Early evening sprinkles had turned into a midnight rainstorm. Dusty lie awake on the sleeping mat in his hangar, unable to sleep with too much on his mind. The longer he stared into the light cast by the moon through the rain-beaded window, the more the darkness on the hangar walls seemed to slither down away from it like wispy strands of kelp swaying in an ocean current. 
	Suddenly a chill went through Dusty's frame, and his attention was drawn into the corner of the room. The darkness seemed to move, to morph as he stared into it, now on the alert and unblinking. The hangar seemed to get impossibly bigger as the darkness grew, sucking him in. And then an enormous black shape took form. Dusty could just visualize the long, thin body. Orange-red pinstripes seemed to glow faintly in gloom. Again, he visualized morbidly colored eyes that were calm but earnest like candlelight that yet seemed to suck all what little light there was in the room away as they locked on to him. Then the beast moved. 
	He was alone. He could no longer feel Ripslinger next to him; not that he would have been much help in his weakened condition. There was a strange sound. A hot, heavy, ceaseless hissing. All other sounds were tuned out as Dusty watched with mounting fear as the darkness grew bigger and bigger as it came toward him; a magnificent, fearsome black thing that stood against the moon's face in the window, and the little plane forced his eyes shut until his eyelids strained. And then the nightmare touched him. 
	A sharp point slowly haunted over his frame. Dusty clenched his teeth. His control surfaces constricted and twitched. 'I... I can't move!' Dusty's eyes squeezed tighter as he felt the thing move around behind him, the needle grazing over his canopy and down his back, hitting a pressure point, making him arch up and shake and shiver and gasp from pleasure, pain, and desperation. 'I can't move!'
	He couldn't take it. Once the touch left him, Dusty cringed out a whimper, tears fighting their way to the surface. That's when the phantom's warm, breathy voice suddenly murmured from in front of him again.
	“Shhh... Do not fear me, Dusty. I won't hurt you.”
	The tears broke though the dam as Dusty's eyes opened with a gasp. He knew that voice. His eyes grew wide at who he saw standing in place of the shadow creature. Looming over him in the dark was none other than Ripslinger, suddenly back in the room with him, the strength to stand seemingly returned. His eyelids were lowered, drawn, and eerie. There was too much black eclipsing his face from the darkness to determine his expression, but Dusty could still make out the acid green and a sliver of flames from his intake under a streak of moonlight. 
	Dusty felt a twinge of relief in spite of himself as his raised up a bit from the sleeping mat. He saw Ripslinger's eyes narrow more, and Dusty thought he saw them flash bloody red for an instant. A smirk of white smiled at him, the first of the sharp rear teeth exposed. Dusty's sentimental happiness browed down into a frown. Was he still dreaming? Ripslinger hunkered down in front of him until Dusty could taste his breath; until he was squirming and worming in a discomfort that was contradicting his inner need to have him closer. Dusty found himself drunk, his head light and fuzzy, unable to think or see the shapes in the corners of the hangar. He lazed his eyes up and down Ripslinger's face, trying to properly picture is expression. 
	“I can smell your tears...”
	Ripslinger's throaty, sinister use of tone was grinning a mockery at him. Dusty shook his front in denial, opening his mouth to speak. 
	“Hush...” He leaned down and pecked at the corner of Dusty's mouth, making him flinch at just that tidbit of warmth smacking off of him. Dusty sucked his lip up behind his teeth, eyes wide and uncertain as he fidgeted a bit. “Be still... Be silent...”
	The moisture in Ripslinger's breaths kissed over Dusty's plating as he lowered his nose, turning into his side and dragging it lightly against his fuselage. He let it whisper across Dusty's propeller blades as he came back up to face him again, olive smoldering into cerulean as they locked eyes. This was no dream, Dusty was sure of it. He could smell him, feel the displacement of air and hear him when he moved. Sense the warmth from his body. How could anybody in their right mind think this wasn't really happening? And since when was he this beautiful in all his emaciated, broken down debilitation? Dusty swallowed his butterflies as Ripslinger looked him from the eyes to the mouth, plotting something behind the emotionless sensuality in his face before he clamped a small bite onto his lower lip. 
