A/N - I just want to explain the lay out of this chapter to avoid any confusion. It's probably unecessary, but just in case ... The first scene is a flashback of Vegeta and Mina's time before the events in CWD. The second scene is back to present day, but two months later from chapter five, which was set in October. The third scene is yet ANOTHER flashback between Mina and Vegeta, just before the events in CWD. I also want to reassure you, because even though what you're about to read you may not like, this story IS a Vegeta Bulma fiction. You have nothing to worry about. I shall say no more, other than ... ENJOY.
Thanks to Adli for proofing this chapter :)
Depths of Darkness
Chapter Six
Chips of cinder landed on her shoulder, sizzled into the so-called impenetrable layer of clothing that each and every one of the warriors around her was dressed in. SIl knelt down into the dirt, picked up a shiny object from the floor, a silver coin, its surface taunting her with the gruesome reflection of her blood slathered face. Strands of red hair had meshed with the blood on her cheek, and left a tingling, itchy feeling when she detached it.
It was loud, warriors barging past each other to gawp at what the other had found. It could be anything of little significance; a watch, a necklace, a severed head. If there was something to look at, they would look at it, converse over it, and most likely, eat it, because the day was done and idle social activities were the last thing they could do.
Sil always felt that touch of remorse after purging a planet. She bet none of the others did. That's why she very rarely came into contact with them. They would laugh and cheer after three days of slaughtering innocent inhabitants, whereas she needed to be alone to reflect on the horror that she had reluctantly been a part of. After an hour or so, she would re-join the group, pretend to take some interest in what they were gabbling about. But after seeing two large warriors smacking each other over the head with a pair of limbs they'd ripped off a native's corpse, she decided to vacate to somewhere a little less … unruly.
She swigged from her canteen while she took in the destruction of her surroundings, the odd fire here and there still burning in random patches on the ground. Vegeta had segregated himself from the rest of them, choosing to stand beneath one of the few remaining trees, shielding himself from any unwanted attention. Considering they had spent three days on this planet wiping out an entire population, Vegeta looked as crisp and shiny as he did when he started. Albeit from the couple of lashings he'd received from Frieza the day before. She wandered over to him, and realised that being here, killing others, was probably a respite for him, a few days to release the anger he had accumulated on Frieza's ship.
He glanced her way, but was more concerned for the small lump of white food he had grasped in his hands. The food was what they had all been given on their way to this planet, in a small container. The portion was about five by seven centimetres, but would fill a warrior up for days. Frieza made sure that the substance lacked any real nutrients, or anything that would further a warrior in strength. Just enough to complete the mission. She shook the canteen, shook it to test the remaining contents, and handed it to Vegeta, which he snubbed wordlessly. As expected.
"You're going to need to wash that down with something," she said, shaking the canteen to tempt him.
"I'm fine," he said, twisting towards her.
A strong pang in her chest left her speechless, and they simply stared at one another in silence, the laughter from other warriors like a distant onset of white noise. A grey, severed arm fell between them, bouncing off the tree trunk, and 'thunking' to the floor. The skin was torn, marred with several teeth and talon marks. It must have been ripped off by someone's bare hands.
"What's this? A meeting?" Kronas strode over, a hulk of a warrior, with long brown hair always loose and lapping at the small of his back. He stared at them both, eyes flittering back and forth, audaciously waiting for a response he knew he wasn't going to get.
He clucked his tongue. "You two spend a lot of time together. Me and the rest of group have a bet on, you see. To see whether … you two … are fucking or not. The winner gets to eat this fine chunk of prime meat, from none other than the ruler of this wasted planet." He pointed with the tip of his boot to the chewed up arm.
Sil sincerely doubted it was royal meat. Why would he have tossed it aside so carelessly? But it was Kronas. Anger ticked over very gradually in her head. It was under control. She knew when and when not to use it. This was undoubtedly a situation not to react to, so she let Kronas play out his little game. But her heart lodged itself into her throat when he turned to Vegeta.
"But, if it is true, Vegeta, what would … Lord Frieza say?"
Blue threads of energy licked their way up Vegeta's clenched fist. Sil jumped between the two men, stepping right up to Kronas with her chin held high.
"Yeah, we are," she garbled, standing her ground and hoping to the heavens Vegeta wasn't now aiming that energy at the back of her head.
Kronas frowned, registering the information like a hard punch to the gut. The sly laughter that had wafted over from the other warriors had now dulled into a wary silence.
