A/N: I am making a promise to myself. I will finish this within the next month. Meaning the fic, not the chapter. Be prepared, ladies and gentlemen. Be prepared.
Chapter Eight: In Which Gohan Terrifies Satan City
Gohan instantly gave chase and Piccolo remained in the clearing, paralyzed, his mind in a loop of what he had just heard.
Gohan is in love with Piccolo.
He stared incredulously after the demi-saiyan and his quarry, his mouth slightly open and his eyes still half passed climbing out of their sockets.
Gohan is in love with Piccolo.
That didn't make any sense at all. Gohan had dated Videl for months. Meaning, he was probably straight. Meaning, he liked girls. Meaning, what the hell was going on and what was that stupid human girl doing, spewing out lies like that?
Gohan is in love with Piccolo.
And yet, Vegeta's behavior spoke of something equally as strange as Videl's outburst and Piccolo had no doubt that something bizarre was going on with Gohan. He had written it off as some sort of hormonal off balance thing, because surely that was the only thing that would make him as skittish as he had been around the Namekian even as early as a month before he had broken up with Videl. But his behavior had only gotten worse in the past few weeks and, especially after the incident with Vegeta earlier, he had been staring at Piccolo in a way not even he could dismiss as weird, teenage stuff.
Gohan is in love with Piccolo.
And what was with the whole, "Let's spar to fix our problems!" crap he had pulled before his idiot father had shown up? He had seemed almost angry when Piccolo, who, admittedly, had trouble getting close to Gohan as of late because the physical chemistry (at least on his part, he honestly had no clue as to what the boy was thinking, or feeling for that matter) had gotten to be too much and, as hard as he had tried to pretend that he hadn't fallen head over ankles, or whatever that stupid human saying about love was, for his former pupil, he couldn't bear getting so close to the other's body because he was just too…aware, had been reluctant to spar. And even earlier that day, after Vegeta left, the almost pathetic moan that, "I need you, Piccolo" was hardly something Gohan would say under normal circumstances. Not that their circumstances had ever been normal, but still.
Gohan is in love with Piccolo.
The Namekian frowned and tilted his head back to stare at the clouds rolling over his head.
Gohan is in love with Piccolo.
That reaction was far too severe for something false. If what Videl had said had been a ridiculous lie, he had no doubt that Gohan would have laughed it off and forgotten about it within a day.
Gohan is in love with Piccolo.
Things had changed between them, of that Piccolo was sure, he just had been too consumed by his own denials and then, after he realized the truth, his own self sacrificing lies, to see it for what it really was.
Gohan is in love with Piccolo.
Piccolo blinked.
Oh.
Vegeta was holding a flailing Bulma by the waist and Videl was clinging to Goku's back in terror. They were flying at breakneck speed, but the infuriated teenage boy behind them would not be denied. He had been following at a distance of barely ten feet for all of the seven minutes and thirty seven seconds the unfortunate group of four had been fleeing and now, evidently, he had decided enough was enough and he was closing in fast.
"Call off your crazy kid, Kakarott!" Vegeta practically shrieked as Bulma, who was well out of her mind with terror at this point, threw her arm out and smacked his chin with her elbow.
Goku shot him an annoyed look and Vegeta marveled at the change that had come over his rival. It was almost as if the idiot was taking this as seriously as a battle against a sociopathic killing machine or something. Then again…the Saiyan Prince cast a glance over his shoulder and blanched at the look of undeniable murderous rage in Gohan's eyes as, to his horror, the boy closed in to three feet away. Gohan wasn't exactly sociopathic, but he was certainly pissed enough to turn into a killing machine.
Vegeta groaned and tightened his grip on Bulma's waist in a fruitless attempt to still her as she thrashed. How had he gotten sucked into this ridiculous teenage drama anyways? He needed to learn to stop doing things out of the limited goodness in his heart.
So, Gohan was in love with him?
As delighted as this should have made him, Piccolo had a moment's pause. Son Gohan. Innocent, kind Son Gohan. The teenage boy with a bright future ahead of him, Son Gohan. Perfect Son Gohan. In love with him?
On his list of things that had to be too good to be true, this had to be in the top three. Right under "That Spirit Bomb actually killed Frieza!" and "Those androids were really easy to kill, Trunks must have been exaggerating." Possibly above the androids, he hadn't decided yet.
Piccolo frowned and folded his arms.
