Chapter Text
Little Moon River at dawn.
Something large and fan-shaped rises out of the water in a flicker of color and just as swiftly retreats with a splash. Only a mule deer and her fawn bear witness, heads lifting and ears swiveling to assess the possible danger. Sensing none, they return to nosing along the bank for tender new shoots. The water ripples, churns, flows, and obscures its deeper secrets.
+
In the year after Martha's death, Walt doesn't sleep much. He doesn't eat much, either, but he drinks a lot and it all seems to even out okay. On the days he's supposed to go to work, he does that. On the days he's supposed to have off, he stays home. It's an easy system to follow. Henry, Cady, and even Ruby all make noises about him getting on with his life, but he really doesn't know what the problem is. He's alive, isn't he? He wakes up every morning and does most of the things he's supposed to. What else is there to get on with?
After a while he starts going fishing on his days off. It satisfies the need they all seem to have for him to get out of the house. As if a change in location will have any effect on Martha's absence. Still, it's easier to acquiesce than to argue, especially when it makes no difference to him. And he has to admit that something about the restless, unceasing motion of the water is soothing. So he goes to the river with his cooler of beers. He sits and he drinks. Sometimes he naps. Now and then he even catches a fish. It's quiet, peaceful. Nothing but the gurgling water, the wind, background buzzing insects, flitting birds, and the occasional mule deer.
It's a warm day and the sun is high enough over the trees to send spears of light dancing on the surface of the water. The turmoil flings spray into the air that the sun transforms into sparks, daytime fireflies, coruscating and prismatic in the diaphanous rainbow mist. His eyes are dazzled.
He's reaching into the cooler for another beer when he spots it: something fan-shaped rising out of the water with a flick and just as suddenly disappearing. He frowns, beer forgotten as his mind struggles to place the image, to reconcile it with what belongs in this river he's known all his life. It's too big to be the tail of any type of fish that swims here. Too big and wrongly shaped. He's left with the impression of something much larger, like an iceberg, the body leviathan under the surface. Surely something of that size belongs in a lake or the ocean.
The puzzle is enough of a distraction that Walt packs up early and heads home. Most of his books are still at the house with Cady, but he's sure he has at least one on Wyoming fish at his cabin.
+
After two weeks he's decided he imagined the thing, or at the very least that his eyes were playing tricks on him. Still, it was an interesting puzzle to investigate — certainly more interesting than anything he's found at work lately — and it's possible that he pays slightly more attention to the river now and slightly less to the contents of his cooler. So he's more sober than he's been in a year when he sees something gracefully breaching the surface of the water in the shadows on the opposite bank. It curves like a dolphin, with the same flick of its tail, and he'd swear on his life that he sees long, pale hair flowing down its long, pale back.
Like a mermaid.
He shakes his head. He rubs his eyes. He stares at the water and waits for something, anything to make sense. The methodical, investigative part of his mind refuses a flight of fancy. There'll be a logical explanation, he tells himself; it's just a matter of finding it.
And still there's a deeper part of him that can't get the image of that strange, pale form out of his mind. He lies in bed that night and it floats behind his eyelids, ghostly and monochrome, the great tail steering it elegantly through the darkness, with its long trails of hair streaming out behind.
+
The Durant Municipal Library has all the modern conveniences, including a computerized catalogue and internet access. Walt is profoundly grateful that he doesn't have to actually ask the young woman working at the counter where to find information about mermaids.
He spends hours reading different mythologies but keeps coming back to the ancient Greeks and their potamides: nymphs of fresh water who presided over rivers and streams. They were considered minor female divinities who were exceptionally long-lived, by human standards, though equally mortal. Unlike mermaids, or even later depictions of sirens, their forms were entirely absent fish tails.
They are, of course, just myths. The more Walt reads, the more logic convinces even the deepest parts of himself that he can't have seen what he thinks he saw. There are no such things as mermaids, as nymphs, as beings who are human or half-human and can live both on land and underwater.
He thinks of asking Henry if the Cheyenne have any myths about water spirits, just out of interest, but decides against it. Better to just let the matter rest.
+
It's weeks later when he sees the partial figure of a woman in the middle of the river, arms reaching above her head. His reaction is immediate and automatic. This early in spring the river is swollen with snow melt, more swift and turbulent than any other time of year. Every season there are victims of the fast-moving current. The cold steals their breath and they're stunned and made sluggish by hypothermia and shock.
