Yesterday's lack of clarity seemed very clear in retrospect. Enviably clear, even, and he knew--better now than ever--why he had tried to hang onto it. He had been irresponsible, incompetent, incapable of making reasoned decisions. And so his actions had carried few consequences. Far fewer than any he was used to, at least.

Now he was waking up with Hunter in his bed and the all too familiar weight of guilt and responsibility residing in his skull. Distance from the amulet hadn't been enough, it seemed. Or maybe the amulet really didn't have anything to do with it, and he was just... lucky.

Lucky enough to fight the wolf without even trying. Lucky that Lothor hadn't completely ruined his life after all. Lucky that Hunter was still alive, and probably had a better chance of staying that way today than he had at any point yesterday. That on top of all that, Hunter was here instead of on the other side of town--as far away from Cam as he could get and still be in communicator range.

Lucky that Hunter was alone in his bed. Lucky that Cam was waking up on the couch. Lucky that he was first, that he could leave, that maybe they wouldn't have to talk to each other for the rest of the day if Hunter really did go to work.

Cam sat up on the couch, stretching as quietly as he could so that he wouldn't make any more noise than he had to when he started moving around the room. He stood up carefully, twitching to relieve the stiffness, knowing it was nothing compared to what Hunter would feel on waking. He gave the other Ranger a quick look, reassured himself that he still appeared to be mostly intact, then grabbed a clean shirt and slunk out of the room.

He didn't feel lucky. Not even a little bit.

The amulet was waiting for him in the control room. He slipped it on over his head, torn between enjoying and resenting its familiarity. So he was a Ranger. So his mother had trusted him with this. So what. He was still his father's son, and all the expectation that came with that was still his to bear.

He was hungry. He wanted to go work out, to throw some of his memories and humiliation and utter inability to be what anyone else wanted from him at an imaginary opponent instead of letting it eat away at him from the inside. But he was hungry, and he knew better than to ignore that by now. He needed to eat something.

Cam made his way to the kitchen, where he downed a bowl of cereal with grim determination. It tasted like nothing, like eating shredded paper only easier to chew, but at least it didn't make him gag. It didn't leave him feeling at all satisfied, either, but with the edge of hunger gone he found that he couldn't force himself to eat anything else.

He headed for the training rooms. He had a schedule, and he had dragged himself through this routine a hundred, a thousand, maybe a million times before. It wasn't always easy, but it was better than nothing, and a little thing like turning into a wolf for a few days wasn't going to change who he was. Unfortunately.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been there when Hunter showed up. One minute he was alone, and the next there was a rumpled-looking blonde lounging in the doorway. Barefoot, wearing Cam's slept-in clothes, with his hair looking... pretty much like it always did, actually. He had his hands tucked into his pockets, which wasn't Hunter's usual look, but crossing his arms over his chest couldn't be a comfortable position for him this morning.

Cam had barely realized he was staring when Hunter asked abruptly, "Want an opponent?"

He didn't think he was breathing that hard until he tried to talk. "If you're offering," and he had to pause for breath, "you're certifiable." Hunter had been bleeding all over his own truck the night before, and the only reason he looked remotely normal this morning was because his shirt hid most of his injuries.

Hunter raised an eyebrow at him without moving from the door. "You got a point?" he wanted to know.

The point was that Blake was right. His clothes did look better on Hunter. "The point," Cam told the opposite wall, "is that no, I don't want an opponent."

Neither of them said anything else for a long moment. When Cam finally turned away, Hunter's voice came again. "What about breakfast? You want anything?"

"I already ate," Cam muttered.

There was another uncomfortable silence, and then Hunter offered, "I was... uh, thinking about going in to work today."

Cam just nodded. This led to another period of not talking, however, so he told the wall, "I'm fine. There's no reason for you to stay here."

"Yeah." The pause this time was much shorter, and his voice was impossible to read. "That's what I figured."

The silence stretched. When Cam looked around again, Hunter was gone.

He closed his eyes, all desire to train having suddenly disappeared. He hadn't even asked Hunter how he was feeling. Just fine, thanks, he imagined the reply. Nearly got torn apart by one of your wolf buddies, but I'm still standing so feel free to insult or ignore me depending on your mood.

Cam had changed overnight, regaining the rest of his control, his ability to keep his feelings and his impulses and his most private thoughts to himself. He felt like Cam again, and it wasn't necessarily a feeling he liked. But the fact remained that he had changed.

Hunter hadn't. He had stood by Cam this whole time, reassured him, supported him, lent his strength when Cam's wasn't enough. He had shared his own thoughts, maybe even his feelings, some of them more private than he might have liked, because... why?

Because that was the nature of the situation? Because to do otherwise, to maintain boundaries, would have been the last thing Cam needed under the circumstances? Because he didn't expect anything in return and so there was no reason not to share?

He did, though. He did expect something in return, and Cam hadn't forgotten Hunter's pained look the night before. This isn't what you want, Hunter had told him. When you're back to normal, we're not gonna have anything to say to each other. Like always.

