Dragon Ball Z 1. Chapter 1

Prologue - The Earth's Defenses

When someone from the future looks you in the eye and says "Those things are going to kill you," you tend to take it a little more seriously than you had before. Bulma quit smoking more than a decade ago, but the urge still hit her when she was especially stressed. She peeled open a fresh stick of gum (the old one had lost it's flavor) and began chewing furiously. She had dodged lung cancer, but now it would seem that those boys were going to be the death of her.

"He's young, there's still a chance he might grow out of it, albeit a quickly diminishing one..." Mirai offered from the plush, oversized conference chair opposite her. His office read "President" on the door, but nothing would ever make her less than the essence of Capsule Corp itself. She rubbed her temples as she inhaled the minty tingle left on her tongue.

"I've already started damage control, but really, in such a public place? What the hell were they thinking? No, don't even say it – they weren't, I know..." Bulma trailed off with a sigh.

"Well, if worst comes to worst, you could always cut him off, or tell Dad" Mirai chuckled. Bulma raised an eyebrow to that.

"I want him to stop acting like a spoiled co-ed, not die" she said. Mirai laughed. For all his greater maturity and even-tempered nature, she could still see that streak in him occasionally, the one that was a mile wide in his younger self. He never crossed the lines that Trunks did, but Mirai was just as unapologetic about who he was. Like, for instance, when Gohan's marriage had mysteriously dissolved within the year of his coming back from the future... Bulma brushed all that aside though, it was neither here nor now... and Videl had always been kind of a bitch anyway.

"Cutting him off though, that may be my only option at this point. I am literally, as we speak, going gray; things cannot continue like this" she frowned at the potted plant in the corner, her mind wandering.

"Well, whatever you decide to do, you know we'll all support you" Mirai informed her.

"Yes, you will" she said with certainty as she stood, "I'll leave you to it then" she nodded at the stack of paperwork she had interrupted.

"Thaaaanks" Mirai said sarcastically, smiling. Bulma grinned, she always saw the brighter side of life when she was teasing someone else.

"Things could be worse I guess, I could be stuck inside some office, doing a mountain of paperwork while the beautiful day goes to waste outside."

"Oh, don't feel too bad for me, the date I have waiting for me is a lot hotter than the one waiting for you" he said with a practiced wink.

Damn that kid. Bulma rolled her eyes and walked out of the room without another word – you couldn't even get drunk at _one_ Christmas party without it coming back to haunt you for the rest of your life...

After his mother had left, Mirai attacked the mound in front of him with renewed vigor, pushing Trunks' and Gotens' pending legal troubles out of his head. These reports were all that stood between him and dinner with Gohan this evening, and the sooner he finished, the sooner he would have that magnificent smile directed at him.

Gohan had finally finished his work on the new space transmission modules, designed to let people communicate from opposite ends of the galaxy. If all went smoothly, they would develop an intergalactic and universal version as well. He was the only person that the higher-ups (Bulma) trusted with a project of this importance, so he had a whole lab to himself, as well as flexible hours that had come in handy on several occasions. Today he and Mirai would be celebrating the success of this most recent endeavor; messages were now coming and going loud and clear from the test planet on the farthest edge of the quadrant from them.

He had been cooking all afternoon, a skill he had picked up from his mother unbeknownst to either of them. Years ago, when he and Mirai had first moved in together and were starving, he discovered he remembered most of his favorite childhood dishes pretty well, and then it had begun. The scientific portion of cooking was easy for him to grasp, and the artistic flair it could take on intrigued him. But with so little free time, it became the treat for them, instead of eating out. Gohan's cell phone rang.

"Hey, I'm just leaving the office, 15 minute warning" Mirai said as he pushed the button for the elevator. Instead of taking it down to the lobby, he rode it up to the roof. Capsule Corp was one of the few buildings in town with rooftop elevator access. Since it was already dark, he would just fly home to save time.

"Ok, see you in a few then" Gohan replied. It was _not_ that the flame had died, or diminished in any way over the years. Mirai and Gohan had just never felt the need to say "I love you" a dozen times a day, desiring to preserve the intimacy of the phrase instead.

As soon as Mirai touched down on the balcony, the magnificent smile he had been missing lit up for him. Glances, stares, and lingering touches were exchanged throughout the entire meal, along with laughter and good company. They left the dishes in the sink. Gohan came up behind him and swept the curtain of Mirai's hair over his shoulder so he could kiss the back of his neck.

"You could use a good soak to loosen up these muscles – your shoulders are so tense" he said while burying his nose in his nape. A self-confident grin appeared on Mirai's face.

"Sure, that sounds good, put on some Schubert for me while I run the tub?" he requested innocently.

"Of course" Gohan ran his hands down Mirai's sides possessively as he stepped back to comply.

The old fashioned claw-foot tub had to be installed separately at Mirai's request, but it was worth the hassle for the feeling of luxury it brought. He adjusted the water and poured in a little scented foaming bath wash. For Gohan's sake he wouldn't call it bubble bath, but that's really what it was, even if it was an exotic imported brand. He removed his clothing and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Even though he hadn't trained in years, being half Saiyan gave him an amazing physique despite his desk job. Gohan came in a moment later, leaving the door cracked so the music could waft through. He was carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses.

"Ahem" Mirai nodded to the glass Gohan was filling with wine; it was about to overflow as Gohan's attention was focused on his naked form instead of the drink he was pouring. Gohan grinned and laughed it off, sipping the contents to keep it from spilling before passing it to Mirai. Mirai sipped it as well while he watched Gohan strip. As Gohan poured himself a glass as well, Mirai settled slowly into the hot water, letting it melt away all the stress of the day. Gohan joined him, leaving his glass on the edge of the counter while he washed. There was hardly enough room for this, but that was kind of the point. Washing turned to exploring after glass of wine number two, with Gohan checking Mirai over thoroughly to make sure no spots had been missed.

"I love you" Gohan whispered in his ear.

"I love you too" Mirai replied, kissing the side of his neck and scooting down just enough so his head could rest against the edge of the tub. Gohan sucked and bit tenderly on his neck while he slid a finger into him beneath the water. Mirai moaned loudly at his expert ministrations. Gohan increased the intensity, biting hard enough to draw blood as he pushed a second finger into him. Mirai never needed much preparing, liking to walk the edge of pleasure and pain, and Gohan indulged him. He braced both his hands on the edge of the tub, licking up Mirai's neck and across the line of his jaw, to end in a playful nip at his lower lip as he drew back from him.

"Gohan, please..." Mirai's eyes flew open, drowning in need though his head was above water. He lifted his legs as he spoke, hooking his knees over the edges of the tub; he knew Gohan loved to see him like this.

"Please" he said again seductively, running his hands over that sculpted chest, leaving fresh rivulets of water and suds to flow down it. Finally, finally, Gohan began to push inside of him, watching him sigh in satisfaction when he was filled completely. Mirai began to rock his hips against him, using his hold on the edges of the tub for leverage. The movement of the water lapping at his legs accented his motions perfectly, and Gohan was caught up just watching his wanton lover pleasure himself against him for a moment.

"Gohan..." Mirai moaned again, grabbing his hips and leaning up to capture a kiss, breaking the spell. Gohan pushed him back down and began the highlight of the evening, making his partner call out his name in unbridled ecstasy.

"Gohan! Gods, Yes!" Mirai shouted loudly as he was pushed back against the porcelain with the force of Gohan's thrusts. Sliding in and out of his love was the best feeling on Earth; no meditation, battle lust, or even power up could compare to that tight heat. Pleasure pulsed through him, anchored to the man below.

"Aaaaah, Go-han, please...please, harder!" Mirai openly begged him. The waves of water they made began sloshing out of the tub with the change in pace. Gohan took one hand off the edge, and used it to begin stroking Mirai's swollen manhood, drawing an elongated gasp from him. Mirai was always more vocal when he'd had a glass or two of wine; God how he loved this man. After a few minutes of this attention, Mirai couldn't hold it back anymore. Gohan rammed into his prostate that one last time he needed, and Mirai came in his hand.

"Gohan! ... Gohan!" he screamed as his flesh convulsed and a murky swirl tainted the water between them.

Damn, that was too much... Yet just enough, and so right, Gohan thought just before he came, emptying himself deeply into that constricting heat.

After the spasms had all settled, Gohan picked Mirai up out of the water, drying him off briefly before carrying him to bed.

"Whoa stud, planning round two already?" Mirai joked.

"Maybe... I had round one planned long before you got here" he said with a wink.

"Yeah, yeah, don't forget the wine" Mirai responded, and Gohan laughed. He had learned to read Mirai better than anyone else, even Bulma, and he was definitely pleased at the moment. He settled into the plush bed and yawned.

"Hey, now none of that" Gohan teased him.

"You're the one who wore me out, so you'll just have to think of a way to keep me awake if you want more" Mirai laughed.

"I can think of a few things..." Gohan said as he shut the bedroom door.

Mirai hadn't gotten so little sleep on a Thursday night in quite a while. Oh well, there were always large doses of caffeine to make up for it in the morning...

The phone rang sharply, dragging Mirai and Gohan out of their slumber at 4 am. They had to be up in an hour and a half anyway, but since their 'activities' had kept them up til 2, it was not a welcome interruption.

"H'lo?" Gohan mumbled after it began it's second round of incessant ringing.

"I'm getting too old for this" was the shocking reply on the other end, "get your asses down here now, I'm not in the mood to play messenger girl" Bulma hung up on him.

"Crap, something's going on – we need to get down to your Mom's right away" Gohan said as he shook the body next to him.

"Uh-uh" was the response he got as Mirai buried his head deeper in his pillow. Gohan smacked him on the ass, hard. Mirai jolted up, glaring at him.

"What the hell was that for?!"

"Get. Up." Gohan said firmly – but the effect was slightly ruined by his own yawn.

"Damn, you were serious? What the fuck is going on?" Mirai grumbled as he tossed the covers off.

"She didn't say, but it's got to be serious if she wants us both over there in the middle of the night."

"If it's something those brats have done again, Mom won't have to worry about cutting him off, I'll kill them myself" Mirai vented. He was not a morning person. Or should he say middle of the night person. Gohan dressed relatively quietly, smiling now and then at Mirai's frustrations.

"Do you think I have time to make coffee?" Mirai queried.

"I think she'll have some there, better to not keep her waiting – she sounded pissed" Gohan informed him.

When they touched down at Capsule Corp, all the outdoor floodlights were on, and there was a spaceship rising out of the lawn. A crew of people were running back and forth, checking on readings, tightening bolts, and loading supplies. Their fathers were standing side by side at the edge of the platform, dressed in full-on battle gear. Neither of them looked the least bit disconcerted to have been awakened _before_ the crack of dawn.

"Hey, what's going on?" Gohan called out as they walked over, "Is there trouble?" Goku turned to them, his face practically beaming as he told them that the planet they had allied with to test out the new communication modules was under attack.

"That's horrible!" Gohan exclaimed, "Where do we suit up?"

Vegeta snorted.

"Oh please, the last thing we need is you two idiots getting in the way" he sneered. Mirai envied how normal his Dad sounded without sleep or caffeine.

"What are you trying to say?" Gohan asked him indignantly, "Why did you call us out here if you thought you could handle it by yourselves?" He could see Mirai starting to get pissed, he was standing with his arms crossed just like a certain someone else.

"The Woman called you, not me" Vegeta turned his back to him.

"Actually, I asked her to get you guys" Goku explained, "You see, the people we're going to help are really weak, I mean, so much so that I can't even get a bead on them with Instant Transmission... So we have to take a space ship over there. If something happens back here, like the Earth gets attacked while we're gone, we can always IT back, but I need you to be able to signal us no matter how far away we are. Soooo... we need you to put together another of those transmitter thingies for the ship within the next hour or so."

"What?" Gohan protested.

"Now son, I'm sure you can do it, you're the smartest person in our whole family" Goku stated.

"That's not saying a lot, Kakarot" Vegeta interjected. Goku stuck his tongue out at him.

"That's not what I meant Dad, we can handle things if the Earth were to be threatened, you don't need to be worried about that."

"I know son, I just meant if it were something _really_ bad, you know..." Goku kind of trailed off.

"What Kakarot is trying to say is that you've both become so lazy with your training, or complete lack thereof, that Bra could probably take either of you" Vegeta growled.

"Hey, she's not even a Super Saiyan" Mirai scowled, his pride stinging a bit.

"Well, maybe if you two weren't so busy screwing around, you could be trusted with it, but as it stands right now, the Earth is practically unguarded with Kakarot and I gone. Now get to work on that transmitter boy, or I'll really give you something to whine about" Vegeta laid into him.

"Yeesh Vegeta, are you going to be like this the whole trip?" Goku asked as he rolled his eyes.

Vegeta just scowled at him and then walked away.

"The girls are in the house, I think Bulma's already gathered up all the parts you'll need – thanks guys!" Goku said, walking away nonchalantly to save one of the technicians from Vegeta's rage.

Gohan sighed and headed for the kitchen, patting Mirai on the back and pulling him with him.

"Can you believe the nerve of that guy?" Mirai said under his breath.

When they entered the house, they saw that the kitchen had indeed been turned into a makeshift transmission station. Bulma's personal lab was being renovated (aka rebuilt after a _small_ explosion), so gadgets, supplies and gizmos littered the counters. She had a set of the blueprints for the transmitter in front of her, but she was probably having a hard time deciphering them with her eyes closed and forehead resting on the table.

"Mom, are you ok?" Mirai asked with a hand on her shoulder. Her head snapped up, eyes taking a moment to focus before she spoke.

"Oh, thank God" she said, standing up and walking out of the room without even acknowledging them. Mirai let her go, she was even less of a "morning" person that he was. Gohan sighed. She hadn't gotten very far on the transmitter, but she had managed to make some notes on adapting it to the spaceships' power supply restrictions... Well, no time like the present, Gohan thought as he sat down. Mirai poured himself a cup of coffee and joined him, being familiar with the plans.

"Oh, and just for the record "Boss", I'm calling in sick after this..." Gohan said with a tired sigh.

"Do you think anyone will notice if I don't show up either?" Mirai half-seriously joked.

Blast off was delayed by 20 minutes, but not due to the boys being unable to finish in time. Right before they were about to leave, Gohan jokingly asked his Dad what he'd had to promise Mom in order to pacify her over this trip. He cocked his head to the side, hand on the back of his neck...

"Oops, I knew I was forgetting something!" he said as he IT'd away. Vegeta shook his head, having already said what counted as goodbye's for him, and boarded the ship. A few minutes later, Goku was back.

"Thanks son, your Mom would have been real mad if I forgot to tell her I was leaving" he said, patting him on the back. Gohan just shook his head, mimicking Vegeta, and pushed him towards the ship.

"Better get going, if you take too much longer Vegeta's liable to leave without you!"

"I don't know why he hasn't already, I could have just IT'd onto it... Oh well, see you guys later, take care of your mothers!" And with that he IT'd directly onto the ship, which shortly blasted off into the creeping light of morning.

That stupid feeling wouldn't stop nagging the back of his mind. He knew he shouldn't let his Dad get to him, it was pretty much that man's only job to be a royal asshole, but somehow he just couldn't let it go. After everything he had seen and done, all the lives that existed now which would not have without him – he still could never earn that man's respect. So he hadn't trained in a while... It wasn't like he was the sole protector of the Earth anymore, with everything counting on him... The problem was though (his nagging feeling informed him), his own life was living proof that you never knew when you might be...

Gohan pushed his noodles around his plate absently. It was helping number 4, which normally would have gone down instantly, but today, something was just, off... He remembered a time when Friday afternoons were not the beginning of the weekend; when they only signaled a longer stretch of training, uninterrupted by schoolwork. He hadn't even stepped foot in a gravity chamber in what, over a year? And that last time was just to mess around with Goten... When was the last time before that? His normally precise memory couldn't conjure up a date... not even a best guess... Ok, working backwards then, when was the last time he distinctly remembered training? He and Mirai used to work out together all the time when he first came back, until they began getting "distracted" by other methods of exertion... Oh my God, had it really been _that_ long?

"Call it a backup plan" Mirai suggested. Bulma was not convinced.

"I don't care what you call it, it doesn't seem like everything is on the up and up here" she replied.

"Look, it's actually a three-fold strategy," Mirai tried explaining it slightly differently, "First, Trunks being cut off will have even more of a psychological impact if you 'promote' Bulla for all her hard work at the same time. I know you have your reservations about it, but really, and this is my second point, she needs to learn it – there may be a day when she _has_ to do it, and that's a poor time to start familiarizing yourself with something this complex. Thirdly, we won't exactly be goofing off here; this will help the Earths' defenses as well." Bulma sat back in her chair, staring at him intently. It wasn't actually that he needed her permission, it was just that he didn't dare do it without her approval.

"You know, for all the times I've had to take the well-being of the Earth into account in my personal affairs, you'd think I was in charge of it or something – I should have a city named after me by now at least..." she mused. Leaving him hanging for just a moment more, she finally leaned forward and grabbed a legal pad off of his desk, snatching a pen as she did as well.

"Ok" she started, "BUT, I have terms, you can't go running off tomorrow and leave me high and dry. I want a detailed list of all the projects and negotiations you're working on right now, and for you to stick around for at LEAST a couple of weeks, more like a month, to make sure she gets the hang of it – I'm not going to be able to hold her hand with this since I'll probably end up filling in for Gohan myself 'till I can find a team to replace him. Now, this is a list of what I'll need from him beforehand as well; his notes are very well organized, but I know he doesn't always write _all_ his ideas down..." They haggled for about a half an hour before Bulma finally left his office. Mirai had never been so happy to have so much paperwork ahead of him. Plus, the time it took to transition everything here would let him conduct his own search as well.

"Ex-military for sure, I don't think just a regular martial artist is going to cut it for what we have in mind" Gohan commented, "we need someone who can come at this from the angle of battle/warfare training."

"Yeah, we've got the 'unity of body and mind' thing down, it's just a matter of sharpening the sword again, so to speak" Mirai agreed.

"Now that we're doing this, I'm actually kind of glad our Dad's are gone... If mine had seen me in the GR this morning, I probably would have died of embarrassment" Gohan admitted.

"Why... when did it get to you?" Mirai inquired.

"...two hundred and fifty..." Gohan confessed hesitantly, still embarrassed.

"Damn, then you held up better than me apparently, even if not by much – I got to 240 and shut it down when it dropped me to my knees" Mirai confided as well.

"This is long overdue."

"Yes."

The internet was extremely helpful, and extremely distracting. Mirai had started with a search on personal trainers, but saw quickly that those types of "instructors" were out. It was after almost an hour that he finally found something promising. A banner ad was actually were he found the link to the cage fighting world. These guys were all mixed martial artist, so that was perfect. While doing a little digging on profiles, he also found that almost all of them had military backgrounds, something Gohan had wanted. There was not as much info on their trainers as on the fighters themselves. He figured they should at least watch one of these matches, see this kind of thing in action before pursuing this avenue. Some things looked fine on TV for the masses, but turned out to be an obvious farce when you could see it happening right in front of you. He pulled up the season's schedule and scanned the dates. It would take some juggling, but he was pretty sure he and Gohan would be able to make it to the fight next Saturday night.

He and Mirai had never really gone to any sort of "sporting events" so Gohan wasn't really sure what to expect, but Mirai insisted they go. The "cage" was a system of chain link fence that was wrapped around a set of scaffolding over a boxing ring. He supposed it looked more impressive to a human. The audience was seated at a series of tables across the arena, with the tables closer to the action costing the most. They hadn't thought to get tickets ahead of time, he had just assumed you showed up & paid to get in... They even had a bar and were serving appetizer platters, which Gohan thought was kind of strange, but who knows, maybe he was the weird one here... They did manage to get seats, and with their superior senses it didn't really matter that they were so far back.

The first match was real. Mirai was actually starting to have a good time, seeing two skilled fighters put up against each other, never mind that they weren't the strongest, toughest beings in the universe, they put on a good fight. The second match spoiled his mood though – the fighter in the orange shorts had obviously thrown it. Gohan stopped watching it at all in favor of chowing down on his nachos. His attention wandering, he picked up on a conversation that was happening quietly to the left of them, behind the entrance to the fighters' locker rooms. He was not normally an eavesdropper, but the topic of said conversation was the same as what was going on in front of him. He couldn't help but have his curiosity piqued.

"Throw the fight? Have you fucking lost it Merle?" an angry voice asked.

"Look, we both know you need the fat payout that goes with it just as much, if not more, than I do; I had to say yes" the man he assumed was Merle replied.

"Bullshit. You didn't 'have to' anything, the pay out from winning the fight the right way is big enough."

"Is it?"

It got so quiet for a second Gohan thought they had moved beyond the reach of his ears, but then that stern voice spoke up.

"You should have known better than to go there Merle – you're fired."

