It was easy to avoid everyone because everyone was avoiding him. It suited him. Were he able, he'd have left them all. Like a beast seeking solitude when death was near, he'd have gone off on his own.
Fuck.
Even Nappa had become intolerable. The way the older Saiyan looked at him as though it were his soul breaking and not…
The sound erupted from a throat raw from lack of speech through clenched teeth. Vegeta jerked his head to the side as though the physical action could silence his thoughts since it appeared he could do nothing to silence anything else. Gods, he'd leave if he could. But distance wouldn't heal him. Time wouldn't make agony less unbearable.
He snorted. It would be horribly funny if it wasn't so maddening and excruciating. He couldn't tell where the pain came from; if there was real damage or if it all existed in his head. Likely, it was both kinds of pain - each existing simply to make the other all the more insufferable.
Pathetic.
It made little difference where and how the pain manifested – real or not, it was there and there was nothing he could do about it but endure it. His joints were on fire. His body ached. He was dizzy all of the time. He knew his stomach would refuse food - if he bothered to eat at all - and his senses were waging war against him. He could fix it easily – shatter the barrier he had put between them - and yet he chose to let the torture continue. In fact, he seized and held it to his breast like air-starved lungs sucking in breath.
All because he knew she felt the same pain. And oooooooh he wanted her to feel pain.
Fuck how petty and self-indulgent that was. It was worth it.
He'd be the cause of her pain forever if he could. The sheer amount of anguish he inflicted on her by denying her access to himself was the entire reason he had completely invaded her mind in the first place. He had filled her so much with himself, it was impossible to separate them, now or ever. She was a slave to his fury, and he'd spend his life making her suffer it.
He staggered and his knees nearly buckled. Clinging to the inner hull to prevent complete collapse, he waited for the spinning in his head to fade. The whole universe was rolling in waves all around him and he couldn't find balance.
Pushing away from the wall to walk, he lurched to catch himself and overcompensated. Rather than land on his back, he fell back against the wall. He twisted to the side and allowed his empty stomach try its best to wretch. He sighed and tried to blink the blurriness away.
He wanted to hurt her; that much was true... But he hadn't irreparably bonded them together for that reason. Not entirely.
He also wanted to feel hurt - for allowing any of this to happen at all…But also because hurting her made him want to hurt himself.
He'd have preferred the desire for self-torture be from self-loathing; allowing her to become a weakness certainly merited all the reason he needed for self-inflicted pain. But… to hide behind that reason would be a lie. She may be a weakness, but he was not so weak he'd desperately cling to a lie as an excuse.
He knew well that if he could have nothing else of hers, he would have her pain. If it were the only thing he could share with her, so be it.
His knees finally buckled and he collapsed to the floor. Lacking the will to do more, he shifted his weight and sat against the wall.
He stared at the black nothingness of space through the glass across from him.
He couldn't blame instinct, confusion, or lack of awareness. Even in the full throes of the Phase, a part of him had known and had chosen it. If he had that moment in his hand again – a chance to choose differently - he'd change nothing.
He had regained his memories long before she had. She had run away from remembering, and he had let her for his own selfish reasons. He had wanted to be with her just a little bit longer… to feel her wrapped around him, to push himself within her as deeply as he could, to burst inside her soul and between her legs.
He had been patient, allowed her to hide behind eager forgetfulness as long as he could. The moment even her determined efforts failed, he had let her know that he had command of his own memories, as well. It was perfect. He had wanted to be inside her in every way possible the moment she realized he knew what she had done. He wanted her to feel the complete bliss of his total mental and physical domination before devastating her by taking it away. Only then would she understand the cost of her betrayal.
He'd almost faltered the last moment.. the nature of how deeply he was imbedded not only allowed her to feel complete, but forced him to feel it as well. In that moment, he'd nearly swatted her betrayal angrily away, offended that it dared to exist between them.
He'd wanted to do it and almost had. Almost.
But his was a Siayan heart. It did nothing if not wholly and completely. That was the Saiyan way. To dismiss betrayal was to condemn himself to suffer a wound that would fester no matter how hard he fought against it. It would poison him slowly until he succumbed to total self-destruction. How could he fondly caress the flesh of her throat with gentle kisses if a part of him also wanted to tear it open with his teeth?
