Summer winces in pain as she ties a strip of bandage around her arm.
She hadn't even known that the impact of the fall earlier in the fight had left her with a gaping bleeding wound. It was only after she had removed her jacket that she had noticed the yellow fabric of her t-shirt to be soaked in blood.
She doesn't know when this began but cuts and scrapes don't feel that crippling anymore; their pain doesn't feel that stark anymore. In fact, on most days, she is glad of her cuts and scrapes and the scars they leave behind.
It's better to be bruising than to be dead.
"Looks pretty banged up."
Summer jumps at that voice; not because she doesn't recognize it but because she does. A little too well.
"Don't you sleep, Dillon?" she asks him, struggling to inject some annoyance into her voice. Her fingers falter on the bandage and he immediately clears the distance between them.
"I don't need to sleep," he tells her, standing a lot closer now as he gently takes the bandage from her hand. She lets go immediately. "I'm a machine, remember?" he tells her, not even bothering to look at her.
"Dillon," she protests with an exasperated sigh. He glances at her for a quick second but looks away almost immediately and Summer lets the words on her lips die; perhaps it is for the best if they don't talk about this. It's just that he is so much more than a machine, so much more than those robotic implants fitted within him and she wishes he could understand that. Besides machines don't feel and he does and-
Burning factory. Burning desire.
She has to physically shake her head to get rid of that thought.
"Keep your hand steady," he tells her at once.
"Sorry," she mumbles, looking away to keep the unbidden yet irresistible memories of the factory at bay.
"There you go," he whispers as he fastens the bandage around her arm. His fingers linger on the bandage, carelessly caressing the coarse material as his eyes meet hers slowly.
Summer feels her breath hitch, her stomach rolls into a knot as her gaze flickers to his lips. She can feel his eyes on her and she is about to succumb to the overwhelming desire to lean in and kiss the man clad in black and stop this endless game of dancing around each other when he pulls back.
"You should catch some sleep," he tells her, letting his hand drop and taking a few steps back. His face is inscrutable; blank. For a moment, Summer doubts if all of that happened in her head.
"You too," she tells him as steadily as her hammering heart allows her. She still doesn't know how that moment came. Or went.
"I'm a-"
"No, you're not," she cuts him off at once, surprised at how firm her voice sounds. She realizes she needs to make her point and wiping her mind clean and calming her heavy palpitations, she says, "You need sleep just like the rest of us."
He doesn't reply for the longest of time, stares at her and ponders something she isn't aware of. She is beginning to think he'll turn his back on her and walk back to his room or say something evasive and stupid and shut her out.
"Can I tell you something?" he asks instead, doubt lingering in his voice as he looks at her hesitantly, and she has trouble concealing the surprise on her face.
She nods in reply, resisting her instinct to walk closer to him. She needs the distance to keep her thoughts clear, especially after what happened right now.
"I'm too afraid to fall asleep," his words are a hoarse whisper and Summer feels her heart clench painfully.
Shit.
She doesn't even bother to weigh her words and lets them slip out of her mouth, "You can sleep with me, you know."
She feels the slightest undercurrent of tension in the air as she slides underneath the covers beside him, the distance she had wanted to maintain between the two of them being obliterated in a blink. She can't say she is sorry though; it's so easy and natural and right to be near him.
"Your room isn't yellow enough," his heavy voice cuts through her thoughts and immediately slices through whatever tension was hanging around them.
She finds herself relaxing at that and growls at him, a smile finding its way onto her face, "Shut up."
He laughs too, a beautiful contagious sound bubbling out of him. "It's barely yellow, Summer. You need to get rid of the black walls and paint them yellow before they start paying you less for showing disrespect to your color."
She is giggling by now and has curled up by his side, burying her head into his chest in an attempt to stop her laughter. He wraps his arms around her and holds her steady. When she finally manages to get her hysterics under control, she sighs contentedly and murmurs against his skin, "I personally like the black."
He wakes up abruptly, the music from his nightmare still playing in his ears. He sits up straight; his hands are shaking and he feels his own breath choking him.
"Dillon?"
It takes a fraction of a second for him to realize where he is.
