Welcome to DBZ Love Garden

“Vejiita… Vejiita! Wake up!”

“…fuuuuuuuckkk…” the current king of all saiyajins muttered into his pillow. Blearily, he glanced over at the clock she kept by the bedside, but couldn’t focus on it. “What now, onna?”

He did not want to wake up. He was warm and comfortable, and, more importantly, he’d only just gotten to sleep. Given how little he slept these days, getting robbed of any sleep was a serious offense. Besides, why was she so damned loud??

“Get UP! Goku’s having a nightmare! The whole place is shaking!” Bulma snapped in exasperation, trying to pull him up by the hair now. Given who and what he was, it didn’t hurt, but it was seriously disrespectful, not to mention fucking annoying, and he grabbed hold of her arm before sitting up.

Then he realized the truth of her words. The building was shaking and the earth was groaning beneath it. The sounds of things crashing off the shelves in Bulma’s private lab underscored how violent this earthquake was.

Much more alarming than that, he could feel Goku’s ki spiking erratically, out of control but not yet uncontrollable.

Without another word he let go of her and darted out of his room, moving faster than she could see.

Goku’s apartments weren’t far away from his own, only down the hall, and Vejiita reached them immediately. The door was locked, but he didn’t even notice. Now that he was awake, he could feel the tormented emotions pouring from Kakkarot’s subconscious. With a being of his power, it wasn’t altogether surprising that his inner struggles were manifesting in the outside world.

All Vejiita had to do was stop it, without triggering a violent response. Just waking Kakkarot up could be a disaster if he struck out in reality against what chased him in his dreams.

They had learned the hard way that Vejiita was the only one who could safely wake Kakkarot up from a nightmare. He had ordered that Kakkarot never be told about the first casualties, and thus far no one had dared defy him. It was understood that Vejiita was to be summoned instantly, from wherever he was and whatever he was doing, if one of the increasingly more frequent nightmares happened.

Vejiita scowled as he approached the thrashing figure on the bed, but his displeasure was directed inwards. The truth was that he didn’t actually mind being woken up for this, nor did he really resent being the only one who could do this. The veneer of his mind, the topmost layers, produced the usual imprecations and profanity, but it was all habit. Most of the rest of him was oddly contented by what he was about to do. Which was a problem in and of itself, but there wasn’t time for that now.

The room quaked in sympathy with Kakkarot’s suffering, as he rolled and muttered atop the bare mattress. All of his covers had long since been thrown to the floor, and sweat stained the remaining sheet. Kakkarot sighed and muttered, his tail thumping the bed.

Vejiita sighed and sat down on the bed next to him. There were a couple of ways to do this, and he really wasn’t happy with either one. But there wasn’t much time to piss and moan about it, either.

Carefully he reached out and touch Kakkarot’s forehead with the back of his hand. His damp skin was hot to the touch, but Vejiita had expected that. He gently brushed the dark hair away from Kakkarot’s brow, waiting to see how much was needed this time. A soft whimper, transmuting to a groan, rewarded him. Followed by the broken sound of his name being sobbed out in Kakkarot’s sleep.

Vejiita’s heart seemed to turn over.

As he’d feared, the nightmare had shifted away from the past to the present. Vejiita felt a bitter pang in his heart as the radiating emotions shifted from horror and guilt to longing and sorrow. Why? Why did it have to be like this? He felt fate tightening around him like steel bands, narrowing his choices, pointing him towards the inevitable.

He wanted, desperately wanted, to burst into a rage, to wake the son-of-a-bitch up with a fist in his gut. He wanted to beat this out of him, out of both of them, and take revenge for the loss of his freedom.

But he couldn’t. Could not. If Vejiita gave in to his anger, then it would all be over. There would be no stopping the madness from taking over the saiyajin he had already sacrificed so much for.

He shut his eyes and swallowed, pushing his rage down as hard as he could. It was almost like the old days, like the worst days, when he’d been forced to serve Furiza. Except Furiza had never asked for so much, had never needed him…

The window across the room shattered, and he started, coming back to the present. Kakkarot was getting worse. Time to face up to it. He hated cowardice, even his own. Especially his own. He had dealt with all of this before. The worst was really over, wasn’t it? How hard could this be?

With another sigh, he slid across the bed, lying next to Kakkarot on the damp sheet. He placed a hesitant hand on that broad chest and pressed his body up against Kakkarot’s. “I’m here,” he said roughly.

