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Title: Stand
Rating: PG-13, maybe higher, for violence.
Characters: Goku, Vegeta. Not paired (unless you squint real hard)
Disclaimer: Who the hell owns DBZ, anyway? Not me.
Summary: Goku wants to know why Vegeta fights the way he does. So the dragon shows him.
Warnings: uh, a little savage.
It was a selfish thing he wanted to do. Goku knew that. But he'd always know, deep inside, that he was a selfish person. He did so many things for selfish reasons. He grew stronger because it was fun, and because he wanted to protect his family. Because he loved them, and he didn't want to be alone. That was selfish. He was a selfish person, but he was happy. And so were they. So it was alright to be selfish, when it made people happy. At least, that was what he thought.
But one person wasn't happy. At least not so it would show. One person, he couldn't make happy, no matter what he did. And that hurt Goku a little. Maybe a lot. He wasn't sure. But he was sure that he wanted this last person to be happy too. He wanted to understand why Vegeta wasn't happy, so he could learn how to fix it. Because it hurt him when Vegeta was hurt. And even if that was selfish too, he didn't care. He just wanted to understand.
So he made a little wish. Just a little one. A secret wish. Just the answer to one question. "Can you show me why Vegeta fights the way he does? Why everything is a battle with him?" He supposed he should try to be more specific, but he didn't know enough to know what to ask, and besides, he trusted the dragon to show him what he needed to know. Vegeta would call him an idiot for that alone.
But he was right to trust. The dragon did show him. Exactly what he needed to know.
***
The world whirled around him for a moment, the stars whirled, and Goku grinned in delight at the sensation. It didn't last long, and he was almost disappointed when it stopped, but soon enough other things caught his attention.
He was on a spaceship. A big spaceship. Full of people. And everyone ignored him. That confused him for a second, but he figured it out when he put his hand against a wall and it slipped through like it was made of air. He was intangible! Grinning, he let himself slip a little through the floor, just to see what it felt like, and then kept going until only his head poked out of the floor. He tried swimming, and it worked, so he swam through someone's feet. He laughed, and was a little shocked that it made no sound, but it was alright. He was only here for a little while.
And that thought brought him back up out of the floor. That's right! Only a little while, to see Vegeta. So he'd better go find him, hadn't he? But he didn't have to go far. The saiyan was right there, in the room. Goku heard him before he saw him, voice angry and a little scared, and very young, and he drifted up over the surrounding heads to see what was going on.
Vegeta stood crouched in the center of a circle of jeering, alien faces. He was young, only a teenager, his tail lashing from side to side in agitation as he faced the other boy in the circle. A green, lizardlike person, face pretty and sneering. Vegeta only glared at him, ignoring everyone and everything else.
"What's wrong, little princeling?" the lizard laughed, and Vegeta snarled silently. "Afraid I'll beat you? Of course you are. You know what happens when you get beaten in the circle." His voice slowed, teasing out the word with childish viciousness. "You die. Don't you, little prince. Poor little saiyan."
"That won't matter if I'm the one who kills you," Vegeta snarled, haughty pride layered over fear in his younger voice. He hadn't quite learned to bluff yet. Not the way he could now. Now, if he said he'd kill you, you'd believe him if he was standing there with two broken legs.
Goku frowned. There was something wrong with that thought ...
Then the lizardboy spoke again, pulling his attention back to the ring. "Alright! Hear that? The little saiyan thinks he can beat me!" A cruel laugh broke out around the circle, and Vegeta flushed horribly, the red glow only getting deeper as he realised what he was doing. The young saiyan shook his head against the burning in his cheeks, and the laughter only grew louder. Goku reached out to him before he remembered that he was intangible, wanting to shield the boy or at least comfort him, but it was the memory of the future Vegeta even more than the intangibility that stopped him. To the old Vegeta, that would only have been more embarrassing again. His Vegeta would have given him ... that glare. There. The one the young prince shot with deadly venom at his laughing opponent.
