Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Fathoming Love ❯ Chapter 19 ( Chapter 19 )

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

“I burst out of the spaceship doors, knocking several of the launching attendants out of the way and blasting even more that dared to get in my path. Running, flying, soaring through the hallways and corridors, I knew, just KNEW what had happened. In all my nightmares, in all my fears and insecurities, to even think of the possibility nearly tore my insides out. He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t have.

“No.

“I jabbed the password in, my heart leaping with ever millisecond it took for the mechanical doors to slide open and my breath to seep out in relief at the sight of Faraque merely leaning over the stove and cooking one of her favorite dishes for me.

“ “Ahh… Faraque.” I sighed, not willing of course to share my distress with her, noting that I would indeed be changing the codes now. The scare had been too much for me to handle, and at least I hadn’t paid the price for my negligence in regards to her fear.

“But she didn’t respond, still leaning over the stove at what seemed to be a terribly uncomfortable position. Her hand rested carefully on the spatula, I remember that. I remember looking at her fingers, seeing the way that held so limply to the plastic handle, how shapely and fine her fingers were, nails always glistening like polished crystal. I remember being so happy that she was ok, so unbelievably relieved that for one moment, I felt a slight taste of what might have been true love for her.

“ “Faraque!” I continued in excitement. “Faraque you wont believe what we’ve found! A new Saiyan is…”

“I looked to my left. I saw her face smiling back at me. Only, her body was to my right, still standing, a headless corpse with its hand on a spatula.

“ “Oh……” I breathed, my entire body trembling. “Oh God. Oh God.”

“I fell backwards, away from the head that dangled in the air only feet from me, sustained by her hair tied to the ceiling fan that twisted and turned. I stumbled away from the ring of blood that had dripped in a circle from the turns of the fan. And when I stumbled, I fell back into his awaiting arms.

“ “God has nothing to do with it.” Zarbon whispered, his cheek pressed against my own, hot and stretched with a sadistic smile. He kissed my throat, though I was numb to every touch, staring in horror at the remains of Faraque. My chance at something better. My soul. My conscience. My sanity.

“ “Oh, look Vegeta,” I heard him laugh. “Oh, but she’s smiling!”

“Vomit hit the back of my throat as her skin had been pinned with needles to the sides of her cheeks, forcing a bloody smile, her eyes nothing more than two black holes in her head, missing. But I held in the vomit, swallowing down the thickness, the burning sour, watching the way her dangling veins and gory filth slid along the white carpeting. Her head had been torn off her body rather than cut or blown. Torn off by her hair that held it in mid air, swinging and smiling.

“Zarbon opened my numb hand, placing two cold, wet objects in my palm, round and slippery. I didn’t have to look down to know that white and sea green would be staring up at me.

“ “Don’t worry love,” he breathed sexually. “at least now………. you can always see yourself in her eyes.”



“And so it began.” He paused, a cold, hard look entering his eyes. I suppose I should have been used to it, but for once I realized that it had been gone. His talking about Faraque, about the good memories and even some of the bad had changed his demeanor, his eyes looking a shade lighter, his very complexion brighter. But as he spoke these last, promising words, I noticed that he had returned to his darker side, his shapely lips pursed into an imposing frown.

“What began Vegeta?” I asked stupidly, hearing the tape recorder click to signal that the film had run out. I quickly jammed my fingers into the pocket of my linen jacket, sifting through the useless trash and finding one last tape, fresh from the endless supply I’d left at home.

“One last tape hm?” he said without any feeling, his eyes dull. “I suppose that’s only symbolic, as at this point, I have very little left to tell. At least regarding that time in my life. You can imagine my fury, my raw hatred for Zarbon that he had done this despicable, rashful thing. You can imagine that gnawing pain that nearly tore my heart out from my chest.

“Do I need to describe it? It all sounds so fucking poetic when you use all the pretty words. You can drone out a thousand different phrases for sadness, for unhappiness. You can sift through the dictionary and through a thesaurus and find a hundred terms for hatred, for anger. A hundred synonyms. But they’d sound so fucking cliché, I’d despise them all.”

He shook his head, closing his eyes for but a brief moment.

“In a way, maybe I felt nothing at all. I was numb. My anger, my sadness, my loneliness that followed. It numbed me to anything other than that. Happiness was a thing I visited only in my painful memories. A thing I’d known in what seemed another lifetime.

