Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Magick and a Rooftop Room ❯ Magick and a Rooftop Room ( Chapter 1 )

Summary: How is it possible that children understand destiny? How can you know you belong with someone only a moment after meeting them? And how can a connection between two people transcend all boundaries? That, my friend, is love ... (shounen-ai)

Warnings: boy + boy love, implied citrus, A/U.

Feedback: Coherence, eloquence, elaboration & analysis highly valued & appreciated.

Disclaimer: Mentioned characters are not mine. Storyline is.

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Magick and a Rooftop Room

By Shella

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I think we both knew something was up the first day we met, when I declared that I'd climb up to the Hole ten times a day to see you even once more. The words came by themselves - I never planned them or intended to say them - but as soon as they left my mouth I knew they were true. We both realized it then: that we shared something beyond the power of mere words to express or explain, something utterly mysterious that had happened within a few short hours of our meeting or possibly even before it. I've never looked back since.

Y'know, until you came along I wasn't a graffitist. It was a pointless, stupid activity. But after we discovered our little hidey hole you weren't the only one who covered the place in charcoal scrawls. TB 4 GS I wrote, sometimes just once, sometimes over and over again until my arm ached. I couldn't help myself. I had to say it. And the Hole needed a bit of decoration, anyway.

There was never a happier place for me than that poky little room on a rooftop, never any happier time than the hours we spent there. I don't know what instinct it was that told us, little kids though we were, that these joyful moments were our secret. Certainly nobody told us I was the last person you were allowed to meet, and I should never, ever become friends with someone like you. But something in the perfect way we clicked, in the mutual understanding and empathy between us, made it quite unthinkable that I should ever tell anyone about the time we spent together. We were a conspiracy of two, creating private memories I could hug to myself while I slept or lay awake. You were all mine.

I've never claimed to know what love is; I just know that I love you.

Of course there were trials. Of course we had arguments. And of course I could never stay angry with you, nor you with me. We always seized the first chance to make up, to be the wonderful friends we always were, although neither of us ever apologized. Except for that once, we always just knew.

My parents often avoided my questions about life with `you'll understand when you're older'. That one worked for why Mama threw things at Daddy before bursting into tears and showing him the baby booties she'd bought, or what made that red stain on the knickers of the kitchen girl whose skirts were saving me from cleaning duty, or why the young men strutted around pigeon-chested when the ladies passed their martial arts practice.

But when I asked what love was and received the same answer, I wanted to yell at them, to tell the whole world that I knew better than anyone what love was, because I loved you.

I didn't.

Before I met you I didn't believe in magick. Not unless it was the ordinary, everyday sort of magick that made clouds know exactly where to put themselves to make a sunrise really pretty, and grass able to break a slab of stone into pieces, and the guards look right past me when I didn't want to be seen. I had no idea it was possible to make fire with a flick of your fingers, or dream about what was really happening a hundred miles away, or freeze water by ghosting your hand over it, or tell how many eggs a dove would lay before she even starts building a nest.

But when you said you were a mage I believed you, and never in all the time I've known and loved you have you ever deceived me, and never in all the time you've known and loved me have I mistrusted you. When you made me a rose out of sweet-scented air I was awed, and being a child I begged you to show me more "tricks". You told me they weren't tricks, just gifts, and though I was never shallow enough to love you more for them I did find your gifts fascinating.

I have a confession to make: I was green with envy the first time I saw your mage's robes. You just looked so stylish in them, so cool, so mystical and powerful, that I suddenly despised my princely tunic and wanted nothing more than to be just like you. Of course, when you let me try them on I looked awkward and ridiculous, but I could still dream.

How was I meant to know that it was this very fact - your heritage as a mage - that was the strongest reason you and I were not allowed to be?

Common people were never friendly with magickal folk, and as for your people interacting with royalty, it was just out of the question. From what you told me I knew the two groups coexisted, kept a civil kind of truce, but they were never neighborly. There was a subsurface fear of your community that prevented true friendship from being attained. Not that there was much of a community for them to be afraid of - one family isn't exactly an army waiting to take over, is it? Nevertheless, fear you they did.

Your brother didn't help matters. The blind are not supposed to be able to see, yet Gohan sensed people's auras so acutely that he could unnerve a person by describing their every move. The first time I met him he was fighting off a gang of thieves, and doing a bang-up job until one of them clipped his knee with a beam of wood and he went down. I was young and foolish and rode straight in - mounted though I was, they would have made mincemeat out of me had my guards not followed and dealt with the ruffians. But when Gohan turned his sightless milky eyes on me, thanking his prince, Yamcha and Tien realized who - what - he was. They couldn't hurry me away fast enough.

