Authors Note: Hello. As most of you know I am a massive Jaws fan! I always have a cute little feeling for Hooper, my favourite character. I got this idea from reading the fanfic Sweet Caroline, (which I am enjoying VERY much, and I hope is updated soon. :) ) So yes, this story is for you!
Hooper deserves romance. Brody has a happy life, Quint at some point had a wife I'm sure, yet Hooper has no one :( Well, that's all about to change! Anyway, I don't know how many Chapters I'll upload yet, maybe not as much as Sweet Caroline, but I hope a good amount!
I love the Tom Hanks film Splash! It's brilliant. Madison is so adorable! Hmmmm, a mermaid? Plus Jaws-Dammit Imagination now I've got to write you! xD
Anyway hope you enjoy! Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters you know. I only own my own OC.
Chapter 1. A Boat, A Tooth and A Strange Happening
"Pretzel?"
"What is all this?"
Brody and Hooper had made their way out on a large vessel stocked with electric equipment. Faint static and whistling could be heard over radio waves and clicking noises coming from the detector. In order to track down the shark that killed two people at Amity Beach, they were going to need all the technology in the world. Who would've thought an animal so large could remain invisible to even the most high tech equipment? Or for that matter, the naked eye.
Brody was bored, upset and tired. It was this mad scientist he had invited to the island who convinced him to drink half a bottle of wine before jumping on a boat in the middle of the night to hunt for a ghost shark. His legs were turning to jelly and he began to slur his words.
"I'm telling you, the crime rate in New York'll kill ya. There's so many problems you don't know if you're gonna accomplish anything! Theft ripoffs ,muggings, kids can't leave the house-ya gotta walk em to school." He suddenly became more erratic with emotion filling his eyes, "But in Amity, one man can make a difference! In 25 years, there hasn't been a murder or a shooting in this town!"
Hooper looked up from scouring in the ocean, with a look that said , That's nice, Martin but we have a Shark to catch!
"No kiddin!" Hooper said through mouthfuls of crunchy snacks. "Pretzel?"
Knowing this was hardly the time for a buffet at a cocktail party, Brody changed the subject.
"Where are we?" He inquired.
"We're right in the stretch where he's been feeding.
Trying to distract himself from his alcohol-induced fatigue, Brody gazed in wonder and puzzlement at the bizare set of buttons and screens facing him. "You Get the Late Show on this Thing?"
"Nah, old TV circuits, got underwater cameras before and after."
Well, that explained nothing, according to Brody.
"Who pays for all this stuff?" He asked, clambering over the rail of the boat to position himself next to his sober friend.
"The Government, The Institute? This stuff costs a lot of money."
"Well, I pay for most of it myself," Hooper said almost modestly.
"You rich?"
"Yeah." Hooper replied.
"How much?"
Hooper chuckled. "Uh, well. From me personally or the whole family?"
Brody knew he couldn't win
"Doesn't make any sense to hire a guy like you to find sharks."
"Doesn't make any sense for a guy who hates the water to live on an island."
Brody couldn't argue with that, so he changed the subject.
"Remember those old fish stories our mother's used to tell us? About the mermaids of Cape Cod?"
Hooper laughed. "Wouldn't know, I haven't lived near Cape Cod."
"You would like it. Water, boats, fish. Girls."
Hooper snickered.
"You got a wife Matt?"
"Uh, no. Never-never been married."
"No kiddin. Guy like you? Thought women were supposed to like smart men."
Matt turned to him smirking. "Not many women are willing to date a man obsessed with wide-mouthed sharp-toothed beasts."
A sudden squeal from the monitors caused them both to jump to attention.
"What is that?" Brody asked.
"Fish-Finder," Matt explained, "probably just a school of mackerel.
It must have been quite a shoal, because the metallic echoic sounds got louder and louder. Hooper quick as a flash, jumped down to find where it was coming from. Their vessel was drifting towards a patch of darkness. Turning on their lights, they saw it was a vessel much smaller than their own, but still a fishing boat all the same.
"That's Ben Gardener's boat!" exclaimed Brody.
Hooper cringed. He had an odd feeling that whatever had caused Gardener's boat to drop anchor in the middle of nowhere wasn't something particularly insignificant.
As they moved closer they speculated on what it might have been.
"Is there any damage?" Brody called in the darkness, shining his light on the bow.
"I don't know but I doubt they pulled over for gas." Hooper said pulling on his diving flippers.
"Hey, hey! What do you think you're doing?" "There's something down there!" Hooper told him firmly. "If I can get down there and find anything, it might be enough for your mayor to close the beaches. Do you know this Ben Gardener?"
"Of course I know him he's a fisherman."
As they drew closer, the men could see the boat was tilted on to the side slightly, only once the light it, they could make out scratches, marks, dents and fishing nets, tangled and tipping into the water. The boat was half-submerged.
