Welcome to Boxer & Rice

He sat huddled in the farthest back corner of his couch. His cries were getting louder. He’d spent the previous night trying to overcome the fear of being in a crush of so many people at one of the Briefs’s family’s big parties.

Gohan never spent time with people his own age much as a child since ChiChi was so strict about his education. Play time came far and few. If you can call a sparring session with Piccolo play time.

The room was dark. Green and gold in its mildly tasteless decoration, the up-lighting lamps making the room much darker. Even darker still was Trunks, who sat opposite in an armchair. His hands clapped together in his lap as he stared unblinking at Gohan’s latest outburst.

“You can’t understand! I spent most of my life trying to be nice to people. They never wanted to know. Usually they wanted to kill me!! How can you possibly expect me to feel comfortable? I am trying my hardest! It’s not so easy for me… I’m not Mr. Popular like you are…” Gohan’s sobbing began to simmer down.

“Gohan, just mingle! People don’t know you and you’re not giving them a chance! I talk to people I don’t know and they talk back because I’m making the effort!” Trunks still looked empty and hollow eyed, all the while staring blankly at Gohan whilst Gohan’s sobs once again grew to wails and cries as Trunks refused to comfort him directly.

“Trunks… Why aren’t you helping me? You’re supposed to tell me it’s all gonna be ok… That people aren’t so bad… Not that it’s my fault entirely for being an only child most of my life and that I am incapable of talking to people I’ve never met!! Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk to strangers!?” Gohan was getting angry. Trunks could tell but still didn’t make any attempt to move closer to Gohan. He just sat and watched.

Trunks pondered inwardly. He was testing him. Gohan… You wouldn’t try it again, would you? You care too much but I wish to God you would listen yourself. Maybe you’d shut the fuck up and listen to me.

As if Gohan heard Trunks's thoughts he suddenly paused in his misery to glare at Trunks's distant eyes. Gohan was tired of losing all these arguments. Almost every night Trunks would give Gohan a reason to get upset. A reason to be angry and wish he could escape. And in the same argument Gohan would back down in a pitiful heap and tell Trunks over and over how much he loved him and how sorry he was… How could he live like this? He couldn’t bare it. I did all things in his power to make Trunks happy, even thought it often meant losing his own happiness.

Wordlessly, Gohan stood up.

“Trunks-Koi… You tell me almost everyday you love me, tell me that I’m worth it. But now when I need you most, you just sit there looking at me as though I am no better than the plague!! You want no one else but you!! I am good for you when you feel like some action or want some free attention but when it comes to it you’re no boyfriend at all — you’re just insecure!!”

In a bright flash of tears Gohan stormed from the room covering his tear drenched face with his arm. His hair stuck to his salty cheeks.

Trunks still sat, unmoving, unbelieving in what he heard. Gohan had never been so angry. He had outbursts every now and then, reminders of his tormented childhood but how could Trunks deal with that? He’d lived a life in which all the people he came to know came and went faster than mayflies – rising in the dawn and falling in the dusk. He was too young. He’d been made cold, apathetic, resentful. “Gohan …” He whispered. Gohan didn’t come. He knew this time he’d pushed him too far but hey, Gohan would get over it, the same way he got over ever argument over night! … Wouldn’t he?

***

As Gohan fled the building he came to the end of several acres of Capsule Corporation land and sat on the low wall that acted as its barriers. The walls didn’t need to be more than two or three feet tall because anyone stupid enough to hop over that wall into Capsule Corp. was obviously stupid enough to deal with lasers and robots, and amongst all that a menagerie of dinosaurs. Sighing, he rested his elbows on his knees and put his face in his hands.

It’s not supposed to be this way… Trunks, you’re supposed to hold my hand, hold me, and tell me it’s all going to be OK… Not sit empty minded and tell me repeatedly everything I do is done wrong because I don’t do it your way… That’s not how it’s supposed to be.

Gohan wept for hours. Waiting for Trunks to follow him, find him, and tell him he was sorry. Gohan forced his head up. Ah, the stars. Where all his trouble ever began.

He gave a bemused “Heh…” and smiled wryly. “So Trunks… How are you? What’s going on with the weather these days? What’s that? You love me? Isn’t that just peachy…” Gohan conversed with himself trying to be comical and stoic. “You just couldn’t talk to yourself all night…” Gohan mused.

A shooting star! Making a wish. Gohan perked up a little. He decided it was only fair that he took advantage of his time away from his power hungry boyfriend and go to the city for some nightlife. The shy young demi-Saiyan rarely left home, his childhood fears of being slaughtered by a power thirsty space pirate often overcoming his desire.

Gohan flew over his home, he wasn’t going to stop and tell his `mommy’ he was going out. She’d only start bitching about how he should be taking more time off to mark school exams and help pupils rather than spending all his time with `that no good egotistical ape’, as she liked to address Trunks.

Gohan hated that. ChiChi had always been such a supportive –if somewhat strict- mother. She didn’t like the fact her eldest son was gay – was that really any example to set to his younger brother? She disapproved and made it known but she was powerless to prevent it. Gohan was old enough now to choose his own mate, even if it was a member of the same sex.

Smiling, Gohan whirled and reeled in the night sky. He often lay out at night and watched the stars circling around. It was comforting to know the space wasn’t as empty as he had always remembered since his trip several years ago to planet Namek.

He shuddered. Watching his friends die had been hard. The fact he’d watched them die multiple times was even harder!

Ah forget it, he thought inwardly. Now was no time for that. He had to cheer himself up! Best to go far away from the Corp. and into the busiest part of town. Trunks wouldn’t come after him and if he did, he hopefully wouldn’t find him.

The sky was at its darkest and now the time had come to hit the dance floor.

Gohan loved to dance. He didn’t usually make appearances at gay bars for Trunks’s sake. Trunks wasn’t ashamed of being gay; not at all, he actually advertised it! He just didn’t want anyone `hitting on his meat’ as he would often say to Gohan.

Another thing that made Gohan want to wretch. Being called a `piece of meat’. He wondered if it was purely affectionate or if Trunks was just being possessive? Who could tell? In the two years they’d been together Trunks would sometimes use that phrase as a harsh term of anger but sometimes he would whisper it in Gohan’s ear in bed when he was being seduced.

Leaning against the bar, Gohan noticed a particular figure, definitely male.

Familiar, in fact. Trunks? No, not Trunks. The hair was all-wrong, i`t was shorter… Darker… Juunanagou? He had to investigate. He walked up to this figure, a mere silhouette against the volatile flashing of the strobe lights. He put his hand on the persons shoulder.

“Excuse me, do I know you?” The figure recoiled. His pale, watery eyes looking questioning but remarkably unfocused. Gohan faltered, “Juu-Juunanagou? What are you doing in a place like this?” Gohan could hardly believe his eyes. Even more so his ears when Juunanagou responded, “Call me Juuna, and I’m in here the same reason as you. I assume you’re gay?” His infinitely cool exterior threw Gohan off his guard, as always. Still, Juunanagou’s expectant face suggested he was being utterly serious. What could Gohan say?

The truth would be good, he pondered.

“Well,” Gohan began, “Yeah, I’m gay but, you’re not totally human so, how are you gay? I mean, you can’t feel emotions, can you?” Juunanagou poked Gohan’s chest and laughed childishly – Gohan could have almost sworn he was blushing. He ran his fingers through his hair and offered Gohan a drink. Accepting, Gohan and Juunanagou sat bat a table near the edge of the dance platform.

“So, how’s Trunks-san? Getting on all right I assume? Is he here with you? I’d quite like to talk to him in private for a moment…” Gohan raised a curious eyebrow. Taking a sip of his drink through his straw he glanced at Juunana’s expectant face and replied, “No, he is not here with me. We sort of had another argument and I decided it was best to spend a little time apart.” Sighing, Juunanagou nodded sympathetically. “There’re so few good men in the world today, eh? I was considering asking Goten, you know… But I felt maybe leading him on would be wrong since your mother – Chichi, isn’t is? – Disapproves so highly of your relationship. I mean no offence, of course, it’s just common knowledge.” Juunana smiled pleasantly – if that was possible for the jinzouningen.

“I have a headache, Juuna-san. Have you any pills? Perhaps some ibuprofen or aspirin? The music is so loud in here!” Gohan held a hand to his forehead.

Nodding politely, Juunanagou pulled a tiny little pillbox from his jeans pocket. “These will make all your aches, pains, and stresses just melt away, Gohan-san…” He grinned. Gohan didn’t even glance twice; he just took one and swallowed. Anything that would banish his headache was enough!

“Goodness, this stuff’s quite strong, Juuna… My eyes are losing focus.” Gohan blinked repeatedly over and over, trying to get his eyes to focus again.

“It only lasts a few moment, Go-san, don’t worry. You’ll feel right as rain after a few drinks.” With that, Juunanagou got up and melted into the crowd. Returning briskly, he bought back with him another bottle of alcho-pop for himself and Gohan, and sat down at the table. They began to drink.

After finishing his sixth drink Gohan took the android’s hand and laughed. The dance floor was looking good by his sixth drink and all sense of self-doubt was gone and drowned in alcohol. That medicine Juuna gave him must’ve worked miracles!

“Oh, you like to dance? That’s good; I was going to ask you anyways. It’s your night off, may as well enjoy it.” Peering at Gohan’s obviously loss of focus he allowed himself to be led onto the dance floor. Gohan was a surprisingly good dancer. Who would ever have known that such an isolated child could have known how to grind on the dance floor?

Trunks should be here to see this, Gohan thought, He’d be so jealous I can dance better than him!

Juunanagou smirked; he could almost hear Gohan’s thoughts and called to the young demi-saiyan, “Trunks will be so mad when he realized he’s missed you dancing in public for the first time!”

Gohan smiled. For the first time in a long time he was having fun. Real fun! Not the sort that means you have to wear protective clothing and take punches, but fun that meant being a free spirit!

“You dance well Gohan-san. I think I’ll join you.” Coolly, Juunanagou entered the floor, pushing his way through the crowd who were gathered, watching this famous, reserved demi-Saiyan drunk and loving it. For hours they danced, the center of attention in the club. All those men and women – all gay – watching and inwardly drooling over these two fine bishounen.

As the dancing got more heated it became more of a strip scene. Gohan pulled off his sweat-soaked shirt and threw it to the floor raising a loud cheer from their appointed audience. His sweaty body shone in the strobe lights, his hair was wet and his spiky mane thrashed around uncontrollably to the bass line of the music. Juunana was little different; except only half as drunk.

The two men controlled the dance floor. But how was it Gohan could dance for so long and not realize it was already nearly morning? They must’ve been dancing for hours.

The time came for the club to close. Unsteadily, Gohan retrieved his shirt from young men who were holding it as a sacred possession whilst Juunangou hoisted himself and Gohan away.

“I’d best get you home, Go-san. Trunks-san will be getting worried. It’s four in the morning.”

Gohan hiccuped before responding, “He won’t *hic* care. He’s prolly in *hic* bed sleepin’ soundly.”

Not arguing, Juunanagou flew out of the street and back to the Capsule Corp. HQ.

By the time he had reached Trunks’s door, Gohan had collapsed into a state of utter unconsciousness. Feeling mildly responsible, he rang the doorbell until Trunks – looking disheveled – grudgingly answered the door.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing at my goddamn door this time for the morning?!” He yelled angrily. Smoothly and unprovocably, Juunanagou spoke quietly, “Are you really trying to wake up all the employees here? I returned your boyfriend. He took some pills and got wasted at a nightclub in the city. I kept him out of trouble, something you’re obviously incapable of. Look after him. He didn’t stop talking about you.”

Looking blank, Juunangou lightly and purposefully dropped Gohan into Trunks’s unexpecting arms, causing him to become crushed under Gohan’s dead, sleeping weight.

Glaring angrily at Juunanagou Trunks growled, “You better not have done anything to him because if you have I’ll here about it. I’ll come after you and make you wish Dr. Gero had invented light bulbs instead of Androids…”

Although Trunks thought it sounded threatening, Juunanagou obviously had other ideas.

“Oh really? Well if you keep arguing and disregarding him, you won’t have any reason to hunt me down or, for that matter, make me wish I was a light bulb…” Calmly, he turned from the doorway and walked out into the night before hastily retreating into the early morning sky. The sun was rising.

“Gohan… I swear… If you and him are up to anything, I will kill both of you…”

With that, Trunks carried his drunk and disorderly boyfriend indoors and laid him on the couch. This time, Gohan had got Trunks very mad, very mad.

“When you wake up, I’m gonna tell you everything I think happened last night until you confess what went on between you and that metallic bag of rust.”

He whispered into Gohan’s unhearing ears. In Gohan’s dreams, all he could see was the dance floor and Trunks. Together, they controlled the dance floor and were the idols of nightlife.

Just he and his lover. Yet in waking life, Trunks obviously had other impressions.

***

The next morning Gohan awoke, it wasn’t actually morning.

“Oooooohhhhh, my head! Torankusu-chan?” Gohan groaned and gripped his head in his palms. Oh his head ached! He wished he had some of those miracle pills Juuna-san gave him. They’d bring this violation of thought to a halt.

