Except the highway looked extremely tiny, suddenly. Wind whipped through his hair, loud in his ears.
“Mr. Dragon, Probe Master!” Ottis said, so he would stop thinking about how high up they were.
The dragon froze, so surprised that he stopped flying completely. They dropped a few feet—Ottis shrieked—before those wings beat again to regain their altitude.
“Wh-what did you say?” the dragon said in a strangled voice.
“Probe Master. That’s your name on the kidnap contract.”
“... Fuck. Hell. He’s never going to stop calling me that,” the dragon groaned.
“I won’t call you that,” Ottis said quickly. “It sounds really weird.”
“I meant my butler. He... loves those nicknames.”
“Oh.” Ottis remembered the unhinged butler antics that his new friends had told him about, and winced in sympathy. “So... You don’t probe people?”
“Well... I do. But that’s not all I do at my day job!” the dragon said hurriedly.
“Hang on. You’re a professional prober? Do people just go up to you and ask you to probe them?”
Another strangled sound. “My job requires exams and board certification. I—”
“For ass probing?!”
“That’s not all I do!”
“What else do you probe?” Ottis whispered, horrified and fascinated.
“I’m adoctor.”
“... Oh.” Embarrassment burned through his face with the heat of a thousand suns. Then Ottis’ mouth betrayed him. “Are you going to probe me too?”
The dragon choked. Then he growled. “If you’ll allow me to, yes.”
“With, uh, with your fingers? Like in your day job?” Ottis shivered. The dragon was very warm, his scaly chest solid. Somehow, he felt safe.
If the dragon had managed to hire a Butler Brother, then he couldn’t be that bad of a person.
“I’ll probe you any way you let me,” the dragon murmured.
“Maybe not with your dragon rod. I mean, with your size as it is, you might be... too big. No offense.”
The dragon rumbled, the sound vibrating through Ottis. “Not that, yes. But with everything else.”
“You’ll have to let me see your human shape.”
The dragon tensed against him. It was barely perceptible, just a twitch in his arms.
“We’ll see about that,” the dragon said stiffly.
There was more to that answer. But now was probably not a good time to... probe. He snorted a little, then groaned when he realized how rude he sounded. “Sorry, I was laughing at myself. Not you.”
The dragon glanced down at him. “What were you laughing about?”
“You seemed uncomfortable. I told myself not to probe.”
A beat of silence passed. Then the dragon began to laugh, loud rumbles that shook through Ottis and made his wolf shiver.
