"Look, I said I was sorry," Cymbal said, swiping the back of his hand across his bleeding mouth. "I didn't mean it, but I said it. I don't know what else you want from me."
Bulma thought that Piccolo looked more sour than usual – though that might have been because his right eye was threatening to swell shut, which was affecting his expression. "How is it that every time we meet up lately, I get punched in the damn face?" he asked.
Cymbal, who was still sitting on the ground, shrugged. "Beats me," he said. "I mean, among other things, I'd figure you'd be better at dodging by now."
Piccolo looked up at the heavens as if asking some deity or another for patience. It was clearly time for a reasonable adult to intervene before they started hitting each other again, and Bulma realized that she was possibly the only adult she even knew.
"Okay, boys," she said. She held her hands up placatingly – though the effect might have been somewhat diminished by the fact that she still had a taser in one of them. "You've had your fun…"
Both aliens gave her looks that indicated that they would perhaps like to throw her over the side of the mountain. She ignored them. "But as we're all a-okay, we've got work to do."
She turned to Piccolo. "Thanks very much for saving us, we REALLY appreciate it…"
"By 'we' she means 'she,'" Cymbal said. Bulma elbowed him hard without looking at him.
"But you probably have some very important things you were doing, and we need to get these parts to a lab, so…" she made a vague shooing gesture, hoping he would get the idea.
Piccolo raised a brow at her in a way that reminded her really unfortunately of her father's cats whenever she asked them to do anything. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he'd stay just to spite her.
Then, Piccolo looked at his brother. He didn't say a word, and apparently, he didn't need to. "I can finish this," Cymbal said.
Piccolo nodded, finally. He turned to go – and it was then that Bulma heard a voice in her head, Piccolo's voice, clear as over a phone line: We only have three days. We need you back in two with whatever you have so that we can make a plan.
It was not Bulma's first experience with telepathy. It WAS her first telepathic experience that came with such clear words. She took a deep breath and tried her best to answer. I can do anything in two days, she thought.
Piccolo snorted audibly. Let's hope so, he thought. And then he flew away.
Bulma held her breath until he'd faded into the sky. Then, she turned to Cymbal. "How you feeling, big guy?" she asked.
"Like I got electrocuted," Cymbal said flatly, "had half a mountain dropped on me, and then got punched a lot."
Bulma winced. She almost apologized. But instead, she crossed her arms and said, "As far as thank-yous go, I've had better."
"Oh, sorry," he said, "were you holdin' your breath for that?"
"For you to have manners? Please. I'd suffocate."
"And wouldn't THAT be a shame," he said, standing up slowly.
Bulma gestured at the aircar. "Do you want me to drop you off anywhere?" she asked.
He gave her an odd sort of look. "Now that you mention it," he said, "yeah."
"Come on, then," she said, starting toward the vehicle. "Stop wasting daylight. Also, don't get too used to this. I'm a CEO, you know, not your uber driver."
"And here I was," he said, "thinking that when I did get around to conquering the planet, I might spare you to make you my chauffer."
"Ha!" She spun around and waved her taser at him for emphasis. "Don't you lie to me. You wouldn't keep me for your chauffer if I was the last human on earth. You hate my driving."
Unexpectedly, he grinned. "You got me there," he said. "I do in fact hate your driving."
Bulma rolled her eyes. "Just get in the damn air car," she said.
Much to her surprise, he got in the damn air car.
Both Yamcha and Krillen got to their feet as Piccolo landed. The former demon couldn't help but notice that there was an odd kind of tension between them that had not been there before.
More human drama, he thought sourly. Gods forbid they just punch each other and get it out of their systems like reasonable people.
As if in response, his healing right eye twinged painfully.
"Don't ask," he suggested as Krillen started to open his mouth. "Everyone's fine, and you don't want to know."
Krillen nodded – and did a poor job of trying NOT to look at his eye. "Good enough for me," he said.
Yamcha looked as if he'd swallowed something unpleasant, but he showed the uncharacteristic good sense not to speak up.
