Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Seven Years ❯ Threat ( Chapter 5 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: ShiningMoon 
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Psychological / Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 12.13.2010 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.7K | Visits: 357 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Psychological / Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 12.13.2010 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.7K | Visits: 357 | Status: Completed
Vegeta found himself at a familiar cliff face—one where he had thought often just after Goku's death, before he had started living at Capsule Corp again. He landed with such force that the rock nearly crumbled away beneath him, and its momentary survival was in vain as he dropped to one knee and slammed his fist into it; layers of the rock fell away to the ground far beneath. He thought he had accepted it once already—that he would never fight Goku again—and was ready to embrace this sudden compulsion to fight someone else. But now, boxed back into his own mind by the cold shoulder of the cyborg, he had to remember that he had never really wanted to fight her. No—still anyone who he would seek out to fight he would pin that man's face to. His fists balled tighter as he drifted in the direction the crumbling cliff's face had slid, landing on precariously balanced sheets of rock.
Everything that existed anymore was trying to turn him away from who he had been.
There was Goku's death—holding him back from satisfaction, from pursuing what he had once thought to be an unstoppable urge to fight and hurt and kill. He could fight someone else, but—who could challenge him? At best his hunger could be sated temporarily; and then he'd turn his back, and remember the one he'd never gotten to defeat by his own hand, and feel the pangs again. Had tried it, once—no one he cared about had ever found out about the small town that died violently in the night. Without Goku's quaking features there, reacting to the horror; without anyone to know that he was still Vegeta but the ones who would never speak again, it had been worthless. So he was stripped of this part of him, but it was nothing new; he had been stripped of it since he'd come to live on Earth. But then he'd still dreamed of it, and it had still been a possibility: one day cornering Goku, enraging him by offing a few of his friends as he'd done before—spurring the fight he'd always wanted, and the one where he'd prove his superiority. But then the other Saiyajin had gone and done it—painted himself the saint, dying for the cause and leaving Vegeta behind never to fight him again.
And then there was his son, perhaps even better than his rival's absence at demanding he become something he wasn't. He found himself caring for the child, and hated it—had no problem with awaiting the day his boy would become strong, and trained him in ways he only wished he had been taught as a boy—but to care for him was to go too far. He'd known, somewhere in him, that it would happen, with the burning panic and rage he'd felt when Cell had killed his son-from-the-future, that he might end up loving this boy. Trunks was bright, and quick, and always a hair's breadth from bringing a smirk to Vegeta's eyes before he stopped himself. Vegeta was not someone to love, or to become attached; surely this boy could not change him so much from the man who had killed the Saiyajin who'd all but raised him, simply for failure in battle. Nappa had been something of a family, or at least the only thing he could come close to considering a family, but he'd done what was best—and couldn't he do what was best for Trunks, too, and train him, without this nagging feeling of affection? But it seemed impossible, and even now thinking that if he did not return to the Capsule Corp. compound before nightfall he would likely miss his time with the boy tomorrow worried him. He was certain, at least, that the longer he avoided physical contact beyond fighting with the boy, the longer he'd be able to hold onto everything that he was.
There was Bulma, too—more an enigma than the other two, for he could not place quite what she was doing to him. He was certain any positive feelings he had about her arose from the sex, and the things she built him, and maybe the quiet morning hours before he left to train, when their skin touched and her breathing was slow. For a while, he had refused to speak much with her, and especially refused to argue with her, for her magic seemed to lie in that split second where her blue eyes flashed in challenge, and surely the less they interacted, the less drawn to her he would be. But this strategy seemed to have backfired; it was as if she was proving to him that she didn't need to speak to him to suck him in. And it wasn't the sex; he'd avoided that for some time, too, in the hopes that this would prove his hypothesis. She had all but stopped building any of her projects, let alone the ones intended to help him in his training, although she had seemed pleased at first that he had returned to it. Was it just because he knew her best—or better than anyone else on this planet—that he kept going back to her? But it was foolish to think he knew her best, besides that perhaps he knew her body best—even that he wasn't sure of, so little he knew of her. Her shouted words had told him enough, and he shivered at remembering the feeling of fighting with her. It was a different type of sparring—but at least this rival was still here.
