FicWad

Thanks as always to Ddae, who was kind enough to let me bounce this off her.




Thatz pelted around the corner, hoping against hope he'd lost them. He'd already had three close calls this month. Kitchel was never going to let him live it down if he let them catch him. Fuck, he still owed her money from the last time she'd bailed him out, and the bitch charged interest. He ducked through someone's backyard, sending chickens squawking and scattering. Stupid animals! Get out the way! Whose ass was it on the line here? With his record, they wouldn't just be keeping him overnight this time.

Across another cobblestoned street, squeezing through another dark, narrow alley and he could still hear their boots pounding after him. Surely the bigwigs up at the palace had better things to do than chasing petty thieves like him, like attending to the affairs of the nation or whatever the hell it was they did up there in their big castle besides make trouble for honest hardworking guys like him.

The alley led out onto the main drag and he was immediately forced to slow his pace and pick through the crowd of people milling around and generally doing nothing chatting and buying fucking vegetables/; were they /trying to get him put in jail? /Move the fuck already/! He couldn't run here without drawing suspicion to himself, or more suspicion than rounded ears usually brought, anyway. He moved as quickly as he could but it was like trying to swim against the tide, and his lungs were burning. He was so out of shape these days. His only hope was to lose them in the crowd and he made himself as small as he could and hoped like hell his green hair didn't stand out too much.

"Stop, thief!" someone yelled behind him. Fuck! Why couldn't they just leave him alone? People were starting to look at him now and he gave up trying to blend in and ran for it, trying to ignore the stitch beginning to set in in his side. He'd only pinched a few coins; it was barely enough to feed himself for the week or to keep Kitchel in the style she'd become accustomed to. They probably made that a dozen times over in a week. Assholes.

He chanced a quick look over his shoulder. The uniforms were gaining on him, led by the big tall guy who always looked like he wanted to grind his bones to make his bread. Why oh why had he ever come to Draqueen? He'd liked Chantel, really; it was full of people who were clueless enough to practically give their money to him and stupid enough that he didn't have to feel bad about it. Funnily enough, Kitchel wasn't out there getting her ass busted, nooo; she was probably curled safely up with a magazine somewhere. Fuck chivalry if it meant he was always the one putting his neck out.

The road narrowed as they got closer to the old quarter and damn it, they were herding him towards the palace. If they managed to chase him onto the palace grounds he could slit his own throat, they had people patrolling every square inch of the land, as he'd found out the one time he'd tried climbing the fence to do a little reconnaissance.

The stones were more uneven down here and he had to watch his feet more which meant slowing down slightly and that meant he could kiss his bounty goodbye. It was time to move up in the world. He jumped on a surprised vendor's cart and scrambled onto the roof. His heart plummeted when he almost lost his grip and dangled awkwardly from the gutter for a few seconds, but he managed to restore his balance and scamper across the roof. He'd like to see Mr. Seven-Foot-Tall-Size-Fifteen-Shoes follow him up here.

The houses in the old quarter were crowded together so it was easy to hop from roof to roof. The palace guard weren't doing nearly so well; only half of them had made the trip and those that had were picking their way carefully. Blunderbore had disappeared which gave him a moment's pause but he couldn't be worrying about that when he was almost home free.

"Give yourself up and you will receive mercy!" one of the uniforms called, and if he wasn't so bloody winded he would have laughed. You'd think he'd killed their queen or something by the way they took any little thing he might have lifted as a personal insult.

He was still giggling inwardly when his foot kicked something soft and yowling -fucking cat! He hated cats!- and he lost his balance, tumbling down the sloping side of the roof and scraping his hands on the slate tiles. He flailed desperately, trying to get a hand on something or stop his momentum but the force of gravity and sheer stupid bad luck and black cats conspired against him and he closed his eyes, rolled into a ball and just hoped he didn't break anything crucial.

He met the ground with a resounding thump that knocked the breath out of him. He didn't think anything was broken, except his poor old piggybank, but his ass was definitely bruised. With visions of having every finger slowly broken to stop him thieving again by scary leatherman dancing before his eyes, he tried to get up -they'd be catching up to him once they worked out where he'd mysteriously got off to- but his legs just. Wouldn't/. To put it politely, he was fucked. Oh man, was he fucked. Kitchel was going to /disown him. He closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable, messy ending.

