Paradox of Choice

The more options we have, the less likely we are to be content with our decision.

I:II

He was eleven years old when one of his most harmless schemes goes completely awry. Though it was neither the first nor the last time things didn't go quite to plan, this one stood out in his memory as the day he finally understood how much responsibility he has for Goten's safety, even when they're not saving the world.

.

"And just what is going on here?"

Uh-oh.

He thinks Goten stammered something out that sounded kinda like his brother's name, but Trunks honestly couldn't hear much beyond the roaring of the earth's core against his ear. If he tried to sit up he knew the sky would turn into a vortex with teeth of light like it did all the times before, but the only thing it would've been trying to swallow was his stomach and that's no fun at all.

He heard a groan that was most definitely Gohan's, having earned it enough by then to know for sure. "Crap, crap, what do I do, what do I do..."

Trunks knew at the time he couldn't move, his body couldn't handle even so much as a twitch by that point, but he remembers telling himself get the words out before it's too late, begging in his mind, Please, don't tell my dad!

"Goten, can you hear me? Little bro? Nope, he's out." A sigh. "Trunks? Trunks, buddy, you still with me?"

He groaned in response, tried to open his mouth to say the words, but his tongue seemed swollen and the back of his throat burned. His body felt wrong somehow, like his skin was too small, or maybe his organs too big. He was a jigsaw puzzle that wasn't put back together right, pieces forced in the wrong order. Just being awake was uncomfortable.

"Okay...dammit, what do I do. Alright...alright, I've got this. Trunks, I'm so sorry for this, but...actually, no, I'm not sorry, damn you. I'm calling your dad."

Crap. Nonono no...

.

He doesn't know how much time passed, if he slept through it or not, but suddenly the lip of a plastic bottle was pressed against his open mouth, and with pitiful effort he tried to refuse it – no more – until strong fingers like a pincer around his small jaw forced him to take a drink. The moment the water, and he remembers vividly the warmth and the salt, touched his tongue, he spluttered and tried again to pull away.

"Quiet, boy," his father's voice commanded. An arm wrestled around him with forceful ease and tilted his head back further, giving him no choice but to comply. "You will drink this if you know what's good for you!"

He tried to drink it, at least.

I get points for trying, right?

… Oh gods, I'm gonna be sick...

He was still coughing after the bottle was finally pulled away when something that felt an awful lot like two fingers were jammed in his mouth. He barely even had the chance to gurgle out in his shock before his throat convulsed, and with it his stomach. Next thing he knew, everything came back up again in one almighty hurl, wrenching him from the inside.

He vomited up the salt water, all the stolen sake, and probably all the food he'd eaten that day before the convulsions eventually stopped, and it wasn't until then and he was coughing and spitting and crying that he realised his father's hand was still between his shoulders, firm and unmoving but definitely there. He also realised, at the edge of his bleary vision, that Goten was similarly sick a few feet away, beating his fist on the grass and sobbing into it while Gohan, looking more anxious than usual, tried to soothe him.

And lastly, he noticed the bickering between Goku and Vegeta above.

"If you think I will ever allow your disgrace of a family to be responsible for my son's welfare ever again, you are sorely mistaken!"

For such a peaceful man, Goku sounded even more terrifying than Vegeta when furious, probably because Vegeta's always furious about something so everyone was kind of used to it. "Do you really think it was my son's idea?"

"Of course not! I'd be surprised if the runt even has a brain, let alone knows what to do with it!"

"Hey! He could've died tonight, Vegeta!"

"Don't be dramatic, Kakarrot. It was only one bottle of sake."

"Well it's made them very sick, and it came from your home. We can talk about this later. I think we can all agree Bulma and Chichi never need to know about this, right? Gohan?"

"Dad, I don't think-"

"Gohan."

"...Right. C'mon, squirt. Let's get you cleaned up and tucked into bed."

Trunks fell unconscious again before he heard anything else, but when he was woken up the next day he was in Gohan and Videl's new house instead of his own. Sitting on the edge of the guest bed was Gohan, waiting for Trunks to notice him there like some kind of creep with a maniacal grin, a glass full of cold water, and a word or two to say about his schemes and endangering other people. He thought he got off pretty lightly, all things considered, until he came home that is, and his father took great pleasure in punishing him through 'intensive training' unlike any intensity he'd ever felt before.

To say he'd disappointed his father that day was probably an understatement.

...

