Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Girl Next Door ❯ 08 Downfall ( Chapter 9 )

NB: Based on chapter 2, `Wolf in Sheep's Clothing', `Actual Zombies', and `Just for One Night' of the “Girl Next Door” (aka FriendsAU) comic by stupidoomdoodles.

Girl Next Door

08 - Downfall

Vegeta sat in the car for who knew how long, he sure as fuck wasn't keeping track, but the shadows were growing longer and the snow piled up on the ground as he stared at the door through his right eye, his left swollen closed. A gentle glow emanated from the house's side window, beckoning like a siren and just as traitorous, calling him to a damning end. He tried to imagine what was going on behind that door, but his mind was blank, as silent and white-washed as the world around him.

His weapon, Galick, sat in his lap. The hint of gun powder still floated in the confined air of the car.

Is that how you're going to do it? Shoot her?

He frowned, letting the thought go, not particularly comfortable with imagining the specifics. He was just going to play the whole thing by ear.

You? Going in without a plan?

Sure, why the fuck not? What good was a goddamn plan when he had no idea what he was going to encounter, what to expect? Better to be flexible, adapt as the situation called for it…

Galick is too good for her. She FUCKED YOU OVER. This is personal.

He swallowed and looked back at the cop car that sat in the drive way, dusted in snow. It had been the key to finding them. Frieza's intel had narrowed down their general location to this neighborhood. And lucky for him, Vegeta had been trained to remember license plate numbers. It was laughably easy to find them, a police car with plates that matched the one he'd seen Bulma getting into, right before Zarbon had abducted him.

…Right before he'd learned the truth about her.

“Bulma Briefs, heiress to the Capsule corporation - genius, beauty, and one of their main leaders…”

He felt his brow pull down and his jaw clenching, his fingers tightening around his weapon.

“She tricked us both, Vegeta…”

The night was painfully still. The snow fell as if in slow motion, conjuring images of her, just as pale and light and surreal. He remembered the feel of her in his lap, her creamy limbs about him, her plump breasts before him, her nipples so hard through her sheer top he could see them almost as clearly as if she wore nothing. He regretted not taking those nipples in his mouth, not having a chance to enjoy her more; there would be nothing left to enjoy after this night.

He rubbed a hand over his face, scrubbing away the memories of her, the lies, and the ache they were inflicting on him, his chest feeling tight and a searing pain slicing through his brain.

Stop dragging your feet and do this already.

He slipped Galick into his hoodie pocket and pulled his bag's strap over his shoulder before stepping out of the car. He had kept the engine off so it didn't feel much colder outside. His feet crunched against the newly laid snow, leaving footprints in his wake as he made his way up to the front of the house. Snow settled on him, and for a moment he stood and faced the door, feeling the cold seep through his clothes and bite at his extremities. The world was eerily quiet, and the very air held its breath, waiting.

This was it.

Are you really going to do this?

“I think I really like you…And I think you like me too, right?”

Yes.

She'd broken open his shell and scooped him out and made him feel human.

Just to fuck with him.

He could never forgive her for that.

He raised his hand and knocked on the door.

A moment later it opened, and a scrawny old man wearing sunglasses of all fucking things stood in the cracked opening. “Yes?”

Vegeta glared at him.

The sunglasses stared back.

“…Is Bulma here?” he asked, his voice gruff from lack of use.

The old man didn't even flinch. “Don't know any Bulma.”

Vegeta felt his eye twitch. He sucked in a deep breath to keep the searing migraine he felt encroaching at bay, and leaned in, meeting the old man eye to sunglassed-eye. “Get me. Bulma,” he said, his voice deadly calm.

To his credit, the old man still didn't flinch, but he did clear his voice. “…Let me double check.”

You do that, Vegeta thought, but said nothing.

The door shut and locked, and Vegeta was once again alone in the cold.

He didn't have to wait long. The door burst wide open, bathing him in the light and heat from inside, and in the middle of that radiant glow was her.

“Vegeta!” Bulma exclaimed with breathless excitement. She did a convincing job of looking pleased to see him, but she had been practicing for a while now, hadn't she?