For good measure, he took another swing at some stone in the cliff that had not broken away, and widened the gap that had been created by a long-dry river. He would never fight Goku again, but could maybe, at least, hold onto a piece of what he had been. The best he could do was strive for it, resist the warm charm of the family that had somehow taken grip at his innards.
It would not take long to walk back to Capsule Corp., and he needed a little more time to think—he took off at a slow but regal stride in the right direction.
...
Bulma leaned quietly against Yamcha, pretending to doze as the man listened carefully to a now-babbling Trunks, occasionally making sounds in response to the boy's half-intelligible words, and wondered if this is how it would have been.
"Punch," Trunks spoke in earnest, "kick." Yamcha smiled a little and made a motion with his arms. "Block," Trunks added, and mumbled a few sounds afterward that were apparently important, based on the way his eyes shone.
"Smart kid," Yamcha commented, stealing a glance at Bulma, some of her hair sticking against his shirt from the static caused by the dry winter air as her head leaned against his shoulder. He wondered if this is how it could have been, and gathered Trunks into his lap, to see how it would feel, to be part of a family. In his youth, he would have scoffed at yearning for such things, but seeing Goku, of all people, settling down—and then, arguably, Vegeta—he had been reconsidering those thoughts often lately. He reminded himself chidingly that Bulma was far too much for him to handle—alternating between fiery stubbornness and a kind of neediness that he could not understand, having spent so long being independent from everyone but Puar. In the quiet, though, with her mouth half-open while she breathed, one lazy hand resting against his leg, she seemed peaceful enough. Trunks, meanwhile, squirmed around a bit before leaning against Yamcha's chest, doing his best to cross his arms as he had seen his father do so many times. He, too, seemed to drift off quickly. Yamcha raised one arm to wrap it around Bulma's shoulders. "I wish I could be the kind of guy you need," he muttered quietly, blushing a bit even though he supposed that no one had heard him. "But it's okay," he finally added, and it sounded nice as he said it. "I always was a lone wolf."
Bulma seemed to nod in her sleep, rubbing against his shoulder as her hand tightened against his leg. "This is nice," she murmured, and Yamcha nearly jumped, wondering if she had heard anything that he'd said.
"Y-yeah," he agreed shakily, and suddenly became conscious of his arm around her shoulder. He removed it, but his hand got caught in her hair, and he gently extricated it, brushing his fingers through it a few times before setting his hand against the floor to support some of his weight. "Bulma..."
"I'm sorry it turned out bad with us," her eyes were still closed, and she scooted closer. "The one guy I liked who's not a total ass..."
"I think you just have the hots for badness," he joked lightly. "Watch out, or next you'll want to wish back Cell to ask him on a date."
"Yamcha!" she seemed aghast, and this time her eyes did open. But then she laughed and closed them again, crossing her arms indignantly. "He was ugly. They have to be bad and hot."
"I'll take that as a compliment," he grinned, "but it doesn't explain why you had a thing for Goku."
Bulma shrugged. "He wasn't exactly mister goody two-shoes," she said defensively, "and anyway, it's more like I have it in for guys who I know will abandon me."
"Hey..." he started, "I never abandoned you."
"Exactly," she laughed guiltily, and a long stretch of quiet followed before she spoke again. "Hey, I know we haven't talked that much, you know, since we stopped going out..." Bulma paused. "But we're still friends, right?"
"I came here when you called," he rolled his eyes. "I think that's evidence enough."
"Good point. Hey...Yamcha?"
"Yeah?"
"Could you kiss my forehead?"
"What?"
