Jaded

Disclaimer: I don’t own DB/Z/GT or any of the characters found in this fic. They are the property of TOEI ANIMATION in Japan and FUNimation in the U.S.A. I am not making any profit from this.


Rating –NC 17

IF YOU HAVE NOT HEEDED THE WARNINGS DO SO NOW!

Warnings – For the whole story: Language, whips, chains, knife play, character death (of a main character), torture, non-con, yaoi, M/M. OCs. Lemons, limes. OC/Goku, Goku/Vegeta, Goku/OCs, Kakarott/Vegeta, Vegeta/Goku.


A/N: Thank you for beta’ing Pixelgoddess!

Jaded 7b – Train Wreck: continued



“Mom” Trunks knocked before he entered his parents’ bedroom. He tightened his grip on his sister’s hand.

Bulma looked up from the book she was reading at her desk. Both her son and her daughter were looking at her. Bra’s eyes were round with fear and Trunks’ held worry. “What is it?”

“I don’t feel Dad’s ki,” Trunks choked out.

“You know when he goes to see Goku he hides his ki,” Bulma tried to reassure her eldest.

Bra shook her head. “No Mama. It’s never really gone, just fuzzy.”

Trunks nodded his head at his sister’s statement. “Yeah, I…we can always feel it, but it is usually blurry enough that I wouldn’t be able to find him if I went looking. Not actually gone.”

“Can you feel Goku’s?” Bulma asked. She placed her hands in her lap to hide their trembling as she looked back and forth between her children.

Bra’s young face bunched up as she tried to search for a ki she hardly knew. Trunks closed his eyes and breathed in. “Yeah, I can feel his, but it’s weak, for Goku. I actually felt both of them spike, like they were sparring or something. Then Dad’s was gone.”

Now Bulma brought a hand up to her lips to keep a worried sound that wanted to escape from being issued. She stood and walked to her purse, pulling out her cell phone. She tried the number of the cell phone she had placed in Vegeta’s bag while he wasn’t looking. She let it ring for a full minute before she hung up. She threw her phone back in her purse and grabbed the keys to her hover car out, “I am going to go check on them.”

“You know where they go?” Trunks asked surprised.

Bulma hadn’t realized until this moment she had been keeping the location of that gods’ forsaken building from her son. “Yes.”

~o0o~


Goku set his hands against Vegeta’s chest and melded some of his ki with the body. He didn’t spare another moment as he focused on Other World and placed two fingers to his forehead. He IT’d straight into King Yama’s lap. The Lord of Other World only had a moment to look at him in shock as Goku smiled up at the giant and rubbed his hand under his running nose. Goku sorted through the many kis in the line; finding the one he was searching for, he IT’d away -

Into a crowd of ogres surrounding one puff of …something.

“Sorry guys, you don’t get him yet,” Goku said as he reached for the cloud, only to have his hand pass through it. He growled in frustration and then caged the soul in a globe of his own ki before tapping his fingers to his head once again; focusing on the quickly dispersing ki he had left as a beacon.

~o0o~


“Yes, Lord Yama?” Dende’s head snapped up as he heard Other World’s guardian. Mr. Popo watched as the new Guardian’s focus seemed to be on the air in front of him. The young man’s features were a riot of emotions at whatever it was Lord Yama was telling him. Incredulousness, shame, awe, confusion…“O-okay” Dende finally said out loud.

He jerked his hand up as he realized he had been watering the same plant for the duration of the conversation. Mr. Popo shook his head. “Is there something I can help with?” the genie asked.

“I-I guess I haven’t been paying enough attention the z gang. Lord Yama just informed me Goku came and stole a soul back from Other World, but he doesn’t know whose.”

Mr. Popo went and turned the water off. “Are you going to go scry?”

Dende sighed. “I guess. I just…Goku has done so much, what is it if he takes one soul back without using the dragonballs?”

Mr. Popo eyed the guardian. Was that a little bit of original thinking he was hearing? He wanted to smile, even as he knew his duty was to play the advocate. “He broke the rules.”

“He breaks the rules in everything he does,” Dende said with exasperation as he turned to walk towards the buildings on the Look Out. “It’s always been over looked, because the Kai’s purposes were being fulfilled…and now? When he does something for himself? They want a full report? When did they develop such a great interest in the sayian they left abandoned on Earth?” He stopped his rant and narrowed his eyes at a sudden insight. “As soon as they perceived him as the next threat.”

Mr. Popo wasn’t certain what to make of the Guardian’s ramblings. He wasn’t always privy to the information passed between Kai and Guardian. He stood stunned as Dende headed towards the buildings at a run. “What now?”

Dende hurried towards the room with the scrying waters in it. “If I give them something, maybe they will not go searching themselves.”


~o0o~


Rain. Forest floor. Body. Now that he was here, he didn’t know what to do.