“Each day I’d remember Zarbon’s words, the ones he’d thrown out with such despair and now I was realizing. That to love was to lose. That was the motto. That was the rule I lived by. Like a prophet he’d spoken them and like a common murderer, he’d enacted them. Maybe I’d never really fallen in love with Faraque. Maybe I never could have really. But I’d loved her as close as I ever could have at the time. I loved her with whatever feeling or personality I could muster. I want to hold that sacred even now.

“One woman, one woman it took to show me the selfishness of my lifestyle. She’d awoken the man in me and silenced the heartless, mindless little boy I’d been until that point. And she’d loved me. Not that possessive, lustful and insane kind that Zarbon harbored. But a pure love. A patient love, just as she’d said. If I’d have known that morning, as I’d left for the launching gate, that it’d be the last time I saw her….

“The things I would have said. Maybe if I’d have known, I would have told her all the things I wanted to say. Maybe I would have kissed her the way she always asked me to. Maybe I would have even made love to her, you know, in that way that she taught me to. Maybe I would have told her just how beautiful she was to me. Maybe I would have thanked her for every moment of every day that I simply got to look at her and marvel that God had given someone so wretched such a gift. Maybe I would have……Maybe I would have…..” he sighed, raking his fingers through his hair.

“But that’s all past now isn’t it? Even in our story it’s the past and I wont bring up the maybes, or the what-ifs. Know only that I became entirely and completely insane and lived thereafter the stupidest, thoughtless, heartless years of my life.

“I was a zombie, going through my moments with the one goal to become the greatest. To become the best. Love? Oh, I felt love. I felt intense love as I pictured Frieza’s face before my fists as I pummeled the air, training until my body would collapse and my soul would still be on fire. I would kill them both.

“Zarbon and Frieza. My only goal left to live. I would do whatever it took to kill them both. But it’d be done, one way or another. Frieza had taken away a little boy’s freedom when he kidnapped me from my planet. Zarbon had taken away a young man’s freedom when he’d grabbed Faraque’s hair and torn her head from her body in one swift movement, even as she had stood stirring a pot of boiling soup.

“But I was numb to anything but hatred. Know that and understand that before judging me for any of the fool hearty things I did. Oh, and believe I did them Tazial. I haven’t always been the voice of reason and the mind of knowledge that you see before you.

“But let’s skip ahead. I was crazy. I was mad. I wanted to kill them. That’s all. Period. As far as our little goal of “rescuing” the lone Saiyan from his planet, Radditz was quick to proceed and even quicker to fail as he died on the battlefield, taking his brother with him.

“Nappa was solemn as we heard this news, as we listened to the inevitable cries and masculine screams come from our companion and friend. But I knew inside, he was sobbing, as Radditz had been his partner for over 18 years. Me? Do I really need to say? I could have cared less!

“Radditz had been something pretty to look at. And time had shown me in too many ways that beauty was only skin deep and in the end, meant virtually nothing. And it was, as Nappa choked down the emotion, bit back the aching heart, I sat still, gazing ahead, just staring at nothing as if my Saiyan companion of years hadn’t just been slaughtered, alone and without honor on a foreign planet, by his own brother.

“But one piece of information struck me, even enlightening me through the blank, detachment I now endured. The news of a mystical Dragon Ball with the power to grant any wish. It sounds absolutely crazy to human ears, I’m not doubting it, but bare with me. I know for a fact I haven’t failed you so far.

“Seven Dragon Balls to be precise and the power to have anything in the universe I desired. The death of Frieza was most certainly one. The death of Zarbon was another. But could I wish for them both? Probably not. Would the Dragon have fulfilled such a vengeful wish? Probably not. Did I want from the very core of my being to slaughter them with my own blood drenched hands? You could bet your life on it.

“Eternal life was the next guess and without permission, without a thought of consequences or repercussions, Nappa and I set out for planet Earth, with the one goal of retrieving the Dragon Balls and setting ourselves “free”, as Nappa so often said. Oh yes Nappa, I would have freedom. The freedom so sweet, it can only come from revenge.

