Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Barracks ❯ Part 38 ( Chapter 38 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball Z – it belongs to its respective owners. This fan fiction is not a commercial project, and I am not making any money from writing it.
Warnings: Alternate Universe. Yaoi (male x male). Goten x Trunks and vice versa. Other pairings.
A/N: Starcut’s crew members:
1.Captain
2.Backup Captain
3.Master Sergeant
4.Navigator - (Adriel)
5.Communications Specialist - (Sildara)
6.Programmer - (Rokunda)
7.Gunnery Sergeant - (Monteira Fawa)
8.Arms Specialist – (Hazel)
9.Arms Specialist – (Mandro)
10.Flight Officer - (Reyn Dueri)
11.Flight Officer - (Jadenas Ealt)
12.Head Engineer - (Nohail Ofura)
13.Maintenance Technician – (Mirun)
14.Maintenance Technician – (Landan)
15.Doctor - (Tamahi)
16.Medic - (Yereli)
17.Head Cook
18.Cook
19.Soldier - (Edesha)
20.Goten
Barracks
by chayron (lttomb@yahoo.com), beta-read by quatreofdoom
Part 38
Reyn stood at the side of Goten’s bed, waiting for the younger male to start talking, though it seemed that he didn’t know where to start. Finally, he gave the flight officer a pleading look. His cock was hard and it felt uncomfortable. Embarrassing too.
“Could we talk about this when I am more sober?”
Reyn cursed in disbelief. “You mean when you’re in a better condition to lie?”
Goten couldn’t hold his gaze. That was exactly what he thought. All of this had gotten so far simply because he was drunk and horny. Once he was sober, he would figure something out.
Goten looked guilty but stubborn, and Reyn let out a growl which embodied both his frustration and anger. “Shit!”
“Okay,” Goten said, raising his hands, giving up. “Okay. Let’s reach an agreement,” he suggested.
Reyn snorted at him. “What kind?”
“If I tell you everything, then you tell me everything too.”
“A trade? Okay, it’s fine with me.”
The younger male gave him a surprised look; he had not expected the flight officer to agree so readily. “Really? Alright,” he said when Reyn nodded. “We’ll talk. But not here. When we are alone and…”
“Sounds like a threat.”
“Listen, I’m too drunk to deal with this shit. You either want to hear it or you don’t. So which is it?”
Reyn’s lips twitched. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Of course I want to.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“Fine.”
When Reyn left, Goten flopped back onto his bed. He lay still for some time, then reached down and brushed over the front of his trousers. His hand easily picked out the obvious outline of his cock. He could wait for it to soften completely, but what was the point of depriving himself of release? Next time Reyn tried something like this again, he’d simply be twice as horny as he was now.
There wasn’t even a twitch from Edesha, and Goten turned to his side to face the wall. With a wriggle of his hips, Goten pushed his trousers and underwear out of his way. He fisted himself and started stroking while his thoughts swirled lazily. He kept on returning to the thought that he might have made a mistake promising Reyn to tell him everything. Well, he could lie. He didn’t want to and he wasn’t very good at lying, but it was still an option. He was still dazed over the fact that Reyn was a third-class. He had suspected, of course, but it was one thing to suspect and another to know for certain. It made much more sense now, all the things Reyn did.
Goten came with a soft grunt. When he opened his eyes, he saw that he didn’t catch everything. Some of his seed slipped past his fingers and hung on the metallic wall. He groped around the pillow with his left hand but found no tissues, so he wiped the mess with the corner of his sheet. It was about time to change the bed linens anyway.
The third-class started when he realized he had been about to fall asleep. He went to the bathroom, then returned to his cabin. Edesha was still sleeping, frozen in the same exact position he had first fallen asleep in. Unceremoniously, Goten shed his uniform onto the floor and called for the lights to go out.
He woke up to the sound of people walking around him. It was a soft, carpeted sound, but with an anxious hurry in it. He blinked at the blinding lights and sat up. There were rows and rows of filled seats in front of him. He couldn’t see the faces because of the blinding lights, but all of them were turned towards him expectantly. With dread, the third-class saw that he was on a platform, right next to a tribune. After sparing a look at himself, he realized that he was only in his underwear.
Goten’s eyes were drawn to movement by the row of armchairs behind the platform. An important looking elite with a horde of medals on his uniform had stood up and was climbing the short set of stairs, coming towards him. The third-class staggered to his feet. Panicky, his eyes swept over the lavish conference hall.
Where in the world was he?
The man was relentlessly coming closer, and Goten now was able to hear the soft jingle of his medals. The third-class let out a shaky breath when the elite passed him and stood at the tribune. It seemed this was one of those dreams again. He was invisible to other people. What was it about these dreams? There was something important about them he seemed to be forgetting.
The man at the tribune cleared his throat. “Good afternoon, honorable guests. I’m Veden Grendal. Most of you know me as the head of National Security. Today, we’ve gathered here to…”
Goten yelped and leapt forward, nearly right off the stage, when somebody touched his shoulder. He whirled around, his whole body tight and strung, ready to strike.
“Godmotherfuckingasshole!” he spat out in a shaky gasp. “It’s you again!”
Gohan shrugged. “One would think you’ve already gotten used to this.”
“Well, I haven’t!” Goten snapped at the imposter. “Stop doing that!”
“Doing what?”
“Scaring me shitless!” Goten growled at him, jumping off the stage. The drone of the microphone was vibrating through his body, but he didn’t pay attention to what the man was saying. There was something about these dreams… They were important, Goten kept telling himself that, but the imposter’s presence was grating on his nerves.
The lights weren’t so bright once off the stage and Goten looked around. He was in a huge conference hall, fully packed with people. Most of them were Saiyans, but there were also many Humans and Leiadors. Another thing that Goten noticed was that nearly all of the present people were wearing uniforms. It was a varicolored sea of uniforms. Saiyans mainly used two colors: blue for air forces and khaki for land. Leiadors, however, used green for land, gray for air forces, and dark blue for their navy. Goten didn’t even know where to start with Humans. The variety of their uniforms made his head spin.
Suddenly, everybody went dead silent and Goten quickly turned around to look at the stage. He could hear feet shuffling behind him, everyone standing up, saluting. Automatically, he pressed his right fist over his heart too. The prince was walking towards the tribune. This was the first time Goten had seen the younger Vegeta of the Vegeta House in the flesh. If this could be called “seeing in the flesh”.
When the heir to the throne stood up next to Veden Grendal, his head only came to the man’s shoulder. The peculiar hair, though, made him visually taller. Impressed, Goten gazed at the widow's peak on the prince’s brow. Trunks had inherited the widow’s peak, only his was not so prominent. The shape of the eyes, too, even the hard look in them. Goten suddenly found himself giggling. He couldn’t even begin to imagine himself being introduced to this man. Trunks was insane. He really was.
Suddenly, Goten seized up, his nervous laughter dying.
Somebody was looking at him.
The knowledge was suddenly so clear that it was painful. He looked around frantically. Feet shuffled, the people taking their chairs again. The prince started talking, but he couldn’t hear a word, anxiously looking for…
There he was! There was someone standing at the other end of the platform. Someone whose stance and profile seemed to be very familiar. From this far, he couldn’t tell exactly whether the man was staring straight at him, nonetheless, his head was turned towards him. Nobody else paid him any attention; he didn’t exist for them, all of them were looking at the prince at the tribune. Goten stepped forward. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Gohan grabbed him by his arm.
“Don’t.”
“‘Don’t ’ what?”
“Do you really want to meet him?”
Goten wavered for a moment. “I…do?” he said.
The imposter didn’t seem to be convinced but, shrugging, let go of his arm. Goten started walking along the platform, towards the other end of it. Already midway to the man, Goten recognized him. He wasn’t certain what was going on or why he was here. Was he one of the guests? Maybe security personnel? Who was he kidding? A third-class wouldn’t even be allowed to enter this hall. Were they sharing the same dream?
