Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Garrulous and Gritless ❯ I, 18: Bulma ( Chapter 18 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: ShiningMoon 
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action / Comedy / Drama / Psychological / Romance | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 01.22.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.7K | Visits: 219 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action / Comedy / Drama / Psychological / Romance | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 01.22.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.7K | Visits: 219 | Status: Completed
NOTE: What does it mean when Bardock's testicles are established as a major bonding point between two of your main characters?
On that note, goodness, I hope this chapter is okay. XD
...
With Son back, everything just seems...better. More hopeful. Yamcha comes over more often, and I'm not sure if it's because the three-on-one sessions he says he and the others have sparring Son take so much out of him that he's decided to rest more, or if he's just learning so much from Son that he feels like he can take more breaks. I haven't seen any of it for myself (of course; I never do), but he says Son has learned some really crazy techniques. They all ganged up on him to try to get him to teach them and according to Yamcha, Son's excuse for not doing that is that the techniques are "too dangerous." As if what they do isn't too dangerous already! But if anybody can repeatedly put himself in danger without anything bad coming of it, it's Son. I told him about Kami's advice that I make him a gravity machine, one of the few times I've seen him in the past month or so since he's come back. Being Son, his first concern was that he wouldn't be able to train outside, and he just asked if I could make him heavier clothes.
Well, I'm not one to turn down a challenge, and they're almost done. Raditz caught wind, and he wants them too. I...well, I haven't decided what to do, yet. I think I don't really need to worry about whether or not Son will be able to kill him on the spot now, if it comes to it, or once the other Saiyans show up—and according to Kami's latest update, the dark cloud of doom looms some year or more away, and who knows how much could change in that time—I'm not sure I should risk it. Still...what if there's a chance that he might...well, no, that's stupid. He doesn't give a shit about the Earth. But then again, he himself has maybe said this one too many times, so maybe he...I don't know. Maybe I'll ask Son's thoughts, and Piccolo's, since, oddly enough, the guy really does seem to be on our side. I think Gohan's been a good influence, on him and on Raditz.
Speak of the devil—in waltzes Raditz himself, before I can hide my progress on the weighted clothes. "I didn't hate that color before," he says, picking up the shirt when he reaches my desk. It's not as if I could stop him—it's too heavy. I have to put it into a capsule in order to transport it. "Damn," his eyes widen as he struggles to keep from dropping the thing on his feet. I'm pretty proud of it—it's almost as thin as regular clothing. I doubt its thickness is of any importance to Son—half the time expect him to show up wearing some kind of animal hide on his back with a cute little comment like, "My dinner left its coat behind!" So right now all I have to work on is ventilation. Luckily for me, I have the perfect inspiration—the parts of Raditz's armor that I was able to save. It seems really solid, so you'd think with the kind of sweat a warrior would generate (and I am made to think, yet again, of the constant talk of burning cities down, and burning huts down, and burning people down, that I try to put out of my mind when Raditz is standing as close to me as he is) this would be a problem. Not so—the stuff is like sponge that acts like a hard plastic when struck with sudden blows. With gradual movements, it's malleable—and it wicks sweat out. So does that bizarre stretchy fabric he wore underneath. I would die to work in one of the labs where this stuff has been in use for hundreds of years, but then again, I think out there the phrase "I would die" has a different meaning.
"When will mine be done?" he asks, setting it back down on the desk. I wince as the desk creaks under the weight. Of course, now that it's right here, almost complete, I can't just keep lying. But I always have a backup plan. "I was thinking of making you some armor," I tell him. "Unless you'd rather look just like Son?" There. That'll work.
"Hell no!" he almost knocks my chair and I across the room with the way he throws his arms up; I stand up in surprise, or possibly as a delayed reaction. "Make me the armor!"
This guy is too easy. "All right. But I'm going to redesign it a little."
"I liked mine," he turns his nose up like he's offended—hell, he actually might be. "There was nothing wrong with it."
"Did you choose it yourself, then?" I ask. I'm not sure if I care or not, but I'll bet I'll learn something interesting this way, because if I can be certain of one thing, it's that Raditz will take any excuse he can get to talk about himself, and then some.
"Naw," he says, thoughtfully. Heh. Yep. "I mean, I had to replace my armor so often, so it ain't as if I could get attached to any of it. I just started favoring design 'cause..."
"Let me guess," I hold my hand up, "because it didn't include pants."
He grins. "Yeah, I mean, in the end we all just had to wear whatever shit Freeza and his guys gave us, but at least that one—" he pauses for a second, and I don't miss it.
"Freeza?" I ask. "This your boss?" Just a guess, but I think a good one based on the way his eyebrows wiggle how they do when he's trying to think of something to say. Finally, he shrugs. "So you just like him more than you like me, huh? And you want to keep his armor design?" Obviously, I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, but if it gets me closer to talking him into believing that his armor will take even longer because I'm redesigning it, meaning he'll bother me less for a while, I'll keep at it.
