Shattered Dreams
By Soulwindow
Disclaimer: Neither DBZ nor any of the characters in this story belong to me.
Rating: PG
Author's Note: This is sort of the story behind another of my stories, Loneliness, also on Fanfiction.net. It's not necessary to read Loneliness to understand this one, but it would help. This story was previously posted to Saiyan Slash under my other name, Terendel.
Warnings: Shounen-ai alert. If you can't deal, don't read.
I'm not who everyone thinks I am.
Everyone sees me as a nice, slightly dense…okay, let's be honest…mostly stupid man interested only in training, fighting and eating, not necessarily in that order. They give me credit for honesty and dedication to the people of Earth and to my friends but not much else.
I used to be that man, but something changed. And some days I wish I could go back to who I was. At least then I truly was happy.
What changed? Why am I not happy? That's the story that I'm going to try to tell here. I've bottled up the real me for so long that this won't be easy, but I think it needs to be told. Perhaps then I can find some peace.
Wait. I suppose I should back up a bit and tell something about who I used to be before I changed. That might help explain what happens later.
My Earth name is Son Goku. For more than half my life that was the only name I knew. I had friends and many adventures, got married and had a son. There was plenty of food and fighting along the way, and I was content.
Change happened when my son was four. I found out that I had a brother, Radditz, and that he wasn't from Earth. Radditz told me my real name was Kakarott and that I was really a Saiyan. I had been sent to Earth as an infant to destroy all the people on the planet. He was here to find out why I hadn't finished the job.
With the help of my friends, and my son, I managed to destroy him, but I had to sacrifice my life to that end. In the space of one day I changed from a happy young man, content with my family, to a dead alien Saiyan, killer of my brother. Worse, before he died, Radditz told us there were two more Saiyans on their way to Earth, and that they were each more powerful than he.
As I died, I felt despair for the first time. We had barely beaten my brother. How could we hope to defeat two others even more powerful?
To make a long story short, we did defeat them. I trained hard in the afterlife (even got in a few good meals). Piccolo, a long-time enemy turned ally, taught my son, Gohan, and my other friends trained hard as well. It was barely enough.
Things changed again during that encounter. I met someone who has been a part of my life ever since, mostly as an enemy, but more recently, as a reluctant ally. More on him later.
The biggest change happened when I fought Frieza, yet another in the series of adventures that have been my life. During our fight he killed my best friend, and my anger changed me. I became what is known as Super Saiyan, a legendary state among my people.
Being Super Saiyan changed more in me than my hair and eye color. It did more than make me an extremely powerful fighter.
It made me smarter.
Only now do I understand what is meant by a "mixed blessing."
It took some time to adjust to the change. At first I didn't even notice it. I was too busy trying to deal with the other changes my transformation wrought in me. But over time I realized that my perceptions of myself and the people around me were sharper. I saw things I had never seen before. I made connections previously beyond me.
Don't get me wrong. I'm still no genius. Gohan far exceeds me in mental capacity and always will. But now I am smart enough to realize what I had been missing for so many years.
I spent most of my time on Yardrat trying to adjust to my state. The master who taught me Instant Transmission also helped me learn to deal with being smarter. Unfortunately, in talking with him I realized something else.
I couldn't share what happened with anyone.
Everyone who knows me expects me to act a certain way. Maybe if I were smarter still I could figure out a way to explain what happened, but the way I am, I don't know how. You see, no one really takes me seriously, except when it's time to save the Earth, or my friends, yet one more time. I don't mind, really. It's what I'm good at. It's what I've always been good at. But now that I can see there really is more to life than training, fighting and eating, I don't know how to tell them. Or even how to begin experiencing more.
I've tried. I really have. I've asked Chi-Chi, my wife, if she wanted to go places or do things like...well, like normal people do. She gets this look on her face that says that she knows she can't take me anywhere. Then she tells me that she's perfectly happy staying home, cooking for us and helping Gohan with his homework. Before I became a Super Saiyan, I would have believed her. Now I know better, but I don't know how to convince her otherwise. (It doesn't help that I never learned table manners as a child, and I guess I'm too old to change. Smarter though I am, I still love to eat more than I love to be neat.)