"You're not half bad, you know?" someone remarked and they didn't sound like they were waiting to cut his hands off so he opened his eyes and fuck! A ghost was sitting on top of a pile of packing crates smoking. Except, wait, that wasn't right; ghosts weren't real and anyway, not being corporeal and all, couldn't smoke if they wanted to. This guy, though, was seriously as white as a sheet: skin, eyes, hair and all; plume of white cigarette smoke giving him a demented halo.

"Thanks," he panted and managed to sit up as every muscle in his body strongly protested. "You might want to get moving though before the horde descends."

"Hmmm." He seemed to chew on that for a while before jumping down from his perch and offering him a hand.

He hadn't noticed before but up close he could see that he had dragon ears. And dragons could come to their villages and make all the proclamations about peace, love and understanding they liked, but as far as reality was concerned, humans were still at the bottom of the food chain. You could trust dragons about as far as you could throw them, which since they were all so fucking /tall/, wasn't very far.

"No, thanks, I'm fine. Really," Thatz said, trying to scramble away before his head got broken.

"Relax, I'm not one of them," he said, laying a long, gloved finger against his lips. "Sssh, they're coming."

He wondered how he could tell. Dragon senses or what have you. Either way, he hadn't pulled a knife on him yet and it was either cigarette smoking man or getting his ass hauled off to the clink again; no competition, really. He let him pull him up, his heart still racing from the adrenaline of the chase and listening for the telltale pounding of boots on tile.

"They're nearly above us," white-haired guy said, cocking his head in the direction of the apparent sound. "On my mark." He produced something round and black from his pocket, and Thatz was limping down the alleyway before he pulled the pin and the air exploded in thick black smoke.

"You're fucking crazy!" he yelled when he caught up to him and put an arm under his shoulder to support and hurry him along, coughing and covering his mouth with his handkerchief as they stumbled through the smoke. "If they find out that was you, you're toast!"

"Somehow I don't think that will be a problem," he said with a glinting smile, and okay, so maybe he was fucking crazy but he'd also just saved his bacon. You could forgive a guy that.

They ducked into the back of someone's shed to take advantage of the confusion they'd created and rest for a bit. Thatz could feel some pretty impressive bruising coming up; it felt like someone really bitchy had kicked him in the ribs with steelcap boots and it was making him slightly nauseaous. His new partner lit up again, swearing when his lighter wouldn't flick on right away. He offered him one but Thatz refused; that shit messed up your lungs for real. Though when you were a dragon you probably didn't have to worry about that. What was it was like to live forever? Probably incredibly boring.

When it stopped feeling like someone was squeezing his chest in an iron band, Thatz looked up to his rescuer. "How come you're helping me?" he asked suspiciously. "Shouldn't you be, y'know, handing me over so justice can be served or whatever?"

"Not so much." He didn't volunteer any further information and frankly, he wasn't one for looking gift horses in the mouth or whatever the saying was. He just wanted to get himself and his booty back to the den (mostly) intact. Maybe he was a rogue dragon, on the lam for dropping cigarette ash on their pretty, prissy, perfect lawns.

He'd just graduated to standing up and trying a stretch or two when he caught a flash of black through the window, dirty and cobweb-encrusted as it was. The jig was up, and they were trapped like rats in a cage.

"Give yourselves up now, or we're breaking down this door!" they demanded.

"It's been nice knowing you," he said thickly.

"We're not finished yet," he said, and the nutjob was /grinning/. Oh god, he was stuck in a four by four shed with a madman who was going to get them both carted off to jail. He knew he should have been nicer to his mother. Karma and all that shit. Cigarette-smoking dude delved into his pocket again. "Still have a few things in my bag of tricks."

Did he want to know? "What are you planning?" he asked warily. "'Cause if it involves me, I'd kinda like to know."

"Come on," he said and grabbed his wrist with a grip which belied his skinny arms and smashed the window with an oil can sitting nearby, wrapping his hand in a rag and carefully clearing away the glass.

