Title: New In Town
Author: Dingo
Disclaimer: Power Rangers do not belong to me. Right now I'm not one hundred percent positive exactly whom they do belong to, so I'll just say it's not me.
Notes: This is the beginning of the beginning of the end of the middle. I have a clear idea in mind of how to continue, but feel free to offer suggestions or constructive criticism.
Warnings: Slash, meaning male upon male relationships.
Adam sighed, running a hand through his hair. He frowned at the black ends of his fringe clasped in his fingers.
"So what's up with you, Mr Grumpy-Butt?" Rocky asked sweetly, in what could pass as either an imitation or a gentle mockery of Aisha.
"Nothing, man," Adam said, inwardly wincing as his tone was close to a growl.
Rocky dropped his pen, not caring that it was slowly rolling off Adam's bed. He crossed his arms and dropped his elbows down to his knees. "Okay, right now I don't give a damn what you say. You've been acting strange for weeks - what's wrong?"
Adam exhaled, picking up Rocky's pen for him and depositing it slowly onto his friend's notebook.
The Red Ranger simply raised an eyebrow, not letting Adam off the hook.
It took a few more moments, but Adam took a deep breath, falling back onto his bed from his cross-legged position.
"How long have we been friends?" Adam asked, staring at the roof.
Rocky shrugged. "In days, months or years?" When Adam only raised his head to give him a blank look, he grinned sheepishly, giving up the joke. "Nine years? Give or take a month or two."
"Would you hate me for something I did?"
Rocky had picked up his pen, but dropped it again when Adam's question floated over his chest to Rocky's ears. "Of course not!" Rocky exclaimed, almost before Adam had finished his question. The question sunk in slowly, and Rocky reiterated. "I would never hate you."
Adam sat up quickly, only Rocky's lightning reflexes stopping them from butting heads. They stared eye-to-eye; Rocky still slightly confused but determined, Adam with some unidentifiable emotion on his face.
"You promise?"
It was hard for Rocky to stop himself rolling his eyes. "Of course I…" He sighed in a mixture of amusement and aggravation. "I promise I will not hate you."
It was one deep breath later that Adam finally nodded his head, and closed his eyes. He hesitated, wetting his lower lip.
"I'm not…" he started. "You…" He frowned at himself, shaking his head.
"Deep breath, and blurt it out," Rocky coached in nearly a teasing tone.
"You want the long version or the short version?" Adam tried to smile, looking up at Rocky through his eyelashes.
"Try the short one first."
It was a few seconds later that Adam looked Rocky straight in the eyes, knowing that his first, true reaction would be in his eyes.
"I'm gay."
Rocky's eyes initially flashed, mostly in surprise and a little shock. "I wasn't expecting that," he managed after a couple of moments.
Adam gave a little shrug, dropping his eyes from Rocky's. "Neither was I."
Silence seemed to be the order of the day as it reigned again for a few more minutes.
'That was…unexpected,' Rocky thought to himself, repeating the same thought he'd just said out loud. It wasn't like Adam had ever been really into females. Rocky wasn't sure exactly how he felt about it. A little hurt, to be honest. If Adam had had this feeling for a while Rocky would have expected this talk some time ago. He thought they were close enough that Adam would tell him at once, as soon as he felt some stirrings like that. But the whole gay thing…that was…yeah. He was all mixed up about that.
Lost in his own thoughts, it took a while for Rocky to notice Adam staring fixedly at a non-existent spot on the blanket. He suddenly did notice, and immediately felt bad.
He stood up, and then sat down again, this time next to Adam who was still staring at the one spot. "Hey," he said quietly. "This doesn't change anything." It wouldn't, Rocky promised himself, and Adam, silently.
Adam didn't even look up. "I'm sure it won't," he muttered derisively.
Rocky smiled slightly despite himself. "Well, maybe there'll be less checking out girls in the park, at least for you. Although I suppose you can check out the guys while I check out the girls."
Adam felt a smile twinge his lips, despite his inner mix of feelings. 'But what if I don't want to check out the other guys?' Adam asked himself, as Rocky stood up and returned to his homework.
'What if I want you, Rocky?'
It had now been a week, Hunter reflected.
Seven days.
Seven long, cold days that Cam, Dustin and himself had been in Angel Grove, eight years into the past and who knows how far away. Seven days of working as much as possible at the Youth Centre, trying to earn enough money to keep on living. Cam had advised them against any kind of drastic movement away from the city, as he had guessed that there may be a slight chance of them 'rebounding' back into their own time, back to Blue Bay. Like an elastic band. Cam had made it sound a lot more complicated, though. He used a lot of bigger words too.
However Dustin was still unerringly cheerful. "I like Ernie. He's cool. Kinda reminds me of Kelly."
Hunter raised an eyebrow. "Apart from the fact that they both appear to be human…"
"Well, how many people do you know who would employ a couple of teenagers from off the streets, no references or anything? Plus, you know, he's nice."
"Kelly's only nice when you don't tick her off," Hunter protested.
Dustin sent him a look, purposefully poking out his bottom lip. "When was the last time she got ticked off at you?"
