It had taken Kress a month before he was able to be around the living again.

He had asked Kai Goten to repair the energy absorber in his chest, but his brother had refused, saying he may need to use that power in the service of others, and that he needed to learn to control it himself. It had seemed impossible at first. Kai Goten's temple had the ability to heal itself, but even so, for a long time the temple seemed a shambles, even with Kress sleeping outside in the 'training room'.

It was worst when he slept. Kress's nightmares had always plagued him, ever since that day he had purged his first planet, but now when he slept, his power went wild, uncontrollable, destroying everything around him. He had avoided sleep as long as he could because of this, but that only seemed to make it worse.

Goten had come up with a temporary solution to this, after another one of his forays into HFIL. He had taken a sleep-deprived Kress to the tree in the middle of the training ground, where he often went to meditate. He sat down beneath the tree, and had Kress sit down beside him. He then held out his hand. "Give me your tail," he said, his gaze stern.

Kress narrowed his eyes. "I don't understand your humor, brother," he warned.

Goten sighed. "I promised I would help, and I will. You need to trust me. Give me your tail," he said patiently.

Kress growled low in his throat, then slowly unwrapped his tail from around his waist, allowing the end of it to fall into Goten's outstretched hand.

Goten then, very gently, wrapped the tail around his forearm, his eyes never leaving Kress's. "Saiyan families tend to sleep together. Your uncle," he said softly, noticing how mention of Raditz caused Kress to tense up, "made you sleep by yourself, because he was afraid of being too soft with you. You were never meant to be treated like that. Do you trust me to have your back, Gohan?" he asked.

Kress's throat was tight. The sensation of having his tail wrapped around Goten's arm was… achingly familiar. His father. A flash of memory, of being small and safe, his tail wrapped around his father's forearm, washed over him. He swallowed hard, then gave his brother a short nod. "Okay, then," Goten said. "Lay down. I'll watch your back," he said softly. He then turned his eyes forward, as if watching for any threat that might somehow intrude on this private sanctuary.

Kress laid down, his back against Goten, his tail wrapped around his brother's arm.

For the first time in his tragic, violence-filled life, he slept without nightmares.

Of course, life wasn't all blissful relaxation. Kress had work to do. As soon as his brother deemed his control over his power to be sufficient to rejoin others without endangering them, Kai Goten prepared to send him to a planet close to what people were starting to call the Badlands, the area where Frieza's empire used to be. Where black holes merged with each other, slowly pulling more and more stars and planets into their orbit, towards an eventual destruction.

A group of scientists from across the galaxy were working on a way to negate the effects of the Badlands. Kress wanted to help. Of course, he knew he would not be taken seriously in his Saiyan armor (well… he would, but his ideas wouldn't), so he had asked his brother for something he could wear to blend in, but still be able to fight in.

The answer appeared to be a black body suit beneath the stupidest outfit Kress had ever laid eyes on.

"I look like an idiot," he growled, looking himself over in the mirror. His long spiky hair was tied back, and he wore some weird black and purple outfit with white ruffles everywhere. "How do these people move in this, much less fight?"

Goten raised an eyebrow. "The Yardrat are peaceful. A lot of the scientists there are Yardrat, and they're generally accepting of strangers, which means you'll fit in best if you stay close to them. Anyone else will just think you came with them, and the Yardrat won't care enough to point out the difference. Spending some time with them will be good for you," he told his brother with a smile.

Kress growled slightly, but sighed. "Fine. You're right. But I feel like I'm gonna rip this stuff just wearing it," he warned.

Goten frowned at that, then placed a hand on the clothes. They rippled with a blue light, then went back to normal. "There," he said, removing his hand. "I gave them the same qualities as your armor. You can even turn oozaru in these, and keep them on," he said, crossing his arms and smirking, quite pleased with himself.

Kress looked down at the clothes, and powered up experimentally. They didn't rip, as he thought they might. He powered back down again, giving a satisfied nod. "Thanks," he said, as an afterthought.

Goten smiled. "You're welcome," he said, knowing how hard his brother was trying. It had not gone unnoticed by Kress, all the effort Goten had put into learning about Saiyan culture to understand his brother. In return, Kress tried to remember the manners his human mother had taught him all those years ago, and tried to use them with Goten.

Kress gazed into the pool of water, upon which floated scenes from the science station he would be travelling to. "They'll have monitoring devices everywhere," he said. "Don't pull me out unless I tell you. I don't want a repeat of the last space station I disappeared from," he grunted.

"That was not my fault!" Goten objected, glaring at the Yardrat-dressed Saiyan. "No one asked you to fall into an alternate universe. And if you don't want me to interfere, you'll get the proper rest and exercise you need on your own. And food. The Yardrats eat almost as much as Saiyans do, so you should be fine as far as that goes," he said.

Kress goaned at that. Food was an… uncomfortable subject for him.

Prince Vegeta had gone quite mad towards the end, and Kress had suffered for it. During Kress's training, if you could call it that, he was made to eat people. He was starved half to death, and made to think of everyone around him as meat. It had been over a year since then, but the effects still remained, and Kress tended to get overly hostile during meal times. Which made him not want to eat. Which made him hungrier.

Which made him more violent.

It wasn't a big deal when he was on a planet, where he could just go out and hunt, and eat alone. And, Goten tended to disappear after providing him food whenever he ate here. He never really saw Goten eat, actually. Kress just assumed the Kai didn't need to.

But, a science station like this one, competing for food against other, weaker beings, and NOT eating any of them…

It required quite a bit of self-control.

"I told you, I'll be fine," he grumbled, embarrassed his brother had even brought it up. "Now, stop mothering me, and send me off, so I can get to work," he said, glaring at the Kai.

Goten nodded, hiding a smirk at his brother's behavior. "I'll be exploring the temple, so you may need to actually pray to get my attention," he said, leveling a gaze at him.

"I'm not praying to you, brother," Kress growled. "I didn't pray last time, and you found me."

"You also nearly destroyed another planet," Goten pointed out. "Come on, it's not that bad, people pray all the time," he said.

Kress narrowed his eyes. "Saiyans don't pray. If we did, any god we would respect enough to pray to, would tell us to solve our own damn problems," he said stubbornly, arms crossed.

Goten raised an eyebrow at that. "I'd do that, if your solution to your problems wasn't so destructive," he said, his arms crossed as well. Finally, he shrugged. "Fine. Solve your own damn problems, then," he said, and moved behind Kress, placing both hands on his shoulders. "Good luck," he told his brother, and pushed him into the pool.

Kress disappeared.

Kai Goten watched the images in the pool for a while, then sighed. "Come on, Kai, he's your big brother, he's gotta grow up sometime," he chided himself wryly, and stepped away from the pool, to continue his exploration of his temple.