Things were so much different now.
Last week, they had been three friends who liked to hang out at skateboard parks whenever they had free time. Although, the third member of their band hadn't been able to hang out as often as he'd like to since he often had to work at his Grandpa's shop. Three normal teenagers in a normal school. (Well, excluding 'Proffesser' Rotwood, of course) But now, everything was different.
Their best friend wasn't even human.
Jake was a dragon. He only looked human most of the time, and, to be honest, Spud could see that there were some times that his friend just didn't look very comfortable. Spud secretly suspected that human shape could be very confining, especially if your other form was a huge, eight-foot-tall magical lizard.
Of course, this cast some things into a whole new light.
Like how every time they saw Jake wake up from a deep sleep, (not counting naps in class) he would yawn, drawing his lips away from his teeth in a way that was only seen in lions, and stretch like a cat, arching his back.
And how protective he was. Trixi had honestly thought Jake was suicidal when he had come across her being mugged, and jumped the guy, trying to pull him backwards onto the ground. The mugger had run away after the rabid kid had attacked him, and Trixi had seriously thought that Jake was on some kind of hard drug. Now, though, she wouldn't expect anything different from him. A with bit of surreptitious research, (most of it was junk, but...) she had found a reoccurring theme. East or West, evil or good, wings or no, dragons were protectors. Western dragons protected their hoards, and eastern dragons protected their rivers. Dragons were the perfect creatures to choose to guard the magical underworld. Protecting things was in their blood. Protecting a friend would be as natural as breathing for Jake, and almost as necessary.
But, even thought they now knew the truth, there was still a lot to learn. And they had to do it on the job, as it were, since, being human, they didn't have access to the scrolls and tomes that Jake did. They had to be fast learners. There were so many things that Jake, his grandfather and Fu Dog could stroll through without a second thought, but would vaporize the two humans in a heartbeat. Certain ways of walking, and even the pace of breathing could have nasty side effects, especially for humans. Dragons owned this world, and there seemed to be nothing they couldn't do, nothing that could kill them, or even cause serious harm. It was like having a scaly, red Superman as a friend.
It was weird, though. Despite all the power and imperiousness of dragons, they still had a fear of- healthy respect of the Huntsclan. Trixi and Spud had heard snippets of tales that Grandpa or Fu Dog told, of Huntsclan catching and holding a dragon, until the 'time was right' for the kill. It just didn't make sense to them. The Huntscan were only human, and the dragons were, well, dragons. There didn't seem to be anything, short of a unicorn-horn vault, that could keep a dragon in one place.
They never asked about it, though. They had already come too close to losing their memories for comfort, and if 'methods of dragon restraint' were forbidden knowledge, they could live without knowing if it meant being able to help their friend.
They should have asked.
While running around on rooftops, pulling off 'Mission Impossible' style histes, and generally going where no human has gone before was simply raw awesome, the cleaning up was not. Keeping the magical underground underground meant a lot more than keeping drunk leprechauns from wandering into Broadway. It meant that anything that could somehow be traced back to the magical community had to be kept away from the mundane community. Unfortunately, the only way to do that was to actually go to the site of every rooftop battle, and go over it, inch by inch, to make sure that they left no evidence.
It was boring and hard, but it had to be done. Many hands make the work light, however, so Trixi and Spud often found themselves helping clean up alongside Jake. Most days this happened, Grandpa would give Jake the rest of the day off to hang out with his friends, and with two extra pairs of hands, the cleaning got done more quickly, leaving more time to skateboard.
The day the Huntsclan's dragon restraining method was discovered by Spud and Trixi was one of these days. All three friends were on one of the many roofs in New York City, picking up after a rather messy battle with the Huntsmaster and Huntsgirl, involving some relative of the phoenix. Said relative lost feathers faster than an old feather duster, and they had been on the roof for far longer than anticipated. All three teens were tired from strained nerves and adrenaline crashes. Cleaning up after a feather-duster was the last thing any of them wanted to do.
