Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I hate this, I hate this, I hate this—”

“What was that? I don’t think I heard you the first four hundred times—”

“It was not four hundred!” Jay scoffed, scandalized as he placed a hand on his chest. “Now you’re just being whiny—“

“Oh, I’m being whiny?” Cole whirled around, hands thrown in the air. “I’m the one who’s whining?”

“You don’t need to make up lies to complain about!” Jay huffed, hand cocked on one hip. It looked even more nagging with the outer blue of his gi tied around his waist in the blazing desert heat. 

“I’m going to kill you.” Cole decided, hands twitching, longing to strangle. “The buzzards won’t even eat you, because they know they’re too good for it.”

“I am perfectly good buzzard food!” Jay shouted, throwing out a hand to swat at Cole’s shoulder. Cole promptly caught it by the wrist and bent it back. “Ow, ow, owowow!”

“Shut.” Cole enunciated by bending Jay’s arm further, causing him to help and fall to his knees from the awkward angle, trying to yank free. “Up.”

“Stopping the talking! I’mstoppingow owowow!” 

Cole released Jay’s arm, and he immediately flopped onto the sand in a pathetic heap of cloth and sweat.

“We’re gonna die out here.” Cole groaned, hunched over. 

“You’re dying first.” Jay muffled into the sand.

“Not if I kill you in your sleep.” Cole muttered, shoving back upright. “Which I will do. Now get up.” He gruffed, lightly kicking Jay’s side.

“How, exactly,” Jay muttered into the sand, and spoke without pause as Cole used his foot to roll him onto his back, “am I expected to do such a thing when you put me down here?” 

“You put yourself down there.” Cole said, giving another light push before stepping away. “Stop talking and I won’t do it again.”

“And to think!” Jay sat bolt upright, eyes seething, “we seriously considered you for leader!”

“Yeah,” Cole turned right on his heel, feeling slow and heavy as he walked right in the direction they were always heading, “this is why.”

“I think I should let you get a heat stroke.” Jay glowered, then turned his eyes up to the sun. “It’s not even night yet and you’re making us walk.”

“An hour in the sunlight is fine, Jay!” Cole threw up a hand, glancing back just to make sure Jay was scrambling to his feet to start following again. “Ninety percent of our walk will be at night like you said.”

“This is unnecessarily cruel!” Jay groaned, dragging his feet through the sand. As if he wasn’t going to complain about that in the next ten minutes. “I tell you we need to travel at night, I tell you we need to preserve body temperature, I tell you—“

“Yes, you’re the desert expert cause you lived in the middle of fuck-all nowhere, we get it!” Cole snapped, heaving himself up over a dune. “Are you sure you even really saw those lights?”

“Yes,” Jay grunted, heaving himself on top of the dune next to Cole, readjusting the strap of the messenger bag slung around his neck. Cole ignored him in favor of shielding his eyes and scanning the horizon again, “I am!” He rolled over onto his back. Promptly getting even more sand on whatever remained of their bottled water and singular sad fish. “And I don’t see you with a better idea!”

“Just making sure we know who to blame when one of us dies of dehydration. Or heat stroke. Or coyotes.” Cole shrugged, thinking it over for exactly a second before kicking Jay.

And immediately watched him flounder and roll all the way to the bottom of the dune. Yelling and sputtering right till the end.

Cole laughed before he even reached the bottom, hands on his knees. It was probably a hysterical kind of laugh, made funny only because of delirium, having nothing else to do, and the fact it was Jay.

“You—“ Jay spat, literally, spitting sand out of his mouth as he shoved himself up onto his elbows, “absolute asshole and horrible person that I no longer dare call friend—!”

Cole laughed harder, stumbling slightly before righting himself and ending up a few steps down the dune. His chest hurt. Did sand get in lungs? It probably got in his lungs. And drowned out Jay’s. 

And he then got a shower of sand flung at his face.

“Hey—!”  Cole reached up to try and brush it out.

And then proceeded to get an angry ball of lightning with self-control issues tackling him.

If anyone asked, he only fell over because he was standing on a slope, and that slope was made of unstable, shifting sand.

“One of us is going to die by my hands!” Jay barked, Cole barely fending off a flurry of a million punches a minute by shoving in random directions. Not that Jay’s punches hurt all that much. Guy was, like, five-foot-five and built like a stick bug.

