satyricon au go go

Here there be Dragons

He'd slept through the tossing and turning, he was used to it. So long as they slept in separate beds at opposites ends of their motel room it didn't bother him, it left him free to play in his own field of nightmares.

It was the muffled cry that had woken him. That animal sound of pain that had instantly brought him to his senses. He rolled on his side to listen to the creaks in the springs as the bed's occupant thrashed again, accompanied by a mewling whimper that not even he could ignore.

Swearing again that he was getting too old for this he pushed himself out of his nice warm bed, trod quietly across the generic carpet in bare feet to edge himself onto the other bed slightly.

Grabbing two bare shoulders firmly he shook them, hard.

"Billy! Wake up!" he hissed.

Billy snapped awake, gasping for a breath, heart racing. There was no need to ask him what he'd been dreaming about, it was there in his eyes.

He smoothed the sweat stained face and dampened curls of sunbleached hair and murmured that it was just a dream, that they were safe now, that it was all over.

His duty done he tried to move away but a firm hand grabbed his wrist hard and held him there. His eyes tracked from the hand that had locked around him to the eyes, those wild, dark, frightened eyes, and he knew what Billy wanted, what Billy needed.

He sighed and slipped himself under the covers, wrapping himself around Billy, feeling him tremble quietly, soothing and petting as though trying to calm any skittish animal. Usually it was enough and Billy would slip off to sleep in his arms, but not tonight. The dream had ripped through Billy and he needed to touch, he needed to feel he was still alive.

Billy's mouth opened his and the first stroke of tongue lit the fire he tried to ignore most days, that he wanted Billy, that he needed Billy, that he couldn't touch him enough as he would like. The gnawing hunger never left him and here, under the cover of darkness, he gave into it, a fierce animal scrabbling rutting, a stark demonstration of beating hearts and burning skin that they were still alive. They struggled to hold and touch and feel their hunger, stripped of anything but raw emotion. Billy wrapped around him and he was inside Billy and they rocked together, faster and harder and not hearing the steady creak of the bed beneath the roar of blood in their ears.

He covered Billy's mouth with his hand, not wanting him to cry out, and with eyes locked and one, two, three final deep and rolling thrusts he held Billy so tight for a moment, then relaxed down on top of him, feeling Billy pump warm sticky heat against his stomach.

He smiled, curling against Billy, happy to be all warm and sticky and alive, gently nuzzling and kissing his face. Billy watched him now, with eyes filled with love and relief now, replacing the wild fear that had raced through him.

Tenderly he kissed his young love on the brow, closing those eyes, and easing him down into a dreamless, sated sleep, still curled together.

He enjoyed this, sleeping with Billy in his arms, breathing in his scents, tasting his sweat. Only a sense of decorum and things left unspoken kept a distance between them in daylight. His life should have taught him to treasure the things he had and to hold them close, and he tried to, as much as possible. The social mores and violence of his own species, that was the only reason to keep Billy at arms reach, and only as much as he felt he needed to. Right now, he didn't care. Right now he wanted nothing more than to feel the soft silk strands of Billy's hair tickle his cheek and to fall asleep, breathing in deep the scents of his lover, listening to his heartbeat, beats that grew louder and deeper into dreadful footsteps as he slipped down into his own dreams of that hellish place.

 

He didn't wake again until the early morning sun had sliced diagonally through the gaps in the blinds, tickling exposed skin, and the clock radio violently erupted into a shrill beeping like a miniature air raid siren.

Alan thumped the little beast viciously, then he realised he'd slept still curled up with Billy, and he peeled himself away discretely from the athletic male form that was pressed up against him.

Billy stirred at last like some fairytale character waking from a spell. He smiled and yawned, stretching, as content as a cat, whereas Alan had that vaguely embarrassed air that he always had as if he'd been caught by anyone but Billy sleeping in the wrong bed, or maybe it was just the memory of the furious night before that made him blush. Fusty professors just weren't supposed to do those sorts of things.

Billy was giving him that grin, the one that quickly snapped his discomfort into irritation. It was so easy for Billy. He'd never had to grow up being ashamed of who he was or what he was. Billy had escaped the deep ingraining indoctrination that taught that every desire, every wish, every touch, every taste was wrong, that sex itself was wrong and if one had to sin it was best done as a quick joyless fumble under the cover of darkness. Billy was free to express his love and it was there in every part of him, and Alan envied him that.

Add into the mix Alan's own unease of the ethics of their relationship and the fact that they were deep in the Montana badlands and it explained why he both admired and feared Billy's openness.

He worried, perhaps more than he should. Billy had already been called a fag to his face more than once by the locals, probably just because Billy was both very pretty and well educated, but it was enough to make Alan standoffish and buttoned down when they were in town, almost ridiculously so. The last thing either of them needed was Billy being beaten up and left for dead just for his lifestyle choices. Alan didn't think his heart could take it.

More than that, Alan thought Billy had suffered enough for his youthful follies. It was bad enough he'd had to pimp their adventures to the media to pay Billy's medical bills. Enough was enough and all Alan wanted now was the quiet life.

The Kirbys had been decent and had sold their own stories, sending Alan the money in payment for services rendered. Alan had used it to keep the dig open another summer. He thought the familiar, the routine, might be a good thing for both of them. To a large extent he'd been right.

As he stood pondering life and waiting for the kettle to boil, a lone teabag draped forlornly over an empty cup, he realised Billy had beaten him to the shower again.

Well, he wasn't about to stand on ceremony after last night. Billy turned at the sound of the shower door sliding open, surprised and smiling, welcoming him into the tiny shower stall where there was no real option but to press up close to each other. Billy passed Alan the soap, turned and closed his eyes, tilting his head back in bliss as Alan began to soap his back.

Sometime later found Alan still scowling at the kettle, waiting for it to boil again on a fresh pot of water. He cast an eye over to Billy as he waited, watching as Billy sat on the very edge of the bed, tucking each leg under his chin in turn and tying his bootlaces with teeth and nimble fingers.

"One day you'll be too old to do that," Alan observed wistfully.

"Then it'll be time for velcro and hush puppies," Billy grinned back at him, teasing.

There was a good twenty years between them and it would always be between them, even in jest. Not that Alan minded. He knew what he'd been getting into when he let Billy steal his heart. Well, he hadn't known all of it certainly - Billy was nothing if not full of surprises, good and bad - but Alan had never loved anyone as fiercely or completely as he loved Billy in his life. He accepted the differences that made them who they were, annoying though they may be.

The only thing that struck cold in Alan's heart was the nagging, foolish thought that while Billy was the one great burning love of his life, the one he'd finally decided to reach out and grab hold of, he was afraid that for Billy he was just a passing phase, something that Billy would outgrow as his career moved on. It was a stupid fear, but it was one that whispered to him in the quiet moments and he wouldn't be the first professor to have made a complete fool of himself over a charming and talented student.

The kettle finally boiled and Alan peeled off a smug, self-satisfied grin towards Billy as he made his first cup of tea for the morning, breathing in the vapours deliciously.

While Dr Grant completed his tea making ceremony, stirring anticlockwise and carefully wringing out the tea bag and disposing of it as though it were a deceased mouse by the tail, Billy was busy strapping on the hook of an arm he'd been left with before pulling on his shirt.

The naval surgeons on board the ship they'd been evac'd to had been good, but they'd been trained for expediency over delicacy and they'd chosen to save Billy over saving his left arm. It had been just about bitten to pieces, smashed to a pulp and mangled so badly as he'd been attacked that even if they had been able to save it he'd have never have had the use of it any more, anyway.

It was just something they'd learned to live with. To be honest, Billy seemed to have bounced back from his injuries quickly, the way healthy young men did. The deeper unseen scars, the nightmares and those terrible words that Alan had spoken, the words that could never be taken back as much as he wanted to, the words that had caused Billy to nearly throw his life away in a reckless attempt to redeem himself in Alan's eyes, those were the wounds that worried Alan the most.

Alan glanced up from his tea to find Billy before him, smiling at him, full of love and sunshine. Daylight banished the monsters. At least, they liked to pretend it did.

Billy's hand fluttered down his spine lightly and Alan stood aside to let Billy wrestle and clatter with the coffee tin, using Archimedes principal to lever up the lid with the end of a teaspoon. Billy had a proper plastic facsimile of a hand, his Ken Doll attachment as he called it, for special occasions, but Billy, being practical, preferred his hooked claws that could be used to grapple with things and prise things open.

A friend of Billy's from MIT had been inspired to try and design a new arm for Billy that worked from chips, but Alan himself often thought that if ownership of InGen wasn't so deeply mired in sedimentary layers of legal bullshit, to prevent any obvious lawsuits from surfacing, that somebody might use the technology to grow Billy a new arm. It could be done, it should be done. Nevertheless Billy had adapted and he could now manage most daily tasks without a second thought.

This was why Alan loved him, why Alan had always loved him. Oh yes, there were the good looks, grace and charm and that impish sense of humour, but above all Billy was a survivor, and there was precious little that he let get him down. Except those words, those terrible words that Alan could never take back, those words that Billy wore as a scar on an empty sleeve, every day, for the rest of his life.

They were going to be late out to the site but it didn't matter, it was expected. They'd been up late last night catching up with Ellie who had stopped by to check up on her 'other' boys, as she cheerfully called them.

There was still a slight awkwardness between Alan's former and current paramours, but in the main they were a reasonably happy extended family. Alan and Billy owed Ellie their lives, and they never forgot that. Alan particularly would never forget how Billy had just slumped into shock in the helicopter, and if Ellie hadn't made sure the ships surgeons were on standby, they would have lost him, right then and there.

Ellie had known there was someone new in Alan's life, someone who amused and perplexed him and made him as bright and giddy as a schoolboy. Her ears had pricked up when she heard Alan talk of Billy so proudly, so fondly, with a warmth that made her believe that Alan had finally found someone who was right for him, at last.

It was immediately after Isla Surna that Ellie had seen first hand just how much the boy had meant to Alan, after they'd airlifted Billy onto the mainland and Alan had been told in clinical detail just how bad things really were. Billy was a mess of broken bones and torn flesh and only adrenalin, dumb luck and the need to see Alan again had carried him down the river and into the swamp, covered in mud. Billy had crawled blindly into a patrol of marines, so unrecognisable as a human being that they'd drawn their guns on him, until the sight of the uniforms finally registered and he'd wept, just wept.

The will to live kept Billy clinging on, fighting infection and exhaustion. Alan tried to be there for him, tried to be strong, but Ellie had been there to witness first hand the impossibly stoic Dr Alan Grant shatter into a million pieces in the anonymous darkness of a hospital corridor in the unforgiving hours past midnight, after days and nights without sleep. Alan had sobbed on her shoulder, wrenching out the terrible truths: that he'd destroyed a young man's life through a few careless words.

Alan had grieved hard for the Billy he knew he had lost forever, the reckless, impulsive, stupid young monkey, so full of life and mischief. Billy had made Alan feel alive in ways he'd never known possible, he'd woken Alan from a lifetime's sleep with a single kiss, and now Alan had destroyed all that, forever.

Alan had told her in agonising detail the horror of Billy's leap into the chasm, of being unable to stop him or call him back, the look in Billy's eyes, just before he'd leapt. The stupid young fool had wanted to die rather than live estranged from Alan. Alan had broken Billy's heart, just ripped it out with the surgical strike of a few cutting words and he was responsible for everything that had come next. Alan had told her exactly what it was like to watch your lover be slowly torn apart right before your eyes, and being powerless to stop it.

Ellie had listened to all of this and she'd been shocked at just how deeply Alan had loved Billy, and how badly Billy was now breaking Alan's heart. Alan had forgiven Billy a thousand times over, but he would never forgive himself.

Discovering Billy was the love of Alan's life had not surprised her so much, Alan had always kept himself guarded and had dabbled with sexual relations rather than throwing himself into the fire, body and soul. That had changed with Billy, and the fierceness of Alan's passion for the boy, it frightened her to think that she had never really known Alan, not the real man, at least.

Still, it had been Ellie who had invited Alan and Billy to her home for a sit down family dinner. Billy had not long been out of the hospital and it had been breaking Alan's heart to see Billy so thin and wan and sullen and snapping with anger every time he smashed or knocked over things when he reached without thinking, forgetting he had just plastic and metal where his arm used to be.

Alan, too much the product of all his years spent studying and teaching in Britain, had decided against coddling the boy and had thrown Billy back into the business of life without excuses, which had included dinner at Ellie's.

Ellie, bless her, had made the boy feel human again, a person more than the sum of his scars, and it had helped. The splendid sight of Billy Brennan striding across a dig site like a young, shirtless, golden skinned and sweat-sheened Adonis were now just memories, he only wore long sleeves now, not because he was particularly self conscious but because he was tired of the staring. If he had been in a car accident it would have been bad enough, but everybody knew he'd been bitten and clawed by dinosaurs and it made him a freak.