"So," Krillen said, "Are we doing this, or not?"
"In a minute," Piccolo said. "I'm going to try to reach him."
"Reach who?" Yamcha asked. "Wait, you're going to try to reach Goku? In the afterlife." His tone of voice showed exactly how crazy he thought that was.
Piccolo shrugged. "He reached me," he said. "Stands to reason I can reach him."
"It's worth a try," Krillen said.
Yamcha folded his arms and looked as if he was going to speak up, but Krillen delivered what he probably thought was a subtle stomp to the other man's foot, and he shut up. Piccolo closed his eyes and reached for his center (which had frankly been annoyingly-elusive as of late). When he thought he had it, he reached out.
Son, he thought, trying to put the full force of his psychic strength behind it. Son Goku. Are you there?
No answer.
Answer, you idiot, he thought.
Still nothing.
Piccolo sighed and started to open his eyes, and then there it was, that annoyingly chipper feeling in his head. Here, Son said. There's no reason to yell.
Piccolo wasn't sure whether to attribute the sudden rush of relief he felt to the confirmation that he had not lost his mind, or if it was – well, if it was something else.
I missed you, too, Goku thought cheerfully.
Piccolo growled out loud and hurriedly slammed a mental door on all the annoying FEELINGS because they were frankly none of Goku's damned business. Keep dreaming, he thought dryly. The only part of me that's ever missed you has been the occasional energy blast. Now will you try to focus?
Focusing, Goku answered.
Is there any reason we shouldn't ask the dragon to resurrect you in three days' time instead of waiting for the day of?
None that I know of, Goku answered. Hold, please – I gotta ask King Kai.
Son, people don't put people on HOLD when they're having a mental conversation, Piccolo thought, rubbing at his own temple with two fingers. He wasn't sure if the headache he had coming on was more an effect of Son's personality or the effort of reaching so far, but it was becoming unpleasant.
I just did, Goku thought. And sure enough, there was MUSIC of some kind – off-key humming, it sounded like, probably something from Son's subconscious that he'd dragged up.
Cha la, head cha la….
"Why is he like this," Piccolo asked the air. "No possible childhood head injury could justify…"
That was when he realized that both Yamcha and Krillen were staring at him again. "I'm on hold," he said.
They looked at each other, then at him.
Piccolo rolled his eyes. "Humans," he muttered to himself.
"Do you need to sit down or something?" Krillen ventured.
"No," Piccolo said. Then he physically jumped (damn it!) when the music in his head cut out. Hey, Piccolo! I'm back. Also, do YOU have a headache, or is that me?
I do have a headache. I'm pretty sure it IS you. What did your local deity say?
What's a diety?
Piccolo clenched his eyes for a moment and made himself count to five. King Kai, Goku. What did he say?
He said it was an unusually good idea for a mortal and you had a surprisingly good head on your shoulders for someone who puts up with me.
Oh, so you've made an impression, Piccolo thought.
Always do. And damn it, having Goku in his head was bad for his equilibrium, because much like a northerner who has always grown up with miserable winters, Piccolo just found that level of emotional warmth off-putting. Winters should be cold, and mindvoices should be like Tanbarin's, which is to say flat and detached and completely without any of that awkward….
Feeling that I like talking to you? Goku suggested.
Piccolo decided then and there that he hated telepathy. I'm choosing not to take that too personal, Piccolo thought, as I suspect you also like getting beat up on some level.
Guilty, Goku agreed.
Hey, Son – one more thing. Is there anything you can tell me that would convince your human friends that I'm not talking to myself?
Krillen and Yamcha, right? I can feel them near you, but I can't reach 'em….it's like yelling at somebody who you can see, but who can't hear you. Hold on. I got this. Ask Yamcha if he's sure he doesn't want to wish to not be scared of girls anymore, as it seems to me like he's still afraid of Bulma.
What kind of asinine question is –
Just trust me, Goku assured.
