Hindsight was one of those things that people always talked about being 'bittersweet'. And well, sometimes even just bitter, depending on the choices that had been made. It was different than fate or destiny, in that it wasn't some outside force that had guided the actions, but usually your own...usually to a poor, or indifferent at best, outcome. Standing at the bottom of an anti-tank trench, shoveling furiously while winds strong enough to push a man over swirled around him, Mirai was having an almost poetic encounter with hindsight.
It had all started, well, Mirai wasn't actually sure how it had started (since he and Gohan didn't pry), but he was pretty sure the root of it boiled down to the moment Roane and Taka had first locked eyes on each other at that island bar. From that point on, a series of very questionable decisions on all their parts had lead them to this crossroads. Mirai was normally the kind of guy to take his share of the guilt, be responsible for his actions, and he knew that he was partly to blame... But on the other hand, he had no way of knowing just how far the two of them would carry this, and neither did Gohan. They weren't innocent of the situation, but fuck if they had known what they were getting into.
The really bittersweet, complicated, make you sigh in frustration part of it was, that Mirai could see where each of them was coming from. He knew Gohan understood too, but neither of them could say anything, because they weren't supposed to know what was really going on. So they followed orders, and kept their heads down, and hoped the storm didn't blow the base down before the two of them worked it out. And also before the current wind blew them all away either.
Unfortunately, after what was quite a long time actually, the honeymoon ended for their sergeants, and Gohan and Mirai just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time to hear when it did. It happened to all couples, and was "Major Point #1" of why Mirai was kicking himself, because he knew that, he knew better, really, he did.
Even though it was their day off at the time, when the plumbing went haywire in the laundry room, the two of them went around to the back of the building to fix it themselves. Doing laundry by hand was something Gohan had never been fond of. After shutting off the water main, Mirai had just laid down to crawl under the structure and check out the pipes when they heard Taka and Roane making their way to the building as well. Gohan was about to go out around to them to tell them the water wasn't working, but something in the tone of their voices stopped him from interrupting.
Things became kind of muffled when they first entered, but apparently they moved closer to the back of the room, and towards the open window there as they went.
"-s just one pair" Roane was obviously asking him something, by the tone of his voice.
"No" Taka replied, like he'd already said it several times before, and it was getting more and more clipped with each usage.
"Really? Come on, you can throw in one pair with your clothes" Roane asked again.
"Do. Your Own. Laundry." Taka made it a statement, not a request. Roane sighed like he didn't see what the fuss was about, and Gohan instantly knew the man was headed for trouble.
"Why not?" Roane asked.
"Maybe I don't have room for it in with mine" Taka said in exasperation, and a little condescendingly too.
"For not even one pair of pants? I find that hard to believe" Roane replied with a bit of a drawl.
"Maybe you should go suck your own dick instead, cause I find that more believable than me doing your laundry" Taka said angrily, like there was much more to this issue than the mere washing of clothes. Gohan looked down to Mirai, who was still laying on the ground as they inadvertently eavesdropped, giving him a sort of 'deer in the headlights' look. Mirai just shrugged his shoulders, his eyes a little wide too at the rather dangerous position they found themselves in. He knew exactly how heated arguments over 'just simple domestic' stuff could get when you were first working out a relationship. That was part of why he and Gohan had just decided to hire a housekeeper, back in the day.
"Is that an either/or option? Cause I can make do without a blow job a lot easier than I can without pants" Roane fired back, his voice clearly fed up with the response he was getting to his small request. Gohan paled and shook his head without realizing it. Poor Roane, he was a dead man. It was the kind of moment when one would expect to hear a slap ring through the air in response, but this was Taka they were talking about. The dull thud of what Gohan pictured as a hard right connecting with Roane's face was what actually followed, along with a stumbling noise.
"Fuck you, Flynn" was then spoken low and menacingly by the blonde. There was no slam of the door though, no muttering of obscenities as Taka left in a huff. The man must have continued to stand his ground afterward, however silently, because it was Roane who left, walking with a pissed off gait and a pair of pants wadded up in his hands. Gohan got down on his knees beside Mirai, motioning for him to go under first like they had planned earlier. Since the moment was over, it would be realized soon by Taka that the water wasn't working. He wanted both of them to be under the building where they probably wouldn't have heard anything by the time that happened.
