About an hour and a half after the tornado passed, Gohan and Mirai were kicking around the scrap heap that was left of the gravity chamber. At least the mess hall and the barracks were still left standing, virtually untouched even. Very little else was though, the damage ranging from a missing roof on the supply room, to complete annihilation of the barber shop. Most of the buildings that were gone had been superfluous to their use of the base, but the field of destruction was made infinitely more stilling by it. Mirai could see the path that had been cut, just catching the structure that housed the gravity rooms and then cutting a swath through the unused part of the encampment.
Actually, it probably would have been worse if they'd been on the base at the time.
Roane and Taka were finally making their way over to them at that point as well, and the level of danger they had all been in (or well, mostly just them as humans) was beginning to sink in. Their hands were clasped back together though, so Gohan and Mirai took that as a good sign. Roane stopped next to them and bent down to pick up a piece of display screen, still attached to some random wires and components, looking at it almost fondly.
"So what does 'SSJ' stand for anyway?" he asked, as if to break the heavy mood that was settling over them.
"What?" Gohan looked at him with a frown, wondering how he'd ever come across those initials.
"It was in the programming, base settings and stuff... I saw it while I was putting around one day" he explained, letting the piece of junk fall back down to the ground.
"Oh, well, it's the abbreviation for 'super saiyan', but in my dad's native language... Uh, it's a long story" Mirai sighed, rubbing his forehead.
"What's a super saiyan? If you don't mind me asking... Looks like we've got a while anyway" Taka said, surveying the damage in a glance and then bringing his gaze back to Mirai.
"The blonde thing I do, it's, like powering up to a new level" he tried to explain concisely.
"And there are four of them?" Roane asked and added, "Levels, I mean, according to the programming anyway, right?"
"Four? She made it go up to Four?" Gohan said in disbelief, turning to look at Mirai, "She's trying to kills us."
"Well, she was kind of pissed that we were leaving in the first place..." Mirai commented, shaking his head in disbelief as well.
"Why, what's wrong with Level Four?..." Roane asked, sounding hesitant. It was an unusual thing to hear in their sergeants' voice.
"Well, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just, that's like, crazy, insanely strong..." Gohan missed the small smile on Roane's face after he said that, because he was covering his own with his hands. Mirai saw the smile though, and squinted at him suspiciously.
"I think you boys don't give yourselves enough credit" Roane said casually, "Because you've been working under Level Four for a while now...at least, what?, a month or so?" Roane turned to Taka as if to confirm the setting.
"Yeah, you actually were going to run out of juice on the thing pretty soon, as far as us being able to keep increasing it steadily on you" Taka grinned, seeing how pale Gohan and Mirai looked as they took this all in.
Without any verbal agreement, just looking at each other briefly, both of them began to power up. Roane and Taka staggered back a step or two as it intensified, and the two demi saiyans rose to the air automatically, to keep them from being blown away in a moment. They kept their eyes on each other, but Gohan could see out of the corner of his eye that their sergeants had left to take cover by one of the still standing buildings. Good.
Dirt and debris began being forced back by the power of their combined ki, creating a wind that was just as strong as the storm's had been. Gohan, having been privilege to the ways of the Kai's, no longer needed the transformation to achieve those levels of power, but he watched as Mirai surged through them. All he could think was, beautiful. When he finally reached it, Gohan was strangely turned on by Mirai's version of super saiyan four, though his most prominent feeling was one of contentment that he was still just the slightest bit stronger than his blue eyed lover.
The last time he remembered power feeling this good, was when Cell had first fallen to him. With a deep breath, Gohan tested the upper boundaries of his limits, and then let them fall back away, down to normal. Mirai didn't follow him right away though, looking at him with his tail twitching back and forth for a moment in the air. He advanced on Gohan slowly, hovering just in front of him for a moment before finally powering down. Gohan grabbed him around the waist as soon as he did and pulled him close.
"Show off" Gohan growled in his ear, his voice still thick with power. Mirai gave him a peck on the lips and a wink, but didn't take it any farther than that. They did have an audience after all.
