Welcome to DBZ Love Garden

If only he had anything like impulse control, Goku might not be in this situation. If only...

"Merry Christmas!" Marron shrilled as she raced in through the front door of the Briefs' home. Dressed in red and green, with golden bows in her hair, she was all kinds of adorable. She immediately ran to Trunks and hugged him, something the older boy submitted to only because of the stern eyes of his mother upon him. The five year old girl was probably too young to actually have a crush on the young prince, but she was definitely attached to him. Literally.

Goten laughed at his friend and was rewarded with a stinging slap from a lavender tail. Or rather an intended slap, since the darker boy caught the tail and gave it a sharp tug before dashing up the stairs. Tearing free of Marron, Trunks raced up the stairs after him, intent on boyslaughter.

Unfortunately for him, while not up to saiyajin standards, Marron was faster and more nimble than most children, and in the crowded conditions she was almost able to catch up to him. Shrieking with laughter, unaware that every saiyajin and demi-saiyajin in the room was wincing at the sound, the small girl disappeared into the maze of the house after her adored prince.

"Well," Kuririn said, "we're here."

It was an unusual thing for all of them to be together, but Goku had asked for a Christmas Eve with everyone this year. Even those who didn't celebrate Christmas had turned up, including Kamesennin and Piccolo, both of whom had capitulated simply to make Goku stop looking at them like that. Big black earnest eyes had done them in. Therefore the entire loose assortment of friends had turned up, bringing their families and their presents, to gather in the vast family room at Capsule Corp and make merry.

Vejiita, who had not been consulted, had turned up only because he lived there anyway. In fact, he had obviously been surprised to find the room crammed full of merry, booze-soaked, food-stuffed people. In a sweat-stained training suit, with a towel around his neck, he had surveyed the crowd with dark, expressionless eyes.

Only when his gaze lit on Goku did his expression of vague annoyance change to something... else. A couple of people noticed it, since the prince commanded attention no matter what the circumstances, but since it didn't seem to forebode immediate flaming death, no one reacted to it much.

No one except Goku, who'd broken out in a sweat. He wasn't sure whether he'd been relieved or disappointed when Vejiita went upstairs to his private rooms.

He'd been pleasantly surprised when the prince had turned up an hour or so later, wearing clean but hardly festive clothes and smelling faintly of soap to Goku's sensitive nose. Vejiita had taken up a spot on the leather couch not far from him.

Yamcha had been sitting there, but he'd skittered away as soon as the prince appeared. There was a rumor that Bulma had been seeing more of Yamcha lately. It wasn't a secret that Vejiita and Bulma weren't together for much more than sex and parenting; they got along well, but both looked elsewhere when it suited them. Yamcha apparently didn't trust the otherwise volatile prince not to be violently jealous, even though Vejiita hadn't batted an eye at him.

All of his attention had been fixed on Goku.

Goku wasn't particularly dim. His primary faults were chronic naiveté and a tendency to get carried away with things. Neither of these kept him from realizing as soon as the prince reached out and snagged a candy cane off the tree that this wasn't going to turn out well for him. More than that, he understood exactly why.

A single drop of sweat rolled down the side of his face as Vejiita slowly ran his tongue up the hard length of the candy cane, savoring each fraction of it. His dark eyes never strayed from Goku's. Goku couldn't help but recall the moment when he'd gotten himself into this. Vejiita hadn't been kidding when he'd said there would be a price to pay.

*****************

Things had changed after Vejitto.

He couldn't say exactly why or how, but there had been a definite change in the air between himself and Vejiita. Something of the bitter strain had been let out of their relationship. Some of that had been his doing: he understood Vejiita's pride a little better now, and how deliberately insulting much of his own actions had seemed to the prince. He'd even made a clumsy apology for some of them, which had been neither accepted nor acknowledged. That hadn't mattered much, though, since he knew Vejiita well enough now to see that any response short of open abuse was acceptance, at least on that topic.

Vejiita's changes had been more subtle. Though still the same cocky, self-contained, bastard prince, his occasional insults had lost their edge. In fact, it felt like Vejiita had simply lost his taste for abusing Goku at every opportunity. He was quieter now, and less hostile, and on occasion they had even had civil conversations, if a couple of sentences exchanged here and there could be called that. "I'm bored with hating you," he'd snorted in answer, the one time Goku had asked.

