Acceptance

A/N: So this was my very first story that I had the guts to publish. I’ve edited it a bit, grammar mostly, but it’s still pretty much the same. This story includes (well, more forces, I guess) participation on the part of the reader, meaning you, reading this right now. Consider this an interactive-story then ^__^ Also I decided not to edit out all the author notes I’d put in when I first submitted it all those years ago so not much has changed from it. Hope you enjoy and I take no responsibility to how many times you cringe while reading this. You have been warned ^_^

Title: Acceptance
Author: ChibiKillJoy
Email: SJCatcher84@yahoo.com
Rating: R
Pairings: Implied (Fz)xV

WARNINGS: Implied rape and child molest/abuse, sadism, psychological trauma, OOC Fz (in some parts), something like creepy shonen-ai “interaction” between reader and Freeza, some language, dripping with angst.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Freeza or Vegeta or anything else in here DragonballZ related. If anything, it’s the other way around…damned obsessions.

Summary: Freeza’s P.O.V. in an odd, very, I warn you, VERY up close and personal one-sided conversation with the reader discussing his eternal sentence in the after-life.

(Author’s note: This is my first completed fic. Ever. The first draft was done in an impulsive three hours (three hours straight until 1 AM, that is) because I was viciously assaulted by divine inspiration that came to me by means of Metallica’s “Until It Sleeps.” The speaker in the song is some kind of evil being asking for comfort that it never seems to get (evil only because James Hetfield’s vocals make it seem so, though) and I think Freeza fits this perfectly. Forgive me for the ending! It was COMPLETELY unintended and still bothers me at night. o.0` Anyway, this is my first time submitting anything so if you send feedback please don’t rip me up too bad.)

“I’ll tear me open, make you gone
No longer will you hurt anyone
And the hate still shames me
So hold me until it sleeps…”
–Metallica, “Until It Sleeps”

ACCEPTANCE

Hell isn’t exactly what I pictured it to be. Bitter, it seems, that not even my eternal punishment has turned out the way I wanted it to. I had hoped to be a bit more distracted by some kind of infernal suffering, too occupied in perfecting and tuning the pitch of my tortured screams…

Something extreme and dramatic like that. 

Surprise, surprise! Look at that, Freeza. No fire, no brimstone, no demonic band to herald me in with infinite damnation. I have not been officially condemned by an angry, jealous fiend for my greatest and consequently most lethal accomplishments. There has been no effort to make me repent for the rather…how shall I put it?...eventful life I’ve led.

No, of course not. Why grant me that simple comfort? Isn’t it enough that I obtained everything I wanted and ridiculously more so during my lifetime? I have always been spoiled; the demanding little brat turned insatiable, indomitable emperor.

Not this time. Oh ho, ‘fraid not. This time I’ll get what I get and like it. Yes, you’d think I’d consider myself lucky in avoiding my anticipated fiery fate. After all the atrocities I’ve committed I must have gotten off rather light. No, far from it. But to be quite honest with you, I thought they’d made a mistake when I first arrived.

I’d stood up, brushed myself off, looked around and decided I was in the wrong place. Well, it isn’t as if that wouldn’t be what you’d expect from Lord Freeza. Come now. Use your imagination. I recall it as clear as day. I even had that disappointed, dull look of dismay on my face.

Did I say I was spoiled?

Ha, I am the very essence of the word. The gods themselves can’t please me.

I considered looking around for them, for the idiots that ran this ill-conceived contraption called existence, to question and mock their obviously flawed judgment.

Then I realized what I was in for. Ingenious, really, what they do to the bad guys when we die. Even as I speak, controlled as I may sound, the scourging goes on unrelenting.

You may be thinking, “ Lord Freeza, what the Hell are you talking about? Here we stand together, you and I, in this rather featureless, barren landscape. I see rocks, the cracked earth, and a sky streaked with all the hues of a coming apocalyptic storm of sorts that cannot find the catalyst for its release. If anything, this place is boring. Is that what you suffer from? Boredom?”

