Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Satan Video ❯ Picking up the Pieces ( Chapter 18 )

First off, I would like to apologize for the last chapter. That was some serious crapola! I read over it again, and although it conveys the basic idea I was going for, it did not turn out how I wanted. Don't you hate that? Oh well, I never claimed to be a writer. Hell, this is the first thing I've really written (besides my resume which isn't all that great either) that wasn't some assignment for school! Scary thought, huh? Anyway, I have begun rambling again. Sorry. Here's the next chapter.

Chapter 17: Picking up the Pieces

Bulma made it to her apartment in only a few minutes. 'That went a lot better than I expected. In fact, he took that really well, perhaps too well. Ugh, I'm not going to worry about that now. I've got a pissed off prince I need to talk to.' She glanced up at the clock and realized it was only 2. 'I'll give him a call a little later. Right now, there's a bucket of ice cream in the freezer that's calling my name.' She plopped down on the couch and proceeded to forget about her troubles with the help of some death by chocolate.

Yamcha hit the punching bag again. He'd been beating on it so long, that his knuckles were getting raw, but he didn't notice. All thoughts were on Bulma. 'How could this be it? Everything was going so good. She says it's not about Jenny, but it has to be. Why else would she break up with me right after finding out? If she was planning on doing it already, why wait? Well, it's not like I've seen her in about a week, so when would she have? Damn it! All I can do is give her some space and see what happens. Shit! That stings!' He glanced down at his fist and decided that he's thrown enough punches. He then began kicking the bag of sand as his mind continued to dwell on his now ex-girlfriend.

Piccolo groaned as he hauled himself from Goku's bathroom floor. He stopped in front of the mirror long enough to notice that he looked like complete hell! Pushing off the counter to propel himself into motion, the Namekseijin slowly made his way out of the tiny space and into the living room.

"Goku?" Silence answered him. 'That's weird. I wonder where he went.' He wandered into the kitchen, not entirely convinced he should listen to his stomach's pleas for water after the scene he had made earlier. He looked in the fridge, nothing. Glancing around the counters revealed nothing as well. 'This isn't good.' He began digging through all the cabinets in the small kitchen, throwing the items on the floor when they weren't what he was looking for.

"Shit!" He kicked the box of dishwasher detergent, causing it to spill all over the cheap linoleum floor. He then noticed the one place he hadn't looked yet: the closet. He made quick work of its contents as he continued his search for the holy grail of his race. It was yet another fruitless endeavor.

"Goku's trying to kill me," he concluded as his thoughts drifted to his last resort. Piccolo eyed the faucet warily as he picked a plastic cup from the floor. He assessed the condition of the facilities that would quench his thirst. 'The name is misleading,' he determined as his focus drifted to the corrosion that was creeping up the handles of the stainless steel faucet and along the drain in the sink. 'This is not worth the risk to my health,' he decided and threw the cup to the floor. He walked out onto the balcony, intent on going home, but a searing pain shot through his head once his eyes came into contact with direct sunlight. He was still shaky from the waves of nausea, and once the dull throb of the headache turned into a full blown migraine, he realized that he was in no condition to fly home yet. With a defeated sigh, he slowly trekked back inside the apartment.

Piccolo walked back into the kitchen, giving in to the undying thirst. He grabbed the cup once again and hesitantly reached to turn on the cold water. The faucet sputtered a moment before the tap water began to flow at an even pace. Once the cup was filled, he brought it closer for inspection. He noticed the brownish-orange tint, indicative of iron concentration as well as the sediment floating in it that could have been from the pipes of the apartment. Of course the cup might not have been entirely clean to begin with, and he scolded himself for not checking it before hand. This was the apartment that Goku and Vegeta shared after all. He then brought the cup to his nose to smell the water and grimaced. Chlorine and a hint of fluoride assaulted his nostrils and almost made him forget his severely dry mouth and empty stomach. Almost.

