Losing my Religion

Fandom: Dragonball Z

Disclaimer: I don´t own Dragonball and I don´t own the lyics of "Losing my Religion". Just borrowing them.

Authors note: Well, I´ve been always fascinated with the intense and complex relationship between Vegeta and Trunks.

There are many fics dealing with the conflict between Vegeta and Mirai Trunks during the Cell-saga but very few dealing with Vegeta and chibi Trunks. In my opinion there´s quite the difference. Because even if Mirai is also his real son (coming from the future) it´s hard for Vegeta at that point to think of him as such. He never saw him grow up. He never get the chance to raise him. Hell, at their first meeting he doesn´t even know he´ll ever get a son (with Bulma of all people!! ^_^ ). Besides Mirai is no kid to take care for, he´s a grown young man who admires the dad whom he never got the chance to meet without reservations.

No question I love Mirai Trunks to pieces (who don´t??) so even if Trunks seems to hate him in this fic, this is not my opinion. But I always thought that it had to be kinda hard for Trunks to grow up in the overwhelming shadow of "himself", the hero from the future.

Warnings: Sad, angst, depressing, probabaly OOCness (not sure). Oh and the author is no native english speaker, so there´ll be probabaly many grammar and spelling mistakes. Gomen nasai, minna!!

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Trunks pov:

I storm in my room and slam the door behind me.

And again. And again. Until it breaks and crashes to the ground, shattered pieces of wood flying around me.

My mother would most likely yell at me for ruining yet another door but I couldn´t care less about that right now. I´m so angry, I feel like burning … like white hot flames are circling around me. Well, they probabaly are …

With a mixture between low growl and sigh I flung myself on my bed, burrying my head deep in my pillow, not intending to come out of it anytime soon.

My whole body hurts like hell and slowly I start to feel every little scratch, every bruise and every probabaly broken bone overly clearly. I grit my teeth, roughly pushing back the tears that were already gathering behind my lids, treatening to come out as soon as I let my guard down.

But I won´t cry. 

This battle I won´t loose, even if I had already lost all the important ones. 

//I had to loose, right? There was no way from the beginnning on to ever win against you. Because you´re not even here to begin with, you don´t even fight with me and most likely you already forgot that I existed at all.//

And after all you cannot win against a ghost, right?

Not even if the ghost is yourself … in a way.

What a weird feeling to hate someone who´s almost yourself.

HE. HE, the invincible. HE, the hero who saved the world. The wonder-boy. Mr "back-from-the-future". Mr everybodys darling. The son my parents never had.

//But I tell you what. Nobody is perfect. Not even you. Because you´re nothing more than I am, just living in a different time, and I – I´m certainly NOT perfect. And so aren´t you.//

life is bigger

it´s bigger than you

In my mind he´s just "HE" – the one I cannot refer to as Trunks – because I cannot think of him as myself. Not at all.

Sometimes I hate him.

Because he was here before me, because everybody adored him so much and the battle was already over when I had been born. Everybody thought I was going to be like him. They thought, I was him.

//Well, here are news for you, pal: I am NOT you.//

and you´re not me

I´m just myself.

Trunks Vegeta Briefs.

Fourteen years old. Prince of the Saiyajins. Future heir of the Capsule Coporation. Probably richest kid in the world. Currently crying like a child in his pillow. And still not nearly as strong as his father. What a pityful world.

Father …

Nobody will ever know what I did do to become stronger, to be worthy your son. I did everything. I had pushed myself to the verge of dieing more than once only to become stronger. Only to show you that I am better. Better than him. Or at least equal. But I´m not even that.

the lenghts that i will go to

I am no match for you, father. Not now, not ever.

My shoulders are shaking and I curse heavily in my pillow. Stop it already, Briefs, you pathetic weakling!

I can still see him in my mind, you know, the way he starred at me a few moments ago. Disappointed. Disgusted. Every inch of his body and his cold, unmoving face were screaming at me: You are not him.

the distance in your eyes

It wasn´t that I lost. I always lose to my father when we spar, nothing new. It wasn´t even that I begged him to stop, as I felt my bones breaking under his violent hits.

I asked him. The forbidden question. The one, I swore to myself, that I would never ask him.

But I did.

I laid on the ground, heavily panting and shaking and starring up at his towering figure above me.

