Power Rangers: Red/Black (1/2), (Jason/Zack), PG-13.
I have been sitting on this fic for a while and thought a Monday morning was a good time to release part one with the hope it might cheer up any of you back at school/work for the week. I always tell people my favorite PR slash pair is Jason/Zack, but I hadn't written any fics really featuring them to prove it! So, this is to remedy that, and to further promote my completely fanon belief regarding teams that have Black Rangers. There is a chance I will write a story like this for all Black Rangers, but we'll see. Hope you enjoy!
Title: Red/Black: Part One
Author: vandonovan
Main Pairing: Jason/Zack
Background/mentioned pairings: Jason/Emily, Adam/Tanya, Tommy/Kim, Tommy/Kat, Kim/Skull, Rocky/Adam.
Word count: 7,480
Rating: PG-13.
Era: Zeo through Turbo
Warnings: mentioned homophobia, Power addiction, adult language
Summary: The Power is stronger, stranger and more influential than anyone realizes, including Zordon.
Notes: Fic betaed by azelmaroark, banner betaed by babel.
Part One | Part Two
Part One:
“Thanks, but I’m just not interested.”
“You always say that. When are you interested? Emily’s a nice girl!”
Jason shook his head at Tanya, but let his gaze drift toward Emily again. She was an attractive girl: fit and bright; beautiful by anyone’s standards. As he watched her wiping down the table, he realized he found her graceful and alluring-so why wasn’t he attracted to her? He shrugged and pushed the thought aside. “I guess I need more than just ‘nice’?”
“Jason Lee Scott,” Tanya admonished. “From what Billy and Tommy have told me, you’ve never gone out on a date with anyone. I really think it’s time you thought about lowering your standards. Emily is totally into you, totally available and I think you’re into her. What’s the problem here?”
“She was practically involved with a gang?” Jason sighed. He knew that was a weak excuse; she’d done a complete 180 since walking away from Eddie. “Emily’s pretty and nice and all, but . . .” He shrugged again. His disinterest was impossible to articulate. “I guess she’s just not really my type?”
Tanya stared. “What is your type?”
Jason tried not to think about it; he just knew Emily wasn’t it. It was probably closer to Tanya, if anyone, and even that was way off. He could only offer another elaborate shrug as he went back to his smoothie.
Tanya shook her head in disbelief. “What do the girls in the magazines you get off to at night look like?”
Jason nearly spluttered on his drink. Tanya certain had a way with words that Kat didn’t. “I don’t do that sort of thing!”
Tanya stared. “Are you serious?” She laughed, then sobered when he didn’t join her. “Well, you must be the only guy in Angel Grove who doesn’t.”
Jason frowned. His gaze redirected to Emily as she brought another table their drinks. He made himself really look at her. In the sunlight, her hair sparkled. “You really think she’s into me?” Maybe it was time he got a girlfriend. It had never bothered him before, but Tanya was right; excepting a few dates, he’d never had a serious relationship. Not really.
If nothing else, bringing a girl like Emily home would certainly please his parents.
“Hello?!” Tanya rolled her eyes. “I thought it was obvious.”
As if on cue, Emily noticed Jason’s glance, and gave him a smile.
“You should go talk to her.”
Jason averted his eyes. “I’ve talked to her plenty before.” He drained his smoothie. “I introduced you two, if you don’t remember.”
“I mean talk to her. Ask her out. She already thinks you’re interested.”
“Why? Because I talked to her?”
“Yes, dummy. And because you didn’t drool on her breasts while you were doing so.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Believe me, a girl as pretty as Emily’s gotten a lot worse.”
“I dunno . . .”
“Trust me, Jason. You should do this.”
Jason didn’t really want to pursue this. There were plenty of reasons why. He was the Gold Ranger now. He had to focus on saving the world, not dating. He had to graduate high school and maintain his GPA and his karate classes. He had to finish his college applications. He had to put everything that had happened in Switzerland behind him. His life had been fine without a girlfriend for years; why change it now?
Yet. Maybe he should. It had been a long time since he’d gone on a date-a real date, the kind he could tell people about. Still, doubt nagged at him. “I’m so busy lately; I’m not sure dating is such a good idea.”
“Look, Adam and I have two extra tickets to the game on Friday. Why don’t you ask Emily to go with you? That’s pretty casual, and a double date, so you’ll have two friends along in case you need help.”
Jason stared at her. “You and Adam are dating?”
Tanya stared back. “Honestly, what planet do you live on? I’ve heard of colorblind, but not relationshipblind.”
A little alarm went off on Jason’s watch, redirecting his attention. “Shoot, I’ve gotta run.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s my alarm. My friend Zack-you know, Zack-he calls me from Geneva every day at five. I’ve got about seven minutes to get home. I’ll consider the game on Friday. Talk to you more about it later!”
Jason took off at a run, but he glanced back at Tanya when he got to his car in the parking lot and saw her staring after him with one incredulously arched eyebrow.
--
The double date with Emily went off without a hitch, and the end result left Jason feeling way more confident than he’d expected.
Emily was everything a guy like him could want in a girl. She was smart, attractive and even occasionally funny. She had a steady job at Ernie’s, and once they’d gotten over the initial awkwardness of first dates, Jason felt like they really had a chance of going somewhere. It was different, sometimes a little scary, but she was nice and a wonderful distraction.
Emily was interested in talking to him about everything. He found he could open up to her in a way he rarely could with anyone else, including his Ranger friends. He still wasn’t completely sold on the idea girlfriends-there were things Emily said or wanted or did that perplexed him to no end-but, overall, he enjoyed her company.
Initially, Tanya was pleased with the results, but after her relationship with Adam had naturally petered out, her enthusiasm for Jason’s relationship with Emily had waned, as well. Months later, she didn’t even know they were still dating, until somehow kissing got brought up.
“What do you mean you haven’t even kissed her yet?” The look on Tanya’s face could only properly be described as horrified.
“What?” Jason shrugged. “It’s just not important to us. We enjoy talking more.”
“Are you serious? You two have been going out for months now. How is she okay with this? How are you okay with this?”
Jason shook his head. “We’re just not there yet, that’s all. I’ve had other things on my mind.”
Tanya blinked a few times. “You’re not a Ranger anymore. School is all but out. What on Earth could be keeping you from kissing her?”
As if on cue, Jason’s wristwatch alarm went off. He couldn’t believe it was already five! “I’ve just been busy; maybe now that things have settled, that’ll change.” He got to his feet.
“But you haven’t been too busy to meet up every day for international phone chats with Zack?”
“Zack’s my best friend.”
“Bros before hos, is it?”
Jason frowned; there was no way he could explain it. “Something like that. Look, don’t worry about us. Emily and I are fine; better than fine. You’re still a Ranger; you’ve got way more important things to worry about.”
Within five minutes, he was home, curled up on his bed, waiting for his phone to ring. After the obligatory greetings, he launched right into a quick retelling of the conversation with Tanya. “Can you believe it?”
“That you’ve been with this girl for several months and haven’t kissed yet? Man, no! What’s wrong with you?”
Jason blinked. It was one thing to hear it from Tanya, but another to hear it from Zack. Zack was his bro. They implicitly understood each other in all things. He was supposed to get this. “What?”
“What do you mean ‘what’? After all these months you two should be banging! You seriously haven’t even kissed yet? The hell!”
Jason frowned. “It just hasn’t come up, I guess.” He’d felt confident saying it around Tanya, but found he was second guessing himself now.
“‘Hasn’t come up’? Man.”
“You think I should?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking advice for this. Isn’t it obvious? If you like her, you should kiss her.”
“But . . . I like a lot of people.”
“Emily’s your girlfriend, bro. You’re supposed to like her more than other people.”
The words discomfited him. “What if I don’t?”
Zack was silent for a long time, the way he always got silent when the topic took a turn toward the serious. “I thought you said you really liked her?”
“I do. But . . .”
“Not enough to kiss her?”
Jason kicked his shoes off. “I should just go back to being asexual.”
“What?”
“Asexual. It just means someone not interested in sex. I wasn’t for most of high school, you know. It just didn’t register for me. There were more important things to worry about than sex and relationships.”
For a time, all Jason could hear were the pops along the international connection. “Never heard of anything like that. Who isn’t into sex?”
“Me, I guess.” Jason let his skull thump back on the headboard. “It’s something Billy told me, once.” He took a deep breath. “My dad kept worrying I was, you know, gay because I wasn’t going out with any girls, but.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I got to talking about it with Billy not long before he went to Aquitar. He said there’s a bunch of different types of sexuality out there; loads more than just gay and straight. He said he’s something called pansexual and thought . . . based on my experience, he thought maybe I’m asexual.”
Zack was quiet for even longer this time. “You talked to Billy about this sort of stuff and not me?”
The words hurt Jason more than he cared to admit. “You’re just not here, bro. It’s nothing personal.”
“You’re the one who’s not here.”
“I know.” Jason scrubbed his fingers through his hair. His chest suddenly hurt in a way that it hadn’t in months and he wished he’d not brought it up at all. “I wanted to stay. You know I just couldn’t.”
“There were grants. You could’ve found a way.”
The alarm on Jason’s mantle went off, signifying the end of their thirty minutes, and he let out a breath of relief. “Listen, I’ve got to go.”
