Work Text:
Vi just wanted to fish.
That's all she was wanting from today, really. Not even as a competition with her old man. Just a peaceful afternoon out in the sea by herself, casting a line and sitting back with some beers in her cooler, the sun warm against her tattooed back. Maybe she could even hope for a fat catch to take home and fry for dinner, something to share with the rest of the family.
A fat bass is nice. A fat bass is normal. A fat bass isn't anything out of the ordinary, given her luck with her usual catch.
This, evidently, is not a fat bass.
"Let go of me!" the not-bass shrieks, her voice crisp, extremely annoyed, and strangely... British? She yells indignantly at Vi. "Ugh, you humans and your pesky little habits. Have you no respect!?"
Vi just blinks, staring at the tangled mess of the, well, half-human draped over her fishing line like a particularly disgruntled wet cat. Her eyes trail down over the ample cleavage embraced by iridescent blue-green scales the same colour as the creature's eyes, decorated by shells and seaglass strung on thin strings of seaweed, then down to where the human portion of the body blends into the large, glistening blue-green tail flopping around helplessly in her tiny fishing boat.
What the fuck.
"You're not a bass," Vi manages to say with all the wisdom of her last two functioning brain cells, because, again, what the fuck.
The mermaid—because there was no mistaking it, what with the shimmering, iridescent tail and delicate webbing between her fingers—glares at Vi with the most piercing blue eyes she’d ever seen.
Cerulean, Vi thinks. Something like the colour of the Mediterranean Sea. It's fitting.
"Gods, have I been reeled in by an absolute idiot?" the mermaid scowls, flipping wet, dark hair over her shoulder and trying to free herself from the net. Her tail—because, yeah, that’s a tail—is a shimmering gradient of blue and violet, the fins at the end twitching in irritation. "Do I look like a bass!?"
"Well, no," Vi stares dumbly. The mermaid is pretty. Like, absurdly pretty. The kind of pretty that makes Vi’s brain short-circuit just a little bit.
She must have been staring for too long, because the mermaid gives a little huff of irritation and stretches her tail, purposely flicking seawater everywhere—including all over Vi.
" Hey !" Vi yelps as the salty seawater sprays over her skin, making her shiver when a breeze brushes past. "That was so not cool!"
“Oh, you must accept my sincerest apologies,” the mermaid drawls theatrically, utterly insincere and unapologetic. “Forgive me for being irritated about getting hooked in the arm.”
She raises said arm with a cute little furrow between her brows, and sure enough, Vi’s fishing hook has caught onto the delicate fin at her wrist.
The sight of the tiny wound makes Vi grimace, guilt churning in her gut.
“Shit, uh—hold on, I got you,” says Vi, reaching for the hook.
The mermaid suddenly flinches away, her scowl twisting into something almost akin to fear. Those wide eyes and the way Vi can almost hear her heart stuttering in her chest makes her own pang with guilt, recalling, out of all things, the way mythical creatures like mermaids have been treated by humans in fairy tales.
Well, that and the fact that humans have been actively contributing to the assault on marine biodiversity since before Vi was born. Of course the mermaid doesn't trust her.
Vi pauses, raising her hands in what she hopes to be a placating gesture. “I promise I won’t hurt you. Scout’s honor.”
The mermaid eyes her suspiciously. It takes a moment before she speaks again.
“...What in the Seven Seas is a scout?”
“Uh," Vi stutters, thinking about how she's supposed to explain this, before she gives up. "Never mind.”
The mermaid frowns at her, but does not pull away when Vi comes close again. She'll take that as a win.
Vi makes sure to be careful as she frees the hook, trying her best not to touch too much of the mermaid's cool, soft skin, or to jostle
"Sorry," Vi murmurs when the mermaid gives a little flinch when she moves the hook wrong.
She lets her thumb rub over the bump at the mermaid's wrist in a soothing gesture, one that comes as easily to her from all the times she's helped Powder pull out a splinter. Vi is acutely aware of the mermaid's wary stare upon her, boring holes into her head, but she doesn't let that distract her from her job.
