A/N: A quick little songfic I got inspired to do while listening to some of my favorite music and writing the fifth chapter to A Place in Time (if you havent read that fic yet, go get caught up! Its not too far along yet and this will make a lot more sense!). I have at least one chapter in that story planned to explore how Mirai Trunks & Pan met and a little more into their relationship prior to that story, but I had this song on and realized how well it described a place I envision him being in before he was the happy husband and father figure. So, that said, enjoy this little inspo drabble! A Place in Time will be updated soon.
Leave Out All the Rest
Story by Caelestis Kibeth
Song by Linkin Park
Somewhere deep in the woods outside West City
( Future Timeline)
I dreamed I was missing
You were so scared
But no one would listen
'Cause no one else cared
Despite the warmth of the night air whispering across his temples, he couldnt shake the thin layer of cold sweat on his face. Frustrated, he pressed the heel of a palm into a closed eye, wondering if he pushed hard enough he could erase these haunting images from his memory. The images of his nightmares, the lingering ghosts of his past which troubled his dreams on clear nights like this.
With a defeated sigh, his hand dropped into the lush grass and he ripped a fistful from earth, mildly enjoying the pop-crack sound the decapitated blades made. Bringing it up in front of his face, he stared into the handful of green for a few long seconds, squeezing his knuckles gradually tighter and tighter around it before finally releasing the blades into the wind.
What was he doing?
After my dreaming,
I woke with this fear
What am I leaving
when I'm done here?
What could he do?
He couldn't talk to her.
He had spent so much of the past two years weighing her down with his problems-their whole relationship was built around his problems. It wasn't fair, and yet for some reason she still stayed firmly, stubbornly by his side. She had spent countless nights holding him protectively as he pathetically cried out his inner agonies, the ones to which there seemed to be no end.
She had her own problems too, her own baggage. She was an orphan, just like him. And yet she never complained, never once held it against him. Just patiently sat by, waiting for him to heal with a firm hand for him to cling to.
So if you're asking me, I want you to know
When my time comes,
Forget the wrong that I've done
Help me leave behind some reasons to be missed
She was such a pretty young thing, barely past childhood. What was she even doing with someone like him? That night he tried to take his own life, she could have left him lying where he was. It wasn't the duty of a 16-year-old girl to deal with that.
It wasn't the duty of a 16-year-old girl to stay by his side through the long months as he healed from his physical wounds. It wasn't her duty to talk him through the long days afterwards, to justify to him why he was alive and that he deserved to live, to remind him to try and love himself even when it hurt the most. It wasn't the duty of a 16-year-old girl to drop her life and settle down in the middle of nowhere, desperately holding onto the shell of a grown man and trying to save him from himself.
Yet there she was, two years later and strong and selfless as ever, lying asleep by his side each night. Why was that? He honestly didn't know.
She said she loved him.
He couldn't fathom it.
Don't resent me
And when youre feeling empty
Keep me in your memory
Leave out all the rest
Leave out all the rest
She shouldn't love someone like him. By all means, after all he had done to her she should have despised him. He had tied her down-it had started with pity, he was sure-and been too selfish to push her away when he knew she should be moving on with her life.
But she was all he had. She was the only one who was left to care about a despicable creature like he had become and she refused to go anywhere. Even when he told himself he knew better, he refused to let himself shove her away for her own good.
He was so terrified of being alone. He had spent so long without anyone who cared, and now that he had her the idea of dying in solitude, without a single person to notice or mind, put his stomach in knots.
Don't be afraid
I've taken my beating
I've shed but Im me
What would happen if he died tomorrow? That's what he saw in his dreams these days.
She would care, she would be upset and cry and mourn, but what would he be remembered for in the long run? All he'd ever done in life was envelop her in the pain he had inside. She told him she was happy to share in his burden, but when he was gone wouldn't she be eventually relieved? To be his savior and saint was no simple task.
I'm strong on the surface
Not all the way through
I've never been perfect
But neither have you
Well, he supposed she couldn't just up and forget him now.
Her face was still fresh in his mind now as when she told him. She had been bursting at the seams with rare delight, and yet her expression was unmistakably tinged. It was apprehension. She could do nothing to keep it out of her voice as she delivered her news, hand laid in an uncharacteristically disquiet manner atop his.
What could he have done for her?
He could have smiled and hugged and kissed her. He could have exclaimed how thrilled he was and let her have her moment and her relief. Only it would have been a lie.
All he felt was guilt. Again.
So if you're asking me, I want you to know
When my time comes,
forget the wrong that I've done
Help me leave behind some reasons to be missed
He was happy. But that happiness sickened him.
She was so young, barely 18. Too young for this, for any of this. For him, for his ghosts, to be here at all... and certainly too young to now be saddled with the shackles of carrying his child.
It was all he had ever wanted with her coming true at once, but it was so wrong. He didnt deserve to be happy at her expense. She was too young and too naive to realize what she had gotten herself into. So as she sat in front of him with that excited glow, it was all he could do to not break down and cry.
She had been crushed, of course. But she had done her best not to let it show just how much. She tried to tell him about how they had a future, how they could both have a family again at long last. She told him that he shouldn't be afraid, that she didn't regret a thing and that he shouldn't regret it for a second either.
She loved him, it would be okay, she loved him.
Why did she love him?
Don't resent me
And when youre feeling empty
Keep me in your memory
Leave out all the rest
Leave out all the rest
So he couldn't ask her to help him tonight.
With a frustrated growl, he banged a fist hard into the grass, sending a resounding thud through the ground below him.
All he wanted to do was accept her love and yet he couldn't seem to learn how. Instead, he dug a knife into her outstretched heart time and time again. Would he do that to his child-his daughter-too? Would he hurt her and shackle her like her mother? What if this little girl really did grow to hate him? What if he turned into his father?
Six months.
He only had six months to learn. The task seemed insurmountable.
Forgetting all the hurt inside
You've learned to hide so well
Pretending someone else can't come and
save me from myself
I can't be who you are
He felt as if he'd thought for hours-although it must have been only minutes-before he was washed over with the warm familiarity of her ki closing in on him.
He wished for her to go away and come faster all at once. But of course she would not go away. She didn't even spend an extra moment on the sidelines to gauge his mood, only headed directly over to sweep up her troubled lover into a knowing embrace.
"I love you."
She said it so directly that it almost left him stunned. She had made a point to say those words to him every day, as often as possible, but somehow he felt he had never heard them from her quite like this. Something about her tone now was so aggressively certain that he wasnt sure what to think of it.
When my time comes,
forget the wrong that Ive done
Help me leave behind some reasons to be missed
His fingers twined with hers powerfully, like grabbing onto a security blanket. This addiction to her was like a curse, but it was the one single thing sustaining his life.
Soon there would be two. Could he ever do it?
"I'm sorry, Pan."
Her hair brushed his neck and he felt the ghost of a smile against the muscles of his back as she shook her head. "Dont ever say you're sorry, Trunks," she advised him softly. "Just say you love me."
Don't resent me
And when youre feeling empty
Keep me in your memory
Leave out all the rest
Leave out all the rest
Reaching around with a strong arm, he coaxed her small form into his lap, to sit between parted knees. As she settled in and he caught the scent of jasmine on her hair, he suddenly felt a new strength like only she had ever given him.
It rushed like electricity through his spine, down through his arm which laid a trembling palm to her abdomen. Expecting to be somehow thrown back, instead he was astonished to find that the gesture did not scare him.
It felt like home.
"Okay."