"Now wait a minute you little shit," Merle said louder.

"I already put in an agreement on it – if you don't follow through it's not just both our hides getting tanned, we will be on the six foot fucking under list, Roane. Do you understand me?"

"More and more by the minute" Roane said. There was a very minor scuffling sound, then the man who must have been Merle came out of the locker rooms. He was definitely not a fighter, he must be the guys' trainer/agent or something. Gohan watched him make his way across the room to the bar and plop down at it angrily. When the third and final fight was about to start, Gohan was now quite interested to see how it would turn out.

The fighter, Roane, looked like all the other fighters they had seen tonight, with the exception of two things. Oh, he was well built, tall, and muscular, to be sure... But for one, he was a redhead, like bright freakin' red, redhead; and two, the look in his eyes was a strange combination of focused and pissed. He walked out behind his ex-trainer, apparently keeping up appearances for the show, who opened the door in the "cage" for him. Gohan and Mirai both leaned forward in their seats as the match got underway, Gohan having _very_ quietly passed on what he heard earlier to him.

This guy was good. His control was impeccable, every hit precise and accurate. He was not going to lose, that much was clear. It made Mirai wonder what kind of trouble this guy was about to bring down on himself for doing the right thing. Suddenly, halfway through the match, the rules of the game changed though. After two bogus calls from the referee in a row, Roane was looking beyond pissed – his eyes looked dangerous, like Vegeta's before he was about to smear you into the ground while muttering about his pride. Only, from what he could tell, this guy's anger was justified. Gohan wondered if they were going to see someone die tonight.

"Come on ref!" the cries from the crowd were getting loud as well. Gohan scanned the mass of people, his eyes lighting on one disgruntled trainer just as he was raising a glass in salute and giving an evil grin to his ex-employer. Son of a bitch.

"Looks like he found a way to get what he wanted after all," he said as he nodded his head in Merle's direction, "I guess it doesn't matter whether he loses out-right or is disqualified, as long as he doesn't win..." Gohan fumed. He hated corrupt people getting away with stuff like this, but it wasn't like he had proof of anything to be able to change it.

When the third call he was waiting for was made, Roane didn't yell or throw a fit, didn't even acknowledge his opponent. He crawled out of the cage determinately, walking away from the ring as the crowd howled around him. Merle looked as if he was going to try and intercept him, to say god knows what at this point, but he wasn't intimidated. He stepped around him before he could open his mouth, and kept walking. He would just have to start over, find a new manager... At least he would still have the small amount of reputation he had built for himself, hopefully he would be able to get back on the circuit fairly quickly. Bills needed paid... His locker room planning session was thankfully uninterrupted, since he had locked the main door behind him. He showered and dressed in silence. When he opened the door to leave the lockers, he was pleasantly surprised to find the hallway empty. Maybe Merle had actually taken a hint and was going to leave him alone after what he had done.

"Roane, wait up." Of course, waiting for him in the alley, how original... He had a couple of gym bags slung over his shoulder, which was odd, the sharks didn't usually pay up that quickly.

"One of these is for you" he said, holding it out like he was doing the most benevolent thing of his career by trying to give him what was technically his already. Except Roane didn't want any part of it.

"You're a scum bag Merle, go to hell" he said as he swatted the bag to the ground, hopefully forcing Merle to pick it up again before taking any other actions. He needed to get the hell out of this alley, surely there were more assailants waiting in the wings. Roane braced himself for this bad day to continue and walked off toward the main street – police always asked so many questions when you were the only one left standing. He heard Merle coming up behind him, and he readied himself to be attacked, but nothing happened. Merle walked past him without another word and hailed a taxi, disappearing into the night with his ill gotten gains. Roane breathed a small sigh of relief. He was confident in his abilities; he didn't think he'd have been in any real danger from Merle and whatever thugs he might have found. The additional trouble it would have caused would not have been pleasant though. He set off down the street, walking toward what would not be his home for very much longer. He could no longer afford things like taxi's or rent.

When Mirai and Gohan got home after the fight, they immediately agreed that this Roane guy was worth looking into. Gohan tended to want to believe the best of people all the time, it was his nature – but Mirai was more cautious.

"One right doesn't necessarily correct a lifetime of wrongs."

"You don't know that he's done anything like that" Gohan countered.

"Exactly my point, we don't know – just give me a week to check this guy out, then we can hunt him up next weekend if we think he's still suitable" Mirai offered.

"Ok, I guess we do still have plenty of time."

Mirai walked into Gohan's lab unannounced, and sat on the edge of his desk, holding a file folder. It wasn't lunch time yet, so he assumed that folder was the reason he was here, which meant it was probably the results from the investigation. He put the report he was working on aside.

"So, what did you find?" he asked.

"Not a lot, and plenty" Mirai teased him.

"Well, start with the not a lot then" Gohan said, trying to move the conversation forward. Mirai smiled.

"No arrest record, so that's good, and no reason to believe he has any 'aliases' so to speak, though there was one thing, but it's small, not even verifiable. The girl I talked to said that it was strange for him to have a file if he'd never been arrested, unless he was a minor and it got expunged later – but I got the feeling she wasn't supposed to be telling me that" Mirai said with a wink.

"I think we can deal with that – it couldn't have been that bad if they cleared it off afterward; a lot of guys do silly things they regret as teenagers" Gohan commented.

"Yeah, like get married" Mirai jabbed.

"Fuck you, you were 9" Gohan said automatically, as if it was the required response, looking at him with a sarcastic fake-smile on his face. "Can we please stay on subject here? This is for Bulma, and she's not as forgiving of her reports being late when you're distracting me as you are."

"Fine, fine – on with the plenty. Roane Flynn - he was an orphan, which might explain the potentially troubled youth. He joined the military right at 18, served two tours, came back and was a drill instructor for a couple of years before being discharged. Since then he's been running on this cage fighting circuit, which is less than a year. Apparently he's completely broke, lives in a studio apartment in one of the bad area's of town, doesn't have a car, etc." Mirai finished, thumbing the edge of the file like a fan.

"Well, I say we try for a meeting in person then, I think this could work" Gohan gave his approval.

"I think so too" Mirai said as he stood up from the desktop, "We'll try for Saturday morning – somehow, I think this guy might be an early riser."

The number of his apartment had fallen off the door, but the outline it left in the paint let them know they had the right place. Mirai knocked. After a moment, the door opened a few inches, still chained to the wall.

"What do you want?" Roane said gruffly.

"I'm Mirai, and this is Gohan – we would like to discuss a business proposition with you, if you have a minute" Mirai began. Roane rolled his eyes and began to close the door. Gohan heard him muttering something about them "having to do better than that" as he used his foot to keep Roane from getting it closed all the way.

"Please sir, just hear us out, what we'd like is for you to become our trainer of sorts – we saw what happened to you at the fight last weekend, and we think you are just the kind of guy we're looking for" Gohan interjected. Roane wasn't visible through the crack of the door, but he could sense him standing there, listening. Finally, he spoke.

"Move your foot." It was not a request. Gohan slid his foot back, and the door promptly slammed closed the rest of the way. Gohan turned his head to Mirai, as if to say, "What do we do now?", but was interrupted from actual speech by the sound of the chain sliding back. He opened the door and stood back from it, motioning them in with a nod.

"Alright, make it quick" he said.

The room was large for a studio, but tiny to be an actual living space as far as Mirai was concerned. There was a large duffel bag sitting on the edge of the neatly made bed. It was half full of clothes, and a drawer was still open next to it, ready to be emptied. He noticed a few pictures containing groups of men in fatigues, but no other decorations were to be found. The room was sparse, and everything in it looked used or worn, but well taken care of and surprisingly clean for a single guys' place.

"Well, I'll cut to the chase here, since you seem to be busy," he said nodding to the half-packed bag.

"My name is Mirai Briefs, and this is my partner, Son Gohan. We went to that fight of yours hoping to get a lead on someone to help us get back in shape, so to speak" Mirai said while handing him his card.

"We're both martial artists already, but have gotten way out of practice, and finally decided to do something about it" Gohan added. Roane took the card from him, barely glancing at it and then stowing it in his pocket.

"We would pay you well, money isn't a problem," Mirai informed him, "and we're talking about some serious training here, not 'personal trainer' type stuff. I'm in the process of purchasing a facility that would be a round the clock housing for it, so we would live there and train 5 or 6 days out of the week."

When Mirai mentioned an actual number for his potential reimbursement, Roane snorted. That was more than he'd made in the last three years put together; these guys could not be serious.

"I'll think about it" was all he said though, trying to hide his disbelief and hope. If this turned out to be legitimate, it would solve so many problems – but he had learned the hard way to never take anything at face value.

After the two strange men had gone, he picked up the phone to make a few calls. Having friends on the inside certainly helped now and then.

"Hey Bear, it's Roane – yeah, I know, long time no see – say, I was hoping to call in a small favor actually..."

Interesting – if his friends in "Intel" said these guys checked out, then it was a pretty safe bet that he had just found one of the sweetest jobs in existence. The one named Mirai had very little background on him, but he was most definitely the President of Capsule Corp. Talk about an easy ride. The other one, Gohan, looked like he was a typical successful scientist, plush job as the head of his department, multiple degrees from prestigious universities, etc. The only thing off in his perfect life was a rather messy divorce many years ago – but the way Mirai had said 'partner' when he introduced him basically explained that...

Could his luck finally be changing? He never seemed to get a break, not that he placed any kind of faith in those sort of things. If there was though, it seemed like fate must have been saving up to bestow two spoiled rich brats on him; who wanted to _pay_ him to pound them into shape... He went ahead and dialed Mirai's number, and was greeted by a cheerful secretary who put him right through. He could practically hear the smile on the other man's face when he agreed to take the job – he just hoped his list of demands needed to get it done right would not scare them off...

"Of course, we should get together again to iron out the details when Gohan is available too – let me pull up our schedules here... How about Wednesday at 10:30? That's lunch for us, just come down to Capsule Corp.'s lobby and I'll have my secretary Joanne waiting to show you in."

If Mirai and Gohan were trying to intimidate him in some way by having them meet in the grandeur that was Capsule Corp, they were going to be sorely disappointed. Roane enjoyed the technological marvels of the place, but he knew Mirai was not the one responsible for all this. Having success handed down to you and being able to keep it up was all well and fine, but this dynasty had been built by the man's grandfather and mother. It was their blood and sweat that had made this place what it was, everyone knew that. He expected to be lead into a plush office full of expensive but useless knick knacks, but to his surprise, they ended up in the Research and Development wing.

Mirai and Gohan were standing by a table in the corner, with an outrageous amount of food spread in front of them.

"Ah, welcome, right on time, perfect." Gohan said as he reached out to shake his hand. Mirai did likewise, greeting him as well.

"Shall we eat first? I always negotiate better on a full stomach" Mirai joked. Roane nodded, it made no difference to him. He sat down, straight backed, in the chair that was offered him. Mirai unconsciously straightened a bit as he sat down as well.

If Mirai and Gohan were trying to intimidate him by eating their own weight in food, it was kind of working. Where the hell did they put it all?...

Gohan knew it was difficult to get people to understand just how "different" he and Mirai were without actually coming out and saying they were half-alien, so they had devised a series of steps to hopefully work Roane's mind up to it. He needed to know this was no ordinary workout they were hoping to get. When they were finished, there wasn't a scrap of food left on the table, and Joanne came in to clear the dishes as if their was nothing abnormal going on at all.

"Now Mr. Briefs, are you sure you don't want dessert today?" Joanne asked, concerned.

"No, no, I'm fine for now – I may take you up on a snack later though" he winked. Joanne rolled her eyes dramatically and turned to leave with a smile; even at 60, she could still enjoy a little flirting here and there, she was only old, not dead...

Mirai turned back to the task at hand, and saw Gohan shaking his head.

"Anyway, Mirai told me about some of your requirements for taking this job, like having a system of punishments/rewards in place, and we think having something like that sounds fine. Also, we want you to know this isn't some under the table deal here, you'll receive full benefits in addition to the salary, as well as your own quarters on base. Food will be provided on base as well. In regards to the actual training, all your requests are fine, but there are a few things we need to make you aware of. We have this thing called a Gravity Room, which can exert forces in excess of 1000 G's within it's walls. We have been training in these things almost all our lives. Our bodies are able to handle forces that would destroy a regular person" Gohan paused, seeing the skeptical look on Roane's face.

"I know it sounds hard to believe, but we can also fly... That's something you might want to take into account when putting together your drills." Before Roane could make the disbelieving snort that was forming in his throat, Mirai levitated up from the table, and over to the window. Roane's eyes followed him, his brain expecting this to be some sort of elaborate trick or prank, wires must be involved or something... until the man flew out the window. He didn't go far before doubling back and setting down on the tile again. He looked from Mirai to Gohan and back.

"Ok, so if you two can fly, where did you learn it?" Roane questioned them. They already had the perfect answer ready.

"Well, we were both students of the martial arts legend, Master Roshi – he even taught us his Kamehameha Wave as well" Gohan stretched the truth, juuuuust a little.

"Master Roshi, _the_ Master Roshi?!"

"Yes, the old turtle hermit himself."

"Why on earth would you need me then?" Roane asked in shock. Mirai and Gohan quickly exchanged a "knowing" look before Gohan answered.

"Well, his advancing age prevents him from taking on anymore students, he just wouldn't be up to the task" he said, "we need someone who knows how to be tough and can can focus on the task at hand."

"Yeah, I guess he would be pretty ancient by now" Roane replied, thinking.

"Ok, I'll agree to do this on one more condition, you have to teach me how to fly and use the Kamehameha as well" he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Deal" Gohan said with a smile.

"I'll have the actual contract drawn up this afternoon, and we can swing by with it tomorrow if you like" Mirai offered.

"Sounds good" Roane said, shaking their hands. Unbefuckinglievable.

When they showed up at Roane's door the next day, the reception was much more cordial. He even offered them something to drink from the mini-fridge in the corner.

"Sure" Gohan replied, appreciating the gesture. He and Mirai accepted the small glasses of green liquid with raised brows.

"It's wheat grass juice, very healthy for you... If you've never had it before, it's best if you drink it like a shot" he explained, raising his in toast.

Ok... Mirai raised it to his lips, tipping the liquid back all at once. My god, that was the most disgusting thing that had ever passed over his lips, Mirai thought as he sputtered to get it down. Gohan was grimacing, but had fared better. Damn that was nasty. If he never tasted anything like that again, it would be too soon... He handed the glass back with what he hoped was a straight face, but from the grin Roane had on, he was betting he hadn't succeeded very well.

"Maybe we should go ahead and get down to the business at hand" Gohan suggested politely, handing back his glass as well.

"Of course, gentlemen. I read my copy of the contract earlier, and it looks like everything's correct" Roane indicated.

Gohan began pulling documents out of his briefcase and arranging them on the small table, so they were all lined up and ready for signing.

"Normally we'd just have you come down to the HR department and give you an ID tag, but since you're going to technically be in our 'private' employ, we figured a formal contract would be fitting" Gohan explained.

"It's fine with me, I do like for everything to be on the up-and-up" Roane affirmed.

"Well, I guess I'll lead us off then" Mirai said, pulling out a pen. Once they had all made their way through the forms en triplicate, Mirai turned and smiled at Gohan.

"Well we're one step closer; I can't believe we waited so long to do this, now that it's happening" he told him. Gohan nodded, agreeing. Before they left though, Roane stopped them, pulling out a pen and paper.

"Better give me your measurements now boys."

"Measurements? For what, exactly?" Gohan asked, still grinning in the moment though he was a bit confused.

"For your fatigues... No one shows up for basic in a suit" Roane said, looking him up and down with a 'seriously?' expression, "I'll have them sent over to you, and you show up already wearing them and ready to go, I'm not messing around here" he informed them.

"Oh, right, right..." Gohan said, laughing it off, and looking over to Mirai. With a grin Mirai reached for the paper, writing down both of their information, and then handed it back with a nod. After they had left, and were already driving back, Mirai had a moment to wonder just how far Roane would take their requested military theme... They had given him quite a bit of power after all, using the contract as a way to hold themselves accountable as well. He shrugged it off, it was too late now to start second guessing things, and honestly, if it turned out to be harsher than he had expected, that wouldn't be a bad thing.

A stack of blueprints was spread out across their living room floor. Gohan sat cross legged with his back against the edge of the couch, pen and paper in hand, scribbling furiously. He paused to chew on the end of his unfortunate writing utensil for a moment, then made a few more notes – Mirai knew better than to interrupt him when he was that deep in thought.

"Dinner's here, babe" he said, planting a kiss on Gohan's temple once he had set down the notepad. Gohan raised an eyebrow at the nickname, as they rarely used those.

"Aw, I can't help it, you're so cute when you're being nerdy" Mirai teased him. Gohan shook his head and accepted the plate of food without further comment. Better to just change the subject, otherwise playful protests would turn to play, and he really needed to get this done tonight.

"When did you say the sale on the base was supposed to be finalized, tomorrow?" Gohan asked him.

"Yeah, hopefully, or at the latest by Thursday" Mirai backed off, settling down to eat his own food. They talked a bit between mouthfuls about the system Gohan was building, or systems he was merging rather. In looking through the plans to help with installing an improved GR on the base, they had come across the old scans of Android 16 in his Grandpa's files as well. He was pretty sure Gohan had only opened them out of nostalgia at the time, but something in them had sparked his curiosity... He eventually came up with this plan of merging the kind of analytical system the android had with a scouter's capability to detect and read power levels. The final product would be a system that would allow a normal human to track the progress of a half-saiyan super warrior, and provide insight to their weaknesses and strengths as well. It wasn't the kind of thing to just be left laying around though – when they were finished they would probably have to destroy it to keep it out of the wrong hands...

Roane had come by early in the morning, the day before their lives were set to change, to pick up the first half of his salary. With a check that large in his bank account, he was bound to be in a good mood on their first day of training. Mirai had a feeling that it wouldn't matter what kind of mood he was in though, it would still be difficult – which was the whole point.

They had discovered that when left alone and to their own devices, all thought went out of their heads, and the kind of training they _meant_ to do just never got done... They needed accountability, they needed focus and no distractions. Roane was perfect for keeping them on task; plus the renovations they had done to their newly acquired property would ensure that none of them got bored.

They had agreed to show up promptly, at 6am that morning, to the front gates of the compound; carrying/wearing nothing but the fatigues and boots they had been given. They were excited actually, neither could sleep properly the night before they were to 'report' for their first day. After making sure their home was secured and ok to be left unattended for the indefinite future, they decided to go ahead and fly in, since it was still dark this time of year. When they landed in front of the large fence, right on time, they could tell that he must have been already waiting for them. Flood lights switched on and poured into the empty darkness around the gate as it slowly began rolling open. While Mirai's eyes adjusted, the only thing running through his head as he grinned was that this was going to be awesome.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1 – Getting with the Program

"What the fuck am I looking at?" Roane cursed at them before he was even within 10 meters of the gate. Gohan blinked, standing up straighter as their new 'commanding officer' approached, looking as pissed as Gohan had only seen a few people get in his lifetime. His default grin was plastered across his face before he could think of a better reaction, and he realized he was rubbing the back of his neck before he could stop himself. Damn genetics. Locking on as if drawn to the movement, Roane was in front of him in a heartbeat, smacking his arm down and yelling in his face from a proximity that let Gohan know he used mint flavored toothpaste.

"Is that how you salute your superiors? Is this fucking funny to you? What the fuck so you have to be so happy about, sunshine?" Roane demanded to know. Gohan blinked and shook his head, taken slightly aback, but for some perverse reason, still unable to stop smiling. Perhaps it was because he was glad they had chosen someone who wasn't afraid to put them in their place...

"No, nothing's funny...sir" Gohan hastily added a 'sir' to the end of his answer. As a response, Roane manhandled him into a proper salute, yelling at him to wipe the grin off his face or else he would do it for him.

Mirai couldn't help it, he snorted a bit at seeing anyone with the last name 'Son' being told not to smile. Roane rounded on him immediately, leaving Gohan standing in the salute while he addressed other issues.

"Where the fuck do you get off, showing up to my base, fucking looking like that?" he inquired loudly, looking quite enraged, for his part. In fact, Mirai was actually beginning to wonder if he'd really offended him somehow.

"What do you mean, sir?" he asked, following Gohan's lead with the 'sir' thing.

"What do I mean? What the fuck do I mean? You expect to go through this training; to fight and sweat and bleed with that long fucking hair swishing around all the time? Like you're some sort of fucking flower child, trying to find a way to 'express' yourself? I don't fucking think so. Not on my base. You've got a lot of nerve for someone who looks like such a fucking pansy. Do you feel like a pretty flower, daffodil? Is that what I should call you from now on? Huh, rose?" Roane yelled in his face. Whatever anger that was raised at Roane's harshness was quickly quelled as Mirai realized he was right about his long locks only getting in the way. It was just something he had gotten used to, over time, brushing it out of his face or out of his way as he worked. If he was going to do anything more than lift a pen or fork, he automatically tied it back, like he had today, but that just wasn't going to cut it for the level of intensity they were going for here. With a sigh, he nodded his head, agreeing with him.