“You’re that confident in you accidentally killing yourself?” Cole grunted back, followed by another cry and a shock to his gut. “Ow!” 

“Yeah that’s what I thought!”

Cole heaved his legs upright, dislodging Jay trying to sit on his chest. He stumbled, and Cole promptly snagged him by the back of his black undershirt, not unlike scruffing a cat, and threw him off.

Jay went face-first into the sand, again, messenger bag slipping off and laying in a heap. Cole decided to just…lay on his back and stare up at the slowly darkening sky. The sand was hot as hell, even through his gi, but he was honestly too tired to care.

“We’re gonna die.” Cole decided, again, and turned his eyes to the sky, darkness finally overtaking.

“And who’s fault is that?” Jay muttered, sounding almost winded. Which, for someone with as much energy as Jay, was saying something. 

“Yours.” Cole grunted, throwing an arm over his eyes. “Because you got kidnapped by fuckin’ birds.”

“They are really big sentient birds!” Jay cried out, and Cole could hear him springing to his feet again. “You saw them! Human birds! That’s not normal and it was freaky!”

“Shouldn’t you be grateful I busted you out?” Cole muttered, not really looking for an answer.

Jay gave one anyway. “You didn’t even know I was there until I tried breaking out!”

“I could’ve left you.” Cole pulled his arm away, staring at the nearly fully darkened sky. “I probably should’ve left you on that pillar.”

“But you didn’t!”

“And every minute I regret it.” Cole muttered, hearing shifting in the sand. He flicked his eyes to see Jay’s feet walking towards him, noticing it took a moment with how dark it was getting. “Jay, I will end you.”

“You’re ending yourself. I’m making a break for freedom.” Jay huffed, walking right by Cole’s head, which was pleasantly surprising, and he even remembered to sling the bag back over his shoulder.

Until he stopped, took one step back, and instantly kicked Cole in the head.

“That is it!” Cole barked, surging up, much to Jay’s high-pitched cackling and screaming.

Jay had a weak kick, but he was, unfortunately, fast, and was already halfway up the next dune by the time Cole found his footing.

Maybe it was his imagination that the sand shivered slightly, almost making waves as he lunged up the slope. He was a bit too laser-focused on the frantically hollering blue dot cresting over the top.

Only for Jay to pause, stumbling slightly so as not to fall over the other side. Back straightening, hollers falling as he stared off into the horizon.

And thus had a brief moment of vulnerability that Cole used to shove him with all his might. Jay got a few seconds of airtime before rolling head-over-heels down, rougher than the last time.

“I’m going to bury you ali—“ Cole stopped.

There, in the far distance. The sky was in full twilight, with some lingering traces of purple light around the horizon. The stars were breaking free, so many more than there used to be. Cole had long since given up trying to find any constellations he recognized, and was only thankful there was still one moon. Even if it looked bigger and bluer than before.

But through all these sparkling dots, under a sky unfamiliar to everyone who lay under it now—there, where the sky met the land in that purple glow, were lights.

Definitely unnatural, much too bright and too close to the ground to be stars. Almost yellowish, blinking like searchlights. Like a lighthouse that didn’t spin.

“Huh,” Cole blinked, “you were telling the truth.”

“You thought I was lying?” Jay outcried from the bottom of the dune. “What kind of best friend are you?”

“Playing the best friend card is not making me any less pissed at you.” Cole expressionlessly flipped Jay off, to which he returned the gesture from where he lay. “Also, just because you thought you saw it doesn't mean it exists.”

“What does that mean?”

“You embellish.” Cole said simply, and began skidding himself down the dune. “Alright, come on, I see your lights. We might make it there before we dehydrate.”

“I’m sacrificing you first if we reach that point.” Jay weakly raised a hand, pointing at Cole as he passed. “You’re big. You could stand to lose some blood.”

“Are you a vampire?” Cole snorted, walking right on.

“I feel as dead as one.” Jay huffed, the shuffling of sand assuring Cole that he was following. 

“Yeah, well, let’s try not to make it a reality.”

Chapter Text

The first night yielded little results.

They were closer, definitely, but even in the daytime, Cole still couldn’t see where those lights were coming from. If it was a mountain, a huge flashlight, anything. Jay insisted either the lights were killer powerful, or there was some fog they couldn’t quite see yet covering it up. The distance did look all blurry and uneven, but that could easily just be heatwaves.

