THE PRINCE OF ASH AND SNOW
by The Not-So-Super Saiyan
based off the web comic by Stupidoomdoodles
and inspired by the works of LadyVegeets
Content Warning: contains violence, mention of abuse, death, and some language
CHAPTER SIX: THE PALE DEATH
Utekhi, radost' i lyubov'
Gde kupno s zdraviyem blistali,
U vsekh tam tsepeneyet krov'
I dukh myatetsya ot pechali.
Gde stol byl yastv, tam grob stoit;
Gde pirshestv razdavalis' liki,
Nadgrobnyye tam voyut kliki
I bledna smert' na vsekh glyadit
I bledna smert' na vsekh glyadit
Where once amusement, joy and love
Shined together in good health,
Now the blood is freezing in our veins,
Our souls are plagued by grief.
Where once a feast was spread a coffin lies,
The place where festive singing rang
Now is heard but graveside keening
And Pale Death watches over all
And Pale Death watches over all
JANUARY 1st
Bulma rubbed her sore neck and flipped her head over to the other side sliding her legs out from her so the blood could flow again. She wasn't sure what time she had fallen asleep kneeling beside the couch but she knew it must've been some time ago. Tien and Launch had still been there and it had still been dark outside, the sun was setting now.
She wasn't surprised she had slept so long. It had been an awful night. Looking around her house it looked like someone had slaughtered a cow in her kitchen and then dragged them out the front door. It wasn't surprising Vegeta had needed blood. Bad. That's why Launch had brought Tien. She called him her "Blood Bank". He was universal, and thus her source of off-the-market blood. Even though she removed the bullet and stitched the wound Vegeta had not been doing well.
Before she left, Launch woke Bulma, telling her of the instructions she had left on the counter and how to care for the wound. Bulma thanked them profusely for what they had done and that was the last time she had seen them.
Bulma reached out and ran her fingertips along the contours of his face. He looked so peaceful now. It hadn't started that way though. He was unconscious but his rest was fitful and feverish. It was like he was fighting something. Launch had given him something to "knock him on his ass" as she put it. Whatever it was it seemed to have worked. Since then he hadn't moved more than the occasional moan or twitch.
She checked her phone, it was completely dead. She looked down at herself, dried blood covered her torso and arms. She needed a bath.
Bulma slid into the hot water which numbed her muscles. She felt her chest open like window shutters. She was right. She definitely needed this. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and slowly slid all the way down under the water, letting her knees poke out.
She never wanted to leave the steaming water. Everytime she closed her eyes she saw him on her kitchen table, writhing in pain. She needed to think about something else. Something that -
She felt the tub reverberate with a heavy BUNG. She shot upright sloshing steamy water all over the bathroom. There he was laying face down on the floor trying to get back up on his hands and knees and failing pathetically.
What? What the hell?
"Vegeta? What the hell are you doing? You shouldn't be up you're going to hurt yourself." She shouted as she threw her arms around her bare chest.
He gazed up at her like he hadn't even noticed she was naked, he looked more confused than anything. His pupils were huge, even in the bright light of the bathroom. Breathing slowly through his mouth, he looked as though he might just fall asleep right there on the floor.
"I need to pee." he drowsily stated.
What the hell did Launch give him?
"Okay. Well...uh….let me put a towel on and I'll help you up."
Blinking at her slowly, he nodded.
She waited.
"Well, close your eyes already."
He looked confused and screwed his eyes shut without dropping his head.
Bulma stepped out of the tub and wrapped a towel around herself, careful to tuck it in the side. She did not need it falling down in the middle of this whole ordeal. She walked over to Vegeta with a wet pit pit pit. His eyes were still shut tight.
She cleared her throat and he opened them, jumping with surprise.
"Alright tough guy, let's get you off the floor, shall we?" she knelt next to him and slung his arm over her shoulder supporting his weight as she helped him lift himself off the ground.
Boy, was he heavy.
"Let's take it slow, okay?" she cautioned. "I don't want you to fall on me."
When they reached the toilet he wasted no time yanking down his shorts, staring off into the distance.
Woah. Okay. That is. Hmm.
He dropped his head to the wall in front of the toilet. She wasn't quite sure if he had fallen asleep or not. Bulma waited, awkwardly shifting her towel. She was unsure of what to do other than look away as best she could. His hand rested on the handle of the toilet as if he had forgotten what he was doing.
"You okay?"
"Hmm?" he looked at her with an expression of calm bewilderment that she found oddly amusing.
"Let's get you back to bed. But...uh….let's pull up your pants first, alright?"
He nodded thoughtfully as though what she had said was very insightful. Then pulling his underwear the rest of the way up he turned entirely too fast as he went to leave, doubling over the side of the bathroom counter sending cosmetics and hair products topping to the floor.
If she had thought about leaving him alone before she had banished the thought entirely now.
"How about you let me lead, huh?"
He didn't respond instead he let her guide him sleepily back to the couch. She laid him down as best she could trying to keep the towel wrapped around herself.
