Paper Wings.

I've watched you fly on paper wings
halfway around the world,
until they burned up in the atmosphere
and sent you spiralling down,
landing somewhere far from here
with no one else around.

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Prologue: a kiss of death.
(Gohan)

Thump. Thump. Thump.

His heart underneath my palm felt strangely calm. I could feel it beat against my hand, like the waves of the sea, racing to the shore and back. Each beat was calm and firm, sent a shiver down my spine. His heart was alive, beating and I could feel it. I could feel his life underneath my hand, warm, familiar -- safe in a world where nothing was.

He was smiling, too.

She was watching us. Desperate, broken. She was always watching us.

I wanted to die. My fingers grasped over his chest just slightly, almost as if I was trying to get inside and rip his heart out. Even when it wouldn't beat, I wanted it close. I could not live without it.

I couldn't live without him.

I resisted the urge to throw myself in his arms and to sob like a child, to scream and shout. Instead I watched him, with the tears streaming down silently, dripping over my chin like apple juice.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

To feel his heart beating, to hear it thump, was the most beautiful thing in life.

And he asked me to destroy it.

"No," I whispered, fragile.

It wasn't much, but it was enough. It was that word that conveyed everything, every single word that needed to be said. There was no reason wanted, no rational thoughts would enter my head. There was nothing in the world that mattered, beside the soft beating of his heart under my hand. My hand burnt, trembled.

She watched us, without a word. Her once short hair had grown long again and was in her eyes. Her eye was dark from bruised, her lips shattered. She looked beautifully broken as she watched us.

"Gohan," she whispered.

We hadn't talked much after he said what we must do. He had been the only one talking. Videl and I, we had just stared. Stared lifelessly at him, while he was the one dying.

"Kill me, kid," he repeated again, and it was almost a plea, almost like he thought I did not hear those destructive words before.

"I can't fucking do it, Piccolo!" I shouted and my hand on his chest formed a fist.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

How could I let that sound stop? How, just how could he ask me this? I needed the sound, needed the warmth, needed him. He had no idea just how much. I needed to hear his heart beat, again and again. I needed to know that no matter how bad things got, there was that heart, and it was beating for me.

I always knew it only beat for me, just like mine beat only for him.

It was an universal rule, an unspoken promise. And I wasn't going to break it. I would not.

Videl jumped a little at my sudden outburst, until her back was against the ice-cold wall of the cave. It was dark, but I could see through the twilight how her eyes were wide in shock.

There were no tears, for she had cried them all. I was the only one who still had some left, it seemed, and they were pouring down like burning rain.

I had never cared much about my heart, never needed to be easy on emotions. I never cared, since there was Piccolo and he could mend a broken heart. He could fix everything. He could make everything. He could do everything.

Piccolo saved everyone.

I could be a child, a pathetic whining piece of trash, because he would be there, always. I never got really hurt, never got hurt so badly like this, because Piccolo had caught me. I had fallen, but it was not the fall that killed you. It was that sudden stop at the bottom, where your bones hit the floor and the black would take over. I never before reached that point, for Piccolo would catch me, right in time.

But not this time. This time, I was all alone. All alone.

And everyone knew that Gohan, little Gohan, could never ever handle things alone.

"You can do it," he told me, smiling, like he was cheering me up before a test of maths instead of demanding me to kill him.

It sickened me, beyond the point of throwing up. I could not hurt Piccolo. It went against the very essence of my entire being. He was my reason for living, the reason the sky could be blue in a world like this. He was my heart, the push that kept it beating.

He was everything to me, and I could not stand the thought of losing him.

I simply shook my head and crawled closer, using my other hand to support me. He couldn't stand anymore, the pain was too much. He never complained, no -- Piccolo was strong. He always believed, he never gave up. He just sat there against the wall and swallowed the pain, endured the stinging suffering each second.

I wished I could be like him. I wanted to be just as strong as him from the moment I met him, and I wanted it still. I wanted to have a heart as strong and kind as his, but instead I had this broken, shattered thing full of holes. It was useless. It was useless if he had no need for it anymore.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I watched my life wash ashore helplessly. I didn't have the power to stop the tide from coming. The waves were crashing over me, and I was drowning, powerlessly devoted. I was too deep in this mess, and I could not get my head above the water. I was going under. And this time I would stay there.

They took everything, the huge waves with their gaping, grabbing hands.

They took everything. They left nothing behind. Nothing but me.

He just looked into my eyes, and I crawled even closer. I wanted to vanish inside him, because it must be the most beautiful place in the universe. I wanted to melt into him, so that no one in the world could ever rip us apart, simply and solely because I was a part of him.