Gotenks couldn't just come up with new attacks on the spot. Like any other fighter, he needed regular training. They got lucky with the attacks he was born with, particularly the Kamikaze Ghosts, which was actually a technique Trunks had fantasized about creating when he learned that nearly everyone had their own signature moves. He was only six when he realised it was possible to create your own attacks, something more than just flinging your ki at people and copying the techniques of your masters, so when he cooked up the idea of spitting out little explosive ghosts it seemed like a really cool thing to do. Goten agreed like always, and that was about all that mattered to him, even though he never quite figured out how to make it happen, and of course Goten never put forth any ideas...

Honestly he just figured he'd ask someone experienced for help some day, that is if he couldn't convince his dad to do it first.

And then Gotenks happened, and his little fantasy attack became a reality. A childish reality, but at least it was formidable, and effective. Apparently there's something terrifying about a powerful, homicidal child that still acts like a child. Even as kids he and Goten were among the five most powerful warriors on the planet, but together Gotenks surpassed them all.

Even then, with all his ambition, Trunks wasn't selfish about power like their dads were, so he didn't mind sharing that power with Goten. It never bothered him that they were at their best when they fought together as a team.

After two years of practice fusing with each other, so much practice that they could become one warrior in under a second, Trunks started to notice something – Gotenks was at a stalemate, his arsenal of attacks made up of little fantasies cooked up in the minds of two young boys, the kinds of attacks that made everyone take their power seriously but never them as a fighter, together or separately. They weren't progressing in the fusion technique because they weren't training enough in it. Their strength wasn't the only thing that became enmeshed, no; their potential did, too.

So Trunks pushed, nagging and bargaining and something his pride wouldn't allow him to refer to as begging, willing to do whatever it took to convince his best friend that training Gotenks was just as important as training themselves. He knows now how much he took it for granted, the ease with which he could sway Goten to do just about anything, but back then it frustrated him sometimes how much the other boy refused to think for himself, contradicting himself in that he wanted Goten to tag along without a fuss. Perhaps their friendship was a more complicated one than he ever realised at the time.

As they dropped out of the fusion and staggered, exhausted after testing some new ideas for attacks – as new and ineffective as those attacks were right now – they looked up at the abrupt sound of Vegeta's voice. "Haven't you cubs come up with a new trick yet?"

Trunks felt his stomach sink low at his father's tone, quickly reaching out to grab Goten's hand, holding onto it without real purpose. Disconnecting from the fusion was never a comfortable thing, in fact sometimes he came out of it feeling too short or too light, even too weak. Everywhere that he and Goten differed; height, weight, strength, eyesight, even the slightest misalignment of their heartbeats; was somehow disconnected during the fusion, like Gotenks was constantly being followed by two shadows and one wasn't his own, and sometimes when they separated they felt even worse, like they were hollow and couldn't produce a shadow at all.

Sometimes it took hours to recover from the rush of fusion. Like coming down from a sugar high, feeling queasy and uncomfortable after so long on top of the world, yet tempted to do it again the moment they've recovered. Power like that is addicting - every saiyan knows it.

Dumbfounded, Trunks continued holding onto Goten's unresponsive hand and staring up at his father. Having been out in the wilderness for hours, of course they expected someone to come for them eventually, though he didn't count on his dad to be the one to do it.

"Come, boy. Your mother wants your presence at supper." Dark eyes slid down his haggard body, to the interlocked hands at his side, then up the length of Goten's arm to assess the younger boy's closed-off face. "Bring Kakarrot's brat if you must."

If ever his father claims to be neutral, Trunks likes to think of it as being as good an invitation as any, so as soon as Vegeta took flight Trunks dragged his exhausted comrade in the air behind him, practically carrying him. Goten didn't complain, picking up his own slack as soon as he had enough strength back to keep up.

Two days later they fused again to train, persevering even as Vegeta, at the other end of the Gravity Room, rolled his eyes and called it an 'overdone trick'.

...

Trunks sensed Goten's approach about a minute before he felt Gohan and Goku's, not because he noticed their auras but because he just knew.

They used to make it a game to try and spook one another, a game which was now rendered almost impossible in their hyper-awareness, of each other when coming or going, thwarted by the pleasant shudder that trickles from the base of his neck to the tail of his spine, a curling and incomplete sensation. When he then felt Goten's aura appear between the other two Sons, right where he was expecting it to be, his hair bristled with static like the edge of transformation. It seemed tempting to greet his friend in his strongest form, to push himself into Super, to let his saiyan genes run wild – he didn't know why he got the urge to show off sometimes, but he ignored it as usual.

What he did do is leap out of the closest open window he could find as soon as the other saiyan family touched down on his lawn.

