Welcome to DBZ Saiyan Garden

The scent of his lover was strong on the pillow he clutched to his churning stomach. "I can't believe...he...left..." Goten's dark onyx eyes were glazed and unfocused, staring without seeing at the door his love had walked out of only hours before. The long, rectangular image had since burned a brilliant imprint in his unblinking vision--there was nothing to break his trance, nothing to stop his steady flow of tears. He had hardly moved a solitary muscle since that horrific moment when the door had shut and his world had spiraled downward into cold, inky darkness.

He vaguely remembered stumbling to the bathroom, dry heaving until his shaking body was overcome with agonizing sobs. But that was another time, in another life, happening to someone else that wasn't him. He had watched the other person pick himself off the tiled floor with jerking movements that reminded him of a sagging puppet held in the inexperienced hand of child. It wasn't him, couldn't be...Trunks would never have left him...right?

Oh, but Dende, he had. Walked right out the door into the brightly-lit corridor and down the cement steps into the pouring rain outside.

Goten groaned, reliving it again and again...that singular moment when he had almost gotten through to his lover, that precarious instant when the world was teetering, but not yet cascading downward. Clenching his eyes shut, he felt the stickiness of tears on his face, traveling in well-worn tracks down his pale features. The demi-Saiyan still wasn't certain how or when he had moved from the bathroom to the bed, when he had begun his quiet vigil. He only knew that the rain had never once altered its painful rhythm since Trunks had stalked out of the apartment.

~When I'm done with thinking,
Then I'm done with you.~

It was gradual, but eventually his trembling cries managed to still, catching in the thick mucus trap at the back of his throat. It wasn't often that Goten found himself a righteous cause to be angry. Something nagging at the back of his mind told him this was one such time when he had every right to give into his Saiyan rage.

It wasn't fair! Trunks was being so Dende-damned stubborn. Why couldn't he just admit that it was time to either come out with their relationship or end it? This wasn't what he considered living--for either one of them. When he awoke in the morning, Trunks was gone, when he returned in the evening, he had hours to wait before the man appeared at the door--looking adorably sheepish, a pathetically rehearsed excuse on his lips. It made him sick just thinking about it...Goten wanted nothing more than to live happily ever after with his prince charming...why the hell couldn't his life have a faery tale ending?

~When I'm done with crying,
Then I'm done with you.~

"Oh, Trunks," he whispered, the first sound he had uttered other than the animalistic whimpers and wordless pleas that had been wrenched from his sobbing body. Sighing, he pulled the pillow a little tighter against his chest, burying his flushed face in the smooth fabric. His body threatened him with another volley of shoulder shaking sniveling, but he shook his head forcefully and drew a ragged breath through his weary lungs. The pain flared vividly for an instant before subsiding, but something about the sensation began to clear his head. He had to stop thinking, stop blaming himself. Goten had rerun the reasons in his head a million mindless times before coming to the conclusion of making Trunks choose between his lover and his reputation. It was just too tiring to pretend, day after day, that he was content with the direction everything was heading.

~When I feel so tired,
Then I'm done with you.~

The young Son growled suddenly, throwing the pillow to the floor and sliding to the edge of the bed. Pushing with a burst of strength, Goten lurched to his feet, swaying as the room titled sporadically, almost sending him to his knees.

Dende, how long has it been since I've eaten? Too long, his stomach reminded him without mercy. Head hung low, the young man padded across the carpet and onto the wooden floor of the kitchen. He hardly noticed what the refrigerator yielded, or what his hunger-weary hands sought, only that in a matter of moments, there was food before him that he was trying desperately to bribe his stomach to accept. It was tasteless, his mouth hardly registering even the texture.

Goten was done with this, the whole situation was more than he could bear--and Dende knew exactly how hard he had tried to make it work.

Ignoring it was easy in the beginning; we were so newly in love, I never noticed the way he made so certain we were alone, that no one ever knew we were together. It wasn't until I wanted to tell my parents that he made his reasoning all to clear. I should have said something then, I should have made him understand--but no, I had to be the understanding one. After all, I never had to grow up with Vegeta, I didn't know the best course of action...I didn't know...

