The usual warnings apply. You know what they are. One extra I'd like to add is this chapter may be a trigger for anybody who is having or had experiences with physical abuse. I had to borrow the single experience of my own life where someone I trusted raised a hand to me. Never will happen again, but once is enough to stick in my mind and keep hurting.
Sorry for the long delay. Writer's block, my Sesshoumaru and Rin fic "The Last Day", roleplaying and severe self doubts kinda kept me away for awhile.
o
o
o
Believe Again
Part Fourteen
o
o
o
If I had to feel bad for anybody in this whole mess, it was Paikuhan. Seriously. Piccolo got so rough that Paikuhan became the referee that pulled us apart when we got too crazy in our spars. Let me tell you, it can't be fun having to drag a scrawny little SSJ and a huge Namek apart no matter what the reason. More often than not, he ended up getting punched, kicked or dragged into the battle. Despite that, Paikuhan was pretty good at separating us. I should hope so, considering he beat major ass in Hell without breaking a sweat.
See, what kept happening was Piccolo would punch me back to the present each time I showed the slightest lapse in attention. My stupid mind kept fluttering off every time I stopped moving. That meant Piccolo had to punch me in the stomach, my barely-healed stomach, every few minutes.
A bludgeon slammed me into the ground. I sat up, rubbing my jaw. "Hey!"
Piccolo stood over me in the mist with almost no expression on his face. The vein on his forehead betrayed his anger. He said, "I told you not to let yourself think. Just act. Save the thinking for before and after the battle."
"Give the poor girl a break." Paikuhan walked up from the side. He'd long since tossed aside his weighted robe and hat. "Maybe you need to sit down and take a break as well."
"I have no need for breaks. Who asked you, anyway?"
I slipped backwards on my butt to put distance between myself and Piccolo. He never used that tone before. It had a growling undertone that didn't sound anything like his normal, sexy rasp. His voice was always like velvet over steel, and that time I heard more steel than velvet.
Being dead tired is one thing, but being dead and tired is ridiculous! I felt so exhausted that all I wanted to do was download some music off the super fast computer in my room and try to sleep. I mean, come on, even the best fighters in the universe need a little rest between spars and fights, right?
I growled, "Well I'm sorry if I'm not a frigging android who can go on and on and on without getting tired or needing a mental break! I thought you would understand that, Piccolo."
"Tch. Fine." He flipped his cape and turned away. "But when you come back, expect the beating to be twice as intense."
"I'm jumping for joy."
Piccolo growled at my back. "I don't appreciate the sarcasm right now."
What crawled up his ass and died?
I shot him the dirtiest look and stormed into my room, waving Paikuhan off so he wouldn't follow. Flipped the computer on, typed in a search and sat back with my arms crossed. I'd been listening to rock so much that I was getting a little tired of it. This computer gave me access to the same websites I visited at home. Great for wasting time while Piccolo wasn't around. My best time-waster, I think, was making a myspace right under his nose. Even named myself piccolofangirl there. Heh, if only he knew.
The MP3 search page loaded after a brief delay. I chose classical this time around and gave Mozart's Requiem a try. The computer moved fast enough to let me download it all in one sitting. While I listened to it, I wrote. I had to catch up since I'm pathetically behind.
Writer's block and a ton of other distractions kept me away from writing for so long. It was hard to sit down and get back in the routine of writing. Plus the Mozart music was so cool that I stopped a lot to listen. My brain half-consciously digested the rhythms of each movement while I forced my finger flicking into something useful, like typing.
And something slashed across my thoughts.
Piccolo's ki aura had changed. I wasn't paying much attention to it since I rarely pay attention to friendly auras. Like the music, its rhythm and tone felt different. Like the difference between major and minor chords and eighth and sixteenth notes in music. Minor chords are a darker sound. The Requiem is loaded with 'em.
But why would his ki go from "major" to "minor" and vibrate so differently? It used to be like a big kettle drum and now...I really don't know how to describe it. It's like someone hitting a drum harder and faster with cymbal crashes in between. I'm not talking about during a fight, I mean all the time. Even when he suppressed it I sensed the difference.
Maybe it's a reaction to being dead. But nobody complained about my aura feeling different.
Mm, the room smelled like a desert.
"What are you listening to, kid?"
I startled at the voice. Sometimes I hate how Piccolo can walk so quietly.
"Huh? Oh, Mozart. It's classical music, not rock."
He crossed his arms, scowling. "Is that why I can't understand a word they're saying?"