In the most longsuffering voice he'd ever used, Piccolo said, "Son wants to know if you're sure you don't want to wish to not be afraid of girls anymore, as it seems to him like you're still afraid of Bulma. Also, please tell me that was never a godsdamned thing. TELL me you idiots didn't spend time collecting the most powerful artifacts on the planet to successfully go on a date."
"Oh my God," Yamcha said, paling slightly, "it IS him."
"I'll thank you to leave the old man out of this," Piccolo said. "He butts in enough without your calling his attention to whatever we're doing."
"Also," Krillen said, "We have wished for WAY dumber stuff than not being scared of women."
"Honestly, sometimes I think this planet deserves to be destroyed," Piccolo muttered.
"Maybe next time, somebody could wish for you to lighten up," Krillen suggested.
I'd make that wish, Goku agreed.
"Do it," Piccolo told Krillen, taking several large steps back.
The smaller human nodded and raised his hands.
Bulma, a cup of blessedly hot tea in her hands, was gazing out the window of Amy's small house. She'd been surprised when Cymbal had given her directions to this place – MORE surprised when she saw it, as a modest little cottage in the middle of nowhere was far from where she would have expected him to want to mentally prepare for an upcoming battle.
Hina had come bursting out the front door like a chicken flying out of a coop, and a shy, quiet, woman had come along after, and had invited Bulma in for tea.
Bulma had looked askance at Cymbal.
He'd shrugged. "She's not dangerous," he said. "I'd avoid crossing the donkey, though."
So Bulma had gone in (while carefully skirting the donkey that was grazing near the door, as she still wasn't always sure when Cymbal was being serious. The little creature had put its ears back at her, and she'd scurried into the house.). She'd removed her shoes and been given tea, and she'd felt odd about the whole experience. Sure, there was that little voice in her head that was saying, He's trusting you with his adopted family, what the Hell is going on? But also, Amy was so quiet. So subdued. So polite.
Bulma had, by virtue of being born rich and brilliant (and to an eccentric father who she was convinced forgot he'd ever reproduced nearly as often as he forgot where his glasses were) had never had to worry about what was PROPER in her life – and most of the friend's she'd met while she was running wild in her teen years had been, well, anything in the world but polite company. Goku, in fact, had been a right little savage, prone to biting people if they tried to bathe him. Hell, the closest person she KNEW to "respectable" was Chichi, and SHE had gotten married to the only man who'd ever beaten her in hand to hand combat.
Amy, in her oversized sweater and sensible cropped-at-the-ankle pants, had a practical bob-length haircut that did nothing for the shape of her face. She had oversized glasses that she kept having to push up, hips that had never quite lost all the baby weight, and care-lines around her eyes and mouth, though she couldn't have been much older than Bulma.
Not what I would have expected from Cymbal, Bulma thought wryly as she looked back out at the yard. Hina had found a soccer ball and was apparently, with great enthusiasm, re-enacting every goal she'd scored at the last game by punting the ball from various angles at Cymbal, who would catch it and send it back to her with the same irritating level of ease he seemed to have for every kind of physical activity she'd seen him do. Seriously, if I'd had to pin down a type for him, I would've expected thigh-high boots and a mean streak. Then again, if you're a demon, maybe a nice cottage and a florist is KIND of like rebelling? Maybe it's his version of a midlife crisis.
"Would you like some soup?" Amy asked, and Bulma thanked the gods again for the fancy private education that had ensured she could speak a LOT of languages well enough for politeness.
"Yes, thanks," she said and tried to remember to smile – how long had it actually been since she'd just casually socialized with someone who wasn't in her little group of misfits? Since before the demon wars, surely. "But I'm sure you weren't expecting us, so I'd hate to trouble you."
"I always make too much," Amy assured. "In case Hina wants to have friends over, and if she doesn't, it freezes well."
"Does she have friends over a lot?" Bulma asked.
Amy smiled again, a faint worry line on her forehead, and shook her head. "Well," she amended, peering out the window, "not human ones very often."