It was magic. It was always fucking magic, he thought bitterly. Kakkarot’s distress eased instantly, and he rolled over to embrace Vejiita, pulling him close and tucking his head to sigh into the curve of his throat. Deeper, dreamless sleep overcame him almost immediately. His tail wrapped securely around the base of Vejiita’s, making sure he stayed.

Breathing in the scent of Kakkarot’s hair, he knew he would stay, no matter what. Despite the burning in his heart, he would stay in his former rival’s embrace. His own body was untroubled by his emotions, and he found himself relaxing into sleep. He didn’t want this, but it was reality. He was the only one who could comfort Kakkarot. If he needed more proof, then he could find it in the light purr rumbling in the saiyajin’s chest, easing him towards slumber.

The rumbling and shaking of the ground had stopped the instant Kakkarot had taken Vejiita in his arms.

With a defeated sound, Vejiita wrapped himself around the larger saiyajin, giving in to himself as much as to Kakkarot. Better to sleep now and forget this. He needed sleep so badly, in any case. It was almost pure pleasure to feel himself dozing off.

“It’s your fault, you know.” Bulma’s soft voice sounded in his ear. Black eyes snapped open, and he turned to see her kneeling by his side of the bed.

“Shut up, onna. And get out of here. You know what’ll happen if he wakes up to find you next to me,” Vejiita said without much heat.

Violence. Unthinking violence that would throw Goku into a depression for days afterward, assuming Vejiita could restrain him. If he couldn’t… There was no way to wish anyone back, not anymore.

“He’s asleep,” she said, glancing at Goku. She knew the risks. Although he was unlikely now to wake up for anything else, the mere sound of her voice saying Vejiita’s name would snap the younger saiyajin out of sleep instantly. Goku’s possessive and protective instincts were unspeakably sharp.

Which was most of the problem now.

“It’s getting worse every time,” she continued softly. “He could heal, you know he could, if only you would let him.”

“Shut up!” he hissed. He didn’t want to hear this. Not now, not again, not ever. Goku murmured slightly in his sleep and snuggled closer.

“Would it hurt your pride so badly to let your own mate mark you?”

He glared, opening his mouth to bark at her no matter what the consequences. Bulma stopped him with fingers laid gently against his lips. “You made a sacrifice I can’t even imagine when you bonded with him. It saved us. It’s the only reason he’s sane at all now. But we’re beyond that. He’s beyond that. Not letting him mark you is causing him more pain than the past does. You know it.”

Vejiita closed his eyes in pain. He had loved her, in his way. That he didn’t anymore had everything to do with the saiyajin in his arms now.

He freed a hand to reach out and touch her face. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. It had taken him years to be able to say such a simple thing.

She took hold of his hand and smiled. “Don’t be. I’d rather lose you to him than anyone else. He needs you more than I do.”

There was sadness in her eyes, but truth as well. “We’ve all suffered too much. Needing him isn’t any kind of weakness, you know. Think about it,” she said, letting go of his hand. Then she was gone. Her slim form was silhouetted in the doorway for a moment before she shut the door, giving them privacy, closing them in together.

Vejiita turned back to Kakkarot, as much for his own comfort now, though he would never admit it.

“…nnnff…” Kakkarot muttered, waking up slightly. Vejiita could hear him sniffing the air, no doubt finding Bulma’s scent. “‘Jiita?” he asked cautiously.

“Shhhh, Kakkarot, I’m here,” Vejiita said after a moment, almost forcing the comforting words out.

“Mmmnn… ” Kakkarot sighed before settling back against him. “Warm.”

Vejiita stared at the ceiling, seeing the new cracks in it. He was the answer to all of Kakkarot’s problems, it seemed.

Why… Hadn’t he already done enough?

He had known it would lead to this. He must have known. Even though it was all done in a rush, the last thing he could think of to stop the destruction and stop the madness that had set Kakkarot’s mind on fire, he must have known that one day… one day Kakkarot would need more. That a bond couldn’t stay unfinished forever.

Yet it was all he could have done. He couldn’t give the other saiyajin everything. He needed to keep something for himself. It wasn’t in him to surrender to anyone or anything. Maybe that came from years of living under Furiza’s claw, or maybe it was just his nature. He’d given up almost everything – the privacy of his emotions, control of his needs, the freedom of his soul – to save Kakkarot from himself. He desperately wanted to keep the last few fragments of solitude now.

At least he had the satisfaction of knowing his sacrifice had worked. Kakkarot had become almost stable again, and without him, without his fierce strength and focus on the fight, everything would have been lost. The enemy would have won already. Enma had released those saiyajins still in Hell, the ones who hadn’t or wouldn’t balance their karma out to achieve rebirth. Nearly two thousand of the most stubborn, pain-in-the-ass saiyajins ever spawned had rejoined the living, and they still wouldn’t have been enough without Kakkarot.

