Disclaimer: Anything mentioned herein, I do not own.
AN: I upped the rating for this, based on the alcohol factor and mild language. I should state right now that the characters are well over the legal age in this. This was just a little ficlet I felt inspired to do.
"C'mon," Kimberly said. "Do it."
"Yeah, do it, man," Tommy said, grinning widely and taking another swig from his bottle. He clapped Rocky on the shoulder. "You know you want to."
"I know I really don't want to," Rocky said, glancing to his left with pure apprehension in his eyes. "Why can't you do it?"
"He's already done it," Kimberly said, popping a peanut in her mouth. "Last month sometime."
Rocky cocked an eyebrow skeptically. "Somehow I doubt that."
"Have some faith, Rocky. I saw it; it was hideous," Adam said.
"How come you don't go do it?" Rocky said.
"He's been, too. We all have. Just suck it up, Rocky," Aisha said, rolling her eyes good-naturedly, and giving him a tiny shove. Rocky sighed, took a long drink to fortify himself, and then jogged the few feet, up the steps, and onto the platform. He surveyed his monitor for a moment, before selecting a button to push. A guitar riff came over the speakers, and Rocky picked up the microphone.
"Giiiiirl, you really got me going, you got me so I don't know what I'm doing. Yeeeah, you really got me now, you got me so I can't sleep at night…"
Rocky's table burst into laughter. Kimberly and Aisha were leaning against each other for support, giggling wildly. Adam tipped the mouth of his beer bottle in Rocky's direction, a grin on his face. Tommy was beaming like a frat boy, pumping a fist in the air, and yelling, "Ha ha! Woo! Yeah, go Rock!"
"YOU REALLY GOT ME! YOU REALLY GOT ME!" Rocky belted into the microphone.
"Woo!" Kimberly yelled. "Take it off!"
"Oh, you shouldn't have done that," Adam cautioned her, shaking his head. On stage, Rocky winked and pointed at Kimberly, shrugging out of the red flannel shirt he was wearing over a white wife beater, and throwing the shirt at Kim, who accepted it with a gleeful and triumphant shout.
Rocky was just descending the stage when Billy and Jason showed up. Jason borrowed two chairs from a nearby table with a casual grin and a wink at its female occupants.
"What'd we miss?" Jason asked as the two men sat down.
"Well it would seem that our Rocky here is very hesitant about performing on stage," Kimberly said, "but is not opposed to taking his clothes off." She pointed at the flannel shirt she had draped over the back of her chair, nodding proudly.
"He would've kept going, too," Adam said.
"Not if you hadn't yelled 'put it back on,'" Aisha said, laughing.
Everyone else laughed, too. "So what did the newbie sing?" Billy asked, signaling for the waitress.
"Kinks," Tommy said.
"You let him choose it?" Jason said. "Are you kidding me? For my initiation, they made me do 'Lady Marmalade,'" he informed Rocky, starting off a new bout of laughter.
"Can we get another round of beers?" Tommy said when the waitress came.
"None for me, thanks," Adam said.
"Adam, you don't have to play the DD tonight," Aisha said, who'd been slugging Sprite all night. "I already said I'd do it if you wanted to relax."
"Better err on the side of caution," Adam said. "Just a Coke, thanks," he said to the waitress, who nodded and headed off.
"You've got to learn to relax more," Rocky said authoritatively.
"Says the guy who nearly crapped himself when he found out we were going to make him karaoke," Tommy said. "C'mon, man, at least Adam had the balls to go up and do it without complaining."
"Took his suffering like a man," Jason said, thinking back fondly to Adam's pained-yet-poignant rendition of Mister Mister's "Broken Wings".
"So that's it then, isn't it?" Billy said. "We've all gone."
"Yup," Aisha said. "I feel like a member of a cult now or something."
"Not a cool cult," Jason said.
"No. A stupid-ass cult, filled with lamers."
"You know what I want?" Tommy said suddenly.
"Not another round already," Jason said as the waitress appeared with a tray.
"No," Tommy said, taking his new beer, and reaching across the table to toast Jason's bottle. "What I want…is Power Rangers action figures."
His friends stared at him as though he'd lost his mind. "You're kidding, right?" Kimberly said.
"Do we get paid if they make those?" Rocky said thoughtfully.
"You can probably get some on the black market," Billy said.