She was beautiful, wearing a simple wide-necked sweater, her face flushed from the sudden cold air, her blue hair and eyes sparkling in their brilliance against the grey and white world he stood in. He felt his throat close up as he took her in, seeing her for perhaps the first time. Not an annoying neighbor. Not a friend. Not his Bulma.

Just a double-crossing bitch.

He wanted to deny everything about her and crush her like the damn box of macarons.

She wrapped him up in a tight, warm embrace. He should have shoved her away but his limbs felt weighed down, his brain short-circuiting to have her pressed so close to him. The smell of her overtook his senses, her downy hair on his cheek painfully familiar and awaking all sorts of feelings he struggled to push back down to a place where they could never resurface.

“I'm so glad to see you! How did you find me?!” she bubbled with enthusiasm, not the least put off by his broken appearance. But she never was, was she, never questioned his bruises or busted knuckles or bloodied clothes. She squeezed him, and he felt the wound born from her betrayal split and ooze everywhere. “You must have been worried about the apartment in such a mess… I bet you were asked questions too…” she said, all the while nuzzling his fucking shoulder.

Pressing up against him.

He couldn't breathe.

This fucking cunt…

“I wanted to tell you about what I've been doing…”

She was assailing all his senses, his smell, sight, touch, hearing, all of it bombarded with her, and she'd probably find a way to assault his taste too if it weren't for the fact that his tongue was stuck in his mouth. He couldn't speak, his throat closed up and he felt like he was choking.

Get her off. Get her off of you, you fucking idiot!

He started to pull out his gun.

“…But I realized you were working for Frieza, and…”

He stiffened, his good eye going wide.

What did she say? He hadn't expected her to bring up the topic of Frieza so easily, or imply she had until recently been ignorant of his connection to the bastard.

Bulma pulled back and he hastily pushed his weapon back into his pocket, staring at her, dumbfounded, as the cool air replaced the warmth of where her slender body had just been. Her hands remained on his shoulders. Her cheeks were flushed prettily, her big blue eyes staring at him with painful sincerity.

And something warmer, something he didn't want to acknowledge. It made the black snake of loathing thrash in his belly unhappily.

“But I know I can trust you! And I know you can help us!” she told him, and damn her, damn her that she looked so fucking genuine and affectionate, and it made something shatter bitterly inside of him.

Trust him… TRUST him?!

There were so many things wrong with her statement he didn't even know where to begin, but she didn't give him the chance. She turned and grabbed his left arm like it was hers to take, like she was always grabbing him, always touching him and causing his neurons to fire erratically and mess up his train of thought and make his heart palpitate uncomfortably.

“Come on! I want you to meet the others! They'll love you!”

And because his brain had abandoned him ever since she opened the door, he meekly followed, having nothing better to do, telling himself it was all part of the plan, an opportunity to gather intel, assess the situation, even if he'd been adamant that no plan was the plan.

“Guyys~! This is the friend I told you about! Be nice, okay?!” she called cheerily inside.

The light and warmth of the house was eclipsing him, wrapping itself around his body like tendrils, beckoning him in, tempting him away from the dark and cold, away from the loneliness of isolation and the white night that had blanketed his soul. Her hand was warm and light where it pressed on his back, gently ushering him in as he stepped over the threshold and into the warm glow that swallowed him up.

~~oxo~~

Vegeta had no idea what the fuck he was doing here. Bulma had made with the introductions and then sat him down at a table. She offered him a hot drink before heading to the kitchen, leaving him there all alone with three perfect strangers.

They stared at him. He stared back through one distrustful eye, shoulders hunched. He got the feeling they could see through the bullshit that Bulma was blind to.

Yeah, this wasn't awkward or anything.

He glanced around, finding himself in a small house, little better than an apartment. The room left much to be desired in terms of decor, if posters of half-naked women and a goddamn photo of a turtle of all things could be considered that.

The short bald guy she had introduced as Krillin, and who Vegeta recognized as the police officer that had ushered Bulma into his car, hurriedly made some excuse about helping Bulma before he fled to the kitchen. No doubt he had gone to chastise the woman about her choice of `friends'. Vegeta would have done the same.

