Oceans

Author's Note - I debated with myself a long time over how to end this thing. Here's how I believe it should end. Perhaps at some point, I'll post an alternate chapter for how it might also have ended, but frankly, you would all set me on fire for that one. ~.^ So, with no further delay, the story.

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*20 years later*

The sun came down through the trees like silent, glowing rain in the small grove where Piccolo was sitting, dappling its way over Gohan’s face where the boy – young man, Piccolo corrected himself mentally, he hadn’t been a boy in years – was stretched out on his back with his hands behind his head. The posture was eerily similar to Goku’s, even if the clothes and the body were completely different.

Gohan had, in recent years, filled out more than his father; he kept his hair cropped short, though one stubborn little spike kept falling down between his eyes. He was still dressed like he did to teach school – a pair of slacks and a dress shirt that stretched tight across his shoulders, tie by now unfastened, flat-soled shoes of some kind that Piccolo couldn’t identify but was willing to bet were passing expensive. And there was just something so human about him, these days – human and safe and ordinary, that it was almost a surprise when he flew, or stopped in for training with either Piccolo or Son Goku.

Then again, maybe it shouldn’t have been so surprising that Gohan’s rapid changes were too fast for Piccolo to keep up with. To his understanding, Namekians went for centuries without changing a thing if they could help it. Small wonder that the boy, who had been a boy just a few years ago, and the man did not always seem like the same person to him.

“You’ve got to stop thinking so hard about it,” Son would say to him from time to time. He’d always say it the same way, look up at him over a shoulder, grin, hands on hips. “He’s still Gohan, even if he does all that weird human stuff.”

Which was all well and good for Goku, who didn’t think about a damn thing if he didn’t have to. It was harder for Piccolo, especially when Son wasn’t around to remind him to stop being such a damn stick in the mud.

Son would normally have been with them. But he was off doing gods-know-what, and Piccolo wasn’t inclined to cast his senses out and look for him just then. He’d come back. He always did. And Piccolo would be waiting for him, because that was what HE always did.

And Piccolo was surprised, constantly surprised, by how easy it was. How he could be sitting in the grass, deep in meditation, or running a series of elaborate kata, or even sparring with himself, and then feel it, like a split-second warning, the closest thing Goku’d ever had to calling first. There’d be a brief sputter, like a blue light on a police car, and there he’d be, as often as not out of thin air.

Sometimes, he’d appear beside him. Sometimes in front, sometimes behind. Sometimes, to Piccolo’s eternal frustration, he’d appear squarely over his head and land on him in an undignified, unplanned heap. But no matter what happened, it went the same.

“Hey, Piccolo,” Goku would say, grinning, always, like an idiot, looking exactly the same as when he left yesterday, or a week ago, or a month ago. “How’ve you been?”

“Enjoying the solitude,” Piccolo would growl. Or something just like it.

Goku wouldn’t call him on it. He just wouldn’t believe him, either. Piccolo could always tell by the way he didn’t droop, if anything, grinned a little wider. And then he’d ask him to spar, or drag him to some damned half-frozen body of water, or just stretch out in the grass beside him, stretch the way cats did, and rest the back of his head on his leg if Piccolo happened to be on the ground instead of in the air.

Sometimes, he tried to be on the ground when he showed up. Just for that.

And there was no rime or reason to it, either, which Piccolo thought should have been more of a problem than it was. He never knew how long the Saiyan was going to stay with him, or what it would be like. Sometimes, it was weeks, and they were more like old friends than any kind of sexual partners, Son talking to him about gods-know-what while he for some reason listened, the two of them alternately sparring or sitting around, Son roasting something Piccolo tried not to look at over a spit while he meditated. Other times, it’d just be for an afternoon, the clothes’d be gone in ten minutes if they even bothered to take all of them off, and Piccolo would need a rare bout of sleep the next day before he’d be fit to do anything else.

Then there were other times, too, the rarer ones. The times when Goku would not say a word to him, would just climb into his lap, a knee on either side of his hips, cup his face in his hands, and kiss him. Slide his arms around his neck, rest his head on his shoulder. Those, for Piccolo, were the hardest, because he didn’t know what to do besides be still, let it happen, put an awkward hand on his back. Whisper things to him in a language he knew he didn’t understand, because that was the only way he knew that he could make himself say them.
Any time Son Goku popped into his life, he never knew which way it was going to be, which combination. He would’ve thought he’d hate that. He didn’t. It was something unpredictable in his life, where most of it had settled into different kinds of routine.