"Don't really care," he manages to say after a moment. "Fine. Whatever." This either means that he's learned to bend to my will, like he should've long ago, or that he actually found my argument (that is, questions) to be genuinely convincing. I'm not sure I believe either. It's also possible he really doesn't care—but he has an opinion about everything, so this is especially implausible.
Anyway, with his face all introspective and sulking like that, I can't just not say something. "It won't take that much longer than it would if I used your old design," I tell him. Aw, dammit. "I promise I'll make it worthwhile." Why do I say these things?
"Your, what's it you call him, boyfriend, has been around a lot," is all he says in response. "Kid's damn annoying," he adds on, probably because he was beginning to sound a little to observant and it was about time he complained about something again.
"You know that he's really not that much younger than you," I tell him, "right? I mean, he's definitely not a kid..."
"Sure he is," he says. "Acts like it."
"Then you're a baby," I tell him, sticking my tongue out. There is no better reward to a morning of hard work (because, yes, I've finally gotten back to waking up in the mornings) than getting Raditz all riled up.
"Then you are yet inside your mother's womb!" he shouts at me. The one thing I miss about him having a tail is seeing it whip around behind him when he takes my jokes way too seriously. It was cute.
But I don't lose at these things, see. I've got a reputation to hold up. "Fine, but say hello to your father's balls for me!"
Ha. That'll stop him.
"Your culture is fucked up," he mutters. I think it's his way of admitting to losing. He glances to one side of the room and upward, eyes following something invisible on the ceiling. "About that kid," he says. "Why do you put up with him?"
"A better question," I cross my arms—I cannot believe he had the nerve to ask that—"is why I put up with you."
"I ain't about to question that," he says.
"Well, for one thing, he doesn't make fun of me," I tell him, "and he's sweet, and handsome."
"You like the messy long hair, then," he says, preening his own. I'll ignore that one. "Interesting list," he finally adds after a while. "From what I've seen, you don't deserve not to be made fun of," yeah, there's that stupid big grin, "nor do you deserve somebody sweet."
It's probably true, but who can blame Yamcha? I'm irresistible. "My flaws are totally worth the benefits of dating me," I tell him.
"Yes," he says, looking very much like he's trying to look like he's trying not to look at me that way he does, "benefits."
"Anyway," I start again, readjusting my arms so that they cover the lowest part of my shirt collar, to hide my cleavage, because his stare is unnerving. "Did you miss the part where he's been working his ass off ever since you showed up to make sure that you don't hurt me?"
I feel his big hands on me before the rush of icy wind from him moving so fast, his eyes and teeth gleaming as his fingers lace behind my neck, thumbs resting on my cheekbones. "See how well he's doing with that," he whispers. Every time he gets this close I worry that he's actually going to snap my neck—I see this glimmer of realization pass over him like he notices every time he does this to me that he could kill me, easily. What I can't see is where he stows the thought away—"for later"?
"Will he be angry?" Raditz asks. I'm caught by surprise so I'm sure I look totally confused by the question. He clarifies, "I get the impression he thinks you're all his. What'll he do when he sees, huh?" for emphasis, his fingers twitch, like he expects violence to come of it. I open my mouth because this really isn't the kind of thing I want to discuss now, when I don't even know— "If you're gonna keep breaking down every time we get close to fucking," he mutters, "I ain't gonna be able to take it a lot longer." I don't know what he means by this, but it gives me the shivers. "So talk. Now. Figure your shit out. This is your problem and you ain't exactly giving off the impression you wanna solve it."
Because I don't. The one thing I'll let sit on the table until it solves itself.
"You want me to choose?" I ask, gripping for some way to—I don't know, to form things into a coherent question. Normally when I'm trying to work something out I write down the problem so I don't get distracted. And since the cost of being distracted right now seems high...
"Don't give a damn about him one way or the other," he growls. "I see you can juggle us just fine, save the one thing." I don't know...how to answer. He just keeps looking at me. "You're like some kind of queen, right?" he says. "So who gives a damn how many people you fuck?" Then he pauses. "Well, granted you don't coddle the weak offspring. Or are you barren? I hear you and him screwing often enough but you say you've never had a..."
All right, I can't take this. I'm starting to feel lightheaded. I think he notices (what clued him in—my eyes threatening to roll all the way back, or my legs collapsing out from underneath me?) because he grabs hold of me before I fall, one big, broad arm around my shoulders and one around the small of my back. "I'm not barren," I finally say, "I just don't want kids."
This seems satisfactory to him, as he nods with a dazed expression, and in my current state I am content to assume that he now thinks that human women have the ability to prevent themselves from becoming pregnant by sheer force of will, or maybe just that Yamcha gives me a good solid punch to the uterus every now and then. On second thought, I actually don't want to think about what he might be assuming. But whatever—I'll fill him in later.
"So," he says. He still hasn't let go of me, but I'm guessing it's less because he wants to be cuddly and more because he's just forgotten that he's still holding me, "What's your problem, then?"
"If it's not abundantly clear," I tell him, feeling my wits come back to me slowly, "I don't want to cheat on my boyfriend."
"Huh," is all he says, finally letting go of me, followed at length by, "You don't?"
