No Strings Attached Rated R Writer: Shari

Chapter 2-The Water Hole G

Fantasy/General/Romance SM/DBZ/who knows

Enjoy!

"You can stop screaming like a little girl now."

"I was not-"He started to argue. But stopped. It made no sense to argue with her. She'd hold onto this one, save it, and throw it back in his face at one of her specially appointed times. She just liked to torture him   He started to dust himself off instead, but his hand stuck to the sticky gray spot on his chest.

It was actually easier to find the gray spots where the muck from the tunnel had stuck and dried, than the black the shirt had originally been. Not that it was easy to see anything in the darkness of this tunnel. He was pretty sure the lamp had been dropped when they moved.

"Whatever. I just want to get out of here." He glared at her his brows creasing angrily. "-And away from you."

"You're sexy when you're mad," she said giggling. Cristal! He was such an easy target when he was like this.

"Woman! Shut up and move it!"

"Yes Master!" she skipped in front of him, laughter trailing after her.

"I live to obey your every command."

His side:

She was so annoying. If she weren't royalty he'd never put up with her.

He grabbed her right hand muttering beneath his breath, the sewage water splashing on his boots as he stomped forward. Taking the two tiny cells from her before she could protest.

But she didn't even glance his way when they slipped from her hands. They were ice cold. It was like holding one of his mother's serums. He could feel a slight tingling still, as the energy moved in them.

He watched her twist her neck in discomfort. They must have sent a shock through her. How many times had he told her not to touch them. He didn't go around touching her crystal. He would never do that.

Because he respected her. He respected her power.

But she had no respect for him.

And it was a sickening feeling.

He didn't even want to think about what could have happened?

"You know, sometimes you..." He couldn't even finish the sentence. He muttered beneath his breath. The things he'd like to say to her. If she knew the things he'd like to do to her. Well, she had some clue about that. But he wasn't going to get distracted.

"Profanity is unbecoming, your highness." she said it with that serious expression on her face- when her forehead creased, her lips quirked up, her eyes squinted until they nearly disappeared into little dark holes and her voice got that self-righteous indignant tone that ALWAYS rubbed him the wrong way.

How dare she? She just abused and possibly damaged something that was valuable and personal to him, didn't even have the decency to apologize and wanted to lecture him on etiquette. On manners?

"You're an idiot Serenity."

This was how all their arguments started. While her mouth was still hanging open, and her ears

turning as red as her eyes, he grabbed her hand, pressing the cells against her palm. The two metallic chips were still connected from when she had pressed them together.

"Either an incredibly blessed idiot or one that nature decided to give a run of good luck to make up for your innate stupidity. 'How many times do I have to tell you not to touch these? They can kill you!'"

He was quarreling with air.

She'd walked away from him.

Again.

She kept doing this.

With the ache in his back from the lack of sleep, the crusting scar running along his leg from when he had torn the flesh scaling the wall while carrying her to make sure She didn't get hurt, and his entire system hurting from lack of combat, proper exercise and fresh air, he was being pushed too far.

She pulled yet another stunt, and felt she had the right to be mad. He'd like to wring her neck. He'd like to just hurt her. Fling out some words and watch as she paused and adsorbed them in that silent way she always did.

He'd like to show her she mattered as little to him, as he did to her.

He'd like to. But he was a failure. It was like this was a war and he couldn't even bring himself to use the weapon.

But she never had a problem; wielding cut, after cut. As if there was never enough damage she could do.

As if he was never enough.

And he never would be

"What is Your problem Oona!?" he demanded, tugged his foot out of the brown slurping muck it had gotten stuck in.

She spun around with her mouth hanging open, creases around her eyebrows, and stared him in the eyes. Growled and turned again, splashing the grime onto his pants as she stalked forward.

He didn't get this at all.

When had it become his fault?

For that matter he didn't get women.

You tried to help them out by giving them helpful advice, protecting the pitiful creatures from themselves. And did you receive thanks or praise for your troubles.

No!

He'd seen it all before.