"Ta-da!" he called out, startling Gohan and Goku but not dear Goten, whose serious expression becomes a wide smile immediately. Trunks lost his in turn, ignoring the enthusiastic way all three Sons said his name in favour of frowning at the younger boy. "Goten, what happened to your hair?"

Goten's cheeks and nose stained red, eyes shut behind the shy Son grin. Immediately uncomfortable, Goten did as Goten does and began scratching at the back of his mostly short, mostly kempt hair, a little windswept and a little longer around the front and completely unrecognizable compared to the last time they'd seen one another, not even three days ago.

"Oh, ah-hah, I uh…well…"

Shaking his big hand through his little brother's freshly chopped hair, the grown demi-saiyan laughed. "Goten tried giving himself a haircut while Chichi was out. Videl had to save it before it was too late," he said. Trunks couldn't tell if the pride he heard in the man's voice was for his little brother or his wife. Come to think of it, Goten did kind of look like a miniature Videl, who'd kept her own hair styled similarly short until Gohan asked to marry her.

All in all, Goten's haircut suited him, once he got over the shock of not seeing a tiny Goku that is…

Oh, he thought, seeing suddenly the satisfied edge behind Goten's playful embarrassment. It clicked together when he saw Goku's faint pout as he watched his two sons nudge one another conspicuously.

Trunks found himself complimented whenever someone compared him to his dad, his strength or his attitude, or even being told by his cheeks-pinching grandmother that he had his father's face. It was nice being acknowledged as Vegeta's son.

Goten seemed to go the other direction. Apparently they each had their own version of 'daddy issues'.

"Okay," is all Trunks could think to say, still struggling somewhat to recognise his best friend, but his word seemed to be approval enough for Goten who grinned widely at him and bounded over. Uncaring that Gohan and Goku were watching them so closely, Trunks grabbed Goten by the sleeve of his undershirt and dragged him away, "C'mon, Goten! Dad's not in the Gravity Room, I wanna show you the new climate simulator!"

Goku laughed as he often did when watching them together, like they were a pair of wind-up toys set off for everyone's amusement. "Look at 'em go!" Gohan mumbled something in reply, and Goku's voice faded out saying, "Ah, lighten up, Gohan."

Yeah. Lighten up, Gohan.

.

He didn't think it would be so hard adjusting to Goten's new haircut, but the longer he looked at it the stranger it seemed. Goten still had a childish kind of face but at least the longer hair made him seem wilder. Now, watching Goten untangling his sweaty bangs, Trunks felt conflicted about the bruise rising ugly and dark under his younger friend's right eye.

Goten noticed Trunks' head wasn't with it. "Why are you staring at me?" he asked, quiet and self-conscious, fingers still caught in a knot by his ear.

"Uh...I'm not."

"Yeah you are," Goten grumbled. He gave up trying to comb his fingers through his hair, instead wiping under his nose. A streak of red painted across the back of his knuckles. Goten sniffed when he spotted the blood, then looked back up at Trunks through nervous eyes, the one with the bruise bloodshot and dewy.

"Goten, why'd you cut your hair?"

The younger boy frowned. "Why, does it look stupid? Gohan said suits me..."

"Oh, uh...it does, I guess."

He watched then with total astonishment as Goten's face started to redden, not from the fight but from something else, the way it did whenever one of the grownups told him he'd improved. Bashful. "Videl says it makes me look 'cuter'."

"Well...yeah, maybe... To tell you the truth, I kinda feel bad for hitting you now," Trunks laughed awkwardly, pretending Goten's good eye hadn't just widened a little at him. "You look like a little kid."

"Ah! Oh no, what should I do? Trunks? Trunks!"

But Trunks was already laughing, shocked by Goten desperately grabbing handfuls of his chopped locks. "Relax, Goten," he managed through the growing urge to keep laughing, "It's not a big deal or anything. Sweet hook, by the way. I felt my teeth rattle!"

Having successfully distracted the other boy, they found their way into the kitchen by way of instinct and sense of smell, chattering to one another about anything and everything that came to mind, from Trunks' new computer game to Chichi's scream of horror when she found the chunks of severed black hair in her washroom sink.

They're already eating by the time anyone found them, interrupted by Gohan taking Goten's chin in his fingers and tilting his injured eye up into the light to get a clearer look at the damage. Goten turned his head out of his brother's hand, trying to brush the attention away, returning to stuffing his face immediately. Trunks just grinned through his split lip when Gohan looked between them both, then carried on eating as well.

