Chapter Text
“Look, see! I told you I saw something!”
At the moment, most of the crew was leaning over the edge of the sloop, looking off at where Taehyung was frantically waving a pointed finger.
“Just because you befriended a siren doesn’t mean everything you see is a sea mon- creature, and especially not one we can befriend.”
Yoongi was one of the few crewmen still working despite Taehyung’s racket, eyes trained on the map before him, fingers tracing idly.
“Um- Sir, I think Taehyung might be right,” Jungkook, the youngest crewman piped in from beside the sailor.
A soft sigh, and Yoongi bit back the urge to correct Jungkook. He was not “sir” on this ship. That was not how this ship worked. That is not how they did things. Not here. Not them.
He would learn.
“Then it would be best to leave them alone,” the navigator quipped, raising a brow at the younger crewmate. “Don’t you all have work to do?” he added with a pointed look.
Before anyone could react, Jungkook was backing away from the railing in alarm.
“I-It’s coming closer,” Jungkook reported with an unsure look towards the eldest. “Sh- Should we- Are we supposed to attack it?”
Remember.
He’s only been here a couple months.
He doesn’t know.
He’ll learn.
“No.” Yoongi held back another sigh as he stood, not wanting to discourage the boy. “We do not attack them. We avoid attacking. Always.”
And then a fond smile.
“You’ll understand soon enough.”
The oldest on the ship approached the ledge, looking off to where his sailor friend had been pointing. Sure enough, half a league away, a green mass was trailing behind them, just barely close enough to the surface to the seen against the glare of the sun.
“So there is… Well,” Yoongi looked back at the other men, “no point gawking. Lets get back to work.”
Though the men threw nervous glances towards the creature, nobody spoke out as they went back to work. Yoongi had the most experience with the monsters from the sea. Everyone had heard the tales of his days in the Navy – the good and the bad. Nobody doubted him.
~*~
“It’s been 3 days.”
“They haven’t approached us.”
“We don’t even know what it is.”
“And so we should attack them? What, because you’re scared of what you don’t understand, we should just-“
“No, I didn’t-“ Namjoon huffed out a sigh, giving his first mate an apologetic, tired look. “That’s not what I was thinking. We don’t know what it is, so we don’t know what it wants, and we don’t know what it will do, so we don’t know what to do. It’s making the others nervous, which is making me nervous.”
A pause, crewmen bustling around them.
“Why don’t we just ask them?”
Yoongi was already moving to loosen a dinghy from its fastenings when Namjoon registered what he meant.
“You want to- You can’t-“
“I can, and I will. We need to find out what they want, as you said. Or,” Yoongi turned to face Namjoon fully, a hard look in his eyes, “are you saying there's a man on this ship who's life is worth less that mine? You'd rather another go?”
Namjoon looked conflicted and ready to argue, but Yoongi was already back to untying the dinghy, hands working with practiced ease.
“And if I die, then we’ll know what they wanted,” the navigator assured with a wry grin, stepping into the small boat.
“Yoongi,” the captain started, voice as soft as his eyes were gentle, watching Yoongi lower himself into the sea below. “You should value your life more.”
It was a long standing argument that Yoongi didn’t plan on continuing at the moment.
“Maybe when eternal sleep sounds less appealing.”
And with that, the boat gave a gentle lurch, waves lapping at the hull. With a groan, Yoongi began his journey rowing to the mystery creature. Navigation didn’t call for much physical exertion, and Yoongi could already feel the beginnings of muscle cramps.
It became considerably difficult at this angle to see the mass of what looked like condensed ocean life, but it seemed the creature thought the same, as Yoongi soon saw what he could only assume was the creature’s head poking up above the waves.
It was another few minutes, and Yoongi was positive he wasn’t rowing that fast, pretty content in taking his time actually, but the creature was very suddenly close enough for Yoongi to notice the little details; the scales, the mass of kelp and seaweed and algae, and eyes as dark as the deepest depths Yoongi had once found himself sinking into, sinking again-
And then they were gone.
Yoongi’s arms fell limp at his sides.
The creature was nowhere in sight.
Yoongi was alone in a dinghy in the middle of the ocean, a sea creature somewhere below him.
A fitting way to go, if he had to pick one.
Only he was allowed the satisfaction of his death.
First though, he had something to do.
Hoisting himself up, Yoongi carefully perched himself on the edge of the boat, looking down at the endless depth below him.
Absently, he wondered how many men had died in this exact position.
“Hello,” he started gruffly, too curious and determined to feel embarrassment. “You’ve been following our ship for a few days now. Is this a coincidence, or do you want something from us?”
The man let silence settle, counting the laps against the side of his boat. At 3, he thought he saw a different darkness settled below him. At 6, a form was clearly visible just below the surface, a bit more than an arms length away.
“If it’s a life you’d like, I suggest taking mine here and now. They won’t be able to attack you, and I’ve sinned enough to be satisfying.”
10 more gentle rocks of the boat.
Nothing.
6 more.
“Is there something we have that you need?”
8 more.
“Can I at least know what you are?”
6 taunting waves.
Yoongi was growing impatient, and with a huff he settled back into the boat.
“If you change your mind about needing a life, you know where I am. Don’t attack the other men.”
And with that, he made his way back to the ship.
~*~
This is dangerous.
This is dangerous and Hoseok knows it.
And yet, he finds himself drifting purposefully closer to the boat nearing him.
Maybe they could help him.
Maybe they had food.
Maybe-
Hoseok quickly ran out of positive outcomes and was all too soon just before the man in the boat.
Their eyes met.