Things were or they were not, and Siayans were meant to act upon that simple fact. One couldn't be and not be at the same time. Yet, he now wanted something but did not want to want it. It was a human plague to have abstract, impure emotions, and it confused and angered him.
It also terrified him because this was a fight he could not win…. if overlooking her betrayal was a fatal toxin, so too was turning her away.
There was no solution, no fix, so he punished her for putting them into this situation - and in punishing her, he punished himself… for allowing any part of her to become a part of himself at all. That part of himself – the part that was her and human and corrupt – would destroy them both. No matter what want he gave into, he'd be denying the other.
The agony was tearing him apart.
OoOoO
Bulma longed for the days she woke up after a night of determined binge drinking, when her head throbbed, her stomach churned, and she generally felt insulted and repulsed by anything remotely happy or cheerful. At least that way, there'd be a reason for feeling hung over.
She was cold but couldn't be bothered to get up to grab a borrowed sweater. She supposed she still had her charm bracelet around her wrist, but she had lost most of the original contents over the past almost 2 years. Now the capsules were mostly full of random engineering projects in every state between unfinished to unsalvageable or were empty. Even if there were warm clothes, a part of her wanted to feel the cold. It wouldn't fit her mood to be warm and cozy when she was so miserable.
It did feel right to sit here and stare out of the windshield-sized window at empty space, though. Out there for as far as she could fathom, there was nothing. Somehow in that emptiness, light - from so far away even imagination couldn't grasp the distance - was still able to somehow find her. Little pin pricks of light that reached for her from untold time and distance.
From her perspective, they made patterns and shapes, and just like when she was a child staring up at her ceiling at night, she pictured faces and people in the designs and made up stories to go with them. It was lonely, but it was perfect.
She had come to terms with her freakish ability to just know when someone came into or left her general proximity. She couldn't say if she could smell them or feel the air change – or if she just had a sixth sense – she just… knew. So, she only tensed for a fraction of a second when he came in the room. He didn't say anything. He had learned she no longer needed him to announce himself to know he was there.
She wasn't surprised when she felt the blanket drop against her shoulders. She had wanted to feel the cold, but didn't wiggle out of its warmth. When Yamcha circled around her to sit, she didn't acknowledge him. The silence was peaceful and there really wasn't anything to talk about. He seemed as comfortable in the quiet as she. Either that or he didn't know what to say.
She didn't quite forget he was there as the minutes crawled by, but she didn't mind. Yamcha was…. There. He had always just been there; like a part of the background. She realized then that it was only when he had tried to force himself into the foreground that she had bothered to be bothered.
Did that make her selfish? Probably.
But no more selfish than he had been every time he did force himself to the foreground.
They knew each other. They trusted each other. They supported each other. They loved each other. But she was happiest when she maintained a certain distance, and he could only be happy when he was the center of her world.
As he opened his mouth to speak, she suddenly didn't need to hear any words to understand him better than she ever had before.
"You look like shit," he said softly, referring to the road map of scratches, bites, and bruises covering the skin uncovered by Chichi's tank top. She had run out of sinzu beans, but really hadn't needed them towards the end. She could honestly say she had enjoyed receiving every one of these remaining marks she'd been – secretly happily - unable to erase with instant healing. "You look like you were a chew toy for a teething puppy," he snorted sarcastically.
Her eyes darted to study his face. He looked tired, pale, miserable, and like he was barely holding it together. His smile was strained…. but it was genuine. Her heart flooded with warmth and she smiled, too.
When he turned back to look at her and saw her grinning at him, his lips twisted into a wide smirk, "a really BIG, really grumpy puppy," he added.
Bulma rolled her eyes playfully. "Yes, well. We can't all be so honored. Count yourself lucky you'll never have to know the woes of an old shoe."
His smile crumpled as he flinched. "You don't – "
"No. I was teasing. I didn't mean it. Really. Though the soles of my shoes have seen better days, my own soul is just fine. So is the rest of me." She let the blanket fall to let him see she wasn't trying to hide her wounds. After all, she wasn't ashamed by them.
