ৎׅ ׄ synopsis ⋮ After a few weeks apart, pirate!dick is missing his favorite mermaid. Unfortunately the fishie comes to him with a new wound and a demand for food.
word cnt. 4.3k
aka ›››› “…Men give birth?” “…Why wouldn’t they?”
“Heyyy, pretty. Miss me?”
His voice cut through your sleep like a jolt of lightning, pulling you upright so abruptly that your tail thrashed in the seaweed bed beneath you. You fumbled, startled, instinctively diving deeper, slipping entirely beneath the surface before you were even fully awake from where you were ironically–waiting for him.
“Hey—it’s just me!” he called again. But down below, the sound came through distorted and distant, smothered by water and pain—your ear fins still tender, still healing from the careless fishing hook that had torn through them days ago. The ocean swallowed his voice whole, leaving only the echo of vibrations you couldn’t decipher.
Up on deck, Dick exhaled hard, a mixture of concern and exasperation fogging the cold air. The ship rocked gently beneath him, the wooden planks groaning with each slow rise and fall of the tide. Lanterns swung from their hooks, casting loose golden light through the early fog, and the wind salted the air so strongly he could taste it at the back of his tongue.
Dick scanned the water, searching for even a ripple of you.
By now—by the second hello—he should have at least seen the faintest sign of you surfacing. Normally, you’d appear with a sleepy little splash, drawn by his voice as if tethered to it. But the waves only rolled in their quiet rhythm, moonlight dying across their crests.
His chest tightened.
Dick pushed away from the railing and strode across the deck. The crew was already stirring with the dawn—a clatter of boots, a mutter of greetings, the smell of coffee someone always brewed too strongly. A few sailors saluted him as he passed, and though he smiled in return, it was a distracted, flickering thing.
He reached the side of the ship and began undoing the canvas that shielded the rope ladder, fingers moving fast despite the morning chill. The storm earlier that week had left everything damp—ropes swollen with seawater, wooden rails slick beneath his palms. Dick tossed the canvas aside and immediately started stripping down: coat first, belt next, then boots, each movement sharper than the last.
“Keep the anchor down until I return! We leave at noon.” He called out.
“CAPTAIN?!” the new crew member squeaked behind him, borderline horrified. “S-Sir—these waters are MERMAID-INFESTED!”
A low thud of footsteps. Then Raven’s voice, as dry as sand: “He knows.”
Dick barked a quiet, breathless laugh as he swung over the rail and grabbed the ladder.
Of course he knew.
The ocean down here was different—heavy with salt and mystery, thrumming with currents that weren’t entirely natural. Even from above, he could feel the water pulling at him, whispering with the strange, magnetic hum he’d grown to recognize.
Every time Dick came to this part of the sea, his pulse changed rhythm.
Not because of the glowing water or creatures that seem like they're from fairy tales, but the fairy tale that he might get a glimpse of. You.
Maybe it was the way you moved—like you were everything good about the sea made into form. Or the way you listened, with a patience deeper than any tide if it meant a reward from him.
Years on the ocean had taught him to fear things that pulled men overboard.
But you had never pulled him.
Dick always jumped in willingly.
He started down the ladder, boots dangling from one hand, cold metal scraping under his grip. The wind whipped against him, carrying the smell of brine and storms past, curling through his hair. Below him, the water churned with gentle, restless motion—dark blue, deep, alive and glowing.
It had been weeks since he last saw her.
Weeks of empty water and rough nights.
Weeks of reaching instinctively over the rail, expecting her to rise.
Weeks of that strange ache he didn’t know how to name.
He had missed her.
Missed the calm she brought him, missed the way his thoughts settled in her presence like silt sinking to the ocean floor.
Dick descended the rope ladder the way one might climb down from a dream—with careful hands and a heart already racing ahead of him. The morning was clear but restless, the moon a pale coin trembling in the sky, the waves shimmering in silver ripples that almost seemed to beckon him closer. From above, the ship creaked and hummed with its usual morning music, but to Dick, it all sounded far away, muffled beneath the pulse of anticipation in his veins.
The third foothold from the end, worn smooth by years of salt and sun, met his boot—and that was far enough.
With a breath that tasted of brine and courage, he pushed himself off the ladder and let gravity take him in one sweeping fall. The sea rose to meet him like an old friend, its arms thrown wide, as he slipped beneath its skin the world softened into blue and quiet.
And you saw him.
Of course you did.
You always did—no matter the storm, the darkness, or the thousand distractions of the deep, somehow you felt him enter the water the way others sensed a passing breeze. Your body startled with that endearing, shimmering flinch, your tail giving a joyous snap that turned the water bright with scales. Then you were gone in a silver streak, cutting through the sea with a grace no sailor could name and no artist could paint.
In mere heartbeats you reached him—your hands curling around his waist with instinctive certainty, your body halting its swift momentum so gently that he didn’t even rock. Dick floated there, arms drifting upward, his dark hair fanning like ink in the water. And when his eyes found yours, he smiled, soft and bright, like he always did for you.
“Richard.” you breathed, your voice rippling through the water like a melody. But then your expression faltered, filled with sudden alarm. Your favorite food source just risked its life. “You leapt from the ship?! What if I hadn’t been watching? You would have struck the rocks!”
He laughed at that—quiet and bubbling, the sound scattering into the water like pearls. With one finger, he tapped his throat, then the surface far above, a gentle reminder of his own limits beneath the waves.
“Oh!” you gasped, as though the thought had slipped your mind entirely. In an instant your touch shifted—protective, guiding—turning him upright, the long sweep of your tail steadying him as his legs instinctively wrapped around your hips. You kept one hand firm at the small of his back, the other warm at his side, your hold practiced from countless other stolen hours beneath the tides.
He braced himself—eyes scrunching, lips pursed in anticipation—and you couldn’t help but laugh, the sound bright and tinkling like seashell chimes.
With a gentle kick, you carried him away from the hull of the ship, the current drifting between you like silk. The deeper water welcomed you both in slow rolls, as if bowing to the familiar pair gliding across its surface.
You swam toward your little island—your shared secret—no bigger than the captain’s cabin on his floating home. A shy ring of sand and rock, shaped like a crescent moon fallen from the sky, cradled by tide pools that shone like crystal bowls. You had shown it to him on a night not so different from this one, when he first dared to reach for you in the dark.
Now it was yours.
The place where the ships could not dock, his crew could not follow, and your people could not see.
Where Dicks’s calloused human hands could trace every shining scale along your waist without fear or hesitation. Where you could bite his fingers in retaliation, harsh enough to draw blood. Where he would just smile and ask you to lick it off.
As you carried him there—his weight cradled easily against your body, his forehead nearly resting against your temple—he felt the sea hum around you both. As if the ocean itself knew your story and was eager to see it play out once more.
The moonlight danced along your tail, lighting it in soft ribbons of silver and blue. Dick reached out, brushing his fingers over the shimmering arc of scales that disappear along your waist, the touch tender and reverent. You flushed at the gesture, warmth blooming even beneath the cold press of the water. You were going to smack him for that later, at making your body that's typically as cold as ice any other temperature.