Persistent questioning on my part eventually led to Yamcha labeling the blind man he'd saved as a `conjuror'. Tien warned me that such people were not to be trusted - they were shifty, cunning, ambitious, and cruel. The two of them made all sorts of accusations against your people as we rode back to the castle, but I didn't believe them for an instant. I knew better - I knew you better.

All their dire warnings achieved was to make me even more intensely curious about your folk. I knew I could never become part of your life and spend every waking moment with you as I yearned, but by listening to your stories I could learn of what I was missing out on.

The only person I could talk to about magick - and in a very generalized and objective manner at that - was Krillin. He was my tutor and the smartest person I knew. From when I could barely talk he'd been a presence in my life - short, bald, cheerful, and with a wicked sense of humor. I learned early on that he had once been a monk, and that he was on very good terms with the captain of the guard, but not until I barged into his chambers without knocking one day did I discover the reason he'd left the monastery.

I think you'd be the only one who could understand how much this realization heartened me. I never told Krillin or Piccolo about us, nor that I'd walked in on them undetected, but it was enough that I knew. I wasn't the only male to love another. And though I never doubted that what you and I shared was right, it was strangely relieving to know this.

Out of everyone in the castle, Krillin was the closest to me. I respected him in a way I couldn't respect my parents, king and queen though they were, and my little sister was only a baby and, in my opinion, not worth anything at all. Krillin was teacher, confidante, and friend - I could tell him things and ask him questions I couldn't voice to anyone else. So it was Krillin who told me about magick: about how the commoners feared it, how it was a deep connection to nature and life, how none of it could be abused since with the knowledge and power of a mage came humility and compassion. It was about then that I told him he was a mage, and he told me I was every bit as astute as he gave me credit for.

You said your parents were too proud to publicly campaign for the abolishment of anti-magickal prejudice, but I know you reveled in the hours we spent plotting ways to reconcile the common people with the mages. Our plans were outrageous and ridiculous and would never have worked, but it was too much fun designing them to bother about the limitations of the real world.

Such stubborn ignorance became the hallmark of our secret meetings. For a few hours we were all that mattered; you were my everything. I wasn't a prince, you weren't an outcast. We wouldn't be persecuted for being in love. Anything we believed was real. So many times we staged our own wedding, exchanging rings of plaited grass and learning how to kiss. I just regret (can you imagine how much?) that it took interference from an outside source for us to reach the honeymoon.

Marron was Krillin's daughter and several years younger then me. She'd been born not long after he left the monastery - he and Piccolo wanted a daughter, so a mutual friend had done them a favor and let them raise the child as their own. Juu was beautiful, and passed her looks on to her daughter, but I would never have touched Marron had it not been for my father.

Vegeta's idea of sexual education was to throw a girl at me and let me figure out the rest. She was insistent and I was confused - I loved you and never wanted anyone except you, but my father was a terrifying man when I disobeyed him. Marron was determined to do her duty, and although I was reluctant to the point of uncooperative she took charge. It was messy and unromantic and entirely unfulfilling, and I felt sick afterwards. I'd been nervous about being intimate with you before, but now that it was too late I realized that you were the only one I ever wanted to be that close to. I didn't speak to Marron for days - I couldn't look Krillin in the eye. I was so angry at myself I seriously considered running away from the castle, from my life and everything I knew.

But the need to see you, to be with you, was too strong. I knew I couldn't stay away from you, my love. So I made my way up to the smoky Hole with a heavy heart, wracked with guilt but too desperately addicted to you to stay away.

Do you know how happy I was when you forgave me? Do you have any idea, most beloved mage, how my world exploded with light when you accepted my apology and said you were still mine? I wanted to stay with you forever; indeed, we stayed in our hiding place a whole day as I thanked you in the best way I knew. It was every bit as wonderful as I could have dreamed. That night, that long, beautiful night when we watched the sun come up, could have lasted forever. Yes, I caught it when I got back half a day after escaping my guards. Yes, I was punished, both for my absence and for refusing to account for it. Yes, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I'll never know a place as wonderful as by your side.

It might have been that incident that alerted Krillin. Apparently I changed after you made love to me - happier, brighter, more full of life. I'm not sure how he figured out I was head over heels for a guy, though. Maybe it takes one to know one?

Whatever the reason, he sat me down and talked to me. He gave me all the warnings against what I was doing, listed all the reasons I shouldn't be seeing you, and then he told me how to do what I'd been wanting to do my whole life.

So here I am. And here you are. It's not much of a ceremony, but then again, what could really compare with what I feel for you? I've loved you for ten years, Goten - all of my life that matters. A few words can't express that much love, but a gold ring will last longer than a grass one. A lifetime of exile, if that's what it has to endure. For better or worse, we're together, and we'll stay.

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