Something in that vicious stare got through to the lizardboy, and he quieted, watching the hard bright challenge in Vegeta's eyes appraisingly. And then, something nastier slipped into his eyes. Something cold and cruel and predatory. He stepped to one side, slowly, eyes never leaving the saiyan. Vegeta tensed, but didn't move. The lizard took another step, then another, begin a slow circle around his prey. Around Vegeta.
The saiyan prince was canny, even then. He matched every step with only the slightest shift in stance, echoing the circle without ever losing the defensive advantage, his eyes bright and measuring as they followed his opponent. Their movements were achingly slow, wary and deliberate, and the tension built to alarming heights before anything had happened at all. Goku frowned uneasily. This wasn't like sparring. This wasn't even like fighting. Not the way he understood it. There was an audience here, the circle, and the way they watched, the hunger of it, the ... the need for blood, for violence ... It was nothing he understood. These people wanted to see someone hurt.
And then something changed. It was the lizardboy who started it, low and mocking, a singsong little chant. "Stand and fight. Stand and fight. When you fall you die. Fight or fall. Stand or die. Stand or die." And the circle echoed it. Low and grim, with eager hunger painting their faces every time they spat the word 'die' into the air, they chanted the horrible little song at their prisoner. At Vegeta, where he circled at their center, taut and scared, his tail whipping wildly in agitation, but with nothing save ferocious determination on his sharp little features. The tension screamed around him, and built until Goku wondered that it didn't compress them all like gravity. It climbed, reaching toward an impossible peak, and then ...
The lizard attacked, uncoiling from his circling prowl like a striking snake. Vegeta blocked him, barely, hard panic in his face as he swung away, dipping low to kick. The chant didn't stop, barely broke, but it bulged now around gasps and pants and eager little whoops, a hungry thing circling as surely as Vegeta's attacker, looking for a weakness.
The fight was brutal. There was no power to it, no grace, only sheer, desperate brutality, every ounce of skill the combatants possessed poured into strike and couterstrike, into the effort to pound the other to the floor before they pounded you. The crowd around them swayed in tune with the blows, sighing at the sight of blood, the chant rising. Stand or die. Fight or fall. Stand or die.
And then Vegeta started losing. It wasn't obvious at first. The other boy was older, stronger, more trained, more skilled, but for a long while, far longer than they had expected, Vegeta's sheer desperate brilliance had held back the inevitable. Desperately compensating with every scrap of ingenuity he had, with speed for strength, with mobility for skill, turning even the fact of his small size into every meager advantage it could bring, the little prince had held himself above the precipice of defeat, eyes shining with grim, bloody determination. He was incredible, Goku thought, though he wasn't surprised. Vegeta was always the smarter fighter. Maybe not the stronger, maybe not even the better, but always the smarter.
But it wasn't enough. In a real fight, out over the battlefield, smarts counted for something. For field advantage. For the opportunity to escape. For the sneaky assault. But here, there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to go. And Goku suddenly understood that it wasn't going to end until one of them was dead. There was no escape from this brutality, no respite. If Vegeta fell, he would die. Just as the song said. And the desperation burning through that tiny figure said that he knew it.
And so did the others. The chant changed a little, as the lizard's blows began to land with more frequency, with that little bit more force. As Vegeta began to fail. "Stand or die. Fight or fall. Stand or die, and the last saiyan to hell goes SCREAMING. Stand or die, fight or fall, and the last saiyan to hell goes SCREAMING." They roared it at him with vicious glee, the voices rising with every drop of Vegeta's blood, hands drumming against thighs with rhythmic delight. Goku stared at them in horror, at the young, teenage faces that twisted with ... with bloodlust.
And then, finally, there was a cry of pain. The first. The only, for Vegeta locked his throat determinedly around all others. But it was there, and it was like some crazed signal. The lizard stopped fighting with skill, stopped planning, and simply tore into the smaller figure, beating on him with raw, sledgehammer force. Vegeta bent under the hail of blows, with nowhere to go, no action to take. He bent beneath it, and one knee hit the floor. And in a vicious strike, the lizard snapped that knee out from under him, and the young prince fell.
When you fall you die.
