3/9/09: Another edit. I went through to fix some errors… these chapters were written exactly one year ago, and I've only barely started touching them this week… so, I "rushed" them into "publication," and there were some silly little mistakes. Tell me if you see any, and I'll hop right on them.
Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ. If I did, I would have my hand latched on Vegeta's ass the whole time.
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Frosty Eyes
It was only a sunny smile,
And little it cost in the giving.
But like the morning light,
It scattered the night
And made the day worth living.
-Anonymous
Chapter One: Time
The bushes, their leaves tinged with pearly moonlight, rustled briefly in the twilight hours as a whisper of wind caressed the leaves. The sunlight was dying at the early hour of seven, setting somberly behind the building in anticipation of the encroaching winter, spilling soft light over the trees and the landscape. The dying lights that were struggling to leap the building coated the world in an ennui that few could escape.
The Gravity Room stood alone in the gloom of sunset, its metal shell growing increasingly colder and darker, bathed in the shadow of the tree that stood alone beside it, just as far away from life as the person who lingered inside.
Up in the branches, the tree's only occupant stretched its legs as it lazed in the branches with languid contentment. The dim lights struck his eyes and turned them a spangled gold, which twinkled with dark undertones that glittered with wisdom. The beautiful eyes stayed fixed on the occupant of the Room, trained on the movement beyond the red glass. They tracked the movement of the person inside with ease, pondering about the intentions of the person inside, and contemplating their motives.
The door of the metal ship opened suddenly, startling him, as he scrambled up the branches, eager to avoid the attention (and ire) of his ward. Feeling sufficiently shrouded by the dark leaves of the peach tree; he flopped bonelessly over onto another branch, and resumed his pensive watch over the Prince.
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The Prince in question wandered over to his Peach tree (He had claimed it as his own) curiously, having caught the ghost of a scent that was unfamiliar to him. He knew something was up there, for he heard the noise of something picking around in the leaves, scuttling around with the barest hint a sound. His smoky eyes searched the leaves and the hollows for his quarry, scanning for the most subtle movements, but after a minute determined that whatever was in that tree was utterly harmless, and headed inside for dinner.
His watchful eyes witnessed him wander away, and once Vegeta entered the building, leapt from the security of the dark branches to the ground. He fought his way indoors, deftly leaping through a door that lingered open too long, whipping around corners, and making his way to the stairs with an uncanny prowess born of shadowy skill. The runners slowed his progress up the stairs, loose fabric snagging his feet and causing him to stumble on several occasions as he ascended the stairs, intent on reaching his destination.
After a long journey, he entered the storage room, leaping on crates and boxes and old equipment, in an effort to reach the air vent, and despite his short arms and legs, reached the metal alcove. Clambering in clumsily, he softly crawled over to his destination, a room that was somewhat dark and scented heavily by the scent of Bunny's night-blooming jasmine. With a solid thump, he jumped on the vent, and knocked it loose long enough to allow his stocky body passage, before the magnet grabbed it again and pulled it shut with a snap, landing roughly on a bed with black covers.
A bed that smelled of the feral prince.
He lay on the pillow, which smelled so strongly of the scent of Vegeta's hair, and let it lull him to sleep.
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"Honey, do you want some of the pork roast?"
Before the sentence had time to leave her mouth, he had deftly picked up his silver fork and knife and cut into it, the extraordinarily giant pig threatening to sate his monstrous appetite. The supple, moist flesh called to the Saiyan Prince's appetite like a siren's call, begging him to whet his appetite with the tender white meat. He was starving.
The dinner, though it had just begun, had been quiet, the very air between him and his blue-headed housemate thrumming with tension. She shot glares over the table at him, her cerulean eyes almost screaming at him, blazing with her own brand of arrogance and daring. Her parents ignored the juvenile behavior.
Pig.
Rat bastard.
He stared back in kind, his smoldering black eyes drilling into her own like a sharp bit into blue steel.
Blue-headed Bitch.
The poor doctor and his gentle wife were caught in the middle of the raging tempest, aware of the eerie quiet. The doctor was speechless and just concentrated on finishing his meal so he would have a perfect excuse to leave. His wife, however, fully intended to be the family peacemaker, and offered dessert to break the ice.
"Would anybody be interested in some chocolate cake for dessert? She cheerily asked. The query hovered in the air for a moment until her angry daughter snapped out of her repose and looked at her.