Vejiita had gone back to his wife, merely keeping Kakkarot close by, interacting with him every day. They did not live as mates.

It turned out that there was a price to pay for that. Vejiita glared into the darkness, making himself be honest. Kakkarot’s recovery was now stunted by the very thing that had made it possible. Vejiita refused to finish the mating, and the constraint strain from that was wearing on the younger saiyajin. He was becoming less stable, as evidenced by the nightmares and his wildly swinging moods, and no matter how much Vejiita would have liked to deny it, it was his fault.

He had claimed Kakkarot and bound him. Saiyajins marked their mates with their teeth, leaving scars that would be prominent even if the saiyajins were in oozaru form. Oozaru recognized very little in the way of saiyajin culture, but the bite scar was impossible to miss. Always respectful of the old ways, Vejiita had marked Kakkarot in the same way.

He hadn’t allowed Kakkarot to do the same to him. It had been the line he couldn’t allow the big baka to cross, and in his more self-deceptive moments, he could pretend it didn’t matter. They were bound no matter what, right? He was Kakkarot’s anchor to the world, like it or not.

Except that it did matter. Insecurity gnawed at Kakkarot. He watched Vejiita constantly now, with anxious and increasingly feral eyes. At times like this, when his defences were low, Kakkarot could easily kill someone he thought of as a rival for Vejiita’s affections. And Kakkarot’s obvious need for his mate was something Vejiita couldn’t ignore anymore.

Would it really be so hard? He pictured sharp teeth piercing his flesh and shivered a little. Sometimes he almost thought it would be worth it.

Truth be told, the strain was wearing him down too. The increasing tension was stealing his concentration when he needed it the most. The feeling of wrongness from the uncompleted bond was rubbing at his soul. It was so hard now to sleep that he found himself running only on his ki reserves for days at a time now. That kept the body going, but his brain, his mind, needed the sleep. He had even sunk low enough tonight to take a sleeping pill the onna had formulated for him. That was why he hadn’t woken up at the first sign of Kakkarot’s nightmare.

His face burned, thinking about it. A saiyajin king shouldn’t have to resort to such things. His resurrected father had ceded him the kingship immediately after discovering his son had ascended. Now concerned mostly with the pleasures of warfare, the former Vegeta no Ou was currently out on the frontier, directing saiyajin forces in his son’s name. He provided little in the way of counsel to Vejiita, but the son lived in the knowledge that his father’s eyes were on him. His father did not approve of his son’s half-finished bond.

And every saiyajin on the planet knew what the situation was with the king and his mate. Neither of them could mask the psychic dissonance that their incomplete bond created, and Vejiita’s subjects suffered for it. It felt wrong; it rubbed their senses raw. The low-level irritation provoked fights and made competition for missions close to lethal.

Kakkarot’s father didn’t approve either, it turned out. Not normally suicidal, Bardock had lost patience with his son’s mate some days ago. With his usual gift for profanity, Bardock had expressed his opinion of the situation at a private family dinner. Vejiita had sent the other saiyajin through a wall for that but hadn’t taken it any farther. As galling as it was, he knew Bardock was right.

Even his son and Gohan, not as sensitive to the pack currents running through their full-blooded fathers, were suffering, though in a different way.

Vejiita knew of the feelings between them. He’d watched them grow closer over the years. But he was completely right to forbid their relationship. Trunks was always linked to Goten in Kakkarot’s mind. It somehow made it the past easier for him to bear knowing that his younger son had been happy and in love for the first time just before he died. Seeing Trunks with Gohan would be deeply troubling for Kakkarot.

If Vejiita allowed Kakkarot to mark him, if he let that last little bit of himself go, it would probably be all that his mate needed to stabilize his emotions and deal with Trunks and his only remaining child. It would likely be all he needed to deal with the past, too, as well as the continuing war.

Kakkarot, Trunks, Gohan, even Bulma, not to mention the other saiyajins – they all were waiting, silently or not, for Vejiita to do what he knew was the right thing. The thing that, at times like this, he even wanted to do.

Yet Vejiita couldn’t do it.

There was something in him like a sword blade, cold and hard, which wouldn’t let him bend, even when he needed to. Even when it was clearly in everyone’s best interest, including his own, to give in on this one thing, he couldn’t seem to do it. It was this bone-deep stubbornness that had saved him, time and again, but now, when it was hurting him, it was just as immovable.