They found some rocks and stubborn leaves that continued to live without water as shelter during the day. Jay was very, very strict about making sure none of their skin was exposed to the sunlight, no matter how hot they got. Gi's could be removed, but long-sleeved undershirts stayed on. 

Cole almost decided to ignore that advice completely. Just to make him a little mad.

He still forced them to start moving before the sun was fully down. Jay whined and dragged the whole way, but if the sun wasn’t directly beating down, Cole trudged on ahead. 

At the very least, none of those eagle-people appeared in the skies looking for them. They seemed to give up pretty much almost as soon as they ducked and hid around some rocks in the desert. Not a promising sign, but it’s what they had.

The second night, when the moon was high above, was when they finally found terrain other than sand: sand and boulders.

“Can’t you like, I don’t know,” Jay leaned an arm against a particularly large rock, “use these?”

“To do what?” Cole raised a brow. “Roll us to civilization? Walk backwards the whole time so we don’t get crushed?”

“I don’t see you with any ideas!” Jay puffed, shoving off the rock. “Just saying, man, you look rough.”

“Apologies that I am unused to trekking long hours in a desert.” Cole lightly shoved Jay’s shoulder when the guy walked up next to him, nearly throwing him over by accident.

“Then why are you ahead?” Jay scoffed, picking up the pace to be a few steps ahead of Cole, hopping over flat rocks dotted in groups over the ground and walking backwards. “I’m the expert here!”

“Maybe something will be nice enough to kill you silently before I notice.” Cole shrugged, a smiling pulling. “It’ll be way too late to save you when I realize. Too bad, so sad.”

“Maybe something will kill you first!” Jay scoffed, and Cole very much saw the next flat rock he wasn’t noticing, walking backwards and all. “I’m hardly a good meal. You, on the other hand, are much more satisfying of—“

“Don’t you have a fiancé?” Cole couldn’t hide his shittiest of grins, head cocked to the side.

“What?” Jay frowned. And immediately lit up like a bonfire. “Cole—!”

To which his heel hit the plate of rock, and he sprawled right onto his back.

Cole burst out laughing, taking a step back to brace himself on one of the boulders. Jay flailed and kicked about on the rock, feet hitting it a few times as he hurled embarrassed obscenities and sat up, sparks flicking off his head.

All of which was cut off when the ground trembled.

Well, no, it was the sand. Maybe it was Elemental stuff, but Cole knew it wasn’t the earth itself that shook, but the sand around them vibrating. 

He stiffened up instantly, and Jay yelped and flailed, scrambling off the plates of rock when they started rising.

He rushed over to Cole, ducking behind him and seizing his arm in a death grip. 

Cole took another step back, raising that arm out and pushing Jay a little further behind him. He braced his other palm against the boulder next to him as those flat rocks, that were apparently not rocks, kept rising.

Up and up they went, sand cascading in waterfalls. Air shaking with the sudden disturbance, followed by snorting breaths and rumbling growls to reveal—

A dragon. A fairly big, sandy-red, rock-plated dragon.

“Another one?” Cole couldn’t help but mutter. “How many dragons did this Merge have?”

“Too freakin’ many!” Jay loudly whispered back, holding Cole’s arm tighter.

It wasn’t quite as big as their old dragons, such as Rocky, had been. Cole was decently tall himself, and his head was a little above the elbow of its forearm.

But it was built, scales massive and shaped like rocks coating its body, ridges and bumps over a long, narrow snout with two bumps over the nose. Its head reminded him of a horned lizard or thorny devil, with two main horns that curved slightly, followed by smaller ones around the head in a frilled shape.

And a very thick tail that lashed about, so, that was alarming. Cole took one look at it and knew it’d probably one-hit at least ten people without much effort.

And all of that, with eyes much too yellow to ever be mistaken for stars, was glaring right down at them.

“…hey.” Cole gave the tiniest of dips to his head, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice. “You look…new.”

The dragon growled, reminiscent of two rocks being ground together in a very unpleasant sound. Jay flinched and eyed it over Cole’s back.

“Do you think it can see us if we don’t move?” Jay whispered.

The dragon's talons twitched, digging into the sand. The padding looked thick, and its talons were unnaturally large and curved for a dragon of that size.

“Definitely,” Cole whispered back, and promptly bolted.

Jay cried out in the same instance the dragon roared, lunging for the spot they’d been. Jay scarcely managed to leap away before a talon bigger than his body slammed down.

