Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Piccolo's Embrace ❯ Unexpected Visitor ( Chapter 8 )

Alaura sat on the sofa, her slender legs folded beneath her as she absently folded a powder blue blouse in her lap and placed it in a steady growing pile on the sofa next to her. The turn-table was on and soft classical music played, barely audible, in the background. She paused in her work, rubbed the area between her eyes and sighed.

Her head was hurting again this morning, as it always did after she'd had a rough night with the same nightmare that has haunted her for three years. She remembered waking up sobbing and Piccolo coming into the room to wrap his arms around her and dry her tears as she clung to him in desperation, like a woman who's hanging over the precipice into complete terror.

She was so thankful that Piccolo had come into her life. After her parents were killed in a plane crash Alaura had slipped more and more into her self. She had been pleasantly surprised when Piccolo, having just shown up on day out of the blue claiming that he had been a little curious as to who lived in this house so far from anywhere and surrounded by thick forest, kept coming back to see her.

He never told her that she was the reason he came back, day after day, but instead told her that he saw she needed some things taken care of outside around her house. and that, because of her sensitivity to too much bright light, he knew she could not take care of certain things outside during the day very well. It was only recently, a few months at the most, that she'd started talking with him and realized that she enjoyed his company.

Thinking back over the year an a half they had known each other, Alaura could not honestly pick the exact moment she felt she was falling in love with him, but at the thought, now, her eyes clouded over with emotion and her hands shook just a bit as she lowered them from her head to her lap, sighing deeply.

She wondered, quietly, if she was in his thoughts as much as he was in her's and if she distracted him from his work as he distracted her. She thought she knew the answer to that and held a small hand over her lips as she felt the tiny smile spread beneath her fingers. Oh, how she missed him when he was gone. She knew that he had another life, other responsibilities away from her safe and secluded haven and did not begrudge him that part of himself.

Suddenly, there was a soft knock at the door and she jumped a bit at the sound. She knew it couldn't be her dance class students as she held her classes only twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays and it was Sunday today. She had slept past noon having been up most of the night in fear of falling back to sleep in case her nightmares were waiting. She also knew that it was Piccolo. He never knocked on her door anymore, not since that first time when she'd made it clear that she thought of her house as his as well and would broke no quarrel about that.

She stood up and felt the warmth in the air, making her neck hot and sticky to the touch. On her way to the door she lifted her hair up and pulled it into a loose bun on the back of her head, securing the hastily made style with a few pencils from the holder on the small table next to her telephone. She knew that she probably looked ridiculous but she didn't care, after all, there was only one person in the entire universe she wanted to look good for and he was off training somewhere at the moments.

Besides, she thought, I could wear bunny ears and a guinea sack and he's still find me attractive. She came to the door and grasped the handle, pulling it open swiftly. She saw the young man who stood on the front porch in faded jeans and white tee shirt. His dark hair fell a bit into his equally dark eyes and he brushed it away with one hand

"Gohan." She smiled past her headache and opened the door wider, "Piccolo's mentioned you on a few occasions." Actually, Piccolo seemed quietly proud of the young man who stood at her door whenever he spoke to her about him. "Please, come on inside."

She cringed as the light from the sun through the trees flashed past his shoulder for a brief moment and turned away from him as he closed the door softly behind them, holding one hand to her bowed head. "Excuse, Miss?" He began, she told him her name quickly, not wishing to be rude, and as started to place his hands on her narrow shoulders and then letting them drop back at his sides, uncertain, "Is there something.?"

"No." She said, turning back around and smiling up at him, "It's nothing, Gohan. I'm just very sensitive to bright light, hurts my eyes and makes my head hurt." She motioned to the dimness of the room, "Hence all the soft bulb lighting in my lamps."

She led him into the living room where he took a seat on her settee, which was opposite her overstuffed black sofa and she asked him what brought him all the way out here in the boonies. Surely it wasn't to pay her a visit, as far as she knew he didn't even know she existed. She was fairly certain that Piccolo did not share with his friends what went on between them privately.

Gohan took a strange device from his pocket and held it up, showing it to her and her eyes widened as it made a series of beeping noises when he panned it around him. "I am looking for something, a small orange ball with some stars on it. This thing helps me find it and it looks as if it's somewhere in your house."

