-I'm sorry this is late - my computer had major uploading glitches, so despite MANY attempts to upload yesterday when the chapters were ready, here they are today. I LOVE my dad!-
Okay, there is allusion to sex as well as specific acts in the actual process in this chapter. Nothing physically graphic – I've become even more convinced in my reading experience that the best love scenes are those that speak more figurative than literal. Add to that the fact that I absolutely am not going to write porn. So sorry if I misled with the gory comment.
And if you thought I was just kidding about the song lyric infusion – welcome to multimedia time. So warning: this chapter and next are small, with a good dose of lyrics. Go directly to the next chapter as well. That's why I've posted them both together. And sorry for these chapters – but the 'happy' ending won't be coming for quite a while. LavenderGoddessV definitely influenced this story.
Torn by Natalie Imbruglia – Bra's side
Falls on Me by Fuel – Goten's side
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Chapter 15: Once You've Let the Devil In…
It's Hard to Kick Him Out
OR
In the Space Between
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Why did she fall?
Why did he want her to?
And why did he let her chose it?
There were answers they might admit and ones they would dare not breathe. And thoughts of why the other called to them so.
And yet even he, was amazed by her descent.
-
"Runaway Train"
-Call you up in the middle of the night
Like a firefly without a light
You were there like a blowtorch burning
I was a key that could use a little turning
-So tired that I couldn't even sleep
So many secrets I couldn't keep
I promised myself I wouldn't weep
One more promise I couldn't keep
-It seems no one can help me now,
I'm in too deep; there's no way out
This time I have really led myself astray
-Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
-Bought a ticket for a runaway train
Like a madman laughing at the rain
A little out of touch, a little insane
It's just easier than dealing with the pain
-Runaway train, never coming back
Runaway train, tearing up the track
Runaway train, burning in my veins
I run away but it always seems the same
-
She crept out from his bed a few hours later, not even daring to glance at his still form. Shame gagged her as she hurriedly dressed and with shaking hands, she slipped out of his apartment.
Dende, what had she done?
And Akuma smirked.
This wasn't over.
-
The water pelted down on Bra as she leaned her head against the shower wall. Her skin felt rough, red from the extreme scrubbing she'd given it. It was pointless though of course, just as the last eight showers had been – two or more a day since she'd seen him. If she'd thought his kiss had left marks or the vestiges of a mere dream, well, they had nothing on the reality.
She still felt him all around her and it made her sick. Even sicker because it didn't disgust her as she knew it should.
She hadn't been a virgin – she and Tenshi had slept together a few times, though they'd made an effort not to make that become a huge part of their relationship. Tenshi was her first and had been her only. She felt her stomach heave at the past tense.
And she'd cheated on him with Goten of all people!
A dry sob wracked her as she had already spent all the tears she possessed.
She'd said she wasn't restless.
She'd said she wanted to be settled.
She'd said she wanted to put down roots, be grounded.
She'd said a lot of things during the fight.
And then she'd turned right around and done something that could ruin all her hopes.
She couldn't turn to anyone either – she'd unplugged her phone and turned her cell off, dreading Tenshi's apologetic voice or Pan, Trunks, her mother, even Sheila's concerned questions. Thankfully no one had tried approaching the apartment, obviously instead letting her cool off. She was glad they hadn't. She couldn't face them, not with the feel of Goten tattooed into her flesh as surely as the dragon on his back. It almost felt like he'd somehow buried a piece of himself inside her, so that she could never escape him, ruining something irreplaceable in her and Tenshi's relationship in the process.
And she could just bet that Goten didn't even give a d-.
I'm torn
I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed (ashamed)
lying naked on the floor (bare and broken)
illusion never changed
into something real
I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn
Bra's head shot up, hearing the click of the bathroom door. Her breath sped up and she internally cursed the fact she couldn't ki-sense. A thief wouldn't come into her bathroom though, right? So maybe…
"Tenshi?" she called hesitantly, dreading the answer.
Suddenly there was a presence behind her and a finger trailing down her bare side. She trembled.
"I haven't been mistaken for an angel in a long time," he murmured, his hot breath dancing over her ear.
"What-what are you doing here?" she stuttered, trying to build up the nerve to move. But she didn't dare turn towards him, get sucked in by those abyss-like eyes.
"You left the door unlocked," Goten said simply. He'd actually come to talk, but finding the door unlocked and her all alone in the shower… It was too tempting; she'd always been. "You know that's very dangerous for a woman living alone," he commented seriously, as if he wasn't beginning to ghost his hands over her, as if tracing her figure.
She closed her eyes. This wasn't happening. It couldn't, not again. How could he…
And she trembled.
you're a little late
I'm already torn
I've seen you hangin' round
This darkness where I'm bound
And this black hole I've dug for me
"Who knows who might've come in if I hadn't come along," he finished obliviously, with a trace of a wicked smirk.
"I thought you didn't sleep with the same girl twice?" Somehow, miraculously, the question came out. His hands stilled for a second.
"Consider yourself the exception."
