Hey guys, sorry it's taken so long. My excuses range from A) very difficult chapter to write, ended up having to split it in two and move stuff around, B) am in the middle of revising for my final final university exams. The ones that will decide if I'm allowed to be a teacher or not, and C) I discovered the Dragonkink meme and got seriously distracted.
Anyway. Here we go!
Fools Fall In: Chapter 7
Fascinating new thing
You delight me, and I know you're speaking of me
Fascinating new thing
Get beside me, I want you to love me - FNT Semisonic
"How do I look?" He spun around in a way reminiscent of a little girl showing off a new dress. She took in the sight and grimaced.
"Do you want the truth?"
"Um..."
"You look great." She returned her gaze to the magazine.
"Was that the truth?"
"Of course it wasn't." She replied, not even bothering to look up from an article on this season's shoes.
"Aww...really?"
Android 18 let out an exasperated sigh and gave him her full attention. Tapping a finger on the side of her face, she tipped her head to one side. "Unless this is all part of your cunning plan to put her off you... scaring her away with that top."
Krillin pulled on the front of the lime green shirt he was wearing. "What's wrong with it? It's...jaunty."
"It's not jaunty – it's loud and tacky...like you." The cyborg woman smirked at her own joke.
"That's just mean." The monk scowled, trying to decide whether to take notice of her observation or not. If not this shirt, then what about the purple one he had? It was more ...subdued. But then it was more of a night-out shirt... this was only really coffee...Hang on...what about a pink one? Girls liked a guy in a pink shirt didn't they? Hang on there. We're not trying to get her to like you, remember? This is going to be an anti-date. Ah. Yes indeed, thank you brain. You're welcome.
He stood there for a moment. He 'hmmphed' and stalked upstairs to find a new top. The blonde woman smiled to herself, amused over her little victory.
She was perusing a page on some random woman who'd left her husband for a 20 year old waiter she'd met on holiday, when her brother stomped in.
"All of this sand is driving me insaaaaaane. How is it not bothering you more? Surely it should be... lodged places."
18 simply gave him a bored look and went back to the article. "If you don't like it here then you can leave. Get a new van. A pink one."
He seemed to ponder this for a moment. "I can't possibly leave you here. Not with buzz-cut up there. Who knows what sordid things you two could get up to without me here to chaperone."
No words can truly express just how disgusted she appeared in response to that comment. Well, as disgusted as a cyborg can really look. She put the magazine down, no longer able to look at the page giving out advice on quite frankly some dangerous looking sexual positions. The slim teenager flung himself over the back of the settee and, getting sand all over the place, starting flicking through the television channels. His sister scowled, got up and dusted the sand from her leggings before stomping towards the kitchen to try and find something sharp to stab at him with.
"How 'bout this then?" Krillin had reappeared in the living room, now wearing a pastel yellow shirt over a white top. She stopped and looked. Really looked.
"You look..." How did he look? Sweet, was the only word that sprung to mind.
"Lemony-fresh right?" He raised a dark eyebrow, silly smile on his face.
The blonde woman simply snorted.
"Fine. You look ... fine." She replied hands on hips, head tilted to the side, as if she was weighing something up. As his heart rate seemed to double under her gaze, Krillin couldn't decide whether he liked this look or not.
The television had stopped on a shopping channel, but the settee's occupant was no longer paying attention to it, instead he was staring pointedly at the two people stood behind it; neither of which had realised that they hadn't spoken in a number of minutes.
Krillin immediately started fussing with his shirt buttons whilst the dark-haired youth sniggered, narrowly dodging a rolled up magazine. He looked at the clock on the wall. Quarter to two.
Quarter to two?
"Shit! Shit! Shit I gotta go!" He sped around, becoming nothing but a blur as he tried to locate a pair of shoes. Oh hell this was going to be just awful. Just...awful.
As he reached the front door, he turned to the twins.
"So I look okay?"