But that's only part of why I'm unhappy.
I'm unhappy because there's someone I desperately want to have in my life. Someone I knew I couldn't have because I'd never do anything to hurt Chi- Chi. But as long as he was free, I could dream. Now he is with another, and my dream is shattered. The worst part is that I helped join him with his mate. I shattered my own dream.
This is the part that I've held inside for so long that I don't know if I can let it out, even now.
Remember the enemy turned reluctant ally? His name is Vegeta. He was one of the two Saiyans I had to defeat.
Vegeta and I are the last of our race. Frieza wiped out all except for four. Myself. Radditz, my brother. Nappa, an elite warrior. And Vegeta. Our prince.
I helped to kill my brother, and Vegeta killed Nappa when the elite couldn't defeat me. I'm only a low-class Saiyan warrior. I wasn't supposed to be anywhere near Nappa's class. Vegeta isn't known for his tolerance of failure.
So Vegeta and I are tied together: both by being the last of our race and by each of us killing one of the two others. Does killing two of the last four Saiyans make us kind of like brothers? I doubt Vegeta would see it that way.
Vegeta doesn't see much of anything my way. He actually hates me and has ever since the beginning. He couldn't believe that I had managed to kill Radditz. Then I almost beat him when we fought. He only defeated me by changing into oozaru form. The giant monkey was unbelievably strong, and it was only a fluke that we defeated him at all. Yajirobe came through at the last minute and cut off Vegeta's tail. For some reason Gohan's tail grew back, and he was able to become oozaru. My son is actually the one who defeated Vegeta, but the prince hates me. Go figure. He actually seems to kind of like my son.
Then I became a Super Saiyan during our fight with Frieza. Vegeta had trained all his life to become a Super Saiyan, but I had the gall to do it first. And beat Frieza. And avenge the destruction of a world I can't even remember. Pretty unfriendly of me, huh?
He's never forgiven me for any of it.
But for some reason he still hangs around. He joined with us to defeat Frieza, and he stayed around. I guess with his home gone there's no place else for him to go.
But here's the rub. I think I'm in love with Vegeta.
Sounds weird doesn't it? He hates me, and I think I love him. I say that I think I love him because what I feel for him is nothing like what I feel for Chi-Chi or Gohan. Chi-Chi has been a part of my life for years. She can be difficult. Her temper is something else, but she has a good heart, and she's taken care of all those details that I just couldn't bother with when I was saving the Earth. We're comfortable together, both in bed and out.
Gohan is my son. For me that says it all. I'm proud of him. He's a strong fighter, but he's also smart. He doesn't live for battle the way I do, but he does well when he needs to. I think when he grows up he'll be more than an avenging warrior, and I'm grateful. It's been my life, but I'm glad he'll have something more. My love for him is without question.
But Vegeta. How to describe what I feel for him? He's far more difficult to be around than Chi-Chi. His temper makes hers look positively balmy. But I want to be with him so badly that I ache inside. When I am with him, I have to stop myself from trembling. I spar with him because it allows me to touch him, and I want that more than anything.
Is this love? I don't know. I don't just want to touch his body. I want to reach in and touch his soul. He's the loneliest person I know, and I want to let him know that I'll always be there for him. Perhaps that takes my feelings away from mere lust and transforms it into love. I just don't know. I've never experienced anything like this.
I could go on, but there wouldn't be much point to it. The story I need to tell now is how I got him together with Bulma. It was the right thing for both of them, and for the future, but oh, how it hurt to watch him go to another.
Why did I decide I had to play matchmaker between the man I thought I loved and my oldest friend? It was my talk with Trunks. When I returned from Yardrat, I was still trying to deal with the changes in me and how I was going to deal with my friends. I'd thought to take a few days to meditate in the woods and rebuild the idiot façade I'd planned to wear in front of my friends.