"Are you insane?" Thatz screeched. "There's absolutely nothing stopping them from just coming around the other side!"

"Dragon fighters," the albino freak said very patiently, "are /stupid/. Without Tetheus telling them how to tie their shoelaces, they're useless," and yanked him through the window in a shower of glass. They hit the ground hard and rolled; Thatz could feel shards of glass biting into exposed skin but he was up and running and there was no way he was going to be left behind now.

"Somehow I think they're going to notice we're not there anymore!" he yelled upwind to the fluttering coat and his companion yelled back, "It's okay! I know exactly where I'm going!" That wasn't particularly encouraging, but then he was on the run from the law with a madman. In for a penny, in for a pound, as far as he was concerned.

They turned around a whiplash corner, and he could hear bootfalls pounding after them now. They'd catch up soon, but still, that was pretty damn stupid and Thatz was hardly an intellectual himself. He'd done pretty shit in school - when he'd bothered to go. Too many dusty books, too many lectures and not enough information you could actually /use/. No wonder he'd gone skiving off with the bad lot when he was supposed to be studying but they'd taught him the things he needed to know, skills he could put into practice: how to pick locks, how to disguise himself, how to make coins disappear up his sleeves.

His stitch was beginning to come back and he cursed. If he got out of this he was going to do twenty sit-ups a day. Fifty. Anything to avoid being put in situations again where his body, not his mind, let him down.

"Come on, keep up," the asshole said, like this was a leisurely stroll in the park. Maybe he hadn't he noticed that Thatz was trying to lug a bag of coins around and those pretty bits of copper weren't exactly light? He put his head down, sweating more -his shirt was soaked through now- and everyone thought it was a glamourous life, living on the lam, above the law, bankrolling yourself off someone else's hard-earned cash - well, Thatz was here to tell them that it fucking /sucked/: everyone always looking at you suspiciously, sleeping in haystacks and living off wild meat when things were unlucky and most of all, there was no such thing as a jail with decent facilities. There just /wasn't/. Not even the bloody Imperial one but at least there you got three meals a day even if it wasn't exactly gourmet. The one they'd put him in in Costa Rica, the first time, had rats big enough to chew through the bars on the door and he'd stayed awake every night in fear they'd get hungry for meat.

Times like these he really fucking loved the job. His blood was singing in his veins, the roar in his head of sheer energy and adrenaline threatening to drown out the crash of footfalls behind him. His second, or maybe it was third by now, wind had kicked in and it felt like he could have kept ahead of them all the way to Hyuray and they'd never catch him, never even get near him. He was practically flying, bouncing, his shoes light on his feet, like they weren't even touching the ground. He could do everything; he could run forever; he could break open the safe in the dragon palace and steal the crown jewels, he could-

Whump/. The other guy was dragging him into the alley, almost yanking his arms out of his sockets and okay, he hadn't really been paying attention for a while back there so maybe they were taking another shortcut except that he was almost throwing him against the wall, plastering him against the bricks and not even kissing him, but /fucking his mouth in what was a really obscene way; all wet and messy and hungry. His hand was groping him up and down through his trousers and he got hard in, seriously, about two seconds flat. Alarm bells were going off in the back of his head but he'd never been good at asking questions first or second-guessing himself; his instincts were what kept him alive and they were telling him to /go for it, buddy/.

So he went for it. He tucked his hands into the other guy's back pockets and tugged at his head insistently until he got a better angle so it didn't feel like he was being crowded into the wall so much and showed him that he could give as good as he got, and when those long pale fingers started popping his buttons open he didn't panic. /Fuuuck/, it felt good; the guy knew just how to do it, and even keeping one eye and ear out for the telltale signs that the feds were after them again, it was still easy to lose himself in it; the frantic rhythm of the hand jerking him off as he sucked on his tongue. Everything was coming to a crest rapidly and he was going to come way too soon but he was too into it to stop now and his body gave it up a second later.

"Wow," he said when his brain started functioning a few minutes later and he could actually stand by himself. "Shit. That was." He became aware that the other guy was still pressed up against him and that while Thatz had just got off, he hadn't. "Um. Did you want me to..." Goddamit, he was not going to blush. Maybe he didn't have a lot of experience in the groping in alleyways arena, but he knew how to show a guy a good time. Or he could work it out. He was a quick learner.

