Archive of Our Own

Jason had knocked on the door to Billy’s house with the expectation of nobody answering it and him leaving the bag of things he’d brought from school behind the bushes at the front door. It had been a bad day and Billy hadn’t been able to go to school, so he’d asked Jason to bring him his homework. Jason was happy to oblige, but he wasn’t anticipating Candace to arrive at the door, a small smile on her face, not at all where Jason had expected her to be. “Jason,” She smiled. “Nice to see you. Billy’s downstairs- did you bring his homework? He’ll freak if he doesn’t do it all.”

“Uh, yeah,” Jason held up his heavy carry bag filled with books and papers. “I’ve got it. Um, what are you doing here? I thought you two were going to the rally?”

“We were but...” Candace looked sad for a moment and she sighed. “Billy’s been having a long day, and we probably won’t be able to make it. And I just got a call from work, and they said that if I’m not going to the rally they’d like me in, so I’m on my way there now.”

“Oh, right,” Jason stepped aside so Candace could exit. “Would you mind if I came in and hung out with Billy for a little bit?”

Candace smiled and her eyes crinkled in a way that made her face light up. “Of course, Jason. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the company, anyway. Just remind him to lock up when you leave.”

He watched her walk down the driveway and slide into the new van the council had provided for her after it was ‘stolen’ that one time, and then he waved when she drove off, honking the horn as a goodbye. Mind reeling a little bit, Jason walked through the doorway and shut it behind him with a loud, resolute, thunk! He stood there in the hallway for a moment, alone and confused before he made his way towards the stairs that led down to Billy’s basement.

“Billy?” He called on his way down so he didn’t startle Billy in case he hadn’t realized he was home. Candace usually did it for him, shouting out the names of all the people who had arrived at her door so Billy would be ready for them by the time they made their way down the stairs, but she knew that by now Jason was pretty good with being sensitive to Billy’s needs and trusted him to do it on his own. “It’s me, are you down here?”

Cresting around the corner, Jason saw him, spinning slowly in his desk chair with a set of goofy looking magnifying gloves on and some sort of tiny engine in his hands that Jason suspected was some sort of unfinished explosive, a screw-driver between his fingers. He glanced up when he spun around at the right angle to catch sight of Jason and pulled his noise-cancelling earphones off of his head and let them hang around his neck. “Oh- hi. I didn’t think you’d be coming over.”

“And I didn’t think you’d be home,” Jason said, moving off the stairs and further into the room. He lifted the bag up high enough for Billy to see. “I brought your homework. Mr Ashton said he hopes that you feel better by Monday.”

Gently, Billy placed the object in his hands down on the table and gratefully took the bag from Jason. “Thanks, I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to get it before Monday.”

“No worries,” Jason said, moving until he was sitting on the recliner closest to the workbench. “Uh, I thought you and your mum were going to the rally this afternoon? What changed?”

“Uh,” Billy hunched in on himself, his shoulders falling forward and his body growing smaller, his head down, and Jason immediately regretting bringing it up. “Well, when I woke up this morning, I was feeling fine, you know? I was in my bed and it was warm and it wasn’t too bright, so I was fine, but as soon as I got downstairs and starting having breakfast it all went downhill and mum thought it would be best to stay home, you know? But then I thought that school is hard enough at the best of times, but I can do it, I know all the people there and they know me, and they know that sometimes I can’t deal with certain things and they understand. But I didn’t think that going to a rally like that on such a bad day would have been a good idea. Too many people. Too much noise.” He licked his lips. “I’m feeling a bit better now though. I feel bad, because mum wanted to go, but she stayed home instead so she could be here with me and now she’s been called into work so she won’t get the chance.”

“She couldn’t have gone alone?” Jason asked. “I know you like having company but I know you’ve been fine to stay on your own for a couple of hours. And besides- you’re a Power Ranger.”

Billy was nodding before Jason had finished. “I know, I told her that- not that I was a Power Ranger, of course not, just that I didn’t need her to stay home with me- but it didn’t matter. She was really only going for me, anyway. I used to go with my dad a lot when Angel Grove was smaller, but now it’s just... it’s just a lot.”

Jason watched him intently for a moment. Billy just looked so sad and so small that he could feel it in his soul, and since becoming Power Rangers it was almost like the Morphing Grid was sharing the feelings with the others- Jason knew that Billy felt guilty and ashamed and he wanted that to stop right this second. “Would you like to go?” Jason asked. “Now that you’re feeling better?”

“I would,” Billy’s shoulders rose and fell hopelessly. “But I can’t go alone, I just can’t. It’s just too much, too many people. And mum’s already gone to work, so it’s not like I can call her back and ask her to come with me.”

There was a split second where Jason just watched him as Billy started to space out and stare at the wall, and then Jason wanted to slam his head into the nearest solid object, not because of anything that Billy did, but because the answer was right in front of him and he was just too dumb to see it. “What if I came with you? Would that make it easier for you?”

Blinking, Billy was snapped out of his thoughts and stared at Jason like he was just talking another language. “You’d really come to a Black Lives Matter rally with me?”

“Billy?” Jason said as he stood up so fast from the recliner that it skidded back a few inches and stopped against the coffee table in the centre of the room. He walked towards Billy who was looking up at him with a sceptic look that also had an undertone of doubt and... hopefulness? “It would be my honour.”

Jason extended his hand and let it sit there, unwavering between them, and let Billy make the first move. He prepared to be shut down, for Billy to politely decline and decide that he really didn’t want to go even with Jason’s support, but surprisingly, Billy slowly reached out his hands and took it firmly in his own.

He didn’t let go the entire walk through the rally.

At first, Jason felt a little out of place. He didn’t belong there, this rally wasn’t for him- it was for all the people in Angle Grove who felt like they were treated differently than their white peers and they were sick of it and now they were marching through the streets and screaming from the rooftops, ‘Our lives matter! We are here!’. What right did Jason have to be there?