"My forehead. I don't know," she was suddenly a bit defensive, brow creasing, "I just like the feeling, and...I need a little therapy right now, you know? So—I mean, it doesn't mean anything, but—please?"
He shrugged a little, blushing. "Okay, but only because you said. All right?" he leaned down and paused, a hair's breadth from her forehead and asked again, "All right?"
"'Course," she closed her eyes, smiling and waiting, and he lowered his lips onto her forehead, feeling her shiver as he did. On his lap, Trunks snored a little. Yamcha paused in place, watching Bulma's face and the emotions that riddled it, watching as her eyes stayed closed, and closed his own eyes, briefly.
Bulma felt the sudden absence of Yamcha's lips against her forehead at the same time she heard a loud bang and a louder smack, and by the time her eyes caught up, Yamcha was on his feet, thumb against the corner of his mouth and Trunks clinging to his back with wide eyes fixed in the same direction as Yamcha's narrowed ones. She followed their gaze across the room to Vegeta, who seemed surprised himself, even through the blood that pounded through his eyes and the veins that bulged on his forehead. "Get the fuck out of my house," he snarled.
She would have sworn she was too scared to speak, but Bulma planted her hands against her hips as she stood. "Excuse me, but this is my house, and you have no say in who does and does not visit!"
"What are you going to do to keep me from kicking him out the window?" Vegeta challenged.
Bulma turned her nose up. "I have more dignity to deal with your bullshit," she countered, striding over to Yamcha. "Especially since all I was doing was visiting with a good friend. Yamcha, tell him you're not gonna leave! You won't stand for that kind of treatment!"
"I oughtta..." he murmured, still frowning a little. "I oughtta go. I—shouldn't have done that last thing, even though you asked." Yamcha continued to stare at Bulma, but seemed to add for Vegeta's benefit, "It didn't mean anything." His chest puffed as he took a deep, slow breath. "Sorry for causing you trouble," he motioned to a few drops of blood that had escaped his mouth before he could reach up and stop it. Bulma wondered vaguely if Vegeta's punch against Yamcha's face was the first time he had hurt someone since what the others had described as his going berserk against Cell.
"It's no big deal," she smiled, patting his back and taking back Trunks. "Take care, okay? I'll see you again sometime," she asserted, glancing at Vegeta as she said it.
"Sure," he smiled guiltily, pacing toward the door and stiffening noticeably as he passed Vegeta, who watched him go with stone features. The main door slid shut quietly, and in the silence of the room they heard Yamcha opening a capsule, starting a car, and leaving the long Capsule Corp. drive. The moment the sound of his car faded back into the silence of the dark evening, the two locked eyes.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Bulma shrieked, and Trunks quaked in her arms before focusing his icy blue eyes in the same direction as his mother's, with what seemed to be a perfect imitation of her accusing glare.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Vegeta snapped back, taking a few stiff steps toward her, his back and neck arched forward slightly as his coldness quickly went up in flame, and he felt an animal inside him.
"Me? I was thinking I would invite an old friend over because sometimes I need to talk to someone about what an asshole you are to me, and maybe I enjoy actually being in someone's company every now and again instead of wallowing in blueprints and wires and soldering irons day and night just wishing I could come up with something good because I'm too miserable being by myself all the time!"
"Done yet?" he tried to raise an eyebrow coolly, but the words escaped as a snarl and his features convulsed accordingly.
Her eyes enlarged visibly in rage as she held Trunks close, chest swelling behind him. "No! Because you know what, Vegeta? You know what I felt like today when I was sitting here with Yamcha and Trunks? I felt like I had a family. Not just me and my son and some bum who doesn't speak to me even though we sleep in some bed, who pretends to hate our kid because gods forbid he ever start caring about somebody—" she noticed his eyes widen slightly at this statement, temporarily taken aback as she seemed to strike exactly something he'd been thinking, "but a family." When he remained silent, she turned on her heel and marched back to Trunks' room to lay him down for the night, hoping that the yelling hadn't disturbed him so much to prevent him from sleeping. The boy seemed to calm down the farther they got from the main room, and was lulled into a near-sleep by the time he was tucked into bed. Bulma gazed upon him for a few moments, and then realized that she had completely forgotten about eating dinner. Whether Vegeta was waiting for her to return in that room or not, she would stroll through it and fish out something to eat in the kitchen just beyond.
