#twisted wonderland mermaid au | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dilatorywriting · 5 months ago

Text

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]

@marvelous-maxi, @ilikefanfics4, @jackalope08, @crocwork-clockodile, @cosmicobubisi, @buttplugs-stuff, @pomefleur, @decemebercircus, @ailynyan, @genzombie, @meliade-ot, @sunlightocean, @theofficialantitherapist, @hermiona18, @sailorenthusiast, @fantasy-dating-sim-trash, @thefiasco-onyourblock, @insideous-beez, @its-clockwork-princess

@novaloptr, @imlost-sendhelp, @matcha-berry @preciosayorgullosa @whoretaglia, @kookygirlwholikescookiesandcoke, @nanauedorian, @trixeraptops, @voxnipop, @starkling25, @thedum1, @horcrux-alchemist, @sleepykitty21, @apathicace, @instantregret101, @nekanecorvus, @looney-mori, @re-ducing, @my2phetaliaheadcanons, @naughtybodypillow, @rendy-a, @carmen-404, @candy284, @thealiennamedterry, @their-name-is-fake, @huetolog, @glacticrose, @seraphinariddle, @rabioa, @sn00zl4x, @dreasimping, @jeidoreech, @ai-dev, @galaxyshine24-7, @fatally-incorrect, @juulranch, @camrastuff, @nocteetdie, @stargaryengirl, @warmsmilesandhugs, @01paige01

#twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #Vil Schoenheit x Reader #Vil x Reader #vil schoenheit #Monster Mayhem #My Writing #vil shoenheit #Siren!Vil #Mermaid!Vil #Fantasy AU #Monster Mayhem Vil Part 4

1K notes · View notes

dilatorywriting · 6 months ago

Text

Monster Mayhem: Siren's Song [Part 3]

Gender Neutral Reader x Vil Schoenheit Word Count: 5.2k

Summary: Teaching a Siren to read is perhaps the best or worst idea that you've ever had. If only you were half as capable of reading between the lines.

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

‘U-G-L-Y’

“Wow,” you drawled. “What a wonderful use of your new talents.”

The fish you were cooking landed upside down on the hot stone with a crackling sizzle of skin that you could feel as a jumping prickle of heat all along your arm. You poked at your impromptu stovetop with your impromptu stick-spatula and prepared your impromptu leaf-plates. A true culinary connoisseur, you were. When you were rescued, you were going to argue to Riddle that you deserved a promotion to the kitchens. Though, apparently not everyone appreciated your talents.

‘UGLY’ the Siren poked again, jabbing his talon into the sand.

“Then bring me prettier fish,” you returned, pointed. “It’s not that hard.”

His sharp, black claws came up to point at you next alongside his wonderful, two-syllable insult. Then back to you again, with four fingers this time. Both hands going for it. There was a tight, irritated expression on his face that you refused to call a pout because firstly, surely this vicious king of the seas could never pull something so childish. And secondly, because in these past few days you’d developed a terrible habit of just chattering each and every one of your thoughts aloud. And if you called him bratty, or dared imply such pouting was coming from his regal visage, you were just setting yourself up to get drenched by his flailing tail all over again.

“You can’t hurt my feelings,” you said, bland. “Ugly is the nicest thing you’ve ever called me.”

He huffed and smacked his fins against the sand. The trailing, dark tips cracked against your leg and you kicked him right back. It didn’t actually hurt, no more than a pinch to the side, but you’d spent enough time with this asshole now that not fighting back like a toddler pitching a tantrum wasn’t an option anymore.

Just over two weeks, now. Fifteen days and counting.

Those first few days had been spent in a nervous, prey-like panic, of course. Watching him circle the bay with his shredded fins, crying at the top of his lungs until your goosebumps had goosebumps. And then you’d helped untangle him from the mess you’d made, delicately working salt-brined twine away from weeping wounds. Sure, there’d been that whole hoopla of him pinning you in the sand after your act of Great Chivalry and promptly threatening to rip your throat out with his teeth, but you’d moved past that. The offering of home-cooked meals had softened his scaly hide, and then the even greater move of handing him your species’ alphabet like some great, guarded secret of old had sealed the deal. Cheers all around. It’d only taken you nearly being eaten, disemboweled, and drowned, but you’d made peace with your roommate. What a success story.

And now instead of trying to murder you, he just called you U-G-L-Y.