But then he saw some other kids from school and from around the town that he recognised, all there to support their loved ones, holding hands with family members and boyfriends and girlfriends and best friends just like Jason was, and suddenly he didn’t feel quite as guilty about marching and chanting just as loud as Billy was. Jason carried his noise-cancelling headphones and had insisted repeatedly before they joined the rally that Billy could pull him aside at any moment and ask for them or ask that Jason let go of his hand or ask for Jason to take him home, but they made it to the final moments of the rally and not only did Billy never ask for his headphones or a ride home, but he held onto Jason’s hand like a life-line the whole way through the town.

Candace had been watching on TV, and when she caught sight of her son in his dad’s bright blue baseball cap holding hands with Jason as they marched and chanted through the streets, she broke down in tears and knew that his father would have been so god damn proud of him. And she was just glad that Billy finally had someone like Jason Scott in his life.

“What are you so worried about?” Jason followed Trini as she marched her way towards the Pit, her shoulders tense, her fists clenched at her side and her face contorted into the picture of agony. “Who the hell cares if you go to this... this thing?”

Trini ignored him until she was already into the Pit, and by that time he was a little sick and tired of subtly, so he grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him, and he endured the fire in her eyes and the flash of her teeth. “Trini, come on. It’s me for gods sakes. You can tell me anything.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she hissed, trying to yank her arm away, but Jason was unyielding. “Let go.”

“Make me understand,” Jason’s gaze was unwavering. It was only when Trini finally met his eyes and realized that escape was a futile effort that all the fight left her posture and she slummed into his arms, her eyes closed tight, hands fisted into his shirt. “Talk to me,” he murmured gently, running his fingers through her hair. It had taken them a while, when the realization finally had clicked into place, it was easy to see that Trini liked being touched with gentle hands whenever she could, despite being surly and stand-offish most of the time.

Her face was pressed into his chest, so her voice came out quiet and muffled. “It’s a parade, Jason. Everyone is going to see us- and my parents... I mean, not just them, but like, everyone else in the town who isn’t you guys... they’re going to...”

Jason still didn’t totally understand, but he knew what she was getting at, and what her worries were. “You’re afraid that people will see you there? And just... I don’t know, assume that you like girls? Is that how it works?”

Trini looked away and Jason felt like an asshole. “You sound surprised. Of course, that’s how it works. I’d be going there to support the rights of people like me- why wouldn’t everyone assume that I’m gay? Or you know...”

He did know. Maybe gay wasn’t the right word to use- queer, maybe. Bi, maybe. Nobody really knew yet, but until Trini figured it out, Jason was just happy to sit in his room doing research about all the different possible terms for every sexuality just in case the day ever came and he could impress her with his vast knowledge of the rainbow. “Well, why does it work like that? Are you only allowed to go if you’re... LGBT?”

“You...” Trini raised her eyebrows at him, impressed just as he hoped she would be. And maybe a little proud, too- Jason certainly was. He was shit at remembering acronyms. “Why the hell do you know what that is?”

“I know how to work Google, I'm not just a pretty face,” Jason said, and Trini looked like a subtle breeze would knock her over. “Now, you never answered my question. Can you go to the parade if you’re not gay?”

“I mean, I suppose so,” Trini frowned. “There’s no rule that you can’t, but...”

Jason interrupted by squeezing her tighter to his chest, holding her as close as their bodies would allow. “Then why don’t I go with you?”

“You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not,” Jason only pulled away because Trini did, and he let her go a little reluctantly. She looked up at him like he had just suggesting putting Zack in charge of training duty. “I’ll come and support you. Then, if anyone asks, we can just say that we were there supporting the cause and nobody has to know that you were marching for yourself- unless, of course, you want to tell them?”

Trini didn’t even dignify that stupid question with a response, which Jason sort of appreciated. “Jason, don’t be ridiculous. It’s a pride parade- you really don’t have to come. Hey, I don’t even know if I’ll be going.”

“Alright,” Jason said, his mind already made up. “Well, I’ll be there. And you can decide if you want to come or not, but either way, I’ll be marching,”

At that moment, Trini looked like she was going to kill him, and Jason knew without a doubt that she absolutely could.

The next day, he woke up bright and early, much earlier than even he expected, and rushed out of the house after throwing a quick explanation to his parents over his shoulder. Trini was sending messages the whole time he was driving to where the parade was set to begin, but he wasn’t going to look at them. He didn’t want to get into any more trouble with the law, after all.

It was all a little too much at first- so many colours and bright decorations that Jason was slightly disoriented the moment he stepped foot into the tents and past the people setting up floats and signs, but he knew where he wanted to go, and made his way to the tent where some teenagers were applying face paint and makeup to a couple of people seated in cheap camping chairs. Jason had stayed up most of the night researching, and by the time he had left the tent; his cheeks were painted with flags of different colours and meanings- a rainbow on one cheek, and a rainbow triangle on a black and white background on the other. The woman had smiled when Jason requested it, despite how complicated it was.

People were clapping him on the back, some he had met, some he had seen around Angle Grove at some point or another and some Jason had never seen and suspected had come from out of town to be here. Either way, he was a little proud to be here, especially when they started putting glitter in his hair and shooting him with silly-string- it was a lot more enjoyable than sitting at home, wondering if Trini had gone to the parade she desperately wanted to attend.

Trini actually rushed up to him moments before the festivities started, nestled between a few people and the float, hidden by most of the bouncing crowd. “What the hell are you doing here?” She hissed loud enough for him to hear.

“I’m marching,” Jason said, pointing to his face paint and the confetti in his hair. “I’m glad you could make it.”

She was looking at his face paint with an incredulous expression, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, and then simply asked, in the smallest, most pained voice, “Why?”

“Because,” Jason said gently, extending his arm out towards her. “I want to support my friends and all the people in this town who don’t feel supported enough. Don’t look at me like that, I’m being serious. Do you really think I’d let someone cover me in glitter and paint for a gag?”