So, then there were two.

The old man, Roshi, he could get. Vegeta had met his kind before in the underworld. Just an unassuming old man, but Vegeta didn't doubt the geezer was useful in his own way. You didn't keep people like that around if they couldn't pull their weight. The old man just sat there and stared at him, like a goddamn smiling statue.

“So… You're Bulma's `friend', huh?” Roshi asked, trying to be conversational.

Vegeta frowned at him unpleasantly.

“…Right then.” Roshi cleared his throat and glanced at the last member of the gang, and Vegeta did too.

A boy.

A fucking boy.

What the fuck was a child doing here?

He glared at the kid and the boy shrank in on himself under Vegeta's gaze, trying to pretend he was reading a book that looked far too advanced for him.

Vegeta squinted harder. There was something oddly familiar about the boy… He was sure he'd seen that face before. He didn't deal with children a lot, so where had he seen a boy's face recently…?

Realization shattered across his mind's eye with the sound of broken glass, crunching under his shoe.

The photo frame, back in Bulma's apartment. There had been a picture of her and some boy, and this kid had a great likeness to that one. But it had been an old photo.

Vegeta reeled back, his eye widening as a horrible sinking weight dropped in the pit of his belly.

Why else would a kid be here if he wasn't hers…

Vegeta felt sick. How far did her lies go? How much about her did he still not know? He looked over his shoulder and saw Bulma and Krillin watching him, her expression soft, almost amused, Krillin's less than pleased. Vegeta's rage was bubbling up inside him all over again, starting to get the best of him. He had hoped this little impromptu visit might garner him some answers, but all it was doing was raising more questions and stoking the fire of betrayal in his stomach.

“What the fuck is this!” he demanded loudly, gesturing at the boy, needing to vent his frustration before it got out of hand.

Bulma arched a brow and came back into the room. “What? Gohan? He's Goku's boy,” she said, pointing to a picture on the wall. Vegeta glanced at it, seeing a man with a large, dopey grin and wild hair, the grown up version of the boy in Bulma's photograph. There was also a pretty, dark haired woman, and sure enough, Gohan, although the boy looked younger in this photo, little more than a toddler.

“But why is he here?” Vegeta demanded sourly. “His folks dead?”

Gohan's eyes widened.

Bulma shot Vegeta a nasty look. “What? No! They're working. Try to be a little more sensitive, would you?”

Vegeta turned away from her, petulant, as Bulma affectionately tussled the kid's hair. But not, he noted, in a motherly way. More like a bratty older sister. Gohan tried to jerk his head out from under her, flushing with embarrassment. “Bulma,” he whined.

`Bulma'. Not `Mama'.

Vegeta felt something ease inside of him, and he hated himself for it.

“I'll be right back. You'll want to see this,” she said, turning to him, her tone already indicating she'd forgiven him for his harsh comments. She patted his shoulder and left the room, heading down a hallway and disappearing into a side room.

Krillin, Roshi and Gohan were all trying not to look at him while very obviously doing just that, all of them expressing varying degrees of fear.

Vegeta let out an aggravated sigh and sank down further in his chair, waiting.

He should have just fucking shot them all.

His mind drifted back to their conversation at the front door.

“I wanted to tell you about what I've been doing…”

Yeah right. Like she didn't have a million and one opportunities?! How many times had they just sat and talked and talked and she had never told him anything?

“…But I realized you were working for Frieza, and…”

Right. If she was telling the truth, she must have learned his association from Frieza's gang symbol. He had tried to bestow it upon her, like some great fucking honor that he was taking her under their protection, and she had freaked out. Bulma was prone to over react but even he had been stunned at how upset she was at the time. It made sense now, didn't it?

She had probably been scared, and hurt, and confused. He had unwittingly revealed himself to be her enemy, waving it in her goddamn face, and she had panicked.

Oh yeah, please, like she hadn't known from the beginning.

Had she?

That's what Frieza said.

Because Frieza is real fucking trustworthy…

Vegeta frowned, folding his arms over his chest, riddle with displeasure and uncertainties.

