Any Moment Chapter 37: Facade, a power rangers fanfic

Chapter 37

Facade

I don't own Jekyll and Hyde, and I definitely don't own David Hasselhoff. Nor do I want to.

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Alright, he was angry. Shane could admit that; hell they were all pretty angry. Blake looked like he was pretty much two levels of affronted above everyone else present (with the exclusion of Cam, the real Cam that is, but Shane would get back to that later) and Hunter was doing that thing were he was simmering with rage but was only allowing just a little bit to seep through, like a terrifying taste of the untapped fury that was boiling beneath the surface.

And Shane was mad, but he had switched targets from what he was mad about three seconds ago and had shifted from a nicely conjured-up fury into a more irksome, perturbed state and the sudden change wasn't really doing his nerves justice.

Still, freaking clones.

He should've seen this crap coming, he really should have. If Lothor's monster were liable to listen (because she was probably just around the corner) he would've called for a time out so he could go and smash his head against the wall a couple of times at the utter stupidity of it all. By the time that urge had passed and explanations were handed out, Shane had discovered that yeah, he was still angry because it really was Cam's fault. This had been major ball dropage, not a mild fumble, but complete and total "I lost the ball in an alternate deminsion, oops!" kind of lapse of judgment/blatant failure that was going to give them all stomach ulcers one day.

When this was over he was going down to Ninja Ops and doing a thorough sweep to remove all alcoholic beverages or any other questionable products because there was no way in hell Cam came up with this idea sober.

It was just too…

Shane didn't even bother contemplating the possibility that he had, because seriously, his brain, kind've crying right now.

And he had really wanted this to be Lothor's fault, because if it was Lothor's fault he could clap Blake on the back and let him really cut loose and they could all joke about it later but no, Cam had simply lost control (How did that even happen? And how had the apocalypse not started because of it?) of his cyber duplicate (And why the hell did he make a copy of himself? He couldn't make someone up to prevent these kind of shenanigans from happening? No one would have cared if Sally Madeupname started running amuck. He had practically invited fate to smack them around a bit).

So, quick recap of the ten seconds ago, everyone was mad at Cam. Now, a quick recap of three seconds ago, and everyone was still mad at Cam.

You had to be a certain kind of special to manage to pull that off, you really did.

It was unanimously decided in the very brief silent ninja-eye communication that they would all rag on Cam for this later (thoroughly), after the day had been saved and they retrieved their damsels and everyone could go home happy, except Cam, because he was going to be put in the metaphorical time out. There were other angry rants to be thought out, other flaws and maws and "oh-my-gods" to be had but the perfume lady showed back up and they were in charge of saving the world so they begrudgingly went back to doing that.

But Cam was still stupid.

…even if he technically wasn't.

That should be far less infuriating than it actually was.

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There was nothing quite like being the undisputed object of group resentment. There was no rehearsal to the simultaneous looks of disfavor, and were it not aimed at him, Cam would have applauded Shane, Hunter, and Blake's dedication to expressing their displeasure. Pointing out that their attempts would forever pale in comparison to his own self loathing would only serve to antagonize them further; and while he was one for efficient living, he figured he could allow this exercise in excessive emoting. At least as excessive as they were willing to be without someone dying, which to the untrained eye didn't vastly differ from their usual, in Dustin terms, "angry faces."

Said yellow ranger and Tori were much more forgiving than the others, choosing to find humor in his experiment-gone-astray instead of anger. While they had yet to fill him in on the exact details of Cyber Cam's performance he had a distinct feeling he was, how do you say it, a bit of a tool. That was if Dustin's timid yet persistent clinging was any indication. Once his boyfriend discovered he would not turn him away (On discovering Cyber Cam's reluctance at intimate interaction Cam was both grateful and infuriated, more for the effects than the actual action) Dustin had perked up immediately, defending his intentions and shooting threatening glances in Blake's direction clearly expressing his disapproval for harm coming in Cam's direction which was…quite a nice change, compared to the rest of the day.