If he died, he would take my heart along with it. I could feel his hot breath on my lips, and his heart underneath my palm. If I forgot the world, this would be the most beautiful moment of my life.

Videl looked away. She slid down the wall and buried her head in her hands. Her shoulders shook and she made sobbing sounds, that echoed over the whole cave. When she didn't know how to act anymore and what to do with herself, she either hit people or cried. She had hit enough people, her knuckles were bruised and battered, her arms splattered with blood. So she cried. She cried without tears, because no tears could express the pain. All that remained was the wordless pain, unable to be expressed in any form of action.

We were such a helpless, broken family. We were so alone, we were so shattered.

But Piccolo always kept us together. He was always there -- our leader and we followed him, blindly in his footsteps. We would follow him across the earth, over the seven seas, even when he had no idea where he was going. We would be calm, just because he was. We would hope, because Piccolo never gave up.

Except this one time. This time he threw in the towel and the glue that held us together was gone. This time, no one would have our backs, and Videl knew it. That was why she was crying. She was crying her dry tears because without Piccolo, we were lost.

The world couldn't survive without Piccolo. No frigging way in hell.

"No! No! I can't! I can't!" I stuttered, the words leaving my bruised lips like desperate pleas, pathetic excuses, a sick love-confession.

Videl screamed in her hands, muffling it by biting on her T-shirt. She lost herself, just like we did. Where once stood a brave, proud young girl, sat now a broken, desperate little girl. She wanted to be saved, and we needed Piccolo for that. We needed Piccolo.

If we lost him, the final shred of ourselves would be gone, ripped away from us like our sanity was.

"Just think about her," he snarled, his eyes dark from pain and emotion, clouded by the foresight of his own demise. "Just do it for Videl."

She trembled when he spoke her name. I didn't even look at her. I loved her, once. I loved her, but not as much as I loved the beating of Piccolo's heart, because nothing was more important to me. I loved her, still, but she wasn't going to save the world and we both knew it.

I couldn't do it, really. I couldn't make the sound stop, I couldn't make the thump, thump, thump go away. I couldn't end his life. For the first time in my life, I knew what was the right thing and I could not do it. I had killed before. I killed so many I was getting used to it.

It was all her fault.

"If only that freak..." I started, but he cut me off.

"But she did, Gohan, and she won this round. Don't let her win game."

She was just playing with us. She was laughing at us. It was almost as if I could hear her mocking, icy laugh in the back of my head, written in it forever. She didn't kill us, no, she never killed a single soul. She captured them and Piccolo and I were the only ones who ever escaped.

Dying was the nicer thing to do than sitting there. I knew how strong my dad was, but there was only so much he could take. If every second is one you live in agonizing pain, in torture and mocking laughs, even someone as strong as my dad, as strong as Piccolo would eventually collapse.

It was the sneaky thing about life: it always got you down in the end. No one made it out alive. None of us would see the end of this.

I didn't answer. I just crawled even closer, until my chest was against his, and my hand still plastered against his heart. It was beating faster now, racing against the palm of my hand. It was almost as if it wanted to jump out so I could hold it.

I couldn't lose him. I loved him.

The words in my throat burnt, sought their way out, but they seemed so stupid. My words wouldn't change anything anymore. My words were useless – everything was useless. Nothing and no one was going to save Piccolo.

"But you always save everyone," I whispered, my forehead resting against his chest and my shouldering shaking up and down. "Let us save you this time."

He always saved everyone, looking over the world like its own personal Guardian-Angel. He was always there on the right moment, like he smelt the danger, the potential a moment had to kill you. He had been there, again and again for me. He had been there. Every single time when I threw my hands in the air, fell onto my knees crying and I hated the world, he made it alright again.

He saved everyone, and we couldn't even do as much as ease his pain. It was sickening ironic, the kind of humour that would let you laugh so hollowly everyone would freeze at the sound. It was disgusting, and the bitter grin life gave me was turning me insane.

I crawled even closer, my forehead resting on his shoulder. His heart beat against my chest. He didn't even move, but didn't push me away either. Even now, he was the one holding me. He was the one comforting me. He was the one dying.

I could hear Videl standing up.

"I'm going to check if they're coming," she muttered, a pathetic excuse, and she ran away.

She couldn't watch me love anyone else, and I knew. I couldn't stand loving him myself. I felt him shift, probably to look if she was okay. She was not. No one was anymore. Nothing was okay. My tears were making wet stains on his shoulder, his clothing already ripped away and tattered.

