Notes: This was written to replace an old fic of mine wherein Yamcha remembers his breakup with Bulma in a very stupid, childish way. (Please don't bother looking for it, as I have taken it down.) It was one of my first fanfics, written when I was very young, and it was horrible. One of my reviewers commented that I was oversimplifying the subject, and I can now understand what he meant. So: to my anonymous reviewer from five years ago, I thank you, and I hope this will make up for my past transgressions.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with the creator of Dragon Ball Z, and claim no profit from this story.
…Harker's first meeting with the Count acts as a metonym for the entire text, suggesting with its indistinguishable location the potential creation of a 'Mittel Land' between reality and illusion, a land neither wholly material and locatable nor defined by the strict negations of those terms.
–David Rogers in an introduction to Dracula
MITTEL LAND
She was lying beside him, barely perceptible in the gloom: something hovering on the edge of his consciousness. She was no more than a blurred figure, something distant; inconspicuous; impersonal. He could barely make out the soft line of her face –as completely atypical as every other woman's face in the gloom.
She slept while he watched.
He could feel her warmth along side him, a pleasant contrast to the cool sheets tangled around their forms. He could hear her deep, even breaths, calm and soothing. He could smell her soft, fresh scent, musky with sex and something of himself.
He couldn't see her in the dark.
He slid out of bed, shivering when his feet met the cold floor. He stood there for a moment, letting the cool air brush his form, soothing; quiet. He can see his clothes in dark piles on the floor, desperately, randomly scattered.
His trousers first –civilized, enclosing things that they are.
She is awake, he knows, watching him from the bed; evaluating him like so many of her machines. She doesn't move, and says nothing. He knows she is testing him, one last time.
He doesn't look at her, instead dressing himself by route. Zippers and buttons, and his eyes are distant and unfocused. He doesn't have the urge to give in to her anymore; he doesn't need to let her win. He can feel her eyes on him, pricking at the back of his neck.
Is this how it is going to be? She asks the question without saying a word.
He doesn't want to look at her. His eyes are fixated on the dark paint of the wall, black in the shadows of night. Yes.
His shirt next; white silk sliding over his chest, hardening his nipples. It looks blazing, brilliant in the gloom; whiter than her skin.
Still, there is the quiet. He breathes.
He finds the door easily. He has been in this place so many times that his body –his mind-- simply knows where to go. Yet… Just as he crosses the threshold, he pauses. It is no more than a brief instant, a momentary lapse into something long forgotten. And for one breathless second of vertigo, he wants her to stop him.
She doesn't.
His body flushes with sudden heat, and he swiftly strides down the dark hall.
In her room, Bulma rolls over, and goes back to sleep.