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srs2012_r1Summary: Luke Milton heads to a small town in Maine after getting a tip that truckers were being pulled into the water and drowned. The locals think it's a seal, but Luke's a hunter; he knows a monster when he sees it. But does he know enough to keep away when the monster turns its eyes - and heart - towards him?
Word Count: 4000
Characters: Sam, Lucifer (as Luke Milton), OC Sheriff
Pairings: Lucifer(Luke)/Sam
Tags: Character Death, Suicide
It's late in tourist season, and the village is nestled into the shoreline, with a backdrop of mountains painted vibrant autumn colors, though when Luke gets up early that morning, they're hidden by fog. This time of year people come to Eagle Crest Bay in search of all things rustic and old-fashioned, flavored with apples and spices and served to them while they wear cozy sweaters near a crackling fire. It's as close to time travel as a person can get, with vintage gas pumps lovingly cared for, and only certain colors allowed on houses to maintain the "right look". He'd imagine rowdy teenagers listening to hip-hop are chased off the streets lest they disturb the illusion, but this time of day he is the only one awake.
Well, him and the sheriff, who had called him immediately after the discovery of the newest body. Luke pulls the zipper of his jacket up a little more, trying to burrow down into it to reclaim some of the warmth of the bed he'd left behind. He sets off across the rocky shoreline towards the small group of people gathered near the water's edge.
They think it's a seal, and he's happy to let them believe that, but those had been human bite marks on the victim's neck, and the bruising on the wrists had been from someone's hands. Big hands, he figured, but hands nonetheless. A couple of phone calls and an hour with the internet had enabled him to put aside selkie and kraken. He was quite sure that he was dealing with a merperson, probably a man by the size of the grip.
“Hello, Agent Milton.” The sheriff shifts his coffee cup to his left hand and extends the other. Luke shakes it and gives him a nod. The sheriff is a balding man with a paunch whose main role in the community is catching speeders and breaking up the occasional drunken fight. This is far out of his league and he knows it, so he’s polite and deferential to the Department of Fish and Wildlife agent that had turned up at the station yesterday, asking very pointed questions.
“Do we know who this guy is?” Luke asks, nodding.
The body is bloated and gray, with bite marks at the neck and heavy bruising on the wrists. He crouches down to get a better look at the victim’s neck.
“Trucker. Same as the last two. ID was in his wallet, trailer’s still parked at the truck stop up the road a ways. Got an officer up there now.”
The sheriff's radio squawks and he turns away, crunching up the beach. Luke sighs and looks out over the water.
“Where are you, you son of a bitch?”
He waits until nightfall and goes back to the water’s edge. The sheriff has sealed the beach off; no big loss this time of year, but it has the locals skittish, and that’s all it takes in these small towns.
There’s a dock off to one side leading out into the water. He strolls over to it, listening for anything other than the ripping of waves coming up onto the shore and the quiet whoosh of the wind through the trees.
He walks out to the end of the dock and watches the bay. It’s still, and murky under the cloudy sky. He thinks he sees something pop up above the surface and lifts his binoculars.
It’s a man’s head and shoulders. Luke swears he sees him look back and smile before disappearing under the water.
There is a quiet splash at the end of the dock. Luke swivels on his heel and strolls back out towards the end, leaning forward to look over the edge.
A face disappears under the water with a plop.
The dock creaks as waves roll in towards the shore. Luke turns his head from side to side, keeping a look out.
“You came,” comes a voice from under the dock itself. Luke tucks his chin and laughs to himself. He underestimated this monster.
“Yep,” he answers the faceless voice, eyes focused in the middle distance. “Mermaid in Maine? I had to see this one for myself.”
“I’m not a maid!” There’s real indignation in the voice, and it’s clearly a man. But merpeople are vain things, and Luke thinks he’s got a plan.
“Prove it,” he says, lifting the gun. “Let me see you.” The wet from the dock is seeping into the knee of his jeans and he straightens.
There is the quiet swish of water under the dock. Luke takes two low steps forward, following the sound.
Something big bursts out of the water in the middle of the bay. Moonlight catches on a silvery-green fin as the creature arcs through the air before diving below the surface. He leaps again, drops of water sparkling around him as he twists in midair. He’s got broad shoulders and his upper body is muscular, but even out of the water like this he’s lithe and nimble, performing acrobatics with the night sky as backdrop. It’s amazing to watch, and Luke is impressed by the display.
He swims closer, rolling onto his back and waving with his tail fin.
“Told you I wasn’t a maid,” he sneers. When he's not speaking, he sinks down so that only the top half of his head is visible above the surface of the water.
