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Prologue
By : Herpb4uDerp
Category: Missing Data > Missing Data
Views: 194 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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He stands for a long time at the door. Staring. He hasn't bothered bringing his hand up to knock and he feels a little sick. He's not quite sure if it's a residual after-effect from last night or if he's really this hesitant to face the two people who brought him into this miserable world. He tries to push away the memory of last time he went through this door with no luck.
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Four Years Ago
His brother had always made a point to be with their mother this time of year. Goten did too, but to much less of an extent especially now that he was an adult. Though even he noticed how somber she became in the late fall. When all the trees were dead and snow started falling in the mountains. Everything becomes cold and empty in the countryside. It was hard not to feel alone. It was hard not to wonder where he'd gone; why he didn't come back.
Goten sits next to his mother and across from Gohan who has Videl and Pan sitting on either side of him. They are all at the table ready to dig into the incredible food Chi Chi has laid out for them. Her youngest already hasn't been living here for a while, coming home only when it suited him which just so happened to be whenever he was really craving a good home cooked meal. Capsule Corp. can brag all they want about their state of the art kitchen appliances, but in the end they had nothing on the Ox Princess' prowess with a wood stove and two half Saiyan appetites to sate.
She finally puts the last dish on the table and sits down beaming at her two sons. This has slowly started becoming her favorite time of year; when Gohan manages to get time off and Goten decides to take a break from class and... whatever else it is that he does… Though as they sit here she wonders when her son became so quiet. He hardly ever talks when he comes over and he hardly ever comes over at all. She worries Vegeta has had too much of an effect on him.
Once upon a time she thanked the self professed murderer-to-be of her husband. Now, a little regret creeps in: regret that she didn't know how to handle her little boy, regret that she relied on him to help her control him, regret that she was too wrapped up in her own loss to show her son more love than resentment. Regret that she didn't know how to talk to him about his father. He hated it when she told him how alike they are. She knew he hated it, but she would still do it, she couldn't not. She found it hard to resist even now.
"Oh, I wish you'd stop wearing your hair that way. It's not very traditional."
And while it was getting easier to pretend to enjoy the small talk the more time he spent away, after a comment like that he still has to make a conscious effort to tone back the sharpness in his voice, "Well, I'm not very traditional." He prays he doesn't provoke her to say it.
...Neither was he. Chi Chi sighs sadly and bites her tongue on the matter, "I guess not."
"Besides," Goten scoops more food onto his plate and tries to drive the conversation away from where it was headed, "it's what everyone's doing. Don't you know anything about fashion these days, mom?"
"If you're so fashionable- what's with the rest of your get up?" Videl teases and waves a fork at his baggy sweats. He answers her with unamused silence. "Oh, don't be shy, we all wanna know what you're up to. We hardly ever see you and when we do you're always so mysterious."
"I'm not mysterious. There's just not a lot to tell. I go to class and I train." He forks absently at his food now slowly losing his appetite.
"You know Gohan was already married at your age." His mother chides.
"Well, I guess it's a good thing I'm not Gohan because I'd much rather train than have a nosy woman around to annoy me with stupid questions." He mutters quietly drawing Gohan's glares upon himself.
"I know you're in your rebellious stage, with all your training" the last part Chi Chi tacks on with a frown, "but soon you'll want to settle down with a nice girl and have a family too."
Pan lets out a short sharp "Ha!" before catching the sudden ire in Goten's eyes and stifling her laugh. Gohan stops chewing and looks at his mother who didn't seem to realize what was wrong with her statement, then to Goten who was no longer eating.
"You... still haven't told her?"
"Gohan!" he snaps back in a harsh whisper.
"Tell me what?" Chi Chi's eyes widen at the prospect that her son isn't a total recluse. Goten looks away from the table and plays idly with his silverware. "Tell me what?" She looks at Videl and a sixteen year old Pan whom she knows will tell her if her boys don't. Videl shrugs with a half smile and Pan looks like she has half a mind to open her mouth but crams her face with food instead to avoid the conversation.
"'Ten." Her smile broadens, "Did you meet someone? You know she's welcome here, we always have enough food- even with you two-" she casts a sly eye towards her oldest who forces an awkward smile. "I'm sure she's-"
"I'm full." Goten gets up from the table with his plate and walks into the kitchen.
Chi Chi looks at her oldest with concern, "Was it something I said? What's wrong?"
"No, no mom. It's-" he sets down his fork and gets up to follow after his little brother. "Hold on."
He finds Goten at the sink washing the broken shards of the plate he had just been eating off of.
"You didn't tell her?"
"No. Why would I?" He says with quieted irritation so they aren't overheard.
"'Ten. You need to tell her, she's-"
"I don't need to tell her anything."
"She's your mother, 'Ten!"