"Later," white-haired guy said, producing a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping them both down and tucking him back in his pants. "We need to get moving before they figure out where we went."

"Ah. Okay." To be honest, his knees were still kind of wobbly -he was always useless after he'd just come- but he managed to get it together enough to put one foot in front another. "And you weren't worried about that," /when you had your hands on my dick/, "uh, before?"

"I told you," he said, peering around the corner before cautiously motioning to Thatz to follow him, "Dragon Fighters are stupid. But they're not that stupid."

"I guess..." Thatz wasn't that stupid either, and he was definitely starting to get a weird vibe off this guy. First the fact that he was completely nonchalant about blowing stuff up, and the easy familiarity with the Dragon Fighters, and the fact that he wasn't hauling Thatz's ass right in now since he was, y'know, a dragon and all, and then the mind-blowing handjob in the alley with someone he didn't even know... well, his spider senses were tingling, and he'd learned to listen to them. That was how you stayed alive. "Listen, I think," he began cautiously because this guy was a lunatic and could snap any second, "you should probably tell me-"

"Not really time for a deep and meaningful right now," he said and yanked him down a side street he hadn't even seen. They were confronted by a small iron door which he proceeded to pick like a pro -okay, definitely something he wasn't telling him- and waltz in like he owned the place. Fuck, maybe he did and just picked locks for the sheer fun factor.

"We're home," he said and smiled and Thatz managed to produce one in reply even though he had no fucking idea where they were or what the hell was going on.

He was nowhere near as cool as this guy. He was almost ashamed.

"The owner of this inn," at least that answered one of his questions, "is an old friend of mine. She won't mind if we lay low here until the trail is dead."

"Great," Thatz said faintly and slumped against the wall, protesting legs refusing to carry him even a step further. All of a sudden he was ravenous; his stomach was gnawing at itself for lack of anything else to eat. He hadn't eaten this morning - which was why he'd had to go out! Kitchel had eaten all the cereal! Bitch. - and a high-speed chase combined with other, uh, strenuous activity was leaving him feeling a little dizzy.

"There will be food," he said as if he could read his mind - and Thatz dragged his weary body after him into the common room.

It was a rather pedestrian scene as far as these things went, not even any games going on, but as soon as his white-haired companion stepped into the room it exploded into a riot of cheers, back-slapping and drink-buying. They practically carried him across the room and installed him on a hastily-vacated bar stool. He already had a drink in his hand, for god's sake! Thatz slunk up to the bar next to him, feeling small and pathetic compared to his friend's newly-discovered celebrity.

"Kai-stern!" the beautiful and very well-endowed barkeep said, practically shoving her breasts in his face. "It's been far too long! How have you been?"

"Not too bad," Kai-stern said, downing his drink in one gulp only to have a fresh one mysteriously appear in its place. "They're working me off my feet again, as you can imagine."

The barkeep made sympathetic noises -and really, couldn't they just get a room already? This was kind of embarrassing to watch.- and was quickly persuaded to give them a room to sack out in for a while.

"After you've had another drink of course," she said. "Everybody's missed you."

"Yeah, we can tell," Thatz piped up, and earned himself a glare. Ooh, she was a nasty one.

"This is my friend Thatz, by the way," Kai-stern added as an afterthought, and apparently that meant he was one of them because a few of the hangers-on clapped his shoulder affectionately like they'd been friends for years and someone put a drink in his hand and hey, he was down with this; if they wanted to give him free drinks they couldn't be all that bad.

They moved to a table at the back of the room -Kai-stern was apparently important enough to have his very own table, which raised some more questions about who exactly he was but Thatz was enjoying not being chased and having a drink too much to ask them- and someone produced a deck of cards and he had another drink and proceeded to kick this blond-haired guy's ass at blackjack hardcore.