Ellie had treated him as nothing other than Alan's partner and a fellow professional in the field, and the children had been openly curious. Both Alan and Ellie had been treated to the sight of Billy showing off some of his more impressive scars to an appreciative audience of young fans, and they had known then that Billy would be all right. Billy had picked up his life again, but the shadows had lingered.

Which was why Billy enjoyed being out in the middle of nowhere on the dig. Here he had ceased to be a constant object of curiosity as people grew used to him and his history, but last night Ellie had arrived to check up on her friends with her own eyes, still worried for them, and so they'd stayed in town, and people had stared.

Worse, even though the conversation had steered well clear of Isla Surna, it was still the large raptor in the room everyone was too polite to mention and both Alan and Billy had been touched by the nightmares that night.

Now they were driving back out to the dig, Alan at the wheel. Billy was leaning back in his seat, sullen or sleepy or both, watching the scenery go by.

Billy's moods these days washed back and forth like the tides and Alan patted Billy's canvas clad thigh as he changed gears, just a reassuring touch, as though he was trying to keep hold of Billy, to keep him from falling away again.

Billy flicked him the ghost of a smile, then turned back to staring out the truck window, alone with his thoughts, and Alan saw the shadows lengthening.

When they arrived back at the base camp Alan busied himself with organising the supplies they'd brought back with them to be unloaded. They'd timed their arrival perfectly, just in time for lunch. Well, lunch on dig time anyway as they tended to start early and knock off early to avoid the heat of the noonday sun. Afternoons were for note making, sketching and fine work under the shade of tents.

Alan was amused as he watched his workers fall on the food like a plague of locusts. Then he saw Billy, standing alone and apart from the crowd, seeming at a loss, feeling useless.

Billy couldn't help unload the truck, he couldn't wield a pick or a shovel or a jackhammer. He had once hung upside down on the side of a cliff brandishing a battery powered drill one handed, but that had been because he had something to prove. Alan had said it was all right to let the new kids do all the brute heavy work, Billy was better used on fine work, scouting, recording and preservation anyway, but that hardly helped. It smacked of charity, of special treatment, and Billy had always been so hands on when on site. It had been one of the things that had first brought him to Alan's attention.

Alan looked up again from the feeding frenzy, students snatching food like seagulls scrapping over a box of chips, to see Billy grab his pack from the back of the truck.

"Billy, what are you doing?" Alan asked, striding across to him, not liking this.

"Going bone hunting. It's not like you need me here." He didn't meet Alan's eyes.

"It's going to get hot," Alan replied evenly, squinting briefly at the sun above them.

"I'll take water."

"I'll go with you."

"I don't need a nursemaid."

"Billy -" Alan shook his head, not entirely sure what was wrong.

Billy met his eyes at last, and his eyes were cold.

"Not now, Alan."

Alan shrugged. He reached into the truck cabin, caught up his own pack, slung it on, slapped on his battered old hat and followed doggedly as Billy strode out furiously from the site. Going as fast as he was Alan was sure the only way Billy would see any bones would be to trip over them but he let Billy walk on until the heat leeched some of the anger out of him and he slowed up, enough for Alan to catch up a little closer.

Alan wasn't sure what had brought on this sudden mood. Last night had turned over memories, and a few ill-considered remarks from the townsfolk as they'd gone shopping for supplies hadn't helped. Not being able to pull his own weight, that was the kicker. It wasn't enough to tell Billy that nobody had his eyes for spotting the tiniest metatarsal in a shelf of stone. Billy was a man and to be forced to stand aside while others carried his load - it bit deep.

Alan hadn't lied, he did believe Billy was wasted on grunt work, and he hadn't lied about the heat, either. It beat down on them relentlessly but Billy wasn't stopping as he picked his way angrily along the goat track that wobbled around the lake.

Billy only slowed briefly once to pull his arm off and shove it in his backpack. He was sweating and it was rubbing and it was a dead weight hanging off his side anyway. He surprised Alan next by pulling off his longsleeved t-shirt and tying the arms around his neck like a faded red cape. He picked up the pace again, clipping the front of his pack so it wouldn't slip off.

Alan wasn't sure if Billy was just hot or feeling sufficiently isolated now that they'd walked far enough from the site or of he was rubbing Alan's nose in it, in the deep heavy scars that crawled across his back, neck and shoulders.

Alan knew every centimetre of Billy's body by sight and touch, so the scars were no longer shocking. He just wasn't sure Billy wasn't making a statement, and a cruel one at that.

Billy's stump did look angry and red in the heat, but the rest of his skin, now pale and unused to the midday sun, was pinking up, too.

Alan supposed it was a good looking stump, if one could ever call it that, stopping about ten centimetres or so below Billy's shoulder. The surgeons had been skilful and it had healed neatly and smooth, the scars discrete and cosmetic, unlike the other disfiguring rents and tears that marked his body.

'Just as well it wasn't my right', Billy had joked crudely and feebly when he'd woken up to find his arm was gone. Alan meant to tut tut him but the sudden image of Billy masturbating had pulsed through him and flushed his face with heat and Billy, as if sensing his arousal, had seared a drug darkened, smouldering gaze in his direction, causing Alan to burn so brightly he was afraid of melting all the plastic in a radius about him.

The horrible reality of the bandaged, bloody stump where Billy's arm had been, the hand that had traced his skin and bone so tenderly, it sliced through Alan like a blade of ice and he groaned slightly, feeling sick and needing to sit down all of a sudden.

"Don't joke, Billy," he whispered, pleading, as he sank down gratefully in the plastic chair as the world tilted alarmingly. That was the moment he'd seen the first shadows slide across through Billy's eyes like wraiths.

It was later, when he'd been sorting through Billy's things, which had been handed to him without ceremony in a green plastic garbage bag, that he'd found Billy's watch, the strap bloody and broken where it had been sliced off by the medics, the face cracked in a fractured spiderweb. He couldn't bear the thought of giving it back to Billy, or to ever show it to him, so he'd kept it himself, in secret, locked away with his own most precious things.

Billy was still walking hard and fast, tearing, scratching and scrambling through the scrub, straining and pushing himself under the sun. Either he had something to prove or he was just walking away, from everything.

A spike of fear speared up through Alan. He was losing Billy, just watching him slipping and tumbling away and he couldn't reach him, no matter how hard he tried. As always, Alan was too slow to react, too slow to see. Billy had been all smiles this morning but the darkness was always there, lurking beneath the surface. A part of the island had come back with Billy, vicious and tearing with tooth and claw.

Alan huffed and tried to keep up. He wouldn't lose Billy, he couldn't lose Billy. Billy was the most important thing in his life and he'd been soundly struck by that realisation like a vicious punch to his guts. He'd been surrounded by dinosaurs, living breathing dinosaurs, creatures he'd devoted his entire life to, and all he could think about was Billy. By some miracle he'd been granted a second chance and like hell was he going to screw it up this time.

"Billy," he called, standing and heaving, unable to match the pace any longer.

Billy turned, saw Alan red in the face, breathing hard and sweating, and was instantly repentant. His anger and hurt didn't evaporate but it abated, sinking back down into the background hum of his life, with all of its other attendant aches and pains. He stepped forward, proffering his water bottle as a peace offering.

Alan took it, his eyes never leaving Billy's as he drank.

"I love you, you know," he spoke quietly as he screwed the top back on before handing the bottle back.

Billy just stepped across the gap between them and kissed him. Alan was startled by the gesture but he closed his eyes and gave himself over to the kiss, drinking in Billy. Then he stepped back to take a breath, and the ground dropped away beneath him.

"Alan!" Billy reached out to catch him with an arm that wasn't there and snagged only at empty air.

"Alan!" Billy scrambled down to where Alan had slid and rolled and tumbled. Billy's heart was pounding in his ears but Alan was already sitting up and looking sheepish, slapping the dust off himself.

Billy should have known it would have taken more than a spill to knock the wind out of Alan. Nevertheless he crouched beside his mentor and ran a hand lightly over limbs and torso checking for broken bones. Then he sat back, laughing quietly.

"I'm glad my predicament amuses you," Alan groused.

Billy shook his head, pointing to the thin dark line exposed in the rocks Alan had dislodged.

Alan twisted to see, wincing as he did so, and shared Billy's grin.

"You haven't lost your touch," Billy teased. He crouched down beside Alan, pulled a small toothbrush from his pocket and began scrubbing away gently at stone and bone.

They worked on it together until the sun grew low, Alan picking away with hammer and chisel and Billy alternating between toothbrush and a paintbrush for finer work. Finally Alan realised the time and tapped Billy on the shoulder.

Billy sat back, admiring their work. He pulled his camera from his bag and took a few pictures, recording the find, and Alan shoved a stick deep in the soil as a sign, so they could come back and do a proper survey tomorrow.

Alan stood and turned, catching the sunset that was playing out behind them. He tugged at Billy to join him and they watched it together for a few long minutes.

Billy seemed to have relaxed back into his old self as he watched the sky ripple into shades of darkening orange. He pulled his shirt back over his head as the temperature had dropped suddenly just as they were standing there, but he didn't strap his arm back on. It just slapped into his hip like a rod of iron as he walked anyway. He tied a knot in the empty sleeve to stop it from flapping, pulling the knot tight with his teeth.

Alan knew better than to offer to help Billy pull his pack back on so he just waited, testing his torch, as they'd have to walk back in the dark. Alan wasn't all that happy about the prospect, and he'd been paying far more attention to Billy than where he'd been going, but he had greater faith in his abilities these days to bumble through any sort of trouble they might run into and it was too cold to stay out here all night and people might have started to worry back at the site.

Digging for handholds and footholds they climbed slowly back up to the top of the ridge, Billy this time accepting Alan's hand reaching down, pulling him back up with him.

Alan had to pause at the top to catch his breath, leaning over and breathing deep for a moment. Billy flashed a dimple at him in the twilight, the one that said 'old man' and Alan straightened, irked. A man had his pride, afterall.

They set off, Alan letting Billy lead the way, following the path Billy had charged through the undergrowth. They walked as the sky turned lavender then deepened towards violet as everything around them turned to black cut out shadows then joined with the darkness that fell around them.

Even as they walked, in comfortable silence, Alan was worried about Billy. He was concerned that things seemed to be getting worse, not better. Billy had been so happy to survive at first, to have Alan's forgiveness, but now it seemed that wasn't enough.

Alan was at a loss for words, for what to say, knowing anything he might say could only make it worse. 'Tell me what's wrong?' would have sounded so foolish spoken out loud, as if it wasn't perfectly obvious what was wrong.

Alan was floundering. He just didn't know what to say or do to make things right. Ellie had never been one to leave things unspoken, the way Billy did. To be honest, in all his other relationships Alan had let the other person set the agenda, when to say hello and when to say goodbye. Sometimes Alan had been so busy working he'd barely noticed their absence.

Things were different now. Billy had demanded Alan's attention, refusing anything less. Billy was everything to Alan: lover, best friend, collaborator, colleague. There was no part of his life Billy hadn't touched and Alan couldn't bear to lose that touch. He needed Billy like he needed to breathe and he could see Billy slipping away and he didn't know how to reach out and grab him and hold him tight.

He didn't even know what to say. 'I'm sorry' had been spoken so many times it had become meaningless. 'Please don't leave me' sounded pathetic, and if Billy really wanted to go, no words on earth would stop him.

They'd been walking a long while by torchlight, each of them buried in their own thoughts when the unmistakable sound of something large and heavy stirred and crunched the undergrowth. They both stopped dead.

Billy had frozen instantly and Alan caught his fear, sensing it on a primitive primate level. Between the beats of his heart Alan imagined one of those terrible beasts lumbering close and snorting in the pale circles of light cast by their torches. Alan had never told Billy some of the animals had escaped, disappearing into forest canopy before they could be shot down. Alan had decided Billy had nightmares enough without knowing some of the creatures were still out there, but now for several horrible moments Alan thought they'd tracked them down, following Billy's scent and they'd come back to finish the job.

The beast shifted heavily through the crackling sage brush again, as if to prove that they weren't imagining horrors and Alan's mind turned to bears and mountain lions. His hand crept slowly back to the side pocket of his pack where he always kept a pistol there these days, just in case. Twice bitten, as it were.

The creature huffed loudly and stamped at the ground and moved straight towards them, the brush grinding aside as the beast picked up a little speed.

Billy wasn't moving at all and Alan stepped in front of him, an instinctive, protective gesture, and then Alan stepped forward, St George ready to challenge the dragon.

The beast surged out of the darkness to meet him, snorting hotly and trotting into the torch light, his large head buffeting Alan as he searched Alan all over for hidden treats.

