I remember when you let me love you.

Once, just once, one rainy afternoon when we were alone and you were soft, too soft, your words almost sweet, at least less bitter than your tongue is now.

But never again, not after that afternoon that lead to evening that lead to your lips on mine again, and your hands in my hair, and your words in a language I did not understand both damning me and praising me and begging me not to stop.

Years have passed between that time and now and you've resisted me, refused me, blackmailed me with your black heart to silence my yearning though it all but consumes me.

Eats me from within, for without you there's little left that inflames me with the same irrational emotion like the look in your eyes over and over and over again.

You spar me. Reject me.

You fight with fist and fury. I return in kind.

All I want is to have you again, in the rain, in the dark, and in the quiet hours that belonged to us and only us.

Once, just once more.

It's not raining now, how I wish it were, but cotton clouds block the moon and all I can see is your silhouette against the sky cut with silver. Black night, silver stars, indigo sky; your signature colours like your hair, your eyes, and the clothes you wear. You're like a bruise, constant, throbbing, aching, evasive.

And rubbing away the pain does no good.

Not any more. Not since we slept under moonlight and rainwater and all I've gotten is your back, your glare, your harsh words and biting sarcasm that makes me want to scream at you, shake you, demand to know why you showed me paradise and ripped it from my hands as skillfully as…

~ Is it getting better?
Or do you feel the same? ~

Are we still throwing punches on a playground, Vegeta? Will you be unsatisfied with our situation until I'm pinned on the ground, prone, prostrate, plaintive and pathetic and purposefully pained by your ferocity, your uncaring, your callousness? Is that what you want? My…submission…?

"Are you bothering me for a reason, Kakarotto?" Barely acknowledgement. Less than a glance.

"I didn't realize my presence bothered you, Vegeta."

His shadow shifts, head held high. Regal. Vainglorious and vociferous.

"You are the very bane of my existence, Kakarotto. Surely this does not come as a surprise to you?" Mocking. Condescending.

I ignore his tone, his temper, his tendency to override camaraderie for competition.

The air is warm, like his breath, the moon high, like his confidence. And it is dark, like the passion in his eyes.

I am lost in his sensation.

~ Will it make it easier on you now?
You got someone to blame. ~

"A surprise…" Closer. "No. It's no secret you hate me." Down, looking at darkness that licks the waves of moonlight and it splashes across our feet like water.

"Yet you seek my company." Flicker of onyx sharper than the absence of day. "Does that make you a masochist?" Away. Over hill and hemlock and down to the valley glowing quietly with humanity. "Or simply an idiot."

"If I'm an idiot, it's for reason more than that…" Murmur. Hand in hair to allow a breeze, slight, soft, like his lips in the rain on my skin.

"As though you need a reason." Crisp. Bite. Burn away my love for you Ouji-sama. Seer me with words that leave me dead to your eyes.

"There's no reason in why I came here, Vegeta." Once, just once. Look at me with eyes like stars, black and silver and burning.

"An absolute shock, Kakarotto. The earth-raised hero doing something without a reason…" Glance, but not to me. Away again, toward the moon. "Allow me to be appropriately stunned."

You can't make me hate you more than I do. Hate like love like passion like need like I am with you and no one else.

~ You say…
One love…
One life… ~

I don't need a reason to be around you, Vegeta. I couldn't stay away from you if I tried. Grind teeth and stare beyond the trees that look like cardboard cutouts. I feel you like a second skin, a constant itch that can't be quelled. We were one, just once, loved and lived in a single moment that stretched for an eternity in the arch of your back, the tension in your thighs, and the scorching lust in your lidded eyes.

"What do you want, Kakarotto…" Quiet, nonplussed and perfect articulation from the mouth I see even when I close my eyes.

"I want…everything---"

Bark like laughter. Animalistic and arrogant.

