Disclaimer: *slouches on couch, eating box of cheezy poofs* Hell yeah!
A/N: Or maybe I won't. Dude, you'd all kill me if I actually did that. And are ya'll reviewing? You'd better be! ;P (j/k)
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Petrified Tears
chapter 87
Pan's head settled against his chest as her fingers gathered handfuls of shirt into loose fists. He blinked in surprise, glancing down at the girl whom he'd known been sleeping for quite some time, watching as she shifted, her feet balanced precariously on the edge of her seat, midnight's silk spilling elegantly over her shoulders, hiding her face from the others in the limo. Smiling, he lifted his hand, knocking away a lock with the back of his fingertips, smirking a little as she raised a hand to brush at the now-gone hair.
"So you're really not…"
Trunks looked up and across the limo to where the boy sat, his eyes almost pleading. He smiled.
"No. We're not. Never were." He looked back down at the girl, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear, his hand refusing to listen to the commands of his mind, briefly cupping her face in his palm before he drew his hand away. The boy across from him slouched back into the seat, relief spreading over his features. He folded his hands over his stomach, his glasses clasped limply in his right hand. "It was all my mother's doing."
"Why?" Jack asked, his tone bewildered almost to the point of incredulity. "I mean-"
Trunks laughed and Pan nuzzled her face into his chest, drawing closer to him, her knees leaning over his lap.
"Because she's had enough of waiting for me to get married…there's nothing she wouldn't want more than to be a grandmother, and she's embarrassed that my little sister may be giving her her first grandbaby," he said quietly, looking up at the boy. He could see so much of Goten in the boy, and yet so much of himself…
It was no wonder Pan had taken to him. So much like the two people she had spent most of her life growing up around… So innocent, so strong-spiritually-and yet still needing of guidance…
Truth be told, Jack reminded Trunks more of Pan than anyone else.
From the back of the limo, Mr. Summers cleared his throat, drawing the attention of the other two.
"Well I can certainly see why she made arrangements for Miss Son here to be your fiancé in this bogus engagement." Trunks colored a little, ducking his eyes as the older man continued. "You're both very comfortable with each other. But I have to wonder why your mother is so insistent upon seeing you with a wife and children so soon."
Trunks laughed, his mind noting the amused glint in Jack's eyes.
"I hate to break this to you, Mr. Summers, but I'm older than I look."
The old man raised an eyebrow. "You look to be in your early twenties, but I'd wager you're closer to 30."
Trunks laughed again, shaking his head. "Try 40."
The old man's eyes grew wide, his jaw dropped slightly.
"He used to baby-sit Pankake," Jack spoke up, drawing the attention of the others. Trunks tightened his arm around the girl at the boy's name for her, the boy's grandfather grew skeptical. Jack remained oblivious. "Pops, he's almost 14 years older than her, and she's hardly one month older than I am." Suddenly aware of the suspicious gazes of the others, Jack glared at them both-a glare reminiscent of Vegeta, but directed more at the world than any particular individual, and not nearly pessimistic enough. "I spent 3 years living in the same house as her, and one year practically as her roommate thanks to the whores we did room with."
Trunks looked back down at Pan, forcing himself to relax, but unable to under the scrutiny of the older man. He looked back at him.
"Well?" the man's eyes seemed to say.
Trunks shrugged lightly, almost sheepishly.
"I did. Our families are close and have always been close. Her grandfather and my mother were companions in the early days of their childhood. In the 50-odd years since, our families have only gotten closer, my mother growing close to Son Goku's oldest son, me to his younger, and all of us to Pan. My father is the most anti-social person you'll ever meet-yet even he can't help but stand up to protect the honor of the Sons." Here Trunks paused to laugh at the irony. "Almost as if the only one with any right to slander the Sons were himself; he may be rude and short tempered with them, but he means well in every respect. It's just the way my father is."
He paused, gathering his thoughts.
