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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The girl obeyed, not out of any sense of duty or force of habit, but because this was Jolt, and she trusted him implicitly. This whole thing was new to her, the way he made her feel, but she didn't mind it. She just wished she could fully understand it.

But then, she thought, maybe she didn't need to know. Maybe it was better to just go along with her instincts right now. After all, it had been proven time and time again that her emotions occasionally knew more than the girl herself did.

Jolt was already riding on instinct. He couldn't even begin to understand how or why this human body was reacting to her presence, her touch, but he knew that he didn't want to let her go.

There was nothing pressing, no missions or the possibility of such, no supervisors lurking (to his knowledge). Just him and her and he was going to make sure he seized this moment while it was here.

He pulled her to him, encircling her shoulders with his free arm as he did so.

She'd been held by his hologram before, but there was a drastic difference between that and the human that held her against him now. Things that she wouldn't have noticed before, like his warmth, or his scent, or the way he breathed.

Naomi kicked off her boots in the process of moving, drawing her legs onto the bed and curling against Jolt, one hand still in his and the other resting on his chest.

"You're supposed to be lying down," she whispered, managing a smile.

He sat there for a moment, resting his chin on top of Naomi's head. he couldn't remember the last time he'd been this... content.

"Suppose I am, huh?" That didn't mean she couldn't come with him, because he had no intention of letting go as he eased back onto the mattress.

About to protest that that wasn't what she'd meant, she got no further than "Hey--!" before she was pulled down, and the increased proximity didn't help with her flustered reactions.

"... That wasn't what I meant," she muttered, but didn't try to pull away.

"Sorry," he replied, though he couldn't actually bring himself to feel bad.

Though, now that he'd stopped moving for a moment, he realized just how drained he felt. The warmth of Naomi next to him was doing little to help in the battle to keep his eyes open.

Edited 2009-10-03 09:30 (UTC)

It didn't take a rocket scientist to know that Jolt was exhausted, and Naomi knew him better than anyone else here, so the odds of her not noticing were close to nonexistent.

"Get some sleep." It was neither an order nor a request, just a calm statement. "You're going to need all the rest you can get." She smiled, snuggling closer-- maybe it was a little forward of her, but she was too tired to bring herself to care. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise."

A contented murmur was his only reply, but he managed to smile when she snuggled closer.

His last waking thought was that a week suddenly seemed like an awfully short time.

Naomi continued to watch him for a little while longer, almost bothered by the sudden surge of protectiveness and affection she felt for him. She could control her powers, but this was nearly overwhelming-- and she couldn't stop it, even if she'd wanted to.

She sighed softly, closing her eyes. Whatever this was... she could deal with it later. She was content right now. And with that, she joined her friend in sleep.

The fever hit him in the middle of the night.

Suddenly he was too hot and too cold all at once, and not even the warmth of Naomi curled up against him could keep him from shivering. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that this was not right- this body was not supposed to feel like this, but he was too tired to voice it.

And on top of that, he was dreaming.

Not that he knew that- Cybertronians generally didn't dream. When your systems shut down for the night, that was the end of it until morning. But his feverish human mind was concocting a scenario that he had done his damnedest to push from his processor when he had been awake.

The bomb had gone off, and Naomi was still inside, and this time, she didn't come back out. She wasn't coming out, so he had gone in, despite orders to the contrary. There was fire and smoke and he was calling for her and calling for her but she wasn't answering.

She had been asleep, peacefully so, but she'd also been trained to react to the slightest indication of a disturbance. The increased warmth of something nearby only nudged her further towards awakening.

The grogginess with which she regarded Jolt vanished abruptly when Naomi took a closer look. He was shivering, but the temperature in the medical ward hadn't changed at all. Resting the back of her hand against his forehead verified her suspicion: the fever had struck.

Her first impulse was to call for Sakaki, but it was late, and he was probably dead to the world. That, and he'd told them both that this would happen, which in his own way meant that he would be leaving Naomi in charge if it just happened to occur now.