Was it fear? He could overcome that. He always had.

Was it hatred? Surely it was too late for that…

Was it resentment for what he’d been forced to do, and what it had cost him, not to mention Bulma? He thought he’d come to terms with that. Bulma had. There hadn’t been any other choice. He didn’t even blame Kakkarot for his madness. He didn’t honestly know what he would have done if it had been his family the Kisei struck first.

Was something missing? He didn’t know.

With a sigh, Vejiita closed his eyes and turned to nuzzle Kakkarot’s hair. The situation was what it was. There was no point in tearing himself up about it right now. He needed sleep, and so did Kakkarot. He was twined within the warmth of his mate, no matter whether their bond was complete or not. For now, that was enough.

A few minutes later saw both saiyajins deep in slumber. A canny observer might have seen that once he was asleep, Vejiita’s tail slipped up to twine firmly around Goku’s. Peaceful at last, the mates slept.

***

Bardock wasn’t drunk. Despite his best efforts, blissful intoxication remained outside his grasp. Sullen, he glared at his current drink before slamming it down. Unfortunately, the burning in his throat didn’t seem to be edging him any closer to his goal.

Toma watched him, but was altogether too prudent to laugh. Bardock might not be drunk, but he was touchy, and Toma wasn’t in the mood for a brawl. Unlike his friend, Toma wasn’t having any problem getting drunk. Already mellow, he was beginning to look forward to spending the next day in a coma.

He would already be in said coma if it hadn’t been for Bardock’s brat. The earth had begun shaking while he was still in the showers. Their crew had just come back from a purge, and the ones who had gotten into the showers first had also gotten to bed first. They weren’t likely to be shaken awake by anything as trivial as an earthquake. Sudden adrenaline had left the less fortunate even more awake than they had been before.

“Fuuuuuuuuuck…”

Radditz was sprawled out across a couch not far from the other two. He’d still been drying all that hair of his when the earth moved, and he’d endured enough teasing for it so far to be sullen. Now, however, he seemed impressed by the flashing pictures the television was projecting silently on one wall. None of the saiyajins understood the local language, but the broadcasts were funny anyway. And, in this case, better than that.

Both Toma and Bardock turned to see a picture of a ningen female with large breasts jogging down a beach. Her genitals were covered, but the mammaries weren’t, and they moved up and down with each step. Three saiyajins watched in appreciation for a moment.

“You said they don’t know they’re breeding stock?” Toma asked eventually. Bardock understood a lot more about Chikyuusei than either of the other two did, mostly because he bothered to ask.

“That’s what Vejiita said. They don’t have a clue. All their records show that they’re native to this planet. The tsfurujin did a good job, I guess, setting them up for us. And you’ve already seen what Trunks no Ouji is like. Good genetics,” Bardock said. Then he laughed wickedly. “Bet you we’ve been a big-ass surprise to the little bastards.”

“Yeah, especially when Kakkarot fried half of them. Betcha that was a surprise,” Radditz said. Toma laughed, but Bardock scowled. He didn’t like any reminders of his son’s madness, even though he had still been in Hell when it happened. He knew about the berserker tendency in his family’s history, but he was damned if he was going to tell anyone else about it. He’d inherited a bit of it, as had Radditz, obviously. It was just a wonder that Kakkarot hadn’t given into it before.

He wondered about Gohan, sometimes.

“Don’t like to talk about it, do you, brat?” Radditz’ words cut across all his reflecting.

“Shut up, you old fuck,” Bardock growled.

Toma snorted and finished his beer. They would go on like that for half the damned day, if you let them. The fact was that Radditz had been about ten years older than his father when he died. They had come out of Hell with the same bodies they’d died with, which meant that Bardock was now physically the youngest in his family, even younger than Gohan. Kakkarot was the eldest by that reckoning, followed by his brother, his son, and his father.

Much of the very real antagonism between Bardock and Radditz was defused through this rough banter. They had been close once, but time, not to mention death and damnation, had come between them. They were incredibly lucky to have a family after all that had happened. Few of the saiyajins remaining in Hell when they were released had family left. To have a father, sons, and grandson together was a singularity, and much envied. That fact didn’t make it any easier. Maybe the fighting did.

Frankly, it bored the shit out of Toma. Besides, there were more interesting things to talk about.

“You know, you’re gonna have to tell us what happened to him eventually, Bardock.”

Dark eyes glittered. “Oh yeah? Why?”

“Because I’ll beat it out of you some day,” Toma said smugly. Bardock snarled.