"What more could you ask for, bakayarou?" Grand gesture that sweeps, encompasses, escalates in his turn toward me. "They give you everything. Respect you hardly deserve. Admiration from even your enemies." Eyes narrow and discredit the unspoken. "You have strength the likes of which even our ancestors never imagined and all you can do is stand there with the audacity of dissatisfaction!" Fists and teeth and beautiful in the moonlight as the clouds cross to cut his figure into curves and angles.

~ When it's one need
In the night ~

"Yes, I'm selfish. I've been given everything I've never asked for and plenty that I have. I have strong children, the strength of gods, and the loyalty of my friends." Challenge.

Accepted. Arms crossed and calculated, but refusing me again.

"Is that why you hate me? Because I've got everything you don't? Because no matter what you do, you're always undermined? Because even if you trained harder than you ever have and achieved a level of strength I've never even seen, it wouldn't be enough to defeat me?" Sharp. Truth.

Growling in a flash of white teeth, hands tight, eyes torrid.

"What? What're you going to say next, Vegeta? That I'm an idiot? That I'm third class? That I'm hardly worthy to polish your boots?" Frustration. Fight instinct that surges. Softer, "Maybe…maybe you're right?"

Jerk of movement like a physical shock.

"Does that surprise you…" Meeting with black and black, but yours is bewitching beyond captivation and I can hardly speak, my words in my throat, thrust through my mouth with a force fueled by wanton wanting. "That after all this time, maybe I'm starting to believe you?"

You don't speak, you rarely do, not until I've provoked you into swearing and sadism.

"I didn't come here tonight to argue with you on whether or not you hate me or want to change me, or wish I was more Saiya-jin…" Rush. Speak without thinking and courage won't desert me…

"I wanted to--I needed--" Need. Pain. Lancing, reaching, latching onto my heart and crushing my reason - what reason? - to a point that no longer resembles anything human but surfaces the Saiya-jin, the beast, the animal that wants to worship you like a prince.

I did it once, just once, let me…

~ One love
We get to share it ~

"I…" Flounder. Look at my hands--too big to handle…so fragile…so strong…Fist them, hide them. Fumble.

"I need…" To be with you. How do I say it? How can I make you understand? Hard, too hard. Too difficult to read the unreadable, indiscernible, indefinable look you give me that's harshened by moonlight contrast and careless darkness.

Thick in my throat, my intentions elude invocation. Stand in silence, miles between us and only the slanting silver to guide my uncertain steps.

~ Leaves you baby
If you don't care for it ~

"The gods know what you need, Kakarotto, but I will be damned before I become your confessor. Your demons are your own, and if you cannot deal with what it is to be Saiya-jin, the battle and the bloodlust that I have attempted to uncover within that disgusting façade, than I can hardly help you now."

No! Don't turn away!

"Vegeta-sama!" Too desperate, too delusional.

Like a viper. "What did you say?"

"H…"

Powerful stride that crosses miles like a black shadow over the sun.

"What the hell did you call me, Kakarotto?" Demanding. An inch away that seems like miles more.

Swallow. Mouth open, but words are gone, fled in the face of anger I don't understand, I want to understand, like I want the curve of your neck in my hand and the taste of your skin on my tongue.

"Are you mocking me?"

Choke. Your white fingers on my shirt, drag me down, subjugate me. I'm lost in your eyes, bound by black and silver and the fire of red that rips upward from your brow.

"Answer me, goddammit!" Shake me like I wanted to shake you, like I wanted to spill the truth and the answers and the reasons why you won't let me touch you like I loved you when it rained and you allowed me to come to you like a worshipper at your feet.

Fall. To the ground where it's wet and I feel it seep through my gi like you seeped into my skin.

~ Did I disappoint you?
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?~

Silence soaking into me and I can feel your eyes, your heat, your confusion. Wet grass on my hands, my knees, sweet scent mixing with yours that leaves me light headed.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Not spoken. Breathed. Commanded. Mystified. But this is the way you want me, Vegeta. Isn't it…?

