The Best Parts of Piccolo (According to Son Goku)

The Best Parts of Piccolo (According to Son Goku)

1. His hands

They’re not like Chichi’s. Big, strong, not afraid to be rough with him, to drag nails down his back and over his legs, finding all the soft places and touching each one like he wants to keep it. There’s no doubt where he’s supposed to be when those big hands are touching him – especially since if he’s not where Piccolo wants him, he’ll move him. And oh, he’s good with them, too; sometimes they’re all Piccolo uses, all he needs to use, and it still makes him crazy, the way those rough palms feel against the soft skin of his belly, or over his back, or in his hair.

And yeah, that. Piccolo’s not afraid to pull his hair. To wind his fingers in it like a comb and force his head back so that he can bite over his throat. Or to thread those fingers oh-so-slow down the soft fur of his tail, tickle down the bone.

But really, it’s when he puts his hands on his hips that he pays the most attention to them. The way they wrap almost all the way around him, the way his hipbones fit just perfect in his palms, the way he lifts him then, and tells him to relax.

2. His voice

Pic’s a talker. Who knew?

He sure didn’t. Because Piccolo is so quiet most of the time, one-word answers if he lets him get away with it, which he usually doesn’t. But he has a voice that’s perfect in so many ways - like when he talks normally, he can be the calmest person in the world, and everyone listens. Or, if he wants, he can make his voice low and rough like an engine.

Sometimes, he talks into his ear. And the voice is quiet, and low, like thunder is when it’s a long way off. He tells him what he’s going to do – not what he wants to do, what he’s going to do – and every single time, Son feels his knees turn to springs, and he sways. Falls back against his chest, sometimes, and he thinks maybe he wants him to try someday and see if he can make him come with just that – an arm around his waist, and saying things in his ear like he’s telling him a secret.

Son wonders if he realizes just how much control he has over him that way. How sometimes, he can say something to him across a crowded room, far away, both of them with all their clothes on and everything, and it still makes his stomach jump, makes his skin itch and feel restless. He wonders if he knows just how many times during those damn picnics he’s thought about doing him right there on the table, just because he wanted him that much, that sudden.

And then sometimes, when it’s just the two of them. When they’re both done and waiting that few minutes they have before he has to go home and Piccolo has to get all serious again, he’ll rest his lips against the curve of his shoulder and whisper things to him in a language that Goku doesn’t understand, all full of K’s and S’s, and his heart will hurt with how much he does and does not understand all at once.

3. How big he is

Gods, no, not like that. It’s just that he doesn’t always know what to do, even when everyone expects him to. And sometimes, it scares him to go into town with his family, to sit down on chairs that feel so flimsy and shake hands that feel like they’re going to snap under his fingers. And sometimes, when he’s with his wife, when she wants to, he is afraid to touch her, because he sees the bruises he leaves the next morning, sees the marks on her arms and her sides and her hips, even when he’s careful, even when he barely touches her.

Chichi is stronger than any other woman on the planet. He still thinks that he’s going to break her when he kisses her cheek. And sometimes, he has nightmares where that’s what happens, where her bones crack under his hands, where she chokes at the sound of her own ribs folding up like an old chair.

He can’t break Piccolo. He knows. He’s tried. Pic’s built too sturdy for that, feels like a wall against his back or his chest when he goes up on his tiptoes and leans against him, and sometimes, Piccolo even throws him around – knocks him on his back, throws him over a shoulder, or makes him wrap his legs around his waist and does it all standing up, because it’s that easy for him, because he can.

And sometimes, he’s on top of Piccolo, and there’s just something about resting your full weight on someone, about being on top of him no matter which way you move or wriggle or squirm to get away from those fingers that know every single damn ticklish spot on your legs – no matter which way you go, you’re still on top of him, because he’s just that broad.

4. The way he holds on

They both know when it’s time for him to leave, but that doesn’t make it easier. And sure, he’d wonder what he was doing out there with him in the first place if he made it too easy.

If he didn’t know Piccolo as well as he does, he’d miss it every time – that moment, when he first starts to get up, when that arm tightens around his waist, and there’s a little growl he can just barely hear. But he does know him that well, and he does feel it, and every damn time, he thinks Pic’s actually not going to let him go. And every damn time, he hopes he won’t.

It’s not that he doesn’t love his family. Or that he doesn’t want to do the things they’ve told him he has to do. But when he’s with Piccolo, it’s like he’s a different person, like he’s the person he’s always been when he’s fighting. All the walls in his life fall down, all the ties and ropes and the big words he doesn’t understand like “obligation” and “responsibility” fall off like so much torn clothing, and he really does think he could go anywhere or be anything, could look at life like the adventure it’s meant to be instead of something you do on weekends or late at night.

But Piccolo doesn’t keep him, and he doesn’t ask him to – so he slips away and tries to figure out just where the heck his pants went.

Still, it’s something, isn’t it? That moment before he lets him go. The one that lets him know how much he doesn’t want him to. The one that makes him think next time could be different, next time, he really will stay.

5. The way he watches him

Piccolo has eyes like nobody else on earth. Which kind of makes sense, him being an alien and everything, but it’s more than that. Piccolo has the kind of stare on him you can feel wherever you are. And Goku feels it a lot.

It’s not just when they’re together. Sometimes, when he’s out in the yard, he’ll feel it like a pair of hands on his back, and he’ll turn around quick and there’s nothing there. Or he’ll be standing beside the lake where he goes to fish, and he’ll feel it then, and it’s like lips on the back of his neck, even when there’s no one around. And sometimes, he’ll take his time pulling his clothes off, let the hem of his shirt slide up his skin and trace down his arms. Untie his sash, and let his pants sit for a moment before they fall. And maybe he’s crazy and there really isn’t anybody there, but he bets he isn’t…and the way he can feel those eyes moving over his body makes him feel a little bit dark and rough and not-right in a way that he thinks he likes.

And yes, once or twice, he’s stretched out on the bank under the blanket-hot sun and touched himself, and of course, it’s never his wife he thinks about, or Bulma, or any of the other beautiful women who’ve thrown themselves at him for no good reason he can see. And it used to make people wonder what the heck was wrong with him, that he never seemed to notice, or didn’t know what to do with it if he did notice, and sometimes he thinks this actually explains a lot, when he bothers to think. The rest of the time, he doesn’t. He just clenches his eyes shut and handles himself roughly, and he can swears he can almost taste him. But mostly, he goes about his business like he always does, because sometimes, it’s more fun to pretend not to notice.

Of course, it’s not just when they’re apart. When they’re together, he watches him, too – especially right before he leaves, watches him look for his boots, forget the order, pull his belt down from the low limb of a tree, and there’s something in his eyes when he watches him then that he doesn’t really understand at all, just that it’s hungry and possessive and sad all at once, and he thinks he would never leave him, ever, if he didn’t have to. If there weren’t so many other things in the way.

Because as long as he’s been alive, no one’s ever looked at him that way – like they understand all the things that are wrong with him, and want him anyway, maybe need him anyway.

And always, he ties his belt and smiles at him, says “I’ll be back soon.”

Piccolo, as always, says something snide about how he has better things to do than wait for him. And Goku imagines he does, and that most of it involves either meditating, training, or watching him through the thin bamboo stalks around his house, and he wonders how it is that neither of them can ever say what they’re thinking, not even when they both know, not even when they want to.