Prologue | By : Herpb4uDerp Category: Missing Data > Missing Data Views: 194 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
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The sun is starting to come up and his father, who is sleeping on the grass, looked almost back to normal after finally agreeing to eat a senzu bean and crying himself to exhaustion. Goten wasn't able to get any more out of him, but settled on the fact that this was a victory for them both. Even if his father didn't realize it.
Although it bothers him Vegeta is still in the desert. What kind of training could he possibly be doing right now? It didn’t even feel like he was training. Vegeta felt like he was… sleeping? ... He grumbles internally that it would be impossible for him to approach Vegeta today without drawing his father's attention. Maybe for a few days. He would need to come up with a distraction before seeing how the Prince of anger management issues was coping with the realization that Kakarot just wasn’t going to do it for him anymore.
He nudges his father, "Dad, hey dad." Goku slowly opens his eyes. "We should go home."
"I wanna... spar." he says sleepily, the edges of his dream still threading their way through his words.
"No. I really don't think you do. Let's go home."
He is unusually quiet as he gets up and teleports Goten back to his brother's house and doesn't say a word before disappearing to mount Paozu.
Well, hopefully I don't need to worry about him doing something rash after...that. Then again... I must get it from somewhere. He brushes the thought aside and walks inside.
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Trunks fell asleep in the labs and woke up looking at a stack of papers. It took much longer than his sister had said it would, but the damn thing was finally off. Probably forever. Though he'd have to remember to keep a close eye on equipment orders for the next few weeks because he didn't miss his father's quiet mention that he would in fact try to fix the Gravity chamber. Trunks has just woken up and already finds himself biting the inside of his cheek from worry. There's NO way I'm going to let him buy bullets for the gun he just shot himself in the foot with.
They had finished around midnight and his father wandered off sometime after that while he stayed down in the labs to try and catch up on work. Not that he had any luck. It had been a long quiet day in front of a screen and the little sleep he'd gotten the night before only added to his fatigue.
He hadn't even tried to ask about why they were in this situation to begin with. Although he did learn the language his father wrote in was not Saiyan, it was some form of galactic standard that was used widely on the black market. So, that was something.
The Sun is barely up as he lifts his head from the desk. There are lines all over his face and he pulls a paper clip off his cheek as he gets up and makes his way upstairs. Something feels off. He makes it all the way to the kitchen before he figures out what's wrong. He takes his hand off the fridge handle and starts walking, then running towards the other side of the compound.
He stands in front of his father's door. He doesn't know why he bothers knocking, he knows there's no one there. His ki is no where inside Capsule Corp. It wasn't even in West City. Normally, that wouldn't panic him. But after yesterday…
"Where the f-" He bolts to the nearest exit and takes off.
When he finally spots his father, he can't suppress the noise of shock and he lands a little harder than he means causing the full Saiyan laying on the hot sandy ground to finally stir.
After a long night of sleep that offered no rest Vegeta finally gains the strength to crack his eyes open and finds himself staring up at purple.
Fuck.
"Dad, da-" Trunks kneels down and puts his hand on his shoulder which Vegeta quickly shrugs off as he sits up.
"I'm fine." he gruffs before glaring at his son. "What are you doing here?"
"What am I- what are YOU doing here!? We're-" Trunks looks around at the wasteland and gestures, "we're in the middle of fucking nowhere! What the hel-"
Vegeta growls and struggles to his feet. "Training."
"Train?! Tr- what?! No you weren't. You were knocked the fuck out! Dad-" Trunks reaches for his father's face, "what the- were you in a fight? With who-"
Vegeta grips his son's wrist and throws it away from him. "No."
He scoffs in disbelief, "Then what were you doing? ... You haven't trained out here in YEARS. Not since-"
"Since what?!" He snips defensively. Trunks diverts his gaze from his father and stays silent. "The machine is broken, where else was I supposed to go?"
Trunks shakes his head in angry disbelief, "Because YOU broke it!"
