Title: Ghost stories

Pairing: Goku/Vegeta


Walking up the gravel path was difficult enough with his camera and detection kit swinging on his back, but landing on his face after a loose rock decided to trip him up was really testing his patience.

Getting up onto his hands and knees, Goku took a deep breath and sighed loudly before rising to his feet and continuing up the path once again. 'I'll have to check the equipment before I try anything this time, I definitely don't want a rerun of my last solo hunt' he thought, snickering to himself as he remembered being stuck on the roof of a chapel after a possession went wrong a few years back.

Sure, maybe he had bitten off more than he could chew on that last mission, but did that really warrant a 5 year hunting ban? No, he certainly didn't think so. Which was exactly why he was trekking up a path, by himself mind you, on an abandoned patch of land in the next village over from Mount Paoz, to clear a notoriously terrifying ghost on what he liked to call his 'comeback mission'.

Reaching the door, he placed one of his hands on the carved wood and hummed softly to himself when he felt the telltale pulsing of spiritual energy tingling through his fingertips. Taking a deep breath to steady himself and setting his shoulders, he pushed the thick wooden barricade open and proceeded into the building.

'This place is nuts!' he thought, lifting one of his legs over a fallen ceiling beam and narrowly avoiding the trickling water leaking from a hole in the caved in upper floor. Finding a gap in the wall, he set down his pack and fished through the contents until his hand passed over his camcorder. He picked it up and smiled; this was the first piece of self made equipment he owned and he took it on every job he could find. It was fitted with an Air Iron Counter on the left side, had an internal compass, night vision and even printed out in black and white. During his banned time, he'd managed to kit it out even further by wiring up an EMF detector and syncing it to an EVP device he carried in his tool belt. Needless to say, he never went on a hunt without it.

Shrugging his backpack back on and checking the devices functionality, Goku started walking again with the camcorder held up at eye level. Ducking under an archway in the corridor he stepped into a new area, he peered through the lens at the black and green of the night vision setting, noting that there was more static over the display in the current room - supposedly the middle room of the bottom floor - and that the EVP was detecting a quiet groaning sound the closer he got to the back wall.

"Hello, is anyone there?" He called out quietly, noting a faint blur in the upper right corner of his camera screen. The air began to feel heavier, and the barometer on his belt started to click in response, so he con

tinued forward.

"My name's Goku." he twisted the camera to the right slightly, and the blur took on a more solid colour. "I'm here to talk to you." Ok, so maybe that wasn't entirely accurate, but was he really gonna go ahead and say 'Hey, I'm here to cleanse this house because you're not wanted' out loud? No.

The barometer began to die down, and the green shadow became a blur again. Cursing silently he stepped back to turn himself around when his foot snagged a piece of wire on the ground and a sharp metal trap clamped around his ankle.

Goku hissed sharply and yelped, dropping his camera equipment in front of him as he reached down to try to pry the metal from around his lower leg. The blood gushing out made the metal slippery and hard to grip onto, and he began to become concerned as the bottom of his navy jeans gradually turned black.

"Shit. Shit shit shit!" He cursed wildly as the pain radiated up his calf and his breathing quickened.

He braced himself by pushing against the wall behind him, and the whole structure groaned and quaked under the pressure. The remnants of the ceiling crumbled and collapsed above him, cascading into the room. Some of the larger pieces began to drop above him, and with both hands wrapped tightly around his leg injury, there was little Goku could do to protect himself. A piece managed to strike him hard on the back of the head, causing his vision to swim and his strength to fade.

He sank down the wall and curled into himself as he clung onto consciousness. Maybe he should have notified his dad before he left, just because his luck was this bad. The last thing that registered was a cold air passing over him and a faded hand reaching out to him before he blacked out completely.


The first thing he registered before his eyes opened was the dull throbbing ricocheting inside his skull, and the sharp ache running up and down his left leg. The second thing he registered, strangely enough, was a low mumbling noise and the feeling of fingers where his jean-leg usually was. Strange.

