Go Big, by shoujokakumei, Shane/Dustin
Title: Go Big (Or Go Home)
Author: shoujokakumei
Relationship: Shane/Dustin
Rating: Still PGish?
Warnings (and notes): Still not mine. Followup to 'Calculated Risk,' set post-series. These aren't actually gonna be in chronological order from here on out; I'll timeline them all when I'm finished. Also, I don't ride FMX - but I have been an EMT at a track - so the tricks I describe here, I got from various webpages. I think a cordova is what you see Dustin doing in the first episode, and the trick he does at the Action Games at the end looks like a "Superman Seat Grab" - but as far as I know people call this stuff whatever they want anyway. :D
Go Big (Or Go Home)
--
Dustin was bored. The Action Games had been awesome, but that was months ago, and he found himself becoming more and more aware of how boring being a teacher at a secret ninja academy could actually be. Which was funny, because it really didn't sound like a boring job at all. He still worked at Storm Chargers in his free time - it wasn't like being a sensei was more demanding than being a Power Ranger - and Kelly still supported him on the motocross track.
Hunter dropped by practically every day, except the days Cam made the trip to the Thunder Academy instead. Tori was never far from her cell phone, in case Blake decided to call. Meanwhile, Dustin thought, he and Shane were sharing one of the sets of family quarters in the teachers' building. Funny how things turn out. It wasn't that quiet domesticity disagreed with him - or at least as quiet and domestic as it could get at a ninja school - but he was definitely getting restless. He checked his schedule for the day (Cam had forced him to pin it to the wall of their living room, citing numerous instances of failing to make it anywhere on time) and realized he actually didn't have an afternoon class today.
'Awesome,' he thought. 'I'll go hit the track for a while.' Thinking for a second, he grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper from the counter and scrawled, 'Going to the track, call if you need anything. - D.' He looked at it a couple times, determined Shane would probably be able to read it - his lover was busy teaching a swordwork class - and stuck it on the small refrigerator with one of the stupid joke magnets that Hunter gave him for Christmas, that read "I'm not gay but my boyfriend is." Apparently, the Crimson Ranger thought that slogan was incredibly hilarious.
He tossed his training uniform over the side of a chair and grabbed a jumpsuit, shimmying into it and looking around for his helmet and gear. He located the muddy duffel bag under one end of the couch and dug out the boots and body armor, tying them on hurriedly, and grabbing the helmet in one hand.
Dustin kept his bike in one of the storage sheds on the school grounds, which drove Cam insane, as he had the tendency to work on it rather late at night. The ride to and from school was too much fun for him to give up and keep his bike at Storm Chargers, though. The forest was just a natural obstacle course. He jogged out to the shed, trying to keep a low profile - which wasn't easy when you're wearing bright yellow motocross gear at a ninja school - the last thing he needed was for someone to have found something important for him to do.
--
After a five-lap warmup practice run, he propped his bike against the fence to grab a drink of water, and his cell phone rang.
"Go for Dustin," he answered, grinning. Regular people thought he was nuts for answering the phone like that. His friends got the joke, although Cam didn't think it was that funny. His parents chalked it up to being just another personality quirk.
"Yo, dude, how's it hanging?" It was Blake, laughter in his voice. Dustin blinked.
"I'm cool, man, but this isn't Tori's phone," he replied.
"She's probably teaching a class, I just called her and left a message."
"Sounds good. So, what's the occasion? You don't usually take time out of your pro racing career to chat with us little guys," Dustin joked, switching the phone to his other ear.
Blake chuckled. "Actually, racing's why I'm calling. I'm racing that series down in San Diego next weekend and they're doing a freestyle show. I showed them footage of you from the Action Games and they told me to invite you."
"Seriously?" Dustin asked incredulously.
"Absolutely. I already talked to Hunter, you guys can come down together. He's going to try to talk Cam into going. Bring Shane too, if he's not busy. I'll get everybody pit passes."
"So we're just assuming Tori's going to drive us, I guess?" Dustin joked. He knew she would - it was a chance to see Blake, she'd drive her old van across the country if she had to. San Diego wasn't even that far.
Blake laughed. "I'm gonna talk to her. If she can't come, Hunter will bring you guys in his truck."
"All of us? Is Cam gonna sit in his lap while he drives?" The mental image made Dustin giggle even as he was saying it.
There was a groan from the other end of the line. "Dude, don't make me think about stuff like that, okay? One of you can ride in the back with the bikes or something."
"Back of a pickup all the way to San Diego?" Dustin asked. "That could be fun."
"Well, whatever, it's up to you," Blake remarked. "Hey, I'm getting another call, it's probably Tor. Anyway, so I'll see you there?"