“Hi, Dad,” Goten nodded.
“Hi.”
Goten measured his father from head to toe. He seemed to be surprised to see him here, just like Goten was. Kakarott was wearing a standard Saiyan armor. There was not a trace of his injuries outwardly.
“It seems like you’ve completely recovered,” Goten said finally.
“Well, my side still pains me when I make a sudden movement, but it’s getting better.” Kakarott gave his son a searching look. “Why did you lie about not being able to see the old man?”
“The old man?” Goten shrugged. “I don’t really know who you’re talking about.”
“About him,” Kakarott said, motioning at the empty space next to him.
Goten looked at the floor, then scanned around with his eyes. He couldn’t see anyone. Wondering if his father could see Gohan’s imposter, he shrugged again. Then he realized that the imposter was nowhere to be found either. Deciding that he didn’t give a damn, Goten reclined his head to watch the stage.
“…that’s why we are going to…” the prince’s voice droned on.
“And you’ve become taller,” Kakarott said. “You look more…mature?”
The comment was pleasing to his ears, and Goten felt himself blush lightly. Willing the color away, he turned to his father. “What is it about these dreams? I feel as if I keep forgetting something…”
“Oh that. It’s probably because it doesn’t work the usual way. It’s a kind of a dream, as you said, and usually our subconsciousness gets rid of them once we wake up, so as not to clutter our mind. Besides, it’s real and not real at the same time. Something that will happen and, at the same time, something that might not. It’s not really stable. That’s why you keep forgetting. You’ll get better with time.”
“Not really stable? As in not really set?”
“No, it is set, but it’s not stable.”
“I don’t really get it, but I know I have to remember something.”
“You have to remember not to forget.”
“Huh. Are you trying to give me a headache?”
Kakarott shrugged. “Just write it down before you forget. I think something will happen soon. It always does. But this time it’s going to be something big. I mean, why would there be the two of us here?”
Goten wondered about this. Or tried to. His thoughts felt fuzzy when he tried to think about the purpose of his presence here. He tried to concentrate on what the prince was saying, but ended up staring at Vegeta’s white-gloved hands on the tribune. So white. As white as the puff on the end of his tail. Instead of the prince’s voice, his head was soon filled with the methodical hum of the crowd.
“What were you laughing about?”
Goten gave his father a confused look. “When?”
“Just now. Before you noticed me.”
“Just now…” Goten repeated, his eyebrows creasing while he was trying to remember. “Ah.” He suddenly felt foolish. He couldn’t tell his father what he had been thinking about when he saw The Prince of All Saiyans climb onto the stage. “Nothing really. Just thought he looked funny. I’d have never thought that he is so short.”
Kakarott gave him a searching look. He knew that Goten was lying. Goten would never giggle mindlessly just because of that. The fact that he was lying after having been asked such a seemingly innocent question was disturbing.
The prince’s voice was suddenly interrupted by the earsplitting howls of sirens. It was an air raid. People jumped to their feet, clamoring. The prince and the other guests behind the platform were immediately surrounded by their bodyguards.
Kakarott turned to Goten. “They probably intend to blow up the entire station. From the look of it, they will succeed. I will try to come here, to the station. You should come too. I will need help.”
Goten was skeptical – it was not as if he could just leave Starcut and go wherever the hell he wanted. It didn’t work that way. He would end up being hunted by the entire Saiyan fleet. “Where is this?” he asked.
Kakarott looked surprised. “Oh. It’s Bruminan Station, in the Terran Republic, close to Earth itself.”
“Earth?” Goten gave this some thought. “Well, maybe this could be arrang…”
A flash of light suddenly burst through the ceiling, engulfing the entire hall in a blinding sea of white. Screaming in pain, Goten covered his eyes. His brain was already dead, but his ears still registered the sounds of walls and bodies crumbling, turning into dust.
Goten came to his senses when he was soaring through the air, falling through the familiar white and blue. He was too stunned by the abrupt change in his surroundings to react to the occurrence in any way. With a loud splash, he plummeted into the water. Gasping and sputtering, he swam upwards and broke to the surface. He was in the familiar pool at the edge of the world.
The third-class splashed around for a few more seconds, then powered up and rose into the air. He flew upwards until the pool was far behind him. He reached the edge of the woods, where the water was falling from, and landed. He wouldn’t have recognized Gohan if not for his posture and uniform. The imposter, who was sitting on the stump of a fallen tree, turned towards him. There was something wrong with his head – there was no face.
While Goten was walking towards him, cold water was washing his boots. When he reached Gohan, he saw that he did have a face, only that it was transparent; he could see the woods right through it.
“What’s wrong with your face?” Goten asked.
“Is there something wrong with it?” The imposter’s voice sounded different than usual, somehow rough and sandy.
“Who are you, really?”
The imposter watched him silently with his transparent eyes. “I’m Gohan,” he said finally, “or whoever else you want me to be.”
Musing over this, Goten sat down on the fallen tree, next to the imposter. “Are you my conscience? Maybe guilt?”
The imposter laughed. “That’s not what you think.”
“No, it isn’t,” Goten agreed. “I don’t really know what to think. No, not that either. It’s probably that I don’t want to think.”
“Goten?”
“Ghm?” Goten hummed, lifting the cover over his head, blocking the noise, almost asleep again.
“Goten?”
The third-class murmured something, impatiently pushing the invasive hand aside, away from his face.
“Just let him sleep,” Tamahi told Reyn. “His brainwaves have stabilized completely; it seems he’s just sleepy.”
Reyn moved his hand away from Goten’s forehead. “He’s slept for two days. Isn’t that already enough?”
“I think it’s different.”
“Are you certain it’s not alcohol poisoning?”
Reyn turned to Nohail. Unexpectedly, the head engineer appeared to be very interested in Goten’s case. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be so eye-catching, but there was a busted pipe on the lower deck which was in dire need of mending, and Nohail also came to see the patient every three or so hours. Reyn probably wouldn’t have given the fact much thought if not for the strange conversation Goten and Nohail had after the swordplay about their mutual friend. There was something fishy going on. Whatever it was, he hoped that Nohail’s sudden strange behavior wasn’t the expression of his romantic feelings for Goten.
“Yes, I’m certain that this isn’t alcohol poisoning,” Reyn said. When he had left Goten in his cabin, he wasn’t all that drunk. Pleasantly buzzed, at most. Even if he had later drunk the coffee which had been left in the plastic bottle, he wouldn’t have gotten any worse. If anything, there was a great chance of him sobering up while drinking it – it was too diluted. It was how Reyn liked it since he couldn’t drink – once drunk, he became aggressive to the point where he would beat someone up. Everyone on Starcut knew that. About five years ago he had punched Adriel out cold for having said something unpleasant about his hair.
Nohail became aware of Reyn’s gaze. It wasn’t pleasant, the gaze. It was curious, with dark undertones beneath the surface. The head engineer wondered if it was indeed so as he had heard Mandro say. Was he supposed to report things like these as well?
When Nohail returned to his cabin, he turned on his terminal. Starcut wasn’t very far away from Enran Station, so he wanted to use this chance and send the prince a message. The next opportunity was three days away, when they would be passing Otahra Station.
He entered his passwords and started composing a report. He regularly wrote every five days or so. There was always something to report about Goten. During his roughly five week stay on Starcut, the extraordinary youth managed to get into an unbelievable amount of trouble and conquer everyone on board; there was no one who was indifferent to him. This time, again, Nohail had a great many things to report: everything about Goten’s trip to Orion and back, the additional passengers on board, Goten’s new roommate, the party, and his falling asleep for two days. There was also the fact that Goten knew about their connection. The prince had told him not to give himself away, but things were how they were. Besides, he doubted that Goten knew just how thoroughly he had been asked to report all the details concerning him.