"So, it's true?" Kronas said, his voice and tone softer.
"Uh-huh. Your little 'bet' wasn't made up by anyone other than yourself, was it? 'Cause you've been dying to get into my pants since we started working for that creep." She leaned into his ear so he could feel the warmth of her breath on his skin, and whispered, "I'd never have you. Ever."
A slip of air brushed by her neck when he tried to grab her, but she counteracted it with startling speed, lifting him off the ground by gripping onto the muscles in his throat. The cartilage in his neck crunched beneath the pad of her thumb. It made her smile, watching him behave so pathetically.
"You know, you try too hard. That's your flaw, Kronas," she said, and pouted as his eyes bulged out of their sockets.
With very minimal effort, she conjured a thin wire of energy, and used it to singe the material of his pants until they weakened and dropped to the floor, exposing his genitals.
"That, and, of course, your small dick."
He gagged, and she released him to an eruption of laughter coming from the other warriors. He squirmed on the floor, covering himself, his skin changing from an olive green, to a pale blue. Elation flooded through her entire body, and, failing to subdue the grinning, she turned around to gloat to Vegeta. But he'd left.
December 22nd
Bulma couldn't stop the huge beaming smile she'd been supressing as she sprinted down the dusty corridors of an old castle. About three miles prior, a handful of people had chased her through the woods, wanting whatever they could get their hands on, hollering foreign obscenities she didn't have the patience to even try and translate. The name 'Jo' was being thrown around like a hypnotic melody, evenly presenting itself so that she took it away to mull over afterwards. But she'd evaded these people so cleanly, sharply, she doubted they would come looking for her again. And if they did, she would be ready, laces tied and ready to sprint. A tightness in her chest begged her to stop just outside one of the bedrooms of this Gothic castle. She clutched her chest, at the material of her now damp hoodie, while she wandered in and checked out the surroundings.
A four-posted bed, glistening oak in the pale winter sunlight, stood in the centre of the room, its sweeping red sheets making it more distinguishable and alluring than the other rooms she'd passed. Dirt and mould had graced all the furniture,snaking around the intricately craved bed posts, but other than that, the room looked barely used. Antique objects, adorned with gold, silver or platinum were dotted around the room like trophies. A castle like this, she would have suspected squatters to have thrived in. But it was empty. Every floorboard cracked and echoed. Her breathing had to be quashed by covering her mouth. The adrenalin still coursed through her veins, so she ran up to the bed and flung her entire weight onto it, feeling like a naughty kid as she thrashed her legs about. An eruption of dust bounced into the air and sank down again, stubbornly trying to land back where it had been sitting for the last year.
She smiled, let the feather-light heat from the sun scope the right side of her body, and closed her eyes.
"Are you crazy?"
Bulma jolted up-right and slid off the bed, ready to pounce on the intruder. The intruder who laughed hysterically. She peered over the bed, gripping onto the crumpled sheets, and saw Krillin laughing so hard he was clutching his stomach and rasping. Flushed with embarrassment, she grabbed a pillow and chucked it at him, whacking him in the face and spraying a load of dust into the air. He wrinkled his nose and sneezed three times in a row, huffing the motes of dust into swirls, which she watched in silence.
It was her turn to laugh. "Your face."
Krillin steeled himself, comically puffing his chest. "My face? Is so handsome?"
"In your dreams," she said, getting up.
Krillin's bravado sagged, but his mood shifted when he took an awestruck gaze around the room. "Sheesh … Yamcha was right about Romania. They sure know how to build a castle." He walked over to the wall-to-ceiling window and pressed his nose against the glass like an eager puppy, leaving a greasy patch.
"Great, isn't it?"
He nodded. "Going back to what I was saying earlier … Are you crazy?"
Bulma cocked an eyebrow.
"You almost got us killed. Again. Bulma, you've got to stop being so … wild."
She laughed. "Oh, I'm sorry. We lost them, didn't we?" She took on a more serious tone. "I hope we did. I don't want them to find this place. It looks like it's been vacant for a while, and I'd like to stay ... for a bit."
"We can't."
She huffed and sat on the edge of the bed, hating when Krillin magically turned out to be right. "I know. But, just look at it. Look how unspoiled it is."
Krillin's eyes lit up at all the golden trinkets around the room. "And look at all this stuff. Think what we could trade for it."
