Depths

16. New

This chapter has been edited.

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Okay, guys, I wrote this at 2 o'clock in the am, so I hope you brought your patients.

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"Man, you're my best friend," Tucker said to Danny skeptically as he put a hand on the raven's shoulder, "and you know I always got your back," the African boy stared at Phantom with a load of concern as the white-haired male stared right back, as if he was contemplating whether Tucker would attack or not. "But dude, you need to tell me where this stranger came from, and what he's doing in your room."

Sam got up from where she leaned against the wall and walked over to make the conversation more private, unknowing to the fact that nothing they said or thought was private around Phantom, "Yeah, and why does Tucker need to give him a fake identity? Can't he just go to the Dmv and get a state ID like every other person in America above the age of 16?"

Danny looked at Phantom carefully, unsure if it was safe to tell them. He knew that his friends would never betray his trust, and they would help him if he asked. He just wasn't sure how ready they were to know that not only was Phantom actually a merman, but he was also the very same merman that had kidnapped him.

"Uhhhh Ummm," Danny said nervously as he looked for a way to tell them, he had never been much of a scholar, but he was ashamed that all he could get out as a response to their questions was filler words.

'Just say it, Fenton,' Phantom said into his head, the sound of his voice in his skull was no longer familiar and it surprised Danny for a moment, 'I can hear everything they are thinking.'

Danny just nodded and looked back to his friends, "Guy's, I think I need to tell you what happened during the six months I was gone."

Sam and Tucker looked at each other, they had both been told by Danny himself a year ago that he didn't remember anything that happened. Now he was saying he needed to tell them, and all they could do was wonder what he had been keeping all that time, and why was he keeping it?

Danny took a breath, for some reason not feeling as much anxiety as he thought he would. It was strange; every time he had thought about what happened to him in the past, he had always started to feel like fear was going to suffocate him. Now though, there was plenty of fear, but it was more like his fear of spiders-they scared him, but he knew that he was much stronger than they were.

"So you know I'm gay, and Tucker told me that you all saw the mermaids attack the boat before I was kidnapped, and already know that the mermaids weren't able to hypnotize me like they did my Dad." Danny started, some of his words clustered together to get it out as fast as possible, he was a nervous wreck. He didn't even wait for them to nod, if they weren't following along to his rushed speech, then that was now their problem. "Okay well, there was one merman in the cove and he hypnotized me and took me down to his cave, and left my Dad behind for the rest of the mermaids.

"While I was down there, the merman fed on me whenever he got hungry. But he left me under the impression that my father was dead the whole time that I was there. I had to deal with the pain of not only losing my freedom and my dignity but also the death of my father and the reality that I probably wouldn't see my family or you guys ever again." It hurt to recall the pain and the memories that he had to go through during his kidnapping, but it was for a necessary cause. His friends listened patiently as Danny told a short version of the endless turmoil he had felt in the last year and a half.

"Not only did the merman eventually grow to like me a lot, and release me when he realized he didn't want me to die down in that cave, but I found out when I got home that my father had been alive the whole time. I knew that day that my dad hugged me in the kitchen, as I embraced the reality that I had never lost my father, that the merman had saved him before the other mermaids could kill him, simply because I asked." Danny walked over to Phantom, who was leaning back on the bed, resting his head on his crossed arms and staring at the ceiling. "Now the merman is sitting on my bed."