Aaron waited until evening.
Not because night made things safer — it didn't — but because it softened the edges of the world. Daylight demanded explanations. Night only asked that you breathe and exist. After dark, expectations loosened their grip. Voices lowered. Doors closed gently instead of sharply. The house exhaled with him.
The familiar low hum settled in around him: the muted clink of dishes being stacked somewhere down the hall, ceramic against ceramic; the steady murmur of a television bleeding through walls, laughter canned and distant; pipes ticking as they cooled. Ordinary sounds. Proof of life continuing without him needing to participate. The soft certainty that he wasn't alone, even if loneliness still pressed against his ribs like a bruise.
He sat on his bed again.
Same place. Same mattress dip molded to his shape. Same threadbare blanket bunched near his knees. The same phone in his hands, screen dark, reflecting his faint glow back at him like a ghost of himself.
Different weight.
This time, he didn't wait for a message to force his hand. Didn't wait for concern to find him before he found it himself.
He unlocked the phone. The light was too bright at first, stabbing through the dim room. He squinted, thumb hovering, heart already starting to race — that familiar stutter-step of panic warming up in his chest.
He opened the chat and typed before he could overthink it.
Aaron: hey
Aaron: you guys free?
The message sat there for a heartbeat. Two. His claws dug into the fabric of the blanket, grounding himself in the texture, the resistance.
The response came quicker than he expected.
Nathan: yeah
Kane: always 😤
Kane: u okay?
Aaron stared at that last question longer than he needed to.
The room felt smaller suddenly. Like the walls had leaned in just enough to notice. His glow pulsed once, faint but insistent, a nervous flicker under his skin.
Aaron: yeah
Aaron: just… wanted to talk
The typing bubbles vanished almost immediately.
The call connected a few seconds later, the familiar tone cutting through the quiet like a dropped coin.
"Hey," Kane said, voice warm but careful now — not the usual loud bravado, but something gentler, like he'd learned where the cracks were last time and didn't want to step on them. "What's up?"
"Hey," Nathan added. He sounded closer to the mic, quieter. Attentive. "You sound… tired."
Aaron swallowed. His throat felt tight, like it had been holding something back all day. "Yeah," he said. "I am."
The word echoed in the small room. Tired. It felt heavier spoken aloud.
There was a pause.
Not awkward. Not empty. Just… open. Like both of them had leaned forward at the same time.
"I lied earlier," Aaron said quietly.
Neither of them spoke, but he could feel their attention sharpen through the silence — the way the air changes right before a storm breaks. His ears rang faintly. His pulse thudded in his fingertips.
"I wasn't sick," he continued. His claws flexed unconsciously against the mattress, fabric rasping softly under the pressure. "I panicked. And I didn't know how to say that without sounding insane."
Kane exhaled slowly, the sound rough but steady. "Okay," he said. "That's… fair."
Nathan didn't jump in right away. There was a faint shift on his end — fabric, maybe a chair creaking — before he spoke. When he did, his voice was softer, more careful. "Do you wanna tell us what you panicked about?"
Aaron hesitated.
His glow stirred faintly beneath his skin, a low thrum he felt more than saw, like something waking up and stretching inside him. Heat pooled along his arms, down his spine. He pressed his arm hard against his side, grounding himself in the pressure, in the ache.
"I'm scared," he said.
The words slipped out before he could armor them.
"Of being seen."
They landed in the air between them, bare and unprotected, like he'd set something fragile down and stepped back.
Kane let out a short breath, half a laugh that never quite made it there. "Yeah," he said. "I kinda got that vibe."
"That's not—" Aaron stopped himself. His jaw tightened. He tried again, slower this time, choosing each word like it might bite him if he wasn't careful. "It's not just anxiety. Not exactly."
Another pause.
This one was heavier. It pressed down on his shoulders, made his glow flutter unevenly.
Nathan shifted on the other end of the line. "Aaron…" His voice was steady, but there was an undercurrent of worry now. "What aren't you saying?"
Aaron opened his mouth to answer.
What came out instead wasn't a word.
