-Author's Note-: This is my first fanfic… So there's that. Reviews would be much appreciated ;D
-Disclaimer-: Violets are red, roses are blue—err wait, that can't be right… Vegeta, Gohan, and Goku I'm sad that I don't own you. Haha, there we go. Seriously, I don't own anything here except my dignity.
Weeping Angels & Lonely Nights
By: OrangeStarExpress
Brought to you by: Waves and Rocks! (CCS AnGeL00 tribute)
A Sunday evening in the fall, as chilly and lonely as they'd always been since he was away—of course, things had changed.
The days of relentless inquisition for the identity of the Great Saiyaman, failure to fill the void of an absent mother (and on many occasions, such as tonight, an absent father), and most importantly: suppressing her true feelings for that onyx-eyed, gravity-defying spikey haired demi-Saiyan, had all been behind her now.
For the first time in her life she felt safe, and warm in the presence of that gentle-natured, kind-spirited essence Son Gohan inherently possessed.
It was true this same boy could wreak havoc upon countless worlds, destroy everything she'd ever known, and satisfy a natural urge for Saiyan bloodlust, but for some reason… He was... Everything she could have ever wanted.
What he could have rolled out in death and destruction he emanated from his kind heart in compassion and care for her ten-fold. He was hers, and she was his, and surely nothing could change that now.
Although he desperately pleaded otherwise, Gohan had been away for the past week on a trip across the country to a plethora of open-houses at the universities he'd been accepted to. This was, of course, devised by the more than occasionally overbearing Chi-Chi who wanted to be sure Gohan had a good idea of where he wanted to go, or better yet, where she would attempt to force him to go.
With that Videl was condemned to an unmistakable sense of emptiness, and she cursed her for it—though she promptly prayed for forgiveness for fear of the karma that might find its way back to her—namely, a certain infamous fry pan the Sons had learned to both love and fear, connecting to the back of her head.
Videl was all too familiar with that fry pan. She'd been over at the Sons' for dinner more than enough times to have witnessed Chi-Chi going on the assault on her three boys with the now worn and dented cast-iron cookware… Thank God for their thick skulls.
Videl let out a deep sigh as she slipped on a pair of comfortable Orange Star joggers and an old Deftones sweatshirt before collapsing to her bed in exhaustion.
She'd spent most of the day, reluctantly, shopping with Erasa at the Satan City mega-mall. Avoiding the superfluity of annoying sales representatives, perfume stands, and openly ogling pervs was indeed tiring work.
Venturing out of the comfort of the fortress of cushions that was her queen-sized bed, Videl nearly fell and broke her neck as she tripped and stumbled over the thick layer of bags and packages that littered the carpet surrounding her room.
She figured she must've walked out of the mall with just about every outlet's complete fall fashion set.
Damn Erasa. If only she hadn't let her talk her into getting that cute blouse… And those Prada scarfs… And that line of denim Capris… Dammit! It was an unstoppable chain reaction, she was truly helpless.
"Now where's that remote… I know I left it around here somewhere…Ugh!" she stumbled over a box of over-priced boots, sending her crashing into the dresser.
As she rapidly muttered obscenities and gently applied pressure to her freshly bruised hip she noticed the neatly folded note atop the first drawer of the dresser she tried so desperately not to blast to kingdom come at that moment.
Videl reached for the note, wincing at the sting of the baseball-sized bruise that was quickly turning shades of blue and purple.
"Hm..?" she swiftly unfolded the note in her hands and began examining its contents.
My dearest Videl,
As I'm sure you know our busy schedules have made it difficult to spend some time together lately.
I know how hard it is not being able to see your old man as often as you'd like to, but there are a lot of responsibilities when it comes to being the World Champ. I'm sure you understand that and how much I'll miss you when I'm away this week. I'll be on a book tour until next Saturday, until then, I trust you won't cause too much trouble with the staff at home and look forward to seeing you soon. Take care, Vi.
Love,
Dad.
PS: I don't want that scrawny Gogurt kid anywhere near the house, or any boys for that matter.
The elder Satan left early that morning for the book tour of his best-selling autobiography "Memoirs of The Champ"; which was mostly rambling on about how he beat cell with no help from anyone at all, the 'pressures' of being the World Champion, etc.
This was not the first, and presumably, not the last time Hercule left her without previous notice. He knew he didn't have the courage to tell her face-to-face, so he simply didn't.
Videl angrily crumpled the paper, unshed tears welling up in her bright blue eyes. She slapped a hand to her forehead before tossing the balled-up note behind her where it landed on a stack of sweaters.