“I thought you said you were—“ Jay yelped when the dragon tried to take a bite of him, making a break behind one of the larger, thankfully not-dragon-attached boulders, “good with dragons!”

“I like dragons!” Cole yelled back, nearly drowned out in another roar, like a cascading avalanche, as its head swung around and made a swipe for him. “That doesn’t mean they like me!” 

It’s tail whacked right into the boulder Jay was hiding behind as it turned, knocking it clean to the ground. Jay, for his part, immediately ran to the next boulder. 

“Dragon-whisper it, or something!” Jay hollered, trying to climb on top of one of the rocks. Cole dove behind a smaller one, resulting in the side of the dragon's face smacking into the rock instead of biting him.

“Dragon whisper— what do you think I am?” Cole shouted, spinning around and raising his hand.

The rock that the dragon smacked into shook for a moment before shooting out of the ground, revealing more rock underneath. The dragon hissed and reared back, stepping away from the sudden blockage.

Jay braced himself on his own rock, raising his hand in a sweeping gesture. A bolt of lightning followed suit—and struck the rock next to the dragons head.

“Seriously?” Cole nearly threw his hands up.

The dragon's head snapped to the black spot on the stone, pupils flickering for a moment. It then spun around, eyes locking in on Jay. Its maw opened wide, baring fangs like a rattlesnake as it let loose a roar that did shake the earth.

“It's really hard to aim!” Jay shrieked, leaping off the rock and rolling to the ground as the dragon's jaws chomped over the boulder. It didn’t break, but there was a cracking sound as it reared back and hissed, shaking its head in pain. “Why don’t you try hitting it?”

Cole made a wild gesture for Jay to run to him, and he did. The dragon spun its head around, and in that moment, Cole got a glimpse of its back.

“It doesn’t have wings!” He shouted, seizing Jay’s hand and yanking him behind the large newly-made rock before a talon could crush him.

“That’s nice, neither of us can fly!” Jay snapped, and immediately cling to Cole when the dragon hissed at them.

“Doesn’t mean we can’t go up.” Cole braced his foot against the ground as the dragon reared back, scales doing a weird thing where they flared out like a fan behind its head. He shifted his foot to the side, tensed, and gave the sand a stomp.

The ground, not the sand, shook this time. Jay clung tighter as a boulder rose from the ground beneath them, scrambling to not fall off.

The dragon paused for a moment, staring with wide eyes as they kept moving up, and up, and—it growled and lunged.

Cole jerked back, halting the rising boulder for a moment. Luckily, the beast's head just smacked into the rock, a few inches short of where it could reach them. 

It stepped back and shook its head, rumbling loud and angrily at them. Its scales fanned out again, pulsating and shifting over its hide. He shuddered when he realized the movement actually exposed the skin underneath, a grayish purple color, with large blotches of marred, twisted scars. 

Now, this may just be him, but that looked deeply uncomfortable.

“Ha!” Jay jeered away, pointing an accusing finger down. “Some kind of dragon you are! I bet you can’t even spit anything!”

The dragon hissed again, bracing its haunches and flaring its scales again as it stood.

Cole crouched and lay one hand on the rock, Jay awkwardly wrapping his arms around his sides. Cole shoved one hand against the stone as the dragon braced on its forelegs, now at the perfect height to start biting at them.

The rock shot up before it could get so much as a nip in. Higher and higher, nearly shaking both of them off as the dragon bit and snarled.

Then, Cole stopped. Roughly a few feet out of reach.

“Is it safe to taunt it now?” Jay whispered, Cole’s arm shaking slightly as he slumped back in a crouch.

“Kinda,” Cole mumbled, watching the dragon drop back onto its four legs as its tail lashed. It swung its head, growling as it prowled around the base of the rock.

“What do you mean kinda?” Jay whisper-yelled back.

The dragon ran its side along the stone, then tilted its head down. With a gruff and a grunt, it sunk its long claws into the sand. In a movement faster than anything else, it began to dig.

“I kinda raised this rock as high as it’ll go.” Cole admitted, stomach dropping as the dragon started to vanish beneath the sand, worming its way down like it was right at home. “It’s not gonna take a lot to de-stabilize it.”

“Uh,” Jay peered his head down, to the tail sticking out of the writhing sand, “does it know that?”

The tail stilled.

