Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Barrier ❯ Part 2 ( Chapter 2 )

The Barrier, part 2

 

I dressed him. I held his hand, threaded it through the sleeve, and pulled the tight sweater over his head. I fetched his trousers. I had to lift him, one arm around his back, as I drew them all the way up. His boots. Found them.

 

I hauled him up, his feet on the ground. His head rolled to the side, and I tightened the grip around his back. I tried to transfer the weight to his legs, but his knees kept bending.

 

Stand, Vegeta. Stand.

 

I looked at his profile. His eyes were closed, and there was blood between his lips, staining my sleeve. My hand moved to his neck, and I pressed his face against my shoulder.

 

Hide your face, Vegeta.

 

There was a stillness inside me, a white blanket of nothing. I could feel his pulse under my hand. I stared straight ahead, watched the autumn sky, and counted one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. The sky was empty; nothing moved except his heartbeat under my hand.

 

My arms tightened around him. He was fighting me. No. He thrashed and jerked, and his back was rigid and stiff. I soothed, soothed with my hands, but his muscles were rock hard, resisting, refusing. He wouldn't relax.

 

“Vegeta… stop.” Stop….

 

I wavered, unstable on my feet. Bright spots before my eyes. I couldn't… couldn't… I was on my knees, and everything was white, bright and silent. I laid on the ground, and the sky was spinning above me. The grass under my cheek was the only thing standing still.

 

A moan. A sound of pain, drifting through the white.

 

Vegeta…

 

I got to my knees, clutching the grass, squinting against the dizziness. Vegeta was on his back, I could barely see him. There was something wrong with my eyes. White. I'm sure my face was ashen.

 

“Vegeta.” My hand fumbled over his arm, landing on his shoulder.

 

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Forgot to breath out. Couldn't… Next my face was pressed to his chest. A blur of blue.

 

A blur….

 

The smell of battle roused me. Blood. Iron thick in my nose. Focus. I needed to focus. What was this? What was I doing? I needed to… needed….

 

A thought surfaced, an image that made the land stop spinning and the sky to come to a perfect standstill. There was a senzu in my boot. Inside a little purse, tucked into the shaft of my boot, laid a senzu.

 

The white was lifting, and slowly my brain started working again. One at a time, the thoughts returned from their hiding places. They were cold enough to burn, like icy drops running down my mind.

 

I could see him now. His hands was twitching, a spasm going through his body. I might have hurt his skull. That would explain it.

 

I held the senzu against his lips, while my other hand bent open his jaw. It was slippery. I shifted my grip, pressed my thumb against his teeth. My fingers went into his mouth, and I pushed the bean as far as I could reach. I closed his mouth, stroked his cheeks. Swallow, Vegeta. I swallowed myself, as if to show him what to do.

 

He had bitten his tongue. The observation was cold and distant. So that was where all the blood was coming from. He was bleeding, but not profusely. The wound couldn't be very deep. He coughed, and I put a hand over his mouth. No. Swallow.

 

He did. I could sense the bean go down, I could sense the difference in his body, the steadying of energy. I straightened my back, put my hands on my knees. A moment of waiting, before he started to heal.

 

It hit me then, the whole of it, like I was doused with chilly water. I had… what I had done… When I had pulled him down. When he was on his stomach. When he was on his stomach and I was between his legs. He had… when I had turned him over… And I had held him… and said that I would make it right. He had bitten his tongue, and I had said that I would make it right.

 

Vegeta took a breath. A slow, controlled breath. He was waking up.

 

He would see me.

 

No! No no no no no no. Don't wake up!

 

He couldn't wake up yet; he couldn't wake up and see that it wasn't right. I had turned him over, and I had said that I would… but it wasn't right, nothing was right.

 

If I could have taken the senzu back, I would. But his eyes were already opening. He started to lift his head off the ground. His mouth formed a silent snarl, as if on the brink of consciousness. He was still making himself ready to fight.

 

No!

 

I was on him, holding him to the ground. I pushed his head back down, the heel of my hand against the bridge of his nose. I felt his eye-lashes against my palm.