Luke folds his arms across his chest. “You’re killing innocent men,” he fires back.
The man frowns and rolls in the water. “I didn’t want them to die.” He flicks his fin and swims closer. Luke hefts the gun in his hand. “I get lonely,” he explains.
“So you drag them out into the water and drown them?”
“I just want them to stay with me,” he pleads, and there’s genuine sadness in his voice. “Would you stay with me?”
Luke heaves a sigh and rolls his eyes. “I’ll drown, too.”
“No, don’t come in the water. Just come here, every night. So I can look at you. You’re beautiful.”
Luke is flattered but wary. Sirens use the same tactics with their victims, and he’s not going to fall for it that easy.
“I stay here on the dock and talk to you, and you stop killing people?”
The merman nods and splashes with his tail fin. “Yes! Yes, I’d like that. Please.”
Luke scrubs a hand over his face and nods. “Yeah, all right. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
The merman drops below the surface and disappears, and Luke swears to himself. He can’t stay here forever in order to keep people safe, but this might buy him time to better learn what he’s dealing with.
A week later, Luke is still in Maine. Nightly chats with Sam had gotten longer and friendlier until another body drifted onto shore. Sam had insisted that it was an accident, and when he proposed an alternative, Luke had been relieved to lower his gun.
The boat isn’t the biggest Luke has ever seen. There is a small cabin with a cook top, and the table folds away so that he can sleep on the sofa beside a round window trimmed with curtains patterned with anchors and lifesavers. The deck is newly refinished, the man tells him, and there’s storage space below. Luke figures he can fill it with fuel, food, and fresh water.
He turns over the keys to his truck, and tells the man that he’s welcome to sell it. He chuckles and reassures Luke that “she’ll be waiting here when you get back from killing that seal.”
Luke doesn’t correct him.
It’s a crisp, sunny morning when he navigates Lilith out of the harbor. He’s been on a boat a couple of times before, and finds that it’s not that different from a car, easier than once you get it out into open water. The village and shoreline slip away behind him. He moves out past the rocky jumbles barely large enough to dignify by calling them islands. The biggest is home to a couple of scraggly pine trees, nothing more, and most of them are just weather-worn stone.
The quiet rumble of the engine becomes the only sound, and after a while he even silences that and lets the boat drift. High, thin clouds stretch in lines across the sky, and the V of a flock of geese moves past closer to shore. Even the islands are nothing more than bumps on the horizon now. The sea is flat and calm before him.
He rubs a hand along his jaw and leans heavily on the wheel. He knows he won’t see Sam again until nightfall, and that gives him nothing but time to think. Water clucks against the hull, and he wonders dimly if he can convince Sam to swim alongside him to the Caribbean.
Two mornings later, Luke wakes up to a thump on the deck. He pulls a sweater over his head as he climbs the stairs, shivering to the point of biting his tongue as soon as the air hits his skin. It's barely dawn, and his breath comes out in bursts of steam.
There is a lobster lying on the deck of the boat. It's at least twenty pounds, and as unhappy to see Luke as he is to see it.
"I don't have a pot big enough to cook this thing!" he shouts to the water.
He picks it up gingerly and walks to the side of the boat. When he hefts the lobster into the water again, he could swear it waves.
Luke grumbles to himself as he goes below deck again, thankful to find it's still warm under his blankets.
Two hours later the scene repeats itself with a much more manageable crustacean.
"Thank you!" Luke calls as he plucks up the unlucky lobster.
"No, keep playing," Sam insists later that evening, slapping the side of the boat with his fin.
Luke laughs, but picks up his guitar again. "You like music?"
"I like your music."
Luke leans over the side and fixes Sam with a skeptical look. "What do you know about my music?"
"I listen to you when you sing, during the day," Sam admits.
"I never see you," Luke points out, strumming gently while they chat.
"Sounds carry over the water." Sam twists, his silvery fin flashing in the moonlight. "Makes you wonder which one of us is supposed to be the siren here. You sing, I sit on the rocks and listen."
Luke tips his head back and laughs. As if this whole arrangement wasn't absurd enough: him taking himself out to sea to appease the merman he thinks he might just be falling in love with.
"Perhaps it is my destiny to bash my heart upon your rocky shoals," Sam muses.
Luke giggles. It's a high, weak sound, and he can't help it when it escapes his throat.
He hears Sam gasp. "I didn't mean—"
"I know you didn't," Luke says, wiping at his eyes. "I just forget sometimes how alike we are."
"We're not so different, you and I," Sam replies. He cups his hands and lifts them, letting the water run out. "You're a creature of the sea, just like me."