“You’re not afraid that people will see you here and think that you’re gay?” Trini looked like she was really regretting coming. “Or queer, whatever.”

“Let them think what they want,” Jason shrugged, still holding out his arm as an open invitation for Trini to take it should she need to. “It’s none of their business. I know what I am, and anything they think is just totally wrong anyway. Who cares? Not me.”

Slowly, a small smile coming over her lips, Trini reached her hand out and took Jason’s arm. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

Jason smiled as Trini squeezed his arm a little harder than was necessary, but he was happy to let her do it if it made her feel better. “Come on, it’ll be fun,” he encouraged, “And I don’t know about you, but I’m glad to finally be a part of something that doesn’t involve being the star of the school or saving the world, you know? Football and the Power Rangers are great and all, but I think it’s time I was a part of something a little... smaller.”

Trini was shaking her head. “I honestly can’t believe you, Jason Scott.”

Laughing, Jason slowly guided them closer into the throbbing fray of people, decorated in glitter and paint and every colour of the rainbow. “Come on, let’s get closer to the centre,” he suggested, guiding them along. “I doubt anyone watching would be able to pick us out of this crowd.”

He was glad to hear Trini laugh, and while they marched, they cheered and roared and screamed and sang, and eventually, her hand slipped down his arm until his hand was clutched tightly and firmly in his and honestly, Jason couldn’t find any way to be annoyed by that. He just held her tighter.

Kim was late to training again- well, Jason knew that she was going to be because she had sent the team a message long beforehand, but this would be the fourth time this week she’d show up red-faced and flustered and just in time to get in about an hour’s training before they all went home for the night, and then it’d all repeat again. So Jason, being the kind and generous team leader that he was, decided to check up on her, just in case there was something more sinister going on that she was hiding.

He knew where she lived, of course he did, all the Power Rangers knew where the others lived just in case, so all he had to do was drive down the street she lived and parked his car in the empty driveway. He knew that Kim would be home, but he wasn’t sure about whether she was home alone, so he made sure to look proper just in case her parents opened the door.

Her mother did, in fact, open the door, and while Jason was expecting her to be dressed according to the weather, maybe in a pair of tracksuit pants or jeans or something just as casual, she was dressed in a brightly coloured yellow sari decorated in threaded patterns and dotted with jewels. It wasn’t the most elaborate sari Jason had ever seen, but it was no less beautiful and no less surprising. “Uh... hi?” He said, caught off guard, and not quite sure what to say.

Mrs Hart- Maddy, Jason distantly remembered- blinked in confusion at some strange boy randomly turning up on her doorstep before something finally clicked in her mind and she said, albeit slowly, “Jason Scott? Kimberly’s friend, right? From detention?”

“Yeah, from detention,” Jason rubbed the back of his neck. Was that how everyone else had introduced Jason? Their friend from detention? “Uh, I was just wondering if Kim was home? I’ve been a bit worried about her lately, she’s been blowing off our plans without an explanation so I just wanted to come and check up on her and make sure she’s alright.’

“Oh,” Maddy obviously hadn’t expected that, and she hesitated in surprise for a moment before she stepped aside and let Jason into the house. “I didn’t know she had... she’s in the kitchen. Just around the corner.”

Jason smiled at her as he made his way through the house, careful not to step on the fairy lights and other fragile-looking objects littering the floor and were immediately drawn to the warm scents of spices and pastry and cooking vegetables until he finally entered the kitchen.

Kim was standing at the kitchen bench like her mother said she would be, chopping up vegetables, humming softly under her breath. She wore a sari like her mothers, but instead of it being in bright yellow, it was a vibrant pink, her hair was twisted up in a bun and pinned with a pin with pink jewels in it, and Jason was just so shocked that he had no choice but to stand there in surprise for a moment. He cleared his throat and Kim whipped around to face him so quickly that the fabrics in her garment almost fell against the open flame on the stove that was heating a pot filled with slowly boiling water. “What,” she said, very deliberately, her eyes wide. “The absolute fuck are you doing here?”

“I uh,” Jason tightened his hand on the strap of his backpack. “Wanted to make sure you’re ok? Surprise?”

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Kim looked like her eyes were about to fall out of her head. Jason felt a little guilty. “What happened to you guys training and patrolling Angel Grove?”

Jason took a step back from Kim’s fiery gaze- too close and he was worried she would start swinging punches. “I called training off, and the others are taking care of patrol tonight. I just wanted to check up on you and make sure you were alright. You’ve been blowing training off this week and I thought something had happened. I didn’t think it would be... this,” he looked around the room at all the bright lights and vibrant colours suspended from the ceiling. “Uh, what is this, actually?”

Biting her lip, Kim looked around the room as if searching for an escape before sighing and reluctantly answering. “It’s Diwali. The festival of lights. It’s a week-long Indian tradition that my parents decided to take part in for the first time in about 12 years, and I haven’t managed to get out of it.”

“I didn’t know you celebrated anything like this?” Jason frowned. He hadn’t known Kim for the longest of times, but he thought he knew her well enough by now to know the traditions she celebrated. Like Christmas, or Easter.

“There are a lot of things about me that you don’t know,” she bit back, her arms crossed over her chest, leaning back against the counter and trying to become one with the sink. “And if you tell anyone about this, Jason Scott, I will end you so badly...”

Jason held his hands up in surrender. “Don’t worry; I think this is actually pretty cool. We don’t have any of this stuff in my family, so I’m just a little surprised.” He glanced around her to the chopped vegetables and boiling water on the stove. “What are you making?”

Hesitantly, Kim moved away from the counter so she was no longer blocking the food and Jason could see everything in preparation. There were cucumber and yogurt separated into bowls and vegetables of varying colours and sizes on the chopping board. Tiny china bowls filled with red and orange and brown spices and seeds sat on a tray next to the stove. There was bread sitting in the corner, cooling down under a cloth, and the ingredients to make naan bread beside the fridge. Kim looked like she would rather be anywhere but here, and Jason felt a little bad for her, but now that he was actually here, in her house, seeing it with his own eyes, his curiosity was peaked. “What are you making?”

