Chapter 2

Missed Opportunities - Damon

Warnings – References to boy/boy relations, PTSD, low self-esteem, adult language, and general angstiness.

This chapter references Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, which is a remarkably underrated power ranger season, at least concept-wise. My interpretation of the characters is not entirely close to canon (specifically, Kai), but it does fit into the 'Any Moment' verse.

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The thing was – Damon didn't really hate Kai.

There just didn't ever feel like there could be any justification for it. Mostly, because when Kai had burst into Damon's safe little world of maintenance and engineering upkeep it had been with stubborn eyes and minimal conversation, devoid any kind of humanizing appeal save for the misplaced but, again, stubborn insistence of throwing himself into something he was entirely unqualified to do.

Kai had been a hurricane of determination, shattering basic societal understandings with pure want and, in the beginning, Damon hadn't liked him all that much. First impressions, and all that.

Kai's first impression left him as gruff and stoic with a hefty side dish of regular ole' crazy – and Damon, had he no soft spot for misunderstood underdogs – would have ignored him on any other day. The entire concept of enabling someone to actually use the Astro Megaship was grossly irresponsible, not to mention a very fine way to earn himself a court-martialing at the beginning of their one-way ticket into the vast unknown. It was insane, for lack of a better word. Just because the Megaship had been a recent addition to Terra Venture didn't mean it was still safe for deep space flight, they had turned it into a museum for Christ's sake. A museum.

Damon didn't know what possessed him to take pity on Kai, except maybe the random urge that this…tragically broken person probably had enough terrible shit happen to them in life and, he didn't know, maybe flying off to places unknown would somehow make him less broken. Or something. Damon hadn't really followed the logic, but there had been a lot of pity involved, along with a hefty desperation to take the Megaship out on a test run himself. If the thing was leaving dock anyway, Damon might as well be behind the wheel, so to speak.

Not that he was sure Kai could have even gotten the thing flying on his own, but Kai was…well, he was stubborn. Even though Damon hadn't really known him, he could guess by the other man's disposition that he would have probably kept flipping switches and levers until something happened. Really, Damon's actions had been the best option for everyone involved, including the structural integrity of the Astro Megaship.

So Damon met Kai, and he didn't exactly hate him, but he didn't exactly like him (because there hadn't been much there to like, as ashamed as Damon was to think it, just curt discipline and a gaze that wouldn't quite meet your own). They flew into space and somehow became power rangers power rangers, Damon still couldn't believe they were real – he had been an east coast boy, born and raised, and it was still hard to wrap his mind around it) and the shock and awe of that kind of clouded everything over for a little while.

When the dust settled, a man was dead, and Kai (gruff, dangerous Kai) looked even more lost in the new suit he wore – not shocked and not scared but just…wandering.

Damon didn't waste much more time on him though, because there were three other people he hadn't met, three other rangers, and one of them-

One of them was Leo.

It took a few days for things to settle down, after that. Living quarters changed, Damon and Kai weren't court-martialed, and Leo…

Leo mourned.

The dead man had been his brother, Mike.

Damon didn't expect the red ranger to bounce back quickly from that loss, but he did – somehow – whether it was because he was a ranger now or if it was because he was pushing the pain away by ignoring it or some other kind of unhealthy coping mechanism, Damon didn't know, but it happened. Whether it was the real Leo or a fake Leo, Damon would never be sure. The only thing he knew was this:

Damon liked Leo.

He liked him a lot. And if his subconscious had anything to say about it (which it did, frequently, resulting in many awkward mornings where Damon either had to sneak into the shower before the other two woke up or try to talk down his morning wood with the most viscous memories he could dig up), Damon had been pretty much devoted to Leo since the first time he smiled Damon's way, since they shared their first 'hot damn, we are really rangers now, how the hell did we become rangers?' conversation, because he really, really wasn't alone.

Damon wasn't sure how anyone could dislike Leo, because the guy was gregarious, loud and cheerful and just- outrageously kind. He kept the team's spirits up when they wavered, encouraged Damon and Kendrix during their combat training (Kendrix, the fellow scientist and genius of the team, Kendrix, who started off just as disadvantaged as Damon), he kept them together when they were falling apart, even when himself had no idea what was going on. When he himself had no idea what he was doing as a ranger, and didn't know the rules or the guidelines. Hell, he hadn't even been the original recipient of the red Quasar Saber, but he carried it anyway with pride. For Mike, for Terra Venture.

It would have been difficult not to like Leo, which was why Damon had never put forth the effort.

There were times when he wished he had, but those were times built up from bitterness, times that were immediately squashed by shame and gratitude that Leo had been there at all, Damon knowing his life was better off because of it.

The thing was, Damon had gotten shoved far into the friend zone early on.

He hadn't minded, of course, because in the beginning his attraction had been a small thing, and he had been just as overwhelmed with their situation as Leo. They had ranger duties on top of their delegated tasks for Terra Venture, and Leo had lost his only remaining family member on top of that. Had Damon been in any kind of a position to make a move on Leo (as though he had moves, damn it, Damon was a nerd whose greatest school ambitions had been science fairs and engineering internships, he had no game) he never would have attempted it, out of respect for the other man's period of mourning. Leo may have shown it less and less after the initial days of Mike's passing, but Damon knew that was a thing that lingered, knew it in the sad looks Maya sometimes aimed at the red ranger's back when the wasn't looking, knew it the same way his own heart ached with the loss of his mother, the only blood relative he had left tethering him to Earth.

