Slow to Learn
Saiyans had always been slow to learn.
From his position above the masses, the King could see the whispers start creeping their way around the periphery of the room. Sometimes they would travel into the center only to be squashed by jabbing elbows and distrustful glances.
People never wanted to know what they did not want to hear. The whispers died a slow death and he stood to gain their attention. The lord kneeling before the throne stopped his report on the southern draught. His voice came to a slow scratchy halt as his neck swiveled down to gaze at the floor.
"Lord Yura," he said quietly. "Your report has been most informative." The king nodded to the Lord as he swept by him. "Come." He motioned to his guard.
The crowd parted before them; people scrambling and jostling and carelessly stepping. The small side door near the thrown opened and closed in silence.
The small hallway was dark; lit only by a single torch high on the stone war. The drip of water beat steadily in the background. Raditz did not want to break the silence. There was rarely silence "My King."
It was not more than a statement for he did not question.
"The whispers... Could you hear them?" They stood in the hall together; the king staring off into the murk of the humid hall.
"No, my King. Your ears are far better than mine."
A pause was all Raditz need to raise his hand towards the smaller man's arm. He let it fall back down.
The king turned towards him, his face angled slight up at their close quarters. "They are outside, Raditz. Now. Come to claim-" He broke off and licked his top lip. The hallway was silent other than the steady drip of the water.
"I want them disposed of. Alert the guard. "
"Sire, my first duty is to-"
"That is understood, Captain," he snapped. "And by stopping this insurrection, you will be doing just that." Raditz lowered his chin as the king turned away. "Go then."
Raditz reached out again; this time, brushing his fingers over the top of the king's armor. "Sir," was all he said before pivoting and traveling back through the small door.
The king walked in tune to the water.
Saiyans had always been slow to learn.
His desk was littered with papers. Charts and maps and lists. Barely a Saiyan outside the Garden could read. Barely a Saiyan could solve complex problems or discuss policy or develop infrastructure. Technology escaped them. Science was meaningless. There were no architects, no business men, nor medical workers.
But they could fight. And they could fuck.
"Ah. I see you are already here." The king swung the door closed behind him. The water tempo was cut off by a soft click. "I would have expected nothing less, Son of Bardock." The room was dark; lit only from the light of the stars outside the balcony doors.
The man on the desk stirred amongst the papers, dragging his muddy boots along the star charts. "And I see you for the first time, Vegeta." He leaned forward his face twisted into a toothy lear. "I have to say, you are taller than I expected." His armor shone dully in the small amount of light. His scouter clicked off after a quiet whirl, the florescent orange light disappearing.
The king reached up to his shoulders and unhooked his cape, tossing it on a nearby chair. The red fabric slithered down to pool on the seat.
"And a lot younger," Kakarrot continued. "From the rumors, I would have thought you were an old man." He swung his legs back and forth. "Doesn't fight. Doesn't fuck."
"Oh," Vegeta said, raising and eyebrow and reaching up again to unclasp his chest armor. "That does sound like poor Saiyan indeed." He dropped the armor on top of his cape. "But I will have to respectfully disagree." His gloves joined the pile. He raised his arms over his head and cracked his shoulders, his muscles flexing and squeezing.
Kakarrot tipped his head to the side and grinned. "Well, maybe you do fuck. From the looks of it, I'm in for a treat right now." He swung both his legs forward and hopped off the desk. "Imagine everyone's faces when I told them that not only did I put a hole through the King's chest but that right before-" he let out a bark of laughter "he sucked me off."
He took a step forward and leaned down. "Wouldn't that be a great story?" Vegeta could see his nostrils flaring and his pupils' dilate. "Why don't you offer up your ass to Freiza. Maybe he'll take you for a quick ride and decide he's not really interested in monkey kink after all."
Vegeta smiled, showing his teeth coated in saliva. "Or I could offer up your ass. You seem to have such an interest in helping your planet as it is. Maybe he'll use his tail to fuck you. It's quite thick. I could imagine that you'll beg him to let you come."
Kakarrot took a step back and put his hand behind his head laughing. "Well, at least you've got a mouth on you!"
"But you didn't come here to discuss the curvature of you cock, did you, boy?" The king's tail uncurled itself from around his waist to stretch out behind him.
"Hmm, no. Not really." The taller Saiyan curled his talk more tightly around his waist. "I came to kill babes in their cradles." He sunk down, sliding his boots along the stone floor. "…Now that their mother has left them."
Vegeta struck with a roundhouse kick to Kakarrot's head and the other Saiyan countered by dropping to the ground and sweeping his feet along the floor. Vegeta jumped and landed in a crouch, he tail erect behind him some distance away.
"I assume that you are referring to your brother, Kakarrot." He smirked up at the other figure.
Kakarrot's fists clenched. "I am," he said.
"And I also assume that you don't approve of his position, since, if you manage to kill me it will mean that he has failed his duties."
"There are more important things going on here than worrying about Raditz's hurt ego," the taller Saiyan shouted.
Vegeta stood up and let his tail relax. It hung down, curled slightly at the bottom. "Oh, then you don't know?" He grinned, his teeth flashing in the soft light from outside. He took a step closer.
Kakarrot said nothing, but his silence only goaded Vegeta more.
"You don't know that your brother comes to my bed." His voice escalated in volume. "You don't know that he has had the one opportunity that you have been praying for for years. He could have killed me at any time. He could have shot a blast through the back of my skull when he was fucking his king. That he could have stuck his cock in his king's ass and a knife in his heart.
"If only you could have trusted him, your own brother, but you couldn't, could you?" Vegeta leered at the other. "You were too jealous at-"
The taller snarled and spat. "Shut the fuck up!" He lunged and grasped Vegeta's jaw, smothering his words. His face was red with anger. "Shut the fuck up, you cock sucker." His eyes narrowed as he reached and grabbed onto the slim neck with his other hand, squeezing.