“But I know I can trust you! And I know you can help us!”

“Tch,” he said aloud, skeptically, and the three others in the room startled.

Vegeta frowned sourly. This was going to be a long night.

Bulma thankfully came back a moment later, a dark, nondescript suitcase in hand. She placed it on the table. “Here, this is what we're fighting for.” She opened the case and displayed seven pretty, tiny marble-like orbs, shimmering orange and red. “The Dragon Balls.”

They looked like candy.

Vegeta couldn't believe it. “What the hell? Some drugs? That's all they are?!” Un-fucking-believable! There was no fucking way. He'd been through hell and back, had been emotionally turned inside out and beaten black and blue, just for the latest fucking party favor?

“Not just `some drugs', Vegeta,” Bulma countered. She plucked one of the balls and held it up for his inspection. He glared at the tiny thing balefully. “Each of these pellets do nothing on their own,” she explained. “But together, they represent the greatest discovery in all of human history.” She paused for dramatic effect, and Vegeta lifted his gaze from the pellet up to her face and was taken aback by the wicked glint in her eyes. Her gaze was narrowed, her mouth lilting up with smug satisfaction, looking almost sinister, and it made something coil tightly in his belly, made his blood boil. “The secret to immortality!”

And everything fizzled back down, snuffed out like a flame.

…What?

He waited for her to laugh, to explain the joke, for the others to react, but instead they were all waiting for him to react, and he realized she was serious.

He sighed, his face twisting in aggravation, and he pushed his hand through the hair at his temple. “What?”

“I know it sounds crazy,” she hastened to reassure him, her expression still serious and impassioned. “But I took my time studying them, and it's real! We used them before already; if administered to a fresh corpse, their chemical components bring back the dead.”

Vegeta was done with this. To hell with all this voodoo crap, whatever tale she was trying to spin, he was done with it. “You're telling me,” he snapped, throwing out a disbelieving hand, “that somehow, somewhere, there is an actual frickin ZOMBIE walking around and NO ONE knows about it?! Come on, fucking SHOW HIM TO ME,” he demanded.

Everyone glanced at Krillin, who started to sweat, seemingly wanting to melt into the ground.

They had to be joking.

Krillin let out a nervous, guilty laugh.

“…Seriously?” Vegeta asked, deadpan.

Bulma slapped her hand to Krillin's brow, shoving the poor man's head back so she could point excitedly at his neck. “Six years ago, Krillin got his neck broken, killing him instantly. After we used the Dragon Balls, he came back: 24 hours after CLINICAL DEATH.”

The bald guy did have an impressive marking on his neck, but it was going to take a hell of a lot more than that to convince Vegeta that these tiny baubles could resurrect the goddamn dead. Fuck, what was Bulma doing? She was smarter than this, if she was trying to get him on her side there were a million other tales she could have spun that wouldn't have sounded half so ridiculous as this stupid fucking story she was feeding him.

“I don't believe any of that crap. It's way too crazy,” he flat out told her.

“As you wish,” she shrugged, not looking too surprised, or offended. “But think about it, Vegeta: if they're just some random drugs, how come not only Frieza, but the former Red Ribbon gang AND the rest of the underground world are looking for them so desperately?”

…She had a point. The hunt for the Dragon Balls had been heating up in the underworld, the goddamn holy grail of the black market. Still, that didn't make her story any more true… did it?

Vegeta put a hand over his mouth, thinking.

“There must be something really special about these, right?” Bulma continued. She shut the briefcase, her fingers delicately perched over the lid. “Something that makes all these powerful people want them so badly…”

She was right.

Frieza had gone to an awful lot of effort for these Dragon Balls: the intel gathering, surveillance, assassinations, and backroom deals. And that barely scratched the surface of all the shady shit he'd organized for those damn Balls. And Frieza had never even said what they fucking were. Not that Frieza ever shared much with anyone, but he had been more cryptic than usual, even for him. A lot of odd inconsistencies suddenly started to make a whole lot of fucking sense…

Including why he'd been kept alive and set on her tail…

“She tricked us both, Vegeta… And I believe you know how to strike back.”

