I Know I Shouldn’t Love You (But I Do)

by Elevator_Weather

Summary:

You’d never believed in mermaids before until one was staring you right in the face, sky-blue eyes peering into your own.

or

Your summer changes very quickly after you fall into the bay near your house.

Notes:

the terrible fire of old regret
is honey on my tongue
and i know i shouldn’t love you
i know i shouldn’t love you but i do

[bitter water - the old hellos]

Chapter 1

Notes:

the terrible fire of old regret
is honey on my tongue
and i know i shouldn’t love you
i know i shouldn’t love you but i do

[bitter water - the old hellos]

[Y/N],

I know you said you were busy and swamped with a lot of work this summer. And if you really can’t do this, that’s fine. But I need you to reconsider. This is a huge opportunity for us. For you. Just…think about it.

Thank you,

Cass

Blue light illuminates your face, your teeth digging into your lip as you debate on whether to respond or not. You know the marine center needs the funding, and you know that people with connections would at least listen if you did what she’s asking you to do. But you’re hesitating, caught between both sides. You can’t handle crowds, can’t bear to be under the glare of fluorescent lights as you stutter your way through a speech. The cursor blinks mockingly at you, taunting you to just write something.

You huff out a groan, shutting your laptop and dropping your head into your hands. Afterimages swim into your vision, hazy blobs of color appearing when you close your eyes. You’ve been on your computer for far too long, and a break would do you good. Your sheets rustle when you shove them off of you, swinging your legs onto the carpeted floor. Light floods into your room as you open your door, furthering the reminder that you’ve been in here for most of the day.

Time slips away from you too easily.

A glance outside as you enter your living room shows clear skies, the sun on the cusp of dipping below the horizon lines. The clock tells you it’s around 6:00. Had you really been trying to respond to the email for an hour? It’s still light outside—you should take a walk, get your mind off of everything. The sound of something hitting your door snaps you out of your thoughts, a frown on your lips as you cross your living room, unlocking your door.

A piece of rolled-up paper tied with a rubberband sits on your porch, and your shoulders slump with relief. Just the newspaper. You get it every week—your town’s pretty small, and it’s nice to be caught up on events, even if not all of them are interesting. The newspaper unfolds as soon as you slip the rubberband off, the paper creased in some places but the contents still legible. Your fingers grip the edges as you scan the headlines, tight enough to crumple the paper.

Body Discovered In Bay…Boat Accidents Happening Frequently…Five Fun Things To Do This Summer!…

You’d heard about the boat crashes—everybody had, it was common knowledge by now—but you thought they had stopped. And the bay’s deep, but it’s relatively calm. People shouldn’t be dying. This summer…something’s off about it, and you can’t place it. A quick search through the rest of the newspaper reveals nothing of interest. You shake your head, folding the newspaper neatly and dropping it beside you to be taken inside later.

The familiar trailhead sign comes into view as you approach it, the sign telling you the name of the trail. A warning seems to have been recently added, the carved letters telling you to be careful near cliff edges. Your shoes crunch the gravel as you walk further into the forest, hands tucked into your pockets. It’s a beautiful place—towering trees, flowers sprouting among the forest floor, and you can see the coastline if you go far enough.

The trail tapers out into a small clearing, and just beyond that is the ledge. You can see almost all of the bay here, the waves crashing against the rocks. It’s not that big of a drop—the space in between the ledge you’re sitting on and the rocky beach below is maybe ten feet at most—but the thought of falling has you sitting a few feet away from the edge, just in case. For a moment, you allow yourself to relax, leaning back and closing your eyes.

It’s calm here, the sound of the water and wind rushing through the trees acting as a background. Inevitably, your thoughts drift to Cass. You know the marine center needs the money, especially with the sharp drop in tourism this year. And you want to be able to keep doing the things you love, but the thought of talking to people you’ve never met before, being up on that stage with the very real pressure of messing it all up—it scares you, and you don’t know how to tell her that.

