Wow, I'm on a roll here, working on different fanfiction three days in a row, that's a new record. Anyways, here is a brotherly bonding chapter, which I realize I haven't exactly done yet. Oh well, I'm doing it now, hope you enjoy it.

Icy wasn't the kind of person to wake up in the middle of the night for no reason at all, once he fell asleep, he stayed asleep, it's always been like that. Tonight, however, was different. Icy was very confused, it was only 2:00 in the morning, yet he was awake. He didn't have a dream or anything like that that had woken him up, he was just asleep one minute and, bam, awake the next.

Icy always tried to find an answer to everything, so sits awake for a few minutes, thinking, trying to figure out why he'd woken up. It took a while for Icy to decide hey, I'm tired, so I'm going back to sleep. I don't care why I woke up. So Icy laid back down and tried to go back to sleep, but for some reason he couldn't. He felt like something was wrong, and he wouldn't be able to sleep until everything was right again.

Icy got out of bed and reluctantly left his room. The minute he got into the hallway he was hit with a type of heat wave, but this was normal. Icy prefered his room to be colder than anywhere else in the house. Hothead's room meanwhile was like an inferno, because he would rather be warm or hot than cold. It was kind of odd that Random, the craziest of the three of them, was the most normal when it came to things like this.

Icy stood in the hallway, looking around for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing looked different, so Icy closed his eyes. If nothing looked different, then maybe something sounded different. With what he was seeing no longer distracting him, Icy was able to hear more clearly, and he heard...sobbing?

Icy walked closer to Random's room, to see if it was Random sobbing, but it wasn't. Random's room was quiet except for his occasional sleep talking. Icy was confused now, if it wasn't Random that was upset, then that could only mean that it was...no, that couldn't be it. But Icy had to be sure. Icy approaches his older brother's bedroom and his suspicions were confirmed, the quiet sobbing was coming from Hothead's room. Icy was curious now, what could Hothead be upset about? So Icy grabs the door handle and opens the door, slowly, because Hothead was always ready to kill anything that startled him.

"Hothead?" Icy asks, poking his head into the room, "Vhy are jou still avake?"

"I could ask jou zhe same zhing." Hothead growls from his bed. Hothead's voice was strangely quiet for him, he was always yelling, even in the middle of the night. Right now though, his voice would have been considered quiet by a normal person's standards. From this Icy could tell that something was wrong.

"Vhy vere jou crying?" Icy asks. Hothead reacts the way that Icy knew he would.

"I vasn't...I'm not…" Hothead tries to say, but he couldn't seem to string three words together. So Hothead gets out of his bed and angrily comes toward Icy. Hothead grabs his younger brothers shirt in a threatening manner.

"get out of my room, now!" Hothead says, as angrily as he could without yelling, "Or jou vill regret it." But Icy and Hothead both knew that the threat was empty. Icy was the only person that Hothead couldn't intimidate with threats, he could always see past his older brother's facade.

"I'm not leaving." Icy says sternly. He puts his hand against the wall and starts feeling around for the light switch and, when he found it, turns it on, bathing the room in light. It took a minute for Icy's eyes to adjust to the sudden light, but when they did he could see his older brother clearly. Hothead didn't look much different than he normally did, except his eyes were red and his hair was even more all over the place than it usually was.

Hothead glares at Icy, then turns around and goes and sits on his bed, his face in his hands. Icy stays standing at the door.

"Vhat happened?" Icy asks.

"Nozhing." Hothead replies angrily, "Nozhing happened, nozhing's vrong, go avay." But Icy didn't buy this for a second.

"Jou had a nightmare, didn't jou?" Icy asks. Just the fact that Hothead doesn't respond tells Icy that he was right. Icy sighs and goes over and joins his brother on his bed.

"So...vhat happened in jour nightmare?" Icy asks. He wasn't expecting Hothead to answer, so he was surprised when he actually did.

"I can't veally remember," Hothead says, his face still in his hands, "It's not zhe stupid nightmare zhat I'm upset about, it's zhe...zhinking zhat I do after it?"

Icy understood what Hothead was talking about. After someone has a bad dream they aren't exactly in a hurry to get back to sleep, in fear of just having another bad dream, but staying awake wasn't necessarily better. Icy knew that lying awake by yourself gives your thoughts a chance to catch up with you.

"vhat thoughts have you been trying to avoid?" Icy asks. Hothead stays quiet for a minute, but does eventually answer his brother's question.

"I vant our parents to come home." Hothead says, his voice sounding depressed. "I don't vant to be zhe von in charge anymore. It's too hard, and stressful, and I'm no good at it." Hothead groans, "I'm fifteen, I'm too old to be crying for my parents, or having nightmares."

"Now who said zhat zhere's an age limit for zhings like zhat?" Icy asks. "Even zou I know jou'll not want to hear zhis, jou're still a kid, and kid's need zheir parents sometimes. And a lot of people have nightmares, zhey just don't like to admit it."

"And who told jou zhat jou're no good at being zhis?" Icy asks, "Jou've been doing just fine for zhese past few years." Hothead didn't look like he believed him, so Icy continues "Jou're zhe oldest, but zhat doesn't mean jou have to be made of stone. Jou can show emotions sometimes, nothing's vrong vith doing zhis."

"I guess so," Hothead says. "Jou'd better not tell anybody about zhis."

"Oh, don't vorry," Icy says, "Jour insecurities vill just be between zhe two of us. Now let's go back to sleep, it's late."

"Or early," Hothead says with a smirk.

"Jah, or early." Icy agrees. He stands up and goes over and turns the lights off again, but he doesn't leave the room yet.

"Do jou vant me to sleep vith jou, like ve did vhen ve vere kids?" Icy asks. When the two of them were younger, Hothead would have nightmare's every other night. He didn't want their parents to know about it, so he just woke up Icy and slept with him whenever he'd had a nightmare. They'd stopped doing this a few years ago, but Icy suspected it was because Hothead was too embarrassed, not because the bad dreams had stopped.

"Jou can sleep in here if jou vant to." Hothead says, trying to sound annoyed. Really he was relieved that Icy had suggested it, he didn't want to be alone right now. So Icy crawled into bed with his older brother and the two of them soon fell asleep.

There, haha, that was fun to write. However, after this I currently have no other ideas for stories with this. If anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them, really I would...hm, I just realized, I haven't given Sunstorm or Starscream much attention in these stories. I should fix that.