The Meaning of Pride

But excuse the hell out of him, he was a male, you
know, the ones that were anatomically made to not have things just stuck inside
their bodies that did not belong.
(You’re being an idiot, he told himself, a scared little
boy-idiot.) That kept returning to him,
and he fought the realization that it had been fear and not pride that made him
open his mouth and spout the bullshit he had to Goten. Fear that maybe he would be weaker. Maybe he would somehow lose something if he
let his best friend do that to him.
Shuddered in debilitating fear.
Thought that he was such a weakling already it didn’t really matter if
he let Goten do whatever wanted.

AND FOR THAT MATTER, Goten hadn’t even wanted to do
it. That wasn’t even what the
conversation had been about. He
couldn’t remember specifically, really.
But it had been something humorous, something silly and stupid and they
hadn’t even been having sex or sitting around after sex.yes"> Was lingering around, just floating and thinking about nothing
when Trunks showed up. Looked at him
with mostly closed eyes and considered whether or not he even wantedhearhear
what was going to be said. Decided it
would fairest if he gave Trunks the chance to say whatever he needed to say.

“Look, Goten,” was what the Demi-Prince said to him,
“I… I’m sorry about what I said.” Winced reflexively when his motioned and
accidentally hit his own chest. “I
didn’t mean to say that I thought you were weak or… A woman. It’s just.
I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking.”

Or he was thinking and he honestly believed that only
weak people would play uke for their big, strong impressive boyfriends. Which made Goten a little more annoyed
because he wondered if Trunks thought he was some sort of whore for just
handing himself to the demi-Prince for no better reason than to get him to
focus on fighting. Felt bad for
thinking that because really, Trunks deserved the benefit of the doubt
there. He wasn’t a bad person, he had
just said a bad thing.

“That’s a lie,” Trunks said, “I do know what I was
thinking. I was just… scared.
That… I don’t know, that you
would want to…” insert the word ‘fuck’ here, “Me. And I don’t think I can do that.” Looked miserably honest.

This made Goten happy. He wanted Trunks to feel miserable. Not for long, but for a few minutes because there was nothing
like that feeling that your guts had been ripped and and stomped on by the
person that was supposed to be your best friend. Still, fear was something he could sympathize with (didn’t want
to because that was the dumbest, rudest and most hurtful thing he had heard in
the whole of his life, but he could sympathize with it.) “Oh, stop it,” he said. Straightened up so he was standing in the
air and looked at Trunks again. “I
never even said that I wanted anything from you. Obviously if I wanted things the other way around I would have
done that in the first place, don’t you think?”

This apparently made Trunks stop and think. *Cue the lightbulb, folks, I think he’s got
it!* “I’m sorry,” he said again, “I
didn’t mean it. I really didn’t. It was a stupid thing to say and I shouldn’t
have said it.”

Very good, Goten wanted to say. Now that you’ve said that we can go back to
being semi-friends again. But he
didn’t. Didn’t smile or say ‘aw that’s
alright’ or jump his best friend or anything like that, because he didn’t want
to. Didn’t want Trunks to get the
mistaken impression that words were going to undo this situation that easily.

“So… I’m not
sure what I’m going to do to make it up to you… But I’ll think of something.”

That could be promising. But he had enough of this.
Three days with Gohan had seemed like an eternity suddenly, and he felt
like a good workout would be the best way to continue his day. Wondered where his Dad was. Wasn’t quite ready to spar with Trunks
yet—thought that he might flash back to the stupid thing and accidentally beat
the crap out of him again—but if he could find his Dad (Sans Vegeta) then he
could probably spar with him. Or hell,
he thought with a strange sense of companionship, he could even find Vegeta and
spar with him.

“Ok,” he said to Trunks, “I’ve gotta go now,
though.” Felt awkward just leaving him
there because four days ago he would have kissed him, or hugged him or
something. Touched him in some way, and
now he didn’t want to. Didn’t trust
himself to. So he just nodded to
reaffirm this statement and turned to leave.

Ended up finding Vegeta instead of his Dad. Found the man on his way back to their
capsule house, and found that when he looked at the Prince he felt like he had
something in common with him. (Other
than the fact that he had been humping the man’s son and Vegeta was involved in
a relationship with his father.)

“Hey,” he said, “I was looking for someone to spar with. Are you busy?”

Vegeta gave him a look. A calculating look that seemed to be sizing him up and seeing if
it was worth the time or effort. In the
end the Prince just said: “I have
time.”

Which apparently meant that he had all the time in
the world to remind Goten that Vegeta was older and more experienced and no
matter how good he thought he was, he needed to remember that he was still a
teenager and Vegeta had been fighting decades longer than he had even been
alive.

But it was a good fight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~***

Goten: GASP!
I cannot have actually just gotten along with Vegeta.

I
like the Trunks/Goten thing too. *sadly
* So it’ll probably stick around aile.ile.

Getarian:

Wow. You bring new depth my writing. Seriously.
I mean I write it and then I wait for your review to see if I got the
right message across, and you just never fail to surprise me. *sits down and just looks stumped for a
little while about this, and happy too.*
Naturally, I agree with you about Trunks and all the stuff about what he
said and why he might have said it. If
its really not for him to be uke and Goten feels like its unfair that way, than
the two of them can’t ever really make it together. But otenoten’s not interested, than they have a chance.

And
maybe they don’t even want the chance.
We just don’t know. (yet.)

Hope
you liked this chapter, and I’ll be getting back to ‘Geta’s POV in the next
chappie. (I missed writing him.)

Mechanical Butterfly:

Yeah! You’re back (or at least reviewing) yeah!

OMGoodness. I need to go find my former friend and get a
reality check because of you guys. She
told me once that my stories had no emotion in them and they were flat. (She was right then about a year ago.) She was great at letting me know I wasn’t
the best writer in the world. So, I
think its time to go find her and get all humble again. (Not that I am egotistical or anything.)

Sheesh. I’m very glad that you liked the
chapter. I’m rather shocked by everyone’s
deep reaction to it. But pleased
because I was trying to get everyone emotionally involved. That’s the mark of a good story, I think.

*Goku
from Hormone Therapy shows up and knocks MB on the head. * VEGETA IS MINE! *Grabs ‘Geta and carts him away.*

I
wish I knew IT too. That would be such
a useful thing to know. *sighs and
thinks happily of what life would be like with IT.*