Disclaimer: Did Hunter and Dustin kiss during NS?

Author's note: I am back! Yay! And here is the next chapter! It turned out a little differently than what I had intended but I'm pleased with it! Let me know what you think!

Love is in the air
Breakdown

"Once we're inside, we're going to check the house first." Hunter said while Dustin reached for his house key. The yellow ranger nodded and slid the key in the lock. He carefully pushed the door open and they entered slowly. Hunter lowered his bag on the floor, making sure to not make a sound. Dustin quietly closed the door. They were standing in semi-darkness now. The only light coming in was the light from the street. Dustin crept up the stairs while Hunter disappeared into the living room.

Dustin felt pretty ridiculous, sneaking through his own house like this but they had to be careful. He reached the first door which was the door to his room. It was open so he walked in, making sure to check behind the door. There was no one there. He moved onto the next room which was his parents' room. The streetlights cast eerie shadows in the room and it looked as if something was moving. Dustin about got a heart attack until he realized it was the shadow of the tree outside. He shook his head and smiled. He was going crazy. He was about to move to the next room when there was a loud crash from downstairs that made Dustin jump.

"Hunter?" Dustin called out. There was no answer. "Hunter!" Dustin took the stairs down, two at the time and trying not to trip over his own feet in his hurry to get downstairs.

"Son of a …" He heard Hunter mutter.

Dustin turned on the light in the living room to find Hunter sprawled out on the floor. He'd apparently tripped over a bag Dustin had left lying around.

"Sorry about that, dude," Dustin said grinning sheepishly.

Hunter got to his feet and sent the bag a glare. He looked back over at Dustin and sighed. "Well, good news is that I doubt Ben is here and if he was, he'll be long gone by now and probably laughing his ass off."

"Yeah, so much for our sneaking, huh?"

Hunter nodded. "You should probably check to make sure everything is how you left it."

"Yeah, good idea. Grab yourself something to eat or we can order in. I'm in the mood for pizza."

"No!" Hunter reacted vehemently. "No, bad idea."

"What? You think Ben is going to poison our food, kidnap us and torture us slowly?" Dustin asked with a bit of a smile.

Hunter blushed a little, realizing he might be getting a little too paranoid now. Then again, it wasn't such a far fetched thought. He wouldn't put it past Ben to be lurking and somehow poison their pizza. Now that he was at it, Ben was probably tapping the phone too and possibly had cameras in the house. Hunter shook his head. Now he was being ridiculous. Poison wasn't Ben's thing, neither were cameras and bugs. He took one of the menu cards that Dustin gave him and stared at intently, trying to decide what they both liked.

Dustin did a quick check of the house, checking all rooms again but this time with the light on so he could see if something was missing or out of place. It all seemed fine. By the time he returned downstairs, Hunter was already sitting on the couch with a glass of coke in front of him. Next to Hunter's glass was a second glass of soda for him. Dustin grinned at the thoughtfulness and sat down next to Hunter, but not too close because he didn't think that was such a great idea.

"I ordered us a large pizza with cheese, ham, tomatoes, some other stuff I already forgot but no mushrooms."

"Sweet! Sounds excellent, dude." Dustin said, sending one of those smiles at Hunter that lit up the room. And looking at that smile, Hunter could pretend that everything was okay. He badly wanted things to go back to normal … To what was normal for them anyway because their lives weren't exactly normal. No other seventeen and twenty-one year olds had to deal with fighting an evil space ninja determined to take over earth and make life miserable … Not that Lothor wasn't already making their lives miserable because he was.

They talked a bit, about random stuff but the conversation was slightly forced. Hunter could sense Dustin was about to ask him something. Then the doorbell rang. Dustin actually sighed and got up to get the door, clutching the money.

Hunter relaxed back into the cushions of the couch, running a shaky hand over his face. He knew Dustin was going to bring up what had happened the night before at some point. He couldn't blame him. Things hadn't exactly ended the best way but it wasn't a conversation he wanted to be having and yet it was one he had to have if he wanted their relationship to work. Things were already bad enough between them as it was. Dustin wasn't going to put up with this forever.