Once the hook has been successfully extracted, the mermaid pulls her hand back to her chest. She gives Vi a wary look, before inspecting her wound with a frown. A moment passes—
Then her lips part, revealing the snaking pink muscle of an absurdly long tongue, pointed slightly at the end. Vi stares unabashedly, her cheeks flushing in the sun as the creature drags the flat of her tongue over her wrist. Vi doesn't have to look to know that her little wound is mending itself by the power of mermaid saliva or whatever, though a thought comes unbidden to her head in that moment, wondering if mermaid saliva has any other properties—
( Oh my god, Violet, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER , she has to tell herself.)
Vi swallows around the lump at her throat, sitting back on her tiny fishing boat. She waits for the mermaid to simply turn tail and swim back into the murky depths of the ocean.
To her surprise, the beautiful creature remains, half-draped over the edge of the boat.
She blinks owlishly at Vi, like she's expecting something.
“Well,” Vi is the one to break the silence, rubbing the back of her neck. “Uh. Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to fish you up.”
"Hmph," the mermaid sniffs, flicking her tail again. A loose strand of dark blue falls over her eyes, and she makes no move to push it away as she gives Vi an appraising look. "I suppose there's no need to hold a grudge. What kind of fisherman are you anyway?"
Vi blinks. What's that supposed to mean?
“The regular kind?” Vi guesses.
"Regular fishermen usually let go of their catch when they realise it's something far bigger than what they think is lurking around these depths," the mermaid retorts.
She stares at Vi with those sharp, ocean-deep eyes, studying her carefully. Those cerulean irises flit over Vi's handsome face, then down to the thick, bulging muscles of her arms. She's foregone her tank top about ten minutes into her fishing trip, baring her tattoos for all to see and leaving her in nothing but her boob tape and the swim trunks hanging low at her hips.
The mermaid's eyes linger for a moment too long at the patch of pink hair that disappears down past the waistband of Vi's trunks, before they flit away, her double eyelids giving a strange flutter that Vi has only ever seen in fish.
"You're a good fisherman," the mermaid concedes, her voice strained. She looks away with a petulant little huff, crossing her arms over her chest. "If not a little simple. You ought to be careful of what you try to reel in around these parts."
"Well, what are you then?"
" Excuse me ?" the mermaid whirls to face her, lip curling.
Shit, shit, shit. Vi is not about to fuck this up with some sort of accidental micro-aggression against a species that she didn't even realise was real until less than ten minutes ago.
"I—I mean, what's your name?" she quickly amends, stumbling over her words slightly. "Since, you know. You're obviously a mermaid. Right?"
The mermaid regards her cautiously, still on end. The fins at the sides of her head where ears would typically be give a little flicker, and Vi feels some saltwater splash on her face.
"...Caitlyn," the mermaid huffs out. "You may call me Caitlyn."
"Caitlyn," Vi repeats, grinning. "Pretty name for a pretty creature. I'm Vi."
She watches with some amusement as Caitlyn's cheeks flush. The mermaid does a poor job at hiding the flush of her face as she huffs again, turning away.
"Charmed," she says haughtily.
She doesn't say anything after that. The boat continues to rock, slightly unsteady with the added weight of the mermaid— shit , Vi still can't wrap her head around it—onboard.
"So, uh," she starts awkwardly. "Do you, like, live in this lake, or are you on vacation—" she starts to trail off here when Caitlyn gives her a look of disbelief. "Or…?”
"Have you never read stories about mermaids before?" Caitlyn questions her. "I thought you humans have those in abundance ."
"I mean, that's true. And I have. Read them, I mean," Vi tells her, shrugging. "I just... didn't actually think you existed. Thought that I just caught a really big fish or something."
Caitlyn gives her a look. "What, did you think that you'd somehow managed to reel in a bass the size of a human being?"
...Vi wants to say yes, but she has a feeling that it's going to be the wrong answer.
"...No?" she says.
Caitlyn does not look convinced.
"Why are you this close to the surface anyway?" Vi questions, changing the subject swiftly as the thought suddenly occurs to her. She can really count on her brain to save her from looking stupid. "Thought you guys would be farther out from shore, or deeper in the ocean, I guess. Aren't mermaids supposed to keep away from humans?"