Cam had almost forgotten to look sorry after that, slipping on a humble mask when the threats of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

It couldn't be helped, Dustin simply made things better.

Tori had a handle on Blake and she guided him out the door, promising a quiet evening alone and successfully taking care of the greatest of the offended parties. Luckily by this point Shane and Hunter had sensed that further criticism would be a waste as Cam's focus had come and gone. Eventually they made their exit as well, Shane sending him one final glance over his shoulder as they leave.

There was something hidden there, something that Cam would probably never be able to discern, and his stomach dropped out for a second, the haze of Dustin momentarily drowned out in a second of unrestrained clarity. In that second the world was simply what it was, no romantic euphoria, no stress from before or after, it was simply cold, reality, everything just existing.

Shane looked away and the moment ended, and Cam forced Dustin back into his world.

Bright, glowing, wonderful Dustin.

-:-:-:-:-:-

As far as days went that one had been a long one, and despite the fact they hadn't actually done that much fighting Shane was glad for it to be over. In fact he had been so relieved to have finally discovered the atrocity that had been the motivation for the majority of the unrest in his team that he had gladly accepted Hunter's invitation for pizza over at his place which…should have seemed a lot weirder than it was, but he was never one to deny pizza and he could really use the distraction.

From the judging look Hunter spared them all before making his offer, eyes locked hard on his, Shane was willing to bet this was his reasoning behind as well. It wasn't until later, when they had actually gotten settled in (alone because Blake was re-pledging his love to Tori over a "celebratory" dinner that was repeatedly denied as a date that was totally a date) that Shane began to question his choice of action. He had no read on Hunter, who was occupied by scouring the kitchen for clean drinking glasses. But if the familiar sag of his shoulders was anything to go by Shane would say that he was about as relaxed as the crimson ranger ever allowed himself to be. The tan teen took a page from his book and sagged into the ratted couch, boneless, pushing away his worries for now.

After all, they would still be there later.

When he opened his eyes again Hunter was putting down two of his successfully acquired cups brimming with soda, they thudded against the cheap coffee table with practiced carelessness. The foam tilted precariously but sloshed back in before it could spill over the edge, and left the top murky but the sides clean. If Shane wasn't so tired he would have nagged Hunter about how perfectly he managed his attempts at being casual, but his head hurt so instead he just sent the blond an appreciative look because he knew that the other had probably practiced something as small as almost spilling drinks for an unnecessarily long amount of time and someone should acknowledge it.

Or maybe he was just getting paranoid.

Doubtful.

Hunter ignored his courtesy because he was Hunter, and Shane just sighed and reached for his glass, careful not to jar the cheap plastic. The crimson ranger followed in suit, though the relaxed air was kind of ruined by his undisguised staring as he took a sip of his own drink, thoroughly examining all that was Shane over the lip of his glass.

So much for this being purely a distraction.

Hunter was completely unapologetic when Shane finally met his inquisitive gaze; like the red ranger was aware he had other motives for this little rendezvous and he respected Shane too much to try and put up a front that said otherwise which was…refreshing. He had to take a moment to appreciate the honesty that was being shown here, though things like "Hunter" and "honesty" and "nice" weren't something he had ever come to expect to come together in his mind, but there it was.

"So," Hunter began when it became obvious that Shane's not in a particularly chatty mood, "Are we going to talk about this or what?"

He tilted his head innocently and the red ranger took a moment to hate him for the lack of specifics. Or maybe it was because of the lack of necessity for being specific because Shane was completely aware of what he was referring to, he just didn't want to talk about it.

Shane frowned and made a disinterested noise into his drink, using it as a distraction until he could think of a polite way to tell Hunter to shove it. Just because they'd been hanging out for a couple of days didn't give him personal access to all of Shane's inner workings. He was not going to allow this to turn this into some sort of feeling fest so Hunter could psychoanalyze him for "the good of the team".

He could forget it.

Shane promised this to himself a few extra times just for good measure before he glanced back over in the blond's direction, though it turned out he must not have been that subtle with what was running through his mind because it looked like super-crying- heart-to-heart was the last thing Hunter wanted to do either.