On the windowsill, there was a golden figure of a woman in the midst of a twirl. Krillin picked it up, examined it, and placed it back where the little circle of clean wood lay amongst the dust.
"But there's nothing here that we need, meaning … it was pointless coming," she said, aimlessly brushing her hand back and forth on the bed sheets. "We should probably go back anyway. I've got some work that needs finishing."
It was a shame. Nonetheless, it was what they had had to do over the past two months; scour any land for anything useful. And it could be anything. Bulma was finding different components in order to build her own lab in the spare room of the capsule home, plainly so she could have a place to feel alone and go back to her roots. Amidst their journeys, mostly alongside Krillin, she had found many beautiful buildings that were still intact, and free of thugs or loiterers. In fact, they were free of anyone, as if they'd been completely abandoned in the wake of the disaster. At first she assumed that the people who were higher up had the opportunity to evacuate before everyone else, prioritising the wealthy. But, if she remembered correctly, she was very wealthy once. Fragments of her memory were still scattered somewhere in her mind, unprepared to be unearthed. And she'd tried to forget all that. In this world—in this life—she had found a purpose. It was a very slight purpose, but she felt that she could alleviate the strain this rotting planet was having on her friends and those close to her.
The capsule house was always cold. Wherever they travelled to, no matter what climate, the house always owned a bereft feeling, like every time someone left the premises, you were at least sixty per cent sure they weren't going to come back. Krillin lived in a separate capsule home with Gohan and Goku, allowing them space and a means of warning if one another's location was found. Bulma originally planned to stay with Krillin, but seeing how fragile Yamcha had become made her change her mind.
She busied herself in the lab most nights, ignoring the day light hours pouring into darkness, focusing on the therapeutic sounds of a crunching wrench or clicking screw driver, rather than the odd bump or knock outside the house walls. Rarely did it unnerve her. The apprehension of waiting for Yamcha to return was what scared her the most. Every day it was becoming later, and sometimes it would be a couple days before he would come in, dragging his feet. He was seeing a different side to the world, the side she'd turned away from in order to try and stay sane and positive. Yamcha was witnessing the torture and depression every day, it spreading from country to country like a foul disease, while she swept across the unscathed, rural areas, seeking out potential resources. More soldiers had returned, reporting the economic situation around the world, expressing to Yamcha how much it was worsening by the day. More people were dying and killing one another.
It was ten past two in the morning when she felt the fatigue taking over. She leaned back in her chair at stared at the wall, Vegeta's face crossing her mind for a brief moment before she banished it. A month ago that was all she could think of, and she too had lost many nights of sleep wondering about Vegeta. Soon enough she distracted herself with mundane activities, which grew into genuine interests. Vegeta was slipping from her mind like a foul liquid, as was the threat of Frieza. The only thing that was worth thinking about was surviving another day on this planet.
The front door slammed, followed by footsteps, and Yamcha's bedroom door closing. Bulma sighed, unsure whether to go in and see him or not, her presence seemingly becoming more of a hindrance then a help. She didn't want to seem patronising or condescending when trying to console him, but that was how he took it, every time. It might have been a selfish decision, but she chose to shy away from the work he was doing. Bulma took a step back from primarily helping people. Sometimes she got the feeling Yamcha resented her for that decision, like he had expected so much more after what she had been through. Sometimes there was only so much one person could give.
Another hour ticked by, and she left her work to go check if he was asleep or not. The room was so dark she had to peer at the bulky figure sitting up in bed to be absolutely certain it was him. Bulma resisted asking him whether he was 'OK', because the answer was evident. The shroud of darkness could have told her that much. So she went with the next best thing, holding onto the door for stability, and oddly enough, security.
"You want something to eat?" she said, pin-pointing the glistening bottle of alcohol he had in his lap.
Yamcha refrained from wasting any verbal communication on her, as if he wanted her to reach into his mind and seek the answer like a a master magician. Not the answer of his hunger, but the answer for his mood. Why he was coming home every night, locking himself away, without saying anything to her. Ignoring her very existence. And all this time she thought Vegeta was an ignorant pig.
"Yamcha?" she persisted, switching the light on.
His body jerked, like he had been asleep with his eyes open, and he squinted towards her.
"Hm? No. Thanks. No, I don't."
