TITLE: Scars
AUTHOR: Lady AngelFiren
CATEGORY: Romance/Friendship/General RATING: PG13 so far, but knowing me, we'll be R or NC17 before long
CHARACTERS: Fic centers around Mirai Trunks and Gohan. Videl, Goku, Vegeta, young Trunks, and Goten are also pretty frequent
WARNINGS: A/U; potential angst/suspense; yaoi/shounen ai;
NOTES: This fic is an Alternate Universe fic. It is set after Gohan completes two years of high school and graduates. He is 19, soon to be 20. Mirai Trunks is 20. Videl and Gohan never married in this story, rather they are best friends. Young Trunks is 11, and Goten is 10.
Scars - Prologue
Mirai Trunks tried to clear the tears out of his eyes, but it was a futile effort. Every time his fingers wiped the salty tears away, fresh ones would take their place, leaving him bleary-eyed and more than a little unhappy. All around him was the very most disturbing sound he could think of after screams of pain; silence. But for the lonely wind twisting in unsettled gusts over the sandblasted remains of planet Earth, there was only silence to greet the young half-saiyajin's ears.
A small pile of fresh dirt marked the grave of his late mother, Bulma Briefs. Scientist extraordinaire, as well as loving mother and friend to Trunks, her death was pivotal in his life. She was everything, she was the only thing he had left, the only other person he could relate to even a little bit, and now she was being eaten by worms in the dirt before his sightless eyes.
Trunks' body was littered with scars, his smooth flesh was marked in a hundred places by the evidence of many battles. It seemed that no part of the young man was left untouched by the destruction that androids seventeen and eighteen had wreaked on Earth throughout his life. Even his face was marked, there was a large scar (paler than the rest of his skin thanks to time) running from his right brow all the way down his cheek. Another scar traced his left jaw, continuing across his throat. These pale marks showed over the rest of him, crisscrossing his arms and back and chest. But there were wounds inside his mind that were still raw with his intense grief, and these smarted far worse than any of Trunks' physical wounds ever had. All of Trunks' memories, dating back as far as he could recall, were influenced by the thoughtless actions of the two androids. Trunks' mind was damaged far more severely than his pretty face ever would be, for he could not forget everything they had done, and although they were dead, and had been dead for two years, their actions continued to ripple across the planet, thanks to the laws of cause and effect.
Trunks was grateful for many things. The one upon which light currently shone was that his beloved mother had not been killed in violence, rather she had died in her sleep, peacefully. It still unnerved Trunks that after all the people he'd watched being buried, the first person he'd ever had to dig a grave for by himself was his own mother. Even when his master and teacher Son Gohan had been killed, Trunks had not been the one to dig his grave or bury him, there had been more people left alive at that time, more people to grieve over the loss of their most powerful ally in the war against the androids.
Now that the war was over, Trunks found himself completely alone. He knew of colonies of people who were quite successfully rebuilding their civilization -he also knew that he was welcome to live in any one of these colonies- but he felt entirely too oppressed by his own mind. He saw inside himself weaknesses that proved he couldn't handle trying to rebuild alongside the others left alive. Of course they could relate, they had all lost huge parts of their lives, loved ones, memories, everything was razed to the ground. But Trunks... he was the only being left on the planet with any saiyajin blood in him, and for that, he felt that he could never stay amongst others.
And so, Trunks had decided to travel back to the other timeline and see if he could piece together some kind of life there. He ached to see living, smiling faces; he ached to stop crying long enough to relax.
Trunks wiped his face again, this time with more finality in his movements. He turned his focus away from Bulma's resting place and walked towards the strange looking contraption that he had used before. The Time Machine. He had everything he thought he would need, mostly personal things, some food and water, a change of clothes... he was ready to go.
With a heavy sigh, Trunks climbed into the Time Machine and forced himself to stop crying. He had too much pride to head into the other timeline looking like a kicked puppy. After he calmed himself and took a last look around, Mirai Trunks set the co-ordinates and watched the world melt away as he switched timelines.
