Disclaimer: I don't own Dragonball Z.
Vegeta's first memory is that of a blinding light. How long ago that had been, he wasn't entirely sure of. But there had once been light. Light which had once scorched through the darkness of night.
Night or day? It had always been the same for him. The sky's pastel blues often melded with the night's ink black. It was only natural that he counted days beginning from the first strike that drew blood against his forming knuckles. Each blow taken, each scar earned, each drop spilled marked one more. Saiyans measured years in body counts.
Color was never an option on the planet, even less so after the advent of Frieza. The very sight of puce skin and blackened lips twisted into a smile was enough to force his eyes to monochrome conditions. The Prince felt and sensed all manner of chaos and destruction in his time, piercing through the aftermath like the sharpest sting. Pain streamed through from open gashes on skin and evaporated into the air he breathed. The clouds seemed to churn red rain above him. Each droplet smashed to pieces against iron-hard bones and tissue, dying them a sordid maroon.
As soon as he got his taste back, he licked at the gaping wound in his mouth for reassurance.
Blood, no matter whom it was cut from, tasted the same. A stream of the red liquid dousing the skin on his forehead matted his vision further. For comfort, he pretended that the body lying splintered in half before him was Frieza and the blood pooling at his feet was dark purple instead of this sickening shade of carmine.
Away, far away to the west, someone was calling out to him. For reasons that he had yet to fathom, Vegeta remained in his place beneath the rain of blood.
Déjà vu struck him as soon as he awoke. There was light blurring his vision and a thundering pain ebbing at his temples. Nevertheless, he was royalty among mortals and he refused to succumb to a measly headache. With great aplomb, the covers were thrown off and the Mightiest of Saiyans Prince Vegeta was ready to take to his heels with a single leap…
The immediate crash that occurred had Bulma scurrying to the medical ward with a ball of resigned annoyance weighing deep within her. The scowl she suppressed was mirrored in the fallen Saiyan's perpetually downturned mouth anyway.
"You were supposed to be resting!"
"I was supposed to be getting into form!" He launched himself up off the floor, shoving his way past her. "Stupid woman and her stupid apparatuses – "
Having none of this rampant arrogance, Bulma drew herself up to her full height (thankfully an inch taller) and backed up against the doorway. An eyebrow raised, Vegeta wondered at the remarkable stubbornness of the female species of this race. Pity that she wasn't a male and a Saiyan. Such resistance would have not gone without reward on his home-planet. Or without punishment too, for that matter.
"You're not going anywhere, Mister!"
"And you're one to talk? Step aside, woman!"
"You almost got yourself killed out there, if I may say so." As an afterthought, she added, "Midget."
Sure enough, the strength of one word alone had him seething enough to generate heat fit for a dozen bonfires. He was sore, his stitches threatened to split from the pressure and he was being put in place by this stupid, annoying, ungrateful woman who wouldn't even be here defying him so vehemently had he not just saved her life from those pesky…
The pain sprung immediately, clenching its way through the torn muscles in his abdomen. As the world seemed to merge into one whole incoherent mass of sepia and chartreuse, a pair of small hands braced against his crumpling form.
"You're going back to bed." She was soft in anything but voice and character, pushing him back towards the unwanted comfort of his bed. "I mean that. Now."
He lay down, an unwillingly obliged patient, not for the first time in recent days and definitely not the last either. On Earth, they marked the days on strange paper books called 'calendars' which they stuck on the wall for all to take note. It had been two days since the last of the invaders they'd encountered. For Vegeta, it had been a most welcome sight. His stationary limbs were in need of a proper workout, unlike those damned contraptions set up for the purpose at the Briefs' training facilities.
And then that foolish woman had gone and gotten herself taken as hostage.
Stupid girl. Trust her to know exactly how to ruin his fun. Regardless of his eventual victory.
His vision now cleared and free of the red that had veiled his dream, his eyes roamed restlessly over the room. Those disgustingly loud yellow walls and flowers on the bedside table… they wouldn't have lasted nanoseconds where he came from. He would have smashed them to bits if it weren't for the concept of hospitality that Kakarot and his lackeys seemed to treasure.
Bulma's chatter flowed freely around. If she thought that that would detract his gaze from the gauze wrapped round her cuts and scrapes then she was even more warped in the head than he was. He'd learnt to smell carnage from miles away, whether it be the dying breaths of a creature unlucky enough to end up as prey or the soft sighs of a withering plant.
"Your hands." he stated.
She paused for a while in her futile rearrangement of the flowers. "Yes."
"They're still bleeding."
Without skipping a beat, she had them thrust behind her back. Too late. He'd seen enough of the excess caking the white cloth in varying hues of mawkish brown.
"They're fine. And that's not the point."
"And I am?"
"Don't get too cocky." she reprimanded with a frown.
Pathetic mongrels, he thought of the invaders. One more scratch on her and there would have been Hell to raise.