair to you? That this kingdom will fall into the hands of dumb and dumber, and eventually to the offspring of the said dumb and dumber?!” His voice is so loud it even rivals the onslaught of thunder, and you can hear a hint of distraught on his otherwise clear and steady tone.

“This is where you come in.” He stops right in front of you. “I can keep you fed, and I can give you all the riches you could ever want. Marry me, carry my children and lineage, and get rid of all of my siblings.” The prince throws the head at your tail, and with a tilt of the ship, it slowly rolls towards you.

The boy's jaw is slack, a tooth chipped from the impact of the fall, and his blue eyes are wide open in fear. He has similar tiny freckles around his nose like the prince, the same facial structure with the high cheekbones, and a tall nose.  

“Eat up. You’ll need your strength.” 

[lemonwrap]

Imagine: deaf Soap and siren Ghost. Soap is enraptured by Ghost, but it has nothing to do with the siren’s song.

[silverskye13]

Etho looks down quietly at his basket, making sure everything he needs is inside. He knows it is best to only make one trip down to the water. The water is treacherous. He is strong enough to withstand it, but of course, everyone who ever drowned thinks they're strong enough until their lungs are bursting. So. He double checks. He makes sure.

He has a week's worth of laundry. Some dishes he needs sand from the river to scour. A bucket, so he won't have to make this trip for another few days. There are a few pieces of leather armor in need of a quick rinse before they're polished. Also, he's thirsty. He tries not to drink his rain water. He needs it to last.

Finally, Etho belts on his sword, hefts the basket over one shoulder, and the empty bucket with his free hand. He looks to the short path that leads down to the dock. The water is blue as the diamond sky above, edged in gold from the slowly gathering sunset. Birds are singing. Breeze whispers through the willow branches and cattails. Across the river, a small herd of deer is moving through the rushes. One breaks apart from the others to drink. Etho sighs out a long breath, steels himself, and walks down the trail.

The water is cursed. Very few people still come to the river for chores. Most only dare to run down for a few buckets of water when the well is running dry.

_____

When Tango saw him gathering his things earlier, he'd shaken his head and made a warding gesture with his hand. Protection. For himself. For Etho. Or just to ward away the idea of evil.

"Scream, I guess," Tango had told him. "I doubt we'll make it in time, but yanno, we'll know what happened."

Etho had only offered a tense smile behind his mask. Everyone would know what happened, scream or not.

"I'll be fine," Etho said. "I've been fine before."

He said it a lot more confidently than he felt, and Tango wasn't reassured. Tango had a good nose for things like that. He sniffed the air, and made the chagrined expression of someone who could smell a coming thunderstorm.

"Yeah. Sure." Tango sniffed again, and then tapped the side of his nose with a knowing finger. "On second thought, maybe save your breath."

_____

Etho walks out onto the dock, his footsteps silent as he can make them. He took his boots off by the dock's edge. They're heavy when they're wet. He sets the basket down gently on the aged wood. He fills the bucket first. In the neat and tidy plan of his habits, he thinks the bucket is the one he least wants to be left last with. It's heavy and cumbersome, and requires leaning over the water's edge. So he fills it, trying to disturb the water as little as possible, and pads back to his boots to set it down gently beside them. Then he's back to his basket, and getting to the louder work, what he know will attract attention.

He grabs a shirt and dunks it into the water, wringing it out a few times before scrubbing it against the dock's edge. Someone nailed a washboard here, probably to make it easier for everyone else who needed to scrub up -- one less cumbersome thing to drag to the riverside. Beside it, Etho can see long scratches in the wood, vanishing off the side. He has large hands, so they don't line up to him, but the unmistakable look of nails scratching, clinging, is recognizable even still. He wonders idly who made them. Probably someone playing, before the water was cursed. Or an animal that swam across the bank and needed help scurrying out.

He is tempted to think it's something more sinister, but he knows better.

The water turns from diamond blue to sunflower yellow, then to blazing orange with rusted and bleeding edges. The herd of deer on the other side of the water wanders off, sated. A fox calls in the wood somewhere, an uncanny, very human scream. The bird calls twitter into silence, replaced by chirping frogsong. Etho wrings out the last of his clothes and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. He checks how far the sun has dipped in the sky, and decides he has an our yet before dark settles in.

With his clothes washed, he sets them back in the basket, neatly folded. They'll wrinkle probably, but when he puts them out on the line, the wind will straighten them out. His knees are sore from kneeling, his back from leaning. His armor will be easier to clean if he can settle in, brace it on his crossed legs.

Etho looks around the water, at the deceptive stillness. It's a slow, lazy river, hardly pushing the water fast enough to put ripples on it. There is one place near the opposite bank where a long shadow stretches from a stone, broken by the reflection of red sunset. It's the kind of image he would expect to see on a lake on a windless day. He's heard before that quiet rivers make for deadly waters, that there is a current in holes in the riverbed that will devour someone.

But Etho isn't in the water. He's on the dock, and the dock is safe. Nothing will drag him off it. Nothing in the water is strong enough. It doesn't have to be. There is some comfort in that, in knowing he can't be devoured against his will. It is why he still comes to the river. It is why he dares. Etho sits back and crosses his legs, bracing his leathers against his knees. He scoops a palm full of water onto them and scrubs, trying to get blood out of the small cracks where it will settle and rot. His chainmail is back at the fort up the hill, where its heaviness can't encumber him. It cleans itself reasonably well, all the links clattering together, just so long as he doesn't roll in any mud.

There is shuffling on the dock behind him, the creaking of old wood. Etho tilts his head, breathes in deeply through his nose. His pulse doesn't quicken. After a momentary pause, he resumes his work.

"Hey BDubs," he says conversationally. "Trying to sneak up on me?"

"Wh-- no. Of course not." There is mischief in BDub's answer, a grin in his voice. "The great Etho? Never. You probably heard me coming from a mile away."

"Maybe not a mile," Etho chuckles humbly. "You going to join me?"

"Well, I don't know," BDubs laughs, leaning over Etho's shoulder. "Is it safe?"

"I don't know why it wouldn't be."

"Water's cursed," BDubs reminds him. "There could be boogiemen about."

"You trying to tell me something BDubs?" Etho asks slyly, peering up at his friend.

"What? No of course not," BDubs laughs. He sits beside Etho, plunging his bare feet into the water beside the dock. "Even if I was, you know me Etho. You? Kill you? You'd kill me first."

"I don't know about that," Etho hums, splashing another palm full of water on a buckle clasp and scrubbing at a rusted stain with his thumb. "You made pretty efficient work of Grian."

"Grian had it coming," BDubs shrugs. "Got too caught up listening to the music."

Etho chuckles. "The music was very good."

BDubs kicks his feet in the water, humming the tune momentarily under his breath. It's a haunting sound, not really meant to be sung. Not by anything human. Etho shudders in spite of himself.

"Man, don't do that."

"Sorry! Haha! Sorry. Couldn't help it," BDubs grins a gap-tooth smile in Etho's direction, his eyes bright and gilded by the setting sun. "It's probably one of the coolest kills I've ever gotten."

"I'll make sure Tango knows you said that."

