RARITY
The unfathomable vastness spread out further than time itself, and all she could think of was how small they were in the universe. Although she wasn't sure if the view outside was any better than the reality of where she was trapped presently, Bulla was glad for the large window on the left wall of their cell nevertheless. It provided a momentary escape, at least.
There was no telling how long they'd been crammed into these quarters together. Bulla figured it had been a couple of days at most, but despite her inherited genius it was proving difficult to keep track of star patterns given how fast the vessel carrying them was moving.
Her lips folded as she withdrew her thumb from between her teeth. Looking at her fingernails now, she blushed at how far down she had nibbled them all, little jagged stubs with a cracking manicure she had meant to clean up … before. With a sidelong glance toward her cellmate, Bulla self-consciously tucked both palms under her bottom, hoping to hide her anxiety from notice.
They both had been relatively silent since their capture, spare her hysterical outburst upon realization of the true gravity of their situation. Her brother and he had always talked about their daring childhood adventures (they both had even been to space before!) and she had heard mostly second-hand stories about her father and mother's exploits in their heydays. However, Bulla had been born into a time of comfort and peace and had never really encountered a real threat- a real danger. This was all drastically new to her.
She swallowed and peeked again at Goten, whose uncharacteristically stoic frame had not moved for quite some time in the adjacent corner. To his credit, he had not judged her as she suspected her brother would've. He offered her comfort through her tears, his confidence that everything would be okay buoying her back up out of panic, and she was grateful and a little bit ashamed of herself, if she was being honest.
What would her father think?
Unbidden, fresh tears pricked the corners of her eyes, and Bulla drew her knees up closer to her chest, arms tight around her legs. Thinking of her father broke her heart. She knew he would save her, but when? And how? She had never once doubted that her father would be her personal hero in any predicament, but now her youthful naivety began to falter.
"You've been pretty quiet," his voice startled her out of her melancholy reverie. Bulla whipped her head in his direction. Goten wasn't looking at her; his eyes still gently closed and his face and body still unmoved from his cross-legged position on the floor, and she wondered for a moment if she had hallucinated it.
"I'm just-" she cleared the wetness from her throat. "I was just thinking, I've never seen space…"
Goten opened his eyes, and his weak smile warmed her from the inside out. In this unfamiliar and scary place, he provided solace. "Yeah? What do you think?"
Bulla looked out the window again. She hesitated, then shrugged. "I suppose it's surprising to actually see it so…." she pondered the word on the tip of her tongue and settled on, "... empty?"
He hummed behind her, and she turned toward the sound of him shuffling up from the floor. Goten stretched out his arms over his head, bending his torso left and right, relishing a few pops of bones and joints. Bulla tried to tamp down the flicker of that old flame she harbored for him so long ago as she watched his lean muscles moving under his clothes.
A childhood crush, innocent enough, and nothing more. Bulla had long since learned to play it off as she matured, but she'd be a liar if she didn't admit that his proximity always elicited a harder beating of her heart.
Goten sat down across from her on the opposite end of the window ledge, training his black gaze on the outside void. "Yeah. It is pretty empty out there, huh?"
"What were you doing over there?" Bulla queried abruptly, garnering his undivided attention. She nodded toward the corner he had just vacated.
"Meditating."
"Oh… I've never seen you do that."
He shrugged and picked something invisible from the curve of his knee, inspected it, then flicked it aside. "Probably not. I don't do it a whole lot." Goten tilted his head back until it thunked against the wall behind him, and his heavy sigh drew a mirrored one from Bulla's chest, too. "Piccolo and Gohan taught me, way back… but I never found much use or time for it then, I guess."
Bulla quirked a sad smile, supplying, "What, you have more free time in here or something?"
Goten gave a mirthless chuckle, but said nothing further.
"What are we gonna do, Goten?" Bulla couldn't fight the question any longer. "With these things-" she lifted her wrists, brandishing the bulky fashion accessory with which their captors had outfitted them both, "-How are we supposed to get out of here?"