"No!" I kick my chair, and it halfheartedly wobbles across the floor.
"Don't seem like it," he notes quietly.
"Well, he'll leave me if he finds out," I tell him, "and I just know that if we actually have sex I'm going to babble about it and that'll be the end!" I've been nervous since Yamcha started showing up more—that I'll say something I shouldn't, now that I talk to him more regularly and we discuss more than just the biggest highlights of the week.
He glances at the ceiling again. "If that's true," he says, his voice even lower, "and you wanna keep him," my head's reeling trying to figure out if he's going to kill him, or threaten me, or—"then tell me right now to leave."
"I am not playing this—" I start to shout, and he claps his hand over my mouth.
"I try to do you a fucking favor..." he mutters. "Either kick me in the balls, or..." he trails off, his eyes darting over me like he's going to find some sort of answer. I have no idea what the he'll he's talking about, if he means that if I'm not gonna screw him I might as well kick him in the balls, or... I consider doing it out of spite, just because he's acting so stupid.
"Look, Raditz," I hiss back, "just because I haven't fucked you doesn't mean I don't want to—" His eyes are wide with horror and I hear a choking noise and footsteps pounding—away from where I'm standing. The door hovers half-open. "Shit," I mouth.
"I tried to warn you," he says. "The whelp has been teaching me how to sense presences and I felt him come into the house and then down the stairs."
"You could have been a little clearer, you bastard!" I scream, rage bubbling up inside me. This whole thing was a setup—he—just wanted me to break up with Yamcha, or—or why else wouldn't he have stopped it? Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I should've...there would've been...if I could... But now Yamcha knows. Shit.
"You're welcome," he growls, turning on his heel and marching out.
...
I don't really...don't really remember what I've been doing the—the past couple hours. I have a bunch of drawings in front of me but I bet when I get over the hangover and drag myself out of bed tomorrow I'll realize they're bullshit.
See, 'cause, work-related stress I can handle okay. At worst I just gotta...sleep on it and...y'know...brainstorm.
But if I ever learned one thing in my time at college it's that when somebody decide they don't like me, me, Bulma Briefs, it fuckin' hurts. What more could they ask for? Shit. And my parents never exactly helped me figure out I can't always do whatever the hell I want. When she knows I'm feeling awful, my mom brings me a tub of chocolate ice cream. When I was sixteen, I told Dad I was going on a trip to look for artifacts and listed off some shit I needed. He said, there's the bikes, there's the planes, there's the guns, be safe, honey, call me if you find anything nice to look at.
Yeah, I been dumped before.
But this time it's my own damn fault.
An' I've always known I don't handle this emotional shit well. I mean, not something like this.
There's no way this fucker was worth losing Yamcha. If Raditz comes back down here and sees me like this, he ain't gonna run to the store real quick to get me chocolates and he ain't gonna say something cute and he might just break my legs and laugh at me and walk back away flipping me off.
The inevitable hiccups crawl up my throat and I look at the array of shit that's laying over my papers—tissues and empty beer bottles, mostly, plus the scouter.
Oooh.
I could use some laughs right now.
The wire is a quick fix I could take care of while I'm asleep, so it don't matter whether I can quite see straight at present. I set it over my ear and after a bit of fuzzy noise, a voice comes through. "I wonder which bitch is contacting us this time?" Vegeta says.
"You're the bitches," I answer, already beginning to giggle. "Son's gonna...gonna fuck your asses."
"I like her," Nappa says. "She's all fiery. And drunk."
"Who's this you're talking about?" Vegeta asks, and I know that he knows that I know that...uh...
"We wished 'im back," I specify, and then figure they wouldn't get it, "with the dragonballs, I mean, 'cause, you know how Raditz killed him and all."
"Raditz," Vegeta mutters, and I can sorta like hear him grinning. "Are you trying to say that this 'Son' is Kakarrot?"
"Sure," I say, "and he's super strong now. And fuckin' hot...but like, you know, married, so..."
"What was that you said about him having been dead?" Vegeta asks, sounding much more pleasant at me than the usual. Aw, he prolly pities me. Well, I'll take it where I can get it, and when he talks like that he sounds like a little less of an ass.
"Sure he was," I assure him, "but you know, we ain't never made that wish before, so Shenlong granted it."
"You said something about dragonballs," he adds. What a helpful guy, I almost forgot what I was saying.
"Yeah, we gathered 'em and Shenlong granted the wish and all, which is good, 'cause Raditz wanted his tail and all and for a sec I thought he was gonna steal 'em or take the wish or whatever but I guess it don't matter now that Son's back alive," I rattle off.
"Wishes?" I hear Nappa say. "Maybe we should actually go there, Vegeta. You know, instead of leaving Raditz to rot like you said."
"I could do with a wish or two," Vegeta sounds awful happy and I'm starting to feel not so great about this in my belly. "Yes, it might actually be worth our time. Let's change course—Freeza won't notice."
"He practically expected us to die on this trip anyway," Nappa adds. "The fucker. He should know better by now."
