Hello hello! Next update on a story i feel really sucks all of a sudden, cuz it's so flat... ((cries)) argh, i'm having trouble with this one... and Lovers and Enemies, it's hard to keep things going with no bloody plot O.O anyway... yeah. I stayed up tilll 6 in the morning yesterday...er..today? and i wrote onALL of my fics, and started a new one, so gimme a break on the grammar and typos, k?
Paint and Pudding
Cagalli woke to the feeling of harsh sunlight beating on the doors of her eyes like an angry neighbor, setting shooting streams of pain through her head.
She groaned softly and curled up tighter, hiding her face with her arm... Until she recalled what had happened during the previous night.
With a gasp and grunt she shoved herself up sharply, looking around. She was in her room... and it was as neat as she had left it before.
Wide eyed and disoriented she went through the events of the night before, concluding with her drifting off to sleep sometime while Athrun and her simply sat on the lawn by the pool...
He carried me back up here? She thought sheepishly, feeling her cheeks and neck burn up.
She was just trying to figure out what to do when a knock on the door startled her out of her thoughts.
"..Cagalli?"
She spun around sharply at the sound of his voice so near, blinking. After a moment of blinking, she shoved herself out of bed and stumbled over to the door, grumbling about being an idiot.
Not caring in the least how she looked at that moment, she opened the door and peeked past it carefully, her gaze though awake still looking a tad sleepy.
Athrun couldn't help but feel a smile tug at his face the moment he saw her blinking at him in the bright light, one eye closed in an attempt to actually see him.
"Hmm... Hi." she muttered.
He suppresed a small laugh and said. "Hi... Kira told me to come and get you, breakfast should be ready in about half an hour... But you could probably sleep in if you like, I'd cover for you." he suggested, watching her groggily run a hand through her hair.
Sticking her tongue out at him childishly she shook her head. "Nah, you guys aren't going to be here much longer, I don't wanna spend that time sleeping..." she muttered, not realizing what her ingenius brain had deciding to blurt out.
He blinked at her mildly, his smile just a tad tinged by sadness. Cagalli froze and hit her forehead lightly on the door, eyes closed.
"I think I need to wake up..." was her cover sentence, which just made Athrun grin and forget her earlier comment.
"All right... 15 minutes?" he asked, walking away. Cagalli nodded and slipped back inside, closing the door quietly.
As soon as it was closed she collapsed against it, hitting her head repeatedly.
"Argh! You idiot!" she scolded herself, quickly ripping her clothes off and running into the shower.
In a few moment she had washed, and grabbed clothing that was actually from a neat clean pile. It was odd, but she felt better for it.
Wearing a sleeveless black button up polo shirt, and black jeans, she skipped down the stairs, hasitly tugging on her black and white striped running shoes. Then with a little squeak as she stuffed her foot into the shoe she grabbed her hair and shoved it into a messy but adorable looking ponytail... without any intention of actually looking adorable of course.
Sighing, she made her more dignified way into the dinning room to catch the others just settling down.
"Wow, you actually made it with one minute to spare..." Kira said, mock proudly, glancing at his watch. Cagalli rolled her eyes at him and sat down.
"Oh yeah, and I nearly broke my ankle down the stairs cuz my shoes weren't on right..." she mumbled. Lacus giggled across the table at her, shaking her head.
"Had a late night, Cagalli?" she asked, and though her tone was innocent, her eyes didn't look so much.
The Princess stared at her for a long moment, but then recovered, pulling herself together grudgidly.
"When do I not?"
The table burst into laughter and they begun breakfast in a better mood than the previous four days. Kira studied his friend and sister carefully catching just a slight difference in their involvement with each other... starting with they were actually talking now.
IT was for the first time all week an enjoyable meal, with a lot of talking, sometimes so much laughter that the eating completely stopped and they forgot why it was that they were sitting there with food on their plates... until the servants came and took it away to replace it with something else.
When that happened for the fifth time, cagalli wrinkled her nose and said.
"This is a very long breakfast." she grumped. Lacus nodded, putting a hadn to her stomach. "I do not think I can eat much more of this. It is all very filling..." she mumbled.
Kira and Athrun, despite being guys nodded as well. "Let's just go..." Kira muttered, standing. Lacus stood as well and then asked. "Go where, exactly?"
"Excellent question..." Cagalli mumbled, giving the dish in front of her an evil look before standing.
"I was actually wondering if you could teach me some painting skills, Cagalli." Lacus put in suddenly, making the Princess very nearly drop her cup.
Athrun caught it, steadying her with a look on his face that stated how amused he was.
She shot him a look of her own and then turned to Lacus, stuttering. "My- painting? How did you know that I-"
"That you painted?" Lacus asked, laughing, pushing her chair back into it's proper place.
