Hi again!

Disclaimer still stands, my loves.

We get to the actual comforting part now. If you want action, I hand you my attempt with the 'Previous Chapter' button. If not… yay bonding, eh?

Pep Talk

Kit woke to almost total darkness.

Groaning, he reached out blindly, searching for light. But his noise had alerted someone, apparently, because a moment later a soft light came on.

"Kit? …You're awake."

He rubbed his eyes, and Len came into focus. The older man was standing by the window, which had had its blinds closed at one point. He looked tired but content, relieved to see Kit up.

"What happened? How long have I… been out?"

"About four hours," Len said. "Chris passed out the minute we got him over the doorway. We'd barely gotten him down before you passed out in my arms. You've both been recovering ever since."

Kit stretched and got up, but a wave of dizziness passed through him and he staggered. "Whoa."

"Take it easy."

"But I'm starving," Kit protested, and Len laughed despite himself.

"That's okay. I'll make something. Just—stay there, all right? I thought I would lose you both to Xaviax today…"

He trailed off. There was an uncomfortable silence as they listened to Chris snoring from the armchair.

Then Kit said, "Len. I never thanked you for saving us out there… but you knew I meant it, right? If you hadn't come, we wouldn't be here."

"I knew."

The younger man sat back down heavily on the couch. "What happened to you? Before?"

"Kamen Rider Strike held me up. We were fighting when he let slip that you were probably 'gone to the Void by now', and roughly where you'd been. I… took care of him, and left as soon as I could. I couldn't believe that… well. I'm glad he was just taunting me."

Took care of…? "Is he…"

Len shook his head. "He hasn't been Vented." Despite my best efforts went unspoken.

Oh.

"Chris did well today, from what I saw."

Kit nodded slowly—any faster and he'd get dizzy again. "Yeah. We had it under control for the most part, until Xaviax decided to take that control from us…"

"It's good that he's gotten past his uncertainty. It took a lot out of his battle skills before, but today he was a pro. Him and you."

Kit didn't even have the energy to blush at the veiled praise. But at the same time, he thought of the heated battle, the fight to stay on his toes, and how he had heard Chris's self-doubt loud and clear there—the same uncertainty Len had missed hearing. "…Yeah. I guess."

There was another silence, one with more and less tension than the one before.

"Len, thank you," Kit said sincerely at last. "Thank you for saving our lives."

For a long time the older man didn't speak. He just moved to raid Kit's fridge, and held the door open for a long time. Then he closed it, now with his sunglasses on, and without having gotten anything out. "…Keep resting, Kit. I'll take care of any monsters."

Kit nodded and leaned back. Neither of them noticed that Chris had long since stopped snoring.

"Back on duty already?"

Chris jumped like he'd been shot. Kit Taylor was behind him, grinning and holding two drinks. "Kit… you almost got attacked!"

"Sorry. Figured I'd see you around Gramercy Heights, so when I did… anyway, it's good to see you again."

Chris just shrugged. "Had to get back to work sometime." And a week was a long enough vacation.

"But you forgot to bring your teammates, man," Kit mock-scolded. He deepened his voice to an approximation of Len's and growled, "'Together we're stronger, remember?' If Len finds out you were trying to fly solo again, he'll make both of us regret it with another of his 'training sessions'."

Chris took the other drink, but didn't even crack a smile at Kit's impersonation. At first the latter was insulted (Come on, I sounded just like him!), but he quickly became more worried by the ex-Marine's enduring silence.

"Chris. Before we got attacked… what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

He flinched. "Huh? Oh—nothing. Nothing important… listen, though, can we talk about Len?"

About Len? The question threw Kit for a loop. Had Len perhaps said something important to Chris? "Uh… sure."

Chris led Kit almost absent-mindedly over to a tree in the middle of the park. He leaned against the tree, but Kit sat in the grass and watched the people ride by on the road. Which of them is Kamen Rider Strike? he wondered. Which are Spear and Axe?

"How long have you known Len?"

Kit jolted out of his moodier reflections. "Well… not all that long. Maybe a month or two. We met on my birthday… all I really know about him is that he's from Ventara, and that Xaviax has been after him for a while."

But Chris didn't seem to have heard anything past the first part. "Only that long?"

Kit looked at him oddly. What in the world did that mean?

"The way you and Len fight, Kit… I'd thought you'd been together for years." Chris ran a hand through his dark hair, still looking troubled. "I thought, you know, maybe I'm coming into this late. Maybe Xaviax has been turning Kamen Riders against one another for ages, and the two of you have been fighting them all that time. But to hear you say otherwise… it's just amazing, I guess."

"How come?"

Chris fiddled with something in his pocket; it crackled loudly, but Kit was almost afraid to ask what it was. "The two of you have been giving Xaviax a hard time since before I even knew about this. When I think about how I found out about Xaviax's lies, how long it took… and how even now all I do is screw things up—"

"Chris—that isn't true."

