Matthew Montoya refused to let Alex and Jack see what he looked like when he changed into his wyvern's skin.
It was Sunday, November 1st, just past sundown, and Alex, Jack, Matthew, and Ellie were all standing on the side of Timber Hall opposite the courtyard. Just as they suspected, security had been dialled back now that the campus was at a reduced capacity. So, they were jumping into their plan to investigate the roof of Timber Hall before any of them lost their nerve. Or gained some sense. The roof door had a safety mechanism that prevented people from being locked outside, so Ellie and Matthew were going to take advantage of their smaller sizes to fly up to the roof inconspicuously, then let Alex and Jack in through the building's front door. Matthew was insisting that they head over to the entrance before he changed.
"No need to be embarrassed, Inglewood," Jack said with a smirk that betrayed he was about to try and embarrass his fellow American. "There's no way you look any uglier as a dragon than you do normally."
"He's quite beautiful, actually," Ellie said, flicking the centre of Jack's forehead.
"Well now I'm even more curious! Come on, Montoya, I'll show you mine."
"Never say that to me again, Farrow," Matthew said. His tone was light, but Alex could see a flicker of something a bit stronger than annoyance in his eyes.
Alex pulled on the sleeve of his friend's leather jacket. "He doesn't want us to see, so we won't see," he said, pulling along a slightly resisting Jack. "Come on. We'll meet you guys at the front."
Jack kept complaining but let himself be dragged away. Once they were out of sight, Alex let go of Jack's sleeve and smacked his shoulder hard enough to earn a wince.
"What was that for?" Jack said, rubbing the spot that had been hit.
"You don't think there's a good reason Matthew wants to keep his other skin to himself? Given the fact that almost everyone here thinks they're all worthless for it?"
"Come on, he knows I was just joking."
"I'm not entirely sure he does. Either way, he clearly didn't think it was funny."
"I'm pretty sure both his skins are thick enough to take a little light teasing."
"At that party back in September, Malcolm and his friends tried to goad him into changing. They wanted to make him feel inferior just because of his size." Alex held up a finger to stop Jack when he opened his mouth. "And I know that's not what you were trying to do. But if your teasing reminded me of that, I imagine the same is true for him."
Jack let out a puff of air and leaned against the railing that lined the steps up to Timber Hall. "Fine," he sighed, half hiding his guilt. "I'll stick to safer territory when I want to mess with him."
"You could just stop that altogether. You were really nice to him last night. Well, for the most part. He's still got a line on his neck from that party hat."
"Yeah, I got him good, didn't I? Did he find the penis on the inside?"
"Did you have to make it that graphic?"
"And censor my artistic spirit? Never. As to your request, I sadly must decline. Yesterday was a special occasion, and it took all my strength to muster even that much civility."
"Why are you even—"
"He's from LA, Al. The beef goes deeper than you could ever hope to understand. The only comparable contempt you might have a grasp on is the Irish distaste for the English. Or the Scottish distaste for the English. Or the Indian distaste for—"
"We're very distasteful, I get it," Alex said, trying to keep his lips from curling into a smile. He wasn't very successful.
"Speaking of yesterday," Jack said, his own mouth forming a smirk. "I couldn't help but notice you were enjoying yourself."
"Why are you saying it like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like it's an accusation."
"No one's accusing. But come on. You, Alexander fucking Conrad, enjoyed yourself at a party. How many of those have I seen you white-knuckle your way through? It's got to be over a hundred at this point. But you were smiling. You danced. And had fun while you did it!"
"Do you have a point you're trying to get to?" Alex said. "Or are you just getting your fun by teasing me now?"
"I've just been trying to figure out what was different between all those hundreds of other parties and last night. It's a tough mystery, though. Don't know if I'll be able to crack it."
Alex flashed with heat at Jack's sarcastic tone. Jack's smile turned smug, and Alex didn't need to wonder even for a second if he'd been made.
"I don't need to hear your opinions about it, alright?" Alex muttered, sitting on a nearby planter box and keeping his gaze on the pavement.
"Opinions about what?"
"Jack."
Jack chuckled as Alex heated up enough to warp the air around him. He heard his friend shuffle away from the railing and take a seat on the planter beside him, unbothered by the intense temperature.
