Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ, chapter titles, or the story title.
And There She Was, Reflecting So Brightly The Warmth That She Installs.
By six fifty, she was engraving tracks on the wooden floors around her apartment in anticipation. She stopped at the glass, balcony doors of the room to look at the dusky sky and began to trace the space around her with her feet again. The jitters coursing through her small frame made it impossible to stand still for even a short minute.
She hadn't talked to Trunks since earlier that day, but the way he had ended the conversation let her know that he would be coming up to her high-rise at seven on the dot.
So now, she was waiting.
She thought about getting her training gear on, preparing for a fight with him. Pan knew she would lose but she would give him one hell of a battle that left them both a big, bloody mess. If they were equally drained then they'd be way too tired to even consider anything like oh say…sex, right? Right.
A smile settled on her closed lips as she slowed her feet to plop down on her couch that she had just made her way to.
She slid a ponytail holder off her wrist, throwing her hair lazily into the stretched hole of the elastic band and wrapping it around itself into a bun. Her tank top and sweatpants were a reminder to herself that she would not be leaving this apartment with him.
Pan flipped threw her channels aimlessly, not really seeing anything through the blur of colors that flashed on the TV screen.
Her eyes adverted to her digital clock, placed conveniently next to her television.
6:55 beamed sardonically at her, seemingly screaming the numbers and driving her mutely insane with the flash of the electronic, red digits. They were imprecating a certain doom upon her currently unnerved existence.
She sighed heavily, her eyebrows furrowing as she again began to flip through her stations.
If he knew what was best for him, he wouldn't show up. He wouldn't.
When she heard the doorbell ring, she groaned to herself loudly.
7:00.
She could feel her face growing hot with anger and her mini tantrum left a piece of wood in the arm of her couch broken into a billion splinters with the constant lashing out of her legs.
The doorbell chimed again, spiting her, and the sound made her bare her teeth in aggravation. She was really starting to act like a wild animal with this teeth behavior.
"I know you're in there, Pan," She heard him exhale noisily and figured that he had also run his hands through his smooth, lavender hair, "if you don't want to come out, I'll just come in."
The doorbell sang cynically again but once more, her body stayed planted on the couch.
'Nice way of showing him you're not avoiding him,' She spoke inwardly to herself and shooed the thoughts away. She didn't have to explain why she was avoiding him to herself! That would be absurd!
"Fine, we'll play it your way. But next game, it's by my means."
She heard his footsteps retreat and she slowly made her way to the door, wooden floors creaking under the weight of her feet as if she were in some kind of a scary movie, and in a way, it felt as such.
What did he mean, 'next game'?
Eyes fixed through the peep hole of her door, she strained to glimpse against the short way that the hole would allow. He was in no distance that her eye could see and she almost did a little dance. Her hand was just about to rise in a sure victory stance when she heard the door of her balcony clink shut.
"You're not going dressed like that are you?" She turned each fragment of her body as if they were all disconnected, and the upturn of his lip was the picture that greeted her. His hands crossed jubilantly over his chest and he walked toward her slowly, posture proud like the walk of a king.
"That's breaking and entering!" She couldn't believe she hadn't thought of the balcony…or the fact that he could fly. He was good though she wouldn't admit it to him.
"I didn't break anything."
"Let me help you out with that," She growled at him, flashing her teeth through tightly set jaws. He beamed down at her, also presenting his canines. She nearly fell back with a look of shock sketched onto her face.
"You like?" He wiggled his eyebrows at her and she pushed him aside and stomped her way across the room to sink onto her couch yet again. The exasperated sigh the cushions made under her light mass expressed not even half of what she was feeling on the inside.
Trunks had fangs too?
Goten walked into the large house without announcement, ringing the doorbell and waiting to be let in a thing of the past. He wore blue jeans and a white shirt because of the slight nip the weather held outside.
Walking leisurely through the Corp, his steps traveled towards the sound of screaming girls, presumably from a television.
He saw curls of blue hair peeking over the back of the couch and closed his eyes in anxiety. Of course she would be the first person he would have to see when he walked inside. Fate had to be toying with him. He took a second to slow his thoughts and his heart. He couldn't over think this.
"Where did Trunks go?" Goten asked Bra, trying to mask the surprise in his voice, as he rounded the corner into the living room. The girl had been watching a rerun of America's Next Top Model.
"He went to pick up Pan," Bra answered, throwing a smile up at Goten in a sort of greeting. He felt his heart plunge at the sight. She looked stunning. He wasn't sure if he was imagining the angelic glow encircling her or if he had always missed it, but it was definitely there. It blurred the outlines of her sun-baked body with a beautiful haze. Her wide, blue eyes, outlined in black, tightened with the smile of her perfect teeth enclosed around naturally pink lips.