“And you know what else? I never really got it. I spent my entire life basically seeking to get back my wasted years. To be stronger. To be the strongest. To in some sad, pathetic way prove myself to Frieza. Gah, but how hatred never truly leaves you. It’s a strong emotion that can just as easily weaken you. Makes you bitter. Makes just even the simplest things all that much harder. Makes happiness so foreign and unheard of, in a sense, you cant understand it anymore than you can familiarize yourself with it.

“But it is true you know.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“That to love is to eventually lose. It’s the risk we take is it not? Every relationship, every friendship. Everything is a risk. Nothing is trivial. Every step we take is a gamble. But to love someone? To give yourself to them even in the most menial sense? The amount you give is the amount you lose. Its like a slot machine that takes up the hours and every dime you put in.”

“I think that’s a very bleak way of looking at it.” I said simply.

“Isn’t it though?” He chuckled without humor. “So bitter sounding. But I’m unfortunately right. No marriage, no relationship, no love ever ends well. One will eventually leave the other, either in death or in loss of interest, and the abandoned will discover the pain that can only be felt from such desertion. Life never ends in happiness. Human life can be ended in a car accident, in horror as the victim is tossed about in a bucket of metal, in shock, in terror, until that fateful moment when they die and their loved ones mourn them until death takes them too. Or am I wrong? Do you think that old age is the way to go? Lying in a bed, most of your friends and acquaintance already gone and those left behind just waiting for you to breathe your last. Waiting for the cold and the dark that comes behind the sickness and the weakness and the broken bones that never heal and the cancer that only spreads.

“You’re right Tazial. My outlook is bleak. But its also practical.

“But we’re off the subject. Where was I? Ah yes, there. We journeyed the time it took to land on earth, suspended in sleep while riding our spaceships, dreams of Faraque’s smiling head and eyeless sockets probably making me even more insane than I already was. Dreams of revenge probably poisoning my mind.

“Arriving, we of course, destroyed all who dared to opposed us, rather disappointed to discover that the “competition” was the equivalent of boxing kangaroos. And the tale is boring and dull and nothing I care to expound on so lets get to the important part shall we?

“Kakarot, the Saiyan that had survived, the one who had fallen so young and forgotten his purpose, was alive and well, standing before me and beating the hell out of a battle worn Nappa. And at first glance, I was utterly and completely in love with him.

“Oh no, not in the sense you’re thinking Camden, I know you. I mean in a simpler form. In the appreciative way of a fighter who wishes only for an equivalent or even close to one. I fell in love because I respected him. That and yes, he was a gorgeous specimen to look at. I wont deny that. Remember, I was raised by Zarbon, the pretty boy of the universe itself. I appreciated beauty in a male form as well and fell in love with the possibility of a challenge. And maybe somewhere deeper, I wanted a companion again.

“Yes, no doubt that’s it. Maybe deep down, I knew that loneliness consumed me from within. I probably knew that Nappa offered no companionship worth noting, that Zarbon was as much my enemy now as he’d ever been my friend. And I knew in my heart, broken, crushed and tattered as it was, that Faraque was gone and that no amount of time or sadness could bring her back. A part of me knew that in a sense, I needed him.

“And so I offered and so he refused. And we fought and I beat him. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that, the loss of my beloved tail being part of it. But I imagine listening to this later may feel like you’ve heard it a thousand times before, so again, I’m merely summarizing. I don’t want to lose you. You know you’re precious to me.

“But somewhere in the mix, I was defeated by a team effort, or more specifically, by Kakarot’s son, Gohan. And tearing my broken, defeated body towards my ship, I realized now more than ever, that I was truly a monster. I’d left Kakarot in one big bloody pulp, his son unconscious and his entire world fretting at the possibility that I would soon destroy them. I was a monster and more importantly, I was a lonely monster.

“The tale goes on and on. I was defeated more than once. I came back stronger than ever only to be defeated again. I was victorious and jubilant one minute and broken and defeated the next. And though I never actually got my revenge on Frieza, I set Zarbon’s spirit free. And when I say that, yes, I mean that I killed him.


“But don’t be presumptuous. Don’t think that I did it out of blind rage. That I tore him limb from limb, my eyes blurry with visions of Faraque. It was nothing like that. It was hateful and it was powerful yes, but when I say I set him free, I say that with a clear conscience. Let me elaborate on this subject. Give me a moment of justification and self resolution so that I may lay this secret to rest in an old, shattered heart.”