Luke scoffs, but Sam is serious, even if he is smiling.
"Take away all the water and all the salt in you, what's left?" he challenges.
Luke has no good answer. The corners of his mouth turn down and he shakes his head.
"Play me a song, sea man."
For a week or so, they are happy. Then word comes over the boat's radio of yet another body on the shore.
“We gotta talk,” Luke says that night, settling down with his legs hanging over the side of the boat. It’s late and it’s bitterly cold. The sky sparkles with stars, undisturbed by the pollution of civilization near the shore. He flexes his fingers, freezing cold even inside his gloves.
Sam smiles and swims closer to him. The moonlight hits the silvery scales of his fin and makes them shine, sleek and sharp when his body rolls up above the black surface of the water. He reaches up and grabs hold of Luke’s boot, giving it a squeeze before settling back to float beside the boat.
“I know about last night,” Luke says. He takes a sip from his flask, sucking at his teeth as the whiskey rolls down his throat. It’s warm from his body heat where the flask was tucked inside his coat.
Sam doesn’t answer. His brows furrow and he looks away, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. The only sound is the slap of water against the side of the boat, and the rush of blood in Luke’s ears.
“You said this would be enough,” he pushes when Sam remains silent. “I came out here with you, and you said—”
“You should kill me,” Sam interrupts. There is sadness and contrition in his eyes when he swims forward and looks up to meet Luke’s gaze. “That’s why you came originally. You hunt things like me.”
Luke nods. The harpoon gun is resting behind him on the deck, out of Sam’s view. He reaches back, dragging it closer without lifting it.
“I don’t want to kill you,” Luke says, leaning over the railing. “You’re beautiful, and special. I gave up my life, came out here so that we could be together. When you look at me, I feel whole. I think I love you.”
At that, Sam’s eyes widen. He pushes back away from the side of the boat and does a graceful back flip to disappear under the water. Luke sighs. He pulls off his hat and scratches at his scalp. This went as well as he’d expected.
He stands up to go inside when there’s a splash on the far side of the boat. He walks across, and Sam is there, wet hair sticking to his head and wet skin shimmering in the moonlight. He still looks remorseful, but there’s something else in his eyes now as well.
“Those men that I kill,” he starts, and Luke kneels down to hear him better. “They look at me, they say they want me, but they’re not you. They’re never you.”
He surges forward in the water until he’s at the side of the boat again. “I want you so badly, from the moment I saw you. I want this to be enough. I thought it would be, but I get so angry that you’re up there and I’m trapped here in the water.” His voice breaks, and it looks like he’s threatening to swim off again. He thrashes his tail as if he can punish the ocean itself.
Luke reaches an arm out, down under the railing. He can’t quite reach, but when Sam sees it he smiles, and laughs.
“I just want to have you here with me, but I can’t, so I take them.” Sam uses his fin to push himself up out of the water. He sets his hands on the side of the boat for balance, and rests his cheek against the palm of Luke’s outstretched hand. He’s cool to the touch, but impossibly soft, and when his eyes fall closed Luke can see tears running down his cheeks.
Sam turns his head and presses a kiss to the palm of Luke’s hand. He opens his eyes and watches Luke while he does it. Luke sees all the longing and love he feels reflected back at him as Sam sinks back down into the water.
“Love isn’t enough,” Sam says. “Even if we both feel it.”
He slips back under the surface and disappears. This time Luke waits, but Sam doesn’t return. Luke’s heart is lightened to know that Sam loves him as well, but it’s also heavy as he drags himself below deck to his bed.
He dreams of the smooth slip of scales, cool skin pressed against his own, and so many kisses.
The morning is dim and foggy, and Luke is stiff when he wakes. He eats breakfast and makes coffee, taking it with him out onto the deck.
The sun is struggling through the clouds, giving the sky a thick, alien quality. He sits down and watches the water with his hands cupped around his steaming mug.
The harpoon gun lays abandoned where he’d left if the night before. Part of him knows that Sam is right; he should kill him. He would save the village and any more passing truckers, but the idea pains him. Sam is beautiful, and lonely, wanting nothing more than the man he loves. But Luke is a hunter. He can not stand idly by while this merman kills.
There is another solution. It forms as a seed in the back of his mind, taking root and growing throughout the day. He can be with Sam, and he won’t have to bear witness to his newfound love’s killer instincts.
He spends the day preparing. He sends a couple of emails and hopes that no one on his list is close enough to get here in time. He cleans the boat as best he can and points it towards the shore. Hopefully someone will find it.
