Nevermind

NEVERMIND

By Raven Pan

(I don\'t own them, I\'m just playing rough)

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I - Another Argument

Sunday, February 15

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\"Damn it Chibi...\" you did it again.  I bet you weren\'t even
certain just what you\'d
done, judging by that innocent look on your face, the continued
presence of the light dancing in your eyes.  You\'ll r ger get it,
I think - that I don\'t look at the world with the same... enthusiasm as
you tended to treat it.

\"Huh?  What\'d I do now?\"

Sorry if that\'sh a h a disappointment.  \"Nevermind,\" I found
myself
saying, once again, with my usual sigh and false smile.  I don\'t
know if you\'ve ever picked up on it... that my smiles weren\'t truly
real
anymore.  If you asked me when they stopped being so, I don\'t know
what I\'d say.  You see, I don\'t know.

\"No really, what\'s wrong?  What\'d I do?\"

\"You didn\'t do anything, just drop it, Chibi.\"

You had that look in your eye, and I barely recognised it for what it
was, before you practically pounced on me, pushing me against the
wall. 

\"Trunks.  Tell me what\'s wrong,\" the light was gone from your eyes
now, you\'re being serious.

I guess I forgot you had a darker side.  But I think you forgot
just how stubborn I could be, too.  \"No.\"

\"Trunks...\" is that warning I hear in your tone? 

I couldn\'t help but smirk.  You... were threatening me? 
I
bet you didn\'t even know what you\'d do if you had to follow through
with
the tone you gave me.  \"No.\"  As always, my tone was
calm, quiet.

Don\'t fuck with me today, Chibi - I\'m
not in the mood.

You growled in frustration as I easily pushed you away from me - you
lost a
lot of your strength when you were ill last fall, and you haven\'t
caught back up to me yet.  But
you will... you always do. 


\"Trunks, what is it, what\'s wrong?\"

\"Chibi, if you don\'t drop it-\"

\"You\'ll what?\"

I growled, and you laughed, the light dancing in your eyes again. 
How
did you do that, go from menace to childlike in moments?  \"Just don\'t
push your luck,\" I found
myself growling before I turned and headed to our room... closing and
bolting the door.

Yeah, I knew you could just break down the door easily, you hadn\'t
lost that much of your natural strength in your bout with that
mysterious sickness - but I knew you\'d respect the barrier.  You
always did.

I could hear you grumbling outside the door, and could almost picture
you
with your forehead pressed against it, your hands in fists at your
sides just before you slid down to sit outside the door like the big
puppy you always seemed to make me think of.
>
I>
I fell on the bed and stared at the ceiling.  So loyal. 
What\'ve I ever done to deserve that loyalty?  Nothing, that I can
think of.

\"What\'d I DO!?\" I could
hear
you outside the door.  Your voice conveyed just how upset you
were,
knowing I\'m pissed off... not knowing
why.

\"Leave me alone!\" I found myself shouting back at you.  Hn,
how
can you know... when it isn\'t anything you don\'t do naturally.

The tapping started.

\"Go away.\"

Tap. Tap. Tap.  \"Not until you tell me what I did,\" you said in a
song-song tone.

I fell silent, hoping  you\'d stop... but as usual you kept that
incessant tapping.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.  \"Trunks...\" you sound a bit more
worried now.

\"Just stay the hell away from me!\" I growled, throwing a pillow over my
head.  I\'m not sure if I was trying to drown out the tapping, your
voice... or the very air around me.

Silence.  That\'s never good. 
I concentrated on your Ki and
find you were still outside the door.  Why are you so
quiet? 
That\'s unnerving.   I got up and went to the door, and
opened it
to find you sitting there, your arms wrapped around your updrawn legs,
your chin on your knees.

Your cheeks were wet.  \"Shit...\" I made you cry.

If there\'s one thing I hated more than that look of utter and complete
joy you got... it was making you cry.

\"What\'d I do wrong?  Please Trunks,
tell me why you\'re so upset again....\"

I knelt beside you and brushed my fingers through the short, stiff
spikes
of your hair.  Again, I was surprised at, though stiff, how soft
your hair was.  Miracle of a
mixed saiyajin and human heritage, I
guess.  \"You didn\'t do anything,
Chibi.\"

\"Then what\'s wrong?\"

\"I don\'t want to tell you.\"

\"Why?\"

\"Because it\'ll upset you.\"

\"But Trunks, you KNOW anything that gets you upset\'s
gonna effect me. 
We\'re not kids
anymore - you can stop protecting me from whatever imagined threat is
pissing you off.\"

\"It\'s not a threat.  It\'s just me.\"  I got up and headed down
the four steps into our living area, moving toward the couch and
draping myself across it.  \"Just drop it.\"

Short?  Yes.  Callous?  Certainly. 
Heartless?  Not in the very least.  Sure, I may have seemed
it - but
I wasn\'t.  Maybe I\'m some kind of Ogre.  Or demon.  I
know I\'m my own brand of Hellion.  Always have been, always will
be.

Guardian Demon.  Guard against any threat, imagined or real. 
It\'s all I know to do, all I know how to be.  The sort of emotions
I shun would just get in my way... make me soft, and blind me to a
threat with kind words and gentle-seeming smiles.

\"What\'s just you?\"  I was startled to find you\'d moved to kneel -
sat
on the floor by the sofa, your hand touching my hair just as you
finished speaking.  I couldn\'t help but close my eyes.  Who
ever
said I couldn\'t appreciate gentility - that I was with you because of
how rough we could get without worrying of hurting each other
permanently... didn\'t know me.

\"Just me,\" I reiterated, trying to put my back to you - but you
wouldn\'t
let me, coming up to sit on the edge of the couch.

\"Bullshit, Trunks,\" I could tell you were getting angry again. 
\"Something\'s fucking with you.\"

\"Just you,bi,\bi,\" I answered in all honestly, sitting up.  I
wasn\'t
surprised when you took it for sarcasm.  What reason had I ever
given you to think otherwise?

I\'m the unfeeling one, remember?

\"I\'m serious.\"

\"So am I.\"

\"I don\'t mean it that way.\"

\"Neither do I.\"

\"Then how do you mean it?\"

\"Nevermi-  SHIT!\" I bought my hand to my chin, finding you just
punched me.  \"What the hell was that for, Goten?\"

The smile you gave me, chilled me to the core.  \"Never. Mind,\"
you threw
my favourite
word back in my face as you got up and headed for the entry way. 

I was too shocked to say anything, to stop you.  What\'s going
on in
your mind?  For the first time in all our lives, I can\'t tell
what\'s going on.  I don\'t have an answer.  Without a
word,
you were gone - leaving me too surprised to be angry, to confused to be
upset... too shocked to chase after you.

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