Of course the kid would make his life more complicated by possibly feeling the same way he did. A simple change in their relationship was far too much to ask for, because things between them quite frankly had never been simple. And why would the possibility of romance, the ultimate complicating emotion, really be any different? He scowled and glared at the sky.
Those clouds were remarkably dark for a day that had been bright and sunny barely an hour ago. And they were certainly spinning in an unnatural way.
Two seconds before Piccolo would have realized that Gohan was about to do something incredibly stupid in an admittedly well deserved fit of rage…
Gohan did something incredibly stupid in a well deserved fit of rage.
Bulma's shriek was more what blew out his ear drums than the actual explosion that Gohan had unleashed. Vegeta fastened his right hand around his left wrist and let the force behind the bang send him flying sideways, because it was obvious the action had been meant to stop the four of them rather than to cause permanent damage. Now, this would not have been a problem, say in the middle of the wilderness. But, unfortunately for all five of the people present, they had somehow managed to fly themselves all the way to Satan City without realizing it.
Even in the aftershocks of the ki blast and with his ears ringing because of his wife's ability to let loose frequencies that toed the edge of human hearing capabilities, he was still very aware of the fact that the entire sprawling city below them had erupted with screams.
"Oh no," he heard a faint female voice whisper and glanced to his left to find that Goku had evidently chosen the same tactic that he had and was now hovering beside him, staring calmly at his son. On his back, Videl was more focused on the ground, but that was because she was an idiot. Vegeta had the presence of mind, despite the splitting headache he was now rapidly developing thanks to Bulma, to look up at Gohan and his stomach dissolved at what he saw.
The kid was clearly not messing around and was nowhere near close to calming the fuck down. He was in his ascended form, snarling like a wild animal, and Vegeta swore he saw a bit of foam forming at the left corner of his lips. Bulma let loose a miniature version of the shriek she had let loose a minute before and Vegeta's temple gave a particularly nasty throb.
"Damn it, woman, would you stop doing that!" he snapped and, seconds later upon looking back up at their pissed off problem, regretted it.
Gohan took advantage of his momentary distraction and pounced.
Later, when he looked back on the moment and sulked, he recognized that two things saved his life in that split second. One was that Gohan was not completely blinded by rage, as previously thought. The other was that Bulma twisted in his grasp and fastened her arms around his neck in a vice grip, effectively stopping the boy in his tracks when he realized that he was, indeed, about to attack someone completely incapable of defending herself.
That didn't stop the furious hissing and the confirmed formation of foam. He rather resembled a rabid animal and Vegeta would have found it funny, had that insane stare not been focused solely on him.
So really, he did the only thing that anyone with a brain would have done in that situation because it was obvious the boy's wheels were turning and he was coming up with a plan that would spare Bulma a horrific and violent death and leave her alive for the slave labor she would undoubtedly be subjected to courtesy of Gohan's continuing rage. He told himself, seconds after the idea came to him that he was doing it for his wife and he was most definitely not afraid of a stupid little half breed brat. He pointed the finger of blame at somebody else.
"I'm not the one who interrupted your little meeting in the forest, Gohan," he fired at the boy. Gohan blinked and then turned his slowly reddening gaze on his father. Goku stared for a moment, as though he wasn't fully getting what was happening, and then yelped.
"Vegeta!"
The Saiyan Prince shrugged and pretended not to see the betrayed blue stare of the quivering girl, soon to turn casualty of a highly hormonal, overly emotional teenage boy, that was Videl Satan peeking over Goku's left shoulder. Unfortunately for him, Gohan did not.
"Videl!" he roared, "Are you completely insane?!"
She must have been, at least for a moment, to do something as stupid as proclaim Gohan's secret love for him. Vegeta frowned and cocked his head as he realized that Gohan was still roaring wordlessly. Idiot boy. He needed to learn to articulate his feelings better.
Bulma shoved her thumb into his belly button.
"Hey!"
He turned a vicious look on her, only to find that the action hadn't been the result of her terrified flailing and that she had somehow managed to regain control of herself and had decided to be pissed at him, judging by the glare. She jerked her head out into the wide expanse of airspace over the large city beneath them and he turned to see…
A helicopter.
The humans were sending a helicopter towards a demi-saiyan who just happened to be in the middle of a mental break down and obviously wanted to kill someone.
Well, that explained the roaring.
A/N: As hard as this may be to believe since it was posted so soon after the last update, this was hard to write. Why? I don't know, something about Gohan was throwing me and Piccolo's musing session was hard to put into words. Hopefully it is okay, at least. Please review!