	Dusty 'eep'-ed a bit and adjusted to turn away and escape the emotions bursting through him right then and there, but Ripslinger's tongue belly-danced on that lip at a steady beat until it was soft, wet, and soggy. Dusty's mouth trembled against the saliva being swirled around his lips, his tires gripping into the soft sleeping mat as he shook violently, ironically, in the effort to keep himself from shaking. Again, Ripslinger watched him from under heavy black lids, eyeing Dusty's reactions and calculating his hot-spots. He dragged a slobbery tongue up along that bottom lip of his as his breath washed over his mouth. The animalistic erotica caused Dusty's flaps to tense up until they ached as Ripslinger finally withdrew. Dusty gulped and sighed feverishly, licking around his mouth to taste what he left without meaning to.
	“Rip-”
	“I said “shh”, Crophopper...”
	Ripslinger went back to nuzzling against the side of Dusty's body, his mouth brushing the paint every now and then, his prop blades lightly scratching it up. Dusty turned away to resist and enjoy as his body arched up into his touch, but before he could try to whisper his hesitations to him, Ripslinger came back around again and smothered him in a hard kiss. The breath he was quickly becoming addicted to filled Dusty's mouth faster than Ripslinger's tongue. Dusty bowed his nose down, causing their lips to smack off of each other, but Ripslinger once again gobbled him into another kiss, his tongue nearly filling his throat each time.
	“Ripslinger... Ripslinger...” Dusty worried his name softly, eyes closed as he continued breaking the kisses that that larger plane continued joining.
	Dusty tried to push, to resist, but Ripslinger's body refused to be pushed back, and Dusty's own body seemed to refuse to refuse him. Dusty couldn't understand. What was this all of a sudden? What was going on? But then Ripslinger whispered through the wet smacks between their mouths, a sort of desperation evident in his voice.
	“Tell me... Will you save me?”
	Slowly, tearfully, weakly, Dusty Crophopper opened his eyes and looked up at Ripslinger's face. He blinked as he searched the darkened olive depths that were drinking up his reaction in a heavy spell that made Dusty feel dizzier than any sort of alcohol that he'd ever consumed. He swallowed deep and hard, the slow frown that tightened his brow made the tears come rushing back again. His next gulp of air came back out in a shudder. 
	“Tell me, Dusty...” his engine let out a soft, harsh growl that rumbled down into his version of a purr. “Tell me...”
	The purr slithered into a withering hiss as that talented tongue of his lapped at him again, slipping into his mouth before drawing Dusty's lip in again for a hard suckling. Then Ripslinger moved away, and Dusty let out a sudden yelp that ended in an exhaling whine when he felt a sharp bite to the aft of his left wing. Dusty's tail rolled up off the sleeping mat as his mouth opened in a strangled moan that he didn't know he had in him as the green P-51 continued to lick and tease at his wings with his teeth. Abruptly, Dusty lifted up onto his landing gear, backing up as he rose to bring Ripslinger's front to rest over the slope of his back, the action physically pleading him to continue no more. He wanted him to stop, so how come his body couldn't fight harder?
	'Please, oh please, make it stop, make it stop. I don't want to feel anything anymore!'
	In spite of it, the larger plane continued to bite, stroke, and scrape over Dusty's sides and wings. The wounds on his plating did not bleed, but the prickling sensations were enough to have the little orange racer inhaling his whines in an almost masochistic arousal he didn't understand, and it scared him. Helpless, confused, ignorant. His pants becoming labored heat, Dusty mumbled between the little squeaks he made.
	“Why... Why are you doing this?”
	“Do you think you can save me?” the aggression in Ripslinger's engine coiled up into his vocals like that of an angry cobra, “Tell me...”
	Dusty looked up into the face still blotted out by the darkness, his eyes lazy and disoriented and fogged with tears. They rolled around to the side as he felt the weight on the sleeping mat shift as Ripslinger rode up on him, pressing the younger plane back down. Dusty mumbled and murmured little quiet nothings that were supposed to be 'what are you doing?' somethings. 