"Look, do I think your taste is questionable?" Jack said as he leaned against Alex. "Yes. Do I think you could do better? Absolutely. But am I also stoked out of my fucking mind that someone on this planet managed to get you on a dance floor without their talons sunken into your arm? You bet your goddamn life I am. Even if that someone is a cocky shit who roots for the Dodgers. But, hey, Al?"
Alex didn't raise his gaze from the ground right away. He only looked back at Jack when he realised his friend was waiting for him to make eye contact before he continued. His smug smile was gone, replaced by one that Alex had never really seen on him. It reminded him of the way Sean smiled at his baby sister, Amelie. Affection tinged with worry. Or maybe worry tinged with affection.
"Be careful, okay?" Jack said once Alex was finally looking at him.
Alex sighed and bent his right knee up to his chest so he could rest his chin on it. "You've nothing to worry about," he whispered. "I don't plan on doing anything about it."
"You can if you want to."
"Jack."
"Do you want to?"
"How did last night go with Ellie?" Alex decided to ask, knowing that was the right way to divert the conversation when Jack's cheeks flushed pink. "Was some move made while I wasn't looking?"
"I don't kiss and tell," he mumbled.
"Since when?"
"Since two seconds ago."
"What made you lose your conviction?"
"I didn't lose anything. She… she shot me down. I mean, kind of."
"Kind of?"
"We'll leave it at that, okay? I don't think she'd want me getting into it with you."
"Are you two alright?"
"Yeah. I think so. I hope so. I really like her."
"I knew you would."
"Indian girls pushing me off swing sets," Jack muttered, shaking his head as he leaned more heavily on Alex. "What a beautifully terrible type for me to have."
"I can imagine."
"Your type is surprising. Short and arrogant So-Cal Chicanos. Who would've thought?"
"I don't know how pivotal all those traits were in causing my predicament."
"You don't have to sound so dire. It's a crush, not a disease. They can be a good thing, you know. Sometimes."
"Doesn't seem to be the case for you. I doubt it can be for me either."
"For what it's worth, Montoya likes you too." Alex barked out a laugh, earning a light smack to his own shoulder. "I'm serious. It's fucking obvious, dude."
"Just stop, Jack," Alex begged, putting his head in his hands. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."
"Fine. When you do, I'm all ears."
"Don't hold your breath."
The two settled into a silence that was two parts comfortable and one part awkward until the distinct sound of a heavy door opening sounded off behind them. They turned to see Ellie holding Timber Hall's giant oak door open, slightly out of breath from having run down from the roof.
"Matthew's already started looking around up there," Ellie explained in a whisper as Jack and Alex joined her. "Nothing obvious at a glance, though."
Alex could tell Jack was putting in a lot of effort to not say something along the lines of 'I told you so'. To his credit, he kept his mouth shut as they trekked up the stairs, keeping pace with Ellie as Alex forged a bit ahead of them. He was the first of the three to reach the propped open door to the roof and braced himself before he walked outside. For what, he wasn't entirely sure.
His eyes were drawn immediately to where Matthew was standing, by the edge of the roof that looked out onto the courtyard. Mostly because there was nothing else around to catch his attention. Partly because Matthew was becoming where Alex's attention habitually defaulted. The rest of the roof looked like… Well, a roof. Bird droppings and stray feathers were scattered along the ground. Every so often, a bit of wind would roll around stray cigarette butts and empty crisp packaging. The building's electrical and heating units steadily groaned and creaked.
Alex hesitated for a moment before approaching Matthew. He didn't do anything to acknowledge his arrival, and right as Alex opened his mouth, he realised that the spot his friend was standing in gave him a perfect view of where Baptiste's body had been found. Alex swallowed hard before calling out his name. Matthew didn't act as if he had heard him. Alex gave him a couple more seconds before he stepped up beside him and looked over the side of the building.
Alex froze as his vision was filled with blonde hair and liquid red and broken bones and the smell of blood and vomit and—
"Alex!" someone shouted, but Alex couldn't be sure as to who. He closed his eyes as his world spun, and when he opened them again, he was sitting on the ground, something sharp digging into the underside of his thigh. His back was leaning against the roof's waist-high safety barrier, and his forehead was pressed against his knees.
"Sorry," he muttered without knowing why. Someone let out an exasperated laugh and a calloused hand lightly squeezed the back of his neck.
