Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ. Oh...the havoc I could be reeking if I did! Mwahahahaha!
Summary: Gohan's in trouble, things aren't as they seem, and what they all saw on the outside of his cold exterior could barely hide the turmoil underneath. Piccolo, being too close to the young man, doesn't catch the changes in his friend until it's too late...or is it? This is a gift for a friend. I find this pairing a little much, but ima gonna write dis with no less skill than my others.
A/N:This ones for you, Lizzy, you crazy gal...
…... .O...fic time...
Just Because You Think You Deserve it Doesn't Make it Hurt Less
..Even in your lowest hour, the hurt seeming endless, and everyone has gone on without you...
The cloudiness of the sky promised all the aspects of a dim day. A vast nebulous stretched contentedly across the forest valley, casting gray shadows that painted the world darker shades of every natural color. A powerful gust pushed steadily against the gray thickness of the thunderhead. The wind aided the clouds, and together they swiftly changed the face of the Earth. A proud, lone figure watched silently the progression of the predicted storm headed his way. He watched through ebony eyes, too dark in their depths to show the reflection of the elements, which continued their intricate dance, apparently unaware of their audience of one solemn spectator.
This man, despite being born into this world, was alien. In appearance and spirit Piccolo was a stranger to the beautiful world in which he lived. Not that mother earth didn't accept him as one of her children; for he was one of her most gentle souls. It was the countless others living under the same atmosphere that felt oddly about him. Even so, mother earth's other children treated Piccolo well enough. It's not like he didn't have a direct hand in saving them time and time again. While some people granted him reserved respect others would stare, slack mouthed, in awe. A vast number openly sneered and pointed, outwardly stating their disgust. And a precious few considered themselves his friends.
He was alien, a Namekian by race, an Earthling by birth, and the Demon King by blood. He was a stranger in anything and to everyone. Everyone...except Gohan.
Thoughts of the kid drew him away from the spectacle in the sky. Memories breached the floodgates and drowned any chance of Piccolo steering clear of his one and only weakness. Gohan. The hardened warrior became overwhelmed as an onslaught of feelings and sensations the boy had left on his senses slammed into him. An image of the fourteen year old smiling, as only Gohan could, appeared behind Piccolo's closed eyelids. An echo of the half Saiyan's happy laughter, safely stored by the Namek's clever brain, revisited pointed ears. Emerald skin rose with goosebumps where Gohan's hands had gripped to pull the somber man into a friendly hug that last time they'd been together alone. Piccolo's olfactory sensors filled themselves with his mind's memorization of the kid's scent and left no room for any other aroma. He shuddered. The last of the five senses decided that now was the precise time to torment him. It came back to him...that memory of that one time...when Gohan had been injured...and he had been so close. The taste- No!
Piccolo shut it all down before it could become too much to handle. He refused to remember that moment when he had harbored an ulterior motive while cleaning blood from the corners of a beaten Gohan's cracked lips. The boy hadn't thought much of it. Piccolo's saliva was a powerful poultice after all, and the boy was bleeding. Gohan never suspected a thing even after the involuntarily shiver overtook his green friend. Gohan had gasped at the refreshing coolness that was healing his split lips and it didn't bother him that Piccolo's lavender tongue lingered a little too long...ugh...
It mattered not that Piccolo was truly trying to forget that and let it go. This would plague him till the day the odds were against him and the Earth's destruction was out of his control. Piccolo sighed as he turned his back on the roiling thunder clouds and began the five minute stroll home. His small concealed cave wasn't luxurious by any standards, but it was warm and cozy, suiting him well. The withdrawn Namek could survive on the barest of means and has done so. With only water and the occasional fire to light his homemade hearth, Piccolo lived hermit style. This way he wouldn't be bothered by pestering humans and could meditate in peace.
As Piccolo walked along his well trodden path to his home, unbidden flickers and flashes made up purely of Gohan drifted through Piccolo's mental facilities...Hadn't he already said ugh once today? The stubborn soldier shook his head in an attempt to jog the forbidden desires via force from his mind. It almost worked. That is until the real deal was flying toward him.
