A/N: Minor blood warning

Spectrum (POST)

Phil was the one at home when Mark and Jack came back, looking a mixture of guilty and befuddled. They took off their raincoats and shook off their umbrellas, the downpour becoming muffled as they closed the door.

"Something up?" He asked.

"No, no; everything's good," Mark's voice was strained, and he coughed.

Phil raised an eyebrow, but didn't push. He was incredibly curious, but he knew that Jack was sure to tell him if Mark took too long.

After all, the Irishman wasn't one to keep secrets.

Phil went back to playing his dragon game on his phone, while Jack went to take a shower, and Mark went to get started on dinner. Phil barely even thought about his game, playing on muscle memory alone, as his mind tried to puzzle out what could possibly make Jack and Mark act this way.

Felix, his mind supplied.

He paused his game. 'Oh yeah, didn't Mark mention that he and Jack were meeting up with Felix after work? He wanted to show them something.'

Phil and Dan had met the Swede a few times; apparently he had been eager to meet them, icy blue eyes analyzing them each time. It turned out that Felix himself was one of the very few pureblooded aliens that could be found on Earth - the language of the original species closer to Swedish than anything else, hence why his ancestors had travelled there after crash-landing.

Their name translates to something vaguely like 'Informant' in English; an apt name, as they're great at analyzing and recognizing any species in the galaxy. They can also figure out your relatives based on look and scent alone. Supposedly, away from Earth, they can even send telepathic messages by tapping into a radio or broadcasting system. But Felix had never been able to confirm it.

Honestly, he was a nice guy all around, calling them 'bros' and cursing almost more than Jack. He seemed normal.

There was just. . .this puzzlement in his eyes, whenever he saw Phil. Like he couldn't place him.

Honestly, Phil's alien heratige, or possible lack there-of never bothered him in the slightest. But he couldn't help the jarring unsettledness he got from such moments.

Like he didn't belong.

"Ow! Son of a-"

Phil leapt off the couch to get the first aid kit, earlier queries falling away. Even though Mark was a great chef, he had a terrible streak getting himself injured, especially with hot oil.

Phil smiled when Dan came home, face lighting as he smelt marinara sauce.

"Mark cook?"

"Mark cooked."

"Of effing course he cooked," Jack grumbled, rubbing his freshly-showered hair vigorously with a towel. "Otherwise it'd smell like burnt turd in 'ere."

Mark laughed. "Oh shut it; you're just jealous that I'm a better cook than you," he said with faux-arrogance, hands on his hips.

"Calm the eff down, Sassy McGee."

"Make me."

"Ughh, ye're such a child."

Phil snuck past the two, tilting his head for Dan to the follow. They managed to fill their plates to the brim, and each grab a hunk of garlic bread before Mark noticed them sneaking back.

"Wha- hey! You guys are supposed to wait to be served! Did you guys get a double portion - get back here!"

The two Brits held back laughter as they dodged their American friend, Jack taking the opportunity to calmly serve himself.

"Calm yet tits, Mark; just get some food already."

Mark eventually did so, grumbling the whole time.

Dinner passed by fairly calmly, though Phil's earlier frantic curiousity raged halfway through. It must have thrown Dan off, because he nearly choked as he bit too heftily into his garlic bread. A ringing of what what what? bounced back to Phil, with the same tenacity of baby chicks peeping. Luckily, Dan was pretty good at keeping his own emotions flowing towards Phil, so Mark and Jack were unaware of it.

Phil sent a dismissive sense towards him, followed by later curious don't worry.

By time they finished dinner and cleaned it up, Mark and Jack were sending glances to one another again. Even Dan noticed.

"The hell is up with you two?"

"Let's sit at the table," Mark suggested.

They sat, and Phil couldn't help but jiggle his leg up and down. Dan drummed his fingers on the table top in a bout of nervousness.

"So, we went to see Felix today." Mark began.

"Told him 'bout the. . .Billycon ship," Jack added.

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Mark said. "So we were wondering if Felix knew how they could have figured out our species, since we didn't see any informants among them. He said he had something to show us, and gave us this," he pulls out something that looks like a frequency detector, except with a light strip fitted above some sort of thin slot. There's no monitor or interface on it - just a single button on one side.

"What the hell is that?" Dan excaliams, reaching for it with curiosity fascination.

Mark lets him look at it. "Don't push the button. It's what the Billycons call a Spektrūm."

