All right people, another side story, showing what’s going on with the other side, so to speak…specifically, how did Sage’s brothers react to the news he had been found and on his way home? Goes between chapters eight and nine.

The credit for this side story goes to nan-chan who suggested the premise for this story in one of her much appreciated reviews on Media Miner. The review will be posted at the end of the fic, so as NOT to give away the story.

So, this is for you nan-chan!!! Hope you enjoy it!!!!

As always for my tsuin…

And with thanks to my danglemate for her tireless beta’ing…

But mostly this time, for nan-chan. With my most heart-felt thanks.

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A Restraints and Liberations Side Story

By Talon

The boys knew something was up before the school day was over. For the past little bit they had been getting some odd feelings from their parents. What was odder, their Papa and Sebba seemed intent on shutting them out rather than telling them not to worry about it. Even though they knew some grown-up stuff was too much for brats like themselves, it wasn’t like their parents to shut them out without so much as even an abbreviated explanation.

As they trod the familiar hallways from the school room to the family’s suite they were silent for awhile, Gohan in the lead, his head held high, ignoring the trembling of his hands, ‘ten and Tora behind him, their tails twined together and arms around each other. Even through the blocking, the tension emanating from their parents was high. They were still a ways away when Tora spoke up.

“You don’t suppose...”

Gohan whirled around on his younger brother. “Don’t even THINK that!!!”, he all but snarled at the smaller boy. “Besides,” he said, trying to get a hold of himself. “He’s still there, feel for yourself.”

Tora concentrated briefly, then nodded, a look of relief flooding his features.

“Sorry, Go-kun,” he apologized. “I was just tryin’ to figure out what has Papa and Sebba so uptight.”

“Well stop it. They’ll tell us when we get there, there’s no way they can hide whatever it is,” grumped Gohan.

‘ten was silent, clutching his twin’s hand tightly.

When they opened the door to their apartment, the first thing they noticed was the confusing scents winding around the room. Padding through the entryway, they noticed Papa and Sebba both by the vid screen, apparently just having finished a call.

“Papa?” Gohan hadn’t meant for his voice to tremble, but his insides twisted as his father turned his face towards his children. The boys saw something they had never seen before. Their stoic father had been crying. His voice, however, was steady as he motioned for them to come over to where he and Sebba were sitting.

“Boys, we have some...news for you,” he said, his eyes smiling at them, though they were puffy and red-rimmed. Gohan tried to think if he had EVER seen Papa like this and wasn’t surprised to find he couldn’t.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” ‘ten’s voice was shaky as he climbed into Sebba’s lap, Tora close behind him.

“Boys, my sons...” Vegeta no Ouji’s voice was thick for a moment. “Boys, your brother has been found.”

A stunned silence followed, then delighted yells and cries resounded throughout the room. Once the initial tumult died down a bit, Gohan’s voice could be heard over the noise.

“Where is he? Is he coming home? Is he ok?”

Kakkarott and Vegeta looked at each other briefly and a look passed between them. Kakkarott sighed, then nodded and Vegeta turned to his children.

“Your brother was found on a planet very far away from here by your cousin Turles. Yes, they are on their way home. Turles said they ought to be here in about four days. And Sage is...is...alive,” he managed to choke out before needing to stop and regain his composure. Kakkarott took over, hugging the twins on his lap tightly, then reaching out with his tail to include Gohan, who looked scared and suspicious, in the embrace.

“Sweetheart,” he began, addressing Gohan mainly, “your brother has been hurt very badly since he was kidnapped. We have some pictures we can show you, but you have to understand, he won’t look like the Oniichan you remember. He’s been a slave, and been forced to do things no child should ever have to endure. And right now he is ill, but Turles assured us he is getting better.”

“A...a slave?” stammered Gohan. “But I thought slavery was illegal!”

“Here on Vegeta-sei it is, and with good reason,” growled Vegeta. “However, other races use slave labor for many things.”

