Fandom: DBZ/ Dragon Ball
Characters: Vegeta/Goku(Kakarot)
Word Count: 2134
Warnings: multiverse/divergent timelines, transient deaths, refusal of canon multiverse

Summary: In another universe, maybe I deserve you.

Notes: Uhhhhh, back on my multiverse bullshit that stringently ignores Super's canon multiverse. Just a string of mostly unconnected aus, variations on a theme.

VegeKaka in the PTO
VegeKaka role swap
VegeKaka where Goku takes Raditz's place
VegeKaka in the distant finale of GT.

.death.

In another universe, maybe I deserve you.

Kakarot blinks, laughs, then lowers his head, face crumbling into a sob. It's unbecoming for a Saiyan, but Kakarot has always been afforded certain liberties no one else could claim. Vegeta would like to blame Bardock, but in a brief, quiet moment of self-awareness, admits to his own habit of indulging Kakarot. Ignoring the pain when he moves, he cups Kakarot's cheek and doesn't dwell on the reason behind the black spots fluttering across his vision.

"Don't do that, Kakarot," Vegeta says. Exhaustion is clinging to his bones, he'd like nothing more than to sleep, but he can't. (Not while Kakarot is making that face ). He licks dry, cracked lips and swallows around a tongue made of lead. "What would your father say?"

Kakarot shakes his head, stardust and tears glittering on his face, holding Vegeta's hand to his cheek. He tries a wobbly smile but can't quite manage it. Which is just like him, a brat until the end, always defying Vegeta's orders. "He'd blame you, o' course. An' I won't defend you this time."

Vegeta smirks, pretends he doesn't taste anything but iron and tries to memorize Kakarot's face. He traces his thumb underneath Kakarot's eye, fascinated by the dark sweep of clinging lashes as shadows eat away at the corners of his sight. "This isn't the end," Vegeta tells him, his voice full of rust. Kakarot squeezes his hand, hunching over him and whispering desperate denials. Hand slackening, Vegeta wishes he'd gotten to look at Kakarot's eyes a while longer. He takes a breath, thin and airless. "This isn't the end. In another universe-"

.kings.

titles don't mean anything.

Vegeta frowns, caught between defiance and insecurity. The prince gives a small, kind smile, despite the sleepless bruises underneath his eyes. Kakarot always looks more befitting of his rank when he's like this. Smile serene, stately in his royal armor with the house crest decorating his breast. He's lovely, of course, but in an alien sort of way.

One Vegeta can't quite reconcile with the little annoyance who leaped head first into trouble and clung to his hip for years until he grew too tall to hide behind Vegeta. Vegeta has seen Kakarot shrivel in fear from a needle, grin like an idiot over tint accomplishments, and eat himself sick during diplomatic dinners. He's seen Kakarot stare at his father's disappearing back with a sad look on his face, a study of loneliness in the slope of his shoulders. He's watched (perhaps a little too intensely) as Kakarot fought and trained under impossible odds, body becoming a patchwork of purpling bruises and bloody gashes. Vegeta has seen an infinite spectrum of emotion light up and darken Kakarot's face from within, like moon phases arcing through the sky.

Vegeta knows what expression Kakarot makes when he's just been kissed.

(And therein lies the problem)

"Even if such an idiotic place were to exist, it wouldn't do us much good." Vegeta scoffs, turning away and glaring at the red sky looming high and indifferent above their balcony. Kakarot's balcony. Not his. Not theirs. Quieter now, "Titles mean everything here. And this is where we are, like it or not, Kakarot."

Kakarot steps forward, smelling like the ripe, sweet fruit he snuck away from the kitchens before the banquet. "We don't have to be, you know? There's a whole galaxy- a whole universe out there even."