"Or, as Felix calls it, a 'Hemo-frequency Spectrometer'," Jack chips in. "The HfS fer short."

"Hemo. . .so, it registers blood?" Phil asks tentatively. Dan immediately drops it.

"Ick! No, nope; I'm out. Goodbye, have fun, see you in the morning," Dan scoots his chair back with a loud screee and gets up to leave.

Phil latches one hand onto Dan's sleeve. "Dan, sit back down." His friend does so reluctantly, alarming feelings of no no don't like mild danger bad idea unsettling no bouncing between the two of them.

Mark flinches and Jack grimaces. "I know you guys don't like this, and I'm not saying we have to test it. Just. Keep in mind that this is probably what the Billycons used on use while we were knocked out."

"I'm gonna test it," Jack said, though it wasn't as bold as he would have liked. His accent a little thicker as he became more nervous. "Better to know than be left in the dahrk."

"I'm going to do it too," Mark stated. "Not like I haven't been through worse."

Phil was biting his lip; he really didn't like this idea, at all. But. . .

He couldn't say he wasn't curious at all, now could he.

"I'll do it if Dan does it first," he finally said, ignoring Dan's sharp spike of indignation. Dan did tilt his head in consent though. Mark merely nodded and Jack relaxed.

"Okay, so I'll go first, then Jack, Dan, and finally Phil." He took the HfS, tilting it. Then he lined it up on his hand right above the thumb's carpal bone. "Felix said to just press the button and release it, holding it there; it has some sort of self-sterilization inside."

There was a click like a stapler and a razor blade shot out, causing a shallow but long cut into his skin. As it began to bleed, the little light came on (none of them could pinpoint what color exactly that the light was), illuminating that portion of Mark's hand.

The light made the blood glow, like paint under a UV light, and it was a brighter, pink lemonade color. You could still see the base red, but whatever the light was it brought Mark's Warfian energy to the visible spectrum.

After fifteen seconds it gave a beep, and Mark felt the light grow warm. The cut instantly began to clot and close up. And then it shut off.

They were all silent for a moment, and then Phil got up to get the first aid kit from the kitchen.

"So," Mark said, using an alcohol wipe to clean up the drying blood on his hand. "I guess it works?"

"That's fascinating," Jack said, turning the HfS and peering at it through his glasses, looking like a scientist. "It must pick up our energy signatures in our blood."

Jack went next, with minimal trepedition; unlike Mark, who had been fairly stoic, Jack gave a flinch as it cut him. But his eyes grew wide as the light made his blood glow with a layer of bright, Bossotronian green.

When it was Dan's turn, he was obviously nervous, uttering a simple, "Eff!" Phil could feel his discomfort, and shared it.

Dan's blood was the oddest, and prettiest; a rich, dark color that was almost indigo. They didn't understand why Dan's wasn't a brightly glowing energy (Felix would eventually explain about Agressive and Passive Energy).

Phil didn't stop himself from commenting, "It's like the universe."

Dan gave him a weird look; emotions fuzzy. Phil just shrugged. "It is - it's like the dark patches of space around the stars."

Dan just shook his head fondly, handing the device. "You're such a dork."

Phil took it, though he hesitated. He was nervous, he realized. What if nothing happened?

"Well don't take all day," Jack eventually snorted, goading him.

Phil took a breath, stilling his nerves. And then he pressed the button.

He flinched; it was a quick pain, like banging into a sharp dresser edge, but thinner, and the whine of it rang through him. Dan sent him reassurance okay? and he muttered aloud, "I'm good; 'm fine."

When the light came on, it took them a minute to see the change; his blood was still red but appeared a darker, richer color under the light. Almost unnoticeable.

If it was indicating of any alien blood, it certainly wasn't a species they knew of.

"Are you kidding me?! Effing hell!" Dan wheezed.

"Well I guess you're still a mystery," Mark laughed. "Either you're human with some sort of energy, an alien with similar blood color, or a hybrid with very little alien blood."

"What the eff?" Was Jack's contribution.

Phil felt himself smiling, warmth blossoming in his chest.

He wouldn't lie - he had been vaguely worried. Because Dan was his best friend and they'd always been together, but now they lived with other people. People in a similar situation to Dan. And with Phil being in the dark. . .

It was hard not to feel like an outsider.

Dan must have picked up on this because he shot him a humor-filled smile, nudging him as they all got drawn into rowdy conversation.

In the end, it didn't matter if Phil was fully human or not. He was one of them.