Sitting himself upright he shielded his eyes as his curtains were blown back by an open window. The sun glared in his face.

Gohan snarled, “Damn sun… Yeah, I bet you’re loving this, aren’t you?” He addressed the universe in general. Life had a way of picking on him. He sighed, recalling this thought. Recalling his arguments with Trunks and suddenly he wondered, “What happened last night?”

“Go-chan?” Trunks peered around the doorway. “Are you awake yet?” Gohan’s face didn’t change a great deal, but it did look mildly shocked.

“Tora-chan! Are you still angry with me? I’m sorry I walked out, but I don’t regret it…” This brought a change of expression to Trunks’s face.

Sitting himself next to Gohan on the bed, he asked calmly, “What exactly happened last night? You didn’t get home until four in the morning! I was worried sick!” Gohan’s face morphed from his baby like smile into a picture of terror at Trunks’s suddenly raised voice.

“Tru-chan? You’re still angry with me? It was you’re fault I ran out in the first place! How dare you be shouting at me! Last night for the first time ever I had fun without having to beat someone up and you know what? I enjoyed myself, and it was without you!”

Gohan was now standing on his bed in his clothes from the previous night. They stank of cigarettes and booze. All the while, the argument between them getting more and more heated as neither one could bring the other to see his reasoning.

“But Gohan, you weren’t alone last night! You spent your time with that rust bucket Juunanagou! And I bet you weren’t just dancing on the dance platform either… You certainly came home late enough!” Gohan stopped.

This accusation was going to stop here.

“How dare you accuse me of cheating? I can't believe in my whole life you, the one person who only ever completely understood me, accuse me of going behind your back?”

Trunks stopped shouting. Instead, he looked Gohan straight in his eyes, penetrating the depths of his mind.

“I didn’t accuse you of cheating but now you’ve just answered my question for me. You were going behind my back and your sudden defense of Juunanagou proves it.”

Gohan looked stricken. His hands were shaking, he was beginning to sweat and his pupils dilated.

“If that’s what you honestly believe, Trunks-kun, I think we need some time apart. I’m going out. I may see you later and I may not. Oh, and before I go… Happy anniversary.” With those cold words, Gohan steadily vacated his room.

Anniversary? Gods! Trunks had completely forgotten. It’d been three years today since they confessed their affections and yet, he had forgotten all about it.

I blew it… But it was his fault. He was the one who decided cheating was the way out… I would never…He realized this statement had flaws and stopped before thinking anymore. So what led him to do it?

Suddenly, something dawned on Trunks. “Juunanagou…”

Trunks decided he was best left to recover. Maybe Bulma or Goten would be good company. He had to chat to his mother. It was always so embarrassing, but his mother always felt it was no different than girl talk.

Face it, when your gay, girl talk isn’t in anyway intimidating, he mused, looking to his reflection in Gohan’s bedside mirror.

***

Bulma was puttering around in the garden when Trunks set foot on her garden lawn. “Hi, Mom…” He stuttered. Bulma glanced up, hardly looked at him and remarked, “What’s wrong with you and Gohan now?” Bulma was a mother. Mother’s knew everything. Or at least, this mother knew everything.

“Well, I wanted to talk to you about, uh… Stuff… Nothing’s really wrong, just…” He found for want of a better word than `so-so’.

“In turmoil?” Bulma cut in, her face looking as knowing as ever.

“I thought so. He’s run out again, hasn’t he? You are so over powering, Trunks-chan. I’m surprised he doesn’t go back to live at home the way you seem to control the boy.”

Recoiling mentally, Trunks spat, “I haven’t said a word and already you’re biting my head off?! Whose mom are you anyway?” He had that look Vegeta would have when he was being mocked. Bulma knew how to pull his strings, though. In fact, she knew how to pull most anyone’s.

“I’m not biting your head off. I’m just saying maybe you should take him out places sometimes or have a `quiet night in’ if you know what I mean and I know you do. It’s just, poor Go-kun must feel so left out all the time, what with you going out and getting wrecked most every other night. The little dear has to carry you to bed. It must’ve been quite a liberating experience, being free of his cage. Doing the things he admires you for.”

Bulma’s tone took on a harsher hiss than before. “You want him all to yourself but you often leave him alone at night. Maybe time apart would be a good idea? Not just time spent boozing…”

Trunks’s eyes fell into line with Bulma’s. Little more than a whisper crawled from Trunks’s throat, “But I can’t leave him… even for a little while… I’m scared he’ll leave, Mom.”

Bulma quickly brightened up and hugged her son in her attempt to bring a smile to his troubled features. Then, something dawned on Trunks and hastily he pulled back.

“What’s wrong, dear?” Bulma queried. Her son looked horrified. His white face contrasting the watery blue of his panic stricken eyes.

“Mom, last night when Gohan came home really drunk, Juunanagou had to bring him home. Gohan said nothing happened but Juunanagou said Trunks was `wasted’ and that he had taken `pills’. Do you think he means… drugs?”

Smiling and suddenly taking a hold of her beloved son again she laughed, “Don’t be ridiculous! Gohan would never touch drugs! A teacher and the son of the most power driven woman alive? A drug addict? No Trunks. I think you’re just being paranoid and are still feeling jealous Juunana-san brought him home.”

Considering Trunks hadn’t told his mother the whole story – of his accusations and disbeliefs – he felt she would probably be right. Bulma seemed to know everything. All mothers do, he guessed.

“Yeah, you’re probably right, Mom, sorry.” Trunks left his mother’s embrace and waved goodbye.

Perhaps he should go out for a while? Shopping, maybe. He could buy a new shirt, or maybe if he was feeling daring, some naughty underwear. That always brought a smile to both their little faces. He took off, sky bound.

Trunks decided to think. Sitting crossed-leg on a cloud, he pondered aloud, “I don’t really mean to be so nasty, Go-chan… I don’t want you to leave and I don’t mean to encourage you. I’m just… so useless. I wanna make you happy. I wish you didn’t truly believe that I prefer other men. All those male tarts in magazines and porn movies… you think all men are the same but you forget that you’re one too… Oh, Go-chan… If only you understood.”

Thoughts of Gohan’s were often expressed externally. They were seldom positive. Gohan had little self-esteem and looked to Trunks for it. But whenever he saw Trunks sizing up other guys or looking through his magazine collection, it stirred up feelings of insecurity and anger.

Maybe another reason why he hates me so much… Trunks pondered.

He rose from his cloud, feeling empowered with a will to live life fast.

No use self pitying! Time to hit the club! That thought in mind, he shot away from his cloud and into the far distance.

***

“Juuna-kun? I was wondering…” Gohan began only to be interrupted.

“You want some more medicine, don’t you?” He grinned slyly but unnoticed by Gohan’s shocked face. “How did you know? My headache came back since this morning… I think it’s a hang over but it wasn’t made better by Trunks… He yelled at me for being out.”

Nodding and smiling casually, Juunanagou opened his little pillbox.

“Now Gohan, listen to me. You mustn’t tell people about my magic medicine. It’s my secret; understand? I mean, I wouldn’t want the whole town to find out and steal my recipe, you know?” Juunanagou battered his aluminium eyelashes innocently. Gohan agree happily, snatching the pill from Juunana’s palm.

“Oh, it’s that weird side affect again, Juuna-kun… I feel all sick.” Gohan fumbled and had to sit down as the world around him spun in several directions, throwing him off of his feet.

“You’ll be fine a moment, Go-kun, almost flying, if you like. On top of the world!” Juunanagou theatricized, waving his hands in the air to suggest its glory – a victory over illness. He oozed class. It leaked from every pour of his waxy frame as he verbally flavored his creation.

Gohan opened his squinting eyes. “Wow, things seem a lot more… colorful. I feel great! Thanks Juuna-kun!” Gohan kissed his cheek and blasted up and away into the midday sky, leaving a trail of vapor in his wake.

***

“Gohan-san? You look pale. Are you alright?” Goten gingerly prodded at Gohan’s shoulder.

“Gosh, Goten… I… feel so down, you know? This morning I felt on top of the world, and now; I just feel so… drained.”

Gohan lay on his back looking vacantly at the darkening dusk sky. It had been raining since lunchtime. The sky was blackening and gave the young Saiyan men ashen toned skin. Gohan’s back was wet with the soaking grass. The thickening mud was swallowing his ebony hair as Goten looked over his pitiful corpse.

“Gohan-kun… What’s being going on with you and Trunks-san lately? Juunanagou and I were talking… He said you’re going to leave him because he treats you badly.” Goten’s voice was small but carried across the gentle breeze and weaved around the droplets of rain into Gohan’s empty ears. Sitting up, he grabbed Goten’s loose white shirt, staining it with his dirty hands as he pressed his head against his brother’s torso and began to cry. One tear coursed his face and dropped from it, followed by a torrent.

“Goten… you’re not old enough to understand yet but one day you’ll find someone you want to…” he paused, looking for the perfect word. “Protect. You’ll just want them to be happy, for them to feel they have freedom but they won’t go because they don’t want to. I thought Trunks-chan was that to me but recently things have been so… cold… He’s losing his temper at me for no reason and I’m no longer allowed my life as he has his.” Gohan stopped for a long, heavy sigh.

Goten picked up, “So, what you’re saying is… You don’t love him?” Gohan gripped his brother’s shirt tighter and gritted his teeth to close in the tears.

“No! That’s not it Goten, not at all. It’s just that I don’t think he appreciates me anymore and that I need a little space. Time for myself to go out and enjoy what I missed whilst Trunks realizes he needs me.” Gohan looked up longingly, weakly at his younger brother.

Nodding supportively, Goten held his brother’s head close and caressed his hair.

“I understand Go-chan. I’m just scared. It’ll be like losing another brother to me. I’ve gotten to know Trunks-kun so well. Do you understand it will be hard for me, too?” Goten’s big chestnut eyes gleamed in the evening rain. He felt Gohan’s hands releasing their intense grip.

Picking himself up, he took a deep breath with closed eyes. In his head, he saw Juunanagou holding a handful of those miracles tablets. Gohan felt he needed one…or two… Just to perk him up. Goten noticed his siblings distant look as he opened his eyes.

“Go-chan… You’re going to see Juunana, aren’t you?” Gohan looked mildly startled but his face began to smile.

“Yes, Goten. I am. Would you like to come with me? He will be pleased to see you.” Gohan winked. Something very un-Gohan-like.

“Gohan, before we go, can I talk to you about something?” Goten scuffed his shoe in the mud and grass and bowed his head to avoid eye contact. Looking suddenly concerned, Gohan held his brothers shoulders to bring their eyes to meet.

“Goten-san?” He looked questioning. Goten fumbled to bring his words out.

“Gohan, when did you… you know… realize…?”

Gohan raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Realize what?”

“Realize you…. You were…you…” He paused, closed his eyes tight and then spat desperately, “When-did-you-realize-you-were-gay?”

It came out so hurriedly; Gohan needed time to let his brain untangle the words. Upon realization, his features creased up and looked awkwardly at his minor.

“If you really want to know… Well, it was about four years ago. I was talking to Videl and we began to discuss the subject of marriage. I couldn’t bring myself to say I wanted to get married to her because I was in love with someone else… She was so angry and confused when I told her…”

Gohan sighed upon recollection of those good old days when the Great Saiyan Man and his sidekick saved the town from petty evils such as robbery.

“It was Trunks, wasn’t it?” Goten interrupted his thoughts. Gohan shook his head and smiled gently.

“No, Goten-kun. My first love was called Aoshi Nomura.” He began to blush and smirk like a little schoolgirl. Goten looked blank. Trunks wasn’t his first love? He had always thought he was. It seemed perfect from the outside.

Gohan continued aloud, “He was tall and had the most incredible cut figure. He had had an ironing board stomach that was amazing and his hair changed colours so frequently… Last time I saw it, it was red and white. His eyes were the best, though. They were a lucid shade of green. They almost bubbled when I looked at them and no one could kiss like Aoshi. No one.”

Goten was blushing. How could his brother be so attached to this person still after so long?

“So, you still like him, Gohan?” His big auburn eyes focusing on his brother’s distant, longing gaze. “Why’d you leave?”

Gohan looked to his little brother. They were the same height but in the dirt Gohan was smaller and had to look up to see his brother’s questioning face.

He braced himself. “I left because… Well… He died. Two years ago he overdosed on a drug called cocaine. I had no idea he was using it. His body just up and wasted away… I still miss him…” Solemnly, he sniffed and wiped his face, making it muddier unintentionally. Goten realized he’d wandered into Gohan’s private emotional battlefield. He had to get out before he got blown away.

“It’s getting late, Gohan. Can we go home?” Goten tugged at his day dreaming brother’s sleeve. Glancing down with a change of expression, Gohan ruffled his sibling’s hair and laughed.

“Sure, but I don’t think my curfew is up yet. That and I don’t much wanna see mom. She’ll only nag at me to get a wife!”