His eyes crawled over her skin as though he felt each scratch and bite himself. "They don't hurt at all," she said as he inspected her. She didn't add that she hurt everywhere and that she was fairly certain that though it had everything to do with a giant, grumpy puppy, it had nothing to do with the bites and scratches.
"I still look better than you," she teased instead.
That seemed to do the trick and his eyes lost their haunted edge. He cocked a sarcastic eyebrow. "Hey, you may look like you got into a fight with a vampire, but you still got more beauty sleep than the rest of us," he stated wryly.
She winced in false sympathy and shrugged, but before she could say anything, he cut her off. "You don't have to explain. I probably know more about your game of bed hockey than you do. All the puck handling, stick work, slamming against the glass, goals scored, power plays - "
He laughed as she blushed. "Jesus, Yamcha. You used to be so prude!"
He snorted and half grinned. "I've been hanging around a teenaged android with a porn collection that would make Master Roshi pop a vein… er. I mean –" suddenly it was the bandit who was blushing and squirming.
This time Bulma laughed.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence again, but Bulma knew it was coming. Deciding she'd lance the wound before it could fester, she spoke first.
"What would you do without your dominant hand?"
Puzzled, Yamcha blinked at her and chewed his lip. When she didn't elaborate, he frowned in confusion and shrugged. "I'd never be as proficient, but I suppose I'd learn to use the other one?" he said lamely.
Bulma nodded to herself. "Yes, losing a hand would be an enormous adjustment. Maybe one you could never truly and completely overcome – but it is only a tool, after all, and you could learn to compensate."
He stared at her intently, knowing there was more coming but not able to wait. "So he's just a tool to you?"
When she didn't speak for a moment, he realized what she was getting at and his shoulders slumped. "You think you're his tool," he said flatly.
She looked up angrily. "I'm no one's tool, Yamcha." She didn't give him time to relax in relief before speaking. "I'm his destiny."
He opened his mouth but shut it slowly, not knowing what to say. Instead, he just listened. For the first time in his life, he didn't force or impose – he just… listened. Her expression softened and the rigidness in her shoulders eased.
"I'm not a hand he can cut off. I won't shrivel up and die without him pumping life's blood and purpose into me." Her lip quivered and her eyes shined with unshed tears. Her voice dropped into a whisper, but he could hear her as though she were shouting.
"I won't die without him, but I can't exist without him, either. I'm not his hand, Yamcha. I'm his heart. Without his heart, he's an empty husk. He needs me to achieve his destiny. And I need him to fulfil that destiny – because that is my purpose. We can't learn to use another hand, Yam. Because there is no other hand. Do you understand?"
He stared at her numbly without moving. The only sound was of his breathing, and for long minutes, they said nothing.
After a while, he simply nodded, and a single tear fell from his eye. When he spoke, his voice cracked, but he was sincere. "I'm sorry, Bulma. For pushing you too hard, for wanting too much, for not believing in you, for leaving you in that cell, for never understanding you…. For whatever it is that's broken between you and V..Vegeta…" he fell silent, but something had changed.
There wasn't a heavy weight between them; a feeling of heavy expectation, disappointment, or resentment. The sudden vacuum left the space between them feel full of acceptance.
Finally.
She wanted to smile. She wanted to tell him it was fine, that she had plenty to be sorry over as well.
Instead, she crumpled. Collapsing into herself, curled into a tight ball, she clutched the blanket around her like it would protect her and sobbed.
OoOoO
Vegeta grunted as he forced himself to his feet from his spot against the wall. His footsteps were heavy as he made his way towards the back of the ship where he could be alone. He blinked, surprised, when he heard a growl that didn't belong to himself.
Looking up into Nappa's flat eyes, he snorted in disgust. He didn't bother to insult older Saiyan's meager intelligence by telling him to move.
Nappa didn't budge. Instead, he shoved something towards the surly Prince.
Frowning, Vegeta looked down and saw a plate of – something he didn't recognize – piled into one giant mass of… yellow, fluffy stuff. He blinked, at a loss for words. It smelled… edible. It looked better than a vast majority of all he had eaten since the last he had been on Frieza's ship. Yet…
He couldn't find it within himself to be remotely interested. In fact, his stomach rolled.
About to stomp past Nappa, he was stopped by words that had nothing to do with sustenance. At least… not the kind of sustenance waiting on the plate in front of him to be eaten.
