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Broly thinks he likes living out in the desert. He has his squat, stucco house, and he can have his own music room and no rude neighbors who would daub penises on their door in paint. There are things he doesn’t miss about the apartment. He doesn’t miss the radiator that never worked or the burn marks on the carpet that more or less guaranteed that they weren’t going to get their deposit back. He doesn’t miss how he had to sleep on a cramped futon because the smallest person in the apartment laid claim to the singular bedroom. He doesn’t miss the blistering and peeling paint or the way everything always sort of smelled. He doesn’t miss having no privacy in the bathroom and never having any warm water. What he does miss is the others. He sees them when they record or do a performance but it isn’t how it was before.
Before, they were all always on top of each other and in each other’s lives. Them in the apartment and Kakarrot coming over whenever he could, sometimes with Gohan and sometimes without. Now, it’s different. Vegeta lives in a penthouse with Bulma and Trunks. Kakarrot bought a house, a real nice one, for him and his family. Raditz and Lapis live in some mansion in the country and Turles...Turles is still Turles. He comes to visit the most and Broly still isn’t sure what to do about it. He isn’t foolish enough to think that he returns the feelings he’s fought so hard to conceal. No one could ever love him, as his father always said. Years later and that thought still clings to him. Sometimes he goes into the city to visit Turles in his studio apartment where he lives with his revolving door of boyfriends. Sometimes Turles comes to see him to quiet his head. He says it’s peaceful out here and then will wink and say he’s only here for Broly’s cat.
BB can’t rightfully be called a cat. He weighs as much as a toddler and resembles a squat lynx. Broly found him a couple years ago as a kitten: a little ball of fluff he saw on the side of the road. Now he’s his and his only roommate. He helps him get up in the morning, at least, wiggling his doorknob like a slasher villain and mewling pathetically. Even when his emotions are at their lowest, Broly knows BB depends on him.
Broly always felt he was best suited for a lonely life but after being around the others for so long, he feels a bit lost without them constantly there. He still isn’t used to being on his own fully--where no one but the band and the people at the record label know where he lives. That’s why he’s surprised when he finds the box.
It’s on his porch and there’s no return address. At first, Broly thinks it might be from Turles, but the handwriting isn’t his and, besides, he’s due to make the long drive to the city today to embark on yet another tour to support yet another album and so will see him shortly. BB is already in his crate, yowling angrily at the betrayal that led to him being placed in it. He’s going to stay under the care of Kale at the apartment she shares with Caulifla.
Broly nearly kicks the box off his front steps before he realizes it was there. He examines it for a moment before finally shrugging. Getting BB in his crate took longer than he thought (since the massive beast jumped on top of the fridge to avoid capture) and it’s already after he initially planned to leave. He shoves it in his bag and figures that he’ll open it later.
--
Broly forgets about the package until a day later when they’re all on the tour bus. That seems surreal, how they’ve leveled up from Turles’s van to a flashy bus emblazoned with their name and logo. It’s big enough for them, their equipment, and their entourage--something else that seems surreal. Most days, Broly still feels like that weird, quiet kid no one spoke to in high school and not a supposedly famous rockstar and “musical genius.”
“What’s that?”
Raditz is the one to point out the box. Broly plucks it from his bag and examines it once more. It’s small and rectangular and not all that heavy. He shifts it from side to side and can hear something that sounds like chains clinking together.
“It was on my porch as I was leaving,” he says. “I forgot about it.”
Turles leans over the back of the seat and grins broadly.
“Ooh, is it a present from an adoring fan?” he asks.
“I doubt it,” Broly says flatly.
He tears the brown paper off and finds himself looking at plain white box. Inside is a folded note and under the note is a gold, chain link bracelet. Turles lets out a low whistle.
“Fancy, fancy.”
The commotion has brought Kakarrot and Vegeta over as well and Broly sinks in his seat. He hates being the center of attention.
“What’s the note say?” Raditz asks.
It’s easier being around him now. His feelings for him have faded as has the grudge he felt when Raditz turned him down. It’s also hard to sit and pine when he’s seen how happy Raditz is with Lapis and his son. And that’s without even getting into his confusing feelings for Turles.
Broly unfolds the note and the other four look at him expectantly. He realizes that they want him to read it out loud. He shakes his head and instead, in some weird unison, they all lean in to read it over his shoulder.
