wip amnesty, continued. #10.

[parcae]

big bang BOOM. May 7 2008. General bandom; AU. I started this for BBB last year; it's an Animorphs AU. 8413 words.



"Hey, has your mom made that thing for dinner yet?" Ryan eyed Spencer almost beadily. "Because I know she bought stuff for it, I helped her put it away last week, and if she made it and you didn't tell me I might have to. You know. Cut you." It would have been almost intimidating if he hadn't picked that moment to try and get the theoretical rest of his soda out of his cup with the straw.

"Yeah, Ry, that's terrifying." Spencer rolled his eyes, grabbed the empty cup out of Ryan's hands and threw it away as they walked out of the mall. "Can you see how I'm actually shaking? Also, no, she hasn't made that meat loaf thing yet. She'd probably cut me if she made it and I didn't tell you. You know she loves you like the son she never had."

"So, okay, does that mean that you really are a girl, then?" William unfolded himself from the curb as Ryan and Spencer passed by, joining them. "Or are you insinuating that Ryan needs to distance himself from your mom so you can bask in the motherly affection he's stealing from you?"

"... um," Spencer said. "Hi, William."

"I'm going to assume from the way you didn't answer my question that my first guess was right," William continued, linking his arm through Spencer's. "I will consent to keep your secret safe if you promise that as soon as you're comfortable being up-front about it with the general public you grant me the honor of being the first person you sleep with."

Ryan snorted.

"Oh, now, don't be that way!" William leaned over Spencer to cast Ryan a sympathetic look. "You can watch, you know, if you like. Or maybe even join in, but I won't presume to speak for Spencer here. Is Spencer a unisex name? I've never met a girl named Spencer before you," he finished, leaning his head on Spencer's shoulder. "I think you have the panache to carry it, though. I have faith."

"You know, it's probably a foregone conclusion that nobody else can tell whether or not you're being serious, but do you at least know?"

"Oh, Spencer, if I knew, where would the fun in life be? Honestly, some days I don't think you enjoy yourself at all."

"There's a 'your mom' joke hiding in there somewhere," Ryan said, "but I honestly don't think it's worth the effort to try and dig it out. I'd appreciate it if you both pretended I did, though."

"That's what she said," said a voice that sounded suspiciously like it came from Jon.

"Heaven knows you've got plenty of experience in that department," William responded, sticking his tongue out. Which didn't really do anything, since Jon was, theoretically, behind them, but Spencer figured it was probably the thought that counted in this case.

Or just for William in general. Spencer wasn't really sure.

"You know that doesn't actually make any sense, right, Bill? I mean," Jon said, finally coming into the light, arm around Brendon's shoulders, "I know where you were trying to go with it? But you, like, completely failed in the delivery."

"Jon, Jon, you wound me, really." William untangled himself from Spencer and moved over to Jon, somehow managing to not actually boot Brendon away in the process. It was no mean feat. But then, Spencer remembered, Jon and William were actually pretty good friends. Better friends than William was with Spencer and Ryan, anyway.

Actually Spencer sort of thought he had this memory from a week or two ago of Jon getting some guys at school to stop picking on William. For some reason he just -- it was almost like he put on asshole spray in the morning, just to get them all to come right directly to him. It wasn't like William was even doing anything, really; he didn't sleep around, all evidence to the contrary aside, or party too hard, or anything that would really put a target on his back. He was just sort of strange, kind of. Almost endearingly strange, maybe, but even still.

Jon was pretty good at being asshole repellent, though. Spencer figured it was a gift.

Then again, Jon was pretty gifted. For one thing, he was pretty much best friends with Brendon, and Brendon was, well. He was something special, anyway, and Ryan could just shut up with his knowing looks. Close his eyes with his knowing looks. Or what Ryan thought were knowing looks, anyway. The execution tended to fail.

"I can get my sister to fix you up, if you want, you know," Brendon said, grinning and patting William's back. "I bet she'll even do it free, since she gets human patients so rarely."

William pretended to swoon. "Why do you threaten me so, Brendon, I have never been anything but kind to you. Yes, I may have spread some horrid rumors around school implicating you in a string of homosexually pornographic incidents, but I was the other star, and had those films actually existed they would never have been anything but tasteful, I promise you."

"I believe you, dude. Completely. I would go as far as saying I'd bet my life on it." Brendon wasn't grinning anymore, but it was almost like he was with the way his face was lit up. "But then I'd also bet my life on the fact that Jon was right, you didn't make any sense at all, so maybe you shouldn't listen to me."

