What's in a name?

[Kinley Sima]

"I know," he said, hissing right back at Kero. His heart thumped harder as he heard their mother calling for Kero. His eyes widened, too--and he stared back at Kero. With his eyes alone, he tried to plead with him to understand. No way was Kinley going to leave him in the lurch forever but he couldn't explain everything right now. There wasn't enough time. Plus... he didn't want Kero getting in trouble for what Kinley was about to do.

He wanted to reach for Kero, to give him a gentle squeeze on the shoulder but there was another pebble and it meant business. There was no more time.

"I'll come back," he said, even if it wasn't for good. He'd come back--he wouldn't just abandon his family. All he wanted to do was make a point and strike out on his own. He didn't want to disown his family and he hoped so fervently that they'd take him back into the family even after all the trouble he was causing.

"Ah..." He stood there for a moment after Kero left, longing to give him a hug. It's not forever, he reminded himself as he slung the other strap over his shoulder and headed for the window. As quietly as he could, he opened it and pushed the screen out. Once it was out of the way, he began the slightly wobbly trek down to the ground.

"That was close," he whispered to Tim as his feet hit the ground. Then he took hold of his arm. "Hurry. Where's your car?"

[Tim Zhong]

"I feel like a freaking criminal," Tim grumbled to Kinley as he helped him down to the ground. "It's this way. Dragon's in the back seat. I think he's uh... he spoke to me." He didn't explain how or why. Kinley wouldn't really understand the specifics and Tim didn't want to get into it without prepping him first on the whole world of supernatural beings out there.

"C'mon. I gotta drive you home and then come back for Andy. He's... hopefully not fighting with Kero in there." Yeah, Tim heard about what happened at school. Luckily he got the call from school instead of their parents--and then used the fight with Kero to blackmail Andy into helping him. He hustled Kinley to the car which was parked in front of the house across the street, and then unlocked the doors.

[Kinley Sima]

"Wh-what?" Kinley stumbled on the word because what? How? How did Dragon speak to Tim? TO TIM? Maybe he just meant he'd said the words that Kinley taught him. Letting out an embarrassed sound, he buried his face in his hands. Aiya. He told him. Did Tim think he was asking him to kiss him? Ah. I should have explained but I couldn't! Not when his mother was standing right there with her Laser Eyes of Disapproval.

"Yeah..." Looking back at the house, he hoped the same thing--that their brothers were getting along. They tended to do that whole love/hate thing a lot. Or maybe it was just testy little Andy. Kinley felt like Kero was just confused and bewildered every time his best friend got all weird on him. "Thanks, man. I really owe you one for this."

Instead of getting in the passenger seat up front next to Tim, Kinley opened up the back door and slipped in to sit with Dragon. Although it hadn't been a long time at all since they last laid eyes on one another, Kinley couldn't help feeling that little heartbeat skip that every love song ever seemed to talk about. Never had it made more sense than it did now. Kinley smiled at Dragon and reached out to touch his cheek.

"I told you I'd be back," he said, although he had a feeling Dragon didn't understand the looks and promises he tried to communicate to him in silence.

[Tim Zhong]

"You owe me more than one for this," Tim replied grimly. This was like murder cover-up levels of debt here. If his parents found out that he helped to smuggle Kinley out of his own house, he'd be in deeper shit than if they found out about his real job! Plus, he was harboring a fugitive and an extra-dimensional being, both in his bedroom. (Eventually, as soon as he got them to his house.) He could only imagine what his father would say about that...

Expecting Kinley to get in the back--that was why Tim told him where Dragon was sitting, after all--Tim quickly slid into the driver's seat. He turned the key in the ignition, spot-checking his blind spots and looking into the rear view mirror. And instantly regretting it, as he caught a glimpse of Kinley touching Dragon's cheek. Dragon leaned into his hand, too, with a small noise. "Kiney!" Then he threw himself at Kinley and Tim looked away. He didn't want to see two people making out in the backseat of his car!

"AHEM!" Tim cleared his throat loudly. "You guys can sleep in my room tonight. I'll uh... bunk with Andy." That was probably best for everybody involved. Tim didn't want to be with the lovebirds all night--judging by what Kinley told him earlier, and seeing how utterly dejected Dragon was when he was forced to leave with Tim, he really didn't want to be caught in the middle.

"An-dy?"

"My little brother."

"Dragon?"

"...kinda."

