Prompt: post/81561107281/beth-greene-daryl-dixon-mermaid-fisherman-au
Fish Tales
The sun beat down against his bare shoulders, he could feel his skin tightening as the poison set in that would burn and itch come nightfall. He was stranded in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, his nets still weren't catching anything and he couldn't go home empty handed. He'd be damned if he had to listen to his brother go on and on about how he'd never amount to anything. He sighed as he started to pull his nets in again, expecting them to be empty, but this time, there some weight to them, or at least that's what he thought. The nets resisted his pulling and he swore under his breath. They were caught on the coral.
Daryl pulled his knife from his belt and kicked his boots off. This was part of the job he hated. He was going to spend ten minutes trying to untangle his nets from the coral and then he'd have to spend the rest of the day mending them. He was going to lose a lot of time. He walked up onto the side of his boat and jumped overboard, diving into the cool clear waters.
Opening his eyes against the strain of the salt water he followed his nets down to the place where they were tangled and started to pull them free, trying to be careful not to rip them. If he could manage to get them untangled without damaging them he might be able to salvage some of the day. Tugging and pulling as best he could, the wet ropes started to slip free from the jagged coral until they started to float back to the top. His lungs were burning for air by now as he started to swim back up to the top. But, his ankle tugged him back down.
He looked and started to panic. There was another part of the net that he hadn't seen wrapped around the coral on one end, his ankle on the other, keeping him under the water where he was likely to die. He was already starting to get lightheaded from the lack of oxygen to his brain. Straining against the water and the lack of air he curled into a ball, reaching for his ankle, trying to cut it free, the nets be damned. But his movement were slow against the weight of the water, the ropes thick, swollen from being under so long. His vision swam as he started to pass out. The last thing he remembered was someone grabbing him around the waist and pulling him towards the sunshine above the water. He'd thought it was an angel.
She pulled him to the top of the water, biting her lip and looking at him. He didn't look like he was breathing. She pulled him over to the island he wasn't far from and laid him out on the wet sand. She smiled down at his face, caressing his skin. She watched his chest closely. He was still breathing thankfully; she wouldn't have known what to do if he wasn't.
She knew she should get back in the water and swim away, leave him there to get back to his ship on his own. But…something about him kept her there. When he started coughing and gagging, gasping for air, she gasped and jumped back away from him. Humans were so strange. She turned her head to the side as he sat up and looked around. When he laid eyes on her he jumped up, stumbling back. "Who are you?" he asked.
She laughed a little and flipped the end of her tail in the water playfully. "I'm the person who saved your life."
He looked at her tail, his eyes growing wide in his head. "What the fuck?" Laughing again she pushed herself a little deeper into the water. She was glad she'd stayed until he'd woken up.
He didn't believe what he was seeing. There was no way in hell a mermaid was sitting right in front of him. She was sexy though; long, pale blonde hair, her tail was the color of sunset. He looked at her face and got lost in her blue diamond eyes. "What's your name?" she asked.
"Daryl."
She smiled and pushed some of that hair behind her ear. "I'm Beth. I can help you get back to your ship, if you'd like."
He looked at her, then judged the distance to his ship. He probably could make it, but he had this feeling inside of him that wouldn't let her leave him yet. He nodded at her and slowly waded into the water. She laughed lightly as she swam alongside of him, watching him for fatigue. Once he was safely on the deck of his ship again he looked over the edge and down at her. "Too bad you can't come up."
She smirked and he swore there was sin there. "Oh? Can't I?" She grabbed onto the ladder that led up the side of his ship and started to climb. As she emerged from the water, the sunset fire of her tail turned into pale creamy legs with shimmering silk fabric wrapped around her hips. His jaw just dropped as she eased her way onto the deck and sided right up to his chest. He was in big trouble.