Disclaimer: Dragonball Z/GT and all its likeness does not belong to me. No profits are being made off this story.

Only Stop When I Say When

Chapter 8

Bra, please don't be there when I get back!

Goten fiddled with his keychain for the right one. He'd dropped off his mother at her own dwelling, along with a mountain of new appliances, clothing and bargain sale items. He shook his head, shifting his own packages around in his arms. Of course, Goten would never say no to a new set of Capsule boots, or belts, or tube socks in every colour…

He jammed the key into the slot and raised his eyebrows when the door swung open without having to turn it.

"Gohan?" He called out as he stepped inside and placed his purchases on the hallway table.

Goten extended his ki, and suddenly his eyes narrowed realizing his brother was definitely not in the house, but someone else was.

He bounded up the stairs in a mere blur before reappearing in front of Pan's room. There weren't any suspicious noises when he strained his ears, but it was completely out of character for Pan to be shuffling around her room with a light foot.

His little niece usually clomped around noisily like she was pissed off with the floor. Goten figured this was an effect of the only child syndrome and didn't judge – much. The half Saiyan shrugged and kicked the door in.

The stranger screamed.

"Um." Goten said smartly.

Bra was staring back at him with some of Pan's things in her hands.

Goten blinked. "What the hell are you doing?"

They flew without speaking for long minutes that stretched by slowly compared to the rushing landscapes beneath.

Gohan felt his heart drumming inside his chest, the tingle of pressure at his temples and pulse points. They were going in circles.

Vegeta was leading him in circles.

But he'd been going in a downwards spiral all this time, hadn't he? Gohan grit his teeth, knowing without a doubt in his gut that it was true.

The resistance he'd put up, which hadn't been much; the temptation Bra had offered, which could have – no, should have – been resisted, it all came down to the terrible conclusion he'd been unwilling to face.

Bra wasn't the teacher's pet.

He was the pet teacher.

Suddenly, a white hot spike of sensation lanced through his mind. It was the telltale sign of an increase in ki. He would have recognized it anywhere.

Pan!

Almost a second later, guilt sliced through his stomach like a saw, rough and serrated. Of course Vegeta knew where his daughter was. Of course he knew.

Vegeta banked left, and both of the Saiyans knew the other had felt the increased power level.

Should he try to stop the older man? Try to lie or deny it? Gohan followed just behind him, letting the despair flood his features like a damn that had been finally broken. It was all going to stop.

"Vegeta!" The name tumbled from his mouth and sailed across the wind. "They—Pan, and Videl. They don't know." He yelled over the rushing air.

Vegeta didn't so much as slow down or turn his head, but he answered in that deep stony voice, "I know, Gohan."

And just like that, all the weight of guilt he'd been holding onto fell away like the pieces of a broken mirror, each shard a lie that reflected the next; a world of bright dangerous splinters.

Gohan exhaled, slow. The ground rushed up to meet him as he landed in front of his home. The yelling going on in the driveway didn't even meet his ears. All noise fizzled away into nothingness, Vegeta on his left was powering up so efficiently that it burned away the rest of his senses.

He supposed it was meant to be like this all along. This was how it had to happen. It made a certain amount of sense that the hot shame in Gohan's heart when Videl's tear-filled eyes met his was the only thing he could feel.

The truth was wide open.

"You're LYING! Bra, you little piece of—" Pan was screeching before Goten clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Quiet!" He hissed. "Stop yelling! You want your grandma down here too?"

Oh kami, his mother. That would truly make him a public disgrace.

"All..Alright," Videl was saying in a shaky voice. "Tell me again what you're doing here, Bra…"

Bra screwed up her face, squinted back and forth between the woman and her father. "I came here looking for Pan, but Gohan told me she's out…"

Goten's quieting hand was ripped away and Pan flung herself forward in rage. "LIE! That's a LIE!"

"This is mental…" Goten was muttering to himself even as his thumb rapidly worked on his phone.

Bra scowled and backed away. "Dad, let's go."

Videl's voice was low and pained. "No… that's not right." But it wasn't exactly certain what she was responding to.

"Gohan," Those blue eyes were pleading with him. "Tell me what's going on."

"We had sex." Gohan found the words tumbling out, full of desperation. "We had… an affair. Not anymore, it's stopped."

And just like that, everything broke out into chaos.

"LIAR!"

"No…"

"What?"

"Rrrrraaaahhhgg!" Vegeta's roar of anger oppressed everyone else's reactions and suddenly he was a super Saiyan, with one hand clamped around Gohan's neck.

He'd been expecting this. This was how it was going to—

"I knew it." Vegeta hissed right into his face, spit landing all over and breaking up Gohan's fragmented thoughts.

"I-I-kk-" Choked, Gohan raised his ki as well, which only served to make Vegeta that much angrier.

"Stop!" Bra yelled out.

"My dad didn't do anything!" Pan cried out in anger. The tips of her hair were clumping together into spikes. She charged at the two men, fury in her eyes.

Vegeta just rounded on her and grabbed the small girl by the collar. She kicked uselessly stuck in his iron grip.

"Didn't he?" The Prince asked. "This is exactly what you warned me about."

"W-What…?" Videl gasped out.