It was hardly enough to base anything on, even a friendship, but Goku hadn't been really surprised when Vejiita had shown up at Ubuu's house one day. The prince had simply announced that he was going to be sparring with them, and then he went about doing just that. He'd left without saying goodbye that night, but he'd shown up again the next morning, rousting the two of them out of their beds for a new day of fighting.

The sparring was exceptionally good, and after a few days of this new routine, no one questioned it. It went on for weeks that way. It could easily have gone on forever, as far as Goku had been concerned. And maybe it would have, if he hadn't gotten carried away, like he always did.

It wasn't really his fault, was it? After all, he'd never done anything like that before. If he'd thought about it beforehand, he never would have done it at all. The prince he thought he knew so well would surely have ripped his insides out for even thinking about it, wouldn't he? Well, he hadn't. And in a million years Goku wouldn't have guessed he'd get the reaction he did. To be honest, though, he had to admit that Vejiita hadn't really done anything to provoke it except stand there, swishing his new tail around, breathing hard from their fight and smelling so damned irresistible.

He wondered if the fact that he'd been training Ubuu for over a year had had anything to do with it. Ubuu was doing really well, all things considered, and Goku had grown pretty fond of him. But the fact was he wasn't human or saiyajin and some things about him weren't quite right. Like the fact that he smelled like fresh-baked cookies after a tough workout. That was nice, but it was also just wrong.

Chichi, after they'd separated, had told him that he was obviously with his one true love; someone who could keep up with him in a fight and who smelled like food afterwards. Goku had laughed and then forgotten about the joke. Right up until that one glorious afternoon, when the golden sun had turned the desert into a painting and the sky into blue glass.

Right up until Vejiita had slammed him into the cliff side so hard that he'd sunk into it like a ningen in a snow bank. For a moment Vejiita's own momentum had pressed him full-length against Goku, the shock of hot flesh against his own leaving Goku far more stunned than the rock that had shattered beneath him.

They had only been that way for a moment before Vejiita had pulled back and bared his teeth at Goku, grinning at his victory as he stood in the air before him. The brief flash of heat had been like flame rolling over Goku's skin before vanishing, but Vejiita's scent had stayed with him for a few moments longer.

That scent.

It had been masculine and perfect, animal and full of heated notes that nearly made Goku's head swim. He'd never reacted to a person's scent like that, not even Chichi's. He hadn't been able to get enough of it, and he'd leaned forward, floating out of the crumbling rock to get more.

At the time, what he'd done next hadn't seemed strange at all to him. It had seemed like a perfectly normal thing to nuzzle Vejiita's neck and lick the salt of their exertion away before pressing his mouth against the prince's. It had also seemed perfectly normal, as well as delightful, when those surprisingly soft lips had parted for him. The kiss that followed had been anything but normal; it had been perfect. Completely, carnally, erotically, passionately perfect.

Vejiita had moaned very softly before slipping his arms around his rival's waist and shoulders to draw him closer. That sound had erased everything from Goku's awareness but the kiss and the muscled perfection that was his prince.

This is what my one true love's supposed to be like.

He wanted...

If it hadn't been for the sudden pain in his ass, the two of them might still be there. As it was, he'd suddenly leaped up out of Vejiita's embrace as the agony tore up his spine. Unfortunately for him, there was an outcropping overhead, and in his distraction, he slammed into it and then fell to the bottom of the cliff with the resulting rubble.

Vejiita's laughter had been the first thing he'd heard when his head cleared, and the hands helping him free of the rocks were gentle. It had taken him a moment to realize that it was Vejiita laughing; he wasn't being mocked by the prince, for once. There was no bitter edge to the sound, only genuine amusement.

"Well, well, Kakarot, look at you. We'll make a proper saiyajin of you yet." Vejiita had said, drawing Goku up to stand very, very close to him. "A fine tail, if I do say so myself."

He drew the brand-new, slightly damp tail through his fingers, making Goku arch against him and purr from the flood of delicious sensations. He hadn't ever guessed that it could feel so good. As a child, his tail hadn't brought him much more than pain when handled, and Chichi simply didn't have the right touch with his tail scar, being too gentle with it or too rough. Vejiita, of course, knew exactly what to do.

