Fade Away
Title: Fade Away
Rating: R
Fandom: Power Rangers
Characters: Adam/Rocky
Word Count: 2167
Warnings: Implied self harm
Summary: Every day I have to wake up and pretend that I’m not wasting my life. I have to go to class and pretend like what I’m studying matters. I have to go to work and pretend that stocking the shelves is on par with saving the world. Then I go home and lie in bed at night and struggle to find any meaning at all in what I did that day.
Adam blinks, the world coming slowly into focus. He’s on his back, strapped to a bed and his whole body hurts. There is a soft beeping coming from off to one side of him accompanied by an impenetrable babble of concerned voices. He turns his head toward them and his vision swims. When it clears again it is filled with the face of an unknown man who shines a bright light in his eyes and asks him something that Adam knows he should be able to understand.
“It didn’t work,” he manages to say, the words thick in his mouth.
The man’s frown deepens and he opens his mouth to repeat himself, but Adam has seen enough. He resolutely closes his eyes, not bothering to attempt to respond to the increasingly shrill voices surrounding him.
When he opens them again, he is alone. The room is quite except for the ever present beeping. It’s dark in the room, but the sound tells him better than his eyes would that he is in a hospital. Adam lets out a long, ragged sigh and tries to raise himself into a seated position. A sharp pain stabs into his chest and he hisses, flattening himself against the cool sheets of the bed.
“It almost did.”
Adam jerks at the words, sending another wave of pain shooting through him. Ignoring it, he turns to the side, fumbling in the blankets for the button that will raise his bed enough for him to see the person watching from the shadows. The bed moves slowly, but not slowly enough to keep him from feeling like his blood has been set on fire inside of his veins. “What?” he asks hoarsely when he is finally upright.
Rocky is sitting in a chair with his head hanging down and his clasped hands dangling between his legs. “I said, it almost did. Work, that is. Your little stunt.”
A dry cough wracks Adam’s body and for a moment he thinks he’s going to pass out again. “I don’t understand,” he says when he is able.
“Don’t you?” Rocky looks up and the pain Adam sees in his eyes rivals the one Adam feels in his body. Rocky's lips twitch up into a mockery of a smile. “You collapsed outside of the apartment. Someone called an ambulance and they brought you here. I came as soon as I heard, but I wasn’t here when you woke up. Cassie was, though. And she told me what you said. ‘It didn’t work.’ She was convinced you thought that you hadn’t been able to save Carlos, that you were confused from the strain of using your broken morpher and was in a panic to make sure you understood that it had worked. That you had morphed, if only for a short time, and that, no matter how short, it was enough.” He lets out an ironic laugh. “She wanted to tell you all this herself, of course, but there was an attack and she left it to me.”
“Oh,” is all Adam can manage.
“But I know better,” Rocky says, a bitter edge to his voice.
Adam forces himself to lift his hand, to stop Rocky’s words. He turns his head towards the wall, unable to face the accusation stamped on Rocky's face. “Go.” He closes his eyes and presses his thumb hard into the button that will lower his bed. “Just go.” There is a loud clatter and Adam knows without looking that Rocky’s chair is on it’s side.
“How could you?” he thunders. “How could you even think about doing it, let alone actual try? And don’t tell me it was done with heroic and pure motives. You wouldn’t even have had that worthless hunk of junk with you if you hadn’t been hoping to have the chance.”
Rocky’s voice cracks on the last word. Guilt and shame rip into Adam as he hears the harsh sound of a sob cut off midway. There is a scrape as Rocky no doubt rights his chair and then a sigh as he settles himself back in it. “How could you?” he asks again, and this time the words are as broken as Adam’s useless morpher.
Adam doesn’t want to answer- doesn’t want to even acknowledge Rocky’s right to demand one- but he can’t ignore the other man’s pain any more than he can ignore his own. “It wasn’t,” he begins, but then stops short. Rocky deserves the truth, so Adam takes a deep breath and tries again. “It seemed right, fitting. I was supposed to morph and fight and then just, I don’t know, vanish. End in a blaze of glory. Go to wherever the monsters go when they die.” He keeps his eyes squeezed shut as the words pour out. “Can’t you see how much better that would have been? To have had that one, last moment to be who I was born to be.”
