Welcome to DBZ Saiyan Garden

He still had the bright silver key on his ring, a shiny companion to the bronze one that belonged to the little downtown apartment. Trunks fingered the ridged metal with his thumb and forefinger on the step that lead to the back door of Capsule Corporation. A practiced flick of the wrist saw his ashy cigarette on the ground, the muddy toe of his sneaker efficiently ending its short existence.

It slipped easily into the lock, turning smoothly in his trembling hand. He didn't know what he was doing, how to even begin to tell his father...The latch clicked and gave with barely a push of his palm, swinging inward to the unoccupied kitchen at the rear of the house.

The room was silent as he stole a shaky breath, walking with false confidence over the threshold. Frail rain-diluted light seeped in through the large windows that decorated three cabinet covered walls, splashing onto the immaculately clean blue tile of the floor and creating crisscrossing patterns within patterns on the natural design of the polished surface. Even though there was enough light in the room to see by, dark shadows still sulked within the crevasses between the grainy wood cupboards. Closing the door out of habit alone, Trunks Vegeta Briefs found himself back in the kitchen--the house that held so many wonderful, painful memories.

He tried desperately not to think of his mother as he blankly untied his shoes, leaving them to drip-dry on the welcome mat--the one she liked so much, with the pink roses around the edge. Hanging his coat on the brass rack to do the same, the demi-Saiyan sighed and tiptoed quietly to sit at the small table set in the center of the spacious room, wincing as the chair screeched deafeningly in the silence of the dormant house.

Weary fingers threaded themselves through his wet and tangled lavender hair, supported his bent head as the man closed pale blue eyes and waited.

He was not disappointed.

Suppressing a cringe, the demi-Saiyan cursed himself for weakness and slowly raised his head.

Outlined in the rich darkness of the living room beyond, the pale morning light washed his bronze skin in silky golden highlights, casting jagged shadows across his stern, unforgiving features.

"Papa..." Trunks couldn't read the look his father directed toward his seated form, but his stalwart figure did not move from his characteristic arms-crossed-how-dare-you-look-at-me-let-alone-speak-to-me position. Without a word of greeting, his father walked silently across the kitchen floor, save the quiet swish of his velvet pajama bottoms on smooth tile. He halted before the far counter and withdrew three Saiyan sized coffee mugs from the cabinet above his head.

~Where do we go from here?~

The young man thought it remotely odd that his father was still clad in his bedclothes, and not in his casual training uniform. A absentminded glance outside proved it to be raining again...maybe the man had just decided to relax for once.

A quiet smile slipped through his nervous exterior at the sound of his father starting the cocoa machine his mother had made the prince years ago at the Saiyan's insistence. Of all the weak spots his royal father was fated to have no one thought hot chocolate would be one of them. The thick aroma of milk chocolate and cream dominated his senses, soothing and calming the rapid thumping of his heart, easing the annoying buzz and rushing in his ears. It brought to the foreground so many images, comforting and serene, of cool winter evenings with his parents, coming in from playing in the newly sprinkled snow with Goten, to be warmed by the nurturing heat of his father's one known addiction...

Sliding his eyes away from the rain-splattered glass, he studied the broad, muscled back of his father, Trunks fought not to fidget, not to twist his hands in his lap, nothing to show his uneasiness in front of the man he admired most in the universe. His movements were graceful and purposeful as he removed the glass beaker from beneath the dripping spicket, pouring the steaming contents into one of the wide lipped mugs that lay lined up and waiting on the wooden surface before him.

"Want?"

"Sure." Trunks accepted the scolding liquid from the other man, fleetingly meeting his obsidian eyes before swiftly focusing on the tendrils of steam that rose from the depths of the cup. Swallowing, the pads of his trembling fingers traced absent circles on the slick ceramic side of the coffee mug.

~This isn't where we intended to be~

Dende, he wished he could just open his mouth, let the words come, the emotions emerge. But this man before him, leaning back against the edge of the counter with all the approachability of a raging dragon simply would not allow it. For the whole of his growing life, Trunks had never had the mind to really seek conversation with his father. It was as much his own fault as the silent man across from him, the demi-Saiyan reflected. He had always turned to his sympathetic mother in times of need, always naively assumed that she would be there to flip the topsy-turvy world right side up again...