Dick couldn’t speak here—not yet—but he hoped you could feel it: how he’d jump ten thousand times if it meant falling into your arms like this. How every plunge into the water felt like leaping into the very heart of a fairy tale.
You do feel it, but frankly you'd appreciate some fish as a snack more.
When you finally broke the surface, the small island rose around you like a secret carved from the sea itself, bathed in the pale silver of moonlight spilling across the waves.
Dick coughed, the water lodged stubbornly in his lungs, and you reached instinctively, gentle fingers brushing his back in steady, repeated pats as though the motion alone could coax the ocean from him. He leaned into your touch without a word, letting you guide him to sit on the warm sand at the edge of the tide, the two of you already slipping into the quiet rhythm you had perfected over weeks of stolen moments like this.
Even without speech, the world felt far away, a distant hum beneath the waves and stars, leaving only the steady rise and fall of his chest against your hands and the soft lapping of water around your tail.
You adjusted the angle of his body with the ease of familiarity, letting him cough over and over while your eyes shimmered faintly in the early moonlight, full of anger. This island, tiny and secret, belonged only to the two of you in these moments, a sanctuary from the roar of wind and salt and ship.
Now a little hell you could raise just for him.
“I told you not to jump when I’m not looking!” you scold, your voice carrying that musical trill unique to mer-folk scolding—the kind that sounds oddly like a harp string plucked too sharply. Your nose scrunches adorably, fins flicking in agitation like a startled school of minnows.
Dick, still coughing up seawater in undignified spurts, tries to reply, “Since when do I ever—” another cough, another spray of glittering droplets,“—listen to you?”
You smack his back with the flat of your hand, a firm and strong thwack that is light for mer-folk but harsh for humans and echoes through the patch of land. “This is why you have no mate!” you declare, as though announcing the final verdict of an ancient undersea tribunal.
Dick sputters a laugh and rubs the water from his chin. “I’m young,” he argues, trying for suave but sounding more like a drowned cat. “Give me a few more years.”
“You’ll be too old by then.” You huff, crossing your arms. “No good woman would take you.”
“Women,” he says slyly, rolling onto his side and tugging you gently up the sand with him—placing you on his legs, not quite his lap, under his knees and close enough for the tide to still kiss your tail—“are different than mermaids.” His voice lowers into that charming, mischievous note that always makes your gills flutter. Would have if it wasn’t for the next thing he said.
“They like older men.”
Your nose wrinkles again, skeptical and unimpressed. “I cannot imagine why.”
Dick lets out a tired sigh and falls back into the damp sand, the moon crowning him like some accidental sea prince. “What? Do merfolk think older men look… terrible or something?”
“No,” you answer instantly, as though the very idea is absurd. “Our kind barely ages at all—not in appearance, not the way humans do.”
He glances up at you, eyebrows raised, temporarily distracted from his still-racing pulse from that swim. “Then what’s the problem with older men?”
“It’s more painful for them to carry.” You say with a casual shrug, flicking your tail as though this is common knowledge. “Why force your mate to endure greater pain when child-rearing is already life-or-death at times?”
Dick’s head snaps off the sand so quickly he nearly knocks into you. His eyes go wide—oceans-wide—and his mouth drops open like he’s been struck by lightning from a clear sky.
You think—maybe—you see a faint pink bloom across his cheeks.
“…What,” he breathes, not as a question, but as a complete existential collapse.
You tilt your head, your sea-silk hair drifting in the breeze like kelp caught in a gentle tide. You speak cautiously, as though approaching a skittish seahorse.
“…When a mermaid and a merman love each other very much—”
“I know that,” Dick blurts, cheeks flushing a color warmer than the dawn. He hushes you with a frantic gesture, embarrassed, still coughing up the last remnants of seawater like the ocean refuses to release him fully.
Dick absolutely does not know how mer-folk do anything behind closed reefs, but he is not about to receive a mermaid version of the birds and the bees while still tasting salt.
You blink at him owlishly, baffled by his interruption—as if he is the one missing something obvious.
“Then what is it?” you ask, utterly earnest. The moon catches on your scales and they shimmer like a secret treasure. “What confuses you?”
“…Men give birth?” he finally sputters, blinking at you as though you’ve just told him the sea is actually made of soup.
“…Why wouldn’t they?” you counter immediately, brow arching with genuine curiosity.
In your expression there is no jest, no exaggeration—only the serene, unflappable certainty of someone who grew up believing this was the natural order of the universe.
Dick opens his mouth once, shuts it, opens it again. He looks like a fish you might rescue from a net—wide-eyed, stunned, and very out of his element.
“Where…” He swallows, staring at you, then at your tail, then back at you, as if the answer might appear carved in coral across your cheekbones.
“Where does the baby come out from?”
You inhale to answer—calmly, scientifically, like you’re about to give the most straightforward explanation in the world—but Dick’s hand shoots out immediately, warm and calloused, covering your mouth before a single syllable escapes.
His eyes are wide. Fearful. Regretful.
Haunted.
“Forget I asked,” he pleads, voice barely above a whisper.
You blink slowly, lips squishing slightly beneath his palm, the picture of innocent confusion—like a sea kitten scolded for the very first time.
His eyes squeeze shut for a moment, the corners tugging into a crooked, awkward smile that makes your chest ache and your instincts want to coo like you do whenever your prey starts to run. You almost do—almost let the soft, musical note escape your lips—until his gaze drifts, sharp and unwavering, to the small, fragile fin.
You had tried to hide it, braiding strands of seaweed into your hair as if the ocean itself could disguise your wound. A clever trick, perhaps, but not clever enough for Dick’s eyes. You suppose you started to underestimate him, maybe the seaweed in his brain is finally starting to become unlodged.
Wounded mer-folk, far from the shelter of their kin, were always the most vulnerable. Even the smallest tear, the tiniest puncture, could disrupt everything: balance, hearing, the delicate coordination of head and neck. Without your fins, every movement stutters; every sound above the surface becomes a muted whisper.
“What happened?” Dick's voice cuts through the soft lull of the waves, strong but tethered with concern.
Before you can answer fully, his fingers move, skilled and insistent, undoing the seaweed braid with a practiced, impatient urgency. You sigh, a soft bubble of exasperation and relief.
“A fisherman came too close to our territory. I didn’t see his hook,” you explain, your tone casual, almost careless, though your eyes follow every flicker of his reaction. “It’s alright. Some of my people already dealt with him.”
Dick’s gaze sharpens, a flicker of conflict passing through the blue storm of his eyes, but he does not protest. Any fisherman with sense—or respect for his own life—should have known those waters were off-limits. Even now, the island where you’ve made refuge lies at least a mile from the border of your waters.
His calloused fingers lift to your jaw, tilting your head gently, examining the puncture with precise care. The wound sits just behind your ear, a narrow, cruel line that drags upward through the fin, small but dangerous. The tenderness in his touch contrasts sharply with the cold knowledge of what could have happened, his thumb brushing lightly along the curve of your skin as if measuring both the damage and your resilience.
