Disclaimer: Dragonball Z and all its likeness does not belong to me.

Notes: This was for the Canon to Fanon contest um... a long time ago. LOL. We were supposed to take a scene from canon and go from that. There wasn't much to the scene I'm working from (Vegeta sleeping near the tank Goku is in) but I tried my best to introduce it with mentioning the previous scene (Vegeta/Krillin/Gohan going into the spaceship, putting Goku in the tank, etc etc…)

An Eyeful

Things were green.

And fuzzy.

Not a good combination when it came to food. But this was Namek so he had to put those thoughts out of his head for now.

Goku groaned and found his voice restricted by a mouthpiece. His eyes snapped open, stinging as fluid rushed him.

Wha-What?

His body was in shreds from his fight with Captain Ginyu and he didn't have any senzu left so…

He could barely move more than his eyes and make his fingers twitch. Goku scanned the pod-like apparatus he was in. It seemed like some kind of tank.

He scanned some more.

No fish.

A liquid cough curdled its way up his throat and bubbles clouded his vision as they scattered from behind his mouthpiece.

Oh yeaaaah… He remembered now.

He'd been put in here to heal by Vegeta, of all people. Krillin and Gohan carried him into this spaceship, dumped him in this tank to heal, and left to find the dragonballs. Goku vaguely remembered Vegeta bracing himself against the wall as they left, almost blacking out. His memory got as fuzzy as his eyesight at that point, he'd drifted asleep.

A pointy black object slightly skewed from the convex glass caught his attention. Goku craned his neck as much as he could and more bubbles erupted from his mouth in pain and haste. They cleared and revealed Vegeta, his face troubled but eyes closed in what looked like a very unsatisfying nap.

Goku relaxed and closed his eyes again, not sure what to think.

Was the self-proclaimed prince watching over him? Or was this place just a convenient place to rest for a fight with that evil being, what was his name? Freeza. What if he came back to his spaceship? Vegeta didn't seem to even care or at least he acted like he knew the evil lord in some way others did not.

Some kind of thrill skittered across his skin at the thought of fighting such a foe but then his hair stood on end – Gohan, Krillin and Bulma! They were still out there somewhere.

'Hold on guys,' Goku thought, hoping his words could reach his friends somehow.

"Well, well, well… If it isn't sleeping beauty."

The words were said with a chilly thrill of delight and contempt. Goku's eyelids twitched but they wouldn't open. Had he drifted out again? How long had he been sleeping?

"Fr-Freeza!"

This voice was rough and tangled with a husky quality. Seemed like Vegeta had been awoken too and by the sounds and feel of the situation…

Goku wanted to clench his fists but his fingers only felt like they were glued together. The evil power that radiated from this Freeza was overwhelming. It flooded his senses until he wanted to shiver, but the liquid of the tank was comfortingly warm making him feel displaced.

"What are you doing, Ve-ge-ta?" Freeza's voice lilted on each syllable of the prince's name. Like they were old friends, like Goku would do if he and the other Saiyan were.

Maybe in another lifetime.

The Earth-Saiyan sucked air in deep, his eyebrows furrowing.

"You'll have to do more than sleep on the job to defy me… Your father worked for his death…"

Vegeta's teeth snapped together in a fierce growl.

Freeza continued, his voice getting colder by the second. "And here you are, just sitting here in my own spaceship, waiting for me…"

"Hah! You flatter yourself Freeza," Vegeta said defiantly. "Why search for the dragonballs yourself when you can have weaker people do it for you?" He laughed that reckless arrogant laugh that Goku remembered. "But you don't have any more henchmen left, I made sure of that."

"You forget," Freeza's steps and terrible ki came closer, so close, it was like both him and Vegeta were on top of the tank.

Goku managed with all the willpower he could muster to crack his eyes open. They burned and he blinked, and then when he caught sight of the notorious Freeza, he stared.

Freeza had his index finger under Vegeta's pointy chin, rubbing slightly, a full smug pout on his unusually dark lips. Odd light patterns glinted off his iridescent head and horns.

"You're one of my weaker people…" He explained, red eyes glinting.