"Have you guys had any more trouble since the bus?" Bulma asked.
Amy shook her head. "That's mostly died down now," she said. "They watched the area for a while, but in the end, we're not that interesting, and it was easy enough to believe he was just passing through. Besides, many of the people who were supposed to be searching had children who went to that school – and children are often a little better than adults at seeing what's really going on."
Bulma nodded again, peering back outside. "He's….pretty good with her, for a psychopath," she offered.
"He is," Amy agreed warmly. "It's good for her. I'd worried, you know, with her not having her father around…"
It was none of Bulma's business, of course. So she wasn't going to ask.
"So how long have you and Cymbal –" her mouth started of it's own accord. Damnit! I wasn't going to ask!
"About half a year now, ever since he washed up on the bank a few miles down the road," Amy said.
"Six months," Bulma mussed, looking back outside. "Not gonna lie, he's about the LAST guy I ever figured on settling down with a nice girl from the countryside, but–"
Amy choked on her tea. And damned if, out in the yard, Cymbal's ear didn't flick like a dog's does when you whistle, and he looked sharply over at the house from probably 20 yards away.
"I'm fine," Amy said out loud, a little TOO loud, almost on the verge of yelling – ostensibly to Bulma, though she saw Cymbal relax as well and direct his attention back to Hina. Bulma had the profound feeling she'd just dodged a bullet.
Hanging out with these guys is the reason I'm going to die prematurely of a heart attack, she thought as she offered Amy a napkin.
"It isn't like that," Amy assured her once she'd mopped up any trace of tea. "He's just….well, kind of an odd friend of the family."
"Emphasis on the odd," Bulma agreed. "I'm sorry – I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."
Amy smiled at her. "I'm getting awfully used to uncomfortable," she said.
"He's really different," Bulma said. "I mean, from when I first met him."
Amy shrugged, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I just think no one had ever really been kind to him before," she said. "Before he figured out how to speak our language, I really think he expected us to murder him or something. I don't think he has an overly high opinion of most human beings, that's all."
"What made you do it?" Bulma asked. She looked out the window again, at Cymbal and Hina in the yard. "I mean, bringing him back with you – you being out here all by yourself, and with a little girl…what made you decide to bring an injured demon home with you? Weren't you, I don't know….worried?"
Amy laughed. "Hina's tougher than I am," she said. "She can definitely handle herself." A shadow passed over Amy's face then. She looked around, and then got up, walked toward the kitchen – which was further from the yard. She tilted her head at Bulma to follow her.
Bulma's sense of 'your life is about to get messy again' had activated. But Bulma Briefs had not singlehandedly gathered the mystic dragonballs (twice!), and saved the entire world at least that many times by ignoring her very pointed curiosity. She got up and followed Amy to the kitchen.
"What?" she asked, as Amy closed the door.
"I've never told anyone this," Amy said. "But you – well, from what you've told me, you know an awful lot about them, so maybe you'll know or…understand."
"I'll do my best," Bulma said.
"Cymbal isn't the first demon I ever met," Amy said. "There was another one, oh….five, six years ago, I think. Hina was just little."
"Another demon?" Bulma asked. She gestured toward the yard. "Like Cymbal?"
Amy shook her head. "Yes and no," she said.
Bulma pulled up a chair. "Tell me everything," she urged.
Amy was afraid.
To be fair, she had gotten used to that feeling over the past several years – sitting in the living room on the sofa, under a blanket, watching the news while clutching her husband's hand, her other hand resting on the rounded surface of her stomach where her baby kicked, now and then – completely unaware of the world that her mother was bringing her into.
The demon wars had taught her a lot about being afraid – and one of those lessons had been that your body could only handle so much fear before it started to drown it out, turn it into background noise. Nightly news images of cities on fire, of long lines of human evacuation, of humanoid creatures with green skin and unnaturally toothy mouths and the careless poise of gods hovering in the smoke became less shocking, and more just a permanent part of her mental wallpaper.
