A/N: I wasn't entirely sure of how I felt about this but decided to post it regardless.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball Z or anything affiliated with it.

-MalRev

DEEP - SIX

11 - How To Get A Boyfriend

"What the hell was that?" I asked after a long silence.

Goku was still standing beside the bed with his hands on his hips, watching me intently for any signs of life. I'd fallen quiet after he rinsed the remains of his pill down the sink, grappling with my confusion and a vague sense of fear. What had I stumbled into? Bulma sounded completely different when she was talking to Goku outside. Even he seemed different—he had since the party.

He glanced over his shoulder at the small sink. "Nothing important."

"Then why would you tell me you're risking a lot for me?" I snapped, still flustered from our kiss. "Quit being so cryptic. If you don't tell me what it is, I'm never speaking to you again."

"I can't tell you, but you're smart. I'm sure you'll figure it out."

The dorms were still fairly busy and I could hear people milling around outside. Irritated, I slid off Goku's bed and headed for his door. I didn't have time for games. Everything Bulma had said wasn't making sense and sitting around with Goku was making it even worse. I needed to go back to my own room to figure out what was going on and put the pieces together. Clearly, I couldn't rely on anyone else.

Goku stepped in my path in one smooth motion. I tried to sidestep him a few times but there wasn't much room and he was a lot faster than me. People in the hallway laughed and chattered while I glared down the 6'1" mystery standing before me with his arms folded. It made him look like Vegeta.

"Excuse me," I said sarcastically, "but I have to go."

"Come on, Ellie. Think about it. I can't tell you, but you can figure it out."

"I have absolutely no clue what any of you are doing or what you're trying to hide from me and I'm too tired to try to figure out what the hell kind of pills Bulma's feeding you. Move. Now."

"She wanted you because you're so smart," Goku said. "Please figure it out."

It had been a trying day. I shoved past Goku and left his room, attracting the attention of some of the people lurking outside, and hurried back to my own room with a very apparent blush. I'd heard her wrong. Bulma wasn't talking about me when she was referring to whatever girl Goku wanted to impress. I was probably caught in the crossfire and he was trying to get me out of the way.

So I went back to my own dorm and took a shower before going to sleep. I had a calculus test in the morning and from the way Bulma talked, Chi-Chi was coming back from her… vacation. I didn't want to think of what she meant with that creepily uttered word and quickly dropped off to sleep.

Yamcha and Tien were both bright-eyed and bushytailed in calculus. The latter was almost as good with math as I was and he reviewed a few problems with me briefly before the test started. Yamcha idly gnawed on a bagel until the classroom door opened two minutes before the test began and a familiar face bustled inside. I glanced up from my problems and froze.

Chi-Chi was dressed prim and proper as always but something seemed wrong. Her eyes were exhausted; she looked almost inhuman. She talked to the professor briefly and he nodded before offering her an exam, then she scurried to her seat beside mine. I awkwardly turned my eyes back to my problems while both Yamcha and Tien watched her sit down in her old seat. She'd been gone for nearly a month. What kind of "vacation" had Bulma sent her on?

Yamcha blinked at her. "Where have you been, Chi?"

She rummaged through her bag and shrugged. "Sick and stuff. Do you have an extra pen?"

"I do," I volunteered reflexively.

Her dark eyes met mine. She smiled tightly.

"Thanks, Ellie."

It was painful sitting beside her during the exam. I was dying to know where she had really been and both Yamcha and Tien didn't ask questions after the test was through. We all handed in our final work and split up outside the classroom to go to our next professor.

I chewed on my second pen while I walked—I'd been too afraid to ask Chi-Chi for her borrowed one back. Could I put everything together? I had a decent idea of what was going on but I didn't want to overstep boundaries or accuse anyone who was actually in the right. The day I met the Saiyans, I knew something was off about them, and the closer I got to Goku the more convinced I was that they and Bulma were the epicenter of it all.

Owen was in the flux as well. My brother had always struck me as the type to get involved in big trouble and I was worried about him, but he seemed to be too important to go anywhere soon. I took my phone out of my pocket and scrolled through my texts, considering asking him how he was doing…

And I promptly bumped into someone.

