*This is set sometime before GT. I've always thought of Vegeta as softer than he really is. When he told Goku of what Frieza did to him, about how he'd taken him from his father as a boy, I honestly believed that he could have been a better man if he'd had the chance. And throughout the show he's shown that in various different ways, even if they aren't our ideal definition of what "a different man" should be. He's still Vegeta, after all.
I see Vegeta punishing himself for certain things, but not in the way of drugs or alcohol, or excessive training/fighting, although it is mentioned below.
Be warned: there is no excuse for this.
He feels something move behind him. A tail, icy and strong, wraps itself around his wrist, squeezing, threatening to snap it, and his blood runs cold. He is a child again. His body trembles and his muscles tighten, and as much as he wants to pull away, he doesn't dare. All at once, his cheek chills over, and there is something frighteningly familiar about the voice that rasps his name: "Vegeta."
One by one, dragon balls appear, and begin floating around his head. His father's image is in each of them, and as they spin around him, his father smirks mockingly at him.
There is a brilliant flash of light in the sky, and he sees thousands upon thousands of shadows standing by, as though waiting for orders from beyond the grave, tails flickering in anticipation. Faceless bodies litter the ground. Far away, screams fill the air.
That grin, that hair. Kakkarot.
Why is he here?
He stands proudly, battered and bruised, and slowly turns...
The Dragon is summoned; a giant beam of glowing magnificent light shoots up into the sky, up, and up, and up, he hears his father speak.
'We are no more.'
His eyes shoot open, scanning his surroundings quickly. He is in his bedroom. Heart still racing, he looks over his shoulder. Bulma still sleeps by his side, undisturbed. He sits up, quickly and carefully pushing the covers aside.
He rests his elbows on his knees, running a hand down his face as he waits for his pulse to return to normal. He scowls, irritated that the nightmare he refers to only as 'It' has resurfaced once again. It's always there, slithering around inside his skull like a parasitic slug, which bothers him greatly. It's something he can't control. Something he can't force away or kill, and it comes and goes on it's own accord.
Seeing that it is six in the morning, and that he has about an hour of sleep left anyway, he quietly changes and makes his way into the kitchen. There's really no point in getting back into bed.
He downs a glass of water, as it's the only thing his stomach can handle this early, and sets out to train. If he accidentally wakes Bulma, he'll never hear the end of it, so he decides to leave for a couple hours, and go elsewhere to train. She really is a queen. He smirks, musing that if royal status was appointed based on one's attitude alone, that Bulma would be of the highest degree.
As he slices through the still gray sky, his thoughts move to his son, Trunks, and he vaguely wonders, as he often does, what will become of him. He has already made it quite clear that Trunks will not be another Gohan. He's become too soft. There were times when he thought for sure that Gohan would go on with his training, to surpass even his own father, and he found himself oddly disappointed when he instead put his time into schooling.
It seems that Chichi has been raising her second son differently. Perhaps it had something to do with Kakkarot's death. He isn't particularly concerned; it's just something to think about occasionally.
He spends the entire day gone from home, working himself to the bone, not bothering to return home from dinner. Eventually two in the morning rolls around, and he returns, though he has no intention of sleeping.
Bulma tracks him down in the lab, asks him if he's coming to bed. He tells her no, and can immediately sense her worry.
"Not sleeping again?" she asks timidly.
A simple grunt and the crossing of his arms is his only reply.
She sighs. "I wish you'd tell me what's bothering you."
"It's none of your concern. Go to bed."
It's meant to be a curt command, but Bulma will no doubt find imagined warmth in his words.
She nods, kisses him on the cheek, and then wanders off.
He sits for another hour before he ventures back into the night, picking up where he left off.
The best. He must be the best that there is.
Sweating, bleeding and screaming out the impurity is the easy part. It's facing these demons on a plane where he can physically do nothing that kills him. Therefore, he punishes himself for the things he's done, for the things he hasn't done, for the things he's wished he's done.
It's incredibly hard to make yourself believe something that isn't true, but it's even harder to pretend it never happened at all.
All those years, so obsessed with being the best, the strongest, the most powerful. With ruling everything everywhere, with killing and controlling. Conquering… Rebuilding his race was pushed aside, suddenly, something on his mental 'to-do' list that he never got around to. He even went as far as to kill his own.
It wasn't until many, many years later, after a near-stable life on Earth and raising a family, that the thought even occurred to him. Could he have wished his father back to life with the Dragon balls? Was it possible? If he had been given the option when he was a child, would he have? Or was it too late even then, had he been molded into what Frieza wanted him to be?
Even in his mind, things are a constant struggle. Is he Vegeta, bloodthirsty price of the Saiyajins? Warrior, Prince, feared throughout the galaxy? Small boy, ripped from his father, from his race, forced to watch them and others die at the hands of a giant lizard? At his own hands?
Had he cried when Frieza had taken him away? When his planet had been destroyed? He can't remember. He only remembers the anger.
He returns at eight in the morning, drained, in every sense of the word.
This goes on for a number of days, until his eyes are sore and bloodshot. He isn't even training by this time, just sitting, unwilling to close his eyes. When Trunks calls him for dinner, he turns his head slowly, and with a dull, glassy look in his eyes just follows. These are the times he's nicest to the boy, or at least less vocal towards him. Occasionally he may even tussle the boy's hair in his delirium, and rather than look pleased, Trunks looks afraid.
He lives in autopilot, waiting eagerly for the nothingness.
His eyelids droop shut for just an instant, and there is that icy grip again and his fathers face.
It does not happen a second time.
A part of him yearns to feel another's blood on his body again. The rush. To leave would be so easy, simply fly away and never return...
He finds himself thinking about the dream again, primarily, his father.
He could never be good enough.
Completely ignoring the fact that he was taken as a child and had nothing in common with the man short of blood, what's left of the Saiyajin race is hardly worth mentioning: an idiot, a bookwork, a couple of demi-tots, and... a man clinging to a title that may as well not even exist anymore?
No.
His race is proud. It lives on, even if what's left isn't what he thinks it should be.
It must.
…Is it possible, he wonders, one night watching his wife sleep, to genuinely feel a connection to these people he calls his family and friends?
Find a mate, continue the bloodline, yes, these are things he's familiar with. They're instinct. Logic.
But love?
It doesn't seem logical to him. It may or may not be happening, he can't quite say, but he doesn't think he'll ever understand it, not like they do.
Because no one can tell him if these thoughts and feelings are normal anymore (and he wouldn't listen, anyway). Therefore, he fights it, because fighting is something he does know, and because what he doesn't know terrifies him, and what terrifies him must be destroyed.
Sometimes he gives in.
Little things. A smile here, the allowing of a hug.
Other times, he doesn't, and things remain the same.
Why is he so ashamed?
He isn't the same as he used to be, whether he wants to admit it or not.
When will he be at peace with himself?
On the final night of the cycle, his heart beats so strongly he can feel it in his temples, his eyes sting and his vision blurs. It's almost at an end. Soon, things will be back to normal. He'll eat, sleep, train, argue and make love as if nothing ever happened. But not yet. Not until the cycle is completed. Not until he's cleansed himself.
Bulma finds him in the grass, unconscious, around midday. She brings him in, as she always does, and leaves him in their bed. This is when she runs her fingers through his hair, (something he normally wouldn't allow her to do), and pleads with him to tell her how to help. When she's needed elsewhere, she reluctantly leaves, hoping for the best when she returns.
He sleeps longer than he should, and it is an empty sleep with no dreams.