“Forget the alarm for once, Jase. You could’ve found a way to stay, if you’d wanted to.”
“I wanted to.”
“Then why are you back in Angel Grove? If you’re so asexual, why have you been dating this Emily girl for months?”
“You know I couldn’t stay, Zack. As for Emily, I had to at least try. I thought maybe if I dated her, maybe things would change.” He felt the carefully crafted falsehood they’d created together starting to crack.
“You and I both know you’re not asexual, Jase.” His tone was flat.
A cold sweat broke out along his back. “I’ve got to go, Zack.”
“Don’t you dare hang up on me, Jason.”
“Sorry. I’ve really gotta go.”
“You can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen. We have to talk about this someday!”
“Not today. I’m sorry. I’ve . . . I’ve gotta go.” Jason hung up the phone and tossed the cordless across the bed, as if Zack could somehow still berate him through it. He stared at it for several minutes, willing Zack to call back. Across the planet, as the connection between them began to fizzle, he could all too clearly see Zack sadly staring down at his phone receiver.
Letting out a grunt of frustration, Jason threw himself back on his bed.
--
After almost killing Tommy when possessed by Maligore, Jason found he really wasn’t ready to be around the Rangers again. If Rocky hadn’t been hurt and Kimberly hadn’t been there, Jason would have bowed out of the shelter charity event and slunk off unnoticed, just like he had after losing the Gold powers.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Kimberly said, sitting down next to him.
In the distance, the Rangers were celebrating with the kids from the shelter, helping Ernie pass out smoothies and snacks. Jason didn’t answer or even look at her.
She sighed wistfully. “Seeing all of them over there and feeling like you should be a part of it, but you’re not.”
“Missing Tommy, are you?”
“Yes, but not in that way. I miss all of them.”
“It’s not the same anymore.” He glanced over at her and his heart tightened slightly; looking at her was still like looking into the past. “Everything’s different now. Different powers, different people, different Power Chamber. Even Alpha’s different these days.”
“And now it’s all just changed again.”
“I shouldn’t have come back.” Jason stared at his hands in his lap. “I wanted to help out, but I didn’t think it’d . . . be so difficult. I didn’t anticipate Divatox.”
“Believe me, I understand. I don’t regret coming and I don’t regret leaving when I did, but I miss my friends. I haven’t really connected with anyone in Florida the way I did with you guys. Only, now you guys aren’t here anymore, either. One of my best friend’s is in Switzerland, one is in Africa somehow, and one is on another planet . . .”
“Yeah.” Jason put his arm around her. “I know what you mean. My best friend’s in Switzerland, too. I wish I could say ‘road trip’ and we could go off and visit them.”
Kimberly chuckled. “Bit of a drive.” Her head tilted. “Although, you know . . . my uncle Steve flies planes for a living. He’s got some pretty awesome connections. Maybe he could get us a discount. He got my mom amazingly cheap tickets to Paris once, and that’s not very far from Switzerland, is it?”
Jason blinked. “Not at all. There’s a train that runs right between Paris and Geneva.” He dismissively shook his head. “I couldn’t take a plane ticket from your uncle, though. That’s way too much money.”
“Not if he could swing us free or super cheap tickets. Hey, it could happen.”
The thought of going back to Switzerland made Jason’s pulse quicken. “Even if he could, it’s still really expensive over there . . .”
Kimberly nudged him with her shoulder. “So save up for a little while.”
“I just wish . . .” Jason shook his head.
“What?”
He flexed his fingers. “Just . . . that Zordon would let us teleport back and forth, even just once.”
“Did you ever ask?”
“No. But, he almost didn’t let Tanya teleport out of the country once, and that was to try and save her parents and she was a Ranger. He’s never going to let two former Rangers do it for a vacation.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” She smiled. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t go. At least you saw Zack a year ago. I haven’t seen Trini in three years! Three years! I wanna go and I want you,” she linked their arms, “to go with me.”
“Kim . . .”
“No buts. You’re gonna get your behind out to Florida, and we’ll fly from Orlando. Tickets to Europe are way cheaper off the east coast, believe me. And my uncle will hook us up, so you just save up money for food and lodging. We’re not in high school anymore, and this is the last chance we’re going to get to do something like this before college. It’ll be fun. Trust me.”
--
Jason did trust Kim-he always had-but that didn’t make the trip easier to justify to anyone, including himself. There were a lot of reasons he had left Switzerland when he did, but the main-at least, the one he told everyone, and had convinced himself-was that he and his parents just couldn’t afford it anymore. So, how could he justify going back for a vacation now?
Part of him had hoped Kimberly would go back to Florida and forget all about it, but she hadn’t. On top of juggling phone calls from Zack every evening, he took to dealing with hers as well.
“What do you mean you haven’t told Zack yet?” Kimberly gave him a patient sigh. “I’ve had this planned for months! We’re leaving in three weeks!”
Although he knew the reason full well, Jason couldn’t articulate why to her. “It just hasn’t come up, I guess. We only talk for thirty minutes a day.”
“A day! You’ve been saving for this for months! How have you not told him? I was so excited I called Trini in the middle of night to let her know.”
“I don’t know. I figured he’d hear it from Trini.” He stared across his bedroom at his mirrored closet door. “Maybe he has.”
Kimberly was silent for a period of time. “Jase, what’s wrong?”
He blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s wrong? This isn’t like you. Don’t you want to visit?”
Jason held his reflection’s gaze. “Yeah, of course.” He averted his eyes. “It’s just . . .”
Kimberly remained absolutely quiet on the other end.
Jason sighed and scrubbed a hand through his short cropped hair. He should’ve told Zack about the trip and he definitely shouldn’t have done anything to make Kimberly suspicious that anything was wrong.
“Did something happen in Geneva?”
“What?”
“You’re acting like something bad happened. Like it was more than money that made you leave.”
“No.” He licked his lips, tasting lies. “No, it was good. It was great.” He felt his stomach knot up and had to stop. “God, I don’t want to do this over the phone. Why do you have to be so far away?”
“Are you and Zack fighting?”
“No.” It wasn’t a lie, not really, and yet his stomach churned again. Jason pressed his back to the headboard and drew his knees close. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.” It was close enough to the truth, at last, that a little more was able to come out. “I just . . . don’t think he’ll want to see me again.” He swallowed.
“What? But . . . why? You two talk every day! Surely being in person again would be better than that.”
“Yeah.” Jason shivered slightly at just the thought. “I want to see him again. I just . . . I’m just not sure I ought to. It’s different over the phone.”
“What are you not telling me?”
Sighing, Jason glanced to his bedroom door. It was shut, but that was no real indicator of privacy; he could hear his dad watching the game in the living room. Although it hadn’t much appealed to him before, he wished now he had one of those new cell phones that were getting so popular. Maybe then he could find a place that felt private enough to talk-really talk. “Have you ever . . . felt the morphing grid before?”
“What? You mean like, other than when I was morphed?”
“Yeah. No. I mean . . . like, did you ever feel it when you touched one of us? Like . . . like Tommy?” He held his breath.
“I . . . I think I know what you’re asking. I don’t know that I felt the morphing grid, but . . . there was something there, sometimes. Something Rangery.”
Jason tugged at the hem on his flannels. It wasn’t the answer he’d expected; or, given Kim and Tommy’s current status, maybe it was exactly the one he’d expected.
At his prolonged silence, Kimberly began to piece things together. “Are you saying you . . . feel the morphing grid when you touch Zack?”
“It’s . . .” Every muscle in his body froze up. His brain told him to divert the topic; to ignore it; to lie. But this was Kim and if ever there was someone he could confide in and talk to about this-that wasn’t Zack-it was her. “Yeah.” Much softer, he said, “Every time.” She remained quiet, a somewhat impressive feat for her. Drawing a ragged breath made Jason realize just how difficult admitting that much had been. “It’s always there. It’s like this thread between us. Only . . .” He was whispering now. “Sometimes, it’s more than a thread.”
“But, you’re not even Rangers anymore.”
“Yeah.” Jason ran his hand through his hair again. “I can’t explain it. It’s . . . I can’t explain this either, but, mine at least, is very Red and his is very Black, so I know it’s. You know, Ranger related.” He buried his toes into his comforter. “I thought, maybe, being Gold would change things. I thought leaving Switzerland would change it. It didn’t.”
“But . . .”
“It works over the phone.” If any of the other Rangers had been the ones telling him this without feeling it himself, he would have been completely skeptical by this point, but Kimberly just listened. “It’s . . . it’s why we talk every day.” The little warning flags in Jason’s mind were going off, telling him to shut up, but he couldn’t seem to stop. It felt so good to just tell someone. “If we don’t talk it’s like . . . like . . . going too long without caffeine.” But worse, he mentally added. “The withdrawal, you know? The longer we go without talking, the harder it is to think or do stuff.”
To her credit, Kimberly didn’t sound weirded out. “What did Zordon say?”
“Zordon?”
“You’ve told him about this, haven’t you?”
Jason looked up, blinking ruddily at his reflection. “No. It didn’t really . . . start until after we stepped down, not really. I mean, it was there, but not like . . .” Stop talking, he told himself. He rearranged his thoughts. “We . . . we never had the chance when we were in Switzerland, and then . . . I don’t know. I guess without Zack around, I was used to it by the time I was able to ask again. It never occurred to me.” He pressed his lips together. “It wasn’t like that with you and Tommy?”