And indeed he was still in the room, but Bulma simply turned her nose up and attempted to duck past him. Just when she was sure she had made it past, something tugged at her arm and jerked her to a stop. "Vegeta!" she shouted.
"I'm not done with you yet," he hissed.
"Ohh," she fumed, trying to pull herself away from his grip, "you have no right to even say such a thing! I should be the one cornering you, for what you did! But am I? No, because right now I'd much rather get some dinner and—"
"I doubt you could 'corner' me," and as far as Bulma could tell, he seemed genuinely offended that she had suggested such a thing, crouching a little as if he might pounce on her and tear her to shreds, keeping a firm grip on her arm all the while.
"Let me go," this time she was the one growling.
"Make me."
So she jerked her knee upward and struck between his legs; Vegeta, caught off-guard, had no time to block it. "Never do that again," she shook a little as her hairs stood on-end. Even before, even when Vegeta was still more vicious and still a stranger, he had not held onto her against her will; she had supposed he had considered himself above such things. "You're not in charge of this house and you are not in charge of me."
Vegeta backed up into the wall, visibly attempting to mask the pain and the embarrassment that such a weak person as Bulma had caused it. He took one shaky breath, eyes downcast. "That wasn't...what I..." he managed. Bulma crossed her arms, gazing down her nose at him as she impatiently waited for him to finish. "...Had...in mind...when I said 'make me.'"
"Oh, yeah? What were you thinking I was gonna do, l—" this time she was the one to be surprised, as Vegeta was suddenly closer to her, his knuckles resting against the zipper of her jeans.
"Something...gentler," he still wasn't looking at her, and she was left wondering if he would have answered something else, if not for her previous words about family that may have prompted him to change his course—if this was, indeed, his end goal.
"Gentle?" she scoffed. "You being gentle is like Son being subtle—"
"You will not speak of him," Vegeta snapped, and his fingers twitched a little; he slid his hand up and down a few times, "while any part of me is this close to this part of you," he finished, fingers moving again, and Bulma wondered how her zipper had come undone—had it been undone all day? She blushed a little and squirmed. And as if not responding to her assertion had been bothering him, Vegeta added in a voice that struck her as dangerous, "I can be gentle."
"What a change of heart," she rolled her eyes. "How kind of you."
"Well, don't fuck it up," he threatened, his other hand reaching around and tucking itself into her back jeans pocket, thumb seeming to consider whether it could get a good enough grip on her belt loop to yank the pants down.
"I hope you don't hate Yamcha as much as you seem to," she warned, crossing her arms even as the hand against her front crawled up her shirt and rested against her belly.
"I couldn't care less about him," he snorted, and smirked a little as Bulma shivered against the cold of his gloves, still a bit chilly from the time the man had spent outside recently. He peeled them off carefully rubbed his hands together, and placed them back where they had been.
"You weren't kidding when you said gentle," she quirked an eyebrow at how considerate he seemed for having bothered to warm his hands up at all.
"Like I said," he warned, "don't push it."
"Did you get a chance to blow off some steam?" she asked, pausing to help him unhook her bra and wondering vaguely why so much practice on his part had yet to yield improvement in that area.
"No," he growled.
"Where did you go?"
