With You
The Third Song of the /Anthology/
A TrunksxGoten Songfic Set to /With You/, by Linkin Park
- - -
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball Z. I hope this is rather obvious. I do not own /With You/ or Linkin Park. I hope this is likewise obvious. I am using both without permission. I am making no profit of any form.
Warnings and notes: This piece is a songfic. The lyrics are /With You/, by Linkin Park (from their CD /Hybrid Theory/). It is the third in the /Anthology/ series and the previous pieces should be read first. It contains angst, yaoi, explicit language, the naming of sexual actions, and generally dark subjects. You have been warned. I appreciate reviews (swiftskyes@hotmail.com), be they critiques or a general good/bad word. Enjoy.
Begun 9.29.01
Completed 1.9.01
- - -
Well.
I'm back again, it seems. I don't know why I keep returning to this document or why I've finally saved it. I never was one for telling stories and I've never kept a journal before. I write here anyway. This time I'm doing it by choice instead of fate or chance or whatever the other two times were. I wanted to write this morning. I think I have things I need to say.
So I turned on some music – I like this song, which is really too bad for me because after writing to a song I can never listen to it again – anyway, I turned on some music, more lyrical than the first two, opened my laptop, lay down on my bed still smelling of my semen, and now I'm here, writing, saying what I need to say.
//I woke up in a dream today
To the cold static
Put my cold feet on the floor
Forgot all about yesterday
Remembering I'm pretending to be where I'm not anymore
A little taste of hypocrisy
And I'm left in the wake of the mistake
Slow to react
Even though you're still so close to me
You're still so distant
And I can't bring you back//
Last night I dreamt of Trunks, the most vivid dream I've ever had. It's the reason I thought to write. Trunks is heavy on my mind, and when he is I put those thoughts here.
The dream: I was bound, ropes holding my ankles and wrists together, and I was standing in the middle of an empty room. Agony was lashing down my back like a whip. I arched, crying out, and my head hit against another body. Trunks, of course, was behind me. I felt him there and then I felt what he was doing to me. He was fucking me, rough but sweet, as I stood.
The sheets were sticky and wet when I woke up.
Lately, my dreams have become my escape from reality. They're my way out of the mundane noise of this world. That was still a bit extreme, even in my dark perverted mind. It's most graphic dream I've ever had. Disturbing that it's the one that best reflects our relationship.
I've been doing some pretty heavy thinking, which is probably why Trunks is on my mind the way he is. Over the last four weeks I've had a lot of time to think. Trunks is out of town and there's no way I can see him. I'm just as lonely as I was in West Green, when I went off on my own. This time it was him who left me so I can't just come back and make it all better. Anyway, I've thought and I've decided something. It's time for me to move on from the past. It's time for me to forget, to start again. I can't just stop, though, ending dead cold. So that's what this is – it's my last high before I go clean, my last binge before I diet. I'll talk about the past just one more time.
Don't get me wrong – it's not like I'm ever going to forget it all. I don't think I can. But I'm going to try. Try to forget that Trunks has no soul. Try to pretend I'm back to being oblivious and happy, like I was last year, before I found out. Try to return to my naïve past, my innocent past. Give us all a clean slate. After this, I'll start. I just need to tell this story first.
Yeah.
Hypocrite is a beautiful word. Ignore the seeming irrelevance, I do have a point. Hypocrite is a beautiful word. It flows so gently, the sounds are so soft. What really makes it beautiful is the way its meaning clashes with the sound. A hypocrite does the reverse of what he preaches. I am a hypocrite. I'm one of the world's biggest. I'm one of the most adept but oblivious hypocrites in this universe.
Want examples? I say I'm going to stay away forever, say I'm terrified of Trunks, then I come back. I claim that the only reason I came home was to change him, but in truth I only came home to be with him. I promise to change him and make him better but I ended up creating a monster. Then I swear to leave him alone, to let him be, and I end up fucking him and dating him. Worst of them all is the fact that, no matter how hard I try to be miserable because I know I should be, he still makes me happy.
Hypocrite, indeed. It was my hypocrisy that got us to this point and it's my hypocrisy that will make me write what I'm gonna write, I know it.
Well, since I wrote last our relationship has progressed. Hell of an understatement, that. Now we're together all the time. It's like how we were as kids – if you want me look for Trunks because I'm never far away. But we aren't kids anymore. A lot of our 'together' time is spent having sex. I've stopped counting the times, actually. The number doesn't matter anymore. He initiated it, our third time, out at our cliff, and has initiated it a lot since then. He wants me. Damn – can you even begin to imagine how good that feels?
As much as things have changed, as much as we have, Trunks is still his removed self. There's a little bit of something there. When I'm involved, he does appear to feel, but not in the normal way. Events don't impact him, consequences do. Example: when someone flirts with me he pauses before doing what he needs to do to remedy the situation – distracting them, pulling me away, or threatening, whatever's most effective. He thinks, first. He analysis his moves before he acts. The thought and the action were always there, yeah, but now they're evident, aggressive. He doesn't feel, though, not like the rest of us.
There has been one other major change in our relationship. We have one, now, complete with a title. Boyfriend. We're dating.
//It's true
The way I feel
Was promised by your face
The sound of your voice
Painted on my memories
Even if you're not with me
I'm with you//
You know, I'm not sure what it is about Trunks that I love. He's beautiful – drop dead gorgeous, in fact – but if I said I loved his face and body, well, it would sound pretty bad. It's just that I can't say I love him for himself. I may have fallen in love with his personality, years ago, but now he doesn't have a personality so I can't say I love him for it. Maybe it's his beauty that keeps me here, that and the unmet promise for more. It doesn't matter. Regardless of why I do love him and for whatever reason I'm not going to leave.
He did promise me more, though. He promised to change. He promised to become someone better. Scratch that – to become /someone/, period. He used that promise to bring me home. Would I have returned without it? Yes, but, as I've said, not as quickly. Like a fool, I trusted his promise just like I've trusted all the promises he's ever made me.