Paris had just broken up with him a few short hours ago and he was already adoring every piece of Bra as if his heart hadn't just been shattered.
"Nice teeth, I got some too! Crazy huh?" He smiled a little too widely and jumped over the back of the sofa to land beside the sitting girl. He had to act casually towards her, not suspiciously at all.
When he looked at her outfit, he literally had to stop his jaw from dropping. Her black halter top held her breast high and perky, cleavage escaping to tempt him over the edges. The shirt stopped short of her lower belly and again he admired the ring of her navel. Her shredded blue jean shorts couldn't be keeping her warm with their abbreviated length. He didn't even want to know what he would do if he saw how she looked standing up. He hoped that Trunks would hurry back quick. He still wasn't certain what had changed in the last week or so, but she was just so much more intoxicating to him.
"Nuh uh! That's great! Omg! That's excellent!" She grabbed his arm and jumped lightly on the springy seat, facing him with a bright smile on her face, one he couldn't help but throw back. Bra probably sounded exceedingly enthusiastic but if he was getting teeth than he would probably be getting…
"How's your lower back!" She blurted the question.
"My butt's doing just fine, thanks for asking." He threw her a crazy look, looked down at his arm, and turned back to the television. He ignored the shock her touch was radiating through his arm. It was probably just the friction of…his socks on the carpet. It was just a friction thing.
She dropped her hand from his arm, and turned to clear her head with a blush.
"Not that low!" Bra had rotated to face him again, eyes large with excitement and hands resting uneasily in her lap, "Are you having any specific aches you'd like to report?"
"Why yes, doctor Bra, I do in fact have lower back problems. How did you know? Was it easy to tell by my hunch?" Goten glanced through the corner of his eye at her, loving the fact that he could make her smile so cheerfully over nothing at all.
"The teeth and taiii—tailbone troubles, they're kind of a two for one deal." Bra mocked her father with a smirk. She couldn't spill the goods just yet; she had something way more exciting planned.
"I never expected you of all the people I adore to be so happy to see me in pain. So spill, why are you so keyed up about all of this?" He looked at her, waiting for an answer. What was making her so hyper? She had energy searing off of her to compete with the energizer bunny.
"You adore me?" Her eyes grew big and glossy, the bliss emanating from her phenomenal.
Bra's presence alone made Paris a thing of the past, like she had barely even been there in the first place. This moment, sitting on the couch so close to Bra, made that eleven months and 12 days seem like nothing but a speck of dust on the timeline of forever. He had seen this girl countless times in his life and never had such energy emitted from her to him, taking over every thought, every fiber of his mind. Something had clicked in his brain and for once, everything felt entirely in place.
"How could I not?" Goten didn't know what his hands were doing when they reached out to clutch hold of the soft skin of her chin and caress her lower cheek with his thumb. It was as if it had been an automatic response, like breathing, and the thought alarmed him though he didn't object to touching her exhilarating body in any form. He could feel her tension relax in his grasp, feel her move closer to his touch.
He smiled tenderly, realizing the kind of effect he had over her. If only she knew what her touch could do to him as well.
"Are you going to tell me why you're so excited?" His thumb hadn't slowed its tantalizing motion and her eyes became drowsy with the sensation.
"Because it means one thing," Her breaths had become deeper and through her hooded eyes he could see the black of her pupils taking over the color of ocean in her orbs.
"And what is that?" His breathing matched hers and as she stared into his eyes, he could see she saw the change taking over him as well.
"I'd rather show you than tell you." She took a large swallow, knowing that this was it, that this was the moment of truth. If the same vibes flowing off of her were what Goten was feeling, if they were feeding off each other's energy, all would work out flawlessly.
"Well-"
Bra had her lips crushed to Goten's before his sentence had even settled off his lips.
'Everything Bra said must have been true then.' She shook her head in disbelief.
Pan's face had paled and Trunks thought she looked kind of sick.
"You okay?" He asked, sitting next to her on the couch and grabbing her cheeks lightly to examine her face and feel her temperature, nurturing her in the simplest way.
"I'm fine," The small mounds on her face burned in a blush as she pulled her head away and crossed her arms, "Trunks, I told you I wasn't coming. I'm so tired and stressed from work."
"Paris broke up with Goten, Bra is helplessly in love, and I'm…just looking for a release," Pan looked at him with cocked eyebrows, "Release as in release from my problems." He smiled at her mischievously. "We're all having trouble and drowning ourselves in alcoholic games is the funniest and most nonhealthy way to do so."
