Oceans

“You really don’t understand the concept of ‘taking it easy,’ do you?” Son Goku asked from the doorway of the training room. He was standing with his arms loosely crossed, his shoulders leaning against the dusty white of the arched door jamb. And Piccolo was pretty sure he didn’t mean to look that casually relaxed, like one of those damn models that wind up posing on the fronts of fitness magazines. He was pretty sure it was all completely accidental. Which just made Piccolo want to punch him sometimes. Because no one should be that oblivious. To…well…everything. But especially to the fact that he could be so damned distracting.

Piccolo countered this by ignoring it…concentrating instead on the controls to the gravity simulator. “It’s been three days,” he said.

“Y-eah, since you almost died like…six times in a row. That kinda thing takes a while to come back from.”

“Well,” Piccolo said, tweaking the numbers up to ten times earth’s gravity…figuring that’ll do for a warmup. “You gotta start sometime.”

“Yeah, but d’you really gotta start it right now?”

Piccolo shot the Saiyan an annoyed glance over his shoulder. “Oh, you’re one to talk,” he grumbled. “I heard all about your little hospital escapes from the afterlife, Son.”

Goku put his hand behind his head. Piccolo could not see this, mind, as he was again very-studiously-not-looking at Goku – but he knew he was doing it all the same. “That’s right, Pic…that was right before I passed out and the whole hospital staff had to pull an all-nighter to make sure I didn’t go into shock or something. So…y’know, maybe pushing yourself right after almost-dying isn’t the best idea after all.”

Piccolo reminded himself not to roll his eyes and turned to face the Saiyan. “Look,” he said. “I have enough gods-given sense not to push past my limits. But if I don’t get some training in, I’m going to lose what little sanity I might actually have left.”

Goku shot him a dubious look, but it only lasted a moment or two before he shrugged and closed the door. “Fine,” he said. “But I’m going to watch.”

“Oh, the Hell you are,” Piccolo growled. “This isn’t a spectator sport, y’know. If you’re gonna be here, you’re at least going to make yourself useful.”

“I dunno, Pic,” Goku said, still not moving away from the door.

Piccolo crossed his arms and shot the Saiyan one of his most withering looks. “For the LAST time, I’m FINE.”

“Oh, I wasn’t worried about that,” Goku said with a shrug. “S’just with all the times you’ve saved my life in the past week…I’m gonna feel kinda bad about beating the snot out of you,” he finished with a grin.

“Son Goku with an ego problem. Never thought I’d see the day,” Piccolo said, baring his teeth a little in a rough approximation of a grin.

The Saiyan’s eyes, when he went into his opening stance, contained a flash of mischief that reminded Piccolo suddenly of Gohan. “Yeah, well…I learned from the best,” he said.

Piccolo opted not to retort. Instead, he pushed the red button.

The air actually shimmered for a moment, like it does over asphalt on a hot day – the very atmosphere in the room buckling as the gravity shifted, pulling everything down, closer together and denser. Son, caught by surprise, staggered slightly, widening his stance for better support.

And that was when Piccolo hit him – a flying sidekick so hard he bounced his former enemy right off the wall of the training room.

Goku didn’t even get mad. He just grinned, swiped his forearm across his mouth, and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

It would never fail to surprise Piccolo, in later years, how easy it was to fall into a fight with Son Goku. How, with everything between them, it was still so easy to know about which way he would turn, whether he was going to kick or punch.

Piccolo had been worried about that, at the start. Because things the first day afterward had been so strange that Piccolo had begun to think that the rest of his life would be lived in terms of BS and AS – that is, before sex and after sex.

The first morning AS began with a weird conversation, and then somehow moved into a bath. And Hell if it wasn’t the most surreal thing Piccolo had ever done, short of sleeping with the man in the first place. He had picked Son up and carried him to the bathroom, neither of them wearing anything, and neither of them seeming to have any kind of idea what to say to each other.

Never much one for conversation anyway, Piccolo had propped the Saiyan up against his side and had started running water. The mess in his head had been way too much to sort through, but action, he could handle – he could see what needed to be done, and he could do it. Son Goku was a mess (and how he got to be that way was at least partially Piccolo’s fault), and Son wasn’t doing a good job of walking around on his own just yet anyway. A bath would help both situations. Simple, direct. Cause and effect.

It hadn’t taken the room long to fill with the sounds of running water and quiet breathing. Son had been very warm against the side of his body. And no one said anything, the whole time the tub was filling.

Piccolo had thought, briefly, about asking the Saiyan how he wanted to handle this situation – but he decided against it, because again, that had the potential to be awkward as Hell. It was better if they both acted casual, as if nothing were out of the ordinary, as if Piccolo’s decision to help him bathe was so everyday as to not require conversation.

Son made no protest when Piccolo picked him up and eased him into the tub – save, of course, for a slight hiss as tired muscles slid into hot water. His eyes did widen slightly, though, when Piccolo then reached for a cloth and lathered it up. His eyes had widened more when Piccolo knelt down beside the tub and very obviously intended to bathe him.

