| ⋄ Moonchild ⋄ | Mer!Joon AU |Chap.1 Flounder|
⥼ Pairings : Mermaid!Namjoon x Human!Fem!Reader
⥼ Genre : Fluff, maybe smut down the line? (Undecided. If it happens it’ll be sweet and WHOLESOME). Do Mermen count as hybrids?
⥼ Summary : What happens when a son of the moon and sea discovers the surface for the first time. And as he stumbles through it; trying to adjust to these new things she called “feet” and “legs”, would it be the surface he fell for, or her?
Basically, Namjoon as the little mermaid~ Minus the whole plot.
⥼ Word Count : 3323
The sea’s rippling arms stretched open; quietly, like a secret between her and the moon. Her arms grasped and kissed warmth against the skin of one of her many creatures. Pooling in rivers against his chest and back. He stretched up towards the moon, a son basking in the glow of his celestial father. And so the moon shone back, for him. His silver hair shining in the light, wispy strands clinging to soft cheeks. He swayed back, spinning his tail out from under him and letting his outstretched fins break the surface in a great whoosh. He relished in the way the air pricked his glittering scales. Never quite use to the chilling rush of adrenaline it gave him. But he would seek that thrill a million times over no matter how forbidden the surface may be. Up there he could feel and see everything. He was in love with the way the sea kissed the moonlight from the surface, her oceans ever reaching with her great tides. A force so powerful and beautiful it filled his heart with wonder. With longing. A feeling he could only grasp when he was in its clutches. Adrift between two worlds at their infinite collision.
Tonight was the night he planned to see it all. He schemed for months, but the weight of his duties below the surface left him all too preoccupied most nights. But he wouldn’t let them tonight, his dreams of watching the moon dip below the surface were too strong. He needed to see it for himself, the stories of its beauty weren’t enough to satisfy him anymore. He would let the waves take him on their journey, and he would watch the stars drift slowly across the sky, wondering how it was that they could stick up there when everything else seemed to always fall. But he had never seen land before. Never imagined there could truthfully be a whole world outside of his own. Outside of the moon and sea’s warm embrace, the great blues that spanned forever and beyond. He didn’t know how close to land his home really was, just mere miles far enough to not see it, just passed where the moon kisses the ocean, and gets lost between her waves.
It was still hours before he would even drifted close, but they were hours he spent looking up and not around. All too mesmerized by the stars chasing each other across the night sky. It took the violent flutter of sails and a shout for him to finally be swayed from contemplation. He felt the splash in his fingertips. A weight in the ocean that wasn’t there before, a presence pushing in on him like shadows at his back. He shifted. And there it was. a great black shadow on the surface, stiff and artificial just like the stories he had been taught to fear. Stories of another world forbidden, surely those weren’t real? But here they were before him; this big black scourge against the water. Making sharp cuts in her waves.
Another shout and he was called into action. He was afraid, in awe, but that voice held fear, and his heart told him to lunge forward anyway...
..
You weren’t sure how it all happened. It happened so fast, some violent force striking your back and BOOM.
Of course you could swim. But that didn’t mean anything when you were too dizzy to tell which way was up. When salt and water were all you could taste when you gasped for air.
The waves were pulling you under so quickly. Shimmering black tendrils squeezing around your throat and filling your lungs with fire. They skirted inwards on the cusps of your vision, zeroing in until all you could see was darkness. Soon they pulled at your consciousness, fighting against you in one last flailing grasp at the surface. And then your world slipped away. Or at least the world you knew did.
But the world was much bigger than you could have ever imagined.
Something curious was near to you. Something mystic and ever wondering. Something you would have never believed was possible. But there it was, a shadow below the surface. Pushing in on you as it neared. He; the shadow your soul called friend, grasped at your sinking body. He pulled you towards him, relying only on instinct and the stories he could never bring himself to be afraid of. He pulled you towards the shallow waters, his fins brushing against the sand. He had never touched the sea floor and the surface at the same time before, he didn’t know it was possible. Even in all the stories he had ever heard he never knew his world could stretch out so thin.
