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Atavism	By : ctsama Category: Dragon Ball Z > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 9193 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball Super, Resurrection 'F', or Battle of Gods or the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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An Element of Blank II

Vegeta fought the urge to pull at his high-necked sweater uncomfortably. It was almost cool enough to get away with it without any questions, but the damned thing was itchy.

At first the sheer size of the new house had dismayed him at first, but since there seemed to be so many people in it so often he’d grown to appreciate it.

Whis happily finished his black truffle butter-laden french bread and moved on to one of the delicate lemon cakes Vegeta had picked up for him earlier that morning. So far the exotic treats he’d collected for the intergalactic foodie had kept him distracted. Piccolo wasn’t so easily bought, though. Vegeta could feel that shrewd gaze on him from time to time and more than once Vegeta checked his movements, making sure he was giving away no outward signs of pain or distress.

As angry as he was with himself for so carelessly involving Gohan Vegeta couldn’t deny that his input had been valuable. He’d sparked a couple of new ideas, the best of which was centered around their newly discovered kin. Bonds were common to them; surely they had healers who dealt with them. Though he wasn’t willing to confide in anyone else, he was reasonably sure he could learn whatever he needed from Cabba without giving away his problems with Goku.

Gohan had also been blessedly correct about his own scent setting off Goku’s blind, possessive rages. He’d calmed down much more quickly yesterday than he had before. Vegeta grimaced at the thought. ‘Why didn’t I see that myself? I shouldn’t need anyone else’s help to handle my own mate!’

He at least had a starting point now, and time to pursue it. Gohan could train without him for a while, long enough to let Goku cool off and in that time he could find a way through this.

Vegeta shook himself out of his thoughts, remembering that he had to keep the morning’s conversation on topic. He caught Whis and Piccolo up on Cabba’s progress and what he’d learned about the Saiyans of their twin universe.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Goku to finish his shower before we discuss the next steps?” Whis asked, already eyeballing the assembled treats for his next victim. “I wouldn’t want him to feel we’re making decisions without him.”

“I seriously doubt he’ll mind. Besides, do you really want competition for all this food?” Vegeta scoffed.

Whis eyed the treats possessively. “Ah, good point as always. You were saying?”

“Right. These other Saiyans seem to have fewer survival traits than we do. They get stronger after nearly dying, but not to the extent that we do. No tails, not as strong as my people were either. I guess that’s the tradeoff for having had an easier time of things. But they’re still a force to be reckoned with; they are something of a mercenary race, but they only work for good or righteous causes. It’s all very… Noble. Kakarot loves it.”

“What about planet shopping?” Piccolo mused. “Maybe it’s a little early with kids being so young, but the sooner we find one the better. This king of theirs may not be willing to give up his people if they won’t be going to a homeworld of their own.”

Vegeta’s eyebrow raised, a slight smile in his voice. “‘We?’”

Piccolo scratched his chin, looking away to cover his embarrassment. “...Yeah. We. But no more of this ‘home above the clouds’ stuff, I want to be on the ground. And I don’t care how hot your people like it. If you don’t find me a place that has good, cold water you can get yourself another Guardian!”

The amount of relief Vegeta felt took him by surprise. Though he’d left his friend an out in saying he could find someone else, in truth he couldn’t come up with one other soul he trusted to watch over his people. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. After he cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably Piccolo took pity on him.

“You’re welcome, idiot prince,” he smirked.

“I can think of a few possibilities for a new Saiyan homeworld. After all, there’s no dearth of good planets empty of life here,” Whis added helpfully. “Well then, we have a Guardian, potential homeworlds and colonists… All we need now is to decide how to negotiate with an established king.”

Piccolo snorted. “Right. Got any ideas about that, oh lowly Prince Vegeta? Does Cabba know who you really are yet?”

Vegeta glared hard at Piccolo and the undesired question. “No. I haven’t told him. I wanted information, not his deference.”

Piccolo put a hand to Vegeta’s forehead, looking at Whis in concern. “I think he’s sick.”

“Shove it up your ass Green Man,” Vegeta growled, smacking it away while Whis laughed.

“More importantly, have you told Goku?” Piccolo asked.

Whis’ eyes widened in gleeful curiosity. “Told him what?”

“‘Told him’ nothing! And you, Big Green Loudmouth, keep your trap shut!”

