Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Author Notes: Inspired by so many Ninja Storm fics I've read and the eps I've seen. It's my first ever NS fic so please be nice. The fic title is from a Honeyz song with that name, will post lyrics when post last chapter. Enjoy!

Beneath the Layers

"Hunter, phone!"

There was no answer from the garage. Blake sighed and began walking down the stone steps. He knew his older brother was down there, he'd met Hunter briefly in the kitchen earlier than morning grabbing a sandwich and muttering a brief good morning greeting before heading down into the relative silent darkness. He'd been working on his motocross bike since midmorning without the usual aid of hiphop blasting out from their old battered radio. Although Hunter seemed totally engrossed in his work as usual, the silence as he worked was one signal that there seemed something slightly off in his behaviour.

"Hey bro, I know you're down there! You've got a phone call," Blake tried again.

Again there was no response. Frustrated Blake stomped the rest of the way down into the garage. The scene that greeted him was no different to normal. Both his and Hunter's bikes were carefully stationed there as well as old restored parts mounted on the stone walls. The wall shelves were meticulously stacked with bike and engine parts and even the work benches were tidy. Blake and Hunter took their hobby and what was Blake's career very seriously.

Blake reached Hunter's bike; it was a magnificent streamlined machine stripped down of any fancy egotistical trimmings with its only indicator of individual decoration being the mandatory panels spray-painted crimson, Hunter's signature colour. As Blake expected, his brother was lying beneath his bike intent on his work. There was silence though, no humming or mutterings of half formed rhymes, just pure diligent silence. It was disconcerting for Blake when he was used to Hunter being surrounded by noise when he worked, it was the way he always liked to work. Not now though apparently. He lightly kicked the legs protruding from underneath one side. That got a response.

"Ow! Bro what gives?"

Hunter scooted out from under his bike and stared expectantly up at his brother. He was dressed simply in faded black jeans and a crimson tee with a confused look on his tanned face. Blake grinned widely, at least nothing in his brother's appearance had changed though there did seem to be a sadness in his eyes which he hadn't noticed before.

"I yelled twice for you bro, you've got a phone call."

"Really? Who?"

Hunter's eyes lit up as he spoke and the sadness lifted from them. For a few seconds Blake enjoyed seeing his brother back to normal.

"Cam, he wants some more info on us for his book," Blake handed him the cordless phone. "Since you're older I figure you're the man."

"Oh ok," Hunter even looked deflated as he took the handset.

Blake began his ascent back into their shared house before remembering something and turning back to Hunter. He knew this wouldn't improve Hunter's strange turn of mood.

"Oh and bro? Tori's coming over later so......"

Hunter cut him off with a tired wave of his hand.

"I know I know, I'll disappear, there's some new dirt-tracks I heard about the last meet I went to that I wanna try out anyway," he replied before speaking into the phone. "Hey Cam, what's up?"

"Hey Hunter, just need some more information on your pre-Ranger life," replied Cam. "Memories of you and Blake, anything to help me out with the early chapters."

Cam had begun writing his book soon after Lother got locked away for good. He'd joined Shane, Dustin and Tori in being a Wind Ninja teacher at the Wind Temple along with his father Sensei Watanabe and had also buried himself in writing a book of their adventures as Rangers. Now that he no longer had Ninja Ops to run, Cam needed something to intellectually stimulate his mind which the book seemed to provide. Not that Ninja Ops was completely shut down; Sensei knew the prudence in preparing just in case and he and Cam had made sure to keep the most basic equipment up and running with the rest stored away just in case. Even though they no longer possessed Ranger powers, the four special teachers still possessed their ninja abilities and could still be ready to fend off any incoming attackers.

"Sure fire away."

Hunter settled back under his bike, making sure to set the handset on speakerphone beside him so that he could talk and work at the same time. It would help keep his mind off other things. He knew that Blake had sensed something was up but so far he'd managed to keep his brother from asking too many questions. He just needed to settle it all in his mind first.

"Heads up Dustin!!"

The football came flying through the air and smacked Dustin hard on the head. He hadn't even been listening. Now he turned surprised, rubbing the sore spot on his head as Shane jogged over to him.

"Sorry bout that dude, thought you were listening," Shane apologised, collecting the football. "You ok?"

"Think so," muttered Dustin. "My mind was somewhere else."

"Again? Its like it's on permanent vacation!"

Dustin smiled sheepishly and shrugged, staring off into the ocean. He offered no explanation. Shane frowned. For the past few months Dustin had seemed to lose some of his infamous carefree attitude and withdraw a little. To be honest it was worrying. Dustin had always been the upbeat one of the group, permanently happy and enthusiastic about life. Now he was considerably subdued. It put the whole balance of the group off-kilter. Both Shane and Tori had tried getting Dustin back into that frame of mind but nothing seemed to work. Shane lay back on the sand, arms folded behind his head. Sensei had told him to let Dustin tell him himself, there was no point in trying to draw it out of him. Shane wished there was someway to do that right now though.

"Shane?" Dustin asked almost hesitantly, for once seeming to think before he spoke. "What do you do when you can't get someone out of your head? When they're there 24/7?"

Shane sat up, thinking the question through carefully. Dustin was looking at him cautiously. Even though their Ranger days were behind them, Shane was still looked at as the leader of the group. Giving advice was one of the responsibilities. This thinly-veiled insight into Dustin's state of mind helped ease Shane's mind somewhat. Dustin had a crush on someone.

