Chapter Text
Heavy, grey clouds had been hanging over the fishing town of Gunspier for several days, now. They gave out a light drizzle every now and then but for the most part they were sitting still, doing nothing. It didn’t stop the markets from opening and it certainly didn’t prevent the morning joggers from going out, but for a small house at the end of Chisholm lane, it meant bigger things.
Behind the day’s newspaper sat a young man with hair nearly to his neck. He was well-built and sporting a bit of facial scruff. Once the coffee maker clicked off, he set the paper down and got up to pour himself a cup, which happened to be the same time that his older brother came stumbling into the kitchen.
“This sucks,” he croaked, rubbing his eyes. The younger of them replaced the coffee pot after getting his cup and turned to his brother, leaning up against the calendar.
“What does?”
“No catch.”
He was older but also a few inches shoulder and he kept his hair cut short. His body was firm, muscular and tanned from being outside most of his life. Many, many freckles coated his skin and contrasted perfectly with his green eyes. He also had dimples, but today they wouldn’t be making an appearance.
“Well,” the younger one began, “I heard there will be tuna soon.”
“Oh, yeah?” the other perked up. He took a seat at the little round table and pulled the newspaper to his side. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Bobby.”
“Bobby? He gave another one of those ‘psychic insights’?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
The younger brother returned to the table and drank his coffee placidly. “Check the weather.”
“Uh...hm…okay…okay…storms?”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Storms tomorrow. When’re the tuna coming?”
“I’m not sure, he wasn’t too clear.”
“Jesus,” the older one huffed, dropping the paper to the table again. “If he’s gonna be psychic, could he be more thorough?”
“I’m not sure, Dean, but I don’t think he’s actually psychic.”
Dean narrowed his eyes and sat back in his chair. He folded his arms and peered at his brother with great interested. “So what, then?” he asked. “He’s talking to mermaids or something?”
“Don’t know.”
“Oh come on, Sammy. There’s no such thing. Now you’re sounding like a real idiot. I thought you were the smartest, most logical person in Gunspier?”
Sam laughed. “I never said that!”
“Yeah but you act like it.”
“I don’t. I swear. But about Bobby—he’s never said how he gets those predictions. He doesn’t say it’s a feeling, doesn’t say it’s calculated anyway or something like that.”
Dean puffed out a noise of discontent. “Never said it’s mermaids, either.”
But Sam just shrugged and continued to drink his coffee. “He’s always been right,” he retorted simply. Dean sucked his teeth for a second then got up. “Where are you going?”
“Hey, if Bobby’s always right, then there will be tuna coming, and I need to get a piece of that action before the rest of ‘em do.”
“Dean, wait! The storms!”
“They’re tomorrow, they’re tomorrow,” his brother muttered as he left the kitchen. Sam sighed heavily and looked down at the paper, saying something to himself like “the paper isn’t always right…”
Dean dressed and packed for a day’s trip on the ocean. Sam had learned by now that he couldn’t stop his brother from doing anything, be he could at least nag him until he might change his mind.
“We don’t even know where the tuna will be, or when,” he said. Dean put on a ruddy baseball cap and picked up a couple duffel bags of supplies.
“What if it’s now?”
“What if it storms?”
“I’ll come back before anything like that happens.” Sam looked grumpy when Dean said this, so he added, “Don’t worry. You worry too much. Watch, I’ll be back with a load we can sell to Dunny.”
“I guess.”
“Get me on the radio if you gotta complain more. I’m heading out.”
Dean grinned as he walked out the front door and down the long stairs to the ground. The houses near the shore were on stilts in case the sea level rose greatly. Sam and Dean had never seen it get that high, but their father, who passed away five years prior, claimed he had (they weren’t sure if it was true or not, though).
Down the shore but within walking distance there was the pier. Most of the boats that lived there were tied up, since everyone in Gunspier knew there would be stormy weather soon and they weren’t mental like Dean. He wondered if Bobby was out or not.
He climbed into the Mary’s Bounty and tossed his things into the cabin. It was a tiny boat, the only thing their useless father could afford when it came to marine vessels. They were lucky to have it, though, since the boys proved to be rather useless unless they were catching fish.
Dean went buzzing off in the boat, out towards the clouded horizon. Winds whipped up as he went further and further out, but it didn’t take too long for him to see that there were, indeed, giant schools of tuna out and about.
“Holy shit!” Dean cried to himself, looking off the side and into the water. Thousands and thousands of them were swimming around. Excitement bubbled through Dean’s veins, and more so the image of him coming home to Sam with a giant catch, unscathed by any storms. “I told you so,” he whispered to himself, practicing.
The net was cast and big, healthy tuna began to pile into it. Dean was laughing with joy, tugging on the net and basking in the glory of the bounty. He had never seen such amounts of fish, particularly tuna that large. They’d be able to sell fish to Dunny and Maison, the two cities immediately inland that bought fish from Gunspier. Maison was farther and you could sell them for more.
But in the midst of Dean’s joy, he ended up going out into rough seas. The current began to push at pull at the boat, nearly knocking him off a few times. “Damn!” he shouted. It was hard to keep his catch secured. A bit of panic quivered down his spine, especially when he realized that there were now dark storm clouds headed his way, and sooner rather than later. “Time to get back…”
He kicked the boat into high gear and tried to return to shore, but the current was so wicked that he could barely get anywhere, it just pulled him further and further away. Gunspier was disappearing faster than he could keep up with. Maybe it was the weight of the catch pulling him back?”
“No way,” he thought. “I’m not gonna battle this storm and lose my catch. Sammy’ll never let me live that down.”
He tried and tried again, revving the engine and gunning it back towards the shore, but the ocean was pulling him out as its captive. Giant waves started to leap up and splatter onto the small deck. Dean’s heart pumped fast. He went into the cabin and tried to take cover, realizing that his efforts were useless and he had no choice but the wait it out.
CRACK!
Now there was lightning. Great, bright flashes of it whipped across the sky, rumbling the glass in the cabin. He went for the radio, just to tell Sam that he was alive, but it seemed to be down. He knocked over a couple things on the little narrow table within the cabin and fell onto his back. The sea was treating him like a dog’s toy, biting and shaking at the edges. More lightning cracked and a great, ominous roar of thunder made Dean shudder and shiver. He tried his best to hold part of the cabin to steady himself, but the waves were so wicked that he couldn’t stay still. Water leaped out and smashed into his side. Rain began to pour. Thunder and lightning continued and Dean realized that he probably wouldn’t make it out of there alive. “The least I can do is let the tuna make it,” he thought.
With a last jump of supposed bravery, he left the cabin and slid across the desk. Rain battering at him and the ocean trying to claim him as its own, he managed to untie the net at the back and allow all of his precious tuna to swim away, down into the safety of the ocean.
Then came a wave—the tallest and most fierce wave he had ever seen. It toppled the ship and sent him flying off. He closed his eyes. The cold water grabbed him. It was over. That was the end of his life.