Hunter had given up awfully quickly this morning for someone who hadn't left his side for the last two days. Because he had been expecting this... Because he had expected Cam to be angry with him. He had been so sure all along that Cam would eventually get over his inability to reason, that he would go back to being the boring, repressed Cam they all knew. Yet he had let Cam kiss him anyway, had kissed back, had confessed something that Cam didn't dare believe just because he'd thought it might help Cam to hear it.

Cam might be different today, but Hunter wasn't. And he hadn't deserved that brushoff. He might have been expecting it, Cam thought with a grimace. But he didn't deserve it.

He headed back to his room with some thought of catching Hunter before he left. To do what, he wasn't entirely sure. To say what--he had no idea. But he should probably say something.

His father intercepted him just outside his door. Although his cart was rolling casually along the hallway when Cam spotted it, he got the distinct impression that he'd just been ambushed. That, at the very least, his father had been waiting for him, and wasn't about to be put off with the "I'm feeling particularly wolfish right now and don't want to talk to you" excuse.

"Hi Dad." He tried to greet him without sighing and mostly succeeded. He thought. He stopped outside his door but deliberately didn't open it.

"Good morning, Cameron." His father sounded as calm as always, and it was impossible to tell what he wanted. "You appear to be feeling better today."

He probably appeared as though he'd been working out, which might be a flattering look for some people but definitely not for him. And sure, he was wearing his amulet, but no one other than Hunter should have any reason to think he wouldn't be. So if his father was basing his assessment on something besides blind optimism, he didn't know what it was.

"Yeah, I am," he said anyway. Because in the way that his father probably meant, it was true. In the way that he was happier with his life today than he had been yesterday, it wasn't, but since when had his happiness been a priority around here?

Great. From futility to confusion to depression and bitterness, all in the space of an hour or so. Obviously the wolf's mood swings hadn't completely released their grip on him yet. Obviously--because if they had, he didn't want to think about what that said for his emotional stability over the long term.

"Dad, I'm going to shower," he said bluntly, interjecting a definitive statement before his father could beat him to the punch with something equally impossible to ignore. "I'll be up to the control room in a half hour or so."

"Very well." And yeah, his father definitely had something to say to him, because he actually watched Cam walk into his room, like maybe he was just making an excuse and really planned to sneak out of Ninja Ops while he wasn't looking.

He waited for the door to close behind him before looking around. Weirdly, it was the smell that caught his attention before anything he saw. Before he'd gotten turned into a wolf he wouldn't have said Hunter even had a scent--or at least, that's what he would have said if he'd ever thought about it, which he'd gone to some trouble not to. But now it was everywhere, every time he turned around, and he had gotten so used to it that he didn't even notice it until it was gone.

It had been gone for the last hour, except for that fleeting presence at the entrance to the training room. Now it was back, all around him, so strong that he waited for Hunter to appear for several seconds before he realized he was the only one in the room. But Hunter's jeans were gone, and he hadn't had them in the training room, so he must have been here again--

There was a piece of paper on the dresser. Under Hunter's sunglasses, like they were some kind of paperweight. Cam just stared at it for a moment, trying to remember if he had left anything on the dresser the night before. Anything like a torn out piece of notebook paper that really looked like it had writing on it.

Not much writing, Cam saw, going over to pick it up. He slid the sunglasses off, not that he really had to in order to read it. He lifted it up anyway. It wasn't even addressed to him, or signed by Hunter, but of course it didn't have to be.

Call me if you need anything, it said. There was a phone number underneath--one that Cam recognized, one that he already knew perfectly well. It was a phone number he had memorized weeks ago when he overheard Hunter giving it to Dustin.

He'd been kind of annoyed, actually. The same feeling he had now. Rationally, he had known that the chances of Dustin ever making use of Hunter's cell number were greater than his by several orders of magnitude, given that Dustin and Hunter actually shared a hobby, a job, and what seemed to be a disturbing number of in-jokes. Hadn't kept him from being annoyed, any more than the logical certainty that Hunter's short note today was sincere rather than sarcastic.

It just sounded sarcastic. He didn't know why. It was only six words, and they were written on a piece of paper. There shouldn't be anything sarcastic about them.

Cam sighed. Better to be annoyed with himself than with Hunter. He couldn't just be happy that he was okay, that Hunter didn't hate him, that after a few days of awkwardness things might even go back to something like the way they were before. He could at least try, he thought. Try to be glad that even if his life had never been quite normal, at least it was less weird today than it had been yesterday.

He took a shower, then stared at his yellow eyes in the mirror for a while afterward. Just ninja magic, he told himself. He was still Cameron Watanabe.

He got dressed and went to find his father.

Sensei was in the control room, seated in what Cam had come to recognize as the guinea pig version of a meditative position. Perfectly ready to not disturb him, Cam had almost made it to the computer when his father spoke. "May I assume that Hunter has left Ninja Ops?"

"He went to work," Cam said over his shoulder. He sat down in his accustomed chair, certain he wouldn't be getting any of his own work done for some time but willing to go through the motions.

