Half-Crazy
Pretending to Pretend and Drinking Happiness - dedicated to ladybugg and her unborn children.
rated for language/situations
WitchyPrincess

"Raise that end up a little higher." Rosalia directed, pointing her manicured finger up towards the left-end of the banner. Stepping back, she formed a picture frame with her fingers and titled it to the side, staring contemplatively. After a few more moments of squinting she finally sighed and nodded for Trunks and Ubuu to step down from their ladders. "Perfect."

Trunks and Ubuu shot looks at each other that spoke volumes as the woman adjusted a strand of her chocolate hair and sent the boys an appreciative smile.

"I can't tell you how much your help means to me. I just know Paris is going to love this." Ubuu smiled politely while Trunks busied himself with picking the lent off of his sweater and nodding distractedly.

"It's no problem Mrs. Varease. I'm sure both Goten and Paris will enjoy it." Ubuu supplied, noticing that Trunks wasn't going to respond. A moment of awkward silence later, both boys had found a reason to excuse themselves from the overanxious woman. Paris' mother was another Bulma or ChiChi and any excuse to get away from more party planning was a good excuse.

Trunks saw Pan the moment she stepped into the room and used that as his reason to get away, claiming that he had something important to discuss with her. Ubuu gave him a 'knowing' look and backed away as well, saying that he had to make a phone call and asking Mrs. Varease if she minded.

Trunks approached Pan unsurely because things had been awkward since he had kissed her, almost a week before. They had both been pretending it hadn't happened, for the most part. At least, he had been pretending to pretend but it wasn't working too well for him.

"Hey Potato-Chip." He teased, pinching her cheek as a form of greeting.

"Not funny. Wonx."

Dark purple really was a very good color on her. She must have noticed because she was wearing it well. He swallowed, so as not to lose his train of thought in the design of her pants-suite.

"Funny? Me? Never."

"At least you recognize it." She retorted dryly, looking around the room. "Hey, this looks nice. Did you and Ubuu do it all by yourselves?"

"Nah, Mr. Varease had to help too. It was actually quite a show, you should have seen it." There was a glimmer in his eyes that tipped her off.

"What did you do to the poor man?"

"Nothing." He answered innocently. "I was merely referring to how amusing it is to watch a man try and figure out how a certain decoration got into a certain spot because he hadn't seen it happen."

"What did Paris tell you about using your powers around her parents?" Pan whispered, half-amused, half-scandalized. "Trunks, I don't believe you."

"They didn't know what was going on."

"It wasn't very smart. Or safe."

"It's done now."

"You're a horrible person."

They glared at each other for a few seconds before a blasting radio distracted them from each other's eyes.

"Sorry," They heard Mr. Varease apologizing through the microphone. "We're checking the speakers. This could take a while."

"Want to take a walk?" Pan suggested, holding out her arm without requiring an answer. Trunks accepted and led her to the doors, not wanting to hear the random blasts of noise that they knew would accompany a 'sound check'.

"I can't believe they've been married for five years." Pan remarked as they began circling the pond in the backyard. "It seems like only yesterday. I mean, I don't feel five years older than the day they married."

"That's because you're still four years old at heart."

"Oh shut-up. You're more juvenile than me and you know it."

Trunks contorted his face until it was of the most offended nature and said in a seriously astounded tone, "Name a time."

Pan scoffed. "Oh, please. You only want one time?"

"You can't even give me one. Don't pretend."

She 'humphed' and pulled her arm away from his. "What about that time you stuffed the Thanksgiving turkey with costume blood and tissue paper to get everyone to think it was uncleaned when your mother carved into it?" She questioned accusingly, laughter lacing her voice.

He shrugged it off, shaking his head. "You can't prove that was me."

"Oh, yeah, because it could have been anyone else."

"Yeah, well, it at least could have been Goten. Or you." He eyed her wearily. "You haven't proven yourself innocent."

"I didn't do it, Trunks."

"Give me one good reason why I should believe you." He narrowed his eyes at her.

"I had to help prepare that dinner. The last thing I would do would be ruin it."

"That only gives you opportunity and motive. I know how much you hate to cook."

"I love cooking," she challenged, biting her bottom lip.

"Liar. And whatever poor, starving man gets stuck with you better have money enough to afford a chef because I doubt you'll ever serve him anything decent."

"My husband will cook for himself, thank you very much. And he won't consider himself stuck with me either. Not all men are like you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He challenged, halting his footsteps before circling the pond again. "I'm no different than most men."

"I said not all men, not most men. And...nothing. It meant nothing."

"But Pan-"

"We'd better get back inside."

It was her rigid stance when she turned away from him, more than anything else, that told him exactly what he had been wondering since the Unfortunate Affair–as he had been referring to the kiss inside his head lately. She was pretending to pretend too.

"You still haven't named a time," he joked, trying to lighten the mood as he followed after her.

"Okay," he could hear her smile without seeing it. "What about the time you replaced the candles on your sister's birthday cake with fireworks and nearly burned down half of Capsule?"

"Again, I was never convicted guilty of any such thing."