If only they'd known just how much of an audience that little move had just gotten them.
Back on the ground, Gohan decided a hug was in order for Roane. The man gave a small huff, but was clearly not as annoyed as he pretended, patting him on the back as Gohan thanked him. Mirai and Taka just shook hands for now, grinning at the sentimental lugs they called theirs.
And that's when Mirai heard a voice behind them that he recognized all too well.
"Heeeeey, uh, sorry guys, but I need to borrow you for a minute..."
Mirai felt the palm on the flat of his back at the same time, and there was no time to let go of Taka, they were all just suddenly standing in a strange room, and he could hear his father arguing loudly with someone off to the side in a language he didn't understand.
Well, fuck.
Since their fathers were still supposedly off gallivanting around the other side of the galaxy right now, Mirai had a pretty strong feeling that that's where they were now too. Taka looked disoriented, but Mirai knew it would change to shock soon.
"Where did you just take us, Dad?" Gohan was asking, having let go of Roane.
"Just stick together, we'll all be fine" Mirai said in a quieter voice, directing it at Taka, who nodded slowly.
"Oh, we're on the planet I told you about before, the one with the fruit that tastes like meat" Goku started talking away, scratching the back of his head while he watched Vegeta fight with the other guy. He went on to mention it was the sort of hastily designated base of operations for the battle they were still fighting.
"Right... So, why did you need to 'borrow' us?" Gohan had a feeling he knew what was coming, but hoped for Roane and Taka's sakes, that things weren't too serious...yeah...
"Ah, it turns out the home planet of the army we've been trying to track down is a lot stronger than we thought!" Goku's eyes practically shimmered.
"They're god damn cyborgs, that's what, only the modifications they've made to themselves are all out of katchin. So on top of being impossible to detect, they're virtually impervious too" Vegeta's surly voice suddenly spoke up from behind him. Whoever he'd been arguing with, probably the leader of some planet or maybe a god or something, had backed down and was looking kind of pale, and giving other people orders now.
"How the fuck did you get so strong?" was the next thing out of his mouth, eyeing the two of them with hostility.
"Uh, gravity chamber, and these guys' helping to keep us in line" Mirai tilted his head in Roane and Taka's directions.
"Hn. I could have kept your ass in line just fine all those years... Did you modify the chamber?" Vegeta asked, showing an untypical amount of interest in Mirai, but a typical amount in how he'd gained his current strength.
"Yeah, Gohan and Bulma did, kind of an experimental thing, after you guys left" he made sure to add, not wanting to get her in trouble for not having offered the technology to her husband.
"I'll have a talk with the woman about it when we get back then" Vegeta said tersely, turning to the moment at hand again and pulling up a hollow projection of the enemy's encampment.
"Oh, by the way guys, this is my dad, Vegeta, and that's Goku, Gohan's father" Mirai motioned to them for their sergeants' benefit. Goku immediately started shaking hands, but Vegeta just kept on like Mirai hadn't even spoken.
"The main problem is that none of these weaklings we allied ourselves with can produce ki blasts strong enough to get through katchin armor..."
It was a long debriefing, considering the scope of their nearly two year entanglement with these things. Discovering the nature of their scouts, then trying to locate them, the trip there since they couldn't be I.T.'d to, organizing the other planets that wanted to help, most of which feared for their lives that this would be their only chance to stop the invaders, had all taken large amounts of time. Frankly, Mirai was surprised Goku and Vegeta hadn't killed each other yet, stuck with each other for so long. Mirai heard something about a Kai or two being in on it, the resistance, and he absently wondered why those guys couldn't ever seem to see these things before they became a problem.
"So it all comes down to timing. If we can get a good, piercing shot to the heart of the complex, it'll shut down power to the whole apparatus" Vegeta finished delivering the information with as much of a scowl as when he started. Apparently, one of the properties of katchin that made it the hardest metal in the universe, was that it actually absorbed energy on a low level over time. So any machine made out of it was at an automatic disadvantage, power wise. It was probably the only thing that had stopped them from completely taking over the universe at this point.