Once the two of them knew that their instructors weren't getting along like before, it became more and more obvious as the weeks went by. Even if they hadn't overheard the scuffle, the lack of Roane's arm draped around Taka's shoulders 70% of the time probably would have let them know something had changed. It was at that beginning stage that any offerings of help or relationship advice (on their time off only of course) might have had a chance of being well received, but Mirai and Gohan both felt too guilty about what had happened to just volunteer. They had been together themselves for, what, a little over 25 years now? Certainly they were qualified to offer a little mediation, even though they didn't claim to be perfect either.
The thing was, they got thrown off a time or two also. It wasn't some steady free fall downward, at least, it didn't look to be. There were some days, even multiples of them at a time, where the way Roane and Taka looked into each other's eyes was full of love, times where they held hands again and once that Taka even let Roane twirl his finger in his blonde hair absently. But then the mood would turn sour again, and finally both Gohan and Mirai resolved to just not get involved and stop worrying about it. It wasn't their relationship, it wasn't their business, their sergeants needed to work it out just like any other couple.
Yeah, that was what they had thought back when they were still naïve enough to think it didn't affect them.
The first time Mirai remembered specifically wondering if the orders they were being given actually had to do with training, Roane had just started his shift and found out that Taka had given them a surprise assignment he knew nothing about. Well, he didn't say out loud that he didn't have foreknowledge of what was going on, but from the irked posture and facial expression he wore the rest of the afternoon, Mirai could make the guess. They never knew what they were going to be doing from day to day, so they had no way of telling if anything was out of the ordinary themselves.
Their only indication of the fight that probably taken place later that night was the amount of gravity they were subjected to in the morning. It had been a long time since Gohan had had his cheek pressed against the metal of the floor so soon after waking. At lunch that day, both of them decided that if the training got extra hard for a while, it really wasn't such a bad thing. They were also loathe to stick their noses in their sergeants' personal lives for fear it would only make the training unbearable in retribution.
Little did they know they were already on that path.
Roane was surprised again that following day, at the degree to which they were tired since they had been subjected to the extra heightened gravity earlier in the morning. Not the type to let up on them for any reason, he simply pushed and pushed them through the rest of the day until they finished his tasks, even though it put them hours past dark and dinner and all the things that waited at the end of the day.
It wasn't until they'd gone through a full week of what would have been considered a severe crackdown, if looked at objectively, that they realized saying something wasn't really risking much more than was already being done to them. That day off at the end of the week was one of the hardest ever to pull themselves out of bed for. Not just because of their sore, aching bodies, but for what they knew awaited them in the form of trying to strike up those conversations. In the shower once they were awake, they decided discretely cornering each of their instructors separately was their only hope.
This was were Mirai made what he considered to be a huge mistake, looking back, because "Major Point #2" of why he was kicking himself was that in reality, people stereotype. Mirai was not abnormally short, he was taller than his father after all, but he would admit he was usually one of the shorter people in the room. Unless he and Taka were around each other, because they were relatively the same height. And thanks to Gohan, it had already been publicly established which particular role he took most of the time in bed within their relationship.
When Mirai chose Roane as his instructor to 'broach the subject' with, he didn't think about any of the ways in which he and Taka were similar before hand, only that he thought he could help him understand where Taka was coming from. You know, for someone who used to run the most successful company on the planet, he wasn't very observant sometimes.
As soon as Mirai said the word 'talk', he could see Roane visibly stiffen.
"About what?" he asked tersely, because he'd have to have been a fool not to know already.
"Well, about anything you want to..." Mirai tried to be as kind as he could, to not push too much.
Roane's eyes narrowed, and his rigid movements stilled altogether.
"Did he ask you to come here?" he wanted to know, a fiery anger burning in his eyes.
"What? Of course not" Mirai said right away, finding that to be an almost ludicrous suggestion, considering what was going on. "I just wanted to make sure you were alright, that's all."
Roane looked away and rolled his eyes in continued anger as he stood. His only other comment after that was,
"Mind your own fucking business" ...and then he left the room. Mirai had heard Roane swear, had it directed at him plenty of times, but the tone in his voice seemed to cut right through Mirai in a personal way this time. He felt kind of offended himself now, though he let it go as he headed back to the barracks to wait for Gohan. He knew Roane was going through something really rough right now, and Mirai didn't take the lack of opening up personally. He only hoped that Gohan was able to fare better, get at least some sort of response from Taka.
Again, with the naivety.
