The Siren
The Siren | Once, a long, long time ago, Phil had heard a story – a strange story, so fantastical he hadn’t known whether or not to laugh, eyes wide and terrified amidst it all, - about a mermaid, a siren, who supposedly stole away the sailors of the sea to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again. | Phan | Teen and Up | Siren!Dan, Asexual!Phil | 3811 words
Happy birthday my dear Rachel, @phansdick <3 Sorry I suck at surprises and decided to spend all day teasing you about your birthday fic. I’m really, really glad I was able to pull this together for you, though, as I didn’t think I was going to make it, and low and behold, you ended up getting it early! I love you a lot, even if some times I really, really suck at showing it and disappear for days on end, and you’re the best friend anyone could ask for. You are truly one of a kind, perfect, amazing, and so incredibly strong. Thank you for always being there for me, and I hope that I can always be there for you as well. I sincrerely hope you enjoy this, because I think I legitimately took a turn with his most people probably won’t be expecting.
Based on that tumblr post asking for an asexual sailor to run into a siren.
(Ao3 Link)
**
Once, a long, long time ago, Phil had heard a story – a strange story, so fantastical he hadn’t known whether or not to laugh, eyes wide and terrified amidst it all. He’d been about thirteen at the time, just coming into puberty and all that that supposedly entailed, and staring in absolute disbelief at the father of a friend who swore up and down that he’d seen it – a mermaid, a siren, the deadliest of the kind.
It was the first time Phil had come over for a visit, walking over the docks of his little town’s shipping yard towards the boat of his new found girlfriend Myla that she’d lived on for her entire life, their hands swinging together between them, and some kind of notion of sex flashing through Phil’s mind.
(He didn’t actually know what sex was yet, and he was in for a nasty surprise.)
Myla’s family were sailors – well, kind of. Myla’s father was a sailor, and he’d been teaching Myla all her life, but she wasn’t really into it. In fact, she only really tolerated the lessons as some sort of penance for being the reason her mother had died – child birth – on the rough and tumble seas that they’d both loved so much, but she told anyone who would listen that she was never ever going to be a sailor like her father before her.
(Eventually, the boat would be passed down to her, and she’d hand it off to Phil, a lifelong companion of hers after the fateful and awkward events of that afternoon.)
They’d walked up together a little shy and bereft, aware that Myla’s father would be leaving soon for some kind of shipping conference up in the middle of town, but also aware that they wouldn’t be able to avoid him all together.
Myla had introduced Phil to him, and they’d thought that will be that.
But it wasn’t.
No; instead, Myla’s father had practically ignored them, staring out across the sea towards a little island that most of their town knew to avoid. The weather was almost always torrential out there, making it near impossible to even approach the shores, and those who’d bothered to try were never heard from again.
Whether or not they’d been stranded on the island had yet to be seen.
(They hadn’t.)
Phil had thought it strange, then, for a man to be so captivated by a storm raging over the tiny mound of rocks on the sea, and he’d squeezed his fingers around Myla’s with the full intent to swing her around and let her lead them back to her rooms.
They didn’t get very far before Myla’s father turned around with eyes so wide and horrified that Phil had thought, just for a second, that he must have seen a ghost.
“I’s seen it, lass,” he’d said, not even looking at Phil. “The beast that’s taken all ‘em sailors.”
Phil hadn’t known what he’d meant at the time, but Myla clearly had, and she’d rolled her eyes at her father like she’d heard his drunken rambles one to many times before.
“What are you on about now, da?” she’d shot back, tossing Phil an amused grin. It had relaxed the terrified set of is shoulders for just a moment, and then Myla’s father had turned his gaze onto him.
There had been something haunted in those steel grey eyes that Phil would never forget, even to this day.
“The siren that’s been stealin’ all ‘em, the mermaid. I’s seen it, boy, I’s seen it take ‘em all away.”
**
Myla had taken Phil to her bedroom not long after the strange encounter, and she’d kissed him soft and sweetly on the mouth. It had been nice, drawing forth some kind of fuzzy feeling in the pit of his stomach, but then she’d started doing other things – strange things, like touching Phil in places he never wanted to be touched again, and drawing Phil’s own hands up to cup her breasts.
He hadn’t liked that, he hadn’t like that at all, and when Myla had asked Phil what he’d thought sex was, all he’d been able to offer up in reply to her was not this.
(Phil would have a few boyfriends and girlfriends in the interim of figuring it all out, but they never lasted very long after Phil refused to do much more than kiss them.)