"Gomen nasai, Vegeta-sama." Muffled. Insecure. "I was not mocking you." Sit back, look up, meet eyes the colour of storm clouds.

Lightning flashes.

"Kakarotto, you have gone too far." Snarled.

"No." Eyes downcast to the space between his feet, black with shadow, slit with silver. "I'm giving you the respect you deserve, Ouji-sama."

Sharp intake. I close my eyes and breathe him in. Sweat and musk and Saiya-jin and sensuality.

Bending. Chaste, his boot tastes of grass and dirt.

~ You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without ~

Ethereal. Silent. Vegeta's breath is still.

"This isn't a game, Vegeta." Cheek pressed flatly against his ankle. "I'm giving you my admiration, my prince."

Illumination. Blazing as my hair ignites and I release my power to its maximum without straining, give it to you, my prince, my Saiya-jin, my dark seducer. Cloth rustles as his body tenses.

"My strength."

The miles stretch out in the absence of sound and it hardly matters that I am pressed, prostrate, and poised at his feet. Eyes closed. Expectant.

I need you like breath, like body, like being alive and fighting and forcing myself to feel things that humans don't understand…

Understand.

~ Well it's…
Too late
Tonight
To drag the past out into the light ~

Shift weight from foot to foot, can feel your eyes like embers against my back, exposed before you as I kneel before you like the prince you've become to me, the royalty that strikes my instinct like a match and burns me with its unforgiving heat.

Tight fingers in my hair, wrenching. Welcome the pain, the sensation, the gift of touch and attention.

Slowly open blue eyes to black. Fathomless. Cruel. Hard, like onyx, obsidian, like the space between stars.

Searching, raiding, throwing aside my human conditioning, my Saiya-jin nature, digging deeper, shredding, sorting, renting my skin and revealing my basic, base, primal yearnings.

I do not flinch. Yield. Crouching before me like a prowling thing, clenching and flexing as gold falls to the earth like raindrops and the sky is darker with clouds pregnant with precipitation.

Harsh. You were soft before, the rain made you soft, pliant, willing and wanting. Not tonight. You've changed, charged with casual cruelty and questions.

But no words.

This is not that night.

"Tonight my will is yours, Vegeta." Whispered into the fevered ferocity of twin stars. "You are my prince. And I am yours."

~ We're one, but we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other ~

Need it. Sensation of pain, the lingering of pleasure that follows the passionate assault. I need it now like you needed it then, like no one else can understand, like no one else can give it to me, this humiliation, this worship.

We are princes. We are the last in a race of gods. We are gestalt. We are night and day, harmony and discord, chaos and order.

~ Carry each other ~

Without you I play a part for which I have no script. Together, we are a flawless execution of song and dance, a routine that is ingrained in a memory I have been denied. That could I recall…but all I'm allowed is this gnawing drive that begs your approval.

A fervent devotee of your imperial presence.

Jerk back, my neck arched painfully. No protest.

Confusion. Questing. Eyes narrow.

Acceptance in a sneer.

~ One… ~

Crush, a continuation of your cruelty, a meshing of teeth and tongues and higher hunger beyond the need of my body, the need to be with you, the need to join again like we did before you gave me your back, your harsh words, and your cold hard eyes, like stars, like moonlight, like onyx and like fire.

Need you, feel you, taste you. Desire, like the fire in your eyes, consumes me, concentrates my energy into the action of submission. Mouth open. Allow it. The invasion, the searching, the destruction of my defenses. Braced against the earth that loves me. Bound by the man that controls me with his tongue, his hands, his fingers like daggers. The noises he makes are savage. Mine are an echo of his desperation. His dominance.

Backward. Falling. Extradited to the earth, she loves me.

Shadowed by the black caste of the man that controls me. Glaring eyes, heaving heart. Breath released in a hissing growl like animals in the dark.

My hair lit like fireflies in the field. My eyes are the glaring blue of a sky after rain.

You came to me in rain, Vegeta. You allowed me to love you.

Love me.

~ Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead? ~

"I said never again, Kakarotto." Crunch of grass. A step backward that puts years between us. "You did not listen--you never listen! I will not be reminded of my weaknesses at your convenience, bakayarou!"

Deny. Contradict. Oppose.

Lie backward, exposed. Close my eyes to the stars and spread my arms and legs like a fallen angel that hasn't the strength to fly.

Shhhh… "How can I convince you…" My prince, my passion, my desire. Mumbling. "I can't want anything else. It tastes like paper, like ash, like air. I can't get you…out of me."

Want you against me. Pressing, possessing, permitting me to feel and taste and touch and join.

"One night means nothing. You have no right to ask more of me."

Sigh…scent of sweet and spring and rain that hangs in attendance.

"I ask nothing of you, Vegeta-sama…" Sharp inhale. Tense distrust. "I want you to use me, my prince." Love me.

~ Have you come here to play Jesus
To the lepers in your head? ~

Thunder from the west, rumbling across the sky between us. Miles. Years. Time that cannot be measured, salvaged, surrendered.

Brightness behind my eyes, the flicker of lightning that follows.

Cold, wet against my back, tickles my ears, my wrists, my hands. Lie like this forever. A disregarded god with the strength to unmake immortal men. Wait. Breathe. Quiet with the taste of your mouth on my tongue and the feel of your eyes on my body.

Dangerous, drowning in the sound of thunder. Jagged as lightning.

"Do you have any idea what it is you offer, Kakarotto?"

Yes…gods, yes…

"You say my name so often, Ouji-sama." Open to quilted clouds covering the heavens. "Is it to convince yourself that I'm Saiya-jin…" Soft smile, like rain. Relinquish. "Or to remind yourself that you're not alone?"

~ Did I ask too much?
More than a lot… ~

Guttural. Incomprehensible. Serrated. Words like thunder that roll over me like I want your body to control me. Curses that mean nothing to me. That make me want to worship you with lips and hands and a tail that I no longer have.

My prince. My dark, animal lover. My black-hearted Saiya-jin that gave me love just once and I wonder if you have the capacity for it twice.

Affect me with your fists, your vicious intensity. Ignite with the power of suns and destroy me in your feral heat.

Beat me, bleed me, ravage me with more than your mouth, your eyes, take me in your immaculate hands and treat me like a toy. Play with me, drag me through the mud, the rain, wash me with your scent and toss me aside that I may sleep within the tangle of your sheets as you slumber.

Touch me…

~ You gave me nothing
Now it's all I got ~

Clasp my memories, like dreams, like fleeting things, like stars behind clouds and sunlight through rain.

Sounds that men make only in the presence of their compliment, wordless whimpers you made that transcended class, the feeling of your hands, your legs, clenched around my shoulders, my waist, spoke volumes you dared not breathe.

Now, silent. With a distance that spans lifetimes between us. Miles that speak of battle-bred, disciplined, cold-blooded, reckless, ruthless. Whispering of a need that cannot exist. A weakness that cannot be permitted.

Then take me, Vegeta. Take me like a prince and keep your conscience clear of it. When I wake in the morning, I will deal with the consequences of my submission.

~ We're one
But we're not the same ~

"You carelessly acknowledge me as your prince as though you have any idea of what that entails." Tempered. Leashed. Barely.

"Iie, Ouji-sama," a sigh. "I call you my prince because I need you to be. I need you to use me like I need to worship you…"

"Worship me? You honestly believe that you can worship me like a prince of our people deserves? How long could you tolerate the abuse before it became too much? How far would you go before your Saiya-jin instinct contradicted your desire?"

Growl. Sit up on elbows in the wet grass that seeps. "That is my instinct, Vegeta! Of all the shit I don't understand, loving you is the worst!" Sneer. "Worse than rage and lust and the need to kill. Worse than fighting for the fight. Worse than sparring with you every day so I don't go insane from the lack of challenge! Worse than knowing that no matter how much blood of yours I spill, how close I come to beating you completely, or the knowledge that I could."