"What happened?" said Brody, speechless as to what could have caused this damage. Hooper didn't say anything; he was much too lost in his own thoughts, the cogs turning in his head.
"I need to get down there, have a look at their hull."
"Can't we just tow it in?"
"We WILL. I promise, but I gotta check something out."
Hooper sat at the edge of the boat, Brody lowering a ladder for him, and frantically getting changed into a wetsuit.
"You're half-fish!" Brody jeered.
"Thank you Martin, I've always wanted to hear that since I was a little boy." He strapped an enormous black mask to his face and let his flippers dangle over the boat's edge, awaiting the freezing water.
"I'll be back in 2 minutes."
Brody looked at him, confused , "What am I supposed to do while your gone?"
"NOTHING. Absolutely nothing, don't touch anything."
Brody watched as his colleague got ready to dive. "Bring me back a souvenir?"
"That's exactly what I intend to do."
With that, he took a deep breath and plunged into the icy depths.
Hooper remembered his first time in the water. It was on an Atlantic research expedition, where he was out looking for rare marine life, namely sharks and whales.
The water had chilled him so much, his feet were violet by the time he arrived back at headquarters.
The water near Amity was no different. East Coast saltwater with waves that can become as large as the boats that sail them.
Hooper adored the ocean. The bright blue, of the day, the navy at night,
The turquoise waters of the tropics. The ultramarine of the Pacific.
He had grown up wanting to live as a fish, until a small shark chewed up his boat when he was 11, and since then he thought it safer to study them. Sharks, he thought, were misunderstood things. They were terrifying yes, but did that stop people from trying to snap photographs underwater from cages?
He pushed the thickness of the water to the side letting himself be embraced by the tide. The ocean was something that fascinated him so much. He never knew that something so beautiful could be so fatal.
Hooper discovered the creaking hull of the boat almost instantly. It was hard to miss the gaping hole in the wood.
Something was gleaming from one of the boards. He plucked it out, and shone a light on it; it was as though an ivory stone had been sharpened and turned into a dagger. He knew immediately what it was.
He excitedly searched the hole in the hull-but was not greeted by a white dagger.
Instead, he was greeted by a severed head, with one of the eyes missing and the other bulging. The rest of the decapitated corpse must ave lane instead the hull.
Hooper screamed, letting out air bubbles in the process, decreasing his source of oxygen. Of survival.
Blood rushed to his head, his limbs grew weak and his heart began to race faster. He could feel his eyes flutter shut, his body sink to the sandy bottom. Hooper loved the ocean, and he would die in the ocean.
Suddenly, he felt a hand reach out and touch his left shoulder, then his right. He felt strange and confused yet, unafraid. The presence was a strong and protective one, like a guardian of hope. He didn't know what happened to him down there, only that he must have gone to heaven.
A cold, soft touch of skin graced his chin this time, and he felt something icy on his lips, sending a shockwave of electricity through his body, then a sensation of a body close beside him, lifting him upwards. As e opened his eyes he could see the surface. He clenched his fists realising he had dropped his discovery. Yet in it's place, was something tickly and rounded. With a huge breath he touched the surface...
Brody, fiddling with the knobs on the monitors, wondered to himself if Hooper was alright. He had been down there a long time now, and he was NOT about to push the boat home himself, with killer sharks roaming the water.
Anyway, he thought, wonder what this button does...
A loud rush of splashing water made the chief's hand stop in midair.
Hooper had re-apperared, red in the face and breathing heavily.
Brody quickly fetched the ladder and allowed Hooper to pull himself up.
"What happened?" he demanded.
"I had an accident," replied Hooper, shakily.
"What kind of accident?!"
"GOD DAMMIT MARTIN!" Hooper shook water droplets from his head.
"I-I don't want to talk about it. Let's just say I've lost your credible evidence. "
"No you haven't," said Brody pointing to Matt's hand.
Hooper opened his right fist. In it, was a rounded scarlet and orange scale, that if held up to their lights shimmered even more colours, like a rainbow."
"Huh."
"That's weird."
Weird was an understatement. Hooped had seen many fish scales in his time, but had never seen any quite like this. He pulled on his jacket and pocketed it.
"Do you really think Mayor Vaughn would listen to us if we showed him that?"
"I doubt it Martin."
"Anyway, let's get back Ellen will be worried. "
Matt took one last look at the water before steering away. He didn't see the tail that splashed them goodbye.
So what do think? :) there's more to come obviously, and it was kind of hard to write all the dialogue from the film, but there will be more to come! :) The rights to the dialogue of Jaws belong to Steven Spielberg, Peter Benchley Carl Gottlieb and Universal Studios.
More chapters on the way! Please Review, as I love reading feedback!:D