When it came right down to it, Piccolo wasn’t sure if either of them was actually happy this way. He wasn’t sure he’d know what happy was, anyway, if it came up and bit him, which…he had to think happened, sometimes…but he did know what unhappy was, and they didn’t seem to be. And sometimes, as he well knew, it was just best to leave well enough alone.

Even if sometimes he sort of wanted to tag along, like the old days. Caution to the wind, common-sense be damned. All these years later, he still remembered what that felt like, rushing headlong into something that was so purely stupid as to make him want to laugh out loud – a rare impulse for Piccolo, at least in the years since he’d finally quit the blow-stuff-up-for-fun kick for good.

There was really only one thing stopping him from saying the Hell with it and going. After all, it wasn’t like he had a ton of shit to pack, or bills to pay, or a house sitter to hire. He and Son Goku were the same, at least, in that.

What stopped him was the feeling that, if they took off together, they wouldn’t be coming back. At least, they wouldn’t come back for a very long time. Because he knew how these things went. One detour would lead to another, and it’d be 50 years before they saw the Earth again. And it might have been vain of him to think so, it might’ve been irrational, but sometimes he really did think that he was most of the reason that Son remembered to come back at all.

Not that there was much for him here anymore, except for the boy-man beside him. But Gohan was all grown up now, had his own family, a job, a car, a regular spot at the coffee shop. And it seemed to Piccolo, sometimes, that when he looked at Gohan, the boy actually looked older than Son Goku did. True, neither of them was exactly ancient yet, but…Surely there were a few more little lines around his eyes. Surely he carried himself a little differently, was a little more careful where he put himself. All that, he mused, in only twenty years – Gohan would be twenty six now, twenty seven?

What would he look like, Piccolo wondered, when he was thirty. Fifty. Seventy.

It occurred to him that he’d find out if he wasn’t careful.

So maybe he wasn’t as unready to take off and be adventurous again as he thought. Maybe he wasn’t quite ready to resign himself to all that quiet meditation time. Yet it still didn’t feel like the right time. And besides that, leaving with Son Goku now would basically mean that they were running off. Together. And in terms of commitment, he just wasn’t sure he was ready for that.

Gohan shifted easily in the grass, leaned his head back like he was watching clouds. Then he grinned, just slightly – nothing at all like his father did, but it meant the same thing, Piccolo reflected wryly. It meant something bad was about to happen to him. Like Capsule Corp picnics, parent teacher conferences, show and tell, or possibly even driving tests.

I am NEVER going to forgive him for that, Piccolo thought.

“So Piccolo,” Gohan said casually. He’d stopped calling him “Mr. Piccolo” sometime around sixteen. While Piccolo hadn’t been sorry to lose the title, he could still remember the little twitch in his chest that had happened the first time Gohan had tried his name out without the prefix - carefully, like the boy was afraid of breaking something.

“Hm?” Piccolo answered.

Gohan closed his eyes, grinned just a little wider, and said, “How long have you been sleeping with my dad?”

Piccolo’s eyes, which had been mostly-closed, opened very quick, very wide. And, because he was a warrior and used to split-second decisions, his brain immediately started supplying him with options. Like, for instance, sleeping? With your father? Where the fuck would you get a crazy idea like that? Or…hey, look, it’s Vegeta, and run like Hell in the other direction. Or, sure, we sleep together all the time, completely separately, when he falls asleep out here after training, because that’s obviously what you mean.

His mouth, much less helpful than his brain, replied, “wh…huh?”

“Oh, come on, you knew I was gonna figure it out sooner or later.” Gohan turned over onto his side so that he could actually face him. He had a strand of grass between his teeth like he used to do when he was younger – the kind he used to torment sabertooth tigers with. Piccolo felt a sudden twinge of sympathy for the big cat because, as it turned out, it really WAS pretty damn annoying.

Piccolo found himself looking anywhere else but at Gohan. Out? Figure what out? There is nothing to figure out, and Son, damnit, where in the blazes are you when I actually need you? “A while,” he admitted finally. Felt weirdly relieved, after he said it.

“Wow,” Gohan said. “For a second there, I thought you were going to lie to me.”

Piccolo snorted. “Thought about it,” he admitted gruffly. “How did…”

Gohan shrugged, turned back onto his back, acted unconcerned. “Piccolo, come on. You’re pretty good at hiding stuff, but Dad?”

Piccolo slapped a hand over his eyes before he thought better of it, a whole parade of terrible mental images tromping through his mind. All the things that Son could’ve blurted out during dinner, or in his sleep, or said without thinking twice about. “What did he do,” he growled resignedly.

Gohan laughed. “You helped,” he said.

Piccolo peered at him between two of his fingers.