~ Well we
Hurt each other ~

Thunder and lightning all in the space of your eyes.

"Is the fact that I don't dare to! Beating you doesn't get me the attention I want, flexing my muscles on others, for your amusement, doesn't do anything! Being nice to you, treating you with respect, or treating you like shit--it all gets me the same thing! What the fuck do I have to do to get you to come back to me like you did before?"

Blasphemy from the mouth of a saint. Sinning through truth. Confessing what was never meant to be whispered. Shouted to the heights of heaven.

~ Then we do it again ~

"What I did before was done out of--" Furious. Indignant. Show me your colours, Vegeta. Give me your blacks, your silvers, and your bruising blues.

"Need! The same need I have now! I gave it to you then." Justification. Slashing of lightning across miles. Brilliance in hatred, hunger. "Will you deny me the same?"

Shock, symbolic and thunderous. In your eyes, no longer stars, but deep, emotional storms that rage beyond the apex.

"I need you like I need to breathe, Vegeta." Desperate. "It doesn't matter that you're poison in my lungs. It doesn't matter that you're killing me like you always wanted to, just slower." Eyes up, through blonde, mimicked in lightning, closer. "It doesn't matter…" Sigh like dying, back in the grass like a grave. Stare at the disappearing stars obscured like hope and love and the promise of your lips. "…that I love you. Want you. Would love to fight you and your pride until the earth shuddered and shattered, the universe crashed around us and nothing else existed…but you," hand in the grass, cold and grasping. "And me. And what we had…"

Wind. Prelude to rain. Wash away my desire…

~ You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law ~

"What we had," ah, unkind emphasis, "was nothing more than a side effect of our rivalry."

"So you submit willingly to everyone that repeatedly kicks your ass."

Flash. Lightning. By my side, straddling my chest, stalling my breath, that which is already yours thrust from me with the force of your attack. Fingers on my throat, purposeful, painful, pleasurable.

"Bakayaro. What I gave you was a mistake."

Blink. Swallow, difficult. Quiet…

"But you don't make mistakes, Vegeta."

Revelation. Widening of beautiful black. Dangerous black. Sharp and cunning and feral. Militant.

Head back, baring throat. "I'm tired of fighting on your terms, Vegeta. Fight me on mine." Glare. "Prove me wrong. Make me sorry I ever said the words." Forward, nose to nose and eye to eye. "Make me take them back."

~ Love is a temple
Love the higher law ~

"Make me hate you like you hate me. Make me feel anything but this fucking need to be with you." Eyes close against wind that whips our hair sideways. "Anything's better than this…"

Anger in the trees answered by a grumbling sky.

"You may very well be sorry you said that, Kakarotto."

Shivering. Ragged breath. Harsh hands slide down my neck to clasp my shoulders. Black silhouette descends like a beast, like a demon and his wings are outlined by a heavenly spark.

"You want me, Kakarotto." Affirmation. Fingers like claws down my arms, grip my wrists with arrogant inhumanity.

"You want to…" Lips like devils and burning fire against my own. Tasted. Then taken. "…worship me…" Trailing, like lava, like lust, lasciviousness that stops my heart, quickens my blood, hardens the space between my legs with amazing efficiently.

Dark laughter. Charnel laughter.

"Yes…I see that you do." Shift. Knees against my forearms. Pinned. Crucified by your unholy embrace.

Groan.

"Yes…"

~ You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl ~

"Very well…" Decisive. Drawling. Seduction from your lips and hands you fist in my hair. Bending twice to reach my mouth, crouched on my chest, my animal. My Saiya-jin lover.

Moaning, an echo of thunder. The wind blows as uncaring as your words have become. Clutch me tighter. Hold on.

"I will have you worship me, Saiya-jin." Spit the word. Admit my heritage.

"Ouji-sama…"

"Mmm. Yes." Sexual. Erotic. Lust of lids and yearning in blackness that knows no emotion save pain and purpose and conquest.

