Summary: Before Earth, before his change of heart and before his family, there had been a son he'd never wanted, made from Frieza's seed and born from his body. Then he was dead, and Vegeta made sure to forget he had ever been there at all. Only, he isn't dead. He is alive. Tormented and abused, but alive, and now Vegeta will do what he couldn't have done the first time. He will save him.
Warnings: Rated M for language, abuse, sexual violence, depictions of rape, mpreg, etc.
Every Eye Will See
Chapter Thirteen: The Respite
Sometime later, Chill woke up.
Or at least he thought he woke up. The line between awareness and unconsciousness had become so blurred in the past few days. Never mind consciousness, life was no longer a guarantee. He could be dead and in line for judgement for all he knew. As close as he had come before, he had no experience with death. He did not know what it looked like or felt like. Perhaps this was death right here, stuck in this limbo between reality and the darkness that comes just after a nightmare ended.
It would be a miserable enough experience, he thought.
He dug the jagged nail of his forefinger into his thumb just to be sure. It was only after he felt a sliver of warm blood seep past his knuckle when he conceded that he was probably still alive. If one did feel pain in the afterlife, he imagined a damned soul like his would have to endure far worse than the sharp sting the injury caused.
He was a bit more disappointed by this revelation than he had been the first time he woke once again in the world of the living. Perhaps he should sleep and try again. They say that the third time was a charm, right?
Before he got the chance to go through with his admittedly morbid plan, the sound of shuffling feet caught his ears. The sound grew louder, and he knew those footsteps, because only she could make the crunch of her boots on hard stone of all things sound distinctive.
He did not know whether to be pleased or displeased. The thought barely had a chance to come to pass before he was already berating himself. No matter how he felt, he should never think badly of her that way.
Still, he really wanted her to go away. He did not want her to see him this way, so broken he could not even pick his face up out of the dirt. Even more so, he did not think he could handle the level of energy she seemed to have no matter the time or circumstance of the day.
Perhaps if he stayed really still, she would leave? If he were lucky, she would think he was dead and be on her way.
Not actually lucky, he supposed. She would be really hurt if she thought he was dead. Though he doubted she would fall for it; she was smart enough to know that they would not allow him a death that was anything less than spectacular.
As expected, she said, "You think you can leave for countless days without even saying bye and ignore me the moment you get back? Fat chance, Chill." She sighs dramatically. "I thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere, you know. I was so scared for you and this is how you're treating me? How very cruel of you."
Well, it was worth a try.
He used just about all the strength he had to turn his head to the side, giving her his attention. He imagined her smiling very brightly at him.
He had no right, but he always found himself wondering about her appearance. Chill had seen her, but only once. He did not remember why he risked it. He thought it might have been an impulsive decision. He did remember every detail he had seen, however.
She was taller than him, almost by a whole head, but he already known that. Her hair was long, and very bright. Blonde, she had called it, when he asked. Her ears were sharply pointed, her nose small like a button, and her eyes electric green. Across her sunken, pale cheeks were glittery birthmarks, like a collection of crystals embedded in her skin. Her lips were dry and brittle, her stomach was concave, her body was bony—just like his.
She was the nicest thing he had ever seen.
He wondered if she still looked the same. It had been so long since that day.
His eyes had scared her, just like everyone else. She cried and screamed until he put the blindfold back on. It was too late to curb the damage by then. She had not talked to him for a long time after.
When she sought him out, she had shockingly apologized, seeming to believe she had been wrong for reacting the way she had. Chill had not understood her reasoning. She had not been wrong for her reaction. Neeila... liked him, but she had the same limits that everyone else had.
That was the last time he had taken his blindfold off. At least, until a few days ago. He should have remembered that no good thing came from taking it off.
He jumped when a bowl clattered by his face.
"It's mine," Neeila said. "I figured you'd be hungry, so I brought it for you."
His stomach growled. He did not move though. His body had not gained much strength in the thirty seconds that had passed.
She sighed, though it sounded indulgent. "I'm not a nurse, you know."