Piccolo was under the distinct impression that Son would’ve climbed a wall if he’d been up to it. Instead, he’d stammered out, “I…uh, you don’t have t…y’know I can do that, right?”

Piccolo’s response has been simple: a deadpan “Shut up.” Then, he had closed a hand around the Saiyan’s bicep to hold him still, and he’d begun to clean him.

Goku had shut up – but he seemed a lot less comfortable with this than with sex. He lay back in the tub, closed his eyes, clenched his hands on the rim as if he needed to hold on for some reason.

It didn’t take Piccolo long to figure out why, as he lathered the other’s chest and stomach, careful to dip into all the valleys and creases. Son was completely incapable of holding still for it. He wasn’t sure why – if Son was just that sensitive, which given past experience was a real possibility – or if it was the helplessness -or just the unusual, slick sensation of someone’s hands moving over his body – but whatever it was, the strain of keeping still was visible.

The decent thing to do would’ve been to ignore the other’s discomfort and finish as quickly as possible. But Piccolo, for all the changes he’d been through, was still not a very nice person sometimes. On impulse, he extended an arm…and kept ON extending it, so that he would not have to get up…and turned out the light.

The room was immediately very dark – no light leaking in from the hallway, no light anywhere. Piccolo could feel an immediate change in the body under his hand as it tensed in surprise…though he couldn’t see it at all. Which was, he was deciding, interesting.

“Piccolo,” Goku’s voice came, confused. “What’re you…”

Now that it was too dark to see, Piccolo allowed the smirk to come; it felt like the right corner of his mouth was pushing up toward his eye. “You seemed uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, but it was because I…”

“Isn’t this better?” Piccolo asked, smirking even a little more.

Goku seemed to have an epiphany. “You’re…doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

With some effort, Piccolo managed not to laugh. Instead, he said, “Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”

He could actually hear the Saiyan gulp. “Well, y…”

“You’re still talking,” Piccolo said warningly. He brought his hand back from the light switch to the side of the tub, finding the other’s forearm…sliding his hand up it slowly, up the arm, up the shoulder, to finally tangle in the other’s hair, giving it a slight tug. He’d learned that, among other things, it was an effective way to keep the other still.

This time was no exception. Goku went still, though to Piccolo’s sensitive ears, his breath was coming a little shorter.

Serves the little bastard right for dragging me into this mess in the first place, Piccolo thought. His other hand, which had been still and waiting against the other’s chest, began to move downward slowly, starting to find its way by feel over the plum-sized bump of the other’s hip, down the firm surface of the other’s thigh. But of course, touch alone wasn’t going to achieve his objective here. He set the cloth aside, began lathering his hand with soap – and then he picked up where he left off, save that instead of just touching him, he was rubbing his hand over his skin, working soap to a lather.

Immediately, the Saiyan tried to move at that, his body trying to push back. Piccolo tightened his fingers in his hair, making him arch a little more, and he stilled.

“That’s better,” Piccolo said, surprised to hear the slight purr in his own voice. He made sure to work his hand over the top of the other’s abdomen, making deep, forceful circles. Then, he let those circles begin to inch downward…pausing a second to brush thumb over a little depression in the other’s stomach – a small, quarter-shaped hole that humans and Saiyans all seemed to have, but that he didn’t. He was rewarded by his efforts by the faint sound of water sloshing. Piccolo wasn’t sure he was going so far out of his way to make the other squirm. It might, he realized, go back as far as their fighting days, when he’d lived for a chance to hold the other’s life in his hands. Or it might be something simpler than that – he’d been trying for years to take over the world. It stood to reason he’d have at least a few sadistic tendencies.

Then again...Son didn’t seem to be complaining. So maybe sadism wasn’t the right word.

Oh well, he decided. One more thing he’d have to figure out. But in the meantime, he let his hand dip a little lower, teasing that smooth plain just below the dip in the hips with his fingers before sliding lower, tangling lightly in the soft hair he found there.

Son groaned out loud in response, a deeper, huskier sound than he’d made so far, arching his hips up so suddenly that Piccolo wondered if he could actually break himself in half that way. It was an interesting question to ponder, but he didn’t feel like seeing it answered – so he pulled a little harder on the other’s hair, made him arch his shoulders back, and lowered his head to growl in his ear, “Keep still.”

Goku actually growled at that, twisting a little in his hands. “But I c…”

On impulse, Piccolo lowered his heads, brushed his fangs over the now-bared expanse of the other’s throat. Again, he felt the Saiyan still, in his hands, though he was more aware of the tension in his frame now. Slowly, he brushed the rough texture of his tongue over the impossibly smooth skin under his jaw.

