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The sunrise is bright against the horizon. The contrast between the orange sun and the blue sea is quite beautiful if you ask Jay. She’s never been one to take time out of her day to spend moments like this, but she has to admit, it’s comforting.
The presence next to her is quite comforting, too.
“Have you seen the sunrise before?” She asks quietly, breaking the delicate silence that settled over the two like fog.
Gill hums, thinking, and his tail twitches mindlessly against the rock they’re both sitting on. It’s only a small swim from the shore and it was easier for Jay to swim a little out than have Gill drag himself across the sand and risk injuring his tail. His tail is quite pretty and very large. It takes up most of the rock, actually. It’s a mix of green and blue scales, seemingly spread about randomly, and orange swirls and stripes line the whole tail. His fins are orange, thin, and delicate compared to the rest of him. With his blue skin, tail, massive gills on his waist and neck, and large fins framing his face, she can say it’s quite impossible for him to pass as a human.
Which is part of the reason they are on the rock instead of the shore. It would not be a pretty sight if anyone in her town saw her with a merperson.
He hums again, eyes still looking out to the horizon. “I don’t think I have. The Elders are not fond of the surface, and I doubt my parents would have brought a little guppy this far.”
She nods, lacing her fingers with his — a difficult task with his webbed hands, but it works. He turns to her suddenly, large blue eyes searching.
“Have you?”
She shrugs. “Probably, but not on purpose. I never really found the point to just sit and… do nothing.”
At his worried look, she quickly scrambles to correct herself. “It’s nice, though. Just… sitting here with you.”
He places his free hand on their interlocked ones and Jay smile. He’s always at some level of moisture, but this level is nice and cool. It’s a good feeling.
“I’m glad,” He smiles back, then tilts his head. “Though, I wouldn’t say we are doing nothing. We’re watching.
Jay pauses and takes a moment to consider it.
“But,” She leans her head to his shoulder, and butterflies erupt when he does the same on her head. It never gets old. “I— well, is that really doing anything?”
“Yes,” He states confidently, “we’re watching.”
Jay sighs, neither directly happy nor sad, and closes her eyes. The sound of the waves is soothing, and reminds her of home, someone she loves. She squeezes Gill’s hand a little tighter and he reciprocates. It makes her smile.
Her chest is warm and fuzzy, and she wants to stay on the little rock forever. But they have a limit.
“When do you have to leave?” She whispers, not daring to open her eyes.
The gentle up and down of Gillion’s chest pauses, and then he sighs, lifting his head up from on top of hers. Jay follows suit quickly. Gillion’s eyes are misty and downcast.
“Fuck,” A halfhearted laugh that gets both of them nowhere.
“Yeah,” he whispers, just slightly amused. It brings a small smile to her lips. Both of them sober quickly.
“Soon; the Elders expect me to train for the upcoming ceremony.”
The ceremony. A meeting calling for peace which her father will be attending. Because of course, she couldn’t have been born into a regular, plain family. Her father had to be a NAVY vice admiral. She still hasn’t told Gillion about that bit yet.
“Oh,” She breathes, shakily and thin. She swallows down the tension in her throat and blinks away the tears. “okay.”
The mood is somber, sour. She’s unsure when the next time they can see each other will be because Jay has training school day and night and Gill is the Champion of the Undersea. Neither of their schedules is too free anytime soon.
Jay blinks and Gillion’s sat up straight, a frown on his lips and eyes serious.
“Jay,” He starts, voice controlled and jaw set. She knows where he’s going before he even begins. “I know that things are difficult, but I want us to be together. And—“
“Stop, Gill.” She interrupts, heart heavy and tired.
He’s pained, and his tail curls away from Jay just barely, but it stings just as if she’s been slapped.
“Please,” He begs, and it just hurts, “I want us to be together, and I cannot be with you but—“ he grabs Jay’s hand again, squeezing it in between both of his— “you can be with me. Down in the Undersea, we can be together, like we both want!”