Ah, no. Nothing but illusions, those. Hn, something for the tourists, which is what I imagine you to be. I don’t exactly know just how you got here, nor will I press the matter.

There’s a part of me that wants to though. It wonders why you are here, talking to me, of all people? Why aren’t you suffering as I am?

Another part of me is rolling its eyes. Goodness, this time they really screwed up. This one here is not even dead yet. Poor, lost, pathetic little thing. How ever did you manage to stumble your way to this side of town?

A rather unflattering part of me reaches out for you imploringly. It wants to fall to the ground on its knees, beg that you take it out of this place now, however way you can by whatever means possible. It will be forever indebted to your service if you’d just end this sentence it must otherwise carry out for all eternity. Please, it cries, don’t leave me here. Don’t go without me. You can’t leave me. Please. Hn.

And then, well, oddly enough, part of me simply wants to kill you. Slowly, brutally, lovingly, and intimately enough to recall the pleasure I took in ending the lives of others. Even more so that part of me wants to end yours because you are not subject to the same fate as I.

I’m still quite capable of doing that, just to let you know.

But I won’t.

And no, I haven’t “gone soft”. I am still everything I ever was in the “glory” of my days. I simply haven’t felt like murder lately. I lack that drive to feel the spray of your life fluid on my face as I’d tear into you. I lack the desire to listen to the beseeching moans and fruitless pleas serenading your rape. I lack the effort to laugh as you’d slowly crumble at my feet in your despair, to smell your fear at being caught in the finality of my shadow. Mmm, then to lick the flesh clean for another painful masterpiece, yes, paint my tongue in the sweat mingling with untainted blood running from wounds I’d generously supply to your shuddering body.

Lovely it had seemed, all that. I’m a sadist, as you probably know by now. I get off on your torment at my greedy hands, sate myself in your delicious pain. I love it.

Give me more, more, give to me! Ohh, your tears, screams, scars, soul, all of it, I want it all! Mine, all mine! And you, frail, delicate little thing that you are, I’d devour you in a matter of faltering heartbeats that would then violently halt for good…

And as I go on I find it is getting increasingly harder to resist those old habits. They die hard, isn’t that what is said? So true, they remain while I myself have been dead so long. But I see you’re not alarmed by that little morsel of knowledge. Or by the fact that the distance between us has lessened as our little chat has progressed. Barely a breath of air between us, and you still stand your ground.

I’ll bet you’d put up a magnificent struggle for me, wouldn’t you, lovely one? Mm, how you tempt me. Even under my touch, it’s as if you can’t feel it. You’re not frozen with fear, are you?...No, I thought not.

Oh, don’t be coy now, my dear. Relax. I can be gentle when I get around to it.

Let me gently caress your cheek with knuckles that have shattered bones at the lightest blow. Let my nails, adept at effortlessly slicing through the toughest flesh and muscle, tease and linger at the corners of your lips.

Ah, and what’s this? Your skin colors slightly as I explore it with a touch of ice. Such a shy, blissfully ignorant thing.

And so pretty. All living things look that way to me now.

Your eyes shut tight when I lean in as if to deal a kiss. I wouldn’t dare violate you with such a gesture unless I had your consent…and despite the obvious panic stemming in your anguished little face, I can almost swear your timid gaze from beneath hooded lashes gives me permission...I think it does.

I feel you bracing yourself against me now. Are you regretting your curiosity? Heh. And turning your face away won’t work, dear.

Why do you show me such beautiful distress, love? You approached me wanting to find something out, didn’t you? Don’t you want to know if my lips are as cold as the fingers that hold you still? Ah, I knew you’d see it my way. Fighting will accomplish nothing except sparking my desire. And it’s nearly overwhelming now, the urge to just throw you to the ground and take you. Break and dislocate and rip whatever necessary to devour the sweetness within. I’m sure that if I but lightly taste your lips the dam will burst and I’ll be all over you.