“Spill it, boy, or I’ll hold you down while he does it,” Radditz added, taking more of an interest than usual.

The simple facts of the matter were that neither of them was as strong as Bardock, and in a fight he could handle them both. There was also the fact that Vejiita would thrash any saiyajins he caught wasting their time and strength like that. Reality didn’t matter as much as intent, though. Both saiyajins meant to have the story out of him; their way of saying it was meant to be friendly, actually. The tone allowed him to tell the tale as lightly or as seriously as he wanted to.

“Fuck you,” he said vaguely, leaning back and opening a beer. Bulma had told him the story because neither Vejiita nor Gohan would. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell anyone else.

The silence stretched.

Finally, Radditz sat up and began twisting his hair into a braid. Without looking at his father, he said “You know we’re all awake right now because of Kakkarot’s nightmare. Maybe the rest of these knot-tailed bastards don’t need to know what the fuck is going on, but I do.”

He smirked at Toma, knowing that he’d been Bardock’s friend since early childhood, and had been the closest thing to family that his father had. Toma smirked back, gesturing obscenely.

“You’re alive again, serving Vejiita again, fighting a tough enemy. What more do you need to know, asshole?” Bardock asked, turning to shoot a look at his eldest. His tone was belligerent, but it was clear that he meant to tell them now. His whole demeanor had changed.

Maybe he was finally drunk enough. Or maybe Radditz had a point. He wasn’t sure.

“You know this was the first planet the Kisei hit, right? The first one in the normal realm. By the time they got here, the kais were already dead…” Bardock began slowly. He remembered the sick feeling of excitement in his stomach when he’d first heard that part of the story from Vejiita. When Enma had released the saiyajins from Hell, he’d told them much the same thing. Bardock had needed to hear it from Vejiita to believe it, though.

“Yeah, we heard the same speech you did,” Toma said.

“The fuckers are always attracted to power, you know? And after the kais were gone, where was the power? Here, on Chiykk…Chuukyik…whatever the fuck this is called,” Bardock said, scowling as he fumbled over the name of the planet. He guessed he really was drunk enough now, and chugged his beer down to help the process along.

“You ever meet Chichi?” he suddenly asked Radditz.

“Nah. Didn’t see much of anybody before my dear brother got me killed,” Radditz said laconically.

“I guess she was practically saiyajin – tough and crazy. When the Kisei got here, she was convenient, too. And once she was infested, they used her to kill Kakkarot’s younger son. Her son. His name was Goten,” Bardock said softly. “They say he looked just like his father.”

Radditz looked stunned. “I didn’t know Kakkarot had another child.”

“I’ve never heard his name spoken,” Toma said.

“No, and you won’t. No one who knew him speaks his name, because they’re afraid it’ll set Kakkarot off again. They never bothered to tell any of us. He’s like a ghost, you know. He’s always here, always behind everything, but never… They never talk about him.

“He was tough. He was the youngest saiyajin to ever ascend, you know that? A year younger than the ouji. So the Kisei had his mother stab him with a butcher’s knife when he went to kiss her goodbye. His guard was down with her, of course, and he was shocked, and she managed to gut him, just like that.”

There was a deep silence in the room now, deeper than the simple quietness of three saiyajins.

Bardock contemplated his beer bottle, as if it kept secrets from him. “He died a bad death. She… The Kisei made her keep coming after him, hurting him so bad he never managed to use much more than ki blasts on her, and since those don’t work on Kisei… Kakkarot came home and found her finishing him off. I’m not going to tell you what she was doing. No one else needs to hear it.”

He paused, wondering again what Goten must have been like. He’d heard things about energy and joy and strength and how Goten was everything Kakkarot had been like as a child. It made him think about Kakkarot and what he’d lost with him. Of course, if Kakkarot hadn’t been born when he had, if he hadn’t been sent off-planet just then, he would have died.

Some part of Bardock still missed the saiyajin child he’d never known. Sorrowfully, he thought of the child he had known, and wondered for the thousandth time what was wrong between the two of them now that they had this astonishing chance to know each other again.

“What happened next?” Toma asked gently, bringing Bardock out of his reverie.

“Next?” Bardock asked, blinking. “What d’ya think? He had to kill her. He had to put his woman down like a rabid animal. You know how Kisei hosts die. He had to tear her apart with his own hands until he found the Kisei in the meat. When it died, so did she. You know how it goes. Trunks and someone else, I can’t remember except it starts with a K, found him. And Kakkarot smelled it for the first time. That smell they get… The K guy was infested too. So of course…”

He left that last part unsaid. They knew what had to be done to hosts, all hosts, no matter who they had been before.