He looked up at her thoughtfully. "Ya prinoshu svoi izvineniya."
Say what now?
"Huh?"
"I'm sorry." he pouted in a slurred haze.
Bulma hadn't expected those words. Not now, possibly not ever. She wasn't sure what he had to be sorry for, but she smiled sweetly anyway.
"Uh….That's okay. It's not how I wanted to see you naked the first time but even then you don't disappoint." she teased.
"No." he shook his head vigorously. "I'm a bad person, Blue."
"Don't say that." She gently began, but he cut her off his voice, lackluster as if he were lost somewhere in a daydream.
"I've done awful things. So many I don't even remember them all." His face twisted in pain as he shifted on the couch.
Something seized in her chest, she sat on the edge of the couch by his feet, placing a hand gently on his calf. "Do you want to talk about it?" Heavy silence greeted her. A silence she felt she didn't have the right to break. So she sat with him and said nothing.
"Just thinking...I don't know why. Haven't thought about it in years." He slurred thoughtfully almost as if he hadn't heard her.
"Hey, I tell you what. I'm going to run and grab something warm to throw on and then we can talk, okay?"
He nodded slowly. Her thoughts ran faster than she did, tripping through her hallways and all of the things that needed to be done to take care of Vegeta. He had ripped his IVs from his arm causing blood to run generously down his arm. He had not noticed. They needed to be cleaned...and probably redone. But doing that was beyond her, she would need Launch's advice. He would need to eat; she definitely did. Her fridge was empty. She had a beer, half a jar of peanut butter, and some uncooked spaghetti noodles. She had planned on going to the store today but...plans changed.
She had thought for a moment about running down to the corner store but she was too afraid to leave him now. He could get himself into too much trouble. He began to talk in his sleep.
When she came back out to the living room his arm was draped over his face, his elbow covering his eyes.
He must have fallen back asleep. That's probably for the best.
He had been awake enough to feel the disconnect between his fingers and his arms, like he was trying to reach something very far away, always right out of his grasp. He hated that sensation. The loss of control. It brought danger, it brought the onset of raw panic, and more importantly it brought back memories.
As he slipped in and out of Bulma's living room, his hungry soul prowled around in the dark sniffing about the piles of skeletons. It stalked through the dusty streets of Yambio, sniffing the gunpowder and the thick blood in the air. It rummaged around the burning, crackling wreckage of his home, the VIP suite, and the marble floors. Rabid and vicious, it sunk its teeth into anything it could find pulling him in and out of the present until it finally settled.
His soul settled on the cold, desolate years in the Ural mountains. It gnashed its teeth, locked its jaw and thrashed about until it had ripped apart the frozen coffin, spilling its contents everywhere. It shook lose broken ink pens, hot boiled roots, frozen starless skies...and Vasili.
Vegeta shivered into the couch, wrapping the blankets tighter around himself looking out the plane window at the vast expanse of white nothingness below. It was endless. Snow for hundreds of miles, probably more punctuated by veins of black rock. Cold eyes pulled him free from the grasp of the mountains. Frieza was watching him with mild amusement.
"Tell me, little prince, what's troubling you?"
It had to be a trap. Frieza didn't really want to know, did he? What was the right answer? What would happen if he gave the wrong answer?
Frieza shifted in his seat, purring and drumming his fingers lightly on his knee. He was waiting.
"Well, Lord Frieza, sir. It's just…" the words caught in his throat. It had been years since he had spoken his mind. It felt foolish that such simple thoughts seemed so dangerous. And yet...he knew. He knew the game. He had to chose his next words carefully. "I am curious, sir, as to why you have chosen to accompany me."
Frieza almost looked impressed by his choice of words. Almost.
Check.
"Very well." he adjusted his tie, and switched one leg on top of the other. "I suppose you have proven yourself as of late. You are here to train. You will be training with a man named Vasili, a former employee of my father's. He once trained me in this very mountain range." Vegeta saw a look he had never seen on Frieza's face before, and he couldn't quite place it. Was it remorse...or some sort of nostalgia? "And now he will train you."
Vegeta waited. That still didn't explain why Frieza was there with him. He had never escorted Vegeta anywhere. He stared at Frieza waiting for an explanation. But Frieza just gazed out the window, that same odd look on his face yet he spoke with a voice that was very familiar to Vegeta. The voice that said Frieza always got what he wanted...and when he didn't he took it anyways.
"He doesn't know it yet, but he will."
Bulma sloshed the bucket of pink suds down the kitchen sink and began to fill it again. Wiping her brow she turned around to survey her work. Discouraging is the word she would've used. Her entire floor and table was a mixture of red and pink. The only thing her efforts seemed to have done was swirl some of the neat, dry puddles into messy streaks and smears. She slammed off the faucet with her palm.
There has to be a better way to get this out. She thought.
A voice, rusty and feeble cut through her frustration.
He must be awake. She thought. Finally.
Entering the living room with a cautious step and wiping her shriveled palms on her waist apron she whispered to him.
