pullmeoutalive | log > what is wrong with us THE SEQUEL

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log > what is wrong with us THE SEQUEL

It was hard to believe that only three hours ago, she and Jolt had been bar-hopping (with the best of intentions, of course) and now Naomi was soaring over a dense forest, zipping out of the way of a few directed lightning strikes, courtesy of one of Black Phantom's puppets.

She had bigger things to worry about, though. More specifically, she had one big thing who had somehow disappeared from the battle. It had been only a few minutes of leaving him to take down the other side's psychokinetic, but when she'd returned, Jolt had vanished. Hatsune and Akira were fighting on the ground, both too distracted to take the time to sniff him out. Sakaki was on hand in a nearby helicopter, but it had been made to land out of concern that the lightning would strike it. The Children could have helped, but they needed to stay together for Kaoru's cleansing ability to function properly.

That left a very frantic Naomi flying about in the hopes of locating one errant Autobot. The one controlling the other espers hadn't been very comforting, having glanced in the girl's direction earlier.

"Worried about your friend? You should thank me. I've taken good care of him."

She'd hardly been reassured-- if anything, Naomi's ire and worry had only tripled, until she'd not only knocked out the esper manipulating the lightning but picked up her speed. The fight was nearly over; she could see the bright light from The Children's area now, but she wouldn't be relieved until she knew her Autobot friend was safe.

"Jolt-san!!" She called now, skimming the tops of the trees and then flying a little lower. "Please, answer me!"

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Logically speaking, that made sense. It explained why he'd been calling her name, at least. But all Naomi could manage was a quiet, surprised choking noise that made her cough until she could speak again.

"Me?"

In retrospect, she thought, if she was going to take that long to say something that idiotic, she would have been better off keeping her mouth shut.

He regarded her with a concerned expression for a moment- Jolt didn't think whatever was wrong with him was catching, but that didn't explain Naomi's sudden coughing fit.

"Yeah. You-" there was a pause, and he frowned. The whole incident was likely still a sensitive subject for Naomi, and the last thing he wanted to do was worry her. So, contrary to is usual line of thinking, he chose his words carefully. "There was an accident. I couldn't find you- I just kept looking and looking and-- I've never been so scared in my life."

He'd been scared-- not for himself, but for her? She knew she'd caused him worry the few times they'd been separated into different tasks during the mission, and she knew she'd panicked when he'd disappeared this time, but she'd never known that he'd have nightmares about it.

Because Cybertronians didn't dream, most likely. But humans did.

Naomi exhaled softly, reaching out to take the glass from him. "I can understand that. Losing someone during a crisis... that would terrify anyone."

Jolt caught her hand instead, casting the glass aside, and pulled her into an embrace, burying his face in her hair. He wasn't sure why- maybe for his own peace of mind. She was here, real and solid, and she wasn't going anywhere.

"No," he said, voice muffled. "Not "someone". Not anyone. You. I don't ever want to lose you." Maybe he was rambling, but he didn't care- he was too tired and feverish and shaken to care.

"Wh--" She scarcely had enough time to gasp before she found herself pulled against him, automatically catching onto his shoulders as he held onto her. He was feverish, and had been jarred from a nightmare, but there was a ring of sincerity in his words when he spoke, and Naomi quieted.

"Jolt-san..." Once she made sure she was steady enough, she lifted a hand, smoothing down his hair, stroking as gently as she did when she washed his alt mode. "You won't. The last thing I want to do is lose you, either." She hesitated, this time willingly drawing in memories of her failed mission. "That's why I came back."

He wasn't- he still didn't exactly know what he was doing, in part from the fever, in part from the strange whirlwind of emotion he was feeling, and in part again from the alien body he was suddenly inhabiting.

But she was there, close, with her hand on his face and in his hair, and he was there, holding her, and he just did the first thing that came to mind.

With a dip of his head, he kissed her. It was a little awkward, and fleeting, but he kissed her all the same.

Three things simultaneously struck the esper the minute his lips touched hers. The first thought was that her alien robot ally turned friend turned something was kissing her. The second thought was that her supervisor was going to have more than just a conniption if he found out about this.

The third thought was, quite simply and succinctly, Oh. There was a tingling warmth emanating from the point of contact, and for someone who'd never been kissed before, she couldn't help but vaguely wonder why they hadn't done this sooner.