A screech splits the silence. The sound has you sitting bolt upright, scrambling to see what—or who—made it. Your eyes scan the waves, and you would’ve missed the flash of scales in the water if you hadn’t been looking harder. You shift closer to the edge, trying to make out the features of what you saw. Maybe the dirt’s loose, or you moved wrong. But whatever the reason is—you’re falling. A sharp cracking noise is your only warning before the ground gives out under you and you’re falling off the ledge.

The choppy waters rush up to meet you, the dizzying blur making you squeeze your eyes shut.

The impact when you hit the water knocks the air out of you. Pain flickers through your spine, lightning-hot and like a thousand needles. You sink quickly, too stunned to do anything but flail your arms, desperate for air. The light from the surface ebbs in and out of your vision, making you dizzy with how it flickers. The instinct to breathe is overwhelming, and you give in with a gasp. Murky water fills your lungs, rushing into your mouth when you choke on the unfamiliar feeling.

The sensation is sharp. Wrong in ways you can’t even describe.

The world spins around you. Heat fills your chest, and something in you screams at you to swim. You can’t, too burdened by your clothes and the seawater in your lungs. Your thrashing has slowed, your body too weak to do anything but float limply in the bay, waves buffeting your body. As you succumb to the water, you could swear you feel hands wrapping around your body, dragging you further into the abyss.

Everything goes dark.

Notes:

IT’S HERE! this was made from a series of drabbles on my tumblr, and i’m so happy that it’s a real fic now :D
I did change the plot, reader is still a marine biologist but a lot has been shifted around or rewritten. (i promise this is still a mermaid au! i just had to rewrite some stuff)

Chapter 2

Notes:

take your time
and i’ll take mine here today
but it cuts like a knife
and we’re bound here
as the night, it breaks away
and it all goes down

[beneath the brine - the family crest]

Eddie feels it before he wakes up.

The pull and push of something terrible roiling in his stomach, tugging at him with a sensation much like a fishhook before fading. His tail swishes irritably as he considers his options, and he knows there’s no going back to sleep. His scales scrape on rock as he sits up, a dulled sensation. Eddie’s hunched over, head in his claws while he allows his eyes to adjust to the darker environment of the cave. He chances a glance at Volt, the knot in his chest lessening when he sees that he’s still sleeping peacefully.

A little trill escapes his mouth when he spots the way he tucks his tail around himself when he’s sleeping, and Eddie presses a hand to Volt’s shoulder, claws trailing over the scales there before he removes his hand. If he’s not going back to bed, he should at least make himself useful. Dim light seeps in through the cracks in the cave ceiling, illuminating the faint blue and white undertones hidden in his scales.

Cold undercurrents buffer his fins as he swims up and out of the small hole that acts as the entrance to the cave, his eyes narrowing in search of prey as he acclimates to the light. He woke up late, so there’s not much light, but it’s enough to bring out the coppery shine to his scales. A flicker of motion catches his eyes, body going rigid as he tracks the fish. A flick of his tail, a swish of his fins, and he’s off like a rocket, tearing through the water with a few heavy sweeps of his tail.

The fish tries to dart into a small cluster of rocks, but Eddie’s faster. Lightning-fast, his hand stretches out to pin down the fish, pride blooming in his chest at how quickly he caught it. He tears a notch through the spine, and the fish goes limp under his claws. Eddie eats in a hurried manner, slicing a claw through the stomach, letting the guts float free before gulping down the rest of the fish. Not the best way to eat—he wishes Volt was awake so it could be more of a meal—but it’ll have to do.

Eddie lets himself relax, turning to float on his back, allowing his legs to stretch out and his tail to unfurl. The sun’s bright enough to reach down here, and it makes him feel all warm inside. If he concentrates hard enough, he can even hear the ocean, a responding pull resounding in his chest whenever the tides flow. His mouth opens, sharp teeth appearing as he yawns, eyes lidded with relaxation. For a moment, the world around him feels still.

