Nevada Winds - TFP

10.

Flynn

"Kayde...what happened?" Flynn whispered as he began to bandage up his brother's scraped hands. Of course he'd told Kayde everything that had happened after he'd disappeared. How Fowler had been kidnapped, how Miko had run through the ground bridge and how Jack and Raphael had inexplicably shown up at the worst possible time. That they'd made probably the stupidest decision imaginable and ran onto an alien warship because Miko wanted to get a closer look. Of course Kayde had chewed them all out for it. Tearing them a new one about how none of them were immune to crush-related damages.

Yet, Kayde hadn't said anything about what had happened, about where he'd gone and why he'd been back even before Flynn and the others. He didn't even tell him why he hadn't answered his phone. Kayde's usually real good about that too. Says to call him whenever I need help so he always picks up no matter what. So why didn't he this time? Had Kayde gone into one of his traumatic moments and needed to get away from everybody for a little bit? If that was the case then why didn't he show any signs of it like he usually did? Maybe it was really minor this time and he didn't want me to be so worried about it.

Either way they were still sitting on their living room couch, ratty and torn up, in the middle of the night. In order to save on the power bill Kayde had set a flashlight on the rickety coffee table beside them so they could see what they were doing. Flynn had just finished wrapping Kayde's second hand. He'd done the first by himself and even though he'd insisted it didn't hurt that badly, he'd winced so hard that he'd dropped the bandage so Flynn insisted on helping. "Did you get into a fight?"

"You could say that."

"Are the cops gonna show up at our door?"

"Not for this one."

Flynn paused. "You didn't kill the guy, did you?"

"No," Kayde chuckled. "Not this time at least, kiddo."

Flynn was quiet for a long time, his eyes narrowed into a fine point. With everything going on, the bots distracting them, Kayde hadn't got himself into trouble as of recently. The problem with his brother was that he was so headstrong that danger followed him everywhere. Of course dangerous killer robots from outer space weren't ideal but at least they weren't going to get arrested or put in a holding cell after punching somebody at the bar. For a while there Flynn had been hopeful that the bots were keeping them out of human troubles...but maybe that wasn't the case.

"You're still wearing those stupid sunglasses," Flynn pointed out. "Indoors no less. What's up with that?"

"I told you," Kayde said. Flynn frowned, the man's tone had shifted from its usual indifference to a sudden intensity. "Headache. Stop asking." He added hastily a kind and softer, "Please." He's really upset about that. Maybe it'd be best not to ask. But what if it's something important? He never tells me about anything like that at all. Flynn eyed the window. Outside, Optimus was parked on the side of the road. The semi hadn't been the most subtle, so Optimus had gone out to scan a larger off-road, four-by-four truck with big wheels. Flynn couldn't understand how Optimus was able to simply displace mass, but he figured it was too complicated to understand anyway so he didn't bother asking.

"Okay, all done." Flynn said as he tore off the excess bandage and tied it into place. He set it back into the first aid kit box and closed it tight, putting it back down on the coffee table. He sighed, rubbing his forehead. It seemed like he too was coming down with a headache. After chasing Miko into a literal alien warship, every one of his muscles ached. Not to mention the jelly-esque feeling his bones had picked up after going through the ground bridge portal. "You can go now."