A thousand scenes that played out in his house, with Serenity, with his ex-girlfriend.

Always with the same ending.

You got yelled at, and thrown out of the house, made to stay out in the rain. Days of long looks and "No touching!" and empty plate while others ate blueberry pies and lasagna dinners.

It was like his father had told him- "You can never please them. They'll drag your pride across the Universe and back if you let them."

Not, he thought, frowning, that he wanted to be like his father.

No his mother had that man by a pit-bull's leash. And the man didn't even know it.

He remembered his mother looking at his father like that once. When his father, a beer in one hand, and a smile on his face had said that a woman's primary work was to care the house and look after the babies, and anything else her mate allowed her to do after that.

He didn't remember seeing his father for a few weeks after that. His mother had said he was 'staying with a friend to work on his technique'. Then he'd thought she meant sparring.

That was a laugh...His mother would like Serenity. Hell his mother was like Serenity.

So he was used to this. They were some things the other person just didn't understand. Even if they should.

They were some mistakes, and habits you just...just...learned to live with.

Even if it killed you.

If she would slow down so that he could...a..apo...apol...retract his previous statement.

Whatever it was.

In the distance:

She had a migraine that must have been sent straight from hell. Never again. No more wild nights for her. No more drugs. She felt like a corpse, and looked worse than what she'd vomited up not so long ago. What had she been thinking? Her body wasn't made to deal with drugs. She knew that. And now her head was splitting and she could barely open her eyes. Not that she wanted to.

And she couldn't find them.

Where the hell were they?

"Beep-beep!!"

Oh good grief. Where was that stupid clock?

That meant it was bloody eight o'clock.

And she had to leave her room.

For school.

And all the other noises out there.

She was going to die today.

She was sure of it.

Her side:

He could be so dense sometimes. So incredibly dense. As if him calling her an idiot wouldn't hurt? She didn't know what her problem was. And he was right, as he had told her so many times, she did have a problem. And frankly it was the fact that she listened to anything he said. That she followed any of his advice, and actually though his opinion of her mattered. He wasn't dense, she was. This was what always happened. She did something, he called her stupid, and she apologized. Why had she ever expected that pattern to change? As if she expected him to give her credit for anything that went right. As if she expected him to just let some of it go. As if it would stop hurting when he yelled at her.

But, she should have been used to be this by now. She'd spent all her twenty-something years trying to measure up to what someone else wanted. Being the little screw-up. Hoping that just this once, the maid wouldn't tell her parents about the crayon-covered walls, or her friends would forget to tell the teacher about the burnt dolls, or the newspaper might not publish last night's drunk make-out session on the front page.

And it still hurt.

Just one little word- idiot. When she'd flung around cretin, barbarian, monster, ape, unlovable whenever she was pissed, or felling lousy or anything. It wasn't that he didn't have the right to retaliate. And it wasn't that she didn't expect that, or deserve it. But it hurt, every time. And that was her problem. If she was going to be an simpleton, which was pretty much unavoidable, then she would just have to stop caring what anyone said or thought. And become as cold, composed, uncaring and reckless as he thought she was. That was how they had painted her for years. That was the person she was trying to avoid becoming. Before.

They wanted another Serenity. Ooh. She'd give them one. Like they had never seen, could never have expected, and would never want.

If they thought Nirai was going to be the only one to 'break' out in this family. They were wrong.

Her family- her mother's line any way, had produced generations of blond, perfect little rulers. Not princesses, rulers.

There was a big difference. She'd learnt that early. She was a little princess, not a ruler. Rulers were women like her mother and grandmother and lines going further back that even his precious Saiyin race had existed. Who had transformed the moon and so many other planets from the sickly mound of dirt and dust that had been all that was there when they arrived. Purified places been infested by disease, greed, jealousy and the lust for power into a state so beautiful that people died and fought so their kids could live in it. 