He sighed and stretched. “The Guardian of this planet used to be this green guy who could bring you back to life, or something. Kakkarot wanted him to bring back his family and the other guy. But the green guy was already dead by then. That’s when Kakkarot went berserk. You know, he’s a born purger… Wiped out half the population in a couple of hours. He would have taken the whole planet out if Vejiita hadn’t stopped him. We all know how Vejiita did it. And now you know both reasons Kakkarot has nightmares.”

Bardock stood up and looked around at their stunned faces. “Don’t look so depressed. Maybe one day our Ou will do his duty and this will be over. Until then, I’m fucking well going to bed.”

With that he saluted them with his empty bottle and sent it crashing into the fireplace. He left them to contemplate each other or their beer, or whatever pleased them. It had been a long damned day, and coming home to another of Kakkarot’s nightmares had left him feeling drained. He barely knew the saiyajin, really, but they were father and son, and the parent bonds were there.

Wandering back through the almost-empty halls of the residential wing, he passed by the corridor leading to the royal area. He slowed, feeling for Kakkarot, knowing already that Vejiita would be with him. A small smile crossed his face as he felt their mingled ki. Even in his sleep, Kakkarot radiated content through his various bonds.

It must be good, Bardock thought, to have such moments, even if they didn’t last. It had been a long, long time since he had felt anything like that. In a flash of clarity, the kind enjoyed only by those too drunk to remember in the morning, he realized exactly how lonely he was. His youngest son was troubled and distant, his eldest was trouble and in his face every day, and there was no one else. Except for Toma, of course, who was always there for him, but always a little reserved, a little withdrawn.

Sighing, he cut through the gym area. The area was mostly dark, except for the light from one of the gravity chambers. He didn’t go out of his way, but the chamber was along his path, so he stopped to look in.

Trunks no Ouji was in there, naked except for a pair of shorts. Sweat streamed down his body as he scowled in concentration, sparring with no one at all. Bardock could clearly see that the saiyajin prince was exhausted, but he showed no signs of slowing down. He was working something off, no doubt, trying to quiet his mind through wearing out his body. It wasn’t an uncommon ploy. The trouble, of course, was that it rarely worked.

Fine, strong muscles flowed under glistening skin. Long, braided hair whipped through the air. Trunks’ unseen enemies redoubled their attacks and the young man virtually blurred out of sight.

Bardock watched as the fight went on. I wonder how much your father’s stubbornness has cost you, prince, and when you’ll realize it. The thought came out of nowhere. Bardock shook his head, wondering, until the faint scent lingering outside the chamber suddenly came clear for him.

I wonder how much longer you’ll let him wait before you take what you want.

***

Goku woke up slowly, utterly at peace. It was wrong, and he knew it, but he didn’t care. Vejiita was with him, curled up next to him on the bed, and that was everything that mattered.

Ah… He smelled so good…

Goku moved slightly, afraid that he would wake Vejiita up and end these few precious moments prematurely. Yet he wanted… he needed more of that delightful scent.

Carefully, he moved to inhale the scent of Vejiita’s soft and wild hair, so much more disciplined than his own. Ah… With a faint blush, he realized that the scent had been enough to arouse him fully. Thankful that Vejiita wasn’t awake, he tried to shift his hips away from him to keep it secret. He was surprised, though, to find that he couldn’t.

Lifting the covers to look down the length of their bodies, trying to ignore what the sight of Vejiita’s nearly naked body did to him, he saw that Vejiita’s tail was tangled with his own. The sight brought unexpected tears to Goku’s eyes. The king usually kept his tail to himself, even in sleep. At first Goku had thought it was something all saiyajins did, but once the others had been resurrected, he realized how private Vejiita was with his tail.

The other saiyajins virtually talked with their tails, twining them, exchanging little touches here and there, spreading scent, and making contact. They were an excellent barometer of emotions as well : a pair of saiyajins could seem to be on the brink of all out war with each other, but if their tails weren’t wrapped around their waists, the fight wouldn’t get physical. Even Bardock and Radditz, despite the tension between them, would touch tails while arguing, as if to defuse the situation. Or to reassure each other that they really did care, after all.

Vejiita never did anything like that. Not even with Trunks. It was true that the demi-saiyajins hadn’t quite picked up on the tail talk as easily as Goku had, but they were still much more expressive with them than Vejiita ever was. Goku sometimes wondered if it was because of how and when he had gotten it back.