"Hey bub, how ya feelin'?"
Nothing.
She took a playful closer, brushing the hair from her eyes.
He was curled up on the couch in a ball wrapped in the blankets. He was shivering. He seemed so much smaller than before. She reached out cautiously to feel his forehead. He felt fine.
Odd.
He must be dreaming.
Bulma watched him for a time, telling herself to turn and leave, to return to the bloody mess in the kitchen but she simply could not. His restless fits had returned. Sorrow hung around her like a raincloud. Vegeta's voice once again cracked through the silence squeaking out of his dry throat.
Was….was he? Yeah, he was. Under his breath, he was singing.
She tried to make out the words but she couldn't understand it. It must've been in a different language. It was slow, the melody was haunting...
Bulma jumped, interrupted by the sound of a knock at the door.
A voice crackled through an old record player. It squeaked as the needle scratched the warped record and it teetered back and forth. The song was haunting. It would haunt Vegeta. Over the course of the next two and a half years Vegeta would learn not only the words to the song, but their meaning, and the language they had come from as intimately as he came to know suffering.
Sometimes, when his mind wandered, as minds are wont to do, he would float through the old cabin, searching for answer that would never come. Amongst them - why this was the only record Vasili owned and why he listened to it nearly non-stop.
Frieza had left Vegeta without another word. Now it was only Vegeta and this man...Vasili. Vegeta had no idea how long he would be here, or if he would survive the training he was to undergo. If experience had taught him anything, it had taught him that his future held a great deal of pain. At the time, he simply was not prepared for the strain of it, nestled high in the Ural mountains. The pain would sit dormant in his spine and flair from time to time at the very presence of the most harmless of things. The unique scent of blooming gardenias, the sight of the starless winter sky, the echoes of brass bells, and of course the elegant sound of Russian rolling of the tongue.
Vegeta nestled into the scratchy couch cushions, wrapped in Bulma's afghan and her bedspread. Despite his many layers he was still shivering, suffering from a cold that penetrated his bones. A cold that resonated from inside. Vasili was simply terrifying, covered in faded blue ink tattoos, balding with a large grey beard that hugged the collar of his shirt. He flicked ash off the end of his cigar angrily and blew smoke out his nose then pushed the cigar onto a plate on the table with a twist and turned to Vegeta, who had not moved since they had first entered the unassuming hut in the mountains and Frieza had told him to stand there in the first place.
The man watched Vegeta, will disinterest and mild irritation. The record scratched to a stop breaking the man's stare. He started it over and walked over to where Vegeta stood, looking down at the small, spindly boy.
"You speak Russian?" he asked, in Russian.
Vegeta stared forward blankly. He would not make eye contact with Vasili unless asked to.
"You will.", this time in English.
Standing, the man was about six feet tall, but he had the physique of a bear.
"Do you know why you are here, malchik?"
"Yes, sir."
"Is that so? Hmph. Why is this?"
"To train, sir."
"Da, that is right, rybka. It is only you and only me on this mountain. Three times in year Klavdiya come with supplies from city. She is only person you will see, other than Vasili. Everyday we will do same thing. You will run, hide. When the night falls, you return home. When you are nichtozhestvo here, where there is nowhere to hide, then we take you to Novosibirsk. You will hide among men. Each day I will find you. We will fight. If I catch you, you lose. If you lose, you do not eat. Do you understand, zychik?"
"Da."
"You are small and you are weak." Vasili stated as his fists sliced through the falling snow towards Vegeta. "That is why you must be smart and you must be fast."
Vegeta dropped down from the lone tree he had tried to hide in, wondering why he thought the conspicuous perch would be a good hiding place. He had been sloppy today.
He had barely stood up straight as Vasili's fists began raining down on him. The big man was much taller than he was, and surprisingly fast for a man his age. He was also relentless.
Vegeta had learned to be quick though over the last year and a half. He was by no means weak or soft at this point, but there was still no way he could exchange blows with Vasili in a brawl and hope to last more than a few seconds. Dodging as he stepped back, he then darted forward, underneath and behind Vasili's blows. Endless stepping back was a losing strategy.
As he turned back towards Vasili, his foot shot out and connected with the back of his knee - the sharp blow would have brought almost any other man of his size down to his knees, but Vasili wasn't just any man - he had long been a master of Systema, so he knew how to take blows and roll with them.
Vasili's weight shifted instinctually to his other leg, and the leg that Vegeta had kicked swung around into a kick, taking the energy from Vegeta's blow and turning it against him.
Fortunately, it wasn't only a disadvantage to be smaller, and Vegeta had learned to use his size to his advantage. Ducking the kick, he was able to grasp his assailant's ankle and calf. Turning, he stepped in and back, pulling the weight of the big man off balance. He tumbled forward.
With surprising agility, Vasili rolled to his feet just as Vegeta was upon him. He was too close to strike, so he grabbed for Vegeta's shoulders. Vegeta's hands came up, intercepting the large man's attack and grasping him by the elbows. Another turn and once again Vasili was tumbling to his back. He landed with a thud and Vegeta made sure he didn't want to get back up with a sharp blow to his chest.