"Oh, Tango's fine." Bdubs waves a hand dismissively. "He's just upset 'cause I scared him."

"You did more than just scare him."

Dark room. Dark water. Tango screaming and running, scrabbling at the walls with his nails. If they ever went back to that little cave, Etho wondered if there would be marks on the walls like the docks, played, desperate fingers, digging.

"Well he's alive, isn't he?"

"I guess he is."

"Then he should get over it!"

Etho shakes his head, laughing. BDubs' voice is over-loud on the quiet lake, but its a good sound. Full of intensity and joy, and revelry. It made the silence between his words stark and empty, and Etho was always loathe to fill it.

Bdubs suddenly wraps an arm around Etho's shoulders, pulling him into a conspiratorial embrace. "Hey, I've been meaning to talk to you, by the way."

Etho suddenly has goosebumps on his neck, his spine, his arms. BDubs' arm is cold against his shoulders. He smells of bracken and standing water, and his eyes are bright as sunset. Etho takes a long, slow breath in and holds it for a moment.

"Uh... Yeah, BDubs?"

"I've got a plan, you know, for the others," Bdubs continues, his voice dropping to something near a whisper. There is something on the edge of his tone like the ringing of bells. Excitement. Thrill. Hunger. "But I'll need some help. I mean, I'm good at redstone, you know 'ol BDubs knows his stuff. But I need an expert. Someone good at traps."

"You know you've always got me Bdubs," Etho laughs, and it is hard to keep the nervousness from his voice. He's not sure he succeeds. "I'm happy to help. Just uh--" He shrugs his shoulders, and BDubs' arm falls away. "You know. Keep your distance."

"You're not scared of me, are you Etho?" Bdubs laughs, and it's loud and boisterous, and perfect. It echoes off the water like glass. Bells and ringing. He gives Etho a prideful, knowing look. "No, you're not scared of little 'ol BDubs. I know what you're scared of."

BDubs suddenly turns and slips into the water. Not all the way. His hands are still clinging to the wood, his elbows resting on the dock like it was a pool side. But the splash hits Etho's side and makes him shudder so hard, he drops the armor he'd been polishing. In a flash he's on his feet, backing away two, three steps. His movements feel too slow and heavy, and there's an instant of panic in him.

"Woah man!" Etho snaps, startled. He reaches for something, anything-- "I said keep your--!"

But BDubs is laughing, kicking his feet, stirring up the mud at the bottom of the river. "Oh come on Etho. It's water."

Etho takes three long breaths, filling his lungs to bursting before pushing the air out again heavy through his nose.

"You're fine you big baby," BDubs grins, resting his head on his crossed arms. His legs stop kicking, stop stirring up the mud, and Etho can see the water is shallow enough that he's standing on the bottom. He'd thought-- he'd thought-- "You'd think I tried to drown you, jeez."

He thought it was deeper.

Etho held his breath for a moment, counted slowly. He wanted to reach his hand to his neck, to check his pulse. To see how fast his heart was beating. He moved his hand to, and at a mocking glance from his friend, decides instead to stoop to pick up his dropped armor. He walks carefully to his basket and places it inside.

"Why'd you come down here, anyway?" BDubs asks. "If you're so scared, I mean."

"You know me, BDubs. I always come back," Etho answers, almost a reflex. A rehearsed answer. "Who else would I go to?"

"Tango and Skizz?"

"They won't keep me safe like you will." Etho points out. He shudders again, the cold from BDub's touch had seeped into him more than he thought it had. He's acclimating though, like jumping into a pool. It's a cold that seeps out of him, warms as it settles. "It's me and you to the end, right buddy?"

"Of course Etho. I'd never betray you."

Etho looks through his things one last time, then frowns. He turns the basket with his foot. He glances at BDubs, who still watches him from the water's edge. Then he takes a chance and crouches down beside his basket, rifling through with both hands.

"Lose something?" BDubs asks, standing on his tiptoes to get a better look.

Etho looks around, checking first the dock, and then the water beyond. In the deeper water over the side, he sees the flash of a buckle in the dying rays of the sun.

"Oh, huh," BDubs hums disinterestedly. "Guess you'll have to get that."

"BDubs," Etho scowls.

"Fine! Fine. I get it. You don't wanna get wet." BDubs puts up his hands, as though surrendering. "The water really isn't all that bad." He offers Etho a quick little salute. "Be right back."

He takes an exaggerated breath and splashes beneath the dock, stirring up mud and river plants. He breaks the water's surface shortly after, holding up the fallen armor piece triumphantly. "Ta-da! Hold your applause. I know I'm great."

Etho, in spite of himself, chuckles. He shivers again -- the evening is getting cold -- and reaches a hand out. BDubs places the buckle in his hand, then reaches his other hand up to clasp Etho's gently. It's awkward and off-balance, Etho leaning precariously over the side of the dock, and BDubs on his tip-toes, holding him in place. It isn't a hard grasp. At any moment, Etho can take his hand away. He has always been stronger than BDubs.

"Hey, Etho, I really have missed you, man," BDubs says, smiling fondly, his voice soft. It isn't a whisper. It simply isn't loud and brash like he normally is. Heartfelt. The kind of tone that beckons, that wants to be listened to. "I mean-- I've missed us doing things together. It reminds me of the good 'ol days, you know? NHO and Mindcrack. We make a good team."

"We do," Etho agrees. He takes a long, slow breath. He shivers.

He frowns.

Etho pulls his hand out of BDubs, and BDubs offers no resistance. Etho looks down at his hand, at the wrinkled, waterlogged skin. He rubs his thumb across his forefingers, feeling the odd texture, grounding himself on it. Etho takes a deep breath in, lets it out again slowly.

"How long have I been in the water, BDubs?" Etho whispers.

Etho is still holding the belt buckle in one hand, still looking down at the wrinkled fingers of his other. BDubs is still in front of him, only his head and shoulders above the water. Etho looks back over his shoulder. The dock is startlingly far away, the basket sitting on the very edge. Beyond it, his boots and water bucket are sitting in the grass beside rushes and willow branches.

"Does it matter?" BDubs asks, smiling gently.

Etho takes a long, deep breath through his nose.

"Oh, don't be scared," BDubs says, moving silently closer. He reaches out his hands and grasps Etho's arms, a gentle touch, reassuring. A friend trying to assuage fear. His eyes are blazing red and orange with the setting sun, but the sky is black and salted with stars. "I didn't drag you down here, Etho. You came to me, remember?"

"BDubs--"

"You know I'd never betray you," BDubs continues, taking a slow step backwards. He pulls Etho with him, and Etho, by habit and familiarity, takes a step forward. The allure of BDubs' voice tilts his vision. He's on the dock, holding the buckle that fell in the water, and BDubs is clasping his hands, and the sun is setting. The water is up to his chest, and the world is dark star-filled, and BDubs is taking another step backwards, and Etho is following. "I could have betrayed you day one, and I didn't. I'm just asking for your help, Etho. You and me together, right?"

"BDubs--"

"It's the deep water, isn't it?" BDubs croons, like he's speaking to a child. "The deep water scares you? It's okay. You're fine."

