A Wave Of Desire

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Ocean

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I guess it wasn't even the sound of someone laughing and the door opening that surprised me. No, it was the voice that yelled into the room that shocked me back to reality. That was the sound that made me remember that I was in my Siren form. And not to mention that there were people in the house that didn't know about what I was.

"Ocean! What the hell did you do? What is that all over your body? And what is up with your hair?" I heard Ryan's voice cut across the pool and stab me right through the gut. I had fucked up. I had royally fucked up. And this was not something that was easy to cover up.

"Ocean? What are you wearing? I..is that seaweed? What is going on here? Why are you covered in white scales? I don't get this. What is going on?"

Both Ben and Ryan were asking me about what they were seeing. There were too many differences in the way that I looked, I most definitely wouldn't be able to explain them all away as if it was nothing. This was the worst possible situation to happen right now. And we told Makai's parents that we were going to be careful. We told Momma and Dad that we wouldn't let Ben and Ryan find out about us. And here I was losing control of myself and letting them see it.

"Ocean? Talk to me. Please. Tell me that I am not really seeing what I think that I am. Th..this is just me hallucinating, right? Y..you don't really have fish scales on you, right? I mean, i..if you did, then we would have seen them before. W..we've been on the same team for four years. Come on, Ocean, tell me that I'm not really seeing that." Ben was looking a little scared right now.

"Well, Ben baby, if you are hallucinating, then so am I. Because I am seeing an Ocean with longer hair that has somehow turned blue. He has scales, he looks somehow more feminine, and he is wearing swim trunks made out of seaweed. If that is what you are seeing, then I guess that we are both delusional."

I was frozen in place, and Makai seemed to be as well. But there were more people in the house that didn't seem to be so frozen, and they were running toward the pool right now. Three sets of feet to be exact.

The door to the pool banged open again and that was when Momma, Dad and Dr. Malachi came running into the room, almost hitting Ben and Ryan in the process. The three of them managed to skirt the two frozen boys and somehow end up in between us so that they could see me standing there, shell shocked, looking at my friends while the two of them, equally shell shocked, stared at me with horror in their eyes.

"Well, I guess the fish is out of the bag now. You two have finally learned the family secret."

"Th..the.. what?" Ben managed to turn his head and look at the man that was speaking to him. If I hadn't known any better, I would have thought that Ben was looking at a complete stranger. The words that Dad had just said must have blown his mind so badly that he forgot all about who Reef Rivers was.

"S..so Ocean is a..a..a what to be exact? I am not sure what he is. Is he a fish?" Ryan was trying to make sense of what he saw.

"No, he is not a fish." Makai shook his head and pushed himself out of the pool. He sat there on the edge of it for a moment while he changed. And by that, I mean that he changed into his merman form. His shorts shredded off of him as his tail magically appeared where his legs had been just a few moments before.

"SHIT! You too, Makai?" Ryan exclaimed.

"Y..y..you're a..a..a m..me..mer..merman!" Ben had a lot of trouble getting that out. "You're a merman!" He repeated it, this time with no stuttering. "A real life merman."

"Holy shit! DUDE! Ben! We're friends with merpeople! Do you remember when we were kids and we used to joke about finding merpeople when we went swimming. We were so obsessed about it. That was what sparked our love for the sport. And here it is. We found them, Ben. We finally found some merpeople. Some real life merpeople. This is awesome. I am so fucking excited."

"I..it's definitely pretty interesting." Ben was finally looking less scared. His mouth was even beginning to form a smile while he looked between Makai and me. "I can't believe that we're friends with mermen. This is awesome."

"Ah, yeah, w..well, I am not a merman." I ran my hand through my hair. It was longer and silkier than my normal hair and it felt perpetually wet no matter how long I was out of the water for.

"If you're not a merman, then what are you? You've got scales like him. You're just a different color and missing the fish tale.

"Right, well, I..I'm a Siren." I just told someone outside of my family my biggest secret. I just told my two best friends what I really was. And I did it right in front of the three adults that probably never wanted me to say those words to anyone. This was bad.

"A Siren?" Ryan repeated the words back to me.