The head engineer had just finished writing the part about Edesha being moved to Goten’s cabin when the door opened to let in Mirun. The maintenance technician was drenched to the bone, his boots gurgling wetly when he walked inside. He gave a grave look to his roommate, noticing him saving the file and closing the program.
“Lately you’ve been spending massive amounts of time typing away on that thing. Have you found yourself a female?”
“Yes, two of them,” Nohail said sarcastically, watching him shedding his boots and wet clothing onto the floor. He averted his eyes from his roommate’s naked backside. “How’s the situation on the lower deck?”
“Those damn Humans! How in the world did they even manage to bust that pipe?!”
“Argh. Don’t start again. It could’ve happened to anyone.”
Mirun snorted. He grabbed a dry uniform from his wardrobe and started dressing. Once he pulled his underwear and trousers up, he flopped down onto his bed. “We fixed it. It would’ve been faster if they hadn’t tried to help, though. Landan nearly squashed one with a pipe.”
“Huh?”
“Well, we had brought a new pipe with us and one of them offered to hold it for us while we were removing the old one. So Landan gladly agreed and tossed the pipe for him. There’s a dent now in the wall, and I don’t know if it’s from the pipe or the guy’s head.”
“Aw shit.”
“So yeah, we took the idiot to Tamahi. Tamahi went nuts saying that he didn’t have anywhere to put up that guy. So anyway, he ranted a lot about being more careful and safety in general, then stitched the guy’s head up and sent us away.”
“Well, at least he’s still alive. Don’t let them help you with anything. They are damn fragile. The last thing we need is to be accused of manslaughter. I hear there’s a great demand for help in the kitchens. Send all of them there.”
“No problem.”
Mirun didn’t show any intention of leaving the cabin; he lay on his back, bare-chested, staring at the ceiling, looking bored. It was clear that Nohail would have to find another opportunity to finish his report.
The head engineer followed his roommate’s example and, after kicking his boots off, lay down on his bed. His thoughts flew to the first time he had met the prince. The boy had barely been fourteen at the time, absolutely green to space traveling. Their master sergeant at the time was Wadara Argo, an energetic elite female with a tendency to exaggerate everything. Not that it was a bad thing – after the “attack” on Morawa Colony, most of the contemporary crew on Armageddon had been promoted and had never expressed any complaints. Even the prince. It was obvious that he, like many others, had been reluctant to accept his promotion but, in the end, he had decided that there was no need to be coy and that this opportunity to advance in the ranks might never appear again. It had, of course, but that was another story.
Nohail had been the only one on Armageddon who knew a thing or two about swordplay. Naturally, he and the prince sought each other out for spars. The tiny boy had lacked physical strength, but compensated for it with his skill and dexterity. He hadn’t been the prince’s teacher, far from it – he had learned a thing or two from the boy as well. They simply shared a hobby and enjoyed each other’s company.
Once the prince had been promoted, he left Armageddon to join the troops on Ruan. The swords had been the prince’s parting gift, a thanks for all the fun time they had while sparring. That was the last time he had seen the kid. Effortlessly, he had followed his advancement through the ranks on TV or the radio as it was common knowledge – he was a Saiyan Prince after all. He had grown, was a man now, but Nohail could not forget the awkward kid the prince had been in the past.
The call more than a month ago had surprised Nohail greatly. He hadn’t believed the prince remembered him. Well, he did, and even if the call had been mostly business, it was pleasant. He was curious as to why the prince would be interested in some nameless second-class, but it was not as if he could ask. Goten had revealed that he had been his shaii at school, but that didn’t explain anything at all. If anything, it seemed that the prince was taking personal interest in Goten. What the hell for? If one overlooked his stunning skill at swordsmanship and the dazzling performance during the fight with Reyn, the kid seemed as average as it got.
Nohail turned his head to look at his roommate. Mirun had fallen asleep. Silently, the head engineer got up from his bed and returned to his terminal to finish composing his report.
Startled out of his wits, Tamahi jumped away as Goten suddenly shot out of his sickbed and crashed onto the floor as his legs refused to hold his weight.
“Oh, damn. I’m so sorry,” the doctor said, watching Goten cradle the tip of his tail with his face screwed in pain and tears glistening in the corners of his eyes. He must have stepped on it. Tamahi had figured this would happen sooner or later as Goten’s tail had an uncanny tendency to just slip out of the bed and dangle away.
Kneeling on the metallic floor in only his underwear and gritting his teeth in pain, Goten soothed his abused tail. He raised his face to give the doctor a teary look, as if asking what he had done to deserve such cruel punishment.
Unconsciously, feeling his pain, Tamahi patted him on the head. “Aww, don’t look at me like that.”
Both of them looked to the door when it opened and Adriel stepped in. The navigator froze on the spot, his eyes fixed on the doctor’s back. Confused, Tamahi stared at the funny expression on his face, then realized how the two of them must appear from Adriel’s perspective. “Ha,” he said chuckling. He removed his hand from Goten’s head and stepped away from the kneeling youth. “He just fell. See,” he said, pointing at his crotch, “my pants are all buttoned up.”
“Heh,” Adriel grunted. “It seems I was just in the nick of time to rescue him. But maybe you don’t want to be rescued…?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Goten grumbled, not understanding why Adriel was giving him that lecherous grin. He tried to stand up. The only thing he knew now was that if he didn’t get to the bathroom in a minute, he would piss himself. His feet felt wobbly and unreliable, and he reached his hand out for Adriel.
“What was that scream just now?” Adriel asked, helping Goten to get upright. He looked around, observing the patients. The Nondren gave him an unfriendly look, and Adriel answered him with one of his own. He wished the bastard would get better faster so they could finally ki-cuff him. The Humans just lay or sat in their beds docilely, watching the scene.
“It was probably me,” Goten muttered, leaning against Adriel. He wasn’t certain what had happened, just knew that he had awakened to a horrendous pain in his appendage.
“I stepped on his tail,” Tamahi explained.
“Uh-oh. You have my sympathy,” Adriel said to Goten, patting him on his back. “But don’t leave it lying around. Bad things will happen to it.”
“Already have,” Goten muttered.
“See?”
“I want to go to the bathroom,” the third-class declared suddenly, his fingers digging into Adriel’s arm, making him wince. “The faster, the better.”
“It’s a good thing, then, that it’s just behind that wall.”
When they returned from the toilets, Goten gave Tamahi a look filled with complaint, then crawled into the bed and hid under the covers.
“What’s with him?” Tamahi wondered. He was readying some bandages and antiseptics with the intention of checking on his patients and changing their wrappings.
“Some elderly Human female scolded him for walking around naked.”
“Huh?” Tamahi turned his head to Goten. “But you had your underwear on. Besides, why do you even care what some measly Human female thinks?”
Goten’s pouting face appeared from under the covers. “Right. I don’t. I’m hungry. Is there anything to eat?”
Tamahi rolled his eyes, then looked at his watch. “There is still two hours until lunch.”
Goten frowned at the prospect of waiting. Well, in a minute or two he should get the feeling in his legs back completely and then he would be able to go to ransack through the pots in the kitchens on his own.
“I’ll get you something,” Adriel offered good-naturedly. “Anything in particular you’d like?”
“No. Just lots of fat.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“Why am I here? Again?” Goten asked when Adriel left.
“Just as the previous time, Edesha couldn’t wake you up, so we brought you here.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“For three days.” Tamahi gave him a searching look. “I can’t figure out what these sleeping spells of yours are. You aren’t anemic, you aren’t frail. Actually, you’re in a great physical form. It’s psychological, but it’s not as if you can make yourself fall asleep for a few days and not react to anything. One time was pretty strange, but a second time just doesn’t make any sense. And your brainwaves, they are all over the place. I’ve looked them up in the common database and there’s no pattern like yours. The only record which sort of resembles yours is that of a patient who had gone into coma after accidentally getting entangled in high-tension electric wires.”