He let out a laugh before he could think too hard about it and Hunter glared at him in retaliation, looking refreshingly awkward as his fingers tap against the edge of his cup. It could be an act, but by this point in their relationship Shane was going to give Hunter the benefit of the doubt because you could only save a guys life so many times before the whole "suspicion of screwing someone over for personal amusement" became out of line. Strangely enough, Hunter was legitimately trying to be helpful. He saw a problem and was trying to address it before things got out of hand (as they tended to do when it came to their team, because they were just especially incompetent like that).

Granted, it wasn't in an area he was really comfortable with, but he was trying.

Shane didn't know whether he should be disturbed that his state of being seemed so dire that Hunter felt the need to have a heart-to-heart or if he should be touched, so he tried for a medium ground that allowed him to accept Hunter's…care but still play on the defensive because…

Eh, old habits die hard.

"There's nothing to talk about." Which wasn't going to serve as a very strong point in the argument so he decided to compromise and go with, "I'm fine."

Because he was totally fine. See, this was his "fine" face. It may look a lot like his regular brooding face but it was completely different because he was fine therefore he could only have a "fine" face on and-

Hunter raised a single eyebrow at him, a look that completely called him out on his bull and Shane averted his eyes for a moment so he could focus intently on not-squirming.

"I do believe your pants are on fire," the blond murmured, joke enough of a deviation from his normal behavior that Shane looked back again, pondering the possibilities of a second cyber duplicate. Hunter had enough decency to feel embarrassed by his awful ploy as well and he distracted himself with a sip of his drink, tips of his ears burning. And Shane did not stare at them until Hunter snapped his head back in his direction, annoyed by all the not-staring he was doing.

It was almost like backwards-land.

It was his turn to look abashed and he gingerly coughed into his hand, scrambling for a comeback.

"What are you five?"

He felt the retaliation because he was still not looking Hunter's way, and a crumpled up napkin bounced off the side of his head. By the time he looked up Hunter was back to looking completely innocent, if mildly peeved.

"Cam," Hunter explained, impatient with Shane's stonewalling and the red ranger went still, focusing on the back of his hand. "Dustin freaking out I understand, but you were-"

Shane cut him off before he could get too deep into what was clearly none of his business. "I'm the leader-"

And Hunter picked up the slack, cutting in gracefully. "You were way past a leader's concern-"

Shane didn't want to hear this; he shouldn't have to explain this. "He's my friend-"

More disbelieving looks, a quick shake of the head. "Yeah, you were past 'friend' angsting too."

"Says you," Shane spat, all that anger dragging itself back up to the surface.

Why did he agree to come here?

Hunter looked as peeved as he was, frustrated by the lack of feeling pouring out of Shane's heart.

"You can lie to them if you want," he whispered, venom in his tone, "but you and I both know-"

"So you get to call the shots now?" Shane barked back, rising to his feet and he really should stop and get a hold of himself, he really should focus but it was just so nice not to keep it bottled in all the time.

The crimson ranger changed to higher ground as soon as he did, never allowing them to break eye contact. "What the hell is your problem?"

And that was the million dollar question wasn't it? That was the big one, the jackpot, the grand key in unlocking all the anger that was Shane and the words spill out before he could even think of how to properly express them, tumbling down in an unorganized mob of chaos.

"I couldn't do anything!" He finally yelled, fists clenched so tightly into his sides that it hurt. "And it's not that I couldn't foresee this happening or that I couldn't stop Dustin and Tori from getting kidnapped. It's that I finally thought Cam and I were family and he threw it all away! And now he won't even talk to me or ask for help or whatever the hell Cam would ever need and then things like this happen and I can't just reach out and talk to him because apparently that's not allowed anymore!"

He gulped a few quick breaths and shook his head angrily, turning back to Hunter with bright eyes.

"All I would have needed to do was talk to that stupid replicant for like five seconds, max, and I would have known it wasn't him. But all I could do was sit back and think that maybe this was just some crisis he was having, and that Dustin would have to help him through it and…" he fumbled, suddenly spent and out of words and he looked at Hunter desperately to see if the blond could make any sense of it.