“No. No. I could tell he was a Ranger, somehow, but it wasn’t. Not the way you’re describing.” She was quiet for a few seconds. “But, Tommy and I never . . .” She let out a little sigh. “Jase, you know you can tell me anything, right?”
All of Jason’s muscles were already taut. The only thing left was for his stomach to liquefy its contents, which it was suddenly attempting to do. “I’ll tell Zack about the trip when he calls tomorrow. It’s late here; it’s got to be ungodly over there.”
Kimberly sounded disappointed. “Are you sure you have to go?”
“Yeah. Thanks. I just . . . I’m not ready for all this.”
“All right. I just want you to know I’m always here for you. You promise you’ll tell Zack about the trip when he calls tomorrow?”
“I promise.”
--
Sometimes, Jason dreaded the phone calls. Thinking of ways to fill up thirty minutes always daunted him, and having to deal with the potential fall out of the trip left Jason feeling tense and nervous as the date drew closer. Yet, every day, without fail, they picked up right where they’d left off. There was never any awkward silence or sense of obligation. The Red-Black thread made them talk to each other daily, but when they were connected it never felt like a chore.
So, it wasn’t difficult to talk for twenty minutes about things completely unrelated to the trip he was taking to visit Zack in less than three weeks. It would have been so easy, as it had been every day since Kimberly had set her sights on the trip, to just go the whole conversation without bringing it up. It’d certainly keep Jason’s nerves under better control.
But he had promised.
Although he had tried, Jason had been unable to come up with the perfect lead-in to the announcement. He decided to flounder a bit and hope it turned out for the best. “Hey, so. Guess who I talked to the other day?”
“Has to be another Ranger with a lead-in like that.”
The sheer fact Zack used lead-in just after Jason thought it sent tingles down through his toes. “Yeah, Kim. You remember her uncle, Steve? He was a pilot.”
“Oh yeah. How could I forget him almost crashing his plane with Kim inside?”
“That’s the guy.” Jason tried to play it casual; like this hadn’t been in the planning for months. “Turns out he gets some pretty nice deals for airline tickets these days; he scored her two to Switzerland recently, so she can visit Trini.”
“What? No way! That’s awesome! Oh, man! Trini is gonna be stoked.” He laughed fondly. “I haven’t seen Kim in like, forever! I hope,” he switched to French, “qu’elle ait exercé le français.”
Jason smiled the way he did every time Zack used French. All three of them had picked it up while in Switzerland, but Zack and Trini were much more fluent now than Jason. “I’ll be sure to give her a crash course in French before we get there.” That had come out naturally, hadn’t it?
Zack was silent for only a few seconds. “‘We’?”
Instead of the gripping fear Jason had felt with Kimberly, the Red-Black thread sent excited bubbles coursing through him. “Oui.”
“What? You serious, bro? You’re coming back to Switzerland?”
Why had he ever doubted? “Yeah, for two weeks. Kim insisted, really. I can’t even begin to afford it, but with her uncle covering the ticket and her practically begging . . . Well, you know how hard it is to tell Kim no.”
Some of the raw excitement faded from Zack’s voice. “Where are you gonna stay?”
The thread was all that kept Jason calm. “Don’t really know yet. Trini’s, maybe, if there’s room. Otherwise . . . maybe a youth hostel?”
Zack hesitated a moment-Jason could feel him hesitate-and then said, “Sophia and I broke up.”
It pulled at every fiber in Jason’s body, but he kept perfectly still. “Just now?”
“About a month ago.”
“You didn’t think that was worth mentioning until now?” Even as he said it, Jason knew why Zack hadn’t mentioned it; it was exactly the same reason he had put off telling him about the trip. How many other things were they keeping from each other?
“It just never came up. I just meant . . .” Zack sighed. “Forget it.”
“I’m sorry to hear about it. What happened?”
“Nothing. We just drifted apart, like we always do.”
“I told Kim about the thread.” He hadn’t meant to say that either, but there it was.
“What?”
“I had to know if she’d ever felt anything like it before. With Tommy, I mean.”
Zack didn’t reply.
“She says they hadn’t. Not . . . not like we do. I had to ask, bro.”
“Are you sure you want to come back here?”
Softly, Jason said, “I miss you.”
He felt the way the words cut through Zack, and the sad smile that followed. “I miss you like hell, man, but we agreed . . .”
“I know.” The alarm went off on Jason’s desk again, telling him his time was up. He quietly turned it off. “It’s been a year, though.”
“It’s been over a year.” There was tension in Zack, even through the connection. “We could do this, Jase.”
The words locked him up all over again, but he closed his eyes instead of his mind this time. He concentrated on that steady Black thread, darting in and out of him, soothingly tying back together the pieces of him that were falling apart. “I can’t promise anything,” he said in not much more than a whisper. “But, after everything, I do want to see you again.”
Zack’s voice didn’t soften any. “You know the Rules.”
“Yes.” Jason smiled, despite it. “I’ll see you in three weeks, then? Clear your calendar.”
“It’s getting cold. Bring a coat.”
--
“I see you’re wearing red again.”
Jason set his luggage down inside Kimberly’s foyer. “Never stopped, really, just started wearing black over it.” He glanced around her place. It was a typical apartment, like any other he’d seen, but the way Kimberly had decorated it made it feel like a much nicer place. “I used to think some people were born into certain colors. I liked red way before the Power Rangers came into my life.”
“Ha. I know what you mean.” She wasn’t overwhelmingly pink today, but there was pink embroidery on her chemise. “You want a Coke or something?”
“Sure.” He followed her into the kitchen, weary, but not ready to sit some more. “Tommy made me reevaluate that color theory.”
“Tommy? Why?” She laughed. “Oh. Green-White-Red.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Tommy’s . . .” She stared into her fridge. “I don’t think Tommy knows what he is.”
“Yeah.” Jason took the Coke when she handed it over and leaned heavily against the counter.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Jason took a long drink from the can. “Just . . .” He glanced at her, uncertain. “Didn’t get to talk to Zack today.”
To his surprise, she squeezed his arm sympathetically. “It’s really that bad?”
“Yeah.” He wanted to feel foolish and embarrassed, but Kimberly’s accepting attitude didn’t let him. “Tomorrow’ll more than make up for it, I’m sure.”
“Well, we’ve got an early flight, too, and with the time zone difference and all, it might just be a good thing you’re so tired right now.”
It was different than merely feeling tired, but Jason just nodded. He’d had a hard enough time opening up as much to her as he already had. “Yeah. I’ll probably just take a quick shower and get to sleep.” He pushed off the counter. “Am I couch surfing tonight?”
“Oh. Yeah.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Unless you wanted to share with me? I don’t mind, and the couch is kind of uncomfy.”
Jason let his eyes drift over her. Kimberly was one of the most attractive women he’d ever known, and yet he’d never been attracted to her. He wanted to chalk it up to the fact that they’d known each other since they were kids, but that’d certainly never stopped Billy or Zack from appreciating her physique in a way he never had. “You don’t snore or anything, do you?”
“No. And I’ll kick you if you do.” She led the way to the bedroom. “The shower’s in here too, so it’s really a lot more convenient.”
The bedroom was just as nicely decorated as the rest of the apartment, but Jason ignored the décor, watching Kimberly’s hips as they swayed. He appreciated them the same way he had appreciated Emily’s, and in exactly the same way he’d enjoyed watching the lines in Adam’s body as he rollerbladed. They were beautiful people. “Let me just get my carry on.” He returned the now empty Coke can to the kitchen and fetched the smaller of his suitcases.
When he crawled into bed barely an hour later, he reflected on the fact that, as far as he knew, Kimberly had never been attracted to him, either, and that had never made her question her sexuality-or lack thereof one. Their mutual disinterest hadn’t bothered him at the time, but now that he noticed things like that, it had him turning over the facts.
He wasn’t asleep yet when Kimberly finally crawled into bed. “Hey.”
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
“No.” He rolled onto his side, facing her. “I was just thinking.”
Her body relaxed beside his, and she burrowed under the covers, instinctively rolling toward him, even though, in the darkness, they couldn’t see each other. “What about?”
“Do you know what asexual means?”
She was silent a moment. “Uh. Isn’t . . . that when, like, amoeba or whatever can reproduce without having sex with another amoeba?”
Jason had to breathe a soft laugh. “Well, yes. But, it’s also used to mean the opposite of sexual. Asexual. You know, like atypical.”
“Someone who . . . isn’t sexual?”
“Yeah.” The silence stretched between them.
“Gotta admit, that’s not where I thought you were going with this,” she quietly said.
“Man, I wish Billy was still around.”
“ . . . Billy?”
“Yeah. He’s . . . he’s the one who told me about asexuality. No one else I’ve mentioned it to has ever even heard of it.”
“Well, there are libraries and thing . . .”
“They all seem to be about the amoeba kind.” He rolled onto his back.
“You . . . Do you think you’re asexual?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes.” Kimberly was one of his best friends, but he wasn’t comfortable enough with anyone to discuss his masturbation habits or sexual fantasies. “I’ve always wanted a family, you know. I just never really thought much about the process of getting there.”