“Well, at least I don’t get headaches anymore,” Goten said cheerfully after having listened to the doctor’s monologue.
“Good for you.”
The third-class tried to remember what he had been doing before he had woken up here. He could recall a party. Then there was also…
“A pen,” Goten said when his thoughts had suddenly jumped over to the party and the few remnants of the dream that were still left in his memory. “I need a pen and paper. Quickly!” However, when the doctor gave him a pen a notebook, he stared at it, not certain what he had wanted to write down. He had definitely seen something important in that dream. He had met his father. Something had exploded. But what the hell had it been about?
“Umm…” he hummed while unconsciously crisscrossing the bottom of the page, trying to force his memory to work.
“What are you doing?”
Goten raised his head to see Adriel walking towards him with a tray in his hands. There were two bowls – one bigger and one smaller – and a mug on it. His mouth watering, Goten pushed the notebook aside without a second thought. His face flushed brilliant red when he noticed Reyn behind Adriel’s back. He wished that, instead of the dream, he would have forgotten that incident between them. The heat on his face only intensified when Reyn’s eyebrows rose at him questioningly.
“So I heard you finally woke up from your beauty sleep.”
“As you see,” Goten muttered. “So do I look any more handsome?”
Reyn shrugged. “Not really. But it’s a good thing you haven’t become uglier either.”
“Are you feverish or something?” Adriel asked, lowering the tray in front of Goten.
“Mmhrmm…” Goten hummed, training his eyes on the noodle soup in front of him. He picked up the spoon. He didn’t really need to pretend to be more interested in his food as he really was. It came suddenly to him that this was probably how Reyn understood flirting. That would mean that most of what the flight officer had said or done to him, which he had considered to be the expression of the man’s dislike for him, was quite the opposite. Reyn was probably that type, the type which picked on people he liked to get their attention.
“Soo…” Suddenly, Adriel grinned brightly while watching Goten shoveling the soup into his mouth. “So, Cherrybutt,” he said joyously, “why is it that you…Oh, gods!” he squeaked as the notebook hit him squarely between the eyes.
“Hey, your coordination hasn’t deteriorated either,” Reyn informed Goten with a joyously sarcastic note. As the other third-class’s mouth was busy chewing, he awarded Reyn for his comment with the finger.
“What’s with this excessive violence?” Adriel complained, rubbing his forehead.
Goten swallowed the noodles. “Call me that again and I’ll nail your skull into a wall.”
Adriel scowled. He was pretty certain that Goten would actually keep his word. There went his planned amusement for the week. Pity. “You didn’t complain before.”
“I was drunk, Adriel. Druuuunk,” he accentuated while slurping on his soup.
Then Goten’s attention was drawn to Reyn, who had picked up the notebook from the floor and was curiously gazing at the two circled words Goten had written down on it: “father” and “explosion”.
“Hey, give that back.”
Reyn tossed the notebook onto the covers. There was nothing else to read in it anyway, only those two words.
“Hn. Is this an attempt to rhyme? Trying to be a poet?”
“Don’t curse,” Goten said, pointing at him with the spoon. Then he suddenly realized that if he really intended to let Reyn in on his weird dreams, he might as well tell him about his latest experience, or at least the bits he remembered about it. Did he really want to, though? He needed more time to think about this. The fact was, however, that besides this, they also had another thing to discuss – the so-called ‘theoretical boyfriends’. Goten couldn’t believe he had called them that. Reyn probably thought that he was an idiot. He probably was, too. Argh!
“Are you sure you aren’t feverish?” Adriel asked when Goten’s face flushed red again.
“I think he’s just thinking about something lewd,” Reyn offered his piece of mind.
Goten kept his eyes on the spoon, afraid to even look at the flight officer. He didn’t even need to – he could hear the smirk in his voice. That self-confident bastard!
Adriel grinned. “Huh? Really? Want to share your thoughts?”
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
The navigator chuckled. “Hey, he didn’t deny it.”
“Listen,” Tamahi said, returning from the patient he had changed the bandages for, “if the three of you want to flirt with each other, go and do that in your cabins. This is a medical facility, and these people need rest. Goten, eat your meal and get the hell out of here.”
“That’s harsh,” Goten said, pouting. He had expected to extend his stay here so as to postpone his and Reyn’s conversation for as long as possible. Now he had to think of some other excuse.
Adriel grinned. “That’s reality for you.”
Goten rolled his eyes.
The third-class wondered if Edesha had done this to piss him off. He wouldn’t be too surprised. However, he doubted that. He brushed the trash off his bed and, after taking his boots and jacket off, lay down; he still felt a little feeble. Cleaning would have to wait.
He hoped Reyn would be sensible – he usually was – and wouldn’t come to pester him today. On the other hand, the flight officer might just want and use his momentary weakness to get the better of him. Well, whatever, Goten decided before falling asleep.
The third-class woke up a little before seven, just in time for dinner. He felt much better, his mind much clearer. Sitting up, he cast a look around the cabin. It was indeed a horrendous sight to behold, but Edesha’s jacket was gone from the desk/table, indicating the soldier had visited the cabin while Goten had been asleep.
Goten rolled out of the bed and pulled his boots on. He was hungry, famished in fact. If not for that, he probably would have skipped dinner so that he wouldn’t run into Reyn. He knew his appearance at the canteen would be taken as a cue that he felt better and was ready to talk.
The third-class walked over to the wardrobe, where, after some time ransacking, he retrieved the recipe book. He opened it to the page with Kyon’s and the prince’s memos and gazed at them longingly. A sudden feeling that he was like a bashful, love-stricken maiden overcame him and he closed the cover with a snap. Well, alright, he missed the two, but now he could also admit that he missed one more than the other.
Ah, shit. Why the hell did this happen?
Should he show the page to Reyn as proof, in case he doubted his story about two theoretical boyfriends? Nah, never. Not after that stupid purple-haired bastard left his name there.
“Trunks, huh?” Goten said softly. He wondered if he could ever call the prince that. Even now, thousands of light-years away from the man, his mouth could hardly fold around the name. To him, the prince would always be his shaii and his prince. And there was no way around it.
The third-class was leafing through the book absently, his fingers clumsily touching the pages here and there while he mused. His hands stopped moving. Confused, he stared at the excruciatingly familiar paper slip resting on top of “Trout with Carrot and Celery Garnish”. He took the phone number and held it in front of his eyes.
Was it cursed or something?
Well, at least now Reyn knew that his talk about the two theoretical boyfriends had been real… But seriously…the audacity of that bastard… Had Adriel not shown him the number and told him that Reyn asked him to check it out, he would have simply thought that he himself had absently put it in the book and had forgotten all about it. Now, though… Goten thought about the flight officer going through his belongings and scowled at the paper slip. The nerve of that bastard!
Goten decided to leave the paper slip where he had found it. He wasn’t certain what the older man had made of the peculiar name when he had seen it, or whether he had made anything of it at all, but he wasn’t going to mention any of this to Reyn. If the flight officer had returned the number, then it probably meant that he wasn’t intending to question him about it. Adriel had probably told him some bullshit about it belonging to his father or friend and the flight officer had found no further interest in it. It was best to keep it that way.
TBC
Converting /tmp/phpN3b8Yx to /dev/stdout
Warnings: Alternate Universe. Yaoi (male x male). Goten x Trunks and vice versa. Other pairings.