Goku, not-quite-stoic at the sight of the banged-up pair, sighed. "Ahh, Goten, Chichi told you not to get blood on your new clothes so soon."

Said bloodied boy mumbled some kind of apology through a mouthful of sticky plum and rice. He didn't sound very apologetic.

Bulma, who'd followed Gohan and Goku into the kitchen, is the next to comment. Wrapped in a rumpled lab coat, hair, dull blue and oily in neglect, his mother looked the part of a scientist driven beyond the boundaries of good health by her work. Seeing as it was also the first time he'd seen her in two days, her appearance wasn't the only thing she'd been neglecting. It probably hadn't even occurred to her yet that she'd gone two days without seeing her family. As soon as she noticed, or as soon as her husband made her aware, Trunks would have the satisfaction of seeing a lot more of her than usual for the week of guilt to follow.

"Trunks," she added, pushing a pair of thin-rimmed reading glasses up her nose, "son, can't you two find anything else to do other than fighting? Something that wont keep ruining all your clothes?"

Swallowing, he and Goten looked to one another then, blinking their confusion. "Something else? Like what?"

Bulma mumbled but didn't answer him, setting her tired gaze on the coffee maker instead, finding more promise of understanding from it than from her own son.

Gohan joined them at the table, but he hadn't made a move to start eating. "Could you at least be more careful?" As he said this, seemingly directed at Trunks, he reached over to turn Goten's face and once more to get a quick look at the swelling. Goten poked his outstretched hand with chopsticks, though it must've been harder than it looked because Gohan's fingers quickly retreat back to his own side of the table. Shaking his hand, Gohan watched his little brother like a suspicious bird from the corner of his eye. "You two could hurt each other more than you realise."

It seemed kind of ironic, but he wasn't going to tell Gohan that.

His father, also drawn closer by the promise of food, broke his habit of ignoring everyone in the vicinity and snorted loudly at Gohan's coddling. Helping himself to the buffet of food spread out by the overworked cooks, he declared, "A true saiyan welcomes pain, and is rewarded for his courage with strength."

It's a well-rehearsed argument, because Bulma's retort from across the kitchen was weary in the way only repetitive things are. "And what use would children have with strength like theirs, Vegeta?"

After a few moments of spieling his familiar 'saiyan pride' speech, Gohan tuned Vegeta out and tried again to get a look at his little brother's bloodshot eye.

"Stop it, Gohan," Goten grumbled, throwing a riceball at the older Son. "I'm not a baby."

"Fine." Gohan wiped the rice now stuck to his chin away, not at all distressed by his little brother's attitude. "I'll stop babying you if you promise me there'll be no more fighting until that heals up. Deal?"

"Does it count if I keep my fingers crossed?"

"Not a chance."

"Fine...I promise..."

Snorting again, Vegeta stuffed a poultry leg in his mouth and stalked out of the room with his final say being a single roll of his eyes.

Trunks, even though he kind of wanted to pull on Goten's newly short hair for some reason, silently vowed to keep his hands to himself when Gohan set that knowing look on him. He hated when adults gave him that look, like they just knew he was gonna do something to wilfully get himself – and probably Goten – into trouble. Pulling Goten's hair would definitely start a fight, and he did kind of have to agree that Goten's eye looked pretty bad, so he nodded and set himself the task of devouring the rest of the food within arm's reach around his plate setting.

A few days without sparring wasn't so bad.

...

"C'mon, Goten, suck it up! You're not a baby, you're a warrior, so act like it!"

"Shut up, Trunks! This isn't fair and you know it!"

"You asked for it, so stop whining about it and get angry!"

There's a difference between training someone and training with someone. Sparring with Goten by the river meant bruises and muddy clothes, but it also meant pulling punches and taking breaks and sometimes, if one of them is particularly clumsy, laughing more than strictly appropriate when you're trying to injure your best friend. Their mock fights before Buu never prepared them for what would happen if someone hit them hard enough to bend their bones and then kept on hitting, so it was a pretty big adaptation to make when they realised there wasn't anything like a 'time out' or 'slow down' when you're fighting for real. There definitely weren't any 'lower your power level to match your weaker opponent' rules in mortal combat.

So when Goten got that look on his face and asked Trunks to help him, he wasn't really sure what he felt about it, but he sure wasn't ecstatic.

Oh, he had no problem with punching Goten in the face. However he did kind of have a problem with the idea of punching Goten in the face with everything he had. A big problem, in fact.