As if it's that easy. Vegeta scrubs at his temple, massaging his temple where a slow forming migraine was beginning to build itself. "What are you suggesting? That we run away?" His scoff is tangible in his voice. He's tired of this conversation, were it anyone else he would have left already. But he feels Kakarot's dark eyes burn into him with all the intensity of a blue star and twice the gravity. Despite himself, he feels pulled in, caught in Kakarot's orbit and on a collision course with one unfortunate decision after another. Clenching his fists hard enough to make the synthetic leather creak, Vegeta growls deep in his throat. "You can't leave. You're getting married tomorrow, your people need you. They'll be lost without their savior."

Kakarot's slender fingers hover tentatively above Vegeta's wrist. It's almost ingrained instinct to loosen his fist and move to thread their fingers together, palms kissing. Vegeta shades his eyes from Kakarot's earnest expression. "They can have dad and Raditz. I'm already yours," Kakarot says, reckless.

The words send a shiver down Vegeta's spine, a pool of possessive warmth that's quickly extinguished by a wrenching, hollow feeling as heavy knocks fall on the grand doors of Kakarot's chambers. "Prince Kakarot, it's time," calls Nappa, painfully clear.

Kakarot flinches, hunching his shoulders like a scolded child, Vegeta squeezes the hand entwined with his, a wan grimace pulling at his mouth. He captures one final glance of his (ward, friend, lover, rival) prince's face, and has a moment to regret it's of Kakarot's pinched expression instead of a wild, careless smile. Vegeta slips his hand away and straightens his form into that of a proper guard's (with no unsightly attachment to their charge).

A barrier drops between them, unseen but keenly felt. "You're the prince, and in the end, I'm your royal guard." He says simply, correcting Kakarot. Throat feeling tight, Vegeta walks towards the doors, "The reality of it is that there's a whole universe-"

.journey.

between us.

Vegeta crosses his arms and stares down his nose at the monitor, continuing his tirade. "And you'd have to be a bigger idiot than I thought if you really think I'll let you galavant off unsupervised. Especially so far away."

Kakarot scowls that snooty way he does when he doesn't get his way; the rebellion in his mulish expression clear despite lightyears of stellar interference between them. The brat huffs, blowing air into his cheeks (still round with baby fat) and honest to the stars *pouts*. "Geez, Vegeta. Don't be like that, we need all the help we can get. Raditz could be an asset, but you're just willing to pass the chance up!"

"Ugh, don't make that face. I regret the day your mother dropped you on your head." Vegeta makes a disgusted face, voice mean. He waves Kakarot off, rolling his eyes when Kakarot's offended sputter makes the pod's speakers crackle. "Fine, fine! Gods damn it all, just stay in your position and I'll come join you."

Pout melting into a more serious-faced frown, Kakarot shook his head and reached up to turn off his scouter. Acknowledging the shift in mood, Vegeta did the same, eyebrow raised coolly. Kakarot ran a hand through his hair, sighing. "With all due respect, Geta," he begins, not very respectful at all. "you know that's not a good idea. We can't afford for you to draw attention towards our team."

Vegeta scowled, for multiple reasons, but mainly because the clown was right. Kakarot took after his father in that they were both reasonable only when it was most inconvenient.

Even so, he had no counter argument.

They couldn't take any chances without the reward being worth more than the risk. And Vegeta had no justifiable cause for following Kakarot to such a far out star cluster. Unwilling to relent, a tense pause built between them, they regarded each other intensely through the monitor, Kakarot's face determined while Vegeta's expression remained displeased.

The golden flare of their home sun was reflected in Kakarot's eyes, a flame bright enough to melt starmetal. A determination that has, on many occasions, moved planets.

A muscle in Vegeta's jaw clenches. He looks away and scoffs, leaning magnanimously into his seat. "I expect a full report upon planetfall and another check in once you track down your hairball of a brother."

"Should I ring you if I'm going to miss curfew as well?" Kakarot's seriousness dissolves into a cheeky grin, tilting his head and giggling. Not even dignifying it with an answer, Vegeta shoots the oaf with an acidic glare. As usual, it only seems to amuse Kakarot more, a bubbling laugh springing through the crackling speakers. Calming, Kakarot smiles an easy smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling and his dimples showing. "Don't worry. There's nothing in the universe-"

.horizon.

that could stop me from coming home.

