Chapter Text
Piccolo’s home looked sunburned as the Earth's closest star finally set. It had taken longer than usual, like the summer’s hangover was trying to nudge its way into the early fall. He emerged from the wood beside his property and listened to the leaves underneath his boots, just starting to crunch. It was a lovely time of year, not that he had ever told a soul that he thought that. It was as secret to him as all things were, nestled inside his chest and even if he wanted to, he didn’t have the words. It was nearly silent, save for the burrowing of a few small creatures. The insects had long since gone to rest their tiny heads, even the creatures in the lake had settled down.
If anyone asked, he’d say he had been training all day but the truth was far less compelling. He had meandered around all day thinking, mulling over fine details that no longer mattered. The red ribbon army had done its best to bring all hell down on Earth again but as usual, the day had been saved. Not by him, not in the end and not even by Goku or Vegeta. It was Gohan who had unleashed all his rage and annihilated Cell Max. He had pulled the fury from nowhere and funnelled it, using his own attack. Where did he put all that anger exactly? That was weeks ago now. Gohan had become withdrawn, consumed by something Piccolo didn’t understand. Not even the untouched, ancient nature around him could provide a reasonable answer to the Namek’s unspoken question.
What plagues that young man’s heart?
Perhaps it was the reminder of Cell and that awful time when Goku died. When the weight of their combined freedom rested on the shoulders of a confused boy. Or was it Pan being put at risk? However minimal it had been, it had been a risk and he had betrayed his student in that regard. Piccolo wondered if he should have been more cautious, more human. He looked up at the burning sky and closed his eyes, letting the cooling air settle on his lightly flushed cheeks.
It had all worked out, hadn’t it? Everyone was safe, the enemy was defeated. Except that valiant android, the one he tried not to think too hard about. He had wondered every day after the fate of that artificial man. Where had his electric soul slunk off to exactly? Was there an afterlife for such things? Piccolo opened his eyes and walked forward slowly, feeling some immense imaginary weight on his broad shoulders.
Gohan felt much the same, only it was far quieter and melancholy. He didn’t have a moment to contemplate it. Between his depression, being a father, a husband and a researcher, he barely had enough time to shower and eat. Even now, he stalled over his words as he wrote, he read the same lines over and over. He leaned back and rubbed his scratching eyes, pulling off his sweater. It was a warm night but the instant he felt the cold air on his arms he pulled it back on. Indecision ate away at him. Gohan frowned and stood. It wasn’t the only thing that gnawed him.
Videl popped her head in his study to invite him to dinner and his stomach growled, but he declined. He didn’t really deserve her kindness, her lovely cooking, none of it. She offered him a concerned glance with those big blues and disappeared behind the pine door. He placed his hands on his hips and chastised himself. He was being selfish, really. No, more than that. He was hurtling around a whirlpool of self interest and he knew well enough that he was never going to see the shore again. Recent events had unearthed all kinds of things; a cataclysmic anger he hadn’t felt in a long time, concern unlike he'd ever felt and worse, as if it could be worse, something else. He closed his eyes and pictured it again, the turning point at the road he couldn’t reverse course on. Piccolo in Cell Max’s hand, lying limp, hanging dead. All of his being had recoiled and coalesced, and it hadn’t gone anywhere since. Losing Piccolo had broken him even though he had lived. It didn’t matter. The damage was done.
He loved Piccolo unlike he loved anyone else.
It was a secret that he kept even from himself. One that seeing Cell again, in any incantation, had peeled back in a silent effort to destroy him yet again. The creature may be dead but the effects still lingered. It tore open the careful bandage he’d strapped his heart up in, it was tearing holes in his precious family life, in his boring day to day. Gohan resented Cell for that, the old one and this new, massive version. They were the same, wreaking havoc in his life just like always. He glanced at the window, half expecting Piccolo to be there, scratching at the glass. Satan’s far reaching garden met his eyes, perfectly manicured, so different from the wildflowers that he associated with the Namek and the Timothy grass he remembered. Gohan clenched his teeth to ground himself but his body moved anyway, he opened the windows and leapt into the air. He left his house and his beautiful family for the evening, leaving them far behind.
Piccolo was meditating when Gohan’s chi reached his senses. It was in turmoil but not like in battle, not exactly. He stood as his student came into view, flying far faster than was necessary unless…his own chi started to climb in concern. Was there another enemy at the gate already? He waited patiently with open, black eyes as Gohan landed on the cliff top in his sweats. Gohan looked dishevelled, flushed in his greys. The pink of his cheeks was too endearing and Piccolo quickly tucked the thought away.
“Gohan? Are you alright?”
Gohan nodded and smiled awkwardly, shamelessly enjoying the other man’s deep, sure voice. So unlike his own.
“I’m fine”
He didn’t say anything more and Piccolo crossed his arms. He could see the heaviness hanging over the other man, see the same mellow depression that had swamped him for weeks. Piccolo swallowed, oh how he wanted to fix it. Instead, he waited. Gohan tongued his gums for a moment. He hadn’t really thought this through but when it came to things like this, he never did. He was impulsive in all the worst ways.
Piccolo’s ears flickered in worry and he opened his mouth but Gohan beat him to it. His deep brown eyes looked pinkish red in last embers of the setting sun.
“Piccolo…when”
He paused, fidgeted, then continued.
“I thought you died and you know…I transformed”
Piccolo’s eyes narrowed curiously. He knew that, he’d been there. He’d also transformed, so it was hardly news. It had been a frightful, eventful day. Gohan seemed to deliberate over something quietly then stole himself, realising that the Namek would need something with more clarity. He’d have to be straightforward in a way that he normally avoided.
“It was because…I didn’t want to say anything. It’s stupid but”
He paused again, fumbling over his words.
“Gohan”
Piccolo spoke helplessly, at a loss in front of the anxious half Saiyan. Gohan held up his hand in some new found confidence and stepped forward. Hs recent power had given him an arrogance at least, and it seemed to hang around. He spoke confidently.
“I love you, Piccolo”
The Namek screwed his eyes up and looked away. An unpleasant lingering moment passed between them.
“I…care for you too Gohan. Surely, you know that”
Gohan laughed and shook his head, his dark, unbrushed hair swaying. He took another step, daring Piccolo to take one back. He didn’t.
“No. I love you”
Piccolo blinked and looked at the damp ground. That day came to his mind again, seeing Gohan’s pinprick red eyes over the distance as he wound his own arms around Cell Max. He knew the weight of this phrase and what it meant to humans and apparently, to Saiyans too. Gohan chuckled at Piccolo’s lack of reply, expecting it entirely. Piccolo was nothing if not reliable. Gohan wasn’t expecting reciprocation, he just wanted to tell the truth to the one man who had always been honest to him. It just happened he was the object of the problem as well. Not that he didn’t wish things to be different, to have made different decisions. He wanted his feelings to be returned but as the twilight made the grass look grey at his feet, he knew that such a declaration was never going to be uttered by the Namek standing before him. Gohan was being selfish, perhaps, but that wasn’t why he had come. He took another step forward and moved into Piccolo’s space, he looked up at him with conflicted eyes.
Piccolo flinched, wanting to reach out but instead, he ground his talons into his own arms. Gohan spoke, voice wavering as the cloud above him lifted, to be replaced by another, more complicated one.
“Piccolo…what am I going to do?”
CC.