Despite her words, he felt her hands on his shoulders. She rolled him onto his side, and in one fluid motion, pulled him up onto his rear. His head lolled back against her chest, his hair nuzzling against her neck. They were... uncomfortably close, but she did not move away and neither did he.
The bowl was pressed against his lips, and he dutifully opened his mouth. The porridge was a lukewarm mix that could only be described as sludge, and it hurt his throat to swallow but it tasted uncannily like heaven.
Even better was the separate container of water she had brought for him. He was swallowing the last of it when he felt her fingers creeping up his face.
"What is this?" she asked, the tips of her fingers smearing the powder from his skin to hers. He heard her sniff and immediately sneeze violently, just the slightest whiff having set her sinuses aflame.
He heard her unscrew another jar of water—the one she must have brought for herself. She tugged on him until his head was lying completely back against her, tipped up towards the sky. She started to pull on his blindfold, and the panic that would normally ensue was useless against the force of his exhaustion. He knew he should protest anyway, but he didn't.
When the blindfold was out of the way, a slow trickle of water began to fall gently over his eyelids. He did not bother to tell her that the pain had already subsided to a dull sting. He lets her clean the mess away until the jar was empty.
"Bastards," she said as she dried his face with her bare arm, and he did not bother to correct her on that either. He knew by now that Neeila was an opinionated girl. Just thinking such things about his superiors would make his stomach clench with anxiety. For her, it was a "coping mechanism".
Once she was done tending to him, she wrapped the blindfold back around him—inside out this time so the clean side was now against his skin. She tied it gently, mindful not to catch any strands of his hair. She left it snug on his face, not nearly as tight as he was used to. He did not tell her to tighten it. He did not say anything at all, and neither did she.
Long moments passed in silence. Despite finishing her work, she did not move him away. Rather, her arms moved to wrap loosely around his shoulders, holding him gently against her. They have never laid like this before, never even held skin contact this long. He was unsure how he should feel about it. Mostly, he just felt his persisting desire to sleep.
Eventually, she said, "They gave us the day off," the answer to a question he had not even wondered about, but probably should have. "Guards and overseers from all over the planet are partying 'til they're purple for the success on Earth. There's only a handful of guards actually on watch."
He said nothing. He already knew what she was going to say next.
As expected, she leaned in close and whispered, as if there was even anyone around to overhear, "The others are planning to start an uprising."
Of course, they were. That was all anyone ever thought about: running away, revolting, finding freedom.
Chill did not understand it. He did not even know what that meant, truly. What was freedom? Was it never having to work? What would one do with their days then? Was it more food? How could you get more food if you did not work for it? Where did one go for "freedom"?
Certainly, nowhere on this planet. The Tena towns and cities were for natives only and anyone who was not was a prisoner by default. "freedom" had to be elsewhere, and if one could actually manage to leave, where would they go? Many were true criminals—their home worlds would not accept them back—and others were like Neeila, with home worlds that were raided and ravaged and sold away so it was no longer theirs. Perhaps there were even some like Chill, who never had a home to call their own before this one.
So where would they go? A place like Earth? A place that seemed inviting and peaceful but would always be someone else's? How could anyone be happy somewhere like that—surrounded by people who were not like them, in a place that was not their own and never could truly ever be?
Chill thought of the cheerful, happy boy with whom he shared a parent, and thought no, that could never belong to him.
He belonged here, though. He belonged to the stone under his feet, to the sweltering heat, to the sludge-porridge, to the barracks, to the coal mines, to the Warden, and even to Neeila, too.
The other prisoners would not succeed. They never had and they never would. They would be put down with humiliating ease as they always were, and they always would be until they understood like Chill did.
He did not say any of that though, especially because Neeila already knew he was thinking it anyway. They sat in silence, cuddled together as they were. It was nice to just sit like this—even if the prolonged contact was incredibly strange—with nothing to do aside from this right here. Relax, was the word. Chill could not remember the last time there was a day like this. From the time the day began there was work to be done. The only "relaxing" time to be had was if you did not immediately fall asleep once the day was done.
