Author's Note: Just a lil' fun fanfic I've been talking about with my friends and threw together for them. I apologize if my writing is terrible or my plots are ridiculous.

Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers or any related media or characters. The story idea is my own but the rest isn't. Everything is copyrighted to its respective owners.

If you review, it'll make me smile 3

WARNING!: This fic will contain slash, femslash and possibly even some het (le gasp). Nothing m-rated, mind you, but it will contain pairings. Please keep this in mind.

Note: Contains some spoilers for certain plot points in the series, maybe. Slightly AU, since I have Tenaya on the team as Ranger Purple.


It seemed, for a time, that the worst had been avoided. Gem and Gemma recovered quickly, and they had gotten good reports from the families of their other teammates. Tenaya was strong enough to put K back in bed when she tried to escape and could make her take her medicine, so the little woman was up to working again soon. The team was about ready to rest easy when it happened – despite all precautions, Dillon ended up sick.

Ziggy found out when he went up to the room he shared with his best friend. Dillon was in bed and his covers were on the ground, as well as his shirt, the man half spreadeagled on his mattress, arms at an odd angle and his skin flushed. The younger man rushed over in a panic, hand sliding under his friend's bangs to check if he really had a fever. When his suspicions were confirmed, Ziggy groaned, patting the older man's arm lightly and telling him he'd be right back. The younger ranger would have to warn the rest of the team what was going on and that both of them would be completely unavailable for the rest of the day – if Dillon was sick, he needed an almost constant monitor and Ziggy knew it.

The pair were some of the only members of the team to share a room, though that was becoming increasingly more normal as time went on. The sleeping quarters were set up with one room for each ranger, featuring a complete bathroom and shower so they didn't have to fight about who used what and hold things up. That would have all worked out fine and dandy had the team just been the main 5 rangers, but the room arrangements went to hell first when Dillon had them take in Ziggy, and later on when the team got more members. Because he was just a guest, the young man had had to bunk with his friend, since he really was Dillon's responsibility. After he became a Ranger, they kept the last room for storage, the duo already pretty settled into their rooms. After Gem and Gemma showed up, that room went to them, leaving Tenaya to bunk with either Summer or K when she joined.

Ziggy normally didn't think much about how the rooms had been set up, but at times like this he was very glad he and Dillon shared a room and had their own bathroom. If we was going to be cooped up with the older man, his own stuff being around made it a little more comfortable. Right now, however, the younger male was more concerned with turning the shower on, cold as possible. Personally, he hated a cold shower, couldn't stand them, but when Dillon was sick like this, the needed them frequently or his mechanical enhancements would overheat and start to burn out. And being that the older man tended to be incapable of standing upright on his own during times like this, Ziggy had to lug his best friend fully clothed into an icy cold shower every few hours, if not more frequently.

As the chilled water ran through his hair, the green ranger tried not to shake too hard. His arms around Dillon's bare chest, he tried to hold the other man so that most of the water hit him, ridding him of the sweat and excess heat the sickness brought on. The older man was barely clothed, wearing only his shorts due to the heat, and clung desperately to his friend's slim frame as he tried to not collapse. It was painful to see the other man vulnerable like this, so sick, so hurt, and so weak against his own body right then. If Ziggy shook, showed how uncomfortable or weak he was, he knew the rest of his body would give out and they'd both end up collapsed and unable to move.

Getting his friend back to bed, Ziggy pulled a clean sheet over his best friend and tried to keep Dillon from shuddering too much, the sudden cold replacing the heat and leaving him freezing. The younger male didn't have time to dry off or do much else, needing to stay nearby and gently rub comforting circles over his teammate's shoulders and back. This sort of thing didn't help for too long, but it tended to ward off the spasms and nightmares for a short while, giving Dillon a few minutes of peaceful rest between bouts of delirium.

After a while, Tenaya poked her head in to see how her brother was doing. She was immune so the woman was allowed a visit or two. A gasp escaped the hybrid as she saw how weak her brother looked right then, Ziggy carefully rubbing his back and sitting close to the older man. Really, she thought sourly, it was shocking it'd taken Venjix so long to realize this was a good way to conquer the team for a time.

"Is this why you were so scared of him getting sick?" the purple ranger asked quietly, trying not to disturb her brother's rest as she stepped closer to stand nearer to Ziggy. It was easy to see how this pained the young man. He and her brother cared for each other a great deal, even if the latter was very pigheaded about the whole 'feelings' thing and hadn't addressed the issues he had with sexual tension towards his best friend, let alone the issues of possibly loving him. Typical Dillon, really, but what could you do?

Ziggy shook his head, eyes haunted looking as he continued to gently rub the older man's shoulders. A small shaking had started in them and he was beginning to pant lightly. It seemed almost normal for someone in fever pains till he reached out and grabbed Ziggy's wrist, slamming it into the bed and away from him with an awful speed and crunching noise to accompany it. The young man winced and pointed with his free hand to the door, "You should probably go for now." he whispered through gritted teeth before turning back and trying to wrench the older man's hand off of his arm.

Tenaya stared at him in confusion, "He might have just sprained your wrist – don't you think I'm a bit more physically capable of handling my brother right now?" she asked, hand on her hip as Ziggy had to stand and use a good deal of his weight to hold the older man back from thrashing.

"Yeah but you're his sister – it's not appropriate for you to be helping him shower to cool off before he burns out or-" his statements were interrupted by Dillon half throwing him off and Ziggy having to dive back and pin the struggling man down again, "And if you got hurt – which trust me, you would – he'd never be able to live with himself."