Goku chose that moment to descend the stairs, toweling his hair and Vegeta groaned, ready to repeatedly slam his head into something hard if it would spare him this conversation. They were having enough problems right now without adding this into the mix. “Told me what? Vegeta?”

“Nothing! You people are driving me crazy! Now as I was saying-”

“Vegeta,” Goku said warningly. “You know I can pull it out of you. You might as well just tell me.”

“Whoops! Time to go!” Whis said brightly, scooping up an armful of unsampled treats before reaching out to touch Piccolo’s shoulder. In wholehearted agreement Piccolo had them out of there in a blink.

In the sudden silence Vegeta took a deep breath. “It’s nothing, Kakarot. They’re just being idiots.”

Goku’s guilty look at that stopped him. “I know what I said, but… I can’t hear you very well lately… maybe because there’s so much on your mind. I miss being able to hear you loud and clear. Maybe if you talk to me it’ll get better?”

At last Vegeta knew that Goku had at least noticed a problem, and what he was telling himself about it. He swallowed bitter laughter at the thought that his silence was the problem. But since his fumbling attempts to reconcile father and son weren’t working, in a way he truly was the one at fault. Goku was watching him hopefully, and he’d owed the man this conversation for quite a while now.

Too tired to have the conversation standing Vegeta dropped heavily onto the couch. It seemed like a lifetime ago that Goku would have sat next to him, taken his inventory and demanded he have a meal and a nap in a warm embrace before talking about anything serious.

Now though, Goku simply watched him from a chair opposite, smiling though Vegeta didn’t know if it was real or not because he couldn’t feel anything behind it.

A lifetime. A week. Did it matter how long it had been? Time was relative.

With a shudder Vegeta looked away from beloved eyes that he could no longer read.

“I haven’t told you or anyone about a run-in I had with my father as a child. At birth my power level was higher than my father’s, and he was one of the greatest warriors our people had ever known. He took a personal interest in overseeing my training since no one else was a match for me. One day in the training arena he got angry with me for not blocking attacks properly. His solution was to send everyone away, and he just hammered me with energy attacks. My father was a firm believer in the teaching power of pain, as you know. It was nothing new, but for some reason he lost control with me that day. There was too much power in his attacks, far too much for even his idea of training.

“Well, whatever he meant to do, it backfired. I took it for as long as I could and then I got angry, really angry. I didn’t just block the attacks, I reflected them right back at him. Once he recovered he was… enraged. I’d never fought back before that day. He sent everyone out of the room and… he attacked me in earnest.”

At first Goku was horrified that a grown man would attack a child so young, but Planet Vegeta’s ways were harsh to him, and Vegeta hadn’t been just any child. His strength had been abnormal even as a baby. “You… won. You had to have beaten him.”

“I stomped his ass all over that training arena,” Vegeta chuckled darkly, still enjoying the memory after all that time. “Imagine it. The King of All Saiyans, getting pulverized by his three-year-old son. He… didn’t find the same humor in it that I did. By the time I calmed down he was near death and we both knew he wouldn’t survive without medical intervention. He made me clear the halls and the med bay of all save one doctor, and he killed the doctor after he was treated to preserve the ideal of the Invincible King.”

Goku didn’t think he’d ever get used the the matter-of-factness with which Vegeta spoke of these terrible things. But… “Wait… you said, ‘To be the King, you must defeat the King.’ That’s how power moved from one king to the next.”

Vegeta took a deep breath before continuing. “That’s right.”

“I don’t understand. You said technically you never gained the title-”

“Which was true. There’s an official ceremony I never went through, proving my worthiness to my people. It’s mostly a recitation of battle victories and conquests.”

It was Goku’s turn to snort. “If you haven’t done enough to prove your worthiness to your people by now, you never will. So… that means you are King. King Vegeta… the Second?” He laughed in unabashed amusement. “Hey, why aren’t I king? I beat you a bunch of times!”

Outrage overruled everything else Vegeta was feeling for just a moment. “That was when we were training! You have never beaten me in a serious one-on-one fight to the finish!”

Goku opened his mouth and closed it a few times, trying to find a loophole and failing. “Darn,” he sighed. “I guess that means you get to be the highest and mightiest then!” Vegeta looked away from him, and Goku was confused at the regret he’d seen in Vegeta’s eyes. “I don’t understand. Why is this bad? Vegeta… you’re a King!”