Sadly, they were stuck cleaning up. Jake, in dragon form, was cleaning away some of the heavier drebis, and helping Spud collect feathers, since some of them managed to hide under heavy pieces of rubble or in nooks to far in for a human to reach. Trixi was clearing away some of the things the Huntsclan had left behind. Like their nets.
The Huntsclan had been rather 'net-happy' today. There were three of the things scattered across the rooftop. At least. And they were hard to pick up. The hooks at the edge of the net were deceptively small. They looked like they would be easy to disengage, but nooooo, they little jerks clung onto whatever they landed on like death, unless you tried to pull them out a certain way. Trixi was learning the knack, but it was still mostly trial-and-error at this stage. It was almost too irritating for words.
As she focused on pulling the nets out, she didn't notice how Jake carefully skirted around the ones on the ground, making sure not to touch any of the fibrous stuff that made up the net. It took a lot of concentration to remove the nets, but even after they came free, they didn't have the grace to admit defeat. Whatever they were made of was coarse and scratchy but even so it still threatened to spill out of Trixi's hands like stringy water. She was getting upset, and the flies and humidity didn't help.
Fortunately, the trio finished cleanup before Mt. Trixi could blow her top. As they finally started heading inside, each carrying incriminating evidence, Trixi said jubilantly, "Yeah! We finally get to get outta here!" She would have thrown up her arms in celebration, but that would let the nets escape back onto the concrete, and get those damn hooks stuck in the ground again.
"You said it." Spud was clutching handfuls of fluffy feathers. "Jake, this part of your job SUCKS! Man, I'm glad I don't have your job."
Jake, still in dragon form, also holing a handful of feathers looked at his space-case of a friend. "Um, Spud? Hate to break it to you, but you were just DOING my job with me."
"Well, yeah, that's what friends do," Spud retorted. "But the point is, I didn't have to do it. See, without that, then I'd have your job, and your job sucks."
"Ok, if you're sure about that..." Jake glanced at Trixi and they both shrugged. Trying to figure out Spud was something only a stupidly brave person did.
A sudden draft caught Jake's wings, blowing them open, and making him lose his balance. He threw his arms out to prevent his fall...
... and opening his hand, scattering feathers across the roof. The tree friends stared for a moment at the feathers landing on the roof. More work to be done. Great.
"Oops, sorry guys. Hang on a second and I'll-" Jake started foreword to pick up the errant feathers, but Trixi interrupted him.
"NO WAY!" She didn't exactly scream, she didn't exactly yell, but the vocalization was loud enough to make both boys wince. "I am gettin' off this roof in five minutes, and we'll be here ALL NIGHT if you try and pick up those damn feathers again! Yeah, I saw you!" she snapped as Jake started guiltily.
"Catching feathers is hard with..." he started to say, but was cut off again.
"I know. That's why you ain't doing the catching this time. I am."
"But what abou-" Jake's question was cut off as Trixi threw all three nets at Jake, and started to storm off to go feather catching.
A pained scream and Spud's shout of "Jake!" stopped her. She turned to see her dragon friend struggling to untangle himself from the nets, which were making a nasty-sounding crackle, and sending off evil-looking blue sparks. Without warning, he changed back into human form, nets still tangled around him. As a human, the pain on his face was easy to see. Both Trixi and Spud rushed to help their friend. Spud lost the feathers he was holding, but they managed to quickly pull the nets off of Jake.
He sat down heavily on the roof, panting a little bit. "Thanks guys," he said, no trace of sarcasm or resentment in his voice. Trixi stood there, staring guiltily at the scratchy net in her hands.
"Jake, I'm really sor-" Trixi tried to apologize, but Jake cut her off.
"Naw, it's cool. I just wasn't expecting it, y'know?"
"But, dude, that looked like it hurt!" Spud exclaimed, holding up his net for inspection, and peering at the third net that had fallen on the ground. "What is this stuff?"
Jake grimaced. "Sphinx hair," he explained. "It's apparently the only think that, er, what did the Huntsfreak say? 'Render a dragon powerless'?" Glancing down at the third net laying close to his feet, he edged away from it.
"Jakey, I'm really sorry, I didn't know, and-" Once again, Trixi's apologetic babble was cut off by Jake.