You let him, because you know him. You know that if he could not see it—if he could not inspect it, touch it, trace it with his eyes and hands—he would go mad. And you...well you'll allow it if it means you get your marinated fish.
The wound behind your ear gaped like a cruel slit in fragile silk, the cartilage torn ragged, fins shredded in jagged lines, and dark, briny blood oozed steadily, mixing with the saltwater that clung to your skin in sticky rivulets. Tiny shards of flesh that is usually bellow your scales clung to the wound, glistening and raw, pulsing with each heartbeat as if the injury itself throbbed in protest.
The tear dragged upward, slicing through tissue and leaving a thin trail of coagulated blood along the delicate curve of your neck. Every subtle movement of your head made the fin shiver violently, sending sharp, stabbing jolts of pain that radiated deep into your skull. The sight alone was enough to make stomachs turn—a vivid, relentless reminder of how dangerously close the hook had been to cutting nerves or severing veins that no mer-folk could survive losing.
But you had more important matters to deal with right now.
Such as the fish you can smell coming from his pocket.
“You… you should have told me right away—” Dick’s voice trembles, a mixture of desperation and restraint as he struggles to keep it soft, almost reverent. “I have antiseptic, bandages—I could have—”
“They would not have worked on me,” you reply gently, lifting a webbed hand to rest lightly atop the warm skin of his hand. The touch is soft, grounding, a quiet begrudging reassurance. “I am not like your kind. We have our own medicines—they were already applied to the seaweed, see?”
Dick’s gaze drops to the tangled long strands of seaweed in his hand, noting the way they shimmer with a golden-orange oil, now streaked with your dark red-purple blood. The sight sends a flicker of awe and unease through him, a silent admission of the vast, unbridgeable differences between your worlds—differences he both marvels at and quietly resents having to acknowledge.
“I…” He starts slowly, swallowing hard, eyes closing for a brief moment as if to steady his racing heart. When he speaks again, his tone is hushed, almost solemn, a careful mixture of humility and frustration. “I… apologize for taking it off.”
He keeps his hand hovering, caught in the quiet space between instinct and awe, unsure whether to withdraw or press closer, suspended in the helpless wonder of the strange, potent magic that is simply you.
“There’s no need for apologies,” you murmur softly, letting your tail flick involuntarily in the water. “Do you… think you could braid it back on for me?”
Dick hesitates, gaze dropping to the wound, uncertainty threading his voice. “I don’t… I don’t understand how it works if it’s not wrapping the wound…”
You smile, teasing and patient, like your dealing with a child. Your hands reach for a strand of hair in front of and behind your ear. “The ocean’s water at the center of our territory heals more than any medicine could. Braiding the strands across the front and back simply provides protection from infection. The medicine seeps from the seaweed into our blood instead of the water—merfolk blood is mostly oil, not water.”
Dick blinks at that, a faint, awkward smile tugging at his lips as he reaches forward, fingers steadying as he begins to braid with surprising skill. “How ironic,” he mutters.
“Yes, I do envy your kind,” you coo lightly, feeling the warmth of his hands near your sensitive scalp, “always looking so majestic even as you bleed out. Our blood… it just floats to the surface. Not very pretty I fear.”
Dick blinks again, then smiles, unfazed, continuing the braid with careful fingers.
“Your hair is like silk,” he murmurs, voice low, eyes trying not to linger too long on the faint wound along your shoulder—a wound you know he’s already trying to forget, trying to distract from with words soft as sea foam.
“As is yours,” you reply, letting a webbed hand drift upward, fingertips brushing delicately along the strands at his scalp. Even the gentlest touch could sting, could pierce—but he leans in closer without a hint of hesitation, as though your warning were the merest suggestion.
“Do you think I could take some?” you whisper, a teasing lilt to your tone. “I should be able to exchange a few pearls for this.”
“Can I have a few of your scales?” Dick replies, dripping with that newly acquired sarcasm of his—a sharp, human wit that only recently has begun to make sense to you.
Your eyes narrow, shimmering like twin moons in the dark water. “Human hair cannot be spoken of on the same level as scales.”
“Your hair then,” he hums, undeterred, tilting his head with the faintest smirk.
You ignore him, letting your gaze drift to the gentle waves lapping against the sand. “My fish,” you murmur, the word soft, reverent. Holding your open hand out, your tail flicking in the water with this being the only time you're nice and pliant. Acting all sweet like a cat asking for food.
Dick pauses, brow furrowing slightly, and with practiced hands he finishes tying off your last braid with a strand of seaweed, the salty scent clinging to his fingers. Then he reaches into the small pocket of his shirt for the familiar little bribe—the tiny trinket, the sweet incentive he always brings to coax you close.
Only it isn’t there.
His eyes widened.
A curse passes his lips, silent and sharp.
It must have fallen when you swam so fast to reach the island, carried away by the current, leaving him empty-handed—and, somehow, a little more helpless than usual.
Dick looks up at you slowly—too slowly—like a man trying to stall his own execution.
“Richard Grayson.” Your voice sharpens like a spear glinting under moonlight. “Where is my fish?”
He swallows. Hard. “You know, babe…” he begins, easing the word out as if it might slide past you unnoticed—except your brow twitches, your fins flare, and the water behind you ripples like something preparing to strike.
“Fish are friends. Not food.”
“You are a pirate.” You jab a long, curved nail at his chest—close enough that the fabric of his shirt sighs beneath the threat of it. “You eat fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Your people are merciless with your hunt.”
Dick lifts one brow, sea‑salt confidence returning far quicker than his sanity should allow.
“Oh? And how do you decide which fish are friends and which are prey? Your folk can talk to them. Isn’t that less humane than what I’m doing? Or…” His mouth twitches. “Mer‑mane?”
You blink. Slowly. Like a leviathan considering whether to swallow a sailor whole.
“I tell them I am going to eat them.” You say this with a solemnity usually reserved for sacred rituals. “The fish that laugh are friends. The fish that swim away are prey.”
Dick’s face contorts into something between horror, disbelief, and a betrayed fondness.
“Is this why you told me you’d eat me when we first met?”
“Yes.” You nod once, gravely. “Unfortunately, you did not run.”
“Babe, I thought you were hitting on me.”
Your eyes widen—not in innocence, but in outrage at the insult to your logic. “Hitting you? Sweetheart I had a piece of glass to your throat”
“No, no—” he runs a hand down his wet face, half drowning in your sincerity, half drowning from the actual ocean. “It means flirting.”
You tilt your head.
The tide tugs at your hair like curious fingers.
“…why would threatening to devour you be flirting?”
“Sweetheart,” he says, leaning in with a grin that should not be allowed on a man whose life depends on your mood, “you grabbed my ankle, yanked me under a wave, and told me you’d decide my fate based on how fast I swam.”
“I was hungry.”
“You kissed me an hour later.”
“I was still hungry and you tasted dreadful.”