He looked down at his shackles with a frustration Bulla understood. Goten turned his wrists over and over, examining the tech with confusion. It was a cute gesture; he clearly no idea what he was looking at, but Bulla had an inkling. It was likely the devices were being used as trackers or potentially as weapons against them- and she certainly wasn't as confident in her tech abilities as her mother and brother to risk tampering with the equipment and putting them both in potential jeopardy.
He huffed and shook his head, dropping his hands into his lap. "I don't know, kid. I guess we wait for our chance or an opening."
"Do you think…" She bit her lip, and Goten looked up at her to finish. The words had begun to bubble up before she could consider them, and Bulla blushingly looked away. "Do you think… my dad's going to be able to find us?"
"Bulla, if there's anyone we can definitely count on, it's Vegeta," Goten assured her. "Your dad would go to the ends of the galaxy and back to find you. You don't need to worry about that." He faced the window, his smile wry. "Honestly, I'm pretty lucky to have gotten kidnapped with you."
Goten met her gaze again and her belly flip-flopped under the pressure of his earnest stare. "We're going to get out of this. I promise ya."
His words were somehow comforting and despairing all at once. She trusted in Goten, if not just for his experience alone, but because that's how their relationship had always been. Bulla was constantly suspicious of her brother - sibling love and all that - but never once had Goten given her a reason not to believe him.
But also, there was the fact that she had no other choice or option; it was either have faith, or face a far harsher reality, one that she just wasn't capable of imagining quite yet.
"Hey," he intoned and she stirred. "Why don't you lay down for a bit? I don't think either of us have really slept a wink."
Bulla shook her head. "No. I'm-" Too scared? She'd never say those words. Her chin set and she glared hard at the window pane. "I'm fine."
She felt more than saw him move from his perch across from her, and suddenly his warm palm was cradling the curve of her shoulder. Heat radiated from that spot where they touched, all the way to the top of her head and the tips of her toes, and Bulla hoped desperately she wasn't as pink as she felt.
"Bulla, c'mon. I'll watch out,," he offered kindly, his gaze soft and reminding her of how tired she truly was.
"What about you?"
Goten waved the hand that had been on her shoulder, and she missed the contact immediately. "Ah, I'll be fine! I'll get one after you." He motioned toward the solitary cot on the right of their cell with a jerk of his thumb. "Go on."
Bulla wavered. He wasn't wrong; she hadn't truly caught more than a few errant head-nods since their capture. She'd been too anxious, too afraid to do anything but stay vigilant. But staring into the void had begun to drain her, and Goten's gentle presence was proving soothing, making his offer all the more tempting.
Eventually, she relented. "Okay, okay…" Bulla drew herself up from the ledge and smoothed down her skirt, another wave of self-conciousness washing over her as Goten watched her move up and away. There was nothing other than her own girlish tendencies filling her with apprehension at the idea of sleeping in the same room as someone else - more specifically, in the same room as him. Maybe, when she was just a child, it had been different, but now-
She paused at the side of the cot, looking over her shoulder with a toss of her long blue hair. "Just ... don't let anything happen to me, okay?"
He fixed her with a long look, his features trained into a serious expression she couldn't recall ever having seen before. Goten nodded just once, still as a statue otherwise.
Bulla swallowed and kneeled down on the cot, trying not to cringe at the squeak of the springs or the clinical smell that wafted up from the thin linens as she pulled them aside. She gingerly tucked herself under the small blanket, wishing desperately she was wound deeply within her plush comforter and pillows of her bed back home. Bulla settled into the lumpy mattress, her breath quivering out of her, as her eyes closed and she willed her mind and body to relax.
Sleep did not come easy, but under his ever-watchful eye, it eventually claimed her.
Author's Note: So I have this plot bunny that has not been able to evacuate my brain. Short and long of it is pretty basic: Bulla and Goten get captured by some unknown galactic organization and are carted off as the two closest-to-pure Saiyans (that are - ahem - unrelated) remaining in the known galaxy.
Of note: in this, Bulla is 22 and Goten is 28. BECAUSE SORRY NOT SORRY IF AKIRA TORIYAMA WON'T APPROPRIATELY DISPLAY AGING IN HIS SHOW THEN NEITHER WILL I
Anyway, maybe more will come, probably, I dunno if it'll all be linear or just come out as the mood or idea strikes.