Disclaimer: scan! scan damn you! *swipes angrily over scanner* no! dammit! don't do this to me! *cries*
A/N: For those of you who haven't heard, I'm now a proud member of the kfart family. *shrugs* Hey, it's a paycheck, and it's not *nearly* as bad as workin' fast food.
But believe it or not, that's not the reason I haven't updated. I've actually had this chapter written out for a while, but I'm hesitant to post it. I warn you right now that it's not necessarily written in the same style as the rest of the fic, and that it might get to be more than a little confusing...but I'll let you read it before I say anything else on it.
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Petrified Tears
chapter 95
"Care to explain?"
*
The stalemate broke apart fiercely, the two knocking each other back and away, sliding through the dirt. One snarled viciously, the other sneered back. Black eyes flashed, and then launched himself at the other, driving him over, into the dirt, only to have his momentum used against him as blue eyes bore into his, grabbing his shirt and pulling them down, kicking off at the last possible instant to pin black eyes beneath him, knuckles digging into his chest as he glared down, fighting more to survive than to kill.
*
"I've been thinking-"
"I don't care what you've been thinking, Gohan!" Videl hissed as they sat on the sides of their daughter's bed. "I just want to know what's going on!"
"Goten just wants to protect her."
*
Goten growled, kicking blue eyes squarely in the stomach, the older man stumbling back, doubled over, gasping for breath. Getting to his feet, the younger charged, steamrolling the older and driving him backwards before he could regain his vision.
Determined to draw blood.
*
"But from Trunks? What could Trunks do? Gohan, they're best friends-"
"Were. As close as they've always been and everything they've gone through, they hardly know each other anymore. The day Panny entered high school, was the day that she replaced Goten."
*
Trunks came quickly awake and grabbed Goten into a headlock, planting both heels into the ground and using the younger's momentum once again to fling him to the ground. "Why are we doing this?!" he cried, ducking as Goten came after him again. "Goten, I'm not fighting you! Not like this! At least tell me why!" he demanded again, leaning back to avoid another swing, throwing himself back into a handstand and kicking Goten in the face.
*
"Gohan, I know that," Videl whispered, shadows falling across her face as she looked out the window towards the sparring fields, fear in her eyes. "But why's he fighting Trunks? I don't…"
Gohan shook his head.
*
"Because of how you treat her, you bastard!"
Trunks hardly had enough time to push himself back towards his feet before Goten's foot connected with his own face, sending him tumbling backwards through the dust.
"What?"
"Don't give me that," Goten cried, pouncing and aiming to land with his elbow. Trunks rolled out of the way, his friend landing shoulder deep in the dust, scrambling to his feet. "We went through this already!"
Trunks blinked then nodded, holding up his hands in defense as Goten came after him again, blocking every kick and punch he could, dodging what he couldn't.
"Oh, yeah-I figured that out last night," he stammered, doing anything he could to get Goten to calm down. "You were right-I've been treating her like my little sister for years. I've seriously been trying to change that, but it's not easy when-"
"Are you really that arrogant?!" Goten screamed, dropping to his hands and swinging around, planting both feet firmly in Trunks's chest. "A sister?! You'd be lucky if I said you treated her female at all!"
*
"Trunks has been treating Pan like a little brother for the better part of a decade," Gohan whispered, looking away from the window to look down at his daughter. "Which hasn't been helping her any. You know just as well as I do that Pan's not as big a tomboy as she's always had us believe-you said so yourself this afternoon that the majority of the dresses you and my mother made or bought for her she begged you for."
Videl nodded. "And you're saying that that's the reason Goten feels compelled to protect her?"
"No, that's only part of it."
*
Trunks labored onto his hands and knees, head spinning more from Goten's words than his blow. I would give almost anything to be your sister for just one day…
She'd really meant what he'd thought she'd meant! But had he really…could he have really been treating her as more of a tomboy than even the most hardcore tomboy deserved?
"The fighting, the joking around. Flaunting every 'pretty girl' you could find. Yes. She was more of a boy to you. She came home in tears shortly before that whole blackstar thing, because you'd been talking to her like 'one of the guys', about other women. My father wanted to kill you that day!"
