Aka, The One With Mermaid!Dean and Anglo-Saxon Fisherman!Castiel, And Also Vikings. Now complete!

Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Gabriel/Sam Winchester, Gabriel/Jo Harvelle, Gabriel/Sam Winchester/Jo Harvelle, Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester Characters: Gabriel (Supernatural), Jo Harvelle, Ellen Harvelle, Sam Winchester, Charlie Bradbury Additional Tags: Merman Dean, Creature Dean, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Asexual Character, Asexual Castiel, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Vikings, Pre-Conquest England, merman Sam, mermaids, Medieval Medicine, Middle Ages, Alternate Universe - Historical, Masturbation, Polyamory Summary: Somewhere on the coast of northern England, sometime before 850 CE, a fisherman by the name of Castiel hauls a strange creature onto the deck of his boat...

OH NO VIKINGS

(aka, the next chapter of Not in the bestiaries is up. slight warnings for gore/violence/battle. because. you know. vikings.)

Not in the bestiaries (8/9)

(Part 1 on tumblr | I don’t know if I’ve put parts 5-7 on tumblr | AO3 here anyway)

Winter came, with its long cold claws.

Two children died. Old Joshua, after weeks of struggle with his failing lungs, finally set forth on his good journey. Castiel (and therefore Dean) spent almost every night in attendance, Castiel’s eyes stained with tiredness, Dean’s underbelly dry and dusty in the old reeds of the floor - palms the same when he lifted them with a bowl of water, an unbloodied cloth.

All in all, a better tally than most years.

The cold was still the cold, but food at least was a good deal easier to come by, with the sea on their side. Sam and Dean could hunt regardless of storms: spearing the bigger fish and dragging them back home, or driving shoals of smaller fry up the estuary into the nets and traps. Even those who had been wary among the village and the lay brothers knew better than to quibble with fortune like that. The monks were superstitious, with their eyes on the clouds and their lives lived by bells instead of the sun. Real people knew the value of being practical.

Not in the bestiaries (aka mermaid!Dean) (part 4)

(Part 1) (Part 3) (AO3)

It was a slow and painful process, raising the portcullis by inches and half-inches. Down below Sam made terrible little grunts and gasps, as quietly as he could, and Dean kept up a low litany of reassurance that tugged at Castiel’s heart. By the time Sam was free Castiel’s shoulders ached horribly, and he felt like a horrible person for making them sound like that.

Dean hauled his brother up onto the bank where he lay, half-conscious and clinging to Dean’s arms.

“He’ll get betterr,” he insisted stubbornly, when Castiel shook his head over the vicious wounds. “But he needss to eat, and he needs the clean open ssea. Thiss waterr herre, and the esstuarry, they’rre filthy. It’ll messs him up.”

“Then we need to get him onto the boat,” said Castiel, “and take him out with us at dawn.”

So Castiel had to trot off back home to fetch the barrow again, and cart an injured sea monster back by starlight to the cottage. The donkey and cart weren’t in their yard, which meant Gabriel hadn’t yet got back from town, and he could hook an arm around Sam’s shoulders and help him slither clumsily out onto the floor without awkward explanations.

Although he wouldn’t put it past Gabriel simply to flirt, even with... with whatever Sam and Dean were.

Courting.

Sam had said Dean was courting Castiel. And Dean had as good as admitted it.

Not in the bestiaries (aka, merman!Dean, part 3)

Part 1 | Part 2

Somebody pounded on the door.

Castiel was out of bed in a moment (though he stubbed his toe on the way), with a gutting knife in his hand. Vikings wouldn’t knock, of course, but sometimes you had to just react before your mind was awake.

“Cass?” somebody yelled, and it wasn’t Gabriel. “You in therre? You’d betterr be in therre. How doess this frreaking thing open?”

Castiel stared at the door. Then he pulled it open, and Dean half-fell forward onto the rushes.

“It’ss about damn time,” he panted, and grabbed at Castiel’s ankle. “You gotta come, man, I need yourr help.”

“It’s two minutes’ walk from the water here,” said Castiel stupidly, blinking down at him.

“Yeah, and it’ss ten minutess’ crrawl, and my belly feelss like sharrkbait and my arrmss feel like sstrring. You coming orr what?”

Castiel scrubbed the sleep out of his eyes, though he wasn’t quite sure he wasn’t dreaming anyway. “Dean. What happened?”

Dean stared up at him, and there was bravado and cheek in his deep green eyes, just like last time, but this time there was real fear as well.

“My brrotherr,” he said. “My little brrotherr, Ssammy. He’ss hurt.”

I just realised that, in the chapter headings to Not in the bestiaries, I need to be quoting the Colloquies on the Occupations. Like so:

Monk: Hu gefehst þu þa fiscas? How do you catch fish?

Fisherman: Ic ga on minne bat, and rowe ut on þa ea, and weorpe min nett on þa ea. Hwilum ic weorpe angel ut mid æse, oþþe spyrtan; and swa hwæt hie gehæftaþ ic nime. I take my boat and row out into the estuary, and throw my net on the water. Sometimes I throw out a baited hook, or a basket; and so whatever they drag up I take.