Goku had no regrets about their one coupling. It had been the best and most ecstatic thing he had ever felt, and if that wasn’t enough, Vejiita had marked him at climax. His scar throbbed now, along with other parts of his body, as he remembered it.

He had been out of control, every emotion raging. He’d killed everything he could find, trying to find the bad things, the things that had made him kill Chichi. She had strangled Goten with his own… NO!!!! Even Kuririn, even he had been infested with one of those things. Kuririn had attacked him, reeking of that spoiled, metallic smell that always betrayed one of them.

Dende…Oh, Dende. He had gone to him hoping for release from his terrible grief. Death could be fixed, couldn’t it? It wasn’t even a challenge. Not even death. But he’d found the guardian dead, and there was nothing, nothing he could do after that to suppress the terrible rage.

Yet, if it had only been rage, he could have done something with it. Used it to power himself up to another level, perhaps. This was too much, though, and too confusing, and something in him had just…broken under the burden of it all.

It wasn’t like ascending. It was like going insane. It was madness.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised him. Perhaps it was just his saiyajin heritage reclaiming its primacy. Maybe this is who he should have been all along. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. He lusted for death.

So much death…

It made him happy in a way he’d never felt before. The Kisei (though he hadn’t known what to call them then) were abominations. They had hurt him, hurt Chichi, hurt his sweet boy. They deserved suffering and death, and there was nothing that would stop him from giving it to him. Not pity. Not reason. Not anything.

His thoughts had been a bloody, chaotic whirlwind. Nothing made sense anymore, nothing was familiar. The abominations had been everywhere, suddenly, hiding behind the skins of the most innocent looking ningens. Ningens! He’d never felt so alien before, so saiyajin. He had nothing in common with such creatures, and no regrets when they died. It was better that way.

It might have gone on that way until they were all dead, except that Vejiita had suddenly appeared before him, and Vejiita hadn’t smelled wrong at all. Vejiita had been right. The only right thing. He’d thought the other saiyajin was there to help him, but it wasn’t so. Vejiita had snarled at him.

He’d wondered if he’d done something wrong. He couldn’t remember exactly, by then, but he thought there had been orders to purge this planet. He was late, and ashamed of it now in front of his prince, but the planet was well on its way to destruction.

Embarrassed, he began preparing a blast to destroy the planet itself. It would be his amends for being so late in obeying his orders. Surely Vejiita-sama would approve?

There had been warm hands on him suddenly, and a kiss. A kiss. The glowing death he had been preparing dissipated in the air as Vejiita took control of his body. It was so easy for him. Goku hadn’t wanted to deny him a thing. He had yielded everything up to his prince.

Kisses. Stroking hands. Soft bites. It had taken all his rage away. The world had narrowed to Vejiita and his desires. And Goku’s desire to please them both.

He hadn’t even realized Vejiita had taken them down from the sky until a hard surface had pressed against his back. His clothing had been gone by then. Vejiita had moved between his legs and ran his hands across places that were unused to such careful erotic attention. Warmth ran across the soft skin of his thighs and backside, and his legs were spread wide. Always masterful and deliberate when rage wasn’t clouding his mind, Vejiita had simply held his shoulders down then and roughly entered him.

He was a saiyajin. He was unlikely to be hurt by such a simple act. But there was a deep ache and a burning, and beyond that, there was the feral pleasure in Vejiita’s face, the way his lips parted and his eyelids slid shut as he began to thrust. Goku had never guessed at the meaning of dominance before. He’d never understood it until he saw it in Vejiita’s face when those eyes snapped open and pinned him in place more effectively than his body ever could.

There had been a moment when the confusion in his soul, when the fire had been likely to overwhelm him. Now, with Vejiita as he was, Goku had suddenly felt everything snap into place again. He had found his place. There were boundaries again. There was belonging, and order in the universe. There was Vejiita and himself.

Vejiita had made him keep his eyes open, had kept his gaze without flinching as the slow, brutal pace had increased. Pinned beneath him, unable to evade anything, he had been forced to offer his every emotion, his pleasures and his pain, to the prince who had taken him.

Everything was as it should be. When he felt the borders of his mind breached and the fangs part his flesh, it felt so very right that his climax had come, ecstasy springing from surrender.

He had lapsed gratefully into sleep afterwards, held in strong arms, his mind and body accepting the new order of things joyfully, without question. Vejiita had rescued him, and he would pay any price he had to for that.
The blood-matted tails they had woken to had hardly seemed like a price at all.

And, really, they hadn’t been. Goku had been perfectly pleased to have his tail back. It was only Vejiita’s reticence with his that made him uncomfortable.