"Yeah? I guess I should tell dad too then. Hm. Wonder where he went off to. Sure would like the whole family here for my big coming out party." He snipes with bitter sarcasm.
Gohan exasperates over his brother's words, "Goten-"
"You will never understand."
"I-"
"No. You won't. You really fucking won't. So how 'bout you let me do this my own way. And maybe! That means never telling her! Ok? You don't always know what's best for me."
He scoffs, "And I suppose Vegeta does?"
"Wh- He has nothing to do with this!"
"Well he's definitely not helping! Teaching you violence will solve whatever your attitude cant." He gestures to the shattered remains of the plate in Goten's hands.
"Shut up, Gohan! You don't know anything!" He throws the shards into the soapy water splashing it all over the floor.
"Boys? Is everything Ok?" They hear their mother call from the other room.
"Everything's fine." Gohan says with that same irritatingly fake happiness he uses to casually correct someone's suspicions when they've caught him lifting something impossibly heavy or eating more than a human should be able to eat, or doing anything remotely Saiyan. Goten looks to the ceiling with crumbling patience.
Gohan crosses his arms "We'll talk about this later."
"No. We won't."
Gohan sighs as he rubs the bridge of his nose, "Let's go sit back down, alright?"
"Sure, whatever."
They've barely gotten back to their chairs before Chi Chi finds a point of worry, "…Is everything ok? You didn't… get anymore food..."
Gohan speaks before his little brother has time to respond, "Everything's fine, but-" he hesitates, "Goten has something he wants to tell you after dinn-"
How fucking dare- Goten's mouth drops open at what his brother just said. "Actually" he speaks over Gohan's meeker tone with pure unadulterated spite, you want me to tell her? Fine. I'll fucking tell her. "I want to talk about it now."
Gohan nearly chokes on his food, "Are you sure you don't want to wait until after-"
"Oh, no!" He grins joylessly, "You said it yourself, Gohan. I really should tell her. And since you were so confident she'd be understanding because I'm her son, I can only assume I have your full support. Right? So, why wait?"
"I- ..." Gohan weakly concedes his brother's point and closes his mouth despite the obvious distress on his face.
"Mom," Goten takes a moment to smile and look her in the eyes, "I'm never bringing home a girl. Not this year. Not next. Not ever." He watches her face drop with confusion, "because... I'm gay. I like men."
There is a long painful silence. Chi Chi looks like she'd just been hit with her own frying pan. Gohan's face can't be put into words and is absolutely worth the price of a happy family dinner.
"No… you're not. My son isn't…We can- we can fix this- I'm sure this is just-"
He shakes his head with a snort, You see, Gohan? This is why I didn't tell her. "Fix? But mom" he gestures to himself. "I'm not broken. This is who I am."
"No. It's no-"
"And, well" he cuts her off, "since everyone is so interested in my life" he looks at Videl, "I'll tell you what I've been up to."
"'Ten-" Gohan starts.
"Fortunately," he smiles at his mother, "I still won't be introducing anyone. Because so far, it's all been one night stands. Like, a lot of them 'cause I don't know if you knew this Gohan, but we Saiyans are immune to everything."
"We are?" Pan asks curiously. "Wait, do you like, know this or are you just lucky?"
"Pan!" Gohan snaps at his daughter.
"I mean… I don't think you get 'lucky' two hundred times in a row." He smirks.
Pan raises her brows in agreement while Gohan struggles to comprehend, "two… hundr-"
"Yeah give or take, but that's not counting-"
"Goten!" his mother is the first to shout.
"What?!" he shouts back. "There something I need to fix?" His hand accidentally hits a glass and it shatters.
Gohan stands up, his chair making a loud scraping noise as it scoots back drawing everyone's attention, "I think we should go outside and talk."
Goten smirks and stands slowly pressing both hands onto the table which creaks under his weight. "You sure you wanna talk big brother?" The internal spike in ki and aggressive posture stops Gohan dead in his tracks. For the first time that evening he notices how much bigger Goten has gotten since the last time he saw him. He's not taller than him, probably never will be, but he's broader. Then he realizes... He... surpassed me... When did that happen? How did I not notice before?
Gohan's confidence begins to waver and slowly dissipate as he realizes this wouldn't be like one of their childhood brawls where it was an easy win for Gohan and everything seemed to be worked out afterwards. This wouldn't be like that at all.
"Both of you sit down!" She wants to believe she's still stronger than them and maybe she is in terms of will, but she's hesitant to step between them with a cast iron like she used to. These aren't the little boys she could still barely control from back then. "I will not have you ruin this with another fight!"
"You hear that, Goten? Is that what you wanted? To start a fight and ruin dinner?!"
"Oh, I ruined it? You were the one lecturing ME about why I should tell her! This is your fault! I told you she wouldn't understand! So thanks Gohan! Great advice! So happy to always have you trying to run my life!"