The problem with Gohan trying to talk to Taka was that an additional issue compounded them having any sort of real conversation. Even though he was just as worked up over the whole thing, Taka knew the two of them less than half as well as Roane did. Gohan couldn't blame the look of utter disbelief on Taka's face when he suggested they talk. He wasn't about to try and push through it with any sort of commentary on how he and Roane were taking it out on them though, because he knew Taka would instantly see it as whining.
Zero for two, they both decided to just rest and deal with the extra difficulties for now. It wasn't as if their lives were in danger or anything.
The next day Roane came up to them early, like he used to, just to hang around watching Taka 'supervise' them in the good ol' days. They could tell by his cold demeanor that this was not going to be like those were. Being only a couple meters away, they could easily hear everything while they worked. Roane came up and casually stood next to Taka, close enough to talk normally, but not touching.
"You've been deviating from the regimen" Roane said bluntly, not turning to look at him.
"Where necessary" Taka said equally a flatly, his lips pursed in annoyance.
"There is no 'necessity' for that, stick with the plan that's been outlined" Roane told him.
Taka was the one to break and look over at Roane first, anger furrowing his brow.
"The last time I checked, we were both under the exact same contract here. So don't you dare think you can just tell me what to do. We're equals, and if I think an extra 25G's of gravity are in order on a certain day, it's my business" Taka said adamantly. The look on Roane's face said he clearly didn't agree with such a simplistic statement, considering his seniority, but contractually, Taka was right. He was under no obligation to obey Roane's orders.
"From what I saw, it was more like 50" Roane huffed in response, since it was his only ground to stand on.
"Even if it was 100, who fucking cares?" Taka looked like he wanted to say so much more than that, but he was obviously holding back.
"I care, because it interferes with what I have planned for after that" Roane said like this was so easy to understand that Taka must be an idiot to not have figured it out.
"So?" Taka replied evenly, clearly having figured it out, and clearly having done it on purpose by the tone of his voice. Roane finally looked over at him now, but Taka turned to look back at Gohan and Mirai when he did that, avoiding Roane's gaze. So maybe he at least felt a little bad about having been that petty.
"Boys, go grab some pickaxes from the storage shed and meet me on the north side of the base, near the airfield" Roane instructed them smoothly after he was done staring at the side of Taka's face.
"What do you think you're doing?" Taka asked him through clenched teeth.
"Since neither of us is 'in command' here, then you can't say I'm not allowed to start them early on their other tasks" Roane said with a nonchalant tone. Mirai and Gohan had both froze when the conversation got to that point, and when they didn't immediately head for the storage shed, Roane raised an eyebrow at them. With a jump, both of them headed for it right away after that, and Mirai could see Taka storming off out of the corner of his eye. Mirai didn't have to be psychic to tell exactly where this was going to end up, but as usual, life put a fun twist on things once they actually reached that stage. A handful of interrupted assignments later, spread out over the course of days, Gohan and Mirai found themselves keeping silent watch to their sergeants' dwindling civility.
When Roane would order Gohan to dig a hole, Taka would order Mirai to fill it back in. When Taka had Gohan building sandbag bunkers, Roane made Mirai disassemble them immediately. Gohan certainly didn't mind the work, didn't even minded that his and Mirai's was counter productive... It was the atmosphere that they had to perform it in that bothered him. Tension and frustration sang through the air at all times, and it made Gohan get a headache by the end of the day, from frowning so much himself.
It wasn't until they were assigned to dig the trench that things got out really out of control though.
Roane had taken them out past the fence that surrounded the base, and was bringing them up to speed on just how to dig the kind of trench meant for stopping tanks, when Taka suddenly appeared. They got into an even more heated debate than usual, because apparently Taka had been planning on having them dig this, and now Roane was trying to under cut him... Gohan was just so fed up at this point, he didn't even care. He picked up his shovel and shot Mirai a look, then started digging without any further instruction or actually being told to start. Eight feet straight down, then taper the other side to approximately a 30 degree angle or so...that ought to do it.
Mirai followed Gohan's lead and began digging next to him, effectually ignoring their 'superiors', who were trading insults at a high volume. To add to the confusion, a storm was rolling in along the horizon. There was no thunder yet, but they could feel the wind that preceded it buffeting them all around. Suddenly Roane and Taka's words caught in their ears as being important again.
"Then I'll just have Gohan dig to the west!" Taka yelled, and Roane yelled right back.