A hush descended as the circle stared at the bloodied figure on the floor, a kind of reverant hunger in their eyes, while the lizard panted in triumph. For a second no-one moved. And then, slowly, quietly, the chant came again. But only the last words, and in a kind of high, almost orgasmic triumph. "And the last saiyan to hell goes screaming. And the last saiyan to hell goes screaming. Screaming." Something like lust in their voices caressing that word, humming it as they craned their necks to watch as the lizard swaggered over to Vegeta's trembling little body, as he pulled back a foot to drive it home in the saiyan prince's ribs. Goku wanted to scream, but he couldn't make a sound. Not here. In the past.
The first kick connected with a horrible snap, and Vegeta convulsed around it, choking back a scream. Denying them the sound. They roared at him, their triumph assured, and he spat at them, glassy-eyed. The lizard came circling back around for another kick, panting greedily. And Vegeta changed the rules. Rolling away from the assault, in one pained and decisive move, the little prince gathered every ounce of his strength. And stood.
They stared at him in shock, the chant dying again, confusion and disappointment in their cruel faces. Vegeta stood panting, injured knee shaking horribly and barely holding him up, and grinned in fierce, pained challenge at them. Not because he could still fight. He couldn't. He never stood a chance. But because he had denied them their expectations. He had denied them his pain, his fear. Goku stared at him, at his bright, proud failure, and could only marvel at the strength of him.
They weren't stunned for long. The lizard circled around, snapping another kick as Vegeta's head that he barely dogged, staggering backwards weakly, and the fight was on again, the chant kicking back in. But now, there was something else in it. The glee was suppressed, and there was ... anticipation. Curiosity. Stand or die. How long can you stay standing?
Not long. Another three kicks in rapid succession, and Vegeta's shaken knee gave out. He went down again, and rolled desperately beneath the continued assault. The lizard landed a blow to the small of his back, and something inside Vegeta crackled ominously. The hush descended again as they watched his still form. Could he stand again?
It took him longer the second time, but he did it. Trembling ferociously, half-blind from blood in his eyes, Vegeta pulled himself to his feet. The lizard didn't pause this time, but launched himself straight at him. An instant later, and Vegeta went down for a third time, blood spurting as his nose snapped. The chant did not come back.
Again, the small saiyan swayed to his feet. Again, he was smashed down. And again. And again.
The silence burned around them, the only sounds now the hard slap of flesh on flesh, the brittle crackle of bone, the wet sounds of blood, the harsh panting of breath, Vegeta's stifled moans. They watched, in something like awe, as he kept pulling himself to his feet, more slowly, more shakingly every time. And in his bright eyes, they could suddenly see the chant, their chant, playing in the saiyan's mind. Stand or die. Stand or die. Even if it kills you, stand to die. Stand and die.
Goku stared at him, something pulsing in his throat. So many times, so many fights, and he'd seen this. He'd seen Vegeta get up time and again, after pounding after pounding, to fight again, and though it had awed him, never once had he understood. Never once had he known what it meant. Stand to die. Even if it kills you. Rob them of their triumph. Face them on your feet. To the last, stand to die.
And he remembered something else. He remembered the fight with Buu. Remembered how Vegeta had done this, done exactly this, to buy them time. How Vegeta had taken this cruel and lonely thing, this terrible thing that he knew, and made it something more. How he had stood, and stood again, and not only against something. Not only in lonely pride to face the end. He'd stood for something. He'd stood for Goku. For them all. Everything Vegeta was, every scrap of passion and pride in his soul, had stood to die for them. And there had been triumph in it.
In front of him, Vegeta could no longer make all the way to his feet. Even without being struck down, he could only sway onto his knees, battered and broken and suddenly so very small. So very young. And so very, very proud. The faces that surrounded them were no longer curious. No longer even hungry. Just hateful. Hating this small little creature that had dared to deny them of their pleasure. And Vegeta stared blindly at them through glassy eyes, and all at once began to laugh.