Vegeta huffs a wan, tired laugh. "That'd be a good one, Kakarot. If you weren't dead right now."

"That hasn't exactly stopped either of us before." Kakarot points out, golden halo'd and grinning. He's scratching the back of his head, having the decency for once to look at least a little bashful, nose crinkled and ears pink.

He looks as beautiful as Vegeta best remembers him. And Vegeta...

Vegeta feels old. The pale light and the golden scent of plums in this place hurts his head and his heart. The clouds feel too soft on his weathered body, he has no place here.

Kakarot tilts his head, dark eyes like obsidian and cutting to the bones of him. In a voice that's too full of empathy, he says, "Have you been waiting all this time?"

"There was no one else who could," Vegeta answers, honestly. Once, lifetimes ago, those words would have only served to stoke the flames of his own ego. Now it's just the simple truth. There was no one left. Vegeta had stopped counting the children after the first handful of generations had been peacefully born and died the same way.

Kakarot smiles a sad, soft smile, and descends from his alter of light. Familiar hands cup Vegeta's face, fingers tracing over lines and signs of age that hadn't been there the last time they met. "It must've been difficult." Vegeta shudders at the touch, has to scrape at the tattered shreds of his pride to keep from sagging into Kakarot.

"Some years."

"It must have been lonely."

Vegeta discovers he closed his eyes. With much effort, he forces them open, gazing hazily at Kakarot's kind smile. His eyes remind of Vegeta of the glimpses of deep, endless black of space from his starship window before he'd drift into sleep-stasis. The loss of equilibrium, sense of self, as he submerged into a place between dreams and consciousness, the lingering impression of swimming through stars always with him. "Not always." He says, giving in and tucking his nose against Kakarot's jaw. "Sometimes I would forget."

Kakarot's laugh is quiet, like wind through river reeds. His scent blooms, clouding Vegeta's mind pleasantly. "What would make you remember?"

Vegeta hums, his hands finding their way to Kakarot's waist, fingers petting across the graceful dip of his spine. "I would wake up."

In the beginning, the sense of solitude had been a bleak winter. Not as angry as those long seven years, Vegeta had still felt hollowed out, brittle without his sense of purpose. He wasn't allowed long, brought out from his listlessness by small, strong hands. The sun broke through in the form of his children, all of his children, including Kakarot's. The wives' constant, well-meaning needling thawed through the rest of the snowmelt; Bulma's saucy humor, ChiChi's easy matronly demeanor. The wistful glances they'd send toward the sky made Vegeta feel less alone.

But time marches forwards, both inexorable and indiscriminate, and they too left him, falling away from his reach one at a time, like grains of red sand through his hands. Dreams of Vegetasei's red skies and Kakarot's carefree laughter soon became home to ChiChi and Bulma's faces, then Gohan's. Trunks. Goten. Bra. Pan. Even Kakarot's friends would wander through his dreams on occasion: familiar, once young faces peeking through his unconscious like shadowy reflections on the water's surface.

Always, Kakarot's face would stay forefront and center. Sometimes they'd meet, others they would part. Once they were childhood friends, another time fierce, constant enemies, then yet again as something more than friends or rivals.

Forever caught in each other's orbit, two celestial bodies destined to meet.

Kakarot rubs his cheek against Vegeta's, intermingling their scents. His skin is smooth and achingly warm in a way it never is during Vegeta's dreams. It's not an * I'm sorry* or any painful, unwanted thing like that, just a simple acknowledgment, easy acceptance. Vegeta shudders and grips Kakarot harder, greedily soaking up contact like a man dying of thirst.

"I'm here now. I want you to come with me, this time." Kakarot tells him, breath tickling against Vegeta's collarbone.

"What about the earth?" Vegeta asks. "Won't it need us? You?"

"Maybe, but not now. It's okay to rest a bit." Kakarot says, trailing his fingers through grey-streaked hair.

Vegeta presses into the touch, nodding lethargically. He allows himself to have at least this much. Perhaps it'll be alright if he lets the universe go for a little while.