Disclaimer: Dragonball Z doesn't belong to me-so neither do the characters etc. I don't know who they do belong to though-but they aren't mine, and I'm not making money, so don't sue.
Note: This is my first Dragonball Z fic to be posted-in fact it's the first one I've ever written, so PLEASE give me some HELPFUL feedback....
When Mom's Sick
Gohan picked as his corn flakes in discontent. It had been a long time since he'd had cold ceiral as a meal, but Chi Chi was sick and couldn't get out of bed. Gohan took a bite of the flakes and grimanced-they were soggy already........He dropped the spoon into the bowl, and it landed with a decided *PLOP*.
With a groan, Gohan pushed his chair away from the table and walked outside, to where his father was fighting an invisable high in the air. "Hey dad," Gohan said, flying up to where his father was, and pausing several feet away from him.
Goku paused when he saw his son and turned to face him, a familiar smile on his face. "Yeah, Gohan?" he asked.
"I'm hungry," Gohan complained, his hands clutching his small stomach.
"Hey, so'm I," Goku said with his usual cheeriness as he flew over to his son. "Lets go down and see your mom about cooking us some lunch,"
"But dad," Gohan reminded his father in a somewhat whiney voice as they started back to their house. "Mom's sick, remember?"
Goku blinked and his smile faultered, but only for a moment. "Oh yeah," he said. "Well," he and Gohan landed on the earth not far from the house's front door. "Then I guess I'll have to cook,"
Gohan blinked, studying his father for some sign that he was joking, but the smile on Goku's face was on of foolish overconfidence and cockiness. "You can......cook?" Gohan asked in a halting voice. He half expected his father to break out laughing, and let the gag drop, but instead Goku just nodded. "In a kitchen?"
"Of course," Goku replied, starting into the house, Gohan trailing uncertainly behind him. "How do you think I survived before I married your mother?" Gohan wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to that....
Once in Chi Chi's meteculously kept kitchen, Goku made himself at home. "First," he said, with a wink and a grin at his son. "We'll make some soup and tea for your mother, so that she'll get better soon," he started banging around the cupboards looking for-and finally finding-a large pot, which he filled with water and set on the stove, sloshing the floor with the clear liquid in the process.
"Then," he continued, miraculously finding carrots and celery, which he set on the counter long enough for him to find a knife. "I'll make us some fish-I think there is some left over from last night, yeah," he found the knife he'd been looking for, and-without moving the vegitables from the countertop-started slicing the carrots into large, uneven chunks. "You sit down at the table and watch,"
Still significantly less than assured at his father's abilities in that particular field, Gohan carefully made his way over the growing puddle of water on the floor, and sat down in front of the bowl of glop that had at one point been his corn flakes. Plain, good, soggy corn flakes kept sounding better and better....
Goku dumped his uneven cuts of vegies into the warm water on the stove without ceremony, splashing even more water out over it's rim. After the vegitables had all made their way into the water, Goku brushed his hands together and survayed the kitchen. "What else should go in the soup..." he said softly, to himself. "Fish!"
With that exclamation, Goku pulled out the remains of the large fish he'd caught for last night's dinner. Chi Chi had cooked up about half of it, and the rest she'd frozen in hopes for a later meal. Goku took the frozen fish to the counter, where he'd cut the carrots and celery, and slapped it down. It made a rather hard knocking sound when it hit the kitchen surface and bounced back up about an inch.
Quickly, before the fish even had a chance to begin to think about thawing out, Goku had the knife once again in his hand, and the wrappings peeled back from the scaly, dead animal. As Gohan watched, mouth hanging slightly open in surprise, Goku began cutting the poor fish into lopsided cubes.
Whistling slightly, the saiyan left the cubes there, defrosting on Chi Chi's one-time spotless countertop, to find a pan. He found Chi Chi's good-don't-anyone-but-me-touch pan, and slammed it down on the stove with a resonding ~CLANG~
"See Gohan," Goku said, looking back at his dumbfounded son while he found a large thing of oil. He began pouring the oil into the frying pan. "I told you I could cook!" He sounded all too happy. With another little wink at his son, Goku grabbed the fish cubes, plopped them in the pan and turned on the heat.
For afew minutes, nothing happened. Goku stood over the stove, hands crossed over his chest, wearing a gloating smile, then the oil heated up. And the frozen fish started to thaw. And the oil started to spit.
