Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Fathoming Love ❯ Chapter 15 ( Chapter 15 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

“And so?”

“And so what Tazial?” He said with a grin. “OH!.. Oh I see.. You’re assuming that we got it on like horny ferrets at a pet shop hm?”

“Well, would I be so very far off track?” I asked, letting one of my eyebrows raise above the other.

“Would it bother you so much if we had?” he countered, his voice actually sincere rather than his usual cocky tone. “Would you think so differently of me if I’d slept with Zarbon? Even if I loved him? Or do your human traits tell you that two men cant actually love each other? That it’s perverse even with pure intentions?”

I thought for a moment, not wanting to sound assuming or shallow as he’d so often labeled me and my race. I didn’t want to tell him that being a straight male, my perception of the gay lifestyle was of course, a bit tainted from what it probably was in all actuality. I didn’t want to say that absolutely two men having sex labeled them as full fledge homosexuals, that it was, in itself, against all moral standards I held for myself. But to tell you the truth reader, to be honest now as I wasn’t then, that’s exactly how I felt.

“Don’t bother to answer Tazial.” He said quietly, tracing his fingers along the tabletop, deep in his own thoughts for the moment. I left him to them for a while, changing the recorder tape over and seeing how his eyes seemed to show a trace of remorse that I’d never seen before. How the sadness seemed to dim his eyes and how his lips seemed to curl for just one second before he straightened himself up and pushed out of the chair.

“I suppose there’s no need to answer is there,” He whispered, his arms crossed and his head lowered as if he were studying the floor. “My past is like a dream. The ones that seem so real at the time and when you wake up, fade like the morning stars. Those precious moments with Zarbon seem like another lifetime now, like a wishful thought that never really occurred, leaving a sense of emptiness behind as I recall what happened next.

“That’s the hard part about relaying happy times in your past. Eventually, they all come to an end and you remember the pain you experienced as if it were yesterday’s wounds.

“We simply lay there, entangled like lovers, our mouths interlocked in a kiss that never seemed to end, as our heads moved back and forth and our lips pulled the other’s into our mouths. I touched him like I’d never touched another person, my fingertips hot with the feelings I contained for him, moving over his lips with the tenderness I held only inside. I kissed his eyelids, feeling his eyes wet beneath, tiny tear drops locking onto his lashes as I kissed them away.

“I kissed his throat, my thumb tracing over his adam’s apple, touching his collarbone curiously, like I’d never seen it before. We bowed our heads, touching our foreheads together as we shared this moment, knowing that this amount of happiness, so seldomly known, had to be cherish it for as long as it would remain within us. Our fingers tangled together, my eyes closing as I breathed in.

“ “What am I without you?” I asked him.

“He said nothing for what may have been even an hour, the time being so long that I’d nearly forgotten my own question.

“Someday you’ll know.” He said with a smile. “Someday you’ll find yourself without me there to show you. And when you find the man within you, you must love him more than you love anyone. Because he will always be with you, even when I can’t be.”

“ “You wouldn’t leave me would you?” I insisted, showing a rare, vulnerable side of myself that perhaps my drunkenness demanded I reveal. I swallowed as he smiled, his eyes brightened with tears I knew he wouldn’t shed.

“ “I will always be with you Valique.” He whispered, touching his hand over my heart. “When you need the strength from within, I’ll be here to bring it out. I will never leave you, even when you can’t see me. I’ll be here, inside of you.”

“And to this day, he is. Sometimes, when I fear death, when I fear the end, I feel him there, just like he’s standing beside me, protecting me against all evil, his head held high as he fights beside me. When I feel like life isn’t worth the breaths I take to sustain it, I feel his arms holding onto me, his lips upon the side of my neck as he tells me that he’s here with me, even if I can’t see him. He is my wings when I want to fly higher than I ever have. Without him, I would fall.”

“So he saves you.” I said quietly, more to myself than to him.

“He has saved me in more ways than a person can be saved.”

He sat back down, pushing his hands through his hair, his lips holding a sad face. The tape recorder was the only sound that could be heard in the cold, white room as it turned and let loose its scratchy noise.

“Tell me what happened Vegeta,” I implored. “You say that no good times last forever and I assume that this came to an end, this happiness you felt. Tell me what happened in the end.”

“Frieza happened.” He said in a sigh. “That night we spent in each others arms, content that the next morning would hold as much promise as those moments had for us. But it was not to be and within the very earliest hours of the morning, just as the stars were beginning to fade away, our penthouse door was broken down into nothing but scrapes of wood and busted metal hinges.