He stares.
You stare.
The sea hushes around the two of you like it’s eavesdropping.
Then your tail flicks, sending a spray of silver droplets across his chest. “Where,” you repeat, voice dangerously soft, “is my fish, Richard Grayson?”
Dick exhales, defeated laughter slipping from him. “…I think the ocean ate it.”
You gasp—not a human gasp, but a mermaid type gasp, sharp enough to cut. “The ocean cannot eat my offering! That fish was for me!”
“Yeah,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck, “and I was for you too, apparently.”
You study him for a moment, eyes narrowing with regal disdain. “Well… you will do for tonight.”
“Do what—?”
But you’re already hauling him by the collar back toward the surf, muttering something about useless pirates and clumsy humans and how he should hope he tastes better this time.
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ৎׅ ׄ synopsis ⋮ After a few weeks apart, pirate!dick is missing his favorite mermaid. Unfortunately the fishie comes to him with a new wound and a demand for food.
word cnt. 4.3k
aka ›››› “…Men give birth?” “…Why wouldn’t they?”
“Heyyy, pretty. Miss me?”
His voice cut through your sleep like a jolt of lightning, pulling you upright so abruptly that your tail thrashed in the seaweed bed beneath you. You fumbled, startled, instinctively diving deeper, slipping entirely beneath the surface before you were even fully awake from where you were ironically–waiting for him.
“Hey—it’s just me!” he called again. But down below, the sound came through distorted and distant, smothered by water and pain—your ear fins still tender, still healing from the careless fishing hook that had torn through them days ago. The ocean swallowed his voice whole, leaving only the echo of vibrations you couldn’t decipher.
Up on deck, Dick exhaled hard, a mixture of concern and exasperation fogging the cold air. The ship rocked gently beneath him, the wooden planks groaning with each slow rise and fall of the tide. Lanterns swung from their hooks, casting loose golden light through the early fog, and the wind salted the air so strongly he could taste it at the back of his tongue.
Dick scanned the water, searching for even a ripple of you.
By now—by the second hello—he should have at least seen the faintest sign of you surfacing. Normally, you’d appear with a sleepy little splash, drawn by his voice as if tethered to it. But the waves only rolled in their quiet rhythm, moonlight dying across their crests.
His chest tightened.
Dick pushed away from the railing and strode across the deck. The crew was already stirring with the dawn—a clatter of boots, a mutter of greetings, the smell of coffee someone always brewed too strongly. A few sailors saluted him as he passed, and though he smiled in return, it was a distracted, flickering thing.
He reached the side of the ship and began undoing the canvas that shielded the rope ladder, fingers moving fast despite the morning chill. The storm earlier that week had left everything damp—ropes swollen with seawater, wooden rails slick beneath his palms. Dick tossed the canvas aside and immediately started stripping down: coat first, belt next, then boots, each movement sharper than the last.
“Keep the anchor down until I return! We leave at noon.” He called out.
“CAPTAIN?!” the new crew member squeaked behind him, borderline horrified. “S-Sir—these waters are MERMAID-INFESTED!”
A low thud of footsteps. Then Raven’s voice, as dry as sand: “He knows.”
Dick barked a quiet, breathless laugh as he swung over the rail and grabbed the ladder.
Of course he knew.
The ocean down here was different—heavy with salt and mystery, thrumming with currents that weren’t entirely natural. Even from above, he could feel the water pulling at him, whispering with the strange, magnetic hum he’d grown to recognize.
Every time Dick came to this part of the sea, his pulse changed rhythm.
Not because of the glowing water or creatures that seem like they're from fairy tales, but the fairy tale that he might get a glimpse of. You.
Maybe it was the way you moved—like you were everything good about the sea made into form. Or the way you listened, with a patience deeper than any tide if it meant a reward from him.
Years on the ocean had taught him to fear things that pulled men overboard.
But you had never pulled him.
Dick always jumped in willingly.
He started down the ladder, boots dangling from one hand, cold metal scraping under his grip. The wind whipped against him, carrying the smell of brine and storms past, curling through his hair. Below him, the water churned with gentle, restless motion—dark blue, deep, alive and glowing.
It had been weeks since he last saw her.
Weeks of empty water and rough nights.
Weeks of reaching instinctively over the rail, expecting her to rise.
Weeks of that strange ache he didn’t know how to name.
He had missed her.
Missed the calm she brought him, missed the way his thoughts settled in her presence like silt sinking to the ocean floor.
Dick descended the rope ladder the way one might climb down from a dream—with careful hands and a heart already racing ahead of him. The morning was clear but restless, the moon a pale coin trembling in the sky, the waves shimmering in silver ripples that almost seemed to beckon him closer. From above, the ship creaked and hummed with its usual morning music, but to Dick, it all sounded far away, muffled beneath the pulse of anticipation in his veins.
The third foothold from the end, worn smooth by years of salt and sun, met his boot—and that was far enough.
With a breath that tasted of brine and courage, he pushed himself off the ladder and let gravity take him in one sweeping fall. The sea rose to meet him like an old friend, its arms thrown wide, as he slipped beneath its skin the world softened into blue and quiet.
And you saw him.
Of course you did.
You always did—no matter the storm, the darkness, or the thousand distractions of the deep, somehow you felt him enter the water the way others sensed a passing breeze. Your body startled with that endearing, shimmering flinch, your tail giving a joyous snap that turned the water bright with scales. Then you were gone in a silver streak, cutting through the sea with a grace no sailor could name and no artist could paint.
In mere heartbeats you reached him—your hands curling around his waist with instinctive certainty, your body halting its swift momentum so gently that he didn’t even rock. Dick floated there, arms drifting upward, his dark hair fanning like ink in the water. And when his eyes found yours, he smiled, soft and bright, like he always did for you.
“Richard.” you breathed, your voice rippling through the water like a melody. But then your expression faltered, filled with sudden alarm. Your favorite food source just risked its life. “You leapt from the ship?! What if I hadn’t been watching? You would have struck the rocks!”
He laughed at that—quiet and bubbling, the sound scattering into the water like pearls. With one finger, he tapped his throat, then the surface far above, a gentle reminder of his own limits beneath the waves.
“Oh!” you gasped, as though the thought had slipped your mind entirely. In an instant your touch shifted—protective, guiding—turning him upright, the long sweep of your tail steadying him as his legs instinctively wrapped around your hips. You kept one hand firm at the small of his back, the other warm at his side, your hold practiced from countless other stolen hours beneath the tides.
He braced himself—eyes scrunching, lips pursed in anticipation—and you couldn’t help but laugh, the sound bright and tinkling like seashell chimes.
With a gentle kick, you carried him away from the hull of the ship, the current drifting between you like silk. The deeper water welcomed you both in slow rolls, as if bowing to the familiar pair gliding across its surface.
You swam toward your little island—your shared secret—no bigger than the captain’s cabin on his floating home. A shy ring of sand and rock, shaped like a crescent moon fallen from the sky, cradled by tide pools that shone like crystal bowls. You had shown it to him on a night not so different from this one, when he first dared to reach for you in the dark.
