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sentinelpri · 1 year

Text

Wings

It’s roughly six o’clock as Gohan flies up to the lookout, his ki calm and unhidden. Dende is calmly sat on the edge, legs dangling off and onyx eyes trained on the sea of blue sky and clouds beneath him. It’s been a few months since Gohan has visited, though he tries not to let that bother him; the half-Saiyan has apparently been busy with ‘finals’ since he’s in his ‘senior year’ of high school. Dende isn’t sure he understands any of it, but the importance of finals is something that most young humans seem to stress, so he tries to be supportive.

He lets out a sigh as Gohan peaks above the lookout, flies up, and lands on his feet next to where Dende is sitting. The ravenette is dressed in a dark grey sweatshirt and some matching pants, rectangular glasses framing his face and inky locks trimmed short.

‘What amazing timing,’ Dende thinks.

Just moments before, he was trapped within the realm of his own mind, isolated and lonely. Most of his days are spent reflecting on why he decided to accept this job to watch over earth from atop the beautiful yet empty lookout with no one to keep him company but Mr. Popo, and Piccolo who occasionally visits. It’s odd, as Mr. Popo and Piccolo have both tried and failed in their own awkward way to reach Dende through the fog of his own loneliness. Gohan is- and has been the only one- to know exactly what Dende needs and when he needs it, just like tonight, just like right now.

Every time Dende is lost like this, alone up on the lookout, Gohan is the one who comes to find him. So, while he doesn’t enjoy being lost, he’ll remain that way if it means that Gohan will always be the one to find him.

Gohan sits down on the ledge next to Dende, perhaps a little closer than two beings with a platonic relationship should really sit. Dende’s right thigh brushes against Gohan’s left, and though he should move away, he scoots closer and reaches for Gohan’s hand. Gohan accepts by intertwining their fingers and resting his head against Dende’s. Meanwhile, the Namekian can sense that Mr. Popo’s ki is somewhat fading, meaning that the assistant deity must have gone to his private quarters to give them some alone time.

“How’ve you been?” Gohan starts off, voice low.

“Fine,” Dende answers. He knows it isn’t true, and so does Gohan, but neither of them mention it. Their routine has always been like this with Gohan sporadically showing up to provide Dende with some emotional and mental relief before leaving for another few months. Neither of them talk all that much, just catch up on the basics and spend the night together before the morning. Then, when morning comes, Gohan leaves and things go back to being lonely again. It’s been their normal since Dende became the guardian seven or eight years ago. It’s been so long now that the years feel like they’ve blurred into each other. “Things have been the same as usual up here for the most part. Mr. Popo did manage to hybridize blue and purple roses to make some black ones, so that’s interesting. Aside from that, things have been pretty much the same. What about you? Did you finish your, er… Finals?”

“Oh, yeah, that was last month! I actually had my graduation recently, here, lemme get out my phone and show you…”

Gohan shows Dende pictures of him on stage at his high school graduation, giving a speech as the valedictorian always does. Dende doesn’t necessarily understand the title, but he knows at the very least that it’s some sort of accomplishment that he should commend Gohan for, so he does. It’s such a small, trivial thing in the grand scheme of their journey- so far away in the civil human society- so funny to look at from the top of the lookout that oversees the entirety of earth. Yet, he enjoys Gohan showing him these things; revels in it, even.

“Good job, Gohan. I’m proud of you.”

“Oh, thanks,” The teen- no, adult, now- smiles with a light blush on his cheeks and sits up straight so he can awkwardly scratch the back of his neck. “Ah, I can’t help but be embarrassed…”

“What’s there to be embarrassed about? You’ve made a good life for yourself. You should be proud, too.”

Gohan blinks, then rests his head on Dende’s shoulder once more.

“Thank you… Should I play some music for us?”

“Sure.”

The light of the sun goes down, shrouding them in darkness that’s only disrupted by the blanket of stars in the sky.

And underneath a trillion stars, Gohan takes Dende by the hands and pulls him into a dance they’ve done a million times before on top of this very lookout. Their fingers are intertwined with Dende’s talons gently brushing the tops of Gohan’s wrists as they dance, feet moving close together, perfectly in rhythm.