"If you can't stop thinking about them, there must be a good reason for it," Shane reasoned finally. "Must mean they're pretty special right?"

"Yeah I guess," a ghost of a smile touched Dustin's lips and encouraged Shane to delve deeper.

"This person a friend?"

"Yeah a good friend, but maybe I dunno maybe there could be something more there if I had the guts to say something, man this sucks!" Dustin sounded helpless.

Shane took a long hard look at his friend. It was obvious Dustin had been withholding this for a long time and it had been gnawing at him not knowing what to do. Now that he had finally plucked up the courage to talk to someone about it, it was all beginning to flow out. Shane decided to act upon a long held hunch he'd had about Dustin. If he (and Tori who he'd discussed it with on a number of occasions recently) was right, then it sure explained what had happened to Dustin.

"This friend you can't stop thinking about............it's a guy isn't it?"

There was a heartbeat of silence as the two guys stared at each other. Dustin was open-mouthed, his eyes full of surprise until he finally managed to work his jaw again.

"Yes! How'd you know? I mean I wasn't obvious was I? I never checked you out I swear, not that you're not hot coz you are, you're just not my type......."

"Ok ok Dustin, hold up!"

Shane held his hands up in mock surrender. He should have known this would unleash a Dustin-style rant.

"First no not obvious its just a hunch I've had for a while about you and that whole thing with Marah kinda set it off – didn't seem right somehow," Shane tried explaining. "And before you go there I'm straight."

"That's cool bro, I knew that," Dustin answered, some of his old vigour coming back. "Hey Tori doesn't know does she?"

"I think she does," Shane replied with a laugh, thinking of the conversations he's had with the former Blue Ranger.

"Hey guys what's up?"

Almost as though she'd heard her name, Tori appeared carrying her surfboard. While the guys had been chilling out on the sand, she had been indulging in her favourite pastime; surfing. She'd been discreetly using her Ninja water skills to create the perfect waves without the other surfers noticing too. Now, with her pretty fair hair plastered to her body, she stood watching her best friends with an expectant look on her face.

"Just talking Tor, after Dustin made a personal acquaintance with the football," grinned Shane.

He threw the football towards Tori who neatly knocked it aside with a swing of her surfboard and a laugh.

"Ok well is it ok if we go now? I'm gonna see Blake in like an hour so......" Tori trailed off almost uncertainly.

"We're ready to go," reassured Dustin, getting to his feet.

Quickly the three ninjas began gathering up their sparse beach stuff. Shane marvelled at how rapidly Tori was able to pile everything onto her board and pack it into her SUV which was parked on the sand nearby. Like everything else she possessed it was painted bright blue. She really seemed at home on the beach and it showed in the way she turned to scope out the landscape before swinging into the driving seat. It was like checking out her kingdom before leaving.

Dustin's mood seemed to have improved dramatically since talking to Shane and was reflected in the joking manner he gathered his stuff together. Tori looked surprised at her friend's sudden mood improvement and gave Shane a questioning look as he climbed into the passenger seat. He smiled and nodded back. Their long held suspicions had been confirmed. Tori grinned and let out a crowing whoop. Dustin, who'd been in the process of scrambling forward to jam himself between the two front seats, let out a startled cry and pitched forward headfirst. Failing to squash laughter, Shane helped the former Yellow Ranger to right himself. Dustin turned to look astonished at Tori, his already messy dark hair sticking up everywhere at his unplanned fall.

"Who stood on your foot Tor?" he asked.

"Shane finally got the truth out of you huh?" Tori asked bluntly, starting the van. "Figuring you'd spill sooner or later."

"Wait, you knew too?" gasped Dustin. "You both knew?" the other ninjas nodded. "how come you didn't talk to me about it?"

"Due to the slim possibility that we could be totally wrong and then have you analyse your behaviour down to the last second to work out why we thought that about you," answered Tori.

Dustin looked like he was about to argue but seemed to realise the truth to her words and shrugged with a huge grin on his face. It was like all the stress of the past few months had left his face and now they were left with the old Dustin.

"Guess that's true," Dustin smiled at both his best friends with genuine affection. "Thanks for making this so easy for me guys, for.....you know.....not freaking out on me."

"Why would we freak out?" asked Shane surprised. "You don't think we'd stop being your friend just because you like guys instead of girls?"

"Yeah I mean we didn't freak when Hunter told us he was gay," chimed in Tori. "Why would we be different with you?"

"I wasn't sure, it's pretty major stuff you know," admitted Dustin with a sigh. "And I would have totally understood if you did feel that way. I figured I wouldn't tell you til I got it all sorted in my head."

"So who's the lucky guy?" asked Tori, after a moment of silence.

Dustin stared at her in surprise to which she laughed.

"Oh come on, I know you're hot for someone! That's why you went so weird these past few months, you've been in love with someone and it's been driving you crazy," she explained. "So now we know you're gay, you can tell us who your crush is and I can fix you guys up."

"You're amazing Tor," said Shane shaking his head in wonder. "Dustin's just opened up to us and all you can think about is fixing him up, he might not like that right now."

"No no it's cool Shane," said Dustin with a faint smile. "I don't think I can tell you guys who he is yet but I will soon ok? Thanks for thinking of me though Tor."

"Anytime."