Princesses, on the other hand, sat on the thrones of the most technologically advanced kingdoms in the UNIVERSE and still couldn't figure out how to work some pre-historic devices, like the cells. They were raised to groom themselves and marry into good stock. To present pretty little images and uphold all their kingdoms' ideals, even if only through their public actions. To fade into the background when the rulers arose, like the pretty little ornamental pieces they were. To look patriotic, even if they weren't. To seem pure, even if they weren't. To seem calm perfect even when they were full of the jealousy and lust and greed and disease that their parents had declared gone. 

Rulers were taught strategy. Princesses were taught etiquette. Only one person in her life had ever tried to teach her strategy. And that had ended…painfully.

Rulers were self- reliant, but willing to take others help. She was self-reliant, willful, and wanted all the credit for anything she did.

Rulers were humble. She had never understood the word.

She wasn't a ruler.

Princesses were patient, demure. She would scream a house down if she couldn't get what she wanted and soon. She'd worn an outfit to her graduation that had been more skin than cloth.

Princesses slipped silently and gracefully into maturity. She had her mother's coordination, or lack thereof and threw more tantrums now, than when she'd been at the appropriate age.

She wasn't a princess.

She wasn't even a part of her family. Not really. She'd spent more time slipping between the time gates and dimensions than at home around the table in her family den. She'd walked in once, and their complimenting dark and blond heads bent over some game, laughing created such a perfect image. Without her. Even when she sat with them, she felt like she was intruding in someone else's family.

She'd spent more time with Sailormoon, and Pluto and Kar'd than she'd spent with her own parents or her sisters. The only person she even felt she related to was Nirai, and that was a leftover links of her days of hero worship to her older sister. Before she was six.

Six, had changed everything.

Trunks had told her once that a girl her 'breeding' couldn't handle the cells. Her father, long ago, had told her, after the crystal incident, she couldn't handle responsibility yet cause she never thought about the consequences. And it seemed he was still right. But it always seemed so easy to her.

All you had to do was stick the two little things together and Bada-bing bada-boom you were out of there.

Trunks had been the one screaming for his mommy when it had happened. She'd been cool, calm, and

freakishly still cause her body had clamped up from the electric shock that their 'connection' had given off. It was like having an energy boost in all her tissues. It would have fried a normal person.

She'd never stopped acting before she thought. But she had stopped making excuses for her actions. She did these things, in all truth, because she could. Because she was Sailormoon's daughter, inheritor of that great genetic code and this just wouldn't hurt her.

She growled.

Maybe he was right. She should be more careful. "Especially with my stuff." burrowing her eyebrows, imitating him saying it. 

She should apologize. She hated this part.

'Just stop and ask him how he is.'

Sigh. "Are you all right?"

"Fine"

"Great then!"

Cretin. Couldn't even admit when he was in pain. As if she couldn't see that he was staggering along, and the cut above his eye was trickling again.

In the distance:

She stood miserably but determined in front of her door. She'd made it this far. Listening to the click-click of her heels.

"Whirr-whirr!" The dishwasher had started up to. And now that kid outside was going to ring the doorbell if she didn't life the screen in time to stop him.

But she couldn't bring herself to do it. Out there was the world with all its noises waiting to pound against her poor senses. They were messing with her mind, and she couldn't even do the simplest of things- like send the proper messages.

 "Ding-Ding!"

She flung open the door, hoping to stop the second ring.

 "Heo Mok Yol. BEEEP! Ttta-ttta."

It felt like the sounds were banging around in her head.

She sighed, trying to squeeze the sounds out of her mind. She'd make it through today, get home, clear her head, and find them.

Her side:

She stopped again and without looking back said-

"You're four steps behind."

"I wouldn't have to be if you'd move your butt."

"What. I can't hear you." She was taking smaller steps. If he could only stop being so stubborn admit that he was hurt and answer her when she was talking to him

-Where was all that noise coming from?

"I said if you'd-"

The irritating thing was getting louder and louder, and she couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from.

"It's all muffled. I can't hear you."

"I Said-"

"WHAT!?"

"Arggh!"