..
He didn’t even know how to swim in such shallow water, but he knew he had to learn now or never. Pulling you with him; desperately, to the summit of where his world ended and yours began.
When he reached it he was reduced to dragging himself against the sandy floor, the last streams of the sea on his scales trying desperately to pull him back in. He obeyed, the fear of the unknown keeping him with his tail fins safely seated underneath her waves.He held you in his arms; this frail helpless thing, he didn’t know what you were. How were you so familiar, yet so foreign? Where was your tail? Why did the waters not kiss their breath into you like they did him? If the stories he knew were true, then you were nothing like him, and the water filling your lungs was more akin to poison. And if the stories were true.. he needed to act quickly.
He did whatever came to him first. He stretched back the column of your neck, brushing back the wet clumps of hair from your face. Fumbling, he pressed the heels of his hands at your chest, keeping as upright as he could with the little friction against the sand his tail lent him. His efforts did little to nothing and he only grew more desperate. Pounding helplessly at your chest, but hoping with all his heart he wasn’t hurting you. Despite his wishes you didn't budge, the water was just lodged too deep.
He had one more idea. An idea that needed to work if he was going to save you. You, this ephemeral creature slipping away between his webbed fingers.If the water didn’t cling to you like it did him, maybe it would seek him out like it always had before. In one desperate swoop of instinct and hope, he pressed his gaping lips to your own. Willing the waters to leave you and follow him like they were meant to. And they did, brushing like the tides past your lips and spilling over into his own. He sucked up every last drop until he finally felt you coughing against him. He pulled away when he felt you surge, watching as you sputtered back to life. You gasped and shuddered and coughed beneath him, scared and confused as the spots of your vision slowly returned.
..
You held to him like a life line; hands grasping at his wrists and arms. You were searching frantically as your vision returned, watching his glowing outline reveal itself against the moonlight. And it was as if moonlight was made for him. The glow dusting starlight against his tan skin. The water reflecting against him like shining glass mirrors that rippled as her waves splashed against the shore. He was beautiful. His features sharp and soft and untouched. Like a dream against the horizon. He looked down at you with such curious eyes. They were big and dark; and deep, yet so gentle and full of so much light. You could feel the weight of him on your lower body, something cold and ruff scraping against the bare skin of your legs. He leaned in to look at you with an innocence that was so endearing. His head tilted to the side, locks of his long silver hair brushing past his shoulders and tickling your skin with icy water. You shuddered and he flinched back, his pupils dilating when he blinked back at you. When you stilled he leaned in so close you didn’t know whether to scream, or to blush. Was he.. Sniffing you? You shuddered again when the tips of his hair grazed your skin. This time he jumped back far, something heavy pulling at your legs when he moved. You didn't catch the subtle splashes he was making in the water, him too nervous to keep his tail fins still.
..
He knew you weren’t like him, but did you know yet? He wasn’t sure. You had two tails like long arms where they should have been joined and scaled. Distant fingers, and no gills. You were so different already. Did you even speak the same language? Should he even try to communicate? He composed himself after seeing the fear in your eyes.What was the harm in trying? He had already broken every rule in the book, what was one more?
He cleared his throat.
“Um.. What-what.. are you?” His head tilted again, the jewelry adorning his ears and neck jingling as he moved.
“E-excuse me?” His eyes widened at your reply. He understood you, and you him. And that was more shocking than anything to him thus far. Two creatures from entirely different worlds and yet you could understand each other. It shouldn’t have been possible. How could he know nothing of such a creature's true existence, and yet you both spoke the same tongue?. What long lost history was there that could tie you two together like this?
He was amazed, and unwavering. But you were beginning to grow increasingly more uncomfortable underneath his weight, and the weight of his curious eyes lingering far too close and too long, no matter how beautiful those big curious eyes were.
