In Your Dreams

Title: In Your Dreams
Pairings: Vegeta x Goku
Author: CrimsonTide


Chapter 8


Just as Vegeta had predicted, the prince found himself pacing the halls late into the night. His mind was racing with the realization that he was indeed attracted to Kakarotto. He’d always felt drawn to the younger Saiyajin, despite his attempts to repel him, but this took things to an entirely different level.

After Kakarotto had left with the dragon Vegeta found himself wondering what was left for him on this planet. His children were grown, and though they still lived at home, they were independent. He no longer had any obligations to Bulma or anyone else. In fact, without the other Saiyajin around, Vegeta had no reason to stay at all.

So did that mean he cared enough for Kakarotto that he would alter his life to stay near him?

A frustrated groan escaped the prince’s lips as he dragged his fingers through his hair. So he’d established that he wanted more than friendship from the younger Saiyajin... but did Kakarotto want more from him?

He hadn’t really given Vegeta any indication that he might. Did that mean he wasn’t interested... or did that simply mean he hadn’t even considered the possibility that there COULD be more between them?

The prince hated to admit it, but he needed some advice on this one.

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“Woman, wake up.”

Bulma groaned as she stirred and slowly woke from her deep slumber. Hazy blue eyes squinted over toward the clock before they focused on the man perched on her bedside.

“Vegeta... It’s one in the morning...”

“I want him.”

Suddenly the woman was wide awake and Bulma propped herself against the headboard and smiled broadly. “Wow, not wasting any time, eh? I guess my plan with Yamcha worked better than I thought!”

Vegeta frowned. “What plan?”

The blue-haired woman smiled sheepishly. “I was kinda inviting Yamcha over to spend time with Goku to make you jealous...”

She waited for the tantrum that was sure to follow her confession, but the prince only snorted and muttered under his breath. “Baka onna...”

Bulma shook her head as if to get back to the subject at hand. “So does Goku know how you feel?”

Vegeta shifted uncomfortably and let his eyes wander around the dark room. “That’s why I’m here. I don’t know how he would react to my advances. He hasn’t shown any interest towards me, after all. You seem to know him better than anyone.”

Though he hadn’t come out and said it, Bulma knew he was asking for her help. She felt honored that the prince would trust her with such a sensitive subject, and she was going to do her best and give him the all the advice she could.

“Well, even though Goku has been married and has two kids, he hasn’t had much experience with... Ummm... I guess you could call it an 'emotional bond'. He didn’t love ChiChi when they got married; she just tricked him into it by calling him on a promise he’d made years before when he didn’t even know what ‘marriage’ meant. Goku always keeps his promises, so he felt obligated to follow through.”

Bulma paused for a moment and frowned as she remembered the awkward ceremony. Her long-time friend had been so uncomfortable and confused.

“Later on ChiChi told him that kids were part of the deal. I learned several years later through some casual ‘girl talk’ that Goku had been less than willing to perform. He hadn’t wanted or enjoyed ChiChi’s touch, but again, a promise was a promise. He suffered through it to give her what she wanted.”

The woman stopped and met Vegeta’s eyes. “Have you ever noticed that aside from fighting, Goku rarely initiates any kind of contact, whether it's casual or intimate?”

The prince was caught off guard by the question, but it made him think. He sifted through his memories and was surprised to find that aside from the day he first met Goten, he couldn’t remember Kakarotto ever physically showing affection toward anyone. And during the few times someone else hugged him, the younger Saiyajin had always seemed uncomfortable. Vegeta had always thought it was embarrassment, but now he wondered if it was something else.

Bulma gave a sad smile as she watched the man’s mind race. “It’s weird, huh? I never really asked Goku why that was, but I think it has to do with past experiences. Though I didn’t know him at the time, the only person Goku was really close to was his Grandpa. After he died though, he was left alone... and after that the majority of the contact he received from people was violent.”

The woman looked guilty for a moment. “Even I tried to hurt him when we first met... I hit him with my car and shot at him. Granted, though hitting him was an accident and shooting at him was something I did out of fear, I still tended to hit him a lot over stupid things when we began traveling together.”