“It’s bad because of what it will mean. Before now, it wouldn’t have mattered; what is a king to a dying race? I was content to let sleeping dogs lie. But if I can reestablish a few traditions these new Saiyans can relate to, it will help in our dealings with them. Their child-bearers are powerful in their own right, but they aren’t rulers and they aren’t fighters. The last thing I need is for them to question my authority simply because I can throw children. I will be able to do more for our children as King than as a prince or a warrior or even a child-bearer. For this to work I will have to assume that title and all that goes with it.”

“Oh,” Goku said, beginning to understand. He was mate not only to a male child-bearer, but to a king. “So what does that make me?”

“I have to go by these new Saiyans for that since they regularly mate and my people had no mated monarchs that I can find in the records. The title is King’s Consort, but it’s more than that. You would have authority equal to mine, able - and expected - to command any of our people without question upon pain of death. The questions of state that you might have to deal with may not allow you to be friends with everyone, at least not right away. These new Saiyans… From what Cabba tells me his king is going to expect a certain level of protocol and you’re going to fucking hate it. Hell, you hid out for a whole day just to avoid Whis when he wanted us to try on that getup that the destruction gods wear! Ceremony doesn’t suit you, and they will need to see both a Saiyan King in me, and a King’s Consort in you.”

As he spoke Vegeta could feel that swirling anger that was so wrong in his carefree mate, and yet so familiar lately. “So. I’m not proper enough, for you or for them. How else am I unsuited to be your mate, Vegeta?” he asked bitterly.

Vegeta didn’t bother to mention that he’d never said any such thing. Goku was too angry and hurt to hear him anyway. He continued after a deep, steadying breath. “From what Cabba says his King is in a power struggle with some of his Generals. How do we decide who to support? If not the King, how do we do so without destabilizing their power structure?”

“I… I don’t know, I guess it would depend on who’s the better person...”

Vegeta snorted. “My father was a shitty person but an effective ruler. What if the better person isn’t the better King, and the people suffer for it? What then?” Vegeta countered. Frustrated, Goku stalked across the room away from him and Vegeta felt the distance keenly.

“These concerns, these worries… they’re not you Kakarot. While it’s unlikely we’d be separated, I don’t want to put you in a position where you might be expected to deal with these issues alone. That’s not a responsibility you would desire or enjoy having.”

“I get it, Vegeta. You don’t think I can handle making difficult decisions like that, or that I’d make the wrong one. You really do think I’m an idiot, don’t you?!”

Vegeta couldn’t muster the anger to answer in kind. All he’d wanted was to spare Goku pain, and now he was bringing that pain to his doorstep.

“Not at all. I want nothing more, but we both know you still see yourself as an Earthling first. As much as that pisses me off sometimes, I’ve come to accept it. The Harpy made the mistake of demanding that you be something you aren’t. I will not push you away as well by making the same mistake. I would rather go this alone than ask you to be anything but yourself.”

Anger deflected the regret, the care for his well-being that Goku would have heard at any other time. He hated it, hated how the rage weighed on him and took him over, making him no more than a conduit for it. And try as he might he couldn’t shed it, nor could he make it work for him outside of a fight the way Vegeta could. In fact, the harder he tried to control it, the more ferocious it became.

And it refused to let up until it spent itself.

“You said you wouldn’t separate us again Vegeta. Didn’t that mean anything to you?” he demanded bitterly.

Vegeta’s eyes narrowed and he pushed himself to his feet in sudden indignation. “It meant everything to me, damn it! I’m not telling you to stay here, I’m trying to give you a choice. This would be far simpler if I didn’t care about your comfort. I can command, but you… you change people, make them love you. I’m trying not to be selfish, you asshole! You know I never had choices, not in my birth, or what was done to me because of it. I am only trying to do better by you and if you want to lie to yourself and be pissed at me for that, go right ahead!”

“Oh, I’m pissed off about more than just that, Vegeta! We were friends before we were mated. You could have told me a long time ago that you were more than a prince!”

“It didn’t matter then! Why dredge up the past-”

“Did you forget what started all this? You told Piccolo!” Goku accused.

“Not exactly,” Vegeta hedged, unused to being on the defensive and hating every second of it. “He asked me one day and I answered, just as I would have done if you’d ever asked!”