"Can you prove it?"

"Yes! You've never screwed anything up, at all. Not once. Certainly not last week…"

It was the closest they'd come yet to mentioning what Kit had heard Chris say. Kit had been wanting to confront their new friend's doubts for a while, but between fighting off Xaviax's monsters and being constantly kept on their toes by the appearance of new Riders, the 'talk' had slipped through the cracks over and over again.

In that way Kit envied Len as much as he looked up to him. Len could use training sessions and battles and small conversations over pizza to bond with Chris and at the same time build up his self-esteem. But if Kit tried to do the same, he usually ended up putting his foot in his mouth or otherwise not getting the point across.

Not this time.

Even though he felt like he hardly understood the ex-Marine at the best of times, Kit was not going to screw anything up today. He'd get to the bottom of the problem by any means necessary.

In the meantime, Chris had refocused on their missing partner. "Well, still… how do you two do it?" He blinked at Kit's questioning glance and raised eyebrows before blushing. "Fight so well against Xaviax's minions, I mean. How do you understand one another and act accordingly, no matter what…?"

Now I understand, Kit thought, examining his friend more closely. Chris felt useless, underprepared even. That was something he was familiar with feeling.

To correct his friend's mistaken impression he said, "It wasn't always so easy. We had times when we didn't communicate, didn't trust each other—especially at first. Heck, at one point I thought he was with Xaviax…"

Chris's eyes were wide. "You thought Len was with Xaviax?"

"Stupid, I know," Kit admitted; he still felt ashamed of being taken in so easily. "It was before you became a Kamen Rider—I let another of Xaviax's Riders convince me that he was the only good guy, and Len was the traitor. By the time I knew better, Len had already gotten hurt in the process of saving my life… I still feel bad about that." He only just let Chris nod; it was good to talk to someone else about this, someone other than Maya. "But I knew I couldn't mope about what had almost happened. I wanted to help Len. And I knew—if I wanted to help, all I could do was fight the best I could, and make sure I lived to fight another day."

He looked at Chris. The ex-Marine seemed like he knew where Kit was going, but didn't want to follow him there. "I want to believe you Kit, I really do. I want to make a difference, to serve my country. I always have. You and Len know that better than anyone else, even… Anyway. No matter how much I want to help, I cannot fight knowing that I'm a burden."

"But you're not!" Kit burst out, breaking his promise to listen without speaking for once. "You're our partner, Chris. Len and I need you. Do you think I could have held off all those monsters by myself that day?"

"Don't you think you and Len could have taken care of them more quickly?"

To his credit, the alleged delinquent only gaped like a fish out of water for five seconds before retorting loyally. "Not without you. Not anymore."

Chris smiled.

"I wish you'd been a Marine with me," he said softly. "You clearly understand the term Semper fidelis. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your loyalty, Kit… But I can't do this. I can't fight with no lung power—I'll get in the way, I'll be Vented. I'm worthless to you this way."

His hand twitched toward his pocket again—but Kit was standing up, and moving to grip his shoulder.

"Don't leave again."

"I wasn't…"

"I saw it in your eyes. Don't leave, man: you're part of the team." Chris tried to shake his head, but Kit wasn't having it. Not anymore. "What are you going to do, huh? Stay home? Break all your reflective surfaces? Cover your ears every time monsters attack? You can't ignore the calls, Chris, and you're not a coward.

"No one's asking you to be reckless—that's my job." He let himself laugh. "We just want you to stand with us. Be Kamen Rider Sting. I know you can; I've seen it. Who was it that almost made me wet myself when he tried to arrest me for being an alien?" He punched Chris's shoulder, and the ex-Marine laughed despite himself. "Yeah, man, that was you. And it's proof that you belong out there with us. So don't give up, Chris. Fight with us out there… and forget what Strike says, because none of it matters! At the end of the day, all that does matter is that we survive to fight again—and eat more pizza."

Some more cyclists rode by, and Kit flinched, thinking of Xaviax's Riders—but Chris didn't seem able to do anything but smile now.

"For a while you sounded like Len there."

The younger man grinned. "He rubbed off on me. If you stick around, he'll rub off on you too."

There was a quiet but comfortable moment, where both were lost in their thoughts—and then they winced as the familiar ringing screech sounded through the air around them. At the same time, a black motorcycle flew by on the road, one that to Kit was just as familiar.

Time to go again.

He turned to Chris. "Duty calls, soldier. You coming?"

Chris closed his eyes, still thinking. Eventually he opened them. "Yeah… I'm coming. To fight another day, right?"

"Always," Kit said. "And we can't have Len getting all the glory. Let's show him what Earth Riders are really made of."

And they ran for their motorcycles, and Ventara.