Petrified Tears
Chapter 33
Office Romance
By: Panabelle
Pan sat in front of the copy machine, looking up at it with adoring eyes.
Suddenly, it beeped, and she jumped, eager and anxious to see what was wrong with her new god and religion.
“Pan?”
She looked down at the control panel. Paper tray empty. Gently reload and press start, commanded her god. Pan dashed across the room to comply to her master’s wishes.
“Pan? Are you ok?”
She hurried back to the machine with the bundle of paper, and knelt before the machine, as if offering it the paper as a holy sacrifice.
“Pan?!”
Swiftly and gently, she loaded the paper and started the machine back up. She settled back onto the floor and stroked the hard plastic in front of her. She watched the machine work with tender and affectionate eyes, watching in wonder as it magically made one paper into thousands.
“Pan?” Trunks asked, worried, stepping beside her.
“Shh!” she hissed up at him, angry, and then turned back to the copier, watching it again.
Curious, Trunks picked up a paper from one of the thousands in the pile of copies.
It was just a blank piece of paper. Setting it back down, he looked at the level of the ink, curious if the toner was low.
Nope, toner was normal.
Which meant—
“Pan!? You’re coping blank paper!”
“SHH!” she hissed again, disturbed in her holy worship of the copier and all its magic.
“Oh boy,” Trunks sighed. “Sock Puppets are one thing. Worshiping office equipment means it’s time to go home.”
Pan smacked his leg, quieting him.
He looked at the display for the request of copies.
2786.
Trunks stared at it, then looked down at Pan.
She had shed her jacket soon after they had decided to actually get work done that day, had rolled up her shirtsleeves shortly before the Sock Puppet of Smelly Death had made his nightly appearance and request to be fed. Her hair was still pulled back, but into a careless bun, something that had started as a ponytail, but that her fingers had decided to turn into a bun. Strands of hair fell down from the mess, trailing to her shoulders in graceful locks, her bangs and the recently feathered hairs too short to be pulled back hung around her face and messily over her forehead.
She was adorable.
But she was also on the verge of insane.
Shaking his head, Trunks moved to push the cancel button, but she leapt at him, biting his arm.
“OW! Son of a—Pan!”
She growled at him, and Trunks decided to screw the copier, he’d just take her home now before she sucked him into her psychosis.
“Come on,” he said, ducking and throwing her over his shoulder.
“No! My Lord! No! Help me, my Lord!” she cried, reaching in front of her, beseeching the copier to rescue her. He just continued to leave the room.
Pan blushed as she and Trunks escaped their hell through the lobby doors, waving good-bye to the security guard.
“I wasn’t worshiping the copy machine, Trunks.”
“‘My Lord! No! My Lord, save me! I have served you faithfully! Save me!’” he mimicked, holding his hands to his chest, leaping ahead, his voice high pitched.
“Shut up,” she mumbled as he stopped and looked back at her with a look that read “Wanna say that again?”
She crossed her arms over her chest as she walked to catch up with him. He reached into his pants pocket, pulling out a capsule car and opening it, tossing it in front of them.
“I’m not saying that you didn’t love the copier, Pan. I’m just saying that you were hopelessly devoted to it.”
“Yeah, well,” she grumbled, sliding into the passenger seat, “at least I wasn’t wrestling with a sock puppet.”
Trunks looked at her as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“I wasn’t wrestling with Smelly, I was trying to keep him from breathing on me.”
Pan took her head into her hands.
“Hey, you try and tell him that he has to find his own dinner! I tried that two years ago, and he kicked my ass!”
Pan stared at him.
“You mean to tell me that you’ve had that sock under your desk for over two years.”
“More like three years.”
“Trunks!”
“He’s actually quite intelligent for conversation once he’s fed.”
“You talk to him?!”
He nodded. “It’s lonely at work once everyone else has gone home.”
“So you talk to a sock.”
“Sock Puppet. He gets offended if you just call him a sock.”
“Trunks!”
“But I draw the line at worshiping office equipment.”
“Better then a sock!”
“I don’t worship him, I just feed him.”
Pan threw up her hands and laughed, snuggling back into the seat. Trunks stopped at a red light and looked over at her, seeing her shiver. They had forgotten her jacket, and he wasn’t about to put the top up—the steady wind whipping his hair as he drove was the only thing keeping him from falling asleep.
He ducked out of his jacket, dropping it on her head.
“Here Panny. Get some sleep…we have to be back at that dreaded office in 8 hours.”
“Make me,” she mumbled, curling up in the seat, huddling under the jacket.
He looked down at her, pulling the collar over her face.
“Don’t worry Pan, I’ll pick you up on my way there in the morning.
She pulled her face above the collar and glared up at him. “You wouldn’t.”
“Would you not if you had my mother? Hell, if she had her way, you’d be sleeping in one of the guestrooms all this week, but because of my bastard father, she’s not dumb enough to try and have her way. And I’m not about to let her.”
Pan shook her head, sticking her nose under the jacket collar and falling asleep.
Trunks looked down at her, as he drove. This was how he had intended to take her home that night they’d gone out. To have fun all night, catch up and be insane together, and then have a nice peaceful drive home.
He reached over, one eye on the road, the other on her, and swept her bangs out of her face, smiling as she brought out a hand and tried to move bangs that were no longer there. The Son house rose into view, and he stopped the car in front of it, getting out and walking around to the other side of the car, opening the door and pulling the jacket off of her.
She drew into a tight ball searching for warmth as the make-shift blanket left her shoulders. Trunks smiled. He didn’t have the heart to wake her up. Scooping her into his arms, he felt his heart jump as she snuggled against his chest, one hand grasping his shirt collar, her head lifting to nuzzle his shoulder, her other hand falling across her chest.
Trunks paused, relishing the feeling his heartbeat.
It hadn’t been dead after all, just dormant…
“Trunks?” he heard Gohan call behind him. Trunks backed up with Pan in his arms and pushed the door closed with his foot. Starting up the walk, he looked down at the woman in his arms and then back up at her father.
“Please tell me she’s just asleep,” Gohan begged, opening the door wider so to admit Trunks.
“Yeah…probably dreaming about the copy machine.”
Gohan didn’t ask, merely shook his head and rubbed his face, sliding his fingers under his glasses, lifting them with his knuckles as his fingers massaged his eyes, and then set them back, using his hand to readjust them.
“We weren’t made for office jobs,” Gohan laughed. Trunks nodded knowingly.
“Come on,” Gohan yawned, starting up the stairs, motioning for the younger half-Saiyan to follow with his daughter. “I promised her I wouldn’t wait up…I’d rather her think you let yourself in and put her to bed, then that I sat up.”
“Did you sit up?”
“Nah,” Gohan yawned again. “I just heard the car pull up and figured I’d make it easier on you. If I tried to take her from you, I’d probably drop her.”
Trunks laughed quietly as Gohan opened the door to her room, letting the younger half-Saiyan pass through.
“I’ll be downstairs making some coffee—I want to talk to you for few minutes.”
Trunks nodded.