~We had it all, you believed in me...~

It was his mother that had encouraged his talents, his genius. Trunks knew the meaning of battle to his father, yet shied away from engaging him, even though it would have given them both the needed portal to embrace the lost relationship that a father owes to his son. That the little boy searches for, yet fears just the same.

~I believed you.~

Ever since he was a child, the demi-Saiyan had idolized his father, treating the impressive fighter like a god--someone the man fashioned himself after, yet vehemently determined to stay away from. He knew he could never live up to the Saiyan prince's expectations. He was too much like his soft human mother for his father's liking.

The silence was oppressive, neither man moving to speak. Through a lavender veil the demi-Saiyan watched his father take a precautionary sip of the steaming beverage, licking away the thick foamy mustache that formed on his upper lip. Raising his own hot cocoa to his mouth, Trunks took an experimental swallow. Swishing the fiery liquid on his tongue and allowing it to sear a path down his throat, the man reveled in the simple enjoyment--just like he remembered. No one made cocoa like his father. A touch of peppermint and entirely too much cream...

~Certainties disappear...~

If only he were a child again...Goten would still be his best friend, he hadn't minded fighting, enjoyed it actually, and his mother would still be alive...

With a muted groan of self-loathing, Trunks rested the mug back on the hardwood table with an audible thunk. What the hell was he thinking? This wasn't time for regrets; he had to do this for himself, for Goten. His dark-eyed lover was right, this was no way to live. He wouldn't fear his father any longer. The man would either accept them both or he would walk out that door and the Saiyan prince would never have to deal with his half-breed son ever again.

"Spit it out, boy." His fragile resolve almost shattered under those four little words, cracked under the unrelenting gaze of a man known to destroy entire planets for the sheer purpose of a night's entertainment. He's going to kill me...

Another hasty swig of his drink, a hand swipe through his stringy hair and Trunks summoned the careless, reckless sensations that accompanied him in each and every battle he employed. He was not going to lose his nerve. If he had just lost his lover, he was damn well going to have made the biggest mistake of his life for a reason.

~What do we do for our dream to survive?
How do we keep all our passions alive
As we used to do?~

His father had never found any use for him as anything other than an alternate punching bag when Goku-san was being retained by his irate wife. There may have been a time when there had existed something between them, when he was younger, before the incomprehensible fear settled in, but now...years had passed, Trunks had grown, and his father had remained the same. Hell, even his appearance had hardly changed. In almost thirty years, Vegeta scarcely showed the minutest alteration. His hair was blacker, if that was possible, no sign of grey or silver like his mother had tried so dramatically to deny. Firm and chiseled, his compact physique was a testament to sheer Saiyan strength. Dende knew he was still as obsessive about his training as he was over three decades ago, his inhuman stamina legendary. And here he was about to tell the epitome of masculinity that his only son was gay. He really needed a cigarette.

~ Deep in my heart I'm concealing things that I'm longing to say~

"Father," he issued the formal title almost as a challenge, immediately grabbing the dangling thread of the other man's attention. The Saiyan's onyx eyes relentlessly fastened on his own, pausing in the act of drinking, waiting for his son to gain the courage to speak.

~Scared to confess what I'm feeling~

He would not back down from the intensity of his father's gaze. Gripping the warm mug in both hands, Trunks forced a deep breath into his uncooperative lungs and swallowed hard. He had to remember that he was his father's son.

"Papa...I..." If the demi-Saiyan had half a conscious mind to notice, he would have sworn that wasn't scorn in his father's dark eyes, but expectation.

~Frightened you'll slip away...~

Papa, please...understand. I want so much for you to be proud of me...I wish I had inherited your strength.

It didn't matter anymore. Goten's plaintive request suddenly sliced through his fearful haze. This was ridiculous. Trunks had defeated countless enemies in his life that were stronger than his father. Besides, if the man did decide to kill him for his declaration, at least he would finally find peace within the chaotic turmoil of himself.

