Only castles burning, and people turning, and then you'll come around.
Trunks hadn't carried his sword with him in over a year, but as he clipped the baldric in front of his chest, the clench in his gut eased. He'd felt a strange anxiety for the past few days, something building up. The dream, though, was what had made him want to go out to the pile of rubble that was still South City.
Dreams were nothing new, and his subconscious put him through his paces on a nightly basis. This one had felt different, more real, like some kind of warning. The androids had clawed their way out of the dirt, stronger and more vicious than ever, and he'd felt like he was fourteen again. Weak and powerless.
He didn't tell his mother where he was going as he headed out the door, and she didn't ask; the past year had been a smooth slide into a routine of silence. He performed chores and errands when asked, spoke when spoken to, and remained the cold warrior that a year with his father had taught him to be. Bulma didn't know whether to blame it on Vegeta himself, on the trip to the past, or on a lifetime of being the worlds best hope and still not strong enough. She'd watched her son detach himself from most human contact in order to fulfill his one main objective; serve and protect.
Just because he went out and helped survivors rebuild, didn't mean he did anything overly much to get them to like him. Just because he was called out to settle disputes between two groups of settlers, or keep a gang from terrorizing the countryside, didn't mean that anyone wanted to be his friend. He sat on the edge of the crowed at the midnight bonfires, rarely bedded a woman, and only smiled just before a fight. He was their law and order, their ultimate authority in this time of anarchy; he was needed, but not loved.
Bulma had understood the scared seventeen year old that had left her; she didn't think the cold twenty-one year old who'd come back to her even understood himself. She loved him because she'd given birth the him; she feared him because of the cold hardness that had somehow leaked out of Vegeta's black eyes and into his big blue ones.
Trunks surveyed the area as he landed; he'd blasted Eighteen just over there, and Seventeen a little more to the right. The husk of an overturned car still remained, but something had clawed its way out of the engine. Something big. Trunks knelt by the car, and peered into the cavity. Three long black strands were caught in the sharp metal. He pulled them close to his face, and inhaled. Dank and organic, like mushrooms growing in the dark. No reason to panic. Yet.
His gut was clenching, but he circled the surrounding area. He paused next to a slab of concrete, studied the jagged hole in the center. Steel and rubble were scattered across the slab, and it looked like something had exploded out of it. Trunks peered down the hole; there was dirt under the concrete, and a lot of claw marks. Trunks leaned close to peer at them, and pulled a broken human fingernail out of one of the deep gouges.
So they'd regenerated, like Cell. It'd taken them much longer, but his gut had been right. Trunks stood, still staring at the fingernail. They had no ki, so he couldn't follow them on his own. He hadn't gotten a call from anyone, so they weren't out terrorizing yet. He looked around at the crumbling city, and thought, If I just crawled out of a bunch of dirt, what would I want first? That was easy; she'd head straight for the nearest set of clean clothes and a hot shower. Trunks began his systematic search, and found what he was looking for less then a block away.
The faint sound of running water was coming out of a building that had once had storefront windows, blasted away completely now. Trunks stepped over the broken glass and dusty rubble, and followed the footprints into the back of the store. The sound of running water was louder here, and Trunks could hear a soft female voice singing slightly off key. He rounded the corner, deliberately crunched some rocks under his foot, and smirked as Eighteen whirled around. There were dusty boxes along one wall that had been recently opened; that must have been where she'd found the oversized tee-shirt and the sweat pants. Her wet hair hung in her startled blue eyes, and she slowly lowered the brush. Trunks didn't move for a long moment, waiting for her to rush him. She sighed, though, and smiled.
"You scared me for a minute, there," She stood and moved toward him, still smiling. "I'm Sarah, and my brother Steven is in there," she gestured at a door on the opposite wall with the brush, where the sound of running water was coming from. "Look, I know this sounds kinda strange, but what happened? The city is so trashed we don't even know where we are. The last few things I can remember, we were in South City, and everything was fine, all the people were just walking around, and I think there was some kind of parade going on." She bit her lip prettily, brows furrowed in concern.