"Oops!" laughed a male voice as he steadied me. "Sorry about that!"

I still staggered on my feet, cursed with imbalance. "It's ok, I wasn't paying attention. Thanks."

My rescuer and victim was a hair taller than me with light blue eyes and blonde hair. He had a very open and friendly face that made it hard for me to look away. I stood there staring at him and he stared back at me, still gently holding my arms in an afterimage of his close encounter with my head. He was wearing khakis and a dress shirt; much fancier attire than most college guys.

"I'm Peter," he said. "I'm a sophomore here. What's your name?"

"Amelia. Or Ellie; that's what most people call me. I'm a freshman."

Peter smiled. "Nice to meet you, Amelia. Where are you headed in such a hurry?"

Then I felt a warm presence behind me and I watched Peter's facial expression shift in an instant. He reluctantly released my arms, eyeing the newcomer with a guarded look. I hung my head in shame. If Goku was always showing up at the wrong moment, I'd never meet a nice guy.

Two hands clapped down on my shoulders. "Who's this, Ellie? He looks tiny."

I covered my face. "Goku, Peter. Peter, Goku."

"You seem busy," Peter offered, immediately removing himself from the tension. "I'll see you around sometime, Ellie. Have a good one, Goku."

When the friendly person was gone I whirled around to smack Goku hard in the arm, and he pouted and massaged his wound. He was wearing his gym clothes and had a sheen of sweat that admittedly made him look more intimidating than usual. It was hard to believe the friendly guy I had met in the library could have such a strange and frankly frightening personality at times. Was that what the pill fixed?

I started to walk away to get to my next class on time and Goku suddenly pushed me up against the wall in full view of people walking by. A couple of them openly stared at me as I furiously protested, trying to keep my voice down to a whisper to keep them from thinking he was attacking me. Christ, he was heavy.

Goku kissed me ferociously and I heard giggles that made me even more mortified. He pressed his body flush against mine and seemed just about ready to start taking his clothes off when I instinctively bit his lower lip, hard. He jerked back, freeing me from my prison and attracting more attention.

I wiped spit from my mouth, trembling with rage, and stalked off toward my next class. Goku touched his bleeding lip, bewildered, and was soon after me so I was reduced to running down the hall like a crazy woman. He clasped a hand over my mouth and turned like a true athlete to pull me into a nearby broom closet, shutting and locking the door like he had done it a thousand times before.

This time I snapped my teeth over his finger and he released with an aggrieved hiss, but wrestled with me when I tried reaching for the door. I found myself in a familiar position with my cheek crushed against the cold wall and Goku standing behind me trying to catch his breath.

"What is wrong with you?!" I hissed, heart pattering madly. "You can't kiss me like that!"

"I'm just making sure people know you're mine." He laughed a little. "Even if you're a biter."

WHAT?!

"I'm… I'm not yours! Since when are we dating?!"

"Since last night. Hey, are you going to bite me like that in bed? That's okay, I don't mind bleeding very much, but please don't bite my mouth. That really hurt."

My eyes bugged enough to fall flat out of my skull and I became very keenly aware of Goku's position relative to mine. I wriggled desperately in his grasp while he held me still with very little effort like he was waiting for a crazed animal to wear itself out. I never said I wanted to go out with him! We hadn't even gone on a damn date, and I had known him for a month!

This was not the friendly, easygoing Goku I had met in early September. Slowly but surely, I had watched a different Goku emerge until someone completely new and much more frightening was giving me kisses hard enough to bruise my lips and dragging me into broom closets to set our boundaries for sex. God, what was he even doing talking about that kind of thing already?

"Tell me what the pill is about," I said, trying to get a grip on myself. "And for the love of god, let me go. If you act like an adult I won't go anywhere, but if you keep grabbing at me like a drunken frat boy I'm going to scream until half the school knocks down the closet door."

Goku hesitated, but obliged and released me from the wall. The second I turned to face him he slammed his palms on either side of my head to use his arms as a cage. It was irritating but still allowed me greater movement and let me see the look on his face instead of having to guess. He was currently agitated and didn't look like he felt like talking. It was hard to tell in the dark.