"…What? Oh… yes, mom… that would be very nice…"
With Vegeta, however, she was not as lucky. He stared at his plate with a brooding temper, searing heat throbbing and pounding at his temples, promising a headache no medicine would remedy. The ghost of a sigh danced on his lips, and though it was extremely quiet, everyone heard. He stood up and left quickly, not looking at anybody in the room as he did so.
The rest of the family sat speechless, staring at his empty chair, and the lonely dinner plate that sat in front of it.
It hadn't even been touched...
The moody prince was lost to his thoughts as he ascended the stairs, his thoughts screaming in a zephyr of anger and discontent. His mind, his body, and even his very soul ached at its core, making him feel old, weak, and very, very tired. When he crossed his threshold, he closed the door softly and locked the deadbolt quietly, turning towards his bed and collapsing with a poignant sigh upon the surface. He rolled over to turn off his bedside lamp, and he found the ceramic surface icy cold to his touch. He watched as his breath misted miserably in the chilly air…
He curled up tightly and cocooned himself within the chilled sheets and blankets, feeling tired, jaded, and aching to the bone. He shut his eyes, trying in vain to find the rest that had eluded him for so long. He thought himself negligent as he began to drift off to that tired, sleepy little vale, and was surprised that he did not mind the presence of a warm, fuzzy, pillow on his bed.
As he was pulled down into the misty seas of slumber, all he could think about was a certain dragon, and the damn wish that he granted.
Hell, they should have just left him dead…
Even in his waking hours, when his bleary eyes still burnt with restless sleep, he could find innumerable things that he did not like about his new life. The sunlight, bright and cheery, glared wickedly in his eyes, bouncing off their smooth glassy surfaces, lancing painfully into his brain. He looked into the light for a bare second, wishing the goddamn Chikyuu-jin sun into oblivion, before he deferred, lowering his eyes to concentrate upon the face of a sleepy cat, curled up into a furry ball and napping contentedly within his strong arms.
"Where the hell did you come from, fuzzbutt?" He winced at the crackle that tainted his rusty baritone. He could not remember seeing this cat, and he knew it wasn't Dr. Briefs'. That fleabag—Scratch-- was coal black and howled like an Ionian fire-tempest. He hated that cat.
This cat's only response to his gruff inquiry was to snuggle into the Prince's neck, causing His Majesty to acquiesce to the cat's silent pleading. He lay back in the small, cold bed and stared belatedly at the old grandfather clock that occupied the distant wall, noting that he had overslept by an hour or so, and that time was wasting away.
Moreover, he was just sitting there with his ass planted in his bed…
His mind was screaming at him to get up, but his body remained strangely leaden as he stared at the ceiling. It was nit-picking at him, pinching at his pride, and hurling names at him like a feeble child.
Lazy bones, it called him. Get off your ass and give a damn, it nagged.
He forced his body up with Herculean effort, and prepared himself to endure his famous displays of masochism and neglect.
That's getting kind of hard, he thought morosely as he stalked towards his prison and his sanctuary.
She dragged her fork lazily through her dessert, the metal prongs tearing the spongy cake and trailing it through the raspberry syrup, taking little interest in doing anything other than drawing pictures and writing names in her dessert. After the quietly disastrous scene at the table earlier, her sweet tooth seemed to have rotted and fallen out. Before she knew it, she had found herself alone in the kitchen, save for her fretting mother, who was absently scrubbing dishes, uncharacteristically silent.
"What's wrong, mom?" the blue-haired maiden asked, noting her mother's strange behavior. "You're scrubbing that casserole dish so hard, you're going to scrub your skin off…"
She put the dish down and dropped the scouring pad in the sink, rubbed her cheek, and pressed her fingers against her forehead.
"Honey…I'm sorry," she apologized, turning to her only daughter. "Things are not going well around here…" she trailed off, taking a seat beside Bulma, and lapsing into silence.
After a minute, Bunny eyed her only child shrewdly. "You know, I remember a time when we were simpler, before we had all this money…when I used to bake chocolate chip cookies in our little kitchen…when your father worked out of our garage… when you stumbled around in my garden chasing butterflies…" she ran her hand through Bulma's hair, as tears glistened in her eyes. " I know you don't remember all of that, because you were so young. There are days I wish we were still like that, because with all of this money… it just isn't the same. Now… well, you're all grown up now. We live in a palace that's fit for kings, your papa's retired, you're taking over the company, and…" she stared into her daughter's eyes, her own sparkling with an intense maternal love.
