YUSH! A new fic from yours truly! WARNINGS GALORE ON THIS ONE PEOPLE!
IF YOU ARE NOT OF AGE IN YOUR COUNTRY/STATE/PROVINCE/WHATEVER… FUCK THE FUCK OFF! THIS STORY CONTAINS MORE THAN JUST MENTIONS OF MALE RAPE, WONDERFULLY HELLACIOUS GORY VIOLENCE, LOTS OF NUDITY, ADULT CONTENT, MY USUAL LEVEL OF IRISH DOCK WORKER LANGUAGE… AND A SURPRISINGLY LOW LEVEL OF SMUT. BUT THERE'S STILL SMUT. MUCH LATER. /WARNING
Of course it wouldn't be a fic by myself if it didn't have smut, but there really isn't a ton in this one. Lots of angst violence and more angst.
And a big thanks to my girls as always for helping me out with this one. Ana and Selene, yall are awesome. Thanks to my husband, "Thor" for explaining and helping with a male's point of view in this story.
Literally… Me: You're a guy.
Thor: *blankly stares* Uh… yeah. You just proved it less than an hour ago.
Me: Good. Need a guy for this.
Thor: Ok…?
Heh, that was funnier when it happened than it is recounting it. I also want to drop a big thank you to Uppercross. He doesn't know it yet, but he was the one that inadvertently helped me title this fic. He used the word attrition in reference to Vegeta, and it totally struck a chord with me and I had a "EUREKA!" moment. "I HAVE THE TITLE!"
Ok. Done ranting… on with the SHOW, yall! WOOOO!
She wasn't sure what she was expecting when his eyes finally cracked open after a week of unconsciousness, but it certainly was not the reaction she got.
In one moment she went from attempting to smile for the first time in decades… to being pinned to the floor by a snarling, clearly enraged male. And damn if he wasn't strong! Sure, she wasn't even close to full strength after such an intense, power draining healing session, but she was still in her Cosmos form! Very little in the entire, vast universe could have so much as scratched her, let alone pinned her to the floor of the cottage she'd brought his broken body to. "Hello," she managed blandly.
The sound of her voice seemed to freeze him in place, and he squinted down at her with cold black eyes filled only with fury and pain. Cosmos swallowed when he studied her long and hard, for well over five minutes, his eyes nearly shut against the light. "If your eyes hurt, I can draw the blinds or find you some glasses in my subspace. But you'll have to let me up for that."
The Queen of the Stars sighed when he growled at her and simply kept her pinned on her back, but she stayed quiet and simply waited. He couldn't do this forever… could he? She wondered a little nervously. Maybe he could. If he'd been held captive for as long as she suspected, one thing he would have likely learned in all that time was extreme patience.
Another fifteen minutes passed while she simply thought and waited; she was beyond patient as well and had all the time in the universe if that was what he needed in order to feel like she wasn't a threat to him.
Then she found herself yawning and blinking up at him sleepily while she ignored his growling at her for the unconditional reaction to her own exhaustion. Gods… it had been decades since she'd even slept and she suddenly felt every last day of it. "Look," she mumbled, "I'm tired… exhausted, in fact. You had a lot of damage and I blew a ton of energy healing you. And since you're awake, the bed isn't being used. I'm hoping you'll let me up so I can crawl in under the covers and take the mother of all powernaps. Please?" She added with a weary sigh when he only stared her down. "I'm not going to hurt you. That would be pretty fucking stupid, considering how much I had to go through just to put you back together and rebuild the muscles that had atrophied."
Something about that last statement seemed to finally get a reaction from him, and she waited as his eyes flickered down for a split second to his rebuilt arms before locking on her face once more. Then slowly, ever so slowly… the grip on her wrists relaxed and his bare thighs slid off of her own. Then he moved so fast that her eyes didn't even catch it, and he was on the far side of the room, slightly crouched and clearly ready to attack should she try anything he interpreted as a threat to himself. "Thank you," she said softly. "I'm going to close the blinds for you; with the way you're squinting, I know the light is bothering you. I don't want your eyes to get hurt, ok?"