"A cliff," Vegeta grunted, attempts at pressing his mouth against the woman's thwarted by her insistence on speaking with him. She rolled her eyes and followed his lead, wrapping her arms around him to grab at the back of his training pants after peeling off her shirt and discarding the loosened bra with it, taking note of where they landed on the off chance one of her parents would venture down to this area at the hour they normally went to bed—and that she would hear them if they did. Bulma opened her mouth to speak again, but thought better of it; discussion would best be done after the fact, no matter how much she wanted to say to him, to ask him to promise, to assure him of so many things—for he was still Vegeta, and still impatient, and for the moment, the best thing she could do for the both of them was help him remove her from her tight jeans, hope he'd start picking fights with her like this again, and worry about the rest later.
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Everything that existed anymore was trying to turn him away from who he had been.
There was Goku's death—holding him back from satisfaction, from pursuing what he had once thought to be an unstoppable urge to fight and hurt and kill. He could fight someone else, but—who could challenge him? At best his hunger could be sated temporarily; and then he'd turn his back, and remember the one he'd never gotten to defeat by his own hand, and feel the pangs again. Had tried it, once—no one he cared about had ever found out about the small town that died violently in the night. Without Goku's quaking features there, reacting to the horror; without anyone to know that he was still Vegeta but the ones who would never speak again, it had been worthless. So he was stripped of this part of him, but it was nothing new; he had been stripped of it since he'd come to live on Earth. But then he'd still dreamed of it, and it had still been a possibility: one day cornering Goku, enraging him by offing a few of his friends as he'd done before—spurring the fight he'd always wanted, and the one where he'd prove his superiority. But then the other Saiyajin had gone and done it—painted himself the saint, dying for the cause and leaving Vegeta behind never to fight him again.
And then there was his son, perhaps even better than his rival's absence at demanding he become something he wasn't. He found himself caring for the child, and hated it—had no problem with awaiting the day his boy would become strong, and trained him in ways he only wished he had been taught as a boy—but to care for him was to go too far. He'd known, somewhere in him, that it would happen, with the burning panic and rage he'd felt when Cell had killed his son-from-the-future, that he might end up loving this boy. Trunks was bright, and quick, and always a hair's breadth from bringing a smirk to Vegeta's eyes before he stopped himself. Vegeta was not someone to love, or to become attached; surely this boy could not change him so much from the man who had killed the Saiyajin who'd all but raised him, simply for failure in battle. Nappa had been something of a family, or at least the only thing he could come close to considering a family, but he'd done what was best—and couldn't he do what was best for Trunks, too, and train him, without this nagging feeling of affection? But it seemed impossible, and even now thinking that if he did not return to the Capsule Corp. compound before nightfall he would likely miss his time with the boy tomorrow worried him. He was certain, at least, that the longer he avoided physical contact beyond fighting with the boy, the longer he'd be able to hold onto everything that he was.
There was Bulma, too—more an enigma than the other two, for he could not place quite what she was doing to him. He was certain any positive feelings he had about her arose from the sex, and the things she built him, and maybe the quiet morning hours before he left to train, when their skin touched and her breathing was slow. For a while, he had refused to speak much with her, and especially refused to argue with her, for her magic seemed to lie in that split second where her blue eyes flashed in challenge, and surely the less they interacted, the less drawn to her he would be. But this strategy seemed to have backfired; it was as if she was proving to him that she didn't need to speak to him to suck him in. And it wasn't the sex; he'd avoided that for some time, too, in the hopes that this would prove his hypothesis. She had all but stopped building any of her projects, let alone the ones intended to help him in his training, although she had seemed pleased at first that he had returned to it. Was it just because he knew her best—or better than anyone else on this planet—that he kept going back to her? But it was foolish to think he knew her best, besides that perhaps he knew her body best—even that he wasn't sure of, so little he knew of her. Her shouted words had told him enough, and he shivered at remembering the feeling of fighting with her. It was a different type of sparring—but at least this rival was still here.
For good measure, he took another swing at some stone in the cliff that had not broken away, and widened the gap that had been created by a long-dry river. He would never fight Goku again, but could maybe, at least, hold onto a piece of what he had been. The best he could do was strive for it, resist the warm charm of the family that had somehow taken grip at his innards.