Don’t be afraid. I hope you won’t be disappointed that I only closed in so that I can search your eyes. And you made such a big fuss over nothing. What I’m looking for in them, I can’t say. A death wish, perhaps? Maybe you were just naïve and stupid enough to trust me in approaching me. Other than that, all I can say to you is you should probably get your head checked if you return to wherever you’ve come from.

Ah. We’ve strayed from the subject. I’ll let you recover yourself. I was standing so close to you and yet I couldn’t hear you breathe. Forgive me, my nameless, mysterious one. I suppose I may have been stalling the answer to your questioning of how I serve my time in this seemingly not-so-hellish Hell. Ah, but you don’t see what I see. Consider yourself fortunate that it isn’t yours to behold. Yes, the proverbial sight for sore eyes, you are. You provide me such a relieving distraction from the hateful scenes that act out before me.

I’m actually a little unsure of how to explain this. I haven’t really thought about it until now. Haven’t needed or wanted or have been able to question anything since it started following my brief, disorienting entry.

My life is replaying before my very eyes, on and on like a broken record. Not sequentially, no. It is utter chaos all around me. And it’s all me; fleets, fortresses, armies of me, re-enacting The Play in its entirety and I, its only audience. Even as we stand in this curious embrace, I can see it over your shoulder: Me, me, and me again.

I mean, I’m well aware that I’m a self-possessed bastard, shamelessly obsessed with myself, but come on, really now, this is simply ridiculous. You smile slightly now at the pathetic jest. You see, child, I mock to keep from screaming.

By the way, you’re just burning in my arms, tenderly heating flesh that has always been cold and unyielding as marble, dead or alive. It’s been a while since I’ve felt the warmth of a living, breathing creature. And never have I held one so long without breaking it shortly after its ensnarement.

Heh. It’s my first time. Be gentle.

You look doubtful at the description of my Final Chastisement. So was I, at first, but have patience, pet. I haven’t explained the whole of it.

I soon realized these carbon copies could not or would not see me, and I walked among them at my leisure: Remembering the destruction of those planets, and there, my first time doing that, and the times I spent with them, and of course, my endless mob of victims twisting and crying out as their death of my choice consumed them all.

Ah, there he is--my favorite from the masses of faceless anguish. Care to take a guess? Absently, you scan for him, your gaze breaking the hold I had on it to look past me. Silly, you can’t see him. He’s for my eyes only. Mine to cherish and mine to curse and mine alone.

I’m spoiled, remember? I don’t like to share, especially not him.

Yes, that’s right, pet. The Saiyajin Prince himself. One of many twisted creations of my design. I made him what he is today. I had a hand in perfecting that beautifully flawed creature.

It seems there are moments that he can see me. It appears he’s looking at me right now. At times I’d think, “It’s real this time, he’s here standing before me, a final, maddening smirk at my plight. And how I deserve his mockery.” 

But then all I’d need to do is reach out to touch and he’s gone. I suppose this will explain why I so need to touch you, hold you, make sure you are real and not just another ghost to flee from me.

You have not adamantly objected. Your struggles were only half-hearted, indecisive whether by fear or something else, and so my grip will remain. Anyway, if you really tried for release it’s not like you’d win it from me by force.

You see, if I attempt physical contact with any of these phantoms, they disappear, as phantoms should, only to reappear a varying distance away.

And this is what opened my eyes to what this repeated recap of my “legacy” really was. For among the fond memories there are also the…not so pleasant ones. And I never realized how many there were, how their number dwarfed the few moments of pure pleasure in my life. And by those pure moments I don’t mean the glutting of power, the lusting for blood. I mean when I was truly happy.

Precious gems in a mountain of shit.

My own dark demons have come out to play from the black, dismal depths of my mind. I didn’t need a welcoming committee of Hell-spawn to announce my introduction into the after-life. They’ve always been there, up here in my head, feeding upon the pathetic truth behind every word spewed from my mouth, behind each convulsion of muscle, bone, and whatever else I consisted of that forced my every action.

I must bear witness to these horrors again and again. Even those I had carefully locked away to disappear have sprouted up like fungi from dirt enriched by a dead, rotting thing buried in a shallow grave. Skeletons in the closet lie in untidy bone heaps all around for me to trip upon.