He laughed again and dragged himself from the boggy grass with a gentle pulse of energy. Goten looked miffed.

“So, I’ll go home and you’re going to go see Juunanagou, aren’t you?”

Gohan blinked. “I feel sick and he has some medicine that always makes me feel better. I wanna get some from him. Maybe have a few drinks, too. Nothing beyond that, baby brother. He likes you too much for that.”

Grinning and winking, he shot off in the direction of the same club as five nights ago. What was it called again? He sauntered in his mind for the name.

Ah! Tia-Folle. It had a funny foreign name.

Guilt but determination mingled in his mind. He didn’t want to avoid Trunks completely, that wouldn’t save matters but on the other hand Trunks needed to cool off and he needed his own space.

No matter – his destination was set. But since his conversation with Goten, he couldn’t stop thinking about Aoshi and how little he had never told Trunks of them. But then, Trunks had never asked.

***

Dear Journal. Today, I spent my last five days alone. Gohan left early this morning without me. I think he’s seeing Juunanagou secretly. I wish he’d talk to me. He knows I love him; I just can’t quite express it totally right. What should I do? Mom said I’m too violent. That I shouldn’t be so quick to shout at him but Dad said the opposite. He said Gohan has an attitude problem and that he’s wrong to be such a wimp. I just can’t figure it out anymore. When our first year of being together was over, we were fine. Everything was great. We laughed together, sparred together. Went out with the other guys. But now… He just wants to stay at home and snuggle up on the sofa. He cries all the time. He’s so miserable and I’m so powerless… One of the 10 most powerful entities alive and I can’t make my boyfriend smile.

But, you know what, Journal? I think maybe I’ll surprise him. I can’t seem to do much else to cheer him up so maybe when he comes home tonight I’ll have a nice meal ready. Some music he likes, even though I’m not totally keen on his tastes. I mean, Gackt Camui and Hyde? No thanks. Give me X-Japan any day. But still, if it makes him happy.

I’d better go now. I’ll talk more later. Bye bye!

***

Trunks stopped writing. The doorbell was ringing and only one person would ring as persistently as this.

“Coming Piccolo!!” Upon opening the door, Trunks was horrified. “G-G- Gohan??”

Piccolo was holding Gohan. Not just any Gohan. A very disheveled and collapsed Gohan.

“Piccoro-san, what happened?” Trunks snatched Gohan from him and ran him up to his room whilst Piccolo slowly followed. Gingerly, Trunks lay Gohan on the bed. Gohan’s complexion was patchy and icy – horrifyingly pale. Under his eyes were dark.

Sighing heavily, Piccolo sat down in the chair at Gohan’s bedside table. Opening his mouth he faltered for the right words, the truth, the subtle truth.

“Trunks, I dunno how to tell you this… But, here’s what happened…” He began to explain…

Five days ago…

Gohan flew into the club and over the head of the bouncer. Tia-Folle was becoming his regular bar. He could already sense Juuna’s expecting energies.

“Ah, Gohan-kun!” Looking sly as he always did, Juunanagou embraced his friend. “I’ve been expecting to see you. I bought you these.” Rattling in his clenched fist was a little white cylinder. Unscrewing the lid, Juunanagou plucked out one of the pills and popped it into Gohan’s unsuspecting mouth.

Swallowing, Gohan exclaimed, `How did you know this is what I’d come for?” Running a meandering finger across Gohan’s chest – from one shoulder to the other – Juunanagou whispered into his ear, “Because you’re addicted.”

Blinking, Gohan looked the Jinzouningen straight into his eyes. “Juuna… I’m confused? My headache won’t go away and this is all that cures it. It gets worse and worse if I don’t have them. But, I cannot be addicted! It’s medicine.” Gohan looked panic stricken. Holding Gohan’s shoulder firmly, Juunanagou spoke calmly to his mind, “It isn’t just any medicine Gohan-chan. It’s Ecstasy. It releases you from your pain. You need it, Gohan-chan. Your headaches – all your pains – can only be cured by these tiny pills. I have for you a small gift. This bottle of ten pills but when these run out Go-chan, the rest aren’t free. You’ll have to find means to pay me for them.” Juunanagou’s hand was sliding down Gohan’s chest and resting itself on his hip.

Gulping, feeling himself loose grip to the pill he had swallowed, he closed his eyes to resist the sensations of his body taking over his mind. Juunanagou was smiling.

Gohan opened his eyes. Everything was twice the color it had been.

Everything was spinning, flying, thrashing, and convulsing. It was his perfect world. Snatching the bottle from Juunanagou’s hand he swallowed another pill. His mind was on air. He didn’t care that his medicine was illegal. It gave him a better sensation than his lover could and he enjoyed every moment.

“Juuna-chan… When I run out, where will I find you?” Gohan’s eyes were dilated and his palms were shaking. His body needed to be on the dance floor where he could join in with all the convulsions and pulsations he could feel knocking around inside his head. The buzz was now a throbbing tangle of vines and strings in his brain.

“I love it!” He cried, consumed by the feeling of immortal happiness.

Juunanagou pulled Gohan close; their torso’s touching.

“If you want more, I will be here, every night, every day; waiting. Do not forget, once you have used these up, you will have to pay to the next ten, or twenty, or more.” Juunanagou was pulling Gohan closer, taking advantage of his open chances. He slid a hand down into Gohan’s jeans and then his boxers until he found his destination and began to grope Gohan’s groin.

Gohan yelped pleasantly. “I will! I will! I’ll come here every night and day!” He couldn’t deny such a glorious feeling. A feeling his own lover couldn’t give him. The feeling he had waited for, for so long.

Retracting his hand, Juunanagou pulled away and smiling wryly, disappeared and merged into the many bodies of the dance floor.

Hurriedly, Gohan joined the many bodies and lapped up in his mind all the cheers of the admiring fans that recognized him from several nights back as the best dancer in the club.

Gohan was lost in the sea of faces. The screams and cries and heavy beats of the loud music. His head spun as the flickering strobe lights tossed his focus in and out or perspective. It felt glorious!

” I have release!” He cried, throwing his shirt to the floor.

***

Five days passed. Gohan was out of pills. His face was white and his eyes were dark and blood shoot. He shivered in need. “Juuna… Juuna-chan… I … need… you.” That was the last straw. He couldn’t take it. He had tried to live a day with no pills but he couldn’t handle it. Life was too stressful. He needed that escape. That way out of life. Trunks hadn’t come to visit as he had hoped. He was expecting Trunks to be worried by now. To come looking for him. He had spent the last five nights in a hotel room. He hadn’t been to school. He had no money at all. But he needed a way of finding it. Asking Juunanagou for advice was best. Oh yes. He needed advice and fast.

He needed those pills.

Blasting off through his window he headed for Tai-Folle. Juuna said he was waiting. So he would be.

Money… I NEED MONEY!!! Arrrrrrggggghhh!!!!

“AAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Gohan opened his mouth and screamed. He felt he was falling apart and his head hurt to the point of wanting to break it open.

Landing and quickly and dodging the bouncer as always, he stood in the center of the dance floor looking wrecked and dirty. He looked for Juuna.

Where is he? Where IS he?!

Juunanagou waved fancily from the far side of the hall, looking awkward in a dingy little corner.

“Ah, Go-chan. You ran out so soon?” He looked questioning but pleased. Whereas Gohan, on the other hand, looked exasperated. “Juuna-chan, please, give me some now and I’ll pay you back, I promise! I need them! I haven’t had any for a day! I ran out two days ago! My head hurts so much I wanna burst! Please Juuna-chan!” Holding his head in his hands Gohan looked pitifully at Juunanagou who was pondering. His face looked mildly vacant.

“I can’t give you any for free, Go-chan, I don’t do credit but I feel, in your very individual case, I can make a special exception…” Juunanagou was eyeing Gohan up and down. He eventually rose. “Do you have a place to go, my dear Go-chan?” Juunanagou was grinning wickedly.

“I have a hotel room… I decided Trunks doesn’t want me at his for now…” Gohan’s voice was but a whisper in the loud din of music.

Juunanagou’s smile only widened. “A hotel room? Excellent. Come, Gohan, let’s go, and explain my terms of payment when we get there…”

***

Present time…

Trunks was panicking. Gohan wouldn’t wake up and his complexion was deathly white. Shaking his shoulders violently and trying to contain his tears, he screamed at Gohan’s unchanging face, “What the hell are you doing Gohan!? This just isn’t funny anymore! Wake up!”

Piccolo looked concerned but that made no difference because he always did. Upon resting a nervous hand on his rotting face, Trunks observed Gohan’s restful look. Inwardly admiring his sensual features, he was awoken from his daydream as Gohan rolled over and threw up over the side of the bed. He shuddered but didn’t wake up.

***

Five days ago…

“Your… terms?” Gohan quivered. What could he do? He needed those pills like he needed oxygen. Without them he’d suffocate and waste away.

Drugs…That was all that echoed around his mindless skull… Drugs.

As if mind reading, Juunanagou slipped an arm around his unsuspecting client and heckled to him, “I prefer medicine to the word drugs. I mean, they’re the same thing of course, but medicine gives it class.”

Gohan was beginning to feel better, even though he knew that this was going to lead somewhere he’d rather not go.

“So, Go-chan” Juunanagou began, being trivial, “What are you dreams for the future?”

Mindlessly and absently, Gohan responded quietly, “I want to fly.”

Smirking slyly and pulling Gohan inward Juunanagou mused, “and so you shall, my dear Go-chan, so you shall. All you must do is agree to my terms. And by now I’m sure you’re beginning to realize.”

Gohan did realize. He didn’t care. He needed those pills regardless of what it meant. Something inside him wouldn’t stop trying to get them. He had to have them, if only to stop the headaches. These endless headaches that no penicillin, no aspirin could cure.

***

Reaching his hotel room, he unlatched the door and invited Juunanagou willingly inside.

“Gohan-chan. Trunks will never know.”

Pivoting around slowly, Gohan echoed, “I don’t care if he does.” And pulled off his shirt, tearing it off button for button.

“I like to see willing, Go-chan. My terms are simple. If you’re not my bitch, you don’t get my pills. Understand?”

Coldly, Gohan nodded and lay him self on the bed expectant.

“Be enthusiastic Gohan-chan. The more hours you can stand, the more pills you get. Let’s say, ten for every hour you can amuse me??”

Blinking, unknowingly and definitely not particularly caring, Gohan just shrugged the Jinzouningen’s words and waited.

“Are you gonna get on with it or what? I want my pills.” Gohan snarled.

Sliding across to Gohan’s bed, he sidled himself closer, perching on the bed. He lifted his leg and straddled Gohan’s shoulders. Slowly, as if to cause pain, he unzipped his fly and pulled down his jeans and underwear revealing all.

Gohan merely snorted. He wanted his pills.

Growling gently at Gohan’s persistence to be forced Juunanagou slid his hands under Gohan’s unresisting head and pulled up sharply. In mid-yelp his cry was muffled by Juunanagou’s throbbing erection. There was nothing he could to stop it. He needed his pills too much to even reject sexual abuse.

He sucked. Tickling the many inches of flesh with his tongue. He was beginning to enjoy himself.

Juunanagou pulled harder on Gohan’s head making him wretch and squirm as Juunanagou’s will pulsed at the back of his tender throat.

Moaning, he let his head fall back. Grinning.

“Hmmm… This won’t last long if you don’t stop. Better find something better for me to do if you want your pills… whore.”

Smirking viciously, Juunanagou pushed Gohan off of his semi-organic organ and pounced from several feet away Gohan.

Frustrated and wanting his medicine, he chased.

Caught in a corner between Gohan’s wardrobe and the bathroom, Juunanagou paused to let Gohan catch up. He let his jeans and underwear drop the floor.

What fun was a chase without temptation?

***

Present time…

“I don’t understand Piccolo. Why is he so ill? Why won’t he wake up?” Trunks finished wiping the contents of Gohan’s bowels from his carpet and was nursing his sleeping lover.

“Trunks-kun. I don’t know why he’s ill but he was going wild in the club and collapsed. I followed him, ok? I’ve seen how bad he’s looking. His mother was concerned.”

Piccolo waited for an answer and got one when Trunks laughed; bemused. “Since when did you care what the hell ChiChi thinks? That bitch hates us all so why the hell you bothered to look out for her braying son I want to know.” There was an air of accusation in his voice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I know is that Gohan is as much my friend and feel as much like a son to me as he is to Goku and ChiChi. I feel I have to look out for him. Which, by all accounts, is more than you’re doing if you let him get this wasted.”

Gasping, Trunks looked stunned.

“How dare you accuse me of this! It’s not my fault he’s ill! If I knew, I’d cure him! Hell, I’m desperate enough to wish the other me was here that he obsesses over. Maybe he could cure him!” Tears welled in his amethyst eyes.

“I don’t want Gohan to be ill… I don’t know it happened and I’m not even sure why… Everyone’s telling me I’m a failure as a boyfriend – And maybe I am! But that doesn’t mean I don’t love him.”