"Brendon, you are my favorite," William said, reaching over and running a hand through Brendon's hair. Spencer almost laughed when Brendon made a noise that might have been a purr in its former life and pushed into it. He cut it off before it could really go anywhere, though, when he saw the smirk on Ryan's face; sure, the dude failed completely at knowing looks, but smirks he could do in his sleep.

And actually had, once or twice. Or thirty-seven times. But who was counting, really?

"Okay, we're basically walking along the fence of this thing, why don't we just cut through? It's barely dark," Ryan said, "we'll be safe. And there's an opening right up there."

"Hey, as long as you're willing to chase off the crazy axe-murderers, I'm game," Spencer said, and ducked through the gap. It was a joke, mostly, but the construction site had been this side of abandoned for almost six months now and there was a little risk involved. Then again, there was also risk involved in walking alone on the streets at this time of night, and look how well they'd been doing so far.

Spencer could maybe allow that this was also partially because there were five of them, but if that gave them an edge outside, he couldn't really see that it would change that much inside.

"Define crazy axe-murderers," Brendon said, stepping through last. "Because I know I should've brought this up before, but I maybe have an axe under my bed and sing it songs when I can't fall asleep."

"As long as you're not a murderer, I really don't care," Ryan said, blinking a little as he looked around. "It's a lot bigger in here than I thought."

"Yeah, well, we might as well keep going now we're in," Jon said. "I think it's that way."

As they walked, William kept his head tilted up a little, so he could watch the sky, maybe. It wasn't like the sky was any different in the construction site than it had been on the sidewalk, but it looked like it was working, so Spencer really wasn't going to complain. Especially since William had this dreamy sort of half-smile on his face, too.

"Uh," William said, a few minutes later, and the smile had dropped off his face. "Have I actually progressed to full-on hallucinations, or can the rest of you see that up there?"

"See what," Spencer started, but then he looked, and yeah, no, that was definitely not a hallucination unless it was being shared by two people. Or, wait, no, five people, because Ryan and Jon and Brendon were staring up at the sky now too, unable to look away from the weird blue light.

The weird blue light that was moving unnervingly fast, and looked like it was coming closer and closer every second. Well, okay, that was sort of a lie, since the closer it got the slower it seemed to be going, but if something started out going incredibly fast, half that speed would still be pretty damn quick.

"Is that." Spencer started the sentence fine, but he couldn't really get the last half of it out. He just couldn't. When he finally turned away, the first person he saw was Jon, who looked like he was having the same problem. Ryan, too.

Brendon, though, not so much. "Holy shit, it's a flying saucer," he said, and despite Spencer's instincts screaming at him, he couldn't laugh. Nobody else laughed, either, because the light kept getting closer, and pretty soon it was an object instead of a pinprick, and then it was a. Well maybe not a saucer, technically, but spaceship?

Yeah, definitely a spaceship. It looked sort of like a bug, maybe, Spencer figured, with little things on each side that looked like wings and everything. Suddenly he couldn't remember, though, and he thought maybe bug was wrong, because he was pretty sure that something had to be an insect to be a bug, really, and were scorpions bugs? Because that thing, uh, it had looked perfectly fine until he'd seen the back end.

Scorpion was a misnomer, maybe, but it was as close as Spencer could really get; it was a tail, yes, it curved up and over, yes, but it didn't really have the bulb at the end like a scorpion's tail did. Sharp, though, didn't really even look like a question. He almost felt like he'd given himself a tiny puncture wound just looking at it, and oh, oh, it was definitely landing.

A spaceship was landing in the abandoned construction site. Right in front of them.

"Okay, uh, the rest of you do see a flying saucer, right? Nobody's said anything, I'm starting to get kind of worried here." When Spencer looked over Brendon was biting his lip, looking at each of them in turn; Spencer nodded a little when Brendon got to him, and then looked back at the. Spaceship. "Right, uh, just checking."

"Yeah, no, I see it," William said, half a moment later, his voice kind of dreamy. "You think we should tell someone?"

"Well spaceships are kind of important," Jon said. "In the long run. Yeah, we really should probably go tell someone."

"Right," Ryan said softly, a second later, "yeah. Totally."

But nobody moved, and then the ship had officially landed, the light finally cutting out.

Spencer bit at the inside of his cheek a little, barely resisted the urge to bite his lip instead. "Should one of us maybe try to talk to it? I mean, maybe ..."