"I didn't— I never thought it was—!" Pan cried.

"What!" Bra raged.

"Oh yes." Vegeta was smug, holding both Pan and her father by their necklines. Gohan couldn't take his eyes off his daughter as she stared down at him, completely distraught.

"This brat came to our home the other day, letting me know what you've been up to at school."

The blue haired girl reeled back as though she'd been slapped. Goten caught her arm before she backed into the garden patch, a gobsmacked look on his face.

"N-No, no, no, no!" She denied. "Daddy, I never—"

"Don't lie, Bra. You've done it long enough." Vegeta replied to her, no longer caring to spare her a glance. He tossed Pan like a rag doll over to her mother, who flew up and caught her.

"You think I can't sense when my own daughter is near? That when I knocked on the door that I didn't know who was inside?" He stared down into Gohan's face which was twisted in a grimace. "I even flew around with you like an idiot, giving you a chance to come clean. But you did not."

His eyes narrowed until Gohan's face was the only thing in his vision. Gohan grimly looked back. "Make no mistake," Vegeta warned in that gravelly low voice of his. "I know exactly how to punish you. Shall we wait a little longer for more people to turn up?"

When Gohan didn't answer – he couldn't – Vegeta slammed a ball of burning ki that had been building in his fist straight into his gut.

It forced him to his knees in the dirt on the ground, the luscious mountain grass having been blast away by the full-blooded Saiyan's power.

Gohan coughed out a wad of blood and spit along with the answer: "No!"

The older warrior seemed to turn it over in his head only for a second before grinning viciously. Vegeta's fists were suddenly hanging in the air above his pointy head. The Saiyan prince's face was red and furious as he brought his arms down.

"STOP. STOP!"

But still Vegeta's hot knuckles carved into his face. Over and over.

Bra had never even bothered to call out for him.

Gohan's heart clenched tightly; it was all worthless, what he'd done. And still, it was his family who were calling for him now. His brother, his daughter and his wife. Was that his mother he heard too?

The crushing of cartilage was loud but hollow in his ears and he was almost choking on his own blood; there was so much running down his face.

"VEGETA STOP!" Videl's voice rang loud and clear. Both Pan and Goten were holding Vegeta by the fist, struggling to keep it from raining down one more blow.

The pure unadulterated fury froze and broke away like an icicle in a sudden thaw. Vegeta's golden aura disappeared, and his breaths were coming fast and hard as he lowered his hand.

The ex-warrior, now scholar, now beaten to a pulp, Gohan gave a watery sigh. He could hear his mother weeping openly. It was the only sound he could ever remember hearing all his life. It was the same sound that punctuated each time he or his father had done something to hurt her. This time it was all for him.

All for him. It was deafening.

He watched as Vegeta shook his daughter and brother off. Pan tried to rush to him, but Goten held her back, dragging his hysterical daughter to where the family stood.

Gohan was thankful for that. This was far from over.

The once great Z fighter could only imagine the pathetic sight he made now, lying at Vegeta's feet on the dusty ki-baked ground. Ironically, he'd been here a few times before.

This was the first time he felt he deserved to be there.

He rolled onto his back and groaned. It didn't matter. Whatever dignity he'd ever had had left him that day in his office, when he'd read the words 'Give in' and listened.

"Did you get what you want?" Vegeta spat at him from above. A dirty boot toed him brutally in the ribs making him cry out.

There were gasps and renewed crying from somewhere closer to the house and Gohan tried to shake his head. He couldn't tell if it was moving; all he could feel was the brilliant head-swimming motion that was telltale of a concussion.

Vegeta wasn't finished. "Do you finally feel-" He dug the heel of his boot into Gohan's mouth, "The damage you've caused my family? Your own?"

His body was already healing, and he sat up despite the way his head felt like sinking between his knees. "No," Gohan croaked out, his voice slippery and wet.

He reached out and took Vegeta's arm by the wrist, gently, and the prince let his hand be guided to Gohan's exposed chest. His hand smoothed over Vegeta's, their fingers intertwining for just a moment before he closed the older man's hand into a fist. Their eyes met and Gohan closed his own, letting his hand hang back down at his side once more.

"Should I stop your punishment for what you've done?" Vegeta's voice was soft and gruff, like a hot breath against the Son's face.

Gohan compared it to the forbidden breath of Bra, and squeezed his eyelids even tighter. The short affair was now a fading memory, a bad dream of eyes and empty exploration.

The only tangible thing left was the feeling of self-loathing and the need for justice.

It was dark now and Gohan knew that after this fight was over, their families would never be able to go back to the way it had been. He'd finally managed something greater than even his father had ever done.

No wonder his father had preferred being dead. Disappointing loved ones at the cost of selfish personal thrills was the most despicable feeling in the world.

But he was going to live with this. He had to. Because facing Goku and Piccolo in the afterlife seemed even worse.

His heart tightened painfully like it'd been squeezed in the palm of his own hand.

They'd part ways after this, he knew. Until all living memory of this affair was firmly buried in the ground, the two last living strands of Saiyan blood would never cross paths again, for at least a hundred or more years.

A single puff of laughter escaped Gohan's lips, curving them into an empty smile as he answered;

"Only stop when I say when."

The End.