Work Text:
Billy notices it first. Because, well, if it doesn’t have to do with fighting Billy notices everything first. It’s a puzzle he figures out with diagrams and equations and very careful thinking
“What color am I thinking of?” is the question Billy accosts Jason with the moment the other teen steps out of class.
“Blue,” he answers automatically. Then adds : “Rhombus. A blue rhombus.” He blinks and his eyebrows quirk in the way Billy’s noticed means he’s confused. “What’s going on?”
Billy shakes his head, already walking away and writing in his notebook he’s dedicated solely to this puzzle.
He hears a quiet, “Okay then,” behind him, “have a good day?”
Trini’s already handing over a bottle of tea before Kim’s reaching for it. Her smile bright as their fingers brush, Trini has to glance away before she does something embarrassing like get distracted enough to let a pretty girl throw her into a chasm (again).
Jason flicks over his pudding cup without Trini saying a word and steals Billy’s broccoli before it can be offered. He yanks out a seat and minutes later Zack appears, haggard, with rings under his eyes. Kim fluffs up her jacket as a pillow; he clutches it to his chest and promptly falls asleep on it.
“What color am I thinking of?”
“Pink.”
Billy deflates a little bit in disappointment, watching Jason protect whatever he’s scribbling out with an arm over his paper. “Pink,” he repeats.
Jason glances up, grinning. “Yeah, pink.” He sits back, twisting the paper around to reveal the highlighter-yellow triangles scattered all over his geometry notes. “Totally pink. Right? Or did you mean yellow triangles?”
He grins back, clapping his hands. “Totally pink,” he repeats again. Something warm sits in his chest and he notes it down with Jason’s answer. “Totally pink,” he murmurs.
Billy breaks a color pencil in detention one time. His pink one. It goes between yellow and red.
There’s a frozen moment of shock and a skip of his heart before he remembers that Kim is standing at his desk, and has been standing there for a while, actually. He noticed her there, went to put his pencil back, and just snap!
She’s holding out something in her hand, a smile on her face. He takes it carefully, surprised to see that it’s a pink color pencil, the exact brand that he uses. Billy opens his mouth to say thank you, but she’s already walking away with silent steps so their detention supervisor doesn’t look up.
He finishes his picture, folds it up the way Kim taught him, and waits until he knows Jason is distracted enough by his workbook to fling it at him. The other teen catches it between two fingers without even looking, smiling a slow smile.
“A black rectangle.”
Billy closes his mouth slowly. Jason gives him a tired smile, the bags under his eyes almost matching the bruise on his jaw color-for-color. The skin is swollen and angry, half worn away in a raw, oozing scrape, and the bone dangerously close to shattered.
“You weren’t going to ask me,” he says, words slurring like they do when he’s taken too many pain meds - but he’s not on any right now. “But you’re thinking it.” He reaches out with a fumbling hand and Billy grabs it tightly. “Zack’s okay.”
He glances over to where the other Ranger is sleeping, Trini and Kim curled around him carefully. “Yeah,” he says, feeling a little sick. “Yeah. He’s okay.”
Kim clicks her pen in biology, drives Trini nuts. It just clicks, clicks, clicks.
She fiddles with her own pen, twisting it between her hands and twirling it with her fingers. She should be taking notes, but instead she’s writing a playlist for her turns in Pit Karaoke.
Trini stares at the lined paper of her notebook. Click. Click. Click. She turns to snap at Kim to finally just please stop I swear, only to find out that, yeah, Kim’s still clicking, but now she’s clicking too. Clicking in time with the other teen - click click clickclickclick.
She changes her clicks, just to see what happens, and after a few rounds, Kim eventually matches her instead of the other way around. Trini grins and spends the next couple of minutes making Kim chase around a beat without even realizing.
It lasts up until the teacher yells at them. Then gives them a detention slip not even a minute later when Kim starts clicking again and Trini follows once again.
“What color am I thinking of?”
Jason doesn’t answer, eyes still stubbornly closed. He could just ask any of the others, but asking Jason has become a Thing and he can’t possibly change that now.
The bed is big enough that Trini is curled up near Jason’s head, asleep and loose-limbed enough that her head is dipping down. Her temple rests on Jason’s blonde crown. Zack’s sprawled out on his stomach, the only point of touching is the hand over Jason’s heart.
Kim’s outside the room, talking to Jason’s mom - as the only one who is proficient enough in ASL (and conscious enough) to explain what happened. But she had been reluctant to go.
Billy grips the hand in his tighter. “What color am I thinking of?” he repeats softly. “I’m pretty sure you’d guess right. You haven’t been wrong yet.” He presses their clasped hands against his forehead, closing his eyes. “Please don’t be wrong.”
There’s pressure, just the slightest bit, and he jerks up to find Jason looking at him with hazy eyes and a shaky smile. He struggles to free his other hand from under Zack’s shoulder, but when he does, he Signs out an even shakier Pink. Square.
Billy stares at his hand for a long moment - fingers swollen and purple, but straight - and goes to his face, bypassing his neck where an angry red gouge covered by layers of gauze mocks them all - then lets out a watery chuckle.
“Yeah, you haven’t been wrong yet,” he says, teary eyed.
Jason’s dad calls for them and they all turn in unison, Zack’s hand going out automatically before Jason can even wobble. He swings an arm over Red’s shoulders, pulling him close so they can lean against each other. They both ignore the knowing look Mr. Scott gives them.
Instead they all follow him in the direction of Red Tomato, Pearl and Mrs. Scott already waiting for them at the entrance. Jason and Zack deliberately shuffle their feet so they’re moving the same foot after another. Kim loops her arm through Billy’s then her other through Trini’s.
By the time they get to the front of the building, they’re all walking on the same foot, but only Zack and Jason are doing it on purpose. Mrs. Scott giggles, waving a hand, and Signing something with fast movements.
Jason groans goodnaturedly and Signs back just as fast, moving away from Zack to press a kiss to her cheek.
There’s a commotion when it comes to ordering. Trini doesn’t know what she wants so Kim orders for her. Billy makes Jason pick. Jason orders what Zack was going to order and Zack orders what Jason was going to order. (When the meals come they both glance at each other, then automatically switch plates.) Kim is the only one who manages to order for herself, but then again, she changed her mind three times as the waitress went around the table - going from ordering Jason’s meal, then Billy’s, accidently Trini’s again, then her own choice.
She groans, burying her face in her hands.
“What color am I thinking of?”
Jason groans, but he’s smiling. “Why?”
Billy pouts. “Because I asked?”
He eyes him for a long moment then - “Red.” He traces a shape in the air with his finger. “A circle. And I can only tell because you’re projecting it so much. Most of the time it’s just intent.” He pauses, pressing a finger to his chin and looking to the cloudless sky. “And because I know you guys so well.”
“Have you known what I was doing this whole time?” he asks, chin resting on Jason’s sternum. Jason’s legs bracket his hips, Billy’s arms frame his face as he reaches to mess with the curls in Jason’s hair.
Jason shrugs. “Not the whole time,” he assures him. “I didn’t realize what was going on until Trini told me about the pen clicking incident. And when it was easy to snipe you guys in the war game a couple weeks ago.”
Billy sighs, closing his eyes, leaving his fingers buried in Jason’s hair. Jason lays his arms over the back of his shoulders, curling his fingers into Billy’s shirt. Trini and Kim are having one of their rock climbing races in the distance, smacking each other when one of them gets close in an attempt to make someone lose their grip and fall behind. Zack’s running late.
“What color am I thinking of now?”
“Purple.”