Hunter rolled his eyes, tightening his grip on Dustin's waist. "I've seen her ticked off enough to behave myself, even more around her than Sensei Watanabe."
"Why do you call him that?" Dustin asked, frowning a little. He kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk. It was night – they'd just ended working for the day, so it must have been about nine or even getting close to ten. Cam had stayed behind to help Ernie close up and order a couple more things. He'd told Hunter and Dustin to go back to the hotel – adding a wink to the comment when he said he'd be about an hour. Dustin wasn't so stupid that he didn't know what that meant.
It was Hunter's turn to send him a look. "Who what?"
"Why do you call Sensei 'Sensei Watanabe' all the time?"
Hunter frowned. "I don't know. Its just habit, I think. It was Sensei Omino at the Thunder Academy, why shouldn't it be Sensei Watanabe at home?"
A warm feeling crept through Dustin at that moment. He inched closer to Hunter, dropping his head to Hunter's shoulder and feeling the arm around his waist move to compensate for the added closeness. "Home?" he asked quietly.
It was unspoken, but Hunter still heard the note of uneasiness, a request for reassurance.
"My home is wherever you are."
Dustin smiled faintly, acknowledging Hunter's understanding of the real question. He raised his head and softly pressed a kiss to his boyfriend's cheek.
They kept walking in comfortable silence.
"We need to get Cam a girl."
"Or guy," Dustin smiled.
"Or guy," Hunter amended. He paused for a second before hesitantly asking, "But that would be kinda unlikely…ten percent of the population, and there's probably some kind of limit in a six person group." He glanced down at his boyfriend's head. "Unless you know something that I don't?"
Dustin had no chance to answer.
There was a flash of light beside them, and Hunter tensed. "Duck!"
A sword cut through the air above their heads a millisecond later.
Dustin twisted out from his crouch to kick at the knee of his attacker. He jumped back to his feet. "Whoa, dude, this dimension does not like us!" Dustin called as they were quickly separated by swarms of grey…things.
"What was your first clue?" Hunter yelled back as he narrowly avoided a jab to the midsection. He backtracked quickly into the circle of dim light provided by a streetlight. "Whoa, whoa, can't we talk about this?" Hunter asked, grabbing the streetlight behind him and launching his feet up into one face. He received another sword swing as an answer.
"Okay. Obviously not."
He ducked another wide swing before one of them jumped on his back. Hunter growled, swinging around to block a punch and in turn throw one of his own. Spinning quickly to avoid any other attempts at attacks, he choked slightly as the thing on his back decided to change from simply hitching a ride to attempting to strangle him to death.
Dustin was having an equally easy time. One lucky swipe early on had opened up a cut on his forehead – it wasn't deep, but it was stinging and bleeding enough to run into his eyes. Luckily enough, the closest thing he'd had to a specialty at the Wind Academy was blindfold combat – when he didn't have them he didn't need them. He blocked a pair of punches before falling into a roll, effectively missing a suicide dive headed towards his head and sweeping the legs of two of his attackers.
A hit to the back of his head, however, surprised him and he fell, off balance, to the dirt. More specifically, into the dirt.
Dazed, he recovered slowly in the warmth of his Earth. A slight ringing in his head was slowly dying down, and nothing could touch him here. Here, he was safe. A muffled thump, and vibrations from above, made him remember the fact that Hunter was all alone up there.
Mentally kicking himself for leaving his boyfriend up there by himself, Dustin leapt back into the fight, all the while ignoring the throbbing in his head that the movement started up. Launching one of the grey dudes into the air with the force of his jump out of the earth, he timed it perfectly and kicked the guy into the air. As he landed, however, he stumbled slightly, landing first on both feet before falling to a knee.
A hand landed on his shoulder, and he twisted away from it. Suddenly, more hands clasped his arms and shirt. Dustin looked up and saw only mechanical faces looking down on him. He tried to lunge out of their grasp, but even as he felt relief at a few hands letting go, a dozen more took their place.
"Hunter!" Dustin yelled out in a panic. "Help!"
The blond Thunder Ninja spun where he was, currently attempting to down three of the machines at once. He used one pair of shoulders to flip up and over the circle of figures surrounding him, and then used another pair nearly like stepping-stones to fly above head height to see what exactly was happening to his boyfriend. "Dustin!" he yelled. "I'm coming!"
Another hard blow to his head made Dustin see stars. He slumped, a trickle of blood still slowly seeping into his eyes. Everything slowly darkened, and Dustin knew no more.
Hunter fought on, unknowing of Dustin's physical state. "Dustin!" he yelled, managing to push a few more of those things out of the way. A brief rush of fear ran through him as Dustin was silent.
A stray hand scraped his right leg, and he stumbled.
That's all that was needed for wave upon wave of the grey things to nearly cover him completely. Hunter struggled in vain as hard, metal fingers closed around his limbs, an arm wrapping uncomfortably tight around his chest. He was lifted from the ground, and more hands grabbed his ankles.
A few more of the metal beings moved from in front of him, and Hunter stopped struggling, his blood running cold, shock rushing through his veins, and all other things in his line of sight slowed and stopped.
Dustin looked dead.