“To be who you were born to be,” Rocky repeats, and when he says it the words sound hollow. “What is that, exactly? A martyr?” he scoffs. “And what about the rest of us? Did you for one second think about how that would affect anyone other than you? Or were you too busy dreaming about the Elysium Fields?”
“Rocky,” Adam starts, but he is quickly cut off.
“What about Carlos? Even if you didn’t give a damn about yourself, which is clearly the case, how could you do that to him? The guilt of it would have eaten away at him until there was nothing left. You saw how badly he took hurting Cassie. You saw what that did to his self confidence, and yet you were still able to justify letting him think that he caused your death. The death of a former Ranger and close friend. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Rocky,” Adam tries again, desperate to break through, and somehow this time it works. Rocky snaps his mouth closed and seems to realize for the first time that he has been shouting.
“I’m sorry,” he says in that broken voice. “You’re hurt. Bad. And not just physically. And here I am yelling at you.” Rocky lets out a long sigh. “I’m sorry.”
Adam struggles back into a seated position again. “No. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking about Carlos or the team. I was thinking about me and about how much my life sucks. I was focusing on myself and how wonderful it would feel to be a Ranger again, if only for a second. And no, I didn’t want to make it through and I didn’t give a crap about what the fallout from my actions would be.”
His eyes lock with Rocky’s as he attempts to explain. “But, you know what it is like. You know how hard this is. Every day I have to wake up and pretend that I’m not wasting my life. I have to go to class and pretend like what I’m studying matters. I have to go to work and pretend that stocking the shelves is on par with saving the world. Then I go home and lie in bed at night and struggle to find any meaning at all in what I did that day. And that’s a good day. A day when Angel Grove is peaceful." Adam goes to dash a hand through his hair and winces as the lines connecting him to the machine tug on his skin.
“Tell me you don’t feel the same way I do. Tell me it doesn’t hit you in the gut, every time you see them, standing up to evil. Fighting the good fight. I see that black suit and it kills me that it isn’t me I’m looking at. It’s like ripping off a scab. I keep telling myself to give it time. That it will stop hurting. And it never does.” He shakes his head. “Being a Ranger was all I ever wanted to be and when I lost that, I lost everything.”
At that Rocky’s eyes blaze. “Everything?” he asks softly. Adam swallows nervously, not knowing how to respond. The silence stretches uncomfortably, and Adam wishes he was anywhere but here, in this bed, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Rocky pushes up from his chair and crosses over to him. He stands in classic Ranger position, legs apart and hands fisted at his sides. “That’s funny, because I can think of at least one thing that you have now that you didn’t have then. One thing that, personally, I am grateful every single day to call mine.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Adam hedges.
“Sure you didn't.” Rocky’s voice is flat. “Being a Ranger is great, I’ll grant you. Amazing even. You get to do fantastical things. Things that I never would have believed possible if I hadn’t done them myself. And saving the world. What a rush. Not very many people can add that to their resumes. I can. But you know what? None of that gives me as much satisfaction as knowing that when I come home at night, I come home to you.”
Rocky’s voice remains as impassive as ever, but his eyes burn into Adam. “Do you know what it was like, loving you without having you? Working with you day in and day out, wanting you so bad it hurt and having to put those feelings aside for the greater good? Have you forgotten how it was? How you told me that you wanted to give me the commitment I deserved, but couldn’t because of your duty to the Rangers and how painful it was when we decided to just be friends. To wait until the world didn’t need us.”
“And then when I injured my back, when I had to step down. Do you have any idea what that did to me? The way it tore at me, knowing that I was never going to be a Ranger again, knowing that you would go on without me, keep on saving the world. I hated myself for feeling that way, hated the world for needing you. Hell, I even hated the other Rangers because they still got to be there beside you while I was stuck in a hospital trying to make something out of the ruins of my life.”