Caitlyn's cheeks flush at that, and Vi likens her image now to that of a chastised child caught doing something they weren't supposed to do.
"W—Well, that's..." she trails off, scowling at the cheeky little grin that has begun to pull at Vi's lips. "That's none of your business!"
Oho .
"Ooh," Vi grins, teasing. "Is the little mermaid breaking some ancient rules to hang around the surface?"
The mermaid scowls at her, and Vi is surprised that she hasn't got a tan line from that furrow in her brow, because it looks like it happens a lot . She's still laughing, about to jeer at the creature some more when Caitlyn abruptly lunges forward, grabbing Vi by the bicep and yanking at her with surprising strength.
"Oh, fuck —!"
The world flips as Vi flails helplessly, suspended in the air for a millisecond before she crashes into the water with a large, heavy splash. The saltwater stings her eyes and shoves up her nose.
When Vi surfaces, gasping and sputtering, Caitlyn is perched on the edge of the boat, smiling coyly at her. Ironically, she looks like a little cat that has just gotten her hands on a fish; Vi really can't think of any other fish-related metaphor now.
She pushes her sopping wet hair out of her face, scowling. “Oh, you asshole .”
Caitlyn hums, inspecting her nails and the translucent webs between her fingers. “Consider us even.”
Vi opens her mouth, a witty retort upon her tongue that's immediately splashed away by the saltwater that ends up in her mouth when Caitlyn shifts, diving back into the ocean. There's a moment where Vi's head is back underwater, before she surfaces again, sputtering.
"Fuck!" she curses, glaring at the grinning face of the mermaid through her dripping hair, now lacking its usual styling and volume. "Would you stop that!?"
"You're funny," is all Caitlyn says. She dips back underneath the water, her fin shimmering in the light of the sun before it disappears along with the rest of her.
Vi startles as she feels something brush against her legs in the water, instinctively kicking out as she tries to peer down into the depths.
"Hey! Quit it!" she yelps, panicked. Obviously, she can swim, but not with a fucking mermaid tugging at her feet. Shit, what if Caitlyn turns out to be a siren instead? She certainly has the voice for it.
Caitlyn surfaces again, throwing her hair back. Vi sputters as the sleek blue curtain smacks her in the face. When she collects herself again, Caitlyn is staring at her, giggling and looking oh so perfect.
"I think I like you, Vi," she decides, and the innocent proclamation should not make her stomach flip the way they do.
"Oh, really?" Vi says, trying to pretend that the flush on her cheeks is from the sun. "You gonna drag me down to the depths with you, princess?"
"Nope," Caitlyn grins, and the sight of it is oddly cute despite the sharp point of her teeth. "I have something better in mind."
🐟
“Ew, don’t drip over the floor,” Powder complains when Vi staggers back into their home, still damp from the day’s insanity.
Vi doesn’t dignify her with a reply, simply crashing down to the couch without care of the seawater wetting the cushions. Powder is sitting on the floor, tinkering with some little gadget.
“So,” Vi starts, because she might as well get this over with. She fishes a string of seaweed out of her trunks, grimacing as she continues to speak. “I accidentally fished up a mermaid today.”
Powder doesn’t even look up. “Uh-huh. And I accidentally built a rocket launcher out of scrap metal. NASA is launching it tomorrow.”
“I’m serious!” Vi insists, sitting up. “She had a tail and everything!”
Her sister snorts. “Right. And let me guess—she was super pretty, with big blue eyes and a sexy accent?”
Vi blinks. “...Okay, that was weirdly accurate.”
Powder finally looks up, brows furrowed.
“You were out in the sun all day,” she says, eyes narrowing as she presses the back of her hand to her forehead. “Did you drink enough water, sis?”
Vi throws her hands up in the air. “Oh my God. I knew you wouldn’t believe me!”
Powder pats her sister’s knee sympathetically. “It’s okay. One day, we’ll find you a nice human girlfriend. One that can ignore how you’re so obviously cuckoo.”
Vi groans and flops back onto the couch.
She makes a note to visit Caitlyn again tomorrow.