"Fuck if I care, Mirai can dig towards the east then! And whoever reaches the other side first, wins!"
Wins?... The other side? Both of them looked up at that, not liking the idea that they were going to be set against each other in this particular way. Maybe they should have been paying more attention to what was being said after all. As he came and stood over him, Mirai noticed that Roane looked like he was about to cry. Shit. He didn't know what to do since his sergeant was glaring hard enough to start a literal fire with his gaze at the same time. So he just kept digging. Stealing a glance at Taka, since he and Gohan were still right next to them, Mirai thought the blonde looked more than a little queasy, but Gohan said nothing either.
The only thing either of them could think to do was get it over with as quickly as possible. With super-human strength, they could have had the entire base surrounded in a nice deep trench within minutes, if not seconds, using their ki. But it was sort of an unspoken rule that they themselves used, that no 'cheats' like that were allowed in their day to day training. They were quite accustomed to digging by now, but not even they could finish a project of this magnitude in one shot.
Mirai raised his ki just a little, enough to get Gohan's attention, and dug faster. He felt Gohan mimic his actions almost right away, and got the feeling even he didn't mind skirting the rules a bit themselves, since they were so blatantly being abused by their commanding officers. The rules were that was...the fact that they were still letting them was kind of on Gohan and Mirai, but, again, hindsight made this much clearer when they were reaching the end of the trench.
Sheets of rain had come and gone, and come again, with the wind never letting up in the middle of the deluge. Then the rain stopped for a good while, but the wind didn't. Even down where they were digging, because of the shape of it, the wind blew along the run of the trench in gale force gusts. Roane and Taka could barely stand anymore, but they stubbornly refused to stop. Gohan knew both their pigheaded instructors were as soaked to the bone as he was, and he wouldn't be surprised if they got sick after this.
Maybe he and Mirai would make them both take care of each other, or not, as their own kind of revenge.
Lost in his own ticked off thoughts, Gohan didn't really register the sound he was hearing until it was too loud to ignore. At the same time, Taka came sliding over the edge of the wall toward him, fear plain on his face as he yelled,
"Get down!"
It sounded like a freight train was barreling straight toward them. Taka's exclamation barely reached him as a muffled couple of words before they were snatched away entirely by the wind. Instead of taking his own advice, Taka took off running down the trench, down to the end Mirai and Roane were at. Tremendous ripping, crunching noises were accentuating the deafening rumble now, and Gohan's stomach sank as he felt the ground itself began shaking. He felt Mirai powering up at the same time that he took off after Taka himself, and neither of them was a moment too late.
In the forced calm of their raised, half saiyan auras, Roane and Taka were safe from the tornado that wrought havoc on the rest of the landscape around them. As the four of them stayed pressed against the side of the embankment on instinct, wooden beams and chunks of brick, things that looked suspiciously like bed frames and a couple tires all flew around them in the air. It was too late now to do anything but wait for it to end, keep their human friends safe, and wonder how much of a base they'd have left to go back to when it was over.
Even as the winds finally died down, and the debris began floating back down to Earth, none of them moved for a long time. Roane and Taka were wide eyed, their hands clenched tightly together with their backs up against the wall. It was a spectacle no human had probably ever witnessed before, to see the inside of such a violent storm without being taken up into it and blown away themselves.
Once the immediate danger was gone, Mirai sighed and let his power fall back, with Gohan following. It was only then that he realized he was still holding on to his shovel. Tossing it down, he sighed, not even sure what he was doing with his life anymore, and then he heard Gohan begin to chuckle. A smile spread over his own lips before he even looked Gohan's way, because he knew he was laughing at him, and he didn't care. It was funny. Through rescuing Roane, flying over to meet Gohan and Taka, and helping to shield everyone from the storm, he'd held onto this stupid shovel the whole time without realizing it.
He began chuckling himself as Gohan's turned into full-on laughter, and suddenly instead of shaking his head at the ground, Mirai was in Gohan's arms being kissed. It was a pleasant change. When they were done letting the stress of the situation leak away through the kiss, Gohan rested his lips against Mirai's forehead.
"I wonder if we have anywhere to sleep tonight..." he murmured.
"We...could always...go home" Mirai softly suggested with a sigh, hesitant to bring anything like that up, but feeling like it was fast becoming a real option. Gohan pulled away from him a little, so he could see Mirai's face.
"Is it really that bad?" he asked seriously, smoothing out Mirai's hair for him with gentle fingers.