As he rose from his chair, moving to the sink to dispose of the dishes, he cursed himself for allowing it to come this far.

You know I love you, Trunks, but I gave you the choice and you left--

"--you left, you bastard!" Goten's pitiful cry was spit bitterly through his lips as he slammed the plate and glass down into the sink, shattering both into nothing more than small crystal shards.

It was through a haze that he acknowledged the bright blood on his hands, a bit longer and he realized himself relishing the physical feeling of pain. Anything to avoid the agonizing sensation of his heart being rent in two.

~Everybody feels this way sometimes,
Everybody feels this way! ~

The water was cool as it flowed refreshingly through his lacerated palms, his mind numbly, acutely going over each and every word said earlier that morning. He still wasn't sure where everything had gone wrong; he didn't think his lover would react so violently, so irrationally...Didn't Goten have the right to be upset? They had been together for three and a half years. He was frustrated, irritated that Trunks still found excuses as to why they needed to keep their love a secret!

Cursing softly beneath his breath, the demi-Saiyan removed his hands from the steady stream, nudging the faucet off with his elbow. The pain sharpened gratefully as he grabbed a hand towel from the drawer.

~And I do--
You can't hear it but I do...~

Trunks just didn't seem to understand Goten's sentiment--each and every time the topic was broached, it ended the same, Trunks angry and the other man in senseless tears.

I'm so stupid! I don't know what made me think that tonight was going to be any different...I'm just so damn tired of living this way...

A last lingering glance around the small, poorly lit apartment-Goten tried horribly to ignore the corner that contained the computer, littered with cigarette butts and papers covered in Trunks' scrawled lettering-and he steeled his turbulent emotions.

Four long paces saw him to the messy bed, another second and the duffle beneath it was out and wrenched opened on top of it. Gritting his teeth against angry, burning tears, Goten stalked to the closet, blindly flinging all the articles that belonged to him into the bag and zipping it with hasty, jerky movements. He didn't see the vibrant streaks that the blood left on the door, didn't even care as his wounds reopened and stained his clothing.

The room was claustrophobically uncomfortable and the young man couldn't stand to be in it any longer. Suddenly all that he loved about it was making him dramatically ill--the soft lighting, the battered furniture, the light tapping of rain at the window, the overpowering, omnipresent scent of Trunks on every Dende-damned thing--

The floor was more than gracious enough to catch him as he fell, head thrown back, mouth open in a heart wrenching scream that echoed for miles...

"TRUNKS!"

~*~*~*~*~
~You're trying to convince me
That what I've done's not right~

Trunks felt like he was falling off an incredibly high cliff after discovering that he had somehow forgotten how to fly. His nervous guilt was apparent in the sporadic way that he flew through the grey stormy morning sky. He couldn't understand why Goten was making such a damn fuss about this thing with his father--he'd known from the beginning of their relationship that the lavender haired demi-Saiyan was reluctant to tell the Saiyan prince.

Papa would kill me, pure and simple. Huh, I'd love nothing more than for him to know and accept me, koi, but we both know it's never going to happen...

The man clenched his fists tighter as he flew toward his father's house. He had no where else to go--irony seemed to get its kicks out of him on a daily basis.

Make me fall in love with my best friend and then stick me with the one man on the planet that I can not impress as my father...

Rain whipped ferociously at his uncovered face and chest, grabbing with relentless fingers at the material of his coat and throwing his steady navigating off course. Cursing, the demi-Saiyan surrendered to the will of the elements and landed about a mile from the round, extravagant buildings of Capsule Corporation. So very different from his humble little apartment. Shoving his cold, wet hands into his deep pockets, Trunks began to walk.

~I get so frustrated
I stay up every night~

Dende, I could really use a cigarette... Soppy wet clumps of his hair clung determinedly to his squinting face as he pushed onward, stifling a yawn, but too wrapped within the confines of his own irritability to care. Why did Goten have to be so damn persistent? Trunks loved the man more than anything else, but he still held strong uncertainties when it came to being...gay.