'I can't believe I'm going to do this! I mean this is tap water for crying out loud! It's the most wretched form of water on the planet besides the city pool! I might as well be drinking out of the fucking toilet!' He shook his head as he regained his determination and downed the contents of the cup in a few gulps. He smacked his lips a few times as his brain registered the peculiar taste on his tongue. 'It's not as bad as I thought it would be. Still not great, but it's tolerable.' He refilled the glass two more times and quickly drank them.

Feeling slightly better, Piccolo wandered into the living room to watch some TV and wait for any possible side effects from the impure water soon to be circulating throughout his system. He picked up the remote and scanned through his choices. 'Not much of a selection,' he realized as he left it on a talk show.

"Welcome back. Today's guests are having affairs with their coworkers and are here today to tell their loved ones about it!"

"How appropriate," Piccolo grumbled as he turned the TV off and threw the remote onto the floor. He leaned his head against the back of the couch and hadn't even realized he had gone to sleep until the muffled arguing of two men woke him. He slowly lifted his head up only to be reminded of his excruciating headache. 'I'm going to kill them all,' he reiterated. Vegeta burst through the door, followed shortly by Goku who was trying hard to keep his laughter in check.

"Honestly Vegeta, I don't know why you're so angry. I mean you got us kicked out just as much as I did." Vegeta just ignored him and stormed into the kitchen.

"Why the hell is this shit all over the floor?!" the prince demanded as he kicked the broom, sending it flying into the living room and nearly decapitating his roommate.

"Quit yelling. I think my head is going to explode," Piccolo moaned from his not yet noticed spot on the couch.

"Oh Piccolo, I forgot you were here," Goku stated with an embarrassed chuckle.

"Kakarotto, you truly are a baka. Not only did you forget you left someone in our apartment, but you managed to make such an ass of yourself at that fast food place that the manager asked us to leave."

"Uh huh. Well, you didn't exactly help the situation by telling him to…..What was it? Oh yeah, 'sit his fat ass in one of the fryers.'"

"I'm not the reason he came over there in the first place. If you hadn't been making a big fucking mess like some child, he never would have bothered us!" he hollered from the kitchen before tripping over the mess in the floor. "Damn it! Will someone please tell what all this shit is doing in the floor!!??"

"That was me," Piccolo mumbled from the couch as he turned to Goku. "Why do you not have a single bottle of clean water in this place?"

"What for? We've got the sink," Goku shrugged, and Piccolo shuddered. Vegeta suddenly emerged from the kitchen, boots covered in dishwasher detergent and face set in an intense scowl.

"Damn it, I'm going to start blasting both of you morons if you don't answer me right now! What happened in the kitchen, and why the hell wasn't it cleaned up?!!" Veins were popping out of his forehead as the tension in his body was reaching dangerous levels, dangerous to others around him that is.

"Geez man, calm down." Goku glanced over at his guest on the couch and sighed. "Piccolo's sort of hung over, so I guess I'll clean it up."

"Fine." Vegeta went into the living room and turned on the TV, purposely ignoring the coworker on the couch. His attempts to block out the world were cut short once Goku peered into the kitchen.

"Damn Piccolo! What the hell did you do in here!?"

"I was hoping you had some bottled water stashed somewhere."

"Okay, but that doesn't explain why the trash got dumped out."

"I guess I got a little upset." The phone started ringing, but no one made a move to answer it. After three rings, Goku started to get a little annoyed.

"Hey Vegeta, can you get that?"

"I don't want to talk to anyone," he offered, still focused on the TV. His roommate muttered a few indecipherable cursed as he stumbled out of the kitchen to answer the phone.

"Hello. Oh hey Bulma," he said overenthusiastically as he turned toward Vegeta grinning like a crazy person. "Sure. Hold on a minute." He tossed the phone in the prince's lap who looked at it as if it were a container of biological weaponry. He picked it up by the antenna and tossed it back to Goku.

"I have nothing to discuss with her." The taller Saiyajin frowned and threw it to him again.