“It’s just m-” she caught herself and scowled as if Jason’s question had surprised her. “Are you going to make fun of me? Because if you are, you can get out right now.”

“I’m being serious,” Jason tried not to laugh. “You really have no reason to be embarrassed about this. If I can go to Pride Parades with Trini and Black Lives Matter marches with Billy, then I think I can handle you celebrating your heritage. You just never talk about it very often. At all, actually. I just didn’t know that you celebrated anything.”

Kim licked her lips. “It’s a recent thing,” she said. “My mum’s from India, and when she moved here she sort of converted into the Western culture, and then when she married my dad and had me, she was pretty much Indian only in name, you know? And I always felt a little bad, not being able to celebrate who I am, because I never really understood it. But dad thought that this year we should celebrate, and so mum’s gone full out to make up for the lost time. I guess she sort of missed it and doesn’t want me to miss out as well. Maybe she felt bad for not introducing me to the Indian culture before, I don’t know.” She looked away, back down to the floor. “It’s the first time in a long time that we’ve been on good terms, so I’m not going to screw this up.” She pushed her hair out of her face and looked at as she looked up at him through her eyelashes. “You probably think this is really weird, huh?”

“No, actually,” Jason smiled, shaking his head. “This is great. I’m glad you’re finally feeling like you have somewhere... relatively normal that you belong. It’s nice to see,” he turned away and walked back towards the door, calling over his shoulder, “But now that I know everything’s alright here and you haven’t been killed by anything or being held here against you’re will, I’ll be on my way. I’ve got a team to run, after all.”

“Jason-” surprisingly, Kim followed Jason out of the kitchen and stopped him with a hand on his arm, and when he turned around to face her, she looked a little reluctant but powered through anyway. “Would you... do you want to stay for dinner? I mean, obviously you don’t have to, but I just thought... if you wanted...”

Jason didn’t even hesitate before he answered, because he didn’t really need to think about it. “Yeah, sure. If it’s alright with your mum, of course.”

Kim blinked, obviously not expecting that outcome. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Jason said like it was a perfectly normal response because to him it was, but it apparently wasn’t to Kimberly. “You were right when you said that there’s a lot about you that I don’t know, and I don’t know a lot about the rest of the team either, but I’m the leader. I think it’s about time I fixed that, don’t you? I can’t lead if I don’t know who I’m leading, can I?”

“If by ‘leading’ you mean ‘bossing around’ then yeah, I guess so,” Kim looked like she was going to cry, and Jason pretended not to see her wiping the tears away from her eyes when she walked around the corner to talk to her mum. “Can Jason stay for dinner?”

Maddy looked very surprised at this strange boy she had never met showing up at her doorstep, talking to her daughter, and then staying for dinner. “Uh... I suppose so? I mean, he’ll have to ask his parents, but he’s welcome.”

“They won’t mind, Mrs Hart,” Jason said, not caring if they did or not. “They know where I am. I’ll just let them know I’ll be coming home a little later than expected, that’s all.”

As if she were scrutinizing him, Mrs Hart looked at Jason with narrowed eyes, as if testing him. “Indian cuisine involves a lot of... spices. Can you handle such heat, Mr Scott?”

Jason couldn’t help but laugh. This was going to be a fun night. “We’re going to find out, won't we?”

They were all training in the Pit, sparring and dancing around the many grabbing arms of the Putty holograms, and Jason caught sight of Zack sitting on the boulder far away from the group, his gaze distant. Jason put his fist through the face of the current Putty he was fighting to finish his simulation before making his way over to Zack, leaving the other Rangers to fight against the program. He reached a hand up and clicked his fingers in Zack’s face. “Hey man, you alright? You’re looking a million miles away.”

Zack blinked hard and yanked himself out of his reverie, rubbing at his eyes. “Oh- sorry. I’ve just been pretty busy at home with mum and her new medication and all that. It’s a lot to keep track of sometimes, especially when the doctors keep giving her new ones. I was just trying to remember if I had given her all of them before I left this morning.”

Frowning, Jason leant against the rock so he was looking up at Zack. “Rough man, real rough. Do you guys need some help?”

“What?” Zack blinked slowly, confused and surprised, his brow creasing into a deep frown. He laughed it off with a shaky smile and tilt to his lip. “Don’t joke with me like that, man.”

“I’m not joking,” Jason insisted. Zack’s frown deepened. “I’d be happy to come over and help any time you need me. I’ll even be happy to come over just to give you some company or help you with homework. I’m being serious.”

Zack looked confused, but he was nodding slowly as Jason’s words finally started to sink in. “Oh,” he said quietly. “Dude, Jason, you really don’t need to do that.”

“I want to,” Jason said simply.

“You’re not offering because you feel sorry for me, are you?” Zack’s confusion shifted slightly into anger. “Because if you are, I don’t need your pity.”

Sighing, Jason pushed away from the rock and shrugged. “I’m offering because you’re my friend and because I care about you. It’s got nothing to do about feeling sorry for anyone. I just want to help wherever I can. I wouldn’t be much of a leader if I didn’t care about my team. Just... let me know.” And he turned around and walked back to the centre of the Pit to rejoin the sparing simulation.

At the end of the day, when they were all sweaty and tired and in need of a nap, Jason approached Zack again, who hadn’t been his usual excitable self. “My offer still stands. Just let me know.”

Zack licked his lips, and almost reluctantly, making sure not to give Jason any lick of eye contact. “You are... you can come over tonight, if you want? After 5?”

Smiling, Jason patted Zack on the shoulder as he passed. “I’ll be there.”

At five ‘o’clock on the dot, Jason knocked on the heavy metal door of the Taylor’s mobile home and waited patiently in the cold for someone- probably Zack- to open the door. He was not disappointed because, after a sound like many pots and pans falling from somewhere very high, Zack flung open the door, looking like he’d just gotten caught in a whirlwind. “Oh,” he blinked. “You came. I didn’t think you would.”

