Back at the Piston Peak Air Attack base, the sky broke open once again and rain pounded into the ground and the roofs of the hangars. Dusty was caught out in it and, hating rain just about more than anything, went rushing for the nearest hangar. Unfortunately, Blade had the misfortune of also having his hangar doors open so that he could hear the rain when if finally broke.

Blade was still struggling to get used to this little airplane. Having been stripped away from that world for so long, it was more than difficult to fall back into feeling natural with someone of a mindset that he had befriended over so many years ago. Talking to Dusty Crophopper coherently seemed humiliatingly impossible for him, yet Blade felt a sort of potential within him by being in this innocuous atmosphere of his. The potential for what? He wasn't going to think so deeply into it just yet.

But just then, Dusty bolted into the hangar, disturbing Blade from his thoughts and getting water everywhere. Then Dusty met an arctic blue stare and started, the two staring at each other for about thirty seconds of hearing one another breathe.

After a few more seconds of their staring contest, which ended with Dusty sticking his tongue out and Blade giving him a flat stare, Dusty rolled his eyes and went over to stand next to him in front of the window. Dusty shared another hard, one-sided staring contest with him sidewardly before relaxing and turning his gaze to the downpour outside.

"Do you think it'll be a storm like the one before?"

Blade didn't reply. It was like sitting next to a rock. The moment Dusty sighed and groaned however was the moment Blade showed some life. He rolled away from the window and Dusty.

"I don't know, do I look like a weather reporter to you?"

Blade turned back moved toward him, and though his eyes reeled back up to Dusty's in their usual stoicism, Dusty was back to square one of freezing up again.

"Why's he have to be so serious? Is he even breathing? Can he hear me breathing? Would it kill him to blink?"

Blade was almost too intense for him to take. With Dusty almost straining up and Blade slightly tilted down, he could feel how powerful Blade was and how fragile he himself was. Dusty leaned away, but the single readjustment made their noses brush. He looked down and avoided anymore eye contact.

"That's better." but Blade's smirk shrunk off his mouth.

Blade's eyes - dark, alive, lonely, exhausted - lazied up and down Dusty's frame, then iced back up when it seemed that Dusty had steeled himself up again. And then suddenly Blade moved back, rather intimidated- and Dusty knew why. Exactly why.

"What is it with you?" Dusty continued to stare at the red helicopter, narrowing his eyes at him. "Why won't you let your barrier down?" As Dusty moved even closer, Blade stared at him, confused and penetrated as he continued in reverse. The red and white racer locked eyes with him. "…Just because your name is Blade doesn't mean you have to act like one!"

Dusty's sympathetic yet demanding demeanor made Blade tense.

"What, pray tell, are you reciting about now, Champ?"

Dusty moved in for the kill.

"You've got your guard up right now, even when there's not a fire burning for a million miles!"

Dusty showed no fear. The way he looked at him, with his face full of twitching nerves and his eyes thick with sympathy. The way Blade looked at Dusty, with his face full of control but his eyes complex with sadness. Both were breathing hard with desire. Blade's desire, to feel like the person Dusty was, one without hardship on their shoulders, one who knew what happiness and dreams were. Dusty's desire, to help him feel like that.

There were too many emotions in Dusty's eyes; too much overwhelming Blade all at once. His body locked up when he felt that uncommon feeling: fear. It was a gossip-able feat to scare Blazin' Blade Ranger. He wasn't one to be easily scared. But this tiny plane terrified him like a child afraid of the monsters in their closet. Monsters were imaginary, however. This wasn't his imagination, and oh how he wished it was. Dusty leaned up to nuzzle him, but Blade flinched away, even starting to shake a little. Dusty looked him deep in the eyes, the mouth, the face, and then said in a slightly offended way, "I'm not going to hurt you, Blade."

It was strange, but seeing that uncertainty in him made Dusty feel powerful. It made him warm, warmer than he'd ever been. He felt dominant, despite how he was the one having to almost strain up to look at him. He was in control of everything involving him and he knew it. Dusty's eyes - unnerved, enticed, insecure, intoxicated - sped up and down Blade's face, before he swallowed hard in spite of himself.

It was so very, very strange, and Dusty wanted to feed off of that advantage more than he already was. He knew how 'icky' it sounded, but that's how he felt. Dusty was also noticing this look Blade kept giving him. It was like an afraid sort of look, where he keeps glancing him up and down, looking from here to there, and then lastly to him- almost as if he felt threatened.

"Blade... I'm not threatening you." Dusty felt himself move closer and Blade move further away. "For Chrysler's sake, stop moving!"

"I promise..." Was he begging? "I promise I wont hurt you... I won't, honest." He just wanted to help. "That's the last thing I..."