Scars - Chapter 01
Son Gohan prided himself on being a good person. He made decisions based on his moral code -he simply didn't do things he felt were wrong in his heart- he never intentionally said or did anything to hurt someone else, and for this, he was granted the privilege of riding the flying nimbus high above the other clouds with the nighttime air slipping refreshingly over his face and fair moonlight giving his already pale skin an ethereal tone.
Gohan was thinking over some things that he felt were very important. He was supposed to go to university in a few months, but he was unsure... he was a little scared that if he followed his mother's wishes and became a successful doctor or teacher or lawyer, then he would never live up to his full potential in his father's eyes. Now, of course his father had been absent for a huge portion of his life, and Gohan had never really grown close to Goku since his return from Otherworld, but Gohan was quite certain that Goku was somehow disappointed in him. Well, maybe not disappointed... more like ... alienated. Goku seemed to prefer pretending everything was like it had been before, and he did so continuously, despite the fact that Gohan was quite uncomfortable around the man he felt guilty of murdering several years before.
Gohan had difficulty forgiving. When someone hurt him, he did not hold any grudge, rather he simply found himself unable to just up and wipe people's mistakes away with words. He needed for actions to be present to speak louder than any forgiving words could. In that sense, Gohan felt like he'd killed his own dad by not destroying Cell when he was told to do so the first chance he got. He was completely unable to give himself any leeway when it came to forgiving his own actions. Gohan's deep-seated guilt had led to a strong sense of dislike for himself that he could not shake, no matter how he tried. He wasn't specifically aware of not liking himself, it was rather that he didn't tend to think of himself in a positive light. Although he had many positive attributes to boast, he never did anything of the sort. Gohan was a master at blending in and hanging low. He managed to go through two years of high school without making very many friends, and in that time, only a handful of people got to know him past just his name.
Now it was off to university, where Gohan intended to do exactly the same thing. However, it was getting more difficult, there were people who were trying to get involved in Gohan's life, no matter how hard he tried to make himself seem like a waste of time to others. Videl was badgering Gohan incessantly with attention; she would call him some evenings just to chat, she was always asking him to teach her more fighting techniques, and she seemed really concerned with Gohan's opinion about her recent decisions. Videl had elected to go to college and become a police officer, which Gohan had mixed feelings about. He didn't want her to get hurt, but he knew she was strong and that she could usually take care of her own business. Gohan tried not to give any opinion one way or another, because he worried that Videl would listen to him and that he might say the wrong thing to her. He was sorely lacking in the confidence department.
It had been a difficult leap of faith to reveal his saiyajin nature and his inhuman powers to Satan Videl. However, Gohan had discovered that there were also benefits to trusting a non-Z-fighter as a close friend. Videl had her share of woman's intuition, and she made herself available to Gohan when he needed to blow off some steam. The large half-saiyajin tried not to go to Videl for advice, comfort, and company, but these attempts were futile. Gohan was growing up to be quite a troubled man; all the secrecy of his high school years weighed heavily on his shoulders. He still, however, had no desire to stand up in front of people and announce his strange heritage, it was something he felt was much more private than that, it wasn't so much a novelty to be super powerful, as a gift that he had to take painstaking care to protect.
At the present, Gohan was heading towards Satan City. He'd given up on playing superhero after the incidences with Majin Buu, deciding that he could do better protecting the world on a grand scale, and leave the everyday crime fighting to the proper authorities. Being Saiyaman made Gohan feel very separate from humans in general, and he much preferred to exercise his mind than his fists. Gohan was learning that people were brilliant when it came to thoughts and ideas, every person he met seemed to have new ideas and angles on topics that Gohan thought he already knew plenty about. He very much enjoyed hearing a fresh perspective, he liked it so much, in fact, that he was finding this to be his motivation for heading to university to become a teacher.
Gohan hopped off of the flying nimbus and gave the cloud a handsome smile, watching it zip quickly up into the sky to wait for his next summons.
The dark-haired man was standing on Videl's balcony, which was where he tended to land if he was looking to chat. He rapped his knuckles quietly on her patio door, hoping that she wasn't asleep. He could feel her energy inside the room, but it was low, relaxed. And it was after dark, his mother and father were asleep at home in their beds, having no knowledge of Gohan's nighttime flight into the city.