It was a bit unsettling watching the obviously much smaller and weaker male struggling with her brother. How Dillon could go from being weak and needing tender care to being a raving maniac was anyone's guess, but she couldn't help but ask, "Won't he be upset that YOU'RE hurt?"

"Not if you don't tell him," Ziggy grumbled, getting tossed to the ground by her feet as Dillon's body spazzed out. "I am a very adept bruise hider and I know what I'm doing – now please go. He's going to overheat again soon. Ignore any thumping you hear." And with that, Tenaya did listen, leaving against her better judgment to let the young man deal with this. She couldn't help wincing however at the loud sound of what was definitely her teammate being thrown off of her brother again.

Keeping Dillon from violently struggling and hurting himself was a hard job and really one Ziggy wasn't meant for. However, the pained whimpers and gasps that followed were heart-rending enough to keep the young man from ever letting his friend be chained down like an animal just for being sick. With tender words and gentle touches, he could coax the older ranger back to sleep, holding him close and trying not to show how much the broken sobbing of the stronger male hurt him. It took all of the young man's self restraint to keep a gentle smile on his face while he stayed close to Dillon, hurting quite a lot more than he was allowed to let on.

When the sobs died down, the brunette could lay his friend back on the bed and let him rest for a while. This would last for a while, but eventually the choked gasps and labored breathing would creep back and the whole process would restart. Sometimes there were erratic changes in the pattern, but it was always the same. The horrible cloud of painful delirium wouldn't let up for days usually and by that point, Ziggy himself would be starting to feel the beginnings of sickness forming. For the most part, the younger man was fully functional even when sick, so he merely hid the marks from Dillon pretty much beating him up and he could go back to normal.

This time, however, Venjix decided to throw a wrench in the works. An alert was sounded and the twins went with Tenaya to handle it. Ziggy remained at home with Dillon, which was the plan. However, the trio were having a very hard time keeping up with both the attackbot and the grinders, requesting emergency backup from their friend. The other members of the team were still out of action, which left only Ziggy.

It was a struggle for him to get the thankfully sleeping Dillon downstairs. He'd just finished cooling the other man off when the distress call came and managed to get the older male dressed and down to K's lab pretty fast. He hated to do it, but the older male couldn't be left alone right now and so, till Ziggy got back, K had to keep Dillon clamped down and under heavy sedatives.

Around this time, the Black Ranger's delirium was beginning to subside. The sedatives he'd been given were enough to have kept him asleep for a time, but when he woke up fully lucid soon after and was not at all pleased. After the first time he'd woken up like this, chained up in K's lab after being sick, he'd been less than pleased. Ziggy had sworn he'd never do it again and had obviously broken that promise, leaving him at the mercy of the none-too-personal young genius. The fact that the battle was over by this point and the team was heading in meant Dillon was left with absolutely no explanation for why he was waking up here, other than the fact that he was sick and the implication his best friend had been too lazy to even help take care of him the way the others in the group were.

As the other members of the team re-entered the building – Gem and Gemma cheering with Tenaya, Ziggy trying to smile but very worried over his best friend – Dillon brushed past them roughly, shouldering his best "friend" to the floor on his way to the Fury. K was chasing after him, demanding to know why he'd broken out of the bondings he'd been in and where he was going.

"Out." Dillon growled, slamming the door and gunning the engine before anyone could quite figure out what was up. Tenaya knelt quickly to help Ziggy up, the younger man's barely-happy expression falling as he watched his friend leave.

"Hey, you know what that was about?" she asked quietly, a little startled by the change from the last time she'd seen Dillon – it'd been a few days ago, the girl staying out of her brother's room on orders, but he had seemed so very different. What had set him off?

Ziggy coughed quietly, meant to clear his throat to speak but sounding a bit worse than that, "Dillon...doesn't like to be left with K when he's sick." it was all the answer she got before he turned to slowly limp upstairs. He'd been trying to hide how weak and broken he was from dealing with the other man while they were out fighting, but now he just didn't seem able to do it anymore.

Tenaya let out her breath in a huff, going over to join K, Gem and Gemma in the labs, where they were picking up what was left of the restraints Dillon had been in. "Are these two ALWAYS this ridiculously stupid about stuff like this?" she asked, glaring over her shoulder at her brother.

Gem seemed to consider for a moment before he spoke, "No, usually Dillon's just-"

"-completely oblivious-"

"-to how he is-"

"-when he's under the weather!" Gemma finished out their little back and forth with a bright smile, gaining a low groan from Tenaya.

K cut in at this point, "It is true that Ranger Black does tend to not realize just how dangerous and uncontrollable he is while under the weather, but this can partly be attributed to the sedatives I administered when he was brought down here – when they wore off, they brought him back to lucidity, something that usually returns gradually over time without them. The side-effects make him feel awful, however, and he has a strong dislike of being restrained at all, especially during a time when he's vulnerable."

The ranger nodded a bit, glancing once more to where Ziggy'd disappeared off to, "and he's upset with Ziggy why?" Things were starting to make a bit too much sense.

"After the first time he got sick and-"

"-woke up like this, he made Ranger Green promise-"

"-not to ever let us do that to him again!" the twins finished this explanation in unison and crossed their hearts in a gesture that had it been anyone else would have seemed ridiculously well rehearsed and unnatural. As it was, it just looked unnatural.

The woman shook her head a bit, going to steal K's chair to sit down. This was stupid and overcomplicated and Tenaya had a feeling she'd need to have a very long talk with her brother soon as he got home. If she didn't deck him first.