Goku felt his heart thump in his chest at weird intervals. Vegeta was shivering.

"Your whole race was weak, but you don't have any more of them left." Freeza grinned, toothy smile at one hundred percent. "I made sure of that." He leant in and Vegeta turned his face away.

Goku could see him clearly now, Vegeta had never looked more… His thoughts were pulled away with Freeza's suddenly violent hand on Vegeta's chin wrenching his face so they were nose to nose.

"Ah, so now you start defying…" His grin was back. "And here I thought you'd just lay here and take it."

"Not on your life!" Vegeta ground out, biting his lip as those black nails dragged into his face.

Red eyes slowly rolled and then met his own and Goku felt an anger deep inside him spark up in a mad mirror of Vegeta's defiance.

"I see…" Freeza said giving Goku a considering look, realizing they were being watched. Vegeta grit his teeth and his eyes cut to the tank as well, his fists clenching tightly at his side.

"Protecting someone weaker than you? How… noble, Vegeta." Freeza said as if he thought Vegeta was anything but. He tilted his head and then, eyes still trained on Goku, removed his hand from Vegeta's face and pressed it to the prince's chest instead.

Vegeta hissed and looked away. Goku finally blinked and the stare down he'd unknowingly started with Freeza ended.

"He's not…" Vegeta's voice was rough as if he was fighting his own words. Freeza's hand trailed lower still and Vegeta shut his eyes. "Kakarot is—"

Freeza came to a halt. "Kakarot?" Vegeta looked back at Freeza, they were the same height, eye to eye.

"Is he a Saiyan?" Goku's body tingled at this question but he had no idea why. This foe, he was powerful, so unimaginably powerful, and here he was just making conversation with Vegeta in front of this tank.

Freeza's hand resumed its trail until it reached the rim of the armor where Vegeta's tail used to be. It traced the rim and then reached up underneath, and Goku watched with wide stinging eyes as the hand caught some hidden latch that made the armor fall away, harmless on the floor.

Vegeta was breathing faster and harder now, like he was fighting Freeza in a completely different way.

"I thought you were going to defy me." Freeza breathed into Vegeta's ear. "Put up a fight, we have an audience."

"Ka-Kakarot.." Vegeta groaned.

Freeza's face turned stony and immediately Vegeta was turned around and caught in an arm lock. Goku's heart sped up as the prince cried out in pain and Freeza marched him so they were directly in front of Goku.

Panic started to rise up in Goku's chest, bouncing off his already wildly beating heart. He wasn't healed yet, he couldn't fight. He couldn't help—

Freeza's hands were on either side of Vegeta's sides and then the tight navy blue shirt he wore under the armor was pushed up and then pulled down; trapping Vegeta's gloved hands in a fabric bind.

Vegeta's cheeks were turning red and Goku couldn't help but stare. There was something else the prince had been fighting after all. Arousal. Goku felt another part of himself twitch that he didn't know could.

'No-Not now!' The still-healing fighter thought desperately.

It didn't help that Freeza was staring right at him, deliberately cupping his hands around Vegeta possessively; antagonizing him. It shouldn't have mattered, he didn't want Vegeta in that way. But no one deserved to be under another's thumb like that…

"How many filthy monkeys are there now?"

Freeza pushed Vegeta into the glass and skimmed his black glossy thumbnail down the side of his face. "Two?"

Vegeta coughed, spit catching on his dry lip, bloody from biting. "No…"

"What a perfect couple." Immediately Freeza's whimsical smile was replaced with a look of disdain. "No, just one." His nail pressed hard into the Prince's abused mouth. He gagged and Freeza grimaced. "Just one."

"He's an Earthling now," Freeza said airily and Goku twitched violently. Through the murky water and tinted glass, Freeza looked distorted. His purple head was bulbous, his red eyes piercing, his mouth curved into an almost admiring smile.

"Surely he's not named something filthy like the rest of you were."

"It-It's," Vegeta winced, eyebrows furrowing madly and a bead of sweat dripping down his head. He had this weird look on his face, like he was angry at himself, like he was fighting something inside and forgetting to fight the inevitable noose around his neck. Freeza was giving off waves of anger now, it pulsed, but so did Goku's body.

