I wasn't intending to write something like this when I started typing on my keyboard. In fact, I had no idea where it was coming from and still have no idea where it came from. I think it may be a bit depressing - it's certainly not uplifting. And it got in the way of the next chapter of Shattered Heart. Apologies to those still waiting for that one.
Hope you like it - or at least find some merit in it. It's... almost clinical in some strange sort of way.
Inspired By: Uhmmm... Maybe Xero Sky's fic Redemption? I had read that yesterday, and this came out last night...
I shiver in the chill, my hands stiff and unwieldy. I do not give in to the internal shudders gripping me, ignoring the trembling centred in my chest. My muscles vibrate spasmodically, like the twitching of a horse’s rump when a fly has settled on it. My involuntary movements are not due to such a minor irritation. It is cold. But not as cold as his eyes.
Oh, he is angry. He is very, very angry. But it is not a rage of fire and passion that stirs him, not like the righteous indignation that has made the many battles for the safety of this planet all the more poignant. It is cold. Sharp as ice. And for the first time in a long time I remember that chill edge of continuous terror, the eternal vigilance that is the price for a capricious Master. His eyes are like Frieza’s were when he went into one of his not uncommon rages. And now, like then, I find my face freezing over into an expression of impassivity, features turning cold and unresponsive, even while the chill wind makes me want to shiver, and my twisting fear makes me want to flee. I will give in to neither impulse, overwhelming though they may be.
My pride upholds me. As it always has, even when it would have been better to grovel in the dust. It has sustained me through the destruction of my people, the death of my planet, it has kept me alive through Frieza’s bitter reign, and it has upheld me on this soft planet with its soft people’s and their baffling customs. Now, I think, it will bring me to my death. He is truly furious.
He advances but I do not retreat, ignoring the warning in those dark eyes. They are like shards of glass newly broken, jagged and glinting in the light of the sun. In some obscure way it suits him, he who before has always been so amiable, who has never before had to use his natural rage in anything other than defence. His aggression has always been tempered, and now - for the first time, perhaps - it is set free. And that, more than anything, locks my knees. It is not bravery that holds me in place. It is fear. I am like the mouse that freezes under the snake’s gaze, petrified. His face twists in a snarl, his pace quickens and his arms rise.
I am caught up in an embrace, fierce but gentle. A voice, harsh in its shrillness, growls into my ear.
“You will not fear me.”
Ah, but I already do. Already have. Ever since my defeat on this precious planet of his, ever since what little world I had left shattered around me, in a million tiny shards of blue. Whatever pitiful illusions I have mastered to the contrary, I have never had any aspirations to do anything other than fear him. No aspirations at all. I have had no dreams since I was a child, and my obsessions have slowly begun to die. The last one faded with the fusion. I have no goals left, no use, no purpose. I could lie to myself before, say that I existed in order to surpass him, safe in the knowledge that such would never come to be. I am inferior, have been so all my life and will continue to be so for whatever remains of it. I will never admit it out loud; I admit it only in the rarest of moments even to myself. I told him once, told them all, that my ascension was due to despair. Despair brought about by him. Did he really think that I was lying? I am a creature prone much more to the darker, duller emotions that his bright, flaming joys. Hope is not in me, anger has dulled to a bare façade. I live to die. He dies to live. We are opposites. He should accept that.
But he does not. He does not accept any of it, the anger, the hate, the sorrow, the despair. I am his pet project, his favoured obsession and with the fusion he forced upon me he saw all there was to see of me. Saw all there was to see, heard all there was to hear, understood all there was to understand. After all these years of work and friendliness, all his attempts to remake me into a better person, he has seen the result. And he has just realised that he has failed. It is not a happy discovery. The fusion left us both too open to each other. Our actions as the fusion entity are vague and hazy to me, but his thoughts, separate and distinct from my own, are not. The consciousness that lay over us controlled the body, and we were free to learn of each other.
I tried not to. I never wished another to know me so well, nor to know another so well. But his ever-probing curiosity delved deep into me before I could prevent it, and he came to know… everything. And now the battle is over, and all is calm and peaceful and he comes to confront me over my own despair. How ironic.