Etho is fine. His breathing is slow, his heartbeat even. He wants to be scared. He should be scared. But BDubs is his friend.

BDubs reaches up to Etho's neck, not to strangle or to threaten, but to gently cup his hands around him. He pulls gently on Etho, not to drag Etho down, but to raise himself up, so they're nearly eye to eye. Etho feels water around his shoulders, and shivers.

"It's okay," BDubs says. "I would never hurt you, I promise. We don't have to go any deeper." His voice even and calm, inexorable. Etho's pulse doesn't quicken when he says, "You know how many people drown in shallow water? It's easy. I'll be with you the whole time."

The water is around Etho's neck, and BDubs is above him just slightly. One hand raises slowly to the back of Etho's head, fingers gently tangling in his hair. It is the caress of someone who cares for him deeply, someone who wants him to stay. The feeling is wholly dissonant from the words being spoken. Water? Drowning? How could someone who loves him so much drown him?

"You want to stay with me, right?" BDubs asks. "You and me together, we'd be unstoppable, Etho. The best duo the Life Series has ever seen."

BDub's hand on Etho's neck moves just slightly, the thumb pulling around to rest on his adam's apple. The hand in his hair clenches just a little. A warning. "You're not thinking about betraying me, are you?"

Etho shivers again. He wants to be afraid.

"You know, Grian said some things before he drowned," BDubs's hand on his neck tightened just a little. Etho could feel his pulse against BDub's thumb, finally, finally beginning to quicken. "He said you were a survivor. He said you'd leave me -- heh -- high and dry. You wouldn't do that, would you, Etho?"

Etho's pulse quickened more. There was a cold numbness in his limbs that he hadn't even noticed gathering, and his sluggishly awakening panic pushed it from him.

"BDubs," Etho said, his voice small and hoarse in his throat, "let me go."

"Etho..." BDubs said warningly.

"Let me go!" Etho shouted, planting his hands on BDub's chest and shoving backwards away. What he felt, in that brief second, was neither skin nor flesh, nor the softness of fabric. He felt tangled river weeds, and fish scales, slimy and cold against his skin. The cursed thing that looked like BDubs but wasn't, released Etho spitefully. His claws tore from Etho's neck, scraped along the back of his head to come free with pale strands of his hair. Suddenly there were arms around him, and Etho screamed and thrashed as he was dragged.

"I've got you dude! I've got you!"

It was Skizz, his voice a thunderous bellow in Etho's ear, his arms feverishly hot against him where they clamped like vices around his waist. Skizz dragged Etho from the water like he weighed nothing. Etho got his feet underneath himself and clung to Skizz, staggering out of the water as quick as he could. He heard feet pounding on the dock, and glanced over to watch Tango sprint across the wood. He stooped, grabbed up Etho's basket, and sprinted back with it, the reaching, clawed hand of the thing that looked like BDubs snapping for his ankles and missing.

"I got him!" Skizz shouted to Tango, scrambling onto the grass, refusing to let Etho go until they were well up the path. "Did you see how close he was?!"

"Yeah I saw!" Tango snapped, choking on his own fear, gulping in air and coughing it back out again. "It tried to drag me in!"

"Oh my god, are you okay dude?" Skizz demanded, and, when Tango nodded, he turned back to Etho. "Are you okay? I didn't see you go under. Can you breathe?"

Etho, who had collapsed into the grass the moment Skizz released him, lay there gasping like a hooked fish. He shivered, pale and cold from how long he spent in the water-- how long had he been in the water. He could still feel the thing's burning claws in streaks across his neck, and a tickling of blood at the back of his head.

"Etho?"

"I'm okay," Etho gasped, "I'm sorry I just-- I needed-- I wanted--"

"I know what you wanted!" Tango snapped angrily, the anger of someone who had risked his life. The anger of someone who thought a friend of his was dead, or dying. "But it's not him, Etho."

"It sounds like him," Etho whispered. He threw an arm over his eyes and shivered again. "It sounds like him, though."

"I know it does buddy, I know," Skizz said, his voice full of sympathy and pity. He waited with mountainous patience as Etho pulled himself together, and then helped Etho stand.

Together, they walked back to the fort.

Behind them, something cursed and hungry in the dark water, sang, and its voice was sweet and familiar.

[incorrectbatfam]

You're in Gotham. A bunch of petty robbers are holding up the bank. You're huddled under the counter, sipping the iced coffee your work bestie had brought you.

You're in Gotham. The subway tunnel just blew up. The conductor cracks jokes as he takes you through the detour and you share your jacket with the woman next to you.

You're in Gotham. Carnivorous plants cover the road leading to the dentist's office. You glance at the car next to you and see a puppy sticking its head out the window.

You're in Gotham. The wind carries a cloud of deadly toxins downtown. You're baking chocolate chip cookies while your kids play in the living room.

You're in Gotham. Classes are delayed because of an extraterrestrial threat. You take the extra time in the morning to chat with your neighbor about the upcoming holiday.

You're in Gotham. The Wayne family is plastered all over the tabloids again. Your dad turns the page and asks you for a seven-letter word describing fruits and vegetables.

You're in Gotham. Except you're not. You're in London and you're waiting to pick your sister up from school. You're in Manila and your cat just had kittens. You're in Lagos and your brothers are helping you move into your new apartment. You're in São Paulo and your crush just texted you back. You're in Istanbul and you just discovered your new favorite sandwich. You're in Mumbai and your cousin calls you to fangirl over a band. You're in Sydney and you just got your driver's license. You're in Boston and you're writing this because it's what you need in this moment.

You're at the end of the post. You realize it was never about comics at all.

[imrowanartist]

Siren Gaz for @redhairedmuses! Her Pirate AU is so good and I just had to draw what I imagine Kyle looks like in his siren form. Go follow Natalie for more Pirate AU snippets! 🧜🏾‍♂️🏴‍☠️

[questions-about-blorbos]

This request was sent to us and we made a poll in response to it. Send the situation (in which you want to see a Blorbo) to our inbox and we’ll make a poll for you where people can vote if they think their Blorbos would survive said situation.

[ohworm-writes]

Thinking about Firefighter!Price.

Imagine him coming home after a long, exhausting day of working, keys jingling as he unlocks the door at some ungodly hour of the night, footsteps falling heavy against the floor as he walks inside, exhaustion and fatigue lingering along his form.

He's still dressed in his station wear - a fitted, navy blue t-shirt with Station 141's logo printed onto the front of it, small, right on the right side of his chest, and a pair of trousers in the same color to match, hanging loosely onto him.

He should take a shower, he knows he should. He smells of sweat and sulfur, the scents clinging to his clothes and skin like a second skin, and he know that the two of you'll have to wash the bedding come morning.

But god, the sight of you in bed, dressed in a loose pair of your own shorts and one of his spare shirts, face smushed against one of the pillows as your breathing comes slow, in and out, steady - it's far too enticing to pass up so easily.

So he unbuckles his belt in a daze, stripping off his shirt, undershirt and trouser, tossing the articles haphazardly onto the floor (he tries to toss them towards the hamper, but he knows he misses, given the way his belt buckle clanks loudly against the hardwood floor of the bedroom, but, honestly, he could care less).

