A/N : Yay. New story that I don't really need to be starting because I update as slow as it is already. Oh, well.
Warnings! : Language, violence, angst, insanity, drug abuse, manipulation, psychological warfare, character death, lots of other things that can't be mentioned so as not to ruin anything but that are very bad, lol. This is a dark story within a love story within a horror story within... I don't know. It is what it is, and it's just wrong. Probably shouldn't have ever started this at all. XD Something's screwed up in mah head, I swear.
Pairings : Yamcha x Vejita, some Vejita x Bulma and mentions of past Yamcha x Bulma.
Set after Cell, before Buu. Follows canon to a point, except for the whole moon-explosion thing, because, srsly. Dude. The moon, man. The moon. Can't just blow that shit up, yo. And I like Yamcha, by the way. As much as one can, at any rate. :D
Slow updates. VERY slow. As in, don't hold your breath and only check once every few months or so. Years? Longer chapters later on. As always, thanks so much for reading!
Spieglein
Chapter 1
'I love you.'
The first time Bulma had told him that, it was like the sun had crashed down onto the Earth and lit up his chest with fire.
The first time Bulma had told Vejita that, the fire turned into acid and it burned him up from the inside out.
It had been beneath the moonlight one cold night, as they had stood outside under the clear sky side by side, Bulma resting her hand on the small of Vejita's back. Yamcha had stared at them from around the corner of the building he had been using as coverage, and nothing in his life could have ever prepared him for the pain of hearing her whisper those words out of nowhere, leaning down until her lips had been brushing Vejita's ear and her voice nearly breathless.
Yamcha hadn't expected it.
He didn't know why—hell, Vejita had been living there for years, Trunks was already three, and Bulma had long before declared her devotion to Vejita.
Still, hearing it himself hurt.
He had neither seen nor heard Vejita's reaction, fleeing before any could occur.
He spied on them frequently nowadays, and he didn't know why he did that, either. Maybe jealousy. Maybe loneliness. Maybe curiosity.
Maybe obsession.
Bulma had told him once that there was no in between when it came to Vejita. Either you really, really loved him, or you really, really hated him. There was no middle ground. There was no, 'I don't know,' or, 'He's okay, I guess.' Vejita was a man of extremes; it was natural, perhaps, that he elicited extreme reactions from those around him.
Yamcha had always believed Bulma on that issue, because, oh god, did he ever hate Vejita.
Hated him.
And he had been adamant that he always would, until the day he died.
He didn't know why he was always proven wrong.
The first time he had ever seen Vejita, he had over-confidently cast him aside as something far too petite and lean to be a real fighter. He'd made a mistake then, sure, he admitted that. What he couldn't admit to was that Vejita was better than him. Not in fighting; Vejita could have killed him dead with a pinkie. He acknowledged that.
In other things.
What was it about Vejita that attracted Bulma so? What was it about him that had earned him such unbending devotion from a future son he had never been kind to? What was it that Goku had seen in him the first time they had fought, to spare him so? What was it that had earned Piccolo's respect? What was it that had allowed Krillin to call him 'friend'?
Why did Vejita always overshadow him?
Yamcha didn't understand.
Before Vejita had ever come to Earth, life had been better. Things changed though, always did, even if he didn't want them to. He wished, more than anything, that he could go back to the days when it was just the four of them, he and Bulma, Goku and Krillin, when everything had been perfect for him, when everyone had looked up to him.
When Bulma had loved him and everyone had respected him.
Before Vejita came along, Yamcha had been a hotshot.
His world had crumbled apart ever since Vejita had arrived, and although there were no doubt a thousand different contributing factors, it was just simpler to blame it all on Vejita. To pretend that one man had ruined his entire life without even trying. To pretend that Vejita had stolen Bulma, rather than that Yamcha had just lost her.
To pretend that Vejita was still a bad guy.
Well—mighta gotten away with that last one, because there was a good portion of Vejita that would always be a 'bad guy', no matter how many years he lived here or how many battles he joined them in. Vejita's motives had never been pure, and likely never would be.
In that, perhaps, maybe Yamcha and Vejita had a little in common.
He had always fought to impress others and make himself look good, and Vejita fought for that, too.
So what about them was so different?
Vejita's fearlessness? His ruthlessness and his ferocity? Something else, something baser, something that had no name? Or was it just his strength? That he was second only to Gohan now? Was it that he was a prince? Was it that he was the only one of them who had grown up out in the vast universe rather than this little planet?
What was it?
It drove Yamcha crazy.
Every day, he could feel it gnawing a little part of him away, and every day, he hated Vejita a little more for it.
Things had started off without much hassle.
After Goku's death, he had returned to Capsule Corporation, asking Bulma for permission to live there as he once had. Staying in old Roshi's place just didn't cut it.
