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Death by Living ___________________________ no doubt - underneath it all Her dreams were dark. There was something moving beside her and her dreams were dark. Bulma groaned, struggling to keep her eyes shut and not abandon that blessed state of sleep. It had to be damn Vejiita. It was always his nightmares that made her dreams dark. But what kind of person would she be if she blamed her bad dreams on him? There were things, things too dark and too horrifying for her to imagine, things that he protected her from, even though their bond practically forced her to see everything about him. Body decided it didn't like that position and tried to shift, only to find that she was constricted. Damnit, if he wasn’t waking her up with his nightmares, it was for sex. That horny bastard kept her up half the night as it was; now he had thought she didn’t need sleep at all? "Vejiita, lemme up, I’m tired." Came out a bit whiner than she intended, but that always pissed him off and hopefully he’d let her get back to sleep. "Shut up onna." His voice was gruff, low in his throat, but not angry. Bulma failed to notice. "Shut up? Shut up?! I’m most definitely not going to-" "Onna, shut your mouth for once in your life." She had already opened her lips in a harsh retort when a certain note in his voice stopped her. There were so many emotions, mostly negative, that she constantly could pick up in his voice, but this time, it was one she’d never heard before. Fear. Something had made Vejiita afraid. Panic welled up in Bulma and she struggled against Vejiita. He had somehow managed to get her lying face down atop him; his legs wrapped around her. A hand she hadn’t noticed stroked her back. "Calm down onna. You have no reason to be afraid." His voice proved to freak her out more. Vejiita was an asshole, mean, cold and as horrible as anyone could be. But that was normal. Bulma knew, just knew, that for him to be acting this... Well nice, then something gruesome was to happen. "No reason to be afraid?! Hell Vejiita, you’re afraid!" Her genius mind went into overtime. "I’m going to die aren’t I? Oh Kami, I’m going to die and Trunks’ll have to grow up without a mom-" "You will not be harmed onna. I will ensure that." If anything, Vejiita was overprotective. When they had first become a... well, whatever the hell they were, couple, she guessed, he prevented her from being within twenty feet of any male, including her own father. His jealous rages and hatred for any man that looked at her hadn’t diminished in the least over the years. Finally, Bulma had succeeded in rising to her elbows, glaring him full on. Ebony eyes were blank as ever, with that ever familiar crease betwixt his eyebrows and his mouth set into a firm line. A resolved face, if she’d ever seen one, and Bulma didn’t like it at all. There was something he was hiding from her, something he did not want her knowing. If there was anything she hated, it was not being informed. "Then what is it, my tairyoku?" It was her secret word. She called him her strength whenever she wanted something and with that big of a stroke to his ego, Vejiita usually granted her whatever she wanted. The hard edge left his eyes as he stared at her and Bulma suddenly got uncomfortable. He was her constant, always predictable and this was a very idiosyncratic thing for him to do. "You will know in time jakuten; you will know." He gently (gently?! Vejiita?! She was getting delusional) knocked her elbows out and pressed her into his chest. "I want to know now." Her protests were getting weaker. He had deviously flooded their bond with golden shining warmth that wrapped her in the smell of roses (Red roses, something said, eternal love.), filled her ears with the sound of a sweet single note from a violin (her favorite instrument) and rolled her in the taste of strawberries. Ohh, how she loved strawberries. She knew he was clouding her mind, making her forget her stubbornness and his fear and her fear and all those bad, bad things, but he did such an enticing comfort such as this oh so rarely, and she couldn’t help being lulled into it. Only when he did one of these would she remember how much he actually took notice of her, to have remembered her favorite things and to be able to replicate them so well. There were some times when she was so close to hating him, to forgetting that they had a child together and that he had saved her life because he could be so incorrigible. But then he’d whip something like this out, something so small and so simple, and she’d fall in love with him all over again. Ugh, love. Why did she have to love him? There were so many better guys; just so many and she could have gotten practically all of them. Guess love is like that, crappy, frustrating but impartial, no matter how much you’d wish it to be. "Aishiteru Vejiita." The warmth was drowning her, and Bulma could hardly stay awake. Every night for the past few months, she’d been asking him a question and every night he avoided it. She swallowed, trying to get the words past her mouth before she lost herself. "Tell me you love me." There was silence and that was expected. Bulma allowed herself to be swept away. "Bulma," She came back for a moment, reveling in the sound of her name so rarely spoken from his lips. He did say it so wonderfully. "I am proud of our son. Tell him that." She smiled, holding him tighter than normal. Which wasn’t very tight, considering Vejiita was an inch away from squeezing the life out of her. It struck her odd, for the first time that night, that Vejiita was embracing her so fervently. He wasn’t big on cuddling but tonight... tonight something was wrong... she got lost again, forgetting her train of thought. "And Bulma," He whispered, stroking her hair and pressing his lips to her forehead quickly. "Bulma... aishiteru." He was weak. He was weak and frail and feeble and inadequate. That’s what he had said to convince himself to give in. Call it a vision or a premonition or whatever, but tomorrow he was to die. And for some reason, he knew he wasn’t coming back. There were too many factors against his resurrection. She was warm in his arms, warm and real and his need. It was sickening to have a need, but he enjoyed it for some reason. Kami, he was weak. *** Later the next day*** Her stomach clenched. A soft moan escaped her throat as it did so violently. Standing, she excused herself from her group and wandered to the bathroom. Why would her stomach hurt so badly? The tan door pushed open and she grabbed her stomach, letting the cry get out of her throat. It echoed. She collapsed to her knees, doubling over so that her forehead touched the cool floor, tears streaming down the side of her face. The sounds she made were like something dying... dying... *** That golden edge left him as the bond snapped between them. But, miraculously, impossibly, she was still there, still sharing his torture. He tried to cut her off from it but he was too weak... always too weak. *** For so long she’d lived with it; for so long it had been a low hum in the back of her mind. But now it was fading, dissolving and she couldn’t let it. Everything she had reached and connected, stayed that bond. She wouldn’t let it leave. Oh my God... He’s dying... dying... *** The blackness that was death stole over her warmth and he mourned the loss. Strangely, he would miss this place; miss the home that wasn’t his native. He would miss everything... especially his son and... Her. Oh how he would miss her. So many good and bad things had happened to him. So many things. He wondered which was worse: never defeating a third-class warrior or loosing himself to an alien woman. *** It wasn’t a scream, because a scream could be described. It was too primitive, too feral, too much pain to be a scream. Her body had left itself; her stomach and brain and heart ripped from her. Her limbs wouldn’t let her move save to fall further on the floor; cheek pressed against the floor. She would have cried, but it wasn’t sad enough. She would have wept and sobbed and wailed, but it wasn’t enough. She died with water leaking from her eyes. She died while still being alive. La Fin |