And he gets right into bed beside you, fingers grazing lightly over the exposed skin of your thighs, traversing upwards, fingers splayed as his palm travels over the fabric of your shorts, sneaking their way under the loose shirt of his that you wear, hand pressing against your tummy as he pulls you close.

He presses his nose into your shoulder, eyes fluttering closed as he deeply inhales the scent of your body wash, softly shushing you as you start to rouse, the way your body gently begins to shuffle as you let out the softest, sleepiest yawn, listening as he grumbles softly against your skin.

"Didn't mean to wake you, love. Go back to sleep."

His voice is so hoarse, so strained and rough from the events of the day - yelling and barking out commands to the firefighters within the ladder and engine crews that he guides - but, at the same time, it's runs smooth like honey, settling just right in your sleepy, hazy mind.

He hugs you tighter, pressing your back flush against his chest as he curls his body around you in a subtly protective manner, littering tender kisses against your neck, trying to coax you back to sleep as he lets out a soft sigh, infatuated with the way your body molds perfectly into his.

"Mmm... s'fine, John. Wha... what time s'it?"

"None of your business, that's what time. Go back to sleep. I'll be here in the mornin'... promise you that. Okay?"

He doesn't let you ask your questions. If you try to think, he knows you'll wake up, and he already feels guilty about waking you up in the first place, so he doesn't even entertain your sleepy question, giving you a promise - two, technically. That he's here now and that it'll stay that way until the two of you wake up in the dawn.

"Stubborn..."

"Always. We c'n talk in the mornin'. Sleep."

"Mmm... glad you're back home safe. Love you."

"Love you, too."

But by the time he says the words, you've already fallen back asleep, and a deep, rumbling chuckle erupts from within his chest, amused, pressing one last kiss to the corner of your jaw before letting himself fall asleep behind you, his breaths, his heartbeat falling into sync with your own.

[mournfulroses]

Nina Mclaughlin, from "Wake, Siren," originally published in November 2019

[dilatorywriting]

Monster Mayhem: Siren's Song [Part 4]

Gender Neutral Reader x Vil Schoenheit Word Count: 7.2k

Summary: It is very, incredibly important not to get attached to someone who will no doubt be leaving you high and dry to die stranded on an island any day now—be they man or fish. And you are definitely, definitely following that rule. For sure.

🌶️ Obligatory Warning for Mild Spice

[PART 1] [PART 1.5] [PART 2] [PART 3] [PART 4] [PART 5]

The next morning, there was a conch shell set beside the familiar offering of half-mauled fish.

The insides were a shining, pearlescent pink—smooth and sleek. You picked it up curiously and turned it over in your palms. You’d never seen such a complete one before. Normally they were at least a bit dinged, cracked here or there along the thin edges. But this one was practically perfect. It sat heavy and warm in your palm, and you brushed a finger along the rough ridges.

You looked up and the Siren was lounging at the shoreline, waiting expectantly.

“Thank you,” you said. “It’s really pretty.”

He preened, the fins along the side of his head fluttering wide and colorful. You huffed, amused, and set the shell neatly at the forefront of your slowly accumulating corner of Things. You’d rebuilt the little shanty shelter that he’d had his seagull minions pick apart into useless nonsense that first day together, and it wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep some of the sun off your shoulders at the height of the afternoon and would probably (maybe) hold up under a bit of rain. And that pleasantly cozy hovel of yours was where you’d been keeping your Stuff. The best sticks for poking at the fire, a rock that you’d found with a dip in the middle that made it sort of, almost a bowl if you squinted hard enough, bunches of drying beach grasses that you’d been tediously twining together into bits of rope and other nonsense. That sort of thing.

You placed the conch shell on the roof of it, prodding at it with the tips of your fingers until it sat just so. Like a figurehead on a ship. The crown jewel on your little mess of ferns and driftwood.

“What do you think?” you asked, turning back to the Siren. “Really brings the room together, huh?”

He puffed something under his breath and rolled those amethyst eyes of his, but there was a curl to his lips that looked far more amused than irritated.

You trudged back over and plopped beside him in the sand, the soft, low roll of the waves playing against your toes.

“Today feels like it’s going to be gross again,” you sighed, squinting up at the sun overhead in distaste. The big ball of glowing fire had barely crawled its way over the horizon and already it felt like the world was beginning to steam.

The Siren curled his claws around your ankle and tugged.

You arched a brow at him and he pushed his stupidly, perfectly shaped ones up right back. Like he was positive that he could out stink-face you with ease.

“It’s too early to swim,” you complained.

He tugged again.

“I can’t be in the water that long. You’re going to turn me into a prune.”

He said something back, mouth quirking in irritation, and you focused hard on the shape of it. His expression smoothed with that familiar, near-eerie perception of his and he was reaching forward to dig his free fingers into the sand at your hip.

‘Don’t know what that is.’

“It’s like a—” you frowned, waving your hand around your head. “Y’know. A fruit, that’s gone pruney. A prune.”

He looked at you like you were the dumbest human he’d ever met, and to be fair you very well could have been. You doubted it was an extensive list. And even if it was, you tended to have a proclivity for landing near the top of those illustrious sorts of rankings either way. At least that’s what your Captain saw fit to remind you ad nauseum.

So, like the very mature and intellectually competent person that you were, you kicked a mess of seawater right into his face. And then the Siren was screaming something silent and mad that had all the goosebumps on your arms popping up to say hello, and he was dragging you into the shallows ass first. You skidded along the wet sand and landed in the white surf with a laugh that you had to swallow real fast. Because if you drowned in three inches of water just because you couldn’t manage to not choke to death on a giggle fit, you’d never forgive yourself.

.

.

That night, you were lounging by the fire with a belly full of seared snapper and the Siren curled just as contentedly only a few feet away. His fins were splayed out across the damp sands, and you couldn’t help but compare them yet again to some of the finest, spun silks you’d ever seen. Even when they’d been pinched and shredded beneath the prickly teeth of your ropes, they’d still been lovely. But now that they were near-fully-healed, the spread of them was truly impressive.

And they were. Almost healed, that is. You could barely make out the trailing, scar-puckered lines of even the biggest tears anymore. Which was good! Great, even. Because that meant he’d be able to begin his journey home soon, didn’t it? And then at least one of you would manage to get away from this barren mess of rocks and sand.

There was a thump against your thighs that had you jolting back into focus, and you looked down to see a pair of familiar, gem-cut irises staring back in the dark.

The Siren was glaring up at you like there was a Purpose to his sudden loss of personal boundaries, and you blinked down at him in confusion. After a long moment of nothing but your silent gawking, his brow started to pinch and the skin around his eyes went tight with irritation. The fins along his ears rippled like a pissy cat raising its hackles in preparation to lunge, and you cautiously placed a hand against the edge of one. The grumpy fluttering stopped all at once, and if you were a touch more sun-poisoned you would say that those delicate, purple pins relaxed against your palm. Either way, you were clearly on the right track. So you let your fingers trail down towards his temples, and then to the salt-curled waves of his hair. His eyes slipped closed with a pleasant rumble that you could feel all along your skin, and you puffed in half-hearted irritation. Prickly, fussy, bastard man.