Now my belly feels a very distinct kind of not good and I pick up one of the beer cans and crush it up close to my face. "Sorry," I say while it crinkles, "you're breaking up, uh," and then I take off the scouter real quick and cut the wire again because I think I had it like that for the same reason my gut feels awful.
Well, that was pretty funny, I guess. That Nappa guy sounds like a hoot. But still the air is somber, and maybe it's 'cause I realized that I'm outta beer and in the mood for something else.
Normally I don't do this, but I figure this is an exception. Right? I mean I'm not usually a heavy drinker. But like I said...
Damned tall, cocky exception and his fucking up my perfectly fine life.
I stumble back up the stairs without much incident after stuffing the scouter away. When I'm almost at the kitchen I hear the distinct sound of a glass rolling across the table and shattering on the floor. "Shit," says a mumbly voice that sounds about how I feel.
"Fucker," I say when I walk in, dancing around the broken glass gracelessly. I pull down a glass and then yank a bottle out of the cabinet, and some soda out of the fridge, and all the while Raditz watches me from his chair. Assumedly because it'll look badass, I put the empty glass in the middle of the table before trying to pop the caps off of both of the bottles at the same time, realizing vaguely that they're screw-top both of 'em, but fuck those bottles, that's their own damn fault.
"Lemme do it," he says, grabbing the bottles out of my hand. With his thumbs he snaps the tops off of each (see, I knew it was possible; he's just lucky) and dumps 'em both into the glass until it's full. "Okay," he says, shoving the glass at me, "your turn."
"My what?" I've already got the glass in my hands.
"Yeah," he says, "you know, you know how it goes. Right? How you drink half it and ask me a question and I gotta answer and I drink the rest an', you know, ask you a question, an' all that."
"Never played it," I say, and it occurs to me he's just about as drunk as I am when I see an empty bottle of something my father serves at late-night business meetings when he really wants more funding. I mean 'cause it's strong, not just 'cause it's good and expensive, though it's those too, I guess. I figure with Raditz's size and metabolism, that much of that stuff has him feeling about the same as I do after a few too many beers, right?
"Shit," he says, "well then have your turn."
I gulp down half and it burns deliciously. He stares with sleepy eyes and I look at the empty bottle again. "I know why I'm doing this," I clunk the glass down between us and a little spills out onto my hands, "but why are you? Getting sloshed, I mean. That's my question." I try to make it sound mean but it don't come across.
"Y're trying to make it easy for me to hate you," he says after a space of time, "which is making it damn hard for me to hate you."
"Huh?" I say.
"Naw, you can't ask me nothin' now; it's my turn," he says, polishing the glass off and pouring more. "Why do you keep this shit alcohol in your house?"
"Sayssa guy who thinks burning skin smells good," I say. "You just don't got taste."
"In some places, that's a compliment," he snickers.
"Like hell," I say.
"Naw, you're right, it ain't quite like that." He pushes the glass at me.
"Damn straight," I say, and take my turn. "Why's it you wanna hate me?" 'Cause he wouldn't answer before, and I've gotta know.
His smile dies on his face and it's right back to the baggy eyes. "Aw, I ain't talkin' about it," he says. "Not that."
"Why not?" I say, and he looks at me with mean eyes. "What? I got my question still."
"It's the rules," he scratches his head, "you can't make 'em talk about why they're at it in the first place," his shoulder tilts toward the alcohol, so I figure "at it" must mean drinking, "'less they particularly wanna, I s'pose but who wants t' talk about shit like that anyway? Besides," his fingers drum on the table, "I guess you're smart enough to figure it out for yerself."
Try to do just that—muse, however foggily, on why the hell he'd want to hate me when he clearly wants to bone me. Lessee...I think it has something to do with something I was doing earlier. Who was I talking to earlier? Oh yeah, the other Saiyans. I'm about to tell him how I talked to them and they're coming to Earth now but then I remember he thought they were coming all along and figure it ain't the best time to tell him they were gonna leave him instead of coming and—
Oh yeah...them. "'Cause if Son don't beat 'em I gotta die," I say out loud, and dimly I think that I'm glad I'm drunk while realizing this. "So it'd be easier if you don't care," I add on, mostly for my benefit.
"Aw, shit, woman," he says, "you ruined it."
"You ruined it first," I say.
"Naw, you before that," he insists, now leaning across the table, his elbows propped on it and his head propped in his hands.
"Well, you killed Son," I say.
"But you brought me back and made me wear pants," he argues, "before that."
"But you came here in the first place."
"Because Kakarrot got sent here."
"Because," I assure him, "of your father's balls."
We both pound the table in laughter and everything topples over when Raditz cracks it in half. I wonder vaguely what my parents'll say when they come downstairs to see this abandoned here, 'cause I sure as hell am not cleaning it up. I think my mother will ask how she's going to serve us our breakfast. My father will say to me, here's the phone, honey, tell them to bring in a new table. He'll ask how my research on the ship is going. Mom will ask again if I've slept with Raditz yet. Probably I'll lie. Probably she'll know. Probably neither of them will give a damn.