"Totally, man," Dustin replied. "Later." He flipped the phone shut and grinned widely. Yeah, this was totally what he needed to break the monotony lately.
--
After dark that evening, he parked his bike back in the storage shed at the Academy and shuffled back to the teachers' building, scuffed up, covered in mud, his hair messy from wearing a helmet for hours, and limping slightly. After Blake's call, he'd spent the entire afternoon throwing tricks on the ramps, and he was definitely a little bruised up from the ones that didn't go as well as he'd hoped. The ones that did, though, had made him pretty happy with himself.. He just wasn't looking forward to explaining the bruises to Shane.
They'd worked out their differences of opinion about Dustin doing FMX, but Shane still hated seeing his lover come home from the track all banged up. 'Maybe I can blame it on Blake somehow,' Dustin thought to himself as he opened the door. 'I mean, if he hadn't called, I'd probably have just run laps all afternoon.' But that probably wasn't a good way to convince Shane to go Blake's race San Diego with him, he realized. At least if he didn't want Shane to kill Blake, which would inevitably upset both Tori and Hunter, and thus Cam by association. He had to live with these people, after all.
"Hey," Shane greeted him, accompanied by a quick kiss and a hug. Dustin winced slightly, failing to hide it, and the other ninja eyed him suspiciously. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he replied, "Uh, I just crashed a couple times during practice. Bruises, nothing that won't heal on it's own, you know?"
"You're working the ramp again, aren't you?" Shane wanted to know.
Dustin ran a hand through his hair. "Well, yeah. Blake called, told me about this race in San Diego next weekend he's doing. They saw a tape of me from the Action Games and want me in their freestyle demo... So I figured I'd practice some new tricks, perfect some old ones, see what I wanna throw down out there.." He trailed off.
Shane shook his head and sighed. He wasn't going to have this argument again. "If that's what you wanna do."
"It is. And I want you to come with me," Dustin added. "Hunter's going, he's gonna drag Cam, and Tori's gonna drive us. You practically have to come," he pleaded, turning on the puppy-dog eyes.
"Did Tori already agree to this?"
"Dude, I dunno. She called Blake back while I was talking to him. But you seriously think she won't?" Dustin sat down, pulling off his boots and protective armor and packing them back into the duffel bag he had left on the floor, grimacing as sore muscles complained about the movement.
"That's a good point," Shane agreed. "Go take a shower. I'll give you a massage after dinner, but not if you're still covered in mud." He smirked.
"I'm totally gonna hold you to that, dude."
--
A week and a half later, they were piling out of Tori's van in the rocky parking lot at a dirt track outside San Diego.
"We gotta go register," Hunter noted after they unloaded the bikes from the back of the van. "Catch up with you guys later?" He addressed Cam, Shane, and Tori.
"I'm gonna go find Blake," Tori replied, scanning the crowd for Factory Blue banners, signs, or uniforms.
"Of course," Hunter grinned. "Tell my bro I'm gonna kick his butt on the track."
"You're racing the same class as the factory pros?" Dustin asked. He knew Hunter was good, but not entirely sure if he was THAT good.
"Why not? Besides, it's not like I get to race Blake anymore," Hunter complained. "It's for fun, and I don't care if I win or not."
"Good thing," Dustin cracked, and Hunter punched him in the shoulder.
--
After the first set of races - the kids, women's, and intermediate classes - a call came over the loudspeakers for the freestyle demonstrators to take their lineup, because the demos would start shortly. The pro class racing was for the late afternoon - Dustin figured the demo was how they'd get everybody pumped up for the serious motos.
He wheeled his bike into the pit staging area and watched the crew finish inspecting the ramp while he looked over the crowd for his friends. Shane was tall enough to be relatively visible, and he stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply, waving.
"First rider up!" The pit coordinator yelled, and a young guy, a couple years Dustin's junior, wearing black and red and riding a tricked out 250, took the center of the arena, revving his bike's engine loudly. Dustin watched as he pulled a "Lazy Boy," reclining flat on his bike in mid-air, and hitting the landing perfectly with no hands - instead, he threw up devil horns to the crowd, who laughed and cheered.
"Next rider up!" Came the call as the first guy returned to the pit, after a lap around the crowd for congratulatory high-fives. This one was a tall, skinny girl on a purple Suzuki. She looked out at the crowd, flashing a V-for-victory sign, and she got awesome air for her huge backflip, wavered on the landing but managed to get control. 'Wow, I gotta go on after these guys?' he thought. 'Tough acts to follow.' He had been planning to pull his own variant on a cordova, since he could do those in his sleep, but now he wasn't sure that was even remotely flashy enough.