He promised me happiness. I still want it. He promised me change. I want more. As time progressed I got him to promise me something more – couplehood. That I have. We were only together for about a week before he left town, though. He's away on CC business. First he was in England, now he's in America. He doesn't have any sure dates but he said he would be gone for no more than a month and a half. It's been four weeks. I've got no excuse for going there, and he's barely had the time to talk on the phone. We've had one conversation in these four weeks. Before he left he promised me – another promise – that he would come home soon and that when he did, we could finally tell everyone about us. I remember that promise real well. He was just using it to calm me down, yeah, but there was something in his voice that made me feel loved. The word "boyfriend" tends to have that affect on me. Anyway, he wouldn't let me tell anyone, not yet, so no matter how badly I want to brag the news to everyone I stay silent.
I wonder how they'll take it when they finally find out.
He's not here with me, so just like in West Green I think of him all the time. He owns my mind. I wonder what he's doing while I sit in though lectures. I jerk off with his image fixed in my mind. I fall asleep pretending that he's holding me. In my mind, in my thoughts, I'm always with him. My grades have dropped, not surprisingly. My mother is worried about me. I don't give a flying fuck about anything but him.
//You
Now I see
Keeping everything inside
With you
You
Now I see
Even when I close my eyes//
I'm getting off the point
Ok – I made my life-changing decision for a reason. I don't see change on the horizon. If I did, I wouldn't resign myself to just forgetting and moving on. But how can soullessness ever change?
I know – I think I know, at least – that Trunks is soulless. I mean, I've seen it, haven't I? I saw him sleeping, I saw that emptiness. I know what I saw. Trunks has no soul. Gohan doesn't agree, but that doesn't change the facts. He claims there is no such thing as soullessness. He says that removal, shock, closing off from the world, all that exists. But the soul cannot be taken away, he says, and it can't die off. Funny how what we think clashes so strongly. I choose to believe what I've seen with my own eyes. I saw soullessness and soullessness doesn't change.
I've thought this out. You see, in all my work all I've done was create a small change in him. Not enough of one, and not even the kind I wanted. I've seen all the change that I think I'm ever going to see – a tendency to be violent and an even colder, more analytical mind. The truth is that against his soullessness I'm pretty powerless. I did all I could do and not much resulted. There's no point in trying to do any more so I might as well forget it all.
As is obvious, I've had way too much time to think. That's dangerous. I never think – I just act. Live for the moment, right? Anyway, while sitting in class and not paying attention to the professor I've thought long and hard. Pardon the pun. I've thought about our relationship, about the path it's taken, about where it is now. Everything about us, everything about our couplehood. That's why I know this story so well. Trunks is my obsession, regardless of where I am or where he is. He always has been. He always will be.
I take back my earlier statement – I am lonelier now than I have ever been. When I left before, I didn't really know that I was leaving behind. Like how firm his arms are, wrapped around me. How his skin smells of musk and his hair of lavender. How he tastes of salt and blood. How warm he is when the night is so cold. How silky his breath is against my ear. I've had all that now, and I know how it feels, and I want it back. I miss him the most at night. I curl up in bed, clutch a pillow to my chest, pull heavy blankets over myself, and try to pretend he's there. Pathetic. Lying there with my eyes screwed shut, thinking of him and imagining him every single damned night he's been gone. I worry and I think and I miss and I dream and I can't stop.
Well, I guess I should just get on with it and tell the story.
//I hit you and you hit me back
We fall to the floor
The rest of the day stands still
Fine line between this and that
When things go wrong I pretend that the past isn't real
I'm trapped in this memory
And I'm left in the wake of the mistake
Slow to react
So even though you're close to me
You're still so distant
And I can't bring you back//
I never was the type to simply take what is dished out to me. It's not in my nature and it's sure as hell not in my blood – I'm half saiya-jin. Granted, I take more from Trunks than I do from anyone else in the world, but even that isn't very much. So when he hits me or threatens me or beats on me – and he does, or at least he does now – I do just about the same back. Like sparring, or fighting. You don't just lay there and take it, if you did you would get beaten or killed. I know. I've seen it happen. So I fight back. I mean, who wouldn't?
He loves it.
Sometimes we have sex just for the sake of having sex. We are hormonal teenagers, after all, and nothing compares to the saiya-jin sex drive. So, sometimes, that's all it is, you know. But there are the times when it's the result of violence. We'll be arguing or something and one of us will lose it. His fist will fly, or mine, and then there'll be some retaliation. Sometimes it's because of sparring. The violence does something to him and God does it do things to me, and we'll be horny and hot and things just happen. It's brutal. It bruises /me/, and I don't bruise easily. It's wonderful, too. There's this fine line between pain and pleasure, like I've said before, and our violence almost always crosses it. It's the most amazing high. Not that I do drugs. I've tried a few, the way everyone has, but I don't think they would have any affect on me now. I used to be fairly resistant – it was only because of my human blood that I felt anything at all – and now, well, now that I've gotten the ultimate high from Trunks I bet my life that I couldn't feel heroin if someone pumped it up my ass. It's that good, it really is.
But nothing is perfect all the time. Sometimes we spar and that's all. Every now and then, he gets so violent when we have sex that he does some less than minor damage – real bad bruising or he breaks my skin, and once I think he cracked one of my ribs, all of which I can heal from pretty quickly. Then there are the handful of times when he's more up for it than me and pushes on even although I don't really want to.
He raped me, once.
It's not as bad as it sounds, I mean, I wasn't resisting. He was just, I don't know, he was more excited than me and when he wouldn't take no for an answer I laid over his desk, put my head down, and waited until he was done. He must have really needed it because he didn't care that I didn't say anything and didn't move and didn't even have much of a hard-on. I think it bothered him just a little, but not enough stop him. It didn't really hurt that bad, he wasn't much worse than usual. I just closed my eyes and thought about something else. It wasn't difficult. It doesn't seem that bad.