Night comes and Luke is sitting on the bow. He’s dressed lightly despite the chill, and he pours a generous amount of whiskey into his coffee.
There is a splash and water drums against the side of the boat and the leg of his jeans. He laughs and his breath comes out as a puff of warm steam.
“Hello, Sam.” He smiles down at the merman, stretched out in his back, tail fin glinting just under the surface.
Luke lets his eyes roam over Sam’s body and recalls his dream from the night before. He wants to touch and be touched more than anything, and tonight he’ll have his only chance.
“I missed you all day,” Sam says, his arms folded behind his head. “But I’ve been good. It hurt so much.”
“I know,” Luke says. He sets aside his coffee and shrugs out of his jacket. He can feel Sam’s eyes on him as he strips off his t-shirt. He sucks in a breath when the cold air hits his skin. His only comfort is the thought that the water, and Sam, will be warm by comparison.
“You’ll freeze,” Sam warns him, righting himself in the water. “What are you doing?”
Luke kicks off his boots and lets them drop down into the water. He stands and takes off his jeans, eyes never leaving Sam’s face.
Sam looks more and more confused as Luke strips, until he’s standing naked on the bow of the boat.
“Luke, I don’t understand.”
As answer, Luke jumps off the boat. He dives far enough out that he sails over Sam’s head before breaking the water's surface.
The cold is a shock to his system and he fights for control of his muscles. He will not be taken before he has the opportunity to touch Sam. And there Sam is, wrapping his arms around him and hauling him up to the surface again.
Luke pulls in huge mouthfuls of air, clinging to Sam’s shoulders as they steady themselves. Sam’s body is warm and slick where it’s pressed against his. He slides his hands down under the surface and slips them around Sam’s back. He can feel gills like open wounds, flexing as Sam breathes.
Sam wrenches himself from Luke’s embrace and swims back away from him, holding his arms out defensively. “You have to get back on the boat.”
Luke shakes his head. “No, Sam. I have to be with you.”
“No. No,” Sam repeats. For every stroke that Luke takes towards him, Sam backs off. “I’m dangerous,” he protests.
Luke’s teeth chatter when he tries to speak. “It’s the only way. I can’t kill you, and I can’t watch you kill other men for me.”
“But. No.”
“We have this, now. But you have to hold me so I don’t freeze.”
And then Sam is there, surrounding him. He wraps Luke in strong arms and presses his tail fin between his legs for support. Sam presses kisses to his face, along his brow and jawline, before finally finding his lips.
He tastes like the sea, like salt and life and water. His mouth is warmer than Luke expected, and he sighs at the heat of it when their tongues slide against each other. He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, trying to tell Sam all the things he can’t find words for.
It’s okay. I understand. You can’t change what you are.
I am doing this for you but also for me, because I can’t live without you now so it’s better not to live.
He squeezes Sam’s fin with his thighs, and Sam rocks up against him. The heat between their bodies isn’t enough, but this was never about that, and Luke just tries to relish in the sensation of contact while he can.
“I love you,” Sam says, pulling back to look at Luke’s face.
“I love you, too,” he answers. His jaw tightens as the cold takes hold again.
“I’ll never leave you.”
“I know you won’t.” He reaches up and brushes a lock of hair away from Sam’s face. His eyes are too dark to see here, but Luke knows that they are the green of seaweed, just as his fin is the grey of a stormy sky. Sam is a thing of the sea, and soon Luke will be as well.
“Keep me, and let the others go. Promise me that.”
Sam nods. He sobs and presses another kiss to Luke’s palm. He kisses his lips again, and then together they breech the surface.
Luke’s body wants to panic, but he won’t fight Sam, so instead he clings to him harder as Sam pulls them down. Sam seals their mouths together, pushing warm air into Luke’s body as he breathes out. The kiss turns desperate, and Sam holds onto Luke’s face with his hands, keeping their mouths pressed against each other. Sam is the only thing keeping Luke alive, and Luke thinks that it’s been that way for a lot longer than these few minutes.
What little light there is doesn’t filter far down into the water. All Luke can see is the flash of a fin and the panic in Sam’s eyes as he realizes that his breath won’t be enough. The water is too deep and too cold.
Luke shakes his head where it’s gripped between Sam’s hands. He breaks the kiss and bubbles swarm up in between them as the air rushes out of his lungs.
Water so cold is burns rushes in to replace it. A hand grasps his own, pulling him further down, and the last sensation he feels is soft lips pressed to his palm.
Here, in the deep, Sam can keep him forever.