You weren’t really sure what he wanted, but for now the gentle scratch of your nails against his scalp seemed to do the trick. After a few cycles of lazy petting, you let your fingers catch in some of the softer, pale hair beneath his fins. It was a bit tangled—possibly from all that frilly posturing of his—and you carefully began picking apart the small knots there one by one. Once those were cleared away, you found yourself with little else to do but sit and play with the newly freed waves of lavender-tipped gold. You tucked one strand over the next, twisting the familiar pattern of a simple braid beneath your palms.

“Deuce grew his hair out at one point,” you chattered idly as you wove those silky locks together beneath your fingers. “That’s someone from my ship, by the way. Deuce. Anyways. He thought it’d make him look more rugged, or whatever. But he just ended up looking like some rogue, sea elf, and everyone was teasing him about how he’d gone for ‘windswept sailor’ and ended up with ‘foppish, little lordling.’ So he chopped it all off again.”

The Siren hummed, and you could feel it against the pads of your fingers.

“Which was a real shame,” you continued. “Because obviously I spent all that time learning to braid it, but also because it actually looked pretty nice—OUCH! What is your problem—"

You yanked your hand away from his sharp teeth and cradled your smarting fingers to your chest. Because the stupid fish had bitten you! Not hard, or anything. Just a little nip. But it’d still hurt. If less as a genuine injury and more as a sting to your pride.

The Siren spat something quick and harsh under his breath, turning up his nose like you’d been the one to err here, and not his wandering fangs.

“What?” you huffed, reaching out to flick at those purple fins in irritation. They twitched against the side of his head to smack at your fingers. “Oh, I’m sorry, am I not allowed to call anyone else pretty, your highness?”

The Siren rolled his eyes with a look that screamed ‘well, duh,’ and you forced your irritation to override the little, bursting bubble of fondness in your chest. So silly, so silly. This ridiculously primped fish of yours.

“Well, too bad,” you grouched, tugging at the end of that half-bound braid. “Just because you win ‘most attractive specimen on the island’ doesn’t mean you get to tell me to pretend I’m blind on top of being deaf. Let me have something, you prick.” And it wasn’t like it was much of a competition—seeing as the entrants were you, him, and the octopus (if you were being generous). Less of a contest and more of a merciful slaughter, perhaps. A kindness that you were even allowed to share the same stage at all.

The Siren muttered something low and amused under his breath, the amethyst in his irises twinkling with the crackling, orange light of the embers beside you. He reached up to twist his claws along your palm and snatch the hand he’d so viciously nipped—bringing it down to eyelevel to observe it more closely in the dim glow of the fire. There was a steady trickle of blood bubbling up along your thumb. Honestly, not much worse than a papercut. Nevertheless, his brow quirked at the soft trail of red and his gaze jumped up to yours with a pointed sort of curiosity.

“What were you expecting to happen? Humans are fragile,” you huffed. “At least more than you are. It’s not like I have scales or things to keep me safe.”

His mouth tucked down on a frown, and his tail swept irritably back and forth through the sand.

“What? It’s not like you didn’t know that,” you tried, awkward. Because he ate stupid, little flesh bags like you for breakfast. Surely he ought to be well aware that there wasn’t much there. Just skin, and muscle, and all the gory, gooey bits beneath. Just like how you knew what it felt like to bite into a piece of bread, or the crunch of an apple. Solid enough to survive in its own right, but something that would give beneath your teeth easily enough that calling it anything other than ‘delicate’ would have been a gross exaggeration.

He turned your palm this way and that, brow pinching down more and more with each fresh prick of crimson. His tail beat against the sand and his talons curled up and away from your skin—like he was worried just touching your fragile, little, egg-shell of an exterior would burst it.

“It’s fine,” you blurted out, still far too confuddled over his progressive panic. You pulled your hand away from his claws and popped your finger in your mouth. “See?” you garbled around the faint taste of copper. And then pulled it out with a pop to show him the slowing trickle. “Totally fine. Just a scratch.”

The Siren watched that little bubble of red with all the vigilance of a hawk eyeing its super, and then he was snatching your wrist back between his talons and dragging your hand down towards his own mouth. And oh my God, this was it. He’d finally decided to eat you after all. What was it? Had your oh-so-breakable human foibles finally pushed him over the edge? Or was it the blood? Were Sirens like sharks? Driven to hungry frenzy by the very scent of your—

There was a gentle, wet warmth along your skin and you blinked through your hysteric descent into adrenaline-manic-mania to see the Siren carefully cleaning the blood along your cut, just as you had only moments before—his tongue running smooth lines along the teeny wound until the sore skin was tingling and spotless. Granted, his endeavors were carried out with a great deal more delicacy than your earlier example of just shoving your whole finger into your mouth like a gremlin, but…

“Uhm—” you spluttered, too gobsmacked to come up with much else. “You—ah—you don’t have to—uh—"

The Siren grumped something at you that you could feel the shape of against your palm, and then returned to diligently wiping away each new drop as it appeared. It was a strange sort of sensation. Not bristly like a cat’s tongue, but certainly not all human. There was a sting to it—something hot and prickly. Poison, maybe? Or… something. Whatever it was, it had the hair on the back of your neck rising to attention and a shiver working along your shoulders. He kept at, silent and meticulous, until finally—finally—the bleeding slowed to a stop. He hummed and turned your palm this way and that, looking over the drying nick in your skin like an artist admiring their work.

Once he was content with whatever it was he’d been searching for, he tucked your hand back along the fins at the side of his head and butted up against your palm in as blatant of a ‘get back to work’ as you’d ever seen.

You swallowed the weird mess of something that had clawed its way up to tangle your tongue and dug your nails back against his scalp just to give yourself something to do other than—than—

“I hope you don’t expect me to do that for you,” you babbled, still far too out of your head with What In The Fuck Was That to do much but gawk like an absolute imbecile at the fact that he’d actually, factually, just—

The Siren rolled his eyes and reached over to drag the point of his talon along the sand at your hip.

‘No need. Already healed.’

You barked out a startled laugh and tugged at the ends of his hair. Your fingers caught at the edge of the braid you’d been weaving, loosening one of the twining sections, and he was hissing and swatting your hands back into place—poking around with his dark claws at the little end you’d fussed with until it was exactly how it had been. And then was dragging your hands back to the half-woven bulk of it with a pointed snarl that was clearly an order to finish what you started, human. Or else.

“Okay, okay, jeesh. I’m on it.”

The Siren trilled low and rumbling under his breath, and beneath the weight of your palm it almost felt like the steady drone of a cat’s purr. Warm, and pleasant, and comfortable in a way you couldn’t quite place. The thin strands of chain-twined-rope you’d woven to make his necklace pressed into your thighs with a scratchy tickle, and the pretty piece of sea glass at its end reflected the low light of the fire in a kaleidoscope of purples. His fins flicked against your fingers in a steady tempo, and when you gave in and pinched one he was rolling onto his side to shove the full weight of himself into your lap. You whined, and bitched, and complained about suffocation, and the stupid bastard of a fish just smacked his tail indignantly against the wet sand and draped over you even more.