"For Kami's sake, yes! Just remember your," she made the inverted commas hand gesture,"...plan."
17 pointed to the ceiling dramatically, "And remember you don't do anything that you don't want to do! You hear me? She is not entitled to anything; you have the right to say no."
The shorter man made a noise that sounded like something between a snarl and a groan, shaking his head exasperatedly. The blonde twin simply rolled her eyes.
"Just go already!"
"Okay okay! Sheeesh!" The monk picked up a set of set of keys from a hook on the wall, took one more rather terrified look at the two androids in his front room (who he'd be leaving alone with Master Roshi and Oolong...and poor, poor Turtle... that thought alone made him feel ill) and went to take off out of the door.
…..
When Krillin had left, 18 wandered upstairs without any real purpose, and soon found herself in his room. She'd not yet taken the time to invade this area of the house and surveyed it slowly; absorbing the information she could glean from the posters on the wall and the bits and bobs scattered around the room. It was cluttered yes, but warmly lived in. There were a few empty noodle pots strewn about and a well-tended but questionable looking plant on the windowsill, ("It's an Acer, I swear!") but what grabbed her attention and held it was the notice-board on the far wall, literally crammed and overflowing with photo's and other paraphernalia.
Tickets and flyers to tournaments and baseball games, an old wedding invitation now slightly damaged around the edges, postcards and cut out newspaper articles. The photo's themselves were filled with dozens of happy smiling people, laughing or drunk or narrowly dodging a stream of bullets from an irate looking blonde woman. She knew them all; she could name them all and tell you all of their greatest strengths and darkest secrets. All thanks to the steady stream of files sitting at the back of her head.
She lifted some of the pictures to find other ones hidden beneath them, to see a blue-haired young woman beaming back at her, Maron, the little red letters behind her eyes told her, the one they'd mentioned the other day. He was in the photo too, looking ecstatic. Lucky boy. He looked completely thrilled and wonderfully … comfortable; he's never like that around me. He's always so…awkward… Actually, thought 18 as she peered around the photos with him and other women, he seemed almost like a different person.
At ease.
Around her he could always see a glint of worry or fear or… something… in his eyes. She curled her lip at the blue haired woman in the picture and covered her back over with a photo of two of Krillin's male friends drunkenly smooching him on each cheek, whilst he stared into the lens, clearly horrified.
The android turned away from the notice-board. It was so full of memories. And she… wasn't… and it made her feel…. Well… she really had no idea what it made her feel… just the simple fact that it made her feel anything was incentive enough for her to want to move as far away from it as possible. However, he exit was barred as her brother lollopped in. He barged past to throw himself upon the bed. "Ooo. Bouncy. I'm actually surprised the sheets aren't rock solid."
"That's vile."
"So is your face." He paused for a moment, rattling thought the bedside cabinet and flicking the lamp on and off. "I'm bored."
"I thought you we're watching TV?"
"Nothing on. What you doing in here anyway? Rifling for dirty underwear?"
"urgh. I hate you."
"Why on earth would he have a poster of a pinup girl on a car and of 'Singing in the Rain' on the same wall? That's just making my sexuality files go all wonky- hello. What's this?" He rolled off the mattress and slinked over to the notice-board.
"It's just… Scooby Gang stuff. I'm going downstairs."
"Uh-huh." He barely noticed his sister leave the room. After perusing it, unlike his sister, 17 was very aware of what it made him feel, and so very strongly.
...
How on earth was he going to pull this off?
His head was telling him to stick to 'the plan', but he was finding it difficult. He doubted he even had it in him. The 'plan' itself was simple enough – she wanted a nice guy? He'd be the biggest douche bag ever.
Or so he thought.
It was... harder to do then expected. He thought he'd just channel Vegeta... maybe one of those horrifically stereotypical jock characters from teenage rom-coms... but then he was there with her, chatting, making jokes and he just...felt wrong even trying. He couldn't even lounge in his chair in any particularly rebellious manner, which was more than just a little bit sad.