 

Wait, just wait. Please. Please, Vegeta, please.

 

His fingers closed over my wrist, an iron grip that sent shock down my spine. He pulled my hand aside. Face to face, we stared at each other. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, I couldn't look away.

 

“Ka… ka… rott.” His voice was deep and thick. It made the air tremble.

 

“No…” I made an attempt to free my wrist, but his arm hardly budged. No….

 

“What was that?” A whisper - a hiss. “What did you say to me, Kakarott?” His eyes had me caught. They had me paralysed with a numbing sense of finality.

 

“I… please, Vegeta. Please…”

 

“Please?” His face was a snarling mask, the eyes slits of murderous rage. With a scream, he transformed. His aura slammed into me, a wall of power that jarred every muscle in my body. “Don't tell me `please'!” He yelled the words with bared teeth, lines of lightening crawling over his face.

 

“I'm s-”

 

His forehead slammed into my nose. I saw sparks. He hit me on my side, several short jabs on the exact same spot. I grunted, and transformed as well, just so I could withstand the crushing power of his blows. I tried for the third level, but I couldn't reach it. The will wasn't there. I didn't want to win. I didn't want any of this.

 

Vegeta was fighting on a wave of fury. I could feel it welling out of his mind, could taste it, like a suffocating mist in the air. He threw me around, on the peak of the wave, and I was drowning, with his hand around my throat. My knee hit his stomach, and I twisted, struggling for air.

 

I was sinking. I tore his hand from my windpipe, and still I was sinking. Saw his fist rushing towards me, dodged, turned, and again I was on top of him. He hissed… and his head jerked to the side as I hit him. I hit him again, and the ground shook with the power.

 

Please, Vegeta. Please… I don't want this.

 

I twined my arms around him. He was nearly impossible to hold, fighting, struggling, twisting in my grip. He screamed his rage; my ears were full of it. And underneath the rage I heard another voice speaking to me, quietly, whispering feelings of betrayal. How could you, it said. How could you?

 

How could I?

 

I answered in the only way I know how: I did what I did, Vegeta. I followed my heart.

 

It was so sad, so sad. My throat ached with sorrow.

 

The waters of his mind seemed to hesitate. The anger didn't disappear, but it stilled, became more distant, and the fight left his body. He laid still under my weight. I blinked against his hair, my arms still squeezing him tightly.

 

“Vegeta…?”

 

“Get off me.” A terse commend.

 

I raised my head and looked at him. His expression was hard, and he stared past me, waiting. My nose throbbed from when he had hit me. I sniffled, and saw a drop of blood landing on his cheekbone. It got me moving, that drop of blood. My arms loosened, and I backed away from him, letting go of the Super Saiyan form.

 

He wiped his cheek with the tip of his fingers. Without hurry, and without looking at me, he climbed to his feet. His back was turned to me when he spoke.

 

“Well. Are you proud of yourself, poor Kakarott?”

 

“No.” And no, and no, and no.

 

Had that been pity in his voice?

 

I stood up, legs unsteady. “I'm sorry,” I said in a rush.

 

“I know.” He turned around, and I thought I saw a hint of a smirk touch his face. “I know.”

 

“I wish, more then anything-”

 

He kicked me. Crouching low, his foot flew out and collided with the side of my knee. I heard a crunching sound. It was the kind of kick that we had always avoided when we sparred. I went down with a yell.

 

“Uhh…” I sat on the ground, leaning over my leg. Cold sweat broke out all over my body.

 

“Listen to me.”

 

I straightened, forcing the injury to the edge of my consciousness. Vegeta had powered down, his hair was black again. He took one step closer. I stared at his boot, at the blue fabric of his trousers. Blue and white. I had been the one who had clothed him.

 

I didn't want to listen, but I heard him anyway.

 

“Whatever feelings… whatever is in your heart… it means nothing anymore. Nothing. Do you understand?”

 

I nodded, made myself talk. “Yes.” I understood. I did what I did. And I can not undo it.

 

There was nothing else to say. I looked up at him and he looked back.

 

Then… he was gone.