Forge. Layer. Bind. Ki. Goku sent more of his ki surrounding Vegeta’s body and then layered it just under the prince’s skin. He melded the ki corralling Vegeta’s soul with it, trying to make the soul fit the pocket he was leaving open.

The spark returned to Vegeta’s eyes, but there was shock. The soul was there, but the heart wasn’t working…nor the lungs.

Goku reached for his last senzu. He stuck it in his own mouth, chewed it and then leaned over, pressing it as far as he could down Vegeta’s throat. “Come on Vegeta. Will your body to swallow,” he begged as he pressed Vegeta’s jaw closed.

Vegeta stared up in alarm as he lived in the paralysis of death. For a moment, he had been free. Then a fire raged towards him, surrounded him, and now he was here. A familiar face came into his line of sight and Kakarott pressed his mouth over his own. Was the idiot kissing him again? Now? There should be sensation…but there wasn’t.

Kakarott drew back and his lips were moving, but Vegeta couldn’t hear. One word was repeated, slowly enough for him to read those lips. ‘Swallow’. Ah, not kissing: a senzu then.

“SWALLOW!” Gods, he wanted to hit the man again in his frustration. He could do all the things he had…and yet this most crucial part was left up to Vegeta. He leaned back and gripped both hands in his hair in fury at his impotence.

Kakarott leaning back left his face unsheltered to the elements. He was unable to close his eyes as he watched a single fat drop of water roll off one of the leaves and plummet. His focus changed with the distances as it drew quickly nearer. His body jerked in response as it splashed directly between his eyes.

Vegeta’s body swallowed.

Goku held his breath, waiting for the bean’s properties to take affect…and nothing happened. “No” Vegeta had swallowed; he had witnessed it with his own eyes. “Why isn’t it working?” he asked the dead man in front of him, as his heart began to pound, ki fluctuating with it. He couldn’t do this much longer; keep Vegeta in a dead body for his own purposes. What was he going to tell Bulma? Goku tilted Vegeta’s head back and breathed more air into him. The chest rose and then fell. He went to press his fists over Vegeta’s heart again when he remembered the broken ribs from before; the senzu hadn’t healed them yet. “FUCK!”

Kakarott’s emotions were easily read on his face, even to a dead man. ‘My heart, idiot. You want my body to respond to that meddlesome bean you have to get my heart working.’ If Kakarott’s ki fluctuated any more than it was, then Vegeta’s body could use the other’s heartbeat. He could feel the shield holding him in place pulsing. He turned his focus inward, trying to meld with it.

The spark left Vegeta’s eyes. “No.” Desperation. What if…what would happen if the soul died while trapped? “No.” Goku leaned over one last time, intending to breath more air into those useless lungs. If this didn’t work…he would have to let go.

Or he could pull what was left of Vegeta into him now. They had been fused before…it was better. Better than losing the other completely. He pulled the other into his lap, careless of the grime. He closed his eyes as he cried into Vegeta’s neck, and recklessly reclaimed the ki trapping the other slowly. He looped the pocket he had created to surround both of them, so Vegeta had a way to enter.

What was the idiot doing now? Vegeta knew he had been close. Had the fool given up so easily? He wrestled against the flow of ki. He didn’t need this sort of interference, damn it! What was the smothering moron doing fusing with him at a time like this? It would kill them both!

Goku met resistance he hadn’t been expecting. ~“Forsaken Sayian Gods, what the fuck are you doing?! Just pulse your ki with your heartbeat, I almost had it!”~ Goku’s head jerked back at the sound of Vegeta’s voice, but the body remained as lifeless as before.

Shock enabled him to follow those few, telepathic words without question. Vegeta had a plan…he closed his eyes to focus on both his erratic heartbeat and his ki, and made them pound in time together.

~“Slow it down. My heart has been damaged, a beat like that will burst it before the bean can heal it,”~ Vegeta instructed. There was very little time to contemplate why he was even able to communicate this way with the other at a time like this; he hadn’t thought they were that close.

Goku took a steadying breath, and willed his heart to slow. He placed two fingers over the other’s neck, hoping to be able to detect when the other had succeeded. He didn’t notice as his body started rocking in the rhythm of his heart, and now his ki. He hugged the body tighter to him. He shed enough tears to blend with the rain and wash some of the mud away as he waited. An eternity it seemed. It was taking too long. He poured more of his soul than was healthy into his ki, trying to meld mind, heart and spirit as close to one as he could.

The forest disappeared. Rain fell unfelt. He pressed a ki shield into Vegeta’s chest to show the other where the heart was.

Vegeta didn’t need the beacon…but he did use the intrusive ki’s pulsing to will the muscle to work.

Thump. Goku did not react other than a tiny spike in his ki as he felt the pulse in Vegeta’s neck. One beat wasn’t enough.