I just can't forget it, is all. All the time I was able to pretend it was nothing, and I can still claim it's no big deal. I can say everything is ok, I can say it, but – but he hits me and I hit him and that can never be ok. I'm no pacifist, of course, and I'm just as likely as anyone to bite my lover or scratch my nails down his or her back. But this violence seems unhealthy, even to me. The worst part of it all, I guess, is the fact that even this, this intentional and brutal violence, it isn't even an emotion. He seems so close, there to hold me and do things to me and say the words he says, but he's still so far away. It's still not emotion. No matter what, none of it is emotion.
He still doesn't love me and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.
So that, I guess, is the next chapter.
//It's true
The way I feel
Was promised by your face
The sound of your voice
Painted on my memories
Even if you're not with me
I'm with you//
The whole boyfriend thing wasn't his idea. It was mine. I wanted it, of course I wanted it, so I tried to make it seem like a good idea. It was about a month after I last wrote that I decided it was fitting. We were already sleeping together, and we already spent all the time we could together, so the title "boyfriend" was the next, natural step. Maybe, I reasoned, the title would make it more real to him. I was still attempting to bring out a soul in him, little by little. I decided to try it.
We were in his room, lying on his bed, him reading some old dead philosopher – don't ask why, I don't know – and me doing homework for my Psyc. 101 class. So he was there with Aristotle or Plato or someone and I said, "Have you ever considered dating me? Real boyfriend dating?"
He lowered his book until it touched my rear – I was lying over his legs in a position that would be difficult to explain so I won't try – and he asked me, "Why?"
Why should we have an actual, validated relationship? "'Cause we basically do everything that boyfriends do, anyway, so we might as well," I said. "We see each other all the time, you know, and we go on dates, and we fuck, and we're monogamous. Right?"
"Yeah," was his answer.
"So would you be my boyfriend, Trunks?"
Trunks raised his eyebrows and asked, "Why? You said yourself that we're already a couple."
"Yeah," I said, "yeah, but why not? Come on, Trunks."
Then he said, "If you want to, sure. I'll be your boyfriend, and you'll be mine. Whatever makes you happy, little Chibi-chan, I'll try and give it to you." I remember those words exactly. Most of the time I fake the conversations I put here, I try to record them the best I can without remembering every word, but some of the things Trunks says I remember perfectly and that's one. Then he screwed me, casually, just a quickie. Before he went back to his philosophy he paused, Plato shut and fallen to the floor, and he warned me not to tell anyone about us. He smiled and his eyes were glass. Gotta love it, all this shit.
So what is our relationship with the new title, exactly? Just about what it was before. The sex is about the same, just a little rougher but nothing that wouldn't have come with time. He's touchier in public, and I'm pretty sure just about everyone is starting to think there's something between us. But we only had a week together before he went off on his business trip, like I said. Damn the Capsule Corporation. Anyway, I don't know if this is the full extent out our relationship. Maybe there'll be more to come.
We did have the most interesting conversation on the phone, though. Oh, yes.
I complained and I got emotional and I told him I loved him, then he promised me we could tell everyone about us when he came home. He used the promise to comfort me. "On the very day?" I asked him, and he answered, "Yes." Off I went again with my words of love, predictably, and I cried a little.
"Is your door closed?" he asked me, interrupting my sentence.
It was, so told him so.
"What are you wearing?" he asked me.
He had called at three in the morning and I was in bed, wearing my boxers like I do just about every night, so that's how I answered.
"Horny?" he asked.
Of course I was. I hadn't seen him in four weeks.
"Hard?" he asked.
Yep. It was the first time I had heard his voice in four weeks, after all.
"Lay down and put your hand on your stomach." As he spoke, telling me what to do, his voice purred, I swear to God it did. Then he said to me, "Do everything I tell you to, Goten, and make a little noise for me. Now move your hand lower, under your boxers. I want your fingertips to just touch those curls…" And, holy fucking mother of God, it was phone sex that was almost as good as the real thing. He's talented. So am I – why be humble if it's a fact? Yeah. It was good.
That makes me wonder. I didn't ask for him to satisfy me, he just did. In the past he never would have done that. So maybe there has been more of a change than I give him credit for. He's active, he pleases me, and in some way or another it seems that he needs me. I could hear his excitement, I could hear him getting off to my moans, I could hear him come as I directed his fingers in and out of his ass. He started it, he was anxious to. Maybe – just maybe – maybe he needs me too.
All I want is a few simple answers. Has he changed? Is he changing? What have I done? Is my decision right? But there is no such thing as a simple answer. There is no answer. I've already learned that.
//It's true
The way I feel
Was promised by your face
The sound of your voice
Painted on my memories
Even if you're not with me
I'm with you//
I wonder if all the crap I've believed for so long is really true.
Is there really such a thing as soullessness? Gohan, my ever-so-much-smarter-than-me brother, doesn't think so. He doesn't think it's possible. I suppose he could be right. Trunks does show something around me, to me, about me. Emotions or not, there's something there. He's begun to act like he needs me. He spends hours with me, sometimes watching a movie or reading and sometimes just sitting in silence. He does things for me and to me. He's dating me – he's dating /me/. Is that his soul? Is that his personality? Fuck me – is that Trunks?
I used to be so sure. I used to understand. Trunks had no soul. Trunks was empty. But then, hypocrite that I am, I went back on my choices and beliefs and now I don't know anymore. I don't know what to think.
All I know is that I miss him.
My dreams began again after Trunks left for England. When we were together – from the time I wrote last to four weeks ago – the dreams weren't there. I don't know why. Maybe I was too happy to have nightmares. Maybe the constant sex left me too tired to dream. For whatever reason, I slept just fine.
