Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Dame-Nation ❯ Chapter 2

Dame-nation

“Dad! Daddy! Closer!”

I was sprawled out on a sheet of ice, my hand outstretched to a small, thrashing form; my son. He was in the water and ice, fighting a losing battle and looking for a way out only I could provide.

He desperately clung to the slippery blocks, his teeth chattering and his lips bluer than the sea.

“Daddy! Help! Help me!”

I inched closer, the crackling groan of the ice warning me not to go any further. I threw my hands forward, trying my damnedest to get even the slightest grip.

It was going to be him or both of us.

I lunged, my fist closing around his jacket. All around us, ice exploded and sank away, tossing us both into the murky depths.

The cold water knocked the breath from my lungs and I inhaled a great gasp of crystals and water.

I lost consciousness briefly; I couldn't have been out for more than a second. When my eyes opened, liquid slush flushing from my lungs and mouth, I was alone.

Alone, with a little boy's jacket frozen in one hand.

“Why couldn't it have been you?” Nancy had sobbed.

She had said that as she beat my chest. I agreed with her. Why couldn't it have been me?

Maybe then I would have a wife who missed me. Maybe I would have had a son to watch from above.

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It occurred to me that Bardock was full of absolute stinking shit.

The woman was a prostitute. She was paid to have sex. How the fuck is she going to know that I'm the father?

I had grabbed my hat and coat before thinking. The moon smacked me with ice to the heart.

I shoved my way back into that lounge, my path clear and without greasy pricks to stop me. I banged on that door, pretending I didn't have butterflies in my stomach.

Tears skittered down planes of alabaster as Bulma's eyes reached mine.

Crying. They are always crying.

Fear permeated the air, she was drenched with it. “Come to beat it out of me?” she spat venomously.

The very idea of hitting this delicate woman was appalling. But beating an unborn child to death in the womb of its mother brought a look of abject horror to my face that I could do little to dampen. It bothered me more than I would have liked.

She paused, sniffling, and sucked upon her lower lip. “You're not …mad?”

“I'm mad because you're still crying.” Nice recovery. It was never this easy.

Her lips bloomed into a smile of uncharted wattage. Something in my chest twanged. It almost hurt. I almost liked it.

Those crystal depths dried and brightened instantly as she stepped aside, “Please,” she offered suddenly cheerful, “come in.”

“Actually,” I motioned over my shoulder. “I was wondering if we could go somewhere.” Anywhere. Just let me move.

I watched as she dangled in the grasp of reason for a scant few moments. She seemed to genuinely want to leave this place, but something was holding her back. I turned, scoping the joint for a face paying too much attention to me and the lady. No one was even looking our way.

She nodded, perhaps to herself, and gathered her things. Women cannot go anywhere without a purse, it seems, but this woman's purse was big enough to be considered as luggage. She hefted it easily upon her shoulder and draped a shawl over that thin frame. “Where to, handsome?”

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Bulma had spent the night in my home that evening. She was emotionally discharged and proved to be rather exhausted as she passed out prettily upon the couch while I was dishing ice cream for dessert. I had carried her to bed and laid her beneath the covers. Stretching out sleepily, she had gripped my hand. “Stay with me,” she whispered.

Easing my hand from her grasp I conceded and shed my shirt and pants to lie beside her.

At first I was a lump in the bed, too uncertain of what she wanted; too nervous to presume she wanted anything at all.

Her hands found my biceps and she dragged me to her, my arm tossed over her shoulder, my hips pressed into the curve of her ass.

God, it felt good. It was wonderful just to hold someone. Little did I realize that it had less to do with holding something and everything to do with holding her.

I cradled her throughout the night. Her hair was spilled out on the pillow we shared, looking more like an ocean than anything I had before imagined.

She curled against me, cupping my hand as it settled on her stomach.

I don't remember ever sleeping so dreamlessly or awaking so content.

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Two weeks passed.

Each day Bulma was by my side, smiling and laughing.

Each day the unfamiliar warmth spread like a sickness through my body.

The twinge in my chest had grown into a tick. It struck seventy five times for every sixty seconds.

Most nights she slept over, curling against me in my small bed, whispering like a teenaged lover in fear of waking the sleeping.

We never mentioned the future or the past, both of us knowing all too well the pain it may cause. We were lying to ourselves, essentially.

But lying never felt so good.

She had wound her fingers in mine, noting the metal band I still wore from my ex-wife.

“Did she die?”

“You could say that.”

“Why do you still wear it?”

“Habit, mainly.” Then I cracked a grin, “Because I can't get the damned thing off.”

Not even a day later I found a ring upon her hand, glittery and new.