Alan laughed with relief and patted the horse's neck fondly, laughing at the scare they must have given each other. The horse had probably escaped from one of the local properties and as Alan petted and soothed the animal he considered tying to get a rope around the horse and taking it back with them. It didn't hurt to stay on good terms with the local ranchers, after all.

He turned back to Billy with a grin but found Billy looking sallow and shaking, looking more than ready to fall down or throw up or both, and worse, as he realised stepping close enough to catch the scent - Billy had pissed himself.

Oh, god. There was a damp stain across the front of Billy's cargoes and he was trembling like a tuning fork and his face was damp with tears and sweat and Alan wasn't at all surprised when the boy just doubled over and vomited up what they'd had for breakfast.

Alan sat Billy down on the ground, washed his face and gave him some water to both rinse his mouth out and drink. He eased himself down beside Billy and waited for the shakes to subside. Gently, he reached out for Billy, who had sunk his head onto his knees, but Billy flinched from his touch.

"God, Billy, I'm so sorry for what that place has done to you."

Billy had never spoken of what had happened to him, alone on that island. He'd told Alan he didn't remember and that might have been true at the time but Alan knew at least some of the memories had returned.

They'd tried counselling but forcing Billy to relive the greatest horror of his life for an hour every week had made things worse, not better, and Alan had always found it best just to get on with things. Billy had always been so fearless, that young, dumb and full of come mentality that made young men think they were immortal and unbreakable, but things had changed. Billy had changed. That blasted island had broken Billy, fractured his spirit, and Alan often felt it was the aftermath that had ground Billy down more than anything else. Blood poisoning had nearly killed Billy and the media attention, when he'd been so fragile, it had been too much.

It had been more than the island, too. Alan had learnt that his bad tempered words to Billy had not been forgotten or forgiven - Billy had made that brutally clear in one of his darkest moments.

"Billy?"

Billy lifted his head. "I'm all right," he shot back sullenly.

Alan leant in closer. "I wish I could kiss it and make it better, but I can't," he whispered and Billy looked at him at last, a look so lost, so far away that Alan knew Billy really was slipping away from him, piece by piece.

Alan drew back, his breath cold on his lips. "You want to help me catch the horse? We can say it followed us home."

The corner of Billy's mouth twitched at that.

"Come on, then." Alan reached out a hand and pulled Billy to his feet.

People barely looked up when they wandered back into camp. It wasn't that unusual for Alan and Billy to go monster hunting and they'd already dropped off the horse on the way back. Billy's clothes had dried and they were both tired, cold and covered head to toe in mud, dust and dirt.

The trailer door and steps creaked and whined as they wearily trudged in. Billy started to head towards the fold out couch at the opposite end of the trailer but Alan grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him the other way.

"Alan, I'm tired -" Billy started to protest.

"You need a hot bath, a stiff drink and a good night's sleep."

"Just a stiff drink?" Billy arched an eyebrow, more lively now that he was in safe within what passed for home.

"We'll see," Alan smiled, more than a little wolfishly.

He pulled Billy's shirt off, threw it in the corner, then turned away mid foreplay to turn on the bath taps, hoping the pumps could manage hot water tonight of all nights.

Billy doffed his boots and pants and looked up at a still fully clothed Alan.

"You're not getting in?"

Alan smiled again, with a twinkle in his eye. "I'm going to wash you, and besides, I'd rather not swim in Billy soup - most times you can strain it."

Billy was too tired to care about the mild slight, sinking into the warm water. He drank the large glass of rum Alan forced on him and let Alan soothe and stroke him until his eyes closed softly.

Alan's hand brushed against his cheek, and Alan's lips murmured "I love you."

Billy's impossibly long eyelashes fluttered open at that and darkened hazel eyes gazed up at Alan.

"That's the second time today you've told me that you love me."

Alan smoothed a hand through Billy's short, water darkened hair that curled damply in the steam.

"You used to know without my having to say it," Alan mused sadly.

Billy's eyes glanced away.

"It's not you, Alan, it's - it's like I can't escape it, any of it. Dinosaurs day in and day out, in the dust we breathe and eat."

Alan leant back a little, startled by that revelation.

"The dig, do you want to leave?" He'd hoped that getting Billy straight back in the saddle, as it were, would have helped.

Billy shifted, but eventually shook his head.

"No," he sighed. "Snake handlers get bit and they still keep handling snakes, and at least these bastards don't bite. They're dead and gone and all we're digging up are ghosts - imprints, nothing more. Ghosts can keep you up all night, but they don't bite."

Alan's fingers brushed his face again, down Billy's cheek to trace the scar that ran across his throat.

"I wish I could make it better."

"I know," Billy answered honestly, openly, and he tilted back his head, letting Alan lean in for one gentle, penitent kiss, just a pressing of lips. On the second kiss Alan licked slightly at Billy's lips and on the third Billy's mouth opened under his and their tongues touched and stroked together and Billy's arm reached around him, pulling him down closer, driving the kiss deeper, more desperate.

Alan used one hand to prop himself above the bath, the other crawled down through the nest of darkened hairs that covered Billy's chest, reminding him that Billy was a fully grown man, as much as Alan thought of him as a silly young boy at times. He followed the trail of hair as it pointed the way down to Billy's groin.

Billy groaned and arched up his hips, pressing into Alan's touch and as Alan kissed him hungrily he brought him off quickly and cleanly. He kissed Billy once more and then stood up, cricking audibly.

As the water drained out, leaving a Billy sized bath ring, a still wet Billy leant in dangerously close.

"Do you need a hand?" he grinned, breathing warmly on Alan.

"If you like," Alan grinned. He'd been about to send Billy to bed, but he'd do anything for these moments of closeness, rare and precious and finite as he now realised they were.

Billy was smiling at him.

"Anyone ever tell you that your were a prize pricktease, Mr Brennan? Don't give me that look," Alan lectured. "I remember the way you used to look up at me through those lashes of yours, then you'd flash me a couple of dimples and lean in obscenely close and if that didn't work you'd parade about the site with your shirt off. Don't think that I'm so buried in my work that I don't know when I'm being seduced."

"Worked though," Billy reminded.

"I grew tired of walking around harder than these damn -"

"Bones?" Billy supplied impishly.

"Rocks," Alan corrected primly, though there was anything but primness in his eyes. He was wearing that wolf about to devour Little Red Riding Hood leer of his. He sank into the bath and caught Billy's hand as it glided by, twining his fingers with Billy's.

"I still think you're beautiful, you know," Alan spoke as he kissed each knuckle in turn. "The most beautiful man I've ever seen."

"I knew you just wanted me for my body," Billy teased.

"No." Alan wanted to make that very clear. "That's just the icing on top. I love you Billy Brennan, body and soul, and I always will."

"That's three," Billy noted, leaning forward to kiss Alan again. The rum and exhaustion were starting to hit him but he made Alan gasp his name and then they let out the water and went to bed.

Alan had wanted to curl up and snuggle a little but Billy had gone out like a light the moment he hit the sheets, just lying there like the dead. So Alan had been left to lie beside him, feel his warmth seeping across the bed towards him and listen to Billy breath softly in the darkness.

The official story had been that they shared a trailer as a cost cutting exercise, and if anyone had noticed how the couch was permanently covered in books and crap, no one had ever said anything. This time the couch was being used, as Billy slept there more often than not, but tonight he'd followed Alan into bed, from habit if nothing else, and it had been something, even if the rum and exhaustion had left Billy lying there like a log until the alarm had jerked him awake.

He groaned, rubbing his eyes, squinting at the darkness outside.

"Feels like I just went to sleep," he complained.

"You did," Alan replied sadistically. "We got home late." And palaeontologists kept farmer's hours, rising before dawn to take full advantage of the cool early light.

Even at this unhappy early hour people were already stirring and the cooks were busy preparing breakfast, smoke and the heady smell of bacon already wafting from the tent. The smell seemed to lure people from their beds, like the walking dead, all heading towards the mess tent on instinct alone.

The great unwashed, as Alan liked to call them. Real showers out here were virtually unheard of and baths were a luxury, however Billy's panic attack last night had necessitated such an indulgence, Alan reasoned. Certainly it had helped to send Billy off to sleep without recourse to the bottles of pills Alan felt Billy was becoming overly reliant on.

Billy was still looking a little tired and wan, and Alan noticed Billy barely touched any of his breakfast, being quieter than usual, only just keeping up the appearance of his usual flirting banter with the students in the camp who still loyally maintained their crushes on him.

Billy gave Alan his quick dimpled smile and his assurances he was perfectly fine, but Alan was learning the hard way that he needed to pay more attention to what Billy did rather than what Billy said.

Billy was far more traumatised by what had happened on the island than he wanted to admit, and this obviously troubled him. He saw Alan dealing and coping and Billy just couldn't put it behind him and get on with things, the way Alan had. That Alan hadn't been torn apart and left for dead, nor that Billy had always worn his emotions closer to the surface than Alan ever did, it mattered little in the equation. Billy was having trouble getting past the nightmares, and he hated himself for his weakness. A year spent in and out of hospital hadn't helped, either. Billy was worn down, red raw and still screaming, at least inside he was.

Alan had lost track of Billy, momentarily distracted by the business of running a field expedition. When he found Billy again after a quick hunt he was in the tent he'd pretty much taken over as his workstation. Billy was quickly packing his bag, making sure he had his brushes, his notebook and film in his camera.

Alan came up behind him, resting a warm hand on his shoulder.

"Ready?" he asked.

Billy nodded.

"Good. Let's go see what we've got out there."

Billy glanced at him, recognising that tone of voice. "You don't know already?"

Alan gave him his wolfish smile. "I have an idea," he teased slyly, and that was all he was going to say on the matter.

 

A couple of hours hard walking and a more dignified scramble down the slope this time brought them to the site where Alan's little stick with his handkerchief still attached to it fluttered at them like a little flag, saluting their find. Well, Alan's find.

Judging from Alan's excitement it could only be a large meat eater, a T-Rex or a 'Raptor at the very least, and Billy was going to go with a T-Rex. It wasn't the most scientific way to guess at the classification of a find from the couple of tiny bones they'd exposed so far, but it worked. Alan, for all his pretence at dour professionalism, loved a big showy dinosaur, and he was like a big kid, clucking over his find the way car enthusiasts purred over their favourite make and model.

They sat down at opposite ends of the monster and slowly began the steady task of filing and brushing away the extraneous dirt so that the creature slowly appeared. The patterns of its bones became suddenly discernible, like one of those puzzles you had stare at for ages before it revealed itself.

The sun had ridden high in the sky and they were both caked in sweat and grime before Alan called for a break, both of them sinking back gratefully against the sun warmed dirt wall that they were working on.

Alan watched Billy deftly unwrap his sandwich one handed, pulling it free from the fiddly cling wrap with delicate skill, then the way he twisted off the top of his bottle of water with his teeth. Billy was always doing that now, as if he wasn't orally fixated enough. Billy had also learnt how to pull the tops off beer bottles with his teeth, but Alan refused to let Billy demonstrate that particular skill around him, Alan always muttering something about the dental plan under his breath.

Billy caught Alan watching him as he drank, and he lowered the bottle of water slightly, crawling a searing gaze all over Alan before it finally came to rest in Alan's lap, and Alan felt himself twitch in response, as though Billy were already touching him there.

Billy's eyes wandered back up to Alan's and he grinned, before taking another long gulp of water. The little pricktease.

Alan's eyes met Billy's in a challenge, evoking the response he wanted. Billy set his packed lunch aside, regarding Alan as something even better to be devoured.

Billy prowled over him, nuzzling Alan's crotch, breathing deep his scent.

"Billy, I don't," Alan tried to protest weakly about the public place, suddenly having second thoughts about what he'd started.

Billy was having none of it, busy pulling down Alan's fly with his teeth, gazing up at Alan heatedly through those lashes and rummaging around in Alan's underwear like a snuffling truffle pig. He licked along Alan's semi hardness, dampening the cotton, making Alan twitch and moan.

Alan felt the sudden wash of air and grabbed at Billy's sunbleached curls, digging his hands hard into Billy's scalp, trying to make Billy to stop teasing and just get on with it, make him come hard and fast before anyone caught them like this.

Billy was unconcerned, having already made a long standing joke of having had to have sucked Alan's cock to get on these digs in the first place. He was sure precious few people would be the slightest bit surprised to find that he hadn't been joking, after all. Not that it was entirely true. The cocksucking had come later, but not that much later. A mere matter of minutes in fact after their first kiss as Alan had fallen fast and he'd fallen hard, plummeting in free fall, and Billy had wrapped Alan around his little finger ever since.