You have a beautiful boy who loves you, she thought.
"…and…?"
"…and I just want to see you happy! Don't be so caustic." Bunny finished, picking the used dishes off the table and sliding them into the sink. "Don't feel like you have to be at war with him…"
"What are you talking about?!"
"…You know what I mean, honey. You're a smart, intelligent woman. It's your own business so I won't pry. I won't bother you any more about it—"
The blue-haired vixen pounced on her mother as soon as the words left her mouth. "You said "him." "Who's him?" she paused a minute before she realized who the "boy" in question was—
"Vegeta?! Mother! Oh, that is just sick! Completely twisted!"
Bunny shrugged as she returned to her dishes, a gossamer bubble floating from the foamy soap drawing her attention to the window where she saw the ghost of a reflection of their male houseguest.
"I'm just suggesting what I see, dear. There's no need to be militant about it…"
Don't say something you might regret dear… I beg you.
Her latent anger exploded. "Mother… I can't stand the guy. There's no heart in him, no soul… He's got to be the universe's biggest bigot. He's just a cold-blooded, arrogant, smart-ass bastard whose only purpose in life is to kill my best friend! After he realizes that he can't do it, he'll probably hang himself because he doesn't have a life or a friend to speak of…"
Bunny's eyes flashed in fear as she wrung her towel. She could practically see the flames spurting out of her only daughter's mouth, as she saw the approach of the man in question. She gestured to the door, but was blatantly ignored when Bulma continued to rave.
"What was that, mother?"
"I think what you should be asking…" rang a rusty baritone from the doorway, sending electric shocks racing down her spine and chilling the blood in her veins, "is what I thought about that whole tirade, but you don't need to fill me in. After all, since I'm the bastard, I should know…"
Bulma whipped around and was faced with a pair of startlingly harsh and beautiful smoky eyes drilling into her own like twin bits through steel.
"Let me make this crystal clear to you, woman. I don't give a shit about your opinion of me. I honestly couldn't care less about your opinion of my personal life. If, somehow, you've got it into that withered, shrunken little skull," his face contracted in the most sinister of grimaces, "that you can somehow hurt me with that little tirade, you're wrong."
He gripped her chin gently, though his savage gaze possessed hers fully. His gaze was magnetic, compelling.
"…So you can take your ideas and criticism, and stick them up you own ass, because I'm pretty damn sure nobody else wants to hear it." Even as he released her chin and backed up, his eyes still remained possessive of her own. After what seems like a miserable eternity, he turned to leave the room to attempt to salvage something out of his miserable day, when he remembered to give her a piece of advice, for future reference.
"Oh, and Bulma," he said her name with a scalding, seething tone, "you might want to pull your head out of there. There might not be enough room."
Her mother stayed silent as she furiously scrubbed at the dishes, to alleviate her discomfort as her daughters cheeks reddened with eyes, wide as saucers, could only stare absently at the spot that the wicked little troll had formerly occupied, her crimson blush, slowly darkening into rage.
"Why, that sorry little shit," she sputtered in absolute fury, readying to pursue when the blonde's snatched her arm deftly and looked at her with a look of pure empathy, a look absolutely foreign on her normally vacant features.
"Don't follow him, dear," she warned sternly. Tears could be heard quivering in her voice as she amended, "You might not like what you'll see. Give him time sweet-"
Bulma tore her arm from her mother's grasp, and fled from the room, like fire on her heels, as Bunny sat alone at the table, wringing her towel between her shaking hands, and quivering with nerves.
"That's all you can do right now…"
Bulma stomped up the staircase noisily, her thoughts drowning in a pit of despair and confusion that seemed to swallow her like heavy water. Damn it… she moaned to herself. Damn that man. Damn that man to hell!
Damn me…
After the fallout in the kitchen, his hunger had retreated back into the dark maw that was his stomach. He clicked his door shut, and stared at his strange companion in the eyes. He felt the life leaking out of his burning, stinging eyes, and flopped back on the squeaky old bed with a belated sigh.
There'll be no training today…
The cat meowed contentedly and glanced toward the window absently, and Vegeta's gaze followed the feline's.