It was a bottle of brandy sitting in his lap, embellished with a tattered green label. He was shirtless, exposing several new cuts and bruises, predominantly around his collar bone and chest. There were new markings on him almost every day. Bulma nodded, trying to seem nonchalant over the horrendous sight of him, but she couldn't stop the sour expression bleeding through, as Yamcha knocked back another mouthful of brandy. She went and sat down next to him, hoping that with enough distraction, she would be able to peel the bottle away without him noticing. Half the contents had already been imbibed.
The bed sheets were cold and grimy.
"I don't know what to do anymore, B," he said.
Her chest constricted at the use of her nickname. A name he hadn't called her since before all of this.
She chose to remain silent, mulling over such a trivial thing, and, honestly, barely listening at all.
"What? You're just gonna sit there and say nothing?"
She frowned, dumped her hands in her lap. "I don't know what you want me to say …"
He snickered. "That everything is OK. Even though it isn't."
She watched him in her periphery. "I'm not saying that to you."
The brandy had obvious taken the desired effects, and now Yamcha was acting like a child. Again. It was tiring, watching his temperament change every five minutes. At least now she knew why.
"I lost three men today. They were my friends." He shrugged, making the liquid whisk in the bottle. "Why, when I'm trying to help, are people killing each other? I should just-just tell them that Frieza is on his way, and then see what they do …"
Bulma kept down the bile. "You don't know that. It's been months—"
"Where are they, then?" he snapped, facing her, forcing her to make eye contact with him.
"Who?" she said, swiping the bottle from his lap with such finesse.
"The traitors."
She shrugged, quite content over him choosing not to say their names. Not that they knew what Mina's real name actually was. They had become a memory, like everything else that they could no longer physically make a connection with.
"I don't know where they are," she said, conceding to his glare, shrinking under the pressure of not knowing the answer.
The quarter of brandy looked appealing now that the thought of Vegeta and Mina together somewhere had presented itself at the forefront of her mind. As time between them lapsed, she took several swigs and mused in silence at all wondrous the possibilities. Mina and Vegeta together. It made her skin burn, and it wasn't out of jealously; it was because she didn't know why. Why did they run off together? Why did she trust him? Why did she have feelings for him?
"Why did she lie?" Yamcha said, looking desperately at her, forlorn and glassy-eyed.
Bulma searched his bloodshot eyes for any clues, but he was just as bewildered as she. They were in the same position, when it should have been different. If it wasn't for Frieza, they wouldn't have known Vegeta or Mina. They would have still been unaware of their differences, strolling hand in hand in a world of peace and beauty, becoming ignorant to all the suffering that ached beneath the surface. That was who they were. Now they were like broken components to the same machine, yet neither of them fit anymore.
Bulma took another slug of the brandy, disappointed to see so little of it left. "They didn't know," she said, shaking the bottle, finding the tiny measure of alcohol swilling around quite amusing.
"Bull shit. They knew. Of course they knew. She was using me … And, and he was using you, too, to get back here. That's it. That has to be it."
Stumped by his declaration, Bulma sat with a buttoned lip, overwhelmed by the possible truth behind his words. She'd repressed such thoughts a month ago, when she thought they had days to live. Now that they were stuck in limbo, those thoughts eluded her. What if Yamcha was right? The whole thing had been a conspiracy from the get go. Could Mina and Vegeta have been working with one another this entire time? She didn't want to think about it. But couldn't not.
Yamcha's weeping broke her out of the reel of torment.
"I thought—" He shook his head, as if ridding himself of the words that were clearly causing him anguish. "It's still too weird. Having you here. It's like … a breather in the middle of a nightmare. You're the reason I haven't completely given up on myself."
She frowned. "No, I'm not, Yamcha."
He stopped, wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and looked at her. "Did you think about me? I thought about you—every day."
This was it. This was why she had been avoiding him, cowering in the safety of shade. And possibly why he had been avoiding her, too. This was why she was seeking a source of adventure, antagonising thugs into fights, so she could grab that adrenalin rush. She'd been looking for any excuse to evade the subject.
It was an uncomfortable feeling, but she didn't lie. "Of course I did."
He nodded, satisfied. "Good."
Half delirious by the effects of alcohol swimming in her system, it didn't feel strange or wrong when Yamcha took her hand and kissed each knuckle with his surprisingly warm and soft lips. She stared, wide-eyed, while he gazed vacantly at the wall opposite the bed, just focusing on the feel and smell of her skin. It was the first time he had touched her properly, and the memory of their life before this was a blank space in time. She let him kiss her hand, again and again, allowed him to rub the back of her hand against his stubbly cheek. He wasn't Yamcha anymore, and she was no longer herself. They had been reworked and constructed by the horrors that surrounded them, and it had pushed them together again. That blank space in time was waiting to be filled again with all sorts of colourful images.