“It seemed a thousand guards flooded the room like water, each heavily armed and strong beyond measurement, aiming their guns at us as though we were wanted criminals. Which I suppose would not be far off, as it seemed we had underestimated our importance to Frieza who, in the end, had nearly gone insane in our absence.

“Of course we put up quite the fight against his guards, blasting away all who had intruded our room and taking many more who invaded to take their place. But in the end, we knew it was futile, and as we tried to escape through the city passage ways we had memorized, we realized that we were merely trying to fight the inevitable.

“We knew, as we knelt down, both sustaining enormous wounds and bloody reminders of our rebellion, that freedom had been nothing more than an illusion we had sought so greatly after that we had invented it within our own minds. That in the end, we had never really been free. Just two pets that had momentarily torn off their chains.

“We knew as they handcuffed our hands behind our backs, that the beautiful illusion would not save us from the future of Frieza’s wrath and that in the last hours, as we flew back to his keeping, we were possibly sharing our last moments together.

“Ah but I get too poetic. There was nothing beautiful about the experience afterwards as we were led like animals through the ship, our hearts beating at full speed as we approached Frieza’s quarters.

“But I wont go into detail. You see, there are some things in my past that are simply too hard to describe. I feel almost as if I’m desensitizing their memory by going into detail. Like I’m dishonoring them or something. So I’ll be brief.

“I was beaten within an inch of my life and when I say that, I mean it literally. I was chained to the floor, held down on my stomach by a large bar with a sharp tip so that when I was kicked or tried to move it stabbed into my back in the same spot over and over. Every bone in my face was basically crushed as Frieza kicked me over and over, letting his guards take their turns when he had bored of it all. My entire face had to be reconstructed and put back together again, the doctors fishing out pieces of shattered bone fragments from my cheeks with scissors and grippers. I was temporarily blinded in one eye as it had fallen out onto the floor at one point and had to be placed back in and reconnected.

“And when I’d lost all consciousness and was wheeled into the Emergency Med., the doctors pronounced me dead on sight because my face was so distorted that it hardly was recognizable as a face at all. I looked like a bloody mess, like I had gotten my head caught in machinery and had it not been for strict orders from Frieza that I live, they would have left me to die right then and there.

“I was to learn that Zarbon had it worse than me, having been taken down into the dungeon of the ship and tortured until he’d passed out from blood loss, and then simply given medication enough to sustain his life while he was tormented some more. I’m not really sure what they did to him. I wasn’t there. I think a large part of me never wants to know. But a day later, when I clambered down into that Godforsaken hell hole, I found him in the corner, my feet already soaked with blood even when I stood five feet away.

“I thought he was dead. His eyes had gone from their lustrous gold to a pale silver, his lids open wide and his head fallen back though he stood upright. They had pinned him through with three thick, large poles, right through the stomach and all the places that wouldn’t have killed him completely on impact. He had to stand on his feet to keep from tearing himself right down the middle and even then, it was on tip toe as he hung there.

“I couldn’t even speak, my throat contorting as I let out a gasp and a whimper, my hand covering my mouth as I turned my head away and nearly collapsed on my knees. It had been my fault, my idea to escape to Nomache. And now Zarbon was dead because I had insisted we try. Insisted that they would never find us if we were together. And through all my guilt, my remorse and my threatening tears, I barely heard his feet move just a little, his eyes blinking twice as I turned to look at him.

“I rushed to his side, too afraid to touch him, too afraid to say anything really. I just stared into his face, seeing how the blood ran from his eyes and from his nose, dripping out of his mouth.

“ “Oh God,” I said in a quivering voice. “Oh God Zarbon I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“ “Valique.” He whispered, his head still held at a painfully uncomfortable position, his glassy eyes staring at the ceiling. “You know better than to cry. Don’t…..” He coughed, his body shuddering around the poles and blood splashing out of his mouth. “Don’t waste those tears on me. I’m fine.”

“My lips were quivering and I sniffed, wiping my nose as I was too afraid to tell him how he looked to me. My eyes glanced down to the floor to see the amounts of blood that had dripped down his legs.

“ “But I’m not am I?” he said with a small smile. “I can hear it in your breathing. Say something wont you? Is it so bad?”

“I swallowed hard, trying to compose myself as a single tear escaped and dripped, hot and wet down my cheek. I quickly threw my hand up to wipe it away, wincing as my palm brushed the bruised, and freshly healed flesh of my face.