Maybe what, he really didn't know. William seemed to be okay with it, though, approaching slowly, hands held up in the universal I'm Unarmed And There's Nothing Else In Either Of My Hands So Please Don't Shoot Me gesture. "We're safe," he said, and the words were surprisingly clear. "Nobody's going to hurt you if you come out. We promise."

"Why would an alien be able to speak English?" Jon asked under his breath.

"Babel fish," Ryan said, matching Jon's tone. "Not that whatever's in there will be able to actually hear us, probably, but if this is happening I see absolutely no reason that it can't be using a Babel fish."

"Shut up," William said, shooting Ryan a scowl, and then turned back to the ship and went a little closer. "Please, we won't hurt you if you come out."

Spencer -- well it's not like he'd been moving much anyway, standing behind William trying to decide whether or not they were all going crazy, but all the same he froze. He knew that someone had just said "Yeah, I know," but it hadn't been in any voice he could recognize.

Also there was the matter of how there hadn't actually been any sound attached to the voice. That was more important, really, all things considered. Spencer couldn't actually turn away from the ship now, but he cut his eyes to the side, and Ryan's eyes met his. So that was encouraging. And Jon was turning his head back and forth, just slightly, like he was trying to figure out where the voice had come from without actually looking away.

Shared hallucination, then, if anything. Spencer figured that was better than nothing.

"We all heard that, right, guys?" William asked, a little quieter than normal. Spencer nodded when William looked at him, and Jon and Brendon and Ryan did too. "Okay. Do you think you can come out?" he finished, louder again.

"Don't worry. We'll be fine," said William, and Spencer considered saying speak for yourself, but someone else, maybe Ryan, got there before him. He grinned despite everything, but then a line of white light appeared in the side of the ship, and he felt the grin disappear off his face, entranced.

The line turned into a solid spot of light, which turned, a second later, into a shadow surrounded by brightness, and then that turned into a figure that stepped out of the ship very slowly, almost carefully, maybe.

At first Spencer thought that the -- person? -- looked like a, what were they called? Splice? Of a human with a deer, even though he remembered hearing that human DNA didn't take very well to being spliced. After his eyes adjusted, though, he tossed that theory out the window, because no. A resounding no.

Sure, there were four legs on the body, and then a torso above it with two arms, and then a head on top of the shoulders, but. As far as Spencer could see the body was covered with fur that was kind of blue. Actual blue, not the kind of blue on kittens. And the skin was blue, too.

And also -- okay, he was going to go ahead with calling it a person, because otherwise there would just be problems, Spencer figured -- there was the whole thing with the head, when Spencer finally got there. It was kind of. Missing a mouth. If in this context "kind of missing a mouth" was taken to mean "had three vertical slits instead of a mouth".

The eyes on the tips of the horns coming out of his head, yeah, they kind of killed that theory off too. They moved.

And oh, Spencer thought, a second later. Yeah, uh, the alien had a tail, and if the eyes were unnerving then he didn't really think he had a word for what the tail was; it looked almost normal, except for how it looked incredibly strong and flexible, and also how there was seriously a blade on the end of it. A really sharp-looking blade, Spencer thought, and uh.

"Hi," William said, and for some reason he was smiling. But then Spencer blinked, and realized that he was smiling too, grinning again. They all were.

he said, without a mouth.

"Hi," they said back, almost in unison, and Spencer would have found it funny, maybe, if he'd had time to think about it.

The alien took another step forward, but his knees gave out halfway through and he collapsed. William tried to catch him, but it didn't help, and he fell to the ground in a heap.

"-- oh my god, you guys, he's hurt, look," Brendon said, moving forward, and pointed to a nasty-looking burn that all but covered the side of the alien that wasn't touching the dirt.

"Do, should we call you an ambulance? Can we help?"

"Yeah, Ryan, good idea, we can totally bandage that, uh," said Brendon, who looked like he was about to pull his shirt off and start, like, making it into bandages. His sister was a vet, though, Spencer knew. He was around animals all the time. And this was sort of an animal, maybe.

"No!" Spencer said before he could stop himself, and realized a second later that they'd all said it at the same time.

"You can't die," Jon said. "You're the first alien to ever come here. You just can't, okay?"

Spencer barely had time to register that, yeah, at least it looked like he wasn't the only one who couldn't stand the idea of this alien dying, even though he didn't know why, before he heard the alien respond:

"Others. Like you?" Ryan asked.

he said, shaking his head, and then he doubled over from where he'd managed to sit up a little on the ground. He screamed silently, and Spencer's chest hurt. He knew he'd just felt this alien dying, but he refused to think about that, put it out of his mind completely. As completely as he could, anyway. the alien said again, when he'd recovered a little.