He adores me. Adores me with every fibre of his being, worships me from afar, sees in me passion and obsession far to outrival his own. I am his greatest goal, to become like me in character, to have my strength of purpose and of will. To be able to hold to a goal even beyond hope, beyond despair to the point where success and failure do not matter. I am his icon, the beautiful statue on a pedestal set so far above that it is almost, but not entirely unreachable. It is not my strength he admires, not my skill he covets, but my perseverance. All these things he felt for me, and then he touched my mind. And found me broken. A marionette whose puppeteer has died and left the strings snapped and tangled around each other. I disappoint him. He was expecting so much more, and received so much less than what he thinks I should be.
And thus this confrontation.
He seeks to drive me into a true rage, make me feel more than the dull feeling of hopelessness that has plagued me for so long. He tells me I am depressed, but that underneath that I have so much more to live for. He tries to shove my title down my throat - a useless interconnection of words that has no meaning, not even to me. My rank at birth was determined by procedures that he himself proves faulty. Low class God. High-class peasant. Our roles are determined by his strength, our ranks fixed the moment he ascended. I am lesser even to my own son.
Now he tells me rank does not matter, that it is my skill that makes me the better, that I rise on merit. My eyes, I know, show my scepticism clearly. What merit have I? He could gain just as much skill, much more quickly. I have struggled for my strength, my peak reached many years ago. I push a body that can go no further beyond its limits each day, and know that there is nothing I can do that will make me improve. The same is true of what little dexterity I have, what little technique I have managed to master. I have reached my peak, attained all that I am able to attain and am still wanting. There is no skill in me.
My family is thrown in my face, a reason for living, for trying harder. Does he think that I do not already do so? I live only because she needs me, he needs me, for reasons I cannot determine. Their motivations are as clouded to me as his are; more so - at least with the fusion I have seen something of his reasoning. But my confusion as to their need is countered by its fierceness. They want me with them, as pathetically useless as I am; I will stay. Alive for one more moment only because I see always the blue of their eyes before me. He seems to sense this, presses the perceived advantage. My eyes remain mirrors to his searching gaze.
Now he tells me of the secret that even fusions could not reveal, his palms warm on my shoulders, his fingers digging into my flesh. He adores me. Yes, this I already know. He loves me. As much as a being such as I can be loved. He desires me.
Ah.
I step away, pushing at his muscled chest, fingers catching in the cloth of his gi. Dark eyes have lost their coldness, but still they cut as sharply as ice. But I understand the last of that devastating list much more than the first two, have been recipient of lust for much of my life. Frieza did not permit his soldiers to molest children, but the instant I attained majority I was fair game. Some were gentle. Others less so. The only one I can honestly say came close to giving me pleasure was Dodoria. Ugly, fat, horrendously pink, and unutterably, obscurely worshipful. He too adored me. He never claimed to love me, but he adored me, showered me with expensive gifts, gave me affection, stroked and pleasured my body with thick-fingered gentleness. With him as my… bedmate, I experienced the closest thing to luxury since leaving Vejiitasei. Everything he had, he made sure I had better. I was… hurt, when he grew… bored of me and gave me up to his cohort. I never hoped to have it so good again. I never will.
But this one claims to love me. And now I know of his desire, lying hot and heavy, coiled deep within him. So, I will show him, give him what he desires, what he loves. The shell is an easy thing to give up - once you do it once, it becomes easier and easier. His hands twitch, as though to catch me should I run. Why should I run? Where, does he think, could I run to?
My hands move lazily, running up my belly to pass over my chest. I catch the material of my training suit in my left hand and rip it. The sound stretches between us as our breath mists the air. The cloth parted easily, as easily as my legs will soon. For him. As for many others. I slip the top off me, twining it between my fingers to look at it regretfully. It was comfortable, but now it is ruined. Many things are ruined.
The cloth drops to the ground in a sibilant heap as I raise my eyes to meet his. My nipples are peaking in the chill air, and I can feel the tremors fight to leave my control. He moves towards me, but steps back as I stare at him. He seems mesmerised. Fascinated with what I am doing, ensnared by the slight movements of my chest as I breathe. For one flickering moment I hate him for it, and passion stirs in my eyes. He sees it, that I do not doubt, and misinterprets it as he has always done.