"It's okay, Allie," a voice said right next to his ear. Matthew. "I saw him too."
Alex's body shook as he suppressed a sob, one that came out when Matthew's hand moved to rub circles in between his shoulder blades.
"You guys look around," Matthew said to Eloise and Jack. Alex didn't dare glance up to confront the way they must have been looking at him. "I'll stay with Alex until he gets his breath back."
Alex heard footsteps shuffle away, and he slightly raised his head to see Ellie and Jack on the opposite end of the roof. Neither seemed like they knew what exactly it was they were looking for. He watched them as Matthew continued moving his hand in that circular pattern. He wondered if the motion was soothing Matthew as much as it was soothing him.
"Better?" Matthew asked when Alex raised his head. He was crouched beside Alex, for once giving Alex a view of him from below. Said view did things to Alex's stomach that almost made his head spin again. Matthew removed his hand from Alex's back, and Alex had to bite his tongue to stop from asking him to keep it there.
"Relatively," Alex muttered. "Thank you. I didn't think… Well, I didn't think."
"Yeah. Me neither. Looks higher from up here, huh?"
"Yes."
"High enough that it's hard for me to believe Mary's theory about him not having enough time to change."
"It does seem unlikely."
"Unfortunately, it also seems like Farrow was right. This place doesn't exactly scream crime scene. If your uncle cleaned up, he did a good job."
Alex hummed as a crumpled can of soda was blown into his foot. "He missed a few spots though," he said, kicking the piece of litter away.
"I'd cut him some slack. I imagine he's never been forced to tidy anything before."
"Good point. Given his prior experience, this place is practically spotless."
Matthew chuckled and shifted so that he sat beside Alex, his back up against the safety wall. He stretched out his legs, once again highlighting the difference in their heights. Matthew's foot lined up along the bottom chunk of Alex's calf.
"What should we do next?" Alex asked as the two watched Ellie and Jack scour the empty roof. "There's nothing here so… What do we do?"
"I don't know," Matthew admitted. Alex imagined those were words he didn't speak very often. "If this was a noir film, we'd probably break into your uncle's office. Try to find some smoking gun that proved he covered up what happened."
"That's risky. And I think it would be highly unlikely that Thomas would keep any evidence like that just lying around his desk."
"Yeah. Me too."
Alex shifted his legs and winced as the sharp object under his thigh dug into his trousers. He reached under, and his fingers closed around something square and made of metal. The shape of it felt familiar, and when he brought it out to get a good look, his muscles tensed up. A square metal tin with For Surprise Snogging written in black marker and surrounded by little hearts.
"Julia," he muttered, opening it up to see the same kind of breath mints his cousin had given him what felt like ages ago.
"Your cousin?" Matthew asked, looking at the mints with a tilted head.
"She gave these to me once… I wouldn't have thought she would come up here though."
"Why not? It was popular with couples, and she has a boyfriend, right? That French dude? Ellie said they always block the door to the locker room to make out till the last possible second before her gym period."
"Well, that's why I wouldn't have thought she would need to come up here. She and Michel have no problem snogging in the middle of a walkway. People usually only come up here to sneak moments they don't want everyone else to be privy to."
"So maybe she was doing something else."
Alex frowned and looked at Matthew, whose own expression was stony. "Julia's not… I mean, she's selfish and rude and certainly buys into the whole superiority thing, but she's… She's not…"
"A killer?"
Alex closed the mint tin and tightened his hand around the icy metal. Could he declare something like that with confidence? 99 per cent of his interactions with his cousin left him feeling foul, after all. But most of those interactions were fleeting or featured her as a player in a crowd. He could count on one hand the number of times they had a moment, just the two of them. One was when she had given him those stupid mints. He really had no idea who Julia Conrad was, or what she was capable of.
"If Julia was involved, that would give my uncle that much more motivation to cover things up," Alex muttered. "His own daughter… A Conrad… God, what if Emilio was right? What if it's true?"
"Hey," Matthew said in a calming tone, his hand going back to Alex's shoulders. "A tin of mints isn't exactly a signed confession. There could be a bunch of different ways that thing got up here. Maybe your cousin has a side piece she doesn't want her boyfriend to know about."
