Chapter Text
West City, 1925
The cold was what Vegeta always felt first.
It crept along the stone floor long before the morning bells rang, curling around his bare feet and under the thin fabric of his plain broadcloth nightclothes.
As a child, he remembered a time, a brief fleeting moment in the tapestry of his life, where he was safely curled beneath heavy wool blankets beside a small iron stove. The heat beat softly against his cheeks as snow fell thick outside the window. A woman’s voice would hum gently while she stirred a pot of something that smelled stringent, herbal.
He had long since pushed the memory aside. Though he would think of it, just for an instant, years later, clinging to Raditz’s hand as the sisters of St. Frigus led them through the orphanage gates, where the cold rushed toward them like a living thing, slipping under his collar and settling against his spine.
“Suffer the little children to come unto Me…”
He hadn’t known then that the cold would never leave.
The only mercy was its abilities to numb and purge. The way it sharpened into something clean, something honest. He had long accepted its savage sting as a kind of purification. It pushed through the heat of his senses, doused the fire of unholy thoughts, smothered sinful dreams before they could take shape.
The cold bit. It chastened.
It cleansed.
Vegeta nearly revered it.
He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up slowly, careful not to wake Raditz in the cot beside him.
Moonlight still spilled through the narrow window in a sharp line, slicing their small room in half. Though he was without a clock, he knew by instinct that the hour to rise was near.
Vegeta inhaled, letting the February air burn through his lungs. He studied the shadows that the moonlight carved along the floor. They were long, distorted shapes that shifted as the candle in the corridor guttered. Sometimes hands reached. Sometimes faces formed. Then his eyes drifted to the stone floor beneath his feet, to the faint white scratches left from years of dragging cots and kneeling in the same hollowed-out spots.
“On this rock I will build My Church…”
He wondered, distantly, if God approved of how long they had knelt.
“Vegeta…?” Raditz’s voice cracked through the dark.
Vegeta didn’t address him directly. Looking at him when he was this contemplative would only worry him, and Raditz worried too easily already.
“It’s early,” Vegeta said. His breath came out in a pale cloud. “Sleep.”
He heard only the shift of blankets and Raditz’s restless turning.
The bells would ring soon. Not that it mattered. Vegeta had never slept deep enough to require waking. But the church insisted on its rituals.
And rituals kept everything in place.
He finally stood, bare feet against the icy floor. He pulled on his trousers and shirt, the rough, dark fabric scraping against his skin. He didn’t mind it. Soft things had never done him any favors. His cassock came next, followed by the thin belt at his waist.
Then the first bell struck.
It echoed through the walls, vibrating through his ribs, rattling the thin metal frames of their beds. Raditz jolted upright with a gasp, hand flying to his throat.
Vegeta didn’t soothe him. It would be cruel to pretend he could.
The second bell tolled.
Raditz scrambled into his clothes, fumbling with his belt. His hands always shook in the mornings.
The third bell rang, then the fourth.
Vegeta opened their door.
The corridor beyond was dim, lit only by the flickering candles set into iron sconces along the wall. Their flames wavered at the draft sweeping through the halls, casting shadows which moved in ways that shadows should never move.
The seminary had electricity, of course, but not here. Candles were a reminder, Father Freeza said, that true illumination came from God alone.
Vegeta stepped into the hall.
Raditz followed close behind, always a half-step too near.
They passed the other novices’ rooms. Each had small doors, identical to their own. One was closed too tightly. Another hung slightly open. From behind the third came a sound Vegeta tried not to hear too closely.
He felt Raditz stiffen behind him. Heard his usual shallow, panicked breathing. Without thinking, Vegeta slowed his steps so Raditz could stay right at his shoulder. It was the only comfort he could offer.
At the end of the corridor, the carved chapel doors loomed. Massive, weighty things. Built to separate the sleeping quarters from the sacred space, and sturdy enough to trap almost any secret or sin between their hinges.
Thick, orange candlelight spilled out from beneath them.
Vegeta pushed the door open.
The chapel yawned before them. Soaring ceilings, stained glass windows depicting pale saints with hollow eyes, aisles lined with wooden pews polished to a mirror shine. The syrup sweet smell of incense hung in the air.
He hated incense.
He knew Raditz hated it more.
Father Freeza already stood at the altar, draped in silk vestments that glimmered like molten gold. His hands rested lightly on the lectern, fingers curled in a way that suggested both grace and possession.
He didn’t look up as Vegeta approached. He never did at first. The waiting was the true test.
Vegeta knelt.
The stone pressed against his knees, biting into bone.
Raditz took a knee beside him, trembling.
Finally, Father Freeza lifted his gaze.
“Vegeta, my child,” he said, voice smooth as oil. “You are early.”