"I see." His father's voice was suddenly closer, though the sound of the cart was absent. "So you feel that your control is such that you can be left alone, now?"

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't." Actually, he might be, but any scenario in which he was involved an injured or oblivious Hunter. "I'm going to fix this, Dad. I won't--" He stopped, then amended, "We won't be stuck as animals forever."

"I have never doubted your abilities or your tenacity," his father told him, and it was hard to tell from his voice whether he was going for reassuring or amused. "You are, however, extremely busy. It stands to reason that some amount of time will pass between now and the moment when we are fully human again."

Cam turned around. His father was standing on the table, watching him. He had something of a height disadvantage even there, but he always managed to convey a sense of loftiness when he spoke. "Is this a prelude to some great ninja wisdom?" Cam wanted to know.

"There is no greater wisdom than patience," his father replied. This time he definitely sounded amused.

"Yeah." Cam rolled his eyes, not making any effort to conceal the gesture. "Thanks, Dad."

"I am curious," his father continued. "Yesterday you made a statement regarding your current predicament... which implied that you did not find it entirely distasteful." There was a brief pause, and then he asked, "Is that still the case today?"

Cam hesitated, surprised by the question and more than a little uncomfortable discussing it. "It's--not all bad," he said at last. "Mostly bad," he added hurriedly. "Just... not the worst thing that ever happened to me, that's all."

Struck by sudden inspiration, he continued, "Not as bad as being turned into a bug, for example. Maybe Lothor's taste is improving."

His dad ignored his sarcasm, as usual. "What is it about your wolf form that you find most tolerable?" he inquired.

The way Hunter looked at him. That was what he found "most tolerable." The way he would stare. The way he touched the wolf: easily, with concern, completely without fear. The way he touched Cam when he was worried, when he didn't have time to think about it. The way he smelled.

Cam turned back to his computer, refusing to look at him. "I don't know," he muttered, staring down at the keyboard.

"Perhaps it is being able to express yourself?" his father suggested carefully.

Cam lifted his head, frowning at the monitor. "What?"

"You are very disciplined, Cameron. Indeed, you have been so all your life. Yet I do not sense that this discipline comes from peace. I wonder if perhaps the form of the wolf offers you a chance to be... other than that which you believe you should be."

"The wolf was dangerous and unpredictable," Cam snapped, turning his chair halfway around. "I don't think those are desirable traits in a ninja. Or a samurai, for that matter."

"We are who we are, Cameron." His father's voice was irritatingly calm. "We will never become more without first accepting that fundamental truth."

Great, he thought. So you think I'm dangerous and unpredictable? He couldn't bring himself to ask, too afraid of what the answer might be. "I was out of control as a wolf," he reminded his father. "That doesn't mean that anything I said or did was the real me."

"You were never out of control," his father said quietly. "It was simply not always your own control that was being exercised."

Cam gaped at him.

"Hunter has been admirably patient that last couple of days," Sensei continued. "I admit that I am somewhat surprised to see him gone."

"Nobody asked him to set up a round the clock vigil," Cam said defensively.

His father gazed back at him without comment.

"Okay, maybe I did say something like that," Cam muttered. "But the wolf wouldn't listen to anyone else."

"Why do you suppose that is?" his father wondered. Of course he wasn't really wondering; it was more of a leading question than anything else. But Cam could rationalize his way out of a hallucination, and he really didn't appreciate being led.

"Because Hunter takes charge," he told his dad. "Obviously the wolf wouldn't respect anyone who wasn't used to giving orders, and Hunter is. He expects people to listen to him. The wolf recognized that."

"If that was the case, you might as well have listened to Shane," his father pointed out. "Or to myself. There is, after all, some history of authority in any parent-child relationship."

"You were afraid of me," Cam said sharply. "Hunter wasn't, so he took control."

"Perhaps," his father allowed. "Or perhaps he did not take control so much as he was given it."

Cam frowned. He didn't like the sound of that, and it took him a second to figure out why. Because this wasn't the first time he'd heard it.

I didn't put me in charge, Hunter had told him. You did.

"There is another word for the kind of control you allow Hunter to have," Sensei was saying. He paused, maybe to make sure Cam was listening. "Trust."

Geez, trust me for two seconds, okay? He heard Hunter again, and he wondered if Hunter had any idea how much everything he said was echoing in Cam's brain right now. And all Cam could say was, There's no reason for you to be here.

His father had actually turned away, almost like he was about to leave. And suddenly Cam knew what he was really saying. "I trust you, Dad," he said abruptly. "I do. It's just--it's probably a wolf thing, that guinea pigs don't get much respect. It's hard to listen to anything that's so far down the food chain."

His father didn't move, but after a moment he said, "It's possible that Lothor anticipated that."

"Maybe," Cam agreed. "I get the feeling that he expected me to do a lot more damage than I did."

His father turned to face him again. "The danger to you is not over," he said seriously. "Having managed to catch you alone once, I can not imagine that Lothor will not try to do it again."