Trunks stared at the ground in utter shock.
*
"She drew back in on herself when my father left, convinced no one would accept her as she was because of how she'd been seen for years. Marron didn't know how to act around her-Trunks treated her one way, and because of the way their relationship was headed at the time and because no one know how to tell him how he acted, Marron knew she couldn't just act a completely differently way without having to admit she couldn't talk to him. Bra'd given up talking Pan into going shopping, or about makeovers, and Bulma was too depressed to throw any sort of get together that would give Pan any excuse to dress up. The rest of us were withdrawn into our own little bubbles, or were too worried about her to realize what had happened."
Videl watched him, the severity in his voice only making it all too obvious that Goten's reasons were reason not to have let those two go off on their own to fight.
"You're telling me that Trunks is the reason Pan wanted to go to college so far away and not come home until she had to."
*
"You wouldn't let her change, Trunks, you refused to let her! She tried, really, she did, but-"
Trunks shoved himself to his feet, whirling and slamming his fist into Goten's jaw, anything to shut him up. He didn't need fingers pointed at him! He didn't need to be told the entire reason the girl's life had been in a standstill was his fault! He couldn't have been the source of so much grief!
Goten came back in a heart beat, punching Trunks in the jaw, a perfect mirror. The two turned back to each other and snarled.
"You're too terrified by change to have let her! To have let any of us!" His voice softened, but verged on insane. "You smothered her."
*
"She left to find herself. You and I both know that, it's why we let her go. It's why we didn't demand she come home for visits or surprise her with one of our own. And she's done just that. She knows who she is now, or at least, who she wants to be."
Videl set her hand on her little girl's arm, watching as she slept.
"But Trunks hasn't been treating her like that. He's been a downright gentleman. Granted he was a complete jerk at the welcome back party, but he's made up for it. He's well aware that she's a young woman and nothing he'd ever dare think of as a brother."
"Goten also knows Trunks better than anyone alive, better than Bulma or even Pan. He knows how Trunks wines and dines, the exact tactics he uses. And while that's not what Trunks is doing or has been doing, he also knows Trunks's innermost fears. And he knows Trunks's demons. The boy is Vegeta's son, and Vegeta has got to be one of the most destructive forces on Earth in any sense of the meaning."
Videl looked at her husband, steeling herself.
*
The blow landed hard, knocking him back several feet.
"Alright! Fine! But that was four years ago, Goten! However I treated her then, I've stopped! Yes, I was a bastard last week, I admit that. I can't look at my father and say I have nothing in me that doesn't thrive on manipulating others! Nor can I look at my mother and say the same thing! But I'm doing my best to make up for that!"
Goten got back on his feet and glared. He didn't dare raise his power level for any reason. Trunks didn't either.
"It's in the past, Goten, what does any of that have to do with now?"
*
"Trunks's greatest fear in the world is being alone."
*
"You're using her."
*
"Being alone?"
*
Trunks froze, the words striking him so deeply that he staggered; his eyes went dead; black; depthless. Goten glared at him.
"Admit it, you're just feeding off her emotions. Feeding off of them because you can't stand to have no one care. It's been eating at you since she left, and it's still eating at you. You want to settle down just as badly as your mother wants you to, even if you don't want to admit it. And you're feeding off her feelings for you."
*
"Friday night, while they were out, something happened between the two of them. She told me last night while we were outside. Bra had hit the nail on the head the next day when she spoke about Pan's feelings for Trunks, because Trunks had played on them. I needed only one look to know, but I didn't know what he had done. Goten apparently overheard Pan tell Bulma at the press conference Saturday, and was able to put two and two together."
"What does any of this have to do with Trunks's fear of being alone?"
"You saw him when he and his family came to pick us up. In retrospect, the boy probably thought he had lost her completely and forever. He was darker and more vindictive than even Vegeta at his worst. And yet, Monday night when he dropped her off? Still on edge, but back to normal. A normal he hadn't been since before Pan had left for California."
*
"I wouldn't do that to her…"
"You did."