Well, there's always the window.
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Hours later, he found himself kissing the ceramic floor of the simulator, his arms cut, bruised, bleeding, and refusing, for all the steely strength in them, to lift himself up. Scratches stung and burned on his legs, bruises of various shades mottled his skin, and he was loath to get up.
His violent and brutal anger burned brightly behind his eyes and seared his brain, and like always, is indomitable pride forced him back up on his feet.
It was his pride that forced him to live.
It was his pride that spoke for him.
It was his pride that kept him his only company.
Pride was all he had.
As he reached for the first-aid kit in the simulator's console, he belatedly realized, pride really was all he had.
And he didn't have much left.
His hollow of a heart sunk further into a puddle of nothing, as he bandaged up his bleeding wrist and began his sojourn inside, hoping to find something to assuage the ache of the gaping hole inside him.
…but that hole was something that not even an ungodly amount of food would fill…
Damn…
Damn…
Damn…
She punched her soft blue micro-bead pillow while muttering all the curses she knew, lamenting her carelessness and stupidity. She had recently found some common ground with him, but she knew, deep in her heart of hearts, that she had blown it all to hell with her vocal buckshot.
She muffled her curses and self-loathing as she once again buried her burning face into her pillow and pummeled away, twisting her fist in its squishy grip, knowing that if her blue Peep Chick pillow were alive, it would be screaming at the torture…
You need to apologize, her stormy mind whispered.
Hell no! That wasn't an option. After all, she did have her own pride to keep…
Still, you need to apologize.
She sighed with a grimace, because she knew that her traitor of a mind was right. She stood up on her tired legs, knowing that she may or may not regret what she was about to do, but ha to do it nonetheless. She bolted out the door in a brisk walk, tense with anxiety, to the first place she would think to find her quarry: the gravity simulator. She was astonished when she found the torture chamber (as she called the room on occasion) empty, save for the presence of an overturned first-aid kit, and what seemed to be a single drop of blood on the floor.
"I'm not your maid, Vegeta," she hissed under her breath as she whirled around to descend upon her next destination, the kitchen. Opening the fridge on a hunch and finding it bare, her suspicions were confirmed and she knew that she was hot on the trail of the prince… and needed to buy groceries. She was going to have words with him, come hell or high water…
He had reached the landing on the top of the stairs, and immediately realized the absence of a presence that he had reluctantly grown to accept…
The cat was gone.
Deciding that it was no big loss, he strolled over to the bed. As he flopped down on the bed's creaky, squeaky spring mattress, he vaguely noticed that the back of his head seemed to tingle and tickle.
…huh. That's odd.
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The cat sat upon it's flowerpot perch on the balcony, staring intently at the feral prince, and mulled to himself as he often did, but was soon jerked rudely back into complete consciousness when the Tempest herself came barging loudly up the stairs, toward the room of His charge. Seeing the zephyr of hell that threatened to erupt within the small space, he glared with the utmost concentration at the prince, willing him, no, hoping for him to do something…
*Thump.*
Bulma opened the door and bumped it into the limp body on the floor. She knew almost immediately that something was amiss.
"Shit," she swore as she attempted to roll Vegeta's unnaturally heavy self over, to keep him from drowning in his spit, or from choking on his tongue. He was breathing, she certainly could see that much, but his eyes fluttered wildly beneath the paper-thin lids as if he were seeing a god in all of its holy, immortal glory. His fingers twitched spasmodically, his chest hitched madly, and his toes curled horribly and inhumanly.
He writhed and thrashed on the carpeted floor, and strange, choked moans tore themselves loose from his throat, the noise burying itself into the core of Bulma's memory. In his savage throes, his eyes flew open for her to see, charcoal rings around dark irises contracted into thin, brittle metal haloes around dark pits—
Dark pits that normally swallowed souls whole, that right now, seemed terribly shallow….
Sparkling golden eyes measured up the commotion inside, glittering in platinum streaks from the silky moonlight shining above. He watched through the beveled glass window as His Majesty's spasms eased with a morbid amusement, the great gaping maw in his own eyes shrinking down into a comparable pinhole. He turned his gaze away from the scene and looked up at the stars that winked and twinkled in the velvet blanket above.
Things were going to get interesting.
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Don't worry if everything's not clicking yet. Remember, it's only the first date!
*~* Hattiakourri*~*
