“So,” Vance started to reach out, like he wanted to grab my hand and investigate it, but pulled back.  “You could protect us now, though?  Do you plan to do that, since you’ve told us?”

That…was an excellent question.  “It’d be better for both of you,” I warned, “if you just went back to your normal lives and forgot about all this.”

“Not a chance, Morgan,” Hayden tugged on my dread again.  “We found you again, and now you don’t have excuses for why we can’t be together again.”

“Yeah, we’re definitely not letting you leave us alone again,” Vance agreed.  “So if you don’t want us to be in danger, you’ll protect us, right?”

I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose again, squeezing my eyes shut.  They were such a hassle.  Sometimes I wondered why I liked them so much.

“I’m not any good at the magic for it.”  I admitted abruptly.  “Not that kind.  Some magics are harder than others and that – I tried, okay?  For a long time after I left, I tried.  I had merfolk teaching me, but it’s just – it never really clicked.  It was like they’re making glass walls and the best I could do was plastic wrap.  It exists, but it’s very…flimsy.”  I’d been pretty devastated at my failure.  Back then, I’d actually hoped I might be able to return to them at some point, but discovering that my protection marks were about as useful as an actual sticker and that I hadn’t been able to improve had eventually forced me to face reality:  I wasn’t able to protect anyone.

I was sitting cross-legged and I moved to rest my forearms on my knees, staring moodily into the fire.  “I have a friend – shifter-type merfolk – who could maybe add the mark.  But it’s kind of a big burden to ask of him.”

I hated to ask Bruce.  Normally, you wouldn’t put a mark on someone unless they were really close to you and you trusted them.  Family, very close friends.  Bruce would probably do it if I asked because he was nice, but it would be just a burden on him – if they ever were in trouble, he would know and I, well, wouldn’t.  So he’d feel obligated to help them, even if he had no connection to them.

Still, it was better than the practically-fake mark I could do, and I didn’t have anyone else I could ask, so what other options were there?

“Sorry,” I added more quietly.  “I wish I could, but my magic for that just sucks.”

Vance’s arms were suddenly around me again, this time without all the wet clothes in between, and I gasped slightly at the feeling of his warm skin against mine.

“Don’t feel bad, Morgan.  We didn’t mean to put you in an awkward position.”

And then Hayden was hugging me from the other side, turning me into a squished and very flustered sandwich.

“Don’t apologize.  We kind of forced you into this position when you were trying to avoid it.”

I let out a huff of air and tried to think of anything other than their bare skin against mine.  “Why aren’t you two more mad at me?”

“Oh, we are,” Hayden agreed, “just about you not telling us and running off without us, though.  But we’re also kind of overwhelmed by all this information and, I mean, I think I might get where you were coming from.  If I thought I’d put you or Vance in danger, I’d probably do the same thing.”

“Mm-hmm.”  Vance’s hand was moving across my back, rubbing gentle circles.  “We just basically got you back from the dead, Morgan.  It’s kind of hard to be mad at you.”

I dropped my head between my arms, groaning a bit.  “It’d be easier if you were just mad and didn’t want to see me again.”

“Yeah, not gonna happen,” Hayden responded, and then he leaned over and dropped a kiss on my shoulder.

I froze.

Hayden froze, too, realizing too late what he had done.

Vance was looking between Hayden and me, apparently trying to figure out if he should intervene.

I debated having a freakout, internal or external, or just calmly walking back into the ocean and this time disappearing for real, or maybe I should just pretend that never happened and continue as we were?  He’d clearly done it accidentally, maybe…maybe that was the best?

But I had frozen up for too long to play this off, and Hayden still hadn’t figured out how to respond either.

“Um, yeah, so,” Vance finally broke the tense silence, “um, after you disappeared, we kind of, uh, both figured out, independently, that, um, our feelings for you weren’t just those of friends.  We didn’t realize until we lost you and it was so devastating.  We weren’t exactly planning on just dumping that on you – well, none of this was really planned – but, um, yeah, so…we’re kind of in love with you.”

There was another long silence, filled mostly with their anxious looks, and then I reluctantly spoke.

“You both dated girls in high school.”  A statement, but also a question.

“Yeah, well, it seems we’re bi – or maybe pan?  I don’t know, given the circumstances.  Honestly, at least for me,” Hayden took a deep breath, “I’m kind of more into you than anything else.  Gender doesn’t exactly matter, although as it turns out, I suppose that applies in more than one sense.”

I groaned and flopped backwards onto my back, covering my face with my hands while I tried to process this.

“Strictly speaking,” I informed them through my hands, “I’m not really male or female, kind of more of both.  Normally, I’d switch based on what I need – strength, speed, whatever – or what I feel like.”

“Aka you’re not keen on dating straight people even if you could potentially pretend you were just a girl, yeah, we get it.”  Hayden nodded once.  “But that’s not exactly a problem for us – we fell in love with you as a guy, Morgan.  And the female version of you is pretty hot, too, so definitely won’t have issues with that.”

I dropped my hands to glare at him briefly.  “You really think you’d be fine with a partner who switches genders at will?  That’s not the same thing as being bi, Hayden.”

“It’s not that different from non-binary people.” Vance pointed out.  “It doesn’t bother us.”

Right.  Because they were honestly totally fine with the idea of dating an inhuman being who not only turned into half fish in the ocean, but also could switch between male and female.  Right.  Totally bought that.  They’d always been open-minded, but no one was that open-minded.

Not to mention they were ignoring a big issue here.  Like the part about there being two of them and I had no interest in picking between them.

“So,” Vance reached out and gently started running his fingertips across my hand and forearm, his eyes fixed on my face in a way that made me feel like blushing just from him looking at me, “you seem less bothered by the idea of our feelings for you than with whether or not we’d actually be okay with you given your…uniqueness.  Are we to take it you don’t have a problem with us being in love with you?”