Goku snorted, turning his back. The true source of his quick and vicious temper reared its ugly head and he was so angry he took aim and let it fly. “Piccolo isn’t the only one who knows more about you than I do,” he spat bitterly.

“Kakarot,” Vegeta growled through gritted teeth, not ready for the turn things were about to take. He needed time to talk to Cabba, time to heal and regain some of his strength… “Don’t do this right now, not now. Don’t you fucking dare-”

“Why the hell not?! Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to sit here while you’re with him, feeling what you do after everything he did to you, to us?! I think you even look forward to seeing him now, you enjoy being with him! Is this something you talk to Gohan about when you go see him, King Vegeta? What else are you hiding from me? What else are you doing with him!?”

It only took Goku a few seconds to realize what he’d said, his bout of sullen pique momentarily driven back by pure panic. But it was too late to take the words back. He spun around with an apology on his tongue but it died there at the stricken look on Vegeta’s face. Even more alarming was the quickness with which that look slid from his face to make room not for the pissed-off scowl that should have followed, but instead… nothing. With Vegeta, bluster and fury were the norm. His rages came and passed equally easily. It was this lack of response, this shutdown of his emotions that signaled real pain.

“You’d know what we did and what we talked about if you ever came with me like I wanted. And since you seem to have forgotten why he knows me so very well-”

“Vegeta no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I don’t know why I said that-” He reached out for his mate but a flare of power erupted around Vegeta, knocking his hands away before he could make contact. Goku stared in wide-eyed disbelief, only to flinch back further when Vegeta just continued where he left off, just as though there had been no interruption.

“-allow me to refresh your memory. While I was lying on the ground with his cock ramming my ass raw and his teeth still tearing into my neck I… I thought of… you. That was strange. It didn’t matter who was fucking me, I’d never tried to leave what was happening to me before, did you know that?”

Goku moaned, a wordless denial but Vegeta kept talking.

“Anyway, that’s what made Gohan put it all together. He felt me thinking about you and he didn’t appreciate my wandering attention. So he shoved himself into my mind as well. He discovered our bond before either of us even knew it was there and then he… he used it to rip you away from me. Then he used it to invade my mind. It was the worst rape I’ve ever survived. Everything I knew, everything I was… he took it all from me.”

There were no tears, just the weight of that moment, of learning his feelings for his fellow warrior had a basis, and - miracle of miracles - might actually be returned… only to have it all stripped away in the next instant.

“So yes, he knew that I could claim the title of ‘King.’ He’s never asked me about it, probably because he knew I didn’t want to talk about it. And no, I’ve never discussed it with him because I owed you the conversation first.”

Goku gaped for a moment before flinching from shame.

“I’ve talked to him about other things, though,” Vegeta continued, his usually rich voice still toneless, absent. “Things I’ve only ever told you. Neither one of us could come up with a better way to take anything positive out of such a complete clusterfuck of a shit situation. Because he knows everything about me. Everything. There’s no getting around it. And in that reality I had. No. Choice.” A brief, harsh laugh escaped him. “Choice. There’s that word again.”

All Goku wanted was to be somewhere else. He tried to find the words, something, anything to tell Vegeta he was sorry, that he knew they needed to talk about this but nothing came. But incredibly, after all he’d said and the devastation his words had caused the person he loved most, he was somehow still angry.

Shame washed through him, and he grit his teeth together to keep any more awful words from escaping. He couldn’t risk saying anything else until he’d calmed down… though he had no idea when that would be.

Despite all the pain it was causing both him and Vegeta, the seemingly endless well of anger that had grown inside him simply refused to be drained. Even now Vegeta had almost curled in on himself in clear misery and yet… Goku knew that if he opened his mouth to speak comfort he would only end up striking out again.

Vegeta shook his head slowly. “You think you can’t hear me, and you’re wrong. It’s not that you can’t hear me. It’s that you’re blocking me out because it’s easier for you than listening to what I have to say. …And right now I don’t have the strength to keep talking to myself. Just go, Kakarot. Just… go.”

It wasn’t an accusation, only the tired, undeniable truth that Goku couldn’t fight. A barely audible apology, two fingers to his head and Goku was gone. Fled to where, Vegeta couldn’t muster the energy to care.