Right now Alan didn't care about anything. All he wanted was to feel Billy's hot mouth swallowing him and Billy's tongue, oh, god, Billy's tongue - right there, just there, oh, god, he was going to - yes.

Billy was sitting back, grinning at him, all dimples and devilish delight, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, then his hand on the back of his pants, following it up with just sitting there and taking another bite of his sandwich.

"Stomach contents: semen and a chicken sandwich," he joked, finishing off the sandwich and licking his fingers before wiping them on his trousers again.

Alan scowled at him, failing to find the humour, zipping himself up primly. He wasn't about to say no to blowjobs from Billy, but there was a time and a place for their flirting and he'd let it get out of hand this time. Billy seemed even less circumspect these days than before, in those rare times now when Billy was playful and in the mood.

Billy was an odd creature these days. One minute he'd be the Billy of old, all open smiles and soft touches and sweet adoration, and Alan, old fool that he was, had revelled in Billy's blatant crush on him. These days the next moment would find Billy the angry, embittered, sullen young man he was now, and his moods seemed as changeable as the weather and the way the wind was blowing.

Alan knew it was hard for Billy. It was probably harder still now that everyone, even himself, expected Billy to finally put it all behind him and get on with the rest of his life. Every waking moment reminded Billy of the island and perhaps it wasn't fair, perhaps he needed more time than people were willing to give him. It was unfair for people to be so impatient. It had only been a year, after all, and a year Billy had spent in and out of hospital for one reason or another, yet surely a year was time enough for moping. Perhaps it was the anniversary that was troubling Billy, even it he wasn't fully aware of it himself.

Alan cursed himself again for the countless time over letting Billy talk him into taking them both to that damn island. He could have, should have said no to Billy - but he knew Billy would have never have forgiven him. Billy had just looked at Alan with those eyes and Alan just couldn't say no to him. Billy had wanted to see the island so badly, he'd been as excited as a little boy and it had been so infectious and Alan could understand, he could remember that curiosity. Too bad it was true what they said about cats.

 

Alan had exposed a good portion of the predator's hindquarters before he decided to call it quits for the day. It was a long walk back to the camp and he wanted to double check his notes and organise a proper survey of the site tomorrow. He needed to arrange hauling the scanning equipment up here, just to see exactly what he had and whether he could spare the time or resources, or if he should just record the location, preserve it as best he could and save it for another season.

The climb back up was easier too as he'd brought a rope and he used that to half pull Billy up the ridge as he climbed. Billy wasn't bad as a one handed climber, but it was easier when he had help and harnesses.

Alan let Billy coil the rope away once they'd climbed back up, Alan babbling away excitedly about the find and Billy not really listening. Billy was too busy thinking of all the mountains he'd climbed, and would never climb again.

There were a great many things Billy would never be able to do again. He doubted even his ability to make heads turn when he walked into a room, except to stare unkindly.

Billy had always been proud of his body, and with good reason, as his genes had blessed him with a beauty that even turned hidebound palaeontology professors into jelly. As an undergrad Billy had never been short of a fuck, and he'd been with Alan exclusively these last three years or so of his life. He used to be able to make people stare, and he still could, only these days they looked at him with pity and not admiration. He had a metal claw where his hand should be, and only Alan, his dear Alan, would have him now.

Billy had wanted Alan since he'd been about fifteen, when he'd seen him on television once, talking about the dinosaurs on the island. Smitten, Billy had read every book, every magazine article. He'd sat in on Alan's lectures and had made a single-minded pursuit of the only man who seemed to understand his passion for long dead things. He'd volunteered on Alan's digs while still in high school but Alan, bless his old fashioned heart, had refused to notice Billy until Billy had been old enough to buy him a beer. It must have cost poor Alan dear, because Billy had been outrageous in his flirtations, the way only young men can be. He'd wandered in and out of Alan's life, gradually becoming wrapped up in his own life and his own friends. He'd almost been ready to give up and move on when Alan had finally given in to his charms, returning Billy's kiss after a long hot day and too much beer.

Billy loved Alan dearly, and he knew Alan hadn't really meant what he'd said that horrible day. It had just been that place, Billy's stupid actions, the whole ultimate camping trip weekend from hell experience. They'd been tired and scared and tempers had understandably frayed. Alan's venom though, it had stung him deeply and left a scar. Even though Alan had taken it back, it had been their first real, terrible rift and those moments, they never went away, like a fracture in a glass.

Billy had never known Alan could hurt him like that, hurt him so badly, and it was a lesson learned and never forgotten.

Billy followed Alan, head down, still barely listening as Alan described his hopes of finding the skull intact with those large and impressive meat eating jaws.

Billy suddenly stopped walking, annoyed.

"How do you do it, Alan? How do you stay so enthusiastic, knowing what these things are, what they can do?"

"It's not the same thing, Billy," Alan placated.

"The hell they're not. If it walk like a duck and talks like a duck..."

"They're not the same. We don't know fully how InGen made them, or exactly what they spliced in to make up for missing gene sequences, whether they cloned enough to make a viable population."

"It looked pretty viable to me."

"They're not true dinosaurs, Billy."

"People say that about GM crops, but that doesn't stop them from turning those crops into tacos."

It was Alan's turn to stop walking. He turned to face Billy with a weary exhalation, allowing the horse that had been following them along the ridge to catch up and push at Billy, demanding attention.

Billy ran his hand over the horse's neck, patting it, desperate for the diversion, wanting this conversation to stop.

"She must like you," Alan teased, trying to lighten the mood.

"Yeah, who doesn't," Billy tossed off. "She sounded much bigger in the dark."

"Things do," Alan agreed, sensing something dreadfully brittle in Billy's tone.

Billy was rubbing the star on the horse's forehead mournfully.

"All I've ever wanted to be was a palaeontologist."

Alan sighed again, slumping slightly with weariness.

"If I've pushed too hard, Billy, I'm sorry. I thought it would be better if I just got you back in the saddle, that things would take care of themselves, but if it's too hard, too painful, if you need to do something else, I'll understand."

"You don't understand," Billy wailed miserably. "You'll never understand."

That did it. It was Alan's turn to push back, and push back hard.

"Billy - you've got to tell me what the hell is going on with you. You're up, you're down, you're all over the place - it's like walking through a fucking minefield."

Billy shot him that shocked, wounded look again, the one Alan had hoped never to see again, but too late, the words were out.

Billy's hurt quickly turned into a snarl.

"I lost my fucking arm. I can barely do my fucking job. I'm a freak and a charity case and I don't have to close my eyes to be stuck in a nightmare. I'm not like you, Alan. I'm not as good as you. I'm not as fucking cold and shut down as you. I can't brush aside what happened like it was a fucking tea party, the way you do. Oh, please forgive little Billy, he made such a mess of things on the island." The sarcasm dripped from his voice. "It fucking destroyed my life. Some days I wish I'd died there."

"Billy, you don't mean that."

"The fuck I don't. You made it sound like fun, Alan. Damn you, you made it sound like fun." Tears bubbled up and spilled over his eyes. "You'd seen them, you'd actually seen them. That all I wanted - just to see them. I just wanted to see what you'd seen," he pleaded.

"I know," Alan offered quietly. "I'm sorry. I should have told you exactly how dangerous it was. I should have told you the bloody awful truth of it. I should have never have let you talk me into going there. I didn't want to admit how scared I'd been, how badly I'd screwed up, how I survived by accident. I'm sorry, Billy. You shouldn't have had to pay for my own cowardice or incompetence."

"But I did," Billy sobbed. "I just wanted to be like you. I just wanted to see."

"I know, I know. I'm so sorry, Billy."

Alan held him close, trying to soothe him, rubbing his hands down Billy's trembling spine. Billy pressed tight against him, as if he was trying to crawl into Alan's skin, then just as suddenly he pulled away, wild fury in his eyes.

Billy's hand was tangling with the horse's mane. Suddenly he had swung himself up onto the horse with his one hand, leant forward and dug his heels into the horse's flesh.

"Billy - no!"

But Billy had already dug his heels in hard, causing the horse to surge past Alan and gallop away across the plain.

"Billy! Billy - no!" Alan cried after him as Billy raced away from him. "Billy!" Alan called after him, knowing it was hopeless.

Alan slapped his hat against his thigh in anger. The damn fool would probably fall off and break his neck. Hissing, fed up, he began to trot after Billy's direction, fully expecting to find a human heap lying upon the ground.

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Billy rode, just rode, without sense or direction, just needing to get away from everything, needing to be free. The horse sensed this and they rode wild together, man and beast, bounding across the land, blood pumping, hearts beating, flying like the wind.

Billy laughed. It had been ages since he'd felt so free, so alive. They slowed as they came to the top of a ridge and he patted the horse's sweating side, leaning down to whisper what a good horse it was.

It was when he sat back up that he saw it. The wind carried it to them and the horse twitched with nervousness. Billy's own skin tightened, raising every hair. In spite of the huge thumping fear that was uncoiling in his stomach Billy clicked the horse onwards, picking their way slowly down onto the field.

As Billy rode closer he saw the field scattered with cattle, all lying down. There was something else in the field beside the cattle. A large dark creature was spread over one of the calves, feeding, tearing strips of flesh from the carcass.

Sensing an intruder it cocked its head up, then spread its large leathery wings and pushed off up into the air, hovering for a moment in the sky like a giant mythical beast.

It slapped at the air with an enormous wingspan and slowly took to the skies and circled the field once or twice in a low gliding swoop before flapping and wheeling away, riding the air currents.

People would tell Billy he'd just seen a vulture, an uncommonly large vulture, but Billy knew different and his fear transferred itself to the horse who huffed and resisted Billy's urges to move forward, to go closer until Billy finally dug his heels in its flanks. He had to see, he had to know.

As the horse trotted down amongst the cattle Billy started to gag as the air was thick with the stench of blood and death. This was a killing field.

Billy and the horse slowed to a walk, stepping uneasily through a field of carnage. Cattle, all around him, lying dead and mutilated in the field, their flesh ripped and torn open. Such a sight would have been dreadful enough, except the way the carcasses had been sliced up, from the shoulders, back and sides rather than attacks from below to the throat and belly like you'd except a cat or wild dog to do. It made Billy's blood freeze, made his heart beat fast and made his skin break out in a cold clammy sweat as he slipped from the horse. It nervously pawed the ground behind him while he knelt by the nearest carcass. He didn't want to believe what he was seeing. With shaking hands he drew his ruler from his pack and measured the bite marks. Too large, far too large unless the dog was the size of the Hound of the Baskervilles. He counted the claw marks dragged through the hide and found only three toes, not four, more than once. He dropped his ruler, scrambling back, breathing hard. No, please no. He didn't want to believe what he was seeing. Surely Alan would have told him if some of the creatures had escaped the island? Surely Alan wouldn't have lied?

Billy was still crouching by one of the carcasses, taking photographs, when a ranch hand rode up. Billy stood and turned to face him, still winding on his film.

"You press?" he was asked in a surly tone.

Billy shook his head.

"Ranger? Sheriff? Animal patrol?"

"Student, from the dinosaur dig." Billy answered, all open friendliness, an act he had refined by now.

The ranch hand leant forward in his horse and squinted at him suspiciously.

"You think a dinosaur did this?"

Billy glanced down at the ground, unable to answer what he feared the most.

"What do you think did this?" he countered. "Bear, mountain lion, wolf?" he pressed, begging to be told he was an idiot, that he was seeing monsters in every shadow, that he'd lost it. Strangely, insanity was the most comforting option right now. He'd be happier if the monsters were just in his head, and not roaming loose around the countryside.

"Nope," the cowboy shook his head, breaking Billy's heart. "I ain't ever seen anything like this. I ain't never seen anything that'd tear up an animal like that."

Billy had, and he wore the scars everyday but the gashes on his face and throat could have come from anywhere, so he pulled up his shirt and he showed the cowboy just what terrible jaws and talons could do to human flesh. Deep rents dragged through his skin where the talons had dug into his shoulders, clawed at his side and ripped down his back.

"What the hell kind of an animal did that?" the cowboy wanted to know, leaning forward in his saddle.

"Big bird. Big, big, bad tempered bird," Billy answered, pulling back on his shirt. He was shaking now, sure that he wasn't just imaging things. Worse, the cowboy seemed to agree.

"You think whatever got you got these beeves? Same marks, I'll give you that. I heard tell of a big bird, like those Jurassic Park things - say, aren't you that boy who was half eaten by them things? You saying that they're here? That they come after you?"

The questions followed him but Billy was already backing away, unable to deal with the harsh reality, the sight, the smell, it was all the same. It was back, it had come to get him, the nightmare was still happening.

He swung back onto the horse and just rode fast and far away, as if he could ever escape it, leaving the cowboy hollering after him and calling him a horse thief.

