A/N: I need to stop staying up so late, ugh. But my dorm is so quiet when everyone goes to sleep and it makes for easy writing. I finished my paper so I'll have more time to update and I've finally pulled myself away from Pokemon X. Thank you for the reviews! I'm glad you guys like this so much. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball Z or anything affiliated with it.
-MalRev
Rust & Stardust
:: Dix ::
The eggshell white ceiling of my bedroom appeared in hazy lines when I woke at nine o'clock in the morning. I remained still for several minutes while my exhaustion ebbed away and slowly sat up to rub my face, briefly and painfully unaware of the taboo I had committed the previous night with a willing victim. All my years of torture weighed heavily upon my shoulders until the memories trickled back in hazy memories accompanied by the sweet smell of mango.
Slowly, my hands dropped from my face as my eyes widened in time with my pounding heartbeat. The only sound was the clock ticking above my bed. I began to tremble.
Then I threw off the sheets and collapsed in my chair, fingers flying across the keyboard to record the magnificent night I had finally felt a nymphet. Videl was tapering toward the end of her most desirable stage but she was still viable to me; the sensation of her gyrating on my lap lingered like a sweet piece of chocolate. I smiled to myself while I typed each gory detail and was forced to pause several times to collect my thoughts that were spilling forth in a violent torrent.
I'd never felt so alive. When the words were written and my laptop was protected by its password once again I stood swiftly, knocking my chair over on the carpet. I ran my hands through my hair with restrained excitement, invigorated by my memories and desperate to create more. I'd had her to myself. After so many agonizing years I had finally felt a sweet nymphet.
There was no foreseeable end to my trysts with Videl. She was my puppet, bound to me with a convenient monetary arrangement and unable to refuse my demands. I paced as I imagined the things I could do to her in the privacy of her apartment, where neither parents nor the law would dare interfere. I'd begun a list in my head quite a while ago but it was purely hypothetical and constructed to distract my nefarious machinations. I'd never dreamed they would come to fruition.
Nonetheless, she was not my ultimate prize. My desire had taken the form of a blue-haired nymphet in her prime with full, pink lips and lean legs that were even smaller than Videl's. In that moment, I realized I could have her. I was invincible. In due time, Bulla Briefs would be in my arms.
My joy was difficult to contain as I walked down the stairs for breakfast in my robe. There were several bodies around the kitchen table, most notably Trunks with his now steady girlfriend, Paris. Bulma was sitting across from them smiling and sipping her coffee but she rose suddenly when she noticed me approaching them and prepared me a plate of food. I sat beside her and murmured a thank you.
"Look at this!" Bulma crowed, nudging me with her elbow as I ate my bacon. "Trunks has had a girlfriend for an entire month! Can you believe it, Gohan? My little boy is growing up. Paris is even going to college to become a lawyer."
Words concerning her friend Valese touched my tongue but I swallowed them back like bile. "Ah, so Trunks intends on adding you to his repertoire of legal aides?"
Paris beamed, giggling. "We'll see. I'd like to open my own practice in a rural area and do advocacy work for domestic abuse. A lot of women don't get the help they need."
"No, they don't," I said.
"Actually, your father should be here soon to have breakfast with us." Bulma touched my arm again, balancing on me to glance at the clock on the stove. I thought nothing of it. "Of course he's late. I'll have to call Chi-Chi and tattle on him again if he can't bother coming to breakfast on time. I really wanted to go for a hike with him before I met the girls for our outing."
"You should always plan on Goku being late," Trunks said. He turned to Paris, gesturing at me. "Goku is Gohan's father and he's been friends with my mother for ages. He's… kind of young-looking, like Gohan, but it's a family trait. And he's sort of… uh…"
"An imbecile," I said.
Bulma laughed at my offered adjective and I realized her hand was still on my bicep. "You definitely got your personality from Chi-Chi's side of the family."
The doorbell rang a few moments later and Bulma popped up like a kernel under heat, dashing to the door in an uncharacteristic way that no one else seemed to notice. I chewed thoughtfully on my pancakes and wondered what had her so excitable. Bulla had already left for school. Perhaps she liked the time away from her daughter more than I realized.
"Goku, why the hell are you always covered in something? Honest to god, I can't believe Chi-Chi hasn't thrown you to the curb yet!"
My humiliation entered the kitchen with twigs in his black hair and dirt stained across his clothes, which were a shocking pair of jeans and a tshirt. I paused in sipping my coffee, cocking an eyebrow at my father's appearance, but quickly rescinded behind my newspaper to protect myself from Paris's ridicule. Goku was my shame. I could hear his laughter and could practically feel Trunks shaking his head, wondering how on Earth such a fool had raised a competent son.
It was all due to my mother's passionate intervention. I had abandoned her, however. She was enabling my brother's gruesome violence towards women, keeping Valese trapped in our basement like some kind of animal that only existed to breed grandchildren. My demons were far less monstrous. I would never force a nymphet against her will or lay a violent hand on her.
Goku sat at the head of the table and leaned across without hesitation to shake Paris's hand. She blinked in surprise and awkwardly accepted the gesture while I shrank further behind the newspaper. If he vanished from the galaxy I wouldn't have minded. I was beyond my childhood of sobbing to Piccolo.
Bulma set down a plate of food before my father and he began eating like a Saiyan, inhaling his food like it was the last batch left on the planet. I could see the two of them around the corner of my paper and I noticed Bulma smiling in a soft, sad way, rubbing Goku's back while he thanked her between gulps. My eyes flickered to Trunks but he was too busy with his eyes on Paris. I could've sworn I saw the same tender expression in both of their irises…
"Whatcha readin', Gohan?" Goku asked with a mouthful of bacon.