"Hey, ow!" Goku complained as the first barrage of hot oil hit his bare arm. "Ow!" He ducked as more started flying out of the frying pan, as though rebelling against Goku's culinary attempts.
Gohan's eyes widened at the sight of his father crouched on the floor, squirming whenever the hotoil touched him, and the little boy pushed himself off his chair. He started over to the stove-and turned off the heat, miraculously not getting hit by even one of the hot-oil missiles in the process.
For a few seconds more, the pan sputtered, as though it refused to go out so easily, then stilled. The oil spotted spitting and Goku regained his feet. "Thanks Gohan," Goku said, grinning down at the boy before turning his attention back to the "food."
"Wow!" he exclaimed upon seeing the fish. "They're already done!" With a skull thicker than an elephant's, Goku reached into the oil and pulled out one of the black, crispy fish cubes. It was hot-scalding really-but being the gretat saiyan that he was, Goku didn't have the pride to yell, shout, curse or even put the fish down, though his face contorted into a painful grimace that Gohan didn't fail to see.
"See?" Goku's voice was strained as he showed his son the blackened thing in his hands. "All done." He ignored the face of disbelief and disquist that Gohan was giving him, and tossed the fish cube into the pot of now-boiling water and vegetables. He used chopstickes to fish out (no pun intended) several other charred lumps of seafood and transfer them into the "soup." The rest of the fish, he put onto a plate before pouring the excess oil down the drain.
"Hmmm...." Goku said thoughtfully as the soup boiled away, and his son watched him fearfully. "What else should I make......I know!" Gohan's eyes widened in horror at the thought of something more. "Rice!"
"No!" Gohan jumped forward before he knew what he was doing. Goku stared at his young son in surprise, looking a little hurt at Gohan's protest. Gohan saw this in his dad's expression, and tried to make amends. "There is some rice left over from yesterday too," he said, looking a little meek. "You can just heat that up-it'll save time, and I'm hungry now!" Injecting just the right amount of whine in his voice made Goku realize the points of Gohan's idea-though the main one (his own cooking) remained lost to him.
"Good idea," Goku said, his smile returning. "So am I, and I bet that Chi Chi is too....." After a few moments of searching, he found the sealed container of rice. He emptied it into another pan then turned the heat on once again. "what else...." he muttered, his forefinger on the bottom of his lip.
"Uh," Gohan started, thinking fast. "Weren't you gonna make mom some tea?" he asked.
Goku smiled down at him son. "Oh yeah!" he said, and grabbed the tea pot to fill it with water.
Gohan sighed as he watched his father rush around the kitchen, put on the teapot, find the tea, get out mugs. He shouldn't have asked his father for food......going hungry couldn't be worse than this....and the kitchen looked was a disaster! Chi Chi was going to be angry when she saw it................
He sniffed the air-burnt. Worse than the fish...................Gohan looked at the rice in horror-it was smoking. He rushed over to turn it off-just as Goku was rushing over to turn on the water under the teapot. With a crash, father and son ran into each other, bumping into the stove in the process.
The large pot with veggie and burnt fish filled water toppled, pouring scalding water on both of the men, and all over the floor. "Ai!" Goku yelled as the hot water got to him, and he lept in the direction of this sink in order to get some cold water.
Gohan saw what was going to happen just before it happened-Goku's foot found one of the burnt, wet pieces of fish from the "soup" and the saiyan put his full weight on it. When he did that, his feet went sliding out from under him, his arms flailing in momentary panic. The edge of his shirt caught a flame from the stove as he went toppling down onto his back.
"Ow Ow Ow!!!!" he complained, automatically rolling over his flaming clothing, luckily putting it out in the process.
Gohan was about to go help him, when another voice stopped him cold in his tracks.
"What is going on in here?!" Both Gohan and Goku turned slowly towards the door, their faces growing red at the sight of Chi Chi, still sick and very furious standing there, hands on her hips.
Her eyes widened as she took in the trashed kitchen, charred husband and soaking son and a small sound escaped from her throat.
"Uh..." Goku started getting to his feet uneasily. "Hi Chi Chi....how are you feeling?"
Chi Chi gave another small, gasp-like sound, then lept forward, her finger out and pointing accusingly at her husband, who was doing his best to escape her wrath. "What happened here?!" she shouted, her voice somewhat hoarse from being sick.
"Uh, heh heh..." Goku backed away from her a little, bit ran up against Chi Chi's ruined counter, which he'd used as a cutting board. "See, it's like this......"
THE END
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