"Maybe," Alex said, not convinced of that for a moment. Those two were obsessed with each other. Alex wouldn't be surprised if they kept seeing each other for the rest of their lives, despite the fact that they were both engaged to different wyverns.
"Or maybe she had a really serious Pepsi habit that she wanted to keep secret, because your family is a Coca-Cola household."
Alex snorted as the soda can that he had kicked away rolled past again. "Maybe," he repeated, feeling slightly less panicked.
"This piece of evidence is a good start, but we shouldn't let it be all we use to draw conclusions. At the very least we should let your cousin explain herself."
"Yeah. Um, do you think it would be alright if I spoke to her on my own? I think she might get a bit cagey if the four of us all come knocking on her door."
"I think that's a good idea, yeah. Is she on campus still?"
"Yes. I'll go see her tomorrow."
Matthew nodded and stood up, stretching his arms above his head and making his t-shirt reveal just a sliver of skin. Alex suddenly became very interested in the dots Julia had used over the i's in her tin label.
"Hey, you guys find something?" Jack asked as he and Ellie came back from their fruitless sweep of the roof.
"This belongs to Julia," Alex explained as he got to his feet and handed over the tin. "That's her handwriting, and she gave me one just like it not too long ago."
"You have a pressing need for snogging specific breath mints, Al?"
Ellie giggled, and Matthew jumped back as Alex's body flashed with the heat of a solar flare. Alex stuttered out a very eloquent, "Shut up," and snatched the tin back. Jack's smirk remained for a second more before turning to a frown.
"Wait, does this mean we think Julia…" he said, his face betraying that he was about as sure about that possibility as Alex was. "Shit, that would be fucked up."
"It's fucked up no matter what," Matthew pointed out. "Do you think she's capable of it, Farrow?"
"Murder? I would be surprised but not shocked, you know? Though… I mean, did they ever even speak? If we're assuming Baptiste was targeted solely because he was a lower wyvern, then I'd think she would go after… Well, someone else. Someone she had more of a personal beef with."
"Someone like me?" Ellie said, giving voice to what Jack was unwilling to. Jack let out a slightly uneased grumble and nodded.
"You two really have that severe of problems?" Alex asked.
"Severe isn't how I would put it. But as I said, she's been pretty cruel in the locker rooms. Though, I suppose she really just follows Palmer's lead most days."
"That's how I would think of Julia," Jack said. "A follower. I can't imagine she would… Well, take initiative for lack of a better phrase. I'm just not sure why she would do something like this. Something that she wouldn't have a crowd for."
"Maybe she was playing to a crowd of one," Alex muttered, remembering how Laurent had still been desperate for his father's attention. Maybe Julia was the same way. Maybe this was a means to get it.
"Or she could have been following someone else's lead again," Matthew suggested before shaking his head. "We're getting ahead of ourselves. Alex is going to talk to her tomorrow. Let's get out of here and brainstorm ways he can steer the conversation without tipping his hand about our suspicions."
Ellie and Jack nodded and started to make their way back to the open door. Alex glanced back at the safety wall, at what he could see of the courtyard and the campus beyond it from his vantage point.
"You ready, Alexander?" Matthew asked, putting his hand to the small of Alex's back. Alex wanted to reach back and take it in his. He wanted to run his fingertips over Matthew's palms until he memorised every single line and callous.
This would be a real romantic spot for that, wouldn't it? AJ quipped, his voice more venomous than usual. Baptiste's blood is probably still in the cracks of the pavement down there, you twat.
Alex pocketed the tin of mints and nodded. "It's almost a shame how lovely that view is," Alex said, keeping his gaze on the horizon to avoid looking down at the spot where Baptiste had lain.
Matthew was quiet for a moment, then he smiled. "It would have been about sunrise," he whispered. "I bet it was really something then."
Alex didn't need to ask what Matthew was referring to. "Yeah. It probably was."
The two looked out over the courtyard for a couple more seconds before Matthew wrapped his hand around Alex's wrist and gently tugged him towards the entrance to the building. He even held on for one. Two. Three seconds before letting go. Alex shoved his hands in his pockets to keep himself from doing something absurd like grabbing it again.
When the two reached the stairwell and let the door swing closed behind them, Eloise and Jack were nowhere in sight. Before either could wonder aloud where they had gone off to so quickly, a door below slammed open, and Ellie's frantic voice echoed up to them.