So, you know, baby steps.

The thin, pointed end of his tail whipped up from where you’d kicked him to twine around your ankle and give a sharp tug that had you sprawling face first into the sand with an oomph. Your great tumble sent all those pretty letters of his scattering in the breeze, and you spat out a mouthful of grit.

“Here’s a new one for you,” you chirped, digging your fingers into the muck. F-U-C-K—Y-O-U.

The Siren yowled, which you’d come to recognize far too well as a prickle along your nape and that forever echoing tug, tug, tug somewhere in your head that could never return the call with its corresponding answer. His tail flailed out again to smack at your hands. It was thick, and scaly, and all smooth, powerful muscle. The fact that he hadn’t crushed your poor fingers into a sad, bony paste by now beneath its wrath was a miracle. If you were a more optimistic person, you’d say he was being extra gentle with you on purpose. But even you weren’t delusional enough to think he liked you that much.

“Okay, okay,” you grouched, spitting out another mouthful of pebbles. “Fine. Just not around the food. Unless you want to have to go hunting for dinner all over again.”

The Siren huffed, rolling his eyes like it was a professional sport, and settled himself prettily back against the butt of his tail like he’d never even tried to beat you to death with his fins at all.

You sighed and pulled yourself back out of the sand, scrubbing it from your salt-sticky skin as best as you were able. You returned to poking at your fish. They weren’t too terribly singed, despite your distraction. And the Siren seemed to like the edges extra crispy either way, so it wasn’t any kind of loss. You were in the middle of balancing your impromptu stick-spatula against another impromptu stick-spoon to try and flip the fish without destroying it entirely when you felt a gentle poke, poke, poke against your arm.

You looked back and the Siren stared down at you, lips canted in a sharp smirk that was all pride.

U-G-L-Y—A-N-D—S-T-U-P-I-D, the sand said.

He’d been struggling with applying the whole -pid noise to the proper lettering, because of how similar it was to -ped. And the spelling had been tripping him up (with much obvious frustration) for the last day or so.

“Well done,” you sighed, not even too terribly upset that it had taken you months in Riddle’s impromptu classrooms to learn what he was picking up over the course of a few, harried sessions delivered with broken bits of sharp sticks and an ever changing canvas. “Try this.”

You scribbled another message in the sand. An insult, naturally, because he seemed to like those. You sounded out the letters as you hopped the tip of your finger over them one-by-one, and the Siren stared down at the inscription with the sort of intense focus meant for ancient tomes or sacred texts. You watched his lips move silently as he sounded it out alongside your mini-lesson, and then he was reaching forward to trace over the letters with the curved tip of a claw—knuckles bumping yours for a moment before shooing your hand away.

You returned to your dinner—finishing up the poor, murdered fish as best as you could and doling it out as usual. You reached out to hand pretty boy his leaf-plate, which he took like a lord accepting a meal from a lowly servant. All upturned noses and pointed disinterest. He set it beside him and nibbled on the offering as he continued to study the new task you’d given him—grand, purple fins splayed out at his sides to brush against your hip like a habit. And this was your life now, apparently. Sitting and frying lazy, shallow water fish over a heated stone while your Siren student studied curse words in the sand. If you managed to survive this, no one would ever believe you.

The wrecked ship called to you like, well, did you even have to say it.

(It felt like a low hanging pun at this point. You’d never be able to use the expression again for as long as you lived without thinking of narrowed, purple eyes nearly rolling up into the back of a too pretty head because you were apparently that annoying.)

Every day when you ventured towards the western side of the islet to feed your teeny, round octopus friend, you couldn’t help but sit and stare at the shattered hull. It’s not like it was in any sort of shape to actually get you off your little, sandy prison, but it was… There was something about it that was familiar enough to scratch an itch in your brain, but just alien enough that figuring out what was itching was outright impossible.

Silver songbirds.

‘Not safe,’ the Siren had demanded, with an almost frantic look to him. Not safe.

Every time you tried to venture closer to get a better look, it was like he could feel it. And he’d be pacing the shoreline like a blood-frenzied shark—rattling off muted, angry complaints the whole time that popped against your skin like soda fizz. So, lesson learned. Keep away.

