Silence
There was only silence now.
Space. Vast, cold, and silent.
It was impossible to prepare for the absolute absence of sound. It was maddening. Strangely and ironically deafening.
It was indescribable. Vegeta had heard others attempt to do so, but until it was experienced, until you had drowned in it, let the clawing suffocating silence swallow you, you couldn't possibly begin to understand. Space wasn't just quiet. No, this was a gaping vacuum that yawned wider, wider, wider until it became inescapable and in you fell, falling, falling, falling without end.
Thankfully, blessedly, space ships made noise. Whirs, clicks, creaks. The sounds of sanity clinging to a thread.
Silence used to be all Vegeta knew. He thought he was used to it, cocooned in his pod that hurtled him through the primordial ethers of the cosmos to be birthed on the other side of the galaxy.
Then she happened.
She taught him that sound could mean something. That conversation could be engaging. That questions could be inquisitive, not interrogating. That laughter could be shared, not belittling. That screams, moans, and pleas could come from pleasure and not from pain. And that he liked the sound of someone gasping his name while fingernails raked down his back.
The sound of her was beautiful.
But he left, running back to space in the hopes that he could find there, cradled in the bosom of the universe, the missing piece of his pride. He left her behind, too afraid that if he didn't leave now he never would. When he closed his eyes for sleep, he tried to remember the sound of her voice, her laughter, her gasps. But the crushing silence of space drowned it out, leaving him with nothing. A gaping yawning vacuum. Alone.
There was only silence now. Far heavier than he ever remembered.
~xox~