Then it struck him. "Tail?"

Indeed, there it was, firmly attached to him, dark black fur tipped here and there with blue-gray highlights. He stared at it as if he'd never guessed such a thing could happen. As if he'd never had one before. His eyes widened as he flexed it gently. It felt...good...just to see it there, to feel it move. A flash of sinuous velvet drew his gaze away to another tail, and he remembered something he hadn't before felt comfortable enough to ask.

"Vejiita... I never asked. How did you get your tail back?"

"Wished it back when the dragonballs returned. I thought I deserved a reward after all you and Buu put me through." The prince answered lazily, still focused on the tail he was petting. He looked up at Goku with something genuine and yet mysterious in his eyes.

"Then how did I...?" Goku asked, feeling even more awkward.

"Oh, I imagine it was from this..." Vejiita said, drawing him close for another one of those mind-blowing kisses.

This kiss, like the first, was utterly familiar, as if they'd been lovers for as long as they'd known each other. There was a difference now, though: it no longer seemed perfectly normal. All Goku could think was that the mouth driving him crazy belonged to Vejiita, and that his tail was back, for the first time since he was a child. The discord between the two ways of looking at it began to wear at him. Confusion alternated with delight. After a few minutes or a couple of hours, it all became too much for him.

He freaked out.

"I, uh, don't know about this, 'Jiita." he said, fumbling as he drew away abruptly. "Um, I'm sorry, I don't know why I, uh, kissed you but you smelled really good and... Am I supposed to get my tail back because...?" he asked helplessly.

A royal brow was arched. "You're sorry you kissed me?"

"Well... yeah?"

A fist clenched in his shirt and he was jerked nose to nose with the now fuming prince. "You're SORRY?"

"No! But if you're mad, yes!"

In the face of such an admission, there wasn't much left for Vejiita to say. "Hn. Well, you may look like a saiyajin, Kakarot," he said, his tone darkening by the second. "But you've still got to learn that the price for teasing a saiyajin prince may be higher than you can afford ."

With that, Vejiita had dropped him and disappeared into the sunset, leaving a very confused Goku behind him to touch his own lips and stare at his lashing tail and wonder what the hell had just happened. He hadn't seen Vejiita again for two months. Until Christmas Eve.

******************

Goku laughed now as Goten dived and rolled, coming to a rest between Goku's feet. He twined his tail around the boy, offering protection from the rampaging Trunks and relentless Marron, who skidded to a stop just inches away from them. Goten twined his own tail around Goku's and smirked at Trunks, quite aware that he was safe. He had to smile at the feeling of his son's small tail grasping his own. Like Goku, the boys owed their tails to Vejiita, but certainly not for the same reason.

Simply put, it had irritated his imperial highness that saiyajin tails didn't grow back on this bakayaro planet like they were meant to. The mother of his child was supposedly a genius. Vejiita had simply decided it was time she put all those brains to work on something useful, instead of just making useless ningen stuff into tiny, useless, ningen stuff in capsules. It hadn't taken too long. He had wondered out loud why the hell she hadn't done it before. After all this time, the onna's priorities still eluded him.

Goku had heard Bulma's explanation through Chichi, and with Goten shrieking in the background as Gohan threatened him with death, it hadn't come through too clearly. He had hardly been able to make it out. Apparently there was something that saiyajins were allergic to...? Manga? Magna-something? Well, he didn't suppose it mattered much.

Whatever it was, there hadn't been much of it on Vegeta-sei, but there was a lot of it in Chikyuu-sei's crust. And it somehow built up in a saiyajin's, or part-saiyajin's, system until it eventually screwed up or blocked off whatever hormones made tails re-grow. It could still be done, but the older you got, the more dramatic the situation had to be to trigger growth. Old Namek-sei had had even more of it, which explained why no one had re-grown their tails there, despite the fights with Furiza.

Goku wasn't sure that Bulma was right. After all, he'd died twice without getting his tail back, and surely that had been more dramatic than a simple kiss? Although, now that he thought about it, the kiss had probably involved a lot more hormones.

Well, she was the genius. She'd even come up with an antidote of sorts. Vejiita had promptly dosed Trunks with it. When the little prince had gotten his tail back, he'd promptly stolen some of the stuff and given it to Goten, who'd then promptly slipped it into Gohan's breakfast. Chichi had been forced to call Goku and scream over the phone at him that he had to come home RIGHT then to stop Gohan from murdering his brother.

