Fandom: DBZ/ Dragon Ball
Characters: Vegeta/Goku(Kakarot), Toma, Broly, Caulifla/Kale, Cabba, Celipa
Word Count: 2222
Warnings: Trench warfare, pining, onscreen naughty bits

Summary: He thinks of blue, of sky and sea; of little lives and vast, sleeping land.

or

"I'm very tired of destroying things."

Notes: This will be the end of this series I think, but not the end of the AU. Though, I don't really know when I'll have the next entry anywhere close to being put up.

I've decided au takes place in a self-indulgent timeline I made some time ago, in order to better piece together another bigger idea I've been toying with for a while.

Another thing I've been toying with for a while is my WWI obsession. The Battle of Vimy Ridge was part of the Battle of Arras, which the two planets Kakarot visits are thinly veiled references to. In name only, mostly. Nothing else really resembles it. I stopped myself from getting too into describing trench warfare since I torture the poor people in my gore/guro/truecrime discord enough.

"Is the honeymoon getting tedious already?" Raditz mutters under his breath, and Kakarot thinks he's lucky Vegeta isn't here or there'd be no way to guarantee his bother's continued survival.

Finishing up with his paperwork and sending off years overdue reports, Kakarot hums, blithe, "Pops just messaged me; the mission with dad is going well. He says it reminds him of the first planet they busted together."

"Don't be cute," Raditz says, knocking the back of Kakarot's skull with his datapad. "I'm not talking about the geezers and you know it. You've been hiding from Vegeta." His voice is edging on an accusation, but Kakarot knows his brother.

"Are you fishing for gossip?" Kakarot raises an eyebrow, voice high with amusement. Then, because he knows it will rile up his brother, Kakarot clicks his tongue, mock disapproving. "Is being an officer that boring you have to snoop in your baby brother's sex life?"

Raditz makes a disgusted sound, swatting Kakarot harder and cursing when all it does is make him laugh. "Ugh. Just report for duty with the team, you little prick."

They fall into bed without preamble.

Vegeta's mouth is hot and sharp.

Kakarot is spread across the grand bed, bare except for his rucked up shirt and an arm warmer, Vegeta slotted up close between his legs.

"I don't want you to go," Vegeta murmurs into the wet press of their mouths. He sounds spoiled and petulant, and somewhere beneath that, raw and honest.

"I don't want to go either," Kakarot says. It feels, just a little bit, like a lie wrapped in a different sort of truth.

Vegeta's cock is a heavy, burning line against Kakarot's thigh, their hips rolling together in a slow, staggering motion, all friction and pressure. Kakarot traces the tense muscles of Vegeta's neck and shoulders, pulls him in for another kiss, slick and open-mouthed. Vegeta melts into the kiss, the solid mass of his body pressing Kakarot into the mess of cushions scattered across the bed. Slick, calloused fingers drag over the curve of Kakarot's hip, to the softer skin of his inner thighs, brushing teasingly close to that aching part of him.

Kakarot sighs, flutters lingering kisses along Vegeta's jaw, his throat, his cheekbones. Anywhere. Everywhere.

"I'll meet you there," Vegeta promises, catching Kakarot's mouth, canines snagging against tender flesh. Copper and iron blooms over Kakarot's tongue, his blood bright and red where it drips down their chins to stain the sheets.

He wants to make Vegeta promise to not chase after him, wants to tell Vegeta he isn't going to disappear. But the words dissolve in his throat before they even form and all Kakarot can do is reach down and grab Vegeta's wrist, wordlessly guiding his fingers inside.

Kakarot groans, breath hitching, his hips arching off the bed to press up against Vegeta's hand. Thick, blunt fingers slot up inside him, deep and intimately familiar, pressing up against that hot, shocky spot. His nails scrape down Vegeta's back, leaving behind red, angry lines. "I'll be back, I'll be back, I'll be back," he gasps out, like a mantra. Vegeta swallows each syllable, and Kakarot wonders if Vegeta will keep each one etched across his ribcage until they meet again.

The noise of battle crushes in all around them and Kakarot lunges out from the position the regiment dug themselves in, drawing a hail of fire. Power coalesces between his palms, bright and snapping. He unleashes it towards enemy artillery, scouring a bloody wound through three lines of trenches.

"Over the top!" Someone shouts, a swell of saiyans tears over the lashed, torn landscape towards the enemy, teeth gnashing and claws ready to rend flesh and armor apart.