He had been gone for two nights when I dreamt the first dream, and after that the dreams came again and again, often more than one a night. I began to remember them more and more often. Usually they were the broken fragments of classic separation anxiety dreams, unpleasant and depressing but not too bad. I would see him and reach out to him, not be able to, then chase after his retreating form rabbit-and-carrot style. Some of the dreams were sex – pure, gratuitous sex, and they were gorgeous. Then there were the others, surreal dreams, dreams of abuse, love, silence. Those were so strange, often impossible to recreate in my mind, and they scared me the most. Eventually, about a week in, I reverted to the old habit of sleep-depravation. That technique, of course, requires my being awake. That was torture. No Trunks to distract me, complete boredom with nothing to do, and, of course, a dream threatening to come when I slept. For two weeks I did that. It was horrible. I was bored out of my mind and as lonely then as I am now.
I miss him.
//You
Now I see
Keeping everything inside
With you
You
Now I see
Even when I close my eyes//
In all honesty, I'm not frightened of him anymore. That's not to say I'm never scared, because that's not true, it's just that soullessness no longer scares me. Maybe there's no such thing, because if that's the case then of course there's nothing to be afraid of. Maybe Gohan was right in what he said. Maybe it's not possible.
After all, Trunks has changed, a little, right? Soullessness never changes.
I know I'm justifying. I know I'm trying to excuse what I already believe and the actions I will take because of it. I know it.
The simple truth is this: I need Trunks. It's not that I want him, really bad, no, it's that I need him. These last few weeks are proof. God, how I miss him. I'm going crazy without him, I'm even worse than I was in West Green. I dream about him, I pretend to be with him, I wonder about him, I can never stop thinking of him. I need to be with Trunks. I will be with him.
With you, Trunks, love, dearest, mine. With you.
If I flew out there, I would get there in no time. Skip a day of class, fly to America, track his ki until I find him. What's the harm? No one would ever need to know, no one but the two of us.
But he's coming home soon. No one knows when – it could be two more weeks, he could arrive home today. I can't wait to see him again. I won't go to him, though, and I'm not sure why. I'll wait for him to come back. I've managed this much, I can handle another two weeks. I'll wait.
//With you
You
Now I see
Keeping everything inside
With you
You
Now I see
Even when I close my eyes//
There's a little bit more of the story, so I'll tell it.
Some time passed, you see, from the time I began dreaming to now, and a few things changed. I noticed the change when this girl from my Psychology class, one who's been out with my group before, asked me about Trunks. She asked if he was seeing anyone. I answered her yes.
"Some lucky girl," she said. Then she asked, "Who is it?"
I'll be honest – I was brutal. I laughed, and she looked at me, confused. "You don't know who?" I asked. I told her that, yeah, he was seeing someone. I corrected the gender and watched her pretty blue eyes widen. Then, without telling her who, of course, I said that it was very serious indeed. The news, I think, frightened her. Strange that it would, in today's society. Sure, homosexuality used to be a rarity, but nowadays there are so many bisexuals it's a trend and gays are commonplace. I guess some people are stuck in the past. Maybe she thought that a guy like Trunks wouldn't be interested in men.
What's important is the realization that came to me while she was walking away, dumbfounded. I recognized that I'm keeping Trunks to myself. Dating him, having the title boyfriend, has made me entitled to him. Now, I can fight them off the people that lust after him. When he lets me tell everyone about us, I'll be even stronger.
I know I belong to Trunks, I've always known that. But Trunks belongs to me as well. Don't you see that, non-existent reader, don't you see?
//You
Now I see
Keeping everything inside
With you
You
Now I see
Even when I close my eyes//
I'm always happy when he's here. Even when we're fighting, even then. There's this strange sense of completion. He completes me, as corny as that is. Completes me mentally and emotionally, the same way his cock fills me when he fucks me. I'm not satisfied, though, I'm not happy with what our relationship is. I want it to continue growing. I want more change. I don't expect the happiness that people on Earth want or have. I don't think we can ever have it. Our relationship is too unnatural and too strange for Earth. Maybe not for Vegeta-sei but it is for here. We'll never be happy, not like that, but we could be more.
So, I'll amend my resolution. Call me weak, call me a hypocrite, but I think I've finally got it. I'm not promising to be inactive, to do nothing, because I can't control myself that well. I'm promising to live for the present, to refuse to plan the future, and to forget the past. Change or no change, soul or no soul, I love Trunks. With my selfish kind of love comes possession. I will be with Trunks because I need to be. It's fitting that I possess him, too. Whatever he has – spirit, soul – is in my hands. No matter how brutal, no matter how inhuman, no matter how much it hurts, he is mine. I've got ownership.
Amazing what a bit of free writing can teach you, isn't it?
So, I'll forget the past and move on. With Trunks beside me, no matter what goes on around us, we'll be together and things'll be ok. In truth, that's all I want. And that, there, is the end of the story. That's all I sat down to say and it's all that ther
he called he's on a plane home now so this is where I end
//You
Now I see
Keeping everything inside
With you
You
Now I see
Even when I close my eyes//
"God damnit! How long does it take to stop a fucking plane!"
"What was that, Goten?"
"Nothing."
"This is abrupt. He must not have had much warning. It'll be nice to have him home. Don't you think?"
"Yeah."
Crowd noise.
"Goten, stop. You're going to wear a hole in the carpet. Give them a moment."
"Yeah."
Crowd noise.
"Mom? How long will Trunks be home for?"
"I'm not sure. Until he's called away again, I guess. I don't know when that will be."
"Look – people are coming off the plane."
"Shit, Trunks, just hurry up."
Crowd noise.
"Trunks!"
The sound of running.
"Trunks. I've missed you, God I've missed you."
"Goten. I've missed you too, but I'm back now."
"I love you. You know that, right?"
"Yes. So where's my hello kiss, sweetheart?"
"Don't call me that. You know that's not what I am to you."
"Shut up and kiss me, Goten."
"No. You're the dominant one, aren't you? You kiss me, Trunks."
"Whatever you say."
"Really, I've never seen Goten so anxious."
"Indeed."
"Hey ... hey! Look at Trunks and Goten!"
"Shit."
"Good god."
"Mom? Are they…?"
"I love you, Trunks. I love you."