“Have you had sex?” She paused. “Sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”
That Kimberly didn’t have the hang ups he did was almost a relief. “It’s all right.” He pillowed his hands behind his head. “But, yeah. I have. It’s not bad.” He felt a little tickle roll through his stomach. “Sometimes, it’s really nice.”
“Then you’re not asexual.”
“But.”
“Maybe you’ve just got a really low libido.” She propped herself up. “Listen, Tommy will kill me if he ever finds out I told you this, so please don’t tell; it’d absolutely ruin his persona, but he’s . . . Let’s just say, at least when we were dating, my libido far outpaced his. Don’t get me wrong; I loved him anyway, but he and Kat are a much better match in that department.”
Somehow that bit of information on Tommy did nothing to faze Jason. “Sometimes my libido is really high, sometimes it’s really not.”
“It’s different with everyone. Sexual compatibility can be a huge part of a relationship. If it’s not there, it’s just not there, and it’s nobody’s fault. You might just not have met the right person, yet.” She lowered her voice. “Or perhaps you had amazing chemistry with . . . with the wrong person.”
Jason’s muscles tensed up all over again. He had to force himself to unclench his jaw, but still couldn’t make himself speak.
She let out a deep breath. “You remember Skull, right?” She took another, resolving breath, like she was psyching herself up. “Well, there’s this thing between us. I can’t really . . . Well.” She paused, considering her words. “Okay. I can’t believe I’m saying this. We had sex once. And I’m not going to go into details because I really don’t want to right now, but it was, hands down-and it pains me to admit this-the most incredible sex I have ever had. With Skull. The idea still revolts me. He’s gotten better, but he’s still one of the creepiest people I’ve ever hung around, and sometimes his comments absolutely make my skin crawl, but. Well, there you go. Sexual chemistry through the roof! And I find myself sometimes, even now, wondering if he’d just grow up and stop being such a creep . . .”
“It’s Zack.” Saying it aloud to someone else hit Jason like a wall of bricks, completely knocking the breath out of him.
But Kimberly understood. “I sort of guessed.” Into the silence, she tentatively said, “You don’t want him to be? I mean, at least it’s not Skull . . .”
Jason’s pulse had quickened and he forced himself to concentrate on his breathing. He wasn’t prone to hyperventilation at all, but this was territory he’d never gone down with anyone before. “It’s . . .” he began, but had to stop and swallow away the tightness in his throat. “It’s complicated.”
“Here, let me try to piece it together. You and Zack have this weird connection through the morphing grid. It’s really great and you really like it, except, what? Oh. Of course: he’s not gay, is he? No, or . . . you’re asexual? Is that what that’s about? He wants sex and you don’t?”
“That’s not it.” Jason had never wanted to curl into a ball and die more than he wanted to now. He knew Kimberly meant well, but it was too much too soon.
And it was at least three years overdue.
It was dark in Kimberly’s bedroom, but Jason squeezed his eyes shut. Although she was right next to him, Jason couldn’t hear Kim breathing any more over the pounding of his heart. He drew in a ragged breath and forced the words out. “The sex is . . . more than good.” He let the rest of his breath out almost explosively.
Beside him, Kimberly lay patiently, and he imagined the world must be perfect and calm to her. Jason felt he was at the bottom of the lake, swimming fiercely toward the surface, but making no progress.
Through the darkness, Kimberly reached out and squeezed his shoulder. Her touch was ice cold, but warm all at once. It cut through the watery fog in Jason’s head. He opened his eyes and sat up.
“It’s okay,” she said, sounding like it wasn’t the first time she’d said it.
This was so much worse without having gotten the chance to talk to Zack today, and the fact that it was his relationship with Zack that was causing the anguish in the first place made Jason feel lightheaded. He flopped back down, rocking the bed. “It’s been over a year,” he finally said. “I took up another color. I thought the feeling would fade.”
“So, you . . . still want him?” she ventured.
“God.” Jason flung an arm over his eyes.
“But, Trini says he’s been talking nonstop about you visiting. He obviously wants to see you again, too.” She paused. “Does the connection only work one way, or something?”
“No.” He kicked the sheets off. “He wants me as badly as I want him.” His skin broke into a cold sweat at the words and he was glad he hadn’t had dinner.
“So . . . what’s the problem, then?”
“We’re both, arguably, straight? Our parents might disown us? We’re connected by this thread that we don’t even know is real? God’s against homosexuality? We both want families? It’s Zack?”
“Hey.” She drew him close, holding his head in her arms, so she could stroke his hair. “Shh. It’s all right.”
He didn’t even realize he was crying until he heard himself sniffle. “I miss him so much, sometimes,” he whispered, muffled against her skin and nightgown. “It hurts.”
“Oh, Jase.” She kissed his temple. “Why are you torturing yourself like this?”
He thought the list of reasons he’d just given was more than enough, though some part of him knew the question was rhetorical. He shook his head and just squeezed his eyes shut. To his relief, Kimberly’s soothing voice and gentle touch soon lulled him to sleep.
--
Getting started in the morning was a nightmare. Kimberly plied him with coffee, but nothing got Jason moving. He was trapped in a fogbank, unable to think clearly. It was a very good thing he didn’t have to drive them to the airport.
They found a seat in the terminal together while they waited. Kimberly chewed on her lower lip. “Maybe you should give him a call before we get on the plane.”
“From a payphone?” Jason slouched in his chair and didn’t open his eyes. “There aren’t enough quarters in Vegas.”
She stared at her ticket. “It’s a really long flight.”
“I know.” Jason took a deep breath and sat up, opening his eyes. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
“I can’t help it. You look . . . really drawn.”
“I just need some more coffee.” Jason got to his feet and was proud he didn’t stumble. “You need anything?”
“No. Be careful.”
It wasn’t until they were seated on the plane and somewhere over the Atlantic that she brought it up again. “Why do you have to be on the phone?”
Jason had been drifting in and out of sleep for the last few hours. “What?”
“The connection. Why would being on the phone make any difference? You’re still physically like 6,000 miles away.”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s his voice?” He smiled slightly at the thought.
“Have you ever experimented with other ways? Like, maybe just thinking about each other at 5pm would work, without the phone call?” She breathed a soft laugh. “Actually, Rocky told me once that’s what he used to do when Adam was grounded. They’d just think at each other.”
“Mm.” Jason gave an amused grunt. “I can see that working for someone like Rocky.”
“Omigosh.” Kimberly’s eyes widened.
Intrigued by the outburst, Jason glanced over at her. “What?”
“I just realized.” Her eyes were darting back and forth. “Rocky and Adam!” She looked at him. “They’re the same! I mean, they took your powers.” She winced and lowered her voice. “I mean, after you and Zack left. They became the new Red and Black and they were always hanging out. What if his need to think at Adam was the same connection? Do you think it could be exclusively a Red-Black Ranger thing?”
It made more sense than Jason cared to admit. “But, Rocky and Adam aren’t . . .” His stomach did a little flip. “I mean, I went on a couple of double dates with Adam and Tanya. Adam’s not . . .” He could finish the sentence.
Kimberly raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m waiting for you to get it.”
He stared at her, hoping he’d get it too, but his mind remained a fuzzy world he couldn’t focus on.
“You were dating Emily despite this! Why couldn’t Adam have dated Tanya? He was probably going through the same turmoil.” She crossed her arms. “Poor Rocky.”
“You don’t know that’s it. They were . . . they were Blue and Green by then, anyway.”
“You said the color change didn’t affect anything.”
“For me. I have no idea if those two . . .” Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. He was getting a headache.
“I bet that’s it, though. I bet it’s a Red-Black thing.” She nudged her shoulder into his. “I wish you had asked Zordon.”
“Keep it down,” he muttered. “People are going to think we’re crazy.”
“Doesn’t it excite you, though? You obviously wanted someone to talk to about it, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked about me and Tommy. Now you’ve got someone to talk to. You still see Adam sometimes, don’t you?”
“No.” Jason wished he could stretch out his legs. “I don’t . . . I’m not going to tell Adam about this . . . this thing with Zack. No way. And if he and Rocky have the same problem, then I know he’s not going to want me to know about it.”
“What? Why not? They’ve got to be as confused as you two.”
“Look, I don’t know about Rocky, but Adam is . . . not into guys. There’s just no way.”
“Oh?” Kimberly raised an eyebrow at him. “The same way you’re not into guys?”
Jason flopped back in his uncomfortable airline chair. He was hot. The air was stale. His ears were tired from the endless roar of the engine outside. His eyes were gritty. “I don’t want to think about this.”
Kimberly was quiet for a short while before leaning her head against his arm. “It’s almost 1999, Jase.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means.”
He stared at the in-flight movie on screen at the front of the cabin, watching the actors go silently through their roles. He knew exactly what she meant, even though he wished he didn’t. Quiet softly, he said, “I’m not gay.”
“No one said you had to be.” She reached out and held his hand. “But your friends will still love you no matter what. And, there’s no doubt in my mind that you’d still love your friends no matter what, too. I mean, what if Adam was? Would that change your opinion of him?”
Jason frowned. He was way too out of it to think. “No. I don’t know. He’s not, so it doesn’t matter. His parents would kill him.”
“That’s what it’s really about, isn’t it?” Kimberly squeezed his hand. “It’s not hard to be gay. It’s just as easy as being heterosexual. The only hard part is the way our society treats you. If there wasn’t a stigma, if it didn’t disappoint so many parents, if no one cared, don’t you think it would be easy?”
