Seventh chapter

Sam tried knocking a few times, loud enough that Lacy should have heard it, and listened through the door.  His mood perked a bit when he heard shuffling and a groan that sounded like Lacy in the morning.  She really wasn’t a morning person.

The door creaked open with the chain still attached, “helloooooo?”

“Hey Lacy.  It’s me, Sam!  Did I wake you up?”

“Sam?”  Lacy seemed to wake up a bit more at that and opened the door all the way, “holy shit you changed!  And they didn’t catch you either!  I’ve never heard of anyone getting away from them!”

“Me either, actually.  Everyone either gets picked up by the FBI or Purity.  Thankfully neither has caught up to me yet.  Okay, I need to know, did you bring my stuff with you?”

“Yep!  Hauled all of your stuff up here to the room.  I figured if you didn’t come for it, then I could go through your stuff and see what fits me.”

“Yeah probably nothing, actually.  I’m way smaller than you.  Most of my clothes are medium in juniors.”

“Well damn.  Alright, well come on in.  I’m sure you want to go through your stuff.  Maybe put on a clean bra.”

“Ugh.  devices of bondage.  I’d rather go braless for now.  They’re really uncomfortable and chafe on my sides.”

“Eh, you get used to it.  You haven’t had the past 20 years to get used to them like the rest of us have.  Then again, they probably rub your fur all sorts of weird ways too, don’t they?”

“Oh god do they.  Not like I have anything I need to worry about jiggling or anything either.  Damn mosquito bites.  Oh, yay!  My headphones!  I wonder if they’ll still fit.”

“What, thought I’d go through your stuff without knowing if you were still around or not?  I figured you’d show up here if they didn’t catch you.  One actually tried to run after you but stopped and waited for the car once they saw how fast you took off.  That was impressive by the way!  Holy shit you’d set new records for land speed.”

Sam tried the headphones in his ears, twisting and prodding them to see if they’d fit in his new canals, “damnit.  I can’t get them in.  Well so much for that idea.  You want them, Lacy?  No point keeping what I can’t use any more.”

“Why don’t you keep them.  You may be able to hook them up to your ears another way later.  You’re usually pretty resourceful.”

“Alright.  How am I going to commission a 3D printer to make something though is beyond me.  Unless you know one at this con who brought their printer?”

“I don’t know anyone, but I’m sure there is one around.  Just need to ask.”

“Alright.  Well you seem awake enough to leave the room now.  Want to browse for a while?”

“Sure!  You can tell me what you’ve been up to since I last saw you.”

Lacy got dressed and they headed out into the convention.  Sam was trying to not move his tail or wings too much since that would be a dead giveaway but anyone paying attention would see the animation in her facial features and ears.  Sam noticed a few stares and heard some comments about the realism in his looks but no one approached him.  Whether they were out of fear or something else, Sam didn’t know. 

After a quick lunch, they went to go stand in the line for the fursuit photos.  While they both knew it wasn’t a suit, that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to get his photo taken.  Plus he could introduce Lacy to Kyle so she could see who had been taking care of him since he ran off.  Since it was the first day, there weren’t too many people in the line.  Most of them had their heads off to keep cool while waiting to get photos done.  Sam didn’t really pay much attention to those in line, all except for one who was a little ways in front of him.  It was a small mouse.  They were only 4 feet tall and Sam wanted to go over and talk to them.  He didn’t want to lose his place in line, particularly since some people became cranky when you stepped out of line and tried to get back in where you once were.  It was better to not risk it.

Sam finally stepped into the room to get photos and Kyle was excited to see him but took a double take at Lacy being there.

Lacy saw him as well and smiled, “oooh!  It was THIS Kyle that you found!  Figures he’d take you to his place.  He has a huge alien fetish.  He’s always wanted to be abducted and probed.”

“Oh, ew Lacy!  Did not need to know that about they guy I stayed with for two nights.  And I was unconscious for a chunk of that as well!”

Kyle blushed beet red, “n-nothing happened!  Sam isn’t even a real alien.  Plus he doesn’t have a ship to abduct me with or anything.  Besides, why did you have to go and bring that up?  Rude!”

They all had a good laugh but Sam stepped over to get some photos done.  Kyle happily obliged and had Sam getting into all sorts of poses for fun.  Attack poses, innocent poses, sexy predator poses, you name it.  They had taken easily 30 photos when Kyle realized he was taking too much time.

