Trunks was working like a dog, had had a business trip to China lasting more days than he had planned. Bulma had him buried up the eyeballs in plans she wanted him to check over before she actually put the models into production for prototypes. And there was no delegating any of the tasks to anyone else…it was all stuff that he felt had to do himself. He worked from home. He worked sixteen hour days. He worked so much he was losing weight because he didn't have time to eat. Of course, working like that came in waves. This overwhelming amount of paperwork and business meetings and conference calls was blowback from not meeting fiscal goals and reassuring investors that CC wasn't slipping. But the damn company was killing him.

Pan came to visit him after Bra had mentioned to her that he seemed to be a little…un-Trunks-like, as she put it. He was in his office, behind the huge mahogany desk that was typically reasonably organized with the neat little "inbox, outbox, urgent, and to-be-signed" trays. But not this time. His desk was waist deep in documents, and the floor was littered with them. He had taken the books out of his bookcases behind his desk, placed them in the corner, and had made stacks in the empty bookshelves. There wasn't even a space to sit.

"Trunks?"

"Yes?" he called, sticking his head up so he could see who was standing in the doorway. He was surprised to see her. A small glimmer of hope sprang up in his heart but he immediately quashed the thought.

"What is all this?"

"Work. Reports. Revisions of reports. Reports on the revisions of reports. Graphs of expenditures, cost-saving efforts, industry trends…" Pan held up her hand.

"Let me ask a different question. What are you doing with all this stuff in your office?"

"I have read through it and am working with a team to come up with ways to increase company efficiency to increase profit to ease the fear of stockholders." Pan held up her hand to once again stop his explanation.

"Can you stand up so that I can see you are actually in one piece?" He wrinkled his brow and pulled off his reading glasses, closing his laptop. He walked around his desk and held out his arms, making a turn to prove he wasn't missing limbs or anything.

But he had lost weight. He was gaunt. He looked like hell. Even his hair had lost some of its luster, and if a man was ever infatuated with his luscious locks, it was Trunks Briefs. At this rate, Pan would be finding out soon if demi-saiyans got gray hairs. Kami. This wasn't even something the regeneration tank would fix. What the hell was wrong with him? Even when he was busy in the past, he found time to eat, drink and be merry. He could suck the life out of the room like this.

"Good enough?" he asked. Pan smiled sweetly.

"Good enough. Your mom needs to see you down in the lab. I told her I'd come get you."

"Thanks for that damn invitation. I'm getting tired of seeing her little lab rats run up here with shit she needs me to look over, like my opinion is going to change what she is going to do anyway."

"Oh, c'mon ya big baby. Maybe if she doesn't take too long, I can take you out to lunch before your next marathon of meetings."

"Doubtful. I have one in 25 minutes." Pan shook her head and led him down to the labs, constantly looking over at him in awe…he looked like shit.

When they got to the lab, Pan told Trunks to wait outside the door, giving some hair-brained reason that he bought only due to his fatigue. Pan entered, finding Bulma tinkering with some small component of a machine. "Bulma?" The blue-haired woman looked up, pulling off her magnifying safety glasses.

"Oh, hey Pan! Where have you been hiding today? I was looking for you earlier."

"I've got your son outside. When was the last time you saw him in person?"

"I don't know…it's been a while. I know he was in China for a bit, then I honestly can't keep up with his personal time…I talked to him yesterday." She looked baffled that Pan was asking.

"Okay. That's good. As for his personal time, tell him to take a vacation."

"What?"

"Oh, you'll see. Hang on." Pan retrieved the workaholic from the hallway. And once his mother took in his appearance, she immediately knew what Pan was saying.

"Go home, son," she said.

"What?"

"You look like shit. You are working on being the first emaciated Saiyan, and, for the life of me, I don't know why in the hell you are driving yourself into the ground. This company isn't going to fail without you here for a few weeks."

"But I have a meeting—"

"Cancelled."

"But the shareholders—"

"We own 60% of the company. The other 40% are people getting rich off our work. Get over it."

