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17 took a step forward, his eyes settling on Trunks’ fear-filled eyes. 18, his twin sister wasn’t there with him but 17 was strong enough to deal one saiyan by himself, and easily.

His hand reached for the boy’s chin and he chuckled maliciously as he forced the boy to kiss him. Trunks protested and wanted to scream. He stepped on the android’s foot so hard, 17’s mouth let go, and he growled with frustration.

‘Protest, you may, but you can never do anything to me! Gohan’s going to die and then I’ll have you myself without any trouble,’ He said coldly, approaching Trunks, who backed away into a dark, forgotten corner, scared as the shadow towered over him, threatening to do unspeakable things to him. He tried to escape but there were not outlets. 17 had made sure there was none. The young lavender-haired saiyan let out a scream as the male android raised a hand and an energy ball protruded out of his pale palm and suddenly Gohan’s benign face replaced the cold, emotionless face of the android 17, created by Dr. Gero, enemy of Goku and all his friends.

Trunks’ eyes widened even more as Gohan spoke to him in that same cold, mechanic tone and the body was still like 17’s. Clad in denim jeans with two sweatshirts on, one black and one white, 17 had a red scarf wrapped around his neck, and his black hair once had rested comfortable on the red scarf. Now, the hair became shorter and Trunks’ whimpered in pure terror when there appeared an energy blast that could kill him.

Trunks stirred, trying to move away from that blast, trying to attempt to escape and live in peace but he could not. The blast was released and he closed his eyes and waited for death to come and claim him as he did with the civilians of earth. All too close two gentle hands shook him on the shoulders. Opening his eyes, he expected to see his mother hovering over him after his fight with the androids. Instead, he found Gohan’s eyes peering anxiously over his pale face.

‘Trunks! Are you okay?’ The elder saiyan had asked with deep concern showing in his voice and eyes.

The question did not reach the frightened teenager’s ears for he could not believe that it was all a dream. It was so real, so vivid, and the combination of Gohan and 17 was the worse of it.

‘Trunks, are you all right?’ Gohan asked again and at that point, the 16 year old burst into tears. He fell into Gohan’s brotherly embrace and sobbed, letting go of his terror, his frights. Gohan stroked his back soothingly and assured that everything was all right, that most importantly, the androids were no longer in this world.

The tears stopped and knowing by looking to the boy’s mind telepathically, Gohan laid the sleeping Trunks on his side of the bed. He too went back to bed, his arm hanging over his koibito’s body protectively.

***

Gohan woke to someone rapping on the door quietly with their knuckles, so quietly a normal human would have trouble intercepting it; but Gohan wasn’t human. Not all the way anyway. He was half-saiyan and half-human just like the still slumbering Trunks.

He rose out of his bed groggily and opened the door. There stood an old woman with blue hair going down to her shoulders, wearing a small yellow t-shirt with white shorts.

‘Ohayo (good morning)’ Bulma said in a tone of a person who’s used to waking up early.

‘Ohayo, Bulma-san,’ Gohan replied. He lifted his arms and stretched whilst yawning. Bulma was about to say something until she realized that Gohan was practically naked. She gave the yawning saiyan a hard slap on the cheek, leaving a faint line of blood behind.

‘Gohan! How dare you treat me with such disrespect! You are still living under my roof and I will not tolerate such appalling behaviour!’

‘Nani (what)!?! What did I do?!’

Gohan’s hand rubbed against his painful right cheek, trying to make the pain subside.

‘Next time put some clothes on, young man! And don’t let Trunks see you like this! I know you love each other, but that doesn’t mean you can walk around butt-naked!!’

She slammed the door right in front of the surprised 21 year old and he tried to find out what made Bulma so mad at him. Clothes? What…?

His hand swept across his genitals and he realized why. Oh shit! No wonder she was so mad at me! I better get dressed before… There was a soft groan and Gohan’s face reddened slightly at the thought of having Trunks to see him the way he was.

‘Gohan…what…oh…kami! Umm…sorry!’ Trunks turned round, sort of blushing, whilst Gohan silently rebuked himself for not getting dressed soon. He reached for the drawer below the picture of his family and friends, who were now gone from this world forever. Unless…Dragon balls! Yes! Why didn’t he think of it before? But Kami and Piccolo were gone…that means there are no dragon balls on earth…damn it. Wait! What about Namek? That way he could get three wishes instead of one!