It was a choked sound, rattling and full of fluid pain, but it was wild and passionate and triumphant. Vegeta's laugh. The lizard came in at the sound, determined to finish him, to erase him, and Vegeta's couldn't even make it to his knees anymore. Couldn't even raise his head, or his arms to defend himself. But he still laughed, even if it was more of a keening moan than a laugh. It couldn't be mistaken, any more than the triumph in his eyes. You can't beat me. You'll kill me before you'll beat me, and then you lose anyway. You can't beat me. I'm the best. The only best. You can't win. And Goku felt sick at heart to know that he had later emptied that triumph for Vegeta, stolen with mercy the only victory the man had ever had.
It was the lizard's foot at his throat that finally stopped the sound. One second, one tiny increase of pressure, and Vegeta was dead. And even though Goku knew he didn't, even if he saw the proof every day that this man did not die here, alone and bloodied on the floor, still his heart leapt into his throat. Vegeta stared up at his killer in wild, prideful triumph, and grinned at him through the pain. The lizard raised his foot a little for the final blow, a snarl of absolute hatred on his face, and ...
A dull, dry clapping echoed through the room, cutting through the anticiption like a knife, and ratcheting up the tension into something ripe and unbearable. Goku turned, dreading what he knew he would see, and staring furiously into Frieza's eyes. The icejin strode into the room, surveying the suddenly petrified circle with a sneer, until he stood at the edge of the ring looking down into the sudden hate that sprang into Vegeta's eyes.
"Well, what have we here?" the white villain purred, laughing down at the battered saiyan. "A plucky little fighter, aren't you?" Vegeta said nothing. He couldn't anyway, but even if he could have, Goku knew he would maintain his defiant silence. Frieza smirked, and then, without any warning at all, shot the lizardboy through the heart.
Vegeta, the other trainees, Goku, everyone stared in terrified horror as the corspe slowly swayed, and toppled sideways off of its erstwhile prey. It held their gaze for a long second of terrible fascination, before their eyes were dragged inexorably back to the cause. The killer. Frieza.
He preened under their fearful gazes. "I've decided I like you, saiyan," he smirked, ignoring the heated stare boring up at him. "I think I'll keep you after all."
***
Goku had left the scene, fading back into the woods where he trained before he had fully realising what had happened. He stayed there for a long time, just thinking. Just letting his thoughts settle into place so he could understand what he had seen. What he had learned, about the strange and intense man who'd fought at his side. About Vegeta. The Saiyan Prince.
He was still pensive the next day, still wondering, when he saw Vegeta again. With Trunks. Arguing slightly, that proud disdain and biting tongue on full display. Goku stared at him, just watching. Just seeing, for the first time, a different part of what lay under that fierce outer shell. The pride, the courage, he'd always known was there. The strength. But there was something there now, that that proud and beaten teenager had not had, that the cold and ferocious man he'd first met had never shown.
There was something gentler in him, now. Something that little bit more accepting. Something maybe, just a little, happy. And for a second as he stared at him, all Goku could feel was an awesome, overwhelming surge of pride in the man, in what he'd been, in what he had allowed himself to become. In the courage of him, to let them even this far in. In the caring of him, to give every dark thing he had learned in a lifetime of pain over to their defense. In the strength of him, to stand and fall and stand again, over and over, and still be there at the end.
He'd been selfish. He knew that now. He couldn't expect Vegeta to turn nice and cheerful and happy, not after everything that had happened. And in hoping for it, he'd so very nearly missed all that the darker man had given them in the meantime. All his passion. All his hesitant, bitter friendship. All of it.
Overcome by the sudden urge, Goku transmitted himself to Vegeta's side, all at once, and grabbed him. The instincts of a lifetime had the smaller saiyan turning even as he arrived, moving to block him, but Goku pulled him into a hug anyway. Then newer instincts took over, and Vegeta snarled furiously at him to let go, calling him about fifteen different kinds of idiot while Trunks looked on and tried not to laugh. Goku didn't care.
Life was simpler when you were happy. And Vegeta, intentionally or not, made Goku happy. And Goku persisted in believing that he made Vegeta happy too, just a little.
Even if Vegeta would never show it, it was enough. Goku didn't need much, to be happy.