“I can't get mine off, either.”

It was stupid, but I couldn't manage to tell her that.

I'd since forgotten to ask her who the father of the child was. It was no longer important.

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Night found us both strolling casually home - a home we now shared for the better part of a month - ghosts of heat on our lips.

Her hand was laced with mine, practically disappearing within it.

She was so tiny and yet so full of life.

We had settled for bed, our arms encircled, the curtains drawn.

I had closed my eyes, ready to fall asleep when a touch from a steady hand swept away every urge to dream.

Bulma's fingers lighted upon my abdomen, the soft pads skirting the rounded protrusion of my muscles.

I remained silent, unsure of her intent. I refused to gamble one way or the other.

She grew bolder, her hand creeping upon the clothed portion of my hips and groin.

“Woman,” I breathed, suddenly assured that this was no accident.

“Ah-ah-ah,” she teased. “My name is Bulma.” Her hand flattened as it slid down the course of my thigh. “Perhaps I should remind you.”

Her fingers curled into my flesh, nails scraping as they dragged along the curve of skin. I inhaled deeply, unable to withhold the instant response my body gave to her ministrations. I felt myself grow hard, twitching even, beneath her soft body and eager fingertips.

My teeth grit, lips pulled back into a snarl as I bared them to the dark. “Woman,” I ground out warningly; she was playing with fire.

“Still don't know it, mmm?” She cupped her hand upon my manhood deliberately, squeezing a sigh from me.

I growled ferally, a hand upon her wrist stopping her teasing. I stared at her, a passing car providing a sliver of light through the curtains. It slid over her face smoothly, baring to me the truth in her eyes. She wanted me, I could see it without trying. Trust and desire swelled those great blue orbs, filling them with a depth I had only now thought was possible.

“The baby?” I rasped, my eyes sweeping her form as the light extinguished and we were cast into darkness again.

“You can't hurt your baby, Vegeta.”

I forgot to breathe. My baby.

Her lips pressed to mine and I fell into a lake of warm, liquid honey. Every inch of her body molded against mine, her warmth filling every nook and cranny as her limbs wound with mine.

I quit hesitating and rolled her over. I pressed her into the mattress and smothered her in kisses.

I have never heard a woman call my name as passionately as this blue-haired vixen. She writhed and moaned, twisting the sheets off the bed and tossing the pillows aside frenziedly as I taught her with lips and tongue, hands and hips, just how a woman should feel.

I wrote my name in her flesh, branding her with heat and scent. She had panted, hair tossed over the corner of the bed, her nails scoring my skin, my name passing through her lips like a benediction.

To have a woman beneath me react like this was absolutely the most amazing thing I believe I have never experienced. I have never enjoyed taxing my body as I did that night. I never enjoyed sweating and aching as much as that.

I was so something, it hurt.

I wanted it to go on hurting, just to remind me it was there.

I wanted to hear her cry out, to scream my name, to tell me I was wonderful.

I never wanted it to stop.

Sleep claimed us both, exhaustion catching up with us as the sun warmed the curtains warding it away.

We awoke and came together once more.

I had a woman who wanted me. I was beginning to think I could be happy again.

It was too good to be true.

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I decided, after much deliberation, that the woman was to stay in my life. I would keep her, cherish her, and raise her son. Our son.

I had regained something I had lost: a woman who wanted me and a child.

I thought I had it all once again.

But when I opened that door to find half of her face so swollen you could hardly tell she had an eye, I knew God was fucking with me.

I could feel the grains of sand, my so-called happiness and my sanity, slipping through my fingers. The dust stuck in the cracks of my hand, reminding me of the bite and sting I could feel, but never possess.

“Vegeta…” she started, attempting to explain before I flew off the handle.

She was right to try, no matter how futile.

“It's not as bad as it looks. I slipped…”

She was a rotten liar.

She was shaking, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane. She kept turning her head, trying to hide the brutalized half of her face. She was attempting to trivialize it all, to make me think all was right in the world.

“Just tell me who needs to die, Bulma. Someone needs to die, it might as well be the right man.”

That's when the tears starting flowing.

Immediately I grew unsteady. I cannot help women who cry.

She wiped at her eyes, flinching as she seemed to forget the injured half of her face was still tender. It must be very new.

“Freiza.”

One word. That one word sealed my fate, and I knew it.

She was owned by the man who controlled every criminal operation in the galaxy.

We were both as good as dead.

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I returned home to find a tall man waiting for me. He introduced himself politely and then proceeded to loosen my fillings with a solid crack to the jaw.

Burter was a messenger. He came to aquatint me with Pain, Suffering, and Death.