"You know if you don't talk to her, she'll just come over, so you're going to have to deal with her one way or the other. At least this way, we don't have to listen to your conversation." Vegeta looked down at the phone as Bulma was apparently screaming to get someone's attention. Piccolo covered his ears.

"Damn it! Shut her up before I blast your fucking phone!" the green alien howled, believing that his sensitive ear drums might actually be bursting. Vegeta rolled his eyes and finally pulled the phone up to his ear.

"What?!!"

"Don't yell at me!"

"What the hell? Everyone here can hear you screeching like a mad woman!"

"Well, if you would answer the freaking phone…Ugh never mind. I didn't call you to argue. I wanted to talk about us."

"What us? You made it perfectly clear this morning that all I am to you is a good lay!" He glanced around as he suddenly remembered there were two other people in the room with him. "Fuck! I'm not talking about this right now!"

"I never said that, and you wouldn't let me explain. Come over and we can talk if you don't want to over the phone. I don't have to be at work for another two hours." Vegeta sat there a moment as he got his embarrassment under control before responding.

"I'm busy right now," he said with the arrogant boredom that only true royalty can pull off. "I do have to work tonight, so maybe if you're nice, I'll talk to you then," he said with an evil grin.

"Whatever Vegeta. I'll see you later." She slammed the phone down before massaging her temples. 'What a pain in the ass!'

"What?!!" Vegeta demanded as he saw the look of shock on his roommate's face. Goku let out an exasperated sigh.

"That's not exactly the best approach to saving a relationship with an earth woman," he offered.

"And what makes you think I'm trying to save anything?" the prince asked with his arms folded over his chest.

"Well, you were pretty pissed about something when you came back earlier. Then you didn't want to talk to her, and when you finally did, there was that comment about…" he trailed off when Vegeta's fists clenched and eyes narrowed, daring him to say it. "Well, it just sounded like you were disappointed with the current arrangement between the two of you."

"Shut up! I don't want or need your input, Kakarotto. My private matters are none of your concern!" With that, Vegeta took off.

"That went well," Goku mumbled as he looked over to his guest. "You okay Piccolo? You're not looking so good."

"Head…sick….fucking tap water," was all he could say as he staggered quickly to the bathroom.

"Oh hell." Goku shook his head and went back into the kitchen to finish cleaning. "Why me?"

Two hours later…

Vegeta landed outside the store, right next to the crater made the night before. It was roped off in an attempt to keep customers from accidentally driving into it until it could be fixed. He laughed at the thought. 'Stupid humans.' He went inside and saw that Bulma was already there. He walked right past her, not saying a word, and began putting movies back on the shelves. She shook her head in disbelief. 'This is going to be more difficult than I thought.' She went to finish setting up cash drawers for Marron, Launch, Krillin, and Vegeta, hoping tonight would go smoothly. Since when do things ever go as planned, though?

Vegeta walked back up to the front of the store to grab another stack of movies when he heard it. The satellite TV display was turned on, and Yamcha's voice was echoing throughout the store. He turned to watch for a moment, curious as to why he of all people was on there wearing his baseball uniform.

"Hello, Yamcha here, and when I get a bad case of athletes foot, I use Hercule Cream. It's the only brand top athletes like myself and Mr. Satan trust to fight those nasty little funguses. It works on many other skin conditions as well, such as psoriasis, ringworm, jock itch, and many more! So remember, if you've got an itch, get Hercule Cream!"

Vegeta's facial expression quickly changed from one of shock to one of complete revulsion. "That's just fucking nasty," he mumbled as he sent a ki beam toward the TV. It collided with the smiling face of his lover's boyfriend causing the glass to shatter and the circuitry to fry. He went back to his stack of movies and began putting them up. Bulma had seen the whole event transpire. She knew exactly why he disintegrated the TV, so she didn't even bother yelling at him about it. It's not like it would do any good anyway.