“Alright, while that was amazingly fun, I do have a line to attend to for the next few hours.  Shoo, shoo!  I need to work now.”

Sam and Lacy were smiling as they stepped out of the room and meandered off.  Sam made sure to grill her over how they knew each other and apparently Kyle had been the photographer at Lacy’s wedding a year ago.  It seemed they had gotten to know each other quite well in that period of time.  Sam had seen those photos and was impressed that such a nerdy kid had done such a fantastic job on her photo shoot.  It also made sense how he had so much money while working at taco bell.  

Sam stopped to laugh at a comment that Lacy made but shrieked, leaping into the air at a sharp pain in his wing, “ah hah!  I knew you weren't human!”

Sam cradled her wing, glaring at the person who had been behind him.  He pulled his hand away to see a pale orange color on his hand and noticed it was dripping where the feather that the guy was holding came from, “huh, my blood is orange now.  What the fuck is your problem?!”

“Alien!  This proves it!”

The guy looked super proud of himself but Sam was having none of it, “if you wanted to know if I was an alien then why didn’t you ask?  I would have said so!  Now I’m pissed, bleeding, and in a lot of pain!”

The guy could see the rage in Sams eyes and no longer felt so sure of himself.  He was also drawing a crowd and security was walking over, “what is the problem here?”

“Nothing, sir.  Just a misunderstanding is all.”

Sam was still pissed, “misunderstanding my ass!  He ripped one of my feathers out!”

The guard looked at the guy holding the feather and scowled, “why did you do that?  That is destruction of personal property and can get you kicked out.”

“It wasn't destruction of property!  She isn't wearing a suit!  She’s an alien!”

The guard looked to Sam with his eyes wide and brows raised in surprise.  Sam just showed him the missing spot in his wing with orange dripping from it, “guess what, now it’s assault and you can go to jail for it.”

“That would never hold up in court!  You aren’t human!”

Sam just stared at him, “really?  You’re going to use that as your defense?  You aren’t even going to deny what you did?  You realize the con can still kick you out without going to court right?”

The guard didn’t want this escalating any further than it had already and stepped in, “alright, no one is going to court.  No one is getting kicked out.  This is a minor situation.  Ma’am, if he interacts with you any more while here then we will deal with it more seriously.  Aside from missing a feather you are fine.”

“Fine??  I am bleeding!  That orange fluid is my damn blood!  No, if I see him again I’m ripping half of his hair out and asking how he feels about it!  This is fucking bullshit.  The next prick who fucks with me is finding out what a brown belt can do with my strength!”

“Ma’am, I do--”

“And don’t you ma’am me! First off, I’m a guy.  Second, I am leaving!  So fuck off!  And you should know better than to assume someone’s gender at a fur con!”

Sam stormed off and through the crowd that had formed around them.  The people who had been standing in the direction that Sam was walking moved away quickly to let him pass and Lacy hurried to catch up with him, “you alright, Sam?  That looked like a lot of blood that came out when he yanked your feather.  The orange was blood, right?”

“Yeah that was blood.”  Sam pulled his wing over now that they had walked away and pulled the feathers away from where the yanked one was.  The blood had stopped and looked like it was already starting to heal.  This made Sam happy knowing that he healed fast.  He didn’t know if a half feather would heal like a missing feather since they weren’t technically alive, but it was a thought.

“Is that hole healing already?  He pulled out a good chunk of skin with the feather.”  Sam nodded to Lacy, “wow.  That is some impressive healing!  I wonder how fast you could regenerate a limb?”

Sam jerked up from looking at his wing and stared at Lacy, “I really hope I don’t have to find out!  Losing a feather hurt enough!”

“Well it was just hypothetical.  Hell, your changes happened fast enough.  You could probably heal just about anything in a matter of days.”

“I’ll keep that in mind should I ever go before a firing squad.  Maybe I’ll heal like Logan.”

“Come on!  I hear they have a hot dog eating contest!  Someone brought it over and they’re staging it in the zoo!”

He paused for a second before realising how hungry he was and quickly followed after Lacy.  This could be an opportunity for a cheap meal if he could sign up for it.  He didn’t think he could win, but cheap food was cheap food.