The vertical blinds that shielded Videl's bedroom from Gohan's view were pushed aside by a hand. A pair of large curious blue eyes blinked up at Gohan, and a pleased smile flickered to Videl's lips. She unlocked the balcony door and opened it, stepping outside in her pajamas. Said pajamas consisted of a pair of light pants with a drawstring, and an old t-shirt that Videl didn't wear out anymore. She slid the door shut behind her and moved past Gohan to look out over Satan City.
"Couldn't sleep, Gohan?" she asked, flickering her gaze to him from the corner of her eye.
Gohan came to rest against the balcony railing beside her, his general warmth making Videl lean just a touch closer to him, as it was breezy up on the second floor on summer nights.
"Yeah... were you sleeping? I was thinking a lot about yesterday..."
Videl's eyebrows quirked with interest. The day before, Gohan had told her over the phone that he had decided to go to university to study the history of civilization, and from there, that he wanted to become a history teacher. Videl hadn't expected that, she saw him as more of the math or English type. She'd told him as much, and they hadn't really talked more, it seemed he needed some time to think. Gohan was always like that, say anything to him, and he was required a gestation period before he could make any constructive sense out of advice or opinion. Videl had advised him time and again that he shouldn't brood so much, but he always gave her a helpless look, as if to say that he didn't know any other way to go about making decisions for himself.
'I don't want to make any mistakes that I'll regret Videl...' -that was always his answer whenever she poked at him for his worrying.
Videl turned her face so she could see Gohan's expression more clearly. He was often like an open book, easy to read after a little attention to detail. His eyes usually showed all of what he was thinking about, and Videl had spent enough time around Gohan that she had figured most of his expressions out already. At the moment he was looking at the grounds below the balcony, where a large rectangular swimming pool rippled slightly from the breeze. His brows were drawn together, signifying that he was thinking about it still... brooding again.
"Gohan relax... I know they're big decisions for you, but you'll do the right thing, and no matter how long you spend trying to figure out if you're going to mess up, it'll still happen if its bound to happen. So quit worrying so much. Come on Gohan, give me a smile, kay?"
Gohan frowned more at his friend's words, but he smiled helplessly, wringing his hands on the balcony railing. Videl put an arm around him and rubbed his back some. She watched his powerful fingers relax, his wringing movements stopping as she offered him some comfort. Gohan looked at her for a moment and returned his eyes to the pool below.
"Do you think my mom will be happy?"
Videl shook her head, grinning at him. "Duh, you're going to be a teacher, what more could she possibly want? She'll get down in the dirt and kiss your feet if you go through with all this and you know it. You already know the answer to your question, I think you're trying to avoid something. Have you talked to your dad yet about what you're doing?"
Gohan stiffened under Videl's hand, his fingers tightening on the balcony rail once more at the mention of his father. He hadn't said anything to Goku yet about going to university and such. Gohan told himself that he was waiting for the right time to explain what he was doing to his dad, but it was more that he was avoiding Goku altogether. His jaw tightened and he swallowed his words, giving something of a grunt instead. Videl frowned.
"Jeeze Gohan you gotta talk to him sometime, come on now, Goku is, like, the most easygoing person on the planet, you can tell him, you know he'll be pleased that you're even talking to him. I'll bet after being gone for so long he's really proud that you're strong enough to take care of yourself and that you turned out well despite his absence. Don't you think so too? What's stopping you? You always tell me such good things about him..."
"Videl quit it. You know I can't just... just... go up to him and act like everything is great. You don't understand... dad isn't thoughtful about stuff. He's... hn... forget it... I should go."
Videl felt herself becoming very frustrated. Gohan was always running away when it came to talking about his dad, every time she pried or even mentioned Goku, it was like hitting a very sore spot in him, and he would try to change the subject. Whenever he couldn't change the subject, he'd remove himself from the conversation by leaving. Now Gohan was shrugging out of Videl's touch and climbing over the railing to hop into the air. The blue-eyed girl grabbed his wrist.