Her laughter started in the pit of her stomach and rolled all the way through her body. It was an unrecorded symphony to his ears; for the first time in his life he held an appreciation for something that had in no way been intended to benefit him. It was still echoing inside his head thirty minutes into the party. And it was the first time that he realized that there might just be a problem here.

He spent the rest of the party a safe distance away from her, knowing both that she needed time to cool off and that he needed time to sort his thoughts out. There was a nagging feeling in the back of his head that told him that no amount of 'sorting' was going to help in a situation like this because one couldn't control things that had already begun taking place, especially things like feelings, but he was willing to try anyway.

He had prided himself on not being a man who resisted a good fight. He was Saiyan, after all. And it seemed that trying to ignore his feelings was going to be challenging business, possibly for the both of them. The thought intrigued him and made him wonder exactly how many of these feelings she was fighting off herself.

If she was even fighting them off.

Maybe she was just upset that he had taken advantage of a situation like that. Or maybe she was just angry with him in general. She might just be confused and surprised that he hadn't addressed the issue directly. Whatever the reason, however, he found it surprisingly easy to avoid her for the majority of the evening. It seemed that they had both gotten the same idea: stay away from each other as much as possible.

That goal, of course, was easier said then done since most of his family, her family, and even Paris' family expected them to be attached to the hip for some reason. And acting contrary to that popular expectation suggested something odd going on which, he knew, would immediately alert his mother, her mother and grandmother, and her father, like some sort of soap-opera drama gone wrong.

He groaned softly under his breath as he made his way to his designated spot at the dinner table, right next to her. He felt her looking at him through the corner of her eyes and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"A toast," he suggested a moment later, after everyone had settled. "To Goten and Paris. For five years of pain and suffering, survived like pros." Everyone laughed easily at his joke. Everyone but Pan, that is, who cut her eyes at him and crossed her legs as a sign of discomfort.

"To Goten and Paris," she countered, sending Trunks a pointed look. "For five successful years of love and happiness."

He could almost hear the italics in her sentence. It made him grit his teeth and grin with a falsely pleasant intensity at her as everyone else murmured their agreement and toasted with her as well. Her smirk–his smirk–rubbed it in. He said nothing, but raised his glass along with everyone else and drank to her toast as well.

"To happiness," he murmured, sure that only he could hear his sarcasm. That didn't stop her from shooting him a dark look and shifting uncomfortably in her seat next to him. This was going to be a long night, he could tell by the stiffness in her body as she looked anywhere but at him. All through dinner they spoke to each other only through group conversations and successfully aroused everyone's suspicions as to why they were being so distant and awkward with one another.

All through dinner they had a silent, unspoken contest over who could drink the most 'happiness' as she had called it, neither one of them wanting to be the loser.

Trunks gave up before Pan did.

He rolled his eyes at her blatant disregard of his directions. Right foot first, he'd said, then left. But, in her state, she probably couldn't even remember where her feet were located, much less which one was right and which one left. This was only amplified when she looked into his eyes and inquired which of her feet had done something 'naughty' and deserved to be classified as 'wrong'.

He rolled his eyes.

"Not wrong Pan, left."

"What's left?"

"Your foot."

"What was there before it?"

"What?"

"What?"

He rolled his eyes again. What was she talking about? "Pick your foot up now, Pan. Up."

"What's up?" Then she giggled. "Haha. What's up?" The second time was more for her amusement than questioning to him, as if she were repeating a really funny joke for the benefit of hearing it again.

Trunks sighed and decided that they would never make it inside his garage this way, much less his actual house, so he decided to pick her up instead. He leaned down slightly, making sure to hold onto the arm that he had instructed her to drape across his shoulder upon getting her out of the car so that she could keep her balance, and secured his other arm around her knees, cradling her like a small child.

She giggled again and buried her head into the crook of his neck.

Her breath tickled him as he made his way into the house, reminding him again of the reason they had been avoiding each other in the first place. And now, now, she was stuck at his house while she was amused at everything and very, very drunk. He had told everyone that he didn't think this was a good idea.

He had told Gohan to take his daughter home, had pleaded with Videl to keep Pan while she was drunk. But somehow, Trunks didn't even remember how, the girl had gotten pawned off on him. It could possibly be because he didn't have to work tomorrow.

Or because Pan did have to work tomorrow and that meant she needed to get to her apartment in the morning. His house, lucky for him, was the closest to her apartment. This had seemed to everyone else the most logical conclusion.

It was ludicrous in his opinion. Especially because she had just moved her head from side to side, running her nose very gently across the expanse of his neck and causing the small hairs all over his body to stand on end.

Any person with half a brain should have known that the two of them didn't need to be alone tonight. His only solace, as he made his way into the house and kicked the door closed behind him, was that Pan was so drunk she would probably pass out soon.

It was then that he heard the light snoring issuing forth from the body in his arms, and felt the weight he was carrying become slightly heavier, and he knew his prediction had just come true.

He thanked Dende for the small blessings.

Now, to get her out of her clothes, into pajamas, and in a warm bed. That, he knew, was going to be the tricky part...

To be continued...