The thought had crossed his mind. "Well, on the plus side," Cam said dryly, "I'm moderately more dangerous than I was before."

His father looked thoughtful--or at least, as thoughtful as a guinea pig could look. "Can you shift your form at will, then?"

He hadn't actually tried to shift this morning. It seemed... self-indulgent, somehow. Which was kind of an odd thought, now that he had it out where he could see it. So he ignored it and concentrated on turning himself into a wolf. On request.

It was easier than it had been yesterday. Yesterday when he'd been trying, anyway, since when he wasn't trying it had happened by accident. But now the hard part was scrambling out of his chair with any kind of dignity, which was difficult for a large four-legged animal that didn't really fit in the chair to begin with.

"Interesting," Sensei remarked.

He shifted back quickly, embarrassed by the display and a little disturbed by the desire to run. "Should have stood up first," he muttered, glancing at his chair. He had wanted to run as a wolf--not to get away, just to go. It was a strange feeling.

"I see that there are some considerations we do not share," his father commented, and it took him a moment to figure that out.

"Yeah," Cam said at last, relaxing a little. "I guess you don't have to worry about how you'll fit into things if you change."

"I find I have grown accustomed to this size," his father agreed. "It is not, perhaps, the most desirable form for many activities, but it is consistent. I have only been required to adapt once."

"Twice," Cam corrected. "You'll have to adapt again when you change back."

His father nodded solemnly. "That is so."

Neither of them said anything for a moment, but the conversation had made a few things very obvious. The first of those being that he couldn't just get on with his life like nothing had happened, because something had. The second was that if his dad could deal with being stuck as a guinea pig for months, the least he could do was take the sometimes-wolf thing with better grace.

"Speaking of adapting," Cam said at last. "I'm going to go out and get some food that I can actually eat, since it turns out that wolves don't really appreciate grain. Or almost anything else that grows on a plant. Can I get you anything at the store?"

"Perhaps some things that grow on plants," his father suggested, with no small amount of humor. "Apples. Carrots. I'm almost out of lettuce," he added.

"Disgusting green things," Cam said, pretending to take note. "Also known as, things I would have eaten a few days ago but now don't recognize as food... Got it. I'll head out in a few minutes."

"You're sure that is wise?" Sensei asked. He sounded like he knew what the answer would be, but he wouldn't be a parent if he didn't ask.

"Pretty sure," Cam told him. "Someone has to shop for us." Heading for the door, he added as an afterthought, "If you see a wolf downtown on the news, call Hunter."

He was kidding. But his dad would probably watch the news anyway.

Oh well, Cam thought. It would give him something to do. He really should be more happy that he could assume human form when he wanted to--which was always, as long as he was surrounded by humans. The wolf was annoying, but ultimately not as life-destroying as Lothor had probably hoped. Not the way the guinea pig had been for his father.

He would figure it out, he told himself, gathering up his wallet and Hunter's sunglasses. He would find a way to change his father back. It was just a matter of time.

The store wasn't crowded early on a Thursday morning, and for that he was extremely grateful. He hadn't realized how nerve-wracking it would be to be out in public, alone, until he was actually there. It had been easy to make jokes in Ninja Ops, but now, surrounded by other people, it didn't seem so funny.

He really could get himself shot if he wasn't careful.

He was careful. He didn't talk to anyone, except for "excuse me" and "paper, thank you." He didn't look at anyone directly, and he was more cautious than usual about bumping into people. He gave everyone a wide berth. And he kept the sunglasses on, because even when they weren't glowing his eyes were definitely not normal looking.

He was glad his eyes seemed to react normally again, in daylight anyway. He could still see eerily well in the dark, although it was hard to judge the extent of the difference since the ability didn't come and go any more than his food cravings did. He knew he'd been able to see Hunter perfectly well in the dark of his room last night, to the point where he'd had to roll over in order to make closings his eyes seem worthwhile. But Hunter had fallen asleep long before he had, and he hadn't had the heart to wake him up just to compare notes.

It was a relief to be able to walk around outside either way. It was liberating to walk out of the brightly lit grocery store and to be able to just keep going. He hadn't forgotten the debilitating deprivation of the night before, when he'd stepped out of Ninja Ops and had to close his eyes. Trust or not, there were only so many things he could let Hunter do for him before he felt utterly dependent.

Even with food, he ended up stopping on the way home to eat. His tolerance for hunger had run out around aisle seven, and he had gotten sandwich meat at the deli. He ate it before paying for it, which got him some odd looks at the checkout. Now he was still hungry, and he drew the line at raw meat, so he hit another fast food place and tried not to think too much about nutritional content.

He was exhausted by the time he got home. Not physically as much as mentally, because he felt ready to climb the walls if people didn't stop looking at him. He tried to tell himself he looked odd, with his sunglasses and his in-store deli snacks and his unwillingness to interact with anyone, and that was probably true. But it didn't explain why his skin crawled out on the street, why he was just as jumpy waiting in line for his fried chicken, or why he felt such intense relief as the mountains closed in around him again.