"You corrected the mark on her face."
Vegeta's head shot up, his eyes gleaming dangerously in challenge.
Nappa grinned. "It's about fucking time," he taunted. "I was beginning to think you had no idea what your ki-charged dick was for." Before his spine could be ripped out through his sternum, Nappa shoved the plate of eggs into Vegeta's hands and hastily fled.
Vegeta closed blood shot eyes and sighed deeply before snapping them open abruptly, feeling oddly less irritated than he felt he should. That…. Irritated him. I do not need, nor do I ask, for your approval, Gru'dtzek, he hissed telepathically. It wasn't nearly as menacing as it could have been. Vegeta lacked the energy.
And the yellow stuff on the plate in his hands was distracting him. He stared at it, not knowing what to do with it. He didn't want it. But he sorta wanted it.
Nappa's face nearly broke in half as he grinned. The Prince hadn't called him a Gru'dtzek – mentally or out loud - for years. The horrific insult was especially reserved for those times when Vegeta wished to hide sentimentality under hostility. No matter what the Prince said, Nappa had raised the brat and knew him well enough to understand. Under all the strain, exhaustion, and pain, Vegeta was pleased, even if he didn't realize it.
Because the only other being in the universe capable of understanding the significance of a Mate Mark had acknowledged the Prince's chosen. Bulma no longer wore the wrong name.
She was now, fully and truly, the Saiyan Queen.
Shoving his sense of self-preservation under an avalanche of fatherly pride, Nappa decided to fuck caution and responded to Vegeta. Those are the last of the eggs. If you waste them, I'm going to shove my fist down your throat and leave it there simply so you'll have something to chew on. I'll not serve a Prince who lets himself starve because he's too weak to eat.
Nappa winced at the wave of malice that was Vegeta's reply, but the Prince's wrath was far better than the half-dead thing that had been haunting the hallways of late. Nappa would gladly forfeit a few teeth as payment for reminding the Prince to act like one. And anyway, if Vegeta had wanted the woman dead, he'd have killed her and would have tolerated nothing less. But… once Vegeta realized why he had let her live, he'd need all of his strength.
They all depended on it.
OoOoO
Goku had tried to teleport them to Yardrat and had almost sent them into the heart of a star. He claimed he hadn't fully recovered from helping Bulma "merge," and that he'd need a couple more days of steady food. The first time he said that, he'd been telling the truth. It had worked so well, he kept using it. And using it, and using it. Eventually, everyone figured out the ruse and knew it was complete bullshit. Or at least, mostly bullshit. Though there still may be a sliver of truth to the excuse of exhaustion, everyone knew the main reason Goku found ways not to transport them was because he was playing match maker. Once they reached Yardrat, Vegeta would be able to put as much physical distance between he and Bulma as he was inflicting upon them emotionally.
But if they were both forced to stay on this tiny, four room ship…..
Goku meant well. But he really was stupid sometimes.
The tension was epic. It had been seven days since they had entered - and four days since they had emerged – from the bedroom. And in the three days they had been inside it, they had saved the universe in exchange for condemning themselves. The ship's struts and bolts weren't powerful enough to hold all the high-strung energy. Any more strain and the thing would bust open. Everyone was crawling up the walls – except Goku, of course, who insisted everything would be just fine.
It wasn't until Bulma herself took him out of sight for a conversation that he realized he was causing damage. She said that sometimes a wound needs to rest, and that ignoring the need for rest wouldn't allow the wound to heal.
Goku transported them within minutes of that conversation.
Within moments of landing, the occupants spewed from the ship like an overripe corpse bursting open.
First to go was Vegeta.
Last to go was Bulma.
She lingered on the bridge, reluctant to abandon the last connection she had with Vegeta. She had so many memories of him on this ship. She laughed to herself bitterly. Memories…
Memories they had made that, when lost, had allowed them to be together. But now that their memories had returned… that which had made them grow close in the first place now ensured they would stay apart. If she could only forget again, she'd not know the pain of separation. But neither would she know the heat of his touch as it scorched its mark onto the deepest parts of her soul..