“What was Sage used for?” asked ‘ten innocently.

Another look passed between the two parents. Gohan shifted uncomfortably within the light, iron grasp of his Sebba’s (he always thought of Kakkarott that way even though technically he was his father) tail. He had a strong feeling he wasn’t going to like this one bit.

“You boys have to understand, not all races are like Saiyjins. This doesn’t excuse them, but they don’t have a built-in fail-safe to protect their children...”

“Kakkarott, stop dancing around the subject. They have to know, and sugar-coating it won’t make it any easier to deal with.” Vegeta’s voice was firm with a hint of growl along the bottom of it. “Boys, your brother was used as a pleasure slave.”

Gohan felt the bile rise in his throat as his eyes widened and he looked in disbelief at first one parent than the next. The sad, angry expressions on their faces told him everything...everything he didn’t want to know.

“No,” he whispered. No, he wanted to say, not his Oniichan, not the big brother who taught him things and looked after him and slept next to him in bed. Not the oniichan who taught him to read in three different languages and to swear in seven. Not...not SAGE!!! Despite his best efforts, tears leaked from his eyes as he stood frozen in a blanked of denial and disbelief. Somewhere on the edge of his awareness he heard Tora’s confused voice asking what Papa meant by a pleasure slave. His temper, one he had obviously inherited from his birth parent flared into being. He rounded on his twin brothers, both sporting identical confused looks on their faces.

“Idiot!!!” He couldn’t control himself, his ki was flaring, and he was unaware he was shouting. “Stupid baka babies!!! It means Sage has been forced...forced...” his rant ran out of steam and he collapsed in a heap next to the chair Sebba sat in, sobbing. He was only marginally aware of Papa picking him up and cradling him close, his low, rumbling purr resonating soothingly through his body. “Shhh, Gohan, it’s all right.”

“It isn’t,” he found himself saying distantly. “It’s not all right. Sage isn’t all right, is he, Papa?”

Vegeta’s grip tightened around his son for a brief moment as he recalled the pictures Turles had sent him. “No...no, right now he isn’t all right. But,” he gently forced Gohan’s chin up and made the child meet his gaze. “But we will help him be all right. Do you think you can do that? Can you help us help Sage? Can you help Sage?”

Gohan swallowed his sobs and nodded, trying to regain some of the composure he knew his father expected of him.

“That’s my strong boy,” said Vegeta quietly, relaxing his grip so Gohan slipped out of his arms and back onto his own feet. “I want you to come over here by the screen, your brother looks a lot different from what you remember, and we don’t want you to be shocked when he comes home. Turles sent us some pictures of him.”

Gohan nodded again and joined Papa and Sebba and his brothers around the view screen and waited while Papa queued up the first picture.

Kakkarott and Vegeta had decided not to show the boys the first picture, and Vegeta now picked through the list, remembering which pictures showed which Sage and brought one up.

The boys’ gasp was audible, and loud in the silent room.

“But...but he’s…little,” said Tora in confusion.

“He looks scared,” was ‘ten’s comment.

Gohan said nothing as his insides clenched at the sight of his elder brother, small, yes, like Tora had said. Frightened, of course he would be frightened, he was...had been a slave. But what scared Gohan the most was Sage’s hair. That once proud, upswept flame, the sure sign of Saiyjin nobility was gone. In its place were uneven spikes sticking out here and there, jagged cobalt laced black, a disgrace. A travesty. It wasn’t right. Distantly he heard his voice saying, “He cut his hair.”

“No, he didn’t, Gohan. The slavers cut his hair,” said Sebba gently. “It’s growing, in a few years it should be nearly normal, ne?”

Gohan didn’t hear much more of any of the conversations. Dimly he was aware of his parent’s explaining things to his brothers, but his mind's eye was firmly fixed on the image of his oniichan. Papa had said Sage would need help to be all right again. In a sudden flash of insight, Gohan knew what he had to do.