Beep-beep. Click-click. Whirr-whirr! Ding-Ding! "Heo Mok Yol." BEEEP! Ttta-ttta

This was crazy. What kind of thing made that noise? He walked slowly forward until his shirt was pressed against hers. She could feel the slime from his shirt against blond hairs on her neck.

"Dorothy we aint' in Kansas no more." She looked above him with worried eyes.

"You got that right Toto."

He followed her expression, to where the loud, muffled noises were coming from.

There it was.

A circle.

A big black circle.

A big black dingy movable circle.

A big heavy brown-mucus-dripping dingy rotatable circle.

"And I guess that's our pair of magic shoes right?"

In the Distance:

She was tapping her fingers anxiously against the dashboard. She hated people's nervous antics. Especially when they were her own.

She had to find the boy and girl. Before they found the portal to the council. And the council realized she wasn't doing her duty. Sure they might just be a bunch of meddling old shrews. But they were powerful. And as much as she hated to admit it. She feared them.

She could sense that the boy and girl were getting closer to the portal. If only the pounding in her head would stop so she could locate them.

She was their guardian.

She had to protect them from the old hags and their inquisition.

And protect herself.

If those old meddlers only knew how much she had slacked off…they would thrown her out for good this time.  

She pushed her foot hard against the peddle, glancing in the mirror to see the boy in the back clutching his seatbelt. She frowned unconsciously. She hadn't signed up to play chauffeur to the neighbors' kids.

That was another bit of the councils meddling. They thought the responsibility would keep her on track. As if she needed more responsibility. She was barely keeping her head above water as it was.

She looked at the clock as she sped through another red light. It was 8:45. She had fifteen minutes to get to the school. She dug her foot deeper into the gas peddle, watcher the needle go from 90 to 120mph.

At least the speed was always there when she needed it. To help her forget all her problems.

Their side:

The sounds had stopped, but he still stood in front of her.

He should stop breathing in front of her. It was warm and drifted down to her neck and seemed altogether too private. She was weak and needed to get back home to her therapy sessions. He was stinking, from the matted hair on his head, to the yellow and gray crust peeling off his clothes.

It had been too long since either of them had had a bath, or toothpaste or just a facial wipe. It had been too long since she'd had a manicure or a sundae, and this situation was all wrong for her to be thinking about how nice and hot he made in her inside. Normal people in these situations were grossed out and only grossed out. Normal people were not in these situations.

It was the hormones. Those screwy hormones were messing with her mind, and her body- she needed a break.

"Umm..."

Swallow and get your cells to behave themselves. Her eyes narrowed- it was probably those were transporter chips looking all small and innocent but packing that wallow. They were probably infesting her system with little microchips thingies like she'd read in the news, spreading viruses through her body. That was probably why she'd been feeling so hot and sweaty since she'd used them. Even her stomach was hurting her.

It was like having cramps...

Cramps.

She'd been too busy to remember her period. And it had been a long time since her last. Too long. Nothing good lasted forever. This was just what she didn't need right now. Though it was better than the alternative. She shuddered at the thought. Pregnant…Uuh! She souldn't even get her mind to accept the idea. That would be the worst possible thing right now. The last thing they needed.

What she needed was to get out of here, and take a bath and become clean- sparkling clean and wrapped in nice warm comfy sheets before the constant nausea and sweating started. She needed to get home. Too bad the chips didn't come with a device, so they could set it to go home instead of all these random places it was sending them to. She had tried to remember what the Kar'd had told them about the chips, but it was vague and she'd been heavily medicated when the woman was speaking anyway.

He was still looking at her...Expectantly. Just answer the boy and get it over with.

Deep breath.

Ignore how beautiful you think his eyes look when he's not mad. Fight the hormones.

"Right"

He leaned in until all she could see were the pupils of his eyes and his breathe was flowing hot against her lips in little gusts, and she wasn't breathing.

"So start clicking Dorothy."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Edited version

Saturday, April 05, 2003

Hope you liked it. Please send any ideas/comments/ anything to me- gems_kali@hotmail.com or just post in review box.

Please review- whether you hated or liked it.

Bye till next time.

Still need an editor.

Shari