Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ With A Jagged Edge ❯ Bad Dreams ( Chapter 5 )

Tayven found Capsule Corp and lowered herself to the ground. She had never made a landing on her own before and ended up ass over teakettle to say the least, the shrubberies around the house stopping her momentum. She pulled herself upright, brushed herself off and turned around. She was so tired. She just wanted to go lay down. Vegeta was in his gravity room, she could tell by the blinking light which warned people of it's use. She walked in to hear Bulma screaming about something.

She realized too late it had to do with the broken computer. She wondered, briefly, how she'd just now noticed it's condition. But then, Bulma was a busy woman who often ate in her office or lab, or sometimes, if she were really occupied with something, forgot to eat altogether.

"Mother! Did you see this?!" She cried, and Tayven tried to sneak past them to her room, not wishing to cause any more trouble, or be the brunt of the blue-haired woman's rage. But a hand on the back of her should stilled her movents and she knew she'd have to face the music. "Did Vegeta do this?!"

"No." He said from behind Tayven, shoving her into the kitchen where Bunny was backed against the counter, a vacent smile on her lips, as always, it seemed her daughter's flashes of temper failed to inspire much out of her, "Tayven has something she'd like to say to you, woman."

"What?!" Bulma rounded on the girl, her hair wild, her face livid, "Do you have anything to do with this?"

"I..I..." Tayven started, to herself she scolded; Stop being such a wimp, Tayven! She's not going to bite you for kami's sake! Just tell her the truth! You've stood up to worse than her before! "I broke it, Bulma, I'm sorry...I didn't mean to..."

"Well," Bulma paused, turned around and looked at the broken computer, "That's all right."

Tayven blinked. Did she just hear her correctly? She'd broken a very expensive computer and all she could say was 'that's all right.'? What was wrong with that woman anyway? Tayven waited for the other shoe to drop, for Bulma to tell her to leave. Now. She started to go through her mind the places she could go and who she knew who could help her. Which, in reality, were probably no one save the church, and of course, those streetwalkers she'd seen. Neither of which appealed to her much.

"I can fix it," Bulma was saying, "It just needs a new monitor, the actual computer wasn't damaged by your outburst. If you want to continue to stay here you must learn to control your temper, young lady."

The way Bulma called her 'young lady' made Tayven feel about six years old. It always did when an adult called her that. She couldn't stand being called that. It was what her mother used to call her. She blocked and thoughts about her past from her head and nodded at Bulma, promising to be more mindful of her surroundings and whatnot. Satisfied, Bulma mumbled something about working on the broken computer and went to fetch her tools. Tayven turned to look at Vegeta with a look of accusation in her eyes;

"You didn't have to tell her it was me, you know."

"I didn't," He said, standing with one hand on his hip, leaning against the wall, "You did."

Tayven brushed past him and headed to her room, too tired to even quarrel.

She didn't even get undressed or scoot under the covers. Someone, she guessed it was Bunny, had made up her bed complete with hospital corners. Sitting down on the bed, she let her head fall to the pillow and closed her eyes, sleep taking her almost at once as she found herself adrift in a world of swirling, black, disturbing dreams.

She was at the strange house again. Alone. Looking around she saw the sky was dark, the edges around her vision seemed out of focus, as it often was in dreams. She stood at the front door, looking up at it. It seemed to tower over her small form unnaturally large and mis-shapen. The gentle curve of the doorhandle jutted out and seemed to taunt her, calling, whispering; "Turn me, pull me, turn me, pull me."

R

eaching out with trembling hands, Tayven touched the doorknob and found it warm, and, as if it were alive, it pulsed in her grip. She turned it slowly, pulling the door open as she did so.

The house's foyer and the room, the livingroom with the old staircase she and Gohan had seen, seemed to swim before her vision until it dissolved and reformed into the livingroom of her childhood home. White-washed walls, blue cornflower blue carpeting, cream and blue checked funiture and several photos in frames of family members along the walls above the sofa.

Unsure what was happening, but taking it at face value, she stepped into the room and felt herself regressing back to her six year old self. She saw her mother standing over her, her face red, her tangle of auburn hair frizzy atop her head. She looked like a horrid monster enormous, standing over her with her green eyes flashing.

In her hand she held something. Tayven tried to see what. Her mother showed her. A broken vase. Tayven remembered. She'd been running through the house, pretending to fly by bouncing on the furnture, being a normal kid, and had accidently fallen from the sofa onto the end table, knocking over the crystal vase in the process. She'd tried to hide the offending pieces from her mother.

But her mother was keen eyed and knew exactly when something wasn't right, or what was missing in her overly-clean little house.