"Kira told me the first night we were here." she said. Cagalli looked over at Kira who blinked at her innocently over the rim of his tea. "Hm?' he managed after a moment.
Cagalli smirked and shook her head. "Well.. I dunno, Lacus it's all very...messy and I-"
"Oh no worries, clothes can be washed! Come!" Lacus cried, running like a little girl with a new doll, dragging a rather startled Cagalli behind her.
Athrun cocked an eyebrow and glanced over at Kira with a suspicious look. "You wouldn't have anything to do with this would you?"
Kira blinked at him. "Of course not."
Athrun laughed, leaning on the back rest of his chair. "You were always a horrible liar."
The orb prince smiled. "It's something I'm actually quite proud of."
"So... you press it? Like toothpaste?" Lacus asked, holding the paint tude oddly in her delicate hands.
They hadn't bothered to change into other clothing, however, Cagalli had insisted that they take the paints and other staining materials outside into the fresh air.
Lacus caled an excellent idea, for that way she could try to paint the landscape! Cagalli just agreed and didn't mention anything about hoping she didn't get paint all over the study...
"Yes, Lacus, you press it... just... not to hard or-"
The paint went flying everywhere, covering both Lacus and quite a bit of Cagalli in blue.
Lacus stood there for a second, blinking before bursting out in nervous laugher...
Cagalli found it rather infectious despite having just been sprayed with her own material, and started to laugh as well.
She grabbed the nearest tube, a red one as it so happened and squirted her friend with it, getting a squeal and laughter as a result.
They were both giggling madly, as if they were once more three years old with new toys to play with, chasing each other around the yard with the paint tubes in hand.
"Cagalli! Ahh! Kira! Athrun! Help! She's attacking!" Lacus shouted, laughing madly as she tried to block Cagalli's paint attacks with the canvas.
The princess just giggled and grabbed another tube, this one bright yellow, squirting past and one the canvas expertly.
Kira and Athrun came running, breathless and for the moment in shock.
The two girls were completely covered in paint and laughing about it like it didn't matter in th least, running around like toddlers.
Kira stuttered for a long moment, trying to get his brain to process the image that his sister was actually playing.
"Cagalli- what the... um.. huh?" he managed. Athrun shook his head in disbelieve as well. "I do not know..." he muttered.
Cagalli glanced over at them and lifted her hands up in a helpless gesture, laughing. "She started it!"
Lacus snuckup behind her, getting a good amount of green all over her back before running away as fast as she could, laughing as Cagalli chased her all the way to Athrun and Kira.
Lacus ran behind them, taking Kira's shoulder. "Ahh... she'll get me!" she cried, while Cagalli stood n front of the boys, her eyes focused mischeviously on the pink haired pop princess.
"Of course I will." she replied tartly.
Athrun and Kira both lifted their hands up in peace, noting she held a black tube in her hands.
"Uh... casualties, it's not fair..." Kira stated, giving her a look. "You sush." Cagalli smirked, spraying him with all of the paint.
He cried out sharply, running after her despite his better judgement.
Cagalli screamed playfully, darting behind the canvas. "Athrun! Do something!"
He blinked and laughed. "Are you kidding me... I'd rather not-"
"Too late!" He felt the cold liquid run down his back and over his shoulder as Lacus sprayed him with it rather forcefully, giggling.
He stood there, soaked in sky blue, watching her run away laughing before bursting out in laughter as well.
"Okay! This makes it war!"
And for a time all was forgotten, they laughed and played just as if they were kids not figures in an endless war leaning towards a genocide.
It was easier for them to laugh and play this way because they did not have to think.
In about an hour they were all so out of breath that they collapsed on the lawn, still giggling and laughing at the childishness of what they had been doing. Cagalli looked up at the canvas and blinked.
It had been used as a shield for most of their hour of playtime, and was covered in all colors, but what stood out to her were the four hand prints on the paper, each a different swirl of colors.
She glanced back at her friends, who were all still giggling and trying to talk at the same time, noting that each swirl of color matched the color on each other their hands.
"Huh!" she cried out in surprise and delight, shoving herself to her feet.
Carefully, by the hand print which she knew was her own she dipped her finger in the nearest pool of paint on the law and wrote her name in small writing near it, sticking out her tongue in concentration.
Kira noticed what she was doing and shoved himself up, still supressing the bubbling laughter that didnt seem to want to go away. "What are you doing?" he enquired, looking over her shoulder.
"It's our hand prints..." she murmured, pleased by the art that had come from their simple childishness.
Lacus ooo-ed from the ground, catching her breath. "I think it's rather beautiful!" she cried, struggling to her feet. Athrun lent her a hand and pulled her to her feet before turning to look at it too.