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Billy was sitting quietly on a canvas chair, breaking up pieces of crackers and tossing them to the large black crows that had gathered around his feet, jostling for a treat. Another crow flew down low over his shoulder, wings spread wide, and he flinched in spite of himself, feeling the rush of wind against his cheek. He kept throwing them the crackers and watching them, studying the way they moved, they way they talked and squabbled and snapped and eyed off each other, strutting around, preening and watching him just as closely back.

He was beginning to think Alan needed to lift his head out of the sedimentary rocks occasionally, and that maybe by studying existing creatures he could gain a better idea of the behaviours of long dead ones. Of course these birds were communicating with each other as they viciously enforced their pecking order.

The Ranger's truck pulled up to park above him on the rise and Alan got out the passenger door. He didn't look happy.

"I hear you've been having adventures," Alan began. "And I see you have a pet." He noted the horse cropping the grass nearby.

Billy let Alan's bad temper wash off him like water. He stood, throwing out the rest of the crackers to the crows who snapped angrily amongst themselves as they fought over the crumbs.

"Come on, I want to show you something." Billy led the way into the tent where his prints were hanging off a clothesline, drying like laundry. He unpegged a couple and laid them out for Alan and the Ranger to see.

"Yes, we've been having a problem with wild dogs," the Ranger admitted. It was her turn to suffer Alan's steely glare.

"And you didn't think to tell me? I have children here - students," he corrected himself.

"It's not wild dogs," Billy interrupted. "Look." He pointed down to the photo, tracing out the distinctive three clawed tear. Then he pulled up his sleeve, revealing the same three scars that dragged up his arm. It was Billy's turn to gaze at Alan like a sullen, beaten dog.

"You lied to me. Some of them got off the island, didn't they." It was an accusation.

"Three that we know about, possibly more. They tried to shoot them down, but -" Alan shrugged.

Billy turned away angrily, hugging himself.

"Billy, that's Costa Rica. This is Montana, far away from there. You'd suffered enough, you didn't need to know. I wanted you to feel safe here."

Billy snapped around. "What if I'm not?! I've been searching on the net - did you know there have been sightings of an enormous dark coloured bird with at wing span over twenty feet wide, just gliding, sailing alongside prop planes up in the Northwest?"

"The Northwest is too cold -"

"How do you know what's too cold for these animals, Alan? Every sighting confirms a pteranondon. If they're in Washington, they can be in Montana. I'm not safe and you lied to me."

"Billy, I -"

"Fuck you." Billy had turned away again, still hugging himself. "Just fuck you, Alan."

The Ranger, sensing she had stepped into an uncomfortable domestic scene, was studying the photos.

"You really think one of those dinosaurs did this?"

"Have you ever seen a big cat or wild dogs attack like that?" Billy countered, turning back to the table slightly.

"No," she had to admit. "Not like that. The local ranchers thought it might be some of those wolves, maybe mixed in with a dog pack, or a big old cat, maybe a bear. A couple have sworn they've seen a big old bull eagle or a vulture, circling a kill."

Alan saw Billy turn away again, his back and shoulders tightening.

"Billy?"

Billy turned on him, thin lipped, cold and furious. "Don't. Just don't."

He stalked past Alan and Alan heard him slam into the trailer.

"He was on the island," Alan offered by way of explanation, pretending to barely notice that he'd probably just lost the love of his life forever, for the want of a few more careless words.

"His arm?" she asked, and Alan nodded.

He handed her one of Billy's photos. "Have some of your experts check these out. If they can't match those kills to any known animal, then we're only left with the improbable."

"Can't you tell, just by looking at these?"

Alan shook his head. "I'll need to check. My field of expertise lies in velociraptors, and I hope to God none of those have made it to shore."

Alan turned back to his study of Billy's photos, his way of dismissing her. He wasn't in the mood for company.

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Alan set the book down and rubbed his eyes. He was tired, running solely on coffee and a strong undercurrent of dread that Billy might actually be right.

Proving it was another thing. They hadn't found any pteranodons in the rock fields this season - thank god, he'd thought at the time, but it meant he had nothing to make a case study of up close. The tiny black and white pictures and hand drawn illustrations in his books were next to useless.

He'd thought of calling around to see if anyone had a complete skeleton he could examine up close in a hurry, but he wasn't ready to expose himself to complete ridicule just yet. He could just hear the crowing from his erstwhile colleagues, that Alan Grant had finally lost it. No, he needed something more than just Billy's word for it, especially as Billy's current emotional state wouldn't bear scrutiny if Alan went public.

Alan pushed the book away, annoyed. He needed a full sized, intact as possible skeleton to examine, and he needed to compare the talons to the only evidence he knew that recorded a pteranodon's predatory habits - the scars on Billy's back and shoulders.

He stepped cautiously into the trailer. It was eerily dark and quiet, too quiet.

Billy was curled on his side on the couch, unmoving.

Alan perched on the edge of the couch, rubbing Billy's back softly, trying to wake him gently, but Billy failed to stir. That's when Alan checked for a pulse, and while he was doing that he saw the bottle of sleeping pills sitting on the windowsill. He snatched it up and shook it. It rattled hollowly against his ear, with only one or two tablets left inside.

"Billy, Billy." Alan started shaking him roughly. "Billy, how many of these damn things did you take?"

Billy stirred grudgingly in his arms, trying to push Alan away but make no real success of it.

"Three," Billy slurred. Not enough to kill himself, just enough to wipe everything out, to make everything numb.

"Damn it, Billy, you're going to be the death of me," Alan cursed, relieved, feeling his own heart start to beat again at last.

"Come on." He pulled Billy heavily to his feet and walked him slowly down the length of the trailer towards his own bed, rolling Billy into the middle and tucking the sleeping bags around him.

Alan switched on his reading lamp and settled down beside Billy, propping himself up on some pillows. He ran a sadly fond hand through the curling, silky strands of Billy's honey coloured hair as the boy slept.

Alan should have known keeping back that particular piece of information would have come back to bite him on the arse. He'd just wanted Billy to feel safe. He'd done it with the best of intentions, so of course it had all gone to hell.

After a while of quiet reading Alan watched Billy snuffle and roll onto his stomach, sound asleep. Alan watched him sleep, considering a plan of action, then glanced towards the little digital camera that sat perched atop a pile of books. Alan had bought the camera as a present, but Billy had proven emotionally attached to his old SLR camera, a film purist, and he'd claimed his old camera was less fussy anyway. A claim Alan couldn't dispute as they'd still managed to get useable prints out of Billy's camera after all it had been through on the island.

Nevertheless, Alan thought, and he began to gently ease Billy out of his shirt.

"Fuck off, Alan," Billy mumbled, before sinking back into his empty slumber.

With Billy's bare back now exposed, Alan angled the reading lamp just so and he quietly took his pictures. Feeling too much like some sort of creep he set the camera aside again after he'd taken the bare minimum of shots, meaning to transfer the pictures to Billy's laptop later. Instead Alan picked up his journal and began to quietly sketch Billy's scars, writing his estimates of the size and breadth in the margins as he went. He worked away studiously, recording each line with great care and accuracy. This suited him much better. It felt less intrusive, less pornographic.

Never forgetting for a moment whose back he was making a study of, he reached out and gently traced one of the jagged lines that cut across the skin as Billy breathed softly.

He still didn't know how Billy had survived. Somehow Billy had gotten away from the pteranodons and dragged his torn and broken body all the way to the coast. Billy had been all alone, bleeding profusely, crippled, the perfect prey, and he'd spent one cold, rainswept night out in the open, and yet somehow he'd just been too stubborn to give up and die.

Alan couldn't imagine what it must have been like, to be frightened, alone, in pain and close to death in that terrible place.

Billy had dragged and clawed his way out of the jungle and Alan refused to believe Billy was ready to give up now. Delayed shock was all this was. This too shall pass, Alan reminded himself.

 

Billy snuffled and rolled over and found Alan still watching him. He scrubbed at his face, trying to get back some of the feeling the pillow had pressed out of it.

Alan ran a finger lightly down the length of Billy's nose, his old shorthand way of saying 'I love you'.

Billy was gazing up at him with those soulful, wounded and drug darkened eyes but Alan couldn't meet those eyes, not just yet, so he turned back to his journal.

"I've been reading up on those sightings you'd found on the net, all the way up the coast and as far inland as Kansas. Even if some of them are true -"

"They are," Billy answered fatally.

"We don't even know for sure if they're warmblooded enough to survive this far north," Alan reasoned. "Most of InGen's records obviously went through the shredder so we have no idea of what they did, what they made or how they made it."

"They're warmblooded," Billy answered in a quiet, strained voice. His eyes were gazing back to the island and Alan didn't press for any more detail than Billy was willing to give.

Billy could feel Alan's question still hanging in the air, and he knew what he'd seen was important, even if he spent every minute of his life trying to forget it. He stared up at the trailer ceiling, studying the little dots in the insulation as if he'd never seen them before, a furrow creasing his brow as he let the memory break back to the surface.

"They had me in a death roll in the river, you know, like crocodiles do, trying to drown me. I was scrabbling against the river bed, trying to find a rock or a stick - it's amazing just how hardwired that fight response is - and my hands found a metal bar or a pole that must have washed down the river. I shoved it up at them with everything I had. I tore through the wing of one of them, I felt its blood spurt all over me, and it was warm. I hit it again, smacking it in the head and ripping a hole through its other wing, and it went down, and they went after one of their own and left me alone. It was floundering, and I had a big metal stick."

He closed his eyes, taking a slow, shaky breath.

"They have warm blood," he reiterated, almost in a whisper, the memory having drained the life from him.

"That's great, Billy, that's just great, we can use that," Alan patted his shoulder, more teacher than lover, finding it easier to praise Billy's contribution to science rather than remembering the bright red blood that had spread out and stained the water as the creatures had started ripping Billy apart. He found himself completely unable to speak on his lover's fight for survival: it was still too vivid for either of them. He knew it had been a close run thing and he didn't want to dwell on it any more than Billy did.

"Not so great," Billy reminded, jaded with exhaustion. "The bastards won't stay in the tropics like you'd hoped."

No, Alan realised with creeping dread. They wouldn't.

Billy opened his eyes again, burning through Alan like a laser.

"No one took any of those reports of impossibly large birds seriously because the government hasn't told anyone some of the creatures got loose, have they?"

"No," Alan admitted. Billy had missed all the debriefing sessions dealing with that very issue, their breach of international laws and territory, the cost of the rescue on the American taxpayer. Alan had almost envied Billy, lying unconscious in a hospital bed, just for a moment, for missing out on the experience of being ground to a fine powder by the mill wheels of bureaucracy.

"Do you think they know? That they're migrating, breeding?"

Alan shook his head. "I don't know, Billy. I honestly don't know. Certainly nobody told me - you have to believe me on that."

"I believe you, Alan," Billy repeated tiredly, by rote.

"I only wanted to make the nightmares go away," Alan offered, contrite.

"I know," Billy acknowledged in the same weary voice.

He rolled onto his side. "What are you going to do?"

"Tell someone. Somebody has to clean up InGen's mess. It's gone on too long, maybe too long. They're breeding, and they're at the top of the food chain."

Alan glanced at Billy, suddenly realising Billy wasn't giving him his complete attention.

"What?"

Billy shook his head slightly. "Ssssh, listen."

Alan listened, but all he could hear was the wind and the nickering of Billy's horse, close by.

"I don't hear anything," Alan tried to soothe, being able to see how rubbed raw and overly sensitive Billy must be, having forced himself to remember the attack. Billy was overly skittish these days, like a nervous cat, and the slightest noise or rustle would startle him and he'd just tense up, eyes huge, ready to flee.

Alan could see Billy was still listening intently, the furrow between his brows deepening.

"It's just the wind," Alan tried to reassure him.

Alan had barely finished speaking when the sound of something large swooped down on the trailer and landed with a thumping clatter. Slowly and ominously it began to shuffle across the trailer roof with heavy footsteps.

"Still say it's the wind?" Billy accused bitterly, sitting up and beginning to exhibit the first signs of full on panic.

"Don't be silly. It's probably just a large owl or something. I'll go and check, and show you it's nothing. You'll see." Alan slipped from the bed and stood up.

"No, please, Alan, don't go," Billy begged him. Billy was visibly shaking now, slipping horribly into waking nightmare, in spite of himself.

"It's alright, Billy," Alan hushed as though he were a parent about to check under the bed in the middle of the night. "I'll go outside and I'll show you it's nothing. It's probably just a bird and it sounds louder than it should because it's night, like the horse, remember?"

Even so, for all his words, Alan slipped his pistol in his pocket as he grabbed his torch. He glanced back to Billy, but Billy was huddled up in the middle of the bed, rocking himself mournfully back and forth, too terrified to move. The poor kid.