The talk flew by his head as they discussed what might happen when Sage got home, based in the information they had thus far from Turles. Gohan heard it all with one part of his brain and processed it, but he wasn’t really listening. He was waiting. Eventually, his parents stood up and gathered the two little ones up, reminding them all they were due to have the late afternoon meal with their grandsires. Gohan could tell they also couldn’t wait to tell Grandsire Ou and Grandsire Bardock the good news. He waited while they got the twins cleaned up, messing around at the crafts table, then as they were ready to leave the suite, he excused himself, telling them to go on ahead, he just noticed, and here he held his hands up, he had ink all over them. He’d be along shortly, he assured them; he was starving!!!

Papa looked at him suspiciously, but nodded and gathering ‘ten up to ride on his shoulders, to the younger twin’s delight, he and the rest of the family left the suite.

Gohan waited a few minutes, making certain no one was coming back after forgetting something or another before letting the blunt-nosed chibi scissors he had pushed up his sleeve slip out and come to rest in his hand. With a determined step he walked into the bathroom, pulling the step-up stool over in front of the sink, climbing up and staring at himself in the mirror.

He and Tora were a lot alike, he noticed, not for the first time. Instead of looking like a clone of one or the other of their parents, (like Sage and Goten) they were both a clear mixtures of their sire and sebba. Gohan’s twilight eyes held a glint of determination as he ran small fingers through his shorter, spiky hair on the top of his head, then gathered up the thick, midnight mass falling to the middle of his back. It reminded people of his uncle ‘Ditsu’s hair, though Gohan had a whole lot less of it than his uncle. Setting his face, he gripped the scissors in one hand and began sawing away as close to the nape of his neck as he could get.

It was hard going, his hair was thick, and the craft scissors, though they cut through small amounts of hair with fair ease, the mass he was trying to cut seemed determined to thwart the child’s scissors. But Gohan kept cutting, even as the finger holds of the instrument gouged his fingers. With a triumphant HA, the scissors finally parted the last bit of mane he held in his fist.

About to fling the fistful of hair into the wastebucket beside the sink, he paused, but not in regret. Digging into a pocket, he produced a bit of string and tied the hair into a bundle. He was pretty certain Sebba would want his hair after he found out what he had done.

He twisted on the stool, trying to see the back of his head, and decided he wasn’t done. Sage’s hair had looked ragged, as though the person who cut it hadn’t cared enough to make it even and nice. Well, Gohan would do no less. Without regard to life, limb or scissors, he began cutting random chunks from his head, making the back even shorter and shearing off bits of his remaining spikes until he noticed with a start why the scissors were no longer cutting. He thought he had figured every contingency, getting caught before he got properly started, not being able to find scissors, the scissors not cutting for whatever reason…he hadn’t thought his hair would break the scissors...

But they had. They no longer resembled scissors at all. Just a mangled bit of metal. He stared in the mirror, and nodded in satisfaction. Sage wouldn’t be alone when he came home, Gohan had seen to it. That is, if Papa and Sebba didn’t kill him before then...

He sighed, best to get it over with. He turned to hop down from the stool and came face to face with Sebba.

Gohan’s first thoughts involved the thanking of all available gods it was Sebba and not Papa who found him. His second thought was something along the lines of, “I am in so much shit...”

He stood there, the bundle of his hair in one hand, the ruin of the scissors on the sink behind him, a guilty look on his face and Sebba just standing there, in the doorway, looking at him. Long minutes passed. Gohan squirmed internally, thinking desperately, please, just say something...please…just punish me and get it over with...

But when Sebba finally spoke, his voice was anything but angry.

“Come with me, Gohan,” was all he said. Gohan couldn’t figure it out. His voice was a bit sad, but...not angry...not...

He followed Sebba into his bedroom where he held out his hand for the bundle of hair Gohan still had clutched in one hand. He handed it over and watched as Sebba carefully pressed it between two pages of a large book Gohan recognized as his baby book. Then Sebba sat down on the bed and motioned for Gohan to join him.