The next morning, the sheriff locates the Lilith, spurred on by an anonymous call about a suicide note sent via email. She bobs contentedly on the waves. There is no sign of life on her anywhere except a pile of clothes and a half-empty coffee cup on the deck.
Word Count: 4000
Characters: Sam, Lucifer (as Luke Milton), OC Sheriff
Pairings: Lucifer(Luke)/Sam
Tags: Character Death, Suicide
It's late in tourist season, and the village is nestled into the shoreline, with a backdrop of mountains painted vibrant autumn colors, though when Luke gets up early that morning, they're hidden by fog. This time of year people come to Eagle Crest Bay in search of all things rustic and old-fashioned, flavored with apples and spices and served to them while they wear cozy sweaters near a crackling fire. It's as close to time travel as a person can get, with vintage gas pumps lovingly cared for, and only certain colors allowed on houses to maintain the "right look". He'd imagine rowdy teenagers listening to hip-hop are chased off the streets lest they disturb the illusion, but this time of day he is the only one awake.
Well, him and the sheriff, who had called him immediately after the discovery of the newest body. Luke pulls the zipper of his jacket up a little more, trying to burrow down into it to reclaim some of the warmth of the bed he'd left behind. He sets off across the rocky shoreline towards the small group of people gathered near the water's edge.
They think it's a seal, and he's happy to let them believe that, but those had been human bite marks on the victim's neck, and the bruising on the wrists had been from someone's hands. Big hands, he figured, but hands nonetheless. A couple of phone calls and an hour with the internet had enabled him to put aside selkie and kraken. He was quite sure that he was dealing with a merperson, probably a man by the size of the grip.
“Hello, Agent Milton.” The sheriff shifts his coffee cup to his left hand and extends the other. Luke shakes it and gives him a nod. The sheriff is a balding man with a paunch whose main role in the community is catching speeders and breaking up the occasional drunken fight. This is far out of his league and he knows it, so he’s polite and deferential to the Department of Fish and Wildlife agent that had turned up at the station yesterday, asking very pointed questions.
“Do we know who this guy is?” Luke asks, nodding.
The body is bloated and gray, with bite marks at the neck and heavy bruising on the wrists. He crouches down to get a better look at the victim’s neck.
“Trucker. Same as the last two. ID was in his wallet, trailer’s still parked at the truck stop up the road a ways. Got an officer up there now.”
The sheriff's radio squawks and he turns away, crunching up the beach. Luke sighs and looks out over the water.
“Where are you, you son of a bitch?”
He waits until nightfall and goes back to the water’s edge. The sheriff has sealed the beach off; no big loss this time of year, but it has the locals skittish, and that’s all it takes in these small towns.
There’s a dock off to one side leading out into the water. He strolls over to it, listening for anything other than the ripping of waves coming up onto the shore and the quiet whoosh of the wind through the trees.
He walks out to the end of the dock and watches the bay. It’s still, and murky under the cloudy sky. He thinks he sees something pop up above the surface and lifts his binoculars.
It’s a man’s head and shoulders. Luke swears he sees him look back and smile before disappearing under the water.
There is a quiet splash at the end of the dock. Luke swivels on his heel and strolls back out towards the end, leaning forward to look over the edge.
A face disappears under the water with a plop.
The dock creaks as waves roll in towards the shore. Luke turns his head from side to side, keeping a look out.
“You came,” comes a voice from under the dock itself. Luke tucks his chin and laughs to himself. He underestimated this monster.
“Yep,” he answers the faceless voice, eyes focused in the middle distance. “Mermaid in Maine? I had to see this one for myself.”
“I’m not a maid!” There’s real indignation in the voice, and it’s clearly a man. But merpeople are vain things, and Luke thinks he’s got a plan.
“Prove it,” he says, lifting the gun. “Let me see you.” The wet from the dock is seeping into the knee of his jeans and he straightens.
There is the quiet swish of water under the dock. Luke takes two low steps forward, following the sound.
Something big bursts out of the water in the middle of the bay. Moonlight catches on a silvery-green fin as the creature arcs through the air before diving below the surface. He leaps again, drops of water sparkling around him as he twists in midair. He’s got broad shoulders and his upper body is muscular, but even out of the water like this he’s lithe and nimble, performing acrobatics with the night sky as backdrop. It’s amazing to watch, and Luke is impressed by the display.
He swims closer, rolling onto his back and waving with his tail fin.
“Told you I wasn’t a maid,” he sneers. When he's not speaking, he sinks down so that only the top half of his head is visible above the surface of the water.
Luke folds his arms across his chest. “You’re killing innocent men,” he fires back.