"Next rider up!" Dustin gave the guy a thumbs-up, pulling his helmet on and riding out into the arena. 'Maybe I should pull a one-handed Superman grab. I landed one with both hands at the Action Games, anyway, and that's why they wanted me here!' He ran through the trick in his mind as be gunned the bike's engine.
"Yeah! Go Dustin!" Tori was screaming, and he could pick Shane's deeper voice out cheering him on from the crowd as well. He glanced over and noticed even Cam watching with some amount of interest. 'Yeah, okay. I'm gonna go for it,' he decided, squaring himself and hitting the throttle.
He hit the top of the ramp, going airborne and extending his body out behind the bike, bringing both hands down to the seat and pulling his left arm out into the air so his right hand on the seat was the only contact with the bike. He rotated his legs down quickly to try and re-straddle the seat without losing the hand contact.
When he hit the landing ramp, though, the front wheel skidded sideways, and he only had one hand back on the handlebars yet, so he couldn't pull it back the other way. The bike came out from under him, skidding down the ramp and across the arena, and he slammed into the ramp not even halfway down, sliding limply down into the dirt. A collective groan rang out from the crowd, some of the other riders wincing sympathetically - they knew what that felt like.
Shane's heart stopped. Dustin wasn't moving. Medical techs ran out onto the field, and his brain was telling him to go out there too, but his body wouldn't move. Tori gasped as they watched two EMTs log-roll Dustin's unconscious form into a supine position on flat ground, and another uniformed figure came running with a backboard and collar.
The announcer's voice rose over the din of all the riders and spectators talking at once. "Wow, kids, don't try that one at home!" Shane glared angrily in the direction of the booth with the loudspeakers.
"Dude, even if looks could kill, the guy'd have to see you," Hunter commented, putting one hand on Shane's shoulder.
"He's still not moving," Shane observed helplessly as an ambulance drove up onto the track. One of the EMT's held Dustin's head steady while the other two carefully removed his helmet in a joint effort, put the plastic immobilization collar around his neck, and set about securing him to the backboard with some orange straps.
"You want me to find out where they're gonna take him?" Blake offered. Shane nodded wordlessly, and the blue-clad racer ran out onto the field, flashing his pro badge at the officials as he questioned one of the EMTs. A minute later, he ran back over to the others. "Dude, they said one of us can go with him," he explained, looking at Shane. "You should. They're going to Angel of Mercy Hospital, about 8 miles up the highway."
"We'll follow you," Tori chimed in, and Shane nodded again and ran out onto the track. "Sorry, Blake, we're gonna miss your race," she continued. She knew he wouldn't be allowed to skip out on his races - the managers would have a fit.
"No worries," he replied, waving at the officials to okay Shane's presence. "I'll be there right after the moto."
"Good luck, bro," Hunter said, gathering up their stuff. "For once I'm glad I don't ride factory." Blake watched his friends run off towards Tori's van to follow the ambulance, and sighed. 'Guess I better go warm up,' he thought.
--
Shane had been pacing back and forth for ten minutes already when the others arrived, not having the right to break traffic laws like an emergency vehicle. The ER doctors had thrown him out of the treatment room pretty much immediately since he wasn't a relative, and they'd had to threaten to call security to actually get him to go peacefully.
"I'm going to take a wild guess and say you've been doing that since you got here," Cam remarked. "Sit down before you wear a rut in the floor."
"No, dude, you don't get it." Shane stopped to look at his friends. "That was NOT the trick he practiced for this. I'd bet anything he changed it at the last minute after he saw what everybody else was doing."
Hunter nodded. "He was talking about doing some variant trick he made up. That wasn't it." Just because he didn't do freestyle didn't mean he didn't understand the competitive mindset - racers would take big risks just as well.
"I've been telling him for almost a year that he's going to kill himself with this stuff!"
"Shane," Tori interjected gently, "I know you care about Dustin, but this is what he loves to do."
Cam agreed. "I can't say I actually see the fun in all the things any of you do, but stuff like this just happens. I guarantee you, this isn't going to put him off his desire to do freestyle - the thrill is in the danger, as they say."
"Who says that?" Hunter wanted to know. Cam rolled his eyes.
"It's just a saying, Hunter."
"Dude, I'd still race moto even if it was perfectly safe. That's a stupid saying."
"You guys aren't helping," Tori observed, as Shane finally sat down, leaning forward with his head in his hands. "Did they say anything yet, Shane?"
"No," he mumbled. "He was unconscious the whole way here and they wouldn't even let me in the room. They promised they'd let me know as soon as they brought him back from radiology."
"Did you call his parents?" Cam asked.
Shane shook his head. "I wanted to wait until there's something to tell them - 'hey, just so you know, your son might have broken his neck' isn't really a great phone call."