"Different how?" Spencer was thinking -- to be honest he wasn't really thinking anything specifically. Difference in shape, maybe, like the others looked even less human.

The alien blinked once, and then he said,

And it was crazy, but Spencer just. He knew that he was telling the truth, even though he wanted so badly for it not to be. He just knew.

he went on to say.

"Here on Earth?" Brendon asked,

"Um. Why hasn't anyone mentioned them?" Ryan seemed like he hated to say it, but it was reasonable, Spencer thought.

he said. < They're different. They don't have bodies, not like you have bodies, not like I've got a body. They live in the bodies of others. They --> He stopped, all of a sudden, and then in Spencer's mind there was this incredibly vivid picture of a thing. It was slimy, a truly awful shade of grayish-green, and maybe the size of a rat, or something. It was horrible, and Spencer almost wished he could un-see it, and yet.

"That was a Yeerk?" he asked, like he didn't already know the answer.

Another scream, another wave of pain made Spencer's heart hurt.

He paused, and Spencer wanted to ask why he was telling them all this, why he wasn't taking it to the government, where he could get help, but a second later the alien was talking again.

he said.

"But ... how? I mean," Brendon said, "it's a spaceship."

he said, sitting up a little straighter,

"Nobody's going to believe us," Ryan said, and Spencer could hear the hopelessness in his voice. "We're just kids, they'll think ..."

"Okay, we have to get him to a hospital, I don't care what he says," Jon said, "or your sister, Brendon, or something."

he repeated.

"What?"

Everyone looked at Jon. "Go," said William, "I want to stay out here with him." He shook his hair out of his eyes and knelt down, put a hand on the alien's shoulder. It looked really big compared to how narrow the alien was.

Jon looked around, drew a breath to say something, but then he caught Ryan's eye and Ryan half-smiled at him. And in he went.

Less than two minutes later, he reappeared, blue box in hand. "Here," he said, handing it over.

said the alien.

Jon sort of drew another breath, Spencer thought, but then maybe he -- Spencer couldn't tell, actually, but whatever it was he let it go and stayed silent.

He put up a hand before any of them could say anything.

"Power?" someone asked. It might have been Spencer. He wasn't really sure.

"Morph how?" That was Jon, Spencer knew.

he said. said the Andalite, and Spencer could feel the hatred coming off of him.

"I'm in," William said immediately. "We have to do this. There's no choice here."

"This is crazy," Ryan said again under his breath.

Spencer found Ryan's hand and squeezed it once, then said "I'll do it."

"What about you, Jon?" Brendon asked, and they all looked at him. It was weird, but it felt right to Spencer, so he just raised an eyebrow.

Jon looked back at the sky, where the lights were coming closer and closer, and for a second Spencer thought he saw him zone out, like he was looking at something in his mind's eye. And then he looked at each of them in turn, and he nodded. "We've got no choice," he said.

Then there were five human hands pressed up, close together, and one blue hand, with a few too many fingers.

the Andalite said, and suddenly a shock ran through Spencer. It was kind of tingly. He looked around, holding everyone's eyes for a second.

The alien paused, and Spencer got a flash of new dread crawling up and down his vertebrae. Was there something else up there?

"We'll stay with you," Brendon said, the resolve in his voice too. "Maybe we can help."

They all looked up, and Spencer could see that there was another ship up there, along with the two -- what? Bug fighters? yeah, he thought that's what the Andalite had called them -- Bug fighters, the red lights in the sky. It was huge, and black, and terrifying, even though Spencer could barely see it.

"How are we supposed to fight them?"

"Guys, we've got to go!" Jon all-but-shouted. Spencer had felt the strength of the command, too, and started to run. William didn't, though, instead trying to stay near the Andalite. He was still kneeling, and took the alien's hand; then the alien put his other hand on William's forehead, and he rocked back like he'd been hit. Then he was off and running too.

Spencer hit the ground, rolling a few times before he ended up sprawled in the dirt, his leg glowing in a circle of spotlight coming from one of the fighter ships, and fuck. He pulled it back, crawled back until he was crouching with everyone else, hiding behind a half-finished wall.

As the ship came closer, Spencer could finally see where it looked like it meant to land, although there was a huge bulldozer in the -- oh, no, never mind that. The ship got a little closer, and Spencer heard a sizzling sound, and then the bulldozer was gone.

It looked like nothing so much as one of those giant weapons from the olden days, a battle-axe or something. It was huge, and vicious looking, and what the hell was this thing holding if this was its ship, seriously? But oh, there it was, landing, and once it had settled a door opened.