It was low. Rough. A sound dragged up from somewhere deep in his chest before he could stop it — a quiet, strained growl edged with something unmistakably animal. It vibrated through the speaker for less than a second, raw and unfiltered, like a crack in the mask he'd been holding together all night.
Then silence slammed down hard.
Aaron froze.
His body locked up so completely it felt like the room had snapped into stillness with him, like time itself had flinched. His heart dropped — not metaphorically, not poetically — but with a sickening, physical lurch, as if it had slipped loose and fallen straight through the mattress, through the floor, through everything solid he'd been using to pretend he was okay.
"…What," Kane said slowly, carefully, every trace of humor stripped away, "the hell was that?"
Aaron's pulse roared in his ears, loud enough to drown out the faint hum of the house. His glow flared hot along his arms, heat blooming beneath his skin in a way he couldn't fully control anymore, betraying him even though they couldn't see it. He clamped down hard, shoulders curling inward, breath coming shallow and uneven, like his lungs had forgotten the rhythm they'd followed all his life.
"I—" He stopped. The word collapsed before it could become anything useful. There was no cover story big enough. No joke wide enough. No lie elastic enough to stretch over what had just slipped out of him. "I didn't mean to—"
Nathan's voice cut in, sharper now, edged with confusion and something close to alarm. "Was that you?"
Aaron's throat tightened. His jaw trembled. "Yes," he whispered.
The word barely made it past his teeth.
Another pause followed. Longer. Different. Not just waiting — processing. Recalibrating.
"That didn't sound," Kane started, then stopped himself, breath audible as he tried again. "That didn't sound human, man."
Aaron closed his eyes.
There it was. The line he'd been pacing along for years, careful not to cross. The edge he'd balanced on so precisely he'd convinced himself it wasn't there.
"I know," he said.
The silence stretched until it felt like pressure on his ribs, like something heavy was resting on his chest and refusing to move. His glow flickered, erratic now, responding to fear instead of will.
"I don't think I can explain this in a way that makes sense out loud," Aaron said finally. His voice shook, each word costing him more than the last. The effort of holding himself together was wearing thin, fraying at the seams. "But I also don't want to keep lying to you."
His thumb hovered over the screen. The glass felt slick beneath it, too smooth, too final.
"I'm going to send you something," he said. "You don't have to look if you don't want to."
Nathan answered first, his voice tight. "Aaron—"
"I need to," Aaron said, more firmly than he felt. The words surprised him with their steadiness. "For me."
Before either of them could respond, before doubt could claw its way back up his spine, he opened his camera.
The image he took was careful. Deliberate. Cropped tight enough to control the damage.
No face. No room. No identifying context.
Just his forearm, partially in frame — fur visible where skin shouldn't be, fine and unmistakable. Faint blue light bled through beneath it, not reflected, not imposed, but emanating. At the edge of the frame, something caught the light at an angle that refused to behave — the suggestion of a fin, or maybe cartilage, or something that defied easy categorization. Too organic to be fake. Too wrong to be normal.
He stared at it once.
Long enough to feel his stomach twist.
Then he sent it.
The typing dots vanished.
The call stayed connected.
Seconds passed. Each one stretched thin, pulled taut until they threatened to snap. The house noises faded into nothing. His own breathing sounded intrusive, too loud in his ears.
Then Kane spoke, his voice lower than before, stripped down to something cautious and real. "Okay," he said slowly. "That's… not a filter."
"No," Aaron said.
"That's not," Nathan tried, then stopped, words failing him mid-thought. "That's not makeup either."
Aaron shook his head even though they couldn't see it, the motion small and helpless. "No."
Another silence settled in. Thicker now. Uneasy. Charged.
"I don't—" Kane laughed, sharp and disbelieving, the sound breaking off abruptly like he'd realized it didn't belong here. "I don't know what I'm looking at."
Nathan didn't laugh. His voice was quiet, almost reverent. "Is that… you?"
"Yes."
The word felt like stepping off something tall — that weightless moment where there's no ground beneath you anymore, just the certainty that whatever comes next, you can't take it back.
