Trunks drummed his fingers against the coffee table, scowling. Gohan had returned from the gravity room (half naked and grinning ear to ear) an hour after entering. Piccolo was still there, but Trunks didn't need to see him to know what had happened. "Dammit," he whispered. "I can't let him undo what I did last night, becoming closer to Gohan..."
He frowned, realizing he had cracked the coffee table. That would need paying for...
"But what can I do? Piccolo had sleep with him, but that might be the only thing he has me beaten at..." Trunks stretched out on the couch. "Gohan complains about Piccolo always taking advantage of his body, so I should try to appeal to his intellectual side. Not hard for someone with my parentage, so what's my first course of action?"
Hm... Piccolo would never, ever visit Gohan at work. Perhaps that would work! Trunks sat up, wincing as the bruises on his back protested at the movement. That seemed like a good plan- bring him something nice. Lunch!
Trunks picked up the phone and called a restaraunt near the Orange Star Highschool. Ordering a meal, he carefully took triples of every family dish and gave his credit card number over the phone. Standing again, Trunks walked out the door, checked to make sure Piccolo was nowhere to be found, then blasted off into the sky.
Flying was a nice time to think, and Trunks could always use that. He was sure the people at Capsule Corperation could take care of themselves for a few days, (weeks?) so he wasn't concerned about the office at the moment. What he was brooding over was simple- once he had Gohan, how would he tell his mother?
His mother. Vegeta had understood, but could Bulma ever deal with that? He knew she loved him dearly, but...Well, he was always so embarrassed when she introduced him to girls, told him what a great father he would be someday...
And on top of all that, Trunks knew he was a social figure. He was one of the most eligible bachelors on the face of the Earth. In the last month alone three different TV shows had called him up forsome sort of 'Who wants to marry an alien billionaire' sort of show. Trunks had declined and declined and declined...
What would the public say? Homosexuals weren't really smiled upon, even now, though they weren't despised by the public either...
He sighed. Why worry about this when Gohan wasn't even his, yet? Because I have to have him, and I will, Trunks thought tensely, clenching his fist . Piccolo was competition, but Gohan was smart, and Trunks could do so much more for him than that lousy namekusei-jin could...
Satan City was coming up quickly, and Trunks scanned the horizen, settling on a particularly high sky scraper to land on. He didn't want to show up at Capsule Corperation- surely they're force some sort of meeting on him- so this was the next best thing. He landed without being spotted and entered the building through the roof, his wind-ruffled appearance earning him a few odd looks from the executives in the elevator.
As he was spit out onto the sidewalk, Trunks paused at a shop window and adjusted his long hair. It was time to score some points with the man he loved.
*****
Gohan sighed and set down his coffee mug- at school he could drink all he liked, since Piccolo had never, ever come in to visit him and complain about the smell. He was struggling to make up for all the work he'd missed while taking care of Piccolo, and that meant grading lots and lots of what his students called 'busy work.' The fact that he came in late today didn't help much either-
Still....He was glad he had bothered to check on Piccolo.
Smiling slightly, Gohan marked a '76' on the top of a worksheet and decided he would skip lunch and try to catch up on his work. For a saiya-jin to skip lunch... His stomach growled at the very idea, and Gohan sweatdropped. "C'mon, it's just one meal."
He rolled his eyes at himself and tried to concentrate on the paper before him when there was a solid knocking on the door. That surprised Gohan- students never knocked, but he called out anyway. "Come in!"
Trunks poked his head into the room, making Gohan blink in surprise. "O...Oi! Torunkusu!"
A look of relief spread across the lavender-haired genius' face. "Gohan-san! Ah, I was afraid I had the wrong room," he laughed slightly, moving into the classroom with three huge bags in his arms. Trunks took in his love's appearance greedily- Gohan was wearing his reading glasses and sitting behind a desk covered in papers and pencils and what not. Somehow, surrounded by his classroom, Gohan seemed much older than he did when he was fretting about Piccolo inside his own home. Trunks swallowed back his nervousness and forced himself to grin, setting the bags down on a desk.
"W-...What are you doing here, Trunks?" Gohan finally managed to ask, having been shocked by the appearance of his friend. "You're hurt, you should be back at home!"
"Ah, well, I figured you'd have a lot of work to do so I decided to bring you lunch!"
Gohan's face lit up and he pulled his glasses off his face, suddenly looking ten years younger. "Torunkusu, I can take care of myself..."
Trunks wouldn't be dismissed so easily. "Tsk! Someone's gotta make sure you're still eating, and Piccolo obviously won't, so here, enjoy it!"
Relaxing, Gohan swept the papers on his desk into two piles and moved them to another table, then pulled a chair up for Trunks. "Ah, Torunkusu, you're too good to me, you know! Why do you worry about me so much."
Because I love you, Trunks wanted to whisper, but instead he just lifted a finger to his lips. "Sore wa himitsu desu. It's a secret."
And Gohan laughed, not realizing the truth. "This is so nice! Pikoro-san's only been here once, and that was...erm..." A blush crept up his face- he had almost lost his job on that little escapade- another teacher had walked in to find a strange looking alien making out with the resident history teacher- fortunately the news hadn't gotten ahold of the story, and Gohan had promised to never step over that line again.
Trunks paled. "Yeah, well, I'm here for much purer motives," he joked as he pulled a few plastic containers out of the bags he had brought, and then shoved the chocolates across the desk into Gohan's arms. "Sort of."
"Ch...chocolate?!"
