from the surface to the sea ~ a stydia mermaid au

the pier

It was as if the sky was crying the tears he couldn't bring himself to shed.

Rain was common in Beacon Villa, being a small town wedged between the sea and a distant ridge. Blue skies were seen as often as grey ones. But this storm was unprecedented. The wind whipped his hood off, baring his face to the torrent of cold rain. Each drop was like a small cold slap against his skin.

Stiles pulled his coat tighter around him and squinted through the curtain of rain. He could just make out the dark shape of the old pier up ahead.

He could hear the roofs of the huts along the beach flapping relentlessly, rattling and screaming least they get blown off. He though briefly about Scott, hoping his friend had the sensibility not to seek shelter in the scooter rental shack, which was closest to the sea front and the most likely structure to be blown to smithereens in this weather.

Scott. Thank whatever gods there were for Scott, who was probably the only person in this town who tuned in to the regional weather forecast. Weather in their town was often anomalous in the area - moody, eccentric and unpredictable, given their location, so most locals often ignored it. But Scott didn't, and he heard enough about fronts and unusually low pressure to figure out that something was brewing out at sea which their town would get the brunt of.

Stiles, as he usually was this day of the year, had been sitting by a rocky outcrop along the beach, staring aimlessly out to sea, large styrofoam cup in one hand. On any other day he would have noticed his hot chocolate cooling down faster than normal. But today was not any other day.

Hot chocolate. It had been his mother's favourite drink before she passed, the drink his father would prepare for them when they used to have day-long family picnics on the rocky beach, the drink they'd warm their stomachs with in the mornings when the air was still chilly. The one Stiles drowned his sorrows in after his mother's passing, along with the salty sea breeze. His dad had preferred work and alcohol.

Like every anniversary after the first, Stiles had been drinking hot chocolate by the seafront, oblivious to the wind whipping up around him and his rapidly cooling drink when his phone beeped with Scott's storm incoming. get shelter ASAP. His coat had nearly blown off when he stood up. The styrofoam had been ripped out of his hands some while ago.

He huddled in his jacket and pressed forward. The shadow of the pier loomed ahead of him. He could hear the planks creaking against one another and prayed the old wood would not tear off and smack him into oblivion, or collapse onto him when he finally got under it. It wasn't ideal for shelter - that thing was older than his dad - but it was the closest and sturdiest structure Stiles had thought of.

The rain was so heavy that he could only start making out the details of wooden beams when he was just a few feet away. A series of pillars rose up from the water and sand, lining the slope of that section of the beach to hold up the walkway that extended to either side of him, each comprised of two beams arranged at right angles to one another. Stiles pressed himself into one of the corners.

The coat he wore today was thankfully somewhat water repellent, so his T-shirt was only slightly damp. His pants, however, were soaked through. His socks squelched in his shoes as he tried to move his frozen toes.

It was a while before he noticed the scraping.

Maybe it was the rain, clashing with the sea and the sand all around him, an endless torrent of white noise, drowning out all other sounds. Until now. Stiles was not sure how long he heard it before his brain actually registered that he was hearing a sound. It was long and grating, like barnacles grinding against the hull of a ship, or...rocks dragging across sand.

Stiles swallowed, pressed himself harder against the L-pillar and craned his neck. He had to squint in the rain, but he was pretty sure he saw movement just ten feet away. He jerked his head back at first, then rationalised that maybe it was an animal seeking shelter - someone's dog, or maybe a turtle. The waves were crashing quite high against the shore - a turtle could have been washed up onto shore and was now probably scrambling around, disoriented. Scott would have braved the wind and rain to rescue the "poor thing". His best friend just had a way with animals.

And then he heard the turtle sneeze.

Stiles froze (not that he wasn't already half frozen, it was really cold). That was definitely not a sea turtle.

Peering around the edge of the L-pillar again, Stiles caught a flash of red dart through the curtain of rain. It disappeared behind the wooden beam two pillars away. The sand at the base of the pillar shifted and whoa - that looked very human-flesh-y.

What if it's a serial killer? What if it stalked him all the way across the beach? Or what if it's the victim of a serial killer? What if it's fatally injured and struggling to stay alive? What if it's a normal person? A kid?

Before he knew it, he had a a short piece of driftwood. It was long and flat unlike a baseball bat, but it had to do. He crept towards the pillar, slowly raising the wood over his shoulder. The sand ahead of him shifted again and Stiles stumbled back as an arm shot out.

"Oh my god..."

His eyes widened once he realised the words he let slip. Crap crap crap. His cover was blown. He tightened his grip on the piece of wood, bracing for the worse. The hand - now only five feet away - curled into a fist, then the other arm came into view, then slowly a head, then shoulders, then a torso and - oh.

The girl pushed her uncovered body up and stared at him, wide-eyed. Her lips trembled, trying to speak over the pouring rain. Stiles felt his hands drop the driftwood and his feet shuffle over, his mind still fixated on the girl's eyes. Even with the storm whipping around them he could see they were bright green.

He found himself crouching down when he was two feet away. He recalled Scott talking about lowering your height when approaching animals so they felt more secure around you. Now that he was closer, he noticed the girl was shaking, and her moving lips were nearly blue. He leaned forward, straining to hear what she was saying.

"...c-cold..." she mumbled. And then her arms gave way and she collapsed on the sand in front of him.

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I hope you liked this chapter. I am raspberrylimonade on tumblr and stlnskissmartin on twitter. Updates are faster on tumblr because I don't always transfer new works to my peripheral ff accounts immediately.