Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Syndrome ❯ Killing Me Softly ( Chapter 8 )

A/N: Read the friggin chapter. I'll add the bloody Author's note at the end, suckahs.

Syndrome: 8

Vegeta had been wheeled back to his cubicle on the gurney several hours ago. Bulma sat in a chair near his head, alternating between reading the last chapter of her book and glancing at the still-unconscious man next to her. In the middle of one of these surreptitious actions, she started upon seeing Goku shimmer into the previously empty air before her. Needless to say, she was slightly surprised.

"Goku! What the hell are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?"

Eyes wide, he took in their surroundings and replied, "Well, if I did, you sure are in the right place!"

"What do you want, Goku?"

As affronted as the chronically cheerful man could be, "Hey, is that the way you treat your oldest friend?"

"Yes," she said shortly. "What do you want?"

"Okay fine then. Chichi sent me to find you. She wants to borrow one of your banned books for Gohan. Something about trying to further his studies and awareness of the world beyond martial arts. Whatever that means." He shrugged.

Bulma tossed her current reading material at his chest and grinned at the thought of little Gohan gaining her unique appreciation for literature. "And there's more where that came from, make no mistake."

"Thanks a million, Bulma." Goku returned the smile with an incredibly less malevolent version of his own, then turned to look at the third occupant of their semi-private room. "Say, how's Vegeta doing? Your mom told me about the surgery a few weeks ago when I stopped in. How's he taking it?"

"Oh, he was too angry at me when he was going into it to have any other kind of problems."

"Why's that? What did you do?"

Bulma raised her eyebrows.

"Oh. That." He laughed outright, needing no further explanation. They weren't best friends for nothing. "Well, tell him I said hi. Seeya later!"

And with that, he popped back out of sight.

About twenty minutes later, Bulma returned from the bathroom to find Vegeta awake, blinking and looking around the room. In a quieter and less imperious version of his usual voice, he demanded, "Where the hell have you been?"

She raised her arms in defeat and, to hide her relief at his apparent lucidity, deadpanned, "Hey, when you gotta go you gotta go."

"Whatever."

Returning to her seat after hitting the call button on the side of the bed, "Your grasp of the human art of expression is truly astounding."

At that, the same nurse from earlier parted the curtain and stepped in, several crackers and a cup of ginger ale in hand. "Bickering already? You two should get married. But first, I need you, Vegeta, to eat some of this. Just as much as your stomach allows, don't go making yourself nauseous."

He complied and, taking a bite out of the first saltine, passed out before swallowing it.

"He won't remember any of today because of his meds. Try to make sure the majority of his food goes down the right pipe," she admonished Bulma before walking off to perform other nursely duties.

Vegeta woke up again a few seconds later and continued chewing as if he never stopped.

"I suggest you swallow first, then fall asleep."

He finishes eating, sparing her his customary Evil Glare.

Bulma took the empty wrappers and paper cup off the table and tossed them in the trash can behind her chair, then asked, "How are you feeling?"

He frowned."So this is what it's like to be on pain medication."

Intrigued, "Haven't you ever been on it before?"

"Nope," he responded, making as if to shake his head and then stopping before he unwittingly gave himself a headache.

"But what about all those injuries you talked about at the pre-op?"

"Either I was unconscious and couldn't feel it or I just didn't get anything. Duh."

Bulma leaned towards him, elbows on the bed, resting her chin on her steepled fingers. "It seems your medication has done something to your vocabulary inhibitions, Vegeta. As in, removed them."

"I know. Pisses me off, too. Almost as much as the time Frieza cut off my hair with one of his lame-assed frizbee attacks. Took me months to grow it back. He took a picture while I was in the tank and put it up all over the ship. Every where I looked some poor excuse for a warrior was laughing at a poster of me with no clothes on and a buzz cut." He paused. "Gods, why the hell am I talking so much?"

"It's the medication, I told you that before."

Frowning, "You did? No you didn't."

"Yes I did, and don't you dare start a brain battle with me today, Vegeta, because you're in no shape for it and when I win I intend to beat you fair and bloody square, got that?"

His eyes narrowed. "Why are you asking me so many question? Just get to the point and then shut up."

"Why do you have such a fear of getting operated on?" She winced, waiting for a scathing reply or some such defense mechanism.

"Early childhood experiences, isn't that what your famous human psychoanalyst decided?"

"Yes, but what happened? It was something to do with that case of appendicitis, right?"

His eyes closed, but whether or not it was of his own accord was unknown to his audience. "Yes. I got sick. I needed surgery. Frieza decided to…"

"To what?"

"He decided he wanted to…"

The Saija-jin prince passed out.

"Damn."

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A/N (for real): Okay people people, gather round. Seems we're in a bit of a jam. Bob the blue cow has decided he's bored with DBZ fanfiction. He wants to move on to bigger and better things. Namely… Harry Potter fanfiction. And as you all know, I do everything Bob tells me to so that he'll do my homework for me so that I can read fanfiction for hours and hours every night. Paradox? Never-ending cycle? Who cares? The point of this author's note is, I'm sick of writing this crap (and you've got to admit, this chapter WAS crap) so don't be expecting any more updates for a long, long, extra long time to come. You all know they end up making babies left and right! It's not like the ending is a total mystery. Suck it up and deal. I'm sick of writing catharsis about knee surgery when mine was barely successful. And now I'm whining, so I'll shut up and let you all get back to your regularly scheduled fanfiction.

Flame me all you want. It's cold up here.