She had her baby at home with a midwife, as the dangers of childbirth at home were less than the dangers of being in ANY major urban area.
Then her husband had left, and he hadn't come back – and all the news channels were saying that the war was over, at last, and everyone could get back to living their lives.
But Amy owned a flower shop – a small one – and her husband had made most of the money, had paid the bills, had managed things for her, and he was gone. He was GONE, well and truly, and she couldn't carry that weight around with her, so she set it down next to his empty urn and she tried to do her best.
There was not enough food now, most of the time. And the bank had started to send letters about the house. They would have to move soon – and Amy did not know where they would go. She did not have parents anymore. They'd hidden in the woods so long to stay safe that she also didn't have friends, had never been especially outgoing even before the wars…
She had put Hina to bed a little while ago. And then, instead of sleeping, she had come to the kitchen wrapped in a shawl to make herself a hot cup of dandelion tea – cheap stuff that she could grow herself, that was the ticket – but when she'd turned on the kitchen light, someone had been there.
He was tall and slim, too tall to be human – standing with his back to her in her very own kitchen, hands lightly clasped behind his back. He was looking at a picture on the wall that she'd been planning to take down for some time, one of herself, her husband, and her small, pink baby in the blanket that had once been her husband's, that had been a gift from her mother-in-law.
Shock froze her scream in her throat. The war was over. The demons were gone, that's what the news said.
"There's nothing to be afraid of," the stranger said in her tongue, no trace of an accent. He turned to face her, then looked her up and down with his frankly-unsettling grey eyes. "Believe it or not, I'm here to help."
She did not believe him, but her voice was still stubbornly stuck in her throat.
The stranger took a few steps – not toward her, thank the gods, but away, toward the window that looked out over her tiny yard. "You're in trouble," he suggested. "Money running out, a little girl to take care of…"
Mention of her daughter gave Amy her voice back at last, though it came out dry and weak, "You can't have my daughter," she said.
The demon gave her a lazy sort of blink. "Gods above, what would I want with a child?" he asked. "Humans really need to stop drawing everything they know about demons from the Brothers Grimm."
Amy swallowed once, twice, to try to wrangle her voice into submission.
"Besides, if I wanted her, I'd have her and be gone already," the demon added, turning his attention back to the outside. "Try to think, will you? It will save us both a lot of miscommunications."
Amy wished that her husband was in the house, sleeping in the next room – that she could call him, and he would come to help her. HE had been brave.
Well, now she would have to be brave. She cast her eyes around, looking for anything that would serve as a weapon, settled on the block of cooking knives on the counter…
"Pointless and stupid," the demon said, his back still to her. "But I suppose you needed to get it out of your system."
"What DO you want," Amy said at last, her heart audible in her ears.
"I'd like to make an arrangement with you," the demon said.
"Like a deal?" Amy ventured.
The demon sighed in a vaguely disappointed-sounding way. "Yes," he said. "Like a deal."
"What could I possibly have that you would want?" she asked, feeling another surge of fear for her daughter.
"Easy," the demon said. "Based on what I will require of you, I think you'll feel that you're getting the better end of this."
He turned to face her. "I need a favor. A few years from now, one of my kind is going to arrive at your doorstep. He will be very sick. I will need you to take him in and care for him."
"Why would – "
The demon interrupted her and continued. "In exchange, I can see to it that your business does well here, Amy."
She felt a chill when he used her name – how the Hell had he known it?
"I can see that you are given enough time to attend your mortgage. You won't have to move, to pack your daughter up and take your chances at some shelter or another for refugees. Plenty of those around these days, all full of illness and parasitic insects..."
Amy's hands felt cold.
"Do we have an arrangement?" the demon asked.
"Why can't you take care of this other demon?" Amy asked. "If you know he'll be here."
The demon smiled at her. "Questions like that aren't included in the terms of our agreement, I'm afraid," he said.
"But what about H-….my daughter," Amy asked. "I can't act now to save her from being homeless only to sacrifice her safety to a demon in a few years."