“I woke before the bells,” Vegeta replied.
“Of course you did.” Father Freeza’s smile sharpened, a crescent moon made of something far colder. “Ever diligent. Ever obedient.”
Raditz flinched.
“Vegeta, you may rise,” Father Freeza said.
Vegeta stood, muscles tightening under his skin. Raditz remained kneeling, waiting for permission. Father Freeza did not give it.
“There is some time before we break our fast,” Father Freeza said, folding his hands. “How fortunate for you. We have much to discuss.”
A chill curled down Vegeta’s spine.
Father Freeza stepped down from the altar, walking toward them with measured grace. Even the candles seemed to bow toward him as he passed.
“You seem restless,” Father Freeza murmured, coming to stand before Vegeta. “Uneasy.”
Vegeta kept his face still. “No, Father.”
Father Freeza tilted his head, studying him.
“Your eyes,” Father Freeza said softly. “They wander this morn.”
“They do not.”
“Hmm. Perhaps I am mistaken.” Although he wasn’t. He never was.
Father Freeza turned, his vestments whispering against the floor.
“Walk with me.”
Vegeta followed.
The heavy door to the sacristy closed behind them with a soft click. The room was very dim, lit only by a single candle.
Vegeta stood very still.
He could hear his own heartbeat. Father Freeza’s breathing. The soft crackle of the flame.
“Tell me, Vegeta,” Father Freeza said gently. “Do you know why restlessness is dangerous?”
Vegeta knew better than to answer.
“Because it means your soul is looking for something,” Father Freeza continued. “And a soul that seeks…is a soul that doubts.”
Father Freeza stepped closer, his shadow merging with Vegeta’s.
“I have given you purpose,” he murmured. “Structure. Salvation.” A pale hand lifted, reaching toward Vegeta’s face. “You would not…turn away from that. Would you?”
For the first time, Vegeta dared to look up. Father Freeza’s gaze was clinical and distant — a mercy he had not expected.
“I serve,” Vegeta said, victorious in the steadiness of his voice.
“I know you do.”
Father Freeza’s smile lingered for a moment too long.
“Come,” he said softly, turning toward the far wall.
Vegeta followed wordlessly.
The sacristy was small, cluttered with relics and vestments. Shelves lined the walls, each crowded with chalices, incense burners, folded linens. They were holy things. Pure things. Yet Vegeta could not look at them without imagining that they remembered. The chalices glimmered like unblinking eyes, the tattered vestments sagged with a weight that was not age but memory, as if the room itself carried witness to every quiet trespass enacted within its walls.
Father Freeza ran his fingers along a row of rosaries as if selecting a fine wine.
“You have grown so much in the time I’ve known you,” Father Freeza murmured, his tone thoughtful rather than praising. “Not in strength. You’ve always had that. But in will.”
Vegeta kept his gaze pinned to a knot in the wooden floorboards. He knew better than to speak when Father Freeza was thinking aloud.
“It is a beautiful thing, you know,”Father Freeza continued. “A strong will. When it is properly shaped.”
His hand paused over one of the rosaries, a black one, the beads polished like obsidian. One of Father Freeza’s favorites. He lifted it, letting the crucifix dangle, swaying gently to and fro.
Vegeta’s throat tightened.
Father Freeza stepped close, and looped the beads into Vegeta’s palm with deliberate care.
“The Bishop expects much of you,” he said, watching Vegeta’s fingers close reflexively around the cold metal. “As do I.”
Vegeta bowed, as he had a thousand times. And yet something in him caught, an infinitesimal stutter of spirit he could not smother fast enough.
He hazarded a glance upward. Father Freeza’s eyes warmed with interest. He had felt it too.
A hand settled heavily on Vegeta’s shoulder.
“Lift your head,” Father Freeza intoned.
Vegeta obeyed.
Father Freeza studied him, eyes narrow, as though examining a crack in a statue he once considered flawless.
“I just feel as if you have been drifting lately, my son.” Father Freeza said. “Your mind wanders in prayer. Your posture falters. Your voice trembles on the responses.”
“My voice does not-”
Father Freeza’s hand tightened, just slightly.
Vegeta swallowed his words and looked down once more.
The hand at his shoulder gave a gentle squeeze before loosening.
“You are a poor liar, Vegeta.”
Something sharp and sour climbed Vegeta's throat. He stilled, bracing for the well-worn consequence of a flaw he could never quite purge.
But Father Freeza only stepped back. His hand slid down Vegeta’s shoulder, fingertips brushing the fabric of his cassock as though assessing its fit.
“You are a man now, Vegeta. And nearly ready,” Father Freeza said. “Your devotion, your discipline…they are ripening.” His voice turned soft, almost wistful. “It is my desire to see you take your vows before the spring ends.”