“Thank you for saving my life But-” You struggled to get your arms free out from under him. “Could you.. Get Off?” You popped a knee out from under his lower half, but the loss of stability sent him tumbling over on his side in the sand. He hissed when his shoulder thumped painfully against the ground.
“Ouch! Hey!.. How do you live up here, I feel so heavy...”
“Oh! Sorry!.. Wait, what..?” You pulled yourself up on your elbows and that's when you finally noticed the splashing. A.. tail? You shrieked, and he pushed himself back farther into the water to feel more secure. He wasn't sure what from, but your loud voice sent his instincts alight, and him stammering with more questions.
“Why are you screaming!?”
“YOU HAVE A TAIL!”He glowered at you before replying with only slightly less volume.
“And You have four arms! But I didn’t scream!?" You couldn't reply, too taken aback by the ridiculousness of the whole situation.
He paid your perplexed expression no mind, pushing up on his hands and walking backwards until he could bend his tail back enough to sit in the water. He had never sat before, never having been in shallow enough water to need to. But after maneuvering himself into position he found it leagues more comfortable than flailing on the ground helplessly. This way he could use his hands again too. You watched him pick his hands out of the sand one at a time to brush them off, doing the best he could to stay balanced on his tail. All you could do was watch him in awe as he messily flung his hair out of his way-too-shiny-for-this-world.. eyes.
“Whatever you are, you sure like to stare, huh?” He gave you a one sided smirk as he glanced back at your awkwardly placed form. You shook your head before squinting at him and pushing up off the sand to sit on your knees. “Was he for real?” You thought.
“Well at least I don't sniff people.”
He blinked at you.
“Well yeah, of course I did. That's just polite.”
You frowned back at him. Or you tried to, but something about frowning at a shimmery merman felt off.
“Saved from drowning by a polite merman, wow what a day.”You watched as he finished fiddling with his hair, and he switched to fighting desperately to get the sand off his chest and shoulders. You were beginning to get all too distracted by the way his muscles rippled under his tan skin every time he swatted violently at himself. It was like watching a kid with peanut butter on his hands in a desperate battle to fling it off. A big ethereal kid… with a tail.
“Excuse me?" He snapped you out of your daze. "What did you call me?”
You stammered“A-a.. merman..?”
“Is that what you call me? How come you have a name for me but I don’t have one for you..” his voice was so innocent, all of this was seeming more and more like a weird dream. Maybe something your brain cooked up just before drowning.
“Because you’re mythical, and I’m obviously hallucinating.. Or dead.. I’d never think up something as pretty as you on my own.” You really couldn’t help staring at him. Him still desperately trying to get the sand to stop sticking to his wet hands, and failing. He would rinse them off in the water, and then lose balance and catch himself in the sand again. Rinse, and repeat, with only mild frustration.
“I’m mythical? I didn’t even know the water could get this shallow, but I’m the mythical one?”
“You’re the one with the tail.”
“Yes, and you have whatever those are.” He pointed to your legs, one hand falling back to the sand as he lost his balance.. again.
“Legs?”
He squinted.“Le-h-giz?”
“Yeah.. legs.”
“Like.. plural? Leg..s?” You hummed and nodded in reply. He went back to pull his hand out of the sand again with a look of defeat, and you just couldn’t watch the struggle anymore. You crawled up towards him on your knees, only taking him off guard a little. But a little was a lot for a guy with a tail who could stay balanced. He reeled back, his tail shifting around and splashing water up behind him as he started to topple over. Wiggling, but so determined to stay up this time.
“Hey, hey I just wanna help, here-” You reached your hands out to him, gesturing for him to place his own in yours. He looked into your eyes searching for something, any signs he should flee, but all he could see in your eyes was a kindness akin to his own.
He placed his right hand in yours first, and then slowly lifted his left to you, but his balance would be his demise. He fell forward, his hand catching between yours but you held him up by digging your knees deeper into the sand.