Mirai sighed when the 'presentation' was done.
"So, you need us to take care of the physical cyborg defenses, while Goku crashes the sensor array with his instant transmission, so you can strike the blow?" he cut to the heart of what he assumed his father's plan would be.
"Exactly" Vegeta glanced at Mirai out of the corner of his eye with approval, "Kakarot couldn't stay in place long enough to take care of the pests without the automated laser cannons striking him."
"Sorry Vegeta" Goku apologized, rubbing the back of his head. "Those things really hurt! Watch out you guys, we don't have any more senzu beans left" he warned them. Gohan rubbed his temples, and he could feel Mirai patting him on the shoulder. Leave it to his dad to not go for help until all the senzu were gone.
There was a saying Mirai had heard once, something about the best laid plans... And this plan was not even laid with particular care, just sort of decided on by default because no one was going to argue with Vegeta, and he wanted this over with already. So when things took an unexpected turn in the battle, he was hardly surprised.
Being military men themselves, and pretty fascinated by the whole thing, Roane and Taka had elected to stay, watching from the base while the four of them headed out. Mirai couldn't help but hear one of Roane's first lessons to them, about sticking together, ringing in his head as they fought, mostly because he knew there was little chance of them all doing that here. He wasn't afraid though. The metallic crunch that accompanied the chest of each cyborg being blown through by his ki blasts was strangely satisfying to him. Well, maybe not so strangely.
Goku was keeping the mass of lasers firing off into the empty space where he used to be every couple nanoseconds, and the rest of them were plowing through the surprisingly nimble ranks of the aggressive machines, when the game changed. The complex they'd been aiming to make their way towards suddenly began folding in on itself, and Mirai knew they were in trouble.
They kept fighting even as a contraption that would have dwarfed an orbiting satellite, like the moon, rose up out of the center of the planet. Suddenly the lasers stopped firing, and the array pulled in on itself too, obviously about to become part of the new problem. When the lasers stopped, apparently Goku stopped moving too, and when he turned to Vegeta for guidance on what to do now, a large whole suddenly appeared in the side of his chest. Every one of them sprung into action at once, which was to say away from where they had just been, and it was a good thing too, or there would have been no one left fighting at all.
Now...now Mirai was feeling that first stab of fear. Goku didn't look like he was quite dead, but he was on the ground, and not moving much...he probably would be soon, without any help. None of them could stay in one place long enough to regroup though, or else they'd be missing chunks of their chests too. Who the hell goes into battle without any kind of back up plan? Apparently saiyans, that's who. Mirai could imagine what Gohan was going through right now, unable to help his father who was basically bleeding out while unconscious, but he fought to stay focused.
The machines certainly knew what they were doing. Goku was basically like bait right now, with any of them flying down to him walking into the trap. As Mirai flew and blasted random cyborgs and implements of the larger mega-cyborg, he kept a close bead on all of their ki's. Goku's to see if he could still cling to life, his own father's to make sure he hadn't been hit or injured, and Gohan's to make sure he wasn't doing anything heroic.
Suddenly Mirai could hear his father's voice in his head, and while he knew the man wasn't telepathic, he remembered they did have people on their side who were.
"Listen up brats! We've got to get this thing taken out in the next 30 seconds or so, before Kakarot kicks the bucket, or I'll have that harpy of a wife of his on my ass for the rest of eternity about letting him die" Vegeta shouted at them. He really needn't have, because of the direct connection, but you know, it was the heat of battle, and it was Vegeta, after all.
"Do you have a new plan? I lost track of where the power center went in the commotion" Mirai confessed.
"It's just below center, under that large, extra thick plating" they could hear Gohan's voice coming in on the conversation too.
"Of course it is" Vegeta said sarcastically, though they weren't really sure if he was meaning the tone towards Gohan, or the machines for putting it in such a heavily protected place...it didn't really matter at that point.
"Clear me a path on 3" Vegeta commanded, and they both immediately changed course to provide the cover he needed.
