Yes, I decided which bit to chop out for this update. (Don't give me that funny look!) Nightmare Journey is one big chunk at home, so I have to do a little cutting and pasting when I decide where the chapters are. I have an overabundance of votes now for a pregnant Vegeta. So, I am going now with the baby version.
Tatoosh: I am going to remind you real quick that I did warn you. Goten is happy & affectionate with everyone. He's my sprite. The torture is almost over, at least. *consults original* Okay, there's a bit more before the recovering gets going better, and the loving starts. After that, well, stop reading.
Liminchan: another preggie Veggie vote! Some of the abuse may be a bit off, I'm no doctor, and certainly not well-versed on Saiyan physiology Maybe it shoulda killed him, and maybe it could never have been done… I must wonder about the mind that wants to know what dark and twisted things mine can think up…
Mirai_Vega: *falls over laughing* you too! What is it with everyone loving the idea of Vegeta getting pregnant???? Is okay. As I said, I'm going with the pregnant Saiyan version. Goku kinda took care of some revenge, without even realizing it. You'll see.
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Raditz. It had been Raditz who'd introduced him to intimacy, Vegeta remembered suddenly. He'd been barely twelve, and they'd been alone on a mission when he went through the change. It happened later to royals, they'd known, so neither had been expecting it. Raditz had thought he'd taken ill, at first, until he recognized the signs. And he'd taken care to make it special. He'd known about what had been done to the boy.
Why didn't he have nightmares about that? That had lasted a lot longer, been more shameful. He'd survived those attacks without nightmares. And with his pride and honor mangled but intact. This had taken his pride, his honor. He'd been… what? Tortured, abused. He'd been through that before. Why was this time so different? Why the nightmares? Why the terror?
He noticed the desk. Paper, pens. No one else in this house knew Saiyan. No one anywhere knew Saiyan. Only he did, now. Slowly, he settled into the seat, pulling a sheet of paper over, selecting a pen. He started with the earliest memories he had, and wrote until the light faded.
It was dark, he should go to bed. Slowly, he shed the clothes Bulma had sent. She and Trunks rarely came to see him. He'd hidden behind Goku the first several times she had, without knowing why. The nightmare from the night before had answered that. His obedience to Chi-Chi had also been explained. For once, he had remembered what he'd dreamt.
Maybe he'd had nightmares about when he was young, that he didn't remember now? He remember waking to Raditz holding him, murmuring reassurances, promising revenge. He must have, and overcome them. Very well. He'd just have to overcome these. He crawled into bed, waiting.
Goten's muffled giggles woke him. The bed dipped as the teen sat to remove his boots, soft thuds announcing success. There was the sound of cloth, a soft thump as the weighted shirt the boy wore hit the floor. Goten was still giggling when he curled up against Vegeta.
Vegeta traced the smile. "Oh, I was such a stinker!," Goten said, understanding immediately. "You should've seen the look on Trunk's face! Priceless, really." More giggling, and Goten laced his fingers through Vegeta's. "He asked how you were doing, so I told him what Gohan said. And he wanted to know if someone still had to stay with you at night, and I told him I didn't mind, cause Mom wanted Dad back in bed… although I needed the mental image of Mom and Dad in bed about as much as he did," the teen added in disgust. "But he walked right into that, really! The funny thing was, he never said anything about me sleeping with you, so I asked him if the idea of us sleeping together didn't bother him. I thought he was gonna die of embarrassment or something, he got so red!" Another little trill of giggles. "I haven't gotten him that good for ages."
Vegeta smiled. His straight-laced son would have a problem with that, wouldn't he, considering the context of the conversation. A small chuckle escaped him.
"Vegeta? Did you just laugh?" Goten sat straight up, looking down at his bed-partner. "I made you laugh?"
"Apparently." The voice was just as raspy as the chuckle had been, and Vegeta looked surprised that he'd said anything. Goten was ecstatic.
"You can talk again! That's great! That's wonderful!" he crowed, then suddenly frowned. "Are you gonna start calling me the spawn of Kakarot again?"
Vegeta discovered laughing could be painful if you hadn't done it in awhile.
Goku looked down at the papers on the desk. Funny, that wasn't Goten's writing. Come to think of it, it wasn't even a language he knew. So that probably meant it was something Vegeta had written, in Saiyan. Make that a language he didn't remember. He stared at the unfamiliar letters. What would Vegeta be writing?
"It's his life," Goten said from behind him, picking up one of the sheets. "He thought that maybe by writing down everything he's been through, he might understand why he has such terrible nightmares, figure out why it's taking him so long to recover."
"How do you know?"
"He got his voice back last night. Not for long, though, he used it all up, after the nightmare."
"Another one?"
"He remembered it. He told me." Goten drew in a long breath. "It was… terrible."
He'd been strong, once. Confident, brave - to the point of stupidity, sometimes. Proud, defiant, arrogant. Killed more people, destroyed more planets than he wanted to remember, now, but he'd been proud of his skill. He'd defeated enemy after enemy, and grown stronger. He'd been a warrior prince.
He'd survived capture and abuse more than once. Recovered from more than one gang rape. He'd been demeaned, ridiculed, put down. He'd survived as a virtual slave for more years than he cared to remember. He had gone through so much, and come out of it.
He sagged against the shower wall, watching as the blood was rinsed off his body to run down the drain. Filthy, he was still filthy. He scrubbed harder, breaking more skin as he remembered what had happened, trying to scrub the memories from his body since he couldn't get them from his mind. Everything he'd been through, all the horrors he'd survived, even going to hell, and a woman had wounded, broken, degraded him so badly he didn't know how to recover.