“ “No, no its not so bad.” I said bravely, brushing a few strands of hair out of his eyes. “Given a little time, you’ll be back to your old self again. You’ll be just fine.”

“ “I hear tears in your voice little Valique,” He said, his beautiful accent lacing his words.

“ “Zarbon, you know I hate it when you call me that.” I scolded, trying to figure the contraption out that held him, my eyes forcing their way around as I didn’t want to see what other wounds he had sustained.

“ “I know.” He breathed, his voice weak. “Vegeta, Vegeta come closer.”

“I shivered as I approached, the shadows departing farther and farther away with each step. He lifted his hand as much as he could, wanting me to take it, seeing to my horror that they had torn all of his fingernails off and replaced them with wooden chips, imbedded into the broken and bleeding skin. Still I held his hand lightly, careful not to cause him anymore pain.

“ “I need to ask you something.” He said, his eyes slowly moving towards me to show that he was conscious enough to look at me. That he hadn’t fallen into the blissful shock that keeps a creature from suffering. God’s gift last gift. “I need you to be brave ok? Can you do that for me?”

“ “You act as if I’m a child Zarbon,” I sniffed, trying so hard not to cry, when I’d been such a master of it for so many years. I felt like I was dying inside, like I was feeling his pain as if it were my own. And to be honest, I felt like a child, rather than my fifteen years of age.

“ “I need you take the pain away,” he whispered, his teeth grit together and blood leaking through them. “I can’t stand it anymore. I cant be strong any longer. I’ve seen you once more and that’s all I need. I can go now if you’ll only help me.”

“ “What…….. what are you asking me?” I stuttered.

“ “Kill me.” he said simply, his voice so tiny, so small I barely heard it. “Only you can set me free. Kill me Vegeta, if ever there were a time in your life that you felt any amount of compassion or loyalty for me.”

“ “N-no!” I stammered, removing my hand quickly, perhaps too quickly, from his own, my feet shuffling clumsily backwards. “No Zarbon. God no! Don’t ask this of me!”

“ “Kill me!” he all but screamed, his voice strained with the obvious pain he suffered. “If EVER you LOVED me take the pain away now!”

“No.” I whispered, still moving awkwardly away, my lips quivering and my eyes hot. “How can you….. how can you say it that way? You know how I feel, don’t ask me to let you go of my own will when you know I haven’t the strength to do it!”

“He let out an anxious whimper, his head falling back and his feet moving to hold him higher above the bars so as not to tear his body anymore than was already done. He just stared at the ceiling for the longest time and each breath he took was like another piece of my soul crumbling to the ground. Because I hated each one. Because part of me, maybe even most of me, wanted him to be dead. To die there without my having to do it. I’ve always been chicken shit like that. I’d rather the problem solve itself than have to face it on my own.

“And so he sat there in indescribable pain, wishing to die, as I sat there doing the very same thing. I buried my face in my hands, lying on the floor with my knees pulled up to my chest, trying not to cry, telling myself not to cry, wishing that I didn’t want to cry. It was like the weight of the world rested in my heart and I wasn’t strong enough to hold it. I burrowed in the shadows, reaching back into my mind to erase the present, seeing him on the day of the Telimasiance, as he had stood on the battle field opposite of me, refusing to end my life, just as I was doing now.

“ ‘I HATE YOU!” He had screamed, his voice hoarse. “God DAMN IT! I HATE YOU! Do you see what you do to me? Don’t you see it? You make me weak like this. I can’t kill you because I’d rather kill myself. I want to die Vegeta! I want it.”

“ “I want it.”

“The words ran through my mind as I sat there, hiding in the blackened shadows, seeing him hang there, still entirely conscious and tormented by pain.

“ “Do you really want to die Zarbon?” I asked in a whisper, unsure if he even heard, as he didn’t answer me for several moments. “Is that what you want me to do? To kill you? To set you free? To make you leave me?”

“ “Yes.” He breathed to the ceiling. “It’s what I’ve always wanted. But you know that don’t you? When I asked you before that day, when I told you that I would have done it long before if I’d only had the strength enough. I meant it. But some part of me knew that you wouldn’t do it then, that you couldn’t bear to take my life out of fear.”

“His head turned towards me and I was tempted to insist he not move.

“ “And now its on love alone that I rely on you to let me go. Set me free Vegeta. Set me free.”

