Sunflowers
A song-fic by Chocolate-chan ^_^

I know where you go when you want to fall
Why do you want to be broken?

Trunks flew low over the canopy of the forest, scanning down below for a trace of anyone. There was nothing in sight; no human movement, no ki signatures...

I know where you go when you want to fall
Yes your friends they tell me everything

Trunks had spent the better part of the afternoon searching. He'd asked the group of rather strung-out individuals his best friend usually got his kicks from associating with after class where he had gone. "I guess home..."
"He said something about training," one of the girls suggested. "He looked like he really needed to blow off some steam."
With that in mind, Trunks had used the Son home as a starting point and searched above the grounds they usually trained at, only half expecting him to be there. Trunks was far less than surprised when he instead found the small orange bulk of Goten sitting in a small huddle on a rock in the middle of the river, not too far from a modest waterfall.
"Goten..." Trunks hovered near him. "I was worried about you."
Goten looked up, his dark eyes a little too clear and liquid. The rest of his face was pale and swollen from crying. He looked blankly at his best friend as though he hadn't registered a word of it. He licked his lips. "...What..?"

Yes I know where you go; yes I know what you do
Yes I know the awful things you say and who you say them to

"What was it this time, Chibi?"
Goten was silent. Trunks motioned for him to move over on the rock and sat beside him, watching the violent shatter of water against sharp rocks. "You're thinking about your Mom again, aren't you..."
Goten's round face fell, his expression so dark it seemed to phase his presence out. "I know I shouldn't. Just sometimes I can't help it." Goten glanced at him almost nervously, licking his lips again as though they were dry. "It still hurts."
"I know." Just two years ago Trunks had lost his own mother, due to a robbery in the city. For a long time he had given up training, feeling guilty that he and his father had been on a training trip and too far away to help his mother or even know what was going on. Goten's mother had been dead for five months, of a heart attack. "You need to think of the good things about her that you want to remember."
"What the hell do you know?" Goten sulked, angry, but Trunks forgave him. He knew he had done much worse back then.
"You helped keep me sane then, Goten, after Kaa-san died. When you reminded me of things about her that I loved most, I felt so much better. Then I would remember she was gone and feel sad again, but each time the pain was less sharp." Trunks had vowed to himself time and again that he would allow nothing to depress Goten as much as he had been then. He was determined to help his best friend as the dark-haired one had done, selflessly, for him.

Yes I know where you go, yes I know what you do

"I don't want your sympathy now."
"Do you think I wanted yours then?"
"Go away, Trunks. I just... I wanna be alone." Goten lowered his chin onto his knees and wrapped his arms around his legs, willing the other demi-saiyan to leave him to his hurt.
"You know I won't do that."
"Just leave me alone! I can't think with you here."
"Goten-" I can't stand that look on your face....
"Trunks!" Goten was on his feet, shaking. "Please, please don't make me..." Goten bit his lip in some type of internal agony. "Leave me alone or I'll... I'll make you!"
Maybe we can work out some of that stress, then. "Come on, Chibi. Take a swing at me."
Goten powered up, glaring daggers from his flawless aquamarine eyes.
"Right here." Trunks pointed to his jaw, standing as well with his arms relaxed. He stared back at Goten, who shook silently.
Goten sank down to his knees on the rock, holding his head. "Please..."

I know how you feel, you get crazy inside
They say it runs in the family

"You look like your father," Trunks told him. Goten looked up at him with a pathetic expression.
"What are you...?" Goten swallowed, his hair falling down into slightly damp black strands that were still wilder than human hair. His face was so pale that Trunks felt a shudder pass through his own shoulders.
"He looked like that when he learned your mother died. He still looks like that sometimes. And so do you."
"You're lucky..." Goten vowed. "You're lucky I can't hit you now."
"Why not?"
"It wouldn't be fair, cause you won't hit me back." Goten brushed his palm across his face, his dark eyes opening onto the water after a long blink, turning white from the reflection of the sun re-reflecting in his eyes.
Trunks kneeled down beside him. "I don't want to see you cry anymore, Chibi..."
Goten looked up at him slowly.