Seven, he was such a nightmare. And you were going to miss him so, so much.

.

.

The next day passed in much the same way as the one before, and the day after that, and the day after that. And as pleasant as it was, you couldn’t help but feel like the headsman's axe was hanging over your neck. Always there—just a breadth away from falling.

You were fixing your Siren’s hair—redoing that braid of his that he insisted you tuck into his golden locks each and every morning—and normally he was quite responsive to your prattling. Flicking you with his fins and curling his tail along your ankles as you rambled. A silent, steady way of expressing his interest when you couldn’t hear his own responses in return. But today he was… distant. Amethyst eyes locked on the grand expanse of the ocean before you with a forlorn sort of expression on his face. The water was still and quiet today, with sunlight bouncing off the low, rolling waves in a pretty glimmer like the glow off his own, shining scales.

You trailed off, fingers falling from his finished braid to twist in your lap. And he just kept staring. Fins half-pricked along the side of his head and gaze heavy with focus.

You swallowed around the tightness in your chest and forced a smile. You hopped to your feet with a merry, little bounce and reached down to pat him on the shoulder.

“It seems like a nice day for a swim,” you said, and ignored how you could feel your nerves eating through the words. The wobble of them in your throat.

The Siren startled, as much as someone as grandly majestic as he could really do such a thing, and turned your way with a fondly exacerbated huff. He held up a hand, like he was expecting to drag you along with him into the lulling tide, and you shooed away his fingers. His brow pinched and his mouth turned down at the corners.

“For you, I mean,” you clarified. Like your blatant stepping away from the water’s edge wasn’t an obvious rejection in its own right. You turned back out towards the ocean beyond your little cove. “Your fins are doing a lot better, aren’t they? You could probably stretch them a bit, right? With how smooth the waters are today.”

He hummed, considerate, gaze skirting out to track your own. You swallowed around another ball of prickling ice in your throat and kept your grin buoyant and encouraging.

And then he turned back and offered you his hand again.

You frowned, confused. “I can’t follow you out there.”

He rolled his eyes and leaned forward to dig his talons into the damp sand.

‘I will swim with you.’

A pause, where he reached out to poke at your ankle with a pointed jab, jab, jab before finishing off with a—

‘Like always. Stupid.’

“Oh, yeah? Well, I won’t be so stupid when you ditch me halfway out and I drown in the riptide,” you harrumphed and his eyes narrowed grumpily.

He dragged his claws through the sand in short, angry jerks.

‘Won’t leave.’

“Uh-huh,” you drawled, swallowing stiffly again when that curl of awful something tightened behind your ribs. Hoping you could manage to choke it down. It sat heavy and unpleasant on the back of your tongue, like food gone off.

He underlined the ‘won’t’ with hard, pissy strokes.

“How about this,” you tried, because man oh man, you couldn’t do this. It was going to turn you into a ridiculously weepy, clingy mess if he kept talking (writing?) like this. “Prove that your fins work well enough to keep you up and alive before I risk it. And then we can go from there.”

The Siren huffed, sending the longer ends of his hair flipping out to the sides. But those gem-cut eyes of his kept flicking out to sea, and you could see the tip of his tail twitching back and forth—like he was itching to just leap forward and swim. The fins along his ears pricked up again, and then he was turning his nose up at you with some petulant comment under his breath and diving forward into the surf. He smacked his tail down with a splash!, drenching you in a mess of salt and seafoam. You spat, and hacked, and scrubbed the water from your eyes.

“Great way to prove you won’t try and drown me!” you called, hands cupped over your mouth and still spluttering around lingering saltwater. He reared up quick enough to swipe another wave your way before slipping back under, and you laughed through the spray of mist.

You settled yourself back in the sand, ankles crossed and chin pillowed in your knees, and watched the shadow of him dance just beneath the surface—starting in his familiar, looping circles before slowly venturing towards the mouth of the cove. He paced along the breakwater, pectoral fins cresting above the waves to glint bright and sleek in the light of the morning. And then he was darting forward with a great beat of his tail, spraying salt behind him as he dove towards the depths. You waited, anxious, as one moment faded to the next, and then—finally—there was a burst of frothing bubbles as he broke the surface with a great, curling leap—fins flared wide like the wings of a great bird and scales shining like jewels. It was nearly effortless, how he crested over the water. Diving back down in a mess of spitting mists with a flick of those long, trailing fins. He leapt up again, twisting in the air to crash down on his back and it almost looked like he was dancing. You could see the white flash of his grin even from all the way where you were sat. You didn’t think you’d ever seen him so happy. Truly, a sight worthy of every grand tale you’d heard of the Sirens of the Sea.

He circled the mouth of the bay at least a dozen times more—fast, and wild, and breaching the waves in a burst of seafoam like he was trying to give every pod of dolphins out there a run for their money. Gradually, he began to lose steam, and those grand leaps melted into soft curls of his tail in the tide. And honestly, this was the part where you expected him to sink beneath the surface and glide off into the sunset. You braced yourself for it—for the moment that golden head of his would vanish beneath the water and never pop back up again—but instead he bobbed closer.

The Siren rolled in with the waves, panting, and flushed, and looking like someone coming off of a marathon. The muscles all along his torso were jittery with the strain of it, and he looked positively exhausted. Ecstatic beyond compare, but exhausted. He slipped up the damp shore with wobbly arms and came to a stop at your side before very gracelessly and rudely flopping the entirety of his sopping wet bulk onto your person and squashing you into the muck.

You squawked, rightfully indignant, and he just puffed against your neck and let his tail smack harder against your flailing legs.

“You’re going to crush me!” you wailed, shoving at his shoulder.

He rolled his eyes and curled his fins along your hips—spreading himself out in the sands like your complaints held no merit whatsoever. You could feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest against yours, and the rabbit-fast thump-thump-thump of his heart. His skin was so warm. You could even feel the heat of it off his scales, which you hadn’t even thought was possible. Weren’t all fishy, scaly things supposed to be cold? Slimy, and gross, and like poking a wet blob of some unmentionable gunk scraped off the hull of a ship? Instead it was just… smooth. Glass-polish sleek and all warm muscle twined along your much, much smaller self.

You cleared your throat and turned to blow a frustrated raspberry against the sand.

“You do realize if you break all my bones that there isn’t going to be anyone to cook your stupid fish for you anymore.”

The Siren grumbled something against your shoulder that almost felt like the breathy puff of a laugh, and then he was collapsing all over again with a sigh that ruffled all the soft, short hairs at the nape of your neck. He scrubbed his cheek against the curve of your throat and you froze. Because it almost felt like—was he purring?

A deep, low, tremulous thing that you could feel rumbling against your skin. Like laying a hand against a mast strung too tight in a storm. Or maybe more like that one time you’d found a stray cat lounging in the sun by the docks—the sweet, old thing chirping softly beneath your palm in a lulling drone that tickled all the way up your arm.  

The Siren’s purr wasn’t quite like either of those things, but perhaps a mix of the two. Dangerous but warm, powerful but cosseted. More predator than pet, and, well, that’s what he was, wasn’t he? And honestly, it was pretty nice. A language you could feel rather than hear, something just for you.