“And that’s what I did, reaching to the torture machine and unlocking the bars. He fell to the floor as I yanked the steel poles out of him, blood sticky and soaking the metal as it slid out of him. I caught him before he connected with the cold dungeon floor, feeling his weight dead against me as I carried him up the haunting stairs, into the light and towards the Med. Lab.”

“So you let him live?” I interjected, watching as his piercing gaze slid towards me, rather than the countertop.

“More like, I denied him death.” He said quietly, clearing his throat as he got to his feet and began his routine pacing. “I had denied him the deliverance for the second time. And he never forgot it either. Maybe…….Maybe it was our undoing in the end. Maybe it caused a rafter between us that I never sought to discover. Or maybe madness alone caused Zarbon to do the things he did to me. Maybe his mental wounds never truly healed, for how much pain can a man truly take before his mind as well as his body is tortured to the point of insanity?

“Whatever the case, things were never really the same for us again after that day. I knew that if the time ever came again, that he asked it of me, I wouldn’t hesitate to set him free. And perhaps because of this knowledge, I unknowingly distanced myself from him.

“You see, Zarbon had placed an unwanted burden upon my shoulders, showing me all the same that his definition of love was entirely correct. That in the end, it would make you bitter. That love is loss and if I had truly loved him, truly loved him more than myself, I would have had to lose him in the end. But you see, I needed him. He was all I knew and maybe in my selfishness, I loved myself more than I could ever love him.

“But I act as if he never forgave me and that is up for debate. Zarbon, for all his murderous treachery, for all his sadistic lifestyle, was an understanding person. And while he gave little, or no thought to killing indiscriminately, he lavished all his affections upon me, just as he always had.

“But as you know, time has a way of changing things, good and bad, and time proved to be against us as I grew and grew, drifting farther and farther away from Zarbon.

“Like any normal teenager, I wanted independence. I tired of the jeers and taunts from other soldiers on the ship. That I was “Zarbon’s pet”, that he protected me, that I was nothing without him there to keep track of his little “dog”. Of course, in space, we didn’t really have “dogs” like they do on earth, nor did they call me by that name, as I’m improvising now to give you a sense of what they intended, but still, the name calling and the petty titles wore me down and I sought to strengthen my reputation in the only way I knew how.

“To strengthen myself.

“And this I did marvelously. When I wasn’t empowering myself with a purge, I could be found in the main training room, exercising until I literally couldn’t move any part of my body. I threw myself into all physical activities, abandoning any other studies against Zarbon’s wishes. I was absorbed with my goal to prove myself to others, to establish my reputation with power and with fear. And as always, I trained for my ultimate goal. To some day reach the level of a legendary Super Saiyan and destroy my master for all time. To kill Frieza himself.

“ “What about history? What about science and literature?” Zarbon would complain almost daily. “Are these of no consequence to you? Are you forever to become a slave to incompetence? I taught you better than this.”

“And again, like damn near any rebellious, hormone infested teenager, I merely dismissed any attempt from him to better my knowledge and instead, avoided him more than he deserved. Ah but aren’t we all thankless assholes in the end? Don’t we all selfishly abandon our elders at some point? ‘Not me’ you think? When’s the last time you called your mother? Listened to your father? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Simmer down Tazial.

“At the ripe age of seventeen, I requested, well, more like demanded, my own space craft, modified to my height and size and crafted with the highest technology and equipment in the galaxy. I didn’t care that it was relatively smaller than Zarbon’s luxurious space yacht, or that it wasn’t as……… flamboyantly decorated. No, it was mine and that’s all that truly mattered in the end. Of course, the fact that I’d used Zarbon’s money was of no consolation at the time and I’m certain I never even thought to thank him, but now I realize just how spoiled I truly was.

“I must have had my entire room redecorated at least twenty times in the space of three years, hiring architectures and professionals to choose the décor and artistic touches that would glorify my ever growing quarters. My large canopy bed became a double king sized bed, a four poster monster of a sleeping arrangement, complete with stone gargoyles on either side, and bleeding cupids etched beautifully into the blackened wood and priceless rubies.

“My walls became works of art all on their own as I refused the normal wallpaper or simple paints and commanded that artists from both sides of the galaxy be assigned to one wall or another, to paint immaculate pictures in exchange for their lives. My bathroom alone could have comfortably sustained a family of twenty as it put even Frieza’s to shame, though I don’t think he ever knew it. The bathtub was but a medium sized swimming pool, always filled to the brim with steaming hot water and tainted with milk and even a touch of honey for smell. Potpourri and flower petals from all different planets floated on the surface of the water and the sink and toilet were of the best that money can buy.