‘Uh, Gohan? Haven’t you finished dressing yet? You’re taking an awful long time if you’re not!’ Trunks’ opinion caught his attention and he apologized for his delayed action. Several minutes later, he said, ‘okay, you can look now.’

Trunks’ face spun with an expression of relief in his purple globes, but Gohan could swear he saw a hint of disappointment fleeing on the demi-saiyan’s visage.

‘I heard someone yelling at you,’ Trunks said, a smile crawling on his face, ‘was it Kasaan?’

‘ Yeah…she…uh…caught me at a bad time.’

The boy at first said nothing and suddenly he burst out laughing.

‘She saw you naked? Ha! Ha! Ha!’

Embarrassed by this, the taller saiyan’s face went cherry red and started saying in a tone with dignity, ‘well, I was tired, and I didn’t know that I had no clothes on.’

Trunks was still laughing until Gohan gave him a stern look on his dark face. At that point, the laughing stopped and the 15 year-old apologized for his out burst.

‘Gomen-ne, Gohan,’

‘ That’s okay, Trunks-kun. Now, we better get up and start out training.’

‘All right!!’

***

Later when both boys were fully dress and with Bulma’s approval of Gohan’s attempt to make up for what had happened first thing in the morning, they started gobbling down their food like their fathers before them. The old woman chuckled merrily as she remembered the way Goku and Vegeta ate before the androids came and killed them.

‘Bulma?’ Interrupted a voice.

‘Huh? What?’ She awoke from her ephemeral reverie to see Gohan glancing in her direction before eating again quickly.

‘I was wondering if we could go back to Namek and use the dragon balls there to revive everyone killed by the androids’

A blanket of silence covered the kitchen and for a moment time seemed to have stopped. No was moving; no one was speaking. At last, Bulma set her dishes down gently in the porcelain sink and faced Gohan.

‘What do you think I’ve been doing all this time!?!! Huh?!!!! Sitting on my butt while you two were fighting the androids.

Gohan went red in the face again. Today is just not his day, he thought hopelessly. The younger man didn’t say anything. His mind was confused. Dragon balls? He has heard a little about them : when the total of seven of them have been collected, the password given, the dragon would rise up from their gathering and give the person a single wish, but he didn’t know that it could be any wish like to revive dead people. His puzzled face went over to Gohan, who saw to his shame, turmoil of anger, sadness, and at the same time, hope. That mixed expression similar to the one he wore on the day when Mirai Trunks came by to save Gohan.

‘Gohan…’ Trunks began to say but a huge lump was caught in his throat and he couldn’t speak to him.

‘I’m sorry, Trunks. I didn’t mean to…’

Trunks abruptly left the table without saying ‘excuse-me’ and flew out of the nearest window to who knows where.

‘You better come back here right this minute!! Trunks!!’ She shouted angrily after him, raising her fist at her fleeing son. She gave up shouting and sighed heavily. I’m getting too damn old for this, she thought, her hand pressed against her breast where her heart was. The heart beat weakly in her chest and all this taking care of the two boys were starting to become too much for her. She wanted to rest, to not do anything in the world, except, maybe, see Vegeta once again.

A hand lay on her shoulder and gently squeezed it, assuring her that everything was going to be okay.

‘I’m sorry, Bulma, I’ll go after him and check things out. We’ll be back before evening,’ Gohan said with confidence. With a genuine smile the tall warrior walked out of the door close by and took flight. With a heavy sigh, Bulma sat down, too weary to even stand up anymore.

‘Oh, Vegeta, I wish you were,’

She expected a voice to speak to her but there was none. Her hands gathered to her face as she wept bitterly. Damn those androids! They took everyone I loved away from me. Damn them to hell!

***

At the same time tears were wept somewhere in a hidden cave he and Gohan found to fight secretly. At that time they didn’t want to let the androids know for sure that they were training to fight them, to let them know of their increasing power levels. Nowadays it was a place of solitude and peace.

And that’s what Trunks needed at the moment; some peace and quiet. His head stared down at the dark pool in front of him and he remembered the past vividly.