So you let yourself relax beneath the weight of his scaly bulk with a sigh that wasn’t quite as aggrieved as you would have liked, and his tail twisted another loop around your calves. His fins spread around the pair of you like a roll of fine silks, and while the texture wasn’t exactly soft, they were delicate enough not to feel suffocating or coarse either. Sleek and cool to the touch, and maybe the thickness of canvas. And there were just so many of them. Long, and trailing, and ruffled along the edges like the folds of a fine-boned fan. Your weird, purple blanket. If Riddle ever found out you’d been using a Siren as bed linens, he’d probably have an aneurism and scrub you in one of the scullery buckets for a week straight.

It was stupidly easy to fall asleep like that—wrapped up in lavender and plum, with the thrum of his heart next to yours. You napped all through the afternoon, and only woke up once the sun had set over the horizon.

You blinked awake to stars in the sky and a strange, scratchy sensation at your hip.

The Siren had apparently finished up whatever little bout of insanity that had made him think you’d be the perfect impromptu pillow. He hadn’t gone far—or even anywhere at all really—but he was propped up at the hip now instead of crushing you into the shore. His hand was resting just beneath the hem of your shirt, right over the origin of that bizarre, ticklish feeling. You blinked again to clear the salt and sleep-grit from your eyes, and realized it was his talons. Not ripping, or tearing, or rending. Just very, very carefully tracing a set of shapes into your skin. The same three symbols, over and over. Up, and down, and up, and curled.

He traced those shapes again, and again, and again. It was almost—you’d think it was letters, if not for the strange, swirling pop of them. Almost like the words he’d written in his own language all those days ago. His claw dragged along the skin there in the faintest prickle, leaving slowly growing streaks of red in their wake with each repetition. You opened your mouth, ready to ask him what exactly he was so painstakingly etching into your hip, and paused.

You’d realized over the past however many weeks you’d been marooned on this little crescent of sand and stone that maybe Sirens weren’t all you’d thought them to be. And that maybe you really didn’t know much about them at all. Something about the slow, cautious way that his claws were tracking along your skin made you think that this was another of those things that you just didn’t get. And going by how quiet he was, how stalwart and careful he was being not to let the knife-sharp curves of those talons dig too deep or do anything other than trace back and forth, and back and forth, it might be something… Something important. Or at the very least something that you had no business bothering him about.

Least of all if he’d be leaving any day now.

So you tossed your head back on a very loud, very dramatic yawn and used the ensuing stretch to gently swat his hands away.

He didn’t look put out by your ridiculous show of flopping around and scooching out of his grip, so that was good at least. You sat up and rubbed at your eyes, and he just kept staring. Kept to his place in the soft, wet sand not a foot away and eyes sharp in the lowlight of the evening.

“Well,” you chuffed on another yawn. “I’m starving. Dinner?”

The Siren rolled his eyes and dipped his chin in what could perhaps generously be classified as a nod. He reached up to flick at the mused braid in his hair with a pointed scowl—twisted and tangled from the salt of the sea and his earlier rambunctious tomfoolery. You sighed, overly put upon, and hefted your way to your feet.

“Yes, yes. And I’ll fix your stupid hair.”

Another nod, this one far more pleased, and the Siren settled himself neatly back into the low roll of the waves to watch you work.

.

.

The next morning when you clawed your way back into consciousness, the Siren was already awake and staring off into the distance.

The fins along his head were pricked in that same, focused way from before that made you think of a hound dog catching a scent. There was a strange sort of energy about him—not quite nervous, but certainly not anything comfortably at ease either. Unsettled. Jittery. The end of his tail flicked against the sand, and the fins along his spine curled and arched to an unsung tempo.

You followed the path of his leer and didn’t see much of anything yourself. Just an endless stretch of blue in all directions with the occasional white crack of a wave breaking along its surface.

His tail smacked at the muck again and you felt something tight and stupidly, stupidly selfish curl in your stomach.

You swallowed it down, just like you’d said you would. Because you’d meant it when you’d told him he deserved his happy ending, and you weren’t going to let the rotten, nervous thing growing in your guts stop him from having that. Not that you could even if you wanted to, but it was the principle.

“…are you going to swim again today?” you asked, and one of those fins swiveled in your direction. You came to stand at his side and curled your toes in the sand to keep yourself steady. “You should, you know. To make sure everything is really all fixed.”

The Siren tore his gaze away from the sea to cant his head at you with a sharp, suspicious narrowing of his eyes.

You held your hands up in defense. “I’m just saying. You want to be able to go home, don’t you? Back to your pod?”

He frowned, tight, but his glare flickered back out to the mouth of the bay like he couldn’t help himself.

After a long, long moment, he reached out and dug his claws into the sand.

‘Not safe yet.’

You arched a brow. “Oh, come on. I’m sure it’s fine. If anyone could make it back, it’d be you.”

He turned back your way and arched a brow, looking entirely unconvinced.

You huffed and crossed your arms. “Don’t get all modest now. You’re the most obnoxiously proud person I’ve ever met—fish or otherwise. I’m sure you can do anything you set your mind to.”

His brow pinched again, and there was something almost like worry sparking in those amethyst eyes of his.

“Look—” you said, reaching out to plant a palm against his shoulder. “If it doesn’t work out, you can always just come right back here, okay? It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

You weren’t going to think about how nice that sounded, and how absolutely, bitterly selfish it was to hope that he’d turn right back around and head back. You weren’t.

The Siren’s brow pinched and he turned back to the open water, fins rippling against his sides and mouth twisted down at the corners.

You tugged at the braid in his hair.

“Don’t make me tie you back up again just so I can drag you out.”

He scoffed and spat something at you that looked like it was properly bitchy, and it had your lips quirking on a smirk. But prissiness or no, he’d started to let himself slip down against the surf, to lull deeper into the shallows and flare his fins at his sides for balance rather than a show of irritation.

You swallowed the last, lingering bite of dread at the back of your throat and offered him a winning smile.

The Siren huffed, and right before he sunk all the way into the water, he set his talons by your feet and scribbled—

‘Do not do anything stupid.’

“Yeah, yeah,” you waved off. “Sure.”

He underlined the ‘do not’ with a harsh sneer that could have made paint curl and the fiercest of generals quake in their boots, and you burst into peals of too-fond laughter.

“Okay, okay. I promise. Swear.”

He nodded, firm, and finally—finally—sunk beneath the surface with a grand, sweeping beat of his tail.

He circled the whole of the bay once, twice, thrice, and then set out past the breakwater with another of those bounding leaps that looked like something straight out of a painting.

You sat and watched the rolling waves until the sun was high in the sky, and then long after it had begun its creeping descent. Fat and sluggish over the horizon, dripping gold along the water like the strokes of a paintbrush. Until there were no shadows in the tide, no purple fins popping up from beneath the surface to smack at your ankles. There hadn’t been for hours now. The glint of his tail had slowly grown further and further away, and you’d been staring out at nothing for longer than not.

You stood with a sigh, legs wobbly and prickling with static as you stretched out of your scrunched up crouch.