As he sat in the nice little chair and stirred the lemon into his ice-tea, Krillin had his first real look at Majon in daylight.
She was really quite attractive in an unconventional, non-human sort of way. In all honesty he'd never met a demon who hadn't wanted to/ tried to/ succeeded in an attempt to kill him, let alone a female, for that matter, so his concept of gauging demon attractiveness wasn't very informed. Unless he counted that one rather confusing dream he'd had about Piccolo that reminded him a person's sexuality was never set in stone. But I digress.
He watched her fuss about with her coffee: add sugar, stir, adding cream, stir, cinnamon dust...
She had a sharp face, angular, framed by wispy unruly hair that he could now see was more white than blonde. Small black horns poking out of the top of her fringe, less scary in the daytime.
Tearing another sugar sachet open with sharp white teeth she caught his gaze and flashed him a smile. Warm and sincere.
Almond-shaped eyes framed with dark, dark lashes, and a long straight nose with no hint at all of the usual button at the end. Exotic and aquiline and sharp. But it was her lips that made a blush come to his face, not her eyes or her long long legs or the curve of her thick hips in those clinging jeans. Looking at her lips could make him forget about the little wings and the pointed ears and the thin swishing tail... They were things of beauty – full and plump and naturally dark. Chewed and bitten with worry. Lived-in lips. Lips for kissing. Mending.
Oh bugger, thought Krillin, he did actually fancy her. Well, if you ignored the craziness. Which in all honesty… you really couldn't.
They'd been sitting at a table outside of some cute little bijou cafe for the best part of an hour. Apologies and silly small-talk had been made, and Krillin had attempted to glean as much information as he could from the blue woman opposite him. Anything he could use. He'd already been told she was Akkuman's sister, older or younger he had yet to discover.
Apparently a bit of a delinquent in her youth, now a business woman. Just how old was she exactly? From what he could guess, around his own age... but you could never really tell with demons... she could be 200 for all he knew.
She'd asked him about his life and he'd given her a rather edited account. No mention of space or trying to help save the world... nothing that might impress her in any way. Not that it usually worked with any other women... but he wasn't willing to risk the potential hero/nice-guy allure. If he couldn't pass himself off as a dickhead he might as well go for the useless and cowardly angle.
He took a swig of his tea "... but anyway, I've pretty much given up on fighting. It just seemed sorta pointless..."
"Without your friend by your side?" The demon woman asked earnestly, an expression of sympathy across her face. Krillin flinched. He hadn't mentioned that, had he? Had she worked that much out on her own?
"Um, yeah."
She reached over the table and squeezed his hand with her own. Almost unnoticeably, Krillin jumped at the unexpected contact. Should a demon's hand be that soft?
He decided to be brave. To bring up the elephant in the proverbial room.
"So what made you make the bet, Majon? What happened?"
She appeared to be a little surprised at his question, but then stirred her drink thoughtfully and launched into the tale.
"Ah, I suppose I owe you an explanation. It's…. predictable. I'd been in a relationship with this guy (who I'll refrain from naming, because he's a prick) and we'd been going steady for about a year or so. And of course at the beginning everything's all rainbows and unicorns, and then things just went downhill. That…that's seriously the only way I can describe it." She made a downwards motion with her hand, "things started falling to shit. But um, you've gotta remember, demon relationships aren't all fluffy and Jane Austen; the rainbow and unicorns I mentioned are more like… rainbow's are on fire and unicorns that will eat you if you present them with the wrong sort of anniversary gift. So… yeah, it was pretty hectic even excluding when he started shagging other women…
… It was passionate, messy and really kinda…Bonnie and Clyde. He was all dark and mysterious and badass…and I really thought he loved me. Don't know why really. He was no different to the other idiots I've dated. Dickheads, emotional retards, complete and utter fuckwits. I don't seem to attract the nicest of men. I was, well, head over heels and when it did finally fall to pieces, and he walked out… I was devastated. I still, I mean, it stung y'know? And of course after crying in pyjamas and eating more brioche than anyone ever should, I got all, angry about it and I suppose I just kind of hit that weird wall you get to where you really don't care what you do or how stupid you look or even what trouble it'll all cause in the long run…which inevitably led to the aforementioned bet. And the rest, as they say, is history."