He didn’t answer and she didn’t press the issue, but despite his perpetual fog, Jason’s mind couldn’t seem to stop turning her words over.
Title: Red/Black: Part One
Author: vandonovan
Main Pairing: Jason/Zack
Background/mentioned pairings: Jason/Emily, Adam/Tanya, Tommy/Kim, Tommy/Kat, Kim/Skull, Rocky/Adam.
Word count: 7,480
Rating: PG-13.
Era: Zeo through Turbo
Warnings: mentioned homophobia, Power addiction, adult language
Summary: The Power is stronger, stranger and more influential than anyone realizes, including Zordon.
Notes: Fic betaed by azelmaroark, banner betaed by babel.
Part One | Part Two
Part One:
“Thanks, but I’m just not interested.”
“You always say that. When are you interested? Emily’s a nice girl!”
Jason shook his head at Tanya, but let his gaze drift toward Emily again. She was an attractive girl: fit and bright; beautiful by anyone’s standards. As he watched her wiping down the table, he realized he found her graceful and alluring-so why wasn’t he attracted to her? He shrugged and pushed the thought aside. “I guess I need more than just ‘nice’?”
“Jason Lee Scott,” Tanya admonished. “From what Billy and Tommy have told me, you’ve never gone out on a date with anyone. I really think it’s time you thought about lowering your standards. Emily is totally into you, totally available and I think you’re into her. What’s the problem here?”
“She was practically involved with a gang?” Jason sighed. He knew that was a weak excuse; she’d done a complete 180 since walking away from Eddie. “Emily’s pretty and nice and all, but . . .” He shrugged again. His disinterest was impossible to articulate. “I guess she’s just not really my type?”
Tanya stared. “What is your type?”
Jason tried not to think about it; he just knew Emily wasn’t it. It was probably closer to Tanya, if anyone, and even that was way off. He could only offer another elaborate shrug as he went back to his smoothie.
Tanya shook her head in disbelief. “What do the girls in the magazines you get off to at night look like?”
Jason nearly spluttered on his drink. Tanya certain had a way with words that Kat didn’t. “I don’t do that sort of thing!”
Tanya stared. “Are you serious?” She laughed, then sobered when he didn’t join her. “Well, you must be the only guy in Angel Grove who doesn’t.”
Jason frowned. His gaze redirected to Emily as she brought another table their drinks. He made himself really look at her. In the sunlight, her hair sparkled. “You really think she’s into me?” Maybe it was time he got a girlfriend. It had never bothered him before, but Tanya was right; excepting a few dates, he’d never had a serious relationship. Not really.
If nothing else, bringing a girl like Emily home would certainly please his parents.
“Hello?!” Tanya rolled her eyes. “I thought it was obvious.”
As if on cue, Emily noticed Jason’s glance, and gave him a smile.
“You should go talk to her.”
Jason averted his eyes. “I’ve talked to her plenty before.” He drained his smoothie. “I introduced you two, if you don’t remember.”
“I mean talk to her. Ask her out. She already thinks you’re interested.”
“Why? Because I talked to her?”
“Yes, dummy. And because you didn’t drool on her breasts while you were doing so.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Believe me, a girl as pretty as Emily’s gotten a lot worse.”
“I dunno . . .”
“Trust me, Jason. You should do this.”
Jason didn’t really want to pursue this. There were plenty of reasons why. He was the Gold Ranger now. He had to focus on saving the world, not dating. He had to graduate high school and maintain his GPA and his karate classes. He had to finish his college applications. He had to put everything that had happened in Switzerland behind him. His life had been fine without a girlfriend for years; why change it now?
Yet. Maybe he should. It had been a long time since he’d gone on a date-a real date, the kind he could tell people about. Still, doubt nagged at him. “I’m so busy lately; I’m not sure dating is such a good idea.”
“Look, Adam and I have two extra tickets to the game on Friday. Why don’t you ask Emily to go with you? That’s pretty casual, and a double date, so you’ll have two friends along in case you need help.”
Jason stared at her. “You and Adam are dating?”
Tanya stared back. “Honestly, what planet do you live on? I’ve heard of colorblind, but not relationshipblind.”
A little alarm went off on Jason’s watch, redirecting his attention. “Shoot, I’ve gotta run.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s my alarm. My friend Zack-you know, Zack-he calls me from Geneva every day at five. I’ve got about seven minutes to get home. I’ll consider the game on Friday. Talk to you more about it later!”
Jason took off at a run, but he glanced back at Tanya when he got to his car in the parking lot and saw her staring after him with one incredulously arched eyebrow.
--
The double date with Emily went off without a hitch, and the end result left Jason feeling way more confident than he’d expected.
Emily was everything a guy like him could want in a girl. She was smart, attractive and even occasionally funny. She had a steady job at Ernie’s, and once they’d gotten over the initial awkwardness of first dates, Jason felt like they really had a chance of going somewhere. It was different, sometimes a little scary, but she was nice and a wonderful distraction.
Emily was interested in talking to him about everything. He found he could open up to her in a way he rarely could with anyone else, including his Ranger friends. He still wasn’t completely sold on the idea girlfriends-there were things Emily said or wanted or did that perplexed him to no end-but, overall, he enjoyed her company.
Initially, Tanya was pleased with the results, but after her relationship with Adam had naturally petered out, her enthusiasm for Jason’s relationship with Emily had waned, as well. Months later, she didn’t even know they were still dating, until somehow kissing got brought up.
“What do you mean you haven’t even kissed her yet?” The look on Tanya’s face could only properly be described as horrified.
“What?” Jason shrugged. “It’s just not important to us. We enjoy talking more.”
“Are you serious? You two have been going out for months now. How is she okay with this? How are you okay with this?”
Jason shook his head. “We’re just not there yet, that’s all. I’ve had other things on my mind.”
Tanya blinked a few times. “You’re not a Ranger anymore. School is all but out. What on Earth could be keeping you from kissing her?”
As if on cue, Jason’s wristwatch alarm went off. He couldn’t believe it was already five! “I’ve just been busy; maybe now that things have settled, that’ll change.” He got to his feet.
“But you haven’t been too busy to meet up every day for international phone chats with Zack?”
“Zack’s my best friend.”
“Bros before hos, is it?”
Jason frowned; there was no way he could explain it. “Something like that. Look, don’t worry about us. Emily and I are fine; better than fine. You’re still a Ranger; you’ve got way more important things to worry about.”
Within five minutes, he was home, curled up on his bed, waiting for his phone to ring. After the obligatory greetings, he launched right into a quick retelling of the conversation with Tanya. “Can you believe it?”
“That you’ve been with this girl for several months and haven’t kissed yet? Man, no! What’s wrong with you?”
Jason blinked. It was one thing to hear it from Tanya, but another to hear it from Zack. Zack was his bro. They implicitly understood each other in all things. He was supposed to get this. “What?”
“What do you mean ‘what’? After all these months you two should be banging! You seriously haven’t even kissed yet? The hell!”
Jason frowned. “It just hasn’t come up, I guess.” He’d felt confident saying it around Tanya, but found he was second guessing himself now.
“‘Hasn’t come up’? Man.”
“You think I should?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking advice for this. Isn’t it obvious? If you like her, you should kiss her.”
“But . . . I like a lot of people.”
“Emily’s your girlfriend, bro. You’re supposed to like her more than other people.”
The words discomfited him. “What if I don’t?”
Zack was silent for a long time, the way he always got silent when the topic took a turn toward the serious. “I thought you said you really liked her?”
“I do. But . . .”
“Not enough to kiss her?”
Jason kicked his shoes off. “I should just go back to being asexual.”
“What?”
“Asexual. It just means someone not interested in sex. I wasn’t for most of high school, you know. It just didn’t register for me. There were more important things to worry about than sex and relationships.”
For a time, all Jason could hear were the pops along the international connection. “Never heard of anything like that. Who isn’t into sex?”
“Me, I guess.” Jason let his skull thump back on the headboard. “It’s something Billy told me, once.” He took a deep breath. “My dad kept worrying I was, you know, gay because I wasn’t going out with any girls, but.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I got to talking about it with Billy not long before he went to Aquitar. He said there’s a bunch of different types of sexuality out there; loads more than just gay and straight. He said he’s something called pansexual and thought . . . based on my experience, he thought maybe I’m asexual.”
Zack was quiet for even longer this time. “You talked to Billy about this sort of stuff and not me?”
The words hurt Jason more than he cared to admit. “You’re just not here, bro. It’s nothing personal.”
“You’re the one who’s not here.”
“I know.” Jason scrubbed his fingers through his hair. His chest suddenly hurt in a way that it hadn’t in months and he wished he’d not brought it up at all. “I wanted to stay. You know I just couldn’t.”
“There were grants. You could’ve found a way.”
The alarm on Jason’s mantle went off, signifying the end of their thirty minutes, and he let out a breath of relief. “Listen, I’ve got to go.”
“Forget the alarm for once, Jase. You could’ve found a way to stay, if you’d wanted to.”
“I wanted to.”
“Then why are you back in Angel Grove? If you’re so asexual, why have you been dating this Emily girl for months?”
