Hello lovelies! I joined the @little-stars-writing-club and made a drabble based off this month's theme! I mainly joined to practice my writing in short bursts, aiming to write faster and looser without being so caught up in details. So! This is the first attempt at that. <3
(feel free to join lovelies, anyone at any writing level is welcome to participate or even just hang out muwahhh!)
December Theme: Y/N saves DCA mers from being caught in a net on a beach
Title: Overthinking Along the Sea (mer moon x GN human reader)
Word count: 3,195
Tags: One shot, Mer Au, humorous, silly, unserious, minor amounts of violence, mention of blood, a lot of cursing, first meeting, romance, fast burn, and absurd situations.
Typically, today would be the perfect day to be out fishing. The salty breeze is steadily kissing away the blistering heat of the bright sun, the sky clear and beautiful – no storm clouds in sight. It's the middle of the week so all the townsfolk should be busy instead of lining the sands and waters. Most of all, you're using up your PTO before it resets for the Quarter, which you decided to place all that time on your boat, honing your fishing skills.
Yet all that time perfecting your relaxing hobby and all you can show for it is this one measly fish. It's barely even the size of your fist!
Setting the poor fish down in a salt water filled bucket, you debate on what to do with it and slump in your beach chair. You were hoping to be able to catch a meal for dinner, wanting to spend all your time at the beach today, but maybe that's only a pipe dream at this rate. Could you possibly use the tiny fish as bait..?
No, that's a stupid idea. You're probably lucky to even catch this little guy with all the Fazcorp boats roaming around. It's a mystery why they have a massive, looming ship in the distance and a bunch of speedboats zooming in circles like their drivers’ heads are chopped off. You just don't care to look into it.
Next thing you know, you're sprayed with a wave of freezing sea water, immediately snapped out of your musings. Your eyes sting with the power of a million suns, your soaked hands rapidly trying to rub out the salt that continues to make your eyes water.
Peeling out of your chair, you lean heavily on the edge of your boat, pouring caught water onto the floor; not like it's making a mess, since there's water all over your deck anyway.
Through your waterlogged hair you see that bear fish thing logo taunt you from the back of a speedboat. Right, of course it's as if the devil itself heard your thoughts and sent karma straight back your way.
You really don't want to end things here, but not only is your mood soured, your clothes are sticking uncomfortably to your skin after becoming drenched. Sure, you brought a spare change of clothes since you're surrounded by water –stuff like this is bound to happen– but until you're back on land you don't want to tempt fate into soaking those too.
Resigning your special time out at sea, you pat yourself dry as best you can with a towel and start up your boat’s engine, heading towards the local pier. Maybe you can go to the store and get some things to pair with the fish… The day doesn't have to end up completely wasted.
Instead of watching the annoying corporate boats clog the horizon line, you turn your head to watch the clear beach. Your boat isn't slow, but it doesn't speed past 30 miles an hour on a good day, so you might as well enjoy the scenery while you wait.
Gosh it really is a pretty day, annoying you all the more that those boats are there; you'd have a beach day instead if you wouldn't be pissed off seeing them everywhere. There's swaying palm trees casting perfect blots of shade and bundles of bushes further inland separating the land and sea as if it's a naturally made privacy wall. There's even a taped off area prohibiting people from messing with the sea turtle eggs – you hope the boats haven't scared any mamas off. You'd love to see them all hatch, though it's a very rare chance you'd witness that.
Instinctually you slow your boat as a wiggling mass lays near the restricted area. You can't tell what it is exactly, dark colors barely brightening in the light of day, but what you can see is the thick net it's all wrapped up in.
Oh god is that a turtle?! Is it trying to lay? Or… Do turtles check on their babies??? Oh, whatever, poor mama probably got caught in one of those fazco nets somehow! Man they just piss you off more and more, what are they even doing along your coast? That monolith of a research center is farther north!
Pulling your boat up to the beach, you take the fillet knife you were planning to use for dinner prep and carefully sheath it in your pocket. It's not the safest thing to do, but it'll have to do. You're not exactly equipped with things to cut nets with.
Now that you're out of your boat and creeping up to it, the thing is much too big to be a sea turtle, let alone its color being a dark blue rather than the green you were expecting. You don't even think it's close to a turtle at all, its round shape in actuality is it being forced into a curled position.
A red eye appears between the netting, honing in on you almost immediately. The animal freezes. You barely raise a hand to placate it before it starts snapping at you and wriggling its way over.
You run around it, trying to figure out what to do as clawed hands reach for you only to cause the creature to tumble about within the net. It hisses at its self-inflicted pain, making it only struggle more.
With your back to the shore, you hear the worst sound possible in this situation.
“Hey! You okay over there?!”
You whip yourself around and stance yourself wide, hoping the intruder won't see the strangeness of the being behind you.
“Uh– Y-yeah! Just a, ah, poor turtle got stuck in a net! I'm helping it out and releasing it back into the water.”
The person was poking their head over one of the smaller bushes, decently far away enough that you can't make out much of their details. You hope the same goes for them when it comes down to the trapped creature.