"One..."
Gohan fired a large swath of ki, angled not at the plate but so that it hit an arm and cleared a little over half the field between Vegeta's projected position and the target.
"Two..."
Mirai cleared the rest of his path, aiming for one of the support columns as his ruse.
"Three!"
Mirai looked over to his father as the shot was about to be fired, and a couple things all happened at once. Something that looked vaguely like a metal spider was about to shoot Vegeta with one of the death dealing lasers made mobile, and the machine's calculations must have caught up to what they were trying to accomplish, because every cyborg left on the field was suddenly rushing to get in between them and their target. Being all connected in their minds still, Mirai could feel his father's frustration, knowing he'd not get the ki blast off in time, but he was still of course going to try.
He was going to die.
There was a time when one of Mirai's chief goals in life was to save this man, but now...he turned and levied his own blast at the contraption while he still had a chance at the shot. Just before he heard the gut wrenching sear of the laser melting through his father's body, he got a flash in his mind that wasn't brought up by his own brain. /Blue hair...a little girls' pink hair in pony tails...twin sons who could never do anything right.../ Then blackness. Tears slid down Mirai's face and he put even more power into his shot as white hot ki laced with the pride of an entire race, and the acceptance of one man, poured through him.
Even Gohan seemed taken aback by the size of the hole left clean through the metal.
From Mirai's point of view, he could see daylight through the other side, but his vision quickly narrowed to the body falling out of the sky next to him. Grabbing what was left of his father, he saw Gohan heading for Goku as well. A grinding sound that was loud enough to start shattering glass with the magnitude of it's volume, was emanating from the machine. The smaller cyborgs all froze in the air, their controlling connection having been severed. The sounds of it all falling chased them as they fled the explosions that ripped through the air.
Goku was still clinging to life in Gohan's arms, but it had been instant death for Vegeta. Not that he couldn't be brought back eventually...but having seen what he saw right before had left Mirai just as emotional as if Vegeta hadn't been going to come back. Not that he could ever say anything. In fact, if he wanted to keep living himself once Vegeta was back, he'd better not ever say anything. But the damage had already been done, as they say, to Vegeta and Mirai's relationship.
A ride with the Supreme Kai later, and they were all back at the planet where they'd left Roane and Taka. Goku was able to be healed by the purple Kai, though he still felt drained afterward. It was decided they'd rest here, and then head over to Namek in the morning, so they could bring back Vegeta. It was actually decided by Gohan, but Goku seemed fine to go along with it.
Gohan kept a close watch on Mirai while they cleaned up and showered. Since he had seen the same thing as Mirai when Vegeta died, he knew it wasn't unpleasant emotions he was dealing with, but he wanted to stay close all the same. He kept his hand on the small of Mirai's back through most of their shower, but there was nothing sexual about it though, for probably the first time ever. It wasn't until after they were out that they kissed for a while, and then they decided to go check on Roane and Taka, since they probably shouldn't be left alone for too long on an unknown planet.
As they went to go look for them, Gohan could feel Mirai's mood shift.
"Are you ok?" he asked, seeing the nervousness settle over him.
"It's just... We left our fathers to die right in front of them, I mean, they were watching the battle... What if they've got the wrong idea?" Mirai said, concern twisting his features.
"Then we'll explain what happened, and how our fathers are, all that...but really, I don't think you need to worry babe. We hired Roane because he's the real deal, remember? He's seen war, even if on a smaller scale. I think it'll be alright" Gohan assured him.
Mirai needn't have worried.
While the entire experience was a bit overwhelming to the two Earthlings, the first thing Roane did when they found them was praise Mirai's performance. Apparently the Supreme Kai had already introduced himself to them earlier, and so they knew Vegeta was going to be coming back, as fantastical as it sounded. From there on out, his and Taka's main questions all had to do with how often this kind of stuff actually happens.
"Unfortunately, with surprising regularity" Gohan sighed.