He didn't move so much as a muscle, but she was too tired to really keep her guard up and simply turned her back on him to close all the blinds on the other side of the room. And when she slowly turned around she found him studying her with a flicker of surprise in his eyes, which were now fully open and no longer half-closed. Well, apparently not many dared turn their back to him, it seemed. That was fine, maybe it would be a step in showing him that she could be trusted, that she meant him no harm. "I'm going to reach into my subspace now, and I'll do it slowly, alright? It'll look a little funny since my hand will disappear, but I promise that nothing bad will happen. I'm just going to find you some clothes, and… are you hungry?" She asked slowly. Then she snorted at herself and chuckled softly. "Of course you are. I'm sure you're damned near starved. I'll fish around in there and get you something to eat, too. I know I put some food in there about a century ago… I think. Hang on."
Her patient growled softly when her hand disappeared, and Cosmos could only wonder what his reaction would have been if she hadn't warned him in advance. Good thing she had; something told her he would have tried to kill her. "Here we go." She pulled out the food first, a tiny blue capsule, and smiled at him. "I picked this up in another dimension… hm, or maybe it was this one… I think it was a little over a hundred years ago… I'm not sure. Time gets away from me a lot, you know, and I pop in and out of different universes so frequently that I get them confused. But I was intrigued with it, since it actually contains like, this huge banquet of food in such a tiny thing. I took dozens of them, trying to figure out how it was done. Completely ingenious."
She approached the counter next to the sink slowly and activated the capsule to produce enough food to have fed all of her Senshi, then reached back into her subspace. She dug a lot longer than the first time before pulling out a pair of sweatpants and a baggy sweatshirt. "I think these will fit you," she said softly, laying the clothes down on the end of the counter. "Now… I'm going to get some sleep, alright? You're free to go if you choose, but I would feel better about you leaving if you ate something first and got dressed. And you could definitely use some more sleep while you're still mending. I don't mind sharing the bed, but I warn you that I have a habit of… well, cuddling. Fair warning."
Cosmos kept her movements careful and slow as she moved to the bed, yet again turning her back on him to get there, and sighed with relief as she sank into it and pulled the covers up over herself. "I'm going to change forms now… so I can sleep," she mumbled, already halfway there. "Don't freak out… I'll just look a little different."
His eyes widened a little when her hair shifted from root to tip into molten gold, and the eyes blinking sleepily at him turned from silver to the clearest blue he'd ever seen. That color… he'd seen it before. In two other sets of eyes… he couldn't remember the faces and when he tried it only hurt his head… hurt somewhere deep in his chest… but he remembered the eyes. Eyes of blue… they'd cared… he'd cared…
She gasped when he clutched at his head and his eyes shut tightly in pain, and before she could think better of it she was at his side, using her powers to surround him in her silver light to ease the hurt. "Shh, it's ok," she whispered gently. "Relax. It's likely the effect of the light on your eyes. You'll have headaches like that until you've adjusted to something brighter than that pitch darkness."
He seemed to realize that she was touching him after a few moments, and she pulled back when he snarled at her again. "Sorry, I was just trying to help." It was then that his eyes moved to something other than her face, and she blinked when he looked her up and down very slowly. "Oh. Sorry. I'm so used to being by myself that I… well, I'm not used to the idea of modesty anymore. And I always wear my fuku… the last time I'd transformed back from Cosmos was like, a decade ago. I think it was to enjoy a soak in a hot spring. Hang on, just let me…" She closed her eyes in concentration, and when they opened again she was clothed in a thin white nightgown. "There, that's better. I knew I should have put clothes on after that soak, but I figured why bother?" She yawned again before going back to the bed and crawling in to snuggle up under the covers and into the many pillows. "Don't freak out if I sleep for a while," she managed before closing her eyes and drifting off almost immediately.
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The naked warrior remained crouched in the corner for over an hour as he decided whether or not to walk over to the bed and snap the golden woman's pretty little neck. Would it take some effort? She was obviously very powerful, but something told him that it would crush as easily as the fine bone china that it resembled.
Slowly… ever so slowly… he finally moved from his spot across the room, ready to leap back to it and blast her to hell if she should suddenly sit up and prove that she was faking sleep, just as he suspected. But she didn't move, didn't bat an eyelash—she merely continued to breathe, deep and even, emitting a tiny snore every now and again.
