Title: Sittin' in a Tree
Disclaimer: Copyright and infringement sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S...
Rating: G ( K ) – How the hel...eck could I make this any dirtier than a Disney movie?
Spoilers: If you didn't know that Videl blackmails Gohan into teaching her how to fly, then I feel sorry for you. That's, like, the coolest part of their hookup.

Summary: OneShot. "GOHAN AND VIDEL, SITTIN' IN A TREE! K-I-S-S-I-N – HEY!" Set during Videl's flying lessons, GhVi.

She believed she could fly...

My 40th fic!! Not ever, but on this profile, at least n.n; Who's up for some champagne?

"Okay...," Videl said to herself, teetering a little in mid-air. "I think I'm finally getting the hang of this..."

"Wow, Videl-san, I never thought you'd get this down so fast!" Gohan – her previously unwilling yet very committed instructor – praised, following Videl's progress from the grassy plane below with his eyes. As he did so, he bestowed her with the type of smile Erasa assured her was "dashing" and gave her a dorky little wave.

Compulsively quirking up the corners of her lips in return, Videl used the breeze kicked up by her descent to cool the tingling warmth that was building in the apples of her cheeks as she came in for a landing. (Sheesh, was she really so used to working in an air conditioned gym all the time that she couldn't even handle a bit of late spring sunlight anymore? She really needed to get outside more often...)

"Hey, I'm not exactly a chi genius like you or your little brother, but I'm no dunce, either," she teased, grateful that the heat had abated before her toes had even touched the ground. She didn't want Gohan thinking that she was overheated and unable to continue their training, after all; he was such a worrywart about stuff like that.

As an immediate reaction to her little jest at his expense, Gohan began to blush and stutter apologies. "Th-That's not what I meant, Videl-san! You're really doing great – Really great, honest! – for someone who's never used chi before and – "

His sentence was cut to the quick when her laughter interrupted him. "Chill out, Gohan-kun," she ordered breathlessly, slightly tempted though she was to let him continue his sheepish rant. He was so funny when he was uncomfortable. "I know what you meant. I was just joking with you."

"Oh...," Gohan let this thought trail off, the red in his cheeks spreading to his hairline. "I-I knew that."

With an eyebrow raised as high as it would go, Videl smirked at him and did her best not to laugh aloud (again). "Sure you did."

Skittish and desperate though they were, Gohan's compliments (if she did say so herself) weren't misplaced. After only three days of lessons, Videl was honestly starting to get a hang of this flying business. Already she could call forth her chi with only a bit of effort, levitate fifty feet off the ground and, after only the minimum amount of practice required, was able to propel herself through the air (albeit at a very slow, cautious pace). Gohan had admitted several times before this day to being impressed with how quickly she was absorbing all of this material. Supposedly, his mother had attempted the same feats a couple of times in an effort to make her errand-running more efficient, but had given up on the premise that she just couldn't get it.

"I'm going to fly around the area a bit," Videl proclaimed to her flying instructor once she was positive that her previous tingly feelings were long gone. She didn't travel all the way out to the middle of nowhere everyday just to sit around on her butt and watch the clouds fly by without her, after all.

Gohan, as per his usual fretful, nerdy nature, was something of a downer in response. "I dunno...maybe you should practice a little more first," he suggested, obviously trying to be as delicate as possible.

Hmph, spoilsport. "What for?" Videl retorted, narrowing her eyes slightly to let him know she was in no mood for hearing the word 'no.' She'd get her way and there was nothing he could do to stop her. "It's not like I'm going to go far, or anything. I just want to see what I can really do, that's all."

Gohan, whose grin was now drooping like a wilted flower, replied, "I'm just not sure if it's such a good idea, Videl-san...you haven't quite mastered your chi yet."

"Then how am I flying, huh?" Ha, argue with that!

"You're getting pretty good at using it, I'll give you that, but you've only been practicing with it for three days so far. You don't want to overestimate yourself," he said, giving off the air of someone who thought they were giving solid advice. Know-it-all.