Chill thought it would be nice to have more days like this.
The silence, though, did not last for long. It never did when Neeila was involved. She spent just as much time talking as she did working; Chill had heard her brother say that once. That was clearly an exaggeration and just about impossible, so Chill suspected he had been joking when he said that.
"Did you meet him?" she asked him, and for a full second Chill did not know who she meant.
Then that man flashed through his mind, and his whole body went stiff. In an attempt to delay the inevitable, he wondered how she even knew about his apparent survival and newfound life on Earth.
He felt her frown against his hair. When she spoke, it was as if she had read his mind, but he was used to that. Neeila always seemed to know what he was thinking. "When the guards from your mission were going into the grand building, I heard them saying that the saiyan prince had been on Earth."
She never called him by his name, neither did she call him his mother or parent, and Chill had always liked it that way. Now, however, the moniker meant nothing when he knew the truth.
"So that's a yes, then?" She prompted as her hand started to rub circles behind his ear. He always liked that.
He forced the rigid muscles in his neck to nod.
She hummed in understanding. "It must not have gone well, then."
He was confused by that. She must have sensed it regardless because he felt her sigh heavily.
"I thought that you would have stayed with him."
Chill did not know what to say to that. He did not want to acknowledge that a part of him—the smallest, most idiotic part of him—might have thought the same thing.
Chill turned away from her as much as his position allowed. He did not want to think about that man. He did not want to feel that pain anymore, not ever again.
"I know it's really selfish of me," she said, "but I am glad to see you. If only because it would have been unforgivably rude of you to leave without even saying goodbye."
He did not point out that he had left for the mission less than an hour after it had been assigned, so there was absolutely no way he could have tracked her down and bid farewells in that time. He had learned over the years to not take everything she said literally.
"Also, I would have missed you, a whole lot," she admitted.
That was... a bit surprising. He could not imagine what about him she would miss. He knew that he was not good company, that he was too quiet, too distant, aloof, even. He was selfish with his food and ignored her whenever he wished. Despite his treatment of her, he still leeched off of her acceptance of him. He always had, even when they were young. So many games she had missed out on because the other children, influenced by the hatred of their parents, would not let him join as well. Even when they would let him play, he never did it right—never kicked the ball correctly, never ran when his time came, never knew which way to go when he—and all of his oddities reflected off on her.
There was no denying that he held her back. He was the iron ball of a chain around her ankle, and that she had locked the shackle herself did not make him any less of a weight.
He knew what he would miss of her. He would miss her voice. He would miss it very much. He would miss the words she would say, and the way it sounded when she sang, and when she spoke her native language. He would miss the tug of her hand when she dragged him along on whatever adventure she was set on having. He would miss the twinkle of her laugh. He would miss the way she warmed the air around him. He would miss the way her presence made him feel, just for a moment, like he had never known anything but contentment.
In comparison, Chill was not a very good... friend, he knew. He was probably the worst friend a person could have. She was still here with him though.
I have nowhere else to go but here either, he thought.
She was quiet, so quiet he could hear her boots shifting almost restlessly in the dirt. He knew she wanted to say something more.
Whatever it was, she seemed to decide against it. Instead, she said. "I found out that I am sixteen, today."
He turned back towards her; his brow furrowed.
"When I was listening in on the guards, they also said 'Age 774 will go down in the history books', or something like that." She paused. Chill could hear her brush her fingers through her hair. "I know I came to this planet in Age 761, when I was four years old, and I was born in the first month of the year so..."
He heard her swallow, her jaw trembling just enough for him to feel it. Her voice only wavered a bit when she said, "Thirteen years. I've been on this planet for thirteen years."
He supposed that must be a long time. The passage of time was not something he understood all that well. A day began and a day ended. Why did it matter how many days had passed when they were all the same, and always would stay the same? It seemed to matter to Neeila though. He wondered if he should be comforting her now, but he would not know what to do even if he were inclined to try.