Imagine my surprise at seeing them meet me when I landed. Fortunately, I managed to slip into the Goku they expected without too much effort. Actually, it was sort of startling how easy it was.
And then there was Trunks. Telling me this fantastic story of androids, the future and being the son of Vegeta and Bulma. That was the first crack in my dream.
But I can only blame the first crack on him. The rest of the shattering was all my doing.
It all started simply enough, while we were all training to get ready for the androids. Bulma called me early one morning. She was practically in hysterics. About all I could get out of her was that Vegeta was hurt. That was enough for me. I transmitted to them immediately.
When I arrived, I found myself in the gravity room. Bulma threw herself into my arms, but all I could see was Vegeta sprawled on the floor, not moving. For a moment, I froze, thinking he was dead. I felt nothing but a crushing pain in my chest. There was no way he could be…gone.
Then I felt the faint flicker of his ki. He was alive!
Bulma was asking me what was wrong, and I told her that I needed to see him. She moved aside to let me.
I knelt by him. I almost hated myself for it, but I was thrilled to have an excuse to touch him, under the guise of checking his condition. He was weak, but I could tell that it was little more than hunger and exhaustion.
When I told this to Bulma and asked her if she knew what was wrong, she told me that she and her mother thought he was lonely. I was shocked. And people call me dumb? She only "thought" he was lonely. It's been obvious to me almost from the start. When he died at the hands of Frieza, I could feel his loneliness like a physical force, hammering at me. That was one of the first times I desperately wanted to touch him. He was dying alone, and he knew it. All I wanted to do was grab his hand and let him know that someone understood.
But I couldn't do it. And I've never quite forgiven myself for it.
I told Bulma that I knew he was lonely. I almost lost my buffoon mask when she got this look on her face that said she couldn't believe I'd noticed something before her. She's been a friend for a long time, but she's one of the people I don't think could ever handle knowing that I've become smart.
We talked about him for a while, and I knew as we talked that there was a solution to Vegeta's loneliness. I'd noticed for quite a while that he and Bulma were interested in each other, not that they'd admit it, even to themselves. And of course there was that heart-to-heart talk I'd had with the Trunks from the future.
I knew that I should have done something already to urge them to get together. I owed it to Trunks. But I hadn't been able to bring myself to do it.
Does it make any sense to say that as long as no one had Vegeta's heart I could dream? I knew he'd never have me. And I'd never leave Chi-Chi. But I could, and did, dream. In my dreams so many things happened differently. I held his hand as he died, and he told me he loved me with his eyes. When Vegeta came back from the dead, we fought side by side against Frieza, our love giving us the strength to defeat him together.
My dreams got me through some of the tough times as I tried to figure out who I was and why I was so different after my transformation. They helped me shrug off Chi-Chi's unintended cruelty. They consoled me when I tried to pretend that I didn't notice my friends' comments about my lack of brain wattage.
And yet…
And yet the right thing to do was to encourage Vegeta to love someone other than me. It was the right thing for my prince. It was the right thing for my oldest friend. And it was the right thing for the unborn future.
And so, I did it. I told Bulma (in sort of a roundabout way) that Vegeta was attracted to her. And I let her know that I knew she was attracted to him. Later, I said much the same thing to Vegeta. Wonder of wonders, he actually listened to me and acted on his feelings.
Now they are together. By my hand.
And nothing I've ever done before, or since, has hurt so much. I did it knowing that my dreams would be shattered. I did it knowing that I would forever lose any chance of having him.
It was the right thing to do. It was the thing that Son Goku would do. I don't know if it is the thing that Kakarott would do, but this proves once more that I'm not Kakarott.
The future of Earth is safe. Trunks will exist. We will be able to defeat the androids. I can feel it deep inside my heart.
But I'm not the man I once was. And now I don't even have my dreams to help me deal with the man I've become.
