The Ten-Year Curse: Pt. 1

By Cokey The Cat

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Warnings: Yaoi, Mpreg, A/U (no Gohan or Goten)

Thoughts: ‘blah’

Vegeta hated it, but he knew he would have to go to Kakarott for help. It was really the big baka’s fault anyway.

Slowly, the slim man glided through the crisp twilight air, the sun flirting with the stars before it retired. He cradled his stomach, his newly regenerated tail whipping in the wind. He knew the big baka was training in the woods, so no others could overhear, but he was still apprehensive. If that bastard had just listened to him a few years back . . .

The lighted skyscrapers slowly faded away to some isolated huts playing hide-and-go-seeks in the forest. As Vegeta neared Goku’s training area, the tip of his tail began twitching, an old nervous habit. Wrapping it tightly about his waist to hide his weakness, the Prince began descending.

Clearing the trees, he dropped behind Kakarott, the field lit only by the moon and fireflies. Vegeta pulled his arms up to cross his chest, taking his usual arrogant stance, clearing his throat to be recognized, though he knew Goku had sensed him.

The friendly Saiyan dropped out of his difficult kata, wiping his glistening face and chest on the orange and blue shirts slung over the low branch of a nearby oak, the trees’ leaves just preparing to change colours. "Hey Vegeta, you here to spar?"

"No."

Goku’s face fell. The only time Vegeta visited him to "socialize" was to berate him about his manners toward his Prince or how he should act more like a "real" Saiyan.

"We must talk, Kakarott. Perhaps by the river?"

The Earth-raised Saiyan knew something was wrong, like those optical illusion pictures Chichi used to show him. Oh, Chichi . . .

"Sure, the river."

Goku pulled his shirts off the tree, ripping a hole in the orange one. He examined the tear as they walked east. Dammit, the third one in the past two weeks. Maybe he could get Chichi to . . .

Quickly, he stopped his mind. She had only been dead six months . . . Tears pricked his big black eyes like the needles she had always mended his gi’s with. Silently, he gulped them down.

Vegeta watched Kakarott sit and remove his boots, splashing the mountain-fed river with his toes. Soon, it would shrivel and freeze over. Though he loved to tower over his subjects, the Prince felt that this wasn’t the time, so he sat.

Not one for suspense, he blurted it out. "I’m pregnant."

Kakarott just laughed, meeting Vegeta’s stern eye. "I may be a baka, but I’m not that gullible."

Vegeta expressed none of his mirth. "I’m deadly serious. Smell my tail if you don’t believe me." He waved the appendage at the baka.

Now that Goku was looking for it, his best friend did smell a bit different, like on a higher pitch. No earthly perfume was strong enough to mask or change a Saiyan’s scent, especially from his tail.

"But how?" Goku had heard of strange things, like Namekian reproduction, but this was like pickle-flavoured ice cream.

"Well . . ." Vegeta terminated their gaze, scooping the trees on the opposite bank. "If a Saiyan doesn’t have sex for ten years, they conceive. This is my tenth year here . . ."

"But you and Bulma . . . Trunks . . ."

"It has to be with a man, baka! A man has to take me!" The Prince jumped to his feet his tail snapping behind him like a black leather whip.

Kakarott gazed at him, not used to having to incline his neck to see the lithe man. "So that’s why I’ve never–"

"I’ve been dropping you hints for years, you bastard! We could’ve just done it with a condom and this," He jabbed sharply at his abdomen with a single finger. "Never would’ve happened!"

"Vegeta, calm down!" Goku rose, gripping his friend’s biceps on instinct. "What has Bulma proposed we do?"

"I’m not going to tell her." The Prince turned his head sharply to the left, staring off into the night, though not removing himself from Goku’s grip.

"But . . . you have to! You’ve been together for nine years!"

"No; we are broken up as of two months ago. She kicked me out of CC."

"Where have you been living all this time?"

"In the woods," Surrounding your house, the proud man never finished.

"Oh, Vegeta, you could’ve come to me. Or maybe if you told Bulma, she would–"

"No, she wouldn’t! She’d just turn me into another one of her science projects, to be kept in a cage and taken on tour like a trick monkey!"

"Oh, Vegeta, I’m sorry!"

"Don’t fucking pity me! This is all your fault! I’m going to bed now." The older man pulled from the grasp of the younger, turning his back.

"Vegeta, you must stay with me!"

"Oh, I have to, huh?" He glared over his shoulder in the soft firefly light. "I don’t need you."

"Yes, you do, Vegeta," Goku protested. "You never would’ve told me if you didn’t need me."

The Prince’s long suppressed soul knew that Kakarott was right, though he would rather have his testicles cut off and fed to him that admit it. "Fine. Just for tonight."

They trampled through the forest, Goku’s childlike nature imagining that fairies could live just where he was. Gradually, the oaks and cedars thinned like a forty-something-year-old man’s hair, Goku’s capsule house recluse in it’s clearing just ahead. As soon as he got to his porch, where he customarily removed his boots, Goku realized that he had forgotten them, along with his shirts.

Ushering Vegeta into his house, he invited him to make himself comfortable, then lifted his first two fingers to his forehead and reappeared alongside the river.

Gathering his clothes, an unusually bright star caught his eye. Slowly, he breathed out the rhyme Grandpa Gohan had taught him.

"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. Wish I may, wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight. Please God, let Vegeta be happy." The star danced and winked as if agreeing to obey the kind man’s request.

Vegeta himself knew he could never be home anywhere except his obliterated planet, so he took to surveying the kitchen to the right of the front door. He found a deep freezer and fridge side-by-side in the top right-hand corner and a square, obviously handmade wooden table along the far left wall. In between that was the stove on the top wall, surrounded by counters, as was the sink across from it. Kakarott-made cabinets were secured along both walls. Vegeta opened each in a systematic order, discovering dishes Chichi’s hands had slaved to make from crude clay, nothing really interesting. Cans nearly toppled from the second to last cabinet before the Prince shoved it closed roughly. The last was an oddball. Liquor, all kinds, were packed up there. Tequila, vodka, Jim Beam, Schnapps of several different varieties, gin, scotch, it went on and on. Vegeta was astonished! He couldn’t fathom the childlike creature drunk.

Placing the bottles back, he noted that none were dusty. Was Kakarott an alcoholic?

A good first chapter? Please review.