And like this:

Monk: Wilt þu hwæl fon? Do you hunt whales?

Fisherman: Nic! Not I!

Monk: For hwy? Why not?

Fisherman: For þæm micel pleoh is þæt man hwæl gefo. Læsse pleoh me biþ þæt ic to þære ea ga mid minum bate þonne ic mid manigum scipum on hwælhuntoþ fare. Because hunting whales is dangerous. It’s safer for me to go out on the estuary in my boat than to go out with many ships on a whale hunt.

Monk: For hwy swa? Why so?

Fisherman: For þæm me is leofre þæt ic fisc gefo þe ic ofslean mæg þonne ic fisc gefo þe nealles þæt an me selfne ac eac swelce mine geferan mid anum slege besencan mæg oþþe ofslean. Because I’d rather hunt fish that I may slay myself than hunt fish which can, with just one blow, capsize or slay not only me but all my companions.

And of course, at a certain point, we'll start quoting certain lines from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Such as... well, there's so many examples. Things like "Her on þis geare comon upp on Dorsætum iii scypu wicinga and hergodon on Portlande." The word "wicing" turns up a lot.

(If you don't recognise it, try turing the "w" to a "V", and note that the "c" is pronounced "k".)

Still trying to work out the pairings in the mermaid!Dean fic. Because it could be anything from hardcore interspecies Wincestiel (threesomes are common in mermaid culture, okay, because it's just practical, and often two members of the three are related just like the way you get sibling male lions or cheetahs managing their sex lives together), to schmoopy asexual romantic Destiel that's mostly about the cuddles. Or, you know, both: romantic Destiel but a sexual Wincest+Gabriel three-way (possibly with the Sabriel being more romantic). So many maybes but they would all be very different stories in terms of tone so I need to know which way I'm going before I start the next chapter in which Castiel actually meets Sam (as opposed to just seeing a looming menacing I'M WATCHING YOU mermaid brother hanging around the estuary).

Or I could just write it and see what happens! 

Not in the bestiaries (part 2)

(Part 1.)

They had traps and pots too, set in the estuary.

Castiel was usually the one to patrol these, wading mostly naked in the brackish water between the tiny airtight barrels they used for buoys. He liked the quiet, and the soft thrill of possibility. After all, you never knew exactly what you might find in there. Nothing; or bounty; or enough; or something altogether unexpected, like a rich man’s ring. Once he had found a baby otter, almost drowned in the shallows, and had carefully coaxed it back to life before its mother had turned up and scolded him away.

He had never found a shark in there before.

It was possible, perhaps. There were sharks in the estuary sometimes, Castiel knew this. But this one was almost precisely the size of the pot that it was squeezed into. There was no way it had swum in there by itself.

The next trap was full of fish, stuffed so full there was almost no water between them. So was the next, and the next. And many of the fishes didn’t belong to the estuary. Some were of the ocean, or the depths of the sea, and some Castiel had never seen before.

And there, in one of the nets, a beautiful iridescent shell, with a ship carved like scrimshaw by a delicate hand.

As he stood staring at it, something brushed his leg.

... There were sharks in the estuary.

Not in the bestiaries.

Or mostly, mermaid!Dean. Because of this AU prompt list. Also because pathsofpassion told me to. Sort of.

“But whaling, Cas,” Gabriel wheedled, as they cast the net out.

Castiel didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. He just gave his brother a Look.

“Harpoons!” Gabriel went on, cheerfully ignoring the Look. “A whole flotilla of guys, battling God’s mightiest fishes together! Tails the size of houses slamming down into the water, shattering boats and limbs, but not ours because God loves us and you’re too much of a spoilsport to steer close in! Victory, and the sharks going wild for us, and riches from the lords at the monastery to last us a month! And girls, brother dearest, don’t forget the girls.”

“I hadn’t forgotten them,” Castiel said mildly. “You mentioned them two minutes ago. I don’t think Jo appreciated it.”

“Jo never appreciates me.”

“Damn right,” said that lady, up at the tiller. “Maybe if you noticed I’m actually a girl sometime—”

“You’re not a girl,” said Gabriel, with dubious gallantry, tying off his end of the net. “You’re an angel. An angel in fine breeches. Girls need wooing. You need terrified supplicants.”

“I have three knives.”

“You know I’m right. Cas, I’m right aren’t I?”

“Gabriel,” Castiel sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t gabber on while we’re casting. The net’s caught over something again.”

Gabriel leaned precariously over the side and poked at the tangle of strands where they vanished, taut and quivering, into the water. His sharp eyes crinkled at the edges as he squinted into the bubbly green depths.

“Not caught over, little bro. Something’s caught in.”

“We only just threw it,” Castiel objected, but not very hard, because now he could feel it too. Years of knowing the song of the ropes, and even of the timbers under his knees when the boat had weight behind her. There was something tangled down there: not a school of fish, but a single living creature. And—

The boat lurched.

Whatever it was, it was big. And it was strong. And it was fighting.

“You had to tempt the sea,” Castiel grumbled, as they hauled, and strained, and grunted, and the little boat tipped perilously backward.