Bulma tapped her chin as her eyes traveled to the ceiling in thought. “Come to think of it, I don’t think anyone really showed Goku much care or affection. Most people were either afraid of him, fascinated by him, hated him, or enthralled by him....But no one really took the time to get close to him and get to know who he really was. I didn’t even do so until much later; in the beginning I only saw him as a body guard.”

Vegeta rolled all the information over in his head. “Soooo... You’re saying you people fucked Kakarotto up?”

The woman threw her head back and laughed. It wasn’t all out of humor either. “What I’m saying is no one has ever taken the time to court Goku. In the end, everyone has always wanted something from him. No one has ever wanted his attention simply because they wanted to spend time with him.”

The prince took a moment to process that. Even he had people to show him affection throughout his life. Though they died early on, his parents had been good to him. He had understood why his father had handed him over to Frieza. If he hadn’t he’d be dead. Then, while under the ice lizard’s command he’d had Nappa and Raditz there to finish raising him. Later on they’d shown him another type of ‘affection’. Learning that it was possible to feel so good had kept him alive during the worst of times.

So Kakarotto hadn’t experienced any of that? It was bizarre to think that such a seemingly happy person could be so deprived of such basic things. But then again, you couldn’t miss what you’d never had.

Vegeta broke out of his musing when Bulma spoke again in a soft voice. “What I’m saying is you need to show Goku that not all contact has to hurt or be uncomfortable. I would have told you this would have been a fairly easy task years ago, but now that he’s had such terrible experiences in the lab... well, I don’t know how far back that set him. He was very jumpy and tense even when I was simply doing a routine check-up on him.”

The prince grunted in agreement. He’d experienced the same kind of panic from the younger man in the gym’s locker rooms.

Bulma smiled and leaned forward a bit so she could place her hand on the Saiyajin’s knee. “Just be patient with him. He’ll be confused and maybe even a little suspicious; but good things are worth working for, right? Think of it as another challenge.”

Vegeta smirked. He was always up for a challenge.

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After his talk with Bulma Vegeta felt more confident that he could move forward with his pursuit of Kakarotto. He was just passing the younger Saiyajin’s bedroom on the way to his own when he was once again stopped by sounds of distress. The prince poked his head in the door, and sure enough the man inside was twisting around in bed as he fought through another nightmare. This seemed to be a common occurrence now, and it made Vegeta wonder just how much quality sleep the other Saiyajin was actually getting each night.

The prince hesitated at the door. He was torn between leaving Goku alone and waking him up again. He’d be prepared this time if an attack was thrown his way immediately following. Then again, he could simply look inside the younger man’s mind to see for himself what was causing him so much torment at night. It was easy enough to read someone’s mind while they were asleep and their defenses were down.

But, if Kakarotto woke up or realized what he was doing, he might see it as an invasion of privacy. It wouldn’t do to have the other Saiyajin angry with him right now.

However, an especially sharp cry spurred the prince onward and he found himself at the bedside before his mind had even processed that his feet were moving.

Vegeta took a deep breath and kneeled down on the floor so that he was level with the other man. His hand slowly moved forward until it rested on surprisingly soft hair. When Goku didn’t wake up right away, the prince closed his eyes and reached out with his own mind in order to establish a connection with the other.

The burst of jumbled images that immediately bombarded him nearly threw Vegeta backwards, both mentally and physically, but he bit down and held his ground as he strained to slow down the flow of memories.

For what seemed like hours Vegeta witnessed the horrors of what Goku had been through in that lab. Countless experiments and tests had been performed on him, most while he was conscious and without any kind of pain blockers.

They’d strapped him into a machine designed to determine the amount of pressure something could take before it broke. He listened to Kakarotto’s mental screams as the bones in his arms and legs had been slowly broken. His wounds had not been tended to; rather, the scientists had watched and ‘learned’ as the Saiyajin had reset his own bones and they recorded the amount of time it took for him to heal without any kind of medical assistance.

The humans also ran tests to see how a Saiyajin’s body responded to stress. They’d subjected the younger man to freezing temperatures, immediately followed by extreme heat and then back again. They’d placed him in an airtight glass box and steadily decreased the oxygen in order to see how he’d adapt. Based on the panicked expression on their test subjects’ face, the experience must have been terrifying, not to mention torturous.