"Mine," he says, "got a much cleaner record."
"That so?" I ask.
"Prove me wrong," he says in that stupidly pleasant-sounding purr of his.
I don't turn down a challenge.
Converting /tmp/php8vPMCX to /dev/stdout
On that note, goodness, I hope this chapter is okay. XD
...
With Son back, everything just seems...better. More hopeful. Yamcha comes over more often, and I'm not sure if it's because the three-on-one sessions he says he and the others have sparring Son take so much out of him that he's decided to rest more, or if he's just learning so much from Son that he feels like he can take more breaks. I haven't seen any of it for myself (of course; I never do), but he says Son has learned some really crazy techniques. They all ganged up on him to try to get him to teach them and according to Yamcha, Son's excuse for not doing that is that the techniques are "too dangerous." As if what they do isn't too dangerous already! But if anybody can repeatedly put himself in danger without anything bad coming of it, it's Son. I told him about Kami's advice that I make him a gravity machine, one of the few times I've seen him in the past month or so since he's come back. Being Son, his first concern was that he wouldn't be able to train outside, and he just asked if I could make him heavier clothes.
Well, I'm not one to turn down a challenge, and they're almost done. Raditz caught wind, and he wants them too. I...well, I haven't decided what to do, yet. I think I don't really need to worry about whether or not Son will be able to kill him on the spot now, if it comes to it, or once the other Saiyans show up—and according to Kami's latest update, the dark cloud of doom looms some year or more away, and who knows how much could change in that time—I'm not sure I should risk it. Still...what if there's a chance that he might...well, no, that's stupid. He doesn't give a shit about the Earth. But then again, he himself has maybe said this one too many times, so maybe he...I don't know. Maybe I'll ask Son's thoughts, and Piccolo's, since, oddly enough, the guy really does seem to be on our side. I think Gohan's been a good influence, on him and on Raditz.
Speak of the devil—in waltzes Raditz himself, before I can hide my progress on the weighted clothes. "I didn't hate that color before," he says, picking up the shirt when he reaches my desk. It's not as if I could stop him—it's too heavy. I have to put it into a capsule in order to transport it. "Damn," his eyes widen as he struggles to keep from dropping the thing on his feet. I'm pretty proud of it—it's almost as thin as regular clothing. I doubt its thickness is of any importance to Son—half the time expect him to show up wearing some kind of animal hide on his back with a cute little comment like, "My dinner left its coat behind!" So right now all I have to work on is ventilation. Luckily for me, I have the perfect inspiration—the parts of Raditz's armor that I was able to save. It seems really solid, so you'd think with the kind of sweat a warrior would generate (and I am made to think, yet again, of the constant talk of burning cities down, and burning huts down, and burning people down, that I try to put out of my mind when Raditz is standing as close to me as he is) this would be a problem. Not so—the stuff is like sponge that acts like a hard plastic when struck with sudden blows. With gradual movements, it's malleable—and it wicks sweat out. So does that bizarre stretchy fabric he wore underneath. I would die to work in one of the labs where this stuff has been in use for hundreds of years, but then again, I think out there the phrase "I would die" has a different meaning.
"When will mine be done?" he asks, setting it back down on the desk. I wince as the desk creaks under the weight. Of course, now that it's right here, almost complete, I can't just keep lying. But I always have a backup plan. "I was thinking of making you some armor," I tell him. "Unless you'd rather look just like Son?" There. That'll work.
"Hell no!" he almost knocks my chair and I across the room with the way he throws his arms up; I stand up in surprise, or possibly as a delayed reaction. "Make me the armor!"
This guy is too easy. "All right. But I'm going to redesign it a little."
"I liked mine," he turns his nose up like he's offended—hell, he actually might be. "There was nothing wrong with it."
"Did you choose it yourself, then?" I ask. I'm not sure if I care or not, but I'll bet I'll learn something interesting this way, because if I can be certain of one thing, it's that Raditz will take any excuse he can get to talk about himself, and then some.
"Naw," he says, thoughtfully. Heh. Yep. "I mean, I had to replace my armor so often, so it ain't as if I could get attached to any of it. I just started favoring design 'cause..."
"Let me guess," I hold my hand up, "because it didn't include pants."
He grins. "Yeah, I mean, in the end we all just had to wear whatever shit Freeza and his guys gave us, but at least that one—" he pauses for a second, and I don't miss it.
"Freeza?" I ask. "This your boss?" Just a guess, but I think a good one based on the way his eyebrows wiggle how they do when he's trying to think of something to say. Finally, he shrugs. "So you just like him more than you like me, huh? And you want to keep his armor design?" Obviously, I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, but if it gets me closer to talking him into believing that his armor will take even longer because I'm redesigning it, meaning he'll bother me less for a while, I'll keep at it.
"Don't really care," he manages to say after a moment. "Fine. Whatever." This either means that he's learned to bend to my will, like he should've long ago, or that he actually found my argument (that is, questions) to be genuinely convincing. I'm not sure I believe either. It's also possible he really doesn't care—but he has an opinion about everything, so this is especially implausible.