He stood there, stock still and feeling nothing but the emptiness of the room and the cold emptiness inside him where Goku’s warmth and light should have been. It hurt. It hurt worse than his body did, gods but it hurt.

With Goku’s presence within him so diminished Vegeta’s emotional stability was compromised. He should have been raging out of control.

‘So why am I so calm?’ he thought absently.

The answer was slow in coming, but it did come. It came in the lingering throb of an already highly-taxed body handled too roughly too often in recent days, in the raw, gaping void where Goku’s presence should have been this past week. Since they’d bonded - at least, with the exception of the past week or so - Goku helped him deal with things he didn’t know how to even begin processing. But before that…

Pain, as familiar to him as rage, and just as pure and simple. In the past it had been almost as good as his rage at focusing him, shielding him from things he couldn’t handle, things he couldn’t bear to feel.

The pain was better than the clamoring emptiness; there was something almost comforting about it.

It wouldn’t last but while he had it, the nothing was… nice, and he floated in it for the moment. He could feel the turmoil of his own devastation there underneath it, waiting to swallow him. But he didn’t want to feel it.

He preferred the pain.

_________________________________________________________________________________
“What was that all about? Come on, Piccolo. You might as well tell me.”

Whis watched in amusement as the Namekian gave him a scowl that didn’t fit the sunny Lookout courtyard. But he knew Piccolo was close to giving in. It wasn’t easy to hide a smile of triumph. “I mean, we’re practically family, or at least we will be as soon as Vegeta pops out my precious babies. Shouldn’t I know everything that you do about my new family? Hm?”

Piccolo rolled his eyes, deciding in a huff to share before Whis drove him actually mad. “What the hell, it’s not like he swore me to silence or anything. We’ve got an honest to goodness King running around disguised as a prince.”

“Oh, is that all?” Whis asked, supremely disappointed in the lack of juicy drama. “I just assumed people were being kind and humoring him.”

A jolt of distress broke the afternoon’s peace. Piccolo’s attention snapped away in an instant and he stood hastily. Whis found the source of the problem just as quickly; Pima and Shishi were running over at full speed, the ball they had been playing with bouncing abandoned toward the flowers in the garden.

Piccolo answered Whis’ question before he could ask. “Something’s wrong with Vegeta. They’re saying they can’t feel him.”

He reached out just as the girls arrived at their Papa’s side and did the same. “Let’s go.”

___________________________________________________________________________________
Vegeta wondered absently when these people had arrived in his home. But he couldn’t bring himself to really care until he saw his daughters gazing up at him in concern. It wasn’t fair. A father was supposed to protect his family, not have to be rescued by his children, have them be worried about him…

He wanted to speak to them, to reassure them that everything was all right, that their days of having to protect him from the consequences of his own failures were behind them but he couldn’t reach their minds, the walls were too thick between them, he could barely even feel the children within his own body anymore, he’d built the walls too strong…

Was he a failure as a father now as well?

The added guilt in the thought battered at the thick walls.

Distantly he felt the girls taking his hands and he let them, shamefully grateful for the grounding contact as he always was. When they pulled him toward the couch and sat him down he just let them.

Only two things could battle back the roiling maelstrom on the other side of his self-imposed prison. The rage that had sustained him through decades of abuse had been broken by his once-gentle mate; it could no longer help him fight. And Goku… Goku couldn’t hear his cries for help.

And so he drifted helplessly, waiting for the walls to break. No other choices existed for him.

He was, after all, only half of a person. And what could only half a person do against that kind of pain?

****************************************************************************************************************************
Next: Saiyan stubbornness faces off against an Angel on a mission.

TristaML: Yaay! I think Videl is a great character and while I didn't see her leaving Gohan, I didn't want to write her as a pushover either. We are really close to unraveling all these problems, and my goal is for everyone to resolve their problems, not just gloss over them. If six Saiyans agreeing to a greater good can produce a god, what can an entire Saiyan family - or even their entire race - united in purpose do? I’m having fun writing it, at least. Lol!

Zeo: I can hardly believe the show finally pulled the trigger on Bra. Awww, so cute! And hang in there with me, I know Goku and Vegeta aren’t doing things they’d normally do, but I hope the ‘why’ is becoming clearer, and the next chapter should answer the rest. I’m glad you’re feeling better!
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Atavism