'Sure,' she had said without thought, friendly as she was, 'No problem! Make yourself at home.'
Or maybe it was being away from them that just didn't cut it.
Them.
Once, it had just been Bulma. Now, somehow, he wanted to be around Vejita as much as Bulma, but for very different reasons. He wanted to study Vejita, on some level, to observe him and learn about him and in doing so try to figure out what was so fuckin' great about him.
When Yamcha had moved back in, bags slung over his shoulder, he had passed Vejita in the hall. They had fallen to a stop before each other, staring, each as leery as the other, and Yamcha had finally offered a droll, 'Hey.'
Vejita had furrowed his brow in agitation, and responded, simply, 'Here again, are you?'
Yeah, here again. Vejita's spot had been his, once.
This time, things would go better for him. He was sure of it. He would make it that way.
So he had just smiled, rolled his shoulders in casual confidence, and said, 'Yup! What can I say? Guess I got homesick.'
Homesick.
This had never been his home, not truly, but the words had been meant to agitate Vejita, to whom this was the only home he had and likely had ever known. It worked; Vejita narrowed his eyes in distaste, lifted his chin, and carried on by without another word.
As much as an animal was possessive of its territory, Vejita was possessive of this place, and Yamcha's presence was a considerable annoyance.
Yamcha could revel in that minor discomfort, he supposed. If he couldn't beat Vejita up, then he could just drive him up the wall instead. And hell, that was probably even more satisfying.
He wasn't Vejita's friend, and he didn't know him that much, but he was competent enough to know that Vejita's only true weakness lied in how easily frustrated he become, and how irrational frustration made him. How reckless and vulnerable Vejita became if jostled and prodded enough.
For the most part, Vejita tried to avoid him, and never went out of the way to fight with him as he once had. Maybe he had become boring to Vejita, hardly worth the effort of picking on. That was fine with him. The more Vejita was little bothered with him, the more time he had to spy and pry.
He watched Vejita every day.
It had started off as just curiosity, he was sure of it.
But days passed, and he saw Bulma watching Vejita walk by with that look of absolute adoration in her eyes as she followed him with her gaze, and he saw Bulma's mother gushing over every little thing Vejita did and always telling him how handsome he was, and he saw little Trunks tottering after Vejita on wobbly legs with determination, and he saw how right Vejita looked here, and god.
God.
This should have been his life.
This had been his life. This had been meant for him. This was where he had always belonged.
Curiosity turned into bitterness.
He watched Vejita through the window of the gravity room as he had years ago, and this time awe was replaced with loathing.
Vejita was handsome. Yeah, guess there was no point in denying it. Flawlessly agile, too strong for his own good, compact and tiny and yet still far beyond deadly. A warrior, and yet somehow still stuck-up and proper.
A prince, alright.
Yamcha had thought of himself as a wolf once, reigning over his land with gracefulness and incomparable strength, wild and feared and revered.
If he was a wolf, then Vejita was a fox.
Smaller and quicker and smarter, cunning and bold, endlessly treacherous, and no matter how big and powerful the wolf appeared, the fox could still slink in behind him without notice and steal everything he called his.
Yamcha took note of every move Vejita made, and committed it to memory.
He watched.
Waited.
He didn't know what he wanted, not really. He didn't know what he wanted to do, what he wanted to come to pass, but he was certain of one thing : he wanted Vejita to hurt, as he had. He wanted Vejita to see his world crumble beneath him as Yamcha's had. He wanted to knock him down. He wanted Vejita to come undone.
Unhinged.
Yamcha watched every night as Vejita, sweating with exertion from a long day of training, went outside and turned his eyes up to the moon, and stood there below as if in a trance. Sometimes for hours. What went through his head then, as he basked beneath the moon?
In its light, Vejita almost seemed to glow.
Moonlight, lighting up Vejita's auburn hair in shades of white and fawn.
When Yamcha went into his bedroom afterwards and looked into the mirror, he saw only himself. Just Yamcha. And there was nothing special there.
Vejita lived on the other side of the mirror.
He hated Vejita.
Plotting. Thinking. He spent his days in contemplation, eyes drifting mindlessly over the premises that he felt belonged to him.
What to do.
No amount of brute strength could ever bring Vejita down, and he had come to terms long ago with the fact that he would never be stronger than Vejita. That was alright. There were other ways to hurt someone. Let the Saiyan gaze up at the moon all he wanted. Let him be better at everything. Let him settle down. The human would be his undoing, one way or another.
He should have been more careful, perhaps.
Obsession split into so many roads, and in the dark it was sometimes hard to see which one you were going down.
Vejita made him as reckless as he intended to make Vejita.
Bringing him down had become an obsession.