--
Two hours later, which felt like an eternity, a nurse came calling for Dustin's family.
Shane bolted out of his chair, practically running the woman over. "We're down for a motocross race, so his family's not here. Just us." He gestured anxiously at the waiting group. "But he's over eighteen anyway, does it matter?"
"No," she replied, "but if you could give us their contact information we'll call them - where are you from?"
"Blue Bay Harbor," Shane answered. "I was gonna call them when I found out if he's okay."
"Come with me. The doctor will fill you in." She gestured down the hallway, and he followed without question. He'd go wherever he had to for somebody to tell him something.
The nurse led him into one of the rooms, where Dustin was propped up in a hospital bed, with a tall young woman in a white coat making notes on his chart.
"Hey, buddy," he greeted Shane weakly, glad they'd finally listened to him and let his lover see him - he'd only been bugging them since he woke up, and that took a lot of energy when you felt like a train ran over you. "You're gonna yell at me now, aren't you?" He half-smiled, running his left hand through his hair - the right was encased in plaster from hand to shoulder and in a sling.
"I already yelled at everybody else, I think you're off the hook," Shane replied, anger and anxiety dissipating somewhat as he observed Dustin's condition. He was more upset at the situation than at Dustin specifically, anyway. "What's the verdict?" He addressed the doctor, who was obviously amused by the exchange.
"Well, let's see." She looked at the chart. "Four broken ribs, all on the right side, broken clavicle, also on the right, right wrist and forearm are broken, right shoulder was dislocated, and to top it off, a concussion and a good case of whiplash." She looked Dustin up and down. "Give it at least eight weeks for the bones to heal before you try jumping motorcycles again, okay?"
"Absolutely," he replied. "Do I have to stay here?"
"We'll call your parents and let them know, but I'd prefer it if you did."
"He lives with me," Shane interrupted, "and some of our friends are very close by. Same building. We can take him home." As far as she knew, he was talking about an apartment, not the teachers' quarters of a ninja school.
"Yeah," Dustin agreed. "I hate hospitals so I'd really rather just go home if that's okay. If you could still call my parents that'd be cool, though. My dad rides, he'll get it, but mom's nuts and I totally don't have the energy to talk to her."
The doctor looked at him skeptically. "Half your body's wrapped in pressure bandages and plaster, but if you really feel up to going home, that's up to you. I'll make up the discharge papers and write you a prescription for some pain management."
Shane wrote down the Brooks' phone number for her. "This is his parents' house," he explained, and she took the paper, promising to make the phone call and come back to get them out of her ER as soon as she could.
As soon as the door closed, Dustin was talking. "Dude, please don't say 'I told you so,' alright?"
Shane sat down heavily in the horrible little plastic chair by the bed. "I'm not going to," he sighed. "It's obvious that you already know." He reached for Dustin's uninjured hand, holding it in both of his own, contemplating how fragile the other boy seemed, paler than usual under his dark, messy hair.
"That you're smarter than me? Duh." Dustin laughed, then grimaced as he came to the abrupt conclusion that laughing at your own jokes when you had broken ribs hurt.
Shane winced sympathetically. "You're still going to do freestyle." It wasn't really a question.
"Of course. Dude, if I quit riding the first time I got hurt, I would have never gotten out of the beginner classes."
"You still gonna have the guts for it after this?" Shane asked. "No offense, but that was a pretty bad crash, man. Lots of people get cold feet after something like that."
"Well, you heard the doc, I gotta give it a couple months before I can even try to ride again. I'll get it back together by then." He paused. "Besides, if it was totally safe, it wouldn't nearly as much fun!"
"You must have different motivations than Hunter. Cam said the exact same thing, and Hunter told him that was a stupid saying - he'd still race even if it was totally safe."
"That's not the point, dude," Dustin explained. "How would you make it safe? It'd be boring! You'd have to, like, seriously limit speeds and jump heights and track conditions, and all kinds of other dumb stuff. It'd be like racing pee-wee class your whole career. Hunter probably means, like, if they found some way to keep it exactly how it is now, but put, like, forcefields around everybody or something." He thought about that for a second. "Dude, that'd actually be pretty cool," he added as an afterthought, nodding to himself. "That would definitely be awesome, maybe Cam could figure out how to do it. It'd be like bumper-cars combined with moto!"
"Oh, God." Shane shook his head. "Cam is not going to program you portable forcefields for motocross."
"Dude, if I tell Hunter about my idea, I'm sure he'll help me convince him!" Dustin looked like he was pretty sure Hunter wouldn't be adverse to this idea, especially if it involved giving him a good reason to grope Cam.
"It's the painkillers talking, bro. This won't seem like nearly as good of an idea when you're off the morphine."