He took her arm gently, and pulled her onto his lap, staring at each other, drinking in the worn and unfamiliar image of each other. What the world had done to them. The scar across his eye that she knew so well, surrounded by so many more she knew nothing about, hadn't been a part of. It wasn't like doing something corrupt or sinister. The things Bulma had once considered sinister, she couldn't even bring to comparison now. Back when she was living a deluded, cocktails-in-the-Bahamas-every-other-month kind of life, something 'sinister' would have been slipping an extra sugar into her vanilla latte on a working day, or pretending to file an important document but instead placing it on her assistants desk for the next morning. Not being drunk, in a crappy, dank, capsule home, while the world outside was falling apart, and jumping onto her ex-boyfriend's lap just for the sake of it.
"This isn't what we want to do," Bulma said.
Yamcha leaned forward and kissed her lips, the warmth melting her body into his, ambushing her emotions, leading her to return it, regardless of what she did or didn't want to do. Bulma could have been kissing anyone, caught in the movement between closed lids. It was fast, but tender, his lips and teeth sweeping across her neck, as she clung onto the clammy muscles of his shoulders. Quickly, she wound up on her back, Yamcha looking down on her, brushing back the sweaty strands of her that had glued themselves to her face. He frowned, opened his mouth to say something, but left the air between them wordless, moving on by trailing heated kissed down her neck, simultaneously shimmying his waist to kick his pants off.
Bulma moved beneath him, awkwardly trying to follow his lead, but found herself gazing at the ceiling, simply feeling the kisses, the hands lifting her shirt above her breasts. His erection brushed against her thigh, back and forth, his breathing heavy and desperate.
"Yamcha. No, wait. Yamcha …" she said, lifting his chin.
Without demurring, he stopped, the heaving of his chest slowing as a look of understanding passed over him like a bucket of cold water. His eyes widened in horror and he backed off onto his haunches.
"I'm sorry," he said, running his hands through his hair.
The sight provoked Bulma to tears. "Stop," she said, scrambled up and embraced him. "It's this place. It's everything. I can't. I can't feel this for anyone," she muffled into the crook of his neck.
It was a lie, because she knew her feelings for Vegeta overruled that ideology. The moment she met that tortured man, she knew he was going to move her in ways she'd never imagined. But it should have been Yamcha. They should have been together. But they couldn't. Not now.
They held each other for minutes, the cold air nibbling at any exposed skin.
"I thought I loved her, you know," Yamcha said, his voice thick.
Bulma ran her hand through the hair on the back of his head, continued to do so while he spilled the truth.
"I never stopped loving you, but … I thought you were dead." He laughed. "Mina was there, she built me back up again, understood me. Never felt sorry for me."
"I should be really insulted right now," she said, and smacked his back playfully.
She detached herself from him, and he was looking down at himself, abashed.
"Funny how things change, huh?" he said.
Heat rose to her face. She knew so more than he, how things could change. Five minutes ago they were kissing each other, and the next they were laughing about how stupid they had both behaved.
"They might change again. Don't hold your breath," she said, grabbing his pants and throwing them into his lap hastily, while embarrassment between the two of them became heavily present.
"What do you mean?"
Bulma thought carefully about what she wanted to say, and how she wanted to convey it. "She could come back."
"Huh. So? She's lied," Yamcha remarked, slipping his pants back on.
Bulma sighed, finding the sight of him getting changed a bit peculiar now that the alcohol was dissipating from her system. "I don't know. No one knows. We need to focus on preparing for …" She threw her hands up theatrically. " … Whatever happens next."
Yamcha stood up, tightened the strings on his pants, and glanced at her. "You're right."
The room was silent, except for the constant groaning of the ships engine that lay nestled at its core. It was several floors beneath his chambers, but its noise never failed to rupture the walls and remind him that he was on this floating prison, awaiting the next call from Zarbon. If it was in the wake of purging a planet, he could confidently admit to enjoying the prospect of crushing someone's skull between his palms. But, eighty per cent of the time, it wasn't that. It was something else. Something regrettable that he, sadly, would never get used to. Nor did he ever want to. All the time spent with that creature made him more determined to plot his escape. One day, he would find freedom, discover that it had been nestled beneath his nose the entire time, and he just hadn't been aware of it. Until then, he would take punishment. Undoubtedly, he knew why this was happening to him. He was a threat, someone to be wary of every day. Being a Saiyan meant that every defeat he took, he became stronger. It was bizarre that, despite knowing this information, Frieza continued to do what he did.