Vasili coughed as the air was expelled from his lungs.
"Big man... can be stupid...if he is strong, but small boy like zychik...? Nyet, he must be fast and clever." Vasili said, his response punctuated by deep breaths.
"So, tell me, old man." Vegeta huffed, standing over Vasili's body "Am I clever enough for you?" a smirk dancing across his frostbitten face.
Vasili laughed heartily, standing up and dusting snow off of himself. "Old Vasili is not as young as he used to be, maybe he cut back on cigars...eh, no. But you are. Clever little rabbit is ready, this week we move to city. You have learned silence and to be hidden where there is nowhere to hide. Now you will hide where ten thousand eyes are watching you."
"Is that all?" Vegeta scoffed playfully as they marched through the snow back to what had become his home. "Too easy."
Bulma's heart pounded as she slowly cracked the door open, just wide enough to see the visitor. It was the delivery boy for the Thai restaurant she had ordered takeout from thirty minutes ago.
Get it together Briefs. Geez.
But her look of horror returned as she looked through the scrawny teenager and across the hall at Vegeta's door.
She returned her attention to the boy, who was shifting awkwardly. Bulma's eyes darted past him again. Her order had been $35.62. She shoved a crumpled up $50 bill into his hand, snatched her food, and told him to keep the change.
Getting the idea that she wanted him gone, he thanked her profusely and zipped down the hallway. Leaving Bulma staring through the cracks of her door, takeout in one-hand, studying the tall, bald man trying to discreetly pick the lock of Vegeta's front door.
Vegeta was proud of himself. A feeling he felt very rarely. The day's training had gone surprisingly well and Vasili seemed to think as much, even ruffling Vegeta's hair upon finding him at home that night and laughing a deep, hearty laugh. Vasili had immediately set about boiling the roots on the boiler stovetop as Vegeta stoked the fire in the fireplace.
Vegeta and Vasili ate in silence for a time, drinking the frozen water and breathing in the sound of Okudzava's voice crackling through the record player and the crackling fire.
Vegeta looked up and down Vasili's arms at his tattoos. They had been living together for fifteen months now and while he wouldn't have called the man a friend, it was the closest thing he had had to a normal relationship with anyone ever.
Vasili noticed lifting his arms and gesturing to his tattoos he swallowed his mouthful of roots.
"Eh, you like?"
Vegeta's face burned with embarrassment.
"Da, Vasili. I do. I...was just wondering what they mean."
The man smiled and rolled his shoulders.
"This is good question, zychik. I will tell you. I have done all of them myself."
"You did?" Vegeta was surprised. Nappa had told him that people had tattoos done in stores using machines or in prison. Other than that he really didn't know anything about them.
"Da, they tell Vasili's story. You see this?" he pointed to a spider on his palm, matching a spider on the other side of his hand facing the other direction. "This one, it means Vasili leave behind web of crime to live a good life." pointing to the spider on the back of his hand.
"And what about the other spider?" Vegeta swallowed a mouthful of root.
"Ha, this mean Vasili will never leave behind web of crime." He smirked and tilted his hand back and forth from one side to the other. "And this means, Vasili...eh..he go this way and then he go that way."
Vegeta couldn't help but smile. He had come to know this man very well over the past year. He was almost like...well, Vegeta didn't have family and he didn't know anything about them either but maybe he was like family….this was like a home? He wasn't sure.
All Vegeta knew was that around Vasili, he felt...like he could exist just there. In that very moment. A feeling he had never felt before..and one he would never feel again.
Vasili rolled his large shoulders again and set his elbows on the table, leaning over his bowl of steamy, dry roots. Vegeta caught notice of a large swooping tattoo on Vasili's forearm.
"What about that one?"
Vasili looked down at his arm and smirked. "This is symbol of your father, of your family. Do you know this?"
Vegeta choked one bite of root he was swallowing. What was Vasili talking about? The man sat there, watching him, waiting patiently for a response. Vegeta shook his head, utterly dumbstruck.
"Da, I hear your name and think, it cannot be. Vegeta has been killed long ago, many years since now. But I look at you and see your father. You should be proud to carry his name."
Something sharp and heavy sat just at the top of Vegeta's chest. He swallowed the tasteless mush in his mouth.
"Tzch. Kogda rak na gore svistnet. My father is dead. He was too weak to stop the people who came to kill him...and I'm not much of a legacy. What is there to be proud of?"
"Everything, zychik. Just because your father was not the strongest does not mean he was not strong, da? There is always someone stronger. Even stronger than Frieza. Who knows, maybe will be you one day, yes?"
Vegeta thought hard about this, he had dreamt countless times of clawing the life from Frieza's body with his own hands...entertaining the thought, the flicker of hope that one day, it might actually be possible?
Vasili's booming voice broke his violent fantasies.