"Gohan wait, don't leave... I'm sorry... I know you don't like talking about your dad... I was being an ass, I'm sorry, ok? Stay...?"
Videl's eyes crawled over Gohan's face to lock with his, which were dark and troubled. Gohan didn't pull out of Videl's fingertips, he let her restrain him from flying away. Slowly he floated down to face Videl, standing on the air in front of her. "I want to go home Videl... I'll talk to you later... tomorrow or something... now isn't good."
"Well if you didn't want to talk then you wouldn't have flown all the way here! Obviously you do want to tell me something... you wouldn't keep talking to me all the time if you didn't. Grrr, Gohan you're really frustrating... I want to help you and you keep dodging out of the way every time a subject comes up that's tender. You can't get better if you don't talk to someone. I'm your best friend..."
"Well since when was I sick? Get better? There isn't anything wrong with me... I just have lots I have to think about."
"Bullshit, you've been weird ever since Goku came back. Come to think of it, you've been weird ever since I met you... *frown* but since he got back its been very different. You think I'm not serious? Can you even disagree with me on this one? I know there's no way you'll relax enough to say much tonight, but Gohan whenever you're ready to explain what bothers you so much about him, I'll be here to listen, kay? Go home and get some sleep, you look tired."
Gohan swallowed thickly, feeling confused by Videl's sudden desire to know more about his thoughts. Why were his thoughts and feelings so important to her? Well... she did talk to him whenever he could coax it out of her, but they were both so darned stubborn that it usually ended in something of an argument before they could really get down to anything serious. There were lots of times where they did have more serious conversations, but tonight it just wasn't going to happen. Gohan was in no mood to be talking about how he was feeling and what he was thinking. On the contrary, he'd come to Videl's window mostly because he felt lonely and he wanted to be close to someone. He liked the way she rubbed his back for him when he was tense, there was no other person in his life who ever did anything of the sort.
Gohan decided to head home without the flying nimbus to keep him company. He took his time an glided atop the clouds on his back for a long while, just looking up a the stars and wondering about his future. He tried very hard to put the past and present out of his mind. The future held the sort of hope that lifted Gohan's spirits, and it made him feel marginally lighter inside to focus on the good things that might happen someday.
+++++++++++++++++
Back in the comfortable safety of his mountain home, Goku had his thick arms wrapped about his wife, his chin and nose nestled in her loose raven hair, his lips moving slightly against her to feel the softness of her silky tresses. His eyes were open and aware, though he was not focused on anything in the line of his vision. Goku's thoughts and senses were tuned into his first-born son. Gohan sometimes left at night to get some air, occasionally he even met up with Videl for a bit, but usually he stayed out alone, doing whatever it was that his restless mind told him to do instead of getting his rest. Goku often woke at small fluctuations in the boy's ki, because he was watching for it, keeping an eye on his son, just to make sure he was alright.
It was very frustrating to live with Gohan. Goku had learned that in his absence of seven years, his son had managed to almost completely take his place. Gohan protected ChiChi and Goten, he taught Goten things that Goku had taught him when he was small... he even enforced discipline if ChiChi wasn't around, and it was obvious that Gohan did not want to give up his position as leader and protector of his family. Furthermore, he was quiet and withdrawn whenever Goku asked him about things like his friends, his schoolwork... even when he asked about little things like if he was having a good day or if he had enjoyed breakfast that morning. Gohan would ignore Goku, he'd walk away from him abruptly. He would growl in warning sometimes whenever Goku upset Goten by accident, and the boy hadn't looked Goku in the eyes since he'd come back, not once. Goku was certain he'd seen many different things in Gohan's eyes when he tried to get a good look at them, most often there was worry, followed by anger and frustration, and lastly there was dissatisfaction and discomfort. Goku was quite overwhelmed by how far he'd been pushed from Gohan's side, and so he tried instead to focus on his wife and younger son to make up for the things he couldn't share with Gohan.
Sensing his son's return to his room, Goku sighed and kissed ChiChi's hair, shifting his arms around her and closing his eyes against the pillow. Worry never helped anything, it only made the things he could not change sting more when he thought about them.