The king brought one of his knees up right into Kakarrot's chest. He let go as his lungs dispelled all their air and he stumbled back.
Vegeta's voice was horse when he next spoke. "Let's see if you're a martyr then, Kakarrot."
Saiyans had always been slow to learn.
They both knew of the other. Yet, they did not know the other by appearance until they had already met. They had heard rumors and stories. How Kakarrot was such and such and Vegeta was someone else entirely.
But a Saiyan does not know another until a fist is crashing across their face or until a foot is pounding into their gut. When the blood lands on the opponent's lips and it is swiped off by a tongue with thrill; that is when the connection is formed. And, when shirts are gripped and faces scratched and knuckles are bursting; that is when the bond deepens. And then, both are aware of the outcome.
Vegeta blinked the blood out his eyes as he raised his arms to block a punch to his face. He was on the floor, Kakarrot straddling him, his teeth wet with bright blood. Given a moment to recover, the king raised and hand, screaming obscenities as he fired a blast into the side of the larger Saiyan's head.
With a scream of his own, Kakarrot jumped back and sent his own blast flying, hitting Vegeta full in the chest as he tried to sit up. The force knocked him back into the wall.
"Vegeta, you fucker." Kakarrot had one eye squeezed completely shut, blood dribbling out from under his eyelid.
The king reached over to put his tail onto his lap. The fur was matted with blood.
"You know, you use your tail in some pretty obscene ways. Do you fuck yourself with it too?"
Vegeta got slowly to his feet using the wall as a crutch. "Fuck off."
Kakarrot was baring his teeth, but there was a slight upward curve to his mouth. "I haven't had this good of a tousle in a while. Who knew that you even knew how to form an energy blast." He tossed his head back and laughed. "I might even believe, at his point, that you've even killed somebody before."
"And what of you, Kakarrot?" He hobbled over to a chair and sagged into it. His lungs rattled as he spoke.
"Me? My kills?" Kakarrot paused, leaning back on the desk put a finger to his bloody face to think. "Well which ones?" He tightened his tail around his waist.
"The last one, start with the last one."
Kakarrot glared down at the king. "It was tonight. Just a few minutes ago. Some women screemed when I let myself in." He spat a thick glob of blood off to the side. "She was so fuckin' loud. So I snapped her neck." He shrugged. "And you? I wanna hear about the first person you killed. Did you cry? Did you even use your hands or did you fry 'em like a coward?"
Vegeta spread his legs in the chair, trying to give his body more support. "I pulled his spine out through his mouth."
Kakarrot leaned forward, his interest piqued. "Who was it? Some poor low class boy who wanted a taste of you?"
Vegeta scoffed. "Do you know succession takes place, Kakarrot?" He did not give the other time to reply. "I though not. No one on this ball of dirt knows anything about anything. So I got rid of him. That bastard never saw it coming."
He looked up at the taller Saiyan and grinned, tipping his head to the side. "I wooed away his guards with the promise of a good fuck. He was easy to scare. All I had to do was convince him of a plot for his crown and he locked himself in the keep only letting me in or out. I challenged him, we fought, and now his crown is mine."
"Why didn't you just challenge him in front of everyone?"
Vegeta sneered and shifted in his chair. "That's treason, boy. Something you should full well know. When you challenge the crown you need to have already won."
Kakarrot pushed himself off the desk and crouched in front of the king. "So you did the work for me. Drawing away my brother. Secluding us in here. Why didn't you let Raditz do his job?"
"So many questions, boy." He watched as Kakarrot ran his hands up Vegeta's thighs and torso, pushing at the protruding ribs. He drug a hand up through the other man's hair, tugging gently.
"Raditz wouldn't run. Even though he knows I'm stronger. He would have stayed." His hands paused on their journey, resting on the tops of Vegeta's hips. "I can see why he likes you. You do fight. And you do fuck."
Vegeta reached out and pushed the other away and gave no answer.
Kakarrot huffed and stood up. His scouter flared to life. "Sir! We can't hold them off much longer! We-" He grabbed the device off his face and crushed it, flinging it nonchalantly to the floor.
"Time's up." He said, focusing fully on the shorter Saiyan in front of him. Reaching down into his boot, he pulled out a long hunting knife. "I just got this one. It was a gift from a pretty girl back home. I've been saving it for a special occasion."
"How sentimental," Vegeta spat. He tried to pull himself up in the chair. A thin stream of blood leaked out of his nose.
"It is, isn't it." Kakarrot looked at the king and tilted his head in thought. "I supposed I could slice you open and leave you for infection. But that's not really my thing."
Kakarrot flipped the knife up in the air and caught it.
Vegeta watched its descent. And then there was cold steel in his chest and blood spraying from his mouth. The tip of his tail flapped in resistance, throwing itself into the leg of the chair.
The other's mouth was on his, lapping at the blood and sucking on his lip. He pulled back with a breathy moan and a bulge in his pants. "Fuck, Vegeta." Kakarrot ran his hands up and down his body again. "I could cum all over you right now."
The small Saiyan was hunched in his chair, gurgling through the blood in his lungs. His eyes were losing focus and his vision dimming.
Kakarrot grasped the knife and pulled it out, dropping it on Vegeta's lap as he traced the open wound with his fingers. "Raditz will be so unhappy to see you this way. What do you think I should-"
Vegeta's tail lost its strength and Kakarrot's lower jaw fell to the floor. His tough flopped sloppily around as his throat gurgled blood. He fell back to the floor. He made a wet sucking sound, his eyes wide and full of fear.
"Too many fucking questions," Vegeta told him. Blood gushed up through his throat again and splattered down the front of his chest. "Saiyans were always slow to learn."