"But—"

"Don't make me call your father in here to see you." Trunks frowned and shot an irritated look over at Pan.

"Don't look at me like I did something wrong." He turned on heel and left.

"And don't you think of going back up to that office, mister!" Bulma called behind him. "I'm going to call his assistant and Bra and let them know Trunks will be out of commission until further notice. Will you do your best to nurse him back to health?"

"Right-o." And that was where the trouble started.

Trunks was grouchy and unhappy and out of his mind when he got back to his penthouse. He hadn't been home in several days, opting to sleep at the office. He ran over to his mother's to change clothes and get ready in the morning before his mom got up and before Vegeta and Pan finished their training. General avoidance of everyone seemed to work better to his favor. He couldn't exactly pinpoint why he was hiding from everyone (hiding from Pan was understandable), why he was burying himself under heaps of work, working himself to the bone. He had been stressed the past few months, but it was nothing that he couldn't handle. Maybe he had just gone off the deep end and didn't know how to function outside of work. But that wasn't it. He couldn't put a finger on it. Or, rather, didn't want to put a finger on it.

Gin let Pan in, much to Trunks's displeasure. Trunks had asked that Gin refuse all visitors, but when Pan said Bulma told her to come take care of Trunks, Gin listened. Bulma was a lot scarier than Trunks. And Trunks wasn't about to fire him.

She found him lying face down on his bed, still in his suit, dress shoes and all. She rolled her eyes. "Kami," she muttered, walking over to remove his shoes.

"Quit," he growled. She ignored him and let one shoe drop. "I said stop, dammit!" he snapped.

"I don't know if you are having a breakdown or what, but you need to shut the hell up and not act like a bitch to the person trying to help you."

"Person trying to destroy me," he muttered. She pulled of his other shoe, and he never even moved to help her. She pulled off black socks and tried to turn him over but he was acting like a child and wouldn't cooperate.

"Easy way or hard way?" He didn't answer her. She ripped his pants off, jacket off, dress shirt, undershirt. They lay in a destroyed heap on the floor. "Really? No underwear?" she said, looking down at his bare ass.

"None clean at Mom's." She rolled her eyes. He was skinnier. How the hell a saiyan could starve himself, it was beyond her. Muscle mass was being lost. It was disturbing how he had deteriorated in just a few weeks. Maybe he had a disease…

"What do you want to eat?"

"Nothing." She walked out on him naked, spread eagle face down on the bed.

She cooked enough food to feed an army with Gin's assistance. She sent him to the store to stock the pantry completely. Trunks hadn't been home so there was little in the cabinets, as he hadn't requested any meals. In the meantime, while Gin was gone, Pan put on a huge pot of noodles and began chopping whatever vegetables were handy. By the time Gin returned, the noodles were done and set aside so the two could have the whole stove. Steaks, pork dumplings, roasted vegetables with rice, and banana pudding (a personal favorite for Trunks), and the list went on. When they finished cooking, Pan and Gin looked at each other and nodded in commendation.

"Fix yourself a plate, Gin," Pan said to the dark-haired man. "And after you eat, you can have off the rest of the day and tomorrow. I'll stay here with Trunks."

"Thank you, Pan." He fixed a small plate, ate quickly, and took off out into the evening. Pan went to tend to Trunks, as if he was an invalid and not a sulky man.

"Dinner is ready," she said softly.

"Not hungry," he growled, still lying naked in his bed.

"Yes you are."

"Am not."

"Would you like to eat in bed?"

"Not eating."

"Do you want your robe to go eat in the kitchen?"

"Leave me alone." Pan gritted her teeth but remained civil. She kicked off her shoes and hopped up on the bed next to him, laying her face down close to his but he turned it the other way.

"I don't know why you are so ill about being on vacation."

"I had work to do."

"And what good would you do CC continuing in the state you're in?"

"I'm fine."