The Third Song of the /Anthology/
A TrunksxGoten Songfic Set to /With You/, by Linkin Park
- - -
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball Z. I hope this is rather obvious. I do not own /With You/ or Linkin Park. I hope this is likewise obvious. I am using both without permission. I am making no profit of any form.
Warnings and notes: This piece is a songfic. The lyrics are /With You/, by Linkin Park (from their CD /Hybrid Theory/). It is the third in the /Anthology/ series and the previous pieces should be read first. It contains angst, yaoi, explicit language, the naming of sexual actions, and generally dark subjects. You have been warned. I appreciate reviews (swiftskyes@hotmail.com), be they critiques or a general good/bad word. Enjoy.
Begun 9.29.01
Completed 1.9.01
- - -
Well.
I'm back again, it seems. I don't know why I keep returning to this document or why I've finally saved it. I never was one for telling stories and I've never kept a journal before. I write here anyway. This time I'm doing it by choice instead of fate or chance or whatever the other two times were. I wanted to write this morning. I think I have things I need to say.
So I turned on some music – I like this song, which is really too bad for me because after writing to a song I can never listen to it again – anyway, I turned on some music, more lyrical than the first two, opened my laptop, lay down on my bed still smelling of my semen, and now I'm here, writing, saying what I need to say.
//I woke up in a dream today
To the cold static
Put my cold feet on the floor
Forgot all about yesterday
Remembering I'm pretending to be where I'm not anymore
A little taste of hypocrisy
And I'm left in the wake of the mistake
Slow to react
Even though you're still so close to me
You're still so distant
And I can't bring you back//
Last night I dreamt of Trunks, the most vivid dream I've ever had. It's the reason I thought to write. Trunks is heavy on my mind, and when he is I put those thoughts here.
The dream: I was bound, ropes holding my ankles and wrists together, and I was standing in the middle of an empty room. Agony was lashing down my back like a whip. I arched, crying out, and my head hit against another body. Trunks, of course, was behind me. I felt him there and then I felt what he was doing to me. He was fucking me, rough but sweet, as I stood.
The sheets were sticky and wet when I woke up.
Lately, my dreams have become my escape from reality. They're my way out of the mundane noise of this world. That was still a bit extreme, even in my dark perverted mind. It's most graphic dream I've ever had. Disturbing that it's the one that best reflects our relationship.
I've been doing some pretty heavy thinking, which is probably why Trunks is on my mind the way he is. Over the last four weeks I've had a lot of time to think. Trunks is out of town and there's no way I can see him. I'm just as lonely as I was in West Green, when I went off on my own. This time it was him who left me so I can't just come back and make it all better. Anyway, I've thought and I've decided something. It's time for me to move on from the past. It's time for me to forget, to start again. I can't just stop, though, ending dead cold. So that's what this is – it's my last high before I go clean, my last binge before I diet. I'll talk about the past just one more time.
Don't get me wrong – it's not like I'm ever going to forget it all. I don't think I can. But I'm going to try. Try to forget that Trunks has no soul. Try to pretend I'm back to being oblivious and happy, like I was last year, before I found out. Try to return to my naïve past, my innocent past. Give us all a clean slate. After this, I'll start. I just need to tell this story first.
Yeah.
Hypocrite is a beautiful word. Ignore the seeming irrelevance, I do have a point. Hypocrite is a beautiful word. It flows so gently, the sounds are so soft. What really makes it beautiful is the way its meaning clashes with the sound. A hypocrite does the reverse of what he preaches. I am a hypocrite. I'm one of the world's biggest. I'm one of the most adept but oblivious hypocrites in this universe.
Want examples? I say I'm going to stay away forever, say I'm terrified of Trunks, then I come back. I claim that the only reason I came home was to change him, but in truth I only came home to be with him. I promise to change him and make him better but I ended up creating a monster. Then I swear to leave him alone, to let him be, and I end up fucking him and dating him. Worst of them all is the fact that, no matter how hard I try to be miserable because I know I should be, he still makes me happy.
Hypocrite, indeed. It was my hypocrisy that got us to this point and it's my hypocrisy that will make me write what I'm gonna write, I know it.
Well, since I wrote last our relationship has progressed. Hell of an understatement, that. Now we're together all the time. It's like how we were as kids – if you want me look for Trunks because I'm never far away. But we aren't kids anymore. A lot of our 'together' time is spent having sex. I've stopped counting the times, actually. The number doesn't matter anymore. He initiated it, our third time, out at our cliff, and has initiated it a lot since then. He wants me. Damn – can you even begin to imagine how good that feels?
As much as things have changed, as much as we have, Trunks is still his removed self. There's a little bit of something there. When I'm involved, he does appear to feel, but not in the normal way. Events don't impact him, consequences do. Example: when someone flirts with me he pauses before doing what he needs to do to remedy the situation – distracting them, pulling me away, or threatening, whatever's most effective. He thinks, first. He analysis his moves before he acts. The thought and the action were always there, yeah, but now they're evident, aggressive. He doesn't feel, though, not like the rest of us.
There has been one other major change in our relationship. We have one, now, complete with a title. Boyfriend. We're dating.
//It's true
The way I feel
Was promised by your face
The sound of your voice
Painted on my memories
Even if you're not with me
I'm with you//
You know, I'm not sure what it is about Trunks that I love. He's beautiful – drop dead gorgeous, in fact – but if I said I loved his face and body, well, it would sound pretty bad. It's just that I can't say I love him for himself. I may have fallen in love with his personality, years ago, but now he doesn't have a personality so I can't say I love him for it. Maybe it's his beauty that keeps me here, that and the unmet promise for more. It doesn't matter. Regardless of why I do love him and for whatever reason I'm not going to leave.
He did promise me more, though. He promised to change. He promised to become someone better. Scratch that – to become /someone/, period. He used that promise to bring me home. Would I have returned without it? Yes, but, as I've said, not as quickly. Like a fool, I trusted his promise just like I've trusted all the promises he's ever made me.