In less than a minute he's yanked off his boots, socks, jeans, and waded into the icy water. He pushes against the flow, digging into the crevices between rocks with his toes, not bothering to call out. The water is far too cacophonous for his voice to be heard. It's not until he's started swimming that all the small details he's been seeing fall into place in his mind. The woman isn't moving: in the deepest part of the river, in the swiftest path of the current, she's as still as if she were sitting in a chair. Her arms aren't raised in struggle: they're twining braids into the long, pale hair that flows from her head and into the swirling water around her.
In the space between heartbeats the sun aligns with the earth and the water so perfectly that Walt is blinded. Disoriented, he blinks against the glare. When he can see again, the vision is still before him.
She turns.
She smiles.
He loses his bearings and is swallowed by the tumult.
+
[vic saves his life; he visits her often in a secluded area where the river is calmer, although they never deliberately touch until...]
+
Vic swims closer and he can feel the eddies her fin makes around his legs as she holds herself in place. Looking at him, her brow wrinkles. "Why do you have so much hair on you? What's it for?"
Walt shakes his head and clears his throat to stave off laughter but can't rein in his smile. "Humans have hair in places all over their bodies. Everyone's different, though."
"Oh." Her eyes flicker between his torso and the top of his head. "Can I touch it?"
His stomach jumps. "All right."
She begins with his arms where they float in the water, stroking slowly from his elbows to his wrists. Then she shifts closer — he feels the flick of her tail around one leg — and places both hands flat against his chest. It wasn't possible to tell with the water between them but now he can feel how warm she is. For some reason he'd expected Vic's body to be cool or even cold, but her fingers feel warmer than he does. The difference between the cold water and her heat makes him shiver.
Studying him intently, she passes her hands from his shoulders down to his ribs. "Does this hurt?"
"No," he manages to say.
Despite the cold water, despite the surreal nature of the entire experience, Walt can feel himself getting hard. He tries to find somewhere to look that isn't her mouth or her eyes or her shoulders. Then she's rising higher in the water and he has to close his eyes before he sees anything he shouldn't.
Her hands move lightly along the sides of his face, then tentative fingers are tunneling through his hair. At her soft little oh of pleased surprise his hands ball into fists.
She keeps stroking his hair, her damp fingers catching now and then in the dry strands. "It's so nice," she murmurs.
His heart pounds and he tries to control his breathing, tries not to show any sign of arousal. He makes the mistake of opening his eyes to find she's pushed herself even higher out of the water, balanced on the incredible strength of her tail, and right in front of his face are her bare, wet breasts.
"Stop," Walt barks, jerking away from her to turn around.
"I'm sorry," comes her subdued voice behind him. "I didn't mean to..."
She doesn't even know what it is she didn't mean to do to him. He scrubs his hands over his face. "It's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong."
He feels Vic move closer as the water shifts and slides with her motion. After a deep breath in and out, he turns to face her again. She looks so worried he can't help reaching out to cup her cheek, stroking it gently. Even wet, her skin feels velvety under his thumb. Her eyes flutter closed. They float closer together, her supple tail curving around his legs like an embrace. Her hands rise to settle on his shoulders and then she opens her eyes and looks right into his.
"What's happening?" she asks quietly.
Walt tells himself he can still leave now. He can still take his shameful desire and his embarrassing erection and drive home. He's just not sure he can do it on his own. "Nothing has to happen," he tells her firmly. "Not if you don't want it to."
She studies him with her wide, clear eyes, so calm and unafraid. "I think I want it to."
There's a roaring in his head that drowns out even the river. He's frozen in place, paralyzed by the fear of what he wants and the promise of receiving it. Vic floats closer until he can feel her quick puffs of air against his lips.
"Do you want it to happen?"
"Yes," he breathes.
She smiles and presses her cheek against his. He slides his hand to the back of her neck, pushing beneath the heavy fall of her hair to hold her close. His other hand traces the place on her hip where skin ends and scales begin. Her breath is warm where it touches him; her body is warmer. He brushes his lips lightly against her temple and she shivers.
+
[being in love with bonus monsterfucking]
+
He wakes with a snort, trying to clear the water from his nose. Only there isn't any water. He's in bed, at home, and there's Vic blinking sleepily beside him.
"Bad dream?"
"Yeah," he rasps. Then, "No. I don't know." He shakes his head, trying to make sense of the lingering imagery. He looks at Vic again, with her sleep-tousled hair and a pillow crease down one cheek, and feels a swell of unbearable affection and relief. "You were a mermaid. In the river. You saved me and..." He trails off, the dream already diffusing like mist.
"I was a mermaid, huh?" A tiny satisfied smile turns her lips up at the corners as she settles herself more firmly against him.
"Yep."
"Was I hot?" she asks with a yawn.
"You were beautiful," he tells her softly. "It was beautiful."