Making sure not do drop the bag his mum had carefully packed for him, he spread his arms out to his sides, a smile on his lips. “Here I am, in the flesh.” When Zack didn’t move, Jason lowered his arms and waved vaguely at the door. “Uh, can I come in?”

“Oh, right,” Zack seemed to come back to him and shifted away from the doorway so Jason could shimmy inside.

The inside of the caravan was just as small as the outside and much more cramped than he had thought. But it was tidy and neat and the only thing that proved that anyone even lived there at all was the many medication bottles of varying sizes and colours sitting on the counter, some with the lids off and some with pills already spread out in order, the old and dented boiling kettle and the steaming cup of steeping tea sitting on a metal tray next to a soft biscuit and some pale yellow flowers beside it, similar to the ones that Jason had seen overgrowing near the entrance to the park when he had walked in, and assumed that Zack had picked them himself. Jason slowly creped further into the room to get a better look and couldn’t help but chuckle quietly under his breath. “You’ll go through all this effort to make your mum some real tea instead of using a bag, but you use instant coffee for yourself?”

Shrugging like it was no big deal because realistically it probably wasn’t to him, Zack followed Jason into the kitchen and shut the front door behind him. “It’s for my mum,” he said simply as if that explained everything, which it mostly did, and started organizing the medication, reciting instructions to himself under his breath. “Give me a second- I don’t want to forget anything.”

It wasn’t like that was forgetful or anything, but he was absent-minded at times, and sometimes he didn’t listen when you gave him information, too lost in the world of his own mind, or sometimes the information was lost behind more exciting things. But Jason would be lying if he said he wasn’t surprised with how well and how quickly Zack was counting out and categorizing the medications, the pills and capsules and tablets, almost like clockwork or muscle memory. “That’s a lot of pills,” Jason said eventually when Zack was finally finished and began re-capping the bottles with a heavy sigh.

Zack didn’t say anything, but he did pour hot water into his cup of instant coffee before lifting the metal tray in his hands. “She’s this way,” he said without asking if Jason wanted to meet her. He did, so that wasn’t a problem. He paused before he got any further and sent a glance down at the bag in his hand. "What's that?"

"Oh, my mum brought me some things," Jason explained. He'd forgotten he'd had the bag to begin with, honestly. "Some cakes, packets of hot chocolate, you know."

"Put it on the table," Zack jerked his chin towards the dining table and Jason silently obliged. "We'll take a look when we're done in here."

When Zack struggled to open the door without dropping the tray or spilling its contents, Jason quickly but carefully reached around him to open the door, “Oh, uh, hang on, let me get it for you...”. They had an awkward shimmying manoeuvre in the hallway before Jason could finally twist the handle and push the old door open with a palm. “There you go, alright.”

Mumbling an apology, Zack made his way into the room and Jason followed closely behind him. There was a bed crammed into the corner, an old and well-worn chess set sat idly on the dresser, neatly folded clothes categorised into colour-coded sections on the open drawers of the dresser, an old chair sat beside the small bed and lying in the bed half awake was a woman, her black hair spread out on the white linen pillow. Jason paused at the doorway when he saw her wake up slowly, but Zack pushed inward without a thought, speaking quietly in Mandarin and placing the tray of tea in on the little moving table.

They chatted for a moment as Mrs Taylor rubbed at her eyes and Zack helped her sit up slightly in her bed, putting pillow’s behind her back and smoothing her hair away from her face, and it was only when he placed the tea in her hands and slowly dropped all the medication into her open palm before he turned to Jason. “Are you going to come or just stand there like a schmuck?”

“Ah,” Awkwardly, Jason stepped into the room, careful to stay away from any of the fragile and valuable looking items packed onto the shelves. “I didn’t want to... get in the way.” Zack sat in the chair by the bed and carefully ran his hand over the thin skin on her arm, and Mrs Taylor smiled as one by one she swallowed a pill followed by a chaser of tea. She said something to him and Zack blushed, so Jason assumed that it was a good comment. Jason watched them for a moment before saying quietly, a little afraid that she would hear him, “She’s very pretty, Zack. You look just like her.”

That made Zack smile, and Jason was glad for it. He was starting to think that Zack didn’t smile much when he came home- not a real one, anyway. “Damn fucking right,” he said quietly and laughed at the disapproving look on his mothers face. Jason glanced around the room and caught sight of an easel crammed into the back of the room behind some knickknacks, and a slightly-sloppy and very bright artwork painted in watercolour of five warriors standing on a hill, one black, one red, one blue, one pink, one yellow, stylized and fighting a giant. Jason couldn’t help but smile- Zack had told them that his mum knew about the Power Rangers, but Jason suspected that she knew more than she was letting on. And he was alright with that.

Zack caught sight of him standing in the corner and gestured sharply at him to sit, and Jason awkwardly perched on the edge of the bed, far away from Mrs Taylor’s legs. “Does she... speak English?” Jason asked. He felt a little strange and frankly, a little rude for asking, but he knew that any sort of discussion would have been useless if someone didn’t ask.

“She can, but it’s a little difficult,” Zack said, taking his mothers half-empty mug of steaming tea and swapping it with the plate of biscuits which he placed on her lap. “She’s not fluent, and it takes a while, but she could do it.” He frowned. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, this is going to be a very odd conversation if I’m having my parts in English and she’s replying to me in Mandarin,” Jason pointed out and tried not to laugh on the look on Zack’s face. “You did think about that, didn’t you? I may be a superhero now, but I can’t speak every language known to man all of a sudden,”

Realization slowly dawned on Zack’s face. “Oh, yeah, that’s a good point.”

Apparently, while Mrs Taylor wasn’t fluent in English, she understood enough, and lightly backhanded Zack in the chest and drew his attention to her. She said something in Mandarin, and Zack looked embarrassed for a moment before he turned to Jason and said in English, “She uh... she says I should translate. Which make a lot of sense, now that I’m thinking about it.”