Without really thinking about it, the other three started to catiously write their name by their hand print, still laughing about the most random things as they did so.
"This is hilarious... who'd think something like that would come out of us four turning 8 years old for an hour?" Kira muttered, smirking.
"What are you talking about? You act 8 all the time." Cagalli retorted, earning herself a tickling.
Once more they collapsed onto the lawn and lay there, all happily catching their breath and looking up at the blue sky high above that seemed just as content to rain it's sunshine upon them.
"You know, getting this paint off is going to be some hard work..." Athrun said, looking down at what he was sure were ruined clothes.
Cagalli laughed. "Two hour showers is what I say." she replied.
"It is okay, clothes and showers are cheap for such fun." Lacus put in cleverly. The group agreed quietly, smirking and smiling and still giggling now and then into the sky.
For about an hour they just sat there, talking about the random things that popped into someone's mind when they just lay and stare at the sky covered in paint.
And it would have kept on going if Kira hadn't suddenly put in, in the middle of Lacus's rant for chocolate.
"My stomach is beginning to complain..."
Laughter eruptted at the phrase, and the group shoved themselves up grudgidly, thinking and talking about what they should do about food.
"If we ask someone else to make it, they'll spend two hours cooking and then we'll spend four hours at the table watching dish after dish pass by." Cagalli grumbled.
"So, we'll cook ourselves!" Lacus cried out, grinning.
"Oh dear..." Kira said.
"Oh my..." Cagalli said.
"Uh oh." Athrun stated.
Lacus stuck her tongue out at all of them, remembering her little explosion with the drinks on the first day. "Come on, that was because I forgot to put the lid on the blender." she pouted, earning laughter from everyone else.
"All right, fine... We'll attempt." Cagalli relented, hearing the two boys groan beside her.
Punching each shoulder, she scolded. "You two should be quiet."
"Yeah yeah..." Kira grumped, smirking, before opening the door to the foyer and letting them all in.
"Should we change, do you think?" Lacus asked, examning her dress which was steadily dripping purple pools of color onto the tiles.
The other three looked down and then back up, nearly bursting with supressed laughter.
"Yeah, we should." Athrun commented, heading towards the stairs.
"Meet you all at the kitchen in five minutes!" Cagalli shouted, running up the stairs.
"Five minutes! You said two hour showers!" Kira cried, running after her. Lacus and Athrun followed out of sheer lack of anything else to do.
"I know! But I'm hungry, so five minutes!" Cagalli retorted and slammed the door of her room.
Laughing, the other three did the same.
Five minutes and a lot of scrubbing later, the four stumbled into the stainless steel kitchen, each pointing out the missed patches of paint still lingering over thier faces and limbs... which just happened to be a lot of them.
Kira smirked and wiped yet another purple patch of paint from Lacu's cheek.
"you didn't even look in the mirror did you?" he accused, laughing. "Nope." was her proud reply.
Cagalli meanwhile was looking at all the cook books, muttering under her breath, crouched by the shelf.
"Hmm... see we have a problem." she began, making the others turn. "We don't know what we're making."
Lacus laughed and bent down as well looking through the books. "Well, what are the options?"
"Ooh, many of those." Cagalli replied, grabbing a handful of books and hauling them onto the counter.
"Cakes, cookies, pies, jello, stews, soups, casseroles, chicken.. a lot of chicken..." she mused, taking half the pile of books and shoving them away. " stakes, eggs, potatoes, Pudding." she stopped, blinked and stared at the recipe.
"Chocolate pudding in the middle of an egg and potatoe section... what the-" she began.
The others laughed and looked over her shoulder at the seriously tempting pile of chocolate that was in the picture.
"Well, it's a weird day, that's a weird meal. Why not?" Athrun put in. Kira nodded. "Sounds good to me."
"It's chocolate!" Lacus cried, making her opinion obvious. Smirking, Cagalli took the recipe and said. "All right then. Lacus, get eggs, flower, margerine, starch, all over there, Kira get milk, cocoa and brown sugar, show Lacus where it all is, will ya? Athrun, you and I are gonna have to search this kitchen for some sort of solid chocolate." she stated, putting the sheet down and looking up at him.
Kira grumbled as he walked towards the other side of the kitchen. "Oh yeah, one ingridient between the both of you... very nice."
"Heh, we don't know where it is, it could take ages to find it." Cagalli put in dramatically, beginning to open cabinets.
Athrun followed her example, searching through the carefully labeled contents of each shelf.
10 minutes later, Kira and Lacus had returned with the ingridients assigned to them and had decided to help in the search for solid chocolate.