"It needs an upgrade." He mutters.
"No, no! It doesn't need an upgrade! You think I don't know the difference between a stray blast and sabotage? Kami, I can't believe the shit you say sometimes! That is not- Dad, it took DAYS just to shut it-!" His words drop off as his father staggers slightly in front of him but catches himself, "What... are you doing out here?"
"None of your fuckin' business, brat-" He says as his head begins to drop towards his chest and his eyes struggle to stay open.
"Wrong!" Kami, you and Goten are just alike sometimes, no wonder you two hate each other! "You... are wrong. You haven't eaten, you haven't slept... properly at least, Kami, what you did with the gravity room was-" he sighs, "un-fucking-believable is what it was. I had to call Bra back from school to help me and Goku er- Kakarot? of all fucking people was the one who dragged you out of there! I-What... the fuck is going on?"
The mention of Goku's name pulls his attention from a dreamless darkness and he stares wide eyed at his son. His brain is still hazy and his only thought at the moment is Trunks has that same look of concern that Bulma would get in the very beginning when he first knew her, when he still obsessed over power, before he realized there were other things worth fighting for. Seeing it now on his son breaks him just a little more. He thinks, his children really are beautiful and brilliant; both of them, like her. Sometimes he doesn't understand how they could be his children, they were so much more like his dead wife it hurt.
Vegeta silently wishes he didn't keep breaking everything he cared about. He asks himself why couldn't seem to get this right; this simple life without bloodshed and horror. He wonders why dealing with the people close to him was so much harder than dealing with his enemies. He thinks, today would have been easier if it had been Goten who showed up. Blood. He could do that easily. He would find the energy to kill him. It didn't matter, Kakarot couldn't hate him more, he was sure of it.
But now, looking at that expression, those familiar blue eyes, he feels too exhausted to be angry with his son for asking questions he didn't want to answer. He’s too exhausted to stay angry with himself over last night, over the last fifteen years; too exhausted to find reasons to keep his regrets bottled up and he finds himself answering honestly for once.
"...I made... a mistake. ... I was... weak." It is a relief to admit it out loud, even though it is not to the person who needs to hear it.
His son breaks the long silence that follows his odd admission, "What.... is that supposed to mean?"
Vegeta's vision begins to blur from the heat, the lack of food, the lack of water, and he stumbles forward before he can say more.
"Dad?" Trunks catches him and holds him by his shoulders, "Dad? wh- damn, you are fucked up." He says now completely supporting him.
Vegeta follows up with something that is incomprehensible other than the word, 'Kakarot' and loses consciousness again. Twice on their way home Vegeta wakes up, struggles against his son, succeeds and makes it a few meters before free falling to the ground. Trunks manages to catch him of course, but not without sweating a few buckets of regret over his decision to always skip training for work, women, drinking and just about anything else that caught his attention.
When he walks in with his father he is met by the scrutinizing gaze of his sister. She is standing at the top of the stairs looking her always drop dead gorgeous self despite the frizzy blue mass of hair standing on end and mismatched pajamas. She has a toothbrush still in her mouth, make up still streaking down her face and has been awake for about twelve minutes. Which as it turns out, was enough time for her to realize that her brother and father were not out just getting groceries and liquor.
Her feet tap on the cool laminate as she walks up to them. She places her hand on her father's face and turns it revealing the mild bruising on his jaw and temple. Her bright curious eyes flick up towards her brother's, "He didn't do that to himself." She walks away back down the hall towards the bathroom and finishes brushing.
He knew it was true before his sister said anything, but hearing it reconfirmed by someone else wasn't helping his nerves at the moment. Trunks closes his eyes momentarily and takes a breath before getting his father up the stairs and onto his unmade bed without further incident.
When he returns back downstairs his sister is sitting at the kitchen table with two cups of coffee, or rather, one cup of coffee and one cup of milk and sugar with less than a splash of coffee in it. She stares at her brother with furrowed brows. "Where did you find him?”