Both stayed silent, watching the tiny lump where the dragon vanished. Like this, it was easy to see why they’d just mistaken it for rocks before. Cole would’ve been entirely convinced the top end of its tail was just an odd rock formation if he hadn’t seen what it really was himself.

Then, the tail twitched, and it, too, disappeared.

“...I don’t know.” Cole admitted, taking a cautious step right up to the edge. “But I think now would be a good time to figure a way out of—”

The rock lurched.

Jay screamed, because of course he did, he was the loudest person on earth. And they knew the Elemental Master of Sound.

The ground heaved and shook as the dragon, the clever little shit, started to shove and push against the base of the rock. The boulder shook with it, jerking so fast to the left that Cole’s head spun and he barely managed to snag onto some footholds before he went down to the sand below.

Jay was, unfortunately, not so lucky.

“Cole!” Jay squealed, grip ripping free of Cole’s gi, and Cole was left clinging to the rock for dear life, watching with wide eyes as Jay went straight down to the ground. He wondered if it was possible for the feeling of dropping terror to be amplified, but then he remembered, well, a twenty-five or so foot drop was pretty tame compared to from the sky.

He was actually kind of grateful the dragon smacked its body against the base of the rock again before he could see the exact moment Jay hit the ground. Partially because it spared him from having to watch that, partially because if anything broke, he most definitely wouldn’t hear it.

Except for Jay’s shriek, though, but that actually calmed him down significantly, even while clinging for his sake. He felt like, after so many years, he could differentiate which kind of screams Jay had. And this kind of scream? It was the “this really fuckin’ hurts, but I need to make sure everyone knows” sort of half-dramatic shriek. All in all, he’d be fine.

The worst ones were when he was silent.

“Not dead?” Cole called anyway, hanging almost entirely vertical to the ground and willing with all his might for the rock to stay.

“Fucking help me!” Jay shouted, which was another relief, that he was okay enough to be pissed off.

Cole looked down, a brief moment of reprise on the assault. 

Jay was curled on his side, a small indent in the sand where he landed. At least he’d had enough time to land on his side.

He was clutching his arm, though, wheezing (from the looks of it) as his head was ducked. Cole winced, swinging his body around to give his foot a better hook into the stone, hoisting himself cautiously further up.

“I’m coming!” He called, judging the distance and how he could climb down. He could jump, he supposed, but there was a very small likelihood he’d hit one of the taller rocks, and even then, it was possible he’d bang something up. He was tough, but he wasn’t immune to breaking a bone from falling.

The sand shifted. No—it was akin to a pulse, rippling outwards from the base of the rock and expanding a few feet. Jay didn’t seem to notice, too busy clutching his arm and trying to brace a leg underneath him.

Another pulse. With it, he swore he saw a lump in the sand. One that rose at the base of the rock—and moved towards Jay.

“Uh, Jay?” Cole tried, frantically looking around before deciding to hastily just start bringing himself down the boulder.

“I’m wounded here, Cole!” Jay snapped, voice higher than normal. Which wasn’t saying much.

The bump enlarged slightly. It moved faster.

“Jay,” Cole’s voice raised an octave or two, “Jay, it’s— Jay, run!” 

“What do you think I’m— Holy FSM!”

The dragon’s head rose out of the sand with a rumbling roar, barring Cole’s sight of Jay for a brief terrifying moment. Jay was still shrieking, though, as the dragon tore a talon free and flared out its scales at the Master.

“Use your lightning!” Cole shouted, judging the distance and deciding fuck it, pushing off the last third of the rock and tucking himself into a roll.

It worked, luckily, though his back was bruised and he was briefly winded for a second. Sand was all over his gi, hair, and in his mouth—but he was up and wheezing, forcing himself in a breath as he spotted Jay scrambling back, one arm hanging uselessly as the dragon opened its maw wide.

Jay lay flat back against the ground, trying to mold himself into the desert before raising his good hand straight up. He turned his head to the side, eyes squeezed shut as sparks lit up his fingers, jumping over his palm like a small thunderbolt, a bright point in the darkened night.

The dragon stopped.

Hovering over Jay, jaws open wide enough to swallow him whole. Saliva dripped off its fangs, falling onto the ground around Jay. 

Cole was halfway through the start of a run, but he, too, froze in place. Sudden moves were bad with dragons. This dragon clearly wasn’t Rocky, but in his experience, dragons closer to the ground had the worst eyesight.