I find I do not care anymore, what little frustration he used to stir within me has gone cold and dead. He loves me, adores me, desires me. Let him have the passion. I will be the receptacle for his dreams, the storehouse of his pleasures.
With that in mind I begin the closest thing to a striptease that I can manage. My gloves are removed carefully, sensuously, and from somewhere in the back of my head I watch, my clinical detachment no surprise to me, as the body I inhabit goes through the motions learnt so long ago. Boots are slipped off, and I dip my feet toward the earth delicately. His eyes flare. It is so easy to make them want me.
My hands are at my hips now, thumbs snagging in the hem of my trousers, trailing the cloth down my body, angled now to conceal as much as it reveals. I am acting coy, and he responds as many others have responded. But yet he stays in place. Only very few have ever done that before this. Voluntarily, at any rate. I find myself at a loss as to what to do now that I am finished, naked and fighting to force my body to conceal shivers. But there is always one small trick that gets them moving, and I employ it now, looking up from beneath my lashes, my head lowered just enough to make me look shy. He moves forwards, takes me into his arms, holds me close to him. Similar but not the same as others have reacted.
Then he bends, still holding me, scoops up my clothes and transports us elsewhere.
This is not expected.
We end up somewhere inside, much warmer than the chill of the outside air. He lays me down on something soft, his eyes holding mine all the while, as though to see into the very depths of me. I return the gaze, knowing well that my eyes give away too little. A single hand reaches up to touch my cheek; he traces the ridge of my nose, strokes along an eyebrow. His touch is gentle, concerned, tender and soft. Much like Dodoria’s. I am impressed. Few have managed to attain such a level of care in only one movement. I wait for the next move, allowing my body to relax against the covers of what is obviously a bed. In a house that is not his. He has prepared for this, so certain of my reaction. Again I feel a brief flicker of passionate emotion, anger this time that I should be so predictable in my actions and behaviour. Anger that he should be so willing to take advantage of that. I suppose somewhere, at the heart of me, I had hoped he would prove better than the others. But all are frail in their desires, even if they are not so in their flesh.
He strips off quickly, methodically, a light blush staining his cheeks. He is embarrassed at his nakedness. How… quaint. How… innocent. He knows about sex, is divinely intimate with death, but baring his skin is still a difficult thing. The contrast fails to amuse. All things fail to amuse me.
So now he is naked, his body over mine. He strokes my side and I move appropriately, watching him from veiled eyes. He is tremulous. I know he has wanted this for a long time. I suppose I should be glad to be of some… use to this epitome of heroism. But it feels dead and cold inside.
He is not an unskilled partner. He touches all the right places, kisses and caresses, suckles and nips perfectly. It is like a science, this thing we do now, in the darkness of a curtained room, in some house I do not recognise. I respond exactly as I know he wants me to, whimpering and whining, moaning, crying in all the right places, at all the right times. I have more practice at this than he. It is to be expected that I get this perfect. His skill on the other hand… perhaps he has taken others to his bed. Perhaps even this bed. Or he has stolen the memories from inside my mind, of what it is that men do to men in the night when no one screams. I find I do not care, either way.
He sheathes himself inside me, rides my body gently as my erection rubs between us. The sensations are pleasant, and soon I am given to my release. The thrusts into my body are easy to take, while I wait for him to finish. He acts as though something inside him has exploded when he releases his seed into me. The visage he presents is that of ecstasy, bliss, fulfilment, contentment and then eventually gratitude. He kisses my face, whispering his thanks over and over and over. I act suitably touched by it all. Then he slowly, gently begins to fall asleep, his head resting on my shoulder, his breath ghosting across my cheek. He is no longer inside me, but my legs must remain spread for a while, to take his weight on my pelvis. I do not doubt they will become numb very soon. Once again, I find that I do not care. The sensation will return to my legs and they will function again. My body is nothing if not efficient.
He snuffles against me, bringing his arms around to hug my chest, pulling me against him more comfortably. His fingers dig harshly into my skin. I suspect they will leave bruises. But it is the moaning that draws most of my attention. I do not wish him to wake. I lift a hand up, and begin to pet his hair, the other rubbing his back. He calms and settles into a soothing sleep.
I stroke his hair and watch the ceiling, waiting for the morning to come.
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