"Seriously, it's fine. I've been hit with those things before. Three at once... I'm fine," he finished. However, it was hard for his friends to believe that as he had yet to stand up.
Spud was looking at the net in his hands again. "It's so weird," he said. "I mean, I'm holding this thing right now, and all it's doing is being all scratchy, like a wool sweater or something, and if you were to touch it, you'd get hurt. It would like, suck your dragon powers away like a power vampire. Or something."
Jake shrugged, looking slightly self-conscious. "Something like that, I guess," he said, rising slightly unsteadily to his feet. "I don't know how it works. Come on, lets go and clean up those feathers and we can get off this roof."
Trixi tried to apologize a few more times before Jake told her to cut it out. "I'm fine now, I don't care and it's getting annoying. Besides, if Gramps hears about this, I don't know if he'd let you guys come with anymore," he'd told her. Trixi had stopped right then and there. She felt guilty about that, too. She wanted to come with Jake on his magical adventures, even if it was a bad idea.
From the way Spud's gaze suddenly focused on Jake, then glanced at Trixi, meeting her eyes, she could tell he felt the same way too. They both wanted to stick by their friend, even if it was stupid, and probably suicidal. But they would rather get hurt and be useless, than not be there when Jake needed them. Even though they still had a lot to learn, they were willing to go through all kinds of insanity if it meant they could help their friend. Because that's what friends were for.
That night, Trixi had trouble falling asleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she could see Jake, trapped underneath those sparking nets, writheing in pain, trying to escape. True, he had gotten out from under those nets pretty quickly, but Trixi had seen the some of the previous confrontation sites before. Some of them had torn nets.
This detail hadn't been so ominous until today.
Eventually, she gave up on sleep. Seeing her friend tortured every time she laid down was disturbing beyond all description.
She wanted to talk to somebody and she knew exactly who. At 2:00 AM he was either sound asleep, or wide awake.
"Hey, Sudinski," Trixi greeted her friend quietly.
"You couldn't sleep either?" Spud guessed.
"Why else would I call you at two in the morning?"
There was a pause. "Zombie apocalypse?"
Trixi sighed. She loved her friends and all, but sometimes it was hard to get through to Spud through all his mental haze. Many times she felt like she was talking to somebody who channeled all the great dead geniuses of the world, from Einstein to Shakespeare to Aristotle. Other times... not so much. "Today was..." she started and couldn't finish.
"I know." From the sound of Spud's voice Trixi could tell that he was making an expression that fit with the situation. Probably worry. "Dragons always seem so... you know, invincible."
"Yeah," she agreed. "Seeing your friend get hurt is bad."
"Seeing the friend you previously assumed to be nigh-invincible in agony from touching a fiber is worse."
"Yeah." She had been trying to avoid saying that. "We're friends for life and friends for real, and I think we just found out how real this is today."
It was Spud's turn to go, "Yeah." There was a pause, and Trixi could hear Spud sigh. "What's even worse is we're just human, you know? I mean, Fu dog has his spells and his underground connections, but we're just... there. We can't really even fight or anything. We don't know anything about what's going on... and, have you noticed, Trixi? Even in human form Jake can take a hit way better than we can. Some of his wipe outs... you'd expect him to be down for the count and then..."
"He just gets up and goes." Trixi finished for her friend. "But you know what we can do? We can be seen in public with Jake and talk to him. Fu can't. We can cover for him in school. Lao Shi can't do that. And we can get those damn nets off. Shit just got real," she declared. "And I ain't backin' down. I wanna learn all I can so I can keep Jakey in one piece. I will fight them off with a broken pencil if I have to. He will not get turned into some kind of freaked out Huntsclan dragon skin rug. You in?" Trixi was practically yelling right now. Her grandmother was asleep, very much so, fortunately, and Trixi didn't wake her up with that outburst.
"Duh. Of course I am. But I need to say this right now: We are only human, you know that, right Trixi?"
"What's your point?" Trixi snapped. Spud's words were not welcome. She was ready to head storm the Huntsclan fortress and beat the crap out of every last one of them, and wasn't about to listen to caution.