Piccolo was speechless. Trunks was always so stubborn and self- assured. Seeing such a man broken and crying was almost as embarrassing as it was distressing. This was something only Trunks and Gohan could solve. Piccolo dismissed himself. Ascending from the window he made his exit, but came to a prompt halt as Trunks yelled after him, “Piccoro-san!! Please send my father and Goten here! I think they should know!”

Nodding solemnly, he darted off into the clouding azure sky.

***

Five days ago…

“Ah!!” Gohan screamed in agony. Being the Jinzouningen’s bitch hurt. But the pills. Oh the pills. They’d expel this pain. They’d repulse all bad thoughts. Already the pain seemed to go.

“You like that?” Juunanagou shouted at Gohan, savagely forcing a second vibrator further and further into Gohan’s opening. He was enjoying. Masturbating to the sound of Gohan’s tortured screams. He loved every second.

“Maybe it’s too much for me. I owe you at least a little time to relax…” He paused, slowly sliding the vibrators from Gohan’s aching body.

“Or, maybe not!” The android ruthlessly pulled Gohan back onto his erection and began to thrust.

“Ah! God, Juunana-san! How much more?” Gohan was getting desperate. Although he was enjoying all this treatment – Trunks would never even consider relentless sex and foreplay for three, nearly four hours – but it was all getting too much. He’d come and ejaculated nearly eleven times; and if Juunanagou kept this up, it would soon be eleven.

“Are you not enjoying this, Go-chan? The thrill of pain and the knowledge of your payment in just what you want?”

Gohan couldn’t argue. He might jeopardize his chances of pills if he disagreed.

Squirming, Gohan tightened his grip on what was left of his hotel room sheets, his glowing aura lighting the darkness of the room as his hair turned blonde and with one final cry he relaxed his grip and sank into the wrecked sheets, spilling himself all over them whilst Juunanagou polluted his body.

Smiling wickedly, Juunanagou panted, “Is that all, for today Go-chan?”

Weakly, still recovering from him seemingly eternal ordeal, Gohan responded, “I can’t go on, any more. Please… just give me my pills and leave me alone…”

Nodding whilst pulling his pants back on, Juunanagou counted out forty pills and slipped them into a small, white envelope.

“Enjoy, Go-chan. Remember, when they run out, you have to pay. If you don’t want a repeat of this scenario, I suggest you start back at work and make some money. I know what I prefer. Sex doesn’t benefit my future.”

Harshly, he threw the envelope of pills onto Gohan’s naked, sweating torso and slammed the door shut upon his exit.

Sighing heavily with relief, Gohan meekly tipped the envelope over his mouth and poured 5 pills into his empty gullet.

Smiling, he closed his eyes. He would soon by flying again.

***

Present time…

Trunks waited. Sweat trickled purposefully down the contours of his cheeks and forehead. It’d been hours.

The room was dark, hollow. Any passer by could have easily mistaken it for empty or derelict as the lights were out and the curtains hung out of the windows.

Trunks couldn’t be bothered to get up and put the lights on. He’d rather see Gohan’s face perfect in shadows than rotting in electric lights.

Still, he didn’t know.

“Who did this to you?” He whispered mournfully. Gohan didn’t reply. He hadn’t expected him to. Gohan just laid flat on his back, arms either side.

Lifting his legs up onto the bed, he lay curled up against Gohan’s stiff corpse.

Shifting to bring himself to lie barely across Gohan’s chest, like a child hugging a huge teddy bear.

He held oh and slept.

***

Five days ago…

Swallowing a dozen more pills from his `magic envelope’, Gohan staggered into

Tia-Folle – his official watering hole. A watering hole at which he would drown on a frequent basis. Frequent to the point that the staff knew his name and invited him to their staff parties. Gohan loved it.

He’d never had so much positive attention. No saving the world from ultimate destruction involved here – just a few little red and white pills and he was flying in wonderland.

Tia-Folle was particularly full tonight. It was the annual staff party and anyone without a wife or girlfriend came. Usually because their husband or boyfriend came instead.

Gohan lurched across his psychedelic feeding ground. So many different men, so many possible different could-be drug addicts. If he could just get some stupid young kid to get hooked, that would be payment enough for his pills for a while. Juuna would be pleased. His prices would come up as then number of users would.

Oh yes, starting this plague would make it worth his while.

He slunk around, looking for the loners. The men without other men. Or even without friend, for that matter. The guys who came here just to hook.

Since Juunanagou was probably here already, he’d better work fast before Juunanagou saw him.

Ah, there’s one, Gohan realized with a slyness matching only that of a fox trailing steak on a string.

He slid across the dance floor, eager to open this stranger’s eyes to the wonders of his `medicine’.

He shadowed the man. Not even a man! A boy or so he seemed. His face was spotless and skin smooth. His hair was ebony. Smirking, Gohan remarked, “You’re cute. My little brother has the same shirt as you.”

The boy looked up but hurriedly he glanced away and got up, blocked promptly by Gohan’s solid frame. Gohan stared. Something bothered him. ” You know, kid, I don’t recognize you from staff. Where do you work?”

Keeping his face in shadows and muffling his voice behind his hand, the boy answered, “I don’t, if you must keep bothering me, you could at least recognize my work. I’m gay for pay, man.”

Gohan accepted the kid’s harsh tone. No one really wanted to talk work on a night like this. Gohan realized he’d just found his jackpot, someone in that line of work makes fortunes.

“Say, I don’t suppose you’d like a drink?” He offered. The kid looked suspicious.

“Don’t try and seduce me, pal, I can fend for myself.” Gohan merely blinked.

“I wouldn’t take the time to seduce you, I’d just take you if that was what I wanted. I have something that you might want, that’s all.”

This got the young lad’s attention. “I’m listening…”

Gohan leaned forward of the table, his nose almost touching the boy’s.

“It’s a medicine but not any ordinary medicine. It cures all ailments. Headaches, backaches, tiredness. Just the sort of thing someone in your… profession requires.”

The boy raised one of his shadowed eyebrows.

“I’m not stupid. It’s a drug of some sort. Do you honestly think you’re the first person to offer me a sort of drug? In my profession it is expected of us to all be crack whores, so if you think I’m accepting your medicine, you can go jack off over someone who drinks methadone for tea and calls coming an excuse for making cheese.”

Getting up and pushing past Gohan, the shadow seemed to drift, fly almost through the dance floor. Gohan gave chase.

In the blink of an eye he was at the door and blocking all means of passage. Looking bewildered, the boy stared at Gohan sudden disbelief. His look was returned.

“GOTEN!” “GOHAN!”

Words wouldn’t come. Ashamed and beginning to cry, Gohan fled. Breaking Gohan’s defense he flew into the distance, crying.

Gohan couldn’t believe it.

That’s why he asked when I knew I was gay… I can’t believe I didn’t know sooner. The harder truth suddenly struck.

HOLY SHIT! I just offered my little brother drugs!! Gohan ran out of the club. He was in a hurry. He had to find some way of convincing Goten it was all just a joke. How would his brother ever respect him when he knew he was addicted to ecstasy?

His whole family would be told! He had to do something, Damn, his head hurt.

With almost no thought, he pulled the envelope from his pocket and took the remained 34 pills in one swift gulp.

Things began to spin. That usually happened but not this way. They weren’t just spinning. The surroundings were growing arms and legs, chasing him! He ran, faster and faster, screaming in the silence of the streets, the shadows all following him.

***

Laughing at his creation from afar, Juunanagou smirked. “My work here is done.”

***

Gohan thrashed about in the emptiness, his only companions were the monsters in his head chasing him, biting his arms and legs, ripping off his clothes. He screamed, cried, collapsed. He twitched, nervous twitches.

Above, a patrolling individual had heard all the commotion, something probably easily done on such a quiet night and dropped out of the starry sky to investigate.

***

He sniffed the air, nothing too unusual there, alcohol, body odor. The sort of smells usually found after a goodnight out on the town. Something else, too, chalky. Well, nothing important.

Stalking over, his cape barely shuddering behind him. He reached out a muscle-clad arm and pulled the collapsed figure over.

“Gohan?”

Shocked, Piccolo hoisted the limp figure onto his shoulder and shot off into the stars.

“What happened?” No reply. He kept flying. Trunks should know about this

***

Present time…

Gingerly, Bulma lifted one of Gohan’s eyelids experimentally.

“Yoo-hoo? Gohan? This isn’t the funniest joke ever. I mean, you’re being such a big dork! Wake up! This is soooooooo not funny!”

Bulma had little patience. For someone so intelligent, it caused everyone, even Vegeta to cringe at her adolescent squealing.

“Why won’t you wake up?”

Growling and finally snapping to her constant wailing, Vegeta eventually let out, “He’s in a coma you stupid woman!”

Bulma was silenced.

“Look at him. He might not wake up for days, even weeks.”

Vegeta was sounding doubtful. Unusual in a man so power possessed. “If the boy wakes up, it’s up to us to see why he became ill. If he doesn’t, it’s no-one’s fault but his own, and maybe my brat’s…” He glared at Trunks as though he were a murderer.

Soundlessly, Trunks left the room.

“Oi, Piccoro-san, where’s Goten?” Bulma bleated. Pausing for thought, he tapped his chin with his finger.

“I haven’t seen him all day. If can find him, but I am not sure this situation will be suitable for him to see.”

Bulma’s eyes widened. “Since when did it bother you?”

Grunting, he remarked, “Since when he became Gohan’s brother. Let’s see, that would be around his birth, wouldn’t it?” Emitting sarcasm, he darted off in search of Goten.

A sensitive kid like that, he shouldn’t see Gohan. He’d be too hurt.

Piccolo felt for Goten’s ki. He couldn’t feel much right now, so Goten was probably asleep. The little demi-Saiyan rarely brought up his power levels, even whilst he was dreaming, Piccolo laughed to himself.

“Little? Heh heh heh.”

Goten was grown. A teenager of seventeen. His brother was so much older; it made Piccolo wonder how ChiChi handled having two sons so very different. Gohan had been shy and without a regular education, whereas Goten had almost never seen his father and grew up much like a regular child.

Since Goten seemed to be sleeping in accordance to his levels of ki, Piccolo stopped on a cliff side to meditate until he felt Goten rouse and wake up.

***

Goten was panicking. His brother knew his secret.

How could he ever look his family in the face again? What would Juunanagou say? It was Juunanagou that had convinced him he had talent.

“Remarkable” were his words that night. Juunanagou had been an animal in bed, but Goten had dominated all along. It made him smile knowing he was in control.

It made him cry that he had been reduced to prostitution. He had spent so much time studying he had neglected the wonders of his body and subdued to Juunanagou experimentally. It had been bliss.

Goten pondered his line of work. It was dangerous. He didn’t really enjoy it. But his mother wouldn’t let him have a real job and in order to pay off Juunanagou for his pleasuring sessions he needed to get the money from pleasuring others.

It’s a vicious cycle, he pondered. He couldn’t stop now. He wasn’t just addicted to sex but scared of what Juunanagou might do to him should he refuse any of his whims.

Sat in the corner of a small, mossy cave. Damp soaking into his shirt and shorts. He wept. He felt dirty, used, a whore.

Sure it was easy money that paid off well but it wasn’t something our family smiled upon you for, especially not his family.

Goten buried his head in his folded arms, his ears covered as he fought with the voices in his head. The voice of his mother echoing criticizing his brother for wasting his life on another man. For not making her a proud grandmother with some `suitable’ woman.

The voice of his brother arguing happiness is more important than maternity. The voice of his father as he vaguely remembered it – all faded and reminding him to be strong when others needed him.

Lastly, the voices of everyone else all yelling at Trunks and pitying his rotting brother.

“How ironic, eh mom? You raised us both really tightly, strict to the point of social execution and what became of us? A drug addict and a prostitute with attractions to other men.”

Goten signed as he eyes welled with tears. His mother’s voice shouting angrily at Trunks, “You turned my son into some gay fag and all you can say about it is `that’s life’? GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

That day Goten realized. He realized what his future held and he sought out Juunanagou for his first taste of real intercourse. Not the same sort of sex all those little fan girls reaped from him when he was out clubbing and felt horny.

Oh no, real intercourse the way his brother did it.

Gohan was never wrong. He was always so clever, and Goten loved him for that as much as he was his brother.

Sensing another being, he popped his head out of the cave entrance. Piccolo was meditating on a near by cliff top.

But he wanted Juunanagou! He missed him. His touches, his kisses, his longing.

He wanted so to tell him of Gohan’s addictions, to be reassured that he would be ok. Juunanagou knew not of Gohan’s drugs so maybe he could help once he knew.

As much as he was afraid of Juunanagou, he trusted him.

A spark of life rose in him. He had to tell Juunanagou, he would know the answer!

***

Gohan coughed and spluttered in the bed, saliva leaking from the corners of his lips.

Trunks sat by his head. He stroked Gohan’s greasy hair waiting for his eyes to open and say it was all just one big joke. Revenge for all the things they hadn’t done together.

The only light was resonating from the cold hardness of the ice- laden moon. The curtains hung still in the dead night air. Everything, even the furniture seemed melancholy. The whole of capsule corp. seemed to be swallowed whole by a great blanket of bleariness. The hands of the Gods seemed not to hold Gohan.