--
List of 22 - thrill
Author: shoujokakumei
Relationship: Shane/Dustin
Rating: Still PGish?
Warnings (and notes): Still not mine. Followup to 'Calculated Risk,' set post-series. These aren't actually gonna be in chronological order from here on out; I'll timeline them all when I'm finished. Also, I don't ride FMX - but I have been an EMT at a track - so the tricks I describe here, I got from various webpages. I think a cordova is what you see Dustin doing in the first episode, and the trick he does at the Action Games at the end looks like a "Superman Seat Grab" - but as far as I know people call this stuff whatever they want anyway. :D
Go Big (Or Go Home)
--
Dustin was bored. The Action Games had been awesome, but that was months ago, and he found himself becoming more and more aware of how boring being a teacher at a secret ninja academy could actually be. Which was funny, because it really didn't sound like a boring job at all. He still worked at Storm Chargers in his free time - it wasn't like being a sensei was more demanding than being a Power Ranger - and Kelly still supported him on the motocross track.
Hunter dropped by practically every day, except the days Cam made the trip to the Thunder Academy instead. Tori was never far from her cell phone, in case Blake decided to call. Meanwhile, Dustin thought, he and Shane were sharing one of the sets of family quarters in the teachers' building. Funny how things turn out. It wasn't that quiet domesticity disagreed with him - or at least as quiet and domestic as it could get at a ninja school - but he was definitely getting restless. He checked his schedule for the day (Cam had forced him to pin it to the wall of their living room, citing numerous instances of failing to make it anywhere on time) and realized he actually didn't have an afternoon class today.
'Awesome,' he thought. 'I'll go hit the track for a while.' Thinking for a second, he grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper from the counter and scrawled, 'Going to the track, call if you need anything. - D.' He looked at it a couple times, determined Shane would probably be able to read it - his lover was busy teaching a swordwork class - and stuck it on the small refrigerator with one of the stupid joke magnets that Hunter gave him for Christmas, that read "I'm not gay but my boyfriend is." Apparently, the Crimson Ranger thought that slogan was incredibly hilarious.
He tossed his training uniform over the side of a chair and grabbed a jumpsuit, shimmying into it and looking around for his helmet and gear. He located the muddy duffel bag under one end of the couch and dug out the boots and body armor, tying them on hurriedly, and grabbing the helmet in one hand.
Dustin kept his bike in one of the storage sheds on the school grounds, which drove Cam insane, as he had the tendency to work on it rather late at night. The ride to and from school was too much fun for him to give up and keep his bike at Storm Chargers, though. The forest was just a natural obstacle course. He jogged out to the shed, trying to keep a low profile - which wasn't easy when you're wearing bright yellow motocross gear at a ninja school - the last thing he needed was for someone to have found something important for him to do.
--
After a five-lap warmup practice run, he propped his bike against the fence to grab a drink of water, and his cell phone rang.
"Go for Dustin," he answered, grinning. Regular people thought he was nuts for answering the phone like that. His friends got the joke, although Cam didn't think it was that funny. His parents chalked it up to being just another personality quirk.
"Yo, dude, how's it hanging?" It was Blake, laughter in his voice. Dustin blinked.
"I'm cool, man, but this isn't Tori's phone," he replied.
"She's probably teaching a class, I just called her and left a message."
"Sounds good. So, what's the occasion? You don't usually take time out of your pro racing career to chat with us little guys," Dustin joked, switching the phone to his other ear.
Blake chuckled. "Actually, racing's why I'm calling. I'm racing that series down in San Diego next weekend and they're doing a freestyle show. I showed them footage of you from the Action Games and they told me to invite you."
"Seriously?" Dustin asked incredulously.
"Absolutely. I already talked to Hunter, you guys can come down together. He's going to try to talk Cam into going. Bring Shane too, if he's not busy. I'll get everybody pit passes."
"So we're just assuming Tori's going to drive us, I guess?" Dustin joked. He knew she would - it was a chance to see Blake, she'd drive her old van across the country if she had to. San Diego wasn't even that far.
Blake laughed. "I'm gonna talk to her. If she can't come, Hunter will bring you guys in his truck."
"All of us? Is Cam gonna sit in his lap while he drives?" The mental image made Dustin giggle even as he was saying it.
There was a groan from the other end of the line. "Dude, don't make me think about stuff like that, okay? One of you can ride in the back with the bikes or something."
"Back of a pickup all the way to San Diego?" Dustin asked. "That could be fun."
"Well, whatever, it's up to you," Blake remarked. "Hey, I'm getting another call, it's probably Tor. Anyway, so I'll see you there?"