	So hot... Why? Dusty dug his tires deeper into the sleeping mat. Ripslinger's body was hot, so drenched in that reek of arousal as he simply hovered above him. Everything was spinning out of control. Nothing but darkness and feelings. Nothing but confusion and heat. Nothing but bodies... Why?
	“You want me to love you, don't you? You want us to be friends...” Ripsinger manipulated, his voice suave, hard, and thick with the intense determination to be deep inside the smaller airplane underneath him. 
	He hunkered down into him, his ventral access panel feeling very tight indeed. That hot place that Dusty could feel brushing against him every now and then, the sticky humidity of the thing it concealed making his own insides moist and slippery.
	“So then tell me...” And Ripslinger gave him another sensual lick, “If you will save me...”
	Dusty squeaked again as he felt a drop or two of what he thought was drool land on his nose and right wing near his fuselage, the sensation of the sudden odd, cold, liquid chill making his engine flutter in warning of that warm, beautiful surge inside of him melting its way to the surface. 
	“Love me, save me... and I will love you...”
	Dusty exhaled, shifting his body to make it more accessible as he finally submitted. He closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing. His wheels tensing into the sleeping pad, he prepared himself. And then his eyes opened back up in questioning confusion, letting out a soft, needy whine in protest before he could stop himself as he felt the warmth and weight from the larger plane above him lift away. He watched as Ripslinger rolled past him, stopping a little ways from the former crop-duster without turning to face him, the light from the moon shining across the once gaudy paint job. He seemed to sink a little on his landing gear. 
	Dusty stared at his back for a few moments, and then made to get up and go to him, but was stopped cold, recoiling and crying out in horror as Ripslinger then turned back around to face him. Revealed in the moonlight, most of his left side had been torn out. Obliterated. 
	Ripslinger stared out at him gravely from one eye, the other half of his face gone, the sharp rear teeth and the guts of his engine exposed. The vomit sitting in the middle of his throat, Dusty began to feel faint as he couldn't tear his eyes away from the macabre scene as they traveled down, looking into the gaping hole in the checker-marked plane's fuselage. Wires, broken and leaking fluid lines and hoses and other innards spilling out and quivering and pulsating with every ragged breath he took. And there, just barely visible in the darkness of the inside of Ripslinger's body, Dusty could barely make out part of what looked like a waxing and waning ribbon of blue-white light. The thread flickered, dimming down almost to nothing before spooling back up and growing brightly again, only to die back down to where it was in a manner of moments. A familiar black sludge flowed in copious amounts from the wound in his side, with more running steadily from his mouth. 
	“Oh, god, Rip...” Dusty cringed, his voice full of tears. 
	“It's no good...” Ripsliger was saying, sounding detached as more and more of his body seemed to be corroding away in front of Dusty's very eyes. “You're not safe. It's no use...”
	“No!  No, Ripslinger!” Dusty shouted tearfully, frantically. “I can help!”
	“You'll hurt too, if you tame me...” the P-51 gurgled on the build-up of the tarry fluid.
	“I don't care! I can see you! There's no way I'm leaving you to this now!”
	“You don't understand...” 
	Then Ripslinger moved forward; a grotesque, twisted movement of what was left of him as the weak flow of light suddenly shot out from the exposed, gaping wound in his side and straight toward Dusty. He gasped as he felt it latch on to the heart of him, and pain exploded in his wings and all down his left side as he began to be pulled toward the seething, decrepit shell of the checker-marked Mustang where he all but collapsed over the middle of his back, unable to stand any longer. The constant hissing had now increased to ear-splitting levels, and Dusty cried out in fear and disgust, closing his eyes as the cold liquid almost like melted obsidian poured down onto him.
	“You will become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed...”
	And the red eyes stared...
	
XXxx

	“Seven-thousand eight-hundred and eighty-three pounds and three ounces,” Dottie was saying as she read off the scale. “Not bad... That's almost a two-hundred pound gain from last time.”
	Dusty stood off to the side, eyeing Ripslinger's left side as if expecting it to come tearing open, still shaken and a little groggy from the rather rough night. 
	“A little more and you'll be on real food soon enough,” Dottie continued. “Then you'll start gaining some real weight.”