Still, Trunks waited.

There was a gentle knocking on the door. Trunks couldn’t find the energy to answer.

Whoever it was would either go away or just help themselves to the handle anyway.

“Go-chan?” Came a whisper. Trunks looked up.

“He’s sleeping.”

“I wanted to see him. It’s Goten.” The silhouette by the door stepped into the cold, resentful moonlight and revealed half his face.

“I just came to check on him. I saw him the night he fell ill.” Trunks raised an eyebrow.

“Then, do you know what’s wrong with him?”

Silence, releasing a heavy sigh, he turned to the window and leaned on the windowsill.

“I do, Trunks-kun but I also fear I do not.”

Trunks growled. “You either do, or don’t Goten. I am in no mood to be screwed around with.”

Wincing, Goten began to sniffle. “You don’t have to be so harsh, Trunks. No wonder Gohan went away alone. You never wait for anything.”

Trunks couldn’t help getting angrier and angrier the more Goten spoke to him. Nothing he was hearing was good. Nothing but underlying the phrase, “You’re useless!”

“OK OK!” Trunks snapped. His face drenched with tears.

“You’ve said it, Dad said it, Mom said it, everyone said it! I’m a failure! Are you happy now? I’m a fucking A-Class, one of a kind failure!”

Goten sighed. He had expected some emotional reaction.

“All I’m going to say is this; Gohan is dying. He offered me some sort of drug in club. Face reality Trunks. Gohan is addicted to something. I don’t know what it is, nor do I know where he hides it. But he is on drugs. It’s nobody’s fault. Only his own.”

Trunks was speechless.

“Gohan would never do that! Gohan is a smart, Goten! He’s not some spazzed out little teenager who needs to get high for kicks!”

“HOW dare you!” Goten launched a direct verbal assault on Trunks. Being referred to by Trunks as a `spazzed out little teenager’ was the last straw.

“I put up with your shit day and night, I comfort my big brother when he’s crying because of you, and I even stand by and watch my own brother get ruined because you got out and sleep around with other men when he’s not looking! Don’t think I don’t know!”

Trunks searched for words, but nothing came. Frantically and desperately he clenched his fists, denying himself the right to beat the living death out of his lover’s little brother.

“I do it because he’s frigid and doesn’t ever wanna go out. All he wants to do is watch TV and mark student’s papers. I don’t want that life…” He couldn’t hold back the tears, but even so Goten felt no pity. How could he say these things and not feel guilty?

“You’re proud of being a slut?” He realized how hypocritical that sounded but Trunks didn’t know about his even job and he wouldn’t find out either.

Sniffling and holding back the tears, Trunks mumbled, “I love him but he left me. If drugs are his way out, they still brought him back to me. Even if it was under bad circumstances. He’s meant to be with me. Don’t you understand?”

Goten understood. Goten understood that in Gohan’s absence, Trunks was going mad. Mad the point of romantic insanity. He was pitiful to watch, even more so to hear.

His obsessive, possessive whimpering reduced him to little more than a child without his favorite toy.

From a near by rooftop, Piccolo observed.

***

A week later…

Trunks slept. It had been a week now. Still Gohan hadn’t moved except to be sick and cough. The other end of his anatomy meant regularly changing his sheets. Trunks did it all alone. He accepted no help for his big mistake.

Silently, diluted pupils, expanding and shrinking with the different moonlight and darkness, blinked under bruised eyelids.

A gentle moan emitted from pursed lips as slowly and with a great deal of effort, two large, beautiful chestnut eyes opened and looked frightened.

***

A week later…

A week had passed and it was the beginning of the cherry blossom season.

Gohan had awoken only yesterday in shock to realize he was home, time had passed and that anyone, let alone everyone had been worried.

Trying to get up, he discovered that, according to Bulma, “he’s just temporarily paralyzed. Probably a side affect.” And had made a prompt and mildly dramatic reunion with his carpet.

The sheets had been changed, and his clothes had been changed.

He shuddered, hoping it was NOT Bulma how had “taken the liberty”.

He shuddered more, feeling a deep sense of needing. A feeling he remembered that was linked with Juunanagou. Trunks was all he had seen upon his waking. The man he loved.

Gohan couldn’t help feeling it was too over romantic, to have been sleeping for so long to awaken beside his one true love. Reminded him of the corny fair tales he’d been read (very VERY occasionally) by his barely literate father. Gohan recalled even teaching Goku to read.

Trunks had always seemed too young for him, in his inner most thoughts. Someone barely out of their teens with someone on the brink of their thirties. It made him cringe almost, but then he was reminded he was on Trunks’s leash, not the other way around. That made things acceptable.

Lying prostrate on his stomach reading the latest issue of Arena 37c he ogled at his rock idols. He wished he could look as good as them.

He smirked. He was probably on as many drugs as they were.

Then it hit. Drugs! That’s why he felt so awful.

Gohan tried to get up but came face to face with fluff-covered floorboards. The sudden thud drew more attention than he wanted.

“Go-chan!?” Trunks bolted through the door yelling in panic.

“Oheyo Trunks-chan!” He said sheepishly though a gritted grin. Embarrassment all over his beetroot colored face.

Hurriedly trotting over the lifting Gohan back onto the bed, Trunks glanced at the magazine.

“Go-koi! You’re not reading that again? You’ve read this months issue five times already!” He was teasing. His cute little smile eclipsed by his gentle eyes.

Gohan blushed more. “Tora-chan, I like this issue best. It has so many good articles.”

Trunks and Gohan let silence devour them as they stared at each other’s faces.

Each observing the other.

Quietly and seemingly without notice, Trunks slipped his hand into Gohan’s. His face no longer a generous smile but a serious stern face.

“Go-chan, I have to ask you about something. I don’t want you to interrupt me because I feel you ought to here me out before you tell me I’m wrong…”

Gohan listened with intent, nodding for Trunks to go on.

“Go-chan… The second night of your coma, I spoke with Goten…”

A sudden look of panic swept over Gohan’s face. Did Trunks know?

“He said, he needs help…” Yeah… I won’t tell him I know about his habit. Instead, I’ll get him to motivate himself to help Goten…Might bring him to sense.

“He said, he saw you in the club. Didn’t say why he was there or why you were there, but he said he meant to find you and ask you to help him with his school assignment.”

Gohan was sweating noticeably but Trunks pretended not to see. Instead, he stayed calm and began to smile innocently.

“Please help him? He’s worried not getting better than an A grade will get ChiChi all pissed. You should know…”

Gohan giggled girlishly, “Mom can be over powering.”

Smiling at each other, barely even breathing, they both stopped doing anything. They stopped smiling, laughing and moving. Trunks leaped forward and grabbed Gohan’s upper arm and pulled him into his lips.

Gohan gave in. He’d missed Trunks, no matter how mad he got at him.

They both gave in to temptation. No matter what happened, they needed each other right now.

It wasn’t just passionate sex anymore; it was wrestling with compassion.

Trunks fought to be on top whilst Gohan shredded his clothing with long sharp nails. It was a fight. Biting and clawing at each other, they were stripping rapidly and violently. Revenge on one another for being away so long.

They didn’t need words. They’d never needed words. Actions had been all it ever took.

Gohan pinned Trunks to the wall, his waif little body burning the paint off of the wall with its heat. It was as though two hurricanes had collided and the world was coming apart. Coming apart beneath their very bodies.

This couldn’t continue in such delicate surroundings. Half naked and already beginning to sweat eagerly, Trunks gripped at Gohan’s wrist and tore into the mid-afternoon sky. So what if people saw? All the luckier for them.

Gohan could fly but not walk. Feeling so submissive he raised his own speed so it was instead he was dragging Trunks behind.

This made for a fun game of chase. A forest below couldn’t have been more convenient.

Pulling his desperate lover behind him, he set down onto a shrubbery ridden clearing.

Trunks took the advantage of Gohan’s disability and snapping his belt with his hands alone, tore of his jeans with his bare teeth, ripping them to little more than shreds of mauve denim. Gohan yelped, unable to do a thing about it.

He took back `being unable to anything about it’ when he noticed Trunks’ underwear poking out from under his pants. Pulling childishly, he made Trunks jump in shock and took control of his limp body.

Grinning, Trunks growled as they paused acknowledging one another’s disposition.

Hastily pulling off each other’s underwear, they didn’t want to wait for the next installment.

Gohan was sat up, Trunks was standing, but who was in charge wasn’t clear yet.

Sneakily, Gohan tugged Trunks’s ankle, bringing him to the floor. Pulling him from his shoulders, Gohan’s hair flared blonde as he pulled Trunks close enough to let him become teased by his breath.

Trunks grinned, whispering “I’ll do it if you do me a favor…”

Gohan just nodded and said slyly, “Get the hell on with it!” and forced Trunk’s head down onto his erect penis. This wasn’t something that happened often. Pleasure usually came with a price, but not today. They were too grateful of each other’s consciousness to care what hurt or pleasured. Whatever it was, they would do it for their lover.

Gohan leaned back against the stump of a tree. Letting out moans of pleasure. His toes clenching and twitching with the sensation of Trunks’s newly pierced tongue. Surprised, Gohan forced the sentence, “Jeez, when the hell did you get that?”

Trunks just sucked harder, playing with Gohan’s scrotum at the same time bringing generous spasms of ecstasy.

Both of the young Saiyan men squirmed. Trunks liked to hear Gohan’s rambling voice in moments of passion. There was no greater turn on.

Gohan’s length grew as the level pleasure did. This made for a challenge to Trunks.

Slowly drawing Gohan’s erection from his throat he wiped his mouth teasingly and hoisted Gohan up from the tree, replacing it with himself only to bring Gohan down to sit on his lap.

Trunks was a grown man too, and he’d be damned if Gohan was allowed to forget it.

He pushed forward, forcing Gohan to his knees. Held up only by Trunk’s thorax, he was pushed gently back and forth on Trunks’s equally impressive manhood. But Trunks wasn’t going to stop there, no way. He owed Gohan too much to give him so little. He reached down around Gohan’s midriff and ran a muscular hand down to where his throbbing member was waiting.

Both men, equally as blonde and equally as thirsty for more, allowed themselves this sacred moment.

Trunks’s hand was a blur, the pleasure too much for Gohan’s half human body to take. Trunks himself thrusting faster and faster to the point it seemed as though strobe lights were in effect and only partial movements could be accepted by the naked eye.

Together they screamed in agonizing relief and collapsed in a heap on the floor. Their newly ebony hair dripping sweat down their flushed faces.

Together they lay there, exhausted and spent. Their hands link together. This moment, one of rare tranquility.

“I love you.” “I love you.”

They glanced at each other and laughed. Panting, they rested in the warmth of the afternoon sun. Naked and tired, they slept together in safety. Cherry blossoms clothed their naked shells.

***

“What’s wrong, Go-chan?” Juunanagou caressed Goten’s ebony locks. Sighing, Goten shrugged. His arms raised up back behind his head as he lay on his back next to Juunanagou. Both men were clotheless. Needless to say – Juunana’s small city apartment a wreck.

Snuggling up to his demi-Saiyan, he spoke softly, ” Now, now, Go-chan. I know your brother’s addictions upset you, but it’s no different than your own…”

Goten flashed a glance and spat. “He’s fucking dope addict, Juunana-chan. He’s rotting away his life. I know I’m not as old as he is and I’m sure not as smart but hell, what kind of brother is worth looking up to when he’s not even on this planet half the time?”

Juunanagou laughed at Goten’s naivety, as well his slip in words that made it seem true.

“Go-chan, don’t be stupid. He spent a year on Namek, he knows another planet when he sees one.” He slipped his arm under Goten’s arched neck and pulled him unresisting to his smooth chest. “He is old enough to make his own decisions. The same we you made your decision.”

Goten’s distant, longing eyes. Quietly, barely even whispering, he spoke.

“Juu-chan… I don’t want people to look at me and say, `he’s a whore’ in the same way I don’t want them to point at Gohan and say `he’s a druggy’ and them find someone to blame, or even just plain blame him. Everyone would laugh at us. The family of the world’s saviors are a bunch of ultimate losers.”

A tear dropped down his cheek.

Juunanagou was unsure of what to do or say. Goten was his lover but Gohan was his fortune.

“I’ll go talk to him, perhaps, Go-chan.” He stroked Goten’s hair, hoping it would give him a sense of security. Goten didn’t respond. His eyes had closed and he had drifted off onto the clouds of heaven that waited whilst he tried in his mind to pull Gohan away from the rising clouds of opium.

***

“So, it was an eventful afternoon, I hear.”

Trunks swung around in the empty apartment to find Piccolo perched, cross-legged on the window ledge.

Stunned, Trunks fumbled, “What do you mean?”

Grinning like a fox, Piccolo answered simple, “Exactly what I said. I heard it was an eventful afternoon. All the screams gave it away.” He let out a bemused laugh.

Trunks turned pink with worry and humiliation.