I fell into a wall, my vision swimming.

“Freiza sends his condolences. Two children and two women? You poor bastard.”

Dragging me to my feet, he buried his fist in my stomach.

I gasped for air, my head ringing. Something warm dribbled down my chin.

“You got too close to his bitch, pig. You got her dirty with your filthy paws. Now she'll pay, and you can watch.”

My lips tore open on my teeth as his backhand flung me into a chair. I tumbled to the hardwood floor, dripping blood.

“We're gonna fuck that little whore till she bleeds. Then we're gonna make sure that kid doesn't make it. We're gonna kill it. We're gonna beat her till it dies. Maybe her too. And you're gonna watch, pig.”

He hauled me up, hands gripping the lapels of my jacket. “Ready to watch your little chick take it from me and my friends, huh, copper? We're gonna take turns fucking her. I get to go first when I bring you in.”

I coughed, spitting up a hunk of something wet and bloody. It spattered across his face and dripped, much like his jeering smile. “Fuck you.”

I grinned, my smile smeared with gore. I reached behind me, grabbed a fireplace tool and gave Burter the pleasure of his first turn with iron.

He blinked, dazed at first. I beat him over the head again, forcefully, watching as he struggled to remain focused. One more ought to do the trick. CRACK!

He dropped me and dropped him. I swung that rod like a baseball bat - hard. I'm sure the sound was his skull cracking; it wasn't the tool breaking. Liquid dribbled from his ears and his eyes rolled up into his shattered head.

He had stopped kicking by the time I had cleaned myself up.

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I had the sense to grab my gun and badge before busting back into the Moonlight Lounge.

The weight of the steel was a comfort, even if half of it was useless.

Hell, I wasn't supposed to keep the damned thing. But who was going to kick up a fuss about a fifty year old ex-cop who kept his badge?

Thick muscle and corded sinew wearing sunglasses and chewing on a half dead cigar blocked my path. He stopped me in my tracks, his hands on his hips, looking ready to start something.

I nailed in right in the throat. His Adam's apple will probably never protrude again, nor will his voice ever recover. I may have shattered his larynx irreparably.

He fell to his knees and I brushed him aside. The crowds barely noticed as they filled in the gaps between us.

The cylinder of my gun whirled beautifully, each chamber clicking as I slid in six separate shots. It shut with a signature click. I was ready.

I landed three solid knocks on the door. The voices inside barked and hooted in laughter.

I held my gun and my heart simultaneously as I kicked in the door. I kicked it as hard as I could.

Wood splintered, a woman screamed and several bodies heaped.

Two men had fallen like dominoes, the door knocking them from their feet as it shattered inward.

I took aim and squeezed off a shot into the head of the lady's captor, dappling her in gore. Twice more I fired, each nailing a vital spot of two thugs that were sprawled out on the floor.

Screams and shouts filled the lounge as patrons and employees alike dashed to save their lives. A fire couldn't have gotten those rats out of there any faster.

We didn't have much time. The blood was thick in the air, thicker on the carpet. Sirens would soon be here.

Crimson drizzled her face and hair and she gazed at me, completely flabbergasted.

“Get your stuff. We're leaving.”

That started it all.

I didn't die when I was supposed to.

She didn't cry.

Things were looking up.

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Vegeta pulled back the smoking gun barrel. He had fired off each round of his revolver into the grunt's head. He wasn't taking any chances of the troll getting back to his feet.

A sneer lit upon his lips. Four down. A million to go.

He absently wiped away the spatter of blood on his cheek. The man was dead, that was all that mattered. He stepped down the fire escape, making quick with his departure. Someone was bound to have heard six shots explode in the apartment. He wasn't about to be around when the police started snooping.

He was three blocks away before the sirens howled. He tugged up the neck of his trench coat and trudged on through the streets. No one would notice him. He'd been unknown for years on the streets, even for a cop. For thirty years and the drug busts and all the homicides thrown wide open, no one knew who ex-Lieutenant Vegeta was until he met that woman.

She was stroking her swollen belly and stretched out across the bed when he came `home'. He sat down beside her, sinking the old mattress almost to the floor. “I got the white haired one.” He stared at his hands, thinking how pale they were for a man who's soaked them in blood again and again. “It's almost over.” He wasn't sure who he was trying to reassure: himself or her.

Her hands were on his shoulders, quietly providing the comfort only her touch could bring him. She pulled him back, he went willingly, and they rested against each other. He closed his eyes and he watched with his lids as his canvas as the white bled into red. The wood stained, the heat cooling. He'd taken four lives. Four. Count them: four men dead. It wasn't supposed to be like this.