Well, Videl wasn't about to let him ruin her fun just because he didn't recognize a chi prodigy when he saw one. If he was going to tell her up and down that she was doing a great job, he shouldn't be allowed to also say that she needed to take it slow whenever it suited him. "Maybe you don't want to underestimate me."

"I-I'm not!" Gohan negated, the cherry flush returning to his face. He maintained his composure this time, but Videl could tell that he was as uncomfortable as ever, if not moreso. "I just want you to be safe with your new powers, that's all."

"If I'm too safe then I'll never learn anything," Videl pointed out. Nobody ever accomplished anything without taking a few risks, after all. "C'mon, I'm not going to go far, I just want to make a loop around the area and come right back."

Rasing a hand to rub the back of his spikey head, Gohan sighed, utterly defeated. "Well...alright," he verbally relented, adding, "but let me come with you."

"No thanks," the Satan girl quickly refused, holding her palm up to him like a stop sign. "It's hard to concentrate with you breathing down my neck."

"I...I wasn't trying to..."

Before he could launch himself into another stream of apologies and recants, Videl interrupted with, "I'll be back in five minutes, Gohan-kun, I swear. Just wait here."

The look on his face suggested that she'd just told him she wanted to go take a flying leap off a cliff just to see if flapping her arms was also a satisfactory flying method. So much for all that confidence he'd had in her earlier."If that's what you want...just watch out for birds and trees, okay?"

"Gee, thanks for the advice. Never woulda thought of that," she snipped, slowly raising herself into the sky as high as she could go. Without offering him so much as a quick goodbye, she pivoted her body mid-air and left him to worry all by his lonesome.

— — —

Five minutes into her solo flight, Videl was even more confident that Gohan was worrying over absolutely nothing. Once the basics of chi mastery were learned, it seemed, there was really nothing to this flying thing. After that it was all about knowing where you were going and keeping the flux of your power steady. Easy.

And the countryside was absolutely incredible! Even considering the commute, Videl couldn't blame Gohan and his family for wanting to live in a rustic paradise such as this. The forest she was currently hovering over surrounded their little cottage like a protective wall, but was as equally delicate and beautiful as it was strong. The foliage – a vast, rippling sea of leaves and twigs – was in full spring bloom, flecked here and there by both shadow and light to create a collage of hues in a pattern that could never be recreated by man. The urban landscape with which the teenaged champion of justice was more familiar couldn't compare in either color or composition; it was like a living, breathing painting.

"Aahh...," she sighed, allowing her eyes to fall closed as a particularly pleasant gust of wind ruffled her short bangs. What was so dangerous about this, again?

"KAAW!"

At the same instant that her heart stilled, Videl's eyes flew open in frightened panic. A long, crooked line of birds – crows, maybe, or ravens – spiraled up into the sky before her, disrupting the sweet equilibrium of the scenery and throwing her off-kilter.

As she regained control of her heart, prompting it to begin beating once more, she lost the ability to manipulate the fragile balance of chi that kept her afloat. Because of this, she began to fall.

"Aiiiiiiieeeeeee!" she screamed, her voice echoing off the trees as she descended amongst them. The gold-capped vegetation that she'd witnessed from above no longer seemed peaceful and calming, but chaotic and frightening as it whirled around her in nauseating blurs of color and texture. Branches clawed at her exposed skin, tore at her clothing, and seemed intent on capturing her. She slipped through their spindly fingers, however, and waited to be reunited with the hard soil far, far below.

"Oof!" she gasped, colliding with a particularly sturdy oak limb with the small of her back. Springing upwards a little from the rebound of the impact, Videl flipped onto her front before her free fall continued. Though she'd tried to grab hold of the branch with her gloved palms, almost certain that it could save her, they merely scraped across the rough bark and slipped away again.

Two more times Videl nearly rescued herself and two more times she failed, absolutely unable to take a firm hold of anything at such high velocity. Her gloves were shredded, hands bleeding, nails chipped and bent backwards, but still she tried, desperate to survive her prideful fall.

