Disclaimer: I own nothing, none of the material I use here is mine, I get nothing by publishing this (except satisfying my own pathological need for attention, but nothing otherwise)

Mend My Heart

Dustin lied on the couch, cuddling his boyfriend in his loving arms. He glimpsed outside the window, a breeze was blowing through the trees. The night must have been awfully cold, but inside the house it was warm and pleasant. So warm, in fact, that both boys were without their shirts. It would, of course, be innocent to assume that the temperature was their only reason to do so-both agreed that very few things felt as good as their bare skins touching.

Someone seeing them together might have assumed they were watching something on the television, but this was not really the case. Both had been staring in the general direction of the T.V, that much is true. However, they paid it so little attention that it could have been turned off and neither would have noticed. They probably had no idea what was the name of the show they supposedly "watched". Hunter was preoccupied with thoughts he dared not share, not even with Dustin and Dustin had been preoccupied with worrying about hunter. From his perspective, Hunter had seemed absent-minded the entire night, not only that, he had that blank expression on his face, the one he wore when he was trying to conceal his emotions. It partially worked; it was hard to decipher his feelings through the forced poker-face, but it did say, or rather screamed something. That something was "I'm not o.k., I need help" or "leave me the fuck alone", depending on one's interpretation. Dustin's interpretation gravitated towards the former.

Dustin reached for his wallet, which was resting on the table after he used it to pay the pizza delivery man. He threw it against the wall; effectively hitting the light switch, at an instant the house became dark.

"Thank god that worked!" he exclaimed, "I so didn't want to get up"

Hunter laughed, for maybe the first time that night. "Well, I think I begin to understand why your room is always such a mess, or why you keep losing your wallet…" he said with grin which was partially visible to Dustin.

Dustin's heart was relieved when he heard Hunter laugh; maybe he wasn't feeling that bad after all.

"But" Hunter added, "I'm pretty sure Sensei would disapprove, you know 'laziness is not the way of a ninja!'" he said while trying, poorly, to sound like Sensei.

"Dude, weak! I can do a better Sensei in my sleep" Dustin said, "But…you do make a good point, so let's see, what can I do to buy your silence?" he asked while leaning to kiss Hunter.

After they broke apart he looked at his boyfriend, he looked at his face and, despite Hunter's best attempts of pretending everything is fine, he saw in his eyes that something was troubling him. He couldn't help but ask: "What's wrong, Hunter?

"Ahhh? Nothing is" Hunter replied, trying to sound as if he believed himself.

"Oh come on, I thought we were over that"

"Over what?"

"Over the part where you lie and pretend everything's fine when it so clearly isn't. You can't fool me, you know that"

"Dustin please just…just let it go"

Dustin's thoughts trailed back to the beginning of their relationship. It started at a situation much similar to the current one, except their roles were reversed. It was shortly after Marah gained his trust only to betray him. Using strong conviction, resource and Dustin's sheer anger, the rangers managed to defeat the monster despite being at a great disadvantage at the beginning of the battle. At the end of the battle the rangers returned to Ninja Ops. They said nothing but their anger and discontent were very evident nonetheless. Sensei requested to speak to him alone. He waited for the others to live and prepared himself to being scolded for being such an idiot.

Instead, Sensei asked "how do you feel Dustin?"

"What?" Dustin asked in shock.

"Dustin, your face tells me everything I need to know: you're punishing yourself far too severely for what happened, so there is no reason for me to do the same is there? What's more I can see your regret, and I can see you're in pain, so like I said, how do you feel Dustin?"

"Sensei, if you're not gonna punish or scold me can I please go now?"

"Very well, you may leave" Sensei answered, convinced that he couldn't force the yellow ranger to speak if he didn't want to.

The following days the ranger's anger subsided and they turned their attempts to trying to console Dustin. He didn't remember much of that except nothing they said made him feel better and he really wished they'd shut up. That was, until Hunter caught him during their lunch break at "Storm Chargers". Both were sitting near a table and eating their lunch when he brought him a picture of Marah, with a target around her head.

"Oh my god that's cool man, how'd you do it? Dustin said and tried not to burst out laughing.

"I asked Cam to Photoshop it for me, so you wanna go through darts at her?"