You hold your breath, praying the animal behind you doesn't hiss or heaven forbid maul you in front of this random guy.
“No, I was asking about you! You look drenched dude!”
…What?
“Uh… It's just a bit of water? A… wave got my boat pretty bad, but I'm fine?”
“Kay, good to hear then! Welp, if ya got it all handled then see ya!” The figure pulled back behind the brush and went off about their business.
Wow. Okay.
You're not going to complain about things going your way, but if you were that guy you'd be tripping over here immediately. Even calling the closest marine life rehab or something so they can professionally take care of the “turtle”.
Though, in your current shoes, you don't think you should do that. If your eyes aren't suddenly damaged from the spray of salt water from earlier, you'd say you found an honest to God mermaid.
Everyone knows the number one rule to preserving mythical creatures is to not willy nilly tell people about them. You wouldn't want someone to snatch this mer up and stick them in a fish tank.
The mer…maid? Man? They’ve settled in the sand thankfully, staring at you with sharp eyes.
They growl at you when you take a step towards them.
“Look, I just– need to get you into my boat okay? I don't think it'll be a good idea to release you here.”
You side step in a perimeter around the creature, only their eyes following you unlike previously, when their whole body would shift to keep you in its reach.
When you're close enough, you book it to the end of their tail and grab hold of the netting. The mer flails again with hisses and growls as you pull as much as you can towards your boat. You try not to gag at the heavy waft of a rotting fish smell as you strain to fight their weight. Luckily the back of the boat has a latch door that flops down into the sand, letting you drag the mer aboard.
You hastily shut the door and dance around the once again aggressive mer before zooming off. Instead of heading where you came from, you head further in the opposite direction out to sea. That way none of those annoying speedboats and any bystanders are around to witness the release.
Tiptoeing out of the humbly titled “Captain's Quarter's”, you peek at the mer lying on your now somewhat dry deck. It immediately spots you, to which you sigh at its warning growl.
Observing them, they seem to be really dried out, sand clinging to their entirety and scales appearing matte. You can't make out much of their form besides creases where its body folds onto itself, its color unanimously blue and so deep it could be considered black. If it's that good at camouflage this close and on land, then no wonder these creatures are still only regarded as legends.
“Let's get you–”
“Hisssssss!”
The mer swats at you when you retrieve your fillet knife, making you drop it with a loud clang. They seem to puff up looking at it, actually succeeding in swatting it across the deck with a flail of its tail.
Okay, so not cutting them out anytime soon… And they definitely don't want you touching them. Even if you did cut them out, they'd probably kill you anyway.
But you don't want them to just die…
“Alright, so no sharp things for now. I got it buddy. Just uh… let meee…”
You look around and spot your only bucket. The bucket that has your tiny forgotten fish.
“You hungry?”
Maybe building trust will be the best course of action? You have to get rid of the fish anyway to use the bucket.
The mer doesn't respond. It is awfully dumb of you to assume it knows English, huh? Well, it makes you feel better at least, so yap you will.
Carefully gripping the squirming snack, you shimmy closer to the mer. You're presenting the tiny fish as if it's an offering to a god; you can only hope the mer is more merciful than how a god would react to such a lousy sacrifice.
You can't exactly expect them to be able to eat the fish themselves –the netting is quite tight– so you really hope the idea of food makes them not want to bite your hand off.
They're deathly still as you settle your feet beside them, lowering the fish closer to their head.
You actually had your hopes up that you'd get away with it as it was unresponsive to your closeness, but as soon as the meal was before their mouth both clawed hands gripped your wrists painfully, dashing all hope back into the ocean below.
Welp, time to accept your fate. It's probably offended you offered something so small and decided to eat you instead–!
Despite the pain radiating from your surface level cuts, you numbly blink at the creature eating from your hands.
It's a little gross; the slime of its spit and the blood of its meal quickly coats your fingers. It takes you only a moment after acknowledging that to process that its teeth are currently hovering over your empty palms.
With a yelp, you yank your arms back and fall on your butt. It seems neither you or the mer expected the overreaction, it's eyes wide. You're shocked it's grip was even loose enough to let you go.
“Cheehehe chee chee…”
A hushed, raspy, masculine laugh escapes the mer, rattling like the slow shake of maracas.
Oh, this guy thinks he's funny, huh?
You send him a half-hearted pout as you scramble to your feet, marching over to the bucket to give him what he deserves–and needs, but this is for you right now.
Grasping the top and bottom of the bucket, you launch the water out of it and onto the mer without warning. He flinches with an adorable yelp.
“Oh my God…” You look at him in awe.
The mer watches back with a shocked expression. At least you assume it is with its fishy smooth lips being pulled into a long line. The deep cobalt blue explodes into patterns of color, irregular white markings and yellow spots dotting along the length of its tail. The mer is a little more humanoid than you expected, a familiar muscle structure making up his top half – the texture of the front appearing more like the soft underbelly of a snake while the rest of him is coated in those pretty scales. Little fins decorate along his tail, but the strangest thing is the night cap-esk appendage attached to the back of his head. It almost seems to be like a one to one copy of its tail but miniaturized.
