Exhausted, restless, and irate, Bulma tugged on a stubborn bundle of wires until, reluctantly, they pulled free from behind the damaged casing. She couldn't, for the life of her, see how these stupid things were made by the reckless, impetuous, irrational beings with hulking bodies and brutish fingers of that.. that race… when it took the combination of all of her patience, finesse, and caution, not to mention her flexible, small, human frame and delicate human hands to make the electrical systems under her fingers comply to her wishes.
It was hot and humid, and she had been on her back, wriggling through the guts of this piece of shit for the past day, trying to salvage what she could. Granted, the thing was between a quarter and half century old, had hurtled through the radiation and vacuum of space, and withstood the sizzling hellfire of the Earth's atmosphere just to crash land in the middle of the mountains – but she still expected more of supposed advanced alien technology.
She paused, the wires laced between the fingers of one hand, the laser splice held firmly in the other. Frowning, she huffed at herself, and blew her bangs from her face. When that didn't dislodge the sweat-slicked hair from her eyes, she wiped her brow with the back of her wrist. She shifted her weight and reached down to massage the muscle in her thigh. When the blood started to flow again, she readjusted carefully. Her care was rewarded with a spurt of some sort of alien equivalent to lubricant – oil maybe? - spraying all over her face and chest. She bared her teeth in indignant shock, and regretted it immediately when the foul tasting, viscous ooze got in her mouth. Resisting the reflex to spit, she grit her teeth instead. She couldn't lose focus. It had taken her hours to find this stupid fucking wire, and she wasn't going to allow it to be swallowed back into the bowls of this god damned pod no matter what it did to her.
Bring it on, you bastard! She thought at it indignantly.
Seething, she ignored the quivering cramp in her lower back and started cauterizing the frayed metal ends once again.
Her mind drifted as she worked. She had learned from an early age that if she daydreamed, her fingers flew more deftly and time passed as though everything inside the contents of her bubble moved in slow motion played back at regular speed. If she allowed her mind to wander, somehow her genius was uninhibited. It was as if her subconscious rose to the surface and took control, allowing her to do impossible things with intuitive leaps not bound by the rules of physics. Oh, she was aware of what she did, but she was not controlled by, nor did she work within the limits of logic or mathematics. It was like her instinctual, animal self was allowed free reign. It was the only thing that set her apart from her farther – and made her genius frightening to those who had the intelligence to perceive just how primal and dangerous her mind truly was.
What terrified even herself was that this particular kind of genius was not limited to traversing science, technology, and mathematics. Sometimes… sometimes she had a profound, innate understanding of what was missing in others. It was like she could see right to the core of a person as though they were a clock with broken gears, and it was all that she could do to turn away from the irresistible urge to… just… fix it. But souls were not gears and she didn't have the tools nor the expertise to fix any such thing, no matter how it burned. Oh, to know the problem, but not know what to do about it…!
But even if she did, it was not her place. Nor was it her problem.
So why she was thinking about that surly Saiyan Prince – again – was teetering on the line of obsessive masochism. She snorted. That idiot was as bad as she was… distracting himself from what he couldn't fix by burying himself in self-inflicted brutality. He would break his own body on the tormented ambition of getting stronger, but she knew that was not the real story. He knew he would ascend, and there was no need to shatter himself against desperation and time. In fact, his self-torture was likely holding him back; a self-inflicted punishment for failing something much more profound than wielding simple power. What he truly ran from wasn't failure, but emptiness. He filled himself with pain to escape from nothingness. And when he nearly killed himself in that fucking explosion she knew he caused on purpose, she responded by burying herself in her own version of agonized diversion.
Anything she could do to get her mind off of him and the roiling pain that radiated from him like darkness swallowing shadow. It was so thick, she couldn't even see him any longer when she looked at him. There was nothing but the electrical snap of anguish that rolled from him like lightning flashing against a background of black thunderclouds.