Brendon started to scream, but Ryan clamped a hand over his mouth first.

The things that leaped off the ship looked like walking knives, with blades at their elbows and wrists and knees -- bent back the wrong way, but hey, it seemed to be working pretty fucking well for them -- and tails. And instead of mouths, their heads had these beaks. And then, yeah, just in case that wasn't enough, three horns that looked like daggers were coming out of each forehead.

Spencer heard, and when he cut his eyes around everyone else seemed like they'd heard it too. But it was a lot quieter than it had been before, seemed like he was straining to tell them.

"Yeah, right," Jon muttered, but then something else made its way out of the ship.

he said, and paused.

"That I got, yeah," Ryan said softly.

Spencer could see the things were huge, like ridiculously overgrown centipedes or something. They had dozens, maybe hundreds of legs holding up the back part of their bodies, the part on the ground; the top part was upright, with the legs turning into hands. All of them had four eyes, kind of like Jell-O or something. The thing that drew Spencer's attention, though, was the mouth, right at the end of the body. It stuck straight up into the air, and, okay, if there were maybe hundreds of legs, there were definitely hundreds of teeth.

There were too many of both of the things to count, just pouring off of the ship and spreading out, making a ring around the Andalite and his ship. And just in case things weren't bad enough already, well, they had guns too. Or, well. they were weapons, anyway, and they were pistol-sized, so Spencer figured it was safe to call them guns.

And then one of them, one of the Hork-Bajir, took one giant step toward them, gun raised, and Spencer actually felt like fainting for a second. The thing's head swiveled back and forth, trying to see through the dark.

the Andalite said.

Spencer clamped his mouth shut, tried to keep breathing quietly, although whether or not it worked, well. He figured he was doing just about as well as the others. And if that didn't give them away, their hearts had to, because Spencer's was pounding so loudly that that thing had to hear it.

Its head swiveled back around again, and Spencer saw his life ending, saw his limbs flying off his body as the blades slashed and hacked and oh, he had to breathe, he had to.

the Andalite said in Spencer's head.

And Spencer felt this wave of, of calm spreading through him. Well -- he was still terrified, yeah, but he could feel the panic that had been creeping up come under control. Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out.

Jon popped his head up, just enough so he could see over the wall, and Spencer heard him breathe in sharply. "They're standing at attention," he whispered, and when Spencer looked he saw that all of them, now, all the Hork-Bajir and all the Taxxons, were turned toward the big black ship.

And then one more figure appeared in the doorway, made its way to the ground, and Spencer felt like he couldn't breathe.

.

Visser Three was an Andalite. An Andalite? An Andalite-Controller, anyway.

the Andalite in the heap on the ground said, and Spencer huffed a laugh softly. He thought he could probably imagine.

Visser Three walked over to him, and if Spencer hadn't known which was which, he almost wouldn't have been able to tell them apart, except for how there was something -- something off about Visser Three.

he said, and Spencer almost had a heart attack.

"Can he hear our thoughts?" Ryan whispered.

"If he can," Spencer said, "we're nailed to the fucking wall."

The Visser eyed the Andalite's ship a little more carefully.

The prince said nothing. Spencer thought maybe, probably, eight was on the conservative side. The very conservative side.

Billions,> Visser Three said, The Visser took a step back, looked the prince up and down.

The prince stood. Spencer could see how much he hurt, but he also knew, from the little time he'd known the Andalite, that he wasn't one to cower in fear. He wanted to die on his feet.

And then the Visser was bleeding, and the prince's tail was striking once more, and a beam of light sprayed from the Andalite ship. Spencer could feel the heat from his place back behind the wall.

the Visser shouted, or as well as he could shout with this. Thought-speak, or whatever it was.

The ship glowed, disintegrated, and two Hork-Bajir grabbed the prince and dragged him in front of the Visser. Spencer squinted, thought for a second that he could see people in the shadows, but that was ridiculous, so he ignored it.

And then. And then Visser Three started to morph.

Soon, there was a monster where the Andalite had stood, with huge, tree-sized legs, and tentacles, and oh, the teeth. Spencer groped around in the dirt until he found Ryan's hand, and when he did he held on tight. This isn't real, he thought, this isn't.

The beast roared once, twice, and Spencer thought he heard someone whimpering. He could feel his brain rattling in his head just from how loud it was.

One of the tentacles reached out and grabbed the Andalite prince around his neck.

"No, no," Brendon whispered. "No, no, no, no."