Like before, its pupils expanded and shrank a few times. Locked in on Jay—no, on his hand— its eyes slowly became halfway overtaken by blackness. Even from this distance, he could see Jay’s lightning reflected in them.

One drip of saliva fell onto Jay’s knee. He flinched, but luckily didn’t scream, cracking open an eye.

He nearly did scream then, something only barely cut off. Cole was saved from having to run in when Jay inevitably freaked out, because, slowly…the dragon closed its jaws.

Its eyes never left Jay, or, more specifically, his hand. Its scales were tensed, but it was… entranced by the lightning. 

Jay heaved out breaths, lightning only a momentary twitch away from launching free and striking the beast straight in the face. 

Despite nearly having been struck once before, the dragon didn’t seem to recognize, or care, about this possibility. Its lower half was partially covered in sand still, but it stayed watching as Jay tried to kick himself further away.

“Don’t move.” Cole instructed, voice low as he eyed the dragon, looking around for a brief moment before spotting where their bag had fallen in the chaos.

“What am I supposed to do, then?” Jay hissed, trying to be quiet.

The dragon’s pupils shrunk for a moment, a growl starting up. Jay yelped as sparks whirled up from his hand to his arms, lightning so bright it was starting to turn white near his palm. The dragon's pupils promptly expanded again, wider than before, a rumbling, almost cooing like noise emitting from it.

“Just sit.” Cole murmured, unsure if Jay heard him as he gingerly scooped up the bag. He popped open the cover, relieved to find the wrapping of now very-sandy lightning-cooked fish was still there.

Cautiously, he began to approach. He came up the side, not quite directly behind Jay, but close, and easy to spot. He saw the dragon's large eyes flick to him for a moment, and its scales began to raise.

“It’s okay,” He assured, holding out one empty hand, palm up in a ‘stop’ gesture, “hey, it’s okay. We’re all okay, see?” He unwrapped the fish, still approaching at a slow pace. “We’re friends here.”

“Friends?” Jay whisper-yelled, a strain in his voice from holding his lightning for so long.

The dragon's eyes went back to him. Jay cautiously spread out his lightning more, letting it take over some flickers of the rest of his body, letting it all come back to a normal blue instead of a dangerous white. The dragon cooed again.

Cole stopped when he was a few feet away from Jay, so low to the ground he was basically crouched. He could see the tension within the beasts back, but it still had yet to lunge. A wary curiosity.

“We just scared you, didn’t we?” Cole murmured, scooting another foot forward, one hand braced on the ground as he raised the fish. “And then we started screaming. Or someone was mean to you,” He guessed, remembering the marred skin he saw beneath the scales, “weren’t they?”

Reasonably, it was probably just some other dragon that caused those scars. What kind of people could go toe-to-toe with dragons, and why would they want to?

The dragon looked at the fish. Its nostrils flared, puffing out a breath that went almost all over Jay, to which he cringed, and his lightning began to flicker out.

“Ever had cooked fish?” Cole murmured, quick to get its attention back, holding the fish out higher. “Sorry that it's kinda burnt. Jay isn’t a good cook.”

“Oh, says you.” Jay grit out.

“Shut up.” Cole whispered, gently tossing the fish forward.

It flopped onto the ground, about two feet from Jay. The dragon winced for a moment, then looked down to the fish.

It sniffed it, nose lowering to inspect. With a rumble, and a lower of the scales completely, it opened its jaws and scooped up the fish, along with a bunch of sand, and swallowed all of it. Cole honestly thought a diet of sand was disgusting, but maybe it was nutritional to these guys.

Its tongue darted out, licking the side of its jaw. It huffed out another breath, head turning to the side. It reminded Cole of an owl.

“I think you’re good.” Cole ventured. To which Jay immediately dropped his head, hand falling limply as he wheezed out a heavy breath, lightning flickering away.

The dragon huffed, snout crinkling slightly. It didn’t look pleased, but it wasn’t growling or attacking, so Cole risked crawling the last foot over to Jay’s side, hands falling to the arm he wasn’t using earlier.

“At least you fell the right way.” Cole muttered, scooping it up as gently as he could.

“Ow, ow, ow!” Jay snapped, jerking his arm away with a pained hiss.

The dragon gruffed, scales behind its head twitching. Both of them froze, staring up at it as it stared down at them, pupils slowly returning to their normal size.