I know just how you feel when you get crazy inside
Your mom, she says that you are just like me

"I have an idea," Trunks said aloud, fighting a shiver from the stillness of Goten's usually warm eyes. "Why don't you and I spend some time together, Goten?" He smiled gently. "We haven't had any time to ourselves in a long time."
"I know," Goten said softly, looking away as though something had occurred to him.
"Did I..." Trunks lifted a hand to his friend's face, cupping his soft, sticky wet cheek. "Did I hurt you, Chibi?" Goten was quiet, as though he was dumbfounded by Trunks' blue gaze. "I'm sorry... let me make it up to you."
"Things got outta whack," Goten said softly. "Kaa-san had been saying I needed to talk to you, that I've been ..different..."

I can see it in your eyes
I can see your shaking hands
Yes I think you think I'm stupid, you don't think I understand

Goten still looked unsteady. Trunks had cleared it with Goku, who turned a grateful look on Trunks as though his concern for his offspring had been a paramount issue to him for some time.
Camping with Trunks... Goten washed his face in the stream and smiled slightly. "It's been forever."
"What's forever, Chibi?" Trunks thunked him on the back of the head gently.
"Nothing," Goten said. "I'm hungry!"
"I'm glad." Trunks looked down at his suddenly smiling eyes with surprise and a sensation of warmth flooding his chest. I missed that smile. "What do you want?"
The two chorused, "Food!"

I see you and I see myself when I was a younger man

Goten emerged from a tall stand of grasses with an expression as though he had meant to come out the other side. Trunks had announced at dinner that first night, "We're not just camping."
Goten had shoved something slightly identifiable as food into his mouth, uttering a sloppy- yet cute-looking "Oh yeah?"
"We're going to find the dragonballs," Trunks announced happily. "We're missing school for two weeks!"
"You mean...?" Goten looked up at him blankly.
"All things have their time, Goten-chan...." Trunks had dreaded that question in his eyes.... To wish for Kaa-san back?
"I know..." His face had dropped.
Now he seemed completely intent on the task at hand.

When you were a child, you were happy and free
You were my reason to live; I would die when you smiled at me

When we were little, we had the best time finding dragonballs... but this is the first time I didn't care about the wish. Trunks took a breather, on the cliff.
"I found it!" Goten cried, emerging from the grass once again, straight up, grinning wildly at the purple-haired princeling.
"Alright, Chibi! That's four!" Trunks flew to meet him, and Goten held the unbreakable glass in his hand for a moment, rolling the cool palm-sized marble against his hand. Then he put it in the knapsack with a smile.
"Hey look," Trunks said as they flew back toward their campsite. "A stand of sunflowers. Didn't they used to be your favorite?" Goten's face fell, and Trunks stopped midair, followed unwillingly by Goten.
"I used to bring my mom sunflowers...."

I can still see you, I remember you painted sunflowers in your room.

"You mean when we were little, and...?"
Goten turned his face away and flew on.

I know where you go when you want to fall
Hey don't you want to be happy?

"You know..." Trunks pushed aside a stand of ferns as he came upon the place where Goten had gone to try and hide, and be sad. "As I recall, your mother always said something like, 'What the hell am I supposed to do with these sunflowers?' They didn't exactly fit in her vases or in her kitchen or her living room... she thought they were lovely but they always ended up in your room."
Goten looked steadily at his feet, but a smile ghosted across his face.
"Can't you see that look she used to get?"
Goten made a soft noise. "She used to tell me she loved my sunflowers but bring her back some violets or something small too." He raised his head slightly. "She'd put them on the table and we'd eat sunflower seeds."
"You used to make me help you pick them. And carry them. They were bigger than we were." Trunks grinned and leaned against a tree. "We started out with a dozen each and were lucky to make it with three."
"I like sunflowers," Goten said at last with a small shrug. "They're.... happy."
"I brought you a sunflower." Maybe you could be happy...?

I know where you go when you want to fall
Your useless friends they tell me everything, everything

"I remember when people would come to me after class, saying someone said something to you and you left crying." Trunks moved over to him with the large sunflower, which Goten took and regarded as though it were a math test, kind of blank.
"I just remember thinking then about how you never used to be sad, and how I missed it. I don't want you to be unhappy."
Goten looked up at him with incipient wetness in his eyes. His lips parted, then clamped shut as tears spilled without so much as a blink.