But he would. Somehow. A faint trace of his old self reminded him it was possible, and that he'd made a start. A fainter trace of his younger self was telling him not to do it on his own. Could he force himself to recover? Maybe if he wrote. He turned off the shower, wincing at the abuse he'd done to himself. He contented himself with a towel, ignoring that it was soon red with his blood. He made his way to the desk, picked up the pen.
Vegeta looked down at the paper. His hand had begun shaking, writing about those early years with Frieza. The bold, neat lines of text had gotten wobbly, wobbly enough he'd had to stop, to take time to compose himself, before he'd been able to continue. That had been so many years ago, yet in his current state, he couldn't block the residual emotions. The fear that had developed of being summoned, of the agony of the beatings – terror that it would be more than a beating, the soul-searing horror when it was. How many times he'd had to use a regeneration tank when Frieza had finished with him!
Raditz and Nappa had known, they couldn't help knowing. They'd helped him through it then. Saiyans didn't do such things to children.
Pain! He clutched his head, crying out at the unexpectedness of it, before clamping his teeth together. He struggled to stand, succeeded, then knocked the chair over when he passed out.
Gohan arrived as soon as he could after his brother's frantic phone call. He'd had to stitch up several of the scars Vegeta had managed to scrub so hard they'd ripped open, besides the new cut on his head. He'd treated the abused flesh as best he could. After asking what could have set Vegeta off, he and his father had sat through Goten's shaky recital of the last two nightmares Vegeta had told him of. They'd both been graphic, full of things the innocent Goku hadn't dreamed existed or could happen. Gohan, however, had had to treat a patient or two for some of the things Goten told them of.
"So that's what happened." Gohan cast a look at the sleeping prince. Valium was working wonders for him at the moment, Gohan hadn't wanted him waking up in the middle of being stitched up. "Part of it, at least. I don't doubt there's more."
"More?" his father protested weakly, still with a green face. "How could there be more?"
"Trust me, Dad. More and worse is possible. And combine that with how proud he was…" Gohan shrugged. "He probably shouldn't be left alone. And Mom does not count as a watcher, not after hearing that." He frowned. "She might even be slowing his recovery without knowing it. She'll need to be told what Vegeta's remembered."
"But…" Goten and Goku protested together.
"Mother is a great deal like the woman who tortured Vegeta. She's very determined to have her own way, and will do what she has to to ensure she gets it. She needs to know, so that she'll leave him completely alone." Gohan stood. "Dad, you come with me. Goten, he's probably not going to be very amenable to drugs, considering what he went through, but try to talk him into using the Valium. It'll help him sleep without the dreams."
"Okay."
He woke slowly, feeling every tender, abused spot on his body. He opened his eyes, dark except for the faint starlight from the window. What had happened? He shifted carefully, reaching out, finding the edge of the bed. He was alone? No – voices in the hallway, talking quietly. Goku and Goten. He couldn't make out what they said.
The door opened, closed, and the nightlight was switched on. He nearly laughed at how much he relaxed as the tiny light pierced the darkness. "Goten?"
"You woke up?" Goten hurried to the bed. "How do you feel?"
"Not good," the prince admitted. "What happened?"
"You scrubbed too hard in the shower. Gohan had to stitch you back up. Why do you always pick times when we don't have senzu beans to get hurt?"
Shower? Oh, yes. He shuddered. "I remember." His face whitened as he recalled the other. "I remember," he whispered.
"Um, Gohan left some Valium. He said it would help you sleep without dreams." Goten showed him a small bottle.
"No."
"But…" Goten began, then paused. "You remembered something else. Without nightmares. That's what happened, isn't it?"
"Yes." He turned his head away, too ashamed to look at the boy.
"Vegeta." Soft, almost caressing. "Vegeta, what could be worse than what you already told me?"
Should he tell the boy? He moved carefully, sitting up, gasping as the damage he'd done to himself made itself known.
"Easy!" Goten moved, an arm around the prince to hold him steady. "There, better? Now. What did you remember?"
"The children." Vegeta sighed, then began brokenly telling the boy of what had happened to him as a child, of Saiyan ways, and of what he'd remembered. He held himself stiff as he talked, trying not to break down completely. And the teen surprised him yet again.
"You've got nothing to be ashamed of, Vegeta. Not as a child, and not drugged up like you were. None of what happened was your fault. Get that through that stubborn head of yours," Goten scolded. He paused, thinking. "And, I think I know where it happened. You've got no need to worry about that woman ever finding you. She's dead."
"What?"
"I've been putting the pieces together. That last bit, about the children… There was an orphanage in West City that was completely destroyed about the same time Dad said he found you. It was in the news. Woman who ran the place died in the explosion. There was a big stink about it. The firefighters and other rescue workers… they found some laboratories and filming rooms on a level under the rubble that wasn't in the blueprints. There were children in them, animals, fetish items... It fits."
"You're sure?"
Vegeta looked so like the children he'd seen on the news. Battered, bruised, the worst of their wounds hidden, and the longing for hope in their eyes, the hope that the nightmare they'd lived through was over. "I'm sure."
The tears came then, a release of the horror, a relief. Goten held Vegeta close, rocking gently, just letting him get it out of his system. After a bit, he began crooning the lullaby that worked so well on the prince, and both drifted into sleep.