Alan opened the door to their trailer cautiously with a long squeak. Billy's cold fear was infectious and Alan wasn't immune to the dread of seeing one of those creatures again, either. There was a special something about the fear of being hunted and running for your life that never left you. It echoed forever and every time you felt trapped or nervous you'd taste that dull metal tang in your mouth and feel your heart start to beat faster. Alan felt it now, sending shivering spiderwebs of ice twisting all through him as he stepped down onto the ground and carefully turned around, holding his torch up high.

Something rustled and scraped across the trailer and Alan eased the gun out of his pocket and flicked off the safety. Trying his best to keep both torch and firearm steady, he slowly tracked a pale circle of light up the side of the trailer and towards the roof.

Alan tilted the torch up slowly. Something above him flapped and rustled, dragging itself across the trailer roof with clawed feet.

He caught a flash of glittering, beady black eye and an enormous leathery wing and a huge, fearsome beak before it launched itself off the roof and swooped down towards him.

Alan staggered back, tripping over something behind him, dropping his torch and falling flat on his back, all the while firing wildly up into the night sky. He must have hit it somehow because it let out an unholy shriek and broke off mid swoop. It flapped up into the air like an enormous bat and then took off in low, loping arcs as those enormous wings worked up and down, gaining airspace as it went.

Alan could only see a black shape against the night sky, but he could feel and hear the wind displacement, and he was ready to testify to something larger than any owl or bat he'd ever known.

People had scrambled out of their tents, gathering around Alan, demanding to know what was going on and why he was firing off a gun in the middle of the night. An intuitive few had thought for a horrible moment that the thing with Billy had come to a head, but as they and Alan saw, Billy was standing on the top step of the trailer, leaning against the open doorway. Billy looked like he was going he was going to be sick again, but he was otherwise unharmed.

Billy's eyes sought out Alan's, asking the burning question: did he see it?

Alan had to shake his head, sadly.

"It was dark, I dropped my torch," he sheepishly indicated the torch that had rolled a few feet away from the trailer, now directing a steady beam of light towards the front wheels.

He saw Billy slump, and felt he had to add something.

"There was something there. You weren't imagining it." But as to an actual identification, Alan couldn't say. It had been dark, he'd only seen it for a second, and he wasn't sure his own mind and Billy's fears weren't playing tricks on him.

"Nothing, just scaring off a couple of owls," Alan tried to explain, and the crowd drifted away, most complaining that Dr Grant was becoming increasingly eccentric in a wild eyed and crazy way in his old age.

Alan endured the slights to his sanity, preferring them to think of him as dead drunk and trigger happy rather than shooting at imaginary pteranodons in the dark.

He stumped up the steps to where Billy waited, switching off the torch and putting the safety back on his gun.

"That's new," Billy observed, noting the firearm in Alan's hand.

"For protection," Alan admitted, earning him another look of accusation from Billy.

"You didn't see it," Billy sulked, his arm crossing his chest again.

Alan's grey eyes sought out Billy's, tilting his head so he could make eye contact.

"There was something there, and I know what it looked like." Alan saw Billy's hand clutch almost convulsively at his shoulder.

"I didn't get a clear look," he tried to placate Billy. "But I think I hit it," Alan grinned. "Tomorrow we'll have a proper look, in daylight. It's gone now, whatever it was. Come back to bed now."

He hooked his arm around Billy and led him back to the bedroom at the far end of the trailer, through the folding plastic door that always hung limply open, useless. Alan had half expected Billy to spend the remaining hours before dawn tossing and turning and listening for rustling wings and scrabbling feet across the rooftop again but Billy still had those three sleeping pills in his system. Alan had held him in his arms, rocking him gently back to sleep, and once the spike of adrenalin had left his system Billy had just gone out like a light, a dead weight against Alan.

 

Billy was up bright an early, jigging around slightly with his headphones on as he leant against their trailer's excuse for a table, having excavated a newspaper sized clearing in the mess of stacked books, notes, tools and samples.

This wasn't the behaviour Alan had expected, and he suspected more than coffee had Billy so bright and alert this morning, especially after last night, but he said nothing.

He caught Billy from behind, leaning up against him in an embrace that spoke volumes about Alan's need for contact after everything that had happened last night. Alan was hard and demanding attention, wrapping his arms around Billy, nuzzling at his neck with grizzled stubble and unhooking one earplug, getting a blast of something unpalatable in his face for his troubles, making him scowl and grouse, much to Billy's amusement.

It had nothing to do with the twenty two years between them. Alan had hardly been what you would call hip when he'd been Billy's age, so he found it all a bit foreign and intimidating. No, Alan was just wasn't the sort to hang out at nightclubs and the like, and he often wondered if he wasn't cramping Billy's style. Not that Billy ever gave him reason to think so, other than the usual mild teasing at Alan's expense.

Billy was leaning back in Alan's warmth and they swayed together momentarily, Alan's slow burning heat warming him from the groin up. Billy was enjoying this. Alan's arms around him felt good, really good, and Alan's insistent nuzzling was really turning him on. He leant forward, bracing himself against the table. He felt Alan trying to pull him back towards the bed, the old romantic, or at least two steps across to the couch, but Billy wanted it like this, a good fast fuck standing up.

To make his point Billy turned around quickly in Alan's arms, pushing him up against the wall with an audible wallop, kissing him hard while pulling Alan's jeans open one handed, as they'd both slept in their clothes, what little sleep they'd grabbed.

Alan returned the favour, rewarded with a hiss against his throat as his hand slid over inflamed and sensitive skin.

Another grinding kiss and Billy turned around again, leaning back into Alan, twitching his hips up and down, rolling back onto Alan's sturdy arousal.

Alan was now totally with Billy in what he wanted, bending Billy over the table and taking him with force enough to make everything on the table shake, rattle and roll off onto the floor with clatters and clinks. Alan grazed the back of Billy's neck with unshaven kisses and whispered harsh, filthy words in Billy's ear, punctuating every one with another thrust, making Billy cry out loudly.

"God, Alan, yes, there, fuck me, more, harder, stick it in me, oh, fuck, yes..."

Billy trailed off into half sighing grunts as he shot into Alan's hand, sinking across the table. He felt Alan clutch at him tightly, which meant he'd come, and then, with one last kiss on the back of his neck, Alan was drawing away, tidying himself, tucking himself in, zipping himself up and looking slightly sheepish.

If he was going to ask Billy if he thought anyone had heard Billy was going to laugh in his face. At this hour of the morning, after Alan shouting, running about and firing shots into the sky last night, of course they would have heard.

Billy didn't care. It'd do them good to see Alan the way Billy did, as an impossibly exciting and virile man, his experience a tang Billy could taste, his gruffness even more of a turn on and a challenge to get past.

Billy took Alan's face in his hands and kissed him, slow and sweet. Alan returned the kiss, his hands coming up to cradle and hold Billy there, making it last, until at last Billy came up for air, slightly distracted, and Alan glanced down at last to what Billy had been doing before he'd been so pleasantly interrupted.

Billy crouched to sponge up the evidence of their transgressions with a tissue while Alan dispassionately sorted through Billy's photographs with a fingertip.

Billy threw the tissue away with an arcing toss, stood up beside Alan and picked out a couple from the pile he'd been meaning to show Alan.

Alan's hand ran in soothing circles up and down Billy's back as he looked over the photos, and Alan would never know just how much it meant to Billy, just to have that touch.

Billy couldn't imagine his life with anyone else and he didn't want to. He loved Alan so much. Alan meant everything to him. That's why it hurt so much when Alan's temper was turned on him. Billy normally escaped Alan's wrath, enduring only his withering sarcasm, but that moment, over the eggs, it had utterly destroyed Billy. Alan had taken the love away and glared at him with terrible anger and worse: disappointment.

He might as well have struck Billy for the terrible body blow Billy had taken, and when Billy had stepped up onto the wire fence, in that one look back, there had been burning wounded pride and anger towards Alan, as well as unspeakable heartbreak.

It was over and gone now. He was leaning against Alan, deliciously morning warm and sexily scented Alan, still smelling of sweat, semen and cordite, and Alan was tracing absent-minded patterns on the back of his t-shirt. It was gone, but never forgotten.

Alan's hand stilled as he studied the photos but it remained resting on the small of Billy's back, under his t-shirt, skin against skin.

Billy needed that touch: it was his talisman against the monsters. It kept him calm, it kept him centred. It was keeping him sane, otherwise he was sure he'd go mad, knowing the damn things were out there, just waiting for him, knowing how thin steel was no protection against the things that went bump in the night.

Billy was sorted out the three photos from the pile that he'd really wanted to show Alan.

"Look at the damage. Our creature, whatever it is, there's more than one. They're hungry, and the kills have escalated." He glanced up at Alan. "They've got hungry mouths to feed. There's a nest."

"I was afraid of that," Alan looked pained.

"Shouldn't we tell someone?" Billy asked. "At the risk of seeming foolish and seeing escaped dinosaurs under every stone, shouldn't we say something? These things hunt people. They kill people. They know how to and they've got a taste for it."

Alan met his eyes.

"They're not after you."

"How do you know? They found me here, how do you know they haven't been hunting me?" Billy's eyes demanded answers Alan couldn't give him.

"They're not after you," Alan had repeated. He'd been hunted by velociraptors across the island but he was willing to lie to himself. He dearly wanted to believe that these creatures did not hunt like that, they did not carry grudges and they did not want revenge for the death of a mate, even though he knew of species of birds who did just that.

"We need proof, Billy. We need some definitive evidence that what we have here is indeed a terrible flying lizard. Otherwise we're right up there with Bigfoot hunters." He laid the photograph down. "This isn't enough, not yet."

"We're gong to need a bigger net," Billy agreed wryly, arm folded across his chest.

 

Alan leant the aluminium ladder up against the trailer and tested it. He was about to go up it himself when he found Billy's arm blocking his way.

"I can go up," Billy insisted, and Alan knew better than to argue.

He stood back and let Billy pass, watching him climb, his metal arm clanking against the ladder with a dull ring at every step.

Billy climbed easily and quickly in spite of his handicap and ignoring the way Alan hovered and held the ladder for him below. Reaching the top he balanced on the rung, swinging his camera around to take a photograph.

"See anything?" Alan asked.

"Not really," Billy had to admit. He twisted around and caught Alan gazing up at him.

"You see anything you like?" Billy teased, flashing dimples down to him.

"Just admiring the view," Alan answered whimsically, still gazing up at Billy. The moment the words left his lips Alan realised he sounded exactly like the old queen he'd become. Here he was, openly flirting with Billy up a ladder. Between this and shooting at nothing in the middle of the night the other students must be thinking his mid-life crisis knew no bounds.

"Arise, fair sun," he began expansively, and Billy giggled, turning away, trying not to encourage Alan.

Billy was picking at something on the roof.

"There are scratches and gouge marks," he called down. "But they're not distinctive. They could have been caused by anything, like a low lying branch. It's not like when that Spinosaurus tore the plane open like a paper bag."

"Thank god," Alan agreed, with deep feeling.

Billy came back down the ladder steps, shrugging off disappointment.

"Why do I feel like I'm Mulder, chasing after imaginary monsters?" he sighed. "Too bad you didn't bag whatever it was last night. A carcass would be proof, and a nifty trophy," he grinned.

"You're taking this well," Alan observed, somewhat surprised, and still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"So long as I'm just nuts and seeing and hearing things, it's cool." Billy flashed him another dimpled smile.

Alan didn't want to wipe away that smile by saying anything about his own doubts, so he left it unsaid. Billy seemed convinced in the light of day that he'd been seeing things, but his fear had transferred itself to Alan.

Alan had seen something last night, and he couldn't swear on a stack of Bibles that it hadn't been one of InGen's escaped livestock.

"Insanity isn't catching, is it?" he had to ask.

"Every study so far has suggested it is, they just don't know how."

"That very reassuring," Alan grumbled, seeing amusement dancing in Billy's eyes.

It was only then that Alan noticed Billy was actually wearing a t-shirt. It hung loose on him, not at all like those tight t-shirts that he used to wear, the ones that had traced every line, and hadn't he just known it, and the sleeves now were long enough to cover where steel joined flesh, but it was a t-shirt nevertheless. Either Billy hadn't noticed what he'd pulled on this morning or he was growing more comfortable with the way things were now. Alan hoped so.

"You frightened the life out of me last night, you know," Billy interrupted his thoughts. "I didn't know you even had a gun."

"Didn't think I'd ever have to use it."

"Why do you have it?"

Alan grew serious. "You're not the only one jumping at shadows these days."