I had to laugh. He can be so naive! "They're singing in Latin, Piccolo. This is the kind of music I sing at church. Well not quite like this, but it's choral music. I think Mozart was as big in his time as some of the musical celebrities of today. Had to be if his music is still around hundreds of years after he died."
Piccolo's tense expression relaxed a little. "Tch. I guess it's all right. Better than some of the other crap you listen to all day long."
"Whatever." I faced forward to continue typing. Better if I sounded nonchalant while I asked the question rolling around in my mind. "Piccolo, has my aura changed at all since we came here?"
"It's gotten stronger." he said.
"Well duh, I know it's stronger. What I mean is has the feel of it changed?"
"No."
We fell silent after that. I sat there typing while Piccolo stood behind me like a statue. How he can stand perfectly still for such endless lengths of time is beyond me. Then I realized he was trying to read over my shoulder and moved so my spiky hair blocked his view of the screen.
I groaned when he came closer, confirming my suspicion. "Do you mind?"
"I don't like it when you hide things from me."
"I'm not hiding anything!" I covered the screen with both hands. "I just don't like people seeing some of my stuff before it's been tweaked and proofread. Plus it's really hard to concentrate with someone peeping over my shoulder."
"Oh, really? Then what's this about my aura?" Piccolo put his finger on the screen to point out the passage he spoke of.
I slapped his hand away and wiped off the gooey fingerprint he left behind. "It's different." I admitted. "What's going on with you? You're...you're bitchier than usual."
I swear his eyes lit on fire. "First Paikuhan and now you? Feh. I don't have to explain myself. In the meantime...you can take that part out of the story. It's not important."
"Hell no! I think it's pretty important." I got paranoid, saved the file and took out the disk.
Turns out my suspicion was right. Piccolo reached over and shut off the computer. Boy am I glad he doesn't realize the story is already on the disk and I could pick up right where I left off on another computer.
"Feh."
"What the hell was that for?" My eyes followed his hand from the tower to his side. Was I imagining things, or did his fingernails grow longer and sharper? I knew Piccolo's body as well as my own, even details like his nails. Usually he kept them to a quarter inch past his fingertips. Not now. They were least an inch long and resembled white daggers.
Piccolo replied simply, "You don't need to bring my aura up." He followed my eyes to his hand. "What now?"
"If it's not important, why make a big deal out of it, huh? And when's the last time you took care of those?"
His big fists closed so tight the tendons stood out in sharp relief under the green skin. I heard his knuckles crack. He sneered and crossed his arms. "What is it with you, Cyndi?"
Nothing pissed me off more than somebody who was clearly hiding something and refused to admit it. Had he said he didn't want to talk about it, I would've left him alone. But he didn't.
I might be a short shit, but the abrupt straightening of my spine made me feel taller than Piccolo. "What is it with me? I think I should be asking you that question, Piccolo. There's something you aren't telling me, and it's pissing me off. Just spill it already! If there's something going on I can help you with, let me try!"
He looked me square in the eye. "Nothing is wrong."
I sniffed. "It stinks in here. You know what that smell is, Piccolo? It's bullshit."
Piccolo's frown deepened. He quirked a lip and bared one fang. I was trying his patience. We both knew it.
He looked attractive like he always does while pissed off, but it's only sexy when his anger is directed at someone besides me. Then it goes from sexy to scary real fast. I wisely refrained from commenting on it.
We stood there staring each other down, neither willing to be the first to look away. I wanted to die again - I hate lengthy eye contact. Plus, Piccolo kept narrowing his eyes and relaxing them again. It was some silent signal that I didn't understand at all.
I got furious. Just exploded, flinging my fists up in the air. I felt myself slowly go super. My own aura made me squint because the room was previously dim. "Dammit, Piccolo! You used to actually talk to me! Why clam up now?"
"I have nothing to say," came his cool reply. He looked down his pointy nose at me. Tambourine gave me that exact same look during his visit. That look that said, you're beneath what I am, why do you waste your breath talking to me when you know I won't answer?
My guts felt swollen and hot.
"What happened to the Piccolo who actually said he loved me?"
Still no reply, just that infuriating stare.
I snarled and stomped my feet. "TALK!"
God, I must have looked funny...or insane. Tiny little me screaming and stomping like a madwoman at a seven foot tall green man who didn't look at all impressed.
Piccolo snorted at my irate posturing. "Quit acting like a two year old."
Ooh! That did it!
"You bastard!" I ran at him with my hands up and grabbed the front of his shirt, trying to yank his face down to my level. "I can't help the way I am! You're the one that's being a total ass- "
WHAM!