AUTHOR: Lady AngelFiren
CATEGORY: Romance/Friendship/General RATING: PG13 so far, but knowing me, we'll be R or NC17 before long
CHARACTERS: Fic centers around Mirai Trunks and Gohan. Videl, Goku, Vegeta, young Trunks, and Goten are also pretty frequent
WARNINGS: A/U; potential angst/suspense; yaoi/shounen ai;
NOTES: This fic is an Alternate Universe fic. It is set after Gohan completes two years of high school and graduates. He is 19, soon to be 20. Mirai Trunks is 20. Videl and Gohan never married in this story, rather they are best friends. Young Trunks is 11, and Goten is 10.
Scars - Prologue
Mirai Trunks tried to clear the tears out of his eyes, but it was a futile effort. Every time his fingers wiped the salty tears away, fresh ones would take their place, leaving him bleary-eyed and more than a little unhappy. All around him was the very most disturbing sound he could think of after screams of pain; silence. But for the lonely wind twisting in unsettled gusts over the sandblasted remains of planet Earth, there was only silence to greet the young half-saiyajin's ears.
A small pile of fresh dirt marked the grave of his late mother, Bulma Briefs. Scientist extraordinaire, as well as loving mother and friend to Trunks, her death was pivotal in his life. She was everything, she was the only thing he had left, the only other person he could relate to even a little bit, and now she was being eaten by worms in the dirt before his sightless eyes.
Trunks' body was littered with scars, his smooth flesh was marked in a hundred places by the evidence of many battles. It seemed that no part of the young man was left untouched by the destruction that androids seventeen and eighteen had wreaked on Earth throughout his life. Even his face was marked, there was a large scar (paler than the rest of his skin thanks to time) running from his right brow all the way down his cheek. Another scar traced his left jaw, continuing across his throat. These pale marks showed over the rest of him, crisscrossing his arms and back and chest. But there were wounds inside his mind that were still raw with his intense grief, and these smarted far worse than any of Trunks' physical wounds ever had. All of Trunks' memories, dating back as far as he could recall, were influenced by the thoughtless actions of the two androids. Trunks' mind was damaged far more severely than his pretty face ever would be, for he could not forget everything they had done, and although they were dead, and had been dead for two years, their actions continued to ripple across the planet, thanks to the laws of cause and effect.
Trunks was grateful for many things. The one upon which light currently shone was that his beloved mother had not been killed in violence, rather she had died in her sleep, peacefully. It still unnerved Trunks that after all the people he'd watched being buried, the first person he'd ever had to dig a grave for by himself was his own mother. Even when his master and teacher Son Gohan had been killed, Trunks had not been the one to dig his grave or bury him, there had been more people left alive at that time, more people to grieve over the loss of their most powerful ally in the war against the androids.
Now that the war was over, Trunks found himself completely alone. He knew of colonies of people who were quite successfully rebuilding their civilization -he also knew that he was welcome to live in any one of these colonies- but he felt entirely too oppressed by his own mind. He saw inside himself weaknesses that proved he couldn't handle trying to rebuild alongside the others left alive. Of course they could relate, they had all lost huge parts of their lives, loved ones, memories, everything was razed to the ground. But Trunks... he was the only being left on the planet with any saiyajin blood in him, and for that, he felt that he could never stay amongst others.
And so, Trunks had decided to travel back to the other timeline and see if he could piece together some kind of life there. He ached to see living, smiling faces; he ached to stop crying long enough to relax.
Trunks wiped his face again, this time with more finality in his movements. He turned his focus away from Bulma's resting place and walked towards the strange looking contraption that he had used before. The Time Machine. He had everything he thought he would need, mostly personal things, some food and water, a change of clothes... he was ready to go.
With a heavy sigh, Trunks climbed into the Time Machine and forced himself to stop crying. He had too much pride to head into the other timeline looking like a kicked puppy. After he calmed himself and took a last look around, Mirai Trunks set the co-ordinates and watched the world melt away as he switched timelines.