It was a comical sight, to see four still paint stained teens running around in the kitchen, laughing and impatiently shoving things out of shelves.
Lacus seemed to resort to said way of searching the most.
Cagalli skipped over pots and pans of all sizes, catching a glimpse of Lacus half immerged in the cabinet on the floor. "Somehow I doubt it will be in the pot and pan section, Lacus!" she called, opening a door she hadn't noticed was there and begining to search it's shelves.
"But we've looked 'everywhere', Cagalli!" she cried impatiently, peeking out from the shadows of the cupboard.
"I'm actually starting to feel that hunger you two were talking about..." Athrun added from the other side of the room.
Kira cried out suddenly. "Aha! I found it!"
The others rushed over and looked over his shoulder as his pulled out a rather large chunk of light brown chocolate. To them it felt like they had found gold.
"Finally!" they all chorused, then burst out laughing.
"Okay! Let's get this pudding going!" Lacus cried, running over her mess of pots and pans and heading towards the blender.She was quickly intercepted by Athrun, Kira and Cagalli.
"Oh no you don't. We do not need the blender this time." Cagalli laughed.
Lacus pouted. "So much for redeeming myself..."
So, for the better part of an hour they spent mixing and cooking, and getting caked in flour and milk...
It only figures that the war would start as soon as the chocolate got into the mix.
Cagalli felt a cold wet slop of pudding hit her cheek and ducked under the cabinet. "Ahh! Who did that?" she cried, holding her bowl of pudding in her arms while crouched on the floor.
Suddenly Lacus cried out. "KIRA! HEY! That's chocolate you're throwing!"
Laughter erupted in all places of the kitchen then, and they knew it was a game again.
Carefully, Cagalli made her way on her hands and knees to the corner of the counter, peeking through the spoons and cooking utensils hanging from under the racks.
She blinked, seeing a pair of laughing eyes watching her. "Uh oh." she started, and jumped back.
Pudding rained on her from all sides, as Athrun threw it by the handful, getting it all over her.
Giving up, she settled there, grabbing handfuls of it that had landed either on her clothes or on her skin and stuffing it into her mouth.
Still chewing she cried out. "That's not fair! Yours is sweeter than mine! you stole chocolate didnt' you!" she accused.
"Who? Me?" Athrun cried innocently, peeking at her from behind the cabinet.
She grabbed her pudding and threw it hard in his direction, getting the better part of his face.
Meanwhile, Lacus was screaming playfully on the other side of the kitchen, standing across from Kira with a counter between them, both of them holding their pudding bowls in hand.
"No fair! I actually planned to eat this stuff!" Lacus cried, glancing down at her artillery.
Kira laughed and ducked as she threw a handful of the stuff. Luckily it landed on a nearby bowl and he could grab it and have some if he liked.
Suddenly, Lacus looked up to see Cagalli running in her direction, empty handed. "Ahhh! He took it! he took all my pudding!"
Lacus screamed too and they both crashed-dove behind the nearest island in the kitchen, pudding falling all around them.
"It's not fair!" Lacus shouted, stuffing a handful of her own weapon into her mouth.
"Yes it is! You started the paint, it only figures we'd get you back!" Kira cried back.
"Sore loser!" Cagalli shouted back, peeking at them over the counter. she dove back down quickly, narrowly escaping being hit by a clump of chocolate.
"Look who's talking!"
Laughing, Cagalli took some of Lacus's precious chocolate and ate it, for the sake of the sudden craving she had developed. "Hey, your stuff's not bad." she said, blinking in surprise.
Lacus grinned happily and grabbed a bunch more of it. "Yeah i know."
"Agh, we're out of ammo... peace?" Kira cried back. Cagalli opened her mouth to say no, considering they still had a bowl of the stuff, but Lacus quickly put in.
"OKAY!" She sat up sharply, happily taking handfuls of her chocolatey dessert.
Athrun and Kira laughed, shoving them the empty bowls.
"You ate all of it, didn't you?" Cagalli accused, taking some more of Lacus'.
"Of course." The boys chorused, looking none too innocent.
Happily they sat around on the counters, having split Lacus's remaining bowl into four parts, which she complained about mercilessly.
They were just finishing when the maids and chef came in...and froze, as did the four guilty teens.
"Oh dear...'
"Oh my..."
"Oh god..."
"Uh oh..."
"Oh... my KITCHEN?" the chef cried out, waving his arms as he spassed.
The four teens blinked, looked at each other, and did the only thing four 8 year olds would do.
They ran, laughing and giggling all the while.
So, there is the next chapter. Hope you all liked. I thought I'd let it all be fluff and fun for this time.
Please R&R I really need you guys to let me know what you think.
-White Scribe