"Goku." The prince grimaced, thick sweat rolled down past the corner of his eye. It looked like a tear. The Earth-Saiyan's heart clenched painfully, Goku wondered if he'd been hurt there somehow and it'd just been healed.

"Goku," The name sounded like oil slipping from Freeza's tongue. "What's the matter? You look a little green. But Namek will do that." He tapped the glass and a smile crept up his lips. Freeza was always overtly amused when he'd made a joke. But he was the only one laughing.

The tyrant lord tapped his finger more incessantly and angry bubbles rushed out behind Goku's mouthpiece. Freeza cackled in delight. "You're all so insolent! Every last one of you!"

It was at that moment Goku and Vegeta shared a look and resolve seemed to regain Vegeta's body, making him struggle against Freeza's surprisingly strong hold.

"Freeza leave him out of this!" Vegeta growled his eyes slits.

At this, the lord's power swelled and Goku felt the hair on his skin quiver as the feeling consumed him. He desperately hoped that Gohan and Krillin couldn't feel all this. It was unbearable, it was extraordinary.

"Ve-ge-ta." Freeza lilted and the prince writhed more against his trapped position. The shirt wrapped around his wrists tore off and the lord had to catch his gloved hands before Vegeta exploded in ki.

Freeza held Vegeta's hands tight against the glass, framing the prince perfectly for Goku's view. It was terrible, the Earth-Saiyan couldn't look anywhere but forward because the sight, it was captivating.

Vegeta, in all his power, spread wide and shirtless against the glass.

"Freeza!" Vegeta growled again, and the tyrant answered by ripping the tight pants the prince wore from his body. The shreds hung off his legs and all he was left with were his gloves and boots. "F-Freeza," Vegeta said, this time a lot quieter, husky. His lips were brushing the glass, his eyes half closed and posture still defiant.

"What punishment should I give you?" Freeza asked low in his ear. He tilted his head and smiled. "Ah, I know….some fast pleasure before the inevitably slow pain.."

Bubbles exploded from behind Goku's mouthpiece, obscuring his vision and tickling his scalp as they skimmed through his hair. When they dispersed, Vegeta was staring directly into his eyes, his bottom lip sucked in between his teeth.

Freeza's tail came up and then disappeared behind the Saiyan and Goku could only guess as the prince cried out, his fingers clawing at the glass.

Goku watched as the two rocked in front of him, watched as Vegeta's previously hinted-at arousal returned at full force. He wished he could just.. do something, anything. But he still couldn't move and this feeling of helplessness was so new and frustrating in the face of something so… so alarming.

Soon Freeza's madly smiling face had blurred away and all that was left was the sight of Vegeta. The prince's gloved hand clenched and then slid down the rounded glass, his back arched in a new angle making him gasp. Vegeta's forehead pressed to the glass and Goku couldn't help it, he pressed his own forward, so they were looking at each other, connected.

Goku wished Vegeta could hear his thoughts now, that he didn't want them to be like this in.. in this way. And that he wanted more than anything to help him, to fight Freeza. He vowed it with his life he would defeat him.

"Ah.. yeah," Vegeta mouthed against the glass, his hot breath fogging up Goku's view for just a second before clearing again and Vegeta's eyes were shut tight, his mouth open in a show of complete abandon. His rocking became even faster and sweat poured down his face.

"Oh Yeahyeahyeaaaaaah," He groaned and came, splattering the glass just above his waist. He fell against the glass, limbs askew and like jelly. Vegeta breathed deeply and opened his eyes, the two of them were so close but so far. It was like things for them were standing still, neither Saiyan could ever make a move.

Freeza ran his thumb down Vegeta's damp cheek. The Saiyan was just too exhausted to fight it anymore.

But as the space tyrant left the prince there kneeling on the floor in front of the tank, Goku knew.

Vegeta had no one left, but Goku always protected people when he could. He'd be the one to finish Freeza for Vegeta.

The prince lifted his bowed head and Goku saw into those black depths that were just a little green, because this was Namek.

'I'll make sure of it.'