Author's Notes:
First and foremost, please do not come crying to me if you are upset that the ship sinks. You were warned in the summary, and I already know I am a terrible, horrible, ugly monster. And please don't ask me to change the pairing tag because this is an entire story ABOUT Gohan/Videl, mushy and happy or otherwise.
(I can practically feel the hate emanating at me for this one if the right people see it. Um... I am prepared.)
So for my other big Dragonball work, Heavy, I got a lot of questions that more or less ask the question, or ask AROUND the question, "why is Gohan/Videl not happening?" And to be completely honest, I don't care for the ship long-term. I think Videl is a great first girlfriend kind of character, and had the potential to be really cool! And when she married Gohan, that stopped happening. (Also some of the Gohan/Videl fan fictions on here are fricking amazing and make me almost okay with it, which is saying something.)
So... This is one part story, and one part manifesto of why I don't dig Gohan/Videl in the show. Hopefully I still treat both characters with respect even though I am sinking the crap out of that ship. Thank you for reading.
If I get enough feedback I'll probably do a second part that is basically just about how utterly broken up about this Gohan is as a single dad with a four-year-old.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Her husband sat in the oversized chair by his overflowing desk, his tea in one hand and a book open in his lap. He had turned off the harsh overhead lights and instead let the homey lamp behind him cast a soft, warm glow across the study like honey spilling over bread. Tiny Pan leaned against her father's side, asleep, with his arm curled around her when it was not flipping the pages of the book.
Videl watched Gohan from the doorway as he contentedly alternated between soothing their daughter and focusing on his text. The golden light- golden from the lamp, not from anything so spectacular as his strength made manifest- reflected off his glasses and illuminated his serene expression. He looked so happy.
This honeymoon of peace and sweet devotion Gohan offered had been so appealing back when they were first married.
Majinn Buu's nightmarish influence had awoken Videl to the reality about her father's heroism and strength, and then tossed her own identity out to be torn apart into flotsam and jetsam on a tumultuous sea. Gohan had promised to always protect her and love her, and it had been so wonderful to know that there was a person so strong and so kind to let her in on the world's biggest secrets and still bear the brunt of all their consequences. Videl had all but begged Gohan to put her back together in the form of something that would fit into his life. How could she have not?
And how like him to get her to change so much without asking her to change at all.
Videl used to be the daughter of the man who saved the world. She fought crime in the name of justice and for titles in the name of competition because she was going to be the strongest under the heavens someday. And once, Gohan was the strongest under the heavens. He had torn monsters asunder with the force of his own passions. Now, as her husband, he cooked dinner, changed diapers, and read about the world that they used to really live in.
As his wife, Videl came home to sweet little tokens of unconditional love and soft-spoken affection, day after day. Before Pan and after her had been the same.
She took it all for granted now.
"I see you there," Videl's husband said, looking up. The glare of his lenses adjusted so she could see his smiling eyes. Carefully, as not to wake their sleeping child, Gohan set down his teacup on the desk between his other clutter and extended his hand towards his wife.
Videl came closer and reached out, but something made her hesitate from sliding her fingers between his the same way she had so many times prior. She willed herself to paint a wider smile on her face and take his hand.
Gohan noticed the hiccup. He rubbed the back of Videl's palm with his thumb and brought it up to rest on his neck. He sent his own hand back to rest above her hip. "What's wrong?" He asked, keeping his voice low for Pan.
Videl stroked Gohan's short hair. It lay flat on his head now like a regular man's, and would need to be trimmed soon. She was trying to grow her own back out again to the length it had been when they had first met. "Nothing," she said.
Her husband's dark eyes knew otherwise. She still smiled back at him, though, and he moved his hand from her waist to caress her face.
"I love you," Gohan said, as soothing and patient as always.
"I know," she told him, and escaped with their sleeping daughter to get ready for bed.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Their four-poster bed was a work of art, with whorls and designs covering the entirety of the wooden frame. Videl's father had it specially built and carved by a master craftsman from a place she couldn't pronounce. Gohan's mother had made the comforter and sheets from the finest silks that the Ox King could procure.
Gohan laid down and scooted towards Videl. She stayed put on her side and looked at the wall. It was a tasteful, plain color.