He stood up, crossing his arms and looking directly at the wall, his back to me.

“I wish this place had windows.” He sighed, his jaw firm and clenched. “I wish that I could see the sun, maybe see the stars at night. Dreary cells and blinding rooms serve only to isolate me more. In my memories, I survive, battling the sadness again and overcoming the hatred once more. In my memories, I serve a purpose greater than the amusement of a recovering doctor.”

I didn’t let him see how much that comment stung.

“But this memory,” he sighed again, shaking his head though I couldn’t see his face. “it hurts, right here.” He touched his fingertips over his heart. “always in here. They say that time will heal all wounds. But it doesn’t, does it Tazial?”

“No,” I answered, suddenly remembering the stunning stranger that had come to the cemetery what seemed so long ago. “Time can only make a scab, the wound will always be there.”

“Indeed,” he said with an odd look, turning away from me again. “memories bleed, and reliving these moments, it’s like picking a scab. It makes it fresh and new again.”

The pause was so long, that I suffered the idea that he refused to expound at all, merely staring as he did so often at the wall, seeing and reliving ideas and memories that I longed to know. Perhaps if I had been more couth, been less angry and contemptible with the world, I would have honored his silence, understood it for what it was. But of course, as you might have guessed, I pushed against what manners should have instructed me.

“Wont you tell me about it Vegeta?” I said, tempted to stand as he was making me uncomfortable.

“That’s just it Tazial,” he sighed, lowering his head. “I don’t know if I can. I don’t know what there is to tell. I wish I could say that it was everything I had wanted it to be. That I was all of a sudden awake and renewed as I met Zarbon on the battle ground. I wish so much that I could tell you how good it felt to have my justifiable revenge, how I had relished those moments like the taste of a candy cane. So many things I wish. But I don’t know what to say really.”

“Did you enjoy it?” I nearly demanded, seeing that the tape was coming closer and closer to its end. “Did you enjoy fighting him?”

“No.” He said simply after another long pause. “No I didn’t.”

He came slowly towards the table, tiredly pulling the chair out and sitting down.

“You would think that my love for Faraque and my crushed spirit at losing her would have been more than enough to spur me onwards as we fought, exchanging blows with a fury that only mortal enemies can experience. But it didn’t. I should have seen her face when I threw him to the ground, should have focused on the pain he caused me when he killed her. That should have sustained my hatred. That should have given me the strength to take the life of my one time mentor. But it didn’t.

“Instead of seeing her, I saw him. It poisoned me. That was my curse Tazial. To see the good as I took his life. To see and feel all of the love that I still held within me. It was like venom, slowly making me weaker. I willed it away, but the stronger it came.

“I saw him as I had seen him as a little boy, the Heavenly, immaculate savior that had swept me into his arms, kissing me and hugging me and calling me Valique.”

Vegeta’s voice became strange to me, deeper, harsher. Choked.

“I saw Zarbon. My Zarbon. The only Zarbon I want to remember. The one who had stood on the battle field, ordering me to kill him because he hadn’t the heart to kill me. The Zarbon who had escaped to Nomache with me. Yes, that’s what I saw.

“In those moments, I remembered Nomache. The moments I haven’t described to you. The day that we had stood on the bridge, gazing across crystal waters of purple and green, talking of our dreams and thoughts.

“ “Some day, you’re going to be a Prince again Vegeta.” He had told me, smiling thoughtfully as he stared at the falling sun. “You’ll have your castle, and your servants and your everything. Everything you’ve ever dreamed of. I promise you.”

“But little had Zarbon known, that in those moments, the only thing I could have ever really wanted, was standing right beside me. Power, control, revenge. They had suddenly seemed so trivial. I wanted him. Simply, totally, completely.

“He gave his son, Hemnoch, to save my life.

“ “What am I without you?” I asked him once, in those precious moments when we had laid in that bed together.

“ “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.”

Vegeta stopped, his jaw tightening, his voice barely a whisper. He wouldn’t look at me, his eyes glued to the table top.

“ “I’ll always be with you Valique. 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 when Vegeta looked up, I saw the brim of tears in his eyes.

“Zarbon wanted to die.” He whispered, the tape coming to an end. “I killed him………
….. because I loved him. And……..and there’s nothing more to tell.”

The tape clicked.