One of the trees, apparently taking pity on her struggling form, reached out and hooked two slender fingers beneath the sleeveless straps of her shirt. As she came to a sudden and jarring stop, Videl gasped, half in shock, half in relief. She dangled from the branch for a few long seconds absolutely motionless except for the labored heaving of her chest.

"Thanks...," the Satan girl whispered, unsure of whether she was speaking to the tree or a god. She had been rescued by something, but by what she wasn't entirely sure of just yet.

"VIDEEEEL-SAAAN!"

Rolling her eyes upward, Videl followed the path of destruction she'd taken to the hole her descending body had created in the forest's canopy. A shadow was obscuring half of the opening, proving once and for all that she hadn't been hallucinating his voice. "Oh, great..."

"VIDEEEL-SAAAN! If you can hear me, say something!"

"Not likely," Videl muttered to herself, raising her arms to work at the knot that was binding her to the tree limb. She was willing to accept help from a plant, but only because it couldn't tell her 'I told you so' afterward.

"'NEEE-CHAAAN!"

Oh, so Goten was part of her cavalry, too? All the more reason to extricate herself before she could be found; if being rescued by Gohan was humiliating, what would it be like to place her hopes in a grade schooler? How would her pride ever limp on after that?

"VIDEEEL-SAAAN!"

"'NEEEE-CHAAAN!"

Dipping her head until her chin touched her chest, Videl clung fast to her wooden helping hand and surveyed the landscape beneath her. She wasn't terribly far from the ground now – less than ten feet, she was sure – and, even better, there was a sturdy-looking branch just slightly out of the reach of her dangling toes. If she could just loosen the grip the tree had on the back of her shirt, she could lower herself down to it and –

"Aiiieee!" she compulsively screamed as, with a loud crack, the limb that had been holding her aloft snapped away from the trunk and she began her descent again.

In a way, Videl had gotten exactly what she'd wanted. She was now settled on the lower branch (even if her backside was a little more sore than she'd originally had in mind) and perfectly capable of jumping down to the ground from such a position. On the other hand, her top was still tangled up in the limb that had caught her, hindering her hasty escape, and her would-be savior had heard her scream.

"Videl-san!" Gohan called as he rapidly lowered himself to her level, more gracefully utilizing the path she'd carved out during her fall. His expression was an anxious mixture of both relief and worry, suggesting that he was simultaneously glad to have found her in one piece and distressed that she could still be injured somehow. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she lied, scratching at the bark still clinging to the back of her sleeveless T-shirt. Argh, it wasn't letting go!

"Let me help you," Gohan offered, landing on the branch she was straddling with balanced feet. His smile was meant to be sweet and comforting, but all it really succeeded at doing was pissing her off, as unfair as that probably was.

With a strained grunt, Videl kicked out one of her own legs and swiped at his ankles, vainly hoping to knock him down a peg or two. It didn't work the way she'd wanted, but he was still forced to dismount the branch and take to the air again. "I don't need your help!"

Visibly wincing, Gohan didn't attempt to place himself on the limb again directly, but rather hovered as close to her as he dared and began pleading his case. "But you're stuck. Why won't you let me help you?"

"Because I can do it myself!" Videl countered, tugging hard at the knotted fabric behind her head. Gah! It wouldn't be so freaking hard if she could just see what she was doing!

"But you can't even see what you're doing," Gohan argued, inching closer to her while still maintaining an acceptable distance. He didn't make any overt moves to aid her, but Videl knew that's what he was positioning himself to do.

When he finally got just a little too close for Videl's liking, she snarled at him like a wounded animal. "A kindergartener can untie knots! Leave me alone!"

Gohan backed away again, but continued to try and convince her to let him save her. "Videl-san, I'm not trying to underestimate you. If I were in your position, I'd need someone's help, too."

The Satan girl paused in her struggles against the grasping branch and turned her head to look fully at her well-meaning knight. His last argument had appeased her (a little) and she was now prepared to listen. "You would?"