"Totally, man," Dustin replied. "Later." He flipped the phone shut and grinned widely. Yeah, this was totally what he needed to break the monotony lately.
--
After dark that evening, he parked his bike back in the storage shed at the Academy and shuffled back to the teachers' building, scuffed up, covered in mud, his hair messy from wearing a helmet for hours, and limping slightly. After Blake's call, he'd spent the entire afternoon throwing tricks on the ramps, and he was definitely a little bruised up from the ones that didn't go as well as he'd hoped. The ones that did, though, had made him pretty happy with himself.. He just wasn't looking forward to explaining the bruises to Shane.
They'd worked out their differences of opinion about Dustin doing FMX, but Shane still hated seeing his lover come home from the track all banged up. 'Maybe I can blame it on Blake somehow,' Dustin thought to himself as he opened the door. 'I mean, if he hadn't called, I'd probably have just run laps all afternoon.' But that probably wasn't a good way to convince Shane to go Blake's race San Diego with him, he realized. At least if he didn't want Shane to kill Blake, which would inevitably upset both Tori and Hunter, and thus Cam by association. He had to live with these people, after all.
"Hey," Shane greeted him, accompanied by a quick kiss and a hug. Dustin winced slightly, failing to hide it, and the other ninja eyed him suspiciously. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he replied, "Uh, I just crashed a couple times during practice. Bruises, nothing that won't heal on it's own, you know?"
"You're working the ramp again, aren't you?" Shane wanted to know.
Dustin ran a hand through his hair. "Well, yeah. Blake called, told me about this race in San Diego next weekend he's doing. They saw a tape of me from the Action Games and want me in their freestyle demo... So I figured I'd practice some new tricks, perfect some old ones, see what I wanna throw down out there.." He trailed off.
Shane shook his head and sighed. He wasn't going to have this argument again. "If that's what you wanna do."
"It is. And I want you to come with me," Dustin added. "Hunter's going, he's gonna drag Cam, and Tori's gonna drive us. You practically have to come," he pleaded, turning on the puppy-dog eyes.
"Did Tori already agree to this?"
"Dude, I dunno. She called Blake back while I was talking to him. But you seriously think she won't?" Dustin sat down, pulling off his boots and protective armor and packing them back into the duffel bag he had left on the floor, grimacing as sore muscles complained about the movement.
"That's a good point," Shane agreed. "Go take a shower. I'll give you a massage after dinner, but not if you're still covered in mud." He smirked.
"I'm totally gonna hold you to that, dude."
--
A week and a half later, they were piling out of Tori's van in the rocky parking lot at a dirt track outside San Diego.
"We gotta go register," Hunter noted after they unloaded the bikes from the back of the van. "Catch up with you guys later?" He addressed Cam, Shane, and Tori.
"I'm gonna go find Blake," Tori replied, scanning the crowd for Factory Blue banners, signs, or uniforms.
"Of course," Hunter grinned. "Tell my bro I'm gonna kick his butt on the track."
"You're racing the same class as the factory pros?" Dustin asked. He knew Hunter was good, but not entirely sure if he was THAT good.
"Why not? Besides, it's not like I get to race Blake anymore," Hunter complained. "It's for fun, and I don't care if I win or not."
"Good thing," Dustin cracked, and Hunter punched him in the shoulder.
--
After the first set of races - the kids, women's, and intermediate classes - a call came over the loudspeakers for the freestyle demonstrators to take their lineup, because the demos would start shortly. The pro class racing was for the late afternoon - Dustin figured the demo was how they'd get everybody pumped up for the serious motos.
He wheeled his bike into the pit staging area and watched the crew finish inspecting the ramp while he looked over the crowd for his friends. Shane was tall enough to be relatively visible, and he stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply, waving.
"First rider up!" The pit coordinator yelled, and a young guy, a couple years Dustin's junior, wearing black and red and riding a tricked out 250, took the center of the arena, revving his bike's engine loudly. Dustin watched as he pulled a "Lazy Boy," reclining flat on his bike in mid-air, and hitting the landing perfectly with no hands - instead, he threw up devil horns to the crowd, who laughed and cheered.
"Next rider up!" Came the call as the first guy returned to the pit, after a lap around the crowd for congratulatory high-fives. This one was a tall, skinny girl on a purple Suzuki. She looked out at the crowd, flashing a V-for-victory sign, and she got awesome air for her huge backflip, wavered on the landing but managed to get control. 'Wow, I gotta go on after these guys?' he thought. 'Tough acts to follow.' He had been planning to pull his own variant on a cordova, since he could do those in his sleep, but now he wasn't sure that was even remotely flashy enough.