"Seriously, we should get, like, likeness rights or something," Rocky said. Adam gave his friend's arm a light punch. "Hey, could you keep it down? I'm pretty sure the whole 'secret identity' policy extends to ex-Rangers."
"He's right, man," Jason said, saving Rocky from having to announce yet again that Adam was too uptight. Not that Adam particularly minded Rocky's accusations. They had been coming for years, and there was a grain of truth in them. Adam above all knew his own character attributes, knew that he was a overly straitlaced at times, but it wasn't anything that bothered him, and he knew it didn't really bother his friends, either.
"Come on though, guys, wouldn't that be the coolest thing in the world?" Tommy went on, a childlike glint of excitement in his eyes. "Getting to play with a little version of yourself."
"So you want an overly muscled, plastic Mini-Me, am I right?" Aisha said.
"Something to that affect."
"Wouldn't it be better to just have a real miniature clone?" Kimberly mused. "I mean, then it would be like having a pet and a maid, all rolled into one."
"I'd want mine to cook," Rocky said.
"No arguments there," Jason said.
And as the night wore on, though it was hard to believe such a thing was possible, the group just got sillier. It was due in part to the alcohol consumption, sure, but it had more to do with the camaraderie of the group. They'd been through a lot together, and it left them with a different outlook on life that they could never get by hanging with another group of friends. Past aside, though, they all honestly liked each other.
Tommy had fallen asleep on the table, using his folded arms as a pillow. He hadn't drunk enough to have passed out, and they knew that he'd been working hard during the week without much sleep. They tried to keep their voices down, but the hushed whispers amused them so greatly that they laughed louder than they had the rest of the evening.
"Hey, guys, check this out," Rocky said. He leaned over so that his mouth was several inches away from Tommy's ear, and exactly mimicked the communicator beep that they all knew so well. The dead-on impression was enough to set the group into another round of muffled laughter, but Tommy bolted upright, still half-asleep, held his wrist to his mouth and said, "This is Tommy, Zordon. Go ahead."
The table exploded. Aisha was shrieking with laughter, Kimberly was crying, Jason was pounding his fist against the table, Billy was leaning back in his seat and shaking with silent laughter. Tommy's eyes became clear and lucid as he realized what was going on. Even so, Rocky felt the need to point out, "Dude, you're talking into a freckle." Tommy's wrist was in fact naked. He had never worn a watch prior to, nor during, his stint in uniform, and he didn't wear one now. Although this occasion was out of respect rather than out of laziness.
"Well, now that Tommy has made an ass of himself, I think it's time we call this meeting to an end," Kimberly said, slamming her hand down on the tabletop decisively. They called for the bill, and with only minor deliberation determined everyone's individual total and paid up. Adam soon found himself in the backseat of Aisha's car. Next to him was Tommy, then Rocky. Kimberly had called shotgun, and was now sticking her head out of the open window and belting, "SHOT THROUGH THE HEART! And YOU'RE to BLAME! You give looooooooove a BAD NAME!"
"Kim's so cute when she's drunk," Tommy said fondly, leaning his head back.
"You say cute, I say insane," Aisha said. "Same diff."
"I'm a COWbooooyyyy…on a STEEEEEL horse I ride! And I'm wanted, WANTED, dead or aliiiiive!" Kimberly crooned, while the others just laughed.
"I never pegged you as a fan of the Jovi, Kim," Rocky said.
"I love Bon Jovi!" Kim said. "Especially Jon. He's so cute!"
"Whoa, there, fan girl," Aisha said, pulling up to the curb. "This is your stop, okay?"
"I know where I live, Aish," Kimberly said. "I'm happy-drunk, not so out of my mind that I don't recognize my own apartment building. But it's sweet of you to care," she said, giving Aisha a peck on the cheek. She leaned into the backseat to hand Rocky his flannel shirt, which she'd been wearing tied around her waist. "You had fun tonight, didn't you, Rocky?" she asked. "Admit it."
Rocky grinned, blushing somewhat. If anyone could do that to him, it would be Kimberly. She could do that to any one of them with ease, though it was never her intention. It was just who she was. "Yeah, it was cool," he said.
"I thought so. And Adam, don't be a stranger, my day begins when I hear your voice on my answering machine," she said, stretching out her arm and ruffling his ever-growing hair.
"Was I ever a stranger, Kim?" Adam asked rhetorically. She answered him with only an affectionate smile.