The car was zipping down the street like a hundred cops were after them. Tim slowed down, though, as he came upon the main street--cops sometimes patrolled there at night. He glanced in the mirror again; Dragon was curled up around Kinley, with his head on his shoulder. It looked like he was trying to literally wrap himself around Kinley.

"Uh. Oh. So. He understands me." Tim jerked a thumb in Dragon's direction. "Dragon. I'm... I'm one too, so we kinda speak the same language. Or at least we understand each other."

[Kinley Sima]

Yikes. More than one? He hoped Tim wasn't going to seriously bombard him with a thousand ways to pay him back. At this rate, Kinley was going to owe him a lot more than this, too--because between the two of them, Tim definitely made more money. Kinley considered it once or twice. Working where Tim worked. The money was way too good to pass up but he couldn't do it. Anyway, he thought Tim at least looked old enough and looked like he belonged. Kinley was lankier and he had a feeling people would still think he was eighteen when he was old enough to drink in this town.

Kinley grinned despite the heap of trouble he was surely getting himself into, then raised a thumbs up over at Tim so that he knew he was okay with the sleeping arrangements. The way Tim cleared his throat, it was obvious he had seen the affectionate gestures between the two of them so he probably didn't want to be stuck in the same room with them all night. Ah. Not that Kinley planned on doing anything weird. Still, it would have been awkward to be around Tim while he had some other dude plastered around him the way Dragon was winding around Kinley.

"Wh-what?" News that Dragon could actually understand Tim startled Kinley into staring at the back of Tim's head as he drove. Before he could ask the obvious question, Tim cut him off at the pass. For a second, Kinley could only stare, probably looking like a total idiot with his mouth half open. Tim... Tim was a dragon? Since when! All this time? The whole time they knew each other? How? Tim understood things perfectly fine though. Did he come out of a card, too? What? Kinley couldn't believe it.

"You're a dragon?"

[Tim Zhong]

Yeah... pretty much the cat was out of the bag now, but Tim trusted Kinley not to go screaming his head off about it. He chanced a look back; Kinley's face was the definition of comical surprise. And Dragon was trying to squeeze the stuffing out of him, apparently, with how tightly he was velcroed to Kinley's side.

"Yeah sorta. But not really. It's... complicated. Basically... I was one, in a past life, and I was reborn as a human... person." He laughed--a little nervously. It sounded like pure crack. "I'll uh... explain it better later. We gotta get you in the house without anybody noticing." His tone turned grim. "Especially Evie." The little snoop, she was probably going to be waiting by his door when they got back. 

[Kinley Sima]

Reincarnation was a THING? It boggled the mind but he couldn't say it wasn't. Dragon was real and Kinley swallowed that story pretty readily. Then again, he saw it happen right in front of him. After something like that, it felt like anything was possible. With all these new revelations spinning in his head, he had to wonder how many of the tales of witches, werewolves, and vampires around Hazleton were actually real stories. Lightly, he stroked Dragon's back, along the spine, wondering if he had spikes there as a real dragon. In the ink version, he did. Although they could have been hairs rather than spikes.

"Oh... right..."

Evie, Tim's shadow. She would likely be waiting nearby but would she tattle if she saw them sneaking in? Probably not but she might give Tim a sneak stipulation, like a hug or a kiss or something he didn't want to give her. Again, his mind went around the dragon revelation. Never in his life did he imagine that Tim was a dragon. Was it a thing now? Did he change into one? Or was he an ink creature, too? Were dragons born or created? Both? Maybe they were the same but different, Tim and Dragon.

Now he felt even worse that he hadn't been able to come up with a unique name to call Dragon. It felt like calling a dog by the name Dog.

"Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked. "The dragon thing?"

[Tim Zhong]

Reincarnation was a Thing, definitely. Tim thought Kinley was taking this surprisingly well! But then again, if he'd already seen a guy pop out of a card, what was reincarnation in comparison?

A lot of celestials didn't know what they were, though, in a past life. Tim was different; his family was pureblood dragon, which meant that they had a long history of turning out guys (and girls) like him. Apparently they went way back to ancient times, but Tim was never big on family history so he only knew bits and pieces of the story of his clan.

"Yeah, that was part of it. There's also the... Others... in town." He looked over his shoulder at a stop light, grinning a bit at Kinley. "I'll tell you all about it when we're alone, okay? For now, we have to think of a way to get you in the house." They were nearing his house; he didn't live that far away from Kinley. They used to live in the same neighborhood, before Tim's parents bought the little cafe and moved slightly further away.