The world flipped. I bounced off the wall and landed on the floor. Plaster and paint that fell with me, I heard it crumble. My body left a six-inch dent in the wall. Might have been deeper if I weighed more.
Piccolo still stood over me, frozen, his right hand raised. HUGE hunks of my hair and skin clung to his sharp nails. The hairs went limp and faded to brown without my power to supply them. Piccolo stared down at me, his lips parted and his frown gone. He appeared shocked. Horrified.
My scalp stung. I touched the side of my head in disbelief and felt four long slashes extending out of my hairline. They didn't bleed, of course, but they burned all the way to my skull.
I loved Piccolo. I trusted that he would never, ever hurt me this way.
He'd hit me.
Yes, he beat the hell out of me all the time during our spars. Sometimes he'd nail me from behind when I got snarky, but never once had he hit me out of anger or outside a training session.
Piccolo looked just as stupefied about it as I felt. It was like those last three seconds in a Twilight Zone episode where the main character realizes the irony of their situation. I half expected to hear the theme song.
Any second now...
Silence.
No naked dolls or doors or eyeballs floated by. No spiral portals. No weird, deep voice lamenting about how the real girl and the anime Namek just crossed into The Twilight Zone.
There was a long, terrified stillness as my super aura drained away. I stared up at Piccolo. The rage in my gut became acid in my throat. I've never experienced such a searing, helpless feeling of betrayal until then. I knew before my eyes blurred that my face was turning that ugly color of red it always turns when I'm going to cry.
Piccolo stepped towards me. "C-Cyndi?"
"Get away from me. Getawaygetawaygetaway." I sat up.
He stopped.
With as much dignity as I could muster, I stood up and walked past Piccolo to sit on the bed. I stared at the floor, my hand covering the slashes. If I stared at the floor, I didn't have to look at him. The pain from the wounds was already gone, but the emotional hurt still ricocheted around my brain and made a beeline for my heart.
The mattress sagged as Piccolo sat down. "Cyndi," he said softly. He sounded like himself again, even his aura felt normal.
Still, I leaned away, half-growling, half-whimpering, "Don't touch me."
My mind was still stuck on that painful moment of impact. The look in his eyes, his snarling lips and his huge hand smashing across the side of my head. It all happened so fast that I hadn't had time to register the images until right then.
"I don't know what came over me. I didn't mean to - "
"Shut up, Piccolo! Shut up! You hit me!" I almost gagged on the flood of tears.
Piccolo looked down at the backs of his hands. I saw them in my peripheral vision. His nails were short again, but I didn't care about that little detail. All I could think of was this painful betrayal. My protector hurt me. The one person I could run to. I couldn't run to him this time because he was the source of pain I wanted to escape. Should I hug him or run away?
I sat there and cried. Tears, snot and drool poured out of me like a waterfall. Yeah, that must've been real attractive. Piccolo placed his hand, the same hand that slapped me before, lightly on my back. I didn't acknowledge it. I didn't want to acknowledge any part of the last ten minutes.
He kept talking, softly. "I thought you were going to attack me. It was a gut reaction...I did it by reflex."
I blubbered. "You should know more than anybody that I'd never hit you without a good reason. I'd punch a wall before I let myself punch you."
"If you saw yourself, you'd think different."
Was that a backhanded apology, or did he just say I caused this? It had to be my fault. I'm the one who ran at him like a cavewoman with a club in hand. "So I'm the stupid one here."
"Are you going to be okay?" Piccolo moved his hand off my back. The way he asked it sounded more like will you stop crying, already?
"Yeah." I lied through my teeth and stood up. "I have to go to the bathroom." And I left him sitting on the bed. I closed the door, turned on the sink and cried into a towel. I cried while I used the toilet and cried while I paced around the room. Every time I thought I'd stop, the memory hit me and the tears flooded anew. That stupid hot lump refused to dislodge itself from my heart. God, I hate this! I'm such a crybaby! Do I really have a right to cry about one smack when people get beat senseless by a loved one every day?
I managed to stop whimpering and scrubbed the evidence of crying off my face. The gashes Piccolo left behind weren't as big as they felt, but they were pretty deep. They were already healing over and in a few hours I'm pretty sure no trace of their presence would remain. I tried to fake a smile, but I don't fake expressions well. I'm pretty good at looking indifferent when I want to...that's about the limit to my "masking". So I plastered my best 'nothing' expression on my face and walked out of the bathroom.