A/N: Starcut’s crew members:
1.Captain
2.Backup Captain
3.Master Sergeant
4.Navigator - (Adriel)
5.Communications Specialist - (Sildara)
6.Programmer - (Rokunda)
7.Gunnery Sergeant - (Monteira Fawa)
8.Arms Specialist – (Hazel)
9.Arms Specialist – (Mandro)
10.Flight Officer - (Reyn Dueri)
11.Flight Officer - (Jadenas Ealt)
12.Head Engineer - (Nohail Ofura)
13.Maintenance Technician – (Mirun)
14.Maintenance Technician – (Landan)
15.Doctor - (Tamahi)
16.Medic - (Yereli)
17.Head Cook
18.Cook
19.Soldier - (Edesha)
20.Goten
Barracks
by chayron (lttomb@yahoo.com), beta-read by quatreofdoom
Part 38
Reyn stood at the side of Goten’s bed, waiting for the younger male to start talking, though it seemed that he didn’t know where to start. Finally, he gave the flight officer a pleading look. His cock was hard and it felt uncomfortable. Embarrassing too.
“Could we talk about this when I am more sober?”
Reyn cursed in disbelief. “You mean when you’re in a better condition to lie?”
Goten couldn’t hold his gaze. That was exactly what he thought. All of this had gotten so far simply because he was drunk and horny. Once he was sober, he would figure something out.
Goten looked guilty but stubborn, and Reyn let out a growl which embodied both his frustration and anger. “Shit!”
“Okay,” Goten said, raising his hands, giving up. “Okay. Let’s reach an agreement,” he suggested.
Reyn snorted at him. “What kind?”
“If I tell you everything, then you tell me everything too.”
“A trade? Okay, it’s fine with me.”
The younger male gave him a surprised look; he had not expected the flight officer to agree so readily. “Really? Alright,” he said when Reyn nodded. “We’ll talk. But not here. When we are alone and…”
“Sounds like a threat.”
“Listen, I’m too drunk to deal with this shit. You either want to hear it or you don’t. So which is it?”
Reyn’s lips twitched. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Of course I want to.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“Fine.”
When Reyn left, Goten flopped back onto his bed. He lay still for some time, then reached down and brushed over the front of his trousers. His hand easily picked out the obvious outline of his cock. He could wait for it to soften completely, but what was the point of depriving himself of release? Next time Reyn tried something like this again, he’d simply be twice as horny as he was now.
There wasn’t even a twitch from Edesha, and Goten turned to his side to face the wall. With a wriggle of his hips, Goten pushed his trousers and underwear out of his way. He fisted himself and started stroking while his thoughts swirled lazily. He kept on returning to the thought that he might have made a mistake promising Reyn to tell him everything. Well, he could lie. He didn’t want to and he wasn’t very good at lying, but it was still an option. He was still dazed over the fact that Reyn was a third-class. He had suspected, of course, but it was one thing to suspect and another to know for certain. It made much more sense now, all the things Reyn did.
Goten came with a soft grunt. When he opened his eyes, he saw that he didn’t catch everything. Some of his seed slipped past his fingers and hung on the metallic wall. He groped around the pillow with his left hand but found no tissues, so he wiped the mess with the corner of his sheet. It was about time to change the bed linens anyway.
The third-class started when he realized he had been about to fall asleep. He went to the bathroom, then returned to his cabin. Edesha was still sleeping, frozen in the same exact position he had first fallen asleep in. Unceremoniously, Goten shed his uniform onto the floor and called for the lights to go out.
He woke up to the sound of people walking around him. It was a soft, carpeted sound, but with an anxious hurry in it. He blinked at the blinding lights and sat up. There were rows and rows of filled seats in front of him. He couldn’t see the faces because of the blinding lights, but all of them were turned towards him expectantly. With dread, the third-class saw that he was on a platform, right next to a tribune. After sparing a look at himself, he realized that he was only in his underwear.
Goten’s eyes were drawn to movement by the row of armchairs behind the platform. An important looking elite with a horde of medals on his uniform had stood up and was climbing the short set of stairs, coming towards him. The third-class staggered to his feet. Panicky, his eyes swept over the lavish conference hall.
Where in the world was he?
The man was relentlessly coming closer, and Goten now was able to hear the soft jingle of his medals. The third-class let out a shaky breath when the elite passed him and stood at the tribune. It seemed this was one of those dreams again. He was invisible to other people. What was it about these dreams? There was something important about them he seemed to be forgetting.
The man at the tribune cleared his throat. “Good afternoon, honorable guests. I’m Veden Grendal. Most of you know me as the head of National Security. Today, we’ve gathered here to…”
Goten yelped and leapt forward, nearly right off the stage, when somebody touched his shoulder. He whirled around, his whole body tight and strung, ready to strike.
“Godmotherfuckingasshole!” he spat out in a shaky gasp. “It’s you again!”
Gohan shrugged. “One would think you’ve already gotten used to this.”
“Well, I haven’t!” Goten snapped at the imposter. “Stop doing that!”
“Doing what?”
“Scaring me shitless!” Goten growled at him, jumping off the stage. The drone of the microphone was vibrating through his body, but he didn’t pay attention to what the man was saying. There was something about these dreams… They were important, Goten kept telling himself that, but the imposter’s presence was grating on his nerves.
The lights weren’t so bright once off the stage and Goten looked around. He was in a huge conference hall, fully packed with people. Most of them were Saiyans, but there were also many Humans and Leiadors. Another thing that Goten noticed was that nearly all of the present people were wearing uniforms. It was a varicolored sea of uniforms. Saiyans mainly used two colors: blue for air forces and khaki for land. Leiadors, however, used green for land, gray for air forces, and dark blue for their navy. Goten didn’t even know where to start with Humans. The variety of their uniforms made his head spin.
Suddenly, everybody went dead silent and Goten quickly turned around to look at the stage. He could hear feet shuffling behind him, everyone standing up, saluting. Automatically, he pressed his right fist over his heart too. The prince was walking towards the tribune. This was the first time Goten had seen the younger Vegeta of the Vegeta House in the flesh. If this could be called “seeing in the flesh”.
When the heir to the throne stood up next to Veden Grendal, his head only came to the man’s shoulder. The peculiar hair, though, made him visually taller. Impressed, Goten gazed at the widow's peak on the prince’s brow. Trunks had inherited the widow’s peak, only his was not so prominent. The shape of the eyes, too, even the hard look in them. Goten suddenly found himself giggling. He couldn’t even begin to imagine himself being introduced to this man. Trunks was insane. He really was.
Suddenly, Goten seized up, his nervous laughter dying.
Somebody was looking at him.
The knowledge was suddenly so clear that it was painful. He looked around frantically. Feet shuffled, the people taking their chairs again. The prince started talking, but he couldn’t hear a word, anxiously looking for…
There he was! There was someone standing at the other end of the platform. Someone whose stance and profile seemed to be very familiar. From this far, he couldn’t tell exactly whether the man was staring straight at him, nonetheless, his head was turned towards him. Nobody else paid him any attention; he didn’t exist for them, all of them were looking at the prince at the tribune. Goten stepped forward. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Gohan grabbed him by his arm.
“Don’t.”
“‘Don’t ’ what?”
“Do you really want to meet him?”
Goten wavered for a moment. “I…do?” he said.
The imposter didn’t seem to be convinced but, shrugging, let go of his arm. Goten started walking along the platform, towards the other end of it. Already midway to the man, Goten recognized him. He wasn’t certain what was going on or why he was here. Was he one of the guests? Maybe security personnel? Who was he kidding? A third-class wouldn’t even be allowed to enter this hall. Were they sharing the same dream?
“Hi, Dad,” Goten nodded.
“Hi.”
Goten measured his father from head to toe. He seemed to be surprised to see him here, just like Goten was. Kakarott was wearing a standard Saiyan armor. There was not a trace of his injuries outwardly.
“It seems like you’ve completely recovered,” Goten said finally.
“Well, my side still pains me when I make a sudden movement, but it’s getting better.” Kakarott gave his son a searching look. “Why did you lie about not being able to see the old man?”
“The old man?” Goten shrugged. “I don’t really know who you’re talking about.”
“About him,” Kakarott said, motioning at the empty space next to him.