"You have no pride because you have given it away. But this? Is one thing no one can take. Not even Frieza. From Vasili they take home, take wealth, take family, for a time even freedom. But...never...take...pride." he slowly pounded his closed fist on Vegeta's heart as he spoke the four words. "Nyet. But, eh, still they try. Why? Because if they take pride they have everything. But they will never take it." Vasili pounded his fist on his own heart passionately.
"Find it and not even Frieza can stop you, zychik."
Vegeta thought for a moment. Pushing the remainder of the light maroon plants around the cracked bowl with his fork. "Vasili….I don't know how." It was hard for him to admit. Weakness was dangerous but Vasili was different and Vegeta knew that, more than that ...he felt it.
Vasili thought for a moment. "You must remember who Vegeta is...who Vegeta was." and withthat the man got up and began to rummage through the kitchen cupboards.
Nappa cursed to himself, of course that cheeky little bastard had modded the lock since the last time he was here.
"Son of a fucking bitch." but he had to get inside, had to see for himself. If Vegeta was down, if he was laying low then he could take him out now and be done with it. He would have followed up with Don but Vegeta had disposed of him, and judging by the scene, not entirely unscathed. He followed the trail back here.
Vegeta was clean, efficient, quiet. But there was still blood all over these walls. Either he was already dead or he would be soon.
Vegeta held the bundle of taped needles carefully over the flame of the candle. Vasili set a pillar of incense in the center of the table, Vegeta had never seen one before. He looked at it inquisitively.
"Aaaah, da. This is ladan. For very special occasion only. He lit the incense and watched it glow, reverently blowing out the flame. Smoke began to dance and curl through the air, filling the room."
With Vasili's guidance Vegeta set himself breaking the ink pens and pulling the ink out into the ceramic bowl he had eaten dinner from.
Vasili sat across from Vegeta explaining the process to him, a small scrap of yellowed paper with the design on it in his hand. He looked at Vegeta with an unfamiliar look it made him feel strange. Vegeta had been given adult responsibilities his whole life but this felt different. Respect, maybe? It was so different from the shame and constant degradation that waited for him back within the marble hallways. Vasili looked deep into his eyes with a smile of..another look he couldn't quite place?
"Ponimayu?"
"Ya ponimayu."
And with that be began, carefully and thoughtfully dipping the needle in the ink and pressing it into the skin of his finger over and over again, wiping it away with the cold damp cloth.
By the time he was finished his finger was swollen and the ink looked as though it had faded deep beneath his skin. He really couldn't tell if he had done a good job or not.
Vasili inspected it carefully, dipping the finger in icy water.
"You have done well." then clapping Vegeta on the top of his head and ruffling his hair. "Vasili is proud." Then throwing himself down at the kitchen table and clearing his throat, a warm smile melted through his rough exterior. "Now, it is time for Vasili to give you gift and always, wherever you are, you will remember." Picking up the needles he dipped and swirled them in the bloody ink that glistened in the firelight.
And he did...no matter where he went, Vegeta remembered.
The bald man had disappeared long ago, either making his way into Vegeta's apartment or giving up, Bulma did not want to find out. She wanted to tell him what had happened, but he still had not awoken. Bulma was beginning to worry. He would stir, say things she didn't understand and he would struggle, sometimes to the point where she worried he wound rip open his wound- but he had not awoken. It was night once again and Launch had come and gone with more fluids for him and what she described as her "cocktail" or "stop juice".
She watched him breathe heavily and sweat into the blankets, shivering and bundling as tightly as he could. He looked so small. For a moment she debated whether to sleep in her own bed, but she was terrified he would pull another bathroom stunt...or worse.
Grabbing a pillow and a blanket, she collapsed on the carpet with a heavy thud and a sigh. Her face resting underneath his hand that hung off the edge of the couch. Gingerly she reached up and intertwined their fingers feeling them spasm and twitch around her hand.
Please God, Kami, Universe….anyone...let him make it.
Every step Vegeta took threatened to be his last as he sunk waist deep into the fresh powder. His clothes had frozen solid now and his joints were locking. He tried to shuffle his feet forward through the snow bank but his muscles were numb. They had given up listening to him long ago. He could see Vasili's cabin. It was so close. He wasn't supposed to come back until he had found the knife that he had lost the previous day, but he didn't have a choice. He had been so cold and he was so close. It was just across the frozen river. Falling through the ice had ruined it all.
He knew what this meant. No knife. No food. That was the rule. You don't eat if you are not successful on your mission. The hollow aching in his muscles filled him with dread, he wasn't even sure he would make it back now.
The water slowly dripped down his back and legs, turning to slush as it went and ice as it reached the snow beneath him compacting around his feet. One last push. He gave it one last push and fell into the snowbank face first.
He wasn't sure how long he was there in the snow, surrounded on all sides. Buried alive. He tried to keep the snow from suffocating him but it was becoming increasingly harder to do so. Vegeta had resigned himself to die there just as he felt powerful warm hands wrap around his body and pull him from his frozen grave.