“Dad’s bad about just taking off clothes while he’s walking through the house. And as long as you’ve been sparring with me, Piccolo, I don’t think you’ve ever bitten me once.”

Piccolo felt his cheeks heat up. Rapidly. He averted his eyes again, reminded himself that screaming “HE STARTED IT” at the top of his lungs was not going to improve his situation or dignity at all. “Do we really have to talk about this?” he asked, a little weakly.

Gohan laughed again. “Not really,” he said. “I just wanted to see if you’d admit to it.”

Piccolo nodded once.

“Why didn’t you guys ever tell anyone?”

“It wasn’t anyone else’s business,” Piccolo said matter-of-factly.

“And you didn’t think we’d take it all that well.”

Piccolo nodded again, noting idly that he keeps making that mistake – the one where he expects Gohan not to know these things because he’s too young. Because he wasn’t anymore.

“Well, what’s that matter?” he asked.

“Why does anyone else actually need to know?” Piccolo asked in return.

“Well, if everybody knew, you’d…” Gohan’s brow creased, as he thought about it. “You wouldn’t move in together anyway,” he said after a moment or two. “Or get married. Or hold hands. Or anything like that, because you’re…you.”

Piccolo nodded again.

Gohan flopped over on his back. “Wow,” he said. “This is pretty weird to talk about, isn’t it?”

“And whose fault is that?” Piccolo asked.

“Okay, you’re right, I asked for it,” Gohan said. He grinned over at him. “So, how is it?”

“How is what,” Piccolo asked, though he had the sinking feeling he already knew the answer.

“The...you know.”

Piccolo again wished, fervently, that Son Goku was there, with them. Because if he had been, then Piccolo would have broken his head for never bothering to teach him that godsdamned instant transmission trick he’d learned on Yardrat. It would, Piccolo thought, be an insanely useful technique right now. “I’m not discussing this with you,” he said. His cheeks felt hot again, and he found himself looking very intently at a tree. “Ever.”

“That’s probably good,” Gohan said. “Because now that I think about it, you telling me about your sex life right now also means you telling me about Dad’s sex life, and I don’t think I actually want to know.”

“Gohan,” Piccolo said. “Stop talking.”

Gohan laughed. “Sorry, Piccolo,” he said. “It’s just I’m happy for you. I mean, I always felt bad, me with Videl and Krillen with 18, and you just always seemed to be by yourself.”

“Company is overrated,” Piccolo said.

Gohan just winked at him. “Yeah, right,” he said.

They sat in silence for another long while.

“Pan’ll be going to school in the fall,” Gohan said at last. Even through his too-big glasses, his eyes were a little blurry.

“What for?” Piccolo asked before he thought about it.

“Well, everybody goes to school,” Gohan said.

Piccolo shot him a raised-eyeridge look, and Gohan grinned a different kind of grin, an almost-sad one that wasn’t his father’s so much as his mother’s. Piccolo felt it through his stomach.

“Almost everyone,” Gohan corrected.

“You did alright without it,” Piccolo said.

“Y’know, Dad said the same thing,” Gohan said.

Piccolo cursed mentally. Gohan seemed to know, and chuckled.

“When I was Pan’s age,” he said, “I was fighting the whole Ginyu force, remember?”

Of course he remembered.

“I used to read comic books when I was little,” Gohan said, “before you trained me. Grandpa’d bring them, and I’d hide them in my math books when mom wasn’t looking sometimes.”

Piccolo only vaguely knew what a comic book was. He nodded anyway.

“Sometimes I wanted to fight back then, y’know? I wanted to be a super hero, go out and fight crime…”

Piccolo thought that explained a lot about the Great Saiyaman, but didn’t mention it.

“But it wasn’t like I expected it to be, you know? Because when you imagine something like that, nobody ever gets hurt. Or dies. Or even gets all that scared.”

“She wants to fight, doesn’t she,” Piccolo said, with a strange kind of understanding.

Gohan nodded. Bit his thumb, like he was thinking.

“School helped you,” he said, “to move out of this world. Make it seem farther away. That’s why.”

Gohan nodded again. A smaller nod. Again, like he was afraid of breaking something.

Piccolo said, “I see.” Because he did.

Gohan sat up on his elbows, looked over at him, and the words started to come too fast, like they did with Son Goku sometimes. “It’s not that I blame you for it,” he said, “you or dad either, because I wouldn’t have traded it for the world, you and Bulma and Krillen and all the things we did together and all the stuff I wouldn’t ever have seen or people I wouldn’t have met if I’d just been a normal kid, it’s just that…”

“You don’t want that for her,” he said. Interrupted, really, because long experience with the Sons had taught him that the only way to deal with that rush of words was to stop it, or you’d both wind up completely confused.