"Maybe if you could hold it together for five goddamn minutes! I wouldn't have to lecture you! But no! You've broken a plate, a glass, probably cracked the table! How about you fix that, 'Ten! Why do you always do this-"
"Shut! Up! Gohan! Acting like you're so much better than me! Like you're so fucking perfect! Because you pretend you're not Saiyan! That you belong on this weak planet with all these weak humans! And all this stupid breakable furniture!" he kicks at the chair and knocks it over. "Well, fuck you! I can't pretend! And no amount of money, or stupid rich wives, or mansions or jobs at esteemed universities will fix me! and all this... bullshit you surround yourself with... that's all it is! Bullshit! Stupid human bullshit!"
"Great speech, Goten. You at least made it sound like one of us isn't a complete disappointment this time."
He almost launches himself across the table at his older brother but resists and growls out loudly in his frustration. "So that's it then? I come out to her and it doesn't go how you thought it would in your perfect fucking world so now I'm the fucking disappointment?! You judgmental-"
"No! Goten! You really think my frustration with you has anything to do with who you like!? Or being Saiyan?! It's about your refusal to learn some tact and self control before you become a violent past-obsessed sociopath like Ve-"
"AAhh! Fuck you! Fuck- you wanna know why I train with him all the time?! You wanna know why I never come home? Because the only thing he says I ever have to 'fix' is my form! He gets it!" his voice cracks, "he fucking gets it." he says softly, struggling to get the words out. "he doesn't pretend- doesn't..."
Goten feels his throat tighten. His brows press together in regret as the room falls silent. He lets out a shaky breath and holds it back as he looks around at everyone. Even Pan is sitting with wide eyes, slumped down into her chair unable to ignore the skeletons Goten always managed to drag out of the closet whenever he came over.
He looks to the floor and starts coming to terms with how much he has actually ruined the evening just to try and- what was I trying to prove again? His mouth presses into a hard line and he heads towards the door.
"Goten, stop. Wait," his brother reaches out, "Don't lea-"
"No, let him leave. Just like his father."
And there it is. Like fucking clockwork. He turns back towards his mother with a vicious look."You know what? You're right. I am just like him. So just for you mom, since you never got to see him leave, let me recreate that moment for you." Chi Chi's head tilts up with barely contained rage that her son would dare- and he does. He snaps the band in his hair letting it fall free. Then he turns and walks out the door.
He hears something shatter by the wall as he leaves and starts running as soon as the cold air hits him. Before he realizes it, he's sprinting, he's yelling too but he hardly hears it while he's bolting through the forest leaving a narrow strip of destruction in his wake. He runs until the forest ends, turning into a vast wasteland. Only when he is standing on the edge of a cliff does he stop. He senses a ki nearby.
Vegeta?
He lifts up into the air and spots him a short distance away and lands a couple meters behind him. He's got a stack of beers and a few bottles of alcohol next to him.
"What are you doing out here? ...You drink?"
Vegeta looks over his shoulder with a strange look. It's dark and he's a little buzzed. It takes him a long time to respond. "... Goten?"
"Who else?"
"No. I don't drink." He hands him a beer and turns back towards the wasteland.
"Heh... me neither." He pops the tin lid with a satisfying hiss and sits down next to him looking out at what used to be mountains but were now large piles of blasted boulders. He's not sure if this was damage is from years past or if it was done tonight. He doesn't have the energy to ask. Vegeta wordlessly answers anyway though by charging up a blast thought only he could do. It glows purple in the night and Goten listens to the crumbling rock in the distance. He then follows up with a smaller beam of exactly the same color. The surprise on Vegeta's face is clear even in the dark. Goten finishes the can and fires more in varying shades of purple.
"... I didn't know… we could manipulate color at will..." Vegeta says somewhat perplexed by the technique.
"Really?" Goten's brow furrows in thought, "I didn't realize you were doing it unintentionally. I just thought since you could do it with Galick gun... there must be a way for me to do it too with any blast."
"You taught yourself just from watching?"
Goten shrugs in response.
"...What other colors can you do?"
Goten smiles, "I've been working on red." he throws a bright dark purple ball into the air that explodes some distance away "haven't quite managed it yet." He flops on to his back, "But one day I'll be able to make a big fuckin' rainbow." He chuffs. "Saiyan pride."
Vegeta laughs a little too but he doesn't really understand what Goten means. "Can... you do blue?"
"... Yes." He lifts his palm straight out in front of him and aims at the stars. He could have picked any shade. But he didn't. He made it light blue, almost white. Just like his father's. Or- as close to memory as he could get.
Silence hangs for a few moments before Vegeta decides not to say it wasn't quite right and instead asks, "What makes red more difficult?"
Goten opens a bottle and downs most of it in a single gulp, "I'm not really sure. It's just easier with ki I've seen. Like, I know red exists, Gohan told me Frieza's ki was red, but I wasn't there, so I don't know... how it feels."