**
Years later, Phil would follow in the footsteps of nearly ever male boy over the age of sixteen in town in joining the shipping industry, loading himself up on a sailboat on his off days for a little extra cash helping fisherman catch or sell fish across the way to another little town known as Hasten. It was quite a bit further out, not even visible from the docks of Phil’s own town, Miligan, but they were a trading post, and rarely went about retrieving their own goods despite the water’s edge being so close.
It was a good job, a fun job, but it all it really did was nurture a deep desire within him to become a sailor himself. It wasn’t the fishing that he’d enjoyed, or the unloading and haggling, it wasn’t even so much the sea; it was the beasts hidden inside of it, and the islands Phil was constantly catching sight off on each and every outing he so badly wanted to stop and explore.
(There was one island in particular that Phil wanted to see, but there wasn’t a boat in Hasten or Miligan that would venture anywhere near it, not, at least, on purpose. The tall tale Phil had heard so many years ago from Myla’s father constantly swirled through his head, and he thought one day… one day.)
**
Consequently, despite their awkward first “date”, Myla ending up being Phil’s only friend, and while she gave up sailing the second she was old enough to get a job and move out on her own, she entertained Phil’s private notions of wanting to pick it up with short lessons of her own and old school books her father had piled upon her.
(Phil had never been so grateful for his ex-girlfriend in his life, except for the time she sent him a link at two in the morning outlining the terms asexual and revulsion and he’d cried for six hours because he was finally not alone.)
**
Sailing wasn’t Phil’s only passion, though, and while he spent most of his time studying sailing and the proper ways to navigate a boat, he sometimes indulged himself in a little light reading - deep creatures of the sea: mermaids; sirens: what to expect; how to avoid the sweet call of song; alluring and beautiful, these creatures will kill you.
Mind plagued with the memory of that long ago story, Phil hadn’t ever really let it go. He was fascinated, had even harassed Myla for days – after she’d forgiven him for “breaking her heart,” and “not being sexually interested in her” – to let him talk to her father again, find out more about this elusive mermaid and what sailors it was stealing away into the depths of the sea.
Myla had never really let him have his go, angry at him anew for even suggesting that he might entertain her drunkard of a father, but still, Phil had never forgotten.
In fact, one could argue that he was obsessed, and he didn’t even really know all that much about the strange creature other than the fact that their song could lure anyone to their death – so deeply attracted would the person be to the monster, they’d chuck themselves overboard just to be in their arms for the rest of their lives.
The sirens, meanwhile, wanted nothing more than a quick meal, by all definitions, asexual.
(And there was that word again, that word that rang so deep in Phil’s chest it tugged and and tugged the same way the islands called…)
But there was rumor, too, rumor that sirens existed solely with the purpose of finding their one true love, and that they haunted the oceans in search of their mate in the hopes that one day they could be truly happy. Their song lured only the unfaithful, the sexual, and their fangs killed only the unholy, and they drowned their victims not for vindictive enjoyment, but to protect those back home who could never know of their partners misdeeds, and one day, one day, they’d find their own perfect partners and -
Well, they were only rumors.
( - rumors that a siren waited for the one unaffected by their call, waited for someone to join them with needs that matched their own; rumors that circulated the internet like a joke, but which Phil heard like a call of his own name.)
**
When Phil turned twenty-three, Myla’s father passed away – liver cancer.
He attended the funeral, helped pay through some of the costs, and sat with Myla for three whole weeks while she worked to get over the devastation of it all.
The day she sent him home, she handed over the keys to her father’s fishing boat, and made Phil promise to be careful.
(It was a promise he wanted so desperately to keep.)
**
The island had been calling his name for years by then, so was it really any surprise the day he finally packed up to leave?
**
Once, a long, long time ago, Phil had heard a story – a strange story, so fantastical he hadn’t known whether or not to laugh, eyes wide and terrified amidst it all, - about a mermaid, a siren, who supposedly stole away the sailors of the sea to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again.
Once, a long, long time ago, Phil heard a story about a creature so powerful, its song was enough to lure any sailor to its death.
Now, nearly ten years later, Phil would stumble across said creature of his own accord, curious and tempted far beyond their song.
**
The storm rages fast and strong, stronger than Phil had ever anticipated, has ever experienced out here on his own. His sails whip about starboard from the colossal winds, and his boat surges upon the water with every pelt of the angry sea below him. He’s freezing cold, his hair plastered to his forehead, clothes soaked through with the salty brine of the ocean below him, but his hands remain firm on the steering wheel of his boat, and his eyes remain trained on the island before him. It’s so close, Phil can practically feel it.