"No that's O.K dude, I'm over her, but seriously this is way cool"

"Dude, I hate to break it to you, but you're going around moping and scaring the customers away, you're not over her"

"No, you don't get it it's…it's complicated"

"Well, explain it to me then"

"I'm over her, like, romantically, but there's still that sense of betrayal. I trusted her and she knew it and used it to try and hurt me and my friends, how am I supposed to ever trust myself or anyone else again" Dustin said and slammed his fist on the table "you know what the worst thing is? I still can't bring myself to think she's a bad person, if she'll come to me right now and say she changed and wants to join us I'll believe her, against all logic. God I'm such a moron!"

"Oh, shut up!" Hunter said "I won't let you call yourself that, do you know how beautiful it is that you always try to see the best in everyone, even after they hurt you? It's what makes you you, don't ever lose that. You just have to learn to make people earn your trust, instead of giving it to anyone." Hunter stopped to catch his breath and sighed. "You know, I never told anyone but sometimes, I wish I could be more trusting, like you"

"Seriously man? Thanks" Dustin replied, humbled by hunter's words.

"Seriously" Hunter reassured "You know Sensei once told me that the grass always seems greener on the other side, and in such times it is crucial to remember that looks can be misleading."

"So…?" Asked Dustin, not really sure where Hunter was going with this statement.

"So let me tell you what the grass is really like on the other side" Hunter said

"It's no secret that you and I are exact opposites on this- you trust people too easily and I hardly trust anyone, and let me tell you, It's not as great as you seem to think. Sure, I never have to deal with betrayal, but at the cost of constantly second-guessing everyone around me. At my worst moments I don't even trust Blake, and it gets so exhausting sometimes. Worse yet- I keep things bottled up inside because I have no one to confide in, and it's solely my fault: there are plenty of people I could talk to but it's me who can't trust anyone. There are times when it gets so lonely"

"So basically you're saying: 'stop the wining and bitching Dustin, everyone has problems'?"

"What I'm saying-" Hunter said, partially successful at hiding the tone of irritation in his voice "-is that we both need to be less extreme when it comes to trust." His tone was much softer when he added: "Maybe we could learn to balance each other. And on that note, I think I realized what your problem really is"

"Yeah?"

"You assume, god knows why, that everyone is as kind, as caring and as trustworthy as you are, which is just plain wrong. Some people will betray your faith in them-"

"Tell me about it" Dustin interrupted, "oh I'm sorry continue"

"That's why you can't blindly trust people, it's good that you look for the best in everyone, but don't let it cloud your judgment.

Their break was almost over so they both got up from the table.

"Thanks" Dustin said looking at Hunter "you really helped…I mean I appreciate…thank you"

"Don't mention it"

"Now that I think about it, maybe after work we can go throw darts at her, it'd be a shame to waste such a good picture." When he finished that sentence Dustin smiled like he hadn't in several days, his typical smile that could light up a room and had Hunter completely captivated. Seeing him smile like that Hunter couldn't help but grab and kiss him, the way to establishing their relationship from there was very short.

Dustin's trail of though was cut when he heard his boyfriend say "penny for your thoughts?"

He looked at Hunter, "just thinking about Marah"

"Oh? If you're thinking about Marah I'm not doing my job well"

"I was thinking about how you helped me get over her, how lucky I was, and am, to have you. I think you're doing your job just fine"

Hunter couldn't stop a smile from clinging to his lips.

"You know" Dustin continued "You helped me a lot back then, let me do the same for you now, please? I can tell something is eating you alive right now.

"I…I…leave it Dustin, please just leave it"

"O.K, but promise me something?"

"What?"

"If you don't feel comfortable talking to me that's fine, but talk to someone, don't bottle things up, alright?"

"I will talk to you, just not right now; I don't want to deal with it right now"

"Fine, I won't pressure you; tell me when you're ready. Is there something I can do to help in the meantime?"

"Dustin," Hunter said, turning to look at Dustin so their eyes met "truth be told, lying in your arms right now helps more than you know"

Dustin smiled and kissed hunter "Well I'll do just that then".

Just a couple of ANs:

1) I began writing this at 1:00 AM, now when I'm submitting this it's 4:30 AM, so I bet despite my best editing effort there are a few mistakes, sorry.

2) God help me, if there's something I hate it's writing dialogs (note to self-examine option of writing a story and furthering a plot without using dialogs)

3) I got the inspiration to write this story from two things:

one of which is the following story:

.net/s/4670558/1/Beach_house

the second is those few words of wisdom I heard in an episode of "Everwood":

"A heart is a fragile thing. That's why we protect them so vigorously; give them away so rarely and why it means so much when we do. Some hearts are more fragile than others. Purer somehow. Like crystal in a world of glass, even the way they shatter is beautiful"