Piccolo felt the boy's Ki before he had a visual. He knew that energy signal like the curves of his antenna. Sure enough twelve seconds later, yes he counted, Gohan was in sight and flying so fast that Piccolo could see the air split apart and try and mend itself behind him. Gray-blue wisps of thin condensation streamed in the refuse of his wake. Why the need for such speed? Pondering why would only be a waste of time when Piccolo could simply ask his young friend. He started to reach out with his own bright Ki to signal, like a flare, his presence to the teen. Abruptly, Gohan changed directions, and passed right by the Namek's cave. Odd. Piccolo dropped his Ki down to nothing.
Now this son of a split personality was not by nature a particularly curious creature...at least sometimes. Maybe if it had been another he would never have followed, but this was Gohan and his former pupil was obviously in distress. The painfully strong emotions were slipping threw the half Saiyan's fluctuating Ki. Usually when Gohan was this way, he came to his best friend and teacher for advise and a good pick-me-up-spar. Not today apparently.
Believing that this might be too personal or embarrassing a thing for Gohan to want to confide in him, Piccolo took a step back to consider how to proceed. Gohan didn't want to alert Piccolo to his whereabouts as he was trying vainly to hide his energy signature. He was suffering enough for his power level to be unstable. Piccolo couldn't turn his back on the boy in his hour of need. Whether he wanted it or not, Gohan would be comforted and Piccolo decided to handle this stealthily.
Remaining on foot, Piccolo weaved in and out of the tall pines, quickly yet quietly making his way towards his friend. In an attempt to keep his white cape from snagging on any branches, Piccolo tucked the back of it under his belt as he stepped lightly and with the grace only a Namek could muster. He had only been stalking for a minute when Gohan's Ki vanished."Smart boy," Piccolo thought, smirking slyly, "But it's too late for that kid. You gave me too much time to home in and lock onto your Ki. Better luck next time cuz that was damn sloppy." Something was seriously wrong for the adolescent to screw up like this. Gohan was the strongest fighter this world has ever known and far more competent with his technique than most. The way he was acting though, he might as well been a hopeless rookie. Piccolo felt a dreadful apprehension in the works.
He was getting close. What was that? Piccolo stopped and his ears twitched in unison. Quiet sobs. No, no, no...that couldn't be! He rushed his pursuit of the boy's sorrowful sounds and in mere seconds the diligent warrior came to a small clearing that broke the random pattern of trees. When he could barely make out Gohan's slouched form through the brush, Piccolo took advantage of a low hanging branch and scrambled up onto a concealed limb of a redwood tree. He had a perfect view of every angle in the clearing...Let the snooping commence.
…... .O...
Gohan fought within himself. The battle was for his sanity.
"I am fine. I can get through this. They're just dreams because he's dead. I killed him. I watched and felt it as his every molecule disintegrated and became no more. I killed him and what he says are all lies," Gohan thought, in an effort to steady himself.
"Just because they're dreams doesn't make them any less real. Your silly whims don't negate the truth in what he says." a second voice tried to convince him.
"You're a liar! You lie and you are wrong!" Gohan sounded frantic and desperate to prove the other wrong.
"Oh, I beg to differ, I'm so right that I can feel you doubting every lovingly spoken word and every act of kindness the people you care for most have ever given you!" the cold contempt behind these words were enough to make Gohan whimper.
"N-no...they love m-me."
"Child, you truly are pathetic to cling to such a ridiculous notion. They've been avoiding you for far too long to still care. Can't you see? You deserve everything he does to you!"
Gohan was thinking so loudly and carelessly that Piccolo didn't have to strain to hear everything he was thinking. And what he heard made him wary. Piccolo became saddened as he tracked the location of the owner of the voices. The kid sounded so unlike himself that it scared the Namek. There at the foot of a wide cedar tree the boy sat, legs sprawled in separate directions out in front of him. His head was bowed and his long black locks hid his face. If Piccolo could have seen Gohan's haggard expression he wouldn't have been able to remain in the tree.
Gohan was so pale it put shame to freshly lain snow. The purple shadows residing under his exhausted eyes rivaled the pastiness of his cheeks for first place in the "worst color to be seen on a living being" contest. The big droplets of salty water that spilled freely down his face, however, did not go unnoticed. "Oh, kid," Piccolo whispered, "What's wrong boy?" As if Gohan had heard him the voices started up again.