"Is this the kind of stuff you meant when you said you fought in wars as a kid?" Taka asked, because to the best of his knowledge, there were no major wars being fought around 50 years ago on Earth.
"Yeah, pretty much" Mirai smiled. Someday they might enlighten their friends as to the realities of the space time continuum and all that, but for now, they were already trying to process enough as it was.
The Namekians were as friendly and willing to help their old friends out as ever, and Vegeta was back amongst the living in no time that next day. After saying their thanks and farewells there, Goku took them all back to the exact spot he'd taken the boys from when he 'borrowed' them initially. Even though Vegeta made a "tch" noise at the delay, he seemed approving of the state he found the base in.
"Well, at least we can see you boys were finally taking your training seriously" he commented. Then apparently he decided he'd rather just fly home than have to let Goku touch his shoulder again, because he took off into the skies muttering for "Kakarot" to just leave him the fuck alone already.
Mirai didn't bother to call out a 'bye'.
Since they didn't have anything readily available to eat, Goku I.T.'d away a few moments later, waving happily.
With both of them gone, the four men dressed in camouflage were left standing around looking at each other, and then back to the wreckage.
Gohan sighed, thinking of all the work they would have to do to clean this up, "Leave it to Vegeta to think the path of a tornado was 'proper training'..."
Eventually, after a few weeks or so, they managed to clear away all the debris. Since it would be quite a while before the new gravity chamber was built and ready anyway, they did it all by hand, to sort of make up for their lightened load. Gohan wasn't sure if it was because of the tornado, or the talk, or having to spend the night as the only humans on a strange alien space station on the other side of the universe, but Roane and Taka were getting along much, much better now. They even got caught making out one time when they were supposed to be on duty.
"Does this mean we get a free pass on a make out session too?" Gohan asked wryly, noticing the silence was due to their instructors going at it. Roane, actually, neither of them looked embarrassed, and Gohan was just smiled at.
"No" Roane said curtly, "Get back to digging."
Then after another month or so had passed, it was suddenly time for Gohan and Mirai to have "the talk"... Neither could believe it had snuck up on them like this, that they were getting so close to the end of their contracted term with Roane, and now Taka. The two of them had agreed in the beginning to discuss whether or not they would want to do this again before the end of the two years was up. With only a couple weeks left until that date, the two of them spent most of their next free day talking about it.
Staying mostly lounging on each other's beds, and only leaving to put through laundry and eat, they hashed out a plan. Even though there had been that moment where Mirai thought it was looking like ending their little experiment might be a good idea, he really was excited by the prospect of signing up for another term. Under the right conditions though.
There were definitely a few things that he would want to augment. Or rather, there were gray areas where they'd felt compelled to give Roane the benefit of the doubt, but that Mirai would like clarified for the future. Like longer times to shower. That was high on his list. Gohan's probably single biggest wish was for a greater variety of spices in the food. It was all cooked by robots ahead of time anyway, and he knew for a fact that they had different settings. They'd been doing all the cooking at the Briefs' residence since before Gohan could remember, probably since before Bulma could either. Despite her love of sweets, Mrs. Briefs, her mother, had never learned how to use an oven.
"What about the waking us up in the middle of the night thing?" Gohan suggested, nuzzling Mirai's neck.
"Well, I'm pretty sure that serves an actual 'conditioning' type purpose..."
"Yeah, I know... I guess we can live with it..."
They were also hesitant to ask for any more time off on a weekly basis, since going too far in that direction would be counter productive. They did decide to make the little vacation they'd taken a new, officially scheduled event though, with a budget and everything. They were pretty sure Roane and Taka would agree to that. It turned out the list of things they truly wanted was pretty small.
Mirai wasn't going to be naïve about this though, this, was kind of his specialty. Negotiating.
Since it only took them the one day to determine that they both wanted this, and what exactly they wanted to change, they went to Roane and Taka on the next weekend. So they would still have another week of being under their thumbs after this, no matter what. Even though their sergeants were obviously doing much better in their personal lives, that didn't necessarily mean they would want to do this again, to tie down that large of a chunk of their futures. They might want to go off and live a more normal life together now, who knew... Gohan and Mirai wouldn't know unless they asked.