And then he had to snicker, because the look on Hunter's face was highly reminiscent of someone getting an icy bucket of water dumped on them, sudden and unexpected and a little bit confused.

Shane was tired enough to admit that it was a little endearing.

The snicker turned into a laugh which earned him a full fledged glare, and Shane plopped himself back down on the couch, more relaxed than he had been in days. Sure, he could look at this as a horrific mistake because never in a million years had he suspected that he would be unloading onto Hunter of all people, but he felt strangely safe.

Even, dare he say, at home.

If it was backwards land, it wasn't that bad a place to be.

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In retrospect the whole new-Cam-not-being-old-Cam thing kind've made a lot of sense. In fact, given the way things usually go with them (and the fact that he was evil alien perfume only about an hour ago could only support this) Dustin probably should have assumed that new Cam was really an out of control cyber duplicate that was grasping to freedom with its last dying breath. His death, in this case, being his pre-reprogrammed state. Turned out once real Cam got his hands free his cyber alter-ego never stood a chance and was immediately sent back to Ninja Ops for a serious overhaul.

The world thanked him for this service.

Dustin really couldn't find it in him to be unhappy when it was all was said and done. Maybe he should be, because it wasn't all that long ago the world was an incredibly unpleasant place in Dustin-land but he just…he was happy he had real Cam back. Real Cam who still liked him and held his hand and was lovably dorky and didn't say "dude" unless he was using it to verbally smack down Hunter and wore terrible Hawaiian shirts (at least the few that said crimson ranger hadn't stolen) and most importantly really, really, really liked Dustin.

And Dustin really, really liked him back.

Ergo, no more sadness.

And maybe that was the wrong way to go about things, because all those doubts and bad feelings did stir up from somewhere but the fact was it wasn't because of his Cam. All Dustin had was the team and Sensei and Liv, and he didn't bother himself with technicalities or unnecessary emotional baggage because life was short and being alone was worse. Besides, everything Cyber Cam made him feel was…what Cyber Cam made him feel. What was the point of worrying over that? Like, if Dustin was walking down the street and some homeless person yelled out some disparaging comment about he and Cam's relationship Dustin wouldn't sweat it, because he was a homeless person and not Cam and he was the only one who really mattered at the end of the day.

Which wasn't how other people operate, but Dustin was far too special to function like "normal" people who probably grew up coloring inside the lines, so he was cool with it.

In fact, he was cool with it after seeing Cyber Cam up in running after the mission debrief, and he was cool with it when Cam totally started making up for whatever he missed (completely earning his genius stripes when he figured by all their unhappy faces that no goodness came of evil Cyber Cam) with epic snuggling, and he was cool with it when epic snuggling grew a little more heated into the really good kind of snuggling.

And then Dustin had to go and think that the evening couldn't get much better than this and just invited the universe to seek him out and spit in his face.

And there was no good way to spit in someone's face.

There was only awful spitting, and ah-my-face-my-face-my-face spitting, and as far as metaphors go, this was the latter.

Because while Dustin was expecting a lot of things (most of which had to do with Cam losing his shirt…okay, all of them had to do with Cam losing his shirt), the sprinkler system turning on and unleashing a torrential downpour of liquid hatred was not one of them and after that Dustin was decidedly not cool.

Maybe it was because he had been using his new relationship with Cam to get out of "attack fear" duty with Tori, or maybe it was because it was such a surprise, or maybe he was just regressing, but the suddenness of being pulled from absolute paradise to immense watery misery threw Dustin back into a place he had not wanted to go. It had to be the surprise thing, or the amount, because he wasn't afraid of showers, but now there was water everywhere and it was freaking cold and his clothes were soaked and he couldn't breathe-hecouldn'tbreathe-hecouldn'tbreathe-and-

It shut off almost as quickly as it started, and Cam was already across the room grumbling something about "last acts of rebellion" and swearing to figuratively lobotomize Cyber Cam so stuff like this couldn't happen anymore. Dustin could only lay on the now-soaked bed feeling slightly paralyzed and try to remind himself how to breathe. It was just as difficult as it usually was, after this happened, and his heart was pounding so loudly that he could barely hear Cam's muttering, let alone register it, but he thought Cam might have mentioned something about this happening earlier when he tried to escape and that he was really glad he waterproofed everything and Dustin could only stare numbly in shock and wait for his heart to slow down before it decided to explode.