"Your sick, you know that? Sick!" the condescending voice sneered, "And they know it too. How could they not?"
Piccolo could see with the use of their mind link that Gohan was remembering things. Remembering his family and friends around him, staring at Gohan strangely. Half of them trying to make up their minds about there being something wrong with him. The other half looked confused, eyes brimming with sympathy and pity. Sympathy for what? That Gohan felt lost and alone without his father? The same father who had abandoned him after the death of Cell. That the boy was the victim of night terrors that had started weeks ago? Or could it be the fact that he talked to himself in public unknowingly that caused them to look at Gohan this way? Pity for what? For his mother, who cried and complained that her baby wasn't innocent anymore? Or was the pity for what Gohan had become? Maybe they could tell...tell that he was loosing the meager grip he had left on reality.
"No, I am getting better. I have to stay strong for mom, for Earth. I won't allow myself to be weak! Piccolo taught me better than that." Gohan said, defying the harsh words of the other.
"Hahahahah...oh...Gohan.." the second voice of Gohan sent Piccolos spine crawling for high ground, "But you are weak and sick. Little by little you struggle less and less every time it happens now. I think that dirty body of yours likes it. Likes the way it hurts-"
"SHUT UP! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"
"Fine. For now I go. But deep down you know you can't wait for the next time...you long for it...when your alone with him."
Gohan screamed and clawed at his head. "No!...no I-I.." he cried. The tears burned scalding paths down malnourished skin. His thin shoulders shook and sobbing, he pulled his knees tightly to his chest. "It's not t-true! I'm a good person."
The gaper in the tree was clutching at the trunk's bark, his sharp nails digging into the plants exterior as he gave it all his physical strength to not make a sound. Piccolo didn't understand it, he couldn't and he had no wish to. What he assumed it was made him want to blast a hole through the forest in a rage. But he had to abide just a little longer and gather as much intell as he could get tobe a better help for Gohan. Dark theories owned the majority of his thoughts as he tried to make some sense of what he was seeing and heard. Then his attention snapped back to his former student at the sound of the boy getting up.
Crying hard, Gohan stumbled around the clearing in circles, not getting anywhere. After a time his legs gave way to the heavy insistence of gravity and he fell on all fours to the ground. He began to cough, cutting off his sounds of misery and when the fit finally settled he drew in deep ragged breaths. Then he was still.
Piccolo held the oxygen he'd inhaled in his lungs, too unsure to move even the smallest muscle in his body. He wanted nothing more than ever to launch himself at Gohan and pull him into his comforting embrace. But the part of his mind still functioning properly reminded him that the boy would be devastated and crushed if he knew Piccolo had seen him in such a sorry state.
Gohan crawled slowly over to a flat medium sized rock and laid his torso over it with his back to Piccolo. Then, even as worn as he was, the kid began to speak inwardly again, minus the evil one.
"It did hurt...it still does. I don't want to like it...he makes me...I...it feels so..." he seemed to fight himself internally for a bit as his head jerked from side to side in denial. Then, his resistance crumbled under self pressure and he slid down the small boulder. The crying began anew, only this time his tears were those of shame. Gohan bit the knuckles of his right hand causing little droplets of crimson to pool in the indents made by his canines. "This is the last time. I swear. Then never again."
Piccolo was twice as confused as he had been before. What fowl beast had eaten his Gohan and spat out this broken boy? Answers eluded him. He hadn't noticed any of these changes in the past few weeks and he believed it was his fault that Gohan was in this sad condition. Piccolo bitterly blamed himself for his dear friend's pain and self loathing. What could possibly have happened to him to make him...like this? What had...what-w-what..WHAT WAS HE DOING?!
Piccolo almost choked on his tongue. Gohan had kicked off his purple bottoms. Now with lower body bare, Gohan bit his lip and and a small sound escaped through his clentched teeth. This noise was foreign to the Namek and it made him uneasy.
A trembling hand reached down between creamy legs...
…... .O...
A/N: yupo...dere it is...reviews?..want more?