Krillin let it sink in. He remembered just how awful he'd felt when he'd broken up with Maron, even though he'd been the one to break it off – it hadn't stopped him being a complete and utter mess for a couple of months afterwards. Actually, when he thought about it, he'd done some pretty stupid things at the time. He'd thought about rejoining the Orin Temple. Hadn't he tried to grow a beard? Oh god, he had. Yes, said his brain, you also propositioned Launch during a post-Garlic Junior 'thank-god-he-didn't-win-because-lets-face-it-after-frieza-that-would've-been-a-sucky-way-to-have-been-defeated' party. You barely made it out alive. Good Lord he thought he'd successfully managed to block that memory out. Touché, brain. Touché.
"Huh," He simply replied, "That makes a bit more sense."
….
"17?"
His sister's face was almost unreadable. "Are you alright?"
That question hit him like a tonne of bricks. What on earth is she talking about? There was concern written in the faint lines of her brow. He turned his attention to the notice-board again. Oh.
It wasn't on the wall. It was thrown across the room and smashed against the wall, loose paper and photo's floating down to the floor about him.
17 looked as confused by this as 18 was. Though why was anyone's guess, she should be used to his random acts of destruction by now. His bright blue eyes narrowed at the heap of Krillin's memories in front of him.
"17." His sister caught his attention.
"...what?"
She was staring at him intently, giving him that odd look she often gave him. Almost worried. Almost pained. "You're- You're upset...17 you're crying." And it was true. She could see the tell-tale shine in the androids usually lifeless eyes, the red puffiness starting to appear under his eyes, wet marks on his cheeks. The man himself, he'd made no noise, no sobs or sniffling. He looked for all the world as if his eyes were simply watering... a bad run in with some chopped onions... but she knew. She's seen it before. His sister simply stood there, quietly watching him, assessing the situation.
The android remained silent for a moment, and then his face broke into that very bored, very dangerous smile he seemed to favour. He looked at his sister and stated, matter-of-factly, "I did it again didn't I?"
"What happened?" She stalked across the room over to him, leaning close and staring into his face. Her brother rolled his eyes.
"Nothing. Nothing happened."
"Yes it did. Just, tell me – "
"I was looking at all of that stupid stuff and I was thinking. Hey, this all looks nice. We should have photos of all our wacky childhood misadventures, but we don't… and then that turned into isn't it weird that we know all of these people's name but we don't even know our own."
18 sighed, "Then you got angry?"
"…and sad, and jealous and all those other ones people keep mentioning." He looked calmer now, face back to its blank and bored mask. She turned to look at the mess on the floor. "It's getting tedious."
"They're getting more frequent."
"With you too?"
"I started laughing in the shower yesterday, so hard I couldn't breathe. At soap. Just soap. Well, it was novelty boob shaped soap, but still. Soap."
"That's what that noise was?"
The female twin picked up the notice board and threw it on the bed, deep in thought.
"We need to find out what's going on."
…..
He was cuter in the daylight. Thank god for that. The nose thing was still an issue though. How on earth did that even..? Never mind.
She was mentally checking off a list. Still short, yes. But not as tiny as he had looked standing next to Ma Junior. Not as bald as she'd hoped but the buzz cut wasn't too bad. Big puppy dog eyes: check. A taste in shirts that screamed ice cream and springtime. Cute.
Not bad Majon, not bad at all.
She'd gotten him talking about anything and everything, there were a few pieces of information Zeezee had gotten hold of for her. Ties to the almighty Capsule Corp, an ex-girlfriend, his best friend had recently died in the whole Cell incident. Ouch.
