Delirium: a Futuristic Four fic

Delirium

A/N: First of all, this was originally one of my whumptober prompts, but it somehow evolved into fluff. Don't ask me how, author is just as sleep deprived as Hiro in this passage and has exams tomorrow.

'How many coffee patches have you had already?'

'Mm?' Hiro asked, barely hearing the question. His head was throbbing with a major migraine, as he tried to make sense of the sentence in front of him. Something about the laws of robotics. He thought he went over this already... It was - something, he just couldn't recall...

'Excuse me, I'm talking to you, Captain Cutie,' the voice came again, piercing right into Hiro's muddled thoughts. He couldn't quite make out who it was - hmmm, they had black hair, so not Penny, and brown eyes, so not Violet. That left Wilbur.

'Is it Wilbur?'

'Right, I think that about answers my question,' that voice answered, and even through the migraine, Hiro felt a stab of annoyance. It was definitely Wilbur, who continued, 'Definitely too many coffee patches.' Wilbur glanced at him and took away the small sheet of coffee patches laid on Hiro's table, and the alarm bells suddenly went off in Hiro's brain, making him snatch them back.

'I be fine,' Hiro murmured. He hoped whatever he happened to be saying was making sense, because he didn't really know what words they were. 'I have a... a... something coming up. Big. And important.'

'What the - Hiro,' a different voice cut in, clearly scolding, but with an undertone of worry. Hiro tried looking at whoever it was talking. Also black hair, but different eyes, so Violet, probably. Violet had violet eyes, right? That's why her name was Violet. Or it wouldn't make sense she was called Violet.

'Violet?'

'Yeah, that's me,' the voice said back, wearily. 'Hiro, you're overdoing it. Go get some sleep or something.'

'Sleep?' Hiro asked. 'I think I slept a lot once. Forty-eight hours.' He frowned at the memory, which was really hazy - maybe due to his splitting headache or the memory being really, really old. 'Waste of time... Should've been more pro- pro- do more stuff.' He supressed a yawn. 'I fine. I not sleeping forty more hours again.'

'Um, guys?' a third voice cut in. Judging by eli- el-something, that was Penny. Unless it was someone else with red hair. Who else did he know with red hair? 'Penny?' he asked, his voice sounding a bit funny. Longer and made it sound like 'Pe-rrrri.' He laughed, even though no one else did. Penny spoke up again.

'I'm pretty sure he's sick or something. We should probably check his temperature.'

Hiro felt something nice and cool against his forehead. Mmmm. He didn't know he was hot until he felt it. Hot. Hot meant pretty, right? Wasn't it a good thing to be?

'HIRO!' he heard someone yell, which sounded like Violet. 'You're at like, 40 degrees Celsius!'

'What?'

'She means,' Penny said, nice and slowly, 'you're very hot - '

'Hot means good?' Hiro asked, hopefully.

'Not really,' Wilbur cut in. 'In this case it means that you're sick.'

'Is sick good?'

Violet took over. 'Hiro, you're going to sleep.'

Hiro tried to argue. He couldn't sleep. Not now. He needed to... look at the book. 'I need to stu-dy,' he replied, saying each sound slowly so they'd make more sense. 'That means looking at the book. Not sleeping yet.'

'What the hell, Hiro?!' Wilbur said loudly, looking scared. Heh. Nice to know he finally scared Wilbur. For prank week. No, that was a month ago... But it was a week, so...

'I think Hiro's going delirious.'

'De - li - ri- ous,' Hiro sounded out, chewing on the words. Wilbur let out a long sigh, and talked again, more softly. 'I think we should just drag him to his bed and leave him there.'

'Who?'

The other three ignored him. They were whispering to the other two, not looking at him. Hiro frowned. He didn't like this. Was he in-vi-si-ble, like Violet? He climbed onto the table, pushing his books aside, then yelled, 'Hello!' The other three glanced back at him, then didn't turn their gaze away, looking at him in... horror? Was that it?

'I've changed my mind,' Violet said, 'we'll get him to come down, then lead him back to his room. Preferably before he tries to climb onto something else.'

'Agreed,' Wilbur said, not taking his eyes off Hiro. 'Hey, dude,' he called, 'can you come down for a second?'

Hiro looked down, and down, and down, and down... So high up. He didn't think it was so high up when he climbed up...

'No,' Hiro shook his head, 'afraid of falling.'

Hiro saw Wilbur's mouth muttering things furiously, though he couldn't hear what Wilbur was saying.

'OK, Hiro,' Violet told him slowly, 'I am going to make a force field to bring you down. That OK with you?'

'Mmm?'

'I guess that's a yes,' Violet sighed, and suddenly Hiro was in a bright purple bubble. He tried touching the side very carefully - it didn't break. It was... sol - hard. It was a bit like a bubble and a bit not like a bubble, he thought, gleefully.

'Vi, maybe we should just keep him in the force field in case he tries to run off,' Penny suggested.

'Yeah,' Wilbur said.

Violet didn't argue with them. Instead, Hiro found that the purple bubble could move, and it was going somewhere different from where he should be.

'Going the wrong way!' he yelled at the other three.

'Nope,' Wilbur replied, 'judging by the amount of coffee patches missing here we are definitely going the right way.'

'Seriously, I don't think you've slept much lately,' Penny said, looking worried. 'This is a sleepover, though, so you probably should.'

They entered a room with sleeping bags, blankets, pillows and snacks scattered all over the place. Wilbur took a key out and locked the door, before Violet lowered the purple bubble thing slowly on one of the sleeping bags and burst it.

Hiro felt panicked. There was no way he was going to get whatever he wanted to do done.

'Let me go,' he said, squirming where he sat. 'It's fi - finals!' Ah, the word he'd been searching for all this while. 'Needs... lots of preparation.'

Even so, his eyes were starting to flutter: was it something about the nice, gentle coolness of the room, the soft sleeping bag under him, or that his brain was starting to swim around?

Against his alert bells, he yawned.

'You know,' Wilbur smirked, 'sleeping is part of the preparation for your fi-nals.'

Violet frowned. 'Wilbur, don't mock him - '

'Really?' Hiro asked.

'Yeah,' Penny said quickly. 'You need sleep.'

Hiro looked at Violet, who sighed. 'Yes, they're right.' She looked at Wilbur, mad. 'For once.'

'Go to sleep, Hiro.' He wasn't sure who said that; it was like they all said something that sounded like it. Well, he guessed he probably should. Wriggling into his sleeping bag, he closed his eyes, and almost immediately stopped thinking.

Nice, warm sleep.

A/N: Yup. Honestly don't know what I was writing, but I hope that you guys enjoy it. ~ DragonWasser