Trailing your eyes back to his face, he seems to have caught you staring, that flat face tweaking a brow at you.
You weren't checking out a fish, you weren't checking out a fish, you weren't checking out a—
“Yourrrr–voice, is adorable! Aw, and what a cute squeak you made!” You warbled.
Maybe patronizing the mer isn't a much better idea than gawking over it, but it doesn't understand you anyway. It's fiiine.
Turning around to wash off your hands and scoop up more water with the bucket, you return to the mer seeing it look anywhere but you, hiding its face in its arms.
It sends an uneasy feeling in your gut, but you brush it aside. At least it seems like the mer is more docile. You gently test that theory, slowly pouring the water on top of him again, walking around his body instead of just tossing the water over him to ensure everything gets properly wet.
After completing a cycle around him, you're satisfied by the relaxed appearance of the mer and the removal of dry sand on his scales. That must feel so much better already.
Maybe it's finally time?
You place down the empty bucket and spot the glint of the knife he swatted away, picking it up while keeping a close eye on the mer. Making your approach as noticeable as possible, you walk just a bit heavier and make the tool visible with its tip pointed to the sky.
The mer scooches back nervously once it notices you welding the fillet knife, but he doesn't dare move when you settle by his face and kneel. He eyes examine yours wildly.
“Don't worry, buddy. I'm not going to hurt you.”
Oh so slowly you reach out and pinch the netting at his chest, pulling it up and letting him witness how you end up cutting it. His body tenses at each snap, but the longer he realizes the painlessness of the operation, the more he seems to relax.
When you worked your way up to his head, you were the one to tense up at realizing his awed stare. You have no idea what's going on in that fishy head of his, but it almost seems like there's stars in his red eyes.
Not willing to just sit there and contemplate, you focus on finishing the job. It took ages seeing as you had to practically saw through every fiber with a dinky fillet knife; the sunset is already starting to settle into the horizon.
As soon as his head was free the mer was able to slip out of the net himself.
And holy shit was he big.
Maybe he's proportionally human sized, but as he sits on his tail he is already taller than you by two feet. Sitting!!! Two whole feet taller!!!
Curiously, he just sat there and let you boggle at his height… Though, you'd be a little struck too seeing a two legged thing free you from its own creation. Is he observing you back? Do you seem smaller to him now that he's free?
“Welp! You're uh, free to go, buddy! I'm glad I could help you out, and especially happy that uh, you didn't decide to maul me..!”
Gosh you're bad at this. What if it was a long con to get your guard down? Now he can just eat you up without any restrictions! Great job!
“I'll uh, yeah! I'll keep the net, erm, take care of it so this doesn't happen again, ya know! And uh… You can skedaddle on home!”
The cruel irony of your stomach growling is not lost on you. You even gave the dang mer your dinner and now you're probably going to become his dinner!
A sudden splash snaps you out of your inner woes, an empty deck greeting you.
He's gone?! And he let you live!?! Woohoo!!!
You thank your lucky stars that everything worked out in the end, doing a little dance as you make your way back to the wheel. Finally, you can go home and eat something!
The tension seeps out of your shoulders as you enjoy the salty air and the dying light of the pink sky. Seems today wasn't much of a waste after all.
Only a couple of minutes into your boat ride back home however, a ship-shaking slam causes you to kill the engine in a panic.
You worried you hit something with your boat, but in actuality the mer is back on your deck with a hugeee ass tuna fish in its claws.
“Thisss, is a proper meal.” He hisses, holding it out to you.
Oh. Oh okay.
Right.
So you had a listening audience this entire time. Great.
And now he's giving you a lecture??? What the hell is happening?
“Uhm… Okay.”
“For you..?”
A soft gurgle escapes from him as you blink owlishly. He looks a little unsure. Is this whole thing really just for you?
Maybe you can have that full day on the sea after all…
“Thanks, big guy! I'll happily take it off your hands, though, I'm sure you need to eat too. That little fish couldn't have been enough,” You tsked at him with a playful smile.
Today isn't a bad day at all thanks to this sweet lug! You should really return the favor somehow. Maybe saving him is more than worthy of a gift in return, but you don't think you did all of a great job at doing that to deserve this.
You almost cooed such thoughts to him before he nearly collapsed all his weight onto you with a crushing hug. That rumbling hiss returns with heavy stutters, shaking your entirety and making it even harder to stay standing. He's all slimy too, rubbing that putrid fish smell all over you... Maybe you will go home just to wash that off.
“Wonderfulll. Such a sweet, caring, funny, thoughtful little mate, sharing with me.~”
Uhm… You had to have misunderstood that. Maybe it's just a compliment and you're overthinking it like you did all day.
Yet, as you tried to release yourself from his hug, the mer grabbed your head in a gentle cradle and started licking up the side of your face and hair unabashedly.
“What the fuck???”