Emotion hits Adam in the stomach with a blow from Goldar’s fist. “I didn’t know,” he chokes out.
“Of course you didn’t.” Rocky gives him a sad look. “I wasn’t going to put that burden on you. It wouldn’t have been right. I would have come to grips with it eventually, moved on and all that. But I didn’t have to because barely a month later you were freed from all that responsibility and back in my life.”
Rocky runs a hand over his face. “You say that your life ended when you stopped being a Ranger and I can understand that. But for me, that’s when my life started.” He takes a steadying breath, leans in close and says, “And, honestly, I would trade it all, all the fame and glory, everything. Never even have had it in the first place, if it meant that I got to be with you one hour sooner.”
Adam’s hand shoots out and his fist wraps in Rocky’s shirt. Rocky lets out a surprised sound as Adam pulls him down towards him. “I don’t deserve you,” Adam whispers a moment before their lips meet. Rocky groans, his hands coming up to tenderly cup Adam’s face as his mouth moves gently against Adam’s.
He pulls back before Adam has a chance to deepen the kiss and runs the pad of his thumb over Adam’s bottom lip. “I thought I had lost you,” Rocky says with catch in his voice. “And that would have broken me where nothing else could.”
With those words the world shifts and for the first time Adam realizes just how much he stood to lose if the morpher had done what he had hoped. “I love you,” he says, the words completely inadequate to do the raw emotion coursing through him justice. “I know I’ve just done the stupidest thing in my life, but I promise you I will never pull something like this again.”
“You’re damn right you won't,” Rocky replies as he wraps his arms around Adam and squeezes tighter than is comfortable for Adam’s damaged body. Adam bites his lip and ignores the pain, relishing the contact too much to end it prematurely. Far too soon, Rocky's arms relax and he lowers Adam back down to the bed. He drops a kiss on Adam’s head and then brushes back a strand of his hair. “You and me, we’re going to fade away like the old soldiers we are.”
Adam smiles up at him and for the first time in nearly a year feels like life is worth living again.
Fun Fact: This was written for hc_bingo and is set directly after Always a Chance.
Rating: R
Fandom: Power Rangers
Characters: Adam/Rocky
Word Count: 2167
Warnings: Implied self harm
Summary: Every day I have to wake up and pretend that I’m not wasting my life. I have to go to class and pretend like what I’m studying matters. I have to go to work and pretend that stocking the shelves is on par with saving the world. Then I go home and lie in bed at night and struggle to find any meaning at all in what I did that day.
Adam blinks, the world coming slowly into focus. He’s on his back, strapped to a bed and his whole body hurts. There is a soft beeping coming from off to one side of him accompanied by an impenetrable babble of concerned voices. He turns his head toward them and his vision swims. When it clears again it is filled with the face of an unknown man who shines a bright light in his eyes and asks him something that Adam knows he should be able to understand.
“It didn’t work,” he manages to say, the words thick in his mouth.
The man’s frown deepens and he opens his mouth to repeat himself, but Adam has seen enough. He resolutely closes his eyes, not bothering to attempt to respond to the increasingly shrill voices surrounding him.
When he opens them again, he is alone. The room is quite except for the ever present beeping. It’s dark in the room, but the sound tells him better than his eyes would that he is in a hospital. Adam lets out a long, ragged sigh and tries to raise himself into a seated position. A sharp pain stabs into his chest and he hisses, flattening himself against the cool sheets of the bed.
“It almost did.”
Adam jerks at the words, sending another wave of pain shooting through him. Ignoring it, he turns to the side, fumbling in the blankets for the button that will raise his bed enough for him to see the person watching from the shadows. The bed moves slowly, but not slowly enough to keep him from feeling like his blood has been set on fire inside of his veins. “What?” he asks hoarsely when he is finally upright.
Rocky is sitting in a chair with his head hanging down and his clasped hands dangling between his legs. “I said, it almost did. Work, that is. Your little stunt.”
A dry cough wracks Adam’s body and for a moment he thinks he’s going to pass out again. “I don’t understand,” he says when he is able.