"I don't know... It's just that, and now this, and well, I guess, I'm...kind of tired" Mirai said softly. He could see in Gohan's eyes that he wasn't ready to give up, didn't want to 'leave', and Mirai didn't either. But he just didn't know what was going to happen from here on out. Both of them looked over to their sergeants at the same time, and both sergeants looked away from watching them when they did. Taka blushed, and Roane crossed his arms over his chest. They'd let go of each other's hands already, and it was a shame.
"You know what, screw this" Gohan let go of Mirai and moved over to Roane, who raised an eyebrow at his approach. Gohan didn't give him a chance to say anything though, and put his hand on the back of Roane's neck, forcing him to go along with him on a little walk to the other end of the trench. Mirai's eyes were wide, but he didn't laugh at the display, instead turning to Taka, who was equally as dumbfounded by the gesture.
"Why don't we give them some privacy for a few minutes..." Mirai said, nodding with his head for Taka to walk with him in the opposite direction. The blonde hesitated, looking after Roane and Gohan again, and Mirai decided to help him make his decision more quickly.
"Under your power or mine" he said matter of factly, letting Taka know he really didn't have a choice. As they set off, Mirai realized their anti-tank trench really did look like it was in the middle of a war zone with all the debris they had to step over. Taka didn't look particularly ready to talk, so Mirai thought about how best to get this going for a moment as they walked.
Heading the opposite direction, Gohan could feel the tension and fight in Roane's body as he pulled him along, though the man said nothing the entire time. It wasn't until they reached the spot where the digging had stopped that Roane opened his mouth.
"You know, you've got a lot of-"
"Shut up" Gohan said decisively, pointing his finger in Roane's face, making a surprised expression fly over it. "Let's put aside all the games and contracts and who employs who for a minute here. Talk to me, Roane. Why have things gotten this far?" Gohan asked him pointedly, standing back and waiting for an answer. Roane's face softened a bit, but not nearly enough.
"Is this the part where you tell me you know exactly what I'm going through?" he asked, sighing non cooperatively.
"No. Are you kidding? Just because we both love a person who happens to be a man, doesn't mean our experiences were at all similar" Gohan said, "In fact, I can guarantee they weren't."
"So how are you supposed to help then?" Roane snorted and seemed a bit defensive... Gohan gave him a flat look, and sighed.
"Do you love him? I mean, there's no point in me pushing you through this if you're already done" he retorted, speaking to the issue instead of Roane's posturing. That got his sergeant's attention. Gohan let him think quietly for a few minutes, and Roane glanced at him every so often, like he was on the verge of speaking but just couldn't bring himself to yet. When he finally did, it was in a frustrated cry that erupted from his throat.
"Yes, ok, yes I love him! It started out just being head over heels and all that, but then I really fell for him, Gohan... And now... It hurts so bad... Shit, I don't think he even gives a fuck anymore. If he did love me before, he doesn't now" Roane made a disgruntled noise, his face heating up and an embarrassed blush giving away his discomfort with talking about the subject.
"How do you know that?" Gohan asked, pressing him a little.
"I just...do. He doesn't act like he loves me anymore, like he even cares at all" Roane sounded completely dejected. Oh god, he didn't feel loved? Could it really be that simple?... It was obvious to Gohan that Taka was at his wits end, and incredibly hurt by Roane's actions, but Taka wouldn't be hurt if he didn't care.
"Uh, ok, I know this is going to sound incredibly sappy, but just bare with me for a moment... Have you ever heard about these things called love languages, Roane?..."
Taka tapped his foot in irritation, looking at the field of wreckage like it had personally offended him.
"Look, let's cut to the chase here," Mirai said, having made up his mind, "Have you realized yet what this is about?"
"What?" Taka looked at him like he'd lost his mind.
"I mean, are you just mad at him all the time, or have you realized the root of why already?" Mirai extrapolated. No longer feeling embarrassed or like he had a place to mind, Mirai was able to easily spot quite a few issues and mistakes on the walk over, and he was going to use all of it that he could to get through to Taka. A long sigh came from the blonde, but it took him a moment to speak.
"I know why..." he said sullenly, "You think because your relationship's so perfect, that it makes you qualified to give advice?" When he registered what Taka was saying, Mirai just chuckled.
"It's not perfect. But it's damn close. And the reason it is, is because we've both been swallowing our pride and making it work for longer than you've been alive, sonny" Mirai added the moniker for extra emphasis. Taka quirked an eyebrow at him.