Goten looked at the floor, then scanned around with his eyes. He couldn’t see anyone. Wondering if his father could see Gohan’s imposter, he shrugged again. Then he realized that the imposter was nowhere to be found either. Deciding that he didn’t give a damn, Goten reclined his head to watch the stage.
“…that’s why we are going to…” the prince’s voice droned on.
“And you’ve become taller,” Kakarott said. “You look more…mature?”
The comment was pleasing to his ears, and Goten felt himself blush lightly. Willing the color away, he turned to his father. “What is it about these dreams? I feel as if I keep forgetting something…”
“Oh that. It’s probably because it doesn’t work the usual way. It’s a kind of a dream, as you said, and usually our subconsciousness gets rid of them once we wake up, so as not to clutter our mind. Besides, it’s real and not real at the same time. Something that will happen and, at the same time, something that might not. It’s not really stable. That’s why you keep forgetting. You’ll get better with time.”
“Not really stable? As in not really set?”
“No, it is set, but it’s not stable.”
“I don’t really get it, but I know I have to remember something.”
“You have to remember not to forget.”
“Huh. Are you trying to give me a headache?”
Kakarott shrugged. “Just write it down before you forget. I think something will happen soon. It always does. But this time it’s going to be something big. I mean, why would there be the two of us here?”
Goten wondered about this. Or tried to. His thoughts felt fuzzy when he tried to think about the purpose of his presence here. He tried to concentrate on what the prince was saying, but ended up staring at Vegeta’s white-gloved hands on the tribune. So white. As white as the puff on the end of his tail. Instead of the prince’s voice, his head was soon filled with the methodical hum of the crowd.
“What were you laughing about?”
Goten gave his father a confused look. “When?”
“Just now. Before you noticed me.”
“Just now…” Goten repeated, his eyebrows creasing while he was trying to remember. “Ah.” He suddenly felt foolish. He couldn’t tell his father what he had been thinking about when he saw The Prince of All Saiyans climb onto the stage. “Nothing really. Just thought he looked funny. I’d have never thought that he is so short.”
Kakarott gave him a searching look. He knew that Goten was lying. Goten would never giggle mindlessly just because of that. The fact that he was lying after having been asked such a seemingly innocent question was disturbing.
The prince’s voice was suddenly interrupted by the earsplitting howls of sirens. It was an air raid. People jumped to their feet, clamoring. The prince and the other guests behind the platform were immediately surrounded by their bodyguards.
Kakarott turned to Goten. “They probably intend to blow up the entire station. From the look of it, they will succeed. I will try to come here, to the station. You should come too. I will need help.”
Goten was skeptical – it was not as if he could just leave Starcut and go wherever the hell he wanted. It didn’t work that way. He would end up being hunted by the entire Saiyan fleet. “Where is this?” he asked.
Kakarott looked surprised. “Oh. It’s Bruminan Station, in the Terran Republic, close to Earth itself.”
“Earth?” Goten gave this some thought. “Well, maybe this could be arrang…”
A flash of light suddenly burst through the ceiling, engulfing the entire hall in a blinding sea of white. Screaming in pain, Goten covered his eyes. His brain was already dead, but his ears still registered the sounds of walls and bodies crumbling, turning into dust.
Goten came to his senses when he was soaring through the air, falling through the familiar white and blue. He was too stunned by the abrupt change in his surroundings to react to the occurrence in any way. With a loud splash, he plummeted into the water. Gasping and sputtering, he swam upwards and broke to the surface. He was in the familiar pool at the edge of the world.
The third-class splashed around for a few more seconds, then powered up and rose into the air. He flew upwards until the pool was far behind him. He reached the edge of the woods, where the water was falling from, and landed. He wouldn’t have recognized Gohan if not for his posture and uniform. The imposter, who was sitting on the stump of a fallen tree, turned towards him. There was something wrong with his head – there was no face.
While Goten was walking towards him, cold water was washing his boots. When he reached Gohan, he saw that he did have a face, only that it was transparent; he could see the woods right through it.
“What’s wrong with your face?” Goten asked.
“Is there something wrong with it?” The imposter’s voice sounded different than usual, somehow rough and sandy.
“Who are you, really?”
The imposter watched him silently with his transparent eyes. “I’m Gohan,” he said finally, “or whoever else you want me to be.”
Musing over this, Goten sat down on the fallen tree, next to the imposter. “Are you my conscience? Maybe guilt?”
The imposter laughed. “That’s not what you think.”
“No, it isn’t,” Goten agreed. “I don’t really know what to think. No, not that either. It’s probably that I don’t want to think.”
ooOoOoOoo
Goten woke up gradually to the sound of someone’s voice. He rolled over with a deep, reverberating sigh. He felt sleepy and sluggish.“Goten?”
“Ghm?” Goten hummed, lifting the cover over his head, blocking the noise, almost asleep again.
“Goten?”
The third-class murmured something, impatiently pushing the invasive hand aside, away from his face.
“Just let him sleep,” Tamahi told Reyn. “His brainwaves have stabilized completely; it seems he’s just sleepy.”
Reyn moved his hand away from Goten’s forehead. “He’s slept for two days. Isn’t that already enough?”
“I think it’s different.”
“Are you certain it’s not alcohol poisoning?”
Reyn turned to Nohail. Unexpectedly, the head engineer appeared to be very interested in Goten’s case. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be so eye-catching, but there was a busted pipe on the lower deck which was in dire need of mending, and Nohail also came to see the patient every three or so hours. Reyn probably wouldn’t have given the fact much thought if not for the strange conversation Goten and Nohail had after the swordplay about their mutual friend. There was something fishy going on. Whatever it was, he hoped that Nohail’s sudden strange behavior wasn’t the expression of his romantic feelings for Goten.
“Yes, I’m certain that this isn’t alcohol poisoning,” Reyn said. When he had left Goten in his cabin, he wasn’t all that drunk. Pleasantly buzzed, at most. Even if he had later drunk the coffee which had been left in the plastic bottle, he wouldn’t have gotten any worse. If anything, there was a great chance of him sobering up while drinking it – it was too diluted. It was how Reyn liked it since he couldn’t drink – once drunk, he became aggressive to the point where he would beat someone up. Everyone on Starcut knew that. About five years ago he had punched Adriel out cold for having said something unpleasant about his hair.
Nohail became aware of Reyn’s gaze. It wasn’t pleasant, the gaze. It was curious, with dark undertones beneath the surface. The head engineer wondered if it was indeed so as he had heard Mandro say. Was he supposed to report things like these as well?
When Nohail returned to his cabin, he turned on his terminal. Starcut wasn’t very far away from Enran Station, so he wanted to use this chance and send the prince a message. The next opportunity was three days away, when they would be passing Otahra Station.
He entered his passwords and started composing a report. He regularly wrote every five days or so. There was always something to report about Goten. During his roughly five week stay on Starcut, the extraordinary youth managed to get into an unbelievable amount of trouble and conquer everyone on board; there was no one who was indifferent to him. This time, again, Nohail had a great many things to report: everything about Goten’s trip to Orion and back, the additional passengers on board, Goten’s new roommate, the party, and his falling asleep for two days. There was also the fact that Goten knew about their connection. The prince had told him not to give himself away, but things were how they were. Besides, he doubted that Goten knew just how thoroughly he had been asked to report all the details concerning him.
The head engineer had just finished writing the part about Edesha being moved to Goten’s cabin when the door opened to let in Mirun. The maintenance technician was drenched to the bone, his boots gurgling wetly when he walked inside. He gave a grave look to his roommate, noticing him saving the file and closing the program.
“Lately you’ve been spending massive amounts of time typing away on that thing. Have you found yourself a female?”
“Yes, two of them,” Nohail said sarcastically, watching him shedding his boots and wet clothing onto the floor. He averted his eyes from his roommate’s naked backside. “How’s the situation on the lower deck?”
