Strength is Everything

To sum up, my grandfather has been in the hospital for almost a week now.  He started at a local one, but he needs to have a procedure done that they couldn’t do at our local VA hospital, so they were going to send him to another hospital in town, but they didn’t have any beds.  So now he’s at another VA hospital four hours away...  They got him there and the doctors decided his heart wasn’t strong enough to do the procedure he needs, so they have him on meds to try to strengthen his heart so they can hopefully do the surgery, but in the meantime he’s hanging out in a hospital four hours away and still sick.  My grandmother is up there with him, and their kids have been taking turns going up for a couple days to stay with her and make sure that she’s okay and help her navigate the hospital... But this is very likely the beginning of the end for grandpa and I think we all know it.

So...  Yeah.  I’m here, just...  Lurking mostly because I’ve been in weird moods.

“You dare order me?”

The witch would not be intimidated by his snarl, by his tantrum. This was why she was here, no? To relinquish him of this stubbornness - to empower him with all he was lacking. Like accepting aid. Connecting to others. Forging bonds.

When he built up a wall she was there to smash it down, when it seemed necessary. Her obsidian gaze could carve a planet in half as it narrowed dangerously as he used witch as an insult. Fortunately (for him) she’d let it slide for now, though it was quite clear it irked some part of her.

“No. You do deserve to be healed, mortal. Punishing yourself is not the answer.” She sternly answered. Calm but equally as fierce as his own rising temper. “You agreed to be mentored by me. This is part of it. You either try now to accept being helped or you continue being the same man that lost the tournament.” Mortem sneered as she leaned over where he laid, daring the warrior to continue acting out. “Decide which is worse.”

The thin line of his lips drew somehow more taut as she spoke, gloved hands flexing as he fought every urge commanding him to let his anger loose, to fire a blast that would leave a crater stretching for miles in every direction, to simply do whatever it took to be rid of the witch once and for all.  He could handle being taught by her, yes, but this?  Being ordered around like a common foot solder, a child who should do her bidding without question?

“I will always be the man who lost the tournament,” he spat.  “Pointless connections or not, nothing will erase my failures!  There is nothing you can offer me that will change that!”

@jiirens​ asked: “  i’m not looking for a friend.  i’m looking for someone just as angry as i am.  ” – to Vegeta (or literally whoever you would like if you aren’t feeling him atm)

Prompts for Emotionally Stunted Idiots || Open!

            “ Tch, who do you think I am? Kakarot? ”

             He relished the excitement that surged through him on the precipice of a truly worthwhile battle. Moments like this made him wonder how he ever considered giving it all up. Forsaking his title–no, his very identity–as a warrior. This. These moments. The punches thrown, the power and energy exuded to defeat an opponent. This is what he lived for.

             “ I don’t need friends, but otherwise…I’d say you came to the right place. What is it that has you so angry? Your lack of hair or your giant eyes? ”

If the insults bothered Jiren, he didn’t show it, continuing to stare steadily and calmly down at Vegeta as though he hadn’t said anything at all.

“I am not here to talk about my feelings.  I’m here to fight.  Are you interested, or not?”

He didn’t want to talk about it.  He didn’t want to think about it.  There was rage burning hot in the pit of his stomach, and all he wanted to do was punch it away.  Unfortunately, none of the Pride Troopers could keep up with him.  The warriors of Universe 7 were his best bet, and he wasn’t willing to swallow enough of his pride to seek out Son Goku.

The weight that Gohan carried had always been so heavy. It wasn’t ever something he talked about much. Not since he was a child, at least. His childhood had ended long ago. Sometimes, if he was honest, he envied the way other kids got to grow up. Even Pan. But it was so vastly important to him to give Pan the childhood she deserved and perhaps the one she never got. 

Somewhere, deep inside, he knew that it wasn’t really his father’s fault. How were any of them supposed to know what was coming for them? How were they supposed to know that when they left the house that morning, it would be the last time they would do so as the family they had started as. 

The things Gohan saw… The things he went through. He was more than thankful for the training he received from Piccolo. Jiren was right, everything he went through had shaped him into the man he was today. But, sometimes, he still felt it all. He saw more death and destruction than a kid should ever see. He lost his own father… His mentor… His friends. So many people died around him and because of him. 

But here he was. A grown adult with a family of his own. One that he would give anything to protect, including his own life. It had been a realization that connected him even more to his father than he’d felt growing up. He understood the things his father did for him… For his family and for his friends. He only hoped that he would be half the man his father was. 

Staring off into the sunset, still thinking, Gohan nodded. It was nice, welcome even, that Jiren had simply listened. He hadn’t entirely expected him to, but it was in that response that he understood they shared a similar weight. They knew what it was to bear burdens and to lose everything. 

Gohan kept his eyes averted, still observing the sunset. When he finally spoke, he was able to breathe, the weight loosening in him if only for the moment now. “You’re right. And I found my purpose. I know why I’m here.” He paused, contemplating. “Besides… Life, everything, it doesn’t stop just because bad things happen. You have to keep going. Always.”

Life, everything, it doesn’t stop just because bad things happen.

Jiren knew that all too well.  Even as a child, when his entire world had been dropped out from under him and he had wanted nothing more than for everything around him to just stop and leave him alone with the emptiness and pain, everything and everyone else around him had just kept going.

Gicchin had given him purpose, had given him something to focus on besides the pain and loneliness that had threatened to consume him-- had given him hope that maybe things would be alright after all.  And then that had been ripped away from him too, and the few friends he had thought he had had turned their backs, and the pain and loneliness were back again.  He had embraced the negative emotions then, because honestly what other choice did he have?  He funneled them into his training, into his quest for strength, realizing more and more as time went on that this was his purpose-- to find the strength to keep going, to put one foot in front of the other over and over and over until he was certain that nothing and no one could ever take anything away from him again.

He would protect everyone and everything.  Gicchin had wanted him to become a Pride Trooper, and so that was what he had done, using every ounce of strength he could muster to ensure he was unstoppable, to guarantee that nothing would ever be taken from him again.

And it was exhausting.

“It is sometimes...  Difficult to keep going,” he said finally, after a pause that bordered on too long, forcing himself out of his own head to continue the conversation.  “But we endure, because to drop the weight we carry would bring untold consequences...  And the weight of that is far worse than simply shouldering the weight and carrying on.”

❝  my burdens ,  i can’t erase .   ❞

Repo! The Genetic Opera starters

It was a sentiment that Jiren knew well, even if he would typically admit that fact to no one but himself.  He knew all too well the burden that Son Gohan carried on his shoulders.  In a way, he supposed he could...  Understand.  Was this connection?

“You would not be the person you are now if the burden was not yours to bear,” he offered solemnly, avoiding eye contact with the other warrior.  “To be burdened is to have a purpose.  The heavier the burden you are forced to carry, the more strength you may draw from it.”