"Look, don't give me that crap about it not being possible, we already told you, our fathers aren't human. For the record they don't look any older than we do, but that's beside the point. What I want to know is if you've told him what the root of your irritation is already."
"Yeah..." Taka said right away, but then he hesitated. "Well, I mean, mostly..."
Mirai took a turn to raise an eyebrow at Taka.
"I don't know how he could not understand from our arguments that I don't want to be his bitch" Taka said bluntly. It was a valid point.
"The problem when people get worked up though, is that things get muddled, you aren't thinking clearly... You need to tell him exactly, word for word how you feel. Maybe, uh, tone it down a little so it's not so inflammatory, but you get the picture" Mirai told him.
"And if I do that, we'll live happily ever after?" Taka said, more than a little edge of sarcasm in his voice.
"No, if you're able to do that, you'll live a life filled with difficult conversations. The part they don't tell you when you're young is, that you're going to anyway. It's just that if you do it of your own accord, you get a chance at not having to do it alone."
Taka really seemed to take in his words, at least, his shoulders relaxed and he rubbed his face with his hands.
"You know, you should have been a poet or something" he said with a sigh, giving Mirai a look that had just the smallest amount of tease in it.
"Hey, I've been through enough shit that I could have been, I'm certainly qualified" Mirai grinned.
"Oh yeah? I didn't realize the CEO life was so harrowing" Taka snorted, both of them smiling now.
"Well, that's just a recent thing, only in the last decade or so... My childhood was, well, we'll just say pretty fucked up. Warn torn country, people I loved getting killed left and right, being a child soldier, all that...then after the fighting was finally over, my mom died just a few years later from lung cancer... I mean, that was all a long, long time ago, I'm not asking for pity or anything, I'm just saying, it's quite a bit of perspective to carry around with you" Mirai was quick to add, realizing how such a casual summary of his life story sounded to other people.
"Wow... And you seem like such a nice guy, so normal" Taka said, half joking, half serious. Mirai just couldn't help it. He looked away and up at the sky.
"Well, I wouldn't say nice... I have my moments... I was separated from Gohan for a long time, for what we thought was permanent. When I did end up coming back, he was married..." Mirai looked at Taka out of the corner of his eye.
"Married? No fucking way..." Taka was shocked.
"Yes fucking way... And I broke that shit up" Mirai said, a gleam in his eye that said he had no regrets. Taka's eyes widened, and a grin crept across his face. He slowly began shaking his head from side to side, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"And what about Gohan?" he asked, quite curious now.
"Gohan? Gohan is a nice guy. He's a fucking super hero."
Taka chuckled and nodded, going quiet for a moment.
"Roane... he's a nice guy too" he said after a moment, almost to himself, but Mirai felt like answering him.
"Yeah, he really is."
"The kind of guy that's worth putting up a fight over... Even if it's just against myself" Taka seemed to conclude.
"Well, you shouldn't ever change for someone" Mirai interjected, "But if you're changing with them, then it's ok."
"Right... I'll keep that in mind..." Taka trailed off, his eyes focused on something behind Mirai. Feeling with his ki before he even turned around, he could tell Gohan and Roane were approaching them. The conversation seemed to be at a good stopping point anyway.
Obviously there was more going on between Roane and Taka than Roane just not feeling like Taka loved him. Having hit on it though, it was easier for Gohan to see now why Roane had been reacting the way he was. This had escalated quickly over things that probably started out minor, but neither of them handled correctly.
"I've never done this before..." Roane admitted to him, after their brief introduction to the different ways people express love. Gohan nodded and squeezed Roane's shoulder, making the red head sigh.
"I've wanted to be in a relationship, I mean, who doesn't want to be loved? I just, was never in the right place, at the right time it seemed... And then I met Taka, and suddenly I didn't care. I was leaving that island in only a few weeks, going back to the middle of nowhere, and I didn't care about timing or how difficult it would be" Roane was sitting on a chunk of debris, holding his head in his hands and pulling at his hair in frustration. Gohan was reminded of how young Roane really was in that moment, but he didn't say anything.
"How am I supposed to find out what his love language thing is without sounding like a complete sentimental moron?" he sighed. They had already established, through Gohan's observations, and a little introspection from Roane, that his was 'acts of service'.