Slowly, Gohan trod the few steps to where Sebba was sitting and was drawn closer by a long, thick tail, until he was picked up and cuddled in Sebba’s lap.

“Gohan, I know why you did what you did, and I admire you for it. I am not angry, and once we explain why you did it to Papa, he won’t be angry either. It was a very unselfish thing for you to do for Sage, and I’m sure he’ll appreciate it. But he’ll probably also be a bit disappointed you ruined your beautiful mane because of him.”

“I...I hadn’t thought of that, Sebba,” confessed Gohan. “I...he just looked so alone in those pictures, and I thought maybe it would help him feel better. I’m sorry.” He hung his head.

“Shh, don’t be sorry, chibi, it was a brave thing for you to do.”

“Sebba,” said Gohan, looking up into his father’s face, his voice trembly. “Sebba, I’m...I’m scared.”

Sebba’s voice was low and comforting. “What are you scared of, Gohan?”

Gohan hesitated. “Well, I’m more scared for Sage. I saw, Sebba, I could see some of his scars, and not just his hair. I’m scared Sage will be…scared of us.”

Sebba frowned. “I confess, I hadn’t thought of that...”

“I have been,” interrupted Gohan. “I mean...he hasn’t been in contact with any of us for three years. And in some of those pictures you showed us, he looked frightened...of everything.”

Kakkarott nodded slowly, watching his earnest second son. He and Sage had always been close, Sage had been thrilled when Gohan had been born, and had fussed over the baby more so than anyone else. Gohan had been intelligent from the get go, like Sage, and he soaked up languages as quickly as Sage had taught them to him. He smiled as he remembered a toddling Gohan looking over a Shrii ambassador and saying something distinctly uncomplimentary in the hissing language of the Shrii’s mortal enemies, the Okriey.

“Well, we have a few more days to prepare.” He stood up, still holding his child in his arms. “Come, we mustn’t keep your grandsires waiting, ne?”

Gohan nodded, buffered now by Sebba’s support against what would surely be a violent explosion on not only his Papa’s part, but his grandsires as well. With a sigh, he ran his hand over his newly shorn hair and smiled faintly. It was worth it. And Sage was coming home. And he wasn’t all right, but he, Gohan, was going to help make him all right. He looked determinedly down the hall Sebba was carrying him through.

He would help Sage be all right.

And that was all there was to it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Owari

Mijuku-muse: *looks delighted and smug* SEE???? SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU REVIEW??? Your ideas could inspire us…*grabs a sullen Sage-muse and pulls him up by the armpits*…and they could become part of the story, just like nan-chan’s did!!!

Sage-muse: *whines* But I wanted to threaten people again!!!

Miju-muse: No, it’s been too long between updates, and we’re using a feedback idea…no threatening. Besides, Sage fans will have something new to salivate about very soon!!!

Sage-muse: OH OH OH!!! Can we tell them and spoil the surprise?

Mijuku-muse: *pretends to think about it*

Talon: *claps a hand over each mouth* Behave, both of you, or you’ll find yourselves in het land before you can say “cross-dressing.”

Both: *BIG EYES*

Talon: That’s what I thought. And here’s the review that inspired this side story, from nan-chan:

//Reviewed By: nan-chan  On: November 20, 2002 17:34 EST
Comment/Review:
I love both of the last chapters! Anyway, after reading them an image popped in my head that just won't leave. If you don't like it, ignore it, but I think its cute. Can you see Gohan cutting his hair to help make Sage feel better about Sage's own cut hair? Again, it was an image that just wouldn't leave my head, so I decided to pass it on. Love your stories and Dasia's!//

And we love your reviews nan-chan!!! So, keep reviewing, I’ll keep writing, and those two…*glances down at the still muffled Sage-muse and Miju-muse* Well, they’ll still be here.