So I guess they're right
I should have seen just what was there and not some holy light
but you crawled beneath my veins and now I don't care,
I have no luck
I don't miss it all that much
there's just so many things
that I can't touch
And then his hands were on her waist and she was turning or being turned (did it matter?) and the line between what was him and what was her was blurring and his eyes were like the black and expanse of space and she couldn't stand and her shame was lost in a haze of desire and want and things she couldn't touch…
Obliteration.
And silently within
With hands touching skin
The shock breaks my disease
and I can breathe
-
She leaned against him heavily, trying to ignore the way he was fiddling with her hair with such calm fascination. She pushed away from him, turning back to the stream of water that had turned cold without them noticing. He didn't stop playing with her hair though, even advancing slightly to keep himself close to her.
She reached for her loofah, hand shaking as the shame welled up again. And yet she could not tell him to leave.
A hand grasped it before she could. "Let me, Princess," he said quietly, lathering it up and slowly beginning to wash her. He started at her shoulders and worked his way down, taking fastidious care to cover every inch of her body.
Bra felt her lips turn into a bitter smile. Didn't that just defeat her whole purpose.
Before she knew it though, he was on his knees and his hands wrapped around her waist again. She nearly slipped as he gently spun her, randomly thinking it was odd to see him in such a submissive position. She braced herself against the wall as his intent became clear.
She'd never let Tenshi do this, she thought idly, before her world became mere sensation and she fisted her hands in Goten's hair as she really was going to collapse and shock and pleasure became one.
And when her world stopped spinning, he was there, grinning and licking his lips like the food-obsessed Saiyan he was born. And she was drawn in again, kissing him hard on the lips and wrapping herself as much around him as he did to her.
Your faith like the pain
Draws me in again
She washes all my wounds for me
-
Goten decided he loved her hair. It was so, so tangable and loose, so unlike his own thick gravity-defying strands.
He marveled as he meticulously shampooed it and rinsed it out, her tired form brooking no protest to his ministrations. In fact, as he helped her step out of the shower, she was barely able to contain a yawn. He wrapped her and himself in towels and set about drying her hair.
He fanned her hair out as it dried, moderately surprised by the fact the mane didn't become curly. He'd heard that's what happened to a lot of women's hair when it was dried. Instead it fell in soft waves, very soft Goten thought as he ran his fingers through it.
Beautiful.
And all of your weight
And all you dream
falls on me, it falls on me.
And your beautiful sky
the light you bring
falls on me, it falls on me.
But then he'd always known that she'd be, even when she'd been a child. Pan had grown up nicely, he was removed enough to notice that, but she'd retained a certain gawky, coltish way about her. Bra, however, had always had a certain air of elegance and hidden strength. Her looks had promised a simpler beauty than her mother's, with sharper features and more withdrawn temperament, not as fiery or showy. She smoldered rather than flamed. Even her hair was a more subdued shade of blue than her mother's, lighter in color. He wondered idly if anybody had ever noticed the fact.
That was more differentiation than Goten – only his features differed from his father, being softer, the direct opposite of Bra.
His eyes sharpened at the thought, but he shook it off.
He had something, someone, more important to focus on.
The darkness in my veins
I never could explain
And I wonder if you ever see
Will you still believe?
His eyes finally tore themselves from her hair to take notice of the fact Bra had succumbed to exhaustion. She was asleep. And he smiled.
In some state of drugging peace, he finished drying her, before dressing her and tucking her in bed. She splayed out in luxurious, unconscious freedom under the sheet and he marveled. He was tempted much to tuck herself to him and lie there with her, as she'd cut short their previous time together, but he couldn't.
Not yet.
Not when he didn't know what he'd say to her when she awoke. Not until he'd decided what he was going to do. Having sex was relatively easy; it was the morning after that was killer.
He actually had come just to talk, though all the words he'd imagined saying now seemed false and weak. He'd wanted to see her, but he hadn't intended to break his vow.
Or had he?
Had he finally decided to honor his last vow, over his second?
He turned to the terrace and made his way into the night, leaving the glass door open behind him, taking a deep breath before jumping into the air.
Goten hadn't told Bra about his final vow, though he now saw it as inevitable. Probably inevitable even if they hadn't slept together, considering her dogged pursuit of all the secrets he kept close.
It was actually an outgrowth of his first one: to not be the man his father was. His father had abandoned his wife and family numerous times, not even including his final disappearing act. So he'd vowed when he'd found 'the one', he would never leave her, her or the family he would start with her. No cheating, no behavior that would disrupt the ideal picture of domesticity.
Was Bra the one?
She was akin to him, in power, in blood, in the shadow of another. She challenged him, fought with him, cared for him, laughed for him, slept with him, and seemed to still manage to see Goten even in Akuma.
So would he honor his vow? Honor her pursuit?
Could he make that change?
Am I that strong to carry on
I might change your life
I might save my world
could you save me?
And in his fanciful musings, he quite forgot one simple variable: Tenshi, Bra's boyfriend.
The angel.
-
For whatever reason, she fell, in a moment, in an instant. Thence comes the true test.
There's one overriding truth about falling. You always land. Falling ends. Even Alice landed in the end in Wonderland.
And then there is a choice. Either stay in the pit… or claw your way up the walls to the light.
Be my prince charming and save me from the ghouls.
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