“Don’t you?” Rocky looks up and the pain Adam sees in his eyes rivals the one Adam feels in his body. Rocky's lips twitch up into a mockery of a smile. “You collapsed outside of the apartment. Someone called an ambulance and they brought you here. I came as soon as I heard, but I wasn’t here when you woke up. Cassie was, though. And she told me what you said. ‘It didn’t work.’ She was convinced you thought that you hadn’t been able to save Carlos, that you were confused from the strain of using your broken morpher and was in a panic to make sure you understood that it had worked. That you had morphed, if only for a short time, and that, no matter how short, it was enough.” He lets out an ironic laugh. “She wanted to tell you all this herself, of course, but there was an attack and she left it to me.”
“Oh,” is all Adam can manage.
“But I know better,” Rocky says, a bitter edge to his voice.
Adam forces himself to lift his hand, to stop Rocky’s words. He turns his head towards the wall, unable to face the accusation stamped on Rocky's face. “Go.” He closes his eyes and presses his thumb hard into the button that will lower his bed. “Just go.” There is a loud clatter and Adam knows without looking that Rocky’s chair is on it’s side.
“How could you?” he thunders. “How could you even think about doing it, let alone actual try? And don’t tell me it was done with heroic and pure motives. You wouldn’t even have had that worthless hunk of junk with you if you hadn’t been hoping to have the chance.”
Rocky’s voice cracks on the last word. Guilt and shame rip into Adam as he hears the harsh sound of a sob cut off midway. There is a scrape as Rocky no doubt rights his chair and then a sigh as he settles himself back in it. “How could you?” he asks again, and this time the words are as broken as Adam’s useless morpher.
Adam doesn’t want to answer- doesn’t want to even acknowledge Rocky’s right to demand one- but he can’t ignore the other man’s pain any more than he can ignore his own. “It wasn’t,” he begins, but then stops short. Rocky deserves the truth, so Adam takes a deep breath and tries again. “It seemed right, fitting. I was supposed to morph and fight and then just, I don’t know, vanish. End in a blaze of glory. Go to wherever the monsters go when they die.” He keeps his eyes squeezed shut as the words pour out. “Can’t you see how much better that would have been? To have had that one, last moment to be who I was born to be.”
“To be who you were born to be,” Rocky repeats, and when he says it the words sound hollow. “What is that, exactly? A martyr?” he scoffs. “And what about the rest of us? Did you for one second think about how that would affect anyone other than you? Or were you too busy dreaming about the Elysium Fields?”
“Rocky,” Adam starts, but he is quickly cut off.
“What about Carlos? Even if you didn’t give a damn about yourself, which is clearly the case, how could you do that to him? The guilt of it would have eaten away at him until there was nothing left. You saw how badly he took hurting Cassie. You saw what that did to his self confidence, and yet you were still able to justify letting him think that he caused your death. The death of a former Ranger and close friend. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Rocky,” Adam tries again, desperate to break through, and somehow this time it works. Rocky snaps his mouth closed and seems to realize for the first time that he has been shouting.
“I’m sorry,” he says in that broken voice. “You’re hurt. Bad. And not just physically. And here I am yelling at you.” Rocky lets out a long sigh. “I’m sorry.”
Adam struggles back into a seated position again. “No. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking about Carlos or the team. I was thinking about me and about how much my life sucks. I was focusing on myself and how wonderful it would feel to be a Ranger again, if only for a second. And no, I didn’t want to make it through and I didn’t give a crap about what the fallout from my actions would be.”
His eyes lock with Rocky’s as he attempts to explain. “But, you know what it is like. You know how hard this is. Every day I have to wake up and pretend that I’m not wasting my life. I have to go to class and pretend like what I’m studying matters. I have to go to work and pretend that stocking the shelves is on par with saving the world. Then I go home and lie in bed at night and struggle to find any meaning at all in what I did that day. And that’s a good day. A day when Angel Grove is peaceful." Adam goes to dash a hand through his hair and winces as the lines connecting him to the machine tug on his skin.