"I've never been more than friends with Pan-I may as well be a third son or a second brother in her family. A lot of Saturday nights in high school were spent watching this little brat, but she's nothing like my own sister, who only ever wanted to play dress up with our mom's old make-up and clothing. Pan would actually play; hide and seek, tag…she was a real tomboy even 4 years ago. After a while it stopped being a Saturday night chore or job, and became a promise-one day of the week was hers. She made me keep that promise through her high school years, up until the day she left for the States. She'd kidnap me from work if she had to, she was determined to keep me from becoming a recluse or a workaholic, said she wanted me to still be fun to have around when she got married so that she could dump her children in my lap to watch once a week." His lip twitched into a smile as he looked down at her. "Hate to say it, but in the four years she was gone, I did become everything she said I would if I didn't take time off every once in a while. This last week was my mother's revenge against her for kidnapping me back when I didn't have any qualms about calling her a kid. Shove Pan into the box with me to work off everything that had built up. And believe me, I'm carrying a workload that would drive 5 competent men insane."
Jack's eyes glinted again; Trunks bitterly remembered how much Pan had trusted him with: 'everything'. But something in his gut told him it had nothing to do with his saiyan heritage.
"Just friends and nothing more?" Jack repeated slowly.
Trunks nodded slowly in return, the old man falling out of existence as the two locked eyes in a type of battle. Jack smirked-a smirk that could terrify even Vegeta. Instinctively, every defense wall and mechanism that Trunks had slammed up and into place.
"Then why did you kiss her when she came back?"
Part of him wanted to lurch across the limo and beat the boy. Another part was tempted to raise his arm and blast the brat off the planet. The rest of him sat stiffly, weighing his words.
He had played this little game with Pan last weekend out at the beach.
He wasn't going to be cornered again.
After a moment's pause, he spoke, words careful and measured.
"We all did-we hadn't seen her in over four years."
Jack's eyes glinted. "That's not what I'm talking about."
He carefully kept his face blank. A face learned from decades of being Vegeta's son-a face that was so perfectly replicated his mother had often complained it was as genetic as Goku's smile.
"Then what are you talking about?" Brat.
"I don't know when, she had to go before I could get anything out of her. But she called me earlier in the week. To 'talk'-which is something Pan just doesn't call to do. To plan something, yeah. To ask a question sure. But usually, to avoid something-or someone." The boy smirked again, his eyes guarded but still glinting, almost maliciously. "She wouldn't tell me what was wrong. Apparently, she was supposed to be working-running copies for you or something."
Trunks snorted, remembering Pan's devotion to the copy machine. He smirked back, eyes just as guarded. "I sincerely doubt that. She was worshipping that damned thing before the first day was out."
Jack's eyes glinted in return. "Or something," he repeated, steal-blue eyes staring straight into cobalt blue. "I got it out of her-and then she hung up on me. But she told me you'd kissed her. 'It didn't mean anything', but that last bit was too hurried to be true. And she'd growled it, like she does when she doesn't want to be argued with." His eyes glinted. "So what's the story? Since I'm obviously not going to be getting it out her. Anytime soon, if at all."
Trunks scowled, grinding his molars. Before he could spit back a reply, Pan shifted against him, shivering in his arms, drawing nearer to the warmth of his body, huddling against him. He blinked, looking down at her; sighed.
Why deny it? Summers had known it from the moment he'd first seen them interact. Jack obviously knew something he didn't, which terrified him. But the boy carried an air of Vegeta about him, an air of Bulma. Whatever he drew out of Trunks would stay where it was spoken. Pan would never know. No one else would ever know.
Trunks sighed, letting his mask fall away, his face melting in confusion and a kind of pain. Easing gently away from the seat, shifting expertly in Pan's arms, not pulling away but not disturbing her either, he slipped his arms from his tux jacket, draping it about her shoulders and knocking hair from her eyes once more.
"Well?"
The boy's voice wasn't so vindictive this time. Again, Trunks was impressed with the resemblance between everyone he had ever known in this boy. He sighed again and looked out the window, wondering if he had time to explain.
"It's a long story," he said quietly, not looking at Jack, Mr. Summers forgotten, instead looking over his shoulder out the window, his arms wrapped around Pan as she slept against him.
"I just want to see her happy."
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A/N: I'm spoiling you. I am. What is this, four chapters? Mneh. I'm too good to you. ;P
-Panabelle ;P
www.angelfire.com/dbz/storytellers