Pulsing agony in his face didn't subside like it usually did. He removed his gloves, and gingerly traced the outline of his bottom lip until it brushed against the weeping flesh, its size gargantuan compared to the rest of his mouth. His ribs were sore, too. Cracked, probably. They would heal in a day or so. Frieza always made sure that within a matter of hours, Vegeta would be escorted to a regeneration tank to replenish his energy. Vegeta had to suffer first. He closed his eyes, clutching his side, and unbidden images of what he had just been through ran riot behind his lids. Flashes of colour, dominantly purple and grey, whipped back and forth like gun fire bouncing from one wall to another, ricocheting in his head. He lay back, the faux luxury of his quarters welcoming him, the soothing mattress taking his frame as if it were embracing him. It was all a lie. Staying in the bunks with all the other soldiers would have been much preferential, but Vegeta was forced to segregate himself, hide behind Frieza like a petrified animal. Other warriors wouldn't dare to mock him, not if they wanted to keep their heads on their shoulders. The look was there, though, if only for a fraction of a second. The disapproval, the disgust, and sometimes jealousy.
It made him want to claw at his abdomen and tear his own stomach out. On this ship, he was an object, a pawn.
Energy flared in his mind, and he snapped his eyes open at the red velvet ceiling. He was weaker than he'd anticipated if he hadn't noticed her presence before now.
"How did you get in here?" he said, too careless to move.
"I have my ways," she muttered.
The weight of her sitting on the bed sparked irritation he didn't know he had the mental strength to muster.
"Vegeta …"
He sat up and shifted away from her. "Save it. Do me a favour," he said, massaging his temples. "Get out."
Sil was the one warrior on the ship who he didn't have an unbearable desire to kill. She could walk past him, snarl at him and spit on his shoes, but he would not comply for her desire of company. It was her way of friendship, which he would never agree to. Yet she persisted. And he allowed it. All because she knew a lot more than half of the cretins who called themselves warriors.
"No," she said, settling down on his bed.
She reached out for his face, a move so horrific he reacted instinctively and grabbed her wrist, tempted to snap it. His heart pounded unrealistically fast. Instead of relenting, she lifted her body weight and used her free arm, twisting around him. The rapidity of it, and his dulled senses after such a recent meeting with Frieza, meant he could barely counteract it a second time. The energy he had wasted on her first attempted assault went, and he felt too mentally exhausted to stop her.
Her hand on his face didn't feel awful, but it was still unwelcomed. Vegeta reverted any eye contact with her, feeling her eyes on him trying to plunge into his mind and seek the truth. But there was nothing to find. He released the hold he had on her wrist, and without warning, her lips squashed against his. The obscene carnage of his busted lip clearly didn't keep her at bay. Pain shot through his face as she licked and kissed him, her tongue pressing against his clamped teeth, until he opened his mouth, let her inside. Quiet moans and sighs came from her, the moist exhales exuding from her nostrils onto his top lip becoming more of an irritant than anything pleasurable. Her hands travelled from the sides of his face, down his neck, round the muscles of his abdomen, and to the waist band of his shorts, where she fused her palm to his crotch. The action made his stomach churn, and he tore his mouth away from hers, seeing patches of dewy red mucus that had transferred from his punctured lip to her mouth.
"I feel nothing," he hissed, pushed her back before he stumbled to his feet.
He wanted her out of his room. Why she had to follow him wherever he went was beyond his knowledge. As he strode towards his washroom, in the hope of scrubbing his skin clean from the events of the past few hours, he was halted by an electric fit of laughter.
Sil keeled over on the bed, rumpling all the sheets, wiping her skin all over his belongings. She stopped, got onto her knees.
"You're kidding?" she said.
He tried to snarl but the pain wouldn't allow it. It felt like someone was jabbing his brain with acid-tipped needles. So painful he had to steady himself, and to his dismay, Sil saw it as an invitation of consolation, approaching again. He growled—the only response he could think to do without killing her.
"You—I don't believe you," she said, lifting a hand towards him again.