“Those damn Humans! How in the world did they even manage to bust that pipe?!”
“Argh. Don’t start again. It could’ve happened to anyone.”
Mirun snorted. He grabbed a dry uniform from his wardrobe and started dressing. Once he pulled his underwear and trousers up, he flopped down onto his bed. “We fixed it. It would’ve been faster if they hadn’t tried to help, though. Landan nearly squashed one with a pipe.”
“Huh?”
“Well, we had brought a new pipe with us and one of them offered to hold it for us while we were removing the old one. So Landan gladly agreed and tossed the pipe for him. There’s a dent now in the wall, and I don’t know if it’s from the pipe or the guy’s head.”
“Aw shit.”
“So yeah, we took the idiot to Tamahi. Tamahi went nuts saying that he didn’t have anywhere to put up that guy. So anyway, he ranted a lot about being more careful and safety in general, then stitched the guy’s head up and sent us away.”
“Well, at least he’s still alive. Don’t let them help you with anything. They are damn fragile. The last thing we need is to be accused of manslaughter. I hear there’s a great demand for help in the kitchens. Send all of them there.”
“No problem.”
Mirun didn’t show any intention of leaving the cabin; he lay on his back, bare-chested, staring at the ceiling, looking bored. It was clear that Nohail would have to find another opportunity to finish his report.
The head engineer followed his roommate’s example and, after kicking his boots off, lay down on his bed. His thoughts flew to the first time he had met the prince. The boy had barely been fourteen at the time, absolutely green to space traveling. Their master sergeant at the time was Wadara Argo, an energetic elite female with a tendency to exaggerate everything. Not that it was a bad thing – after the “attack” on Morawa Colony, most of the contemporary crew on Armageddon had been promoted and had never expressed any complaints. Even the prince. It was obvious that he, like many others, had been reluctant to accept his promotion but, in the end, he had decided that there was no need to be coy and that this opportunity to advance in the ranks might never appear again. It had, of course, but that was another story.
Nohail had been the only one on Armageddon who knew a thing or two about swordplay. Naturally, he and the prince sought each other out for spars. The tiny boy had lacked physical strength, but compensated for it with his skill and dexterity. He hadn’t been the prince’s teacher, far from it – he had learned a thing or two from the boy as well. They simply shared a hobby and enjoyed each other’s company.
Once the prince had been promoted, he left Armageddon to join the troops on Ruan. The swords had been the prince’s parting gift, a thanks for all the fun time they had while sparring. That was the last time he had seen the kid. Effortlessly, he had followed his advancement through the ranks on TV or the radio as it was common knowledge – he was a Saiyan Prince after all. He had grown, was a man now, but Nohail could not forget the awkward kid the prince had been in the past.
The call more than a month ago had surprised Nohail greatly. He hadn’t believed the prince remembered him. Well, he did, and even if the call had been mostly business, it was pleasant. He was curious as to why the prince would be interested in some nameless second-class, but it was not as if he could ask. Goten had revealed that he had been his shaii at school, but that didn’t explain anything at all. If anything, it seemed that the prince was taking personal interest in Goten. What the hell for? If one overlooked his stunning skill at swordsmanship and the dazzling performance during the fight with Reyn, the kid seemed as average as it got.
Nohail turned his head to look at his roommate. Mirun had fallen asleep. Silently, the head engineer got up from his bed and returned to his terminal to finish composing his report.
ooOoOoOoo
“Fuckshitohgodsthatfuck!” ;Startled out of his wits, Tamahi jumped away as Goten suddenly shot out of his sickbed and crashed onto the floor as his legs refused to hold his weight.
“Oh, damn. I’m so sorry,” the doctor said, watching Goten cradle the tip of his tail with his face screwed in pain and tears glistening in the corners of his eyes. He must have stepped on it. Tamahi had figured this would happen sooner or later as Goten’s tail had an uncanny tendency to just slip out of the bed and dangle away.
Kneeling on the metallic floor in only his underwear and gritting his teeth in pain, Goten soothed his abused tail. He raised his face to give the doctor a teary look, as if asking what he had done to deserve such cruel punishment.
Unconsciously, feeling his pain, Tamahi patted him on the head. “Aww, don’t look at me like that.”
Both of them looked to the door when it opened and Adriel stepped in. The navigator froze on the spot, his eyes fixed on the doctor’s back. Confused, Tamahi stared at the funny expression on his face, then realized how the two of them must appear from Adriel’s perspective. “Ha,” he said chuckling. He removed his hand from Goten’s head and stepped away from the kneeling youth. “He just fell. See,” he said, pointing at his crotch, “my pants are all buttoned up.”
“Heh,” Adriel grunted. “It seems I was just in the nick of time to rescue him. But maybe you don’t want to be rescued…?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Goten grumbled, not understanding why Adriel was giving him that lecherous grin. He tried to stand up. The only thing he knew now was that if he didn’t get to the bathroom in a minute, he would piss himself. His feet felt wobbly and unreliable, and he reached his hand out for Adriel.
“What was that scream just now?” Adriel asked, helping Goten to get upright. He looked around, observing the patients. The Nondren gave him an unfriendly look, and Adriel answered him with one of his own. He wished the bastard would get better faster so they could finally ki-cuff him. The Humans just lay or sat in their beds docilely, watching the scene.
“It was probably me,” Goten muttered, leaning against Adriel. He wasn’t certain what had happened, just knew that he had awakened to a horrendous pain in his appendage.
“I stepped on his tail,” Tamahi explained.
“Uh-oh. You have my sympathy,” Adriel said to Goten, patting him on his back. “But don’t leave it lying around. Bad things will happen to it.”
“Already have,” Goten muttered.
“See?”
“I want to go to the bathroom,” the third-class declared suddenly, his fingers digging into Adriel’s arm, making him wince. “The faster, the better.”
“It’s a good thing, then, that it’s just behind that wall.”
When they returned from the toilets, Goten gave Tamahi a look filled with complaint, then crawled into the bed and hid under the covers.
“What’s with him?” Tamahi wondered. He was readying some bandages and antiseptics with the intention of checking on his patients and changing their wrappings.
“Some elderly Human female scolded him for walking around naked.”
“Huh?” Tamahi turned his head to Goten. “But you had your underwear on. Besides, why do you even care what some measly Human female thinks?”
Goten’s pouting face appeared from under the covers. “Right. I don’t. I’m hungry. Is there anything to eat?”
Tamahi rolled his eyes, then looked at his watch. “There is still two hours until lunch.”
Goten frowned at the prospect of waiting. Well, in a minute or two he should get the feeling in his legs back completely and then he would be able to go to ransack through the pots in the kitchens on his own.
“I’ll get you something,” Adriel offered good-naturedly. “Anything in particular you’d like?”
“No. Just lots of fat.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“Why am I here? Again?” Goten asked when Adriel left.
“Just as the previous time, Edesha couldn’t wake you up, so we brought you here.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“For three days.” Tamahi gave him a searching look. “I can’t figure out what these sleeping spells of yours are. You aren’t anemic, you aren’t frail. Actually, you’re in a great physical form. It’s psychological, but it’s not as if you can make yourself fall asleep for a few days and not react to anything. One time was pretty strange, but a second time just doesn’t make any sense. And your brainwaves, they are all over the place. I’ve looked them up in the common database and there’s no pattern like yours. The only record which sort of resembles yours is that of a patient who had gone into coma after accidentally getting entangled in high-tension electric wires.”
“Well, at least I don’t get headaches anymore,” Goten said cheerfully after having listened to the doctor’s monologue.
“Good for you.”
The third-class tried to remember what he had been doing before he had woken up here. He could recall a party. Then there was also…
“A pen,” Goten said when his thoughts had suddenly jumped over to the party and the few remnants of the dream that were still left in his memory. “I need a pen and paper. Quickly!” However, when the doctor gave him a pen a notebook, he stared at it, not certain what he had wanted to write down. He had definitely seen something important in that dream. He had met his father. Something had exploded. But what the hell had it been about?