I crossed my arms. I was shaking. "So? Tell me what the pill does."

There were voices and laughter outside. It should have been me out there mingling with the others, but I was stuck in a closet with a very moody, very strong man who I was very attracted to. He cocked his head and his dark eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"You won't tell?" he asked.

"Who do I have to tell?"

Goku leaned back to run a hand through his hair and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Fine. I'll let you know about that, but nothing else. Bulma always finds out."

"Spit it out already!"

He braced himself against the door. His eyes were closed. "Okay, just the bare minimum."

I wrapped my arms around my middle and waited impatiently for him to start talking. Things were reaching a breaking point. Goku was attracted to me for some reason or another and we were apparently dating, which was welcome if not frightening news to me. Chi-Chi had mysteriously vanished and was now calm and complacent. Bulma had tried her best to keep Goku and I apart for the month I refused to see him, and wanted that to continue.

They couldn't afford to lose me. Why? I didn't know what kind of role I had to play in their machinations. I'd only recently started college and had a long ways to go before I gained any real world knowledge. And Goku—the way Bulma talked about him, it was like she was barely keeping him under control.

Goku's jaw tightened. "I'm… kind of related to the Saiyan group Bulma hangs around. We aren't blood relatives, except for my brother, but… well, we're kind of our own race. It's kind of a common theme in Saiyans to be aggressive, like you saw when you bumped into Raditz. They can all control themselves with the training and girls and stuff but I have a really hard time with it.

"Bulma's smart and good with science stuff so she made something that helps me calm down. It works well if I take it every week but if I miss one I go all sorts of crazy. I've been taking it for a long time now and I noticed it dumbs me down, too, which isn't what I wanted. Bulma's told me a hundred times there's no way to change that but I'm pretty sure she's lying, and it irritates me."

What did that make the Saiyans, then? They could've been a very small subset of a population, like a tribe of some kind, and they definitely had different customs and appearances than other tribes. That explained why everyone in the group was male and had a serious attitude problem excluding Goku. He was the only one who had to pop a pill to keep himself in check.

My heart beat faster. But how bad could his severely downplayed aggression problem be if he had to take a pill that destroyed his personality? I could remember the day I met Goku like it had been the night prior and his happy demeanor suddenly felt more intimidating than his current one. It wasn't even real. That Goku was the product of some kind of medicine Bulma cooked up to keep him placid.

But why did she need him placid? I doubted it was out of the goodness of her heart, even though she'd been friends with Goku for a very long time. He had to serve another purpose—they all did. That was the one thing I knew Goku would never tell me and expected I would learn it on my own.

"Don't take it," I said. "You shouldn't have to sacrifice who you are for her. There must be some other way you can get help. I know there's a mental health clinic down the block."

"I really appreciate you trying to be nice, but you don't want to see what I'm like when I skip for too long. Talking about it isn't gonna help." Goku put a hand over his chest, tightening his grip to pull on his shirt. "It's the way I was born and I don't like it very much. I get caught between the two extremes."

"Come on, you can't be that bad. Let me help you."

Goku pulled his still slightly bloody lower lip into his mouth. "I'm worse than this, and it's not just you that I'm worried about. I get kind of mean to everyone and my other friends are gonna notice. You'll feel the brunt of it and… it's really not a good idea. I thought it was, but it isn't."

It had been a bit scary seeing Goku acting so aggressively at first but I was fully confident that I could handle him. No one could be so forgone that they couldn't control themselves. He was nice and had proven he could still respect my boundaries even when I was blackout drunk. He even washed my clothes for me when I gracefully vomited on myself.

I really did want to help. He was trapped and I loved fixing things.

"You have to wait another week until she gives you the next pill, anyway," I said. "We'll play it by ear and see how it works."

"It's hard to hide it from Bulma."

What a goddamn Debbie Downer. I put my hands on my hips and leveled my gaze with Goku's. He was reticent, an odd change of pace from his behavior in the hallway.

"We'll figure it out," I assured him. "Let's go. You made me late for class!"