Bulma was starting to panic, his eyes stared through her emptily as he continued to shiver. If anything, the blankets were making things worse, but he was wrapped in them so tightly she couldn't pull them from his grasp. White knuckling the edges of the blankets that he pulled tight around his frame, his teeth chattered violently.
Vasili threw another log on the fire with one hand, dropping Vegeta down on the rug in front of the fireplace with the other. He instructed Vegeta to stand and quickly stripped off his own clothes, down to his underwear. Then he began to tug Vegeta's clothes from his body, one piece at a time.
Vegeta had known this time would come. It always seemed to come to this, though he never understood why. His body was too numb to fight it. Vasili ripped each piece of icy clothing off of his body, throwing them on the hearth. Finally turning Vegeta around towards the fireplace, he ripped his underwear from his wiry frame and stopped.
Bulma hesitated before clicking 'send' - Launch's number dialed into her phone. Vegeta had suddenly stopped trembling and his hands had relaxed their iron grip on his blankets...but his face was still locked into a hard, focused expression, like someone who had accepted something unpleasant and was just waiting for it to be over. He opened his eyes, and Bulma could have sworn that he looked right at her. He almost seemed to smile at her.
Vegeta stood still and silent. Bulma's fearful eyes disappeared as he heard Vasili get up from the chair where he sat. He didn't bother looking, it didn't matter anyway. Vegeta felt warm, muscular arms wrap around him and lift him into Vasili's grip, there was a quilt wrapped around them. Vasili used his other arm to pull the armchair closer to the fire and then sat down, pulling the child closer into his chest, Vegeta's back against his chest.
Vegeta had not anticipated this. Any of this. He was suspicious.
"If you do not warm yourself slow you will lose toes and fingers, zychik."
Vegeta said nothing. Just stood there, as stiff as a corpse, watching the flames as they licked the charred bricks that lined the fireplace. Vasili cleared his throat awkwardly and held the boy tighter. His throat tight with emotion.
"Rybka, I have seen your scars. Frieza has done this to you, da?" He waited patiently. Whole minutes passed and still Vasili listened. No one had ever waited for Vegeta to say it out loud. No one had ever asked. Nappa knew. Raditz knew. Zarbon and Dodoria definitely knew, sometimes taking pleasure in watching. Everyone knew. But no one ever asked. No one ever spoke of it.
The frozen coffin that had held Vegeta inside had melted. He began to choke on the frigid water that dripped around him and for the first time since that first time, he cried.
"Y-ye-yes…" he choked on the word as it fell past his lips, letting his head fall on Vasili's barrel arms and burying his face in the hairy, leathery skin.
A faint gasp escaped Bulma's lips… was he... crying? She reached out and gingerly wiped the tears from his cheek. Once again, he opened his eyes slightly and their gazes met. "Vegeta…" she whispered. "You poor dear, what happened to you…"
Once again the deep barrel-chested voice snapped Vegeta back into the memory. Pulled him away from her starry eyes and the tender touch of her fingers against his cheek.
"Shh….shhhh...You don't need to fear this of me." Vasili's voice was strong, yet gentle. Vegeta had never experienced compassion. He struggled to comprehend everything about this.
Vegeta's body burned as it began to slowly warm from their shared body heat. Vasili held the boy closer as he crumpled, going limp in the man's arms.
Vasili gently rocked back and forth ever so slightly and sang the familiar song in a low and booming voice.
Poka zemlya yeshche vertitsya,
Poka yeshche yarok svet,
Gospodi, day zhe ty kazhdomu,
Chego u nego net:
Mudromu day golovu,
Truslivomu day konya,
Day schastlivomu deneg...
I ne zabud' pro menya.
As the man sang, words almost seemed to change into the soft and warm lilt of Bulma's voice.
Vegeta whimpered quietly, clawing and twisting the wrappings that covered his abdomen. He was still shivering, teeth chattering, as he twisted in the blankets.
What should she do? What could she? How could you save someone from something that threatened to tear them apart from the inside?
Taking a deep breath Bulma turned around and pulled herself up, peering over his side to look at his face. He looked pale and sick, like he was either going to throw up, pass out, or...both?
His lips moved ever so slightly, the occasional sound, crackling out of his dry throat and into the cushions of the couch.
Just let him sleep...or should I wake him? Rewrap his wound. Shit. Do that. That first. I was supposed to do that hours ago.
"Hey?" She placed a hand gently on his shoulder. " Hey...Vegeta? You doing okay?"
He inhaled sharply, his breaths skipping like stones on the water, taking in the rough, woven pattern of the couch. She repeated her question to him. It took him a moment to respond.
"Yep. Super." he managed a pathetic 'thumbs-up'., It was as though he were pretending it had never happened at all. He was not convincing.
She watched over him fretfully, swirling the pads of her thumb and forefingers over each other. After a few minutes she managed to tear herself away. She padded back into the kitchen and fetched the old Thai Market grocery bag Launch had left full of supplies. She heard his voice sleepily drift through the air. It sounded like he was having a conversation with someone.