At first I tried to ignore them, focus on things done by me and not…not to me. They would reposition themselves wherever I looked, at times right at my feet so that I would stumble back in terror at whatever grim performance was in session, only to back up into yet another painful shadow. If I closed my eyes, they shattered the black and replayed in my head one by one, my very own private screening of the worst of them.

I don’t sleep anymore. I don’t think I need to anyway.

I tried bargaining with whatever gods there were. I begged them to give me some other penalty, not this. Give me some sort of pain, physical torture, anything but this. I begged for mercy. Of course, that got me nothing but seething frustration. This was short-lived. It’s useless to consult them for anything. I cursed the gods, every deity that came to mind. Yes, yours as well. I haven’t spoken to them since.

Rather, I tried talking directly to these images that I’d held in mental exile all my life, knowing full well that they were deaf, dumb, and blind to me and my delusions. Frantically I screamed at my past-self to run or fight, to stop crying, you show them your weakness by doing so, you blind fool, you weakling, little coward.

Then I tried to physically come in-between myself and my forgotten tyrants and only succeeding in throwing myself onto the ground. For long lengths of time I tried. I attacked them with everything I had until I was drowning in my own sweat and blood, exhausted, the repressed pain and banished tortures dancing around me as I wept, as powerless as the child that was being broken and remodeled over and over as I watched.

I went mad quite a few times. Truly mad. I don’t really recall what I did each time I slipped under, only bits and pieces in nightmarish flashes, but it always ended up the same. No change at all. I can do nothing but accept. And when I had been reacquainted with every evil deed I’ve endured and executed I realized something that drove me into the longest bout of psychosis I’d ever experienced or heard about.

I realized that accepting what life threw at me was all I’d ever done. Whatever they forced on me I took it without question. Everything and anything I swallowed without batting an eye. At this terrible dawn I observed my life’s events again and again, hoping to prove myself wrong. There it was, a damned pattern as precise and predictable as a mathematical equation, glaring at me in the face like the great blast that sent me to oblivion.

I have been enslaved since I was a mere child. Never have I raised my fists in defiance, paralyzed from fear of the consequences that would follow. Not once have I questioned authority, not even my own. I’d always thought I was above it.

No. All along it was I who was the subjected, the servant, performing what my masters expected of me. I have always laid down and taken it, accepting the role of whore to all those above me.

But anger rode me; resentment at my superiors came to fuck me over. And to vanquish that oppression, did I once ever rebel and demand the wrongs righted, as I should have? Of course not.

I mirrored whatever cruel things done to me in what I did to others. My pettiness in conducting business, the callousness in my personal affairs, the imposing rule I forced down the innocent throats of an impossible number, whose suffering cries I had gustily savored as I murdered them one by one. Every planetary conquest and enslavement of peoples in my name, every desperate will broken, every order of genocide, every single drop of blood that had gone into my life’s work was all under the bitter banner of vengeance at what had befallen me.

Worse though, so much worse and what I believe to be my heaviest sin, eternally deplorable, staggering over the magnitude of everything I have ever done...

...he will never forgive me and yes, even that I accept. Why not? After all, this is not my redemption. I believe I passed up on that chance a long time ago.

For the complete subjugation and thorough destruction of the innocent child he had been I will never be excused. For shaping the broken pieces into a cheap cast of myself there exists no pardon. Then for smashing it, realizing he was stronger than I, despite all I had done to construct a companion in my misery. My cry was that if I must suffer, I must take you all with me. ‘No’, he refused as defiantly as I’d always wished I had. So I crushed him and thereby condemned myself with the self-loathing and self-pity and utter self-disgust in the act.

No, Vegeta will never forgive me and I understand and accept that from my prince. I will take this defeat as readily as all the others, though a little sore, my legs still parted from the others who have proven themselves superior by dominating the inferior.