He was nervous. He was scared, if he admitted it to himself. So many things could have gone wrong. He had been ridiculously arrogant to think that he could just walk out of Ninja Ops in broad daylight and pass for human on the streets of Blue Bay Harbor. But he had, and he did, and he had done it by himself.

His father was nowhere to be found, and he remained conspicuously absent while Cam restocked the kitchen. By design, he was sure, since any parental involvement after their chat this morning would seem like checking up on him. He appreciated the space... but he didn't appreciate the quiet.

Grocery shopping had been oddly exciting. Yes, okay, somewhat terrifying, very humbling, and potentially deadly with the possibility of imprisonment. Not in that order. But it had wound him up, and as relaxing as it was to be out of sight of the general public once more, it was suddenly very boring too.

Cam wrote his dad a note, propped it up in front of the computer, and headed out again.

Dad, the note said. I've gone to Storm Chargers. I left some of your disgusting green things on the counter in the kitchen in case you get back before I do. See you later, Cam.

Never before had he cared so much about just walking down the street. It was like every step was a victory. He knew that sometimes the body manufactured illness to stop the mind from worrying about other things, and bizarrely, that was exactly what the wolf seemed to be doing. By threatening the normalcy of his everyday life, it was keeping his mind off of the thousand other things that typically pushed his stress levels to their limit.

He was feeling almost philosophical about the whole thing by the time he reached Kelly's shop. Weird, but it could be worse. Inconvenient, but not debilitating. And hey, he'd gotten to kiss Hunter--that almost made the whole thing worth it right there.

He barely realized he was smiling until Dustin waved enthusiastically to him from behind the counter. "Dude," Dustin called, dropping something that made a loud noise and bounding out onto the floor to greet him. "Great to see you! Guess you must be feeling better, huh?"

"Well, mostly," Cam said warily, but Dustin was way ahead of him.

"So's Hunter," Dustin told him, "so I guess you'll never prove who had it first. He still says you gave it to him, though. Kelly's got him out back doing desk work today; you want to see him?"

"I guess," Cam began, willing to take the cue. And it was a cue, he was sure, even if he hadn't really thought about what Hunter would tell Kelly concerning his day off and what was probably a sudden inability to lift heavy objects. Dustin might be chatty and a little slow on the uptake, but he didn't tend to say nonsensical things.

"Sure, come on," Dustin declared, as though he had insisted. He waved Cam over to the back room, leaned through the door and called, "Hey, man, visitor!" Then he told Cam, "The bike injury's slowing him down a little. I'm gonna get back to work; I'll see you later."

The bike injury. Okay, this had been an elaborate story. He was going to have to ask about it, just as soon as--

Hunter looked up as he wandered through the door, and every thought in his head just stopped. He wanted to think it was because Hunter looked pretty bad. Tired, bored, pale, and the day was only half over. But something inside him reacted to the look Hunter was giving him, the stare that reminded him he was not in charge of this man.

"Hi," he said awkwardly.

"Hi," Hunter answered after a moment. His gaze flicked over Cam once, assessing him, but his eyes were unreadable when they returned to Cam's face. "Didn't expect to see you here."

That had to be a serious understatement. But was he more surprised to see him walking around town, or to see him seeking out the guy he'd run away from this morning? "Didn't expect to be here," Cam said honestly. It was the truth, even if it probably didn't tell Hunter anything.

"How are you feeling?" he asked then, suddenly remembering the question he'd forgotten this morning. It was hard not to think of it now, seeing Hunter stuck in a chair doing... what, inventory? Instead of entertaining himself out in the shop, in the van, or down at the track.

Hunter actually looked surprised. "I'm fine," he said, leaning back in his chair in a fairly obvious effort to look casual. "You?"

"With the number of bandages you're wearing you don't need a shirt," Cam said bluntly. "You're not fine."

Hunter's eyes narrowed, and Cam had braced himself for an angry retort when Kelly's voice interrupted. "He's right, Hunter. You look worse now than you did when you came in." She was standing in the doorway, arms folded. She didn't look surprised to see Cam at all.

"Take the afternoon as paid sick time, and call me tomorrow to let me know if you're coming in or not," Kelly told him. "There's only so much inventory you can do this time of year."

Hunter tossed his pencil down on the desk and leaned forward to brace his hands on his knees. "Thanks, Kelly," he said reluctantly. "I'll be back tomorrow."

"Call me," she emphasized. "I'm not writing up worker's comp for someone who collapses from injuries sustained outside of work."

"Yeah," Hunter muttered. "Sure."

He waited until she was gone to glare at Cam. "Thanks a lot," he hissed under his breath. "Could you maybe mind your own business next time?"

"You shouldn't have come in," Cam said, keeping his voice just as quiet. "Your job is constant physical activity, and you probably can't even raise your arms over your head."