"Security guards on the first floor!" she shouted, her footsteps slamming in her wake. "Jackie's distracting them, but we should bail from the roof!"
"Shit," Matthew hissed, dashing back to the roof access door that was swinging shut. He wasn't fast enough, and the lock clicking in place was louder than a gunshot.
Alex leaned over the railing to see Ellie racing up them, so fast she was practically a blur. "The door's just shut, Ellie," he called down. "We can't… Wait, maybe I can melt it."
"No way, Alex," Matthew said. "Then your uncle will know you were fucking around up here."
"And he'll know all of us were if we get caught by security."
"This building is huge, and Farrow is causing a distraction," Matthew said, tugging Alex rather haphazardly down the stairs. "We can evade them. Come on."
The two met Ellie on the landing of the third floor, and Matthew led the way as they tumbled into the hallway. It was eerie at nighttime, the only sources of light being what came in from windows on either side of the building. They ran as quickly as they dared, their frantic steps echoing in the otherwise silent surroundings. Alex was just about to ask Matthew if he had a particular plan for getting out of there when they heard footsteps rounding a corner, followed by the crackling noise of a two-way.
"Shit," Ellie whined, and by impulse she reached for the doorknob of a nearby classroom. Miraculously, it was unlocked, and the three tumbled inside just as they heard the voice of the security guard sound off.
"—the third floor now," he was saying, followed by the sound of him jiggling the doorknobs of the other classrooms.
"We're fucked," Matthew lamented. "Damn it, my mother's going to kill me."
"Change and hide, you idiot," Ellie said before her body shimmered and was replaced by her deep green wyvern's skin. She headbutted Matthew's ankle before darting off to a cupboard under a counter at the back of the classroom, using her talons to open it with a surprising level of dexterity.
"Alex can't hide in a desk drawer, idiot!" Matthew whisper-yelled, his head darting around to find a spot Alex could hide in. He breathed out a sigh of relief when he saw a storage closet behind the teacher's desk. He herded Alex over and all but shoved him inside, but before he could change and find his own hiding spot, they heard the guard's voice right outside their classroom door. Alex panicked and grabbed Matthew by the shirt collar to pull him in with him, and Matthew had just enough sense to close the closet right before the guard walked into the classroom.
"There's an unlocked classroom up here," they heard the guard speak into his two-way. "What did that kid say? That he was looking for tests?"
Alex and Matthew heard a response through the two-way but couldn't distinguish it. They held their breath as the guard swept the room, the light from his torch glimmering through the cracks in the doorway. It was a particularly hard feat for Alex, for a couple of reasons. First was the fact that claustrophobia was on his long list of fears, and that closet was barely big enough for one person. He had to beat back the urge to hyperventilate. The second reason was that because that closet was barely big enough for one person, Matthew was pressed so tightly against him that the laws of physics seemed to bend around them. Hyperventilating was the least embarrassing reaction his body could have at the moment.
Matthew must have gauged that Alex was on the brink of panic, because he managed to wriggle one of his hands enough to grab Alex's and squeeze. He used his thumb to trace circles on his palm as he had back on the roof, and while it certainly helped with the claustrophobia, it only exasperated his second reason to panic. When he felt himself starting to heat up, Alex closed his eyes and funnelled all of his concentration into keeping his powers in check. Luckily, that provided just the distraction he needed.
He didn't realise the security guard must have left the room until Matthew's hand moved from his hand to his bicep. "Alex," he said as he squeezed Alex's arm. "Hey, he's gone."
Alex opened his eyes and almost immediately combusted when he saw how close Matthew's face was to his. "Sorry," he said, trying to jerk away. Since there was nowhere to really go, he only succeeded in hitting his head on a shelf above him. "Ow!"
Matthew winced and tried to reach up to where Alex had bumped his head, but the lack of room and Alex's height made that too difficult. "What was that apology for?" he asked as he tried to reach back to open the closet.
"My powers. I'm heating up and—"
"It's fine, Allie. You're not hurting me. It's kind of nice, actually. This place is chilly when the heating system isn't on."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah. Can you reach the doorknob? I can't do it unless I turn around, and if I tried that I think I would only succeed in banging you up a bit more."