Dustin returned with a large pizza box and put it on the table in front of them.

"Dig in!" Dustin said with a wide smile as he opened the box. They each grabbed a slice and ate in silence. Hunter ate as slowly as he could, knowing that otherwise they would have to talk. Dustin finished and sat back on the couch. He could pretty much feel his eyes on his back. Feeling his hunger disappear, he put down his slice and sat back too.

"What happened last night, man? I thought things were going fine."

There it was. "They were. It's just … I don't know." Hunter said, sounding desperate, even to his own ears. He really didn't know. There were so many emotions coursing through him that it was impossible to sort through them and figure out what it was that was really bothering him. He tried to make sense of them but all he succeeded in was making it worse. He felt like he was drowning in all of those different emotions, felt like he was suffocating. Breathing became harder. He was going to work himself right into a panic attack right this.

Dustin saw Hunter's eyes widen seconds before his breathing became too irregular. It were more like little gasps. "Hunter, you've got to calm down, man. Come on, relax." Dustin said, tying to stop the panic from sounding through. Hunter had gone so pale, looked as if he could pass out any moment. Dustin didn't know what to do, had no clue what he could say or do. He wanted to reach out, touch Hunter but was afraid that would have the reverse effect.

"It's okay. We don't have to talk about it or anything," Dustin said in a soothing tone of voice and he congratulated himself on actually managing to sound soothing.

Hunter could hear the words but they barely registered, too caught up in the whirlwind of emotions ranging from anger to hurt. He could practically feel Dustin run his finger over the scar again. It seemed to burn. He was bombarded with the memories of how he got that particular scar. He tried to push the memory away, he didn't want to remember. He shut his eyes firmly and more memories came back, things he had forgotten or simply repressed. Fists hitting already tender skin, the snap of a bone, Ben tying him down and raping him. He could practically feel the burn in his ass. He could hear Ben, yelling at him, threatening him.

"You can't walk away, Hunter. I own you!" Ben yelled, a fist flying towards his face so fast that Hunter wouldn't have been able to duck even if he had wanted to. He could hear the sound of flesh on flesh even before the sharp stinging in his jaw registered. His hand automatically went up to his cheek and he stared at Ben, eyes filled with fear at the expression of rage on his boyfriend's face. He took a little step back which only proved to further aggravate Ben. Ben moved so fast that it barely registered and slammed him up against the wall.. His head slammed back against the smooth surface with a thud, drawing a groan from Hunter. His vision briefly blurred before it focused on Ben again. His face was inches away and he could practically feel the anger radiate of off Ben.

"Remember, boy, if you go, your brother gets it." Ben said with such an evil smile that Hunter wished the walls would somehow swallow him up and get him away from Ben.

He nodded. "I know, I'm sorry." He whispered, "I won't leave, I swear."

He stared in Ben's eyes, saw the anger fade slowly until there was an expression in Ben's eyes that could only be described as tenderness and for a second, Hunter saw the guy he fell in love with and his chest fluttered. Then that guy was gone, his expression darkened slightly and Ben easily flung him across the room. He landed against the couch and pain shot down his back.

"You better not." A shoe connected with his abdomen. Ben pulled him up and then his mouth was on his, tongue prying his lips open, teeth clashing. Hunter knew better than to try and get away so instead he responded to the kiss as best as he could. He felt sick but there was nothing he could do. Ben's hands wandered over his body and came to rest on his pants. He easily pushed them down over his hips, underwear following soon after. Since he wasn't completely healed from last time, the one finger sliding sent pain throughout his body. It burned so bad, he could feel tears slide down in his cheeks while Ben was still kissing him violently and pushing in a second finger, preparing him for something he didn't want at all.

When he snapped out of it, he found himself in Dustin's arms, sobbing like a little kid while Dustin was muttering words of comfort that made little sense. It helped to hear his voice though. For the past couple of days, he'd managed to keep most of the memories locked but tonight they'd made it to the surface. All the pain he went through came crashing on him. As much as he tried to stop crying, he couldn't.