A wave of angry nausea made her head spin and bile rose to her throat. A hot pain bloomed behind her eyes and stabbed her in the brain. Shaky, she sat in the pilot's chair and stuck her head between her knees. Every time she thought about being separate from Vegeta, this happened. Yet every time she longed to be closer to him, it happened.
She couldn't win.
The forced herself to leave the bridge. One foot after the other – through the hall, down the ramp, and outside.
It was the first time she had seen sunlight in almost two years.
She fell to her knees and wept.
OoOoO
Hidden in the canopy of weird colored leaves, Vegeta watched her with obsessive attention as she disembarked. She seemed thin and pale.
Apparently, she wasn't eating or sleeping, either.
He wasn't certain if that pleased him or pissed him off.
When her knees buckled, the thick tree limb he was holding snapped in his suddenly clenched fist. The sound had alerted him and brought him back to his senses before he could go to her like a fool. Growling at the weakness of his lapse, he pushed himself further into the shadows to watch.
Gods.
He'd never seen her hair in the sunlight. It gleamed in shades of impossible and it - It was….excruciating.
Turning away, he refused to look again. He'd already forbidden himself from scenting her. It seemed now that he'd be unable to directly look at her. Not unless he wanted to lose control completely. Sure. He could admit he wanted to spend eternity fucking her stupid. But in his anger, he'd likely damage her.
Gods, he still wanted to. He choked on the thickness of it and every breath of air was full of it. It stole his sleep and made him hallucinate about it. It clawed at his sanity and inside his head he screamed about it. It clogged his veins and made him bleed from wanting it.
It… he didn't even know which it he wanted. Which instinct was stronger? It was hard to know when Saiyan violence was nearly identical with Saiyan sex.
Had he the strength, he'd take what he wanted from her while he punished her with pain.
He snarled. His human corruption wouldn't even allow him to be truly angry. At least, not at her. He understood why she had betrayed him. He did. And he understood clearly that without her actions, one if not both of them would be dead. Certainly, they'd never have survived together. He could acknowledge that on some level, he admired her strategic decisions and sacrifices because she had given them perhaps the only chance they could have had. She was human, after all, and would make human choices.
But - he was Saiyan. He wouldn't have had any choice but one, no matter how narrow she'd think it was.
She needed to understand what choices he would have had her make, and which sacrifices she made that were not hers to make. Regardless of the consequences, despite any chance she may have purchased for them, she should not have stolen from him. She should not have taken from herself, because that was also taking away from him.
She couldn't think simply as a human any longer. She had chosen him. She had submitted and pronounced herself his – regardless of whether or not he wanted her. That made her Saiyan, subject to Saiyan ways.
In giving herself to him, she asked for his protection, his judgement, and his sentiment. Clearly, she was not strong enough to understand what she had given him, promised him, and asked of him in return. By acting against him, she belittled her own sentiment towards him in addition to declaring him unworthy of it. She had shown that her faith in him was weaker than her fear for him.
Until she understood, they'd both suffer. This was a battle he simply could not lose. He'd wait for eternity if he had to, simply to be there to shove her face in it when she broke.
But fuuuuuck, how his soul screamed to tear her throat out. And his dick throbbed.
He dug his fingernails into his palm and clenched his teeth in miserable frustration. It had been days. Not weeks, not years…. Days.
Selfish, stupid bitch!
He was never going to last. He couldn't go far because the need to have her near was overpowering. Yet he couldn't be too near or he'd lose it.
Still. He needed to leave. At least for a while. He needed to hide somewhere just long enough to pump himself raw – buy himself some relief. That's what he needed… but it would be pointless. He couldn't seem to throw himself over the edge in her absence. All he seemed able to do was alert her by allowing his mental wall to wane… even the slightest abatement of his will to keep her banished – even the slimmest diminishing of his concentration - would invite cracks where she could slip through. He couldn't afford to give her room to squeeze in. So. He'd refrain from crushing his cock with a thrusting fist, even if he did want to paint the entire forest in a sticky shade of white.
Why were the fucking leaves red, anyway?
He heard her lilting voice from below and resisted the urge to watch her. She was safe here. At least, she'd be safe once he left. If he couldn't let off steam in the form of sexual self-release, he could at least go blow some shit up.
If the locals didn't like it, they could go fuck themselves.
At least they would be able to.