Now it was yours.
The place where the ships could not dock, his crew could not follow, and your people could not see.
Where Dicks’s calloused human hands could trace every shining scale along your waist without fear or hesitation. Where you could bite his fingers in retaliation, harsh enough to draw blood. Where he would just smile and ask you to lick it off.
As you carried him there—his weight cradled easily against your body, his forehead nearly resting against your temple—he felt the sea hum around you both. As if the ocean itself knew your story and was eager to see it play out once more.
The moonlight danced along your tail, lighting it in soft ribbons of silver and blue. Dick reached out, brushing his fingers over the shimmering arc of scales that disappear along your waist, the touch tender and reverent. You flushed at the gesture, warmth blooming even beneath the cold press of the water. You were going to smack him for that later, at making your body that's typically as cold as ice any other temperature.
Dick couldn’t speak here—not yet—but he hoped you could feel it: how he’d jump ten thousand times if it meant falling into your arms like this. How every plunge into the water felt like leaping into the very heart of a fairy tale.
You do feel it, but frankly you'd appreciate some fish as a snack more.
When you finally broke the surface, the small island rose around you like a secret carved from the sea itself, bathed in the pale silver of moonlight spilling across the waves.
Dick coughed, the water lodged stubbornly in his lungs, and you reached instinctively, gentle fingers brushing his back in steady, repeated pats as though the motion alone could coax the ocean from him. He leaned into your touch without a word, letting you guide him to sit on the warm sand at the edge of the tide, the two of you already slipping into the quiet rhythm you had perfected over weeks of stolen moments like this.
Even without speech, the world felt far away, a distant hum beneath the waves and stars, leaving only the steady rise and fall of his chest against your hands and the soft lapping of water around your tail.
You adjusted the angle of his body with the ease of familiarity, letting him cough over and over while your eyes shimmered faintly in the early moonlight, full of anger. This island, tiny and secret, belonged only to the two of you in these moments, a sanctuary from the roar of wind and salt and ship.
Now a little hell you could raise just for him.
“I told you not to jump when I’m not looking!” you scold, your voice carrying that musical trill unique to mer-folk scolding—the kind that sounds oddly like a harp string plucked too sharply. Your nose scrunches adorably, fins flicking in agitation like a startled school of minnows.
Dick, still coughing up seawater in undignified spurts, tries to reply, “Since when do I ever—” another cough, another spray of glittering droplets,“—listen to you?”
You smack his back with the flat of your hand, a firm and strong thwack that is light for mer-folk but harsh for humans and echoes through the patch of land. “This is why you have no mate!” you declare, as though announcing the final verdict of an ancient undersea tribunal.
Dick sputters a laugh and rubs the water from his chin. “I’m young,” he argues, trying for suave but sounding more like a drowned cat. “Give me a few more years.”
“You’ll be too old by then.” You huff, crossing your arms. “No good woman would take you.”
“Women,” he says slyly, rolling onto his side and tugging you gently up the sand with him—placing you on his legs, not quite his lap, under his knees and close enough for the tide to still kiss your tail—“are different than mermaids.” His voice lowers into that charming, mischievous note that always makes your gills flutter. Would have if it wasn’t for the next thing he said.
“They like older men.”
Your nose wrinkles again, skeptical and unimpressed. “I cannot imagine why.”
Dick lets out a tired sigh and falls back into the damp sand, the moon crowning him like some accidental sea prince. “What? Do merfolk think older men look… terrible or something?”
“No,” you answer instantly, as though the very idea is absurd. “Our kind barely ages at all—not in appearance, not the way humans do.”
He glances up at you, eyebrows raised, temporarily distracted from his still-racing pulse from that swim. “Then what’s the problem with older men?”
“It’s more painful for them to carry.” You say with a casual shrug, flicking your tail as though this is common knowledge. “Why force your mate to endure greater pain when child-rearing is already life-or-death at times?”
Dick’s head snaps off the sand so quickly he nearly knocks into you. His eyes go wide—oceans-wide—and his mouth drops open like he’s been struck by lightning from a clear sky.
You think—maybe—you see a faint pink bloom across his cheeks.
“…What,” he breathes, not as a question, but as a complete existential collapse.
You tilt your head, your sea-silk hair drifting in the breeze like kelp caught in a gentle tide. You speak cautiously, as though approaching a skittish seahorse.
“…When a mermaid and a merman love each other very much—”
“I know that,” Dick blurts, cheeks flushing a color warmer than the dawn. He hushes you with a frantic gesture, embarrassed, still coughing up the last remnants of seawater like the ocean refuses to release him fully.
Dick absolutely does not know how mer-folk do anything behind closed reefs, but he is not about to receive a mermaid version of the birds and the bees while still tasting salt.
You blink at him owlishly, baffled by his interruption—as if he is the one missing something obvious.
“Then what is it?” you ask, utterly earnest. The moon catches on your scales and they shimmer like a secret treasure. “What confuses you?”
“…Men give birth?” he finally sputters, blinking at you as though you’ve just told him the sea is actually made of soup.
“…Why wouldn’t they?” you counter immediately, brow arching with genuine curiosity.
In your expression there is no jest, no exaggeration—only the serene, unflappable certainty of someone who grew up believing this was the natural order of the universe.
Dick opens his mouth once, shuts it, opens it again. He looks like a fish you might rescue from a net—wide-eyed, stunned, and very out of his element.
“Where…” He swallows, staring at you, then at your tail, then back at you, as if the answer might appear carved in coral across your cheekbones.
“Where does the baby come out from?”
You inhale to answer—calmly, scientifically, like you’re about to give the most straightforward explanation in the world—but Dick’s hand shoots out immediately, warm and calloused, covering your mouth before a single syllable escapes.
His eyes are wide. Fearful. Regretful.
Haunted.
“Forget I asked,” he pleads, voice barely above a whisper.
You blink slowly, lips squishing slightly beneath his palm, the picture of innocent confusion—like a sea kitten scolded for the very first time.
His eyes squeeze shut for a moment, the corners tugging into a crooked, awkward smile that makes your chest ache and your instincts want to coo like you do whenever your prey starts to run. You almost do—almost let the soft, musical note escape your lips—until his gaze drifts, sharp and unwavering, to the small, fragile fin.
You had tried to hide it, braiding strands of seaweed into your hair as if the ocean itself could disguise your wound. A clever trick, perhaps, but not clever enough for Dick’s eyes. You suppose you started to underestimate him, maybe the seaweed in his brain is finally starting to become unlodged.
Wounded mer-folk, far from the shelter of their kin, were always the most vulnerable. Even the smallest tear, the tiniest puncture, could disrupt everything: balance, hearing, the delicate coordination of head and neck. Without your fins, every movement stutters; every sound above the surface becomes a muted whisper.
“What happened?” Dick's voice cuts through the soft lull of the waves, strong but tethered with concern.