Caulifla hefts herself up beside him, unconcerned despite the battle raging around them. There's a cut along her cheek, her armor streaked and filthy with mud and ichor. "That's pretty stupid, huh?" She says, nodding at the overrun trenches across the devastated noman's land. "Digging in, creating the perfect penned in killing space for an enemy who excels at close quarters the moment your defense goes down."

Kakarot laughs, mirthless. He turns his eyes away from the lines of falling trenches. "Slowing us down was their only chance," he says, smile hollow and gaze distant on the bruise-colored sky. "What better way to slow down an enemy than by making the war static, pinning both sides down to fixed positions."

"That'd work on softer species," Caulifla snorts, unimpressed.

"It'd work on most species," Kakarot corrects with a sigh, sliding back down the parapet and into the muddy trench. Throwing waves of soldiers into a killing field wasn't how most armies preferred to use their men, but it was what saiyans were best at with only a fraction of the casualties.

Caulifla calls down, "Want me to handle mop-up, Commander?"

Kakarot made a vague motion to carry on, and continued into the support lines, muck and blood pulling at his boots.

Inside the communications dugout, Kale and Broly monitored the terminals and map holos with blinking unit formations.

Muting the coms on her scouter, Kale looks up when Kakarot enters, her brow furrowed. "We had an incoming call from the Aras battlefront; they're requesting back up."

Mouth thinning with barely restrained distaste, Kakarot strode towards the terminal. Gently nudging aside Broly with his hip, he took control of the console, his expression souring further as he opened the readout of commands and frontline updates from the other off-world campaigns. "The powers that be sure aren't sparing this star system, are they?"

Kale says, "High command don't want resources to fall into the Empire's hands." Her eyes are intent on the holo map, bottom lip caught between her teeth as she stares at the marker indicating a Lieutenant Commander, deep in enemy lines.

Broly rubs his fur wrap between thumb and forefinger, hands restless. He hesitates. A distant explosion rocks the dugout, sending down dirt from the earthen roof and onto their equipment. "Father says Cold would do worse."

Kakarot's mouth twists into something that was too hollow to be called a smile. "That sure sounds like Paragus."

To Kale's unspoken relief, he leaves her behind with full permission to aid Caulifla if she sees fit. Kakarot has no doubt Kale would tear out of operations the moment Caulifla's vitals so much as flagged.

It left him with Broly, sitting quiet and awkward as he guided their shuttle towards Aras' airspace. Kakarot leans over the middle console, knocking their shoulders together, all easy camaraderie.

"It's fine," Kakarot says, smile thin but gentle. "I know."

Broly breathes. His fingers flex on the yoke. "Somethings... don't change."

Their shuttle groans around them as they breach the atmosphere, flames lick their viewing window as they plummet towards the land like a falling star of bad fortune. The metal gives a grateful screech when they burst into cloud cover, their instruments tagging onto friendly coms as they come in range of the battlefront.

From the starboard viewing port, Kakarot catches a bird's eye view of the entire front. The battles raged on with a bloody glow, each one like smoldering embers pockmarking the torn land. This was a mobile war, unlike the front they left behind on Vime. Kakarot could see multiple saiyan units thrash themselves upon the enemy's lines in seething waves.

Kakarot grimaces, glancing away. "Yeah. I know."

Cabba greats them, when they set down. He looks tired but happy to see them, snapping off a respectful salute even though he technically outranks Kakarot. "Commander Kakarot!"

"Save the Commander thing for my dad, Cabba," Kakarot says, grinning faintly. "He's here, isn't he?"

Cabba nods rapidly, his colonel insignia at odds with his youthful, eager face. "Commander Bardock is in the northern sector of this planet, along with the rest of his team. They left coordinates for you to rendezvous with them, you should have received them on your scouter when you reached this base."

The air is thick with the smell of burning things and charged with energy from both power blasts and artillery. It sours Kakarot's stomach after a decade of relative peace, even despite the way his blood heats up in anticipation of a fight. "Right. Broly, stay here with Cabba, find Raditz and see what his orders are. I'll go on ahead."

He doesn't wait for an answer, kicking off into flight with a burst of power, honing in on his father's team without a scouter. He streaks across the acrid, smoke blanketed landscape, ignoring the ongoing battles. Kakarot doesn't interfere with the ground war, even when the Arasans take aim at him.

Though the Vime had a much larger fighting force, the Arasans have better tech. As Kakarot flew over the skirmishing armies, he felt the tell-tale draw of Energy Siphons eating away at his battle power. As sturdy as saiyans were, without access to their full power the playing field could be leveled out. Battle outcomes becoming less decisive.