Weird, he is smaller than me by now and still … I feel always tiny compared to him. His simple physical presence, his power, his charisma – he´s so overwhelming. If the phrase "larger than life" ever had legitimacy then with my father.

He snorted as he looked down at the bloody pulp, formerly known as his son, he snorted and turned around. "Pathetic weakling", I heard him mumble. "I thought you could do better than that."

And that was when I asked.

oh no, i´ve said too much

I had to know.

I wasn´t just a formality. I really had to know. Because in this moment I felt like everything was coming back to me, shattering and crashing down around me like broken glass. My whole life, only a lie, based on the trying to gain my fathers pride and maybe his love. It all came crashing down around me in that second.

And I asked.

i set it up

The moment I openend my mouth and spoke the words I already wished I hadn´t. He was starring at me with an unmoving face. And with that look of utter disgust and diappointement, that was already far too familiar to me.

Just starring at me. As long as I couldn´t take his intense look anymore and closed my eyes.

that´s me in the corner

that´s me in the spotlight

I knew he wouldn´t answer. And actually I didn´t even want him to answer. I didn´t need to hear it, when I could already see it in his eyes as plain as day.

That was when I jumped up and run away, never once turning back. Never bothering to wait for answer.

losing my religion

"Trunks? Trunks!"

My mother.

I flinch and try to vanish in my pillow. Maybe if I won´t open her she´ll just go aw…

Shit, I forgot, I broke the door. I hear her hurried steps already on the stairs and jump up. Without thinking I head to the window, pushing it open and and jump outside. Flying away is not a solution … but my only option right now.

Faster than anytime before I power up and race away. I hear her yelling my name but I don´t turn around. Not once. I know anyways, what she´ll say.

That she loves me and that I´m the greatest son she could ever wish for and that nothing will ever going to change that.

Oh yeah … and of course that dad loves me, too, even if he would rather die than admit it.

Sorry mom, but I don´t think you know how much of a failure I really am. I was never good enough to fullfill this high standards of him. No matter how hard I tried …

trying to keep up with you

I tried so hard. Everything to please him. To be the son he always wanted me to be. Maybe to finally replace the "other one" in his heart.

I tried so hard …

But i was never as good as HIM. He was the son my father always wished for, I guess.

and i don´t know if i can do it

It´s over now. This time, I managed to destroy every little affection he probabaly held for me. I shouldn´t have asked him. I never … never …

oh no, i´ve said too much

Maybe I should´ve asked him earlier. Before my life became nothing more than a desperate struggle to gain his pride. I should´ve asked all the years before.

Maybe I just didn´t use the right words. I was never good with words … Maybe …

i haven´t said enough

Something wet hits my face and I slow down. When did it started to rain? I look around, realizing how far away from the city I already am. There´s a piece of wood down at my feet.

I stop midway in the air and let myself fall to the ground, not caring where I would land.

I know, why I asked him today.

It was just … in the last weeks … I almost thought, he had become a little bit warmer towards me. He wasn´t yelling at me as often as before, wasn´t fighting me as merciless as he had before.

I close my eyes, memories playing in my head.

I have a few, precious memories of him, when he wasn´t angry or indifferent. When I was almost sure, he was kinda proud of me, when he was almost nice, almost smiling … almost something …

When I almost thought he was as proud of me now as he has been of … HIM.

They´re only glimpses, tiny little spotlights in my life, probabaly insignificant compared to

the rest of my everyday life with him … but still … they meant the world to me.

It feels like dieing to imagine they weren´t real … just the imaginaton of my starving soul …

It was nothing than a big illusion, right?

i thought that i heard you laughing

i thought that i heard you sing

i think i thought i saw you try

Slowly with my hands deep in my pockets I walk through my the dark wood, not caring any longer where I am. It still rains and I´m already soaked to the bones.

Maybe … I don´t care any longer.

every whisper

I´ll just end it all.

of every waking hour

I´ll stop being your son.

i´m choosing my confessions

Maybe I´ll never come back.

Not to punish him, it´s not very likely that he´ll care at all. I just can´t stand it any longer. I can´t go on like this. Not anymore.

Always trying and trying and trying and never being good enough. Looking up at him, admire someone so much, who doesn´t even care about me a little bit.

//It´s ridiculous but even now you´re my hero, father. You always have been. You´re so proud and strong and so suicidal brave and determined.