Papa, I'm gay...

He shivered violently as his mind formed the forbidden words that his mouth could not, thunder grumbling through the distant mountains on his left. No, not yet, he couldn't say it, not yet, not yet...

Shaking, his hand lifted to his dark blue eyes, brushing aside the annoying veil of purple that obscured his vision.

It was thoughts like these that kept him from sleeping, that drove him to smoke, made him take the pills that kept him blessedly awake--because the unforgiving darkness of sleep was so much worse. With sleep came dreams, and in every nightmare his strong, stoic father disowned him for being disgustingly weak and fucking one of 'Kakarott's brats'. Right before the prince of all Saiyans beat the shit out of him.

His sensitive stomach turned and his sight blurred, though not for cause of rain. No, he couldn't cry, wouldn't...though as the suppressed image of Goten's stricken face arose in his mind, the man had the most incredible urge to kill himself.

Oh, koi...I'm so sorry...

~You ask me for an answer,
And I'm so tired and I'm up in the air~

Trunks knew the question Goten had posed to him tonight, felt increasingly like his heart was made of molten mercury that coursed through his veins and scorched a path through his body with each hateful thump. His lover had seemed so desperate...so pleading. And he had done nothing, sat there mute while the man he loved cried himself sick.

"Dende, Goten," he choked, kicking at a patch of loose gravel in the road, sending it scattering in a rickety shower of sound. "I don't know what to do..." Stopping dead on the glossy, rain-slicked pavement, the man turned, glancing back the way he came. It would be so easy to go back...to apologize. To kiss his koi and make the whole world better. Forget it all for one blissful night in his lover's embrace. But the sun would rise another day and he would still come home to Goten and the same fucking question on his beautiful lips.

~Everybody feels this way sometimes,
Everybody feels this way! ~

Trunks sighed somberly in distress. He loved Goten! The man made him feel needed and desired for more than his mind. Hell, the entire world was groveling at his feet because of his status and the careful little fact that his last name was the most recent in a long line of hereditary brilliance. But Goten...the other demi-Saiyan had known him since they were old enough to get into trouble...

A soft smile graced the man's sullen features. And they had. Shamelessly and repeatedly. The man chuckled in spite of himself, as he reveled in the feeling of simplistic joy at the thought of a time when their greatest difficulty lie in finding the mystic dragonballs.

~And I do--
You can't hear it, but I do~

Something seemed to snap within the demi-Saiyan--the steel vice grip on his heart eroded, and the innate fear dropped away. Goten had given him so much over the years; probably more than the other man could even comprehend. And he had been there like no other when his mother had died. Been there to hold him as he sobbed, babbling incoherently about the injustices of death. Goten was there to coax him out of his depression, to convince him that taking on the esteemed role of president would honour his mother's memory more than any tears he shed...

That soft, intoxicating voice that was remarkably relaxing when the strains of work began to show visible signs of wear...Dende it's been so long since I heard him sing...

Those rich, ebony eyes that randomly captured him without warning, leaving him pale and breathless when they finally, mercifully, regrettably released him...

The way Goten knew when and how to caress him to make him beautifully mindless...

He couldn't let all of that end because he was scared--terrified of his father.

Trunks knew he owed his wonderful lover that much, at least.

Even if you don't take me back...and Dende knows I wouldn't blame you, I will do this for you, koi...I only hope that it's somehow enough...that I'm not too late.

The rain was beginning to slack into a friendly drizzle, and the spring morning sky lighten as the thick stratus clouds were convinced to break, allowing those things beneath to venture out without fear. His unspoken resolution gave him strength and with a silent vow of heartfelt sincerity, Trunks pulled his jacket tighter around his tall, muscled frame; the demi-Saiyan pivoted where he stood and marched resolutely toward the dark silhouette of the place he once called home.

It was time to face his father.


Song: I Do by Lisa Loeb