He stopped her, again, this time sluggishly, but was dumbfounded by her reaction. Tears dribbled from her eyes, and dripped off her jaw. It gave him a moment to acknowledge her face, the features he had known since he was a child. The look she was giving him was the same horrified stare she had when she saw him just over a year ago in Frieza's chambers.
"Why not?" She dashed the tears away with her free hand. "You—fuck other women. I know it. Why not me? Why?"
She was becoming hysterical. It was shameful to see such a skilled warrior behaving so churlishly. It was embarrassing. He sneered and pushed her away, anticipating her bouncing back towards him as if she were magnetised. She stumbled back, purposely letting the weight of his push to take her away from him. The soft, feminine features that other warriors found so enticing, reshaped and hardened into a look he had seen so many times before. A bitter, twisted mask that a warrior would wear to fool their opponent.
"I know what Frieza has been doing to you. Everyone does—"
Vegeta grabbed her throat, pushed her into the wall, and looked her up and down. "You know nothing."
She laughed. "No. You see, I do, Vegeta. I do."
Her conviction unnerved him and he let go. "No one does."
"I do," she muttered again, sagging down the wall, eyes frosted over, face moist with sorrow.
A vacuuming sense was taking over the room. Vegeta felt like he could no longer treat this place as a way of pseudo escapism, a shred of peace within the twisting chaos of this world. He wanted to bellow, scream until he blacked out, but he was almost sure he would wake up again, face the world, the same faces, and encounter the same torture, pain, memories. It was that kind of mentality that usually kept him fighting onwards, disregarding what other people thought about him, and the harrowing fact that Frieza's strength was simply unbeatable. People knew? They knew more than he would have liked them to. Was he depicted as a victim? Is that what they thought?
He hated everyone, so it shouldn't have mattered.
Before him, weeping, was a female who he once didn't mind. Even though her presence was benign, he came to the conclusion that he hated her, too.
"You didn't answer my question—Why not me?" she said, gazing up at him with a glimmer of expectation.
Why was she asking such an insufferable question? Irrespective of his position, she pestered him continuously for ridiculous answers, like she had a right to know. Did she? He didn't know himself.
He pinched his brow, granted her with the truth. "You're weak."
She laughed, threw her head back and stared at the ceiling. "And the women I've seen trawling in here are just right for you, huh?"
He wanted nothing more than for her to fuck off. An unidentifiable emotion was urging him to tell her his secrets. Perhaps it was simply because she was still there, fearlessly sitting in front of him, despite knowing what he could do. She was weak. Her strength in battle was impressive, but as a being, she was breakable. Her actions before had proven that.
He sighed. "If you know so much, then you'll know that those women will say whatever the fuck they like to gauge a reaction. And that whatever you think Frieza is doing to me, I would never do to another living creature."
It took a moment for the seriousness of his words to soak into her skin.
"What? You mean?"
His tolerance had peaked. "I mean what I mean. Get out," he said calmly, and after a few seconds of her refusing to move, he shouted, "Now."
The tears came again. This time quietly. The behaviour intrigued him in a way, so much so he found himself watching the range of emotions on her face like she was some unknown creature in an exhibition. It suddenly occurred to him how much time he and this woman had spent together. Too long. Since he had been on Frieza's ship, she had always been on the side-lines, watching. The only being to approach him without shaking in fear. Vegeta was still positive she was weak, but always impressive nonetheless.
Sil stood up, smeared the slime from her nose onto her forearm. "Fine. I'll go, for now. But no matter how much you try to stop me, I'm going to follow you. I'll be there. Ready. Because … you don't deserve this fate. Some of us might. But not you." She continued talking as she walked towards the door, looking over her shoulder. "He'll get what he deserves. And I'll be by your side when it happens."
For minutes, after her energy sank deeper into the gut of the ship, Vegeta stood staring at nothing, those hindering words now lodged in his brain like a growing lump of fat. He doubted the sincerity of her words. How could she say something so brainless? Certainly, he had the idea of defeating Frieza in his mind, but he always figured he could do it alone. The thought of letting another person wedge their way into his plan would be absurd. It just wouldn't happen. He worked alone. No one ever made that much of a lasting impression on him. Even the events of the day, including the nonsense with Sil, would travel to the back of the infinite queue of torment. Something he would forget soon enough.
It dawned on him, as he sat alone, listening to the hum of the ships engine, that he didn't care for anyone … Not even himself.