"Liar." She slipped a leg over his back and straddled him, rubbing her hands together to warm them up before beginning to massage his shoulders. He didn't relax beneath her like he had before; he used to melt beneath her hands, the tension running from his tense shoulder like receding floodwaters. Not today. He was unreasonably tense. "Kami, how are you able to move with your muscles bound up like this?" He didn't answer. She worked on easing the knots out of his back; they were slow to give, but couldn't hold out forever. Pan made her way down his back to the top of his ass, which she really wanted to smack just because it was there. He noticed he bristled slightly and drew in his breath like she was going to harm him when her fingers lingered so long. "This would be a lot less awkward if you had boxers on." He snorted.

She rubbed his scalp with the end of her fingers, making him internally moan at the feeling. He wasn't going to betray how good it felt to be touched by a caring woman's hands. That was half of his problem…women. "Feeling any better?"

"I'm fine," he responded. She forced him to roll over on the bed, manhandling him in such a way that in the process, she nearly rolled herself off the bed. She leaned her body across his chest and looked him in the eyes. They were hollow, tired and red.

"You look like shit, you know." Pan had always been pretty forward with her opinions. Trunks frowned at her disapprovingly anyway.

"Thank you for that opinion, Pan," he said tersely.

"Would you like something to eat?"

"No, I would not like anything to eat." She nodded and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek, resting her hand on his chest, letting his heartbeat beneath the palm of her hand.

"I'll leave you alone…for now. But you better come out and eat something before midnight or I swear to Kami, I will drag Vegeta over here to force feed you." He gave her a sour look and rolled away from her, giving her his back. "I don't mind seeing your ass," she said, getting up and walking out. "I appreciate your lack of tan lines." The amusement was light in her voice, and Trunks could only roll his eyes.

He stumbled out of the bedroom at 11:59 to eat some noodles…and steak…and just about anything else Pan and Gin had cooked. He was hungrier than he had ever been. Once he was done, he walked back through the living room to check on his babysitter. Pan was sprawled out all over the couch, halfway drooling up her face, the movie she had been watching stuck on the menu screen. He turned it off and looked down at her, undeniably a Son. One leg up on the back of the couch, the other one half hanging off, arms above her head, which was not even on the pillow, hence the upwards drooling. She had on a pair of loose sweat pants and a tank top that came up too short on her stomach, which was perfectly toned. He paused a moment and slid down one side of her sweat pants, finding the dragon tattoo she had on her hip. It was actually more of in the rise up to her hip than on her actual hipbone, but he hadn't seen it before the night he escorted her bodily back to the gravity room. Not his or her finest hour. The tattoo was small and intricate…Shenron on the five star dragonball. The colors were perfect. He edged the side of her pants back on hip and picked her up.

She squirmed in his arms a minute, almost in protest, but gave up quickly. He put her into the spare bed, like he had a thousand times when they were younger, but this time he paused and looked at her. She was beautiful and dangerous. She could break him, and he knew it. Frozen in his mind was the image of the woman in black lace lingerie, looking at him daringly in the gravity room. She was dangerous to human men, using them and breaking them down to begging bitches at her feet. She was dangerous to him because she was his equal. She was what he needed, and he feared that once she had completed him, she would break him, too. She was breaking him. Another notch in her headboard but the missed opportunity for him. That was why she was dangerous.

And she cared about him. She was one of his best friends. That was why he couldn't ease up on working, he speculated, lest he become consumed with her and destroy what remained of their friendship by pursuing a lost cause.

Right now, she was undoubtedly more physically powerful than him by any stretch of the imagination. After he woke up alone after the drunken night she came home with him, he had started decomposing. He hadn't been conscious of the change he instituted in his life, switching from women to working. At that moment when he woke up alone, hungover, but more importantly alone, that was when he decided that work needed to be his priority. Training was out of the question…that was meeting Pan in her home territory. Work was the only thing to protect him from the attraction he felt towards her.

If they started, they would end…and she didn't seem to want a relationship. And he didn't know if he could take hurt like that…he'd avoided it since his last big breakup 8 years ago…and hoped to continue to do so forever. He was to remain her friend, not her temporary boy toy.