Blake's hand was raised to the wood of the door before it swung open with a bang, icy blue meeting his gaze.
"Blake."
"Sky."
"Get out of my way." Fury laced into every syllable, his knuckles white as he gripped the wood of the doorframe.
For a moment, Blake's hand crackled with lightning, the tension in the air more palpable than ever. Then he sighed, took one step to the right, and dropped his hands to his sides.
Sky relaxed visibly, the briefest of thankful glances thrown over his shoulder as he sprinted past, swinging a leg over his motorcycle and tearing out of the driveway without a second look back.
"You let him go." Blake didn't bother to look behind him with the smell of burning rubber still on the breeze, no matter how much thinly-veiled rage seemed to linger beneath the words.
"What was I supposed to do?" He finally turned, arms folded across his chest, fighting the urge to grab his shoulders and shake Cam. "Tie him down, throw him in a closet, wait for him to escape and then end up here? We all know how well that worked on you."
Cam met his eyes coolly, something flashing below the surface that Blake couldn't quite place. "Tell Cruger to take Sky off-duty."
"For how long? Cam, this is ridiculous – "
"If the morphers can be assigned to an individual, I would think they could be removed just as easily."
"Cam, he's a Ranger. He's tied to the grid now, you can't just take that away from him."
"Then do I wait until someone else does, Blake? Do I wait for the next criminal who doesn't bat an eye at murder? Or until that psychopath breaks out of his cell to kill Sky the way he killed Hunter, too – "
"Cam!" Blake found himself moving before he could stop himself; he felt wood against the back of his fingers, Cam's trembling shoulders under his own shaking hands (his brother, so still, eyes blue as the sky and blank like nothing he'd ever seen since their parents).
"Cam," Blake said again, but words were bubbling up in his throat, too fast for him to make sense and too many for him to speak, and he realized the painted wood behind Cam's head was blurring.
Hunter had painted the whole house, he remembered, gulping for air. Blond hair speckled with paint and shirt mottled with color, he'd never looked happier.
He felt a hand gripping his wrist, the slight pressure pulling him from his reverie. "Breathe, Blake."
"You sound like Sensei," he rasped out, and Cam's hand froze, before withdrawing. Damn.
"I sound nothing like my father."
"Cam, he stopped you from becoming a Ranger." A flutter in Cam's shoulder, and Blake faintly wondered how he was still in possession of his head.
"Maybe he was right."
"The way you're acting right now, I think I agree." A hiss and intake of breath; he'd struck something, that time. "None of us have ever regretted having you at our backs, Cam, and that team of Sky's? They're going to need him, too."
He loosened his grip on Cam's shoulders, hoping somewhere in his mind that bruises wouldn't form. "Don't risk them because you feel like you need to protect him."
"Like Hunter wanted to protect you, Blake?"
"Like Hunter wanted to protect us," Blake shot back, "and protect you, Cam, and I didn't exactly see him walking into Ninja Ops begging Sensei Watanabe to strip you of your powers."
A wry, bitter grin. "That didn't make much of a difference, in the end."
Something snapped – Blake felt his hands spasm slightly, cramped from their ever tightening hold on Cam's shoulders even as he shoved him back against the front of the house with a thud.
"Sky has us, Cam. He has me, he has Tori, even Shane and Dustin, for God's sakes, and he'll have his team! He's got you. He's got a father, who is alive, who is here, who gives a damn about him."
"He doesn't have Hunter," Cam said softly, and the fury drained from Blake and left his hands trembling more than ever with the unspoken words.
"I know." Blake ran a hand through his hair uneasily, trying to quell the shudders. "He's Hunter's all the way, whether he knows it or not. Straight down to the pigheadedness."
Cam snorted; Blake leveled a glare at him as he settled for shoving his hands into his pockets. "He's yours, too, Cam."
"Now I know you've lost it. Again."
"Bro, I'm serious. We of all people know blood doesn't matter." A pause. "He's lucky to have you."
Silence. A flicker of eyes over the rubber on the pavement. "I can't lose him. Not again."
Blake looked at Cam; the set of his jaw and his stance echoed his older brother's remarkably, so much it ached in his chest. He thought of Sky, with the same pride, the same reckless abandon – but he wasn't Hunter.
"We won't," he said aloud, and he wondered at the confidence that was woven into his hollow words.
a/n: part of a universe i have cooked up in my head, don't know if i'll write more, but it's an idea i've been toying around with for awhile. never written pr fanfic before this and i haven't watched ninja storm in ages, so apologies - part of cam being ooc is partly because of my own inexperience, and also because the cam here is somewhat more bitter from what's happened.