She then bestowed the last of her gifts upon them, leaning further into the backseat to give Tommy the briefest kiss, merely brushed across his lips like a breath. "Adios, lover boy," she said. "If anyone is planning on calling me tomorrow, I'd wait until sometime after noon-ish. Because I can tell you right now that I'm going to be wicked hung over."
The group murmured their agreement, chorused their goodbyes as she got out of the car, and waited to see that she got inside before Aisha pulled away, headed towards their next destination. "'Lover boy?'" Rocky said, elbowing Tommy with a smirk. "Something going on there you're not telling us, Oliver?"
"Naw," Tommy said. "Kim and I are just friends."
"Two people like you, you're never gonna be 'just friends,'" Adam observed.
"Boy's got a point, Tommy," Aisha said.
"Whatever, guys, we're not dating or anything."
"Not dating anyone else, either," Rocky said pointedly, referring to the ex-Ranger whom had gone to London, and none of them had heard from since. The topic of Katherine Hillard was a general no-no of the group. While she had parted amicably with all of them, the wake of devastation she had left behind for Tommy still left a hole in him, that even the recent resurgence of his other friends to Angel Grove couldn't entirely fill.
Tommy, one of the best fighters among them, incredibly personable, sweet and nice, intelligent, a stupendous and dependable leader. But he'd been burned badly twice now, by girls he'd really loved, but who had sought better lives away from Angel Grove, the only true home Tommy had ever known. The last time he had seen Kimberly was briefly for the tournament, the same time the team had received the Turbo powers. But she'd turned evil, and even though briefly, and though it wasn't her fault, it had been too much for Tommy to handle, what with Kat's stint as Rita's puppet, not to mention his own history as the original evil Ranger. In his mind, Kimberly had always been the purest of them, and to have that illusion shattered was just too much.
When Kim had first returned to Angel Grove permanently, she'd been accepted warmly by everyone except Tommy. He'd treated her distantly, something that she'd fully anticipated, but had still been hurt by. It had been awhile before he'd allowed her into his life again, before he allowed his heart to thaw. And now it had come to the point that they were good friends again. But nothing more, as they kept insisting.
Aisha next pulled up in front of Tommy's apartment. "Well, Mr. We're-Just-Friends, looks like you're going home alone again tonight."
"Well, I dunno, little lady," Tommy drawled, deepening his voice and leaning forward to smile at their driver suggestively. "Are you doing anything tonight..?"
"Dork," Aisha laughed, pushing away his forehead with one hand. Tommy immediately slung an arm over Adam's shoulders and pulled the slightly smaller man towards him. "How about you, gorgeous?" he asked, which caused Rocky beside the pair to wheeze with laughter.
"Maybe some other time, cowboy," Adam said with a smile.
"Aw, c'mon, Adam." Tommy waggled his eyebrows drunkenly. "I can show you a good time…" he added tantalizingly.
"You'd probably pass out halfway to your room," Adam returned.
"Speaking of which," Aisha said, "think you can make it inside okay? Want an escort or something?"
"If so, take Rocky. He's the least pretty out of any of us," Adam said.
"I resent that," Rocky said.
"Why? It's true," Aisha said.
"Gotta agree with them, Rocko," Tommy said. "No thanks, man, I didn't have too much tonight, I should be fine. Catch you guys later," he said, clamoring over Rocky's lap and out of the car. Like before, they waited until he made it inside before taking off.
It was just the three of them then, the trio; Aisha, Rocky, and Adam. They'd grown up together in Stone Canyon, had been friends since elementary school. Tommy had once told Adam that Billy, Jason, and Kim had all grown up together, and had known Zack and Trini since the eighth grade, so when Tommy came to Angel Grove, the new kid in town, and though he developed a close bond with them all, he always secretly felt like an outsider.
That was something Adam could relate to. When he, Rocky, and Aisha had joined the group, the others had such a tight bond already that it felt like they didn't belong. But they had each other, always. Even when Aisha had gone to Africa, even when Adam and Rocky had split ways post-graduation, the three of them always had a bond that was untouched.
The ride passed in silence. Sometimes, you just didn't need to talk.
SONGS USED:
The Kinks - "You Really Got Me" (Rocky)
Bon Jovi - "You Give Love A Bad Name" (Kimberly)
Bon Jovi - "Wanted Dead or Alive" (Kimberly)