Before you can answer fully, his fingers move, skilled and insistent, undoing the seaweed braid with a practiced, impatient urgency. You sigh, a soft bubble of exasperation and relief.
“A fisherman came too close to our territory. I didn’t see his hook,” you explain, your tone casual, almost careless, though your eyes follow every flicker of his reaction. “It’s alright. Some of my people already dealt with him.”
Dick’s gaze sharpens, a flicker of conflict passing through the blue storm of his eyes, but he does not protest. Any fisherman with sense—or respect for his own life—should have known those waters were off-limits. Even now, the island where you’ve made refuge lies at least a mile from the border of your waters.
His calloused fingers lift to your jaw, tilting your head gently, examining the puncture with precise care. The wound sits just behind your ear, a narrow, cruel line that drags upward through the fin, small but dangerous. The tenderness in his touch contrasts sharply with the cold knowledge of what could have happened, his thumb brushing lightly along the curve of your skin as if measuring both the damage and your resilience.
You let him, because you know him. You know that if he could not see it—if he could not inspect it, touch it, trace it with his eyes and hands—he would go mad. And you...well you'll allow it if it means you get your marinated fish.
The wound behind your ear gaped like a cruel slit in fragile silk, the cartilage torn ragged, fins shredded in jagged lines, and dark, briny blood oozed steadily, mixing with the saltwater that clung to your skin in sticky rivulets. Tiny shards of flesh that is usually bellow your scales clung to the wound, glistening and raw, pulsing with each heartbeat as if the injury itself throbbed in protest.
The tear dragged upward, slicing through tissue and leaving a thin trail of coagulated blood along the delicate curve of your neck. Every subtle movement of your head made the fin shiver violently, sending sharp, stabbing jolts of pain that radiated deep into your skull. The sight alone was enough to make stomachs turn—a vivid, relentless reminder of how dangerously close the hook had been to cutting nerves or severing veins that no mer-folk could survive losing.
But you had more important matters to deal with right now.
Such as the fish you can smell coming from his pocket.
“You… you should have told me right away—” Dick’s voice trembles, a mixture of desperation and restraint as he struggles to keep it soft, almost reverent. “I have antiseptic, bandages—I could have—”
“They would not have worked on me,” you reply gently, lifting a webbed hand to rest lightly atop the warm skin of his hand. The touch is soft, grounding, a quiet begrudging reassurance. “I am not like your kind. We have our own medicines—they were already applied to the seaweed, see?”
Dick’s gaze drops to the tangled long strands of seaweed in his hand, noting the way they shimmer with a golden-orange oil, now streaked with your dark red-purple blood. The sight sends a flicker of awe and unease through him, a silent admission of the vast, unbridgeable differences between your worlds—differences he both marvels at and quietly resents having to acknowledge.
“I…” He starts slowly, swallowing hard, eyes closing for a brief moment as if to steady his racing heart. When he speaks again, his tone is hushed, almost solemn, a careful mixture of humility and frustration. “I… apologize for taking it off.”
He keeps his hand hovering, caught in the quiet space between instinct and awe, unsure whether to withdraw or press closer, suspended in the helpless wonder of the strange, potent magic that is simply you.
“There’s no need for apologies,” you murmur softly, letting your tail flick involuntarily in the water. “Do you… think you could braid it back on for me?”
Dick hesitates, gaze dropping to the wound, uncertainty threading his voice. “I don’t… I don’t understand how it works if it’s not wrapping the wound…”
You smile, teasing and patient, like your dealing with a child. Your hands reach for a strand of hair in front of and behind your ear. “The ocean’s water at the center of our territory heals more than any medicine could. Braiding the strands across the front and back simply provides protection from infection. The medicine seeps from the seaweed into our blood instead of the water—merfolk blood is mostly oil, not water.”
Dick blinks at that, a faint, awkward smile tugging at his lips as he reaches forward, fingers steadying as he begins to braid with surprising skill. “How ironic,” he mutters.
“Yes, I do envy your kind,” you coo lightly, feeling the warmth of his hands near your sensitive scalp, “always looking so majestic even as you bleed out. Our blood… it just floats to the surface. Not very pretty I fear.”
Dick blinks again, then smiles, unfazed, continuing the braid with careful fingers.
“Your hair is like silk,” he murmurs, voice low, eyes trying not to linger too long on the faint wound along your shoulder—a wound you know he’s already trying to forget, trying to distract from with words soft as sea foam.
“As is yours,” you reply, letting a webbed hand drift upward, fingertips brushing delicately along the strands at his scalp. Even the gentlest touch could sting, could pierce—but he leans in closer without a hint of hesitation, as though your warning were the merest suggestion.
“Do you think I could take some?” you whisper, a teasing lilt to your tone. “I should be able to exchange a few pearls for this.”
“Can I have a few of your scales?” Dick replies, dripping with that newly acquired sarcasm of his—a sharp, human wit that only recently has begun to make sense to you.
Your eyes narrow, shimmering like twin moons in the dark water. “Human hair cannot be spoken of on the same level as scales.”
“Your hair then,” he hums, undeterred, tilting his head with the faintest smirk.
You ignore him, letting your gaze drift to the gentle waves lapping against the sand. “My fish,” you murmur, the word soft, reverent. Holding your open hand out, your tail flicking in the water with this being the only time you're nice and pliant. Acting all sweet like a cat asking for food.
Dick pauses, brow furrowing slightly, and with practiced hands he finishes tying off your last braid with a strand of seaweed, the salty scent clinging to his fingers. Then he reaches into the small pocket of his shirt for the familiar little bribe—the tiny trinket, the sweet incentive he always brings to coax you close.
Only it isn’t there.
His eyes widened.
A curse passes his lips, silent and sharp.
It must have fallen when you swam so fast to reach the island, carried away by the current, leaving him empty-handed—and, somehow, a little more helpless than usual.
Dick looks up at you slowly—too slowly—like a man trying to stall his own execution.
“Richard Grayson.” Your voice sharpens like a spear glinting under moonlight. “Where is my fish?”
He swallows. Hard. “You know, babe…” he begins, easing the word out as if it might slide past you unnoticed—except your brow twitches, your fins flare, and the water behind you ripples like something preparing to strike.
“Fish are friends. Not food.”
“You are a pirate.” You jab a long, curved nail at his chest—close enough that the fabric of his shirt sighs beneath the threat of it. “You eat fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Your people are merciless with your hunt.”
Dick lifts one brow, sea‑salt confidence returning far quicker than his sanity should allow.
“Oh? And how do you decide which fish are friends and which are prey? Your folk can talk to them. Isn’t that less humane than what I’m doing? Or…” His mouth twitches. “Mer‑mane?”
You blink. Slowly. Like a leviathan considering whether to swallow a sailor whole.
“I tell them I am going to eat them.” You say this with a solemnity usually reserved for sacred rituals. “The fish that laugh are friends. The fish that swim away are prey.”
Dick’s face contorts into something between horror, disbelief, and a betrayed fondness.
“Is this why you told me you’d eat me when we first met?”
“Yes.” You nod once, gravely. “Unfortunately, you did not run.”