He promised me happiness. I still want it. He promised me change. I want more. As time progressed I got him to promise me something more – couplehood. That I have. We were only together for about a week before he left town, though. He's away on CC business. First he was in England, now he's in America. He doesn't have any sure dates but he said he would be gone for no more than a month and a half. It's been four weeks. I've got no excuse for going there, and he's barely had the time to talk on the phone. We've had one conversation in these four weeks. Before he left he promised me – another promise – that he would come home soon and that when he did, we could finally tell everyone about us. I remember that promise real well. He was just using it to calm me down, yeah, but there was something in his voice that made me feel loved. The word "boyfriend" tends to have that affect on me. Anyway, he wouldn't let me tell anyone, not yet, so no matter how badly I want to brag the news to everyone I stay silent.
I wonder how they'll take it when they finally find out.
He's not here with me, so just like in West Green I think of him all the time. He owns my mind. I wonder what he's doing while I sit in though lectures. I jerk off with his image fixed in my mind. I fall asleep pretending that he's holding me. In my mind, in my thoughts, I'm always with him. My grades have dropped, not surprisingly. My mother is worried about me. I don't give a flying fuck about anything but him.
//You
Now I see
Keeping everything inside
With you
You
Now I see
Even when I close my eyes//
I'm getting off the point
Ok – I made my life-changing decision for a reason. I don't see change on the horizon. If I did, I wouldn't resign myself to just forgetting and moving on. But how can soullessness ever change?
I know – I think I know, at least – that Trunks is soulless. I mean, I've seen it, haven't I? I saw him sleeping, I saw that emptiness. I know what I saw. Trunks has no soul. Gohan doesn't agree, but that doesn't change the facts. He claims there is no such thing as soullessness. He says that removal, shock, closing off from the world, all that exists. But the soul cannot be taken away, he says, and it can't die off. Funny how what we think clashes so strongly. I choose to believe what I've seen with my own eyes. I saw soullessness and soullessness doesn't change.
I've thought this out. You see, in all my work all I've done was create a small change in him. Not enough of one, and not even the kind I wanted. I've seen all the change that I think I'm ever going to see – a tendency to be violent and an even colder, more analytical mind. The truth is that against his soullessness I'm pretty powerless. I did all I could do and not much resulted. There's no point in trying to do any more so I might as well forget it all.
As is obvious, I've had way too much time to think. That's dangerous. I never think – I just act. Live for the moment, right? Anyway, while sitting in class and not paying attention to the professor I've thought long and hard. Pardon the pun. I've thought about our relationship, about the path it's taken, about where it is now. Everything about us, everything about our couplehood. That's why I know this story so well. Trunks is my obsession, regardless of where I am or where he is. He always has been. He always will be.
I take back my earlier statement – I am lonelier now than I have ever been. When I left before, I didn't really know that I was leaving behind. Like how firm his arms are, wrapped around me. How his skin smells of musk and his hair of lavender. How he tastes of salt and blood. How warm he is when the night is so cold. How silky his breath is against my ear. I've had all that now, and I know how it feels, and I want it back. I miss him the most at night. I curl up in bed, clutch a pillow to my chest, pull heavy blankets over myself, and try to pretend he's there. Pathetic. Lying there with my eyes screwed shut, thinking of him and imagining him every single damned night he's been gone. I worry and I think and I miss and I dream and I can't stop.
Well, I guess I should just get on with it and tell the story.
//I hit you and you hit me back
We fall to the floor
The rest of the day stands still
Fine line between this and that
When things go wrong I pretend that the past isn't real
I'm trapped in this memory
And I'm left in the wake of the mistake
Slow to react
So even though you're close to me
You're still so distant
And I can't bring you back//
I never was the type to simply take what is dished out to me. It's not in my nature and it's sure as hell not in my blood – I'm half saiya-jin. Granted, I take more from Trunks than I do from anyone else in the world, but even that isn't very much. So when he hits me or threatens me or beats on me – and he does, or at least he does now – I do just about the same back. Like sparring, or fighting. You don't just lay there and take it, if you did you would get beaten or killed. I know. I've seen it happen. So I fight back. I mean, who wouldn't?
He loves it.
Sometimes we have sex just for the sake of having sex. We are hormonal teenagers, after all, and nothing compares to the saiya-jin sex drive. So, sometimes, that's all it is, you know. But there are the times when it's the result of violence. We'll be arguing or something and one of us will lose it. His fist will fly, or mine, and then there'll be some retaliation. Sometimes it's because of sparring. The violence does something to him and God does it do things to me, and we'll be horny and hot and things just happen. It's brutal. It bruises /me/, and I don't bruise easily. It's wonderful, too. There's this fine line between pain and pleasure, like I've said before, and our violence almost always crosses it. It's the most amazing high. Not that I do drugs. I've tried a few, the way everyone has, but I don't think they would have any affect on me now. I used to be fairly resistant – it was only because of my human blood that I felt anything at all – and now, well, now that I've gotten the ultimate high from Trunks I bet my life that I couldn't feel heroin if someone pumped it up my ass. It's that good, it really is.
But nothing is perfect all the time. Sometimes we spar and that's all. Every now and then, he gets so violent when we have sex that he does some less than minor damage – real bad bruising or he breaks my skin, and once I think he cracked one of my ribs, all of which I can heal from pretty quickly. Then there are the handful of times when he's more up for it than me and pushes on even although I don't really want to.
He raped me, once.
It's not as bad as it sounds, I mean, I wasn't resisting. He was just, I don't know, he was more excited than me and when he wouldn't take no for an answer I laid over his desk, put my head down, and waited until he was done. He must have really needed it because he didn't care that I didn't say anything and didn't move and didn't even have much of a hard-on. I think it bothered him just a little, but not enough stop him. It didn't really hurt that bad, he wasn't much worse than usual. I just closed my eyes and thought about something else. It wasn't difficult. It doesn't seem that bad.
