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 a raptor.
Warnings: au on plot, violence, blood/gore, drama, angst, romance, how a thing-thing becomes a 'thang.'
Anticryptic
Chapter Two
He bared his teeth, catching the reflection in the ringleader's eyes as they widened. Red veined whites that got too big too fast as sharp teeth dropped down from his gums. Tasting the unsteady taint of his own red as the man stumbled backwards, almost taking out his cronies. Dropping the bat he'd been fisting with a damning sound as the asshole's mouth open and closed.
Because instead of ducking back and giving way, he straightened. Letting his claws slip free from where he'd dug them into the inside of his palms. Ignoring the blood seeping between his fingers as it pebbled across his hikers and the filthy blacktop at his feet.
"Billy, don't-"
He could tell the moment Alan saw him. Really saw him. It was all there in the hiccupping inhale, the pounding heart, the mangled syllables that stopped before they could become a word. All a thousand and one ways someone could start screaming without making a sound.
He turned away. Hating it. Knowing he wouldn't be able to handle what made it to the man's face. The fear. The disgust. All of it. Not from Alan. He just couldn't.
The second one rabbited along with the first, stumbling over themselves and scrambling away when he took a step forward. His shadow like a nightmare as it spread wide behind him. Backlit in the flickering orange lights at the mouth of the alley. Leaving their friend, the one holding the knife to Alan's throat, suddenly alone in the dark.
"Billy-"
Alan's fear scent was strong, acrid and almost overwhelming when he slowly turned back to face them. But it was the focus of the scent that confused him when Alan rasped his name. Expression so startlingly free of the horror and disgust he'd been sure he'd find there that he didn't believe it. Instead, he forced himself to raise his head and look directly at the thug behind him. Knife wavering dangerously against Alan's throat before-
"Dude, what's wrong with your eyes? That's sick. Like-"
He leaned down, crouching with muscles that still expected a tail to balance them. Hooking his claws around the handle of the bat before he straightened. Not once looking away from the knife and the blood and-
The bat splintered in his hands. Showering wood shards across the gutter as the asshole behind the knife jumped. Eyes darting from him, to the bat, to the mouth of the alley in quick succession.
Doing nothing to hold back the snarl this time as he advanced a step, then another. Forcing the man to retreat, upper lip trembling. Wrestling with Alan as the man started resisting. Holding his ground in a way that was so distinctly animal it made him want to-
"Drop the knife," he hissed, more raptor than human. Ignoring the sickening sting when the remaining splinters found the holes his claws had made on his palms and tried to bury deep.
The knife clattered to the ground with a cheap sound. A hallmark to the way the setting changed as the asshole backed away blubbering, hands up. Marking them moment Alan started breathing again. Throat working through a tentative swallow as his hand flew up to press against the shallow line of blood that ringed his neck like a ghoulish necklace.
"Leave," he spat, sharp teeth garbling the words. "Or I'll-"
But whatever threat he was going for ended up being pointless, because by then the asshole was already running. Falling as he scrambled down the alley, over a fence and into the weed choked gully that lined the roadway. Leaving them with nothing but the debris of their lives and a sudden silence.
He breathed, shuddery and queasy-sick as he turned away. Pivoting on his heel as the tacking slick of his blood added an unwelcome realism to what he could only assume was the end of everything. As far as he was concerned anyway.
Alan saw.
Alan knew.
Oh god, Alan.
"Billy?"
It was cautious. Careful in a gentle, patronizing sort of way. Caught somewhere between one tone people used to calm a frightened animal or to talk someone down from something worse. Either way he hated it.
Hell, he couldn't stand it.
Not from Alan.
He couldn't.
He kept his back to him, breathing hard. Trying to force his claws to recede as his chest ached with the hammering of his own heart. Blood pressure probably through the roof as Alan took a step forward. Looming behind him as he hunched his shoulders. Able to taste the cusping adrenaline as the man reached out and-
He ran.
He was still running. Even when he wrenched open his door and tossed himself – wheezing - into his apartment. Still running when he tripped over the rug and got the wind knocked out of him by the fall. Clutching at his ribs with too sharp nails as angry tears blurred his vision.
Because it was over.
All of it.
Whatever he and Alan had been working up too.
Whatever they could have been.
Gone.
He tucked an elbow under his chest and rested his forehead in the crux where his elbow dipped. Clammy with sweat and still breathing hard as frustration started to get the better of him. His free hand curled into a bloody fist against the floor. Resisting the urge to punch the shitty linoleum.
The truth was, he hadn't thought about the risk, he'd just reacted. Alan had been in danger and just like on the island, he'd known in that moment, whatever happened, saving Eric was the only call.
He didn't regret it.
He regretted himself.
Everything he was.
Everything he wasn't.
Most of all he regretted the fact that he couldn't hide forever and that sooner or later even the best-case scenario would probably involve Alan and him with a table between them. The older man shaking his head as his body said what his mouth was stalling on.
All those clever ways saying no without actually saying the words.
"Can I come in?"