"Next rider up!" Dustin gave the guy a thumbs-up, pulling his helmet on and riding out into the arena. 'Maybe I should pull a one-handed Superman grab. I landed one with both hands at the Action Games, anyway, and that's why they wanted me here!' He ran through the trick in his mind as be gunned the bike's engine.
"Yeah! Go Dustin!" Tori was screaming, and he could pick Shane's deeper voice out cheering him on from the crowd as well. He glanced over and noticed even Cam watching with some amount of interest. 'Yeah, okay. I'm gonna go for it,' he decided, squaring himself and hitting the throttle.
He hit the top of the ramp, going airborne and extending his body out behind the bike, bringing both hands down to the seat and pulling his left arm out into the air so his right hand on the seat was the only contact with the bike. He rotated his legs down quickly to try and re-straddle the seat without losing the hand contact.
When he hit the landing ramp, though, the front wheel skidded sideways, and he only had one hand back on the handlebars yet, so he couldn't pull it back the other way. The bike came out from under him, skidding down the ramp and across the arena, and he slammed into the ramp not even halfway down, sliding limply down into the dirt. A collective groan rang out from the crowd, some of the other riders wincing sympathetically - they knew what that felt like.
Shane's heart stopped. Dustin wasn't moving. Medical techs ran out onto the field, and his brain was telling him to go out there too, but his body wouldn't move. Tori gasped as they watched two EMTs log-roll Dustin's unconscious form into a supine position on flat ground, and another uniformed figure came running with a backboard and collar.
The announcer's voice rose over the din of all the riders and spectators talking at once. "Wow, kids, don't try that one at home!" Shane glared angrily in the direction of the booth with the loudspeakers.
"Dude, even if looks could kill, the guy'd have to see you," Hunter commented, putting one hand on Shane's shoulder.
"He's still not moving," Shane observed helplessly as an ambulance drove up onto the track. One of the EMT's held Dustin's head steady while the other two carefully removed his helmet in a joint effort, put the plastic immobilization collar around his neck, and set about securing him to the backboard with some orange straps.
"You want me to find out where they're gonna take him?" Blake offered. Shane nodded wordlessly, and the blue-clad racer ran out onto the field, flashing his pro badge at the officials as he questioned one of the EMTs. A minute later, he ran back over to the others. "Dude, they said one of us can go with him," he explained, looking at Shane. "You should. They're going to Angel of Mercy Hospital, about 8 miles up the highway."
"We'll follow you," Tori chimed in, and Shane nodded again and ran out onto the track. "Sorry, Blake, we're gonna miss your race," she continued. She knew he wouldn't be allowed to skip out on his races - the managers would have a fit.
"No worries," he replied, waving at the officials to okay Shane's presence. "I'll be there right after the moto."
"Good luck, bro," Hunter said, gathering up their stuff. "For once I'm glad I don't ride factory." Blake watched his friends run off towards Tori's van to follow the ambulance, and sighed. 'Guess I better go warm up,' he thought.
--
Shane had been pacing back and forth for ten minutes already when the others arrived, not having the right to break traffic laws like an emergency vehicle. The ER doctors had thrown him out of the treatment room pretty much immediately since he wasn't a relative, and they'd had to threaten to call security to actually get him to go peacefully.
"I'm going to take a wild guess and say you've been doing that since you got here," Cam remarked. "Sit down before you wear a rut in the floor."
"No, dude, you don't get it." Shane stopped to look at his friends. "That was NOT the trick he practiced for this. I'd bet anything he changed it at the last minute after he saw what everybody else was doing."
Hunter nodded. "He was talking about doing some variant trick he made up. That wasn't it." Just because he didn't do freestyle didn't mean he didn't understand the competitive mindset - racers would take big risks just as well.
"I've been telling him for almost a year that he's going to kill himself with this stuff!"
"Shane," Tori interjected gently, "I know you care about Dustin, but this is what he loves to do."
Cam agreed. "I can't say I actually see the fun in all the things any of you do, but stuff like this just happens. I guarantee you, this isn't going to put him off his desire to do freestyle - the thrill is in the danger, as they say."
"Who says that?" Hunter wanted to know. Cam rolled his eyes.
"It's just a saying, Hunter."
"Dude, I'd still race moto even if it was perfectly safe. That's a stupid saying."
"You guys aren't helping," Tori observed, as Shane finally sat down, leaning forward with his head in his hands. "Did they say anything yet, Shane?"
"No," he mumbled. "He was unconscious the whole way here and they wouldn't even let me in the room. They promised they'd let me know as soon as they brought him back from radiology."
"Did you call his parents?" Cam asked.
Shane shook his head. "I wanted to wait until there's something to tell them - 'hey, just so you know, your son might have broken his neck' isn't really a great phone call."