"Mixing the four of us with alcohol in these chaotic times sounds like a good idea," Sarcasm leaked from her words and she rolled her eyes.
"It's not sounding too shabby to me," He grinned.
There was a silence as Trunks waited for her to concur. His puppy dogs eyes stared into Pan, lips jolt out in a pout. She would crack if she looked at that face any longer.
"Will you tell me what's going on with me?" She faced the small screen, gaze dead set on it.
"You want the truth?"
"That's all I've ever asked for."
"You told me that if it involved you having sex with me, you wouldn't be happy." His head fell back on the couch pillows and he turned to beam at her frivolously.
"Trunks, I'm being serious here! Stop being perverted for once in your life!"
"I'm not trying to be perverted but it's obvious you won't believe anything I say at this point."
"No, I won't. I need a reliable source."
"Will my sister do?"
"She knows what's happening for sure now?"
"As well as my mother," He blocked the pillow Pan chucked at his head with a dismissive chortle, "My dad explained it to us earlier."
"I don't know why you find it so tickling to ruin a girl's good name, especially to your mother! You should be ashamed."
"I would have done it to anybody who I was on the phone with. Don't take it so personal, baby." He went in to pinch her cheeks and she ducked from his grip with fire in her eyes.
He sighed, seeing she was thoroughly ticked,"If I say I'm sorry, can we kiss and make up?"
"The word 'desperate' ever ring a bell in that one tracked mind of yours?"
"Trunks Vegeta Briefs, desperate! Ha! Don't make me laugh!" He had to confess his ego had been hurt just a tad. The word desperate was hardly ever used in his vocabulary, especially with a sentence involving his name and the word 'not' absent. Cobwebs consumed those letters along with words like ugly and bad hair. Nobody but his sister had ever attempted to use those terms against him and it had nearly cost her the tongue in her mouth on several occasions. Pan was treading on a thin, thin sheet of water.
"Did I hurt your feelings? Don't take it personal, baby." Her lips puckered and she teased him with the same cheek-pinching tactic he had tried on her moments before.
"I'll show you desperate," He cleared his throat and stood, smoothing out the wrinkles of his white button up wordlessly.
'If this was all it took to get him to lea-' Before Pan could finish her thought, she felt her body being tossed through the air in a quick motion. Trunks had bent down suddenly to pick Pan up by her torso and throw her over his broad shoulder.
"Trunks, put me down!" Her hair dangled around her face, a black curtain clouding her vision. She could feel them moving and knew exactly where they were headed. "This is kidnapping!" Her hands began to beat his back in rough rhythm, glowing with powerful energy.
"I gave you ample opportunities. You reap what you sow."
Both of his hands held her high on her thighs, as to keep her balanced. He couldn't deny she was paining his back but his grip didn't let up.
"Put me down, asshole!"
"Is that…what's the word...desperation I hear in your voice, Panny?"
She bent backwards to send a ki blast whizzing past his ear, lavender strands falling one after another, consequences of being decapitated by the heat.
"Next one, I won't miss." She threatened.
He set her down, body pressed between his and the wall when he reached the front door.
"Desperate measures, don't you think?" His head was stretched to wear his tresses tickled her forehead and she blew it from her face in a weighty puff, "I can't believe you messed with my hair. Of all the people..."
His hands were on either side of her, keeping her trapped between him, a feeling of déjà vu overtaking her. She tried to duck under his arm but they lowered to keep her in the same spot.
"I'll blast it off," She snarled, glaring down at the obstructing limb.
"I love it when you talk dirty to me," His voice held the same intensity. When he growled, his nose brushed the tip of hers. Their teeth were bared at one another, though Trunks' expression was a bit more playful, challenging than Pan's. He had to admit that this was turning him on.
When she glowered into his eyes, she saw the change happen, watched the blue of his eyes disappear and she knew she was in trouble.
The funny part was that she was waiting for it to happen, she knew the kiss was about to occur before it even did. Déjà vu was a crazy thing.
Everything had been set up perfectly, though she didn't know if Trunks had done it intentionally (seeing this situation happen in some form long before he had arrived) or if fate had played it out all on its conniving little own.
When the air conditioner of her apartment quieted, she knew exactly what was about to happen.
A/N: Oh, how I love to make you guys wait! I'm just that evil! I know I'm drawing this out but next chapter, things will happen I promise. ;) Don't give up on me yet!
I got AWESOME reviews last chapter! I sincerely worked so hard on it so they all felt soooo good to read. I'm glad you guys enjoyed the Trunks/Pan scene most, I spent many days on it. I just want to say thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! You guys are a major inspiration. :)
I would more than appreciate it if you left me reviews again. Tell me anything! Until next chapter... :)