It was a particularly sweltering afternoon today. Not a cloud in the bright, blue sky and nary a breeze to be seen. Sweat was beading unpleasantly along your brow and all down your back, and you hated it. At least on the Rose Queen there had been shade. And the lower decks of the ship submerged in the waves had always felt at least a little chilled. You could practically feel the damp, cool wood against your cheek. The smell of salt and pine oils in your nose. But here, on this stupid not-island with its barren trees and nothings, you just had to suffer in silence. The memories of your ship had you thinking of the washed up Songbird all over again, and you were in the middle of a heated, internal debate over making a swim for it again when something cold rained down over your face in small, scattered droplets.

You blinked back into focus to see Mister Merman at your ankles. You’d been sitting with your heels in the water, but no deeper. Because the shallows were still his territory, and while he hadn’t tried to hold you under in a while now, it was hard to forget something like that so easily. You didn’t really want to chance it if a foul mood struck him, no matter what sort of fragile truce seemed to exist between the pair of you lately.

Last you’d looked he’d been sunning himself on one of the wide, flat rocks—as he was wont to do. Lavender-tipped hair splayed out along his cheeks in a pool of soft gold and fins spread at his hips like the finest, plum silks. How he never seemed to burn with that delicate, ivory skin of his you had no idea. Maybe it was a Magical, Mystical, Merman perk yet undocumented. Or maybe he was just Like That. But he’d been snoozing away on his favorite boulder, and now he had rolled in with the tide to lounge by your toes. His fingers were spread, still dripping with sea water from where he’d flicked you in the face. You frowned at him—partly curious, but also pissilly blinking salt out of your eyes that stung, because come on dude.

He flicked more water your way and said something that you couldn’t manage to catch the shape of. When you didn’t respond with anything other than a pointed scrub of the water dripping down your cheeks, he reached out to wrap a clawed hand around your ankle and give a gentle tug.

“What?” you frowned, confused, and he tugged again.

He canted his head towards you, and then out to the cove behind him. He slipped back with the soft, frothy roll of the waves—just a foot or two—and clearly meant to pull you with him. You slid against the sandbar with a yelp and dug your heels into the muck to keep from getting yanked all the way in.

“No way,” you snipped, kicking a mess of water into his face. He didn’t even blink, just frowned down at you with a twisty sort of petulance. “I thought we were over this. If you drown me you won’t get any more cooked food, y’know. And I, in turn, would very much like to not be drowned. Win, win.”

That frown of his went stiff, and his lips twitched down at the corners. His amethyst eyes darted away and for a moment you swore that those gemstone irises flashed with something almost like guilt. He rolled forward with the next curl of surf and pressed a claw into the damp, dark sand at your hip. He scratched out a careful message, stubbornly refusing to meet your gaze all the while.

Won’t, it said.

“Forgive me for not believing that,” you returned, dry. “You’re oh-for-two now, I think. And, you know, fool me twice, and all that.” Though maybe the first one didn’t really count, seeing how you were both tangled together and sinking to the bottom in a mutual sort of destruction. But whatever. You were keeping it.

The Siren’s brow pinched in the middle and he reached forward to dig his claws in again.

Accident.

Your own brows jumped nearly to your hairline. You were just about to politely point out that dragging someone to the bottom of the ocean until they were bubbling from the nose and flailing wasn’t really an accident,but then you remembered the startled look on his face. The way he hadn’t stopped you from clawing your way back to the surface and how he’d carefully helped tow you back towards the shore after. And… maybe he hadn’t really meant it. It had to be strange, probably. Being able to thrive so easily below the waves and then be faced with someone who would die if they were left facedown in a puddle.

“…Fine,” you huffed, and his eyes jumped back up to yours with all cat-in-the-cream smugness. “But just because I’m about to drop from heatstroke. Not because you asked.”

The Siren rolled his eyes at you and returned to dragging you by your ankles into the shallows.

The bay really was very lovely. It was crystalline clear and the sort of brilliant blue that you’d never even known existed until you’d left the land for a life on the open ocean. The sand below your feet was soft and white, with barely any pebbles or broken bits of shell to dig into your toes. You watched a few crabs scurry out of the way as you were led deeper and deeper, but most of the cove’s occupants were spoiled and slow. Unbothered by this weird, fleshy, bipedal creature stepping past because they’d never known anything else. Once you hit waist-deep, the Siren let go of you to sink more fully into the water. He swam around you in a languid, looping circle—plum fins cresting the surface to flick water against your arms and scales shining like polished glass in the sunlight. It was still far too shallow for him to move around in earnest with how massive that tail of his was, and how wide and trailing his great, beta-like fins were, but he was still elegant. Still fast and flexible as he swam rings around you like an orbit.