“Just helping him.” Cole promised, eyes still on the dragon as he instead ran his fingers gently over Jay’s arm. He couldn’t feel any lumps, which was good, because if they were lucky, then the bone was only cracked, not broken.

“Ow,” Jay grumbled, at a normal volume instead of shrieking, which was a nice change of pace.

“Oh, shut up, you’ll live.” Cole rolled his eyes, setting Jay’s arm over his chest instead of dropping it like he wanted. Unfortunately, Jay was better if he healed as fast as possible. “That was our only food, right?”

“Sure was.” Jay groaned, throwing his other arm over his face. The dragon just kept blinking at them, but it was more idle, now, tail twitching and head raising occasionally to glance around. Seemed it was losing interest. “You think we could eat the dragon?”

“Better idea.” Cole said, a spark going off in his brain before he stood, cautious and slow. The dragon turned its head back to him, casual and curious. “We’re friends, right, buddy?”

“Well, I’m seriously beginning to question that these days—”

“Not you.” Cole huffed, lightly kicking his foot against Jay’s side and getting a grunt of displeasure for it. He took a step forward, hand raising. “We can get you a whole lot more fish, big guy.”

The dragon rumbled, warily eyeing his hand. It cringed back slightly, so Cole paused. He still kept his hand outstretched, head lowered by an inch or two. He was trying to wrack his brain for what worked with Rocky. 

“There’s some lights,” Cole said, though he knew it couldn’t really understand him, pointing off in the direction they were headed, “and we need to get there. There's probably people, and where there's people, there's food. We’d love to get you some.”

“Are you reasoning with a dragon?” Jay puffed.

“It's a long walk,” Cole continued, taking a step closer, “but you wouldn’t mind helping us there, would you?” He reached his hand up, to the snout that could definitely bite his whole arm off with very little thought. “We’ll compensate you for your time.”

The dragon narrowed its eyes at his hand. This time, however, it didn’t move away. It flinched slightly when his hand got close, but moved no further. A quiet rumble as Cole moved that last inch forward, fingers brushing the tip of its nose.

Moving gingerly, the dragon let him slowly press his hand over its whole nose. The scales, Cole noted, felt as if solid bedrock was coated in a layer of sandpaper. Fitting. 

The dragon cooed, back uncoiling as Cole stroked over its snout. He smiled, and the dragon's tail tip gave a single happy thump on the ground.

“That is such bullshit.”

“Jealous.” Cole grinned, smug as all hell as he looked down to a bewildered, and annoyed, Jay. “Now get up, I just got us a ride.”

Chapter Text

It wasn’t very difficult to point the dragon in the direction they wanted to go.

It took a minute to get it over the dunes and rocks they were nestled in, but once Cole pointed out those speckled lights in the distance, the dragon's eyes went all wide like a cat’s, and it happily trotted itself off through the desert.

Jay complained the whole way, of course. Mostly about the dragon being incredibly uncomfortable to sit on. Which was true, but it was a price Cole would pay.

Considering the only other stuff they had in the bag was their gis and nearly-empty water bottles, they agreed (for once) to repurpose the strap and leather to make a sling for Jay’s arm. It was incredibly DIY, and Jay was surprisingly better at it than Cole, but if they were lucky, whoever was making those distant lights had some first aid knowledge.

Or it was more weird creatures that wanted to kidnap them. It was probably that.

“Hey,” Cole started, leaning against the back of the dragon’s neck, hands folded behind his head as Jay shifted every ten seconds to try and get comfortable between two big scaly shoulder blades, “why did those birds hate you, anyway? Aside from you being abysmal company.” 

“Ha ha,” Jay deadpanned, looking like he was trying to fold himself into a pretzel, which was clearly made doubly difficult with one arm in a sling, “terrible company, hilarious. Which one of us has a fiancé, might I ask?”

“Hey, I don’t judge people's bad tastes.” Cole shrugged, grinning when Jay started sputtering before he was even finished. “Least of all Nya’s.”

“She has amazing taste, excuse you!” Jay accused, and his voice could probably be heard from everywhere in the desert. “And I will tell her how rude you were, and you do not get to talk about her like that—”

The dragon gruffed, shaking out his head. Cole was dislodged for a moment, frantically dropping down flat before one of those horns could stab him in the face. 

They got a side-eye from the dragon, a look of clear annoyance apparent. Cole gave a sheepish smile, and he imagined Jay was much the same. He could hear him patting the dragon's side.