Jay can’t. She can’t, and Gill knows she can’t, and it’s why his pleading hurts even more than it normally would. She so badly wants to. She wants to ditch her life, her family, her friends, and her purpose, right now. She would surrender and take a tail instead of legs if she could. But something calls her to stay home. It pulls her to the land like she’s just an adrift ship with nothing but a steady anchor to tie her down. She stays because it’s all she knows. Ayva is sleeping in their shared room right now, and her mother is just waking up to open the tavern. Kira is sound asleep, ready to spar against her in training. She loves Gill, more than she will ever be capable of expressing in understandable terms, but she stays landlocked despite it.
Because she just can’t.
“I can’t,” is all she has to whisper for the conversation to end. To be fair, it had barely begun.
Gill nods quickly, removing his hands from hers, because he’s sweet and loving and selfless and everything she could ever ask for. Everything she could never be. He risks everything just to spend a few moments with her, and Jay just isn’t brave enough to do the same. She’s never been particularly special.
“Sorry, I— that was selfish, I’m, I’m sorry,” He sputters out in a panic, with the fins on his face drawn back and stretched tight.
“Hey, hey, no,” She puts her hand on his cheek, rubbing her thumb gently.
He leans into the touch so… delicately. As if he’s fragile like one sharp touch will crack him. She wonders absentmindedly, almost subconsciously, when the last time someone other than her held him with love. It only makes her sadder. She hates it, how every fiber of her body wants to join him and be with him, but she holds herself back. She’s never been brave.
“It’s my fault, okay? I don’t— I’m just not brave enough,” She whispers the last bit so softly, it’s drowned out by the waves. But of course, he can hear, because he’s just that devoted to her. It hurts her in a weird mixture of adoration and grief. She isn’t enough for him.
He puts his hand on top of hers, holding it with the same gentleness she holds him, and something inside of her flutters. She’s so in love with him.
“I’ll wait,” he murmurs, “I’ll wait until you’ve decided you can be at peace with leaving.”
The love aches. “Gill—”
“I don’t care how long it takes,” Gill almost never interrupts her, but his eyes are determined and his voice is set. “I’ll wait until the moon crashes into the sea if I have to. You mean…”
The reality, the implications of his words seem to crash down on him all at once, and he shakes just slightly. But he breathes, closes his eyes, and steels himself. When he looks back up at Jay, his face is so… raw. It’s hard to describe, but it’s beautiful. All the emotion Jay has been shoving down since she first spoke starts to well up in her gut, her throat, behind her eyes, and gods, does she have the urge to kiss him until neither of them can breathe. Until she passes out.
“You mean everything to me,” He croaks, too wound up with the intensity of the moment to be eloquent.
Jay laughs, it’s wet and giggle-y and she’s definitely crying her eyes, but it feels right. She sniffs and giggles again. She’s so in love.
“Yeah, I, same,” She manages to punch out of herself, ever the poet.
But Gill just smiles, all soft and proud and adoring — Jay can’t really stop herself from kissing his adorable face.
By the end, they’re both breathless and laying on the rock together, hands intertwined. It’s small, but it means everything.
“I love you,” she says to the waves, to the birds above and fish below them. Gill squeezes her hand.
When Jay rolls over on her side to meet his eyes, he’s just as pretty as when she first met him years ago. He’s grinning, and sharp teeth and fangs, and his fins are practically vibrating on his face. The end of his tail is swishing just as happily and Jay finds herself laughing out of pure adoration. She doesn’t know what else to do with the strong emotion buzzing in her chest, begging for a release.
“I love you,” She calls out again, shouting over the waves this time, to him. He smiles brighter.
“I love you too, Jay,” He smiles, so brightly, so confidently.
Jay finds herself wondering what her mermaid tail will look like. She hopes it’ll at least have some hints of blue, although she wouldn’t be too mad at an orange and yellow tail. Either way, Gill would love it to pieces, just in the way she loves his.
Someday, she thinks, staring at Gill’s gorgeous face as he grins at the sky and clouds above. Someday.