The arrival of Mr. Satan marked the next problem of the evening. He entered the store wearing his typical martial arts get-up. The only difference was that instead of his usual 'fro, he was wearing a 'Mr. Satan' baseball cap. Of course he also brought a box full of them to sell to the customers. He set up the display right next to him, so it would be the first thing people saw as the walked into the store. He stood up straight, popped his knuckles, and cleared his throat before thrusting his arms up into the air above him, both hands sporting the "V" for victory.

"Loyal fans, Mr. Satan has arrived!" he yelled in his usual annoying boom.

Bulma cringed as the horrendous sound entered her ears but fought to suppress her laughter once she saw the hat. 'I guess it might take a while for his hair to grow back to its previous size.' Her thoughts then jumped to the hole in the parking lot courtesy of one Saiyajin no Ouji. 'Shit! He's going to want to know what happened!' She decided to busy herself with something and hopefully avoid the annoying store owner.

The next few hours went by fairly smoothly; well, customer-wise at least. Launch happened to notice that neither Bulma nor Vegeta said anything to each other unless absolutely necessary. 'That's strange.' As soon as she had the opportunity, she asked Marron what she thought.

"Hey, does it seem a little odd that Vegeta and Bulma appear to not be speaking to each other?"

"Not only that, but they keep looking at each other when they think no one else notices." About that time, Vegeta glanced over at the two giggling women and raised an eyebrow. 'I will never understand humans,' he decided and went back to checking in tapes. "Man, he should not be allowed to be that sexy," Marron said as she watched him glance at Bulma yet again. "See? What did I tell you?" Launch's jaw dropped, not in any epiphany or anything, just at the simple idea that Marron had been accurate in her observations.

"It is interesting," Launch said after the initial shock wore off. "I'll ask Bulma about it later." Shortly after, things completely began to fall apart. Mr. Satan decided to take a break from the strenuous job of greeting his customers.

"Bulma, what happened to the TV?" She winced as she realized she had delayed it as long as possible. She pulled her arm out from the cabinet and stood up.

"Some kids managed to break it," she answered as she brushed the dust off of her pants. He nodded, but she wasn't sure if he was actually listening or not.

"What were you doing just then?"

"The electrical outlet has a short in it, and occasionally it has to be jiggled to get it working again."

"You know how to fix it don't you? That needs to be taken care of soon. We don't want it to start a fire or something," he said, and Bulma looked at him in disbelief.

"It's been like this for a long time."

"Why hasn't it been fixed? If you want, you can call someone to come to do." It took every bit of willpower she possessed to keep from ripping his head off.

"I know exactly how to fix it. I haven't done it because when I asked you about it a year ago, you said it was an unnecessary expense, and I don't do electrical work for free," she snapped.

"Oh. Well anyway, I wanted to ask you about the parking lot."

"Didn't Popo tell you what happened?" she asked, hoping he would take a hint and let her get back to work.

"He said a car exploded," he said as if it were the most absurd thing he'd ever heard.

"Yeah, so what else do you need to know?" His smile quickly disappeared.

"How exactly did a car explode while in our parking lot?"

"I don't know. I wasn't outside when it happened. Some of us actually have work while we're here." The look on his face said that her attitude was beginning to annoy him.

"One more thing and I'll let you get back to…whatever it was you were doing. The fire department called me after they left here and said that the place was empty when they got here. Why didn't you wait for them to show up?" She did quite a good job of hiding her shock and discomfort from him, but inside she was going nuts.

'How the hell could I have been so stupid?! Of course they would call him. He's the owner. Think Bulma, think!' "Heh heh. Well, you see…uh the explosion apparently scared all the customers away, so…" she started not sure what she was going to tell him, when Mr. Satan suddenly fell to the floor unconscious. "Hey are you alright?" she asked as she kicked his leg not so gently. When he didn't respond, she knelt down to make sure he was still breathing.

"He's just unconscious." Bulma looked up to see Vegeta standing there with a very satisfied grin on his face. "If you're lucky, he won't remember what you two were talking about before he passed out." He turned and went back to his register, leaving an astonished Bulma to look after the champ. He came to a few minutes later.