“You mean, you know about…Gohan and me, uh?” He cocked his head, waiting for a response. Sighing deeply, Piccolo shut his eyes, preparing himself for a `chat’.

“I mean, you took him to the forest, used him for whatever purpose you wanted and now he’s gone again because you opened your big, vicious, self-centered mouth.”

Trunks couldn’t talk. His voice abandoned him to Piccolo’s narrowing eyes.

“You know, don’t you?” His accusing tone backed up by his sudden jolt forward to grip Trunks’ throat. “You know why he’s gone and you know why he went into that coma. You know why and you’re gonna go straight to hell this instant if you don’t damn well tell me…” His grip tightened, causing hoarse rasping noises to emerge from Trunks’s purple face.

Pulling and scratching at Piccolos hands, Trunks did his best to squeak. All that came out was, “D… Drug…s… Drugs…!!”

Piccolo released his grip and dropped him to the cold floor.

“Bullshit, Gohan wouldn’t take drugs even if it meant his life.” Piccolo spat close to Trunks. A warning. Coughing and gasping for air, Trunks snarled angrily and became to cry and scream.

“I’m telling you what I was told! How the hell should I know what’s going on? No one tells me anything anymore, it’s like I don’t exist! Go on, find your precious baby and see for yourself what kind of dope it is he’s living off of, because I don’t have a clue!”

Tears blinded his face. Piccolo glared. Trunks was nothing more than a shadow of misery. Sure, he loved Gohan, but he didn’t know how to prove it.

If what he said was true, and Gohan was reduced to drugs, the person responsible would suffer. They’d beg for death knowing that was a better future in store.

***

Gohan flew. He didn’t want to stop. He couldn’t believe after everything – after his coma, his paralysis, his forgiveness – Trunks had still found reason to get angry and push him away into the gutter.

All he wanted now was a face that appreciated him. Since Goten had an assignment he needed help with, that seemed a good choice in destinations. Goten would be pleased to see him! His little brother always had things to talk about. It would be a chance to go out and have fun.

Landing gingerly outside Goten’s room, he opened his mouth to call be came to quick change in phrase.

“Juunana!” Gohan jumped in surprise as his dominatrix snuck behind him. “I was looking for Gohan… I heard he was with you and that, you know, he needs help with an assignment…” Gohan was quivering. Licking his dry, full lips, Juunanagou wrapped his arms around Gohan’s stomach and tightened, holding him firmly to his torso.

“Have you been having headaches, recently, my dear?” His hot breath in Gohan’s hollow ears made Gohan quiver with anticipation.

“Y-yes… I have. I need medicine, Juuna-chan. I need it.” Gohan’s eyes closed, he was enjoying the sensual stroking across his belly.

He tried to deny himself, I had to stop; he would be no better than his polygamous boyfriend if he didn’t. He tried to push Juunana’s arms away but he held tighter. His hands ventured to places not visible to the naked eye.

Gohan began to sweat. He was letting it take over, and it wasn’t the first time and probably not the last. But it had to be the last! How could Trunks ever trust him again?

As Juunanagou purred sensuously toward Gohan, he forgot about his initial conquest.

Caught off guard, he was twirled around to face Juunanagou. Without warning or reason Juunanagou punched him in the stomach, causing Gohan to fall to his knees, mouth wide open in an echoless scream.

Juunanagou saw his chance, hurling half a dozen pills into Gohan’s unclosing mouth.

He sneered as Gohan swallowed and gradually caught his breath.

“Wha…What was… that… for?” Gohan panted, gasping for air.

Kneeling down on one knee, Juunanagou raised one of Gohan’s limp hands to his lips and gently kissed it.

“Now you have my medicine, you pay my price…”

Horror and relief flashed the face of Gohan. He had his pills! Oh god yes, his pills. But the price…

Juunanagou smiled in a gentile manner. Tugging Gohan’s hand, they lifted from the ground and took off.

“I think your place is too… uninspiring. Let’s go to my place.” Juunanagou spoke with class and snobbishness that both aroused and angered his unsuspecting prey.

It was beginning to rain.

Upon reaching Juunanagou’s deluxe three-storey home the pair were soaked.

Gohan had hardly recognized the sky as it wasn’t blue to his mind – it was a mix of azure and violet, flecks or green and orange. Everything swirled around him.

He was flying.

Juunanagou linked his arm with Gohan.

“So, Go-chan, since we’re all wet and dirty, I suggest and shower. Rinse off all our filth before our act of purity…” There was a dark cunning in his tone. He eyed Gohan, sizing him up, all the while grinning at the next few hours of their company.

Gohan, spaced out and staggering to and fro merely responded, “I’m flying Juu-chan…”

***

From his window, Goten watched. He had known for some time that Juunanagou had been making sexual relations with his big brother. Now he knew why. He had guessed, but needed proof.

Watching in silent dismay, raindrops began to gather on his windows.

“Gohan…”

***

“Vegeta-chan! ChiChi is on the phone again, she’s demanding to talk with you!”

Bulma bellowed from the kitchen into Vegeta’s reluctant ears. The shrill noise wracking his brain.

“Woooo-maaaaan! I’m watching the TV! Tell her to fuck off!” Dialogue as fruity as ever, he swung around in his armchair to eye his angry looking mistress.

“Vegeta-chan! You will talk to her right now!” Bulma stamped an angry foot, her husband, and casual better half, slammed his beer down onto the table. Consequently, the table, the can, and about half a foot of floorboards caved in under the force of his directed frustration.

If Vegeta’s thoughts could have been described as an army, opening his mouth to ChiChi had just slain the first fifty battalions…

“What has your brat done to my precious boy?” ChiChi screamed down the phone so loud Vegeta had to pull the phone away from his ear.

“What the hell do you mean, `what has he done’? He’s your brat! If my son wants to be gay, then fine. He can do what he wants. It’s not my fault you can’t get over it! If you can’t accept your child’s choice in sexual partners, then I’m a better parent than you!”

Vegeta knew what to say to shut her up. It was always the same.

Every other day she would call, crying and wailing about her `innocent son’s exploitation’ by his `egotistical ape of a son’.

In her own words, of course. No one could say it like ChiChi.

“How dare you?” ChiChi was an image of living destruction – malice animate.

“Arrrggghhh!!!!” Slamming the phone down in frustration, he grunted in satisfaction.

“What did she want, Vege-chan?” Bulma was dressed in a plum colored knee-length skirt and a pea green blouse. Cocking her head slightly to one side, she looked at him without needing a word.

“Usual shit.”

She nodded; she didn’t need to hear anymore.

Sighing and slumping back down into his comfy chair, groping for his can of beer he took a breath.

Bulma could be heard clattering with the pans in the kitchen in between mumblings of a scientific nature.

He stopped groping for his beer as he came to meet with a hole in the living room floor a foot deep. Deciding to stay on good terms with Bulma, he pulled over the small rug in the center of the room to cover it. If someone fell down the woodwork was rotten. Simple.

“That woman needs a hobby… Stupid bitch calling me to complain about her brat… Why the fuck can’t she just come to terms with it? Her son’s a fag, so what? So’s mine!” He flailed his arms around, the drink going to his head.

Bulma shot him a sharp glance. “You used that `F’ word again, Vege- chan!”

“Which one? Fuck or Fag?”

Bulma drooped. It was hard enough living with a man such as this so- called Prince, but even harder dealing with his alcoholism.

“Both!” She barked sharply. “And I won’t hear any other sexist slurs either, Mr. Macho!” She waltzed into the room, arms crossed under her breasts and a stern look on her face.

Nodding in drunken defeat, Vegeta slouched in his chair and started channel flicking.

Nothing much on.

He pondered his life as he left the room, television still on, to go and sit on the walkway of his gravity machine. The stars looked good tonight, even if it was a new moon. The sky looked empty without the big, white sphere dominating.

Vegeta could relate. He used to be the moon of his sky. The stars were all his lackeys and any passing comet was doomed to burn out under his watchful vigil.

Resting his chin on his palm as he leaned on his knee, he reminisced.

Once he had been the scourge of the stars! Now, he had digressed to little more than the shadow of a third class moron.

“Gokou…” He whispered to himself. He contemplated. Gokou, no matter what time in his life, had always pushed him to his limits. This lowly, childish fool had done the impossible for a bloodline so common – he had become a super Saiyan. He had slain Vegeta’s surrogate father, and his murderer. He had even taught Vegeta to love by indirectly flinging Bulma and Vegeta together in a situation of panic. One night of misguided passion led to a lifetime of partnership.

Then Trunks happened. Both of them. Mirai and Chibi. Chibi, of course, was all grown now. But Vegeta didn’t see him that way.

Deep inside, Vegeta mourned. His only son, his final legacy to the world was gay. He had no problem with his son’s sexuality, only with the result meaning no children. No more demi-Saiyans to carry just the last few drops of royal bloodline.

Sighing, he looked up at the stars.

“Gokou-san, I rather wish you were here right now. No, I don’t want your competition, Kakarotto. Maybe if you were alive we’d be able to
find some way of passing on our blood. But with our kids like this… I mean… they’re all fudge packers… I love `em, but our race will die…” His gaze dropped to his empty, dry palms. If he were a modest man, he’d have claimed it to be a tear that trickled down his refined cheek.

***

“Aaaaah! Juuna-chan, this is too much!” Gohan’s eyes were watering, blood traced the edges of his lips and his arms held on tightly as Juunanagou’s thrusts pulled him further and further away from the wall.

He had used Gohan’s belt to tie Gohan to the bedposts, and since it was also Gohan’s only belt, he didn’t want it snapped.

“Don’t you like this, Go-chan? I bet Trunks isn’t this impressive!” Juunanagou pulled Gohan back further, his knees bleeding from friction burns.

Juunanagou, half biological and half mechanical, had a great advantage over biological men.

He praised Dr. Gero for such crude designs when he realized that his cock was in fact extendable beyond that a regular erection – it
could extend to up to two feet long, thanks to a series of metal coils under his skin.

His present size was only a foot since Gohan couldn’t take a great deal more.

“Juunanagoooooouuuuuu!!!!” Gohan began to cry.

His body ached, his mind was all over the place and he could barely hold on much longer.

“Go ahead, Go-chan, let it all out…” He licked his lips and waited for Gohan’s climax. Thrusting into his a little to encourage him, he quickly pulled out and knelt over him just in time to drink all Gohan had to offer before it even touched the free air.

Slumping back, Gohan panted. “That…That was… The eighth time… Juu… Juunanagou…chan…” He was close to fainting. Blood rushed to and from both his heads. Both of which were flushing pink.

“No time for rest yet, my darling… I have much to do with you…” He smirked darkly and ripped Gohan’s belt from the bedposts to free him. Sensually, he slid his hands down to Gohan’s thighs.

Rolling his eyes back, he gave in.

“No more…”

Pain searing through his organs, he closed his eyes and wouldn’t open up.

***

Trunks sat and sighed. It was getting late. No time for Piccolo or his in-depth insults. He’d rather just lie on the floor, wrecked and rotting.

“Get off the floor.”

Trunks slowly, almost painfully, turned his head along from his upward gaze to focus on Vegeta’s ankles.

“The hell do you want, old man…”

Vegeta spat close to his head. “I wouldn’t use that tone with me, or I’ll leave.”

“So leave.” Trunks returned his endless stare to his ceiling.

Vegeta blinked slowly. The smell of cigarettes, sake and, more curiously lighter fuel, filled his senses.

“You’ve been quiet the past few days. I thought you might wanna spar.”

Trunks listened. He knew his dad was worried. Vegeta’s idea of bonding was sparring – no two ways about it. Knowing he was showing affection hurt, because he felt incapable of returning it.

“Dad… Do you wish I was straight?”

For a moment, Vegeta silently gasped. How do you answer a question that so blatantly answered itself?

“Maybe, I wouldn’t have minded so much if it wasn’t Kakarotto’s kid.”

Vegeta turned his back and looked out of the musty windows. He may not have been the apex of fatherhood, but he at least knew how disheartening what he’d said had sounded.

“I don’t mean that I wish you were, mean I wish that you were with someone else. It’s your choice. Not mine.”

Trunks opened his mouth and dryly followed his father’s comments.

“Are you suggesting I leave Gohan just because he’s your rival’s son?”

Trunks’s face creased up in silent anger. His dad was only trying to support him in the nicest possible way for him to do so, but it still wasn’t worth his efforts.

“No, son. I’m just trying to point out the fact that Kakarott’s spawn are all naïve and foolish and you’re getting your life sucked away by their idiocy…”

There was a sniffling sound. Vegeta spun around sharply, almost falling over his own feet. He looked around and stopped to realize with apparent horror, his son was crying.

Silently, he watched.

“Dad… He’s all I have…” Trunks’s face began to open up to his sheltered emotions as a tide of tearful cries erupted from his broke form.

Vegeta was stunned. His son – the fruit of his proud, royal loins – was reduced to a shivering, lovesick puppy.

It reminded him of himself.

It reminded him of his time on Namek. Of how his surrogate father – Freiza – had fought and slain him for the wish of immortality. He had cried to Kakarotto. Cried and begged for him to destroy Freiza for making him little more than a murderer.