"Don't look," Jon said softly, putting his arm around Brendon's shoulders and pulling him a little closer. On his other side, William was shaking; Jon grabbed his hand, held it tight.

Visser Three yanked the prince from the Hork-Bajir, pulled him straight up into the air. He struck with his tail, struck, struck, but even though he was trying it didn't do any good.

And then the beast opened up his mouth.

The next morning Spencer woke with a jolt to a litany of "Spencer, wake up. Spencer. Wake up, Spence," and Ryan's hands shaking him. And Ryan staring at him, but given the other two that really wasn't much of a surprise, really.

"Oh, thank fuck," Ryan said, a second later, moving out of Spencer's line of vision. "I've been doing that for like two minutes, Spence, what the hell."

"Yeah?" Spencer blinked a couple times, reached up to rub at his eyes. "Mmph. How long have you been awake?"

"Oh, well." There was a pause, and Spencer was pretty sure that Ryan had just shrugged there, even though Spencer had an awesome view of the ceiling but not much else. "I didn't sleep for very long."

Spencer groped around on the bed until he found Ryan's leg, and then punched it gently. "You should've woken me up or something, dumbass," he said, finally hauling himself up and resting his back against his bed's corner's other wall. "Were you just laying here all night? Or, oh." Notebook in Ryan's lap. Not surprising. "Still. I stand by my earlier comment of dumbass."

"Yeah, fuck you," Ryan said, kicking at one of Spencer's feet. "You were sleeping fine, up until a few minutes ago. I figured one of us should get some rest." He paused again, looked Spencer dead in the eye for a second and then looked away. "Bad dreams?"

"I don't -- " remember, was what he had meant to say, but before he could get it all out he realized that it wasn't true. He didn't even have to close his eyes to see it, and he could still hear everything perfectly in his mind -- the aliens, the ships. That blue cube.

Those horrible gnashing sounds.

"Were you," he started, and then found he couldn't actually go any further. He looked at Ryan, though, hoped against hope that maybe he'd figure out the question anyway.

In answer Ryan picked up the notebook and flipped it around so Spencer could see what he'd been working on. Ryan wasn't an artist, had been a writer as long as Spencer could remember, but the page was covered in sketches of deer-human hybrids with eyes on stalks and bladed tails, giant centipedes with too many teeth, walking food processors.

"Shit," Spencer said.

"Yeah."

"Does it -- I mean. Have you tried it?" Spencer couldn't actually control the words coming out of his mouth, apparently, because seriously? Seriously?

Ryan shook his head, though, pulled a shoulder up for a second and let it fall back down. "Although, uh. Your dog has perfect comedic timing."

"What?" Ryan gestured, so Spencer turned and saw Jackie, his sister's dog, thank you Ryan, standing in the doorway. "Oh."

"Yeah."

Spencer beckoned, and Jackie came right over, nosing at his hand. "Hey, boy. How are you, huh? You doing okay?" He scratched behind Jackie's ears a few times before petting his neck some. Jackie was enjoying it, obviously. And then, well. Sort of. Went into a trance, or something, just went still, and Spencer felt really, really weird.

About ten seconds later, though, Jackie was back again, and nosed at Spencer's hand one more time before running through the doorway and down the hall. Spencer could hear him clomping down the stairs.

"You think I should -- what should I do?"

"Hell if I know, dude," Ryan said, almost helplessly. He'd pushed his notebook to the side, by now, and was leaning forward some. "Just. Maybe try and concentrate on Jackie, on being him? Concentrate on dog-ness, or something. And get off the bed before you do, maybe, that might not end well."

"Wow, that's really encouraging, thanks." Spencer rolled his eyes, but it was a good piece of advice, so he stood and stretched before closing his eyes and taking a couple of deep breaths. What did it even mean to concentrate on dog-ness? It was ridiculous.

But all the same, he tried: he concentrated on Jackie's fur, and paws, and floppy ears, and nothing, nothing was happening at all. "Ryan," he said, opening his eyes, but Ryan was staring wide-eyed at Spencer's hands. "-- oh my god," he said when he looked down.

Because yeah, he had paws. And his arms were pretty fucking furry.

"Keep going," Ryan said quietly, still staring.

He wasn't really sure he could do this with his eyes open, so he closed them again, concentrating once more. A few seconds later he could actually feel himself shrinking, could feel the clothes falling off his body in a pile, could feel his bones shifting, maybe.