Piccolo sat by the wall, his usual spot, and glanced up when I plopped back down at the computer. "Do me a favor."
"Yeah?" I tried not to notice the dent in the wall by the door. Hard to do, Piccolo was sitting right beneath it.
He didn't look at my face. "Let's forget this happened. I won't mention it again if you don't."
Are you kidding me? He should've asked me to carry an elephant up Mt. Everest. I had a better chance of doing that than I did of forgetting what happened. Still, if it made him feel better, I guess I could fake it. But, like the line in Stevie Nicks' song, Illume...'I can not pretend that the heartache falls away'.
"Fine," I gushed fake enthusiasm all over my reply. Tones of voice I can imitate pretty good. I'm glad I was facing away from Piccolo, my expression would have betrayed me.
Uneasy quiet fell like the fallout of an atomic bomb. The blast was over, but its consequences would remain for a long time.
I had hell trying to fall asleep that night. I feared I'd dream about Piccolo doing much worse than a mere slap.
o
Clanging metal made me wince. I hooked Di's bo under Paikuhan's and wrenched it out of his hands. We watched it flip upwards into the darkness and clatter down somewhere in the mist. Usually Paikuhan disarmed me. This was the first time I managed to knock his bo away.
"YES!" I landed in a crouch and pumped my fist in the air. "I beat you!"
"Not quite." Paikuhan charged. "You removed my weapon, but I still have my arms and legs."
"Oh, crap!" I dove blindly aside. Not fast enough.
Paikuhan yanked the bo from my hands and pointed it at my throat. "You must never claim yourself victorious until your opponent is either dead or incapacitated. Many lose a battle because they celebrate too soon."
He had a point there. I glanced up at Piccolo to see whether he agreed, but of course he did. I looked away without saying anything. Lately I'd been kind of avoiding him. I mean this as in talking to him as little as possible, not going out of my way to get near him, that kind of stuff. Sometimes we happen to show up in one location at the same time.
My heart winced at the mere thought of his name. I fought the urge to cringe each time I glimpsed his hands. The right one, once so gentle, had caused me harm.
I never knew it was possible to hurt like this. I guess I was stupid to think that I'd be lucky and my relationship with Piccolo would be like shitting rainbows and Carebears every day. Now I began to think chewing glass was more appealing than having to say something to him. There were moments where I ached to hug him. I always lost the desire before I could raise my arms. Was I trying to punish him somehow by digging the guilt in deeper? Was he punishing me back by not asking how I felt? Did he even realize the pain he caused didn't vanish when the visible wounds did?
It feels like the grand canyon just opened between us. A huge, jagged gash. Will it heal, or is it going to fester?
"Cyndi?"
My eyes refocused on Paikuhan. He stood in front of me with his hands on his hips. I watched his eyes go from Piccolo to me and back.
He leaned over and whispered, "Is everything all right? You two seem more tense than usual."
Instantly I hung my head. Not far, but enough that my hair blocked my face. Don't cry, dammit. "Yeah, we're fine." Was my nose growing from all the fibs I've told in the past day? I just didn't have the courage to be honest. Not with Piccolo standing right there in hearing range. We both agreed not to talk about this, right? Well, I'm not going to go around betraying a promise I made to him no matter what. "I guess we're just really focused."
"I see. Well...you know where to find me if you need to talk." Paikuhan's arched brow suggested that he didn't entirely believe me. He straightened, sighed and patted my shoulder. Emaks aren't a very touchy-touchy race. A pat on the shoulder is their version of a hug. Embracing, he once told me, is only appropriate when a married Emak couple is about to make love.
If only he knew how badly I wanted to talk. Somehow, I doubted that Paikuhan - who was so celibate he never even held hands with any woman besides his mother, spent much of his life in a monastery, didn't eat meat, had freaking PERIODS while he was alive and refrained from swearing or showing any anger - would know how to deal with relationship issues. Besides, I don't think he'd look good holding a clipboard and muttering "mmhmm, go on" while I blathered on about how much my life sucks right now.
Still, I did appreciate his concern. He'd let me know the avenue was open. It's just kinda hard for me to sit face to face and spill my guts to people I don't know well. Words exchanged over an instant messenger is one thing, you don't have to watch the face of whoever you're talking to. All you have are the words they put up on the screen. It's different in person.
The hardest part of this whole mess is seeing Piccolo fall off the pedestal he's been on since I first laid eyes on him. Will I ever be able to pick him up, dust him off, glue him together and put him back up there?
I guess only time will tell.