"Hey." she tried to whisper but it barely came out of her mouth. She didn't want to startle him and she wasn't quite sure if he was talking to her. She was met by silence.
"Vegeta?"
When she entered the living room he almost looked surprised to see her. When he didn't elaborate she slowly made her way to the end of the couch again and sat down.
"Vegeta. I'm sorry to wake you but we need to change your dressing."
Nothing.
"Hey…I'm going to change your bandages, okay?" He didn't respond, but instead attempted to turn over and sit up. Bulma helped him then slid in behind him on the couch and wrapped her arms around his waist, undoing the dressing. His back was covered in knotted, twisted scars. Some white, some pink. She wanted to know them, to understand. It was all so foreign to her, this world of his. She trailed her fingers along his shoulder blades and down his arm. She saw the tattoo she had missed before; her mind had been on other things at the time. It looked Russian, she couldn't read it. Faded and blue, the letters were entangled in barbed wire, a shackled hand holding out a naked angel. She ran her fingers along it, just now beginning to understand how little she knew about him… how little she understood.
His dark eyes were flat, like a well of ink.
"Vegeta, what does it say?"
"Hmm?" He turned to meet her gaze. He looked tired, as if he had been tired his whole life, and she supposed that maybe he had.
For a moment she considered whether or not to proceed but she found herself tracing the letters once again, as they ran under and over scars on his shoulder.
"What does this tattoo mean?"
"It means 'Oh, fickle fortune, smile on me once more.' It represents the dream of a chance to escape the life one has been fated. The dream of the chance to kill Frieza." He paused reverently, breathing in the memory of the sweet scent of the sticky ink, freshly cracked from pens. "...And the barbs represent the years of imprisonment...at the time," He swallowed thoughtfully, looking hollowly back off into the distance, "...it had been eight years with Frieza."
Eight years?
"H-how long ago did you get this? It looks old."
"I was thirteen."
Bulma wanted to say something, but what could she say? Wanted to ask a million questions but his eyes begged for reprieve. It was something she couldn't give. She felt powerless.
He had fallen back asleep, sitting upright. She slid him down onto the couch, sliding herself in between him and his wound. His arm draped over her lazily, his face nestled into hers. She ran her fingers over his tattoos and scars, over his stories.
Vegeta woke to the sensation of bitter, numbing cold that curled his muscles. Something was wrong. The fire was out. He wrapped himself in his quilt and padded across the cold cobblestones to the fireplace.
Curious.
The logs were cold, and no smoke puttered up from dying flames, it must have gone out long ago. Silently, he set about making a new fire and warming himself beside it.
He looked out the window. No sun shone, but it rarely did here. The world outside was a pure, blinding white.
Odd.
Normally Vasili woke him before dawn, oftentimes he woke before dawn on his own.
The final oddity was the last moment of his peaceful life in the mountains.
The skipping of the record as it reached the end, over and over.
He found Vasili peacefully in the arms of Death in his bed, as though he were sleeping.
Reverently he grabbed a stick of incense, and the record player and moved them to his room, dragging the heavy arm chair as it skidded across the cobblestones. He pulled it beside the bed, lit the incense, carefully blowing it out when it began to glow, and re-started the record. He hadn't bothered to dress, rather wrapping himself in the quilt and balling up in the chair.
And that's where the old supplies hag found him, days later. Still curled in the chair, a frail thing, cold and nearly naked, no fire in the home. In a room with nothing but a frozen corpse and the grinding sound of a skipping record, pushed off its track.
Vegeta looked so peaceful. She watched him for a few moments, it felt like eternities, hoping he would say something. Hoping he was okay. Agonizing over how very little she knew about him. She really hated to wake him but she knew he hadn't eaten in at least a day. "Hey tough guy, I've got some food for you."
His eyes fluttered open hands shooting up to cover his face. It took him a moment to recognize her. "Mm? Blue?" He tried to sit up and fell back down.
"Hey, hey. Not so fast killer, let me help you." She wrapped her arms under him and helped him to sit up.
His face burned with embarrassment, he mumbled a thank you. He looked up at her dizzily.
Bulma set the pizzas on the coffee table and they ate straight from the boxes in quiet. He chewed slowly and thoughtfully, his stormy eyes distant. She had so many questions. The heavy sound of his breath pulled her gently out of the whirlpool of thoughts. The half eaten piece of pizza in his hand looked like it would fall into his lap. His other hand covered the bandage on his stomach. She tried to meet his gaze, his eyes closed, brow furrowed. His spine coiling up, slowly he curled into a ball. Still holding the piece of pizza, he did something Bulma never would've expected. Shivering and twitching... he snuggled into her. After a minute she continued eat in quiet, all the while watching him nuzzle into her side. Then he began to hum.
She found herself tracing his scars, resting her head over the back of the couch. It was that tune, the same one he had sung over and over again. When he finished the last bar she whispered gently to him.
"Vegeta?"
He jumped, his arms flying up in front of his face and immediately reaching back down to grab his burning side. It was as though he hadn't been there at all. He had felt her fingers rubbing lines all over his body..hadn't he?