“Heh, um, sorry about that.” Jay chuckled nervously. “Uh, continue, please.”

The dragon snorted, nearly knocking Jay off with the sudden lurch to its body, and turned back around to continue its trot.

There was a brief, blissful moment of silence, neither of them wanting to upset their ride. Cole settled himself back in his previous position, giving a light pat to the scales. He got a rumble for that. He wondered if he should give the big guy a name.

“Shouldn’t I have that spot?” Jay started up again, and Cole rolled his eyes to the high heavens.

“You’d get a horn through the eye within the hour.” Cole puffed, making sure to lounge in a doubly languish way.

“I have a broken arm!” Jay protested, pointing to said appendage as if being five feet away meant it was invisible.

“How terrible for you.” Cole clicked his tongue, thought it over, then pointed a finger at him. “Tell me why the eagles hated you, first.”

“Seriously?” Jay scoffed, moving to cross his arms before wincing and settling on crossing his legs. “They were villains, that's why.”

“Bullshit.” Cole scoffed. “You pissed them off.”

“I was having a very bad day!” Jay insisted, throwing one hand in the air before the dragon grunted, to which he immediately winced and lowered his voice. “Look, so you make a rainy sky or two into a thunderstorm, big deal!”

“For FSM’s sake.” Cole groaned, dropping his face into his hands.

“It was just a little bit of lightning! Just a little!” Jay waved his hand around. “So it got a tad close to one wing. It barely clipped the guy!” 

“You’re gonna make enemies with half the new damn continent within the week.” Cole sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. 

“They were over dramatic!” Jay puffed, sitting back. “Neither of us would’ve wrecked their mountain during the escape if they didn’t put me in a cage in the first place.”  

“Probably figured you were least likely to strike them all out of the sky.” Cole snorted, dropping his hand from his face. “Whenever we get to where we’re going, how about I do the talking, huh? You’ve done enough for five lifetimes.”

“Fine, fine, you talk to all our possible future-enemies.” Jay huffed, rolling his eyes. “But when it all goes wrong, I’m not taking any of the blame.”

“I’m sure you’ll find some way to accomplish that anyway.” Cole sighed, running his hands over a thick plate of scales next to him. In response, he got a happy warble. “You think Sensei Wu would let us keep him?”

“We just got this dragon!” Jay exclaimed, exasperated. “And where’s he gonna stay, anyway? Under the mountain? We didn’t rebuild the dragon stables, you know!”

“It got converted to storage space.” Cole reminded. “So, we’ll just convert it back to a stable! I’m sure this big guy would be happy to stay with all the free fish around. Wouldn’t you?” He cooed.

The dragon warbled again, partially walking and partially sliding down another dune. Jay scrambled to grab a hold onto the scales before he toppled right off. He shook out his head, and Cole noticed a ray of light beaming onto his shoulder. Dawn was coming.

“And how are we supposed to get him up there in the first place? Walk him?” Jay continued. “He can’t even fly! You know how we could keep dragons up there? Because they could fly.”

“That’s hardly his fault.” Cole puffed, lounging further back between the massive horns. “I don’t even see any stumps where they would’ve been. Maybe desert dragons just don’t have wings.”

“Then that's not even a dragon!” Jay insisted. “Can’t fly, can’t breathe out anything, all I see is one big lizard.”

The dragon gruffed, taking an odd step up the next dune. Jay yelped and flailed about, barely managing to snag some scales before toppling straight off. Cole had no way of confirming it, but he decided the dragon did that on purpose, so he patted his scales in silent encouragement. 

“Well, this big lizard is giving us a free ride.” Cole smirked, looking up and to the eastern horizon. Slivers of light were beginning to peek through. “So, master of the desert, should we keep walking through the day?”

Jay followed his gaze, though he continued pouting. He squinted at the horizon, then looked back to where their bright spots were. They were beginning to flicker and fizzle out with the growing light. If Cole looked between the dragon’s horns and squinted, he swore he could see something that might look like structures.

“Give it till the whole sun is up.” Jay decided, settling back down. “Then we should rest. The dragon will get tired eventually. We can even use him as one big shield from the sun!” He grinned, self-assured.

“Or he’ll bury in the sand again.” Cole said.

“Tell him not to do that, then.” Jay snorted, as if it were that easy.

“Jay, for the last time, I can’t speak dragon.”

“Says you.”

“That’s the entire point—”