A puppet of power.

His son had fallen to the same foe. It was not a great enemy of physical demeanor – oh no. It was emotions.

He had fallen for Kakarott’s son. His own salvation.

Vegeta lived with no regrets. A trait his son did not follow with. He himself chose to be proud of all his achievements, his home and even his rival-turned savior.

Trunks, on the other hand, looked only for salvation in Gohan.

Closing his eyes solemnly, he knelt down on one knee and gently raised his son’s torso from the floor.

“I’m sorry I never hugged you before…”

***

“Can I take your order please?” Goten droned robotically. He had only been working a Starbucks a week and already it bored him. He had anted to take time out from his usual occupation to give his body a break.

“Here’s your order. Thanks again for stopping by.”

His words sounded effortless and flat as he handed the paper bag to his cheery customer.

Working here wasn’t too bad really. The pay was quite good and nobody pushed you around. No latex involved, either. Certainly not as energetic, but equally well paid.

I’ll stick with this for a while…he smiled to himself.

***

Juunanagou paused. “Wait… there’s only four thousand here… You owe me six.” His soulless, glassy eyes reaping holes in his punter’s metaphorical gut. How long it would be metaphorical would be of interest.

“Ye-ye-yes-yes but I could only get this much… Please… just, let me have a little? I’ll do anything you want, please?” The frightened little figure quivered and shook, frightened and counting the last few moments of his definite life.

“We’ll work something out. Give me all you have and come to my place this even, no later than ten.” He threw a syringe and it’s yellow substance to the pavement and watched its owner-to-be chase it through the guttering.

He laughed inwardly at the pathetic human and stuffed the notes into his pocket. Frowning, he lifted eagerly from the ground to inspect his newest customer – Mister Gohan Son. At the rate he had been currently devouring pills he should be gagging for at least another eighty.

He recalled the he had left him, collapsed and unconscious only yesterday evening. He had taken forty pills and had nearly no side effects – the drugs were getting used to him. He was taming and breaking one of the strongest men alive with a few little tablets.

Life was good.

It would only be a mater of time before he met with some unfortunate accident. Maybe too many strong pills or a dodgy, ill mixed pill that would clot his arteries and suffocate him? Either was good. But for now, he was a source of sex and wealth, and nothing – not even death – could surpass those major plusses on his `how long to live’ port folio.

Juunanagou licked his glossy lips. Grinning wickedly, he smirked, “My, my Gohan-chan… You are the zenith of my world… aren’t you?” He laughed aloud and felt his cock beginning to stir and lengthen in anticipation. Gohan was an easy ride.

He drooled had to hold himself to stop his erection from becoming over visible as he flew steadily back to his apartment where he left Gohan last night.

Today was going to be a day to remember.

***

Piccolo was lost in a swirling sea of thought. First, he had focused on Gohan and his rumored addictions. Then, on Goten as he had senses his presence mildly in the wet wilderness and finally Trunks and how it somehow all seemed to come back to him.

It didn’t make sense.

Gohan was not someone to fall prey to drugs; it just wasn’t his nature! Piccolo knew of his first love, Aoshi and the horrific fate that met him. This had put Gohan off of drugs for life, even if he was never really tempted in the first place.

Gohan was the sun in Piccolo’s cloudy sky and for him to be hooked on drugs was unthinkable. Gohan was the sun in the sky that shone brightest when the dark clouds came over cast, and Piccolo would always consider Gohan his child, even without blood relations.

Piccolo was adamant in his belief.

Yet, somewhere in the deepest reaches of his complicated, mutilated mind, something – or someone – was trying to cry out to him. Something was desperately amiss, and somewhere along the line things had been mistaken or twisted.

He had to find Gohan and ask him personally. His ki was almost unreadable, but traceable none the less. The truth was going to unravel itself.

***

ChiChi was sulking as her youngest child slammed the door on his way to work.

“What kind of job is a fast food chain worker?” she thought aloud to herself. The sound of jet plane taking off muffled her voice.

Goten had left.

ChiChi was proud. Her sons were both going to be great scholars and one day have important roles in business, but it never really occurred to her that you should start lower down and work your way up. Her theory was `be the best to skip the rest’.

Recent events had taken their toll.

She looked meekly at her jolty palms and tried to hold back any stray tears. She wasn’t just unhappy, she was angry.

All her years spent trying to be the perfect mother only to raise intelligent homosexuals.

What good were boys who didn’t want children? ChiChi wanted more than anything to be a grandmother, to be proud of her boys and their wives and to lend a hand in the raising of their fruits.

On reflection, she felt as though she had known it all along.

They spent a great deal of time together, Gohan and Trunks. They went out in the evenings, sparred together and slept at each other’s homes when they were smaller. They studied together, teaching themselves advanced numeracy and physics.

Chemistry, history and … biology.

They were their own teachers. And in the end, it seemed, in more than simply academics.

ChiChi resigned herself to this way of life; living with Goten – who was rarely home – and trying to understand why her sons chose men over women. She had encouraged lesbian pornography one time to try and interest them, but neither man seemed very keen.

Now, she realized, both her sons were definitely not interested in women, marriage or children. It upset her.

Surely, I’m not the only one who disagrees with this union? She pondered, gazing out of her kitchen window. The kitchen it self was spotless, but she made it seem untidy, as she looked a wreck of stress.

Sitting at her table, she folded her arms and rested her head on them. Thoughts collided into one another until she shut them out and allowed herself a moment’s peace.

***

Trunks stepped out of the shower; his full and healthy lilac hair shining as the light of the shaving lamp caught it.

He hadn’t shaved in two days and had received word from Orange Star that Gohan hadn’t come into the school for two weeks and would lose his job if he didn’t explain himself soon.

Trunks had let himself go in the shower. He had pictured Gohan with him, his body shimmering in the water. He hadn’t had any form of sexual encounter for a week, since Gohan had awoken in paralysis and felt it fair to relieve himself in the shower. Cleansing himself of all the dirty happenings of recent times and washing not only his hands, but also the rest of his organs of them.

He was drying off a new man. A new man that felt ready to take on the world and set everything as it once was. It was his fault that so much was going wrong and to correct his mistakes was important, if not vital.

“Shit!” he cursed as he sliced a minute gash into his cheekbone. He wore an equally tiny piece of toilet paper and placed it over the ash hoping it didn’t stand out too much.

He grinned confidently at his handy work as he felt his smoother thin and practiced his diamond smile. He was going to make Gohan want him again. He was going to get him the hell off of whatever plague he was pumping into his body and he was going to openly commit himself to Gohan.

He whipped off his pink, fluffy towel. The initials `T.B’ were sewn onto the corner. He looked regal in nothing but his birthday suit.

Refined buttocks and a pair of well-formed pectorals stood out to enhance his royal fascia.

His obvious pride was not his eleven inches worth of manhood, but his well looked-after hair. It shone and felt silky beneath his fingertips. He smiled, happy with his overall look.

Only one thing remained – a suit. But which one?

Trunks prided himself on having an entire wardrobe full of suits, and another separate wardrobe full of casual close, as well as a drawer full of naughty underwear.

Exiting his bathroom, he stepped gingerly around the apartment until he came o his room. A mixture of sophistication with naughty hosiery ought to be enough to stir things.

He slipped on a g-string with a cure carton of a monkey on the front and laughed to himself as he observed his dress code in his full- length mirror. Next, his black and white pinstripe pants – he was going for the devilish gangster look. An icy white shirt with a plain black tie finished the look as he pulled on his matching pinstripe jacket.

“Poi-fekt!” he winked at himself, and giggled at his flat, stereotypical gangster accent.

His shoes were black leather that glinted with each step. The overall look was stunning.

It was as though he had grown a foot in height and acquired a taste for the finer things, with as little effort as possible.

Clicking his heels, he picked a flower from the window box and tucked it into his jacket pocket. It wasn’t a carnation but a pansy.

Ah, what the hell, second best will have to do for now…he giggled at the offending pink flower put left it there anyway. It somehow completed the look.

Tonight was going to be a night to remember.

***

Piccolo was the kind of man – or alien – who didn’t have `second thoughts’. Second thoughts were for those in regret. Incidentally, he had no regrets. Piccolo wasn’t a man with time alive to regret things being dead had taught him that.

The wind howled frantically past his ears as he soared urgently to a nearby housing estate. He had felt a presence and upon investigation discovered it to be Gohan.

Gohan! The root of all the rumors, the gossip revolving around drugs and somehow, the connection between himself and Goten’s mysterious behavior.

The winds bellowing simmered to a soothing whisper as Piccolo touched soundly down to Earth, one foot at a time.

His green complexion gently glowed against the contrasting magnolia colored walls of what was – or had once been – a respectable block of buildings.

There wasn’t a wall unmarred, a brick unstained, a window un-boarded.

Sniffing the air, Piccolo sensed there was a change in the atmosphere. What had once been refined and respected had been polluted and disregarded.

Solemnly, he proceeded with purpose to the doorway and scrolled down the list of occupants until he saw one that made him gasp.

“Juunanagou…?” He whispered, barely audibly. He had suspected Juunanagou was involved. Something about his personality reeked with slimy distrust. He oozed superfluous charm to cover up his true intensions and Piccolo could see straight through him every occasion they met.

It was then Piccolo’s attention was drawn to something glinting in the sunlight.

Its silver tip sparkled as it stood out in the dirt.

Snorting, he picked it up.

“So… not the charming neighborhood it looks to be…” He jeered and twiddled the object in his fingers. A syringe.

“Guess that explains a lot. If Gohan really is on drugs like Trunks says… maybe they came from this dump?”

Surprisingly, it never occurred to Piccolo to ask the rotting figure of a man by the trash cans what was in the needle and who gave it to him – he already had some guesses.

Impatiently, he punched his way into the corridor of the apartments, disregarding the buzzer. He wasn’t interested in who was home. He was interested in Gohan.

As he sprinted up the stairwells, he took mental notes of the poor, wasted creatures living in the buildings. They in fact, were almost as wrecked as the building itself.

He stopped.

The world around him crumbled with the force of his pause. Nothing could be more right. Gohan’s energy led through this door – it was green, or had once been. The paintwork was shoddy and peeling, but still he seemed to be there.

It was his personal moment of truth. Slowly, he opened the door. First just a crack and then hurriedly swung it open.

“Gohan-kun?” He yelled into the room. It almost echoed back. Plaster fell from the walls with the reverberations. There was no reply.

“Goooooohaaaaaaaaaan!” He shouted louder, shaking the building. Still no reply. He entered. The room was a dump. Trash everywhere, needles and bottles grinning here and there. Sheets all over the place. Blood.

Panic struck Piccolo. He flung things out his way, trying to uncover what could be Gohan’s body or worse, Gohan’s decimated body.

Suddenly, it was just like a pinprick to his hand. He felt a tinge of energy. It wasn’t in the building.

It had left. It was moving. Dying slowly but moving. In his rush to follow, he dropped everything and smashed up through several floors and out into the hazy sky. Pausing the refine his sensors, he felt or the energy. Is if water dripping through a tightly turned off tap, energy was leaking slowly into his soul as he felt out the energy of his only son.

***

Trunks flew on past Capsule corp. toward Gohan’s personal estate. Despite having a whole cul-de-sac of buildings to himself, he still chose to inhabit only one, mediocre sized apartment. It was well decorated in lilac and yellow with humble but tasteful décor.

Trunks wanted to stand out. His pinstripes were going to make him seem irresistible. Gohan wouldn’t be able to stay away. He grinned to himself, repositioning his pansy in his pocket – the little pink flower grinning unabashedly from his little pocket. He was really quite proud of himself.

He looked good. He felt good. He was good. Above all, he was ready to make Gohan his eternal partner. Nothing would get in the way. Especially not resentful parents, no matter how accepting they are, he just knew someone would object somewhere.

He loved Gohan. That was all that mattered now.

Keeping a steady speed, he drew to a stylish halt as he swept himself onto to the doorway of Gohan’s home.

Juunanagou grunted. Gohan had left his apartment. Apparently he was conscious. He, too, could feel Gohan’s ki and was now sailing towards his home. Unlike most, Juunanagou had already planned for the possibilities of Gohan being found at his home. He hadn’t, however, considered that he might awaken before he had gotten home. Such thought might have led to tying him to bedposts. It would make for interesting playtime in the meanwhile. Cat and mouse was a big thrill.

Taking off and shooting towards Gohan’s home at full speed the world seemed a mere blur.

The sky was a mix of blue, grey and white whilst the ground was a techni-colored mess. Time, too, was confused in the mass of the world and before seconds had passed Gohan’s home approached Juunanagou. Since the front door was crude and noticeable, he glided along until he came to what appeared to be Gohan’s bedroom window. Sliding it easily upwards, he slipped into Gohan’s room and was surprised by what met him.

Stepping in through the doorway, Trunks whistled a merry tune. Gohan had always kept a spare key above the door on a ledge and so it had been easy to get access. Sprucing the little pink flower in his pocket, he smiled and took a deep breath, preparing himself for the speech he had prepared mentally.