I wish I could be as strong as you are. I was always copying you, imitating you, because I wanted nothing more than to be like you.//

HE was.

And I? I could only try … and try … and try …

//I would´ve seld my soul for one nice word coming from you.//

trying to keep an eye on you

like a hurt lost and blinded fool

Now, I´ll never hear it, right?

Raindrops pour over my face, mingling with all the tears I already shedded.

I destroyed it. Everything. I just had to ask …

oh no, i´ve said too much

Why couldn´t I keep it the way it was? Now I even stole my last illusions away from me.

I just had to ask …

i set it up

Nobody could´ve missed it. Not even you. The desperation in my voice. The begging in my eyes.

consider this … consider this

the hint of the century

What did I expect?

That you would sag at your knees, hugging me and telling me that you always loved me? The man, whose greatest show of open affection towards his wife was to cut off his training for half an hour at her birthday?

Yeah, sure. Very likely.

I feel like an idiot. And still I´m crying. I shouldn´t have asked.

I understand now why mom´s so happily married with him, even if he´s the coldest bastard in the history of mankind. Because she never expected anything from him. She just takes him the way he is. God, mother, I admire you so much for that.

I sink at my knees with a yell of utter desperation and hit the ground below me with my fists.

I´m such an idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot.

consider this

the slip that brought me

to my knees, failed

Pat … pat … pat

I´m laying on the ground and watch single raindrops dripping down. My vision is blurred and my whole body feels numb. Thoughts running uncontrolled through my head, memories fading in and out.

As long as I can remember there´s a picture at the desk of my parents bedroom.

It shows my father … together with him. They stand side by side and are both smirking at the camera with a frightening similar expression on their faces. One purple head and one black, one pair of icy blue eyes and one pair of ebony black. Different colors – but the same face. Mirror images. It frightens me.

Mirai Trunks holds his sword and looks incredibly brave. My dad looks proud and if you go just near enough you can see a tiny smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

I always wanted it to be me. When I was younger I spent hours and hours sitting in front of this picture, pretending it was me. That I was reason my father looked so proud. Pretty idiotic, ne?

People think, there´s no difference. He´s me and I´m him. So what does it matter? Even my mother seems to think so, or else she wouldn´t show it to me whenever I`m depressed again because of dads cold behavour towards me. He is me. So what does it matter?

It matters the world to me.

Those two look like father and son. That´s not me. It was never me.

It will never be me.

what if all these fantasies

come flailing around

He will probabaly never speak to me again.

It was so little what I shared with him, so tiny and fragile. And I shattered it all.

Why – why did I had to ask?

now i´ve said too much

Oh god …

A desperate sob escapes my lips and I realize I´m already crying again. Bawling like a baby, tears mingling with raindrops.

I don´t think I ever cried so much since I´ve been little. Maybe it´s because of all the times I was about to cry and never did. I just couldn´t … because he was there. Crying in front of my father has never been a good idea.

I think the last time I cried was when … when Boo killed him.

Weird … but that´s also the last time I remember that he ever told me that he is proud of me.         

i thought that i heard you laughing

I was so … so incredibly glad to have him back. And stupid as I am I thought that everything was going to change between us as he came back. I remember telling myself that he did care, that he just couldn´t show it.

i thought that i heard you sing

All the times when I think I saw him try … it meant so much to me. When I saw him looking at me and battling inside with himself and just couldn´t do it. When he openend his mouth and then hastily turned away as if afraid of what he would say. When he hit me to the ground and his hand twitched in my direction as if he would love to help me up but … just couldn´t.

i think i thought i saw you try

It was all a lie, wasn´t it? It was what I wanted to see.

It was just my imagination. My stubborn holding on to a dream.

but that was just a dream

I should´ve given up hope a long time ago.

try … cry … why try?

You know what´s strange?

If I had one wish, only one demand … it would be to hear you say that you´re proud of me.

that was just a dream

You won´t come, won´t you?

just a dream

Not that I want you to come at all! No way. I´m actually glad to be away from you …

It´s just …

just a dream

I thought …

dream …

Father …

^fin?^

Well, if there´s someone out there who wants me to write a sequel, please drop me a note. I´m seriously considering this since I think the end is far too depressing, but of course only if there´s at least one person who liked this story. (I really, really hope it … ) 

So if you didn´t hate it and don´t think it was the worst piece of crap you´ve ever read – review please!