"Have I ever told you that my people do not only celebrate an individual on the day of their birth?" she asked him.
For probably the millionth time during this conversation, he was confused. Again, not an uncommon occurrence while talking with her. He shook his head.
"We still did, but it was not all that important of an occasion. We actually used to celebrate every time a child lost a baby tooth. It was always a huge celebration, even more grand than a birthday. Losing a tooth allowed for permanent teeth to grow in."
She paused to think for a moment. "Logically, I think the importance had to do with the food we ate. Even the plants were so tough that adults would have to chew their children's food for them until they could do it themselves. Socially though, once you had a full set you were... not grown, I suppose, but no longer considered a child. You could hunt or gather your own food, begin learning a trade. At that time, you were responsible for your own actions in the eyes of Goddess."
There was a subtle change in her voice then. Now it was something soft, something nostalgic. "We kept all our baby teeth and wore them as a necklace. It was a reminder that while one had grown, one was not truly an adult yet. In my culture, one is not considered an adult until they have had their first child, or claimed one as their own, for only once you have contributed to the future can you move away from the past. Then, there was a final ceremony in which you destroyed all of your baby teeth.
"We only kept teeth when someone we loved dearly passed—in fact, it was a sign of a life well lived if you had so many people who cherished you that you were buried with not a single tooth left in your mouth," she continues. "You would take their tooth and never be rid of it, because you could no longer have a future with that person. They were only a part of the past and it was a part that you could never forget. Many of our elders would have not only a necklace, but even bracelets and anklets full of permanent teeth, because they had spent so many years loving and losing people. When the day came that you finally died, the teeth of those you loved would be buried with you, so even in death they were a part of you."
She stopped then, and when she started again, her words were no longer blissfully soft. "Can you believe that I forgot all of that?" she asked incredulously. "We tried to keep our traditions in the beginning, I remember, but it became too hard to bother with once the working and hunger and suffering began."
The change was more noticeable now. Where once was nostalgia, was now the aching of loss. "I have not seen anyone else like me aside from my brother in a very long time. There may be some who had been shipped to other divisions still alive, but I'll never know. My mother told me once that our people could live for a whole century, yet, it has only been thirteen years and there are hardly any of us left and I forgot."
Her voice broke around the last word. He could feel the laboring of her breathe, like the words were weights she had no choice but to lift. He did not hear the beginnings of tears, though.
"Thirteen isn't an all bad number, though," she said after a while. "That's how old you are, you know."
He had not known, though he supposed he could have put that together from her earlier information. In all honesty, he had thought he was older. The Warden's granddaughter had been eleven and she was considered a child, far too young for the death that had befallen her.
Chill had not felt like a child since the day they walked him outside the grand building and told him it was now his responsibility to keep himself alive. He remembered nothing about the time before that. Maybe he had never been a child.
"I've been thinking about a lot of things. About my home, I mean," Neeila said. "It had been so beautiful. There were trees all around and green, green grass everywhere my feet went…"
He imagined her looking up at the sky above them, then. "The sky was not like here at all. No, the sky was always changing. Sometimes it was a dark blue, glowing from the light of the moon. Sometimes it was white with rainy clouds and bright from the sun. The sun lights shined on everything: the raindrops, the cristalli in our skin, everything our eyes could see. And when there was no sun, there were stars—billions of bright footprints in the sky left there for us by Goddess... We were made for that place, Chill, and I remember it all. It has been so long, but I still remember. I forgot about how deeply teeth meant to my people, but never that..."
She huffed a laugh, a single sad and pitiful sound. "I wish I could take you there so you could see. I used to daydream about bringing you there, bringing you home with me. I want to see what you would look like surrounded by everything that shaped me, but I know that it is not the same place I remember. It's probably better that I never go back."
She shook her head, as if dispelling the bad thoughts that tag along with her words. "Still, I know that I'm fortunate to have the memories that I do, to have once had a place that belonged to me. It isn't fair that you've never had a place like that."
