Reassurance

"S-Save.. me." An arm, flesh dripping from it like the wax of a candle, reached itself towards Yuuta. The face of its owner was distorted, melting away in the same manner as a desperate plea for help escaped its lips.

"A-AHHHHHGH" Yuuta bolted up from his bed and clutched at his chest, heart hammering inside along with his frantic breathing. The room slowed its spinning and returned to normal as the young inspector attempted to ground himself back in reality.

Yuuta couldn't remember how many times he had relived the same awful nightmare this week. He did, however, remember it more and more vividly each time.

A woman was reaching out to him, begging to be saved as patches of flesh melted away from her body, exposing bare bones underneath.

Yuuta squeezed his eyes shut and pulled his knees up, hugging them to his chest. He had promised himself that he'd be brave. These are just dreams, there's nothing to be afraid of! He remembered previously trying to console himself. In the moment, however, Yuuta was trembling, struggling to hold back the flood of tears threatening to surge from his eyes.

"Yuuta!?" A familiar call sounded from the other side of the bedroom's patio door. Its owner's voice held an impressive air of calm, while also expressing the desperate, visceral need to know Yuuta was alright.

The dam broke.

Yuuta burst into tears as he leaped from his bed, making a dash towards the patio. He threw open the double frosted-glass doors with a crash before all but throwing himself out over the balcony and into the awaiting hands of Deckerd, his robotic companion.

Deckerd stumbled backwards a bit in surprise, but otherwise received Yuuta with ease. After months of catching the boy from where he slid down and out of an all but vertical air vent, the robot swore there was no way he could ever fumble Yuuta, even in his most "fervent" (and more recent) attempts to catapult himself to safety.

Deckerd examined the boy from where he now clung, shaking and sobbing against the frame of his metal chest. The robot then scanned the house, checking for any unusual heat signatures. When he had affirmation that his human companion was not hurt or in any immediate danger, Deckerd circulated his vents in relief. "It's okay, Yuuta." He offered a gentle smile to the boy, although the small inspector's face was too far buried in the robot's chest plates to appreciate the gesture.

Deckerd cupped his hands around Yuuta and pressed him closer to his chest in the tightest form of a hug he could manage without applying pressure enough to hurt the boy. Being much larger than Yuuta made it a little difficult to offer physical comfort, but Deckerd hoped that his large build was, in the very least, enough to make his little friend feel safe. "Did you have another nightmare?" The robot inquired all too knowingly as he lowered himself to sit cross legged with Yuuta in the driveway.

Yuuta sniffled and nodded. He refused to remove his head from Deckerd's chest, so his affirmative motion was nothing more than his forehead squeaking up and down against the robot's armoured plating.

"Was it the same one?" Deckerd questioned again, gently. A muffled whisper of "yeah" was his response.

Deckerd's optical ridges pinched in sympathy. This was the third night this week that Yuuta had been awoken by nightmares of similar themes, ones that seemed to relate to one of their most recent assignments.

Deckerd gingerly stroked the back of Yuuta's head with an extended thumb as he recalled the events of last week's endeavour. What happened hadn't been anyone's fault, but the situation was more than enough to be scarring to a child.

A fire had broken out in an apartment complex on the other side of town and because of the distance the Brave Police had been late to the scene. Despite their arrival time, the human fire department already had most of the people evacuated, and it didn't take much longer to have nearly everyone out with the help of the colossal robots.