And then he had another drink, and then another, and he didn't know what they put in these drinks of theirs but they were pretty damn good; his head was turning pleasantly fuzzy. It was kinda hard to concentrate on the cards when they kept moving about on the table like that, though, and he'd lost three games of poker in a row to Kai-stern -he had a mean poker face- before Kai-stern carted him upstairs and deposited him ungainfully on the bed. He kind of sprawled there for a few minutes, trying to coordinate all his limbs at the same time and eventually gave up and decided just to stay where he was. The room was warm and his blood was fizzing and Kai-stern was patting his head. He usually hated that -he wasn't a dog but his aunt had never got the picture- but when he did it it was kind of nice and Thatz fell asleep, pleasantly full and cozy.

*

The hammering on the door matched the hammering in his head. He had a bitch of a hangover and someone was knocking on his door before midday? That was grounds for disqualification as a human being. He half-stumbled to his feet and was going to answer the door, if only to make them go away, before he remembered that he was a criminal! On the lam from the law! What if they'd tracked him down? He was on the second floor, so escaping dramatically through the window wasn't really an option and he refused to hide in the closet like a little girl.

"Kai-stern," he whispered urgently.

"Hmmm?" he said sleepily. His white hair was sticking up crazily like duck feathers all over the place and behind his glasses his eyes weren't open yet.

"There's someone at the door!"

"Huh?" He sat up, coming completely awake in under a second flat. Thatz wished he could do that. It usually took the lure of breakfast to get him out of bed. Come to think of it, he was starving. If he didn't get arrested or killed first, maybe he'd check out the room service in his place. "Oh, don't worry about it."

"Don't worry about it?" Don't worry about it? Thatz was a pretty laid-back kind of guy, but this guy had him dead in the water. Don't worry about it? Yesterday they'd led the Imperial-bloody-police on a merry chase halfway across the city before they escaped. Blunderbore was going to eat him alive when he caught him.

"Really, it's okay," Kai-stern said, sounding far too amused considering Thatz was kind of having a minor nervous breakdown over here, and flung the door open.

He was standing in the doorway.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. He forced himself to stand still, unwavering. He even managed to bare his teeth in an attempt at a smile, but had more to do with that animal-backed-into-a-corner feeling. Every reflex was telling him to make a distraction or escape or hit him even! Run/! /Fight! Kai-stern just waved and said cheerfully, "Hello, Tetheus."

"Hello," the rock said back in a voice that sounded like crunching gravel. Oh god, he was fricking huge. He looked like he was hewn out of pure rock. Maybe he was starting to hyperventiliate. Breathe! Breathe!

"His name is Blunderbore," Thatz said inanely and its head turned towards him. He nearly shivered. It raised one eyebrow and cast a questioning look at Kai-stern.

"Jack and the Beanstalk. It's a children's story," Kai-stern said by way of explanation. Tetheus seemed satisfied with that, but there was no way Thatz was. How the hell had he known? It would be kind of stupid to tell fairy stories at Draqueen considering they traded with living, breathing real faeries. Hell, probably real giants, too, and demons and vampires and ghouls and everything else in his storybooks.

"Hey," he began, but no one was paying any attention to him.

"Are you aware that Alfeegi wanted to put a warrant out for your arrest?"

"Somehow it doesn't surprise me," Kai-stern acknowledged, and who the fuck was Alfeegi? Who the fuck was Kai-stern, for that matter? Something fishy was going on here and Thatz had no idea what it was, but he didn't like it.

"He'd made it all the way to Lykouleon's office before Ruwalk convinced him it would be unseemly for us to arrest one of our own." The corner of Tetheus's mouth twitched, which was even more terrifying than his normal expression.

"What a pity for him." Kai-stern himself looked like he was trying hard not to smile. "And I suppose he sent you to bring me in."

"Yes." Wouldn't it be time to, oh, start /running/, then? Or throwing another one of those gas bomb things? Something other than handing themselves gift-wrapped to the goddamn bloody dragon guard? He was willing to consider options here.

"He'll be disappointed to find out that I came peacefully. I'm sure Alfeegi would like nothing more than to interrogate me handcuffed in the dungeons."

Okay, all was not definitely as it seemed. They were talking almost casually, like people who knew each other well. He was starting to get this sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. A set-up? There was no way he was important enough for them to go to so much effort to bring him in, although it hurt his pride a little to admit it. And there was the, um, stuff in the alley to consider; that was definitely not standard procedure. At least, he didn't think it was. With Dragons, though, you never knew.