"Damn fucking right, daisy" Roane continued to yell as he made Mirai salute him properly as well. Shaking his head as he evaluated their saluting posture, he circled them like a hawk, telling them to stand up straighter, heels together, etc. Finally satisfied, he walked a few steps to a waiting golf cart that they had overlooked before. Grabbing a bullhorn from the back of it, he switched it on as he climbed into the driver's seat. Everything that was yelled at them took on a whole new echo as Roane's voice ordered them to follow, and then he zipped away across the pavement. Hurrying to catch up, Gohan and Mirai obeyed right away; when this guy had said he was not fucking around, he was serious. Gohan wasn't sure that physically insulting Mirai had been necessary, but he could see the logic of his argument over the long hair. He wanted to cry. It was Mirai's decision though, he supposed. He also supposed that the reaction from Roane would not be pleasant if he asked to be able to keep a piece of it once it was cut...

The golf cart stopped in front of one of the many nondescript buildings on the facility, and Roane hopped off, opening the door.

"Inside! Move it you two!" he barked. Virtually jogging inside, they were met with a row of barber chairs and a long, wall length mirror.

"Attention!" Roane barked again. Gohan and Mirai had seen enough action/war movies to know that meant stand up straight and salute, so they went back to the pose Roane had shown them a moment ago. Then Roane stepped back, looking Mirai in the eye, and pointed to the various barber's implements lined up on the ledge under the mirror.

"Time to fucking commit, soldier."

Mirai nodded and stepped forward, picking up a pair of scissors hesitantly. Taking a deep breath, he raised a shaky hand up toward his face, grabbing a fistful of hair and beginning to cut it short. He made sure it was above his ears, too short to get in his eyes, and as even as he could manage. At least Roane didn't seem to be upset that it was taking him a few minutes to get the job done. Mirai was actually much more concerned about what Gohan would think, and purposefully hadn't looked at his lover's eyes in the reflection of the mirror yet. As he snipped the last chunk of hair, he glanced over Gohan's way, suddenly finding his heart beating too quickly for some reason. Gohan's eyes were wide, like he was watching the saddest act in a play. Of course, he noticed Mirai finally meeting his gaze right away, and gave him a determined smile.

It didn't take long for Mirai to figure out what that smile meant, as Gohan stepped forward and picked up a pair of electric clippers. Switching them on, he had a calm, and well, determined, look on his face, though without the smile now, as he gave himself a very, very short buzz cut. Mirai watched with fascination, wondering how he had been blessed with such an amazing and loyal man. When he was done, Gohan faced him, and motioned for him to turn around. Mirai blushed a bit, realizing he'd not exactly done a fantastic job on keeping the back of his hair level. After Gohan finished trimming it up, he turned Mirai around to face him, his grin back full force as they locked eyes for a moment. The moment was cut abruptly short though, by Roane ordering them to clean up the mess they'd made, and on the double.

"And wipe that god awful grin off your face, sunshine" Roane glared at them as they swept and mopped the floor, leaving it in as pristine condition as when they found it.

"Alright, now that daisy here is finally in uniform, we can proceed with the tour of the grounds. _Do not_, fall behind" he ordered harshly again, jumping back onto the cart. As they ran behind him again, having various landmarks pointed out to them, Mirai wondered if they had just picked up nicknames that would be following them for the rest of their stay...

The golf cart came to a stop in front of a long, low building, and this time Gohan and Mirai immediately snapped to attention while they waited for him to step down. Still scowling, Roane ordered them inside again, clinging to his indignation at the way they had acted when they'd shown up at the gate. He pointed out two neatly made beds at the beginning of the long row of bunks.

"This is where you come to pass out at the end of my scheduled activities, boys; that is, _if_ you can drag yourselves here afterward. I _will_ leave you laying on the fucking floor if you can't keep up, I am not your goddamn babysitter. Even if you don't manage to make it back here for the night, you will still be up, dressed, and have your beds made properly by 6am every morning. A wake up call will be provided at 5:30am, not for your convenience, but for my amusement. When I walk through that door you had better be standing at the foot of your perfectly made bed, at a perfect fucking salute, while in perfect uniform. If you are not, I will make you regret the day you ever crawled out of your mother's cunt. Do I make myself clear?" Roane made sure to yell directly in each of their faces' equally, not picking favorites.

"Yes, sir" they both answered, still standing at attention, eyes a bit wide.

"Good, now get your sorry asses back outside" he finished. Their next stop was the large building right beside the barracks, though Roane had them run the entire perimeter of the compound before coming to a stop again in front of it.

"This, for all intents and purposes, is our supply closet. If I tell you to clean something, the soap will be found in here, if you need a new pair of socks, do not fucking come crying to me about it, you go get it yourself. Everything you need is in here, and if it isn't in here, then you don't fucking need it" Roane explained to them with the bullhorn, in case their ears were too full of pounding blood from their run to hear him properly. As a dual "Yes, sir" met his own ears, he opened the door. Flipping on a light switch, row upon row of cleaning supplies and other everyday items were revealed, stacked neatly on tall shelves that reached the ceiling. Toothpaste, shampoo, towels and even wash clothes were all designated specific spots. Roane grabbed a multi-pack of soap off the shelf and began tearing it open.

"Everything has a place. For a thing to not be in it's place is a concept I _suggest_ you put out of your minds right fucking now, before it causes you pain" Roane advised them. "If you open a bar of soap, the rest of the package does not magically fucking go on a different shelf, or floor, or window sill after that." He rolled over a mop and wringer bucket, taking the handle of the mop and poking it under Mirai's chin so his head lifted up a bit farther. "When you mop the floor, regardless of whether I let you use a fucking mop, you will firmly secure the tops of all cleaning solutions. There are chemicals in this room whose fumes, when mixed together, can cause noxious and fucking flammable gasses. If you find yourself having a hard time recalling this particular rule, just remember the immortal words of my good friend Sargent Bear every time you walk through that door," Roane turned his head so he was looking at Gohan even though he still had the mop handle under Mirai's chin, "Caps are like asses, give them a good screw and you've nothing to worry about" he said with a perfectly straight face.

Gohan blinked. He could tell Roane was just waiting for him to crack a smile, though he was under the distinct impression that he would still get berated for it even though he'd obviously done it on purpose. The moment of wondering what the hell kind of person would even say something like that did not help him focus. His will power fading, Gohan bit the edge of his tongue, applying more and more pressure until the urge to smile passed, tasting a small hint of blood in his mouth as he did.

Roane must have finally been satisfied that Gohan was not going to take the bait, because he ordered them back outside with a, "Get the fuck out of here."

Jumping back onto his mobile throne and circling around, he made them trot over to the other side of the square where the mess hall was located.

"Food happens here" he yelled at them, pointing to the building, "And _only_, here. There will be no snacking, or munching, or taking of food of any fucking kind outside the walls of the mess hall. All meals will be timed. If you don't get it down your gullet by the time the bell rings, too fucking bad, sunshine" Roane said at a shout, staring Gohan down as if he could tell the beginnings of a small smile wanted to form at the mention of food. Gohan got himself under control though, once again struggling with his good natured instincts. Roane stared at him for a moment, then nodded curtly before leading them on another perimeter run.

The next time they stopped was in front of an equally nondescript building as any of the others were. Gohan was thankful for his good sense of direction, or he'd have had a hard time remembering which one was what later, due to their repeated treks around the outer boundaries of the facility. This one turned out to be the showers.

"Playtime" Roane started, drawing Gohan's concentration back immediately and making him raise an eyebrow, "takes place only on your time" he informed them.

"Showers run for 5 minutes only; you soap up, you scrub down, you rinse off. No fucking in the showers, this isn't a fucking day spa" Roane said drilling a hole into Mirai's head with the proximity of his gaze.

"Yes sir, I understand, sir" Mirai answered him, since he looked like he was expecting something.

"Is that clear, Sunshine?" Roane asked, turning to Gohan.

"Crystal, sir."

"Good."

Gohan was beginning to wonder how many more stops there were going to be on this 'tour'. Surely not every single one of these buildings held something of importance to them, that they could be mildly degraded in while being instructed in the use of.

"As per the details of our contract, you will have one day a week without any scheduled activities. However, I strongly advise you to use that time, since you are not permitted to leave the base anyway, to attend to things like your laundry" Roane lectured them as he paced up and down a row of washing machines and dryers. "Have either of you ever actually used a washing machine?" he said condescendingly.

"Yes, sir" they both answered.

"Oh really? Which one of you?" he asked.

"We both have used washing machines, sir" Mirai answered him, trying hard to keep the annoyance out of his voice. Apparently he didn't succeed very well, because Roane came right over and got in his face.

"Oh, well I'm glad to fucking hear that Daisy, because now, the time I don't have to use showing your pathetic asses how to operate these machines, can make up for the time we wasted on your little beauty parlor session this morning." Mirai held his tongue, not trusting himself to speak again since Roane's comment didn't really require a response.

"Outside, now!" Roane barked, startling both of them with his quick change of subject.

After three laps in a row around the facility, he stopped at the center of the square that the main road from the gate led to. In the middle of it, there was a large marquee, for only god knows what original purpose, that Roane had converted into a very special reminder of exactly where they stood with him. On the right hand side, there was a long, long list of possible punishments, to be chosen from at Roane's discretion of course. On the left though, under the list of behaviors that would trigger punishment, he had simply written in, "Anything that fucking pisses me off."

"I think you'll find this pretty self-explanatory" Roane grinned at them for the first time since they'd stepped foot on base, "And the other side as well." He hitched his head to the left, indicating they should go around and check it out. They both cringed mentally, seeing the list of 'rewards' on the other side was mostly just an earning back of lost privileges, and was much shorter. Under the column for what kind of behavior would be 'rewarded', Roane had penciled in the words "To Be Determined."

"Both lists are subject to change at any moment, on the whim of your gracious instructor" Roane informed them. Mirai was starting to regret that clause in their contract that let him alter the bonus/demerit system later if need be, as long as it fell within certain guidelines; like no permanent harm to them, or no exposing them to the outside world. Suddenly those did not seem like nearly enough restrictions.

After running a few more laps, they stopped in front of the mess hall again; fairly out of breath even though all this had been in normal gravity. Desk jobs had not been kind to their stamina, Mirai thought as he recalled having run two or three times this distance before without getting worked up.

"Private Son, Private Briefs," Roane addressed them, "it is now time for your mid-day feeding. You will have 20 minutes to eat, at which time a buzzer will go off, indicating that you had better get your asses outside and be standing at attention within the next 30 seconds, or there will be hell to pay. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir" they responded.

"Good, now get in there, your time starts now."

Gohan had been hearing Mirai's stomach growl as they ran, and let him enter the door first, not that it would make a huge difference. He was hungry too of course, and was glad to see several small mountains of food waiting for them. Not bothering with the cafeteria serving style the room was set up for, since it was just the two of them, all the food had been piled on one table. As they quickly dug in, one other thing became apparent; though it was nutritious and plentiful, taste had obviously not been a concern when the meal had been cooked. It wasn't bad, but the steamed rice and vegetables was just that, not even a hint of salt on the meat, nothing, in any of it. He would have paused to comment if their time hadn't been so limited. As it was, they both shoveled food into their mouths like there was no tomorrow, figuring that since the tour was over Roane would probably make them run or do something else exercise like for the rest of the afternoon.

After the buzzer rang, and they were heading back out the door, Gohan spoke to Mirai out of the corner of his mouth.

"I guess we'll be getting used to the 'natural flavor' of food here" he half whispered, not sure if they were supposed to talk.

"I guess so... But it could be worse, I'd rather have my fill of bland food then have it be something disgusting, or even have it taste good but there not be enough of it" Mirai answered quietly, squeezing Gohan's hand and giving him a smile before they opened the door.

Roane was waiting for them outside, in the exact same spot as where they had left him, making Mirai vaguely wonder if he'd moved at all the entire time. Apparently they had made it back within the 30 seconds, though they hadn't exactly counted them, because hellfire did not immediately begin to pour down as they stood at attention.

"Alright, listen up now" Roane said, as if they had been doing something else besides watching him closely, "The rest of the day will be spent taking some base-line measurements, so I can track your progress."

"Sir?" Gohan's voice sounded questioningly before Roane could get back in his golf cart. Roane raised an eyebrow and moved directly in front of him.

"I have a hard time believing you are not familiar with the concept, private" he said, somewhat sarcastically.

"Uh, actually I have a different question, sir, if that's ok" Gohan asked hesitantly. Crossing his arms over his chest, and looking Gohan up and down, Roane finally gave a curt nod, granting permission for the real question.

"I was just wondering, sir, if we're allowed to talk to each other or you during the 'activities' you have planned for us" Gohan asked, "or if that would get us in trouble."

"Silence is only required when at 'attention' private, though I expect you to be focusing on your tasks, not flirting with your boyfriend" Roane informed him.

"So a few words here and there are ok, as long as we don't get distracted, sir?" Gohan wanted to be sure.

"Yes, soldiers are permitted to socialize at a minimal level while in training, but," Roane paused, "if you have enough breath left to carry on a conversation, then I'm not doing my job" he smiled. Then getting back into his cart, he lead them over to the only new building on site, the one that housed the gravity chamber. They really hadn't needed any introduction to it earlier, having been the ones to design it. It would be their first time doing anything of significance under artificial gravity in a very long time, and though taking some base-line measurements didn't sound too bad, Mirai was beginning to get a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"How are you doing?" Gohan asked him quietly as they jogged, glad it wasn't out of line for him to do so, but not really wanting Roane to hear. It looked like something was bothering Mirai, but he didn't think either of them appearing 'weak' in front of Roane was a good idea.

"I'm fine," Mirai started, glancing at Gohan out of the corner of his eye. He had that 'knowing' look on his face though, so Mirai continued, "I guess it just kind of feels like we're _really_ starting now" he said, giving him a smile. Gohan nodded in agreement, smiling back.

"Yeah, no more tours or warm ups, here we go..." he said, quieting as they reached the door. They came to attention only to have Roane motion them inside almost right away. Walking down the corridor, Gohan followed Roane to the third door on the left, trying to ready himself mentally to perform as well as possible for the tests.

There were technically two separate gravity rooms inside the building, and as expected, Roane had lead them to the one housing a variety of weights and workout machines. The other was larger and clear of any equipment, meant to be used more for sparring and ki drills. Walking inside the current room, you would never have known you weren't back at Capsule Corp, trying to get Vegeta's attention in between ki blasts to tell him that dinner was ready... Mirai shook his head to clear the unnecessary clutter of memories. On a separate note, the lightness of his head now was going to take some getting used to. Taking a deep breath, he readied himself for the extra gravity to kick in after Roane shut the door on them.

There was a set of controls and display on the inside of the room, but there was also a set in the 'command center' as they had taken to calling it when drawing up the prints. It was a separate room where Roane could watch, evaluate, and interact with them by remote camera, without the inconvenience of being crushed to death. The screen flashed to 50G three times before Mirai felt the familiar pull settle over him. Roane's voice came over the speakers, giving them a set of instructions on which machines he wanted them to use, and how many repetitions on each, etc. The nice thing about the system that Gohan had come up with was that they didn't have to wear wires or monitors while they trained, it could detect things like their heart rate, blood pressure, etc., with sensors built into the walls. It could also give a power level reading as well when switched into that mode.

At only 50G's, Mirai was not even working up a sweat yet, and he was already halfway done with their assignment. He glanced over at Gohan, to see how he was doing, and was rewarded with a rather distracted looking smile after Gohan's eyes finally wandered up to his lover's face. Mirai grinned back at him, but stayed focused, knowing this was exactly the kind of thing that usually derailed them, but was not an option now. Neither of them had a problem putting in a good workout, it was just working out together that always seemed to bring up 'issues'.

When they finished, the screen immediately flashed 100G, and Roane gave them a new set of instructions. Feeling it a little more now, Gohan was not quite as distracted as he had been for the last set, but it was a close thing. Knowing Roane was watching was all the deterrent needed to keep him from actually pulling Mirai aside and ravishing him, but it didn't stop him from imagining it. They were both developing a lovely sheen from the intensity of their efforts now, and Gohan nearly dropped a barbell on his foot while watching Mirai bend over to adjust the next machine he was about to use. When he straightened from retrieving it, he suddenly found himself looking into Roane's angry face.

"What the fuck is your problem, Private Son? If this is all the attention you plan on paying, you can consider yourself evicted right fucking now!" he yelled at him through the monitor that had dropped down from the ceiling.

"Sorry, sir. No, sir. I'll do better, sir" Gohan saluted to the screen.

"Damn fucking right you will! Do not make me send you two to opposite sides of the room like some horny fucking teenagers with no self control!" Roane had the speakers set to full volume to make sure his voice carried well in the room's acoustics. The screen then zipped back up into the ceiling without further ado, and Gohan went back to his reps with a small blush across the bridge of his nose.

When 150G kicked in next, it began to take longer to complete the routine laid out for them, though Gohan supposed it should have been about the same length as the others, under the other gravity. He watched Mirai wipe the beads of sweat from his forehead, but quickly focused back on his own set again. Feeling the strain and pull on his muscles actually felt pretty good, and was invigorating in it's own way.

Mirai could tell Gohan was in the zone now, not letting himself get distracted anymore, which was good. Though it was flattering, of course, that he was still such a temptation, Mirai knew they should be taking this seriously. It wasn't as though he wasn't tempted to stare at the flex and bulge of his lover's muscles either, it was just that he felt somehow it was a matter of pride now. That they take pride in their abilities and status as part of Earth's defense force again. They needed to take the path of wisdom and keep up their skills, even in times of peace. He equated it to a more reasonable and altruistic version of Vegeta's all-consuming drive to be the best. They needed that same determination and focus, if not so much the intensity that never let him loosen up...

Speaking of intensity, Mirai was woken from his thoughts by 200G settling on his shoulders, and Roane's voice instructing them to do alternating combinations of sit-ups and push-ups until further notice.

"Until further notice? What does he mean by that?" Gohan wondered aloud, but lay down to comply immediately.

"I don't know, I guess we'll find out" Mirai shrugged, not really having a good feeling about the phrase either. Having already been at it for hours now, and considering all the different levels of gravity they'd been working out under, Mirai's arms began to get a bit shaky as he finished the rep of 100 that put them at a grand total of 5000. There wasn't really anything to do but count them, though they hadn't been instructed to keep track.

Gohan was drenched in sweat as well by this point, pausing only long enough to wipe his brow before switching to the next rep of sit-ups. On number 5100, total, he noticed the screen flash to 250G's. Giving almost identical grunts, both he and Mirai were pulled flat against the floor, their already tired muscles unable to keep up with that much force washing over them. Roane's face appeared on the wall in front of them, "Is that all you've got, Privates? Do you mean to tell me that's it? After all the time spent preparing for this, all the effort, when it comes down to it, you're just going to fucking give up and lay there like a sack of shit?" he chastised them, though he knew full well that 250 was Gohan's limit, and past Mirai's.

"No sir" Gohan grunted, taking a deep breath and struggling to continue. He was afraid to turn his head too far and break his concentration, but he could hear Mirai struggling beside him as well.

"No sir." Forcing his body to push through, ignoring the aches and beginnings of pain, Mirai resumed his count on the sit-ups. He knew he wouldn't last forever, but was glad he had been able to keep up at least this long with Gohan. His abs screaming at him, he was actually rather amazed when he made it through the set. Maybe he had just forgotten what it was like to really push himself, he thought as he took a few deep breathes and turned over to start on the push-ups. Gohan had already started his, but he wasn't very far ahead, Mirai was pleased to see. His strength of will and determination basically carrying him through the push-ups, Mirai was caught off guard when he finished the set and was suddenly cheek to tile with the floor, unable to move.

"Too...much..." Gohan panted. Having already turned over, he could see the screen showing 300G's now, though his eyes were the only thing he could move. Again, Roane's face and voice greeted them, "Did I say you could stop?" he growled at them. Gohan was working up the energy to try and at least grunt at him, when a small red light must have flashed on the board below the camera, because it reflected off Roane's face as he sighed and rolled his eyes. He moved away from the monitor, and suddenly the gravity disappeared around them, and the screen shut off. Mirai drew and almost gasp-like breath as his lungs were able to fill to capacity again. Frowning, Gohan hadn't noticed anything wrong with Mirai's ki, but now he was a bit worried. He worked up the energy to put his arm on Mirai's shoulder as they both lay there and caught their breath.