Gohan gently put his arms around his wife from beneath the covers. He pulled himself closer to her, and Videl tried to feel as warm and loved as the body curling around her wanted to make her. Gohan softly kissed the side of her neck and traced her body through her nightgown. Then, he toyed with the hem of the skirt and put his arms back around her when she did nothing to engage him.
Gohan had never been insistent, and he had never demanded. He pressed his face into his wife's neck and breathed in her scent. Always gentle, and always kind. That was her husband.
Videl turned around in his arms and considered him with a kiss. He was very receptive and kissed back, eager to please. She kept him there, with his hands securely on her waist, and pushed her hands under his nightshirt. He smiled and kept kissing her, his hands moving lovingly up and down her back and her legs.
This was nothing new. Videl pushed Gohan away and peeled off his shirt before he could so much as whisper how he felt in his wife's ear. She stripped him of his boxers next, and pulled herself close to intercept his kisses with bites.
He took it all in, a little surprised, and let her push him around while he softly lifted her skirt and wandered his hands over her back and front, taking care not to dig his fingers in or grab too hard.
Videl growled in the back of her throat and made him take off her nightgown. Then she pulled him on top of her and clawed at his back while she bit into his neck. He was leaner now than when they had first married, and the hard edges of his muscles had disappeared with domestication. She was sure that she was much the same way. Her teeth grew meaner and her fingers rougher.
Gohan buried his face in her hair and pulled one of her hands off of him to intertwine their fingers. He tried to nuzzle her face away from his neck and shoulder for another kiss.
He was always too gentle.
Videl yanked her hand away and tore at his ear with her teeth. "Why won't you be a little rough with me, huh?"
She felt her husband's hair brush against her as he shook his head and then pressed the sides of their faces together.
"It's okay," Videl pleaded, reaching down to try and stimulate him more directly.
Gohan grabbed her hands and pulled himself away to look at her. "Stop," he said. "Please don't ask me to do things that way."
"Why not?" Videl said. She knew it was selfish, but he was hers to have and to hold.
"Because I don't... I don't like it. You are someone I love, not someone I want to hurt."
Videl ground her teeth and threw herself at him again, but this time with real frustration. "I might want you to hurt me a little bit," she said between bites and kisses. "You ever think about that?"
Her husband pushed her away and held her. His expression was unreadable despite the pale moonlight filtering through the windows. Bulma had once told Videl that Gohan used to turn into a wild beast in the light of the full moon. Videl felt lied to.
Finally, Gohan sighed and held her wrists beside her head. He gave her a few tentative kisses before biting her bottom lip and pressing their hips together. Videl could tell how unenthused he was, and pushed him off. She turned away and faced the wall.
"I'm sorry," Gohan said, putting his arms back around her. Videl considered swatting them away, but saw little point. She let him bury his face back into her neck as they laid in the bed their parents had made for them.
Gohan was always so gentle.
It drove her nuts.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Money had never been an issue for Videl. Mark Satan paid the bills when she was a child and now that she was grown, the money she lived off of was no longer her father's, but her husband's.
But then, even the money that was her father's was actually her husband's. Videl had been Gohan's dependent since she was nine and Mark Satan's savior of the Earth act became a widely believed media gimmick.
Videl sometimes felt a little like a possession, too, actually. At first, she had been so happy to share her family's fortune freely with Son Gohan and had pushed it on him the same way she had pushed teaching her to fly onto him, but eventually it sank in that what she was throwing in his face was not actually hers to give. While Videl watched her husband work while she played with Pan, she wondered if she was also part of the property her father owed Son Gohan and marriage her was her husband's way of coming to collect.
Gohan stood up from his desk and stretched. "I need a break," he said, and plopped down onto the carpet in front of Videl and Pan. He leaned forward and gave his wife a kiss.
"Ew," said Pan, four and convinced that boys kissing girls was gross.
Gohan flipped their daughter over and tickled her. "Oh, yeah? Well, I've got you! You're mine now!" Gohan said over Pan's laughter.
Videl watched quietly, pensive. Her husband noticed her melancholy mood- he always did- and took one hand away from their daughter to tickle Videl, too.