The warrior considered moving closer to her and nearly did after a moment's thought, but his deep-seated fear of contact kept him as far from her as he could get. He didn't even give the food on the counter more than a cursory glance; he knew all about good-looking food and how it was laced with poisons and sleeping draughts… and even worse, aphrodisiacs designed to keep him aroused for hours on end while he endured some of the worst torture he'd ever encountered. Even the beatings and the whippings and the constant blows to the tattered remnants of his pride couldn't compare to those painful sessions. He'd block out the pain as always, but there had always been a deeper hurt in his soul with every thrust into his body, every groan of pleasure from the purple-skinned enemy behind him.
Banishing those thoughts with a shake of his head, he moved silently to the door and carefully opened it, only to close it immediately at the first scent of fresh air. What was this!? It had to be a trick, some sort of new, sick form of torture, right!? Heal him. Give him food. Freedom.
And worst of all… give him hope. Only to take it all away once he felt safe and secure for the first time in… he didn't even recall how long. Years. Decades.
He hit his knees in front of the door and trembled at the thought; they'd made him kneel after a full decade—at least he was fairly sure it had been that long—and it had broken him. That's what this was. They'd do it again, surely. Give him some small slice of heaven, only to take it and break him again. He glanced to the angelic woman just on the edge of his vision and wondered for a brief moment if he was dead. Gods, now that would be ideal!
He shook off a flicker of that damned feeling—hope—as he actually pinched himself and felt it. Nope. Still alive. Hell, he knew he was alive just from the protesting ache in the muscles that were still weakened from his time chained to that dank ceiling. He glanced over to the woman again and studied her with a hint of fear and awe mixed in with his heavy distrust. If she'd truly healed him and brought him back to his current state in such a short time, surely she could crush him and throw him into the wind.
That thought made him clutch his aching forehead and wince; he'd said those words before… somewhere. Home, maybe? Wherever that was. He gasped at the searing pain in his temples as he caught a flash of blue eyes in his memory, a backdrop of a large building behind the person—it was a male… a relation… his son?—he was talking to. Home. That was home.
He cracked open the door slowly once more and looked out at trees and fields. No other buildings in sight, just wildlife and the scent of very clean air. Water in the distance… not too far, though. And it was a little chilly out there, but not unlivable. He immediately discarded the idea of running out into the unknown to fend for himself. The idea was more than tempting, but he had no clue what awaited him out there. Maybe that's what the woman in the bed was waiting for. She'd said he was free to leave… maybe this was a test by his captors to see if they'd truly broken him or not. To see if he'd run given the chance.
And the moment he ran, they would swoop down and capture him once more, throw him back in the dungeon or if he was extremely lucky… the fighting pits. At least in the pits, the food was more likely than not to be free of poisons or worse things.
But that food and fairly decent sleeping quarters—"fairly decent" meaning a floor free of his own piss and shit, maybe a rough scrap of blanket thrown in if he behaved—came at a high price; his collar keeping every skill he'd developed in check while he beat his opponent—or got beat—with only fists, muscle and temper. He vaguely recalled the incident that had put him back in the cell with the chains; he'd shattered the collar around his neck with nothing more than his own power in the first display of resistance he'd risked in decades. He'd fried hundreds of those bastards within moments in one of the best Final Flashes he'd ever created… and if the purple-skinned bastard hadn't stopped him, it would have become a Final Explosion in less than a minute.
He'd been stopped though, and thrown back into that cell, and beaten to within an inch of his life by the purple alien while his scientists had devised a new collar that could contain what they'd called "a very unexpected spike in the prisoner's power level."
Gods, it had been totally worth it, though. Even when the beatings turned into a week-long rape that left him hanging there, broken and bleeding, he could still feel a twinge of satisfaction at the memory of all that power at his very fingertips, surrounding him in a golden glow.
His eyes widened at that and he groped at his neck as it fully dawned on him that his collar was gone. He immediately looked down at his hands to see the tiny ki ball that he risked, just to prove to himself that it wasn't some sort of fucked up dream. It was real… it was small and gold and put off a faint light, and he knew if he threw it, the deceptively tiny ball would take out the adjacent wall with ease. He absorbed it quickly and looked back to the woman to make sure she wasn't watching him. Nope, still sleeping. Good, maybe he'd play with his ki a little more in the meantime; he simply couldn't help but feel that flutter of emotion—hope—at the very thought of controlling his own energy once more.
Told ya it would be angsty, dark as holy fuck and violent. Don't say I didn't warn ya… I never lie in the warnings, yall. Next chapter will be a flashback to the rescue!