Much as his mate’s refusal to let him make claim had wounded his soul.

He shut his eyes tightly, trying to stop the wave of pain before it overwhelmed him. It was so hard now to repress it all, to force it back. He knew Vejiita didn’t want to talk about it, and probably didn’t want to think about it. He knew Vejiita had only claimed him to stop the madness he could hardly remember now. It had been expedient, the right thing to do.

At first, it had been enough.

At first, he had been able to convince himself that the hollowness, the ache inside him was sorrow. Everything had changed, after all. So many had died, and so many continued to die in this war. How many had died by his own hand? How many innocents had he slaughtered? There was enough grief to be found without looking hard.

Once the other saiyajins had been released from Hell, though, and the low-grade telepathy they all shared had sparked into life, Goku had understood that he was missing something, something essential to his being. Moreover, the other saiyajins had understood exactly what he was lacking.

Bardock, loud-mouthed and always opinionated, had been the one to confront him, to tell him that Vejiita should have allowed him to mark him and return the claim, to complete the bond. Bardock had named and defined the demon that hounded him. Of course Goku had gone to Vejiita with this revelation. Surely it was just a mistake, an oversight brought on by the years Vejiita had spent without his people. Surely Vejiita could fix it.

Vejiita had said, very gently “I’ve done everything I can for you, Kakkarot.” Then he had turned and walked away.

And that had been the last time they had spoken of it.

Goku had understood at that moment what price he would be paying for the structure, the sense of belonging, that grounded him now, keeping the whirling chaos away. He couldn’t mark Vejiita without his consent. He could never force it on him. He needed it more with every hour, but all he could do now was wait, watching Vejiita for any signs of affection, any sign he would grant Goku what he most desperately wanted.

Vejiita had come to him last night because he’d been having a nightmare. Goku could never remember them, but Vejiita was always there for him. Sometimes Goku would wake up to the scent of Vejiita in his room, and he would know that Vejiita had had to comfort him again. Rarely, yet more often now, he would wake up with the king beside him. He felt a bizarre mix of shame and gratitude now, as he basked in his mate’s heat. It didn’t occur to him to be angry that Vejiita wouldn’t give him what he needed.

This was the price.

With deep longing, he buried his face against Vejiita, his teeth only an inch or two away from the liquid nirvana he might never be allowed to taste. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t prevent the escape of two tears, which dropped and left slow trails on the warm flesh below.

He breathed deeply of that still-wonderful scent, the one that meant safety and delight and pain. Right now, he had Vejiita no Ou in his arms. Right now, everything was as well with his universe as it had been since the day of Goten’s death. Right now, he would do anything just to be happy with what he had.

Still tired from the massive power he had expended during his nightmare, the large warrior gradually fell asleep again. Soon enough, the sounds of his deep breathing filled the room.

Vejiita, awake from the very instant Goku had first woken up, stared at the snow falling outside the window. It had been repaired while they slept, of course, by one of the maintenance robots, and he had an excellent view of the wooded hills behind the compound. The thick flurries of snow were easily visible.

He wanted to stretch out, roll over, and wind himself around his mate. It had been his first instinct this morning, and he’d been very hard-pressed not to follow up on it. It wasn’t right, though, and he’d forced his thoughts elsewhere. It had been much worse not to respond to Kakkarot’s gentle movements under the covers, the tightening of his embrace, and worse, the feeling of falling tears rolling down his skin, crossing near the place that should have been white and shiny with the mark of his mate’s claim.

Kami… his tail was wound with Kakkarot’s.

He forced his mind away again, trying to think of something, anything else. Anything safe.

Such as… why did they have covers over them? He was certain he’d last seen them thrown on the floor. Had he covered them? Had Bulma? He scented the air reflexively, and scowled at what he found.

Gohan.

Gohan had come in while they slept and covered them? It wasn’t like him to disobey the Ou’s standing orders concerning his privacy with Kakkarot. He must have known Vejiita would be there, after all the ground shaking… Why would he disobey an order like that? He couldn’t have known they were uncovered unless he’d entered his father’s apartments deliberately.

There was a reason, but it refused to do more than flutter past the edges of the tired king’s mind, just out of his grasp.

Snorting softly, he gave up and decided to try to settle in for more sleep. It was so rare for him to sleep like this… he could almost ignore the reason why. Everyone else in the world who might need either him or Kakkarot for the next couple of hours could just fuck off.

But one thought stayed as he slipped back into slumber.

Gohan. Watch Gohan.