Kakarot's mouth twisted unhappily and he put on a burst of speed. The landscape beneath him growing increasingly snowy and destroyed, showing signs of retreat and chase from two opposing forces. Before long, a large military complex came into view; its large, sturdy structure rocking with explosions in an ongoing fight.

Pulling to a stop, Kakarot surveyed the area, gaze narrowing on the upper levels of the complex. Just then, Celipa came crashing up through the roof. With a fierce snarl, she caught herself in midair and plunged back down, her hands lit up with a powered attack as she punched a new hole in the roof of the complex.

Glancing up at the cold, distant grey sky, Kakarot thinks of mountains dreaming in a blue, peaceful planet. Wistfulness pricks at his chest, but he brushes it aside and descends after her and into a cacophony of violence.

In the fury of blasts and attacks, Celipa catches sight of him. She tosses him a feral smile, her gloves sodden red as she tears apart her prey. "Hey, squirt. Joining the fun and games?" Her tail lashes out behind her, cracking another enemy's nose when he tried to strike her blindspot.

From a crater in the floor, reaching several levels down, Toteppo pauses where he's snapping the neck of Arasan, calling up towards Kakarot with a warm voice, "Welcome, Little Commander. It's good to have you back."

Kakarot smiles thinly, throat thick with the scent of death, and doesn't reply.

Kakarot is his mother's son and his father's boy.

But he's also his pop's kid.

Toma is just the same as Kakarot left him, give or take a few scars. But he has the same wry smile, the same warm scent, and the same enveloping embraces. "I missed you, mini-me. Sorry I didn't catch your homecoming." Toma's wide, rough hands ruffle Kakarot's hair, then cup the back of his neck and bring their foreheads to rest against each other.

It's an old, familiar motion. Like mom's easy hugs or dad's awkward shoulder pats, loved and dear.

Kakarot laughs and grins, "You didn't miss much," He pulls away, half-heartedly fluffing his bangs back into place. "I was kept for questioning for a while."

Toma gives him a slow once over, lingering bemusedly on the mouth shaped bruises peaking from under Kakarot's collar. Old compared to the rest of the bruises littering Kakarot's body. "Is that right?" He says more than asks, bemused. But he's not prying like Raditz or mean spirited like Bardock, content to leave it alone without further comment.

Gratefulness touches the edges of Kakarot's smile.

"You must have seen a whole lot," Toma says, not quite asking, not quite pushing, just simple acknowledgment.

Kakarot feels oddly youthful walking alongside Toma, even amongst the burnt-out husk yet another military complex. He can almost ignore the smell of charred bodies and discharged firearms. The sun has sunk low in the frozen horizon, and Kakarot can hear the rest of the Land Shark team laughing around a skimpy campfire, it's flames buffeted by icy winds.

All the team, except his father.

Kakarot huffs a quiet laugh, his breath clouding out in front of his face. "Not as much as you, but yeah. I think so."

The silence lulls peaceably between them, punctuated by the crunch of snow beneath their boots and the distant crack of explosions.

"Then," Toma begins, slow, "you saw just enough to make you wonder why you'd even bother to come back."

Kakarot falters. His boot nudges against a half-buried rifle, tipping him off balance, sending him stumbling forward. Toma keeps walking a few paces until he comes to a measured stop in front of Kakarot. There's a strange smile on his face, dark eyes far away. He seems unreal against the backdrop of a coal grey sky and a snow-covered wasteland, a light flurry of snow kicking up in the biting wind.

"I..."

Eyes wide, Kakarot feels knocked off kilter. This snow crusted place suddenly seems very small and very lonely. He thinks of blue, of sky and sea; of little lives and vast, sleeping land.

Kakarot clutches the space above his heart and laughs, a broken, lost sound. "I'm very tired of destroying things."

"It's alright," Toma's somber, understanding smile sinks into Kakarot's bones. His hand touches Kakarot's shoulder, "I know."

Notes: Funny side note about their theoretical ranks: Kakarot is the Commander son of a Commander who was the son of yet another Commander. Kakarot could have gone higher, but never did since he didn't want to go career. Bardock joined the military somewhat later than the norm, reached his current rank, but he actually wields the semi-official power of a Captain. Bardock's mom, Parsni, an OC, was a career officer and made it to Commander yet no further. Because of the class discrimination at the time, it's still a pretty impressive feat.

As for Kakarot's crew, the lineup and ranks are as follows:
Raditz - Major
Caulifla - Lieutenant Commander
Kale - Lieutenant
Broly - Sergeant

Cabba is Vegeta's cousin and a part of the royal family, but fairly young. Despite that, he's a Colonel.

Take this with a grain of salt because I'm just bullshitting the ranks and making up my own military hierarchy.