Hunter grimaced at him, but he didn't try to prove him wrong. "You didn't care this morning," he whispered defiantly.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say it wasn't his job to tell Hunter what to do. But Hunter wasn't asking him to tell him what to do, was he. Hunter was only asking him to care. With a jolt, Cam realized that maybe Hunter hadn't taken control of him after all. Maybe they had traded: control of Hunter for control of Cam.

Not control, he thought with a sigh. Responsibility. Trust. Maybe he was crazy. He didn't have any idea what he was doing here. Why had he even come?

"I was embarrassed and freaked out this morning," he murmured. He didn't think about it before he said it, just opened his mouth and all of a sudden he was trying to explain. "I'm better now. I went grocery shopping," Cam added, as though that was the answer to everything. "I have food and I'm not hungry for the first time in forever."

He was babbling, but Hunter was giving him this really odd look like maybe he wasn't a total loss after all and it made him want to keep talking. Instead he managed to close his mouth, take a deep breath, and ask calmly, "Do you want to go home now?"

Hunter actually hesitated. "Let me talk to Dustin," he said at last, pushing himself to his feet. Cam followed him out into the store, watched while Hunter conferred briefly with Dustin, then caught up when Hunter looked around for him.

"Blake's out," Hunter said in a low voice as they left. "I didn't want him to worry when he gets back."

"You left a message with Dustin?" Cam guessed.

Hunter just nodded.

Cam followed him to his truck, but he didn't get in until Hunter gave him a look and demanded, "What are you waiting for? You didn't come all this way just to get me sent home."

Cam shrugged, but he walked around the front of the truck and climbed in the other side. He hadn't actually had a definable reason for coming at all. He'd just... come. And now he was just waiting. Waiting to see where Hunter would go, what he would do next.

"I'm not going home," Hunter announced abruptly. He was staring at the steering wheel and he hadn't started the truck yet. "And I've seen enough of Ninja Ops to last me the rest of the week."

Strangely, neither declaration bothered Cam. When he caught Hunter giving him a sideways look, he just shrugged. "I'm not the one with the keys."

That earned him a smirk from Hunter and an instant road trip, the former of which annoyed him and the latter of which was kind of relaxing. There was just something about sitting in the passenger seat. At least in Hunter's truck... it was calming.

Which was probably some weird metaphor for his life lately, and he wasn't sure he liked it so he tried not to look at it too closely.

"The light still bothering you?" Hunter asked after a while.

It took him a minute to figure out why he would ask. Then Cam reached up to touch the sunglasses self-consciously. It was easy to forget he was wearing them. "My eyes are okay," he said. "But they don't look quite... normal."

"Yeah?" Hunter took his foot off the accelerator and shot a sideways look at Cam. "The color?"

"The color," Cam said with a sigh. "They're definitely yellow."

"Do wolves even have yellow eyes?" Hunter wanted to know. "And what about the glowing thing; how weird is that? I'm pretty sure wolves' eyes only reflect light. Like cats."

Surprised, Cam found himself smiling, and he looked out the window to hide his expression. Hunter had actually thought about it. Or at least he was doing it now. He hadn't just come up with that off the top of his head. Cam knew, because he'd wondered himself, but no one else had mentioned it.

"Wolves' eyes are brown," he told the passing scenery. "There's a reflective surface at the back of their eyes that helps them see in the dark."

Hunter was quiet for a moment. "You had pretty freaky night vision there for a while," he commented. "Was that temporary?"

He remembered Hunter sprawled uncomfortably across his bed the night before, wearing nothing but boxers and bandages. He remembered bitter disappointment at his injuries, and irrational anger at the wolf who had inflicted them. He hadn't been able to seriously kiss Hunter with him wincing every time he got too close. No matter how reluctant Hunter was to stop him, Cam had finally given up, and he'd spent almost an hour sulking on the couch instead of sleeping.

This morning, he knew it had been a good thing. But last night he'd thought it was terribly unfair that he could see every detail without being able to touch. His vision, unfortunately, was better than his imagination.

"No," Cam said at last. "Not temporary."

The truck came to a halt at a stop sign, and Hunter glanced over at him. "What about the..." He paused. "You said you went grocery shopping," he tried again. "For what?"

Cam grimaced. "Nothing made of soy. I'm still craving meat, if that's what you're asking. And no, I don't know why."

"Well, obviously you're not the only one." Rolling through the intersection, Hunter had his eyes on the road again. "There's a reason they serve the stuff they do at the community center."

"But it doesn't make any sense," Cam muttered. "I'm not a wolf now. Why should I have--" He frowned, then changed what he was going to say. "Vaguely, arguably lupine characteristics, when I'm human?"

Hunter didn't answer right away, and Cam hadn't really meant for him to. He didn't have any answers, why should he expect Hunter to? The whole thing was just bizarre.

"Maybe the same reason you have human characteristics when you're a wolf?" Hunter suggested finally. Cam looked at him in surprise, and Hunter must have seen his expression out of the corner of his eye because he shrugged a little. "I mean, you still think like a human when you're a wolf. Kind of. More than not, anyway.