Anyway, with his face all introspective and sulking like that, I can't just not say something. "It won't take that much longer than it would if I used your old design," I tell him. Aw, dammit. "I promise I'll make it worthwhile." Why do I say these things?
"Your, what's it you call him, boyfriend, has been around a lot," is all he says in response. "Kid's damn annoying," he adds on, probably because he was beginning to sound a little to observant and it was about time he complained about something again.
"You know that he's really not that much younger than you," I tell him, "right? I mean, he's definitely not a kid..."
"Sure he is," he says. "Acts like it."
"Then you're a baby," I tell him, sticking my tongue out. There is no better reward to a morning of hard work (because, yes, I've finally gotten back to waking up in the mornings) than getting Raditz all riled up.
"Then you are yet inside your mother's womb!" he shouts at me. The one thing I miss about him having a tail is seeing it whip around behind him when he takes my jokes way too seriously. It was cute.
But I don't lose at these things, see. I've got a reputation to hold up. "Fine, but say hello to your father's balls for me!"
Ha. That'll stop him.
"Your culture is fucked up," he mutters. I think it's his way of admitting to losing. He glances to one side of the room and upward, eyes following something invisible on the ceiling. "About that kid," he says. "Why do you put up with him?"
"A better question," I cross my arms—I cannot believe he had the nerve to ask that—"is why I put up with you."
"I ain't about to question that," he says.
"Well, for one thing, he doesn't make fun of me," I tell him, "and he's sweet, and handsome."
"You like the messy long hair, then," he says, preening his own. I'll ignore that one. "Interesting list," he finally adds after a while. "From what I've seen, you don't deserve not to be made fun of," yeah, there's that stupid big grin, "nor do you deserve somebody sweet."
It's probably true, but who can blame Yamcha? I'm irresistible. "My flaws are totally worth the benefits of dating me," I tell him.
"Yes," he says, looking very much like he's trying to look like he's trying not to look at me that way he does, "benefits."
"Anyway," I start again, readjusting my arms so that they cover the lowest part of my shirt collar, to hide my cleavage, because his stare is unnerving. "Did you miss the part where he's been working his ass off ever since you showed up to make sure that you don't hurt me?"
I feel his big hands on me before the rush of icy wind from him moving so fast, his eyes and teeth gleaming as his fingers lace behind my neck, thumbs resting on my cheekbones. "See how well he's doing with that," he whispers. Every time he gets this close I worry that he's actually going to snap my neck—I see this glimmer of realization pass over him like he notices every time he does this to me that he could kill me, easily. What I can't see is where he stows the thought away—"for later"?
"Will he be angry?" Raditz asks. I'm caught by surprise so I'm sure I look totally confused by the question. He clarifies, "I get the impression he thinks you're all his. What'll he do when he sees, huh?" for emphasis, his fingers twitch, like he expects violence to come of it. I open my mouth because this really isn't the kind of thing I want to discuss now, when I don't even know— "If you're gonna keep breaking down every time we get close to fucking," he mutters, "I ain't gonna be able to take it a lot longer." I don't know what he means by this, but it gives me the shivers. "So talk. Now. Figure your shit out. This is your problem and you ain't exactly giving off the impression you wanna solve it."
Because I don't. The one thing I'll let sit on the table until it solves itself.
"You want me to choose?" I ask, gripping for some way to—I don't know, to form things into a coherent question. Normally when I'm trying to work something out I write down the problem so I don't get distracted. And since the cost of being distracted right now seems high...
"Don't give a damn about him one way or the other," he growls. "I see you can juggle us just fine, save the one thing." I don't know...how to answer. He just keeps looking at me. "You're like some kind of queen, right?" he says. "So who gives a damn how many people you fuck?" Then he pauses. "Well, granted you don't coddle the weak offspring. Or are you barren? I hear you and him screwing often enough but you say you've never had a..."
All right, I can't take this. I'm starting to feel lightheaded. I think he notices (what clued him in—my eyes threatening to roll all the way back, or my legs collapsing out from underneath me?) because he grabs hold of me before I fall, one big, broad arm around my shoulders and one around the small of my back. "I'm not barren," I finally say, "I just don't want kids."
This seems satisfactory to him, as he nods with a dazed expression, and in my current state I am content to assume that he now thinks that human women have the ability to prevent themselves from becoming pregnant by sheer force of will, or maybe just that Yamcha gives me a good solid punch to the uterus every now and then. On second thought, I actually don't want to think about what he might be assuming. But whatever—I'll fill him in later.
"So," he says. He still hasn't let go of me, but I'm guessing it's less because he wants to be cuddly and more because he's just forgotten that he's still holding me, "What's your problem, then?"
"If it's not abundantly clear," I tell him, feeling my wits come back to me slowly, "I don't want to cheat on my boyfriend."
"Huh," is all he says, finally letting go of me, followed at length by, "You don't?"
"No!" I kick my chair, and it halfheartedly wobbles across the floor.
"Don't seem like it," he notes quietly.