I just can't forget it, is all. All the time I was able to pretend it was nothing, and I can still claim it's no big deal. I can say everything is ok, I can say it, but – but he hits me and I hit him and that can never be ok. I'm no pacifist, of course, and I'm just as likely as anyone to bite my lover or scratch my nails down his or her back. But this violence seems unhealthy, even to me. The worst part of it all, I guess, is the fact that even this, this intentional and brutal violence, it isn't even an emotion. He seems so close, there to hold me and do things to me and say the words he says, but he's still so far away. It's still not emotion. No matter what, none of it is emotion.
He still doesn't love me and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.
So that, I guess, is the next chapter.
//It's true
The way I feel
Was promised by your face
The sound of your voice
Painted on my memories
Even if you're not with me
I'm with you//
The whole boyfriend thing wasn't his idea. It was mine. I wanted it, of course I wanted it, so I tried to make it seem like a good idea. It was about a month after I last wrote that I decided it was fitting. We were already sleeping together, and we already spent all the time we could together, so the title "boyfriend" was the next, natural step. Maybe, I reasoned, the title would make it more real to him. I was still attempting to bring out a soul in him, little by little. I decided to try it.
We were in his room, lying on his bed, him reading some old dead philosopher – don't ask why, I don't know – and me doing homework for my Psyc. 101 class. So he was there with Aristotle or Plato or someone and I said, "Have you ever considered dating me? Real boyfriend dating?"
He lowered his book until it touched my rear – I was lying over his legs in a position that would be difficult to explain so I won't try – and he asked me, "Why?"
Why should we have an actual, validated relationship? "'Cause we basically do everything that boyfriends do, anyway, so we might as well," I said. "We see each other all the time, you know, and we go on dates, and we fuck, and we're monogamous. Right?"
"Yeah," was his answer.
"So would you be my boyfriend, Trunks?"
Trunks raised his eyebrows and asked, "Why? You said yourself that we're already a couple."
"Yeah," I said, "yeah, but why not? Come on, Trunks."
Then he said, "If you want to, sure. I'll be your boyfriend, and you'll be mine. Whatever makes you happy, little Chibi-chan, I'll try and give it to you." I remember those words exactly. Most of the time I fake the conversations I put here, I try to record them the best I can without remembering every word, but some of the things Trunks says I remember perfectly and that's one. Then he screwed me, casually, just a quickie. Before he went back to his philosophy he paused, Plato shut and fallen to the floor, and he warned me not to tell anyone about us. He smiled and his eyes were glass. Gotta love it, all this shit.
So what is our relationship with the new title, exactly? Just about what it was before. The sex is about the same, just a little rougher but nothing that wouldn't have come with time. He's touchier in public, and I'm pretty sure just about everyone is starting to think there's something between us. But we only had a week together before he went off on his business trip, like I said. Damn the Capsule Corporation. Anyway, I don't know if this is the full extent out our relationship. Maybe there'll be more to come.
We did have the most interesting conversation on the phone, though. Oh, yes.
I complained and I got emotional and I told him I loved him, then he promised me we could tell everyone about us when he came home. He used the promise to comfort me. "On the very day?" I asked him, and he answered, "Yes." Off I went again with my words of love, predictably, and I cried a little.
"Is your door closed?" he asked me, interrupting my sentence.
It was, so told him so.
"What are you wearing?" he asked me.
He had called at three in the morning and I was in bed, wearing my boxers like I do just about every night, so that's how I answered.
"Horny?" he asked.
Of course I was. I hadn't seen him in four weeks.
"Hard?" he asked.
Yep. It was the first time I had heard his voice in four weeks, after all.
"Lay down and put your hand on your stomach." As he spoke, telling me what to do, his voice purred, I swear to God it did. Then he said to me, "Do everything I tell you to, Goten, and make a little noise for me. Now move your hand lower, under your boxers. I want your fingertips to just touch those curls…" And, holy fucking mother of God, it was phone sex that was almost as good as the real thing. He's talented. So am I – why be humble if it's a fact? Yeah. It was good.
That makes me wonder. I didn't ask for him to satisfy me, he just did. In the past he never would have done that. So maybe there has been more of a change than I give him credit for. He's active, he pleases me, and in some way or another it seems that he needs me. I could hear his excitement, I could hear him getting off to my moans, I could hear him come as I directed his fingers in and out of his ass. He started it, he was anxious to. Maybe – just maybe – maybe he needs me too.
All I want is a few simple answers. Has he changed? Is he changing? What have I done? Is my decision right? But there is no such thing as a simple answer. There is no answer. I've already learned that.
//It's true
The way I feel
Was promised by your face
The sound of your voice
Painted on my memories
Even if you're not with me
I'm with you//
I wonder if all the crap I've believed for so long is really true.
Is there really such a thing as soullessness? Gohan, my ever-so-much-smarter-than-me brother, doesn't think so. He doesn't think it's possible. I suppose he could be right. Trunks does show something around me, to me, about me. Emotions or not, there's something there. He's begun to act like he needs me. He spends hours with me, sometimes watching a movie or reading and sometimes just sitting in silence. He does things for me and to me. He's dating me – he's dating /me/. Is that his soul? Is that his personality? Fuck me – is that Trunks?
I used to be so sure. I used to understand. Trunks had no soul. Trunks was empty. But then, hypocrite that I am, I went back on my choices and beliefs and now I don't know anymore. I don't know what to think.
All I know is that I miss him.
My dreams began again after Trunks left for England. When we were together – from the time I wrote last to four weeks ago – the dreams weren't there. I don't know why. Maybe I was too happy to have nightmares. Maybe the constant sex left me too tired to dream. For whatever reason, I slept just fine.