"Are you okay?" Summer is sitting beside him now, gently easing his quivering hands into hers as her eyes study him.
He gives her hands a squeeze, thankful for the physical contact and whispers, "I am now."
"Want to talk about it?" she asks hesitantly.
"Won't help," he sighs, glancing at her cautiously.
She doesn't agree but knows that this isn't the time for an argument. "Fine. Let's go back to sleep, then."
He nods and lies back onto the bed, keeping one hand firmly wrapped around hers. She doesn't let go for even a second, simply entwines their fingers together and stares at the ceiling till she knows he has fallen asleep, praying and hoping that he won't wake up again that night.
He doesn't.
It becomes a part of their routine after that: she starts to leave her door open and he always comes, always finds a way to her once the rest of the team falls asleep and he always disappears before anyone else wakes up. There's no pressing need for them to keep it a secret but somehow that is how it comes to be and they don't really think it's important for the world to know who they are to each other, what they mean to each other.
They don't talk much in these hours; there's simply no need to do so. They bask in the warmth of each other and keep their hands locked till they fall asleep. And on the nights he wakes up distraught and broken from his nightmares, she wraps her hand around his once again and makes them rest against his chest till his breathing becomes steady, till his heart stops hammering and he finally falls asleep.
And then, one night, he wakes up screaming her name, sweat coating his temples and his hands fumbling to find hers in the darkness. She takes his unsteady hands into her own and brings them to rest against his cheeks.
"Shh it's just a nightmare," she hears herself whisper as he slumps against her, wrapping his arms tightly around her, his breathing strained.
"I can't lose you too," he tells her into her neck, voice breaking.
Summer feels a strange sensation settle into her stomach at his soft admission. She can't quite place her finger on what is really is but it makes her warm and content; sated. "You won't," she tells him, a reassuring confidence in her voice that makes him relax.
They remain wrapped in an embrace till she hears his heart beating steadily against her. She pulls back slightly, just enough to meet his eyes, and tells him quietly, "I'll always be here."
He cracks her half a smile - the one that she is so fond of - and then she finds herself leaning in. He leans in too; she isn't entirely sure though but after one pregnant pause, a tiny moment of indecision and questioning, their lips finally brush. She sighs into the kiss, a calmness flooding over her as his lips move against hers ever so slowly. This doesn't feel like the first time at all and she feels like she has known the man in front of her for all of her life.
And somewhere in between her fingers playing with the hem of his shirt and her fingers removing the shirt to trace the scars she is just beginning to learn about, he tells her, "I wouldn't know what to do without you."
He stops disappearing in the mornings after that and on most days, Summer wakes up to wakeful brown eyes watching her. There are other rarer days too when she wakes up before him and watches him sleep, the lines of worry and guilt absent from his face, his breathing steady and assuring and his hand always wrapped around hers.
The night before Tenaya comes back and he leaves her to go into the wastelands with his sister, Summer lies awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling, an inexplicable urge to cement whatever they have built together with words.
"Dillon?" she whispers eventually, unable to hold in all the emotions that are warring inside her.
He hums in reply.
"I need to tell you something," she says, turning on her stomach and momentarily letting go of his hand.
He turns to face her, the expression on his face already telling her that he knows what is about to come.
Once she has their hands linked again, like it has become customary, she brings herself to look at him in the eye and tell him, "I love you."
He smiles and she grows increasingly aware of the fluttering in her stomach and the thundering of her heart. "Say something, please," she finally whispers when he climbs on top of her and kisses her till her senses are numbed.
"You know I love you, Summer Landsdown," he breathes into the hollow of her neck and makes her shiver.
When he leaves the next morning with his sister, the only thing that helps the bilious churning in the pit of her stomach is that she knows they hadn't left words unsaid or things undone.
She doesn't think it can get any worse when they return to their garage with the knowledge that Venjix has turned his sister into a stranger yet again.
"Dillon," she calls after him as he bangs his car door shut and strides away, kicking at a chair on his way. "Dillon, wait!" she screams this time and sprints to reach him.
"Leave me alone, Summer," he hisses, walking unbothered, not even looking at her.
"Talk to me, please," she persists, keeping up with him.