"Right. Um. I might have to just, um…" Alex trailed off as he leaned forward, his face getting even closer to Matthew's as he searched for the doorknob in the dark. Matthew got out of his way by ducking slightly, his head pressed against Alex's chest. Alex tried not to dwell on how Matthew could absolutely hear his rapid heartbeat.
Before Alex could find the doorknob, the door opened on its own so suddenly that Matthew fell backwards. He tried to grab Alex for balance, but all that accomplished was pulling the other boy down on top of him. Alex had just enough time to lace his fingers around the back of Matthew's skull to protect it from impact on the tiled ground. That didn't save him from all the bruises he would get from Alex's lanky body slamming him into the ground.
"Ow," Matthew moaned.
Alex raised himself as quickly as he could, hovering over Matthew for a moment to catch his breath. The sight of Matthew underneath him made his breath stop altogether.
"Whoops," Ellie's voice sounded off, and the two turned their heads to see she was watching them with a catlike smile. "Sorry, lads."
"No, you're not," Matthew accused as Alex rushed to get up.
Ellie ignored the accusation and helped Matthew to his feet as Alex got what little of his sanity that he still had back in order again. "The good news is that your little gymnastics routine wasn't for nothing," she said. "The security guard didn't seem to have an inkling that we were in here. The bad news is that he locked the classroom door behind us, and we are once again trapped. More drastically than before, even."
"Maybe I could pick it," Matthew said. "You've got bobby pins in your hair, right?"
"If you know how to pick locks, that's a talent you should have shared with the class earlier, Matthew."
"I mean, I've never done it before. But how hard could it be?"
Alex had a feeling that the answer was very. Ellie conveyed the same suspicion solely through a withering glare. Matthew threw his hands up in exasperation. "I'm sorry, do you have a better idea?"
"I could melt—" Alex tried to suggest again but cut himself off when Ellie and Matthew both turned glares on him. The combined force of their looks was enough to make him stagger back and bump against the classroom window. Oh, wait. The window.
"Hold on," he said, looking for the window's locking mechanism. Once he did, he unlatched it, and the window swung outward, creating an opening big enough for any of them to get out of. "There we go. You two can fly out this way, easy."
"But what about you?" Ellie said, coming over to look out the window. "It's too high for you to jump, and if you change, you'll draw attention to yourself."
"Maybe I could climb?"
"You sound really confident about that," Matthew commented. "Got a lot of experience free climbing buildings, Spider-Man?"
"What?"
"List."
"Look, I don't care if I get caught here. You two are the ones at risk of suspension. My uncle will be angry, but—"
"But nothing, Alexander. I'm not giving that asshole anything close to a reason to put his hands on you again."
"He wouldn't. Jack… Jack talked to him."
Matthew raised an eyebrow. "Talked?" he repeated. "What did he say?"
"Something that makes me very much doubt my uncle would want to do anything to get on his bad side if it can be avoided. So, thanks for worrying about me. But you don't need to."
Matthew looked unconvinced. "Even if I bought that your uncle had an ounce of self-control, it'd still be a shit thing for us to leave you here. Get off free when you take the fall."
"Aren't we abandoning Jack to do just that?" Ellie pointed out.
"Yeah, but Farrow deserves it."
Alex opened his mouth to argue further, but Ellie put up a hand and stepped in between them. "Hold on, I think all three of us can manage to get out of here without incurring Headmaster Conrad's wrath. Alex, how much would you say you weigh?"
"Um, a bit more than 50 kilos, give or take," Alex mumbled.
"Seriously?" Matthew said before Ellie punched him in the gut.
"Don't be rude," she reminded him as he doubled over in mock pain. "Alex, I bet Matthew and I together could carry you down. If we perched on your arms, acted like a glider almost—"
"That sounds like a great idea if you want to break the man's legs," Matthew interrupted.
"You don't want to leave him, you don't want him to melt the door hinges," Ellie complained, her voice rising slightly. "Do you want us all to stay trapped in here until the year sevens find our corpses when they come back from the break? That'll be a great biology lesson for them, won't it?"
"I think this classroom is used for geometry," Alex said, a guess based on the posters on the wall. Ellie and Matthew both looked at him like he was the daftest person on the planet. "Right. Not the point. Sorry."