What did he want? She knew he didn't want to die. The explosion may have been deadly, but nothing so tame could ever overpower the weight of his need – the answer to his pain. Perhaps he had bought himself a few days reprieve in the infirmary, but he would reawaken. When he did – his torment would be waiting for him.
She yanked the wrench holding the casing open from the bolt and another gob of gelatinous goo plopped onto her cheek. She sighed and wriggled out of the obnoxiously tiny Jeffery's tube and returned to the consul that made up 3/4th of the pod's interior. Tubing and cables were strung in tangled curtains from cannibalized systems around the pod and rerouted to others, and electronics lay dissected in seemingly haphazard disarray. It may not look pretty, but considering it took her parts from three different irrevocably damaged pods, two of which left this one in technological dust, to rebuild a single pod, it was damned impressive that she got it to work at all. At least, she assumed it would work.
She twisted the last wire cap, snapped the bracket into place, and closed the chassis, and let the pliers slip from her callused grasp to the floor. Her eyes darted over the switches and buttons on the command console, and she splayed her fingers to reverently touch the controls. An unnoticed bead of sweat paved a path over the dip in her throat and down her breast bone to be absorbed by the material of her bra at the juncture of her breasts. She closed her eyes, paying homage to the universe as it paused to hold its breath, waiting for her to flip the switch.
She flexed her finger and heard a snap.
The console hummed to life and the view screen lit with an otherworldly, iridescent glow. The corner of her lips curved upwards briefly and her heart surged in her ribcage, but nothing else escaped to show evidence of her triumph.
Beneath her fingers, the keys danced and before her eyes, a plethora of knowledge streamed.
She didn't know the heart of the dark prince, but she would know everything she could about his people.
Time stretched before her and expanded behind, and still she sat in the pod, absorbing all it had to teach her. At some point, she didn't know how or when, a bag of tortilla chips had manifested in addition to other snacks of various kinds and flavor. Likely her mother had come out to her and left these tributes to her daughter – a priestess who, in her pursuit of the meaning of existence, could not be persuaded to return to the mortal plane for such trivial things as sustenance or rest. So, after wiping her hands clean, Bulma sat and munched on the saltiness of fried cornmeal, pleased each time her teeth elicited that first satisfying crunch from a pristine, flat wedge.
She learned that Saiyans were far from fickle, bordering on a manic need for protocol, station, and formality. Yet under the surface, there was a primordial pulse - like a drum - threading through all that they were and did. No matter the music of the orchestra, that percussion was the heavy heartbeat that reverberated louder than any sound, guiding them like the throb of a subsonic tone only they could hear. It gathered around them, twisted into the fibers of their flesh and the star-stuff of their souls, securing them all in their place on the score. It was brutal and honest, subtle and dangerous, and its uncompromising single-mindedness was undeniably beautiful in its purity and absolution. They were a people of complete passions; their natures allowed for all or nothing, and the greatest honor and ambition was to shatter themselves on the shale of discarded, unwanted attributes to remake themselves into their view of perfection. Like a phoenix from the ashes, like their own bodies after every defeat – they shed their weaknesses and were reborn. Even if it meant destroying themselves in the process.
And by that principle, they were ruled. Vegeta was… literally… the drum, born to lead them, created to be the pulse and guide the rhythm of his people. Yet, without the symphony of his people around him, his heart was slowly starting to beat off kilter.
Heavy hearted and suddenly no longer capable of being there a single second longer, she flipped the switch to cut off the power, and the pod died. She knew she was running away yet again, but the thickness of her sorrow was suffocating. She had no right to feel this way; it was not her loss, not her people, not anything she could fix.