‘Beloved,
I hope the bracelet is to your liking. I know how much you love jewelry. In fact, I daresay that I know you better than you know yourself. I feel like words are inadequate to convey the depth of my affection to you and I hope this letter does not put you off. Your music talent is unparalleled, nay, legendary. Everything about you makes my heart beat faster. The smooth line of your forehead, the column of your neck, your fiercely beautiful charcoal eyes. I knew then, watching your fingers expertly pick out notes on your keyboard that I had to have you. I saw you first back when you would play at the Monkey’s Paw and I have been enamored ever since.’
“Had to have you?” Kakarrot has gotten to that part of the note and he’s too close to Broly. When he speaks, he can smell hot McDonalds on his breath. “I think Broly has a stalker.”
“A stalker?” A chill goes down Broly’s spine as he says it out loud. He looks back at the bracelet and it suddenly seems sinistar.
“Big deal,” Vegeta scoffs. “I’ve had nine of them.”
“Nine? Really? You?” Raditz doesn’t sound convinced.
He nods. “Yeah. One once sent me three of her eyelashes.”
Vegeta reaches forward and snatches the latter from his hands. He scans it quickly and that familiar crease between his brows appears.
“Oh. This is fucked up.”
He hands it back to Broly. He frowns, wondering what their lead singer meant by that. He looks back to the note and reads on. Much of it is like the first paragraph and rather embarrassing, but as he reads on, he feels his blood turn to ice.
‘The thought of spoiling your purity fills me with glee. I tremble as I write this, thinking of you beneath me, quaking in ecstasy as I bring you to the other side with me.’
“Is he talking about sex or murdering you?” Turles asks. He sounds nervous and it’s always a bad thing when Turles is worried.
Broly lowers the note.
“Here.”
Raditz takes it and tears it up into little pieces. He dusts his hands and scatters the bits of paper over the floor of the bus.
“A note can’t hurt you,” he says. “This guy can’t get you.”
“He knows where I live,” Broly mutters.
“And you aren’t there right now,” Kakarrot adds. “You’re fine. We’re here and, most importantly, Nappa’s here.”
They’re right, he knows they’re right, but Broly still feels worried. He looks back at the bracelet, still in its box, resting in his lap.
“How does he know I like jewelry?” he asks. “King Kai doesn’t let me do interviews.”
“You’ve got a face full of metal and you wear that gold chain all the time,” Turles says with a shrug. “Maybe he just assumed.”
Broly’s hand instinctively flattens against his figaro chain. He does wear it a lot. If this guy has been following them for as long as he says he has, he might have noticed it. He still feels exposed, though, and a bit queasy.
“Are you going to keep it?” Raditz asks.
“I don’t think so.”
“It’d be a waste to throw it away,” Vegeta says.
Broly shoves the box at him.
“If you want it, take it. I don’t want to look at it.”
He scoffs and lifts that little pointed nose of his in the air. “Fine.”
He watches him fasten it around his wrist and can’t shake his feeling of unease.
Stop it. It’s just a bracelet.
He can’t let it go, though. The contents of the note stick with him even as the others lose interest and go back to doing whatever they were doing. Later, when it’s dark and they’re rumbling down some highway that never changes, he still can’t get it out of his head. He looks to where Vegeta’s sleeping, curled up and looking pissed even in slumber. Broly’s eyes go to the bracelet hanging off of his wrist, the lights of the highway flashing on it, and he shudders.
--
They’re two weeks into the tour when the issue of his supposed stalker comes up again. Broly had managed to push it from his mind and concentrate on getting from point A to point B and playing the right instrument at the right time.
It’s after a show and he’s at the bar with Turles and Raditz. They’re doing shots and he’s watching them do shots. He never lets himself go beyond tipsy. He’s too scared of losing control and forgetting what he does. So much of his childhood is gaps caused by trauma and he doesn’t want a blackout; he doesn’t think he can handle it.
A pair of hands go over Raditz’s eyes and a flat voice says, “Guess who.”
Broly thinks about the note for a fraction of a second but he pushes it back. Whoever this is went to Raditz, not him.
“Hmm, let me see...someone with freezing cold hands who smells like unnecessarily fancy dryer sheets…”
Raditz tips his head back to grin at Lapis. His husband strokes his hands across his forehead.