Thump…thump… ~”Air, give me air, Kakarott.”~ Goku brought his knee up to support Vegeta’s neck as he raised his head enough to reach the other’s lips. He pinched the other’s nose just as he breathed into Vegeta’s mouth. The chest rose and then fell as he backed away.

And then it rose on its own.

Goku sobbed and smiled. ~Again~ Vegeta wheezed, unable to speak, feeling like his lungs wanted to stick together. Goku leaned down and breathed more gently this time. The pulse, although stronger, was still weak. He kept his ki pocket in place, feeling Vegeta’s pulse beneath his fingertips now in time with his own. He started to withdraw. ~Stay~ Vegeta requested. He might be strong enough to do this on his own now…but the circulation had yet to reach his stomach enough to distribute the bean around his whole body. ~Cold~

Goku raised the temperature surrounding them. He didn’t dare to move yet. There was a lot of meshing going on. In some ways, it was more difficult than fusion.

Vegeta stretched his awareness back into his body. His fingertips and toes started to tingle and then buzzed to life with the intensity of needle pricks. Cell by cell he infiltrated his body with his soul again. It was unbearably painful. “Don’t ever do this again…you hear me?”

Goku sniffed, but nodded. “I wouldn’t dream of killing you again. I didn’t mean to in the first place.”

That wasn’t what Vegeta had meant, and he was about to address the issue, when the bean started working. He closed his eyes in relief. “I think it’s safe to change locations now,” Vegeta mumbled. All he wanted to do was sleep.


~o0o~


Bra gasped and tugged on her brother’s hand. The young teen’s shock at his mother’s admission had distracted him from what his younger sibling had felt. “I can feel him,” he breathed in relief.

Bulma’s shoulders slumped. She hadn’t even realized she had been so tense. “You two haven’t been playing a joke on me, have you?”

Bra shook her head. “I would never do that Mama. Not that kind of joke. It’s not funny.”

Trunks squeezed his sister’s hand. “But it’s weak. And Goku’s is fluctuating all over the place.”

Bulma dug her cell phone out of her purse and dialed up Gohan’s number. She waited for someone to answer, hoping the young man wasn’t in school. “Hello?” she heard Goten’s voice on the other end.

“Hi Goten, may I speak to Gohan please?” Bulma said.

There was a bit of a hesitation before the boy answered. “Sure, hold on,” Bulma waited for a few moments as she assumed Goten was finding his brother.

“Hi Bulma. Goten said you wanted to speak to me?” Gohan’s voice came over the line.

“Yes. I need to ask you a favor,” she said, sitting down on her bed.

“Sure,” Gohan stated without hesitation.

“Will you please come over and watch Trunks and Bra. I need to go somewhere. It could be an emergency,” she drew her nails away from her mouth. She hadn’t chewed on them in years.

She heard a sigh on the other end, “This is about Dad, isn’t it?”

“Too smart for your own good,” she answered, “Will you do it?”

“Yeah, I’ll be over as quickly as possible, and I’ll bring Goten with me,” Gohan assured his father’s friend.

“Thank you Gohan. I’ll see you in a few minutes,” Bulma said before pulling the phone away from her ear.

“You’re going to go and check on them, aren’t you?” Trunks accused.

“Yes” Bulma said as she put the phone back in her purse.

“I want to go,” Trunks said. Bra nodded her head.

“I know, and if I were you, I would want to go also…but…as a mother, I can’t allow that. I have a feeling it was more than just an injury during a spar,” Bulma said. She didn’t want to treat her children as idiots, but she also couldn’t allow them to go to that place.

“So you are having Gohan come over, because you know we would just follow you if you left it up to Grandma and Grandpa?” Trunks hissed.

Bulma nodded. “Yes. I need you to take this seriously.”

“You wouldn’t even have a clue if Bra and I hadn’t come to you,” Trunks said rebelliously.

“And as thankful as I am that you did not leave me clueless, I think there may be things you don’t need to know. Not yet,” Bulma said.

Tears started to form in Bra’s eyes. It was bad enough she had felt a void where her father had been all of her life, but now her hero and her mother were fighting. “I-is Daddy going to be okay?”

Trunks picked his little sister up, but Bulma answered, “As long as you can feel his ki, he should be fine.” Bra rubbed a hand under one eye and nodded.

The doorbell rang before anything else could be said. Bulma grabbed her purse, and Trunks followed her out of the bedroom and down the stairs, holding Bra the whole time.

Bulma opened the door. “Hi, Gohan. It’ll take me most of the day, depending on what I find. Thank you,” she said, hugging him briefly before heading out into the yard.

All four of them watched as she popped open the capsule car and then sped off. Gohan turned to look at the other three. “We wait,” he said, his tone commanding. He wondered where Bulma was going that would take so long by hover car.

Trunks and Goten looked at each other before nodding. “Okay,” they said at the same time, both very serious.

Bra hugged her brother close.