Neither of them yelled. Neither of them hung up.
But something in the air shifted all the same — a subtle recoil, almost imperceptible, like both of them leaning back from the edge of a table at the exact same moment. Not rejection. Not fear in its loud, obvious form. Just the instinctive recalibration that happens when reality stops matching expectation.
"That's," Kane said after a moment, then stalled out, breath catching as he searched for a word big enough. "That's kinda… Jesus."
Nathan swallowed audibly. The sound carried through the speaker, small but painfully clear. "Does it hurt?"
The question landed sideways — not cruel, not comforting. Just honest. The kind of question that slips out when someone doesn't know what they're supposed to be afraid of yet, but knows they should care.
"Sometimes," Aaron admitted.
Saying it made his chest feel hollow, like he'd scooped something essential out and left the space echoing. The glow beneath his skin dimmed slightly, responding to the quiet vulnerability more than the fear.
Another pause settled in.
"I need a second," Kane said finally, not unkindly. His voice was tight, but sincere. "I'm not— I'm not freaked out about you. I'm just… freaked out."
Aaron nodded even though they couldn't see it, the motion small, almost reflexive. His throat tightened around the words. "That's fair."
Nathan stayed quiet. But he didn't disconnect. His breathing came through the speaker — steady, rhythmic — grounding in its own way, like a metronome reminding Aaron that time was still moving forward, that he hadn't shattered it completely.
Finally, Nathan spoke. "You're still Aaron," he said, slowly, like he was testing the sentence for cracks. "Right?"
Aaron's chest ached at that. A deep, dull pressure that spread outward, equal parts relief and grief for how badly he'd needed to hear it.
"Yes," he said. "I am."
No one said anything for a while after that.
But the line stayed open.
The silence wasn't empty. It wasn't hostile. It just existed — heavy, fragile, shared. For the first time since the world had cracked open around him, Aaron didn't rush to fill it or flee from it.
He stayed.
The call didn't end. No one scrambled to patch the quiet with jokes or explanations or nervous laughter. It just lingered — a suspended moment where fear hadn't yet decided what shape it wanted to take.
Kane was the first to break it, his voice lower now, stripped of its usual sharp edges. "You still there?"
"Yeah," Aaron said. His voice came out rough, scraped raw — not from growling this time, but from holding too much inside for too long. "I'm here."
Nathan exhaled slowly on the other end, like he'd been holding his breath without realizing it. "Okay," he said, more to himself than anyone else. "Okay."
No one knew what okay meant yet. It wasn't understanding. It wasn't acceptance. But it wasn't rejection either. And right now, that mattered more than anything.
Kane cleared his throat. "You're not… in pain, are you?"
The question caught Aaron off guard. He blinked, staring down at the floor, at the way the dim light bent strangely around his shadow now, edges softened, distorted. "I don't know," he admitted. "Sometimes. Mostly it's just… confusing."
Another pause.
Nathan spoke again, careful now, choosing each word like it might fracture if handled wrong. "You don't have to explain everything tonight."
Aaron's chest tightened, emotion pressing up against his ribs. "I know."
"But," Nathan continued, gentle but firm, "you don't get to disappear again without saying something. Even if it's just—" He hesitated, then let out a small, tired huff. "—another stupid 'hey.'"
A faint smile tugged at Aaron's mouth, surprising him with how easily it came. "Bare minimum, huh?"
Kane snorted despite himself, the sound familiar, grounding. "Yeah, well. Turns out it worked."
They didn't ask to see more. Not yet. They didn't demand answers or proof or reassurance that he could neatly package himself into something comprehensible, something safely human.
They just stayed.
Aaron shifted where he sat, the unfamiliar weight of himself settling more naturally now. The fear was still there — sharp, watchful — but it wasn't alone anymore. It had company. Uneasy, uncertain company… but real.
"Thanks," he said quietly.
"For what?" Kane asked.
"For not hanging up."
There was a beat. Then Nathan answered, steady as ever. "You didn't."