“Babe, I thought you were hitting on me.”
Your eyes widen—not in innocence, but in outrage at the insult to your logic. “Hitting you? Sweetheart I had a piece of glass to your throat”
“No, no—” he runs a hand down his wet face, half drowning in your sincerity, half drowning from the actual ocean. “It means flirting.”
You tilt your head.
The tide tugs at your hair like curious fingers.
“…why would threatening to devour you be flirting?”
“Sweetheart,” he says, leaning in with a grin that should not be allowed on a man whose life depends on your mood, “you grabbed my ankle, yanked me under a wave, and told me you’d decide my fate based on how fast I swam.”
“I was hungry.”
“You kissed me an hour later.”
“I was still hungry and you tasted dreadful.”
He stares.
You stare.
The sea hushes around the two of you like it’s eavesdropping.
Then your tail flicks, sending a spray of silver droplets across his chest. “Where,” you repeat, voice dangerously soft, “is my fish, Richard Grayson?”
Dick exhales, defeated laughter slipping from him. “…I think the ocean ate it.”
You gasp—not a human gasp, but a mermaid type gasp, sharp enough to cut. “The ocean cannot eat my offering! That fish was for me!”
“Yeah,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck, “and I was for you too, apparently.”
You study him for a moment, eyes narrowing with regal disdain. “Well… you will do for tonight.”
“Do what—?”
But you’re already hauling him by the collar back toward the surf, muttering something about useless pirates and clumsy humans and how he should hope he tastes better this time.
replies and reblogs are always appreciated! please lmk what you think it helps me release new work sm faster!
Mr. Goodreads and Miss Letterbox || Jason Todd x reader
— Both of you just shared your love for books/films in social media, but your followers saw the potential of an amazing power couple. What happens when you find out about the ship and decides to check Jason's account?
!!: smau + a narrated part. fem!reader. not use of y/n. bookstagramer!Jason x cinephile!reader. Pictures are from Pinterest. enemies to lovers-ish (not really???)
[dc masterlist]
yourusername
liked by 101.344 people
photo dump of the last week of June 🌷
Watched Obsession yesterday. You guys know I don't usually watch horror movies in the cinema, I prefer to watch them at home, safe and cozy, but I've been hearing lot of mixed opinions about this film and I couldn't wait to finally watch it myself. I would rate it with 4 stars because it was really good and extremely disturbing. As always, you guys can find my complete review (with spoilers) in my letterboxd!!
-💋
comments:
user1 Just came from reading your letterboxd review and I agree with everything you said ♥︎ liked by the author
user2 Haven't watched the movie and never will, because I hate this genre, but I loved reading your review ♥︎ liked by the author
user3 If she has a boyfriend, he either has to be another film-obsessed freak or someone who is the total opposite of her, like someone who argues the book a film is based of is way better, even if it isn't
⤷ user4 there's this guy here whose user is @/j.todd who makes content about books and I believe they were made for each other, even if they haven't met yet 🙂↕️
⤷ user5 OMGGG JASON YESS THEY WOULD BE PERFECT TOGETHER
⤷ user6 now this gotta be my new favorite ship
j.todd
Liked by 412.802 people
Normal People by Sally Rooney. 3 stars. I can't deny Sally Rooney is a very talented author, and the start of the book was very powerful and entertaining. However, the ending disappointed me (complete review in my Goodreads). I can't consider Normal People a bad book, it was beautifully written and didn't feel boring, but it's not one of my favorites.
comments:
user1 Normal People is one of my top 3 favorite books but I agree with some of your points in your Goodreads review
user2 ONLY 3 STARS???
user3 love me a man who reads, is he single?
⤷ user4 get in line
⤷ user5 hope he is so he can date my beloved @/yourusername
user6 I'm finishing Normal People, but I kinda agree with you, It's a really good book, but I can't give it more than 4 stars
yourusername
liked by 98.864 people
Can you guys believe I never got to watch Wuthering Heights in theaters when the movie came out? (I still did the trend with the poster and my husband Jacob Elordi). Either way, I watched the movie yesterday night and I have a few comments on it. Over all the movie gets 3 stars and I'm being generous. I haven't read the book but the film was... something else... I have a lot of things to say about this so you guys can go read my review in letterboxd (contains spoiler)
-💋
comments:
user1 I loved the movie wdym 😭😭
user2 kinda weird for you not to watch a movie the second it's out on theaters
⤷ yourusername I know right? but I was very busy when the movie came out, and when I finally got time to go watch it it had already been removed from theaters
user3 Jacob Elordi the man you are
⤷ user4 idk he gives me weird vibes
user5 I love your reviews, they are so complete and so well written ♥︎ liked by the author
user6 nah guys have you seen Jason's post? This can't be coincidence
⤷ user7 this can either be coincidence or they know each other
⤷ user8 maybe they know about the ship and are just messing around with us
user9 you should read the book
⤷ yourusername not my thing lmao
j.todd
liked by 726.997 people
Haven't had much time to read this past weeks, so I figured I could talk about a book I read a while ago, that I really enjoyed, and never posted my review here.
Wuthering Heights gets five stars from me. It's impossible to sum up everything I love about this book in here, so I suggest you all to go and read my review in Goodreads. But it's darkness, and poetic story has made this book one of my ultimate favorites.
P.S: I don't usually mark classics, so I just decided to post some photos I took this month.
comments:
user1 WE GOT JASON'S FACE REVEAL BEFORE GTA VI
user2 blah blah blah proper name place name backstory stuff
user3 que sí quesito que sí
user4 whatever you say handsome
user5 just here to say that @/yourusername just posted her review of the movie
⤷ user6 idc if they know each other or not, they're my parents
⤷ user7 They would be the perfect couple istg
⤷ user8 mr. Goodreads and miss letterbox, straight from a romcom
⤷ user9 they're married in my head
yourusername
liked by 101.344 people
photo dump of this week before I got sick
Rewatched one of my favorite movies because I couldn't get out of bed and I'm so happy I finally get to talk to you guys about it. Dead Poets Society is my favorite movie of all time, hands down, no hesitations. A masterpiece. It's poetic, it's beautiful, it moves you and it's genuinely the only movie that has made me cry. As always you guys have my complete review in my letterboxd (with spoilers, just in case there's people that haven't watched it yet, in that case I'm so sorry).
-💋
comments:
user1 get well soon queen ♥︎ liked by the author
user2 so you got sick, that's why you were so active on social media lately
⤷ yourusername I'm so bored
user3 Dead Poets Society really is THE film
user4 getting sick in July, what's in Gothams air?
⤷ yourusername the real question is: what isn't in Gotham's air?
⤷ user5 WAIT are you from Gotham???
⤷ user6 one step closer to her and Jason meeting each other and falling in love
j.todd
liked by 611.135 people
Found the Dead Poets Society book in my local library and, since I never watched the movie and the book is short, I decided to read it. It gets 3 ½ stars. I found it quite plain and, although I think the story is moving, I'm not sure the book captured the feelings that well. Also, some of the characters were quite questionable. Either way, you guys can find my full review on Goodreads.