The End
By Soulwindow
Disclaimer: Neither DBZ nor any of the characters in this story belong to me.
Rating: PG
Author's Note: This is sort of the story behind another of my stories, Loneliness, also on Fanfiction.net. It's not necessary to read Loneliness to understand this one, but it would help. This story was previously posted to Saiyan Slash under my other name, Terendel.
Warnings: Shounen-ai alert. If you can't deal, don't read.
I'm not who everyone thinks I am.
Everyone sees me as a nice, slightly dense…okay, let's be honest…mostly stupid man interested only in training, fighting and eating, not necessarily in that order. They give me credit for honesty and dedication to the people of Earth and to my friends but not much else.
I used to be that man, but something changed. And some days I wish I could go back to who I was. At least then I truly was happy.
What changed? Why am I not happy? That's the story that I'm going to try to tell here. I've bottled up the real me for so long that this won't be easy, but I think it needs to be told. Perhaps then I can find some peace.
Wait. I suppose I should back up a bit and tell something about who I used to be before I changed. That might help explain what happens later.
My Earth name is Son Goku. For more than half my life that was the only name I knew. I had friends and many adventures, got married and had a son. There was plenty of food and fighting along the way, and I was content.
Change happened when my son was four. I found out that I had a brother, Radditz, and that he wasn't from Earth. Radditz told me my real name was Kakarott and that I was really a Saiyan. I had been sent to Earth as an infant to destroy all the people on the planet. He was here to find out why I hadn't finished the job.
With the help of my friends, and my son, I managed to destroy him, but I had to sacrifice my life to that end. In the space of one day I changed from a happy young man, content with my family, to a dead alien Saiyan, killer of my brother. Worse, before he died, Radditz told us there were two more Saiyans on their way to Earth, and that they were each more powerful than he.
As I died, I felt despair for the first time. We had barely beaten my brother. How could we hope to defeat two others even more powerful?
To make a long story short, we did defeat them. I trained hard in the afterlife (even got in a few good meals). Piccolo, a long-time enemy turned ally, taught my son, Gohan, and my other friends trained hard as well. It was barely enough.
Things changed again during that encounter. I met someone who has been a part of my life ever since, mostly as an enemy, but more recently, as a reluctant ally. More on him later.
The biggest change happened when I fought Frieza, yet another in the series of adventures that have been my life. During our fight he killed my best friend, and my anger changed me. I became what is known as Super Saiyan, a legendary state among my people.
Being Super Saiyan changed more in me than my hair and eye color. It did more than make me an extremely powerful fighter.
It made me smarter.
Only now do I understand what is meant by a "mixed blessing."
It took some time to adjust to the change. At first I didn't even notice it. I was too busy trying to deal with the other changes my transformation wrought in me. But over time I realized that my perceptions of myself and the people around me were sharper. I saw things I had never seen before. I made connections previously beyond me.
Don't get me wrong. I'm still no genius. Gohan far exceeds me in mental capacity and always will. But now I am smart enough to realize what I had been missing for so many years.
I spent most of my time on Yardrat trying to adjust to my state. The master who taught me Instant Transmission also helped me learn to deal with being smarter. Unfortunately, in talking with him I realized something else.
I couldn't share what happened with anyone.
Everyone who knows me expects me to act a certain way. Maybe if I were smarter still I could figure out a way to explain what happened, but the way I am, I don't know how. You see, no one really takes me seriously, except when it's time to save the Earth, or my friends, yet one more time. I don't mind, really. It's what I'm good at. It's what I've always been good at. But now that I can see there really is more to life than training, fighting and eating, I don't know how to tell them. Or even how to begin experiencing more.
I've tried. I really have. I've asked Chi-Chi, my wife, if she wanted to go places or do things like...well, like normal people do. She gets this look on her face that says that she knows she can't take me anywhere. Then she tells me that she's perfectly happy staying home, cooking for us and helping Gohan with his homework. Before I became a Super Saiyan, I would have believed her. Now I know better, but I don't know how to convince her otherwise. (It doesn't help that I never learned table manners as a child, and I guess I'm too old to change. Smarter though I am, I still love to eat more than I love to be neat.)