“I was a regular brat, a real Prince, delving into my best friend’s money as if it were my own personal piggy bank. But Zarbon never complained, even as my room far out seeded even his own and he was forced to work an extra purge just to support my needy habits for that month.

“He even looked the other way when I nearly threw a temper tantrum over having one less slave than I had originally asked for. You see, I wanted two servants per room, all beautiful women mind you, to watch over and to clean my things. True, they had to be simpletons as to keep their mouths shut regarding certain things I did in my spare time, but beauty was of undeniable importance to me in those shallow, pigheaded days.

“When Zarbon would ask why I needed such things, why I couldn’t possibly live without my concubines, I would merely shrug.

“ “Masturbation gets old.” I would say haughtily, waltzing past him as if he were just another soldier who dared to get in my way.

“Of course I cared for him exceedingly, often chancing a glance in his room at night just to be sure he was there. When he would come back late from purges, I would wait up for him, scold in my know-it-all voice that he wasn’t on time, and then pretend that nothing had happened at all. But through it all, my precious savior would simply smile to himself and wave the air dismissingly, occasionally grabbing me up without my consent and drenching my face in wet, sloppy kisses.

“Things were as they had been before, only I was growing from inside and out. I began to drink like an absolute fiend, my infatuation with drunkenness awakening me to new ideas and new mistakes. Occasionally I would awaken with a blaring headache, bits and pieces of the night before smacking me in the face as I would realize slowly but surely, I wasn’t even in my own bed, but mistakenly in a completely wrong side of the ship.

“I could go on forever about those hilarious times that Zarbon had shaken me awake as I lay sprawled out in a plant decorating a hallway. Or the even more humorous times I would roll over in my drunken stupor and scare the wits out of some unexpecting soldier whose bed I’d just happened to plop right into. Or of course, the more frequent times when my own sexual escapades would throw me out of the loop and I would be tossing on my clothes as I escaped through the hallways.

“ “There goes Prince Vegeta.” People would laughed heartily, seeing me throw on my pants one leg at a time as I stumbled towards my quarters. “Apparently he DID win that drinking match last night!”

“Ah, but I was a monster in those days.

“But eventually, as all teenagers do at some point, I began to mature, taking a slight bit of interest in my long forgotten studies and showing the faintest amount of concern for Zarbon on the days when he simply wasn’t himself. We became closer than we had been for years, sharing memories I could spend hours just telling you about.

“Times when we’d drink until we vomited, crawling back to our seats afterwards and drinking more. Of times when we would befriend our unfortunate future purge victims, letting them treat us to mind blowing amounts of alcohol, (or their opinion of it), and then collapsing onto each other in their very own beds, just hours before we blew them all to microscopic grains of space dust. Of times when we would damn near mistake each other for concubines and make out in one drunken, sloppy heap until we both just passed out and awoke with each other’s drool slopped all over our faces.

“But like I said, I wont go on and on. I think in a way, I’m satisfied with what I’ve told you about Zarbon. I guess when you haven’t really known a person, you underestimate what they mean to another. It’s the same with Zarbon. I could spend months telling you about him, about us, about our good times and bad. But in the end, you could never appreciate him the way I can. Because I was blessed enough to know him. The real him. The Zarbon that no one else alive would ever know.

“It was my nineteenth year that things really began to change for me and I had finally grown into the gorgeous, stunningly handsome creature that you see before you. Oh don’t pretend not to notice Tazial. I’m like a Greek God. You haven’t the slightest idea the challenge I have when passing a mirror! It’s a miracle in itself that I can even tear myself away in the mornings! Shit, I’m infatuated with myself. Pfft, and people act like I have no self control. Lets see them sport this immaculate face around town and be married at the same time!

“And I’m not going to be the humble, easily flattered type. I’ve never been that way. I’ve never needed to. True, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I was…….. “beheld” by my share of admirers and certainly had no complaints. Frieza was smitten by me daily and made no immediate attempts to cover it up and even Zarbon, for as long as I’d known him, stared just a little too long when he thought I didn’t notice.

“I was a brothel favorite, often known by name not for my frequent visits, but for my fetching smile and dark eyes. And as far as clothes go, though I’ve long since sort of shedded that habit, I could have put Giorgio Armani to absolute shame. I’d grown just as Frieza had always said I would. Into quite a beautiful thing.