He wasn't sure what he was expecting when he woke up from the deep, yawning abyss of his couch cushions a couple days later. Staring wide-eyed as whoever knocked did it again. Louder this time. Like they'd gotten up the nerve to commit to it. But either way, despite somehow bypassing the locked door and security buzzer in the lobby, he wasn't exactly surprised when he opened the door and found Alan standing awkward and rangy in the sallow lights of the hall.
He pushed off the door jam slowly with the point of his fist. Testing the firm of the bones before he finally nodded and let him inside.
"You've been drinking," Alan observed. Only slightly disapproving as his eyes flicked to the kitchen table and empty bottle of Jack he'd left from the night before. Still feeling queasy and unsteady as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. Ignoring it when the soft of his t-shirt threatened to ride up.
"So have you," he pointed out blandly. Knowing he'd probably be sick if he put any real feeling into it. Able to smell the whiskey and insomnia that was coming off the man in waves now that he was inside the apartment. It wasn't a good combination. Alan never drank the hard stuff. "And I don't blame you."
Alan sighed and set his hat down on the table. Expression cautious as much as earnest.
"I don't blame you either. How I reacted? You saved my life. Billy, I am sor-"
He jerked his head in a hard negative.
"Don't. Don't say it," he gritted, wheeling away. Putting distance between them again.
"I'm trying to thank you," Alan pointed out, frustrated.
"You don't need to thank me for that," he returned softly. "You weren't the one with the secret to hide either."
"You could have told me," Alan chided gently, cocking his head in that way he had.
He made a rude sound before he could stop himself. Laughing without humor has he dragged his hands over his stubble.
"How?" he asked flatly, tensing when Alan made to step forward. "When I first met you- out on the dig- you were still having nightmares. Even screaming yourself awake sometimes. Tell me how that conversation was supposed to go?"
Alan didn't say anything for a while after that. And neither did he. Each of them stuck with their own suffocating brand of quiet. Slowly processing everything as Alan's eyes darted from his hands, to his face, then back again.
The moment broke the same time Alan took a small step forward.
Something that sang like an overture and threatened to give him false hope.
"What are-"
"What am I?" he finished for him. Interrupting him when it seemed like he was about to trail off. Inhaling deeply enough that he could still smell the acrid scent of the mugger on the Alan's jacket. "Jurys still out on that. It's never exactly been safe enough to study seriously. That kind of stuff was basically drilled into me from a young age."
"There are more of you?" Allan breathed. "More people like you?"
He nodded.
The next breath he took was shuddery. Over-extending the capacity of his lungs as he closed his eyes and let the shift happen. Shoulders hunching as the agonizing tear of his claws pierced pain through raw nerve beds. Feeling his incisors drop like an after-thought, parting his lips as the jagged points flirting with the outside of his lips.
"This is what I am," he said simply, unable to hold back the full body tremor. Needing Allan to see it. To have a chance to see him behind the sharp black talons and vicious teeth. To see all of it. Everything.
He thought about opening his eyes on the helicopter and seeing Alan's face for the first time since the bird cage.
He thought about second chances and the expression on the man's face when he'd smiled up at him.
High on morphine but soaring higher still as the air above his head thickened with Alan's scent.
When he opened his eyes, Alan expression was a gamut.
Frightening him enough that his mouth started moving again.
"I didn't tell you because-"
"I don't care," Alan broke in bluntly.
He blinked.
"You don't-"
"No, Billy. I don't. Not about any of it," Alan murmured. Clear and strong as the space between them narrowed until there was nothing left. Until it was only Alan and him and- "I just care about you."
Something in him sagged. The part that'd been waiting for the dismissal. The careful half-mile of distance. The moment Alan told him they were done. Whatever they had - whatever they'd been working towards - was over.
Because it didn't come.
And part of him just couldn't comprehend that.
He flinched when calloused knuckles brushed across his cheek. Following the curve down to the point of his chin before tipping it up. Looking at him for a long stretch - awkward and tense - where all he could hear was the hammering of heartbeats before-
The kiss was soft and careful-sweet. Somehow managing to be nothing and exactly what he'd expected when he'd thought about how this moment would go. And he appreciated it more than words could express.
When so many things in his life were violent and sharp, to have this start with something gentle was everything.
Still, he wasn't quite expecting it when Alan broke away to laugh. Leaving him shy and greedy as he followed the man's lips for more. Shivering at the sensation when Alan chuckled into them.
"What?" he breathed. Unable to help from grinning as the smile on Alan's face transformed into something he remembered from the back the man's first book. One of those dog-earred copies he'd re-read over and over long before he finally met him. Before the park. Before the money problems. Before a lot of things.
Alan just shook his head, smile wide.
"I just remembered something- about the plane before we crashed. I was dreaming and- oh hell, remind me to tell you later."
Alan was kissing him again, crushing him up against the sofa before he could even so much as open his mouth. Sending electric thrill from nerves he'd figured had gone dark a long time ago. Lighting him up in a distinctly human way as the animal under his skin let go of an approving rattle.
Later was fine with him.
A/N: This story is now complete. Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think.