Matthew sighed and leaned out the window, examining the terrain of the brickwork. His eyes narrowed when he saw that there was a decorative column not far from the ledge of the window, with chunky moulding that ran down it in a pattern.
"Addendum to Ellie's plan," he said, ducking back inside the classroom. "See that column, Alex? Your legs are long enough for those moulded bits to act as footholds. Ellie and I will perch on your shoulders as you climb down, and if you slip up our wings can act as a contingency parachute of sorts. Hopefully our talons won't fuck up your shoulders too much. Actually, hang on."
Matthew slipped his jacket off, the same denim one he had worn as part of his Halloween costume. It was far too small for Alex to wear properly, but Matthew just used the top button to fasten it around his shoulders like a bizarre cape.
"There," he said. "A bit more protection for your skin. Any objections to this plan?"
"I still think we could carry him," Ellie muttered, but didn't argue any further. Instead, she changed in a flash of light, and once she was in her wyvern skin, she flapped up to sit on Alex's shoulder like she had done it a thousand times before. Matthew shifted his weight and shook out his hands, looking like he was hyping himself up for something unpleasant.
"I can, um, try my best not to look," Alex mumbled before he could stop himself. "If you're, um… Well, even I can get uncomfortable when strangers—Er, not that we are strangers, but I know it can be… That is, if you don't want…"
Alex probably could have gone on until they all turned into those aforementioned corpses, but Matthew mercifully put a stop to it when he squeezed Alex's free shoulder.
"Thanks, Allie," he said with that shy smile that made Alex's heart flutter. "It's a stupid hangup. I'm, um… Well, I'm kind of small even among lower wyverns. Which you probably coulda guessed, given my, um, stature."
"What's stupid is the fact that other people have reinforced the idea that that's in any way tied to your worth," Alex said quietly. "If anything, I think that fact that you manage to be so brave and outspoken despite being outsized by adversaries only speaks to just how extraordinary you are."
Matthew blinked slowly as the faintest shade of red tinged the tips of his ears. Ellie chirped in a way that sounded very much like a laugh, which snapped Matthew out of the stunned state Alex had put him in. He glared at his friend for a second before he shone that golden light, and within seconds his familiar form was replaced with an entirely new one. A wyvern, just a touch smaller than Ellie. The size of a teenage cat rather than an adult one. He had three horns on his forehead arranged in a triangle pattern, but the most striking thing was his colouration. A gradient of turquoise and orange, with paintbrush-like specks of red peppering him at random.
"Oh, wow," Alex breathed out, and before he could say anything else that he would probably regret, Matthew shot into the air and landed on Alex's other shoulder. He hadn't quite considered how heavy carrying both of them would be, but he supposed it was better than trying to scale down the building without a safety net.
"Alright," Alex said, mostly to hype himself up. Luckily, the window's ledge was long and wide, so once Alex was brave enough to hoist himself over the side of it, he had plenty of room to work with. He slid over to close the window behind him and leave as little evidence that they had been there as possible. Then he kept sliding until he was in arm's reach of the moulded column. He used Matthew's hand-shaking technique to try and get up the courage to start his descent. It didn't really help much. What did was Ellie chirping soothingly in his ear, and Matthew gently digging his talons into his shoulder in a way that felt very much like when he squeezed his hand.
Alex managed to reach some handholds on the column while sitting on the windowsill, and then he placed one foot and then the other on moulded sections. Luckily, his family hadn't spared any expenses on the architecture, and the decorative column was made from solid rock capable of holding their weight. So, he took a deep breath and let it.
Alex felt both Matthew and Ellie tighten their holds once he did, probably in case they needed to support his weight as he fell. But he felt surprisingly steady, and he descended slowly but surely, making it one whole story before he slipped. Ellie and Matthew flapped and helped right him, but the error shook his confidence, and he froze once he had his hands and feet solidly on the column again.
"Sorry, guys," he said, desperately trying not to look down. "I need a minute."
Alex saw the two look at each other in his periphery, both aware that Alex's arms were shaking and he did not have a minute to spare. They must have had some silent conversation, because Ellie leaned forward and bumped her head against Alex's knuckles. Then she and Matthew flapped their wings again, more in synch and with more power than they had before. Alex got the message and nodded, biting the inside of his cheek as their talons dug into the double layer of protection he had on his shoulders. Before he could think too much about it, he loosened his hold on the column and let the two carry him very gracelessly down to the grass below. The landing was rough on Alex's knees, but it was surely a lot better than it could have been.