Yet the beauty of the song stood out to her. Not the song that was the undercurrent of the Saiyan race, though that did explain why music appealed to them at all, and why it seemed so private and personal to them. What she had found had been a simple song – if she could call it a song at all – that she had uncovered from buried, residual files unrelated to anything else she had found. It was a tribal song, she knew, very old and likely forbidden after the coming of Frieza, layered in tradition and meaning, and saturated in mysticism and legend. It was rather like a prayer, she decided, despite the brutality of the tone, the indifferent words, and the nature behind why it was sung. It seemed to be a request to the Gods for fair hunting; to find a worthy rite of passage. It was a plea to reach beyond the known to find and face a worthy foe. There was no message of hope to take during the journey, no wishes expressed for a successful outcome, and no sense of longing for a safe return. It was, simply, a demand for an honorable death.
To Bulma, the fact that it came from the mouths of Saiyans showed the meaning was infinitely more complex than the obvious. Though it was cold and callous, such a song was reserved for one about to embark on the worst kind of trial; testing and prodding a warrior's worth, and ultimately tearing apart all that was known and understood about oneself, all to see what - if anything - remained. To her human sensibilities, this was ruthless and cruel. To appeal for strength simply to face something - something that would demand death in retribution if that something could not be overcome – was barbaric. But to a Saiyan, death in any form only meant the worthy parts of ones' soul would survive and transcend to the next stage of life. Whether or not the Saiyan lived through the experience was of no consequence.
As she tried to shake off the sticky residue of unease, she pulled her hair free from its rubber-band to ease her headache and navigated the halls towards the room where he lay. She opened the door to his room without pause and only hesitated on the threshold. In defiance of the moonlight pouring in from the windows, he was shrouded in darkness. His heavy breathing was stable, and the soft tone of the heart monitor beeping steadily in the background comforted her. She stepped closer to his bedside, noting the heat that radiated from his body. It was palpable and thick, piercing through her skin to reverberate against the muscle and sinew of bone and flesh. She was reminded again that he was the physical embodiment of the spirit of an entire race, and her skin pebbled.
Absent mindedly, she smoothed the raised hairs on her arms as she watched him simply breathe. The intoxicating ebb and flow of his breath made her drunk with a weariness of her own. She sighed, more to separate her breathing from his, in order to resist the pull of sleep. Glancing at his charts and the records of his vital signs, she frowned. There was no reason why the Saiyan lay unconscious and unresponsive. True, his injuries were severe, but he had survived the worst of it and was healing. Even now, his gashes and bruises were well on their way to being closed and were fading, and most of his broken and shattered bones were reduced to fractures and hairline cracks.
She put the paperwork aside and studied his features. He was darkly beautiful; even now, with his eyes closed and his muscles relaxed, he seemed dangerous and lithe, predatory and deadly. At any moment, he could stretch in casual ease and in leisurely disinterest, pour himself from the bed and disappear into the shadows. Unseen, he would chuckle at her with sinister derision, knowing full well the sound would evoke the instinct within her to freeze like prey. Too little, too late, she would turn on where she could only guess he stood and berate him, just to find herself alone in a room empty of him.
Instead, his dusky lashes feathered against the smooth flesh of his cheekbones, locking the gripping, inky blackness of his eyes behind them. It angered her, suddenly, that he would hide away instead of facing her. But when he bared his teeth in a grimace of pain, his eyebrows sinking in a frown, her anger melted into captivation. How quickly he transitioned from predatory into vulnerability.
Tentatively, with enough care to fool the night into thinking she, a creature of light, belonged there, she reached out to him. His chest was hot and firm beneath her fingers, but there was a softness there as well. She felt that if she kept pushing past the barrier of his flesh, she would tumble into the bottomless abyss that was his soul. Dizzy for a moment, she brushed her fingertips across his clavicle, down the dip of his throat, up the tendon of his neck, and traced the outline of his jaw. He shifted in his sleep and his face turned towards her touch as if uncertain and investigating whether or not the sensation was real or dream.
Fascinated by the planes and angles of his face and how they melted into one another to form his expressions, she turned his head back to face her so she could watch him. When he settled again, she reached to the table behind her and grabbed a cloth from the warmer. As expected, it was too hot, so she rinsed it in cool water from the near-by faucet and wrung the excess liquid into the sink. It was still hot, but it would do.