He’s been at this for hours now, struggling against the wind and the rain, fighting for control over something he knows he’ll never quite be able to hold onto, and all for what? To reach the shore of an island he’s been told over and over and over again swallows up sailors like its own personal victims?
No, no, not quite.
He doesn’t care about the island, even as its shores call his name, even as he stares at it through the thick veil of dark storm clouds that practically hide it from sight.
No, it’s not the island he’s here for, but the rumors of the creature that’s made it its home.
The siren.
Phil’s heart is racing in his chest. He’s been battling these winds for hours now, literal hours, but he refuses to give up just yet. He’s heard rumor that most sailors never even make it this far, heard rumor that most hear the call on the outskirts of the storm, and turn their boats into the middle of it all only to die before they can make it past the first fifteen feet towards the island, but he knows that he isn’t wrong to keep moving forward, to fight past the wind and the rain towards a shore he’s starting to see clear as day – a shore where the rain doesn’t touch, and the sands sparkle under the same dull sun as his own little town thousands of feet from where he is now.
He knows that there’s something waiting for him there, and when he finally breaks through the rain to the other side, a mere few feet from the shoreline – there, a song so beautiful and sad that Phil stops short to turn and find where it’s coming from; just beyond the line of the storm sits a mermaid so beautiful Phil nearly feels his heart stop, sat just upon mossy and green rock protruding from the sea as if it were an island all its own.
His boat, his fishing boat decorated with years of use and muck that Phil’s never learned how to clean, scrawled across in the ugliest shade of green with the words the st. mary, crashes into the far shore, but Phil doesn’t care to even look.
His gaze remains fixated on the mermaid sat before him, their smile so cunning and sharp that Phil thinks amazing.
They’re singing, a dark head of brown curls fluttering in the wind, their eyes nearly as sharp as their eyes, and their fingers dancing about the air in a come hither motion that Phil hasn’t seen in years.
Revulsion sears through him, but he ignores it, fascinated, captivated by their song, by the red-black of their long, glossy tail, and he closes his eyes for the briefest of brief moments just to take it all in.
The moment he does so, the singing stops, and he hears a splash.
When he opens his eyes once more, the mermaid, the siren, is sat bobbing along in the water below him with that same sinister, all knowing smile gracing their too beautiful features.
“That was beautiful,” Phil says, and offers them a gentle smile.
Slowly, slowly, the siren’s grin fades, and they stare up at Phil with eyes so dark, he feels like he’s staring into nothing. They don’t even have any whites to their eyes, and their teeth are bared, sharp and terrifying.
Some deep part of Phil can’t quite believe that this is real.
“Will you sing for me again?” he asks when the silence wears on far too long.
The siren’s grin slowly comes back.
“Of course, my love,” they say, their voice a deep baritone that soothes over Phil’s soul, calming his racing heart beat and the aches of his soul, and they haven’t even started singing yet.
“But only if you were to join me down here?” they offer, hands snaking out of the water once more to return to making that same come hither motion from before.
The easy grin Phil had been wearing moments before fades as the revulsion surges through him once more, and he finds himself shaking his head, almost tempted to turn away from the siren bobbing along in the water before him, but terrified of what they might do to him then if he does.
“I’d – rather not,” Phil disagrees, and feels his heart lodge in his throat. The rumors he’s clung to for years swirl about his head, but he doesn’t act on them, doesn’t trust them enough to lay them quite to that kind of test. “But I’d still really like to hear you sing again. Your voice is beautiful,” he says.
The siren stills below him, staring up at Phil with eyes dark and piercing, almost sinister looking for how black they are. He feels his heart thump anew in his chest, but the oddest sensation of safety suddenly over takes him until he’s able to grin once more.
“Please?” he requests, and watches as the siren slowly opens their mouth and starts to sing once more.
The song brushes over Phil like a cool wind, soothing and calm, and the longing he’s felt for years suddenly comes to an end. He can feel it, that strange pull that had been driving him for years, withering away into nothing but content. He has no wish to dive into the waters below like the books always said, has no desire to leap into the siren’s arms, but he does feel something close to – close to – home.
He listens with one eye open, not quite trusting, not quite believing, as the siren sings their song to him in the most beautiful and captivating voice that Phil has ever heard. The song is soleful and soft, but there’s that same tone of mourning Phil had heard before that breaks his heart.
Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s singing too – soft and breathless, the words caught in his throat.
The siren stops.
“Who are you?” they demand, throwing their body backwards in the water until their pale chest glistens up at Phil, and he feels another surge of deep revulsion surge through him at the same time as their tail beats at the sea, propelling them backwards against the fair rock from before.