But that's only part of why I'm unhappy.
I'm unhappy because there's someone I desperately want to have in my life. Someone I knew I couldn't have because I'd never do anything to hurt Chi- Chi. But as long as he was free, I could dream. Now he is with another, and my dream is shattered. The worst part is that I helped join him with his mate. I shattered my own dream.
This is the part that I've held inside for so long that I don't know if I can let it out, even now.
Remember the enemy turned reluctant ally? His name is Vegeta. He was one of the two Saiyans I had to defeat.
Vegeta and I are the last of our race. Frieza wiped out all except for four. Myself. Radditz, my brother. Nappa, an elite warrior. And Vegeta. Our prince.
I helped to kill my brother, and Vegeta killed Nappa when the elite couldn't defeat me. I'm only a low-class Saiyan warrior. I wasn't supposed to be anywhere near Nappa's class. Vegeta isn't known for his tolerance of failure.
So Vegeta and I are tied together: both by being the last of our race and by each of us killing one of the two others. Does killing two of the last four Saiyans make us kind of like brothers? I doubt Vegeta would see it that way.
Vegeta doesn't see much of anything my way. He actually hates me and has ever since the beginning. He couldn't believe that I had managed to kill Radditz. Then I almost beat him when we fought. He only defeated me by changing into oozaru form. The giant monkey was unbelievably strong, and it was only a fluke that we defeated him at all. Yajirobe came through at the last minute and cut off Vegeta's tail. For some reason Gohan's tail grew back, and he was able to become oozaru. My son is actually the one who defeated Vegeta, but the prince hates me. Go figure. He actually seems to kind of like my son.
Then I became a Super Saiyan during our fight with Frieza. Vegeta had trained all his life to become a Super Saiyan, but I had the gall to do it first. And beat Frieza. And avenge the destruction of a world I can't even remember. Pretty unfriendly of me, huh?
He's never forgiven me for any of it.
But for some reason he still hangs around. He joined with us to defeat Frieza, and he stayed around. I guess with his home gone there's no place else for him to go.
But here's the rub. I think I'm in love with Vegeta.
Sounds weird doesn't it? He hates me, and I think I love him. I say that I think I love him because what I feel for him is nothing like what I feel for Chi-Chi or Gohan. Chi-Chi has been a part of my life for years. She can be difficult. Her temper is something else, but she has a good heart, and she's taken care of all those details that I just couldn't bother with when I was saving the Earth. We're comfortable together, both in bed and out.
Gohan is my son. For me that says it all. I'm proud of him. He's a strong fighter, but he's also smart. He doesn't live for battle the way I do, but he does well when he needs to. I think when he grows up he'll be more than an avenging warrior, and I'm grateful. It's been my life, but I'm glad he'll have something more. My love for him is without question.
But Vegeta. How to describe what I feel for him? He's far more difficult to be around than Chi-Chi. His temper makes hers look positively balmy. But I want to be with him so badly that I ache inside. When I am with him, I have to stop myself from trembling. I spar with him because it allows me to touch him, and I want that more than anything.
Is this love? I don't know. I don't just want to touch his body. I want to reach in and touch his soul. He's the loneliest person I know, and I want to let him know that I'll always be there for him. Perhaps that takes my feelings away from mere lust and transforms it into love. I just don't know. I've never experienced anything like this.
I could go on, but there wouldn't be much point to it. The story I need to tell now is how I got him together with Bulma. It was the right thing for both of them, and for the future, but oh, how it hurt to watch him go to another.
Why did I decide I had to play matchmaker between the man I thought I loved and my oldest friend? It was my talk with Trunks. When I returned from Yardrat, I was still trying to deal with the changes in me and how I was going to deal with my friends. I'd thought to take a few days to meditate in the woods and rebuild the idiot façade I'd planned to wear in front of my friends.