Jason couldn’t help but laugh. “Sure. Hello Mrs Taylor, my name is Jason, and it’s very nice to finally meet you.”

They were in detention, and the whole time, Jason hadn’t been his usual smiling, happy self, ready to participate in any shenanigans that the other Rangers would normally corral him into, instead he sat at his desk at the far side of the room, head down as he did the work the teacher had set for him. The others had exchanged glances, and after some silent conversation, Kim folded up a piece of paper and flung it at Jason’s general direction. He caught it without looking up, and unfolded it on his desk, flattening out the paper.

‘What’s wrong?’ It read in Kim’s blocky, slightly cursive script. ‘You look upset.’

‘I’m fine, nothing to worry about,’ Jason scrawled back and quickly folded it up and tossed it away from him before the teacher could walk past him and look over his work to see what he was doing.

He had thrown it to Zack accidentally, who caught it before it could whack another absentminded student in the face, and after reading it, he scribbled down his own reply. ‘Really? Because it looks like something crawled up your ass and died in there’.

He flung it to Billy, who threw it back to Kim because he was working on something and didn’t want to lose his concentration. ‘You know you can tell us anything, right?’

When Jason caught it, he sighed so loudly that even the teacher turned to look at him with a frown before he returned to marking papers. ‘I know, its fine. I’ve just got to have this dinner with my family tonight, and I’m not sure what it's about, but I think they want to try and get me into the new football club that's starting up. It would excuse all the things that happened with the cow and the car and shit, so I’ll get to play again, and if I’m good enough, I’ll get a scholarship to that sports school at Pearl Harbor.’

It took him a little to write all that down without looking too conspicuous, but when he did, he flicked it away from himself and returned to his work, thinking the issue was dealt with, but Trini was the one who caught it. ‘Do you want to play football again? Or is it just your parents that want you to play?’

Giving up on ever getting to finish his homework, he put his pen down and unfolded the paper again, albeit reluctantly, and wrote back. 'I’m pretty sick of football, to be honest, but at this point, I’ll literally do anything they ask of me to get them off my back. I’m happy just being a Ranger.’

Kim snapped it out of the air before it could land across the room and impale into the back wall. ‘Then why don’t you tell him that? I mean, obviously not about being a Ranger, but about not wanting to play football anymore?’

‘Have you met my dad? There’s no way in hell that he’ll take that for an answer,’ Jason wrote back and then tossed it from him again. He wanted the conversation to end already.

Zack caught it between his fingers and fumbled for a pen to write back, despite the ink leaking. ‘Why don’t you just tell them the truth? “Mum, Dad, I don’t want to be a football star anymore, leave me alone”. That could work.’

‘Yeah, because that will go down so well,’ Kim scribbled on it. To Jason, she wrote ‘this is so important to them that they’re ready to have an intervention about it? A family dinner? How often do you have family dinners?’

‘We never have family dinners,’ Jason had to write on the back of the page because of how full of writing it was. ‘Which is why I’m worried about it.’

Zack caught it again and frowned. ‘Wait, you’re actually sweating it? I thought you were just unhappy because you didn’t want to go, but you’re worried about it?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be worried about it?’ Jason wanted to scream. ‘Of course, I’m worried about it.’

The next pass was meant for Trini but Billy, now more curious about the rapidly passing messages than the work in front of him, reached up and plucked it out of the air before it got to Trini. He read every message slowly, carefully, before writing his own reply and tossing it back to Jason. ‘What if we come with you?’

Billy threw it back to Trini, feeling a little bad about snagging her catch before she could get it, and she read it before Jason got the chance to. ‘That’s a good idea, Billy. We could totally go with you.’

‘You guys don’t have to do that. It’s just dinner, I’ll be fine,’ Jason quickly wrote and threw away before anyone else could get that idea.

Unfortunately, Kim caught it, and then it was settled. ‘It’s the least we can do. It’s no problem. Besides, I still need to pay you back for not making a big deal about Diwali and eating dinner with my parents.’

‘And for helping me with mum for the day,’ Zack said when it was tossed for him.

‘And going to pride with me,’ Trini passed it off to Billy.

‘And for going to the Black Lives Matter rally with me,’ Billy wrote before throwing it back to Jason.

He read all their responses one by one, and he felt a mounting sense of dread with every word he read. ‘You know that none of that was a big deal, yeah? I wanted to do it. But there’s no way I can talk you guys out of this, is there?’

‘No,’ was Zacks simple reply before he passed it off to Kim.

‘It’s the least we can do after everything you’ve done to help us,’ Kim wrote. ‘Besides- we want to do this, too.’

‘So, well be over around 6:30 tonight,’ Trini scribbled with a smile before she too tossed it away from her and returned to her homework, not waiting to see Jason’s reaction.

Jason was the last one to get the piece of paper over-crowded with writing in different colours and fonts and styles and he hadn’t even finished reading it before his head was in his hands and he had accepted his fate. He didn’t see the glances the others shared, and the smiles they were trying to hold back, because he was busy trying not to slam his head through a brick wall.

That night, they arrived at Jason’s house at 6:30 on the dot, mostly because Billy was worried about being late and everyone was a little bit anxious about the long walk from everyone's destinations considering Jason was the only one with a car and Kim had promised Billy that she would walk with him and Trini and Zack had promised to meet up too, but after checking to make sure everyone looked acceptable and knew what to say and what not to say, Kim knocked on the door, and surprisingly it was answered by a little girl who looked up at them with a blank face. Inside, they could hear loud arguing and heated yelling, one voice sounding like Jason’s. “Uh, hello,” Kim said, crouching down to talk to the girl. “I’m Kim. We’re Jason’s friends. Who are you?”

“Jason’s sister,” she said. “I’m Pearl. I think they’re expecting you- that’s why they’re yelling. You can come in.”