"Oh. I was just wondering what you were humming."
"Molitva." he breathed in as though he were breathing in ice itself. "The Prayer of Francois Villon." He had nestled in, wrapping his arm over her leg and around her foot, and absentmindedly tapping his fingers lightly on the tips of her toes that hid under her knee. His cheek smashed into her knee, gazing forward now beyond the entry to the kitchen.
"What does it mean?"
She watched him intently, lost in his face, she wanted to be where he was, wanted to carry him through the trenches she knew he crawled through. But she could not. Instead she watched and she waited.
"As long as the Earth keeps turning, as long as the sun is above. Almighty, please give to all of us, the things we do not have….." he looked as though he would turn to ash, never losing his form or composure, simply turning to delicate dust and blowing away in the wind. "I know that you have the power, I have faith in your wisdom, believing as does a dead soldier that right in Heaven He dwells….and…as long as it still has some time left and fire to keep its course, grant something to everyone… and do not forget me… 'yours truly'..."
The voices drifted through the room like ancient dust, it filled his chest and resonated deep in his spine.
He couldn't believe it. Everything had been there, everything had been...and then it simply hadn't. It was the first time in his life he had clung to something other than himself, and the smell of charcoal and frankincense that danced around him in the drafty chapel whispered to him. Never again.
In his life, tragedy was always preceded by something that had violently, savagely ripped it from his grasp, kicking him in the teeth and leaving him bleeding on the ground, covered in ash and snow. But not this time.
No. There had been no fire, no Frieza, no gunpowder. Nothing but Death. Death itself had visited him. In the night He had trailed his cold, pale fingers along the windows and the doors, snuffing out the fire and Vasili's life. It was poetic, in a stupid way. Vegeta wouldn't cry. He told himself he would swallow the tears if he had to choke on them.
Bulma finally understood what was happening, he was getting lost in the song, in where the song was taking him. This time he interrupted his own thoughts.
"Why?" Wide, dusky eyes filled with sorrow and curiosity.
"Well, you've been singing it in your sleep for the past two days... I just…"
Something short circuited in his brain with her words.
Two days. Wait. TWO DAYS?
Shit. He had missed at least one check in. He needed to fix that. Now. Before someone came looking for him.
"Blue, listen to me. I need to know where you put my phone?" his voice was suddenly urgent, almost fearful.
"Are you serious? Right now?"
"Listen Blue, if I don't check in we are going to have a lot more than a bullet hole to worry about, okay?" he awkwardly pushed himself off the couch urgently, falling back down in the process.
"Stop. Okay. Uh...Just, wait there I will find it." She gently pushed him back and ran into the kitchen to retrieve it. She knew exactly where it was. The same place she had left it that night after they had moved him to the couch, it had buzzed over and over again.
She took it to him, he pulled it out and rapidly typing sent one message, then dropped it to the floor.
Nappa hadn't slept well since he last heard from Vegeta. He had no idea whether the kid was dead or not. He rubbed the back of his bald head. Man, how had he gotten so mixed up in all of this messed up shit.
His phone buzzed on the counter. He jumped to grab it.
Finally.
But it wasn't the news Nappa was hoping for. Two words. The number was encrypted but he knew exactly who it was.
Blue falcon.
Nappa's heart stopped. Vegeta. He was alive. He was alive and he was coming for him.
Panic sat heavy in Bulma's chest. Vegeta's eyes darting back and forth across his hands as he huffed angrily.
"Is...everything alright?" she questioned anxiously. "What can I do?"
"I don't know Blue." he chuckled to himself at the thought of her "helping" the situation.
He groaned as he leaned back on the couch and so did his stomach. For the briefest of moments, both Vegeta and Bulma forgot the seriousness of the situation at the ridiculousness of something so normal as hunger.
Bulma chuckled. Vegeta smiled, and then the strangest thing happened between them of all - they laughed together.
"Alright, comrade" Bulma jested, "let me get you some more pizza. I did promise you three afterall." She said with a wink as she walked to the kitchen.
"Do you want veggies or -" She asked as she walked back into the living room, a pizza in each hand. She smiled.
Vegeta was fast asleep. Bulma set the pizzas down and quietly tip-toed over to the couch. She slid as carefully as she could onto the couch and into his arms. Somehow laying with him she wasn't afraid anymore, she forgot all about bullets and bandages, all about the blood she couldn't seem to get out of the kitchen floor. The occasional bit of Russian softly punctuated the silence, as she watched as the darkness of night swallowed the twilight. She was more at peace than she could ever remember.
As always, the greatest of thanks to my valiant army of copy editors Hanko, Cindermane and dgschneider for tolerating my flurry of artistic writing and making it presentable! Especially Hanko for the late night write sesh.
And praises ever be to Her Holiness, Stupidoomdoodles and the lovely LadyVegeets for inspiring this fic and really for getting me writing for the first time.
Comments are welcome, say hello! I don't bite!