Scars - Chapter 01
Son Gohan prided himself on being a good person. He made decisions based on his moral code -he simply didn't do things he felt were wrong in his heart- he never intentionally said or did anything to hurt someone else, and for this, he was granted the privilege of riding the flying nimbus high above the other clouds with the nighttime air slipping refreshingly over his face and fair moonlight giving his already pale skin an ethereal tone.
Gohan was thinking over some things that he felt were very important. He was supposed to go to university in a few months, but he was unsure... he was a little scared that if he followed his mother's wishes and became a successful doctor or teacher or lawyer, then he would never live up to his full potential in his father's eyes. Now, of course his father had been absent for a huge portion of his life, and Gohan had never really grown close to Goku since his return from Otherworld, but Gohan was quite certain that Goku was somehow disappointed in him. Well, maybe not disappointed... more like ... alienated. Goku seemed to prefer pretending everything was like it had been before, and he did so continuously, despite the fact that Gohan was quite uncomfortable around the man he felt guilty of murdering several years before.
Gohan had difficulty forgiving. When someone hurt him, he did not hold any grudge, rather he simply found himself unable to just up and wipe people's mistakes away with words. He needed for actions to be present to speak louder than any forgiving words could. In that sense, Gohan felt like he'd killed his own dad by not destroying Cell when he was told to do so the first chance he got. He was completely unable to give himself any leeway when it came to forgiving his own actions. Gohan's deep-seated guilt had led to a strong sense of dislike for himself that he could not shake, no matter how he tried. He wasn't specifically aware of not liking himself, it was rather that he didn't tend to think of himself in a positive light. Although he had many positive attributes to boast, he never did anything of the sort. Gohan was a master at blending in and hanging low. He managed to go through two years of high school without making very many friends, and in that time, only a handful of people got to know him past just his name.
Now it was off to university, where Gohan intended to do exactly the same thing. However, it was getting more difficult, there were people who were trying to get involved in Gohan's life, no matter how hard he tried to make himself seem like a waste of time to others. Videl was badgering Gohan incessantly with attention; she would call him some evenings just to chat, she was always asking him to teach her more fighting techniques, and she seemed really concerned with Gohan's opinion about her recent decisions. Videl had elected to go to college and become a police officer, which Gohan had mixed feelings about. He didn't want her to get hurt, but he knew she was strong and that she could usually take care of her own business. Gohan tried not to give any opinion one way or another, because he worried that Videl would listen to him and that he might say the wrong thing to her. He was sorely lacking in the confidence department.
It had been a difficult leap of faith to reveal his saiyajin nature and his inhuman powers to Satan Videl. However, Gohan had discovered that there were also benefits to trusting a non-Z-fighter as a close friend. Videl had her share of woman's intuition, and she made herself available to Gohan when he needed to blow off some steam. The large half-saiyajin tried not to go to Videl for advice, comfort, and company, but these attempts were futile. Gohan was growing up to be quite a troubled man; all the secrecy of his high school years weighed heavily on his shoulders. He still, however, had no desire to stand up in front of people and announce his strange heritage, it was something he felt was much more private than that, it wasn't so much a novelty to be super powerful, as a gift that he had to take painstaking care to protect.
At the present, Gohan was heading towards Satan City. He'd given up on playing superhero after the incidences with Majin Buu, deciding that he could do better protecting the world on a grand scale, and leave the everyday crime fighting to the proper authorities. Being Saiyaman made Gohan feel very separate from humans in general, and he much preferred to exercise his mind than his fists. Gohan was learning that people were brilliant when it came to thoughts and ideas, every person he met seemed to have new ideas and angles on topics that Gohan thought he already knew plenty about. He very much enjoyed hearing a fresh perspective, he liked it so much, in fact, that he was finding this to be his motivation for heading to university to become a teacher.
Gohan hopped off of the flying nimbus and gave the cloud a handsome smile, watching it zip quickly up into the sky to wait for his next summons.
The dark-haired man was standing on Videl's balcony, which was where he tended to land if he was looking to chat. He rapped his knuckles quietly on her patio door, hoping that she wasn't asleep. He could feel her energy inside the room, but it was low, relaxed. And it was after dark, his mother and father were asleep at home in their beds, having no knowledge of Gohan's nighttime flight into the city.