He was being used as a goddamn hunting dog, salivating and biting at the bit to be let loose and set his teeth into the nearest fucking target.

Because that's what he did best, wasn't it? Just a useless, mindless fucking tool…

“Now,” she said, snapping him out of his inner thoughts. His eye dragged up to her face, watching her, and she looked back at him, her expression unusually serious. “You don't have to help us. It's dangerous to protect these. But given that you're from the underground and know your way around it much better than any of us, you'd be a huge asset.”

Asset. It was cold and business like. He could appreciate that.

He just hadn't expected it from her. It was a stark contrast to the Bulma who spoke of butterfly tattoos and chocolate chip muffins.

He said nothing, thinking, his mind at war over what to believe.

Who to believe.

“I'm only asking you think about it,” she added, her tone softening.

“Sure…” he said as noncommittally as possible, eyeing the briefcase as if it were a ticking time bomb. His mind whirring.

Plotting.

She put the briefcase back into the side room. He stayed in his seat, lost to his thoughts. The others started talking around him, finally acclimatized to his presence. He blocked out their discussions, sinking deeper and deeper into his brooding, contemplating the bombshell of responsibility she had dropped on his shoulders.

Help? She wanted his help?

He didn't help people! He broke them. Killed them. Unmade them.

He didn't even know how to help himself. How the fuck was he supposed to help her, and why the fuck should he even try?

She had lied to him…

To protect herself, same as you. Was she really so wrong to do so? Just look at the way you reacted after all…

He grit his teeth, denying the logic of his own thoughts, replaying everything over in his mind, Frieza's and Bulma's words spinning, dancing, contradicting each other. Where did one's lies end and the other's truths begin?

Had she even lied to him… really? She was certainly acting like she hadn't, like she had only withheld certain truths from him and had now laid everything out on the table, both metaphorically and literally. He was beginning to see that those holes in her story had unwittingly left room for Frieza to take advantage of him, to nurture doubt, betrayal…

Vegeta had been played, and not, as it turned out, by her.

Fucking Frieza, that smug, manipulative bastard…

And worse, was a voice in his head telling him that he had known. He had known all along but had gone along with it, gladly fallen down that rabbit hole of madness and loathing…

And if Frieza were to blame in all this, did that mean she hadn't actually betrayed him? That what they had shared hadn't all been a lie? But if that were the case, then that meant he had almost…

He had to get out.

He was conflicted and shell shocked, feeling hollow now that he no longer wore his rage about him like armor, like a glowing ball of energy that fueled and justified his need for revenge. Vegeta tried to slip out while they were engaged in discussing dinner.

“Hey… Going back already?”

Fuck damnit. Of course she'd caught him trying to leave. And what was worse, he was kind of glad she had.

Fuck, he was pathetic.

His feet came to a stop before the front door, her words wrapping around him with aching familiarity, keeping him from leaving. He swallowed thickly. It wasn't the voice she had been using around them. It was the voice she used when it was just him, and it never occurred to him before that she had a tone she used for him alone. That piece of information sliced through him like a piece of jagged glass, making his fingers twitch in pain.

He considered what she said. Going back? Going back where? He had nowhere to go back to. Frieza wouldn't be terribly forgiving of the mess of bodies Vegeta had left behind, and even if he was the kind of man to give second chances, Vegeta was done with taking Frieza's orders. He wasn't going to be anyone's goddamn tool anymore. He had made sure to burn all those bridges, and now all but one remained waiting to be burnt or crossed… Her.

“It's snowing a storm outside…” she added, her voice still soft, stepping closer.

He looked over his shoulder at her and saw she'd taken off her sweater, was wearing a delicate, v-cut top that hugged her petite frame. God, she was pretty. Her top looked soft, and he bet it would feel nice to run his hands all over it.

All over her.

The beat of his heart quickened, his palms suddenly sweaty. They were alone, sheltered in the entryway, the others further off inside the house allowing them some privacy. Vegeta didn't know what to say to her, didn't how to be with her after everything that had happened, everything that she was so blissfully, ignorantly, enviably unaware of.