“The wasteland. He looked… awful, B. I’ve never- I mean- he hasn’t done this kinda shit since mom passed. What the hell. I just- and you shoulda seen him! He-”
“Ok, slow down. What happened?"
"That’s the fuckin’ question of the century, isn’t it?! I- I don't know. I woke up, noticed he'd left and... after yesterday... I went to go find him. He was in the middle of fucking nowhere unconscious, or sleeping, I don't know it- he woke up for a few minutes but... Fuck, he's... really sick or... something I don't- I almost took him to a hospital- I still might."
"Really, Trunks?" She interrupts with an irritated click of the tongue, "Because that's what we need right now. Our unstable alien father waking up in a hospital only to pitch a very expensive bitch fit about the inadequacies of human medicine.” she shakes her head.
“He’s sick, B. Something's wrong! I had to literally carry him home. At least in a hospital he’d-”
"He'd what?"
"I-"
"Stop being dumb. You’ve literally OD’d enough times to know a hospital wouldn't do him any good. Like, how many times have you and 'Ten ended up in the ER with the doctors just scratching their heads at your fucked up anatomies?" Her brother sighs and buries his face into his hands, "Exactly. The only good thing that ever comes out of a Saiyan at a hospital are the conspiracy theories about super soldier projects."
"Or the alien ones." He mumbles.
"Well, those aren't theories, are they? And they are very expensive to cover up."
He can't help the momentary smirk before resuming his tired expression, "We have to do something ourselves then. We can’t just- I don’t know. We have all of Capsule Corp at our disposal. We both have doctorates-”
“Not in medicine.” She stresses.
“But-”
“Let me put it this way, I’m not gonna be the one he wakes up to running a bunch of tests on him to see what’s wrong. I’m pretty sure he never even let mom do that.”
“Fine! Fine." He sighs in exasperation, "Well, we have to do something, because I can't keep chasing his ass all over the planet every time he decides to have a nervous breakdown. Not at the rate he's having them! We need to get him help or- or something!"
She shrugs and pulls out her phone, "Oh, right, 'help.' Let me pull up my list of xeno-psychologists with a specialty in reformed alien mass murders. That'll fix him!"
He rolls his eyes, "That's not-"
"Trunks! Yes, he needs serious help, probably has for a long time, but I don't know anyone capable of doing 'talk therapy' with the Prince of goddamn Saiyans! Do you? Don't be ridiculous!" She downs the rest of her nearly cold coffee, "'Help.'" she says in mock, "Where the fuck do you even-"
"Then what!? What do you want me to do, because this!" he points upstairs, "I can not do this every fucking day. I have a company to run and fuck-! More importantly, he is our father! and as impossibly stubborn as he can be, I'm not going to standby and watch him destroy himself over some petty bullshit rivalry or- or whatever it is he has with Goten's dad!"
"I know! I know, Trunks! I-” petty rivalry? “...wait, did he say anything? When you found him?”
"Kind of? He was really out of it. Said he made a mistake and then I don't know, some other shit I couldn't understand… And… ‘Kakarot.’ Who is clearly-”
"A problem." He looks up startled at his sister. "I know. Both him and ‘Ten are."
“Well, what’s-his-mcfuckin’-disappearing-face was here yesterday. He’s gotta know what’s going on, I mean- you ask me it’s pretty fuckin’ suspicious that he just-”
“No. No. I really don’t think Goku did this, he’s-” in love with papa, “kind of an idiot.”
“Well, as you pointed out earlier he didn’t do that to himself."
“No… He definitely did not.”
"And I really think- ...."
Her brother continues talking while her eyes shift toward the gloomy weather present in the window. She purses her lips while she thinks Trunks is right. For once. It must have been Goku. For better or worse she had pretty much given that giant idiot the green light to do... whatever it was he thought he needed to do to make things right, which was apparently try to solve his issues the big dumb Saiyan way and fight it out. Uhg, really, Goku!? You fought him? AGAIN? After I helped you?! Maybe you are stupid because you are certainly not helping! And I swear if your dumb son is right about you, I will lose my mind because I hate when he's right!