She paused, and so did his heart in his chest.
She carried on with, "All of these memories I cherish, a sense of belonging somewhere deep inside me, and you have nothing. I thought that maybe you would find what I had on Earth, with the saiyan prince. I thought that, even if I missed you, it would be for the better, if you could have a place like that."
Here, he thought. I belong here.
"Everyone deserves to belong somewhere," she insisted. "Even you. Especially you. A child belongs with their parents, and to my people, to forsake your child is to forsake yourself. If the saiyan won't accept you, then he never deserved to have you, and he will have to answer to Goddess for that."
Her hands suddenly grabbed his shoulders. She turned him to face her, and though he could not see her, he could feel her eyes looking straight through him.
"If this is the only place you can belong, then I belong here too," she told him, leaving no room for argument. "I belong wherever you do. I will not forsake you."
He gaped at her, truly dropped his jaw. In his chest, his heart pounded beats like a steady drum. Mortifyingly, a heavy lump formed in his throat.
What had he done to deserve such commitment from her? He did not know, and he probably never would. He liked it, though. Gods spare him, he knew he did not deserve it, but he liked it. He did not think he would ever treasure anything more than her devotion to him.
He could practically feel the brightness of her smile as she said, playfully, "I love our little heart-to-hearts, don't you?"
He might feel the same, he thought.
She stretched her arms high over her head until her muscles popped. "Come on. Herio told me to meet him on the Northwest Cliff. He said he would be meeting with others there to best plan the escape."
Chill liked Neeila, so he did not rudely groan at her words, but he certainly felt the desire to do so. Herio was not exactly the last person he wanted to see, but he was certainly high on that particular list. Furthermore—he thought as he struggled to so much as lift his torso—climbing a cliff was not exactly something he wanted to do at the moment, either.
"Actually, don't move," Neeila said, and he gratefully slumped back against her. "You are going to need all the rest you can get before the escape, so I'll just carry you."
He gave her a skeptical look. She not only planned to carry him all the way to the cliffside, but also then carry him up it? An image flashed in his head of her climbing up precarious rocks with himself dangling from her neck like a sack on a stick and thought it would probably be the best method to bring about their collective demises.
"What's that look supposed to mean?" she said, affronted.
He circled a hand around her bicep and squeezed exactly where no muscle existed.
"How rude! You're not exactly winning any bodybuilder contests yourself, you know! In fact, I distinctly recall you losing every arm-wrestling match we've ever had so you are in no position to be calling anyone weak!"
If every muscle in his body did not feel like the sludge he had eaten, he might have graced her with a smile. He knew it was odd, but he liked it when she was indignant like this.
He shifted as she stood to her feet. He heard her circle around and come to a stop in front of him. "On my back now, and when I make it up the cliff with ease, you owe me all the meat in your stew tomorrow."
She bent down then and, seeming not to care how uncooperative her companion was, grabbed onto his wrists and pulled them over her shoulders. He reluctantly tightened his grip and shifted his knees to bring them around her hips. To her credit, she only swayed slightly when she straightened back up.
It had been a very long time since he let her carry him this way. When they were small, Neeila was always coming up with the strangest games for them to play. One of her favorite games was to pretend they were soldiers, and when one of them was "wounded in action", the other would have to carry them and run to where she deemed was "safety".
Neeila did not run now. She walked steady and slow, not at all like a person who had somewhere to be. It was... soothing, almost. The rhythmic rocking of her body, the warm, solid surface of her back, the soft humming he could distantly hear... He would almost say she was trying to put him to sleep.
A beat later, she confirmed it. "Rest, Chill. I've got you."
He should argue, but he didn't. He dropped his head onto her shoulder, buried his face in her hair, and once again slept.
Let Goku start off by saying that there were very few things he loved more than training.
Most people could not handle living on a planet they could hardly walk on because of the gravity. Most people could not spend two years of their life inside a chamber with not even so much as a changing sky to distract from the endless white. Most people could not push their body to its peak and then push it some more, until all they could not even remember a time when their muscles did not ache with agony.
