"Dan?" asked Chris as he frantically waved his hand in front of his face.
Dan snapped out of his trance. Shit. Chris had definitely seen Phil transform. Dan knew Chris was going to find out about him soon enough. In some ways he felt compelled to tell Chris what he saw. To tell him about what happened, about him. But he couldn't. Mainly in guilt. He felt guilty. Phil had wanted to tell Chris from the moment they had transformed. If Phil wanted to tell Chris. He should be the one to tell him. Not Dan.
"You saw that right?" he spoke once Dan had faced him. "I'm not going nuts right?"
Dan shook his head whilst swallowing a large pill of nausea.
"You okay man, you look like you seen a ghost." Chris spoke as he looked at Dan's expressionless pale face. Dan just nodded.
"Did you know?" Chris asked trying to get over the uncomfortable silence that engulfed them.
"yeah yeah" Dan said snapping out of daze, "I mean, no. no I didn't know" he corrected.
Chris shrugged
"okay"
Dan scanned the ocean for Phil, he couldn't seem to see him. Dan shrugged off all his worries, he was sure Phil could take care of himself.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Phil's crystal blue tail. He stared for a few seconds just thinking about how messed up his life had become in about two days.
Dan's view of Phil was blocked by Chris who was waddling over to Phil. He had clearly seen him too. There was no point trying to tell Chris he was wrong about Phil being a merman, he was in too deep to save himself now.
Dan watched as Chris ran over to phil. Dan could just about make out Phil lying on the cool sand about 100 meters away. His tail was floating in the water still, bobbing up and down in time with the waves that broke on the shore.
Dan started to make his way over to the others.
***
"Can I touch it?" he heard Chris say as he approached the others. Phil was still lying in the same position as he was before. He was lying on his back, he was leaning on his elbows to hold up his upper body. Dan's eyes searched the other boys body down from his neck down his torso, his eyes travelled down from his neck down his slightly tanned torso down his chest continuing down to his little belly before his skin turned a beautiful blue colour , his skin rough and scaley on lower parts of his body. Something about how Phil was perched mesmerised Dan. His lips were slightly parted and droplets of ocean water dropped down from his eye lashes down his cheeks running down from his face to his shoulders.
Dan snapped back into reality and looked as Chris' fingers glided over the scales on Phil's tail.
"This is awesome" Chris said as Phil laughed.
"It tickles" he explained.
"Dan touch it!" Chris said pointing at Phil.
Dan shook his head quickly looking at Phil with a dopey smile. Causing the older boy to blush.
"Why not you're not a fish boy as well are you?" Chris smirked elbowing Dan in the side almost causing him to fall over.
Phil nodded as did Dan at the same time.
Chris chuckled, "only one way to find out!" he smirked.
Chris bolted towards the water before cupping his hands together and lowering them into the water before removing them a second later and flinging the liquid towards dan.
Phil saw what was happening, he knew he had to act fast. He knew he didn't want Chris to find out about him. For some reason Phil felt compelled to keeping Dan's secret safe. With a slight flick of his wrist the drops of water swerved slightly missing his body by millimetres.
Dan caught a glimpse of Phil's actions and relaxed his body in relief. Thank god for Phil he thought before looking at Chris and sighing.
"What did we just learn" he said, his voice bitter and dripping with anger at Chris' actions.
"You're not a fish" Chris said sheepishly hiding his face.
Phil pushed his tail out of the water before calling to Chris to borrow his shirt to dry himself.
Chris nodded with a smile and removed it before chucking it to Phil and watched as he dried himself. A few short minutes later Phil was once more fully human and he threw the shirt at Chris.
Chris hung the damp shirt over his shoulder and turned to look at Dan and Phil who were standing a little too close together if you asked him.
"Let's get back" Dan said taking a step.