"Now don't be mad" Gohan said as a preface, earning himself a questionable look from Roane. "Hey! I said don't be mad" he reiterated, and Roane rolled his eyes and dropped the look.
"I actually have a pretty good idea of what his is, but not because I know him well at all like that, it's just because I'm pretty sure it's the same as mine, which is physical touch" Gohan said quickly, pretty confident in his guess but not wanting to upset Roane by knowing something about his boyfriend that he didn't. Roane took a deep breath, and let it out slowly as he measured Gohan evenly with his gaze.
"You think so?... You might be right..." he admitted, thinking back to his interactions with Taka.
"I don't think I ever saw him looking more content than when your arm was over his shoulders" Gohan pointed out, "Though, while you're working this out, I'd advise against going too strong on the physical stuff, just because it can be misconstrued sometimes, you know" Gohan wanted to give these two as much of a chance as possible. He really wanted to see Roane happy, and Taka did it for him, they just needed to get back on the same page.
Roane nodded, knowing what Gohan meant, and replayed a lot of their arguments, as well as successful communications in his head too. It was like he could see the self destructive loop of himself getting offended over Taka not wanting to help him out, and then himself withdrawing physically from Taka a little more and a little more each time, as clear as day now.
"Uugh, I'm such an idiot" Roane muttered to himself.
"You're not an idiot, just young" Gohan said, chuckling. Roane gave him another 'look', but it was not of the same caliber of his previous ones. He sat up a bit, no longer holding his head, and looked around as if evaluating everything anew.
"Do you mind if I ask, what's Mirai's?"
"That's fine" Gohan said, smiling to think of his amazing lover, "It's quality time."
"How is that different from acts of service?" Roane seemed a bit confused.
"Well, an act of service can be something the person you love has done without you, like, baked you a cake, or done a load of laundry for you. But quality time, it's just being with each other, spending time together, you don't even really have to do anything" Gohan explained.
"Seems like your two go pretty good together" Roane commented.
"Yeah, it has made some things easier over the years, but not everything... Like this boot camp thing" Gohan smiled to himself.
"What do you mean, this falls under easier, or harder?" Roane asked.
"Both. For Mirai, I mean, this is all one long quality time bonding session. For me though, it's a lot harder not getting all the little touches I normally would throughout the day... But, he makes it up to me, so it's ok" Gohan winked.
"I'm not sure I needed to know that" Roane said with a grin.
"I think you kind of already did, the walls in that hotel room weren't exactly very thick" Gohan grinned right back. Both of them chuckled a little bit, and the dwindle into silence afterward wasn't forced, just relaxed. Gohan had one more thing he wanted to make sure they talked about though.
"So, you do realize though, it's going to be more difficult for you with your language, to make sure that Taka doesn't feel like you're trying to subordinate him, when all you're really wanting is to feel loved."
"Yeah, I thought about that... I guess... I'll just have to tell him. I can't see any other way around it, and I sure as hell don't want any other messes like this to happen again."
"Oh, they will" Gohan made sure he understood that deciphering this love language thing wasn't a panacea, "But if you're paying attention and building up a good foundation of love and trust and all that, then when the issues do come, like you accidentally make derogatory remarks about them in your anger at someone else, then there's a much better chance of them forgiving you."
Gohan stopped a little ways back from Taka and Mirai, holding Roane as well with a glance, until Mirai turned around. He could tell they had still been talking, but he didn't want to interrupt if there was anything important left to say. He figured Mirai would turn around once they were ready. It was almost immediately that he did, so things must have wound down with them too. They walked toward each other, and as if by silent agreement, Gohan and Mirai both kind of moved away to give them space.
Gohan was delighted, and he was fairly sure the blonde himself was too, to see Roane gently reach up to cup Taka's cheek. Taka closed his eyes, as if unable to believe this was happening, and when he opened them again, Roane immediately said, "I'm sorry" and stroked his thumb over Taka's skin.
"For?" Taka asked, looking nervous.
"For making you think I didn't see you as an equal" Roane said softly, but without hesitation, "I do, and you are" he added, but that seemed to be as far as he'd thought ahead. Taka certainly didn't seem to mind. He had a small smile on his face now, and his eyes closed again as he leaned slightly into Roane's touch.
"I forgive you. And I'm sorry too...I could have handled it a lot differently" he admitted.
Gohan and Mirai left earshot just about then, deciding their sergeants were going to be fine, and heading back towards what was left of the base.