I couldn’t really figure out how to answer that one.  What, admit my own feelings?  That would go over well.

“Hey,” Hayden reached for my other hand and tugged at one of my fingers until I turned to meet his warm gaze.  “You said you were trying to protect us, even trying to learn the magic thing just in case, and now you seem to be worried about us actually accepting you, so do you,” he hesitated, “do you maybe…have feelings for us, too?”

I groaned again.  “Fine, yes, okay?  I’ve had feelings for both of you since we were 15 or something.  Happy?  But how does that help anything?  It’s not exactly like I can just pick one of you and throw the other one away,” I muttered.

They glanced at each other, then almost in the same movement, they each grabbed one of my wrists and pulled me upright.

“You know,” Hayden said softly, his free hand gently moving through my hair and then tugging at my earlobe, “polyamorous relationships may not be common, but they are a thing.”

“Um-hmm,” Vance agreed, running his fingers up and down my arm, “besides, we were always better with the three of us, anyway.  No reason to change that now, right?”

I kind of stared at them, then gave a half hysterical, half strangled laugh before dropping my head.  “You guys are idiots,” I mumbled.  “You act like it’s so easy.”

“It doesn’t have to be hard,” Hayden was back to playing with my dreads.  “So what if it’s not normal?  Other people shouldn’t get to dictate what our relationship looks like.  Besides, you aren’t normal, either.  Are supernaturals more traditional than humans?  The idea of coloring outside the lines bothers you so much now, even when you used to love to break the rules?”

I had changed a lot since high school, though.  I wasn’t nearly as willing to step outside the premade boundaries, arbitrary or not, as I had been back then.  I had…been taught what my place was in this world.  It was no use challenging that.

I shook my head a bit.  “Actually, supernaturals tend to be pretty lenient.  Some can reproduce asexually, some with the same gender, even.  Most supernaturals are fairly flexible in terms of sexuality.”  That didn’t mean a poly relationship was normal, even for supernaturals, though.  I’d actually seen one, once, but even amongst supernaturals it would gain a few raised eyebrows.

Although, supernaturals were probably quicker to get over the idea than many humans.

I abruptly jumped to my feet, pulling myself free from them and walking around the fire, crossing my arms as I looked out at the ocean.  “It’ll be dawn soon,” I announced, a little surprised that so much time had passed already.  “Your clothes should be dry by now – you should get dressed before you catch a cold.”  My body was built to withstand extreme temperatures, so the wasn’t an issue for me, and while they hadn’t noticed as much while the fire was burning, it was starting to run down and there wasn’t much driftwood left to keep it going.

“Wait, that’s it?  You’re just planning to stop the conversation there?”  Hayden sounded a tad pissed off as he jumped to his feet.  “What about what we were talking about?”

I glanced over my shoulder at him, then at Vance, who was looking a little more dejected than angry.

“No, I need time to think.  So do you.  You’re running on an emotional high of seeing me again after 10 years, and you haven’t had time to sit back and process everything I just told you about.  Plus, you two have had 10 years to get adjusted to the idea of a poly relationship, but I haven’t.  So yeah, before we do anything more, we all need to think.  Separately.”

Hayden yanked on his jeans and then started walking towards me while he worked on his shirt.  “I don’t like the sound of that.  I’m worried if we let you leave again, you’ll disappear.  That’s what you were planning on doing last night, right?”

I waved him off, returning my attention to the ocean, where the rain had long since let up and the sky was slowly lightening.  “I was, but that’s pointless now, you know what’s going on.  I won’t run away.”

“So,” Vance tugged his own shirt on, “you’ll be at your place later?  Or at the restaurant?  Where should we meet you?”

Right, I’d forgotten about that small detail.  “I’m not returning to town,” I informed them.  “I’m going to where my friend lives.  I’ll give you the address, you can meet me there if you want.  It’s another town further down the coast.”

“Why – wait, is this because of us?”  Hayden demanded.  “You already packed up your life that quickly?  But you don’t even have luggage with you!”

I gave him a snarky smile.  “’Course not, I’m swimming there.  You two have to take the old-fashioned land route to get there, so no, you don’t get to come with me.  Get there on your own.”

Vance grabbed my hand abruptly.  “But you will meet us there?”  His intense eyes were burning, worried.  “You promise?”

I hesitated just a second before nodding.  “I promise I’ll meet you there.  If I’m not on shore when you arrive, you can go to my friend’s place and let him know I sent you.  He’ll know where to find me.”  I gave them the address, making sure they memorized it since they didn’t have a way to write it down at the moment.  “I’ll do some thinking as I swim and you had both better think over what I said, too.”

“Fine, fine, we will.”  Hayden reached out to pull me into a warm hug.  “You’d better be there, Morgan,” he whispered just before letting me go.  “We can’t lose you again.”

I accepted his hug, then one from Vance, before looking them both in the eyes.  “I promise,” I repeated.  “I will be there.”  I pointed out how they could get back to town with minimal swimming involved.  “And be careful,” I added, my expression fierce as I glared them down.  “If you see anything you think might be supernatural, don’t indicate you saw or heard it, don’t talk about this stuff in public or to anyone else, got it?”

They both nodded obediently.  I got the feeling they wanted to hug me again, but I was also worried if I let them I might never walk out of here, so with one quick wave I was across the beach and down into the water.  I gave them a flip of my tail after I transformed and then headed into deeper water.

Naturally, I didn’t actually leave the area until I was sure they were back in town safely and didn’t manage to catch an undertow or something trying to get back from the cave – because they were totally capable of getting bad luck like that – but thankfully their journey back to town was uneventful.

Which meant I could now turn my attention to my own journey – and a lot of thinking.