Disclaimer: I own nothin' but the insanity.

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By the hundred and seventy-second spoonful, Triple Brownie Chunk Fudge Truffle Explosion looked, smelled, and tasted like the mud swamp. He would rather have shoveled the mud swamp down his throat, in fact, than this enormous tub of sugar, fat, and artificial flavoring. At least he didn't know what whatever was in the mud swamp could do to him.

Such had been the terms of the bet he'd made with Z. If she lost, she had to run the entire mud course, forwards and backwards. If he lost, he had to consume an entire gallon (plus a quart! He should have asked for specifics when she said a 'standard sized bucket') of insanely chocolate-laden ice cream within a half hour. Leave it to the sassy Yellow Ranger to think of something as creatively gruesome for him to suffer as gluttony. She had to have had some help though; Syd or Bridge must have mentioned to her sometime that he was something of a health nut. It was the only way she could know that for him, a tub of ice cream would be torture rather than heaven.

Sky took a very slow, very cautious deep breath for fear that what he'd ingested so far might decide to come sneaking back up. His torment was almost over; there was only a small mound of dessert left in the plastic drum. With the same dogged stubbornness that sometimes got him through tough battles but more often just got him in trouble, he dug in his spoon and forced himself to take a few more bites. He couldn't keep a grimace off his face each time he swallowed. His stomach made a disturbing gurgling noise. The half-melted, drooping brown slop sudden threatened to make him sick on the spot.

He looked away.

Z sat on the couch across from him, casually thumbing through a magazine that rested in her lap. She was smirking like there was no tomorrow.

"Seven minutes," she said in a cool, off-handed manner, but she might as well have been crowing in delight.

He wondered if regurgitation was within the terms of the bet. He didn't want to do it, but the last bit of ice cream just wasn't going away, and for one miserable moment, he wasn't even sure if he could help himself.

Thankfully the nausea passed, but it had been such a close call that he knew he had to end this now before he felt ill again. He scooped up the entire remains of the dessert, took another deep breath to brace himself, and shoved it all into his mouth. Swallowing had never been so labor-intensive.

Unfortunately—not that he didn't realize by now—his suffering didn't end with the last of the ice cream. The spoon dropped from his hand into the bucket with a noisy clatter, and he tipped over onto the couch, holding his stomach with one hand while the other flopped to the floor. His face was the picture of misery as he mentally swore off food for the next two months.

Meanwhile, Z was getting no small amount of satisfaction from his pain. It felt indescribably good to knock Sky Tate down a peg, to trap him with his own superiority complex. This would teach him not to challenge Z Delgado.

Yet, after seeing how this bet panned out, she kind of hoped he would. How nice it would be if all bets ended with Sky passed out on a couch, covered with dozens of little chocolate stains.

She watched him for several minutes before realizing that he really was asleep. His expression had become more peaceful without his eyebrows crossed in their eternal scowl. Her smirk softened into a smile.

She went into the bathroom and wet a handful of paper towels, bringing them out into the rec room. First she tried to wake Sky up but to no avail. After a hesitant pause, she took one of the towels and cautiously wiped a smudge of chocolate from his cheek.

He didn't stir. She wiped another smudge from his chin, but found that the thin brown line that had dried on his upper lip was more stubborn. She decided to leave it for now.

Moving down, she mopped the chocolate residues from his fingers before they could leave their sticky imprint on anything else potentially clean. His arm fell back to the floor rather bonelessly when she let go of his hand. Bridge had told her once that Sky was a really light sleeper. He must really have been in a serious state of narcosis then if he wasn't reacting the tiniest bit to her ministrations.

She moved to kneel beside his head again. With a fresh paper towel, she gently cleansed the rest of his face, not because there were any more chocolate stains to remove, but because she wanted to feel the shape of it beneath her fingers. He had very nice skin, smooth and soft, nicer than anyone as crusty and egotistical as he was deserved to have. She started on his forehead, skimmed his temple and traced his cheekbone, slid over to his earlobe, then followed his jawline down to the tip of his chin. She repeated this caress on the other side of his face, intrigued by the sensations her fingertips were sending through the rest of her. She lifted the towel and slid it down a nose she'd always found awkwardly sharp.

She paused on the curve of his upper lip. That line of dried chocolate was still there. She knew of one way to get rid of it, but did she dare? Did she want to find out just how deeply asleep he might not have been?

Z Delgado had led a hard life, and she was used to defending herself, physically and emotionally, and fighting for the things she needed or wanted. In the end, few things scared her, and after a very brief moment of deliberation, she found this was no exception. See, assess, steal.

She bent down and lightly touched her lips to his, which still tasted strongly of chocolate. She moved to one corner of his mouth and kissed her way to the other, handily removing all traces of the confection with a little help from the tip of her tongue. At one point, she thought she felt him kiss her back, but the movement was so subtle, it might have been just a muscle twitch, some tiny automatic response to the stimulus of her lips. After all, the man was practically comatose.

She returned to the bathroom to toss away the paper towels, and when she returned, Syd was there, staring at Sky's sprawled out form.

"What did you do?" the Pink Ranger asked in a laughter-choked whisper, blue eyes bright with mirth.

"He lost our bet," said Z coolly. When Syd raised her eyebrow at the empty ice cream tub, Z grinned devilishly. "You shouldn't have told me he abhors junk food."

"Z, he's lactose intolerant!"

She could only blink at this revelation, and Syd pressed a hand to her mouth to muffle her giggles. "The poor guy is going to be in the bathroom for hours!"

"Wow. That's even better than I could have ever hoped for."

Syd just started giggling harder. "You better hope we don't get any attacks in the next…how long has he been out?"

"Ten minutes? Fifteen?"

"Next few hours then, maybe. Should we—are you just going to leave him here?"

"Actually, I might sit and watch him for a while."

Syd passed her a knowing smirk. "Making sure he doesn't hurt himself while he's out cold?"

Z rolled her eyes at her roommate. "Was there something you wanted?"

"Lip gloss," said Syd with a laugh. She went into their room to retrieve the said item, and with another smirk at Z, she left the rec room.

Z returned to her couch with her magazine though there were a couple other things she would have preferred to be doing. They were things that would inevitably be more fun if Sky was awake. So she waited. Waited for a few more challenges she looked forward to winning. Or rather, that she looked forward to winning over.

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Author's Note: One-shot, guys. This fic came from some silly musings I had with a friend about ice cream and Sky. There is no plot that surrounds this scene, I have no idea what's going with Z/Sky, and before anyone asks—NO, I don't know what the bet was that Z and Sky made with each other. :-)