"Sure, why not? It's for you."
Gohan blushed slightly, unused to recieving little tokens of admiration from anyone at all. "Trunks! That's really...nice....but...why?"
"Well, I just know you like chocolate...do I need a reason to treat you like you deserve?" After a moment, the lavender-haired man hastily tried to cover his tracks by adding "After all, you are my best friend..." to the end of is thought.
Opening the heart-shaped box, Gohan pulled out a chocolate covered cherry and stared at Trunks, his heart pounding. Something about the way that had been said rang in his ears, and he wasn't sure why. After a few moments he realized he was blushing. "S..Sankyuu, Trunks! This is really sweet, I could use a little cheering up."
Trunks beamed as they began to eat. "No problemo, Gohan..."
*******
Piccolo scanned the area for Trunks' ki, and with alarm he realized that it was nowhere to be found. "Damn, what the hell? He shouldn't have left!" Spreading the area he was searching, he tried again, but got no response. "Doko da?!"
Wearing nothing but a loose pair of baggy blue-purple boxers, Piccolo slowed his training exercise and thought hard. There were only a few place he could think to search- and when Trunks wasn't at Capsule Corperation or his office, Piccolo reluctantly checked the school that Gohan worked at.
Trunks was there, his ki throbbing like a cancer next to Gohan's familier signal. Piccolo felt bile rise in his throat, raw hatred and anger that threatened to break down all his mental walls in a torrent of fury-
"Kuso!!" Piccolo growled and clenched his fists at his side, fingernails biting into his palms. He was stupid, letting Trunks get all the way to Gohan's office and doing Kami-knew-what to him, without trying to stop it...! Piccolo, furious, slammed his fist into the wall hard enough to draw blood. The indigo liquid spilt from his knuckles and spattered onto the floor, leaving a dark-colored stain. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."
Trunks was courting Gohan now, that was all Piccolo could think of. Why else would he be there? Courting his mate and at this point, probably winning. Gohan and Piccolo weren't married, they just...just loved each other. Suddenly, to Piccolo, that bond seemed horribly weak, ready to be broken at any second, ready to flicker and die at the first gust of opposition like a candle in a storm-
"Don't think that!" 'Gohan would never cheat on me, never,' Piccolo bit his lip, hard, standing in the gravity room and trembling. 'I know that, I know that, I believe that.' But still, Trunks was everything Piccolo wasn't, and he was jealous, and didn't that make him a threat? 'What can I do!?"
Nothing...
Piccolo felt his eyes stinging, and that made him even angrier. There had to be a way to end this now, some way to eject Trunks from their lives, but...
How?!
******
Trunks took a deep breath and fabricated a quick lie- something to bring Piccolo into the conversation, an excuse to break down whatever it was that tied the namekusei-jin to Gohan. "Gohan, I...I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but...Well, I was reading a magazine on abusive relationships, and..."
Gohan tensed up, nervous about the topic. He knew what was coming, but he didn't want to admit it openly to Trunks. "Well, that's nice."
"No, Gohan...I know you don't like thinking of it this way, but Piccolo fits a lot of the catagories for it...abusive, I mean. He makes you work and he never does, he doesn't cook, clean, and he uses your body...and I....I don't know, I've only seen what you've let me see, but it seems like you aren't really happy with him...this magazine told me that ninety-nine percent of abusive relationships end up scaring the submissive parter for life, making them afraid of love, of contact-"
Turning away, Gohan refused to look Trunks in the face. "Pikoro may be a lot of things, but he's not abusive. He's not."
"But Gohan, he hurts you! If not physically, then mentally! It's not healthy, you need to get away from him before you're injured beyond repair!"
"I'm not a human! I can handle what I want to handle, and Pikoro loves me," the last words were spoken with a quivering voice, as if the speaker's belief in them was slowly dying away. Gohan's face was strained, but the words still came to his toungue easily. His faith wasn't dead yet.
Trunks tried to sound sympathetic, but even to him the words sounded accusing. "When was the last time he told you that?!"
Gohan fell silent, testing himself within to see how truthful the words were. "Trunks... I....I don't want to hear you bad-mouthing Pikoro-san...! Aren't you his friend!? Don't talk behind people's backs!"
"I've always treated him with respect, but he hit me over the head with a chair, Gohan. He knows I'm you're best friend, so why would he do that? I'll tell you why, because he doesn't care about what you care about!"
"Well, that doesn't matter to him b-"
"Exactly! Gohan, you're getting hurt, anyone can see that, and I hate having to watch you be torn apart by someone as callous and uncaring as Pikoro...You should find someone else, someone more human who can understand what you need!"
"There IS nobody else!" Gohan nearly shouted, standing up behind his desk. After a few seconds of silence, he reached out and slipped his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose. Trunks sweatdropped, having the feeling that his lunch-time meeting was over. "Please, Trunks, I think you'd better go."
"G...Gohan..."
"Go!"
*****
Trunks wound up back outside in the hallway, scowling to himself. He had misjudged Gohan's unhappiness this time around... He scowled. Something would have to be done about this- he wouldn't lose to a namekusei-jin! This left only one thing left to try- Piccolo would have to be proven heartless in Gohan's eyes before Trunks could confess his emotions and be understood. Before he could win the price.
"I can do that," Trunks smiled slightly, darkly, to himself. He had dreamed of discrediting Piccolo's for years now, ever since he had first realized what he felt for Gohan was love, not the hero adoration it had once been. "Easily."
His next stop was a liquor shop.