The vertical blinds that shielded Videl's bedroom from Gohan's view were pushed aside by a hand. A pair of large curious blue eyes blinked up at Gohan, and a pleased smile flickered to Videl's lips. She unlocked the balcony door and opened it, stepping outside in her pajamas. Said pajamas consisted of a pair of light pants with a drawstring, and an old t-shirt that Videl didn't wear out anymore. She slid the door shut behind her and moved past Gohan to look out over Satan City.
"Couldn't sleep, Gohan?" she asked, flickering her gaze to him from the corner of her eye.
Gohan came to rest against the balcony railing beside her, his general warmth making Videl lean just a touch closer to him, as it was breezy up on the second floor on summer nights.
"Yeah... were you sleeping? I was thinking a lot about yesterday..."
Videl's eyebrows quirked with interest. The day before, Gohan had told her over the phone that he had decided to go to university to study the history of civilization, and from there, that he wanted to become a history teacher. Videl hadn't expected that, she saw him as more of the math or English type. She'd told him as much, and they hadn't really talked more, it seemed he needed some time to think. Gohan was always like that, say anything to him, and he was required a gestation period before he could make any constructive sense out of advice or opinion. Videl had advised him time and again that he shouldn't brood so much, but he always gave her a helpless look, as if to say that he didn't know any other way to go about making decisions for himself.
'I don't want to make any mistakes that I'll regret Videl...' -that was always his answer whenever she poked at him for his worrying.
Videl turned her face so she could see Gohan's expression more clearly. He was often like an open book, easy to read after a little attention to detail. His eyes usually showed all of what he was thinking about, and Videl had spent enough time around Gohan that she had figured most of his expressions out already. At the moment he was looking at the grounds below the balcony, where a large rectangular swimming pool rippled slightly from the breeze. His brows were drawn together, signifying that he was thinking about it still... brooding again.
"Gohan relax... I know they're big decisions for you, but you'll do the right thing, and no matter how long you spend trying to figure out if you're going to mess up, it'll still happen if its bound to happen. So quit worrying so much. Come on Gohan, give me a smile, kay?"
Gohan frowned more at his friend's words, but he smiled helplessly, wringing his hands on the balcony railing. Videl put an arm around him and rubbed his back some. She watched his powerful fingers relax, his wringing movements stopping as she offered him some comfort. Gohan looked at her for a moment and returned his eyes to the pool below.
"Do you think my mom will be happy?"
Videl shook her head, grinning at him. "Duh, you're going to be a teacher, what more could she possibly want? She'll get down in the dirt and kiss your feet if you go through with all this and you know it. You already know the answer to your question, I think you're trying to avoid something. Have you talked to your dad yet about what you're doing?"
Gohan stiffened under Videl's hand, his fingers tightening on the balcony rail once more at the mention of his father. He hadn't said anything to Goku yet about going to university and such. Gohan told himself that he was waiting for the right time to explain what he was doing to his dad, but it was more that he was avoiding Goku altogether. His jaw tightened and he swallowed his words, giving something of a grunt instead. Videl frowned.
"Jeeze Gohan you gotta talk to him sometime, come on now, Goku is, like, the most easygoing person on the planet, you can tell him, you know he'll be pleased that you're even talking to him. I'll bet after being gone for so long he's really proud that you're strong enough to take care of yourself and that you turned out well despite his absence. Don't you think so too? What's stopping you? You always tell me such good things about him..."
"Videl quit it. You know I can't just... just... go up to him and act like everything is great. You don't understand... dad isn't thoughtful about stuff. He's... hn... forget it... I should go."
Videl felt herself becoming very frustrated. Gohan was always running away when it came to talking about his dad, every time she pried or even mentioned Goku, it was like hitting a very sore spot in him, and he would try to change the subject. Whenever he couldn't change the subject, he'd remove himself from the conversation by leaving. Now Gohan was shrugging out of Videl's touch and climbing over the railing to hop into the air. The blue-eyed girl grabbed his wrist.