And then wow. Oh man oh man this place smelled fantastic, oh holy shit, it was amazing. He ran forward a few steps and buried his nose in Ryan's pajama pants, breathing deep, and oh, that was awesome. Yes. But oh, oh, the rest of the room had smells too! Over by the dresser, and the closet, and there was something over by the desk that clattered when he pawed at it, wow, wow.

But there was something else, too, something wrong. He could smell another dog in this room. What was another dog doing here? This was his room, this was his house, and no other dogs were ever ever allowed. He could smell where the dog had gone, though, after it had left the room, and he couldn't help growling a little before lowering his nose to the carpet and trying to follow the scent.

Trying, here, because he didn't get more than a few steps before he felt something pulling at his fur, and then a second later a hand cupping his throat gently. "Spencer. Spencer, snap out of it," he heard Ryan say, and oh.

"Holy shit, dude, you're doing what he did," Ryan said, and there was some surprise in his voice.

Spencer said, or. Whatever the equivalent was of whatever he was doing.

"Yeah, okay," Ryan said, and then the pressure was gone. He rubbed Spencer behind the ears before the footsteps told Spencer he was back on the bed, though, and oh that felt amazing. "What happened?"

Spencer turned around so he could see Ryan again, although the dog-vision really was kind of lousy, and sat down.

"That. That kind of makes sense, actually, if you think about it," said Ryan, tilting his head to the side. "You've got the body, you probably get some of the brain too."

Ryan shrugged. "Just concentrate on person-ness, I guess. Think about being Spencer."

It worked, actually. Although the Spencer he'd been thinking about had been clothed. His clothes were in a pile on the floor, though, so he didn't really know why he'd thought they'd be back on when he changed back. It was a good reason to put on clean clothes, though, and it's not like it was anything Ryan hadn't seen already.

"Okay, well, that'll be something you'll have to remember," Ryan said, a hint of a smirk on his face.

"Just me?" Spencer sat back on the bed, this time next to Ryan, so their shoulders were touching. "Not you?"

Ryan made a helpless noise in the back of his throat, and Spencer leaned on him a little. "I don't really think I can," he said a little later, looking resolutely at the wall across from them. "That guy was a prince, Spence, and that thing just killed him like it wasn't anything. My dad --"

"Yeah, Ry," Spencer said, leaned on Ryan a little more. Spencer had know n Ryan since they were five and six, and he could remember when Ryan had had both his parents, but his mom had taken off when Ryan was ten, and his dad hadn't taken it very well. Ryan was the only family his dad had left.

"But then again, that guy was a prince, and that thing just killed him like it wasn't anything. Don't we have to help, if we can?"

Spencer sighed, let himself fall down the wall until he could reasonably qualify himself as being in bed again, and tugged on Ryan's hand. "Yeah, I think you're right. Now come back down here, dude, at least try to get some sleep before we go meet up with Jon and Brendon and William."

The particular kind of silence that meant that Ryan was making a face at thin air fell, and then Ryan slid down the wall to the bed next to Spencer. "Did you check your phone and I just didn't notice?" he asked, shifting around a little and closing his eyes.

"No, but. Don't you think they're going to want to?"

"Fair enough."

Spencer closed his eyes. Right before he fell asleep, he felt Ryan's hand find his wrist and curl around it.

They met a few hours after lunch, out at Brendon's house. They lived in the suburbs, really, but Brendon's parents had managed to get a house that backed up on this huge grassy area that turned into a forest a few feet later. It was nice, since Brendon's sister did what she did with animals -- so, okay, they were on the outskirts of the suburbs, and beyond that was mostly wildlife, but a lot of it ended up injured somewhere in town, so she took in the ones she could and fixed them up. She and her husband had the house right next door, but the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, as everyone called it, had been built while she had still been living with her parents, so there it stayed.

William and Jon were standing on the grass when Ryan and Spencer got there, reading a newspaper article together. When Jon saw them approaching, he pushed it at Spencer. "Read this," he said, an edge in his voice Spencer didn't really understand.

The article was pretty run-of-the-mill, he figured; it said that there had been a disturbance in the abandoned construction site the night before, that a bunch of people had called in saying they'd seen flying saucers in the sky.

"So now the --" Ryan started, but Jon shook his head and gestured for them to keep reading.

And then the article said that the police had gone to the construction site and found some teenagers shooting off fireworks, but that the teenagers had run off when the cops had shown up. Apparently some unused fireworks had been found on the scene.

"That's not even remotely true," Spencer said blankly, reading further. The police had also completely squashed any rumors of flying saucers. They were make-believe, according to the cop the newspaper had gotten to.

"Yeah, keep reading, it gets better," William said.