And it’s shattered by the sharp blast of a boat horn, the sound rattling his bones and making him flinch before he recovers. Eddie instinctively bares his teeth, fins flaring up in agitation. The boats aren’t supposed to come so close to their cave. They usually stay out in the deep parts of the lake, where all the fish are. An edge of fear is crawling underneath his scales, but he shakes it off, swimming up to the surface with a few sharp flicks of his tail.

The familiar smell of sea air invades his scent receptors as he breaches the top of the water, eyes scanning for any boats. He can only see one, and it’s moved further away now. Eddie chuffs sharply, showing his teeth as a warning to stay away. He’s about to dive back down when he hears a cracking sound. Eddie turns around just in time to see the edge of the cliff behind him break off, a few rocks and something bigger falling down into the water.

Everything hits the water, dropping down into the ocean with a sound like bricks on concrete. Eddie’s curious, so he dives back under the water to investigate. The rocks sink quickly, but as he swims closer, he can see you. A human. You’re thrashing, jumbled, clumsy movements that are nothing like his own smooth motions. It’s clear you’re not made for the water. He studies you, noting how you look almost nothing like him.

Instead of claws, your fingers are nubs instead, nothing to protect yourself with. You don’t have a tail, which is probably why you’re struggling to swim. And the scraps of material covering your body are waterlogged, weighing you down and hindering your movements. Eddie feels a sick sort of satisfaction in the way you struggle, much like the fish he catches every day. And he has every right to, because he hates your kind.

You poisoned his waters, dumped oil into the ocean without thinking of the repercussions. You took without giving, hauled in boatloads of fish, and the populations never recovered. And you killed his family. Three harpoons to the heart, inky blood spilling out into the water as they sank below the waves. The fourth barely missed him, nicking a fin as he watched his family members die one by one. Too young to retaliate, but enough of a threat to be a target. Eddie remembers that night too clearly.

But he also remembers other times.

Like when a group of boats, ones that weren’t too loud or too fast, came out onto the water and scooped up all the trash that was floating on the surface. Or when Volt found something from your kind that wasn’t junk—it was beautiful. A miniature statue of two fish, forever caught in each other’s orbit. He was lit up with happiness for nearly a day, telling Eddie how it represented the two of them so well. And he sees that you can’t possibly hurt him. No harpoons, no claws, and certainly no teeth sharp enough to bite him with.

Some small part of him feels sorry for you—you fell into the lake. It wasn’t a decision you made, it was an accident.

So he makes his decision, easily avoiding your flailing limbs to hook his claws into the edge of your coverings and pull up. You’re unconscious now, skin paler than it was a minute ago, and your struggling has died down. Eddie overestimated his skills, because you’re heavier than he thought, and even with his larger frame he’s having a hard time swimming upwards. Black is beginning to encroach on the edges of his sight, his chest aching with the strain as the light from the surface fades.

In a last-ditch effort, he starts swaying his tail from side to side, heaving upwards to try and lift you. The material of your coverings is catching on the webbing between his claws, and his tail aches from how hard he’s swishing it, but it works. The darkness at the edge of his vision recedes, and his chest fills with water once more. He’s working twice as hard now, legs moving along with his tail to create a steady motion, bringing you closer to the surface with every ebb and pull.

Sound floods back into his head, your labored breathing much louder above water. Eddie drags you as close to the beach as he can, very conscious of that fact that he’s exposed here. You seem even frailer up close, chest rising in small movements, fingers twitching weakly when he cups them in his own claws. He chirps at you, just to see how you’ll react. Your eyelids flutter, but you don’t move. The surf brushes against his tail, and Eddie becomes aware of the fact that he’s hunched over you, and anyone could interrupt this moment.

He backs away slowly, noting the small shiver that runs through you when he drops your hand. The ocean feels colder somehow as he dives back into the water, and Eddie clenches his fists, a growl tearing itself out of his throat. He just needs to forget the whole thing—he just brought you to the surface. That’s it. But he can’t stop the memory from swirling around in his head, and it’s messing with him. Eddie can’t sleep that night, replaying the moment over and over in his head.

Notes:

i did have to give eddie and volt legs for plot reasons, but i promise this is still a mermaid/sea monster story.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of E&V Mermaid AU