In Your Dreams

Chapter 66

In Your Dreams: Chapter 66

''...You're waking up.''

Vegeta found himself frozen in place in reaction to his mate's puzzling but frightening words. Though he didn't fully understand their meaning, the prince's stomach felt as if it had dropped out, and his heart was beating furiously in his chest.

Waking up?

Vegeta met Goku's sad gaze, those dark orbs fading more and more with each passing second.

He panicked.

''What do you mean?! I'm awake! This can't be a dream, Kakarotto! Dreams aren't this real!''

The younger Saiyajin's lips quirked upward into a small smile as he sat up. His hand reached out to touch Vegeta, but the appendage froze before it could make contact with the older man, and it hovered uncertainly for several beats before settling back onto his lap.

''This isn't a dream. Not really. It's something you and I created together through a psychic connection.''

Vegeta's brow furrowed in confusion. ''Explain.''

Goku sighed as his eyes drifted off to the side. A thoughtful expression settled over his visage as he contemplated the best way to make his mate understand.

It was several long and agonizingly tense moments before he spoke again, though his voice sounded as far away as ever to the prince.

''I'm still in the lab. With Villa.''

Vegeta could feel the blood drain from his face, the statement hitting him like a sledgehammer. He hadn't managed to push any words past his lips before the other continued.

''I was going mad, so I kinda...checked out. I'd been trying to reach out to you for years, Vegeta, but I could only ever reach you for short periods of time while you slept. Overtime I got better at it, and I was able to show you things... give you hints as to where I might be.''

The prince nodded absently as he thought back to the nightmares he'd had about the younger Saiyajin. His mind reeled as it struggled to make sense out of it all, and a surge of panic coursed through him as Goku's body faded a little more.

''Kakarotto....''

''Then one night you didn't wake up.'' Goku continued on, picking up the pace as time grew short. ''I don't know what happened to you in the real world, but your mind stayed accessible to me. My body shut down, and I've remained in a sort of... suspended animation. Sometimes I could control what happened between us, but mostly everything was guided by our subconscious or emotions. The longer it went on, the more I was convinced this was all real... that I had really left the lab. But then sometimes I would remember, and the panic would set it, changing the course of our little make-believe reality. The first time that happened was when Villa came back for me.''

The younger man trailed off as he became lost in his own thoughts, and Vegeta's eyes left his flickering form only long enough to sweep over the rest of the room. Their surroundings were slowly disappearing into an ever growing void of nothingness. A smokey black fog encroached steadily toward them until its edges brushed against the bed's edges.

He turned his attention back to Goku.

''So none of this has been real? Freeing you from the lab, killing Villa... Momoku?'' The mention of his daughter's name sent a pang of sadness so deep through the prince's chest that he thought his heart might explode.

The agonized expression that overtook Goku's visage echoed the same. ''No...It all felt so real, Vegeta. I never meant for this to get so out of control... it just... took on a life of its own!''