"Who's Alfeegi?" he demanded, feeling about three inches tall when they kept ignoring him. Not to interrupt their mother's club chat, but he was in the room too, and he kinda wanted to know whether he was being arrested or not.

"Another time, perhaps," Tetheus said blandly, and Kai-stern did laugh then. "Unfortunately, you will still be asked to explain your... absence... to him."

"And by that you mean that he'll have the thumbscrews and the bill in hand as soon as I get back to the castle."

"You did blow up someone's shed," he pointed out gravely, and Kai-stern shrugged.

"A little fun never hurt anyone, right?" he said with a small smile.

"Indeed, although Lykouleon had to bribe the editors not to put you on the front page."

"Wouldn't that have been fantastic." Kai-stern sounded a little bit wistful. Thatz, he was getting ready to break some heads.

"Does anybody want to tell me what's going on here?" he exploded. He was going crazy! There was some kind of massive conspiracy theory or something going on here, because nothing was making any sense. How did Kai-stern magically become a Dragon? Why did he know the head of security? More importantly, if they were important enough to drop the fecking /Dragonlord'/s name so casually, how come they hadn't arrested him yet? Why would Kai-stern have had anything to do with him?

"Who is this?" Tetheus said, with the kind of expression that just screamed, "You are beneath my notice, peon." Well, they couldn't all be nine feet, compensating-for-something tall. At least Thatz looked like he'd cracked a grin once in his life.

"I have no idea," Kai-stern admitted cheerfully, and once Thatz had collected himself off the floor, he parked himself right in front of their noses.

"I'm Thatz and I want to know what the fuck is happening!" And... oh fuck, he'd just given them his name. The security had known his face but not his name; great move there! Why didn't he just beg them to put him in the clink next!

Tetheus gave him a Look which would have chilled him to the bone about five minutes ago, but he was fired up now. He stared back, determined that he wasn't going to be the first to look away this time. He didn't have to be scared of him. If he was going to arrest him he would have done it by now. Besides, apparently he had friends in high places. Kai-stern was a sneaky goddamn bastard.

Tetheus finally broke the deadlock -yes! Score one for the thief!- and raised one eyebrow at Kai-stern, who just shrugged.

"He's a friend."

"Indeed." Tetheus sounded dubious, but Thatz was quite happy with that conclusion. A guy could use friends who rescued them from certain death and gave great handjobs.

"If you don't mind," Kai-stern began, and then he dragged Tetheus out the door and closed it in Thatz's face. Yeah, thanks guys; he was fine back here, just chilling out while they talked about secret dragon business. Don't worry about him, he doesn't need to know what's going on.

He couldn't resist pressing his ear against the door, but it was really thick and they must have been speaking quietly and all he could hear was muffled sounds of conversation. The higher voice, Kai-stern, got a little agitated at one point but whatever it was they resolved it quickly, and he only had a few seconds to spring back from the door and pretend he hadn't been doing his damndest to eavesdrop when they came back into the room.

"It's been decided," Tetheus cleared his throat with a significant look at Kai-stern, "that Draqueen will not attempt to prosecute you for your crime." Yes! "The stolen goods, however, will have to be returned."

"Fine," he muttered and handed the bag over, but he was too relieved to feel any pangs at the loss. He was getting off with a slap on the wrist, which was probably more than he deserved given his reputation as a hardened criminal.

"Next time," Tetheus warned, "I will not be so lenient."

"Yeah, whatever," he said lazily. There wasn't going to be a next time if he could help it. If Kitchel could be bothered getting off her ass, they were going somewhere where his face wasn't known. Although, that was kinda cool. He'd almost been front page material.

Kitchel was going to be /so jealous/.

Kai-stern shoved his hands in his coat pocket and gave Thatz a meaningful look as Tetheus started shuffling him out the door. "You've got the room until noon. There's room service." He winked. "See you around."

Thatz waved mechanically until the door closed. The second it shut, he was rummaging around in the room for the menu.

Room service? Yeah, he could get used to this.

~owari~

DISCLAIMER: Dragon Knights belongs to Ohkami Mineko. I claim no ownership and make no profit.