The demon gave her a nod – it looked like approval. "He won't hurt you or your daughter," he said. "Leastwise not deliberately, though I'll be the first to tell you that he doesn't always know his own strength." That last part was spoken with a wry humor that she didn't quite understand.
Amy steadied herself on her counter with her hand. Because she was thinking about it now, gods help her, she was really thinking about it. She knew how it always ended in the books, in the movies, when you made a deal with a demon or a devil or any other kind of horrifying creature –
"You promise," she said slowly, "that we'll be okay here."
"I can promise you six years," he said. "If you have a better offer, take it."
"And what do I have," she asked, "besides your word to prove that this demon friend of yours won't eat us or murder us or…"
"Nothing but my word," the demon said. "That will have to be good enough – as, I hate to say, you have a very weak position for bargaining at present."
"You realize I learned to trust the word of demons from the same fairy stories that made me think you'd want to carry my daughter off," Amy said.
The demon smiled at her again. And he offered her a hand. "That looks like a chance you'll have to take," he said.
Bulma tried, with very limited success, to pick her jaw up.
"And you agreed to it?" she asked, a little breathlessly.
Amy buried her face in her hands and nodded. "And it worked, Bulma," she said. "Suddenly, the bank gave me all these extensions, and then sales started to pick up. For…well, for funerals, mostly."
That last bit didn't surprise Bulma that much. From what she knew about T, the man had a very macabre sense of humor.
"It was almost more business than I could handle," Amy continued quietly. "Oh, we didn't get rich, but I paid off the house, invested what I could. We were okay. To tell you the truth, I'd almost convinced myself it was all some kind of terrible dream, and then on the way home one day….well, you know the rest."
"You never told him?" Bulma persisted.
Amy, her face still in her hands, shook her head. "I didn't think he'd be like this," she confessed. "But then he – when he started to talk to us, trust us – I just didn't know how to tell him."
"I'm sorry," Bulma said. "But I think he needs to know now."
Amy nodded, finally looking up at Bulma with damp eyes. "Will you tell him?" she asked. "I….never did get the hang of confrontation."
Bulma nodded, because if one thing was her specialty, it was, in fact, confrontation. She stood up decisively and strode for the door.
The dragon was gone, and so was Yamcha – packed off in his aircar for parts unknown, or maybe just taking a drive to clear his head. Krillen had passed out in the guest room; Piccolo could, if he exerted himself, hear him snoring faintly.
Piccolo couldn't blame him for that, really. Krillen had a nervous temperament and, between the planet being on the verge of destruction yet again and the frankly disturbing amount of interpersonal tension they'd been dealing with, Piccolo sincerely doubted that the man had slept more than a few hours at a time in weeks.
Maybe knowing that Goku was, at last, on his way back to the land of the living had finally given him the peace of mind to catch up on some of that missed sleep.
Piccolo hoped so, even though he was feeling a little jealous. His own insomnia hadn't flagged at all. So he was outside, and he told himself he was standing guard, though in reality, it was just plain old claustrophobia.
He sighed – and he could see his breath in the cool mountain air, still so much milder than anything he'd experienced in his younger years.
"Uh, sir? Mr. Piccolo? Aren't you going to come inside and sleep?"
And it took every damned ounce of self-control Piccolo possessed not to jump clean out of his skin. He looked down at his much-smaller student and realized with some alarm that he hadn't even felt him coming – that Gohan's chi had become so usual in his life that he no longer actively monitored its coming or going.
Stupid, he chided himself. "I'm fine out here," he informed the boy, turning his attention back to the night sky. "Besides, someone ought to keep watch."
"Keep watch for what?" Gohan pointed out logically. "The Saiyans won't be here for another couple of days, you already know where Cymbal is, not that he seems all that likely to show up and start blasting stuff lately, and – I mean, what else are you expecting?"
Piccolo blinked. He hadn't honestly expected Gohan to call him on his bullshit – he thought he'd have at LEAST another few years before the kid started actively poking holes in his antisocial coping mechanisms.