"It's okay, Hunter, you're fine," Dustin mumbled for the umpteenth time while sobs still wracked Hunter's body. The sound of his crying started to affect Dustin too and he had to fight to hold back his own tears. Hunter sounded so heartbroken. It made Dustin want to personally track down Ben and kill the bastard. He wasn't a person who wished death on someone but if someone deserved, it was Ben. He mumbled more incoherent stuff in Hunter's ear and stroked Hunter's dirty blond hair.

He didn't know how long he sat like that but eventually, Hunter stopped crying and a glance at his boyfriend's face told him Hunter had managed to cry himself to sleep. Dustin carefully slid off the couch, trying not to wake Hunter. He managed to get Hunter to lie with his head on the pillow and got his legs up on the couch too without Hunter waking up or as much as making a sound of protest. He must've really exhausted himself. He ran upstairs to get a blanked and draped it over Hunter's body.

He wished Hunter was upstairs in bed, he'd sleep a hell of a lot better there but there was no way he could get him upstairs so the couch would have to do. He kneeled down next to the couch, just staring at Hunter's face. Dried up tear tracks ran all over his cheeks and after debating whether or not it was a good idea to rub them off, he tenderly did just that.

It was barely ten p.m. so he figured he should probably let Blake now, probably at the cost of his and Tori's evening but if someone needed to know Hunter had broken down, then it was his brother. He grabbed his cell phone and headed in the kitchen to make the call. Blake insisted on coming over but Dustin managed to talk him out of it, saying Hunter was asleep anyway and probably wouldn't wake up before next morning. Blake reluctantly agreed and after a string of curses directed at Ben, put Tori on the phone. At Blake's request, he briefly explained again how Hunter had just broken down.

/Dustin, are you okay?/

"I'm fine, Tor." Dustin replied, running a hand over his face and noticing it was shaking. Went well with the shake in his voice.

/Maybe we should come over./ She sounded worried.

"No, it's fine. Really. I'm okay. And tell Blake not to worry, okay? I'm not leaving Hunter's side tonight." Dustin said which probably meant he wasn't going to get much sleep but he wasn't about to go upstairs and sleep in his room. He wanted to be close incase Hunter got nightmares. He needed to be there for him.

/Sure… Blake says we'll be there at seven a.m. tomorrow./

Dustin laughed softly. "Whatever. Just make sure he doesn't show up here before that time. Hunter's asleep anyway, there's nothing he can do."

/He knows. Good night, Dustin./

"The 'good' is up for debate." Dustin muttered over the phone. Tori laughed a bit. She asked him again if he was sure that he didn't need them there. Dustin replied he could handle it for the night.

After hanging up, Dustin went upstairs to grab himself a blanket and then made himself comfortable on the other couch which was a lot smaller than the one Hunter was on. He doubted he'd get much sleep anyway. He could pretty much still hear Hunter crying and it just broke his heart.

He listened to Hunter breathing. It was heavy and regular. Dustin just prayed Hunter had exhausted himself so much that he would have a nightmare free sleep. He didn't know what had brought on the sudden breakdown but he was probably remembering. Him prying hadn't helped any and he felt guilty. It had been obvious that Hunter hadn't wanted to talk about it. Why had he been so stupid to ask anyway? Hunter could claim that he was fine all he wanted, he was anything but. And Dustin had no clue what to do to help him. He obviously wasn't ready to talk about it yet and even if he was, Dustin had no idea what he could say that would possibly take away Hunter's pain or even remotely help.

He pulled the blanket up higher and bit his lip. He felt so powerless and he hated that feeling. He wanted to be there for Hunter and fight his demons with him but if Hunter wouldn't let him, he couldn't. Heck, even if Hunter let him, he probably couldn't. He shook his head. There had to be something he could do, something … The only thing coming to mind was killing Ben and he was pretty sure that might not be the smartest option either. Then again, maybe he could get Lothor to help him on this and get him to send Ben off into space … that would be good. He actually managed a little smile as he imagined Ben floating around in space in a little ball and cursing everything and everyone. His smile faltered when he realized that's exactly how Lothor became his oh-so pleasant self. Bad plan.

He closed his eyes, intending to just rest for a bit but before he knew and could stop it, he was drifting off to sleep.

To be continued.

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