Finally turning his head toward his lover, Mirai smiled at him, seeing the concern in his eyes. "I'm fine Gohan, no Saiyan ever died from a good workout" he chuckled. "I may not be able to get up for a while, but I've survived worse, trust me." Shaking his head, Gohan sat up, though it took a considerable amount of effort.

"So why do you think the gravity just cut out like that, if you were fine?" he asked, not entirely believing him. Gohan forgot the mechanical doors on the gravity room were soundless when opening and closing until Roane spoke up.

"I cut it, there's a warning that's the first level of fail-safe built into the sensors, the one I can choose to ignore if I wish. It would have automatically shut off if it detected an abnormal heart rate or brain waves, but breathing was deemed 'discretionary' apparently" Roane informed them.

"Right," Gohan said. Thinking back to the code they had written for it, he remembered Bulma asking him something about that now, but he'd only cared at the time that it would shut off in the event that they were about to die. "You know, your Mom may have officially been hanging around Vegeta for too long now, if she thinks breathing is optional" he sighed.

"Thanks, Mom" Mirai said to the tile beneath him, still not able to get up.

"Thankfully for you two, I'm not a believer in destroying your body to try and get stronger. If you're too injured to train properly the next day, then that's counter-productive" Roane brought their attention back to him. "Today's session is over, you are now free to eat and shower, if you can manage it" he smirked. "Your first real inspection is still tomorrow at 6am sharp, Privates. I'll see you then."

It wasn't for a good twenty minutes after Roane had left them that Mirai was able to work up the ability to roll over and sit up. Groaning, he and Gohan finally made it to their feet after resting for another twenty or so after that. With the strict understanding that once they were down again, they'd be down for the night, they did their best to help each other out the door and back to the barracks. Halfway across the open area at the center of the base, a whiff of food-smell drifted across their path, making Mirai pause as his stomach tightened painfully.

"Damn it" he said out loud. Gohan had stopped beside him, and hearing his stomach growl fiercely as well, Mirai ventured, "Maybe we should risk it..."

"Food might help, actually" Gohan commented, eying the distance between them and the mess hall, and the mess hall and the barracks. Looking at each other with a nod, they shuffled in the new direction, the smell driving them on.

Once inside, Gohan was pretty sure that the food only tasted this amazing because they were starving, but he didn't really care, he probably have eaten sawdust and liked it at that point. Shoveling as quickly as he could, he didn't stop until he had cleaned his side of the table of it's food. Since they'd already been excused for the day, they figured the time limit didn't apply, especially when no timer went off. Sitting there at the table, Gohan was sorely tempted to lay his head on the metal and succumb to sleep right there, but he wasn't sure if they'd be able to hear their 'wake up call' in here. Being late for Roane seemed like something that would be far worse than making himself get up right now was.

"Yeah, we have to...might as well just get it over with" Mirai sighed, as if reading his mind. At least they weren't on the floor, and had the table for leverage to help them stand this time. Walking just as slowly, but with less pain now that their stomachs were full, Gohan and Mirai finally made it to the barracks. Mirai would not normally have called the cot like structure a 'bed', but at the moment, he couldn't have cared less. Not so much getting into them, as falling on top of them, they went to sleep immediately, closing their eyes on the first day of their new lives with an exhausted abandon.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2 – Obstacles

Mirai bolted upright from his sleep as the air-raid siren that had haunted his entire childhood screamed through the darkness around him.

"Gohan!?"

"What? Mirai?!" Groggy, and unable to see anything in the pitch black of the room, Gohan was more concerned about the edge in Mirai's voice than whatever the hell was going on now. Suddenly, the door to the barracks burst open and Roane switched on the lights, blinding them and starting to yell as the noise of the siren began to wind down.

"Attention!" he demanded, scowling at them already. Blinking in the sudden light, Gohan and Mirai both scrambled to the end of their beds and stood up straight as they'd been instructed to do for morning inspections. All this week, Roane had used a highly amplified alarm clock buzzer, sounding over the bases' PA system, to wake them up. He would then come in at 6am sharp to evaluate them. The siren was a new development, as was his immediate appearance afterward. As Roane looked them over critically, Gohan heard his watch beep an hourly chime. Wait a second, that couldn't be right...

"The enemy" Roane began, staring them down pointedly, "does not wait until you are well-rested to launch his offensive. Attacks can come at any time of the day or night" he lectured them. "Therefore, you have 2 minutes to be in uniform, starting now!" he barked, pressing the button on his stop watch.

Jumping to obey him in the limited time allowed, Mirai pushed everything else out of his mind but dressing as quickly as possible. It wasn't until he and Gohan were jogging through the darkness outside that he registered it was still the middle of the night. Though the adrenaline had certainly gotten him going to start, he immediately felt the tiredness still in his mind and muscles at realizing that fact. It was also in this moment that he remembered tomorrow was supposed to be their day off... Damn. He supposed this was Roane's way of making up for not being able to work them to the bone on that day. He picked up his pace as Roane's cart accelerated, making them break into a full run to keep up.

They were heading to a section of the base that he didn't remember seeing on the tour, but he could tell it was set up as some sort of obstacle course as they approached it. A tall, thick wall loomed as what he assumed was the beginning, since their commanding officer stopped directly next to it. Pulling out his bullhorn, Roane was kind enough to inform them that there was to be no flying on this course, as an explosion wracked the air to the right of them. The suddenness of the blast, along with being pelted by the dirt from it, caused them both to duck a bit and cover their heads instinctively.

"That was the starting bell, Sunshine!" Roane roared through the ensuing din. "Get your ass the fuck up that wall, Daisy!" They ran forward to climb the wall as the sounds of gunfire began competing with the renewal of the siren from earlier. A little over halfway up, another explosion sounded and the wall they were on shuddered, making Mirai lose his grip on it. He landed with a thud on the ground again, only to realize the entire thing was leaning rather precariously now... In fact, it wasn't leaning, it was falling. Rolling quickly to the side, Mirai looked on wide eyed as Gohan barely managed to make it out from under the falling wall as well. Before they had time to complete the thought of 'what the hell kind of obstacle course is this?', Roane was in their faces with the bullhorn again.

"The time's still ticking you lazy fucking assholes!" he yelled, kicking at them as they hastily stood and ran for the next obstacle. As they approached a massive spread of strung-tight barbed wire, which was suspended about a foot and a half off of what looked like a mud pit, Roane yelled the same word over and over at them.

"Crawl! Crawl! Crawl!"

With the height of the wire, Gohan knew 'traditional' crawling was out, and dropped down to his stomach, beginning to inch under it. The mud was indeed thick, making getting any traction in it extra difficult. Glancing over to see Mirai having a hard time as well, Gohan wondered if he'd have an easier time of it if he could dig in and push with his heels instead. Knowing it was a straight shot to the other side, he went ahead and rolled over on his back, accidentally brushing against a length of the barbed wire as he did so.

"FUCK!" he yelled as soon as the passing jolt of electricity would let him breath again. Mirai stopped, looking at him with concern.

"Are you ok? Gohan?" he asked, starting to reach for him.

"Don't touch the wire" Gohan replied, panting a bit as he tried to gather his wits again, and waving Mirai off to let him know he was alright. Flexing his hands and other muscles, he could assess that no actual damage had been done by the voltage, but damn if it hadn't hurt like a bitch.  
"He electrified the barbed wire? Who the fuck is this guy?" Mirai said, frowning as he looked warily at the crisscross of pain waiting above them.

"I don't know, but I bet you he'll make us do it over if we're not fast enough" Gohan said as he began moving again.

"Fuck" Mirai concurred, picking up his pace as well.

When they finally made it out of the electrified mud pit, they came up to a field of tall, randomly positioned columns. Receiving no additional instructions from Roane this time, they gave each other a quick glance and then warily stepped forward. The columns were at least twice as tall as they were, and large enough in diameter that they couldn't have reached all the way around them if they were to hug one. They were spaced just close enough together to prevent a clear view to the end of the section, and Gohan had a bad feeling about the too easy look of this 'obstacle'. He was just waiting for them to start falling over on them, or exploding around them...something. After weaving through for about 15 feet, Gohan stepped around one to be met with a line of orange goo heading straight through the air for him. His reflexes were a bit off though, from having been electrocuted a few minutes ago. The sticky substance hit all along the right side of him, coating most of his arm and leg. It seemed some of the columns were rigged with an apparatus that couldn't be seen from the front, that shot the goo at them when they stepped around it. Gohan sighed, knowing he'd for sure be docked in some way for getting gooed.

"Gross" he heard Mirai's voice from a few columns away. Well, at least he hadn't been the only one to fail this section, he thought wryly to himself. Trying to catch up to Mirai's position, he kept up a more careful watch now, and made it close enough to see that his lover sported a long splash of orange that ran down the side of his left ear, all the way down his neck, arm, and side. They had both dodged a few more of the booby-trapped columns before Mirai turned to speak to him.

"Hey, is it just me, or is this stuff starting to itch?" he asked. Now that Gohan thought about it, it definitely was...in fact, it was kind of starting to burn.

"Yeah, I feel it too" he agreed, nodding his head and resisting the urge to scratch at the skin beneath the ooze. Mirai had stopped with his clean hand halfway up to his neck, as if to wipe it off, before realizing that would only serve to contaminate more of his skin. Just as he opened his mouth to respond, they heard a whirring noise behind them, and were only just in time to see one of the nozzles they had already cleared swiveling back toward them. Diving, they each made it behind a column in time to avoid it's spray, but were subsequently shot at by nozzles behind those as well.

"Ok, so, staying in one spot is bad" Mirai commented, instead of whatever he'd been about to say. They didn't dare tarry in the middle of the obstacle again after that, and managed to make it through the rest of the columns without getting oozed a second time. By the end of it though, the burn had intensified to the point where it was fairly distracting. Mirai found himself checking the sky for any sign of daylight as they came up to the next section, wondering how much longer this could go on, and if the burning was going to continue to get worse...

Gohan breathed a sigh of relief when they made it out, but he knew it wouldn't last long. Stretched out before them was a long, open field of freshly turned earth. He wouldn't have thought of it as an obstacle, and perhaps assumed they were done now, if he hadn't been able to see some sort of large scaffolding on the other side, and Roane's golf cart parked further down after that. All of a sudden the sirens and gunfire stopped, leaving his ears ringing in the silence. Then the floodlights of the base cut out as well, and it became nearly pitch black since the partly cloudy skies revealed very little starlight, and nothing of the moon. He heard a sigh beside him.

"This is really going to suck" Mirai said, matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, I'd put money on it" Gohan nodded.

"You don't think he'd put live mines in our path, do you?" Mirai paused, standing at the edge of the tilled ground, "That could really hurt if we don't have our ki up..."

"No, I don't think so, none of the stuff we've come up against so far has been at that degree of dangerousness, even the burn of this gooey stuff has leveled off" he pointed out. Just as he said the word 'off', both of them noticed the whirring sound behind them again. They tried to dodge the impending stream, but there was no cover out here. The nozzles adjusted to follow their motion, and they were hit with a wave of orange from behind, shot from multiple turrets at once.

Cursing, and taking the hint, both of them sprang forward, hoping they'd be able to clear the end of the field and whatever it contained before their backsides really began to burn. Heading in a random, zigzag pattern (since he figured a straight line would be beyond foolish), Gohan did his best to stay alert and focused on the terrain. His mind flashed with a brief moment of regret though, to think that Roane wouldn't mine the field, when he felt his foot depress something metal beneath the dirt. Instead of an explosion, thankfully, the soft click was followed by a loud hiss as a jet of fog shot out of the ground beneath him. Though he didn't breath any of it in, it still stung his eyes and made him cough as he stumbled out of the cloud. He gulped a few breaths of cleaner air upwind, looking around to find that Mirai had discovered the fields' secret as well. Gohan could see his silhouette on it's hands and knees a few yards back, apparently having been less successful in avoiding a lungful of the gas.

If it had been just the tears and coughing, he probably would have been fine; but it was the sneezing fit in addition to that which put him over the edge. Mirai tried to crawl away from the smoke as his diaphragm spasmed, unable to see anything through the burn of the tears; only to set off another of the hidden canisters. A mild layer of panic swept over him. He could barely get in a breath between the sneezes and coughs, let alone try to hold one in with the renewed presence of the smoke. As his mind reeled, he felt a pair of strong arms wrap around his waist, pulling him up and out of the noxious fog.

"I don't think it's a good idea to stop" Gohan's voice was in his ear as his arms moved to support him, "Can you stand? Here... Alright, let's go." With Mirai's arm over his shoulder, and holding onto him as best he could with the goo they were covered in, Gohan guided him along, not really expecting an answer through the hacking and sneezing. At least Mirai was able to move under his own power, though he would never have been able to see where he was going. Gohan began to question their ability to get through this thing even together when they set off another cloud 20 feet from the edge of the field. Forcing himself to break into a near run to clear it, he and Mirai finally stumbled onto the strip of solid earth between the field and the next obstacle, collapsing to the ground.

Almost immediately, Roane was there next to them, wearing a full faced gas mask and kicking at their feet. With a groan, Mirai rolled over and tried to stand up on his own. Now that they were clear of the gas, which was thankfully disbursing and being blown back towards the columns, Mirai's eyes and breathing were beginning to clear. Thank goodness for Saiyan genetics. He and Gohan got up, eying the strange network of scaffold-like bridges and ropes that were in front of them. No time like the present, Mirai thought as he sighed, just wanting this to be over with already.

After having helped Mirai up, Gohan was now nearly covered in the burning ooze. Thoughts of, "Just how were they going to get this stuff off themselves?" were starting to cross his mind. As he scaled the ladder up to the first platform, the burning at his back reached it's full potential. Looking down over the series of bridge ways, platforms, and ladders, he saw that the entire contraption was situated above a large pool of water. He almost wanted to dive into it straight off, in the hopes that the cool water would wash away some of the goo. Determined to do his best though, he headed out across the first bridge, avoiding with relative ease the hammer-like pendulums that swung out to knock him off.

When Mirai crossed out onto the other bridge, he was definitely expecting something to happen, just not for it to fall out from beneath him. With a springing jump, he made it to the next section of platform, only to be blasted in the face by a large jet of water. Staggered back a little too far, he fell off the edge of the platform after all, and landed in the water below with a large splash. Roane was at the edge of the water, yelling at him through his bullhorn again when he surfaced.

"Swim to the end, Private!" he pointed, indicating the far wall. Mirai swam a quick stroke to the end, taking a small amount of comfort in the fact that at least the goo had all sloughed away by the time he reached it. As he hauled himself out of the water, he realized his skin was still burning though. Turning around, he saw Gohan only a few strokes behind him in the water, having been knocked off as well. They stood there, soaking wet and feeling like they were on fire, just as the sun began to peek over the horizon. Surprisingly, Roane didn't berate them for their many slip ups, instead motioning them over to a stack of cardboard boxes behind his cart.

"Those clothes won't survive this, as much of the acidic slime as you let yourselves get hit with" he said in a matter of fact tone, "Strip out of them and throw them in that bucket there." Roane was opening one of the boxes as he spoke. Gohan and Mirai gave each other a quick glance as they obeyed, opting to leave their underwear on, as they had been when he pulled them out of bed earlier.

"This will probably be easiest if you two lay down" he said, pulling out a large plastic jug with each hand. They both somewhat hesitantly complied, unsure if the course was done or not, now...

"You might want to close your eyes and mouths" he advised them, and then began dumping the gallons of vinegar over their prone bodies. A collective sigh of relief rose from them, and Roane flipped the cap on a successive 4 more jugs with each hand, until they both were sated front and back. Squatting down between them as they lay on their stomachs in the pool of vinegar, Roane was looking off into the distance, perhaps even at the sunrise, as he spoke.

"You can't ever count on the enemy doing what you expect, what you know and have seen before. All you can count on is your own determination and the support of your teammates. I won't say you did well out there, because frankly both your times sucked, but I am impressed that you stuck together as much as possible, and didn't leave each other behind. And as a reward for that behavior, I'm going to allow you as long of a shower as you want, or rather as you are going to need, today" he smiled at his own generosity and then stood up, walking back to his cart. "Your day off starts right now boys, I suggest you make the most of it."

He had forgotten what simple heaven a long hot shower could be. It had taken Mirai three complete scrubbing-downs to banish the vinegar smell, and now he just stood under the stream of water, never wanting to leave it's soothing embrace.

"Hey"

Mirai's eyes and head snapped up as Gohan poked him in the shoulder.

"Though being able to fall asleep in the shower is impressive, it's probably not going to end well..." Gohan joked, yawning himself. With a reluctant nod, Mirai turned off the water and headed over to dry off. A clean set of clothes later and it was almost like it had never happened...almost. Gohan yawned again loudly as he pulled his shirt over his head.

"Honestly, I think I need a nap before anything else. We were up half the night you know" he commented with a sigh.

"Even breakfast?"

A half hour later, having finished dressing and making a quick trip to the mess hall, Gohan and Mirai walked lazily across the open spans to the barracks, their arms around each others waists. It was definitely agreed that a nap was the next order of business. Both of them falling into Gohan's cot, Mirai snuggled against him with a content sigh, having missed his warmth next to him at night. Roane had known from the very beginning that he and Gohan were lovers, of course, but the strict, no-nonsense attitude and environment they had asked him to create didn't exactly allow for much cuddling.

"Could you set your watch with an alarm?" he asked as Gohans' legs entwined with his, "I don't want to accidentally sleep all day out of exhaustion... I have plans for _other_ things before this day is over."

"Sure, how about four hours then?" Gohan suggested, smiling.

"Four glorious hours in your arms it is..." Mirai said sleepily, his eyes already closed. Gohan chuckled, kissing his forehead once the alarm was set. His free hand stroked over the back of Mirai's hair, coming up short, but continuing down his neck and back anyway, like he would have before.

"I love you" he whispered, closing his eyes as well.

"Love you, too, Gohan... Thanks for coming back for me" Mirai responded as sleep pulled him under.

"Always."

After the decibel overload of being woken for a week with the P.A. system and then air raid siren, the beeping of Gohan's watch seemed almost delicate in comparison. It probably wouldn't have woken either of them at all if it hadn't been right next to Mirai's ear when it went off. Blinking slowly, he groaned when he realized he was awake now.

"Hey, Gohan" he pushed at his shoulder, "Time to get up, it's almost noon already." An unintelligible mumble answered him.

"What?"

"I said, how badly do you really care about clean clothes?" Gohan asked and complained at the same time.

"Hey, I'm the one who's supposed to be grumpy in the mornings" he joked, "Besides, it's not me, it's Roane who wants us properly 'in uniform' and all that." With a huff, Gohan threw his arm over Mirai, pulling him close and burying his head in the crook of his neck.

"But I was having a really good dream though" Gohan informed him, beginning to kiss at his neck, "You were there..."

Highly displeased with the necessity of pushing him away, Mirai gave a complaining sigh as he insisted, "Laundry first."

"Laundry? Now? There's plenty of time left" Gohan argued, moving up to capture Mirai's lips.

"I don't want to have to leave this bed again until morning comes, once we start _that_" Mirai answered gently, knowing Gohan would really prefer it that way as well. Gohan gave a large sigh, pulling back a bit so he could sit up.

"You and your 'logic'" he said, teasing him and wagging a finger in his face, "Fine, fine...but we're putting every load in at once. There's plenty of washing machines, and I don't want to be stuck there any longer than we have to."

"Deal" said Mirai, sitting up and stretching as well. Keeping a close eye on Mirai's backside as they gathered up their clothes, Gohan stopped him with an arm across the doorway before they exited the room.

"You know, maybe we really should wash _all_ our clothes at once" he said with a wink, leaning in closer to him and running a finger under the seam of his shirt. "It really would be more efficient that way..."

"I doubt that Roane would approve of those types of activities taking place on his washing machines" Mirai grinned back, knowing exactly how horny Gohan was at this point.

"He specified no sex in the showers, he said nothing about any of the other buildings" Gohan argued half-seriously.

"Hey, I consider it a small miracle that we aren't scrubbing the latrines down with a toothbrush at this point, after how bad we did on his godawful course. I really don't want to provoke him" Mirai made sure Gohan was not being actually serious.

"Well, I'm still going to think about it...the entire time" Gohan grinned, freeing Mirai's path and holding the door open for him to pass. Mirai just chuckled and rolled his eyes as he walked by carrying his large sack of clothes. Unable to resist in his playful and horny mood, Gohan gave him a quick smack on the ass as he went by. Pausing, Mirai gave him a look that said, "Really?" over his shoulder; then morphed it into a semi-seductive wink and went back to walking away. With a groan of frustration, Gohan kicked the side of his laundry bag before picking it up and following.

When they reached the laundry room, they were surprised to see it was already in use. Mirai would have thought Roane would be set up with his own facility, but there he was sitting at a table on the far end of the room. Both a washer and dryer were running on the row next to him as he played solitaire. Seeing them come in, he nodded to them in a friendly manner, breaking the slight bit of tension. Nodding back, Gohan even raised his hand in a sort of "hi" like gesture before picking out his machines.