“You know I couldn’t stay, Zack. As for Emily, I had to at least try. I thought maybe if I dated her, maybe things would change.” He felt the carefully crafted falsehood they’d created together starting to crack.
“You and I both know you’re not asexual, Jase.” His tone was flat.
A cold sweat broke out along his back. “I’ve got to go, Zack.”
“Don’t you dare hang up on me, Jason.”
“Sorry. I’ve really gotta go.”
“You can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen. We have to talk about this someday!”
“Not today. I’m sorry. I’ve . . . I’ve gotta go.” Jason hung up the phone and tossed the cordless across the bed, as if Zack could somehow still berate him through it. He stared at it for several minutes, willing Zack to call back. Across the planet, as the connection between them began to fizzle, he could all too clearly see Zack sadly staring down at his phone receiver.
Letting out a grunt of frustration, Jason threw himself back on his bed.
--
After almost killing Tommy when possessed by Maligore, Jason found he really wasn’t ready to be around the Rangers again. If Rocky hadn’t been hurt and Kimberly hadn’t been there, Jason would have bowed out of the shelter charity event and slunk off unnoticed, just like he had after losing the Gold powers.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Kimberly said, sitting down next to him.
In the distance, the Rangers were celebrating with the kids from the shelter, helping Ernie pass out smoothies and snacks. Jason didn’t answer or even look at her.
She sighed wistfully. “Seeing all of them over there and feeling like you should be a part of it, but you’re not.”
“Missing Tommy, are you?”
“Yes, but not in that way. I miss all of them.”
“It’s not the same anymore.” He glanced over at her and his heart tightened slightly; looking at her was still like looking into the past. “Everything’s different now. Different powers, different people, different Power Chamber. Even Alpha’s different these days.”
“And now it’s all just changed again.”
“I shouldn’t have come back.” Jason stared at his hands in his lap. “I wanted to help out, but I didn’t think it’d . . . be so difficult. I didn’t anticipate Divatox.”
“Believe me, I understand. I don’t regret coming and I don’t regret leaving when I did, but I miss my friends. I haven’t really connected with anyone in Florida the way I did with you guys. Only, now you guys aren’t here anymore, either. One of my best friend’s is in Switzerland, one is in Africa somehow, and one is on another planet . . .”
“Yeah.” Jason put his arm around her. “I know what you mean. My best friend’s in Switzerland, too. I wish I could say ‘road trip’ and we could go off and visit them.”
Kimberly chuckled. “Bit of a drive.” Her head tilted. “Although, you know . . . my uncle Steve flies planes for a living. He’s got some pretty awesome connections. Maybe he could get us a discount. He got my mom amazingly cheap tickets to Paris once, and that’s not very far from Switzerland, is it?”
Jason blinked. “Not at all. There’s a train that runs right between Paris and Geneva.” He dismissively shook his head. “I couldn’t take a plane ticket from your uncle, though. That’s way too much money.”
“Not if he could swing us free or super cheap tickets. Hey, it could happen.”
The thought of going back to Switzerland made Jason’s pulse quicken. “Even if he could, it’s still really expensive over there . . .”
Kimberly nudged him with her shoulder. “So save up for a little while.”
“I just wish . . .” Jason shook his head.
“What?”
He flexed his fingers. “Just . . . that Zordon would let us teleport back and forth, even just once.”
“Did you ever ask?”
“No. But, he almost didn’t let Tanya teleport out of the country once, and that was to try and save her parents and she was a Ranger. He’s never going to let two former Rangers do it for a vacation.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” She smiled. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t go. At least you saw Zack a year ago. I haven’t seen Trini in three years! Three years! I wanna go and I want you,” she linked their arms, “to go with me.”
“Kim . . .”
“No buts. You’re gonna get your behind out to Florida, and we’ll fly from Orlando. Tickets to Europe are way cheaper off the east coast, believe me. And my uncle will hook us up, so you just save up money for food and lodging. We’re not in high school anymore, and this is the last chance we’re going to get to do something like this before college. It’ll be fun. Trust me.”
--
Jason did trust Kim-he always had-but that didn’t make the trip easier to justify to anyone, including himself. There were a lot of reasons he had left Switzerland when he did, but the main-at least, the one he told everyone, and had convinced himself-was that he and his parents just couldn’t afford it anymore. So, how could he justify going back for a vacation now?
Part of him had hoped Kimberly would go back to Florida and forget all about it, but she hadn’t. On top of juggling phone calls from Zack every evening, he took to dealing with hers as well.
“What do you mean you haven’t told Zack yet?” Kimberly gave him a patient sigh. “I’ve had this planned for months! We’re leaving in three weeks!”
Although he knew the reason full well, Jason couldn’t articulate why to her. “It just hasn’t come up, I guess. We only talk for thirty minutes a day.”
“A day! You’ve been saving for this for months! How have you not told him? I was so excited I called Trini in the middle of night to let her know.”
“I don’t know. I figured he’d hear it from Trini.” He stared across his bedroom at his mirrored closet door. “Maybe he has.”
Kimberly was silent for a period of time. “Jase, what’s wrong?”
He blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s wrong? This isn’t like you. Don’t you want to visit?”
Jason held his reflection’s gaze. “Yeah, of course.” He averted his eyes. “It’s just . . .”
Kimberly remained absolutely quiet on the other end.
Jason sighed and scrubbed a hand through his short cropped hair. He should’ve told Zack about the trip and he definitely shouldn’t have done anything to make Kimberly suspicious that anything was wrong.
“Did something happen in Geneva?”
“What?”
“You’re acting like something bad happened. Like it was more than money that made you leave.”
“No.” He licked his lips, tasting lies. “No, it was good. It was great.” He felt his stomach knot up and had to stop. “God, I don’t want to do this over the phone. Why do you have to be so far away?”
“Are you and Zack fighting?”
“No.” It wasn’t a lie, not really, and yet his stomach churned again. Jason pressed his back to the headboard and drew his knees close. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.” It was close enough to the truth, at last, that a little more was able to come out. “I just . . . don’t think he’ll want to see me again.” He swallowed.
“What? But . . . why? You two talk every day! Surely being in person again would be better than that.”
“Yeah.” Jason shivered slightly at just the thought. “I want to see him again. I just . . . I’m just not sure I ought to. It’s different over the phone.”
“What are you not telling me?”
Sighing, Jason glanced to his bedroom door. It was shut, but that was no real indicator of privacy; he could hear his dad watching the game in the living room. Although it hadn’t much appealed to him before, he wished now he had one of those new cell phones that were getting so popular. Maybe then he could find a place that felt private enough to talk-really talk. “Have you ever . . . felt the morphing grid before?”
“What? You mean like, other than when I was morphed?”
“Yeah. No. I mean . . . like, did you ever feel it when you touched one of us? Like . . . like Tommy?” He held his breath.
“I . . . I think I know what you’re asking. I don’t know that I felt the morphing grid, but . . . there was something there, sometimes. Something Rangery.”
Jason tugged at the hem on his flannels. It wasn’t the answer he’d expected; or, given Kim and Tommy’s current status, maybe it was exactly the one he’d expected.
At his prolonged silence, Kimberly began to piece things together. “Are you saying you . . . feel the morphing grid when you touch Zack?”
“It’s . . .” Every muscle in his body froze up. His brain told him to divert the topic; to ignore it; to lie. But this was Kim and if ever there was someone he could confide in and talk to about this-that wasn’t Zack-it was her. “Yeah.” Much softer, he said, “Every time.” She remained quiet, a somewhat impressive feat for her. Drawing a ragged breath made Jason realize just how difficult admitting that much had been. “It’s always there. It’s like this thread between us. Only . . .” He was whispering now. “Sometimes, it’s more than a thread.”
“But, you’re not even Rangers anymore.”
“Yeah.” Jason ran his hand through his hair again. “I can’t explain it. It’s . . . I can’t explain this either, but, mine at least, is very Red and his is very Black, so I know it’s. You know, Ranger related.” He buried his toes into his comforter. “I thought, maybe, being Gold would change things. I thought leaving Switzerland would change it. It didn’t.”
“But . . .”
“It works over the phone.” If any of the other Rangers had been the ones telling him this without feeling it himself, he would have been completely skeptical by this point, but Kimberly just listened. “It’s . . . it’s why we talk every day.” The little warning flags in Jason’s mind were going off, telling him to shut up, but he couldn’t seem to stop. It felt so good to just tell someone. “If we don’t talk it’s like . . . like . . . going too long without caffeine.” But worse, he mentally added. “The withdrawal, you know? The longer we go without talking, the harder it is to think or do stuff.”
To her credit, Kimberly didn’t sound weirded out. “What did Zordon say?”
“Zordon?”
“You’ve told him about this, haven’t you?”
Jason looked up, blinking ruddily at his reflection. “No. It didn’t really . . . start until after we stepped down, not really. I mean, it was there, but not like . . .” Stop talking, he told himself. He rearranged his thoughts. “We . . . we never had the chance when we were in Switzerland, and then . . . I don’t know. I guess without Zack around, I was used to it by the time I was able to ask again. It never occurred to me.” He pressed his lips together. “It wasn’t like that with you and Tommy?”
“No. No. I could tell he was a Ranger, somehow, but it wasn’t. Not the way you’re describing.” She was quiet for a few seconds. “But, Tommy and I never . . .” She let out a little sigh. “Jase, you know you can tell me anything, right?”