Flashback

‘You better scat, kid while you still can,’ 18 said in her monotonous voice. Her hands were on her hips and her blue eyes pierced Trunks’ soul mercilessly. She smiled at what she saw: fear, hopelessness and worse of all, concern for Gohan, the super-saiyan who was now fighting 17 at this point.

Trunks lunged a fist at her pretty face but missed. At first you don’t succeed, so try and try again, Gohan told him before when they’re sparring together

As a result, Trunks punched her again and missed again. 18 lashed out a first and succeeded. However, she left an unprotected opening, a place where Trunks kneeded her hard in the abdomen with his knee. Shocked and angry that this little kid finally got to her, 18’s came down and made an uppercut on his young face.

Stunned by the blow, Trunks fell backwards and could have fallen off the scaffold had it not been for 18 who grabbed his shirt. She lifted him and her eyes narrowed with the anticipations of killing him so easily.

‘Do it! You bitch!’

She feigned to be extremely insulted by his words but laughed again and throwing her hand back, she created an energy ball. Gohan saw that his friend was in danger and raced to his side. He blocked 18’s energy ball but 17 had his ready and Trunks was caught in the blast.

End flashback

And that was all Trunks remembered until he saw Gohan lying on the ground in a dead faint with his scarred head on his outstretched arm. He remembered the dead weight of him when he carried him home and the screams of excruciating agony coming from him when he and his mother, Bulma held him down whilst the doctor tried to staunch the bleeding of his missing arm echoed in the saiyan’s ears, and other screams followed his; the shrieks of everyone getting killed by the androids….everyone dying….

Fresh tears flooded the teenager’s eyes and he wept bitterly. Now, Gohan wants to bring them back. Sure he would love to see his family again, but what would they think and say about him and Gohan? What would Vegeta think of it? All sorts of possible answers came running around in his head. ‘You’re in love with that third-class baka’s son?!’ or ‘You’re even more of a weakling than I thought!’

‘Trunks-kun?’

A kind, deep voice made the horrible words vanish at once and the person addressed to by that voice looked up, drying his tears away.

‘How’d you find me here?’

‘Well, I found this place, didn’t I?’ Gohan laughed and then came sober again. He knelt down by his lover and made Trunks look at him by lifting his chin up.

‘I’m truly sorry about my sudden declaration of bringing everybody back; I should have told you, but it just popped into my head this morning.’

‘It’s okay, Gohan-san. But-but…’ Trunks stammered and he lowered down his eyes shamefully.

‘But what, love?’

‘Well…us…what would they say about us in love?’

‘Gee…um…we’ll just tell them the truth, I guess. Saying nothing is as worse as lying,’ Gohan sagely said.

‘Yeah, I guess,’ Trunks murmured softly.

The hand cupped the crestfallen teenager’s face and his eyes stared intently at the warm, purple ones that seemed to stare back at him. No words were exchanged between the two saiyan princes when Gohan kissed him kindly on the lips. In response to this, Trunks opened more of his mouth and let the tongue wash over his and his worries. He moaned deeply as Gohan sucked on it as well as pulling him closer to his warm body.

The elder saiyan let go but not too quickly to surprise or disappointment his koibito, who at the moment the action was carried out, opened his eyes and felt Gohan looking down at him with indescribable affection.

‘I love you, Trunks,’ the older man breathed and kissed him again, this time more passionately.

Trunks wrapped his arms around the man’s neck, pulling closer and deepening the already passionate kiss. It was so warm, so gently, yet so firm at the same time. He wanted to melt in his friend’s arm.

After what seemed like eternity, they finally pulled back, panting, wanting air. Trunks hugged Gohan fiercely and said, ‘don’t leave me, Gohan. Do not let me be like that mournful Time-traveller. Please…’

It was almost like a plea and a promise that he had to keep but he would not keep promises that he could not keep. He bent down on one knee, took in Trunks’ slim hands into his own, and gazed at the porcelain face gently and with admiration.

‘I cannot promise you that, my love. But I will always be there for you whether it be in body or soul, mind or heart…I’ll always be there for you,’

Trunks sighed gratefully. At that point, the taller man erected and held out his hand. The shorter one took it gladly and both took a deep breath before diving into the wide ocean that welcomed their bodies happily.