The Saiyan hissed through his teeth in relieved contentment when the cloth touched his skin. She hadn't known he could make such pleased, rumbling noises, and knew for certain that he never would outside the fable of a dreaming sleep. The sound thrilled her all the more for this, knowing she was privy to something no one else had ever beheld before. She would never tell him; her purpose wasn't to exploit, embarrass, or degrade him. Yet, she could admit to herself, she would hold this moment locked away in a secret, velvet box in the pit of her heart. True, his terrifying strength and near fathomless power were magnificent, and knowing it was that which she held under her hands was inconceivable… but it was his innocence and fragility that socked her in the gut and made her soul bleed tears.
Smiling softly, she smoothed his skin with one hand and followed her touch with the cooling caress of the wet cloth. As she wiped his brow, he made another chuffing sound in the back of his throat before the remaining air escaped through his mouth and rolled over her wrists. She peered at him and was struck – not with her awakened mind – but with the primeval subconscious of her hidden genius. Before she could give it any thought, she started to sing.
The Saiyan song had been fierce and guttural, unforgiving and pitiless. Though she used the same words, they rolled over her lips like a lover's soft caress. Her voice was sweet and haunting, soothing and full of faith and longing. To her, it had been a prayer. Now, she made it a lullaby. Instead of sending her warrior off into the unknown to face demons that - if he was worthy of them - could destroy the parts of him he believed were distasteful and unwanted, she - with a simple change in her soft, lilting tone - sent him on a journey of worthy self-discovery, sending with him all the hopes and wishes she could give for safe passage and safe return.
When she was done, she felt the deep exhaustion following the release of absolute emotional release. Shaking, she had to swallow more than once to regain control of her breathing. It was… shocking.. how much singing the silly little song had meant to her, and she was embarrassed by it. She hadn't planned it, nor did she really consider what she was doing as she did it. The tune… simply erupted from her as though she were the only one capable of giving it life.
Suddenly feeling very self-conscious despite knowing her audience was deeply asleep, she had to escape. She didn't know what the hell she was feeling, but she knew it was too powerful for her in this moment and she didn't trust herself. Any minute now, the dam would burst and she'd be reduced to a blubbering mass of sobs and tears and there was no reason at all for it.
Even so, she was glad she had done it, and she realized with utter conviction that she had meant it. If she could, she really would pour her own soul into his if it made him strong enough to face and defeat his demons.
Sighing deeply, she crumpled the washcloth in her fist and threw it into the sink. Something made her hesitate, though, and she turned towards him again. She considered him briefly before leaning over him to press her lips to his brow, as though he were a child and she were kissing away the fears of a nightmare. She paused there a moment to breathe in his scent, and combed her fingers through his hair before standing again.
She turned from him then, reluctantly leaving him to the darkness of his room.
She never saw the tears on his cheeks.
AN: I'm not certain if I want to leave this as a one shot or not. If I added to it, I'd likely only add one more chapter, maaaaaaybe two, from Vegeta's point of view. I like this angsty crap, but I'm not certain if anyone else does. I get a couple of followers now and then, but I'm uncertain if my ideas are too farfetched, AU, OOC, or whatever because I don't get many reviews. I'm ok with that. I'm a fringe author after all, and I write what appeals to me, not the masses. Can't help it. I write what I feel. Anyway, if you want to hear the inspiration behind this, look up "Mercy of Darkness" by Two Steps From Hell on the album Archangel. Freaking fan-fucking-tastic, gorgeous piece of music. I suppose the Saiyan version would be several voices, all in a low timber, and more similar to a chant. Obviously, Bulma would bring her humanity into it, changing it from a cold, 'honor, unto death' theme into a prayer that expresses love, faith, and hope to the one making the life-changing journey. Vegeta, clearly, would be able to tell the difference.