It would not take long to walk back to Capsule Corp., and he needed a little more time to think—he took off at a slow but regal stride in the right direction.
...
Bulma leaned quietly against Yamcha, pretending to doze as the man listened carefully to a now-babbling Trunks, occasionally making sounds in response to the boy's half-intelligible words, and wondered if this is how it would have been.
"Punch," Trunks spoke in earnest, "kick." Yamcha smiled a little and made a motion with his arms. "Block," Trunks added, and mumbled a few sounds afterward that were apparently important, based on the way his eyes shone.
"Smart kid," Yamcha commented, stealing a glance at Bulma, some of her hair sticking against his shirt from the static caused by the dry winter air as her head leaned against his shoulder. He wondered if this is how it could have been, and gathered Trunks into his lap, to see how it would feel, to be part of a family. In his youth, he would have scoffed at yearning for such things, but seeing Goku, of all people, settling down—and then, arguably, Vegeta—he had been reconsidering those thoughts often lately. He reminded himself chidingly that Bulma was far too much for him to handle—alternating between fiery stubbornness and a kind of neediness that he could not understand, having spent so long being independent from everyone but Puar. In the quiet, though, with her mouth half-open while she breathed, one lazy hand resting against his leg, she seemed peaceful enough. Trunks, meanwhile, squirmed around a bit before leaning against Yamcha's chest, doing his best to cross his arms as he had seen his father do so many times. He, too, seemed to drift off quickly. Yamcha raised one arm to wrap it around Bulma's shoulders. "I wish I could be the kind of guy you need," he muttered quietly, blushing a bit even though he supposed that no one had heard him. "But it's okay," he finally added, and it sounded nice as he said it. "I always was a lone wolf."
Bulma seemed to nod in her sleep, rubbing against his shoulder as her hand tightened against his leg. "This is nice," she murmured, and Yamcha nearly jumped, wondering if she had heard anything that he'd said.
"Y-yeah," he agreed shakily, and suddenly became conscious of his arm around her shoulder. He removed it, but his hand got caught in her hair, and he gently extricated it, brushing his fingers through it a few times before setting his hand against the floor to support some of his weight. "Bulma..."
"I'm sorry it turned out bad with us," her eyes were still closed, and she scooted closer. "The one guy I liked who's not a total ass..."
"I think you just have the hots for badness," he joked lightly. "Watch out, or next you'll want to wish back Cell to ask him on a date."
"Yamcha!" she seemed aghast, and this time her eyes did open. But then she laughed and closed them again, crossing her arms indignantly. "He was ugly. They have to be bad and hot."
"I'll take that as a compliment," he grinned, "but it doesn't explain why you had a thing for Goku."
Bulma shrugged. "He wasn't exactly mister goody two-shoes," she said defensively, "and anyway, it's more like I have it in for guys who I know will abandon me."
"Hey..." he started, "I never abandoned you."
"Exactly," she laughed guiltily, and a long stretch of quiet followed before she spoke again. "Hey, I know we haven't talked that much, you know, since we stopped going out..." Bulma paused. "But we're still friends, right?"
"I came here when you called," he rolled his eyes. "I think that's evidence enough."
"Good point. Hey...Yamcha?"
"Yeah?"
"Could you kiss my forehead?"
"What?"
"My forehead. I don't know," she was suddenly a bit defensive, brow creasing, "I just like the feeling, and...I need a little therapy right now, you know? So—I mean, it doesn't mean anything, but—please?"
He shrugged a little, blushing. "Okay, but only because you said. All right?" he leaned down and paused, a hair's breadth from her forehead and asked again, "All right?"
"'Course," she closed her eyes, smiling and waiting, and he lowered his lips onto her forehead, feeling her shiver as he did. On his lap, Trunks snored a little. Yamcha paused in place, watching Bulma's face and the emotions that riddled it, watching as her eyes stayed closed, and closed his own eyes, briefly.