Gohan slumped a little, relieved. “I never understood Mom before. When she’d get so worried about me going out to fight with guys three times my size and age, when she’d been a fighter herself, and now – now I don’t understand how Dad did it, sometimes. Or even you, even if you were usually around to step in to make sure I didn’t REALLY get hurt.” Gohan looked up at him again. “How did you?”

Piccolo shrugged. “Your father,” Piccolo said, “was never afraid in any fight he was in, until Frieza. He tries to understand that others can be, just as he tries to understand what your mother wants him to be, but it’s hard for him to fathom, sometimes.”

“And you?” Gohan asked, more quietly.

“I’m not like your father,” Piccolo said. “I’ve lost my fair share of battles. I understand that there are things I can’t do.”

Gohan blinked at him again.

“The best way for me to protect you,” he said, “was to teach you how to take care of yourself. To let you make your own mistakes, and try to be there to minimize damage. Because if I’d always stepped in between you and whoever you were fighting, you wouldn’t know what you do now.”

Gohan didn’t have an answer for him, for a while…when he did, though, his voice was steady, only a little hoarse to show how much of an effort that was. “Thankyou, Piccolo,” he said.

“Forget it, kid,” he said, not as unkindly as he meant to.

They sat in silence a little while longer, until the light through the trees was blue-tinged and red instead of gold, and Gohan stood up, dusted off his suit. “I’m late for dinner,” he said, a little sheepish.

Piccolo avoided a smile with some difficulty as he watched his student lift off and fly away. Some things, at least, are always the same.

And speaking of, he could feel it again, that little blue warning light in the back of his head.

“So, how’d it go?” Son Goku asked as he stepped out of the brush and sat down beside him. He brought both his hands up to shake the leaves out of his hair, no doubt a side effect of his landing.

“Hmph,” Piccolo answered.

“What’d you tell him?” he asked, grinning in that obnoxious way he did when he’d actually managed to pull one over on someone.

“You did it on purpose, didn’t you,” Piccolo said.

Goku chuckled. “Dunno what you’re talking about.”

Piccolo didn’t either – if he meant the clothes, or only showing up when he did, or what. He said, “You know damn well what I’m talking about, Son.”

Goku plucked the last of the stray leaves from his hair. “Maybe?” he said.

“Why do I put up with you,” Piccolo muttered.

The Saiyan reached over, and held the leaf against Piccolo’s arm, apparently to compare the shade of green. “C’mon, didn’t you miss me a little?”

“No,” Piccolo said. But he reached down and took the smaller man’s wrist firmly in his hand. Brought it up to his mouth and scraped his teeth, just lightly, over his pulse to watch his eyes close.
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Later that night, Son stood up to collect his clothes from various brambles, low tree branches, a rock.

Piccolo, as always, watched him do it from his place on his cape, arms folded on the thick fabric, chin on his forearms. “Leaving already?” he asked, which he’d never asked before.

Son, who had been hopping around like a demented flamingo in his effort to get a boot on, paused. “I…uh…don’t have to,” he said. And Piccolo could see from the look on his face that he was off-balance now, uncertain.

“But you were,” Piccolo said.

“Yeah,” Goku said. He stood up. Shifted his foot around a little to make sure it actually went in the boot where it was supposed to.

Piccolo stood up as well. Clothed himself with a gesture.

Goku blinked. “Pic, is something…”

“Where are you going,” Piccolo countered.

“I…uh…don’t know,” Goku said.

“Perfect,” Piccolo said. He incinerated his old cape with a chi blast. Threw a fresh one on over his shoulders.

Goku blinked. “Perfect?” he asked.

“I’m coming with you,” Piccolo said.

“With me,” Goku said. “You mean, this time you want to…”

“No,” Piccolo said. He looked over at him, smirked. “That’s not what I said.”

Goku tilted his head. Tried to tie his belt, was too distracted, gave up. “But you just…”

“I said,” Piccolo repeated, slowly and deliberately. “I’m coming with you.”

Goku understood, then. But he didn’t smile. Instead, he flashed Piccolo an odd sort of smirk, one he hadn’t seen the Saiyan direct at him for years, not since Radditz. “You don’t think you’ll slow me down?” he asked.

Piccolo grinned right back, a small, feral expression. Made sure his fangs were showing. “You just try and keep up,” he said. And, like a sailor, he realized the truth in that moment, that home can be a place, or it can be a ship, or it can be the way the wind smells when you’re going somewhere, or it can be someone else. And whatever it was, he’d finally found it.