“You’re still going on about those dryer sheets, huh?”
“I’m just sayin’ all dryer sheets are the same. We can still just get ‘em from Dollar Tree.”
It’s some kind of inside joke between married people, Broly’s sure. He looks across to where Turles is sitting on Raditz’s other side.
“What are you doing here? Where’s Bardock?”
He turns around fully and puts both hands around his waist.
“Your parents are watching him. He’s having a sleepover with Gohan and Goten.”
“All of them?”
He nods and Broly glances out into the bar to see Kakarrot spinning Chi-Chi around excitedly. Nearby there’s a flash of blue as Bulma tosses her professionally blown out hair over one shoulder.
“And they have a nanny,” Lapis reports. He turns to face Raditz and his expression softens marginally. “I’ve missed you.”
He isn’t jealous specifically of Lapis anymore but more of the idea of someone in a relationship when he’s never had that. It’s not just them, either. He watches Kakarrot rest his chin on top of Chi-Chi’s head and rock their bodies from side to side. Watches Bulma jump up and lock her legs around Vegeta’s waist as she kisses him. He doesn’t look at Turles.
It’s later when they’re all back at the hotel and everyone’s talking and all he wants to do is sleep when he sees the package in front of the hotel room door. He already knows his name is on it and his stomach sinks. Someone knows this is their room.
“What is it?” Chi-Chi asks.
“What’s in the box?” Kakarrot calls out, more than a bit a stoned and quoting some god awful movie.
Broly picks it up gingerly and then drops it back into the floor. He feels a whole body shudder go through him and he feels like he’s being watched.
“Broly has a stalker,” Turles says. “And apparently he’s following us on tour.”
Bulma bends down and fetches the box. It’s barely more than a small cube but the sight of it makes Broly’s skin crawl.
“Go on, open the door.” She shakes the box. “I’ll open it in there and if it’s something creepy, I’ll just toss it.”
Turles unlocks the door of her and she strides in as if she didn’t just arrive and is, in fact, the famous one. Then again, how famous can the rest of them be when King Kai still makes all of them share one hotel room?
Bulma brings the box to the table and digs a manicured nail into the packing tape.
“We should tell King Kai,” Raditz says, “Or at least Nappa. Like, this guy knows where we’re sleeping.”
Perhaps instinctively, he puts an arm around Lapis’s waist and pulls him close.
“Don’t,” Broly says. He feels attention on him again and he hates it. “It’s fine. He hasn’t really done anything except be weird.”
He’s lying and he’s certain that the others know that he’s lying but none of them say anything.
“It’s not serious,” he says.
Raditz frowns and shares a look with Turles. One of those “we’ve known each other our whole lives and can communicate without words” looks. Broly hunches his shoulders around his ears.
“Listen--”
He’s cut off by Bulma’s shrill scream. They turn as a group to see her shaking and covered in blood.
“Bulma!”
Vegeta rushes to her and jerks his head up and down, searching her for injury.
“It’s fake,” she says after a moment. “Fake blood. It was, like, spring-loaded in the box.”
She folds herself into his arms and Broly’s surprised that Vegeta doesn’t even curl a lip at the fact that she’s smearing blood all over his precious jacket (then again, he reasons that thing’s seen its fair share of fluids in its day).
“We’re changing rooms,” he says, glaring at the others as if to dare them to try and defy him.
Kakarrot has slipped an arm around Chi-Chi’s shoulders and holds her tight. “Sure.”
Raditz nods, looking at Lapis while he does. “Definitely.”
Broly lowers his head.
--
In all the commotion with the box, Broly almost missed the note. This time it promised to find him soon, to let him know that his “beloved” is coming to undo him and how he wishes he was there to see him “painted crimson.”
He doesn’t move rooms and Turles stays with him.
“We each get our own bed for once,” he says with a wink.
The bed situation has always been the same: Raditz and Kakarrot share one and the three of them pile on the other bed. It’s been different in the time since Broly realized his feelings for Turles but it’s easy to reconcile sharing a bed with him when Vegeta’s crammed between them. The others are gone to separate rooms, now, and he and Turles aren’t truly alone since Nappa and one of the security guys are stationed in front of his door. He feels weird, that this is because of him. He still can’t fathom that anyone would be obsessed with him or even like him enough to stalk him.