You moved towards your little shanty hut and carefully readjusted the conch at its helm so that it sat just so. You stepped back with a soft nod and began your familiar trek towards the other side of the island, dutifully ignoring the stutter in your steps and that tight, miserable something twisting in your guts that you refused to name.

It was fine. He’d be home soon, surely. With his pod—his family. Which was what you’d wanted. And now… well, you had to go catch some dinner for you and your octopus. And there was no use waiting around.

.

.

You fucking sucked at fishing.

Which was a lesson learned with miserable, sopping wet consequences. You sat in front of your stupid fire, ringing out your stupid, soaked shirt, and sneezing in the chill of the night air. You’d never been responsible for hauling in food on The Rose Queen, and the Siren had basically been feeding your stranded ass from day one (whether intentional or otherwise). And so now here you were. Fishless, friendless, and freezing.

You sighed, miserable, and carefully made your way back to the familiar, little tidepool in the crags. You knelt down by the teeny pool of water there and the octopus inside was immediately scurrying for cover. When no tasty treats rained down overhead like the gift of some benevolent god, it slowly creeped its way out from beneath the stones with a trudging sort of paddling you wanted to call pouty.

“Sorry, little guy,” you huffed. “I don’t have anything for you today.”

You reached forward and the octopus panicked—trying to flee so fast that the poor thing wound up twisting itself in knots. Its stubby tentacles curled and flailed uselessly in its puddle, and you tutted in sympathy. You scooped the blob into your palms and immediately four sets of tentacles were curling around your fingers like a lifeline. Its little suckers pulled at your skin with sticky smacks as it tried to burrow away into your skin. And Sevens—OW! What the Hell!

“Chill, chill!” you squawked, trying to wrangle the thing more securely into your hands and stop it from pinching the flesh clear off your bones. “I’m just—would you—look, I don’t want to drop you, okay? So would you just—"

The octopus screamed, and you didn’t even think that was possible. You could feel the sharp, yowling vibrations of it all along your fingers and a few of the gulls nesting along the rocks took off into the air with a harried flurry of feathers and scrabbling claws. Their wings thwacked the back of your head and you swatted them away with a shrill scream of your own. Why did everything on this stupid island have to be a no good, dramatic, serenading, piece of shi—

“Fine!” you shrieked, feeling your molars ache with it. “Begone!”

And hurled the thing as far as you could over the edge of the rocky shore. It landed in the water with a lackluster plop of fat bubbles and immediately darted away like a prisoner fleeing captivity. And not, you know, the benevolent hand of the very lovely pirate who had been feeding and caring for it all these weeks.

You kicked angrily at a mess of pebbles, and then swore loud and furious when all it did was scuff up your toes and prick bruises into your heels.

You trudged back to your stupid, little hovel and collapsed miserably into the sand.

Here you were, trying to be noble, and kind, and give all of these ridiculous sea creatures the second chance at life that you would never have. And what did you get for it? An empty stomach, an aching heart, and gravel in your fucking feet—

“Well,” you chattered to yourself. Pleasantly poisonous and tendons jumping in your jaw, “I suppose at least it can’t get much worse.”

Which should have been the universe’s signal to do something truly petty. The skies opening overhead in a torrential downpour. Your little, stick home collapsing under the sheer weight of your patheticness. A crab scuttling up from the depths just to pinch your toes. Something like that.   

Instead, there was a gentle breeze that tickled your cheeks and coaxed you into looking out over the horizon.

There was something there—something in the distance that you couldn’t quite make out from where you were curled up suffering in the sand. You sniffled past angry tears and scrubbed the back of your hand over your nose, and then let that touch of wind guide you forward on wobbly legs.  You had to climb all the way up the salt-slick rocks to get a good look at it. But there it was. Not too far at all actually.

A ship.

Large, and wooden, and cresting through the low rolling waves with all the ease of the monstrous vessel it looked to be. There was a silver insignia emblazoned on its side, but it was still too far away to make out the particulars. But you didn’t care, because it was a ship. An actual, factual ship.

You waved your hands high over your head and shouted at the top of your lungs.

And holy shit, holy shit—maybe the universe didn’t actually hate your poor guts. Maybe there’d be a happy ending to this whole thing after all.

You watched in the distance as an anchor dropped, and you had to stop yourself from tumbling off your rocky perch in your excitement. One of the small dinghies was lowered into the water and a gaggle of crew climbed down to man it. Slowly but surely, that little boat grew closer, and you sprinted down to the shoreline to meet it.

A man with short, dark hair climbed over the side and met you halfway. His eyes were soft, and brown, and kind, and he offered you a warm smile when you nearly tumbled straight into him in your haste—catching a hand around your arms and helping keep you upright.

He said something polite that you assumed was the usual sort of greeting and intrigue into how exactly you’d managed to find yourself in this state of affairs, and you hastily made to explain your situation as you always did.

‘Thank you—I can’t hear, but I can write and read—And I—’

Your train of thought cut off sharply, and your rambling explanations with it. The brunette was already nodding your way in sympathy and rattling off instructions to his crew. They were all decked out in slightly differing variations of the same, white and navy uniform. With golden buttons and sashes glinting in the low light and silver pendants pinned to their breast pockets. Your doe-eyed savior turned back your way and offered you his arm with another of those sap sweet smiles that lit his cheeks in a merry, rosy pink.

You hesitated, throat bobbing around something tight and cold that curdled along the back of your tongue.

Twining songbirds, wings frozen in flight as they soared up towards an endless sky.

The intricate, little emblem stared back at you proudly from its place on his chest, and you couldn’t help but think of the Siren who’d only just left your cove a few hours before.

‘Not safe,’ he’d demanded, dragging you away from the wreck so frantically you’d nearly drowned from it. ‘Not safe.’

The brunette’s smile wavered at your hesitance, and he wrapped his hand around yours to tug you into the boat.

You climbed in on wobbly legs, because—what else were you supposed to do? Stay stranded on this little patch of sand and stone until you starved to death or went mad from loneliness? Run? From sailors with swords on their belts as long as your arm? To hide on an island that you could traverse in its entirety in a half hour or less? You were always one to happily snatch up the weird and wonderful opportunities life could present to you and run them into the ground, but now… What else was there?

You were settled against one of the small, wooden benches and the brunette shucked off his jacket to drape over your shoulders and the silver songbirds glinted in the low light. He offered you another of those warm, warm smiles before turning to call an order to his crew.

You sighed, miserable, and slouched against the siding—fingers dangling down to brush along the surface of the water.

‘Do not do anything stupid,’ your Siren had said.

And you’d really been hoping to last more than twenty-four-freaking-hours before inevitably breaking that promise, but it seemed the universe really was out to get you after all.

.

.

.

[TAG LIST - CLOSED]

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[doctorsiren]

Yeah you may be cool but have you ever met the Wild Kratts?

[veevil]

More @nyang-cheng's siren cherik AU art!! Erik bites to show affection

[ranticore]

nothing else to do so i work on my birdies

[beingfacetious]

Okay. Yeah, all right, uh... Yeah. Okay. Chefs, listen up. Let's look alive, yeah? I'm gonna plug everybody in, all right? Let's hustle. Let's listen to the sound of my voice and the sound of Richie's. We're gonna do this, yeah?