Naomi realized that she hadn't quite responded by the time he started to pull away, and sought to remedy that by tilting her head up and kissing him again. This one was slower, more hesitant, as though she wanted to make sure he had time to consider this all one huge mistake and move away.

Kissing was purely a human thing, but Jolt was quickly discovering why they enjoyed it so much. Even that brief contact of the initial kiss had felt so- he didn't have a word for it, but it was good and warm and he, too, was wondering why they hadn't done this sooner.

And she was kissing him back. A little thrill ran through him and he responded in kind.

She was trembling-- not from cold or fright, but the sensations were making it hard to form coherent thoughts. Jolt was the only thing on her mind, and she wanted to stay like this.

But logic did indeed prevail in the end (as did an annoying need to breathe), and she slowly pulled back, one hand still in his hair and now looking somewhat flustered and disheveled.

"I think I've been an idiot," she whispered.

He looked a little lost when she pulled away, not wanting this- whatever it was- to end, but only then did he realize just how out of breath he was.

And then he frowned, wondering for a panicked moment if maybe he'd gone too far, if maybe he'd done something wrong. "What?"

Immediately recognizing the look on his face, Naomi shook her head and sought to clarify her statement with a reassuring-- if highly embarrassed-- smile. She would just say it now, and hope that the fever would make him forget most of it by morning, in case the awkwardness was too much.

"I didn't want to admit it-- more that I was afraid to-- that I felt this way about you. I wasn't sure what would happen if I felt anything differently, and said something about it... so I tried very hard not to see you as anything other than a friend." She sighed, adding ruefully, "I'm pretty sure that didn't work."

The frown gave way to a smile that was somehow simultaneously relieved and warm and sincere. One hand cupped the side of her face, still with the deliberate gentleness he would have used were he ten times his current size. "I suppose that makes two of us."

Surprise and relief lit up her eyes, and Naomi allowed herself to relax and lean into his touch. This was bound to complicate things tenfold, especially when the higher-ups on both sides found out, but she couldn't bring herself to care at the moment. The fever, however, still had her concerned.

"You know," she mumbled. "You should still be resting. At least lying down, if not sleeping."

Jolt always dove headfirst into anything without so much as a second thought to the consequences, and such seemed to be true for matters of the spark- or heart, as the case may be. The reactions of their commanders and directors and whoever else were the farthest things from his mind- save, of course, for Tanizaki's inevitable meltdown.

"Probably," he conceded after a moment. The sudden rush of... all of the things that had just happened was starting to wear off, and his weariness was making a comeback. He eased back onto the mattress, taking her with him as he had before.

She was more prepared this time and settled down with nary a complaint or protest. Her mind was still spinning from everything that had occurred, and she'd no doubt be mulling over things and developments for quite some time, but it was easier to focus on the present.

"This won't be easy." Whether she meant the new turn their relationship had taken or the fever that continued to lurk, Naomi didn't clarify. For all purposes, she very well could have meant both.

"I'm a fighter. We both are," he remarked, idly running his fingers through her hair and enjoying the sensation of it. He didn't expand upon his statement further- it was as all-encompassing as hers had been.

Eventually, his motions slowed and then stopped completely as sleep overtook him once again.

Naomi was prepared to remark on that, but the sensation of his fingers effectively turned her tongue to mush and also drew out any existing tension in her body, rendering her blissfully limp and lulling her into a comfortable, drowsy sense of complacency.

She was asleep before he even slowed down.

Jolt was a fighter, and as he valiantly fought the fever off, the rest of the night passed without incident.

But he had always been one to sleep in, and that wasn't about to change now- especially not after the long night he'd had to endure. As B.A.B.E.L. was waking up, he was still dead to the world, contentedly lying there with his arms curled around Naomi.

The inevitable breakdown that was going to walk through that door was a distant thought.

Naomi had the tendency to snuggle against whatever was close at hand, be it her pillow, the blanket she inevitably wound up tangled in... or the nearest source of warmth, which just so happened to be one Autobot in a human body.

And so she was just as peacefully curled against Jolt, just as the doors slid open and Sakaki and Tanizaki strolled in, the former perusing his clipboard and the latter doing what he did best.

Rambling.

"Naomi is a highly-valued esper and should be resting in an undisturbed environment, safe and protected from that..." He trailed off, a warning sign that had Sakaki immediately looking up to see what had silenced the supervisor so abruptly.