Once they had them all filled and running, Mirai and Gohan reached a sort of unspoken decision that it would be kind of rude to ignore Roane's presence. Ambling over toward the end of the room that held the tables, they didn't have to wait long for Roane to address them.

"You boys play cards?" he said once they came within a distance that wouldn't require shouting. All of those machines running at once did produce quite a bit of noise.

"We've played poker a time or two, but not for anything serious" Mirai said, venturing closer.

"Well, pull up a chair, I don't bite, guys" Roane smiled at their hesitation, shuffling the deck a few more times while they took seats. "Any particular version you're familiar with?" he asked them, setting the stack down in the middle of the table.

"That time we played with Krillin and Yamcha, I think they said it was called Texas Hold'em..." Gohan offered, Mirai nodding his support.

"Alright then, Texas Hold'em it is" Roane agreed, indicating one of them should cut the deck.

"What are we playing for?" Mirai asked, reaching over and cutting it for him.

"Hmm... Since money's useless on base here and we don't have any poker chips, we could just keep it friendly and play for fun. If you really want something to be on the line though, we could play for demerits" Roane suggested fairly seriously.

"Fun's fine" they both answered at once, making Roane snort with the abruptness of his laughter. They couldn't help but crack a grin themselves, and the three of them were still chuckling a little when Roane began dealing out the cards.

"Well, the offer stands if you boys decide you want to up the ante" Roane informed them while studying his cards. He wasn't exactly a pro at this, but he'd played his share of the game back when he was in active service. After refreshing their memories with a practice hand to run through the rules, they began to play for fun for real. Roane won the first few rounds in a row, but then Mirai began to win a few as well. While Gohan was looking at his hand for their fifth round, he was beginning to wonder how complicated it would be to come up with an equation to predict the cards.

"I guess poker's just not my thing" he said with a sigh as he lost again, "It's a good thing we aren't playing for anything." Keeping an eye on his watch, Gohan passed on the coming round when he saw that it was time to move their loads through the driers. Thankfully the base was originally set up to accommodate hundreds of people, so there were as many machines as they could ever want in the large room. Once everything was tumbling away, Gohan rejoined them, with a new strategy this time. Instead of trying to win, he paid almost no attention to the cards he held or that were dealt; he opted to focus on Mirai's leg underneath the table. Casually making sure of whose leg was who's as he pulled out his chair to sit down, he made certain his was brushing against Mirai's. When they had their cards, Gohan's eyes looked at them, but didn't see a thing. His awareness was centered on the feel of his foot rubbing it's way up Mirai's thigh. Out of his peripheral vision, he could see the man starting to blush, and smiled at the reaction he got.

Fortunately, Mirai thought to himself, Gohan's foot couldn't reach _all the way_ up from the angle he was at, or he would have had a problem. Even with just the casual rubbing over his leg it was hard enough to keep himself in check. He supposed it was a good thing Roane was here, since he'd really not had any intention of having sex in the laundry room. At least it kept Gohan from talking, or rather rubbing, his way into them doing more. With a sigh, he half heartedly won the round they were playing. Then he noticed both of them were looking at him expectantly. Blushing, he realized they had been in the middle of a conversation, and he had no idea what the last thing they'd said was.

"Uh, what was that?" Mirai asked, trying to keep his face straight and not glare at Gohan for distracting him.

"Well, Private Son here covered for you when I asked exactly how old you guys are, but then I asked if you had any actual combat experience and he hesitated, then looked to you, and you dropped the ball" Roane informed him. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was leaning back in his chair, with a small and somehow knowing smile on his face. "If you boys would like to 'confer' with each other before answering that, I'll understand; just know that whatever you do choose to tell me will stay strictly between us." Now, to Roane, being the head of a massive corporation like Capsule, or the department head of an extensive program like Research and Development, didn't exactly scream 'ex mercenary', but in this day and age, you never really knew.

Mirai hadn't really thought about having to answer that particular question, but he knew his answer was going to have to have mostly truth to it. He and Gohan may have been out of shape, but there had been several times throughout the week where they had surprised Roane with their obvious knowledge in the area of combat.

"Well, I guess for now you could just say that we've both been thrown into more than a few of those types of situations. I grew up in a country that was at war, so when I came here, I kind of over compensated in the peacefulness and stopped keeping up with the things I had learned" Mirai admitted without really giving anything away. He knew that all the background information Bulma had fabricated for him years ago was purposefully vague, even if Roane did or already had done some digging on them. And Gohan's past was air tight, nothing to say he'd been involved in battles with aliens for the Earth's very survival since he was a small child.

"That's fine guys, I actually didn't mean to pry, I've just come to wonder about that over the past week or so" Roane backed off politely, dealing the next hand.

"No problem" Mirai answered, relieved he didn't continue to press the issue. Other than that embarrassing turned awkward moment, the rest of the time went by quickly. Roane was actually pretty easy to talk to, making jokes here and there, and actually listening when they were saying something. He hadn't expected him to be friendly, really, in their down time. Actually, he hadn't expected to see him at all in their down time, since this was technically his day off too. They were kind of out in the middle of nowhere though, so he guessed it did make sense for him to just stick around the base.

When the dryer's buzzers began going off in succession, Gohan grinned widely and practically sprang from his chair to get their clothes. Mirai couldn't help but laugh a little in his head about how cute Gohan was when he got this 'eager'. With an excuse about needing to put these away before they wrinkled already formulated in his mind, Gohan hustled Mirai out the door with their clean clothes, bidding Roane farewell.

As he nodded and waved them off, Roane still wondered about their rather obscure past. Since his own laundry was done as well, he left the building only a bit behind them, after gathering up his cards and hitting the lights. Watching them walk away, he briefly wondered what it might be like to have someone you could count on, but pushed the thought aside. Instead he began to run through the new schedule of training he would implement for the following weeks, now that he had a more accurate idea of what these guys were capable of. Even taking into account their tutelage under the Turtle Hermit, he had decided there was definitely more than met the eye with these two.

Even under his mother's watchful eye as a kid, Gohan didn't think he'd ever put his clothes away so neatly so quickly in his entire life. He even turned to help Mirai with his clothes after he was done, as the man was not moving nearly fast enough in his opinion. Mirai chuckled as Gohan practically snatched the shirt from his hands, moving with a speed he rarely displayed outside the battlefield. Once everything was in it's place he pulled Mirai into his arms, letting out a deep breath before kissing him gently.

"I half expected to be getting ravished right now" Mirai teased as Gohan slowly kissed his way down his neck.

"Just because I was in a hurry to get here, doesn't mean I don't plan on taking my time now that we _are_ here" Gohan chided, biting tenderly at Mirai's exposed skin. He molded himself to his lover's body, pushing against him and moving Mirai backwards step by step until they were at the edge of his bed, kissing him all the while. Pushing him over playfully, Gohan grabbed the edge of the bed frame with a wink and pushed until it was situated directly against his own, giving them a larger area to sprawl out on. Mirai leaned up to meet him as Gohan knelt on the bed and their lips sealed together passionately.

The first clothing to go was their boots, with Mirai grumbling about the necessity of needing your hands to undo the laces. Once those and their socks fell to the floor though, the rest of undressing became a game of how much skin could remain touching as various articles of clothing slid off them.

"Missed you...missed this" Gohan mumbled huskily in Mirai's ear, taking full advantage of their now nude forms to rub against him sensually. Mirai moaned deliciously for him, sending a shiver down his spine with the degree of emotion it conveyed.

"I'm sure as we get used to training again, we'll have more energy at the end of the day" Mirai whispered hopefully in Gohan's ear as he shifted his hips so their erections rubbed together. A breathless gasp escaped Gohan at the sensitiveness of the contact, and he nodded in complete agreement. He continued the slow grind of their hips for a few moments, simply savoring the feel of Mirai's nakedness beneath him. Still wanting more though, Gohan directed him with his eyes and a few practiced caresses to roll over on his stomach. He loved how after all these years, they barely even had to speak to know what each other wanted.

This was the moment that the loss of Mirai's hair hit him the hardest, though he knew it was all for the best, and had been his decision. Kissing his way across those lovely tanned shoulders, there was nothing to sweep out of the way as he went. A shadow of regret flickered through Gohan's mind, but was quickly dismissed by the depth of his emotion, the way he cherished this man before him. Moving up to the back of Mirai's neck, he gathered a bite-full of flesh and pressed his teeth into it, just enough to leave a good mark on him, but not to draw blood. The loud exhale of Mirai's breath let Gohan know he'd hit the right note there. He could tell there'd be no opposition to the idea of him paying a little extra attention to his lover today, before they got down to business.

Releasing his mouths' grip on Mirai's skin, Gohan sat back and began massaging his shoulders, loosening his muscles and drawing more than a few contented sighs from him. As his hands moved lower and lower, Gohan noticed Mirai's noises were becoming more and more drawn out. Changing his position, he spread Mirai's legs so that he could fit between them. With a hand on either side of his hips, he pulled his lover's lower half into a kneeling position, kneading and spreading his round, firm ass. Gohan leaned down and placed a lingering kiss over the scar at the base of his spine, relishing the low whine that filled the air around them as he did so. Either of them could be made to cum from just enough attention paid to that particular spot, but that was not his goal today.

Moving his lips lower, Gohan made sure Mirai's cheeks were spread wide as he kissed his way down the valley between them. His tongue darted out only fleetingly to circle around his entrance before continuing downward. After making his way to the bulge of his balls below that, Gohan decided the little strip of flesh between the two had been entirely too neglected of late. He expertly scraped, skimmed and swept his lips and teeth on top of it until Mirai moaned his name into the sheets. Still warming him up though, he moved back to his love's entrance, marking a much slower and undulating circle around it this time. In keeping with his teasing rhythm, Gohan finally let his tongue lap directly over the sensitive opening, but didn't probe it yet.

Mirai's body shifted backward toward him in frustration, causing his face to be pressed more firmly against Mirai's ass. Gohan chuckled and gave him what he wanted, slipping his tongue past the tight ring of muscle in a gentle, exploring motion. He let his saliva coat and slicken the entire surrounding area as he delved repeatedly into that hot cavern, until Mirai's hips were rocking for him and his own erection longing to take over. Finally deciding that was enough, he stopped the movement of his tongue in favor of a different kind of commotion. Bearing down on his lover's opening with a much longer appendage now, Gohan slid inside him quite easily, exacting an startled groan from Mirai at the same time.

Giving a few slow, languid strokes in and out of him, Gohan moan himself at how incredible it was to be making love to him again after so long. Well, a week was long for them anyway... Plus this had been one of the longest weeks of their lives; it was entirely unfair, in both their opinions, and it needed to be made up for right now. Knowing his lover's body like the back of his own hand, Gohan pushed Mirai's hips down toward the bed a bit more, and leaned over him, changing the angle of his thrusts. He was rewarded by a series of low, inarticulate noises from Mirai as he penetrated him with more force and grazed over that certain special spot inside him.

Grabbing handfuls of the sheets, Mirai hung on as Gohan's pace increased steadily, making the frame of the bed smack against the wall of the barracks in an almost competing way with his own cries. His toes and legs tingled as Gohan worked between them, grunting and groaning in a guttural way that Mirai found unbelievably hot. On the edge of his pleasurable haze, Mirai felt a finger tracing over the teeth marks at the back of his neck. Then it moved off of the indentations and began following the curve of his spine downward. When it got halfway down his back, Mirai knew he was going to cum the instant it brushed over the scar of his tail. Anticipation continued to build as it traced closer and closer to it's goal, then stopped and instead circled the bundle of nerves made sensitive by their exploits.

"Gohan..." Mirai let himself whine and beg all at once, knowing the game Gohan played and that the pitch of voice he desired couldn't be faked. Approving of his love's plead with a breathless chuckle, Gohan flicked his fingers over the scar in rapid succession as Mirai screamed and began to cum quite forcefully beneath him. As he did, that tight heat Gohan was buried in contracted even more, sending him over the edge of an orgasm with ease. He collapsed on top of Mirai, waiting for his body to stop twitching with pleasure before he pulled out. Leaving a trail of cum over his ass when he did so, Gohan snuggled at Mirai's side, waiting for him to open his eyes so he could be the first thing he saw afterward.

When those lidded blue flames were finally unfurled, Gohan was granted a wide smile and a sigh of approval from their owner. Before they could drift off into another round of much needed sleep though, Gohan kissed his forehead and whispered undying love for him in his ear, meaning every word sincerely. Mirai rolled to his side so they could embrace more easily, and returned the sentiment wholeheartedly. With one last kiss and set of "I love you's" they were lulled to sleep by the warmth of each others arms, content in the knowledge that no matter what happened, some things would always remain the same.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 3 – Interaction

Roane's eyes blinked open of their own accord, just as they always did, exactly one minute before his alarm went off. Rolling over and sitting up immediately, he stretched and waited for the buzzer to sound, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and yawning. Holding his hand over the button as it went off, he let it pulse exactly seven times, as if each one ingrained the 'be awake now' concept a little more into his brain. Finally switching it off, he headed over to jump in the shower. It was the most sure-fire way to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when he had to go inspect the Privates later.

With most of his normal routine completed, Roane walked over to the control room and absentmindedly flipped the lever that sounded Gohan and Mirai's wake-up call. He was using a new sound today. He liked to switch it up to keep them on their toes, and he had come across a perfect noise to throw at them just yesterday. It was the standard "Hull Breach" warning that most submarines and space ships were equipped with these days. The jarring noise grated over the entire base for 30 seconds, bringing a smile to Roane's lips as he pictured their startled reactions.

That done, he went back to his room to practice for a few minutes. About a month ago, on one of their days off, he had held Gohan and Mirai to their word about showing him how to fly. He'd picked up the basics of it pretty well, though it was harder than they made it look. He didn't have much time to devote to developing the skill, with his current employment taking up so much of his time, but he did manage to get in at least a little practice every day. He had the hovering thing down, and could move from side to side, but wasn't exactly ready for the loop-d-loops and crazy acrobatics he had been shown were possible.

Touching down on solid ground again, he grabbed his bullhorn and headed over to start the day. They didn't know it yet, but Roane had planned a little field trip for them. Deciding after a review of their contract that it was within his power to grant them permission to leave the base; he had purposefully planned this excursion for the Friday directly preceding a day off. After three months of virtual isolation out here, he thought they were all beginning to feel a bit stir crazy. He counted it as a happy coincidence that and old buddy of his had called him up a few weeks ago to offer him some work on the family's farm, so he'd been able to bargain a day of work for Gohan and Mirai out of it. Changing things up was beneficial now and then, and it would give them a chance to have some good, down-home cooking in exchange for the day's labor.

After Mirai's very polite questions about the security of their identities had been answered and dealt with, they all piled into an old Jeep that had come with the base and headed off to the farm in question. With the much less camouflaged outfits they had changed into, namely jeans and t-shirts, they didn't set off as many 'military' identity flags. Also, Mirai had obtained Roane's permission to disguise his hair, since it was a rather distinctive shade and his face quite well known in the outside world. While they were switching clothes he simply transformed into a Super Saiyan, becoming an instant blonde. They had already been informed that their job here was not so much for the physical difficulty, but to get a change of pace and to do something good for someone else. Mirai wouldn't have really pegged Roane for the altruistic type, but he had a feeling that an old army friend of his was involved. Either way, it suited him fine. Roane had indicated that afterward they were going to be allowed to spend their day off in the city nearby, which was a huge luxury by their current set of standards.

"You boys better be on your best behavior," Roane lectured them as he drove, "I won't have you embarrassing me on this outing, or doing any less than your absolute best at these tasks."

"Yes, sir" they both affirmed.

"But at the same time, since we're kind of incognito here, you shouldn't call me 'Sir' for the rest of the day, or be afraid to act normally" Roane informed them, expecting the instructions he gave would be followed precisely. They rode the rest of the way mostly in silence, since the old Jeep's radio didn't work. There was still some nice scenery going by though, as they made their way through the countryside. Mirai held Gohan's hand and rubbed small circles into it as they waited, at least with them both sitting in the back they could have this small moment.

When they finally reached the property, they could tell right away that this was more of a family run operation than a big corporate farm. An ancient, but well-kept farm house sprawled behind the front fence, and various out buildings littered the grounds behind it. Worn dirt roads ran between all the structures, a few of which looked in need of sprucing up. None were as bad as one of the large old barns though, it was so dilapidated that it looked ready to fall over in a strong breeze. Acre upon acre of crops stretched out around them, right up to the edge of the forest. As they got out of the car, they were 'greeted' by a trio of dogs, but they were quickly called off by the farm's owner, who limped out of the house with a cane when he saw Roane.

The old man shook Roane's hand and clapped him on the shoulder as Roane introduced Gohan and Mirai as a couple of friends of his. The dogs sniffed at their feet while handshakes were exchanged all around, and Gohan bent down to pet the happy border collie that had taken a liking to him. It was while squatting down with the dog that he heard their day's agenda.

"Well, I know any outfit you're part of will be set on workin' hard, but just get to as much of it as you can, seein' as how there's only the three of you" the farm's owner advised them. "There'll be a hot, home-cooked meal for you at the end of it, either way, just like we agreed. I really appreciate you takin' the time off to come out here" he finished with a nod in Roane's direction.

"It's no problem, sir, glad to pitch in" Roane assured him.

"Do you remember where everything is, or should I give you all the grand tour?" he questioned.

"I'm pretty sure I've got it down, supplies in the north barn, scrap behind the old barn, and dinner at 6 o'clock sharp?" Roane grinned. He'd obviously put in time here before, Gohan noted, still scratching the dog's head. The old man chuckled and patted Roane on the shoulder again, saying he'd leave it in his capable hands then. As he began making his way back to the house, the dogs broke off to follow him, but the collie turned halfway and dropped it's front paws so he was half laying down with his tail still wagging happily in the air.

"No, no, I can't play right now" Gohan laughed, waving him off.

"If you're done?..." Roane began, bringing his attention back around.

"Oh, uh, sorry, s-" Gohan stopped himself from calling Roane 'sir', "just acting normal."

"That's fine, but between you and me, I know what you boys are capable of, and I'll be highly displeased if everything on my list isn't done by the end of the day" he admonished them.

"Right" Mirai nodded. "I'm guessing that would be the north barn?" he gestured, ready to get started.

"It is indeed, let's go get that orchard harvested boys" Roane enjoined them. Since that was the most time sensitive thing on the list, Roane had them take care of it straight away. Actually, when ol' Murphy had heard it was just the couple of them, he told him over the phone not to worry about that field after all, as it was a job more fit for a couple dozen men. Roane knew that hiring the labor for that would not be cheap though, and made it their first priority. Starting up the small tractor used for pulling the fruit trays, he drove them out to the 10 acres of cherries and gave them the rundown.

"Larger, or rather more well off farms, use rigs that shake the tree to get all the cherries off, letting them fall on tarps that are then dumped into a sorter that blows away any leaves and such. Those set-ups are not cheap though, to either buy or rent, so we're going to be using a modified version of that technique today" he explained. Indicating the stacks of plastic trays on the trailer behind the tractor, he continued, "Once all these are full, we'll go back for another load." Grabbing a stack of four tarps off the back, he told them to spread them out under the tree, with it's trunk in the middle of where the corners would meet.

"Now, a normal person wouldn't have the strength for this, they'd have to preposition the ladder under each branch and give them a good shaking one by one; it makes the harvest take a long time when done by hand. But I'm counting on you to be able to give the tree a good shaking right at the trunk, without damaging it of course, and get this thing done within a couple hours" Roane motioned for Mirai to step up. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Mirai wrapped his hands around the tree, pushing and pulling on it gently at first, to get an idea for the woods' tolerance. Feeling like he had a fairly good reading on it, he shook the tree quickly, making it seem as if the whole thing vibrated. A rain of cherries fell on him immediately, though he kept shaking for a good 10 seconds, just to make sure. Roane walked around the edge of the tree, looking to see if there were any clumps still hanging on, but found only one small section on an outlying branch.

"Good work. After you do that, always check to see if there's any clingers. You have my permission to fly, in fact I insist on it, since the speed it provides you will be the only way you can get this whole orchard done in the time frame I'm looking for." As Roane spoke, Mirai flew up to the branch and gave it another small shake, with it finally releasing it's payload.

"So, here's how I want you to work this. You each will have your own row of trees. After you've spread out your tarps and done the shaking, you'll probably have to pick out any twigs or sticks by hand, but then the leaves you should be able to blow away all at once with that handy 'ki' stuff you showed me before. Also, since you can fly, picking up the tarps and dumping them into a line of waiting trays should present no logistical problems for you. I will be following behind you, moving the trays onto the trailer while you go on to the next set of trees. Any questions?" Roane asked, though he clearly expected none.