P.S: I think I like this photo dump thing, I might keep doing it.
comments:
user1 I think the same as you Jason, now lets kiss
user2 @/yourusername and him using their post's captions like letter, they're made for each other. She sings it with a kiss, and he uses P.S.
yourusername is this the guy chat??
⤷ user3 ariana what r u doing here????
⤷ user4 you really don't know the meaning of being nonchalant, don't you
⤷ user5 so this is the level of boredom you reach when sick
yourusername You should really watch the movie, you would rethink those 3 ½ stars you've just gave to my favorite story of all time
⤷ j.todd I don't think the movie would be much more different from the book, taking into account that the book came out after the film.
yourusername
liked by 99.056 people
Pride and Prejudice. 1 stars. Review in letterboxd.
-💋
comments:
user1 okay she's mad
user2 miss ma'am are you alright?
user3 Jason and her might not be dating after all
⤷ user4 idc this has potential for a enemies to lovers
⤷ user5 I think they should kiss, that would fix everything
user6 idk what happened, but please come back and be normal
j.todd we both know that movie is not 1 star movie
⤷ yourusername have you watched it?
⤷ j.todd no, but I've read the book and I know pride and prejudice is not a 1 star story
⤷ yourusername adaptations aren't always loyal to the original source
⤷ j.todd you really are annoying
⤷ yourusername I suggest you read my review on letterboxd
⤷ j.todd I did and it only says "fuck you Jason"
⤷ yourusername fuck you Jason
⤷ user7 this is like seeing my parents divorcing again
When did you think this was a good idea? Maybe when you saw an opportunity to prove you were right about your favourite movie. That the story changed completely by watching it rather than reading it.
You knew Jason hadn’t liked that one star you had given to Pride and Prejudice. You saw in his goodreads that it was one of his favourite books and decided to watch the movie and give it a low rating just to piss him off. Surprisingly, it worked, because he talked to you after seeing your post.
And now, waiting for him to arrive at your house, you kept checking the time, fixing yourself, walking around—doing anything to calm yourself down—because you had invited a handsome man to your house without thinking it through first.
Of course you had stalked his account. It hadn’t been until recently that he had started posting pictures of himself, at first all of his posts were the cover of the exact book he had read and then photos of some phrases highlighted. The man was truly a romantic. He mostly read romance novels, but his favourites were the classics.
You couldn’t help but wonder if he had checked your account too. You posted photodumps more regularly, your account was almost your online diary, so he knew how you looked.
While you were drowned in your own thoughts, Jason had arrived at your building. It was a funny coincidence that you lived in the building right across from Jason’s, and somehow you hadn’t known about each other’s existence until you decided to appear in his comments section.
Jason swallowed hard before knocking on your door. You opened it, with your hands shaking and your heart pounding aggressively on your chest. Jason was tall—way taller than you had imagined—and he looked like he had come straight out of Fight Club. His leather jacket, a worn black cotton t-shirt, and dark jeans were a very simple outfit—but combined with his piercing greenish-blue eyes, a fading bruise near his right eye, and a white streak on his hair? That man was breathtaking.
From Jason’s point of view you were a sight too. He had seen your posts, he knew how you looked, but in person you had a magnetic energy that no one could ignore. The only reason for him accepting your proposal, of coming to your house to watch a film, was because he found you attractive. He saw the opportunity, took it and he didn’t regret anything.
“Hi,” he said.
His voice woke you up from your trance. You moved to the side, letting him into your apartment.
“I’m Jason, I thought we should introduce each other properly. You have a nice house by the way.” He looked around, scanning your living room and kitchen with detail, like he wanted to find something. “You have a lot of movie posters.”
“Ah! yes. If you ask the correct people that work in the cinema they give one to you for free,” you explained, guiding Jason to your living room.
The movie was already paused on your TV, ready to be watched. Two bowls filled with buttered popcorn sat on the tea table, one for Jason and the other one for you. Once you were settled in the sofa you pressed play.
You couldn’t deny that the first few minutes of the movie were awkward. Jason sat rigid on one end of the couch, looking attentively to the TV, paying attention to everything that happened in the movie. You, on the other hand, kept drifting your gaze from the movie to Jason, to see his reaction, to make sure he liked it.
And when the scene of the party came, you whispered: “Now look at Knox, poor boy, he didn’t do anything wrong.”
Jason looked at you, smirked, and then turned his attention back to the film. “Well yes, but he still kissed her, and she has a boyfriend,” Jason remarked.
“He kissed her on the head,” you defended.
“Still, that’s not cool and she’s unconscious, I would’ve reacted the same way Chet did.”
And that started a friendly discussion between the two of you. You never stopped talking since then, commenting on everything about the movie, Jason criticizing it—just to see your offended expression—and you refuting everything he said, like you were the director herself. And when the movie ended, you kept talking and talking, until it was past midnight and Jason got a message from someone and told you he had to leave.
“It’s not a three star story,” you insisted, walking Jason to the front door of your house.
“Four stars,” he rated. You opened your mouth offended.
“Four and a half,” You suggested.
“I think I’ll have to watch it again to see if you’re right,” he smirked, walking out of your apartment. “Thanks for the date, it was nice.”
“It was not…” But Jason had left before he could hear what you had said.
It might not have been a date, but you had enjoyed Jason’s company, and something inside of you told you that you were going to see each other again, very soon.
six months later
j.todd
liked by yourusername and 457.901 more
Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've been re-reading Pride and Prejudice with my girlfriend, and she's a slow reader, but it was fun to see her reaction to everything that happens in the book.
You guys already know this is my favorite book and my review has been up on Goodreads for a while, but you guys have my review of the movie in letterboxd, if you would like to read it.
comments:
user1 HES GOT A GIRLFRIEND
user2 I'm the girlfriend guys chill
user3 his girlfriend just won in life
yourusername I'm not a slow reader????? classics are hard ♥︎ liked by the author
⤷ j.todd whatever you say doll
⤷ user4 THEY'RE TOGETHER
⤷ user5 MY PARENTS ARE BACK TOGETHER
⤷ user6 this means they're now officially dating right?
⤷ user7 the ship became reality
⤷ user8 war is over
yourusername
liked by j.todd and 400.874 more
Yes, Pride and Prejudice did not deserve that 1, I'm sorry. My annoying boyfriend insisted on updating my letterbox review and on writing one in Goodreads about the book, so I forced him to download letterboxd, and he has written his very first review there!!
-💋
comments:
user1 the hardlaunch is crazy
user2 they both posted the same quote 😭
user3 they're perfect
user4 which book will be your next review about?
⤷ yourusername none 😊
user5 do we get an invitation to the wedding for introducing you to each other thanks to our ship??
j.todd ❤️
⤷ yourusername don't ❤️ me, you told me you weren't coming with me to the cinema this Friday
⤷ j.todd I promise I'll make it up to you ♥︎ liked by the author
⤷ yourusername good boy
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