After he managed to calm himself, Danny abruptly came to two realizations. One, he was hugging a mermaid. Two, HE WAS HUGGING A MERMAID!

"Gah!" With a strangled cry, he threw himself backwards and scurried backwards; Sam frowned at seeing this. She thought she was getting somewhere. "I'm so sorry! I wasn't thinking! Please don't kill me!" Sam blinked. And blinked again. Then, without warning, burst out laughing; startling the poor boy next to her.

"Relax, will you? I'm not going to kill you. Never even thought of it." While that did seem to calm the boy somewhat, he was still very obviously tense. Taking a metaphorical leap, "Here, I'm gonna come up a bit further on land, ok?" Waiting for him to nod his head in the affirmative, she slowly eased herself further up onto the beach, to the point where should she need to make a quick getaway, she would be unable to. She was hoping rendering herself practically immobile would help; and it would appear as though it actually did. Smirking to herself, she decided to try and get to know him a bit better. "So, what do you like to do in your free time."

Looking taken aback by the sudden question, he answers, "I like to play DOOMED." She had no idea what that was. He must have been able to read her confusion, because he continued, "It's an online game where you can play against different people real-time through the internet." Flapping her tail against the ground in thought,

"I've heard of this thing called 'internet' before. What is it?" Danny looked surprised for a moment before understanding dawned.

"Of course, you don't have that underwater. Well, its kinda hard to explain, really. It can do lots of things. Most people use it to store and search for information, while other people use it for entertainment. You can play games and communicate, and lots of other stuff!" He seemed to be getting excited now, which was a win in Sam's book. While he kept on talking about all the different kinds of games there were, she took a look at the sky and couldn't help but marvel at its beauty.

"The sky sure is pretty."

"Yeah, it is." Following her gaze, he couldn't help but agree with her. Out here on the beach, there's minimal light pollution. "Y'know, before all this," he gestured to the fins on his arms, "I wanted to be an astronaut."

"Astronaut?"

"Yeah! They go up into space and-" As he kept going on and on about the wonders of space excitedly, Sam didn't even notice when a gentle smile came to her face. She made a note to one day take him star gazing further out into the ocean without any light pollution. She was sure he would love it.

Seeing how far she'd gotten with the boy, and remembering her other friend, she decided to take another leap.

"Hey, Danny?"

"Yeah?" He stopped mid-rant and looked over to her expectantly.

"I have a friend waiting for me out there," she gestured to the rocky cliffs a bit away, "do you mind if he comes over here?" Seeing the uncertain frown on his face, "I promise he won't hurt you! Hell, he couldn't even if he wanted to."

"Sure, I guess." While he was still uncertain, he decided that if he's going to be one of them one day, he might as well at least try and be friendly.

''Great! I'm going to go get him. I'll be right back!" With that, she awkwardly shuffled back to the water. Once she was deep enough, she slipped into the water with hardly a splash.

_LINE BREAK_

Tucker was starting to get worried. It had been almost a whole 40 minutes! Was she okay? Did she get caught by humans? Shaking the thought from his head, he decided he needed to remain positive.

"Hey, Tucker!"

Heaving a sigh of relief, the dark-skinned mer turned around and saw the racing form of his best friend (*cough* only friend *cough*) racing towards him.

"Sam! Oh my god! Are you okay? What happened?"

"I'm fine, Tuck. He's just very talkative is all." She chuckled at the reminder of how he went off as soon as she so much as mentioned space. "In fact, he said he wants to meet you." Tucker's expression morphed to one of disbelief.

"Really?!"

"Yeah! Come on!" Without giving her friend a chance to respond, she grabbed his arm and started swimming back to shore, pulling a reluctant Tucker with her.

_LINE BREAK_

Danny was just sitting on the beach questioning the existence of the universe, like you do, when his head jerked up at the sound of splashing. Swimming eagerly towards him, was Sam who was dragging what appeared to be a reluctant mer behind her. It was kind of funny watching him shout profanities and struggle in her grip; he couldn't stop the soft chuckle from escaping. Once the two mers were practically dragging themselves through the water, Sam let go of the struggling mer, and waited for them to introduce themselves.

When the two just sat there looking at each other, she groaned in exasperation. "Oh, for the love of-" Roughly grabbing Tucker's wrist and more gently grabbing Danny's, she forced them into a very awkward handshake. Talking like one would to a child, "Now introduce yourselves."

Very nervously, "Hi, my name's Danny."

"Tucker." Was the short reply he got back. Awkwardly removing their hands, they lapsed into the most awkward silence any of them have ever experienced.

Deciding she needed to be the one to break the ice. "So, Danny." Seeing she got the boy's attention, she continued. "Tucker here is really interested in human tech. Think you could educate him?"

"SAM!" Tucker shouted in embarrassment.

"Sure. What did you want to know about?" Not expecting him to agree, Tucker's face lit up like Christmas had come early.

"Well, how does the internet work? What are those boxes you guys are always carrying around? What about-" Danny cut him off with an amused chuckle.

"Woah, slow down. I'm happy to answer what I can, but one at a time, yeah?" Feeling the heat rising to his face, the young mer nodded.

And so that was how Danny spent his night. Sitting on the beach, talking to two mers about the technological advances of humanity. At least he was until he felt the tell-tale itch that came with being dry again. Taking notice of her friend's sudden discomfort and knowing immediately what was wrong, she grabbed his wrist. Pausing from his latest explanation of video games, he turned to look at her, Tucker following suit. With an evil smile, she pulled. With a startled yelp, the young teen went sprawling into the water. After shaking himself off from his shock, he glared back at her laughing face with a glare through his soaked white bangs. Even Tucker was laughing! The traitor!

With an evil smile of his own, he grabbed both of his newest friends' wrists and returned the treatment; they all went sprawling into the water on top of each other. They all shared a glance with each other, then burst out laughing as one. Never before in his life did he think he would be laying next to two mers, half submerged in water, laughing his ass off. But here he was, doing just that. After several long minutes, the laughter had died down and was replaced by pleasant silence. For once not the awkward kind; for which he was eternally grateful. He was brought out of his pleasant mood, however, when he noticed the sunrise.

"Crap!" Shooting up like a rocket, and startling the two mers next to him, he hurried to his feet.

"Danny? What's wrong?"

"My parents will be waking up soon! I'm not supposed to even be outside!"

"What?! They kept you locked inside?! Why I outta-" She was stopped from a rant by a hand on her shoulder.

"Not now, Sam." Looking towards Danny, "Go ahead, man"

Nodding his thanks, he hurried his was up the ramp to the back door. Pausing at the entrance, he turned to look at his friends.

"Will you be here tomorrow night?"

Smiling, Sam answered, "Of course. See you then?"

"Yeah, see you then." Without another word, he slipped silently back into the house and made his way down to the basement. Climbing into the tank, he finally went to sleep with a smile on his face.