“You okay, Broles?”
He wants to nod but he can’t bring himself to. He shakes his head and sinks down on the bed. Without meaning to, his eyes stray to the stain left behind by the fake blood on the blue-green carpet. He was supposed to be the one covered in fake blood--but why? Did this guy have something sinister in mind? His first note seemed to imply that he wanted to sleep with him but now he’s not sure.
Broly’s eyes shoot instead of the minibar. He barely ever drinks and, when he does, he sticks to wine or something with low alcohol content. He gets up from the bed and opens the fridge. He doesn’t even know what half of liquor is without reading the labels but he grabs an armful of the little bottles and brings them to the nightstand.
“Broles…” Turles is looking at him, concern etched on his pierced face. He looks like he might say something but instead he swipes a little bottle of vodka and begins to drink.
Broly drinks until his teeth feel numb and his vision blurs. His lips feel dry and sticky and he’s swaying on the bed. On the plus side, he thinks, he hasn’t thought about his stalker.
“If anyone comes in,” Turles tells him very seriously. “I’ll kill him.”
He makes a jabbing motion like he’s holding an invisible knife and falls into peals of laughter. Broly’s touched, but--
“I don’t wanna talk about that,” he slurs. “I wanna...I wanna talk about…”
His brain feels foggy and sluggish and, if he wasn’t so drunk, he’d hate this feeling but he is wasted and so he doesn’t care. He looks at Turles and notices how, even in this bad hotel room lighting, he looks good. Like some kind of black and white matinee idol brought to life.
“What do you wanna talk about?”
His voice has hit a husky pitch and Broly can’t stop himself. He has a momentary flashback of years ago, kissing Raditz on the rooftop, but he pushes it back. He pushes it back and pushes himself forward, into Turles’s arms. He kisses him once and then once more. It isn’t like before, it isn’t like being rejected and thinking for a fleeting, intrusive moment, about flinging himself from some random guy’s roof. Turles kisses him back.
They kiss on one of the beds, limbs wound around one another.
“I’ve wanted you,” Turles says, “for so long--but I didn’t wanna push it. I wanted you to be ready.”
“I am,” he says and because he’s drunk, he really means it.
Turles pulls away and reaches out to push some of Broly’s hair back from his forehead.
“We aren’t going to fuck,” he says. “You’re drunk and I’m drunk and it wouldn’t be right.”
It’s weird, hearing Turles say that--hearing him being the responsible one--but Broly nods.
“We can do other stuff, though,” he says and it makes Turles grin.
“We can,” he agrees.
They stay up for almost the rest of the night doing other stuff and, near four in the morning, Broly finally falls asleep wrapped up in his arms.
--
It’s cold the next morning and tinged with wetness. Broly pulls on an old hoodie he found at a charity shop--one that’s worn and blue with, for no adequately explained reason, the word “BROCCOLI” emblazoned on the back in all caps. He remembers Turles cracking up and saying he had to buy it.
Turles…
He’s smoking in the parking lot, a good ways away from the door, and he smiles as Broly approaches.
“Hey,” he says and hitches his chin up.
“Hey.”
He doesn’t know what to do or how to define their relationship. Are they boyfriends now? Can he kiss him in public? Is he able kiss him in public? Broly’s never had a relationship and isn’t sure how the mechanics work.
The only others outside are Raditz and Lapis, standing in front of the latter’s car.
“Give Bardock a kiss for me, okay?”
Lapis gives that sardonic smile of his he does so often that Broly thinks he ought to get a patent on it.
“Do you mean our son or your father?”
“Babe!”
They smile at each other and Raditz leans down to kiss him. It’s different for them, though, he thinks. It’s easy to engage in public displays of affection--they’re married. He and Turles just…
“Did you all drive down together?” Turles asks.
Lapis nods. “Yes. It felt like it’d be easier that way. Except I forgot how much Bulma likes sleeping in…”
He leans against Raditz, placing his head on his chest, and Broly feels a certain way about it once more. He looks back at Turles who’s stamping out his cigarette on the ground. He approaches Broly and squeezes his arm through his sweatshirt.
“So--”
The door to the hotel opens and Kakarrot comes out, his hand loosely held in Chi-Chi’s.
“Dude, I am so hungry and the people at the complimentary breakfast thing were pissed at me for taking extra waffles.”