“Show off,” you scoffed, but couldn’t quite bite back the grin twitching at your lips.

Because creature from the deep trying to devour your crew or not, Sirens really were so impressive, weren’t they? Straight out of a storybook, and deserving of every song and tale attributed to them.

You reached out before you could help yourself to run your fingers along his tail. The scales were smooth, and sleek, and cool against your palm. The wispy ends of his fins caught along your fingers, but other than a bit of a tangle, you almost managed to run your hand along the whole of it. And what was it? Eight feet? Ten? Bigger than you at least, that was for sure. It wasn’t like anything you’d ever felt. No fish, or whale hide, or shark. Something entirely of its own.

You realized on the next loop when your fingers danced over a patch of still healing scales that you’d felt already that he had most definitely realized your err in personal space, and was letting you poke about on purpose. You glanced up, embarrassed and warm faced, to see the tail end of a smirk quirking out from the water’s surface. Preening bastard.

You turned up your nose and waded deeper. There was a ripple in the water around you, like a chuckle, and he returned to his looping circles. Occasionally his tail would brush up against you to get you to jump, but otherwise he kept his hands to himself and—as promised—did not attempt to wrestle you down to the sandy floor and your subsequent watery grave.

Once you’d made it up to your chest, the Siren was able to start his dance in earnest. He darted away to make a wide arc around the edge of the cove—sunshine catching on his scales like a glare on the water. He shot from one end to the other, so fast it was nearly dizzying to try and keep up with. And then he was back to circling your ankles all over again—tangling your legs in his fins and curling his talons against your calves to try and drag you deeper.

“Okay, okay,” you laughed, paddling after him until you were well and truly above your head. The bay wasn’t very deep, but there were a few areas that dipped down to at least fifteen feet. So soon enough you were bobbing like a top in the gentle surf as he looped around your idly kicking feet—brushing up along your ankles and tugging at the frayed edge of your shirt with his claws when he passed by.

When he next rose above the surface, you’d already taken in a big mouthful of water in preparation, and shot it right into his face. The Siren’s whole expression shriveled up like a hundred-year-old prune and you laughed so hard he had to curl his tail around your waist to keep you from dipping under the waves and choking yourself. You let him drag you around and only grabbed at his fins a little. He would dive below your feet and you’d sink after him. Not nearly as agile or adept, but competent enough to follow his little game of tag without losing completely within the first few seconds. It was—it was nice. Genuinely. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d swam for the fun of it. Way back when you’d first joined up with Riddle’s crew, maybe. It’d been a hot day, just like this one, and you’d been anchored in a safe, shallow inlet off the coast of an archipelago. Deuce and Ace had jumped in first, already brawling, and you’d dove in soon after. It’d been a mess, and Riddle had nearly hung the three of you up by your toes for it. But it’d been fun. Familial. Warm. Something you’d never forget. And while this moment didn’t feel entirely like that one had, there was something similar about it. Sure, you weren’t trying to give the Siren a bloody nose and there were no rock wars, but it was… well, it was nice.

By the end of it, he was swimming lazy, looping shapes around the cove, and you were being dragged alongside him like a raft—kept afloat by the curling press of his tail and relaxing in the afternoon sunshine with the cool ripples of the ocean water to keep you both comfortable in the heat.

“Do you do this a lot?” you asked, as you relaxed in the gentle lull of the surf. “With your pod, I mean.”

The Siren stiffened beneath you, but after a moment he nodded. Slow and rigid. Which—

Oh. Right.

“…sorry,” you mumbled, gaze darting away.

Because he was missing his family just as much as you were missing yours, wasn’t he?

All that frantic pacing at the start of your mutual stranding had just seemed to… fade away as the days passed. He would still circle the entrance of the cove some mornings, singing towards the skies and tilting his head—fins pricked as he searched for an answer. You’d feel it in your nerves, see the gulls overhead dipping in a trance and watch the crabs crawl up onto the sand like they were being dragged out by their little claws. But most of the time now he just… didn’t. He spent his days mumbling over the letters you showed him, or carefully preening over his healing fins and resting in the sun. Catching fish for you to prepare and roast, and taking his meals at your side as you both snipped at each other with sandy curse words. It was pleasant, this routine you’d fallen into together. But all the same, he never really stopped checking the ocean waters. And you could see a spark in his eyes, an itch. The same one that lit yours, no doubt, every time you caught yourself squinting for the outline of ships on the horizon.