He was like a statue of wounded courage, the portrait of true strength. His chest was full of cuts, unhealed and some of them still bleeding. Videl had made some bandages of clothing, but the blood had already drenched it. He sat there, his one knee lifted up, his hands firmly upon the ground. Every inch of his body was bruised, broken or sliced. But he smiled at me.

He smiled at me.

I knew he was only smiling to somehow make me feel better. I knew he was still thinking about me, about Videl.

It made me sick, turned my stomach upside down and burnt and froze every inch of my body. It made my mind scream, the words die. It turned me into some sort of mindless animal, just clinging to him and staring.

If I had the strength, I would turn back time. I'd turn back time and save him. But there was no time, and it was fading fast, laughing harder at us with each passing second.

His dark eyes were filled with pain, but he hid it, like he hid it for so long. We had been so foolish, so desperate. He had hidden the pain, until he had literally collapsed. He had been strong, for us. He was our only hope.

All that would remain without him was a pathetic child, crying and grasping for something he could never regain. I couldn't be Gohan without him.

I was aware we were dying. I was aware we were losing everything.

It was the awareness of it all that killed me. No longer could I pretend to be an idiot, just like my dad. No longer could I pretend I did not see this end racing toward us. No longer could I pretend there was a light at the end of our dark road, for my light would die and I would be alone. I was aware we had lost.

I wanted to hold him, weep into his arms until he would either die or go completely insane. I wanted him to tell me it was alright, because I would believe him, no matter what my own judgement was. I wanted him to tell me he knew how things were going to end, that we were going to make it.

I needed him to stay alive and tell me those things.

"Don't do that," he said, shaking his head and his eyes directed to the ground.

His voice was soft, littered with pain. And through it had sounded love, the sound of home. He was the only one in the world who could do that, who could make me feel safe in a world this close to falling apart. He was the only one that reminded me of home, of the beautiful things that once were.

If I killed him now, would our paths cross once more? Would he hold me again, as gently as he did now, despite his pain? Would he carry me to a place I called home, when he thought I was too battered to stand on my own feet? Would he look over me, somewhere high above me?

That the answer was no, I knew too well and that was why there was no way I could go through with it.

"But I'll lose you," I argued.

Losing Piccolo was about the worst of the worst of all the bad things that could happen in this world. And there were many, many bad things.

He had one arm around my back, not pulling me closer, not pushing me away. It was just there, like the railing of a high tower, to keep you from falling. It was there like support, to keep me from stumbling back and hitting the ground hard. He always protected me, and the one time I needed to save his life, I was helpless, pathetic and powerless.

"But you'll save the world," he said back, hiding the pain.

"I don't care about the world, Piccolo, I only need you."

He snorted, but I ignored the clichéness of that sentence. It was true. The world wasn't needed. The world could blow up for all I cared. Because as long as there was Piccolo, I'd be safe no matter what. He felt so warm, despite always trying to be so cold. I wrapped my arms around his neck, like a child clinging to a parent.

I was clinging to the only thing in the world that remained. I was clinging to the only thread that kept me from falling.

"That doesn't make any sense. We don't have any time for your irrational emotions right now, Gohan. Just do it."

I ignored his words, to drained to explain.

Underneath my fingers I felt the cold metal cord that brought us here. In other times, I would've laughed when people said technology screws with our society. They were right. God, they had no idea how right they were.

He winced under my touch.

"Does it hurt?" I asked softly.

"I can handle it, kid," he answered back.

It was not the same as 'no'. It was not the same as 'it will be alright'. It was the same as 'it's killing me.' But he'd withstand the pain, withstand all of hell just to see us hold on. He could handle everything. Everything.

I knew it hurt. I knew. I knew it was sending pain through each and every nerve. I knew he was dying. I knew I had to kill him.

But I denied it all. Because I was Gohan, and that was what I did best. Running away, just turning and leaving everyone behind. And someone would have my back, be it my dad or Piccolo.

I never really learnt anything else, never got over that childishness of mine. So I ran this time too, and no one could stop me.

"Quit the stalling, Gohan," the way my name left his lips made me shiver and press myself closer to him. He was too weak to complain about my sentimental behaviour once more. There was too much pain, and I couldn't handle it.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"I can't," I whispered again, trying not to fiddle with the metal cord in his neck and kill him while doing so.

I knew I'd be making the pain stop. He had been through enough pain. He had endured weeks, months of pain. Pain like no one in the world ever experienced. Pain, with each beat of his heart, with each step, with each breathe, with each passing second more.

He deserved salvation. He deserved an end. The end.

He pushed me away a little, and lifted my chin so that my tear-stained eyes were looking right into his dark eyes.