I see you run around in circles, I see you digging your own hole
I see you fight the past I see you just can't win

"I wish I could do something, anything to take that pain away." Trunks found himself whispering as he leaned down over Goten and brushed the tears from his face. "I was like you once, and I don't know if I'd be here now without you."
"I know I... don't consider you," Goten said at last, dragging the words past a gasp that tried to break loose. "I'm sorry, I always forget to tell myself about how much you were hurting then..."
"It's my turn, Chibi. I just want to make sure you're okay."

I see you losing self control
What it does to me deep down inside I hope you will never know

"Kaa-san said... that you and I were closer than Gohan-nii-chan and I. She always wondered what happened. And whenever she said it I'd feel sad, and..." Goten brought the sunflower to his face, as though deriving comfort from it would hurt him less than his friend's attentions. Tears slid down to drop like a crystal patterning on the flower.
Trunks felt something wrench to a stop in his chest. He dropped to his knees in front of the dark-haired teen, taking his hands in his own. "I'm sorry... I want it to be different now. We can't forget about each other."
Goten looked as though he hardly dared believe. He blinked and some of the drops fell onto their clasped hands, but he nodded. "Hai!"

When you were a child you were happy and free
You were my reason to live, I would die when you smiled at me

"I remember back then when we were little, my world revolved around you. I miss that. I miss you, us." Trunks bit his lip. Was he giving too much away? "I miss waking up, and the most important thought being 'How will Goten and I get in trouble today?' I don't want to lose you, you're my best friend..."
"You won't," Goten vowed, and he sank to his own knees in front of Trunks, the two of them tangled up instantly somehow, in a hug that neither could come to break.

I can still see you, painting flowers on the wall
I remember you happy, I remember it all

"Gotcha!" Goten tagged Trunks just as they flew above sunflowers, and his purple-haired friend was preoccuppied with thoughts of their conversation the other day. The two took a head-first dive into the flowers, and rolled around among the stalks, growing wild, taller than both of them. Goten ended up on the bottom, the two of them laughing. Trunks pinned him down with hands against his chest, straddling him and laughing from being tickled.
Goten's dark eyes smiled secretively up at him, as though daring him to proclaim himself the winner. "Got you," he returned.
Goten was silent. His hands reached up, taking one of Trunks' with his. His eyes met the blue ones above him as he drew the hand upward, kissing Trunks' fingertips softly, letting each one brush against his lips.

Yeah when you were a child you were happy and free
You were my reason to live; I would die when you smiled at me

Trunks panted as he stared down at him, breathless from exertion and hesitancy. Goten's lips moved down, embracing his palm, his wrist. He closed his eyes as he moved, but when his fingertips settled on the inside of Trunks' other wrist, feeling his fluttering heartbeat, he looked up and smiled. His face was that same bright round beam of happiness that Trunks knew.

I can still see you, I remember you painted sunflowers in your room
Ooh Sunflowers in your room.....

Somehow, with that look in his eyes, Trunks knew without asking. He took a shaky breath. "You know, you always reminded me of a sunflower. Your face is always round and happy, and you... you always made me so happy..."
"I love you," Goten told him, looking up at him.

All I want to remember, pretty pictures on the wall
I remember you happy, I remember it all

"I'm really glad that we're here together now.... because I can finally tell you, how much I've needed you." Goten was looking up at him with an expression between hope and fondness. "How I needed you....."
"Goten..." Trunks gazed at him, only seeing that renewed light in his eyes and the dark color that stained his cheeks, that brightness brought from laughter and emotion.

All I want to remember...

"Let's forget. Let's forget, if even only for a little while that there's anything anywhere, or anyone, but us." The words came easily from Goten's lips as his eyes locked searchingly onto his friend's.
"I love you," Trunks whispered, feeling a little giddy and so so light...

Sunflowers in your room

Trunks held Goten to him, feeling the other's arms go around him and hold onto him tightly. Trunks buried his face in Goten's hair, but was somehow only able to smell the sunflowers.........

*~*~*~*~ Oshimai
"Sunflowers" is by Everclear. I hope I got the words right, working without the virtue of a CD! I heard the chorus and thought "Oh...how Goten-type-kawaii!" You like, maybe?