Confused, they followed little Pearl into the house, making sure to close the door securely behind them, and were led into the living room, where Jason and his father were standing face to face, waving their arms about and shouting at the top of their lungs while his mother sat in the chair, her legs crossed and her head in her hand, a glass of red wine held loosely in her fingertips.

Pearl ran into the room and separated Jason and his dad, and their mum had barely managed to open her arms and move her glass of wine before Pearl leapt into them, giggling and squealing. Jason caught sight of them first, and when he turned to where they were standing awkwardly on the threshold, he went pale. “Oh guys, I uh... I didn’t hear you come in. Sorry, I would have got the door.”

“It’s all good, your little sister got it for us,” Zack said, looking slowly between Jason and his dad. “Have we got a problem here?”

Jason cringed at Zack’s brashness and interrupted before Sam could comment. “No uh, we’re good. Dad, mum, these are my friends I told you about. Guys, this is...”

“Beverly,” Jason’s mum smiled and waved a little, unable to stand with her lap full of child. “This is my husband, Sam. Obviously you’ve already met Pearl. It’s very nice to meet you all. Isn’t that right, Sam?

She said his name like a curse because he was looking at the new arrivals as if he were sizing them up, looking them up and down, watching their every move. Jason was stiff where he stood. “Yeah,” he said eventually. “Nice to meet you.”

There was a tense silence. Jason looked like he wanted to run. Eventually, Beverley cleared her throat and stood up, moving Pearl over to the seat beside her and standing up. “Well, dinner’s almost ready. Why don’t you guys go and sit down? Jason, Pearl, set the table?”

Silently, Jason led his friends to the dinner table where they sat down awkwardly and he started placing plates and cutlery that Pearl passed to him down. “I’m really sorry about this,” he said quietly as he went back to the kitchen.

Dinner was tense and unfriendly, and any attempt at small talk ultimately failed.  “Have you thought any more on that offer, Jason?” Sam eventually asked, breaking the tense silence.

Jason licked his lips. “No. Not yet.”

“Well, you should,” Sam continued. “It’s a big deal, and an opportunity like this only comes once in a blue moon. You’ve got to jump on opportunities like that before they run out.”

“Your father’s right, sweetheart,” Beverly said, looking at Jason softly and rubbing a gentle hand down his back, which Jason surprisingly didn’t shrug off. “After what happened and you getting kicked off the football team and all, I think it’s a good idea to keep something like this in mind. Let’s not rush the final decision, but I think it would be good for you. Get out more. Do something other than going to detention and get in trouble.”

“Uh,” Jason rubbed at the back of his neck. “Can we not do this here, please?”

Sam frowned, “Jason...”

Wiping her face with a napkin, Kim took this opportunity to interrupt. “What’s this about?”

Slinking deeper into his seat, Jason looked like he wanted to run away, and Sam looked annoyed at this strange little girl getting involved in a family conversation. Beverly, however, was willing to indulge her. “There’s a new school opening up at Pearl Harbor, and they’ve got a rather extensive sporting scholarship program, and they’ve offered Jason a position to play on their football team, which we’re all very excited about. After the whole prank thing went wrong, we weren’t sure he’d be accepted into any more sporting events, but Pearl Harbor saw something in him and was willing to extend an invitation.”

“Yeah, and willing to sacrifice their reputation in the process,” Sam murmured under her breath, but he wasn’t too quiet, because Jason flinched and Beverly glared daggers into the side of his head.

Trini cleared her throat and beat Zack and Kim to saying anything. “Football?” She said sweetly. She sounded genuine, but anyone with any kind of familiarity with her knew that the treacle-like sickly-sweet voice she was putting on was just for show and that she was trying to make Jason’s parents think she was less of a threat. “Jason, I thought you said you were done with football?”

“Uh,” Jason went pale. “I mean... I don’t...”

Beverly was looking at Jason with a furrowed brow. “Jason? Is that true?”

“Of course it isn’t true,” Sam scoffed. “Come on, Bev, you can’t be serious. Jason? Sick of football? Please. What else is he going to do? Without football, he’s got nothing going for him. Why on earth would he drop it just because his friends tell him too?”

“Well, I mean,” Zack said around his forkful of food, Pearl looking at him in disgust. “It kinda seems like right now that Jason playing football is your dream, not Jason’s.”

Sam’s mouth open and clothed like a gaping fish, but Beverly just frowned at them. “I’m sorry... you kids really aren’t familiar to me at all. Did you... ever go and watch Jason play?”

“I was at every game,” Kim said, feeling a little smug when Beverly sat back in her chair in quiet surprise. “I was a cheerleader, so I kinda had to be, but I always did enjoy watching Jason play. He kicked the shit out of the bigger kids who deserved it though. That was fun.”

Jason hid a smile behind his hand. “Right,” Sam said, voice tight. “And was there any particular reason why you quit?”

Kim shrugged. “I never enjoyed it. I only did it because it made people like me. But really, when Jason got banned from playing, there wasn’t any point for me to be there anymore. I only kept it up so we could hang out at practice and breaks. I prefer hanging out at the cafe much more than sitting on a wet football field in a mini-skirt and stockings.”

It was a blatant lie, but Jason’s parents were none the wiser, so they just nodded along, their brows only slightly furrowed. It may have been a blatant lie to those who knew, but it was still a good lie. “Oh, alright,” Beverly smiled at a loss of what to say.

“So,” Sam said, trying to be nice but not nice at all, putting his cutlery down on his empty plate. Jason, knowing what was coming, hid his face behind his forkful of mashed potatoes. “I love my son very much, even though he can make the worst decisions and hasn’t got a hope in hell, but I’m looking at all of you sitting at my dining table and I can’t for the life of me figure out why you kids have any interest in my son. I mean, you didn’t know each other before, and I don’t know why you’d know each other now. I mean, you’ve got absolutely nothing in common. I’ve never seen you two around-” he waved a hand at Zack and Trini, sitting next to each other and holding hands under the table in silent fury. “- or you, though I’ve heard of you. The kids used to call you Crams-tonne, right?” Billy looked down at his plate. “And sure, you’re a cheerleader, but you’ve still got no relation to a football player. I went to that school and I know for a fact that your practice areas are in two separate parts of the school.”