Dende dares to look Gohan in the eye, only to see that the taller man is zoning out. The music from his phone, which is left in his back pocket, is slightly muffled and continues on in the background.

“What are you thinking about?” Dende questions.

“The fact that we’ll probably remember tonight and all the other ones for the rest of our lives even though we never act on what we’re feeling… Or, I don’t, at least.”

Being around Gohan like this already puts Dende in a foreign state, but said state is made even worse when the half-Saiyan casually says romantic shit like that without a thought about how it could make Dende’s heart slam against his chest or a thought about how it could cloud what’s left of Dende’s logical mind with saccharine fantasies and memories. All of his coherent thoughts seem to slip away, and all Dende can think to respond with is a furrowed brow and a suspicious-

“What do you want from me, Gohan?”

“What do I want?”

“Let me rephrase that,” Dende pauses, withdraws his hands from Gohan’s, and crosses his arms. He has to tilt his head up to match the other man’s eyes now when just a few years ago, they were the same height. “Why do we keep doing this? Why do you keep doing this? Don’t you have better things to do? Humans to court instead of myself? I don’t have anything to offer you. I come from a dwindling race, a poor family, and now, I spend my days alone on this lookout. My duty for the rest of my days will be watching over this planet from here and I can’t leave unless it’s under dire circumstances. Is that what you really want for yourself? What do you want, Gohan? That’s what I mean.”

“I just wanna be by your side,” Gohan sighs.

“I don’t know how long I can handle this- this inconsistency from you. I know you have a much bigger life than me; friends, a family, college, you’re the strongest and one of the smartest people on your planet, but it’s not fair to me for you to just come and go here as you please either. So how long do you want to keep this up for? Do you actually want a relationship with me or am I just a fling to you before you find someone else to settle down with?”

“You know it’s not like that Dende, I just… It’s hard to balance everything between my mom, Goten, school, and you. I’ll try to get better about things because I really do love you, and I want us to be able to have nights like this for the rest of our lives.”

Dende stops and thinks of everything they’ve been through together; of Gohan. Whatever words he had left to say leave him as if they’ve caught an aeroplane right off the lookout and into the cold, hard ground. His brain turns to static. Gohan stares at him, expectant, so Dende does the only thing he knows how and shows Gohan he loves him through their actions, mending their lips together and not daring to utter so much as a noise when Gohan lifts him up and carries him to his private quarters.

They don’t have sex that night. They never have, actually, as Gohan is too shy to initiate and Dende doesn’t understand the human obsession with it. They simply go to Dende’s bed and spend the night in each other’s arms, talking about anything and everything for hours on end. Gohan falls asleep first like he always does, and Dende gets a quick nap in but nothing more. As per usual, Dende wakes up first.

The sunlight comes creeping in through the blinds of Dende’s private quarters right at dawn, washing over Gohan’s sleeping form. The half-Saiyan is still sleeping peacefully, much to Dende’s relief. It gives him ample time to take Gohan in while he can; silky raven locks draped on the lush pillow above his head like a halo, muscular yet narrow chest rising and falling with each steady breath, sunlight illuminating his pale skin.

Dende watches the day on earth go by with his stomach sinking like tar. Billions of people, some of them just now waking up, some of them just now going to bed, going about their lives. Some are prospering. Some are suffering. Many of them are just average, going to work, coming home to their families, and repeating the cycle. Miserable monotony. Regardless, they have more variety than Dende does as the guardian of earth, and the Namekian can’t help but be somewhat envious of them. All the watching is messily blended with the conversation he and Gohan had the night prior.

Gohan finally admitted to loving him, finally promised to change, but does that really alter what they’ve built up all these years?

Careful not to wake the ravenette up, he gets out of bed and peeks through the blinds to see Mr. Popo tending to his garden of blue roses. The flowers make him think of Gohan, bright and resilient with some sort of hidden meaning about ‘unattainable love’ and ‘mystery’ according to the scroll he has about earth’s floriography.