“...and isn’t dad like a metric fuck ton stronger than him too? It doesn't make any sense why would he-…”
She considers that although this was hardly ideal, their father wearing himself down to unconsciousness again, in a fight no less, it was very likely not a worst case scenario. Goku had probably lost the fight (or they’d be dealing with a very different situation.) and it was more than likely her father had been the one who started it. Her father was just usually that guy.
“...I mean something just doesn’t add up here, if they did fight then why-”
So although she is royally pissed she holds off on rashly seeking Goku out and making him disappear by her own methods. I think we need to sit down and have another heart to heart, Goku. The trouble was... how was she supposed to get to that big dummy again without drawing 'Ten's violent ire. Goten made it abundantly clear yesterday who the real danger was in all of this. It was not hard to see that whatever he wanted out of the whole fucked situation was something far less innocent than a fight. (And he calls ME the deviant.) She was still trying to figure out what the hell to do what that information.
Trunks waves his hand in front of her face, "Hey, sis, planet Earth is calling-"
She bats his hand away, "yeah, I know, I was ignoring it. I had more important planets on the line."
He snorts. "Yeah? And?"
She blows a defeated huff of air toward her brother. He tilts his head sympathetically letting her know he felt the same way.
I literally can't even believe you're best friends with the world’s biggest psyco- Her eyes suddenly light up.
“What?”
“I have an idea!”
He looks doubtfully at his sister, “......I’m not going to like this, am I-”
“Ok, so you know how you and ‘Ten are like, the best of friends? Ever? That he trusts you implicitly? Maybe the only person he's ever trusted? Because you've literally never let him down? Because you've supported him financially and emotionally for almost twenty years? Because you're the only person who has day after day found the energy to put up with his insane amount of psychological problems-”
"B...." he groans.
“Hear me out. It's totally legal this time, I swear- I mean like, mostly- it depends if we want to use some really cool technology I've been cooking up-" she says with a broad excited smile.
"No- B, you're not- No. No, no, just, no- Are you still working with that shit? I told you stop or I'd pull all your projects. If you think I'm not serious, I swear-"
She shakes her head innocently as he scowls at her with as much disapproval as he can muster.
"This is why you're not on the board." he mutters.
"I'm not on the board because I don't want to be. It's BORING." She huffs and knocks over her empty coffee cup, then incinerates it. "I’m not saying we should torture him and Goku for information (I mean, we totally could, if you wanted) I’m just saying those two seem to know more about all this bullshit than we do."
There is quirk in his lip, because while he'd never admit it, he always appreciated his sister's ability to keep her dark humor in darker times. However, he also knew better than to take her jokes lightly. He presses his finger tips together and leans his face into the space between his thumbs and index fingers. "Ok… go on...."
"Oh, Good! You're not completely opposed to my idea! That's really great, because I need your help with Goten-"
"No, B, that is definitely not what I said-" He is now running his fingers through his hair, "I'm not going to let you hurt 'Ten. Or Goku, Ok? We need to-"
"Obviously, Trunks..." she lets out an exaggerated sigh, "I had no intentions of hurting them. Don't be so crude. My methods really aren't as terrible as everyone makes them out to be, if you'd just listen-"
He looks at her with a raised brow. "Not as- Is that so?"
"It is." She says with a smirk inherited straight from her father.
He closes his eyes and presses his face back into palms exuding a deep sigh, "Fine, I'll bite. What's your plan?"
She smiles. Trunks was a good brother. He would always help his little sister before he helped Goten.
"bBfore I tell you I need your sworn secrecy as my favorite" he looks at her doubtfully, "my only brother, that you won't say a word about this to 'Ten, ok? He and I... we're not on good terms right now."