When they walked up to the door of Roane's room, they took a deep breath, and then Mirai knocked on it firmly. They hadn't really thought to think they might be 'interrupting' something until they heard a crash and a loud curse from the other side... Well, it wasn't like they could call ahead, they didn't have cell phones and the ones on base to call from building to building had never been turned on. A few seconds later, Taka opened the door, and they were both happy to see he was fully clothed.
"Hey, what's up?" he asked casually, inviting them in. Behind him, Roane was still pulling on a shirt though, and by the smell of it, things had indeed been 'going on' before this...
"Uh, well, we didn't mean to interrupt, but we kind of needed to talk to you guys today" Mirai said, not making a move forward. He'd much rather have this conversation in a room that didn't seek of sex, if it could be worked out.
"Nah, it's ok, we were already done. Roane's just getting old, so it takes him a little longer to get dressed" Taka said with a grin.
"Hey, fuck you Sasaki" Roane fired back at him, copying his habit of calling people by their last names when he was pissed, though in this instance it was more like aggressive teasing... Gohan doubted there were very many people whose love language was 'words of affirmation' in the military.
"I don't think we really needed to know all that" Mirai fake-sighed as if they were put out by this, though he was just playing himself. Roane laughed.
"I think you probably already did" he chuckled, giving Gohan a wink. He had to join him in a grin for the little inside joke there, but Gohan did try and bring things back around to their actual topic too.
"Maybe you guys could meet us over in the mess hall in about 20 minutes?" Gohan suggested. Roane nodded, but Taka spoke up.
"If you want us to shower first, better make it 30 minutes" he added.
"Fine, 30 minutes it is then" Mirai laughed and took the doorknob on their side, pulling it closed. He was glad for the getting along and the lightheartedness, but this was going to be a serious business conversation after all, one should be showered for it.
After the door shut, Taka grinned and started stripping down to his boxers again, to make the showering faster of course. Roane stood there for a moment, with a thoughtful look on his face.
"He wants something" he said almost to himself. Taka looked over at him, stopping what he was doing.
"...What do you think he wants?" he asked, not refuting the claim at all.
"Oh, It could be any number of things...but with the timing, I'd say it has to do with our futures here" Roane guessed, finally sort of snapping out of it and beginning to get ready to shower as well.
"How can you tell?" Taka asked him, since he was normally pretty good at reading people himself.
"I guess the way they were knocking at my door, it kind of reminded me of the first time I met them. Then with Gohan standing just a little ways behind him like that, the posture... That was Mirai in "Mr. President" mode, I'd bet you anything" Roane broke it down for him.
"Hm, I guess we're having this conversation sooner rather than later after all... Good thing we already know what we want, huh?" Taka said sweetly, giving Roane a kiss before they headed out to the showers.
"Yeah, good thing" he grinned back, taking Taka's hand while they walked.
Mirai and Gohan were already waiting when their sergeants got there. Taking the initiative, since it was their last weekend after all, Gohan had set the robots to make them some pies and cakes while they waited. No harm in that. It wasn't like these things should be discussed on empty stomachs anyway. The desserts weren't actually done when their instructors got there, but the smell was already beginning to waft through the dining area.
Roane raised an eyebrow, but Gohan just crossed his arms and dared him to say something. It was their day off after all, and there was technically nothing in the rules about it. Roane shook his head in amusement and didn't end up saying a word.
"Is this a party? I told you we should have brought wine" Taka elbowed Roane in the side, making Mirai laugh.
"No, it's not a party, Gohan's just missing my grandmother's cooking right now" he said with a chuckle, making Gohan grin as well.
"Come have a seat, the robots will automatically serve it up when it's done" he motioned for them to join them at the cafeteria style table. Both Roane and Taka sat down, and Mirai didn't see any point in waiting to address the main issue.