When they arrived, there seemed to be a crowd but they were both too short to see what was going on.  They weaved their way through the crowd off to a side area and saw the table set up with five people and six plates stacked high with hotdogs.  People were milling about but it seemed no one would take that sixth spot.

“Come on people!  We just need one more contestant!  Who thinks they have what it takes?”

The contestants were all large individuals who looked like they could put away quite a few hotdogs but Sam was not deterred, “I’ll take that last spot!”

“Alright!  Last spot is taken!  Come on up here!”  The announcer whispered to Sam when he got up to take his spot, “hey, you may want to take off the head.  This can get messy.”

Sam winced a little but got sheepish, “I can’t.”

“Oh.  Well it’s not my fault if it gets ruined.”  He stepped away from the table to better watch the contestants, “Alright, on the count of three you will have two minutes to eat as many as you can!  Ready?  One… Two… THREE!”

Sam didn’t even look at the other contestants.  He popped the first one in his mouth and realized he could fit half in without a problem, biting down and chewing quickly before popping in the other half.  He tried swallowing after only a few chews and realized it went down easily enough even only partially broken up.  This got him eating much faster and before he knew it there was only a couple left on the plate.  That was when the announcer called time and everyone sat back.  Sam looked over and saw everyone else still had half of their piles and were sweating.  Sam just shrugged to himself.

“Can I eat these last few?”

“Ummmm.  Yeah!  Yeah, sure.  Ummm, we already got final tally.”

“Thanks!”  Sam hopped up, grabbing the last few hotdogs and walked away from the stage.  A lot of people were staring at him but he didn’t care.  Even if they disqualified him from the competition for not being human, it was still cheap food!

“Holy crap, Sam! You ate 40 hotdogs!  You got 37 down in 2 minutes!”

“Is that how many I ate?  Wow.  I’m not surprised after how much I’ve been eating lately but that is a lot.  I wonder how I’d do on the actual eating competition.  That’s 10 minutes.”

“I’d be afraid to know.  That was too many. I can only eat about five before I feel sick!”

“It happens.  Hey, want to go up to the skywalk?”

“Uh, sure!  Any particular reason?”

“Nah. Just want to walk around and I like the view.  Let’s go!”

When they got up to the skywalk, Sam danced around under the glass to some music he could hear.  They were close to the dance hall from up here.  There were only a few people so Sam let loose a bit and let his wings move around while he danced.  It wasn’t something he did much when heavy but this lithe and strong body could do a lot he couldn’t before.  He stopped dancing around when he heard Lacy giggle and he felt a bit sheepish.  She had a big smile on her face though.  He stepped over and leaned against the window and set his head on the glass.

Lacy walked up to him but Sam’s expression changed suddenly.  Something looked to be bothering him.  He looked out the window and down into the crowds with a frown on his face.  Lacy followed his gaze but could not see much at this distance.

“They’re here.  Those fuckers forced their way in here!”

Lacy looked at Sam confused, “who is here? What has you so agitated?”

“HW Purity is here. Probably looking for me.  God damnit!  I knew it wouldn’t last long.  Someone must have mentioned I was here.  Fuck!  I need to get my stuff from the room and jet!  I’m sorry Lacy!  I’ll see you another time!”

Sam didn’t even wait for a reply.  He started running in the direction of the attached hotel.  He needed to get his stuff and escape before he was caught.  Honestly he didn’t think they could catch him but why take the risk.  Spring boarding off walls made the trip to his room very short.  Thankfully he really only had the one bag so he quickly stuffed everything back in the bag, sealed it up, and took off running for the staircase.  The fastest way out was going to be by air so he was thankful he got the hang of it a bit that morning on Kyle’s motorcycle.

The stairs were easy to find and Sam took them all the way to the roof.  He burst out the door and took stock of his surroundings.  Nothing was in the sky and the rooftops were clear.  It was as good a time as any to try to fly off.  He ran to the edge of the roof and leapt into the air, spreading his wings once he was clear of the roof.  It took a few flaps but he worked up a rhythm that propelled him up and forward.  He also picked up speed, slowing down his flapping once he found himself soaring through the sky.  He looked back at the convention center and wished he could stay.  He really wanted to, but it was too dangerous.  He also realized he didn’t have that agents phone number so he couldn’t give him a call.  Oh well, maybe he’ll make the best of this situation and travel a bit.  The FBI would probably catch up with him eventually.