All of Jason’s muscles were already taut. The only thing left was for his stomach to liquefy its contents, which it was suddenly attempting to do. “I’ll tell Zack about the trip when he calls tomorrow. It’s late here; it’s got to be ungodly over there.”
Kimberly sounded disappointed. “Are you sure you have to go?”
“Yeah. Thanks. I just . . . I’m not ready for all this.”
“All right. I just want you to know I’m always here for you. You promise you’ll tell Zack about the trip when he calls tomorrow?”
“I promise.”
--
Sometimes, Jason dreaded the phone calls. Thinking of ways to fill up thirty minutes always daunted him, and having to deal with the potential fall out of the trip left Jason feeling tense and nervous as the date drew closer. Yet, every day, without fail, they picked up right where they’d left off. There was never any awkward silence or sense of obligation. The Red-Black thread made them talk to each other daily, but when they were connected it never felt like a chore.
So, it wasn’t difficult to talk for twenty minutes about things completely unrelated to the trip he was taking to visit Zack in less than three weeks. It would have been so easy, as it had been every day since Kimberly had set her sights on the trip, to just go the whole conversation without bringing it up. It’d certainly keep Jason’s nerves under better control.
But he had promised.
Although he had tried, Jason had been unable to come up with the perfect lead-in to the announcement. He decided to flounder a bit and hope it turned out for the best. “Hey, so. Guess who I talked to the other day?”
“Has to be another Ranger with a lead-in like that.”
The sheer fact Zack used lead-in just after Jason thought it sent tingles down through his toes. “Yeah, Kim. You remember her uncle, Steve? He was a pilot.”
“Oh yeah. How could I forget him almost crashing his plane with Kim inside?”
“That’s the guy.” Jason tried to play it casual; like this hadn’t been in the planning for months. “Turns out he gets some pretty nice deals for airline tickets these days; he scored her two to Switzerland recently, so she can visit Trini.”
“What? No way! That’s awesome! Oh, man! Trini is gonna be stoked.” He laughed fondly. “I haven’t seen Kim in like, forever! I hope,” he switched to French, “qu’elle ait exercé le français.”
Jason smiled the way he did every time Zack used French. All three of them had picked it up while in Switzerland, but Zack and Trini were much more fluent now than Jason. “I’ll be sure to give her a crash course in French before we get there.” That had come out naturally, hadn’t it?
Zack was silent for only a few seconds. “‘We’?”
Instead of the gripping fear Jason had felt with Kimberly, the Red-Black thread sent excited bubbles coursing through him. “Oui.”
“What? You serious, bro? You’re coming back to Switzerland?”
Why had he ever doubted? “Yeah, for two weeks. Kim insisted, really. I can’t even begin to afford it, but with her uncle covering the ticket and her practically begging . . . Well, you know how hard it is to tell Kim no.”
Some of the raw excitement faded from Zack’s voice. “Where are you gonna stay?”
The thread was all that kept Jason calm. “Don’t really know yet. Trini’s, maybe, if there’s room. Otherwise . . . maybe a youth hostel?”
Zack hesitated a moment-Jason could feel him hesitate-and then said, “Sophia and I broke up.”
It pulled at every fiber in Jason’s body, but he kept perfectly still. “Just now?”
“About a month ago.”
“You didn’t think that was worth mentioning until now?” Even as he said it, Jason knew why Zack hadn’t mentioned it; it was exactly the same reason he had put off telling him about the trip. How many other things were they keeping from each other?
“It just never came up. I just meant . . .” Zack sighed. “Forget it.”
“I’m sorry to hear about it. What happened?”
“Nothing. We just drifted apart, like we always do.”
“I told Kim about the thread.” He hadn’t meant to say that either, but there it was.
“What?”
“I had to know if she’d ever felt anything like it before. With Tommy, I mean.”
Zack didn’t reply.
“She says they hadn’t. Not . . . not like we do. I had to ask, bro.”
“Are you sure you want to come back here?”
Softly, Jason said, “I miss you.”
He felt the way the words cut through Zack, and the sad smile that followed. “I miss you like hell, man, but we agreed . . .”
“I know.” The alarm went off on Jason’s desk again, telling him his time was up. He quietly turned it off. “It’s been a year, though.”
“It’s been over a year.” There was tension in Zack, even through the connection. “We could do this, Jase.”
The words locked him up all over again, but he closed his eyes instead of his mind this time. He concentrated on that steady Black thread, darting in and out of him, soothingly tying back together the pieces of him that were falling apart. “I can’t promise anything,” he said in not much more than a whisper. “But, after everything, I do want to see you again.”
Zack’s voice didn’t soften any. “You know the Rules.”
“Yes.” Jason smiled, despite it. “I’ll see you in three weeks, then? Clear your calendar.”
“It’s getting cold. Bring a coat.”
--
“I see you’re wearing red again.”
Jason set his luggage down inside Kimberly’s foyer. “Never stopped, really, just started wearing black over it.” He glanced around her place. It was a typical apartment, like any other he’d seen, but the way Kimberly had decorated it made it feel like a much nicer place. “I used to think some people were born into certain colors. I liked red way before the Power Rangers came into my life.”
“Ha. I know what you mean.” She wasn’t overwhelmingly pink today, but there was pink embroidery on her chemise. “You want a Coke or something?”
“Sure.” He followed her into the kitchen, weary, but not ready to sit some more. “Tommy made me reevaluate that color theory.”
“Tommy? Why?” She laughed. “Oh. Green-White-Red.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Tommy’s . . .” She stared into her fridge. “I don’t think Tommy knows what he is.”
“Yeah.” Jason took the Coke when she handed it over and leaned heavily against the counter.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Jason took a long drink from the can. “Just . . .” He glanced at her, uncertain. “Didn’t get to talk to Zack today.”
To his surprise, she squeezed his arm sympathetically. “It’s really that bad?”
“Yeah.” He wanted to feel foolish and embarrassed, but Kimberly’s accepting attitude didn’t let him. “Tomorrow’ll more than make up for it, I’m sure.”
“Well, we’ve got an early flight, too, and with the time zone difference and all, it might just be a good thing you’re so tired right now.”
It was different than merely feeling tired, but Jason just nodded. He’d had a hard enough time opening up as much to her as he already had. “Yeah. I’ll probably just take a quick shower and get to sleep.” He pushed off the counter. “Am I couch surfing tonight?”
“Oh. Yeah.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Unless you wanted to share with me? I don’t mind, and the couch is kind of uncomfy.”
Jason let his eyes drift over her. Kimberly was one of the most attractive women he’d ever known, and yet he’d never been attracted to her. He wanted to chalk it up to the fact that they’d known each other since they were kids, but that’d certainly never stopped Billy or Zack from appreciating her physique in a way he never had. “You don’t snore or anything, do you?”
“No. And I’ll kick you if you do.” She led the way to the bedroom. “The shower’s in here too, so it’s really a lot more convenient.”
The bedroom was just as nicely decorated as the rest of the apartment, but Jason ignored the décor, watching Kimberly’s hips as they swayed. He appreciated them the same way he had appreciated Emily’s, and in exactly the same way he’d enjoyed watching the lines in Adam’s body as he rollerbladed. They were beautiful people. “Let me just get my carry on.” He returned the now empty Coke can to the kitchen and fetched the smaller of his suitcases.
When he crawled into bed barely an hour later, he reflected on the fact that, as far as he knew, Kimberly had never been attracted to him, either, and that had never made her question her sexuality-or lack thereof one. Their mutual disinterest hadn’t bothered him at the time, but now that he noticed things like that, it had him turning over the facts.
He wasn’t asleep yet when Kimberly finally crawled into bed. “Hey.”
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
“No.” He rolled onto his side, facing her. “I was just thinking.”
Her body relaxed beside his, and she burrowed under the covers, instinctively rolling toward him, even though, in the darkness, they couldn’t see each other. “What about?”
“Do you know what asexual means?”
She was silent a moment. “Uh. Isn’t . . . that when, like, amoeba or whatever can reproduce without having sex with another amoeba?”
Jason had to breathe a soft laugh. “Well, yes. But, it’s also used to mean the opposite of sexual. Asexual. You know, like atypical.”
“Someone who . . . isn’t sexual?”
“Yeah.” The silence stretched between them.
“Gotta admit, that’s not where I thought you were going with this,” she quietly said.
“Man, I wish Billy was still around.”
“ . . . Billy?”
“Yeah. He’s . . . he’s the one who told me about asexuality. No one else I’ve mentioned it to has ever even heard of it.”
“Well, there are libraries and thing . . .”
“They all seem to be about the amoeba kind.” He rolled onto his back.
“You . . . Do you think you’re asexual?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes.” Kimberly was one of his best friends, but he wasn’t comfortable enough with anyone to discuss his masturbation habits or sexual fantasies. “I’ve always wanted a family, you know. I just never really thought much about the process of getting there.”
“Have you had sex?” She paused. “Sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”
That Kimberly didn’t have the hang ups he did was almost a relief. “It’s all right.” He pillowed his hands behind his head. “But, yeah. I have. It’s not bad.” He felt a little tickle roll through his stomach. “Sometimes, it’s really nice.”
“Then you’re not asexual.”
“But.”