Tayven shrank back from those eyes, those hard, glittering eyes at seemed to bore into her. She looked around for her father. Her father would protect her. Her mother never lost her temper with her when he was around. But her father was not there, she recalled, he was at work. He'd been gone for another five hours.

She whimpered as her mother pointed a finger at her, shaking it and scolding her at the same time; "How stupid can you be, girl?!" She said, her voice grating on Tayven's nerves as it always had, "Did I raise such a clumsy, stupid ugly daughter that she thinks she can go and break MY things and try to hide it from ME?! Well?"

"Mamma...please...I didn't mean to..." Six year old Tayven sniffled and winced as her mother continued to scream and throw names at her as if she were less worthless than the dirt at the bottoms of her feet. "Mamma, please..."

"Stupid...worthless..." Her mother raged, striking the side of the wall with her ham-like fist and sending the pictures jiggling, "I should have aborted you the moment I found out I was pregnant! You're nothing but a waste, girl! You hear me, a waste!"

"Stop it!" Tayven cried, covering her ears and falling down upon the ground, folding herself up as tears streamed her cheeks as her mother's cruel barrage continued above her, "Stop it! Stop it!"

"Nothing but a waste! A waste!" She sniffled, realized her mother's voice had changed, altered, become more than one, changed timbre as well. She looked up to see something that made her blood run cold and a scream lodged in her throat. Children, teenagers and few younger ones, stood around her, laughing and taunting her with her mother's words, pointing accusing fingers down at her.

They're faces were pale, transparent, hair hanging over thier features like seaweed, dark and tangled. They're mouths gaped like toothless black holes and thier eyes...thier eyes were only empty sockets, sightless and horrid all at once.

Tayven scooted backwards, trying to get away from them as they began to laugh harder at her and used her mother's image to force her into complete and utter terror.

Screaming, Tayven flung herself from the bed, the act of hitting the hard floor finally jarring her awake. Panting she looked around, the tears she'd wept in her nightmare still coarsed down her cheeks. Suddenly, the door to her room burst open and she looked up, still half-asleep, expecting her nightmare visions to be standing there, ready to devour her sanity. Instead, it was Vegeta, a look of annoyance and fear mingled across his features as he looked down at her on the floor by the bed.

He took in the rumbled bedding, her tear streaked face and violent shivering and realized that she'd had a nightmare. He turned to leave and she cried out, her voice husky from screaming; "Don't go. Please..."

"You've just had a bad dream," He said, "Go back to sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

"No!" Tayven cried, she didn't know why but she felt something bad would happen if she were left alone again. She feared difting back to sleep. She feared what dreams may come. "Just sit with me for a little bit, please. It's not like I'm asking you to read me a bedtime story for Kami's sake!"

Sighing in aggravation, Vegeta sat down on the side of the bed as she pulled herself up and crawled under the covers. She suddenly felt like a very small girl and wanted someone to hold her and tell her things were going to be all right. She chewed her lip and thought of her father. He could always make things seem less harsh than they were...that was, until her bouts of temper got to even him as she grew older and one day, he began to side with her mother on things concerning her.

"What did you dream about?" He asked, more out of boredom than anything else. He didn't look at her and she took a little time in answering. When she told him of her nightmare he listened without speaking. She thought he'd forgotten she was there after she's stopped talking and he just sat there, staring ahead, not even blinking. Finally, he turned to her and said; "That house you and son brat found...it has something to do with your nightmare."

Tayven nodded, she'd thought of that as well. She watched him thinking for a moment and became scared when sleep tried to claim her. She fought it off with desperation, uncaring that she'd been less than useful in the morning if she didn't get some rest. Vegeta noticed this and told her that she shouldn't try to fight off sleep when she body so readily needed it.

"I...I'm scared to fall alseep!" She cried, "I don't want to see them again...ever!"

"I thought you told me you weren't scared of anything?" He reminded her, but she merely shook her head, too frightened to rise to one of his barbs. Sighing, realizing the girl was really too upset to goad, he said, his voice uncharatisically soft; "Go to sleep, Tayven. Don't worry. I won't leave you. I'll wake you if you look to having any more bad dreams."

Tayven looked at him as if she didn't believe he'd keep his word. Vegeta narrowed his eyes at her and told her again to go to sleep. "I don't say things I don't mean. I gave you my word, I won't leave you, now stop looking at me like that and go to sleep. I want you rested up before we begin your lesson tomorrow. You'll be no good otherwise."

Closing her eyes, she curled up under the covers and allowed the darkness of slumber to capture her once more. She wasn't sure if it were Vegeta's presence at her bedside that kept the dreams at bay, or if it were simple the feeling she had of being suddenly protected, but either way, the rest of the night she slept peacefully until morning.