As weak as he may be, he was always the strongest between us. And never had he the opportunity to take what is rightfully his, what I had taken countless violent times from him. But I’m glad for that. Not even the gods can predict what sinister pains he’d love to wrench out of me and even then I doubt those would whet the appetite for revenge that I made him starve for endlessly. But then the gods are as blind as I am. Does he still desire retribution? Has he ever?

I don’t know. And I never will. All I can really say is that I lie here waiting for him, ready and past the point of willing. It’s all part of the routine, just something to be done. I’m painfully familiar with the drill. I’ve performed it over and over, driven it into a rut in my mind. 

I screamed for years on end at my discovery, my own howls and shrieks deafening in my ears and drowning out those of my ghostly victims. I recall the broken moments of weeping only interjected by wild fits of uncontrollable laughter, the periods of time I spent simply lying motionless on the ground, moaning and oblivious to everything but this “enlightening” revelation.

Then that pathetic attempt at suicide.

Desperate I must have been, to kill myself when I was already dead. I’d laugh at the sheer depravity of the deed but I’m not quite up to it at the moment. All I did was critically injure myself, forced to depend on time to heal me. Anything else that happened has dissolved into a shimmering blank in my memory.

I will never be resolved for the crimes I did. You see, the gods did not cast me down to Hell so justice would be served through the pains of eternal torment.

I’ve taken too much, spilled enough blood to overflow all the oceans in all the planets in all the universe. What blood I have to offer in replacement is inefficient. The point I’m trying to make is that there is no justice. There never can be. And it is for that reason I don’t suffer for my sins.

Rather, I suffer with them.

Added to my torture is the knowledge that I have never lived out my life, only retaliated against the wrong enemies, raised my hand against those that would be my allies. My life had been a melodramatic parody of my pain.

And do I really need to specify the trauma dealt to me, my faithful listener? You don’t really want to know, do you? It will soil you to know the details as surely as this heavenly warmth you allow me will mar your perfection in some way. It makes me want to shake you, scream a question in your wondering little face: “Don’t you realize you offer open arms to evil?!?”

And I…heh…

It’s funny really…that I should even care…

I don’t wish to infect you with my sickness, sweet one. Maybe I just want you to remain as pure as you were when you first approached me with that curious, inquiring smile because it may, I can only hope, lighten my sentence. Or perhaps I want there to exist one innocent that crossed my path untainted, the one that got away, as if that would make a difference. The fingers lazily running through your hair drip with the filth of the sins on my head. I almost fear that I’ll leave bold trails of innocent blood as I smooth my hand over your sympathetic brow. You look so troubled, child. And that pitying stare is for me, isn’t it?

Oh, my poor, disillusioned beauty, your kindness will curse you. Yet I yearn for your solace, as useless as it may be. I don’t want you to let go.

Don’t cast me aside. Not just yet.

Ah, I’m so grateful that you don’t shy away now as I collapse against you. Yes, let me cower in your arms, hide my face from the wailing specters of my life. I can’t see them if I bury my head against your chest. I’m yours in this shameless moment of frailty, dependent on your strength to support me. Please, yes, hold me until there’s nothing left to me but you and--

What?

Oh, I see. Of course.

Ah…I should have anticipated it. No, go ahead. It’s just been a while since the last time, you see...

Yes, roughly, now, push me down beneath you. On the ground, yes, in the dirt, as it should be. I don’t mind. My skin doesn’t really stain in a literal sense anymore. Oh, but if it did—

I’m sorry. Going on and on like that. I won’t do it again, I promise.

…there’s no need to hold my wrists down. I won’t fight you…

Just something you prefer, then. No, I’m fine with it. Besides, it’s not mine to decide. As I said, I am yours. You are the stronger. I am the weak. It’s survival of the fittest. You can do with me as you like. That’s just the way things work. I’ve come to a sort of peace with myself on this particular subject.

I accept it now.

Go on. Give me all you got. I’ll take it.

I always have.

End

A/N: Btw, there will be a sequel eventually. Will Vegeta get his revenge? We'll see, if I ever finish the damned thing...