“Tell me you don’t feel the same way I do. Tell me it doesn’t hit you in the gut, every time you see them, standing up to evil. Fighting the good fight. I see that black suit and it kills me that it isn’t me I’m looking at. It’s like ripping off a scab. I keep telling myself to give it time. That it will stop hurting. And it never does.” He shakes his head. “Being a Ranger was all I ever wanted to be and when I lost that, I lost everything.”
At that Rocky’s eyes blaze. “Everything?” he asks softly. Adam swallows nervously, not knowing how to respond. The silence stretches uncomfortably, and Adam wishes he was anywhere but here, in this bed, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Rocky pushes up from his chair and crosses over to him. He stands in classic Ranger position, legs apart and hands fisted at his sides. “That’s funny, because I can think of at least one thing that you have now that you didn’t have then. One thing that, personally, I am grateful every single day to call mine.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Adam hedges.
“Sure you didn't.” Rocky’s voice is flat. “Being a Ranger is great, I’ll grant you. Amazing even. You get to do fantastical things. Things that I never would have believed possible if I hadn’t done them myself. And saving the world. What a rush. Not very many people can add that to their resumes. I can. But you know what? None of that gives me as much satisfaction as knowing that when I come home at night, I come home to you.”
Rocky’s voice remains as impassive as ever, but his eyes burn into Adam. “Do you know what it was like, loving you without having you? Working with you day in and day out, wanting you so bad it hurt and having to put those feelings aside for the greater good? Have you forgotten how it was? How you told me that you wanted to give me the commitment I deserved, but couldn’t because of your duty to the Rangers and how painful it was when we decided to just be friends. To wait until the world didn’t need us.”
“And then when I injured my back, when I had to step down. Do you have any idea what that did to me? The way it tore at me, knowing that I was never going to be a Ranger again, knowing that you would go on without me, keep on saving the world. I hated myself for feeling that way, hated the world for needing you. Hell, I even hated the other Rangers because they still got to be there beside you while I was stuck in a hospital trying to make something out of the ruins of my life.”
Emotion hits Adam in the stomach with a blow from Goldar’s fist. “I didn’t know,” he chokes out.
“Of course you didn’t.” Rocky gives him a sad look. “I wasn’t going to put that burden on you. It wouldn’t have been right. I would have come to grips with it eventually, moved on and all that. But I didn’t have to because barely a month later you were freed from all that responsibility and back in my life.”
Rocky runs a hand over his face. “You say that your life ended when you stopped being a Ranger and I can understand that. But for me, that’s when my life started.” He takes a steadying breath, leans in close and says, “And, honestly, I would trade it all, all the fame and glory, everything. Never even have had it in the first place, if it meant that I got to be with you one hour sooner.”
Adam’s hand shoots out and his fist wraps in Rocky’s shirt. Rocky lets out a surprised sound as Adam pulls him down towards him. “I don’t deserve you,” Adam whispers a moment before their lips meet. Rocky groans, his hands coming up to tenderly cup Adam’s face as his mouth moves gently against Adam’s.
He pulls back before Adam has a chance to deepen the kiss and runs the pad of his thumb over Adam’s bottom lip. “I thought I had lost you,” Rocky says with catch in his voice. “And that would have broken me where nothing else could.”
With those words the world shifts and for the first time Adam realizes just how much he stood to lose if the morpher had done what he had hoped. “I love you,” he says, the words completely inadequate to do the raw emotion coursing through him justice. “I know I’ve just done the stupidest thing in my life, but I promise you I will never pull something like this again.”
“You’re damn right you won't,” Rocky replies as he wraps his arms around Adam and squeezes tighter than is comfortable for Adam’s damaged body. Adam bites his lip and ignores the pain, relishing the contact too much to end it prematurely. Far too soon, Rocky's arms relax and he lowers Adam back down to the bed. He drops a kiss on Adam’s head and then brushes back a strand of his hair. “You and me, we’re going to fade away like the old soldiers we are.”
Adam smiles up at him and for the first time in nearly a year feels like life is worth living again.
Fun Fact: This was written for hc_bingo and is set directly after Always a Chance.