~You must love me.~

I'm his son...he has to love me. Dende-sama, please...

"Papa...I'm gay." He winced involuntarily as the hateful word was finally spoken aloud, before he thought to conceal it. His head had lowered despite all his contrary efforts, blue eyes memorizing the dark creases and folds in his father's burgundy pajama bottoms.

The Saiyan's impressively muscled arm lifted, and for a moment Trunks wondered if this was the end, the instant before he was ki blasted to tiny, pathetic bits and he briefly mourned for the mess it would create in his mother's beloved kitchen. Surprisingly, it never happened. His father just took another leisurely sip from his cooling cocoa, arching his brow at his cringing son.

"So?" The singular word didn't register in Trunks' terror-stricken mind. He knew his father had spoken--opened his mouth and proceeded to say...

"Huh?" The shock in his system served to emphasize his confusion, and the fact that his father was not at this moment raving and screaming was as unsettling as his expected reaction.

The Saiyan prince glanced to the side, placing his empty cup on the countertop beside his leaning form with a dull, hollow sound. When he turned again to look at his baffled son, the man crossed his arms in an easy, languid movement.

"Trunks," The demi-Saiyan physically jerked at the use of his given birth name uttered from the normally scornful lips of his father. "Do you think me stupid?" His stomach dropped straight through his ravaged body to land in his bare feet. Shit...was he going to yell? What the hell was going on?

Vegeta cocked his regal head to one side, eyeing the boy sitting so tensely on the edge of his chair, fingers clenched around the obliviously forgotten drink in his hands.

"Boy, the way you came in here, I thought you were going to tell me something really catastrophic, like you had managed to destroy your mother's company." Dark eyes flashed dangerously. "That I'd be pissed about."

The demi-Saiyan blinked, deliberately reminding himself to breathe. This was actually happening. Dende, he had to physically resist the childish urge to pinch his forearm. In fact, through his daze, he may have done exactly that.

~ Why are you at my side?~

Meeting his father's deep eyes with his own wide, unbelieving blue ones, he searched for reasoning beyond his uncharacteristic actions. Stuttering blindly for words, Trunks attempted to apply coherent language to the questions that blared obtrusively in his befuddled brain.

"B-but Papa, I..." His eyes narrowed as he raggedly regained some shadowy semblance of his confident self. "Why the hell aren't you upset?"

Amazed, the demi-Saiyan watched as his severe father actually began to laugh. It was a warm, almost affectionate sound, nothing like the condescending snickers that he associated with the other man. Shaking his head, the Saiyan graced his son with the slightest outline of a smile.

"Brat, sometimes I wonder why they call you a genius. I've known about you and Kakarott's boy for years." If Trunks had thought his eyes couldn't get any wider, he was mistaken. "Hell, even now the scent of him on you is almost suffocating. I figured you knew that I knew. It's sickeningly obvious when the two of you are together." A pink, embarrassed heat rose to his sharply angled cheeks, highlighting his youthful features. It was demeaning the way he constantly forgot the heightened extent of Saiyan senses. But that thought was promptly disregarded as his mind flooded with the relief that followed his next rational thought.

His father accepted him. This seemed almost too easy...

~ How can I be any use to you now?~

"But..." the cocoa had grown cold in the face of his preoccupation, the thick aroma no longer clogging his senses. Even now his nose was picking up the faint trace of something else that served as a steady undercurrent to the rich chocolate and wet clothing by the door--something darker, muskier...something emanating from his father...

Shaking his head free from the stray thought, Trunks pushed the heavy mug toward the center of the table and sat back more comfortably to regard his father.

"What about carrying on the blood line? I thought that meant so much to you..."

His father snorted derisively. "Come on, I know your mother worked with DNA. Don't tell me that brilliant brain of yours can't come up with a solution to that."

~ Give me a chance and I'll let you see how nothing has changed...~

The demi-Saiyan could have slapped himself for being so despicably blind. Of course! Why the hell hadn't he thought of that before? Why, it would be relatively simple to combine his DNA with Goten's...His quick mind latched onto the now obvious idea, already shooting down all the conceivable paths and methods that could be taken in order to procreate with his lover.