Water was the top priority; it was evident that Jolt's dreams weren't pleasant ones, but jarring a feverish person awake was never a good idea. So, reluctantly, the esper slipped free from his side and floated off the bed to gather the necessary things nearby.

"Naomi..." it was mumbled and barely coherent, but it was her name all the same. He was still dreaming, still calling for her, and some of that had bubbled its way to the waking world.

Naomi very nearly dropped the glass she was filling. Luckily, she managed to maintain her grip on it, but decided not to tempt things and set it down on the nightstand.

Logically, she knew the fever was due by the human body adjusting to powers and abilities that, by normal rights, a human wasn't meant to possess, and she also knew that Jolt would have to endure it, as they all had, but that didn't make it any easier to watch.

And especially not when he was saying her name.

Against her better judgment, she took a step forward, drawing closer to the dreamer.

She was here. She had to be here- he had seen her go in the building, and even if it cost him his life, he was going to see to it that she got out.

"Naomi-" It came again, a little clearer, a little more desperate.

What on earth was he dreaming about? Unless he'd somehow woken up-- but no, his eyes were still closed, and he hadn't responded when she moved, so...

This time Naomi seated herself on the edge of the bed, watching his face with no small amount of concern. "I'm right here," she told him quietly, not sure that he'd even be able to hear her.

He heard her- her voice puncturing the edges of the dream- and he seemed to calm down a little, at least outwardly.

But he was still in that building and it was still burning, but he had heard her. She was around here somewhere. He just- There was a groan of wood, and pieces of the ceiling began plummeting down around him. The building was falling down, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he had to get out of there- but Naomi. He couldn't leave without her.

There was a deafening crash, and a swell of flames-

And suddenly Jolt was sitting bolt upright in a bed in B.A.B.E.L.'s medical ward. There were a few dizzying seconds where he couldn't quite recall where he was or why, but the figure of Naomi seated on the edge of the bed came into focus, and he stared at her with a look that had never before crossed the Autobot's face- he was absolutely terrified.

The sudden and abrupt movement made Naomi jump a little herself, eyes just as wide but certainly not as frightened. She'd never seen Jolt look so terrified in all of the time that she'd known him-- perhaps because his faceplates couldn't properly form the expression, but mostly because he was fearless.

The fact that something had scared him almost scared her.

"You were dreaming," she said softly, cautiously. "Your fever set in at some point."

Jolt blinked once. Twice. And then visibly relaxed, slumping over with a sigh and burying his face in his hands for a brief moment.

"That was..." he said, but trailed off for lack of knowing what it indeed was. "I've never dreamt before." If they were all like that, he wasn't sure he wanted to ever again.

Naomi nodded sympathetically, adjusting her position to rub his back in much the way her mother had when she'd been very young and had a nightmare. These days, she didn't have anyone to do that, and would have been horribly embarrassed if they had, but there were times when she didn't mind doing it for someone else.

"There are good dreams, and there are bad dreams-- nightmares," she explained. "Sometimes they're... very odd, sometimes they're memories. Those can be the most painful."

All the remaining tension eased from him, then. The ability humans had to feel never ceased to amaze him, and it was amazing what a simple touch could do.

"It wasn't-" he frowned. "It wasn't a memory, exactly. More like something I was afraid of."

"... Did you want to talk about it?" She reached for the glass of water she'd poured earlier and offered it to him, expecting he'd know what to do with it by now. Ideally, he should be sleeping, but as one who'd only recently stopped having nightmares, she knew sleep wasn't the easiest thing to return to.

He took the glass with a small nod of thanks, and drained it quickly. The Autobot remained quiet for a long moment as the images from his dream ran through his head- some of them were as clear as day, others he'd forgotten completely. It was weird, having gaps in your memory. Fuzzy spots where only moments before there had been a vivid image.

The feeling, however, was one he couldn't forget.

"I thought I'd lost you." His voice was small, barely audible, and he didn't dare take his eyes off of the empty glass in his hand.

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."

log > what is wrong with us THE SEQUEL

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