Trunks watched her face as she spoke; all his life, she'd never once portrayed any kind of emotion. Now her face was full of it, bouncing from surprise, to relief, to fear. This was either real, or a very good trick, and a lifetime of fear and hate made him bet on the latter.
"This was South City. Twenty years ago." Trunks watched her carefully, waiting for the giveaway. No one could act that good all the time.
The gasp and look of shocked horror didn't fit. The way her eyes teared up, the way her shoulders slumped, the way she looked down at the ground, didn't add up. Something was deeply, horribly wrong here. She shook her head vehemently, blonde hair swinging and splashing water.
"That's impossible. Twenty years don't just go by, and then you wake up the same age you were with no memory! That's not possible!" she was crying and backing away, still shaking her head, when Seventeen came out of the door on the opposite wall. Trunks cursed himself; he hadn't heard the water turn off. The android was holding up a shirt to cover himself, still dripping water, looking concerned.
"Sarah, what's wrong? Who is that?" He came into the room, suddenly more hostile as Eighteen rushed to him in tears. "Who are you? What do you want?"
Trunks burst out laughing. Oh, Fate was a sick fuck, alright. Either this was real, and Trunks couldn't kill them again for crimes they couldn't remember, or they were putting on this little show for his benefit, gods only knew why. He laughed until he was breathless, a little sick, and tear-streaked.
"You wanna share what was so goddamn funny?" Seventeen had taken the opportunity to dress himself, and had found a gun from somewhere. Probably behind one of the cashier counters, Trunks thought. He sighed, though, because however they reacted to the gun would be the proof.
Trunks took three slow, measured steps toward the androids; Seventeen swung the gun up between them, cocking it as he braced his feet and Eighteen hid behind him. Trunks reached out, caught the bullet, and bent the muzzle before another shot could be fired. The crumpled bullet clattered noisily on the ground.
Seventeen backed away hurriedly, shoving Eighteen along behind him, matching sets of china-blue eyes wide with horror and fear.
"You need to come with me," Trunks cocked his head just a little, and turned back the way he'd come.
"Fuck that!" Seventeen snarled, shoved Eighteen through the doorway he'd come through, and tried to run after her.
Trunks grabbed the back of his neck, and dragged the android behind him as he went after Eighteen. She made it as far as the showers, before Trunks wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her close. Seventeen thrashed in his grip, trying to break away as Trunks marched them back out into the street. Trunks let him go long enough to catch him again around the waist, and leapt into the sky. They shrieked and latched onto him; Trunks didn't know he was grinning evilly until he deposited the androids in the lab at his mother's feet, and she looked at him shrewdly before she turned her attention to the other two.
Trunks watched her perform each test; scanning them with complicated machinery, asking them questions about the last few things they remembered, taking their blood pressure. Bulma Briefs was nothing if not thorough, and she used every piece of equipment she had in her lab to test them, before she finally sat back in her chair and sighed heavily.
Trunks watched the androids huddle together, looking tired and scared. He didn't really care that he still looked like a cat with a mouse, and even as he listened to his mothers diagnosis, he didn't take his eyes off of them.
"The regenerative technology is sheer genius. Gero must have adapted it for Cell. The major design flaw is that their organic tissue, and most of the hardwiring was regenerated, but all the programming is gone. Like rebooting a computer after it's crashed." Bulma stared at the two across the table from her, and sighed again. "Looks like you've got a second chance, guys." Her smile was weary, and just a little bitter, but it was better comfort than the evil delight radiating off of Trunks.
"Gero turned us into mindless killing machines, and then set us loose on the world?" Eighteen took a deep breath. "I never wanted to hurt anyone!" she shrieked, and started bawling.
Trunks laughed. "Fate's a sick fuck, scrap heap. Or have you not realized that yet?" Eighteen didn't even hear him, she was sobbing so hard. But Seventeen started to tear up. He cried silently, staring at nothing as he held his sister.
"That's enough." Bulma's chair scraped across the floor as she stood up. "I raised you better than that, Trunks. Now, go get a room ready, and put on some tea. I'm going to go find you two some clothes you can wear, and give you some time to get it together again."
Trunks followed his mother out the door, smirking over his shoulder.