All things considered, life had unfolded pretty smoothly after that. Goku had moved back in with his now ex-wife and their boys, to help keep things quiet between Gohan and Goten. He only trained with Ubuu every other day, which was about as often as he could stand. After the incident with Vejiita, sparring with someone who smelled like pastries when he got pissed off was not only wrong but just freaky.

Chichi was happy enough to have him at home again. The two of them had separated amicably after the Majin Buu episode, having gotten used to living apart. Now both boys were acting up, their normally easy-going natures overcome by the flood of new hormones as their bodies adjusted to their tails, and Goku seemed to have the magic touch as far as calming them down was concerned. Maybe it was the thick furry tail he himself now sported.

Chichi hadn't said anything about that, just raising an eyebrow. She also hadn't said a word about Goku's obviously frayed nerves, or the way he hardly slept at night anymore unless he'd worn himself out training that day. The boys were grouchy and had too much energy, but they weren't preoccupied and freaked out like their father. He wouldn't tell her what was wrong, and for once she let him be.

He hadn't been able to think about much of anything but Vejiita since they'd parted. Vejiita and the feel of his mouth, and of his body pressed against him. Vejiita's heat, and his scent. Why hadn't he just kept kissing him? Why had he freaked out? It was just his tail, after all. Nothing more or less.

Had he wanted to keep kissing Vejiita? What would it have led to? Did he want that? Why couldn't he stop thinking about it?

Training made it worse. Every moment he spent adjusting to his tail, every moment he spent fighting like the saiyajin warrior he was, he could hardly keep from thinking about the prince of all saiyajins. He found himself cursing the useless gods to the point where Kaoisama actually contacted him to see what was wrong.

He turned out to be really shitty at lying, just like everyone had always said. After about a minute and a half, the round god had simply said "Ah. You're in love with Vejiita. Okay, then. Bye!"

Leaving Goku to gape at nothing for an alarmingly long time while that little revelation from on-high kept turning over and over in his mind.

The Christmas party had been a ploy to get him over to Capsule Corp in the company of enough people to make it look like he wasn't going over there just to see Vejiita. Which, of course, he was.

He tried to ignore the licentious prince now, to get his mind on something else, but there seemed to be candy canes all over the damned room. He stared desperately at Chichi, trying to think about how much worse this all could have gone. She'd really been good about the whole tails thing, actually. She was watching Goku and Goten right now, trying hard to look stern even though her eyes were crinkling with amusement.

Chichi really was great.

But not great enough, it turned out.

Slowly, inexorably, and despite the force of a will that had made him perhaps the most powerful being in the universe, his gaze was drawn back to the saiyajin prince. Who probably hadn't been fooled for an instant by the whole Christmas party idea.

Vejiita, barely dressed in a black tank top and black jeans that left almost nothing of his athletic build to the imagination, lounged on the black leather couch like it was a throne. One leg was bent up at the knee while the other was stretched out, and his graceful feet were bare.

Against all that darkness, his lightly bronzed skin seemed golden, and it was hard not to slowly drink it all in, dwelling on each finely sculpted part of him, wondering if it was as soft to the touch as the muscles beneath were hard. A fine, thick tail was draped over his thighs, the end of it flipping back and forth slowly, almost hypnotically. Goku was unable to keep himself from greedily drinking in the whole display.

Arching an elegant brow at his fellow saiyajin, Vejiita ran his tongue slowly up the candy cane again.

Goku felt his entire body flush with remembered heat.

Vejiita flicked his tongue out so the pink tip just barely teased the glistening end of the candy cane.

"Time to face the music, Goten!" Goku said abruptly, shooing the boy out from beneath his legs. The surprised squawk was nearly drowned out by the war-cry of a vengeful princeling. Goku hardly noticed. He couldn't have pried his eyes away from Vejiita if the fate of the planet had depended on it. The prince had said nothing at all yet. He hadn't had to.

A slow lick.

A hard suckle.

Midnight eyes meeting his from under a fan of dusky lashes.

Goku met his prince's darkly burning gaze and got a glimpse of exactly how much trouble he'd gotten himself into. All he could do was shiver.