Disclaimer: I don't own "Jurassic Park" or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: This is essentially my attempt to explain that ridiculous scene in the plane in Jurassic Part III, where Alan dreams that Billy waking him up is really a raptor.

Warnings: Billy is like a raptor!shifter thing and I swear that makes sense somehow, au on plot, violence, blood/gore, drama, angst, romance, how a thing-thing becomes a 'thang.'

Anticryptic

Chapter One

Dinosaurs didn't go extinct.

They evolved.

Some of them more than others.

He spent the entirety of his undergrad willing to give his eye teeth just to be able to tell the great Doctor Alan Grant exactly that.

He grew out of it around the same time he woke up in the middle of the night during his first dig in Montana to the sound of nightmares. Air saturated with an acrid fear-scent so strong it set him on edge. Restless. Looking up at the stained canvas of his second-hand tent as the sounds carried from Doctor Grant's trailer like he had his ear pressed against the metal. Enhanced hearing more of a curse than a blessing as he listened to the breathless, broken up words and baser whimpers. Tension and fear only occasionally softened by the slur of sleep as the man fought his way through them the same way he did everything.

"Tim! No! Breathe, Tim!"

"Ellie- run!"

"The door locks- it's coming- don't-"

It made him realize, with the worst sort of clarity as the sounds eventually spaced out into nothing, that if he ever told Alan the truth he'd probably just be another monster.

Jurassic Park hadn't just killed people, it'd killed Doctor Grant's sense of wonder.

The deep, abiding love he'd had for the animals he'd dedicated his life to.

At the end of the day, despite how it sounded, he didn't know what was worse.

He didn't know the exact science behind it. Trying to get anywhere close to a solid answer was too dangerous. That had been hammered into him by his parents. Don't talk about it. Don't shift. Don't draw too much attention to yourself. Don't fall in with the wrong people. Keep your head down. Don't stand out. Don't trust anyone who wasn't like them. Never. Ever. Reveal. What. You. Are.

All he did know, was that somewhere along the line their genetic codes had melded. Diluted into something almost humanoid. Enough that eventually humans and the descendants of the dinosaurs intermixed. Evolving together and separately until they were almost indistinguishable from the rest of humanity.

And for the most part they were.

With a few distinct advantages.

Telling Alan and the others to go and leave him on Isla Sorna had been two-fold. It got them out of danger and allowed him to start thinking about saving his life. Freeing him to use his claws and the razor-sharp teeth that shivered painfully out of his gums more or less on command. It hurt. Christ, did it hurt. But the truth was that part of him had always been quick to rise to the surface. Whenever he was angry or scared, whenever his adrenaline spiked too high. But he'd always clamped it down at the last second. Keeping it controlled.

Until that moment.

For the first time in his adult life, he shifted. Almost feral-high at how embarrassingly freeing it was as he snarled a warning. Gagging river water as he slammed against a rock, heart thudding painfully against bruised ribs. Sharp teeth and hooked claws giving him a fighting chance against the circling Pteranodon.

He slashed wildly whenever they swooped down. Trying to slice through the thin membrane of their wings as sharp beaks gouged down his shoulders and chest. Pebbling the water with snaking red ribbons he caught out of the corner of his eye as the river morphed into vicious downhill rapids.

It was only by chance that he was able to sink his teeth into one of the larger bird's powerful thighs. Pulled half out of the water as tried to rip itself way, screeching in pain. Flooding his mouth with the tart of alien blood - dark and ancient-thick that he swallowed without even thinking. The monster under his skin suddenly ravenous as he sank his claws into the soft of the creature's under belly and slashed down with the last of his strength.

The Pteranodon dropped him. Leaking it's insides in a steaming plume as his claws suddenly met empty air. Almost crushed by the thing's weight as it collapsed into the river behind him with a dying screech.

The others hesitated, leaving him alone as they wheeled indecisively overhead. Clearly thinking twice about coming near this new, unexpected threat as he bobbed with the current - bleeding and exhausted. Slamming into rocks and fallen trees. Trying to hook his claws into something- anything- as the river took him further and further away from Alan and the others.

He bared his teeth.

No, Alan needed him.

He couldn't-

He needed to-

One of the younger ones - too hungry to let such a meal go so easily - swooped low. Forcing him to gargle river water as he snarled and hissed. Bleeding thick and fast in the rushing water as the current shifted. Sloping in front of him before-

The waterfall had been well timed, if not painful. Giving him a chance to hide in a rocky alcove just behind the water. There was just enough space between the cliff face and the waterfall for him to cling to. Fisting the rocks for dear life as the Pteranodon circled high, trying to find him. Able to hold on long enough for it to move on before he let the river take him back. Too tired to put up a fight this time as the current sucked him down to the bottom. Dotting black-out stars across his vision as he filled his lungs with-

He didn't remember hitting the water.

Or the trip down stream.

But he did remember catching Alan's scent in the faded brown smudge of his hat caught in a tangle of branches. Claws sinking into the soggy brim just in time as he whirled past. Feeling something in him break, along with the dull grate of broken ribs, as the water muted the scent even more.