What he had to say meant the world to him and he hoped Gohan would respond in kind. The latch snapped open as he twisted the key in the lock.

Straightening his coat he waltzed in without a moments thought.

***

Piccolo didn’t stop. Gohan’s home was no maze and he wasn’t going to enter through the front door. A more discreet entrance would suit.

Discreet? He thought, as he approached a small window that led into the bathroom.

Onward he thrust and grinned again. “Discreet.”

The glass shattered in a massive wave of sound as he met with the floor and rolled into the hallway.

“YOU!””YOU!””YOU!”

Shock overcame all three men. Their eyes met as they stared, unbelieving at one another in the hallway.

***

“There were no words, just empty, inconceivable horror. Only Piccolo let his eyes venture from the other two intruders to what he felt left of Gohan’s energy.

“Gohan…” He whispered angrily.

Stepping forward, he realized both men were now doing the same, all leaning down getting onto their knees.

Slumped on the floor, a heap of bones and graying flesh was a body. It had black, greasy hair that looked tangled and clothes that were stained with stomach acid. A hand limp under it’s pathetic form was reaching ahead of itself, toward a small, unmarked bottle. Colored pills lay all around.

“Gohan… Please… Gohan…” Trunks could say little else. His eyes welling with furious tears whilst Piccolo rolled the form onto it’s back and checked for a pulse at its neck.

Juunanagou grunted. “And to think, he owed me money…” He snorted again and lifted from his knees just to greet Trunks’ angry fist.”You bastard! That night you brought him home, that one night I fucked up you chose to feed off him!” Trunks was red with rage. His fists were in tight balls, his eyes were flickering green and his body began to pulsate with energy.

“You… you tried to kill my Gohan! MY Gohan!” He delivered another swift blow to Juunanagou’s recovering figure, his body being sent reeling against glass doorway, the glass shattering and blistering his skin.

Juunanagou wiped his bloody lip and sneered.

“Hah! I’d call you a man if my dick wasn’t bigger than yours! Gohan got from me what you wouldn’t give him, even though it did cost him his health and possibly his life, too!” He rose from the wrecked doorway grinning wickedly.

Piccolo took the moment of distraction to pick Gohan up from the floor and take him to his bed. Neither of the other men would come near Gohan or Piccolo if they knew what was good for them.

Juunanagou’s insults continued as Gohan was laid on his bed.

“He was a good fuck! I bet he never got from you as good as he got from me! And know what’s gotta hurt more, Mr. Ape? I was paid!”

Trunks screamed – a sound so horrific the world shook. Tears rose with his anger as he screamed with disgust at Juunanagou’s words, at his doings.

“You can fill him with your shit but he’ll only ever be MY Gohan!”

The roof of the house lifted and shattered as Trunks’s eyes flickered and his hair became the subject of torment to a non-existing wind. As though someone was splashing paint on his hair, it gradually became blonde, rigid and somehow terrifying.

Juunanagou had to shield his eyes as the blonde Saiyan’s hair emitted it’s own light – blinding and relentless.

Piccolo shielded Gohan’s body as he bellowed angrily, “Take it outside!”

Trunks didn’t need another word. He flung himself at Juunanagou, fist outstretched to catch the Jinzouningen square in the jaw.

A series of blurred punches followed, Juunanagou couldn’t block as Trunks barely gave him time for breath. He had never moved so fast. Controlled by little else than the desire for revenge, he continued, one punch, then another and another. To the stomach, the face, the spine. He pummeled him into sky by punching him through the wall of Gohan’s home out into the overcast horizon.

Following dutifully, he lunged, foot first to whirl around and kick Juunanagou’s undefending corpse into the dirt below.

Trunks watched. He knew that it was nearly impossible to feel the Ki of the Jinzouningen. Despite being half biological, Dr. Gero had been cunning in choosing a design that flaws the efforts of those with the power to sense ki.

There was suddenly a prickly feeling at the base of Trunks’s spine. He slowly turned around to find Juunanagou laughing – his face bloody and sweating – holding something. Trunks felt suddenly dizzy.

“Wha… what did you do…?” He fumbled, his eyes losing focus. Juunanagou pulled the object from Trunks’ spine and waved it in his face.

“I filled your sorry ass with methadone!” His smile was manic as he threw the syringe into the dust. Rain began to fall around them, heavy and soaking, penetrating their bodies.

Piccolo gasped. Gohan twitched as lightning forked from the sky. He stroked Gohan’s hair and fetched a damp cloth. “You’ll be ok, kid. you’ll just be just fine.” He spoke tenderly, like a father to a son.

Meanwhile, Trunks fought to combat the drug disarraying his veins. He felt like he was floating but he was being attacked, one punch followed by kick after kick and then more punching. He had to do something… But, he felt, good in a way.

No, mustn’t think like that, he told himself. He had to fight it. No matter how good it felt, Gohan came first, but he was powerless, numb and rigid.

“Gohan…Please Gohan wake up… Gohan…” A single tear dripped down Trunks's face as his hair fell and darkened and his eyes flickered to blue. Blood flashed across his face in a shower of violence as he tried to move in desperation.

Piccolo could see what was happening. He didn’t want to leave Gohan, he couldn’t. What if he woke up? Who would help him? He didn’t need to go to hospital; he needed Piccolo and Trunks. He contemplated his own thoughts… And Trunks?

He realized he as finally accepting it. Accepting that Gohan and Trunks needed each other.

He looked outside the window again; its shattered glass leaving a slightly confused view of shattered glass and a grey sky. The rain was seeping in through the cracks.

That was the last straw. He watched as Trunks’s body became limp, as his blood soaked body was kicked and thrashed endlessly without pause by a heap of metal. He was going to step in.

He looked at Gohan with sincere eyes and kissed his cold forehead. “Wish me luck…” He murmured.

The window was smashed anyway, so he broke clean through it in a sparkling shower of shards, the sound startling his opponent.

“Jinzouningen Juunanagou! Leave the ape for later, I want a piece of you for fucking up my kid!”

Juunanagou barely had time to smile as Piccolo hurtled toward him and covered his body with a barrage of powerful blows to every part of his body. One after another, and he had already gotten Juunanagou on the ropes. His body leaking blood and oil, wires ripped and visible here and there.

He fell to the ground and held himself up against a wall, trying to retain his balance, his grin replaced by a furious, bloodied snarl.

“It was his business… He owes me money and I’ll get it back even if it means killing you as a justification!”

Piccolo shrugged and allowed himself half a smile. “Oh no, my dear friend, it is I, who will have justification…” He raised a glowing hand and stared sidelong at his fuming adversary.

The light began to fluctuate but quickly died as a voice screamed, “Trunks!” and a body fell from the window.

Piccolo snorted and knocked Juunanagou out with a hefty blow to the back of his neck – the figure flailing it’s arms falling from the window was more important.

Piccolo burst into the air and plucked the body from the sky as he landed softly on his toes.

He was shocked to see the figure wasn’t even awake. Arms were trashing around and saliva trailed his chin. Piccolo rested the figure against the wall and sat him upright before shaking him violently.

Trunks stirred and saw little more than a body being shaken hurriedly.

“Piccolo? Whatcha doin’? I’m tired. Can I see Gohan now?” The drug was still in his blood, and by the sounds of things was quite potent and would be there for a while.

He didn’t respond, only shook the body of the man in his arms.

“Gohan!” Trunks screamed as realization struck him.

Piccolo stopped immediately. Gohan threw up in front of himself. His eyes bleary, he blinked.

Trunks pushed Piccolo away and glared at him, as though in drunken jealousy.

“Gohan! Are you OK? Piccolo was shaking you! That wasn’t very nice, was it?” He sounded stupid and drunk, as though a stereotypical blonde bimbo.

Gohan merely gurgled. Only words to come from his mouth muttered, “Sorry…” He fainted.

Piccolo hoisted both men over his shoulders. “We need to see Dende… Maybe he can help you where I can’t.” Piccolo didn’t need to feel out where to go, he just knew. One half of him knew hell, the other half of him knew heaven and he knew in turn how to find each of them. The only way to heaven was up.

***

Dende frowned at both men, then looked longingly at Piccolo.

“I just don’t know if the beans will be enough, Piccolo. It’s not your average battle torn injury. It’s drugs.” Dende held out a bag of senzu beans, which were hastily snatched away by Piccolo’s determined hand.

“Maybe so, Dende, but it’s still worth a try.” Piccolo stomped off. Trunks and Gohan were lying in separate beds, side by side in the infirmary of the God’s home.

He crunched each bean in a fist and mixed one in a glass of water for each man. There was no way they could both swallow a bean whole in their current state.

He gently opened the mouth of Gohan and carefully allowed a smooth and gradual flow of water into his mouth. Once full, he tipped back his head by means to swallow. He repeated the process with Trunks and watched as time passed.

Slowly, each man opened his eyes. Bruised, grayish eyes turned to look at swollen, blue eyes. Both me blinked as they saw each other and glanced from each other, to Piccolo and back again.

Piccolo smiled. “How do you feel?” He asked the men jointly. Both men answered simultaneously, “I don’t know.”

It made Piccolo smile. Gohan risked sitting up but felt overcome by nausea and spilled his stomach all over the floor beside him. Trunks quickly followed suit over the opposite side.

“You may feel ill for some time. Drugs aren’t easy to get out of your system.” Piccolo offered to try and comfort the two men.

Trunks opened his mouth and hoarsely, he bleated, ” May I please speak to Gohan alone for five minutes? I know you deserve time with him, but please, thank you for all your help but I have to talk alone with him…” Trunks eyes looked dark under his swollen cheeks but Piccolo nodded and vacated the room. He had known all along they’d want to be alone, but it wasn’t for good. He could sense that Trunks just needed to feel relieved.

When the door slammed shut, Trunks sighed a heavy sigh. He heaved himself upwards with a groan of aggravation and hoisted himself onto his feet so he could shuffle over to Gohan. He sat himself by Gohan’s head and looked deeply at him with sincere eyes.

“I got this for you…” Trunks pulled what was left of a mangled and battered flower from his trouser pocket. “It was in my coat but that got burned up. This survived. It’s for you…” He handed Gohan what remained of his pink pansy.

“Gohan… why did you… you know?” Trunks stroked Gohan’s hair. Gohan sighed and avoided Trunks’s eyes.

“Because… It was an accident at first. He told me the pills were just aspirin, for my headaches… I didn’t realize until later… But I liked the feeling it gave me. The pills gave me power… I felt supernatural, special, alive.”

Trunks kissed Gohan’s lips tenderly, stunning Gohan.

“You… you’re not angry?” Gohan looked almost frightened, as if Trunks were about hurt him. Trunks instead just sighed and shook his hair, his lilac locks framing his dirty face.

“No, Go-chan. I’m not angry. I’m just, sorry. I got you into it and now, I have to get you out. I love you, and I never mean to hurt you, I just don’t always know how to respond to things. I can’t help it…”

Gohan pulled Trunks down to him, his arms wrapped solidly around Trunks’s neck. Trunks only tear slid down his face and onto Gohan’s cheek, where it slid down again into his ebony hair.

“I love you…” Gohan hazarded, as he began to undress his lover. The two men were little short of possessed as each man undressed the other and little by little, got lost in themselves.

Piccolo smiled.

***

One month later…

“Gohan? Where are you?” Trunks wandered hopelessly into the hall of the Capsule Corp. head quarters where he had seen his lover running to. He had, of course, given chase, as Gohan seemed to be flirting with him.

Seeing his lover alone in the middle of the dance floor was ridiculously tempting. “You’re sure horny tonight! But there’s no way I’m gonna stop chasing even though I can see your getting tired!” He teased and leaped onto of his lover. Gohan giggled and whispered coyly in Trunks’s ear, “There’s a table just over there…” Trunks grinned and threw his older lover onto the table and began tearing his clothes off viciously. Gohan laughed and spoke deliberately, much louder than usual, “Happy birthday, Trunks-chan!”

Trunks suddenly gasped as he realized, to his horror, he was half naked with his lover, on a table in the centrer of a room full of Capsule Corp. employees who were obviously here to initiate a surprise party.

“Uh…” Gohan burst into hysterical laughter whilst Trunks flushed a storm of red. “Gohan… How do I… What do I… Do? I’m in my…” Trunks began, Gohan finished, “Birthday suit?” He giggled again.

“Oh my god…” Trunks then realized more to this horror something was amiss. “Gohan. Everyone…”

“Everyone is in their birthday suit, too! Happy birthday Trunks-chan!” Gohan pulled Trunks on top of him and they soon forgot half of the company was in audience.

They were rampant without a care in the world. It was a night they’d always remember.

***

Meanwhile, Goten pushed a button and the till opened, another and it slammed shut. He was happy in this job. He did however miss Juu-chan… He enjoyed his well paid job though, it was easy and people came to recognize him.

He had to see Juunanagou anyway tonight because it was Thursday. No avoiding the inevitable. Tonight would be a night worth forgetting…