Chi-Chi rolls her eyes. “Sweetie, you were shoving them down your pants.”
“They were denying me waffles, Cheech!” he whines and she’s smiling despite herself.
Broly feels itchy, then, watching the two brothers and their respective spouses. Especially with Turles’s hand still on his arm.
“Did anything happen last night?” Chi-Chi asks. “I mean, you’re okay, right?”
He nods, honestly touched by her concern.
“Good. We were worried, especially since you didn’t change rooms.”
“I had Turles,” he says.
Turles grins broadly. “Yeah, he did.”
“And, you know, Nappa and security,” Kakarrot points out. “I could probably take Turles.”
Turles pouts and punches him in the arm.
“That’s not fair. You’re weirdly flexible and unpredictable.”
Chi-Chi, of all people, smiles audaciously. “Yeah, he is.”
Turles’s eyes go wide and he actually hoots in laughter. Broly shifts nervously, feeling suddenly out of place. He’s saved by the door opening again, signaling that Bulma and Vegeta are finally ready. He looks her over and notices that she washed her hair last night and is wearing her boyfriend’s clothes instead. A Talking Heads shirt hangs off of one shoulder and his jeans are done up with a leather belt. Broly looks away, feeling bad. It’s his fault she ended up covered in fake blood, isn’t it?
“You’re okay!” she says excitedly.
“No stalkers,” he tells her.
“Thank god. We had to deal with one last year who kept sending us creepshots of Trunks at preschool. It was so scary.”
He nods.
“Are you ready?” Lapis asks.
He and Raditz make their way over and he sees Raditz raises his brows at Turles’s hand on his arm. Broly instinctively pulls his arm back.
“You were alright?” Raditz asks.
He nods, a bit sick of answering this question for a third time.
“Nothing,” he confirms.
Raditz smiles and, he might be over him, but that smile is still a little bit devastating. When the moment of interest in Broly’s well being has passed, the other couples all have their teary good-byes at Lapis’s car and he’s left with Turles.
“Hey.”
His smile looks odd for a second before he realizes that it’s not one of his usual grins. This smile is soft and almost sweet.
“Last night was…” Turles trails off and almost looks sheepish. “It was nice, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
His smile fades and Broly feels his shoulders reflexively hitch up. Here it comes. Turles telling him it was a one time thing, a fluke. A night of minibar-induced madness that they won’t speak of again.
“Look. I meant what I said last night that I wanted you. Want you.” He lets out a breathy laugh and smiles down at his combat boots. “Like, present tense.”
His shoulders lower.
“Oh, I.” He swallows and fiddles with the drawstrings of his sweatshirt. “Same here. I just never...um. Thought. But.”
His mouth is dry and words are failing him more than usual. Turles seems to get it, though, because he’s smiling that sweet smile again.
“So...can I kiss you, Broles?”
“Yeah.”
The kiss tastes a bit metallic because of the barbell through his tongue and also a bit like his minty toothpaste and it feels so good. He hasn’t noticed that the car’s pulled away and no one else has stirred so the others’ attention has no other outlet but to look at them.
Raditz is on them immediately, all but bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“What’s this?” he asks, grinning cheekily. “How long has this been going on?”
Turles breaks the kiss and drops his head back, groaning dramatically.
“Radi, stop.”
“I’ve just been saying for years, that you two--”
“Radi!”
Raditz has been talking about them? That’s news to him.
“What about your thing with inter-band relationships?” Kakarrot asks teasingly.
“So you’ve now fucked everyone in the band, huh?” Vegeta smirks and crosses his arms.
Turles is glaring at them all, for once at a loss for words.
“We didn’t sleep together,” Broly says flatly.
“But you’re together?” Raditz asks, cocking his head to the side--something he must have picked up from Lapis over the years.
Turles glances at him sideways as if waiting for him to say something.
“I think so.”
At that, he gets the patented Turles Grin and it makes his insides go all squirmy. Later, as they all pile onto the bus, Broly manages to forget all about the stalker and the menacing note.
--
Broly feels out of place playing these larger venues. It isn’t stadiums or amphitheaters but it’s bigger places than the cramped, dingy dive bars where they had played for so long. The acoustics are better, though, and the odds of one of them (Kakarrot) being electrocuted again have gone way down.