Just as quickly, he looked back down, but it was too late. Tanizaki had exploded in (what he felt was righteous) rage.

"FIEND!! YOU FOUL VEHICLE WHO TRIES TO BESMIRCH MY NAOMI'S CHASTITY AND HONOR, RELEASE HER AT ONCE!!!"

Miraculously, his charge didn't stir at all.

The Autobot, however, did. He flinched and groaned, carefully cracking open one eye. The sight of Naomi curled against him caused a smile to flash across his face, but his attention was quickly drawn to the screaming supervisor, and he made a face.

Reluctantly disentangling himself from the sleeping esper, he sat up and, in a move that was oddly automatic in this new body, ran his fingers through his disheveled hair. "What crawled up your exhaust port and died?" he remarked, shooting Tanizaki a supremely annoyed look. Clearly, he was not much of a morning person.

"What-- crawled-- exhaust port-- died?!" He parroted in a yell that bordered on a screech. "Just what do you think you're doing, taking advantage of B.A.B.E.L.'s hospitality to make a move on my subordinate?! I won't have it! Naomi is elite and far above your standards so that you could not hope to even grasp her! One day, she will sparkle in her flowing white--"

Sakaki was already groaning, and his future sparkling subordinate was automatically curling into a tighter ball, as though that would drown out the screaming trying to pull her from her slumber.

"Look, Tanizaki, he's my patient right now and an important ally, so if you could for once stop yelling about Naomi-chan--"

"NAOMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII--"

Jolt was out of the bed in a second flat, two more and he was across the room. He had always been agile, no surprise when one considered his weapons of choice and the skill with which he wielded them. His body, changed though it was, seemed to remember the decades of fighting that had been drilled into it, and very suddenly he was laying Tanizaki flat with a well-aimed fist.

"Shut up," he barked, glaring daggers at the other man and pointedly ignoring the pain in his hand where it had met the unfortunate supervisor's face. "You're one to talk about standards, you creep. You don't deserve her."

Poor, poor Sakaki. He didn't ask for much in life. Fine female company, a day in which Shiho didn't cheerfully one-up him, a quiet workplace... and maybe, just maybe, one peaceful morning.

But that was impossible now, given that Jolt had moved so swiftly, remarkably at ease in his new body, and now Tanizaki was on his back.

No, he amended, now he was slowly sitting up and glaring just as much as the Autobot was.

"I don't deserve her?" He snapped. "And where were you when I was the only person she could trust? Fighting your war? And where were you when she nearly died? You're just a poorly-constructed hunk of metal masquerading as human! There's no way I'll ever let you near her a--"

"That's enough."

The next instant, Tanizaki had been picked up by some invisible force and slammed into the nearest wall. This wasn't a typical psychokinetic force, either. This time, his charge was livid.

Naomi, newly awake and looking very dangerous, kept her glowing hand in front of her, locking her supervisor in place.

"Good morning," she greeted the others sweetly, even though she kept her eyes trained on the older man.

Rage flared dangerously in the Autobot-turned-human, and his powers reacted as they always had in his own body- electricity crackled in his hands, lancing between his fingers in bright blue arcs. Optimus could berate him until his vocals rusted out, he didn't care. He was going to fry this bastard-

Unless, of course, Naomi got to him first. Which she had, quite violently.

Jolt whipped around to face her, the electricity in his palms dissipating instantly. He looked shocked at first, but only because of the suddenness of her intervention, and then something like grateful.

Naomi chanced looking away from her supervisor briefly, just to give Jolt a nod of acknowledgment, while Sakaki stared at him for a little longer. So he'd already manifested his abilities, with no apparent difficulty. That was the mark of a highly skilled fighter. Nonetheless...

"Keep it contained," he warned. "You're not in your original body. Without proper practice, there's still a chance of that electricity going haywire, and you'll risk hurting others around you if that happens."

The esper half-heard this, but remained focused on Tanizaki for the most part. She had some things she wanted to address, and there was no time like the present.

"How dare you." Her voice was low, controlled, but there was barely-restrained rage in her eyes. "How dare you blame him for anything, when he's done so much for me. How dare you judge him. How the hell do you expect me to listen to you when you're preaching trust in others and accusing them in the same breath?? If I ever hear you saying anything like that again, I'll be asking for a new supervisor. And I mean it."

Tanizaki stammered something, but Naomi chose that moment to drop him and turn away.

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