	“Ooh, good news...” Ripslinger mumbled, sounding completely unenthused, then he noticed Dusty. “What are you staring at?” he snapped half-heartedly. 
	“Oh, ah... Nothing...” Dusty covered weakly, starting at hearing the green and black plane's voice directed at him. 
	“You know you've been acting weird all morning.”
	Dusty had been fussing over him since the moment he'd awoken early in his hangar, panting and sobbing for breath as the remnants of the dream wore off, alone, with Ripslinger nowhere to be seen. He'd scrambled up from his sleeping mat, finding a couple of cans of CCP that had been knocked over. Finding them empty, he immediately threw open the hangar doors to go search for him, only to find Ripslinger perfectly alive and well as he rolled himself through the sprinklers in someone's front yard. He seemed to have perked up after that little bit of a wash, and after downing another can of CCP, they headed over to Dottie's shop to check up on his progress. Despite Dusty's worrying and anxious searching over him every few minutes, there also hung over him a sort of forced detached, awkward air that had Ripslinger perplexed and snarling at him more than once already.  
	“I uh... It's just that I had a little trouble sleeping last night is all.”
	Dusty stared up at him at suddenly felt his breath start to come in too quickly. He fought to stifle it down, feeling his cheeks burn hotly as images from the dream flashed through his mind, still vivid and clear. As Riplslinger stared at him, Dusty saw his eyes darken somewhat, and for a horrifying moment he thought he somehow knew. But then the green and black plane blinked and it was gone. 
	“These are looking much better,” Dottie remarked, looking over his wings and inspecting the welding job she did when she closed the self-inflicted slashes. “Now let's see if we've got any more feeling back.”
	“Mm hmm... Yes!” Ripslinger snapped, resisting the urge to turn and bite her for the pinches on his wings from the pliers. 
	“Very good.” Dottie said, seemingly nonplussed as she moved along with the exam.“And your control surfaces?”
	Ripslinger did as asked, pulling in a breath and holding it as he raised his flaps up the highest he'd ever raised them. They trembled after a few seconds and began to ache so he let them fall, letting his breath back out with a slight flutter of his engine. 
	“Hmm, there's still a lot of weakness and some slight ill-coordination. Don't worry though, we're on the right track now; your strength and dexterity should come back. Just keep doing the exercises I showed you.”
	Dottie finished with the exam and declared his progress excellent, and Ripslinger left the garage without another word. The day wore on with Ripslinger dozing contently in the early summer heat. He loved this weather. It was just perfect for loafing and watching the world shimmer and bake. Dusty, on the other hand, hated the heat, even as he fidgeted uncomfortably in the shaded grass next to the P-51, trying to emulate him. He eventually fell asleep, and Ripslinger took the chance to carefully stand and head into the quiet cool of the woods behind them. There was something he needed to attend to. Something he needed privacy for. He headed deeper into the forest, toward his usual spot that he took sanctuary in during his fits. 
	When Dusty woke alone, once again, his engine had squealed irritably in frustration. He scoured the ground for the heavy tire tracks that Ripslinger would have left behind. He had a time of it but managed to pick his way through the forest for tell-tale signs of breakage and disturbance in the foliage and forest floor. After a while, the surroundings started looking familiar, and Dusty realized that he was heading toward a part of the woods that he himself favored when he wanted quiet. Strange, that Ripslinger would have sought out and discovered the same spot for himself. Dusty stopped looking for tracks and simply headed toward the sheltered spot he knew. 
	The trees here started to become close in, making it difficult for even a plane his size to nip their way through. A break revealed a sort of hollow in the trees, but the canopy created by the trees that ringed the bald spot was very thick to where the sun shining down through it turned everything below them green. 
	And then he heard it. An odd noise. Vocalizations that didn't make sense. The little orange airplane slowed, creeping up to the edge of the gap. And there was Ripslinger. His back was toward him. His voice was thin and drawn as he spoke, his voice lilting up into a proper, pleasant note here and there, and it was then that he realized that Ripslinger was singing. Then the P-51 let the words trail away, pausing. Maybe singing was the wrong word. None of it made sense. It sounded to Dusty more like nonsensical word-salad; the vocals more or less in key, the pitch wavering down now and then, but the words were all jumbled out of order. Ripslinger took another breath, and tried again, but soon enough stopped, and this time he stopped for good, his nose lowering before he shut his eyes and grit his teeth in angry sadness. So that was that. His song was broken. He couldn't even sing.