Billy nodded. The moments when Alan had left him in the trailer and gone outside had been one long silent scream. Billy had wanted to follow but he just could not make himself move. Instead he'd sat huddled on the bed like a baby, hiccupping and shaking in absolute terror as something had dragged and scraped itself across the thin roof, the very stuff of nightmares. Then Alan had started firing wildly and Billy's fear of losing Alan had propelled him towards the door, just in time to see Alan picking himself up sheepishly from the ground and whatever had been spooking them long gone.

 

Breakfast was an entirely casual and drawn out affair as everybody much preferred gathering over coffee to discuss the night's disturbance rather than working. Billy, bless him, had defused the situation somewhat by sitting in on a hand of poker, the cards sticking up rather comically from his clawed metal hand, drinking coffee, sharing a cigarette and telling them all that Alan had been taking pots shots at the family of rats who'd been trying to move into the trailer.

With Dr Grant not known for his patience at the best of times, people had nodded and sympathised with Billy for having to put up with such an impossible old grouch.

Billy flicked Alan a wickedly cheerful grin over the tops of his cards and Alan knew Billy was just loving this, painting Alan as a dreadful ogre who paid him below subsistence wages and treated him like dirt for free.

It was all true of course, Billy just neglected to mention the few perks the job came with.

Like the sex, the great, mind-blowing sex, though how anyone could not see what was written clearly in his smile every time Billy grinned up at Alan, well, Alan just didn't know at times.

A sudden shrieking whinny from his adopted horse made Billy's head snap up. At that same moment the tent shook with a sudden gust of wind. Billy stood, cards forgotten, and both he and Alan saw the monstrous shadow fall across the tent, moments before the terrible sound of tearing canvas filled their ears.

It descended on them like a demon, snapping and clawing at them as it ripped through the canvas and swooped down, making a deliberate dive for Billy, who just stood there, staring at it as it lunged for him, unable to move.

It was Alan who moved, pitching himself forward across the tent with speed that would even surprise him upon recollection, tackling Billy and knocking him down, rolling him under him and holding him there, protecting him. The animal caught his shoulder, claws like a grappling hook digging and slicing through his flesh, but Alan wouldn't move. He felt it smack the side of his head, hard, so hard he heard the crack of bone, but still he wouldn't move.

Something smacked flesh above him. It was the other students, fighting off the monster with picks and shovels and anything else that came to hand. He felt his skin tear again as it let him go and rose up, hovering for one dark moment, glaring at all of them, before spreading its wings, flapping and driving itself up and away from the weapons that poked at it.

It wheeled off over the rise of hill but Alan didn't care. He was still holding Billy and he wouldn't let him go until someone prised his hands loose. He was dragged back, slammed in a chair and his shirt torn open, exposing the bloody rents on his shoulder.

Alan didn't care, he didn't even feel it. All he could see was Billy, crouching on the ground, shaking slightly, staring at nothing.

Billy couldn't hear, see or feel anything save the roar of his pounding heartbeat in his head. Thud, thud, thud, over and over again, the sound of the Spinosaurus chasing them, the brush of a leathery wing against his skin, the shriek of an animal that meant to kill him.

Billy was lost to the world, trapped in a nightmare. Billy was lost to him.

€ €

It was the smell of blood and antiseptics that must have done it, even though Alan was barely paying attention as his shoulder was washed out and a thick bandage pressed against it.

The torn flapping sides of the tent billowed in and out with a sudden snap, and Alan suddenly remembered all too clearly the jolt of the helicopter and the high pitched electronic screaming beep of the alarm that meant Billy's heart had stopped. That sound had kept cutting through him like a knife. He could hear the medics yelling to each other over the rattling noises of the helicopter but he couldn't look around and that damn alarm just wouldn't stop. He could see the Kirbys staring at the way his white knuckles gripped the edge of the seat, the greyness of his face, the way he was barely breathing. When that bloody alarm had stopped for a moment, to be replaced by the shaky pips of Billy's heartbeat, his eyes had welled up with unshed tears. Then that damn alarm had gone off again and he'd been so sure that Billy was dead, and he had been, but they'd managed to get him back, somehow. Billy just wouldn't quit: it wasn't in his nature.

Not then, and not now. Billy was still crouching on the ground, and Alan thought the boy must have shut down entirely at the sight of that dreadful thing, but Billy suddenly switched back on again, glancing up at Alan, meeting his eyes, a decision made. Alan didn't like that look. He'd seen it before and he knew what it meant.

Billy snatched up a geological pick from the scattered tools, hefting it for weight, then he began strapping it to his metal and plastic arm with gaffer tape, round and round until it was bound securely. He snapped off the tape with his teeth. Like hell was he going down to that beast as an easy kill. Not again.

It had caught him by surprise. Everything had been normal, he'd been safe, then it had been there, and it had nearly killed him. It had nearly killed Alan.

It was at that moment that Alan glanced up from watching them try to bandage the bleeding rents on his shoulder. He saw the heavy pick dangling from Billy's arm, and had an inkling of what Billy intended to do.

"Billy?" he asked, but Billy just met his eyes with that reckless, determined look. The 'I won't let you down again' look. The look that had something to prove.

"Billy -" Alan shook his head in horror. Not again. Not now.

"Billy - no! Billy - wait!" Alan pushed people aside, forcing himself to his feet and raced out of the tent but Billy was already astride the horse, a shotgun slung over his shoulder.

"It came here for me and like hell am I going to let it kill anyone else before I finish this." With that Billy wheeled around and galloped out of the camp.

"No." Alan wasn't going to be held back this time while Billy sacrificed himself. He wasn't about to lose Billy a second time. He threw himself behind the wheel of his 4WD and drove out after him, but Billy's horse could climb places the 4WD couldn't, and Alan was forced to fall back, helplessly, pounding the steering wheel in frustration.

 

Billy had been dead when the chopper had landed on the carrier, and they'd been working on him furiously when they'd lifted him off. The Ambassador had gotten in Alan's face but Alan had just pushed him aside, racing to the side of the ship and retching. He could manage nothing but dry heaves on an empty stomach. He'd leant heavily on the side, feeling so weak and nauseous, barely able to stand. If they thought it was just the ride on the navy helicopter that had knocked him around, so be it. He was waiting to be told Billy was gone forever.

Thank god he'd had the chance to make things right with Billy. Thank god for that, at least.

He'd slumped against the ship like a legless drunk, and that's when the Kirbys had run interference for him, keeping everyone away until Alan had recovered himself a little. They knew now what Billy meant to him. They knew and they were sorry.

Alan had turned away, staring out to sea, blinking away the tears. It had been the worst day of his life.

He wasn't about to go through it again.

He slammed out of his truck and turned round to see the ranger driving up towards him in a cloud of dust and flashing lights.

"Have you seen it?" was the first thing she demanded of him. "I heard over the radio -" She saw the blood that stained the bandage through the rents in his shirt.

"Are you okay?"

Alan didn't care, quite frankly.

"Billy's gone after it," he pointed over the hill. "Get your bloody shotgun - now."

He twisted around, squinting at the sky, trying to make out a shape against the horizon. Somewhere over that hill his lover was fighting, and probably dying, all alone.

"Come on," Alan chivvied the Ranger angrily, impatient. In his rush he'd forgotten his own gun and he needed hers. Again the thoughts came unbidden that this was the day he would lose Billy. It didn't seem fair, not when they'd wasted so much time flirting and playing games, Alan denying his desire until Billy had finally made his move, almost as the last act of their play, giving Alan one last chance to take what was being offered.

 

They had been lolling around on the dusty couch in the trailer, taking it easy after a long, stinking hot day. In fact they were so relaxed they were almost horizontal, the small mountain of empty beer cans rising beside them proof that Billy's birthday had not gone unobserved.

"Twenty one today, and never been kissed," Alan teased, somewhat in his cups, toasting Billy again with a half empty beer can that sloshed around.

Billy grinned, all dimples and wicked eyes. "I wouldn't say that."

On impulse he turned, leant into Alan and brushed a kiss lightly onto his lips.

Maybe it was surprise or the fact that he was more than half pissed but Alan didn't move or turn away, so Billy cupped Alan's face tenderly, kissing each lip in turn and then gently licking those lips until Alan opened up to him and he stroked his tongue inside. Alan groaned and grabbed at him, suddenly returning the kiss with a fierce passion.

For something that had taken forever to get started, things had suddenly started moving very fast. Billy had taken Alan's hand and rubbed it over his growing erection, to show Alan what he did to him, so Alan would know he was sincere. Alan's palm pressed down over him possessively, and it was Billy's turn to groan in pleasure.

As they came up for air Billy pulled off his t-shirt so Alan could touch him all over, skin to skin, because he wanted Alan to feel the heat of his skin. Billy turned another kiss on Alan, gradually pushing Alan back against the couch. His hand rubbed over Alan, Billy purring as he appreciated the promised size through the cloth of Alan's jeans.

Alan was lost to sensation, letting Billy nuzzle at his throat and ease the buttons of his shirt open, one by one, Billy kissing his way in a measured trail down to Alan's belt buckle. Billy pulled Alan's belt free and unzipped his fly without too much fanfare. Billy had wanted this for far too long and he wasn't about to waste time and give Alan a chance to catch his breath or change his mind. He pulled Alan's underwear out of the way and got down to business.

Grinning wickedly he licked along Alan's length like it was an icecream and watched Alan twitch. He guessed it wasn't the first time Alan had been given head. Billy still intended to make it worth his while, licking and sucking and teasing until Alan was twisting and turning on the couch and begging him to just get on with it. Billy licked his fingers slick and went in and Alan came loudly and violently in a shuddering orgasm, seeing stars.

Billy spat out the taste of rubber and sat back, still grinning, guessing no one had done that for Alan before.

Alan was watching him through half open eyes, asking a question. Billy just leant forward and kissed him, lying down along the length of Alan, sharing the couch, playing with the open buttons of Alan's shirt.

"Go to sleep, Alan," Billy spoke quietly, and snuggled against him, and they slept.

As a first time it had lacked candles and music, hearts and flowers, fireworks and fanfares, but all those things had been in Alan's heart the moment Billy had kissed him, and they still were, ready to burn, every time Billy smiled at him. He couldn't lose that, not now, not ever.

 

Alan grabbed at tussocks of grass and started pulling himself up to the top of the hill, but he knew it was hopeless. He'd never catch up on foot. They'd have to go around.

He scrambled down again, shaking his head at her questions.

"Drive," was all he said.

 

Billy tore across the plain, horse and rider alone, galloping hard and fast. There was nothing else around as far he could see. Everything was in hiding, as if sensing the unnatural horror that had returned to the badlands, riding the wind currents, swooping down on prey.

Billy felt it, his animal instincts kicked in just a second before he felt the air slam down around him.

It screamed down over them, snagging at his billowing shirt with its claws. This time it caught only cloth and air but its second strike knocked him bodily from his horse.

The horse ran away screaming in fear across the barren landscape, kicking up dust but the pteranodon ignored it.

Billy rolled over onto his back, dazed, just in time to see it flapping above him, angling down to strike. Instinct alone brought his metal arm up just in time to block that terrible beak as it stabbed down at him like a sword.

 

Alan felt trapped as the Four Wheel Drive lumbered clumsily over the uneven ground. He glared out of the window, feeling helpless, the claw marks in his shoulder starting to sting and ache. He couldn't help it, he couldn't stop thinking of his life with Billy, and how much it meant to him. Even on the island, he hadn't been able to stop thinking about Billy. He couldn't stop now.

 

He'd caught Ellie watching fondly over Billy as he rolled and played boisterously with her boys.

"You're thinking it's a shame he'll never have children of his own. It's alright, I saw that look," he smiled at her.

"It's only because he seems such a natural."

"The reason Billy gets on so well with your boys is because he's still a child himself," Alan dismissed, a little unkindly.

"Alan," Ellie shook her head, bemused, knowing his bark was worse than his bite.

"Besides," Alan cocked a sidelong look at Billy, "Who knows where he might have sown his oats. He was a wild child, that one."

"Alan," Ellie rebuked again.

"Well, he's only been mine for a couple of years now. Before that it was a strictly summer fling thing, and god only knows what he got up to at Berkeley. Or gets up to." Alan added, unable to keep the sour note of jealously from his voice.

Billy was only living full time with Alan in Montana now because Alan needed to keep an eye on him, to make sure he was all right. He'd already had to rush Billy to the emergency room once, not from complications from his injuries but because Alan had come home early, worried that Billy wasn't answering the phone, and he'd found Billy curled on his side in the bathroom, unconscious. It was the ER intern who'd picked it up - Billy had been prescribed an anti-depressant that was known to cause suicidal tendencies as a side effect. When Alan had been told, legend had it that his reaction could have been heard two counties away. After that Alan had kept a much closer eye on Billy and his medications, trying to ween him off them, one by one.