Sad and resigned finding scared and curious.
Before he could think, Hoseok was far below the man on the boat.
Too close.
Closer than he’d ever been to a human.
A human with gentle lines along his skin from past joys, a ghost of a smile permanently etched onto his face.
The young creature was once again drawn closer than his instincts should allow.
The human was looking down into the water. Was he looking for something? For him? Hoseok pulled himself a safe distance away, and rose until he could see the finer details of the man above him through the rolling waves.
Hair, dark as the ocean floor, held back by a cloth of intricate design. Dark markings of some sort along the knuckles clutching the edge of the boat. A face much kinder and younger than he had expected from a human- a man of the sea. Every story he had ever heard of the men above had been of cruelty and horror, violence and savagery of the worst kind.
But this man-
Hoseok watched the small human’s lips purse around words, jewelry glinting from his ears as he turned to send a wry grin to the sky. The pull of those lips almost had Hoseok rising just to see the spectacle more clearly. But then they morphed into a look of danger and anger that decidedly didn’t match the softness of what Hoseok saw before.
More words were being formed around those pouting lips.
Silly human.
Did he not realize Hoseok couldn’t hear him?
The words however seemed biting and harsh, if the little human’s expression was anything to go by, and Hoseok was very suddenly glad the above world was muted to him.
The human moved, and was soon making his way back to his vessel.
Away from Hoseok.
Still lost, then.
Still hungry.
Still alone.
~*~
This was Yoongi’s favorite part.
Up on deck, accompanied only by the stars and his own thoughts.
Looking up at the sky, here, he was just Min Yoongi. Not Yoongi the man who turned his back on the military. Not Yoongi the only man on Captain Namjoon’s ship who’d killed a man- killed many men.
No, out here, letting the soft hushing of waves against the ship lull him into a sort of trance, he was just a man in love with the freedom of the sea. The moonlight washed the blood from his mind, the silence of the night speaking over his own mind.
On nights like this, Yoongi was nobody.
And on this particular night, this nobody found himself horrified.
At some point, a wet, squelching slap joined the soft rumbles of the ship, moving much harsher and faster than the gentle rocking beneath his feet.
Something was on the starboard side.
Someone was on the ship.
Yoongi’s hand was on his pistol before he could think, edging slowly towards the ledge.
No point raising the alarm. It wouldn’t be the first time Yoongi heard a ghost in the night, and certainly not the last.
The distinctly human like hand that slapped over the ships edge however was definitely new.
More naturally than Yoongi would like to admit, the fear in his chest was swiftly replaced by rage, pistol aimed resolutely at the slow appearing figure.
How dare someone attack their ship in the dead of night.
Coward.
Vile filth.
The creature hauling themselves onto the deck didn’t deserve the iron of Yoongi’s bullet.
That’s the excuse Yoongi used as he found himself lowering his gun, gaze hard and on guard as he took in the… mass before him.
There were definitely arms, though looking now, he second guessed how human those hands were, webbed as they are.
There was a torso of sorts, though Yoongi couldn’t find any skin, just endless shadowed scales under a mountain of seaweed and kelp, a piece of coral here and there.
Those eyes.
Yoongi had seen those eyes.
Dark as the depths that would eventually claim him.
And yet bright as the sky above him.
This time there was fear, regret, and Yoongi’s pistol clacked against the deck in his haste to drop it, instinctually wanting to comfort the being before him.
There was a following silence, and Yoongi held himself still as the other being took him in.
After watching several constellations disappear beyond the horizon, Yoongi allows his body to relax.
“Hello,” he starts, just like he had those days ago, ignoring the way the creature flinched at the noise. “Have you… Changed your mind then?”
The creature shifted just slightly, and it took Yoongi several silent moments to realize they were expressing confusion.
“Earlier- before- on the- well, I was on the boat- I said if you needed a life…”
The words trailed to a stop, the reality of the situation slowly making itself know, settling hot and sticky in Yoongi’s gut.
“Is that why… You’re here?”
The whispered words settled between the two, and Yoongi forced himself to breathe with the rocking of the ship.
It began to seem like it could become morning before Yoongi would receive any sort of response, when a raspy “food” was breathed into the air, and Yoongi’s own breath left him in a weak huff.
“Yes… Right…”
And really, this is what Yoongi had expected, what he had said would happen. Better to die at the hand of the sea than some morally confused young man. Yoongi would not let his death destroy another man’s life.
Not as his had been.
And how many people got to choose how they died?
Though, Yoongi was still a little unsure how this was going to happen. What exactly this creature was remained a mystery.
Regardless, Yoongi took sure steps towards them. It was better him than one of the other crewmen.
The creature however seemed startled, fearful even, as Yoongi approached.
“No.”
This was said much more firmly, though the rattling rawness was still in his voice, like the salt had slowly eroded his vocal cords.
Yoongi only realized he’d frozen at the sound when the creature began slowly advancing on his own.
“Food.”
“Hungry.”
“Lost.”
The creature was muttering, and Yoongi wasn’t sure if the words were meant for him, too distracted by the body revealed before him.
Arms, though covered in scales, were glowing pink in the moonlight, and undeniably human in nature as they worked across the deck.
Seaweed and kelp fell, revealing more and more of the creatures form, and Yoongi nearly swallowed his tongue in realization.
Eyes trained on the sunset orange tail flicking uselessly against the wood, Yoongi allowed himself to finally breathe, finally see.
The man – could he be called that? – before him was hardly larger than Yoongi himself, pinks and oranges running up to a startlingly human face, and their eyes met again, though this time with twin looks of wonder.
“You’re a merman.”