"Gohan wait, don't leave... I'm sorry... I know you don't like talking about your dad... I was being an ass, I'm sorry, ok? Stay...?"
Videl's eyes crawled over Gohan's face to lock with his, which were dark and troubled. Gohan didn't pull out of Videl's fingertips, he let her restrain him from flying away. Slowly he floated down to face Videl, standing on the air in front of her. "I want to go home Videl... I'll talk to you later... tomorrow or something... now isn't good."
"Well if you didn't want to talk then you wouldn't have flown all the way here! Obviously you do want to tell me something... you wouldn't keep talking to me all the time if you didn't. Grrr, Gohan you're really frustrating... I want to help you and you keep dodging out of the way every time a subject comes up that's tender. You can't get better if you don't talk to someone. I'm your best friend..."
"Well since when was I sick? Get better? There isn't anything wrong with me... I just have lots I have to think about."
"Bullshit, you've been weird ever since Goku came back. Come to think of it, you've been weird ever since I met you... *frown* but since he got back its been very different. You think I'm not serious? Can you even disagree with me on this one? I know there's no way you'll relax enough to say much tonight, but Gohan whenever you're ready to explain what bothers you so much about him, I'll be here to listen, kay? Go home and get some sleep, you look tired."
Gohan swallowed thickly, feeling confused by Videl's sudden desire to know more about his thoughts. Why were his thoughts and feelings so important to her? Well... she did talk to him whenever he could coax it out of her, but they were both so darned stubborn that it usually ended in something of an argument before they could really get down to anything serious. There were lots of times where they did have more serious conversations, but tonight it just wasn't going to happen. Gohan was in no mood to be talking about how he was feeling and what he was thinking. On the contrary, he'd come to Videl's window mostly because he felt lonely and he wanted to be close to someone. He liked the way she rubbed his back for him when he was tense, there was no other person in his life who ever did anything of the sort.
Gohan decided to head home without the flying nimbus to keep him company. He took his time an glided atop the clouds on his back for a long while, just looking up a the stars and wondering about his future. He tried very hard to put the past and present out of his mind. The future held the sort of hope that lifted Gohan's spirits, and it made him feel marginally lighter inside to focus on the good things that might happen someday.
+++++++++++++++++
Back in the comfortable safety of his mountain home, Goku had his thick arms wrapped about his wife, his chin and nose nestled in her loose raven hair, his lips moving slightly against her to feel the softness of her silky tresses. His eyes were open and aware, though he was not focused on anything in the line of his vision. Goku's thoughts and senses were tuned into his first-born son. Gohan sometimes left at night to get some air, occasionally he even met up with Videl for a bit, but usually he stayed out alone, doing whatever it was that his restless mind told him to do instead of getting his rest. Goku often woke at small fluctuations in the boy's ki, because he was watching for it, keeping an eye on his son, just to make sure he was alright.
It was very frustrating to live with Gohan. Goku had learned that in his absence of seven years, his son had managed to almost completely take his place. Gohan protected ChiChi and Goten, he taught Goten things that Goku had taught him when he was small... he even enforced discipline if ChiChi wasn't around, and it was obvious that Gohan did not want to give up his position as leader and protector of his family. Furthermore, he was quiet and withdrawn whenever Goku asked him about things like his friends, his schoolwork... even when he asked about little things like if he was having a good day or if he had enjoyed breakfast that morning. Gohan would ignore Goku, he'd walk away from him abruptly. He would growl in warning sometimes whenever Goku upset Goten by accident, and the boy hadn't looked Goku in the eyes since he'd come back, not once. Goku was certain he'd seen many different things in Gohan's eyes when he tried to get a good look at them, most often there was worry, followed by anger and frustration, and lastly there was dissatisfaction and discomfort. Goku was quite overwhelmed by how far he'd been pushed from Gohan's side, and so he tried instead to focus on his wife and younger son to make up for the things he couldn't share with Gohan.
Sensing his son's return to his room, Goku sighed and kissed ChiChi's hair, shifting his arms around her and closing his eyes against the pillow. Worry never helped anything, it only made the things he could not change sting more when he thought about them.