"Trunks." His periwinkle eyes snapped up at his name. There was a familiar seriousness to his father's tone that set his nerves immediately on edge. His muscled body tightened instinctually, coiling where he sat in a defensive gesture. But the Saiyan only recrossed his legs at the ankle as he leaned, looking down at his unbreathing offspring.

"You forget your status, boy." Trunks' lavender brow creased uncertainly, exhaling.

"When have you ever cared that I'm Capsule Corp. president?"

Vegeta rolled his obsidian eyes heavenward. "Not that." His eyes slid down to capture pale blue orbs in an unblinking ebony gaze. "You're a Saiyan prince, boy. Act like it."

A violent shiver raked down his back and he was vaguely aware of his hands curled around the sanded edge of the table in a knuckle-whitening grip. The man he called father had never once denoted him the title that was his by hereditary right. Tears collected in the corners of his eyes and his throat ached at his father's verbal admission.

"Papa..." The Saiyan cut his fumbled words of sincerity off with an arched brow.

"Don't bother, brat. I think I've had enough of your impeccable knack for stating the obvious." The words that should have seared his pride only bounced jovially off of his toughened exterior. Trunks could now hear the quiet, harmless mocking in his father's voice as though a debilitating curtain had been lifted, allowing him to finally view the Saiyan in something other than tainted darkness. It no longer served to infuriate him. Could it possibly be that all these years he had simply taken the other man too seriously in his verbal jousting?

Suddenly the demi-Saiyan smiled. Already the rainy world was looking brighter. Maybe there was hope for their relationship...

Though this new development made his weary spirit soar, his heart still bled from the events that preceded it. He desperately hoped that the same could be said for him and Goten.

He would have said more if the intruding sound of footsteps thumping on the stairs around the corner had not caused him to go effectively silent. For a moment his heart skipped--Mama...But it blessedly didn't stick. He knew the woman was dead, that it could not possibly be her that descended that stairs.

When the mystery figure rounded the corner, his mouth fell open in shock--he was sure his father must have heard his slack jaw hit the kitchen floor. His unblinking eyes slowly absorbed the worn pair of his old sky blue pajama bottoms that fit the man almost perfectly...Of course; he and Trunks were about the same height. Anything of his father's would have looked ridiculous on his longer form. Trailing up, his gaze locked on dark laughing eyes and unruly Saiyan hair. His forehead creased in concentration. Why the hell would he be staying here?

And then his Saiyan senses caught it. The musky scent that had tickled his nose was amplified as the man padded into the lightening kitchen, bare feet slapping on the tiled floor and it was embarrassingly obvious in its origin. Both his father and the other man reeked of sex.

Oh, Dende-sama...

It was with barely a conscious nod that Trunks acknowledged his friendly greeting, following his easy movements in glazed disbelief.

"Hey, Trunks. Boy, you look like hell..." Reaching over the statuesque form of his father, the man grabbed the empty mug on the counter and poured the remaining contents of the glass beaker into it. "I thought I sensed your energy," he said, raising the cup to his lips and blowing on the warm liquid.

Tearing his surprised eyes off the taller figure, Trunks looked to his father. The man had not moved from his position, in fact, not even glanced at the man beside him. Staring into the Saiyan prince's unreadable gaze, Trunks scrounged desperately for answers. Surely this wasn't what it looked like...

With a strangled sound of astonishment, the bombshell was dropped on the bewildered demi-Saiyan's lavender head. The dark haired man bent his head and kissed his father on the lips. Swallowing hard, Trunks tried to process the unthinkable. He knew his father wasn't gay...For all his bravado, the Saiyan prince had loved his mother. And it had been five years...but this...He never would have thought his father to be bisexual, let alone caught dead kissing a Son. Remembering the passionate scent that had followed him into the room, Trunks blushed to the purple roots of his drying hair. Not just kissing, but...Dende, don't let me think about it.

When he was finished with his father's mouth, the man rested back in his lover's arms and flashed the demi-Saiyan a classic Son smile.

"So...how's my baby brother?"


Song: Where Do We Go From Here? from Evita movie version