There was a thick silence that settled over the table. Jason had a tight grip on his fork, so tight that the others worried that he would lose concentration and shatter it right in front of his parents, and Sam was looking at them expectantly and nobody really had an answer and-

“Colt Wallace,” Billy said, the first thing he had actually said the whole time they’d been there, and everyone turned to look at him. Still looking at his plate, Billy elaborated. “He’s a bully, see, a big mean one who thinks he owns the place. I was in detention because I accidentally blew up my lunchbox- it’s a long story- and he was in there because he’s just the worst. And I uh, I like having everything categorised and perfect so I can see it all and it makes sense in my head. But Colt didn’t like it. He called me a freak and would mess up all of the things I’d worked so hard to do and uh... Jason made him stop.” He looked up then and made very rare eye contact with Sam. “He told him to leave me alone, and then he slapped him. It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Nobody has ever done that for me before, and Jason was the first friend I’d had since my dad died seven years 82 days ago, and even though I can be annoying and I ramble and not many people like me-” he took a deep breath. “-he’s still my friend, and he helps me when I need help and comes when I call and is always there when I need him to be. So that’s why I’m Jason’s friend, Mr Scott. Because he saved me when nobody else would.”

Sam looked very surprised while Beverly looked very proud and Pearl wasn’t paying attention and Jason looked like he was about to cry. Kim continued with her input. “He helped me accept every part of me. Made me realize that there’s more to life than being a cheerleader for a high school, and just because you do bad things doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person.” She looked at Jason and he looked back. “He showed me what it meant to be brave when I wanted to be weak, and how to move on when nothing in your life is how you knew it. I’m not as embarrassed about my culture, now. I’m happy to wear traditional garb and eat too-spicy food and celebrate with my family. And that’s because Jason gave me the courage when I had nothing left.”

“My mums really sick,” Zack continued the chain. “She’s dying. We live in a motor home, and I’m never with her because I’m afraid that the next time I see her she’ll be dead. But Jason came over, and he helped me look after her for a day, and now I’m not as worried about being alone or her being gone. I’ve never had a brother, or a friend before, but I like to think that Jason’s my best friend, now. Everyone has always just thought I was a crazy nutcase, a lost cause, but for the first time, someone looked at me and didn't see that. Jason just saw a friend. A kid who he wanted to get to know better. He didn’t push me away when everyone else did. He didn’t ignore me. He didn’t try to fix me. He just... he was there, that’s all. He was there when I had nobody and he filled in the blanks.”

Then it was Trini’s unspoken turn, and instead of speaking to Sam and proving a point like she normally would, she spoke to the room, but locked eyes with Jason. “You taught me that I don’t have to hide who I am anymore,” her voice was uncharacteristically soft, “And that I should be proud of the person I am, despite what everyone else says. I don’t have to hate the things that I can’t control, and that even when I’m alone on my darkest days, I’ll always have you to turn to.”

The room was silent again, but a very different silent. It was no longer stifling or tense, but an expectant, shocked silence. “You’ve got a very amazing son here, Mr Scott,” Kimberly took charge and leant around Billy to look at Sam. “You should be proud of the man he is, and all the things he’s accomplished. And none of those things has anything to do with football.”

“Yeah,” Zack said. He never could resist having the final word. “So how about instead of pushing him to play a sport he doesn’t want to, why don’t you let him make his own decisions, huh?”

Sam was looking between each of them with a strange look on his face, but it wasn’t anger or resentment or anything violent- maybe it was pride, or awe, or happiness, but nobody could really tell. Maybe it was nothing. Beverly was on the verge of tears, and she hid her face behind her hand as she pretended to pick fleece off of her shirt. “Jason,” Sam said lowly. “I think... I think we need to have a chat, when your friends leave.”

Pearl moaned. “No more yelling? Please, no more yelling.”

Laughing, Beverly hurriedly wiped at the corners of her eyes. “No sweetheart, I don’t think there’s going to be any yelling this time.”

“Good,” Pearl said, very pleased. “I’m sick of all the yelling. It’s annoying. And really loud.”

Jason was looking at his friends like he wanted to leap over the table and give them all a very tight hug, but somehow he managed to say seated and managed to give them a lopsided, thankful smile instead. He didn’t say anything and he didn’t move, but through the bond they all shared thanks to their connection with the Morphing Grid, they knew how happy they had just made him and how thankful he was for their company.

Later, when the table was cleared and Jason’s parents were talking quietly in the kitchen while they washed the dishes and Pearl was sleeping on the couch, they had gathered in Jason’s room, careful with all the mess strewn across the floor, and he brought it up with them. “Hey guys, thanks so much for that back there. You... really didn’t need to do that, but I appreciate it.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Zack laughed, hanging upside-down from the edge of Jason’s bed.

“You would have done the same for us,” Trini agreed, elbowing Zack so hard in the ribs that he yelped and fell off the bed and toppled to the floor. "And you have done many times, actually, now that I think about it."

Kim was watching them with an exasperated expression but she turned a dazzling smile to Jason, “Besides,” she said cheekily and Jason felt his cheeks flush red. “You didn’t make us do anything, we wanted to do it.”

Billy didn’t say anything, cross-legged on the floor of Jason’s bedroom surrounded by junk and rubbish, playing with a stim-toy that Jason had brought specifically for when Billy came over and everything just got too much, but he looked up from the toy in his hand and smiled at Jason, a small, happy, genuine one, and Jason couldn’t help but smile back, even though Trini and Zack were destroying his room and Kim was laughing at them with tears in the corners of her eyes and Billy was lost in his own world but happy and safe nevertheless and Jason was just so very glad that his disaster of a life had ended up like this.

Maybe being a screw up wasn’t all that bad if he always had friends like these.