Bulma felt the sudden absence of Yamcha's lips against her forehead at the same time she heard a loud bang and a louder smack, and by the time her eyes caught up, Yamcha was on his feet, thumb against the corner of his mouth and Trunks clinging to his back with wide eyes fixed in the same direction as Yamcha's narrowed ones. She followed their gaze across the room to Vegeta, who seemed surprised himself, even through the blood that pounded through his eyes and the veins that bulged on his forehead. "Get the fuck out of my house," he snarled.
She would have sworn she was too scared to speak, but Bulma planted her hands against her hips as she stood. "Excuse me, but this is my house, and you have no say in who does and does not visit!"
"What are you going to do to keep me from kicking him out the window?" Vegeta challenged.
Bulma turned her nose up. "I have more dignity to deal with your bullshit," she countered, striding over to Yamcha. "Especially since all I was doing was visiting with a good friend. Yamcha, tell him you're not gonna leave! You won't stand for that kind of treatment!"
"I oughtta..." he murmured, still frowning a little. "I oughtta go. I—shouldn't have done that last thing, even though you asked." Yamcha continued to stare at Bulma, but seemed to add for Vegeta's benefit, "It didn't mean anything." His chest puffed as he took a deep, slow breath. "Sorry for causing you trouble," he motioned to a few drops of blood that had escaped his mouth before he could reach up and stop it. Bulma wondered vaguely if Vegeta's punch against Yamcha's face was the first time he had hurt someone since what the others had described as his going berserk against Cell.
"It's no big deal," she smiled, patting his back and taking back Trunks. "Take care, okay? I'll see you again sometime," she asserted, glancing at Vegeta as she said it.
"Sure," he smiled guiltily, pacing toward the door and stiffening noticeably as he passed Vegeta, who watched him go with stone features. The main door slid shut quietly, and in the silence of the room they heard Yamcha opening a capsule, starting a car, and leaving the long Capsule Corp. drive. The moment the sound of his car faded back into the silence of the dark evening, the two locked eyes.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Bulma shrieked, and Trunks quaked in her arms before focusing his icy blue eyes in the same direction as his mother's, with what seemed to be a perfect imitation of her accusing glare.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Vegeta snapped back, taking a few stiff steps toward her, his back and neck arched forward slightly as his coldness quickly went up in flame, and he felt an animal inside him.
"Me? I was thinking I would invite an old friend over because sometimes I need to talk to someone about what an asshole you are to me, and maybe I enjoy actually being in someone's company every now and again instead of wallowing in blueprints and wires and soldering irons day and night just wishing I could come up with something good because I'm too miserable being by myself all the time!"
"Done yet?" he tried to raise an eyebrow coolly, but the words escaped as a snarl and his features convulsed accordingly.
Her eyes enlarged visibly in rage as she held Trunks close, chest swelling behind him. "No! Because you know what, Vegeta? You know what I felt like today when I was sitting here with Yamcha and Trunks? I felt like I had a family. Not just me and my son and some bum who doesn't speak to me even though we sleep in some bed, who pretends to hate our kid because gods forbid he ever start caring about somebody—" she noticed his eyes widen slightly at this statement, temporarily taken aback as she seemed to strike exactly something he'd been thinking, "but a family." When he remained silent, she turned on her heel and marched back to Trunks' room to lay him down for the night, hoping that the yelling hadn't disturbed him so much to prevent him from sleeping. The boy seemed to calm down the farther they got from the main room, and was lulled into a near-sleep by the time he was tucked into bed. Bulma gazed upon him for a few moments, and then realized that she had completely forgotten about eating dinner. Whether Vegeta was waiting for her to return in that room or not, she would stroll through it and fish out something to eat in the kitchen just beyond.