He'd been half conscious when the current took him to the coast and even less so when the military showed up. Bundling him into a helicopter as he clutched Alan's hat. Hoping to hell he'd get a chance to make it up to him

Even then he knew he had a lot to atone for.

If Alan gave him the chance.

Which he did.

He spent a long time thinking he didn't deserve it and longer hating himself. But somehow, in that quiet understated way he had, Alan showed him how. Because even when he was certain the man had to secretly hate him, Alan was there through the hospital stay and the physio. He was even there during those long hours in his office pouring over his thesis. And eventually the longer ones spent together, huddled in the back both of a shitty bar. Nursing beading beers, mutual PTSD and generally something way too high in cholesterol.

And just like the man's lectures, the point sank in slowly, but no less as powerful. At the end of the day Alan knew why he'd taken the eggs. Or at least part of the reason. He understood. It'd been for him. To give the dig a few more seasons. To give him more time to find a way for paleontology to exist in a world where the gap between eons seemed to be rapidly closing in.

Apparently, the difference between greed and stupidity meant something in the long run.

Because it wasn't long before Alan started smiling at him again.

Not that he deserved it.

Not with the secrets he was keeping.

Because the other reason - the one he kept on the inside of his teeth - was seeped in guilt. Guilt for not being honest. Guilt for hiding what he was from the most important person in his life. Guilt for keeping a lid on the biggest discovery of the man's career. Something that could probably save the entire profession if they played their cards right.

Him.

So, like he said, he didn't deserve the smiles, the forgiveness or the attention.

But at the end of the day, the truth was that he was too weak not to take it anyway.

Too selfish and hungry not to cling to every word, every moment- all of it.

He figured that if anything, at least Alan wasn't alone in his nightmares anymore.

It took a long time to get things back to normal. And honestly, it wasn't the same. Not quite. He didn't know of they ever could be. And that was good and bad respectively. Because if life was a road, Isla Sorna had been a crossroads. They might have ended up in the same place, but they'd branched off and taken different routes to get there.

The island had changed them, for better and for worse.

Because along with the tension and the night terrors, there was an electricity to the moments they shared now. Free of the social constraints that had tempered their behavior when he'd been Alan's student, then employee. Now there was an anticipatory sort of maturity that made him wonder what might have happened if they'd been lost on the island alone. The kind of 'almost' he figured had the ability to turn into a screaming fist fight or one of them finally snapping and punching the other in the lips with a brutal kiss.

It was just a matter of what came first.

The problem was, he was pretty sure Alan was as oblivious as ever. It wasn't that he doubted the feeling in his gut or anything. No. More that he doubted Alan's ability to give out the right signals. Even if he wanted too. Which complicated things. Obviously. Because hell if Alan seemed to realize that they sat just a bit too close these days. That it was him Alan sought out whenever the man blinked himself out of a grant proposal or a paper and realized he'd wandered off. Or that they argued just a bit too passionately – flirtatious, testing and pleased - for those old, tired labels to really apply anymore.

Sometimes, when he was especially frustrated, he wondered if Alan was doing it on purpose. If he just couldn't help himself when he leaned in close or started seeking him out more and more. But kept the rest tucked away like an escape route. Like stepping over that last line wasn't something he was willing to risk.

Some day he'd have to meet Dr. Sattler and ask.

In the end, how it happened, how it all came spilling out, was stupid.

It was ridiculous, avoidable and so far into the realm of shitty luck and timing that he didn't know if there was a word in the English language to describe how much the universe apparently had it in for him.

They were celebrating the successful defense of his thesis when some mugger high on something – along with a couple of his equally strung-out friends - ambushed them outside the bar.

"Don't even think about it, pretty boy."

They had a knife to Alan's throat faster than he could process. Sending the man's hat tumbling into an oily puddle as Alan said something- hands raised as much as the asshole's grip would allow. Murmuring out something soothing, disarming. Something that might have even worked if the rank stink of brain-fever and chemicals weren't burning the inside of his nostrils every time one of them so much as twitched.

"Just hand over the goods, wallets, watches, rings, all of it and we ain't got a problem. Yell and I slit the old guy's throat before you can finish. Got it?"

An angry hiss rattled from somewhere low in his throat. Barely masked by the snarl of steam leaving the vents from the bar kitchen. Shimmering the night in golden aerosol showers as half-burned grease seeped into the dark.

But Alan heard it.

Startling enough that the knife cut a couple millimeters into the pale of his throat. Knowing that sound even better than he did as the raptor that shared the space under his skin all but writhed. Rising fast to the surface as the wounded line of red tarted the air. Making Alan flinch the same moment he passed the point of no return.

He exhaled in a rush and let his darker bones loose.

A/N: There will be one more chapter. Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think.

Reference:

* Anticryptic: of or pertaining to camouflage used by a predator to provide stealth, as opposed to camouflage used by prey to hide.