Alaura shrugged, knowing that she'd never seen anything like what he just described but that if he wished, she would grant her permission for him to search her house, after all, she thought, if the thing were here she'd have no use for it and she knew that it was Piccolo's, he wasn't much the one for material possessions. Besides, she thought as he began slowly moving around her house, following the beeps as he did so, if he wanted it so badly that he traipsed all the way out here to find it he was welcome to it.

She stood up and carried a pile of clothing passed him into her bedroom, to put the folded laundry away. Gohan glanced at her briefly as she passed him, noticing her long, slender neck and the gentle, graceful sway of her hips beneath the loose fabric of her long dark gypsy skirt. She moves like someone who was born into refinement, he thought to himself returning to the machine in his hand which had started making louder noises.

"What's down there?" He asked, pausing before the closed door to the basement as she came around the corner, sans laundry.

"My dance studio." She replied, brushing past him. He felt the brush of her breasts against his back for half a moment and stiffened in place until she was beyond him once more, "I teach ballet twice a week to a group of five and six year olds." Well, she thought to herself, most are five and six, she did not know exactly how old Tae was. Much older than her other students, she felt almost certain of that.

"Oh, you're a dancer." He said, almost to himself, as if he were agreeing with some inner decision he had made.

"Well, I used to be." She said, sitting back down on the sofa, the laundry basket near her small, bare feet, "I haven't danced on stage in a while, but what is that old saying? Those who can't, teach?" "Something like that." He said, "Though it's never made much sense to me. How can you teach something you can't do yourself?"

She did not answer but said instead; "If you'd like to check my studio out, Gohan, you may."

"Thank you, Alaura." He said, opening the door to the basement and stepping down. She knew that he would have to duck to avoid banging his head into the low ceiling of the stairwell.

Gohan paused halfway down the stairs. Piccolo? He wondered, sensing the Namek approaching, What would he be doing here? Unless the dragonball is his, but then, why hadn't he just taken it and gone, rather than leave it here in the first place? Gohan reluctantly had to admit that he did not know everything there was to know about the large, stoic Namek.

He followed the beeps and came to a place in the studio, in the changing room actually, where there was a loose brick in the floor in the corner under the small bench. On his hands and knees, he worked the brick loose and noticed the large hole beneath it. He shined a small penlight he had with him into the hole and saw a glint of numerous objects, a hairpin, a half-empty bottle of evian, a black feather than shined purple and blue hightlights, a small matchbox car and a bouquet of flowers made from rainbow hues of brightly colored construction paper, like some chipmunks hurried treasure.

He saw the ball resting just beneath the paper flowers and reached down to pick it up, smiling to himself. Now, he thought, only four more to go. He still wondered if the dragonball were Piccolo's and decided to ask if he would like to help him find the others and compromise on the wish when he saw him.

Alaura heard the door open and close softly behind her. She stood up and made her way to the door, greeting him with a kiss in the foyer. "Piccolo." She said, breaking the kiss, her eyes filled with love as she looked into his small, dark eyes, "Thank you for being here for me." Thank you for loving me, she thought.

"I will always be here for you, Alaura." He said, pulling her close to him. He smelled of sweat and the outside, a heady mixture that assailed her senses.

"We have company." She said, as his hand cupped one breast, kneading it gently and bringing a small sigh of pleasure for her.

"I know." He said, his eyes half-closed as he drank her in, "Gohan is here."

"Yes." She agreed, as he turned her around to lift her up off the floor, her back braced against the wall and ran his hands up her thighs, pushing the material of her skirt higher, exposing her creamy flesh to his touch, "He is in the basement right now with his little toy..looking.for something."

She cut off as he began placing tiny, butterfly-wing kisses down her neck and into the hollow of her throat. She wore a loose-fitting peasant blouse and he easily pulled the elastic of the shoulders down, licking the area between her breasts as she sighed once more. "He can wait." He said, his mouth hot against her skin.

His chest felt hard and burning against her and she relished in the wonder that she fit so perfectly, soft curves to hard angles, against him.