"Yeah," he agreed, his lips breaking into a small smile now that he was getting somewhere. That tingly feeling from earlier was building again, this time somewhere deep within Videl's abdomen. "I'm not really good with my hands, or anything, so I'd probably be even more stuck than you are."

"You don't know your own strength, either," Videl pointed out, inwardly relieved to be reminded that Gohan was not as perfect as most people probably thought he was. "You'd probably bring the whole tree down on your thick head."

Laughing sheepishly, Gohan rubbed at the back of his neck. "Yeah, probably," he agreed, grinning in that "dashing" fashion. The butterflies tickling Videl's insides flapped their wings harder.

Whipping her face away from him so quickly that something in her neck popped, Videl finally relented to her instructor; "So, are you going to get me down from here, or what?"

"R-Right," Gohan stuttered from out of her line of sight, sounding surprised at Videl's sudden agreement. Or maybe he was just baffled at her odd change in attitude, she couldn't tell. If it was the latter, he wasn't alone; the Satan girl herself wasn't entirely sure what had come over her in that instant, but she knew it had something to do with that hyperactive fluttering.

The branch between her thighs bent and groaned a little as Gohan's weight was added to it, but it faithfully sustained them both as he settled himself before her. With her head down, she could see him wrap his own legs around the limb and twist them together, preventing any potential tumbles from their elevated height.

"I'm...uh...going to have to get closer, Videl-san," he warned her, his voice trembling slightly as he said it. "S-So I can untie you, that is."

Videl waited a few extended seconds for him to follow through, but belatedly realized that he wanted a response from her first. Somehow not brave enough to look up at him as she did so, she replied without removing her gaze from his tangled feet; "Fine."

She witnessed his lower body move tentatively forward until contact was made between his knees and hers. The cotton fabric of his gi rubbed up against her bare skin, prompting a few of the butterflies in her stomach to relocate to the point of contact between them. She almost wondered if they were transferable from person-to-person because Gohan's body, much like his voice, was shaking against her.

Videl jumped as both her hands were suddenly enveloped in two large, clammy palms and her fingers were pried away from the knot she'd been frantically trying to undo. As if on some sort of reflex, she finally raised her face to look him directly in the eyes. Tall as he was, they weren't quite touching noses, but it was close; she could feel his short breaths on her lips as he returned eye contact.

"S-Sorry!" Gohan apologized, quickly relinquishing his hold on her and averting his gaze. He seemed to be examining the knot, but Videl could sense that he looked away for other reasons.

Videl rested her empty hands on her instructor's thighs, unsure of what else to do with them. She felt that she should have used them for some other purpose – that they were somehow out of place where they were – but had no idea what that might be. Thus, they sat there uselessly, aching for other placement, while the two teens passed their time together in awkward silence. The only time they spoke while Gohan worked at the tenacious knot was when he accidentally tore a small hole in her shirt, which he apologized for and Videl forgave.

"There," Gohan proclaimed quietly as the tension at Videl's back was released. "Got it."

Testing her ability to lean forward, Videl discovered that it was now unhindered. She shifted her weight against Gohan's legs, holding herself aloft against them by her bleeding palms. "Thanks," she said, feeling the need to look him in the eyes as she said it. He deserved that much, she felt.

There was a pause between her expression of gratitude and his mandatory acceptance of it, during which they both acclimated themselves to their new proximity. Still their noses did not touch, but only because Videl's head was tilted ever so slightly to the side, their lax mouths diagonally crossed from a few mere centimeters away. "You're welcome," he said, each syllable skittering over her lips as they left his.

Feeling as if she were in the path of another pleasant breeze, Videl allowed her eyelids to fall closed of their own accord. She wasn't at peace this time, but the anxiety she felt over what was sure to happen next was more refreshing than any wind she had ever experienced before. It was almost like the terrifying, exhilarated sensation of free falling, except she didn't know if or when she was going to stop this time.