"There are some things we just can't do. Everyone has limits. I realized today that dragons do too. We have to know ours, and not push them. If we get hurt, what do you think will happen?" Trixi could hear in the background the whrrr of Spud's yo-yo as it spun in some fantastic trick, revealing the strength of the emotions Spud was feeling right now. "Jake told us that we aren't supposed to know that he's a dragon. I would put money on the bet that there's probably some kind of memory-erasing potion that Jake 'forgot' to give us. I'm sure what we're doing right now is so illegal it's not funny, and if we get hurt, Jake will realize that."
"No..." Trixi whispered, her righteous fury doused as she suddenly realized where Spud was going with this. What he probably had figured out ages ago.
"If one of us gets hurt, Jake will give us that potion. We won't remember a damn thing, and we won't be able to help him. Remember the talent show? It'll be like that again." Trixi winced as she remembered the talent show. It had probably killed Jake to compete against Spud for something his friend wanted so much, to feel like he was betraying their friendship even as he worked to keep them safe. After seeing Fu at the shop, Trixi and Spud realized how very, very badly that talent show could have gone. "So you can't charge the next member of the Huntsclan you see."
Trixi sighed. She felt so small now. Jake was protective, yes, but so was she. She wanted to keep her friends from harm; especially harm that came with sphinx hair nets and plasma-shooting staffs. "So what can we do? We can't protect him."
"We do like you said," Spud said, reassuring. "We keep him sane, and pick up those damn nets. We can't fight with him like we want, but I think being there for him will work too. Being able to talk to somebody about your problems is very healthy, psychologically."
"Well," Trixi conceded, "he has seemed happier since we found out his secret."
There was a pause. Then Spud said, "Ha, I nodded. But you can't see that." Trixi snorted. "But, yeah. I think just talking with us helps him a lot, you know? Cuz he can't talk about this stuff at his house, even."
"Yeah." Johnathan Long was as clueless about the magical world as they had been. Probably more so. It had to be frustrating for Jake. In his own home- the one place he should be able to relax- he still had to keep of the charade of being a normal human. Sometimes, Trixi wanted to talk with her mother or her grandmother about the things that happened in the magical underworld. She wondered how much more frustrating it would be for Jake to live with two other people who knew about this stuff, knowing that he could talk or vent to someone without repercussions, but couldn't, not really, when his father could come waltzing into the conversation.
"We'll just have to keep being there for him. We want to do more, naturally, but we can't. And trying to would only end in tears for everybody," Spud said, summing up the best course of action. "It seems like only a little, but I think it means a lot to Jake."
The next morning, Trixi was a little tired from the late night discussion she'd had with Spud, but she felt better about her lot in life, and when Jake invited them to help him with one of his American Dragon duties, both she and Spud smiled.
AN: There's no way that Spud and Trixi didn't have some of these mess-ups when they were first starting out. No. Way. They don't know nothin' about nothin' in regards to the magical world. I would have liked to see some kind of conflicts arise from their n00b-ness, but we never get to see that, sadly. So I wrote this. It's weird and it kind of got away from me, but, well, here it is.
This one-shot also came about because really, those two are HUMAN. Sure, Spud's relative's magic words put a genie back in a cup, but other than that they're useless in a fight situation. At least until they've had some training. A lot of the stuff that Jake does is fighting stuff. Lots of fighting. And he gets tossed around quite a bit. What would happen if you put one of the soft, untrained humans in there? A quick trip to the hospital. Or worse. Yes, that's right.
Finally, in my head-cannon, Jake shows other non-human characteristics, other than those weird green highlights in his hair (that are apparently natural) because he's just not human. Like the stretching, and especially the protectiveness. Look at the legends of dragons. All over the world, what do they do? Guard stuff. Protect their territory. Protect what's theirs, be it a pile of gold or a river. I can totally see Jake doing crazy stuff like attacking a mugger, even before he knew he was a dragon because he just couldn't help it, any more that one can avoid blinking. I wish more had been done with the fact that Jake's only half human in the show, but that's what fanfiction is for, right?
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this, and I appoligize for any bad spelling or ooc-ness. Please leave a review on your way out. Thank you!