Tonight, for most of the songs, Broly accompanies the fuzzy guitar and pounding drums with his steel pedal guitar. The soft twang creates an odd juxtaposition but it somehow works--a bit like the five of them. Halfway through, he switches to his keyboard and everything goes back to the sound they’ve become known for. They play older songs and, to this day, Broly is still shocked when the audience yells them back or sings along.
When the show’s over, Broly acknowledges the applause and goes backstage. The others like to stay out and listen to the roar of the crowd but it still overwhelms him or sends him spiraling into a sensory overload.
He takes his mic off and hands it off to a roadie. Not sure what else to do, he goes in search of Nappa. He’s always been the grounding force for them all, like some kind of combination older brother and nanny--thought none of them would ever say that to his face. He’s seen it all, apparently, and it puts the rock’n’roll madness of their own lives into perspective.
“Hey!” a guy wearing a black t-shirt approaches him.
Broly starts, not sure where he came from, but he has a security clearance lanyard around his neck. Their entourage--loathe as he is to refer to it as such--has grown so much, he’s stopped being able to recognize individual faces. Is this fame?
“Um. Hi?”
“You looked lost.” The guy smiles. “You sounded great, by the way.”
“Oh, um, thanks.” Broly chews his lip for a moment. “I’m looking for Nappa. Have you seen him?”
He nods. “Yeah. I saw him go around out back. I can take you to him if you’d like.”
He really wouldn’t but this guy seems eager and he must be new or something. Broly fiddles with his chain for a moment and then nods.
“Sure.”
Broly follows him through the labyrinth that is the back of this venue. The guy leads him back finally to the green room and he’s confused. Didn’t he say Nappa went out back? He steps in and looks around, confused.
“Where’s Nappa?” he asks.
He watches him shut the door and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Broly starts forward.
“I’ll just find him myself.”
The guy’s arm shoots out to block his exit. Broly stumbles back, surprised.
“Who are you?” he asks.
He makes a pained face.
“I thought you’d know me when you saw me. It’s me, beloved.”
Beloved…
That’s his stalker. Broly swallows nervously and gets a good look at him. He’s shorter than him (which isn’t a great feat) and kind of skinny, but wiry with muscle. He has a sort of bland, unremarkable face and brown hair. He looks like...anyone, honestly.
“Why aren’t you wearing my gift?” he asks, pointing at his wrist.
Broly grabs it with his other hand and brings it to his chest. The guy reaches into his pocket to produce the bracelet. He feels queasy looking at it and--more than that.
“Where did you get that?” he asks.
“Here, of course,” he says. “You pawned it off, you pawned off my heart, onto that obnoxious little snot they call your lead singer. As if they don’t see the true talent right in front of them.”
Broly feels sick even as he’s sure the guy means it as a compliment.
“And he had the nerve to toss it into his suitcase like it was nothing. Do you know how much that hurt?”
He takes in a breath and tries to figure out how to get out of this. There’s one exit from the green room and the guy is blocking it. Broly can maybe overpower him but he doubts his own strength.
“I’m sorry,” he says and tries to mean it.
“No you aren’t!”
“I am. My voice is just like this.”
He steps to the side. Maybe he can rush him if he’s distracted and get out the door before he can recover.
“But that’s not all,” he says, sounding like he’s about to cry. “The other night, you...you let someone defile you!”
“What?”
“That...that... pig who plays bass. You let him put his hands on you. I was supposed to be your first!”
The thought of this guy watching him and Turles makes his stomach turn. Turles...god, he wishes he were here. Can he send him a text without this guy noticing? He seems fairly out of it, ranting as he is. Maybe if Broly sticks his hand in his pocket and prays autocorrect doesn’t fuck him over, he can manage it.
“Broles?”
The door opens and it’s as if he conjured him with his thoughts. Turles stands in the doorway, still sweaty and disheveled from the show.
“Someone said they saw you go--the fuck is this?”
“I’m his beloved.”
Turles’s eyes go wide. “You’re the stalker!”
“I am not a stalker!” His voice flares up so loudly and so suddenly that, without meaning to, Broly covers his ears. The sudden shift makes him think of his father and how he would go from talking to him sweetly to loudly berating him.
“Like fuck you aren’t,” Turles says snidely. “Get the fuck away from him.”