"Videl...san...," the sensation of her own name spoken against her lips traveled throughout her body, as if a vibrating echo of her heartbeat. It started from deep within her chest and spread outward, tingling pleasantly from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes and beyond.

"Gohan..."

"GOHAN AND VIDEL, KISSIN' IN A TREE! K-I-S-S-I-N – HEY!"

"Goten!" Gohan cried in alarm, holding Videl's unbalanced form to his torso with one arm while holding the other aloft.

Down on the ground, the youngest Son child blinked at the small charred spot on which he had just been standing, seeming both slightly bewildered and indignant from the attack. "Mommy said you weren't 'sposed to shoot chi beams at me, 'Nii-san! No fair!"

Another small blast exploded to the child's left, much too far away to cause any physical damage, spraying him with forest debris. "Go home, Goten!" Gohan commanded, his palm starting to glow again (though not nearly as brightly as his face).

"Alright, alright!" Goten agreed quickly, clamoring to get to his feet and run away before his brother tried to strike him again. "I'm telling Mommy!"

"S-Sorry about that," Gohan needlessly apologized, returning his diverted attention to the girl collapsed in his arms. His entire face, ears and neck were painted with the deepest shade of crimson she'd ever seen and she was sure that so much redirected blood flow couldn't be healthy.

"It's okay," she replied, biting down hard on her lower lip to hold in her laughter. It wasn't working very well, though, as her entire body was shaking from the effort.

Pulled as close to him as she was, Videl was positive that Gohan could feel her amused quivering and hear the traces of mirth in her voice when she'd spoken to him. Still, she couldn't seem to control herself fully, despite how dizzy he was beginning to look.

"Y-You can go ahead and laugh at me if you want..."

"No...No, I won't..."

"Really, it's fine."

"But...pfft...!"

SNAP! And she was falling again.

— — —

"You're sure you're okay?" Videl queried again, tossing her gaze to the slowly meandering Gohan. He was several steps behind her and still as bright in the face as ever.

"Fine," he replied, keeping his eyes downcast as he followed her to her jetcopter. Their training session was over – quite a bit earlier than usual so that Gohan could go lay down – for the day, meaning that it was time for Videl to go home.

"You're sure?" she repeated, turning around and stopping right in Gohan's path so that he'd look at her while she was questioning him. "I know you're superhuman and everything, but you did hit your head pretty hard."

"Yeah, I'm sure." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, clearly embarrassed that she was taking such an interest in his health, and winced as his fingers made contact with the bump beneath his hair. "Thick skulls run in my family."

"You don't say?"

"Ha ha..."

Smiling so wide that her cheeks hurt, Videl stepped toward her flying instructor and raised herself up on her toes. Balanced against his chest with her sore palms, she whispered into his ear, "Feel better. And don't worry," she added, placing a small kiss on his blushing cheek. "I've learned my lesson."

Videl didn't look back at Gohan until she was flying again, this time safely strapped into the cockpit of her copter. She waved at him and Goten (who had dashed out of his family home just in time to bid her an enthusiastic farewell with both arms) as she powered up the engine and hit the gas, praying silently that the funny tingling would abate before she got back to the city. Somehow, she doubted it would.

— — —

Author's Note: Yay, 40th fic completed n.n It's not my 40th fic ever (not even the 40th fic to be uploaded to this profile), but I can honestly say that I've never posted this many stories at once under a single name before. I'm rather proud of myself n.n

Btw, this is a SweetestIrony entry for September (theme – Lessons Learned) and we BADLY need more! If you've got some spare time between now and the 30th, try to write one for us? Please?

I got this idea from a pic on DA (couldn't possibly find it again, sorry n.n; ) in which GhVi were kissing in a tree. Cute idea, but I decided that there needed to be more to it.

Uhh...keep a lookout in this fic for reoccurring themes and metaphors. There's a few of them.

Un-beta'd. I'll take a look at it later, though, promise.

. ( . Ms Videl Son . ) .

– Who's your daddy? GohanVidel