BREAKING
by Obsidian Blade
Sometimes he needed her to talk him around. His pride would seize up over spending time with their son or sleeping in with her on a Sunday morning and he'd rile her until she gave him an ultimatum, an excuse to help him stave off the shame of adapting to his human lifestyle.
But she could not do it today. He flickered on her computer monitor, the red floor and solid steel walls of the gravity room behind him. Gravity simulation, read an alert beneath. [Cancel] or [Run]
'Turn it back on, Bulma.'
'You're running it too high.'
'Had you been paying attention, you would know I've been training at that level for weeks.'
Her eyes darted to the numbers. 900x earth's gravity. The true magnitude of her husband's strength rolled around inside her head.
'You're going to kill him tomorrow,' she said.
'It's a tournament,' he said through gritted teeth, 'I'm going to beat him. Turn the damned machine back on.'
Ridiculous, he could have snapped. Your human propensity for melodrama sickens me. And she would have rounded on him in fury: My human propensity? How about my human propensity to make you promise you won't kill him or the gravity room's not coming back online?
Suddenly she realised her cheeks were wet. Something had hollowed out the spot in her chest where her persuasive drive usually sat. She saw his scowl turn rigid at the unfamiliar sight of her tears, just as her throat turned rigid with the realisation of what she was asking: me, or your vindication. For the first time, she didn't want to stomp her foot and demand a response. Watching despondency glaze his eyes as she cried, she knew she didn't want to hear it.
Her fingers darted out and tapped a key.
RUN.
300 words, written to the prompt 'run' for the Blue and Black LJ comm. Had to condense the idea so much, y'all. So much. Therefore I apologise for their generic phrasing in the dialogue, eheh.