The man frowns and rolls in the water. “I didn’t want them to die.” He flicks his fin and swims closer. Luke hefts the gun in his hand. “I get lonely,” he explains.
“So you drag them out into the water and drown them?”
“I just want them to stay with me,” he pleads, and there’s genuine sadness in his voice. “Would you stay with me?”
Luke heaves a sigh and rolls his eyes. “I’ll drown, too.”
“No, don’t come in the water. Just come here, every night. So I can look at you. You’re beautiful.”
Luke is flattered but wary. Sirens use the same tactics with their victims, and he’s not going to fall for it that easy.
“I stay here on the dock and talk to you, and you stop killing people?”
The merman nods and splashes with his tail fin. “Yes! Yes, I’d like that. Please.”
Luke scrubs a hand over his face and nods. “Yeah, all right. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
The merman drops below the surface and disappears, and Luke swears to himself. He can’t stay here forever in order to keep people safe, but this might buy him time to better learn what he’s dealing with.
A week later, Luke is still in Maine. Nightly chats with Sam had gotten longer and friendlier until another body drifted onto shore. Sam had insisted that it was an accident, and when he proposed an alternative, Luke had been relieved to lower his gun.
The boat isn’t the biggest Luke has ever seen. There is a small cabin with a cook top, and the table folds away so that he can sleep on the sofa beside a round window trimmed with curtains patterned with anchors and lifesavers. The deck is newly refinished, the man tells him, and there’s storage space below. Luke figures he can fill it with fuel, food, and fresh water.
He turns over the keys to his truck, and tells the man that he’s welcome to sell it. He chuckles and reassures Luke that “she’ll be waiting here when you get back from killing that seal.”
Luke doesn’t correct him.
It’s a crisp, sunny morning when he navigates Lilith out of the harbor. He’s been on a boat a couple of times before, and finds that it’s not that different from a car, easier than once you get it out into open water. The village and shoreline slip away behind him. He moves out past the rocky jumbles barely large enough to dignify by calling them islands. The biggest is home to a couple of scraggly pine trees, nothing more, and most of them are just weather-worn stone.
The quiet rumble of the engine becomes the only sound, and after a while he even silences that and lets the boat drift. High, thin clouds stretch in lines across the sky, and the V of a flock of geese moves past closer to shore. Even the islands are nothing more than bumps on the horizon now. The sea is flat and calm before him.
He rubs a hand along his jaw and leans heavily on the wheel. He knows he won’t see Sam again until nightfall, and that gives him nothing but time to think. Water clucks against the hull, and he wonders dimly if he can convince Sam to swim alongside him to the Caribbean.
Two mornings later, Luke wakes up to a thump on the deck. He pulls a sweater over his head as he climbs the stairs, shivering to the point of biting his tongue as soon as the air hits his skin. It's barely dawn, and his breath comes out in bursts of steam.
There is a lobster lying on the deck of the boat. It's at least twenty pounds, and as unhappy to see Luke as he is to see it.
"I don't have a pot big enough to cook this thing!" he shouts to the water.
He picks it up gingerly and walks to the side of the boat. When he hefts the lobster into the water again, he could swear it waves.
Luke grumbles to himself as he goes below deck again, thankful to find it's still warm under his blankets.
Two hours later the scene repeats itself with a much more manageable crustacean.
"Thank you!" Luke calls as he plucks up the unlucky lobster.
"No, keep playing," Sam insists later that evening, slapping the side of the boat with his fin.
Luke laughs, but picks up his guitar again. "You like music?"
"I like your music."
Luke leans over the side and fixes Sam with a skeptical look. "What do you know about my music?"
"I listen to you when you sing, during the day," Sam admits.
"I never see you," Luke points out, strumming gently while they chat.
"Sounds carry over the water." Sam twists, his silvery fin flashing in the moonlight. "Makes you wonder which one of us is supposed to be the siren here. You sing, I sit on the rocks and listen."
Luke tips his head back and laughs. As if this whole arrangement wasn't absurd enough: him taking himself out to sea to appease the merman he thinks he might just be falling in love with.
"Perhaps it is my destiny to bash my heart upon your rocky shoals," Sam muses.
Luke giggles. It's a high, weak sound, and he can't help it when it escapes his throat.
He hears Sam gasp. "I didn't mean—"
"I know you didn't," Luke says, wiping at his eyes. "I just forget sometimes how alike we are."
"We're not so different, you and I," Sam replies. He cups his hands and lifts them, letting the water run out. "You're a creature of the sea, just like me."
Luke scoffs, but Sam is serious, even if he is smiling.
"Take away all the water and all the salt in you, what's left?" he challenges.