Me neither... "Have you ever been?"
She pauses with a confused look before letting out a strange laugh. It comes out a little too loud and too fast to be out of humor and sounds more like it had been caught part way between nervousness and pure crazy. He used to think he had been the more Saiyan out of the two of them, but every now and then she did something that unsettled him to such a degree he was left without a doubt that she was more alien.
"Are you going to promise or not?" She says with an uncomfortable edge still lingering in her voice.
He rolls his eyes and draws an 'x' across his chest, "On our mother's grave I won't breathe a word, good enough?"
She nods.
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It is edging on evening and Goten is finishing his fourth bottle of liquor at a dimly lit bar since drinking at home around his puritanical brother was never any fun these days. Biggest. Buzzkill. Ever. I disappear ONE TIME and suddenly I'm the household liability he has to constantly watch and lecture, not Pan, who is always gone to who knows where until who knows when.
He scrolls through his texts again but there is nothing new. He finally decides with satisfaction that everything and everyone was falling into the places they needed to be and there was nothing else to be done today.
He leans back against his chair with a cold drink in hand while a tall handsome dark-eyed man leans over him and tries to convince Goten why he's the one tonight. And although Goten had more or less sworn off humans he has to admit he's enjoying the attention. Maybe I could make an exception. After all, it had been a while and who knows when Vegeta would want that rebound. He ignores the idle thought in the back of his head that control was still a lingering issue, especially if he was drunk. Especially if he didn't care.
He's about to say something back in a warm dark liquor stained voice that had never failed him before until the sudden appearance of another Saiyan's energy snatches his attention. He and the man scramble back in surprise.
"Ah!! Da-?! What-?!"
"Goten?"
"What! Are you doing here?!"
"Holy shit! Where the hell did he come from?!" The human looks from Goten, to the man who has just appeared, then back again, "...is that your twin?! Wait...is this a tag team offer? ‘Cause-" He smiles and looks back at Goku, “I might be intere-”
"He's not- no! FUCK no!" He glares at the human then at the very out of place shirtless Saiyan who is looking around in bewilderment.
“Wow… Where are w-”
Goten finishes his drink, stands up, and yanks his father’s arm and pulls him out of the bar.
On his way out, Goku looks curiously at every bright colorful unusual clothing choice around him. He was a little too startled by his surroundings to focus so he couldn't be sure, but he thinks nearly everyone there was male.
When they reach the outside Goten roughly shoves his father toward the brick wall, "The fuck!? Dad! You can't just teleport to whoever you want, whenever you want!” Goku opens his mouth to utter an apology but never gets the chance, “Did it ever occur to you that I might be busy? Kami, what if I'd been- ahg! What the hell? Why are you here?"
It honestly had occurred to Goku that he might be interrupting because he usually was, but he was also used to it so he didn't think much of his son's admonishments because of the situation he was currently in. He distracts himself for a moment and continues looking around at all the various people outside the bar smoking cigarettes, casually chatting. He sees two making out or, wait, no, they're- He suddenly turns his gaze away, embarrassed. "I just... wanted to talk to you."
"Dad, it is eleven o' clock at night and" His face scrunches in disbelief, "look, I get that you had a really rough night last night, but you know your phone works twenty four seven, right?"
"Yeah, of course I know that-"
"Then use it! Instead of giving my happy ass a heart attack in the middle of the night!" His father's dejected look reels in his temper and he can't stop himself from asking with a defeated sigh, "What could you possibly need to come and talk to me about so badly that it couldn't wait until tomorrow?"
"I... uh, I left Chi Chi." He smiles weakly.
His inebriated mind suddenly felt a lot more sober. “You-” His jaw hesitates to form words, "You what?"
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I've got a terrible penchant for cliff hangers. I love them. Every chapter where possible, really, I try my best to just leave ya'll hangin'. It's a problem. But this one. This one is my favorite.
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