We're Slightly Less Screwed

“Are you alright?” Sides asked.

“No, I’m fucking freezing,” I said, burrowing further into my thirty layers of clothing.

Currently we were in flight on our way to Russia. My family had a plane leaving California with a shipment of shit for the Moscow and St. Petersburg branches. We snuck on. I knew it was gonna be fucking cold but even with Sides blasting the heat, I was still shivering.

“I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“Human,” I said flatly.

I removed the glove from my left hand and pressed it to his holo’s neck.

“Holy shit! You’re warm!” I said, pressing harder.

He tensed underneath me. “Primus, Fleshy!” He grabbed my hand and held it between his, trying to warm it up.

“I told you I was cold.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Come here,” he said.

“What?”

Another eye roll.

Ignoring, when I squealed, he pulled me across the center console so that I was sitting on his lap.

He unzipped the massive jacket I had on and slid it off of my shoulders.

“Here,” he pulled me into his chest and draped my jacket over us like a blanket. I didn’t hesitate nor question it. I just clung to him like my life depended on it sliding my arms around him, wedging my fingers between his back and the seat. I buried my face in the crook of his neck.

“You’re so warm.”

He chuckled, the sound rumbling through his body. One of his arms was holding me in place. The other was running up and down my back.

“Sorry,” I said after a minute.

“For what?” he asked. “You’re human. You get cold sometimes. It’s-“

“But you’re not particularly fond of humans, and here I am pressed against you in a form that I highly doubt you actually enjoy being in.”

I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I was entirely too comfortable, where I was, and yet I thought poking the bear was a genius idea. Then again, I knew he wouldn’t do anything. He never did anything. Well to me at least. Some others weren’t so lucky.

Then again I treated him the same way. If anyone else knew the shit he knew about me, I would’ve had then erased from history.

“I don’t mind it actually,” he said.

I was about to ask “who are you and what have you done with Sideswipe,” but changed my mind. ‘I guess I was wrong then,’ I thought.

“I have you to thank.”

“Me?”

“Being able to do this has made this weird body so worth it,” he said, holding me a little closer.

I didn’t have a clue what to say to that. He liked being close to me? I guess I understood. I was the only one, who understood what was going on with him. Even then most of the time I had no clue what was actually going on in that processor of his.

I take that back. I was completely clueless. This was not a closeness shared between two friends. Shit. I don’t even think friends was the right word. I mean. Slater was my best friend, but I had never come close to dumping nearly half of my emotional baggage on her, while Sides had taken the full weight of it. I didn’t have to say much to him. He just understood. Thinking about it, I couldn’t understand how I had managed as well as I had without him.

“You’re thinking too hard,” he said.

See. That shit right there was what was fucking with my head.

‘ What the hell are we?’ I thought, desperately searching through different relationships in my head, hoping to find one I could compare us to.

Unfortunately I didn’t have very much to go on. At least with people I actually knew. None of the relationships, between the soldiers fit, and I hadn’t seen the soldiers with anyone outside of base. I grew up rich, so relationships between people were pretty much none existent. They were connected by bridges of money, sex and opportunity.

“Just go to sleep, Blake,” he said. He sounded like he himself was on the verge of a nice recharge.

“You’re a mind fuck. I hope you know that.”

“I know.”