"And you..." He took his hand off the steering wheel to gesture impatiently. "I don't know, you do human things. You know, opening doors, carrying things around... looking at people when they're talking, that kind of thing."

Cam frowned out at the road. They were leaving downtown Blue Bay Harbor now, heading in a mostly west direction. "There's some overlap," he admitted reluctantly. "Between wolf and human, I mean. Is that typical?"

Hunter snorted. "You're asking me?"

"You know more about it than I do," Cam muttered.

Hunter sounded amused. "Not that it isn't cool to hear you say that," he remarked, "but no I don't, not really. I've learned way more from watching you than I did from helping Blake haul in his latest Good Samaritan case."

"Oh?" Cam was pretty sure he didn't want to know.

Luckily, Hunter didn't seem inclined to share. All he said was, "Yeah."

Cam watched their surroundings flash by, faster now that they were on the back roads. He wondered how long Hunter would keep driving, if they would just stay on the road until one of them got bored, or if he had an actual destination in mind. Cam wasn't too thrilled about the idea of going somewhere--getting out of the truck seemed less appealing the longer they drove.

"So," Hunter said, dropping the word into the quiet with a casualness that didn't sound quite natural. "Why'd you come to Storm Chargers? CyberCam kick you out of Ninja Ops?"

"Just bored," Cam answered, staring out the window. He hoped he sounded a little more convincing than Hunter had. "I guess I wanted to test the whole 'human' thing."

"Right," Hunter agreed immediately. Which was kind of a ridiculous thing to say, when you came right down to it. Because "testing" himself without a safety net like Hunter wasn't that clever to begin with, and doing it in a totally uncontrolled and potentially hostile environment was just stupid.

"And I wanted to see how you were," Cam muttered. He regretted it the moment he said it, but it got Hunter's attention.

"Yeah?"

He sounded so... well, neutral. But the absence of Hunter's usual annoyance regarding other people's belief that he couldn't take care of himself was something all on its own. And the fact that he made it a question, like he wanted Cam to keep going--

"Thank you," Cam said abruptly. The words were out before he could overthink them. "I mean... thanks for sticking with me, these last couple of days." He swallowed, hoping his discomfort wasn't obvious. "I should have said it before."

"Nah." Hunter sounded gentler now, softer. More relaxed, maybe. "I wanted to."

More vulnerable, Cam realized suddenly. That was why he sounded different. Because Hunter was telling him the truth again. "You said some things," Cam told the dashboard, wondering what he was thinking, why he was even trying to go there. "Yesterday."

"I said a lot of things." And now the wariness was back, a guarded amusement that let Cam know he would only be allowed so far before Hunter pushed him away again. He'd better get it right this time, because he was pretty sure he was already on his second chance.

"So did I," Cam pointed out, distinctly uncomfortable. He resettled his seatbelt for no particular reason. "Most of them were true."

"Like?" The truck was turning onto the sea road now, the highway that traced the coast up and down and slowed to a crawl beside the most popular beaches. This stretch was mostly rocky seawall on the right and million dollar cottages on the left.

He had no idea what to say now. Without the wolf pushing him into impulsiveness it was a lot harder to say what he was thinking. He wasn't even totally sure what he was thinking, because if he could put it into words then he would. Or he might. Maybe he wouldn't, actually.

"I'm not gay," he blurted out at last.

That had been the wrong thing to say. Hunter seemed inordinately relieved that the road gave him an excuse not to so much as glance at Cam. "Like I care," he muttered.

Cam gritted his teeth. Hunter had put a lot more than this on the line for him. "I'm not straight, either," he said, as carefully as he could. "Which I'd really appreciate if you didn't mention to the rest of the team."

Hunter didn't answer.

"The wolf--" And he was stuck again, because this was not easy. "The wolf is kind of... attracted to you," he mumbled. Then he smiled, just a little, because it was easier to joke than to confess. "If you hadn't noticed."

There was a soft sound of amusement from Hunter, but his voice was quiet and not at all mocking. "I noticed."

"He probably gets that from me," Cam admitted, staring straight ahead. The road was clear, but they were heading into a sandy stretch that was marked by a line of cars and people walking along the sidewalk, the shore, and the stairs in between.

This time there was a long moment of silence. "Yeah?" Hunter said at last.

Cam shrugged uncomfortably. "There's some overlap," he repeated. He needed some feedback on this. He wasn't going to make a fool of himself for nothing.

"Okay," Hunter said finally. "Well... thanks."

"Thanks?" Cam echoed. He wasn't sure whether to be incredulous or mortified. "I'm attracted to you; well, thanks?"

"Yeah, thanks," Hunter snapped, startling him. "Thanks for your awkward acknowledgement of the fact that you've been throwing yourself at me for two days and maybe you've got an excuse but I don't, okay?"

Cam closed his mouth.