Luke has no good answer. The corners of his mouth turn down and he shakes his head.
"Play me a song, sea man."
For a week or so, they are happy. Then word comes over the boat's radio of yet another body on the shore.
“We gotta talk,” Luke says that night, settling down with his legs hanging over the side of the boat. It’s late and it’s bitterly cold. The sky sparkles with stars, undisturbed by the pollution of civilization near the shore. He flexes his fingers, freezing cold even inside his gloves.
Sam smiles and swims closer to him. The moonlight hits the silvery scales of his fin and makes them shine, sleek and sharp when his body rolls up above the black surface of the water. He reaches up and grabs hold of Luke’s boot, giving it a squeeze before settling back to float beside the boat.
“I know about last night,” Luke says. He takes a sip from his flask, sucking at his teeth as the whiskey rolls down his throat. It’s warm from his body heat where the flask was tucked inside his coat.
Sam doesn’t answer. His brows furrow and he looks away, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. The only sound is the slap of water against the side of the boat, and the rush of blood in Luke’s ears.
“You said this would be enough,” he pushes when Sam remains silent. “I came out here with you, and you said—”
“You should kill me,” Sam interrupts. There is sadness and contrition in his eyes when he swims forward and looks up to meet Luke’s gaze. “That’s why you came originally. You hunt things like me.”
Luke nods. The harpoon gun is resting behind him on the deck, out of Sam’s view. He reaches back, dragging it closer without lifting it.
“I don’t want to kill you,” Luke says, leaning over the railing. “You’re beautiful, and special. I gave up my life, came out here so that we could be together. When you look at me, I feel whole. I think I love you.”
At that, Sam’s eyes widen. He pushes back away from the side of the boat and does a graceful back flip to disappear under the water. Luke sighs. He pulls off his hat and scratches at his scalp. This went as well as he’d expected.
He stands up to go inside when there’s a splash on the far side of the boat. He walks across, and Sam is there, wet hair sticking to his head and wet skin shimmering in the moonlight. He still looks remorseful, but there’s something else in his eyes now as well.
“Those men that I kill,” he starts, and Luke kneels down to hear him better. “They look at me, they say they want me, but they’re not you. They’re never you.”
He surges forward in the water until he’s at the side of the boat again. “I want you so badly, from the moment I saw you. I want this to be enough. I thought it would be, but I get so angry that you’re up there and I’m trapped here in the water.” His voice breaks, and it looks like he’s threatening to swim off again. He thrashes his tail as if he can punish the ocean itself.
Luke reaches an arm out, down under the railing. He can’t quite reach, but when Sam sees it he smiles, and laughs.
“I just want to have you here with me, but I can’t, so I take them.” Sam uses his fin to push himself up out of the water. He sets his hands on the side of the boat for balance, and rests his cheek against the palm of Luke’s outstretched hand. He’s cool to the touch, but impossibly soft, and when his eyes fall closed Luke can see tears running down his cheeks.
Sam turns his head and presses a kiss to the palm of Luke’s hand. He opens his eyes and watches Luke while he does it. Luke sees all the longing and love he feels reflected back at him as Sam sinks back down into the water.
“Love isn’t enough,” Sam says. “Even if we both feel it.”
He slips back under the surface and disappears. This time Luke waits, but Sam doesn’t return. Luke’s heart is lightened to know that Sam loves him as well, but it’s also heavy as he drags himself below deck to his bed.
He dreams of the smooth slip of scales, cool skin pressed against his own, and so many kisses.
The morning is dim and foggy, and Luke is stiff when he wakes. He eats breakfast and makes coffee, taking it with him out onto the deck.
The sun is struggling through the clouds, giving the sky a thick, alien quality. He sits down and watches the water with his hands cupped around his steaming mug.
The harpoon gun lays abandoned where he’d left if the night before. Part of him knows that Sam is right; he should kill him. He would save the village and any more passing truckers, but the idea pains him. Sam is beautiful, and lonely, wanting nothing more than the man he loves. But Luke is a hunter. He can not stand idly by while this merman kills.
There is another solution. It forms as a seed in the back of his mind, taking root and growing throughout the day. He can be with Sam, and he won’t have to bear witness to his newfound love’s killer instincts.
He spends the day preparing. He sends a couple of emails and hopes that no one on his list is close enough to get here in time. He cleans the boat as best he can and points it towards the shore. Hopefully someone will find it.
Night comes and Luke is sitting on the bow. He’s dressed lightly despite the chill, and he pours a generous amount of whiskey into his coffee.
