Siren Eyes Epic Skies (DNF)

Chapter Two: If The Ocean Is Your Heart (I Deem You Mine)

Sapnap's a bitch.

The dolphin is squeaking and whistling, thrashing back and forth in Karl's arms. Dream runs up to the side of the pool and kicks his crocs off, slipping over the side and into the water. He wades through water that comes up to his mid waist and approaches the dolphin from the front, slipping his arm around its head and pulling it up, humming until it stops trying to swim away.

Karl breathes a sigh of relief and steps back to let Dream slowly walk around in the water, making circles around the pool and carrying the dolphin through the water to keep it calm while Karl grabs a tube of ointment from the med pool's deck.

The dolphin is smooth beneath his touch, a little slippery but she doesn't try to fight anymore now that Dream's got her, walking her so she can feel the water brushing past her and hear the sound of his voice. It keeps her calm as Karl approaches and dabs antibiotic ointment onto a small cut on her dorsal fin.

"She's getting too attached to us," Dream says, using his free hand to pet her head. "We'll have to see if she's still wild enough to go back to the ocean when she's healed."

"Attached to you maybe," Karl sighs. "She still hates me."

"I'm sure Tina wouldn't mind another dolphin for her program," Sapnap pipes up from the pool deck and Dream looks up with a glare. Sapnap winces.

"You were supposed to be in the water helping Karl."

"You know they scare me!" Sapnap screeches. The loud noise spooks the dolphin and she squirms a little, only calmed by Dream's continued humming. "Some of us are from Texas and not ocean born like you!"

"The least you could do is help your boyfriend," Dream grumbles. Karl just shakes his head and places the ointment back, climbing out of the pool.

Dream had expected today to be an easy, desk work day at the rescue center. There were way too many emails on his office computer to answer and Sapnap had rudely interrupted him while he was responding to an important one about fish delivery to their storage room. Sapnap had burst in the door, blabbering about how the dolphin in Tank A was out of control and about to drown Karl; Dream was up and running.

But now he's here walking a dolphin around a shallow tank because Sapnap refuses to get in the water with even their tamest creatures.

"She's not a shark, Sap. She can't hurt you."

"She has tiny little teeth!" Sapnap objects. "That's scary enough."

"Well," Karl begins, hanging his legs over the edge of the pool. There's a teasing smile on his face and Dream already knows it's at his expense so he turns his back to them and continues to walk the dolphin around. She seems to be almost falling asleep now, turning her stomach to Dream. "Dream's been in the water with a siren so maybe that's why you're not as brave as he is."

Karl and Sapnap snicker together and Dream shrugs them off.

It wasn't his intention to ever tell Karl or Sapnap about the one summer in his childhood that he had spent with a mythical creature. He managed to get all the way through university with them without speaking a word about it. Their marine biology classes had enough sea animals and fish to focus on, mentioning the siren would just get him laughed at.

And so it did when his mother took them all out for their graduation dinner, and had asked Dream if he had told his friends about his siren friend, George.

The only reason Dream himself still believed in George was thanks to the five scars on the inside of each of his forearms, along with the collection of blue and red scales that he brought with him to keep in his college dorm. Again he brought them with him in a drawstring bag when he and his roommate Sapnap bought a small apartment in Dream's home town.