"Nothing you'd understand. Swallow before you speak." I fanned out my paper and composed myself. I was beginning to imagine things. Perhaps another visit to Videl was in order.
"Oh… okay!" my father replied brightly. "We can talk later, then! Do you want to go hiking with me and Bulma up the mountain this afternoon? It's the last time we can go before winter comes and your mother thinks you're stressed out because of the whole divorce thing."
"No," I said.
Goku's chewing slowed. "Uh… okay. Maybe we can go watch the dinosaurs hibernating for the winter? There're a lot of big ones this year so—"
"I'm a grown man. No, thank you."
"Oh… sorry for um…" His chair creaked as he leaned back to rub his head. I hated that habit. "…Inconveniencing you. Guess it'll just be Bulma and me."
"Trunks and I would be happy to come along, Goku," Paris offered. "We don't have anything planned for today and I'd like to see Mt. Paozu. Dad always thought it was too dangerous for us to go to so we could only hang around in the meadows near the base of the mountain. Is that okay with you?"
This began a long conversation in which Goku detailed exactly how their day would go. I studied my article about corruption in the Senate while they gabbed and risked peeking at Bulma again to see her smile had tightened considerably. Her hand was still on my father's back but he didn't seem to notice. Was I missing something? Maybe he was ill and she was comforting him.
Trunks and Paris left to prepare for the hike and Goku wandered to the living room to collapse on the couch, lolling around watching cartoons. While I glared silently at him over the top of my paper I felt a hand alight upon my shoulder blade, sending shivers down my spine. It was a foreign sensation.
Bulma's lips were beside my ear. "Why are you being so rude to your father?"
"He's an embarrassment."
"Saiyans are different than us, Gohan. Vegeta never even held a job when we were married. He was an unrepentant murderer and I don't like to think of the things he did before we met." She sighed quietly and her breath tingled along my earlobe. "You should be happy your father is a bumbling idiot. Make amends and enjoy the time you have left with him."
"I will never forgive him for needlessly abandoning me. Goku can reap what he's sown."
"Just think about it. You intimidate him. I think you hurt his feelings more than he lets on."
"Good," I said coldly.
She patted my back and left to sit beside my father, smiling and nodding while he continued raving about their afternoon on the mountain. He still trained like normal with Goten so it wasn't strange to see him covered in filth on a day-to-day basis. What struck me as odd were his clothes—my father preferred wearing the ghastly training uniform bestowed upon him by Master Roshi.
I set down my paper to enjoy my coffee and my father turned to smile at me over the back of the couch. It didn't matter how many times he tried to fix what he had done. I knew a selfish man existed beneath the layers of grins and laughter and hair-touching. Goku was far from innocent.
"What?" I snapped.
He blinked. "Oh, I wanted to ask if you could help me pick out a present for Chi-Chi. Goten is making me look bad with all the neat stuff he brings home for Valese." He furrowed his brow, turning his eyes to the ceiling. "She's a weepy girl, always crying over weird things. Your mother never cries."
"I'll help you pick something out," Bulma said quickly when she noticed my expression darken. "Gohan has a lot of business to do for Capsule Corp. so we don't want to interrupt the genius. Why don't you tell me about the lake we're going to one more time. It sounds so interesting."
Their voices faded into the background. It was true that my mother never cried. I assumed her tears had dried up at some point during the seven years Goku was dead, trouncing around in the immoral world while Chi-Chi sat at the kitchen table with a dead bleakness in her eyes. Normally she would pretend to be happy for Goten and I's benefit but there were days when her façade failed and she would sob endlessly. In turn, Goten would cry to me. And in turn, I would cry to Piccolo.
Thoroughly agitated, I poured the remainder of my beverage down the sink and went back upstairs to shut myself in my bedroom. It had been quite a while since I read a good book and Voltaire in particular was calling to me. Candide was my favorite novel of all time and I still had my frayed copy from childhood. I sat at my desk with the book unfolded before me and traced the familiar lines with my eyes.
It was a miracle I hadn't become an alcoholic after suffering so many years of neglect at Goku's hands. The only time he displayed affection was when it involved fighting, hopelessly tangling the two in my prepubescent mind. I strived for his approval in everything that did; saving the world was only a secondary effect. Thus, when he performed his final act of abandonment I devoted myself entirely to becoming a scholar rather than a muscle-bound brute.
The house was blissfully silent. I became absorbed in my book and was nearly halfway through when there was a gentle knock on my door. After a muttered, "come in" I saw familiar black hair poke inside, followed by the rest of my father. He was wringing his hands nervously.
"What?" I asked.
He tried to lean casually on the doorframe but stumbled instead. "Nothing, just wanted to see what you were up to. We're leaving in a few minutes. Sure you don't want to come along?"
"I've never been surer of anything in my life, even divorcing my harpy of a wife."
"…Alright. So have you heard from that nice girl I brought home? The one that Bulma said wasn't supposed to be at that bar?"
My eyes flickered from my book to Goku's black irises. I remained nonchalant. "Videl? No, I haven't. She's a bit too young to be mingling with a man my age. Why do you ask?"
"No reason, she just seemed really sick. I hope she's okay."
"So do I."
"Yeah…" My father lowered his eyes to the floor and suddenly brightened. "Anyway, we're gonna get going now! Have fun reading your weird book, Gohan!"
They were gone a short while later. A wisp of a suspicion crossed my mind but I shook it away quickly, returning to reading Candide. It was temporary insanity brought on by my father's appearance and nothing more. Perhaps I needed a nap to clear my muddled thoughts.
My creeping demon was far more interested in a nymphet.