A/N: This is shorter than my other one-shots, but I wrote it with my friends (well, I wrote it when they were around… they didn’t exactly help, they’re both Ftards :P) The beginning is going to be REALLY confusing, but it’s supposed to be that way, ok?

Changing A Time or Two

“Argh! I'm so itchy!” Kaylan Amoroso-Dacosta complained loudly.

“So scratch,” Neil Dacosta retorted.

Neil wasn’t directly related to her, and they weren’t cousins, but they shared the same last name. It was sort of set up like a foster home, and whoever possessed the requirements was welcome to become part of the family, the Dacostas’. Some chose to keep their own last names, like Kaylan, but others, like Neil, decided to drop their names altogether.

“I would, but it’s my back, and I can’t reach!” Kaylan whined, sending a beseeching look towards Neil.

He sighed. “Fine then. Turn around.”

“Thank you!” she breathed and did was he asked.

Ten minutes later, feeling much like a contented cat, Kaylan peered over at Neil.

“I wonder what colour I’ll be,” she wondered aloud.

“I have no idea. You’re starting to peel on your legs and chest, thought,” he observed.

She gave a shriek of joy and dashed from the room. Neil shook his head. Trying to rush the process, even though it would take more than a week, and then another day or two for the colour to fully turn. Poor little Kaylan kept trying to rush it, he thought, conveniently forgetting that he was only twenty-three and had done the exact same thing five years previous.

Three days passed with agonizing slowness, and not just for Kaylan, but for Neil and the rest of the “family”, too. First Shed was particularly trying on everyone involved.

Four days later, Neil was awoken by a happy shriek and a cry of “It’s happening! Oh! Look! Neil, come look!”

Neil burst through her bedroom door and then on to her ensuite bathroom.

He stumbled through, then hastily retreated.

“Gah! Damnit, Kaylan!” he shouted from beside the door.

Kaylan looked down and realized that she was only in her underwear. It was the same as if she’d been wearing a bikini, but refrained from pointing it out. Neil just didn’t take comments like that well. He’d just say something perverted, realize what he said and who he said it to, and start to blush and stammer. Cute, yes, but also annoying as hell.

“Covered!” she called, sliding on her silk kimono.

“Good,” he stepped into the bathroom, wearing nothing but boxers with tiny margaritas on them. She barely held back a smirk. Oh, so she couldn’t be in a state of undress, but he could?

The skin on his (highly attractive, she added privately) chest was already tinted purple. She was slightly surprised that he let his emotions get that far gone. The less control, the more colour. Even if it was only a patch or two of skin, and it was barely even noticeable.

“Can you see what colour? Where?” he asked, peering at her arms.

“Here,” she started to undo her kimono.

“What are you doing?” he yelped.

“It’s on my stomach, and I can’t very well show you through my kimono,” she snapped.

Once open, Kaylan using a hand mirror, they both peered at the strangely coloured skin on her stomach.

“What colour is that?” she asked forlornly. She’d been hoping for something exciting, something bright, something like purple.

Ad she thought that, she watched a deep purple flush spread across Neil’s back and down his shoulders. Neil’s colour was amethyst, a beautiful, deep, dark colour that no one else had. There was another purple, but it was a pale lavender.

“It’s opal,” Neil said, interrupting her reverie.

There was a growing patch of colour on her stomach, beside her belly button. It was foggy with bright splashes of colour, mostly yellows and oranges. Blue was another common colour.

Neil trailed a finger over it and she shuddered. The patch grew.

“Sorry,” he murmured absently. His back and arms were now completely purple, and when he looked up, his face was, too. It was still his eyes, though, still the same grass green orbs.

“How long did it take you?” she stammered, trying to get her mind focused on something else. She was referring to his First Shed.

“A couple of hours. Itchier than hell, too. More so than before, when my human skin was shedding.”

Though the Dacostas’ looked human for the first nineteen years of their lives, they weren’t. In reality, they were chameleons. Not those stupid little lizard things, but human-sized entireties that could change their appearance at will. They could change skin colour, texture, thickness, anything. Well, anything except physically changing whom they looked like. Neil would always be Neil, and Kaylan would always look like Kaylan. It was the perfect survival tool, made for any climate.

It worked almost like adolescent puberty; only someone got it when they were nineteen, without fail. That was when they produced their “true colour”. And then that person had to learn not to change colours with every emotion. Chameleons, in some cases, still lost control with powerful emotions. It was alright in the privacy of one’s home, but outside could lead to trouble.

“You’re beautiful,” Neil murmured, placing a hand on Kaylan’s stomach. The opal was now spread over her whole front and was starting up her neck and down her limbs.

“What?” she whispered, and looked in the mirror before her. She could see nothing beautiful. Her legs were too short, her eyes were black, a strange colour for a redhead, and her eyebrows seriously needed to be shaped.

“Kaylan,” the way he said her name made her look at him, “It’s important that you believe you’re beautiful. I do.”

He realized what he’d just admitted and started to blush (she guessed. It was rather hard to tell when his cheeks were purple to begin with) and tried to stammer an excuse.

“Neil,” she laughed, cutting him off, “It’s alright! I feel beautiful with you anyway.”

Before she could fully register what she’d just confessed, he pulled her to him in a crushing hug.

“Thank you. That’s the best thing anybody’s ever said to me,” he whispered into her hair.

She pushed him back and tilted up her head so they were eye-to-eye.

She didn’t know who leaned in first, but the next thing she knew, they were kissing. It was a wonderful feeling. She’d kissed and been kissed before, but for some reason this was different. Maybe it was because this was Neil, and she knew him so well.

They came apart for air and Kaylan forestalled what he was about to say with a particularly aggravated yell.

“Argh! I'm so itchy!”