"I'll cut to the chase here guys, Gohan and I would like to ask you to stay on for another term. What would you say to the 'general' idea of that?" he added, indicating that exact terms and conditions were all on the table. Roane put his arm around Taka, taking a rather laid back pose.
"We'd like that" he said confidently, and both Gohan and Mirai smiled, feeling a sense of relief wash over them, "But, there'd have to be a couple of changes" Roane followed up with, making Gohan raise an eyebrow.
"You want changes?" he asked incredulously, not realizing how it sounded until it was out of his mouth. Both Roane and Taka got a good laugh from that, and Gohan had to roll his eyes and admit that it had been kind of funny.
"Alright, alright, what are your grievances, boys?" Roane said, willing to get down to business.
"Well, for starters, we'd like assurances that our day off will be a full 24 hrs, midnight to midnight each time, none of that being kept up until dawn the night before business" Mirai opened with.
"Hm, starting with the big guns, eh?" Roane leaned forward a little, and moved to rest his elbows on the table. "I'm not sure I can agree to that, it's bad enough you actually get 'a day off' to begin with" he said, pointing out that in the military, Saturday's didn't mean shit. That was not the direction Mirai and Gohan were hoping to go with this.
"What are some of the things you guys want?" Mirai asked, carefully letting the previous issue go unresolved for now.
"Well, for our own piece of mind, we'd like for you to put one of us officially 'in charge' of the base" Taka said, surprising both of them, "Preferably me" he added with a wink.
"Him, first" Roane clarified, pushing his shoulder a little. "If it's going to be a full two year term again, we were thinking it could alternate, by quarters or halves of a year or something. That way we'd each feel like we got our time in the sun" he explained. That was not something Gohan or Mirai had been expecting. It made sense though, and it made sense for their instructors looking at this as a couple. It made Gohan happy to see them thinking that way, and Mirai had a gleam in his eye too.
"I think, that if you're going to be so assured of your positions of authority, we should be assured of better tasting food, with regularity" Mirai offered to trade across the board.
"I don't know, diet is extremely important for staying in top shape" Roane actually seemed to be seriously objecting to that.
"Oh my god, the food here sucks" Taka said with feeling. Roane seemed a bit shocked. Gohan just grinned and nodded.
"I wasn't going to gripe too much, because you all seemed to be so into it, but wow, even a little salt now and then, it wouldn't kill us" Taka was totally jumping ship and siding with their privates. Roane wasn't going to admit he didn't normally eat quite this blandly on his own either though, and that 'plain' was just the only setting he felt ok with on the weird robot things that did the cooking...
"Well, if I was willing to budge on that, we'd still have a problem, because 'Southern Homestyle" and "Old World Italian" aren't happening, we'd have clogged arteries in a week" Roane exaggerated, just a little.
"I could reprogram a new setting, if that would help" Mirai offered, "that way we could set our own menu of healthy foods, but with a touch more salt, and spice, maybe even a dessert or two, on the weekends..." With the smell of chocolate cake and three different kinds of pie filling the air around them, Roane was bound to crack eventually. Mirai simply waited in silence, the others taking his cue, until finally Roane threw up his hands.
"Fine, fine, we can reprogram the robots for better food if we get our 'in charge' breakdown" he gave in, causing mild cheering to erupt around him. He tried to look more disgruntled about it than he was, for appearances' sake.
"Any other requests?" he sighed, but before they could get any further, plates of sugary confections began arriving in front of them.
"This was an amazing idea" Mirai sighed, taking a plate of each as they started piling up and squeezing Gohan's knee under the edge of the table.
"Thanks" Gohan grinned, and even Roane didn't look too upset over the large slice of cherry pie sitting in front of him. They took a few minutes to enjoy their snacks while they were hot, before requests started flying back and forth again.
"Higher thread count sheets" Mirai asked.
"Do our laundry for us" countered Roane.
"Fuck no" Gohan shot that deal down right away.
"Longer showers"
"Buy us a tank"
"What the fuck are you going to do with a tank?" Mirai sputtered.
"What couldn't we do with a tank, is a better question" Taka interjected. Mirai just looked at them with his mouth hanging open for a moment, because holy crap, they were actually serious.