Phil doesn’t know quite how to respond, but he does his best.
“I’m Phil Lester, uhm… a sailor from Hasten,” he says.
The siren bares their teeth at him once more, sharp and pointed just as legend had said, but Phil does not recoil.
“Why do you know that song? Why do you not fling yourself before me? Do you not want me, not desire me? No mortal before you has ever resisted my allure,” the say, and their words are heavy with anger and frustration, fear.
There’s something there in those deep, intent eyes that Phil wishes he could get to the bottom too.
“What do you mean? I know the song from you – I was just… mimicking you,” Phil tries to explain, a little shaken, the calm that had overtaken him mere moments ago rescinding until he suddenly feels like this was a mistake.
(It wasn’t.)
The siren hisses, and then cries out, the beautiful song they had been singing mere moments ago belting from their tongue in a long, hideous shriek of irreversible pain, and Phil cringes away, pressing his hands to his ears to block out the sound while his heart twists painfully in his chest. He’s panting before he knows it, crying, the tears dripping down his cheeks in a long stream of agony and pain, and the siren just looks at him, never stopping, tears of their own dripping down their cheeks.
Phil can’t bear to see their pain, but he’s frozen in place, and it wouldn’t matter if he wanted to leave right then and there or not, because he can see now that he’s shipwrecked, his boat sunk deep in the sand of the island, and the rest being pushed further and further in as the moments pass, until Phil is certain that he can never go home.
“Please, please stop!” he begs, but the sound doesn’t end, and Phil falls to his knees, squeezing his eyes shut in agony.
When he passes out, he thinks this is it.
(It’s not.)
**
When he comes too, he’s on the shore, and the water laps at his legs like an old friend. He sits up, disoriented, only to come face to face with a pair of black eyes and a head of curly brown hair, just like before, staring at him from the depths of the ocean. A storm rages in the distance behind them, a backdrop to the already menacing image.
Slowly, Phil draws his legs to his chest, and holds.
“Who are you?” the siren asks again, the words a dark hiss of agony.
Phil merely shrugs.
“Just a man,” he says, and leaves it at that.
**
Once upon a time, Phil believed in a set of rumors that said that a siren wanted nothing more than to find their mate.
Once upon a time, Phil found that to be true.
**
It’s not until nightfall that the siren approaches, surging out of the water like a monster of the deep, only Phil knows better. He holds himself back from the water, merely letting it lick at his skin, but never take him, and watches the sirens slow approach, their tail thrusting them up the shore and passed Phil’s long destroyed boat – and when did that happen, while he was out cold? – until their body is hunching forward over the sand.
The red and black of their tail glistens under the moonlight, and Phil feel his breath stolen from his once more.
“Please,” the siren pleads. “Tell me who you are.”
“I’m Phil,” Phil repeats once more, “And you are?”
“Dan,” they say, with a little pained incline of their head. Their sorrow echoes over the island unlike anything else, and it hurts Phil on such a deep level that he starts to sing.
The siren only stares, and stares, and stares, uncomphrending of how Phil could not only know the words, but understand the pain.
**
They sit there together in silence as the night wears on, but Phil doesn’t mind. The terror, the agony, the pain has gone, and now that the creature isn’t trying to seduce him, so is the revulsion. He stares at them the way an admirer would, and he knows it confuses them.
“I can’t hurt you,” they say.
Phil smiles, and inclines his head.
“You’re pure,” they tack on, slinking further along the shore, closer, closer still, and Phil merely nods.
He’s long since let go of his legs, resting the palms of his hands behind him against the somehow still warm sand, and he’s stretched out his legs in front of him.
He’s waiting, suddenly, with a certainty he’d never known he’d have.
“I can’t even seduce you with my song.”
Phil shrugs, and offers them a hand.
“No, you can’t,” he agrees, and waits for the warmth of them to touch him.
They scream, then, grabbing onto him and dragging their wet body towards him, completely naked, and yet the lack of sexual desire wafting off of them prevents the usual revulsion from taking him over.
Their fangs close in on his face, their eyes dark and wild, but there is no fear, and Phil does not flinch away.
The siren, Dan, freezes, inches from his face, their warm body poised like a threat over Phil, and their tail transforms into a pair of legs and a torso, but there are no sexual body parts, and they stare at Phil like this, at least this should work.
But it doesn’t, and they stare at him in awe until their fangs recede and they say, “I can’t even seduce you with my body,” and then… they succumb.
They succumb, and they sink into Phil’s embrace, and Phil feels home.
**
Their song is even more beautiful when they sing it together, and for the first time in both of their lives, they feel like they belong.
