Chapter Text
He wonders how many times he’ll wake up like this, looking at the ceiling above his bed, wondering how long he’s been out, how long the pain will last. But for the first time in a long time, today he isn’t alone.
Raditz has pulled up a chair and is sleeping soundly with his head and arms resting on Vegeta’s bed. Vegeta realizes this is what Nappa used to do, when he was younger. There’s a sharp feeling somewhere inside him, he wants to laugh, or maybe wake Raditz up, but he can’t describe what the feeling is. He just doesn’t have the words, Nappa had said that being a soldier would do that to you, that it would make you different. Vegeta didn’t have words for that either, being raised around soldiers meant he didn’t really know how people were supposed to be at all, other than fearful, or stupid.
After some deliberation, he opts for waking Raditz up. Surprisingly it takes quite a few good shakes before he stirs, and he looks tired, but upon seeing Vegeta awake he lights up.
“Hey! Holy shit, how do you feel?”
“Dry.” Vegeta replied.
“Yeah the tanks will do that, but are you healed?”
“I… think so, but I don’t remember what happened.”
Raditz half chuckles, “Well you did lose a lot of blood at the end there so-“
“Any of it.”
He stops, “Like, at all?”
Vegeta nods. “The last thing I can think of is… that night in the cave on that stupid ice ball, did I freeze ...or something?”
Raditz thinks carefully for a moment, he knows Vegeta is prone to nightmares, panic attacks, dissociation, and it’s always the worst after something like this. He wonders maybe, if Vegeta doesn’t remember, maybe he could be spared a little pain.
“Maybe it’s best I dont tell you.” He says simply, he knows Vegeta would catch him if he lied.
Vegeta opens his mouth to speak, but stops, catching what Raditz means. He looks down solemnly, “So it was bad, then?”
“Yeah… but I knew you’d make it.”
“Where’s Nappa?” He asks.
“He’s off doing a couple odd jobs, to pay for the healing.”
“Well let’s go catch up then, we’ll pay it off faster together.” Vegeta says with tired responsibility.
“No way, prince reckless, that’s what got us into trouble last time. You aren’t doing anything remotely work-like until you’re better.”
“Raditz I outrank you, we’re going, and don’t call me that.” Vegeta sits up and begins to get out of bed, but Raditz is determined to break this vicious cycle.
“What if we go somewhere else instead?” He tries.
Vegeta has already begun dressing, he sighs, “Where do you propose we go?”
“The beach.”
This finally makes Vegeta stop, “Why would we go back there.”
“Because I promised I’d take you…”
“Why would you promise something so stupid.”
“To be nice…?” He tries awkwardly.
Vegeta cuts through him with a glare.
“Do I need a reason?” He counters, “You really liked that beach so ...let’s go back.”
“Raditz spit it out.”
There’s a moment of hesitation.
“I thought you were going to die.” He doesn’t look at Vegeta as he says it, he can’t, “I… didn’t know what to do, I thought you were going to die right there, in my arms… and I know you liked that beach, with the stars. So I promised you that if… if you lived I’d take you there again.”
There’s silence between them now, Raditz looks at the floor, and Vegeta is struck again with something he doesn’t understand.
Quietly, Vegeta breaks the tension. “Okay.”
“Yeah?” Raditz asks, he studies his friends face for a moment, he looks… stunned, maybe? Overwhelmed? He can’t place it, but he’s sure Vegeta can’t either, and he finds a little comfort in that.
“Yeah.”
***
Their pods land in some lightly wooded valley of this empty planet, designated number T-1008357, but Raditz has decided to call it “Beachland” and refuses to let Vegeta call it anything else.
As they step outside Vegeta remembers just how wonderfully this planet smelled, it’s vegetation was primarily flowering grasses of varying colours and shapes. For miles there was nothing but rolling hills and fields. It doesn’t take them long to find the lake from before, and Vegeta sits, knees to his chest, facing the water.
Raditz, however, wastes no time stripping down to his briefs and jumping in the water, sending ripples out into the otherwise still water. He turns around, now standing waist deep, “You’re not gonna swim?”
Vegeta thinks for a long time. The water looks nice from here, and he’s comfortable, but it would be refreshing, and there’s nobody else here. Nobody to see him undress…
Wait a minute.
Vegeta stands abruptly, “I forgot. I forgot about the…” Laughter bubbles up and interrupts his speech, he seems so shocked he can’t even finish, “I forgot the- the… surgery! My chest!”
“You forgot?”
He strips frantically now, taking no care to remove anything in any particular order, and throws it all down into a pile on the beach. Raditz is stunned, not only to see Vegeta so joyful, but to see him willingly strip off.
Vegeta looks down at his own chest, and he laughs again. Carefully he runs fingers over his new scars, even from a distance Raditz can tell they’re deep, and awfully gnarled, but Vegeta’s never looked prouder.
Raditz starts laughing too, listening to his small superior stammer in amazement and investigate his new chest.
“Well? Are you gonna come in or what?”
Vegeta shouts back like the happy teen he deserves to be, “Stop telling me what to do!” But he smiles as he wades in to meet Raditz in the cool water
Without prompt, Raditz throws his arm over Vegeta’s shoulders and pushes him down into the water. Vegeta comes back up spitting in his face, and it’s on. The two begin grappling and throwing each other under the surface of the water, splashing and pulling hair and yelling.
It ends eventually when Raditz locks Vegeta in a bear hug, and after a few minutes he stops struggling.
Raditz looks down through many locks of wet hair, “You look good, man, congratulations.”
Vegeta chuckles, “Not much to congratulate.”
Raditz wants to argue, but beams of gold light catch his attention and he releases Vegeta, “Looks like the sun is about to set, you ready?”
Vegeta nods, and they return to the sand.
They both watch in silence as deep shades of red fill the sky, and as the lake settles back down to its near mirror-like state Vegeta’s heart begins to race in excitement.
It’s breathtaking when it happens. The last streams of light disappear behind the horizon, their eyes adjust, and star after star makes itself known in the sky. The more Vegeta stares the more stars appear, and a smile spreads across his face.
Wonder shifts to something else, something he doesn’t recognize, but it fills him like helium. It’s strength, in a way he’s never felt it before, it makes him feel brave, secure, for a moment, unstoppable. He would later learn to call it hope, but for now, as he sits on that sandy beach, he’s content to let the nameless sensation fill him. He wants to savour this moment, he knows how rare times like this can be, he wants to remember this.
He focuses on the sky again, beautiful galaxies now fully displayed against the blackness, and he tries desperately to burn it into his memory. His eyes dart from constellation to constellation, and he sees a comet go by ever so faintly.
Absentmindedly, his hand returns to his chest, still unused to the feeling, but a revelation comes forward in his mind.
Its permanent.
And there’s nothing anyone else can do about it.
He smiles again, he can’t help it.