"The whole time you've got an all-access pass to my personal space," Hunter continued, glaring through the windshield in a way that would make any pedestrian think twice, "and I'm trying to be Mr. Nice Guy, which by the way you didn't in any way appreciate, so I try to make up for it the only way I can. Which, maybe it was stupid, but instead of the making out which I would have really enjoyed, I had to go and tell you how I felt about you, and I can't exactly take that back now!"

There was a brief silence, during which Hunter seemed to realize he was shouting. His voice dropped abruptly. "So I'm sorry," he grumbled, in a way that didn't sound sorry at all, "if I can't get all excited about something that was probably supposed to be nice but just sounded really condescending."

"It wasn't meant to be," Cam said quietly. So Hunter felt... something, for him? Really? He wasn't sure what that meant, and now was clearly not a good time to ask.

Hunter sighed, tapping his thumb against the steering wheel before dropping his right hand to the stick shift. "I know," he muttered. "Shouldn't have jumped on you like that."

Cam stared out at the ocean for a moment. "You're right, you know," he said. "I did feel like I had an excuse. And I think, sometimes... I took advantage of it."

Hunter didn't say anything.

Cam didn't dare continue, so they rode in silence for a while longer and he didn't think much about where they were until Hunter started paying closer attention. The beach was narrower here, a thin strip revealed only when the tide was out, as it was now. There were no cars parked along this part of the road; all the beachgoers seemed to have been drawn to the more favorable areas just north of here.

The truck started to slow down, and now Cam realized what Hunter was doing. He wasn't just paying attention. He was looking for a parking space.

"Playing hooky on your sick day?" Cam asked before he could censor himself.

"Since I didn't ask for a sick day," Hunter countered, "I think it's fair."

Stop talking, Cam told himself. He was obviously losing ground.

Hunter finally pulled over and turned the engine off, but he didn't open his door. Cam was wondering if the point was just to look at the beach when Hunter said, "I miss it."

Cam blinked. To say something like that with no context implied that he should know what Hunter was talking about without having to ask. He didn't feel like screwing up any more than he already had, but he didn't have a clue what Hunter meant by that, either.

Until, just like that, it came to him. "The ocean," he said aloud. The Thunder Academy was a coastal school, perched out on cliffs overlooking the sea. It was a far cry from the forested mountain terrain of the Wind Academy.

"Yeah," Hunter said simply. "It's weird, sleeping in an apartment with the sound of cars and people around us all the time. Blake got a white noise generator to block some of it out."

Cam hated that muffling effect. "Doesn't it drive you crazy?" he asked without thinking.

Hunter only shook his head. "Kind of reminds me of the waves," he muttered.

They stayed where they were for a while, staring out at the water from the insulated cab of the truck. Finally Hunter took his seatbelt off and put his window down, and Cam thought there were worse things than sitting here away from the rest of the world. He followed Hunter's example.

"This morning," Cam said after a few minutes. He wasn't totally sure where the words came from, but he knew Hunter was listening. "I was a wolf for a few seconds. On purpose," he added quickly. "To show my dad I could control the shift."

Hunter just nodded, and Cam was a little disappointed. He hadn't been able to control it so easily the day before. But of course he hadn't said it as though it was something to be proud of, so Hunter had let it slide as just another comment. Or that was what he told himself.

"I really wanted to run," he said, staring along the narrow, deserted beach. "I don't know why. It went away when I changed back."

"Run?" Hunter repeated. "Like run away, or just..."

"Just for fun, I guess," Cam admitted.

"Well." Hunter seemed to be considering that. "No reason you can't."

"Not here," Cam said, a little wistfully. It really did look like fun here, with the hard-packed sand and the long stretch of nothing in his way. "Not where people can see me."

"Why not?" Hunter wanted to know. "There's no rule against dogs here. Just don't bite anyone and you'll be fine. Probably no one will even see you."

Cam hesitated, and Hunter added, "Give me back my sunglasses first."

Cam looked at him, startled, and Hunter shrugged. "Well, you won't be using them," he pointed out. "I'm not gonna sit in the truck while you have all the fun."

"People are going to notice a wolf running loose on the beach," Cam protested. "Even if there's no one here, people drive along this road all the time. They'll probably call wildlife control or something."

"People aren't gonna see a wolf unless they're looking for a wolf," Hunter told him. "As long as you're with someone, they're gonna be thinking dog. Trust me."

Cam hesitated. He might say "as long as you're with someone," but he meant "as long as you belong to someone." Did he trust Hunter that much? Once he was a wolf, he wouldn't be able to help explain or defend himself to anyone they might happen to meet. He would be basically helpless while Hunter was his voice, his guardian, and the person held ultimately responsible for everything that he did.

It was more than a question of friendship: he had to trust Hunter to "own" him, or he might as well stay in the truck.

On the other hand, hadn't Hunter already done that? Hadn't he accepted that responsibility already, and refrained from abusing the privileges that came with it? Hadn't he covered for Cam when he was embarrassed or uncertain or outright lying, and backed him up when he needed it whether Cam asked him to or not? What else could Cam ask of him in return for his trust?

Cam pulled off Hunter's sunglasses and handed them over without a word.