He managed to get out that first, difficult gulp of air, and it was all gaspy and how he imagined a fish would sound or maybe he only thinks that because he was sputtering like a fish or maybe that was the wrong species or turn-of-phrase entirely. Of course that would be when Cam chose to finally look over his shoulder, probably to joke about something in that quiet humor only Dustin got to see and he hated himself even more because he loved those moments and now he had to ruin it by looking like he was just electrocuted or something.

Which, incidentally, was what started this whole mess in the first place.

Cam was by him in a flash, or a jiffy, or a jiffified flash and he immediately wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close and Dustin took another shuddering breath, curling in towards his warmth. He listened quietly to the soft thud-thud of Cam's heart and latched onto the rhythm, slowing down and using Cam to anchor himself back to…himself, he guessed.

Even if he wasn't the biggest fan of himself right now.

They stayed like that for a long time, or what at least felt like a long time, and Dustin sucked in as many of those precious seconds of that calm as he could because a storm was a-brewing and he knew this was going to come back to bite badly, and for once that day he really, really hated Cyber Cam with every fiber of his being.

Despite the fact that he had entirely, unarguably brought this on himself.

His breathing came back in shaky gulps, the air deciding that it could finally play nice again and he pleasantly tried to distract himself from his self-inflicted crises by imagining the air as a giant stuffed teddy bear that was willing to give him some giant teddy bear huggin' love. It was a nice idea, but it didn't really work because he was still painfully aware of every single drop of water that trailed across his skin, taunting his inability to act like a freaking ranger.

There was this distinct silence that filled the room once he regained what little control he normally had, and he kept his eyes glued to his lap, knowing that the time he feared most had finally arrived.

He had put it off long enough; it was time to face the music.

-:-:-:-:-:-

Endnotes:

Looks like our very first cliffhanger ladies and gentlemen! At least, if memory serves me right.

Unfortunately I will not be able to update for at least two months because of my scholastic obligations. You have my most sincere apologies.

…

Just kidding.

In unrelated news I'm thinking about changing this from a Cam/Dustin/Shane story to a Cam/Dustin, Shane/Hunter story.

…I know, I know, stop throwing things at me! This is something that's been bugging me for awhile, or at least since chapter 16, when I realized that Hunter's not as deliciously hateable as he once was. When I began the story I didn't care for him (blasphemy, I know) but now he's grown on me. As you can see, I have already changed the character filters to be truer to the story. I tried guys, I honestly did, but I can only ignore the story's demands for so long before things start getting forced and quality goes down. I'm sorry for false advertising. I know I hate it when author's change their mind after promising one thing and I tried to make it work and while a threesome is doable, a foursome is probably pushing it.

Moral of the story is, go with your gut.

That doesn't mean I'm not resolving the whole Cam/Shane business I've managed to stir up, I'm just not going to delve deeply into it.

For those of you who are still reading, let's get on to the chapter!

My sister is actually the one suggest the title of this chapter, (and delayed its posting by one day by not being home to beta, how dare she have a life) pointing out that both Shane and Dustin were putting up a front when clearly, all was not well.

I think it works.

As always, a great many thanks to my reviewers! RAWR, I hope a little bit of cliffhanger is enough to drag you back in! More exclamation marks and hearts your way! ValkyrieNyght, thank you for your numerous and supremely effective kicks in the pants, you seem to always know when I'm starting to get a little far off the path and seem more then willing to set me back on track. You to Rogue, I already changed the summary. Thanks for helping me worth through my inner-blonde.

That's all for now folks.

Until next time.