"His name is GOHAN, dad, GOHAN!" She shouted to the top of her lungs hoping her father would hear her and cringe somehow.
The staff of maids and butlers going about their duties in the floors below of the Satan Mansion had all jumped at the ear-shattering outcry from the younger Satan, each looking like they'd just seen a ghost before resuming their work schedule.
It really didn't bother her how her father seemingly always got his name wrong just to get on her nerves, but he'd been doing this sort of thing her entire life.
Ever since she could remember, he was always going away on trips, always wrapped up in his fame, and never spending any time with her. In her eyes she might as well have been an orphan.
Oh how she wished Son Gohan were there just to spite that man, but now she felt lonelier than ever. She'd been through this routine many times over, but now she had that goofy demi-Saiyan to miss… And oh how she missed him, though her independent spirit would never let her admit it.
Her fingers drummed softly against the dresser as her gaze fell on the gray object sticking out of a pile of bags as if waiting to be discovered.
"Hm, must've fallen when I hit the dresser..." she mused.
She picked up the remote nonchalantly and turned on the flat screen on an adjacent wall and immediately began to avert her attention from missing, or hating anyone.
She flipped through a few channels before stopping on BBC where there was an on-going 'Doctor Who' marathon. Videl was familiar with the show, though she never really watched it all too often. It was amusing to see something almost as crazy and physics-defying as her own life.
This 'man mad with a box' wasn't half bad, she decided, yawning as she approached her 3rd hour into the marathon as the episode "The Time of Angels" began to play.
Videl began absent-mindedly humming the now familiar intro theme as the TARDIS rotated and flipped through the vortex of the electric storm leading up to the beginning of the episode.
It was only just about 20 minutes into the episode that Videl realized this wasn't exactly the best thing in the world to be watching so late at night… Alone…
The episode was about The Doctor, River Song, and the oh so unsuspecting Amy Pond venturing out to some planet, 'Alfava Metraxis', where the ship Byzantium had crashed which supposedly contained the last weeping angel. Weeping angels were, to say the least, the creepiest damned things Videl had ever seen—which is saying a lot considering she'd the misfortune of catching Goten and Trunks spying on Gohan and herself each with a maniacal grin plastered on their faces on more than one occasion.
Kami knows how many stone statues and figures were spread throughout the Satan Mansion, which only served to make Videl more nervous. She scanned the room furtively half-expecting to see some previously inanimate object moving out of the corner of her eye.
"Great… Just what I needed, statue phobia." she said gruffly.
Videl reached for the remote and shut off the television unceremoniously, not wanting to worsen her paranoia any further with the Doctor's escapades.
As she turned to switch off the lights with the trusty universal remote she gasped in shock as the figure in the far corner of the room came into her field of view.
No, it wasn't a stroke-inducing weeping angel, thank Kami, but it was something much more haunting.
Videl arose from her bed and cautiously approached the offender—a relic from her past she'd nearly forgotten after all these years.
This was, in itself, a fairly difficult journey of a few feet across the room. It really did look like some ill department store decided to throw up all over her bedroom floor.
And there it was, half-buried under a mountain of baseball caps, a lone marble ballerina poised gracefully atop an engraved pedestal frozen mid-attitude en pointe. It was a birthday gift from Videl's mother given to her several years ago, the last one she would spend with her mother before she passed in a fatal car accident on her way to her dance recital.
"It should've been me… It should've been me. It's all my fault." A younger Videl whimpered, clinging to the last piece of her mother in her possession, the lone ballerina, as tightly as she could as if it would disappear just like her mother if she didn't.
These same words echoed through her sub conscience for months like a reoccurring nightmare. It was on that day the innocence was erased from her being, once vibrantly bright blue eyes had become glassed over and reddened from the constant flow of tears. This went on for weeks, and she swore she'd never dance again.
The figure was cracked slightly in several places from where she'd gripped too tightly. Videl ran her fingers along the cool stone of the ballerina as she bit down on her lip in a fruitless attempt to hold back her tears.
As she wiped her eyes to clear her blurry vision her gaze became fixated on the small engraving across the face of the pedestal. She stared at it for a few minutes with a tired, blank expression before clenching her fist in anger once more.
In a fit of grief and fury Videl let the figure drop to one of the only bare spots of carpet with a muffled, unceremonious thud.
She was tired, she really was… This was the last thing she needed the night before Calculus exams first thing in the morning.
Videl decided to return to the false sense of comfort that awaited her on her bed, and left the lone ballerina stranded in a disheveled ocean of shopping bags probably to be forgotten once more.
And there it lay on its side, its engraving face-up which seemed to call out to Ms. Satan all night which said: "For my angel…"