"You really need to stop this. Kill me before she does. Kill me before this gets out of hand."

The thought that I was never going to see those eyes looking at me again, with that fire burning behind them now dimmed to the light a single candle in the darkest night would give, that light, that strong pride, made it impossible not to cry harder.

So I did. I wept and I sobbed, until my shoulders shook so hard they were going to dislocate. He didn't pull me closer, but patted me on my back. It's the closet to a hug he'd ever come, and any other day I would've been grinning the whole day through, sure that I was the happiest man of the earth.

But I was going to lose that. I was going to lose him. I was going to kill him -- I, with my own bare hands. I would be a hero. I would save the world. I would save Videl.

I was going to lose his touch and it drove me insane. I didn't want to be rational, screw being a hero. I wanted Piccolo. Just him. Just his touch, only his smile.

I was not strong enough on my own. I couldn't handle the world alone. I couldn't do anything on my own. Gohan is a useless passion, a name with no purpose. I was nothing but an ordinary coward. I needed Piccolo to be strong and remind me I was not as useless as the voice in the back of my mind told me.

"There's an hour left, at least," I pleaded.

He shook his head and it killed me. It stabbed through me, like a knife and it twisted little broken-heart figures in my chest. It stabbed again and again, salted itself.

Why wouldn't he live for me? Why wouldn't he try?

Why couldn't I save him?!

"Don't leave me! Don't leave!" I cried, shaking my head wildly.

I could not live alone. I could not go through life without him to go to.

"Gohan," he said, in a voice that would not let me protest or interrupt.

I stared into those eyes and wished that this moment, if we erased all the pain in it, could last forever. I wanted to be in his arms until the sky would fall down upon us, and I wanted him to look at me with those eyes until the world stopped turning.

"I need you to kill me when you can still say that you are my friend," he spoke, looking firmly in my eyes and for a moment, a split-second I could see all the pain, the tiredness, the desperation, the hope, the love.

It killed me. It broke my heart into a zillion of pieces that were never going to be glued together again. I froze, inside, went numb in my mind. The tears stopped and I went silent.

"I'll always be your friend," I raised my voice.

"No. You have to kill now. I won't let you allow to hate me, just like I won't allow myself to let this thing," he pointed at his neck, his movements slowly and aching, unlike his elegant, strong movements before, "to drive me crazy! Don't you understand, Gohan? I'll forget everything. I'll kill thousands of people, and I'll fight alongside with her."

I shivered at the thought and if I would've still had my heart, it would've imploded. But I was numb, as I stared at him, my mouth open.

Didn't he know I'd love him even if he would do that?

"I can't..." his eyes darted away and it was so unlike him to be at a loss of words, I wanted to throw up. His heart beat harshly, quickly against my chest. His breath was in a fast, irregular pace. He was dying from the pain.

"You have to. You have to kill me, before I kill you. I can't stand that thought," he whispered then, and he winced at how it sounded.

He looked like he was about to puke at his own sentimental words. They had sounded roughly, uncaring, cold, littered with pain. It hadn't sounded like some sort of confession of soft feelings at all, but I knew. I knew he cared. I wished he didn't.

The world loved to screw me over.

I wanted to laugh and tell him everyone got emotional when they were about to die, but I didn't, since there was nothing funny about it.

So that was exactly why my heart restored itself, a broken piece full of bandages and bad healed scars. Something welled up inside me, something warm and bubbly, something ice-cold and killing. It was like a fire, grabbing around and burning everything.

"But I love you," I shouted.

And just like that I had said it, what I had been hiding for years and years. And yes, I could've corrected myself and tell him I meant 'as a friend', but I didn't want to lie. Not now, not like this.

He was going to die, he couldn't laugh at me anymore. I wished I never had to feel again, because it only made it worse.

His eyes were wide, and he looked at me. His expression harded then, as he said: "Love won't save us now, Gohan."

There was something inside that snapped at these words, some sort of animalistic, childish urge to prove him wrong. So I looked into his eyes once more, before I launched myself at him and pressed my lips against his. There was no holding back anymore, no regrets, no second thoughts. This was me and him, and the very last hour we would spend together.

My arms were around his shoulders, tears burning but not falling. His heart raced against my chest, one last time fast and lively. It was the way the flame flickered the most violently right before it died.

I pushed myself closer, still kissing him. My eyes were closed so tightly it hurt, but I only squeezed them harder.

He knew I was going to kill him. He knew. And I felt his lips curl in a smile, as he pulled me against him just as desperate as I was clutching to him.