And indeed he was still in the room, but Bulma simply turned her nose up and attempted to duck past him. Just when she was sure she had made it past, something tugged at her arm and jerked her to a stop. "Vegeta!" she shouted.
"I'm not done with you yet," he hissed.
"Ohh," she fumed, trying to pull herself away from his grip, "you have no right to even say such a thing! I should be the one cornering you, for what you did! But am I? No, because right now I'd much rather get some dinner and—"
"I doubt you could 'corner' me," and as far as Bulma could tell, he seemed genuinely offended that she had suggested such a thing, crouching a little as if he might pounce on her and tear her to shreds, keeping a firm grip on her arm all the while.
"Let me go," this time she was the one growling.
"Make me."
So she jerked her knee upward and struck between his legs; Vegeta, caught off-guard, had no time to block it. "Never do that again," she shook a little as her hairs stood on-end. Even before, even when Vegeta was still more vicious and still a stranger, he had not held onto her against her will; she had supposed he had considered himself above such things. "You're not in charge of this house and you are not in charge of me."
Vegeta backed up into the wall, visibly attempting to mask the pain and the embarrassment that such a weak person as Bulma had caused it. He took one shaky breath, eyes downcast. "That wasn't...what I..." he managed. Bulma crossed her arms, gazing down her nose at him as she impatiently waited for him to finish. "...Had...in mind...when I said 'make me.'"
"Oh, yeah? What were you thinking I was gonna do, l—" this time she was the one to be surprised, as Vegeta was suddenly closer to her, his knuckles resting against the zipper of her jeans.
"Something...gentler," he still wasn't looking at her, and she was left wondering if he would have answered something else, if not for her previous words about family that may have prompted him to change his course—if this was, indeed, his end goal.
"Gentle?" she scoffed. "You being gentle is like Son being subtle—"
"You will not speak of him," Vegeta snapped, and his fingers twitched a little; he slid his hand up and down a few times, "while any part of me is this close to this part of you," he finished, fingers moving again, and Bulma wondered how her zipper had come undone—had it been undone all day? She blushed a little and squirmed. And as if not responding to her assertion had been bothering him, Vegeta added in a voice that struck her as dangerous, "I can be gentle."
"What a change of heart," she rolled her eyes. "How kind of you."
"Well, don't fuck it up," he threatened, his other hand reaching around and tucking itself into her back jeans pocket, thumb seeming to consider whether it could get a good enough grip on her belt loop to yank the pants down.
"I hope you don't hate Yamcha as much as you seem to," she warned, crossing her arms even as the hand against her front crawled up her shirt and rested against her belly.
"I couldn't care less about him," he snorted, and smirked a little as Bulma shivered against the cold of his gloves, still a bit chilly from the time the man had spent outside recently. He peeled them off carefully rubbed his hands together, and placed them back where they had been.
"You weren't kidding when you said gentle," she quirked an eyebrow at how considerate he seemed for having bothered to warm his hands up at all.
"Like I said," he warned, "don't push it."
"Did you get a chance to blow off some steam?" she asked, pausing to help him unhook her bra and wondering vaguely why so much practice on his part had yet to yield improvement in that area.
"No," he growled.
"Where did you go?"
"A cliff," Vegeta grunted, attempts at pressing his mouth against the woman's thwarted by her insistence on speaking with him. She rolled her eyes and followed his lead, wrapping her arms around him to grab at the back of his training pants after peeling off her shirt and discarding the loosened bra with it, taking note of where they landed on the off chance one of her parents would venture down to this area at the hour they normally went to bed—and that she would hear them if they did. Bulma opened her mouth to speak again, but thought better of it; discussion would best be done after the fact, no matter how much she wanted to say to him, to ask him to promise, to assure him of so many things—for he was still Vegeta, and still impatient, and for the moment, the best thing she could do for the both of them was help him remove her from her tight jeans, hope he'd start picking fights with her like this again, and worry about the rest later.
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