Just because it BURNS LavaShipping

5

He’s soaking wet. That’s the first thing he realizes as he opens his eyes, gasps for air. Cole’s there and so is Nya, looking absolutely panicked, his hands on either side of Kai’s face. Kai blinks hard, tries to sit up. His chest aches, and he feels like he weighs a thousand pounds.

Behind Cole, he can see the others bursting into the room, Sensei in front.

“What happened?” He asks, breathing hard.

“He just started burning up again,” Cole says, taking his hands away. “He was thrashing, and Nya used her power to dump water on him to cool him down. This hasn’t happened since that first day!"

Sensei comes over, puts a hand to Kai's head.

“The fuck is happening to me?” Kai manages to get out. Behind Wu, he see’s Nya grab Jay’s arm in a frightened way. He holds onto her just as tightly back.

“I’m not sure,” Wu says, pulling back. He turns to Cole. “I’m going to go and see a friend, a doctor, who may know more about this. Clearly just destroying the snake wasn’t enough to completely negate the effects of its poison.”

“We’ll come with you,” Zane offers, but Wu holds up a hand.

“You need to be here, in case more attacks.” He turns to Cole. “I’ll be a day or two. Call me if anything changes.”

Cole nods, one of his dutiful leader nods, and Kai feels like he’s in pretty good hands if Wu’s instructed Cole to take care of him. Because really, Cole often manages to do the impossible out of sheer power of will, so Kai’s pretty sure he can babysit him and keep him alive while Sensei does what he needs to. The thought makes Kai smile a bit.

"Come with me, Zane" Sensei sweeps out of the room, and Zane follows him. The others stand awkward for a few minutes, uncertain.

Able to use his arms again, Kai gestures to the bed. “Not that I didn’t appreciate your quick thinking,” he says to them with a half-grin, “but I’m sort of sitting in a giant pile of water here?”

Jay sniggers, and the others seem to rush into action.

“I’ll get some new sheets and pillows,” Nya offers, turning.

“I’ll go grab him some clothes,” Jay says, shuffling out behind her.

Nya comes over to the bed, helps Cole peal back the soaked sheets on top of Kai. Kai tries, but he can’t help, and Cole smacks his hand away when he even tries.

“This sucks,” Kai says, but no one responds. Something instinctive makes him reach for Cole when he comes close again, makes him wrap an arm around Cole’s shoulders. It’s like Cole expects it, because he was totally going to lift Kai off the bed like a girl, and Kai thinks they’ve done this before.

It’s sort of weird, holding on to Cole while he walks him over to the chair in the corner of the room and then sets Kai down. It’s definitely something they’ve been doing this week, Kai thinks. Cole’s way too practiced at it to be winging it.

He tries not to be disturbed at the fact that he can’t use his legs, really. He can wiggle his toes, which is sort of comforting, but it’s so much effort

Cole goes into the hallway and returns right away with a first aid kit.

Nya takes the rest of the sheets off and the pillows too, and leaves the room to put them somewhere. Nya returns with new pillows and sheets, and she quickly uses a large power fan to dry out the mattress. Jay comes back with some new clothes for Kai, and together he and Cole manage to shirk Kai out of his wet shirt and pajama bottoms and get him into new dry clothes.