Bulma was all about second chances and forgiveness, or Trunks wouldn't even have been born. And while she'd tried to instill the same things in Trunks, the main problem was that he was going to make them work a hell of a lot harder before they'd earned it. The sorrow and the guilt were real, and now they had to channel it. Their programming might or might not come back; that bore constant vigilance. So, the goal was adjusted; while it was still 'protect and serve,' this now included forcing the two creatures he hated most to repay their debt to society.
He let them sleep the first day. The second, he had them out of bed and dressed for the day by dawn. They sparred lightly, because Trunks wanted the eventual challenge of a real opponent instead of constantly training alone. He drove them out to his favorite field, ordered them to pick enough flowers for 108 graves, then drove them to one of the nearest memorial walls. Then it was off to one of the surrounding villages that needed some construction work done. They worked until there was almost no light left, before Trunks drove them back to Capsule Corp. Bulma was just starting to make dinner, so Trunks dragged them back outside and started another sparring session, and trooped in behind them when Bulma called them back. They were exhausted when they finally climbed the stairs to the bedroom they shared. Trunks slept in the tree just outside their window, just in case, and woke them up just before dawn to repeat the now established routine.
He called them Sarah and Steven in front of other people, to avoid trouble. That, he realized later, was his undoing. He started out being as deliberately crude and dehumanizing as possible, but by calling them different names, and spending every waking hour with them for six months, somehow made it harder and harder. When he first let Steven tackle him playfully, he thought nothing of it. When Sarah made a crown for him out of flowers that were the exact same shade as his hair, and he hung it on the wall of his bedroom instead of throwing it away, he started to wonder. When he let Steven crawl into his lap and cry after they'd put flowers on all the graves at an old church, he scowled and held onto the smaller man while he tried to figure out if he'd gone insane or not.
Instead of spending the night in the tree outside their window, like he usually did, he went and sorted out how he felt. As androids, as the destroyers of his world, he'd hated them. Had learned to hate them better from his father. As humans, they were clumsy and kind of cute, sweet when they were tired and trying to cuddle with him, and playful when he sparred with them. Steven enjoyed the construction work, wandering off to work on his own section instead of tailing behind Trunks like Sarah did. Sarah kissed each flower before she put it next to a grave or a name, tried to help Bulma cook, needed to be touched constantly for reassurance.
Trunks hit himself in the head when he realized he'd fallen in love with both of them.
He flew back to Capsule Corperation around midnight, and for the first time in six months, spent the rest of the night in his own bed. He'd planned to let them sleep in; Steven came into his room at dawn, showered and dressed, and kissed him awake. Trunks rolled them until he was on top, kissed back hard for a long moment, then rolled off and told the android to go back to sleep. When Sarah came in two minutes later and nuzzled into his arms, rubbing against him in that irritatingly innocent way she had, he sighed, enjoyed it for a few minutes, and dragged himself out of bed, through the shower, and into some clean clothes. By the time he'd gotten down to the breakfast table, Bulma was already awake and staring blearily into her first cup of coffee.
"You need anything done today?" Trunks asked out of habit, as he poured himself a cup of the thick black brew.
"Yeah. Could you clean out the garage on the south side of the house?" Bulma rubbed her eyes and took a sip of coffee.
"No problem. I'll go find the scrap heaps." Trunks stuck his head out the kitchen door, hollered for the androids to come inside from where they were warming up, and walked through the house to the garage Bulma had specified. They tailed after him, unusually quiet. That ended quickly as they started rummaging through the garage, bantering playfully as they brought boxes of old toys and half-finished inventions out onto the lawn. Trunks was bending over an unlabled box when he heard the time machine's engine rev up. He rushed back into the garage, shouted angrily as the blue glow started to envelope the machine, and darted into the still open hatch, slamming the glass lid shut as they snapped into the slipstream if time. It was cramped with three adult bodies in the cockpit, and it bordered on claustrophobic as Trunks started shouting profanities.
He groaned and thunked his head down onto the control panel as they popped back out of the slipstream; Freeza's ship was just beginning to land.
A/N; I'm going somewhere with this, I promise. I also promise that there will be no incest. I dont know who wrote the song at the very beginning.