"- things to do, didn't you see the wire on the floor? Are you really that thick? And then you bring the ceiling down, do you know how hard I worked to keep that up there, you stupid prick! I should have left you to die, why did I -"

The voice - it was definitely a voice - was deep and gravely, though fluctuated into a higher pitch with the anger in its tone. He worked up the strength to peel back his eyelids, and not only did the low light of the room filter through, but so did the 'person' talking to him.

He was sitting beside his, wrapping his leg in an aged bandage, probably from inside the house stores, and was feeling round the wrap to check for brakes or something. He was built fairly well, with his muscled arms on show as he worked, and had a head of black hair that stood in a gravity defying sweep. He was kind of handsome, he begrudgingly admitted to himself.

He was also partially see through, which wasn't normal.

Goku's eyes widened as his hazy mind connected the dots, and he hefted himself up onto his elbows and backed away swiftly, suddenly much more alert and awake than before. The ghost looked flustered at first, and reached out to stop him from moving before recognising the panicked look in Goku's eyes, and they let their arms fall back to their sides. Their face fell and their whole image faded almost completely, and they turned their face away.

Managing to calm his breathing down, Goku looked toward his new 'companion' and struggled to find them. Only the clicking on his barometer kept him informed that the ghost was still there. He began picking up mumbling on his EVP and he inched forward. The pressure in the room didn't feel half as bad as it had done before, and the ghost had done nothing but bandage his leg? This was supposed to be a violent haunting case, and the ghost wasn't doing anything!

Had he made a mistake?

"...Hello?" He said quietly, scooting further forward to his original position. His foot caught on a piece of upturned floor and he grimaced, biting back a swear.

"Idiot." Was the hushed reply he heard through his EVP, though it didn't sound as angry anymore, just tired.

"Who are you?"

The ghost turned around at this question, and their image became a little clearer. They looked perplexed, and held eye contact for a while before they replied.

"I'm the ghost, genius."

There was still no perceivable malicious intent detected in the ghosts voice, and Goku mentally labelled the situation as safe, for the time being at least.

"I meant, what's your name? Do you have a name?"

The ghost just sneered and rolled their eyes at him, folding their arms over their chest and huffing.

"Of course I have a name, what person doesn't have a name for crying out loud?"

Goku raised his eyebrows in amusement - this most certainly wasn't his usual run-of-the-mill ghost, and he kind of liked it - and smiled at the apparition.

"I knew that. Well, my name is Goku!" He said pleasantly, holding his hand out on instinct so they could shake hands after their names were exchanged. It only seemed to click in his mind that ghosts couldn't touch people before the entity smirked at him - it really wasn't hot or anything, though it was familiar - and accepted the hand he'd offered and shook it.

"Hmph, the names V."

Goku froze, his face bleaching. He remembered being told a story by his father once about the family that moved away from Mount Paoz after having another child to find a bigger home in the next village. He was only young at the time, and he only ever saw the boy once in the woods en route to his grandfathers house. The boy with spikey black hair and bangs, who smirked at him when he tripped on a log whilst stopping in front of him. His father and the boy's father had always been close, something about 'special bonds' and 'family ties'. The family moved away and everything was ok for a time, before his dad got a call in the night and he woke up to crying downstairs. He spoke about how his friend, his wife and two sons had been 'taken away and wouldn't be coming back'. 'I didn't get it back then, I thought they'd just moved further away or something. I got it now'

"You're him."

The ghosts face became neutral, and they gave Goku a confused look as they tilted their head to one side. Goku took a deep breath and let it out before he started speaking.

"Are you Vegeta?"

The ghost visibly bristled; the air became all too heavy for Goku to breathe in and his muscles started to ache as the pressure rose to breaking point. Something glass shattered in the distance, and the ghosts silhouette became white and fragmented before disappearing.


The first of hopefully many more drabbles/short stories involving the DBZ gang, various pairings and a multitude of prompts from the OTP Prompts tumblr blog. I hope you guys enjoy ~