Hold on, the cynical part of his brain pointed out, a few years? I thought you were going to gracefully step out of the brat's life so he could start the VERY long road to psychological recovery? What happened to that plan?
That's still the plan, he thought sharply. I'm just….tired. Not thinking clearly.
"Sir?" Gohan interjected again.
"Sometimes bad things come when you don't expect them," Piccolo said. "So you have to be ready all the time."
Gohan gave this the kind of serious consideration that he seemed to feel it was due, then shrugged. "I'll keep watch with you, then," he said, folding his arms like Piccolo and leaning back against the house. "Just, I mean, if you tell me what we're looking for."
That was so much like Goku that it physically hurt. Piccolo shook his head out. "I appreciate the thought, kid," he said gruffly, "but you should sleep while you can. You'll need it."
Gohan peered up at him. "You don't need it?" he asked.
Piccolo shook his head again. "Not the same way you do," he said. "My kind doesn't sleep as much."
Gohan nodded again, looking too serious for five. "Does mom know you're planning to stand out here all night?" he asked.
Piccolo thought that over carefully, then shrugged. "Probably," he said.
Gohan just wordlessly raised his eyebrows at him in a way that reminded Piccolo alarmingly of Chichi – was that how human and Saiyan offspring were? Just increasingly unsettling blends of their parents' most disconcerting traits? – anyway, the expression seemed to convey a really incredible amount of doubt that he knew what he was talking about.
Gods, I am never reproducing, he thought fervently.
"You can have my bed," Gohan suggested. "I mean, I probably fit way better on the couch than you do."
Piccolo wondered how you would go about explaining to a small child that just the mere THOUGHT of closing himself into that tiny room, in that small bed, completely surrounded by fragile artifacts of childhood, made him want to do something stupid and human, like breathing into a damned paper bag. He ruffled Gohan's hair instead, absently, and told him, "Go sleep before your mom skins us both for keeping you up past your bedtime."
That must have been the right thing to say, because Gohan gave him a broad grin and started back inside. "I'll leave my window unlocked," he said before he disappeared back into the house.
Piccolo heaved a sigh of relief and turned his attention back to the night sky, feeling as if he'd had some kind of especially narrow escape. Gods, why did every conversation with humans lately feel like he was trying to diffuse a bomb?
The door opened again, and this time he did jump slightly – but it was only Chichi, closing the door behind her and walking over to join him.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire, he thought fatalistically, though even to himself, he had no explanation for this.
She stood against the house beside him, her hands behind her back, and followed his gaze up to the constellations. "You know," she said, "Goku used to get just like this, too, if he knew a fight was coming."
Piccolo blinked.
"Claustrophobic," Chichi clarified. Her upturned face caught the warm light from the cottage windows, and she was….striking, he realized. It was like seeing a deer in a clearing, all of a sudden, and then for some reason, you can't stop looking at it. "And restless," she added. "He couldn't keep blankets on, even – sometimes I'd wake up and look outside, and there he'd be, sleeping on the grass."
She smiled over at Piccolo. "In retrospect, Goku being an alien was…is?... maybe one of the least weird things about him."
Piccolo nodded and looked away – because it suddenly felt like he was doing something wrong. Even to himself, he had no explanation for it. He was here, in this place, with these fragile, bizarre people, doing his absolute best for once to do the (ugh) RIGHT thing. Why did he feel….was that guilt?
Chichi put a hand on his arm, and it took all his self-control not to jump. "I won't try to make you come in," she said quietly, "but I've rolled out a guest mat in the kitchen where it's open, and I'll leave some hot water on the stove."
He nodded again, this time in thanks, but he still didn't look at her. Not even when she gave him a last pat on the arm and walked away. And that nervous feeling, the feeling that he was doing something deeply wrong, was still there, thudding in his chest.
Come on, Saiyans, he thought wryly. At this point, I could really use SOMETHING to save me from my own personal descent into human madness.