"No, that's really well thought out" Gohan replied, moving to stake out the neighboring row while Mirai finished with his tarps. "There is one thing though," he couldn't help himself, "Are you sure you'll be able to keep up with us?" Roane got in his face with a slightly aggressive posture, only a small smile giving away that he was actually pleased with Gohan's competitive attitude.

"I am not one to balk at a hard days work, _Private_, but if you really get that far ahead, feel free to come back when you've finished the whole acreage and help load trays too" he challenged him. The quicker it was all done the better, in his mind. Gohan grinned and looked over to catch Mirai's eye, seeing the mischievous twinkle in them as well.

"Deal" he said with a nod. "Hey Mirai, race you to the end of this row?"

"Sure, though I've got a whole tree's head start on you, I don't know if that's really fair" Mirai accepted his proposal with a teasing lilt to his voice.

"Are you kidding? You're going to need it" Gohan laughed, arranging his tarps. He stopped and waited until he and Mirai were in the same position on their respective trees.

"On your mark...get set...go!" he counted down. From Roane's perspective, what seemed to be happening was that a very large, yet controlled, wind swept through the two rows. Trays of cherries just seemed to pop up in a neat line every few seconds in front of the next tree down the row, with leaves and small twigs continually swirling in the air around them. Roane realized his mouth was slightly open when a stray piece of leaf flew into it, making him grimace and spit. All of a sudden, he felt a hand on is shoulder, and spun around. Gohan was standing there, grinning like the cat that got the canary, as Roane felt Mirai's hand on his other shoulder only a few seconds after that.

"I told you I'm faster" Gohan prodded Mirai as they dropped their hands, having used him as an effective goal line. Roane stared at them for half a second, then regained his composure.

"Alright, new plan" he said, going over and starting up the tractor, "Load these that you just did onto the trailer, and let's see if you boys can still go that fast on the next set of rows while aiming for a moving target." For the rest of the harvesting, Roane drove the tractor up the row at the same time they worked, quickly filling the trailer. It turned out the longest part of the process was driving back to the barn for a new set of trays, as the tractor could only go so fast. When they drove in the last load, Roane glanced at his watch.

"An hour and fifteen minutes?" he practically exclaimed, shaking his head. "We spent a lot of that driving too..." he mused, not for the first time wondering who the heck Gohan and Mirai really were. It wasn't his place to ask those kinds of questions though, his job was to keep them on track.

"I need to point out to ol' Murphy that he needs to call up a packing shed to come pick these up. You two go back to the north barn and load up that flatbed truck behind it with fence posts."

"Just out of curiosity, what are you going to say when he asks how we got this done so quickly?" Mirai wondered. Roane grinned and held out his arms in an 'I've nothing to hide' gesture, "No one saw anything, there's nothing to say an entire battalion wasn't out here shaking these trees" Roane said innocently. He wouldn't normally stretch the truth like that, well, lie, in this case, but it was a small one to protect them while they did as much good as possible for this family.

While Roane trotted off to do that, Mirai and Gohan made a b-line for the barn, still full of energy after having only worked up a light sweat in the trees. Moving that fast in normal gravity was a piece of cake for them, plus they had a good time with their own little side bets on who could finish how much first. Mirai currently owed Gohan two back rubs and chocolate cake tomorrow on their day off, while Gohan owed Mirai a foot massage and a bottle of wine. It was looking to be a pretty good day, tomorrow was...

They had the truck loaded up with the thick posts in no time, in fact more quickly than it took Roane to make it back. Noticing there wasn't exactly anyone else around, Gohan nonchalantly pushed Mirai up against the side of the barn, giving him a wide grin as he asked, "So we're supposed to 'act normally', right?"

"Gohan..." Mirai chided, as if he shouldn't have been surprised. Gohan stole a kiss anyway. Several in fact, until he felt Roane's ki approaching them again. "Time to build a fence" he whispered seductively in his lover's ear before pulling away.

"You always know just what to say to make my heart race" Mirai chuckled somewhat sarcastically, pushing away from the barn.

"Well, I do know you better than anyone else" Gohan got in one last tease before Roane appeared around the corner.

"Alright boys, hop in the cab and let's get going, this fence won't build itself" he commanded, heading directly for the truck. If he had any notion of what they'd been doing just before he appeared, he didn't make a point of it.

"The fence between this farm and the neighboring one is in bad shape, and as I'm sure you could tell, it's owner isn't exactly in the kind of health that is conducive to putting up fences. The fence that runs along the road is fairly new, as it was just replaced a few years ago. But the one on the west side of the farm is a cattle fence, less decorative, more functional, and rather labor intensive" he described their upcoming task to them as they drove. When they arrived at their destination, the fence's disrepair was obvious. Lines of barbed wire sagged and in some places left wide gaps. Almost all of the poles leaned one way or another, and their wood looked to be decaying pretty rapidly at this point. Gohan looked from side to side, up and down it's length, scanning the area for any ki signatures that would indicate someone was nearby at the same time.

"Uh, they don't expect any of this to be salvageable, do they?" he asked, scratching his head.

"No, the old stakes will be burned and the rusty old wire melted down and recycled, eventually. Alright, get this truck unloaded boys. Then Mirai, you can start tearing the current fence down while Gohan and I go back for another load of stakes. Once all the supplies are moved over, I'll have you two start putting in the new one" Roane explained as they piled the new posts on the ground.

After the two of them had taken off in the truck again, Mirai glanced around just as Gohan had, feeling out if there were any surrounding ki's before taking a hold of the barbed wire. As a Super Saiyan, the jutting metal couldn't even come close to piercing his skin, so he didn't bother with gloves. Gathering all the lines of it at once, he began ripping them off the posts with a swish of his arm. He discovered that if he tried to go too fast, the posts that weren't as rotted held onto the wire more firmly, and starting to rip out of the ground. At one point, he came across a section that was so rusted the wire snapped in half when he pulled, though he'd been using the same strength as on the previous sections. He finally did get it all dislodged though, rolling it into a huge ball and then flying it back to the starting point with it above his head.

Roane and Gohan were just about to drive away from unloading the second batch of stakes when they saw him approaching.

"Here, throw that on the back, we'll take it to the scrap heap on our way to get the last of the posts" Roane indicated. While they were gone, Mirai found that removing the rotten wood was no less delicate a process than removing the wire had been. If he pulled too hard, the end of it was liable to break off in the ground. It actually was a task made harder by being in his transformed state, but he figured the practice in control was certainly worth something. When he was a little over halfway done, Gohan flew up beside him, beginning to help with the tear down.

Right when Mirai went to get a grip on the last piece, he felt Gohan come up behind him, pressing at his back and pinning him to the wooden post.

"Seriously?" he asked in mock indignation as Gohan began kissing at his neck.

"What?" Gohan feigned innocence as he switched to kissing the other side.

"You're incorrigible, that's what" Mirai retorted, closing his eyes with a sigh, "Haven't you learned any self control these past few months?" he joked, not moving to escape though.

"Oh, and I suppose you'd rather have a perfectly in-control lover" Gohan's low voice teased back at a whisper, "One who never gives in to the moment, who's always strict with you... You'd probably rather date Roane than me." Mirai laughed, turning to face Gohan and wrap his arms around his neck.

"On the count of three, drop to your knees and give me a blow job, Private" Gohan frowned, doing his best impersonation of their commander. Mirai groaned, rolling his eyes to emphasize how ridiculous Gohan was being.

"As if. You know I like being _spontaneous_" he reminded him, "I just think we should be a little more on task at the moment."

"But no one else is around... I thought we already established that if you want me to stay on track, I need constant supervision" Gohan continued to joke, but released Mirai so he could finish with the post.

"Well, maybe I should call Roane over here to keep an eye on you then" Mirai suggested with a grin, bending over more than necessary to renew his grip. Watching Mirai's ass closely, Gohan shook his head and put his hands on his hips.

"I knew you liked him better than me."

"I don't know, the way you keep accusing me of being after him, it's almost like you're trying to cover up something yourself" Mirai turned the tables on him, throwing down the now freed post. Crossing his arms over his chest as he faced him, Mirai also raised a highly accusing eyebrow. Neither could hold their stance for long though, before bursting into laughter. Once they had died down to a lingering chuckle, Gohan suggested they start carrying the old timber over, since it would take hardly any time flying. Each gathering up an armful, they quickly flew back to the truck, which Roane had already gotten started on filling. Though he was nowhere near as fast as them, he did remarkably well for a human. Once they'd taken all the loads of scrap in, it was finally time to start on putting up the new fence.

With the track of the old one to follow, there was no worry about keeping the fence itself headed in a straight line, but Roane did stop to eyeball the posts and make sure they weren't leaning as they went. Mirai stood off to the side, next to one of the piles of new posts, and threw them to Gohan. Gohan used a miniscule ki blast to create a hole for the post, and then shoved it into the ground. As soon as Roane gave the 'ok' on it being positioned to his satisfaction, Gohan moved back and raised his arms to catch the next post. When they first started, they had tried both planting posts at the same time, but Roane didn't feel he was getting enough of a chance to properly inspect their work. This way may have technically been slower, but it was still light-years ahead of getting out a post hole digger. It was an easy thing for Gohan to keep each ki burst the same, making all the holes identical.

Finally they finished marking off the entire edge of the property with the new wood. Compared to what had been there before, it practically glowed. After they'd gotten the rolls of new barbed wire off the truck, Roane came over to them with a dangerous looking industrial staple gun.

"These staples are specifically made to dig into and hold onto wood. Start off your strand by wrapping it around the post a few times, then tie it off, like so" Roane demonstrated, "That will hold it in place while you attach it to the next post. You want the staples to be loose over the wire, so we can properly tension it afterward. Start with the bottom row and work your way up, we should have 8 to 10 lines overall" he finished instructing them. They were able to get it all strung up pretty quickly, with Gohan unraveling the wire while flying, and Mirai coming in behind him and stapling. The fresh metal practically glistened in the sun when the fence was finished, the bright wood almost making the pasture seem cleaner and refreshing somehow.

Mirai really enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment it gave him, seeing the whole thing put together, and knowing they had done that. He rarely (well, never, actually...) got this kind of satisfaction out of reading reports and signing contracts.

"I like this. Feeling like we really accomplished something good" he said out loud as he gazed over it. Roane looked over at him, pleasantly surprised to hear the idea conveyed in that statement, especially from someone who obviously came from such an upscale kind of life.

"That's three miles of fence you boys took down and then put up in the span of a couple hours. No harm in being proud of your work, especially when it's been done well" he complimented them. "Let's stop for lunch before we head to the next task, I'm sure you guys are probably getting hungry by now." Even though this wasn't nearly as much of a workout as Roane normally gave them, Gohan and Mirai weren't about to indicate they'd wait for food if they didn't have to.

Lunch on the farm was a pile of thick sandwiches, mounds of potato salad, and a couple gallons of iced tea. As plentiful as they were sure it seemed to ol' Murphy and his wife, it wouldn't have done much against a Saiyan's appetite if they'd really been working hard. Fortunately it would be enough to get by, and they could eat as much as they wanted once they got into town later. It wouldn't do to eat them out of house and home anyway, if they were to truly sate themselves at two different meals.

That afternoon's work was scheduled to be on the other side of the property, where the land they owned ran over and into the forest. There was a definite line where the current fields cut into it, and that was where the expansion was set to take place. A twenty acre parcel had already been outlined, though the amount of land they owned stretched even farther than that. The clearing of this plot was just to be able to add onto the adjacent crop for next year. The land was pretty free of underbrush, being at the edge of the woods, but it was scattered with trees that needed to go.

"Once we've got them all cut down" Roane said, gesturing to the trees, "we'll take the logs over behind the farmhouse to be cut up for firewood later. If we get this field ready to go quickly enough, we can spend the rest of the time until dinner on that." He handed each of them an ax as he spoke. Gohan looked at the handle and blade of the implement, speaking up once Roane was done.

"There's a faster way" he offered, setting the ax down. Flying up to the middle of the nearest tree, he gripped it around the middle and pulled it straight out of the ground, like it was nothing.

"This way we don't have to come back and remove the stump" he added, setting it down to the side of them.

"Yeah, but they'll probably question how the hell we got them out of the ground in one piece" Mirai said. He stepped over to the log and used a slice of ki to sever the root from the rest of the trunk.

"You might as well clean off the branches while you're at it, we can't stack them like that very well anyway" Roane gave them the go ahead on their new plan, and in no time they had all the trees worth making into firewood prepped and ready to go. Again, the longest part of it was ferrying the logs over to the farm house, since they couldn't fly them to the chopping block. They discarded the stumps on their way, though they left them all in one big pile in the scrap heap, since technically they could still be burned for fuel later if needed. Once they reached the wood shed, they pretended to need one of them on each end of the log to lift it, just in case anyone was watching. I reality, the trees were far too heavy for only two normal people to lift, but at least it didn't draw as much attention as a single person lifting the whole thing.

Gohan glanced around casually as they unloaded, checking to see if anyone was taking note of them, but the only one watching was the dog from earlier. He grinned to see it was still following him around after having been stuck a few tidbits under the lunch table. It continued to trot after them as they made their way back to the field as well. Thankfully, being a farm dog, he knew better than to get in their way while working.

Instead of firing up the tractor when they got back, Gohan and Mirai decided to take this opportunity to work on their ki control some more. Cutting long, careful lines into the soil, they sent the burst of ki at each other so slowly it could hardly even be called a blast. Mirai caught the glowing sphere and sent it back to Gohan, ripping up layer after layer of soil as they walked along. It wasn't a particularly draining exercise, but did require a good amount of concentration to have the ki ball only tear up a specific amount of earth in its wake. By the time all 20 acres were 'plowed' in this way, Mirai was sporting a visible sheen of sweat. The afternoon was a fairly warm one on top of it too.

Knowing how Gohan was usually effected by seeing him in this state, he prepared himself to fend off a few advances, knowing Roane was just down the field from them. Technically, from this distance, he couldn't see either of them, but felt them instead, and knew Gohan was heading his way. Mirai was marking off the section of dirt that would be dug up to form an irrigation canal in a moment, when his lover arrived.

Glancing over, he only intended on giving him a friendly smile and nod so they would stay on track, then suggesting they start the ditch. That was until he saw the bastard was walking around covered in just as much glistening sweat as he was, but had somehow thought it appropriate to remove his shirt. It was physically impossible for Mirai to break his gaze away from the chiseled perfection before him. He watched a bead of sweat reach it's tension point and break away from the hollow of Gohan's neck, tracing a quick line between broad pecs, slipping down over toned and muscular abs, only to disappear into the cloth of his pants below that.

Gohan grinned as Mirai's finger reached out and traced a line down his chest, his lover not even having met his eyes yet in his transfixed state. He felt the single finger hook itself into his waistband and grinned even wider, waiting for Mirai to eventually look up on his own. While the finger continued to rest in between Gohan and his pants, Mirai's other hand made the opposite motion, starting at his waist and running up over his chest.

"What the hell do you two think you're doing?" Roane's voice was a lot closer than his ki had seemed a moment ago. Mirai jumped back from Gohan's chest, at first going straight into a salute (as did Gohan), but then remembering they weren't supposed to do that right now, he lowered his hand, not really sure what to do.

"Uh, sorry, I, uh... sorry" Mirai sputtered, unsure what to call him either, since he wasn't 'sir' right now, and Roane might think addressing him by his first name while in trouble was disrespectful.

"Can you two not keep it in your pants for 5 minutes when no one else is around?" he asked sort of mildly angry and disbelievingly. At least he wasn't yelling it at the top of his lungs like usual.

"I told you to '_act_' normal" Roane informed them, using his hands to make little quotation marks in the air, "not actually 'be' normal" he frowned. Mirai and Gohan weren't really sure what to say to that, though the pinkish tinge to Mirai's cheeks seemed to arise almost as if in response.

"It won't happen again" Mirai vocalized, watching Roane's reactions carefully. Their commander sighed, seeming to rub his temple, but then he turned it into a motion that wiped his forehead of sweat.

"Alright boys, I'll make you a deal. Since I know we're in kind of a gray area here, I'm going to make a gesture of goodwill. If you can manage to keep from molesting each other for the rest of the afternoon, then when we get into town later, I'll buy you both a drink and then let you molest each other as much as you want for the rest of the night, no interruptions. I know we won't officially be on 'down' time until sunrise, but you've done a good job here today, and you deserve a bit of a reward. Does that sound like a bet you're willing to make?" Roane smirked at them, knowing full well what their answer would be.

"Yes, we'll take it" Mirai accepted for both of them, rather eagerly.

"Oh, I don't know babe, you have been rather touchy-feely today" Gohan teased him, "What happens if we lose?" he asked Roane. Crossing his arms over his chest, Roane had his drill instructor voice back on when he answered.

"Well then your asses are still _mine_ until sunrise" he said almost condescendingly, as if they should have known better. Gohan swallowed hard, side-stepping another foot or so away from Mirai, just to be on the safe side. Roane rolled his eyes.

"Get started on that irrigation canal, you've still got a mountain of firewood to chop after this" he chided, though the sting in his voice had lessened somewhat.

Just the thought of getting to have this night to themselves was enough to keep even Gohan focused as they put in the series of ditches that would allow water to flow to the eventual crop. Earlier, Roane had only indicated they would get tomorrow off in the city. Both of them had fully expected to be doing push ups or hand stands or something well into the night, or at varying times of the night, as Roane seemed to love that element of surprise. This was certainly a welcome development, and worth a little extra self control for the next few hours.

Stopping only to hydrate once the field was done and ready, they all headed over to the pile of logs they'd stacked up previously. Sawing them into wood stove sized lengths would have been much easier using their ki, but this close to the house, they didn't want to risk it. Besides, this was years worth of wood, and even if they didn't get it all cut right now, Roane figured at the rate they were going there would definitely be enough done for the upcoming cold season. Mirai and Gohan's strength made short work of the logs, even with a conventional two man saw. Soon all the tree trunks had been reduced to stumps under the push and pull of them at the blade.

Roane started splitting the stumps into actual firewood while they were still sawing, making an impressive on it. Since the farmer only had two axes though, he handed his over to Gohan once they had finished with the trees, knowing it would do far more damage in his hands.

"Have you ever split wood before?" Gohan grinned at Mirai, knowing this was definitely outside his job description. Gohan had grown up with the chore all his life, especially when his dad was gone. He'd developed a slightly different method than just using an ax though, once he'd learned about ki as a child. Since that was not really an option here, as they were within the sight of the farmhouse, it put him and Mirai on almost even terms.

"What's that? You sound like you want to owe me another bottle of wine, with that tone in your voice" Mirai joked, issuing the challenge.

"I don't know, you may end up owing me a pie instead, _city boy_" Gohan's eyes flashed with playfulness as he teased his lover.

"Oh, is that how you want to play? Fine then, you're on" Mirai gave him a purposefully exaggerated frown. "Whoever can split the most wood in a half hour wins" he set forth.

"Hold on though, some pieces are going to be bigger than others, how are you going to measure who chopped 'more'?" Gohan questioned him scientifically, wondering if he knew the answer. Mirai rolled his eyes at Gohan's never ending attention to detail, and Roane spoke up when he saw it.

"Chopped wood is measured in cords. You each do as much as you can, and at the end of the half hour, stack it up and then _I'll_ measure who has the most" he volunteered to referee their little bet.

"Sounds go to me" Gohan nodded, noting Roane's knowledge extended beyond the battlefield a fair way, considering all he'd demonstrated today. It was his guess the man had worked on this farm or some other quite a few times over the years, though they'd never really spoken of their personal lives in detail. Roane readied his watch to time them, and they both positioned their first logs for his signal.

"All right boys... On the count of three-" Roane was cut off by Mirai bursting into a laughter he clearly couldn't control. He dropped his ax and was covering his mouth with his hand, bent in half as a fit of hysterics consumed him. Gohan was still holding his ax in mid swing, but was blushing furiously, starting to chuckle himself as Mirai's contagious laughter spread to him. Obviously he knew what it was that had Mirai in such a state all of a sudden, but when Roane raised an eyebrow at him questioningly, he shook his head and waved him off as if he didn't want to know. After an internal count of ten, Roane turned to him with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Are we going to be continuing your little competition or not?" he looked down at him like Mirai had lost his mind.

"Bet's off" Mirai shook his head after a series of deep, calming breaths. "I know we're still doing the firewood," a stray giggle escaped him, "but I can't, can't race like this" he said, looking to Gohan imploringly. Gohan nodded, letting him off the hook for their wager, only because Mirai's current condition was mostly his fault.

"How about we'll just see how much we can get done in the first half hour, then try and top it in the next one?" Gohan offered, knowing Roane still expected them to be giving it their all. Mirai agreed to that readily, though he shot Gohan a look behind Roane's back that said he would both be thanked and paid back properly for this later. It was the kind of look that to a saiyan promised some amazing sex would follow said paying back. Gohan chuckled quietly to himself over that, not wanting to set Mirai off again as they finally got down to work.