"I can probably distract my parents long enough for you to sneak in the back way, but you guys gotta get upstairs fast. You know where my room is, right?"

[Kinley Sima]

Okay. Others? What did that mean? The witches? The werewolves? His eyes briefly widened. Did they run into one of those? A werewolf? Was that what was hunting them in the dark forest? He tried not to think about it; he couldn't feel too sorry for somebody who nearly tore off Dragon's arm. They had done nothing to that wolf, except for maybe cross paths with it.

"Yeah..." It seemed like they both had a lot to talk about. Kinley wanted to explain more about what happened with Dragon, like where he found the card, what it did before Dragon popped out of it, and who Dragon was. They'd only met today, really! And it sounded like there would be a lot more pieces to the puzzle when Tim explained his part of the story. Maybe all together, it would stitch together into something that made sense.

Noticing that they were getting close to Tim's house, Kinley straightened up a little.

"Yeah. I know where it is." He looked down at Dragon, who looked like he really was trying to wind his entire body all around him. "Dragon..." he started, then looked over at Tim. "Hey... uh, can you tell him the plan? If I try to explain, he's probably just going to end up confused."

[Tim Zhong]

The thing that worried Tim was the card. The magical card that someone was leaving out--either accidentally or by design. Something told him it wasn't accidental. Nobody who had a card like that, which was linked to a real dragon, would leave it laying around. They would guard it zealously. Dragons were enormous sources of power so... who tamed this one and linked it to the card? It wasn't just any old witch off the corner of Main St. who could perform magic of that caliber. Tim was definitely going to look at the card--later.

For now, he had to concern himself with practical things, like smuggling people into his room. He nodded as they pulled up to his house, stopping two houses down and cutting the engine. "Yeah. Hey, Dragon." Tim turned to look at him; he stopped acting like an octopus and lifted his head from Kinley's shoulder, giving Tim a quizzical look. "We're going into my house, but you have to be quiet, okay? And quick! Got it?"

Dragon blinked. Tim sighed. "Just trust me."

"...Kiney?"

"Yeah Kinley's going with you." That seemed to satisfy him. He sat up straight and nodded. Tim exchanged a look with Kinley. "Okay, let me go in first, and then you guys go around back. I'll unlock the door for you."

[Kinley Sima]

Kinley looked over at Dragon again as he spoke his name, then smiled. Yes. They were going together. What Kinley didn't understand was how Dragon understood everything Tim said! It sounded like he was speaking in a way that Kinley understood. Was there something underneath it, like a dog whistle? Something only dragons could hear, detect, and understand? Snapping himself out of his curious daze, Kinley extricated himself, opened the door, and scooted himself out of the car. With his hand in Dragon's, he walked around to the back of Tim's place. As he passed the kitchen, he could hear Evie inside, excitedly talking about what sounded like a sports event at school.

Quickly, he placed a finger to his own lips to indicate they should remain silent as they passed by, ducking under the window to make sure they weren't seen. The back gate squeaked but it was probably lost to those inside... hopefully. It wasn't that loud really but when sneaking around, every sound seemed like it was amplified. When he paused, he still heard Evie going on... which was a little funny to Kinley. She was definitely a chatterbox.

"I don't think he's getting around her," he whispered, and then realized that he shouldn't have bothered since Dragon didn't understand him anyway. He smiled at him, an assurance that what he said didn't matter. Then they were in the backyard. Kinley looked around, at the swing under the tree and the still green grass. It was smaller than the one Tim had growing up but it was nicer.

[Dragon]

It was a miracle! There was someone who understood him in this place--and it was a human. Or... well, somewhat human, anyway, and definitely part-dragon. That explained why Dragon felt as though they knew one another. Tim was familiar, one of his kind, even if his current human shell looked nothing like a dragon. (Neither did Dragon's, though, so they were even.)

He didn't have much of a chance to find out more about Tim or about Kinley's relationship with him before Tim was going away again, leaving him in a cold metal contraption that looked suspiciously like a cage. It was a cage, of a sort. Dragon sat nervously in the back seat until Kinley came, and then he forgot about his apprehension at sitting inside a metal cage. He snuggled up to Kinley, trying to express his overwhelming relief that Kinley hadn't abandoned him.