My demon lover. Kill me twice if you have but loved me once. I can't live with this…

"I will put you in your proper place, Super Saiya-jin." Harder. Throbbing. Gods…yes. Take my strength. Conquer me.

Aroused. Scent in my nose like stale sweat and urine. Tangible on my tongue, snapping at the back of my throat as I breathe.

Rustle of cloth, pushed down to reveal something beautiful, hideous, the treasure of my quest and the monster at the gate. Hand on my wrist, leaning over me, a devil again, wings outstretched like devouring shadows. Eyes like embers, smoldering.

"Swallow your devotional words, Kakarotto. Save your prayers for whatever gods you still believe in." Firm fingers stroking magnificence. Mortality.

Salivating. Swallowing. Licking my lips in fear, in anticipation, and in acceptance.

"Worship your prince, Kakarotto." Murmur. "My Saiya-jin…"

My…

Heat against my mouth, but not his lips. A breath--

Filling. Sliding over my tongue, against the roof. Soft, but not like his lips, nothing like his lips that were beautiful and warm, not hot and insistent, not pushing toward the back of my throat like a living thing striving to be inside me.

…can't get you…out of me…

~ And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt ~

But that's what I see, what I feel, what I taste. Not the man that groans like a thing possessed, that hisses like a serpent when I trace my lips along the head. Not the demon that howls like a god against the thunder when I surround him with my mouth and suck with my tongue, careful of my teeth, but always pulling him deeper inside me. And not the devil that spits out my name like a curse as he jerks his hips, chokes me with his cock and swears against the lightning that I am Saiya-jin, we are Saiya-jin, princes in passion and divine beyond mortal men.

~ One love ~

You don't touch me, won't touch me, won't fucking reach behind to alleviate my agony, just perch there, like an animal, like a beast, with nothing between us save my spit and the sweat that soaks your suit at the thighs.

I'm hard, too hard, so fucking hard I could choke, I could crush you in my arms, thrust you upon your back like you were when you came to me and fuck you, fuck you, fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou--

Gasp. "Kakarotto! Bakayarou!" Snarls. "Please me." Sweat on his temple, tasting salt. "Or are you too low class to do even that properly?"

~ One blood ~

Saiya-jin. We are Saiya-jin. Princes of power. Gods among men. Our strength brings entire planets to halt, to shreds, to their knees.

Knees. The only creatures in the universe to bring the other to his knees, supplicate our needs to the higher instinct, shared instinct, and subjugate that very need--fucking need--within the other. Copper. Blood. Nails on my arm, name on his lips. Frenzied and frantic and all I can taste is him, breathing him, easing an ache and festering another and all I can do is clench my fists and open my throat and try desperately to consume him as completely as he has me.

~ One life ~

Grunt and growl and groan and grovel at your pleasure, my prince. Shiver and shudder and shake and submit to your satisfaction, Vegeta-sama. Quiver and quake and quell the cry at your release, my Ouji.

Swallow, acid and arousal and enough to make me tremble. Eyes watering, throat working, hands digging trenches in the earth as you jolt above me.

And the air snaps like a rubber band as it begins to rain.

~ But we're not the same ~

Panting, weight against my chest again, hands braced on my shoulders you clutch as though the act of letting go would wash you away.

Tilting your head back to the water, it streams down the dark of your cheeks in rivulets. Heaving, grasping, mustering your control like a defecting army as it slips with your hands and you move off, to lie against me with halting, harrowed breaths.

So hard, so tight, so hot, so fucking--

"Kakarotto." Shudder at your words like touch, like the taste of you that lingers against my lips. Black eyes like hidden stars. "Touch yourself."

Ripping, tearing, snarling like a dog at the blue band that blocks me.

Dark laughter.

Then…sighing…wet, strong, fingers wrapping around my stiffness and I jerk myself, tense and limp and hungry and sated.