Goku could handle it all, because he loved to train.
Be that as it may, apparently even he had limits.
He had stopped counting the hours after the twelfth came and went with no sign of even so much of a break. Goku was no stranger to lengthy training sessions. Though there was usually some variety, like meditation. Even more preferable would be to simply practice his katas, it was not hard to push his body for long hours when he could focus all his attention on ingraining a set of attacks into his memory.
Trying to prevent a punch from going into his neck when his eyes were blurring with exhaustion was not quite as easy.
A kick was aimed at his face this time that Goku only barely dodged. He did not even need to look at the clock to know that they were well into the second day. They had been going hard since then. Vegeta refused to stop, even when Bulma tried to reach them twice. The only reprieve Goku got was the bathroom trips he insisted upon.
No food, not even so much as a snack... Goku was quickly getting fed up.
The knee Vegeta launched brutally into his ribcage did not seem to particularly care how he was feeling.
Goku understood, he really did. Or at least, understood that he didn't understand. He couldn't imagine what Vegeta must be feeling. Goku did not understand what it felt like to lose a son, not permanently. He did not understand what it was like to see his child go through terrible pain. He had seen Gohan get hurt in fights before, had seen him get hurt in a fight he himself had foolishly instigated, but he knew that that pain was not at all like the pain Vegeta's son has gone through.
He could relate a bit to lost time, he supposed. Goku himself had not even known that his second son existed until he was seven years old. He remembered the day he first saw him, peeking from behind his mother's pant leg, and the joy he felt at seeing a new, tiny face that looked just like his.
Goku did not think Vegeta was feeling any joy. Goku knew that discovering a sweet, happy boy was far different than believing your child was dead only to find that he was alive and had been tortured all his life. The situations were completely different, were hardly even in the same reality.
Still, he thought he might understand Vegeta just a bit, because while Goku had been so happy and he loved Goten very much, sometimes it bothered him just to look at the boy. It... hurt when he thought too hard about how tall he was, and to hear a voice that was far past the stage of stumbling over sentences. It hurt when he thought about how old Gohan was too, but he at least got to know him before he died. He saw Gohan take his first steps, say his first word, sit through his first haircut. He had had time to be a father, at least in the years Chi-Chi insisted were most crucial.
He missed the first seven years of Goten's life, and while he knew his son was well taken care of in his absence, it still did not feel good at all to think about it. Vegeta missed thirteen years and did not even have the comfort of a happy, well-raised child to reunite with.
So Goku got it. He did not understand but he knew where Vegeta was coming from. Vegeta obviously did not want to talk about it either, which was more than understandable.
That did not change the fact that Goku was about three seconds away from collapsing and sleeping until the next coming of Buu.
Or perhaps it wouldn't be his exhaustion that knocked him out. The fist Vegeta slammed into his face seemed like it would do the job just fine.
"Ow!" Goku cried out, stumbling back on legs that were somehow still managing to hold his weight. He cupped his palm around his injured nose, the blood streaming down seeming to take the rest of his strength with it.
Vegeta blinked, having the audacity to look shocked. He frowned and crossed his arms. "You could have easily blocked that, Kakarot."
"Yeah, well, you still didn't have to hit me that hard," Goku shamelessly complained.
Vegeta muttered something about 'third-classes' and 'clowns'. Goku ignored him.
Vegeta watched him for a few moments, then said, exasperated, "Kakarot, stop... whatever it is you're trying to do. Tilt your head forward." Under his breath he said something that sounds similar too, "you're like a child," which Goku also ignored.
"If I tilt my head forward then I'll bleed all over the place."
"Just do it."
Goku did as he was told, and when Vegeta told him to pinch his nose, he did that as well. Then Vegeta was turning on his heel and leaving, heading down the staircase until the spiky tips of his hair disappear from view. By the time Goku had slid onto the floor, Vegeta was already returning, a clean, white washcloth in hand. Goku took it without comment, though he figured his gratitude was noted.
