Welcome to Boxer & Rice

From his position on his back, the snow looked like stars. The full moon glowed behind the clouds and lit every flake as they fell, one by one, by the thousands, filling the empty field he lay in. Years ago in his deep space capsules, he could watch the stars drift by, accompanied by asteroids trailing ice or gas giants that raged with storms and hurricanes hundreds of miles wide, all framed by the capsule's porthole. Protected from the void by that thin sheet of reinforced glass, he watched the universe go by.

A nice change to imagine it coming towards him. They landed on his skin, touched his eyelashes, covered him in reassuring cold. Here there were no feelings, no emotions, just cold and darkness and one or two good memories. So many years and so few memories made. Death and slaughter could be repressed, and the good memories of drifting endlessly blurred after awhile, leaving him only with the worst days on Frieza's ship, the most vivid memories that he didn't want to remember but refused to fade.

Using his left arm for a pillow, Vegeta raised his right hand to the sky as if to catch a star. One of them landed in his palm, a tiny bit of cold before it melted. Another landed on the tip of his finger and he brought it up close to his eyes, studying the crystal patterns for the brief second before it turned to water and vanished, an ice comet traveling too close to a sun.

The wind changed, the snow blew sideways. He smiled; it was as if his ship had changed course. A moment later the wind died down again and he was traveling through the stars once more. Stars passed by endless as he flew in silent darkness, never to reach his destination. If he wanted, he could close his eyes and sleep for a few hours, and wake up to the light of a thousand year old supernova as he passed.

"Vegeta?"

He jerked his head towards the sound. Hoping it was only his imagination, he sighed when he saw Goku standing a few feet away, arms around himself as he shivered. Without a sound, Vegeta looked back at the snow. Was too much to hope for that the other Saiyan would leave? He repressed a grumble as Goku stepped closer.

"Aren't you cold?" Goku asked, looking him over. The prince wore only a sleeveless training outfit and boots, not even gloves. A thin layer of snow covered his body, and his outstretched hand was blue at the edges.

Vegeta noticed his look and followed it to his hand. "Figures," he said, "I've been on this planet so long I'm fading into it."

"Huh?"

For a few seconds Vegeta considered insulting Goku, but he let it go. He could hardly blame the idiot for not reading his mind. He closed his eyes and let the snow begin to gather on his face. "This whole damn planet's blue. The oceans, the sky, the mountains, everything."

"But it's not blue now," Goku said, even though he wondered why the color mattered at all. "The sky's black."

"Why do you think I'm out here?" Vegeta snapped.

"I dunno," Goku said. "I thought you might be trying to freeze to death."

No answer. Vegeta opened his eyes again, looking back at the sky through a couple of snowflakes that had landed on his eyelashes. Maybe the idiot was right. He couldn't feel his hands anymore. Or his legs, now that he thought about it. All the feeling was leaving his body.

"Won't you come home?"

Would he never leave? Vegeta glanced sideways at him. Goku's face, so often twisted in that grotesque grin, was serious, eyes wide open, mouth slightly parted in confusion. At least he hadn't powered up and burned the falling snow away.

"It'll take more than a few snowflakes to kill me."

"There's more than a few--" Goku started, then broke off. Vegeta wasn't listening. He considered transmitting him out of the snow back to Capsule Corp, but he didn't think Vegeta would like that. And it wouldn't stop him from coming out here again. With a sigh, he flopped backwards in the snow beside him, sinking a few inches until his back touched the earth.

Vegeta glanced at him without moving. "What are you doing?"

"Just laying down," Goku said. He stared at the sky, the grey outlines of black clouds, moonlight diffused to a pale glow, and snowflakes pouring out of a hole torn in the sky. "Pretty." No reply, but he hadn't expected one. "It's kinda like milk spilling. Like the Milky Way broke open."

"Milk what?"

"Milky Way." Goku glanced over at him. "That's the galaxy's name."

"Mm." Vegeta lowered his hand into the snow. Instead of stinging ice, it felt like cushioning air. The falling snow looked nothing like milk to him. "Ka'ul."

"Huh?"

"The galaxy is called Ka'ul, the great serpent," he said, sounding like he was repeating something he'd been told several times. "The stretch of stars you see every night is his first breath, frozen to us."

"Oh. Is that what all Saiyans believed?"

A half-shrug, meaning Vegeta wasn't going to talk about it anymore. He was lucky to get even that bit of information; Vegeta so rarely spoke of his past. Instead of laying back down, Goku watched the snowflakes settle on his companion's face, lining his eyelashes like diamonds. He wondered how the prince could lay so still when he was shivering and wanted to go home to a big blanket and hot chocolate.

"Aren't you cold?" he repeated.

Vegeta considered. "Not anymore." He saw Goku's startled face and laughed. "You think I want to freeze to death, don't you?"

"Well..."

"Kakarrot, you've been in space. Didn't you ever look out the portholes?"

"Huh?" Now there was a subject shift, what did space have to do with snow? "Not really. I was busy training. And besides, there wasn't much to look at."

The prince turned to face him. "You never watched comets strike a planet? Or watched a nebula warp as you went through?"

There was such a longing in Vegeta's eyes that Goku wanted to say that of course he'd watched the galaxy, that he'd looked out of the portholes for hours at a time. That he hadn't thought the unchanging space dotted with identical stars was boring. That nebulas hadn't been more than dust clouds. He lowered his head. "I never saw anything like that."

Vegeta looked away again, staring intently at the snowfall. Most of his body was now layered in white ice, burying him in substitute falling stars. "Maybe it's different in deep space," he said, in a low, flat voice. "This is the longest I've ever been on a planet."

He sounded so lifeless that Goku winced. "Do you hate it here?"

Above them, the clouds parted slightly, allowing moonlight and real stars to shine. The blizzard was beginning to break up, turning into a storm more of slush than snow. Lightning flashed across the sky, and the illusion finally broke as endless space turned into grey clouds, falling stars turned into rain.

"There's nothing to hate," Vegeta whispered. "The planet never changes. It's blue and static. At least in space I could see stars born, or planets die. I watched stars explode and trickle into black holes." He put his hand back up towards the sky, and cold water slipped through his fingers like cold rivers. "And now I only see them at night."

Goku almost asked if he wanted to go back, but he knew the answer. There was nothing for him to go back to. If he could have given Vegeta what he wanted...but it was impossible to give him a past even the prince hardly knew. Vegetasei was gone. Space was useless. The world was one crushing shade of blue. He couldn't hope to change that even with a dragon's wish.

He grasped Vegeta's hand, warming the cold skin. There was no resistance. "Please," he said, "it's freezing. Let's go home."

Unconsciously Vegeta tightened his fingers. Falling snow was as close as he would ever get to cold space. Kakarrot was as close as he would ever get to home. Vegeta shrugged and closed his eyes. It no longer mattered. The snow was gone anyway.

A second later they disappeared as Goku teleported them away, leaving behind the ice and wind and their vague outlines in the snow. The blizzard turned completely to rain and melted the fallen snow until their shapes vanished into the grass. As the clouds rained themselves out, the stars expanded to fill the sky, a field of glittering ice millions of miles away.

End