--
Two hours later, which felt like an eternity, a nurse came calling for Dustin's family.
Shane bolted out of his chair, practically running the woman over. "We're down for a motocross race, so his family's not here. Just us." He gestured anxiously at the waiting group. "But he's over eighteen anyway, does it matter?"
"No," she replied, "but if you could give us their contact information we'll call them - where are you from?"
"Blue Bay Harbor," Shane answered. "I was gonna call them when I found out if he's okay."
"Come with me. The doctor will fill you in." She gestured down the hallway, and he followed without question. He'd go wherever he had to for somebody to tell him something.
The nurse led him into one of the rooms, where Dustin was propped up in a hospital bed, with a tall young woman in a white coat making notes on his chart.
"Hey, buddy," he greeted Shane weakly, glad they'd finally listened to him and let his lover see him - he'd only been bugging them since he woke up, and that took a lot of energy when you felt like a train ran over you. "You're gonna yell at me now, aren't you?" He half-smiled, running his left hand through his hair - the right was encased in plaster from hand to shoulder and in a sling.
"I already yelled at everybody else, I think you're off the hook," Shane replied, anger and anxiety dissipating somewhat as he observed Dustin's condition. He was more upset at the situation than at Dustin specifically, anyway. "What's the verdict?" He addressed the doctor, who was obviously amused by the exchange.
"Well, let's see." She looked at the chart. "Four broken ribs, all on the right side, broken clavicle, also on the right, right wrist and forearm are broken, right shoulder was dislocated, and to top it off, a concussion and a good case of whiplash." She looked Dustin up and down. "Give it at least eight weeks for the bones to heal before you try jumping motorcycles again, okay?"
"Absolutely," he replied. "Do I have to stay here?"
"We'll call your parents and let them know, but I'd prefer it if you did."
"He lives with me," Shane interrupted, "and some of our friends are very close by. Same building. We can take him home." As far as she knew, he was talking about an apartment, not the teachers' quarters of a ninja school.
"Yeah," Dustin agreed. "I hate hospitals so I'd really rather just go home if that's okay. If you could still call my parents that'd be cool, though. My dad rides, he'll get it, but mom's nuts and I totally don't have the energy to talk to her."
The doctor looked at him skeptically. "Half your body's wrapped in pressure bandages and plaster, but if you really feel up to going home, that's up to you. I'll make up the discharge papers and write you a prescription for some pain management."
Shane wrote down the Brooks' phone number for her. "This is his parents' house," he explained, and she took the paper, promising to make the phone call and come back to get them out of her ER as soon as she could.
As soon as the door closed, Dustin was talking. "Dude, please don't say 'I told you so,' alright?"
Shane sat down heavily in the horrible little plastic chair by the bed. "I'm not going to," he sighed. "It's obvious that you already know." He reached for Dustin's uninjured hand, holding it in both of his own, contemplating how fragile the other boy seemed, paler than usual under his dark, messy hair.
"That you're smarter than me? Duh." Dustin laughed, then grimaced as he came to the abrupt conclusion that laughing at your own jokes when you had broken ribs hurt.
Shane winced sympathetically. "You're still going to do freestyle." It wasn't really a question.
"Of course. Dude, if I quit riding the first time I got hurt, I would have never gotten out of the beginner classes."
"You still gonna have the guts for it after this?" Shane asked. "No offense, but that was a pretty bad crash, man. Lots of people get cold feet after something like that."
"Well, you heard the doc, I gotta give it a couple months before I can even try to ride again. I'll get it back together by then." He paused. "Besides, if it was totally safe, it wouldn't nearly as much fun!"
"You must have different motivations than Hunter. Cam said the exact same thing, and Hunter told him that was a stupid saying - he'd still race even if it was totally safe."
"That's not the point, dude," Dustin explained. "How would you make it safe? It'd be boring! You'd have to, like, seriously limit speeds and jump heights and track conditions, and all kinds of other dumb stuff. It'd be like racing pee-wee class your whole career. Hunter probably means, like, if they found some way to keep it exactly how it is now, but put, like, forcefields around everybody or something." He thought about that for a second. "Dude, that'd actually be pretty cool," he added as an afterthought, nodding to himself. "That would definitely be awesome, maybe Cam could figure out how to do it. It'd be like bumper-cars combined with moto!"
"Oh, God." Shane shook his head. "Cam is not going to program you portable forcefields for motocross."
"Dude, if I tell Hunter about my idea, I'm sure he'll help me convince him!" Dustin looked like he was pretty sure Hunter wouldn't be adverse to this idea, especially if it involved giving him a good reason to grope Cam.
"It's the painkillers talking, bro. This won't seem like nearly as good of an idea when you're off the morphine."
--
List of 22 - thrill