Galick still weighed in his pocket, a heavy reminder of what he'd almost done.

What he could still do. Might do.

…He was a monster.

He didn't deserve her. Never had. He had to get the fuck out of here.

Her soft voice broke his thoughts. “You could stay the night… We have room…” she tempted, standing right next to him now. He tried to keep his shield of skepticism up, tried to hold on to his armor of anger, but he was losing it, the wrath slipping away through the cracks, whittling down until he was left with little but a heavy dose of doubt.

You have to get out. Now.

…Yet he lingered.

Her soft hand touched his chest, gently coaxing him to face her, and he turned towards her, helpless to resist. She brought her other hand beside the first, the warmth of her palms radiating through his sweatshirt, igniting something cold and broken and barely beating under his ribs.

“And if I remember right…” she murmured, her voice dropping lower still. She looked up at him coquettishly, a soft, playful smile curling her lips, only inches from him. He didn't respond, couldn't move. He was broken, destroyed.

She ruined him and he hated her. No… He wanted to hate her because that would be easier.

But he couldn't.

Why? God fucking damnit WHY couldn't he be free of her?! Why did she slip past every one of his goddamn defenses, curl herself into his mind and devastate him every fucking time?! It wasn't fair, it was a goddamn cosmic joke! It wasn't supposed to be this way, not for him. He felt nothing, he was emotionless, dispassionate; a cold, calculating, murdering, killing machi-

“I did promise you a night with `no talking'… Didn't I?”

Oh god… God fucking damn her…

He felt a great rend in his armor, splitting it wide open, and in his moment of vulnerability she leaned in and kissed him tenderly on the cheek. His breath left him and something broke inside his chest. He felt himself bleed all over the place, bleeding feelings he'd been trying to bottle up — feelings her kiss reawakened.

He turned and leaned his cheek against hers. She smelt amazing. She gently cupped his face, careful of his injuries, encouraging, cradling him to her, and his heart stopped. It was the single most tender gesture of his life. He raised his hand to her wrist, his fingers ghosting over her. Her skin was so achingly soft, and he marveled at her capacity to not recoil from someone as black and broken as he was.

Was this real? Was she? It was easy to think she had fucked him over because betrayal and double-crossing was all he understood. What he didn't understand was attachment, it left him fucking clueless and overwhelmed. But for once in his life he didn't want to shy from it. He had nowhere left to go, no where deeper to fall. All he had left was her and a pitiable yearning for something better that she evoked within him. He wanted her, and he wanted what she offered.

Vegeta didn't know if he'd live much beyond the morning, not once Frieza came after him for killing Nappa, for running off, and for what he planned to do next… So for one night, just for one night, he wanted to pretend that none of that other shit mattered, that she was just Bulma and he was just Vegeta. He wished he had gotten to better know who both of them were, but time had run out. Tonight was all they had left. Whatever affection he could squeeze out of his black, twisted soul, he wanted to give it to her.

To his Bulma. To the girl next door.

Her bittersweet siren song had wrapped around him, enveloping him, and it shattered the last of his resolve.

He swept her up in his arms, and she was startled by the suddenness of his embrace but soon melted against him, hugging him back. He held her tightly, possessively. Bulma was everything he had left, representing every good thing he'd ever been fortunate enough to experience, more than he ever fucking deserved or could ever be worthy of. She was his life raft, his savior, and his downfall.

Vegeta buried his face against her shoulder, his grip tightening, clinging to her. He clenched his teeth, choking back silent tears. He was going to fucking die tomorrow, but at least he could take this memory of her with him.

~~ox0xo~~

Beta-read by Artephile/Marcella-Duchamp, my editing hero :)

DBZ owned by Akira Toriyama. This AU is stupidoomdoodle's idea. I'm just playing in their sandboxes, very graciously by Dooms too I might add. Stupidoomdoodles and LadyVegeets can be found on twitter, tubmlr and p atreon. Girl Next Door comic can also be found on smackjeeves. Read it, love it, be haunted by it, like I am.