Once he was on the ground, Ellie and Matthew let go of him. Ellie zipped around in circles while Matthew immediately went to the ground and changed back into his other skin.
"God, that nearly gave me a fucking heart attack," Matthew moaned from where he sat on the ground. "We need to up your rock-climbing skills, Allie."
"Shh, I hear something," Alex said, motioning for Ellie to come down from the air. The three of them ducked behind some bushes as voices approached from the building's main entrance. It was Jack, escorted by the same security guard that had almost discovered them in the classroom. Jack did not even remotely look like a student in trouble, grinning wildly as he and the guard chatted about football players. The guard was oblivious to the trio hiding behind the foliage, but Jack flashed a thumbs up behind his back as they walked away.
Once they were out of sight, Alex and Matthew darted off towards their dorm, with Ellie following them in the air. When they made it to the lawn of Pearson Hall, she changed back and threw her arms around both of them.
"Oh, I can't believe we got away with that," she said around a breathy laugh.
"Fuck, I owe Farrow big time now, don't I?" Matthew said, but his own laugh didn't make the realisation sound too much like a lament.
"Come on, we should get inside before our luck runs out," Alex managed around his laughter, and the three stumbled into the dormitory with less grace than a band of drunkards. Once they reached the lounge of Alex and Matthew's flat, the adrenaline of their grand escape wore off, and they collapsed in a heap onto the sofa. None of them moved until forty minutes later when Jack walked in through the front door. Ellie was the first on her feet when he arrived, and she immediately rushed over to hug him.
"The hero of the hour," she said, pulling back to admire the blush she had triggered on Jack Farrow's face. "Did you get brought to Headmaster Conrad?"
"I wish," Jack complained as his blush died down. Matthew elbowed Alex in the side and nodded at how neither Ellie nor Jack had taken their hands off each other. "He's off campus for the break, and Alvaro is in charge in the interim."
"Looks like the chess club just got a new member," Matthew sang, and Jack's grimace proved his guess right.
"What did you tell him about why you were in Timber?" Alex asked.
"That I was looking for Professor Munn's exams cuz I was pretty sure I bombed it and wanted to cheat my way to a C+. You guys are lucky I have a class in that building, so it was a plausible story."
"It was very quick thinking, Jackie," Ellie commended, patting Jack's cheek.
"Do you think he believed you?" Alex wondered. Alvaro was always tough to get bullshit past, and being in his extra lessons had given Alex a newfound appreciation for just how perceptive he truly was.
"Not sure. But he didn't push it at least… Al, why are you wearing Montoya's jacket like a cape?"
The four of them scrounged through the flat's food supply as Ellie recounted their grand escape tale. Jack pouted about how he was the only one who didn't get to see Matthew's wyvern skin but forgot about his woes pretty quickly when Ellie complimented his heroic sacrifice again. When they were all full of packaged snacks and the leftover cake from Matthew's birthday, Jack left with Ellie to escort her back to her own dormitory.
"Something happened between the two of them last night, didn't it?" Matthew observed once they were gone.
Alex nodded as he rubbed one of his shoulders. He had taken off Matthew's jacket and checked to see if either of his friends' talons had broken his skin. They didn't, but he was going to have some very precise bruises by the morning.
"Jack didn't want to share details, but yeah," Alex confirmed. "I figure it best to let them tell us whatever it is when they're ready."
"Ugh, so noble and polite," Matthew complained. "I'm adding 'educate on the value of chisme' to the list, by the way. Speaking of which, we should knock a couple things off the list right now. What was it that I said I needed to add earlier tonight? Oh, that's right, Spider-Man. Picture this. New York City. A nerdy kid named Peter Parker is on a field trip to a science museum…"
Despite his exhaustion from the events of the evening, Alex settled onto the couch and let Matthew lecture him about a nerdy kid who gets spider-related superpowers. Every so often, he got the urge to tell Matthew that Ellie was right. He was quite beautiful in his wyvern's skin. He wanted to tell him that he was the most beautiful thing Alex had ever seen.
Every time he suppressed the urge and let Matthew recount Peter Parker's grand tale without interruption.