Imagine my surprise at seeing them meet me when I landed. Fortunately, I managed to slip into the Goku they expected without too much effort. Actually, it was sort of startling how easy it was.
And then there was Trunks. Telling me this fantastic story of androids, the future and being the son of Vegeta and Bulma. That was the first crack in my dream.
But I can only blame the first crack on him. The rest of the shattering was all my doing.
It all started simply enough, while we were all training to get ready for the androids. Bulma called me early one morning. She was practically in hysterics. About all I could get out of her was that Vegeta was hurt. That was enough for me. I transmitted to them immediately.
When I arrived, I found myself in the gravity room. Bulma threw herself into my arms, but all I could see was Vegeta sprawled on the floor, not moving. For a moment, I froze, thinking he was dead. I felt nothing but a crushing pain in my chest. There was no way he could be…gone.
Then I felt the faint flicker of his ki. He was alive!
Bulma was asking me what was wrong, and I told her that I needed to see him. She moved aside to let me.
I knelt by him. I almost hated myself for it, but I was thrilled to have an excuse to touch him, under the guise of checking his condition. He was weak, but I could tell that it was little more than hunger and exhaustion.
When I told this to Bulma and asked her if she knew what was wrong, she told me that she and her mother thought he was lonely. I was shocked. And people call me dumb? She only "thought" he was lonely. It's been obvious to me almost from the start. When he died at the hands of Frieza, I could feel his loneliness like a physical force, hammering at me. That was one of the first times I desperately wanted to touch him. He was dying alone, and he knew it. All I wanted to do was grab his hand and let him know that someone understood.
But I couldn't do it. And I've never quite forgiven myself for it.
I told Bulma that I knew he was lonely. I almost lost my buffoon mask when she got this look on her face that said she couldn't believe I'd noticed something before her. She's been a friend for a long time, but she's one of the people I don't think could ever handle knowing that I've become smart.
We talked about him for a while, and I knew as we talked that there was a solution to Vegeta's loneliness. I'd noticed for quite a while that he and Bulma were interested in each other, not that they'd admit it, even to themselves. And of course there was that heart-to-heart talk I'd had with the Trunks from the future.
I knew that I should have done something already to urge them to get together. I owed it to Trunks. But I hadn't been able to bring myself to do it.
Does it make any sense to say that as long as no one had Vegeta's heart I could dream? I knew he'd never have me. And I'd never leave Chi-Chi. But I could, and did, dream. In my dreams so many things happened differently. I held his hand as he died, and he told me he loved me with his eyes. When Vegeta came back from the dead, we fought side by side against Frieza, our love giving us the strength to defeat him together.
My dreams got me through some of the tough times as I tried to figure out who I was and why I was so different after my transformation. They helped me shrug off Chi-Chi's unintended cruelty. They consoled me when I tried to pretend that I didn't notice my friends' comments about my lack of brain wattage.
And yet…
And yet the right thing to do was to encourage Vegeta to love someone other than me. It was the right thing for my prince. It was the right thing for my oldest friend. And it was the right thing for the unborn future.
And so, I did it. I told Bulma (in sort of a roundabout way) that Vegeta was attracted to her. And I let her know that I knew she was attracted to him. Later, I said much the same thing to Vegeta. Wonder of wonders, he actually listened to me and acted on his feelings.
Now they are together. By my hand.
And nothing I've ever done before, or since, has hurt so much. I did it knowing that my dreams would be shattered. I did it knowing that I would forever lose any chance of having him.
It was the right thing to do. It was the thing that Son Goku would do. I don't know if it is the thing that Kakarott would do, but this proves once more that I'm not Kakarott.
The future of Earth is safe. Trunks will exist. We will be able to defeat the androids. I can feel it deep inside my heart.
But I'm not the man I once was. And now I don't even have my dreams to help me deal with the man I've become.
The End