Tim took them to a strange part of town--strange for Dragon, who had never been anywhere save the woods and then Kinley's house. He didn't know what was going on, and why Tim needed him to be quiet and secretive, but he trusted that one of his kind wouldn't betray him. Dragon tip-toed around back with Kinley, holding hands tightly, scarcely daring to breathe. This felt dangerous--not the exciting kind of dangerous, but like there could be some sort of real danger present. Then again, to Dragon, everything felt dangerous simply because he knew so little about this world.

"Hey guys!" He heard Tim's voice eventually, rising over the babble of others. There seemed to be more like him--like dragon. More dragons inside. Dragon listened intently, while edging closer to Kinley, not understanding his words but understanding his reassuring smile. He squeezed Kinley's hand.

"Tim! Where have you been? Where's Andy?" A woman's voice--one of the other dragons, since Dragon understood her. Then a man's voice, an older male, but this one not a dragon.

"Oh I took him over to Kero's place. They're uh. Doing homework. Together."

Dragon looked to Kinley. Home work? What was home work and why did it need to be done together? Truly mysterious, these humans.

"At this hour? How long will he be there? He has school tomorrow, you know that."

"Yeah, I know. I'm going back for him soon. So... uh... I'm taking Evie and Andy camping this weekend and we need the tents and sleeping bags. I couldn't find them earlier..."

"They're in the garage."

"They're not, I looked!"

"Yes, they are. In the bins by the door?"

"Uhh. Evie! Come help me look for them!"

Dragon lifted a brow at Kinley, totally lost. There were terms he understood, but most of them he had no idea. Garage? Tents? Sleeping bags? They slept in bags? He looked up sharply as something clicked, and then Tim's voice came, loud and clear from inside.

"Okay! We're HEADING OUTSIDE NOW!"

[Kinley Sima]

In all his life, he never thought this was where he'd end up. Yet here he was, in the backyard of his best friend, holding onto the hand of a dragon that came out of a card after sneaking away from home. His heart beat harder as they stood waiting. No regrets held him down but he was definitely wondering if there were better ways to go about this. Too late; this was it. They were already here and the door was unlocked for them. Gently, he pulled Dragon along with him as he quietly entered the house through the back entrance.

He had been here only a handful of times since Tim's family moved. It wasn't as conveniently located and he and Tim had been slowly going separate ways. Tim had his job and Kinley had his. When he wasn't at work or home, Kinley tended to spend a lot of his time at the studio. His life had been pretty dull lately. Ever since graduating, he felt like he was on pause, waiting for something exciting to happen. He got what he was waiting for, although he never thought it would come in the form of a boy who was a dragon... straight off the face of a card.

Kinley was silent as he slipped into what he hoped was Tim's bedroom. At the very least, he knew it wasn't with Tim and Andy's parents. They were still somewhere at the front of the house, talking about something Kinley couldn't quite catch with his human ears.

[Dragon]

Quietly, quietly, they stole into the building, reminding Dragon strongly of the other building and how they snuck in there too. Only to be caught and threatened. Dragon didn't know if this was a fantastic idea but he was willing to follow Kinley--anywhere. Into a metal cage, into buildings full of angry humans, anywhere.

"Kiney?" he whispered, wondering what was next. Were they safe here? They were inside of a room, with the lights off. Dragon couldn't see much of anything so he didn't stray too far, instead sticking to Kinley's side. There were voices downstairs, muffled and indistinct. Tim was nowhere to be found. Dragon barely dared to breathe and his heart thudded in his chest at the thought of being caught again.

He... didn't know if he liked it here.

[Kinley Sima]

"We're okay," he whispered back as he closed the door behind them. When he flipped on the light switch, he found that they were indeed in Tim's bedroom. Maybe he shouldn't have turned on the lights, though? His hand hesitated at the switch. Well, he knew where he was now... He flipped the switch back off, plunging them back into darkness. Since he knew where the bed was now, Kinley led Dragon toward it.

"Dragon," he said. "Sleep."

They were both dead tired. Dragon made it pretty clear back in the office at home and Kinley agreed. All he wanted to do was curl up into a nice, soft bed and go to sleep. Kicking off his shoes, he climbed into the bed. It didn't seem fair to steal Tim's bed from him but it was just for tonight and Kinley could even do the laundry for him later as thanks. I'm going to be thanking him to my grave. Tim really did go above and beyond for him. Kinley only hoped he'd be able to pay him back someday for his generosity.

Pulling Dragon into the bed with him, he laid down and curled himself around him, the way he wanted to for what felt like hours now.