"As in the beautiful women that lure men to their deaths. Those kinds of Sirens?" Ben was looking at me like I was bat shit crazy.

"Well, to be fair boys, we banned them from killing human men centuries ago. Now, the Sirens need to mate with the man and leave him somewhere that he can get back to his home. If anyone breaks those rules, they are severely punished." Dr. Malachi was the one that explained this to them. He was volunteering more information to them. Why was he doing that? Why would he tell them some of our secrets?

"But it's the same creature, right? The same mythology?" Ben pressed on with his question.

"Yes, it is the same legend. But as you can see, the legends are real." Dr. Malachi smiled at Ben and then looked at me.

"So, not all Sirens are women? They have men and women?" Ryan asked as he walked closer to me. "Man, this is cool."

"Well, to my knowledge, Ocean is the first ever male Siren to be born. He was actually abandoned by his mother for being a boy. That is how he ended up here." I could not believe the amount of information that Dr. Malachi was giving to Ben and Ryan right now.

"Whoa. So, you're seriously the only one?" Ryan looked back at me after listening to Dr. Malachi. "That is awesome. I mean, to literally be one of a kind is next to impossible. I can't believe that I am friends with a merman and a Siren. This is so cool, and I have so many questions."

"Well, ask them now, before we wipe your memories." Dammit. I knew that was coming. That had been why Dr. Malachi was so forthcoming with the information. He was planning on wiping their minds.

"Now, wait a minute, Abraham. These boys are like family now. They're living here and they can be trusted to keep the family secret. Isn't that right, boys?" It seemed that dad was trying to keep things from becoming awkward and uncomfortable with our friends here. "I mean, if the boys truly can't handle it, then we can do something about their memories. But let them have a chance first."

"Reef, are you sure that you want to give them that chance? What if they tell someone? What if they let the secret out? You think that I can wipe the minds of that many people without being found out. Are you willing to risk that? Are you willing to risk me?" Dr. Malachi looked like he was scared. I knew that he had a lot at stake here, but he should give them a chance. They were good guys. And they were my best friends. I trusted them. I knew that they wouldn't tell anyone.

"Yeah, Abraham, I am willing to risk it. I think that these boys are capable of handling it. Ben? Ryan? Am I right to trust you? Can you keep our family secret? Will you tell anyone?"

"No, we definitely won't tell anyone." Ryan answered first. "You can trust us."

"That's right, Dad. You can trust us. We won't tell anyone. Ocean and Makai are our friends. They're like family to us now, better family than our actual family. I don't want to do anything that will hurt them."

"See, Malachi, the boys are willing to be good about this. Let's give them a chance. Momma was advocating for them now. This was making me really happy right now. I was glad to see that Makai's parents cared about Ben and Ryan so much.

"Ha ha. I just thought about something. Reef, that's a merman name. And what about Ocean? Is that a Siren name?" Ryan laughed like he just figured that all out.

"Nope, I was named by the person that found me on the beach when I was born."

"Wow, cool. And you just happened to be from the ocean." He was laughing again. "Man, I can't believe this. This is so cool. I knew that you guys were cool, not just normal cool but like, really cool."

What followed that declaration from Ryan was a very long talk where me, Makai, Momma, Dad and Dr. Malachi explained things to them. We told them basically all of the stuff that I had learned when I first found out about the world of shifters and people that came from the sea. They now knew that not just Sirens and merpeople were real, but also that there were werewolves, witches, vampires and more. There were a lot of interesting things that we talked about during that conversation, and a lot of it that seemed to amaze and impress our two friends.

We did end up having dinner with Dr. Malachi that night, which included a lot more of the conversation that we had been having. And it was when Ryan finally managed to get Dr. Malachi to tell them what he was. They were amazed to learn that they knew a dragon as well as merpeople and a Siren. If I recall correctly, Ryan said something along the lines of 'I have the coolest friends ever'. I was just glad that they didn't think that we were freaks and that they were happy to continue being friends with us.

"Don't worry, Ocean, we will keep the secret." Ben could obviously tell that I was still nervous that night, so he comforted me just a little more by reassuring me of that fact.. I was glad that he did, I needed to hear it once more.