Aaron leaned back against the wall, eyes closing as the night pressed gently around him. The house hummed on, indifferent and alive. Somewhere, a door closed softly. The television murmured. Outside, the world kept turning, oblivious to the way everything inside him had shifted.
But for the first time, the change didn't feel like an ending.
It felt like the beginning of being seen.
They didn't hang up.
That fact alone felt monumental. A quiet declaration that he hadn't entirely lost his footing in the world. That someone—two someones—hadn't recoiled, hadn't turned away. That alone carried gravity heavier than any words could.
The silence stretched again, but it wasn't empty anymore. It carried weight now—shock settling in layers, questions orbiting but not striking, like a storm forming on the horizon without yet touching the ground.
Aaron shifted, one knee drawn up to his chest, fingers curling lightly around it. His body felt too present, each unfamiliar edge and subtle tremor impossible to ignore. He spoke before the quiet could solidify into something accusatory.
"I wasn't at home," he said.
Kane let out a small, sharp breath. "When I came by?"
Aaron froze for a moment, letting the memory of that night press against him. "I…was, at that time, I'm sorry I avoided you. But I'm talking about when the stuff started happening."
Nathan's voice was careful, soft, almost protective. "Where were you?"
Aaron hesitated. This truth was sharp, jagged around the edges, but he could hold it. He exhaled slowly. "I was taken somewhere," he said. "A lab. Medical. Controlled." His throat tightened. "They were watching me change."
Neither of them spoke. The line carried only the low hum of the call, the slight crackle of distant interference, and the tension of understanding forming.
"It wasn't… voluntary," Aaron added. "At least not in the way you're probably imagining. I didn't have a lot of choices once it started."
Kane muttered, almost under his breath, "Jesus."
Nathan asked softly, "Were you hurt?"
Aaron's mouth twitched, humorless. "Yeah."
That single word carried more than he said aloud. He didn't describe the pain—the way it tore through him, rewrote him from the inside, left him shaking and screaming in spaces that smelled like disinfectant and fear. He didn't describe the restraints, the cold measurements, the sterile eyes watching every flicker, every falter, every whimper. He didn't have to. His voice, weighted and quiet, did that work for him.
"They didn't just watch," he continued. "They documented everything. Every reaction. Every failure." A pause. "I didn't get much time to be… me."
The line stayed quiet, respectful.
"So that picture," Kane said slowly, the words measured, careful. "That's what came out of all that."
"Yes."
Nathan exhaled, long and deliberate. "And you're free now?"
Aaron nodded, the motion unseen but deliberate. "For now."
Another piece, carefully separated from the whole. Another small shard of reality offered without fanfare.
"I don't lose myself," Aaron said, choosing the words with care, testing their solidity. "Not completely. I'm aware. I remember things." He stopped there, letting some truths remain unspoken. Some things were still too heavy. Some things were still tied to names he couldn't speak aloud.
Kane cleared his throat. "That noise earlier—your voice."
"It changes sometimes," Aaron admitted, almost whispering. "I can usually control it. Tonight just… slipped."
Nathan was quiet for a long moment. Then, softly, cautiously, "Is it getting easier?"
Aaron thought of scars that hadn't faded. Of instincts that whispered when the room went dark. Of nights spent calculating how loud he could breathe, how much of himself he could reveal.
"…manageable," he said. And it was true enough.
They didn't ask him to go further. Not about the lab. Not about what else might have happened there. They felt the boundary instinctively, like sensing thin ice beneath their feet.
"We don't need the whole picture yet," Nathan said. "Just… enough to understand you're still you."
Aaron's chest tightened, a slow, deep ache. "I am," he said. "Even when it doesn't look like it."
Kane huffed a weak laugh, the sound brittle but real. "Man, if this is what 'still you' looks like, I can't imagine what 'not you' would be."
Aaron didn't answer.
He leaned back against the wall, exhaustion settling into his bones like a weight he could finally place without fear. Piece by piece, he'd fed them what he could. Not lies. Not falsehoods. Not shields. Just survival-sized truths.
And they were still there.
Still listening.
Still his.