“Oh! are you ok?” He hummed at you, but you could hear the twinge of fear in his voice. You checked his hands for any way you could have hurt their webbing from how you caught him. They seemed fine. Or you hoped they were fine, you weren’t really sure what unscathed webbed hands were supposed to look like.
“Use me for balance, ok?” He only nodded in reply.
“How do you stay up.. without the water?”
“Considering I just drown.. I’m not really sure how to answer that.. But.. if you let your hands dry off the sand won't stick so bad.” His eyes got so wide, like shinny glass fishbowls.
“Dry!? That sounds awful!”
“Have you ever even been dry?”
“No!?”
“Well.. Shit-” You held tightly to his hands as he shivered in the wind. You hadn't noticed it before, but it was growing increasingly windy.
“Well.. how about I help you dry one hand off, and if you hate it the waters right there.” You gestured behind him, and he hummed in discomfort.
“Will it hurt?”
“It..shouldn’t?”
“Then..Okay. Why is your sand so sticky anyway...”
“Pretty sure its you that’s sticky..” “Huh?” He looked confused. Like he wasn’t sure if you had just insulted him or not. You just sighed and shook your head in dismissal.
“Here-” You lifted his left hand to rest on your shoulder for balance, while you lifted his right so you could blow on it.
“OH!” He exclaimed as soon as you started, you merely chuckled.
“Did that hurt?”
“No its just.. it tickles.” He said, his full lips forming a line in his uncertainty as he blinked at you again. You swore you could see the pigments in his eyes shift and change color.
“This is so weird..” You shook your head still in disbelief, continuing to blow on his hand and getting the webbing between his fingers.
“You never told me what it is that you are.”
“I’m just human.”
“Human..” He weighed the unfamiliar word on his tongue. Thinking it over, trying to see if it held any significance to him. It didn’t.
“Never heard of that. Sirens, sure. Humans? It sounds like you should be a lot more colorful than you are.”
You squeaked when you caught his connection.
“Hue! HA I get it.. “ He only squinted, his eyes changing colors again.
“Oh.. you were being serious..”
You decided to change the subject.
“So.. what do you call what you are?”
“We’re Moonchildren.”
..
You might have noticed the wind, but what he didn’t know was what the wind and waters do when they battle from up on the surface. Waves. He felt the little ones sliding up against his fins and keeping him warm before they would be pulled back to sea. The water always swayed back and forth, she was always moving. He knew that. But what he didn’t know was just how big those waves could get. But more importantly, how much the shore line would thin out in anticipation.
The water drew back behind him before he could even react, leaving him high and dry in the sand without her comfort keeping him feeling secure. He squealed a helpless sound as he toppled forward. To him losing contact with the water was like venturing up to a high ledge and losing balance. And when he fell forward he was only falling farther away, and taking you with him.
You tried to catch him. You really did, but he was much bigger than you. He knocked you back into the sand with a bang, his elbow somehow lodging into your diaphragm.
You coughed, and he shuddered. Panting and shaking with fear, little whines leaving his lips the longer he was out of water. You didn’t mean to push him off so coldly, but you couldn’t breath. He landed on his shoulder and the side of his head with a thud and a yelp. You were too busy gasping for air again to see the look of utter betrayal he was giving you. And he was too busy being scared and offended to have noticed he was now flopping and drying out in the sand with two appendages instead of one.
“I’m sorry!! I’m so-so-so sorry!!” You shouted as soon as you could, turning to try and help him back up.
“YOU PUSHED ME!”
“I know, I didn’t mean to..” He grabbed at your shoulders despite his new found distrust, at least you weren’t sticky like the sand he could now feel grinding between his teeth. You pulled him up into a sitting position with what little strength you could muster, and that’s when he finally felt something was off. His tail felt.. funny. Like it was tickled in phantom sensations..and numb. Was that just what being dry felt like?
He glanced down and screamed.
Neither of you remembered to look for the wave.
⥼ Author’s note : I have a lot of sweet ideas for this one! so I hope some of you guys are still around ^^” Let me know what you guys think! Interaction would be much appreciated <3