Though an occasional giggle plagued him here and there during the first session, Mirai had himself pretty much back under control for the second one. It turned out he was even mildly grateful their bet had been called off, because Gohan would have beat him hands down. The man was fast, swinging the ax with precision and confidence, not pausing at all in between logs. Mirai would have looked to be keeping up with him by human standards, but personally, he could tell Gohan was about 2 or 3 logs ahead of him. When their final round before dinner was said and done, Mirai's guess was proven right. Gohan's stack ended up evening out his last cord, while Mirai's was just a bit short.

"Too bad about that pie..." Gohan sighed, staring at the two piles.

"You really wanted me to take my time to make you a pie on our day off?" Mirai said sarcastically to him, wiping his brow.

"I didn't say you had to make it, you could have just bought me one" Gohan corrected him with a grin.

"Oh, whatever, you say that now" Mirai joked.

"Boys! Supper's ready in a half an hour, y'all better come in and get washed up now!" ol' Murphy's wife shouted from the back porch. Roane waved, letting her know they'd heard her.

"Let's go, we can take turns getting cleaned up in the guest bedroom. The Missus won't allow a bunch of filthy, unwashed men at her dining room table" Roane grinned, shaking his head. Since they'd brought everything they'd need for the weekend with them in a couple of capsules, and they were all used to taking 5 minute showers, there was actually plenty of time for them to all be washed and combed and ready to eat at 6 o'clock sharp. Mirai did have to power down to shower though, since the water kept trying to roll away from him. He figured there was a very small chance of being 'discovered' in there anyway. It was really only getting caught in the act of some amazing feat of strength or speed that they watched out for. Mirai was the last to shower, so Roane and Gohan were already waiting for him outside the guest room, sniffing the air hungrily.

"It's about time" Gohan's stomach grumbled, "I'm starving."

"Yeah, well just remember we'll eat again in town, don't go demolishing their whole kitchen" Mirai wagged a finger at him as if he was already guilty. Roane frowned at him. A real frown, not a messing around frown.

"What kind of hair dye was that?" he asked, finding it odd that whatever he'd used this morning had washed out so completely in only a few minutes.

Oh shit... He'd forgot to transform back when he got out of the shower.

"Uh, you know what? I'll have to explain this later" Mirai said, ducking back into the room as he heard steps coming toward them from around the corner of the hall.

"Well boys... Where's your other buddy? There's no being tardy to meals in this house" ol' Murphy got ready to herd them into the dining room. Mirai stepped right back out of the door, now a perfect spiky blonde again. The best explanation he could think of for his instantaneous change in hair color was only _possibly_ going to fly with Roane, but definitely not with these strangers.

"All ready to go, sir" Mirai nodded to the old man respectfully, and to Roane deferentially, really hoping he'd go along without questions until they were alone again. Roane nodded back, following ol' Murphy as he proceeded down the hall, not saying a word on anyone's hair color, thankfully. While their backs were turned, Gohan silently gave Mirai a fake slap upside the head, and Mirai mouthed to him "I forgot" with his hands raised in a mock defensiveness. As he turned the corner at the end of the hall, Roane caught some of their skit out of the corner of his eye.

"You coming boys? Remember what ol' Murphy just said about being late for dinner" he said dryly, not liking that they seemed to be messing around.

"Sorry, right, we're coming" they jogged down the hall to catch up with him. No more was said as they went in and took their seats, both of them eying the surprisingly fancy dining room. Though the tableware was formal, the food piled high on it was everything you could expect from a good down-home meal. Fried chicken and slabs of pork, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob, noodle casserole and stuffing, not to mention fresh baked bread and a three-bean salad, was spread out before them. Gohan was literally drooling, and wiped at the corner of his mouth as discreetly as he could. They waited for everyone else to get their plate's filled first, and then neither he nor Mirai stopped eating until the table was cleaned of food. It was amazingly good, just nowhere near enough. Gohan figured it would at least hold him over for the ride into town though.

Thanking their hosts, who managed to hide their shock at how much they ate fairly well, they climbed back into the Jeep and waited for Roane, who had gotten pulled into a hug by the "Missus". As he was released, ol' Murphy clapped him on the back and was obviously thanking him one more time. For some reason both Gohan and Mirai looked away as Roane turned from the porch and headed to the car, as if they'd been looking at a private moment on accident. The first words out of Roane's mouth once he shut the Jeep's door let them know he hadn't forgotten about Mirai's little stunt earlier though.

"So, is it 'later' enough yet to explain your little instant blonde trick?" he said casually while backing out of the driveway. Mirai had decided the easiest thing at this point would be to explain it away as some sort of ki ability, since it was _kind of_ related to that, and just stress that it was a by-product of the particular reaction his body had to the technique...etc, etc.

"You mean, it's genetic" Roane connected a few more dots than Mirai really wanted him to, but it was too late to re-phrase anything now.

"Yeah, sort of...basically" he admitted "No one really knows that much about it, since it hasn't been studied scientifically or anything." That sounded reasonable for an obscure ki channeling side effect, and would hopefully end the conversation. Roane nodded, mostly satisfied with that explanation and not really questioning it anymore.

It took a good two hours to get to the city, which wasn't a metropolis, but was thankfully large enough to have it's own airport and at least a couple different hotels and bars to choose from. Roane was a man of his word, and since they'd kept their hands off each other, even while showering and changing, he pulled into the parking lot of a rather 'art nouveau' looking bar. It seemed right at home in the up-scale section of town, right across from a few higher end hotels and a mall, but not like the kind of atmosphere they would have pegged Roane with liking.

"This looks like a pretty expensive place, I wouldn't have thought you had that kind of taste, I mean, from what we saw before" Gohan trailed off, not realizing when he started that sentence that Roane might be offended by the assumption.

"I don't" Roane snorted, as if the idea _was_ a little ridiculous, "but this is the only gay bar in town" he said over his shoulder as he gave his ID to the man checking the door.

"Oh" Gohan said mostly to himself as he pulled out his wallet. He and Mirai exchanged a look.

"You didn't have to do that" Gohan informed him once they all got inside. It was still early for the partying scene to be in full swing, so the place wasn't very crowded yet, even though it was Friday.

"Oh really?" Roane said with a chuckle, dismissing Gohan's line of reasoning, "Let's get a seat while there's still some tables open, unless you'd like the bar?" he indicated it to the left.

"A table's fine" Mirai said, elbowing Gohan in the side to tell him to just let it go. While Roane went to go get them their drinks, Mirai leaned over to Gohan, "It's actually a nice gesture, and besides, it's not like he's uncomfortable with it" he pointed out. That was true, Gohan reminded himself as well that the guy caught them making out at least once a week... Not 'on the clock' of course, or they'd have been in trouble, but he'd known up front exactly what kind of 'partners' they were, and still took the job. In fact, as Gohan watched him getting their drinks at the bar, a guy was hitting on him as they spoke, and he was handling it quite well.

When Roane finally returned, carrying the three glasses carefully, Gohan decided to bring up something he'd seen back at the farm, trying to make conversation. After thanking him for the drink, he asked him about a photo that had been hanging in the dining room when they ate. It looked pretty similar to one he'd seen in Roane's apartment when they were first looking into him; enough so that he wondered if it was the same one. Roane leaned back from the table and just looked at Gohan for a moment, as if he was assessing him. The decision he came to must have involved him being deemed trustworthy, because even though he looked away from them, he started to answer the question.

"Allen. Al Murphy, their son, was the 'natural' blonde in the photo with us" Roane looked back to them, glancing to Mirai's hair as he said 'natural'. "It's the same picture" he confirmed. His behavior seemed a tad off, but it was the first time they'd ever really talked about something personal like that, so Gohan thought it would be ok to push just a little bit further, though he wasn't trying to grill the man, just find out a little bit more about him.

"You said 'was', do you mind if I ask what happened to him?"

Roane looked at him as if he was both expecting and not expecting him to say that. Actually, the look on his face was kind of hard to read.

"Uh, he died" Roane said as if Gohan should have known that, like it was common knowledge. Mirai casually kicked Gohan's leg under the table, which of course Roane noticed, actually making him chuckle.

"It's war, people die" he sighed. "We were in basic together, got to be pretty good friends, were lucky enough to get stationed on our first tour with the same company... He never came back from his second tour though, and I did" Roane shrugged. "It's not something either of us had any control over. I spent a lot of leaves on his family's farm, since I didn't really have anywhere to be, I'd go help him out" Roane explained and finished off his drink. "I'm sure you know" he gestured to Mirai, "having been around war, sometimes you just lose people."

Mirai nodded, the resigned tone in Roane's voice striking him as a bit jaded even.

"Have either of you?" he turned the 'sharing' tables back to them, "Ever lost someone?" Now, Gohan had seen plenty of people die in his lifetime, but they were usually brought back again at some point, so he wasn't really sure he should speak up. Mirai on the other hand, was very still beside him while he tried to think of how to answer that question. Gohan didn't know if he should rub his back or just let him be, as his particular touch right now might only make it more difficult for him.

"I'm sorry" Roane got Mirai's attention away from staring at the glass in front of him, "I wasn't trying to get you down by asking that. I mean, Al and I weren't lovers or anything, it doesn't 'haunt' me... I didn't think about what you might have gone through yourself before I said that" he apologized, picking up on the emotion that Mirai was trying to hide.

"It's ok... No, really" Mirai took a deep breath and squeezed Gohan's hand, waving off both his and Roane's concern. "It was a _long_ time ago, and we weren't lovers either" Mirai smiled at Gohan, who already knew all of this. "Maybe we could just talk about something besides war and dying tonight...or training either, since it is our day off" Mirai grinned. When Roane saw Gohan relax again, he figured Mirai really was ok.

"So, you want to talk about something 'happy'?" Roane stroked his chin as if it took a great deal of effort to think those thoughts. "Yeah...I got nothing" he joked, shaking his head as if it couldn't be helped. Both Mirai and Gohan grinned at that. Gohan's grin was wider though.

"Well I'm getting laid tonight, so I could spare you a couple of 'happy thoughts'... But Mirai might be upset with me later" Gohan shrugged as if to add an 'oh well' to the end of that, grinning from ear to ear as he watched Mirai's reaction.

"Oh my god, do not make me come over there" he half joked, half threatened; scowling at him. Then he began laughing as he couldn't help remembering the wood cutting incident. Roane just shook his head at their antics, glad the mood of the evening hadn't been accidentally ruined.

"I'm going to get another drink, you boys ready for another round yet?" he asked them as he stood.

"Sure" Gohan laughed, pretending he needed to keep a watch on Mirai out of the corner of his eye, "I think I'll be safe if left alone with him for a _little_ while." Mirai punched him in the arm without even looking. As Roane walked away, Gohan pulled Mirai in close to him, kissing him tenderly in their instructor's absence. The upcoming prospect of their two nights together, more than the alcohol, was making him a little giddy, and he slipped his tongue into Mirai's mouth for what was supposed to be a quick 'stolen' kiss. As he waited at the bar, Roane happened to glance back at their table and see them basically making out with not a care in the world. He rolled is eyes and sighed, drawing the attention of the guy who'd been hitting on him earlier once again. He grinned and decided to have his drink there at the bar while he waited for them to finish with that...

Twenty minutes later, he could see they were still oblivious to what was going on around them, and decided they all had better things to do. Picking up the drinks he'd ordered them earlier, he walked over set them down on the table a bit more loudly than necessary. And draw their attention it did.

"These were on me too, boys... No, don't worry about it, as you were" he winked and walked back away. Neither of them were exactly sure how long they'd been making out without realizing it, but figured it was enough to be noticeable, especially since he'd used the word 'were'.

"Let's finish these up then and head across the street" Gohan whispered in Mirai's ear.

"That's a good plan" Mirai stroked Gohan's cheek. He did feel a little bad though, that they'd sort of scared Roane off, even though he'd been cool about it.

"We should apologize to him, next time we see him" Mirai said, moving to work on his drink. "He was just trying to be friendly and we almost completely ignored him." It was then that Gohan spotted a red flame of hair, still at the bar.

"Actually, he's still here..." he informed him, a little puzzled, "I thought he'd meant he was leaving too." As they both watched, a rather good looking guy leaned over and whispered something in Roane's ear. When Roane turned to him, he was obviously laughing, though they couldn't hear what was being said from this far away and with all the noise of the bar. They were both about to chalk the whole thing up to 'odd', until Roane and that guy, the same one who had been hitting on him earlier, now that Gohan thought about it, got up together. Got up together, and he put his arm around Roane's waist as they headed for the door. Gohan was fairly certain his mouth was hanging open from the look on Roane's face as he glanced at their table on his way out. With a wink at them, Roane slipped his hand into the guys' back pocket and then walked out the door.

"Did he?"

"Was that?"

"When he said he and Al _weren't_, I thought..."

"I guess he wasn't just being considerate..."

They both sat in stunned silence for a minute.

"No wonder he wanted to get rid of us early" Gohan smirked.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 4 – The Motions

After their initial go in the gravity room, to see where the limit of their tolerance was, Roane had disabled the screen that showed them how much gravity they were working under. Apparently it was all part of his plan for enhancing their "situational awareness", but honestly, Gohan thought he just enjoyed getting the drop on them. Sometimes literally. Without the flashing screen, there was no way to tell a change in gravity was coming up. Their reflexes were becoming honed to catching the extra weight, or pushing with greater force at a moments notice, since they never knew when it might hit.

Roane still didn't think it was enough though, and was stationing them in the second chamber of the gravity room for what he called "Enhanced Combat Maneuvers" today. His normal routine had become pushing them as hard as possible under the most gravity they could handle each morning, until they were ready to collapse. Then they'd spend the rest of the day doing things around the base that even though they seemed mundane, were incredibly taxing on their tired bodies at that point. That way they had discipline, but with a certain amount of unpredictability thrown in too. They never knew if they'd be running around the base's perimeter for the rest of the day, or cleaning the mess hall, or some combination thereof.

These little surprise sessions were always memorable as well... Gohan groaned internally, remembering the first obstacle course, but knew better than to let any such emotion show on his face. Roane was still watching them, even if he wasn't in the room.

"Today's exercise will be aerial. The more hits you take, the more time you get to spend digging holes this afternoon" Roane's voice informed and warned them over the loudspeaker. Gohan glanced around, but even upon a second inspection of the room, he didn't see anything that could qualify as a 'course' for them to go through... Then the gravity kicked in, and at that exact moment he felt something small splat against the back of his arm. Even as he took to the air, more were sailing through the spot where he'd stood just a moment ago. He didn't dare wipe his hand over the area to 'see' what it was he'd been hit with, in case it turned out to be some sort of burning or itching agent again. Instead he just focused as best he could on not getting hit with anymore of them.

Mirai was hit right in the shin with the first paintball, it's neon yellow payload breaking over him painlessly. At least he hoped it was traditional paint. As the gravity changed around them, Mirai realized this was going to be a messy one. The change in force made him over compensate a bit and get hit by a projectile he thought for sure he'd get around... Damn. Bright, crisp white made itself known across his chest. He would have taken the time to sigh if it had been under different circumstances. As he dodged and ducked through the air, he wondered if the number of hits would be specifically tied to the number of holes they had to dig, or just determine the duration of the digging. He guessed it didn't really matter. They needed to get faster, quicker, and stronger; so if they weren't able to pass Roane's test to his satisfaction, then they did need to be pushed further.

From the control room, Roane concentrated on the screen in front of him, not bothering to keep track of his previous hits, since the computer would do that for him. It also was programmed to pick random lengths of time and varying degrees of gravity to switch between as it cycled through the session. Roane snorted out loud when the randomization made the artificial gravity drop all the way down to 1 G. Both Gohan and Mirai were too close to the ceiling when it happened, causing them both to smack into it before they could adjust. He fired a series of shots at them as he saw it happening, pegging each of them at least twice, and chuckling to himself. This was way better than any video game he'd ever played.

They were able to dodge his attacks easily with no extra gravity, but it wouldn't last forever. The next randomization kicked in, pulling them back down to reality, and making Roane's job a lot easier. Even though the chamber could go all the way up to 1000G's, Roane had set it so the gravity wouldn't go past 550G's, which was their current tolerance level. They didn't know it though, since the only indication they had of how much gravity they'd been in was how tired they were, and Roane made sure they were pretty much exhausted all the time. They did get a day off to rest, so he didn't worry about pushing them too much. It wasn't like they couldn't take it. He'd been increasing the number of G's on them at a steady rate, and they'd been keeping up perfectly.

Roane had tried it once himself, out of curiosity. He had made sure the computer would cut out at his much lower limit, just in case, and tried working out in first two, then three, all the way up to five times gravity, before he started having problems. Since he was good with computers himself, and hadn't hesitated to fiddle around with it a little. Gohan had helped build the thing anyway, so he figured that even if he did get something crossed, a relatively quick fix was there to be had. It was interesting though, when he'd been messing around with the internal calibrations, he'd found something odd. Not in the technology itself, that was pretty straight forward once it had been explained to him, but regarding the definitions he'd come across in the root menu. There were all sorts of parameters programmed into the thing, with the default setting at "Normal". But the one below that though, was called "Human", which in and of itself was strange, but in addition to that, all the higher settings read "SSJ" with a number after them... What the heck was that supposed to mean? It was beyond him to worry or care about it too much though. Probably some special Capsule Corp acronym that related to this particular invention.

After a few hours of this, Roane brought their current session out of the randomized program, and switched it to a steady 551G's. Both Gohan and Mirai struggled to stay afloat in the weight, their reaction times cut to abysmal. Roane pegged each of them a dozen times, pretty much in a row, just to prove his point, then ended the simulation altogether. Pushing away from the controls, he went to address them in the chamber. It was standard procedure for them to be allowed to lay on the floor in a puddle of their own sweat and rest for the few seconds that it took Roane to get in there. So when he opened the door they were just as he expected, Gohan on his back panting, and Mirai on his knees in much the same state.

"Horrifying" Roane said as a general statement. Both of them groaned and got to their feet. Damn, Gohan had hoped they hadn't done too badly, until the end that was. He definitely didn't miss the statement made in that last succession of taps. They needed to be trying harder.

"I wonder" Roane began, walking over to them, "if the penalty had been that I killed a small, fuzzy, animal for every hit, if you would have done better?"

Gohan's face was a mixture of anger and then shame as he was mortified by such an idea, but at the same time, now found himself questioning his own performance. Mirai stared resolutely at the opposite wall. But he did wince a little when Roane said the word "killed".

"And what if it wasn't an animal, hm?" Roane continued to drawl, "What if for every hit, your mother got punched, or kicked, or stabbed? What if failure meant that somebody died? Would you still have given it what you did just now?" Roane knew he was being harsh with them, but he'd seen what there were capable of, and could tell their 'hearts just weren't in it today', and that was about to fucking change. Now Gohan was staring directly forward, with a dark look in his eyes, while Mirai had silent tears streaming down is face.

"What if the holes you're going to go dig right now were to bury all the people you've just let down?" he asked them carefully, for once not yelling or swearing at them at all, though this was probably the maddest he'd been in a while. He shook his head and turned away, at a ninety degree angle to them, as if he didn't want to look at them anymore.

"Go get your shovels" he said in a dismissive tone. They filed out the door behind his back immediately, without a sound and without having answered him. They all knew what the answer was already.

While shovels were retrieved, Roane went ahead to the field where the digging would take place, carrying a load of large rocks on the back of his golf cart. He parked it in front of the pile afterward, so they weren't readily visible from the angle Gohan and Mirai would be approaching at. He normally prided himself on his improvisational skills, but he had a feeling that today he was not going to be relishing that fact. No, today was turning out to need more of an application of 'necessary evil' than anything else. Luckily, those boys had picked the right man for the job. Most of Roane's life had been one big reality check, and if they needed a dose of it to keep their motivation, then he'd shove it so far up their asses that they'd never want for 'motivation' again.

Mirai's tears had dried by the time they got the shovels out of the supply room. He was glad Gohan said nothing, he knew they were both feeling pretty much the same level of shame right now. Roane had been right, it would have made a difference. And when the moment came again, that every little bit of power counted (because those moments always came), they would have regretted not giving every single ounce before, to get stronger. That was just the way it was, that was why they were doing this. Maybe they had gotten complacent during their time here, feeling like since they were doing something, they were doing enough... Granted, it's not like their lives or schedules were by any stretch of the imagination easy... But damn, Roane's comments had really hit home, he may not have even realized how much.

When they reached him out in the field and saluted, Roane was leaning against the side of his golf cart.

"Are you an only child, Private?" Roane asked Mirai before he let them start digging.

"Uh, no sir" he answered, hesitating between the two truths momentarily.

"So how many people are in your family?"

"Five, sir, including himself."