Vegeta felt something constrict in his chest.
“But only if your heart is willing,” Father Freeza whispered. “A vow toward God taken without purity of intent is no vow at all.”
Vegeta merely nodded. “I understand, father.”
Father Freeza appraised him for a moment longer. He lifted his chin, apparently satisfied with whatever he saw.
“Go,” he said softly. “Kneel in morning prayer in the front pew. Stay until I call for you.”
Vegeta bowed his head in silent obedience and turned to leave, forcing his trembling legs to carry him out of the sacristy, past the heavy door, and into the open space of the chapel.
Raditz knelt exactly where Vegeta had left him, shoulders rigid, eyes darting toward the sacristy door the moment it creaked open. Relief flashed quickly across his face.
Vegeta sank to his knees in the front row.
He clasped the rosary in his hands, its weight pressing into his palms, into the tiny scars where the beads had dug into him so many mornings and midnights before.
He tried to pray.
Ora pro nobis.
But the words felt like ashes dissolving on his tongue.
Behind him, Raditz’s breathing shook. It always shook when Vegeta was called away, when the sacristy door closed.
Vegeta didn’t turn. Turning would invite questions.
A few minutes passed. Or an hour. Time was strange in these walls. Heavy and slow. Like molasses dripping from a cracked jar.
He heard Father Freeza reenter the chapel before he saw him.
“Raditz, my son,” Father Freeza said at last.
Vegeta dared to turn his head.
Raditz froze, as if someone had poured ice water down his back.
“Father?” he whispered.
“Come with me.”
Raditz’s eyes snapped to Vegeta, wide, pleading, silently begging him to intervene, to speak, to do something, anything.
“That is an order,” Father Freeza added gently.
That gentleness was the crueler blade.
Raditz flinched harder than if he’d been struck.
He stood and followed.
Father Freeza led him into the sacristy, the older shadow consuming the younger.
The door clicked shut.
Vegeta stayed kneeling, the way he had been instructed.
He clasped his rosary between his fingers and bowed his head.
“Sancta Maria…ora pro nobis. Sancte Michael…ora pro nobis.”
He fixed his gaze on the altar cloth’s hem, white, immaculate, almost luminous in the dimness.
A reminder of the purity he could never touch.
A sound filtered through the old wood, a faint shift, a muffled exhale.
Vegeta’s jaw clenched. He forced stillness into his body.
“Sancte Gabriel…ora pro nobis.”
Another sound filtered through. Cut short too quickly.
Vegeta bowed his head lower.
“Omnes sancti Angeli et Archangeli… orate pro nobis.”
His voice grew quieter with each invocation.
A murmur rose behind the door. “You know how this works, my child. You mustn’t falter. Disobedience endangers those you love.”
There was a pause.
“Your brother cannot afford your mistakes.”
Vegeta’s stomach rolled. His fingers tightened around the rosary until the chain bit into his skin.
Raditz made a choked, half-stifled inhale.
Vegeta bowed deeper. He began to feel something surge forth within him.
Anger.
A sin.
A serpent rising in a man meant to be stone.
He tried to smother it beneath prayer.
But the litany splintered on his tongue, crumbling beneath the pressure building in his chest.
His rosary slipped; he caught it before it fell.
He clutched it harder, more desperately. This was only a test. But the lord is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able…
“Miserere mei, Deus…” His voice cracked.
He swallowed.
“secundum magnam misericordiam tuam…”
Raditz’s breath hitched on the other side of the door. Vegeta’s heart lurched then flattened into the cold stillness he had learned to cultivate.
“Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum…”
He bowed until his forehead nearly touched the pew.
“dele iniquitatem meam…”
A faint thud sounded against the door.
Vegeta’s mouth trembled.
He pressed the crucifix to his lips until its sharp edges punished the softness there.
“Cor mundum crea in me, Deus…” His whisper softened to nothing.
“et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis…”
A soft, strangled sound seeped through the door.
Vegeta forced the final plea through clenched teeth:
“Libera nos, Domine…”
His breath shook.
“De omni malo…libera nos, Domine.”
Finally, there was silence for a very, very long time.
And then, the latch turned.
The sacristy door opened softly.
Raditz emerged, his expression smoothed into something blank and heavy.
Father Freeza followed, looking as if nothing was amiss.
“Vegeta, my son,” Father Freeza said warmly. “Now that you have concluded your morning prayers, you may continue your duties before breakfast.”
Vegeta rose to his feet. The world swayed once, almost imperceptibly, before settling.
Father Freeza turned to Raditz.
“Oh, and Raditz? I will see you at confession. Immediately.”
Raditz’s eyes were fixed upon nothing at all.
Vegeta bowed his head, and the moment sealed itself shut around him.