“But let me skip ahead, though I tell you I could spend all day complimenting myself. It’s not hard really.

“But it was in my nineteenth year, as I mentioned, that my life was altered from its previous course.

“Zarbon and I were invited to the 100th year anniversary of Frieza’s treaty with Marlack, a dismal, dark planet that hardly ever saw the sun and yet the inhabitants were gorgeous. Quite the predicament actually. But let me explain the significance of this anniversary before I expound on other points.

“Marlack was a dark planet, shadowy and gray even when the red sun shone at its brightest. The planet dwellers were beautiful in appearance, their eyes red with golden hues in the center and their skin color a light gray that shimmered with silver fragments when and if the rare light hit it just right. True they had three legs, but even so, they were known for their exceptional appearance, and for all that, despite their technology, I imagine Frieza would have spared them regardless.

“The Anniversary of Marlack’s union with Frieza would go as did many of their celebrations. It was to be like a human Halloween party, where the guests would dress up in ghastly outfits, said to scare the evil away for the night and bring the sun the next morning. Sort of a like a Masquerade and to our amusement and other’s amazement, Frieza’s two most beautiful servants, me and Zarbon, were to be his companions throughout the night.

“Of course Zarbon, in his trade-mark pretty-boy way, was in the perfect tizzy about it all, fluttering about like a one winged butterfly and fussing about our outfits. I was like his personal Barbie doll at times, and when I got complimented, which you can imagine was no rare occurrence, it would be Zarbon who would give the aristocratic nod and a very courteous ‘thank you’ in return.

“I swear, there were days when I wanted to simply throw a temper tantrum at the way he behaved, tearing through my cabinets, making a royal mess of things and hollering out curse words in his own language about my apparent “fashion sense”, or more likely, my lack thereof.

“This occasion was of course, no different, as Zarbon was officially clueless as to what we would adorned ourselves with. While we had prided ourselves on sporting the most expensive, imported clothing and armor, tailored to our bodies, the idea of wearing a costume of sorts was not exactly something we could fish right out of our drawers and throw on. And in Zarbon’s ever fashionable mind, this was nothing short of an absolute sin.

“ “We’ll make due.” I insisted, reading a dull, historical book and laying leisurely upon my red velvet sofa, watching as he fluttered around my room, his hair a grand mess upon his head.

“ “Make due?” he spat, his golden eyes blazing upon me. “MAKE DUE? Are you out of your mind?! I do not MAKE DUE! I make MAGIC! And don’t you forget that!”

“I rolled my eyes, shrugging my shoulders and continuing my reading while he huffed and puffed, his head thrown into one of my red wood cabinets.

“ “Make due, he says.” He grumbled. “Make due indeed!”

“ “I don’t know why this is such a big deal for you Zarbon.” I sighed, flipping the page of my book. “Its just another party full of idiots trying to be important and pretending to actually like Frieza. Big deal. Wear your battle armor and go as yourself, surely that’ll cause a few good laughs!”

“ “Or I could go as you and cause a few good SCREAMS!” He hissed, his face looking comically insane. “Gah! Vegeta you sickened me! The least you could do was find some good makeup artists at that last planet. But no! No no no! You’ve got to blow it all up don’t you? Just like that! Bam! There goes our fresh faces!”

“ “Zarbon, if you had SEEN the Gargriacs, you wouldn’t have let them anywhere near your face with anything, trust me.”

“ “Oh but the other option is just so much better.” He mumbled sarcastically, holding up one of my see-through black shirts. “Me! Imagine me putting make up on myself! The very thought! And all you can say is “make due”. Well I’ll make due alright! More like dog doo right all over your face if you don’t get that COCKY GRIN OFF OF IT!”

“He jumped right on top of me, fluffing my hair and giving me a noogie like you wouldn’t believe. I playfully fought him off, laughing hysterically as he held me in a head lock and demanded I apologize for blowing up his chances at beauty.

“ “Say it!” he said, holding my head and rubbing his knuckles into it. “SAY IT!”

“ “ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT!” I choked, laughing. “Zarbon is the most handsome ASSHOLE in the universe!”

“ “WithOUT the asshole part!” he said, rubbing furiously.

“ “GAH!” I hollered. “Zarbon is the most handsome GUY in the known universe! All hale Lord Beautiful himself!”

“ “And don’t you forget it!” he chuckled, letting me go.

“Now,” he said, standing up and brushing the stray hairs from his face. “Stop your playing around Valique. We’ve got a party to attend.”