"Alright, get started digging then, five holes" Roane instructed him. Then turning to Gohan, he asked him the same questions.

"There's five of us as well, including my grandpa, he's still alive" Gohan told him, having obviously caught the significance and wanting to be truthful.

"Ok, five holes for you as well then. And Privates, both of you, you make sure each one is six feet deep" he instructed grimly, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Yes, sir."

It had been a long time since Mirai had dug a grave. Let alone five of them. Surprisingly, as he made his way down into the earth, his resolve seemed to actually be firming with each foot of progress. He was doing the right thing. He would _do_ the right thing, always. Whatever it took to protect his family and his friends, the Earth. From the bottom of his first hole, he couldn't see Gohan, but he hoped his love was faring as well as he was. He knew Gohan would come to the same conclusions though. Mirai began on his second grave, quickly giving Gohan an encouraging smile while he could see him. He never stopped moving though, and he never stopped digging.

His muscles screamed at him, and his back ached like it would snap in two at any moment, but Gohan pushed on. He and Mirai dug with single minded purpose, as if each shovelful was a little scoop of redemption for their past slacking off. It was emotional, to be sure, but the tears he felt brimming were actually more out of joy than anything else. Joy that there were no bodies waiting to fill these holes. He'd dig to the core of the Earth and back, happily, to avoid a fate like that. When he and Mirai had finished all five of their holes, Roane actually had to give each of them a hand up out of the last ones, they were so exhausted. Before he let them go for lunch though, he had one more task for them to complete.

"Each of you to go behind my cart and pick out five rocks from the pile there" he ordered. When they had done that, he handed each of them a piece of chalk.

"I want you to write your parent's names on the first two, and then place each one at the head of a grave" he told them, watching stoically as they did it.

"Now your siblings, and for you Gohan, your grandpa as well" he made them each place two more stones. After he had them each write their own names on the last one, he took them from their hands and then held onto them for a moment while he spoke.

"No one digs their own grave. Unless you really want to dig each others some day, I suggest you get this 'giving 100%' crap out of your heads right now. You want to live? You want your family safe and your lover to be there to wake up to every morning? Then you shouldn't be giving 100%, you should be giving til you fucking bleed, until you black out and there's not a single breath left in your body. You should be scaring _me_ with how bad you want this, if you want _him_ to live" Roane said, giving them the rocks with each others names on them as he said the word "him".

Their faces were so dirty from all the digging, that the drops from their eyes turned to muddy tracks down their cheeks as they set the last stones down.

"Now, go wash up for lunch and then meet me at the mess hall. You have 10 minutes" he said, driving away on his cart and leaving them behind. They walked quickly, nearly at a jog, to make it to the bathrooms in time to wash off their hands and faces before the meal. There was still too much for words between them, so Gohan simply took Mirai's hand as they went, squeezing it and earning him a small smile.

As they splashed cold water and soap inside, Mirai seemed to get transfixed by the swirl of dirt running down the drain, and Gohan gave his shoulder a squeeze, looking at him with concern.

"Sorry..." was all he said, his voice a little too soft, as if he was apologizing for much more than zoning out. Gohan pulled him into a fierce hug as his lover began crying full force.

"It's ok, Mirai, shhhh" Gohan tried to comfort him, "We won't let that happen. _I_ won't let that happen, and _you_ won't let that happen..." he whispered to what was left of his lavender tresses. Mirai nodded against his chest, his tears dying down after a minute. Gohan leaned down and kissed him lovingly as they turned to go, but it was two minutes too late. The door to the bathroom flew open as if it had been kicked, and an enraged Roane stood there, catching it's bounce back toward him with what looked like practiced skill...

"What the _fuck_, do you think you're doing?" he asked them, though it looked rather obvious from his perspective.

"No, you don't understand" Gohan stepped between Roane and Mirai instinctively, holding out a hand to ward him from coming any closer, "He's dug that grave before, you can't expect him to be ok after that" Gohan demanded, defending the man he loved. He didn't specify which of those graves he was talking about. Fuck, he probably shouldn't have said that at all... As he waited for Roane's reaction, he ran over what other meanings he could have meant by that in his head.

It all happened so quickly, that Mirai was left staring at Gohan's back where the door swinging open had been. He placed a hand on him and stepped around his side, knowing Roane wasn't any 'threat' to them, and that Gohan was just a little on edge right now.

"No, he's right" Mirai agreed with Roane, even though he hadn't said anything else yet. "Gohan, that's exactly the point of this whole thing, weakness is a luxury. I can't be letting myself give in to stuff like that, even if it's brief, not if we're serious... I'm sorry, sir" he said, addressing Roane for the last part. Gohan heard what he was saying, and realized right away that he did indeed have to accept it... Both of them did. Backing down from Roane's presence, he nodded and waited for their punishment to be dealt out.

"30 minutes" Roane had calmed down quite a bit by the time he began to speak again, "That's how much extra time I'm going to get from you every morning for the next week." He knew just how much of 'morning people' they were _not_, especially Mirai, so it seemed fitting.

"Yes, sir" they both chimed.

"Damn right it's 'yes, sir'," Roane was looking directly at Gohan when he said that, "Now, get over to the mess hall before I change my mind about feeding you entirely."

Not that there was normally a lot of conversation during it, but lunch today was a silent affair. Food went in mouths, and thoughts swirled in heads. Both of them questioned that it had been the full amount of time allotted for their meal when the timer went off, but looking down at the distinct lack of food left made them begin to believe. Talk about lost in thought... Mirai felt Gohan's hand slip into his again.

"There's nowhere that I'd rather be" he smiled and whispered to him as they headed back out. That brought a smile to Mirai's face, and a little of the light back into his eyes.

"This was all my idea, wasn't it?" he joked mildly, knowing Gohan wasn't blaming him at all for their emotional trial today, just trying to make the mood a little lighter.

"Well, I think I deserve a little of the credit too" Gohan squeezed his hand firmly one more time before they stepped outside. One more small smile between them, and they were back in front of their sergeant, awaiting his orders.

For some particular reason, this happened to be the day that the thought popped into Mirai's head to wonder when it was Roane ate _his_ lunch. The guy was always right there waiting for them when they came out. Maybe he ate a protein bar or something while he was out here? That didn't seem like a fitting meal to Mirai, even for a regular human. Not that it was his place to ask, but now it was going to bug him... Maybe tomorrow when they ate he could get a peek out the window to see exactly what the man did while waiting for them. As they were jogging behind his golf cart to the next task for the afternoon, it also struck him that when they had to get up 30 minutes earlier, now so would Roane. Maybe he didn't mind mornings; the guy was always already in his element each morning when he woke them, that was for sure. Thinking about the life their instructor lived in between the moments they could see was better than dwelling on the past.

He was not going easy on them. Not at all. Having accidentally reduced both men to tears this morning was not a factor in his decision to spend the rest of the afternoon on activities that afforded more of a mindless repetition. Like jump rope, and working a punching bag, maybe with a few sit-ups/push-ups thrown in for good measure. He'd been livid when they hadn't shown up on time at the mess hall earlier. His automatic supposition seemed confirmed, too, when he'd opened the bathroom door. That was, until he saw the haunted look in Mirai's eyes. Connecting all the dots, he figured whoever Mirai had lost before had been more than just a friend, and obviously he'd been forced to bury the person/man himself...

Roane sighed. They wouldn't be able to hear it with all the wind whipping around him as he drove anyway. He couldn't help but wonder how old Mirai had been when all that had taken place, it obviously left some deep scars on him, that he hid really well _most_ of the time. That could definitely become a problem though... Mirai wasn't exactly that old right now, he couldn't have been much more than a kid, from the way he'd talked about growing up in war as a child. Even if he felt the smallest twinge of empathy for them, he wouldn't let it cloud his judgment. They'd still have a hard time crawling back to bed by the end of the day, he'd make sure of it.

It was amazing how many muscles you used to jump a couple inches off the ground. Especially in their current state, and after having done it 10,000 times in a row... Most of the muscles in his legs, as well as quite a few in his back and arms, were burning so badly Mirai expected them to seize up at any moment. Only 2000 left to go now. He didn't even think about sighing anymore, instead focusing on making it through the set as quickly as possible. While he worked with the jump rope, he could see Gohan at the punching bag, swinging away determinedly, Roane watching his every move, making sure he kept up proper form even in his fatigued state.

Gohan could literally feel the sweat pouring out of him. Every thrust forward with his arm left little droplets of water in it's wake. Roane was always good with keeping them hydrated, but today had been one of the most taxing experiences they'd had in awhile, and that was saying something. He made sure the intensity of his assault on the punching bag never wavered though, and he mentally pushed himself just as hard as Roane was. Well, actually, Roane wasn't saying much, except to goad him here and there if he did slip up. Gohan's breathing was labored and his clothes soaked completely through by the time Mirai finished with his assignment. Both of them were more than happy to work a different set of muscles now, as they traded positions.

Well, Mirai had hoped it would be a little bit different set, for his arms, but he soon found they were turning to lead weights as he began pounding away at the bag. He threw a couple of horrendous jabs in a row, and Roane called him on it.

"That was fucking sloppy, Private, I wouldn't want a man who punches like that on my team, you better get fucking with it right fucking now" he shouted at him from only a few feet away.

"Sorry sir" he replied quickly, redoubling his focus. He tuned out everything but bag in front of him, not even really seeing Roane's form beside him, and attacked with much better skill. For the next 15 minutes or so anyway. Unfortunately, it had taken him many multiples of that to do 12,000 reps with the jump rope, and Gohan was not _that_ much faster than him. He could feel his limbs slowing, even as much as he willed them not to. As his ability faltered again, Roane's presence was suddenly in the forefront of his consciousness once more.

"Is this the same way you'd defend the men who fell for you?" Roane asked him coldly, his eyes boring into him. He knew which buttons to push now, but he'd not yet discovered where the line was. And he didn't think Mirai had reached his physical limits yet either.

Roane's comment hit Mirai mid-swing, and he wasn't sure what part of it was the final straw, but he had a feeling it was the way he'd said the word 'fell'. His eyes flashed, and Gohan stopped jumping rope as Mirai's hair glowed and stood on end. The punching bag ripped off it's chain, cracking the support beam it was attached to, and sailing to crash through the wall on the other side of the room. A line of sand was left behind from it's split seams, like a trail of blood leading back to the culprit. Mirai couldn't hold the transformation though, he just didn't have enough energy left for it. As his hair sank back down, so did he, to his knees right where he was. He only managed to balance _just_ well enough to keep from falling to his hands as well.

"I told you to push yourself, Private, but that did _not_ include some sort of permission to destroy my gym" Roane scolded him angrily, as if Mirai was acting like he was a not-too-bright child.

"Fuck you" Mirai looked Roane right in the eye and let his anger tell their instructor exactly what he thought of his methods. The angle Roane's eyebrow shot up at let him know he was going to regret that. He could feel tears of frustration and an old pain beginning to stream down his face, but refused to let himself give in completely and sob. He started to fall over out of exhaustion, but managed to catch himself on one hand. Gohan took a step to move towards him, but Mirai waved him off. He would only make things worse if he tried to interfere... Mirai had a feeling he was going to pay dearly for the little lapse in judgment he'd just had, in swearing at their sergeant. He hoped Roane would leave Gohan out of it, since this was more like his own little private rebellion.

"Take a good look Gohan, because with _tears_" Roane motioned to him with a wave of his hand, "is exactly how he'll _honor_ you too, when you're gone."

Mirai looked up at him with a stunned mixture of horror and shock on his face. His eyes flicked to Gohan, as if afraid of what he might see there. Gohan was wide-eyed and frozen, like a deer in the headlights, not sure what to do as he obeyed Roane and looked at Mirai, but clearly did not want to have to say anything.

Because he knows Roane is right, Mirai heard his own voice whispering through his head. Suddenly, he found himself standing again, wiping his tears with the backs of clenched fists, and the well of pain within him closing up. As he took deep even breaths, he also found himself staring Roane down, but not for the same reason he had earlier. The look on Roane's face was virtually unreadable.

"Follow me" he ordered curtly, obedience a given, turning on his heel and striding from the room. Mirai happened to catch another glance at Gohan as they moved, and what he saw there was worth all the pain, both physical and emotional, that he'd ever endured. Pride. Gohan was proud of him. He could see it in his eyes. He was proud of him for getting back up, moving through the pain, hell, maybe even a little for telling Roane 'fuck you' to begin with... The pride in Gohan's eyes erased any fear Mirai may have had about the upcoming punishment, and he walked out the door with the beginnings of a tired smile on his face.

Outside, Roane didn't stop at the punishments board like they thought he would. He walked right past it and headed to their barracks, with them trying desperately to keep up with his angry pace while they were so spent. They made it inside just in time to see him grab the corner of Mirai's bed frame and begin dragging it with one hand back towards the door. They both jumped out of his way as he shouted at 'Private Briefs' to grab his things. Could he get kicked out of his own program? The thought flitted through Mirai's head. He didn't think so though, besides, that wouldn't make any sense for Roane to be moving his bed then... Moving his bed? Mirai grabbed the couple piles of clothes that served for his belongings here, and quickly headed back outside.

At least the drag marks in the dirt would be easy to follow. His eyes scanning ahead of him faster than his legs could move right now, Mirai saw that Roane wasn't taking him very far, just to the empty building on the other side of the supply room. Gohan was following behind him still, not having been given any countermanding orders, but kept glancing over his shoulder to see if Mirai was close to catching up yet. Roane stopped in front of the double doors that led inside the structure, fiddling with his keys and undoing the lock on the door in silence. Mirai managed to make it to their position by the time Roane was flinging them open and pulling the bed again. This must have been another store room, but for bigger things, because it was filled with empty warehouse style scaffolding, with one wide walkway leading down the middle.

The metal frame slid much easier over the concrete floor inside. Roane swung the bed around him to let it skid across the open space of the walkway a bit. The pillow and most of the blanket fell off with the force of it, before it finally came to rest. As if he gave a flying fuck.

"For the next week you'll be sleeping in storage unit C, Private Briefs, and I'm increasing the length of the previous punishment to two weeks, for the both of you. If you don't think that's fair, then maybe you should use this time to re-evaluate just how fucking fair it would be to let the other members of your team all get killed because you couldn't hold your shit together" Roane was right in his face as Mirai held onto his sets of clothing. Moving back from him only a bit, he turned slightly so his presence could encompass both Mirai and Gohan.

"And since I am not going to make two different wake up calls every fucking morning, the both of you will be outside, standing at attention in front of the punishments board waiting for me when it's time for inspections" he informed them.

"Yes sir!" they both acknowledged.

"Now, put your shit down and get outside. Some new manual labor just got added to this afternoon's work" Roane glowered at them.

As he lead them out to a new area of the base, Roane couldn't shake the image of the punching bag exploding through the wall of the gym out of his head. Something in the back of his brain was nagging him about it, but he didn't have very long to dwell on things like that right now. Maybe it was because Gohan hadn't questioned it at all, didn't even seem surprised by it, like it was perfectly normal for … normal … and below that, 'Human'... Roane _literally_ shook his head to clear it, deciding that outcome to be ridiculous before he even let the thought fully form.

Unlocking the gate to a separate, field-like area of open storage, Roane stepped back to reveal to them thousands upon thousands of sandbags. He'd ask a few pertinent questions about just how many 'people' they knew of who could withstand a gravitational force of over 550 times Earth's at a later point. Right now he had a different point to make.

When working with a normal sized unit, could take years to be able to read each of the dozens of men well, and that was provided they all stayed stationed underneath you that whole time. In this situation, interacting with only Gohan and Mirai for the last six months had definitely sped up the process. Both of the men were tough and incredibly knowledgeable, but Roane could visibly _see_ the difference in how they reacted to the introduction of emotional stress. Gohan was like a rock in a river, feeling the push of it for sure, but ultimately letting it wash over him. If he had a breaking point, Roane hadn't found it yet.

Mirai on the other hand, seemed to have a rather stoic demeanor, but the man internalized everything. He didn't act like he _clung_ to the wounds of his past, in fact it was almost like whatever happened had been shoved to the furthest reaches of his mind, and never dealt with properly. So when it did bubble up for some reason, the man was not prepared to handle it. That was the kind of thing that got you killed on the battlefield. Or even worse, got other people killed when you lost focus. Guilt could eat a man alive quicker than any animal or disease.

Watching as the two of them sluggishly moved sandbags into a wall-like shape, he thought about how far they'd come in some ways, and how far they still had to go in others. He'd only pushed them until they physically collapsed a few times, but today was definitely going to be one of those days. He also kept an eye open for any other opportunities to goad Mirai. He didn't _enjoy_ playing "the bad guy," but life was like that, in the real world, it liked to kick you when you were down sometimes. Or a lot of the time, depending on who you were and how much stock you put in things like luck and fate.

Gohan's lungs burned. Every breath was filled with fire, and he felt like he was going to pass out at any moment. He carried the sandbag in an odd position, because those were the muscles with the least amount of cramps in them. Roane hadn't told them how wide or high to make the "wall" when they started, which was basically a signal to them that they were going to keep building until they couldn't anymore, length and width be damned. Gohan shook his head a little as he began to see the black speckles that immediately preceded his passing out. Bending over with his head down around his waist for a few breaths helped, but he knew it would only be for so long.

Two more sandbags later, they began enveloping his vision again, and this time bending over and breathing didn't help. Gohan landed with a thud against the ground, and Mirai looked soon to follow. It was obviously sheer will that kept him on his feet at this point. Normally, he'd be the one to hit the dirt first, even if not by much.

"Private Briefs" Roane shouted at him, "That is the sorriest, most god-awful excuse for a wall that I've seen in a long time."

"I'm sorry, sir. Would you like me to start over?" Mirai asked resolutely, panting and bent forward enough to lock his elbows and support some of his upper body's weight on his knees. That actually made Roane chuckle with the absurdity of it.

"No, Private, that's enough for now. I'll have you both re-do it correctly tomorrow. Get him out of here so I can lock this place back up" he said with a wave to Gohan's prostrate form.

"Yes sir."

Trudging over to Gohan, Mirai took a deep breath and let it out slowly, visualizing himself picking up the man without collapsing... To his surprise, he was able to sort of sling him over his back, using one of Gohan's arms over his shoulder to steady his weight. After a few seconds of breathing heavily and watching his drops of sweat make little poofs in the powdery dirt below him, and he felt ready to take a step. He had only managed four of them when he heard Roane's voice again.

"Do you love him?" he asked Mirai quietly, from off to the side where the man wouldn't be able to see him.

"Yes. Of course" Mirai panted, his step faltering a little when he had to breath and speak at the same time.

"You know, there are some people who think there's no place for love on the battlefield, inside a soldiers' heart. The general theory being that it makes a man weak, prone to distraction" Roane paused to see Mirai's reaction, and to his surprise, the man took the effort to speak.

"Do you believe that?" Mirai genuinely wondered. With all he'd been through today, that statement suddenly put Roane's motives in question for him, and he really needed to know what was going on in his sergeant's mind right now.

"There are others who say that the bravest, most heroic feats can only be accomplished by someone who has something to fight for" Roane continued, "and from what I've seen, both are right."

Mirai was only about 20 feet from the gate now, but Roane's statement shocked him enough to make him pause.

"What do you mean, how can you think both are right?" he grunted, eyes closed as he concentrated and began moving forward again. They blinked open again after a few steps, making sure he was still headed in line with the exit.

"It depends on the man" Roane informed him. "Some, when they reach the crux of a situation, crumble and give in to defeat when they think they've failed their loved ones. Others, rise above and use the fact that they love as a reason to hold on to the last breath, to fight beyond the normal limits of body and mind. So you see, it isn't loving or not that tips a battle, it's the choice of how you let it affect you that does. Are you going to let him make you stronger, or be just another burden?"

Mirai's mind was in such a whirl that he didn't realize Roane had asked him a question right away. He started to pause again, but Roane had come up beside him as he approached the gate and motioned for him to continue moving.

"Actually, don't try to answer that now. Think of it as a homework assignment for the length of your punishments. At the end of these two weeks, you can tell me which kind of man you're going to be" Roane paused, looking Mirai in the eye, "and I'll tell you if I think you're right or not."

Even with sweat running off his forehead, and being bent at an odd angle to carry Gohan, Mirai nodded solemnly, receiving a returning nod of acknowledgment. As Mirai finally passed through the gate, Roane rolled it shut behind them, locking it back up securely and putting away the keys.

"Alright, you're dismissed for the day" was the last thing he said to him before turning and heading back to his own room. He wasn't sure if he was expecting to hear the thud of Mirai collapsing on the spot or not... After a few moments of no sound reaching him though, he just had to look back and make completely sure. A smile flashed across his face as he saw the silhouette of Mirai carrying Gohan making it's way back toward the barracks, and he had a feeling they wouldn't be needing that whole two weeks in order to come to a mutual decision.


End file.