"Well, he'll leave me if he finds out," I tell him, "and I just know that if we actually have sex I'm going to babble about it and that'll be the end!" I've been nervous since Yamcha started showing up more—that I'll say something I shouldn't, now that I talk to him more regularly and we discuss more than just the biggest highlights of the week.
He glances at the ceiling again. "If that's true," he says, his voice even lower, "and you wanna keep him," my head's reeling trying to figure out if he's going to kill him, or threaten me, or—"then tell me right now to leave."
"I am not playing this—" I start to shout, and he claps his hand over my mouth.
"I try to do you a fucking favor..." he mutters. "Either kick me in the balls, or..." he trails off, his eyes darting over me like he's going to find some sort of answer. I have no idea what the he'll he's talking about, if he means that if I'm not gonna screw him I might as well kick him in the balls, or... I consider doing it out of spite, just because he's acting so stupid.
"Look, Raditz," I hiss back, "just because I haven't fucked you doesn't mean I don't want to—" His eyes are wide with horror and I hear a choking noise and footsteps pounding—away from where I'm standing. The door hovers half-open. "Shit," I mouth.
"I tried to warn you," he says. "The whelp has been teaching me how to sense presences and I felt him come into the house and then down the stairs."
"You could have been a little clearer, you bastard!" I scream, rage bubbling up inside me. This whole thing was a setup—he—just wanted me to break up with Yamcha, or—or why else wouldn't he have stopped it? Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I should've...there would've been...if I could... But now Yamcha knows. Shit.
"You're welcome," he growls, turning on his heel and marching out.
...
I don't really...don't really remember what I've been doing the—the past couple hours. I have a bunch of drawings in front of me but I bet when I get over the hangover and drag myself out of bed tomorrow I'll realize they're bullshit.
See, 'cause, work-related stress I can handle okay. At worst I just gotta...sleep on it and...y'know...brainstorm.
But if I ever learned one thing in my time at college it's that when somebody decide they don't like me, me, Bulma Briefs, it fuckin' hurts. What more could they ask for? Shit. And my parents never exactly helped me figure out I can't always do whatever the hell I want. When she knows I'm feeling awful, my mom brings me a tub of chocolate ice cream. When I was sixteen, I told Dad I was going on a trip to look for artifacts and listed off some shit I needed. He said, there's the bikes, there's the planes, there's the guns, be safe, honey, call me if you find anything nice to look at.
Yeah, I been dumped before.
But this time it's my own damn fault.
An' I've always known I don't handle this emotional shit well. I mean, not something like this.
There's no way this fucker was worth losing Yamcha. If Raditz comes back down here and sees me like this, he ain't gonna run to the store real quick to get me chocolates and he ain't gonna say something cute and he might just break my legs and laugh at me and walk back away flipping me off.
The inevitable hiccups crawl up my throat and I look at the array of shit that's laying over my papers—tissues and empty beer bottles, mostly, plus the scouter.
Oooh.
I could use some laughs right now.
The wire is a quick fix I could take care of while I'm asleep, so it don't matter whether I can quite see straight at present. I set it over my ear and after a bit of fuzzy noise, a voice comes through. "I wonder which bitch is contacting us this time?" Vegeta says.
"You're the bitches," I answer, already beginning to giggle. "Son's gonna...gonna fuck your asses."
"I like her," Nappa says. "She's all fiery. And drunk."
"Who's this you're talking about?" Vegeta asks, and I know that he knows that I know that...uh...
"We wished 'im back," I specify, and then figure they wouldn't get it, "with the dragonballs, I mean, 'cause, you know how Raditz killed him and all."
"Raditz," Vegeta mutters, and I can sorta like hear him grinning. "Are you trying to say that this 'Son' is Kakarrot?"
"Sure," I say, "and he's super strong now. And fuckin' hot...but like, you know, married, so..."
"What was that you said about him having been dead?" Vegeta asks, sounding much more pleasant at me than the usual. Aw, he prolly pities me. Well, I'll take it where I can get it, and when he talks like that he sounds like a little less of an ass.
"Sure he was," I assure him, "but you know, we ain't never made that wish before, so Shenlong granted it."
"You said something about dragonballs," he adds. What a helpful guy, I almost forgot what I was saying.
"Yeah, we gathered 'em and Shenlong granted the wish and all, which is good, 'cause Raditz wanted his tail and all and for a sec I thought he was gonna steal 'em or take the wish or whatever but I guess it don't matter now that Son's back alive," I rattle off.
"Wishes?" I hear Nappa say. "Maybe we should actually go there, Vegeta. You know, instead of leaving Raditz to rot like you said."
"I could do with a wish or two," Vegeta sounds awful happy and I'm starting to feel not so great about this in my belly. "Yes, it might actually be worth our time. Let's change course—Freeza won't notice."
"He practically expected us to die on this trip anyway," Nappa adds. "The fucker. He should know better by now."
Now my belly feels a very distinct kind of not good and I pick up one of the beer cans and crush it up close to my face. "Sorry," I say while it crinkles, "you're breaking up, uh," and then I take off the scouter real quick and cut the wire again because I think I had it like that for the same reason my gut feels awful.