Alan still felt the arrangement was a temporary one, rather than a new phase of their relationship, and it pricked at him.

"I was always frightened that he'd call one day and tell me he'd gotten some girlfriend pregnant and that'd be it. I mean, look at him, the women must be throwing themselves at him and I, well, there's no fool like an old fool."

Alan mulled over his teacup and Ellie snorted in derision.

"Alan, for fuck's sake. That boy clearly thinks the sun shines out of your arse and he worships the very ground you walk on. He adores you, Alan, and you need to start wearing your glasses all the time now if you can't see that."

Alan ignored her slight, still considering Billy, a part of him still waiting for that phone call, the one that would take Billy away from him.

Ellie, however, was like a dog with a bone and she wasn't about to let Alan's insecurities fuck up what he obviously had.

"He brought you eggs," Ellie reminded, and Alan's jaw tightened. Ellie was having none of it. "He knew velociraptors were your life's work, he stole those eggs because he thought you'd appreciate them. They were love tokens, Alan, and you threw them back in his face," she reprimanded, and Alan had the good grace to look shamefaced.

"If I had someone who loved me enough to raid a dinosaur's nest for me, I'd hang onto him with both arms. I'd hold onto him because a love like that, it's a rare thing in this world, Alan."

She was right. Billy had never meant for Alan to be hunted by those things. He hadn't known, hadn't imagined what would happen. He'd merely acted on impulse, as silly young men in love are wont to do, because he'd thought Alan would want the eggs, could use the eggs. No wonder Billy had looked so hurt and confused when Alan had refused his gift. Damn it. No wonder Billy had sacrificed himself, the romantic young fool.

"Don't lose him, Alan," Ellie pressed.

Billy looked up and grinned across to Alan, oblivious to the conversation about him.

Alan saw it shining plainly on Billy's face. After everything, Billy still loved him.

"He's so beautiful," Alan murmured, and Ellie blushed slightly, not used to hearing such sentiments from Alan.

Alan sipped his tea, content just to watch Billy. "He's...amazing."

"Yes, he is," Ellie agreed.

"I love him," Alan murmured.

Ellie glanced sharply at Alan, surprised to hear his heartfelt admission.

Alan smiled over the rim of his cup. "After all, like you said, He raided a raptor's nest for me - it must be love."

 

Damn it, he wasn't going to lose Billy. Not now. Especially not now. Not after everything.

"Drive faster," he ground out between clenched teeth.

 

Billy tried to tear the pick away from the tape binding it desperately as he rolled away from the pteranodon. Claws hissed across his back as he ripped the pick free. He managed to swing up with the pick, trying to bat it away, catching the pteranodon in the eye and blinding it. A second strike and third had torn through wings, Billy scrambling to get up as he defended himself while it pecked and tore at him ferociously.

Billy had lost the shotgun when he'd been thrown from the horse but he still had his pick and his clawed metal arm which was harder for the animal to bite through than flesh and bone had been. It had flapped over him, scraping and gouging and stabbing again and again until Billy had finally wounded it enough to ground it. Getting unsteadily to his feet he was finally on the offensive and he brought his pick down heavily.

It seethed angrily on the ground, striking up with beak and claws but Billy kept pounding down on it with the pick. It thrashed out at him with its beak and knocked him back on his arse and tried to crawl away but he just pulled himself to his feet and swung down again.

"Fucking die," Billy demanded of it, swinging down again, this time his pick crunching through bone and flesh and finally the creature fluttered and then lay still.

Billy stepped back a little, not willing to be fooled again, waiting for the creature to struggle back up but this time as it laid there it stayed there.

He heard the 4WD roar up over the rise and turned to see Alan and the Ranger running towards him. He let his pick drop by his side and grinned at them, smeared in his own blood and the pteranodon's.

St George had finally vanquished the dragon.

 

The 4WD had rocked over the rise and Alan, wanting to close his eyes against what he knew he must see, saw instead Billy alive, Billy standing, Billy triumphant. For the third time now Alan had been surprised by Billy's survival.

The first time had been at the fence, a happy reunion cut short by the Spinosaurus who had also been hunting them across the island. The second had been on the helicopter, when Alan had been so certain of Billy's death. He'd seen the blood in the water, all that terrible blood, and had heard Billy's screams. After the shock had worn off he'd resigned himself to the fact and his grief, while plain to the Kirbys, had been one of quiet reflection rather than howling lamentation.

It was something even Eric Kirby had picked up on: Alan kept his emotions to himself and it did him no good not to let those he loved know just how deeply he cared for them. It was a flaw he'd vowed to overcome, and as if to test his new purpose, Billy had been returned to him and Alan had put on a display of deeply restrained emotion enough to make a US Ambassador blush.

It didn't matter though. Billy knew and they didn't really need words to say what was most important. Just look and a touch, a lame joke and a fond tap on the tip of Billy's nose, that was all that was needed. It was silly and trivial but Billy had been out of it and Alan had been overcome and in that moment, it had been everything.

 

Billy was still hacking into the body over and over with the pick when Alan finally caught up to him, almost doubled over with relief that somehow Billy had survived another foolish act. Definitely reverse Darwinism.

"Billy - enough - it's dead," Alan felt he had to point out, still somewhat breathless with worry.

"Just. Working. Out. My. Issues!" Billy cried exhalant, bringing the pick down heavily with each word.

"Yes, agreed, but wouldn't you rather have something left to compare this specimen with the fossil records? I can't do that if you grind up its bones to make your bread."

Billy thumped down the pick one last time, taking his revenge, and stopped.

"You're right," he gave in to Alan's logic, somewhat breathlessly from his efforts. "Sorry."

"It's alright," Alan smiled at his gory, blood splattered lover. "You deserve a little recreational therapy."

"I can think of better recreation," Billy prowled huskily, still sparking brightly with life, heart pumping, eyes shining, skin flushed. He came closer, holding Alan's eyes with a predatory gleam.

Alan reached out to keep Billy at arm's length, in spite of the arousal that was suddenly flushing through his blood. "You're covered head to foot in pteranodon gizzards," Alan complained primly.

"Just the way you like me," Billy purred, pressing up tight and close to Alan, wrapping around him and kissing him hard.

Billy was hugging him impossibly tight, but he did not kiss him. Not in front of the world's press that circled them in a news helicopter at least. How they'd gotten there so fast Alan had no idea, unless they'd been scanning radio frequencies and had heard the Ranger's pleas for assistance and backup.

Billy's hot breath brushed against his ear and he heard Billy whisper: "I want you to take me home and fuck me, fuck me hot and hard until my bones shake. I want you to ride me hard until I'm screaming your name. I want you, I want you inside me."

Billy jerked his hips into Alan's for emphasis, and Alan squeezed him tight right back, nearly ready to come right there and then.

Billy pulled away slightly, smiling, teasing, eyes dancing, playing momentarily hard to get. Alan supposed they were just working their way through the four F's of basic animal behaviour: flight and fight, and now having survived the first two they were onto feasting and fucking. Alan was hungry and Billy looked positively ravenous, ready to devour him on the spot, as well as looking slightly insane with his eyes still wild, torn clothes, a ragged metal arm and the dripping rock pick still dangling from his good hand.

Alan didn't care how dangerous his lover looked. Alan wanted nothing on this earth the way he wanted Billy, and only an ingrained sense of decorum and an equally learned need to see Billy's kill properly preserved for further study kept Alan from rolling Billy on the ground and fucking him right there. There would be no doubt that their somewhat battered trailer would be slamming back and forth as soon as the bare minimum had be done to preserve order.

Alan was still unwilling to let Billy go entirely, still holding him loosely in his arms, still needing to hold him, to touch him. Alan tried to wipe away the smudges of blood from Billy's face, concerned that not all the blood was from the pteranodon.

Billy suddenly tensed in Alan's arms. Every muscle in Billy had frozen and when Alan drew back a little he could see Billy staring over his shoulder in horror.

Slowly, Alan turned and saw what Billy could see: an enormous dark shape swooping out of the sky, making a dive at the helicopter that dared to hover in its airspace.

"There's a mate," Billy mouthed helplessly.

The news crew never saw it, too busy filming the carcass Billy had staked out on the ground. It flew straight at the helicopter, furious, smashing in through the window, tearing into the pilots and controls and both machine and beast had tumbled from the sky in a twisting, tangled battle.

Alan had thrown Billy to the ground, trying to cover him as the helicopter slammed into the field, skidding across it, blades, glass and metal shearing off flung about, flames erupting from it.

Then the helicopter just rocked to a stop, flames rolling up from it, burning everything. They scrambled to the wreckage, shielding themselves from the heat with their hands, but there was no one to save.

The canopy of the copter creaked and groaned as the flames devoured it, and then through the flames a dark shadow rose up and crawled forward. A hellish vision, wings burnt and broken, it drew itself up to its full height and lumbered towards them, stalking across the ground, malice in its eyes.

Billy stared in horror as it kept coming straight for him, relentless, pushing its way free from the wreckage.

Stop. Just make it stop. Billy pushed Alan back behind him and grabbed the shotgun from the Ranger's numb fingers. He walked forward, just not caring any more, slamming the shotgun down hard with one hand to chamber the round, firing, reloading, firing again, over and over until the bloody thing just stopped where it was. Even that wasn't enough. Billy chambered the shotgun once last time, took careful aim, eyes cold down the barrel, and blew the creature's head to dust.

Alan stood quietly beside Billy, taking the shotgun from his hand. He could hear the sirens bumping across the terrain to reach them, though there was nothing left to be done.

Billy turned to Alan, suddenly thinking of nests, when he noticed the red stain smeared across Alan's shirt.

"Alan," he frowned. "You're bleeding."

Alan glanced down at his blood stained shirt, and felt the unbroken skin underneath. Only his shoulder had been gouged, and it was well bandaged.

"Billy?" He saw the blood that was dripping from Billy's pick was running down his metal arm, following it up to the dark patch that was spreading across his t-shirt, just above his heart.

"Shit, I thought it just punched me," Billy wondered, looking down at himself. He looked across at Alan and just crumpled to the ground.

"Billy!" Alan fell to his knees beside Billy as three truckloads of emergency services roared over the rise, lights flashing, a motorised cavalry, too late.

"Billy, no," he pleaded, tearing off Billy's shirt and wadding it against the wound.

 

It had been a deep goring, stabbed hard from a beak thrust forward like sword and then dragged back diagonally across Billy chest as the creature had flailed and attacked in its death throes. Twenty centimetres of stitches later and Billy had survived, with a new scar to add to his collection.

The nightmares had eased, though Billy had still spun around when somebody had loudly unfurled and flapped an umbrella behind him, shaking off the rain. Once they were inside the cloying warmth of the seedy little bar and sitting in their booth Billy was all smiles again. Summer was nearly over and Billy would have to begin work on his thesis in earnest, but for now he was happy to be here, working with Alan, wrapping up the site for another year.

Billy had decided to write his paper on pteranodons, comparing the InGen creatures to fossil records and other known species, past and present. He was uniquely qualified to comment on the animals, and Alan had preserved his 'trophy' for him.

Alan had been worried a little, at first, when Billy had discussed his ideas with him, fearing that it would reopen barely scabbed over wounds. Billy had persuaded him that exposure was how they cured arachnophobes and having the creature dead and laid out on a slab, well, it kept everything within a scientific framework and well within Billy's comfort zone.

It also meant Billy wouldn't be treading on Alan's particular field of study, or have to revisit the painful incident of the eggs, so that was well and good.

Above all Billy seemed more and more like his old self.

Alan was simply content to watch as Billy sawed through the most enormous steak Alan had ever seen. Billy had the fork clutched in his claw, cutting away with his right, chatting happily as he went. Alan wasn't really listening, he was just content to sit and gaze upon his beloved.

Billy's appetite had retuned, all his appetites, Alan mused, watching Billy devour another hunk of barely warmed meat, the way Billy liked it.

Billy had finally slain his dragon, three confirmed kills in fact, represented by the three kill stickers Billy had spray painted on the side door of his beat up old student car. Knowing now that he wasn't a coward, that he could fight the monsters and survive if it had to, it had given him a sense of peace.

Those long hours Billy had spent hiding up in a tree, dripping wet, shivering and bleeding, cowering from the creatures that had sniffed around below it, it had haunted Billy for the longest time. Billy had spent the whole night cowering up that tree, shaking like a frightened child. He'd tried to bandage up his arm with what was left of his shirt but he was torn up all over and his blood had dripped freely down the tree. Beasts came and snuffled and snorted and occasionally scratched at the tree and tried to climb up it, but he still had his metal bar to club them with, and he'd climbed up as high as he could. He'd clung to that branch all through the night like a terrified monkey. He'd never been so scared in all his life, and he knew he'd remember that fear for the rest of his life.

Finally he