There is a splash and water drums against the side of the boat and the leg of his jeans. He laughs and his breath comes out as a puff of warm steam.
“Hello, Sam.” He smiles down at the merman, stretched out in his back, tail fin glinting just under the surface.
Luke lets his eyes roam over Sam’s body and recalls his dream from the night before. He wants to touch and be touched more than anything, and tonight he’ll have his only chance.
“I missed you all day,” Sam says, his arms folded behind his head. “But I’ve been good. It hurt so much.”
“I know,” Luke says. He sets aside his coffee and shrugs out of his jacket. He can feel Sam’s eyes on him as he strips off his t-shirt. He sucks in a breath when the cold air hits his skin. His only comfort is the thought that the water, and Sam, will be warm by comparison.
“You’ll freeze,” Sam warns him, righting himself in the water. “What are you doing?”
Luke kicks off his boots and lets them drop down into the water. He stands and takes off his jeans, eyes never leaving Sam’s face.
Sam looks more and more confused as Luke strips, until he’s standing naked on the bow of the boat.
“Luke, I don’t understand.”
As answer, Luke jumps off the boat. He dives far enough out that he sails over Sam’s head before breaking the water's surface.
The cold is a shock to his system and he fights for control of his muscles. He will not be taken before he has the opportunity to touch Sam. And there Sam is, wrapping his arms around him and hauling him up to the surface again.
Luke pulls in huge mouthfuls of air, clinging to Sam’s shoulders as they steady themselves. Sam’s body is warm and slick where it’s pressed against his. He slides his hands down under the surface and slips them around Sam’s back. He can feel gills like open wounds, flexing as Sam breathes.
Sam wrenches himself from Luke’s embrace and swims back away from him, holding his arms out defensively. “You have to get back on the boat.”
Luke shakes his head. “No, Sam. I have to be with you.”
“No. No,” Sam repeats. For every stroke that Luke takes towards him, Sam backs off. “I’m dangerous,” he protests.
Luke’s teeth chatter when he tries to speak. “It’s the only way. I can’t kill you, and I can’t watch you kill other men for me.”
“But. No.”
“We have this, now. But you have to hold me so I don’t freeze.”
And then Sam is there, surrounding him. He wraps Luke in strong arms and presses his tail fin between his legs for support. Sam presses kisses to his face, along his brow and jawline, before finally finding his lips.
He tastes like the sea, like salt and life and water. His mouth is warmer than Luke expected, and he sighs at the heat of it when their tongues slide against each other. He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, trying to tell Sam all the things he can’t find words for.
It’s okay. I understand. You can’t change what you are.
I am doing this for you but also for me, because I can’t live without you now so it’s better not to live.
He squeezes Sam’s fin with his thighs, and Sam rocks up against him. The heat between their bodies isn’t enough, but this was never about that, and Luke just tries to relish in the sensation of contact while he can.
“I love you,” Sam says, pulling back to look at Luke’s face.
“I love you, too,” he answers. His jaw tightens as the cold takes hold again.
“I’ll never leave you.”
“I know you won’t.” He reaches up and brushes a lock of hair away from Sam’s face. His eyes are too dark to see here, but Luke knows that they are the green of seaweed, just as his fin is the grey of a stormy sky. Sam is a thing of the sea, and soon Luke will be as well.
“Keep me, and let the others go. Promise me that.”
Sam nods. He sobs and presses another kiss to Luke’s palm. He kisses his lips again, and then together they breech the surface.
Luke’s body wants to panic, but he won’t fight Sam, so instead he clings to him harder as Sam pulls them down. Sam seals their mouths together, pushing warm air into Luke’s body as he breathes out. The kiss turns desperate, and Sam holds onto Luke’s face with his hands, keeping their mouths pressed against each other. Sam is the only thing keeping Luke alive, and Luke thinks that it’s been that way for a lot longer than these few minutes.
What little light there is doesn’t filter far down into the water. All Luke can see is the flash of a fin and the panic in Sam’s eyes as he realizes that his breath won’t be enough. The water is too deep and too cold.
Luke shakes his head where it’s gripped between Sam’s hands. He breaks the kiss and bubbles swarm up in between them as the air rushes out of his lungs.
Water so cold is burns rushes in to replace it. A hand grasps his own, pulling him further down, and the last sensation he feels is soft lips pressed to his palm.
Here, in the deep, Sam can keep him forever.
The next morning, the sheriff locates the Lilith, spurred on by an anonymous call about a suicide note sent via email. She bobs contentedly on the waves. There is no sign of life on her anywhere except a pile of clothes and a half-empty coffee cup on the deck.