Well, that was pretty funny, I guess. That Nappa guy sounds like a hoot. But still the air is somber, and maybe it's 'cause I realized that I'm outta beer and in the mood for something else.
Normally I don't do this, but I figure this is an exception. Right? I mean I'm not usually a heavy drinker. But like I said...
Damned tall, cocky exception and his fucking up my perfectly fine life.
I stumble back up the stairs without much incident after stuffing the scouter away. When I'm almost at the kitchen I hear the distinct sound of a glass rolling across the table and shattering on the floor. "Shit," says a mumbly voice that sounds about how I feel.
"Fucker," I say when I walk in, dancing around the broken glass gracelessly. I pull down a glass and then yank a bottle out of the cabinet, and some soda out of the fridge, and all the while Raditz watches me from his chair. Assumedly because it'll look badass, I put the empty glass in the middle of the table before trying to pop the caps off of both of the bottles at the same time, realizing vaguely that they're screw-top both of 'em, but fuck those bottles, that's their own damn fault.
"Lemme do it," he says, grabbing the bottles out of my hand. With his thumbs he snaps the tops off of each (see, I knew it was possible; he's just lucky) and dumps 'em both into the glass until it's full. "Okay," he says, shoving the glass at me, "your turn."
"My what?" I've already got the glass in my hands.
"Yeah," he says, "you know, you know how it goes. Right? How you drink half it and ask me a question and I gotta answer and I drink the rest an', you know, ask you a question, an' all that."
"Never played it," I say, and it occurs to me he's just about as drunk as I am when I see an empty bottle of something my father serves at late-night business meetings when he really wants more funding. I mean 'cause it's strong, not just 'cause it's good and expensive, though it's those too, I guess. I figure with Raditz's size and metabolism, that much of that stuff has him feeling about the same as I do after a few too many beers, right?
"Shit," he says, "well then have your turn."
I gulp down half and it burns deliciously. He stares with sleepy eyes and I look at the empty bottle again. "I know why I'm doing this," I clunk the glass down between us and a little spills out onto my hands, "but why are you? Getting sloshed, I mean. That's my question." I try to make it sound mean but it don't come across.
"Y're trying to make it easy for me to hate you," he says after a space of time, "which is making it damn hard for me to hate you."
"Huh?" I say.
"Naw, you can't ask me nothin' now; it's my turn," he says, polishing the glass off and pouring more. "Why do you keep this shit alcohol in your house?"
"Sayssa guy who thinks burning skin smells good," I say. "You just don't got taste."
"In some places, that's a compliment," he snickers.
"Like hell," I say.
"Naw, you're right, it ain't quite like that." He pushes the glass at me.
"Damn straight," I say, and take my turn. "Why's it you wanna hate me?" 'Cause he wouldn't answer before, and I've gotta know.
His smile dies on his face and it's right back to the baggy eyes. "Aw, I ain't talkin' about it," he says. "Not that."
"Why not?" I say, and he looks at me with mean eyes. "What? I got my question still."
"It's the rules," he scratches his head, "you can't make 'em talk about why they're at it in the first place," his shoulder tilts toward the alcohol, so I figure "at it" must mean drinking, "'less they particularly wanna, I s'pose but who wants t' talk about shit like that anyway? Besides," his fingers drum on the table, "I guess you're smart enough to figure it out for yerself."
Try to do just that—muse, however foggily, on why the hell he'd want to hate me when he clearly wants to bone me. Lessee...I think it has something to do with something I was doing earlier. Who was I talking to earlier? Oh yeah, the other Saiyans. I'm about to tell him how I talked to them and they're coming to Earth now but then I remember he thought they were coming all along and figure it ain't the best time to tell him they were gonna leave him instead of coming and—
Oh yeah...them. "'Cause if Son don't beat 'em I gotta die," I say out loud, and dimly I think that I'm glad I'm drunk while realizing this. "So it'd be easier if you don't care," I add on, mostly for my benefit.
"Aw, shit, woman," he says, "you ruined it."
"You ruined it first," I say.
"Naw, you before that," he insists, now leaning across the table, his elbows propped on it and his head propped in his hands.
"Well, you killed Son," I say.
"But you brought me back and made me wear pants," he argues, "before that."
"But you came here in the first place."
"Because Kakarrot got sent here."
"Because," I assure him, "of your father's balls."
We both pound the table in laughter and everything topples over when Raditz cracks it in half. I wonder vaguely what my parents'll say when they come downstairs to see this abandoned here, 'cause I sure as hell am not cleaning it up. I think my mother will ask how she's going to serve us our breakfast. My father will say to me, here's the phone, honey, tell them to bring in a new table. He'll ask how my research on the ship is going. Mom will ask again if I've slept with Raditz yet. Probably I'll lie. Probably she'll know. Probably neither of them will give a damn.
"Mine," he says, "got a much cleaner record."
"That so?" I ask.
"Prove me wrong," he says in that stupidly pleasant-sounding purr of his.
I don't turn down a challenge.
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