“You have no say what he does, pig,” he spits out. “You defiled his purity. He was meant to be mine. I would take him and then, together, we would go and be together forever.”
Broly almost misses the punch. He tries to figure out what the guy is talking about with that sentence and then he sees Turles cock his fist back and, next thing he realizes, the guy is sprawled on the floor. Before he can get back up, Turles seizes him by the front of the shirt and hauls him to his feet so he can punch him again.
“The fuck do you mean by that?” he snarls. “You gonna kill him? You gonna hurt him? ‘Cause I’m the fucker here to stop that from happening.”
Broly’s frozen, not sure what to do. He sees the guy pull something from his pocket and presses a switch on its side. He sees a flash of metal and Turles lets out a grunt of pain. He lets go of the guy and staggers backwards. The flap of his leather jacket almost covers it but Broly sees a blossom of blood spreading over the white of his t-shirt.
“No fair,” he says weakly. “Bringing a knife.”
He slumps to the floor and that’s enough to startle Broly into motion. He feels something break in him and he lets out a cry of rage. Everything happens so fast and as a blur. One moment he’s pummeling the guy--his stalker--with both fists and the next he’s being pulled off of him by Nappa. The cops are there, taking him away and he’s barely conscious. And paramedics...an ambulance for Turles--Turles!
Broly breaks free of the hold on him and runs towards it. Someone’s blocking the way and he almost doesn’t register their face at first.
“Stay back.”
His features come into focus--Raditz. Broly glares at him.
“They aren’t taking him anywhere,” he says. “They’re just checking him out. They said the wound was shallow.”
“I have to see him.”
“I know.” He rubs the back of his neck and Broly notices he’s shaking. “Just give them space for now.”
He hesitates for a moment and then his dark eyes are staring into Broly’s.
“You okay?”
“Turles is the one who got stabbed.”
“Not what I mean.”
Broly doesn’t know how he feels. Everything happened so fast, his mind can’t catch up. His stalker was taken away by the cops and Turles was stabbed and here he is, standing in the alleyway behind the venue with swirling sirens and lights. It’s too much. Somewhere near or far he can hear Nappa barking at the crowd to stay back and to mind their fucking business.
“I don’t know,” he says finally.
He hears the EMTs yelling something and turns to see a bandaged Turles hopping out of the back of the ambulance and ambling towards them. He lifts the edge of his bloodstained t-shirt to show the square of gauze medically taped on his lower abdomen.
“How fucking punk rock is this?” he asks gleefully.
“Don’t make jokes,” Raditz says. “You could have died.”
Broly nods. What was he thinking just going after him like that? He’s always known that Turles is impulsive but this is...he doesn’t even know.
“I gotta joke, Radi. How else can I deal with anything?” He turns towards to Broly and his face softens. “You okay?”
He shrugs again and Turles nods, understanding.
“He’s gone, though,” he says. “You got nothing to worry about, Broles.”
Raditz nods and looks between them.
“I’m gonna go meet with the fans to distract them from this or something,” he says. “You two--talk.”
It’s a bad cover but Raditz is a bad actor. Broly doesn’t know if he’s glad or not that he’s left. He looks at Turles who’s standing with his arms crossed.
“You threw yourself at him,” he says, speaking slowly. “Why?”
“I don’t know what weird shit he was implying. I didn’t want him to hurt you.”
He says it so simply and Broly isn’t sure what to do with that information.
“He had a knife,” he says instead.
“Didn’t know that part. But, hey, now you can say your boyfriend took a knife for you.”
He grins but then winces in pain.
“Boyfriend?”
“Yeah. I mean, if you wanna.” Turles stops and shakes his head, laughing. “God, this is such a weird fucking situation. Cops and an ambulance and shit and here I am asking if you wanna go steady.”
Despite everything, Broly laughs.
“I do,” he says. “Want to be boyfriends.”
Turles kisses him, but is pulled away by one of the EMTs who says he wasn’t cleared yet. He swaggers back towards the ambulance. He looks over his shoulder and blows Broly a kiss. He stands there for a moment and then smiles. He wouldn’t ask for another situation like this with a stalker and all but he’s glad that it brought them together. Not sure what else to do, he walks to where the others are dealing with the crowd.
“You okay?” someone calls out.
He thinks of what the others always say and says, in his usual way, “Five by five.”