Son growled again, very obviously out of frustration. “What’s gotten int…”

Piccolo let his fangs rest against his throat again. Son quieted. And Piccolo began to rub his hand over him, more gently than before, curling hand around his by-now-obvious erection, beginning to “wash” him. “Nothing’s gotten into me, Son,” he all but purred right under his ear. “I just want to be thorough.”

Goku seemed to have developed better sense than to answer. Instead, he did his best to arch his hips, hurry the other’s motion – but with his back arched so far, he was having a hard time moving.

Piccolo could almost feel bad for him. Almost. But it didn’t keep him from slowing that hand down even more…glide up….glide down….glide up….glide down….pause to brush thumb gently over the upper ridge…

“D..damn it, Piccolo,” Son ground out breathlessly.

This time, he did chuckle. “You want it harder,” he said, not a question.

“Yes,” Son said.

“Well, why didn’t you say so?”

He couldn’t SEE the look Son gave him. But he could sure feel it. “Because you wouldn’t LET m…”

Piccolo leaned over, carefully, covering the other’s mouth with his own, muffling the rest of his words in a near-crushing kiss. And from there, the rest didn’t take long at all…a few firm strokes, the shaky feeling of a whimper against the roof of his mouth, the other’s hand coming up to the back of his neck.

It was only then that he’d realized he’d done it again, and he didn’t know why.

A sharp kick brought Piccolo’s full attention back to the matter at hand – sparring with Son Goku. He staggered back, returning a punch or two before managing to punt the Saiyan back out of range, chiding himself for letting his mind wander.

Goku grinned at him from near the center of the room, put his hands on his hips. “You sure you’re up to this? You seem a little drifty to me.”

Piccolo snorted. “Just getting my second wind, monkey,” he said.

“I dunno, Pic,” he said. “I think you need a break.”

“Well, that’s one of us,” Piccolo said. He wondered why Son had that funny look on his face, like he was trying not to laugh at something.

“I can make you, you know,” Son said, standing up out of fighting position, and putting his hands on his hips.

Piccolo smirked at this uncharacteristic bravado on the other’s part. He sank a little lower into his stance, planted his feet more carefully. “Son,” he said, “I would love to see you try.”

Goku shrugged. “Okay,” he said. And he reached over, hitting a different button on the gravity simulator.

Piccolo’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as his center was so completely disrupted. He pitched forward, managing to catch himself on his forearms and knees, and continued staring at the floor in disbelief. The weight was incredible. Not quite enough to hurt, not enough to make breathing impossible, but his body was so heavy – he wasn’t sure that he could move. And still, there was only one question in his head… Since when did Son Goku get devious?

He made an effort to stand…leaned forward on his elbows, tried to get a foot down…but the only result of that was nearly losing his balance and faceplanting into the floor.

“Told you so,” Son Goku said cheerfully.

Piccolo glared at the floor as he heard the other’s unhurried approach, and even growled faintly as the other prodded his side lightly with a boot. “Very funny,” he huffed.
“Yeah, I thought so, too,” the Saiyan said. Piccolo wondered, not for the first time, if he really WAS oblivious to sarcasm, or if he was just messing with him.

“…so, are you going to let me up now?” Piccolo asked.

“I’ll think about it,” Goku said. And then that foot gave him a light shove, and Piccolo found himself flat on his back, glaring up at the big, round, fluorescent lights.

Unhurriedly, the Saiyan knelt down and straddled his hips in a classic pin, peering down at him with that obvious humor still. “Does this mean I win?” he asked.

Piccolo rolled his eyes, made an effort to sit up, failed. “What do you think,” he asked.

Goku grinned even wider, leaned forward, and folded his forearms over Piccolo’s broad chest, resting his chin on them. Piccolo wondered how it was possible to be that relaxed in this kind of gravity – he didn’t even think he could lift his head. “I know already,” Son said. “But if you want up, you’re gonna have to say it.”

Piccolo glared at the Saiyan which, as usual, had no effect. “…fine,” he growled.

“So I win?”

“…technically.”

“Sugoi,” he said, eyes nearly disappearing in one of his wider grins. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”

“So…any time now, Son,” Piccolo said.

“In a minute.” Son sat up fully, peering down at him still...and if he still had his tail, Piccolo got the impression that it would be arched up behind him like a cat’s is when it wants to play.

Piccolo blinked. “But you said…”

“Ossu…sure, I said I’d let you up. I didn’t say when,” Goku said.

Piccolo’s jaw nearly dropped.

“Pretty good, huh?” Goku chuckled. “I got that one from you, y’know.”

“Alright,” Piccolo said. “I admit it. You got me. Will you let me up now?”

“Nope.”

Piccolo blinked, having the sudden, sinking feeling that he was missing something. “Why not?” he asked.

Goku leaned down, just a few inches from his nose…and gave him a light pat on the cheek. “Well…m’not usually real big into payback, but…you remember a few days ago, that thing with the bath tub?”

Piccolo’s eyes widened, his mental process degenerating to two words. Those being “oh,” and “shit.”

“We’re about to be even.”