"We can live with that" Gohan spoke up, making Mirai look at him in shock.
"You realize they're going to be shooting at us with that thing, right?" he asked.
"Yeah, but five extra minutes in the shower, every day, I think it's worth it" Gohan said with a tilt of his head, like the logic was undeniable. Besides, this was Mirai's one thing he really wanted, and Gohan wanted to make sure that he got it.
"Whoa, whoa, I never agreed to doubling your time for it" Roane said, and Mirai couldn't tell if he was kidding or not for a moment. Then Gohan spoke up again, and Roane and Mirai found that they had officially lost control of the situation.
"Make it 15 minutes, and I'll buy you two tanks" he said, pointing his finger at Taka, who was the one obviously more vested in this interest from his excited posture.
The blonde reached over and practically snatched Gohan's hand out of the air to shake it, saying "Deal" with a triumphant gleam in his eyes. After Mirai picked his jaw up off the table, he began to finish off the rest of his pie with a shake of his head. Gohan's method may have been a bit unorthodox, but he had just gotten them 15 glorious minutes under the hot water, and Mirai was actually quite happy, even if they were going to have to spruce up the artillery range now.
Roane was just chuckling at how pleased with himself Taka looked in that moment, not actually caring much for the extra shower time being given out. He and Taka didn't subject themselves to that particular rule, but he remembered it well from being in the service, and it sucked. Plus it had no real bearing on their fighting ability or endurance or anything, so he was ok with letting it slide.
"I'd be willing to consider your 24 hr day off request, if we make getting a break of at least two weeks mandatory in between the middle of the two years" Roane decided to be the first to offer the next one. Mirai smiled at the request, but he wasn't going to be greedy.
"Actually, we were going to mandate a break like that our selves, without it being part of the bargaining. I guess we were a little over zealous in the beginning, to think that we wouldn't need something like that in the first go around" Mirai informed him. Roane wasn't necessarily surprised to hear such honesty from Mirai, but it was a refreshing reminder of why these two guys had become his friends over the years, and not just remained as more formal 'business' acquaintances.
After that, none of them had anymore bargaining or requests, so they finished their desserts just talking and having a good time, with Mirai promising as they left to have his people draw up the new contracts right away.
Taka was ending up spending the night in Roane's room again afterward, as he often did, and as he lay there with his head on Roane's chest, he began to chuckle.
"What?" Roane asked sleepily, running his fingers through Taka's hair.
"I think we got played" he said, still chuckling. That woke Roane up a bit.
"What do you mean?" he frowned.
"I don't think they really wanted half that shit they asked for" Taka summarized for him.
Roane sighed, because there was nothing they could do about it now, but he realized Taka was probably right.
"Well, we can always take it out of their hides in other ways when the next term starts" he mused, "We will have tanks now..." causing Taka to laugh out right.
"I love you" the blonde murmured after settling down, letting his eyes finally fall closed.
"I love you too" Roane whispered back, trajectory calculations falling out of his head as he let himself slip down into sleep as well.
Epilogue (mini)
Gohan spooned behind Mirai that night, even though they expected their 'last week' to be especially tough starting tomorrow, he just couldn't not hold his lavender haired love tonight.
"Thank you for getting me the better food" he whispered, knowing Mirai was still awake.
"You're welcome. I'll thank you for the shower time too, though, I don't think we'll know until we actually get there if it was a good deal or not" Mirai teased him. Tanks. Of all the things...
"Mirai?..." Gohan said his name as a question after their chuckling had died down, "I have a confession to make" he said softly. His eyes opened upon hearing that, but Mirai didn't make any move to turn or leave Gohan's embrace.
"A confession? Ok, go ahead..." Mirai prompted him, wondering what on Earth it could be about.
"Well, it may sound kind of odd, but, when you had to watch over me for those demerits that one time" Gohan's voice got a little huskier as he breathed a hot breath down the back of Mirai's neck, "I kind of liked it..."
THE END