Dusty was getting way too hot. The beginnings of a headache were taking shape and there was a twisting in his tank. Blade only watches him. His eyes seem to be going in and out of focus. His mouth is dropping open. He looks so fascinated, so unsure, so endangered. How could he think he would ever mistreat him, or anyone or anything else for that matter?

Dusty moves closer and closer, hoping that curiosity doesn't kill the Bearcat. Then Blade stops. He doesn't even move a single rotor blade. Dusty was even a little scared that he might take this chance to hurt him, but he still wanted to get even closer.

He wanted Blade to understand him, and for himself to understand Blade. To exchange their experiences and understand each other so that they could make this distress into a common-ground friendship. What was the harm in that? He just wanted to be his friend. More than anything, he felt like they both needed this friendship. It had always been in him to help types like this.

Blade's posture never changes; he never blinks, never stops frowning as Dusty gazes into his eyes. Eyes that keep playing tragic scenes on repeat, like a broken movie recorder. He could see the whole castle and moat between Blade and the rest of the world. He could never just leave him like this.

"If you keep punishing yourself, Blade, you'll... oh, no one deserves that. Absolutely no one."

Dusty can feel Blade's breath on him, the soft, steady puffs tickling across his plating. His eyes look sad. Just flakes and glimpses of sadness on his irises. Endless little patterns of sorrowful memories. Dusty feels himself utter his name, like a prayer ready to be floundered in tears as he leans up to touch him.

He's seeing and hearing himself, but Dusty doesn't feel himself doing these things. He feels like he's just somebody in the audience. The blue that is Blade's eyes suddenly flicker up a firestorm in them, and Dusty flinches back slightly, being scolded by their cold-blooded, icy-tone to keep his distance, but he wasn't going to be gotten rid of so easily.

"You don't scare me, Blade, because I'm finally seeing you for what you are."

Blade's gaze is diluted in bewilderment and disbelief melting into fear and warning like earlier. He may have stopped breathing. They may have both stopped breathing. Dusty's brow creased as if he were thinking about something serious, then he continued forward. The second his nose touches him, Blade shivers and forces himself not to pull away as Dusty stroked along the side of his body with his own. Blade turned slightly and watched Dusty's brow knot together in a way as if he were seeing something painful, his mouth set in a line.

"Dusty?" he finally spoke, his voice sounding different. Almost childlike, even.

"Terrible." Dusty barely breathed the word, not moving his eyes from where they were fixed.

He was staring at all of him, taking in all the scars that most never knew were there. Blade had never felt so exposed. Then Dusty kissed him. Not on the mouth. Not on the cheek. His lips met Blade's face in that place just next to the corner of his mouth. They lingered there for a moment, and Blade was very aware that if he turned just a little...

But he stayed stock-still. His eyes squeezed shut and he felt tears finally begin to fall. Dusty pulled back as Blade breathed in a shaking sob. Before he could speak Dusty gently jumped forward again and embraced him in the crook of his wing and nose, leaning up as he nuzzled into him.

In that moment, though it sounded absurd, especially to himself, Dusty became something magical to Blade. He had been heartbroken for so long, and then this flash of hope abruptly appears in his life in the form of an orange blur. For the last few minutes, he felt that everything was okay. Then, with the tingling sensation of the fear of the new, he leaned back into Dusty, and he suddenly realized that everything was the way it was supposed to be. He had finally found himself. The feeling was bright and epic, and he was overcome with a sense of everlasting peace.

Helicopter and plane drew away from each other. Dusty looked up at him with the warmest of smiles, and Blade smiled back with the softest expression that Dusty had ever seen on him. After a moment, Blade's eyes turned up and his expression changed as he noticed something up in the sky outside. Dusty's face scrunched up in confusion, and as he turned to the side and tilted to see what it was that Blade was looking at, his jaw dropped slightly. Turning fully around and venturing out of the hangar and on to Blade's helipad, Dusty's nose pointed up toward the sky, his eyes wide with wonder as the sky was suddenly beautifully clear and a meteor shower like nothing he'd ever seen rained across the starry heavens. Blade followed him out and stopped beside him, both looking up at the lights above, both knowing and feeling that all was right in the world where they were. It was a tranquil and grounding feeling, and it was all very new to him. Blade figured he could handle it.

Fin

Well there it is. It is done. It almost wasn't. There were a few times, the first right off the bat as soon I had gotten the rough outline together, where I went Oh my god this isn't going to work I can't do this! and almost scrapped it completely. I'm still not entirely happy with it, but the point is that I persevered! Hope you all enjoyed! Also, once again a reminder that Dusty is in the firefighter livery in this thing, but with his racing landing gear on.