Everything laid in that one kiss. Our first kiss, our last kiss. A kiss of death. A kiss of ice-cold betrayal. But I was giving it to him, with all the passion I kept in my heart especially for him and it was flowing out so fast it was overwhelming. My tongue was in his mouth and my heart was about to jump out.

It was almost like an apology, like an 'I don't want to, but I'll do it anyway', like a pathetic excuse. It was like my own verdict of death, my own torture. It was what I had dreamt of doing for so long now, but it was cold also.

It was the bitter taste after that poisoned my senses, the venom that laid in the hereafter, in the moment after. Kisses never last forever, just like happiness was only there to shatter.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I backed away, breathing hard and I stared at him. It was as if I was asking him once more permission to kill him.

He smiled. He didn't nod or shook his head. He didn't cry. He didn't complain. He didn't back down. He didn't crawl back. He didn't stare at me in fear. He didn't even wince.

He smiled.

At me.

The man who was going to kill him.

"I love you," I slowly whispered again.

"I know," he answered, and it was the most beautiful confession I could ask for.

Our live had never been about being kissed in the rain, with the stars keeping watch over you. Our lives had never been a bed of roses.

To know that someone loves you, was the best we had. To know that there was someone in the world you could trust, was heart-mending.

"Give me a smile back," he said casually, as if he wasn't going to die.

"What?"

"Smile back, like you did before. We don't need to say goodbye, we both do poor jobs at that."

He had been asking me to do impossible things a lot lately. But I did it, simply because he asked me.

I smiled and it was the most horrible thing I ever did in my entire life. I smiled and it felt like everything froze and broke. I whipped my tears, took a deep breath and smiled him my broadest smile.

He was still smiling back, that half-smile, that tired movement of his lips, that miniscule, almost unnoticeable smile of his.

His smile killed me. It drove me insane. It disgusted me. He wasn't supposed to smile when I was going to take his life.

So I couldn't stand it anymore, and once more I kissed him, fiercely. Like an unrequited love, a one-sided conversation, an unanswered phone-call. Like hope that was only meant to break. Like a desperate soul, jumping into the dark.

My hands were on his back and I gathered enough energy to kill him. I knew he was still smiling.

I knew I was still smiling through my tears, through my heartache, through this.

If I were to kill Piccolo, I'd want to kill myself too. We'd go down together, whether he wanted it or not. I would smile for him, for eternity. Forever, we'd be together, like our earth will forever dance around the sun.

I could not be apart from Piccolo, since he held my heart.

The energy ball in my hand lifted up the cave in an agonizing blue light.

His heart beat against my chest hard.

We both knew how this was going to end. We both knew exactly how the rest of our lives would go.

I would gather the energy I needed to kill him.

He would pretend he didn't notice.

I would weep and fire the shot.

Blood would be spilled.

My unheard apology would be accepted.

His invisible act of heroism would be burnt in my heart, and it would never leave.

He would still be beautiful, in all his broken, forgotten glory.

He would die, and I would die along with him.

And in that final moment, he was still smiling in our kiss.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

This --

was the end.

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Or is it? Of course it's not! Well, sort of not. This is the end, of sorts, and the chapters that will follow will explain just how the hell they winded up here. Yes, yes, it's yaoi. Muhaha. Because I can. Because I am awesome. I wrote this some time ago, but then I got tired of waiting for someone to BETA it (no offense, seriously). So I posted it. Pretty much un-BETA'd. Yes. I am pure evil.

So, some explanations: It's set before the Buu-saga thingiej, but after Gohan is on High School. So yes, he knows Videl already, but he wasn't dating her or something. Uhm, I will explain who 'she' is. Obviously a bad girl, though!

Yosh, this is completely different from anything I did before. I'll be combining the action-like nature of DBZ, though you can't expect me to be just as awesome, and the romantic nature of Jazy's angst-filled, love-stained stories. Because I can, again.

Yes, yes, I suck at keeping characters IC. I admit, I honestly do. But please just live with it? Though, if anyone has this awesome deep analysis of Videl, let me hear it. I seriously have no idea how to deepen out her character, which shall happen in later chapters.

As you noticed (or maybe you forget already) underneath the chapter title, there is a name. In this case it was Gohan. This means it was from Gohan's point of view. This story shall be told from Gohan's, Videl's and of course Piccolo's POV.

Soooo... Constructive critism? Praises? Empty bottles, rotten tomatoes waiting to be smashed at my face? Death treaths when I don't update quickly? Whatever it is, let me hear it! XD In a review, maybe? -smile cutely-

I guess that was it, then.

-- Jazy!