Next they deprived the Saiyajin of food and other basic things like sleep and even contact with other living things. In fact, they had left Kakarotto in a small room completely devoid of any type of light and sound for several days at a time to see how he’d respond to the lack of stimuli. Needless to say, when he was finally released, the younger man had seemed almost anxious to let the men experiment on him; anything to let him know he was still alive.

And that led to other tests... tests concerning a Saiyajin’s sexual nature.

Just before he could delve deeper into these memories however, Vegeta felt himself being pushed back. He immediately withdrew from the other man’s mind and opened his eyes, only to find himself looking into Kakarotto’s own wide orbs.

They stared back at each other for a long time, and the only sound between them was the slightly labored breathing of the younger man.

The prince was the first to break out of his stupor, and he slowly began to run his fingers through Goku’s hair. The other hadn’t objected to his hand being there in the first place, so he was hoping he’d respond positively to the comforting gesture.

“I didn’t see anything you didn’t want me to. I wasn’t trying to pry; I just wanted to see what was plaguing your dreams every night.”

At first Goku didn’t respond, but after a few moments his breathing began to return to a normal rhythm and his eyes slowly drifted closed. A slight shiver wracked his frame when the older man lengthened his strokes in his hair. The prince took this as a good sign; he hadn’t tried to push him away yet.

“Did you know I’ve had the same dreams as you for years now?”

Large eyes snapped open, and Vegeta continued when that questioning gaze met his own.

“Whether you knew it or not, you were sending me mental images of what those men were doing to you each night while you slept. I never realized what I was seeing was real and not just nightmares until recently.”

The younger man’s brow tightened and his mouth opened as if to apologize for tormenting him with those images, but Vegeta shook his head.

“Don’t be sorry, Kakarotto. It makes sense that I would pick up on your mental activity like that. After the fusion, you and I formed a bond without even knowing it. Whether you like it or not, we’re linked up here.” The prince slid his hand out of the other Saiyajin’s hair and tapped his temple.

“There really isn’t anything you can hide from me, you know.”

The sudden flash of panic in Goku’s eyes made Vegeta continue.

“But I won’t break down your barriers, Kakarotto. I want you to trust me enough to show me of your own free will.”

The younger Saiyajin visibly sighed in relief and relaxed back into the mattress. Vegeta pulled the covers that had fallen down back up over the other’s slim form.

“Tomorrow I will see if Bulma will give you pills that will block your dreams. That way you can sleep through an entire night without being plagued by these nightmares.”

The prince stood when Goku’s eyes slid shut, and he was taking his first step toward the door when something fuzzy wrapped around his wrist. He blinked when he realized it was the younger man’s tail, and he didn’t fight it when the appendage pulled him back toward the bed and guided his hand until it was once again resting in Goku’s hair.

The message was quite clear and Vegeta was about to protest when a loud rumbling purr erupted from the other man’s chest. The prince’s eyes rolled skyward before he gave in and sat on the edge of the bed. The tail released his wrist and disappeared beneath the blankets again.

“This is the ONLY time.”

That purr only rumbled on and Vegeta tried to look annoyed as he began to run his fingers through Goku's hair again.

Inside though, he couldn’t ignore the fact that his heart had begun to beat faster.

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TBC

And there's chapter eight! Fair warning though, I might not be around too much the next few days. Starting tomorrow I've gotta start drinking this uber nasty stuff to prepare for a CAT scan I have to have done on Wednesday. Apparently this junk makes the dye they're going to inject me with glow, so I have to guzzle down 40 oz of it -.-. Ugh. I plan on feeling very sick. I'm a tiny person, ya know! I can't drink all that! But either way, I figured I'll be busy moaning and groaning about how unfair the world is as I force the stuff down my throat. hehe!

ANYWAY, all the reviews have been great! Tyrana, you practically wrote your own chapter, lol! Sometimes I forget that not everyone here has heard the American dubbed voices ^.^; But yeah, Goku's voice is smexy, but what you would call a high tenor. And you know, you practically read my mind with the Trunks thing! I played with the idea a few chapters back, but I couldn't decide o.O. Suggestions? Opinions? I'm open!

I'm glad I'm keeping everyone happy so far! Your reviews and suggestions are definately appreciated and you all certainly keep me motivated ^.^ Thanky thanky!