"Not now."
"Dillon, please."
She continues to follow him as he makes his way out of the garage and out into the streets of Corinth. She knows he won't be easy to deal with right now but she isn't going to give up on him-
"Go away, Summer!" he yells right into her face, forcing her to an abrupt stop.
She is too stunned to speak and looks at him with widened eyes as he walks away, without even sparing her a glance.
She feels the questioning stares from her teammates burn into her back as she quietly opens the door to her room and stumbles inside. Once the door is shut behind her, she allows herself to sink to the floor and let the tears that she has been barely containing to come pouring down.
There's a knock on her door soon after and she is about to take a deep breath and tell the person on the other end to leave her alone when the door opens, revealing the man responsible for her tears.
She is still on the floor and violently wipes away the stray tears off her face. He stalks into the room and sinks down beside her, discomfort and regret screaming from his posture. She can't quite bring herself to look at his face just yet. He maintains a fair amount of distance and she is thankful for that.
They don't talk for a long time and she finds the anger and the pain slowly ebbing away. "I'm sorry," he eventually whispers.
She lets out a whimper at that.
"I was way out of line," he tells her, regret lacing his words. "I shouldn't have yelled at you. I was just... angry and took it out on you. It wasn't fair."
"'s okay," she sniffs, feeling tears pricking her eyes.
He curses and drags himself closer to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. She buries her head into his chest and doesn't even try to stop the fresh volley of tears that flood her.
She is wrong when she thinks that is the worst she will have to see.
A few days later, Dr. K explains the result of the scans to them. She doesn't put it that way but the message is clear for Summer: the man she loves is going to fall prey to the virus that has already destroyed everything in the world she used to love once upon a time.
She starts counting their days together after that and although he never says it, she knows he is doing the same.
On the twelfth night, he tells her as he kisses her hand that is firmly locked in his, "I rarely have nightmares now."
She doesn't know why her heart clenches in pain at that.
It's better to be bruising than to be dead.
When she doesn't reply, he says, "I think it's all because of you and this-" He holds up their linked hands together and Summer crumbles inside.
She hates how every conversation she has with him feels like the last one. "I can't lose you," she cries into his chest, uncontrollable sobs wracking through her body.
He hushes her and rubs her arm till she calms down. He doesn't tell her anything because he doesn't have words that are powerful enough to save her.
He collapses on the battlefield on the fifteenth day. He had insisted he would fight for as long as he could and no one had even tried to stop him.
Summer doesn't feel anything initially as she falls to her knees and cradles his head in her lap. Her mind runs blank and she doesn't even register the events properly. She is vaguely aware of the team slowly assembling behind her as she feels the life drain away from him.
"Summer?" he croaks.
"Shh don't talk. I'm here, we're all here. You'll be fine," she hears her voice break and it begins to hit her that this really is the end.
"Summer," he breathes, labored. "I need you to... hold my hand... I- I think I'm falling asleep."
She feels a tear sliding down her face as she takes his hand into her own. "No no no no," she hears the words leave her mouth.
"I..." he falls silent after that and whatever he was going to say dies on his lips.
She sleeps in his room these days; it somehow makes her feel he is still there with her. And when her eyes fall on her hand that lies on his bed without a purpose, she notices how the gaps in between her fingers are right where his would fit perfectly.
A/N:
Hey there.
If you have come this far, I'm so sorry for doing that. I was so damn broken at having to do that and almost changed my mind and made Dillon live but that wouldn't solve the purpose of this fic so I did what I did and changed the entire Venjix virus concept and made it powerful enough to kill someone. Lots of creative liberty, I realize.
This is heavily based on a Tumblr prompt and the prompt demanded that one character be killed off, which is why I'm doing an end note because I couldn't really give away the plot in the beginning. Lol. My initial plans were to write this with Hunter/Tori (because I'm a sucker for Hunter and everything Hunter) but I couldn't quite make it fit so I changed to Dillon/Summer. Also, the last paragraph is mostly taken from Vanilla Twilight by Owl City. So I don't own that song and neither do I own Power Rangers.
This is unbeta'ed so all mistakes remain mine and do leave behind a review if you enjoyed the story.