	“They've destroyed me...”
	Dusty could stand no more. His engine felt like it would break itself to pieces at the message that he was still able to glean from the disorganized words that revealed a sad state of self that Ripslinger had been living with for a long, long time now. He made his way into the clearing, but slipped as he rolled over a larger stick, breaking it and stumbling, then everything turned mad. 
	He was going to die. He was sure of it. Sure of the the instant that Ripslinger's hollow, depraved eyes flew across the forest in furious shock and caught his. They almost seemed to glow then, and mirror exactly how he was going to die by the now enraged Mustang's teeth. Dusty reacted a split-second too late as Ripslinger darted forward with surprising speed and grabbed him none too gently by the wing in his teeth and started to drag him further into the clearing. 
	'Fuck! He's really gonna kill me!'
	“Damn it, Rip! Don't do this!” he shouted, trying in vain to get loose or else bite or strike with his now spinning propeller, but the larger plane had him in such a way that he couldn't get to him. 
	Running out of options, Dusty dug his wheels into the forest floor and started to gripe. 
	“You can't think you can get away with this! It's not like you can just explain away me not being with you when you come back! Damn it, you can't kill me!”
	Now truly scared for his life, Dusty began to flail violently, and by accident his prop finally connected to the side of Ripslinger's nose, loosening his grip on his wing. After a moment's hesitation, Dusty turned and tried to make a break for it, but Ripslinger lunged and caught his tail and started pulling him backwards back into the forest. With a shocking amount of force for someone in his condition, he swung around and threw Dusty against one of the larger trees, hard enough to cause the bark to rupture on impact. He pinned him there against the tree and began to bite him mercilessly. 
	They were bites meant to cause pain and fatigue rather than to kill outright. He could have honestly snapped the little racer in half if he'd liked, not just exhaust him into submission. By the time Ripslinger paused, Dusty could feel every single wound he'd inflicted. 
	“Say it. Say you're worthless,” his voice hissed near the rear window behind Dusty's left eye, his voice sounding odd and forced. 
	Purely on instinct, Dusty hauled off and bit him as hard as he could in the junction of his right wing where he knew he was weak. It hurt, no doubt, with the way Ripslinger recoiled and Dusty was able to scoot away a bit, but as before Ripslinger followed and caught him again, throwing him into another, even sturdier tree. That one had hurt a hell of a lot more than the first one. He pinned him again.
	“Say it!”
	He leaned down and bit Dusty again, his teeth sinking into the aft of his left wing and he twisted until the smaller airplane shrieked. 
	“You don't know how long I've wanted to do this...” he snarled again next to Dusty's head and he shook, his eyes wide with palpable fear. “Not many could keep me waiting as long as you have.” the growling of his engine had started to creep into his voice as it usually did during one of his seizures. He slipped his right landing gear over to the other side of him and began to press him down. “But I won't be delayed any longer.”
	Ripslinger settled down over the top of Dusty, and when he pressed forward a little bit, he thought he felt something tease against the underside of his tail. He pushed him harder against the ground, moved back, and then suddenly entered him with a stab. 
	Dusty's scream came on instinct. His body wasn't exactly used to intrusions, and had never been built for anything that size, come to that. He felt distantly disappointed in himself when he started to cry. Ripslinger leaned against him, crushing him into the forest floor as he waited for Dusty's flesh to accommodate him. The larger plane's eyes, suddenly calm and half-closed, had become a mockery of care and sympathy.
	He further sandwiched Dusty between himself and the ground and began to move. Dusty screamed in anguish, his own hearing barely registering it. He thrashed, trying to get around the intense, violating pain and force Ripslinger off of him. Even as he fought, the Mustang never looked down at him. His glazed-over eyes were fixed on something ahead of him. Never stopping, never altering; the end as inevitable as a fall off a cliff. Dusty eventually gave in, willing himself to go placid and numb, the words from the dream repeating in his head like a broken record.
	“You will be responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”