A few moments passed, before Vegeta slid down to sit next to him. Goku felt his entire body sag in relief at the confirmation of a break. He hid the relieved expression on his face by focusing on the cloth beneath his nose.
Vegeta seemed not to notice either way, his eyes focused on the window across the room. Goku looked toward the window as well. They were going so very fast, but the distant gleam of the stars dotting through the black backdrop of space hardly changed. He remembered when Gohan was younger, he had read something in a book about space travel and planets and something called a 'parallax'. Goku couldn't make heads or tails of what he was talking about, but he listened if only because his son seemed so excited to share it.
Goku trailed his eyes from the window over to the man next to him. His skin was moist with sweat, droplets still rolling in lines down his face, sections of his royal-blue spandex clearly dampened with it. Enough time had passed that they were no longer gasping with exertion, and it was almost odd to see him so quiet after all the grunting and groaning they had just been doing. Now, his lips were simply sealed shut, the edges tipped down in a frown. That was normal though, Goku probably couldn't even use up one hand counting the number of times he had seen Vegeta genuinely smile.
He looked up almost reluctantly at the profile of Vegeta's eyes and saw exactly what he had seen since the ship left the Earth's atmosphere.
Absolutely nothing.
There was no sadness, no frustration, no grief, not even a trace of rage. Goku had not known Vegeta very long, but in all the time that he had, he had never seen him like this. Vegeta was actually a very expressive person. When he was amused, you would know, and when he was angry, he made sure you would know that as well. Vegeta could be reserved—he certainly was not so open when he was happy, but even still, you could look in his eyes and know.
There was nothing to be found in his eyes now. His eyes were two blank holes, twin black seas, both so devoid of life that there was nothing left to even ripple the surface.
His eyes were just... calm. Too calm. Like the calm before a storm.
It was more than a little unsettling, especially since Goku knew it was a lie. Vegeta was feeling something, he knew he was. Goku had seen with his own eyes just how raw and pure Vegeta's rage could be. He had seen the pain Vegeta felt when Buu killed Bulma. He had seen Vegeta's tears even back before he called him a friend, when Frieza took his life and he begged him, a near stranger, to avenge him.
Vegeta felt something, and whatever it was, it was too deep for his eyes to reach. It was still there, though.
Goku was not... entirely sure what he should do about it. Chi-Chi used to joke (and not joke, when she was truly hurting), that Gohan had more sensitivity as an infant than Goku did as a full-grown man. He had never been the best with emotions. He did not always understand why Chi-Chi would start sobbing seemingly out of nowhere, or why Bulma would suddenly start yelling at him, or why his friends, while usually short-lived, would seem so angry with him at times. He had absolutely no idea how to make the empty look in Vegeta's eyes go away.
He did not even know if he should dare to try.
"Um... Vegeta," Goku starts eloquently. To his surprise, the man in question actually looked over at him.
"What?" he answered, and he did not even sound annoyed or irritated anymore. He sounded...
Honestly, he sounded like he needed a nap.
Goku made sure to word his question carefully. It wouldn't go well for Vegeta to think he was asking for a break of all things. That was the best way to end up sparring until the ship landed on the damn planet. "Do you, um... Do you want to get some food? We technically haven't eaten since yesterday."
Vegeta took his time answering, and Goku tried not to be too obvious that he was holding his breath in anticipation.
He was not quite sure if Vegeta's grunt was a 'yes' or a 'no', until the other saiyan stood to his feet. Vegeta was halfway across the chamber towards the staircase once more when he realized that the grunt meant the former.
Goku was very surprised. Not even an hour ago Vegeta looked as if he wanted to rip Goku's head straight off his neck every time he opened his mouth, and now he was calmly agreeing to eat with him like they were old chums?
Women as a whole were probably the most confusing people to Goku, but Vegeta sure gave them a run for their money.
Deciding not to dwell on the unknown and instead focus on what was clearly a hard-won victory, Goku tossed the now-useless bloodstained cloth aside and followed after him.
TBC