Videl struggled as she laughed and Gohan pulled both of his girls close. "You're mine, too!" He said to his wife, grinning and blowing a raspberry on her neck.
Videl knew Gohan was innocent of any double meaning, but it bothered her all the same. She pulled away and helped him gang up on their daughter.
He was watching her from the corner of his eye, but she was glad that he did not say anything about it later. She was not sure what she would have said.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Videl's mother-in-law had Gohan at nineteen. According to Chi Chi, that was entirely later than she had planned on.
"I had thought I would have him at maybe seventeen or eighteen, like you did with Pan," Chi Chi said.
"But aren't you glad that you had a little extra time to have for yourself?" Videl asked between bites of the strawberry daifuku Chi Chi had made especially for Goten's eleventh birthday.
The birthday boy was currently stuffing his face along with his father and Pan, so it fell to the adult women to make conversation over the sounds of voracious consumption.
Videl's mother-in-law pursed her lips. "I had to use all of that time tracking down my wayward husband and fretting about where he might be, or if he even remembered that we were supposed to be married."
"I remembered!" Son Goku interjected, five pieces of daifuku and a bite of cake in his mouth. Chi Chi laughed. "After Chi Chi gave me a little reminder," Goku clarified, swallowing.
"See?" Chi Chi said, returning to the kitchen to fix more food for her family.
Videl floundered for a reply. "But, is all you wanted out of life children and a husband, and then to see your children want the same?" It came out before her mental filter had censored it properly. "Doesn't that bother you?"
The even, simple clatter of Chi Chi sitting her wok down on the stove sounded like a death knell meant for only those it rang for to hear and understand. "This family is very traditional and so are its values," Chi Chi said. "Family is very important. Family breeds happiness. To support one's family is the greatest honor and happiness." Videl remembered too late that Chi Chi was the princess of a culture far removed from Videl's own, and so old that Videl had not bothered to learn it at all, or even think about what it might mean to marry into it.
Goku blinked and looked from his wife, to his daughter-in-law, to Pan, and then to his oldest son before looking back to Videl. "Isn't that what you are after, too?" He said, even more earnest and innocent than either of his sons.
Videl had the grace to smile and keep her mouth shut, but she could feel Chi Chi's eyes watching her.
Next to her, Gohan shifted where Pan sat in his lap and reached for his wife's hand. Videl let him hold it, but her returning grip was limp and insincere.
When Gohan and Videl returned to their home in Satan City, Gohan put Pan to bed and confronted Videl in the bedroom.
The two of them sat, silent, on their respective sides of the bed. Gohan took off his shoes and socks, slowly, and then stood up and undid his shirt and pants. They all hit the ground with a soft thud. Videl heard the fabric rustle as Gohan folded them into the laundry basket.
Videl kept her dress and shrug on, and wondered when she had decided to let her nails grow so long and become so cumbersome, and why she felt the need for them to co-ordinate with her clothing just because she had gone to visit Chi Chi that afternoon.
Gohan finished changing and slowly slid into the covers. Videl could hear his fingers twiddling the silk.
"If you want to leave for a little while and take a vacation from," her husband swallowed, "from me and Pan, you can. Or if you wanted to take up martial arts again, or find a job, or start a business, or go back to school, or anything, I'll be happy for you and help make that happen in any way I can. You don't have to do anything special to please me or my mom, and you never did."
Videl knew he meant every word from the core of his being. Her husband was everything anyone could ever want, and better than anyone had ever deserved.
Gohan had never been the problem, not really. She was. It was a tired old party line, but it was true.
Gohan's wife did not want her husband's help. She did not want his support. Videl wanted to be able to stand on her own two feet for once in her life and go after her dreams without feeling like she was being pampered or coddled or someone was holding her hand for every step of the way. She wanted to fight, and she wanted to lose sometimes, and then pick herself back up to fight another day. Videl wanted the kind of adventure and unknown that had caused her to marry Gohan in the first place.
She loved her husband. Really, she did. And he loved her. But she did not love being sucked into the too-comfortable trap of spending the rest of her life with him.
She wanted to be Videl Satan now, not Son Videl.