“Maybe you’ve just got a really low libido.” She propped herself up. “Listen, Tommy will kill me if he ever finds out I told you this, so please don’t tell; it’d absolutely ruin his persona, but he’s . . . Let’s just say, at least when we were dating, my libido far outpaced his. Don’t get me wrong; I loved him anyway, but he and Kat are a much better match in that department.”
Somehow that bit of information on Tommy did nothing to faze Jason. “Sometimes my libido is really high, sometimes it’s really not.”
“It’s different with everyone. Sexual compatibility can be a huge part of a relationship. If it’s not there, it’s just not there, and it’s nobody’s fault. You might just not have met the right person, yet.” She lowered her voice. “Or perhaps you had amazing chemistry with . . . with the wrong person.”
Jason’s muscles tensed up all over again. He had to force himself to unclench his jaw, but still couldn’t make himself speak.
She let out a deep breath. “You remember Skull, right?” She took another, resolving breath, like she was psyching herself up. “Well, there’s this thing between us. I can’t really . . . Well.” She paused, considering her words. “Okay. I can’t believe I’m saying this. We had sex once. And I’m not going to go into details because I really don’t want to right now, but it was, hands down-and it pains me to admit this-the most incredible sex I have ever had. With Skull. The idea still revolts me. He’s gotten better, but he’s still one of the creepiest people I’ve ever hung around, and sometimes his comments absolutely make my skin crawl, but. Well, there you go. Sexual chemistry through the roof! And I find myself sometimes, even now, wondering if he’d just grow up and stop being such a creep . . .”
“It’s Zack.” Saying it aloud to someone else hit Jason like a wall of bricks, completely knocking the breath out of him.
But Kimberly understood. “I sort of guessed.” Into the silence, she tentatively said, “You don’t want him to be? I mean, at least it’s not Skull . . .”
Jason’s pulse had quickened and he forced himself to concentrate on his breathing. He wasn’t prone to hyperventilation at all, but this was territory he’d never gone down with anyone before. “It’s . . .” he began, but had to stop and swallow away the tightness in his throat. “It’s complicated.”
“Here, let me try to piece it together. You and Zack have this weird connection through the morphing grid. It’s really great and you really like it, except, what? Oh. Of course: he’s not gay, is he? No, or . . . you’re asexual? Is that what that’s about? He wants sex and you don’t?”
“That’s not it.” Jason had never wanted to curl into a ball and die more than he wanted to now. He knew Kimberly meant well, but it was too much too soon.
And it was at least three years overdue.
It was dark in Kimberly’s bedroom, but Jason squeezed his eyes shut. Although she was right next to him, Jason couldn’t hear Kim breathing any more over the pounding of his heart. He drew in a ragged breath and forced the words out. “The sex is . . . more than good.” He let the rest of his breath out almost explosively.
Beside him, Kimberly lay patiently, and he imagined the world must be perfect and calm to her. Jason felt he was at the bottom of the lake, swimming fiercely toward the surface, but making no progress.
Through the darkness, Kimberly reached out and squeezed his shoulder. Her touch was ice cold, but warm all at once. It cut through the watery fog in Jason’s head. He opened his eyes and sat up.
“It’s okay,” she said, sounding like it wasn’t the first time she’d said it.
This was so much worse without having gotten the chance to talk to Zack today, and the fact that it was his relationship with Zack that was causing the anguish in the first place made Jason feel lightheaded. He flopped back down, rocking the bed. “It’s been over a year,” he finally said. “I took up another color. I thought the feeling would fade.”
“So, you . . . still want him?” she ventured.
“God.” Jason flung an arm over his eyes.
“But, Trini says he’s been talking nonstop about you visiting. He obviously wants to see you again, too.” She paused. “Does the connection only work one way, or something?”
“No.” He kicked the sheets off. “He wants me as badly as I want him.” His skin broke into a cold sweat at the words and he was glad he hadn’t had dinner.
“So . . . what’s the problem, then?”
“We’re both, arguably, straight? Our parents might disown us? We’re connected by this thread that we don’t even know is real? God’s against homosexuality? We both want families? It’s Zack?”
“Hey.” She drew him close, holding his head in her arms, so she could stroke his hair. “Shh. It’s all right.”
He didn’t even realize he was crying until he heard himself sniffle. “I miss him so much, sometimes,” he whispered, muffled against her skin and nightgown. “It hurts.”
“Oh, Jase.” She kissed his temple. “Why are you torturing yourself like this?”
He thought the list of reasons he’d just given was more than enough, though some part of him knew the question was rhetorical. He shook his head and just squeezed his eyes shut. To his relief, Kimberly’s soothing voice and gentle touch soon lulled him to sleep.
--
Getting started in the morning was a nightmare. Kimberly plied him with coffee, but nothing got Jason moving. He was trapped in a fogbank, unable to think clearly. It was a very good thing he didn’t have to drive them to the airport.
They found a seat in the terminal together while they waited. Kimberly chewed on her lower lip. “Maybe you should give him a call before we get on the plane.”
“From a payphone?” Jason slouched in his chair and didn’t open his eyes. “There aren’t enough quarters in Vegas.”
She stared at her ticket. “It’s a really long flight.”
“I know.” Jason took a deep breath and sat up, opening his eyes. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
“I can’t help it. You look . . . really drawn.”
“I just need some more coffee.” Jason got to his feet and was proud he didn’t stumble. “You need anything?”
“No. Be careful.”
It wasn’t until they were seated on the plane and somewhere over the Atlantic that she brought it up again. “Why do you have to be on the phone?”
Jason had been drifting in and out of sleep for the last few hours. “What?”
“The connection. Why would being on the phone make any difference? You’re still physically like 6,000 miles away.”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s his voice?” He smiled slightly at the thought.
“Have you ever experimented with other ways? Like, maybe just thinking about each other at 5pm would work, without the phone call?” She breathed a soft laugh. “Actually, Rocky told me once that’s what he used to do when Adam was grounded. They’d just think at each other.”
“Mm.” Jason gave an amused grunt. “I can see that working for someone like Rocky.”
“Omigosh.” Kimberly’s eyes widened.
Intrigued by the outburst, Jason glanced over at her. “What?”
“I just realized.” Her eyes were darting back and forth. “Rocky and Adam!” She looked at him. “They’re the same! I mean, they took your powers.” She winced and lowered her voice. “I mean, after you and Zack left. They became the new Red and Black and they were always hanging out. What if his need to think at Adam was the same connection? Do you think it could be exclusively a Red-Black Ranger thing?”
It made more sense than Jason cared to admit. “But, Rocky and Adam aren’t . . .” His stomach did a little flip. “I mean, I went on a couple of double dates with Adam and Tanya. Adam’s not . . .” He could finish the sentence.
Kimberly raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m waiting for you to get it.”
He stared at her, hoping he’d get it too, but his mind remained a fuzzy world he couldn’t focus on.
“You were dating Emily despite this! Why couldn’t Adam have dated Tanya? He was probably going through the same turmoil.” She crossed her arms. “Poor Rocky.”
“You don’t know that’s it. They were . . . they were Blue and Green by then, anyway.”
“You said the color change didn’t affect anything.”
“For me. I have no idea if those two . . .” Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. He was getting a headache.
“I bet that’s it, though. I bet it’s a Red-Black thing.” She nudged her shoulder into his. “I wish you had asked Zordon.”
“Keep it down,” he muttered. “People are going to think we’re crazy.”
“Doesn’t it excite you, though? You obviously wanted someone to talk to about it, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked about me and Tommy. Now you’ve got someone to talk to. You still see Adam sometimes, don’t you?”
“No.” Jason wished he could stretch out his legs. “I don’t . . . I’m not going to tell Adam about this . . . this thing with Zack. No way. And if he and Rocky have the same problem, then I know he’s not going to want me to know about it.”
“What? Why not? They’ve got to be as confused as you two.”
“Look, I don’t know about Rocky, but Adam is . . . not into guys. There’s just no way.”
“Oh?” Kimberly raised an eyebrow at him. “The same way you’re not into guys?”
Jason flopped back in his uncomfortable airline chair. He was hot. The air was stale. His ears were tired from the endless roar of the engine outside. His eyes were gritty. “I don’t want to think about this.”
Kimberly was quiet for a short while before leaning her head against his arm. “It’s almost 1999, Jase.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means.”
He stared at the in-flight movie on screen at the front of the cabin, watching the actors go silently through their roles. He knew exactly what she meant, even though he wished he didn’t. Quiet softly, he said, “I’m not gay.”
“No one said you had to be.” She reached out and held his hand. “But your friends will still love you no matter what. And, there’s no doubt in my mind that you’d still love your friends no matter what, too. I mean, what if Adam was? Would that change your opinion of him?”
Jason frowned. He was way too out of it to think. “No. I don’t know. He’s not, so it doesn’t matter. His parents would kill him.”
“That’s what it’s really about, isn’t it?” Kimberly squeezed his hand. “It’s not hard to be gay. It’s just as easy as being heterosexual. The only hard part is the way our society treats you. If there wasn’t a stigma, if it didn’t disappoint so many parents, if no one cared, don’t you think it would be easy?”
He didn’t answer and she didn’t press the issue, but despite his perpetual fog, Jason’s mind couldn’t seem to stop turning her words over.