It seemed as though the Pig and Mister Master Roshi had described him pretty accurately. Genuinely nice, friendly and well-meaning. She'd wondered if he'd try and pull something like acting the complete and utter dickhead to try and put her off, since she'd mentioned her original intention was to pull a 'nice-guy'. But no. No such attempts.
A proper little gentlemen.
But one thing caught her attention more than others, he mentioned one person a lot. Son Gohan. According to Zeezee, his recently deceased bestie's son was Son Gohan. He apparently had a brilliant relationship with the boy. So, add that to the list; all dutiful and big brotherly and good with kids. That would be definitely good in the long run.
Eeeeep. The more they talked, the more she liked him. Majon was even starting to forgive and forget the little incident in her bar. Bringing the ex-demon king along, feh! Who cared! Look at the way his eyes crinkled up when he laughed.
Oh but wait, came that insidious voice in the back of her skull. He still hasn't told you everything has he?
She paused mid sip as she remembered the barmaid. She'd sat there like and idiot, letting him charm her… oof! She wondered where that little blonde bitch was now. Probably seducing clientele in another bar, stealing other people's pet boyfriends.
What if he's still seeing her? It wouldn't be the first man who'd done that to you…
Krillin could see Majon's demeanour changing before his eyes. As he had been chatting away about movies and other such innocuous things he'd seen something flash through her expression and her body language had suddenly gotten a lot more… guarded. Annoyed? What could he have said? Maybe he was talking too much?
"So what's your favourite film?"
She snapped right out of it. "Huh?"
"Your favourite film. I gave you mine, your turn, "he smiled broadly. Then realised he probably should have named some horrific porn movie or something to try and put her off, Kami, he was just no good at this. Okay, promise me you won't laugh."
"I'll try my best."
"It's The King and I."
"...really?"
"Demons can't like musicals?"
"The King and I?"
"I've always had a thing for the guy who played the King."
Well, thought the monk. That would explain why she prefers them bald.
...
They talked until it got dark, but Krillin noticed that something about Majon had changed. The slight hint of craziness that had remained hidden for most of the afternoon looked as if it had resurfaced slightly and was bubbling away under the surface. She was obviously caught up on something but he still couldn't figure out what.
He still hadn't done anything to put her off apart from make several bad jokes (that he'd honestly thought were good ones), admit that he didn't like dolphins (much to her abject horror) and finally manage to sit in a somewhat rebellious manner. But then his leg had gone to sleep so he'd had to sit properly again. How badass.
They both got up to leave after making plans to meet up again for a Baseball game, praying Yamcha could get him tickets again.
"This," said the demon-woman, smiling in a feline manner, "went a lot better than expected."
And with that, she bent down and kissed him on the cheek, before walking off into the cold night air, hips swaying and wings unfurling.
Krillin stood stock still outside the little bistro for a moment or two, blushing profusely. The with a silly smile, took off into the sky, home.
…..
He was cornered the second he returned home, and suddenly it was as if he were on that mountain road again, two killer androids in front of him, looming. Only this time the figure of Android 16 was Master Roshi and Oolong combined, vaguely interested in what he had to tell them about the 'anti-date'.
"Uh, hi guys."
The female twin tucked loose strands of hair behind her ear and took what appeared to Krillin to be a deep breath. "Back when we were all enemies; the remote control you had. Where did you get it?"
"The remote?" He looked over at 17 who was simply toying with his scarf. "Um… Bulma made it, back during the Cell incident…"
"We thought as much. How did she make it? Did she have files or something?" She looked very serious, Krillin noticed. Uh-oh.
"Blueprints."
"Blueprints?" The androids exchanged looks and nodded, " We need to see her and them. Now."
Hope you liked it.I know not much happened... soon my pets. sooooooon.
The next chapter probably wont be up until after June. But stay tuned!
As always, any constructive criticism/questions/comments are greatly appreciated.