Trunks snarled. "Goten, I couldn't do that to her!"
Goten snarled back. "You already have."
Trunks howled in rage and pounced towards his oldest friend. "You don't understand! I couldn't do that to her!"
*
"She's his closest friend."
He shook his head again, turning and locking his eyes on his wife's.
"He loves her."
*
They stalemated, each snarling and growling, determined to overpower the other. Hands fisted together, feet braced against the ground, bodies taut with rage.
"Then why the hell did you kiss her that night?"
His eyes had gone as black as Goten's.
"If you really need me to answer that question, you have no right to have ever called me blind."
*
"Why won't he say anything?"
Gohan laughed quietly. "Did Vegeta ever tell Bulma? Bulma never even told him. She'd just been raised to get what she wanted and she took him for her own before he even realized what was going on. Lucky for her, he felt the same. Right before that whole Cell Games thing, Vegeta went to find Bulma and found her in the fields right outside of her house, where the gravity room had been for 2 years before he finally destroyed it beyond repair even by Bulma's definition. He broke down completely, blubbering and falling to his knees, holding her legs and telling her that he refused to return until the threat was gone. Even if it cost him his life. And that he wasn't just fighting for his son."
"Bulma's told me about that."
He nodded.
"Nothing short of seduction could get Trunks to even admit he has feeling for Pan. As much as he's Bulma's son, he's more like Vegeta then is healthy."
*
They were getting nowhere like this. Trunks shifted his weight-even if Goten did have half a foot on him, he could still match him-and leaned farther forward, twisting the younger's fingers as far back as he could. Goten cried out, before using the closing distance as a chance to headbutt the threat.
The Son skull one the stalemate.
*
"This still doesn't explain anything, Gohan!"
He motioned for her to keep her voice down, then looked back at their daughter. With a sigh, he went on.
*
"This is about that night, isn't it," Trunks whispered, staring up at the sky, too exhausted to get up, too tired and too sore to take any more. "The last time we were out here."
He received a snarl in return.
"Goten! Enough of this! Just give me an answer! Anymore, and we'll kill each other! And even if we don't, Pan will! Even if our power levels have waked her yet, the bruises tomorrow will be more than enough." He pushed himself up onto his elbows, locking eyes with the younger halfling. "You said, that night. You said that I didn't know what any of it had been like for her. That's what this is about, isn't it?"
*
"Pan told Goten everything, that night that Trunks and I begged him to go talk to her. After my father had left and it became painfully obvious that something was wrong with her. She told him everything. Down to every little detail."
"Everything about what?"
*
Goten sighed and dropped down next to him, stretching his legs out and leaning back on his hands, looking forward into Trunks's face.
"Yeah," he admitted quietly, anger spent in the face of what Pan would do if-no, when-she found out. "Yeah, it is."
Trunks sighed and let his back slump, his neck disappearing into his shoulders.
"I admit that I probably should know what you're talking about, but I don't."
Goten shook his head. "I can't expect you to know. She hid it pretty well."
"Hid what Goten, what did she go through?"
He hesitated, black eyes lifting to look skeptically into blue, fighting with himself. He looked sheepish with the knowledge that he had just tried to kill his best friend, and with the reality he was facing.
"Goten…"
*
Gohan's eyes bore into his wife's. She started at the pain in them, the reality that she knew he had never wanted to face or even admit was a possibility. But despite all the pain, there within it, swam a spark of acceptance, a bit of hope.
*
"She loves you."
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A/N: Was that confusing enough? 'cause I'd have no problem rewriting it so that it's a little more understandable if it is.
The reason I feel I can get away with writing this fic with the split povs, is the way I've tried to put in different perspectives on everything so far throughout the story, and most of the last dozen or so chapters have been dealing with who wants Trunks dead--Gohan or Goten. Don't know if anyone else made that connection though. As much as I like this chapter, this is one of those times that I can't just say "this is the way I wanna do it and you can't make me change my mind", because I know what's going on...and I need to try to make you all understand. Look for another chapter in a few days.
-Panabelle ;P
shrine of the saiyan squirt