~ We get to
Carry each other ~

"Vegeta…sama…my prince…demon…" Words upon words upon feeling. Nothing conveyed but sound and sense and nothing matters but the hand on my cock and his eyes on my face and I can smell him again in my nose and against my tongue.

Rains soaks my clothes and I'm licking it off my lips, licking his lips as he leans down, permits me, persuades me with his tongue to open again, like before, when it rained and I loved him.

Strong hand over mine, wet fingers not my own. Stroking. Pulling. Slick and abrasive and every duality that exists between us.

Night and day. Hard hand, soft lips.

Harmony and discord. Harsh moans, quiet words.

Chaos and order. Haphazard motions, steady kisses.

Close…running miles and miles between us, passing years and emotional rifts that segregated us from each other.

"Please me, Kakarotto…Saiya-jin soldier. Please your prince…"

~ Carry each other ~

Thunder and lightning and burning that begins in my stomach and sweeps outward from my hand to encompass my convulsions and I howl my climax, my completion, my compliance to the nameless gods that rage around us.

Ringing, rushing, pulsing in my ears subsides to the rhythm of my thrumming heartbeat. His breath is torrid on my mouth and he steals it again, though I give it willingly.

~ One…life… ~

Arms around him, encircled and enchanted. Resistance lessened by my eager lips and I swear without swearing my allegiance, my loyalty, my love…

"But you cannot, Kakarotto." Definitive. Sadness that breaks my heart into pieces. "You cannot give me things that you have pledged to others."

"But I haven't--"

Dark eyes. Clever eyes that dissect me and see inside myself where no other man has gone.

"You have. You have given them everything and left me with little but the shell of a man that knows only a need and nothing else." Head cocks. "Would you have me bound to that, Kakarotto? A Saiya-jin that wants so desperately to be human…until confronted with the prospect of joining with another of his kind?" Narrowed eyes. Almost tender fingertips against my jaw. "Or would you forsake them all…"

"Yes!" I clasp his hand, both sticky and wet and reminded of what we are to one another. "In an instant, Vegeta--"

"I sincerely doubt you would kill that woman at my command, Kakarotto."

"I…" Sharp shock. Cold and prickly against my skin.

"I see." Resignation. Betrayal. Bitterness. "I thought not. You say that I am your prince, yet you refuse my demand that you kill the mother of your children to prove that." Turning. Adjusting clothes so wet as to be black, like his heart, like the love he offers me. "You know nothing of being Saiya-jin."

"Wait--" Grab his wrist. Swallow. Eyes dart down to the golden-lit valley, back to his face that burns like fire.

Callous shrug of his shoulder. It falls.

He stands.

~ One… ~

"We are even, Kakarotto. We have taken what we need from each other." Dignified. "Do not seek my company again." Disdain.

Churning in my heart like the unfeeling iron of his eyes. "And if I do it, Vegeta? What then?"

Sharp bark. Roll of thunder.

"Then the world will shudder at our strength, Kakarotto. And I will show you secrets only Saiya-jin have known." Lightning strikes his profile. Gold and black and beautiful and dangerous. "In that unlikely event, I will forgive the incidental idiocy." Promise in a whisper. "And mate the only other Saiya-jin alive."

Invisible fingers down my spine and I grit my teeth at the implications.

Searching eyes pillage my wet, rumpled, sitting form. Derisive snort.

"However, I will not hold my breath on the matter. Give my regards to your bitchy mate."

Gone in a streak of white.

Trembling breath. Composition of clothes hardly worth the attention. Stand.

Temporary sedation of an itching hunger that claws at my humanity.

Down in the valley, lights are still warm. Safe.

"…mate the only other Saiya-jin alive…" Set jaw. Determination in gold and blue, royal colours that I have given you, graced you, glorified you.

"I kept my word, my prince, and pleased you." Careful, calculated steps. Cold eyes in a black night, like your black heart, like your eyes, like the space between stars. "I will hold you to yours."