"Huh? What?" he grumbled as things slowly came into focus. "Why am I on the floor?" Bulma extended a hand and helped him up.

"You fainted. I bet you haven't been eating properly, have you? You really should go home and get some rest," she said as she was quickly escorting him to the door.

"Well, I guess I could use some more sleep," he mumbled, still very confused, as he was ushered out of the store. Bulma watched as he got in his car and slowly pulled out of the parking lot. As soon as he was out of sight, she turned to see where Vegeta was. He wasn't at his register so she went looking for him. She found him in the action section, putting up a stack of anime.

"Come on, we need to talk," she said and motioned toward the backroom. He put up the rest of the movies and then followed her to the back. "Are we okay now?" she asked once he was inside.

"Just because I got Mr. Satan off your back doesn't mean everything's fine."

"Oh. You never gave me a chance to explain this morning." She paused for a moment, and Vegeta motioned for her to get on with it. "I fully intended on breaking up with Yamcha the day after the party. Unfortunately I couldn't go through with it, then. I didn't love him, but I felt so guilty for cheating on him. I knew what I had to do I just didn't have a chance to do it. I didn't see him again until earlier today." Vegeta's gaze shifted from the floor up to her face.

"Right after you left this morning, I broke up with him. I want to be with you, Vegeta." Bulma wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, so close that their noses were almost touching. "I don't want anyone but you," she whispered and softly brushed her lips against his. She kissed him again, this time there was more passion behind it. Vegeta hesitantly rested his hands on her hips as his resolve was quickly slipping away. He regained his composure and broke the kiss.

"There is something I want to know. Why didn't you just tell him what happened?"

"Yamcha?"

"No…although that is a good question, too. I'm talking about the parking lot."

"Oh. If I told him you blew it up, you'd get fired."

"Okay, so what was the big deal about everyone leaving?"

"Well, if I told him we left early to keep you and Goku from beating the hell out of each other, then you'd probably have gotten fired. If I told him we left early because we felt like it, then I'd have been in trouble. And if I told him that all the customers were gone anyway because they got ran off with the protestors (which he is currently unaware of), then that wouldn't have fit with my previous explanation of the hole in the parking lot. I guess I could tell him that the explosion scared the customers away, but that is not very believable, since people usually hang around stuff like that out of curiosity." He nodded as he considered her explanation.

"Why bother protecting my job?" Bulma rolled her eyes.

"I hate that asshole. I like the people I work with; I hired them after all. So excuse me for wanting to keep them around." His mood seemed to lighten a bit.

"So did you tell that idiot about us?" he asked.

"Mr. Satan?"

"No Yamcha." Vegeta was unable to hide his annoyance.

"Oh. I told him what he needed to know," she offered, hoping it would be enough. He was finally calming down, and she didn't want to give him a chance to, in her opinion, overreact all over again. He nodded and seemed to be satisfied with her reasoning. "So, are we okay now?"

"Let me make one thing clear. If we are to continue this…thing between us, it will be just that: between us."

"As in remain a secret?" she asked as she inched closer to him.

"I don't care about that, as long as your stupid friends don't bug me about it. What I mean is that you will be mine. There will be no others."

"I already told you I don't want any others," she replied as she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed herself against him. "Besides, how could I want anyone else after you?" she said with a mischievous glint in her eye.

"Heh, that's right, woman."

"So, we probably should get back to work, don't you think?"

He nodded, but answered, "No." Bulma rolled her eyes as she grabbed his hand.

"Let's go," she said as she reluctantly made herself leave the backroom, dragging the Saiyajin prince behind her.

Well, hate to just cut it off like that, but it was already getting pretty long. I tried to find the best stopping point I could. A side note, I'm thinking about changing my user name. mischief maker is pretty corny even for me. I've got some ideas; I just don't know if I should bother or not. Let me know what you think Yah or Nay. You guys are the ones secretly laughing at me anyway, so it's good to know what's going on in those minds.

Please review. It makes me smile. :)