Fictional one-shot based on this prompt:
“Why do you keep coming back?” You growled at the selkie on your front door. No matter how many times you gave back her coat and told her to scram, she would always come back.
[TW: depictions of toxic/unhealthy relationship]
Stomp, splash, stomp, splash. Can’t even properly stomp anymore, the damn kitchen is flooded again. I kick the water; a wave of rage crashes over me at the underwhelming result. Like that was going to do anything.
The whole damn house smells like saltwater. And something else. Something foul, something fishy? No, that’s just the beach… this is the stench of something warm. Something alive.
Three small raps on the front door. Witch’s number. I spit in the fireplace.
My boots squelch as I lay down heavy, commanding footsteps. I hope she can hear them. If she’s scared, then we’d be even. My heart hammers. I go in to all but rip the door of its hinges, but something in me opens it gingerly.
A large, old-fashioned hat covers half a face. It is a round, sweet face resting over razor-sharp bones. One visible almond-shaped eye lifts to scan me, stops at my overgrown beard, and at last meets my gaze. Her mouth, one I’ve seen stretched into a wide smile so many times before, is set in a small, round pout.
“Why do you keep coming back?” I growl at her.
She stares at me. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. There is something off about her fur coat, which she slides off and places in my hands. Something about it doesn’t quite suit her. She slips past me into the house.
“You know why I keep coming back.”
She wanders in, beginning to open my cabinets, closets, any drawers she comes across. I follow her.
“You can’t just enter my house!”
“I’m not a vampire, Sebastian!” She slams a drawer closed and whips around to face me. We are stuck there, staring at each other. Strong emotions play across her face - fury, determination, disappointment, desperation. For some reason, it reminds me of the dance of an Aurora Borealis across a sky. We saw it once, her and I. When we were in love by the sea.
How far away those days seem now.
Her face softens, just for a second. When she speaks next, her voice has more honey in it, more lilt and fatigue.
“Sebastian, I need you to give me my coat.”
I lift her fur coat to her. She shakes her head and pushes it roughly to the side. It falls, with a dramatic flourish, to a puddle on the floor. The living room is flooding too? I hadn’t noticed that before.
She marches to a closet and throws the door open. Inside, there are dozens of fur coats, all of different shades and fur types. She stands in the doorway. I watch her shoulders slump defeatedly and feel a malicious sort of glee.
“Which one is it?” She is trying to sound authoritative now.
I lean against the wall and cross my arms. “Shouldn’t you know? You can’t recognize your own coat?”
She looks at me. There is something mounting in her eyes. “Which - one - is - it?”
I gave an exaggerated shrug.
Then, the sound of glass breaking.
Odessa flings herself into the closet and begins tearing through the coats. She runs her hands over them searchingly before hurling each of them to the ground. At the same time, I feel the water on the floor start to rise. I twist around and see water pouring in through a broken window. I hear another crash ring out in the kitchen, and all the water begins rising even faster.
What the fuck? Is it a hurricane? I wade as fast as I can to peer out the window. Only clear skies. More muted thuds from the closet as coats begin to heap on the ground. “Odessa! What the fuck is going on? Are you doing this?” I yell. The water is knee deep now, and coming fast. Small items are starting to lift off the coffee table. Odessa appears the closet doorway. Her eyes have become extremely dark. They almost seem to be glowing as they sear into me.
“Sebastian.”
Do I remember the Lord’s Prayer? The window is too small to fit through, though it sure can let a hell of a lot of water in, it seems. I start wading as fast as I can to the front door, but it’s up to my waist so it’s slow going. Odessa follows me, somehow cutting through the water like butter.
“Sebastian. My coat. Now.”
I yank on the front door, but it won’t budge. I feel a small hand on my back and jump. How the fuck did she get over here so fast? A small voice chuckles and chides me - oh Sebastian, you know how.
I turn to face her. I feel my feet begin to lift off the floor as the water carries me upwards. The real estate agent had raved about the low ceilings when she pitched me this place, which I found odd at the time and privately joked about to my friends. “So cooooozzzzy!” I would mimic her, with an exaggerated tone.
Back when I had friends.
I stare into her eyes - pure milky black voids, with not discernible bits of white left. “I won’t give you your coat, because you can’t leave me,” I told her plainly.
She blinks. “I have already left you. Several times.”
“But you see,” I say as the water rises to my shoulders. “You always come back.”
She looks at me, wordlessly. I’ve never seen her look like this before, so… tormented. Something in me is beginning to twist uncomfortably; I don’t know if it is excruciation or deep excitement.
She looks at the water in the room, splashes it around half-heartedly. Suddenly, she lets out a violent sob. “I just want to go HOOMMEE!” She began to wail with a sound I have never in my life heard a human make before. It was primal, and animalistic; it rang out like the foghorn of a ship lost at sea. A ship that would never again see a bustling port. My stomach tightened even more - unbearably - before suddenly going still. I witnessed her agony and felt clarity. Realization. Shame. It was not excitement or excruciation that was festering inside of me. It was only pain, and it had only even been pain, and now, that pain was infectious.
With the water under my chin, I swam to the center of the room and felt around in the ceiling planks. Finding the one that was loose, I lifted it as high as I could manage. Dark fur slid down and plopped into the water.
In a flash, before I could even drag the plank back down, Odessa was beside me. She hugged the fur to her with relish. She blinked at me, one last time, as if to say something. I didn’t quite understand; not much time to decipher it anyways. On went the coat, and I watched a quick little seal slip like butter through the broken window as the water hit the ceiling.