The difference between the two of you, of course, was that in a few more days his scales would be healed enough to face the dangers of the open water alone. Life as a rogue mer was notoriously perilous. The lone Sirens were those that poachers were willing to risk battle with for a trophy. They were the ones caught in fishing nets, and found mauled by rival pods. But your Siren was smart. He was big, and strong, and impressive. He’d find a way to survive it, no doubt. One morning you’d wake up and he’d have darted off into the deep to search for his family. To go home. And you…

You would still be trapped here.

Alone.

Forever.

Rotting under the sun with no one to take you swimming in the afternoons. Or bring you clawed up fish to cook for dinner. Or to use your writing lessons just to insult you with scribbled words in the muck.

Which—that was what you’d wanted, wasn’t it? At the start of all of this.

And it was only fair, in the end. He was the better of the two of you, after all. Born and bred to thrive in the depths of the sea that would swallow you whole without a thought. And if either of you was going to survive, to find your home again, it was always going to be him. Maybe you’d be a story, like he would have been for you. The strange human with no ears, just like the rest of the pirates whispered about. Who taught him that fire could make fish extra tasty and that leaves could make perfectly serviceable plates if you tried hard enough.

You sighed, and bubbles of salt water frothed along your mouth.

The Siren raised his head from his own lazy sprawl to arch a brow at you in question, and you did the very mature thing of spitting water in his face all over again.

You ended up being dragged through the cove in a flurry of spitting, Siren rage. Laughing and laughing until he huffed and hauled you back to shore to keep you from swallowing any more seawater like the idiot that you were. And it was fine, really it was. He wasn’t so bad, not really. And if he was able to reunite with his pod once more after all those days of hollow wailing and pacing, pacing, pacing that had made something deep in your soul itch like a freshly scabbed wound that you just couldn’t stop picking, well, that wouldn’t be such a bad ending after all.

The next afternoon while you were out on your daily Octopus Wellness Check, you came across a piece of pale, purple sea glass mixed into the rocky shore. It was smooth to the touch and frosted over by the endless tumble of the tide. You held it up to the light and it sparkled just like the Siren’s scales.

“What do you think?” you asked the octopus as it grabbed shredded bits of fish with its chubby, little tentacles. “Do you want it? Or should I give it to—”

You blinked, startled, and realized all at once that you’d never learned the Siren’s name. Or given him yours. You’d just sort of been calling each other a variety of derogatory pseudonyms and hoping for the best. Which, huh. You hadn’t even realized you’d wanted to know his name. It wasn’t yours to take, of course. Let alone from someone who would no doubt be leaving so soon. But it was a thought.

“You always give the best advice, you know,” you told the teeny creature, and it hid from you like you were a great, looming monster of old. “Whether you meant to or not. Thanks for that.”

So on the way back to your cove, you picked through some tufts of beachgrass to find the longest, driest spikes. You began winding them together as you walked, and settled down in your favorite little corner of the inlet to continue your weaving. The Siren, naturally—being as nosy as he was—was immediately hovering over you like a child watching someone hold a bag of sweets just out of reach. You clutched your little project to your chest like a secret, and it had him puffing up in irritation and smacking his fins against your sides like your refusal to share whatever had caught your attention was a crime beyond comparison. He arched up as tall as he could to try and peer over your shoulder, and, in failing at that, just outright tried to snatch the thing from your hands.

“I won’t give it to you if you keep being a pest,” you warned, and immediately he was slipping back to rest on his stomach in the damp sand with a starbright curiosity in his eyes, chin pillowed atop his interlaced fingers and gaze following the movements of your hands like a cat tracking a mouse in its hole. Clearly the promise of it being a treat for him was mollification enough to keep him from hovering.

Once you’d braided a sturdy enough chain, you carefully twined it around the sea glass in a little, crisscrossing cage of fibers. Just knotted enough to keep the ocean-worn trinket safe and in place without hiding the shine of it. With that, you held up your trophy with a dramatic wave, and the Siren was popping up all over again. His amethyst glare tracked the swinging pendant with startling focus and a surprisingly wide-eyed spark of confusion.