The last sentence: A reward is being offered by the police department for any available information on these teenagers. It wasn't a complex sentence, sure, but Spencer still had to read it three times before he really processed it.

"They're in the cops," Ryan said slowly, like he didn't really want to say it but knew he had to.

"Yeah, kind of,"Jon agreed.

"Probably not all of them?" William shrugged.

"But if they're in the cops," Jon said, "they could be anywhere. Teachers, people in the media. The government?"

"Math teachers definitely," Ryan said, and Spencer grinned despite himself. Math was the only subject Ryan really disliked.

A silence fell over them, and Spencer bit his lip. He never bet on things, but he would have, then, would have bet that they were all thinking the same things that he was. This was crazy, this was insane, they were just kids. They couldn't do this. They could just ignore it, never use the power, forget it had ever happened.

He'd morphed once already, though, and he didn't think he could forget about it.

"Oh, hey, there's Brendon," Jon said, looking across the grassy area to where a black horse was coming out of the forest. There wasn't anyone on the horse, though; it was just running free.

It slowed as it reached the group, and suddenly Spencer knew.

"We've been out here for a while," said Jon, trying to explain, maybe. "He's really good at this."

A second later, the horse started to shift in on itself, and Spencer knew Jon was right, because while most of the rest of the horse was the same, it had Brendon's face. "Hey, guys," he said, and grinned, and then the rest of the horse body started to melt into human.

Spencer started to turn away, but before he did he saw that Brendon was wearing, like. An aerobics thing, almost. Unitard? Something like this.

He heard something that sounded suspiciously like the sound of tires on gravel, and when he spun around so did everyone else; they'd all heard it, and yeah, yeah, that was a police car there.

"Morph, Brendon. Now," Jon said as they casually stepped in front of him. "Now."

"Which way, though, human or horse," Brendon said, and Spencer could hear the panic in his voice. The horse was taking over, he thought.

"It doesn't matter, just go."

The police officer didn't have far to walk down the driveway before he was standing before the group, looking very much like he wanted to shove them apart. "Hey, kids. You, uh, you hiding something?"

"What?" William cocked his head a little, shook out his hair. "What do you mean?"

"Step back, all of you," ordered the cop.

They did, and all the cop saw was a fully-human Brendon in a hot pink unitard.

For a second the policeman looked confused, but then he shrugged.

"Can we help you, sir?" Spencer asked. It was probably better to just get him out as soon as possible, he thought. Something felt really wrong here.

"Oh, we're just making some inquiries around town," the cop said, still eyeing Brendon. "Trying to find out if anyone knows about those kids shooting off fireworks last night. What they did was really dangerous, see," he continued, "someone could have gotten hurt. So we want to find them."

"Well I don't know anything, officer, sorry," Jon said, lying through his teeth.

The officer turned toward him, looked at him carefully. "You know, son, you look kind of familiar. You know someone named Mike?"

"That's my brother," Jon said, and Spencer was surprised at how even his voice was. It was Jon, though, so Spencer figured he should have seen it coming.

"He's quite a young man," said the cop. "I know him a little, we've been to a few meetings of The Sharing together. You ever think about going to a meeting?"

"He invited me to the one tonight, actually," Jon said, and the cop nodded.

"You should really come," he said. "We have a lot of fun."

"Yeah, uh. That's what he said."

"Well, anyway. One of you call me if you hear anything about these kids. They're crazy, though, to warn you. They'll probably make up some story to hide how guilty they are. But you're too smart to believe that, right?"

"Yeah, he's a genius," Brendon said.

The policeman nodded one more time, then turned and got back in his car. As soon as it was gone, everyone took a deep breath and sighed.

"Okay, I vote our first rule be not to do anything to attract attention," Spencer said. "We have to keep everything secret." Not that it hadn't been interesting, but that had been way, way too fucking close.

Brendon laughed a little, embarrassed. "Yeah, I know it was stupid, but it was just so amazing. Just running. But no, that's a good rule."

"How'd you do it with clothes on?" Ryan asked.

"Lots of practice. And it only works with really tight clothes, I guess," Brendon said, and shrugged.

"So what do we do?" William asked.

"Where are Brendon and William?" Spencer asked when he got to the school.

"William's up there," Jon said, and pointed to the sky, where Spencer could see a red-tailed hawk circling. "And I've got no idea where Brendon is. I tried calling him, but his phone flipped to voicemail, and his mom didn't know when I called her."

"Shit. You think we should wait to go in until we find out what happened to him?" Spencer watched the sky,