He knows that, in another hour or two, Gohan will be woken up by the brightness of the sunlight against his onyx eyes. Then, Gohan will slowly rise out of bed, get dressed, and awkwardly try to disregard the events of the night before. Mr. Popo won’t look at them when they exit Dende’s private quarters.

Dende internally damns the walls of the lookout. While they may be invisible, they are very much there, keeping him trapped in solitude with his only true relief being Gohan’s occasional visits.

With Gohan, Dende is invincible, and that’s just how it’s always been. He feels like he’s ten feet tall instead of five, feels like he’s stronger than Goku and Piccolo and all of the other strong fighters he’s come to know since Frieza’s invasion of Namek so many years ago.

But then, when Gohan leaves, he feels weak again; like that little boy Frieza burned to ashes back then.

In an attempt to let Gohan sleep a little longer, Dende closes the blinds before carefully climbing back into bed, but it doesn’t help. Gohan wakes early like he always does with his soft eyes fluttering open and his long limbs stretching out to shake the sleepiness from a good night’s rest.

“Mm, mornin’, Dende,” Gohan greets and sits up in bed. Dende doesn’t speak yet, eyeing Gohan up and down. The half-Saiyan took his shirt off at some point last night to sleep, leaving him in his grey sweats. As per usual, Dende can’t help but admire every sharp ridge and subtle curve of Gohan’s muscular figure. When his eyes reach the defined v-line that disappears into aforementioned sweatpants, they flicker away, suddenly training themselves on the wall as if it has become the most interesting thing in the room. “How’d you sleep?”

“Fine,” Dende lies. His sleep was restless and constantly interrupted by his own thoughts like it always is. Still, he doesn’t want to worry Gohan with something he can’t even begin to understand let alone fix. The ravenette has enough worries as it is between his family, friends, and school. “You?”

“Pretty good, actually,” Gohan answers with a small yawn.

‘Here comes the worst part,’ Dende thinks, a hundred percent sure that Gohan is going to slink out of bed, put his shirt and shoes on, and leave like he always does.

However, before that can happen, Gohan moves to where Dende is to pull the Namekian into a tight hug.

“Uh, Gohan? What are you doing?”

“Hugging you? What, do you not like it? I can stop,” Gohan offers and starts to pull away, which has Dende returning the hug and practically clinging to the student.

“No, it just caught me off guard, but you can keep doing it.”

Gohan sighs.

“Hey, uh… About what you said last night… I’m sorry, I really am. It’s not right of me to do this with you only to just leave you up here for a few months at a time,” Gohan pulls back and stands from the bed to put his shoes on. “It must get really lonely. We’re more than friends, sure, but I know I’m one of your only friends and I should put more effort into balancing my time with you with my schooling and my family instead of just coming here when it’s convenient, so… I was already thinking about it, but you mentioning what you did last night just solidified my decision. For college, I’m going to do online school so I have some more time to myself. Maybe I can start alternating by spending a week at a time with my family then coming here for a week? And we can rotate back and forth.”

Dende’s heart flutters. As subtle as he can, he reaches over and pinches his own arm, half-convinced that he must still be asleep, dreaming. But the pinch hurts like hell and Gohan is still very much sat in front of him with an anxious look on his face as he waits for Dende’s response.

“I, um, I would like that! You could even bring some of your stuff here, I’ll make room for you in the closet and add an additional shelf in the room for you to use and-”

“You don’t have to do any of that,” Gohan smiles, puts his glasses on, and reaches forward to caress Dende’s cheek with one hand. “I’m just happy to be here with you. We’ll figure it out as we go.”

“...Thank you.”

They share a glance, and then another. After that, Gohan speaks again.

“I know you don’t technically need to eat, but do you maybe want to have a picnic on top of the lookout or something? You guys have unlimited food here, right?”

Dende shrugs, then nods.

“Sure, sounds romantic enough. Let’s go.”

And so, instead of leaving like he usually does, Gohan takes Dende’s hand and walks him to the lookout, officially marking the beginning of their new normal.

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