“Here,” you said, reaching out to drop the makeshift necklace into his lap. He caught it in his claws, eyes still far too round with shock. “It made me think of your scales. I thought you might like it.”

He was staring down at the gift in utter silence. And not the normal sort of quiet either—where your broken eardrums simply refused to pick up on all his petulant grousing against your person. This was actual silence. His lips were parted like they were caught on a breath, but he wasn’t saying anything. Not even a complaint about how plain and ugly it was. He curled his claws daintily around the woven chain, as if he was afraid of tearing right through it with an accidental prick, and then held the sparkling bauble aloft like he was utterly entranced by the soft gleam of it.

After a long, long moment of that near eerie silence and a pool of dread filling your belly that screamed you’d clearly fucked up in some way (overstepped some weird, Siren tradition. Accidentally insulted his father. Handed him a bad luck omen on a string. Something), the Siren was twisting around to show you the back of his neck. He held up the woven chain so it draped along his shoulder blades, and he pointedly shook the ends at you.

When you just gaped back in shock, he turned to sneer over his shoulder at you and jabbed a claw at his throat, then the necklace, then you, then his throat again. Which, oh. Oh! That—that you could do.

So you reached out to pluck the ends of the grass-woven thread from his talons and he immediately shifted around again to make himself comfortable. Curling his tail firmly against the sand with his plum-lined fins spread out in all their glory like a spill of purple ink along the shoreline. He set his shoulders square and firm, and looked straight ahead with that same, queer sort of focus to him as before.

You tied the ends of the necklace in a bow against his nape, making sure it was securely fastened in place and not snagging any of the softer, shorter hairs at the back of his neck. Once it’d been fussed with to his liking, he turned back around and stared you down until you could feel goosebumps prickling up all along your spine. You wanted to meekly tell him that it was just sea glass. Just a little trinket you’d found in the sand that you’d thought was pretty enough that he might like to have it. But the words died on your tongue. They felt wrong somehow. And you’d put your foot in your mouth plenty of times throughout your life, but this definitely felt like it would have been the biggest boot of all.

“…You like it?” you tried instead, because that sentiment at least seemed less like something that was ready to clog up your throat.

The Siren nodded, firm, his eyes still drilling into yours with that unnerving level of focus.

You coughed into your fist and awkwardly attempted to shift away to give yourself a bit of room, and—Huh. When had his tail come up to wrap around your leg? That made running away a bit inconvenient. You’d just have to try and wriggle your way out and hope he would take mercy on your far inferior musculature, and—

There was a poke at your hip. Tap, tap, tap. One, two, three. And you glanced back up at him with a pinched frown, confused.

The Siren pointed to a scrawl in the sand. Tap, tap, tap.

Acceptable.

You gawked, and then swallowed a laugh so fast it nearly choked you. Because he was still himself, wasn’t he? No matter what. Sassy, asshole fish. Gods, you were going to miss him.

You wiped at the bubbling, giggling tears prickling at the corner of your eyes and reached out to pat at his tail in good humor.

“I hope you find your happy ending,” you beamed, and meant it.

The Siren just looked at you with one of his familiar, lemon-sour puckers. He pointedly reached up to flick at the necklace around his throat, like that had anything to do with him finding his family again at all. Like it wasn’t just some silly trinket you’d gifted him in hopes that maybe one day he could look back fondly on the little human that he’d found himself stranded with. To not just forget you outright. To make your fleeting presence in his life something tangible, rather than just a mess of already fading scars and memories that would too easily be swept away in the depths of the sea.

“At least it’s acceptable,” you said finally around your giggling, and he huffed at you in a way that almost looked fond. You stood from the sand and brushed the mess of grit and salt off your pant legs. “Come on. Let’s go have dinner and I’ll teach you some nicer words tonight. So you can give me a real compliment next time.”

There was spray of water all along your back from where he’d no doubt dove back into the shallows behind you and walloped you with his fins to the best of his ability. And honestly, you couldn’t find it in yourself to be bothered by it at all.

[TAG LIST - CLOSED]

#twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #Vil Schoenheit x Reader #Vil x Reader #vil schoenheit #Mermay #Monster Mayhem #My Writing #vil shoenheit #Siren!Vil #Mermaid!Vil #Fantasy AU #Monster Mayhem Vil Part 3

2K notes · View notes