There were a lot of different reasons people signed up for the Terra Venture Initiative, and while they may not have a great deal in common, having little to no family to leave behind was a recurring theme among recruits.

Damon had handled Leo the only way he could in the early days, with easy comradery and respectful distance, eager to learn and grow and befriend this man he met on a distant world, the one crazy enough to sneak aboard a space shuttle, who fought pickpockets off of little old ladies and misplaced their passports.

It had…it had seemed fair.

Were it not for Kai, it might have been.

Because Kai – Kai wasn't Leo in any kind of regard. Kai carried himself as a soldier dedicated to his duty and nothing else, his countenance one of continual sorrow and reserve - always gruff, isolated, and defensive.

It was the attitude of a man who had seen some real shit, and it reminded Damon too much of his late grandfather, an injured veteran from the war, rife with 'shellshock'. They called it PTSD now, and maybe Kai had it, though his skittishness seemed to be forcibly controlled, his paranoia quiet and calculating.

Damon had no idea how long it took Kai to trust them. Hell, they beat Trakeena and he still wasn't sure if Kai trusted them, only that he deemed to work with them for the greater good.

It was true he never really had an understanding of Kai, or even a guess on the past the blue ranger never spoke about (what he offered them was a lie, Damon knew that much – Mike too, when he came back, when the world turned itself on its head).

Aside from working together to stay alive though, Damon didn't really have a need to talk to Kai.

But Leo did.

He was the team's red ranger, the leader, the one responsible for all of them. That included Kai, as little as the blue ranger seemed to need them. Kai never appeared to falter in battle, never seemed to weaken or doubt or fear, it was there he seemed the most complete. Damon wasn't sure what that said about him, only knew that outside of combat, Kai was just…barely there.

So naturally, Leo had to talk to him. A lot. There had to be a connection, there, Kai had to be in sync with the rest of them and he had to know they had his back (because Leo was kind, kind and caring and good) and Leo was stubborn, just as stubborn as Kai was the day he had stormed the Astro Megaship, demanding a trip into space.

Damon never saw it coming, but he should have, based on how blasé Leo had been about mourning Mike. Kai was a puzzle wrapped in an enigma, and what better way could you really ignore something - push something away - then to challenge something so completely different and unfathomable that you didn't have time to dwell on it at all? Kai was everything Leo needed to move on with his life, Kai was- maybe Kai was a good guy. Maybe the blue ranger was all that and decent, maybe he was broken and different and shy, and Leo was the only one with the real motivation to fight through the mystery to see it.

And the thing was, Kai was nice.

It was hard to tell, because the Ensign was so tentative to act on it, as though he were unpracticed or, afraid even, of failure, but Kai was unquestionably kind. In his own, subdued way, Kai cared for them (though it almost seemed like a struggle, like something he had not allowed himself in a long time). Kai fought for them, protected them. He trained them in a harsh way that feared for their destruction, was rigorous and tough to counter Leo's gentler approach, needing for them to perform their forms correctly, needing them to be ready.

Damon supposed the fact that the man had been willing to pilot a ship he had no knowledge of to fly across the galaxy should have more than spoken for his character, but Damon had been distracted by his sheer…Kai-ness.

Watching Kai and Leo fall for each was an exercise in holding his breath, Damon's chest slowly crushed in a hallowed, aching vice, insistent and burning and oh, so slow.

Damon didn't hate Kai for being the spark Leo needed to be himself again, because that wasn't his fault. And, it became pretty clear later down the line that the blue ranger had enough unfounded self-loathing to fill up the universe's quotient and then some, there didn't seem much point in Damon adding to the pile, not when he liked the blue ranger himself.

He could never, never begrudge Leo his happiness (even if Damon wished it was he that could inspire those grins, who could appreciate those inside jokes and bright eyes and that unmitigated joy firsthand), and he couldn't resent Kai just the same. Not when he approached it with such hesitant gait, as though fearing it would be stolen away at the last second, or worse, that it had never been real in the first place.

These things, Damon could not hate. They were his friends; he wanted them to be happy, to be whole.

It didn't stop himself from cursing his early inaction though – if he had just made his intentions clearer, if he had just tried, then maybe-

Maybe he could have had something. Maybe they all could have had something. If he had given Kai more of a chance. If he had been as open as Leo.

Maybe, but it didn't matter anymore, Damon had missed his shot. He wasn't going to break the delicate balance they had created for themselves just because of his own feelings.

He loved them too much to ever try.

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Endnotes:

I think I first heard the idea of Kai/Damon from PunkPinkPower, and it took me awhile to come around to the idea. Mostly, I think it was because I didn't truly appreciate Damon's character (that guy is awesome, no doubt, he is the pseudo-ironman of team Lost Galaxy). The idea of Damon/Leo, however, has been one I've held onto for a long time. They just fit together, as two outgoing, kind gentlemen. It didn't work out in this universe (as demonstrated in 'Filled With Good Works'), but I thought Damon deserved a moment of attention.

Thanks to Kei for the lovely review, even though you essentially guessed the plot of this chapter. Curse your foresight on the angst-train, but thanks for riding it anyway :D

Until next time :)