Sometimes it didn't matter how strong you were, because if you're flesh and bone and your opponent's stronger just about anything could happen. If something went wrong because he wasn't holding back, nobody would ever forgive him – worse, he'd never forgive himself.

The look on his face did something to piss off his younger friend. Mercilessly, the other boy reacted like Trunks had called him a mamma's boy, and sent a ki blast flying straight into his face. His cheek would probably stay reddened from the energy's graze for days.

For a few minutes he tried to talk his way out of it, but then Goten accused him of being scared he'd become the stronger of the two of them and that was it.

His first rule was that Goten had to land a good hit on him without turning Super, while he himself was free to transform at will, which he'd done almost immediately out of frustration with his bratty partner. The longer their training carried on without Goten landing a hit, the more frustrated he grew.

Of course it wasn't fair, but they're Saiyans – overcoming stronger adversaries was what they were good at! And wasn't that exactly what Goten wanted? To be as strong as him?

"Damn you, Trunks! I asked you to help, not to toy with me!"

For the first time since they'd begun training after lunch, Trunks forgot he'd transformed and let his frustration with the other boy tip over. With his hand rigid and tingling with furious energy, he backhanded the other boy with the kind of effort that might've put him in the dirt a few feet away any other day. This time, Goten's limp body went soaring, and with a surprised noise of panic Trunks left his anger forgotten behind him as he flew to catch his friend.

Biting his tongue to withhold his apology, he set Goten's feet back on the ground, pursing his lips when the younger boy wobbled dizzily.

He wasn't expecting a glowing fist to collide with his nose, but he heard it break and cried out at the feel of cartilage and skin severing. He rebounded away, scooping a handful of blood from his gushing nose when he landed, skull throbbing with the rush of adrenaline and a wooziness he hadn't felt during a fight for years. When he gathered the courage to look up, Goten was smirking at him instead of glaring, rubbing at the storm cloud on his cheek with satisfaction not even his flinch could hide.

"Haha, you fell for it! I got you, Trunks! You lose!"

He kept forgetting Goten was a lot sneakier than he looked.

He was distracting me this whole time with his complaining because he knew it'd make me angry, and he pushed all his power into his fist while I wasn't paying attention? Well damn...you're so much like me it's scary, Goten.

Maybe it was because it felt like his influence, or maybe he was just always going to be impressed when Goten got the upper hand, but there was no other way of describing the feeling inside him other than pride. The fact that Goten just broke his nose without transforming was nothing short of a miracle, and he was proud of his friend for it.

After giving Goten a rewarding smile in reply, he exhaled and dropped out of his transformed state, letting his power level almost flatline to that of a regular weakling human before it naturally inclined to his regular state.

"Aieee!" He grunted, clasping both hands over his pulsating face. All the pain that'd been missing at the initial break now flooded to the tips of his fingers, dizzying every nerve ending. Confused, his body shivered as spasms of pain rippled down to his feet.

Goten made some kind of apologetic noise high in the back of his throat, probably worried Trunks was going to retaliate, but nonetheless the other boy rushed to his side. "Are you okay? I swear I didn't transform, Trunks!"

"Heh," he chuckled, finding Goten's panic funny all of a sudden. From behind a bloodied hand, he said without a trace of anger, "I think that concludes our lesson for today."

.

Chichi was doing the dishes when they came in through the back door, one very bloodied and the other very bruised. After screaming in horror in reflex at seeing them in such a state, she throws the half-scrubbed dish back into the sudsy water and gave a piercing shout that nearly packed enough power to blow off the roof. "Goku! Get in here now!"

The boys, with faces of purple and red, didn't quite understand the look Chichi gave them while waiting for her husband to appear. Of course, they forgot about it pretty quickly when Goku, muttering "Oh, man," to himself, took Trunks' broken nose between his thumb and forefinger and reset it, pouting sympathetically at the shout of pain. "You boys really like to play rough, huh?"

Maybe one day the grown-ups will start taking us seriously, Trunks allowed himself to hope, watching carefully while Goku then started poking at the bruise that ran along Goten's cheekbone from nose to temple, probably just checking for fractures.

Again, he felt that strange twinge of regret to see he'd left such a vibrant mark on the other boy's face.

... ... ...

A/N: The chapters were longer but to give myself more time to write I broke them in half. It worked out better in the end anyway! So, I know chapter I:I was short, but that usually happens when I start a new story. This chapter was supposed to come sooner, but I had to go back through and re-work the tense from present to past (I have a nasty habit of blending tenses, I apologise for that if it ever goes unnoticed by me before posting).