"Hm. I know how it feels. I've been tortured and killed by it."
Goten coughs on the rest of the liquor he was pouring down his throat and looks at the other Saiyan apprehensively.
"Lab told me we have two new bots to destroy. We can practice on those."
"Uuuh... Sure." Note to self, don't stand behind those bots.
"They will be more durable than," he gestures to the landscape, "Earth."
"Cheers to that. Earth is fucking weak." Vegeta nods, they clink bottles and don't exchange another word. Goten drinks until he can't then passes out.
Vegeta lets him as he continues staring out into the nothingness wondering what Kakarot would think if he could see them now. "Sorry I taught him to curse so much."
Goten wakes up the following afternoon on Capsule Corp's couch wishing he had never woken up at all. Goten never thinks about it, but it was the first time Vegeta took him back to Capsule Corp instead of his home in the mountains.
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.
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He finally gains the nerves to knock. His fist falls through as the door is opened for him. His father stands there with a jovial look on his face. Far too happy for the shitshow he came back to, in Goten's opinion.
"Hey, Goten!"
He steps inside the familiar house. It hasn't changed at all save the new Saiyan addition. Chi Chi is in the kitchen preparing dinner and he can't resist sniffing the air with a hum. When she turns to face her youngest son he thinks she's going to break down. His father is in his periphery and he's wary that he has no other choice but to apologize if she decides seeing her son for the first time in four years is too much to bare. Even if Goku wasn't here, he knows that's what he should do, but he's not sure if he's ready. He's not sure if it will be genuine.
She doesn't break down. She simply drops the spoon into the pot rushes over to him for a hug without saying a word. It is not until she finally pulls back, that she starts to bombard him with questions.
"Goten! How have you been?"
"Fine..."
"Gohan said you're still in school, are you still in school? How's it going?"
"Yeah, college is fine..."
"Are you going to graduate or stay another year?"
"I don't know, I'll probably be done before next summer..."
"Goten" she touches his cheek, "you're so pale, and your eyes look red, are you sick?"
"No, I'm not sick."
"You stand like you're tired, you should stand up straighter-"
"I just stayed up a little late last night..."
"Oh, that's terrible for you, I know your courses must be stressful- but you shouldn-"
"I don't plan on making a habit of it."
"Oh, well, how long has it been since you've eaten properly? Are you losing weight? You know I've been so concer-"
"I'm eating enough, mom, don't worry. "
"But you haven't been eating here, so how can I be sure?"
"I-"
"Are you going to come back for dinner? I'm making-"
"I guess we'll be back in time for dinner..." a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth even as she starts fussing over his new hair. He reflexively reaches for her hand and grasps it. He manages to gently pull it away and set it back at her side without giving her cause for alarm. She's so good at resuming things as normal. Gohan must have gotten that from her and for once he was thankful for it. But in fragile situations it only takes a tap to break the glass.
"Have you met a decent girl yet?" In the blink of an eye all the ease that was barely there in the first place has evaporated leaving a tense void. Goten was hoping it would be a little longer before she said something. He's also surprised it wasn't the first thing out of her mouth.
He stares at her for a long time. Goku sitting at the table with a plate of food in front of him, fork half way to his mouth. He stops and looks up at his son with a half smile, "You're awful quiet." He thinks he's being cheeky, he doesn't realize just how sore of a spot this is for his son.
"No." He says flatly.
"Well, I'm sure it'll only be a matter of time." His mother overlooks his obvious distaste for the questions.
His eyes flutter with tired annoyance. "Yep. I'm sure." I'll 'turn it off for a few hours', just for you Gohan. You and your perfect world without a fucked up little brother. Goku looks back down at his plate and finishes shoveling it into his face to avoid being pulled into whatever disagreement they had in this department.
"I told you it was just a pha-"
"No, it's-" He pulls away from her hands which were trying once more to fuss over his new 'haircut' and grumbles in frustration before saying, "Mom. I didn't come here to have this conversation again. I came here to train. With dad. And that's what I'm going to do. Now." He looks at his father who shifts with discomfort before agreeing and standing up. He leans in to kiss his wife on the cheek as he leaves but she shies away and glares at her son.
Goten starts pushing him out the door, "Go. Just go, she's always like this. Bye Mom. See you in another few years. Maybe." He says with a bitter tone. He hears something crack as he leaves and just like last time he doesn't stay to see her inevitably breakdown.
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A/N: the ki color thing has been something I had rolling in my head while I wrote this the first time but I didn't want to take so many liberties (LOL) at the time. Now, as I'm editing, adding, subtracting, I'm like, screw it, throw it in. It's fun.
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Prologue	By : Herpb4uDerp Category: Missing Data > Missing Data Views: 194 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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Prologue