“Umm…” he hummed while unconsciously crisscrossing the bottom of the page, trying to force his memory to work.
“What are you doing?”
Goten raised his head to see Adriel walking towards him with a tray in his hands. There were two bowls – one bigger and one smaller – and a mug on it. His mouth watering, Goten pushed the notebook aside without a second thought. His face flushed brilliant red when he noticed Reyn behind Adriel’s back. He wished that, instead of the dream, he would have forgotten that incident between them. The heat on his face only intensified when Reyn’s eyebrows rose at him questioningly.
“So I heard you finally woke up from your beauty sleep.”
“As you see,” Goten muttered. “So do I look any more handsome?”
Reyn shrugged. “Not really. But it’s a good thing you haven’t become uglier either.”
“Are you feverish or something?” Adriel asked, lowering the tray in front of Goten.
“Mmhrmm…” Goten hummed, training his eyes on the noodle soup in front of him. He picked up the spoon. He didn’t really need to pretend to be more interested in his food as he really was. It came suddenly to him that this was probably how Reyn understood flirting. That would mean that most of what the flight officer had said or done to him, which he had considered to be the expression of the man’s dislike for him, was quite the opposite. Reyn was probably that type, the type which picked on people he liked to get their attention.
“Soo…” Suddenly, Adriel grinned brightly while watching Goten shoveling the soup into his mouth. “So, Cherrybutt,” he said joyously, “why is it that you…Oh, gods!” he squeaked as the notebook hit him squarely between the eyes.
“Hey, your coordination hasn’t deteriorated either,” Reyn informed Goten with a joyously sarcastic note. As the other third-class’s mouth was busy chewing, he awarded Reyn for his comment with the finger.
“What’s with this excessive violence?” Adriel complained, rubbing his forehead.
Goten swallowed the noodles. “Call me that again and I’ll nail your skull into a wall.”
Adriel scowled. He was pretty certain that Goten would actually keep his word. There went his planned amusement for the week. Pity. “You didn’t complain before.”
“I was drunk, Adriel. Druuuunk,” he accentuated while slurping on his soup.
Then Goten’s attention was drawn to Reyn, who had picked up the notebook from the floor and was curiously gazing at the two circled words Goten had written down on it: “father” and “explosion”.
“Hey, give that back.”
Reyn tossed the notebook onto the covers. There was nothing else to read in it anyway, only those two words.
“Hn. Is this an attempt to rhyme? Trying to be a poet?”
“Don’t curse,” Goten said, pointing at him with the spoon. Then he suddenly realized that if he really intended to let Reyn in on his weird dreams, he might as well tell him about his latest experience, or at least the bits he remembered about it. Did he really want to, though? He needed more time to think about this. The fact was, however, that besides this, they also had another thing to discuss – the so-called ‘theoretical boyfriends’. Goten couldn’t believe he had called them that. Reyn probably thought that he was an idiot. He probably was, too. Argh!
“Are you sure you aren’t feverish?” Adriel asked when Goten’s face flushed red again.
“I think he’s just thinking about something lewd,” Reyn offered his piece of mind.
Goten kept his eyes on the spoon, afraid to even look at the flight officer. He didn’t even need to – he could hear the smirk in his voice. That self-confident bastard!
Adriel grinned. “Huh? Really? Want to share your thoughts?”
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
The navigator chuckled. “Hey, he didn’t deny it.”
“Listen,” Tamahi said, returning from the patient he had changed the bandages for, “if the three of you want to flirt with each other, go and do that in your cabins. This is a medical facility, and these people need rest. Goten, eat your meal and get the hell out of here.”
“That’s harsh,” Goten said, pouting. He had expected to extend his stay here so as to postpone his and Reyn’s conversation for as long as possible. Now he had to think of some other excuse.
Adriel grinned. “That’s reality for you.”
Goten rolled his eyes.
ooOoOoOoo
When Goten returned to his cabin, it was empty. During the few days of his absence, it had turned into a pigsty. It hadn’t been very clean when he had seen it last, after the party, but now it was unrecognizable. Edesha’s jacket lay over the desk/table. Underneath it, he could see the soldier’s filthy mug. All the packets and wrappers from the party were still there, some protruding from under Goten’s bed, others piled on top of it. Heaps of dirty socks lay strewn all over the floor here and there, making the third-class wonder just how many socks the soldier had and how often he changed them. The air reeked of sweat. The stench was proportional to the proximity of Edesha’s bed – the closer it was, the stronger was the smell. Edesha had also borrowed Goten’s one and only porn magazine and now it lay in the middle of the soldier’s bed, the place the man probably considered the holiest in the cabin. Fountains of crumpled tissues on the sheets of the unmade bed and around it proved that Edesha had been having a terrific time in Goten’s absence. There was something sticky on the floor as well – looked like spilled coffee. Goten hoped it was. Two large hairballs, stirred by the draft, started rolling lazily when Goten overcame his initial shock and stepped further into his ruined kingdom.The third-class wondered if Edesha had done this to piss him off. He wouldn’t be too surprised. However, he doubted that. He brushed the trash off his bed and, after taking his boots and jacket off, lay down; he still felt a little feeble. Cleaning would have to wait.
He hoped Reyn would be sensible – he usually was – and wouldn’t come to pester him today. On the other hand, the flight officer might just want and use his momentary weakness to get the better of him. Well, whatever, Goten decided before falling asleep.
The third-class woke up a little before seven, just in time for dinner. He felt much better, his mind much clearer. Sitting up, he cast a look around the cabin. It was indeed a horrendous sight to behold, but Edesha’s jacket was gone from the desk/table, indicating the soldier had visited the cabin while Goten had been asleep.
Goten rolled out of the bed and pulled his boots on. He was hungry, famished in fact. If not for that, he probably would have skipped dinner so that he wouldn’t run into Reyn. He knew his appearance at the canteen would be taken as a cue that he felt better and was ready to talk.
The third-class walked over to the wardrobe, where, after some time ransacking, he retrieved the recipe book. He opened it to the page with Kyon’s and the prince’s memos and gazed at them longingly. A sudden feeling that he was like a bashful, love-stricken maiden overcame him and he closed the cover with a snap. Well, alright, he missed the two, but now he could also admit that he missed one more than the other.
Ah, shit. Why the hell did this happen?
Should he show the page to Reyn as proof, in case he doubted his story about two theoretical boyfriends? Nah, never. Not after that stupid purple-haired bastard left his name there.
“Trunks, huh?” Goten said softly. He wondered if he could ever call the prince that. Even now, thousands of light-years away from the man, his mouth could hardly fold around the name. To him, the prince would always be his shaii and his prince. And there was no way around it.
The third-class was leafing through the book absently, his fingers clumsily touching the pages here and there while he mused. His hands stopped moving. Confused, he stared at the excruciatingly familiar paper slip resting on top of “Trout with Carrot and Celery Garnish”. He took the phone number and held it in front of his eyes.
Was it cursed or something?
Well, at least now Reyn knew that his talk about the two theoretical boyfriends had been real… But seriously…the audacity of that bastard… Had Adriel not shown him the number and told him that Reyn asked him to check it out, he would have simply thought that he himself had absently put it in the book and had forgotten all about it. Now, though… Goten thought about the flight officer going through his belongings and scowled at the paper slip. The nerve of that bastard!
Goten decided to leave the paper slip where he had found it. He wasn’t certain what the older man had made of the peculiar name when he had seen it, or whether he had made anything of it at all, but he wasn’t going to mention any of this to Reyn. If the flight officer had returned the number, then it probably meant that he wasn’t intending to question him about it. Adriel had probably told him some bullshit about it belonging to his father or friend and the flight officer had found no further interest in it. It was best to keep it that way.
TBC
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