He had been gone for two nights when I dreamt the first dream, and after that the dreams came again and again, often more than one a night. I began to remember them more and more often. Usually they were the broken fragments of classic separation anxiety dreams, unpleasant and depressing but not too bad. I would see him and reach out to him, not be able to, then chase after his retreating form rabbit-and-carrot style. Some of the dreams were sex – pure, gratuitous sex, and they were gorgeous. Then there were the others, surreal dreams, dreams of abuse, love, silence. Those were so strange, often impossible to recreate in my mind, and they scared me the most. Eventually, about a week in, I reverted to the old habit of sleep-depravation. That technique, of course, requires my being awake. That was torture. No Trunks to distract me, complete boredom with nothing to do, and, of course, a dream threatening to come when I slept. For two weeks I did that. It was horrible. I was bored out of my mind and as lonely then as I am now.
I miss him.
//You
Now I see
Keeping everything inside
With you
You
Now I see
Even when I close my eyes//
In all honesty, I'm not frightened of him anymore. That's not to say I'm never scared, because that's not true, it's just that soullessness no longer scares me. Maybe there's no such thing, because if that's the case then of course there's nothing to be afraid of. Maybe Gohan was right in what he said. Maybe it's not possible.
After all, Trunks has changed, a little, right? Soullessness never changes.
I know I'm justifying. I know I'm trying to excuse what I already believe and the actions I will take because of it. I know it.
The simple truth is this: I need Trunks. It's not that I want him, really bad, no, it's that I need him. These last few weeks are proof. God, how I miss him. I'm going crazy without him, I'm even worse than I was in West Green. I dream about him, I pretend to be with him, I wonder about him, I can never stop thinking of him. I need to be with Trunks. I will be with him.
With you, Trunks, love, dearest, mine. With you.
If I flew out there, I would get there in no time. Skip a day of class, fly to America, track his ki until I find him. What's the harm? No one would ever need to know, no one but the two of us.
But he's coming home soon. No one knows when – it could be two more weeks, he could arrive home today. I can't wait to see him again. I won't go to him, though, and I'm not sure why. I'll wait for him to come back. I've managed this much, I can handle another two weeks. I'll wait.
//With you
You
Now I see
Keeping everything inside
With you
You
Now I see
Even when I close my eyes//
There's a little bit more of the story, so I'll tell it.
Some time passed, you see, from the time I began dreaming to now, and a few things changed. I noticed the change when this girl from my Psychology class, one who's been out with my group before, asked me about Trunks. She asked if he was seeing anyone. I answered her yes.
"Some lucky girl," she said. Then she asked, "Who is it?"
I'll be honest – I was brutal. I laughed, and she looked at me, confused. "You don't know who?" I asked. I told her that, yeah, he was seeing someone. I corrected the gender and watched her pretty blue eyes widen. Then, without telling her who, of course, I said that it was very serious indeed. The news, I think, frightened her. Strange that it would, in today's society. Sure, homosexuality used to be a rarity, but nowadays there are so many bisexuals it's a trend and gays are commonplace. I guess some people are stuck in the past. Maybe she thought that a guy like Trunks wouldn't be interested in men.
What's important is the realization that came to me while she was walking away, dumbfounded. I recognized that I'm keeping Trunks to myself. Dating him, having the title boyfriend, has made me entitled to him. Now, I can fight them off the people that lust after him. When he lets me tell everyone about us, I'll be even stronger.
I know I belong to Trunks, I've always known that. But Trunks belongs to me as well. Don't you see that, non-existent reader, don't you see?
//You
Now I see
Keeping everything inside
With you
You
Now I see
Even when I close my eyes//
I'm always happy when he's here. Even when we're fighting, even then. There's this strange sense of completion. He completes me, as corny as that is. Completes me mentally and emotionally, the same way his cock fills me when he fucks me. I'm not satisfied, though, I'm not happy with what our relationship is. I want it to continue growing. I want more change. I don't expect the happiness that people on Earth want or have. I don't think we can ever have it. Our relationship is too unnatural and too strange for Earth. Maybe not for Vegeta-sei but it is for here. We'll never be happy, not like that, but we could be more.
So, I'll amend my resolution. Call me weak, call me a hypocrite, but I think I've finally got it. I'm not promising to be inactive, to do nothing, because I can't control myself that well. I'm promising to live for the present, to refuse to plan the future, and to forget the past. Change or no change, soul or no soul, I love Trunks. With my selfish kind of love comes possession. I will be with Trunks because I need to be. It's fitting that I possess him, too. Whatever he has – spirit, soul – is in my hands. No matter how brutal, no matter how inhuman, no matter how much it hurts, he is mine. I've got ownership.
Amazing what a bit of free writing can teach you, isn't it?
So, I'll forget the past and move on. With Trunks beside me, no matter what goes on around us, we'll be together and things'll be ok. In truth, that's all I want. And that, there, is the end of the story. That's all I sat down to say and it's all that ther
he called he's on a plane home now so this is where I end
//You
Now I see
Keeping everything inside
With you
You
Now I see
Even when I close my eyes//
"God damnit! How long does it take to stop a fucking plane!"
"What was that, Goten?"
"Nothing."
"This is abrupt. He must not have had much warning. It'll be nice to have him home. Don't you think?"
"Yeah."
Crowd noise.
"Goten, stop. You're going to wear a hole in the carpet. Give them a moment."
"Yeah."
Crowd noise.
"Mom? How long will Trunks be home for?"
"I'm not sure. Until he's called away again, I guess. I don't know when that will be."
"Look – people are coming off the plane."
"Shit, Trunks, just hurry up."
Crowd noise.
"Trunks!"
The sound of running.
"Trunks. I've missed you, God I've missed you."
"Goten. I've missed you too, but I'm back now."
"I love you. You know that, right?"
"Yes. So where's my hello kiss, sweetheart?"
"Don't call me that. You know that's not what I am to you."
"Shut up and kiss me, Goten."
"No. You're the dominant one, aren't you? You kiss me, Trunks."
"Whatever you say."
"Really, I've never seen Goten so anxious."
"Indeed."
"Hey ... hey! Look at Trunks and Goten!"
"Shit."
"Good god."
"Mom? Are they…?"
"I love you, Trunks. I love you."
